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July 28

Opposite of irony

Using the definition of irony to be something stated as truth when it is actually meant as false, such as "It is a beautiful day" when it is raining, what is a word that means the opposite: purposely stating something as false, meaning the truth, such as "What a terrible day" when it is warm and beautiful. All I've found is "pessimistic", which is similar, but not the same. I'm not looking for the attitude of the person, but a word that encompasses the action. 209.149.113.45 (talk) 13:19, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Your "definition of irony to be something stated as truth when it is actually meant as false" is problematic. Try define:irony in Google.

Irony is far more often defined as a statement having the opposite implication or effect than its literal sense. Thus, true->false and false->true could both be ironic. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 13:58, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I would say the opposite is sincerity: something true stated as truth; or something false stated as false; a "pure" statement.[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:55, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't know, Bugs. Irony doesn't imply the absence of sincerity, exactly; it's a language tool. Someone being ironic isn't a liar, s/he is being ironic. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:57, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Read EO's definitions of irony and sincerity. Irony isn't lying, but it isn't exactly sincere, either. It's intended to be funny. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:07, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I think the OP is searching for a verbal distinction between deprecatory or negative irony ("It is a beautiful day" when it is raining) and laudatory or positive irony ("What a terrible day" when it is warm and beautiful). No such single words exist, to my knowledge. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 14:44, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Either way, it's saying the opposite. Like when someone is a good hitter, baseball commentators will often say, "Not too bad of a hitter." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:53, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Irony#Definitions. If you look at those options, most are about the difference between the literal meaning and the intended/interpreted meaning. Both of your examples have irony, specifically Irony#Verbal_irony. Getting in to truth values just confuses the issue, irony is ultimately about different meanings. (ETA, restoring my previous response, looks like User:Paulscrawl accidentally deleted it [2])SemanticMantis (talk) 13:47, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Starting with "Euphemy" (an archaic term for "euphemism" but which sounds a trifle classier <g>) I ended up at "Periploce" to indicate a substitution of what is pleasant for what is unpleasant.[3] Viz. Seattle "liquid sunshine" etc. Collect (talk) 15:02, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Apologies User:SemanticMantis,for cross-posting errors - first cup of coffee.

Truth values as a fallacious definitional assumption of irony are source of OP's question.

Two words that are not blind to truth values are litotes and hyperbole, but they are not forms of irony, rather, distinct figures of speech. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 15:10, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

I think what most people consider irony (our article covers it well) would be something like the following reported case:

• A wife, feeling her husband did not give her sufficient provision, filed for divorce
• On 31 March she secured a decree nisi in the usual form, that is to say she could make it absolute after three months
• On 30 June the husband, who had left a substantial estate entirely to his wife, died.
• On 1 July the wife, not knowing of the death, made the decree absolute.

The husband's solicitors, who were administering the estate, told her she was nothing to do with it and could not inherit, whereupon she applied to the Court for the decree absolute to be rescinded and lost her case, the irony being that if she had not registered the decree she would have inherited as the lawful wife.

This "cooling off" period is valuable. I know one couple where the wife obtained a decree nisi but never registered it, and many decades later they remain happily married. 86.159.14.114 (talk) 16:06, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

At ANI, which is about as legal as Wikipedia gets (short of a full - blown Arbitration Committee hearing) sometimes the OP (plaintiff)'s complaint (case) against the editor under discussion (defendant) is thrown out by the administrator (judge) either for lack of diffs (evidence) or because he penalises the OP instead (judgment). This latter may result in comments from the peanut gallery on the lines of Love these boomerangs. Oh, the delicious irony of it. 86.159.14.114 (talk) 16:39, 28 July 2015 (UTC) Didn't Paul McCartney make a song called 'Ebony and Irony'? 82.35.216.24 (talk) 01:30, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I'd go with "literalness". Or maybe "rusty". Clarityfiend (talk) 10:01, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Didn't Paul McCartney make a song with Stevie Wonder called 'Ebony and Irony'? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 23:09, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

As I recall, the lyrics go:

Ebony and ivory

Here together in perfect harmony

Side by side on my piano keyboard, O Lord

Why don't we? 86.134.217.6 (talk) 10:30, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

July 29

Antonym (etc.) of "backlog"

Does the English language have an antonym (possibly "frontlog") for the noun "backlog" or for the verb "backlog"? It would involve tasks which can afford to be deferred (or which should be deferred) until a backlog (of backlogged tasks) has been cleared. Also, is there a term (possibly "midlog") with an intermediate sense (as a noun or as a verb) involving tasks which are in neither of the two other sets, that is to say, tasks whose speed of being performed needs no adjustment?
—Wavelength (talk) 03:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

You may find project management vocabulary relevant. The Project Management Institute's PMI Lexicon of Project Management Terms requires registration to access; Quizlet.com offers open access: Lexicon of Project Management Terms. See, for example:

Predecessor Activity: An activity that logically comes before a dependent activity in a schedule.

Successor Activity: A dependent activity that logically comes after another activity in a schedule.

Start-to-Finish: A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot finish until a predecessor activity has started.

Start-to-Start: A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot start until a predecessor activity has started.

Finish-to-Finish: A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot finish until a predecessor activity has finished.

Finish-to-Start: A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot start until a predecessor activity has finished.

Path Convergence: A relationship in which a schedule activity has more than one predecessor.

Path Divergence: A relationship in which a schedule activity has more than one successor.

Precedence Diagramming Method: A technique used for constructing a schedule model in which activities are represented by nodes and are graphically linked by one or more logical relationships to show the sequence in which the activities are to be performed.

More at Dependency_(project_management)

-- Paulscrawl (talk) 03:42, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I suggest that the antonym of "backlog" is "tasks done in advance of an anticipated need". I don't think there's a single word for it, though "reserve" might work in some cases. --65.94.50.73 (talk) 09:09, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps the tasks could be shelved until the backlog is cleared. See http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/shelve (2nd def.) 196.213.35.146 (talk) 09:21, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

From a warehouse POV, the opposite of "orders on backlog" is "orders in stock". StuRat (talk) 14:37, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

The origin of the term "backlog" and of one sense of "log" may be enlightening.[4][5] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:08, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Can someone explain why logarithms are so called? 86.134.217.46 (talk) 18:36, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

From New Latin logarithmus, term coined by Scot mathematician John Napier from Ancient Greek λόγος (lógos, “word, reason”) and ἀριθμός (arithmós, “number”). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

If you permutate 'loga' you get 'algo' (that permutation can be written (lao)), which is entirely irrelevant Contact Basemetal here 20:20, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Annexure- for building?

Can an annex to a main block alternately called annexure? --117.253.191.159 (talk) 14:33, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Wiktionary defines the noun annexure as "something annexed". However, I've never heard the word, and I don't believe it would be common usage. Rojomoke (talk) 16:49, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

This [6] explains that the surviving usage is almost solely as a synonym for "appendix" in certain legal documents. While OP might be able to defend such a usage as "That class meets in the annexure of the math building" it would be confusing to many readers, and look archaic/pompous/efete to most of the rest. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:33, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Legalese is a law unto itself. For example, in a legal document the word "user" does not mean what you think it means, it means "usage". Conversely, these special terms can trickle out into the ordinary language, as many specialist terms do. The "premises" in a lease are the conditions attached to the demise, but in ordinary language the word has come to mean the building itself. Are there any other words which are plural but have no plural connotation? 86.134.217.46 (talk) 18:30, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Scissors, spectacles (glasses), trousers, pants, knickers, series ... and for fun, chaos and kudos. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:47, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

User:JackofOz Since when is "chaos" a plural of any sort? It's just a word that ends in -s. Straight through ancient Greek to Latin to Old Fr to Eng [7]. $\chi \alpha \mathrm {o} \varsigma$ is just a third declension singular nominative form in Ancient Greek [8], and it originally meant "void" or "abyss", which are both singular concepts. See also Chaos_(cosmogony), which says it's from a verb, but wiktionary says that is uncertain [9]. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:37, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I did say "for fun". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:21, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

And famously grits: "I'm not sure if I'll like them, so you better just give me one grit to start with". StuRat (talk) 19:12, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Apropos of grits, when living in Scotland I learned that "porridge" used to be treated as a plural word: e.g. "These porridge are delicious." I gather this is now only an historical curiosity. {The poster formerly known as 87,81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 17:23, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

What I was getting at is these examples from Jack relate to more than one leg, lens or whatever. Series can be infinite. 86.134.217.46 (talk) 18:59, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, we treat them as if they were plural (we never talk of a trouser or a scissor) and they take plural pronouns (these knickers, not this knicker) but they still connote singular objects. Series can be either singular or plural depending on the context, as can sheep, fish etc, but the default would be singular. An infinite series is still just one (1) series. I'm sure there would be an infinite number of infinite series. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:55, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

"A scissor" is substandard but not unencountered in AmEng. μηδείς (talk) 21:20, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Double negatives are not unencountered either. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:31, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

We do say trouser leg, when talking about one particular part of the trousers, Jack, and we can say scissor blade, when talking about one particular part of the scissors. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 11:45, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Wait, chao DOES have a singular. shoy (reactions) 12:25, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Kage, in those contexts "trouser" and "scissor" are adjectives. It's the norm to remove the plural endings when (morphologically) plural words become converted to adjectives. Thus, "I walked for seven miles today" becomes "I went on a seven-mile walk today". If someone were to eat your testicles in between 2 slices of bread, they'd be having "a testicle sandwich". There are exceptions, though: The case for one's glasses is still "glasses case", not "glass case", because the latter would connote a case made of glass. See, English is smart, that way. We make exceptions to any rule if it suits our convenience in communicating exactly and unambiguously what we mean. As long as everyone accepts the exception (rather than excepts the acception), that system works just dandily, and if it ain't broke, there's no case for it to be fixed. For example, everyone accepted that it's referred to the abbreviation for "it is" or "it has", and its referred to the 3rd person singular neuter possessive pronoun (or possessive adjective, if you prefer). That worked brilliantly; until some uneducated* people decided it was more logical to insert an apostrophe into its, thus introducing a needless ambiguity and acting in contravention of a very longstanding international agreement with which nobody had a problem. Others followed suit, and now the entire language is utterly wrecked, ruined, smashed, violated and perverted, hyperbolically speaking. (* It's the fault of the "education" systems under which they suffered.) I seem to have meandered off track. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:10, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

They are not adjectives, Jack, they are attributive nouns, which still means they are nouns, and in my examples they are perfectly fine with having singular forms. I challenge thee to a dual (and not a plural). KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 23:06, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I accept your jewel. Make mine an emerald, to match my eyes. Rubies and lapis lazuli are acceptable, too. But no diamonds, please; they're so common. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:19, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Uneducated people don't "get" logic. They just don't know any better. That's why you see "Potato's 25p lb" on market stalls. 86.134.217.6 (talk) 10:34, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Negation

The negation of can is "cannot". The negation of shall is "shall not". The negation of do is "do not". So, why is the negation of eat "do not eat" and not "eat not"? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 18:44, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

It can be, in poetic language. Same for go not, speak not, write not, etc.

See Arthur Hugh Clough's "Say not that the struggle naught availeth / The labour and the wounds are vain / The enemy faints not, nor faileth, / And as things have been they remain." -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:53, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

So, it's only part of poetic language and not everyday language? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 18:59, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

"do", "can" and "be" are auxiliary verbs, the rules are different for them. "Eat not" would be regular somewhere around the 14th century (it still works in German), but today it sounds archaic and this is also what gives such expressions their poetic quality Asmrulz (talk) 19:09, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

These constructions come about because they're frequently called on and easy to say. They are contracted for that reason. This happens in all languages: Portuguese em + o becomes no. In English you get can't, don't, won't, sha'n't (when did sha'n't reduce to sha'nt?) 86.134.217.46 (talk) 20:21, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

According to this, "shan't" [sic] is actually older. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 20:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

See Do-support. --ColinFine (talk) 23:16, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Adjectival form of "lacking imagination"

I'm struggling with the way "imaginationless" fails to roll off the tongue smoothly, can anyone suggest an alternative? I'm trying to write something like "Such an imaginationless person shouldn't be allowed to read to children." It's a statement about a specific person thus "Someone without imagination shouldn't..." doesn't fit well either. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:02, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

How about "insipid" or "uncreative"? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 19:04, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

"The unimaginative shouldn't attempt...". StuRat (talk) 19:05, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Or more directly, "Such an unimaginative person...". --65.94.50.73 (talk) 03:46, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure a person can be called unimaginative, I would only use it to describe a work or action - "unimaginative plan/decor/menu/novel". Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:07, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Lower-left-brained. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:12, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Dull. DuncanHill (talk) 16:49, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Bless, blessed

In general parlance, someone may say, "We feel so blessed at this dinner!" which means "We feel so happy at this dinner!" However, the verb form "bless" seems to depart from the happy meaning, because "We feel so holy at this dinner!" just doesn't make any sense, but "We feel so favored at this dinner!" makes sense, because the inviter probably invited the guest to be at the dinner. The Merriam-Webster dictionary says that to bless someone or something means to make something holy, not to make something or someone happy, though I suppose happiness may be the result of being holy. Anyway, I find that the discrepancy between "bless" and "blessed" highlights the idiomatic uses of the words. When people ask their parents for a blessing of their marriage, I presume they are really asking their parents' permission to marry, because "approve" is one of the accepted Merriam-Webster's definitions. Can someone please clarify for me the difference between "bless" and "blessed"? Are they related terms or not? What about the emotion involved in "feeling blessed"? Why "blessing someone" doesn't mean "making someone happy"? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 19:46, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I think you will find that those using this terminology are using it in a religious sense: favored by God. StevenJ81 (talk) 20:12, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

[ec] Such a use of "blessed" isn't idiomatic in UK English - "We feel so blessed at this dinner" would only be said by a very religious (not necessarily Christian) person with a deliberately religious meaning; that is, it _would_ unambiguously mean "we feel so holy". It might be used to mean "fortunate" ("We've been blessed by good weather today"), but it always has religious overtones. Tevildo (talk) 20:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I wonder if accurse and accursed would be the opposite of bless and blessed. However, I never hear anyone say, "I feel so accursed!" or "I curse you to ten years of unhappiness and bad luck!" 71.79.234.132 (talk) 20:51, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think you have to be religious to feel that food is provided by God's gift. When I was at school lunch ("dinner") was preceded by grace - a prefect would say "for what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful" and then everyone started eating. Cf. the Blessed Sacrament, which is a meal of bread and wine received by Christians and "manna from heaven". 86.134.217.46 (talk) 20:34, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

71.79, that's the goodness of human nature shining through. 86.134.217.46 (talk) 20:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Part of the subtlety is that there is an underlying assumption that both God and human beings can bestow blessings. If someone says "we feel so blessed" at a dinner, the implication is, as I perceive it, is that God has provided abundant food and good health to those present. But this can be metaphorical as well as literalistic. One can be grateful for nature's bounty and one's own good fortune, and frame it in vaguely religious language, without believing in a God who says to himself, "I think that I will bless that splendid McNamara dinner party in Scranton, Pennsylvania this evening", while simultaneously saying "I think that I will withold the blessings of thin soup today from that Somali family in that refugee camp, and let typhus take their child". That would be a horrifying God. Much is left unsaid when such language is used. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:11, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

"To bless" doesn't mean "to make happy" and "blessed" doesn't mean "happy", except by extension of that fact that if you were blessed you would probably also become happy as a side-effect. The original meaning of blessing was to bestow divine favour on someone/thing. (The term is Germanic pagan in origin, not Biblical, and etymologically related to "blood", which would have been used in the ritual. Similar concepts occur in many other religions though, hence its use in English translations of the Bible). Originally if parents gave their blessing to a marriage, they would literally be invoking the gods to ensure it was successful. Over time, the meaning was watered down to merely "approving and expressing hope that it was successful". Likewise, originally if someone said they felt blessed at a meal, they would literally mean that they felt as though the gods were favoring them. If people are now using it to mean simply that they are feeling happy, that is a change in meaning from the original. If people are not also using "bless" to mean "make happy", that's because English (unlike French) doesn't have anyone to force people to use words consistently. Iapetus (talk) 14:44, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I wonder if the meaning "happy" of blessed was also partly influenced by the etymologically unrelated bliss (which is related to blithe instead). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:50, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Syntax: not...either

Are all of the following sentences correct / acceptable, syntacticallly?

1. "I'm not old, and you are not old either".
2. "I'm not old, nor are you old either".
3. "I'm not old, and I'm not tall either".
4. "I'm not old, nor am I tall either".

84.229.167.93 (talk) 21:45, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

The two that have both "nor" and "either" are wrong.

• "I'm not old, nor are you old either" should be "I'm not old, nor are you old", or "I'm not old, neither are you old".
• "I'm not old, nor am I tall either" should be "I'm not old, nor am I tall" or "I'm not old, neither am I tall".

The other two are fine. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks a lob ! Oops, I meant thanks a lock ! Oh sorry, I meant...thanks a lodge... What's this? Sorry again, I meant...thanks a log... Oh no, What's happening with me today? Thanks a loll ! No no no...

I just called, to say, thanks a lot ! Oh, that's it ! Thanks a lot ! Thank you so much, Jack, I appreciate your answer ! Thankxs ! 84.229.167.93 (talk) 09:23, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I'd shorten them a lot, too:

• "I'm not old, nor are you."
• "Neither of us is old."
• "I'm not old, nor tall."
• "I'm neither old nor tall."

I prefer the 2nd and 4th. StuRat (talk) 14:30, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Me too. Your version #3 is ungrammatical, imo. "I'm not old, nor am I tall" can't be reduced to "I'm not old, nor tall". It ought to be "I'm not old, or tall". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:49, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

OP's comment: I was just looking for grammatical sentences with "not...either" (or "nor...either", had this been grammatical) 84.229.167.93 (talk) 10:04, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

big-bigger, vs. good-"gooder"

Since English has "warm-warmer", "high-higher", and likewise, why doesn't English have "good-gooder"? Has the word "gooder" - always been abnormal - in all periods of English?

HOOTmag (talk) 22:05, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

See suppletion. It is neither uncommon with frequently used paradigms, nor unique to English. μηδείς (talk) 22:18, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

The very phenomenon of suppletion, is well-known in many languages - including English of course (e.g. "He has" instead of "He haves"), but my question is mainly about the psychology hidden behind specific cases (e.g. "gooder" "badder"), which - due to some reason - became cases of suppletion, i.e. my question is about what this reason was.

Take "badder" as an example: I can only guess, that maybe people don't like it because it can easily be confused with "better" - which has just the opposite meaning, so they preferred the other word - "worse" - which was already used before it was preferred to "badder". Anyways, I still wonder about "gooder": what's bad in using it, and why people decided to prefer "better". Notice that I'm not asking about "better": I assume it derives from words like "beneficial" and the like: I'm more curious about why "gooder" was ruled out... HOOTmag (talk) 22:39, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

• Mere irregularity of form such as have~has is not suppletion. —Tamfang (talk) 05:48, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

See also the word origins, which may help:[10][11][12] [13][14][15] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:28, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not a linguist, but good-better has an exact equivalent in German: gut-besser, so that one seems to predate the separation of the two languages. 81.146.50.197 (talk) 22:34, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

This is a particular example of the tension between Words and Rules, extensively discussed in Pinker's book of that name. --ColinFine (talk) 23:19, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

A more recent example is person~people. "Persons" is still used in formal writing, as is "peoples". They are historically completely different words, but have become identified with each other. Why that happened is an extremely difficult question to answer. — kwami (talk) 04:11, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Going by the OED, which may be out of date, it seems that 'bad' is a relatively recent word, originally meaning s.t. like 'sissy'. It used to be 'evil > worse' or 'ill > worse'. (He's ill, he's gotten worse.) When 'bad' displaced evil/ill, it inherited the comparative 'worse', and the original comparative 'badder' dropped out of use. (You can see this a lot, actually: I'm fucked, but you're worse -- does that make 'worse' the comparative of 'fucked'?) — kwami (talk) 04:22, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Interesting question. Leo Tolstoy once said to Anton Chekhov: You know I can't stand Shakespeare's plays, but yours are even worse. Worse than what? Does "I can't stand X" automatically mean "X is bad"? Not in my world; when did the definition of "bad" become "whatever Tolstoy didn't like"? Or anyone else? It seems Tolstoy is inviting Chekhov to believe that Shakespeare is bad, but he doesn't explicitly say so. I'm sure this is subtly related to your foregoing question. Somehow. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:41, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Suppletion is usually found in highly frequent words. Good vs. bad, many/much vs. few/little, big/great vs. small/little, young vs. old, high vs. low, these kinds of highly frequent adjectives have irregular comparative and superlative forms (and also adverbial forms) in other languages, too. There are languages in which there are only a limited number of adjectives in the first place (compare Adjective#Distribution and Part of speech#Open and closed classes), and they usually designate exactly those kinds of qualities I have just enumerated. The psychological explanation may simply be that the luxury of having separate unrelated words or roots for paradigmatically related or derived forms is only affordable for extremely frequently used concepts, while in less frequent lexemes, they tend to be regularised even if they were once irregular (as a result of sound change, for example) as otherwise they would be too big of a burden on memory. This may mean that the "default" state is actually to have completely separate, unrelated lexemes for related concepts (person – people, king – queen, good – well, go – went, one – first, healthy – ill/sick, big – size), and what requires explanation is the presence of a relationship of form. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:39, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

• Suppletion specifically means the replacement of one or more forms in a grammatical paradigm where a regular form might be expected, by another form from an entirely different root. It has nothing to do with synonyms (small, little), opposites (young, old) or words with similar meanings (fewer, less) which are used in different contexts.

Examples of suppletion in English include good/better, person/people, and go/went. These three sets are highly susceptible to suppletion, with Spanish having bueno/mejor, persona/gente, voy/fui and Rusyn having dobry/lepszy chelovek/lyudi, idu/poshol.

Some suppletive pairs have no surviving alternatives, like good and better which do not admit of gooder and bet. Others still have regular forms like persons and peoples which retains special meanings (bodies and ethnic groups). While went is still somewhat transparently from wend, English has lost the preterite form of go, although German still has ich ging and we have lost the realization that "gang" is derived from "to go". Florian is correct that the reason suppletion is retained is due to frequency. Infrequent irregular forms of all sorts are normally lost over time. μηδείς (talk) 21:54, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I merely listed the kinds of meanings that irregular and suppletive adjectives, and closed-class adjectives, usually have. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:12, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

• Having worked out how to start a post with a blob, I am sure the British realise that when a Scotsman says "gang awa'" that translates as either "went away" or "gone away". 86.134.217.6 (talk) 10:40, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

• "Gooder" actually has found use as a verb, as in "Do-gooder". Eman235/talk 10:17, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Do-gooder is a flippant coinage using the agentive noun -er suffix, not the adjectival comparative suffix. English is odd in using -s, -er, -ing, and -en so commonly yet with different meanings. μηδείς (talk) 17:42, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

July 30

What is it called when books or movies are written like this: "Movie, The"

What is it called when books or movies are written like this: "Movie, The" or "Book, A"? —User 000 name 09:38, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

It doesn't have a particular name, but it usually happens when you have an alphabetical list or index of titles. If a film is called "The Movie" it appears in an alphabetical list under Movie, not The. --Viennese Waltz 11:10, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Usually (as with the rearrangement of personal names for the purposes of alphabetization), this is called inversion. See, for example, the first paragraph under "Titles of Works" here. Deor (talk) 11:39, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Bocardo Prison

What is the origin of Bocardo in the name of the Bocardo Prison? DuncanHill (talk) 21:04, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

According to this book ("Imprisonment in Medieval England", CUP, 1968 - not sure about the author), it's either from the syllogism (unlikely) or from "bog" (in both the literal and - er - metaphorical senses). Tevildo (talk) 21:31, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

That book isby Ralph Pugh. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:15, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

As a corollary, why is the syllogism called a bocardo? DuncanHill (talk) 21:36, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

See Syllogism#Bocardo (OAO-3). The important element is the vowels - O = "Some ... are not", A = "All ... are". Incidentally, it's called "Bocardo" (a regular proper noun, like "Kevin"), not "a bocardo". Tevildo (talk) 00:02, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

That is actually not precise. Consonants are precisely chosen to match any syllogism to the corresponding syllogism of the first figure and mnemotechnically show the "reduction" method. See here for instance. Pallida  Mors 16:12, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Thus, Bocardo has an initial B and a c because it can be shown to be true by a reductio ad absurdum using a first-figure Barbara.Pallida  Mors 17:17, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Our coverage of the consonants in the traditional names of the syllogisms has always been a bit patchy - see Talk:Term logic and Talk:Syllogism. Improvements to our articles are always welcome. Tevildo (talk) 20:16, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Your comment is welcome, Tevildo. I'd love to invest some time in it if I can, and find a good bibliography for it. Pallida  Mors 21:08, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

The Second Annual Report of the Proceedings of the Oxford University Genealogical and Heraldic Society: Volume 1, 1835 (p. 37) suggests that the name of the gateway (later a prison) was "derived from the Anglo-Saxon, bochord, a library or archive". It also says that it is "probable" that "the academic prison lent its name to logic". Alansplodge (talk) 22:08, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I like bochord - bookhoard, where I hoard my horde of books. DuncanHill (talk) 22:19, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

"ee" and "oo"

These two digraphs are pretty common in English, but they occur word-initially only in very few, mostly obscure words. Why? I'm aware that "English is weird" is often a valid enough explanation for such issues, but I was wondering if there was anything beyond that. --Theurgist (talk) 21:58, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

These two digraphs were used in Middle English for long high-mid /eː/ and /oː/ in closed (checked) syllables. What words do you expect to begin with these sounds in English? I just wonder.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 22:34, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

It is eerie, isn't it? --Jayron32 22:41, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

The sound represented by the diagraph "ee" in Modern English (/iː/) does occur word-initially but is usually just spelled differently in that position: "eat", "ear", "east", "Easter", "either" "ether", etc. As for why that is, I imagine it has to do with what were historically different sounds converging to Modern (American, anyway) English /iː/.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 22:46, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Eephus pitch, and also the ever-popular "Eek!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:53, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

There are oodles of them. — kwami (talk) 01:25, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

The language is oozing with them even. --Jayron32 02:15, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

One of those "facts" which commonly come up in this sort of discussion is that "eel" is the only word in English of the form XXY. Is there a counterexample? Tevildo (talk) 08:14, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes there is, Bugs has provided it above. Oops... Tevildo (talk) 08:29, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Aah, yes. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 11:24, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

OOK! The Librarian (ook) 08:57, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Oom - a respectful form of address to an older man. DuncanHill (talk) 09:47, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

By 'oom is this used, prey tell? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 15:07, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Principally South African - Oom Paul is most memorable. It's in Chambers 20th Century Dictionary, and the OED. DuncanHill (talk) 15:10, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

⟨ea⟩ was pronounced as open low-mid /ɛː/, so it is not the case. ⟨Ei⟩ in "either" is in open syllable. They could write it ⟨ether⟩ in Middle English, but it rather had some other sound than /eː/. "Oodles" is a 19C slang word of unknown origin. So we are only left with "eel", "eerie" (which is a dialectism) and "ooze".

The answer to the question this: it just simply happened. There were not many Proto-Indo-European words that could become (through Proto-Gemanic through Old English) /eːC(C)/ and /oːC(C)/ in Middle English (and then in Modern English /iːC(C)/ and /uːC(C)/. In such cases linguistics usually cannot answer "why" but only can explain "how".--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:26, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Eesome - "Attractive or gratifying to the eye". And I doubt eerie/eery could be regarded as a dialectism. OED does say " It has recently been often used in general literature, but is still regarded as properly Scotch." but that seems to have been hanging around since 1891. DuncanHill (talk) 09:43, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

"Scotch"? Is that the OED's standard usage? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 10:28, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

In 1891 no-one would have raised an eyebrow at it. The OED says in its entry for Scotch

The contraction of Scottish to Scotch is first recorded in late Middle English in the compound Scotchman n. (see quot. 1407 at sense A. 1a), but then not until the second half of the 16th cent. (see quot. 1563 at sense A. 1a). From that time until the mid 19th cent. Scotch supersedes Scottish as the prevailing form (in all registers) in England (with the latter remaining available as a less common and markedly formal synonym). Scotch first appears in Scotland in the late 16th cent. (earliest in the form Skotsh), becoming more common in the following cent. Until the mid 18th cent. Scots and Scottish were preferred in literary use in Scotland, but by the end of the 18th cent. (partly reflecting the vogue for anglicization) Scotch had also become accepted in literary use, and is frequently used e.g. by Burns and Scott. In the 19th cent. Scotch even occurs in official language in Scotland (reflecting usage in London), e.g. in the name of the ‘Scotch Education Department’ (1872, renamed the ‘Scottish Education Department’ in 1918).

Uncertainty among the educated classes in Scotland concerning the relative ‘correctness’ of the three competing terms may be noted as early as the late 18th cent., and by the mid 19th cent. there is a growing tendency among educated speakers to favour the more formal Scottish or (less frequently) the more traditional Scots over what was perceived as the more vulgar Scotch . By the beginning of the 20th cent. disapproval of Scotch by educated Scots was so great that its use had become something of a shibboleth (much to the bafflement of speakers outside Scotland for whom this was the usual word). During the 20th cent. educated usage in England gradually began to adapt in deference to the perceived Scottish preferences. Paradoxically, for working-class Scots (as indeed for all speakers of Scots, as opposed to Scottish standard English) Scotch has remained in common use.

So by deprecating Scotch we are colluding in the destruction of working-class culture. DuncanHill (talk) 11:49, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

...except in the matter of whisky (not whiskey, in this case), where Scotch is still the way to go. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:59, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I am sure I have seen the word oolitic, maybe "oolitic limestone", a geological formation. 86.134.217.6 (talk) 13:33, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Now I understand why they talk of "Scotch" whisky (whiskey?) There is also Scotch tape, a kind of Sellotape, which I seem to recall has tartans and dogs on the packaging. I used to believe that back in the thirties, or whenever it was invented, it was pronounced "Sealotape", but when I asked someone of that vintage she denied it. Another old lady I worked with, who was either German or Austrian, had a habit of saying to people who had not spotted an obvious object "What's that - Scotch mist?" I don't know if others are familiar with the expression. 86.134.217.6 (talk) 13:46, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

In the case of tape, Scotch(R) is a registered trademark; at least at present, that mark and brand are owned by 3M Corporation. I'm confident there is a whole story to the source of that trademark. I'm also confident that there is a separate discussion to be had as to how much "Scotch tape" has jumped the boundaries of the trademark to become common usage and how much not. But I won't elaborate on either of those at this point. I presume "Sellotape" is a trademark derived from cellophane tape. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:59, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, oolitic limestone. We have a disambiguation page at Oolitic. DuncanHill (talk) 13:41, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Though oolitic doesn't apply to the OP's question, since it's pronounced with a diaeresis (/oʊəˈlɪtɪk/), not with oo as in "oops". It's from Greek for egg. Deor (talk) 21:07, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Oolitic is rarely pronounced with a diæresis in my experience. Mind you, I only read geology at Durham. DuncanHill (talk) 21:14, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Interesting about the egg words. Look at oocyte, where the article lead suggests that it is pronounced with a diaresis in US, but not UK. Other words along the same line don't show the same distinction (e.g., oophorectomy). But since this "oo" comes from two separate Greek letters ("ώο-") and can at least plausibly be pronounced with a diaresis, I don't think it really counts here. (If it does, there are many words that come through this source.) StevenJ81 (talk) 23:04, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Then there are the zoo- words (zoology, ...); I've never seen them written with a diaeresis, but they're certainly in the zöne. One day maybe we'll be pronouncing zoo as /zoh-oh/. Maybe not. I wonder: Is a museum of eggs called an 'oo'? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:29, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

"Girls gave the O's, and guys, oh for sure. Where they arose, well nobody knows". Martinevans123 (talk) 23:40, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

There is also the phrase "we have scotched the snake, not killed it." I don't know if there is a connection there. 86.134.217.6 (talk) 13:49, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

That's a different scotch.[16] It's connected with "scratch". So a 3M computer tape that's ready to be used would be Scotch scratch tape or a scratch Scotch tape. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:03, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

It's "scotch'd".. as in Act III, Scene II of the Scottish Dr Who? Martinevans123 (talk) 23:56, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

[17] lists a hoord of "oo" words <g>. (oof, ooh, oom, oon, oop, oor and oot, and for "ee" only eek, eel and een) Collect (talk) 15:17, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Willy Wonka's Oompa Loompas. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 21:34, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Official translation of official documents

Let's say that I need to provide someone with an official copy of a vital record (e.g., birth certificate, death certificate, marriage certificate, etc.). The original official document is in a foreign language. So, two questions. (1): Do you have to also provide a translation, along with the original document? Or just the original document itself? And, (2): If a translation is needed, where does one go for that? For an "official" translated certified copy, that is. A court? An embassy? A consulate? A private party transcription service? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:14, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

See Apostille Convention.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 22:25, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I never saw that article, nor even heard of that concept. But ... that whole process (Apostille) seems to result in a document that says "this is a valid signature on this document" (similar to a notary public). But, that does not in any way translate the document, correct? So, how does the person on the receiving end know what it says? Yes, they will know that it is a valid and official document from the foreign country. But, how will they know what the document says? I am totally confused. Help! Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 02:58, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Every country has its own procedures, but practically there are certified services and translator agencies, who will do the translation and write some sort of a letter, confirming the correctness of the translation. For example, some person has a document in Russian and want to use it abroad, he goes to a professional translator who translates the document, writes the confirmation letter ("I, Ivan Ivanov, did this translation...") and then goes to a notary who confirms the signature of the translator ("I, Ivan Smirnov, confirm Ivan Ivanov's identity and his/her signature"). See also an explanation. P.S. Seems I and MChesterMC were writing our answers simultaneously. --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:06, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, it will depend on who you are providing the document to, and what they want. But in general, if a certified translation is necessary, this is a matter of sending it to a translator, who will then add text to the effect of "this is a true and accurate translation of document", with their signature and contact details (which may need to be notarised, depending on the jurisdiction). For the UK, see [18], and [19] is a blog with some details on the US case. For a signed document, you may need both a certified translation (to tell them what the document says), and an apostille or notarised copy (to tell them that the signature is valid). We have the article Translating for legal equivalence, but it's in a hell of a state, and doesn't seem to be that useful for most countries. MChesterMC (talk) 08:53, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Wow, this is far more confusing than I thought it would be! Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:17, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

July 31

etymology of Quidlivun

A feature on Pluto has been named "Quidlivun", after the Inuit land of the dead on the Moon. It's hard to tell how corrupted the form is. Does anyone know what this would be in the orthography of any variety of Inuit? — kwami (talk) 01:23, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Category:User iu and Category:User ik might be helpful.—Wavelength (talk) 02:00, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Good idea. Pinging those editors. @Guillermo2149: @Vellidragon: @Zanimum/Babel: @SKREAM: — kwami (talk) 04:39, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Reference Desk regular Cambridge Bay Weather (talk · contribs) would likely be more helpful. Adam Bishop (talk) 09:59, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Adlivun is the underworld. They later, if purified, went to Quidlivun. Too much Marvel stuff to be able to see any good Google results. Quidlivun does not appear in the Inuktitut Living Dictionary so I'm not sure how the syllabics would be. In the orthography used from here and west it would be as you have it. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), [[Special:Contributions/CInsert non-formatted text hereambridgeBayWeather|Sunasuttuq]] 00:09, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

• "Qui-" is atypical in form for Eskimo languages. Suspecting that it should be either Qidlivun or Qudlivun I found this: Qudlivun at Google μηδείς (talk) 00:52, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Appears to be qut 'above' + li (?) + -vun LOC 'those above' or 'the place above'. It's Central Eskimo per Boaz, so Canada west of Hudson Bay. — kwami (talk) 02:14, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks @CambridgeBayWeather:. Can you give the morphology of adlivun? Qudlivun would appear to be the same, with qut 'above' substituted for at 'below'. (Is it qut where you are?) — kwami (talk) 02:18, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

@Kwamikagami:. There seems to be a bit of difficulty. It seems that nobody around here, Cambridge Bay and one woman from Gjoa Haven, has ever heard of the word. Also nobody had any idea what the word was trying to say. It's a long weekend here so my daughter is off to her cabin and won't be back until Monday night. I'll ask here to check with her friend in Pangnirtung. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 17:42, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

@CambridgeBayWeather: Thanks! According to Boaz, who I think worked on the east coast of Baffin Island, it's "those above us", vs. adlivun which is "those below us". AFAICT, it's qut/qule 'above' (or at 'below') + directional lirn + 1pl.possessive vun. Maybe the language is too different where you are to recognize. — kwami (talk) 17:54, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Quotation From Asterix

There was one of the Asterix books - I can't remember which one - where their speech became garbled, at least in the English translation. The only phrase I remember was 'Zigackly' for 'Exactly'. I can understand that translating puns into another language can be very difficult, but does this 'Zigackly' make any sense at all as a pun in the original French? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 11:21, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

It's from Asterix and the Laurel Wreath, if that helps. Urban dictionary lists it. 64.235.97.146 (talk) 12:29, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Apparently the French has "farpaitement", a consonant permutation of "parfaitement" [20]. German has "latürnich" for "natürlich". Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:56, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Aha, so it's a spoonerism, basically. I sort of thought it was, but wasn't sure. Thanks. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 13:06, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Ferpectly true! 64.235.97.146 (talk) 18:25, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Resolved

Just would like to add that (Aber) latürnich! has crept into everyday German as a jocular way to say "(But) of course!", although I'm not sure if it was the German translation of Astérix that introduced (or at least helped to popularise) this (quasi-)spoonerism – it's very well possible, though. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:19, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Dynamics vs. tempo

This question is moved from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment 09:23, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

With both dynamics and tempo, -issimo means very.

However, moderately is represented by mezzo with dynamics (mezzo piano, not pianetto) but the -etto suffix with tempo (larghetto, not mezzo largo.) Why this inconsistency?? Georgia guy (talk) 01:26, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

This is really a question about the Italian language, rather than about music per se. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:29, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

@Georgia guy: Wiktionary says that -etto is diminutive, while "mezzo" actually means "moderately" or "medium". It's worth noting this but it still doesn't explain everything, I think. Eman235/talk 10:25, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Diminutive suffixes like -etto, -ino etc. (allegretto, andantino) are encountered when the preceding word is being used as a noun, describing the overall character of a piece. In these cases, the diminutive denotes not merely a moderate "degree", but a somewhat lighter, less intense quality than the base word. When tempo words are being used just as a quantitative indication of "faster" vs. "slower", you do get adjectival modifiers (meno largo, adagio assai, allegro ma non troppo, piu presto). Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:07, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Regarding andantino: does the diminutive make it faster of slower? (I'm well aware that composers have used it to mean both, but I'm wondering which one it would literally mean in Italian.) And what to make of andante molto (e.g. Schubert D 568, second movement)?

(My favourite tempo-marking ambiguity: Allegro con fuoco ma non troppo at the beginning of the Wanderer Fantasy. Now is that supposed to mean "Allegro with not too much fire", or "not too Allegro, but with fire"?) Double sharp (talk) 16:59, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

"Allegro con fuoco, but try to avoid showing off merely for effect" Elphion (talk) 17:16, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

It's a warning not to take it too fast, because you'd soon get into hot water. Schubert was apparently unable to play the Wanderer himself, at least to the standard he prescribed for others. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:17, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I didn't know Schubert was a writer for Elvis Presley. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 02:47, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Old vs. young and new

This question is moved from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment 09:22, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Why is old the opposite of both young and new (in every language I know except Esperanto)? —Tamfang (talk) 08:44, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

That's just the way English has developed. Georgia guy (talk) 21:14, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

• That answer might be satisfactory if I knew only two languages. —Tamfang (talk) 08:38, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Because "young" and "new" are synonyms (although "young" is more often used to describe living things, at least in English) ? StuRat (talk) 21:50, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

There are of course plenty of languages where "old" ('aged', of people) and "old" ('no longer new', of things) are distinguished similarly to the way "young" and "new" are distinguished in English. In Modern Greek, the one is megalos, the other is palios. In Mandarin Chinese, there's 老 lǎo vs. 旧 jiù, and so on. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:55, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I suppose English also has words for "old" that mainly apply to people or at least living things. There's elderly, senior, senescent, etc. StuRat (talk) 16:42, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

In Modern Greek, the adjective "μεγάλος" means "big" (compare English "megalopolis" and "megalomania"), but the adjective "γέρος" means "old" in describing a person (compare English "gerontology" and "geriatric").

—Wavelength (talk) 20:44, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, it's actually a bit more complicated: γέρος means 'old' in the absolute sense, i.e. somebody having reached actual old age (implying declining health etc.), whereas μεγάλος (literally 'big', as you rightly say) is the more neutral and general way of referring to somebody's age, like when you say "X is older than Y" (something you could say about two kids just as well as about two adults.) – Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:57, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

• New and now come from the same PIE root. This root has cognates in many Eurasiatic languages. Young comes from a root meaning vigorous, while old is cognate with Latin altus and means something like raised to maturity. See old at etymology online. μηδείς (talk) 17:34, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

August 1

Profundicate

I was looking for synonyms for the word "puzzle" and found a profundity...the word "profundicate". It's not in any dictionary I can find, and my spellchecker doesn't know it either, but thesaurus.com seems to think it means "to puzzle". Anyone seen this word before? (And if you have a citation, add it to Wiktionary!) Eman235/talk 10:21, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

IIRC, its implication is "to make deeper (in intellectual terms, not as making a hole deeper)" - much as a professor writing a text may seem inclined at times to "puzzle" the students when making a topic deeper than it needs to be (IMO - <g>). Collect (talk) 12:53, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Now here's another profundity: profundicate does not appear as a lemma in the OED. The closest word I found was profundify, but – lo and behold – a 1995 quotation under profundify stated: "Profundify or profundicate the speech. Use Roget's Thesaurus to make simple ideas seem profound." — SMUconlaw (talk) 12:58, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I see. It's a neologism created by James Boren and (first?) mentioned in his book The Bureaucratic Zoo (1976). I've created a Wiktionary entry. — SMUconlaw (talk) 13:44, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. Maybe the OED editors will notice and add it. Eman235/talk 14:48, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I've also created profundify. — SMUconlaw (talk) 16:07, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

An overly complex word for making words overly complex, I love it. Why use a short word when a polysyllabic word will work ? :-) StuRat (talk) 16:45, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. Why use a three-character word (such as its) when you can add a 4th character (to make it's)? ... Sorry, couldn't resist (because we're reliably informed that resistance is futile).  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:08, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I doubt Boren created the word for sure - the word is found by 1974 at least (per Google). I suspect it goes back a ways - as it did not seem abstruse when I found it here. Collect (talk) 18:56, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I did find the apparent 1974 quotation using Quiet Quentin at Wiktionary, but because the full text of the journal is not available online and because the text quoted also appears word-for-word in a 1979 issue of the same journal, I suspect that the 1974 one might be a mistake (perhaps a typo by Google?). — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:24, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Actually, scratch that – according to the 2012 quotation at profundicate, there is a 1972 book by Boren which uses the term. This must be When in Doubt, Mumble. It's not available online so I can't include a quotation to it, but I've mentioned it in the etymology. — SMUconlaw (talk) 20:29, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

That's my boy, sonny Jim, chip off the wiki-block. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:12, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

This place is hilarious. Eman235/talk 08:06, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

You don't know the half of it ... — SMUconlaw (talk) 17:34, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Linguistic skeuomorphism

Is there a better term for what one might call "linguistic skeuomorphism"? By that I mean terms for modern things which anachronistically refer to the way they used to be made or done. So we still talk about "typing", but that no longer uses actual type; a car (in the US at least) has a trunk which was, but isn't now, a trunk; and at least in Britain (e.g. in the BBC) a telegraph pole still describes something that surely carries no telegraph messages at all. This discussion shares my comparison to skeuomorphism, but is there an actual term in (academic?) use for this process? -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 18:35, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

I would call this linguistic conservatism - the automated voice tells us we have "dialled an incorrect number" or to "hang up now". Trains still steam out of the station and we say "I don't want coppers" or "I only have silver" although copper coins have not been minted since 1860 and silver ones since 1946 (although the Maundy money is sterling silver). Actually the "coppers" are just steel discs with just enough copper plate to make them the traditional weight, and the "silver" is the same, although the plating is cupro - nickel. There must be many more examples - we go to the booking office to buy a train ticket because when the railways started the clerk entered the details of the journey in a book. I could go on. 86.134.217.6 (talk) 19:46, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

We "write" emails when we do not "write" any more, and definitely do not use the "mail" which originally apparently meant "wallet." We get food in "tin cans" which are no longer tin. Meanings change gradually - but vocabularies change even more slowly. We read "newspapers" online. It is how all languages have always worked - and why we still use words which are thousands of years old. Collect (talk) 20:23, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

See "Retronym" and "List of retronyms".—Wavelength (talk) 20:25, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

A few notes on specific terms mentioned above:

• "Typing" never involved type. (Okay, The OED Online does show "To reproduce by means of type" as one meaning, but it's a rare enough sense that I think we can ignore it.) The term arose in its modern sense in relation to a typewriter, which merely produces letters similar to those of actual type. Of course, this is still a similar extension of the original word "type".
• Ending a call using a wall-mounted phone, such as most pay phones, still typically involves an actual action of "hanging up". (Yes, there are still lots of pay phones.)
• As a railfan, I've read lots of material about trains, both British and North American writing, and I don't think I've ever seen modern trains described as "steaming out of the station". On the other hand, the designers of these signs have a lot to answer for.
• Tin cans were never made of tin; the term refers to tin-plated steel, which is still used.

--65.94.50.73 (talk) 03:26, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

In the United States, only 7% as many pay phones exist currently as compared to 1999, according to this article in Barron's. I assume the situation is similar in other countries. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:21, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

"Tin cans" had tin plating after 1818, and the tin plated can was patented in 1825 apparently - before that they appear to have been "tin" - the modern "tin can" is frequently aluminium entirely. Luckily the can opener dates to 1865. WRT "pay phones" - many of the remaining 7% do not take coins at all. IIRC, many nations do not use coins at all, and use tokens or cards only. Collect (talk) 12:28, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

In the UK we still use coins for payphones. The only problem is, they don't have signs anymore telling you how much it is. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 15:03, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

In this area they're very helpful. They tell you you can use either euro or sterling, picture the coins you can insert and list the charges. 86.134.217.6 (talk) 13:20, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Horrible posh accent

I speak with a posh 'queens' english accent. I want rid of it or to soften it around the edges as much as possible. Are there any good free apps / sites or tutorials that can help me kill it off. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.62.140.244 (talk) 23:03, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Here's a useful site trailer site. Try it for a year or two. Works a treat, ya gobshite scumbag. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:34, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Or, watch some classic Bugs Bunny cartoons and try to talk like him. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:02, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Moving from Queens to ... is it Brooklyn or the Bronx he's supposed to be from? --Trovatore (talk) 02:40, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

According to Mel Blanc, he's got a touch of both, as noted at about 3:15 here.[21] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:44, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

It is wonderful to have an expert contributing, Baseball Bugs (munching on a carrot). Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 06:24, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

"No One Knows" what I mean BB, because I've got the wrong "queens" there. *sob* Martinevans123 (talk) 09:00, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

So, did the OP mean "the Queen's English" or "Queens English", after all? (Or even a kind of "queens' English"? By the way, this phenomenon appears to be what Danny Ryan's comment there alludes to.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:37, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

I have met people who have been away from the UK for decades - and are still identifiable. Or from New England, the US Midwest, or other places with distinct accents. One learns vocal sounds as a young child - and it is very hard to obliterate them. One classic is the "l/r" sound for some Asian languages, or the "click" found in some African languages. Some actors use "fake accents" which are occasionally a tad more humorous than accurate. It is far easier to concentrate on the cadence, which is the other defining characteristic (in fact, the cadence distinguishes New Yorkese from other accents). (I, alas, in conversation tend to reflect the other person's accent as a result of hearing so many as a child. Really fun when a London PC thought I was a senior inspector <g>.) Collect (talk) 12:13, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

I had a girlfriend from Yorkshire who spoke with an impeccable London accent, having not been "up north" for ten years. Occasionally she would lapse into dialect. When her sister, who still lived there, came for a visit she spoke the same pure Yorkshire which I found very hard to follow (I've never ventured further north than Liverpool). Maybe the OP should move to Birmingham. 86.134.217.6 (talk) 16:03, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

One thing that has puzzled me is when people who spend a long time away from the country of their birth complain that they have forgotten their native tongue. Can this be true, and if so, how can it happen? 86.134.217.6 (talk) 16:06, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that people usually completely forget languages that they used to speak fluently, purely from disuse. What is more likely to happen is that the neural connections and pathways become more tenuous or indirect, so the language simply does not come as easily as it used to. However, once you meet speakers of your native language again, or even visit the country where you were born and stay a while, it comes back. (My grandfather reported having that experience when he started hearing people talk in Czech for the first time after decades.) Picturesquely, I'd describe this as the language lying dormant or hibernating in the back of your head, to be reactivated when needed. Even if you believe adamantly you have forgotten it all and completely re-learn the language, you'll almost certainly find that the process is significantly faster than for other learners without any previous knowledge. Linguists (including especially dialectologists) have worked with informants who have not spoken a language or dialect for as much as sixty years (I remember examples like this from the Linguistic Atlas and Survey of Irish Dialects). Also compare Tuone Udaina, for whom Vegliot was not even a true first language, and he could still act as a main informant for Bartoli even though he had not spoken the language for almost twenty years. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:20, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

• If you wish to become able to code switch as an adult, you either need (1) a natural aptitude, brought out by a basic study of linguistics (a class comparable to Cornell University's Linguistics 201 for majors) and familiarity with at least on language other than your own. Without that background, you will find it almost impossible to realize what is going on in your mouth, as the lay mind ignores subtle differences that cause a "noticeable accent" but which don't change the meaning.

Otherwise (2) you will need feedback from a trained voice coach or speech therapist, or, if you are lucky, to live with someone who speaks your target dialect and the mutual patience to correct and be corrected each time you pronounce a word in the undesired way.

Although born in NY, I grew up in South Jersey. The two dialects are very similar (if one compares educated Manhattanite, not Brooklynese) save for a few things, like the SJ use of the fronted RP "eh-oo" sound for "long o" (I want to gew hewm) the SJ or>ar as in Flarida, arange and farhead for the state, fruit, and part of the face. Those pronunciations marked me out as did the use of "wooter" for "water", and the standard "stand in line" and "forward" as opposed to the NYC "stand on line" and "foward". Strangely enough, three decades ago I would get asked if I was "from the South", but NY'ers couldn't point out what made them ask the question. I was able to correct this on my own after about 6 months of practice, so as to be accepted as an "accentless" native, and I know one other person with a heavy Deep South accent who did it given a natural talent for languages and music and relentless teasing from other college students. μηδείς (talk) 18:06, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Cornell comparable qualification, or a trained voice coach or speech therapist, yeah? You can't just live in two different places for an extended time? Martinevans123 (talk) 18:12, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

I am speaking in generalities, and the introduction for majors course at Cornell (when I took it) covered enough phonology to let the student pick up why he had a certain accent in other's ears. Some people are tone deaf and others have perfect pitch. Most of us have to have formal training to become adept at music, or be immersed in it as a child. I can speak three dialects of English: South Jersey, Posh Manhattan, and Uptown "Urban" NYC, as well as Spanish at a native level and French and German well enough to hold a conversation, and enough Russian/Rusyn to survive. I have only had one semester of Russian, but was told at the time, "Please don't take this the wrong way, but you have the most beautiful vowels."

So it's certainly not impossible for someone like Madonna to acquire an accent by living somewhere. You can judge how well you think she speaks British English. I wouldn't discourage trying, but I think the best bet is either to take a course or to get a lover or roommate who is language-savvy and will be happy to correct you. As a final analogy, let me ask, do you think you could learn to ride a bike from reading a book, or watching a website? Feedback matters. μηδείς (talk) 01:33, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

To answer the OP, yes, there are free accent reduction tutorials or apps online. Example: [22]. You should refine your search, however, depending on the specific accent that you want to acquire (rather than, as you asked us, than searching by the one you want to lose). 184.147.133.47 (talk) 20:14, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

August 2

"Age" versus "aged"

Let's consider the following two variations of a sentence: (A) "John Smith, age 29, was identified as the gunman." and (B) "John Smith, aged 29, was identified as the gunman." Is the word "age" or "aged" correct? Or is it a stylistic preference? All of the Wikipedia articles use "aged" in the age-box templates. And I have never heard that phrasing in my life. I have only heard "age". I ask here, so that I can get some background information and solicit input and opinions. I also started a discussion here (Template talk:Death date and age#"age" versus "aged") to attempt to get that template changed. Any thoughts or ideas? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:39, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

According to EO, for this usage, "age" (noun) precedes "aged" (adjective) by more than a century.[23][24] I would say "age" is more common nowadays, although you see "aged" frequently on old tombstones. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:49, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Googling the subject turns up a number of entries. One of them is a serendipitous example of how civil (NOT) the users of "stack exchange" can be.[25] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:55, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Most modern languages that I am acquainted with use the verb "have" rather than "be" to express age, for example Portuguese Ele tem vinte anos (he is twenty years old). Is English the odd one out here, and if so, why? 86.134.217.6 (talk) 16:12, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

The English "to be" covers a lot of ground. Consider Spanish, which has several verbs translate to "be" or "is" or "are" or whatever the situation in English. Age is rendered like tiene veinte años ("[he/she] has twenty years", as with Portugese. Then there's the two different verbs ser and estar, which I like to think of as "essence" vs. "status", since that's where they come from. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:31, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Not entirely - German and Dutch also use "be" and not "have." -Elmer Clark (talk) 21:31, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Same with Japanese, and in Chinese the 'be' verb can be dropped altogether. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 22:38, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

I invariably amend "died age 90" to "died aged 90" or "died at the age of 90", where I see it in Brit Eng articles. I always used "aged" and I must admit I thought this was a UK/US usage varaint. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:40, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

I understand that the phrasing can be changed altogether ("John Smith is age 29" or "John Smith was identified at the age of 29" or what-have-you). But, I am asking about the distinction in my above examples, "A" and "B", only. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:42, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

In American English, at least, you would probably say "age" if you were writing a newspaper article. The term "aged" is more likely to appear on a tombstone. British English may differ. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:33, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it certainly does differ. BBC News would always use "aged" in the example given by Joseph above, or more usually for deaths "at the age of". Note: the word in the UK charity Help the Aged is typically pronounced with a Biblical-type stress on the e (like the blessed in Brian Blessed). Not that this relates to tombstones, of course. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:39, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Joseph A. Spadaro, option B is correct, but option A is incorrect in the same way that it would be incorrect to say "Barack Obama, wife Michelle, is the American president" or "Barack Obama, birthplace Honolulu, is the American president".

—Wavelength (talk) 00:11, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't follow your examples at all? Are you really saying that you find "John Smith, age 29, was identified as the gunman" analogous to "Barack Obama, wife Michelle, is the American president"? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 02:04, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

My answer to your second question is "Yes".—Wavelength (talk) 02:46, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

They are in no way analogous. "Age 29" is a phrase that describes the person. "Wife Michelle" and "Birthplace Hawaii" are not phrases that describe a person. You are mixing apples and oranges. Furthermore, are you in the USA or Britain? You are saying that all of the USA newspapers are wrong? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:06, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

On Wikipedia, I maintain privacy for many things about myself, including my birthplace, the country (or countries) of my formal education, and my present location. Anyway, I do not limit myself to one "national variety of English", but I use what I deem to be the most practical option in each situation, although I am willing to bend for instructors, employers, and customers. (I recommend that Wikipedia abandon MOS:ENGVAR in favor of something somewhat like User:Angr/Unified English Spelling, or, failing that, one of the "national varieties of English", even if the one chosen is not my preferred choice or the variety with which I am the most familiar.)

Here are some additional (incorrect) examples. John Smith, hair red, wrote this book. John Smith, job beekeeping, wrote this book. John Smith, ancestry Maltese, wrote this book. John Smith, memory encyclopedic, wrote this book.

I have not examined all the USA newspapers.

—Wavelength (talk) 05:05, 3 August 2015 (UTC) and 05:30, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

"I have not examined all the USA newspapers." Your response is not helpful. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 07:09, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree with your position, Wavelength. Joseph Spadaro, would you be happy with "Joe Brown, height 6', likes chocolate", or "Joe Brown, weight 120 kg, likes fruit", or "Joe Brown, left-handed, collects stamps", or "Joe Brown, myopia, edits WP"? I hope not. Those 4 things are all characteristics or attributes of Joe Brown, but he is not those things. Neither is he his age. "Joe Brown, who is aged 64 ..." or "Joe Brown, whose age is 64 ..." etc can be shortened to "Joe Brown, aged 64 ...", but not "... age 64". I accept that US and other Englishes can have differences, but "age 29" is not, as you claim, "a phrase that describes the person". Not in any variety of English. It is a phrase that specifies an age, it does not describe a person. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:23, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

If true, then all of the USA newspapers (and news articles) are doing this wrong. And have been doing so for years (at least, since I was born). Maybe someone should notify them? At the end of the day, this is a British versus American semantic variation. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 07:12, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

And, by the way, what's wrong with "Joe Brown, left-handed, collects stamps."? That's perfectly acceptable. No different – in sentence structure – than: "The student, dismayed and upset, presented his report card to his parents." (or some such). All the other examples are non-sensical. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 07:16, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Also, the person here (What is the difference between “aged” and “age”?) agrees with me. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 07:21, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Also, these people here (age vs. aged) agree with me. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 07:27, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Also, the person here (ages vs aged?) agrees with me. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 07:29, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Ser and estar appear in Portuguese as well. O que sera sera corresponds to Italian "Que sera sera, whatever will be will be, the future's not ours to see, que sera sera", as the song goes. Estar denotes a more temporary state, as in esta na loja, "he is in the shop", which I guess corresponds to the "status" Bugs refers to.There is also another wide - ranging verb, ficar, which can mean to be, to become or to remain depending on context. 86.134.217.6 (talk) 13:40, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

@Joseph A. Spadaro and Wavelength: I happen to agree with you from the point of view of linguistic purity. However, we are not the language police here. The truth of the matter is that "age" rather than "aged" is commonly used in the United States by many reputable publications. Since that is true, if an editor here chooses to use that construction, I have to respect that.

I'd therefore rather try to determine why this might be deemed a reasonable construction. Here's my take on it. I see this construction as being one of apposition, not much different from "Joe Smith, beekeeper." In this case. the apposition is "Joe Smith, [man of] age 68," with words "man of" further deleted as being obvious.

From the point of view of linguistic purity, I prefer "aged". But I don't think "age" is so bad. I see it as justifiable, and not as a linguistic disaster. So my advice to you is: Get over it, and worry about really bad grammar, not about this. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:59, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I agree with the great majority of your post. And appreciate your input. That being said, I must ask: how do you deem your advice as being "helpful"? (Namely, your advice being: "So my advice to you is: Get over it, and worry about really bad grammar, not about this.") We are trying to determine the correct wording for an age template in Wikipedia. My understanding is that this will affect hundreds of thousands of articles. So, how is that advice helpful to the goal at hand? Thanks. 16:56, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

I had lost track of the original purpose of the discussion. I apologize for that. Still, in regard to that specific point: I don't think one can rely on either a definitive point of grammar/usage or a definitive preference in reliable sources to make a decision here one way or the other. Instead, I think that one must either (a) choose to abide by the numbers in a straight !vote on this subject, or (b) decide that unless that !vote goes 65% (or whatever) against current practice that there is no consensus for change. I don't think there is an objective preferable answer here.

In American usage, by the way, I think "aged" tends to be used more in "causative" settings, if you will. Cheese is "aged x months", because it is specifically and actively put aside to age for x months. Because people are not actively put aside by someone to age, there is a tendency not to say that they are "aged y years", but rather are "age y years". Just my two cents. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:07, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. There are actually two very good "solutions" or "compromises" being proposed at that link above. (1) One is to have two templates: an American and a British. So, if the date is in British format (e.g., 2 September 2012), the template would yield "aged". And if the date is in American format (e.g., September 2, 2012), the template would yield "age". (2) Another proposed solution offered is to scrap the wording "age 26" or "aged 26" with simply "26 years old". I like that solution. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:30, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Normal UK usage includes the phrase "Joe has aged a lot since I saw him last" etc, which is sort of similar to the "cheese and wine" usage. But, as I suggested, I think there is a very strong tendency to say "aged y years" rather than "age y years". The later ins't "wrong" and no-one would think it odd if they heard it in conversation, it;s just far less common in UK. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:18, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Even in the US, "Joe has aged [greatly] since I saw him last" would be the only way to go in that construction. One can used "aged" (often pronounced agèd) somewhat synonymously with "elderly," too. (I say somewhat, because they are not quite perfect synonyms. But you get my point, I trust.) I was referring strictly to this appositive construction of "age[d] x [months/years]" in this case.

I like "26 years old" myself. Alternatively, I put up a slightly alternative idea to that over on that talk page: put it on a separate line: Age at death - - - - 26 years (no hyphens, just trying to make the spacing work here). StevenJ81 (talk) 17:52, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, as I said in UK we have Help the Agèd. I would not object outright to your other suggestion, although Age at death maybe sounds a little cumbersome. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:40, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

What do I call her?

My sister died at the age of three months, but this was years before I was born. Do I call her my 'big sister' or my 'little sister'? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 14:58, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Try "older" sister. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:34, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Cheers, Bugs, but I have been using "elder" sister for most of my life. I'm wondering whether this would be correct. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 15:47, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Sounds correct to me. Not sure if you take advice from Wiktionary, but it supports my Sprachgefühl. (In fact, that's what I intended to suggest all along, had the hare not been faster to reply.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:53, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

(ec)AIUI elder is only used if you have more than one sister, to distinguish between them. Your elder sister could be younger than yourself, but your older sister is always the one born before you. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 16:01, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

That would be, more unambiguously, "the elder of my sisters". --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:07, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Straight up? How can my elder sister be younger than me? 86.134.217.6 (talk) 16:15, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

I have two brothers, one of which I refer to as my "eldest" brother, and the other as my "elder" brother. Would this be correct? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 16:18, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

To answer that question I think we would need to know your age and the age of each of your brothers. 86.134.217.6 (talk) 16:20, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Both of them are older than me. I would have thought that would be obvious. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 16:24, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Do / did you only have the one older sister? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:59, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, she was the only one. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 21:20, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

One can uniquely specify up to four siblings using only the elder/eldest and younger/youngest adjectives. In birth order they are: Eldest, elder, yourself, younger, youngest. If you have only two siblings they are elder and younger (excluding twins) regardless of your own position in the birth order. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 17:07, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

I think you can actually get an eldest twin (or is that the elder??) Martinevans123 (talk) 18:21, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

One of our editors patted himself on the back because he had to prepare birth certificates for two twins, the first of whom was born just before the switch to winter time and the second who was born just after. He annotated the certificates to make it clear which was the elder. 86.134.217.6 (talk) 18:58, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

If the first twin is born before the change in time, and the second twin is born a few minutes later (after the change in time), who is considered the older and who the younger? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:46, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

It would only matter in the case of inheritances etc. Whichever was actually born first in real time, regardless of what the clock or the calendar said. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:21, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Of course. Here's the example (using US Eastern, though of course this could be happening anywhere there is summer time:

• Twin #1, born at 01:59 EDT on 1 November 2015 ( = 05:59 UTC on 1 November 2015)
• Twin #2, born at 01:10 EST on 1 November 2015 ( = 06:10 UTC on 1 November 2015), 11 minutes later.

Of course, it's good that the editor above was careful. Just because the above situation is the reality does not mean it would have been interpreted correctly, had the paperwork not been prepared carefully. StevenJ81 (talk) 00:37, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

• KageTora, since my youngest sister died at 20, when I was 26, I made the considered decision simply to refer to her as my sister without qualifiers unless mentioning she was my late sister was appropriate. In my ears "little" sounds morbid and "big" sounds surreal. Even elder sounds odd. "My late first-born sister" might be a good compromise, even though first-born is still ambiguous. But I don't think you can plan ahead or should torture yourself over such things. My parents' first daughter also works, without ambiguity, and it kind of gently paves the road for the notion she is deceased, since referring to her that way lets the listener know there is some important reason you are not just saying sister without qualifying the word. μηδείς (talk) 01:19, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
• It is unlikely that you'll be introducing her to new people any time soon. The English language is not so confusing or problematic that merely stating plain facts when it comes up is likely to lead to confusion. "I had a sister who was born before me; she died at 3 months old" does not lead to any ambiguity. You don't need one word to capture that meaning, and the 5 seconds it takes to state that entire sentence is not like to cause people to lose track of your meaning either. --Jayron32 03:05, 3 August 2015 (UTC)
• ... deja vu. Abecedare (talk) 03:52, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Some editors make heavy weather of "what the calendar said". Jack highlighted this in the context of articles concerning Russia. You would think that the actual date on a calendar on the wall or in a newspaper would be used, but they have other ideas. Every date prior to 14 February 1918 they insist on converting to Gregorian, so you get howlers like "They left Russia on 2 January, just before Christmas." These days they do celebrate Christmas on 7 January but they didn't then (in fact the Christmas festivities now last a whole two weeks).

The same problem is met with in articles covering colonial America - here it's dates before 14 September 1752 which are targeted. They have articles which take references from military archives of the period which they keep "as is", so the result is that these articles are a mess. 86.134.217.6 (talk) 13:57, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

That's why people are supposed to use Old Style and New Style dates in cases like that. The purpose is to avoid ambiguity. StevenJ81 (talk) 14:27, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

This is what people claim and they are wrong. King Charles I was executed on 30 January, 1648 according to contemporary reckoning and 1649 according to us (the year used to begin on Lady Day). The date is never given as 9 February. All that article says is that ambiguity can be avoided by writing the date "30 January 1648/9" which was commonplace at that time. 86.134.217.6 (talk) 14:35, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

August 3

odd usage of the phrase 'as well'

Hi. In an article about Alexander the Great's horse, I stumbled on these 2 sentences:

He spoke soothingly to the horse and turned it towards the sun so that it could no longer see its own shadow, which had been the cause of its distress. Dropping his fluttering cloak as well, Alexander successfully tamed the horse.

The usage of 'as well' in this context feels odd to me, as it seems to imply that dropping the coat was an important additional step in the taming process. Or am I over-interpreting this, and is 'as well' a perfectly fine way to establish a narrative timeline here? Personally, I wouldn't use 'as well' here but instead a 'then' or 'after that':

'Then, dropping his fluttering cloak, he jumped on the horse's back and successfully tamed him without violence.'

How's that? I feel this way there's less odd emphasis on the rather irrelevant cape-dropping and the timeline becomes clearer. Rh73 (talk) 06:06, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that whoever wrote the sentence viewed the dropping of the cape as "rather irrelevant". The way I read it is that Alexander calmed the horse by turning it to prevent it from seeing its shadow and, in addition, by taking off his own cape (the fluttering of which was likely to spook the horse). So the idea is that "that dropping the coat was an important [or at least a prudent] additional step in the taming process". Deor (talk) 11:32, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Agree, thank you. I have to admit: while I wrote this question, for some reason I didn't realize the connection between a fluttering cape and spooking the horse - in this context dropping the cape becomes relevant and the phrase 'as well' makes much more sense.

Funny sidenote: In the meantime I compared a couple different translations of this story and found that none of them (including the one referenced in this section of the article) actually describe the cape as "fluttering" or as having any other (threatening) qualities. Neither does the Greek source material: "ἀπορρίψας ἡσυχῆ τὴν χλαμύδα" which unadornedly translates to "he gently/quietly put away 'the cloak'". So, on one hand an editor took the liberty to add a little bit to the source. On the other hand it's a single word, it aids understanding, and most probably only few people would obsess over such details or even notice them anyways... I'll drop some ramblings on the talk page and see what happens. Again, thanks for your reply. Rh73 (talk) 15:37, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Given that some creative editing/translation seems to have been going on, is it possible that Alexander had actually used the (non-fluttering) cloak to cover the horse's eyes before mounting, in order to calm it? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 18:58, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

"In all those fields, supportive evidence were to be found/ were found/ have been found".

Hello,

which one of the above three forms is the most adequate in the context of a scientific paper? specifically, when would one use "were to be found"?

Thanks. 212.179.21.194 (talk) 06:11, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

"Evidence" is uncountable, so it's never parsed as plural. You could say "Pieces of evidence have been found in all those fields". But then the verb is governed by the word "pieces", not by "evidence". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:42, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

thanks, so let me change my question to which of the three is the most adequate in a scientific paper: "In all those fields, supportive evidence was to be found/ was found/ has been found". 212.179.21.194 (talk) 06:52, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

It depends on context. Is the evidence still to be found? Was it found in the investigation under discussion, or has it been found sometime in the past? Dbfirs 08:03, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

• Let me invent a context where this wording might be used, to show what the grammar should be: The theory of evolution has been studied in biology, paleontology, and biochemistry. In all those fields, supportive evidence has been found. That's not exactly stellar writing, but at least it is valid. Looie496 (talk) 13:21, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

"your first parlay"

What does "...this is your first parlay." mean in this context[26]?

Parlay (gambling) doesn't seem to make sense in this context. Judging by the context, I was expecting a word that's synonymous with battle/skirmish/war/fight/engagement. My other car is a cadr (talk) 06:49, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Parley makes sense: "a discussion or conference, especially one between enemies over terms of a truce or other matters". However, parlay as well as parley are stressed on the first syllable, not the second (and pronounced a bit differently). The French word "parlez" is stressed on the second syllable. Rh73 (talk) 07:43, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

@My other car is a cadr: Unfortunately the reference you quoted [27] is now dead, but 'parlay' (not parley) has the sense of 'opening gambit'. On the face of it, your sentence means "...this is your first venture". Akld guy (talk) 11:22, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

@Akld guy: This reference here works: [28] Rh73 (talk) 13:55, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

MS Word changed short hyphen to long hyphen

I was typing in MS Word and it autocorrected a hyphen from the short type to the long type. I want to confirm whether this is correct? Wording was as follows "...separated one culture of each sample into GFP-positive and –negative fractions". MS Word changed the second hyphen (i.e. "-negative") into a long hypen (I think it's called an "em dash"). Is it correct to do that? Thanks. --192.41.131.251 (talk) 14:08, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

No, it is not correct. Both hyphens should be the same. --Viennese Waltz 14:11, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

"Word" can be dumb. I had occasion to mention the name of a Welsh lady, whose Christian name was "Claer". No matter how many times I typed it, it always came out "Clear". I eventually managed to solve the problem - I'll leave you to puzzle out how I got round it. 86.134.217.6 (talk) 14:17, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Obviously it was an autocorrect entry which you simply had to delete. Shouldn't have taken you more than a couple of minutes to figure that "problem" out. --Viennese Waltz 14:28, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

It's an en dash. An em dash is slightly longer. Hack (talk) 14:25, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Generally, you can hit ctrl+z immediately after an autocorrect occurs, and it will undo the autocorrect without undoing what you typed (though getting into the habit of doing this can backfire when you start using a program which doesn't have autocorrection!). MChesterMC (talk) 15:23, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

In my version, if you type X-X it will keep it as a hyphen, but if you type X - X it will convert it to a dash. As to the spell check, I think you can add things to the local dictionary. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:18, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not a technological whizzkid. In every other case when I've been autocorrected I've retyped the spelling I wanted and Word didn't argue, but in this case it was firm. No harm done - I see there's a manual override which I didn't know about. Compare that with the case of the motorist who entered his car which had central locking and a flat battery. It was a hot day, he couldn't open the doors or windows and perished with his dog. That system also had a manual override but unfortunately he didn't know about it. 86.134.217.6 (talk) 16:24, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

If the battery was dead, how did he get the door open in the first place? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:46, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, my car has a battery-powered key which will open (or lock) the doors from a distance – one press for the driver's door, a second for the other 4 (it being a hatchback) – but the driver's door will also open if I simply put the key in its lock and twist. Does the latter require the car battery's power?

However, while I imagine that different models of car from different eras may have variously differing modes of operation, I've never seen a model whose doors' manual operation from the inside was anything but obvious to an adult. I'd like to see a citation for 86's anecdote. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 19:15, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

See Microsoft Word Spelling and Grammar Check Demonstration.—Wavelength (talk) 16:27, 3 August 2015 (UTC)