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April 7

Czech trade union name

How would 'Svaz báňských, střelců a dozorců' best be translated? What is the difference between 'báňských' and 'horniku' (with diacritcs)? 'střelců' is google translated as 'shooters', but this seems to imply a professional function in mining industry? And 'dozorců', is 'wardens' correct? --Soman (talk) 14:45, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I think the comma shouldn't be there. In coal mining there is a step called "shooting coal" (see here), and the miner doing that, handling the explosives, is a "coal shooter" or just "shooter" (see here and here). In this context, "supervisor" may be a better translation of dozorce. Oh, and I think báňských is an adjective here, modifying střelců a dozorců. --Lambiam 21:26, 7 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

With diacritics, it is horníků. --Lambiam 07:00, 8 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks Lambian! --Soman (talk) 14:30, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

April 9

What are some languages where people say "yes" instead of "no"?

Hi,

In the Philippines and in Vietnam, I've got really confused by this kind of conversation:

- You don't have a dog? - Yes. - Oh! So you have a dog! - No.

Because in Filipino and in Vietnamese, they answer as "Yes, what you said is true, I don't have a dog". What other languages use this logic? 118.71.96.170 (talk) 06:32, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused by the question "You don't have a dog?" The more I think about it the less certain I am about what a sensible answer might be if given the choice of only "Yes" or "No". HiLo48 (talk) 06:39, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

For another yes/no question involving a dog see this. MarnetteD|Talk 07:01, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Its a negative declarative question. Does it really seem so ambiguous? Perhaps I'm not thinking through enough alternatives, but I imagine someone visiting a neighbor in an apartment complex with a strict no-pets policy and seeing some dog toys scattered about. They might ask (perhaps in an incredulous or accusatory tone), "You don't have a dog?". The OP suggests that the typical denial in English would be "No.", short for "No, I don't have a dog.", but that in Filipino and in Vietnamese it would be more common to say "Yes.", short for "Yes, you are correct, I don't have a dog." (Did I get that right, 118?)

We have Interrogative#Responses which states:

Responses to negative interrogative sentences can be problematic. In English, for example, the answer "No" to the question "Don't you have a passport?" confirms the negative, i.e. it means that the responder does not have a passport. However, in some other languages, such as Japanese, a negative answer to a negative question asserts the affirmative - in this case that the responder does have a passport. Conversely, in English "Yes" would assert the affirmative, while in some other languages it would confirm the negative.

Some languages have different words for "yes" when used to assert an affirmative in response to a negative question or statement; for example the French si, the German doch, and Danish, Swedish or Norwegian jo.

-- ToE 07:20, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You'll find some technical linguistic literature discussing this issue if you search for "agree-disagree system", "truth-based system" or "polarity-based system". One brief overview (from a conference presentation) is here: [1]. It also contains a list of languages supposedly exemplifying each system. Fut.Perf. su 07:04, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Yes! We Have No Bananas". <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 09:45, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If you asked this in French, the answer would be "oui" for "yes, that's correct [I don't have a dog]" or "si" for "no, that's incorrect [I do have a dog]". Adam Bishop (talk) 14:07, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

German has a similar doch for an affirmative answer to a negative question. Double sharp (talk) 04:06, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Our article on yes and no covers quite a bit too, including the the Early English four-form system. ---Sluzzelin talk 14:25, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There's no "yes" or "no" in Welsh. Q: "Do you have a dog?" A: "I don't".

While in Australia and New Zealand, we have the infamous yeah, no. But it's confined to spoken use (the only time it's ever used in writing, that I've ever seen, is when describing the oral occurrence).

And then we have people who say "No" followed by an affirmative statement. That is, No is used to mean its exact opposite, Yes. I'm sure I've mentioned this here before. It goes something like this: Q. Do you like cricket? A. No, it's great! I can't get enough of it. It seems to denote an even more affirmative Yes than plain Yes. I can't imagine how it ever originated. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 16:55, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Do I like it? No, I love it." --Lambiam 21:27, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That's standard usage. They're denying that their feeling for it stops at liking it, but goes much further. In my example, which again may be confined to Down Under, they're not denying anything. They're agreeing with the speaker. I've lived here all my life, but whenever I encounter this usage, I still get momentarily confused. Here's another example: A. I think he really needs his head read. B. No, you're right. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:51, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Could the phenomenon be related to the negation seen in the exclamation "You don't say!"? --Lambiam 06:37, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:16, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

With increasing frequency on American cop shoes, the detectives will arrive and say, "Do you mind if we come in?" and the homeowner will say, "Yes, come on in." <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 17:35, 9 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Lambiam -- I think "You don't say!" is an exclamation of disbelief which was tranformed into an exclamation of amazement, and then weakened. I can't follow your Google Books link, but in the mid-20th-century, there was a classic routine in which a phone rings, a person picks it up, and we hear one half of the conversation, which mainly consists of "You don't say". When the phone call is over, someone asks him "Who was it?" and the punchline is "I don't know; he didn't say"... AnonMoos (talk) 10:33, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

So far I've only heard "Yeah no" from Americans. I once transcribed a conversation in which the younger speaker began every single utterance (none of which were answers to questions) with "Yeah no". — And then there was the interviewee who pronounced yes as "most definitely", even when explicitly uncertain. —Tamfang (talk) 00:55, 11 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Mandarin Chinese also follows this logic, although it usually uses echo responses. In fact, the difference between English and Mandarin Chinese on this one (see Language Log) really confused me as a kid (native speaker of both): for one thing, I always thought the Mandarin Chinese way was more logical (you answer by affirming or negating the question, not the unstated assumption), and I wondered why I kept getting misunderstood when answering yes-no questions in English. ;) Double sharp (talk) 04:00, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is a joke that a professor explains "In some languages a double negative is a positive. In others it is a negative, but there is no language in which a a double positive is a negative. A sarcastic voice is heard from the back of the class: 'yeah yeah'". --Error (talk) 12:13, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

::The punch-line could also be "Yeah, right"... AnonMoos (talk) 19:14, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some languages have a distinction between "Yes/no" and "I'm answering in contrary to your assumptions." I'm sure someone could help us remember what linguists call it. Temerarius (talk) 22:52, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

April 10

(Sometimes serial) unstressed your

Wiktionary (def. 3) calls it "A determiner that conveys familiarity and mutual knowledge of the modified noun", and gives as one example:

Not your average Tom, Dick and Harry.

Serially, it's like:

Autumn is the time for planting your green vegetables, your lettuces, your radishes, your beans and your zucchini.

I like how some actors use it in the line from Hamlet:

There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

This unstressed your is a dig at unimaginative scientific pronouncements about the universe, and it always makes much more sense to me this way than making it about Horatio's personal philosophy, where it would be stressed.

Anyway, have lexicostrophists given this usage of your a name, and does it occur in other languages? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:06, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

See Generic you. Jmar67 (talk) 01:09, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks but I don't think that's it. If 'your' didn't appear in the first example, what would it be instead? Not one's average Tom, Dick and Harry? Not an average Tom, Dick and Harry? Not the average Tom, Dick and Harry?

In the serial example, the yours could be eliminated entirely without any loss of meaning. This doesn't fit the generic you, imo. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:17, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I don't understand your point. Jmar67 (talk) 01:41, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It'd be No one's average Tom, Dick and Harry. It can change the nuance of the sentence a little; like the Wiktionary article, it can convey a familiar, or in some cases, instructive tone. --Tenryuu ² ( ¬ o Contributions/Tenryuu) 01:50, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Another Australian here, with further elaboration of this usage via another example. While the names won't mean anything to people unfamiliar with Australian rules football, it would be no surprise to hear a commentator discussing the game say "...your Bontompellis, your Dangerfields, your Cotchins..." There's only one player with each of those surnames in the game, but everyone listening knows what is being said. It means something along the lines "players of a particular style and high calibre, who are not common in the game." HiLo48 (talk) 02:05, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty common usage in America also. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 02:39, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Jack_of_Oz -- Plain old possessive "your" is also unstressed in many cases (in fact, most of the time when it does not have any contrastive or emphatic function), so I don't think that being unstressed is at all distinctive to meaning number 3...

Anyway, the Latin language had a special demonstrative word iste which could mean by implication "that one of yours" (sometimes with contemptuous connotations). This was a completely different word from the standard 2nd-person possessives tuus ("your(s)" of a single person) and vester ("your(s) of more than one person). Note that iste, tuus, and vester are the masculine nominative singular forms of words which are inflected for gender, number, and case... AnonMoos (talk) 05:20, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As a related question, what is the etymology and meaning of the expression "This is not your father's (something)"? JIP | Talk 16:15, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

According to Wiktionary it's 'From an advertising slogan for the Oldsmobile car, "this is not your father's Oldsmobile".' AndrewWTaylor (talk) 18:16, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And the meaning is obvious: It's something new and improved over whatever your father or mother had. (Or so the advertisers want you to believe.) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:18, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to you both. JIP | Talk 18:20, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To build on what AnonMoos said, you have your 'iste' and your 'istic' in Latin, which don't have a flattering flavor. You have your 'ille,' which has a positive connotation. You have your 'ipse,' which is nonjudgmental. (Not a directly corollary word, but used similarly.) And in American English, people use "your" in all three ways. It just depends on how you say it. (Now I'm not a Latin professor, so if I've gotten any of that wrong please do correct me.) Temerarius (talk) 22:40, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, all. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:42, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Italian dialect pronunciation

Is there an Italian, Romansh or Occitan dialect where the digraph gl is pronounced /gʎ(ʎ)/ instead of /ʎʎ/? Or respectively for gn? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.142.68.223 (talk) 10:40, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If there is, it would probably be because a "g" was placed next to an "l" or "n" by compounding or suffixation -- and not because there was an actual "g" sound in the same cases where standard Italian has a palatal lateral or palatal nasal. (Historically, there was rarely an earlier "g" sound in the sequences which became the Italian palatal nasal, and never a "g" sound in the sequences which became the Latin palatal lateral, as far as I know)... AnonMoos (talk) 10:59, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"The" before monarchical titles with names

Why do I often see expressions such as "the Empress Theodora", "the Emperor Henry", etc, but never "the Queen Elizabeth", "the King Louis"? Surtsicna (talk) 11:21, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

As no-one else has yet replied, I'm going to answer to the best of my limited understanding in the hope that someone more qualified will come along to correct my mistakes and provide a more correct analysis. (I'm making a bet with myself as to who it will be.)

The cultures that spoke English or its forerunners have always had kings and [queen]s, and both words are as old as English itself (and have older Indo-European roots), although the meaning of "queen" has changed a little since Anglo-Saxon times, and the form "King X" or "Queen Y" (without any "the") has always been the established idiom.

Before the 19th century, however, English speakers rarely had an "Emperor" (or Empress, a rare exception being Empress Matilda), a word that was introduced into English from Latin only in the 13th century (according to John Ayto's Dictionary of Word Origins, Bloomsbury 1990). Before the 11th century anyone discussing the concept would usually have been doing so in Latin, that being the international language of scholars, diplomats and the educated upper classes.

Then the Norman Invasion happened, after which a form of French became the official language of the English legal system as well as the everyday language of the upper (ruling) classes for several centuries. (Later on, French proper became the international language of diplomacy.)

The (uneducated lower class) majority of the population of course continued to speak English, and as the upper classes gradually switched to it over several generations, they naturally introduced French words and idioms where English ones did not exist, and sometimes when they did.

In French the grammatical idiom was and is to refer to "L'Empereur Z", so the usage "the Emperor Z" transferred into English, but did not replace the established "King X" (sans "the"). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.27.39 (talk) 21:59, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oedipus the King. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:07, 11 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Njörvasund

I read in an English translation of The Long Ships that the Vikings referred to the Strait of Gibraltar as "Njörva Sound". What is the etymology of that? Apparently there is a Njörvasund in Iceland. Talk:Njörun quotes:

Roughly translated as: "draumnjörum in Alvíssmál, stanza 30, was apparently originally meant as "she who ties together dreams", cf. modern Icelandic njörva, Old Norse Njörvasund, Anglo-Saxon nearu, genyrwan. But later the skalds have understood Njörun as a name of an ásynja, and then used this in a woman's kenning."

is:Gíbraltarsund says:

Gíbraltarsund (sem á íslensku hefur verið nefnt Stólpasund eða Njörvasund)

--Error (talk) 12:39, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary seems to say it’s a cognate of narrow, which would certainly make sense. Cheers ⌘ _hugarheimur 13:14, 10 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

April 11

Gypsy Song in Faces

This is the title of an operetta (Romen Theatre. What does "in Faces" means? Thanks--Pierpao (talk) 09:15, 11 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Russian speaker required, Цыганские песни в лицах is the original title: this page refers. The composer seems to be N. Kulikov, who gets a mention in The Cambridge Companion to Operetta (p. 136). Alansplodge (talk) 11:09, 11 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

в лицах means something like in person or personally. there's история в лицах (lit. "history in faces") which is history of something told with a focus on the important people involved. there's also изобразить в лицах (lit. "to illustrate in faces") which means to act something out or to play it through (a story, a situation...) I think the title is a play on one of these two phrases. I think an adequate translation (absent a self-styled one) would be something like "Gypsy songs up close" or maybe "Gypsy songs acted out", depending on what the original intention was (i.e. songs as things that have personalities or an extra vivid rendering) Aecho6Ee (talk) 12:14, 11 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

There is also the expression небылица в лицах, literally "fable in faces", meaning "a made-up story", or, less politely, "a lie". So perhaps the sense is "Made-up Gypsy Songs" (I think песни is a plural.) Or you can say рассказ в лицах, "a narrative in faces", which can also have the sense of "acted out", specifically in an overly dramatic way, and not necessarily strictly conforming to the facts. --Lambiam 19:18, 11 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

To muddy the waters a little more, our Vera Zorina (singer) article translates (I think) the same operetta as "Gypsy Songs in Characters". Does that make any sense? The same translation also appears in Anastasia Vyaltseva. Alansplodge (talk) 11:14, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It fits with the sense of "acted out". The noun лицо can mean "face", but also "individual". --Lambiam 20:47, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

April 12

'Actor' vs. 'actress'

The Wikipedia style manual at MOS:GNL says: "Use gender-neutral language - avoiding the generic he and generic she, for example - where this can be done with clarity and precision." There is also an essay, WP:WAW, which says "Use gender-neutral nouns when describing professions and positions: actor, author, aviator, bartender, chair, comedian, firefighter, flight attendant, hero, poet, police officer." I have long thought that the word 'actress' is pejorative and should be replaced by 'actor' when referring to a female actor. Words like 'authoress', 'editress' and 'poetess' have already fallen into disuse, and 'actress' should go the same way. However, I cannot find a single Wikipedia article about a major female actor that doesn't use the word 'actress' in the lead. I imagine that, if I went around making this change, I would get a lot of pushback from the "political correctness gone mad" lobby. Nevertheless, the reasons to make the change seem to me compelling. Has the usage of 'actress' ever been discussed on Wikipedia? --Viennese Waltz 17:28, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If in doubt, go with what the sources say. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 18:12, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's been discussed, but consensus for things like this could be fluid. You'll need to bring it up in a more appropriate place; you should first search through the WP:VP archives, where the subject has come up more than once, apparently inconclusively. Usage in sources won't be determinative here; acceptable and preferred usage has changed significantly over time. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆 𝄐𝄇} 18:18, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A fair determinant is the terminology used by the various acting awards shows. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 18:22, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This seems to be the most recent discussion: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Actors and Filmmakers#Actor or actress? Is there any kind of consensus?. Alansplodge (talk) 18:32, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Viennese_Waltz -- I'm not sure what to advise for Wikipedia use, but it's a fact of current English usage that "actress" and "waitress" are very commonly used (in the United States, at least), while most other occupational titles with feminine suffixes are obsolescent or defunct (maybe "stewardess" and "seamstress" are partial exceptions, though those seem to be in decline; "hostess" and "heiress" are not occupational titles). AnonMoos (talk) 20:03, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with all of that except that "hostess" can be an "occupational title"; it means the lady who guides you to your table at a restaurant. --Trovatore (talk) 20:12, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Waiter" and "waitress" are now often replaced by "server". And you can say "actor" for both men and women, but then the awards shows that do that have to say "male actor" and "female actor". <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 23:21, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I must have missed something here in recent years. I can't imagine an American saying "male actor" (which is redundant) or "female actor" (the word is "actress"). Nothing wrong with having gender-based terms as long as they aren't demeaning. Jmar67 (talk) 00:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The use of the term "actress" is definitely still in popular use as a non-pejorative in the US, as the Academy Awards have awards that go to "Best Supporting/Main Actress in a Film" and the Tony Awards give out awards to "Best Performance by a Featured/Leading Actress in a Play/Musical". --Tenryuu ² ( ¬ o Contributions/Tenryuu) 00:59, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Actor" is now the common name for an actor of any gender. The actor/actress distinction is cool for awards shows, since it doesn't exclude one sex. This might change. Use your good judgement. Temerarius (talk) 00:56, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Who says "actor" is "now the common name"? <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 01:06, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Certain individuals, sources, Temerarius. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not necessarily in that order. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 04:11, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You lost me at the bakery. InedibleHulk (talk) 05:01, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the interesting discussion, but a few respondents seem quaintly fixed on the idea that we should decide what to call a female actor based on sources and currently prevailing usage. On the contrary, this has nothing to do with sources. This is not a factual issue like the name of a person or a city. It's a question of style, which is not determined by usage but by the Wikipedia style manual. And the manual seems unambiguous: actor is to be used when referring to both male and female actors. --Viennese Waltz 07:29, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I will quietly ignore that rule. Fortunately I don't have to deal with it that often. Jmar67 (talk) 09:00, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

You are overlooking the possibility that putting it in the style manual was a mistake. As sources still seem to use actress and we have (admittedly anecdotal) evidence that many editors are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with it.--Khajidha (talk) 12:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Viennese_Walz -- there's nothing necessarily wrong with saying "Meryl Streep is an actor", but on the other hand, going around to hundreds of Wikipedia articles to systematically purge the word "actress" seems rather pointless... AnonMoos (talk) 12:52, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

AND - a woman who writes a will is a "testatrix" - no alternative. If VW checks out dominatrix same rule applies. 89.243.10.133 (talk) 13:59, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand, I often encounter people using "masseuse" for any practitioner of massage, despite it being a feminine term (with the actual masculine equivalent being "masseur". --Khajidha (talk) 14:38, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting vowel shift

I Zoom-attended the Easter services of my boyhood church today, and noticed an interesting vowel shift from the pastor. Curious whether anyone knows what it is. The shifts I noticed were:

/eɪ/ -> /ɛ/ before /l/ (so "bail" sounds a little like "bell")
/iː/ -> /ɪ/ before /l/ (so "feel" sounds a little like "fill")
/uː/ -> /y/ (so "you" sounds a little like "yü" with a German umlaut-u)

Does this ring a bell with anyone? --Trovatore (talk) 20:10, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Some American southerners talk that way. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:16, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely not a Southern accent. --Trovatore (talk) 20:21, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you could provide a link to it? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:19, 12 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Where's your church located? Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝) 01:00, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Northern California, but I have a vague memory that the pastor may be from Wisconsin. Or not. The way I phrased the question it should be potentially answerable without knowing that. --Trovatore (talk) 03:34, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Well, your actual question was whether those isolated pronunciations ring a bell, and with me the bell is the way some southerners talk. If you're not willing to give us any more info, the question arises as to how badly you want to know. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:10, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a Northern Californian who spent my first 20 years in Michigan. These examples, especially the third, seem reminiscent of Wisconsin or Minnesota to me. Way up river from the Deep South. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:20, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'm a Southerner once removed (Mom's side) and to me they seem kind of backwards from Southern. A Southerner is more likely to pronounce "bell" so it sounds like "bail" than vice versa. In fact when I was learning to spell, I wanted to spell "egg" as, I don't know, "age" or something, because I pronounced it /eɪg/. --Trovatore (talk) 05:32, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Could it be the California vowel shift? --Jayron 32 13:38, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose it's possible. But I don't see any mention there of the specific shifts I mentioned, and the ones they do mention (especially "cone" sounding like a rounded version of "cane") remind me of surfer-dude speech, which is not really what I thought of from this speaker. --Trovatore (talk) 19:58, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

April 13

Waiter and waitress

Why does the word "waitress" continue to be standard unlike other words for jobs ending in -ess?? Georgia guy (talk) 01:17, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not the only one. There are still Academy Awards for Best Performance by an Actress. In Commonwealth countries the wife of a male mayor is still the Lady Mayoress, not the lady Mayor.

On the other hand, our departed colleague User:Medeis would have cut you to ribbons if you used "waitress" in her presence. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 02:15, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

JackOfOz -- "Lady Mayoress" in that usage is not an occupational title in the ordinary sense, but a marital honorific. There used to be a number of these in English (e.g. Ambassadress = "wife of an ambassador"), and many more in some continental European languages, but they're rather archaic in modern English, with a few exceptions such as "duchess" etc. AnonMoos (talk) 13:37, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

When I go to restaurants, they invariably use the term "server" to describe themselves. Maybe it's different where you are. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 04:12, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

And then there is the charming "wait staff". Where I live, "waitress" is passé. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:24, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Meanwhile, where I live "waitress" is absolutely normal. Heck, around here "waiters" (ie: men) are the distinct minority. --Khajidha (talk) 05:34, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If anything, in my area "waitress" is the more or less normal term with "waiter" being used only when necessary to specify males. It's almost, but not quite, to the level of "male nurse". --Khajidha (talk) 14:21, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

At least it hasn't devolved into murse yet. Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 17:13, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Georgia_guy -- it probably has to do with the fact that until recent years, higher-end fancy restaurants were more likely to have male waiters, while lower-end diners and such predominantly had waitresses... AnonMoos (talk) 13:00, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(e/c) While I'm at the restaurant (Ontario, Canada), server is the norm, but anecdotally when I ask someone their job in a social setting, they say waitress. Old habits die hard, I guess. The introductions made at the table, "Hi, I'm Amy and I'll be your server..." is a form of boilerplate which is probably set by the company in accordance with the law. Off the record, people often fall back on the old standards. Matt Deres (talk) 13:08, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In South Africa, the gender neutral waitron is used, though it always makes me think of "A robotic or mechanical waiter." from Etymology 2. -- ToE 20:27, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

K for "thousand"

When approximately the letter K started to designate "thousand" in English language? I feel like it's a relatively recent trend and before that the number was presented either numerically or spelled out. Thanks. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 13:56, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Checking Newspapers.com (a pay site), terms like 5K and 10K foot races were pretty common by 1975, the K being short for "kilometers". As to K in general, I can't find a reference, but it wouldn't be surprising if it was influenced by the K suffix as in "kilobytes". <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 14:35, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Kilo- says it was stadardised in France in 1799 and was used in the UK during the 19th century. Ngram viewer shows kilo and kilogram growing in the 2nd half of the 19th century.--Phil Holmes (talk) 15:12, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But I somewhat doubt that back then they would write eg. 10K spectators instead of 10,000 spectators, as they often do now. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 16:16, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In (at least American) English, the abbreviation for 1000, informally, used to be "Grand" abbreviated "G", so you would see thinks like $100G meaning "100,000 dollars". This article from the good old Straight Dope dates the general usage to the 1940s, with an earlier usage restricted to money being even older. It notes the usage of "K" for 1000 being newer, without giving a good date. Anecdotally, the first time I had seen "K" in such a usage was in reference to computers and "kilobytes", (in which usage it stands for 1024, being the closest power of 2 to 1000, but that is ONLY in that ONE context) sometime in the 1980s, the application to all uses came later from my point of view, but that's just a personal observation. --Jayron 32 16:30, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But "grand" isn't the same anyway; it's only ever used with monetary amounts, meaning "$1000" (later also "£1000") and not "1000". --76.71.6.31 (talk) 20:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Strictly, it's Kibibyte for 1024 bytes, kilobyte for 1000; But in non-technical practice "kilobyte" has often been used to mean either. Bazza (talk) 16:55, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The term "kilobyte" for 1024 bytes was in use long before someone came up with the term "kibibyte". --Lambiam 19:41, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I would have used "kilobyte" for 1024 bytes in the 1960s, and it was well established then. HiLo48 (talk) 00:37, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Outside of a very small and insular community of technical writers in the specific field, that particular usage has not caught on. Most English speakers continue to use the "kilo" usage, however much so that the IEC wished that they didn't. --Jayron 32 17:00, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I would wager that most people don't even think about (quite possibly don't even know about) the 1024 thing and think of kilo, mega, etc with their ordinary base 10 meanings. Or even just memorize the order without thinking of the actual size. --Khajidha (talk) 17:11, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In most contexts, if you need to know the difference between binary-kilo (or its horid "official" name of "kibi") and decimal-kilo, you'll have learned it pretty darned quickly; for most of the population, just recognizing that it's 1000(ish) is good enough. Understanding and comparing the relative sizes of, say, storage media and computer files as expressed in kilobytes, megabytes, etc. in a general sense it isn't really necessary to know the difference at all, where as long as you get the orders of magnitude correct, you're fine. For people doing highly technical work where knowing the exact number of bytes and bits IS super important, yeah, the difference matters, but lets face it, if you've been working in a field where it matters for longer than about a day, and haven't been taught the difference (or figured it out yet) then you probably aren't going to be doing that job on your second day. And for the rest of us, it doesn't matter. It's basically curious trivia and not much else. --Jayron 32 20:27, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In the late 20th century, some in the United States probably mainly encountered "kilo" as a unit of measurement for amounts of illicit drugs in news stories and "K" as an arbitrary designator for the lengths of charity runs, and may not have made much connection between the two, much less with the numerical meaning "thousand" (note that the word "kilo" is pronounced in English with a different stress position, and totally different vowels, than the word "kilometer")... AnonMoos (talk) 19:20, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That would depend on whether one says "kil-O-m@t@" or "KIL-@-mee-t@" (or their rhotic variants). I use the latter, because the former, to me, suggests some sort of measuring device (cf. thermometer, micrometer) rather than a distance. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:39, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Carl Sagan said it "KILL-uh-meters", which makes consistent sense. You don't say the mass of something is some number of "kill-AH-grums", for example. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 23:51, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

But consistency is not a virtue here, as I see it: "kill-O-me-ter" is more practical precisely because it doesn't sound so much like KILL-o-gram". --76.71.6.31 (talk) 03:29, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The common pronunciations KIlo (1st-syllable stress) and kiLOMeter (2nd-syllable stress) are parallel to PHOto and phoTOGraphy etc... AnonMoos (talk) 04:29, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

If we can get back to the original question: the OED Online says the K=1024 usage in the computing field came first (their earliest quoted usage is from 1966 and reads in part "...for example, 4096 characters, bytes or words... the convention is to refer to this number as 4K") and this was quickly followed by K=1000 (earliest quotation is 1968, reading in part: Engineers, Mini-Micro Programmers... Salaries $15-45K"). The first example quoted that isn't computer-related is dated 1985. So it seems clear that we programmers gave it to the rest of the world. --76.71.6.31 (talk) 20:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This banking forum has a respondant who wrote: "Somewhere down the line, it changed to K (for kilo) around the early '90's". Apparently a previous notation was "M" for thousand and "MM" for million, but I think this may be US specific (never heard of it in 25 years in the City of London). That's the best that Google could find for me. Alansplodge (talk) 21:23, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

That Roman-numeral-prefix usage is not entirely dead. In 2015 I bought a container of wood filler and the label didn't say how long it took to dry, so I searched online for technical specifications, which I found here, but they didn't say either. However, I was surprised to see that the spec sheet did give the viscosity of the stuff (on page 2), and in an unfamiliar unit: "Mcps" (and it still does). So I naturally wrote to Russ Rowlett, who wrote back and also added it to his online dictionary of units: it turns out to mean "thousand centipoises"! As he says, "This is a jarring addition of an obsolete English prefix to a metric unit, and its use risks a major misunderstanding since M- is the metric prefix for a million rather than a thousand. 1 Mcps equals 10 poises, so the proper name of the unit is decapoise (daP)." Not onlt that, but it first scales the poise down, then up again! And worse yet, "MMcps" can be found with the meaning "million centipoise". Russ turned up US patent 5853645, from 1998, which contains both "Mcps" and "MMcps", explicitly defined as I have indicated. Arrgh. (I don't know if that last URL is durable; if not, you can search for the patent number under uspto.gov.) --76.71.6.31 (talk) 03:29, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the only people talking of Kilobyte in the 60es and 70es were programmers, and they meant invariably 1024 Byte. Much later, when John A. Verage began to buy hard discs in the 80es and 90es, some vendors introduced the 1000 Byte KB to suggest they hard disks were larger than the ones of the competition. During the cold war theoreticist of war began to talk of Kilo and Megadeads, which some of the prospective ones found cynical someway. So it can be that the modern use of K and M was introduced by the programmers. 2003:F5:6F14:7B00:4999:52FA:30FB:CA06 (talk) 22:18, 13 April 2020 (UTC) Marco PB[reply]

I've worked in I.T. for decades, and none of my colleagues have ever used the term "Kibibyte". That must be a term used by machine-code level coders. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 23:51, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This once-upon-a-time machine level coder had never heard of a "kibibyte" until today. My 2020 spell checker doesn't even approve of it. I have used the term "kilobyte" since 1967. HiLo48 (talk) 00:43, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

My apologies to the bit-pushers out there. :) That alleged word "kibibyte" is not in EO.[2] "Kilobyte" is.[3] This sounds like one of those things that someone tried to invent but it never caught in. Kind of like the Edsel. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 01:20, 14 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

April 14

@@ Line 237: / Line 237: @@
 :::::::In most contexts, if you need to know the difference between binary-kilo (or its horid "official" name of "kibi") and decimal-kilo, you'll have learned it pretty darned quickly; for most of the population, just recognizing that it's 1000(ish) is good enough.  Understanding and comparing the relative sizes of, say, storage media and computer files as expressed in kilobytes, megabytes, etc. in a general sense it isn't really necessary to know the difference ''at all'', where as long as you get the [[orders of magnitude]] correct, you're fine.  For people doing highly technical work where knowing the exact number of bytes and bits IS super important, yeah, the difference matters, but lets face it, if you've been working in a field where it matters for longer than about a day, and haven't been taught the difference (or figured it out yet) then you probably aren't going to be doing that job on your second day.  And for the rest of us, it ''doesn't matter''.  It's basically curious trivia and not much else.  --[[User:Jayron32|<span style="color:#009">Jayron</span>]][[User talk:Jayron32|<b style="color:#090">''32''</b>]] 20:27, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 :In the late 20th century, some in the United States probably mainly encountered "kilo" as a unit of measurement for amounts of illicit drugs in news stories and "K" as an arbitrary designator for the lengths of charity runs, and may not have made much connection between the two, much less with the numerical meaning "thousand" (note that the word "kilo" is pronounced in English with a different stress position, and totally different vowels, than the word "kilometer")... [[User:AnonMoos|AnonMoos]] ([[User talk:AnonMoos|talk]]) 19:20, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
-:: That would depend on whether one says "kil-O-mətə" or "KIL-ə-mee-tə" (or their rhotic variants). I use the latter, because the former, to me, suggests some sort of measuring device (cf. thermometer, micrometer) rather than a distance. --  [[User:JackofOz|<span style="font-family: Papyrus;">Jack of Oz</span>]] [[User talk:JackofOz#top|<span style="font-size:85%; font-family: Verdana;"><sup>[pleasantries]</sup></span>]] 19:39, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
+:: That would depend on whether one says "kil-O-m@t@" or "KIL-@-mee-t@" (or their rhotic variants). I use the latter, because the former, to me, suggests some sort of measuring device (cf. thermometer, micrometer) rather than a distance. --  [[User:JackofOz|<span style="font-family: Papyrus;">Jack of Oz</span>]] [[User talk:JackofOz#top|<span style="font-size:85%; font-family: Verdana;"><sup>[pleasantries]</sup></span>]] 19:39, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
-:::Carl Sagan said it "KILL-uh-meters", which makes consistent sense. You don't say the mass of something is some number of "kill-AH-grums", for example. ←[[User:Baseball Bugs|Baseball Bugs]] <sup>''[[User talk:Baseball Bugs|What's up, Doc?]]''</sup> [[Special:Contributions/Baseball_Bugs|carrots]]→ 23:51, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
+:::Carl Sagan said it "KILL-uh-meters", which makes consistent sense. You don't say the mass of something is some number of "kill-AH-grums", for example. <-[[User:Baseball Bugs|Baseball Bugs]] <sup>''[[User talk:Baseball Bugs|What's up, Doc?]]''</sup> [[Special:Contributions/Baseball_Bugs|carrots]]-> 23:51, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 ::::But consistency is not a virtue here, as I see it: "kill-O-me-ter" is more practical precisely because it ''doesn't'' sound so much like ''KILL-o-gram". --[[Special:Contributions/76.71.6.31|76.71.6.31]] ([[User talk:76.71.6.31|talk]]) 03:29, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
+:::::The common pronunciations KIlo (1st-syllable stress) and kiLOMeter (2nd-syllable stress) are parallel to PHOto and phoTOGraphy etc... [[User:AnonMoos|AnonMoos]] ([[User talk:AnonMoos|talk]]) 04:29, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
-If we can get back to the original question: the [[OED Online]] says the K=1024 usage in the computing field came first (their earliest quoted usage is from 1966 and reads in part "...for example, 4096 characters, bytes or words... the convention is to refer to this number as 4K") and this was quickly followed by K=1000 (earliest quotation is 1968, reading in part: Engineers, Mini-Micro Programmers... Salaries $15–45K").  The first example quoted that ''isn't'' computer-related is dated 1985. So it seems clear that we programmers gave it to the rest of the world. --[[Special:Contributions/76.71.6.31|76.71.6.31]] ([[User talk:76.71.6.31|talk]]) 20:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
+If we can get back to the original question: the [[OED Online]] says the K=1024 usage in the computing field came first (their earliest quoted usage is from 1966 and reads in part "...for example, 4096 characters, bytes or words... the convention is to refer to this number as 4K") and this was quickly followed by K=1000 (earliest quotation is 1968, reading in part: Engineers, Mini-Micro Programmers... Salaries $15-45K").  The first example quoted that ''isn't'' computer-related is dated 1985. So it seems clear that we programmers gave it to the rest of the world. --[[Special:Contributions/76.71.6.31|76.71.6.31]] ([[User talk:76.71.6.31|talk]]) 20:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 :[https://www.bankersonline.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/94529/re-abbreviation-for-one-thousand This banking forum] has a respondant who wrote: "Somewhere down the line, it changed to K (for kilo) around the early '90's". Apparently a previous notation was "M" for thousand and "MM" for million, but I think this may be US specific (never heard of it in 25 years in the City of London). That's the best that Google could find for me.  [[User:Alansplodge|Alansplodge]] ([[User talk:Alansplodge|talk]]) 21:23, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 :::*That Roman-numeral-prefix usage is not entirely dead.  In 2015 I bought a container of wood filler and the label didn't say how long it took to dry, so I searched online for technical specifications, [https://www.amresupply.com/file/141922/ which I found here], but they didn't say either. However, I was surprised to see that the spec sheet did give the viscosity of the stuff (on page 2), and in an unfamiliar unit: "Mcps" (and it still does).  So I naturally wrote to Russ Rowlett, who wrote back and also added it to his online [http://www.ibiblio.org/units/ dictionary of units]: it turns out to mean "thousand centipoises"!  As he says, "This is a jarring addition of an obsolete English prefix to a metric unit, and its use risks a major misunderstanding since M- is the metric prefix for a million rather than a thousand. 1 Mcps equals 10 poises, so the proper name of the unit is '''decapoise''' (daP)."  Not onlt that, but it first scales the poise down, then up again!  And worse yet, "MMcps" can be found with the meaning "million centipoise".  Russ turned up [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=5853645.PN.&OS=PN/5853645&RS=PN/5853645 US patent 5853645], from 1998, which contains both "Mcps" and "MMcps", explicitly defined as I have indicated.  Arrgh.  (I don't know if that last URL is durable; if not, you can search for the patent number under uspto.gov.) --[[Special:Contributions/76.71.6.31|76.71.6.31]] ([[User talk:76.71.6.31|talk]]) 03:29, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 ::Yes, the only people talking of Kilobyte in the 60es and 70es were programmers, and they meant invariably 1024 Byte. Much later, when John A. Verage began to buy hard discs in the 80es and 90es, some vendors introduced the 1000 Byte KB to suggest they hard disks were larger than the ones of the competition. During the cold war theoreticist of war began to talk of Kilo and Megadeads, which some of the prospective ones found cynical someway. So it can be that the modern use of K and M was introduced by the programmers. [[Special:Contributions/2003:F5:6F14:7B00:4999:52FA:30FB:CA06|2003:F5:6F14:7B00:4999:52FA:30FB:CA06]] ([[User talk:2003:F5:6F14:7B00:4999:52FA:30FB:CA06|talk]]) 22:18, 13 April 2020 (UTC) Marco PB
-:::I've worked in I.T. for decades, and none of my colleagues have ever used the term "Kibibyte". That must be a term used by machine-code level coders. ←[[User:Baseball Bugs|Baseball Bugs]] <sup>''[[User talk:Baseball Bugs|What's up, Doc?]]''</sup> [[Special:Contributions/Baseball_Bugs|carrots]]→ 23:51, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
+:::I've worked in I.T. for decades, and none of my colleagues have ever used the term "Kibibyte". That must be a term used by machine-code level coders. <-[[User:Baseball Bugs|Baseball Bugs]] <sup>''[[User talk:Baseball Bugs|What's up, Doc?]]''</sup> [[Special:Contributions/Baseball_Bugs|carrots]]-> 23:51, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 ::::This once-upon-a-time machine level coder had never heard of a "''kibibyte''" until today. My 2020 spell checker doesn't even approve of it. I have used the term "''kilobyte''" since 1967. [[User:HiLo48|HiLo48]] ([[User talk:HiLo48|talk]]) 00:43, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
-:::::My apologies to the bit-pushers out there. :) That alleged word "kibibyte" is not in EO.[https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=kibibyte] "Kilobyte" is.[https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=kilobyte] This sounds like one of those things that someone tried to invent but it never caught in. Kind of like the Edsel. ←[[User:Baseball Bugs|Baseball Bugs]] <sup>''[[User talk:Baseball Bugs|What's up, Doc?]]''</sup> [[Special:Contributions/Baseball_Bugs|carrots]]→ 01:20, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
+:::::My apologies to the bit-pushers out there. :) That alleged word "kibibyte" is not in EO.[https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=kibibyte] "Kilobyte" is.[https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=kilobyte] This sounds like one of those things that someone tried to invent but it never caught in. Kind of like the Edsel. <-[[User:Baseball Bugs|Baseball Bugs]] <sup>''[[User talk:Baseball Bugs|What's up, Doc?]]''</sup> [[Special:Contributions/Baseball_Bugs|carrots]]-> 01:20, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 = April 14 =