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::It sounds like an Arabic (Muslim) given name, such as [[wikt:Abdullah|Abdullah]], [[wikt:Bahaullah|Bahaullah]] and [[wikt:Najibullah|Najibullah]], but several common nouns also end in -''ullah'', meaning "of God". I do not find uses of the word as a given name other than perhaps in the poem. To me, the interpretation as the genitive of a name does not make sense in the context; if we interpret "{{serif|Kahullah's deck}}" as a noun phrase, then where is the verb? The word "{{serif|[[wikt:bright#Verb|bright]]}}"? The poet is American, but the use of the word as a verb is British. Will the deceased girl's hair brighten the deck of Kahullah? What does that mean? I find a poetic subject–object inversion, helping to maintain the rhyme, more plausible: bright kahullahs, whatever these may be – presumably something specific to the yonder spirit world – will deck (cover or decorate) the girl's hair. If the rendering "{{serif|kahullahs}}" was a typographical error in [https://books.google.com/books?id=CwkUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=%22M+DCCC+XLVI%22&hl=en the 1846 edition]<sup>[https://books.google.com/books?id=CwkUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA63e&dq=kahullahs&hl=en]</sup> of Osgood's poems, it was not corrected in [https://books.google.com/books?id=eLUXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=1848&hl=en the 1848 edition].<sup>[https://books.google.com/books?id=eLUXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA63&dq=kahullahs&hl=en]</sup> &nbsp;--[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 13:11, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
::It sounds like an Arabic (Muslim) given name, such as [[wikt:Abdullah|Abdullah]], [[wikt:Bahaullah|Bahaullah]] and [[wikt:Najibullah|Najibullah]], but several common nouns also end in -''ullah'', meaning "of God". I do not find uses of the word as a given name other than perhaps in the poem. To me, the interpretation as the genitive of a name does not make sense in the context; if we interpret "{{serif|Kahullah's deck}}" as a noun phrase, then where is the verb? The word "{{serif|[[wikt:bright#Verb|bright]]}}"? The poet is American, but the use of the word as a verb is British. Will the deceased girl's hair brighten the deck of Kahullah? What does that mean? I find a poetic subject–object inversion, helping to maintain the rhyme, more plausible: bright kahullahs, whatever these may be – presumably something specific to the yonder spirit world – will deck (cover or decorate) the girl's hair. If the rendering "{{serif|kahullahs}}" was a typographical error in [https://books.google.com/books?id=CwkUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=%22M+DCCC+XLVI%22&hl=en the 1846 edition]<sup>[https://books.google.com/books?id=CwkUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA63e&dq=kahullahs&hl=en]</sup> of Osgood's poems, it was not corrected in [https://books.google.com/books?id=eLUXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&dq=1848&hl=en the 1848 edition].<sup>[https://books.google.com/books?id=eLUXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA63&dq=kahullahs&hl=en]</sup> &nbsp;--[[User talk:Lambiam#top|Lambiam]] 13:11, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
:::Yes, the possible inversion now I see and do agree that is is more plausible. In both interpretations the comma after "stream" seems out of place, doesn't it? Or does it help to identify the hair's stream as the object rather than thhe subject of the phrase? --[[User:Wrongfilter|Wrongfilter]] ([[User talk:Wrongfilter|talk]]) 13:31, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
:::Yes, the possible inversion now I see and do agree that is is more plausible. In both interpretations the comma after "stream" seems out of place, doesn't it? Or does it help to identify the hair's stream as the object rather than thhe subject of the phrase? --[[User:Wrongfilter|Wrongfilter]] ([[User talk:Wrongfilter|talk]]) 13:31, 1 March 2024 (UTC)
::::::: Running "kahullah" through google translate (using detect language) gives "his shoulders"(Arabic). Gender aside, it would fit the context. Shall bright(bare) kahullahs(shoulders) deck. [[Special:Contributions/41.23.55.195|41.23.55.195]] ([[User talk:41.23.55.195|talk]]) 13:33, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

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February 16

Categorization issue

Father of Bossa Nova is claimed to be an epithet and categorized as a nickname (rather than under Category:Epithets), but I don't think either applies. Honorary title comes close, but isn't a perfect match. Is there a category (or should there be one for such things (e.g. Father of the Nation)? Clarityfiend (talk) 15:07, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Such things are covered by the article Sobriquet. I'd be inclined to change "epithet" to "sobriquet" in the description on the dab page but leave the page in Category:Nicknames (where Sobriquet also appears). Deor (talk) 16:31, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On second thought, the subcategory Category:Nicknames in music is probably better. The page doesn't need to be in the parent category when it's already in the subcat. Deor (talk) 16:35, 16 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

February 17

wanking

Particularly in UK English, can anyone tell me if this is a male specific term, or does it apply reasonably equally to both genders? Is there a gender neutral term that is similarly concise and evocative? Something that is slang, not the multisyllabic clinical term. Thanks. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:3E6:D4AA:3598:E59B (talk) 09:24, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Afaik, it's a male-specific term. I've heard "frigging" being used for lady-wanking. That said, if you've ever heard the Sex Pistols' song "Frigging in the Rigging", most of the masturbating pirates in that are male. So, maybe it's not universal. Iloveparrots (talk) 09:34, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Jacking? I would have interpreted frigging as a euphemism for fucking, though... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:50, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I'd heard the term frigging but not in that female sense. I had thought jacking was male (maybe derived from ejaculation), and the female counterpart was jilling. I'm still looking for a gender neutral monosyllable. Hmm, does "cum" (as a verb) denote both male and female orgasm? Maybe I can use that. Thanks. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:3E6:D4AA:3598:E59B (talk) 13:20, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So, are you looking for a specifically female term, or a unisex term? I think jack can be unisex, such as in the Prince song 'Jack U off'. Cumming is orgasming, not masturbation. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:31, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pleasuring [oneself]? Not sure if you'd classify it as slang but it's concise and quite evocative: "she was caught in the greengrocers pleasuring herself with a cucumber". I too think of frigging as fucking, wikt:frigging has both uses. --2A04:4A43:906F:F3A7:8C7A:FE6F:89F9:AE8C (talk) 13:27, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I remember that the ribald webcomic "Sexy Losers" frequently used the onomatopoeiae 'fap' for male masturbation and 'shlick' for female masturbation, which somewhat caught on to get some usage outside of the strip. (For simplicity's sake, disregarding the old trans discussion as genitalia for identifying an individual.) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:47, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I was just wondering whether "fap" was gender neutral and I guess it's not, oh well. Some version of "pleasuring oneself" is ok in principle (informal enough) but too long. I'll think of something, maybe a different approach. I'm trying to prank someone with an NSFW poem, so I have some flexibility with the imagery, but the scansion constraints are proving kind of hard. Thanks everyone. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:3E6:D4AA:3598:E59B (talk) 15:02, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

My impression was that women who talked about such matters, often would appropriate traditionally male terms, since more traditionally female terms such as "pleasuring / caressing oneself" often come across as rather pompous and cheesy... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:34, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'd think "frigging" should work well for either gender. At least, it served that purpose in Victorian pornography. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 19:29, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sid Finch (2016) suggests, among others: "muff-buffing" and "playing the clitar". His etymology is a bit weak, though. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:42, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone. I finished the poem without using this trope. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:4043:7961:893C:EC1 (talk) 06:44, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Although this has been answered, I wanted to give my thoughts: I am British and have seen and heard 'wanking' used a lot regardless of gender, although afaik it was originally male-only and some people may still see it this way. I have never heard of 'frigging' used in a similar way, and heard the other suggestions here a lot less, if at all, than 'wanking'. If you want to keep it UK-centric, 'wanking' is the way to go as far as I'm concerned. It will be understood certainly. Certainly Britannica and Cambridge Dictionary do not mention sex or gender, while Oxford English Dictionary ([1], [2]) notes '[esp. by]/[chiefly of] a male' but this is not the same as being restricted to males. Here are some examples of articles in the media using the term for women: [3] [4] [5] [6]. That all said, as the definitions suggest, the word is seen as fairly 'coarse' and offensive, so it also depends on what you are trying to get across. Irltoad (talk) 12:46, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some questions about Ancient Greek

1. How do the diphthongs υι and ου augment in verb tenses that augment the beginning of the word (i.e., the imperfect, aorist, and pluperfect)?

2. Some verbs with stems ending in plosives have an -αν suffix (exclusive to the present stem), which is commonly accompanied with a nasal infix inserted before the plosive in question (more specifically the nasal infix is ν before τ/δ/θ, μ before π/β/φ, γ before κ/γ/χ). [Reference is Complete Ancient Greek by Gavin Betts and Alan Henry, page 58.] Both this suffix and the nasal infix are deleted everywhere outside the present stem (though the imperfect tense tends to keep present stem suffixes). Since the aorist of these verbs also removes content from the middle of the stem, does that mean that all verbs that have this suffix and the accompanying nasal infix are strong aorist? Primal Groudon (talk) 16:21, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ad 1.: My grammar book (Bornemann & Risch: Griechische Grammatik) notes that augments for verbs with initial long vowel and ου remain unmarked. The example given is οὐτάςω with imperfect οὔταζον (hope the spirits breathings are correct, I find it impossible to tell them apart even after increasing the font size...). My dictionary has no verb with initial υι, so that part of the question is likely moot. --Wrongfilter (talk) 16:52, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think you meant to write οὐτάω. The spirits are good, but the flesh is weak.  --Lambiam 17:13, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nope (sort of...), the book has οὐτάζω, except that I clicked on ς instead of ζ... The dictionary has it as well, see [7] (I'm using the latest edition of that one). I'm still beginning... --Wrongfilter (talk) 17:28, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The only verb I could find that starts with υι is υἱόω ("make into a son"), but I don't know its conjugation.  --Lambiam 17:36, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Questions

  1. Can English sentence a glass of beer ever be pronounced with fully stressed [eɪ̯ glæs ɒv bɪə̯r] rather than having at least either a or of unstressed?
  2. Do numerals constitute a distinct part of speech in English?
  3. Are there any words in English that end in /h/ sound?
  4. Conversely, are there any words in English that have /h/ before consonants?
  5. Is there any Germanic language that allow /h/ in coda?
  6. Can in English be said in the following way: In Finland is drunk lots of coffee. In this sentence, lots of coffee is the subject. This would mean same as Lots of coffee is drunk in Finland.
  7. Why Icelandic does not use letter Þ in the end of word?
  8. Is there any Western Romance language that uses more than one consonant diacritic?
  9. Are there any instances in French where more than one silent word-final consonant becomes pronounced in liaison?
  10. Are there any singular nouns in French where silent final consonant becomes pronounced in liaison?

--40bus (talk) 20:22, 17 February 2024 (UTC) --40bus (talk) 20:16, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

3. I don't see /h/ in International Phonetic Alphabet. What sound does it represent? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:17, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's on the right side of the pulmonic consonant chart, the voiceless glottal fricative. It's the sound usually represented in English orthography by the letter "h", the first phoneme in "hat". CodeTalker (talk) 04:19, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can't think of any actual standard English words that end with this sound but I can imagine someone pronouncing /x/ like this in a word like loch (although I would also imagine that /k/ would be a lot more common.) GalacticShoe (talk) 04:52, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not in the article as /h/, which is confusing. As to its use at the end of a word, the closest I can think of is the sound one makes when breathing on one's glasses to provide some mist before wiping them. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:59, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a little confused about the distinction between [...] and /.../, but [h] is mentioned in the sections "Typography and iconicity" and "Pulmonic consonants". 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:20, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
4. Just like with 3. I can't think of any actually solid examples which are definitively /h/ before another consonant, but I can imagine someone pronouncing the voiceless labial–velar fricative (which appears in certain dialects of English for words containing wh, elsewhere pronounced /w/) in a manner somewhat similar to /hw/. Note though that our article on the aforementioned fricative explicitly states that it is not the same as /h/ + /w/. You can see more at Pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩. GalacticShoe (talk) 05:07, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
6. No, but In Finland, lots of coffee is drunk would make sense. GalacticShoe (talk) 21:12, 17 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It makes grammatical sense, but Lots of coffee is drunk in Finland is the better way to say it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:14, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
7. I believe it contradicts Icelandic orthography and phonotactics. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:01, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

40bus -- English has had a whole thing going for centuries of destressing and restressing of function words. For example, the form of the pronoun "I" without a final "ch" consonant likely originated in a destressed form, which was then restressed, so that the dropping of the consonant extended to all contexts. In American English, if "of" is restressed, then it can only have a central vowel. In some forms of UK English, a back rounded vowel was apparently possible in emphatic forms of "of" into the 20th century, but I couldn't tell you how common it is today. AnonMoos (talk) 04:21, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

1. 40bus, in reply to the (unlikely) question "Would you like some glasses of beer", one wanting only one glass might reply "A glass of beer." (Unlikely because glasses of beer would rarely be so offered, but the grammatical construction and answer would be routine for items more often offered in multiples: e.g. "Would you like some chocolates?" "A chocolate.") {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 176.24.45.226 (talk) 09:24, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As an extraordinarily contrived example, I can imagine someone emphasizing "a X of Y" when "X Y" (or "Xs Y") is normally associated with a plural. Like "a federation is many states' union, while rule under a federal government is a state of union." GalacticShoe (talk) 10:24, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In a noisy pub, where a speaker has difficulty making themself understood, they might naturally enunciate each word separately and clearly, and therefore schwa-free.  --Lambiam 10:39, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

5. Icelandic has pre-aspirated stops like [ʰp] and [ʰt], which, as "Icelandic phonology" notes, are sometimes analyzed as sequences of [h] + stop, in which case there would be a coda [h] in words like löpp [ˈlœhp] and dóttir [ˈtouh.tɪr̥]. Not the purest of examples, but probably the best one we'll be able to find. --Theurgist (talk) 10:50, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

With respect to 3 above, mid-20th century structuralist linguists claimed that in modern English, [h] and [ŋ] are in complementary distribution -- [h] occurs at the beginning of words, and before a stressed vowel in the middle of words (thus the contrast between silent "h" in "vehicle" and pronounced "h" in "vehicular"), while [ŋ] does not occur precisely in those environments. (A slight complication is that both can occur before a stressed vowel in a compound word, but [ŋ] can only occur at the end of the first stem, as in "hang-out", while [h] can only occur at the beginning of the second stem, as in "guest-house".) According to some naive definitions of the phoneme concept, this would mean that [h] and [ŋ] are allophones of the same phoneme; to avoid this, a special clause had to be added to the classic phoneme test -- see File:Phoneme-allophone-determination-chart.svg and the comments on its description page... AnonMoos (talk) 21:12, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"silent "h" in "vehicle" and pronounced "h" in "vehicular"". It's not a silent "h" in my dialect. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:48, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If the second syllable is truly unstressed, then a silent "h" in "vehicle" is the more usual standard pronunciation. AnonMoos (talk) 00:06, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

9. I have not such case in mind, but the liaison can be done with the penultimate consonant with the last remaining silent, for example: un rapport [R] exact) – AldoSyrt (talk) 13:16, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Q3: May I suggest, Bah, as in Bah Humbug, Blah, and Meh. Note that some people may not pronounce the “h” in these words. Pablothepenguin (talk) 12:57, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

February 18

Seal of whom?

Shimeah.png

I added this to a List of inscriptions in biblical archaeology but I dithered on the spelling. I think the letter orientation necessitates reading bovistrophedon from the upper right. smyad alyqm. Maybe the aleph in the first line is an r. Petrie spells it Shimeah here and Shemya there. Doesn't explain much more that I could find in Gerar. So what's the name? Shem Yrd El-Yaqim? Does that sound right to you? I don't know if that sound right to me. Does anybody else refer to this thing? The screen shot is from Petrie Israel and Palestine. Temerarius (talk) 01:29, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Would El-Yakhim be like Yaw-natan? Temerarius (talk) 01:37, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The decipherer identifies Smya(d) with the Shimeah (שִׁמְאָ֑ה‎) mentioned in 1 Chronicles 8:32, in a verse that is repeated in 1 Chronicles 9:38, except there the name is given as Shimeam (שִׁמְאָ֑ם‎). The proposed decipherment of the seal hinges on both lines being read right-to-left: smyad mqyla, in which mqyla is identified with Mikloth (מִקְל֖וֹת‎), the father of Shimeah/m. I don't think anything is known about this biblical figure beyond what is mentioned in these verses. There is also another biblical figure whose name is transliterated as Shimeah (but written in Hebrew as שִׁמְעָה‎), a son of Jesse and thus an older brother of David,  --Lambiam 10:33, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Where are you getting boustrophedon? The letters on both rows are consistently mirrored because it's a seal, and you want them to be the right way around when you make an impression. That implies both rows should be read in the mirrored direction, that is, left-to-right. The caption in the source image instead reads both rows from right-to-left, suggesting that whoever made the seal made a mistake. That gives "sh-m-y-r-d m-q-y-l-a". You could instead insist on reading it left-to-right, as it should be for a seal, and get something like "d-r-y-m-sh a-l-y-q-m". But I don't see any reason to suggest it would be boustrophedon. The individual characters have a consistent orientation in both rows, and boustrophedon would be unusual for a Paleo-Hebrew inscription. --Amble (talk) 16:26, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In old stuff the "bull marches forward" or the Alef points toward the direction of writing, typically. Especially an A and an L right next to each other like that at the beginning of a line, it's an indication by the writer that doesn't get disturbed when mirroring is involved. The A and L like that are distinctive. The first line just doesn't read the other way, and since it was written first it set the "global" directionality of the Ms and such. The earlier A doesn't look like it's going the same way. Not interpreted that way by the illustrator anyway. I'm going to take another look at Gerar and see there's a photo of that thing. Temerarius (talk) 17:30, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Petrie's first attempt at reading the seal, later reversed
Temerarius (talk) 17:46, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The aleph on the second line is mirrored, yes, just like all the letters on both lines are consistently mirrored, because it’s a seal. So there’s still nothing in the orientations of the letters to suggest boustrophedon. —Amble (talk) 20:51, 18 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm saying the conventions of the time would render that A and L tremendously confusing if at the end of a line. Do you see how "forward" is not disturbed by the seal's mirroring? Temerarius (talk) 00:28, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
None of that gets you to boustrophedon. The orientations of the letters are consistent across the two lines. If we trust those, and the usual conventions for writing Paleo-Hebrew, we'd read both lines from left to right. --Amble (talk) 00:36, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Which way does the first A go? Temerarius (talk) 23:31, 19 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not so sure there is any aleph in the first row. Are you trying to read the seal as boustrophedon based on taking that one character as an aleph, when every other letter is going the other way? That would not inspire confidence. --Amble (talk) 01:33, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What do you like for it? How about Shem Yadud? Shem Yarad? I don't know how to read that line the other way. Temerarius (talk) 23:21, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
שמ-ידד אל-יקמ ? "The name of the firstborn, risen up by El." Perhaps in substitution meaning similar to Sennacherib. "Name of" means hypostasis like in "Anat-name-of-Ba'al". Yadid and yachid are complex and sometimes the same, see Levinson on tophet and Jesus.[1] Temerarius (talk) 00:28, 21 February 2024 (UTC) Temerarius (talk) 00:28, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The name of the adored, established by El another option for the same one.Temerarius (talk) 00:32, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are two more seals of Shema(s) in "Ancient Hebrew Seals," 1948.[2] The first is spelled שמע. There's another seal of another El Yaqim too. Same spelling.[3]
Your readings seem at least as reasonable as Petrie's first one with "DRYMSH" or the second one where both lines have to be read in the opposite of the expected direction. Maybe the engraver made a mistake in one line and not the other. But I don't think the answer is self-evident, and I'm nowhere near qualified to judge the possible readings, so I'd have to just go with what's in the sources. (Apologies for the "That would not inspire confidence" line -- that was a comment to myself, and my response was half-edited, and I didn't realize I had published it at all.) --Amble (talk) 22:26, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Klingbeil, Martin G.; Hasel, Michael G.; Garfinkel, Yosef; Petruk, Néstor H. (2019-05-01). "Four Judean Bullae from the 2014 Season at Tel Lachish". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 381. University of Chicago Press: 41–56. doi:10.1086/703122. ISSN 0003-097X.
  2. ^ "Ancient Hebrew seals : Reifenberg, A. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive". Internet Archive. 2023-03-25. Retrieved 2024-02-20.
  3. ^ Klingbeil, Martin G.; Hasel, Michael G.; Garfinkel, Yosef; Petruk, Néstor H. (2019-05-01). "Four Judean Bullae from the 2014 Season at Tel Lachish". Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. 381. University of Chicago Press: 41–56. doi:10.1086/703122. ISSN 0003-097X.

February 20

Again

In everyday talk, the word "again" rhymes with "hen". But in song lyrics it is sometimes positioned as if it rhymed with "cane". Why?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:42, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It had a diphtong in Middle English, as the spelling indicates, and can apparently still have it dialectally. Then, there's also the concept of slant rhyme. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:09, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In my speech, "again" rhymes with "begin". Anyway, see also eye rhyme -- in the 19th-century it was semi-notorious that poets sometimes pretended that "wind" had a long vowel, and allowed a few other words to be deformed similarly, when convenient for the rhyme schemes of their poems. AnonMoos (talk) 17:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Does again not rhyme with cane? Dja1979 (talk) 18:36, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
From what I can see, the /eɪ/-variant of 'again' is found in regional British, but it is not a variant common in either Received Pronunciation, General American or Mid-Atlantic. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:42, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Here is an interesting discussion at Stack Exchange, with examples of the cane-rhyming pronunciation cited from sources ranging from Shakespeare to FDR to the Dictionary of American Regional English. I'm too lazy right now to pull out my OED to see what it has to say, but many online dictionaries, as here and here, give both pronunciations (with American ones including AnonMoos's pronunciation as well). "Now, once again, where does it rain?" Deor (talk) 19:05, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The OED online gives both pronunciations for UK, and only /əˈɡɛn/ for US.
Eric Bogle, in No Man's Land (Eric Bogle song) sings "again and again and again and again" to rhyme with "vain" - and to my taste, it would sound much weaker without the diphthong. ColinFine (talk) 12:09, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A couple of examples I can think of where it rhymes with "cane". One is the way Rex Harrison says it in "My Fair Lady". More recently is the way Adele sings it in "Skyfall", which is funny considering it's apparently intended to rhyme with "end", "ten" and "then". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:22, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think that in the lyrics of My Fair Lady it is meant to rhyme with "rain" ("Now, once again, / where does it rain?").  --Lambiam 11:31, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In my London accented English, I seem to use both pronunciations; it rhymes with "rain" when given special emphasis; such as "Oh no, not again!" Also if I were trying to enunciate clearly in public speaking, a reading of Philippians 4:4 springs to mind. Alansplodge (talk) 12:25, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

CIS / Tayma stone

1. What's the best scan or most usable form to use the CIS in? 2. Is there an error in the scan's construction here? I think the proper pg 113 might be missing because the intro and inscription number to the Tema stone aren't visible. One source has it listed as CIS number 113, which seems like it's not right. 3. Does anyone have a good recent transcription? The Louvre's repeats errors from a century ago. 4. How about a photo high quality enough to be legible? It's on permanent display to the public, I think, so there may be some. Temerarius (talk) 16:40, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

https://archive.org/details/CorpusInscriptionumSemiticarumII1/page/n125/mode/1up CIS on Tema stones Temerarius (talk) 18:49, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Four questions

  1. Are there any words in English with three or more syllables that do not contain any schwas?
  2. Does English use schwa more than Dutch and German?
  3. Are there any words in English where suffix -ia is pronounced /ɪæ/, and are there any words where letter A stands for /æ/ sound when it forms a syllable of its own?
  4. Is there any Romance language with /æ/ phoneme?

--40bus (talk) 21:25, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

4. According to near-open front unrounded vowel, Valencian (if considered another language than Catalan). In others, there seem to be complementary dstribution with /ɛ/. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:50, 20 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In English, [æ] is a "checked" vowel (see Checked and free vowels) so it can't ordinarily end a syllable. The rule is relaxed in interjections such as "Yeah" and "Baaaah" (bleating of a sheep). "Babysitting" is a four-syllable word without any schwas... AnonMoos (talk) 00:15, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While there are a lot of examples of schwa-free multisyllabic words, my favorite one so far is the somewhat-meta multisyllabic. GalacticShoe (talk) 00:23, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What version of English are you referencing? Because Meriam Webster shows two schwas in the pronunciation of multisyllabic. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:44, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going off of wikt:multi-#English and wikt:syllabic#English. GalacticShoe (talk) 17:24, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
2:I haven't got a number, but English reduces its unstressed vowels a lot more than Dutch or German. On the other hand, Dutch and German have some common suffixes and prefixes with a schwa (ge-, -en), which have been mostly dropped in English. I just checked a single paragraph of Dutch fiction: 44 schwas in 121 words of prose, assuming it isn't dropped from the -en suffix. It's often dropped in eastern Dutch dialects. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:30, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Someone compiled a list of phonemic frequencies of various languages, including among them American English and German. The schwa frequency is 22.98% and 5.17% respectively. Unfortunately, no Dutch. GalacticShoe (talk) 17:29, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The above mentioned paragraph of Dutch prose has 486 phonemes. PiusImpavidus (talk) 00:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Although a relatively small sample size, at a roughly 9% schwa count it's still significantly smaller than English's 23%. Also if you manually counted up all of those 486 phonemes, thank you for your work and also my sincerest apologies for making you do this by not finding a Dutch source. GalacticShoe (talk) 01:41, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This tool gives some assistance, but produces so many 🤔s (on purpose? zo = /zoː/ is unambiguous) that schwa–non-schwa counting is still tedious.  --Lambiam 14:46, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I counted them manually, but Dutch has a fairly shallow orthography, so that wasn't too hard. It took a few minutes. PiusImpavidus (talk) 13:29, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

February 21

Muhammad Ali's name

In Muhammad Ali's name, is "Ali" considered a surname? Or is there a different term for it? 2600:1008:B046:1056:B038:B435:B0B:1D6B (talk) 01:00, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Teller officially changed his conventional name (given name, middle name, surname) to the mononym Teller. I don't know in which US State, but I guess each State accepts any names that are officially established in some other State. "Teller" remained his surname; his passport reportedly has NFN for the first-name field, which stands for "No First Name".[8] In my understanding, it has become a practical impossibility to live in the US without a surname. Since Muhammad Ali's brother legally changed his name to Rahaman Ali and Muhammad Ali himself has children named Muhammad Ali, Jr., Laila Ali and Hana Ali, I guess "Ali" is considered their surname.  --Lambiam 11:09, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For many of the people on the Muhammad Ali (disambiguation) page, "Muhammad" is of course in honor of the prophet of Islam, while "Ali" is in tribute to Ali ibn Abi Talib. I don't know if that's what motivated the boxer... AnonMoos (talk) 14:39, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As he converted to Islam, I find it likely. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:12, 21 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
He changed his name as he converted to the Nation of Islam. The theology of the Nation of Islam, which holds that there has been a succession of mortal Allahs, the latest of which was Wallace Fard Muhammad, is utter heresy in the eyes of Muslims. In the Islamic conception of God, Allah is eternal, unique and inherently one.  --Lambiam 14:23, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

February 22

Daisy wheel

I've been reading Typewriter and its link Daisy wheel printing. There seems no consistency about usage of "Daisy wheel", "Daisywheel" and "Daisy-wheel". Which is best English and should I edit the articles to use just one form? -- SGBailey (talk)

As far as I can tell, 'daisywheel' only occurs in the article once, as the title of an article in a linked reference (which itself also uses 'Daisywheel'). Since that is what that reference uses, you should not alter that particular instance.
In general usage, I (as a professionally trained BrE editor) would prefer 'a daisy wheel' and 'a daisy-wheel printer', but it might be that 'Daisy-wheel' was a proprietary spelling used by one or more companies (as might the other variations). Really, you should check the instances of each spelling in the article and whether they specifically relate to such proprietary spellings. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 176.24.45.226 (talk) 19:15, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's a general ambiguity of the English spelling of compound forms, and doesn't only affect this one word. The greatest stress being on the first stem of a compound is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for the compound to be written solidly (without an internal space or hyphen). So "typewriter" can be written solidly, but "chicken dinner" (with greatest stress on the second stem) cannot be. I would pronounce the word "daisywheel"/"daisy-wheel" with the greatest stress on the first stem, which would tend to disfavor the two-word form "daisy wheel", but I don't know if I heard that pronunciation, or just assumed it from seeing it written... AnonMoos (talk) 20:08, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Interestingly enough, Wiktionary prefers daisywheel, although this may be an overarching stylistic decision on the part of Wiktionary itself rather than something specific to this one word. GalacticShoe (talk) 20:38, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also Collins and Cambridge dictionaries. Alansplodge (talk) 12:20, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wiktionary is purely descriptive, so preferences are not based on stylistic considerations. The choices seem to be somewhat random:
business man  is an alternative spelling of businessman;
coalmine  is an alternative spelling of coal mine;
loan word  is an alternative spelling of loanword;
shishkebab  is an alternative spelling of shish kebab.
If based on anything, relative frequency would be the criterion.  --Lambiam 14:19, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Forgot to mention this, but Google Ngram Viewer has daisy wheel as essentially having always been most popular, with daisywheel and daisy-wheel trading popularity places in the mid-90s. GalacticShoe (talk) 03:25, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

ADA accessible

It isn't clear if a hyphen is needed in American English for the term "ADA accessible". From what I can tell, many sources in the U.S., particularly signage, do not use the hyphen, for example, "the path is ADA accessible". Should the hyphen be added anyway in a Wikipedia article about such a path or trail? Viriditas (talk) 20:20, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

 Courtesy link: Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
@Viriditas (Non-US English speaker): "ADA accessible", with or without a hyphen, needs explanation to other English speakers. Expanding ADA to its full form would give "Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 accessible", which doesn't make much sense. Another short term might be more in keeping with WP:COMMONALITY; if needed an article can include a technical description explaining what it means with reference to a specific jurisdiction's requirements. (For example, in the UK, the term "accessible" tends to be used on its own (for example, "accessible route"); were an explanation to be needed for this particular use, something along the lines of "conforming to the Equality Act 2010" might be used.) Bazza (talk) 20:33, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. Perhaps the problem is with my question. On Wikipedia, when we say something is ADA accessible, should we use a hyphen? The literature in the U.S. does not rely on the hyphen as much (I can't tell if it is 50/50 or less than that). My understanding is that Commonwealth countries are more likely to use it. Is my understanding correct? Viriditas (talk) 20:42, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Viriditas: I can't answer your specific question because in my country the term "ADA accessible" is not used, and the concept of an act being accessible is strange, as I said previously. MOS:HYPHEN gives some guidance for when hyphens may be used on Wikipedia, as does MOS:ENDASH. There's a suggestion (in section 3 of HYPHEN) that "ADA-accessible" could be correct as a compound modifier. I would expect to see it expanded (e.g. "conformant with accessibility requirements in the ADA", or "ADA-conformant"), or at least linked (ADA-accessible, on its first use in an article. Bazza (talk) 21:06, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would say that when it's used as an attribute, as in "an ADA-accessible entryway", it would require a hyphen, but as a predicate, as in "This entryway is ADA accessible" it might not... AnonMoos (talk) 21:02, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is it my imagination, or is American English trending towards the omission of hyphens within the last two decades or so? I rarely see them used. Viriditas (talk) 21:16, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The trend may have started earlier, as more and more publicly available writing is not generated by professional writers and also not subjected to any form of editorial control. But a quick Google search did not seem to support my suspicion. It turned up 73 occurrences of "ADA compliant np" versus 25 occurrences of "ADA-compliant np". Restricting the search to the 20th century, I found 29 occurrences of "ADA compliant np" versus merely 5 occurrences of "ADA-compliant np". So the relative contribution of hyphen-compliant compound adjectives seems to have gone up from 15% to 30%. The samples are too small, though, and Google search is too unreliable, to attach significance to this result.  --Lambiam 23:17, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Complex onsets

Are there any words in English which have complex onsets of type plosive+plosive, plosive+fricative or plosive+nasal? Such as /kt/, /tn/, /ps/ or /ks/?--40bus (talk) 22:01, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Where a plosive before an ⟨n⟩ is pronounced, as in the names Cnut and Knuth, a schwa gets inserted, so I guess that English phonotactics does not allow this, as is confirmed by the list of possible onsets in that section.  --Lambiam 23:33, 22 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It gets close when there is an initial unstressed syllable, as in catenary, connection, percentage or Cassandra. In casual speech, the schwa can be absent, with nothing voiced until the second consonant or syllable. -- Verbarson  talkedits 12:04, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Are there any words in English with onsets /ks/ or /ps/? These two clusters are easy to pronounce. And why English does not pronounce K in e.g. knife unlike every other Germanic language? --40bus (talk) 12:08, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
They're easy once you know how. I had a friend in grad school by the name of Xenia. Most people pronounced her name with three syllables, /kəˈsɛn.jə/. It irritated me (don't know about her) because it really didn't seem that hard to me to say /ˈksɛn.jə/, but on reflection I had sort of practiced these clusters at some point in the past, and Americans who hadn't seemed unable to pronounce it. --Trovatore (talk) 20:56, 23 February 2024 (UTC) [reply]
See Silent k and g and Apheresis (linguistics). Alansplodge (talk) 12:14, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pssst! -- Verbarson  talkedits 12:50, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And there any words in English which have affricates or /h/ in complex onsets? --40bus (talk) 14:11, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

February 23

Historical Ethnic -ess words?

What are other (Historical!) Ethnic/National/Religious female descriptors other than Jewess and Negress? Naraht (talk) 00:20, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Priestess. Mayoress. Poetess. Actress. (But I digress.) -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 02:05, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Waitress. Stewardess. Princess. Duchess. Countess. Heiress. Hostess. Some of these are listed in Wiktionary.[9]Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:14, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not Ethnic/National/Religious. HiLo48 (talk) 04:34, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Crikey! ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:12, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure that "-ess" was ever too commonly used for nationality words. The main feminine suffix for this purpose is "-woman", as in "Englishwoman", and some others listed at List of adjectival and demonymic forms for countries and nations (none there have "-ess"). I searched for a few hypothetical "-ess" suffixed forms of nationality words ending with "-an", but there wasn't much (almost all hits were intended to be the word with "-ness" suffix). Not as relevant to your question, but the peak use of "-ess" was in "maness", an archaic word meaning "woman" found in the OED. Amusing in English, but not quite as amusing when Patrino, or translated literally "father-ess" is the basic word for "mother" in Esperanto (which is more sexist than any natural language there). AnonMoos (talk)
P.S. Poet and writer Robert Graves included a little essay on the "-ess" suffix in his 1951 book "Occupation: Writer", and he was overall pretty negative about it (and highly negative about "negress"), even though this was of course before 1960s radicalism and second-wave feminism, when few were concerned with sexism in language... AnonMoos (talk) 06:49, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Abbess, prioress and deaconess, if that's what you mean by Religious? -- Verbarson  talkedits 11:46, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also anchoress. Alansplodge (talk) 12:10, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
And beyond the Christian religion there is druidess and even goddess. Demon has one reference to a demoness. -- Verbarson  talkedits 12:46, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ethnic also mulattress. Religious also druidess and prophetess.  --Lambiam 14:03, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Martyress" appears in Merriam-Webster and the Oxford English Dictionary. 2A00:23D0:495:D001:E41A:A7DA:5CBA:89C1 (talk) 17:42, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
SOED lists sextoness and vergeress (but not churchwardeness!). -- Verbarson  talkedits 19:00, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Moabitess. --Amble (talk) 19:51, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nice! First answer directly responsive to the original question. I can't think of any others myself (and would not have thought of Moabitess). --Trovatore (talk) 20:37, 23 February 2024 (UTC) Oh, not quite first; I guess Lambiam's answer counts. --Trovatore (talk) 20:40, 23 February 2024 (UTC) [reply]
I found some ghits for "Canaanitess" as well. I suppose old Bible translations might provide more examples. — Kpalion(talk) 12:13, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Wiktionary lists Israelitess, Spaniardess and Swissess, I see. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:02, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not an -ess, because it's not an English term, but in Arabic a female Muslim is a Muslima or Muslimah. Iapetus (talk) 11:29, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Would the same suffix be used for other world religions, such as Christians, Jews, Buddhists and Hindus? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:45, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Vowel usage

Why do Italian, Romanian and Portuguese use ⟨i⟩ instead of ⟨y⟩ for /j/ sound at the beginning of word? --40bus (talk) 18:41, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No idea "why" — you might as well as "why" English uses <y> (not too many other languages do, I think). But in any case <y> is not part of the 21-letter "standard" Italian alphabet at all. By the way, neither is <j>, but sometimes <j> is substituted for <i> in this role anyway. There's a very nice (if slightly depressing) story called Lo jettatore which I would like to read again if I could find it. Searching turns up a book by Sergio Benvenuto but it looks like non-fiction. --Trovatore (talk) 20:46, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Trovatore -- Infamous science-fiction author John Norman wrote an English-language story titled "Il Jettatore", but I doubt that's what you have in mind... AnonMoos (talk) 23:38, 23 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Huh. Might be interesting. Did he really call it "*Il jettatore"? That's kind of nails-on-chalkboard.
Anyway I asked a question at the it.wiki equivalent of the refdesk and they found it for me. I had the title wrong. It's La patente, by Pirandello. --Trovatore (talk) 00:07, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose you gave them more to go on than that it was a nice yet slightly depressing story.  --Lambiam 07:17, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's a famous short story called "Jettatura" by Théophile Gautier; it's written in French but with the title in Italian. That may be the one you remember. Xuxl (talk) 15:04, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In Neapolitan words may be spelled with a ⟨j⟩: janco, jonta, jugo.  --Lambiam 07:24, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, while the Italian alphabet sensu stricto has only 21 letters, leaving out j, k, w, x, y, you can find all five of the missing ones reasonably frequently in written Italian. They tend to be in things like loanwords and foreign names. The j in particular sometimes substitutes the semivocalic i or the gli trigraph (e.g. zabajone as an alternative spelling of zabaglione). --Trovatore (talk) 18:57, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

February 24

linked

Moses urged them to "don their linked war-coats." It is from an Old English book. What does 'linked' mean in this context? Thanks in advance. Omidinist (talk) 11:48, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's from a translation by Stopford A. Brooke of Exodus (poem), see here. "linked war-coats" means coats of chain-mail.

With the blare of brass at the break of day
All the folk to gather and the frack to rouse,
Don their linkèd war-coats, dream of noble deeds,
Bear their blickering armour, with their banners call
Nearer to the strand the squadrons! Swiftly then the watchmen
Now bethought them of the war-cry. Hastened was the host!
At the sound of shawms, on the sloping hills,
Struck their tents the sailors.

DuncanHill (talk) 12:04, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That's it. Many thanks DuncanHill. Omidinist (talk) 12:16, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My pleasure - I enjoyed looking that up. The phrase "don their linkèd war-coats" rang a bell. I must have read that 40-odd years ago, and never again since - but I remembered the meaning, and that it was a translation of one of those Anglo-Saxon versions of something either Classical or Biblical. After that google was a doddle! But as I say, a great pleasure to revisit the poem. DuncanHill (talk) 21:55, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

French words

If a word moins is pronounced /mwɛ̃/, how would a word pronounced as /moins/ be spelled? The closest example which I have found is nonsense world moïnesse, but it would be pronounced as /mɔinɛs/, so that the first e would be pronounced. If word chante is pronounced as /ʃɑ̃t/, then chanete would be pronounced as /ʃant/. --40bus (talk) 21:49, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I assume moïnsse or moïnce would be enough, given ïn is not a known digraph for a nasal vowel. Nardog (talk) 22:00, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
An IPA translator gives the word moïnsse as /mɔˈɛ̃s/. And I didn't know that ⟨ss⟩ and be used also next to another consonant. --40bus (talk) 22:09, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You could try doubling the "n" -- moïnnce -- though I don't think this would absolutely guarantee the intended pronunciation. AnonMoos (talk) 23:13, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A final /-ins/ (and anything in /-nC/, where /C/ is any consonant) occurs only in non-assimilated loanwords and foreign names. Then, it's normal that they should lack a native and natural way to spell it. --Theurgist (talk) 15:33, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Also, French seems to lack a native /ɔɪ/ diphthong, anyway. /Vj/ is possible for stops, I guess. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:59, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In South of France "moins" is pronounced by some people: \mwɛ̃s\. One can invent a French word and then try to pronounce it. Everyone knows that French is not spoken as it is written. I never read/heard the world "moïnesse". If I find it, for me there is a typo for "moinesse" (=female monk, old world, now "moniale") which I - French native speaker, Parisian - pronounce \mwa.nɛs\. About the non existent word "chanete", if I have to pronounce it I would say /ʃa.nɛt/ or /ʃa.nɛte/ or /ʃa.nete/, but for me an accent is missing or a double "t". – AldoSyrt (talk) 17:35, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Say, speak, talk, tell

Say, speak, talk, tell: Native speakers have no difficulty in choosing which verb to use in which context, and know that they are not generally interchangeable, but newbies to the language often struggle. Prima facie evidence is many of the questions we get on this ref desk.

Is there a handy guide that illuminates the differences and provides comfort for the afflicted? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 22:17, 24 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A search for say vs. speak vs. tell vs. talk is fruitful. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 01:10, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

February 25

First names that are in the Bible

Why are some Bible names rarer as Gentile Anglophone first names than it seems like they should be? Lots of (Davids, Daves, Davies), much fewer Solomons; lots of (Daniels, Dans, Dannies), fewer (Zekes, Ezekiels); lots of Jonahs, much fewer of the rarest minor prophet; lots of (Tims, Timmies, Timothies), much fewer Tituses. Then there's some that were way less old-fashioned in the 19th century like Jebediah or Ichabod. Why are they old-timey but not John or Andrew? (Some of these aren't even well-known Bible characters. Maybe Ichabod was popularized by that NYC suburb headless ghost though?) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:40, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Some are kind of disguised (James from Jacob etc). From the seventeenth century through the 19th century, some versions of English-speaking Protestantism promoted intensive Bible-reading, just as much of the Old Testament as of the New Testament. That was the context in which the title character in Silas Marner named the little girl "Hephzibah" (after his sister). Since the 1920s, while many Christians are still certainly devout, I don't think that people who are highly-familiar with the text of the Bible from long reading of all parts of it are as culturally influential as they were during the 19th century... AnonMoos (talk) 02:59, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Names of Christian saints (several Saint Johns, Saint Andrew, Saint Timothy, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, ...) named in the New Testament get a leg up, being popular also among Catholics, unlike many Old Testament names that were familiar to Bible-reading Protestants but not so much to Catholics. David is very prominent in the Bible, not only as the legendary king of Israel and the spunky hero kid who slew Goliath, but also by Jesus being said to be of the House of David. During the period when it was a tradition to name children after grandparents or other family members of older generations, the relative frequencies of these names were subject to random drift, so it is hard to attach significance to the ranking of the less common ones.  --Lambiam 05:19, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There are cycles in popularity as well. Seth and Caleb became popular again in the U.S. in the last three decades, after almost disappearing for most of the 20th century. Abraham used to be quite common but is now rare. And as mentioned above, there is a big difference between Catholics and others, as Catholics tended to prefer naming their children after saints, which excludes a lot of Old Testament names, which were in turn associated with either protestants or Jews. Xuxl (talk) 14:17, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One fun one is the popularity of "Joshua". Until the late 1960s it was uncommon. 138 per million; rank 763. Then in the 70s and 80s it takes off; over 10,000 per million, rank 7. I found it personally annoying that my unusual name became commonplace. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 14:55, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed that, Abraham is possibly my country's best and most popular leader (born 1809 elected 1860) but sounds old-timey or Jewish now. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:31, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, Abraham appears to be more common now than ever before, according to tools such as this which use Social Security data. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 15:39, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I guess the parents who want few schoolmates to share the name just jump on ones that get too rare (or invent a new one or spelling like Boston or Flyrence). If the other parent wants a traditional name or major Bible or Quran character then Abraham still works. And sometimes a name becomes super-popular for awhile like Michael/Mike. Maybe cause Jordan, Tyson and Michael Jackson? But not Elvis or Ringo. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:10, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It appears that Michael was already near peak in 1970 when the Jackson 5 just started getting popular when Jordan was six and Tyson was three. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:27, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I know a 13 year-old called Micah, and there are a fair number of kids called Eli and Isaac now in England, that would have been unheard of a couple of decades ago (I suspect some US influence here). Meanwhile, some New Testament names like John, Mark and Paul have gone out of fashion. John used to be the most common boys' name in England, but allegedly fell out of favour after John Major's premiership. Alansplodge (talk) 18:51, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The 2004-19 New York football thrower was Eli & the 2006-8 NY basketball coach was Isaiah. The biggest star of NYC baseball and football right now are both Aarons. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:31, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
However, I don't see Jehoshaphat making a comeback anytime soon, no matter how hard he jumps. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:43, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of cool unwieldy names in there that'll probably never get big. Like Mahershalalhashbaz and Nebuchadnezzar. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:02, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
You just need to be patient, like Job. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:12, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One fun one is the popularity of "Joshua". Until the late 1960s it was uncommon. 138 per million; rank 763. Then in the 70s and 80s it takes off; over 10,000 per million, rank 7. I found it personally annoying that my unusual name became commonplace. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 14:55, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed that, Abraham is possibly my country's best and most popular leader (born 1809 elected 1860) but sounds old-timey or Jewish now. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:31, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand, Abraham appears to be more common now than ever before, according to tools such as this which use Social Security data. --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 15:39, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I guess the parents who want few schoolmates to share the name just jump on ones that get too rare (or invent a new one or spelling like Boston or Flyrence). If the other parent wants a traditional name or major Bible or Quran character then Abraham still works. And sometimes a name becomes super-popular for awhile like Michael/Mike. Maybe cause Jordan, Tyson and Michael Jackson? But not Elvis or Ringo. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:10, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It appears that Michael was already near peak in 1970 when the Jackson 5 just started getting popular when Jordan was six and Tyson was three. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:27, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I know a 13 year-old called Micah, and there are a fair number of kids called Eli and Isaac now in England, that would have been unheard of a couple of decades ago (I suspect some US influence here). Meanwhile, some New Testament names like John, Mark and Paul have gone out of fashion. John used to be the most common boys' name in England, but allegedly fell out of favour after John Major's premiership. Alansplodge (talk) 18:51, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The 2004-19 New York football thrower was Eli & the 2006-8 NY basketball coach was Isaiah. The biggest star of NYC baseball and football right now are both Aarons. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:31, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
However, I don't see Jehoshaphat making a comeback anytime soon, no matter how hard he jumps. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:43, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Lots of cool unwieldy names in there that'll probably never get big. Like Mahershalalhashbaz and Nebuchadnezzar. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 15:02, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I remember my surprise when I learned that Azor is a biblical name. In my native Polish, it is a common name for a dog. — Kpalion(talk) 11:10, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is there an echo in here? Clarityfiend (talk) 11:22, 1 March 2024 (UTC) [reply]

Polish sentence

This sentence (without the Polish diacritics...) talking about an election result: "Natomiast jedyny kandydat Komitet skupil okolo swej listy 359 glosow." ... I'm struggling with the word "around". Does it imply the list got approximately 359 votes? Or that the candidate gathered precisely 359 votes around his list? -- Soman (talk) 11:01, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I thinks it's the latter; the first meaning would need to be written "okolo 359 glosow" (note that I don't speak Polish, but that's how it would work out in Russian). Xuxl (talk) 14:19, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The definitions on Wiktionary of około seem to imply a sense of inexactitude.  --Lambiam 20:18, 25 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Xuxl is correct, it's the latter meaning: the candidate gathered an exact number of 359 votes around his list. — Kpalion(talk) 11:59, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks! --Soman (talk) 10:21, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

February 26

English numbers

Why does English, unlike German and Dutch, place units before tens in compound numbers? --40bus (talk) 20:48, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It didn't in Old English, see Old English/Numbers. I found this (access to the full article through the Wikipedia Library):
From unit-and-ten to ten-before-unit order in the history of English numerals
Alansplodge (talk) 21:20, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Are you talking about poetic uses such as "Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:46, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I remember people forty years ago who would normally say "five-and-twenty to ten" for times. They may still be alive. ColinFine (talk) 11:54, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
English four+teen, German vier+zehn, Dutch veer+tien: unit count takes the first position in all. But English twenty+four, German vier+und+zwanzig, Dutch vier+en+twintig: in the English numeral the units are placed in last position, not "before tens" as you wrote. The switch from the Old English "Germanic" order to the current one may have been influenced by (Anglo Norman) French, which has that order for the numerals from 17 onwards (with some irregularities, such as sixante quatorse for 74 [10]).  --Lambiam 22:30, 26 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Lambiam: Standard spelling is "soixante-quatorze". All French number words from 71 to 79 and 91 to 99 use "-teen" analogous forms... AnonMoos (talk) 03:57, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Anglo-Norman did not have a standard spelling.  --Lambiam 11:44, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Didn't notice that distinction, but it's still the modern French standard spelling which many millions use every day (unlike medieval Anglo-Norman French). AnonMoos (talk) 23:11, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To be honest, French numbers are a unique kind of weird above 69. I wouldn't give them much notice. Pablothepenguin (talk) 12:32, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not all French speakers have such weird numbers. I remember seeing a documentary on Belgian television about events in the 1990s, where they simply said nonante-sept instead of quatre-vingt-dix-sept. PiusImpavidus (talk) 13:45, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
IIRC, in France Septante is used for the Septuagint, but not generally for the number. As PiusImpavidus alludes to, the continuation of the Latin decades is rather a Belgian and Swiss thing. Double sharp (talk) 13:50, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The reason I mentioned French is because of its influence on the evolution of English. Old English only had the order fēoƿer and tƿēntiġ. The other order makes its first appearance in Middle English. The question was why English has this order, so the French order is potentially relevant.  --Lambiam 20:46, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's a German association that wants to change the German order to be like English: de:Zwanzigeins (the name is probably self-explanatory).
Double_sharp -- That would certainly give a different rhythm to "Neunundneunzig Luftballons". -- AnonMoos (talk) 23:11, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
According to this source, in Czech both orders are possible, but looking at Czech Wikipedia suggests that tens-before-ones (like English) is more common. Double sharp (talk) 14:01, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Omniglot also indicates both orders as possible in Kashubian. Double sharp (talk) 13:37, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When I started working in Norway in 1982 both systems were in regular use, with a slight preference for the old form, e.g. fem og tuve (five and twenty) for 25. this research shows that 15 years later not a lot had changed. I was working in Bergen, where there were a good sprinkling of nynorsk speakers and quite a few Bergensers with their own dialect. I've not lived there since 2010 so I don't know if things have changed by now. Mikenorton (talk) 18:18, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

February 27

What language is this?

Hi everyone,

I was driven around by a taxi driver a few months back, and he taught me how to say "thank you" in his native language.

Here are some things I know about this language:

  • It is probably from Central Asia, the Caucasus, or the Middle East, given the man's physical appearance (light-skinned).
  • It sounded most like an Iranian language, but I couldn't be sure. It was probably not Turkic, and definitely not Arabic.
  • There was a distinct 'Ayn sound in some of the words.

The phrase for "thank you" sounded like the following:

Yırd El-Âwê.

However, this is the best I could remember from memory, so the actual phrasing might be a bit different. I am good at languages and linguistics but my memory of unfamiliar foreign language phrases is not perfect. It could have been between three and five syllables. 64.231.206.241 (talk) 18:14, 27 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just to see what happened, I pasted the above transcription into Google Translate. It guessed that the language was "Kurdish (Kurmanji)", but it just repeated the words on the English side, as usual when it can't translate something. And when I then asked it to translate "Thank you" from English into that language, it said "Spas dikim." So I don't think I believe that language identification. --142.112.220.50 (talk) 12:26, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Consider the possibility that the phrase does not mean "Thank you" but rather something mildly obscene or in some other way humorous. Playing such jokes on foreigners has a long history worldwide. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.126.225.254 (talk) 13:26, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The articles Voiced pharyngeal fricative and Voiceless pharyngeal fricative list about twenty languages, each. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:37, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Perusing the translations given for thank you in Wiktionary, the best match seems to be from a variety of Arabic, see يعطيك العافية (pronounced /yiʕ.tˤiːk al.ʕaːf.ja/). 124.148.237.250 (talk) 11:15, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

February 28

Cyrillic inscription

In the music video for Kosheen - Catch a Cyrillic inscription appears on the wall poster seemingly reading Октар велико пату! Google Translate suggests it's Serbian and should be октобар велико пату meaning "October, the great day!" (apparently referencing October Revolution, judging by the image of the Aurora cruiser below). What language this actually is and is it an accidental gross typo or Macaronic? Brandmeistertalk 22:38, 28 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think the first word on the poster is ОКТЯР, which doesn't help much. Perhaps some letters are missing from the beginning of the word, but I can't find a word that rhymes with октяр. The word велико can be standard Russian  --Lambiam 12:43, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As a native Russian speaker, I can say 100% this isn't Russian. Just like GTranslate, I thought of Serbian, but there's an odd thing: Google translates allegedly Serbian октобар велико пату as "October is a big day", but "day" in Serbian is дан, so I can't make heads or tails of this. Could be an attempt to emulate Russian by non-native speakers with the meaning of "October is a great date/month". Brandmeistertalk 13:02, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Could it be possible that someone has mistranscribed ДАТУ as ПАТУ when creating the poster? If they've rendered ОКТЯБРЬ as ОКТЯР, I suppose anything's fair game. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 22:39, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, looks like that... Brandmeistertalk 08:44, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

February 29

Paraprosdokian

"He was at his best when the going was good" is listed in Paraprosdokian#Examples. How is this a paraprosdokian? What are the expected and reinterpreted meanings of the first part? Nardog (talk) 11:25, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The more likely second-half would be something like "when the going was bad" or "when things were tough." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:43, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
'He was at his best' implies some outstanding quality of effort or achievement; 'when the going was good' is when everybody should do their best, implying he was nothing special after all? It does seem a weak example. -- Verbarson  talkedits 11:48, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The expected phrase might be; "He was at his best when the going was tough" (or "rough", or "hardest"), some random examples in print are like this (of JFK), or this (of Ernest Shackleton), or this (of Boris Yeltsin), or this (of Fernie Flaman), or this (of James B. Craig). So to say "when the going was good" instead would surprise most readers (but not the OP obviously), and is implying that he was useless in difficult situations. Alansplodge (talk) 12:49, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Another example is found in the film Starman, when Jeff Bridges's alien says, "Shall I tell you what I find beautiful about you? You are at your very best when things are worst." Deor (talk) 14:49, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
See also, in a similar vein, When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Alansplodge (talk) 22:34, 29 February 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I get that's the joke. I was wondering if there was an alternative interpretation because, if that's the joke, there's no reinterpretation of "He was at his best" that occurs, and only the expectation for the second part is subverted (whereas in "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn't it", one is forced to reconsider the interpretation of the present perfect). It's not a paraprosdokian then, as I suspected. Nardog (talk) 00:17, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Up until the poison in the tail, the audience will interpret the first part as eulogistic. The final word forces a reappraisal, which, one might argue, is an illocutionary reinterpretation.  --Lambiam 01:29, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

March 1

Kahulla

Hello, while transcribing on wikisource, more precisely on that page for context, I found the word "kahulla". ("kahullas", but I think that is a plural.)

I could not find any mention of that word anywhere.

The book is from 1850, so it might be an archaic form.

Does anyone know what that means?

(I do not know if this is where I should be asking that, sorry if it isn't.) Alien333 (talk) 08:40, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Just to provide a little more context, the author is Frances Sargent Osgood. The poem and the word make me think of Hawaii, but I don't see a connection in her article and that feeling may be completely wrong. --Wrongfilter (talk) 08:52, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
In this edition, it is spelled "Kahullah's", the genitive of a name, which makes more grammatical sense than the adjective form in the edition on wikisource. --Wrongfilter (talk) 08:56, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like an Arabic (Muslim) given name, such as Abdullah, Bahaullah and Najibullah, but several common nouns also end in -ullah, meaning "of God". I do not find uses of the word as a given name other than perhaps in the poem. To me, the interpretation as the genitive of a name does not make sense in the context; if we interpret "Kahullah's deck" as a noun phrase, then where is the verb? The word "bright"? The poet is American, but the use of the word as a verb is British. Will the deceased girl's hair brighten the deck of Kahullah? What does that mean? I find a poetic subject–object inversion, helping to maintain the rhyme, more plausible: bright kahullahs, whatever these may be – presumably something specific to the yonder spirit world – will deck (cover or decorate) the girl's hair. If the rendering "kahullahs" was a typographical error in the 1846 edition[11] of Osgood's poems, it was not corrected in the 1848 edition.[12]  --Lambiam 13:11, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the possible inversion now I see and do agree that is is more plausible. In both interpretations the comma after "stream" seems out of place, doesn't it? Or does it help to identify the hair's stream as the object rather than thhe subject of the phrase? --Wrongfilter (talk) 13:31, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Running "kahullah" through google translate (using detect language) gives "his shoulders"(Arabic). Gender aside, it would fit the context. Shall bright(bare) kahullahs(shoulders) deck. 41.23.55.195 (talk) 13:33, 1 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]