Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 March 3

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March 3

Word choice

Is it considered OK to repeat the word "that" in an English sentence? Or is it something that is not preferable, such that alternate wording should be found? An example is this sentence: I just realized that that is the name of my dentist, also. I know that it is grammatically correct; but is it considered "bad form"? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:54, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

So, you're asking for answers in the vein of linguistic prescriptivism, right? If so, it all depends on the style guide for whatever you're writing, and where (or if) it's published. My WP:OR is that it's publishable in some academic journals (I've done it), but I also try to re-word and avoid the form when possible. If you want to consider the linguistic descriptivism approach, this evidence [1], seems to indicate that the construction is tolerated, but on the decline. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:09, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I looked at that link (the one for "evidence" about the use being in decline). What exactly is that Google Books NGram Viewer? I have never seen that before. What exactly is it counting? What exactly is it keeping track of? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:50, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Hi User:Joseph A. Spadaro, Ngram means it can search for exact combinations of N-many words (up to N=5 at present). It searches a corpus of English language material (marked by time of publication), going back to 1800 in some cases (there is a separate corpus for BritEng, AmEng, French, etc.) Any book included in Google books is searched, and they are adding more material all the time. The vertical axis show how often the phrase appears in the corpus, compared to all other phrases of that length. Here is google's general info page on the Ngram viewer [2]. I don't know much more about it than that, but it's a really cool way to get an idea of how often certain phrases are used in print. There is also a way to download their database for academic research, but I mostly use it as a quick way to check on usage over history (knowing there are some caveats, and I'm not trying to make any rigorous conclusions based on the results). It's primarily designed for language issues, but you can also see some history at play, e.g. compare incidence of "car" to "carriage", we can see that "car" surpasses "carriage" right around the introduction of the Model T Ford. [3] Try it out, see what kinds of cool patterns you can find! SemanticMantis (talk) 15:51, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Very interesting, thanks! Yes, now that I am aware of this tool, I will definitely use it. Thanks again. I had never heard of that before. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:20, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Sometimes it really is the best and most appropriate and most concise construction. The two 'that's have different functions. Just as the two 'had's have different purposes in She had had to change her plans due to her mother's sudden illness; and then she'd met Tarquin, and that had changed everything. Absolutely nothing wrong with it, imo.

One very common overuse of 'that' is in sentences where the word is separated from its object by a longish parenthetical phrase and the writer/speaker sort of forgets they've already said 'that' and feels the need to say it again: I know in my heart that, even though most would violently disagree and most others would have trouble accepting my thesis without some moral gymnastics, that JackofOz is a fine fellow. Only one of those 'that's is required. Clumsy sentence and all, but just to make the point. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:24, 3 March 2014 (UTC) Here's a RL one that just arrived on my iphone: .. I still have expectations that when opening times are posted that the places will be open at those times (in reference to lax Central American shop opening practices). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:17, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Bold text

I know that this is rather nit-picky. But, I am curious about it nonetheless, from a style-guide point of view. If you look at the nominees of the 86th Academy Awards, they list the names of the winners in bold print. For example, the winner of Best Picture is: 12 Years a Slave – Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Steve McQueen, and Anthony Katagas. The winner of Best Actor is: Matthew McConaughey – Dallas Buyers Club as Ron Woodroof. My question is: if we are going to be precise and stylistically correct, are the words such as "and" and "as" actually supposed to be in bold print? Or should just the names themselves be in bold, but not the words such as "and" and "as"? In other words, is it correct, as is? Or should it be that the bold "starts" and then "stops" and then "starts again", etc.? Is the bolding of the words "and" and "as" just a lazy and incorrect way of typing this? Or is it the correct way of presenting bold text material? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:07, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Related to your question above, the only "correct" format is in terms of the house style guide. In the absence of such a style guide, people often turn to language mavens like Strunk & White, but I don't recall if they say much about usage font weight. Things like plays and movie scripts have strict rules about bolding and italics, that wouldn't matter at all for e.g. a novel. One thing that has bugged me in the past: some places allow me to use italics for emphasis, while others disallow it. Then, because italics are not allowed for emphasis, I have to give emphasis through repetition, which is tedious, and repetitive ;) (Nb it looks like you changed some of your wording after I typed this, so this might not be that helpful for your revised question.) SemanticMantis (talk) 16:19, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. (I only revised some minor formatting of my original question, when I made the edit; there were no substantive edits to the wording of the question.) So, I guess what I am asking is: what is the Wikipedia style of doing this? And, outside of Wikipedia, what is the correct style (I have to imagine that this has come up before)? I guess the question is: is the word "and" a part of the winner's name; is the word "as" a part of the winner's name? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:32, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Sorry, looks like I was misreading a bit then. Anyway, our WP style guide is at WP:MOS. There's instructions on italics, and a few mentions of bolding within quotes, but I can't easily see anything directly applicable to your question. Since this is Wikipedia, you could even be WP:BOLD, and add some info to our MOS on bolding! On the other hand, we have a few users here who know the ins-and-outs of the main English style guides, so maybe they will chime in. For what it's worth, I agree that un-bolding "and" and "as" seems better. Compare to title case, where we have e.g. "The Lord of the Rings", not "The Lord Of The Rings". Since you're specifically talking about movies here, you may enjoy this NYT piece on formatting for movie posters [4]. There too, "and" and "with" are typographically demoted, compared to actor names. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:50, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. Wow! Who would have imagined that creating a movie poster was that complicated?!?!?!?!??! Made my head spin. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:28, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I disagree with Semantic Mantis about the unbolding of 'and' and 'as'. This is a confusion with the rules about what words not to capitalise in the name of a movie, book, play, musical or opera. There, one does not capitalise articles or conjunctions unless they're the first word. So it's 12 Years a Slave, not 12 Years A Slave. But bolding of a name or title applies to the whole thing or none of it: 12 Years a Slave, not 12 Years a Slave. The title of an article always appears in the lede, bolded. The entire title is bolded. In our Oscar lists, we bold winners to distinguish them from other nominees. Film titles are bolded. That's the entire title. This may have been agreed explicitly somewhere long ago, or it may have just developed that way and now everyone copies what others have done. But we most certainly have a very strong implicit consensus. We can't go around making up a different practice just because one person thinks it "seems better" their way. There's a process for changing things like this. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:06, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Jack, I believe you're misreading what Semantic Mantis said. They're not talking about little words within a title, they're talking about words between titles in the bolded list. FWIW I agree with them. --ColinFine (talk) 19:23, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, woddaya know, I misunderread (not the only one). I too agree that "and" and "as" in those cases are not part of anyone's name or any film's title, and should not be bolded. Previous response strucken. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:39, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps the reference to title case was a red herring :) SemanticMantis (talk) 21:02, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Alphabetical order

In "normal life", we would normally alphabetize a person's name according to their last name (surname). However, on Wikipedia, an article title such as, say, George Washington would appear (alphabetically) under the "G" and not the "W" (simply because "G" is the first letter that appears in the article title, without regard to the fact that it represents the person's given name and not his surname). So, here is my question: When we are creating a list in alphabetical order on Wikipedia, should an article title such as "George Washington" be listed alphabetically under "G" or under "W"? Is there some Wikipedia policy on this? I am not necessarily referring to the name/title being presented in a list of other names. But, more so, when the name/title is being listed alongside other Wikipedia article titles that are not necessarily names. For example, let’s say that we have a "See also" list in an article; and we want to list the "See also" items in alphabetical order. Which of these "See also" lists would be correct (if the goal is alphabetical order)?

== See also ==

• George Washington
• Latvia
• Special Olympics

Or

== See also ==

• Latvia
• Special Olympics
• George Washington

In the first case, it is alphabetized as: G, L, S. In the second case, it is alphabetized as L, S, W. I would imagine that the "correct" alphabetization (in the "real world") would be the L, S, W approach (the second one listed above). But, in terms of a Wikipedia list, that almost seems to defeat the purpose (when the article titles are G, L, S; as in the first example above). So, do we have any policy or style guide – or any preference – in this regard? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:39, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses the "common names" axiom, which is why George Washington is the article and Washington, George redirects to that article. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:01, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, but you have confused me. What does that mean, in terms of my above question? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:19, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

George is listed under the W's in categories and lists of people. If we're talking about say bridges, then I'd put the George Washington Bridge under the G's. As for a mixed list of people and non-people, you'd need to provide an example. I can't recall seeing such an animal. For the See also section, there's usually too few entries to make it necessary to alphabetize it. I generally order it by relevance to the article. Clarityfiend (talk) 17:40, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but that is exactly the point of my question. If it was a list of solely people's names, then it would make sense to list them by surname. If it was a list of solely other entities (i.e., not people's names, like the George Washington Bridge or George Washington High School), then we would list them by "first letter" of title. My question is when both are mixed. I gave the example above (Latvia, Special Olympics, etc.). I didn't specifically look for a "real" example in Wikipedia; I am sure they abound. I have seen them many times, which is why I finally decided to ask today. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:38, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I found two "real" examples. The first is Single-bullet theory. I myself actually added in the name of James Tague (just yesterday, I believe). And I was not sure where to place it, alphabetically. I also wanted to find an independent example, one which I took no part in. The very first page I decided to look at was Richard Nixon. And that article has the same type of example I am referring to (a "See also" section, with a mix of people and non-people). Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

As I said before, in a mixed See all listing, it doesn't make sense to list them alphabetically at all; that's just for entries of the same type. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:05, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Clarityfiend has given you excellent guidance. As an example: List of people from New York will show you first an exception, the presidents in chronological order, and then the sorting by last name as the general rule. WP:MOS and the The Help Desk should be of use to you as well. Oh, and don't mind Baseball Bugs, he just likes to chime in as much as he can.54.80.71.128 (talk) 18:04, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

And don't mind 54, who is a harassment-only sockmaster. And since Joseph didn't get what I meant, in normal writing and speaking you're more likely to say "George Washington" than "Washington, George". Hence, George Washington is the "common name". In a printed encyclopedia, typically it would be last-name-first. But not in Wikipedia. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, Baseball Bugs, I certainly "got" all that. I just wasn't sure how that information (which I already knew) addressed my specific question above about "See also" list alphabetizing. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:32, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

In "see also" sections, there appears to be no hard-and-fast rule. And your example is a serious apples-oranges-and-bananas situation, as there is no obvious commonality. But if you look at the disambiguation page Leonardo, for example, you'll see they tend to be listed alphabetically by last name, even though the "last, first" construction is not used. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:43, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

With Latvia, Special Olympics, and George Washington ... I just made up an example, off the top of my head. The thrust of the question dealt with the letters (in that case, the L, S, and G or W distinction). The words themselves were not important. So, I just made up a list with letters that illustrated the point I was making. (I was not at all concerned with the actual words, in order to make my point.) Yes, clearly, the Latvia / Special Olympics / George Washington titles are a mixed bag of apples and oranges and such. If we are "stuck" on this (very minor) point, I gave two "real life" examples above (Single-bullet theory and Richard Nixon). I am quite sure that there are many hundreds of other examples on Wikipedia. I see it all the time because, in fact, one of my pet peeves is to alphabetize "See also" lists. Richard Nixon happened to be the very first article that I decided to look at. And, lo and behold, it had exactly the type of example I am asking about above. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:00, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

If your seemingly random lists of words or topics were part of the index to a book, for example, George would definitely be under W. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:48, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. In a printed book, yes, clearly. But, I am trying to get some clarification for Wikipedia purposes. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

You may find Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lists of some use. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:17, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I just found out that the Wikipedia MOS states that "See also" lists should preferably be alphabetized. Here: Wikipedia:Guide to layout#See also section. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:57, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Recently, in my routine editing of many articles, I came across an article where a list of personal names was alphabetized by last name, although they were presented with the first names first. I did not spend time to find out how that was accomplished, and I do not know whether a template was used.

—Wavelength (talk) 03:38, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps you are talking about the "sort name" template? It appears, for example, in this article: List of actors who have appeared in multiple Best Picture Academy Award winners. There, all of the actor names are listed as First Name, Last Name. However, when the Name column is sorted, it will sort by Last Name, First Name. The first actor on the list, (Ben Affleck). gets sorted as an "A" for Affleck, not as a "B" for Ben. Yet, his name is listed as "Ben Affleck". This is done with the "sort name" template (documented here: Template:Sortname). Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:26, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

That template was probably used in the article that I mentioned.

—Wavelength (talk) 18:05, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Why is it bad to ask God to damn things?

Why are idiomatic phrases "God damn it!" and "that goddamn son of a bitch" considered curse words? I mean, if you dissect them and interpret them literally, then you'll just asking God to damn things. 140.254.227.87 (talk) 16:33, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

See curse. ("A curse ... is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity.") Looie496 (talk) 16:58, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

So, why is it bad to curse in that sense of the term? 140.254.227.87 (talk) 18:21, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

In case you mean "curse words" less literally, more in the general sense of profanity, see also "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain". ---Sluzzelin talk 17:06, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Is that related to blaspheming the Holy Spirit, which is bad, because it's basically seeing good as evil and evil as good and deliberately accusing someone or something of wickedness and condemning it? Would a Roman Catholic priest forgive blaspheming the Holy Spirit if it had been done unintentionally? 140.254.227.87 (talk) 18:21, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

In one sense, an analogy would be: thou shall not call the CEO at corporate headquarters with every petty dispute. — Preceding analogy added by 71.20.250.51 (talk) 18:36, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Well, not really. God is all-knowing, all-seeing, and all-powerful. The notion of God being "too busy" is a bogus notion created by some sects to justify their hierarchies. I think of it more like the boomerang factor - you ask God to curse someone, He might check your own record first. And it's arrogant. But mostly, it's just uncouth. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:58, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, you are basically using your own power to command the Allpowerful to curse one of his own creations. It's about as rude as saying "Fuck your broken lightbulb, Dad, it keeps flickering." μηδείς (talk) 19:07, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

That's why I added "in one sense" -- mainly relating to "in vein" meaning "not unless you really, really mean it". — Preceding clarification added by 71.20.250.51 (talk) 19:23, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

That's more of it. The idea is that you're profaning the concept of God's judgement by flippantly calling on him to judge something/someone when you don't mean it. If you believe in the concept of an unending hell, you're not going to make such a statement seriously (i.e. as a prayer to God to send someone there) without an extremely good reason, and of course you won't make such a statement in this sense if you don't believe in such a concept. For that reason, it's generally considered profanity. Of course, if you really do mean that, it is a curse, but not in the sense of "cussing." 149.160.174.45 (talk) 21:49, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Why are contractions pronounced from two syllables to one syllable?

Jeet Yet?

I don't get why contractions are pronounced from two syllables to one syllable. No matter how fast I say the two words, they just don't add up to right sound in the contraction. When I say "shall not" very quickly, it sounds like "shit" and "aht", not "shan't." Perhaps, the contractions were originally derived from archaic speech, or perhaps they were originally derived from writing and then pronouncing those written contractions? Examples include:

• "I can not" becomes "I can't" (Preterite: I couldn't)
• "I shall not" becomes "I shan't" (Preterite: I shouldn't)
• "I will not" becomes "I won't" (This becomes trickier when you consider the fact that you pronounce the long o sound. Where does the long o come from anyway? Preterite: I wouldn't)
• "I may not" becomes "I mayn't" (Uncommon, but nevertheless a valid phrase. Preterite: I mightn't)
• "I am not" becomes "I ain't" (Preterite: I wasn't) 140.254.227.87 (talk) 18:08, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

EO has a brief discussion of "won't".[5] Unfortunately, our Contraction (grammar) article seems to be more of a list than a history. But English-speakers tend to shorten things, a process which presumably happens over the course of time, no in one fell swoop. Such as "folks'll" as the pronunciation of "forecastle". And there's the handling of the abbreviation "St." for "Saint". In America we still say "Saint" when we see "St." (or "Street", but that's another thing). Brits tend to say "St." as "Sint" or "Snt". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:27, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Contractions exist in the language because that's what people say (or said). The process of contraction happens at different times and places, and may not be obvious according to the phonetics of a different time or place. Shakespeare wrote many contractions that are not normal today (such as "i'th" for "in the", or "upon's" for "upon us"); some of these may have been for metrical reasons, but it seems likely that they were drawn from the everyday spoken language. Those two have not lasted, unlike the ones you list. On the other hand, there are far more contractions in current English than these: it is just that most of the rest are hardly ever acknowledged in writing. Examples are "gimme", "gissa"*, "wanna", "havta" and "gonna". I have noticed myself saying /ˌkʲævəkʌpə'ti/ ("Kyavvercuppertea", or "Kyavvuhcuppuhtea" for non-rhotics) meaning "Can I have a cup of tea". Some contractions reduce the number of syllables; others do not.

*For those unfamiliar with "gissa", it is a British (especially but not exclusively Scottish) contraction of "give us a", and often means "give me a".

The "why" is because speech is a trade off between the effort of pronouncing words and the effort of understanding them. There are various processes that happen in language change, such as assimilation, metathesis, syncope and epenthesis which can all be described with some justice as the product of laziness. Whenever these have occurred, they probably started off as a feature of rapid speech of some group (often of young people) and gradually became established in the language. The contractions you are talking about have been around, we know, for several hundred years, and they are normal in everyday speech; but they have not so far driven out the older forms, and fashion does not accept them for certain registers. --ColinFine (talk) 19:53, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

140.254.227.87 -- Won't is ultimately due to l vocalization, which occurs in a number of languages (and several dialects of English), by no means always in morphologically complex "contractions". Anyway, "n't" is actually a clitic form (some linguists have even argued that it's actually a negative inflectional suffix), so it's not surprising that the sound changes it induces in the preceding word are not the same as generalized fast speech changes... AnonMoos (talk) 03:07, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

See the photo I've just added to the top of this section, from Arkansas, USA. The caption says "Southern drawl", but it's definitely here in the Great Lakes region as well. Definition 6 at the Urban Dictionary provides a fuller example. Nyttend (talk) 13:14, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I think "Jeet Yet?" is a fairly generalized American English fast speech form (not sure why we don't have an article on "fast speech"), with the further reduction "Jeechet?" [dʒiːtʃɛt]... -- AnonMoos (talk) 13:44, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

No, joo? μηδείς (talk) 18:19, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Odd. I had a coworker from Indiana once that said she had a hard time at first understanding Californians when she moved there, and gave "j'eet yet?" as an example. So I don't know how widespread it is. — kwami (talk) 20:41, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Actually, "Jeechet?" [dʒiːtʃɛt], as AM gives is what you hear. People don't weaken "Did you eat" to "Jeet" without also weakening the second -t yet sequence to -chet. (IN other words, "Jeet yet" is half attempted phonetics and half orthography as taught, not spoken.) As far as I am aware, Jeechet is common to General American, including the eastern Midland dialects. In fact, Jeechet? No, joo? is a running joke in my immediate family. See also Mairzy dotes. μηδείς (talk) 23:16, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

British colonial insertion of "r"s where they don't belong.

I have recently come across a few words like Burma which have an /r/ and which I have always thought were supposed to do so because of the "r" being in the native form. But it isn't. Burma should be /bəma/. Burmese language syllables don't have final /r/s, only -/ʔ/ and -/ɴ/ occur, and the "r" is only found in loans from English and Sanskrit and Pali. So it turns out the Burma spelling is most likely the approximation of a non-rhotic colonial, and the "r" should actually be silent if one wants to approximate the original language.

I have also come across this in a few other terms, probably in geographical names, in areas with largely vowel-final words colonised by the British. Can anybody mention other examples, or give any comment? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 19:02, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Not quite the same, but until quite recently, I always assumed "Ahmed" started out like the German "Ach". Then I learnt that the Ah- simply denotes a long a, and it was spelt that way because "Amed" would have resulted in people saying "Ay-məd". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:08, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Fraid not, Jack. Our article Ahmad transliterates the Arabic as "ʾaḥmad", with a stronger aspirate than English /h/. No doubt some English-speaking Ahmeds drop the /h/, because that phoneme does not occur preconsonantly in English; but it's certainly there in Arabic. --ColinFine (talk) 20:20, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks again, Colin. Time to reassume my assumption, sort of. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:52, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

The "h" in Ahmad is technically a voiceless pharyngeal consonant. The same consonants ħ-m-d ح - م- د appear in both "Ahmad" and "Muhammad" due to Semitic root morphology... AnonMoos (talk) 02:54, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Of course, a coda /ħ/ is likely to be misheard as a long vowel by someone who doesn't realize it's there; see, for example, [6] and [7]. Which probably explains why so many English speakers pronounce things like coda /ħ/ in Arabic and coda /h/ in Turkish with spitty uvular sounds. Lsfreak (talk) 21:03, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

The only other example I can immediately think of, coincidentally, is "Myanmar". I believe there are others, but I can't think of any at present. --ColinFine (talk) 20:20, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

There's also the Korean name Park, which is a variant of Pak or Bak. -- 87.151.45.156 (talk) 20:30, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes! Park is one of the two other instances I couldn't remember. I was very surprised by that one. μηδείς (talk) 21:14, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

That may just be a case of the word being Anglicized to match an English word. (If the original name had an extra r, as in "Prark", they probably would have taken it out.) StuRat (talk) 20:17, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

• This looks like a case of intrusive R becoming standardized. It could be that the first English speakers to establish the English name for these places had an accent with intrusive R, and as such, became standardized. --Jayron32 23:02, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it's anything to do with the intrusive R, which is to do with generalising the restoration of a final /r/ before a vowel-initial word to other words which never had a final /r/ but are historically vowel-final. Two of the three cases that have been mentioned involve an <r> before a consonant, which is an entirely different context. It's simply that the most common way of writing the sound /ɑ/ in non-rhotic British English is <ar>, and all the plausible ways of writing a stressed /ə/ in non-rhotic British English include an <r>: <er>, <ur> or <ir>. --ColinFine (talk) 00:10, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Our article on Rhotic and non-rhotic accents, subsection "Effect on spelling" has some more examples, including schoolmarm and parcheesi/pachisi. ---Sluzzelin talk 01:15, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

A couple of non-written examples are the pronunciation in rhotic Northern Ireland of "lager" as "lar-ger", and sometimes "Peugeot" as "per-zho". --Nicknack009 (talk) 18:12, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

"Peugot" may just be trying to approximate the French front-rounded vowel with the most soundalike English vowel; some rhotic dialects in the U.S. pronounce "hors d'oeuvres" as [ɔrdɜrvz]. Anyway, "worsh" (with pronounced r) in place of "wash" used to be a shibboleth in some parts of the U.S. Midwest (don't know to what degree it still is). AnonMoos (talk) 13:49, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

• I am still a little confused by User:Alansplodge's statement above that father and farther are homophones for him. Does that mean there are semi-literate spellings like farther for the male parent, or darnce for dance? Am I just going on context when I assume that father and farther in arrhotic RP are not identically pronounced? I would swear if you asked me that the two words would be quite distinct, even in the example, "I must go a little bit, father" and "I must go a little bit farther". Is there no compensatory lengthening? μηδείς (talk) 19:54, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

No, I can confirm that they are homophones for me too and for most of my fellow English natives round here. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:59, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

I, on the other hand, can confirm that for me, my family, and the people we know, father and farther are definitely not homophones. I have no obvious "regional" accent, and am frequently teased for speaking with very pure RP. RomanSpa (talk) 00:22, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, User:RomanSpa. Can you say what the difference is to you between these two words, either in IPA if you know it, or by what they rhyme with or in a subjective description? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 20:02, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

I don't know IPA, I'm afraid, so I can only really give a rather useless subjective description, which is that you say each word exactly as you read it. That is, "farther" is "far" + "ther", while "father" is "fa" + "ther". This rather begs the question, of course! For what it's worth, the 'R' sound is less obvious in "far" than it is in "farther", though it's still there. In this and similar cases, the "ar" combination seems to sound slightly lower in tone than the vowel on its own. Sorry not to be more help. RomanSpa (talk) 20:40, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

It sounds as if you have just a tiny trace of rhotacism in your RP. I would use that pronunciation distinction only if I needed to distinguish between the two words without spelling them out. In my local dialect, they are distinguished by having a longer vowel in farther. Dbfirs 09:53, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

• I can confirm that the ga-il in Lark Rise to Candleford (TV series) is always going on about her Par and her Mar, back home in the hamlet, with the littl'uns. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:21, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Juggernaut. If I hadn't looked it up, I would have never guessed it derives from Jagannath. I would have rather thought it comes from German. — Kpalion^(talk) 20:27, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the OED transcribes father and farther the same. μηδείς, as Jack of Oz suggested above, this is just like Americans inserting aitches where they don't belong. "Oh" doesn't have an "h" sound in it, and neither does "ah!". At the time the h-convention was established, much more of England was rhotic, but words that have crept in since then often have "r" instead. (Not just "Myanmar", but "Burma"! – cf. Bamar.) This only seems "colonial" because it only works for non-rhotic accents, and so we don't see it in the States, but we get it in Australia too. The US convention can be seen in spellings like Ohno for Japanese Ōno, despite there being no [h] in that name. The Korean name "Park" is even spelled "Pahk" in the US, for example with Induk Pahk. "Pak" would be mispronounced "Pack", so some remedy is needed. — kwami (talk) 20:34, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Not sure this exactly what you're looking for, but reading some of the linguistic descriptions by traders, trappers or missionaries from the early days of American colonization is downright painful. Unless you already know the language, it's impossible to tell which r's are real. Lsfreak (talk) 21:03, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

My favourite uberhypercorrective colonial spelling is the Queensland town of Caboolture. I am certain no word in any local indigenous language has the sound of a -ture ending (tjuə). Everyone ends it like -cha or -chə, but that spelling would never have done for our forefathers. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:44, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Thought of another: Bristol has no etymological /l/. I'd heard similar things about some places in France or Spain that are with a double-el, despite only ever being /j/, but a few quick searches of the cities I was thinking didn't reveal anything. Lsfreak (talk) 01:49, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

• Thanks, some really excellent answers. Although Kwami seems to have missed that his answer Burma was the example with which the entire thread began. (I sometimes read these threads bassupackwards myself.) Isn't Bristol Welsh for titties? How is the Welsh spelt? μηδείς (talk) 05:43, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Welsh? No. If in doubt, suspect rhyming slang. Bristol City. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:16, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

Agree not welsh but for info Bristol in Welsh is Bryste. -- Q Chris (talk) 10:10, 7 March 2014 (UTC)

Vietnamese phrase

I'm seeing the phrase "TIEU-LENH CUU HOA" in an early 1970s picture of a sign on a huge building in Saigon. What could it mean, and what are the correct diacritics? The sign's in the background, so I can't see the diacritics clearly, but I think there's something on top of the "E" in the first word, on top of and below the "E" in the second, on top of the first "U" in the third, and on top of the "O" in the fourth. Below the phrase are lots of words in smaller type, and i can't read them. Google Translator thinks it means "Sub-command fire," which makes no sense. 149.160.174.45 (talk) 21:54, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

"Tiêu lệnh cứu hỏa"? I think it means "fire-fighting equipment"—like fire extinguishers, fire blankets, ladders, hoses, etc. --Canley (talk) 01:01, 4 March 2014 (UTC)