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August 3

Old English

What would ‘I come in peace’ (or something to that effect) be in Old English? (Around the 1050s, and near London if that makes any dialectal difference.) Unfortunately, Google Translate doesn’t appear to have Old English.

In addition, any general pointers on ways Old English’s grammar structure differs from Modern English’s that might trip up someone trying to translate sentences? (I’m aware of the Old English grammar article (which I have partly read through), but I’m asking if there’s any differences in particular that might be especially problematic for a speaker of Modern English.) Thanks! Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) In solidarity. 08:11, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

The inflections (cases, gender agreement, strong/weak adjectives, modes) and verb-second word order in Old English were greatly simplified on the way to Modern English. In this specific simple sentence this is not a factor; a word-by-word translation works: iċ cume in friþ. (The dot on the ⟨c⟩ is a modern convention and would not have appeared in an Old English manuscript.) In this case, since the preposition in is used with the accusative case, friþ has to be in the accusative, but for this word the accusative has the same form as the nominative. For the synonym sibb the accusative form is different; if this is substituted, it needs to be altered to sibbe.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:24, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

Shouldn't it be friþe (dative), since it's the inessive/non-illative meaning of in (i.e. "in", not "into")? I'm not actually sure in would be the most appropriate preposition; mid friþe seems to be attested in Old English, though in the sense of "depart in peace" rather than "come in peace"; "on friþe wunedon" ('they lived in peace') is also attested in West Saxon. But none of the combinations of preposition+friþe I've seen seem to match the exact intended semantics here, where "in peace" means "having peaceful intentions"; they all seem to mean "enjoying a state of peace" instead. Maybe for the intention meaning they would have used some adverbial expression instead, like gesibsumlíce? (Or, possibly, Old English folks just never went anywhere "in peace" at all, and didn't have a word for it.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:43, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

You are probably right. It is hard to tell, though. Also in the American English of 1951, the semantics of in following come is unclear in this phrase, so we cannot be fully sure why Klaatu used a prepositional adverbial instead of proclaiming "I come peacefully", and also not which case he would have used, had he landed in 11th-century London. In 1951, the US was one of the belligerents in the Korean War, so the visitor may have been in a peaceful state of mind but his landing site was not in a state of peace. The syntactically nearest I can think of in current English is "We come in good faith", which basically means the same as Klaatu's "I come ... with good will".  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:58, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Not "come in peace" but "go in peace" appears several times in the Bible, Luke 7:50 for example. So the construction would seem to predate classic sci-fi. Alansplodge (talk) 15:54, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

August 4

Fucken vs. fuckin'

I'm reading the novel The Tribute by John Byron (2019). It's very well written and researched, has a very engaging plot, and I'm constantly in the state of wanting to know what happens next. It has a wealth of technical medical terms, and various cultural references to Renaissance personages like Vesalius, etc. I'm at page 229 and have yet to detect a single spelling or grammatical error. (He does refer to Leonardo da Vinci as "Da Vinci" as if this were his surname, but that's not uncommon.)

But there's a problem with the swear words he has his characters say. Or, more to the point, the spelling of one of those words. "Fucken" crops up quite early in the piece. After a few dozen fuckens I quietened my inner editor and accepted that this has become one of the ways of spelling fuckin'. But then, he has one character use fuckin', another use fucking, and then all three variants have a party. The first character to use fuckin' says it three times, then reverts to fucken, and later says fucking – there goes my theory that he's using the different spellings to mark his characters.

So, I'm left wondering whether there's a difference in meaning between fuckin' and fucken. I'm in little doubt that the author has deliberately chosen these different spellings, because he's so careful with his wording and spelling generally.

• Another person encountered the same issue in 2004.
• Wiktionary just says it's an alternative spelling of fuckin'.
• Urban Dictionary says, inter alia: childish spelling for the adjectival/adverbial intensive "fucking". Easy way to identify you're chatting with an illiterate &/or child.

I could accept that last quite readily, were it not for the fact that Byron is far from an illiterate or a child.

Any ideas on this? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:49, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I think your post is the first time I've ever seen "fucken". Fucken Awesome question. Is it perhaps an Australianism? DuncanHill (talk) 22:02, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

I've been seeing it on social media for over 15 years. That's obviously become the Great 21st Century Word Foundry. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:45, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Would fucken or fuckin have different intonation in the Sydney patois? Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:17, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Not being a Sydneysider, I don't know. But having spent much time there, I rather doubt it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:45, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Might be able to ask him about it. [https://www.simonandschuster.com.au/authors/John-Byron/235314559] Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:29, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Based entirely on my limited experience of Australian films, I would suggest that fucken' might be more of a random interjection with little aggressive intent, whereas fuckin' is perhaps more emphatic, with the voice more obviously lifting at the end of the phrase. MinorProphet (talk) 23:15, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks. (I was in my mind sounding it out as fucken would have the stress on the second syllable FukEN compared to the other, fuk'n). Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:20, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

The only thing I can think of for an author to intentionally vary the spelling of a term in a character's direct speech, corresponding to subtly different pronunciations, is that in the narrative the character themself is varying the pronunciation. Not having read any part of the novel I can only speculate as to why the character from the novel would do such a thing, but we're not allowed to engage in speculation. Among candidate reasons is that a speaker may change register depending on the occasion, such as whom they are addressing, but if the variations occur within a contiguous block of speech addressed to an unvarying audience, this can be ruled out. Another potential reason, perhaps far-fetched but not unreasonable, is that the speaker is imitating the way various others pronounce the term, so that they are as it were quoting these others.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:27, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

My first thought - as with some above - is that this is meant to show slight differences in pronunciation. It wouldn't be accents since the same character uses different spellings, but perhaps different vowel stresses depending on the situation (?), but I think if that were the case, you'd see it in more than the one word. Like, he might be thinken about fucken in one scene, but in a different context he'd be talkin' about fuckin'. If that's not what's going on, I'm a bit stumped. Matt Deres (talk) 12:52, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

And would someone from New Zealand pronounce fuckin' the same way an Aussie would? Would fuckin' in New Zealand sound closer to fucken? ~2026-40817-33 (talk) 00:55, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Off-topic: No idea, but ignoring The Quiet Earth, the unsung Shaker Run is one of my fave road movies ever, especially if you like your Trans-Am in pink... MinorProphet (talk) 01:24, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Sorry, further off-topic (tsk) although vaguely relevant: The super-stressy but hunky Cliff Robertson (in Shaker Run as above and pushing said pink beast at speed along some fairly twisty roads) while sporting some super-macho shades, is chatting with Leif Garrett, his super-chilled, utterly relaxed guru car mechanic:

"Doesn't anything get to you, KC? Anything at all?"

"Hmm - yeah..."

"What?"

"Well, ummm... I haven't been with a New Zealand woman yet."

MinorProphet (talk) 21:53, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

I have to confess to a partiality for Australian dashcam vids. A few years ago the worst thing anyone said was, "Idiot!" Now, it tends to be "Fucking idiot!" with variations. Compare from 5:38, perhaps "What are you fuckin' doing, you fucken' muppet?" And from 7:38 - "What an absolute fuckin' cockhead! Fucken' Jesus, chum. What the fuuuck?" MinorProphet (talk) 01:08, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Another Australian here. There are no doubt different pronunciations of the word in question here. Are we seeing attempts by the author to reflect that? It's a bit class based, with the "ing" ending coming from more upper class swearers. HiLo48 (talk) 02:00, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

• Thanks for all your thoughts so far, folks. I'm not sure I'm convinced the fucken vs fuckin' split is about pronunciation. Maybe the author has an arcane point that's escaping my understanding. Or maybe it's a glitch that wasn't picked up in the editing stage. I won't lose any sleep over it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:18, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

It might be a [ə] vs. [ɪ] distinction, I guess. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:10, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

See also feck. Alansplodge (talk) 15:25, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

"Ride me sideways was another one..." Martinevans123 (talk) 21:05, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

• So, I acted on Alanscottwalker's suggestion, and emailed Simon & Schuster in the vague hope they might forward this interesting discussion to the author. MinorProphet (talk) 19:10, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

August 5

Alphabetical ordering of people's names

What How do cultures without surnames list/order people? Indonesia seems to be a particularly chaotic situation; Indonesian names says most (but not all) western Indonesians don't have them, but eastern Indonesians generally do. Clarityfiend (talk) 13:28, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

In Iceland, many people do not have a surname. They sort by given (first) name. The call directory for a hospital I did work for there was mostly just first names, sorted alphabetically. Not everyone has an alphabet like English. In Myanmar, they use a script (abugida). The script has order itself (same as our alphabet having order), so they can sort their names by abugida order. In China, they use characters. They do not spell out words. Names are usually sorted by radical and stroke order. They usually have family names and personal names. The family name comes first, so you would see all the Wu people listed under the radical kou (mouth) with a stroke order of seven. As with memorizing the order of letters in the alphabet, Chinese have memorized the order of the radicals. Japanese uses both hiragana and katakana. When working there, I had to learn the kana order for their symbols to look up items in lists. It is similar to sorting in alphabetical order. This made me wonder about the case where a culture has no surname (so they likely sort by first name) and they do not use letters, scripts, or characters. That indicates that they do not write. So, an oral-only culture, they wouldn't write down a list of names. Perhaps they will follow the practice of many African communities which sort by birth order. Older people are first and younger people are last. That does cause age inflation. A similar age-sorting practice was common in Abkhazia. The result was that almost everyone was well over 100 years old because every time they had to be sorted into a line they would add a year or two to their age. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 14:13, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

In Indonesia, it seems to be common with people having only one name, and thus, that is the one used for listing and ordering (as per the Latin alphabetical order). 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:19, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

Re: Japan, out of curiosity, do you happen to remember what the kana order was for lists? When I learned kana it was arranged as a two dimensional grid, with the vowels as columns and consonants (or lack thereof) as rows and (syllable-final) n ( ん / ン ) by itself. So I'm curious if the "list order" is the same. Did all of the open vowel names come before all the names that begin with consonants? I remember the vowel order was A I U E O. ~2026-40817-33 (talk) 04:50, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

The grid you likely saw is the order. It is ordered left to right, top row down to bottom row.

あ い う え お

か き く け こ

さ し す せ そ

た ち つ て と

な に ぬ ね の

は ひ ふ へ ほ

ま み む め も

や ゆ よ

ら り る れ ろ

わ を ん ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 11:00, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Also: in Iceland, is everyone sorted by given name, or are the people who do have surnames sorted by their surname? ~2026-40817-33 (talk) 05:10, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

My only experience is name lists for a hospital system. They sorted everyone by first name. I have a first and last name. I was sorted by by first name even though my last name was listed. Of note, almost everyone had their name followed by their mother's name with either 'son' or 'dottir' added. So, if you are John, daughter of Martha, your name would be listed as John Marthadottir, sorted into the J's. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 11:03, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I believe just about everyone born on Iceland has a patronymic (more commonly, rather than a matronymic as explained), rather than a proper surname. If you want to become a proper Icelandic citizen, you would need to change your name . Also, for transgender purposes, apparently it was now accepted to add a -bur rather than a -son or dottir to your patronymic. (Which in context, would mean "child".) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:42, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Isn't using just given names horribly inefficient? A popular first name would lead to massively long lists (say the non-English equivalent of John). Clarityfiend (talk) 23:51, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Worse than a list of Smiths? —Antonissimo (talk) 00:58, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Yes, the Smiths all have first names as well. All the Johns are just called John. ~2026-43309-20 (talk) 07:52, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

In Iceland, people would have a first (personal) name and last (patronymic) name, but I would assume hospital wards and such might have a bunch of Jón Gunnarssons and similar. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 09:40, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Adding onto/clarifying this, it seems the argument for the inefficiency of first names relies on the idea that last names are spread out more evenly than first names. When the last name in question is a patronymic, this argument might not work as well, given that one would expect the distribution of patronymics to be roughly aligned with the distribution of given names. GalacticShoe (talk) 11:50, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Whatever the arguments, the fact is that this is how Iceland operates, without any reported problems. Perhaps if its population were significantly larger, it might not work so well.

For that matter, in England I myself, though with not-the-most-common forename or surname, have experienced one confusion between myself and another of the same fore-initial and surname, living in the same road, on the part of medical (actually dental) administrators, and I have previously heard of two people with the same fore- and surname who have greater 'notability' than me (one was/is a civil rights campaigner and has a Wikipedia article, the other was convicted for murder), and there are three more who (I now see) also have Wikipedia articles. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 15:40, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Communities have a way of making things work. I used to know a guy from Skipwith, Virginia named James Wilkinson. According to him, everyone in Skipwith is named Wilkinson, so they go by their first name. Since James, Jimmy, Jim, and every other variation on James was already in use, everyone decided to call him Skippy. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 16:25, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Sweden used to have a system similar to Iceland some centuries ago. I think it was mainly changed when Sweden was involved in a bunch of ongoing wars, and a lot of rural farmers were more or less forcibly enlisted for service. The bureaucracy required the system to get rid of all the doublet Lars Anderssons and Karl Janssons, so a lot of new last names were coined, either inspired by local placenames or from military terms or positive attributes (such as shield, sword and swift). 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:06, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

It was not until 1901 that Swedes were required to have surnames rather than patronymics, but the Swedish Allotment System is what you are thinking of, a source of many Swedish surnames. See also Swedish name. DuncanHill (talk) 11:02, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Facebook has more than 500 users with the username "Devi Ramesh" and also more than 500 users with the username "Ramesh Devi". Perhaps there are thousands; I just stopped counting.  ​‑‑Lambiam 12:37, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

In South Korea, the five most common family names; Kim, Lee, Park, Jung and Choi, combined account for more than 50% of the population. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:02, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

In a culture where ordering by first name is common, mononymous persons would be listed by their first name. In a culture where ordering by last name is common, they would be listed by their last name.  ​‑‑Lambiam 22:02, 5 August 2026 (UTC)

• I had a weird dream nightmare last night, in which the incumbent at the White House announced that the alphabetical order we all know and love was no longer fit for purpose and he decreed a different order would henceforth apply. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:30, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

The first letter shall be D, the second J and the third T. And there will be a tariff tax on all others! Clarityfiend (talk) 23:31, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

I read an article (in the Guardian, I think) suggesting that people's lives were affected by where their names sat in alphabetical order, and that it would be fairer to change it every month. Their idea was that the order would remain the same, but the starting letter would change - so it would go from A to Z one month, B to A the next, C to B the next, and so on. It wasn't a serious suggestion, but makes for an interesting thought experiment. Chuntuk (talk) 07:59, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

Along similar lines, it has occurred to me that tasks involving large numbers of items often arranged by alphabetical order tend to get started with the A's and may 'run out of steam' some way into the alphabet, so that later letters are more often neglected. For that reason I sometimes start such tasks (filing documents, sorting books etc.) from the Z end of the alphabet to ensure a better distribution in the long term of whatever the purpose of the task is. One might call this an atebaflacal ordering (with a tweak using 'f' since 'hp' doesn't work), or an omegapsitical order if wanting to remain classical. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-43920-01 (talk) 10:50, 12 August 2026 (UTC)

In the days of yellow pages, I would start with the entry next after where my name would appear. If everyone did that, there would be less advantage to A-names. —Antonissimo (talk) 00:51, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

August 6

Jason Atta Kwei Arday

Jason Arday, of Ghanaian heritage, is much in the news. His full name is Jason Atta Kwei Arday. Are "Atta" and "Kwei" given names, or some form of patronymic or similar? In what language? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:35, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Atta is a traditional Akan (especially Fante and Twi) male name meaning "twin," typically given to a boy who is one of a set of twins. Kwei is a Ga name (the Ga people are native to the Accra region of Ghana). It means "born on Thursday." ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 11:49, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Excellent; thank you. (Arday was indeed born on a Thursday.) Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:03, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

Monday's child is fair of face... MinorProphet (talk) 19:19, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

August 8

Latin pph

In Italianate Ecclesiastical Latin, is pph pronounced /ff/ like in Italian Saffo, or /pf/ like in Modern Greek Σαπφώ? Wiktionary says the latter, but with no external support I don't know if that's not simply some user's guess. ~2026-43802-97 (talk) 14:01, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

• Since Ecclesiastical Latin is essentially a tradition of spelling pronunciation, I would expect /pf/ which seems to be implicitly supported by one guide but none of the others I found discussed 'p' in detail at all. In practice there is a fair amount of variation in details such as this, in my experience. Eluchil404 (talk) 18:20, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

Italianate Ecclesiastical Latin was also spoken before the Great Schism of 1054, with a phonology probably mostly based on Florentine, the literary language, but undoubtedly influenced by Romanesco. Florentine pronunciation would favour /ˈsaffo/. However, contact with Byzantine Greek-speaking clergy who pronounced the name /sapˈfo/ would have promoted /ˈsapfo/. I suppose that these two pronunciations would have coexisted and may even have continued to coexist, with /ff/ relatively more likely from natively Italian speakers and /pf/ from others. However, spontaneous conversations mentioning Sappho in Italianate Ecclesiastical Latin are not an everyday occurrence; a carefully designed experiment will be needed to generate unbiased observational data.

The Latin pronunciations on Wiktionary are generated by its Module:la-IPA, so this is not merely "some user's guess".  ​‑‑Lambiam 13:10, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

August 13

Y'all and also American money?

Hello, I just want to ask, what is y'all in South-USA and also here in California? Why is it used so much? Like the people in the hip hop dance and socialmedia's say «Y'all crazy» or «Y'all get turned up» but South-USA say «Howdy y'all» or «Y'all welcome» . Is it the same thing? P.s I am not American.

And about money, what do Americans say for their money? I hear «dollars» and «bucks» alot. But I also hear «the dead presidents» and «Benjamin's» and «dough» for American money. Why is that? Sianliha (talk) 12:06, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

"Y'all" is short for "you all". It's associated with the American South, but has become more widespread in recent years. As to money, there are all kinds of slang terms. See Slang terms for money. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:34, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Are you asking why there are slang terms for money in general - or why are those specific slang terms used? Matt Deres (talk) 13:11, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

We have an article which may be of interest to y'all. DuncanHill (talk) 15:09, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

"Buck" = dollar

"the dead presidents" = not common, but a reference to the fact that all of the people on American money are dead, and most of them were presidents

"Benjamins" = 100-dollar bills

"dough" = money generally ~2026-40817-33 (talk) 17:31, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

"Y'all" was originally a marker of southern American speech but it has spread over the last few decades. In particular, it is also found in AAVE which is in many ways a southern dialect (or set of dialects) but is usually considered separately for social and political reasons. In ordinary speech I would use "dollars" or "bucks" or a term for a specific note or coin. I consider "dead presidents" or "Benjamins" to be affected and "dough" to be dated but it depends a lot on context. Note that "dough" and the less common "bread" are uncountable synonyms for "money" but "dead presidents" are countable bills and "benjamins" are specifically one hundred dollar bills. The specific people on American currency haven't changed in 100 years or so, and so slang refers to them: Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, and Ulysses S. Grant on the $1, $2 (rare), $5, and $50 respectively, Benjamin Franklin, who was a prominent Founding Father of the United States but never president, on the $100, and Alexander Hamilton likewise never president on the $10. Eluchil404 (talk) 20:51, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Zschtzsch

In German we have the historical pentagraph tzsch (for example in Nietzsche) instead of the more standard "tsch". The same could be said for "zsch" for the modern "sch" (for example in Zschopau). The usual German translitteration of the Russian letter Щ is "schtsch". Ok. That said, were there historical occurences of the enneagraph "zschtzsch"? ~2026-44526-14 (talk) 17:55, 13 August 2026 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Szxq (talk • contribs)

I haven't been able to find any searching for names like Schtscherbakow which seems the most promising name for appearing in 19th century German but there are lots of word-internal uses of Щ as well I am sure if you know how to look. Eluchil404 (talk) 21:20, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Note that the letter ⟨z⟩ in German orthography corresponds to the pronunciation [t͡s]. In "zsch", this does not become, obviously, [t͡sʃ] but [t͡ʃ]. So "Zschopau" is pronounced [ˈt͡ʃoːpaʊ̯]], and "zschtzsch", if it occurred, should be [t͡ʃt͡ʃ], not [ʃt͡ʃ].

Note that the Russian pronunciation of the letter щ is an extended sibilant without plosive; for example, борщ is pronounced [borɕː]. In Ukrainian, the plosive is (sometimes) heard, with борщ being pronounced [bɔrʃt͡ʃ].  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:28, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

English tenses

Does English ever mix past and present tenses together in the same sentence, like I saw that Jane is cooking in the kitchen? --40bus (talk) 20:59, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

The short answer is "no". The example you gave is not correct English. There is further discussion at Sequence of tenses. There are exceptions when referring to universal truths. "I realized that English is a crazy language," e.g. But not to ongoing actions. For instance if I saw Jane cooking at 1pm and based on that I am sure she is still currently cooking at 1:30pm I would say, "I saw that Jane would (still) be cooking in the kitchen" which gets complicated quickly. Eluchil404 (talk) 21:25, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

If I saw at 12:15 that Jane is teaching a class that lasts from 12:00 till 12:45, and someone asked, at 12:20, "Do you who is teaching the noon class today?" I might respond, "I saw just now that Jane is teaching the noon class".  ​‑‑Lambiam 21:44, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

You are right. To my ear it depends on the aspect of the verb. If it is imperfect the present is ungrammatical "Jane is teaching now" but if it is prefective it is fine "Jane is teaching today" as opposed to having gone swimming. I would say that in the first case I analyse "is teaching" as a verb phrase and in the second I analyse the verb as 'is' which is divalent with regards to this aspectual distinction and "teaching" as a predicate. I don't have any background in modern syntax so there may be better ways to express the distinction. Eluchil404 (talk) 01:01, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Technically, this isn’t grammatically correct, but I do hear it often and even say it myself. When I make myself think about it, I realize that ‘I saw that Jane is cooking in the kitchen’ is not grammatically correct, but if I just look at it, the first and fastest heuristics in my brain to fire identify it as a perfectly normal sentence. Could be a dialectal thing, though. Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) In solidarity. 00:22, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

It is possible to imagine a scenario where the sentence would be natural, and arguably not ungrammatical. Suppose I was recounting an occasion when I was looking at a children's book that existed then and exists now. I might say "I saw that Jane is cooking in the kitchen and John is sitting in the living room." It makes sense because my act of seeing was at a fixed time in the past, but the actions depicted were not just occurring then, but are 'ongoing' in the book.

However, such a scenario is rare.

As Euchil40404 indicates, tenses in English can get very convoluted, and as Shadestar says, English varies dialectically, English speakers are sometimes ignorant of, or ignore in some circumstances, the finer grammatical 'rules', which themselves are an academic analysis of how people speak, not a set of laws they first learn and then consciously follow. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-43920-01 (talk) 10:22, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

One example I can think of where I might use such a phrase is for when I have previously learned of someone's life situation, and said situation is unlikely to change in the near future. For example, if I saw someone's new employment was at Random Corp. and this was only a couple of days ago, then "I saw that she's working at Random Corp. now", grammatical or not, would make perfect sense to me in terms of previously seeing someone's likely-current state of being. GalacticShoe (talk) 12:15, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Your example is valid, but the obvious (to me) scenario that no one has brought up is: suppose you saw Jane cooking in the kitchen just a minute or two ago and now you're in the other room telling someone this? The act of seeing would be past tense, but if it were reasonably certain she was still cooking you wouldn't say that she "was cooking"? Maybe according to some prescriptive grammarians you ought, but to me it would never be best to say "was" for something you know "is". (Or does it depend upon what the definition of "is" is?) ~2026-40817-33 (talk) 20:02, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Time vocabulary

Here, and in the every other place that uses UTC+3 time zone right now, Thursday changed to Friday a couple of minutes ago. In Finnish, it is said vuorokausi vaihtui. Does English say The day changed in this situation? The upcoming night will be torstain ja perjantain välinen yö in Finnish, but is it ever called the the night between Thursday and Friday in English? --40bus (talk) 21:07, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

The day changed is okay in English, though we might use another phrase: "The day rolled over" or "it changed (from Thursday to Friday)". "The night between Thursday and Friday" is understandable but not a normal English idiom. It is Thursday night. Until midnight if one is precise, and till one goes to bed if one is speaking generally. After that is Friday morning even if the sun is not yet up. Friday night is after the sun sets on Friday. Eluchil404 (talk) 21:29, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

In Finnish, the period from about midnight to sunrise on Friday is perjantaiyö, literally Friday night. Yö begins at midnight at earliest, until midnight it is ilta. And does English use this construction with dates, such as the night between 13 and 14 August? --40bus (talk) 22:13, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

Yö sounds like a word that doesn't have a good English equivalent. That period of time is called both "late (at) night" and "early (in the) morning" depending on context. Many English time idioms assume that the day begins at dawn, i.e. "daybreak" but others use midnight, and of course day (24hour period) and day (period of sunlight) being homonyms/variant meanings of the same word means various phrases can be ambiguous and either subject to misinterpretation like a "6 o'clock meeting" or only clear in context. "The night between 13 and 14 August" is a clear but nonstandard phrase for what would usually be called "the night of 13 August". Things that happened after midnight happened "on the morning of 14 August" in formal speech with the meaning made clear by the citation of a specific time. I might even say something like "I went to bed at one-in-the-morning Thursday night" meaning 1:00am on Friday, 14 August which is oxymoronic but perfectly clear. Eluchil404 (talk) 22:48, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

A clearer phrase than "the night of 13 August" would be "the evening of 13 August" as the "night" would last into 14 August but "evening" is unambiguously beetle midnight ("late evening" can be used to make it clear the period being referenced is night rather than late afternoon or twilight). And if the portion of that night that falls on 14 August needed to be unambiguously specified you could say "early morning of 14 August, predawn.

But I agree that in any regular context "the night of 13 August" would be invariably understood which night was being referred to, and it might or might not be understood as also including the 14 August portion of that night, but whether it would or wouldn't wouldn't be of concern to anyone 99% of the time.

@40bus:: do you mean to say that in Finnish, "Friday night" means both "Friday before dawn" and "Friday after dusk ("dark")"? This is a completely new concept to me; I find it strange and interesting :) (and not "strange" in any kind of bad or demeaning way, to be clear :) ~2026-40817-33 (talk) 20:39, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

In Finnish, perjantaiyö (”Friday night”) means ”Friday before dawn” and perjantai-ilta (”Friday evening”) means ”Friday after dusk”. The time period from about 22:00 to midnight is called either loppuilta (literally ”late evening”), alkuyö (literally ”early night”) or iltayö (literally ”evening-night”). Similarly, the time period from about 4:00 to 6:00 either either loppuyö (literally ”late night”), aikainen aamu (literally ”early morning”) or aamuyö (literally ”morning-night”). --40bus (talk) 06:42, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Yes, you can say "the day changed" for this in English (for an example I see every day, irssi prints "Day changed to 13 Aug 2026" at midnight). You wouldn't say "the night between Thursday and Friday"; it's just "Thursday night". Adam Sampson (talk) 21:30, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

limb-sheaths

Does any language use the same word for sleeves and trouser-legs? —Antonissimo (talk) 23:36, 13 August 2026 (UTC)

None are listed on Wiktionary, but many languages use the word "arm" or "wing" for this part of a garment, so languages with one word for both arms and legs would be a place to start. Eluchil404 (talk) 01:09, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

The translations at Wiktionary for arm (upper appendage from shoulder to wrist) and leg (lower limb from groin to ankle) have no word in common, unlike finger and toe.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:43, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Other languages use something like "tube" or "pipe". PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:00, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

August 14

Terningskarvet Mountain

Resolved

What does the term "Terningskarvet" (Norwegian) literally mean? I know "terning" is a dice, but what does the "skarvet" suffix mean? Dice-shaped? Dice-carved? The (gazetteer-derived) Terningskarvet Mountain article said "the die mountain", but I don't trust the quality of its translation. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 16:23, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Skarvet is a rocky mountain formation, a crag, a mountain ridge... mountainy. So, Terningskarvet means "Dice Mountain." The nearby summit is called Terningen (The die). ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 16:31, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. It's another of those word-repeated-in-translation names, like Torpenhow Hill -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 17:15, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

Cf. tautology, pleonasm and list of tautological place names. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:10, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

The ending -et is actually a Norwegian suffix making a neuter noun definite, just like in English putting the before a noun makes it definite. The neuter noun skarv means "cliff", so Terningskarvet means "the Dice Cliff".

The definite suffix for masculine nouns is -en, and the noun terning is masculine, so Terningen is Terning + -en.  ​‑‑Lambiam 01:29, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 06:16, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Technically, I'd say "Dice" should be in singular here, but "the Die Cliff" might sound ambiguous in English. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:32, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Un-dating

Is there a nice word, or can someone please suggest an elegant phrase, for the "edit summary" of a Wikipedia article when removing a term such as "currently", which contravenes MOS:DATED. Doug butler (talk) 21:49, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

"currently" changes every instant, so it should not be used in general (see MOS:DATED)? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Clarityfiend (talk • contribs) 23:47, 14 August 2026 (UTC)

The use of "currently" signals that a statement is time-sensitive. Simply removing the term does not mitigate the risk of the statement getting outdated.  ​‑‑Lambiam 01:38, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Doesn't really answer your question, but when I remove currently, I usually add an {{As of}} template with the year (or month and year) of the source supporting the statement, and my edit summary is something like "add {{As of}}". If the whole statement needs to be deleted as no longer operative, why not just "rm per MOS:DATED" or similar as the summary? Deor (talk) 10:07, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks @Deor:, a good answer. Doug butler (talk) 20:32, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Bear in mind that this can be used appropriately — something on geological or astronomical timescales could contrast "currently" with millions of years ago. Nyttend (talk) 20:34, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

August 15

Does a descriptive name have to be a compound word?

I got to thinking lately that, for example, red coats can be used as a description for "the British army" and "tinfoil hats" can be used as a description for people who believe in conspiracies. But we can't call them simply "coats" or "hats". Does this kind of descriptive name always have to be a compound word? JIP | Talk 09:15, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

I would think not, as it's just figurative usage. The first thing that springs to my mind are things like the punk and queer movements. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:39, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

@JIP No. See synecdoche for examples. Shantavira|^{feed me} 11:01, 15 August 2026 (UTC)

Ginger, as a synomym of redhead, is descriptive but not compound.  ​‑‑Lambiam 02:19, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

Informal team sports may be played by "shirts and skins": that is, one team takes its shirts off. —Antonissimo (talk) 21:28, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

There are plenty of nicknames that are not compound words. The England women's football team are the Lionesses. Napoleon's guard were grognards (grumblers). What you can't do is simplify a compound word nickname by removing one of the words. What distinguished the British army back in the day was that the coats that they wore were red. Calling them "coats" doesn't work, because everyone wore coats. I suppose you could have called them "reds," but I can't think of an instance of that happening in anything I've read. The colour-noun combination is a popular one in English: redcoat, bluebottle, yellowjacket, greengage, blackberry. Chuntuk (talk) 08:13, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

August 16

Spacing around dashes in British English

Should I use spacing around dashes (em and en dashes) in British English? I'm aware it may be the matter of a specific style guide, but I'm asking about the general practice ~2026-44978-51 (talk) 07:47, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-44978-51 See MOS:DASH. If an en-dash is used to indicate a number range, then no spaces. In text, an en-dash should be spaced either side, but an em-dash is not. Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:01, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

But MOS:DASH is for Wikipedia. I'm asking about general practice not just the practice in Wikipedia ~2026-44942-09 (talk) 08:07, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

@~2026-44978-51: It's up to you. English is not a prescriptive language. Pick whatever you like the look of. I prefer spaces around all dashes when they're being used in place of commas or colons. Bazza 7 (talk) 08:51, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

Never have I said English is a prescriptive language. I'm asking about the general practice. It's possible to describe how people use dashes in British English and what's the most common opinion about dashes in British style guides in a purely descriptive way ~2026-44813-57 (talk) 08:58, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

Speaking as a sometime publisher – there is no "general practice".

Individuals organisations usually adopt (or create) some particular set of conventions or 'style guide' to maintain internal consistency, but there are many such sets. Each publishing house once had its own 'House Style Manual' (although smaller ones often adopted that of a larger publisher to save themselves the effort). Some of these, such as of the Oxford University Press and the Cambridge University Press, were published for the public in various forms. OUP's is perhaps the most widely known to the very small percentage of the population who are even conscious of these considerations, but it is not dominant.

Most people might remember some 'rules' they learn in their Secondary School from individual teachers, but there is no nationwide laid-down standard for such matters, so everyone develops their own personal style alongside their prose and handwriting styles. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-43920-01 (talk) 10:55, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

Still, there is the general pratice.

Even if individual organisations, style guides and publishing houses disagre with each other about using or omiting spacing around dashes, only one practice is the most commonly advised by those organisations, guides and houses.

Same with the real-life usage. Individual people might disagree with each other, but only one practice is the most common one. ~2026-44854-41 (talk) 12:05, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

But I doubt that anyone has surveyed all the many different 'House Styles' and other conventions, however published (or not), and determined which practices are "most commonly advised", or surveyed individuals to see what the most common practices are. Why would they?

If anyone actually has, no doubt someone will correct me. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-43920-01 (talk) 15:47, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

This "general practice" you speak of is just the aggregate of the few decisions and millions of non-decisions made. It is now mainly congruent with the WMWDAWEC standard that was developed in the 1980s and 1990s. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 01:03, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

I did not say you said English is a prescriptive language. You asked "Should I use spacing around dashes (em and en dashes) in British English?", suggesting you think there's some rule. I explained there's not. You can do what you think looks right. If you're asking what other people do, then it's the same.

If you're asking what organisations who employ people to write for them say they should do, then that's a different question. Each will have its own preferences and may prescribe how its writers must use dashes, or not.

There is no one general way. Bazza 7 (talk) 22:08, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

Space around en-dashes, don't use em-dashes. DuncanHill (talk) 14:00, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

Different J pronunciations

Just wondering, how can

“ John and Johann met Juan and Jean-Paul in Beijing. ”

be modified to add more common different sounds of the letter "J"? Thanks, cmɢʟee τaʟκ (please add {{ping|cmglee}} to your reply) 10:35, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

I doubt that there are other pronunciations that can be considered "common". In the most common orthography for the Araki language, the letter ⟨j⟩ corresponds to the voiceless consonant t͡ʃ. It is voiceless too in the orthography of the Saanich dialect, and, moreover, ejective. But you won't have any luck finding household names from these lects. Some other languages, such as Mazahua, Cebuano and Tagalog, have /h/ for some words, but not in general.  ​‑‑Lambiam 13:05, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

What do you mean by "modified"? 12:07, 16 August 2026 (UTC)←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→

If there was some well-known place named "Jwjw", pronounced / ˈtʃu.tʃu/, it would be a good alternative meetup place for our four friends. -- Lambiam

A tʃu.tʃu in Beijing, as opposed to a tʃuattanooga tʃu.tʃu. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:52, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

As the sentence is in English, it would appear that Beijing doesn't have a unique pronunciation for "J". I tried to look up the pronnciation on Wiktionary, but it was only listing Pinyin, not IPA. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:44, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

To be too extremely literal, adding our old friend JJ to the list adds "the letter J pronounced as a syllable" to your repertojre.

And with the right speaker of Spanish, you could get a null pronunciation of j at the end of "reloj". TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 00:52, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Questions

1. Does Spanish have any verbs endimg in -ier or -uer?
2. Does any other language than English ever place any terminal punctuation that is not part of the quote within the quotation marks?
3. Is there any Romance language that uses both the letters Ç and Ñ?
4. Are the letters J, K, W, X and Y ever included in the Italian alphabet?
5. Why does Italian not use the letter J in native words?
6. In any language where letter W is ”double V”, is there a name for the letter V when there is a need to differentiate it from the letter W, like ”single V”? In Finnish, there is yksöisvee, but are there any such names in any other languages?
7. Can personal and place names in the US contain diacritics, especially the letters not used in Western European languages such as Š, Ł and Ż? --40bus (talk) 12:49, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

   2. Not all Englishes do that, and neither does en-Wikipedia. See Quotation marks in English § Order of punctuation and MOS:LOGICAL. Bazza 7 (talk) 13:13, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

1. No.

2. Do you mean like "He said this and that and ..."?

5. Have you asked the people who invented Italian?

7. Possibly. You could start with List of U.S. cities with diacritics.

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:17, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

2. In older German typography we can see, for example, »Ich bin doch fertig,« sagte Karl, ... . In older French books, we often find not only the comma inside the quotation marks, but even the phrase with the inverted verb of utterance. So instead of « Ah oui, » disait-il, « bien sûr! », we get « Ah oui, disait-il, bien sûr! ».  ​‑‑Lambiam 14:09, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

5 (ok, this is, as often from me, not really an answer, but ...) Though a proper noun, so maybe not a 'word', the famous exception to your rule is Jesolo. ---Sluzzelin talk 16:13, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

In that case, Juventus is probably more famous. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:38, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

6. Not really exactly what you are asking, but in German it's W that is pronounced simply "ve". The letter V is pronounced "fau". JIP | Talk 17:11, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

"Enkel-v" ("Single-v") is occasionally used in Swedish. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:38, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

4. I found the loanwords jeans, kilowatt, (tele)fax and yoga. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:52, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

4. For verbs specifically, this question was asked on May 18, for which I gave 30 examples for the letters K, W, X, and Y. Similarly, I believe question 5 has been asked before but I've not yet looked for when specifically. GalacticShoe (talk) 18:42, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

This being summer, the OP seems to be in rerun season. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:35, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

7. If you mean legally recognised names, I can't speak to personal names, but if I remember rightly, the United States Board on Geographic Names didn't accept ñ names for a long time. However, if that were the case at one point, it's no longer true; the GNIS depicts a Colorado city as "Cañon City". Unfortunately I can't figure out how to provide a link to its entry; they used to have a simple website, but I can't even figure out get search results from the search interface. You can see this by going to https://edits.nationalmap.gov/apps/gaz-domestic/public/search/names and going to 38.4252856, -105.2522850, in the mountains southwest of Colorado Springs. Nyttend (talk) 20:48, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

The GNIS entry is here. The last sentence of the lead of Cañon City, Colorado lists other U.S. settlements containing a tilde. Deor (talk) 23:49, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

I'll reach through the screen and give you some gianduja, if you agree to take back item 5. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 00:35, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

3. Yes, all of them do, to enable them to ask question 3 of each other. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 01:10, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

German T-V distinction

You are taken prisoner by force, and someone comes to you and says Ich dein Herr; du meine Sklavinn; ich befehle, du musst gehorchen! You reply Deine Sklavinn? ich deine Sklavinn! Aside from the obvious scorn, is the use of "deine" intended to be offensively familiar, using a T genetive instead of a V genetive option (which a slave would normally use with her master), or is "deine" the only word that could be used here? Elsewhere in this 18th-century context, we see courtly language such as Wer so viel Huld vergessen kann, den seh' man mit Verachtung an. Note that T-V distinction#German is minimal, concentrates on the recent, and has no citations. Nyttend (talk) 20:39, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

I don't think it's meant to be bluntly offensive. The use of du here refuses submission and expresses (at least) equality of rank. --Wrongfilter (talk) 20:51, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

Confused, where does she say "du"? I'm asking about the "deine". Nyttend (talk) 21:02, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

Same thing, just a different case. --Wrongfilter (talk) 21:06, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

So the German is a quote from the opera? I mostly noted the bad "Tarzan-like" grammar. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:12, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

Which also leads to the obvious conclusion, if this is pidgin-like master-slave communication, it'd be no wonder that subtlieties such as the T-V distinction would get lost. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:24, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

[ec] Sorry, Wrongfilter, I knew that it was a different case of the same pronoun, but I thought you were reacting to the "du" in the first statement. And yes, Wakuran, these are quotes from the opera; see for the libretto, and you'll see that she's outright rejecting subservient speech. Fuller quote: Osmin says Ey seht doch mal, was das Mädchen vorschreiben kann! Zärtlichkeit! Schmeicheln! - Es ist mir wie pure Zärtlichkeit! - Wer Teufel hat dir das Zeug in Kopf gesetzt? - Hier sind wir in der Türkey, und da gehts aus einem andern Tone. Ich dein Herr; du meine Sklavinn; ich befehle, du musst gehorchen! and Blonde replies Deine Sklavinn? ich deine Sklavinn! - Ha! ein Mädchen eine Sklavinn! Noch einmal sag mir das, noch einmal! A few seconds later she says Ich bin eine Engländerinn, zur Freyheit gebohren, but she has speeches of significant length. None of the characters is from a German-speaking region — the villains are Turks, and the rest seem to be Spanish ("Mein Name ist Lostados") — but I get the impression that they all speak fluent German. Nyttend (talk) 22:37, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

Not only do they speak fluent German, but they are also remarkably capable singers!  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:41, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

I think his grammar is intended as part of portraying him as a clumsy barbarian. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 00:00, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Curious, if we imagine one 18th-century cultured German telling another "I'm your master, and you're my slave", how would it be written? Just throw in verbs? I always assumed that it was meant to be blunt, somewhat on the level of "When I sit you shall sit; when I kneel you shall kneel; etc etc etc". Elsewhere, this character (Osmin) has plenty of speeches, and I'd be surprised if he were intended to be portrayed as linguistically clumsy. Nyttend (talk) 01:31, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Neither Osmin's nor Blonde's speech strikes me as clumsy or substandard. To me this looks pretty much like a commonplace way of representing just fluent and possibly colloquial spoken language. Both Blonde and Osmin belong to the "low" social stratum of the play (the servants and hence "comic" roles), so they get some more of this colloquial style of talk, where elliptical utterances are common, as opposed to the more elevated registers used by the "serious"/"high" characters. That brings me back to the original question of the T/V distinction. Across the play you can find a consistent pattern here: among the "Western" characters (Belmonte, Constanze, Pedrillo, Blonde), a standard modern German T/V distinction is applied, insofar as the "low" characters (Pedrillo, Blonde) address the "high" characters (Belmonte, Constanze) with Sie, and all other pairs (high addressing low, and the lovers addressing each other) use du. Whenever one of the "Turkish" characters is involved (Osmin, Selim), everybody uses du throughout, independent of social direction. So the du here is not primarily a sign of refusal of respect (because it's also seen, for instance, when Belmonte addresses Selim in a situation of utmost respect, when he has been captured and is emphatically submitting to Selim's sovereign authority), nor is it a sign of lack of linguistic competence (because it's also seen between Osmin and Selim, servant addressing master in presumably a same-native-language situation). My intuition (for which I don't have a source, unfortunately, is that it's more about marking the "Turkish" sphere in the play as somehow "foreign"/"exotic"/"archaic", a world outside and beyond the conventions of normal modern Western discourse, where therefore the T/V pattern is suspended. (There is a single interesting breach of this pattern, right at the end, where suddenly Selim addresses Constanze with Sie, the moment he has freed her.) Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:37, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

My impression is that the librettist lets Osmin use Tarzan-Sprache, just here, to have him emphasize the point of his message.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:12, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Not my impression (as a native German speaker with reasonable familiarity with 18th-century stage language). Note how Blonde echoes Osmin's statement in her immediate reply ("Deine Sklavinn? ich deine Sklavinn! - Ha!"), and in this rhetorical context the same elliptical construction would actually work just as well in English ("Me, your slave?!") Neither of these is nonstandard or deliberately ungrammatical; it's just rhetorical ellipsis. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:49, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you for including the full quote. It really shows her angriness and sarcasm. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:23, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Latin motto

I've been looking at a Latin motto that I'm certain has been translated wrong. I haven't been able to find the motto's ultimate origin, and I guess that makes it more likely that the Latin itself might be clumsy or incorrect. A current user of this motto is the Senate of the Philippines.

"Leges servatae pax fiat" has been (mis?)translated as "Law serves peace, let it be done". (I did a search for different or better translations, but found no others.) I'm not good at Latin, but I thought this seemed quite wrong, and when I saw that "servatae" means "kept" I figured the whole thing might mean something similar to (raw words) "laws kept peace creates" or (smoother) "Maintaining the laws makes peace". I can't really tell if I'm on the right track, but I think I got closer than the person before me. :)

I'm hoping someone knows where this originally came from, or can set me straight on what it's really supposed to mean. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 23:46, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

I'd translate it literally as "Let laws observed make for peace", but I don't know where it "originally came from". Deor (talk) 23:58, 16 August 2026 (UTC)

Thanks!

Sometimes mottos are copied from some known source, a classical author or whatever. This one probably isn't, but my intention was "if someone recognizes this, please say so". TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 00:08, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

It's syntactically a "nominativus absolutus", a mostly non-classical, Late Latin construction – the main clause is "pax fiat" ('let there be peace'), and "leges servatae" ('laws [being] served') is an adjunct of vague/undefined logical relation with the main clause. So you could render it near-literally as "with the laws kept, may there be peace", or maybe more freely as "let there be peace as the laws are kept". Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:21, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

If that is the intention, it is still dog Latin. Proper Latin would use an absolute ablative, although even so it would not be proper here for any plausibly intended semantic content of the phrase.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:46, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Thank you. Based on this observation of yours, I think the ideal way of resolving this particular motto (besides just making a better one) would be to find out who wrote it and what they hoped it meant, and to make that the "official mistranslation" as it were. I don't know whether such information was ever published, but it's worth a try.

I just realized that that might be exactly what already happened, and the originator was even less familiar with Latin than I am. A bit frightening somehow. :) TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 17:28, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

If "laws observed" is the subject, the verb should be plural. "To make" in Latin is the verb facio, of which the third-person plural present active subjunctive is faciant. The Latin verb form fiat is the subjunctive third-person singular present active subjunctive of fio, "to become", but is used suppletively to serve as the third-person singular present passive subjunctive of facio.

Both leges servatae and pax can only be in the nominative or vocative case. I think we can exclude the vocative, so they have both to be grammatical subjects. But there is only one verb form, and in Latin grammar there is only room for one subject per verb form, so, as presented, the sentence is ungrammatical. A "proper" translation should preserve the ungrammaticality. These are my top two candidates: May laws maintained becomes peace, and Let laws maintained peace be made. (All your base are belong to us, so you better peace be made.)  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:40, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

fiat is the 3sg praesens coniunctivus of fieri, which can be used as "to become", a copula. Copulae are connected to two nominativi. The singular pax must be the subject. It not only means "peace", but can sometimes also be translated as "grace" or "mercy". So we could translate this as "Let mercy become observed laws." That is, let there be rule of law, so that our lives be protected by the law and not only by the mercy of some autocrat. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:01, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

August 17

Inuit word for ‘if’

Can someone provide me with a word for ‘if, supposing that’ in some Inuit language (Eskimo, Inuktitut, etc)? I can’t for the life of me find one on Wiktionary. Thanks! Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) In solidarity. 02:02, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Self-correction: by ‘Eskimo’ (which I realize as a language family contains linguistic subdivisions like Inuit and Yupik) I meant the Yupik languages. Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) In solidarity. 02:27, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

I suspect (but can't prove) that some modification is done to other words to make them conditional, rather than having a certain word for "if" TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 02:52, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

That would make sense given the polysynthetic nature of those languages. If this is true, I’d appreciate if anyone could explain what the sort of modification is. Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) In solidarity. 02:57, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

In Central Alaskan Yupʼik, the conditional mood is indicated by -k(u). For Inuktitut, the situation seems more complicated; I cannot disentangle the compositions given in the section Inuit grammar § Conditional & subjunctive (and what is the meaning of 4sg???).  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:35, 17 August 2026 (UTC) (Disclaimer: my knowledge of the Eskaleut languages is confined to what I've read here on Wikipedia.)

(Not regarding the main issue of this question, but the "4sg" thing is explained, for Inuit, in Inuit grammar § Fourth person inflection and also, for Yup'ik, in Central Alaskan Yupʼik § Co-reference across clauses. Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:48, 17 August 2026 (UTC))

Thanks. Is it me, or are "before-3sg" and "before-4sg" swapped in the example sentences (3) and (4) of Central Alaskan Yupʼik § Co-reference across clauses? (It will be easier on the reader, after fixing this, to swap (3) and (4).)  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:05, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

The Eskimos use 500 words for "if"! 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:27, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

"As per"

Hi all, am I alone in detesting this phrase, which I am coming across more and more frequently? I quote from Pannonhalma Archabbey#Events: "In July 2011, the heart of former Crown Prince of Austria and Hungary Otto von Habsburg was buried in Pannonhalma Archabbey, as per tradition."

I changed this to "according to tradition" before checking the ref, which reads (last line): "He will be buried in the Habsburg family crypt in Vienna; in line with family tradition, his heart will be buried in Hungary." Which technically qualifies for a since it doesn't specifically mention the abbey.

I realise this usage has an ancient lineage - I recently came across a broadsheet printed before 1400, very roughly "...the work to be finished and printed per Geoffrey Chaucer." Nevertheless, is "as per" even encyclopedic language, or mere lazy business jargon, "as per your last email?" MinorProphet (talk) 15:38, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

The phrase "as per" is overused by LLM text generation (similar to overuse of the emdash). So, LLM generated text will include "as per" far more often than human-generated text. This does NOT mean that humans never type out "as per" or even that humans never go through the trouble of using an emdash instead of a hyphen. (I personally detest the constant argument that "Humans can use emdash too, so it doesn't mean anything about LLM usage!") Expect to see "as per" far more often in Wikipedia. It won't be long before we can use watermarks to show that most new Wikipedia edits are performed by LLMs. ~2026-41824-87 (talk) 16:45, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

Since "per" basically means "by", the "as" makes "as per" kind of redundant. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:12, 17 August 2026 (UTC)

References