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May 18

It's I or It's me??

Nobody says "It's I" in everyday talk (except when referring to the phrase, of course.) We all say, "It's me." But a few (not many) sources say that although "It's me" is standard, "It's him/her/them" is not so widely accepted. Any experience anyone has with sources that talk about inconsistency on whether it's acceptable to use an object pronoun after is?? Georgia guy (talk) 01:28, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It may be helpful to clarify concepts and to get terms right before proceeding. Putting aside commonness of use, "naturalness", etc, "It's I/me/he/him/she/her/they/them" are all grammatical. In this construction, "I/me/he/him/she/her/they/them" are clause complements, but they're not objects. (The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language calls them predicative complements.) Four of them ("I", etc) are nominative, four ("me", etc) are accusative. -- Hoary (talk) 01:57, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language deals with this on page 459, where it makes no distinction between (a) the choice between "I" and "me" in this construction, and (b) the choice between any other nominative/accusative pair (e.g. "he" and "him") in the same construction. It would be fairly easy to check for yourself in COCA; just remember to put a space before the apostrophe (thus COCA serves me 28 tokens of [case-insensitive] "it's I who" when I ask it for it 's i who). -- Hoary (talk) 02:14, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I think you'd have to say "It is I", without the contraction, if you're going to be that formal. Might affect your COCA results.

I always thought that was a hypercorrection, based on Latin grammar, but I don't really know. "It's me" might be influenced by French c'est moi, where "me" plays the role of the emphatic pronoun that moi plays in French. Thus also "it's him" for c'est lui. (Who is it? Me. Who did it? Him.) But again, just guessing. — kwami (talk) 08:50, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Who did it? — Him" is not acceptable (to me). "Who did it? — It wasn't me, it was him", however, is acceptable. --Lambiam 20:39, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Joseph Emonds argued in 1986 in Grammatically Deviant Prestige Constructions that English no longer has "subject" and "object" pronouns but rather a set of pronouns (the traditionally "subject" ones) which are used only in certain restricted syntactic contexts, and another set (the "object" ones) used everywhere else.

However there is a "prestige" version of English which can be propagated only by didactic teaching, because it calls on a property (grammatical case) which is no longer alive in English and difficult for people to learn unless they have knowledge of at least one language where it survives. This hypothesis also accounts for the prevalence of "hypercorrection". ColinFine (talk) 22:39, 18 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ColinFine, what are these "restricted syntactic contexts"?? I would guess this means a non-compound subject where the verb that it's the subject of is included and not simply "understood"; for example, "He is taller than I am" as opposed to "He is taller than I." (Other than, of course, "who"; which is now standard everywhere except after a preposition.) 22:54, 18 May 2023 (UTC)Georgia guy (talk)[reply]

The use of "I" in "between you and I" deviates from Emonds' basic rule but can hardly be considered prestigious.^[1] --Lambiam 06:52, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

From whence does this Edmonds guy derive his authority? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:39, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from whence he got his PhD in linguistics in 1970: [2]. Wikipedia doesn't have an article on him, but he does seem to have many well-cited papers in the field of English Linguistics, many of which seem to be focused on grammar: [3]. --Jayron 32 16:28, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The answer is it depends on whether one considers the use of "is" in this sentences as a copula (linking the second word to the first) or acting as a verb meaning "to exist as". A copula does not have an object, it has a Subject complement, which generally takes the nominative (subject) form. So "It is I" is fine. If you are using the form of "to be" to mean "to exists as", then it takes a normal object, and the object form "It is me" is also fine. The article and section Subject complement#Disputed pronoun forms notes that this dispute is quite old, and not fully resolved. Moral of the story: Do whatever you want; there's a grammatical rule that you can use to justify it either way. --Jayron 32 16:23, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"It's me" is standard? No. It is wrong, strictly speaking, non-standard: if it were otherwise, "me cringed", would be standard. Is "is" in "It is me" really used for "I exist as I"? No. But "It's me" is OK for a great number of people, so what?--Ralfdetlef (talk) 16:34, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Where can we find more about this standard? Has it been published? --Lambiam 18:31, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Subject complement#Disputed pronoun forms and Oblique case#English and Existential clause is not as sure about this as you are. But it's good to know that your self-righteousness is enough to override all of the hundreds of trained grammarians, linguists, lexicographers, and other experts on English grammar. --Jayron 32 16:54, 19 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This has been answered a couple of times now, But apparently not understood. I believe that this is because English speakers typically do not do formal grammar in English class. That is why "it is I" sounds wrong; in casual spoken English "it's me" is more common by a couple of orders of magnitude. "Is" in this case describes "it" but does not denote it as an object of the verb. For example in the sentence "he gave it to me" it is the direct object (described above as accusative) and "me" is the indirect object. That is not what "It's me" is doing. Nothing is happening to "me"; it simply is. But if the verb is anything other than "is" then "I" is wrong. For example "He has me" is intuitively correct, right? Also "he came with me"; "he has I" and "he came with I" are just silly, and that is because in those sentences "me" is a direct and indirect object respectively. And yes, this is because German has declensions. Hopefully restating it in a less technical manner will make it easier for monolinguals to understand. Elinruby (talk) 03:41, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Who is the arbiter of what is right or wrong? English is not German, and what is true for German grammar may not hold for English grammar. --Lambiam 17:48, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Depends on the langage who is the arbiter. I am not interested enough in this question to source it, but there is no question that English is the product of a collision between Germanic and Romance languages, that German has declensions and that the reason "it is I" is correct and "it is me", however frequent its use in casual spoken English, is Simply Wrong is that the verb "to be" calls for the nominative and not the accusative. If you really want to nail this down I am sure it is fully explained in an apprendix to the OED for example. That is pretty much the level of source it would take to convince me that "it's me" is now considered correct in formal written English. But sure, it is much-used in casual speech, if that is your point. Elinruby (talk) 04:01, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, the point is the assignment of the label "Simply Wrong". Who is to decide that? The present indicative third person singular of English words takes an -s suffix, so someone could claim that "he can" is Simply Wrong because it should be "he cans", however much-used "he can" is by speakers who do not understand grammar. Anybody can say that something is Simply Wrong, and in fact there is no lack of self-proclaimed linguistic experts who are ready to proscribe certain common language uses. To label a use as wrong we need a more objective standard. For your information, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, writes this about the issue in its first chapter, Preliminaries:

It has been a common assumption of prescriptivists that only formal style is grammatically correct. ... The standard language embraces a range of styles, from formal through neutral to informal. A satisfactory grammar must describe them all. It is not that formal style keeps to the rules and informal style departs from them; rather, formal and informal styles have partially different rules. ... Confusing informality with ungrammaticality again, a strong prescriptivist tradition says that only [It is I] is grammatical. The accusative me is claimed to be the case of the direct object, as in It hurt me, but in [It is I v. It's me] the noun phrase after the verb is a predicative complement. In Latin, predicative complements take nominative, the same case as the subject. An assumption is being made that English grammar too requires nominative case for predicative complements. Use of the accusative me is regarded as a departure from the rules of grammar.
The mistake here, of course, is to assume that what holds in Latin grammar has to hold for English. English grammar differs on innumerable points from Latin grammar; there is no reason in principle why the assignment of case to predicative complements should not be one of them. After all, English is very different from Latin with respect to case: the nominative–accusative contrast applies to only a handful of pronouns (rather than to the full class of nouns, as in Latin). The right way to describe the present situation in Standard English (unlike Latin) is that with the pronouns that have a nominative–accusative case distinction, the choice between the cases for a predicative complement noun phrase varies according to the style level: the nominative is noticeably formal, the accusative is more or less neutral and always used in informal contexts.

--Lambiam 18:50, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I was trying to explain it without using the terminology as the repeated questioning of it led me to believe that the wording of the answer was the source of some confusion. Certainly the The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language said it better than I did, sure; I did not learn about grammar in a class taught in English. However, your quote is a bit of a straw man as I have no clue about Latin. What I said was that English has DNA from both German and French. French does not have declensions, although some of its complicated rules about the dependencies of adjective spelling are similar. German does, but avoids the entire issue with "ich bin es". If your point is that "widely accepted in casual speech" means "is now correct in formal written English"... ok, fine. I disagree but fwiw on Wikipedia I would probably avoid the construction simply to avoid arguing this point ;) Elinruby (talk) 04:50, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

An argument does not become a straw man by dint of the recipient being clueless. Furthermore, it is easy to see that "It is I" is also Simply Wrong. Since the sentence states that the subject "is I", and "I" is the first person, the subject is the first person. So by subject-verb agreement (and inversion of "I am it"), the only grammatically Correct response is "It am I". :) --Lambiam 05:50, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

May 20

Use of K for C

Is the substitution of K for C a particularly American thing (Ku Klux Klan, Rice Krispies)? We have Kwik Fit in the UK, but it was founded in the 1970s. Ericoides (talk) 07:13, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, Ericoides. Satiric misspelling may give you some clues. Another factor is that there is ambiguity in the pronuciation of C, which can be pronounced with either a K sound or an S sound, or as various other sounds when paired with H, for example. Using K makes the pronunciation less ambiguous. Creative misspelling for commercial and political purposes has a long history. Krispy Kreme doughnuts go back to 1937. Cuban newspapers 50 years ago adopted the spelling Amerikkka. Black nationalists have sometimes used the spelling Afrika, as in Republic of New Afrika, founded in 1968. The Simpsons TV franchise has included a fictional convenience store called Kwik-E-Mart since 1990. Real life equivalents include Kwik Trip, founded in 1965 and Kwik Shop, founded in 1959. Kool-Aid was founded in 1927 and the Kool (cigarette) brand goes back to 1933. Kool & the Gang is an R&B/soul band founded in 1964. Here is an article about creative misspelling in naming startup companies. This article argues that it may be a bad strategy. This article discusses theoretical reasons why so many brand names start with K. As for whether this an "American" thing, I do not really know. Cullen328 (talk) 10:35, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Jim. I didn't know about that page, helpful! Ericoides (talk) 04:41, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"One [reason] is that you want it to be memorable. So that can be a letter effect, like in the old brands like Xerox and Kodak, using two x’s, two k’s, those are very memorable. Then you want it to be meaningful. So if you do something like Cheez-It, then it describes the product, and it’s meaningful in that context. And the last one, which is becoming really important today, is that you want it to be [legally] protectable". Sanjay Sood, a professor of marketing at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management - Understanding the terrible spelling and punctuation in corporate names

One example of well-established deviant spelling in British brand names is Start-rite, a brand adopted in 1921 and the shoes worn by generations of royal children, despite the awful orthography.

Alansplodge (talk) 10:28, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Brand names often have purposeful misspellings, since you can't trademark a common word. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:02, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Ku Klux Klan is a special case, both because it is older than any of the other examples we are discussing, and because of its origins. The "Ku Klux" part is cod Greek, supposed to represent kuklos or kyklos for "circle". Like almost all American secret organizations, the terms and rituals of the Klan were a mixture of bastardized Masonic forms, college fraternities and generic mystic mumbo-jumbo picked up from everywhere, aimed in this case to terrorize the supposedly superstitious freed ex-slaves. The original KKK just took it over the top, with officeholders using terms like "Grand Wizard", "Grand Dragon", Titans, Furies, Giants, Ghouls, Cyclops, Centaurs, etc. The 1920s version instead went K-Krazy, with its "bible" being called the Kloran (i.e., Koran) and titles including Klaliff – vice president (from bailiff); Klokard – lecturer (from Kloran and kard, meaning "teacher"); Kludd – chaplain (from Culdee); Kligrapp – secretary (from chirographer); Klabee – treasurer (supposedly derived from kaba, "to keep", and kees, an Egyptian coin); Kladd – "conductor", in charge of initiating new members; Klarogo – inner guard, sergeant-at-arms (from caveo and "interrogate"); and Klexter – outer guard (from ken and "external"). --Orange Mike | Talk 16:55, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Why didn't they use Klutz for a member? --Lambiam 17:43, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That would be for the guy who tried to set a cross on fire and ignited himself in the process. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:14, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Lambiam -- You do know that "klutz" is a Yiddish word? Somehow I doubt that the Klan was big on Yiddish... AnonMoos (talk) 21:16, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Blak has become a common self identification word for some Australian Aboriginal people. Though I guess it can be argued that they are simply leaving out the letter c. HiLo48 (talk)

When are halves plural, and why?

A half an ounce
Point 5 of an ounce

BUT

Point 5 ounces.

Why does the last version take a plural? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:05, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Because "plural" forms in English (and I suspect other languages, but I'm not sure) are not used for numbers more than one: they are used for numbers that aren't one. Linguistically, there is no counting involved: there is one form for "one", and another for anything else. ColinFine (talk) 09:13, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it should. I suspect it's because of a misapprehension that units appearing directly after a number which is not 1 must be plural, regardless of their actual value.

Are you suggesting "Take point five ounce of this magic potion"? These days, that should pose no problem for the "eight mile", "fifty cent" etc crowd, but the rest of us would be a bit bewildered (as well as bewitched and bothered). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:38, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

To answer the section title question: "halves" can be plural when there are more than one of them: "Two halves of bitter, please". (Although why anyone might want to ask for that is beyond me.) Bazza (talk) 09:14, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Plural § Usage of the plural states that English tends to use the plural with decimal fractions; there is no reference for this. English plurals § Decimals are always plural goes further and authoritatively states that decimals are always plural (even 1.0); again, no references to back this up (notice added to article). Bazza (talk) 09:26, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This old ref-desk thread may be of interest. Deor (talk) 10:13, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Hurrah" stays the same; "hurray" becomes "hooray"

A famous interjection has 2 forms. Historically they were hurrah and hurray, but later hurrah stayed the same in spelling, but hurray became hooray. Why the inconsistency?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:46, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The forms hoorah and hurray are both in use;^[4] they are just less common. In the 19th century hurrah was comparatively far more popular than today,^[5] but the order of popularity of the four forms stayed the same. --Lambiam 18:05, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OED says "In English the form hurrah is literary and dignified; hooray is usual in popular acclamation." DuncanHill (talk) 18:34, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oorah is the variant used in the United States Marine Corps. There is a lot of discussion of word origins in that article. Cullen328 (talk) 18:37, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There's also ulla, but the chances of anyone using that are a million to one. DuncanHill (talk) 21:37, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ulla-la! 136.54.99.98 (talk) 04:40, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Whoop Dee Doo, more reading. Incidentally, we should perhaps have an actual article on that exclamation (which I sometimes use, but with an inclusion emphasising sarcasm), since the first 5 linked subjects in the list presumably derive from it, although the last three have no rationale I can see, and the first leads to a circular link. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.210.77 (talk) 14:07, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Reminds me also of Hosanna. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:46, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding "Why the inconsistency??" All human language, everywhere, always and for all time, is rife with inconsistencies. If you expect otherwise, you're in for a lot of disappointment. --Jayron 32 16:46, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some questions

Are there any abbreviations in English which are pronounced as words, like FIFA as /faɪ.fə/ and SUV as /sʌv/?
Are there any languages which contrast palatal consonants with both velar and uvular consonants in same manner of articulation?
Is there any Romance language with morphological passive voice?
Is there any language with more than 10 cases which contains vocative case?
Are there any Spanish varieties which have still retained contrast with /v/ and /b/ sounds?
Are there any words in French where the plural suffix -s is pronounced?
Is "want" in sentence I want to buy an auxiliary verb? In my methodology, an "auxiliary verb" is a verb which can come before infinitive, whether preceded by to or not.
Are there any verbs in English that have a negative -n't morpheme when used as a main verb (withouth the infinitive)?

--40bus (talk) 18:29, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding your first question, NASA immediately comes to mind. Cullen328 (talk) 18:32, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The acronym FISA is usually pronounced "fye-za". Cullen328 (talk) 18:39, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

8: Forms of to be when used as the copula ("He isn't rich," "We weren't young any more," etc.). Deor (talk) 19:53, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

40bus -- There are whole lists at Acronym#Comparing_a_few_examples_of_each_type... AnonMoos (talk) 19:22, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have never heard SUV pronounced as a word, btw. —Tamfang (talk) 00:07, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

5: Ladino language

While Spanish pronounces both b and v as /b/ ([b] or [β]), Judeo-Spanish distinguishes between the two with b representing [b~β] and v representing [v]: bivir /biˈviɾ/ ('to live')

No reference, though.

es:Variedad del idioma español en territorios catalanófonos

En los lugares donde se conserva el fonema [v] en catalán, tanto en valenciano como en balear, también se transfiere esta diferencia en castellano entre b [b]/[β] y v [v] a las palabras cognadas.

No reference, again.

--Error (talk) 00:47, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

es:Español norteño mexicano:

/f/ seguida de /w/ pronunciada como bilabial y a veces sonorizada.

I am not sure if this is what you ask.

Sabine River Spanish:

The labiodental fricative allophone [v], according to Pratt (2000), typically corresponds to a written, etymological ⟨v⟩, but it can be realized when pronouncing other words as well.[30][31] /b/ is often elided when it's before another consonant, as in obtuvo [oˈtuvo] 'obtained'. It's also frequently elided in también 'also', typically pronounced [taˈmjen].[31] /b/ is occasionally pronounced as a velar fricative [ɣ] when before [o] or [u].[32]

About 6: I think the s in les is pronounced as /z/ before vowels, but I don't speak French.

--Error (talk) 00:59, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

6: mœurs, always plural [[6]]. Note that the final s may not be pronounced. All the words with a final s that are pronounced in singular form: [un/des] autobus, [un/des] couscous, [une/des] vis... – AldoSyrt (talk) 07:07, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(8). I haven't a clue. (That's an example, not my answer). —Mahāgaja · talk 11:33, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Can the /ts/ sound occur in consonant clusters in Slavic languages? --40bus (talk) 18:43, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

40bus -- Very frequently when the "reflexive" suffix (which can have other meanings) is added onto third-person Russian verbs. Through quick Google searching, I turned up Ona odevaetsya "She dresses herself"... AnonMoos (talk) 19:26, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There are Russian words beginning цв. —Tamfang (talk) 00:07, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"scarce" pronounced with the vowel of "air"

Is there any other English word, spelled with the cluster of letters: {ar + consonant}, the "ar" being pronounced like "air"? 2A06:C701:747E:2A00:3195:16BF:DA2:2FA2 (talk) 21:59, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This page has scarce. adversarial. aquarium. arbitrary. area. barbarian. There may be many others but they haven't been discairvered (apologies to everyone, especially Tom Lehrer). Alansplodge (talk) 23:25, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Further apologies, I now see that you specified that the vowel sound shold be followed by a consonant. This page says: Medially before a consonant, only in scarce, scarcity. So apparently no. Alansplodge (talk) 23:32, 20 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, no matter how it's spelled, it's very rare for the SQUARE vowel to be followed by a consonant within the same morpheme. Scarce is one of the few examples; others are laird (a loanword from Scots) and the name Baird. Otherwise usually the only time this vowel is followed by a consonant is when an ending or a clitic is added to word ending in this vowel, as in scared, airs, Blair's etc. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:39, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

AirBnb. Airforce. Fairly. Cairn. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:21, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please notice I've only asked about words spelled with the cluster of letters: {ar + consonant}. I didn't ask about words spelled with the cluster of letters {air + consonant}, because there are a lot of such words, e.g. pairs, hairs, fairs, and the like. 2A06:C701:747B:E700:B863:B7A0:D2E1:34AE (talk) 11:10, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

May 21

Abandoned

The traditional meaning of "gay" is now a lifeless corpse, never to be revived. It is used three times in the article The Beaux' Stratagem and we of an earlier generation understand its intent perfectly, but is there a single word substitute that captures its meaning? Doug butler (talk) 02:23, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note that it was used for promiscuity for hundreds of years.[7] That link has some synonyms for what you're calling the traditional meaning: full of joy, merry, light-hearted, carefree. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:12, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In the specific context of that article, may I suggest 'carefree'? Shells-shells (talk) 03:18, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

… which I see is one of the synonyms given above. Although, thinking about it some more, it does not really capture the somewhat transgressive, rakish connotations of the word 'gay'. Shells-shells (talk) 03:22, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That would be the other set of synonyms: wanton, lewd, lascivious. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:32, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The first "gay" is superfluous ("gay London friends"), the second could be replaced with "lively" or "wanton", depending on the degree of debauchery of the life lived in London is supposed to be, and the third is in quotes, so sacrosanct. Clarityfiend (talk) 13:57, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Lively" is better; these are characters that may have inhabited a P. G. Wodehouse novel - golden boys and girls.

Resolved

Doug butler (talk) 23:59, 21 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

May 22

Pronouns with 2 possible referents

Let's examine this statement:

Mary hugged Sally after she came home from school.

Who do you think is the referent of the word she?? It would be nice if we could re-word this statement so there are no pronouns with unclear referents. Here it can be:

Mary hugged Sally after Sally came home from school.

This is clearly unambiguous.

Does Wikipedia have an article that talks about using pronouns with unclear referents?? (That is, it is unclear who the referent of the pronoun is.) Georgia guy (talk) 01:14, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It could also be "Mary hugged Sally after Mary came home from school". The original sentence as stated lacks a context. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:17, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Georgia_guy -- We have articles Antecedent (grammar), Anaphora (linguistics), and Coreference... AnonMoos (talk) 03:51, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The statement can be made unambiguous by using the former / the latter, but this makes it sound rather bookish. Without context my first guess would be Sally. Here we have "she did say that Lily seemed really troubled after she came home from the youth group retreat." While not unequivocally unambiguous, any reader will interpret this as she referring to Lily. --Lambiam 10:15, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia has an article on ambiguous grammar (which frankly I find rather unhelpful). The best solution to this type of problem is usually to start again by re-parsing the sentence, e.g. separating it into two unambiguous phrases: Sally arrived home from school and Mary gave her a hug. Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:25, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe syntactic ambiguity is a better fit (I only found this after looking up Eats, Shoots & Leaves). Alansplodge (talk) 20:13, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Shantavira -- That article is about the mathematics of computer parsing, not human language at all. However, as soon as computers could begin to parse human languages, they discovered that many English sentences have a large number of theoretically-possible parsings which humans would usually not even notice. This is summed up by the slogan, "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a bananana"... AnonMoos (talk) 21:14, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Are you channelling Nanny Ogg? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.210.77 (talk) 00:20, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I never heard of that character. However, the aphorism "Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a bananana" originated in the context of early 1960s machine translation research. AnonMoos (talk) 20:27, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Read slowly and carefully what you wrote. --Lambiam 14:51, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Could a Norwegian speaker please translate eMMa's newest music video into English? Title: Over Deg

I can't find a translation for Emma Gunnarsen's newest music video "Over Deg." She's a singer who is the little sister of Marcus and Martinus.

Can someone here please translate it? Tusen takk.

Over Deg --E.N.G. (talk) 06:28, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, even though my father is Norwegian, I find her Eastern Elverum dialect a bit difficult to parse. I'll probably need a written source of the original Norwegian to begin with. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:58, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Since nobody else here is coming up with a translation, can you send the video link to your father and ask him to send back a translation? --E.N.G. (talk) 22:09, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, he's too busy for that. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:08, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Translation of Latin text

Can somebody please give (or find elsewhere) a translation of the medieval English coronation oath as reported by Henry de Bracton. Not a machine translation please, I can manage that myself.

Imprimis se esse precepturum et pro viribus opem impensurum ut ecclesie Dei et omni populo christiano vera pax omni suo tempore observetur. Secundo, ut rapacitates et omnes iniquitates omnibus gradibus interdicat. Tertio, ut in omnibus iudiciis equitatem precipiat misericordiam, ut indulgeat ei sua misericordia clemens et misericors Deus, et ut per iustitiam suam firma pace gaudeant universi.

Thank you. Alansplodge (talk) 13:56, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

First of all it is going to be mutually foreseen and through his powers the power to ~~that~~ help is going to be ~~taught and~~ weighed out ~~for men~~ that in the church of God and in all Christian people true peace in all its time may be observed. Secondly, that he forbids rapacities and all inequalities in all degrees. Thirdly, that in all judicial proceedings he may teach equity and mercy so that clement and merciful God may indulge him in his mercy and so that through his firm justice they may rejoice in universal peace. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C3:9900:9401:E8AF:39ED:B3E4:5A73 (talk) 18:37, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There's a 19th-century translation by Sir Travers Twiss here, pp. 171, 173. --Antiquary (talk) 19:06, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you both most kindly. I may amalgamate the two. Alansplodge (talk) 20:07, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

There was a regrettable error in translation - viribus relates to power, not "men" (which is a second declension noun) just as equitatem relates to equity and not "cavalry" (which is also a second declension noun) as rendered by Google Translate. 2A00:23C3:9900:9401:710D:785E:8A3F:F1E (talk) 10:24, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Swedish Who's Who

I have found an entry for Ulla Westermark on page 492 of Vem är hon 1988, https://books.google.com/books?id=g6wZAAAAYAAJ, which says "G 52 förf Per Westermark , 29 , d 54". I believe that means Married 1952 writer Per Westermark, born 1929, but what does "d [19]54" mean? Also what was her father's job, linjemästare? TSventon (talk) 17:39, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

According to SAOB linjemästare is "vid telegrafvärket l. kraftvärk: tjänsteman i underbefälsställning, anställd för tillsyn av linjearbete o. d." So, some kind of superintendent of telegraph/telephone or power lines. DuncanHill (talk) 18:03, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

According to Google Books, there's a listing of "Förkortningar" on page 9. Can't you look that up? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:13, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wakuran I only have snippet view of Vem är hon and I haven't found the snippet where d is explained. TSventon (talk) 00:38, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Archive.org has a copy, the listed Förkortningar do not include d. They do include G for "gift med". DuncanHill (talk) 11:58, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

DuncanHill, thank you for your help. TSventon (talk) 13:20, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty sure d is for död; see https://billiongraves.com/grave/Per-Westermark/19722594 147.234.66.84 (talk) 07:21, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's right, I can see phrases at https://tidningar.kb.se/ that look like reports of Per Westermark's death in 1954. TSventon (talk) 08:53, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Possessive forms of corps

What are the singular and plural possessive forms of the noun corps?? Georgia guy (talk) 19:14, 22 May 2023 (UTC) (The noun corps is both singular and plural, but when singular the final s is silent and when plural it is pronounced.) Georgia guy (talk) 19:14, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Georgia guy: In Wikipedia's manual of style, it's the same as any other noun: corps's and corps' for the singular and plural versions respectively. (Other style guides and writers may prefer the corps' version for both.) Bazza (talk) 19:41, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of orthography, yes. They are both pronounced identically, as "corps" is pronounced /kɔːr/, so adding a possessive "s" sound to the end results in /kɔːrz/ for both of them. --Jayron 32 11:59, 23 May 2023 (UTC) Edit: I have corrected a mistyped transcription as described below. --Jayron 32 16:15, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OED says corps (the plural of corps) is pronounced /kɔəz/ DuncanHill (talk) 12:03, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In some dialects, I'm sure that is true, especially non-rhotic ones. Merriam Webster uses the pronunciation I give (Merriam Webster uses ȯ where IPA uses ɔ). --Jayron 32 12:08, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps I misunderstood you. I thought you were suggesting the "s" in the plural was silent and was pointing out it isn't. DuncanHill (talk) 12:15, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There is a mistake in Jayron's transcription: the plural (and possessive of both numbers) is /kɔːrz/ with a voiced consonant at the end (rhyming with doors), rather than /kɔːrs/ (which is the pronunciation of course). —Mahāgaja · talk 12:39, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have corrected that. Thanks for pointing it out. My bad. To DuncanHill, the singular of corps, in American English, is pronounced /kɔːr/ while the plural of corps in American english is pronounced /kɔːrz/. In the case of the possessives, both corps's (possessive of the singular) and corps' (possessive of the plural) would be pronounced /kɔːrz/, identical to the plural pronunciation. In all cases, General American pronounces the /r/ sound as /r/, being rhotic dialect, though non-rhotic American dialects, such as Older Southern American English, New England English, and New York English dialects, would not pronounce the /r/ sound the same as in rhotic varieties, but would do different things to it than each other, and the British version you note as well, either by adding R-colored vowels to the preceding vowel sound while dropping the R, turning the /ɔːr/ sound into various diphthongs, etc. Despite the spelling as such, the possessive of the singular, spelled corps's, would basically never be pronounced as /kɔːrzəz/ or anything like that. --Jayron 32 16:15, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Old chinese

There are superscript numbers next to ipa transcriptions, eg. The page for 一 yī, and when I search it up nothing comes up. What do these numbers mean? Are they tones? 92.26.73.63 (talk) 20:48, 22 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they're Wade–Giles#Tones 147.234.66.84 (talk) 07:08, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

May 23

Aren't all languages related to one another?

Trolling

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

All languages are inherently related. If they weren't, they wouldn't exist. So all these so-called "language isolates" are simply not. It's like the evolution of avian dinosaurs to modern-day birds. Sure, they might look like they shouldn't be related at all, but when you look at the animals in between, you'll start to realise that they infact, are. It's just that we haven't found that in between part yet. All languages share ancestry with another, and sure, some languages might be very hard to classify (some, even impossible), but they're still related to one another. Whether it be Basque, or Bintauna, or Nuxalk, or whatever. This whole idea that there are "language isolates" is in my opinion, a load of BS. It's just that you haven't bothered to put the effort to link the languages together. Diskcleanup (talk) 17:26, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a load of BS. It's just that there is no known genetic relationship between Basque and other known languages. It is, at once, both plainly true, and entirely uninteresting that all languages are inherently related, in the same way that all life is related, but not terribly useful in then refusing to acknowledge that some life is closer related to others, for example if someone notes that a human is relatively closer related to a chimpanzee than to a pistachio, you should not respond to such a statement with "All life is related!" Well, no shit, Sherlock, all life is related, but it is not all related to the same degree. Similarly, though all languages are likely related, they are not related to the same degree, and it is helpful to categorizing languages as language isolates because it makes a statement about the degree of relationship between that language and other languages around the world. Basque really doesn't have much in common with any other known language. Your insistence that it is related to all other languages is true in only the most unhelpful sense, but it is so distantly related that it shares no historically-traceable nor linguistically common elements with basically anything else being spoken today. That's why we call it an isolate.--Jayron 32 17:51, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'd add two qualifications to this: first, the statement "that all languages are inherently related" is not necessarily true. Language polygenesis (the idea that languages might have arisen independently in different places and that some of today's languages might still be derived from ultimately separate sources) is still a logical possibility (although people might differ over how likely it is). Second, the difference between accepted relationships and language isolates is not just a difference of degree of relationship. As Jayron said quite rightly before that, the issue about isolates is that there is no known relationship – or you might put it more strongly, no knowable one. I'd say the difference between a known relationship and a possible but unknowable one is something much more fundamental and concrete than a mere difference of "degrees". Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:47, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's entirely untrue. All languages HAVE to be related to one another. If all animals (or living beings in that case) are related to each other, then why can't languages be too? Languages and animals are very similar in many ways, and replying with "no shit" is quite rude of you as you're basically dismissing my entire point. Aswell as that, Basque is definitely related to nearby languages, and you saying that they aren't makes you look like a fool. Diskcleanup (talk) 19:01, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Your assertion that All languages HAVE to be related requires rather extraordinary support. What are your sources for that claim? Folly Mox (talk) 19:11, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well, since you think everybody else here is a fool, I leave it to yourself to work out where in this statement the logical errors lie. Have fun. Next time you post here, please ask an actual question and expect to listen to answers; that's what this page is for. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:13, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, how WP:CIVIL. Diskcleanup (talk) 19:31, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As civil as calling others here fools. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:43, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably the user is irritated because their unreferenced changes were reverted, as noted at [8]. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:52, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well first, User:Fdom5997 and his little cabal of sockpuppets (which no admin has ever bothered to deal with, I mean they literally side with him even after he FLAGRANTLY violated WP:GRAVEDANCING on an alt) has been blatantly disrespectful to me, and I'm not irrated over that because I wasn't even aware that they were reverted. (unjustly for that matter, like come on! The admins here aren't that bad!) Diskcleanup (talk) 21:39, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You just started yesterday, and all three of your attempts were reverted by someone else. What has user Fdom5997 got to do with anything? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:50, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A lot. Don't judge a book by its cover. Just because I "joined 1 day ago" doesn't mean I'm new here. Ever heard of IP addresses? Heard there's an encyclopedia anybody can edit that talks about them. Diskcleanup (talk) 21:57, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Are you admitting to sockpuppetry??? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:01, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No. I'm simply stating that I also have an interest in linguistics. Fdom edits a lot on WP, so obviously I'll come across him a few times. Don't jump to conclusions, fool Diskcleanup (talk) 22:04, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK, Mr. Civility... You're making an accusation against Fdom without providing any evidence. First, if you've got an issue with Fdom, it belongs at WP:ANI, not here. Second, what has Fdom got to do with your question on this ref desk? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:06, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean no evidence? Look at User:Libertydom5997's contributions! And he's just being a pest, to be honest. Diskcleanup (talk) 22:11, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What do any of that user's edits have to do with the question you asked here? Take your complaint to ANI or shut up about it. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:16, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And now you're being hypocritical. WP:CIVILITY much? Diskcleanup (talk) 22:17, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea on what grounds you claim that all languages have to be related. Any of the following three scenarios could plainly have occurred: 1) language arose only once, and all known languages are related. 2) language arose more than once, and not all languages are related. 3) language arose more than once, but it happens that only one of the lineages survived, so all known languages are related. ColinFine (talk) 21:13, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The earliest of the homo sapiens developed language, and when they migrated out of Africa, their languages evolved aswell. So thus, language only arose once, and all languages are related to eachother. Diskcleanup (talk) 21:32, 23 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the OP is part of the Wikipedia:Sockpuppet investigations/Nestofbirdnests/Archive sock drawer. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:47, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

May 24

X after X, plural or not?

Is it 'person after person come into the room' or 'person after person comes into the room'? The first seems more logical but sounds absurd. Ericoides (talk) 10:17, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My interpretation: the term 'person after person' is synonymous with 'a series of people', so the concept is grammatically singular even though it is made up of multiple persons. Academic grammarians may have a different analysis. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.210.77 (talk) 15:41, 24 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]