Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 December 31

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December 31

grammer gone missing went missing right or wrong

tell me the term for a disappearance or vanishing is not "gone Missing"m it just can"t be right am I wrong? 63.113.199.109 (talk) 04:36, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

"Gone missing" is, in fact, a way to say that something has disappeared. Also, the word is "grammar", not "grammer". rspεεr (talk) 05:17, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

For once BE and AE agree, we need has/have gone, not went. Consider these two phrases:

• The last time our cat got out he went missing for 2 days. (Cat purring at your feet.)
• Our cat's gone missing. We haven't seen him since Thursday. (no cat)

Hope this helps.Lisa4edit (talk) 05:51, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

In other words, this usage forms its tenses the same way that the simple verb "go" does. "Went missing", "has gone missing", and "had gone missing" are ecah the correct form in the appropriate circumstances.

I think the original poster is upset about the existence of the expression. Too bad. It forms a useful distinction from "is missing" in that it refers to the moment of the disappearance, just as "they got married" forms a useful distinction from "they were married" in the same way. --Anonymous, 18:57 UTC, December 31, 2008.

Pronoun

Why do some people use "it" instead of the appropriate sexual pronoun? For example, why "A male xyzzy does its work by pulling a foobar" instead of "A male xyzzy does his work by pulling a foobar"? 60.230.124.64 (talk) 07:02, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I think for a lot of people, the gendered pronouns "he" and "she" are personalized, and only usable for animals you really know - domesticated animals you live or work with or that friends live or work with. But wild animals aren't like friends and so they're "it", even when happen to know their sex. It's the same with babies - one's own baby, and the babies of close friends and relatives, are always "he" or "she" (as the case may be), but babies you don't know personally are very often "it" (even if you can tell it's a boy or girl because it's dressed in blue or pink or is currently having its diaper changed). —Angr 07:59, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

(Post E.C.) It depends on the subject. If xyzzy is an animal other than a pet (cats and dogs especially), the word "it" is often used even if the gender is known. For pets some people use gender specific pronouns, others don't. I got into the habit of using "he" and "she" when referring to dogs and cats after people corrected me for using "it". Rarely some people use "it" when referring to newborns. I think this is because the gender is non-obvious. Other than that one, I haven't run across a case where "it" is used in reference to humans where gender was determinable or would be determinable. While no one would look twice if you used the proper pronoun, "he" and "she" and derivatives seemed to be preferred for humans, especially cared for animals, and occasionally suitably respected and anthropomorphized objects like ships. Everything else gets an "it". It's a subtle arrogance on the part of the english language. 152.16.15.23 (talk) 08:34, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, we make all sorts of distinctions between human animate beings and non-human animate beings. The latter don't get to vote, receive pensions or fly aircraft, to name just a few. I wouldn't call it arrogance, but a sensible and useful form of discrimination. In some cases we know the sex of an animal, but in the general situation we don't. A passing random human stranger is usually identifiable at sight as either a woman, man, girl or boy, but a passing random cat is just a cat (unless it's clearly a kitten). That some other languages refer to their animals as he/she is nice for them, although how they'd refer to the abovementioned cat without a close examination of its genitals - not usually possible or desirable - is a mystery to me. It may be governed by the grammatical gender of the word for "cat" - it's masculine in some languages, feminine in others, and neuter in still others. But that has nothing to do with the sex of any particular cat, and sex is what usually governs the use of "he" and "she" in English. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:58, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

... and then again: "There she sailed." - "I used to own a Corvette, she was the sleekest ride you'd ever seen." - "Look at that eagle soar. He's a magnificent bird." (Before it lands and feeds its chicks.) Our kitty cat is "she". The cat who keeps beating her up was "he" till we met the neighbors. When ours met a stray cat she gave it a good whacking. If I meet a bull I'll get out of it's way, even if I'm certain. Let's face it we just aren't very consistent. 76.97.245.5 (talk) 04:44, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Evolution of English

I have been told that at some point in 16th century English language was significantly "dumbed down" (thats how that person refered to it). For example, supposedly, English had different words for plural of "you". It also had means of identifying sex of speaker based on way how they used the language (I guess with different word endings) and much longer list of irregular verbs. I have tried to search for it, but I came up with no useful info since I don't know if that language change has specific name (or name of language itself, before it was simplified). If what that person told me is true, why did it happen? If you could provide any info or links to this, I would be very thankful.--Melmann^(talk) 14:04, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I am no expert, but I think that basically you are correct. Over the course of the past millenium, English has changed quite a bit. Old English had something called the case system, where the word changed it's form depending on whether it was a noun, direct object, etc. This was mostly dropped, and now appears only in some pronouns (though it was dropped long before the 16th century). In Shakespeare's English, they did have multiple "you" forms, though I haven't heard that there were multiple plural ones. You was either the formal way of talking to one person, or was the way of addressing a group of people (like we use "y'all" today, if you live around the area that I live). "Thou" was, in my understanding, used strictly as a singular second person pronoun, and was extremely informal (which is contrary to what a lot of people think today). As for the name, I don't know what you mean. The process is evolution, I believe, and the names are Old, Middle, and Modern English. Old English took place from whenever English started (I can't remember for sure) and had evolved to modern Enlish by the 1200's at the latest. Middle English was the next (again, the dates escape me), and that would be the kind of English that Chaucer used. Modern English starts around Shakespeare's time; Shakespeare's writings are considered Early Modern English. Old English is so different that you will probably not be able to understand it at all, and Middle English is different enough that you will have to struggle, but may be able to get meaning from it. Modern English should be straightforward; it may not be easy to read Shakespeare without practice, but you should be able to understand it fairly readily if you take the time to think it through. Also, I think this is cool. Old English was at one time written in runes, though these were soon dropped. I know that's irrelevant, but it's awesome, so I thought I'd mention it. Oh, I think I realized what your friend might have been thinking was the other plural form of "you" - "ye". That is a myth; "ye" is a modern occurence, and really stems from a way that they wrote the word "the". It has nothing to do with the word "you". I hope this helps. --Falconus^{p t c} 14:31, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I should also mention that pronunciations are wildly different. The way that you would read Old English or Middle English, or even probably Early Modern English is vastly different han the way that the authors of those works would have read them. The sounds have evolved quite a bit in addition to the actual syntax of the language, and this is evident in many places, such as the word "knock" for example. That 'k' wasn't always silent. I also forgot to address "why". I don't know for sure, but language has evolved in every single language existing on earth. Latin evolved into all of the Romance Languages for example. There are many theories on why this happens, but I am not sure which ones are more widely accepted. In any rate, English has evolved from its Germanic roots, and English continues to evolve today. --Falconus^{p t c} 14:39, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Way that person spoke about it leads me to believe that change was sudden and maybe even organized by some kind of ruler and enforced on its subjects. But it just could have been natural way English evolved, I don't know. What didn't occur to me is to look up Old English or Middle English. For some reason I assumed whole thing has some complicated linguistic name.I'll check out links you provided, thank you.--Melmann^(talk) 14:45, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

The development of the pronoun system is one of the more interesting parts of the history of the English language. I suggest that you read the articles on Old English pronouns, Middle English personal pronouns, and Early Modern English prounouns. Contrary to what was said above, ye was an actual second-person plural pronoun in Old English — rather, it's the "ye" of "ye olde times" that is based on a misconception. Michael Slone (talk) 14:52, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Here is how Early Modern English handled second-person pronouns: Speaking to one person informally : Thou shouldst not believe all that others tell thee. ("Thou" nominative; "thee" oblique.) Speaking to several (or to one formally) : Ye should not believe all that others tell you. ("Ye" nominative; "you" oblique).

While the loss of a distinction between second-person singular and plural forms brought a loss of clarity and precision, it isn't fair to say that the differences between Middle English and Modern English or between Old English and Modern English represent a "dumbing down". Semantic work that used to be done by inflectional endings or vowel mutations is now mostly done by word order and the addition of auxiliary verbs and particles. English has simply become more analytic and less synthetic. This does not make it less complex or "dumber", as foreign learners struggling with English verb aspect or articles can attest. Also, as English is the main language of modern science, technology, and business, all of which are immensely more sophisticated and complex than anything in the Middle Ages, it's hard to see how Modern English can be "dumber" than earlier forms of English.

Middle English gradually evolved in a series of stages first into Early Modern English and then into the forms of English current today. Each piece of that evolution probably originated in a specific local and/or social setting and gradually spread through the English-speaking community. These changes were not ordered or imposed by any authority. As Falconus mentions, some of the biggest changes in English had to do with pronunciation rather than grammar. Probably the most important group of changes in pronunciation was the Great Vowel Shift, which began in southern England in the 14th or 15th century and still has not completely spread to all of northern England or Scotland. Vowels have continued to shift since the 18th century, as is clear from the different values of certain vowels in England and in the United States. Most of the significant regional variation in the pronunciation of vowels in the United States has also developed since the 18th century, though some of that variation may result from the settlement of different American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries by settlers from different parts of Great Britain and Ireland. These changes happened gradually, with only subtle differences from one generation to the next, but the cumulative effect over centuries was substantial. Marco polo (talk) 16:25, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Note that Shakespeare often uses 'thou/thee' and 'ye/you' quite inconsistently. For example, in Hamlet, I1, Bernardo says "'Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.", but four lines later calls him 'you'. In fact, this is also the case in Everyman some 200 years earlier: in the first scene, Death says to Everyman: "Yea, sir, I will show you;/ In great haste I am sent to thee/From God out of his great majesty." --ColinFine (talk) 18:17, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

The shift in pronoun may have entailed a shift in tone from more respectful (ye/you) to more intimate (thou/thee), or vice versa. Marco polo (talk) 19:18, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

---

Actually, in the last 550 years or so (since roughly the mid-15th century), while many pronunciations and individual words have changed, there have been almost no losses of inflectional categories or inflectional complexity between the London/"Midlands" dialects of the time vs. modern standard English -- with the ONE prominent single exception of 2nd. person singular pronouns and verb inflections (whose loss was mainly a complex sociological phenomenon connected with the role of the T-V distinction in 16th and 17th century society). Otherwise, the only real changes have been that on the pronoun side the ye/you distinction has been lost and the it/its (or his/its) distinction has been innovated, while on the verb side the original 3rd. person singular present verb inflection "-th" has been replaced by "-s" (this last was a northern dialect form in 1450). The real loss of morphological complexity in English came roughly in the preceding 550-year period (say, ca. 900-1450). AnonMoos (talk) 19:56, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Model of "broken" English in Hollywood movies

Hollywood movies seem to have their own model of "broken" English spoken by foreigners. Stereotypical mistakes include:

• substituting "me" for "I", and
• substituting "no" for "not".

These are just the commonest "mistakes", but there are others.

Is this "model" based on real mistakes made by some non-native speakers or is it just a Hollywood invention? If the former, where are these non-native speakers from, or perhaps more relevantly, what language do they speak natively? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.49.19.42 (talk) 18:11, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, Non-native pronunciations of English may provide some insight for you. Speakers of languages that use the same word for for 'no' and 'not' (such as Spanish) or 'me' and 'I' (not sure of examples except maybe some creole languages) are likely to make mistakes with these words. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:37, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Partly based on what are perceived to be common characteristics of various pidgins... AnonMoos (talk) 19:39, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

It's very common to hear native speakers say things like "Me and my partner were very happy with the outcome", so there's no reason why new speakers wouldn't pick up on that. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:37, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

And it's equally common to hear native speakers who pride themselves on their knowledge of English saying things like "To my wife and I, our 2 dogs look different, but our children have difficulty in telling them apart" - where "me" is the officially "correct" pronoun. It's probably more likely that a person who says "me" in that sentence learned their grammar from a book, and its use might even raise some eyebrows among many native speakers. Me, I'd congratulate them (but me wouldn't). -- JackofOz (talk) 03:57, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I think that the original poster had in mind much less subtle violations, of the type "Me Tarzan, You Jane" etc. AnonMoos (talk) 04:42, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

If I remember correctly, Chinese has the same word for "I" and "me", for example "I am" (我是), and "don't look at me" (不要看我). ~AH1^(TCU) 18:22, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

As do Japanese, Swahili, Esperanto … —Tamfang (talk) 04:47, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

To my wife and I is of course a hypercorrection. When children begin a sentence with me and Billy they are told to say Billy and I, without context or explanation, and extend the lesson to where it does not belong. —Tamfang (talk) 19:06, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

English to German

What is the German equivalent of the sign "Caution Wet Floor"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.213.33.2 (talk) 20:04, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

"Vorsicht, nasser Boden". Or with "Achtung" instead of "Vorsicht", and/or with "Fußboden" instead of "Boden". —Angr 20:29, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Angr has correctly translated the sign, however it should be noted that such a phrase is not usually seen on such signs."Achtung Rutschgefahr!" is the standard. The symbol underneath is the same though. --Cameron* 20:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

True. And tonight there's a particular Rutschgefahr! —Angr 20:53, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

There's a reason why Germans say "Guten Rutsch!" for "Happy new year." (...everyone.)76.97.245.5 (talk) 04:10, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

With + -ing

I've seen people say a few times that the with + -ing sentence structure is ungrammatical. I think that's shit, as with + -ing can be the best way to phrase something. For example "The recipe called for baking the pasta for one hour, with it being uncovered for the last fifteen minutes." "The party would start at six with the movie starting at seven." Am I really not allowed to use this sentence structure? Thanks, 76.248.244.232 (talk) 21:35, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

I see no problem with that construction. A preposition takes an object (here, it) and objects can be modified by adjectives (being.../starting...). Admittedly, this construction might be too wordy at times or better rephrased (personally, I'd rephrase the 2nd example as "...at six, and the movie would start at seven"). Note that this is quite similar to the nominative absolute in English, which is acceptable and even appears in the US Constitution (and the Constitution writers wouldn't even agree to split infinitives!). Interestingly, both the with constructions above and the nominative absolute mirror a construction of the Latin language (ablative absolute), and English has traditionally been made to conform to Latin rules (eg. no split infinitives, no prepositions at the end of sentences), so a construction like this traditionally could be considered favorable. Do these people you mention say why they think this with construction shouldn't be acceptable?--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 22:22, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! He said it was awkward and ungrammatical. I agree with using would, but that might not always be parallel (grammar). 76.248.244.232 (talk) 23:35, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

It's one of those things that can be dangerous in the wrong hands, like "while": My sister is 28, while I am 23. My sister is 28, with me being 23. Those two sentences are mistakes for "My sister is 28, and I am 23." I'm sure Fowler had something to say about this, but we don't need to dig him up for something this obvious. --Milkbreath (talk) 23:45, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

"On accident" more than just a malaprop of "by accident"?

When I first heard a child (age 7 or so) say something happened "on accident" a few years ago, I figured it was just a cute malaprop - children often do this, they'll hear somtehing is "on purpose" and just presume the opposite is "on accident," instead of "by accident" as I've always heard. (Edit - not actually a malaprop, as I look, as it's not the same sound, I don't think. But, you know what I mean.0

However, lately I've seen more and more of this. Has "on accident" become the new way to say something was done "by accident" - which is the way I always heard it growing up till a couple years ago (and even since then, mostly.)

And, if someone says it's a catch phrase by someone on Disney then I'll so totally understand. :-)Somebody or his brother (talk) 23:52, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

You are correct. According to Grammar Girl, it's evolution of language. Older people tend to use "by accident" but younger people tend to use "on accident." There is no widespread rule for or against it. Reywas92^Talk 23:59, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

It's a stupidism like "waiting on someone" (meaning waiting for them, not serving them as a waiter or waitress). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.27.239.144 (talk) 00:01, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Right, a "stupidism". Like failing to decline the word "the" for nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative case, and masculine, feminine, and neuter gender in the singular. Or using that neologistic verb ending "-s" on 3rd singular present verbs like "walks" and "eats" instead of the correct ending "-eth". And kids today are so illiterate, they almost never remember to put the "y-" prefix onto past participles, and often leave the "-en" ending off strong past participles, stupidly saying "I have sung" instead of correctly saying "I have ysungen". —Angr 00:08, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Bless you, Angr. You brought to mind "winter is icumen in / Lhude sing Goddamm." --- OtherDave (talk) 02:34, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

I have not encountered the phrase, but would take it as analogical to 'on purpose'. --ColinFine (talk) 00:42, 6 January 2009 (UTC)