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November 21

How common are long vowels in super-closed syllables?

In languages other than English, how common is it for long vowels or diphthongs to be allowed in super-closed syllables ending in two or more consonant sounds? Example words are “minds,” “pounce,” and “paint.” Primal Groudon (talk) 18:18, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's rare. It might be allowed in the Germanic languages in general [excluding creoles] if you allow for the fact that long vowels are often at least somewhat diphthongized. E.g. the name 'Heintz', or glaubst 'believe' in German. It's also been reconstructed for proto-Indo-European, but reconstructions are always iffy. I don't know of it elsewhere, but I doubt Germanic is unique. — kwami (talk) 21:01, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In Latin, vowels are basically always shortened before word-final -nt and always lengthened before word-final -ns. AnonMoos (talk) 22:39, 21 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure Latvian has this. Latvian phonology#Pitch accent lists three words glossed [luɔ̯ks] ColinFine (talk) 14:24, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Skimming diphthong, Faroese has nevnd (the diphthong is spelled 'ev'), Scots Gaelic cainnt, Welsh teyrn. Counting Latvian, that makes 3 branches of IE.

If you allow rising diphthongs, you'll find a lot more languages, such as Catalan with e.g. guant, but those depend on not analyzing e.g. /gwa/ as CCV (and some accounts even posit a phoneme /ɡʷ/ in this case). Of course, the same kind of argument can be made for English, where some sources analyze diphthongs as VC sequences (e.g. [aI] as /aj/), so you can probably find a way to argue all languages away if you have a theoretical model that predicts that such syllables cannot exist.

Oh, I've only been searching for diphthongs. It's easier to find languages with long vowels in this pattern. — kwami (talk) 20:46, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Arabic has a few "ultraheavy" syllables like ماد mādd, a participle. 71.126.56.38 (talk) 22:20, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but is the geminate CC pronounced in coda position, or only when a vowel follows? — kwami (talk) 23:31, 23 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 22

language-correct description of size classes in statistical tables

Hi everyone, I am looking for the correct or best description of size classes in statistical tables, e.g. age groups. I have found those in use:

0 up to below 5
…
30 up to below 35
35 and more

and another version with "to under" instead of "up to below".

I'm not looking for a simplified version as in

30 to 34
35 and more

or even with a dash (–) instead of "to".

Since I'm not a native speaker of English (but instead of German) I am asking the native speakers here for correct English :-) Specifically for the correct translation of the widely used bis unter in German tables into English, such as in

0 bis unter 5

Greetings,--Ratzer (talk) 15:37, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you use the 30 to under 35 style, you'll be following the example of the 1820 United States census, so I suppose that way of writing the table is idiomatic for 1820, at least. You have excluded the more modern idiom of 30 to 34. I wonder why. Are you doing a search-and-replace job on a large table? Card Zero (talk) 20:02, 22 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

30 to 34; 35 to 39; etc. works for discrete variables, limited to integers, but fails when the variable can reach a value like 34.5. If the variable is continuous, a style like 30 to 35; 35 to 40; etc. works, as the probability of the variable being exactly 35 is normally zero. I tend to think of age as continuous. To be rigorous, you could try the maths option from interval (mathematics): [30,35); [35,40); etc. It's in maths language, so it's the same in German or English, but assumes your readers have a basic understanding of mathematics. (Note: my native language isn't English, German or Maths, but I have a decent understanding of all of them.) PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:09, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I'll use the 30 to under 35 style. I had been looking for the best translation, not for a simplification or a math expression :-) Greetings,--Ratzer (talk) 10:58, 24 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If what you're looking for is an idiomatic English translation of 30 bis unter 35, then I don't think 30 to under 35 is it. It's a literal translation, but a native English speaker would never use such an expression. I think "30 to 34" is fine, or "between 30 and 34". --Viennese Waltz 08:37, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Once you are past 2 years old, your age is rarely going to be considered with such certainty as to include months or even half years. Someone born on 1 January 2000 and someone born on 29 November 2000 would both be described as being 24 years old today. As would anyone born between 30 November 1999 and 31 December 1999, for that matter. The normal usage for age groups would just use the integers: 30-34, 35-39, 40-44, etc. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 16:14, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 25

Adverb More Common Than Adjective Form

Are there any English words where the adverb form is more common than the adjective form? (e.g anatomical, anatomically). 115.188.72.131 (talk) 06:04, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Only" doesn't have a corresponding adjective form (ultimately it's derived from "one"). It's possible that "really" is more common than "real". The adverb and adjective "just" are written the same, but in some varieties of English they're pronounced with quite distinct vowels, and the adverb is almost certainly more common than the adjective. AnonMoos (talk) 08:22, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Begrudgingly is more common than begrudging, see this Ngram Viewer graph. GalacticShoe (talk) 09:17, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

To my surprise, carefully is more common than careful. [1] GalacticShoe (talk) 09:20, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Hastily is more common than hasty. [2] GalacticShoe (talk) 13:05, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Rapidly and rapid are an interesting case in which the lead has swapped recently [3] (with the two still relatively close and rapid slightly ahead.) Similarly, relatively became more common than relative in 2014 [4], but it remains only slightly so. GalacticShoe (talk) 23:02, 25 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Literally? Oh, here's a good one: now. Card Zero (talk) 07:15, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Especially is definitely one. And definitely probably is too. And probably. 71.126.57.88 (talk) 20:07, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Especially has essentially always been more popular than especial [5], and same goes for probably over probable [6], but interestingly enough definitely - which was only half as popular as definite in the 1980s and before - started trending up in the 90s, overtook in the early 00s, and has been skyrocketing ever since. [7] GalacticShoe (talk) 06:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Although it's mostly due to autocorrect, I'd suspect defiantly is in a similar position. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:09, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 26

Seremtrog na-kiskaa shinjerak

I remember back in school in the early 1990s, at computer class, one of my classmates made a simple point-and-click adventure game called (as far as I can remember) "Seremtrog na-kiskaa shinjerak". He added a note "The name of the game means 'The black cavern of the brown death cult'" or something (I don't remember the exact words). Does this name actually mean something in some language or is it something my classmate or someone else made up? Google Translate wasn't of much help. It identified the language as Russian but could not translate a single word to English. JIP | Talk 00:28, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently made up, unless they had invented their own transliteration system for a language not written in the Latin script. Alansplodge (talk) 12:07, 26 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 27

Spanish diphthongs

Does Spanish have any words where falling diphthongs occur before consonants, such as in made-up words loyto, peyre, sayl and muyche? I know no such words. --40bus (talk) 21:05, 27 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I know very little Spanish, but how about "aire", as in "Buenos Aires"? AnonMoos (talk) 13:09, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Seis, amáis, aceite, peina, reina, vaina, deuda? It doesn't seem particularly rare, although they wouldn't typically be spelled with y. 71.126.57.88 (talk) 20:04, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not really familar with falling diphtongs, but in Spanish the distinction between i and y is orthographic, rather than phonemic. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:53, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 28

Clock questions

Does 12-hour clock have a written numeric form in any of continental European countries? Does it have a written numeric form in Finnish, Polish, Italian and Swedish, for example?
How do English speakers say leading zero of times such as 01:15?
Why does English not use word "clock" in expressions of time? Why is it not "Clock is five" but "It is five"?
Does English ever use expressions such as "It is 16", "I go to sleep at 22", "The shop opens at 7"? And are terms like "15 sunset" (meaning a sunset between 15:00 and 16:00) and "19 news" (meaning a news broadcast starting around 19:00) understood in the same way as "3 PM sunset" and "7 PM news"? --40bus (talk) 06:21, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
4. Yes to "the shop opens (or closes) at seven"; no to the others. —Tamfang (talk) 20:58, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You have also asked questions 1 - 3 on the Miscellaneous desk, where I have already answered two of them. I suggest you transfer 4 there and strike out this query or the responses might become confused. If you do so I will also address 4 there. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 07:20, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This is the place to ask these questions, not the Miscellaneous desk. These are related to language. I posted these on wrong desk because I replied to the ethnicity question there, and forgot to go to another desk. I think that this discussion should be continued there. --40bus (talk) 07:52, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

40bus -- As I'm sure you've been told before, in the United States, military people sometimes say things such as "Men, we hit the beaches at oh-two-hundred hours" (i.e. 02:00) or "We have an inspection at twenty-two hundred hours" (22:00), but 12-hour AM and PM usage without leading zeroes predominates almost exclusively in non-military and non-narrowly-technical contexts... AnonMoos (talk) 13:05, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I can only speak from a British point of view, so don't know how things are said in other English speaking countries, but

2) I would say "Oh one fifteen". This would imply 01:15 in the morning as opposed to 13:15. "One fifteen" could be either morning or afternoon, depending on context.

3) "Clock is five" isn't an English expression, however "five o'clock" is. I believe this is short for the formal "five of the clock", but that would never be used in full. "Five o'clock" could be 05:00 or 17:00, again depending on context. "Seventeen o'clock" wouldn't be used.

4) The 24 hour clock is used to avoid ambiguity, for example in railway timetables, and understood by most people, but would only be used for a precise time, for example "The train leaves at twenty-two fifteen", not "the train leaves at quarter past twenty-two".

Generally the British use the 12 hour clock, and where necessary add "a.m." or "p.m." I don't know about other countries so can't answer #1. -- Voice of Clam (talk) 13:53, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. George Orwell's "1984" starts with the sentence "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen", but I hope you don't want to live in that world... AnonMoos (talk) 14:42, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Besides "occasion" and "equation," what other word pairs sound somewhat similar enough that foreigners may intend to pronounce one word but pronounce a whole 'nother word by mispronouncing what they had intended?

I can also think of "pretend" and "portend."

What are words you can think of that sound like entirely different but similar words in any foreign accent? --2600:8803:1D13:7100:9FF:58EA:8413:22F3 (talk) 18:25, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Foreign accents vary widely, so the question is quite vaguely phrased. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:54, 28 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you don't have to cite similarities of word pairs for every accent; you can just share the ones for the accents you know. I'm hoping for a variety of answers from a variety of users. --2600:100A:B051:403F:5829:6046:7D7:35FD (talk) 03:11, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Both your examples have very different vowels (o versus e) in writing and to most people those sound very different too. Foreigners would tend to pronounce them differently. Very few languages don't distinguish front vowels from back vowels. English of course features very strong vowel reduction, so all unstressed vowels sound more or less the same. Foreigners are more likely to mishear occasion/equation than to mispronounce them.

Consider pairs differing in voicedness of a plosive. For example time/dime. In English, the t is aspirated, the d is voiceless or slightly voiced. If the foreigners native language has fully voiced d and unaspirated t (for example, French or Dutch), the foreigner's time may sound like dime to a native speaker. There's also bag/back. I think that phonetically the difference is mostly in the length of the vowel (but I'm no native English speaker and to me they sound pretty much the same), so this may be hard for speakers of languages with no phonemic vowel length.

Also consider pairs with similar vowels, like bit/beet. No problem for people who have those vowels in their native language, but if your native language only has 5 or 6 vowels (like Spanish or Italian), those are confusing. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:35, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There are several languages that reguarly unvoice consonant sounds in final positions, such as all Continental West Germanic and all (?) Slavic languages (I think). 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:00, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, AFAIK they unvoice their voiced obstruents in final position. That is, to the extend that they have voiced obstruents, which may be less than you might think on first sight. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:05, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It might not even need to be foreigners. I once met a British girl named Ella who spoke some British accent where it seemed like the vowel sounds of bAt and bEt had merged, so I thought at first she was named Alla. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:58, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

November 29

I hate modern music

I don't actually, but I don't like it as much as the music of my teen years and twenties. Is there a word for this? HiLo48 (talk) 01:58, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you're over 70 you have impeccable taste. Otherwise it's nostalgia. Doug butler (talk) 02:05, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well into my 70s, so thank you. HiLo48 (talk) 02:40, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not a new complaint by any means:[8] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:55, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not really a complaint. I recognise that me feelings are not uncommon, across the generations, and wondered if this has been more broadly identified and even studied. HiLo48 (talk) 04:40, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I always detested the sound of electric guitars in my youth, and I only started enjoying myself on the dance floor when techno appeared in around 1997, plus plenty of MDMA. And now Charli xcx, of course. Is there a word for this? Guess how old I'll be next week. ("Will you still need me, will you still feed me...?") MinorProphet (talk) 04:23, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

'Citharaphobia' apparently exists in the wild. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.211.243 (talk) 07:27, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The Slate article "Musical nostalgia" mentions several studies. Clarityfiend (talk) 09:51, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's good.. Interestingly, it mentions Katy Perry. A choir I'm in did her song Firework a few years ago, and now her music is one modern thing I'm keen on. Getting heavily involved, like learning to sing a song properly, does seem to make a difference. I feel the topic is worth an article, but it's become such a pain to create new articles here these days, I don't think I could be bothered. HiLo48 (talk) 00:54, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure why you think that. I created one just the other day, the first in quite a while because I've been involved in "other stuff", in which time all manner of rules and protocols could have changed - but it was quite painless. Did I do something wrong? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:22, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the encouragement. I'll give it a go. HiLo48 (talk) 01:54, 30 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I've heard the term "taste freeze", and experienced that myself some 20 or 25 years ago. --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:00, 29 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There seem to be quite a few articles containing that term. HiLo48 (talk) 05:31, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

From the title, I supposed you were talking about music by the likes of Stockhausen and Ligeti - though, I suppose they're not actually modern any more. ColinFine (talk) 12:33, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

December 1

"Kadour Hachemi Karim Directeur des services vétérinaires au niveau du ministre de l agriculture"

https://radioalgerie.dz/news/fr/content/161739.html

What would the correct title for this position in English? Trade (talk) 02:44, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Literally it's Director of veterinary services at the level of the minister of agriculture, but I guess you're not asking that. It is a curious formulation! —Tamfang (talk) 03:44, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

More fully: "directeur des services vétérinaires au niveau du ministre de l'agriculture et du développement rural". Google translates this as "Director of Veterinary Services at the level of the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development". This seems a fair translation but would imply that this directorial position pulls the same weight as that of a minister. That is hard to imagine; the veterinary services at the Algerian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development are clearly subordinate.

Elsewhere I find his position named as "Directeur des services vétérinaires (DSV) au ministère de l'Agriculture, du Développement rural et de la Pêche".^[9] It appears that Karim has been succeeded in this position by Imad Idres, also using the simpler title "directeur des services vétérinaires au ministère de l'agriculture et du développement rural".^[10]

So I'd go by, "Director of Veterinary Services at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development". --Lambiam 04:14, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

buyer's remorse in reverse

Buyers' remorse is when you buy something and then regret doing so. What if anything is it called if you resist (say) a tempting Black Friday deal, and then afterwards regret that you didn't take it? Thanks. 2601:644:8581:75B0:0:0:0:C426 (talk) 11:13, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"Non-buyer's remorse" has some Google results, like Non-Buyer’s Remorse: All the Things We Didn’t Buy and Now Regret for example. Alansplodge (talk) 12:47, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe a retrospective "fear of missing out"? AnonMoos (talk) 23:11, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Korean romanization question

In the Revised Romanization of Korean, is it possible to have triple consonants like -ttt- within a word if a stop is followed by a tense consonant? (I'm not fully acquainted with Korean phonology, so my apologies if this is a dumb question.) 71.126.57.88 (talk) 20:01, 1 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's a reasonable question. This would not happen in the middle of a single morpheme, so it would have to be at a morpheme boundary. The example I can come up with is tteok-kkochi, where we add a hyphen. This seems sensible, but I can't see that the hyphen is mandatory in Revised Romanization of Korean. So maybe yes? --Amble (talk) 19:02, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

December 2

English suffixes

Can suffixes like -onym, -gram, -graph and -al be added to native English words? For example if oral means "mouth", could it be also mouthal, Or if hydronym is a name of wather body, is then lakonym a name of lake? --40bus (talk) 22:08, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not usually, but there a few humorous coinages and "nonce words". "Burial" is a native word with an "-al" suffix -- but not from the Latin adjective suffix. Some other non-Germanic-derived prefixes and suffixes are more promiscuous, such as "re-" (as in redo"), "-able" (as in "drinkable") etc. AnonMoos (talk) 23:26, 2 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

See Wiktionary categories wikt:Category:English_terms_suffixed_with_-onym, wikt:Category:English terms suffixed with -nym, wikt:Category:English terms suffixed with -graph, wikt:Category:English terms suffixed with -gram. There are some examples that get used, like shadowgraph and scattergram. You can add these suffixes to a native English word if you are knowingly coining a new term, but you will probably need to tell people what you mean by it. --Amble (talk) 00:14, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But does "shadowgraph" really have a suffix, or is it an ordinary compound of the English words "shadow" and "graph"? And words like "candygram" do not really have the Greek -gram suffix, but have the second half of the word "telegram" appended to indicate a modified form of a telegram service, in exactly the same way that political scandals are often given names with the second half of "Watergate" appended. (Admittedly, that doesn't apply to "scattergram"...) AnonMoos (talk) 10:23, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

English is a slut. She'll consort with any suffix that comes down the pike. Clarityfiend (talk) 13:04, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

“The problem with defending the purity of the English language is that English is about as pure as a cribhouse whore. We don't just borrow words; on occasion, English has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.” ― James D. Nicoll --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:54, 3 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

December 4