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August 11

Possessive of film character name with postfixed appositive actor name

The film on TV had this one-line synopsis (for A Star is Born (1976 film)):

A boozing rock star's (Kris Kristofferson) career falls as fast as his unknown lover's (Barbra Streisand) begins to rise.

Part of me rebels at this, rather strongly. I'm thinking wise-ass retorts in my head, such as:

Oh, is that KK-parenthetical an adjective modifying career? Q: "What kind of career is it?" A: "It's a 'KK-career'! "

And, Q: "Who owns that KK-career?" A: "Why, boozing-rock-star owns that KK-career!"

And I kind of want to reword it, like this:

A boozing rock star (Kris Kristofferson)'s career falls as fast as his unknown lover (Barbra Streisand)'s begins to rise.

That sounds right to me, but I'm pretty sure that has little support in print. I started thinking about why I like the second one better, and what I came up with, is that the serial text loses the parsing path I took to get there, which I think is this:

A boozing (rock star (Kris Kristofferson))'s career falls as fast as his unknown (lover (Barbra Streisand))'s begins to rise.

Now, it makes sense: noun phrases can take possessives, and the -s is appended to noun phrase (rock star (Kris Kristofferson)) and to (lover (Barbra Streisand)). (I've left out another level of parentheses which should include boozing and unknown, for simplicity.) whereas the first one parses as... couldn't do it; it doesn't parse, for me. It just kinda "looks good", because I'm used to seeing apostrophe-s typograpically attached to a name or noun phrase like rock star (or boozing rock star), and not to a more complex one that includes an appositive.

A couple of questions here:

Is there a name for this? I know that the parenthetical term is an appositive, but I'm not sure if there are style or usage manuals which give a name to the situation here (whether or not parentheses, commas or another typographic convention is used), i.e., this:
(NOUN PHRASE (APPOSITIVE NOUN-PHRASE)) APOSTROPHE-S
Is my impression accurate that reliable sources never or rarely do it his way? Why is that?
If yes to #2, do you think they are "right", or is this purely a stylistic convention, and logic doesn't play into it?
Which one sounds better to you?
Does it look—or sound—any better to you, if the appositive delimiters are em dashes instead of parentheses?

I swear, when I started out there were only two questions... Well, this is the language board, not the math board; that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it... Thanks! Mathglot (talk) 03:03, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The English possessive started out as a noun suffix (genitive case inflection). In some cases, it can now be attached to the end of noun phrases ("The king of England's hat", or even "The woman I saw yesterday's purse" informally), but I'm not sure the construction you referred to is a single phrase, rather than two separate phrases in apposition... AnonMoos (talk) 04:21, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know the answers to your questions, but I would avoid the problem by rewording the sentence thus: "The career of a boozing rock star (Kris Kristofferson) falls as fast as that of his unknown lover (Barbra Streisand) begins to rise." Just take out the possessives et voilà. --Viennese Waltz 07:15, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I would run with your first rewording, just losing the parentheses and the first article:

Boozing rock star Kris Kristofferson's career falls as fast as his unknown lover Barbra Streisand's begins to rise.

I assume that the brackets are intended to indicate that the names are of actors rather than characters; in this context they seem unnecessary to me. 'Boozing rock star Kris Kristofferson' works as a noun phrase, describing an acted part, which can happily accept a possessive 's; likewise the co-star's role. -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 19:11, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree that the brackets are unnecessary. Firstly, their use in this way is a well-established convention for film-plot descriptions; and secondly, omitting them results in text that, taken literally, states that the actual named individual are (or are being portrayed as) a boozing rock star and an unknown lover. This could be quoted out of context, and could even be construed as libellous. I would support Viennese Waltz's version. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.196.45.159 (talk) 21:17, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In informal writing I would be happy to use 's after a parenthesized appositive. The 's ending is really a clitic, not an inflection, which is why people say things like "the man I bought my car from's wife"; this is just another example. But in the formal writing of an encyclopedia, that won't fly, and it's necessary to find another wording, such as the one Viennese suggested. --174.95.81.219 (talk) 22:47, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think we have a two-dimensional set of relationships trying to fit in one-dimensional language; you have to go all round the houses to fit all the connections in a linear sentence.

Kris Kristofferson's boozing rock star with a falling career character's unknown lover with a rising career's actress is Barbra Streisand

Note: to avoid accusations of libel, I wish to make it clear that one- and two-dimensional refer only to the semantic structures, and not in any way to the acting. I have not, in fact, seen the film. -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 12:54, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The word "actress" inserted by Verbarson is not in the original, with the result that the version makes no sense. Verbarson's caveat re libel applies equally to Viennese Waltz's version. The original version steers clear of that risk. Entertainment copywriters know their job - they write the way they do for a reason. 92.23.217.220 (talk) 13:58, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Phonotactics database

Is there any phonotactics database? I don't find any such database. I would like to know what are most common phonotactic restrictions in European languages. 40bus (talk) 17:43, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As it seems no one has identified one yet (and maybe no one's looked in the right spot), simply starting such a database in an open format (say for just the Romance languages) seems like an excellent publishable MA, or even BA/BS linguistics project. If I were back in university again, and had the power to order someone else to do it for me, I would. SamuelRiv (talk) 23:10, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What is the origin of the term "video" as used to describe visual media?

I understand from Wiktionary that the word is derived from the Latin videō, meaning "I see", but I'm wondering when and ideally by whom this usage was coined. Thanks in advance! 69.174.144.79 (talk) 21:04, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The earliest I've been able to find is in a US Army manual from 1944 (here), which states (talking about a radar system) "the video-detection and amplifying channels included in the system provide signals for the indicator system" - the indicator system is a cathode-ray oscilloscope. Not exactly the current usage, but related. Mikenorton (talk) 22:22, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In common use when talking about television by 1945 - see here. Mikenorton (talk) 22:26, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, by 1949 there was a television show called Captain Video and His Video Rangers. So it was certainly in wide enough usage to be digestible by the public. Or perhaps in 1949 it was still enough of a technical sounding term that it gave that show a more science fiction feel, as opposed to the hokeyness it has to my millennial ear. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 01:44, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly older than 1944. Taking a quick look at Newspapers.com (pay site) just for 1943, I see references to "video" as a synonym for television. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:32, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In the OED Online, the earliest use of "video" as an adjective is from the Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers in 1934. The passage refers to "video frequency (picture frequency)" and "the video signal". As a noun, the earliest use is from Wireless World in 1935: the quotation attributes the coinage to "Americans" who "were beginning to take ‘audio’ away from its original use in conjunction with ‘frequency’ and... were toying with the idea of ‘video’ as its complement." The OED does not show the author of either of these passages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.95.81.219 (talk) 22:56, 11 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Very interesting, thanks. I saw, but didn't really process, the note of formation by analogy to audio mentioned on Wiktionary. How clever people were back then. 69.174.144.79 (talk) 01:50, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

August 12

Does anyone recognize this language?

I found it on Wikisource as an 'unknown language'

"Ramn ku ǵlapn" ("The sheep and the goat")

Ramn se biǵtu.

Ǵap muguln imẃ sats.

U baǵa um, ǵlapn imẃ utu.

Ǵlapn beǵe um ǵa glu u.

Ku mumẃ um o geǵe ut hal ku uǵ.

Limburgish translation here. — kwami (talk) 08:07, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wakuran (et al.); English translation:

't Sjaop waar wèrkendje.
De meulestein mós verzatj waere.
Óm det tö doon mós de geit mithèlpe.
De geit dij det mid väöl spasj.
Èn daerachter laefdjentj 'ie nag lank èn glökkig.

The sheep was working.
The millstone must be moved.
In order to do that, the goat must assist.
The goat did that with much joy.
And thereafter lived they yet long and happily [happily ever after].

I am wondering whether the diacritics are actual diacritics of the language or stress marks for scansion purposes. If those are actual diacritics, ẃ is not present in many languages (I tried Welsh but that’s not it).

Google Translate thinks it’s some Austronesian language (but of course offers nothing useful). There are at least two words ("ramn", "muguln") that kinda look Germanic. Possibly, it could be a Dutch creole from the Dutch East Indies period, but of course that’s speculation; I could not find anything that seems to match (being neither a Dutch nor a Malay speaker does not help). Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 09:51, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Glapn looks vaguely Romance (capra ~ crapa 'goat'), assuming the -n on ǵlap-n, ram-n, mugul-n is a noun suffix (and that also looks Germanic). If the diacritics were for scansion, I'd expect them on more than just 'g' and 'w'. Possibly this is an experimental orthography for an unwritten lect, or an ad hoc transliteration. It looks to me too much like a real language to be a hoax. 'ku' for 'and' is odd, though. It and 'work' look vaguely Irish, as if it were a pseudo-Celtic conlang. — kwami (talk) 10:35, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Ram looks like English ram or lamb, ku like Latin -que, ǵlap could be a mangling of capr(a), se could be the reflexive pronoun, final -n could be a Scandinavian common gendered article. I wouldn't be surprised if someone had attempted to make a vaguely Indo-European conlang. (I wonder if ǵ is meant to be pronounced as English j.) Even if I have studied both German and Dutch, Limburgish doesn't feel too straightforward. But I could attempt a rough translation into English people could feel free to improve. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:05, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! My attempt at translation left too many question marks, though I do wonder about 'soften'.

Sats looks like 'ver-zatj', glu like 'glee', and ut like 'out'. That strikes me as more than coincidence.

Possible a~e ablaut? baǵa 'to do', past beǵe 'did', also past se [BE + -tu gerund], geǵe 'laughed'. u 'with'? — kwami (talk) 20:05, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Google translate gives Dutch verzitten = shift, so perhaps the millstone needs to be moved, not softened. TSventon (talk) 20:40, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly I can assist with the Limburgish: verzatj is moved (wikt:li:verzitte), laefdjentj is lived (wikt:li:laeve), nag is German noch (wikt:li:nag), the last sentence is the typical last sentence of fairy tales. The text looks like reconstructed proto-language. Wiktionary has only one language where ku means and: Papiamento. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 20:47, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Yeah, I have my doubts about it being a real language, but figure it's worth an attempt to ID it so we can classify it properly on WS. — kwami (talk) 02:12, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I can't say whether it's a natural language, but it looks very germanic to me. ẃ must be a vowel, g and ǵ may be two versions of g, one palatalised and the other not, or one a plosive and the other a fricative, or something like that. Some guesswork:

Ramn (=the sheep, compare ram) se (possibly a reflexive pronoun or auxiliary verb) biǵtu (=working, or so the Limburgish translation says):

The ram was working.

Ǵap (there was, compare German es gab) muguln (=millstone, mu sounds like German Mühle or Dutch molen) imẃ (=to him, personal pronoun in dative case referring to the ram, compare German ihm) sats (=to move/relocate/reseat, some gerundive, compare seat):

There was a millstone for him to be reseated.

U (=to, some preposition, compare German um) baǵa (=do, compare Dutch begaan) um (=that, some demonstrative), ǵlapn (=goat) imẃ (=to him, as above) utu (=to be of use, compare French utile; could be a loan):

To do that, the goat had to be of use to him (=assist him).

Ǵlapn (=the goat) beǵe (=did, ablauted from baǵa) um (=that, as above) ǵa (=with pleasure, compare Dutch gaarne) glu u (I've got no idea):

The goat was happy to do so.

Ku (=and, may be related to nordic og) mumẃ (=after, some preposition) um (=that, as above) o (=yet, compare German noch) geǵe (=lived, past tense of gaǵa; the Limburgish translation appears to be singular, but I'm not sure about that) ut (=both; I think "ut ... ku ..." can be translated as "both ... and ...") hal (=long, or happy; maybe related to Dutch or German heil) ku (=and, as above) uǵ (=happy, or long):

And after that, he (maybe they) lived yet long and happy (=And they lived happily ever after, the standard ending of fairytales).

PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:49, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that all makes a lot of sense. 'Work' looks vaguely Celtic, but I suppose it could be anything. The nominal -n looks Nordic, but the rest doesn't. And with the inflections it doesn't look like a creole. If it were a reconstruction, I'd think it would be more recognizable. So maybe some basically Germanic alt-world conlang? Not sure what it's doing on Limburgish Wikisource. — kwami (talk) 19:53, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Certain aspects, such as that the language appears to have articles but no genders, and the gerund construction in "waar wèrkendje" ("was working") makes me believe that it might have been a conlang originally published on some English language mailing list or something, with the English later translated into Limburgish and put up on Wikisource. (Or does the "waar wèrkendje" syntax really feel natural in Limburgish?) A proper word list would have helped in alayzing the syntax, by the way. There's a lot of guesswork here on many levels. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:17, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You mean that the -n suffixes are the articles? They are all the same, but it could be coincidence that the words for sheep, goat and millstone all have the same grammatical gender. No evidence for grammatical cases either. I don't speak Limburgish, but the construction "was aan het werk" (was working, using a gerund) is fairly common in Dutch as some sort of continuous aspect, with "was werkend" (using a present participle) a possible, although uncommon, alternative. PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:55, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If I remember correctly, there are only a few languages on WS-li: Limburgish, High Limburgish, Old English, and this (under "unknown"). The two Old English entries duplicate WP-ang, which has been closed.[1] So it's certainly possible that someone was trying to preserve this from being deleted somewhere. — kwami (talk) 00:52, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The Limburgish text capitalizes the word 'Sjaop', hence it might be a proper name for a mill, like Het Jonge Schaap, Zaandam. Then the singular in the last sentence makes sense, for then there is only one animal in the story. Perhaps Ooswesthoesbes (you talked to him already) might have a better understanding of the Limburgish text. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 14:35, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

What's the word in Turkish?

In this video [2] you can see a man draw one's attention with a word meaning 'brother' that sound like havya. What's this word? 2A00:A040:199:76A8:BDDA:5276:D44C:DF3B (talk) 10:54, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have access to the video link as I'm at work, but could it be a declension of abi [3]? BbBrock (talk) 11:48, 12 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

If you mean at 10:47 (couldn't you have given us a time indication rather than let us watch this boring video for most of its duration?), he simply says abi. --Lambiam 06:29, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

August 13

Identifying a word I heard. I'm not sure about its spelling and meaning

Hi, I'm not a native English speaker

Today morning, I heard somebody saying "He got killed because of [?] shooting".

The missing word (or pair of words), I've signed by ?, was not heard well, but (in IPA) it ended with /'æ.baɪ/, the stress being on the syllable before the /baɪ/.

Because of the context, I'm sure the missing part was not "rabbi" (even though it was rather similar to "rabbi"), so I wonder what it could be. 147.236.144.145 (talk) 22:50, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

IPeditor, that sounds like drive-by shooting. TSventon (talk) 22:55, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, your suggestion sounds very reasonable. Thanks. 147.236.144.145 (talk) 23:28, 13 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

August 14

A couple of phonotactics questions

A couple of phonotactics questions:

Is there any language in Europe which allows sounds /j/, /ʋ/ and /w/ in coda position?
Is there any language in Europe which allows a nasal to be followed by heterorganic plosive, i.e. allowing other nasal+plosive combinations than /mp mb nt nd ŋk ŋg/
Is there any language in Europe which allows a C.V split in syllable boundary?
Is there any language in Europe which allows two or more geminates to occur consecutively without vowels in between, e.g. /tːsː/?

--40bus (talk) 17:57, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I think Swedish allows /j/ in final positions, although I'm not an expert in phonotactics. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:32, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1: Depends. What's the difference between those semivowels and the corresponding vowels in a diphthong? The latter happens, unless it's analysed as the former.

2: I'm not aware of any, but could be missing an example.

3: Depends. Does it count if a non-phonemic glottal stop gets inserted? Or if the consonant is ambisyllabic?

4: I'm not so familiar with languages with geminates.

PiusImpavidus (talk) 19:12, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1 I was thinking languages where central approximant which is not part diphthong can occur in coda. --40bus (talk) 19:30, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Dutch has the /ɛi̯/ (<ei> or <ij>), /œy̯/ (<ui>) and /ɔu̯/ or /ʌu̯/ (<ou> or <au>; most people pronounce both as either the first or second, but for some people there's a difference) diphthongs, which are indisputably phonemic, but the situation for /iu̯/ (<ieuw>), /yu̯/ (<uw>), /ui̯/ (<oei>), /eːu̯/ (<eeuw>), /ɔi̯/ (<oi>), /oːi̯/ (<ooi>), /ɑi̯/ (<ai>) and /aːi̯/ (<aai>) is not so clear. Those ending in /u̯/ could also be analysed as a monophthong followed by a /enwiki/w/, those ending in /i̯/ could also be analysed as a monophthong followed by /j/ (I think that makes more sense). Most varieties of Dutch don't use /enwiki/w/ outside these might-be-diphthongs, but use /ʋ/ or something similar instead, which is widely used in onset. /j/ is widely used in onset in all varieties of Dutch. Note that I find the description of Standard Dutch in our article overly narrow. It's so detailed that you could pinpoint this pronunciation to a particular city, if there were any city where people actually spoke Standard Dutch. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:47, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

2. German Amt, Imker. –Austronesier (talk) 19:46, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

As for your second question, even English is a good example: input, inbred, dreamt, empty - when pronounced /emtɪ/, scammed - pronounced /skæmd/, Addington - pronounced /ædɪŋtən/, Farrindon - pronounced /færɪŋdən/, Wellingborough - pronounced /wɛlɪŋbərə/, fryingpan - pronounced /fraɪ.ɪŋpæn/, and the like. HOTmag (talk) 20:05, 14 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Canberra. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:47, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And the other capial city, just next door: Wellington - pronounced: /'wɛlɪŋtən/. As for the first proper name you've mentioned - with "nb", there is another proper name - with the same consonant cluster: Allenby. HOTmag (talk) 03:47, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1: In Swedish and Hungarian the answer is unambiguously yes, given the /j/ can occur in coda after a consonant (see Swedish phonology and Hungarian phonology). In many other languages (e.g. Slavic) the answer is usually also yes, because normally the sound in question is analyzed as a phonological consonant, rather than one forming a diphthong with the preceding vowel.

2: Yes, as demonstrated, although this is rare and usually is across a morpheme boundary, whether transparent or only historical (check etymologies of German Imker, Amt and fremd).

3: I think that by the definition of a syllable, phonetically the boundary is -V.CV-, although phonologically other views might be possible. The Arrernte language (of Australia) is said to have no syllable onsets at all, so every boundary must be -VC.V- instead.

4: I highly doubt it, that's not how geminates work. --Theurgist (talk) 01:04, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

normally the sound in question is analyzed as a phonological consonant, rather than one forming a diphthong with the preceding vowel Did you mean the opposite? Nardog (talk) 04:16, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

No. Russian phonology says: "Phonological descriptions of /j/ may also classify it as a consonant even in the coda. In such descriptions, Russian has no diphthongs." Phonology pages on other Slavic languages mention diphthongs only in different contexts, or not at all. --Theurgist (talk) 08:36, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I must have been sleeping last night, as I missed examples of (2) in my native language: imker, vreemd. Dutch ambt kept, in contrast to its German cognate, its (devoiced) b: /ɑmpt/, which may be dropped when another syllable follows: ambtenaar /ˈɑm.tə.naːr/. They are rare and in many of the /mt/ examples, a /p/ gets inserted in speech and in many /np/ examples, the /n/ is assimilated to an /m/, even when those aren't written. Can we find minimal pairs? I mean, English input has /np/, but as the word imput doesn't exist, we can't rule out that input is actually pronounced as imput. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:47, 15 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In English: impatient —inpatient. In Dutch: impassen —inpassen. Both have a stress difference, though, so they are not true minimal pairs. --Lambiam 06:12, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Inpassen is a bit special too. As it's a separable verb, the n is rarely adjacent to the p (only if it's the finite verb in a dependent clause, sometimes the infinitive, the present participle and gerund), so it's logical that in spelling the n isn't turned into an m. The many forms that have a clear /n/ separated from /p/ may act as a barrier to prevent assimilation in the rare forms with /np/. I think we must conclude that /np, nb, mt, md/ exist, but are somewhat marginal. I have the impression that /ŋp, ŋb, mk, mg/ are more common. Maybe the gap from /m/ to /ŋ/ etc. is too large to bridge with assimilation. So, in any case, the answer to OP is yes, they exist. PiusImpavidus (talk) 17:58, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And also /ŋt/, /ŋd/. HOTmag (talk) 21:00, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

August 16

The Sound of Silence

Paul Simon's The Sound of Silence appears to have two variations of lyrics in the last verse.

paulsimon.com (presumably the authoritative site) and azlyrics.com have "And the sign said “The words of the prophets Are written on subway walls And tenement halls And whispered in the sounds of silence"

musicmix.com has two variants: for Simon and Garfunkel "And the sign said “The words of the prophets Are written on subway walls In tenement halls" And whispered the sounds of silence and the Disturbed version: "Then the sign said, “The words on the prophets Are written on subway walls In tenement halls" And whispered in the sound of silence

The paulsimon.com version strikes me as being grammatically the best English and reflects what is sung by S&G (although the final 'in' is very short and may even be missing). The disturbed musicmix version appears to match what Disturbed sing. Is there any rationale for the on and the In in that version or did they just "get it wrong"? -- SGBailey (talk) 05:56, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

S&G version: "And the sign said the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls, whispered in the sounds of silence"[4] Disturbed version: It does sound like he's saying "on" although the subtitles say "of".[5] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:16, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"On" makes no sense. Clarityfiend (talk) 10:55, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Musixmatch.com (which is what I get instead of musicmix.com when I search) says its lyrics come from Spotify, which (according to audiohype.io) gets its lyrics from genius.com, which allows for listener-transcribed lyrics. So it's possible the lyrics have been mistranscribed by a listener. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 11:04, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes, these (or similar) ambiguities are cleverly written in for poetic purposes, though, such as in David Bowie's famous line "Lenin's / Lennon's on sale again". 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:18, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Lennon and McCartney, in "Revolution", used to sing the line following "If you talk about destruction" different ways. As originally written, the following line was "Don't you know that you can count me out", though sometimes they would sing "in", either in place of the "out" lyric, or over the top of it, or immediately after it. --Jayron 32 12:47, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Now I don't remember the exact details, but I recall that some adult contemporary American (I think) "singer-songwriter" had written a whole song with recurring similar ambiguities, and wanted to exclude the liner notes, since it implied a canonical interpretation... But in the end he gave in to the transcriptors (or whatchamacallthem), and just let them pick one version. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:51, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed that Simon in recent performances (including at the 25th Anniversary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Concerts in 2009 with Garfunkel) sings "Take my arms that I might reach out to you" instead of "Take my arms that I might reach you" as in the studio version. Nardog (talk) 16:36, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One important thing to remember is that no performer, whether the original writer, or any later performers, is required or bound to perform the song slavishly copying the way it was written. Musicians can, and often do, provided a novel interpretation of the music, adding their own improvisation, in terms of both notes and lyrics, with almost every performance. The words as Simon published them in 1964, have the potential to be changed with each subsequent performance. Lyrics websites, such as music mix, often contain lyrics as heard, and may contain misheard lyrics and other errata, and there's no reason why, say, the Disturbed version, or live performance by Simon himself, would contain the exact same words every time. --Jayron 32 17:30, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Besides purposefully changing the lyrics for different audiences or changing times, there's also the possibility that the singer made a mistake, or themself misheard the words if they weren't the writer. In the studio version of Procol Harum's Conquistador, there's the nonsense line "And as the gloom begins to fall / I see there is no, only all." People have puzzled over this, but it seems quite clear when you listen to it. I've seen the suggestion that it's supposed to be "I see there is no aureole," which would make sense if the writer was tying the end of the song back to the beginning ("And like some angel's haloed brow / You reek of purity.") But "aureole" is an obscure word, and it's possible that it was one the writer Keith Reid knew (or found in a thesaurus), but that the singer Gary Brooker did not, so he substituted sound-alike words, perhaps influenced by the following verse ("And though you came with sword held high / You did not conquer, only die", the only other place the word "only" appears). I don't know if the lyrics were ever published, but even if Reid did intend "aureole", that doesn't mean Brooker didn't sing "only all" instead. — kwami (talk) 22:52, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Aha. Possibly a mondegreen, then. ColinFine (talk) 22:54, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's the word! A mondegreen by the singer himself. Maybe. — kwami (talk) 23:02, 16 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

August 17

English adjectives

Which is the reason for that English adjectives do not get plural -s when appearing before plural nouns? For example, why does English say yellow cars instead of yellows cars? All other Germanic languages, and also all other languages in Europe (except Hungarian and Turkic languages) say literally "yellows cars", so why English does not say? 40bus (talk) 12:33, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

English adjectives have never had a plural -s, though. In Middle English they had a plural -e ending, which was fossilized in writing for a while after it had mostly disappeared in spoken language, but later disappeared altogether.
See Old English grammar#Adjectives and Middle_English#Adjectives 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:56, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Why did it disappear? 40bus (talk) 13:13, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

English, in general, has either lost (or never had) many of the clitics and other grammatical markers for Agreement. Compared with many other European languages, English words almost never change to agree with the other words in a sentence; there are a few such agreements, such as some subject-verb agreement, but no where near as varied or complex as other language. English words really just keep the same form, except for the specific word being changed; it has very little redundancy such as one expects in other languages. This process of modifying words to fit their use is called inflection, and English used to be far more inflected, but it is not anymore. As for "why" it disappeared, there are lots of hypotheses, and little ways to verify those hypothesis. Lots of linguistic change is due to unknowable factors, called Drift. In this case, we are talking about a syntactic change to English. It's important to remember that linguistics is not physics; you can't prescribe deterministic "cause and effect" chains to explain why linguistic change happens. You can put events in chronological order, but you can't predictively say things will or will not happen. --Jayron 32 13:18, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

One reason that has been suggested for English (a West Germanic language) losing most of its grammatical markers is that in the post-Roman period Britain was invaded and colonised by various North and West Germanic language speakers, including Norse, Jutes, Saxons, Frisians and Franks (in some periods collectively lumped together as "Danes"), who eventually blended to produce the English.

Because these people's languages were related, they could understand each other to a degree: much of their core vocabulary was similar, but their grammars differed more (because that's what happens when one language evolves into two or several). They may also often have been bilingual in their own tongue and Frisian – to which modern English most closely resembles – because the coastal Frisians may have been prominent in trading so that their language had become a lingua franca in North West Europe.

In these circumstances, when speaking together, these new neighbors would likely have dropped some of the grammatical inflections and other features peculiar to their own languages, resulting in a blend (arguably a creole) that lacked them. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.2390.195} 90.209.121.96 (talk) 14:33, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The grammar of Old English still had all the complex aspects (agreement, cases, genders, strong and weak declension, varying word order) found in most Germanic languages. When Middle English emerges after the Norman conquest, it is markedly different. Almost all of this complexity has disappeared. Unfortunately, documents from the transition period are written in Anglo-Norman French, so the transition process is not documented. The striking simplification has been compared to that seen in emerging creole languages, and people have even wondered if English as she is spoke should herself be classified as a creole, the so-called Middle English creole hypothesis. Even if many linguists feel that the label does not apply (see e.g. this readable article), similar forces leading to dramatic simplification have likely been in play. --Lambiam 14:48, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Noting a misspelled middle initial

I wrote out a reference at WP as such: "Census of 1910. The printing house was founded by Charles I. [F.] Willey in 1899. Home: Manhattan. Born: Illinois, 1859." Now, the name of the printing house founder was Charles I. Willey. However, in the Census of 1910, his name is misspelled as Charles F. Willey. Is this the correct way to signify, that one needs to search under Charles F. Willey to find the name Charles I. Willey? I put the misspelled initial in brackets, and also italicized. Thanks. Jim Percy (talk) 13:08, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

1. Are you absolutely certain the census entry refers to the correct Charles Willey? The further back you go, the more static -- and the more slippery -- some people can be.

2. Middle names are often not regulated. Someone born John A. Smith can have a nickname "Buck" and decide to go by, later in life, "Buck J. Smith" or "Buck J. A. Smith" or "J. A. Buck Smith" if more formal, etc.

Given this, finding the source of where the I. and F. come from, and which if any were legal or given at birth, might be (or might not be, if he's not worth it) a worthwhile hunt. SamuelRiv (talk) 13:21, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Another possibility is that "F" was "I's" son or nephew. Families owning commercial operations sometimes like to use similar names in successive generations to suggest stability: an example is the publishers John Murray, which was headed by seven successive "John Murrays" over the period 1768–2002 (not all father and son). [I worked under "John Murray VII".] {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.209.121.96 (talk) 14:49, 17 August 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 234: / Line 234: @@
 :2. Middle names are often not regulated. Someone born John A. Smith can have a nickname "Buck" and decide to go by, later in life, "Buck J. Smith" or "Buck J. A. Smith" or "J. A. Buck Smith" if more formal, etc.
 :Given this, finding the source of where the I. and F. come from, and which if any were legal or given at birth, might be (or might not be, if he's not worth it) a worthwhile hunt. [[User:SamuelRiv|SamuelRiv]] ([[User talk:SamuelRiv|talk]]) 13:21, 17 August 2022 (UTC)
+:Another possibility is that "F" was "I's" son or nephew. Families owning commercial operations sometimes like to use similar names in successive generations to suggest stability: an example is the publishers [[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]], which was headed by seven successive "John Murrays" over the period 1768–2002 (not all father and son). [I worked under "John Murray VII".] {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} [[Special:Contributions/90.209.121.96|90.209.121.96]] ([[User talk:90.209.121.96|talk]]) 14:49, 17 August 2022 (UTC)