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July 12

Japanese rhymes

Watching on Youtube songs from children movies, especially from Disney, in multiple languages I noticed that all European localizations utilize some kind of rhyme, while in Japanese they apparently do not. It looks like they just vocalize the translated text along the melody but they don't seem to me to use anything similar to our concept of rhyme. I find it an interesting difference. Is it a common practice also in other media? It it somehow "culture-bound"'?
Here are two examples from Youtube:
Prince Ali:
German: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SvmwwYw8ZA4&ab_channel=TungilG
Italian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLW56niWR6g&ab_channel=FlamSparks
Japanese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3Bvf2RLlcU&ab_channel=BoBalderson
This is Halloween:
Dutch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2_ZjfVkTLo&ab_channel=FlamSparks
Russian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRfcMW09HZI&ab_channel=Furry
Japanese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITbjEAWyy4I&ab_channel=Yuuki
79.34.237.101 (talk) 12:41, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Old English didn't have rhyme; it had poetic verse lines divided into half-lines, internally connected by initial alliteration of key words. Rhyme was introduced into Middle English, mainly under French influence. AnonMoos (talk) 13:50, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Japanese pop songs and anime openings I have heard rarely use rhyming in a systematic manner, possibly as they tend to focus more on melody than rhythm. J-Rappers do, of course, but it seems to be a rather recent phenomenon. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:42, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I.e. even traditional Japanese poetry largely seems to have evaded rhyming, there were strict meters but rhymes and alliterations were of little importance. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:47, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Alliterative half-lines — it's a general Germanic concept, not just Old English; the Poetic Edda poems generally use this structure, for example. The half-lines alliterated with each other, without regard to alliteration between lines. For example, Alliterative_verse#English alliterative verse quotes this bit from The Battle of Maldon:

Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cēnre,
mōd sceal þe māre, swā ūre mægen lȳtlað

I've bolded the alliterative syllables. Nyttend (talk) 22:10, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

According to this book, Japanese poetry relies on the assonance of morae. Trying to understand that made my head hurt, so it must be bed-time. Alansplodge (talk) 22:16, 12 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That book mostly seems to be about Japanese sound symbolism, with poetry only mentioned incidentally. Anyway, looking up the example poem in tanka, I have a hard time finding any deliberate examples of alliteration or assonance, that don't seem to be coincidental due to the small Japanese phonemic inventory. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 01:26, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

July 13

Including an omitted work in an article

I've been trying to include The Facts of Life Reunion in the filmography of Kim Fields. Each time I try, all I got was lines going through the same year, 2001. Could somebody help me out, please? Thank you.2603:7000:8641:810E:A15C:6F88:8C18:19C0 (talk) 03:35, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done. --Lambiam 10:19, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And format improved. --142.112.221.64 (talk) 17:36, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much, guys.2603:7000:8641:810E:64CF:598A:534D:65B9 (talk) 05:35, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What’s with this K-J conversion?

Several proper nouns that have a K sound in English end up with a J sound in Mandarin Chinese. Here are some examples:

Kentucky becomes Kěntǎjī
Canada becomes Jiānádà
Pakistan becomes Bājīsītǎn
Jamaica becomes Yámǎijiā
Kyrgyz becomes Jí'ěrjísī
Kuala Lumpur becomes Jílóngpō

Why does this happen in all these places? Primal Groudon (talk) 05:53, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Because the names weren't borrowed directly from foreign languages into modern standard Mandarin, but into other dialect(s), and then the sounds of those other dialects were converted into the corresponding modern standard Mandarin sounds. There's a little about the sound changes involved at Palatalization (sound change)#Sinitic languages... AnonMoos (talk) 07:31, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. You can see the same relationship in differing Romanisations of Chinese names. Outside China the Chinese capital 北京 was only a few decades ago known as Peking, but is now known as Beijing. It's not that the pronunciation changed in China, at least not that rapidly. It's that Romanisation was based on one dialect, possibly Cantonese, but is now based on Standard Chinese, i.e. the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. Other examples include Nanking/Nanjing, Chungking/Chongqing, Canton/Guangdong. --92.40.33.166 (talk) 10:57, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

While this is correct, it should also be noted that Pekin (not a typo) entered English in 1596. At that time, even Mandarin (which was much less accessible to Westerners) had a [k] there. Double sharp (talk) 04:06, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not only non-Mandarin dialects. Cangxi dialect (in Sichuan) preserves the round-sharp distinction between [ki] and [tsi] (in standard Mandarin they are both now [tɕi]). In Nanjing Mandarin, [ki] has shifted to [tɕi], but [tsi] is retained. This style of making the distinction was preserved in the Old National Pronunciation. Double sharp (talk) 03:20, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

An equivalent palatalisation affected the proper nouns in Albanian: Greece, Cyprus, Macedonia, Turkey became Greqi, Qipro, Maqedoni, Turqi, with ⟨q⟩ standing for [tɕ]. Thus, borrowing via intermediate dialects is not the only way that the [k]~[tɕ] correspondence could arise. 82.166.199.42 (talk) 11:08, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is a process called palatalization, and it has happened at many places and times. It happened in late Latin, so that Sicilia (with a /k/) came to be Sicilia (with a /tʃ/). It happened in Old English, so that Tadcaster still has its /k/ but Manchester has a /tʃ/ (the last part of both is derived from Latin castra "camp"). It happened in Swedish, so the city we call Copenhagen, in Danish København with a /k/, is in Swedish Köpenhamn, starting with ɧ (a sound which is common in Swedish but rare elsewhere in Europe). ColinFine (talk) 16:12, 13 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionary gives the pronunciation /ɕøːpɛnˈhamn/. --Lambiam 11:51, 14 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can confirm. The "sj-sound" (which varies quite a bit, I believe I pronounce it cloer to /ʂ/) has a lot of spellings, that tend to start with s- or be loans from French, the "kj-sound" /ɕ/ is for words beginning with k, but they are different phonemes in most varieties of Swedish. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:03, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

July 15

Questions

Does English have any verbs which use verb to be instead of to have in composed forms?
Does Spanish have dark L?
Does French have nominative case?
Is the thing that in English, "half two" is "half past two", not "half to", Romance influence? Are there any other Germanic languages that have same?

--40bus (talk) 14:40, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Half two"??? Where have you seen that? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:37, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's quite common in (colloquial) British English. On occasion I have managed to translate "half two" to German halb drei without a blink, which I'm a bit proud of. --Wrongfilter (talk) 15:45, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Or even non-colloquially:

...will sit on the 10th day of March instant, at half two in the afternoon precisely, at the Court of Bankruptcy in Basing-hall Street.

The London Gazette (1843) p, 792 Alansplodge (talk) 23:09, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

40bus -- If you mean the perfect, then there are a few intransitive semi-archaic forms often associated with religion, such as "Christ is risen", "he is come", and possibly one or two others. Otherwise, not... AnonMoos (talk) 16:36, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, you can read about the case system of Old French at Old French#Nouns, but that was a number of centuries ago. AnonMoos (talk) 16:40, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In my methodology, every language in the world have a nominative case. If a language has just one case (such as French, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese and Malay), it has a nominative case. --40bus (talk) 17:29, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You could argue that every language without a case system has exactly one case, which you could declare a nominative, sure. French doesn't really have cases, except some remnants in the personal pronouns, and is a nominative–accusative language. In which case you answered your own question. However, see ergative–absolutive language: this may not work so well for every language. PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:18, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

User:AnonMoos, why do you say "Christ is risen" is semi-archaic? How is it different from "AnonMoos is awake"? Nyttend (talk) 21:27, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Risen is a verb (past tense of rise). Awake is an adjective, whose related verb is wake (woke, woken ...). Woke has latterly become an adjective, but that doesn't make awake a verb. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:32, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

But it's just a participle. If my wife asks me about the state of her unbaked bread, I could easily say "The bread is risen", and when I'm looking for leftovers the next day, she could tell me "The bread is already eaten" or "The bread is gone". Nyttend (talk) 21:43, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"The bread is already eaten" is a present passive sentence, not a perfect active sentence, so it's irrelevant. In "The bread is gone", "gone" is an adjective (see wikt:gone#Adjective, sense 3). In "The bread is risen", "risen" feels like an adjective too, as you're describing the current state of the bread rather than saying what the bread has done, for which one would say "The bread has risen". But of course there's not much difference in meaning between "The bread is risen" and "The bread has risen", since the latter must be true in order for the former to be true. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:23, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

1: I found plenty in the book I was reading last night in bed: “The banish'd Bolingbroke repeals himself,// And with uplifted arms is safe arrived// At Ravenspurgh.” Or doesn't Shakespeare qualify as English? PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:08, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I rather think that the Paschal greeting, "Christ is risen!", owes more to tradition than modern language. It can be traced to two Biblical texts, both of which are given as "has" rather than "is" in modern English translations; see Luke 24:34 “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon." and Matthew 28:6 "He is not here; he has risen, just as he said". The corresponding verses in the 17th-century King James Bible both have "is" rather than "has". Alansplodge (talk) 19:11, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I made a mistake -- I should have written "Christ is risen", not "Christ is arisen", sorry... AnonMoos (talk) 00:11, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Kannada text

Could someone provide a transcription of this text? I've asked to have this image vectorised (it's a JPG), and the WP:GL/I volunteer says that we need a transcription. Nyttend (talk) 21:32, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ಪದನಿದು ನುಡಿಯಲುಂ ನುಡಿದುದ

ನಯಲುಮಾರ್ಪರಾ ನಾಡವರ್ಗಳ್

ಚದುರರ್ ನಿಜದಿಂ ಕುರಿತೋದದೆಯುಂ

ಕಾವ್ಯಪ್ರಯೋಗ ಪರಿಣತಮತಿಗಳ್

According to Google lens. Folly Mox (talk) 22:56, 15 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In the first word, two letters become one other letter. The second letter of the second line is lost. Other than that I (unacquainted with Kannada script) see no errors, but watch out. —Tamfang (talk) 15:35, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Since the image source is a screenshot of the text, I tried running a Google search, and with it I found kn:ಶ್ರೀವಿಜಯ, the Kannada Wikipedia article on the text from which this is an excerpt. However, it looks like there are several transcription errors, enough that I'm hesitant to use the text on that article, in case it's not the same text as the image. I've reached out to a Kannada-speaking acquaintance in real life. Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 22:09, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The lost second letter of the second line is also found in the first word of the original, but not in the Google lens version. In both cases, it corresponds to the letter ರಿ in the Kannada Wikipedia article. --Lambiam 22:37, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah looks like ಱ has been obsolete for some time. No wonder Google lens didn't like it. Folly Mox (talk) 23:29, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

User:Nyttend, if your friend runs into trouble with the problem glyph, you can force it through html entities. ಱಿ yields ಱಿ. Folly Mox (talk) 23:37, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ಪದನಱಿದು ನುಡಿಯಲುಂ ನುಡಿದುದ

ನಱಿಯಲುಮಾರ್ಪರಾ ನಾಡವರ್ಗಳ್

ಚದುರರ್ ನಿಜದಿಂ ಕುರಿತೋದದೆಯುಂ

ಕಾವ್ಯಪ್ರಯೋಗ ಪರಿಣತಮತಿಗಳ್

From the department of wait why don't I just do this right now? Folly Mox (talk) 23:42, 16 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I'll see what she says; she's in Bangalore and uses Kannada daily (runs in my mind it's her native language), so I doubt she'll have any issues, but this will be great if I don't hear from her. Nyttend (talk) 22:20, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

July 17

Ye olde spellynge

Why in the St Crispin's Day Speech is it spelled Crispin in some places and Crispian in others, even in the same sentence ("And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by")? Be there method to this madness? Enquiring minds want to know. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:07, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note that Saint Crispin's Day is actually the feast day of twin saints, Crispin and Crispinian. This short analysis of the St Crispin's day speech says that Shakespeare is using "Crispian" to mean "Crispinian" (by mistake?), thus either can refer to the day in question, or both together, as in "Crispin Crispian". Card Zero (talk) 09:10, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

(ec, I didn't know about there being two saintly fellows) Probably a matter of metre, the speech being written in iambic pentameters. When Shakespeare needs a single stress in the name it's Cr'i-spin (as in the last line "Saint Cr'i-spin's d'ay" with stresses on Crisp and day), when he needs two it's Cr´is-pi-´an, hence "And Cr'i-spin Cr'i-spi-'an ..." (pardon the inept typography). --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:13, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Seems like it must have been super confusing for their parents. But if people can figure out how to deal with naming all their sons George, then I suppose workarounds could be found. --Trovatore (talk) 18:15, 17 July 2023 (UTC) [reply]

Or all their daughters Jenny... --Wrongfilter (talk) 18:31, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A much less sympathetic example. --Trovatore (talk) 04:45, 18 July 2023 (UTC) [reply]

Note that we don't know exactly how Shakespeare spelled anything - the plays have come to us by way of the First Folio published 7 years after his death. This was compiled and edited by two of his colleagues, either from prompt books or manuscripts, none of which have survived. [1] Alansplodge (talk) 18:58, 17 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore English spelling was very chaotic back then, with authors sometimes using different spellings in the same text – whether to equalize line lengths, or just for no particular reason. The spelling of Shakespeare's name wasn't even standardized until the late 19th century. --Lazar Taxon (talk) 01:52, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:01, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Faversham version of the legend calls them Crispin and Crispianus. Anyway, I feel we can't let this question escape into the archives without someone mentioning that they are the patron saints of glovers, and Shakespeare's father was a glover. DuncanHill (talk) 16:35, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's funny — I know the surname Glover, especially for Danny, but it never occurred to me that there was such a profession as glover. I would have thought it would fold into either "leatherworker" or "tailor". Trovatore (talk) 17:47, 18 July 2023 (UTC) [reply]

See Worshipful Company of Glovers. When you think about it, gloves are a pretty intricate artifact. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.198.140.169 (talk) 00:32, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yikes. That article reads remarkably like straight copy/paste from their website. 199.208.172.35 (talk) 16:42, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That lends extra meaning to the actor named Crispin Glover. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:41, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

July 18

Use of 囲 outside of Japanese

Chinese Wiktionary lists 囲 as an alternate form of 圍 in both Chinese and Korean; this surprised me, because the "common knowledge" is that it's a form that only makes sense in Japanese, based on the kun'yomi reading of 井 as (w)i. Has 囲 ever been used outside of Japanese? Is it not a Japanese invention as commonly supposed? Lazar Taxon (talk) 01:46, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps a tangential question, but is it unknown for Chinese languages ('dialects'/'topolects') to adopt characters from Japanese, as opposed to the (as I understand it) very common contrary? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.198.140.169 (talk) 05:23, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Taiwanese Mandarin sometimes uses the same characters as Japanese as shorthands, and it is even common to write hiragana の for 的. —Kusma (talk) 06:38, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It is not unheard of. When Chinese borrows a Japanese word including kokuji, the kokuji itself is often imported and given a Chinese reading. Most obviously this happens when referring to Japanese people whose names include kokuji (e.g. 綾辻行人), but there are other examples. For example, 腺 "gland" is a kokuji invented by ja:宇田川玄真 (Udogawa Genshin), but it was borrowed into Chinese from Japanese and given the reading xiàn (like 線).

Practices for Korean and Vietnamese borrowings into Chinese differ. Chinese Wikipedia writes 李世乭 (Lee Sedol, with a gukja) and zh:北𣴓省 (Bắc Kạn Province, with a Nôm character), but Baidu Baike replaces them with native Chinese characters and writes 李世石 and 北件省. Some Sawndip characters from Zhuang that appear in placenames in Guangxi have already become part of Standard Chinese, e.g. wikt:岜 and wikt:崬. Double sharp (talk) 07:45, 18 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

July 19

Questions again

Are there any languages which use letter X in beginning of native words and it stands for /ks/ sound?
Does Spanish have any words with grave accent?
Are there any words in English where letter B is pronounced word-finally after M?
Are there any words in English where word-initial X is not pronounced /z/
In Dutch, Ukraine is Oekraïne. How would it be pronounced if it were spelled Oekraine.
Are there any English words where diacritic is orthographically required?
Are there any modern non-Romanian Romance languages which have retained grammatical cases? --40bus (talk) 14:38, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
1: Greek, obviously (Ξ was anciently written X in western dialects). 6: façade. —Tamfang (talk) 16:41, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can't agree with façade. If you insist it needs a cedilla, then I must insist it should be treated as a foreign word, requiring italics. If not, not. I see that you have indeed used italics; that must mean you don't regard it as an English word, and hence not relevant to the question. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:32, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Although our article insists on using the c-with-little-s thing, the conventional spelling in English is "facade".[2] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:37, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The OED uses the cedilla, and has an example with the cedilla but without italics from 1839. DuncanHill (talk) 20:12, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Chambers likewise uses the cedilla but does not mark it as foreign. DuncanHill (talk) 20:21, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For #4, there are foreign proper names like "Xhosa" and "Ximenez" which when used in English do not begin with /z/. There are also words like "xray" and "xmas" in which the "x" is pronounced /ɛks/. CodeTalker (talk) 17:08, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ad 1: Xenophobia / xenophilia? --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 18:06, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't those pronounced with a leading "z" sound? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:37, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In English yes, in Greek no. Folly Mox (talk) 19:45, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you consider x and ξ the same, I guess it's valid. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:09, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In most European languages (wiktionary lists German, Italian, Hungarian, and Slovak, representing four different language branches), xenophobia is spelled with a Latin X-, and pronounced with [ks-]. 82.166.199.42 (talk) 07:39, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In most European languages, such words are spelled with x- and pronounced with /ks-/, but the question is whether they can be considered native words. Most appear to be borrowed from Greek. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:06, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

4) One hears Xavier mispronounced nowadays as "Ex-Avia". BTW, the use of hashes instead of real numbers is unhelpful when replying in the edit window, as we don't get to see the numbers. DuncanHill (talk) 20:07, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Codetalker -- Most often Xmas is pronounced the same as "Christmas" (except on Futurama).

JackofOz, Baseball_bugs -- It's hard to say that the cedilla is "required" theere, but the letter "c" in the letter sequence "ca" rarely has the sound-value [s] in English, so some people apparently feel that it's helpful there.. AnonMoos (talk) 20:10, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Re. "xmas", the OED gives both pronunciations. I don't know which is more common, but I'm sure I've heard
/ˈɛksməs/ even in non-Futurama contexts. CodeTalker (talk) 20:45, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Chambers gives the eksmas pronunciation before the Christmas one, and I have to say I think eksmas is the more common pronunciation. DuncanHill (talk) 20:48, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ironic it is that the "X" is the Greek letter "chi". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:23, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

5) /ukrɑi̯nə/, I guess, whereas the correct pronunciation is /ukraˈʔinə/, /ukraˈjinə/ or /ukraˈɦinə/ 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:14, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Close enough, according to this native Dutch speaker: the a would turn lax and one syllable cut, turning the i into the final part of a diphthong. IMHO, the pronunciation of Dutch as given in Wiktionary or in our article on Dutch phonology suffers from excessive precision. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:58, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

7) Aromanian has cases, but some might consider it a Romanian dialect. Double sharp (talk) 03:48, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

2) No, Spanish only uses the acute accent, not the grave. Its purpose is to indicate which syllable is stressed in a word that does not follow default stress rules. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:07, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That said, the grave was used in Early Modern Spanish. Double sharp (talk) 04:14, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

6 is "No", with the caveat that "it depends on which variety of English it is and how pedantic someone is". As noted above, there are some pedants who insist that the only proper way to spell certain words like "façade" and "naïve" and "rôle" and "jalapeño" is with the diacritic, but among most English writers in most of the world (and among most style guides commonly used in most of the world), diacritics are entirely unused. --Jayron 32 11:41, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Jayron of course knows better than professional lexicographers. DuncanHill (talk) 11:45, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, scrub that. Where the fuck do you get off Jayron, you and your uncited baloney? Who are these "some pedants"? Can I call you an idiot if you call me a pedant? DuncanHill (talk) 11:49, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's because I'm an asshole. I'm actually shocked it took you until today to learn I'm not useful around here. Everyone else has known for years. --Jayron 32 11:55, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
"façade The cedilla should always be maintained". ^[1] Burchfield allows either for naïve, and says while role is the OUP house style, rôle is still valid.

I checked a couple of editions of the Chicago guide, it doesn't seem to mention façade (however spelt) at all, some editions do say that a cedilla is among the minimum requirements for type.

Merriam-Webster has facade as the head-word and says "or less commonly façade". It has "naive or naïve", "jalapeño or less commonly jalapeno", "role or less commonly rôle".

The spell-check on my Windows pc (set to BrEng) marks facade and naive and rôle as mis-spellings. I think that's the first time I've ever typed or written the word jalapeño with or without the curly thing. DuncanHill (talk)
Thank you for the corrections! --Jayron 32 14:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
3 is also "No", largely because "m" and "b" have identical place of articulation, with the only difference being that "b" is plosive consonant and m is a nasal consonant, which makes it awkward to transition between the two in English without having a following vowel. Word final voiced plosives in English are almost always unaspirated and devoiced, while the same consonant is commonly aspirated in pre-vocalic position (compare "bone" and "cob". If you hold your hand in front of your mouth when you say "bone", for most English speakers, you'll feel a distinct puff of air that you won't necessarily feel for "cob"). An unaspirated plosive following a nasal with the same place of articulation has no way to mark it as distinct. In other words, if you want to pronounce the "b" in "dumb" you need to add something to the end of the word, such as a short vowel sound, like a short "schwa", or you need to forcibly aspirate it. Since it is normally unaspirated, it doesn't stand out from the "m" in any way. --Jayron 32 11:55, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's not the reason. There are many languages that allow /mb/ in coda, and those words are spelled like that precisely because English was one of them. It's just how English phonotactics happened to evolve. Nardog (talk) 12:53, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[-nd], [-nt] and [-ŋk] are rather common in English, despite having all the same peculiarities that you mention: a nasal followed by an unaspirated plosive, with identical place of articulation. it doesn't stand out from the "m" in any way -- of course it does, by being a plosive and not a nasal. 82.166.199.42 (talk) 13:01, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the correct explanations! --Jayron 32 14:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Burchfield, R. W. (1996). The New Fowler's Modern English Usage (Third ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 279. ISBN 0-19-969036-7.

Words with unexpected meanings

There are some words that do not mean what they may seem to mean at first glance, and for this reason are often misused. Ones that come to mind are:

fulsome (does not mean full or complete, but excessive)
restive (does not mean restful or calm, but unsettled, grumbly and potentially explosive)
presently (does not mean right now, but soon)
momentarily (does not mean in a moment, i.e. soon, but lasting only a moment).

I'm sure there are many others. Is there a list? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:53, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fulsome and presently both have well-attested use for the meanings you say they do not mean, indeed they seem to be the oldest meanings of them. DuncanHill (talk) 20:03, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Driving in parkways and parking in driveways...? ;) --CiaPan (talk) 20:36, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A few that come to mind are enormity, dissemble, disinterested. --Trovatore (talk) 20:59, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"quite literally" - meaning "figuratively and not literally at all"? Iloveparrots (talk) 21:24, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

entitled has had a complete change in meaning of recent times. It used to mean exactly what it said, entitled. Now it means virtually the opposite: someone who's NOT entitled but acts as if they were. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:26, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really agree with that. "Entitled" still means what it means, though certain locutions like "entitled attitude" or "entitled behavior" have changed. However there's a significant fraction of the population that just uses the word incorrectly (yes, I'm a prescriptivist, as I think are you).

This will be obvious to anyone who follows Facebook listen, it's perfectly natural; almost everyone does it in the United States. Every now and then you'll see a "viral" post taking umbrage at the description of, for example, Social Security as an "entitlement", which is the technical term for the category of government expenditures under which it falls. They'll say: It's not an entitlement! We paid for it!!!11!!1!. Well, right, that's why you would be entitled to it. --Trovatore (talk) 00:38, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

another one: ridiculous used to mean worthy of ridicule, derision, contempt; now it seems to mean superlatively good. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:49, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On restive, see this. Deor (talk) 23:35, 19 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The word "sick" is sometimes used as slang to describe something that is very good. Jack, as an Australian, is probably already familiar with the more extreme "deadly", a word in Aboriginal Australian English meaning excellent. HiLo48 (talk) 04:45, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wicked! DuncanHill (talk) 08:20, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Slim Shady, ain't nobody iller than me, Eminem. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:45, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Inflammable" – you would think it means the opposite of "flammable", instead it is a synonym. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 14:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's becaue Latin had at least three etymologially and semantically different prefixes spelled like in-. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:50, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For a specific kind of word that's like this, see auto-antonym, where one word has two (or more) senses which are antonyms. For example, "oversight" can both mean missed/overlooked or closely scrutinized. If you're familiar with one sense, the other sense would appear as an unexpected meaning. And see also perhaps skunked term. Matt Deres (talk) 14:46, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And, awful doesn't mean "full of awe". 136.54.99.98 (talk) 16:26, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

July 20

English

To do my own homework 41.150.251.82 (talk) 13:21, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a question we can answer for you? --Jayron 32 14:11, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? Is this a self-referential joke about "We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point." ? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:51, 20 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

[1] Burchfield, R. W. (1996). The New Fowler's Modern English Usage (Third ed.). Oxford University Press. p. 279. ISBN 0-19-969036-7.

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