Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language
of the Wikipedia reference desk.
Main page: Help searching Wikipedia
How can I get my question answered?
- Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
- Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
- Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
- Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
- Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
- Note:
- We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
- We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
- We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
- We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.
How do I answer a question?
Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines
- The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.
July 6
Remedial writing
What is a typical syllabus and literature for a remedial writing course for high school students heading to college? --Hofhof (talk) 14:00, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
- I googled "Remedial writing programs for high school students" and got many hits, including. http://www.diannecraft.org/language-arts-writing-program/. Loraof (talk) 17:09, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
- Pretty thin this resource you linked. And it's not even for high school students. That's rather for small children learning the basics. --Hofhof (talk) 20:41, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
- Did Loraof's good faith effort not at least suggest to you that you google remedial writing programs for college students, then get back to us? After all, it's highly unlikely we have a list of such books as a wp article. μηδείς (talk) 18:03, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
Narner
What is a "narner" in British English? It seems to mean a foolish or gormless person, a bit of an idiot. Is it anything connected with a banana? Thank you. 86.188.121.105 (talk) 18:11, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
- See wiktionary:nana#Etymology_1 Rojomoke (talk) 18:48, 6 July 2016 (UTC) (restored after accidental deletion)
- I believe Rojo is implying that it means they are as intelligent as a banana. There are many similar insulting comparisons with food, like "muttonhead" and "meathead" or calling a person a "vegetable". StuRat (talk) 19:47, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
- Or maybe an allusion to a banana-shaped part of the male anatomy. Who knows? Alansplodge (talk) 19:58, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
- I believe Rojo is implying that it means they are as intelligent as a banana. There are many similar insulting comparisons with food, like "muttonhead" and "meathead" or calling a person a "vegetable". StuRat (talk) 19:47, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) The Oxford Learners Dictionaries Online says "(old-fashioned, British English, informal) a stupid person. Word Origin - 1960s: perhaps a shortening of banana". I think they may be the only people in Britain who are in any doubt about it being a shortening of banana. I haven't heard it uttered for some years. Alansplodge (talk) 19:51, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
- Is it ever used other than in the phrase "a right nana"? I've never heard it used on its own. Tevildo (talk) 23:52, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
- The song "My Old Man's a Dustman", i think, has the line "he looks a proper nana in [garments]". —Tamfang (talk) 01:25, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- The way the Rovers sing it, anyway, to me it sounds like "he looks so proper done up in his great big hobnail boots."[1] But this earlier recording by Lonnie Donegan certainly sounds like "nana".[2] ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:47, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- My Old Man's a Dustman is the article, apparently based on a First World War soldiers' ditty, but sharing none of the exact lyrics. This site has: "He looks a proper narner...". Alansplodge (talk) 08:24, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- It sounds exactly like "looks a proper nana" to me in the Irish Rovers' recording (at 1:39). AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:26, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- And the Irish don't drop the trailing "r", so "nana" seems more likely than "narner". But it could also be a variation in the lyrics. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:35, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- "Narner" mimics the pronunciation in a London accent. Lonnie Donegan, who grew up in East Ham, first sang the song (in its current form) in 1960. Alansplodge (talk) 21:22, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Rhotic Americans are sometimes confused by non-rhotic British respellings with r's in them. Sade once wrote in her liner notes that her name was pronounced "shar-day" or some such, which completely misled a lot of her American fans. Americans would have pronounced it the way she wanted, if she had only written "shah-day", but apparently that means some different sound to the British; I've never understood exactly what. The Penguin Book of Card Games claims that skat is pronounced scart, and my father insisted on pronouncing it that way (rhotically) when I taught it to my parents. --Trovatore (talk) 07:36, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- That would have introduced the risk of "Shadday", with the "cat" vowel. Tevildo (talk) 08:03, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- What, is that how they pronounce shah? I guess a nation capable of ‘Nicaræg-yua’ shouldn't surprise me. —Tamfang (talk) 08:32, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Well, /ʃæ/ is the "obvious" BrE pronunciation of "shah", until one hears about the Shah of Persia. The obvious pronunciation of the singer's name is /seɪd/, to rhyme with "maid" - the first correction would be to /sɑːd/, as in "Marquis de", which - um - rhymes with lots of words with an "r" in them (card, hard, lard, guard...). Tevildo (talk) 08:50, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- So is the quasi-word "ah" pronounced /æ/ there? —Tamfang (talk) 21:15, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- Well, /ʃæ/ is the "obvious" BrE pronunciation of "shah", until one hears about the Shah of Persia. The obvious pronunciation of the singer's name is /seɪd/, to rhyme with "maid" - the first correction would be to /sɑːd/, as in "Marquis de", which - um - rhymes with lots of words with an "r" in them (card, hard, lard, guard...). Tevildo (talk) 08:50, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- What, is that how they pronounce shah? I guess a nation capable of ‘Nicaræg-yua’ shouldn't surprise me. —Tamfang (talk) 08:32, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- That would have introduced the risk of "Shadday", with the "cat" vowel. Tevildo (talk) 08:03, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Rhotic Americans are sometimes confused by non-rhotic British respellings with r's in them. Sade once wrote in her liner notes that her name was pronounced "shar-day" or some such, which completely misled a lot of her American fans. Americans would have pronounced it the way she wanted, if she had only written "shah-day", but apparently that means some different sound to the British; I've never understood exactly what. The Penguin Book of Card Games claims that skat is pronounced scart, and my father insisted on pronouncing it that way (rhotically) when I taught it to my parents. --Trovatore (talk) 07:36, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- "Narner" mimics the pronunciation in a London accent. Lonnie Donegan, who grew up in East Ham, first sang the song (in its current form) in 1960. Alansplodge (talk) 21:22, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- And the Irish don't drop the trailing "r", so "nana" seems more likely than "narner". But it could also be a variation in the lyrics. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:35, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- The way the Rovers sing it, anyway, to me it sounds like "he looks so proper done up in his great big hobnail boots."[1] But this earlier recording by Lonnie Donegan certainly sounds like "nana".[2] ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:47, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- The song "My Old Man's a Dustman", i think, has the line "he looks a proper nana in [garments]". —Tamfang (talk) 01:25, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Is it ever used other than in the phrase "a right nana"? I've never heard it used on its own. Tevildo (talk) 23:52, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) The Oxford Learners Dictionaries Online says "(old-fashioned, British English, informal) a stupid person. Word Origin - 1960s: perhaps a shortening of banana". I think they may be the only people in Britain who are in any doubt about it being a shortening of banana. I haven't heard it uttered for some years. Alansplodge (talk) 19:51, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
- I would say so, but finding sources to back me up is proving unexpectedly difficult. I would make a clear distinction between /æ/ as in "Ah! There it is!", expressing pleasant surprise, and /ɑː/ as in "Ahh, that's better", expressing simple pleasure, but most on-line dictionaries give both meanings under the single interjection "Ah". Someone with access to more comprehensive sources might be able to assist. Tevildo (talk) 14:19, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- (Southern British English): ɑː ðɛər ɪt ɪz, ɑːː ðæts bɛtər. As a non-rhotic dialect, the final r in the second phrase is not sounded. Bazza (talk) 15:53, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- I would say so, but finding sources to back me up is proving unexpectedly difficult. I would make a clear distinction between /æ/ as in "Ah! There it is!", expressing pleasant surprise, and /ɑː/ as in "Ahh, that's better", expressing simple pleasure, but most on-line dictionaries give both meanings under the single interjection "Ah". Someone with access to more comprehensive sources might be able to assist. Tevildo (talk) 14:19, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- TIL that (per our article) skat is derived from Italian scarto, and of course Italian is rhotic. So maybe my dad was right after all. That would please him. --Trovatore (talk) 04:47, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
July 7
Morning is an ambiguous term
Why does the term morning refers to a period from midnight till noon and not just from sunrise till noon? It should have a term for a period between midnight and sunrise. I coined foremorn, from be-(fore) + (morn)-ing and added to List of protologisms on Wiktionary. It doesn't really sound right for me to say like one in the morning, instead I shall say one in the foremorn or even one at night. PlanetStar 01:29, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- If you coined it, it doesn't belong here. As to why (or if) there isn't a commonly-used term for it, maybe society in general hasn't felt the need for it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:42, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- There are other languages that have a word that specifically means a period from midnight till sunrise. In Spanish it's called madrugada and in German nachmitternacht. So there should be an English word for that. A not so great word that has already been adopted is postmidnight, which is found in Wiktionary. PlanetStar 06:24, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- The wee hours of the morning? Loraof (talk) 03:13, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- It is acceptable as a phrase, a.k.a the small hours, but what we looking for is a one-word term for that. PlanetStar 06:24, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- I actually challenge the OP's premise that morning "refers to a period from midnight till noon", other than in fixed expressions like "the wee hours of the morning". Otherwise, something that occurred at, say, 2 am is never said to have happened "in the morning", is it? It's the night, or the middle of the night, or after midnight, but not morning. Isn't it? -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 11:36, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Well, to most people "2 a.m." is "two o'clock in the morning". I can't speak for the Spanish, but I believed (till now) that the Portuguese word madrugada meant early morning. However, it has the specific meaning of "from midnight till sunrise". That said, we have two specific words which cover the period, "postmidnight" and matutinal. With more specific words, we don't need a general term. After all, the Eskimos have 94 (?) words for different varieties of snow, but no word that describes all of them :) 92.8.217.121 (talk) 12:04, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- There's an old song called "Three O'Clock in the Morning". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:32, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- I see the word "forenoon" is a synonym of "morning". --TammyMoet (talk) 12:12, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, "forenoon" vs. "afternoon". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:32, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Forenoon just means part of morning after dawn. PlanetStar 21:20, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- And before noon. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:43, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- In my usage, "morning" means the Sun is up. It's true that I might refer to 3 AM as "three o'clock in the morning", but to me it would never be the morning. It's clearly night. --Trovatore (talk) 21:21, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Ditto. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 07:21, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Forenoon just means part of morning after dawn. PlanetStar 21:20, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, "forenoon" vs. "afternoon". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:32, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- So what it comes down to is that "two in the morning" is not actually in the morning. There must be a linguistic term for this phenomenon, where otherwise-natural analysis of, what would you call them, "semiproductive" phrases or something? leads to false conclusions. This desk seems like the natural place to ask what that's called. --Trovatore (talk) 21:59, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- The time from midnight to noon is one use of "morning". If you're confused by that usage for some reason, you can get around it simply by calling it "the A.M." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:06, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Well, I at least would never call it "morning", and I would go so far as to call that usage "incorrect". --Trovatore (talk) 22:10, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- It's not incorrect. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:23, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- But the point is that even people (like me) who don't consider 2 AM to be "morning" still call it "2 in the morning". What is that phenomenon called, linguistically? --Trovatore (talk) 23:26, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- "More than one meaning for the same word." It's English. It happens. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:23, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- You're totally missing the point, Bugs. --Trovatore (talk) 00:49, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- To be explicit, the phenomenon I mean is like the way that "red hair" is not red, though it might be redder than other shades of hair. That is, you have a phrase where the meaning of the constituent words is different when they are in that phrase than they are on their own. But I don't mean strictly fixed phrases, because the "in the morning" construction is somewhat productive ("3:42:26 in the morning" has a clear meaning, but it is still not morning, when the word "morning" is used on its own). --Trovatore (talk) 00:58, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Read what Oxford has to say about it.[3] ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:54, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Bugs, if you're not going to respond to my question, then please just leave it be, so someone else can. --Trovatore (talk) 03:24, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- No one is stopping anyone else from answering. But if you're going to insist that midnight to noon as "morning" is "wrong", despite the evidence to the contrary, then there's no hope. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:20, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- I understand you don't accept my premise. That's fine. I'm done arguing about that. You could still address my question by assuming the premise arguendo, but if you're not willing to, then quit diverting from the question I asked. --Trovatore (talk) 05:22, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Try homonym. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:30, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- You obviously have not understood the question. --Trovatore (talk) 05:31, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- And you obviously have not understood the answers. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:39, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- No, wrong, I understood your answers, which is why I know you didn't understand the question. Will someone who does understand it please address it? --Trovatore (talk) 18:13, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Maybe nobody else understands your question either. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:18, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- That seems unlikely, as it's pretty clear. I think people didn't answer because they didn't want to be caught up in the irrelevant digressions you introduced. I wish you would just not respond when you don't have anything constructive to add. --Trovatore (talk) 18:51, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- The premise that morning is "ambiguous" is incorrect. And words having multiple meanings is extremely common in English. What else do you want to know? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:39, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Bugs, it's not about words having multiple meanings, and you don't seem to have even remembered accurately what you didn't like about my premise.
- To recap, my premise is that "<time> in the morning" is another way of saying "<time> AM", even when <time> is not in fact in the morning, but rather at night.
- You do not have to agree with that premise, but you can assume it arguendo, or at least take my word for it that this is my usage. Or just not answer.
- This is not "words having multiple meanings", but rather a specifically context-based semantic shift based on the phrase in which they occur. I was wondering whether there is a specific linguistic term for this. --Trovatore (talk) 19:52, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- The premise that morning is "ambiguous" is incorrect. And words having multiple meanings is extremely common in English. What else do you want to know? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:39, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- That seems unlikely, as it's pretty clear. I think people didn't answer because they didn't want to be caught up in the irrelevant digressions you introduced. I wish you would just not respond when you don't have anything constructive to add. --Trovatore (talk) 18:51, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Maybe nobody else understands your question either. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:18, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- No, wrong, I understood your answers, which is why I know you didn't understand the question. Will someone who does understand it please address it? --Trovatore (talk) 18:13, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- And you obviously have not understood the answers. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:39, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- You obviously have not understood the question. --Trovatore (talk) 05:31, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Try homonym. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:30, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- I understand you don't accept my premise. That's fine. I'm done arguing about that. You could still address my question by assuming the premise arguendo, but if you're not willing to, then quit diverting from the question I asked. --Trovatore (talk) 05:22, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- No one is stopping anyone else from answering. But if you're going to insist that midnight to noon as "morning" is "wrong", despite the evidence to the contrary, then there's no hope. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:20, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Bugs, if you're not going to respond to my question, then please just leave it be, so someone else can. --Trovatore (talk) 03:24, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Read what Oxford has to say about it.[3] ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:54, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- "More than one meaning for the same word." It's English. It happens. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:23, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Well, I at least would never call it "morning", and I would go so far as to call that usage "incorrect". --Trovatore (talk) 22:10, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- The time from midnight to noon is one use of "morning". If you're confused by that usage for some reason, you can get around it simply by calling it "the A.M." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:06, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Baseball Bugs. Re your The premise that morning is "ambiguous" is incorrect: It seems quite ambiguous to me. If I were told that some person died "this morning", I would not know whether he died specifically in the 6-odd-hour period between dawn and noon, or just at some time in the 12-hour period between midnight and noon. I would have to assume the latter, as I would need more information to conclude it happened in the former. The word "morning" can be used to mean either of these time periods, one of which includes the other. If that's not ambiguous, nothing is. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 22:15, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- "Day" is even more ambiguous. --ColinFine (talk) 23:35, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- "Day" or "daytime" as opposed to "night" or "nighttime". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:23, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- "1 AM" is not ambiguous. Or you can refer to the "pre-dawn hours" if you want a legit way to differentiate those from late morning. StuRat (talk) 01:10, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Someone has solved that. See nychthemeron. 80.44.163.165 (talk) 15:32, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- That's a great word. Thanks. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 20:11, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Nychthemeron is not a word that we're looking for, it actually means 24 consecutive hours, encompassing both night and day. PlanetStar 21:51, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- I'm not sure why you feel a single word for "the period between midnight and sunrise" is needed. If the problem is the "one in the morning" thing, as I've said above, in my usage "one in the morning" is not in the morning, and personally I'm OK with that though I'd still like to know what the phenomenon is called. But if you're not, then just say "1 AM" and you're golden.
- In any case, whether it would be good to have or not, as far as I know there is no such word.
- (By the way, "one at night", as you suggested, does work in some languages, Italian for example. I would not be surprised to hear that it works in some dialects of English, though I don't specifically know of any.) --Trovatore (talk) 22:08, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Nychthemeron is not a word that we're looking for, it actually means 24 consecutive hours, encompassing both night and day. PlanetStar 21:51, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- That's a great word. Thanks. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 20:11, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Someone has solved that. See nychthemeron. 80.44.163.165 (talk) 15:32, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
Antelucan means before the dawn, so if morning must be used for the period from midnight to dawn, perhaps it could be qualified as antelucan morning. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 22:04, 8 July 2016 (UTC)- So you could say "postlucan" for "after dawn"? English is often imprecise. If someone dies between midnight and noon, or between dawn and noon, either way it's not telling you much. It's like "in the afternoon" or "in the evening" or "overnight", each of which encompasses at least five to six hours. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:45, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
Soccer
People in most countries use the word football to refer to association football. But Americans and Canadians use football for North American football, so we have the different name soccer for association football. But what about Australians? Do they reserve football for Australian rules football, and if so, what do they call association football? Loraof (talk) 03:20, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Supporters of the game usually call it football. Most people generally call it soccer. Usage: "Football? Oh, you mean soccer". Hack (talk) 03:29, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- For this subject see football (word). --69.159.60.163 (talk) 06:24, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- "Most" is stretching it a bit. Historically it was probably true, but things have changed in the last 10+ years as association football has become more mainstream as a spectator sport and Australia has been doing better internationally.
- People who follow AFL like to call AFL "football" ("footie") undifferentiated, but in the most populous state, New South Wales, the traditionally most popular spectator code is rugby league, which is usually called "league" rather than "football", and in that state AFL is almost always called "AFL", not "football", and "football" and "soccer" are in equally common usage for association football. (Rugby union, the other football code with a major presence around Australia, is usually called either "rugby" or "union".)
- The situation is different in Victoria, the next populous state, where AFL, not rugby league, is traditionally the most popular spectator code.
- Association football is the most popular participation code in Australia and has been for years, and most of the organising bodies for association football now use "football" exclusively, instead of "soccer". Most major media outlets also use "football" to refer to association football more than AFL. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:07, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Up There Cazaly is virtually the unofficial anthem of the AFL, and its lyrics refer to "football" and "footy". I've never heard of anyone having a problem with that. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 09:27, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- I didn't say anyone has a problem with it, just that things are changing and that there are regional variations in that usage. The fact is, if you talk about "football" in Sydney without context, people will either not know whether you mean AFL or association football, or they will think you mean association football. It's unlikely that they will automatically think that you are referring to AFL. The situation is no doubt different in AFL's home state Victoria, or in the other small states where AFL, rather than rugby league, dominates. "Footy" is less ambiguous, I don't think many people refer to association football as "footy". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:38, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
- Up There Cazaly is virtually the unofficial anthem of the AFL, and its lyrics refer to "football" and "footy". I've never heard of anyone having a problem with that. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 09:27, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
Indonesian language
Comment by blocked User:139.255.65.211 |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Remove all affixes from the phrase "Pengolahan citra". 111.95.114.174 (talk) 09:15, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
|
July 8
What makes Portuguese different from Spanish or Italian that /kʷ/ and /ɡʷ/ are considered phonemes in the first? Obviously, this is based on one linguist's description, but do these labialized versions also exist in Spanish and Italian? --Explosivo (talk) 00:17, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- See wikt:quarenta#Portuguese and wikt:cuarenta#Spanish and wikt:quaranta#Italian.
- —Wavelength (talk) 01:34, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- I mean the difference between labialized /k/, /g/ and a sequence of /k/, /g/ followed by /enwiki/w/. Only the article about Portuguese phonology mentions the labialized consonants as phonemes. Spelling says nothing about pronunciation and IPA transcriptions don't necessarily always consider these subtle distinctions. --Explosivo (talk) 18:53, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
Syllabification
Comment by blocked User:139.255.65.211 |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Syllabification of Indonesian word "Penginapan", using spaces between syllables? 139.193.145.109 (talk) 01:42, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
|
The Belgian composer, Karel Goeyvaerts
Hello. I am looking for the exact pronouncing form of Karel Goeyvaerts, the Belgian composer's name. It seems that the name is Flemish originally. Could someone please help me? Thank you in advance. — Hamid Hassani (talk) 12:39, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- You can hear the last name pronounced at the beginning of this video: [4] 184.147.117.244 (talk) 18:53, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you. :) Hamid Hassani (talk) 05:29, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
Pommelion
Hi, I'm reading the book "Master and Commander" and encountered the word "pommelion." It may be a nautical or ordnance term. I tried to find it's definition, but am unable to do so either in a dictionary or searching the net. Is it an appropriate request to ask you to find it's definition and add it to your database? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.134.101.90 (talk) 15:58, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Please provide the context, such as the sentence in which it appears. StuRat (talk) 16:02, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Indeed it's a navy term [5]. 80.44.163.165 (talk) 16:08, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- The Oxford English Dictionary says it is equivalent to pommel, in the sense of the knob at the rear end of a cannon. (Similar to Cascabel (artillery): "Gunnery. Formerly the knob or pommel at the rear end of a cannon; now the whole rear part behind the base ring, including knob and base.")
- 1769 W. Falconer Universal Dict. Marine at Breeching, The..cascabel of the gun..sailors call the pomiglion, or pummelion.
- 1794 D. Steel Elements & Pract. Rigging & Seamanship I. 232 It is formed with a cunt-splice in the middle, which passes over thepomiglion, or cascabel, of the gun.
- 1837 G. G. Macdougall tr. W. A. Graah E. Coast Greenland 74 The entire length of the gun, from muzzle to pommillion, was sixtyfive inches and a half.
- The other citations are in fact from the Master and Commander series. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 18:06, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- The Oxford English Dictionary says it is equivalent to pommel, in the sense of the knob at the rear end of a cannon. (Similar to Cascabel (artillery): "Gunnery. Formerly the knob or pommel at the rear end of a cannon; now the whole rear part behind the base ring, including knob and base.")
- Amusingly, the "cunt-splice" (mentioned above) was Bowdlerised in the 19th century to "cut splice". Alansplodge (talk) 00:26, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
the most imaginative question tags ever : ) by Mr.khaled Zalat
Homework questions |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
} hello everybody I have some sentences that need appropriate question tags let's be imaginative
Thanks for being patient please, these questions are of great importance to me and It took me a lot of time to think of them so if you find them good points, please, share your answers with us. Thanks in advance : ) Finally, I'd like to mention something important :
for example : -he must have been clever, (wasn't/mustn't) he? -he must have kids,(doesn't/mustn't/hasn't [for possession] )
can we use the real subject in the question tag?
............> If he (won-had won)after he played the match, I'd have been happy with him
sorry for this long subject but all I can do is to seek answers : )Best wishes and thanks in advance and please provide evidence when possible.The first person to comment is definitely a hero : ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.166.176.158 (talk) 18:32, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
|
- Although this is most likely homework (I had to do such exercices when I was learning English), it is very interesting, because these are all weird sentences where it is really not obvious that there is a good question tag that could work, which throws into question that the sentence is grammatical at all, although it does seem to be :-) --Lgriot (talk) 15:44, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
Translation in Revelation 6:8: death or plague?
In Revelation 6:8, referring to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Greek word θανάτω [6], a form of Thanatos, is translated as "death" by many Biblical translations (e.g. KJV, D-R) but translated as "plague" by many others (e.g. NIV, NASB) [7]. I've always understood "Thanatos" to simply mean "death," not "plague," and am confused by why so many Biblical translations would instead use "plague" here. Is there some Hebrew source older than the Greek that instead supports the "plague" translation? Can people with more expertise in Biblical scholarship, Greek, and Hebrew comment on the validity of each of the two translations? —SeekingAnswers (reply) 19:17, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- There is no Hebrew version of the book of Revelation in the Hebrew Bible, because the New Testament post-dates the canon of the Hebrew writings. Short answer: the Greek version was the original. Akld guy (talk) 20:15, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- I know. I was referring to older (including possibly extracanonical) sources that might have inspired/influenced parts of the Revelation text and which the translators might have consulted. —SeekingAnswers (reply) 21:24, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- First, there is a forged "Aramaic" version of the New Testament by the Jews for Jesus, which is not hard to get your hands on.
- But, θανάτω is simply one of the ways of writing "by death" (Original θανάτου ) and when listed among other means of death in Revelations it seems odd--but the other means are by things like starvation and violence, never disease. So the meaning seems indeed to be by plague, and the association of chloros--yellow green--seems (compare blue/flavus) to fit with plague: [8] Yet θᾰνάτῳ is mentioned 15 times in the Greek testament as the optative "he/she be put to death". We need more context, as usual. μηδείς (talk) 21:44, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- This verse is thought to contain an allusion to Ezekiel 14:21, where the corresponding Hebrew word is דֶבֶר, which does indeed mean plague. - Lindert (talk) 21:52, 8 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks, @Lindert:. One of my greatest regrets is that it was too hard to schedule Hebrew as an undergrad. Do you mean the word you gave in Hebraic letters is usually (or at least in this case) translated as death by plague, @Lindert:rather than just by "death"? μηδείς (talk) 03:04, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- That Hebrew word (pronounced DEvər) also appears in the Book of Exodus as the fifth Plague of Egypt. It refers to a deadly epidemic disease, usually translated "pestilence" or "plague." Search of the Hebrew word through an on-line concordance (of Mechon Mamre) yielded only Leviticus 26:25, "...and I will send the pestilence among you..." being part of a long litany of punishments not strictly equivalent to death. -- Deborahjay (talk) 08:40, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- I know this isn't a language question, but is there any consensus whether this "plague" is what we now call plague (i.e. Y. Pestis)? Our article says there's evidence that it goes back 5000 years, so it seems possible from that point of view, but I'd think there might be more known than that (say, look at the Biblical account and compare symptoms and epidemiology; that sort of thing). --Trovatore (talk) 03:39, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- I can't say whether there's a consensus, but the standard modern Hebrew lexicon of the Old Testament HALOT specifically translates dever (דֶבֶר) as bubonic plague. Other (less recent) lexicons translate it more generally as plague, pestilence, murrain etc. The cognate Arabic word 'dabr' means death, and the Septuagint also frequently translates the Hebrew word as θάνατος (death). - Lindert (talk) 08:18, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- I know this isn't a language question, but is there any consensus whether this "plague" is what we now call plague (i.e. Y. Pestis)? Our article says there's evidence that it goes back 5000 years, so it seems possible from that point of view, but I'd think there might be more known than that (say, look at the Biblical account and compare symptoms and epidemiology; that sort of thing). --Trovatore (talk) 03:39, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- That Hebrew word (pronounced DEvər) also appears in the Book of Exodus as the fifth Plague of Egypt. It refers to a deadly epidemic disease, usually translated "pestilence" or "plague." Search of the Hebrew word through an on-line concordance (of Mechon Mamre) yielded only Leviticus 26:25, "...and I will send the pestilence among you..." being part of a long litany of punishments not strictly equivalent to death. -- Deborahjay (talk) 08:40, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thanks, @Lindert:. One of my greatest regrets is that it was too hard to schedule Hebrew as an undergrad. Do you mean the word you gave in Hebraic letters is usually (or at least in this case) translated as death by plague, @Lindert:rather than just by "death"? μηδείς (talk) 03:04, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
July 9
"ː" as a distinguishing feature in English phonology
My phonology education was very sketchy, and this may explain why I ask the question below.
Vowel length#Short and long vowels in English has a short subsection in which it's alleged (without any sources) that "In Australian English, there is contrastive vowel length in closed syllables between long and short /e æ a/ and sometimes /ɪ/" (my emphasis). No mention here of US or British English.
Of course, English isn't limited to the three nations Oz, US, Britain, and US and British English aren't limited to GA and RP; but there are only so many hours in the day, and therefore I'll look primarily at GA and RP.
There's quite a lot of material in Received Pronunciation#Vowels, but nothing that I notice about any contrast. A table there lists the following phonemes with the lengthening quasi-colon: /iː/, /ɜː/, /uː/, /ɔː/, /ɑː/; but it doesn't list even one of these without the quasi-colon. So there seems to be no phonemic distinction.
International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects has the diaphonemes /ɑː/, /ɔː/, /ɜːr/, /uː/, /juː/, /ɑːr/, /ɔːr/; but it doesn't have any one of these without the quasi-colon. It does have both /iː/ and /i/; but its examples for the former are "see" and "meat", and for the latter "city". Seems to me that the distinction is an automatic result of ±stress. Is the word /ˈsɪtiː/ phonotactically possible in English; and if so, could it contrast with /ˈsɪti/ ("city")? If not, the pair look like mere allophones to me.
In General American#Pure vowels, we learn that there are contrasting English diaphonemes, /iː/ and /i/, and that in General American these are realized as [iː] and [i(ː)]. But it's pretty much the same as above: [i] is exemplified by /i/ in unstressed syllables of disyllabic words; [iː] by /i/ in monosyllabic stressed words. Mere allophones again, I think.
What have I misunderstood? -- Hoary (talk) 13:49, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Bad-lad split may address some of your queries. Valiantis (talk) 20:23, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you, Valiantis. It's most interesting. It does suggest that /ː/ is a possibility in English -- but curiously, it does so for /æː/, which isn't mentioned above. It's within an article on the pronunciation of "a", and it does say a lot about what it refers to as /ɑː/, which is mentioned above. However, it has no mention of /ɑ/ in Modern English. If a language lacks /ɑ/, how can it meaningfully have /ɑː/? (Why isn't the one phoneme "/ɑː/" simply written /ɑ/?)
- The article Australian English phonology does indeed claim both regular and lengthened /e æ a/. The article tells us: "There exist pairs of long and short vowels with overlapping vowel quality giving Australian English phonemic length distinction, which is unusual amongst the various dialects of English", and sources this claim to Robert Mannell, "Impressionistic Studies of Australian English Phonetics". But when I look at the latter (admittedly before my second coffee of the day), I don't see that Mannell says any such thing.
- Any other phonologists in the house? (Ƶ§œš¹?) -- Hoary (talk) 23:23, 9 July 2016 (UTC)
- I will not go much into details as I myself as well may do not understand well or remember all the theory, but much confusion or misunderstanding comes from the transcription. When Daniel Jones firstly devised the IPA for English in the beginning of the 20th century he actually implied directly the length contrast. This has been called the quantitative analysis. But later the views about the phonology of English (or more precisely of the RP variety) have been revised and the analysis was changed to quantitative-qualitative. American phonologists, though, mostly prefer a plain qualitative analysis, ignoring the length as non-phonemic, as you have mentioned right. There is a short description of that evolution as well as a comparative table I've once made. (I think this section somewhat out of place, because the IPA for English is not a respelling, and its history and overview might deserve its own article.)--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 04:14, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you, Любослов. That's really interesting -- and within an article I'd never imagined would exist. This does explain a lot about historical influences on the phonemic representation of English, but it doesn't start to explain why people have clung on to it. According to my reading of a little table in that article, Jones thought that the vowels in "cod" and "cord" differed only in length, as did those in "rid" and "reed". I can't speak for the English of his day, but for the standard US and British English of our day, he's plain wrong. I mean, the mouth is doing things that differ in ways other than mere time. (Even if he got it wrong for the English of his day, I'm reluctant to knock him. He was a pioneer, and pioneers can't be expected to get everything right.) Suppose, though, that Jones had realized that the vowels in (say) "rid" and "reed" were qualitatively different. I think he'd be right to say they're quantitatively different too, and therefore to use a colon for the latter. After all, he was aiming for a phonetic script. However, a century later, while we're using "/ /", we require distinguishing features, no? (Or am I even more confused than I realize?) -- Hoary (talk) 04:39, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- @Hoary: I've oversimplified a little bit. And I indeed do not remember all the details as I read Jones' works quite a long time ago, but now I've read them again and found out that he actually knew the difference when he described the vowels verbally.[9][10] But he still tended not to signify the distinction in his transcription. Either he did it for simplicity or he did not consider quantity as much as important. Anyway, as we know now, this has been reviewed and both the quantity and the quality are considered important and transcribed accordingly. American linguists, however, may and often ignore the length sign, you can see that, for example, in the IPA Handbook [11].
- So if I were to try to answer you question I'd say some important thresholds:
- 1) Both quantity and the quality are important in producing and distincting the English vowels.
- 2) Both of them may fluctuate according to the environment, stress, temp of speech, accent and so on. It is hard to describe those variations in short. The length is more unstable.
- 3) In general, and this is most important, the English vowel system, may be described as asymmetric. There are no or few minimal pairs that could be differentiated only by vowel length, but the quality is always accompanied by the quality, they are interrelated. The English vowels cannot be structured in some sort of symmetric grid like, say, it is reconstructed for Classical Latin (Vulgar Latin was another story), or some other languages. However, I would say there are few languages where a change in length is not accompanied by some sort of change in articulation. For example, in German or Hungarian long vowels tend to be tenser, however, if I remember right there is a /ɛ/-/ɛː/ contrast in German (but in some dialects /eː/ and /ɛː/ are merged, hence only the contrast between /ɛ/ and /eː/ is left ). But in Finnish the contrast is only in length.
- What I said concerns largely RP and GA. Some accents may indeed not observe the quantity-quality interrelation. Scottish English is very remarkable in that respect, where the Scottish Vowel Length Rule is in effect, and in other accents there are splits like "bad-lad" mentioned above.
- I'm not sure if I've answered your question, but I hope it might be helpful.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:28, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you, Lüboslóv, that's most interesting. (If I'd had you as the teacher of my [sole] phonology course, I wouldn't have dozed off during the lectures.) Jones seems to have been a lot more perceptive and skilled than I'd have dared hope. I'd never heard of or even imagined the existence of the Scottish vowel length rule. And even for "more standard" (?) English, where minimal-pair contrasts of length don't exist, I do accept that there are differences of timing. (And I find it easy to imagine that, for example, if a recording of "beat" were altered so that the vowel were shortened but otherwise unchanged, the result could sound like "bit".)
- Ladefoged's piece about (one Californian speaker of) US English is particularly informative. But it's also particularly odd. Here's a rather randomly chosen quotation from it:
- When intervocalic and before an unstressed vowel, as in 'city, vicinity', [t] is a voiced flap, resembling [ɾ].
- (My emphasis.) I expect to see "/t/" instead. Ladefoged's notation is odd, or he's little concerned with phonemes, or I understand even less than I suppose. But if he is little concerned with phonemic distinctions, then of course it's hardly surprising that he adds details that a speaker of English never has to worry about (vowels aside, this would include, say, ±aspiration for [p]).
- Please don't spend too much time on my question(s), but I do greatly appreciate your explanations. -- Hoary (talk) 02:21, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
July 10
Pronunciation of "taco"
What is the correct pronunciation of the Mexican dish "taco"? Is is tah-co, tack-o or tuck-o? Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:36, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- According to Dictionary.com, [tah-koh] is the most commonly used when speaking in English. --Lgriot (talk) 15:28, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- Here's a TV ad ca. 1979 where they say it multiple times.[12] ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:43, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- Yo quiero Taco Bell with a proper Spanish accent (BB's ad has an English, aspirated t, which sounds funny in Spanish). μηδείς (talk) 21:35, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- Interesting that you would call that a Spanish accent. It sounds Mexican to me, or at least what the creators thought would sound Mexican to Americans, the latter distinction being too fine for my limited expertise. But I guess I know what you meant. --Trovatore (talk) 04:13, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- I am not quite sure what you are getting at, but basically the Chihuahua sounds like a native speaker of Spanish (and I have been mistaken as generic or native Mexican speaker quite a few times, to the point where I was once asked "De donde en Oaxaca viene?" But my point is that the dog has standard unaspirated stops, while the ad BB provided is accurate for American, but to Spanish speakers has an obvious English accent.
- One might consider that in standard German and English, word-initial /p,t,k/ have a slight h sound, while this is uncommon in most other languages, such as French and Spanish, Russian or Japanese, which lack aspiration, or languages like Hindi and isiZulu where aspiration or its lack turn two sequences of sounds into entirely different words.
- Here's an excellent, short (<10 min) video, that explains aspiration, and actually makes quite clear, explicitly, the difference between /taco/ in Spanish and American (yay!) and British (ho hum) spheech. μηδείς (talk) 00:42, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- Does he sound like a native speaker of Spanish from Spain? I wouldn't have said so, based on my experience of watching Spanish movies on Netflix. He has a "singsong" quality that I associate with Mexican Spanish. But I could certainly be wrong. --Trovatore (talk) 00:54, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
Malay: Range of meanings of "Tupai"
According to the German Wikipedia, the Malay term Tupai is used both for Tree squirrels and Tree shrews. While this appears to be basically true, it is probably a little more complicated: id:Tupai is about tree shrews, id:Bajing and ms:Tupai about squirrels as a whole. Online dictionaries usually translate both "Tupai" and "Bajing" as "squirrel". So what is the spectrespectrum of meanings? Concrete questions:
- Is it accurate to say that in modern Malaysian, the term "Tupai" is used for squirrels only, but in Indonesian for tree shrews only?
- Is it possible to restrict the usage of "Tupai" for squirrels to certain subgroups of squirrels, or does it include all of them?
- Is there a way to circumscribe the original spectre of meanings, like "small mammal living in the trees"?
--KnightMove (talk) 14:55, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- I'm afraid I can't help you with Malay or Indonesian, but this being the language desk, maybe you wouldn't mind me pointing out that spectre and spectrum are quite distinct words in English :-) --Trovatore (talk) 05:21, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- Indeed. In fact, I knew this already, but it seems that my cerebral vocabulary storage was seeing spooks. :-) Thank you. --KnightMove (talk) 08:46, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- I'm afraid I can't help you with Malay or Indonesian, but this being the language desk, maybe you wouldn't mind me pointing out that spectre and spectrum are quite distinct words in English :-) --Trovatore (talk) 05:21, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
Google's pronunciation alphabet
What is the pronunciation alphabet that Google uses for its definitions called? I have never seen it before, it is quite hard to make out, and so I am thinking that, if it is not easy to read, they might as well use IPA instead.
See for example concubine which gives: /ˈkäNGkyəˌbīn/
If they were using some English alphabet-friendly mechanism like dictionary.com concubine [kong-kyuh-bahyn], I would understand, but I am puzzled by Google's choice. --Lgriot (talk) 15:24, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- According to this, and the way I would say it, it's more like "KONK-you-bine". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:47, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- Agreed, although I prefer IPA, I'd use BB's respelling. Google's looks like it should be KANK-yuh-bean. μηδείς (talk) 21:15, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- Sorry, I didn't make myself clear. I am asking the name of the "alphabet" or system that google uses for pronunciation guidance. (I know how to pronounce that word) --Lgriot (talk) 16:09, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- I haven't read it yet, but the answer might be in Google Dictionary. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:28, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- Lgriot, I don't know that the system has a specific name, but such systems are discussed at Pronunciation respelling for English#Traditional respelling systems. A number of such systems have been used in various dictionaries, especially American ones, differing a bit in the diacritics used and the manner of indicating stress. (Without doing any further investigation beyond your concubine example, I'll say that the Google system looks pretty similar to that used in the New Oxford American Dictionary.) Deor (talk) 16:29, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- One suggestion in this forum thread: English Language & Usage Stack Exchange - What phonetic notation is Google dictionary using? is a Pronunciation respelling for English system, possibly that used by the New Oxford American Dictionary (sorry User:Deor, I typed this without reading your post above properly).Alansplodge (talk) 20:24, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- Thank you all. --Lgriot (talk) 20:32, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- @Lgriot: Google Dictionary says Google uses Oxford dictionaries since 2010 and their respelling system can be seen here.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 23:04, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
"Lola" and Language.
(For the purpose of this question...)I'm David. If I say
- I'm glad I'm an engineer, and so is Mike.
Which of these is the proper interpretation of the second part of the sentence.
- Mike is glad that David is an engineer.
- Mike is glad that Mike is an engineer.
- Mike is an engineer.
- David is glad that Mike is also an engineer.
Also, would it be different without the comma after engineer? Yes, this is in regards to the lyrics of Lola (song).Naraht (talk) 23:54, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- I think they're all possible meanings. At first I thought meaning 1 was not possible, but now I realize it is. --Trovatore (talk) 23:57, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
- I only hazily remember "Lola", which I'll put aside. ¶ For me, (1), (2) and (4). ¶ Because (2) is permissible, (3) of course can be inferred. However, this doesn't answer the question. Instead, you're asking for the (sic) proper interpretation of the second part of the sentence; and no, for me (3) definitely isn't one. (I'm very surprised that it's possible for Trovatore.) -- Hoary (talk) 01:55, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- There is no such thing as "the proper interpretation" of the second part of the sentence. It is multiply ambiguous. Some of the readings are more likely than others, and some of them are context dependent. This remains true with or without a comma (though the likelihood of the options may change. --ColinFine (talk) 09:27, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- Alternative (3) does not allow to deduce that Mike is an engineer. If you want to say that you could rephrase it as
I'm glad I'm an engineer. Mike is also an engineer.
If you want to say that Mike is an engineer and glad of that fact you could write
I'm glad I'm an engineer. Mike is also an engineer and glad that he is.
Alternative (4) is impossible. I see no ambiguity in the sentence at all. Maybe if we could see the lyrics or hear the song we could judge if that is what the lyricist intended to say. I just googled the lyric and there's nothing about this at all. 86.168.123.201 (talk) 11:24, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- C'mon Stanmore, aren't you familiar with The Kinks' ending lines of Lola? "But I know what I am and I'm glad I'm a man, And so is Lola." Of course, the questioner is asking about this construction in general, not only in this particular song. -- ToE 13:30, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- Because of its controversial nature Ray Davies left these lyrics deliberately vague. However, the nature of the song escaped BBC censorship except for two words: they objected to the trademarked "Coca Cola" and insisted it was substituted with "cherry cola". --TammyMoet (talk) 16:27, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, by 1970 the allusion would not have worried the censors. In 1967 Arnold Layne by Pink Floyd was banned - but only by a single pirate radio station. 86.168.123.201 (talk) 18:16, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- It's funny to hear of a pirate radio station suddenly concerned about ethics. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:23, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- Yes, by 1970 the allusion would not have worried the censors. In 1967 Arnold Layne by Pink Floyd was banned - but only by a single pirate radio station. 86.168.123.201 (talk) 18:16, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- Can we agree that the form violates at least one Gricean maxim? —Tamfang (talk) 23:10, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
July 11
Plebian and plebeian
Could you please explain the difference between these two words, with a couple of examples of usage.
I've looked at other site explanations, and I still don't understand. Something about noun/adjective, but, it's very confusing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.20.193.222 (talk) 23:08, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- This indicates the noun and adjective are spelled the same way. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? ~~carrots→ 23:46, 11 July 2016 (UTC)
- I have never considered the spelling, but the American (academic) pronunciation is /plə-'bi-ən/, not /'plɛ-bi-ən/. That is, pluh-BEE-uhn, never PLEE/PLEH-bee-uhn. I am not sure the normal American usage makes much sense in the face of Latin phonology. μηδείς (talk) 00:55, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
I think "plebian" is simply an error, or at best a rarely used alternate spelling. It's not listed in most of the online dictionaries available through www.onelook.com; if you search for it in the OED Online, it redirects you to "plebeian", where "plebian" is listed as a "now rare" spelling. --69.159.60.163 (talk) 04:11, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- The Oxford English Dictionary (second edition, 2001) gives three noun and three adjective uses. There is also the rare verb "plebify". "Plebian" is not listed. 194.66.226.95 (talk) 09:29, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
- WHAAOE plebeian. 86.168.123.201 (talk) 13:14, 12 July 2016 (UTC)