Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 October 10

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Naming Conventions

I've searched diligently without success.

Can you tell me the name for the practice of naming someone with either two first names (e.g. Jesse James) or two last names (e.g. Stone Phillips)?

In both examples these names are a given name followed by a surname: Jesse James is Jesse Woodson James, son of Robert James. Stone Phillips is Stone Stockton Phillips, son of Victor Phillips. For compound family names, see Double-barrelled name. The practice of naming a child with the family name does not have a special name for the case the family name is double-barrelled.  --Lambiam^Talk 06:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I don't think the question has been addressed. I'm not sure if there's a term for, essentially, a surname that also happens to be a common given name or vise versa. I've had the former case all my life. Just by the fact that people seem to have two first names or two last names shows that what constitutes either is fairly subjective. Ƶ§œš¹ ^{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:46, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

a sound

Hello, I'm wondering which article can tell me something about the pronunciation of the cluster "mb" found in some languages.--K.C. Tang 06:36, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Which languages? Are you talking about initial mb, as in mbalax and Thabo Mbeki? 惑乱 分からん 06:47, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Try prenasalized consonant if that's the case. Ƶ§œš¹ ^{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 06:48, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thanks a lot! though I still have no idea how to say it...:(--K.C. Tang 08:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I think Hansen could probably help you. The difference between the /mb/ of other languages is that the /m/ doesn't constitute its own syllable as it does in English. I've noticed, at least in my own careful speech, that certain words like Bengali could be transcribed phonetically as [bɛ̃nˈ^ŋgɑ.li] with an alveolar nasal but a prenasalized /g/. (Note: this Pure original research. In fact, it shouldn't even be on this help desk because it's hardly relevant to the discussion but here I go I'm pressing post). Ƶ§œš¹ ^{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Their name is Hanson, actually. Swedish form rather than Danish, I think... 惑乱 分からん 14:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Colonel

Why is Colonel pronounced the same as kernel? Dismas|^(talk) 08:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

The etymology and history are complicated, but basically it's because it derives from the Early French "coronel". Would you like me to paste the entire etymological history from the OED?--Shantavira 08:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

In short, colonel entered English in the c. 16th century AD as coronell, which changed its spelling to an Italian version which is closer to the modern English version. The pronunciation is still like "kernel" though. -- the GREAT Gavini 19:14, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

No transcription is necessary. The responses answer my question well enough for my benefit. Thanks!! Dismas|^(talk) 21:39, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Dante and modern Italian

To a non-Italian, the language of Dante seems pretty close to modern Italian — certainly much closer than the language of Chaucer (who lived quite a bit later than Dante) is to modern English.

But how close is it really - how easily can present-day Italians understand Dante, and how strange or archaic does his language seem to be? More fundamentally, what are the main linguistic changes (aside of course from the obvious growth in vocabulary) that have affected the Italian language since Dante's day? --rossb 10:19, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I have heard that Dante's Italian was very clear and simple. A story I heard (although I have no idea on how true it is) was that the electricity bills in Italy had too difficult language, and they had to be rewritten with only the 4.000 most common words in Italian, that closely corresponded to the words in Dante's writings. Something like that, I don't remember the exact details. Maybe someone else could clarify... 惑乱 分からん 11:00, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

The modern Italian language is the Italian of Dante, pretty much. See Italian language. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 02:12, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I took some Italian evening classes recently, and the teacher taled something about it. He also mentioned the old saying about "good Italian" being spoken with lingua toscana in bocca romana (Toscan tongue in Roman mouth). 惑乱 分からん 10:50, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

It's just that English has changed far far more than, say, Italian. Words brought by the Normans, Vikings, etc. entered English after the Saxons had ruled Britain for a while. All of a sudden Beowulf became unintelligible, and Chaucer became quite hard to understand a few centuries later. Italian really hasn't been "invaded" by other languages, or, at least, not as much as English. -- the GREAT Gavini 20:08, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes this is all very well, but it doesn't answer my question. It's very clear that Italian has changed less in 800 years than English has in a much shorter period. But presumably there have been some changes, and I wonder how significant they are. For instance is reading Dante for Italian people more or less difficult than reading Shakespeare is for current English speakers? --08:36, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

McVickar Professor

What's a McVickar Professor? (mentioned in the article on Edmund Phelps).--RiseRover|^talk 13:02, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

A professorship named after John McVickar [1]. MeltBanana 14:46, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Surnames

Two people at my office (in the UK) have surnames they would like to know more about. One is "Sherliker" and the other "Strongitharm". Anyone know anything about these two..? doktorb _words^deeds 13:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Hullo, The Penguin Dictionary of Surnames says Sheer means "bright, lovely," Sherlock means "bright/fair hair," and Shergold means "bright gold." Maybe Sherliker is related to Sheer? It also says that Strongitharm means "strong in the arm." All the names I've quoted are from Old English. --Kjoonlee 12:43, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

According to Spatial Literacy, Sherliker is an occupational name, presumably one who sherliks. Strongitharm appears to have fewer than 100 people at the last census, so you can't look up how it is, and was, distributed. Skittle 22:44, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks to both doktorb _words^deeds 07:13, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Strongitharm used to be quite a popular name in Yorkshire, England (circa the 18th-19th centuries, i seem to remember). As Kjoon Lee says, it literally derives from "strong i' th' arm" (if you know what a Yorkshire accent sounds like, you'll be able to see how that happened). There's an old rhyme recited sometimes by Lancashire rivals:

“ Yorkshire born and Yorkshire bred,
Strong i' th' arm, and soft i' th' head. ”

According to Steven Pile's excellent The Book of Heroic Failures, the name also got some usage as a forename, oddly enough. tomasz. 10:41, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Grammar

I would like to know if this would be the correct grammer for a sentence, because it sounds wrong. =)

Here's an example of what I'm talking about, please disregard spelling.

"Lets go home, it's too late," said angry and discouraged Jesica.

I think it should be this:

"Lets go home, it's too late," said the angry and discouraged Jesica.

Neither of these statements make sense, because "broke" is a verb: the past tense of break. You need to clarify what you mean by this word before we can advise you. And spelling is important.--17:13, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

How about that? Kyle 17:23, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Broke is an adjective, as well as a verb, and is perfectly acceptable to mean "lacking funds, bankrupt."

"Let's go home; it's too late" said the broke and discouraged Jessica. It could also be "Let's go home. It's too late" said the angry, broke, and discouraged Jessica. {The question was apparently edited to say angry rather than broke}.Edison 17:30, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't sure about broke, I figured that I spelled it wrong, however, that is not the part I'm concerned about.

Should the word "the" be put before "broke and discouraged Jessica," or is it ok the way it was? The reason I ask is because, without putting "the" there, it sounds a bit odd, I'm just not sure about it.

If you want to structure the sentence that way, then "the" is appropriate, as in Edison's response. However, you should seriously consider rewriting the whole thing so that it is less awkward for both the author and the reader. --LarryMac 17:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Kyle 18:08, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd say the or a(n) in this case... 惑乱 分からん 18:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

So, would not putting the in front of the adjective make it wrong? Kyle 19:22, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Isn't people getting annoyed at another's grammer one of the highest of ironies? :) —Daniel (‽) 20:10, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

1. Hmmm, the, it looks wrong to me, although English is not my first language.

2. At least, grammer is not a grammatical issue... =S 惑乱 分からん 20:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

This is one of the least comprehensible threads I've seen, but as a native speaker of English I feel strongly that it should be the angry and discouraged Jessica. Unfortunately, I can't tell you the rule that governs this construction. Marco polo 20:42, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok... so I spelled grammar wrong, big deal, does anyone have an... answer to my question? =)

Like Marco Polo, I'm not sure what rule it would be that determines it, but the first sentence feels wrong to me, and I'm a native speaker.

The the sentence doesn't sound at all ungrammatical. What might make it sound strange is that it's awkward, perhaps due to the packing of information in one clause. You want to express what Jesica said, that she is broke/angry, and that she is discouraged. It might sound less awkard if you said "let's go home, it's too late," said Jesica, now angry and discouraged."Ƶ§œš¹ ^{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:37, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I actually thought the sentence without the sounded wrong, kind of like something was missing, so I added the the and my teacher said that that was wrong which was what brought me here. I guess what I'm asking is, Is the sentence without the word the in it correct or wrong? If it's wrong, does anyone know what rule makes it wrong? (I seem to be having a hard time finding the rule about this) Kyle 22:15, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

It feels wrong to me to have an adjective before a proper noun. --Auximines 21:53, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

You mean like Hungry Jack and Ugly Betty? Did your teacher say it was wrong to put the there or that that the sentence was just wrong? Ƶ§œš¹ ^{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 21:58, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

She said it was wrong to have the there.Kyle 22:16, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Strange. I'm thinking it would perhaps be better to rephrase the sentence: "Let's go home, it's too late!" Jessica said, angry and discouraged." (?) 惑乱 分からん 23:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

if I were your teacher, I'd just cross out the "the", and write an "an" there. You can have "the+adjective+noun" contruction; you can say "the younger Schumacher" when you want to distinguish Ralf Schumacher from his older brother. But now only one Jesica is in your story, I suppose, so you can't say "the angry Jesica". If there were indeed two Jesica in your story, then you may say "the angry Jesica" to distinguish her from "the happy Jesica".--K.C. Tang 23:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, but can we all agree that this is wrong:
"Lets go home, it's too late," said angry and discouraged Jesica.
If the above is wrong, is there a rule that exists that makes it wrong?
(we need an english professor in here -.-) Kyle 23:48, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

yes, it's wrong - now "Jesica" has an adjective before it, it's no longer a "proper noun", it becomes just like "woman", and you can't say "said angry Jesica" just as you can't say "said angry woman", add a/an/the before the adjective, depending on the context.--K.C. Tang 05:22, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

From the abstract of an article Proper Nouns in English by Clarence Sloat: "Proper nouns permit the selection of essentially the same set of determiners as other countable nouns, differing materially only in that they require a zero allomorph of unstressed the when singular and when not preceded by a restrictive adjective or followed by a restrictive relative clause." Basically, this says that a name like "Jessica" should be treated like the word "woman" in the presence of a restrictive modifier.  --Lambiam^Talk 04:13, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Btw, is "Jesica" in this case actually spelled with a single "s"? 惑乱 分からん 10:46, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Thats exactly the kind of thing I needed, thanks Kyle 13:07, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

nucular weapons

Why does President Bush pronounce "nuclear" as "nucular"? Is this a Texas thing, or his own idiosyncrasy? --Auximines 20:56, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

That's just in case anyone mistakes him for being intelligent, despite his actions and statements which clearly demonstrate the opposite. StuRat 01:54, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not a Texas thing, at least not exclusively: it's actually a relatively common, albeit incorrect, pronunciation. The definition of 'nuclear' in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary includes the note "Though disapproved of by many, pronunciations ending in \-ky&-l&r\ have been found in widespread use among educated speakers including scientists, lawyers, professors, congressmen, United States cabinet members, and at least two United States presidents and one vice president. While most common in the U.S., these pronunciations have also been heard from British and Canadian speakers." Bartleby.com has a good article on the word's pronunciation too, referring to 'nucular' as a 'stigmatized variant.' -- Vary | Talk 21:21, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

It's heard quite often down under, too. More and more frequently. JackofOz 23:10, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I've never heard it except on TV, and think of it as an Americanism. --Ptcamn 12:24, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I can't remember where I heard this, probably National Public Radio, but in U.S. scientific, government, and military circles, the pronunciation "nucular" is used to refer to weaponry, whereas "nuclear" is used to refer to civilian applications. Since I have no personal connection to those circles, I don't know if this is true. Marco polo 01:38, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I hear this all the time out here in the West. Linguistically, it's an example of a sort of metathesis, which is a very common linguistic change. "Bird" used to be "brid" and "horse" used to be "hros", but today's "proper" pronunciations are the equivalent of "nucular" in this regard. The Jade Knight 20:41, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies! --Auximines 14:05, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Made from / made of

Is there any rule governing when to use "made from" and "made of". As in "made of wood", or "made from oranges" (I'm not even sure those were correct). -Obli (Talk)^? 21:40, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I'd say, if the material of an object made by some process from X is still X, you can say it's made of X. If the X-ness gets lost in the progress, it's made from X. There are no oranges in a bottle of OJ: the juice is made from oranges. Likewise with steaks and cows: if the steak doesn't say "mooo" it's no longer cow. The steak does not "consist of cow". But a wooden leg is still very much wood: it burns, floats in water, and can be broken. So it's made of wood. The leg does "consist of wood".  --Lambiam^Talk 22:28, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

ingenious explanation!--K.C. Tang 23:44, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I buy that explanation. Compare "tables are made of wood" and "paper is made from wood": you can see the wood in the table, but with paper it's changed out of recognition. --Auximines 08:07, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Origin of English words

Sort of a subjective question, but which languages contributed the most to English vocabulary? --HappyCamper 21:59, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at the pie chart here. -Elmer Clark 22:20, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

This chart can be misleading... the statement "However, it should also be noted that 83% of the 1,000 most common English words are Anglo-Saxon in origin" is really important.--K.C. Tang 23:46, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

Moreover, according to this source, of the 25 most commonly used words in print, which make up about a third of the words in print, 23 are from Anglo-Saxon and 2 ("they" and "are") are from another Germanic language, Old Norse. The most common non-Germanic word on the list is the 68th-most-common word, "time". Of the 100 most common words, which make up about half the words in print, only five, including "time" are non-Germanic. All of these are from Latin by way of French. Marco polo 01:50, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

"That's one small step for a man; one giant leap for mankind." Twelve Germanic words, zero Romance words. (On the other hand, "Tranquility Base here: The Eagle has landed" has three words of Latin origin. -- Mwalcoff 02:07, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

"Giant" is hardly a Germanic word. Ultimately of Greek origin, it entered the English vocabulary from French géant.  --Lambiam^Talk 06:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

My mistake. 11-1. -- Mwalcoff 23:16, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Where have you gotten the notion that "time" is non-Germanic? Are you thinking of "hour"? 惑乱 分からん 10:43, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, "time" is Germanic; it comes from Old English tīma (compare German zeit, Dutch tijd). Although it resembles Latin tempus, the American Heritage Dictionary seems to indicate that they are not related: even the Proto-Indo-European root for "time", *dã-, is not shared by tempus.

A better cognate might be Swedish timme, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk time (hour) Icelandic tími (time, hour), although it is considered a related form to German Zeit, Dutch tijd, Common Scandinavian tid, Icelandic tíð (all meaning time, passage of time, related to English tide and tidings). 惑乱 分からん 20:42, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

The thing about percentages is you need to know the total, and the total vocabulary of a language is uncountable. Do rare or obsolete words count? Nonce words? Words used only in specialized fields? Words used only in some dialects? What about Scots, Singlish? Is "does" a separate word from "do", or just a form of the same word? How about "terminate" and "termination"? If things like "one-legged", "two-legged" etc. are counted as single words, we have potentially infinite formations with different numbers. At what point does a foreign word become "English" anyway? A lot of English speakers know for example greetings and farewells in other languages, and sometimes use them with other English speakers, but at what point do we say it has become an English word, and the person isn't just speaking a foreign language?

In short, actually trying to put numbers on these things is folly. The pie chart linked above appears to be (though it doesn't say so) based on the 80,000 words in the 3rd edition of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, but the Shorter Oxford Dictionary does not contain the entire vocabulary of the English language. --Ptcamn 11:36, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

The length of a shoreline is unbounded and constantly changing, but that doesn't stop us from giving estimates. Few things admit of precise, exact numeric answers, but that doesn't mean the attempt is folly. There are reasonable answers, one way or the other, to those questions, and the results are useful. Unless you start counting things like one-million-two-hundred-and-fifty-five-legged as words, the answer is pretty clear; Latin, Germanic, and Hellenic sources, in that order by number of words, with the other languages being negliable.--Prosfilaes 14:22, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

By the time you go beyond the 80,000 words in said dictionary, you are probably left with neologisms, words so specialized one would be unlikely to read them or hear them in a lifetime, and words which are actually in a different language. The 'entire vocabulary of the English language' could thus be stretched to encompass every word ever uttered or written by anyone, anywhere, anytime, since you could always use such a word in an English sentence and point to it as part of the English vocabulary. Edison 14:45, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Come off it, I bet there are plenty of everday words not in the Shorter Oxford Dictionary. I've certainly encountered words not in the OED itself, and that has 231,100 entries. Slang in particular is underdocumented (as you would expect). Being into linguistics I've encountered a number of words that are specialized to the field, but hardly something one would be "unlikely to read or hear in a lifetime": adposition, antipassive, circumfix, and Wanderwort are not to be found in the over two hundred thousand words of the OED (but Wikipedia has articles on them!). --Ptcamn 17:32, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Very few people are into linguistics, so any words specialized to that field are something that the average person would be unlikely to read or hear in a lifetime. While many people probably have a hobby or occupation with specialized vocabulary, I suspect that that vocabulary may be legitamitely described as words that the average person would be "unlikely to read or hear in a lifetime". --Prosfilaes 12:33, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

[Insert standard grumble about people failing to distinguish French and Norman here]. The Jade Knight 00:12, 14 October 2006 (UTC)