Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 March 1

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March 1

Air Force's new slogan

The USAF has just adopted a new slogan, "Above All." Does this translate into German into what some other message boards are telling me it does -- "Uber Alles" (as in Deutschland uber alles)? (Pardon my lack of umlauts.) Faithfully, Deltopia (talk) 04:15, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Alles (all) is a declinable pronoun. Thus, a more correct translation would be "über allem", where the word allem is in the dative case. The preposition über / above may require the use of the dativ or the accusative, depending on the context.

The accusative must be used when a direction is referred to, whilst the dativ indicates the location.

The phrase über allem thus refers to an object which already is above all, whilst über alles implies an object which is moving there. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 14:43, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

No objections, but no matter how you do it, the pun gets lost in translation; "above all" in the sense of "above and beyond all other consideration and taking everything together" would be something else in German ("vor allem", "in erster Linie" etc.) ---Sluzzelin talk 15:00, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the nuance may be slightly different, but my understanding is that the line "Deutschland über alles" was very much intended to mean "above and beyond all other consideration" - additional connotations along the lines of "having power over all other nations" came about only later, due largely to its use under the Nazis.

I guess we'd tend to use "over all" for the issue of power, making the USAF's slogan less ambiguous in that sense, but a skilled propaganda campaign could probably shift that just as easily as the German... - IMSoP (talk) 18:19, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair point, but you gave the answer yourself. One of the handicaps of "über alles" is precisely its burdened usage in the past. (Nazi connotations of the Deutschlandlied's first stanza, which is no longer part of Germany's national anthem) Nowadays I'd only use it in connection with the verb "gehen", (e.g.) "Ihre Gesundheit geht über alles", meaning "Your health comes first (before everything else)". I find it almost impossible to read "martial proper noun" + "über alles" without thinking of "evil" aggressive nationalism, but then maybe that's just me (and maybe it's intended). ---Sluzzelin talk 18:44, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, it denotes a similar range of concepts (to the extent that prepositions ever align between two languages) but has gained strong connotations where the English phrase has not. - IMSoP (talk) 19:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

More subject / verb

In a prior post (above), we examined the following sentence.

• I think that even one hazing incident (not to mention, the fraternity's three incidents) _____ inexcusable. Do we use "is" or "are" in this sentence? And why?

We concluded that you can ignore the parenthetical, and thus the singular noun "one hazing incident" controls ... thus the correct verb would be the singular "IS".

So, what happens if we do not place the parenthetical within parentheses --- but, rather, keep it within the actual sentence structure?

• I think that even one rule violation, not to mention the three that you have accumulated, _____ inexcusable. Do we use "is" or "are" in this sentence? And why?

Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 06:11, 1 March 2008 (UTC))

Still is. It doesn't matter how you punctuate it; "one rule violation" is the subject of the verb. Deor (talk) 06:30, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. It's still parenthetical in nature despite there being no actual parentheses. Rearrange it as "I think that even one rule violation is inexcusable, not to mention the three that you have accumulated", and you'll see why "is" is correct. -- JackofOz (talk) 06:57, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I, and in fact countless English speakers around the world, am not in agreement with this.  --Lambiam 13:30, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, you, and your crowd, has it wrong. --Milkbreath (talk) 14:44, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

What counts is that the verb is in agreement. —Tamfang (talk) 22:07, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. So ... is Lambian's above sentence correct to use the singular verb "am"? I, and in fact countless English speakers around the world, am not in agreement with this.

And would this change (if so, why?) --- if Lambian decided not to make the thought parenthetical (that is, not offset by commas)?

In other words, what's the difference below:

(Sentence 1) John (and all of his 9 brothers, too, for that matter) is moving to Hawaii.

Sentence 1's parenthetical can be simplified to:

(Sentence 2) John (and his 9 brothers) is moving to Hawaii.

So ... how and why is Sentence 2 different from Sentence 3?

(Sentence 3) John and his 9 brothers are moving to Hawaii.

I am confused ... is it the parenthetical punctuation that controls or just the parenthetical concept (regardless of punctuation choice)?

Or is there a distinction as to whether or not the phrase "his 9 brothers" is considered parenthetical versus considered not parenthetical to the sentence? (Whatever "considered" means.)

I mean ... the final concept is that TEN people are moving to Hawaii .... the 9 brothers and John, too.

In terms of language / grammar / communication / etc. ... is the controlling factor whether or not the speaker/writer considers the 9 brothers component to be parenthetical or non-parenthetical?

Totally confused here ... thanks for the help.

I understand that people can disagree ... but I assume that grammar rules anticipated this type of scenario, also, no?

So, let me boil my question down to this. How do we fill in the blanks for the following verbs:

• (A) John and his nine brothers ___ moving to Hawaii.
• (B) John (and his nine brothers) ___ moving to Hawaii.

"A" would seem to take the plural "are", hands down. Seems like any run-of-the-mill 5th Grade grammar question. "B" would seem to take the singular "is" due to the parenthetical. But, in "B", if you remove the parenthetical punctuation, "B" looks exactly like "A" -- which would call for the plural "are" ... no? And, per above, parenthetical punctuation is irrelevant.

A lot of times on this Language Board, people will revert back to the "easy" answer ... just rewrite the sentence in a different way. But Sentence "A" and "B" above are really pretty easy, clean, straight-forward, basic ... one can't do much to rewrite it, even if they wanted to. (But, yes, that is always an option.)

Can anyone clear all this up for me? Thoughts? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:27, 1 March 2008 (UTC))

It's OK to be confused. We are. Tom Stoppard observed that English "makes up for in obscurity what it lacks in style" (or words to that effect), and he should know. The exchange above that puzzled you went roughly thus: JackofOz made an essentially correct statement about verb number in sentences containing parenthetical elements. Lambiam (half-jokingly, I think) gave us a thought-provoking, self-contradictory counter-example in which the parenthetical is so long that the reader has forgotten the number of the verb by the time it arrives. I (Milkbreath) countered with a counter-counter-example that made an additional play on the number of the word "crowd", which will be construed as singular or as plural depending on who you are. Lambiam's sentence is right, but it sounds wrong. My sentence is wrong, but it might sound right to some.

As for your two sentences, I'm afraid number 2 is flawed. Simply shoehorning a couple of parentheses in does not make a phrase parenthetical (I know, I know). "And his nine brothers" is read as part of the sentence no matter what you do, and the reader (this reader, anyway) sees the parentheses themselves as a mistake on the part of the writer. Sorry. --Milkbreath (talk) 16:03, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. You say that this sentence does not have a parenthetical (regardless of throwing in some punctuation marks like parentheses):

• John (and his nine brothers) ___ moving to Hawaii.

So what, if anything, distinguishes that from these below sentences (also explored above). How are they different, if at all?

• John (and all of his 9 brothers, too, for that matter) is moving to Hawaii.
• I think that even one hazing incident (not to mention, the fraternity's three incidents) is inexcusable.
• I think that even one rule violation, not to mention the three that you have accumulated, is inexcusable.

I thought that all of the above "stuff" was considered parenthetical, regardless of punctuation choice ... and thus correctly calling for a singular verb. (You re-affirmed JackofOz's statements.) So, grammatically speaking, what distinguishes whether or not some phrase/words is or is not parenthetical? Surely, it is not simply "a lot of words" versus "just a few words"? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:39, 1 March 2008 (UTC))

Be assured that I know exactly what you are asking. If my answers seem a bit nebulous, it's only partly because my mind is a junkyard. The "rules" of English are few and catch-as-catch-can. When in doubt, we just try to sound good, and you have led us into the fringes of English, where opinion reigns. If you ask me, and you just did, the difference is auctorial distance. It's the writer's real voice we hear inside parentheses, not the narrator's persona. If there is insufficient justification for the shift in point of view, the reader rejects it. (P.S.--Doer's reference below is right on the money in my book.) --Milkbreath (talk) 17:11, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Once again, I can offer you a style manual's advice, which you can take for what it's worth. In its discussion of subject-verb agreement (pages 350–356), Words into Type says, among many other things, "The number of the subject and verb is not affected by intervening words introduced by with, together with, including, as well as, no less than, plus, and similar expressions." So if you were writing "John, with his nine brothers, …" or "John, as well as his nine brothers, …" or "John, plus his nine brothers, …" or the like, you'd want to use "is moving." On the other hand, with regard to words introduced by and and punctuated as if they were parenthetical, it says, "The copy editor should not be misled by punctuation that makes a plural subject appear to be a singular subject followed by a parenthetical phrase." The examples that follow are punctuated with commas rather than parentheses; one of them is "The great diversity of the risks covered, and the complex nature of the business, introduce production problems of of an unusual character" (emphasis added). Following this advice, you'd write "John, and his nine brothers, are moving …" and presumably "John (and his nine brothers) are moving …" As I said, take it for what it's worth. Deor (talk) 16:16, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Your comments state that the following are BOTH correct?

• John plus his 9 brothers is moving to Hawaii.
• John and his 9 brothers are moving to Hawaii.

It seems the bottom line is this ... if something is parenthetical, its existence is irrelevent to the subject/verb agreement in number ... and if something is not parenthetical, it is part of the actual sentence structure and thus relevant to the subject/verb agreement in number. So, ultimately, how do we know what is versus is not parenthetical. The two sentences above ("John plus his 9 brothers" ... "John and his 9 brothers") are really saying the same exact thing, no? Most people would equate "plus" as another word for "and". So, what makes one a parenthetical thought, irrelevant to subject/verb consideration of the main sentence ... and one not? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:04, 1 March 2008 (UTC))

I can't give you any answer better than this: Although you may think of plus as "another word for" and, most folk would parse it grammatically, in this use, as a preposition; and tacking a prepositional phrase onto a singular subject does not change its number. And, on the other hand, is a conjunction; and a subject consisting of singular nouns joined by and has traditionally been construed as plural. As Milkbreath said, "You have led us into the fringes of English, where opinion reigns." That said, I think few people whose native language is English would write or utter the sentence "John plus his nine brothers is [or are] moving to Hawaii" except in the context of a discussion like this. Deor (talk) 17:39, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I agree that the John/9 brothers/Hawaii sentences are unlikely in "real" life ... but they served as hypotheticals for sentences like the fraternity/hazing/violations ones that are quite realistic. As many have stated, at some point, this all enters the realm of opinion. I would opine that the word "and" (while certainly useful to create a conjunction / plural noun) can also indicate the "preposition" (if you will) signaling a parenthetical. As in:

• Person 1 says: John is moving to Hawaii.
• Person 2 says: I heard that he is taking all 9 of his brothers with him, when he moves.
  • Person 1 can add in (if he desires) Person 2's information as unimportant, an after-thought, peripheral, tangential, and parenthetical ... and he can use the word "and" to do so, for example ...
• Person 1 says: John (and -- oh, yeah, now that you mention it -- his 9 brothers) is moving to Hawaii next week.

Thanks! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:10, 1 March 2008 (UTC))

Just some thoughts about the word "plus". Its primary usage is mathematical (e.g. "one plus one is two"), and it's used colloquially and informally, but it really shouldn't be used that way in any writing that's at least semi-formal when there's no mathematics involved. "John plus his nine brothers ___ moving to Hawaii", is not an example of a mathematical context (even though in our heads we automatically compute that 1+9=10); in this case, "plus" is simply a poor-cousin synonym for "and", which would have been a much better choice of word. "Plus" can be better used as a conjunction or an introductory phrase meaning "not only that", "as well as that", "moreover", "further" - and always followed by a comma ("John is moving to Hawaii next week; plus, he's leaving medicine and becoming an astrologer!"). But these are difficult and abstruse questions, Joseph. If presented with "John, plus his 9 brothers, ten in all, ___ moving to Hawaii next week", I'd be very tempted to use "are", but I know that some would argue for "is". In many cases, the best solution should be the most obvious, natural and intuitive one, because resort to the strict letter of the "rules" often gets us into difficulties by making us sound like we're speaking like prescriptive grammarians, and we couldn't have that. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:58, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

People do not speak according to what some grammarian has decided is right, but according to a grammar acquired by hearing what other speakers say, which becomes internalized as "this sound right" and "this sounds wrong". A grammarian should discover and describe the grammar based on how people speak, and not prescribe rules that go against how people actually speak because they mimic the rules of Latin grammar, or they appear more logical, or they are what was taught in school. If a rule produces something that sounds wrong, it means the rule is wrong. In the sentence "My brother, as well as I, ... watching football", both "is" and "am" sound wrong. So neither of the rules "discard parentheticals" and "the verb agrees with the nearest component" is right. In this case the subject is felt to be plural, and the verb form has to agree and be plural "are". If something else sounds right to you, it means you have acquired a different grammar. It is not necessarily the case then that one grammar is wrong; different dialects and sociolects of a language may have subtly different grammars.  --Lambiam 23:20, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Ouch! Lambian - your statements are rather broad and sweeping, no? If grammar was based on "how people speak" and "what sounds right or wrong" ... it would be perfectly acceptable to have "ain'ts" peppered all over the place ... as well as "I been tired" ... "he be acting like a fool" ... etc. Unacceptable. Take this sentence: Smith is the man whom police credit for solving the case. We can all agree that "whom" is correct. Yet, 99% of speakers would probably say (incorrectly) "who". And, to most, "whom" sounds wrong or stilted or stuffy or arrogant or pretentious. "Who" sounds just fine, to most. Why have grammar at all, if the only rule is "do whatever you want as long as you think it sounds right"? Granted, the above discussion relied on some rather esoteric examples and subtle nuances of grammar rules. But, basing grammar rules on "how people speak" is only asking for trouble. And conceding that no rules need exist and, thus, grammar itself need not exist. Shakespeare (or, more likely, Strunk and White) would be rolling over in his (their?) grave (graves?). Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:47, 2 March 2008 (UTC))

As far as the field of linguistics is concerned, Lambiam is right on target. You are confusing "grammar" and "usage". Grammar is the set of mechanisms that allow you to produce and understand utterances (grammar usually means syntax and morphology). Usage is the set of conventions your 9th-grade English teacher tried to pound into your head and which drive you to ask questions about what is "correct". From your comments above, it seems that you are interested not in whether a given construct is grammatical or not, but whether it conforms to the norms of some idealized register of English--say, "formal educated American English." In that register, "whom" in object position is entirely appropriate, while "who" in the same position may be inappropriate; "ain't" is unacceptable; "be" as a finite verb form is ungrammatical; etc. But there are plenty of fluent English speakers who encounter sociolinguistic situations where who-as-object is the most appropriate or only appropriate choice, where "ain't" is acceptable or desirable, where "be" as finite verb is grammatical, etc.

Regarding subject-verb agreement, as a fluent speaker of English you should have the requisite expertise to answer this question. If you can't come to a definite answer, it probably means that your example sentence is out of the ordinary. What do speakers typically do when they need to say similar sentences in real time? Say the first thing that comes to mind and move on with the conversation. --Diacritic (talk) 09:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. But, I must stick to at least some of my points. Regardless of whether it is called grammar or usage, Lambian advocated that when we encounter a sentence similar to "my brother, and I also, ___ is/are watching the football game on TV" ... we go with "how people speak" and "what sounds right". So, I was addressing that point (indifferent to whether the point is classified under the topic of grammar or usage). Also, much of this deals not only with speaking, but writing. In fact, the origin of this entire topic was my undertaking of editing a Wikipedia article. I noticed that someone used the word "sic" improperly ... and then I noticed that he did it again. So, my comment was something like "I believe that the "sic" (much less, both "sic"s) _____ is / are incorrect" ... or, something along those lines. That is what got me thinking about all of this. Thanks for all the input and feedback. Very informative. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:44, 2 March 2008 (UTC))

Since you've mentioned the alleged unacceptability of "ain't", let me raise the flag for its continued use - in the right context. There is only one right context (says he, prescriptively):

"He's a genius, isn't he? You're a genius, aren't you? I'm a genius, ___ I? Well then, let's all stop arguing about what idiots think, and get on with creating our masterpieces".

What goes in the space? "Amn't"? Maybe in some grammars, but this alleged word is not recognised in my personal world view. "Aren't"? Hardly. We don't say "I are ...". No, the beautiful word "ain't" has been around for eons for precisely this usage. I send truckloads of horse dung to all those (well-meaning but nevertheless rotten) teachers who banned the word for all time in all circumstances, and didn't give their students enough credit for being able to discriminate. Hell, those kids at their tender ages already learned the language better than most damn adult foreigners ever could. Those teachers have done us all a huge disservice by creating a gap where "ain't" belongs, and so if the only correct word is disallowed, what we end up with is a variety of square pegs being forced into the round hole and creating misery for us all. Let that be a lesson to them. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:49, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Surely the correct words to go in the space are "am I not?" --Richardrj ^{talk email} 08:42, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Not really. Think about it. That would end up as: "I'm a genius, am I not I?". True, one could replace "ain't I" with "am I not" - but I was talking about the acceptability of the word "ain't" in constructions such as "ain't I". -- JackofOz (talk) 09:00, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I realised, of course, that strictly speaking I should have written "replace ain't I with am I not". But I couldn't be bothered, either. My point was precisely that the word "ain't" in constructions such as "ain't I" is not acceptable, and that only "am I not" should be used. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 09:16, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Far be it from me to tell anyone how to speak, but I think the case for "ain't" is less straightforward than that. It does seem to fill a void in the tag question paradigm, and I have no problem with the idea that for some speakers it would be acceptable to say "ain't I?" but unacceptable or less acceptable to say "ain't he?", for example. But the distinction can only go so far, because, at least in my experience, the sociocultural stigma attached to "ain't" (which I neither advocate nor criticize) applies regardless of its subject. To be honest, if I were to say the example utterance in an informal setting, I'd say, "I'm a genius, aren't I?", not because I'm consciously avoiding "ain't", but because "aren't" fills that slot in my idiolect (even if I don't say "I are". It's not so very different from the fact that I say "I go" (not "I wend") but "I went" (not "I goed"). Word forms can take on a life of their own. Language is sometimes funny like that). In formal settings, I think I would have to say, "I'm a genius, am I not?" But I have no problem with people for whom "ain't" is part of their active vocabulary using it as freely as they wish. --Diacritic (talk) 08:55, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I would never use "ain't" except in a first-person context, and then only in the the expression "ain't I". I would probably avoid it in formal writing, but I can hardly even imagine a circumstance where I'd be faced with the choice in such a context. For colloquial use, I have some support - Fowler, @ Be. 7(a):

• "Ain't is merely colloquial, and as used for isn't is an uneducated blunder and serves no useful purpose. But it is a pity that ain't for am not, being a natural contraction and supplying a real want, should shock us as though tarred with the same brush. Though I'm not serves well enough in statements, there is no abbreviation but ain't I? for am I not? or am not I?; for the amn't I of Scotland and Ireland is foreign to the Englishman. The shamefaced reluctance with which these full forms are often brought out betrays the speaker's sneaking fear that the colloquially respectable and indeed almost universal aren't I is 'bad grammar' and that ain't I will convict him of low breeding."

-- JackofOz (talk) 22:58, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Good long discussion. My thoughts, tending to agree with certain things that Lambiam and JackofOz have said:

Parenthetic can be taken a couple of ways: enclosed in brackets (parentheses, in American); or in the nature of an aside more generally. I'll say bracketed for the first, and interpolated for the second, but excluding bracketed matter. It makes a difference: bracketings do not, ideally, affect the surrounding material; interpolations do.

I agree that many words and phrases can be substituted for and without compelling a shift to a plural verb (though I don't inlude plus, which I would hardly ever use anyway). This is often useful. My favourite is along with:

I, along with many other editors, am happier with the spaced en dash; but I use em dashes when an article has them already.

Using the first-person singular consistently can make things flow better. I might have written this, instead:

I, and many other editors, are happier with the spaced en dash; but I use em dashes when an article has them already.

The sentence could be improved, of course. I would remove the commas, and therefore have no interpolation, strictly. But even as an interpolation, and many other editors does demand a plural verb. Here is the bracketed equivalent:

I (and many other editors) [are OR am] happier...

The choice between are and am is deeply problematic – so problematic that I would never use a bracketing in such a case. I would simply remove the brackets. The problem with this last bracketing is that it purports to participate in the syntax of the sentence that it interrupts. Sometimes a bracketing can get away with that:

I (and you) enjoy good writers.

It is just a lucky accident that enjoy is the form for all except third-person singular. But try to do a formal parsing of enjoy in that sentence! Substitute the verb to be, and the latent problem becomes visible:

I (and you) [am OR are OR ?] [good writers OR a good writer OR ?].

Transform to an interpolation:

I, and you, are good writers.

The commas are odd, and the order is uncommon, but the syntax is uncompromised.

Don't expect perfect solutions for all problems with sentences. Language is more like politics or cookery than pure mathematics.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 00:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Japanese audio lessons

Is there any site where I can download Japanese audio lessons for free to put on my mp3 player? --124.254.77.148 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 11:21, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

A Google search of Learn Japanese podcast shows several: [1] [2] [3]. In case you're not familiar with podcasts, check out our article. Dforest (talk) 21:00, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Synonym of worldly

When comparing the personalities of a novel's characters between what they write in their letters and their personalities in "normal" behaviour, what terms can be applied to the two different realms? For example, in the letters, one can say "...the character's on-paper personality highlights..." In their normal social behaviour, one can say "...the character's worldly personality highlights..." But "worldy" sounds awkward. What are some better synonyms? Thanks. Acceptable (talk) 20:23, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Persona is useful here:

"...the character's public persona highlights..."

Our article Persona is quite good, I think. Have a look. It goes on with more extended senses of the term, but the basic idea as given in the lead is highly relevant.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 00:09, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

As another set of comparisons, how about "private" as revealed in letters and "public" as shown their other behaviour? SaundersW (talk) 12:25, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Academic equivalent of pimp

What is an academic equivalent term for a man who is a "pimp" or "Playa"- one who is promiscuous with the ladies? Acceptable (talk) 21:52, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The only term I can think of is procurer. However, this does sound a bit stilted to me. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 22:24, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The concepts of pimp and player are rather different. By "academic equivalent", do you mean an academically sounding term? Actual academic publications just use pimp if they mean pimp, for example Games Pimps Play: Players and Wives-in-Law: A Qualitative Analysis of Street Prostitution by James F Hodgson (Canadian Scholars Press, 1997).  --Lambiam 23:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Assuming Acceptable means "Playa"- one who is promiscuous with the ladies", not pimp, philanderer and womanizer both redirect to promiscuity and both kind of sound "academic". ---Sluzzelin talk 23:39, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Acceptable, I misread your question, understanding "pimp" in the context of prostitution. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 00:22, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

As a male equivalent of 'slut', try Lothario, libertine. Neither are very precise, though. kwami (talk) 08:32, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

And for "pimp", there are pander/panderer and procurer. SaundersW (talk) 09:43, 2 March 2008 (UTC)