Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 August 20

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August 20

Books about learning how to speak without hesitations

I've perused a few books on the art of speaking in public. They seem mostly concerned with the following problems:

• "stage fright" — people who get paralyzed when in front of an audience, or on TV or radio
• how to grab the audience's attention
• how to keep your message short enough so as to keep the audience's attention.

Yet there is little on how to, say, always keep a pleasant tone and naturally produce well-constructed sentences. Most people, when speaking a non rehearsed speech, produce ungrammatical sentences, hesitate, cut sentences short, interject other ideas, etc. This is why, for instance, some parliamentary assemblies employ people who rewrite the spoken word into readable proceedings; contrast this with the unpleasant reading of the transcripts of the Watergate tapes.

Yet, some minority of individuals seem to be able to speak in a perfectly mannered tone, with well-constructed and meaningful sentences, even though they have not rehearsed. (An example comes to mind: listen to interviews of Robert Fripp and compare with interviews with most rock musicians.)

Are there books where one can get directions about this craft? David.Monniaux (talk) 02:37, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

It's called "the gift of gab" or "blarney". Most any radio personality has it. Perhaps one of them has written about it? Also, I have a vague recollection of a book with a title something like "How to talk to almost anyone about almost anything". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 03:41, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

You Can Talk to (Almost) Anyone about (Almost) Anything didn't get a very good review. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:42, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Apparently the guy failed to talk to the reviewers. As regards self-help books in general, Dogbert said, "Beware the advice of successful people - they do not seek company." Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 07:50, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

The answer you probably don't want -- it comes with practice/experience. I started my public speaking with Toastmasters at the age of ~8. From then until around ~22 I spoke occasionally in public - and was always comfortable - but not as smooth as the written word, which I think is what you're after. However, from 24~26 I was a university lecturer, responsible for 90 minute lectures with little or no notes. In short order, I was able to develop a much more fluid style free of uhs, ahs, umms, and digressions. Like most things in life, you have to actually do it to get better, and you need to consciously analyze your performances. The best advice I can give you is to videotape yourself monologing to random topics drawn from a hat. Reviewing those critically will get you on the right track quite quickly. 218.25.32.210 (talk) 08:49, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Hem. What I'm looking for is not necessarily about lectures. I think I'm a decent lecturer and a decent speaker at scientific conferences, but these are events in which I have an idea of what I'm going to say in advance, even though I do not have a pre-scripted speech. What I'm looking for is more about conversation, in which somebody tosses you a question and you have a very short time to answer. David.Monniaux (talk) 11:11, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

At home now, to quote my last line from above, as it still applies: The best advice I can give you is to videotape yourself monologing to random topics drawn from a hat. Reviewing those critically will get you on the right track quite quickly. 61.189.63.183 (talk) 11:31, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

It occurs to me that, in contrast to the Toastmasters angle, this is more like how to become a good debater. Debaters have to be able to respond quickly to comments and questions by others. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Even at that, there is no substitute for practice. The difficulty is finding someone to practice with. But I've a hunch that's key to success. The reality is that when we already know what we're going to say, it's easier to say it. And writing is easiest, because you can take your time (as I'm doing now). But there's no "rewind" on talking. I think of Ronald Reagan, who was merely OK with extemporaneous speaking while he was excellent with a script - as well he should have been, given his background. Bush, by contrast, was OK with a script and very poor at the off-the-cuff stuff. You aspire to be more like JFK, who seemed to have a quip at the ready at all times, yet even he did say um and er fairly often, just in such a way that it did not seem to interfere. Here's something to consider, and I bet this is how it works for successful radio talk show hosts, for example: Their focus is on their audience, on conveying information. It's when we focus inwardly that we become hesitant and stumble over our words. That's my theory, anyway. I'm thinking of an unfortunately out-of-print book by Charles Osgood on public speaking. He said the secret to overcoming nervousness was to think of the audience as being nervous, and that your job is to "comfort" them. That's his technique. But do you see what I'm getting at? I was thinking that Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influnce People is not the worst place to start. It's not so much about public speaking, as about communicating - about focusing on the other person. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 11:32, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I hate speaking in public (I mumble and stutter when I'm nervous), but since I have to teach and present papers I don't really have a choice. It helps if I am confident that I know the material I am presenting, and if I assume that the audience is relatively ignorant of the topic and want to learn from me. Unfortunately my standard of public speaking is an old professor, who often walked in to class, started speaking with no notes, kept going for an hour and simply walked out when he was done. I always assume I should be as comfortable speaking as he was, although it probably took him many decades to reach that point. I've found that it helps me to prepare notes to read directly - I usually hate when people do that, and I hate doing it too, but if I write the way I would speak, as opposed to the more usual formal writing style, then it is easier to read from the page and make it seem natural. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

"Science is a verb now"

What is that supposed to mean? It's a meme of some sort, but where does it come from and what does it mean?! --Dr Dima (talk) 07:48, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I believe it to be a phrase connected with the GLOBE program, meaning that science is a participatory activity for the schools / teachers / students involved in the program. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 08:05, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm assuming you are asking because of today's QC? It reminded me of this Dinosaur Comics strip from earlier this month (especially note the alt text). I'm pretty sure Jacques and North know each other and read each others' comics, etc. These instances are probably also both influenced by xkcd, a very pro-science and popular webcomic, that I'm sure that Jacques and North also read. I don't think that the phrase is specifically a meme of its own - it is kind of a theme that is mildly popular among webcomicists, from what I've seen. —Akrabbim^talk 10:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Science may be an activity, but that doesn't make it a verb. "OK, class, let's science today." Nope. Doesn't work. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 10:57, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Give it time: I was reading an old copy of Strunk and White which berated writers for using "contact" as a verb. The young folks are already starting to disagree with you on sciencing.  :) --Sean 14:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

They're using "scienced" as a synonym for "out-smarted". I doubt that's what the marketers of "science is a verb now" had in mind. I'm thinking "slime" probably wasn't originally a verb either, but to get "slimed" is. Words obviously evolve. At least "contact" went from a noun to a verb in the same form. Too often when that's done we get abominations like "prioritize". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

[ahem] Forgotten my Latin from 46 years ago, but shouldn't the verb form of "contact" be different (which was probably the original objection); something like "contang" or "continge", from Tango/Tangere/[??]/Tactus? Noli me tactere? Cf. infringe/infraction and the abominable "self-destruct" ("Mark my words: I will destruct you !!!"). —— Shakescene (talk) 21:56, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Forgot my English, too, i.e. the word "contingent", so (being too lazy at the moment to hunt for a Latin book or link) the etymological root must be contingo/contingere/.../contactus. Another of my old fuddy-duddy bugaboos is "access" as a verb: one gains or grants access to something, or one accedes to another's wishes or status, or one accedes to power or the Throne; but I avoid saying "I accessed that book". So my Wikipedia footnotes for hyperlinks always say "retrieved on" [date] rather than "accessed". —— Shakescene (talk) 07:49, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not abnormal for English (through French) to make a verb out of the Latin past participle, like "access" or "contact". Sometimes this had already happened in Latin as well (dicere -> dictus, then dictare -> dictatus, whence "dictate"). Adam Bishop (talk) 13:10, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

As someone put it a long time ago, "Nowadays every noun can be verbed". DJ Clayworth (talk) 18:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Or slimed. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:32, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

We're apparently "transitioning" to new ways of speaking. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:43, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

"Verbing weirds language"—Calvin. Deor (talk) 00:19, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

So glad to find this

I've been at the science reference desk for a few weeks now and am glad to have found this desk, as I have some burning questions:

I. What's up with the word fast -- is it both an adverb and an adjective?
II. What's up with "I couldn't care less/I could care less" -- the latter one seems to me to be a malapropism.
DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 17:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I would think fast is both, given that one can say the fast boy or the boy runs fast (at least colloquially). Mo-Al (talk) 17:28, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

It's a noun and a verb, too! "Tomorrow, I start my fast." "I had to fast before my surgery." As for point 2, I think I'd call the second version an idiom, because its use isn't limited to a single speaker. --LarryMac | Talk 17:48, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

However "The boy runs fast" is technically wrong: it should be "The boy runs quickly". However widespread usage has meant that it's very hard to object to nowadays.

"I could care less" is on the face of it a malapropism (if you could care less then you probably care very much) but it's again got such widespread usage, especially in North America, that it's hard to object to. I guess you could also think of it as sarcasm rather than a malapropism. DJ Clayworth (talk) 20:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Does that mean that "should of" and "spirit of the moment" are idioms as well and not malapropisms? I would disagree. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 18:15, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I was very careful to say that I would call it an idiom. You may call it whatever you wish. --LarryMac | Talk 20:24, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

"Should of" is bad spelling for "should have", or actually "should've" which sounds almost exactly like "should of" which is actually a meaningless phrase. As for fast, it also means "adhered to", as in "the snake held fast to its prey". I've heard the "I could care less" for as long as I can remember, and it really doesn't make sense, since it implies that you care at least a little bit. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:23, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Using "have" as an auxiliary verb is pretty meaningless too. There's no reason we couldn't use "of" instead. Why not? It's wrong according to the way we currently understand English, but maybe it will be normal in a thousand years. Adam Bishop (talk) 18:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

It's not meaningless at all. "I should have used the language correctly" is the perfectly normal and standard past tense of "I should use the language correctly". There's an analogy with the future past tense - Oh, you can come by next week if you like, but I will have left for Europe by then. Would you ever write "I will of left for Europe by then"? What possible sense would that make? -- JackofOz (talk) 21:40, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I think Adam's point is that there is nothing about the meaning of 'have' that suggests that it should be used to form a past tense: once upon a time it might have been well motivated, but in English today it is essentially arbitrary and might equally well be expressed by 'of'. --ColinFine (talk) 22:15, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I think y'all need to go back and study your English. "Have" makes sense. "Of" does not. "Of" essentially means "from", which makes no sense in a sentence like "I should of left". "I should from left"? Ugh. Part of the problem is that "have" has two different usages in English. The auxiliary verb discussed here comes from the Latin "habere". Its English usage in the sense of holding onto something comes from the Latin "tenere", which has very few English derivations. As far as using "of" instead of "have", consider the present tense: You would say "I have gone shopping". You wouldn't say "I of gone shopping". Ugh. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 22:30, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit conflict]: "Have you seen her?" makes sense; "Of you seen her?" makes none. The English auxiliary verbs used to form compound tenses, are pretty well-established and very close to those in most Indo-European languages (Latin, German, etc.): be, have, do, will/would, shall/should, can/could and may/might. And whether they should have been, could have been or might have been different, I do not see "of" as a possible alternative that is grammatically logical. (Although grammatical logic has very little use as a guide to how language is actually used. And the formal compound tenses in English are, in my view, rather artificial constructions used for comparison to and translation from one-word Romance equivalents.)

And there is a primitive, intuitive logic to "have" in the sense of possessing something now that you didn't before: I have caught the deer and now I have food. —— Shakescene (talk) 22:37, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

From "have" to "of" also takes us to the next abomination, substituting "a" or "o" (both pronounced "uh") for both "of" and "'ve". "Could-a, should-a, would-a... cup o' tea", etc. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:22, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

The OED cites fast as an adverb (meaning "quickly") so far back as the 13th Century A.D (the 1200's). So this rank neologism disfigured Middle English as well as Modern. And it's hard to think what the "more-correct" form would be: "fastly" ? —— Shakescene (talk) 22:13, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

"Quick" actually means "living", hence the use of "quick" or "quickly" as "lively" and in some other seemingly obscure ways, e.g. the "quick" of the fingernail, the "living" part. "Fast" has a variety of uses, but they all pretty much come back to the original "faest" which means "strong" or "firm". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 23:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I would just point out that the English verb have, whether used as an auxiliary or main verb, is not derived from or cognate with the Latin habere. It is a Germanic verb stemming from a distinct Indo-European root. Also, it is by no means accepted by historical linguists that the English periphrastic perfect tense (use of have as an auxiliary verb) is derived from the Romance languages. This form may have developed independently among some of the Germanic languages. Indeed, it seems possible that the innovation first occurred in the Germanic languages, since, according to this source, its first clear instance in Romance is in the Latin of Gregory of Tours, writing after the Frankish conquest of Gaul. Marco polo (talk) 00:14, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

It seems unlikely that words of similar form and meaning would have totally independent origins. I wonder what the Sanskrit equivalent is? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:24, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

If (as I remember learning) "have" is from the same root as Latin "capere" (to take), then according to Lewis and Short the Sanskrit cognate is "hri-". Anyway, the point I was making before, which was apparently not clear, is not that "have" is the correct construction in English; of course it is, and that's why it makes sense. But there is no logic to it. What do you have? You don't have anything. If you say "I have eaten", "eaten" is not an object to possess. It doesn't make any more logical sense than if you said "I of eaten". You could stick anything there and if that is how English worked it would make perfect grammatical sense, no matter how illogical. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:04, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

"I have eaten" implies something done recently. "Of" means "from". You wouldn't say "I from eaten". Basically, "have" has a specific meaning and use, and is appropriate in this usage. "Of" has a different meaning and usage, and is not. If you stop and think about it, all words are arbitrary. You could also say "I antidisestablishmentarianism eaten", which makes every bit as much sense as "I from eaten". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 01:09, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

That's what I've been trying to say! Adam Bishop (talk) 01:33, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

"Have" doesn't necessarily imply something done recently - for example I have been to Iceland (but it was 36 years ago). AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:45, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

True. Which raises the question, what's the subtle difference between "I have been to Iceland" vs. "I went to Iceland"? Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 12:06, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Though it maketh not much difference, let me clarify what I was trying to say as asides. I was thinking (perhaps quite fallaciously) of the auxiliary verbs being rather similar in the Indo-European languages in general, whether Latinate, Germanic or other. The second point I was throwing out as another aside (which may also be wrong), but which was naturally confusing when considered with the first, is this: I suspect that the archaic or classical classification of tenses in English used to rely too much on equivalences with Latin, French and other Romance languages (e.g. French has different verb-forms for the conditional and subjunctive, where English, I think, does not.) You need to make those equivalencies when teaching or translating between English and Latin or French, but their verb structures are different from ours, and shouldn't be used to parse English or teach it to Anglophones. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:33, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

FWIW both French and German use 'have' both to indicate possession and as an auxiliary to indicate the past perfect: 'J'ai une mère' / 'Ich habe eine Mutter' / 'I have a mother' and 'J'ai mangé'/ 'Ich habe gegessen' / 'I have eated'. -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 08:07, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes: Fast is both and adjective and an adverb. ("hold fast") Shakescene, what makes you think this is a neologism?(or were you being sarcastic?) As Etymonline says: The adv. meaning "quickly, swiftly" was perhaps in O.E., or from O.N. fast. It's also the usual case in German and the Scandinavian languages that the adjective and adverb forms are the same. In any case, it's certainly not 'technically wrong' to say 'the boy runs fast'. It's just unusual. --Pykk (talk) 22:10, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

To go back to question II, I believe it is one the quirks of the differences between British and American English. In British English we say "I couldn't care less", whereas it has evolved in American English to "I could care less" (unfortunately I can't find the article we have on this subject). -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 08:55, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Solecism? decltype (talk) 09:01, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

This linguistics professor at the University of Michigan talks a little about it, and calls it a "negative polarity item," for what that's worth. This site also talks about it. I've seen it mentioned a few times that "could care less" arose in the US in the 1960s, but haven't found any hard references on that. The American Heritage book of English usage gives no etymology or history, but attributes "could care less" to sarcasm, and compares it to "cannot but"/"can but," where postive and negative mean the same thing. I think the idea that makes it work is supposed to be you're basically saying "I already care about whatever it is you're talking about only a reeeaaall little bit, as in you're really scraping the bottom of my ability to care barrel, but keep on about it, and I'm sure I can find a way to care even less," but I doubt many people who actually use the phrase are conscious of that as they say it. I know I'm not when I do, but I am conscious of adding the negative. "I could care less" is a gentle dismissive, but "I could not care less" means, to me, "I do not care and I will not entertain any more discussion of the subject. "Couldn't care less" falls somewhere in between the two. Some jerk on the Internet (talk) 13:13, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Same Etymology, Different Pronunciation

So "Corp" as in "Marine Corps"---and "Corp" as in "Corporation" both stem from the same root meaning "body". The former has not been anglicized in its travel to my dialect (US English) but the latter has.

Are there other examples of words that share a common root, but differ in their pronunciation?76.119.33.164 (talk) 21:34, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

One that comes to mind are the English words "hotel" and "hostel", which both derive from the Old French word "hostel" which in modern French is spelled "hôtel". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 22:20, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

(ec) Certainly. A modern example which comes to mind is 'resume' vs 'résumé', but if you go back a bit there are plenty. 'regal', 'royal' 'real' (in the special sense of real tennis, not the ordinary word 'real') have been appropriated from the same origin at different times, as have 'cattle' and 'chattel', 'capital' and 'chapter', and many others. --ColinFine (talk) 22:21, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Doublets, though these are different from the OP's query, since they're spelled differently. --Sean 23:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

"Real estate" is another example of that special use of real. It's not saying the estate is the opposite of unreal. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:15, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

In "Marine Corps", the s is not a plural inflectional s, and is usually not pronounced, so "Corps" is not derived from "Corp" within English... AnonMoos (talk) 01:33, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Not from English in any case. Most any English word you can think of that starts with "corp" (and my old Webster's has half a page worth of them) comes from corpus. "Corps" is the French version, and was originally pronounced more like "corpse", and in fact "corpse" is a doublet of "corps" So "corps" vs. "corpse" actually comes closer to the answer to the original question. This reminds me of something Richard Armour said in his satirical history of the U.S. He referred to this one international organization as the "Peace Corpse", on the grounds that "peace was a dead issue". Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 01:44, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

If you go back far enough, there are a lot more of these. Blaze and black have cognate roots. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 08:23, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

For the record: The Peace Corps is NOT an international organisation. As it says in the very first sentence of the article, it is organised by the United States Government./Coffeeshivers (talk) 16:14, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

That does not change the concept of the joke. Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 17:01, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

@JackOfOz, "real" in "real estate" is indeed a special use of "real", but it is nevertheless cognate with the ordinary "real". "Real" in "real tennis" is not, and is derived from the same root as "regal" and "royal". --ColinFine (talk) 21:30, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Now, that's curious. I was under the impression that "real estate" referred to the fact that all land once belonged to the Crown, ie. royalty. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:22, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

But I see from real estate that this is a misapprehension. Thanks for the correction. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:25, 21 August 2009 (UTC)