Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 April 25

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April 25

Grammarians wanted - but only with a poetic sense of humour.

Are you a prescriptivist or a descriptivist grammarian in the 'trenches of a war' between excitable and non-excitable grammarians?

Poke this little enumerated box-like thingy [1] for an interesting and humourous / humorous funny study to boldly test your grammarian medal. (And dont yooze forget the comments).

(NB: This question--yes, there was one--has been edited for the benefit of literalist Looie496. For those like LL who want to delete this section before reading the article, then I suggest you consider the term 'good faith', to which I will add 'good humour' (unless there are humour Nazis here) -- and read the article first. Otherwise, feel free to meander past and no one will notice you haven't been here).

Benyoch^{...Don't panic! Don't panic!...} (talk) 03:01, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean "mettle"? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:19, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Not quite, PG; it's a word-play directed toward the medals of grammatical honour we can pin on our chests, as well as mettle, by sound-play. Benyoch^{...Don't panic! Don't panic!...} (talk) 12:38, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

It would be best if we didn't meddle in such affairs. --Jayron32 13:43, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Like an empty keddle? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:01, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

While I strongly approve of the article, I don't see any reason why it belongs on this reference desk. And "medal" doesn't sound anything like "mettle" in proper English. --ColinFine (talk) 16:54, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Congradulations on that observation, Colin.  :) -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 20:40, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

So how are "medal" and "mettle" (and "metal" and "meddle") pronounced in "proper" English? Oh, let me guess: They're abbreviated the same way as "forecastle" is. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:23, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Tha's a fine point indeed, Bugs; thanks. I am pleased you brought it up otherwise it would have remained a mute point, or is that a moot point. "Proper" english is discussed below, FYI. Benyoch^{...Don't panic! Don't panic!...} (talk) 01:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Mr Fine, Sir, The Wikipedia:Reference desk advises the topics approved for Rd/Language include: 'Spelling, grammar, word etymology, linguistics, language usage, and requesting translations'. If you had actually read the article and carefull parsed the question and its title you would have discovered it is about GRAMMAR and LANGUAGE USAGE, with some other thingies, too. Your fine contributions have raised matters of LINGUISTICS, which is excellent. Hope that helps in your understanding of Rd/Language.

BTW, you've made a critically acute observation regarding proper English. You will notice, though, that the question was prefixed with some guff about grammarians having a 'poetic sense of humour'; I have further responded to this thought of "proper" English and the poet below. Benyoch^{...Don't panic! Don't panic!...} (talk) 01:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

The medial consonant is voiced in "medal" and not in "mettle". (In my normal speech it is released laterally in both, but in careful speech and in some accents it is released dentally, and is then aspirated in "mettle"). --ColinFine (talk) 23:36, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Are you saying that "mettle", "metal", etc., are "properly" pronounced the way Eliza Doolittle's father would say it in My Fair Lady - namely, as "meh-uhl"? Shazam! I just figured that was a speech impediment. Like the way he said his own name: "doo-lih-uhl". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:25, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

So this means we can have at least eight forms of speech: ab/normal, im/proper speech and careful/careless, im/proper speech; forms which are further modified by one's enculturation. How does one, then, and with approval, pronounce medal, mettle, metal and meddle, or medial for that matter, in proper English; or, proper American English, or, proper Australian English (that's me - we speak ab/normally here and rarely carefully, some would say); or, Cockney English (my grandfather); or, proper Kalathumpian English; or, if one does not have their dentures installed and aspirator attached?

This means, I am sure, there is no such thing as a globally acceptable and uniformly proper vocalisation of the (mythical) 'proper' English. (Wikiedia is a global community. Yes?)

This whole thing also raises the question about whether one is 'prescriptivist or a descriptivist linguist;

or, a poet, like me. Poets, of course, can come up with anything -- you can tell by what we can do with the grammar. Benyoch^{...Don't panic! Don't panic!...} (talk) 01:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

To those who remained concerned about these grammatical anxieties, and to New Zealanders, all I can say is, 'There, They're, Their. Itll ull be ulraight vury sun.' Benyoch^{...Don't panic! Don't panic!...} (talk) 01:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Unvoiced initial S in German

I can't recall where I saw it, but I recently perused a German text in which some of the dialogue was written in a non-standard eye dialect. Most strikingly, in certain words the initial "S" had been replaced with "Ss", which I took to signify devoicing. I have a few questions: (1) what German dialect has voiceless initial ess? (2) Is it common in written German to use "Ss" to signify this pronunciation? (3) Is it ever used to represent the accent of foreigners speaking German? Thanks. LANTZY^TALK 17:23, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

(1) I don't know, but I think the differentiation between voiced and voiceless s is not so strict in many German dialects. I will ask.

(2) Definitely no, I have never seen it that way.

(3) As mentioned above, no.

However, here it is used to signify voiceless s (Ssonne, Ssinn, Ssand), so you should be right about that.

--KnightMove (talk) 17:34, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

1) People writing Plattdeutch (niederdeutch) use "Ss" or "ß" to represent intitial unvoiced "s". Don't know which other dialects do. By the way, there is no "official" orthography for Plattdeutsch, or for most dialects of German, if not all of them. Each writer uses their own spelling rules, depending on local pronunciation.

2) There is no initial unvoiced "s" in standard Hochdeutsch.

3) Yes, it is used as "eye dialect" to represent initial unvoiced "s" in foreign accents. I'm pretty sure it was used in the German translation of Asterix for that purpose. It's also used as a guide to pronunciation of foreign or dialect words. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:52, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

There is an initial unvoiced /s/ in standard German, but only in loanwords like Skelett and Sex. (Not all speakers reliably distinguish Sex /sɛks/ and sechs /zɛks/, but many do.) Lantzy, if you saw spellings like "Sstein" and "Ssprache", the point was probably to emphasize that the pronunciation is /s/ rather than /ʃ/, not to emphasize devoicing in particular. Angr (talk) 23:15, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't remember what the words were, so I don't know whether the S would have represented /ʃ/ or /z/. But I suppose foreigners would often replace /ʃ/ with /s/ in words like "Stein". Does any regional dialect do the same? LANTZY^TALK 03:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes. The accent of Hamburg and its environs is well known for pronunciations like /staɪn/, which could be represented Sstein or ßtein in writing. If someone has that accent, others say of him, "Er ßtolpert über ßpitze ßteine" (literally "He stumbles over sharp stones" but using the pronunciation in question). I've actually never noticed foreigners doing it, though (and if I did, I would probably assume they were foreigners whose exposure to German had been primarily in Hamburg). Angr (talk) 06:51, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

And while we're about it, the Bavarian dialect (certainly the Bavarian accent of Standard German and presumably the Austro-Bavarian language as well) has voiceless /s/ word-initially before vowels in words like Sonne, Sinn, Sand. Angr (talk) 08:35, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

The most prominent example in Low Saxon (Plattdüütsch) is the word "süh/szüh/ßüh/züh", an interjection meaning something like "look there", "interesting". The most common spelling is simple "s" however. It just occurs in a few words. Other examples are "Supp/Szupp/ßupp/Zupp" [soup] and "Sippel/Szippel/ßippel/Zippel" [onion]). --::Slomox:: >< 09:12, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. Very interesting. LANTZY^TALK 17:58, 27 April 2012 (UTC)