Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 June 23

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June 23

Shake versus nod

I've come to a conclusion about the words "shake" and "nod" in relation to one's head when reading those verb phrases in books. The conclusion is that if a character shakes their head, they're saying no and if they nod their head, it's a yes. Is this just my confirmation bias or is this pretty much standard? Looking at shake at dictionary.com seems to muddle the issue since it says that shake can be used for either:

a. to indicate disapproval, disagreement, negation, or uncertainty by turning one's head from one side to the other and back: I asked him if he knew the answer, but he just shook his head.

b. to indicate approval, agreement, affirmation or acceptance by nodding one's head up and down.

The part that seems confusing is that it uses the word "nod" in the definition for the approval portion. I'm not sure what references would be out there but I just wanted to maybe sort this out. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 00:12, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

In the circles where I have moved for the 60+ years of my life I have never heard the word shake used in the way described in Part b: of that definition. HiLo48 (talk) 00:15, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

See Nod (gesture), Head shake and Head bobble. I think dictionary.com is just plain confused. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:18, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I suppose any movement of the head could be considered a "shake", but we usually reserve it for the No gesture. People from South Asia certainly reverse the meanings - they do what we call "shake" when they mean Yes, and do what we call "nod" when they mean No. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 00:49, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Um, no (shakes his head). The South Asian 'yes' gesture is the 'head bobble' linked above. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:54, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Check. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 01:15, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

I've often heard that Hungarians do it backward. Or am I thinking of some other Balkan nation? —Tamfang (talk) 19:34, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

In Hungarian, the order of surname and given names is reversed. Maybe you're thinking of that. I've never heard of any Europeans reversing the head shaking paradigm. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:56, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

Head bobble says, "In Bulgaria, this is the equivalent of a nod meaning yes, whereas a quick nod up means no." Thinking of that, maybe? Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth, "shaking your head yes" is something I don't find out of place. The movement would still be an up-and-down nod, but the saying works fine. Without "yes" tagged to the end, though, it would assumed to be a left-and-right "no." Lsfreak (talk) 03:36, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

"Londonese"

Finns use "the Londonese language" as a fancy way of referring to the English language. But is there really any distinction between the variety of English used in London versus the English language used in the United Kingdom in general? JIP | Talk 17:32, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

There are lots of varieties of English used within the UK, some of them almost mutually unintelligible at the extreme - here's some links to the ones Wikipedia has articles on. The varieties spoken in London include Received Pronunciation, which is considered "standard" English, as well as lower-prestige varieties like Cockney and Estuary English, which use glottal stops for medial and final t's, drop initial h's, and pronounce final l's like w's, among other distinctive features. --Nicknack009 (talk) 17:54, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

You forgot about Rhyming slang. That having been said, it is unlikely that any of these differences will be noticed or considered significant to many Finnish speakers of English. "Londonese" sounds like a humourous term for English in general, for RP, or for British English in general versus American English, rather than like a term referring to London accents and varieties specifically. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 18:12, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

The traditional London accent and dialect are sadly disappearing under the tide of Multicultural London English which is spoken by younger Londoners of all and any ethnicities, including those whose parents speak the finest Cockney. Alansplodge (talk) 21:01, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, MLE is certainly what I would think of on hearing the term "Londonese". In spite of the fact that I don't believe I've ever personally heard it in London (my last visit was in 1987). But, you know, there's Law & Order: UK, and sometimes it's the best thing showing in the gym. --Trovatore (talk) 21:26, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Some dictionaries define it as "cockney speech".--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 12:07, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

JIP is perhaps over-generalising here about the Finnish usage. It's a humorous expression and perhaps somewhat old-fashioned (from the 70's?). "He is speaking London, I didn't understand a word." or as a compliment to a mate who knows a little bit of English: "So you can speak London, then". In this sense, the phrase refers to any variety of English, or any other language other than Finnish. --Pxos (talk) 23:20, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Quantitied

So I used this word on the Computing desk only to discover (via MSW Word Processor) that it isn't a word at all! I used it in the sentence "large-quantitied [ USB ] hubs..."; I changed it to "large-quantity" - so is that correct? Thanks! --Yellow1996 (talk) 18:10, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, "quantitied" appears in the OED, with a citation from 1606; but it is labelled Obs[elete] rare. So I would say it is a word, but you might choose to regard the 'obselete' bit as significant and avoid it. In any case ignore MSW's strictures, which are sometimes contentious. As to whether "large-quantity hubs" is meaningful - well, for me I don't know what you mean by the quantity of a USB hub, though it might be clear in context (my immediate thought was storage size, but what have USB hubs to do with storage?) So I would advise paraphrasing to make it clearer. But if the meaning is clear, I wouldn't object to "large-quantitied" or to "large-quantity". Others may disagree. --ColinFine (talk) 19:21, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

It's very common in English to add -ed to a noun when that noun is modified by an adjective. An example is large-footed, which gets over 8000 hits on Google Books, but my MS Word spellchecker doesn't like footed, either, because all the spellchecker knows is "foot is a noun and nouns don't get the past participle ending -ed". That said, the phrase large-quantitied only gets 10 results on Google Books—and most of those are typos or scannoes of large quantities—so it is at best very rare. I agree with ColinFine that it isn't clear what you mean by "large-quantitied/large-quantity USB hubs" in the first place. USB hubs having large quantities? Large quantities of what? If you mean USB hubs housing lots of ports, I'd probably go for "multiple-port USB hubs". Angr (talk) 20:44, 23 June 2013 (UTC)

Here's the context. Luckily, I like to use archaic language from time to time; I'll just add "quantitied" to my list. Thanks, guys! :) --Yellow1996 (talk) 00:56, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

"large-quantitied" → "numerous", if you want your readers to like you. Looie496 (talk) 15:07, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

Not in that context. He wrote, "The large-quantitied hubs are generally geared towards companies, making the prices quite high", referring to hubs with a large number of ports. "The numerous hubs..." would mean something totally different. Angr (talk) 15:15, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

"USB hubs with many ports are generally geared towards companies, making the prices quite high" is unambiguous as well as grammatically and idiomatically correct. You still need to provide a numerical definition of "many ports" such as "more than four" somewhere in the text. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 11:22, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

"Many-ported"? --ColinFine (talk) 13:33, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

I'd expect to see "multiport" as the adj. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:54, 25 June 2013 (UTC)