Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 April 7

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April 7

"Pled" vs "Pleaded"?

Which one is more appropriate in a judicial context? I believe 'pled' is the more common variant in American Legal Usage, but I am still unsure of which is the proper form. --Flipandflopped (talk) 03:21, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

You ought to specify which country you're actually interested in. For the U.S., I did a search of U.S. Supreme Court opinions here, and found that pleaded is about 200 times more common than pled. 184.171.208.24 (talk) 05:58, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Really? That's unfortunate. Personally, I use pled for "offered a formal plea in a court of law", and reserve pleaded for "importuned earnestly". I'm probably not completely consistent about it. Do others make the same distinction? Or even the reverse distinction? --Trovatore (talk) 06:04, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to agree with Trovatore, though "pleaded" is much more common for both usages in England. The OED in its entry updated June 2006 says "Chiefly Scottish and U.S." for "pled", (Walter Scott used pled in Fair Maid of Perth in 1828.) Here in northern England, I would not object to pled used in the legal sense, but I would view it as odd used in other senses. In Australia & New Zealand, pled is rare. Dbfirs 06:42, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage, the past tense pled, which had originally been in competition with pleaded, fell out of use in English English, and became limited to Scotland. It then made its way to the U.S., where it became established. Later, in the late 19th and early 20th century, the form pled was "attacked by many American [usage] commentators." As was often the case, the true reason for the attacks was most likely that the word was not in mainstream use in Britain, although the arguments put forward against it may have been couched in different terms, as simply saying "the British don't do it this way, so we shouldn't either" would have been much too transparent, even in those days. Eventually, the form pled regained its respectability in the U.S. But given the conservatism of U.S. legal circles, and particularly of the Supreme Court, it's not surprising that any word that was once the object of criticism would be eschewed. So I'm not surprised to see an overwhelming preference in legal writing for pleaded in opposition to majority non-legal usage. Language conservatives like Bryan Garner continue to recommend pleaded as "the predominant form in both AmE and BrE and always the best choice" (in his Modern American Usage). He even claims that pled is "[not] quite standard in AmE," a claim not supported by the evidence, as the MWDEU entry for plead makes clear.

Personally, I make no distinction in meaning between pled and pleaded, except that in some fields of discourse you're less likely to encounter pled for the reasons I've mentioned. Any perceived differences in meaning would likely be caused by this. 184.171.208.24 (talk) 07:55, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Not quite sure I follow. Are you claiming that "pled" is actually less likely in the context of a plea offered at trial? I don't think that's right at all. I would say for example "he pled guilty, then pleaded with the judge not to impose the death penalty". The alternative "he pled with the judge" would sound unusual, maybe pretentious. --Trovatore (talk) 08:55, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

In the first context you mention, as in "he pleaded/pled guilty" I think a journalist or the general public would be more likely to use pled than a lawyer would, particularly in writing. But I think both forms are possible in both contexts. For example, the MWDEU gives these examples:

Both pled not guilty.

...a scene, for whose life I pled, vainly.

My mother pled with the girl's mother to allow her to let the dress down.

...pleaded innocent before Criminal Court Judge Jerome Kay.

...pled not guilty and was found not guilty.

That being said, in terms of frequency, you may well be correct that pled is less common in the second context, so I withdraw what I said above about fields of discourse. 184.171.208.24 (talk) 09:16, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

In my day, "pleaded" seemed to be the common usage. Nowadays we hear "pled" more and more often. I guess it's like "bled" rather than "bleeded" or something. We still (mostly) say that a batter flied out rather than flew out, but the latter creeps in sometimes.

Note these peculiarities of English:

bleed/bled, feed/fed, lead/led, read/read ['red']

vs.

cede/ceded, heed/heeded, need/needed, seed/seeded, weed/weeded

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

• Nowadays you'll hear "fleed" and "sweeped" and "dreamed" but I have never said those terms, and never say "pleaded" or, as a participle, "proved". Even "lighted" strikes me as odd. I think my speech is normal for the Delaware Valley in this regard. "Pleaded" seems to be an in-group identifier for people with law and journalism degrees. μηδείς (talk) 21:32, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

• Admittedly, "pled" does seem more appealing to me, although personally I have noticed that sometimes the usage depends on context (as Dbfirs and 184.171.208.24 said). I'm not a grammatical expert either, so bear with me.

"I pled guilty" "I pleaded with the jury to find me guilty"

Is there a difference in context there?

Additionally, in real time talk, I have trouble imaging someone referring to themselves as having "pleaded" something (not to suggest that 'pleaded' is entirely incorrect).

The only context I can imagine 'pleaded' being used in is in the case of pleaded with (something) or pleaded his innocence (something of that sort, where the verb is accompanied by a noun rather than an adjective). "I pleaded guilty" isn't really appealing to me.--Flipandflopped (talk) 23:41, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

"Pleaded" appears three times in the King James Bible; "pled" not at all. Similarly, in the Complete Works of Shakespeare, "pleaded" appears three times and "pled" not at all. These works had the greatest influence on the English language for centuries. Dbfirs 00:47, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Historically verbs do evolve toward irregularity due to analogy. "Lit" for the old regular "lighted" is an example. As is "dove" for "dived". μηδείς (talk) 01:55, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Isn't that just a feature of North American English? The past tense "dove" is not used in general British English (we regard it as a North American invention). Shakespeare used "dived", not "dove" (except for the bird, of course). The past tense does not appear in the KJV. Both "lighted" and "lit" have been used for the past tense of "light" for many centuries. (I'm delit to have alit on these examples and I hope you don't feel slit. I've plit my allegiance to British English.) Dbfirs 06:43, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, since dove is an innovation, I certainly wasn't arguing that it's universal. I was just drawing attention to the fact that in language change, not all development is from irregularity to regularity. Presumably dove arised in analogy from drive/drove/driven. Yet, although I do hear "have dove": "Have you ever dove off the high board?" dived is more common, and except from my own jesting use of it, you don't (yet?) hear "have diven". μηδείς (talk) 16:39, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you on that. I can't think of any verbs in British English that have newly-invented past tenses, but there might be the odd one. In most cases where we differ from American English (e.g. "spelt" -- Gray & Cowper spelt it that way in the 1700s; Shakespeare used "speld"; Macaulay used "spelled" in his History of 1849), we retain an older form rather than invent a new one. Dbfirs 20:31, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't think knelt was common before the 19th century. 184.171.208.24 (talk) 02:20, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Not referring to law but journalism but I notice that NPR says pleaded (and I notice because I'd say pled). And my copy of the UPI stylebook (third edition, copyright 1992, 1986, 1977) has the entry "plead The past tense is pleaded, not pled". (Interesting, the firefox spelling checker is objecting to pled.)RJFJR (talk) 02:30, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Medeis, the examples you give seem quite different from each other. For one thing, fleed and sweeped seem extremely unlikely to be produced by a native speaker of English other than as a speech error (that is, they would correct themselves if prompted). At worst, these forms will be corrected on sight by any editor. On the other hand, the pairs dreamed/dreamt, has proved/has proven, pleaded/pled and lighted/lit that you mentioned are all subject to significant variation among educated native speakers, in speech of any degree of formality as well as in (even edited) writing. Dreamed, for example, in addition to being the majority usage in the U.S., has been in constant use for 700 years (see its entry in the MWDEU), so I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you can hear it "nowadays." 184.171.208.24 (talk) 05:48, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

"Nowadays" means currently, it's probably in MWDEU. I have heard fleed at least once from a reporter and sweeped many, many times (although not on Britcoms); the fact that they stood out to me when I heared them is why I remembered them and brought them up. Both are well-attributed at google. μηδείς (talk) 06:00, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Right dislocation in English

This paper identifies certain kinds of right dislocation, for example "She's got a very good degree, has Julie," as being most closely associated with northern England, although it also gives the following example from Margaret Atwood': "She was quite stuck-up about it, was Helen." Charles Boberg, in his book The English Language in Canada, describes this construction as "non-existent" in North America, though he does so "on the basis of casual observation."

My own observation is that it is quite common among hockey commentators here in Canada. Bob Cole seems to use it all the time, as in the following examples that I've made up, but which I think fit with the way he uses right dislocation:

• He made a beautiful pass to Kunitz, did Crosby.
• He's really kept his team in the game, has Luongo . (This one would have had to be a long time ago.)
• He made an incredible save, Price did.
• He was just able to keep it inside the line, Markov was.

Both versions, with and without inversion, can be heard. The advantage of this kind of sentence in a fast-moving game like hockey is obvious: you want to state what has happened as quickly as possible, and only when you have time will you fill in less-important details like who performed the action. Although "He made a beautiful pass, Crosby" would be somewhat less exotic in North American English, I also think it would be a little bit harder to follow in the middle of a hockey game, as the auxiliary verb really does help you fit the different parts of the sentence together. And "He made a beautiful pass to Kunitz, Crosby" is in fact of questionable acceptability to me. A sentence like "He made a beautiful pass to his winger, Crosby" would be out of the question due to its ambiguity (saved perhaps only by intonation), but the ambiguity can be resolved by a well-placed did.

I've heard numerous Canadian commentators use the construction in recent years, and increasingly I'm hearing it from American ones as well, though so far only in hockey. I suspect that it may have started with one or two individual Canadian commentators influenced by British English. From there it probably spread to other North American sportscasters. I can think of a couple of reasons it would be more likely to have arisen in Canada. First, we used to have a lot of British commentators in sports like soccer or track and field. Second, Canadians would probably react to it as being slightly less strange, because many more of us would have heard it from British parents or grandparents than would Americans.

My feeling about this construction is that until recently I would have regarded it as entirely British, and not natural for a North American to use. On the other hand, I really love the sound of it (contrary to some other British borrowings that I find quite irritating when used by North Americans, like equalizer - what's suddenly wrong with tying goal?). I don't have any feeling of it being particularly informal as spoken usage goes, although you wouldn't expect it in a throne speech.

How do other North Americans feel about it? Does anybody have a sense of how long it's been in use by sportscasters here? And if you're British, how "northern" do you feel it is? Does it strike Britons as too informal to be used on television? Also, I'd be curious to know about other English-speaking countries like Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, if anybody from there has any comments. 184.171.208.24 (talk) 07:29, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

It's fairly common (with inversion) here in northern English dialect, but regarded as a colloquial usage. Dbfirs 08:28, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

But not used at all in the south. Alansplodge (talk) 19:35, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

I suspected that would be the case, but wasn't sure, so made the claim only for the north, and then I think it's only true for parts of the north and among older speakers or in certain dialects. Young people regard the usage as odd, or as something only their grandparents would say. Dbfirs 20:23, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Heh, as soon as I saw this I thought "Bob Cole". I thought it was because of the speed of the game, they just have to say a bunch of other stuff before they are able to recognize who is doing what on the ice (and in Cole's case, he does it much more often because he's extremely old). Adam Bishop (talk) 08:32, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I am a US-American who never watches hockey, and while I can understand this construction, I have never heard it among my linguistic peers, and I would classify it as one of those odd constructions that occur in (to me) exotic varieties of English. Marco polo (talk) 15:40, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

You do hear it in North America on very rare occasion, but it's a highly marked formation, used for emphasis and typically perceived as antiquated or, as noted already, indicative of an outside dialect. Note however that there are a number of small tweaks that can be made which cause it to be perceived as a little less remarkable. Consider, for example, a woman speaking of her late husband and employing a personal pronoun: "He was a great one for surprises, my Charlie was." Omit the second instance of the copula and it becomes more mundane still: "He was a great one for surprises, my Charlie." I think most dialects of English have some form of this kind of construction that can be used without seeming too out-of-the-ordinary, but the descriptive constraints vary some. Snow (talk) 09:36, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

I just remembered that Bob Cole is from Newfoundland, maybe that explains it? Is this a feature of Newfoundland English? Adam Bishop (talk) 10:39, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Interesting point. Snow, I do think "He was great, Charlie" is unremarkable in Canadian English. 184.171.208.24 (talk) 02:21, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Parse Tree for lists

In English, you can list things with commas, but a list is always part of some clause, so my question is: How can you define the syntactic structure of a list? 190.60.93.218 (talk) 13:53, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

It's a little unclear to me what you're asking, but I'll toss out some links anyway :) Syntax_(programming_languages)#Example:_Lisp shows how syntax can be defined for the Lisp_programming_language, which was historically developed for LISt Processing. But if you're talking about natural language, then style guides have various prescriptive ways to typographically denote list syntax. But "in the wild" syntactic structure of lists is handled many different ways. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:31, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, it probably, is, I'm talking about natural language, in which a clause contains a list, I'm not sure how I would make a parse tree of a clause that contains a list since it has more than one, nouns, adjectives or whatever I'm listing. 190.60.93.218 (talk) 18:04, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Maybe an example would help? For instance, do you want to know how to make a parse tree of a sentence? Consider the example: "Jane went shopping for three items: a pair of shoes, a red shirt, and a well-sharpened axe." Next, decide on which kind of parse tree you'd like, because you'll get different trees for dependency-based and constituency-based methods. I think the key approach is that the whole list is a clause, containing three noun phrases. Each noun phrase has delimeters, and so on. Ordering in the list can be preserved by ordering of the terminal nodes, as shown in the example in our article. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:33, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

"Traveling overseas"

If you are, say, Canadian and you travel to Mount Rushmore in the United States of America by foot, car, or train, would that still be considered "traveling overseas"? Or does "overseas" automatically imply that you'd be flying/boating over seas? Can the phrase be used figuratively to mean "traveling abroad" or "crossing the American-Canadian border legally"? 140.254.136.157 (talk) 17:58, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Overseas definitely implies travel over water. However, observation suggests that, when speaking of an unspecified destination, people may use it synonymously with abroad if they don't feel that the distinction is significant, or if they mistakenly neglect the possibility of a nearer location. Since the U.S. is a major possible destination for a Canadian travelling outside the country, I don't think many Canadians would use overseas in a way that includes all foreign countries. Saying "Did you enjoy your trip overseas?" to someone who you know has just visited South Dakota would be out of the question. 184.171.208.24 (talk) 19:06, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Definitions vary. See Wictionary and Dictionary.com and Oxford Dictionaries and the Free Dictionary. My opinion is that "overseas" implies crossing an ocean. I would not use it for travel to the U.S. from Canada or vice versa.--Dreamahighway (talk) 19:12, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

People in New England (United States) do not refer to Canada as "overseas". Brazil, maybe, despite the Isthmus of Panama. Europe, Africa, and Asia are definitely overseas. I think "overseas" implies "across an ocean" or at least "on another continent". Marco polo (talk) 19:18, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

In Canada it is sometimes useful to make a three-way distinction between Canada, the US, and "all other countries". For example, there are three sets of postage rates and three sections in some airport terminals. Since "all other countries" is a bit of a mouthful, people look for shorter forms. Sometimes we use "international" with that meaning (even though the US really is also international), but some of us do also sometimes use "overseas" (even though places in the Americas might really not be overseas). --50.100.193.30 (talk) 08:54, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Canadian from SW Ontario here. I wouldn't use overseas for anything on the American landmasses, perhaps even including the Caribbean; only for travel that took you across an ocean. Matt Deres (talk) 20:27, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I could see referring to a trip to Jamaica from New England in the 1800's as overseas, but I have to agree I have never heard anyone going on a cruise to the Caribbean describe it as going overseas. μηδείς (talk) 21:26, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

• It is very worth noting that the phrase Outremer was the Medieval European term for the Levant, and "Outremer" means "overseas", despite the fact that it is quite possible to walk from any part of Europe to the Levant without crossing a "sea". --Jayron32 00:51, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

That goes to my point that the technology of travel at the time is important. Obviously travel by boat over the sea from Marseilles to the crusader states was easier at that point than travel by land, which was extremely hard and dangerous. μηδείς (talk) 01:52, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Absolutely. That's why it was called "overseas". Even if it was connected by land. --Jayron32 02:18, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I have observed that people from the UK and people from Australia use the expression "travel overseas" to mean the same as "travel to another country", any other country. It makes sense for those folks. HiLo48 (talk) 02:23, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

• Of note, this book: [1] notes that "four of the first six secretaries of the treasury were born overseas", describing U.S. Secretaries of the Treasury. Two of the four so described were Alexander Hamilton and Alexander J. Dallas, who were born in the Caribbean. Thus, we can see that the term is used to describe people in the U.S. born on Caribbean Islands. --Jayron32 02:26, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Again that's in the 1700's, and usage is traditional with them. Would John McCain commonly be referred to as having been born overseas? μηδείς (talk) 02:31, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Except you can walk to where he was born, again without crossing any seas. --Jayron32 02:32, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Or ride a donkey down and sleep in mangers on the way? You can't say the Levant's overseas but The isthmus isn't. A lot of people can't even say isthmus. μηδείς (talk) 05:51, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

I never said the Levant was overseas. --Jayron32 09:35, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

No. You said, "It is very worth noting that the phrase Outremer was the Medieval European term for the Levant, and "Outremer" means 'overseas'". Next time I will have a lawyer, typeseter, and philologsit vet my attributions. μηδείς (talk) 21:12, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

McCain was born overcanals. You heard it here first folks. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:25, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

If an American journalist wrote (in a hypothetical reality) "Five U.S. presidents were born overseas," would this mean that none of them could have been born in Canada? I think if this happened, it wouldn't mean that the journalist considered Canada to be "overseas," just that the distinction for an American between overseas and abroad was small enough to be overlooked. In other words, the prototypical idea an American has of a foreign country is one that is indeed overseas, not Canada. As regards the Caribbean, however, I think that that is arguably "overseas" as viewed from the U.S. With respect to John McCain, wasn't the Canal Zone considered American territory? Obama certainly wasn't born "overseas" from the U.S. standpoint, for example, because Hawaii is in the U.S. (I hope I won't be starting discussion on a whole new topic!) 184.171.208.24 (talk) 05:22, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

In England, crossing the English Channel to foreign parts is often called "going to Europe", which confuses the hell out of overseas visitors who imagine that they're already in Europe (that's another argument). For older Britons, including me, people from Canada, Australia and New Zealand aren't usually referred to as "foreign" due to a childhood filled with propaganda about the "Commonwealth Family". Alansplodge (talk) 12:51, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Of course, there's still a Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, which implies that "foreign" and "Commonwealth" are mutually exclusive concepts. Proteus (Talk) 12:59, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Quite right too. Alansplodge (talk) 21:40, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

When I was younger, so much younger than today, people Down Here would talk of travelling to "the continent", which was understood to be Europe, despite the fact that we already live in a continent and there is another continent much closer to us, and three others further away but still closer than Europe. This terminology was used because our British forebears spoke that way, and in many ways we considered ourselves an extension of Britain. Our Prime Minister Robert Menzies was still secure in the belief that Australia was "British to the bootstraps", and when he travelled to the UK and saw the white cliffs of Dover approaching, he felt he was "coming home". When the Queen of Australia visited Australia, millions would flock to get a glimpse of her, while predominantly waving Union Jacks, with just a sprinkling of Australian flags. Well, we've all passed a lot of water since then, and the UK has even been declared by our own High Court of Australia to be a "foreign power". That means we have the flag of a foreign power taking up fully 25% of our own. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:04, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I think you'll find it's four others closer than Europe. --Trovatore (talk) 22:16, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I am indebted to my honourable and learned colleague. The prosecution rests. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:30, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

When Scotland declares its independence

Will travelling their from Wales be considered going overseas? (It's been a few days since we've had a Scottish Independence question). μηδείς (talk) 02:27, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

(That will depend on whether you travel via England or over the Irish sea.) We usually use "abroad" rather than "overseas", but I suspect it will probably not be until at least a century after Scottish independence that we think of Scotland as "abroad". Dbfirs 06:46, 8 April 2014 (UTC):

Maybe the title should be changed to "If Scotland declares its independence

MicronationKing (talk) 13:55, 9 April 2014 (UTC) ;

No, I meant when. μηδείς (talk) 00:55, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Then, since you have access to whisperings from the ether that pass us mortals by, you can presumably ask your spirit-guide to answer that question too. 86.146.28.229 (talk) 08:09, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

Current opinion poll: "Yes" vote = 37% [2] "Yes" vote required = 50% + 1 vote [3] Alansplodge (talk) 20:57, 10 April 2014 (UTC)

37 yes, 52 no, hence 11 undecided? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:50, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

Knock yourself out. 86.146.28.229 (talk) 10:09, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

English Quote -> Arabic Translation

Here's a simple quote:

"It takes two men to make one brother"

My question is, how do you translate that into Arabic? I feel like the verb "take" in this sense is kinda hard to translate... :/

Maybe something like "لازم عندك رجلان ليفعل واحد أخ"

Although, I don't know if the alif-noon should be ya-noon instead on the dual...what's the rule for that, exactly?

Thanks!

131.247.224.148 (talk) 21:12, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm far from capable of speaking arabic, but in cases like these where I'm translating unusual phrases into French, I try to take the closest possible verb and translate that, no matter how odd it sounds in english. My best guess would be to try 'require' instead of 'take'. May I ask your purpose in translating this? --Flipandflopped (talk) 23:51, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

"فإنه يتطلب رجلين لجعل أخ" Does that sound far off? It might be somewhat of a 'literal' translation. --Flipandflopped (talk) 23:57, 7 April 2014 (UTC)