Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 August 28

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 28

General term for Uncle Tom ?

I refer to the def: "any person perceived to be a participant in the oppression of their own group". Is there a term used outside the US and not primarily used in a black/white context ? For example, a term for women who support the oppression of women ? StuRat (talk) 02:36, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Don't know about outside the US, but there's race traitor, a phrase I hadn't heard of before. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:11, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Race traitor (nowadays at least) is usually used in a self-deprecating way, to (self-)describe a person of the oppressing group who sympathizes with the oppressed group and rejects the privileges which they themselves receive without meriting them. See Noel Ignatiev for the most prominent such. --Orange Mike | Talk 03:19, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

More broadly, StuRat, there are terms like "collaborator" and "self-loathing fill-in-the-blank". --Orange Mike | Talk 03:20, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

A term that comes to mind is useful idiot. --Bowlhover (talk) 04:32, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

In the UK we have class traitor to describe working-class Tories. Trade Unionism gives us blackleg for strikebreakers. --TammyMoet (talk) 13:42, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Fellow-traveller is a good general-purpose term for a traitor. Specifically in the context of women who oppose women's rights, "mouse" or "doormat" is a common term of abuse. Tevildo (talk) 18:27, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I can't agree on "fellow traveler". It's a specific term for someone who works for some but not all the goals of some movement and is not officially a member of it, and it's especially associated with Communism.

Of the suggestions so far, my favorite is "collaborator", and "quisling" might also be a possibility. I once read an essay by a black writer saying that "Gunga Din" was a more appropriate term than "Uncle Tom" for such people. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 21:52, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

"Quisling", to me, implies some form of active betrayal, of turning one's coat - in Paradise Lost, Satan is a traitor, but Abdiel is a quisling. An Uncle Tom is one who merely approves of the status quo, despite it being to their disadvantage. But there are plenty of words to choose from in this situation. Tevildo (talk) 19:58, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Although not refering to what a person is but what they have, Stockholm syndrome comes to mind. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:36, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Why do synonyms exist?

What is the point of having multiple words that mean the same thing? What is the advantage from a communication point of view? 108.170.113.22 (talk) 16:44, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

1) There are no perfect synonyms. Every word carries additional meanings and subtext that can indicate certain senses of meaning, register, tone, etc, which make one word distinct from the other. Shit and feces are considered synonyms, because the have the same thing they are referring to. But we cannot use them perfectly interchangably; there are different situations where shit and where feces would each be appropriate, and those subtle differences in meaning is what makes synonyms important and useful. --Jayron32 16:53, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

I'll differ slightly from Jayron32. I think there are some perfect synonyms, and I wish I could call some of them to mind on short notice. Many times this happens when the synonyms come from different languages, such as French and Latin. There's no Central Committee for the Elimination of English Synonyms, so the synonyms just hang around as long as people continue to use them. There are excellent documentaries about the history of the English language that talk about things like this. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 17:01, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

My candidate for the most perfect pair of synonyms in English would be "anyone" and "anybody". --70.49.168.18 (talk) 21:08, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

That's an example of non-perfect synonyms, as there are places where "anybody" wouldn't be appropriate. "Anyone" is more formal, "anybody" is more colloquial (in American English, at least; I can't speak for the Brits). A case of perfect synonyms is where the words are completely interchangeable in any context. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 21:48, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

They are used pretty much interchangeably. But it is difficult to come up with perfect synonyms, even from the same word. Consider the words "hotel" and "hostel", which both derive from the same Old French word but are not quite the same thing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:00, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

• I don't think you see "anybody" much in academic writing or journalism, but it's quite common in everyday spoken language. Therefore they're not interchangeable.
• "Beast" and "creature". Pretty much interchangeable in any context, at least in the most common sense of the words (referring ro actual non-human animals on Earth). No doubt you could identify certain senses in the definition of one that don't exist in the definition of the other; for example, a woman probably wouldn't say to a guy: You CREATURE!!. But I don't think all the senses have to line up to qualify as perfect synonyms. We're probably taking this deeper than the OP wanted. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 22:09, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

• "Creature" refers to any living thing, typically any animal. Hence creatures include both birds and beasts. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:12, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

You got me! Back to the Thesaurus! ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 22:14, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, it's worse than that, I think. Creature tends to be a religious term, and it explicitly includes humans (and angels). I'm not particularly familiar with usages that exclude humans, outside of maybe a Creedence song. Is this a dialectal difference? --Trovatore (talk) 22:16, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

"OMG - that car with the twin turbo's and go-faster stripes is just a *beast*.'", or "John, you were just *beast* in bed last night"..."creature" wouldn't work there. Beast has connotations of power and anger. Creature seems somehow more gentle. I really can't imagine any sufficiently precise synonyms to warrant disposing of one of the two words. SteveBaker (talk) 14:44, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

One might say to a farmer "My, that's an 'ansum beast!" when admiring his livestock, one would not say "creature" - the latter would (to my ears) imply something wrong with the beast in question. DuncanHill (talk) 20:41, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

The "point", in addition to what the above users have said, is that English is nowhere in the neighborhood of being a "pure" language. It's a hodge-podge of different languages - offshoots of both the northern and southern Europe languages, along with bits and pieces from a host of others. And as stated above, words that are effectively synonyms can carry shades of meaning. As a fitting example, I can say I will carry my luggage, which is from Latin via French and is pretty much neutral; or I can say I will drag my luggage, which is from Old English for "carry" but convoys a degree of burden or annoyance at the task; or can say I will schlep my luggage, which is Yiddish for "drag" but conveys an even better word-picture. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:05, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Good for poetry and songwriting. One word often has too many syllables or doesn't rhyme or starts with a vowel, while the other doesn't. An example (and counterexample) using words mentioned above is in "What Would Brian Boitano Do?":

"And when Brian Boitano built the pyramids, he beat up Kublai Khan / 'Cause Brian Boitano doesn't take shit from a-ny-bo-dy!" "Feces" wouldn't fly there, and the extra bit over the expected rhyme "anyone" is a bit awkward, but allows for a four beat tempo shift, which kind of grows on a listener. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:00, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually, this is the same OP that asked about lasers that curve and then argued with the responders about it but wouldn't explain his question. Likewise here, the OP has stated a premise but has given no examples - and is unlikely to return here to clarify. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:02, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Everyone who gave a physics-related answer understood his question perfectly fine. So did the one person who complained about the etymology of "laser"--he understood the question perfectly, but chose to complain about semantics instead of answering it. --Bowlhover (talk) 08:11, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I assumed the OP meant curving of the laser beam by some means or another. Then the IP introduced doubt by arguing over exactly what the term "laser" really means. But since the OP didn't clarify his own question, it raises the possibility that he meant a laser beam that would somehow curve on its own. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:46, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Many things happen in language that are not advantageous from a communications point of view. Not everything in language has a point.

English does have a lot of synonyms because it's taken vocabulary from a lot of sources, but I have the impression that all languages have synonyms.

My candidate for a very close pair of synonyms in English would be "though" and "although". —JerryFriedman (Talk) 22:04, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

They weren't originally identical, and they really still aren't, but they're close.[1][2] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:15, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Start, begin, commence. Widneymanor (talk) 08:07, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

To directly answer the OP, in England after the Norman Conquest, the existing laws and language were officially replaced by Norman French laws and language. However, so that the people (who spoke Old English) could understand what their new lords and masters meant (who spoke Norman French), word pairs were introduced, such as "let or hindrance": the first was Old English, the second was Norman French. --TammyMoet (talk) 08:43, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, ya learn something new every day. If "let" meant "hindrance", that could explain the use of the term "let" in tennis. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:01, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Actually, "hinder" is from Old English, according to etymonline again. However, the -ance suffix is from Norman French. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 16:39, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

It's not strictly necessary to borrow words from other languages to have synonyms (though this has certainly helped in some cases). My little "Teach Yourself Icelandic" book by P.J.T. Glendening has long lists of impeccably Icelandic-looking synonyms for common nouns like "men, battle, sky, sea" which you apparently need to learn how to spot if making any attempt to read the Icelandic sagas in the original... AnonMoos (talk) 13:48, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

(@Widneymanor) Start, begin, and commence aren't perfect synonyms either. You don't commence or begin your car, for (a silly) example. Apart from differing semantic connotations etc, once you consider the context of poetry, or even of euphony in everyday speech, it is very difficult to come up with completely interchangeable synonyms. In Italian, for example, the words "fra" and "tra" are often considered perfect synonyms, but, as pointed out in this Treccani article, you can't just substitute the one with the other in phrases such as "fra tre minuti ~ tra tre minuti" ("in three minutes"); or "tra fratelli ~ fra fratelli" ("among brothers"), because of the sounds, not because of the meanings. ---Sluzzelin talk 10:54, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

The word "commence" is from French and literally meant "to start or begin".[3] We don't always use it the same way in English, though. Graduation is called "commencement" as kind of a formality. But you also hear about "commencing operations", as in a project or battle or something. There, begin or start would work as synonyms. However, the origin of "start" implies something sudden, like leaping up. That squares with why you "start" your car, and then "begin" (or "commence" if you're being funny) your journey. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:09, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

But the subtle shades of meaning are important here. I 'start' my car and drive to the store, but in a novel about Victorian/steam-punk steam-powered locomotives, having Lord Fahquah tell his chauffeur: "Commence the vehicle and progress toward my club" might well provide that connotation of a more complex process, some weight and oily/smokey/steamy smell and overall antiquity that "start" just doesn't convey. Choose 'engage' (think Star Trek) and you get an entirely different shade of meaning. One of the joys of English is all of the subtlety and overtone one can convey by picking just that one perfect choice of near-synonym. You only have to read text written in the limited vocabulary of 'Basic English" or "Simple English" to immediately understand how flat and dull it is to write without all of those synonyms. SteveBaker (talk) 14:44, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

For sure. And your Lord Fahquah could just as easily be W.C. Fields, who enjoyed putting high-falutin' terms into his characters' mouths. Like instead of saying, "Let's have some coffee", he says "Let's gurgitate a few saucers of mocha java." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:59, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Synonyms exist so that Wikipedia editors can argue over which word is best. "Jolly Roget" (talk) 14:15, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

• "Why do synonyms exist?" Well, Johnny, when a mother synonym and a father synonym meet and fall in love, very very much, they get married, and plan a family. Usually for the first time they make a baby they go on a special trip. (On later occasions blackouts, snowstorms, and recreational drugs my be involved.) The father synonym buys just enough champaign for the mother synonym to relax. They go back to their room and kiss in a very special way for almost a whole minute. Nine months later, a baby synonym pops out of the mommy's tummy, and now there is a new, baby synonym. μηδείς (talk) 17:40, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

Although this is tangential to the OP's question, it's worth noting that a pair of words may seem like synonyms to one person, but not to another. People who are cursed with better vocabulary skills perceive more subtle differences between words, and so see fewer real synonyms. This makes "synonymity" subjective and therefore a less useful concept. When a dictionary or thesaurus lists synonyms for the word being defined, it could more accurately call them "potential synonyms", "related words", or something similar. ‑‑Mandruss (talk) 20:38, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

I think the existence of synonyms can be put in the broader context of why redundancy exists. Redundancy is a good thing in communication, electronic and biological alike. It makes it more reliable and the language more expressive. Lack of redundancy is a problem and a point of criticism with conlangs such as Ro. There are all sorts of it built into a language, phonetic, grammatical, verbal (hence, synonyms.) Asmrulz (talk) 20:39, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

And without synonyms, there would have been no "Dead Parrot Sketch". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:30, 29 August 2014 (UTC)

A substantial part of the issue, in my humble opinion, relates to the sheer obstreperousness of the English language. As far as I know, English and Lao remain the only major languages on Earth that nobody directly regulates. This free-for-all approach cannot help but proliferate synonyms—even as other, important languages restrict them.

ee.gg.

English	to wit	videlicet	namely	i.e.	that is	viz.	scilicet
French	à savoir
Spanish	a saber

English	maybe	perhaps	belike	perchance	mayhap	peradventure
French	peut être
Spanish	puede ser

Pine (talk) 01:56, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, that's a bit unfair. Several of those English terms for "that is" are borrowed directly from Latin (and some are just abbreviations of the others). I can't speak for Spanish, but French certainly has more ways of saying "that is" than "à savoir". You can also say "c'est à dire", and it's abbreviation "c.-à-d.", for one example. For "maybe", most of those English terms are extremely archaic or would just simply never be used (peradventure, really?). And again French has many more equivalents than "peut-être". I suppose it's true that English has a crazy amount of one-word synonyms, but French (at least) still has a huge variety of expressions that perform the same functions as English synonyms. For another example, how would English express "concernant", "en ce qui concerne", "en ce qui a trait de", "en matière de", "à propos de", "par rapport à", "à l'égard de"? Do these count as synonyms, if they aren't one word? And here, I think, English is rather poor, since you could translate all those with a rather ambiguous "about". Adam Bishop (talk) 11:43, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Good grief: Puede ser -- quizás -- tal vez -- acaso (Just off the top of my head). -- Elphion (talk) 20:16, 31 August 2014 (UTC)