Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 December 26

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December 26

Is this headline grammatically correct?

"World’s ‘Unbanked’ En Route to Financial Inclusion With Mobile Money" --Wall Street Journal

If "to" is lowercase shouldn't the "With" appearing in the headline also be lowercase? Muzzleflash (talk) 06:32, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

(http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/11/05/worlds-unbanked-en-route-to-financial-inclusion-with-mobile-money/tab/comments/)

The case usage is a bit inconsistent, but grammatically it seems OK. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:11, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

To the degree that any headline can be said to be "grammatically correct", that is. There are unwritten rules about what can be got away with in headlines that would be quite unacceptable in standard text. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 15:06, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I should point out that the word "spelling" does not appear in the Grammar article. Grammar is about how sentences are put together. That might be kind of a nitpick, as presumably you were asking if the case was correct. In short, no. But as Jack said, it's a headline, and headlines often take liberties. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:49, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

• "Proper" might have been a better word, but grammars usually address capitalization, with all nouns being capitalized in German, and names of countries being capitalized in Spanish, but adjectives and the names of languages based on them not. Spanish also only capitalizes the first word of a movie or book title unless a word happens to be a proper noun. Anything purporting to be a grammar of a language that uses capitalization will treat of such things. μηδείς (talk) 17:29, 26 December 2014 (UTC)
  

English used to capitalise nouns as well. Now that practice is reserved for proper nouns or otherwise nouns that are functioning in a certain circumstance as a proper noun. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 19:35, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't know if the Wall Street Journal, or any other paper for that matter, uses it today, but there used to be a style of headline capitalization where the words capitalized were not only the ones that would be capitalized in something like a book or movie title, but also the first word on each line. If the WSJ does use such a style and that headline appeared in print split into two lines, like

World’s ‘Unbanked’ En Route to Financial Inclusion With Mobile Money

then that would explain the capitalization. Otherwise I'd say that treating the prepositions differently was an error. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 11:53, 27 December 2014 (UTC), edited 23:39, 27 December 2014 (UTC).

Except, of course, that I linked to the blog above (see link to the blog above), and it shows there was no such line splitting that would fit your hypothesis. It's a blog. It's on-line. Peepul joost dont cair. μηδείς (talk) 01:18, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Garn. Why can't the English learn to speak?

In Hertford, Hereford and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen, but what about Heinkels? In a British article, should it be a Heinkel or an Heinkel? 'urry up and let me know, guv. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:46, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

'A' - us Londoners may not speak proper, but we write right. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:58, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, that settles that minor disagreement. Thankee. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:49, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

See Why do Europeans speak American so poorly? μηδείς (talk) 23:59, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Say, Medeis, you asked in that old thread for examples of "films of the 30's and 40's that have doubletalk in them". Last night, I was watching a DVD of All Through the Night. In it, there's a scene in which Humphrey Bogart and William Demarest infiltrate a meeting of Nazi spies, having taken the places of two explosives experts. When called on to give a report, they go into a rather extended doubletalk routine. Deor (talk) 00:45, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I think I have seen that before, but don't remember it. I have ordered it. μηδείς (talk) 01:14, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

The thing is, in these modern days, no country has command over the English language. Indeed, it has been a long time since English was limited to the British Isles. The dialects of modern England are not necessarily true to those dialects that were spoken there in the past. Thus, arguments such as "people outside of England do not speak English properly" and "people outside of England do not speak true English" do not ring true. In fact, there are plenty of dialects outside of England that maintain aspects of the speech of auld that no dialect currently spoken within the British Isles maintains.

Forsooth, a prevailing form of English that is spoken in England today, Cockney-influenced Estuary English, is, rather than conservative, very far from the speech of yore; being one of the most unconservative accents of English that is currently spoken.

As such, we now live in a time where many different people have many different understandings of English, and many different opinions on what constitutes "proper English". So, rather than mock or chide entire countries for how English is spoken in those places, one should respect and accept that no one speaks a truly true English. Full stop. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 01:21, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

'A' versus 'an' is entirely based on pronunciation, so you have to indicated how 'Heinkel' is being pronounced. Spelling is irrelevant. Peter Grey (talk) 15:30, 29 December 2014 (UTC)