Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 October 27

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October 27

Titular terminological travesty

I'm looking for a word that means referring to someone with a title they don't have. My brain tells me 'misattribution', but that usually refers to someone's works being attributed to someone else.

I'm thinking of cases like Bob Geldof, who was given an honorary knighthood, which did not come with any pre-nominal title. He can use the post-nominal KBE, but not the title 'Sir'. Yet, 'Sir Bob' is what the entire musical world regularly calls him. Probably most of them assume he's entitled to it, but even those who know he's not still call him that because ... well, search me. "Everyone else does" seems to cover it. (Apparently it's not permitted to be or act as an individual anymore.)

Or cases like Benjamin Britten, who was awarded a peerage but never a knighthood, but is sometimes incorrectly referred to as 'Sir Benjamin Britten'.

What is this type of titular terminological blunder called? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:10, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

There may well be a more specific term, but the first thing that comes to my mind is misnomer. Deor (talk) 11:14, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

The same goes for Sir Terry Wogan: both Irish from Southern Ireland. They can use it - you can call yourself whatever you like in this country - but it doesn't mean anything as they are not British citizens. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:56, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

A check of the article for Sir Terry Wogan and that for honorary awards suggests that as he is also a British citizen, he is a "proper" Sir. Bazza (talk) 14:04, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Well this is taken from his article: "Wogan was granted an honorary knighthood as an Irish citizen in 2005." --TammyMoet (talk) 18:27, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Indeed it does say that, but the article also states (as does the reference included in your quotation) that after asserting his right [as an Irish citizen] to British citizenship in 2005, his knighthood was made substantive (as well as being elevated), allowing him to use the style "Sir" and thus eliminating him as an example for this reference desk question. Bazza (talk) 18:43, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Semi-vowel followed by equivalent vowel

What happens when a semi-vowel like /j/ is followed by its equivalent vowel, like /i/? e.g. in the English words "ye" /ji/ and "woohoo" /wuhu/. Siuenti (talk) 12:48, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

What do you mean "what happens"? You have given the IPA pronunciations of each word; presumably you've heard those words spoken before. Can you elaborate what you are looking for in an answer or reference? --Jayron32 14:24, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

I guess I mean "what do the tongue and lips do?". If "The palatal approximant [j] is the semivocalic equivalent of the close front unrounded vowel [i]" why is there a sound when going from one to the other? Siuenti (talk) 16:00, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

My tongue doesn't do anything different when I say "ye" or "you" or "yo" or "y'all" when transitioning between the /j/ sound and the vowel following it. The best answer I can think of is "nothing different than when using the sound in other contexts". --Jayron32 16:25, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

People have made a few inaccurate statements about phonetics here. It is not accurate to say that the tongue "doesn't do anything different" between the /j/ and the /iː/. As our article approximant consonant explains, /j/ and /w/ are more constricted than their corresponding vowels. This extra constriction creates more turbulence, which leads to a different sound than a vowel. This (and not a glottal stop) is how we can tell the difference, for example, between his east infection and his yeast infection. This constriction is also how we can tell the difference between nonce utterances like a long [iːː] and a long [jːː], showing that length is not the important criteria. The issue is the same for /w~uː/ and /r~ɝ/

I prefer to make a distinction between approximant and semi-vowel, as there are languages (such as Spanish) which make contrasts between the two. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 00:43, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

Captain Pernicekty to the rescue! You mean /ɹ~ɝ/, not /r~ɝ/? Munci (talk) 12:00, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

In phonemic transcription, I prefer using ⟨r⟩ for the English rhotic. It's less phonetically precise, but it gets the job done and is commonly used in linguistic literature. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:32, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

In many, if not most, varieties of English, ye is actually pronounced [jɪi], and woohoo is pronounced [wʊu'hʊu], with a quick glide to the second, longer vowel of the diphthong. The first element of the diphthong separates the semivowel from the vowel. Without the diphthong, [ji] is distinguished from [j] only by length of the vocalization. In English, /ji/ is distinguished from /i/ (as in the name of the letter 'E') by the absence of an initial glottal stop ([ʔ]). Marco polo (talk) 18:02, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Well, that's true, but in general most English vowels are already diphthongs. Ye and bee (to pick another example) are Minimal pairs and both have the same pronunciation excepting the /j/ sound at the start. So, while what you say is true about Ye really being pronounced /jɪi/, bee as /bɪi/. This is often notated as /iː/ in IPA instead of /ɪi/, but it's somewhat arbitrary here. When the /j/ sound blends into the /i/ sound, deciding where the glide ends and the diphthong begins is somewhat arbitrary. --Jayron32 19:03, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

I was aware that high vowels are pronounced with semi-vowel offglides by some Southern English and now I realise that there are people in America who speak thusly. Munci (talk) 12:00, 31 October 2015 (UTC)

In Russian this combination is rather frequent. I've been trying to pronounce some. The tongue just moves from the upper and closer position for /j/ to the lower and more open position for /i/. I cannot say if there is some sort of an additional intermediate i-like semi-sound between them, as it was noted above.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:19, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

How would you say, in one word ...

(whether as a verb or as an adjective):

"belongs (or belonging) to the first league / quality / class " (and likewise)?

No matter what the context is.

Notice that the word "best" is not appropriate, because the "best" object is better than anything else, and this might be incorrect if the league / class (and the like) contains more than one object. 84.229.243.136 (talk) 16:07, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

"first-rate" / "top-notch" / "top-drawer"? (or maybe these don't count as one word ... if so "excellent", "prime")? ---Sluzzelin talk 16:13, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

If I say this football player is excellent, does that mean he/she belongs to the first league? Maybe, I have to think about it... 84.229.243.136 (talk) 16:17, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Premier? --Jayron32 16:22, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

The word "premier" refers to the league itself, but what about the member belonging to this premier league? You can't call this member "premier", because the "premier" member must be higher than any other member, and this might be incorrect if the league contains more than one member. 84.229.243.136 (talk) 16:58, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Superlative. Akld guy (talk) 18:59, 27 October 2015 (UTC) I realised after posting that 'superlative' means most distinguished and not merely one among the best. So how about 'distinguished'? Akld guy (talk) 19:18, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

"Rarefied" [1] can be used this way. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:11, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

31337, and its more traditional spellings? Tevildo (talk) 23:20, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Elite is a fine noun or adjective. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:32, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

I didn't realize I basically repeated Tevildo. Is eliteracy a word? InedibleHulk (talk) 23:36, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Topnotch can also be spelt without the hyphen. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 00:08, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,[2] even though the sound of it is something quite atrocious. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:05, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

How about "exemplary"? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 03:21, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

In an originally specialist context since generalised, A1. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 185.74.232.130 (talk) 14:49, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

• In sports, at least, the specific word you want is "top-flight". ("Justin Fashanu (football) - Britain's first black footballer to command a £1million transfer fee was also the first top-flight player to publicly admit his homosexuality."; "Before the end of the football season (and the general election), it dawned on us that Chelsea were the only top flight club to have their ground in a Conservative constituency.") Smurrayinchester 16:10, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

OP, I really doubt there's one word that can be applied to all contexts, as evidenced by the struggles of the above respondents. English is much more subtle than that. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:30, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Also, we get a lot of these questions which seek "what's the one word that means <some concept>" The problem with that thinking is it presumes there must be some one word which describes every single concept one can think of. Sometimes, there just isn't a single word. Phrases are perfectly legitimate ways to express a concept. We don't have (nor need) a word for everything. --Jayron32 01:17, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

The word exceedingly might come in handy in expressing the idea under consideration. Excel might help to express this as well. Bus stop (talk) 01:26, 29 October 2015 (UTC)