Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 November 20

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November 20

Witwatersrand

The University of the Witwatersrand is sometimes abbreviated to "Wits University". Is the Witwatersrand commonly abbreviated to "Wits"? The plural of "wit" makes this a hard keyword search, even if I require "south africa" and ignore pages mentioning "university". Nyttend backup (talk) 17:49, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

The answer is in the fourth paragraph of the lead section of the article on Witwatersrand. --Jayron32 18:20, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Ah, you're right; sorry. Nyttend backup (talk) 21:28, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

What have you done with the real Nyttend? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:09, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

You forgot a comma after "real". I've been doing some work from home, so I've brought my work computer home with me (I finish a task, and I might as well log in and do something), and I don't log into the "real" account on the work computer. Nyttend backup (talk) 00:30, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Good plan. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:36, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

How grammatical are these in UK/Ireland/Aus/NZ?

"Is it cause I is Scot?"

[I started having sex at 13] "and I felt hot shit about it, too"

(they sound very ungrammatical in Standard American but so does "the home side are winning" and that's the Queen's English) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:14, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

You appear to be questioning the "is [Scot]" and the reverse order of "shit hot". In NZ, neither of those is grammatical and I don't think I've ever heard such constructions. The normal usage would be "am" or "I'm" and "shit hot". Akld guy (talk) 20:39, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

It may exist, but Google does not index it (the first quote). However, the second quote can be found in a novel said by a character. I cannot find any information about that author (Valentina Faye), though. In Standard American, both are considered ungrammatical/wrong/incorrect. 140.254.70.33 (talk) 20:45, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

I think the first is a snowclone of the catchphrase of Sacha Baron Cohen's character. See "'Is it because I is black?' Race, humour, and the polysemiology of Ali G" by Richard Howells here. Wikitionary defines "hot shit" as "An exceptionally impressive person or thing" [1]. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 21:04, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

My (UK) opinion would be that the first of those is deliberately ungrammatical, using a fake Afro-Caribbean dialect, for comic effect. The second is grammatical, though it does use a slang phrase (hot shit). Replace that with a more common word (try "happy") and the grammar is fine. Wymspen (talk) 14:02, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

I'm also UK and "hot shit" seems wrong in that context. A correct context would be "You stole it from the British Museum? You're going to need a shit hot fence to get rid of that hot shit". -- Q Chris (talk) 14:10, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Hot shit is idiom in American English meaning "cool". See [2]. It is more often-than-not used ironically for someone who has a high opionion of themselves, but strictly speaking it just means "cool" or "good". So the phrase "I felt hot shit about it" means in American English "I felt great about it" or "I felt self-important about it" or "It made me feel cool". It is natural and comfortable grammar (even if the idiom is slang and slightly off-color). --Jayron32 14:15, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

I guess I get it now, I was wondering why it wasn't something like "and I felt like hot shit (because of it)". Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 20:57, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

Given that the phrase has only been used once in the history of the Internet, and that on Pitcairn, I doubt Jayron's linguistic intuitions. Henry^Flower 17:28, 22 November 2017 (UTC)

Jayron's post is not a direct response to whether the sentence posed by the OP is grammatical. My guess is that even in the US, one wouldn't refer to oneself as hot shit; I think that word order would be used by another party, as in "He thinks he's the hot shit", same as it's used in NZ. Akld guy (talk) 01:45, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

In American English, hot shit does not take an article. "He thinks he's hot shit" would be the normal expression. Also, there's nothing ungrammatical about referring to one's self as hot shit; the only oddity is that the phrase is usually used facetiously, so it comes off as self deprecating.--Jayron32 02:27, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

The ungrammaticality is that in the OP's phrase it's being used as an adjective, not a noun. Henry^Flower 10:09, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

The OP's phrase is idiomatic of Multicultural London English, which as User:Carbon Caryatid points out, was lampooned by the character Ali G. Alansplodge (talk) 11:10, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

The first phrase is; the second is apparently unique to Pitcairn. 105.235.137.53 (talk) 12:13, 23 November 2017 (UTC)

Henry^Flower 12:27, 23 November 2017 (UTC)