Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 January 17

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January 17

Promiscuous and loose women

My question revolves around the Edit summary used today re a change an editor made to an article - "Promiscuous woman" instead of judgmental-sounding "loose woman." I'm not looking for a fight over it, but I was a bit surprised. In my parochial, little, Australian English speaking world, "promiscuous" would not normally be seen as a compliment. I can't imagine myself ever using it to describe a lady unless I was being quite rude about them. Things are clearly different for that editor who, based on their contributions, seems likely to be British. In what parts of the world is "promiscuous" not judgemental? HiLo48 (talk) 00:10, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree that describing a woman as promiscuous is judgemental, and may even be injurious in some circumstances. If applied to a woman who is a stranger or at least not known socially to the speaker it is judgemental; if the speaker is rebuked for applying the word to a stranger, the speaker cannot defend (himself) by saying “I was only joking”. However, there is also a secondary meaning, particularly, I suspect, among young people where the word is applied to the speaker or to close friends, where it is not judgemental - “I like all kinds of music. I’m promiscuous!” In this way it is being used ironically eg “All my best friends are promiscuous.” In summary, if it isn’t being used ironically among friends, it is judgemental and likely used to cause personal hurt. Dolphin (t) 01:21, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Our article Promiscuity provides much more information about the word and the underlying concept. I agree that the term is problematic in many or perhaps most contexts. "Loose woman" is slang and a sexist pejorative, and I cannot imagine any circumstance when it would be appropriate to write that way in Wikipedia's voice, as opposed to a direct, cited quotation. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:26, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Someone who has an educational background in biology might describe someone else as promiscuous without meaning to imply any moral judgement, but even that would be rare. --Khajidha (talk) 16:27, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I think the question may be: is it necessary? Is that subjectively descriptive term of great importance in the particular instance? As we are discussing this in the abstract it may be near impossible to determine a resolution to the implied question concerning the sexual practices of a person. By the way, "promiscuous" is also used in computer technology. Bus stop (talk) 18:05, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Oxford Dictionary describes "loose" as derogatory (and dated); it doesn't say the same about promiscuous. https://www.lexico.com/definition/loose https://www.lexico.com/definition/promiscuous . That said, it still sounds judgemental to my mind (although that may depend on context). What is the context of the article? Iapetus (talk) 11:05, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

Their edit summary may not reflect their complete thinking on the reasoning behind the change from "loose" to "promiscuous". When their edit summary says "Promiscuous woman" instead of judgmental-sounding "loose woman" they may also be concerned with colloquialism versus precision, with "loose" being figurative and fanciful and "promiscuous" adhering to a dictionary definition. Bus stop (talk) 14:49, 20 January 2020 (UTC)

• As is so often the case, when there is a specific event that one is trying to work through, it is ever and only helpful to actually show everyone you ask for help the specific event itself. I would in general say that the term "promiscuous" is better than "loose" because the former is more formal English and the latter is definitely a slang or colloquial term; however unless we can see the actual diff in question, so we can see the entire situation, we don't know whether either or neither term is actually appropriate to use here. For example, if this was a direct quote, we should leave the original term, even if it was "loose women". We just don't know enough about the situation to give advice that would be useful. This is a classic example of the XY problem, where someone posts a request for help on a general concept, where really what they need is advice on a specific event. --Jayron32 18:37, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

• I agree 100%, Jayron32. This is also analogous to asking the abstract question: should victim names be included in articles with fatalities? The knee-jerk reaction is "no", those names are meaningless—they are only names. But it would be virtually impossible for consensus to change at the many articles that already contain victim names. When considered in the concrete as opposed to in the abstract, the article is seen to be enriched by the presence of the actual names of decedents. This is almost a rule. It is only at time of article-inception that support can be found for omitting victim names. Bus stop (talk) 18:51, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

• Other than kind of agreeing with you, I don't follow how your comment is relevant here. This discussion is about a specific use of the word "promiscuous", and has nothing to do with whatever you're going on about. It seems as though you comment is about an unrelated discussion, which would be better served if it was left on a discussion about that topic rather than this one. --Jayron32 18:57, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

• We need not discuss the "victim topic" I interjected. I've said all I have to say.

  HiLo48—I don't know if there are any sensibilities involved that would make it less-than-ideal to discuss the actual situation here so I will ask you to exercise your own discretion—but would linking to it be an acceptable thing to do? Bus stop (talk) 19:39, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Whenever

Does anyone know the reason the word whenever is not spelled whennever?? (The -ever suffix is being added to the word when, and normally this would mean we double the n to get whennever; with a single n it would look as if it had come from a word with a long e sound that is spelled whene. This is consistent with many other words that have suffixes that being with a vowel added to them.) Georgia guy (talk) 02:08, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

It's when + ever,[1] and since most everyone pronounces "ever" with a leading short e, "whenever" likewise has a short e. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:12, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

The second e has nothing to do with whether the n should be doubled. It is the first e; that is, whenever, which whether the n should be doubled relates to the pronunciation of. Georgia guy (talk) 02:21, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I think you're trying to claim confusion where there is none. "When" and "ever" have all short e's. Most everyone knows that. Otherwise those words would have to spelled "whenn" and "evver", and hence their combination would have to be spelled "whennevver". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:24, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Your comments are invalid because (1) the letter v is never doubled except in recent coinages, and (2) at the end of a word a consonant after a short vowel is doubled usually only if it is f, l, or s; otherwise it is single but doubles if a suffix beginning with a vowel is added. Georgia guy (talk) 02:27, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

In fact, it appears that the ancestors of "when" did have two n's.[2] But not now. Trying to impose rigid rules on English is an exercise in futility. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:29, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't know. If I really wanted to know, I'd look in a book about English orthography. Meanwhile: open, opened; pen, penned. -- Hoary (talk) 02:52, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

To me, the spelling "whennever" would suggest a stress on the first syllable. --rossb (talk) 09:48, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Georgia guy: because the "rule" about Silent e is not an arbitrary invented rule, but something that happened accidentally in the historical development of English and its writing. Not "there is a rule that if there is an e after a single consonant, the previous vowel must be tense" but "for historical reasons words with a tense vowel tend to be written with a single consonant and e following". In that context you can see that if a word with a different shape, such as the compound "whenever", happened to have a sequence vowel-consonant-e, there was no reason to change its (transparent) spelling to match some supposed rule. --ColinFine (talk) 14:03, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I think it's that affixation does cause doubling of the consonant while compounding does not. One writes "logging" but "login". --Theurgist (talk) 22:57, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree -- For example, the "n" isn't doubled in "maneater". If he thinks it should be, then he should take it up with Hall and Oates... -- AnonMoos (talk) 23:32, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Note that when compounds are first formed, different people often use different spellings, either as one word or two words or hyphenated. If the spelling "man-eater" or "man eater" has been in common use, the natural simplification to "maneater" would provide additional pressure against doubling the N. --142.112.159.101 (talk) 04:44, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

pronounce "higham"

It would be so helpful if someone would insert pronunciation in Wikipedia's entries for names of people and places that contain "Higham." Is it pronounced "hig-ham" (like "pig-ham")? Or "hy-am"? I have heard people pronounce it both ways but I don't know which is correct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ElsaObuchowski (talk • contribs) 02:57, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

There's no guarantee that a placename is pronounced in a single way. Attempting to add pronunciations all over the place might lead incautious editors to add pronunciations they thought they'd heard, some years ago, maybe ... and was it from the BBC, or perhaps from a mate who was a bit drunk at the time? Plus alternatives to IPA are generally ambiguous, misleading, awkward or some combination thereof; while most WP editors and readers don't understand IPA. If forced to utter the name, I'd pronounce it /ˈhaɪjəm/; but this comment is worth no more than the price you've paid for it. -- Hoary (talk) 05:36, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

There are several places called Higham so it is quite possible there are several pronunciations. However the name probably derives from High Ham, and I would instinctively pronounce it as Hoary suggests. See also counterintuitive pronunciation.-Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:58, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Two of the Higham articles do have IPA pronunciation guides (Higham, Kent and Higham, South Yorkshire). They're different, supporting Hoary's assertion above. Bazza (talk) 10:36, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

ElsaObuchowski -- In place names ending in "ham", it was usually originally a reduced version of the word "home", with the [h] sound tending to become silent in an unstressed syllable. The letter H in the spelling can then sometimes wreak havoc by being interpreted as a digraph with a preceding consonant letter (see Topsham,_Devon#Name_and_pronunciation). However, that's not exactly the problem with "Higham". According to "A Dictionary of English Place Names" by A.D. Mills (2nd edition, 1998), "Higham" comes from earlier forms of the words "high" and "home", and there are at least 9 Highams in England. He doesn't give pronunciations, but it's interesting that for several of the Highams the spelling "Hecham" is found in late Old English or Early Middle English (with sporadic variants Echam and Heccham)... AnonMoos (talk) 23:31, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

"Sono" in Italian.

In Italian, the word "sono" can mean either "I am" or "they are". Does this cause difficulties in practice, and how would such ambiguity be overcome? --rossb (talk) 09:51, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Italian adjectives inflect for number, so for example "I am English" is sono inglese, while "they are English" is sono inglesi. Ambiguity can also be avoided by using the pronouns io and loro: io sono, "I am"; loro sono, "they are". Lfh (talk) 12:26, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Ross_Burgess -- I don't know about the Italian-speaker's perspective, but it happens from time to time that 1st singular and 3rd plural inflected verbs come to have the same form in Indo-European languages. For example, in ancient Greek, Indo-European word final -m and word-final -nt fell together, so that in the imperfect tense active verb conjugation, the first singular and third plural both ended in -on. I think that in some archaic/dialectal Greek perfect optatives the original endings (1st singular word-final syllabic "m" and 3rd plural syllabic "n" followed by word-final "t") both became an -a ending (though you won't find these forms in standard grammars). There are also some Romanian conjugations in which 1st singular and 3rd plural fall together (see present-tense "fac" etc. in the Romanian verbs article). AnonMoos (talk) 23:30, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

We don't have any problems because are can be 2s or plural; or give can be anything except 3s; or gave can be any person and number. Admittedly, English does not usually allow you to drop the pronoun as Italian does (but how about "Going home?" - typically 2nd person, but there could be other possibilities). Languages generally have many potential ambiguities, and either tolerate them, or develop ways to eliminate them. --ColinFine (talk) 18:12, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Need help citing a reference

I wanted to cite this reference in Vancouver style:

More than 100 years ago, Graves' disease was shown to increase the frequency and intensity of glycosuria, and occasionally true diabetes was found in association with this hyperthyroid condition.¹

I really have no clue how to cite this properly.173.191.100.198 (talk) 22:20, 17 January 2020 (UTC)

Do the examples in Vancouver style help? Your link is not available to nonsubscribers. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 23:09, 19 January 2020 (UTC)