Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 November 4

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November 4

Collaborationism

hi, I am trying to nail down the origin of the terms "collaborationism" and "collaborationist", as distinct from "collaboration" and "collaborating". I do know about Stanley Hoffman but apparently it has at least been used before that. Interested in any insight that anyone has into this matter, thanks. Elinruby (talk) 08:36, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

The OED's earliest citation for 'collaborationist' is from The Contemporary review in 1922: They should also profit from the expulsion of Signor Turati and the ‘Collaborationists’ from the Socialist party. (Presumably referring to Filippo Turati). For 'collaborationism' there is only one citation, from 1947. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:04, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

While the earliest usage of collaborationist I can find in English is from a 1919 Report on Labor Situation of Italy, where Giacinto Menotti Serrati is described as "a contributor to the Avanti [who] attacks the 'collaborationist' tendencies of some members of the Italian Socialist Party." Does this mean that the word comes from Italian political discourse? At any rate there are 1907 and 1909 usages of collaborazionismo. --Antiquary (talk) 12:57, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

"Collaborationism" appears in France and Britain: A Report by a Chatham House Study Group , London, 1945 (pp. 34-35).

Also in Escape from Königstein, New York, 1944 (pp. 250, 253 & 261). There are several others of that era referring to collaboration with occupying Germans in France. Alansplodge (talk) 14:23, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society: Volume 138, Philadelphia, 1935 has a chapter (p. 363) headed: The Specter of Protectionism and Collaborationism, apparently referring to Socialism in pre-First World War Europe. Alansplodge (talk) 14:28, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

"Collaborationisme" appears in Le Correspondant: Volume 316, Paris 1929 (p. 48). Something to do with American influence in France. There's another French result from 1930 about trades unions [1] Alansplodge (talk) 14:41, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

These early uses refer to "class collaborationism" – the theory and practice of workers collaborating with their class enemy, the bourgeoisie, as used in the sentence "Pre-war trade unionism was saturated with class collaborationism."^[2] ("Pre-war" means pre-WWI; this was published in 1927.)  --Lambiam 20:18, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

A link to the overlapping discussion at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities § Stanley Hoffman's collaborationism would have been in order.  --Lambiam 19:57, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

You're right. I was distracted at the time but I should have done that. I started at humanities because I was expecting to hear either that Hoffman coined it or that he was the first to use it in an academic monograph. Since it seems that this is not the case, my followup question here is about the origin of the word. For those unfamiliar, Hoffman uses it to denote people who didn't simply collaborate in the sense of buying/selling on the black market, dating a German soldier or simply trying to passively survive the fact that Nazis were running the country, but whole-heartedly embraced fascism and the final solution. So, a subset of collaborators. There definitely were politicians and groups like that at the time. I am looking at everyone's answers now, thank you very much for the brainpower. Still interested in any other lightbulb moments that anyone may have. Elinruby (talk) 06:41, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

It has the form of a completely regular application of the suffix -ism in sense 3 given at Wiktionary:

Used to form names of a tendency of behaviour, action, state, condition or opinion belonging to a class or group of persons, or the result of a doctrine, ideology or principle or lack thereof.

German -ismus, Spanish and Italian -ismo, as well as French -isme also have that sense, borrowed from the Latin suffix. For the noun defeatism we happen to know it was borrowed (or partially calqued) from défaitisme, which was calqued from пораженчество (poražénčestvo). It is possible the term first appeared in Italian. Although сотрудничество (sotrúdničestvo) is a regular Russian term for collaboration, in сотрудничество классов (sotrúdničestvo klássov) it has the same meaning as "class collaborationism".^[3] The noun сотрудничество already has the suffix -ество, so it cannot be added a second time. Just like défait + -isme was calqued from пораженч + -ество, it is possible that collaborazion + -ismo delle classi was calqued analogously from сотруднич + -ество классов.  --Lambiam 11:25, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Top French dict/etym sites do not list collaborationnisme, although they have all the other derived forms. More details in my response at the other thread about this. Mathglot (talk) 02:19, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be)

This article asserts that the song title is not, inter alia, idiomatic French. I do remember, however, our French teacher mentioning the song as an example of (I think) Future Conditional tense. Was she having us on? Doug butler (talk) 22:04, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

In French, "sera" is "will be" (future tense), but "que" is just the conjunction "that", and similar simple meanings. "Whatever will be" would be expressed by a phrase like "tout ce qui sera". Also, "que" in French is not pronounced as in the song.

To express the sentiment in question, I prefer to quote a line from Casablanca: "Personally, Major, I will take what comes." --142.112.221.156 (talk) 04:12, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

"que" in French is not pronounced as in the song Neither is "sera". Nardog (talk) 08:59, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

As the article says, the saying seems to have originated in 16th-century England as a kind of Spanish-Italian hybrid. AnonMoos (talk) 04:56, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

If qué serà, serà is grammatically incorrect Spanish, then the title and lyrics of the song "Qué serà de ti" are also grammatically incorrect.  --Lambiam 10:23, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Qué serà, serà is grammatically incorrect Spanish. The translation of "Whatever will be, will be" is Lo que sea será. ¿Qué será, será? means "What will it be, [what] will it be?" and can be found in riddles or games similar to I spy. ¿Qué será de ti? is proper Spanish for "I wonder about your present circumstances.". Your spelling is wrong. I don't see any major problem with the lyrics but for punctuation. Oh, ¿qué será? has also punctuation flaws. Hartman is referenced in the Wikipedia article and has made an extensive explanation.

--Error (talk) 00:54, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I think one can say, no podemos saber qué será.^[4][5][6] In English and many other languages you can emphasize the focus, in this case the object, by moving it to the front:

We cannot know what will be → What will be, we cannot know.^[7][8][9]

Is this type of movement impossible in Spanish?  --Lambiam 13:19, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I can't read the Google Books examples now. Qué será, no lo podemos saber / no podemos saberlo means "What it will be, we cannot know". Perhaps you could remove the pronoun (Qué será, no podemos saber) but it sounds incomplete to me. Qué será, no sabemos. ("What it will be, we don't know") sounds acceptable. "What will be" is Lo que será, Lo que vaya a ocurrir, Lo que pase. Part of the difference is that ser is more a copula that English "to be". In Que será será that meaning of "to be" is translated in modern Spanish by ocurrir, suceder, pasar, acontecer or even existir. Quickly browsing Romance copula I don't find it mentioned. --Error (talk) 14:16, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I can see your Google Books links with Tor now.

[10] debemos producir algo [...] no podemos saber qué será ni cómo será. "we cannot know what it will be or what it will be like".

[11] The same Foucalt quotation in different translation: Tenemos que producir algo [...] y que no podemos saber qué será, "and that we cannot know what it will be"

The third has No podemos saber qué será de un ser humano ("We cannot know what will happen to a human being"). I would move it to "Qué será de un ser humano, no lo podemos saber"

[12] "What will be, we cannot know. We cannot know what will be in Palestine,[...]" Qué pasará, no lo podemos saber. No podemos saber qué ocurrirá en Palestina,"

So when Jo asked her mother, ¿Qué será de mí?, her mother could have answered, Qué será de nosotras no podemos saberlo. No podemos ver el futuro. But presumably she could have said instead, Qué será de ti, será. Is it really that strange in this context to shorten this reply to Qué será, será.?  --Lambiam 17:37, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Qué será de nosotras no podemos saberlo. sounds quite hyperbaton to me. I'd use either Lo que será de nosotras no lo podemos saber. or Qué será de nosotras, no podemos saberlo. I think that qué in Qué será is an interrogative pronoun. Lo que será is the answer to the question. Qué será de ti is a question, so the second será is an echo of the first, not the predicate of a noun phrase. From this, Qué será, será is still a question with an echo. --Error (talk) 00:18, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

See this entry at Wiktionary https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/che_sara_sara — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shakescene (talk • contribs) 01:27, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I think you all are reading too much into this. It's clearly intended to be Spanish, whether it's grammatically correct or not. The song's authors were just trying to write a snappy-sounding song. Keep in mind that they also wrote the theme for the "Mr. Ed" TV show about a talking horse. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:09, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Nobody seems to have mentioned Che sarà yet. DuncanHill (talk) 02:38, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Marlowe had his Faust saying "Che sera sera" but I've also seen it as "Che sarà, sarà" in other editions of the play.Shirt58 (talk) 🦘 10:47, 7 November 2023 (UTC)