Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 September 25

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

September 25

verbal adverb

what exactly is one!? I mean, to jump is a verb; so what's the verbal adverb of that? jumply? jumpingly? jumpedly? and where would it ever makes sense; he walked jumpingly? I don't think I quite understand these things. Im trying to learn french and have learned how to form them; but I don't know what they mean! thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.10.160.139 (talk) 00:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Can you give an example in French? I don't know any, all adverbs formed from another part of speech that I can think of are from an adjective. That adjective can be formed from a verb in the first place, but it doesn't matter, it went through the adjective. To use your example: to jump ("he jumped when I called him") -> jumpy ("he is very nervous and jumpy these days") -> jumpily ("He was reacting to all my suggestions jumpily" not really sure if that one works). --Lgriot (talk) 03:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

"He was reacting jumpily to all my suggestions" works. DuncanHill (talk) 13:35, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I think he means words ending in -ammant/-emmant which can be derived from participles in some cases (e.g. "courammant", basically from "courant", the participle of "courir" -- though others, such as "consciemment", are not derived from synchronic participles). Anyway, in English we do have "swimmingly"... AnonMoos (talk) 07:32, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

But again, "courant" has become an adjective before "courammant" was formed (from a similar meaning as in "eau courante"). For "consciemment", what is the verb? There is only "conscient", which is an adjective again. And, sorry for my ignorance of English, what would "swimmingly" mean? "by the means of swimming"? Sound ugly to my ears, but if you say some people say that, I am not a prescriptivist, so up to them. --Lgriot (talk) 09:22, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

"Conscient" is a Latin verb participle borrowed as a French adjective, but either way the combination of morphemes -ent/-ant + -ment becomes -emmant/-ammant. If you translate "courammant" literally into English, morpheme-by-morpheme, it would come out as "runningly"... AnonMoos (talk) 11:30, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

No, "swimmingly" is only used figuratively. It means "without a hitch", smoothly, easily, without disruption. Using it in connection with actual swimming (He won the 100-meter butterfly race swimmingly) would be considered a groan-inducing pun. —Angr 09:29, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

For more of these, see Tom Swifty swiftly. Rmhermen (talk) 21:50, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

P.S. Was looking for a list of French adverbs ending in -ammant, but can't really find one. This page is very inadequate and inaccurate... AnonMoos (talk) 11:54, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes; I do mean the words ending in -amment/-emmant for the present aspect, and those constructed of the past participle with the addition of the suffix -ment for the perfect aspect. I think you are correct in saying despite being verbal adverbs they are constructed from the intermediate step of verbal adjectives. But even so I fail to understand quite how to use them, for example (to return to my jumpy example!) what do the words sautamment and sautément actually mean? And where would it be correct to use them? If it is the case that this particular verb forms a nonsensical verbal adverb; could you try and help me by explaining with a different one? Thank you. 92.10.160.139 (talk) 11:59, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Just to make it clear, I am a native speaker of French and sautamment or sautément have no meaning to me. I can't even think of a possible meaning. --Lgriot (talk) 00:44, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't think that the word patterns of French courammant etc. are fully morphologically productive in French, any more than the word patterns of "swimmingly" and "doggedly" are fully productive in English. AnonMoos (talk) 18:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

AnonMoos, the main reason you weren't able to find a list of adverbs ending in -ammant is because the correct spelling is -amment (i.e. couramment, not *courammant). Thylacoleo (talk) 23:38, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Question!

Is "religiopolitics/al" a real word?

I've seen both religiopolitics and religiopolitical from/in various sources online. —Preceding unsigned comment added by L3tt3rz (talk • contribs) 02:44, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Negato/nosirreeski! (It hurts my eyes just to look at it.) Clarityfiend (talk) 03:39, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Several online dictionaries accept religiopolitical as a word, including wiktionary and AllWords.com. It seems Merriam Webster also accepts it as a word. The definition is usually:

adjective - Of or pertaining to both religion and politics.

There are also 9,000 hits on Google for religiopolitical in one word, and 117,000 hits for religio-political with the hyphen, so I guess it can be considered an accepted word in at least some social networks.--Lgriot (talk) 03:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Ahhh. I was so stunned by the sheer ugliness of what was in quotes, I didn't read the rest of the question properly. Clarityfiend (talk) 16:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a Category:Religion and politics. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:05, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

See religiopolitical - OneLook Dictionary Search. -- Wavelength (talk) 17:19, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

A reference to heat

a reference to heat (greek) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.88.79.110 (talk) 05:34, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your question is, if you have one, but the element therm- (as in thermic and Thermos) comes from the Greek word for heat or warmth. —Angr 06:01, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Correct English?

Can you please tell me if it is correct to say "An hotel" or "A hotel" ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.107.46.162 (talk) 08:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It depends how you pronounce "hotel". If you make the /h/ sound at the beginning of the word, then say "a hotel" (like "a house"). If the "h" is silent in your pronunciation, then say "an hotel" (like "an hour" or "an honest man"). —Angr 08:47, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a decent article on A and an which you might want to check. Relevant to your question from the article : "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage is more descriptive than prescriptive, but it advises, "You choose the article that suits your own pronunciation." Theodore Bernstein gives the straight vowel-sound vs. consonant-sound explanation but allows that one should indeed say "an hotel" if they think hotel is pronounced otel." Equendil Talk 08:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

There is a third alternative. Use "an" but still pronounce the "h". This seems to work, and I've often heard it. I'd almost prefer it to "a hotel" or "an otel", actually. I can't think of any other word starting with the "h" sound where it would work. I'd never say "an hoe", or "You haven't got an hope in hell", for example, but I wouldn't object to "This town has an hotel". -- JackofOz (talk) 12:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I find "an hotel" (with the h sounded) painful. If you are not going to pronounce the h, then of course say "an", but write "an hôtel". DuncanHill (talk) 12:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

If you're in France, maybe. Hanging on to French (or any other) diacritics for an English-reading audience most of whom were never taught them and have no idea what they mean seems hardly the way of the future. We borrow words wholesale, but let's generally leave the diacritics where they belong, back in their home countries. The only exception would be personal names and other proper nouns (Dvořák, Rhône, Milošević, etc., and even then only in certain contexts.) -- JackofOz (talk) 12:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I seem to pronounce the h in "an hour" or "an honest man" (but not "an hotel"), though not very markedly, then again English is not my native language, so I might just be the only person to do so. Equendil Talk 13:15, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

My grandmother, who believed fervently that decent people should speak English "properly" like the nice people in dinner jackets on the BBC, always said "an hotel", never sounding the "h" and stressing the final syllable hard so it came out something like "annuh-tel". She loathed the fact that all her grandchildren said "a hotel" instead, and was prone to correcting this "lapse" when she heard it. We are all from Northern England; our local way of speaking involves plenty of dialect words and features the dreaded glottal stop, which would also arouse Granny's wrath, even though she was surrounded by people who spoke that way. I think it's still something of a shibboleth, in Britain at least, for those with particular views on the link between speech and class. Karenjc 14:12, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Just as a sidenote to something Jack said above, take a look at the fifth stanza of Psalm 46: http://www.cgmusic.com/cghymnal/others/godisourrefuge.htm I recently sang a setting of this, and the line "the Lord to her an helper will..." always struck me as being especially odd.Dgcopter (talk) 14:49, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, in the King James Bible, the rule was simply "an before a vowel or h". You'll find "an hundred", "an house", and so forth. —Angr 15:35, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Not forgetting "an helpmeet", a word erroneously coined from a misreading of And the Lord God said, It is not good that man should be alone; I will make an help meet for him (Genesis 2:18). -- JackofOz (talk) 19:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Elsewhere on this page we have an example of "an hows" from 15th-century English. —Angr 20:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

We've had this discussion here many times, but I've yet to read a better analysis than the one offered by the sainted Noetica. Gwinva (talk) 04:32, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Pseudo-Chinese question

We currently have an article (it may eventually be merged) Bush hid the facts about how Windows XP/Vista Notepad can mess up character-set recognition, for example transforming a file containing only the letters "Bush hid the facts" into a string of Chinese characters. The Chinese characters in question are "畂桳栠摩琠敨映捡獴", and I would be curious to know if this remotely suggests any meaning in Chinese (Google Translate refuses to do anything with it). Thanks! AnonMoos (talk) 11:38, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

CEDICT doesn't give meanings for most of them; I suspect they're archaic or used only in names. It's not making a political point, if that's what you're wondering. Matt's talk 06:33, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Try it with this phrase: This app can break. Same results (and, the pseudo-Chinese is nonsense). DOR (HK) (talk) 03:19, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I can give you some meanings of these characters, but most of them are be used just for composing complete words in modern Chinese.

• 畂(mǔ): rarely seen. This is an alternative form of "畝", an area unit.
• 桳(fàn/bèn): rarely seen. Some online dictionaries said it means the covering of ship or cart.
• 栠(rěn): rarely seen. An alternative form of "荏", means "weak".
• 摩: highly seen. It means "to rub", but often be used to create derivatives, or just be used for transcribing non-Chinese names, such as "黛咪·摩爾"(Demi Moore).
• 琠(tiǎn): rarely seen. It meas one kind of jades (玉).
• 敨: rarely seen. In Min Nan Chinese, it could mean "to untie (a knot)" or "to open (a box)", but Min Nan people rarely write there Min Nan.
• 映: highly seen. It means "reflect".
• 捡: A simplified Chinese character. It means "to pick up".
• 獴: Mongooses... luuva (talk) 21:17, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the effort... I may copy it to Talk:Bush hid the facts (with your permission). AnonMoos (talk) 13:11, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Sentence Reconstruction

Can the sentence "We might keep quiet about it." be reconstructed as "It might be kept quite about."? Or is the correct option "It might be kept quiet." ?? 117.194.227.234 (talk) 13:31, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

The first option ("it might be kept quiet about") preserves the meaning of the original, albeit in a very awkwardly-worded passive voice. "It might be kept quiet" implies that some object is going to be made to be quiet, which sounds kind of threatening in a Vito Corleone-esque way...Dgcopter (talk) 14:44, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Semantically they are slightly different in meaning, with the original sentence making no statement regarding whether or not 'it' is actually kept quiet, just that 'we' will keep quiet about it. Whereas the reconstruction does; implying that everyone will keep quiet about it, including those who already know, and those who may find out about 'it' in the future; whether or not they are included in the group 'we'. Regarding the syntactics of the two reconstruction; I would omit the about as it sounds awkward; though I cannot justify this preference with any grammatical rules. 92.10.160.139 (talk) 14:46, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Is there any reason why you're going for "might" rather than "could" (or perhaps even "should", depending on what meaning is intended)? "We could keep quiet about it" sounds better to me. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 14:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not really possible without changing the meaning. "Keep quiet" in the original sentence is an intransitive verb, and intransitive verbs cannot be made passive, except in the sense "we might be kept quiet" (by some unnamed 3rd party, as identified by Dgcopter; I wouldn't have been so brave as to name them publicly). Which loses the indefinite object "about it", and changes the meaning. I suppose, at a long, long stretch, "quiet" could be considered a noun (cf. keep the peace), and you could go to the extreme of "[The] quiet might be kept about it", but that would stop listeners and readers in their tracks, which is a no-no - unless you really want to have such an impact on them. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:35, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Kgalema Motlanthe

How is Kgalema Motlanthe pronounced? I don't even know which of the many languages of South Africa it is. —Angr 15:32, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I did a Google search for pages with the words "kgalema meaning language" but without the word "motlanthe", and the first result was Sesotho concords.

-- Wavelength (talk) 02:25, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The page VOA News - Voice of America Homepage - News in 45 Languages has a link to a pronunciation guide at VOA Pronunciation Guide. It gives the pronunciation as "kah-LAY-mah moht-LAH-tay" and has an audio file for it.

-- Wavelength (talk) 03:49, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Well if it is Sesotho, then Sesotho phonology will help us decipher it. For one thing kg is a voiceless velar fricative [x] or aspirated affricate [kxʰ], tl is an ejective lateral affricate [tɬʼ], and th is an aspirated alveolar stop [tʰ]. But e and o are ambiguous between open [ɛ] and [ɔ] and close [e] and [o]. It's interesting that the VOA suggestion leaves out the n, since the Sesotho phonology page says on the one hand that Sesotho doesn't have syllable codas, so it can't be [mo.tɬʼan.tʰe], and on the other hand that Sesotho doesn't have prenasalized stops, so it can't be [mo.tɬʼa.ntʰe]. Maybe the VOA is right that the n is just silent. Or maybe the name isn't Sesotho at all. (The VOA sound file is obviously being read out by an American, not a native speaker of whatever language this is, so it's not much use.) —Angr 04:21, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

You can find users who speak Sesotho at Category:User st.

-- Wavelength (talk) 06:58, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

True, but they don't necessarily know IPA or phonetics terminology. I've dropped a line at User talk:Zyxoas (a significant contributor to both Sesotho concords and Sesotho phonology), as I know that he speaks Sesotho and knows IPA. He doesn't bother with those silly Babelbox thingies, so he's not in Category:User st. —Angr 07:30, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about the lack of nasalization. Sotho has lots of words ending in <ng>, and n-stop clusters are not uncommon. kwami (talk) 07:27, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

The second reference in the article Kgalema Motlanthe has an external link to

BBC NEWS | Special Reports | Motlanthe sworn in as SA leader, with his own pronunciation of his own name.

-- Wavelength (talk) 15:57, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

He's definitely got either a nasalized vowel or a full n in the middle of his last name. The first sound of his first name seems to vary between [kx] and [x], as the article says it does. One thing that I notice is that stress seems to fall on the first syllable of Kgalema, which I didn't expect, since Zulu and Xhosa both regularly have stress on the penult of a polysyllabic word. —Angr 22:00, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

He says it himself once, at 1:21. If you can post or email me a sound clip, I can take a look at it with Praat, which will tell us if there's a [k] there or not. I've tried clipping it with SnagIt, but only get silent video. kwami (talk) 23:16, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, Zyxoas has answered at User talk:Zyxoas#Pronunciation help and says the "n" in Motlanthe is syllabic, thus it's [mo.tɬʼa.n.tʰɛ]. He also says the name is Sesotho, Setswana, or Northern Sotho. For future reference, in the articles on Sesotho linguistics, you can usually mouse over Sesotho words and see the IPA transcription. "Kgalema" in Sesotho concords says [xɑlɪmɑ]. —Angr 14:51, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

"Freshers Week" - noun as adjective vs. possessive 's

If I could ask somebody to kindly defuse a tense argument about grammar... I used the term Freshers Week, and my friend claimed it should have been Freshers' Week, but I argued that Freshers Week was perfectly acceptable, if a little uncommon, because I'm using Freshers as an adjective to modify Week (as in the week of/for the freshers), and not as a possessive (the week belonging to the freshers). I'm pretty certain I'm right, but he refuses to see the cromulency of my argument. Thanks! Sum0 (talk) 15:40, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Can I be so impertinent as to avoid your question altogether and instead raise a completely different point? Namely, if you and your friend are arguing about the presence vs. absence of an apostrophe, you aren't having a tense argument about grammar at all, but rather an argument about punctuation. —Angr 15:52, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Angr's point notwithstanding, it seems to me that the way you're using it actually is possessive; the week of the Freshers = Freshers' week, in the same way that the uncle of the monkey = monkey's uncle. Using it as an adjective would mean that you were saying the week is "Freshers", in same way that you'd say the sky is blue (i.e., "the blue sky"). Dgcopter (talk) 17:27, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

No, the 'Freshers' in 'Freshers Week' is a noun adjunct. It indicates that the week pertains in some way to freshers, just as the Washington Monument pertains to Washington. It's a perfectly grammatical construction. Algebraist 17:52, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Although, in fairness, if that article and its references are any judge, there's a fair amount of controversy over how plural noun adjuncts should be punctuated. Which is to say, maybe the OP and his friend are both kinda right. Dgcopter (talk) 18:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Plural noun adjuncts definitely don't have an apostrophe. The controversy is over which things are noun adjuncts, and which are possessives. In this case, the normal form is Freshers' Week (the plural possessive), but I don't think the choice is a matter of correctness of grammar as such. Algebraist 18:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Compare Schoolies week. I've never seen it apostrophised, and it would be a rare and wonderful schoolie indeed who even contemplated such a thing. The sandgropers in Western Australia apparently call it Leavers' Week, but again I'd be very surprised to find the apostrophe actually used by the vast majority. Then there's Mother's Day. Despite Anna Jarvis's stricture, it's extremely common in these parts to encounter it as a noun adjunct, and it would be futile to fight this trend. As long as one is consistent, it could hardly be marked incorrect these days to dispense with the apostrophe. Same for Father's Day, despite what our article asserts ("as it is a plural possessive" - sez hu?). So, to return to Freshers Week, I support your argument that the noun adjunct version is perfectly valid, if perhaps not the dominant version. It's truly heart-warming to see people of this age actually giving a damn about the correct use of apostrophes. All is not lost yet. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:16, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Etymology of "Redeploy"

A common meme circulated by conservative pundits in the US is that anti-war politicians began using the word "redeploy" as a sort of politically correct "withdrawal" or "surrender." I did not have much success in my search for the words origins. Webster says only: "Origin: 1945." Two questions: 1) Where and how was "redeploy" coined? 2) Was it used with any frequency prior to this century? Thanks! Messiahxi (talk) 19:44, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

"Deploy" goes back to 1616, so it's surprising that no one prepended the "re-" before 1945. Do you mean uses prior to the 21st century? If so, yes, as in "a redeployment of troops." Google "redeployment troops" and you get over 460,000 hits on Google, many using "redeploy" in the sense of "move them somewhere else," not in the sense of "withdraw entirely." (My hunch, though only a hunch, is that conservatives found redeploy=retreat a handy stick to bash people like John Kerry with, their party being led by military careerists like George Bush and Dick Cheney.) In any event, I found things like this:

• Pakistani officials insisted that both countries had agreed in 1989 to redeploy troops to positions held in 1984...
• HRJ 18 would redeploy troops elsewhere in the region, not bring them home...
• Five days later the transport sailed to redeploy troops from the European to the Pacific theater, embarking 3000 soldiers at Leghorn, Italy, and bringing them safely to Luzon and Manila in August 1945.

And, from Churchill's Triumph and Tragedy (1953): "It was nevertheless a grave decision to uproot the enormous Anti-Aircraft organisation from the North Downs and to redeploy it on the coast, knowing that this might spoil the success of the fighters..." --- OtherDave (talk) 01:52, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, yes its use as a "traitor stick" is obvious. I was just curious how large the grain of truth was. I believe the Churchill quote alone wins me the argument. Thanks! Messiahxi (talk) 17:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)