Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 January 4

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January 4

Pronounciation of "Albeit" and "Whey"

I'm not too good with the pronunciation key, so a dictionary isn't much help. How does one pronounce the word "albeit" and "whey" (as in whey protein)?

Is "albeit" pronounced al-BE-it and "whey" pronounced "whee"? Acceptable (talk) 03:51, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I am pretty sure it's "all be it" (like the three words) and "way" (like a path or method of doing something; you can hear the pronunciation in the common nursery rhyme Little Miss Muffet.) 99.245.92.47 (talk) 04:04, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

See (and hear) Results for albeit and Results for whey. -- Wavelength (talk) 04:41, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I relate to the second of all-BEE-it emphasising the second syllable; and of whey, is there a "h" in there? Pop-up: whey – (h)wā (just checking as a non-IPA-er) Julia Rossi (talk) 05:48, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Whether "whey" is pronounced "way" or "hway" depends on your accent of English. If you pronounce "whine" like "wine", "which" like "witch", and "whether" like "weather", then you'll pronounce "whey" like "way". But if you say "hwine", "hwich" and "hwether", you'll also say "hway". See wine-whine merger for details. —Angr 07:14, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Though I'm totally inconsistent with them all. :) Julia Rossi (talk) 07:57, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

That's okay. As long as you know what the rules are, you're perfectly entitled to break them. —Angr 15:38, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Me, I'm inconsistent with some of them, but not with the others.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 19:06, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Is there a single word that means "uncared about"?

My mental lexicon seems to be out of whack today and I can't find this word I'm looking for, if it even exists. Is there a word that applies to something that isn't cared about? "Neglected" is not right because I don't want the implication of "not attended to". 99.245.92.47 (talk) 04:03, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

There is the word "unappreciated". -- Wavelength (talk) 05:33, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Mm... not quite the sense I want. I want to evoke something that has no empathy for it whatsoever, not just something that isn't necessarily liked or enjoyed or understood. 99.245.92.47 (talk) 06:28, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

"Disregarded" as adjective. M-W says "...to treat as unworthy of regard or notice". –Outriggr § 07:04, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

"Unloved"? Overlooked or underrated? Julia Rossi (talk) 07:58, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

"Ignored"? Bunthorne (talk) 08:11, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

"Forlorn"? --Milkbreath (talk) 14:16, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean that some entity (someone or something) is "uncared about" in the sense that a person is apathetic or indifferent about that entity? -- Wavelength (talk) 15:11, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Forsworn? Abandoned, surrendered, lost? Unused? – Julia Rossi (talk) 04:03, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

unadored? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 07:38, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Shunned? (I feel a whole lot of un- words coming on) Julia Rossi (talk) 09:05, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Floccinoccinihilipilificated? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.122.29.166 (talk) 19:46, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

See Floccinaucinihilipilification. -- Wavelength (talk) 20:05, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

English grammar [A number of people was, or were?]

"A number of people" was affected or were affected? Kittybrewster ☎ 09:15, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

The Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary gives the following examples: A small number of children ARE educated at home. and (SLIGHTLY FORMAL) A large number of invitations HAS been sent. —Daniel Šebesta {chat | contribs} 10:10, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

It is usually nothing more than sheer pedantry to insist on one or the other choice as "correct". The best choice will often depend on context and register. Were affected is almost always used, in fact. This sort of question (agreement of the verb with a group term in the subject) comes up again and again. Please hold back from responding unless you have some authoritative or well-researched answer to offer.

Google searches are blunt tools, but this ought to tell us something:

• "A number of people was"

[284 hits; almost all are portions of larger constructions: "One of the things I mentioned to a number of people was..."]

• "A number of people were"

[about 146,000 hits]

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 10:14, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this is not a matter of context and register. "A number of people" is always construed as plural. "Was" is simply wrong. I can't post a direct link, but look up "number" in the online American Heritage Dictionary; you'll find this explicitly stated in a usage note at the end of the entry. "The number of people" is construed as plural singular, but that's a different expression: it's about the number, while "a number of people" is about the people.

There are many expressions in English where a subject that appears to be grammatically singular takes a plural verb and vice versa. In some cases the practice does depend on "context and register", or on whether you're speaking British or American English. In others, it doesn't. I imagine Wikipedia has an article discussing it. Or perhaps several articles discussing it and saying different things. --Anonymous, 04:49 UTC, January 5, 2009. (Confusing error corrected later.)

I'm sorry too, Anonymous. No one said that this was a matter of context and register, exactly. The point, against naive ideas of "correctness" (such as what we saw from Aletheia, who gave the "wrong" verdict, as it happened), was this:

Ιt is usually nothing more than sheer pedantry to insist on one or the other choice as "correct". The best choice will often depend on context and register.

This was followed by a statement excepting the case under discussion: A number of people was affected (hardly ever used) versus A number of people were affected (the clear standard). As for your continuation, I think you must mean this:

"The number of people" is construed as singular, but that's a different expression: it's about the number, while "a number of people" is about the people.

Of course. All of that said, you ignore sentential context where it is needed. You say this:

"A number of people" is always construed as plural.

That is simply wrong. Consider contexts like this:

A number of people is hard to estimate, unlike a number of houses. People move around too much.

Precision! :)

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 12:01, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

that's totally contrived. it would be "the number of houses is" and "the number of people is".

here's the rule:

“ the number...is

 a number...are

”

[–Unsigned, by Anonymous.]

Yes yes, Anonymous. Of course it usually works out that way. I have said the same myself, way back where I presented evidence from a Google search. And AskOxford states it just as you would bluntly have it. But AskOxford and you are incautious, and imp[r]udently pedantic when you present this as an iron-clad rule. My counterexample may look contrived to you, but it is perfectly unexceptionable. Your rewriting of it would not be apt in all broader contexts. Try this, too:

I'm not sure how to interpret the text, here. A number of people is normally stated with precision in Sturt's journals, but this is just "three or four dozen". I think it refers to the horses, not the people.

Contrived? Only in the sense that I have made it up; not in the sense that it is unnatural English that stretches grammatical "propriety". The better rule to make is simply this:

Number of people is singular when it refers to the number, but plural when it refers to the people.

And then give full examples in short sentences, rather than make clipped and inaccurate pronouncements. The risk if you do the latter is that you will be cited as proscribing more usages than you intended – or (let's face it) than you even thought of. This problem comes up again and again, with servile literal readings of incautiously stated style-guide rules.

:)

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 21:56, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Noetica's improved statement of the rule and concede that there exists a context where "a number of people" can be singular.

However, I want to defend my original response (except for the singular/plural slip, which I have corrected, thanks). The original query did include a specific context: "A number of people was/were affected." I took the mention of "context and register" to be saying that there are registers or larger contexts where the usual sentence "A number of people were affected" would need to be corrected to use "was", and that's wrong. Also, I point out that the Google evidence was not presented as an "exception" to the statement that right and wrong often does not apply. That's why I felt it necessary to respond.

Finally, for the sake of clarity, the "Unsigned, by Anonymous" text was contributed by some other anonymous poster, not me. --Anonymous, 23:13 UTC, January 5, 2009.

Very well, Anonymous. Please do sign your contributions one way or another. For the record, it was I who added "[–Unsigned, by Anonymous.]" after the earlier anonymous post. That fact is itself recorded in the history of this page. Someone has to see that the discussion is structured so that we can know who said what, and which anonymous contributor is which (still unclear, without tedious research in the history). Everyone should sign, always, in a way that clarifies who they are among the several participants, and who they are not.

As for the rest of your response, fair enough. It is not possible for writers to cover every conceivable reading or misreading every time they put fingers to keyboard. Already these threads become bloated with codicils, caveats, and recherché qualifications. It is often more efficient to express oneself with a moderate level of specificity, and then correct where the need arises, as it did in this case. Conversely, readers ought to apply a principle of charity: consider whether your first reading is likely to be right, or whether there is an alternative way of construing things that accords more rationality and good sense to the writer. Who knows? Reader and writer might agree more than they had expected to.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 01:10, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Certainly in some of these English-usage threads it becomes difficult to say who said what. For the record, I believe I am the only person on the Reference Desks who signs as "--Anonymous" or "--Anon" with a double hyphen and followed by a time and date that's not in the misplaced-time-zone format that you get from ~~~~; and I always do so. (But, for personal reasons, I am not registering with WP and that's as much of a signature as you're getting.) --Anon, 07:42 UTC, January 6, 2009.

A number of people were standing outside the office and A number of people is standing outside the office wouldn't both be usable (but perhaps not the best) if the second sentence refer to something like "a number of people are standing outside the office, which number?" That is, them standing in the formation of a number. — chandler — 04:24, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Chandler, do you mean the figure or shape of a number (like 2), like the figure or shape of a letter (like A)? Now that is contrived! It is exactly as acceptable as this would be:

A letter of people is standing outside the office.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 07:13, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes I meant like "A letter of people is standing outside the office" — chandler — 08:08, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

I think I have now got it.

• A number of cats have lost a leg as a result of car accidents
• The number of dogs which are bred to fight is now a matter of grave concern to the police.

- Kittybrewster ☎ 11:43, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Czech word for "tailor"

How do you say "tailor" in Czech? - Aletheia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.104.139.75 (talk) 09:15, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

google translate says its "krejčí". --Soman (talk) 09:44, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I can confirm that. Another reference is here. —Daniel Šebesta {chat | contribs} 10:00, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

To be exhaustive, one thing needs to be added: krejčí is a masculine noun; the feminine equivalent (and tailors surely are often women) is krejčová. —Daniel Šebesta {chat | contribs} 21:48, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! My best friend had ancestors who came from Czechoslovakia to the United States, and she knew that their last name was pronounced "Craychee" (she didn't know how to spell it) but that when they came to the U.S., they took the surname "Taylor." She was under the impression that a lot of "Craychees" became "Taylors" here, but wasn't sure if it was an exact translation or just custom. I promised her I would find out. Now I can also tell her how they spelled it! - Aletheia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.104.139.75 (talk) 03:38, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Edgar as a German name?

Would the pronunciation of Edgar (as in Edgar Feuchtinger) in German be [ɛt.gaɐ] as would be expected from the spelling and the presumed syllable break between d and g? Or is the pronunciation something different? --Iceager (talk) 09:33, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

The Duden 6 – Das Aussprachewörterbuch gives the following pronunciations: 'ɛtɡar, engl. 'ɛdɡə, fr. ɛd'ɡa:r. Note that they don't list all systematic variants (such as the different pronunciations of r) for each entry and that they don't show aspirations and other systematic features. —Daniel Šebesta {chat | contribs} 10:06, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Also, Duden's rule for coda R is that it is vocalized to nonsyllabic [ɐ̯] only after long vowels, but remains consonantal "[r]" (however you want to realize that) after short vowels. In real life, however, few Germans make that distinction. So while Duden says ['ɛtɡar], Iceager's guess of [ɛt.gaɐ] is actually closer to reality. If you want to be really pedantic (and who at this ref desk doesn't?), you'll add the glottal stop at the beginning too, and transcribe it [ˈʔɛtɡaɐ̯]. —Angr 15:28, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Angr, my Duden (the 2005 edition, p. 54) has a slightly different rule: ‘Konsonantisches r [r], auch vokalisches r [ɐ̯] [n]ach den kurzen Vokalen [ɪ ɛ ʏ œ a ʊ ɔ] am Wortende oder vor Konsonant. Im Allgemeinen wird in der Lautschrift nur [r] verwendet′. Otherwise, you are absolutely right about the glottal stop; that was—along with the aspiration—one of the systematic features that are not given for each entry in the dictionary. —Daniel Šebesta {chat | contribs} 21:44, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed explanations Daniel Šebesta and Angr, including the rule for coda R! Korean transcription of German names assume all final r that follow vowels to be vocalized, and I had wondered if that was consistent with German pronunciation rules. --Iceager (talk) 23:04, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Definition of a Classic Novel

What characteristics define a classic novel? 142.46.8.26 (talk) 17:49, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

In my view, it's all a matter of opinion. Some novels, such as Pride and Prejudice and The Portrait of a Lady, are sure to get into the list, but there really isn't a satisfactory definition of classic novel. Our stub at Classic book is a poor beginning, but to give you a start try Harvard Classics and Western canon. Strawless ^(talk) 19:24, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

It has to have a pic on the front of a randy, bare-chested farmhand tearing at the naughty princess's bodice as they fall into the hay. That's how you identify classic literature. StuRat (talk) 02:51, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Don't know if it's literature, but it's classic. Julia Rossi (talk) 08:31, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

A classic novel is a work of fiction that's been so widely recognized and praised by people of distinguished literary tastes that no one reads it anymore unless forced. - Aletheia "When I Write the Great American Novel, I'm Putting a Randy Farmhand on the Cover to Keep the Lit-Snobs Away" James —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.104.139.75 (talk) 03:44, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Language death and Extinct language

The articles don't exactly do much to explain the difference between the two, and what they do say about it seems to imply they are basically the same thing. In fact, one part of the language death says that there is such a thing as "complete language death" (which from what gathered elsewhere in the article would suggestably be the same as language extinction). A look around the internet seems to show that whatever the "exact" meanings of these two phrases, they are used completely interchangeably. Thoughts on the matter? mɪn'dʒi:klə (talk) 18:09, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, they shouldn't be used "completely interchangeably". Language death is the phenomenon whereby languages die or become extinct. An extinct language is a language that has undergone the aforementioned phenomenon. There's quite a difference in the meanings. One could write an article on language death without mentioning any particular language,but just explaining what causes languages to die. That would hardly be possible in any useful article on extinct languages. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:05, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

These are not terms I have any great expertise with, but perhaps another distinction might be between a language which is no longer spoken and which no one is really sure how to pronounce, which still exists in some written form (I should call that a dead language), and a language of which not a word survives. Rightly or wrongly, I might refer to the second as extinct. Strawless ^(talk) 19:14, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

That would be a distinction between a "dead language" and an "extinct language". "Dead language", which describes a language that is no longer viable, is not the same thing as "language death", which is about the process of languages going from viable to non-viable. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:02, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

If 'language death' were plain English, which perhaps it isn't, it would surely mean the moment when a dying language becomes a dead language. In any event, 'dead language' seems to me to come into this. Strawless ^(talk) 22:30, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Another thought on the matter is the inapt (not to say inept) nature of the metaphor in "language death." It's understandable that many people want a nice, clean distinction -- like "Dolly Pentreath was the last native speaker of Cornish; she died in 1777." Is Cornish, which no one learns from childhood as his only language, dead? What does "dead" mean in this context, and are different groups of people (the general public, language specialists, language-preservation advocates) going to agree? --- OtherDave (talk) 00:09, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

To Strawless: Yes, these terms are obviously related. But not even non-plain English speakers could refer to a dead or extinct language as "a language death", any more than they could refer to Julius Caesar as "a human death". He's an example of a human to whom death has occurred, but he himself is not death, no matter how it's qualified. He's just dead. -- JackofOz (talk) 03:15, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Unless he is a Roman death, perhaps? – Julia Rossi (talk) 04:27, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Inconsistent pluralisation, and inconsistent spelling generally

I can understand why some people use an apostrophe to make a plural; it's a simple misunderstanding of the spelling rules. What I have never been able to understand, though, is why we often see commercial billboards etc that list products on offer, where some plurals have apostrophes and others don't. For example, we see restaurants offering "steaks, hamburgers, pizza's, sandwiches, drink's". Can anyone suggest why they feel the need to put apostrophes with some plurals and not with others.

Another example of inconsistency, one that I've seen time and time again on these pages, is a word in a header that's spelled differently in the text of the question. Usually, it's spelled the same way throughout the question where the word is repeated, but in hundreds of cases that I've seen, that same word appears differently in the header. What's going on here? Thanks for any ideas. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:18, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Cases of dyslexia aside, I think the inconsistencies mostly spring from a very simple thing: people just don't care. It's not so much that they don't know the correct form or that they make a mistake, it's that they don't even think about what they're doing beyond the minimum effort required to communicate the message. It's like a guy painting the side of a house and not worrying about a few paint spills and splatters, as long as the the paint job gets done. And while I think that's kinda sloppy and stupid, and not a trend I enjoy, if all you want to do is sell some "pizza's" and really don't give a shit about whether someone thinks you're ignorant, I often find it kinda hard to fault that, as long as your sign gets the job done... except on principle. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 23:01, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Apart from the general and alarming apathy mentioned by Captain Disdain (which I certainly agree is a factor), there are the following considerations:

In fact the English use of an apostrophe for non-possessive plurals, especially of words ending in a and o, was common before the modern standard was settled on. OED, at "apostrophe²":

2. The sign (') used to indicate the omission of a letter or letters, as in o'er, thro', can't; and as a sign of the modern English genitive or possessive case, as in boy's, boys', men's, conscience', Moses'.

In the latter case, it originally marked merely the omission of e in writing, as in fox's, James's, and was equally common in the nominative plural, esp. of proper names and foreign words (as folio's = folioes); it was gradually disused in the latter, and extended to all possessives, even where e had not been previously written, as in man's, children's, conscience' sake. This was not yet established in 1725.

This is confirmed in David Crystal's Think on My Words (2008), a close study of Shakespeare's language. Apart from the general fluidity in early use of the apostrophe (still going strong in catachrestic practice), words ending in vowels other than mute e were and are less common in English, and their plurals tend to look unnatural, or to be mistaken for some other form. This was probably more the case earlier, when English was often interspersed with Latin. The English plural arenas, to snatch a quick example from the air, might easily be misread as a Latin accusative plural (meaning "sands"); but arena's could not be so mistaken. (I've just been editing at Apostrophe, in fact; I keep meaning to incorporate some of these points there. Next time, perhaps.)

Our modern practice, such as it is, was gradually established during the 18th and 19th centuries; but it is still not thoroughly settled, as the variant guidelines surveyed in Apostrophe amply show – even in formal, regimented use. And we, who are sensitive to such matters and cleave to such norms as have been settled on, continually underestimate the complexity of the sometimes arbitrary rules, and the consequent difficulties that others have in following them – or indeed in taking them seriously.

As for the variation in spelling between headings and the text that follows them, here on this page, I speculate that the task of making a marked-up heading is one to which many of our "clients" are unaccustomed. That might account for a certain self-consciousness, and therefore a lapse in their performance.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 23:10, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

I think it's more like "it's" as in it has it's food. People were never taught the correct way, for nowadays, "English teachers" do not teach grammar,spelling, anything that smacks of work. They "teach" the students to "emote" and somehow that will make it all correct.

I very much doubt most English teachers would agree with that assessment. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 00:04, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Doubt as you will, CD. I agree with the anonymous editor that standards of English teaching are low – at least in Australia, which is the scene I know best. In my experience many teachers at secondary and tertiary level give low priority to these matters, and are often enough woefully ignorant themselves. Many could not remedy their students' errors even if they wanted to. Beyond the most glaring errors, most do not attempt to fix punctuation even sporadically.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 00:45, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

It seems like my response to CD was censored. Why, pray tell?

No response from you appears in the page history, so I'm guessing some sort of technical error occured. Why not post it again? Algebraist 03:07, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Anonymous, we can't see what you mean. All we see are two unsigned contributions from you: the one immediately preceding what I am writing now, and an earlier one: "I think it's more like "it's" as in...[etc.]". Was there more, and was it somehow deleted? It will help if you do things the standard way. Sign your name by typing ~~~~ at the end of your contributions; indent, using the appropriate number of colons (:). See how other editors do these things, OK?

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 03:12, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Has anyone mentioned Greengrocers' apostrophe yet? Wait for the section to turn up after clicking on the link. There was an Australian joke that you could tell a (school)teacher by their spelling mistakes. ;) (There's also this thread from last year.[1]) Julia Rossi (talk) 04:12, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

That's close to the mark, Julia. Near me is a cafe that proudly advertises "Sandwich'ez and hamburger'z". It's getting worse. -- JackofOz (talk) 19:01, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

That is painful on the eyes (eye'z?), Jack! Aleta ^Sing 21:02, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Maybe that article could be retitled "Greengrocer'z apostrophe's" to bring it up to date? Building on someone's warning in the former thread, it can now mean: Look out! Here come's a Thing and it'z trailer's. :) Julia Rossi (talk) 23:11, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

A stall on my local market once had a sign advertising "Cactu's Pear's" AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:23, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

OK, some responses. Captain Disdain, your theory would work better for me in explaining why so many possessives these days are apostrophe-free. We see "Americas/Australias/Gippslands favourite <whatever/whoever>", "mens and womens clothing", and so on. Apathy and ignorance explain why they don't bother to write the required apostrophe. But writing it where it doesn't belong actually takes some effort. Hence, it surprises me that "it's" as the new way of writing the possessive pronoun "its" has become so widespread; the pronoun is somewhat more common than the abbreviation "it's" (short for "it is" or "it has"), so people end up writing many more keystrokes than they need to. If every plural were apostrophised, I'd give them props for trying, and further props for consistency. But this theory still doesn't explain for me why they make an effort (however misguided and unnecessary it may be) in some plurals but not in others. Noetica, your theory would ring more true if we were talking about people who have an above-average knowledge of English and who are deliberately trying to write in a pre-18th century style. But, sadly, the perpetrators I'm talking about generally have rather less English skills than that. Stereotypically (and unfairly in some cases), they wouldn't even know the difference between a noun and a verb, let alone the finer points of how spelling has varied through the ages, and why. Nevertheless, what you say might have a germ of truth in it. Plural nouns that you can just about guarantee to see apostrophised in these parts include "pizza's", "foccaccia's", "calzone's", etc. These are "foreign" words in the sense that very few native English nouns, or even French, end in -a (or, as you say, -o). So, maybe, without ever realising it, they're applying an 18th century solution to what they see as a 21st century problem. It may also be as simple as copying what others do (which explains a hell of a lot, including "alot"). And since English teaching was abolished some decades ago (well, it may as well have been), there's nobody around to show them the right way, except for us ageing fogies who, by definition, are deserving of less respect or being taken notice of than worms. A young fogey who knows (or, dare we even hope it, cares) about these things would be a rare and wonderful discovery indeed. But, CD, you're right in saying that they don't care. Whenever I pluck up the courage to comment on these things to their perpetrators, I get blank stares, shrugs of shoulders, and similar reactions. So I don't do that anymore. I just sit sipping my coffee while grinding my teeth, with my chalk or my marker pen kept securely tucked away. But I have been known to annotate table menus with a biro, in the (probably forlorn) hope that someone in authority will notice my irreverent scribblings, see what I'm on about, twig to the issue, and make changes in the next print run. What a cross it can sometimes be to have been born with editorial genes into a world that doesn't want to be edited but still doesn't notice even while it's being done to it. -- JackofOz (talk) 04:20, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

When I say people don't care, that has little to do with the effort it actually takes, I think. I mean, whether or not you hit an extra key when typing, or even dab a little extra paint if you're painting a sign by hand, we're not talking about an appreciable expenditure of time and energy here. It's pretty much a non-issue. I know that there are people who love to point out that when they type "u" instead of "you", they're saving time, but that's like saying that you can save wear on your shoes if you take just a little bit longer steps. Technically, that may be correct, but you'll never notice the difference. I don't think that affects the situation at all; mostly, it's just that a lot of people don't know the proper usage, and they don't care enough to learn or to even pay attention to what they're doing -- either because they're just that lazy, or because it just isn't at all important to them.

And trust me, I don't like that any more than you do... but at the same time, I have to admit to a certain pang of guilt. I mean, my own attitude towards mathematics, beyond a certain pretty basic level, is pretty much comparable to this profound lack of interest in the written language, and that has been known to elicit reactions that are entirely comparable to how I feel about people who should know the basics of English (or Finnish), but obviously don't, at all. But I have no real use for that math and no interest in it, so I really don't give a damn. I mean, I do think that this kind of basic understanding of the language is more important than that of mathematics, the language being such an important part of the communication we depend on just to get through the day... but perhaps that's just because the language is what I earn a living with. I can live with the occasional misplaced apostrophe or typo, though. What sets me off is the blattant disregart for speling and grammer borderring on ilitteracy the internets particlurly ful of... which is to say, all the time.

And Jack, my brother in the struggle, clearly that same editorial blood runs in both our veins, as I also have engaged in the occasional spontaneous clandestine copyediting. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 05:13, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Jack, you misread my "theory" if you take it to suppose familiarity with earlier English practice among current folk. I did not say or suggest any such folly. All I sought to show, as a closer reading would reveal, is that the same sorts of uncertainties as affect modern use of punctuation also affected the very first uses (first uses for the apostrophe, anyway). I gave the example of Latin; you added current examples like pizza's and foccaccia's, and called this an application of an "18th century solution". But there is nothing 18th century about it (17th, more like it, if anything). It is essentially the same use, with the very same pressures bringing it about. Only the provenance of the foreign words has changed. There may have been a period in which schooling produced more uniform regimented usage – covering a long stretch somewhere between 1800 and 1950, to take an educated guess. But the same sorts of "aberrant" practices probably lurked even during that period, with the same sorts of "errors" needing correction to a conventional and pedagogically imposed standard. We all agree – don't we? – that schooling has dropped that responsibility; and the results are plain to see. I omitted to mention the other chaotic uses of the apostrophe that Crystal remarks upon: its and it's used in the same sentence, both as possessives; possessive forms of proper nouns randomly with or without apostrophes; and so on. In fact, none of that has to do specifically with Shakespeare, or even with his time. It has to do with the underlay of chaotic usage that has always been with us – a tide that has intermittently been dyked back by imposed countervailing norms. Just now, our schools are not imposing those norms as they used to (in Australia, at least). As I have said, the teachers themselves are often not even versed in the norms. We'll see how things unfold, as the world is swept further into the web-vortex, and people develop yet another set of technology-driven attitudes to traditional text and its values. We ain't seen nothing yet.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 11:26, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Jack, you may be seeking a logical explanation when much of human behavior is not logical. the answer is more like the question of whether ignorance or apathy is more widespread: most people don't know and don't care.

Only a small percentage of the English-speaking population attended school prior to the 19th century. Our evidence of writing practice is skewed; we've got more from people who did more writing. Even at that, documents like diaries kept by soldiers during the U.S. Civil War suggest that expression was then, as today, more important than form. In spelling (and punctuation), they could be downright Shaxperian.

So-called norms can be skittish. Imagine the fulmination around 1860 as American practice shifted from "the United States are" to "the United States is." What were the schools not doing? It wasn't the fault of schooling (or schooling's fault, or schoolings' fault, or sc'ho'ol'in'g's fault); it was one small shift among many in the flowing current of one major stream of English.

That's not to say there's no such thing as standard practice. But where and when the hypothetical standard applies is hard to say; how far its writ runs, even harder. Trumpeting Fowler, Strunk and White, or your high-school grammar text is mostly harmless and probably produces an endorphin rush in certain trumpeters. --- OtherDave (talk) 12:13, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

On the "mens and womens clothing" mentioned above, this gracefully morphed a few years back—at least in English department stores—into signs reading “Menswear” and “Womenswear”. And it’s true. They do. —Ian Spackman (talk) 21:31, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

Yep, we have them too, Ian. But we still see "mens clothing", "childrens apparel" etc advertised. As for "im", "dont", "mightnt" (for I'm, don't, mightn't), etc, I think this is a cunning ploy to create new words for Scrabble. Currently, being abbreviations, they can't be used, but removing the apostrophes turns them into words that can be used with gay abandon. So to speak. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:09, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

See Retired Teacher Reveals He Was Illiterate Until Age 48 - San Diego News Story - KGTV San Diego.

-- Wavelength (talk) 06:26, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

It makes sense to me that people would use apostrophes to pluralize foreign words. We use apostrophes in many cases where unusual letter combinations would result otherwise. For example, we write OK'd and (often) 1920's. And no matter what the dictionary says, I will always have trouble with words like subpoenaed - I would much prefer subpoena'ed, if only it were permitted.

As another example, in Polish, the property of Baire is własność Baire'a. The apostrophe is used to form the genitive of the name of René Baire, because the e in Baire is silent, the last sound being an r. Bairea would strike people as a confusing combination of the characteristically French silent e and of the Polish suffix -a. (If his name really ended in an e sound, it would actually be indeclinable.) On the other hand, Baira would be an unacceptable deformation of the man's name. So Baire'a is used.

In a word like pizza's, it may well be that the apostrophe is likewise used, as Noetica suggests, to avoid the juxtaposition of the foreign a and of the very English plural ending -s. Joeldl (talk) 13:04, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. That might explain why they write banana's and tomato's, but not apple's, orange's, pear's or mandarin's. Very interesting, Joeldl. As for subpoenaed: the standard rule for forming a past tense is to add -ed where the verb ends in a consonant (march > marched, act > acted, merit > merited) or -d where the verb ends in a vowel (charge > charged, impinge > impinged). I've never quite understood why verbs like subpoena don't just add -d (subpoenad). I know it looks weird, but that's probably only because we're not used to seeing it written that way. It's no more weird than the inconsistency of saying act-əd and merit-əd but not march-əd or freak-əd out. If I had to choose between subpoenad and subpoena'ed, I'd prefer the former. Btw, do we have a list of English verbs that end in a vowel other than e? I'm struggling to think of examples other than subpoena, but there must be many more. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:03, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, apart from many -y words like try, pray, toy, buy, etc., you have a number of -o verbs: radio, lasso, echo. I can't think of any -i or -u verbs. I think the reason we write subpoenaed is that we generalized the rule for tried, echoed, etc. About subpoena, on second thought, how about subpoena'd instead of subpoenaed? Joeldl (talk) 08:51, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

They're good examples. Is ormolu acceptable as a verb? If we can say "Her face was caked with cold cream", couldn't we, in a moment of madness, say "Her face was gateaued with cold cream"? And, of course, there's "plateaued out". Rethinking the past tense spelling issue, -ed is suitable for verbs that end in o, y and u; and i, if there are any. For those that end in a, the -ed seems to change the pronunciation, in this case from subpoen-əd to subpoen-ayd, which may be why it looks odd and why we sometimes feel the need to come up with a better solution. I guess the spelling rules were developed before anyone ever thought of making words like subpoena a verb. I don't favour any apostrophes with verbs, in any circumstances, because we have enough trouble with apostrophes with plurals and possessives to ever permit a new area of potential confusion. But I can see why some people might be of a different persuasion. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:21, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I guess we won't reach consensus on reforming English spelling, then. Too bad. Joeldl (talk) 22:48, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I've just seen another form of past tense. "Tarmac" can be used as a verb, but in past you'd have to add -ked, otherwise it looks like the past tense of tar-mace. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:22, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

In answer to your second question, at least some of the time it's probably due to the original questioner not adding a header and someone else inserting it later for them (with better spelling and grammar). -Elmer Clark (talk) 22:22, 8 January 2009 (UTC)