Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 November 27

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November 27

Repetition of 'is' in specific phrases

I've been noticing lately that in spoken English (Midwest American in my experience, dunno about other regions) certain set phrases ending in 'is' (or other forms e.g. 'was') have the 'is' repeated afterwards. Examples:

The thing is, is we ...

I think what it was was that ...

I'm pretty sure what it will be will be a giant duck.

How does this work, grammatically? Lexicografía (talk) 00:49, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

It's slang. And it's not new. Andy Griffith caught some early attention in the 1950s with a comedy record in which he described a football game from the standpoint of a hayseed who had never seen or heard of football before. The title of that routine: "What it was, was football." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:54, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree. I've been hearing these sorts of expressions all my life. What they are, are expressions a pedant would spurn but most everyone else is happy enough to spout from time to time. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 01:05, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

But how does it function grammatically? Do the phrases 'the thing is' or 'what it was' function as noun phrases, the second 'is' or 'was' being the verb? You can't say *"The thing is we" or *"I think what it was that" ... Lexicografía (talk) 03:39, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

"What it was" sounds like a valid noun phrase to me. "The thing is" doesn't. I think these are distinct cases. Just guessing here, but "the thing is, is" might have originated from "what the thing is is..." or in imitation of "what it is is...". -- BenRG (talk) 03:53, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Reminds me of: that that is is that is not is not that that is not is not that that is that that is is not that that is not is that not it.  :) -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 03:59, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

See That that is is that that is not is not is that it it is. No shit. WHAAOE. --Jayron32 13:26, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The OP's second and third examples are perfectly normal cleft sentences. In speech, the first instance of the verb will be stressed, and there may well be a brief pause after it. The first example is a different structure, in which "The thing is" is not actually a constituent (it is subject NP + VP), but in context it is often spoken with the same prosodic pattern as the cleft. I believe that this prosodic resemblance is what has given rise to an analogical insertion of a second "is" in the sentence. I first noticed this phenomenon in the 80's, and I think it is pretty well limited to sentences starting "The thing/problem/snag/question is". --ColinFine (talk) 16:59, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

See also double copula. —Tamfang (talk) 19:06, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Wealth Obliges

Instead of saying Noblesse oblige, what would be the correct way of saying 'Wealth oblige'. Thanks 92.29.115.8 (talk) 01:33, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

"Noblesse oblige" doesn't mean "wealth oblige[s]". "Noble" doesn't necessarily mean "wealthy" – there's a long list of (just for the sake of argument) English Premier League footballers who are by most peoples' standards fabulously wealthy but wouldn't know honourable behaviour if it jumped up and bit them, and there's an equally long list of impoverished aristocrats who have titles but little money. Could you give a little more context for what you're trying to say? Tonywalton ^Talk 02:09, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Richesse oblige. I think the OP was looking for an equivalent of noblesse oblige for wealth and not nobility. 24.92.78.167 (talk) 02:26, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Possibly so, but I'd like the OP to clarify. Tonywalton ^Talk 02:31, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

OP is obviously asking for an equivalent for wealth and not for nobility. DuncanHill (talk) 10:40, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

24... and DuncanHill are correct. 92.15.11.45 (talk) 13:22, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Definitely Richesse oblige, then --Lgriot (talk) 09:05, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Cantonese phrase

What is the Cantonese phrase in Chinese characters for an unlucky wife that kills (not murder) who ever she marries? It literally means Killing Pig Stool.--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 05:26, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

克夫 or 克夫命 is a common phrase but not the one you're expecting. --Chantaiman2 (talk) 20:41, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard of this phrase before, but I googled a literal translation of "Killing Pig Stool" and it came up with many hits with the meaning you described: the phrase is 杀猪櫈, shāzhūdèng. Literally, this is apparently a piece of actual bench-like equipment used in butchering pigs. Metaphorically, it is a colourful way of saying the phrases Chantaiman2 mentioned above.

Note that the above is the general Chinese phrase. The specific dialectical variation in Cantonese (according to Google anyway) is 劏猪櫈 (劏, tāng, means "to butcher"). --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 19:07, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Latin help please

What does Ibi cubavit lamia mean? Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 10:39, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

It probably means that you're reading M. R. James. But, seriously, it's from Isaiah 34:14, and the KJV translates this portion of the the verse "the screech owl also shall rest there". A literal translation of the Latin is "there the lamia lay down". Deor (talk) 11:31, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I am reading M. R. James (as everyone should). I like the screech owl - "My word! that was a noise - 'ungry like, as if it was calling after someone that wouldn't come." DuncanHill (talk) 11:39, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I see that there's some information about how the various translations have rendered Hebrew liyliyth in this verse at Lilith#Lilith in the Bible. Deor (talk) 11:57, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very interesting stuff. The Authorised Version beats all-comers hands down when it comes to sounding right. DuncanHill (talk) 12:21, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

To round out the discussion the New World Translation of The Holy Scriptures translates lilith as "nightjar," and the footnote says "likely a nocturnal bird." schyler (talk) 15:35, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

cubavit (perfect) translated as shall rest (future)?? —Tamfang (talk) 19:00, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Rather, a Hebrew verb taken by others as referring to future time, taken by Jerome as referring to past time: Wavelength and AnonMoos explain this below. Wareh (talk) 19:05, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

See http://www.multilingualbible.com/isaiah/34-14.htm and http://www.watchtower.org/e/bible/isa/chapter_034.htm.

—Wavelength (talk) 16:08, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

[The website http://www.watchtower.org/ is obsolete, but Wayback Machine has archives of http://www.watchtower.org/e/bible/isa/chapter_034.htm indexed at https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.watchtower.org/e/bible/isa/chapter_034.htm. Today the official website of Jehovah's Witnesses is http://www.jw.org, and Isaiah 34:14 is at http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/l/r1/lp-e?q=Isaiah+34%3A14.

—Wavelength (talk) 00:08, 31 December 2014 (UTC)]

According to paragraph 3 at http://www.ao.net/~fmoeller/translat.htm, "The tense-time of Hebrew verbs continually escapes the most serious scholar and there is wide variety of translation among the most learned as whether a verb ought to be given as past, present or future."

—Wavelength (talk) 16:14, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

The semantics of Hebrew finite verb forms aren't really quite as mysterious as all that, once it is understood that the basic distinction is more one of aspect than "tense" or "time", though it is true that there are several complications, such as the so-called "conversive tenses". In any case, the question at hand is about the meaning of a noun... AnonMoos (talk) 17:11, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Is performancewise a word?

Consider "How do A and B compare, performancewise?".

Is that correct? Or is it "performance wise" or "performance-wise"? Wiktionary does not contain any of the three forms. Apart from the spelling, what kind of word is it in this context? An adjective? --Mortense (talk) 17:12, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

It's an adverb. While it's not listed at Wiktionary, the suffix -wise is, as is an entire category of English words suffixed with -wise, none of which is hyphenated. So I'd say performancewise is the correct spelling. (I personally would only hyphenate it after a word ending in w, e.g. pillow-wise). —Angr (talk) 17:39, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I can't see anything wrong with it, spellingwise or lack-of-hyphenationwise. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:44, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Frequently people will add the hyphen to emphasize the fact that the word has been constructed as an agglutination, rather than being a customary word form. (That is, I doubt you would find "performancewise" in even the comprehensive of unabridged dictionaries.) The article hyphen indicates British English tends to hyphenate words more-so than American English (e.g. pre-school vs. preschool). It also notes that there has been a tendency to reduce the use of hyphens. On a final note, while "performancewise" vs. "performance-wise" might be a style choice, "performance wise" is not an equivalent, as "-wise" as a suffix has a vastly different meaning from "wise" as an independent word. -- 174.24.198.158 (talk) 20:07, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with that analysis. The tendency to drop hyphens means that an expression like "a three year project" is read as containing 4 words - when, in every way except orthographically, it has only 3 words. "Three-year" is the adjective being used here; it is a single word (albeit formed from 2 others) and it can't be spelled as if it were still 2 separate words without abandoning a considerable degree of sanity, because "three year" as it stands is totally ungrammatical ("three", being a plural number, requires the plural "years"); it only works in this context as "three-year". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:56, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

By the way, ca. 1960, the overuse of "-wise" as a suffix was considered an annoying feature of Madison Avenue advertising jargon (it was parodied on several Stan Freberg records, if I remember correctly...). -- AnonMoos (talk) 20:56, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, performancewise would be a perfect word to be added to Corporate Bingo HiLo48 (talk) 21:56, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

And in The Apartment (1960), whose tagline was "Movie-wise, there has never been anything like The Apartment love-wise, laugh-wise or otherwise-wise!" -- BenRG (talk) 00:09, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Is performancewise a word? Well, a look at Google Books shows it's been a pretty common word since 1950, with sporadic appearances in the 1940s. Typical early example: "Performancewise the show was seen here at a disadvantage" (Billboard May 3, 1952). Other early examples refer to music, planes and cars. --Antiquary (talk) 21:58, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Is "performancewise" a word? Can it be written? Obviously. Can it be pronounced? Yes. Does it convey an obvious meaning? Yes. Yup, it's a word. I assume your question was actually something more like "is it an acceptable word", and yes, I'd say so as well. You might want to use a hyphen for clarity because of the length of the word, but either way works. Lexicografía (talk) 01:28, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Scandinavian names

Which form is Swedish, Norwegian, or Danish? Also what is the difference between Estridsson and Estridsen?--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 17:35, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Names ending in -sen can be Danish or Norwegian, -son can be Swedish or Norwegian or Icelandic. Both Estridsen and Estridsson means "son of Estrid". ·Maunus·ƛ· 17:39, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The double s of Estridsson makes it look definitely Icelandic - and note that in Icelandic it's a genuine patronym, not a patronymoidal surname. And I heard a rumor once that Norwegians tend not to have patronymoidal surnames meaning "son of so-and-so" the way Swedes and Danes do. —Angr (talk) 17:44, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The double s is found in old Danish and in Swedish as well as in Icelandic. The first one is of course the genitive. Norwegians do have -sen names, I wouldn't dare say if they are more or less common than in Denmark or Iceland - they are definitely not uncommon. Also "Estridsson/Estridsen" can never be a patronym or patronymoidal - "Estrid" is a woman's name. ·Maunus·ƛ· 18:15, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Well there you are wrong. See Sweyn II of Denmark.--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 03:58, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

No. I am right. Sweyn Estridsson's father was Ulf JArl and his mother Was Estrid. Estridsson is a matronym also in this case. (The Estridssons were surnamed after their mother instead of following the usual patronymic custom because as the sister of Canute the Great she was more prominent than their father who was a mere Earl)·Maunus·ƛ· 04:21, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Well (to Angr), Surname states (it needs copy-editing, BTW): "... Hansen (son of Hans), Johansen (son of Johan) and Olson (Son of Ole/Ola) the three most common surnames in Norway.[6]" --Mortense (talk) 18:25, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

What about -datter and -dotter and -dottir?--Queen Elizabeth II's Little Spy (talk) 18:05, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Datter can be Danish or Norwegian, Dotter can be Swedish or Norwegian, Dottir can be Icelandic or Faroese.·Maunus·ƛ· 18:13, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

To be exact, the Icelandic is spelt dóttir and pronounced [d̥ouʰtɪr], as in Sigurðardóttir, "daughter of Sigurður". The Faroese is also spelled dóttir, but is pronounced [dœʰtəɹ], as in Sigmundsdóttir, "daughter of Sigmund". That is, both require an acute accent if we follow strict orthography. --Theurgist (talk) 18:50, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Most common surnames in Norway (link at bottom of page gives further rankings; "antall" is number of people holding the name). First non-"sen" name is in position 14. Jørgen (talk) 10:40, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

No sources at hand, but last names in Scandinavia, or at least in Norway, for common people were "fixated" (meaning they became more than a description to disambiguate people with the same given names) some time in the last half of the 1800s. Farmers usually took the name of the farm (Dal/Dahl, meaning "valley", is a very common surname as there were many farms by that name). Other people (workers, say) simply used the patronymic which then started to become inherited about that time. Given gender roles at this time, patronymics were almost exclusively used and almost no inherited surnames in Norway are original matronymics (ending in -dotter/-datter). For some reason, occupation titles ("baker", "smith" etc) did not evolve into surnames in Norway, as they did many other parts of Europe. Jørgen (talk) 10:45, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

It appears that there is, in fact, a Wikipedia article: Scandinavian family name etymology, though it's not terribly exhaustive. Jørgen (talk) 10:50, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

-dotter names were also patronymic - they would have had to become matronymic in order to have been inherited after fixation but they didn't.·Maunus·ƛ· 14:01, 28 November 2010 (UTC)