Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 March 13

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March 13

The article "a" versus "an"

Which is correct?

• He received a (unofficial) nomination in 1935.
• He received an (unofficial) nomination in 1935.

They both seem "wrong". I understand that I can reword and rewrite the sentence to avoid this problem. Nonetheless, I'd like to know the answer to this particular scenario, without any rewording or rewriting. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 01:32, 13 March 2011 (UTC))

An is correct, as "an" is used before a vowel sound and "a" before a consonant sound. Saying "An un..." does perhaps sound a little awkward but it is correct. meltBanana 03:17, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Words inside brackets are parenthetical, meaning they can safely be discarded without doing damage to the essential meaning of the sentence. But if you do choose to include them, they have to be taken into account for a/an purposes, just as they're included in a word count. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 03:44, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

My vote is for He received a(n unofficial) nomination in 1935, though I doubt most copyeditors would let me get away with it. It also wouldn't work for the opposite situation, He received a (non-binding) award in 1935. —Angr (talk) 15:29, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

There is no single answer. The choice between "a" and "an" is entirely phonological, not orthographical, but this sort of construction is pretty well confined to writing. I would write "an", but others may disagree. --ColinFine (talk) 19:14, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

ColinFine ... can you please clarify your answer? I didn't understand what you were saying. Nor did I understand the distinction between phonological and orthographical. In other words, dumb it down for me. I am not a linguistics / language expert. So, those terms mean nothing to me. Thanks! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:18, 13 March 2011 (UTC))

It's the difference between writing (see orthography) and sound (see phonology). LadyofShalott 20:25, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

There are two elements that are related to the above sentence. First of all, the correct way of representation is "an unofficial", but if looked closely the word/term "unofficial can also be represented and replaced by another word/term.

So the use of "an" before unofficial is because "unofficial" starts with an "u" and as it starts with a vowel sounding alphabet hence use of "an"

While having a conversation between two persons the use of "a/an" is not that important matter, but while narrating a subject or representing a written subject matter the use of "a and an" matter a lot. "An" is used in front of vowels. aniketnik 08:02, 14 March 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aniketnik (talk • contribs)

Square as surname

Are there any recorded historical instances of the word Square being used as a surname? I can see that it was used for a fictional character in the book Flatland, but have any real people ever had it? If not, what are some other surnames which are similar in pronunciation?--99.251.211.17 (talk) 03:29, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

This is slightly off topic, but I think the book was credited to "a square", not to a character named A. Square. The narrator is never named in the book itself, and the A on the cover isn't followed by a full stop, while Abbott's middle initial immediately below it does have a full stop. (The modern UK convention is to omit the full stop, but I think that wasn't true back then.) -- BenRG (talk) 05:28, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

That seems to be true, though Ian Stewart, in his "sequel" Flatterland, interprets "A. Square" as a name and proposes that the A stands for Albert. —Bkell (talk) 23:43, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be a recognised surname, at least in one country. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 03:35, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

FamilySearch has some tools for this sort of search, but when I looked it gave me no hits. I have a friend whose last name is Squares, however, and the previous editor seems to have found something. Wabbott9 (talk) 03:41, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I can't say I've seen it as a surname, thouigh others have already found examples, I see. Squire isn't that unusual, but that has very different roots of course. I think that most English surnames are either descriptive of a person ('Brown'), a profession ('Smith'), or a location ('Lincoln'). Though 'Square' might describe a place, it seems a little over-specific to be that common. The fact of the matter is that surnames are probably largely arbitrary, in that 'implausible' ones can multiply, and 'common' ones die out over time, due to paternal inheritance. There is probably some maths to this, which will show that eventually everyone would have the same surname... AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:45, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Findagrave.com lists 78 individuals with the surname "Square". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:51, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The link given by Jack of Oz suggests it is a variant of Squire. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:35, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Is SpongeBob Squarepants close enough? HiLo48 (talk) 03:55, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

That would be his aristocratic English relations, the Square-Pantses (pronounced "squippence", of course)--Shirt58 (talk) 07:15, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website has four British men named Square out of more than 1.7 million records. One was from Guernsey. Alansplodge (talk) 12:49, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

If a Square married a Root, they could become the Square-Roots. LadyofShalott 20:20, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

http://www.whitepages.com/dir/a-z/square lists quite a few people named Square in the US. --Soman (talk) 02:55, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

By the way, "Carré" is a common last name in French. --Xuxl (talk) 16:15, 14 March 2011 (UTC)

Singular or plural nouns and verbs

How do you reconcile the use of singular/plural nouns/verbs in situations such as these? And what are the underlying reasons?

• There was only one, or perhaps two, Senators in agreement. (Should the verb be "was" or "were"? Should the noun be "Senator" or "Senators"?)
• He had many ideas. Only one (or two) is feasible. (Should the verb be "is" or "are"?)
• He had many ideas. Only one, or perhaps two, is feasible. (Should the verb be "is" or "are"?)

Also, in the above examples, does the punctuation itself make any difference at all in determining singular/plural nouns/verbs (e.g., if I decided to use parentheses versus commas versus dashes, etc., in delineating the "perhaps two" modifiers)? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:40, 13 March 2011 (UTC))

I don't know the answer to that, both sound awkward to me, but if rewriting is a possibility I would just do something like "There was only one senator in agreement, or perhaps two", etc. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:58, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Without some rewriting, they're irreconcilable. 'One' takes singular agreement, anything higher than 'one' takes plural agreement - that's the inherent feature of number in English. So, you can't have agreement about something that includes both one and two. I'd be writing:

• There was only one Senator in agreement, or perhaps two.
• He had many ideas. Only one is feasible; two at most.

or something like that. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 05:01, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't say "only one, or two". The word "only" gives a message of certainty, which is then immediately contradicted. A sentence that contradicts itself can't ever work. Looie496 (talk) 17:36, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I somewhat agree with your (generally valid) point about the word "only". However, the same issue/problem arises even if the word "only" is removed from all of the above examples. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:16, 13 March 2011 (UTC))

@Looie496: Jack's examples seem to disprove your contention. --ColinFine (talk) 19:17, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Looie496, I can see what you're getting at, but I don't think that "only" provides the certainty you say it does. As opposed to, say, 20 Senators in agreement, there were only two in agreement; or only one; or only one, maybe two. If you needed a minimum 20 to pass the bill, it little matters whether you have only one, or only two, or only 10, or only 19 for that matter. "Only" acknowledges that the number in question is lower than some other desired number, but does not set the precise number in stone. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 19:45, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

"Only one or two" functions as a noun phrase with the word "ideas" omitted so you would write "Only one [idea] is...", "Only two [ideas] are...", "Only one or two [ideas] are..." and the first would be "There were only one, or perhaps two, Senators...". The commas, parentheses, dashes etc are largely irrelevant to the word choice and are best ignored when deciding on words like "is" or "are". Thinking of punctuation as delimiters that dictate how a sentence is broken down is probably what is giving you problems. Better to think of the punctuation as places you would pause when speaking the sentence and that might help you. This kind of construction is awkward, and would be better rewritten, but it is relatively common in transcribed speech or people typing as they think and changing their mind on what they wish to say part way through. meltBanana 19:21, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. The punctuation issue was merely an after-thought. My real issue centers on a noun/subject that is ambiguously singular or plural ... and how to make the verb agree. Also, I don't think that a speaker's (or writer's) hesitation or changing mind is relevant at all. I can very definitely state that there were ONE or TWO of something. Meaning, I am sure that it was a small number (like 1 or 2 Senators, but certainly no more than that). So, I don't think that being hesitant or changing one's mind (mid-thought / mid-speaking) comes into play. One can be very definite that the matter in question involved one or two items. That is the rub ... as Jack says. "One" dictates singular; "two" dictates plural. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:31, 13 March 2011 (UTC))

In my spontaneous English (and I suspect that of most people, including most of those who have replied above), the answer is unquestionably "one or two are". The corpora agree, though weakly: BNC has 16 instances of "one or two are" and none of "one or two is"; COCA has 17 and 2 respectively. (It actually returns 3, but one is a different construction). The "logic" is irrelevant: languages do not work by logic (at least not always) and the fact that some of the things we say are not adequately explained by logical arguments is no reason not to say them when our meaning is perfectly clear. --ColinFine (talk) 22:27, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree that "one or two are" sounds more natural, but probably only because of the proximity between the words "two" and "are". Would the scenario be any different if we reversed the words in the sentence to "two or one"? In that case, the proximity of words would seem to render "two or one is" as the more natural choice. I think? Consider a sentence such as this: Two votes, or even one vote, is sufficient to overturn the Mayor's decision. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:35, 13 March 2011 (UTC))

Which letters

Boxing 84.61 troll
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Which letters can start a word beginning with a consonant sound? --84.61.186.139 (talk) 10:53, 13 March 2011 (UTC) Which letters can start a word beginning with a vowel sound? --84.61.186.139 (talk) 10:53, 13 March 2011 (UTC) 'Which letters can start a word beginning with a consonant sound?' - Usually consonants, but the vowel 'u' can appear at the beginning of some words which have a consonant sound /j/ as their start, such as 'university'. 'Which letters can start a word beginning with a vowel sound?' - Usually vowels, but the consonant 'h' is silent at the beginning of some words, such as 'honest', 'hour', etc. Note also, that the letter 'y' in English can be used to represent both a consonant and a vowel sound. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:31, 13 March 2011 (UTC) IP locates to Nordhein-Westfalen, for those of you who know. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:23, 13 March 2011 (UTC) What distinguishes the consonant from the vowel - isn't y the same as i and w the same as oo? If I say "Iuniversity of Ooisconsin", is there a noticeable difference? Why is /j/ classed as a consonant? 213.122.42.235 (talk) 14:38, 13 March 2011 (UTC) Acoustically, there's very little that distinguishes /j/ from /i/ and /u/ from /w/; they look pretty much identical on a spectrogram. The reason that /j/ and /w/ are classified as consonants while /i/ and /u/ are classified as vowels has more to do with their behavior: /j/ and /w/ behave as consonants in English, for example by selecting the allomorph "a" of the indefinite article rather than "an". In French, on the other hand, /j/ and /w/ do behave as vowels for some purposes, e.g. by taking elision of vowels and liaison of consonants before them: l'oiseau [lwazo], les yeux [lezjø]. (Loanwords starting with /j/ and /w/, like yo-yo and whisky, do behave like consonant-initial words in French; but then so do words starting with h aspiré as well as the word onze.) —Angr (talk) 15:11, 13 March 2011 (UTC) If initialisms are counted as "words", then F, H, L, M, N, R, S, T, and X can all begin words with a vowel sound (for example, "an FAA regulation" or "an XML parser"). —Bkell (talk) 15:18, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

British accent

Please don't feed the trolls
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Why do British people sound so conceited? --70.244.234.128 (talk) 17:03, 13 March 2011 (UTC) First, you tell us why Americans sound so stupid. DuncanHill (talk) 17:11, 13 March 2011 (UTC) Or tell us to whom do we sound conceited. To you? In that case, only you can answer that. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:19, 13 March 2011 (UTC) There is no such thing as a British accent. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:21, 13 March 2011 (UTC)