Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 September 19

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September 19

English numerals pronunciation

101 is read as "One hundred and one" in British English and "One hundred one" in American English (at least according to English numerals). How is it pronounced in Canadian English? Is there any website or books that compares the differences between Canadian/American/British English? A8875 (talk) 00:33, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

To clarify I'm not looking for an authoritative style manual[1] that enumerates every little minutia. I'm looking for common and every-day speech differences. A8875 (talk) 00:38, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, even according to that page, British English does use "one-oh-one" when talking about things like bus numbers. My guess is that when they do differ, e.g. American "one-seventeen" instead of British "one-one-seven", Canadians would follow the American usage. However, I might myself (as an American) use "one-one-seven" for extra clarity. Lesgles (talk) 00:53, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

You can say one-seventeen in British English too. We're very broad-minded. Alansplodge (talk) 15:54, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

According to that "article", the year 1225 AD is referred to as the year one two two five. Utter bullshit. And the artcile is based on someone's blog and yahoo as its reference. Utter bullshit. μηδείς (talk) 01:02, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

With the Refimprove template on there since 2007, I'm not surprised. A8875 (talk) 01:15, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Yea, here in the US, I'd use each system, depending on the situation. StuRat (talk) 01:49, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

To clarify, I'm only asking about the "math" situation. As in, how would a Canadian answer "What's one plus one hundred?". According to that (poorly sourced) article, an American English speaker would answer "One hundred one" and a British English speaker would answer "One hundred and one". A8875 (talk) 02:00, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

It's just nonsense, in case you didn't know what I meant with the French term bullshit. I would say, "a hunrit 'n' one". μηδείς (talk) 02:20, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Medeis here. Depending on the context, I would say either "one-oh-one" or "a hunnert-n-one", unless I was being deliberately formal, and then I would say "A hundred and one". I speak a hybrid of General American English colored with my native dialect of New England English, with a couple of odd bits of Southern American English creeping in from time to time. --Jayron32 02:45, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. It's good to know I haven't been pronouncing numbers wrong my entire life. Now the question becomes an anthropological one: "Who are these people insisting that Americans pronoun it as 'one hundred one'"? It's not just a vandal on WP; there are gangs of these people on the internet[2] and they all collaborate each other's story. Apparently their style could better differentiate between the numbers "100 2/3" "102/3". My theory is that maybe this is something being perpetuated in the educational system in only certain parts of the country. A8875 (talk) 02:56, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

In the field of languages, linguists fall broadly into two camps, prescriptivists who maintain that there is a standard form of the language which must be preserved at all costs against lazy, inconsiderate, and uneducated speakers, and descriptivists who are more concerned with describing the language as it is. If people tell you that you and everyone you know has been saying something wrong all of your lives, they're prescriptivists. A descriptivist would say that no usage which is easily understood between speakers without any discomfort or unease is an incorrect usage, regardless of what is written in Strunk and White or any other "authoritative" source. --Jayron32 03:17, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

A few links to show how wide-spread it is: [3][4][5]. So far five Wikipedians came up on the "one hundred and one" side, and no one on the "one hundred one" side is chiming in curiously enough. For the internet as whole, and especially on US-oriented sites, it's apparently the other way around. A8875 (talk) 03:18, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Are you an American English speaker or a British English speaker? A8875 (talk) 02:25, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

[ec] Just from personal observation, I have heard far more Americans say "one hundred and one." In fact, I don't recall ever hearing "one hundred one."    → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 02:28, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't ever recall hearing "one hundred one" to be honest, maybe I just have bad memory. But I saw this comment[6] on the internet and this particular numerical Nazi seems really adamant about it, and our own (poorly sourced) article says "not to use the word 'and' anywhere in the whole part of a number" so I was really confused. For a second there I thought I had been pronouncing numbers wrong my entire life.A8875 (talk) 02:35, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

If you're asking me, A8875, Midlands American. (If Jayron, see his user page.) I have a Delaware Valley accent with a code-switching New York City overlay. For example, I distinguish Mary/marry/merry/Murray, when in NYC, while the last two are merged as Murray in the Delaware Valley. I say /farhɛd/ and I front my o's to [ɛʊ] when in the south, but say /fɔrhɛd/ and never front when in NYC. New Yorkers laugh if I say I am gewing hewm to my parents' for Christmas, and wish them a Murray one. Interestingly, New Yorkers always pick up my Delaware Valley accent, and usually interpret it as my being a Southerner, (i.e., well below the Manson-Nixon line) while Delaware Valley residents never comment if I use New York vowels. μηδείς (talk) 03:03, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I can confirm being taught (Midwest US, a long time ago) not to say "and" unless a fraction followed. "One hundred one", but "one hundred and two tenths." I still do it, and no one seems to be confused. Zoonoses (talk) 04:39, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the response. Can you please be more specific about when this was taught? Approximately which decade was this? Was it elementary school or middle school? Do you hear people around you using it? I'm trying to track down the approximate geographical and chronological spread of this phenomenon.A8875 (talk) 04:59, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

In elementary and high school in Canada (southern Ontario, 1980s and 1990s) I learned we should say "one hundred one". But I don't think I ever actually say numbers like that in any other context. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:03, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I have a general American accent, and I say "a hundred and one" (except that maybe in counting off seconds of time I might say "a hundred one, a hundred two,..."). But I vaguely remember learning back in first or second grade in Buffalo, NY around 1960 that the "and" should be omitted.

This reminds me of a related issue. When people argue about whether to pronounce 2012 as "twenty twelve" or "two thousand (and) twelve", I have seen it said (maybe on Wikipedia?) that the former is superior because it is two syllables shorter than "two thousand and twelve", and the response was that it's only one syllable shorter than "two thousand twelve".

I also vaguely recall long ago hearing that 1912 should be pronounced "nineteen twelve" and not the rare "nineteen and twelve"--does anyone else recall that? Duoduoduo (talk) 14:27, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Anecdotal observations: When we got to the year 2000, it was pretty much universally "two thousand". Saying "twenty oh oh" would have been sort of weird. In 2001 people were starting to say "twenty oh one", but I think "two thousand one" was more prevelant. By 2010, the usage "twenty ten" was becoming the more common usage. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:04, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I've never yet heard anyone call the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey "twenty-oh-one ...". Even your "two thousand one" sound weird to my ears, which much prefer "two thousand and one". -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 12:09, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Nor have I. When it was released ca.1968, whatever Arthur Clarke's actual intentions were, it was typically called "two thousand one" or "two thousand and one". In general usage, I didn't hear "twenty oh one" very often when the actual year hit. But once we got to 2010, "twenty ten" started seeming more natural than "two thousand [and] ten". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ —Preceding undated comment added 12:14, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

(U.S. data point) When I'm counting dalmatians (or anything else) I say "one [or 'a'] hundred and one". When I'm writing a number of dollars in words on a check, however, I write "one hundred one and 00/100". Deor (talk) 15:44, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

A hundred and one dalmations, running along highway one oh one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:58, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

• (From the UK.) I'm slightly confused by this thread. I thought that omission of "and" after "hundred" in numbers was a well known and undisputed US-English trait, as compared to UK English where "and" is always inserted. I can clearly picture hearing Americans say it that way – or so I thought. Are people saying that this whole idea is faulty, or is 101 an exceptional case? 86.183.1.88 (talk) 02:09, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
  • It varies from place to place and from context to context. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:53, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
    • Yeah, to second Bugs on this one: The ommission of "and" is what is taught as "standard American English" that most people don't use in every day conversation. It's a sort of calcified rule of language that most native English speakers in America have dropped when talking casually. Some never use and, even informally, but I would guess they are in the minority: I've lived in three very different parts of the U.S., and everywhere I have lived the most common phrasing is "one hundred and whatever" or "a hundred and whatever". People who drop the "and" sound a bit formal and stuffy to my ears, kinda like Boston Brahmin or Received Pronounciation sounds. --Jayron32 11:42, 20 September 2012 (UTC)
      • There was a joke at one time about why the blonde couldn't make an emergency 911 call, because there was no "11" on the phone. That assumes the listener understands that people used to say "nine eleven". You seldom hear that anymore, for any number of possible reasons, including maybe the coincidental association with September 11 [2001], or "nine eleven [oh one]". It's now pretty much universally "nine one one". But folks still do that kind of shortening with phone numbers: "call me at home, my number is five five five twelve twelve." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:21, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Locke: "suspected of jargon in others"?

Not sure whether this belongs here or on the Humanities desk, but I'll ask it here. There is a sentence in John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (published in 1690) that is giving me a lot of trouble. For context, here is the passage it comes from:

19.That a man should be busy in thinking, and yet not retain it the next moment, very improbable.---To suppose the soul to think, and the man not to perceive it, is, as has been said, to make two persons in one man; and if one considers well these men's way of speaking, one should be led into a suspicion that they do so. For they who tell us that the soul always thinks, do never, that I remember, say, that a man always thinks. Can the soul think, and not the man? or a man think, and not be conscious of it? This perhaps would be suspected of jargon in others. If they say, "The man thinks always, but is not always conscious of it," they may as well say, his body is extended without having parts. ...

I understand all of this except the sentence, "This perhaps would be suspected of jargon in others", which I just can't make out. Clearly he is casting aspersions of some kind, but what exactly is he saying here? If anybody can help me parse that sentence, I would be grateful. Looie496 (talk) 03:51, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

By jargon he apparently means (presumably intentionally) unintelligible speech. I.e., if someone were to say such a thing he would be suspected of intentionally spouting nonsense. See http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=jargon The OED says:

3. Unintelligible or meaningless talk or writing; nonsense, gibberish.

6. Applied contemptuously to any mode of speech abounding in unfamiliar terms, or peculiar to a particular set of persons, as the language of scholars or philosophers, the terminology of a science or art, or the cant of a class, sect, trade, or profession.

μηδείς (talk) 04:12, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

From the context, I'd suspect the first of Medeis's definitions is closer - though in my preferred vernacular English, 'bullshit' would seem closer still. Not merely meaningless, but intentionally meaningless, and recognised as such even as it is said... AndyTheGrump (talk)

BTW, Locke is presumably trying to deal with Cartesian doubt here, but is equivocating, and wrong. Our subconscious often mulls things over (e.g., "sleep on it", ""tip of the tongue") and comes up with the answer unawares at a later time. If you don't want to call such wordless cogitation "thinking" you have to come up with another word for it. μηδείς (talk) 04:30, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I probably should have clarified. Locke used the word "jargon" many times, and it's reasonably clear what it meant to him -- "bullshit" is a decent equivalent. What I can't figure out is the structure of that sentence -- most importantly, I can't figure out what "others" refers to. Looie496 (talk) 05:10, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

He's referring to the people whose opinions he's criticized in the two prior points:

17. If I think when I know it not, nobody else can know it. Those who so confidently tell us that the soul always actually thinks, I would they would also tell us, what those ideas are that are in the soul of a child, before or just at the union with the body, before it hath received any by sensation....

18. How knows any one that the Soul always thinks? For if it be not a self-evident Proposition, it needs Proof. I would be glad also to learn from these men who so confidently pronounce that the human soul, or, which is all one, that a man always thinks, how they come to know it; ...

See http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/concerning-human-understanding/summary-analysis/book-ii/of-ideas-chapters-1-11/original-text-4.html μηδείς (talk) 05:31, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I think, "Jargon" does not mean unintelligible speech in this case. It just refers to what some group of people (the "others") say, although it may well have negative connotations. The "others" and their "jargon" are the same people and speech referred to when he says "If they say the man..." in the next sentence or "They who talk thus" after that. The "this" in your sentence of concern refers to the act of supposition just mentioned: "To suppose the soul to think, and the man not to perceive it". So what he means by the sentence is simply that others' words imply or suggest that the soul can think while the man does not perceive it. So, really he's just repeating what he said earlier with, "And if one considers well these men's way of speaking, one should be led into a suspicion that they do so." --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 00:21, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it isn't any more incomprehensible than "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is incomprehensible. But when you try to integrate it into your wider understanding of the real world it makes no real sense--which is somewhere between meanings 3 and 6 from Oxford.

That all makes sense, but I really don't understand why he would use the word "others" to refer to people he had already mentioned -- it seems like "them" would be the word in that case. Looie496 (talk) 02:34, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Conventions change over the centuries. If he's not specifically referring to those he's already mentioned, who themselves were never specified, then he's referring to the usual contemporary "they". μηδείς (talk) 04:54, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Luxembourgish translation needed

Hello, can anyone point me towards a speaker of Luxembourgish? I'd like to get a translation of lb:Bernard Molitor done. -- Hex [^t/_c] 16:32, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

You might ask on the page Talk:Luxembourgish language (even though that's technically not what that page is for). Or assuming there is a Luxembourgish Wikipedia, you could go there, find a help page, and ask there in English.Duoduoduo (talk) 16:45, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

The OP's link is to an article in Luxembourgish Wikipedia. I think that's prima facie evidence that there is a Luxembourgish Wikipedia.  :) -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 21:22, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

=) -- Hex [^t/_c] 10:59, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

A speaker of Luxembourgish might be preferable, but if you don't find one, drop me a line on my talkpage - the language is close enough to my native German, I can make out most of the article's contents and probably fill in everything I don't understand with a bit of googling -- Ferkelparade π 16:50, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

You can also look at Wikipedia:Translators available and Wikipedia:Translation for additional suggestions and/or help.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 17:02, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

I understand all of it without being a speaker of the language. There are also printed references in English available. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 18:15, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions, all. (I wasn't aware of the translators list, that's bookmarked now.) I'm going to take up Ferkelparade on his offer. Pp.paul - yeah, plenty of refs; I figured it'd be quicker to translate an existing article and then add refs rather than write one from scratch. -- Hex [^t/_c] 10:59, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

I left a message at Zinneke's discussion page. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 16:48, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Tommy Wiseau - where's he from?

Would any of the cunning linguists here be able to hazard an educated guess as to where noted cinematic eccentric Tommy Wiseau originates from, based upon his accent (there are loads of vids of him on YouTube for those who've never had the pleasure)? He's notoriously cagey about this subject, I'd assume because people have been speculating about it for years now and coming up with some hugely fanciful stories about his past - and thus talking about him, generating 'buzz' for him or whatever. I recall people saying on forums that his accent is definitely *not* a French, or New Orleans accent. It was also stated by someone else (no idea if they were talking sense or not) that 'Wiseau', while sounding somewhat French to a non Frenchman, is not actually a 'real' French name. Personally, I thought that he was Swedish when I first heard his voice. Others have said that he definitely sounds like he's from somewhere that used to be called Yugoslavia. Not sure. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 22:26, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Wow. I have looked at Google, IMDb NNDb and our article, as well as some of its refs, aND I'm not sure there's anything I could say that wouldn't violate WP:BLP. μηδείς (talk) 22:34, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Cunning linguists. That's a good one. 86.183.1.88 (talk) 01:59, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

It must be a couple of decades ago when I first heard Bill Maher invoke that one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:48, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Me too. Not Maher, but that general vintage. Nothing new under the sun, eh. -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 08:54, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

You two are a bunch of master debaters... --Jayron32 11:38, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Your point being ... ?  :) -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 12:03, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

His accent reminds me a bit of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his early movies. Arnold is Austrian; his accent is a sort of modified German accent. Looie496 (talk) 02:21, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

"Wieso" (pronounced somewhat similar to the name) is a German interrogative word meaning "how come" or "why". Of course, this may be a pure coincidence. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 10:05, 20 September 2012 (UTC)