Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 March 11

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March 11

Obscure Spanish spelling question

In the archaic/poetic style of Spanish where pronouns are suffixed to indicative verbs (e.g. quiérote, quiéresme), is a hyphen used in quieren-os (= os quieren) to distinguish that form from quiérenos (= nos quiere)? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 05:19, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

@Lazar Taxon: No reference, but I have never seen a hyphen used. Probably quiérenos would be used or the ambiguous and awkward expression would be avoided.

After a bit of searching I find Colección de poesias castellanas anteriores al siglo XV. It has in the Poema de Alexandro or Poema de Alexandro Magno

quierenvos guerrear.

If you are going to archaic, you can go fully archaic.

I think Asturian or Galician would use such forms currently, but I don't know enough about their spelling. Searching, I found quérenos for nos quiere. --Error (talk) 13:39, 17 March 2022 (UTC)

[Q]uestion

I was reading our article about The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences. It contains a quote from Kant. My question is why the fist letter of that quote is in brackets? I mean the: [W]. Thank you!

Here is the quote: [W]ir auch, gleich als ob es ein glücklicher unsre Absicht begünstigender Zufall wäre, erfreuet (eigentlich eines Bedürfnisses entledigt) werden, wenn wir eine solche systematische Einheit unter bloß empirischen Gesetzen antreffen. [We rejoice (actually we are relieved of a need) when, just as if it were a lucky chance favoring our aim, we do find such systematic unity among merely empirical laws.] --195.62.160.60 (talk) 08:47, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

It means that in the original text, "wir" did not have a capital letter because it was in the middle of a sentence. However, it's being used here as the first word of the quotation, so a capital W is appropriate. The brackets indicate that, strictly speaking, it's not an exact quotation. --Viennese Waltz 09:27, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

I'll just note that in less formal writing people wouldn't worry about that issue. --184.144.97.125 (talk) 09:57, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

It is a strange clipping from the full text, because it does not stand on its own as a main clause in German but forms a kind of ungrammatical Yoda speak. German obeys V2 word order, which means the finite verb of a main clause is always in the second position. The finite verb of this fragment, werden, is separated from the first-position [W]ir, and not just by a little.  --Lambiam 16:42, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Indeed. In the original it's introduced by a preceding daher, which in this case functions as a subordinating conjunction ('which is why…'), hence the verb-final word order. Without the introduction, I had a lot of difficulties parsing it; it's a kind of garden-path sentence. With the preceding conjunction it's far easier to parse, even though it's still not quite straightforward for a modern speaker. I was thinking of adding the introductory conjunction to the quote, although that of course will leave the reader with the question what the logical relation to the preceding context is. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:05, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Crazy Germans! Just their sub-clauses are the same length as an average novel in other languages... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:59, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

In future, we shall have flying cars

Is "in future", rather than "in the future", a UK-ism? Does it sound funny even in UK English? At least in my personal US idiolect, it looks like a typo, i.e. downright ungrammatical if written intentionally. Thanks. 2601:648:8202:350:0:0:0:C115 (talk) 23:55, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

And yet USians are fine with "Actress Gertrude Finkle died today", rather than "The actress ... ". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:01, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Not this USian. Deor (talk) 04:50, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

To this seppo it feels like headlinese. —Tamfang (talk) 04:05, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

It's also newsreaderese. No other humans talk this way, afaik. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:36, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

I think it has a different sense, and means something like next time, and after that. wikt:in future says it means "as of now" but also "in the future". I'm dubious about the latter.  Card Zero  (talk) 04:52, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Without the article, "in future" refers to a future stretch of time. If someone promises to do better "in future",^[1][2][3] that future starts now and extends from there. I think this use is Commonwealth English. To refer to a future event, "in the future" should be used; one can't say, *"In future the Sun will go nova".  --Lambiam 06:18, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

It sounds like a Britishism possibly akin to "in hospital" vs. "in the hospital". --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:17, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Yes: [4] (Phrases) vs [5]. No: we never say "in the hospital" except when referring to something in a specific building. Bazza (talk) 10:16, 12 March 2022 (UTC)