Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 March 30

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

March 30

Personal conversations with royalty

When conversing with royalty, one is required to use the third person rather than the usual second.

• "Does Your Majesty wish to see the photos of my operation?", rather than
• "Do you wish ..."

Since the speaker is pretending to be enquiring about some third party, why is it "Your Majesty" rather than "Her/His Majesty"? Or have I got it wrong, and the question should be "Does Her Majesty wish ..."? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:05, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

According to This, which seems quite official, there are no required forms of address, only traditional ones. Which is to say that no one will do anything to you if you don't use the proper forms of address; other than seeming a bit gauche. That page states prominently, at the top, in the first sentence, "There are no obligatory codes of behaviour when meeting The Queen or a member of the Royal Family. It does go on to describe traditional forms of address, which are not much more stringent: One is only expected to use "Your Majesty" on the first introduction, afterwards "Ma'am" is sufficient; which other than the initial "Your Majesty" on first meeting, is not that different from how many English speakers would interact with someone they are not that familiar with. There is also nothing there about not directly addressing the queen. It appears you're perfectly fine, once properly introduced, to just talk with her using normal polite forms of English. --Jayron32 12:19, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

• Jayron's source may be quite official for the monarch of the UK (and other Commonwealth realms), but it might not be relevant for the monarchs of Belgium, Norway, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Japan, or various other countries. However, at least for Europe it's likely a good start. --184.144.97.125 (talk) 14:19, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

• Oh, absolutely. I can think of a country like Thailand for example, which while similar to the UK in that it is a constitutional monarchy with a limited role for the monarch, in Thailand there are serious criminal penalties for being disrespectful towards the royal family, this is referred to historically as lèse-majesté; in the UK, AFAIK, there is literally no lèse-majesté laws remaining which are enforced. Lèse-majesté in Thailand describes the situation in that country. The Lèse-majesté article describes the situation in several other European countries (including some non-monarchies) and there are some countries, such as Belgium and the Netherlands, that take a more UK-style approach, while Spain, for example, still seems to enforce lèse-majesté, but only against some of the more violent or "offensive" acts, not for merely "not showing proper deference" to the monarch. --Jayron32 14:56, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Unfortunately I can find no good references, but it seems consistent grammatically that while you address them normally in the second person (hence the 'your'), the object or subject is never their personhood, but instead a particular characteristic of theirs, in this case, their Majesty. In other cases, it would be their Honor, Lordship, Holiness, etc. — Aᴋʀᴀʙʙıᴍ ^talk 13:00, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

A similar usage in Spanish, where the formal way to say "you" is usted, which is short for vuestra merced - "your grace". --←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:26, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Style_(form_of_address)#Monarchies uses the term "oral address" for speaking to a person directly but there's no article on that, so I think this is Wikipedia's best. It does give the oral address for several countries besides the UK, including Japan, Belgium, Spain, Saudi Arabia... 70.67.193.176 (talk) 20:09, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Also note that a similar style used to be found amongst obsiquious shop assistants; "Would sir like that gift wrapped?" for example. Alansplodge (talk) 14:04, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

This is because English no longer has a T-V distinction. It used to, with "thou" (informal/personal/singular) and "you" (formal/deferential/plural). The "thou" form got dropped in the transitions from middle to early modern to modern English, and the "you" form took on all uses. Because "you" was now used for informal forms of address, the use of honorifics like "sir" or "ma'am" when directly addressing someone has taken on the role where a more formal pronoun would be needed. --Jayron32 12:07, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

In the wild crags of Refdesquia dwells a Perpetuity, one of the legendary Grand Tutnums, known for their fabulous wisdom. Seekers of the truth wishing to consult the Grand Tutnum of Refdesquia cannot do so directly, but must channel their requests through a sybil, a mere mortal. So, approaching the sybil, these seekers will phrase their questions, like, "Would Your Grand Tutnum tell us the difference between a guitar and a ukelele?" It would be strange indeed if they used "Her Grand Tutnum", but on receiving the reply (through the sybils mouth) that the seeker should start by reading the Wikipedia articles guitar and ukelele, they might tell a fellow seeker, "Her Grand Tutnum referred me to Wikipedia."  --Lambiam 14:39, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Why are these similar symbols so important to distinguish? Hyphen, dash, minus, ndash, mdash, etc.

A question was posted at the Wikipedia Help Desk, here: Wikipedia:Help desk#Reasoning behind "ndash". This caught my eye, and it got me to thinking. There are tons of “rules” (or conventions) that distinguish between the uses of the dash, ndash, mdash, hyphen, etc. (And I assume that there are even more similar symbols out there, for example, the minus sign, a horizontal line/dash, etc, etc., etc.). So, from a proofreader’s or writer’s point of view (e.g., a Manual of Style), it seems like a big difference when deciding the proper symbol to use. My question is … why is this such a “big deal”? I mean … from the reader's point of view ... does the human eye really notice such minor/trivial distinctions? (I assume not. But who knows?) If the human eye can barely distinguish between all these distinctions, why are these distinctions so important and employed? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:02, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Personal observation: The eye of the human being signing this post can certainly notice and distinguish among hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes (to say nothing of 2-em dashes and 3-em dashes) but especially in certain fonts has trouble distinguishing between en dashes and minus signs. Admittedly, I've worked for a time as a copy editor, but I don't think that the ability to "distinguish between all these distinctions" is confined to professionals. (Even in the days of typewriters, when en dashes were not an available option and hyphens had to do duty for them in typewritten documents, typists would use an unspaced pair of hyphens for an em dash.) I'd say that if you really can't see any difference between hyphens and dashes and between en dashes and em dashes, it's you who are in that way outside the mainstream. Deor (talk) 16:17, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

The deal is, these are not identical symbols because they don't have identical functions. A hyphen, a minus sign, a negative sign, an endash, an emdash, an underscore, a strikethru, etc. are all fundamentally just "horizontal lines", but they all have different functions and uses; and so a well-designed typeface will have distinguishable characters for all of them. In the typeface rendering this text on my monitor, I can tell the difference between - and – and — (each is progressively longer). Whether or not a particular typeface does a good job of distinguishing them is irrelevant, however, they are all different characters with different uses and meanings, and so should each be used appropriately. Whether on your chosen method of viewing the text a hyphen and an endash look different enough that you could tell them apart is not relevant to the discussion; that's a you problem. The characters are different and should be properly used. It would akin to using n in Spanish instead of ñ. Those are not equivalent, and if we want to be correct, we need to use the correct character. Just because you don't recognize a meaning behind the little squiggle over the n, doesn't mean that it shouldn't be there. In the same way, using a hyphen where an endash is needed is just as wrong. All of THAT being said, style decisions are somewhat arbitrary; one could simply use the same character for all of these, we don't because we decided the difference in usage needs to be reflected by using different characters. That was a choice made in setting up the Wikipedia Manual of Style, and since we're all here editing Wikipedia, we are agreeing to do so abiding by the already established MOS. If you wish that the Wikipedia community had made a different choice, feel free to start a discussion somewhere asking for a change to the MOS. I would highly recommend against it, given that the Dash Wars have gone on for decades, and the current cease fire is doing us quite nicely, TYVM. But, you are within your rights to start a discussion to change the MOS guidance on dashes. --Jayron32 16:26, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Another personal observation: Recently, in adding coordinates to new articles on geographical locations, I've noticed a number of cases in which em dashes were used rather than en dashes in ranges of years ("structure X was built in 1846—1849" instead of "structure X was built in 1846–1849"). These always immediately leap to my eye, and I emend them. Deor (talk) 16:42, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Hmmmmm ... you guys seem to be missing my point. Yeah, OK ... long-time faithful Wikipedia editors (i.e., people who reply to "Language Reference Desk" questions) probably can -- and do -- notice the (very subtle) nuances in difference with all these symbols. The average reader, I think, does not. I was reading Will Smith–Chris Rock slapping incident. Go into the general public ... and ask if that symbol is a hyphen, a dash, an ndash, an mdash, or whatever ... 90+% of people (A) will have no idea what you are even talking about ... and (B) will not get the correct answer. Furthermore, ask them: what is the correct symbol that should be used in this case ... again, 90+% of people (A) will have no idea what you are even talking about ... and (B) will not get the correct answer. So, I am asking from the reader's perspective. We now (with computers and software) have millions of different fonts ... which makes these distinctions even more subtle, nuanced, and less easily-distinguished to the untrained eye. Also, to a comment above: yes, when you type the three symbols right next to each other, back-to-back, the difference in length is noticeable (and obvious). But, of course, when we employ these symbols in writing (in real life), they "stand alone" and are not typed near other similar symbols to offer the reader a visual reference point / comparison. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:02, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

The general public also speaks (a variety of) very different styles of English than we write in Wikipedia. We write formal English in Wikipedia, not any of the various colloquial dialects nearly all English speakers use in normal conversation. No one actually speaks like what is written in Wikipedia articles. We still write that way, because it is the style we have chosen. Again, that you can't tell the difference (I have no idea how you are extrapolating your unique experience with that of the "average reader"; this is a common if terrible way to understand the world, but whatever), but even if we suppose that the average reader doesn't pay attention to it, that has no bearing on whether we do it. Hanging out at the bar with my friends, I absolutely do not speak like I write in Wikipedia articles. And that's okay, because we use different registers in different environments. The linguistic register appropriate for Wikipedia is formal written English, and in the style of formal written English we have chosen to use at Wikipedia, we make distinctions between different kinds of horizontal lines. --Jayron32 17:57, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

I think this is a question of typography, which I would distinguish from language per se, though there are certainly overlapping concerns. But these picky details contribute to a professional look, and we might as well get them "right".

That said, I don't know that I would have noticed the difference between the different sorts of dashes before editing Wikipedia, even though I had certainly come across them when using LaTeX.

ObXKCD --Trovatore (talk) 18:13, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

User:Jayron32: Again, you are totally missing my point. Or perhaps my question was not clear. I am not asking anything about Wikipedia policy, or Wikipedia MOS, or Wikipedia, at all. I am asking about these symbols in the English language, or print, in general. Nothing at all to do with Wikipedia. Which seems your focus. A vast majority of people (in the general public) cannot distinguish things such as "its" from "it's" ... or "there" from "their" ... or a colon from a semi-colon. You think they can distinguish the nuances of a hyphen, dash, ndash, mdash, etc. ... ? I think not. Most people never even heard of those terms ... much less, understand them ... much less, employ them ... and much less, employ them correctly. Once again, I am asking about the reader's perspective, not the writer's. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:10, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Case in point: the Will Smith–Chris Rock slapping incident article has been bouncing back-and-forth between using a dash, hyphen, ndash, etc., a few times now. And the article is only one day old. And that's from Wikipedia editors ... a small slice of the "general public". Who, presumably, know about -- and care about -- such things (by definition of being a Wikipedia editor). And even that small sub-set of the general population can't get this (example) straight. But, again, I am not asking about Wikipedia. It was just by coincidence that, today, I (consecutively) read these two items ... Wikipedia:Help desk#Reasoning behind "ndash" ... and Will Smith–Chris Rock slapping incident ... and it made this question about dashes pop into my mind. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:16, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

There is a small, but vocal, group of editors who appear to have nothing of any value to contribute to Wikipedia and so invent ever more complex and incomprehensible "rules" about what length lines to use in order to give themselves an excuse for being here (and to give themselves something to argue with each other about). Most of the time they are pretty harmless, but god preserve anyone who dares to point out just how (at best) irrelevant their activities are to the rest of us. DuncanHill (talk) 18:22, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, what you say is probably true. But, this happens in the "rest of the world", too ... i.e., in real life ... not just in Wikipedia. The "issue" about various dashes, that is. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:28, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

@Joseph A. Spadaro: What you've said may be true for most human readers, who use their eyes to read text, and will undoubtedly use context to work out the meaning of whatever dash is being used. They will realise that 2002-2022 is (probably) a range of dates if it's in a context which include a reference to time; or is an instruction to perform some maths to obtain -20 if it's in a mathematical context. Others who read text — such as machines or software — may not be as smart as that, but will recognise easily an en-dash (with a Unicode value of U+2013) or minus-sign (U+2212) when they come across it and know how to treat it. If the software is a reader for humans who cannot (or prefer not to) read text off the screen or paper, then it may also use the differing dashes to improve functionality; perhaps producing "two thousand and two to twenty twenty-two" for 2002–2022, or "minus twenty" for 2002−2022. Bazza (talk) 18:50, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

These symbols are used in well-made books, and have been for centuries. I think people only stopped distinguishing them when they started using typewriters that have only a limited amount of letters and so do not have separate minus, hyphen, endash, emdash. Now that we have overcome the limitations of typewriters, people are using them again, for example on Wikipedia. —Kusma (talk) 18:32, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

@Joseph A. Spadaro: Take every single word and sentence I wrote above, and replace the word "Wikipedia" with the phrase "The writers of style manuals" or similar. It is now 100% applicable to formal writing outside of Wikipedia. For example, let's try the following responses instead of what I wrote above:

The deal is, these are not identical symbols because they don't have identical functions. A hyphen, a minus sign, a negative sign, an endash, an emdash, an underscore, a strikethru, etc. are all fundamentally just "horizontal lines", but they all have different functions and uses; and so a well-designed typeface will have distinguishable characters for all of them. In the typeface rendering this text on my monitor, I can tell the difference between - and – and — (each is progressively longer). Whether or not a particular typeface does a good job of distinguishing them is irrelevant, however, they are all different characters with different uses and meanings, and so should each be used appropriately. Whether on your chosen method of viewing the text a hyphen and an endash look different enough that you could tell them apart is not relevant to the discussion; that's a you problem. The characters are different and should be properly used. It would akin to using n in Spanish instead of ñ. Those are not equivalent, and if we want to be correct, we need to use the correct character. Just because you don't recognize a meaning behind the little squiggle over the n, doesn't mean that it shouldn't be there. In the same way, using a hyphen where an endash is needed is just as wrong. All of THAT being said, style decisions are somewhat arbitrary; one could simply use the same character for all of these, we don't because we decided the difference in usage needs to be reflected by using different characters. That was a choice made in setting up the various style manuals, and if you are writing according to those style manuals, you use the conventions they establish.

The general public also speaks (a variety of) very different styles of English than is advocated in style manuals. We write formal English in according to style manuals, not any of the various colloquial dialects nearly all English speakers use in normal conversation. No one actually speaks like what is written in style manuals. We still write that way, because it is the style we have chosen. Again, that you can't tell the difference (I have no idea how you are extrapolating your unique experience with that of the "average reader"; this is a common if terrible way to understand the world, but whatever), but even if we suppose that the average reader doesn't pay attention to it, that has no bearing on whether we do it. Hanging out at the bar with my friends, I absolutely do not speak like is written in style manuals. And that's okay, because we use different registers in different environments. The linguistic register appropriate for style manuals is formal written English, and in the style of formal written English the writers of style manuals have chosen, we make distinctions between different kinds of horizontal lines.

Those responses have now been modified to remove every mention of Wikipedia. More relevant is what Kusma said above, typeset books in English have used those distinct punctuation marks (hyphens, endashes, and emdashes) differently for centuries. We didn't invent the concept in the 21st century, it has been around for a very long time. -Jayron32 18:37, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

User:Jayron32 ... I see your reply above (in green font). I will read it and reply later. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:24, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

User:Jayron32 ... Yes, I see what you are saying. I understand the logic -- as it were -- behind these rules and conventions. I just assumed -- perhaps wrongly -- that the human eye can barely "catch" or notice such minute distinctions ... and, with that premise in mind, why such distinctions would be a big deal. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:12, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Years ago, when learning proofing mark-up, a senior editor explained that what proofreaders achieve is consistent usage across a document (or website, today). Though the average reader may not notice/know all the various punctuation marks, people do notice inconsistencies. And they they think, even unconsciously, that the creators of the document/website are unprofessional. Hence why job of proofreader is to make every little instance consistent with the style guide for that particular document.70.67.193.176 (talk) 20:22, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

The importance of distinguishing between them presumably depends on how likely, given the context, that more than one meaning could be valid. For example, someone completely out of the loop might see the phrase "Will Smith-Chris Rock slapping incident" and think it is an incomplete question asking about the consequences of a rock slapping incident involving someone called Smith-Chris: a confusion that could be avoided by use of en or em dashes. Conversely, I don't see a need to distinguish between the minus and negative signs, because as far as I am aware the rules of mathematics (or programming) ensure that it is either obvious which is intended, or that both are equivalent. Iapetus (talk) 10:04, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Quoting from a few of @Joseph A. Spadaro:'s posts: “long-time faithful Wikipedia editors”, “bouncing back-and-forth between”, “probably can -- and do -- notice” and “know about -- and care about -- such things”, I see a consistent distinction between the single dash and the double dash. The double dash is used where most typographers would use an en-dash – or, depending on manual of style, an em-dash. The double dash was used as an alternative to the en-dash on typewriters, which didn't support en-dashes. This tells me that this user knows how to use them. I also notice (also in posts by some other users) double spaces after each full stop. This is another remnant from the typewriter days, ignored by web browsers and therefore invisible on the resulting web page. I can only see it in the edit box. Typewriters could only do a single space or a double space, where proper typesetting would use something like 1.5 spaces, plus or minus a bit to fill the line exactly. Many people here still use typewriter habits.

As for the minus sign, in many fonts this is the exact same symbol as the dash or the en-dash. The encoding table of the font is such that for the minus sign it calls the same drawing procedures as for one of the others. The reason why it's a separate symbol is because in most fonts the plus sign, minus sign and digits have the same width, enabling proper alignment of numbers. Using the minus sign causes proper alignment in nearly all fonts, whereas using the dash or en-dash would work only in a small selection of fonts.

BTW, substitutions of “there” for “their” or similar are terribly confusing for non-native readers of English like me. I wished people were more careful with those homophones. PiusImpavidus (talk) 12:05, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

You may also ask why it is so important to distinguish between the digit ⟨0⟩ and the letter ⟨O⟩. Well, try to connect to en.wikipedia.0rg. If you ask "the average reader" whether this text is presented in a neo-grotesque typeface, they'll likely have no idea what you mean by that. Then why do typographers make such a fuss about classifying typefaces and typography in general? Well, the consistent application of well-designed rules and conventions aids the average reader by making a text more readable, even if said reader is not aware of the rules underlying their reading experience.  --Lambiam 13:35, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

In many (most?) fonts, the "zero" (0) and the "capital letter O" are very hard to distinguish. I have run across this issue many times, ... for example ... when I need to report a serial number for some device, when speaking to some customer service assistant or representative on the telephone. The serial number is usually a very long string of some 15-20 odd characters ... and you really cannot distinguish a zero from a capital O. Over the past many years, this has "forced" me into a habit of writing a zero with a slash through it ( this symbol / ) when I intend to write a zero, so as to distinguish it from a capital "O". Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:34, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Hence the venerable tradition of crossed zeroes, as used in Terminal (typeface) and pretty much every font from the 80s. The weird thing is that in the 90s (with the rise of desktop publishing) we modernized to an older and less sensible tradition.  Card Zero  (talk) 17:40, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Yeah ... and I never knew we had a Wikipedia article for Slashed zero until just now. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:52, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, but not crossed zero. (Edit: redirect created.)  Card Zero  (talk) 18:02, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Years of schooling in science taught me to do things with my handwriting to avoid confusing various similar symbols, including always crossing my zeros, crossing my Z (to avoid being confused with 2), putting tails on my lowercase t (to avoid being confused with +), using a curvy line with lowercase x (to avoid being confused with ×), putting serifs on my capital I (to avoid confusion with lowercase l) etc. Some typefaces do better (or worse) jobs than others in avoiding confusing characters. Use of sans-serif fonts with the state name Illinois has always been a bugbear of mine, [1] but again, that's a "me" issue. --Jayron32 17:49, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Come to think of it, I was schooled since childhood to "slash" my seven symbol ( 7 ), also. Looking back ... not even sure why? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:56, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

To avoid confusion with 1. A common handwriting system used a diagonal ascender for 1 (again, to avoid confusion with l or I) and this diagonal ascender made it look a bit like a 7. To further aid in distinguishing them, a slash was added to 7. [2]. --Jayron32 18:10, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Ah yes, the University of ɬiːnwɑ.  Card Zero  (talk) 18:04, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

As I understand it, if the article Will Smith–Chris Rock slapping incident were titled Will Smith-Chris Rock slapping incident, it would involve slapping someone whose surname was Rock and whose first names were Will and Smith-Chris. JIP | Talk 14:57, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Pie Impavide et al, you are still confusing an en and em dashes. The en dash is wide as the letter n, and em as wide as the letter m, that's why they're called that. The double dash has never, by any sane person, been used in place of an en dash. Read your "most style guides" again. I'm sure some of the confusion around this topic comes from the fact that WP often displays in fonts that have a rudely, immodestly elongated en dash. Yes that is a "you problem" on the user's end, but it is not the users' faults; it's because somebody fucked up along the way. Temerarius (talk) 06:35, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Hmmmmmmm ... I think they meant that: in the olden days (i.e., using the typewriter), people would type a double-dash as the next-best-substitute for the (unavailable) ndash key or mdash key. And that this ingrained habit from the olden days of using typewriters carried over to today, with the use of computers, keyboards, software, word-processing, etc. I believe that was the point being made. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:10, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, all! Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:12, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Resolved