Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 August 14

All-Woman or all-women?
Quick question: Should it be "The film had an all-women crew" or "The film had an all-woman crew" ? TIA. -- thunderboltza.k.a.D e epu Joseph03:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I would say "all-woman". The Jade Knight 04:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * All-female? ;-) --Chris S. 05:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd say "all-woman" too, but from Google it looks like "all-women" is actually more common. --Ptcamn 06:25, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree with "all-woman". We say " a six-man crew", not "a six-men crew", and we say "a nine-month gestation period", not "a nine-months gestation period".  I don't know what the technical rule for that is called, but there seems to be a pattern.   JackofOz 07:03, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * ...a "twenty-year-old", maybe a "seven-foot-long alligator" too. --  THE GREAT GAVINI  {T|C| # } 07:26, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * IIRC, according to my professor who taught me the history of the English language, it's a relic from Old English. I can't remember the details, but its related to two cases having an identical form. --Kjoonlee 10:31, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Old English would use the genitive plural in such situations, and the genitive plural never had an "s" ending in Old English, and frequently had a short unstressed vowel ending (which would be deleted at later stages of the lnaguage)... AnonMoos 14:35, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Google might be turning out more results for "all-women" because it is commonly said like that in a sentence, "Better rights for all women." nadonado. freshofftheufo  ΓΛĿЌ  12:16, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * But "all-women" is hyphenated: the example you gave is not. -- THE GREAT GAVINI  {T|C| # } 15:23, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Google ignores punctuation by default (even if the search string is enclosed in quotes). Is there a way to make it attend to it? It's something I've always wanted for looking up math things, but I don't think you can do that... so yes, a search for "all-women" would return results containing "all women". digfarenough (talk) 15:51, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Not that I know of. Google, by default, seems to ignore all punctuation. freshofftheufo  ΓΛĿЌ  19:05, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I searched for "an all-women" to make sure it was part of a noun phrase. I also compared this with "an all-women's", which was included in the search for "an all-women". --Ptcamn 20:33, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Okay, thanks guys! So all-woman it is. :) -- thunderboltza.k.a.D e epu Joseph08:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

case-endings in Indo-European languages
It is easily conceivable that the ablative or dative case-endings originated from postpositions, but how about the nominative and the accusative? Is there evidence that there were particles that indicated the subject and the object of a sentence in Proto-Indo-European, just like those in Japanese? Curious to know...--K.C. Tang 06:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Case endings regularly derive from serial verbs and postpositions. Evidently dative case markings regularly derive from a word for "give".  I do not, however, know the specific case of IE case origins.  You can see if the Proto-Indo-European articles are of any help.  The Jade Knight 07:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, so the dative was derived from the verb "to give", I always fancy the dative ending was derived from a postposition meaning "to", could you give me an example (in any language)? want to know more.--K.C. Tang 07:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I can't, unfortunately—this is simply what Historical Linguistics (by Lyle Campbell) tells me. It recommends checking out World Lexicon of Grammaticalization (Heine & Kuteva), Historical Syntax in Cross-linguistic Perspective (Harris & Campbell), and Grammaticalization (Hopper & Traugott) for more information and specific examples.  The Jade Knight 04:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah, I just found that we have the article Grammaticalisation!--K.C. Tang 09:27, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * To start, Proto-Indo-European is a hypothetical language. As reconstructed, it is a synthetic language. It may be easy to imagine that the case endings of PIE originated from , but the fact of the matter is that there is no evidence for any hypothetical origin of the case endings of this hypothetical reconstruction of this hypothetical language. --Lambiam Talk 07:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * How dare you suggest that this hypothetical language is hypothetical! The Jade Knight 04:55, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * At least it's not as hypothetical as Nostratic or (gasp) Proto-World. szyslak  (t, c,  e ) 23:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Which English errors drive you the most crazy?
It's me again! I'm back to ask for your input. Right now I'm fixing all occurrences of "an unique" and I got to thinking, "what other English errors could I fix?" So, what drives you crazy? I'll include them in User:Mboverload/RegExTypoFix, which is built-in to AutoWikiBrowser. --mboverload @ 09:46, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * "I/we/you/they of to" instead of "have to" annoys me. As an ESL speaker, I don't get the error, "he has to"/"I have to", simple as that. Don't know if it's an attempt at phonetic spelling or something... 惑乱 分からん 10:05, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You will be familiar with Lists of common misspellings. One I recently worked on is "lead" instead of "led", but there are plenty still. (Pick up context by Googling for e.g. "were lead").--Shantavira 11:07, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * One of my pet peeves is when people put pronouns in the nominative case after a preposition. "There's a special bond between he and I", etc.  JackofOz 11:25, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Wonder/wander/wunder annoy me, but apart from correcting wunder to wonder, I don't think you can program something to catch the confusion. Unless you have some sophisticated AI... Skittle 11:54, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Mistaken usage of the word "what" in place of "which" when setting questions on Wikipedia reference desks. --Dweller 11:55, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * =( --mboverload @ 12:03, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * "Would/should of" instead of "would/should have." That could be fixed automatically, couldn't it? Mattley (Chattley) 12:09, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * My peeve is a little weird. You may know that due to the way the Japanese alphabet is set up, Japanese people have trouble pronouncing consonants at the end of words without affixing a vowel (usually a "u", sometimes an "o") at the end. A number of them do manage to remove those extra vowels but start assuming that every foreign word that is written/pronounced in Japanese with a final "u" or "o" (e.g. Toronto, potato) isn't pronounced with it in real English, so I recieve questions like, "Would you like a potat? Are you from Tront?"
 * After that I guess people who use "could" as the past tense for "can", and then of course, "Your stupid!" freshofftheufo  ΓΛĿЌ  12:14, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I guess Japanese contributors to the English Wikipedia still is a minority, though... 惑乱 分からん 14:40, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * What's wrong with "could" as the past tense of "can"? "When I was shorter, I could fit under here without stooping." Seems fine to me. --Ptcamn 15:43, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It's a misunderstanding that "could" is past tense in that sentence. Consider the example "If I were shorter, I could fit under here without stooping." in which it's a little more difficult to point out what tense is being used. I'm not well versed in English linguistics, but I believe "could" should be considered the conditional form of "can"? Anyways, the types of sentences that twist my jimmies are things like "Yesterday, I could make a new world record!" freshofftheufo  ΓΛĿЌ  19:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It's pointless to talk about the "conditional form" of English verbs, since in all but one case it agrees exactly with the simple past tense. (That exception is of course be.) Just as jumped is the past tense of jump and fell is the past tense of fall, could is the past tense of can.


 * Try these examples on your ear (hopefully you're a native speaker): I can do 60 push-ups without getting tired! Last year, I could only do 40 push-ups without getting tired. When I met him last year, Bill said, "I can speak French, Italian, and Spanish." Bill said that he could speak French, Italian, and Spanish.


 * Ptcamn was correct that "could" is a simple past tense in the sentence "When I was shorter, I could fit under here without stooping". What you're talking about is the result clause of an unreal conditional—the Y part of "If X, then Y" when X isn't true—and the only possibilities in AmE for main verbs there are would, could, and might, if I'm not missing any. I think it's a mistake to try to say that that's the conditional form of "can", and of course it's also false to claim it's the past tense. This is simply the modal could. While sometimes could is a form of can, that is not always the case, as this example shows.


 * In conclusion: you're correct that sometimes could is not the past tense of can, but A) in Ptcamn's example it was, and B) we shouldn't call it the "conditional form" of can either. It's just could. Tesseran 06:07, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


 * There/their/they're, your/you're. Jesus Christ, it's not that hard. I agree that should of and ... for you and I are bad. And by "bad", I mean coma-inducingly horrible. Rueckk 13:05, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * On the subject of "bad", is the expression "My bad" an example of good American English, because it makes my (British) flesh crawl. --Dweller 13:31, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It was coined by a foreign-born athlete. &mdash;Tamfang 04:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It makes my (American) flesh crawl, too. I much prefer mae culpa.  The Jade Knight 04:39, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually it's mea culpa. 惑乱 分からん 11:54, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Misuse of apostrophes; the most abused punctuation symbol in the English language. For a start, things like 100's... TomPhil 13:45, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I find the hatred of "would/should/etc. of" frustrating, since I and pretty much everyone else here actually says "of" — and it's pronounced distinctly, it isn't just a reduced form of "have". I'm not expected to write "faucet" and pronounce it "tap", or write "sod" and say "bugger", so why I am considered an idiot if I write it the way I say it rather than the way you say it? --Ptcamn 15:43, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, they're only homophonous in their unstressed and "reduced" forms. "Have" has a pronunciation in other contexts as [hæv] of course, while until somewhat recently "of" also had a stressed citation pronunciation with a real "short o" vowel (as in "hot" etc.).  This unreduced "of" pronunciation is rare in the U.S. these days, but is listed in Daniel Jones' pronounciation dictionary, and similar works. AnonMoos 16:06, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I live in Australia, where "of" still has a "real short o" (phonetically ). --Ptcamn 16:23, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Then you're demanding that English spelling should value identical spelling of homophones above preserving the visual identity of words between stressed and reduced occurrences of each word. This has little to do with other principles of English-language orthography...  AnonMoos 17:45, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No I'm not. I'm saying that "would of", even when stressed, is, the same as "of". --Ptcamn 18:28, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It's an interesting argument, but it's about what is or is not correct. Using your own analogy, Faucet and tap are both correct. "Would of" is not... and it doesn't really matter if that's how you (or everyone you know) speak. People frequently call the board game "Trivial Pursuits", so does that mean that particular error also shouldn't be corrected? Some people pronounce the word "ask" as "aks". Does that mean that shouldn't be corrected? In any event, no-one worth bothering about would consider you (or anyone else for that matter) an "idiot" for using "should of". --Dweller 16:10, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * What makes it wrong? I'd like proof, not just people saying so. --Ptcamn 16:23, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It's based on a misconception that would've = would of rather than would have. It makes little sense grammatically because of is a preposition in a position where you need a verb. Can't find any detailed explanations, but here are some mentions from usage guides. Mattley (Chattley) 16:39, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Usages guides are just people saying so. Unlike scientific fields, where when making a claim you have to back yourself up with evidence, when it comes to the English language people seem willing to accept whatever's pontificated at them.
 * Who says "of" is only a preposition? Maybe it's both a preposition and a verbal particle, like "to". Where's the evidence?
 * The second one is factually inaccurate. Passing silently (and paraliptically) over the fact that all native speakers are more familiar with the spoken language than the written... It claims that people can't tell "have" and "of" apart in speech, and that's why it's misspelt. But I pronounce them distinctly, as I said, and I certainly say "of", not "have". --Ptcamn 16:48, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The second source doesn't make that claim. It claims that the similarity of 've to of is the original source of the "would of" usage. Many people do articulate the of clearly - on the basis that they have taken it to be "would of". But that doesn't have anything to do with whether the usage is "correct" or not.
 * Usage guides are just people saying so. Yes. But for one thing, you won't find any that endorse "could of" and, for another, that's true of all prescriptive language rules. There is a rationale behind it, which is explained in a little more detail here . But if you don't agree that it's appropriate to take a prescriptivist approach at all then there is not much point pursuing this. Mattley (Chattley) 17:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I commonly write "would've", showing both etymology and pronunciation. Really, it's the best of both worlds.  The Jade Knight 04:42, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm bugged by seeing of written as 've (so far only in comic strips), an example of eye dialect. —Tamfang (talk) 07:37, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

I dislike errors like "wierd", "recieve". I hate it when people confuse "it's" and "its", and quite often "they're", "their" and "there" are mixed up as well. I don't get it, these are spelling errors made by people who are most likely anglophonic. They were born speaking the international language, how come they can be corrected by non-anglophonics? Evilbu 16:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Because just as you said, they were born speaking the language, not writing it. Those errors are all due to the written language not matching up well with the spoken. --Ptcamn 16:03, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Moreover, "it's" was once an acceptable way to spell "its". The Jade Knight 04:49, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

The one minor error that I'm almost 100% certain to correct if I see it in a Wikipedia article is the comma-splice... AnonMoos 17:12, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Here's an error that I find both in spoken and written form. Using X and I instead of X and me.  Such as "this is Matt and I in Paris."  It should be "this is Matt and me in Paris."  I think it comes from the habit of parents to repeatedly correct children who say things like "Me and Matt went to the store" by growling "Matt and I" so they don't get the whole subject object pronoun distinction. AEuSoes1 18:50, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * No, that's correct, if a bit archaic/overformal, because "is" is not a transitive verb and takes (or rather took) nominative compliments. Would you argue that "It is I!" was ungrammatical? --Ptcamn 18:53, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Perhaps I didn't use a good example.


 * "She came back to see Julie and I" is incorrect
 * "Julie and I came back to see her" is correct
 * "She came back to see Julie and me" is correct
 * "Julie and me came back to see her" is incorrect.


 * Children tend to make the fourth sentence's mistake and are corrected with a simple "Julie and I" so they grow up thinking that any "X and self" referent should always be "X and I." AEuSoes1 19:02, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Children? No, people of all ages, walks of life and levels of education make this "mistake". The usual order is "Me and Julie" though. --Ptcamn 19:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * True. But as far as the subject/object distinction it's the same.  I said children because it's my guess that the first sentence's error is due to improper correction.  But the whole point is that it bugs me.  AEuSoes1 20:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm very fond of "grammer", especially when it shows up in edit summaries :) dab (&#5839;) 21:33, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

My number one error of choice would have to be the misuse and abuse of homonyms, such as those mentioned above (their/there/they're, to/too/two/2, your/you're, where/wear(/were - even though it's technically not homophonic), etc.) Seconding that, I guess tense shifts bother me, although that's not as common here and is much more difficult to detect automatically. I edit papers for school a lot and I have yet to find a student who doesn't shift tenses at least once; even I myself am guilty of it although I usually catch it before I submit my final draft. Don't know what else, although I'm sure I could find a whole list if I took long enough. Most of my pet peeves are prevalent in fiction, though, so they're not useful for Wikipedia. — Keakealani •Poke Me•contribs• 23:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

ALOT ALOT ALOT ALOT ALOT!!! Aaadddaaammm 03:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Another one of mine is the incorrect use of the subjunctive, such as "If I would have been here, maybe she wouldn't have died". JackofOz 03:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * A related phenomenon, perhaps, is "I would have liked to have done that," which literally I take to mean that the subjunctive pleasure follows the conclusion of the subjunctive action but concludes sometime before the utterance. &mdash;Tamfang 04:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * How would you rephrase that? The Jade Knight 04:49, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * "I would like to have done that"? DirkvdM 06:52, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Or "I would have liked to do that," putting the pleasure at the same time as the action. &mdash;Tamfang 06:31, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * A related phenomenon to this is, for example, "I wish I didn't lie to John" when you can tell from the context that what is meant is "I wish I hadn't lied to John." That's nails on a blackboard for me. --Tkynerd 01:38, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I've seen hoard for horde, and vice versa, so many times that whenever I see either word used correctly I have an itch of doubt. My favorite misspelling of all time: "Arafat's ability to reign in terror" &mdash; alas I've forgotten where I saw it. &mdash;Tamfang 04:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * What on earth is wrong with 'an unique'? I HATE 'a unique'. It's like fingernails across a chalkboard. But what I hate? You probably won't find it too much on Wikipedia, but it's when people can't decide whether to say 'leery' or 'wary' and end up saying 'weary', as in, "I was weary of letting my boss drive me home after he felt my backside." Anchoress 04:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * For me, "unique" starts with a "y" sound, and "an unique" sounds very wrong. The Jade Knight 04:49, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Keep listening to that voice, because you're 100% correct. The choice of indefinite article in English is determined by the initial sound, not by the initial written letter of the alphabet. --Tkynerd 14:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Of course, if Anchoress pronounces unique as /iwnik/ rather than /junik/ that might explain it. You don't see /iw/ listed in most phonologies of English, but it's definitely in my dialect (although I don't use it in the initial position except for the word "ewe," so "an unique" still sounds wierd to me, but "an ewe" is fine). Linguofreak 17:35, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Evilbu mentioned "recieve" and "wierd". My health ed teacher in high school actually used the spelling "protien" and wrote it on the board. When I dared to correct him, half the class corrected me on the basis that "I always comes before E...". Here are my personal pet peeves, and there are many: szyslak (t, c,  e ) 05:03, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * An apostrophe in plural's and third-person singular verb form's get's on my nerve's.
 * Sentence fragments. Are annoying. For example, when I'm reading a somewhat long introductory clause expecting a comma followed by an independent clause, and I just get a period.
 * Don't fix run-on sentences with a comma, that just turns them into a comma splice. When I tutored writing at community college, people would bring me their papers saying "I fixed all the run-ons". They'd just inserted commas instead. Adding to the confusion, many English/writing teachers used the term "run-on" to mean both comma splices and the classical "fused sentence" type.


 * The word "loose" meant as "lose", but that won't help your browser, I'm afraid. Misspelling "grammer" when used to attack people.  ColourBurst 05:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * "A women" as well. Though I'm not sure if that should be corrected to "A woman" (usually) or just women (very rarely).  ColourBurst 05:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

This doesn't really drive me crazy, I just can't understand why I say it...I sometimes attempt to create another level of aspect to conditional phrases by adding another auxiliary, so I end up with "If I had have (verb)". "If I had have eaten...", etc (but it's always pronounced "I'd've"). I'm not sure what I'm trying to do here, because it doesn't make any sense. I must mean "if I would have", but whenever I try to parse it I always think I mean "had have". Adam Bishop 06:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * This is a common confusion. We say "I could have", or "I should have" or "I would have", but not "I had have".  Because we're so used to saying the first 3, the last one sounds correct .. until you take a closer look.  But you definitely should not be saying "If I would have .." - see my earlier post about subjunctives.  It would be more like "If I had, then I would have ".  JackofOz 23:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Going back to the issue of "me and X:

In my dialect the objective case is used not only with actual direct and indirect objects, but also with conjunctions (regardless of whether a compound subject formed by a conjunction (ie. him and me) would be in that case), as the second argument of "be," in lists (eg "who all's going?" "Them, us, and the dog, oh, and him too.") even when the list consists of one item ("who wants ice cream?" "Me!"), and probably a few other roles. Linguofreak 06:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * 'American' for US citizens. And 'Holland' for the Netherlands and such. DirkvdM 06:52, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * The first is correct (there's no other word for us in English). The second is wrong, or at best sloppy. --Tkynerd 14:11, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * That USians don't have a proper name for themselves is no fault of the English language. Where would you place south America? In Florida? DirkvdM 08:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * What kind of moronic comment is that? Americans already have a "proper" name for ourselves in English, and I just used it. That you don't like it is no fault of the English language. If I were dumb enough to use the expression "south America," which I'm not (South America is in the southern hemisphere), I would logically have to place it in the southern part of the U.S. But there's a reason no one uses the phrase in that sense. --Tkynerd 14:09, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It's my kind of moronic comment. Southa America is only partly in the southern hemisphere, but I'll let that slip (damn, I just didn't, didn't I?). Anyway, your capitalisation trick works in writing, but not in speech. But let me reverse the argument. If South America is a (sub)continent (take your pick), then what would logically be 'America'? DirkvdM 17:55, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It's your kind of moronic comment: No sh*t! Apologies for failing to specify the exact position of every point of the coasts and borders of South America; I do actually know where the name "Ecuador" comes from. My capitalization "trick" is not a trick because no one actually uses the term "South America" to refer to anything but the continent. And if you're contributing to this page, you should have figured out long ago that logic often has nothing to do with language. Sorry that fact troubles you. --Tkynerd 19:55, 16 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Well, there we are. Note the header of this thread. DirkvdM 04:35, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, please do. This is not an English error; it's your personal hangup. --Tkynerd 13:33, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * 'Personal hangup' comes close enough to 'drves me crazy' and 'illogical' comes close enough to 'error'. DirkvdM 05:48, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Back in the days of the Soviet Union, the World Book entry was at "Russia" instead, which only added to the confusion. (I have a 1986 edition, where the infamous "Russia" entry appears in all its glory.) Even though it's just like calling the Netherlands "Holland" or calling the entire United Kingdom "England", there it was, in a major print encyclopedia. Who says them other encyclopedias are more accurate than us? szyslak  (t, c,  e ) 23:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Hasn't anyone expressed his disdain for "I don't no that man!" yet? Well, I also dislike it when they mix up and write stuff like "I wan't" and "I dont". What I said about anglophonics, I learnt Dutch by hearing it, but apart from the many hours of English, French, Latin etc... somehow there was still plenty of hours left to be force-fed all the (constantly changing!) oddities in Dutch spelling. So my question, do US-ers get any English at all at school, how else would they fill up all those hours?Evilbu 17:53, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I chortle at menus which place decorative quotation marks in the text, such as 'Enjoy our "Delicious" burgers made with "fresh" ground beef and served on "soft" buns.'Edison 19:23, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * And then (if this is in the US) when you order they ask "What will be your drink" What, is it my drink already? Does that mean I don't have to pay for it? Well, I certainly won't because I didn't ask for one. DirkvdM 08:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It means, "What drink will become yours as a result of you paying for it?" Although I more often hear, "(Do you want) Anything to drink?" Linguofreak 22:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * They also ask "Would you like a refill ?". Most refills are free, but some are not, and the waiter/waitress never seem to bother telling you which is true in your case.  That makes it necessary to ask or risk paying big bucks.  StuRat 05:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Getting around with my languages in Lebanon
Hello,

when watching the news from Lebanon during this war (which I hope has finally been brought an end too for both sides) I found it odd how many Lebanese spoke English or French. The French seems to explicable because of the country being controlled by the French in the 1920's. But the English? Is it because kids are taught English in schools( compulsory?). Of course many people were interviewed (and subtitled) in Arabic but in my opinion to a lesser extent than in Iraq for instance. I've seen a wounded girl in the hospital (16 or something) who spoke to a journalist in English.

I speak English and French (and Dutch...), if I would go to Lebanon, how would I get by? I mean : in hotels, restaurants, shops (I mean little shops where one buys newspapers or water). Meeting a random Lebanese family, is there a chance of at least one member I could talk too? Is there a huge difference between "normal Lebanon" and Beirut?

Well, lots of questions, I'm interested in all opinions. Unfortunately I must admit I don't plan on going to Lebanon right now. Thanks!

Evilbu 16:14, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I've never been to Lebanon, so I can't tell you about my own experience. However, as for French, it is one of the official languages of Lebanon (see also the Lebanon article). Therefore, I suppose it wouldn't be difficult to get by with it in most places. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 16:25, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * When you google "most Lebanese speak", you get many hits stating something like "most Lebanese speak three languages at least: their native Arabic, French and English". --Lambiam Talk 17:44, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The English prevalence may be because so many Lebanese live in the US, or some day hope to. Danny Thomas and Jamie Farr are two notable Lebanese-Americans. StuRat 20:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * and of course Kahlil Gibran--K.C. Tang 01:02, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Arabic and French are well spoken in Lebanon, esp in Beitut, but Im not sure about Englis.


 * I've been living in Lebanon for a while, and I can assert that most people speak the three languages (especially in restaurants in shops). One reason is that Lebanon is mostly turned to Tourism and the outside world, and second because of French and English mission in the 1800s and before and the French mandate. CG 10:15, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

No subject, no sentence
Has this type of "sentence" become accepted English usage? "Just because you believe it doesn't mean it's true." Notice that those words were not a sentence, because there was no subject. A sentence could be: "That you believe it doesn't mean it's true."
 * "Notice that those words were not a sentence, because there was no subject." Notice that those words were not a sentence, because there was no subject. --Ptcamn 19:10, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Subjects are implicit in the use of the grammatical mood. Sam Korn (smoddy) 19:29, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

"Drop the gun!" is a sentence. The subject "you" is implied. Please respond to the initial inquiry. Can a clause (maybe as a concept) be the subject of a sentence?
 * Noun clauses can. Quoting from the clause article: "That the kid was making so much money bothered me." "That the kid was making so much money" is the subject. --  THE GREAT GAVINI  {T|C| # } 19:41, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * I wouldnt personally have a problem with the clause "just-because-you-believe-it" being the subject of the sentence. Jameswilson 02:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes wish could drop them altogether. At least the first person ones. Sort of thing is easier in Chinese. Am jealous. -LambaJan 02:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Could you move the clause to the end to make "It" the noun? "Just because you believe it doesn't mean it's true." --> "It doesn't mean it's true just because you believe it." (I guess it kinda sounds awkward though) Alex Ng 06:52, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * You managed to smuggle in an extra "it" there. A sentence with essentially the same structure as the original: "Because the doorbell rang meant someone was at the door." That sounds terribly wrong, no? So what makes the other sentence almost acceptable? Just because you hear it all the time doesn't mean it's correct. --Lambiam Talk 08:43, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Just because you can't come up with a rule you can understand doesn't mean it's incorrect. --Kjoonlee 12:03, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

most spoken languages
What are the top 5 or top 10 most spoken languages in the world, in terms of SECOND-language speakers only, i.e. peolpe who learn it as a second or foreign language and not counting native speakers?--Sonjaaa 20:25, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It's extremely difficult to estimate foreign language usage for a variety of reasons, including the variation of fluency involved. 惑乱 分からん 22:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't actually have any proof of this, but I'd guess English is probably in the top ten since it's fairly lucrative at the moment - but Wakuran is right that it would be quite hard to measure. — Keakealani •Poke Me•contribs• 23:07, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Hard to say, because of the definition of "second language"? What is "second language"?  If a person immigrates to a country, still speaks their primary language at home but is fluent in the new country's language, is it still a "second language"?  What about people who speak multiple languages at an early age?  Can somebody have multiple second languages?  How much fluency do you need for it to be a "second" language?  The question is easy to pose but hard to define.  ColourBurst 23:25, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Then what about languages one did not grow up with nor needs for everyday life? Ie it is not the major language spoken in the country/countries one grew up in or lives in. That still leaves countries with more than one language like Belgium and Congo, but there aren't too many exceptions (right?). Fluency is always a problem with determining whether one speaks a language, but the question is about a list, not so much quantification. The most important reason to speak such a language is that it is a lingua franca. Of course English is a big one with 150 million - 1 billion second language speakers. Russian has 110 million, Swahili 30-50 million.
 * Chinese is a bit too complicated for me because there are differnt varieties. And what about French in West Africa. That is the official language in most countries there, I believe, but are the local languages (which must still survive) then second languages?
 * And what about artificial languages. Hardly anyone grows up with those, so they're always second languages. Esperanto has at most 1 million speakers. But what about mathematics and programming languages? No stats on how many people 'speak' these (hold on - 'speak'?). So I don't have a list either, just some pointers. DirkvdM 06:36, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * India and China are (as always with questions on language statistics) the big stumbling blocks: one could reasonably claim that pupils who learn putonghua or Hindustani in schools are, in most cases, learning a second language; similarly for English and French in much of Africa.  But for the classical idea of learning 'a foreign country's language', I'm fairly sure that English is way out in front, followed by the other big European languages - Spanish, French, German.   (An incidental puzzler- why do so many people learn Spanish rather than Italian, even in places like Europe where Latin America has little influence?). HenryFlower 09:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Mandarin Chinese (and it's dialects)is usually considered the most common language in the world. However, there are some minor and independent sources that English is now the most common. These sources count people that are not fluent or illiterate in English, such as people that are learning. Chinese is still first when it comes to native speakers; some put it at a 2:1 ratio to English. --Richman271talk/con 23:32, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


 * That people choose to learn Spanish rather than Italian is most likely, primarily due to the widespread usage in North and South America. The difference in influence and importance between Spanish and Italian in Europe is rather minor. In Europe, Spanish has a number of native speakers probably somewhere between 40 and 50 million, Italy might have a number between 60 and 70 million worldwide, primarily in Europe. I guess the importance of Italian has been declining since the last century. 惑乱 分からん 11:09, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * And more northern Europeans go on holiday to (and buy second homes in) Spain than Italy so theres more motivation to learn a bit of Spanish. Jameswilson 23:22, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * It is not the first time that here, at the Language desk, we find that confusion between natural and programming languages. A programming language cannot express more than some mathematical or logical entities it's been designed to handle (to build your conviction, please rewrite my statement in Pascal). -- DLL  .. T 19:44, 16 August 2006 (UTC)


 * English, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic and French are definitely among the tops for second-language speakers. They're the official languages for the United Nations. Aran|heru|nar 14:40, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Rybka
In what language does Rybka mean little fish, and what is the IPA pronunciation for it?--Sonjaaa 21:44, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
 * It's a Czech diminutive. The standard form is ryba (fish). Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 22:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know how to do it in IPA, but it's pronounced "RIB-kah," with a rolled "r," as in Spanish. -- Mwalcoff 00:26, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe. First syllable stressed.  AEuSoes1 03:52, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * with stress. - THE GREAT GAVINI  {T|C| # } 07:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Is that supposed to be ae-ligature?--Sonjaaa 15:37, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The "Czech language" article seems to say it's a low central unrounded vowel. There's no sign for that in the IPA, and is normally used instead. I guess <ä> is non-standard. --Kjoonlee 16:44, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Oops, sorry. It describes centralization (phonetics), so it's valid IPA. --Kjoonlee 16:46, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
 * So no. :) --Kjoonlee 16:47, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

It is also a diminutive in Russian (рыбка, transliterated as rybka) and probably in some other Slavic languages. Sorry, can't help with IPA.&mdash;Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 18:53, 15 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Russian would be unless I have the stress wrong.AEuSoes1 20:01, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks like the right stress to me.68.100.203.44 05:30, 19 August 2006 (UTC)