Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 December 8

= December 8 =

"payed out"?
The official past tense of "to pay" in virtually all senses is "paid". You'll occasionally see "payed", which is usually wrong, and tends to be listed in dictionaries only as an archaic form. However, in one sense -- to pay out a cable or line -- that spelling seems almost right to me, and perhaps even preferable to "paid out". Am I making this up? Some google searches I just did are suggestive (i.e. that the usage is out there), but by no means conclusive. —Steve Summit (talk) 04:15, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Chambers Dictionary, 1983 ed. shews payed as obsolete except in the nautical sense (paying out a line, as you mentioned). I may have to start using payed, it looks so much nicer on the page. The different verb pay, meaning to smear with tar, has as its only listed past form as payed. DuncanHill (talk) 04:25, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Chambers is British, so I looked at some American dictionaries via http://www.onelook.com. Merriam-Webster and American Heritage both list "paid or payed" in connection with paying out a line, but Encarta does not.  The Random House Unabridged as quoted by dictionary.com says that "payed" is non-obsolete in "senses 12 and 24c", but their numbering is wrong; there is no 24c.  Presumably they mean 30c, which is the sense in question.  12 is another nautical usage, "to let (a ship) fall off to leeward", not mentioned in the other dictionaries.


 * For the other verb "pay" that Duncan mentions, the one about smearing with tar (which I'd never heard of before), M-W and AHD both show "payed or paid" and RHU shows only "payed".


 * --Anonymous, 05:37 UTC, December 8, 2007.


 * Sometimes for the fun of it, I like to make other verbs that end in -ay follow the pattern of lay/laid, say/said, and pay/paid: "I staid there three days", "The children plaid outside", "The donkey braid", "We praid for forgiveness, saying 'We have erred and straid from Thy ways like lost sheep...'", and so forth. —Angr If you've written a quality article... 14:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

The OED (online version) simply says "Past tense and past participle paid, payed." While noting "payed" is "chiefly Naut.", it doesn't mention anything about the form being archaic or obsolete. Pfly (talk) 17:09, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for all the corroborations. (Sounds like I wasn't just making it up!) —Steve Summit (talk) 23:34, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

To perfect in French
How do you say 'to perfect' (ie the verb perfect) in French? Computerjoe 's talk 17:24, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * According to the first dictionary Google gave me, you want 'parfaire'. Algebraist 18:02, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * That's a good word, and so is perfectionner. Wareh (talk) 18:40, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks guys. And be civil, Algebraist :P. Computerjoe 's talk 14:44, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, did that come across as uncivil? I was just citing my sources... Algebraist 15:03, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Pidgin
Sit two people in a room who speak two completely unrelated languages.

What is the first thing they will likely communicate? How long before they can start exchanging abstract concepts?

Any experiments that did this? Caffm8 (talk) 23:57, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Just a conjecture: each would point to him/herself and give his/her name. —Nricardo (talk) 02:36, 9 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I can't help thinking of the poem by Susan Marr Spalding, which appeared in the New York Graphic in 1876 and has been much collected (see below)... Xn4  02:47, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Two shall be born the whole wide world apart;
 * And speak in different tongues, and have no thought
 * Each of the other’s being, and no heed;
 * And these o’er unknown seas to unknown lands
 * Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death,
 * And all unconsciously shape every act
 * And bend each wandering step to this one end,—
 * That, one day, out of darkness, they shall meet
 * And read life’s meaning in each other’s eyes...


 * Yes, there have been. At that stage, though, it isn't called a pidgin, but rather a trade language. Steewi (talk) 02:06, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Expansion - the experiments placed a group of people in a room and watch the constructions. Personal information was pretty early up. Muhlhausler is a good start on reading. Pidgins form when the trade language is used for general communication, rather than situational communication (trade, etc.). It develops more standard grammatical forms and vocabulary, and children learn it growing up. When it is used as a first language, it starts to become a creole. Steewi (talk) 02:12, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * There has been research related to this query with deaf kids -- see Nicaraguan Sign Language. The difference was, these kids had no real language at all, and invented one together. BrainyBabe (talk) 17:37, 11 December 2007 (UTC)