Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 August 14

= August 14 =

Subjunctive in English
Kind of related to the similarly titled question a few threads above. When is it appropriate to use the subjunctive form "if [noun] were" in English? Is it in all occurrences of "if" or only some? 99.137.223.239 (talk) 01:32, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * As ColinFine said in the thread above, the subjunctive is used in contrary-to-fact "if ..." clauses, such as "If I Were a Rich Man" (when one isn't a rich man) or If I Were King (when one isn't king). In clauses of simple futurity or possibility, it isn't used: "If I am ever in New York, I'll look you up." Deor (talk) 01:51, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * And, as was alluded to above, its usage is dying out, except maybe in a few dialects or registers. This song is a contemporary "ripoff" (though that's allowed in music) of the one linked to in the previous post, and in the audio clip you'll notice the lack of subjunctive where it traditionally ought to be.--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 04:27, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I'd say that in formal English prose the contrary-to-fact subjunctive is alive and well. Popular music perhaps isn't the best indicator of general usage, but I'll note that the Beatles sang "If I fell in love with you, would you promise to be true ...", not "If I fall ..." Deor (talk) 04:42, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * However, the only "synchronically productive" constructions where there's a distinct so-called subjunctive inflection are: 1) "were" following first person singular and third person singular subjects ("If I were", "If he were" etc.) and 2) Verbs in certain subordinate clauses with third person singular subject, but no "-s" ending (or "be" with any subject), in sentences such as "I demand that he leave the room", "I demand that we be given five dollars", etc.  In other cases (such as "If I fell"), it can't really be directly proved that it's a subjunctive, since there's no distinctive verb form used... AnonMoos (talk) 09:56, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Anonmoos - actually, a conditional using the past tense is always the subjunctive mood (conditionals in the past tense are always counterfactuals), and I hardly think the usage is dying out (though the grammar on it might be changing). -- Ludwigs 2  05:31, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Anonmoos's point is that except for "be", the past subjunctive and the past indicative are visually and auditorily indistinguishable. So it's unscientific to say that "If I fell, I would have gotten back up" uses subjunctive "fell" rather than indicative "fell". --Atemperman (talk) 06:00, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Hmm. If some pedant were looking for correct uses of the subjunctive and he came across "If I fell, I would have gotten back up", he would give it a big tick (assuming he were an American pedant; others say "got back up"), because it satisfies the form of the subjunctive.  He wouldn't think "Maybe they thought they were choosing the indicative, and just happened to fluke the right answer.  No, I can't give them a tick unless they can convince me they wrote it consciously as the subjunctive".  Would he, now.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   06:22, 15 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Taking more recent answers as a cue, rather than the original question, I'm pretty sure I'd say "If I fell, I would get back up" and "If I had fallen, I would have got back up". The former responds to the question "What would you do if you fell?" - a hypothesis relating to a forthcoming event, perhaps. The latter responds to "But if you had fallen what would you have done?" - a question about something that might have happened in the past, but didn't.  But I don't think I'd ever say "If I fell, I would have got back up" which seems to be a mish-mash.86.135.25.224 (talk) 19:44, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree, I wouldn't say it that way. If you are using "If I fell" as a subjunctive then it should be followed by the infinitive ("get") not the present imperfect ("have gotten"/"have got"). (Although, I'm now a little confused having looked it up on Wikipedia. Our article, conditional mood, which is what we're talking about, is a little unclear - the connection between the three types it lists and the four tenses it lists afterwards isn't made clear.) --Tango (talk) 21:26, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Use of "recently" to refer to a past time period
I'd like some comments on use of the word "recently" in the following passage. Is it okay, in that it's clear by context that it speaks to the framed time period? Is it jarring because it appears to refer to today? Something in between? If you would reform the use, what would you suggest as a change? I have underlined the word for ease of identification. Thanks in advance."In 2005, the top ten movies at the U.S. box office included three adaptations of children's fantasy novels (including one extending and another initiating a series), a child-targeted cartoon, a comic book adaptation, a sci-fi series installment, a sci-fi remake, and a King Kong remake. It was a slow year for Corman: he produced just one movie, which had no American theatrical release, true of most of the pictures he had been involved in recently."--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 02:19, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I find it jarring and personally I often make some awkward, wordy circumlocuting to avoid it when I'm writing. Something like "true of most of the other pictures he had been involved in during the year/(whatever time period) leading up to this." r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 03:01, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I find it natural and not at all jarring. The context with the nearby past-perfect-tense verb clearly establishes the meaning.  --Anonymous, 04:41 UTC, August 14, 2010.
 * The sentence needs rewriting in any case. It doesn't make clear whether what is true is that he produced just one movie, or that it had no American release, or both.
 * Seriously? Are you saying that one possible interpretation is that most of the pictures he'd been recently involved in were the only film made in 2005?  How many "only films" can there be in a given year?  Or are you saying he made only one film per year in the recent past?  Then, how far back does "recently" go?  It would have to be at least 4 years for that interpretation to make any sense, and that's really stretching "recently" in an industry where careers come and go in blinks of an eye.  No, imo the only reasonable interpretation is that most of the pictures he'd been involved in recently had no American theatrical release.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   05:45, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I agree that the recently can only refer to American release, but I don't like the mental jarring caused by the shift in time frame. I would have been happy with "... true of most of the pictures he has been involved in recently", but that is not what was intended.  In formal writing, I would prefer to write something like " ... as had been the case with most of the movies he had produced in the previous (few) years".    D b f i r s   07:20, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks everyone. This was from a minor editing skirmish on yesterday's featured article, where I was changing "recently" to "at that time" and related expressions that made clear recently referred to 2005 and not today. It became mooted when someone determined the specifics and changed it to "the preceding decade."--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:04, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Do the following two sentences differ in meaning?
1. The five best workers were rewarded. 2. The best five workers were rewarded.

Is there any difference in meaning of the above sentences? If yes, what?

Thanks, Vineet Chaitanya121.242.23.197 (talk) 11:42, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Speaking strictly from instinct, I'd say the only difference is in the information you stress - in 1., you want to say that five, and not three or ten workers were rewarded, in 2., you're saying that the five workers who were rewarded were rewarded because they were best. Is this making any sense? TomorrowTime (talk) 12:53, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Usually the two would mean the same thing. However if previous information had said that the workers were divided into groups of five, then the "best five"  might mean the best group, while the "five best" clearly means the five individual best. Looie496 (talk) 19:05, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * The second sentence is actually grammatically questionable. the word 'best' and 'five' both modify the noun 'workers', but 'five' is a quantifier (and thus a noun in its own right), while 'best' is an adjective that assumedly is intended to modify 'workers'.  putting 'best' before 'five' (while common enough in casual language) creates ambiguity, because it's unclear whether five is an object specifier or quantifier (e.g., does this mean the 'best Level Five workers'?).  it's always better to quantifiers first.  -- Ludwigs 2  19:18, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree with Ludwigs: I don't think there's any practical ambiguity in the second, and I think his specific example is far-fetched (If it were normal in this factory to refer to "five workers" to mean "workers of level five", he would have a case, but if that were so there would frequently be ambiguity, and they would have measures to reduce it).
 * I think there could be a slight difference between the two, in that the second could refer to a group of five workers which was the best such group, whereas the first would tend to imply five workers taken from anywhere; but unless it is known that there are such groups, I don't think there would be any difference in meaning. --ColinFine (talk) 12:45, 15 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, there is a clear difference. Really, both sentences assume a list that ranks many workers according to their abilities; Both sentences assume that for every number n, the first n workers on the ranking list are considered to be "the best n workers"; Both sentences assume that the best five workers are better than the others. However, the first sentence (about the five best workers) assumes that just the first five workers on the ranking list are considered to be "the best workers", the others being considered "low level workers" (and likewise, although for every number n, the first n workers on the ranking list are considered to be "the best n workers" ), while the second sentence (about the best five workers) doesn't assume that. Eliko (talk) 20:29, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

How to say "It's what he's been searching for." in French
My initial guess at this translation was the following: "C'est ce qu'il a été recherchant." A friend of mine told me that when you use "a été" it usually indicates that the action is being done to yourself, so that the sentence above would thus mean something about the person being searched, rather than the object being searched for. Is this correct? I would think that this would be the case when rechercer is in the past participle form, instead of the present participle. "...il a été recherché." would mean, I guess, he has been searched, which would indicate an action that is done to the subject. Do both of these cases suggest that the subject is the one being searched or only the latter? My friend's suggestion was to use "...qu'il recherchait." instead, which I recognize as a perfectly valid option, but I was wondering if my oriignal statement was correct given the idea that I'm trying to portray. 24.187.115.154 (talk) 23:23, 14 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Your friend's suggestion (recherchait) is the only one that works. You can't use present participles like that in French, since they are not really a verb form, at least in this case. You could say "en recherchant", where it is a gerund and means "while researching", or you could use it as a noun, "a researcher" although here French happens to use the actual noun "chercheur". "Il a été" always means "he was" or "he has been", in a simple description (although "il était" would be more usual), or it indicates a passive sentence, which I think is what you are describing. Adam Bishop (talk) 04:10, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, French, like many languages, does not have distinct continuous forms corresponding to the English "was searching". "Cherchait" can mean "was searching", "used to search", and even "searched" if the activity is not being regarded as a completed action. See imperfective aspect. --ColinFine (talk) 12:49, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * If you want to insist on the "continuous" aspect, you can use en train de: C'est ce qu'il était en train de chercher. — AldoSyrt (talk) 17:53, 15 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Surely the English phrase implies that he is still searching, so a better translation would be ce qu'il a cherché or even ce qu'il cherche depuis longtemps. -62.49.68.79 (talk) 13:10, 16 August 2010 (UTC)
 * My mistake. I would have said C'est ce qu'il est en train de chercher. But you cannot say ce qu'il a cherché, as in French it implies it's finished. And depuis longtemps (for a long time) seems to be an interpretation (we don't know the context). — AldoSyrt (talk) 17:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)