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

= December 14 =

tin can despots, and tin can regimes
Howdy,

I'm curious as to what "tin can" means as an adjective. I've encountered it as a description of tyrants, despots, regimes, etc, but old man internet doesn't seem to define it. I think it is sometimes written as "tin-can" too. Thank! --JSJ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.210.182.8 (talk) 19:29, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * That'd be a variant of "wikt:tin-pot dictator". Wiktionary has a separate item at wikt:tinpot dictator. The basic idea is "worthless".  --Anonymous, 19:37 UTC, December 14, 2010.


 * The basic idea is a petty tyrant whose pretensions to grandeur far outpace the somewhat squalid reality. AnonMoos (talk) 06:22, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

"Semper Eadem"?
The article HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08) says that the motto of the ship is, and I quote, Semper Eadem ("Always the Same"). Shouldn't that be Semper Idem? J I P &#124; Talk 20:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Semper Eadem was Gloriana's motto, have always seen it spelt that way. DuncanHill (talk) 20:47, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * ...and since eadem is the feminine form of idem, that should be correct. Iblardi (talk) 20:51, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * And ships, like Queens, are female. DuncanHill (talk) 20:53, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. Having studied Latin for six years, I should have known that. Except that those six years were a decade and a half ago, and unlike my native Finnish, and English, Swedish and German, I hardly ever get the chance to exercise my Latin skills. So I tend to forget what I learned. J I P  &#124; Talk 20:58, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Eadem is also the neuter plural, but I guess not in this case. Adam Bishop (talk) 22:15, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * "Blessed are the cheesemakers, for they shall always be the same." Go in peace. :)  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   08:11, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Rule of inflection of English adjectives derived from participles.
Greetings, I'm somewhat confused by the declension of certain adjectives in English.

As far back as I can remember, the rule has been that ALL adjectives derived from INFINITE TENSES of VERBS form their comparative and superlative forms with "more-" and "most-" respectively.

--> eg.        dreaded  more dreaded  most dreaded boring  more boring   most boring

This rule even applies to one-syllable adjectives (where the "-er" and "-est" inflections are usually preferred).

--> eg.        bent     more bent     most bent

Increasingly, however, I'm encountering words which seem to side-step this rule.

--> eg.        acute    acuter        acutest intense intenser      intensest obtuse  obtuser       obtusest

I always assumed that because these adjectives came to us from PARTICIPLES in Latin and/or French, that the same rule applied here as it did in the above examples.

-->eg. acute   more acute    most acute intense more intense  most intense obtuse  more obtuse   most obtuse

Though the "-er" and "-est" declensions seem commoner than before, can they really be considered proper?

Or is this simply another case of pop-culture eroding the language?

-->eg. the winningest coach in NBA history. Pine (talk) 21:16, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The language was being eroded in 1865, when Lewis Carroll wrote the novel Alice in Wonderland. See Curiouser and Curiouser and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Wikiquote.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 23:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * It has nothing to do with pop-culture. I don't know specifically about there being a rule that all loaned participles must take "more/most", though for your particular examples, I would agree that only "more acute/intense/obtuse" are acceptable in formal usage. The increasing use of -er and -est is simply a common linguistic phenomenon known as "generalization", where speakers of a language, given multiple means of expressing an identical idea (in this case comparative "more/-er" and superlative "most/-est"), tend to generalize one pattern to more and more situations. Generalization is not a sign of "degradation" or "erosion" of a language; many things present in modern standard English emerged as generalizations from earlier stages of the language. If it weren't for generalization, for instance, we wouldn't be forming the possessives of all singular nouns with -'s, but would also have -n and -a (Old English genitive case endings) alongside.
 * As for "winningest", whenever I've heard it, it's been rather tongue-in-cheek. Voikya (talk) 23:35, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Acute, intense, and obtuse are not past participles in English, and the fact that they're etymologically derived from Latin past participles simply plays no role. The correct formation of their comparative and superlative is decided purely by the same rules that decide comparative/superlative formation of any other English adjective. To my ear, acuter and acutest sound fine, while intenser/intensest and obtuser/obtusest sound a little strange but not flat-out wrong. I think winningest has to be considered an exception; I'd say its comparative equivalent *winninger as well as their opposites *losingest and *losinger are all completely ungrammatical. Winningest probably started out tongue-in-cheek, but I'm not sure it still always is. 85.178.81.116 (talk) 00:06, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * And this really shows how much variation currently exists. I personally would use "more/most" with all of "acute", "intense", and "obtuse", though I don't even think I'd notice anything weird if I heard someone say "acuter" or "intenser" (though "obtuser" sounds a little weird to me). And "losingest" sounds perfectly fine to me (in casual speech only, of course). Again, it feels a little tongue-in-cheek, but definitely not ungrammatical. (And maybe people do use "winningest" as a perfectly normal adjective, but I guess I don't hear it enough to have actually noticed) Voikya (talk) 03:06, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * To me, "winningest", while not particularly elegant, serves a useful function. "Most winning" has an alternate meaning, i.e. most charming (though I dare say there are few coaches to which that would apply). Never mind. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:50, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have never met the rule you quote, and while I can quite believe that somebody may have concocted it in an attempt to describe English, I greatly doubt that it has any validity as stated. The simpler "rule" I am familiar with is that monosyllables form their degrees with "-er" and "-est", while polysyllables do not. This rule is clearly not accurate, but it does express a general tendency, and since the majority of adjectives derived from participles are polysyllabic, it subsumes your rule. --ColinFine (talk) 00:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Japanese numbers
Hi, in ひとつ, ふたつ, みっつ, etc., can any independent meaning be ascribed to the element つ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.161.83.190 (talk) 21:45, 14 December 2010 (UTC)


 * If any can, then the same question might be asked about -dai, -hiki, -hon, -mai, and -nin. All six suffixes are represented at Counters In Japanese, under "Counting with Counters".
 * —Wavelength (talk) 00:48, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * Actually, I already looked at Japanese counter word, but found no mention of it (well, the numbers ひとつ, ふたつ etc. are listed, but there is no mention that I can see of the つ part being a counter). Do you think it should be added? 86.161.83.190 (talk) 01:17, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * According to http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/tsu, tsu (hiragana つ) is a counter for small items.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 01:27, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * [I am correcting my English spelling.—Wavelength (talk) 01:30, 15 December 2010 (UTC)]
 * Be bold and add it! Oda Mari (talk) 05:14, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * According to it's a counter suffix and it can be written with the kanji 箇 or 個, which are also used for the counter こ. I've never seen it written with kanji, though. I think it's a bit different from the other counters since most of them were imported wholesale from Chinese, but ひとつ etc. precede the era of Chinese influence. At least two other pre-Chinese counters survive, り for people and か for days, so there was apparently some kind of counter system already. It would be nice to have an article or section on it. -- BenRG (talk) 05:15, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Is mad offensive?
Is using "mad" or "madness" when referring to insanity offensive? Someone on the science desk recently said it was, and that surprised me, because it seems to be a very old and common usage. Ariel. (talk) 23:30, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Being old doesn't mean that it isn't offensive today. There was a time when a word like "retarded" was considered value neutral, and was routinely used by doctors in diagnosing mental handicaps.  When it became a school-yard insult, it became an offensive word through usage; but it was not devised as offensive.  -- Jayron  32  00:12, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Nobody seems to have baulked at The Madness of King George and insisted on The Insanity of King George. If the person is removed from the speaker by historical distance or lack of personal acquaintance, it seems to be OK to call them mad.  But not if they're members of the speaker's family or social/work group.  Then again, ....  --  Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   00:20, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't imagine it being used in a professional clinical sense in modern times. That usage is obsolete I think. 86.161.83.190 (talk) 01:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that referring to 'insanity' isn't potentially as offensive. It depends on the context though. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I think it's more the case that 'mad' is associated with, and conveys an image of, a cartoony version of mental illness that actually fits very few or no real people with mental illness: the image of a dangerous, deranged person, talking to invisible people, randomly throwing things, shouting half their words, laughing uncontrollably as they attack random passers by, detached from reality. Real mental illness is hugely varied and has all sorts of different impacts on people's lives, so that one person with mental illness might be able to live the life they want simply by taking the appropriate medication, and only their closest friends and family would know, whereas another might have to make allowances for their illness and schedule plenty of downtime, or avoid certain situations, and another might find their illness makes it difficult to keep up with fulltime employment simply because they stop being able to concentrate, and another might need a permanent carer to keep them safe. Calling these different people 'mad' conjures up a set image of a 'mad' person, which doesn't actually fit them, and is part of what makes mental illness taboo. It is part of why people don't tell anyone they have or had mental health problems, if they can help it, and why people often don't seek medical help in a timely fashion. So yes, it is hurtful and offensive. And, given the proportion of the population that experience mental health problems at some time in their lives, combined with the taboo, every time you use the word you are probably hurting or offending someone who is afraid to tell you so, and adding to the atmosphere that keeps them afraid of someone finding out. 86.161.208.185 (talk) 14:18, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * But that's kind of a side issue that will come from naming any group with a single term, not necessarily from the word "mad" itself. Lumping a group of people together and calling them "insane" or "mentally challenged" or whatever contains the same danger. I don't know if I'd call the word "mad" itself particularly offensive, but it's a tricky word to use: in the US, "mad" often gets used as a synonym for "angry" rather than crazy/insane, while in the UK I think it mostly gets used in situations that are obviously hyperbolic "He parked there? Is he barking mad?!" When I think of it being used as a serious diagnosis (whether medical or informal), I pretty much just picture Alice in Wonderland. Matt Deres (talk) 17:41, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * In the United States, "mad" never refers to insanity except in a handful of compound words and fixed phrases, like "to go mad", "madman", "madness", etc. When the adjective is used on its own, it invariably means "angry". L ANTZY T ALK 03:48, 17 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Is bipolarity considered a mental illness? When someone "gets mad", then their angry side comes out, and can result in destructive actions. Hence the plea of "temporary insanity". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:40, 16 December 2010 (UTC)