Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 January 24

= January 24 =

"ff" at the start of names
There appear to be a small number of names in English which begin with "Ff" or "ff". (For example, novelist Jasper Fforde). What is the origin of this? My only guess would be that it's from Welsh, but that's hardly an educated guess. (And regardless of origin, why is the first F sometimes not capitalised? Something to do with the ﬀ ligature not having an appropriate version?) -- 203.97.105.173 (talk) 06:56, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * As in Rose ffrench, 1st Baroness ffrench — and she's Irish. kwami (talk) 07:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * We had a little discussion about this back in November. See Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 November 26. --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   07:25, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * That could almost be a candidate for a "frequently asked ref desk questions" page, as discussed farther up this page. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * ffrequently asked questions maybe? Tinfoilcat (talk) 12:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The "double f at the beginning of a word instead of upper-case F" thing is more Scottish than Welsh... AnonMoos (talk) 13:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the replies. -- 203.97.105.173 (talk) 19:40, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * On the BBC's Antiques Roadshow last night, there was a Welsh alphabet teaching aid, and the ff character was on it. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:52, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * In Welsh, ff is treated as a single letter (pronounced as a soft f, with a single f being pronounced v) - as are dd, ll and several others - see Welsh orthography. Ghmyrtle (talk) 13:10, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Which sentence is correct?
Which of the following two sentences is correct:

1. There is a boy and a girl in the garden. 2. There are a boy and a girl in the garden.

To me a non-native speak English speaker the first sentence sounds better but grammatically second looks correct. 121.242.23.197 (talk) 07:23, 24 January 2010 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya
 * The first is correct. The only way you'd see "are" is in, for example, "There are some boys in the garden". r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 07:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * (ec) The first one does indeed sound better, being easier to enunciate. But as for correctness, only the second one ticks the boxes.  If it were "There ... two boys in the garden", there'd be no doubt as to what word would fit - "are", because it's a plural subject.  Same for the plural subject "a boy and a girl".
 * But both of these alternatives could and almost certainly would be replaced by "There's a boy and a girl in the garden" in colloquial speech. There's has virtually become the default norm, regardless of the number of the subject.
 * It doesn't really work to make the back formation "there is" to apply to all situations, but I'm sure there *are* those who'd make a case for it. --  Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   07:40, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * It's almost the same reason you say "it is raining cats and dogs". Cats and dogs are actually the object in that sentence so it's not exactly the same, but in "there is a boy and a girl", the boy and the girl are appositive to the impersonal construction "there is". The main subject is "there". As you said, the only time this doesn't work is if the following word is a number. Adam Bishop (talk) 07:54, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems like the sentence is short for "there is a boy and there is a girl in the garden". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:04, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * @ Baseball Bugs: That seems rather ... synthetic to me.
 * "A boy and a girl ... in the garden" - is it 'is' or 'are? Only 'are', obviously.  Turn it around to the "There is/are" form, and nothing changes, syntactically speaking.
 * @ Adam Bishop: It's one thing to say "It's raining cats and dogs" (although I disagree that "cats and dogs" is the subject: that is the object, the subject being "it"), but would you ever say "Look, there is cats and dogs running all over the garden"? I hope not.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   08:17, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * @Adam Bishop: "There" is almost certainly not the subject here. In generative syntax (at least the versions that I'm aware of), boy and girl are considered to be the subjects and "there" is an expletive. And even in high school style prescriptive grammar, they teach that boy and girl are the subjects (although I believe they call it "empty subject" or something). r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 08:21, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * My construct assumes the first sentence is correct, which I'm not so sure of. If you change it to "there is 2 children", it doesn't sound right at all. If you switch it around and say "in the garden there is a boy and girl", that doesn't sound right either. So maybe "there are" is correct. I wonder if there is an actual English major and/or someone with an English grammar textbook reading this page? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:27, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This doesn't exactly answer the question, but it might provide some insight on pinning it down. My old Webster's doesn't have a grammar section as such, but under "there" it has some usage notes which includes this: "There is sometimes used with some intransitive verbs, frequently to be, as an anticipatory subject, as in once upon a time there lived a king who had three sons." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:53, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah well. I was just trying to make a case for it, as Jack suggested :) Adam Bishop (talk) 08:55, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm no English major, and I never heard of the term "anticipatory subject" until I looked up "there" in the old dictionary. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:38, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * One style book on my desk says, "After introductory here and there a singular verb is usually preferred when the logical subject consists of substantives joined by and, with the first one singular in number" (Words into Type, p. 355). Deor (talk) 11:19, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I found this. But...which one is correct? Oda Mari (talk) 16:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

How about "the king and the queen"? I think that "Here are the king and the queen" - is grammatically correct, and this is also the case when "here" is replaced by "there", right? However, "there are a king and a queen" - doesn't sound correct, probably becuase of the "a" following the "are". HOOTmag (talk) 17:14, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe it's the specificity. You might also say, "There are Jack and Jill in the garden." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:11, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This is a different sentence structure, and a different "there". It's not existential, it's "pointy" (i.e., you say it as if you're pointing to them). There's the king and queen! doesn't mean "the king and queen exist", it means "hey, i see the king and queen right there!" (If you don't believe me, many other languages express these two concepts in entirely different ways. For example, French has il y avait un roi et une reine for the existential, and Voilà le roi et le reine! for the pointy.) Incidentally, the other thing that makes this sentence different is definiteness: sentences with "the" are more likely to have the pointy reading, sentences with "a" more likely to have the existential. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 20:44, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes. That was another of the usages mentioned in Webster's: Basically using "there" when "that" is what's really meant. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:56, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I would never use "there is" in that construct. To me, "there are" is the only correct usage.  Woogee (talk) 22:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * That said, for me, There is has become almost like Spanish hay as an indeclinable form for number in colloquial speech. I still use it correctly in writing. Steewi (talk) 01:59, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Usually in English, whatever sounds correct is correct. ~ A H  1 (TCU) 19:54, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I notice that different people have different absolute ideas of what is appropriate. There is no central regulating authority in the English language, so is it possible that there is no single standard for this case?  Also, perhaps it could be different in US English, UK English, Australia English, etc?  Just a thought... Falconus p  t   c 22:18, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * American and British English differences was what I was thinking too. "There is Manchester United in the garden" vs. "There are Manchester United in the garden", and all that. -- 174.21.135.237 (talk) 04:39, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Although, "There are the Yankees on the ball field." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:05, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

different words for single meaning
sir i need different words for middle —Preceding unsigned comment added by Schitrasais (talk • contribs) 09:01, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * In what context? A base hit that goes over second base is "up the middle", past the middle infielders. The "middle of the road" politically is "moderate", metaphorically, as opposed to stripe that runs down the middle of a road. We refer to our stomach as our "middle". It's a rather diverse word. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The most obvious synonym for "middle" is "center". In fact, I often use "middle" rather than "center" in contexts where I don't want to commit myself to British or American spelling. +Angr 15:32, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

center, heart, core, mid, intermediate, internal, medium, inside, interior, inner, midpoint, halfway, median, average. . . DOR (HK) (talk) 06:21, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Try a thesaurus. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 06:24, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Usage of "enough"
The word "enough" is often used with mass nouns, as in "enough water", "enough money", or "enough participation". This sounds fine to my ear. However, I am now trying to write a sentence in which "enough" is used with a count noun: "If the paper is folded enough times to make 63 creases, the 41st crease will be an 'in' crease." This sounds awkward and clumsy to me. Is my unease justifiable here? I could say "sufficiently many times", but I am wondering if that sounds too mathematically formal for a casual audience. Suggestions? —Bkell (talk) 11:14, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * How about: If the paper is folded so as to make 63 creases, ...  ?  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   11:19, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * That's good. Thanks for the suggestion. I'm still curious whether there is something wrong with "enough times" or if I'm just hypercorrecting based on the distinction between "less" and "fewer". —Bkell (talk) 11:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Hahaha, the second paragraph of the hypercorrection article contains a sentence that begins, "Faced with enough exceptions to a rule…" —Bkell (talk) 11:36, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * SOED defines enough as: "adjective. Sufficient in quantity, number, etc.;", which suggests that your usage is correct. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:47, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I've seen "enough times" enough times to convince me it's normal usage. I'm trying to figure out what 63 has to do with 41. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:58, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Taking a wild guess at what the meaning of the sentence might be, I would structure it as "If the paper is folded enough times to make 63 creases, the 41st crease will be an 'inward' crease." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, "inward" is better than "in", but the book I am referencing contrasts "in" and "out" creases, so I am using those terms. The connection between 63 and 41 is that folding a strip of paper in half repeatedly always results in a number of creases that is one less than a power of 2, and 63 is the least power-of-2-minus-1 that is at least 41. In fact the number of folds is irrelevant, as long as there are enough of them so that it makes sense to speak of the 41st one. It turns out that the idea I was trying to explain was wrong, so I ended up removing this sentence anyway. Oh well. —Bkell (talk) 21:40, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't that be 31 rather than 41? 32 is a power of 2, and 31 is 32 minus 1; but 42 is not a power of 2. -- 202.142.129.66 (talk) 22:04, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * When all else fails, try it. :) I assume what they mean by a "crease" is each portion of a fold that helps delineate a smaller square or rectangle. Fold a paper once, you get one crease, which is inward. Fold it again, the opposite direction, and you get 2 "long" creases, except the "long" creases forms the edges of 4 squares, hence 4 "short" creases (3 of them inward, 1 outward). Fold it crosswise a third time and you have 8 squares bordered by 10 short creases. Fold it crosswise a fourth time and you have 16 squares bordered by 24 short creases, of which 10 are outward and 14 are inward, if I counted correctly and if I'm understanding the concept correctly. And so on. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * 41 is just a number I picked out of the air to use as an example. In my sentence I am saying that we can determine whether the 41st crease (or any other particular crease) is "in" or "out" without needing to know how many folds were used to produce the creases, except for the silly requirement that we have to have at least 41 creases so that we can talk about the 41st one. The folding process is done on a long strip of paper, and consists of repeatedly bringing the right-hand side of the strip to lay on top of the left-hand side and pressing it flat. The folds go the same way each time, so the creases do not cross each other. Folding a strip of paper in half five times will produce 31 creases—not enough to have a 41st crease to speak about. But fold it in half a sixth time and you'll get 63 creases, and the 41st crease from the left will be an "in" crease. This remains true if you fold it seven times to get 127 creases, or eight times to get 255 creases, or whatever—the 41st crease will always be an "in" crease. Anyway, this has become quite a tangential discussion from my original question. —Bkell (talk) 08:03, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I think your best bet is to use "enough" and to call it an "inward crease" so that it presents a clear visual image. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:07, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I have never had any problem using enough with count nouns. ("He's got enough shoes to last forever", yada yada.) Perhaps your dialect is different. r ʨ anaɢ talk/contribs 21:43, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

does anyone here speak Xhosa?
I'm very curious to learn what the lyrics to Pata Pata, by Miriam Makeba, mean. The song is easily found on YouTube, Google, what have you, and so are the lyrics, but I can't find a translation anywhere. (Well, there's one for a cover of the song by someone called El General, but these seem unlikely to be the original ones.) --Trovatore (talk) 11:39, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Google '"pata pata" lyrics english', you'll find some translations. Woogee (talk) 22:09, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * As I was at pains to explain, I already did that. --Trovatore (talk) 22:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Then how is it that I am able to find scores of sites with little difficulty? Woogee (talk) 22:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Did you actually look at them? There were boocoo hits, yes.  They were all useless as far as I could tell. --Trovatore (talk) 22:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I looked at the first five or so, every one of them looked fine to me. I have nothing further to say on this conversation, as your lack of gratitude for a volunteer's attempting at assisting you is telling.  Woogee (talk) 22:57, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, just so anyone observing can judge for him/herself, this is the first hit for the exact string "pata pata" lyrics english, with the double-quotes as marked: http://www.lyricsdownload.com/miriam-makeba-pata-pata-lyrics.html. It has no English translation at all.  There are a few English words; they are present in the easiest-to-find performance by Makeba herself, and are not a translation. --Trovatore (talk) 23:12, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * This song was recently referenced in another ref desk, about a TV ad theme or something. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 22:15, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Not a coincidence. That was me. --Trovatore (talk) 22:29, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't find a translation into English, but this purports to be the lyrics in Spanish. It doesn't quite map to the Xhosa version, so it might be in error, but I suspect it is probably a Spanish version sung by Makeba. Warofdreams talk 23:49, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * And that's led me to the answer - halfway down this page is someone's attempt to translate the original into English. Warofdreams talk 23:53, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, I appreciate the effort (and even Woogee's effort, as far as that goes; I just didn't appreciate the implication that I was incompetent to do a simple search). But I don't think this is a translation of the original.  You see that it mentions Thalia, who like El General appears to be someone who covered the song with a Latin reinterpretation.
 * Still, it's plausible that the original could be about moving one's body; that may be the closest I'm going to get. Thanks. --Trovatore (talk) 00:31, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Not "could be about", | is about :) Tendancer (talk) 05:37, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Nice find! --Trovatore (talk) 05:48, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I tried to search for the lyrics in Xhosa (reasoning that I might be able to to direct a Xhosa-speaking Wikipedian to the right site), and instead found English translations. See this site or this one or the many others in this search.  Astronaut (talk) 05:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There are no "translations" in the first two links. Maybe that's what threw Woogie off.  Those are English words spoken to the audience in the middle of the song.  --Trovatore (talk) 05:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * You could try asking someone in Category:User xh, sadly there doesn't appear to be anyone there better then xh-1. There's also xh:Iphepha Elingundoqo but with only 112 articles, there's probably not much better hope then the xh-1 en wikipedians Nil Einne (talk) 09:25, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Here you go: http://www.museke.com/node/232

Italian pronunciation
Hi. I am teaching myself Italian but am slightly worried that, while I know how to pronounce words, I may not be stressing the correct syllable and wondered if anyone had any advice on where I might find a program that pronounces words for me somewhere on the web that I could download or, indeed, any other suggestions anyone might have. Thanks 131.111.247.136 (talk) 15:35, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Try Forvo.com. It contains words pronounced by native speakers in lots of languages. -- Flyguy649 talk 23:49, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * (Interesting site, that Forvo, but it looks like the phrases are chosen kind of at random; I didn't get the sense that you were likely to find the pronunciation of the specific word you wanted).
 * A few general remarks that you may already know:
 * The map from Italian spelling to pronunciation is mostly deterministic; stress is one of the few things that isn't always clear.
 * In almost all cases, if stress is not explicitly marked by an accented vowel, it will be on either the penultimate or antepenultimate syllable (second or third to last).
 * Oh wait, I thought of another exception here &mdash; a word that ends in a compound vowel is stressed on the final syllable: andAI, potEI.  I can't think of an exception to the exception; if anyone thinks of one please let me know. --Trovatore (talk) 02:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * There is a number of adjectives indicating material which terminate with -eo/ei: acqueo argenteo aureo bronzeo...plumbeo sulfureo vitreo, and few substantives like cuneo gluteo. I can't find a counterexample to the rule you said with -ai (just Sinai), while counterexamples with -io seem more common than examples (actually I don't know if you referred to diphthongs or not). Here Latin helps, in any case. --pm a  20:39, 26 January 2010 (UTC)
 * OK, these are good points, but in those cases I hear the last two vowel letters as separate syllables. I meant when they're a single syllable.  I'm not sure how Italians consider syllabicity in these cases &mdash; I have heard a native speaker say come stai with stai pronounced (as I hear it, anyway) as two syllables. --Trovatore (talk) 01:20, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Unlike English, there is no notion of "secondary stress" &mdash; one stressed syllable to a word. Not sure if this applies to ripidevolissimevolmente, but for normal words anyway.
 * One common systematic one to remember is the third-person-plural imperfect, like anDAvano. This is always third-to-last.
 * Similarly third-person-plural remote past: potERono, anDArono, PRESero.
 * And third-person-plural past subjuctive: FOSsero, andASsero.
 * However second-person-plural of all of these is second-to-last: andaVAte, poTESte.
 * But of course that still leaves some cases where it isn't clear. Sometimes these can even affect meaning:  ANcora "anchor" versus anCOra "still, again".  (Sometimes the first is spelled &agrave;ncora to disambguate.)
 * Finally, an excellent website is http://www.garzantilinguistica.it . Requires free registration, but a full unabridged monolingual dictionary, with pronunciation indicated. --Trovatore (talk) 01:15, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you both! that's extremely helpful. 131.111.247.136 (talk) 10:14, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Don't miss the Dizionario d'ortogafia e di pronunzia, with audio files for each word (though their phonetic alphabet is esoteric).--Cam (talk) 07:24, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

J.K. Rowling and the use of 'Muggle'
Why is it widely published that J.K. Rowling in answer to the question 'how did she INVENT the word Muggle' says she toog the MUG a in 'a mug - foolish person?' and added GLE. She DID NOT INVENT the word, I and a multitude of boys used it to signify a 'Marble' the game being 'Mugles'; and was in use in my childhood in 1935. This word has been used in this context and is to be seen in print in quite a few books. The entry should be corrected to USED the word; she may have thought she invented it BUT SHE DID NOT and to perpetuate the myth is wrong!

W.E. Gibson. [email address removed to prevent spam] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.60.24 (talk) 16:39, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Can you find a citation confirming that? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:56, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * You want to update the page to say that you used the same word to mean something different in 1935? Even if you could prove it enough for Wikipedia's standards, that's not in the least relevant.  If I remember correctly, the Oxford English Dictionary has listed the word "emailed" from its early days, but that doesn't mean people had invented email back then.  (It's a heraldic term meaning "covered with (plate) mail".) Marnanel (talk) 17:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * In any case, W.E. Gibson, you spell it 'Mugles', and J.K. Rowling spells it 'Muggles'. I believe that this would mean they are completely different words. --  KageTora - (影虎)  ( A word...? )  19:52, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * The game isn't even the earliest form of the word. The OED gives mugle as a 16th-century term for Cyclopterus lumpus. Algebraist 19:56, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * There are homophones of lots of words. That doesn't mean they aren't different words. --Tango (talk) 20:23, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * In addition to all the points other have made, W E Gibson (and please don't SHOUT at us!), even if the word had been in use in a similar sense, that doesn't mean that Rowling couldn't have invented it for herself: unless you can show that she was likely to have heard it, you have no grounds for saying she did not invent it. --ColinFine (talk) 20:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * 'Muggle' spelt '-gg-' is listed in Online Etymology Dictionary as coming from New Orleans in 1926 and meaning a 'marijuana joint'. This predates Mr. Gibson's childhood usage by nine years. --  KageTora - (影虎)  ( A word...? )  20:56, 24 January 2010 (UTC)


 * SOED says muggle L20. [ORIGIN Invented by J. K. Rowling, the Brit. writer of the Harry Potter books, and used by her to mean ‘a person without magical powers’.] A person who is not conversant with a particular activity or skill. (It also list a separate word muggle meaning marijuana.) Mitch Ames (talk) 01:14, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * My 1960 Webster's doesn't have any version of "muggle" or "mugle", but one of the several slang meanings for "mug" says "(British) a dupe." I wonder if that relates - someone who is basically a greenhorn or a rube. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:26, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Since this is a work of fiction, she could have used any known word and created a new meaning for it.174.3.98.236 (talk) 07:36, 26 January 2010 (UTC)


 * [[Image:VocalionMuggles.jpg|thumb|right|150px|Muggles, 1928]]Jazz lovers were familiar with the 1928 Louis Armstrong Muggles (recording) long before Rowling first set pen to paper, with the meaning of a joint of marijuana. Armstrong is said to have been fond of muggles. Time magazine wrote about these muggles in 1931. It was a very common term. Edison (talk) 22:48, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Name for coins and notes
Is there a one-word name for coins and notes? "Cash" would not do as that includes cash in the bank, which is more likely to be electronic than tangible. "Money" is too general a word. Thanks 89.242.94.72 (talk) 23:46, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Currency -- see the second half of the lead sentence. -- Flyguy649 talk 23:47, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
 * I"m not sure that anyone would confuse cash in the bank with physical cash if the context is clear, though I tend to think of "Cash" as bills only. If someone were to ask how much cash do you have, I wouldn't assume it to mean what's in my wallet plus what's in the bank. Aaronite (talk) 00:31, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * You would if you were a business or accountant. 89.242.94.72 (talk) 00:33, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * Contrary to both OP and Flyguy649, I note that our Cash article says (with my bold for emphasis): "Cash refers to money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins", and our Currency article says "... currency can refer either to a particular currency, for example the US dollar, or to the coins and banknotes of a particular currency." The SOED says cash is "Ready money, actual coins, notes, etc ... coins, or coins and banknotes, as opp. to cheques and orders", but also "{colloquially) money, wealth", and currency is "The money or other commodity which is in circulation as a medium of exchange". Mitch Ames (talk) 01:09, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * "Ready money" includes money in the bank. 89.242.40.192 (talk) 14:21, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * And yet, the meaning seems to be changing. I often see TV ads for one-day sales, where buyers are told "cash only".  But often, these are furniture stores, where individual items can cost many hundreds of dollars, sometimes into the thousands, so they're surely not expecting customers to have that much ready cash on them.  In that case, it means they can still access their bank accounts using plastic cards and do not have to carry any physical banknotes or coins.  But payment arrangements such as "no deposit, no interest, no payments for 20 years" or whatever outlandish gimmicks they generally have these days, are not available.  And payment by cheque is out of the question (for the vanishingly small number of outlets that still generally accept cheque payment these days).  You have to pay in full, on the day of purchase, but contrary to the literal meaning of "cash only", you don't have to fork over actual physical banknotes to the value of, say, $1,500 for an item selling at $1,500.  --  202.142.129.66 (talk) 02:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)


 * It's quite common to see lotteries or promotions advertising "cash" prizes, often for large amounts (eg tens of thousands of dollars) that are unlikely to be paid in actual notes - more likely as cheque or bank deposit. Here's an example, which includes the following text: You will win a cash prize ..., and further down:  Winnings can only be paid by cheque: we cannot pay winnings using cash, .... Here's another one (PDF) that says Cash prizes will be paid by cheque. Mitch Ames (talk) 07:59, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, both "cash" and "currency" are correct answers for some people, but other people -- or maybe the same people at different times -- use the words with other meanings. It's English. You can't win. :-) --Anonymous, 04:55 UTC, January 24, 2010.


 * Perhaps "ready money" or "readies" (UK) is the term you're looking for? "Cash" in the UK certainly can mean cash at the bank as well as actual notes and coins.  An estate agent welcomes what he calls a "cash buyer", particularly in these credit-poor times, but the purchase price is transferred by CHAPS from the buyer's bank account, not handed over in a briefcase.  A car dealer is less keen on a "cash buyer", since this prevents him selling the customer a car loan and earning commission on it, but he will accept card or bank draft payment for the full amount, and will refuse to accept more than a certain amount in notes - most large dealers display signs to that effect.  Part of the change in meaning may be to do with the international clampdown on money laundering, which has made it harder to use large sums of physical cash money for this kind of transaction, alongside the rise of the debit card as an effective replacement for ready money.  Ka renjc 12:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
 * A long time later but came across this while searching for something else. In NZ you will sometimes get a better deal at stores during negotiation if you are a 'cash' buyer which would normally include EFTPOS a debit card but one where the fees, if any, are incurred by the card holder, unlike credit cards where the store will incur a fee. Nil Einne (talk) 14:36, 3 October 2011 (UTC)