Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 October 23

= October 23 =

French ne
I am familiar with the constructions ne ... pas, ne ... jamais, ne ... aucun, and ne ... personne (also ne ... point, but that is hardly ever used). What part of sentence (noun, adverb, particle, etc) are the pas, jamais ... what other "closing tags" are there, and when is it possible to use ne alone (question of most interest bolded). Merci! --24.92.78.167 (talk) 03:10, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * pas, jamais, etc., are the actual negatives. ne is often dropped, and its exact function is a subject of much debate in theoretical syntax. (Just last January I remember seeing a poster about it at the Linguistic Society of America meeting, if you look up their old conference program you might be able to find the abstract.)
 * As for what other combinations there are, there are a lot, any intro French textbook should have them all. Off the top of my head, I can recall:
 * ne...guėre (scarcely)
 * ne...que (only)
 * ne...pas encore (not yet)
 * ne...point (basic negative, but more emphatic, written only)
 * ne...plus (no longer, not anymore)
 * These can also be stacked or embedded. For instance, je n'ai plus personne à moi has both ne...plus and ne...personne and is read "I no longer have anyone". Another common sort of one is c'est pas que X, mais aussi Y, which has both ne...pas and ne...que.
 * For a negative, I am not aware of any time you use ne alone. There are other constructions totally unrelated to negative (but related to irrealis) where you do use ne alone, here is one example:
 * Il a plus de pommes que je n'ai (He has more apples than I have)
 * To be honest I don't know the syntactic/semantic reasons why ne is inserted here, I just basically learned it by rote, and my French isn't great so I can't say much more than that. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 04:00, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * When I studied French (at a non-specialist level), my teachers and textbooks called it the pleonastic ne. My Petit Larousse Illustré 2004 defines pleonasme (in French) as the repetition of words whose meaning is identical. Its definition of ne, in rough translation, is as an adverb (derived from the Latin non) indicating a negation in the word group, in correlation with pas, point, rien, aucun, etc. (The expeletive ne is used without the sense of negation only in the comparative subordinate clauses or in those which depend upon a verb expressing fear, doubt, etc. Il est plus riche que vous ne pensez; je crains qu'il ne vienne.) I think the idea in both cases is that (as with the subjunctive and conditional) you're expressing something that is not a positive assertion of fact. ("I'll never see him again"; "I doubt that I'll ever see him again"; "I'm afraid that I'll never see her again"; "The day may never come"; "It's even bigger than you imagined [or could imagine]"; "He had scarcely got out of bed when they arrived"; etc. (although I'm not sure of the intuitive sense of ne in the ne ... guère). —— Shakescene (talk) 04:50, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It is possible to use "ne" alone with savoir; you probably know the phrase "je ne sais quoi" but it seems like it can be used with anything. You can also use "ne" alone with être. I assume this is very informal and only for spoken French. Adam Bishop (talk) 06:29, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * This is an example of Jespersen's cycle (though the article doesn't mention it) whereby the original negative element 'ne' came to be supported by an originally optional, emphatic element, to the point where the original 'ne' now disappears in some contexts. . A similar thing happened in Old English, where 'ne' came to be supported by 'noht' ("nothing"): in time the 'ne' disappeared and 'noht' became 'not'.
 * Je ne sais que vous répondre (a formal form of: "je ne sais pas comment vous répondre", meaning "I don't know how to answer you").
 * In most cases, a negation with "ne" (alone) may be replaced by "ne...pas" (which is less formal, less literary). However, "ne" is always alone in casual cases, especially in idioms and proverbs, or in expressions with "ne...ni ne" (e.g. "Il ne rit ni ne pleure": he does not laugh and he does not cry).
 * As it was said previously, "ne" may be used alone with some verbs, like cesser, oser, pouver, savoir, and sometimes daigner, bouger, manquer, n'avoir cesse de: Il n'osa lui répondre. / Que dois-je faire ? Je ne sais. / Je ne peux vous parler. These expressions would be more common with "ne...pas" instead of "ne" alone. --Keguligh (talk) 22:36, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Long speech by a character
In several novels I have noticed when a character has a lot to say, their quote often goes on for several paragraphs. Each paragraph starts with an open quote ("), but when additional paragraphs are needed, the close quote (") is omitted until the character has ended their speech. Is there a specific reason for this? Hemoroid Agastordoff (talk) 03:20, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * This is just how long quotes work in English. It's not anything particular about speeches in novels. Anytime you have a multiple-paragraph quotation, each paragraph starts with an open quote. In other languages, it sometimes works differently. (For instance, French novels use guillemets and I don't think they put them on each new paragraph.) r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 03:53, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I think the idea is to let the reader know that he or she is in the middle, rather than either the beginning or the end of a quotation. I often use the same style if I'm enclosing several paragraphs in [square brackets], although not when using (round parentheses). Also consider that such conventions as indented block quotations are harder to make clear if you're writing in long hand, as opposed to typing or printing, while this convention is relatively easily written and read in script. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:21, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * A strange thing about guillemets that I've seen is that they are not closed and re-opened if the quote is interrupted by the equivalent of a "he said", if that makes sense. I don't know if that's typical of French or just of French-Canadian newspapers where I've seen it. Adam Bishop (talk) 06:23, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * That's the case for all the guillemets I've seen as well. Also, for changing speakers (like within a dialogue), they don't open and close the guillemets (at least not in anything I've read), they just indicate new speaker with an em dash and enclose the whole dialogue in one set of guillemets. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 07:13, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * In Victorian typography, sometimes every line of a long quotation would begin with an opening-quote mark... AnonMoos (talk) 06:06, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Isn't it obvious??
If a character is speaking, there is at least one other person present. If you were to close the quotation, the reader would assume the next open-quotation is by the other character in the dialogue! 84.153.222.131 (talk) 09:22, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "You mean, like this, 84.153?"
 * "Yes, like that. But with longer speech, several paragraphs instead of just one line."
 * "That makes a lot of sense, actually" 84.153.222.131 (talk) 09:24, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * "Alas, I can't follow 84.153's confident assertation. Who else is present during my soliloquy?" 129.234.53.175 (talk) 15:37, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * "Person one speaking (no close).
 * "Person one still speaking (no close).
 * "Person one finishes speaking. Close."
 * "Some other person...
 * There's no assumption or obviousness. Once quotes are closed and there are quotes at the start of the following paragraph, it is explicitly someone else. P ЄTЄRS J V ЄСRUМВА  ►TALK 16:00, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it's very obvious and intuitive. I didn't understand it when I first saw it, but picked it up from context. An opening quote mark at the beginning of a paragraph marks a quote by a character, in contrast to the overall narrative. The lack of a closing quote mark at the end of the paragraph marks that the same character keeps on speaking, instead of some other character.

The only thing I find difficult is, in classical novels, there are entire chapters consisting mostly of a dialogue between two characters. I have to keep counting the quotes to remember who is speaking at which time. Contemporary lighter-reading novels, like Star Trek or Dragonlance, make this easier by also including text about stuff actually happening instead of merely characters speaking to each other. J I P &#124; Talk 18:33, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The term "half-staff" in the UK, Ireland, India and other English-speaking countries
In official Canadian usage, the flag is referred to as at “half-mast”, never “half-staff” (e.g. ) while in the US, the term “half-staff” is often used. Our article half-mast says the term “half-staff” is erroneous, but in the same breath suggests that “half-staff” is used in military tradition for flags on land (while “half-mast” is used on ships). The half-mast article itself seems to use “half-staff” and “half-mast” interchangeably, but seems to prefer “half-mast” for Commonwealth countries and “half-staff” for non-Commonwealth countries. Our article Flags at Buckingham Palace uses “half mast” in the first paragraph but “half staff” in the second.

My question: in English-speaking countries other than the United States, is the term “half-staff” considered unusual/incorrect? Are there any English-speaking countries, other than the US, whose official government directives use the term “half-staff”? Mathew5000 (talk) 04:29, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I've never heard "half staff" used in the US. I've always seen "half mast". r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 04:36, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Here are some US government uses (both federal and state) of “half-staff”: . Mathew5000 (talk) 04:52, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm in the UK and I had never heard this usage. However, it is in the OED which quotes a 1708 usage in the London Gazette, so it obviously goes back a while. There are a lot of old words still used in American English that have gone out of use in the UK.--Shantavira|feed me 08:21, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Half-mast is probably more common in the US than half-staff, but I tend to think of it as slightly informal when speaking of flags on land. Unless you're on a wind-powered nautical conveyance, there is strictly speaking no "mast" around. --Trovatore (talk) 08:28, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * UK here, have never heard half-staff before. DuncanHill (talk) 08:30, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

From a U.S. perspective, half-stalf means half-mast, neither strike me as strange. Half-stalf has some other connotations too... but those are probably based on the proper one. Shadowjams (talk) 09:32, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for all the responses. I edited the article Flags at Buckingham Palace to eliminate the usage “half staff”. Still curious about India. Mathew5000 (talk) 14:56, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The World Almanac has a summary of the US flag code of etiquette, and it uses the term "half-staff", which is the term I normally use. "Half-mast" also works, but that has become a joke euphemism for "your zipper's undone", or at least partly undone. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Consider, what does the flag fly from??
English. What a wonderful language :-) DaHorsesMouth (talk) 22:11, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * If it's attached to a flagstaff, then half-staff would be the obvious "half";
 * If it's attached to a mast or flagmast, then half-mast makes sense -- but I think of masts only on ships;
 * I attach my flag to a flagpole -- why doesn't anybody say half-pole?


 * The flag apparatus above the scoreboard at Wrigley Field is a called a "mast head" because it resembles the mast head on a ship. Presumably they would fly it at half-mast as needed (e.g. each year when they're eliminated from the race). ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:41, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Meridiem (Latin)
The discussion above about ante and post meridiem got me thinking about which syllable of meridiem takes the stress. So, yeah, that's the question in form of a statement. Thanks in advance! Rimush (talk) 09:53, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The antepenultimate, since the ultimate is not a heavy closed syllable, I would assume... AnonMoos (talk) 10:19, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if the ie part is a diphtong or a hiatus, so I don't know which the antepenultimate syllable is :( Rimush (talk) 11:32, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Stress on the "ri." The "diem" is two syllables.--Cam (talk) 12:25, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks to both! Rimush (talk) 13:04, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It's dĭēs, hence mĕrīdĭēs. In dictionaries and textbooks macrons indicate long vowels in Latin and breves stand for short vowels. For Latin, determining which the stressed syllable is is easy - if the penultimate is long, then it is stressed; otherwise (i.e. if the penultimate is short), the antepenultimate carries the stress. Sometimes (but not always) there are methods for determining whether or not a vowel is long, without having to look the word up in a dictionary. Generally a vowel immediately followed by another vowel is short: dĭēs, mĕrīdĭēs, mĕrīdĭĕm. This would give (or, possibly, more authentically ) for a pronunciation description with IPA for Latin. In short, meridiem has the stress on the "ri". --Theurgist (talk) 13:33, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Kudos for the Latin knowledge. My mother tongue is a Romance language, but I never was a big fan of Latin. The fact that I went to school in other countries, where Latin is not part of the curriculum, only added to the problem. Thanks! Rimush (talk) 13:39, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Additional details are at Latin spelling and pronunciation (permanent link here).
 * —Wavelength (talk) 16:05, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Rimush (talk) 21:05, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Is this a perfectly cromulent word?
I recently noticed a medicine labeled "Moronal" (it's called Nystatin in English) in my doctor's medicine cabinet. The name made me chuckle, since it contains the word "moron". Now, I was wondering if "moronal" is a valid English word, similar to moronic? -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 14:28, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

PS: According to our article on Nystatin, it's an anti-fungal drug, though I'm wondering if somebody at the manufacturer's company deliberately gave it that name, in the sense of "If you're stupid enough to end up with a fungal infection, you deserve a drug with a humiliating name". Since this is in Germany, and there's a saying in German that there's no pill to cure stupidity ("Doof bleibt doof, da helfen keine Pillen (selbst Aspirin versagt"), it might also be an in-joke on that. Moronal is offered as pills.
 * No, "moronal" is not an English word. Rojomoke (talk) 14:59, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Alas, moronal is not an alternate form of moronic. P ЄTЄRS J V ЄСRUМВА  ►TALK 16:03, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * As for your aside on stupidity, Candidiasis explains possible causes. ---Sluzzelin talk  19:15, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Has David Cohen's neologism gained acceptance on Wikipedia talk pages?    D b f i r s   16:09, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Since we're discussing possibly made-up words, I felt the use of perfectly cromulent word was rather fitting. ;-) -- 78.43.71.155 (talk) 00:31, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, so did I, though I was surprised that the neologism had an entry in Wiktionary.   D b f i r s   07:43, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * But why wouldn't it? It gets used a lot around here, and presumably in many other places.  Just because it's still considered a neologism doesn't mean it should be considered a non-word.  There will come a time when it crosses over into the land of oldologisms.  All words have to start somewhere.  Just because 'cromulent' originated in the mind of a cartoon creator does not mean it's any less a word than one that originated in the mind of a college professor.  In short, 'cromulent' is itself a perfectly cromulent word.  --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   07:31, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I was surprised to find (when I later checked) that it has spread so widely. It is still considered a "joke word" at present, and would never be used seriously by educated people (in the UK at least), but I agree that it probably has a chance of eventually achieving an entry in the OED, like some of Charles Dodgson's neologisms.    D b f i r s   17:44, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

"You call him a moron and he just sits there grinning moronally!" L ANTZY T ALK 16:22, 24 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I suppose it's not unusual for medicines to have names that sound silly in other languages. The anti-spasm drug Buscopan is sold as Buscopina in Spanish-speaking countries, since "Busco pan" means "I'm looking for bread" in Spanish. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:51, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Adjectives
Verbs conjugate. Nouns decline. What do adjectives do? 24.92.78.167 (talk) 22:23, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * In English, adjectives don't decline or conjugate the way that verbs and nouns do (most adjectives don't change according to plural number or gender). They can compare, however, but that's about it. Lexicografía (talk) 22:40, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

No, I didn't mean in English! I meant in languages in general ;) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.92.78.167 (talk) 23:21, 23 October 2010 (UTC)
 * They do a lot of things. In some languages (such as Latin) they decline just like nouns. In some languages they agree (with a noun), just like verbs often do. r ʨ anaɢ (talk) 23:24, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * In Latin (and similar languages), adjectives have similar inflections to those of nouns (i.e. case distinctions and singular vs. plural), while in Japanese adjectives have inflections somewhat analogous to those of verbs. So you could say that adjectives are declined in Latin, but are conjugated in Japanese.  I don't think that there's an independent term describing general adjective inflections only... AnonMoos (talk) 23:27, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Except that verbs (and a fortiori, adjectives) don't conjugate in Japanese, because 'conjugation' refers to the changes of a verb for person and number, which doesn't happen at all in Japanese. -ColinFine (talk) 23:41, 23 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, that's not the case -- Japanese verbs have plenty of inflectional distinctions of tense, mood, negative, honorific, etc. which would ordinarily be considered to be "conjugation".  Japanese also has verb classes which inflect differently (one of the most common meanings of "verb conjugations"). AnonMoos (talk) 04:26, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I see the OED agrees with you. I would not use the word in that way. --ColinFine (talk) 20:34, 24 October 2010 (UTC)


 * In Spanish, adjectives change gender and plural number based on the gender and plurality number of their noun referent. Lexicografía (talk) 00:11, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Lexicografia, twice now you've talked about adjectives changing according to "plural" or changing their "plural". Isn't the usual term "number"?   --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   00:18, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, indeed. I had forgotten the word 'number'. Thanks. Lexicografía (talk) 00:29, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

in Latin school we would decline adjectives and noun, and conjugate verbs. as you can see, in Latin at least, http://www.google.com/search?q=%22declension+adjective there is a lot of talk of 3rd "declension" adjectives, etc. You decline an adjective, I think. 84.153.221.42 (talk) 10:52, 24 October 2010 (UTC) here is another article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_declension#Adjectives By the way, when it says "inflect", this is the general word for any kind of change (whether conjugating or declining). Even English verbs are slightly inflected, with -s in the third-person singular of the present tense. 84.153.221.42 (talk) 10:52, 24 October 2010 (UTC)
 * In French, verbs "conjugate", pronouns "decline" (nouns don't any more), and adjectives "agree". There are exceptions, verbs also may need to agree, for example the second part of the verb at the passe compose. --Lgriot (talk) 15:02, 25 October 2010 (UTC)


 * In Russian, verbs conjugate, nouns and pronouns decline, and adjectives agree with nouns in number, gender and case. Past tense verbs also agree with subjects in number and gender, but verbs in other tenses do not.  That's intransitively.  But when we do the work, as in spelling out the various forms words take, we conjugate verbs and decline nouns, pronouns and adjectives. We cannot "agree" adjectives.  We can make them agree with a particular noun, but in isolation we simply decline them. --   Jack of Oz    ... speak! ...   01:28, 26 October 2010 (UTC)