Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 April 21

= April 21 =

René(e)
Do the French first names René and Renée in fact mean "reborn" in French? J I P &#124; Talk 18:05, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, but in a more indirect way; René(e) comes from the name of Saint Renatus of Angers, who was a French saint, and whose name did indeed mean reborn in Latin. Lots of French questions this week :) 72.128.95.0 (talk) 18:25, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Look here: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ren%C3%A9 --151.41.135.213 (talk) 19:25, 21 April 2011 (UTC)


 * And compare to Italian Renato and Renata.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 01:26, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

An hotel/a hotel, an hospital/a hospital
Are all forms correct? I know that you say 'an' if the next words starts with a vowel, but hey, some people do not aspire the 'h' in 'hotel' or 'hospital', so, when they write 'an hospital' and 'an hotel', they are writing it right. 212.169.179.167 (talk) 20:00, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm sure that all four forms are acceptable depending on your dialect and standard of English. I'd be willing to bet even money that someone can produce at least 2 well-respect style guides which give conflicting advice against each other on which form to use; since this always happens anytime there is a conflict about "official" forms of English... -- Jayron  32  20:08, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * (ec) It's not necessarily that simple; there's also stress to consider. I would say "a history of ...", but "this is an historic occasion".  Some people drop the h when speaking the word "hotel", so for them it would be "an otel", while others saying "a hotel".  I don't think "an hospital" is ever correct, unless you're a cockney and say "an 'ospital".  --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  20:13, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * In spoken English, the grammatical rule is to use an before a noun beginning with a vowel sound. Therefore, in varieties of English in which the words hotel and hospital begin with a vowel, the preceding indefinite article should be an.  However, none of the varieties of English in which hotel or hospital begin with a vowel are standard varieties of English, so the combinations an hotel and an hospital are nonstandard.  (The main standard varieties of English are General American and Received Pronunciation.  According to our article on Estuary English, an emerging alternative standard variety in England, initial h is pronounced in that variety, unlike the clearly nonstandard Cockney variety that Estuary English sometimes follows.  Likewise the national standard varieties of English in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa all pronounce the initial h in hotel and hospital.)  Marco polo (talk) 20:25, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * My father, who speaks RP with a hint of a West Country accent despite having lived in London and Essex for 90 years, carefully pronounces "hotel" without the "h" on the grounds that it's a French word. I've never heard anyone say "an hospital". Alansplodge (talk) 00:25, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

As Marco Polo said, the indefinite article "a" is used in standard English when preceeded by a consonant sound (but not necessarily a consonant), whereas one prefers "an" when preceeded by a vowel sound (but not necessarily a vowel). For instance,  an underwriter -> but  a uniform. Likewise, when an "h" is silent, "an" is preferred. e.g.  an hour -> but a hand .

What Jack of Oz hinted at, however, is an older rule concerning pronounced h's in certain weakly stressed words. In my personal writing style, the rule is simple: an before a word stressed on the 2nd syllable, and a before a word stressed on the 1st, 3rd, or 4th syllable.

To wit: Some people today consider this practice somewhat dated, but I find that it still tends to make quite an impression! Pine (talk) 00:22, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

Notional agreement
Hello all. I am exposed enough to Commonwealth English that notional agreement-type constructions such as "the team are" and "the crowd were" sound right to me (an American) but the construction "my family are" still sounds wrong. Is this construction valid in varieties of English where you would use group nouns? Thanks. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 22:16, 21 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I can't answer for the Commonwealth, but in England it is perfectly normal. Note the we can say "my family is" as well - it depends on whether our focus is on the family as an entity ("My family goes back to the Huguenots") or the individuals in it ("My family are scattered all over the place"). Ditto for "team", "government", "committee", "bank", etc. --ColinFine (talk) 23:55, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

sane/sanity, etc.
In the adjective/noun pair sane/sanity, the main vowel is pronounced differently in the two words.
 * Is there a list of other examples of this in English?
 * Is this a Germanic thing?
 * Is there a name for this, as applied to adjective/noun pairs in English?
 * Is it always, or at least usually, a "long" vowel in the adjective and the corresponding "short" vowel in the noun?

Michael Hardy (talk) 23:50, 21 April 2011 (UTC)


 * It's more often a French/Latin thing (in fact, the ending "-ity" is from French).
 * It is usually to do with so-called "long" vowels, yes. note that in these examples (also "urbane/ity", "servile/ity") the consonant before the '-ity' is not usually doubled, whereas in native English words "short" vowels are usually followed by a double consonant.
 * I don't know a name for the process specifically.
 * --ColinFine (talk) 00:00, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Now that you mention it, "sane" seems like a French/Latin-derived word, as do the other examples you mention. But similar vowel changes happen frequently in German with words that don't seem Latin at all. Do similar vowel changes happen in French? Or Latin? Michael Hardy (talk) 00:35, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 * It's specific to English. See Trisyllabic laxing. Marco polo (talk) 01:20, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Ah, good find. — kwami (talk) 01:39, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

So is there a list of such words? Michael Hardy (talk) 02:03, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Not here. It would be huge. But if we were to exclude Latinate words, it might be manageable. A nice project: south, southern; child, children; say, said; lead, led; out, utter; goose, gosling; etc. You can get a start with a bilingual dictionary that lists English strong verbs, though there are a lot of other patterns going on with those. — kwami (talk) 05:18, 22 April 2011 (UTC)
 * No, you've got it completely wrong: say/said and lead/led are not examples of the phenomenon in question. Those are Germanic strong verbs.  That would be a huge list. Michael Hardy (talk) 16:51, 22 April 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually, while say/said and lead/led are irregular verbs with a vowel mutation similar to vowel mutations that occur in Germanic strong verbs, those two verbs are etymologically weak verbs. In Old English, the counterparts of say/say/said (infinitive/1st p. present indicative/1st p. past indicative) were secgan/secge/sægde (from the weak proto-Germanic verb *'sagjanan/sagjō/sagdō ), which became seien/seie/seide in Middle English. Here I don't see trisyllabic laxing in action.  I'm not sure what the mechanism was for the shortening of the vowel in the past indicative of that verb. In Old English, the counterparts of lead/lead/led  were lǣdan/lǣde/lǣdede, which became leden/lede/ledede in Middle English.  In this case, trisyllabic laxing would have made the first vowel in the Middle English past indicative short, before the intermediate and final vowels were dropped. Incidentally, I think the same process (again, trisyllabic laxing) explains the difference in pronunciation between the present and past forms of read.  Marco polo (talk) 19:14, 22 April 2011 (UTC)