Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 October 11

= October 11 =

As Perpendicular as a Quaker
"He left the room as perpendicular as a Quaker." Where has the expression come from? Thanks.--Omidinist (talk) 05:26, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems to have been used first in The Ingoldsby Legends, see here Richard Avery (talk) 07:34, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * What does it mean?--Omidinist (talk) 08:44, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Why a Quaker? Anyone may leave a room perpendicularly!--Omidinist (talk) 09:02, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I suspect it's an allusion to the moral rectitude for which Quakers are (perhaps unjustly) renowned. --   Jack of Oz   [your turn]  09:09, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, we try to live up to our reputation as "upright"! --Orangemike (talk) 12:45, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Portuguese: masculine name ending in -inha
Why is a Brazilian soccer player named Rafael called in Portuguese Rafinha? I understand that -inha is a diminutive, but so is -inho. So, why not Rafinho? 88.11.244.183 (talk) 07:56, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It's like asking why someone called James might be called Jim, Jimmy or Jimbo, informal names have little logic. Richard Avery (talk) 10:05, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Because it's a diminuitive of "Rafa", the short form of "Rafael", which ends in "a". Just because it looks feminine doesn't mean that it is. Any adjectives and pronouns pertaining to "Rafinha" would of course be masculine. This is not unusual for languages that have grammatical gender, unlike English, which has only very strict anatomical gender. Other examples are the Latin words "agricola", "incola" and "pirata", and the Polish word "kolega", which, even though they look feminine, are masculine in gender. Diminutives in all these languages take the same apparent gender as the word on which they are based, but that doesn't affect the actual grammatical gender. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 10:44, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Dominus Vobisdu is right. In Spanish one can say "Rafita" following the same logic. --Belchman (talk) 22:07, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Do they have little logic? Jimmy for example is the correctly built diminutive of Jim. And Jim is probably a corruption of James. So, there is something systematic in them. 88.11.244.183 (talk) 10:47, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Except that Jack is also a diminutive for James.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  12:30, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Jack is not dimunutive for James. Jack is diminutive for John, see Jack (name).  Though it appears to be related to Jacques (French for Jacob, which is itself a cognate of James), it appears to come to modern English through an unrelated route (compare also Theodore (name) and Theodoric, which despite the similar spelling are entirely unrelated as well).  -- Jayron  32  12:43, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, sorry, I wasn't thinking straight.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  14:38, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * When I said 'little logic' I was taking the wider view. Indeed James is clearly related to Jim, Jimmy etc but

and so on, but finally Richard   - Dick, Rick. There seems to be no pattern in the diminuitive formation, and that is just a few of a longer list. I'm sorry if I didn't make my self clear. Richard Avery (talk) 14:28, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Alexander - Sandy.
 * Barbara - Babs.
 * Bridget - Biddy.
 * Christopher  - Kit
 * Dorothy - Dotty, Dora.
 * Edmund  - Ned, Neddy.
 * Eleanor - Nell, Nora.
 * Elizabeth - Lizzy, Betty, Beth, Bess, Bessy.
 * Emmanuel - Manny.
 * Harriet - Hatty.


 * Many diminutives of masculine names in Russian end in "-а" or "-я", for example Vanya (Ivan), Misha (Mikhael), Sasha (Aleksandr), Borya (Boris). --ColinFine (talk) 23:39, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

"not unwilling"
Here is a paragraph from a New York Times "blog" titled: "Five Things to Watch for in the G.O.P. Debate", by Michael D. Shear.

(My question relates specifically to the quote but here is a link to the article.) http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/five-things-to-watch-for-in-g-o-p-debate/

"But Mr. Cain has proven himself to be a formidable presence in speeches to conservative activists. And he is not unwilling to be blunt in his criticism of Mr. Romney or his other rivals. It is possible that Mr. Cain, sensing an opportunity in the moment, could pile on Mr. Romney."

"And he is not unwilling to be blunt" means basically that "he is willing to be blunt". But at a more subtle level, does this wording convey something more than simply that "he is willing"? Wanderer57 (talk) 15:20, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Nope. You hit it on the head, it's a subtler way of saying it. Hot Stop talk-contribs 15:23, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * My sense is that "not unwilling" lies somewhere between unwilling and willing. In other words, Cain is not eager to be blunt, but on the other hand he won't shirk from doing so either. — Cheers, Jack Lee  –talk– 15:52, 11 October 2011 (UTC)


 * "not unwilling" often implicitly contrasts the subject with other people, with expected behaviour, with convention, or with appearances. Hence, other people are not willing to be blunt, and maybe you wouldn't expect Cain to be so blunt either.
 * The phrase is often used in denials or to explain why someone appears unwilling. This headline is an explicit denial that India is unwilling.This headline suggests the subject, the IRA, are denying that they are unwilling to talk, but also indicates a certain reluctance in the form of preconditions.  There's also a Facebook group "No I'm not unwilling to learn, you twat, you're just a crap teacher!"
 * Perhaps closer to the sense above is this quotation from Google Books "A few in the West appreciated the good qualities of Chinese civilization and were not unwilling to criticize their own people." This suggests most (in contrast to "few") were unwilling to criticise. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:53, 11 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Such rhetorical device is called litotes. No such user (talk) 16:00, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Not unwilling does not necessarily equal willing. Rocks and the comatose are not unwilling. The terms are contraries, since both cannot be true but both may be false. See square of opposition. μηδείς (talk) 01:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

was "surprise" once pronounced with an ee?
I'm asking because in Rudyard Kipling's poem A Pilgrim's Way it says:
 * And when they do me random good I will not feign surprise.
 * No more than those whom I have cheered with wayside courtesies.

I'm curious if the the two words might have rhymed in Kipling's time? (either as surpr-ee-z or courtes-eye-s)? Oh, and while I'm at it, what's a General Averagee? Is it someone who's suffered shipwreck? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.50.191.96 (talk) 19:56, 11 October 2011 (UTC) Thanks in advance, 78.50.191.96 (talk) 19:50, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The words would not have normally rhymed in Kipling's time (which is very much during the Modern English period). However, by poetic license, it is possible that the words were forced to rhyme, for the purposes of the poem.
 * See General average for your second question. I believe it refers to the original owners of the cargo in the case of jettisoning.   KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  20:07, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Were the original surprise italicised it would indicate a foreignism, namely use of the French language, in which the ending would indeed rhyme with cheese. μηδείς (talk) 20:17, 11 October 2011 (UTC)


 * 78.50.191.96 -- I'm pretty sure that Kipling intended "courtes-eye-s", as a kind of quasi-Elizabethan-reminiscent pronunciation. It's not all that much different from the pronunciation [kælɨfɔrnaɪeɪ] which appears in a Beach Boys song (I forget which one).  In any case, the ordinary pronunciation of "courtesies" in British English ends in [sɪz], and so would not rhyme with "surpreeze"... AnonMoos (talk) 01:55, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Not entirely correct. In standard RP, the final syllable of 'courtesies' is lengthened, as /si:z/.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  02:25, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you mean [iː]? That may be becoming more frequent recently, but it was not the Daniel Jones pronunciation, and I doubt whether Kipling would have used it... AnonMoos (talk) 04:11, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * By the way, AnonMoos, your Beach Boys reference is to the second line of "Surfin' USA". Deor (talk) 15:28, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Couldn't Kipling have just been playing with the language, making the reader deliberately mispronounce some words for humorous effect: Byron did the same thing in Don Juan (1818):

"Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant, The age discovers he is not the true one; Of such as these I should not care to vaunt, I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan"


 * Byron deliberately makes us say "joo-ahn" or "joo-uhn" instead of the normal Juan pronunciation, "wahn".  Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:45, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I suspect that joo-an [dʒu:ən] used to be the usual pronunciation in BrE. One of my Eng Lit lecturers (an elderly gent) in the early 80's always used it, whether or not he was referring to the Byron poem.Tigerboy1966 (talk) 13:36, 15 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm reminded of this oddity in one of the G&S operettas: "I often find it comical / How nature always does contrive / That every boy and every gal / That's born into the world alive / Is either a little Liberal / Or else a little Conservative." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:58, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I am with you all on this one. 'Courtes-eye-s' seems the only logical explanation. KägeTorä - (影虎) ( TALK )  01:15, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Once again, thanks everyone (78.50... was me) Уга-уга12 (talk) 08:00, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

How do you pronounce "Thinnes"
How is Roy Thinnes's last name pronounced. I searched Google & Wikipedia, but couldn't find anything. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.206.185.196 (talk) 23:08, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * When we consider that he is American, there's no reason to guess anything other than [θɪnz] or possibly [θɑɪnz]; however, I may be missing something. Inter  change  able | talk to me  23:35, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * This TV interview from 1991 pronounces it as /'θɪnəs/.  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( TALK )  23:59, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The local distribution of the name Thinnes has a peak in southwestern Germany. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 08:01, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm old enough to remember him as an actor on General Hospital, and as I recall, it was two syllables - THIN-nes (I don't do IPA). The Mark of the Beast (talk) 23:33, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Rhymes with Guinness? μηδείς (talk) 00:58, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 01:01, 13 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Your transcription would then be [ˈθɪnəs], [ˈθɪnɨs], or [ˈθɪnɪs]; depending on the dialect and my poor ears. Inter  change  able | talk to me  22:56, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

fue vs. era
Why do Spanish Wikipedia articles on dead people begin with "fue," as in: "Walter Leland Cronkite... fue un periodista y presentador de noticias televisivo estadounidense." Why not "era?" He was a journalist for like 60 years. Shouldn't that get the imperfect? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:31, 11 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Era comes across as marking used to be in that circumstance, and implies some period, while fue mentions a simple definitional fact. You would say Reagan fue actor but you could say era a popular actor in the 1940s.  If you did mention "for like 60 years" you would indeed use era.  French, interestingly, which has lost the fue form in speech, uses the present.μηδείς (talk) 01:13, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * If it's like Italian, the important thing is not so much the length of time, as whether you conceptualize that time as a completed whole. Cronkite's entire career is being summed up as a single fact, so you use the preterite.  If you were using it as background for some other action that occurred during his career, then you would use the imperfect for Cronkite's status and the preterite for the other action.  Of course it's not that simple, but this is the basic idea. --Trovatore (talk) 01:19, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * You might read markedness, (Spanish verb of course) and perfective aspect about what Trovatore calls single facts. The imperfect form is always the more marked past form since it inherently implies either some relative context to which the action is compared (was x-ing while) or implies "used to" (and hence is no longer) if no context is made explicit.  If you said Walter Cronkite era periodista you'd have to follow that up with something like pero ahora está en el infierno. μηδείς (talk) 01:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, I wouldn't say you always need this "other relative context". You can have entire passages in the imperfect, provided they are pure description where nothing really happens.  The Sun was shining, the brook was babbling, from time to time a pretty girl walked by, all was right with the world.  That would be entirely in the imperfect, including the pretty girls walking by, because those are not really events so much as part of the description of the scene. --Trovatore (talk) 01:44, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * BTW, a pretty girl walked by is preterite, not imperfect. μηδείς (talk) 02:23, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * A particular pretty girl walking by, yes. In this context, no, because it's something that happens as part of description, not an event.  Il sole brillava, il ruscello faceva un suono piacevole, ogni tanto passava qualche carina ragazza, andava tutto bene nel mondo &mdash; make the necessary changes for Spanish but the idea should be the same. --Trovatore (talk) 02:37, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, of course, but that's an artificial situation, not a normal conversation or speech act. In real life it would raise the question, y pues ¿qué pasó? μηδείς (talk) 02:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It can be at least the first few pages of a novel, in some writing styles. It could also be the answer to a question, so what was it like on your vacation? or something like that. --Trovatore (talk) 02:04, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, lol, but not at all a good novel if it never got down to the point. And again, "so, what was it like (¿Cómo fue?) on your vacation" provides the relative context.μηδείς (talk) 02:40, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The point raised by Trovatore is quite interesting: The New Grammar of the Spanish Language (§23.6.2a) speaks of modal uses of the (Spanish) imperfect, in which the reference frame of the verb is not a relative reference time; sometimes it is just a mental space or scenario. Pallida  Mors  03:15, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't suppose you could give a hypertext link? I am familiar with Tristram Shandy, Modernism, Vorticism, Dadaism, James Joyce, Postmodernism, Gertrude Stein, e e cummings, and plenty of other literary movements, but none of these is usually taken as the testimony of competent native speakers in terms of descriptive linguistics. μηδείς (talk) 03:42, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Not sure to understand your petition. Aren't you familiar with the New Grammar? This is a hypertext link that describes its contents. The relevant wikiarticle in Spanish arguably describes the referenced use in the fourth bullet. Pallida  Mors  16:02, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I was hoping for a link to §23.6.2a so I could read it on the internet.μηδείς (talk) 18:10, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, I can't find an online link. However, if you mail me, I could send you the respective pages. Pallida  Mors  17:13, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

This is an interesting sentence:"Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognised a certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old kings of Pegu placing the title 'Lord of the White Elephants' above all their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, having for the imperial color the same imperial hue; and though this pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides, all this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things- the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledge of honor; though in many climes, whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great-white throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood." Without the last phrase it would amount to abuse of the reader. μηδείς (talk) 02:20, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Confused — how does this answer the question? Very interesting how the author (who is it?) succeeded in using all those independent clauses for such a long sentence.  Nyttend (talk) 11:14, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It is simply a digressive example of a literary text that would be very annoying if it didn't come to a point. But it does, and is one of my favorite bits of writing.  It is from chapter 42, "The Whiteness of the Whale" in Herman Melville's Moby Dick.


 * I do not find it magniloquent. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:49, 12 October 2011 (UTC)