Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 November 30

= November 30 =

unafraid of the cold
I read a sentence in a novel translated from Chinese: "Perched on the bare tree branch were several little birds who were unafraid of the cold." I suspect "unafraid of the cold" is a faulty collocation. Am I right? Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.128.178.238 (talk) 14:29, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Poetic license. Anthropomorphizing. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:54, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Unafraid of the cold? Some of us have heard that it is in fact "So cold in China, the birds can't hardly sing" (Blind Lemon Jefferson, Long Lonesome Blues). Not likely Blind Lemon Jefferson was talking about lack of democracy (that was 1926 and what did he know about China anyway?) but that line really comes out of the blue(s). Contact Basemetal   here  17:19, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * "Unafraid of the cold" is fine grammatically. In reference to birds it suggests that some birds might be afraid of the cold, which seems a bit odd.  On the other hand we'd have no trouble referring to birds that are unafraid of a cat, and I don't think most of us would even consider it anthropomorphizing.
 * The use of "who" for birds is anthropomorphizing. &mdash;JerryFriedman (Talk) 17:53, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * No question, they flee from predators or anything that might be a predator. Instinctive behavior. I don't think birds get particularly cold the way we do. The reason they migrate, if they do, is typically to find food. Birds that stay put for the winter are often nurtured by bird feeders and the like, so they don't need to migrate. But, again, it's instinctive behavior, not really "fear". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:54, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Pain and fear are key to the self-preservation instinct. InedibleHulk (talk) 21:40, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * To answer the OP's actual question (see Collocation), "unafraid of the cold" is perfectly OK. "Courageous of the cold", for example, would be an invalid collocation (although one could say "courageous in the face of the cold"). Tevildo (talk) 19:01, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * To really get the right answer, the OP would need to post the Chinese, and then someone here who's fluent in Chinese would need to review it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:30, 30 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Are we discussing passerine frigodysphobia here? --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:07, 30 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Let's not forget that cold and fear are linked by another bird. ---Sluzzelin talk  19:53, 30 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't know what the OP was reading, but I could guess the original Chinese would be 不怕冷 (not afraid cold). In Chinese you can put 不 in front of every adjective and it wouldn't sound odd because some linguists argue that there are no adjectives in Chinese, but hybrids between adjectives and verbs. Since you can negate all verbs, it's not a problem. --2.245.173.139 (talk) 19:55, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Look here! You are!
In the trailer for Fifty Shades of Grey, we see the following dialogue:
 * He: "I'd like to know more about you."
 * She: "There's really not much to know about me... look at me..."
 * He: "I am!"

Obviously he means "I am looking at you!" For me as a non-native English speaker, this sounds a little strange. Imperative does not have a continuous form in English, and switching to it so indirectly is not what I expected to be correct. Would a native speaker usually say "I am!" in this case, rather than "I do!"? --KnightMove (talk) 20:16, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Answering "I do" here would be possible, but it would (emphatically) imply habitual action, not present action: "I do look at you, every night as you undress." μηδείς (talk) 20:25, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * See also present continuous and simple present. ---Sluzzelin talk  20:27, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * "I am" works perfectly, it implies the speaker is already doing the thing they were commanded by the other speaker. When She says "look at me", his saying "I am" is a perfectly cromulent way to respond; it means he is telling her that he is already doing the thing she told him to.  Such usage is standard, perfect English, and used every day.  -- Jayron  32  20:29, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, perfectly normal, everyday English. I'm not sure what grammatical rule it contravenes, but, if there is one then we don't follow it.    D b f i r s   20:39, 30 November 2014 (UTC)
 * It's not breaking a rule; it's ellipsis, short for "I am ([already] looking at you)." μηδείς (talk) 21:30, 30 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Very common shorthand-speak in English. Reminds me of this bit of dialoghue from Monty Python and the Holy Grail:
 * Guard: Who goes there?
 * Arthur: It is I, Arthur, son of Uther Pendragon, from the castle of Camelot. King of the Britons, defeater of the Saxons, Sovereign of all England!
 * Guard: Pull the other one!
 * Arthur: I am!
 * ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:41, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to all. --KnightMove (talk) 08:32, 1 December 2014 (UTC)