Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 October 23

= October 23 =

Word Query
What can I use instead of the word awaring (displays red wavy line underneath it in MS Word)?

What can I use instead of the word seeked (displays red wavy line underneath it in MS Word)?

Note: Where can I find something like 'thesaurus' that will retrieve posh/formal/hardcore/Old English words?

(Russell.mo (talk) 06:10, 23 October 2014 (UTC))
 * "Awaring" is not a word. You don't say what meaning you are trying to convey with this word.  Perhaps "becoming aware"?  As for "seeked", that should be "sought".  You can use the Synonyms feature in Word (put your cursor anywhere in the word, right click and highlight Synonyms).  There's also an online Thesaurus feature there as well, or you can use thesaurus.com, or (best of all) get a hard copy of Roget's Thesaurus and use that. --Viennese Waltz 06:15, 23 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Could be "making aware" (transitive), too. —Tamfang (talk) 06:52, 23 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Points noted guys, Thanks. Btw, I tried the right click synonyms feature before creating this post, the word 'sought' never appeared. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 19:14, 23 October 2014 (UTC))
 * You mean you tried it on the word "seeked"? If so, then the reason "sought" didn't appear is because Word doesn't know what "seeked" is supposed to mean. --Viennese Waltz 20:10, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * True. Thanks. -- {Russell.mo (talk) 02:31, 24 October 2014 (UTC))


 * "Seeked" does indeed confuse the Word spell checker. You may find the origin of "seek" and "sought" interesting. A lot of English words, especially single-syllable words, come from northern European languages and have constructions that seem peculiar. Words from Latin filtered through French tend to seem more logical. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:47, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Some people do use "seeked" as the past tense when "seek" is being used specifically in the technical sense that applies to disk drives, or the analogous software operation on a computer file. --174.88.134.249 (talk) 04:36, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * My head is not functioning guys, this is the sentence: They 'seeked' his attention span 'awaring' him... What shall I rewrite; They sought his attention span making him aware...? It doesn't make sense/sound nice to me. Any suggestions? -- (Russell.mo (talk) 15:47, 24 October 2014 (UTC))
 * No, it doesn't make sense. Where does the sentence come from?  Perhaps it should have said "they attracted his attention, warning him ..." or something like that?   D b f i r s   16:18, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * , "attention span" is a phrase meaning "how long (how much time) a person will continue to pay attention". I think you meant "attention", not "attention span". --ColinFine (talk) 17:08, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Came out of my smart, beautiful, sexy, geek wannabe brain Tongue.png. I guess I meant what you said . Honsetly, I liked the two words when I saw it in a sentence once, thought of using it... Thanks guys. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 01:17, 25 October 2014 (UTC))

Sentence filling
Can you use 'merits and demerits' instead of 'good and bad deeds'?

Sentence: The angels record an individual’s _________________________________ during living.

(Russell.mo (talk) 06:12, 23 October 2014 (UTC))


 * Yes, though it's a bit stuffy. Also: during life or while living. —Tamfang (talk) 06:53, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Merits & demerits means the person's character or qualities, while good & bad deeds refers to things the person has done. So they are not the same thing. --Viennese Waltz 07:21, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Righteous acts and sinful acts... during life or lifetime. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:23, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Or maybe as explained by Father Guido Sarducci. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 10:30, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * "Merits and demerits" are actually the terms used by E. P. Sanders for the same idea, though I agree that it does sound stuffily academic (Sanders being, of course, a stuffy academic). Evan (talk&#124;contribs) 19:22, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * That is a big difference . I rechecked the words for reassurance before creating this post. What mentioned sounds very 'uncool', if its the formal/appropriate way then I guess I have to use it. I must say I'll use 's statement!
 * Thanks guys -- (Russell.mo (talk) 19:36, 23 October 2014 (UTC))
 * O, I read through the summary of E. P. Sanders, Thanks. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 19:36, 23 October 2014 (UTC))
 * Sentence: The angels record an individual’s righteous and sinful acts while living... -- (Russell.mo (talk) 02:30, 24 October 2014 (UTC))

Indo-European neuter
Are there any exceptions to the generalization that IE languages don't distinguish between the nominative and accusative forms of neuter nouns? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 11:02, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Our Sanskrit grammar article seems to imply an accent difference between nom. āsyam an acc. āsyàm in one class of neuters. Not sure if that's intentional or a typo? Fut.Perf. ☼ 12:23, 23 October 2014 (UTC)
 * That inconsistency in our article is probably a mistake. According to this source, identity between nominative and accusative neuter forms applies not only to Sanskrit but to all Indo-European languages. According to this source, however, whose reliability I can't judge, the Anatolian languages appear to depart from this rule.  Marco polo (talk) 16:08, 23 October 2014 (UTC)


 * The tables in the article on Hittite by Calvert Watkins in ISBN 0-521-56256-2 indicate that Hittite follows the rule. There the Ergative is listed as a separate case form distinct from both nominative and accusative.. AnonMoos (talk) 17:06, 23 October 2014 (UTC)


 * That's interesting, though the ergative (the case used for subjects of transitive verbs) functionally is a subset of the nominative in the other IE languages, so you could say that in some positions where other IE languages would use the nominative, Hittite used that distinct form. Also, this ergative case apparently had a distinct form only for neuter nouns. So, for the ergative uses of the neuter nominative case in other IE languages, Hittite had a form distinct from the accusative. Marco polo (talk) 18:58, 23 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Only certain verbs invoke the ergative ending (more or less transitive verbs with semantically agentive but grammatically neuter subjects, though things can apparently get more complex than that). Hittite was not a consistent and thoroughgoing Ergative-absolutive language (if it was, it would not have nominative and accusative case forms at all)... AnonMoos (talk) 22:13, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Corporate jargon
Are there any serious (or, indeed, silly) studies available on the tendency of Marcoms people, across all fields and industries, to use the _same_ corporate jargon as each other? I've noticed, for example, that the term for "event" or "change" (which was "quantum leap" many years ago) has recently moved from the inoffensive if pedestrian "turning point" to the abominable "inflexion point". Does anyone know why they do this sort of thing? Tevildo (talk) 21:16, 23 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Why do clothing styles and slang terms change? Because what was once cutting edge and trendy loses its cachet when "everybody" starts adopting it.  For an explanation of the perpetual churn in one linguistic domain, see euphemism treadmill... AnonMoos (talk) 22:19, 23 October 2014 (UTC)


 * By the way, "inflection point" is an old term from algebraic curve-graphing or pre-calculus; not sure why it was seized on now... AnonMoos (talk) 22:26, 23 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I note that the OP used the corporate jargon "Marcoms people" to ask about corporate jargon used by Marcoms people. Thank you for adding a word to my vocabulary, even though I cannot imagine ever using it. HiLo48 (talk) 06:13, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * I only discovered that it was an actual word myself recently, thanks to the RD! Tevildo (talk) 08:14, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * See how insidious this is, going forward? --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  07:30, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * True, many things are done just because they're fashionable, but these people are paid considerable amounts of money specifically to come up with such phrases. I was wondering if there was any sort of rational basis for this tendency - if someone, in the 1950's or thereabouts, had determined that these communications are more effective if they all use the same buzzwords, rather than original buzzwords or actual English.  But, if there isn't, there isn't. Tevildo (talk) 08:14, 24 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Ugly jargon doesn't need a formal creation process. A few decades ago teachers in my state of Australia (quite probably elsewhere as well) got the opportunity to do "in-service training", meaning extra training beyond their basic qualifications, but typically paid for my their employer and done at times they would normally be in a classroom teaching. This term became abbreviated, strangely by using the descriptive part, "in-service", as a noun, so some would say "I'm going on an in-service tomorrow". Later, it became a verb, which is still occasionally used, in the form "I'm going to be inserviced tomorrow". To me, a country boy originally, one got one's cows serviced by the local bull, and images related to that concept often spring to mind.... HiLo48 (talk) 21:54, 24 October 2014 (UTC)


 * The other education-related one that I still wonder about is "pupil-free day" or "student-free day". That expression is framed, obviously, from the perspective of the teachers, but it's nevertheless often used by students: Mother: Get up, Johnny, you'll be late for school.  Johnny: I don't have to go to school today, Mum, we have a student-free day.  Crazy.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:45, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Saturday and Sunday are usually teacher-free days. When I was a schoolkid, there were about 90 teacher-free days in the summer. &#8209;&#8209; Mandruss  &#9742;  22:51, 24 October 2014 (UTC)
 * As a teacher myself now, I like my holidays to be both teacher and pupil free. It's nice to get away from it all. But unfortunately, the only time teachers get holidays is when the kids are on holidays too. HiLo48 (talk) 02:57, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * There are conductorless orchestras. Wouldn't it be great to have teacherless schools!  And head-of-governmentless countries (don't get me started ...).  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:03, 25 October 2014 (UTC)
 * If the plural is "heads of government", then the zeral is presumably "headless-of-government", isn't it? No such user (talk) 19:04, 26 October 2014 (UTC)
 * It depends on who's doing the presuming. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:41, 26 October 2014 (UTC)