Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 April 1

= April 1 =

Plural of Agenda
What is the plural of "agenda"? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:41, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I can't put my finger on the backup reference information, but in all my years I've never seen agendae, only agendas. Looking closer, agenda is itself the Latin plural of agendum, so we're talking about a word that the English language has converted from plural to singular. That in mind, it would be completely wrong to use agendae, which is maybe why we don't. &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  02:48, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * The other possibility is that it could be used as it's own plural, like "sheep" (although I've always been tempted to invent the singular form "shep", which would then explain "shepherd"). :-) StuRat (talk) 03:42, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Yeah, if it's a herd comprised of one shep. Ok, the Oxford Dictionaries entry for agenda says: Done and done. &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  03:50, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * A shepherd isn't a herd of sheep, it's a person who herds sheep, or a single shep. :-) StuRat (talk) 03:57, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Someone's been watching Blue Peter... :) "Get down, Shep!"  KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 07:01, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The only reliable way to meat (or meet) a shepherd in England nowadays is to hang out by the vending machine in the men's room of the local pub. In fact, it's become a cottage industry. μηδείς (talk) 21:29, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm sure it was a cow. This is where we get cottage cheese from, mate. :) KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 02:49, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


 * composed of, dammit. —Tamfang (talk) 03:06, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Agenda means "things to do", and the singular for a specific thing on such a list was originally "agendus". They now use "agendum" for an item, maybe because "agendus" would sound too much like "agendas". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:32, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I suppose the Latin participle can be masculine (agendus), feminine (agenda) or neuter (agendum), but the English word comes from the Latin neuter noun agendum which has plural agenda. The word has been Anglicised as a singular, so agendas is acceptable unless you are a Latin pedant.    D b f i r s   07:10, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I am not a student of Latin, I'm just going by what EO says, that "agenda" is the neuter plural of "agendus". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 07:14, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know what EO is, but what I remember of my Latin is that agendus, ending in "us", would be masculine, and the plural of a masculine noun is always formed by replacing the "us" with "i". I don't recall anything about neuter plurals of masculine nouns, maybe that was considered too advanced for high school. &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  08:04, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Etymology Online, which I had linked to above. Here it is again: ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 08:32, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry, ADD moment. Interesting. &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  08:56, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * * neuter plural of agendus, gerundive of agere "to do"
 * That seems an odd way of expressing it. The gerundive can occur in masculine, feminine or neuter, and in singular or plural.  That's just in nominative case, and there are 5 other cases.  It's not as if the masculine singular (agendus) is the primary gerundive and all other forms are some variant of it.  I think it should read:
 * * neuter plural gerundive of agere "to do". --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  09:24, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Jack touches on the sometimes weird conventions of lexicography. Verbs in Latin dictionaries are always listed under the first person present indicative ('I do', 'I am'), though the infinitive is more distinctive. So I sometimes find assertions like "ago [I do] means 'to do'".  Similarly, adjectives are always listed under the masculine singular nominative; if I were emperor the neuter would go first, because unstated nouns for unknown referents are normally described with neuter adjectives. —Tamfang (talk) 03:13, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I hereby annoint you Emperor Tamfang 'The Tropoclastic' of the Rupestrian Realms. You may now proceed to carry out your Magnificent Manifesto.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  05:23, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Probably unuseful, but agenda in Italian has the regular plural form agende (feminine). I guess agendas will be almost perfect in English--Carnby (talk) 09:13, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The comment was made on the Reference Desk Talk Page that some of the regular editors should post questions to which we knew the answers. (At least I thought that was the comment.  Maybe I was mistaken.  If so, April Fool!)  The discussion about Latin has been mostly correct but the details of gender need to be restated.  'Agenda' is the neuter plural of a neuter singular gerundive, a type of verbal noun.  The singular means "That which is to be acted upon".  The plural, following the usual rule for regular neuter plural, is 'agenda'.  It is therefore plural in the Latin.  In the Latin, the singular refers to one item of business, and the plural to multiple items of business.  In English, 'agenda' is a singular noun, because it refers not to one item, but to a list.  The English plural is indeed 'agendas', following the usual rules of regular plural formation.  The English word 'agendas' is thus, in an odd way, a double plural, because its semantics changes in being inherited into English.  Any attempt to pluralize 'agenda' as 'agendae' would be incorrect because the Latin isn't feminine singular.  So the plural is 'agendas', but it has taken an interesting journey through semantics from being an item on a list to being the list.  Double plurals, words that have been pluralized twice in two languages, are rare, because that involves a change in semantics. Robert McClenon (talk) 14:42, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I suggest agendums with a source here and 97khits at google. μηδείς (talk) 19:56, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * But only if you use the word "agendum" as the singular form, rather than "agenda". No way is "agendums" the plural of "agenda".  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:16, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * As people sometimes say here when they want to ignore proven fact and common sense, and disregard the standards of an advanced Western education, I assert that you're committing the dread etymological fallacy, Jack. All that matters is usage by the unwashed.  "John came with his own agenda (sing.) but found that each of the other 11 board members had their own, differing agendums."  It's the wave of the future. μηδείς (talk) 21:06, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * For the most part, the "great unwashed" would have no idea that "agenda" is a Latin plural, the singular of which is "agendum". They know "agenda" as an English singular noun, they do not know "agendum" at all, and so they would have no basis on which to use the latter word to create a plural or anything else.  Fallacy, schmallacy.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:32, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I suspect that most of the great unwashed seldom use the term "agenda". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:23, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Sure they do "Hey Bill, what's your agenda?" "I'm male, you know that Joe!"  -- Jayron 32 02:53, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


 * A person can have two different sets of agenda (lists of things to be done), for example, a set of agenda for shopping and a set of agenda for cooking. See http://www.onelook.com/?w=agendum&ls=a.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 20:34, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I'm reminded of another Latin neuter plural that became singular: opera. The adjective operatic seems to be coined by analogy with Greek neuters in –ma, stem –mat–, plural –mata.  How about plural agendata? (Careful readers of my edit summaries may now go "Aha!".) —Tamfang (talk) 03:24, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

Where have all the "T"s gone?
I am increasingly noticing that in typical British English, people are not pronouncing "t"s at the end of words. I'm sure this wasn't as common when I was a child (80s and 90s). Is this a recent development (and if so, why), or am I just now noticing something that was always common (or isn't now as common as I think it is)? Iapetus (talk) 10:41, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * The glottal stop (which, ironically contains a double-T which is pronounced as a glottal stop) has been around in all of my 42 years of existance, and I am sure it didn't just happen as a birthday present for me. It must have been around for years before that. I'm from Liverpool, and up here the glottal stop is not used as much as in Estuary or Cockney English, but we do use it from time to time. KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 11:00, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * in some English accents also replaces final /v/: e.g. in the song "Mambo No. 5" Lou Bega sang "a little bit o Monica in my life, a little bit o Erica by my side..." Same in some Blur songs.--Carnby (talk) 12:02, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * In Cockney, it can also replace other letters, like the 'p' in 'apple', or in fact, any other plosive. KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 12:11, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * In Cockney land, where I live, the glottal stop can replace "t" anywhere in the word (except at the beginning). 87.81.147.76 (talk) 12:37, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * "Glottal" is written with two "t"s, but of course only has a single /t/. -- Hoary (talk) 23:06, 2 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I don't think the question is primarily about glottal stops: I think it's about unreleased plosives. --ColinFine (talk) 12:55, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * But final /t/ has not been a released plosive in ordinary speech in most varieties of English since the time of the earliest recordings more than a century ago. I think that the questioner is asking about the replacement of final [t] with the glottal stop, which is surely quite old, since it is shared by both American English and many English varieties on Great Britain.  Marco polo (talk) 13:54, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * This article, Estuary English, David Crystal, Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language, 1995, (p. 327) comments on the rapid spread of Estuary English to other parts of England, displacing local dialects; "London-influenced speech can now be heard around three other estuaries - the Humber in the north-east, the Dee in the north-west, and the Severn in the west" which may the phenomenon noticed by the OP. The articles notes a main characteristic; "The glottal stop In certain positions, especially replacing /t/ at the end of a word or before a consonant". Alansplodge (talk) 17:03, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * I'd be happy if the British would stop pronouncing the final T in French words, like fillet. StuRat (talk)
 * So, you would prefer us to dance around like ballet dancers wearing a tutu when asking for a 'fillet' of fish at McDonalds? We are real men, who don't retreat in battle. We are hard-core. We PRONOUNCE the 'T'. Because we don't give up, towards the end of a word, never mind a war. :) KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 17:25, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Stu, if you stop deliberately misspelling the possessive pronoun 'its' against the advice of all authorities, references and community consensus, then maybe the British will listen to what you have to say about their pronunciation. Actually, not even then; but you should still clean up your own backyard first.  Sorry, I missed what now seems a rather obvious April Fool's joke. :)  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:11, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * "Fillet" has been an English word since the 14th century . Alansplodge (talk) 21:02, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * You may want to start pronouncing the h in 'herb' and putting the correct stress on 'oregano'.... 82.21.7.184 (talk) 21:35, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

See T-glottalization for a complete treatment,. μηδείς (talk) 19:45, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Dropping of "t's" used to be more confined to particular accents, such as the Cockney accent. Now it is nearly universal in the horrible nondescript slovenly speech used by large numbers of people in the south of England (especially). The quality of speech of British people (especially English) really is a national embarrassment. 31.51.1.15 (talk) 20:28, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * If you'd like to utter such opinions, BT user, you'd better do so on some other website, such as your own blog. -- Hoary (talk) 23:06, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Oh yeah, very amusing, like Ref Desk regulars don't constantly offer opinions. Are you going to banish all them to their own blogs too? 31.51.1.15 (talk) 23:55, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Not if their opinions are informed and at least potentially enlightening. -- Hoary (talk) 00:40, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Try teaching glottal stops to speakers of languages that don't have them. I was in Japan for ten years and it was almost impossible. The only thing my wife was able to pronounce 'correctly' was "Yer wha'?" KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 23:00, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
 * I'd say "uh-oh" and have them mimic me, . μηδείς (talk) 06:03, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Completely unrelated to the question,, but once we were watching CNN, and the newscaster was saying that 'Mexicans have been coming over here for decades', and she looked at me and said "Did he just call them dickheads?", so at least she learned something. :) KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 06:27, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, /'dɛkheɪdz/ versus 'dɪkhɛdz/. Not much of a difference at all.  When we took Intro to Ling for Majors, 201, the professor picked out all the accents he could, without eliciting test questions, just the name and where they were from.  One of the students was Mexican residing on Long Island, and she explained she wanted to learn why everyone laughed when she said she was going to the bitch, and how to correct the problem.  The students all laughed, and she was so upset she almost left until we convinced her we were impressed she could speak two languages fluently, while most of us only had a few years of schooling (in a second language). μηδείς (talk) 06:44, 4 April 2015 (UTC)
 * A Chinese friend of mine in Japan had a Japanese girlfriend, and he said to her 'anata wa kirai desu' (meaning to say 'anata wa kirei desu') and she got angry. He had wanted to say 'You are beautiful', but had inadvertantly said 'I hate you'. KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 07:09, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

The "t" sound in English has traditionally been a voiceless alveolar stop, as you can see on the Wiki page about stops here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_consonant. It is not a plosive, where all of the air from the air way is blocked, as was previously suggested, as the area of articulation actually forces the air from the throat out through the mouth which creates the sound of the "t" as it is voiceless.

There are different reasons for groups to change the traditional linguistic pronunciation of sounds. In Radford's Book, Linguistics: An Introduction, he discusses the dropping of the "h". According to his findings, it was primarily the lower working class that omitted the sound, whereas the middle middle class was much less likely to drop the sound.

In this work by Eckert, she discusses linguistic variation as a means to create social identity. 

In another book that discusses sociolinguistic variation: American Dialect Research, edited by Dennis Preston, it is likewise noted that the differences in linguistic expression, like the glottalization of the alveolar stop, is related to a social class. It is further noted that there is no dialect that is pure and devoid of variation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HeatherMarieN (talk • contribs) 00:48, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

The Icelandic word 'sæll'
When Icelandic people say the word 'sæll', and when they say 'Halló' or 'Hæ'? The meaning of all those three words is 'Hello'. 84.108.152.139 (talk) 15:14, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * 'Sæll' is a greeting. Literally, it means 'blessed', 'happy', or 'fortunate'. KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 16:23, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Each greeting has a different pragmatic value. See this forum for some discussion of these greetings.  Marco polo (talk) 19:39, 1 April 2015 (UTC)


 * Interestingly, this doesn't seem to be related to PIE *solwos (Latin  SALVE !, Greek holos, etc). Mallory (Oxford Introduction to PIE) mentions no root for the Germanic word. μηδείς (talk) 21:22, 1 April 2015 (UTC)
 * See Orel, p. 327, PG *sēliz. Many different authors propose many different IE cognates--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 07:11, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I have ordered it. μηδείς (talk) 14:00, 3 April 2015 (UTC)

We are the world
No question. Just want to say Happy April Fool's Day, to all my fellow linguists. KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 18:24, 1 April 2015 (UTC)