Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 August 6

= August 6 =

"Canadian-based" or "Canada-based"?
Would one describe a company based in Canada as "Canada-based" or "Canadian-based"? I believe it should be "Canadian based" but User:Largoplazo disagrees. Can someone please tell us which is correct and provide a reliable source? I've found a source here which says "some people get it wrong with nations and use the noun form when they should be using the adjectival form, so say things – incorrectly – like "Britain-based company". It should be British-based company, Swiss-based company, French-based company (not Britain-based, Switzerland-based, France-based etc)" but Largo rejects the source and the argument.Horatio Bumblebee (talk) 04:29, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * You two have a content dispute. Keep it on the article talk page where it belongs. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 05:01, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm looking for some grammar advice and hopefully reliable sources. This is the place to go with grammar and language questions, isn't it? Horatio Bumblebee (talk) 05:26, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * What have you found on the internet otherwise? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:29, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * That's not a very helpful response. He's come here for an authoritative answer, he's under no obligation to go looking for himself first.  To the OP: you are right, this is the place for such questions. --Viennese Waltz 12:43, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Since when is Wikipedia "authoritative" an anything? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:03, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * All this assumes there is a definitive, correct answer to this. I'm not so sure there is. StevenJ81 (talk) 13:07, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Agreed, I'm not sure there is a definitive answer. But in my opinion (a professional opinion, as a writer), I would use either "a Canada-based company" or "a Canadian company".  → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 13:14, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It's similar to the issue of whether "English footballer" or "England footballer" is correct. In my day, the former was used, but it's now nearly always the latter.--Phil Holmes (talk) 13:20, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * In that case, Phil, wouldn't it depend in part on whether you were referring to the nationality of the footballer or the fact that he plays for England's national side? StevenJ81 (talk) 13:22, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * And, by the way, I'd agree with Michael J. But I'm not sure I could go so far as to say that "Canadian-based" is wrong . StevenJ81 (talk) 13:22, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Please see my reasoning against it at User talk:Largoplazo. If it's been established through usage and that fact has been recognized in style guides and the like, it's one thing, but otherwise there's no rationale for it. —Largo Plazo (talk) 14:06, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The word based refers to the location of the firm, not its ownership. The firm is based in Canada, so it is Canada-based.  It is not based in Canadian. Incidentally, I think English footballer vs. England footballer is an unrelated issue.  An English footballer is any footballer with an English nationality, whether he plays for Manchester United or Real Madrid. Probably because of the internationalization of the sport, the term England footballer has come to refer to a footballer playing on England's national team, not just any English footballer.  However, a firm based in England would be an English firm, not an England firm.  Likewise, a firm based in Canada is a Canadian firm.  Still, that firm is Canada-based.  Marco polo (talk) 14:12, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think Canada-based is wrong as per this explanation because "Canada" is not an adjective. "Canadian company" is perfectly correct but "Canadian-based" is also perfectly correct and is in fact used by both the government and quality newspapers such as the Globe and Mail e.g. "New faces, new hopes for Canadian-based NHL clubs" Globe and Mail and "CANADIAN-BASED MULTINATIONALS: AN ANALYSIS OF ACTIVITIES AND PERFORMANCE" Industry Canada (Government of Canada), and I also see it's used in the New York Times and by Associated Press e.g. "Of the five Canadian-based teams in the postseason, Montreal was the last to be eliminated. The Canadiens, in 1993, were the last team from Canada to win the Cup." in "Revival by Steven Stamkos Puts Lightning in East Finals". Horatio Bumblebee (talk) 14:29, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

"It's similar to the issue of whether "English footballer" or "England footballer"" - wouldn't the difference there be that "England" is also the name of the national football team so saying "England footballer"? It would be the same as saying "Manchester United footballer" but I don't think you'd ever say British Leyland is an "England company" or that it's a "Britain-based" company as opposed to "British based". Horatio Bumblebee (talk) 14:40, 6 August 2015 (UTC) I don't see the value of again citing the same source by an author who arrives at his conclusion, not by reference to any observations of accepted usage, but through his own reasoning, after I've shot that reasoning full of holes and demonstrated that logically it leads to the opposite of the conclusion that he arrived at. I also don't see why the reasoning of that other arbitrary person is compelling to you and why you feel it's fine for it to be included in this discussion, while reasoning from me is to be dismissed as "original research". —Largo Plazo (talk) 15:39, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * "after I've shot that reasoning full of holes" i.e. original research. The problem is you can't cite a source to support your reasoning other than yourself. Horatio Bumblebee (talk) 17:04, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Basic logic and the ability to discern nonsense isn't "research". I wonder where you got the idea that you can cite any source you like and not have whether it qualifies as a reliable one subject to scrutiny other than by playing dueling sources. See my earlier analogy, on my talk page, with plurals of nouns. If you found a web page out there that claimed that the plural of "spoon" is anything other than "spoons", no, there would be no burden on me to find a source that anticipated that foolish claim and said, explicitly, "By the way, if you ever see someone claim that the plural of "spoon" is anything other than "spoons", it's incorrect." —Largo Plazo (talk) 17:27, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Then cite a source that supports your position. Horatio Bumblebee (talk) 06:28, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
 * In case anyone was wondering, the article in question is EasyDNS. I see that another editor has recently attempted to neutralize the dispute by changing the wording to "Canadian" and omitting the "-based". Personally I don't like either "Canada-based" or "Canadian-based", not because one or the other of them is wrong but for stylistic reasons.  It's trying to pack too much into the sentence.  It would be better to write "...an internet service provider based in Canada, which supplies..."  I repeat, I prefer this option not because it avoids the dispute, but because it reads better. --Viennese Waltz 14:52, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * We have Canadian bacon and Canada geese. I'm not sure there's truly a "right" answer, but convention would suggest "a Canadian company" as you say. The "based" part seems superfluous. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:15, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * The reason I wrote "Canadian-based" rather than "Canadian" is the company is based in Canada but operates internationally. "Canadian company" may imply that they only operate in Canada.Horatio Bumblebee (talk) 17:03, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Then follow the example of other articles about international companies, and call it a Canadian international company or an international company based in Canada, the latter being VW's good suggestion. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:12, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * For example BP is called a "British multinational company". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:15, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I think that people who go looking for rules are on a fool's errand.  Before 1982 the word "Argentinian" denoted "pertaining to Argentina".   Then the word "Argentine" served for both the country and its inhabitants.   People don't talk according to rule, they talk according to convenience. 80.43.218.51 (talk) 17:49, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

present perfect tense
What does the author intend to convey by using the present perfect tense in the following context? "A bad reader is like a bad translator. In learning to read well, scholarship, valuable as it is, is less important than instinct; some great scholars have been poor translators." Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.249.210.17 (talk) 08:20, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It conveys the fact that he may be talking about both past and present scholars. If he had written "some great scholars were poor translators", that restricts it to past scholars.  If, on the other hand, he had written "some great scholars are poor translators", that restricts it to present scholars. This way, both past and present scholars are included in the statement. --Viennese Waltz 09:08, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Very well put. μηδείς (talk) 17:11, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * And more broadly, the author is conveying that the activity described continues into the present, or somehow has an effect on the present. (For example, compare the difference (a subtle one) between "Cars made the buggy obsolete" and "Cars have made the buggy obsolete.") Herbivore (talk) 16:05, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Apostrophe s
Are St James' Park and St. James's Park pronounced in the same way or differently? Thanks, --Komischn (talk) 11:23, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I would pronounce James' as "JAYMS", but James's as "JAYM-zes". — SMUconlaw (talk) 12:51, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Sounds reasonable (I would've intuitively done the same). But can anyone explain the double genitive to me? I recently wondered about St. James's Park on my own talk page (go to the very bottom of the section). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:28, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

There is some material of relevance at John Wells's phonetic blog. --Theurgist (talk) 17:13, 6 August 2015 (UTC)


 * How can you have a double genitive?  There is a St James's Church in Paddington and a St James' Church in Chipping Campden.   The difference is in the pronunciation, not the duality of the possessive. 80.43.218.51 (talk) 17:32, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * See double genitive: that's how. But that is not what's happening with James's.  The head word "James" is neither genitive nor plural, it just happens to end with an -s.  There's a convention that singular nouns ending in -s are possessivised by adding an apostrophe only, not -'s, but there are many exceptions.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:35, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * There's also a convention that singular nouns ending in -s are possessivized by adding -'s just the same as other nouns. This is recommended by Strunk and White with a few exceptions. --Amble (talk) 21:05, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, but please pay attention. I'm talking about possessivisation, and you've gone off onto a completely unrelated tangent, possessivization.  :)  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  01:06, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not a tangent, it's just that you now can go back to the OP's question and work out whether St(.) James has been possessivised or possessivized in each case. --Amble (talk) 01:28, 7 August 2015 (UTC)


 * To directly answer ' question above, James is the nominative singular, like Jacobus, it just happens to end in ess in English. James's is a normal, not a double genitive. μηδείς (talk) 01:25, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * When I was a mere youth, lo! these many years ago, singulars ending in s might still be possessivized here in the States with just an apostrophe, per Jack's comment above. But I have come to understand that in the States, the convention has now swung strongly in the direction suggested by Strunk, White and Amble—namely, s's. StevenJ81 (talk) 01:43, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * What do they say about Moses's, Jesus's, Croesus's, rhesus's, Isis's, Perseus's, Tarsus's, faeces's, grocers's, juices's, nooses's, et al? --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  12:12, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Have you seen English possessive and Apostrophe? Classical names such as Jesus, Moses, Augustus, Pappus, Pythagoras, Thales, Socrates, Xerxes etc. are exceptions, but whether James is included is unclear – it's probably not, because James comes via Old French, not (Anglo-)Latin (and ultimately via Ancient Greek from Hebrew), unlike Jacobus. James is not a nominative singular because a nominative case does not exist in English (unlike in Old French). (Plurals are treated the same as classical names, hence faeces', grocers' , etc.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:33, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Since when does a nominative case not exist in English? Have the experts yet again decided among themselves to restructure our language and not tell us users about it?  Are you referring only to nouns, or to pronouns as well?  If I, you, he, she, it, we and they are not nominative, what are they?  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:31, 9 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Since about the high medieval period. Since James is not a pronoun I'm not sure how pronominal paradigms are relevant here. Clearly I'm talking primarily about nouns. Given that only a few pronouns (you and it are not among them, by the way) have separate "subject forms" in English, and any trace of a distinction between nominative and oblique case forms is restricted to a few pronouns, it does not make a lot of sense to say that "a nominative case exists in English" (as a general concept), unless we are talking about syntactical cases (but we were talking about word forms, not syntax). See Grammatical case at the very bottom. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 10:34, 10 August 2015 (UTC)


 * My understanding is that even the monosyllabic Zeus is included in these exceptions, hence Zeus', not Zeus's. Is this correct? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:48, 8 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I refer you, without comment about agreement or correctness, to Possessive: St. James&#039;s/James&#039;/James Park? | WordReference Forums.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 02:20, 7 August 2015 (UTC)
 * From that blog, Spira's comment (eighth from above) "Although we continue to pronounce it as though the second S was present" one might conclude that both variants are pronounced the same way, i. e. "JAYM-zes", whereas Smuconlaw's first answer names two different pronunciations. Native speakers here? --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 11:09, 7 August 2015 (UTC)


 * There is some information about the pronunciation of St James' Park in our article, at St James' Park. DuncanHill (talk) 11:51, 7 August 2015 (UTC)


 * I can see how people construe a double genitive, claiming that St James's Park is the park of the church of St James, but if we consider the churchyard, is there any evidence that people think "Oh my, this is the yard of the church of St James, so I must call it "St James's churchyard", rather than (St James' church) yard?  This argument seems to me to be of the "I know that he knows that I know" variety.   The internet seems to not like even single genitives - if you type http://www.sainsbury's.co.uk into your browser you will not get Sainsbury's website, but if you type http://www.sainsburys.co.uk in you will. 78.149.204.165 (talk) 13:33, 8 August 2015 (UTC)


 * To pronounce "St James'" as anything other than "St James's" sounds rather affected to me. DuncanHill (talk) 13:39, 8 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Then your version of St. James Infirmary Blues would sound really funny! - Nunh-huh 13:59, 8 August 2015 (UTC)


 * St James is not the same as St James'! St James Infirmary is not the same as St James' Infirmary. Punctuation matters. DuncanHill (talk) 14:08, 8 August 2015 (UTC)


 * By one of those coincidences which have to be seen to be believed, someone left a business card on the table which I picked up, and inscribed thereon was:


 * .... Cleaning Services Ltd
 * .... House, 278-280 St James's Road, London, SE1 5JX

Can we just accept that there is no rule and leave it at that? 78.149.204.165 (talk) 17:18, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

The second person singular is still used in the north (thou, thee, thy) and worldwide in prayers ("for thine is the kingdom"). "You" actually is an inflection - when Parliament was dissolved the town crier of the City of London made the traditional announcement from the steps of the Royal Exchange - "Hear ye, hear ye ...". I wouldn't say that "Zeus" is monosyllabic - it has a yod in it. I believe that cases are still important in parsing sentences (though I haven't had to do it since I left school). I don't know if today's schoolchildren are taught it. It's a great shame that languages are not taught the way they used to be - the last state school to teach Ancient Greek recently dropped it from the curriculum and Oxford dropped compulsory Latin last century. 78.149.122.51 (talk) 12:45, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Curse words against the Virgin Mary in English?
Does English have any curse words against the Virgin Mary? Is "Marry!" in Romeo and Juliet a Marian oath? Is it as bad as curse words against God? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 19:47, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Can you tell us ignorami where that appears in R & J? As to cursing Mother Mary, I can't say I've ever heard any, but maybe it's a different situation in England. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:23, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * In Romeo and Juliet opening scene, one guy was saying "Marry!" A quick Google search suggests that the usage is a corruption of "By Mary" to avoid the statute of profanity. I am wondering whether there are more marian oaths. 71.79.234.132 (talk) 20:29, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * I have heard "mother of God", "Mary mother of God" and "Jesus Mary and Joseph" used as profanity in English. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:38, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * WP:OR I hear those too, all over the USA. I profanity is an odd concept. Usage in "a way that shows you do not respect God or holy things" is of course very subjective. A preacher may say "Jesus! Thank you for blessing me with this beautiful view", and be fine, but if I say "Jesus! That hurt!" it's a little murkier. Maybe I'm praying, or maybe I'm taking the lord's name in vain. My point is, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph" can be used in away to make an exclamation seem less blasphemous. I don't know if the God of Christians agrees or not, but the idea is that one is then invoking a holy family, not just blurting out a name as an expletive/curse/oath. "Mother of God!" as an expletive comes out more like a good old-fashioned blasphemous curse. Recently, there's a whole "Mother of God" rage comic image that gets used fairly frequently, see . SemanticMantis (talk) 20:55, 6 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Our Bloody article says: 'One theory is that it derives from the phrase by Our Lady, a sacrilegious invocation of the Virgin Mary. The abbreviated form By'r Lady is common in Shakespeare's plays around the turn of the 17th century, and interestingly Jonathan Swift about 100 years later writes both "it grows by'r Lady cold" and "it was bloody hot walking to-day" suggesting that a transition from one to the other could have been under way. In the middle of the 19th century Anne Brontë writes in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall: "I went to see him once or twice – nay, twice or thrice – or, by'r lady, some four times"' Alansplodge (talk) 20:59, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * In answer to the second part of your question, the Reformation in England effectively ended the veneration of the Virgin Mary until the 19th century Catholic revival, so using her name in profanity would have appeared less grave to a 17th ot 18th century English Protestant than to a Catholic. The examples quoted by Adam Bishop above have an Irish ring about them (to my ears anyway). Alansplodge (talk) 21:07, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * (multiple) Yes, the OED regards the oath "marry" as obsolete, but gives the definition "expressing surprise, astonishment, outrage, etc., or used to give emphasis to one's words" with cites from 1375 to 1960. It's an oath rather than a curse, and there is a suggestion that it was originally "by St Mary of Egypt" (see Mary of Egypt) rather than the wife of Joseph.  Adam's and Alan's examples above are common and would be "Marian oaths".  The usage is indeed a euphemistic form, but predates the Profane Swearing Acts of 1623 and 1694.   D b f i r s   21:25, 6 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Madre de Deus is an exclamation in Portuguese which means literally "mother of God".  Whether it offends the proscription "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" is a moot point.   If it doesn't it's no more objectionable than the Italian Mama mia or the English  "Gordon Bennett!". 80.43.232.241 (talk) 14:59, 7 August 2015 (UTC)