Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 June 5

= June 5 =

looking forward to seeing you
"I’d like to seeing you" – nobody would say that. But why do you say: "I’m looking forward to seeing you"?. "to see" is an infinitve we lean at school, but "to seeing"? – I wonder Fritz Jörn (talk) 09:02, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * "Seeing", in this phrase, is a gerund, which acts syntactically as a noun. "To" is not the infinitive marker, but the directional preposition "to", and as such it can govern the gerund-noun "seeing" just as it could govern any other noun. This prepositional "to" is a fixed part of the idiomatic phrase "look forward to". You "look forward to something", where something can be any noun phrase. You "look forward to your vacations", "look forward to our meeting", or, if you fill in a gerund phrase instead of the noun phrase, "look forward to doing something". Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:10, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you so much! Fritz Jörn (talk) 13:37, 5 June 2015 (UTC)


 * As an aside, I tutored a native Turkish speaker in English, and he simply could not understand that there was no pseudo-progressive infinitive with -ing as in "to seeing" and he quit my services after I assigned him a twenty sentence exercise on the matter. But the way to parse the above visually is (I'd like)(to see you) vs (I’m looking forward to)(seeing you). μηδείς (talk) 19:12, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Can you read this tombstone?
I can read parts of this inscription easily, but the weathered bits are playing tricks on me. What I can read, Google doesn't recognize. It's like a Hangman puzzle, but with whole words. Anybody good at that game (or good at recognizing 19th century verse) and want to help?

Just the poem bit, not the vitals. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:01, 5 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Here's the Findagrave profile, if that offers clues. Doesn't to me. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:04, 5 June 2015 (UTC)


 * "One little bud adorned my bower etc". It is a poem on the death of an infant. See here. Contact Basemetal   here  11:08, 5 June 2015 (UTC)


 * (ec)I think it's this, the poem "Death of an Infant". I downloaded the picture and inverted the colors, which made it easier to read. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:09, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks. I couldn't read the simple words, after all! Thought that was "one little bird". InedibleHulk (talk) 11:17, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * That's quite a good bit of detective wortk, BB! Charles Sprague was quite an interesting character. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:20, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I deduce Bugs sees different colours from me, because inverting them made it harder to read, in my eyes. But that's why two heads are better than one. I also am led to believe Sprague has a forcefield around his headstone, because nobody can read this. Or can they? InedibleHulk (talk) 11:29, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm fairly certain it says "Sprague". Oh, you mean the obelisk? The picture is not sufficiently high-def to be readable. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:31, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I'd meant that thing in the distance, but then I realized that's not even his. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:41, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I didn't need to do anything other then inject into Google the few words I could read. Maybe you all need better glasses. Contact Basemetal   here  11:40, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * You found it at the same time I did, and the same way. I also first thought it was "little bird", but it didn't quite work. Inverting the colors helped me because it made the letters jump out a bit more. But even knowing what the words are, it's kind of hard to read. Too much stuff growing on the stone. A local needs to fix that. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:06, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * No, tombstones are supposed to gather moss. They're the opposite of rolling stones. When they topple, that's fine, too. Lets you know their time has passed. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:16, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * This guy gets it. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:27, 5 June 2015 (UTC)


 * We all need better tombstones. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:23, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * "Beneath this stone lies John Mound / Lost at sea and never found." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:27, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * "What's up Doc?" ... HERE LIES LESTER MOORE, FOUR SLUGS FROM A 44, NO LES NO MORE. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:33, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Some good shit here. InedibleHulk (talk) 20:47, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Do I detect another new article being dug? Martinevans123 (talk) 21:00, 5 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Are these ok? (Still a bit hard to read) Contact Basemetal   here  12:38, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Do you think this guy had two kitchens, too? Martinevans123 (talk) 12:44, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Since he had two wives... Contact Basemetal   here  13:05, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * As I was going to St Ives, I met a man with two wives. And each wife married a man with two names. Thankfully, this isn't the math desk. InedibleHulk (talk) 13:33, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Wait, my brain broke again. Only one wife was going to St Ives. They called her "Pee". InedibleHulk (talk) 13:36, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * My eyes work, it's my brain that was too narrow. I saw the picture of the little bird and the very possibility that it's about a little bud went out the window. Like how tons of people still can't see how "Puff the Magic Dragon" is about a literal magic dragon, not a little bud. InedibleHulk (talk) 12:26, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Surely a song can be about two things at once? Or even more? Aboutness is hard to pin down, but I think you'd appreciate a skim. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:17, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * If Jackie Paper can whip up a dragon out of autumn mist, we can certainly interpret something like words and music however we'd like. And in the privacy of our imagination, of course we're right. But once that theory's out, it's vulnerable to attack.
 * Say the song's about duty or reincarnation or the Java War, people may hear you out. But say it's about weed, and somebody in the room will kneejerk mythbust you like you said Columbus discovered America or toads cause warts. The evidence is on their side, and they're glad to let you know this. It's essentially the only wrong answer.
 * I'll stick with "subject" over "aboutness", but thanks for sharing. It sort of includes theme better, just doesn't have a nice ring to it. John Hutchins' website is about machine translation and feels about 1995. But I'd just say those are what it's about, not those are its aboutness. People would tell me I'm wrong. InedibleHulk (talk) 19:11, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Well-to-do
Wiktionary says that "well-to-do" is applied to plural subjects only. Is that correct? I'm sure I've read things like "She married a well-to-do merchant".

Also, is there an antonym of this expression that preserves the "-to-do" ending? What does "-to-do" refer to, anyway? --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  11:26, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe ne'er-do-well is an opposite. Maybe not quite. I don't find it weird if either is used for singular or plural objects, and haven't heard that anyone does till now, but I'd never really thought about it, either. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:44, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I think what they "do" is just general business. InedibleHulk (talk) 11:46, 5 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Wiktionary says that the term used as a noun (as in "The well-to-do may not be happier than you or I") is plural in sense. It does not say that the adjective is used only to modify plural nouns. Deor (talk) 12:09, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Now that seems correct. InedibleHulk (talk) 12:18, 5 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Good Lord! That's the first mistake I've ever made. My life is in ruins.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  13:02, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * I've told you a million times, don't exaggerate. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:25, 5 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Pretty sure there's no *poor-to-do or *bad-to-do, but there are the slightly related terms (in my AmEng) "well off", "better off", "worse off" &c. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:05, 5 June 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, the same in British English, and we also have the colloquial "badly off", though I wouldn't use it in formal writing.   D b f i r s   15:37, 5 June 2015 (UTC)
 * The OED Online has three nineteenth-century citations for ill-to-do. (ill being the opposite of well, I think). 128.232.236.110 (talk) 09:54, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, it ill-behoves us not to know that. Thanks for that info.  I shall introduce "ill-to-do" into my scribblings forthwith.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  10:42, 6 June 2015 (UTC)