Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 November 14

= November 14 =

Self-referential question
Why does the first word of this sentence ("why") sound like its last letter ("y")? GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 00:53, 14 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Some people pronounce the word "why" and the letter "Y" differently ("why" can be pronounced with a voiceless labialized velar approximant too, something like "hwye"). We have an article on pronunciation of English ⟨wh⟩. As for why the letter 'Y' is named "wye", our subsection on the etymology of letter names only writes: "wye, of obscure origin but with an antecedent in Old French wi" ---Sluzzelin talk  01:08, 14 November 2015 (UTC)


 * When speaking carefully, the "wh" part is enunciated. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:32, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * No, when some people are speaking carefully. Others consider the that the H is just silent. --70.49.170.168 (talk) 11:27, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Maybe a regional thing and/or a function of education level. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:18, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * See Whine-wine merger.--Wikimedes (talk) 01:21, 21 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Does it matter what sound precedes it, like how "cool" changes "whip"? Or is that just for show? InedibleHulk (talk) 05:34, 14 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Speaking of self-referential, I just accidentally discovered that the word "a" sounds exactly like its first and last letter. Maybe even the middle letter. InedibleHulk (talk) 09:39, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * No, actually, it doesn't&mdash;usually. Usually the article "a" is just a schwa.  Even when they use an emphasized pronunciation, some people use a short A as in "cat", others a long A like the name of the letter. See. --70.49.170.168 (talk) 11:27, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, hadn't considered other people's habits. Thanks for the reminder. "I" is still universal, as far as I recall. InedibleHulk (talk) 06:24, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Also, I. Doesn't even matter which dialect you use. InedibleHulk (talk) 09:40, 14 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I heard/read somewhere or other that Y was called ui because it looks like those two letters stacked; this naturally became /wai/ in the Great Vowel Shift. Could be a Just So Story. —Tamfang (talk) 07:47, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Do you mean the Great Vowel Shift? And does an italicized "thuh" become "thee" in everyone else's head? InedibleHulk (talk) 08:38, 15 November 2015 (UTC)


 * "Northern /eː øː/ were raised to /iː, yː/ (and later /yː/ was unrounded to /iː/), and Southern /eː oː/ were raised to /iː uː/. But in Southern English, both the front and back close vowels /iː uː/ were diphthongized, while in Northern English /iː/ diphthongized, but /uː/ did not."
 * Just quoting Wikipedia, not sure what it means. Seems relevant. InedibleHulk (talk) 08:46, 15 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I was just going to ignore this, but, to answer 's question, [ðɘ] (in my dialect, [ðɨ]) appears before consonants, and [ði] before vowels. "Thih book" vs "thee earthquake". μηδείς (talk) 01:06, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation/writing of Sino-Korean numerals
It appears that there is a discrepancy between how some large Sino-Korean numbers are pronounced as opposed to how they are written. One area where this seems to be the case is with years - for example, the year 1988 would be pronounced as if it were written "千九百八十八," but when it is written in Hanja, it is written as "一九八八," just like how it is written in the Chinese language. Is it true that such a discrepancy exists here? 173.52.207.169 (talk) 07:14, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The year could be written in various ways in Hanja. Here's an example with just the digits, 一九五0年: .  Here's an example written out in full, 一千九百二十一年: .  You could also write the year either way in Hangeul: 일구구팔년 vs. 천구백구십구년.  I'd say the shorter form in Hanja, like 一九八八, is equivalent to writing the date in numerals, 1988. --Amble (talk) 00:18, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

spellings in French
Why doesn't the French flag's name, The Tricolore use the usual word for "color" in French as in couleur? Thanks in advance, Manytexts (talk) 11:35, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Because it's a "three-coloured" flag rather than a "three-colour" flag. Itsmejudith (talk) 12:22, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * As implied above "tricolore" is an adjective, not a noun. The full phrase is "le drapeau tricolore", not "le drapeau aux trois couleurs". Other adjectives using "-colore" are unicolore, bicolore, multicolore. --Cfmarenostrum (talk) 13:15, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * To expand a bit: the English verb "to color/colour" is colorer in French, and if you merely wished to say "colored/coloured" in French it would be coloré with an acute accent at the end (colorée in the feminine), not "colore", though there are antonyms with both spellings: incolore (without color, colorless) and incoloré (uncolored).
 * All this does not answer why the adjective and verb are closer to Latin than the noun "couleur". Here are CNTRL's entries on the etymology and history of couleur, colorer, tricolore, and incolore, . ---Sluzzelin talk  14:13, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Incolore and incoloré are paronyms - words with similar spelling or pronunciation but different or close meanings. Antonyms are words with opposite meanings.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:23, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I meant (various possible) antonyms of -colore/ coloré. ---Sluzzelin talk  20:28, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The reason is simple: couleur has been a colloquial word (hence its Old French form), while colorer and -colore are later borrowings from Latin.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:25, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

You're an amazing bunch. Thanks for your perfect answers that take my French rudiments up many notches. Manytexts (talk) 23:17, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * The phenomenon,, to which Ljuboslov refers, is doublet (linguistics). μηδείς (talk) 18:29, 15 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Déjà vu: I asked exactly the same question earlier this year, but the answer was a bit more detailed this time around :-) Alansplodge (talk) 01:14, 16 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Doublet is a cool link, thank you. And it is worth reading your Q&A Alansplodge because –lore also looked Italian to me. So much to learn. Merci. Manytexts (talk) 08:22, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

"It's Kobe taking over for LeBron"
Several questions: Thanks! – H T  D  20:07, 14 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Should that sentence have a sentence between "Kobe" and "taking"?
 * Is the sentence without a comma correct, as far as normal conversational English is concerned, or is it downright wrong?
 * Is the sentence with a comma "more correct" than the one without, or they're just the same?
 * What do you call this type of... sentence/clause/something?


 * Maybe your first question was "Should that sentence have a sentence comma between "Kobe" and "taking"?"? --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:31, 14 November 2015 (UTC)


 * LOL yes. – H T  D  05:00, 15 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Comma or no comma, fine with me. The taking... is a participle modifying the head noun Kobe. —Tamfang (talk) 07:51, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * So what's the verb? All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 22:43, 15 November 2015 (UTC).


 * 's --ColinFine (talk) 00:19, 16 November 2015 (UTC)


 * To clarify a bit, the contraction "It's" is short for "it is". In this case, the 's standing for "is", which is a type of verb called a copula. -- Jayron 32 13:03, 16 November 2015 (UTC)


 * So let me get this straight: With or without the comma, it doesn't matter? Neither version is "more correct" than the other? – H T  D  17:40, 16 November 2015 (UTC)


 * It sort of depends on how you speak the sentence. A dependent clause (the part that says "taking over for Lebron") can be set aside by commas, by conjunctions, or by nothing in particular. In the case of many dependent clauses, the conjoining word is omitted, see here for an explanation.  -- Jayron 32 17:49, 16 November 2015 (UTC)


 * "Technically correct" might depend on whether "taking over for LeBron" is restrictive or not. I'd guess it's usually not, meaning a comma would be appropriate. In everyday, spoken English, would there be a slight pause representing a comma? Probably depends on the speaker. StevenJ81 (talk) 17:59, 16 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, this is what I had thought, re: if you'd pause if you're talking aloud the sentence. Sometimes you do, sometimes you don't.
 * I guess the question would now be, if you'd put this sentence in isolation, would a comma had been necessary? For example, Kobe himself said "It's Kobe taking over for LeBron," then, the next sentence immediately follows. Does the second sentence have anything to do with the existence of the comma? Or does Kobe saying it have any bearing on whether the comma exists or not? – H T  D  18:22, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
 * You'd want the comma for something like:
 * Who's the new guy in the remake of Ten Tall Men? It's Kobe, taking over for LeBron. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:08, 17 November 2015 (UTC)