Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 April 25

= April 25 =

Why synonyms?
Why do people keep using synonyms? Why would we want to have two words for the same? Like 'peril' instead of 'danger'? Some might be regional like 'autumn' and 'fall', but using them, isn't just an act of pedantry? --Llaanngg (talk) 11:21, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Well, nobody has yet come up with a synonym for the word 'synonym', so we're not completely abject in our craven synonymophilia. But if you want to know more, read synonym. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  11:31, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Not in English, you mean. In Polish, for example, there is synonim and its synonym, wyraz bliskoznaczny (literally, "close-meaning word"). — Kpalion(talk) 14:53, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * They wouldn't be classed as synonyms of each other, were they English words. The latter is more a description of a synonym, not a synonym for it.  But maybe they have a different definition in Polish.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:13, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * It is just preference. Some words sound better than others to some people. --Lgriot (talk) 11:35, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * See also this archived question from 2014: Why do synonyms exist? ---Sluzzelin talk  11:36, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Synonyms are useful in poetry when you need a word that rhymes and yet has a certain meaning. "There was a young lady called Beryl, who would always put herself in peril, one day for a laugh, she went to a caf, and acted most extraordinarily feral". "There was a young lady called Beryl, who would always put herself in danger....", just doesn't work. KägeTorä - (影虎)  ( もしもし！ ) 11:41, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Feral doesn't rhyme with either danger or with peril unless you happen to live in a region that uses a Syllabic consonant for both.
 * In the American Midwest, "barrel", "Carol", "Daryl", "feral", "Meryl", "peril" and "sterile" all rhyme perfectly. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:42, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * You amaze me - I thought you would refer to synonym sugar here ... Collect (talk) 13:54, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
 * ??? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:06, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
 * enjoy. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:14, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

Without synonyms, life would be more boring. People (and not just boring people) would bore us using the same boring words all the time. The effect would be boring. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 11:54, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * English has large numbers of synonyms because of Germanic and Latin influences. Fgf10 (talk) 12:54, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Eradication of synonyms would be doubleplusungood. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:34, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Although English synonyms generally have a similar meaning, they often have nuances or shades of difference that are useful for fine distinctions and accuracy. {The poster formerly known as 87.81/230.195} 185.74.232.130 (talk) 18:28, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * That's what I was about to say. People select one synonym over the other usually for a subtle nuance or distinction in meaning.  Just off the top of my head, think of the different nuances and subtle meanings in: boy, child, tyke, lad, youth, kid, etc.  They all sort of mean the same thing.  Yet they all sort of mean something a little bit different, too.  And that's a pretty simple and basic example.   Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:41, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * You might enjoy reading up on Philosophical_languages. Some of them tried to avoid synonymy, but it's kind of a fool's errand... SemanticMantis (talk) 21:39, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Also, when you need to use the same word repeatedly in a paragraph, it sounds bad. Using synonyms solves that. StuRat (talk) 21:49, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Plus they're great on rolls. Clarityfiend (talk) 22:17, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * There is no such thing as a synonym, or rather, the idea is relative to an instance of communication where both parties agree that a word is one. As said above, every speaker has his own idiolectic (idiosemic?) set of nuances of every word in every context; finding two words synomymous is agreeing to, so to say, trim the most irreleant of those nuances for the sake of agreement. ~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.31.172.184 (talk • contribs) 23:52, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
 * If you really think that's the case, check out Edelweiss. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:36, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I understand, but this kind of synonymy is still context-dependent: people agree to in most cases consider no distinction between the common and the scientific name of a plant (or, to use an example I once came up with, between interlinguistic morphemic calques, such as English 'coordinate' and Polish 'współrzędna'). But adding such a distinction and breaking the synonymy is still privately possible; a recipient is perfectly free to privately consider the fact that, for instance, one of the synonyms had been coined first a significant 'difference'. This is what I mean. The set of factors with which to determine identity is arbitrary. Some people can say that, for instance, a word and its translation into another language is 'the same' word and some that it's a different one; in reality, this kind of Theseus' ship problems is meaningless. ~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.28.137.115 (talk • contribs) 18:28, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Why are you nowikiing your 4 tildes? That's like signing a cheque in invisible ink.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:16, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * They tell me to use four tildes, I'm doing just that. They say signatures might contain markup, I use some in my signature as well. ~ . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.28.137.115 (talk • contribs) 00:59, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
 * You're unregistered here, so you have no signature except 83.28.137.115, which would show if you signed your posts without the nowiki syntax. Otherwise, you're just drawing attention to yourself needlessly, which is the first step down the road to the Troll Kingdom. If you are in fact a registered user who's choosing to post while not logged on, that's your prerogative.  But don't mess around with this signature stuff.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  05:22, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
 * That's the first time I see remaining intentionally anonymous called attention-seeking. ~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.28.137.115 (talk • contribs) 05:38, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Let's point it a different way. Either you're an idiot; or you know your behaviour, rather than intentionally anonymity, is drawing far more attention to you than more resonable behaviour would ever do and thereby reducing your anonymity. For example, maybe people would have checked your IP. But anyone would have bothered to mention that they did and confirmed all 3 ones they've seen you used so far seem to belong to the Neostrada Plus ISP specifically their (Neoplus?) ADSL service and geolocate to Warsaw. In other words, at least you're apparently not using open proxies, but you also don't sound like an idiot, so.... Nil Einne (talk) 19:39, 30 April 2016 (UTC)


 * It may be helpful to remember that words have both denotative and connotative aspects. Words which are denotatively synonymous usually have different connotations. Matt Deres (talk) 15:26, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * One example is "thoughtful" vs. "pensive". In English they don't quite mean the same thing, although they are close kin. In the more "pure" language of Spanish, the word for both is pensativo. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:40, 27 April 2016 (UTC)

MC Edge
This review of Mutant Meeples which I have just bought and created a Wikipedia article about, says "Do you see what they have done with the name? Do you see?" about MC Edge, the yellow Meeple who can wrap around the edges.

Apparently this is some sort of a clever joke with the name. But not being a native English speaker, and not living in an English-speaking country, I fail to see the joke. Can someone explain it? J I P &#124; Talk 19:55, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * No idea what a Meeple is, but I'd guess this is a play on M C Escher. HenryFlower 20:02, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Of course. Why didn't I think of it? I kept concentrating on MC's (Masters of Ceremonies) and found no such MC. I failed to elaborate further on the letters. Thanks! J I P  &#124; Talk 20:04, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * I think you were on the right lines. He's a (w)rapper, also often called an MC.  Rojomoke (talk) 20:07, 25 April 2016 (UTC)


 * And also Samsung make phones marketed as "Edge" where the screen wraps around the edge. DuncanHill (talk) 23:12, 25 April 2016 (UTC)

"to kill a mockingbird" "killing a mockingbird"
Wouldn't "killing a mockingbird" be more natural than "to kill a mockingbird"? --Llaanngg (talk) 22:28, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * The title is part of a quote from Atticus in the book: "Remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." You can easily google it for the interpretations and analysis.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 22:36, 25 April 2016 (UTC)
 * It might have been more natural before the book was published: it certainly wouldn't be today given the high level of recognition of the book title. 81.132.106.10 (talk) 07:49, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Maybe more natural in some non-specific context. But as the title of a book, Killing a Mockingbird sounds like a book about the heinous act of avicide.  It isn't actually about killing birds of any kind.
 * I know, how about we correct all the bad bits of Shakespeare to make them more euphonious to modern ears: "Being or not being, that's the issue". OK?  No, I didn't think so.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  08:18, 26 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Killing a Mockingbird was followed by Stuffing a Mockingbird, and the story reached its climax in Mounting a Mockingbird. DuncanHill (talk) 21:33, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
 * You left out Plucking a Mockingbird. To pluck or not to pluck, that is the question. Akld guy (talk) 00:53, 1 May 2016 (UTC)
 * At least you didn't say "reached a crescendo". —Tamfang (talk) 03:16, 28 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Following you, figuratively, by the ear, but not completely convinced. Perhaps the OP is trying to determine the range of the grammatical model or its evolution, and only restricting it to:"the killings of" . - "Being" as a state is not explicitely known as in jeopardy, but this could also be restricted to humans, robots, pets, things and pretty buildings now. ( Killing of Cecil the lion.. ) --Askedonty (talk) 09:31, 26 April 2016 (UTC)


 * Come on, Jack, you know it should be "... that's the issue, going forward". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:14, 26 April 2016 (UTC)
 * I did say "more euphonious", Andrew, not "emetic". :)  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:08, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
 * In terms of on a go-forward basis? —Tamfang (talk) 03:19, 28 April 2016 (UTC)
 * So that on top of that. --Askedonty (talk) 15:06, 28 April 2016 (UTC)


 * You may enjoy skimming Category:Lists_of_books. I don't know how it works in non-English languages, but in English, novel titles are often not really grammatical prose. They often lean more toward poetic, and fail to be complete sentences or clauses. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:44, 26 April 2016 (UTC)