Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 January 5

= January 5 =

Looking for the name of a logical fallacy
I got into an argument with someone about the differences between Republics and Democracies and he made the contention that Republics give protections to minority opinions while Democracies do not. I countered that by pointing out that African Americans were enslaved in America and America gave no protection to their opinions, namely the opinion that they should be freed. He rebutted that by saying that African Americans were slaves and thus didn't count. This to me sounds like a logical fallacy, it's like saying the police never harm or kill any innocent person only criminals. But using this guy's logic, you could define anyone that the police harmed or killed is automatically a criminal, and thus any brutality inflicted is justified. Is there a name for this fallacy? *EDIT* Now that I think about it, it might be a special pleading fallacy. ScienceApe (talk) 07:10, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * It's at least related to No true Scotsman, since it shares the theme of narrowing the scope to exclude any counterexample. MChesterMC (talk) 09:12, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Madsen Pirie calls it "definitional retreat", which appears on our List of fallacies but doesn't have its own article. Tevildo (talk) 09:21, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Stupidity? 131.251.254.154 (talk) 09:40, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I suspect it's not really a fallacy. The extent of validity - of the argument you don't agree to, depends on whether you accept previous (arbitrary) definitions (e.g. a definition which excludes slaves), whereas you cannot claim the definition itself is invalid, since every definition is arbitrary. For instance, if somebody claims that - killing animals (or slaves or embryos) should not be regarded as a murder - just because the very definition of "murder" refers to human beings (who are free and who have already been born), then I don't see any fallacy in that definition (although my definition may be another one, and may include animals and/or slaves and/or embryos). HOTmag (talk) 13:24, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * At best, it's an informal fallacy. It isn't a logical fallacy, which is an error in formal logic: No error in formal logic has been made, so if a wrong conclusion is reached, it isn't because the logic is faulty, it's because the inputs to the logical process are faulty: that is, you're dealing with an error in premise, not an error in logic.  Errors in premises are called informal fallacies.  -- Jayron 32 14:17, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Our article informal fallacy does not support your definition for that concept. The examples given there are not about errors in premises but rather about inadequacy of premises (for reaching the conclusion). HOTmag (talk) 15:41, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * This whole argument you got into is nonsense. If you "give protection" (as you put it) to minority opinion, then that means you give no protection to, you go against majority opinion. A regime that "gives protection" to minority opinion over majority opinion is called an oligarchy and I don't see that as particularly desirable. What happened is not that the opinion of the minority (the slaves) was suddenly "given protection" but that the opinion of the majority changed. As far as I can recall, at least in the opinion of one of the authors of the Federalist Papers, a democracy is a direct democracy whereas a republic is an indirect, i.e. representative democracy and the difference has nothing to do with the status of minority opinions. Contact Basemetal   here  15:54, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I kind of get where he was going with his argument. The electoral college does give a lot more weight to the votes of people living in low population states like arizona than it does to people living in high population states like california. It's just the way he phrased it was completely wrong and easily refutable. ScienceApe (talk) 22:53, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Arizona a low-population state, really? According to List of U.S. states and territories by population, it's the fourteenth largest state in the Union. Khemehekis (talk) 06:36, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Relative ranking tells little about actual population size. With a population of ~6 million, you could fit the entire population of Arizona into just the Los Angeles metropolitan area (pop. ~12 million) twice over. That qualifies it as low-population in my book, especially when comparing it to California. Yes, there are states with lower population, but that doesn't make Arizona large. It has ~1/6 the population of the most populous state but only 6 times the 44th state, which would make it close to the average statistically (in fact [320,000,000]/50 = ~6 million), but by no means comparable to the more populated states, despite its relative rank. --William Thweatt TalkContribs 07:11, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * But then you'd have to say that all but 13 (or fewer) out of 50 states were "low-population". Arizona should probably be called a "medium-population state". Khemehekis (talk) 06:42, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Interwiki link
Hi can someone confirm that German Wikipedia article Soziologische Grundbegriffe corresponds to English Wikipedia article Basic Concepts in Sociology and assuming it does can somebody add the appropriate Interwiki links? Thanks GrahamHardy (talk) 09:27, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * There seem to be differences. The English stub is about a specific book, whilst the German article is about the concepts discussed in that book and others. Fgf10 (talk) 09:44, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The book in question would seem to be part one of this. Fgf10 (talk) 09:50, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

Former Australian cyclist
An editor rephrased "former Australian cyclist" into "Australian former cyclist" with explanation that the subject is not a "former Australian" but a "former cyclist". While I can't argue with that, I also find the new formulation slightly jarring, but I'm not a native speaker. According to English adjective order, age (former) should typically precede nationality (Australian). Actually, I'm genuinely interested in opinions: what would be the preferred adjective order in a professional publication (that Wikipedia only aspires to be)? No such user (talk) 11:51, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not a native speaker either but I'm pretty sure writing "former Australian cyclist" does NOT indicate that this cyclist is not anymore an Australian. I don't find either that it indicates anything else but this person was a cyclist and isn't a cyclist anymore, and I find also it quite clearly without possible doubt, indicates that this person is still Australian. That was for one opinion. Akseli9 (talk) 12:04, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * As a native speaker of American English, a couple of points: (1) former Australian cyclist is probably conventional usage; and (2) that construct can be made fun of, as he's still an Australian, just not a cyclist anymore. This is the risk of trying to use too few words. Is "Australian" describing the subject's nationality? Or his cycling team? Or both? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:41, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * "Probably"? It is certain here, not probable, that the nationality of this cyclist is Australian. Whether or not he was part of the Australian Team during the Olympics, is developped in the article. Think of it as the article about his birth date, not the main article about him. People in those dates articles are described in two or three words at most. Akseli9 (talk) 13:41, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes. It's possible that there's a cyclist who was once an Australian but now has some other nationality/citizenship.  But that would be an unusual context, which would need to be specified as such.  Where no such context is specified, the default interpretation would apply, i.e an Australian who was once a cyclist but is no longer a cyclist.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  04:59, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Although not strictly logical, the conventional way to indicate that a cyclist was and is no longer Australian in four words would be to write "the formerly Australian cyclist". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:50, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I've been adding dab descriptions in the form "Australian former cyclist" for a while now in a probably futile effort to turn the tide. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:51, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I suggest a WWW search for order of english adjectives.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 21:00, 5 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I was tickled when it appeared that India might get a former Italian prime minister. —Tamfang (talk) 04:15, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Native French speaker or French native speaker?
In which case should I say I'm a native French speaker, and in which case should I choose to say I'm a French native speaker? Thanks! Akseli9 (talk) 12:07, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Similar problem as the above. Are you a native of France and also speak French? Or are you a native of some other country whose national language is French, and you also speak French? I was born in America, so I'm an American native, though not a "Native American". And I speak English natively, though I'm not English. So I could say I'm a native American English speaker - even though it sounds excessive. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:45, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * You could say you're a native American English speaker, but could you say you're an American English native speaker, and in which case? Thanks.
 * Same question to a Brit: You could say you're a native English speaker, but could you say you're an English native speaker, and in which case? Thanks. Akseli9 (talk) 14:07, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * I realize now my question could be easier to answer with the motherlanguage parameter. So, my mother language is French, I'm French, born in France, so in which case should i say "native French speaker" and in which case should I say "French native speaker"? Thanks. Akseli9 (talk) 14:48, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * You're trying to convey two meanings in a single word, which is not really possible without being unclear. "Native French speaker" is the phrase you need for your criteria. The other, "French native speaker", does not appear correct to me. Bazza (talk) 15:10, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * "French" can mean two things, the language or the nationality, but the nationality meaning does not make sense in this context. "native French speaker" can validly be parsed as "native speaker of French", but it can't be parsed as "a native speaker of French nationality" - a "native speaker" of what? So, "French native speaker" or "native French speaker" is not ambiguous. If you want to say "I'm a native speaker of French and also a native French national", you would need to say so.
 * In practice, if you say you are a native French national without saying anything about your language ability, most people would assume you speak French natively unless you specifically say otherwise: "I'm a native French national but I grew up speaking Icelandic, French is my second language". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:46, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * TBH, Icelandic would be an unusual native language for a French national; though Occitan would be more likely. Actually, numerically German or Arabic would be more likely.  Just as an aside... -- Jayron 32 19:16, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * must have it right, Jayron. His French national would quite likely be the one who had been moving to Iceland when he was two or three years old. I do not see how someone could achieve growing up speaking a "foreign" language when start of socialization is up from the kindergarten ( US and UK: Preschool, I'm just reading the Preschool article) . --Askedonty (talk) 21:15, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
 * In theory, one might born to French parents and move soon afterwards to another country where personal contacts with the parents might be limited or absent. So in this case the person might be a French national, but not a native French speaker (of course this scenario is applicable to any language/country). For countries, where nationality is defined by the place of birth rather than by the parents and/or the place of growing up, that is especially true.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 16:38, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Should one use a singular or plural in this case? Is it proper to use "its" or "their"?
Should one use a singular or plural in this case? Or is either acceptable? Sentence A: The student selected Yale University because of their excellent reputation. Sentence B: The student selected Yale University because of its excellent reputation. It seems to me that Sentence B is technically correct (Yale University is singular). But, we see constructions like Sentence A all the time. Is that flat out incorrect? Or is it acceptable nowadays to use either construction? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:26, 5 January 2016 (UTC)


 * The plural for organisations is common in British English, though perhaps not in the most formal texts. It's less acceptable in American English.    D b f i r s   21:06, 5 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, there is no universal "right answer" fit all of English, and even for any one dialect, there is not a standard answer here. The best I can do is to direct you to the concepts of formal agreement and notional agreement, while British English and American English deal with these in different ways, it if not so easy as to say one or the other always does one or the other.-- Jayron 32 02:50, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * It's a collective noun. See also Comparison_of_American_and_British_English. Modocc (talk) 04:13, 6 January 2016 (UTC)


 * In formal North American usage, organizations are typically singular. In informal usage, in my experience their names are usually construed as singular (at least if they have a singular form), but take plural pronouns: for example, "McDonald's is a huge chain; they have many thousands of locations".  "McDonald's are" would sound British; "it has" would sound formal.  (Note that "have" is plural, to agree with the pronoun "they".) --76.69.45.64 (talk) 04:34, 6 January 2016 (UTC)


 * In American English, even in formal writing, that isn't universally true. Some organizations take plural and some take singular, and it's highly idiomatic.  "General Motors is a company" but "The New York Yankees are a baseball team"  There's really no rhyme or reason that I have ever seen which satisfactory explains the different usages, except to categorize such differences (sports teams tend to use plural, companies tend to use singular), without really explaining why.  -- Jayron 32 16:39, 8 January 2016 (UTC)


 * See singular they. English lacks a dedicated pronoun for humans of indeterminate sex, so we have to either say "he or she" or refer to individual people using the generic plural pronoun.  Other languages are much more sensible.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  04:53, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * As opposed to "The student selected Yale University because of his or her excellent reputation"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:46, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
 * My comment was perfectly fine. So it didn't happen to relate to anything on this thread.  Consider it going beyond the call of duty.  A random act of kindness. That sort of stuff.  :)  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:08, 6 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I don't doubt your malevolencelessness here, User:JackofOz, but to just what other languages are you referring as more sensible? μηδείς (talk) 03:13, 7 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Icelandic, for one. See Gender-specific and gender-neutral pronouns.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  03:39, 7 January 2016 (UTC)


 * French, as well, has the nonspecific pronoun "on". See French personal pronouns.  English has no such gender-neutral personal pronoun.  On the flip side, however, French has no specific non-personal ungendered pronoun, i.e. there is no French equivalent of "it" as distinct from "he" or "she".  So there's that.  So whereas in French, you can refer to a person without regard for gender, using "on" (something we lack in English), you can't refer to an object in that way (I'm pretty sure you wouldn't use "on" to refer to an inanimate object, only il or elle).  -- Jayron 32 16:45, 8 January 2016 (UTC)
 * The French on is not used for definite individuals, though, except for an idiom in which it represents the speaker or writer, similar to the English use of “we” in scientific & pedagogical writing. It‘s usually equivalent to our “one” (in formal registers) or “you” (informal), as an alternative to a passive-voice construction. So I would disagree that you can refer to a specific person with on, only a generalized ‘everyone’.—Odysseus 1 4 7  9  00:37, 10 January 2016 (UTC)


 * 'its' is correct for the university itself, as a university is a singular, inanimate thing. 'their' would imply the reputation in question is that of the faculty, or of the graduates, or of some other collective entity that 'Yale University' is a shorthand for.  Reputation makes a little more sense as something that people have as opposed to something that a legal entity has, though here the distinction would be minor.  Peter Grey (talk) 04:39, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 04:19, 9 January 2016 (UTC)