Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 October 18

= October 18 =

Reprieve
In our pardon article, one finds that a "reprieve" is a "[t]emporary postponement of a punishment, usually so that the accused can mount an appeal (especially if he or she has been sentenced to death)". That is roughly my understanding of the word. Note that Abraham Lincoln gave a two-week reprieve to Nathaniel Gordon so that he might have a chance to reconcile himself to God first.

However, the article on Ruth Ellis repeatedly uses the word to mean a permanent remission of the death sentence, what I would call a "commutation". Is this by any chance a US/UK difference?

I can think of a US example, though &mdash; in one of the early scenes in The Dirty Dozen, one of the military brass says that "Operation Amnesty", the caper in which the condemned soldiers were to be deployed against the enemy was "just that &mdash; an amnesty, not a reprieve". What he seemed to mean was that it was a reprieve, not a pardon. I think this usage is imprecise and inferior, and should probably be fixed in the Ellis article, or if it is a genuine ENGVAR difference, then at least explained. --Trovatore (talk) 04:47, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * See this dictionary definition. In the Ellis case, "reprieve" is correct, although "remission" might be better - there was no possibility in the circumstances of the verdict being quashed altogether (a pardon), and commutation of the death sentence for murder to penal servitude was not available under the Offences Against The Person Act 1861.  The verdict of the court wouldn't have been changed - she would still have been (formally) guilty of murder and under sentence of death, but her execution would have been postponed sine die.  Ellis' case was instrumental in the introduction of the partial defence of diminished responsibility in the Homicide Act 1957.  Tevildo (talk) 07:44, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * So it's a temporary reprieve, that lasts forever? That's &mdash; subtle. --Trovatore (talk) 08:24, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, indefinitely, rather than permanently - cf WP:INDEF. I don't know of any cases under the 1861 act where a reprieved murderer was subsequently hanged, but it remained a theoretical possibility. This page (although the author clearly has Views on capital punishment) goes into some interesting details on the issue. Tevildo (talk) 23:10, 18 October 2016 (UTC)

Coloring vowels
I would guess that the EE sound is yellow and the OO sound is blue, but how about AH, AY (without the diphthongal y at the end) and OH?? Please try this with all vowels in Indo-European languages. As for why I say this, some Wikipedia articles say that EE is a light vowel and OO is a dark vowel, meaning that EE sounds much lighter than OO, just as if they had gone with the colors of yellow and blue. Georgia guy (talk) 14:00, 18 October 2016 (UTC)


 * You are describing Chromesthesia - which is very idiosyncratic. Different people with that condition may hear the same sound, but sense it as quite different colours. The article does suggest that higher tones tend to be sensed as lighter colours - but there is no way to tie a particular colour to a particular vowel sound. Wymspen (talk) 14:34, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yep, you are right. Btw, to my ears, EE sounds green, EH sounds red, OH sounds orange, IH sounds pink, UH sounds purple, æ (i.e. Æ, æsc) sounds black, and so forth. As for the OP's question about AY, to my ears it sounds gray. HOTmag (talk) 14:54, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Do you say this for any actual analogy between colors and sounds or do you say this because those are the vowels the color names contain?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:10, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I was wondering about that too. Maybe a kind of rhyming thing. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:20, 18 October 2016 (UTC)


 * See https://americanenglish.state.gov/resources/color-vowel-chart.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 15:29, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Where is the orange color? HOTmag (talk) 15:55, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Additional colors can provide an exercise to the reader.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 18:56, 18 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Synesthesia is the generaler topic. I associate letters and 0-9 with colours; e. g., A with red, B with blue, C with black, D with brown and so forth, but I think this comes with Apple, Blue, Cat, Dog and so forth.  (Not sure why K is brown.)  My association of the numerals 0-9 is more individuated (0 w, 1 w, 2 y, 3 g, 4 r, 5 blk, 6 y, 7 blu, 8 blk, 9 pur) and the colours cannot be explained on the "A is for Apple" model.


 * In any case, I don't strictly think that this is synesthesia on my part, since seeing the characters does not evoke the colours, just imagining the Latin letter or Arabic numeral does. Nevertheless, having tripped (once) on LSD and given the above associations I have confidence the phenomena exists as reported. Finally, I am pretty sure that the cases I have read (somewhere in Oliver Sacks?) involving musicians usually do not involve only "primary" colours, as mine do. μηδείς (talk) 16:39, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Is there any difference between your 2's yellow and your 6's yellow or your 5's black and your 8's black?? (I can't think of 8 and black going together without thinking of a magic ball!) Georgia guy (talk) 17:18, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I meant the traditional focal "crayola crayon" colours of Berlin and Kay; so no, there is no variation between characters of the "same" colour. μηδείς (talk) 21:20, 18 October 2016 (UTC)
 * See http://music.stackexchange.com/questions/6320/is-there-a-color-code-for-notes.
 * —Wavelength (talk) 19:04, 18 October 2016 (UTC)


 * As a novice reader I thought the roman capital S, at least in faces like Century Schoolbook, looked angry. —Tamfang (talk) 21:11, 19 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Perhaps like a Snake, ready to Strike? μηδείς (talk) 20:31, 23 October 2016 (UTC)