Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 August 9

= August 9 =

Is it 42nd or 42d??
Showing me a map of the world, color all English speaking countries red or blue, where red means that forty-second is written 42nd and blue means it's written 42d. Does any Wikipedia article talk about where it's 42nd and where it's 42d?? Georgia guy (talk) 00:21, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You may find Ordinal indicator and English numerals interesting. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:30, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * In particular, Ordinal indicator says One archaic variant uses a singular superscript -d for numbers ending in 2 or 3 (e.g. 92d or 33d), and English numerals says NB: The practice of using "d" to denote "second" and "third" is still often followed in the numeric designations of units in the US armed forces, for example, 533d Squadron, and in legal citations for the second and third series of case reporters. Loraof (talk) 02:26, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Georgia_guy -- The majority of ordinals require the two letters "th" in abbreviated form ("4h" would not at all be a natural abbreviation of "fourth"!), so I think the modern tendency has been for all ordinals to be abbreviated with two letters... AnonMoos (talk) 02:54, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

North Korea BEST NOT make any more threats
Pres Trump made this statement yesterday: "North Korea best not make any more threats". I'm curious about the 'best not' construction. Is it grammatical, is it colloquial, regional, antiquated...I've heard it before, but I don't think its very common usage. Thanks for informed replies... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.104.125.11 (talk) 08:15, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Sounds fine to those of Trump's generation; just like "better not", only more so. 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:4176:1674:84F8:476B (talk) 10:45, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It's fine grammatically, the placement of a modifier after the word it modifies is used idiomatically in English in some constructions, and is quite acceptable. The construction mirrors the use of modal verbs in the negative, such as "must not" or "should not".  -- Jayron 32 11:02, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not quite sure if I follow you. Which part of the sentence are you analysing as a post-modifier of what? Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:38, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * No, you're right there. After parsing the sentence, it really is just mirroring modal verb construction.  So corrected.  -- Jayron 32 12:37, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Isn't "better not" short for "had better not"? --Lgriot (talk) 12:41, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, "best not" sounds colloquial here in the UK. Is it standard in the US?    D b f i r s   17:23, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Don't know about "standard", but it is not too uncommon. Generally speaking, "better not" refers to two options, usually: do something -or- not do something; "best not" refers to multiple options where one option is bad. — As for had: "You had better not do that!" doesn't resonate as well as "You better not do that!". — 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:4176:1674:84F8:476B (talk) 18:16, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * "As for had", dropping it leaves you with a sentence lacking subject/verb agreement in number. I think constructions like "North Korea best (or 'better') not ..." arose from the pronunciation difficuly of the /db/ in "North Korea'd best (or 'better') not ...". Deor (talk) 18:31, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Reminds me of a thread we had on "bettern't". ---Sluzzelin talk  18:49, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I guess we better watch out, we better not cry, we better not pout, bettern't we. Deor (talk) 19:06, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * There are (somewhat nonstandard, but still common) triple contractions in English. The eye sometimes has trouble parsing it, but in many dialects, a word like "I'dn't've" as in "I'dn't've done that if I were you" is perfectly cromulent in spoken language.  Wiktionary has a category of such constructions.  -- Jayron 32 11:03, 10 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm more comfortable with "had best not" and "had better not". However, informal usage, the "had" becomes a contraction on the preceding word: "you'd best not", and when spoken, the contraction becomes so subtle as to be nearly indistinguishable. Thus, "you'd better not pout" sounds like "you better not pout". President Trump may very well have said "North Korea'd best not make any more threats" -Arch dude (talk) 03:17, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The lyrics to "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town" does not use "you'd..." 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:4176:1674:84F8:476B (talk) 03:45, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
 * There's quite literally thousands of recorded versions of that song. Both "you better" and "you'd better" can be found with minimal effort.  So, the emphatic "not" is demonstratedly wrong.  I'm not somewhere I can play audio right now, but if you insist, I can dig up a dozen or so versions on youtube with either word, if you insist.  -- Jayron 32 14:53, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The lyrics are by John Frederick Coots and Haven Gillespie (1934), who did not write "you'd":,, . — 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:B10F:4D7A:32FE:E479 (talk) 00:15, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I suspect that most listeners will hear their own preferred "you'd" or "you", regardless of what the speaker or singer actually said or sang, unless the word was carefully emphasized. Some versions of the song even use "ya". -Arch dude (talk) 15:54, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Language Log has an article on the same subject. See here. Marrakech (talk) 21:04, 10 August 2017 (UTC)


 * This source actually cites Old English and the Oxford English Dictionry ravver van quotin' opinion an geehits. The original was "Me were better" (as in me seems, or methinks where me is to or for) a pure dative.  Think mir vs mich as in German.  As the two fell together in English as me with no two direct and indirect object forms, the original construction became fixed and unmotivated by current productive grammar.  Eventually "Were me better" became "I (were) better" into which was introduced a new dummy verb had.  Hence "I better" is older.  All this reminds me of "I had as lief" Ich haette lieber, or, I feel like Chinese / I like Chinese, and so forth.  In any case, Shakespeare was from Kentucky, not Brisbane. μηδείς (talk) 02:28, 12 August 2017 (UTC)