Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 June 1

= June 1 =

"too" vs "so"

 * You are so kind.
 * You are too kind.
 * This dish is too sour.
 * This dish is so sour.
 * This bed is so comfortable.
 * This bed is too comfortable.

Is there a difference? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.4.236.254 (talk) 01:08, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Think of "too" as meaning "excessively". This can be good, as in being excessively kind, but being excessively sour is bad.  A bed being excessively comfortable could keep you from getting up in time.  StuRat (talk) 01:18, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * And in these examples, "so" means "very". --Xuxl (talk) 12:51, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * That's more or less true, but I think there's a subtle difference: so comfortable shows more emotion than does very comfortable. Loraof (talk) 13:34, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * But be careful: "too" can also mean "very" in a non-excessive sense. "You are too kind.". Bazza (talk) 12:59, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * And this is almost always true in a negative construction: It is not too far from here means It is not very far from here. Loraof (talk) 13:31, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Not really, IMO. Using "not too" in that example means "not excessively" rather than just "not very". For example, "We can walk to the river, it's not too far." implies that the distance, although possibly quite a way, is nonetheless walkable. In contrast, "We can walk to the river, it's not very far." suggests that not only is the distance walkable, but it's shorter than might otherwise be supposed. Bazza (talk) 16:16, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * From Wiktionary: (degree, colloquial) To a high degree, very. She doesn't talk too much. I'm not too sure about this. Loraof (talk) 19:37, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Why does /ð/ not appear at the start of content words in English?
A few years back, I was looking at a phonetics chart designed for young learners of English, and each "English sound" was accompanied by a sample word and a picture illustrating that word.

If I recall correctly, every sample word had the sound in question as its first morpheme, with two exceptions: /ʒ/ (television) and /ð/ (mother). The former does not appear at the start of English words in general (and I couldn't come up with any examples of exceptions that weren't recent loan-words), but the latter appears at the start of function words like "this", "that", "these", "those", "they", "them", "there", "then", "thee", "thou", "though", "than", "the" -- just not at the start of content words. Why is this? None of those function words can be easily represented by an image, which explains why they went with "mother", but it kinda blew my mind when I noticed this.

Our function word article states this as fact (actually it says "few", which is likely inaccurate) without giving any historical information or a reason, but it has been tagged as needing a citation since February 2015. The English phonology article, content word article, and voiced dental fricative article were no help.

Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 02:32, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * This reference confirms your suspicion by omission, the ð is only used in initial positions for function words (called "grammar words" in that source) and has NO examples of content words. this one also shows no content words starting with the sound, this source comes out and says exactly what you say, the voiced th is reserved for what it calls "structure words" as an initial sound.  I'm just as intrigued as you for the etymology of this; it seems peculiar that the voiced "th" would become a marker for function words, but it clearly is, since it is present in nearly all th-initial function words, and absent from all th-initial content words.  -- Jayron 32 02:59, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * SDMB's take on it:  More proof by example mostly, as with other sources short on the "why".  -- Jayron 32 03:02, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Stack Exchange has a pretty good explanation: . -- Jayron 32 03:04, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Wow, thanks! :D
 * Yeah, I kinda wish the questioner on Stack Exchange had asked the same question I did, specifically about the small class of function words. sumelic's explanation is great and works as a negative explanation as to the lack or absence of the sound at the start of most words, and the quotation they provided explains that at one point the voiced dental fricative didn't exist, but they apparently stopped short of explicitly explaining how the weird exception of a small closed set of "function words" came about.
 * Still, that's really interesting, and thank you for digging it up!
 * Hijiri 88 ( 聖やや ) 03:39, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Hijiri 88, also consider how few v-initial words we have, and then note that so many of them, e.g. voice, vow, victor, vision, are of Latin origin. Robert Diamond of Wayne State University proposes that Old English word-initial fricatives (both þ and f) were unvoiced, with ð and v coming only between two vowels or between a vowel and a voiced consonant.  No idea how þe, þæt, þes, etc. became voiced, although of course they (they being a word of Norse origin; cf. OE hie) were preserved through constant use by all speakers of English when much of the original vocabulary was lost following the Conquest.  Nyttend (talk) 04:08, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Pronunciation of English th says (unfortunately without citation):
 * In early Middle English times, a group of very common function words beginning with (the, they, there, etc.) came to be pronounced with  instead of . Possibly this was a sandhi development; as these words are frequently found in unstressed positions, they can sometimes appear to run on from the preceding word, which may have resulted in the dental fricative being treated as though it were word-internal.
 * This whole article is very interesting. Loraof (talk) 13:24, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure that Benjamin Lee Whorf cited these function words (with ð) as a cryptotype, though I have no idea where my copy of Language, Thought and Reality is, so I can't check. I don't think he attempted any explanation for it, though. --17:24, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

Parliament Hill
If you're in Ottawa and speaking specifically of the buildings you can see (so nobody thinks you're referring to some other parliament), but you want to refer specifically to the buildings (and not the hill upon which they sit, the surrounding neighborhood, or Parliament itself), what term do you typically use to refer to the buildings in which the Canadian federal parliament's meetings are held? Something comparable to the Washington, D.C., usage of "The Capitol" rather than "Capitol Hill" or "Congress". 2014 shootings at Parliament Hill, Ottawa says Buildings under lockdown included Canada's parliament, the University of Ottawa and the United States embassy. Aside from the non-necessity of Canada's (there being no other parliament that meets in Ottawa), "parliament" isn't generally used for a building (unless this is a Canadian usage with which I'm not familiar?), so I suppose it ought to be replaced with a specific reference to the building. Nyttend (talk) 04:12, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Parliament Hill names the specific buildings, it seems Parliament meets in a building known as the Centre Block. It seems that the term "block" is used in Canada to refer to such large buildings, compare to East Block, West Block, Langevin Block, Bell Block (Ottawa), etc. -- Jayron 32 04:30, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm Canadian. I'd say "the Parliament building" or "the Parliament buildings", just as you see in that linked subheading. And the same for the corresponding buildings in other places, such as London, England. (I don't usually think about how many buildings there are, so I tend to be careless about plural or singular in the expression.) --69.159.63.238 (talk) 08:33, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * In London, Parliament Hill is several miles from Parliament, but I believe it is visible from there.  The building itself is more usually known as the Palace of Westminster. 86.148.116.248 (talk) 08:47, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Or the Houses of Parliament. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 08:50, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you; I've replaced "Canada's parliament" with "the Parliament buildings" with reference to this discussion. Nyttend (talk) 11:51, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * "Parliament Hill" usually refers to the collection of buildings, but another collective noun used, when someone wants to make it clear that he isn't referring to the topographic hill but to the buildings, is "Parliamentary Precinct". See as an example of this usage. --Xuxl (talk) 13:09, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Since the subject is specifically the "buildings under lockdown" (side note: I hate that usage in this sort of context. It's something that's done to prisons.), I think it would be better to list the specific blocks that were involved. I don't know which ones that was, though. --69.159.63.238 (talk) 18:53, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Do native Chinese speakers, studying English, have difficulty in phonetically distinguishing between sieging and searing ?
HOTmag (talk) 09:27, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * What makes you think there would be any difficulty? "ɹ" and "dʒ" are very different sounds and have distinct approximates at least in Mandarin Chinese. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 11:09, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * You are right. HOTmag (talk) 11:15, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * In my experience (with Cantonese in Hong Kong where I lived for two years) they likely would have difficulty with searing vs ceiling (for example). In the example you quote, sieging might be misheard as it's rarely used in English – besieging would be more likely in most circumstances I can think of. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.9.8.213 (talk) 17:30, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Offhand
Offhand seems to have both negative and positive (or at least non-negative) connotations.


 * Negative: Many people get rubbed up the wrong way around her, as she's known for making offhand remarks.
 * That has a connotation of brusqueness, dismissiveness, rudeness.


 * Neutral: Q. How many edits have you made this year so far? A. I couldn't say offhand.
 * That means: I couldn't say without doing some research.

Is my understanding correct? Or is it that one's an adjective and the other's an adverb and shouldn't be compared like that? --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:18, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * A dictionary is a good source for learning the meaning of words. For example, dictionary.com lists two definitions for the adverb: "cavalierly, curtly, or brusquely" and "without previous thought or preparation; extempore" . CodeTalker (talk) 22:43, 1 June 2017 (UTC)


 * I don't I've ever seen the first usage, though dictionaries do seem to support it. For the second, I would write it as two words: "I couldn't say off hand", for reasons I can't quite articulate, though it seems to be in the same category as other usages that make me wince such as "I go shopping everyday" and "I don't like you anymore". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 06:39, 2 June 2017 (UTC)


 * EO's explanation is that it means what I would call "spontaneous", which kind of works for both sense of it. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 18:38, 2 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Since we seem to be quoting dictionaries, we have a sister project: offhand. The OED says: "At once, straightaway; without preliminary thought, consideration, or preparation; casually, nonchalantly." for the adverb.    D b f i r s   20:23, 3 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, that's what EO says too. The commonality between the two apparently contradictory meanings is the notion of saying or writing something without thinking about it first. (Which, oddly enough, pretty well describes Twitter usage.) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:48, 4 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks, all. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:18, 7 June 2017 (UTC)