Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 November 19

= November 19 =

Articles and Latin Speakers
Given that Latin had no real article while Greek had definite and/or indefinite articles, is there evidence that Greek written by non-native Greek Romans displayed faulty or missing articles? (Perhaps like some native Slavic speakers when using English, etc.) A bit of an obscure question perhaps (but aren't those the best ones?) --216.15.48.37 (talk) 01:52, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Classical Greek had only a definite article (ὁ, ἡ, το). (At the earlier historical stage of Epic Greek, this word was more of a light demonstrative, like French ce, than a true article.)  AnonMoos (talk) 03:43, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you. However, do we know if native Latin speakers displayed (in written evidence) difficulty in using this Greek definitive article? --216.15.48.37 (talk) 11:24, 20 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I don't personally know, but you could look at scholarly commentaries on individual Roman authors who wrote in Greek, such as Claudius Aelianus... AnonMoos (talk) 12:24, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

A hard one... ["This is nothing of which I would say I am proud of"]
(after precipitate auto-archiving) Now, to recapitulate: Are we speaking in terms of style or grammar here? This is not something about which I would say I am proud of — is that grammatically (!) wrong or not?--Herfrid (talk) 14:49, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * "This is not something about which I would say I am proud" or "this is not something which I would say I am proud about" - with the first being the pedantically correct form avoiding the preposition at the end of the phrase. You can not add an "of" at the end - in this case you are saying that you are not proud about something, rather than that you are not proud of something. Adding the "of" when you have already used the preposition "about" is a grammatical error. You could say that you are proud of it, or proud about it - but never that you are proud about of it (or proud of about it). You can use of, or about, but not both together. Wymspen (talk) 16:05, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Agreed, it's an ungrammatical pleonasm to use two prepositions here. μηδείς (talk) 18:17, 19 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Hello and thank you both! My point is: "about" is supposed to refer to "say" (i. e. "to say sth about sth", meaning "to give a certain comment on sth"), not "proud"! Now, assuming we wanted to rephrase the sentence a bit, one could say: "I would not say about what happened that I am proud of it". I admit, this sounds very stiff and artificial, but from a purely grammatical point of view it should be correct, shouldn't it? If so, then it would consequently also have to be correct with the given relative clause.--Herfrid (talk) 22:57, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * No, it would still be a pleonasm, and horrible style, if technically grammatical. No native speaker would be comfortable with it.  Your options are:


 * "I would not say I am proud [of what happened]," or
 * "I would not [say about it] that I was proud."


 * The emphasis is different, and the verbs are phrasally really different. One is "say" and the other is "say about".  Consider:


 * "I would not say I am proud [of what happened], but of my reaction" or
 * "I would not [say about it] that I was proud, so much as relieved."


 * They are not interchangeable, and the sorts of phrases they contrast with are different, as you can see. μηδείς (talk) 03:23, 22 November 2017 (UTC)
 * @μηδείς: Thanks once more, though what I unfortunately still don't quite get is why exactly you call it a "pleonasm" here. Is it really a pleonasm to say about something that one is not proud of it? I don't see that you could leave out either about or of in this wording.--Herfrid (talk) 18:16, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Use
The word "user" in a legal document actually means "usage", so things are not always what they seem, but isn't the phrase "He didn't used to socialise with us all that much" in The Daily Telegraph of 11 November wrong? It was spoken by a Japanese and reported by an Englishman. 92.8.223.3 (talk) 17:26, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * If it was spelled "He didn't use to..." (without the final "-d"), then it would be OK (especially as UK English). Of course, in that meaning, "use" is pronounced IPA [juːs], not [juːz]... AnonMoos (talk) 17:33, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * didn't used to appears to be quite common among native anglophones, though. —Tamfang (talk) 19:29, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * The grammar of that spelling doesn't seem to make any sense, while the pronunciation would be exactly the same as "use to". Plenty of native speakers write "would of" also... [[Image:SFriendly.gif|20px]] -- AnonMoos (talk) 20:26, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I consider myself a native speaker of English, and I have always been taught that “would of” is grammatically incorrect. That rule stuck with me to this day. 140.254.70.33 (talk) 21:31, 20 November 2017 (UTC)


 * That was my point... AnonMoos (talk) 12:07, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * From the CUP dictionary - "The negative of used to is most commonly didn’t use(d) to. Sometimes we write it with a final -d, sometimes not. Both forms are common, but many people consider the form with the final -d to be incorrect, and you should not use it in exams" . Wymspen (talk) 10:47, 20 November 2017 (UTC)


 * A more correct, though perhaps old-fashioned, version of the sentence would be ""He used not to socialise with us all that much." {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.0.37.45 (talk) 08:06, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * For a while, there was even a contraction "usedn't" (which Wiktionary lists as "nonstandard, dated, Britain")... AnonMoos (talk) 12:07, 21 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Or from the desk of Willard Mullin. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:18, 21 November 2017 (UTC)

When a Spaniard says: "Learn how to deal in a restaurant"
I'm no sure about what they meant. Did they wanted to say "Learn how to order at a restaurant." Could it be "How to deal with clients"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.143.77.81 (talk) 17:40, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * There's no way we can answer this without being there and asking him to clarify himself. In any case, portarse is "to behave" and pedir algo is order (ask for) something. μηδείς (talk) 18:14, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * According to the only results I got from googling that phrase, it appears to be from an English course given in Málaga. Unit seven in that language course, “Sabor a Malaga” part 1, includes "Read about an e- shop", "Study conditionals and wish sentences", "Learn food vocabulary", "Listen to a piece of news about “Sabor a Málaga”", and "Learn how to deal in a restaurant". Link: "Se abre el plazo de inscripción para los cursos de inglés de Málaga Bilingüe en 40 municipios la provincia". ---Sluzzelin talk  14:52, 20 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Well, "deal with" (which itself means many different things when applied to a deck of cards, a valued customer, or a roach infestation) can be translated as tratar (a Spanish word (see tratar) meaning "treat" as well as many other English concepts not expressed by "treat") which can be translated back into English as "behave towards". So it seems like a confused word choice by a non-native English speaker who misses the subtleties introduced by the prepositions in the English verb phrases, and accidentally confuses "deal in" with the proper behave in. μηδείς (talk) 01:14, 21 November 2017 (UTC)


 * It appears Pedro Carolino is alive and well! --ColinFine (talk) 11:31, 21 November 2017 (UTC)