Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2019 October 4

= October 4 =

Correct alphabetization of Spanish names
Oftentimes, Spanish people have two "last names". For example: Alejandro González Iñárritu. When you alphabetize his name, does it go under "G" for González? Or does it go under "I" for Iñárritu? And where are the "rules" for this? Is there a "standard" / accepted practice? Or is it merely discretionary, such that either way is acceptable? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:08, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * The article you need to read is Spanish naming customs. --Xuxl (talk) 16:54, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * For Wikipedia, rule is in Manual_of_Style/Spain_%26_Spanish-related_articles. Per that, the maternal surname is not used in alphabetization so González would go under G. Spanish_naming_customs suggests that this convention is followed for English-language publications generally. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 16:57, 4 October 2019 (UTC)


 * So, for alphabetical purposes, he goes under "G" and not "I" ... correct? Now, if he is referred to in the article, should he be referred to as González ... or as Iñárritu?


 * Example A: Alejandro González Iñárritu is an Academy Award winner. González was born in 1963.    or


 * Example B: Alejandro González Iñárritu is an Academy Award winner. Iñárritu was born in 1963.


 * Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:04, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * See the lede of the article Xuxl linked. There are different rules for how to alphabetize and for which name to use. Alphabetization always uses the paternal surname but per the article, it's not so consistent for which name is used to refer to people. This can mean someone is referred to by one name but alphabetized under the other. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 17:25, 4 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I read it.  Does Wikipedia have any "rule" ... as to whether we should be doing Example "A" above or Example "B" above?   Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:41, 4 October 2019 (UTC)


 * The example of Roberto Clemente Walker is useful. He's in the Hall of Fame category under "C", not "W". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:52, 4 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Well, since the name to use when referring to him is a matter of finding out what individuals use, I think the appropriate rule is probably Naming_conventions_(people). In the specific case of Alejandro González Iñárritu, he's using Iñárritu, as in sources like . He still gets alphabetized under G, per the rule. :) 70.67.193.176 (talk) 20:43, 4 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:57, 5 October 2019 (UTC)

Rhymes that don't rhyme any more
I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I'd be glad if somebody could adduce an example of historical English rhymes which don't rhyme any more when read with modern pronunciation, idealiter if it's verses of actual poets (not necessarily one of the most famous ones, but maybe somebody who has a Wikipedia article). I'm not sure if examples even exist, but considering the development English has made from OE, ME to the contemporary language, I'm optimistic that something can be found. The original writing doesn't have to correspond to modern orthography, of course. Galtzaile (talk) 16:55, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Many examples from Shakespeare's day. In Sonnet 166: "If this be error and upon me proved/ I never writ, nor no man ever loved." Rmhermen (talk) 17:22, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Here is a paper by David Crystal discussing the fact that a full 96 of Shakespeare's 154 sonnets contains rhymes that don't work in Modern English. CodeTalker (talk) 18:45, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * "The Tyger": "What immortal hand or eye/Could frame thy fearful symmetry?" --Viennese Waltz 19:29, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Unless old Will was just being funny. "Every boy and every gal / That's born into this world alive / Is either a little Liberal / Or else a little Conservative." -- Gilbert & Sullivan ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:48, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Did G&S really use a capital L on Liberal? That's confusing for us folks in Australia where the Liberal Party is the major conservative party, and we use the expression "small l liberal" to describe what a lot of Americans think of as the rabid lefties. HiLo48 (talk) 22:21, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * This says yes. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:20, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * At the time, the Liberal Party (United Kingdom) was the main opposition to the Conservative Party, so I think the uppercase L makes perfect sense. The Labour Party was almost nonexistent (or perhaps actually nonexistent; I'm a little foggy on that).  Of course it the Liberal Party, that is, not Labour was a classical liberal party, free markets and free trade and so on, not "liberal" in the sense of "center-left". --Trovatore (talk) 22:36, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * In those days, free trade was center-left. —Tamfang (talk) 17:10, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * If you say so. "Left" and "right" don't mean much to me; I prefer to describe the philosophical position directly rather than give its coordinate along a context-dependent scale. --Trovatore (talk) 19:31, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Chaucer also provides examples. In the prologue to the Canterbury Tales I see breath/heath, war/far, maid/said, pilgrimage/voyage, mead/red, dagger/spear, piteous/mouse, was/glass... 70.67.193.176 (talk) 20:55, 4 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Don't pilgrimage and voyage rhyme? Both end in /ɪdʒ/ for me. TotallyNotSarcasm [lɨi̯v ə me̞sɪ̈dʒ] [kɔnt͡ɹ̠̝̊ɹ̠ɪ̈bjɨʉ̯ʃn̩z] 13:06, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * No, I don't think so. Their final syllables are the same or at least almost the same, but they're unstressed.  Generally to count a rhyme, the words have to agree from their final stressed syllables to the end of the word. --Trovatore (talk) 18:34, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Argh, sorry, I forgot the stressed part. In that case, though, I don't think they could ever have rhymed. TotallyNotSarcasm [lɨi̯v ə me̞sɪ̈dʒ] [kɔnt͡ɹ̠̝̊ɹ̠ɪ̈bjɨʉ̯ʃn̩z] 07:57, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * They could have and they did, because the -age had a long a and was stressed as in French. Hear this, lines 11 and 12, for example. --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:03, 6 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Sort of. Definitely a lot closer than most of the others. I've also heard said pronounced like maid, but only maybe in a song. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:11, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * See also this recent thread which shows that there are many eye rhymes which were never intended to have matching sounds when spoken. Alansplodge (talk) 15:13, 5 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks to all! As for the eye rhymes, the paper by Crystal linked in CodeTalker's answer also discusses this question, and also offers a number of rhymes where eye rhymes are less likely, such as waste-past etc. Galtzaile (talk) 16:03, 5 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Did "Yanni" once rhyme with "Laurel"? —2606:A000:1126:28D:68A0:D82D:EF5B:865F (talk) 16:04, 6 October 2019 (UTC)

To remind me of the numbers of days in each month, I say a poem with the lines "All the rest have thirty-one, except for February alone" It's annoyed all my life. It doesn't rhyme! Does it rhyme anywhere? Did it ever rhyme? HiLo48 (talk) 04:27, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
 * As noted in Thirty Days Hath September, there are many versions of this memory aid, some of which actually rhyme, sort of. But that reminds of this old one: "Roses are red / Violets are blue / Some poems rhyme / But this one don't." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:51, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Yes, those two words did rhyme in Shakespeare's dialect, for example. If you look at Crystal's transcription of Sonnet 36, he shows one pronounced as o:ne, with a long O and the final E pronounced - and alone pronounced the same way: alo:ne.70.67.193.176 (talk) 14:55, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
 * A different thing bothers me about that poem (and doesn't seem to be addressed in our article). What is the subject of "hath"?  If it's "September", then "hath" is fine, but the other three months seem to be hung out to dry.  If on the other hand the subject is "September, April, June, and November", then "hath" is wrong; it should be "have". --Trovatore (talk) 17:21, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Grammatically, the subject is the series "September, April, June and November". The verb should technically be "have" but is singular to allow the first line to stand by itself. Jmar67 (talk) 20:16, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I don't think Viennese Waltz's Tyger example is right: the pronunciations of "eye" and "symmetry" haven't changed to make that happen. Haj Ross liked the idea that "symmetry" is probably supposed to be a slant rhyme that hints at "lamb made thee" at the end of the poem. He wrote a 45 page article about the pattern of sounds in that poem here. 173.228.123.207 (talk) 08:43, 7 October 2019 (UTC)


 * Dialects make a difference. The North of England has no issue with

But as Froggy was crossing over a brook, Heigh ho! says Rowley. A lily white duck came and gobbled him up.


 * Which does not rhyme in the South! Similar for many other words -- Q Chris (talk) 15:13, 7 October 2019 (UTC)


 * "Brook" somehow rhymes with "up" ? So do you say "brup" or "ook" ? SinisterLefty (talk) 18:30, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Perhaps "assonates" would have been more accurate than "rhymes". Alansplodge (talk) 20:06, 7 October 2019 (UTC)