Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 August 29

= August 29 =

Lord You-know-who (from Harry Potter)
"Malfoy" obviously means "bad faith" in French. Does anyone have a translation for "vol de mort"? wikt:vol gives two different versions of "vol" and maybe they can combine to something related to "death eater", or whatever. Thanks. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 00:21, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * A common interpretation I hear is "flight from death", which is supported by his Horcruxes. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  00:23, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * For another conjecture, see here. --184.146.89.141 (talk) 06:10, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Although French vol can mean "flight", this is not "flight" in the sense of "fleeing" / "running away" / "escaping", but solely in the sense of "flying" / "taking to the air", as birds and planes do. The combination vol de mort can be used in the sense of "death flight", as in the title of the air disaster flick SST: Death Flight (but not for the popular form of extrajudicial killings; these are vols de la mort in French). Another sense in French is "theft", and "Lord Death Theft" does fit with this horcrux thing intended to snatch death from the Grim Reaper. JKR's revelation that the final ⟨t⟩ was meant to be silent lends support to the theory of a French interpretation. --Lambiam 09:45, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Third-person singular simple present indicative form
In regard to leafs vs. leaves, WTH does "Third-person singular simple present indicative form" mean? (I was curious as to whether "Toronto Maple Leafs" was grammatically correct, and that description didn't help).--107.15.157.44 (talk) 20:28, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * In the verb "to leaf" (as in "to leaf through a book"), we have "he/she/it leafs" vs. "I/we/you/they leaf". (This is the regular English inflectional pattern.) AnonMoos (talk) 21:33, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * P.S. The book "The Language Instinct" by Steven Pinker (kind of a modern popularization classic by now) has a discussion of "The Maple Leafs" and related forms in Chapter 5.  Some of the linguistic issues are mentioned in our article bahuvrihi... AnonMoos (talk) 21:40, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I've never heard of that before. Would "peanut" be an example (being neither a pea nor a nut)? --107.15.157.44 (talk) 23:01, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Huh? A peanut is certainly a kind of nut... AnonMoos (talk) 23:07, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Technically, its a legume and not a "true" nut; but since everybody calls it a nut (in a culinary sense) it is considered to be such. -- Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.15.157.44 (talk) 23:44, 29 August 2020 (UTC)
 * If you really want to blow your mind about the distinction between botanical and culinary meanings of terms, read the berry article. --Khajidha (talk) 13:11, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * And fruit and vegetable, come to think of it. --Khajidha (talk) 13:14, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * :Geesh! We actually have an article: Ketchup as a vegetable. 2606:A000:1126:28D:69F5:735D:5EC1:F97D (talk) 19:03, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * And, of course, chocolate is a vegetable too. --ColinFine (talk) 18:49, 2 September 2020 (UTC)


 * (ec) Third person : the subject of the verb is neither you or I but someone or something else (e.g. buckthorn). Singular : used when the subject of the verb is a mass noun (e.g. "buckthorn"), or when it is a count noun but we are talking about a single (or a typical, generic) exemplar. Simple present : for a stative verb, indicates that the state denoted by the verb applies at the present time; for a dynamic verb, most commonly indicates that the action denoted by the verb is habitual (at least for English), for example a yearly recurring event. The indicative is used when the state or action is real and not merely hypothetical. Usage examplee: "[Buckthorn] leafs early in spring and holds its leaves until late in fall." The word "leaves" in this sentence is not a verb form but the plural of the noun leaf. --Lambiam 21:51, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks to both for your informative replies. So, "Toronto Maple Leafs" being a noun, is grammatically incorrect, right? --107.15.157.44 (talk) 22:54, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * It's a somewhat complicated issue which is not easy to explain briefly without using technical linguistic terminology ("exocentric"/"headless"/"bahuvrihi" etc). I would really advise you to read chapter 5 of The Language Instinct... -- AnonMoos (talk) 23:12, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * In short: "it is what it is, as long a people agree that it is so" (or something like that). 107.15.157.44 (talk) 23:52, 29 August 2020 (UTC)


 * As "Toronto Maple Leafs" is widely and confidently used by adult speakers of English, it is grammatical -- in the same way that "autumn leaves" is grammatical, and "[X] is comprised of [Y]" is grammatical. -- Hoary (talk) 04:42, 30 August 2020 (UTC)


 * This is very similar to the plural of sabretooth not being *sabreteeth but  sabretooths (sabretooths are not teeth) – while the plural of wisdom tooth is simply wisdom teeth (wisdom teeth are teeth).  --Lambiam 10:37, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * It is also mongooses for the mammal, but geese for the bird. --Khajidha (talk) 14:14, 31 August 2020 (UTC)


 * Khajidha -- "mongoose" is not derived as a compound with "goose" as one of the compound elements, but "sabertooth" is definitely derived as a compound with "tooth" as one of the compound elements. AnonMoos (talk) 17:30, 31 August 2020 (UTC)
 * True, but the similarity does lead to confusion as to the proper plurals. Probably was too far afield to be mentioned in this discussion, though.--Khajidha (talk) 02:07, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Wiktionary lists mongeese as a "(nonstandard) plural of mongoose". On Merriam–Webster mongeese redirects to mongoose, where they have: "plural mongooses also mongeese", refraining from casting more explicit aspersions upon the propriety of the latter form. They do not list mangander, though. --Lambiam 16:53, 1 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Another similar example to the OP's is the family of electronic devices called BlackBerrys, as opposed to blackberries. Turner Street (talk) 12:39, 4 September 2020 (UTC)


 * " "Third-person singular simple present indicative form" means "plural". doktorb wordsdeeds 08:41, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Say what? --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  09:24, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
 * And "Ignorance" means "Strength". --Lambiam 16:27, 30 August 2020 (UTC)