Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 September 14

= September 14 =

How many Xs?
Just saw an inconclusive debate on social media about whether people displaying absolute Vaccine hesitancy should be described as anti-vaxers or anti-vaxxers, and perhaps not have a hyphen either? Given that the "x" sound derives from the "cc" in vaccine, that's not much help. I personally don't see much point in "xx". One "x" makes the same sound. Has this neologism evolved enough yet to say anything conclusive on the matter? HiLo48 (talk) 02:16, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * That's a weird one, isn't it? I'm going to guess that it was a conscious stylistic choice, either by members of the group themselves to set themselves apart, or by their opponents to denigrate them, but that's just a guess based on nothing, so let's see whether anyone comes up with anything solid.  It reminds me a little of the hyper-Latinism virii as a plural of virus, which is of course totally wrong, nothing right about it, but at least looks superficially like some correct Latin plurals, whereas that silly xx looks like nothing but a porn-movie self-rating. --Trovatore (talk) 04:28, 14 September 2020 (UTC)


 * The "Exxon" corporation did it first. They did research ca. 1970, and supposedly found that Maltese was the only moderately well-known language which commonly used the letter combination "xx" in its spelling.  "Anti-vaxxer" doesn't make too much sense if you try to sound out the spelling letter-by-letter, but it's a pretty established term by now... AnonMoos (talk) 04:45, 14 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Of course, hence the Maltese Falxxon... --Trovatore (talk) 04:52, 14 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Not too sure what that's supposed to mean, but you can look at the spelling of the word for "embassy" on our Maltese language article... AnonMoos (talk) 04:55, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The Maltese spelling reflects the gemination of the pronunciation of the consonant. In English, it is generally not clear how to syllabify a word with an ⟨x⟩: is the two-syllable word exam e·xam or ex·am? (Phonetically, it is, splitting the ⟨x⟩ and assigning the parts to different syllables. Etymologically, it is unambiguously ex-am.) In English orthography, an intervocalic duplicated consonant does not signify gemination, but usually a different pronounciation of the preceding vowel; compare babby and baby, belly and bely, bitter and biter, and so on. Perhaps the orthography with the double ⟨xx⟩ reflects a desire to signal that the preceding vowel is that of babby and not baby. --Lambiam 10:35, 14 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Wiktionary doesn't list antivaxer, only antivaxxer. But since we have faxing and not faxxing you're right, the xx doesn't make much sense. But then English spelling is never consistent.--Shantavira|feed me 08:59, 14 September 2020 (UTC)


 * NGram has at last updated their database up to 2019, which means this term is now searchable, and it looks like a neologism originating c. 2007 - and there are no results in the corpus for the one x version. Would be fascinating to track down the first use of the term.  70.67.193.176 (talk) 17:07, 14 September 2020 (UTC)


 * This one doxxing seems to go both ways.  I was unaware of the derivation till now. 2A02:C7F:D63F:AF00:48A1:AB9F:4B06:6D65 (talk) 18:05, 14 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I remember when Redd Foxx first became known. It seemed a kooky, kinky and funky way of spelling Fox. But by the time Jamie Foxx (no relation) showed up, it was almost passé. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:21, 14 September 2020 (UTC)


 * John Fforde spelt his name in an idiosyncratic way, as do many others. 2A00:23C8:1686:1900:9943:4E4F:15A2:177F (talk) 10:03, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Not really: Fforde is a well-established surname spelling. Our earliest articled example was born in 1875, but apparently it dates back to misunderstandings of mediaeval orthography which used "ff" for "F". It's also seen in titles and surnames such as Ffrench and Ffolkes, and probably in various Welsh surnames since initial "ff" is used in Welsh, for example in the placename Ffestiniog. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.218.14.16 (talk) 10:22, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
 * As you see at the linked articles, all of these names can also be spelled with the first letter "f" instead of "F". They look even more idiosyncratic that way, ever if it's well-established. --174.88.168.23 (talk) 23:56, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
 * There was a movie called ffolkes. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:50, 16 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Baseball Hall-of-Famer Jimmie Foxx, one of whose nicknames was "Double X". See also "Foxx". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:20, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Conjugation of "plead"
Today I discovered that Wiktionary claims that the past tense of plead can be pleaded, pled, or plead, with the last being pronounced the same as pled. Is that accurate? Up to now if I'd seen plead used in the past tense, I would have taken it to be simply an error. But it is the same paradigm as read (whereas the past tense I prefer, pled, is the same paradigm as lead). --Trovatore (talk) 04:09, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The American Heritage Dictionary's online version lists all three versions of the past tense. Merriam-Webster's online version also lists all three, but with "plead" as an "also" form.  The Oxford Dictionaries online version at Lexico, however, only shows "pleaded" and "pled" as past tense.  The full Oxford English Dictionary Online (which I can't link to since you need to be a subscriber or belong to an organization that subscribes), says:
 * The acceptability of plead and pled as past tense and past participle forms has been questioned by commentators on usage; both forms have often been associated with legal usage. For a full discussion of this, with examples, see B. A. Garner Dict. Mod. Legal Usage (ed. 2, 1995) 667.
 * In the OED Online, the legal uses are under sense 7 and none of the usage examples cited uses "plead" as past tense. I hadn't seen that usage either, and the use of "also" in M-W implies that it's less common than the others. --174.88.168.23 (talk) 07:13, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Next to M-W, also The American Heritage Dictionary lists the past tense plead in a way that suggests it is less common. They also have an interesting usage-panel distinction between pleaded and pled. In online texts about US legal proceedings as wekk as in news items, the spelling plead is not uncommon:, , , . Such apparent uses may, however, also be the subjunctive: . Wiktionary is descriptive; if the use of a certain form is common enough, they will list it. --Lambiam 08:33, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * "The OED gives pleaded as the past of plead, but notes that pled is used as the past form in Scottish and US usage". Pleaded vs. Pled.
 * "Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary says the simple past tense and the past participle form are “pleaded or pled,” in that order. That means you can use both... The Associated Press Stylebook states: “Do not use the colloquial past-tense form 'pled'. LA Times - A Word, Please: Whether someone pled or pleaded guilty is in question Alansplodge (talk) 16:54, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The question was actually not about pled, but about plead used in the past tense (and pronounced "pled"). But still interesting, especially the US–England distinction, which seems to go the opposite direction from "tread".  An American would say "I treaded water", whereas I think a Brit would use "trod water". --Trovatore (talk) 18:12, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * "Meantime, along the narrow rugged path, Thyself hast trod, Lead, Saviour, lead me home in childlike faith, Home to my God". (Lead, Kindly Light). Alansplodge (talk) 18:24, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * , plead is fine in the past: "He plead guilty." There is an interesting spike in usage of pled starting in the early 1960s, so here are two comparison graphs: before 1963 and after 1963. Almost all of that spike occurred in US English only; although he pled guilty is more popular on both sides of the Atlantic, it is much preferred in AE, and only slightly preferred in BE. Mathglot (talk) 16:37, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
 * "Pled guilty" sounds plain wrong (however spelt) to my English ears. Alansplodge (talk) 21:41, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
 * My English ears agree with yours. Reading this thread I was struck by the thought that "we have been here before" - I found this discussion from 2014. I'm sure it's come up somewhere else on wiki too but damned if I can remember where. DuncanHill (talk) 22:03, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Reminiscent of "proven" which is acceptable as a Scottish legal term and in American English, but in for general British uses, "proved" is the correct past tense. However, the American usage seems to be gaining ground rapidly on this side of the pond, even amongst BBC journalists who should know better. Alansplodge (talk) 17:07, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * To be clear, in American English, "proven" is an acceptable past participle of "prove", never a past tense. I suppose that's what you meant; just making it precise. --Trovatore (talk) 18:58, 17 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Looking at Newspapers.com (pay site), "pled" and "pleaded" both start appearing around 1800, including in England newspapers. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:04, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Psycho-vegetative stress
Google Translate renders the title "Studie zu psychischen und psychovegetativen Beschwerden mit den aktuellen Mund-Nasenschutz-Verordnungen as "Study on psychological and psycho-vegetative complaints with the current mouth and nose protection regulations". Further down the translated abstract (which I have trouble making much sense of) refers to "psycho-vegetative stress".  I've never seen a term like this in English, though WP search finds the German article de:Methode nach Schlaffhorst und Andersen uses something similar.  Is there a more on-target translation of "psycho-vegetative"?  Thanks.  2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 22:52, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
 * While we wait for a native speaker... Looking through the translations collected by Linguee there is one case that doesn’t translate it “psychovegetative” and that one translates it “autonomic nervous”: Umstritten ist, ob diese psychischen und psychovegetativen Beschwerden als ein Produkt "neurotischer" Verarbeitungsformen... <--> One point at issue is whether these mental and autonomic nervous system complaints should be regarded as a product of "neuroti"... Helps? (German for autonomic nervous system is Das vegetative Nervensystem; I am unclear on exactly what nuance the “psycho” part adds.) 70.67.193.176 (talk) 15:02, 15 September 2020 (UTC)


 * "Vegetative nervous system" is a former name for the autonomic nervous system. An online German dictionary defines psychovegetativ as "(medicine) concerning the psyche and the autonomic nervous system; based on a disturbance of the autonomic nervous system triggered by mental processes, " The term is mostly used by people practising "holistic medicine". --Lambiam 16:31, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Would that be the same as psychosomatic? --Khajidha (talk) 23:44, 15 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Ah, thanks, I hadn't seen "vegetative nervous system" in English before, and psychosomatic does sound like a reasonable translation of psycho-vegetative, especially if it includes things like PTSD, which is apparently seeing an uptick due to coronavirus measures. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 01:49, 16 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't agree with psychosomatic; check online definitions. Also, psychovegetative is rare in books, professional journals, and online in English:
 * Note also that the results in books and scholar appear to be mostly translations from German. If you're a de->en technical translator, and you're translating this, where do you go to find an English word for German psychovegetative? Looks like a literal translation to me, and I'm not convinced the English cognate exists.  Look at the author names on the top ten titles in Books and Scholar and what do you see?  All German names.  Either psychovegetative doesn't exist in English, or it's a neologism resulting from foreign authors being translated literally, and possibly incorrectly. Mathglot (talk) 17:52, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
 * As a native speaker of German with minimal knowledge in medical terminology, I have tried to look up where this term is used in ICD catalogues, and found it at F45. This might help to find an English equivalent. –Austronesier (talk) 18:19, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
 * Further on this: note that de:vegetatives Nervensystem is the current, accepted term in German for the autonomic nervous system. (You can follow the language links in the left sidebar.) The term vegetative nervous system is an obsolete term in English for the autonomic nervous system, a.k.a., systema nervosum autonomicum as the Latin term in English would have it. The only missing part of this, is the psycho- prefix.  It could be that psychovegetatives Nervensystem (in German) is an alternate term for vegetatives Nervensystem, which would make autonomic the translation of psychovegetativ in modern English. Mathglot (talk) 18:58, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I think the analysis is not psychovegetatives + Nervensystem but psycho- + vegetatives Nervensystem. The closest to a literal translation would be "psychoautonomic". I don't know about the 2010 edition of the ICD-10, but more recent editions in English appear to use just psychogenic, without referencing a nervous system. --Lambiam 22:18, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
 * I think the analysis is not psychovegetatives + Nervensystem but psycho- + vegetatives Nervensystem. The closest to a literal translation would be "psychoautonomic". I don't know about the 2010 edition of the ICD-10, but more recent editions in English appear to use just psychogenic, without referencing a nervous system. --Lambiam 22:18, 16 September 2020 (UTC)