Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 September 30

= September 30 =

Fancy word for third
Many people are now using "sophomore" as a fancy word for "second". Has anyone proposed a fancy word for "third"?? Georgia guy (talk) 21:39, 30 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Mainly in such contexts as "the band's sophomore album", not in "the sophomore day of the month". When I was in the UK, the word "sophomore" was considered a somewhat exotic Americanism... AnonMoos (talk) 22:17, 30 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Many people? Source please. Let me guess. This is happening exclusively in the United States, and probably only in parts of that country. No other country I'm aware of uses "sophomore" to mean some year of university study. (I don't even know which year.) HiLo48 (talk) 22:22, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * It's one of the ugliest words ever coined. I'd be embarrassed to use it. It's in the same class as "palimpsest" and "usufruct". --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:06, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Hmm, Jack, it sounds like we may have sharply divergent aesthetics for words. How do you feel about, , ? --Trovatore (talk) 23:42, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Strictly speaking,, the original Spanish (singular) word is "chupacabras" (sucker of goats") although it's often mistaken for a plural by non-Spanish speakers who then assume that "chupacabra" (= "sucker of a goat") is the singular. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.128.129 (talk) 13:44, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 90.193, I understand that. It doesn't evict "chupacabra" from my list of Words I Just Like Saying.  In my humble opinion it doesn't have the same impact with the ess on the end.  YMMV. --Trovatore (talk) 20:11, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Given the enormous popular clamor to share the rest of the list, I'll vouchsafe that another entry is arrostiscono, the third-person plural of the Italian verb arrostire, "to roast". I have to remember never to use these as password hints. --Trovatore (talk) 20:14, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * User:Trovatore, those three are all quite innocuous. They'd never qualify for my List of Shame. -- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:55, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Still, the words you don't like and the words I do like seem to have trends in common. Polysyllables with lots of /k/s and unusual stress patterns, for example.   doesn't have any /k/s but I still find it to have satisfying mouth feel, maybe for the stressed ending and lots of consonant clusters.  I really don't feel one way or the other about, so we're not measuring along exactly the same axes in any case. --Trovatore (talk) 17:02, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * ObPalimpsest --Trovatore (talk) 17:06, 2 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Ha ha. Yes, it's a very personal and individual thing, these emotional relations we have with words. I don't know anything about words but I know what I dislike. :)  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  18:26, 2 October 2022 (UTC)


 * According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "sophomore" was first used in England in reference to Cambridge, decades before it was used in the United States. Their first citation is from England in 1688; the first US citation is from 1726. It does seem to have fallen out of use in the UK while it was retained in the US. CodeTalker (talk) 23:22, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Like "eleemosynary" Doug butler (talk) 23:46, 30 September 2022 (UTC)
 * I believe it's become an elegant variation used mostly by sports writers and music reviewers in the U.S. -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  14:23, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * One could use 1st = sopholittle, 2nd = sophomore, 3rd = sophomost. --Lambiam 09:46, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Are you looking for a verbal progression similar to: ultimate, penultimate, antepenultimate, preantepenultimate, propreantepenultimate...? -- Verbarson talkedits 20:07, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Tertiary. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 16:56, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
 * 70.67.193.176 -- You get credit for being the first one here to answer the question as it was originally asked, but tertiary often means third in importance (rather than third in sequence), except in some contexts such as "tertiary education" (often "higher education") or the Tertiary period... AnonMoos (talk) 21:06, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * Back to the original question: wouldn't that be "junior"? — Kpalion(talk) 08:56, 5 October 2022 (UTC)
 * There's ter, which follows bis. --Trovatore (talk) 21:39, 5 October 2022 (UTC)