Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 July 19

= July 19 =

Questions again

 * 1) Are there any languages which use letter X in beginning of native words and it stands for /ks/ sound?
 * 2) Does Spanish have any words with grave accent?
 * 3) Are there any words in English where letter B is pronounced word-finally after M?
 * 4) Are there any words in English where word-initial X is not pronounced /z/
 * 5) In Dutch, Ukraine is Oekraïne. How would it be pronounced if it were spelled Oekraine.
 * 6) Are there any English words where diacritic is orthographically required?
 * 7) Are there any modern non-Romanian Romance languages which have retained grammatical cases? --40bus (talk) 14:38, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * 1: Greek, obviously (&Xi; was anciently written X in western dialects). 6: façade. —Tamfang (talk) 16:41, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I can't agree with façade. If you insist it needs a cedilla, then I must insist it should be treated as a foreign word, requiring italics. If not, not. I see that you have indeed used italics; that must mean you don't regard it as an English word, and hence not relevant to the question. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:32, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Although our article insists on using the c-with-little-s thing, the conventional spelling in English is "facade". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:37, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The OED uses the cedilla, and has an example with the cedilla but without italics from 1839. DuncanHill (talk) 20:12, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Chambers likewise uses the cedilla but does not mark it as foreign. DuncanHill (talk) 20:21, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Given its origin, it's a shame we don't have a cz convention for the cedilla akin to Ve for German umlauts. --Lazar Taxon (talk) 17:04, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Or plain z, since Spanish cognates often have z where French or Portuguese has ç. —Tamfang (talk) 14:31, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Oh? Last time I looked, our article insisted on no cedilla. —Tamfang (talk) 14:30, 26 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I italicize word-as-word, foreign or not. —Tamfang (talk) 14:29, 26 July 2023 (UTC)


 * 1) For #4, there are foreign proper names like "Xhosa" and "Ximenez" which when used in English do not begin with /z/. There are also words like "xray" and "xmas" in which the "x" is pronounced /ɛks/. CodeTalker (talk) 17:08, 19 July 2023 (UTC)


 * ad 1: Xenophobia / xenophilia?  --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 18:06, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Aren't those pronounced with a leading "z" sound? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 19:37, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * In English yes, in Greek no. Folly Mox (talk) 19:45, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * If you consider x and ξ the same, I guess it's valid. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:09, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * In most European languages (wiktionary lists German, Italian, Hungarian, and Slovak, representing four different language branches), xenophobia is spelled with a Latin X-, and pronounced with [ks-]. 82.166.199.42 (talk) 07:39, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * In most European languages, such words are spelled with x- and pronounced with /ks-/, but the question is whether they can be considered native words. Most appear to be borrowed from Greek. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:06, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * 4) One hears Xavier mispronounced nowadays as "Ex-Avia". BTW, the use of hashes instead of real numbers is unhelpful when replying in the edit window, as we don't get to see the numbers. DuncanHill (talk) 20:07, 19 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Codetalker -- Most often Xmas is pronounced the same as "Christmas" (except on Futurama).
 * JackofOz, Baseball_bugs -- It's hard to say that the cedilla is "required" there, but the letter "c" in the letter sequence "ca" rarely has the sound-value [s] in English, so some people apparently feel that it's helpful there.. AnonMoos (talk) 20:10, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Re. "xmas", the OED gives both pronunciations. I don't know which is more common, but I'm sure I've heard /ˈɛksməs/ even in non-Futurama contexts. CodeTalker (talk) 20:45, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Chambers gives the eksmas pronunciation before the Christmas one, and I have to say I think eksmas is the more common pronunciation. DuncanHill (talk) 20:48, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Ironic it is that the "X" is the Greek letter "chi". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 21:23, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Which looks like "chai", is usually pronounced as "ky", but should probably be pronounced as "key". --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  09:13, 21 July 2023 (UTC)


 * 5) /ukrɑi̯nə/, I guess, whereas the correct pronunciation is /ukraˈʔinə/, /ukraˈjinə/ or /ukraˈɦinə/ 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:14, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Close enough, according to this native Dutch speaker: the a would turn lax and one syllable cut, turning the i into the final part of a diphthong. IMHO, the pronunciation of Dutch as given in Wiktionary or in our article on Dutch phonology suffers from excessive precision. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:58, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * 7) Aromanian has cases, but some might consider it a Romanian dialect. Double sharp (talk) 03:48, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * 2) No, Spanish only uses the acute accent, not the grave. Its purpose is to indicate which syllable is stressed in a word that does not follow default stress rules. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:07, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That said, the grave was used in Early Modern Spanish. Double sharp (talk) 04:14, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * 6 is "No", with the caveat that "it depends on which variety of English it is and how pedantic someone is". As noted above, there are some pedants who insist that the only proper way to spell certain words like "façade" and "naïve" and "rôle" and "jalapeño" is with the diacritic, but among most English writers in most of the world (and among most style guides commonly used in most of the world), diacritics are entirely unused.  -- Jayron 32 11:41, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Jayron of course knows better than professional lexicographers. DuncanHill (talk) 11:45, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * In fact, scrub that. Where the fuck do you get off Jayron, you and your uncited baloney? Who are these "some pedants"? Can I call you an idiot if you call me a pedant? DuncanHill (talk) 11:49, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It's because I'm an asshole. I'm actually shocked it took you until today to learn I'm not useful around here.  Everyone else has known for years.  -- Jayron 32 11:55, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * "façade The cedilla should always be maintained". Burchfield allows either for naïve, and says while role is the OUP house style, rôle is still valid.
 * I checked a couple of editions of the Chicago guide, it doesn't seem to mention façade (however spelt) at all, some editions do say that a cedilla is among the minimum requirements for type.
 * Merriam-Webster has facade as the head-word and says "or less commonly façade". It has "naive or naïve", "jalapeño or less commonly jalapeno", "role or less commonly rôle".
 * The spell-check on my Windows pc (set to BrEng) marks facade and naive and rôle as mis-spellings. I think that's the first time I've ever typed or written the word jalapeño with or without the curly thing. DuncanHill (talk)
 * Thank you for the corrections! -- Jayron 32 14:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Is Dutch Ë, as in België or cariës, obligatory, as at least acute accents in één or vóór are optional? I think that English should use obligatory diaeresis in words like distinguish (my proposed spelling distingüish) to indicate that the letter U, normally used only to indigate hard G sound like in guess or guitar, is pronounced /w/, like the same use in Spanish and Catalan. --40bus (talk) 17:45, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, the diaeresis in words like België, cariës, vacuüm, coöperatie or financiële is mandatory in Dutch, except that it must be dropped when the word gets hyphenated before the letter with the diaeresis, either at the end of a line or because you want to show possible hyphenation: ca-ri-es, co-o-pe-ra-tie, etc. Hyphenation makes the diaeresis redundant. You need at least 2 letters before the hyphen and two after, so you can't hyphenate België before the diaeresis. PiusImpavidus (talk) 19:15, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, in distinguish u follows ng, not strictly g, though. There isn't any u in words like finger or thingie, either. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:22, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, English is mostly a mess in that orthographical regard, anyway, and for a spelling reform, it would probably be easier to import the j spelling wholesale, anyway (such as jin and jinjer). 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:30, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that the Dutch spelling $⟨ie⟩$ is redundant and should just be replaced by $⟨i⟩$, thus the $⟨ië⟩$ should change to $⟨ie⟩$. --40bus (talk) 20:07, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * And what authoritative body do you think has the power to bring this about? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 51.198.140.169 (talk) 22:15, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That would be the Dutch Language Union. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:35, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * This would conflate many Dutch word pairs that are neither synonyms nor homophones. Hij ziet goed&thinsp; means "he sees well". Hij zit goed&thinsp;  means "he sits well". Just for the monosyllabic words already: bid – bied; bil – biel; bis – bies; bit – biet; dip – diep; git – giet; kil – kiel; kim – kiem; kir – kier; lid – lied; lig – lieg; lip – liep; lis – lies; mis – mies; nis – nies; pik – piek; pil – piel; pip – piep; pit – piet; rit – riet; tin – tien; vis – vies; wig – wieg; wik – wiek; wil – wiel; wis – wies; wit – wiet; zin – zien; zit – ziet.  --Lambiam 05:49, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The ie doesn't make a lot of sense in modern Dutch, you're right about that. It would make sense to replace unchecked ie with i and checked ie with ii, similar to how is done with a, e, o and u. In fact, it used to be like that, but ii was respelled ij and pronunciation changed to a diphthong. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:35, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Length of oe and eu in Dutch should also be indicated. By doubling the second vowel (oee, euu). --40bus (talk) 14:44, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * a, e, i, o, u come in lax/tense pairs. If tense in a normally lax environment, they are doubled (some special rule for tense i and final e), if lax in a normally tense environment, the following consonant is doubled, so that you can predict whether they are tense or lax. oe and eu however don't come in lax/tense pairs, so there's nothing more to indicate in spelling. PiusImpavidus (talk) 23:14, 22 July 2023 (UTC)


 * 3 is also "No", largely because "m" and "b" have identical place of articulation, with the only difference being that "b" is plosive consonant and m is a nasal consonant, which makes it awkward to transition between the two in English without having a following vowel. Word final voiced plosives in English are almost always unaspirated and devoiced, while the same consonant is commonly aspirated in pre-vocalic position (compare "bone" and "cob".  If you hold your hand in front of your mouth when you say "bone", for most English speakers, you'll feel a distinct puff of air that you won't necessarily feel for "cob").  An unaspirated plosive following a nasal with the same place of articulation has no way to mark it as distinct.  In other words, if you want to pronounce the "b" in "dumb" you need to add something to the end of the word, such as a short vowel sound, like a short "schwa", or you need to forcibly aspirate it.  Since it is normally unaspirated, it doesn't stand out from the "m" in any way.  -- Jayron 32 11:55, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That's not the reason. There are many languages that allow /mb/ in coda, and those words are spelled like that precisely because English was one of them. It's just how English phonotactics happened to evolve. Nardog (talk) 12:53, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * [-nd], [-nt] and [-ŋk] are rather common in English, despite having all the same peculiarities that you mention: a nasal followed by an unaspirated plosive, with identical place of articulation. it doesn't stand out from the "m" in any way -- of course it does, by being a plosive and not a nasal. 82.166.199.42 (talk) 13:01, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you for the correct explanations! -- Jayron 32 14:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * 82.166.199.42 -- The "same" thing happened in both word-final "mb" and word-final "ng" -- a non-dental voiced stop was deleted -- but of course the deletion in "ng" left behind a now-word-final nasal sound which otherwise only occurred before [k] and [g], while the deletion in "mb" just left behind an ordinary [m]... AnonMoos (talk) 22:50, 20 July 2023 (UTC)


 * About 7, I think all of them keep cases for pronouns (Haven't I answered this before?). yo, io are the nominative and mí, me are the accusative. --Error (talk) 09:30, 24 July 2023 (UTC)

Words with unexpected meanings
There are some words that do not mean what they may seem to mean at first glance, and for this reason are often misused. Ones that come to mind are: I'm sure there are many others. Is there a list? --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:53, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * fulsome (does not mean full or complete, but excessive)
 * restive (does not mean restful or calm, but unsettled, grumbly and potentially explosive)
 * presently (does not mean right now, but soon)
 * momentarily (does not mean in a moment, i.e. soon, but lasting only a moment).


 * Fulsome and presently both have well-attested use for the meanings you say they do not mean, indeed they seem to be the oldest meanings of them. DuncanHill (talk) 20:03, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Driving in parkways and parking in driveways...? ;) --CiaPan (talk) 20:36, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * A few that come to mind are enormity, dissemble, disinterested. --Trovatore (talk) 20:59, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * "quite literally" - meaning "figuratively and not literally at all"? Iloveparrots (talk) 21:24, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * entitled has had a complete change in meaning of recent times. It used to mean exactly what it said, entitled. Now it means virtually the opposite: someone who's NOT entitled but acts as if they were. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:26, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't really agree with that. "Entitled" still means what it means, though certain locutions like "entitled attitude" or "entitled behavior" have changed.  However there's a significant fraction of the population that just uses the word incorrectly (yes, I'm a prescriptivist, as I think are you).
 * This will be obvious to anyone who follows Facebook listen, it's perfectly natural; almost everyone does it in the United States. Every now and then you'll see a "viral" post taking umbrage at the description of, for example, Social Security as an "entitlement", which is the technical term for the category of government expenditures under which it falls.  They'll say: .  Well, right, that's why you would be entitled to it. --Trovatore (talk) 00:38, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * another one: ridiculous used to mean worthy of ridicule, derision, contempt; now it seems to mean superlatively good. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  21:49, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * On restive, see this. Deor (talk) 23:35, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The word "sick" is sometimes used as slang to describe something that is very good. Jack, as an Australian, is probably already familiar with the more extreme "deadly", a word in Aboriginal Australian English meaning excellent. HiLo48 (talk) 04:45, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Wicked! DuncanHill (talk) 08:20, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Slim Shady, ain't nobody iller than me, Eminem. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:45, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That's shit! (Negative)
 * That's the shit! (Positive)
 * That's some shit! (Negative)
 * That's some shit! (Neutral)
 * That's some ill shit! (Positive)
 * Card Zero (talk) 20:15, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * mandatory Ismo reference: . -- Jayron 32 11:19, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * "Inflammable" – you would think it means the opposite of "flammable", instead it is a synonym. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 14:08, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That's becaue Latin had at least three etymologially and semantically different prefixes spelled like in-. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:50, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * For a specific kind of word that's like this, see auto-antonym, where one word has two (or more) senses which are antonyms. For example, "oversight" can both mean missed/overlooked or closely scrutinized. If you're familiar with one sense, the other sense would appear as an unexpected meaning. And see also perhaps skunked term. Matt Deres (talk) 14:46, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Decimated originally meant one part in ten (removed), now it is conflated with  devistated devastated; and, awful doesn't mean "full of awe". 136.54.99.98 (talk) 16:26, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Devastated? Could you cite an example of what you are referring to here, as I have trouble following you. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:45, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * If you mean that decimate could refer to a number much higher than one tenth, I don't think it's due to a conflation with devastate, primarily... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:48, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Perhaps "conflated" is the wrong word, but often one hears something like "the invading force was decimated..." or "the town was decimated by a tornado" when "devastated" would be the more accurate word. 136.54.99.98 (talk) 20:05, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I guess another example would be "ultrarapid" meaning "extremely slow" (or is that not used in current English?). 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:54, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * This seems to apply (in Swedish) only in the context of video, where a rapid framerate (at recording time) corresponds to slow motion (on playback). Card Zero  (talk) 19:21, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I might have assumed it was more international in scope... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:21, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It reminds me of the situation with large-scale, which (in the context of maps) means "showing small things". Card Zero  (talk) 20:35, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * High-speed cameras can be used to make slow motion videos. -- Random person no 362478479 (talk) 22:21, 20 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's basically the same reasoning behind the Swedish usage of "ultrarapid". High-speed cameras photograph a high number of frames per second, and when they are projected on a lower framerate, you would get a slow-motion effect... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:01, 21 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it's basically the same reasoning behind the Swedish usage of "ultrarapid". High-speed cameras photograph a high number of frames per second, and when they are projected on a lower framerate, you would get a slow-motion effect... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:01, 21 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Latitude and longitude invoke a similar paradox to "high-speed camera". It's obvious from the sound of latitude that's it's related to lateral, and so one might assume it means sideways-ness, which from the customary orientation of the globe would mean east-west position. But in fact it's the line of latitude itself which goes east-west, while latitude refers to position among the lines and thus means position north-south. Card Zero  (talk) 02:03, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Here's an explanation of why the terms longitude and latitude were chosen the way they were. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:17, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I was just looking at exactly that just now. :) Seems this is a hangover from the orientation of ancient maps (or at least ancient conceptual geography) with east at the top. Card Zero  (talk) 02:38, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
 * C+B-Geography-Map1-StrabosMap.PNG's map of the world]]According to older sources it does not derive from the orientation of ancient maps, but rather from more of the Earth being known to ancient Greek geographers in the "long" East–West direction than in the North–South direction. --Lambiam 19:58, 22 July 2023 (UTC)