Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 July 4

= July 4 =

How do we know the pronunciation of Ancient Greek?
(edited for spoilers) How exactly do we know how the Ancient Greek language was pronounced at the time of Ancient Greece? There obviously are no surviving audio recordings. J I P &#124; Talk 10:22, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * For a nice small book on the subject which is not too technical if you know basic terminology and phonetic notation, see "Vox Graeca" by W. Sidney Allen. AnonMoos (talk) 10:31, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * You can "borrow" this book to read online at archive.org here. You have to open a free account with them first, but it's quite painless. Alansplodge (talk) 15:11, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * P.S. There have been several conventional English "classroom" pronunciations of Greek over the centuries (see Pronunciation of Ancient Greek in teaching), but they have almost never attempted to get pitch-accent or aspirated consonants correct.  Not pronouncing the Greek alphabet vowel letters with sound-values that would reflect medieval Greek vowel mergers and/or English Great Vowel Shift changes has been considered more than accurate enough for the classroom... [[Image:SFriendly.gif|20px]] -- AnonMoos (talk) 10:44, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Ancient_Greek_phonology should answer the question. --Wrongfilter (talk) 11:45, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Right and right and right
In Exile by Michael P. Kube-McDowell I've encountered the standalone sentence "Right and right and right". Seemingly simple, but can't understand what it conveys. The sentence starts a new paragraph rather than following from the previous context, so I'm not sure whether it's "alright", "being very right", etc. What does it mean? 212.180.235.46 (talk) 14:23, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Can you post more of the sentence? Without context I can think of two things. First three right turns, such as on the map, taking in four sides of a block. Or for emphasis – "being very right" maybe - though that's more clumsy grammatically. --92.40.33.166 (talk) 14:48, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Or a rhetorical device called epizeuxis or maybe diacope. Alansplodge (talk) 14:51, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The context is this:
 * To me it just seems that the protagonist is agreeing with what "they" said. He lists a number of unpleasant things about his job of "toolman", which is presumably the unpleasant, unrewarding form of "sun work" (these are all in-universe terms, the book is sci-fi). Then a paragraph or two later he reveals that this is only superficial agreement, and really he is of the opposite opinion:
 * Extra thought: the repetition is because there are multiple points to agree with. Card Zero  (talk) 16:07, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Extra thought: the repetition is because there are multiple points to agree with. Card Zero  (talk) 16:07, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Extra thought: the repetition is because there are multiple points to agree with. Card Zero  (talk) 16:07, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

Emphasising the quantity of something
Immagine the sentence "They have seven children." I want to emphasise they have such a great number of children, what adverbs could I use in the sentence to do so? Wikipediæ philosophia (talk) 20:50, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * "They profligately have seven children" ? MinorProphet (talk) 22:17, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * In Italian, my native tongue, we can say that sentence as such: "Hanno ben sette figli." The word ben you see in italics is an adverb which emphasises the quantity of children they have, but it can be omitted if we don't want to emphasise.
 * That word doesn't apply only to children, it can apply for any countable noun if there's a numeral adjective right after the adverb.
 * Let's make another example:
 * "Ho prodotto ben 100 kg di farina."
 * "I have produced 100 kg of flour."
 * Does English language have an adverb with a similar function as Italian word ben? Wikipediæ philosophia (talk) 22:46, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Honestly, in modern idiomatic English, the closest you're likely to get is, unfortunately, like. "They have seven children" reads as a bland statement of fact; "They have like, seven children" has an air of faint disbelief at the quantity, as well as an undercurrent of the quantity being of such magnitude that it requires approximation. Apologies to all my English teachers. Folly Mox (talk) 23:12, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * ARRRGH!! Alansplodge (talk) 08:42, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * What a Shaggy Rog story. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:47, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * 'exceptionally' ("they exceptionally have seven children")? Note 'exceptionally' can mean exceptionally many, or few, i.e. it doesn't just imply a great number. I struggle to think of a better word. One reason perhaps is in English it's generally not polite to criticise on someone else's choice over how many children they have. So you would just say "they have seven children", and not add phrasing to imply it's [too] great a number. --92.40.33.166 (talk) 22:59, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * If you accept an adverbial phrase, I posit: "They have no less than seven children". --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:19, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Jack's phrase is very similar to Italian "niente meno di". Hanno niente meno di sette figli. However, the adverb ben can be used in more formal contexts.
 * Just to conclude:
 * In Italian we have other adverbial phrases like
 * "Hanno fatto la bellezza di zero riforme." (sometimes used ironically, like in this example)
 * (lit. "They have made the beauty of zero reforms.) Wikipediæ philosophia (talk) 23:25, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Some sticklers for style might prefer, "They have no fewer than seven children". --Lambiam 23:52, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That is always correct, and in most cases preferred. But I think "no less than ..." is a kind of stock expression, like "more or less", and it can be applied to countable things. Or am I defending the indefensible here? --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  00:46, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Historically, it is the prescriptivist position that tends to be on the losing end, as in the issue of the split infinitive and the use of which in restrictive clauses. If even a renowned linguistic curmudgeon uses a once condemned diction without qualms, it is here to stay. --Lambiam 10:36, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Never mind the grammar, is not, because it does not tell us whether they have 7, 8, 9 or more (none of which are fewer than seven) more children . Mitch Ames (talk) 11:28, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Au contraire, it means exactly, precisely seven. "No fewer/less than" is an intensifier, not to be read literally. It is not a synonym of "at least". -- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:35, 5 July 2023 (UTC)


 * The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate points to "fecundly". Clarityfiend (talk) 23:38, 4 July 2023 (UTC)
 * In Dutch one can say, "Ze hebben maar liefst zeven kinderen." --Lambiam 23:57, 4 July 2023 (UTC)


 * "They have seven freakin' children! Count 'em! Seven!" ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:43, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Seven is not that many. It's actually the average number in Niger. Shantavira|feed me 08:28, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Apparently it seems like "many" to the OP. Now, if the OP had said seventeen, then you'd definitely have "many". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 09:47, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Also, they made clear that the inquiry was about any case of a numeral followed by a countable noun. The sentence could have been, "They have ??? seven children who became famous YouTubers in their early teens" (also exceptional in Niger), or "The world-record holder ate ??? 103 hamburgers in eight minutes". --Lambiam 10:49, 5 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Some other possibilities:
 * They have as many as seven children
 * They have an astonishing seventeen children
 * They have an amazing seventeen children
 * They have an impressive seven children
 * They have a whopping seven children (something people might say but not necessarily write ... though quite a lot of people actually have written it)
 * etc. Andreas JN 466 12:35, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * The number speaks for itself (at 0:23). 78.146.99.84 (talk) 13:14, 6 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Headline in Sunday's Sun: Six women in UK in past 4yrs have had a 21st child. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23A8:4015:F501:212D:11FB:1385:13C5 (talk) 14:27, 11 July 2023 (UTC)