Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2023 May 20

= May 20 =

Use of K for C
Is the substitution of K for C a particularly American thing (Ku Klux Klan, Rice Krispies)? We have Kwik Fit in the UK, but it was founded in the 1970s. Ericoides (talk) 07:13, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello, . Satiric misspelling may give you some clues. Another factor is that there is ambiguity in the pronuciation of C, which can be pronounced with either a K sound or an S sound, or as various other sounds when paired with H, for example. Using K makes the pronunciation less ambiguous. Creative misspelling for commercial and political purposes has a long history. Krispy Kreme doughnuts go back to 1937. Cuban newspapers 50 years ago adopted the spelling Amerikkka. Black nationalists have sometimes used the spelling Afrika, as in Republic of New Afrika, founded in 1968. The Simpsons TV franchise has included a fictional convenience store called Kwik-E-Mart since 1990. Real life equivalents include Kwik Trip, founded in 1965 and Kwik Shop, founded in 1959. Kool-Aid was founded in 1927 and the Kool (cigarette) brand goes back to 1933. Kool & the Gang is an R&B/soul band founded in 1964. Here is an article about creative misspelling in naming startup companies. This article argues that it may be a bad strategy. This article discusses theoretical reasons why so many brand names start with K. As for whether this an "American" thing, I do not really know. Cullen328 (talk) 10:35, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Jim. I didn't know about that page, helpful! Ericoides (talk) 04:41, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * "One [reason] is that you want it to be memorable. So that can be a letter effect, like in the old brands like Xerox and Kodak, using two x’s, two k’s, those are very memorable. Then you want it to be meaningful. So if you do something like Cheez-It, then it describes the product, and it’s meaningful in that context. And the last one, which is becoming really important today, is that you want it to be [legally] protectable". Sanjay Sood, a professor of marketing at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management - Understanding the terrible spelling and punctuation in corporate names
 * One example of well-established deviant spelling in British brand names is Start-rite, a brand adopted in 1921 and the shoes worn by generations of royal children, despite the awful orthography.
 * Alansplodge (talk) 10:28, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Brand names often have purposeful misspellings, since you can't trademark a common word. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 16:02, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * The Ku Klux Klan is a special case, both because it is older than any of the other examples we are discussing, and because of its origins. The "Ku Klux" part is cod Greek, supposed to represent kuklos or kyklos for "circle". Like almost all American secret organizations, the terms and rituals of the Klan were a mixture of bastardized Masonic forms, college fraternities and generic mystic mumbo-jumbo picked up from everywhere, aimed in this case to terrorize the supposedly superstitious freed ex-slaves. The original KKK just took it over the top, with officeholders using terms like "Grand Wizard", "Grand Dragon", Titans, Furies, Giants, Ghouls, Cyclops, Centaurs, etc. The 1920s version instead went K-Krazy, with its "bible" being called the Kloran (i.e., Koran) and titles including Klaliff – vice president (from bailiff); Klokard – lecturer (from Kloran and kard, meaning "teacher"); Kludd – chaplain (from Culdee); Kligrapp – secretary (from chirographer); Klabee – treasurer (supposedly derived from kaba, "to keep", and kees, an Egyptian coin); Kladd – "conductor", in charge of initiating new members; Klarogo – inner guard, sergeant-at-arms (from caveo and "interrogate"); and Klexter – outer guard (from ken and "external"). -- Orange Mike &#124;  Talk  16:55, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Why didn't they use Klutz for a member? --Lambiam 17:43, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * That would be for the guy who tried to set a cross on fire and ignited himself in the process. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:14, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Lambiam -- You do know that "klutz" is a Yiddish word? Somehow I doubt that the Klan was big on Yiddish... AnonMoos (talk) 21:16, 22 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Blak has become a common self identification word for some Australian Aboriginal people. Though I guess it can be argued that they are simply leaving out the letter c. HiLo48 (talk)

When are halves plural, and why?
BUT Why does the last version take a plural? --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  09:05, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * A half an ounce
 * Point 5 of an ounce
 * Point 5 ounces.


 * Because "plural" forms in English (and I suspect other languages, but I'm not sure) are not used for numbers more than one: they are used for numbers that aren't one. Linguistically, there is no counting involved: there is one form for "one", and another for anything else. ColinFine (talk) 09:13, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I don't think it should. I suspect it's because of a misapprehension that units appearing directly after a number which is not 1 must be plural, regardless of their actual value.
 * Are you suggesting "Take point five ounce of this magic potion"? These days, that should pose no problem for the "eight mile", "fifty cent" etc crowd, but the rest of us would be a bit bewildered (as well as bewitched and bothered). --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  00:38, 21 May 2023 (UTC)


 * To answer the section title question: "halves" can be plural when there are more than one of them: "Two halves of bitter, please". (Although why anyone might want to ask for that is beyond me.) Bazza (talk) 09:14, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * states that English tends to use the plural with decimal fractions; there is no reference for this. goes further and authoritatively states that decimals are always plural (even 1.0); again, no references to back this up (notice added to article). Bazza (talk) 09:26, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * This old ref-desk thread may be of interest. Deor (talk) 10:13, 20 May 2023 (UTC)

"Hurrah" stays the same; "hurray" becomes "hooray"
A famous interjection has 2 forms. Historically they were hurrah and hurray, but later hurrah stayed the same in spelling, but hurray became hooray. Why the inconsistency?? Georgia guy (talk) 17:46, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * The forms hoorah and hurray are both in use; they are just less common. In the 19th century hurrah was comparatively far more popular than today, but the order of popularity of the four forms stayed the same. --Lambiam 18:05, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * OED says "In English the form hurrah is literary and dignified; hooray is usual in popular acclamation." DuncanHill (talk) 18:34, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Oorah is the variant used in the United States Marine Corps. There is a lot of discussion of word origins in that article. Cullen328 (talk) 18:37, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * There's also ulla, but the chances of anyone using that are a million to one. DuncanHill (talk) 21:37, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Ulla-la! 136.54.99.98 (talk) 04:40, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * See also Huzzah, Hooah, Hooyah, Hip hip hooray. DuncanHill (talk) 21:41, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, Whoop Dee Doo, more reading. Incidentally, we should perhaps have an actual article on that exclamation (which I sometimes use, but with an inclusion emphasising sarcasm), since the first 5 linked subjects in the list presumably derive from it, although the last three have no rationale I can see, and the first leads to a circular link. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.210.77 (talk) 14:07, 21 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Reminds me also of Hosanna. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:46, 21 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Regarding "Why the inconsistency??" All human language, everywhere, always and for all time, is rife with inconsistencies. If you expect otherwise, you're in for a lot of disappointment.  -- Jayron 32 16:46, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Some questions
--40bus (talk) 18:29, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) Are there any abbreviations in English which are pronounced as words, like FIFA as /faɪ.fə/ and SUV as /sʌv/?
 * 2) Are there any languages which contrast palatal consonants with both velar and uvular consonants in same manner of articulation?
 * 3) Is there any Romance language with morphological passive voice?
 * 4) Is there any language with more than 10 cases which contains vocative case?
 * 5) Are there any Spanish varieties which have still retained contrast with /v/ and /b/ sounds?
 * 6) Are there any words in French where the plural suffix -s is pronounced?
 * 7) Is "want" in sentence I want to buy an auxiliary verb? In my methodology, an "auxiliary verb" is a verb which can come before infinitive, whether preceded by to or not.
 * 8) Are there any verbs in English that have a negative -n't morpheme when used as a main verb (withouth the infinitive)?
 * Regarding your first question, NASA immediately comes to mind. Cullen328 (talk) 18:32, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * The acronym FISA is usually pronounced "fye-za". Cullen328 (talk) 18:39, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * 8: Forms of to be when used as the copula ("He isn't rich," "We weren't young any more," etc.). Deor (talk) 19:53, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * 40bus -- There are whole lists at Acronym... AnonMoos (talk) 19:22, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * I have never heard SUV pronounced as a word, btw. —Tamfang (talk) 00:07, 21 May 2023 (UTC)
 * 5: Ladino language
 * While Spanish pronounces both b and v as /b/ ([b] or [β]), Judeo-Spanish distinguishes between the two with b representing [b~β] and v representing [v]: bivir /biˈviɾ/ ('to live')
 * No reference, though.
 * es:Variedad del idioma español en territorios catalanófonos
 * En los lugares donde se conserva el fonema [v] en catalán, tanto en valenciano como en balear, también se transfiere esta diferencia en castellano entre b [b]/[β] y v [v] a las palabras cognadas.
 * No reference, again.
 * --Error (talk) 00:47, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * es:Español norteño mexicano:
 * /f/ seguida de /w/ pronunciada como bilabial y a veces sonorizada.
 * I am not sure if this is what you ask.
 * Sabine River Spanish:
 * The labiodental fricative allophone [v], according to Pratt (2000), typically corresponds to a written, etymological ⟨v⟩, but it can be realized when pronouncing other words as well.[30][31] /b/ is often elided when it's before another consonant, as in obtuvo [oˈtuvo] 'obtained'. It's also frequently elided in también 'also', typically pronounced [taˈmjen].[31] /b/ is occasionally pronounced as a velar fricative [ɣ] when before [o] or [u].[32]
 * About 6: I think the s in les is pronounced as /z/ before vowels, but I don't speak French.
 * --Error (talk) 00:59, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * 6: mœurs, always plural []. Note that the final s may not be pronounced. All the words with a final s that are pronounced in singular form: [un/des] autobus, [un/des] couscous, [une/des] vis... – AldoSyrt (talk) 07:07, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * (8). I haven't a clue. (That's an example, not my answer). —Mahāgaja · talk 11:33, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Can the /ts/ sound occur in consonant clusters in Slavic languages? --40bus (talk) 18:43, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * 40bus -- Very frequently when the "reflexive" suffix (which can have other meanings) is added onto third-person Russian verbs. Through quick Google searching, I turned up Ona odevaetsya "She dresses herself"... AnonMoos (talk) 19:26, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * There are Russian words beginning цв. —Tamfang (talk) 00:07, 21 May 2023 (UTC)

"scarce" pronounced with the vowel of "air"
Is there any other English word, spelled with the cluster of letters: {ar + consonant}, the "ar" being pronounced like "air"? 2A06:C701:747E:2A00:3195:16BF:DA2:2FA2 (talk) 21:59, 20 May 2023 (UTC)


 * This page has scarce. adversarial. aquarium. arbitrary. area. barbarian. There may be many others but they haven't been discairvered (apologies to everyone, especially Tom Lehrer). Alansplodge (talk) 23:25, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Further apologies, I now see that you specified that the vowel sound shold be followed by a consonant. This page says: Medially before a consonant, only in scarce, scarcity. So apparently no. Alansplodge (talk) 23:32, 20 May 2023 (UTC)
 * In fact, no matter how it's spelled, it's very rare for the vowel to be followed by a consonant within the same morpheme. Scarce is one of the few examples; others are laird (a loanword from Scots) and the name Baird. Otherwise usually the only time this vowel is followed by a consonant is when an ending or a clitic is added to word ending in this vowel, as in scared, airs, Blair's etc. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:39, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * AirBnb. Airforce. Fairly. Cairn. --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:21, 22 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Of these, only cairn has the consonant within the same morpheme, as I specified. But I should have clarified that I meant that it is rather rare for the vowel to be followed by a consonant within the same syllable as well as the same morpheme. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:36, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Please notice I've only asked about words spelled with the cluster of letters: {ar + consonant}. I didn't ask about words spelled with the cluster of letters {air + consonant}, because there are a lot of such words, e.g. pairs, hairs, fairs, and the like. 2A06:C701:747B:E700:B863:B7A0:D2E1:34AE (talk) 11:10, 24 May 2023 (UTC)