Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2006 July 22

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Gender Neutral Language in Wikipedia

Do I have to, or is it suggested, I use gender-neutral language (for objective third person pronouns)?
i.e. "One, in his or her own opinion, may find it irrelevant." vs. "One, in his own opinion, may find it irrelevant."
-Bordello 00:49, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Neither alternative offered sounds too great to me -- how about "It may be considered irrelevant." AnonMoos 03:29, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your response. The article I had trouble with to is ethical_stress, though I put it up for deletion. But for future reference, I take it one should try to eliminate all traces of gender? I feel sometimes there is no alternative to the third person pronoun, though. Is there some guideline to this? Thanks again. -Bordello 03:32, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I remember my old physics teacher telling me how that worked: our entire lab book had to be written in passive voice, and he always clarified it with "think of it as having an alien do the experiment, then brainwash you and disappear." --ColourBurst 05:46, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm too lazy to check myself, but you might try checking the Wikipedia Manual of Style. From my observation stuff that isn't covered in WP:MOS tends to go on an article-by-article consensus basis. Which means that you might use your preference with no problems in a hundred articles and then find opposition on the 101st.--Anchoress 03:39, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, gender-neutral language is still not mainstream, and people disagree on the alternatives. "His or her/her or his" places one gender before the other. Sie and Hir has tonal connotations of "She" and "her". Not many people understand Ze or Zer (and there are other alternatives to that!). --ColourBurst 05:46, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing wrong with using the masculine in these cases. Yes, it's a flaw in the English language, but until an alternative gains widespread currency, we have to live with it. Much preferable to monstrosities like singular they. Henry ^Flower 07:34, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why is singular they a monstrosity? It can be found as early as Middle English, and in any case it doesn't only respond to gender. There are many cases of they with sex specific antecedents. Holden Caufield says something like: "I hate a guy who's always flicking their towel at everyone. (can't remember the exact quote). in the Catcher in the Rye.

Really, there's no "flaw" in the language. There's only a flaw in trying to impose a prescription that is based on misunderstanding how the language works. Specifially, pronouns in English do not need to agree with their antecedent in grammatical number. In some cases, they can't. If you don't think so try to interpret "Everybody got up, and then he left the room" with the he coreferring with everybody. (doesn't get better with he or she either.) mnewmanqc

"They" as a singular is only a "monstrosity" in certain cases of formal, written contexts. We needn't ploy the prescriptive grammarian card and tell people how they should talk, after all, linguistic aestheticness differ from context to context. The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 17:47, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, it is appearing in many more or less formal written contexts too. I've noticed it in journalistic writing as well as some academic work, particularly that published in Britain. Somehow, the we still manage to communicate. mnewmanqc

The 2 options offered by the questioner both contain a grammatical flaw. If you use "one", you can't replace it with any personal pronoun, you have to keep on using "one". "One, in one's own opinion, may find it irrelevant" would be correct, but it's a sub-optimal way of expressing oneself. JackofOz

'Be bold' and see where it gets you. If someone objects, then you can resolve matters pacifically. ;) --Proficient 14:36, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Swear Word

My son has a friend that is from Canada and she tells him that the word "friggin" or "frigging" is a swear word in Novia Scotia. Can someone please tell me if this is true. Believe it or not, it is causing him a lot of stress.

I think it's a swear word in English, period. It's considered a 'lite' alternative to Fuck, and although it's still pretty rude, I've heard it on primetime (on The Simpsons). We have it listed under Frig, as a disambig. page.--Anchoress 03:46, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, it's a minced oath. - Nunh-huh 05:09, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Sweet!! But it is a lot earthier than most minced oaths.--Anchoress 05:12, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not just a "fuck" alternative; at least in Victorian pornography, it meant "masturbate". --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 21:09, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's a less harsh term. "Friggin'" to "fuckin'" is probably the equivalent of "biotch" to "bitch." It is indeed a lighter, less harsh downgrade of fuck. --Proficient 14:39, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not so sure "biotch" is less harsh. --ColourBurst 00:41, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I do. I wouldn't start tossing it around at a job interview, but I think it's a good analogy actually.--Anchoress 00:45, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I concur. Biotch/biatch/beeyatch/bee-yatch is intentionally mispronounced to affect its interpretation. It's really much more friendly, if the person you're talking to realizes that. Black Carrot 03:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can't remember where I heard this, but I thought it referred specifically to digital penetration, or finger-banging. It is widely used as a clean alternative to "fucking" but is, in fact, quite rude on its own account. Mattley ^(Chattley) 13:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

How to start speaking american english

Dear friends, Plz help to! i am from India & I really want to speak american english but do not know how to start. Kindly suggest me some steps to start my practice to make it possible as soon as possible.

tara

I'm assuming you mean speak with an American accent? You seem quite proficient in written English (and you've picked up Netspeak very well), so I'd suggest you find a neutrally-accented, non-jargony talk radio station, like NPR or CBC and listen away.--Anchoress 05:06, 22 July 2006 (UTC) EDITED TO ADD: Sorry, I'm assuming that you are not only from India, but in India; if you are somewhere else, my advice may be unnecessary.--Anchoress 05:07, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Listening and imitating is definently the place to start. You would also want to look at our article on General American, the "accentless" dialect used by broadcasters. It contains a fair bit of IPA, which may be new to you. Most helpful of all would be to find an American who is willing to help and have them listen to you and give pointers as you go along. --George 05:24, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You're probably used to English English, so you could have a look at List of words having different meanings in British and American English. Adn follow the links, especially the 'American and British English differences' category at the bottom - that's an artcile-overview (but I can't put a link here due to a technical problem). Are you aspiring a job at a call centre? DirkvdM 07:07, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Not to be rude, but could you clarify - as well as accent, are you interested in improving grammar and vocabulary? --π! 07:27, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

No, he wants to speak American English. Henry ^Flower 07:30, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Good thing. That way he won't have to snipe at other forms of English because of feelings of inferiority, bruised national amour propre, or a misplaced sense of self-importance. Not that anyone would do that, of course. - Nunh-huh 07:40, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

But he won't be able to understand irony. Henry ^Flower 11:11, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The deficit will be compensated for by a near instantaneous recognition of mockery. - Nunh-huh 11:13, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Perception of it, perhaps. Henry ^Flower 13:06, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In response to Anchoress's comment above, you can listen to NPR through the internet via a local broadcaster. --Illnab1024 08:25, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Try http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/ You can find someone that wants to practice your language and you can trade. If your mother language is Hindi, which I'm looking to practice, I can help you with American English once I get high speed internet hooked up. That way I can use Skype or similar and not pay for anything above the internet access costs. Contact me on my talk page if you like. - Taxman ^Talk 16:03, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Listen to some American music. That will be a fun way to learn. ;p --Proficient 14:41, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Meaning of 'a ja nemam dara' ?

What does this Croatian phrase mean ?

This phrase returned sites which ended in .hr A search for 'country domain names' will tell you that .in = India, .hr = Croatia etc..

Please point me to a translation site where i don't have to specify the 'From' part, ('From'=Croatian, 'To'=English) because I don't recognize the alphabet of the language.

Thanks

I don't speak Croatian, but I am sure that a ja nemam means "and/but I don't have." Dara might be the genitive of dar meaning "gift." So "and/but I don't have a gift?" Hopefully a native speaker can comment. --Chris S. 04:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Chris got it right. "A ja nemam dara" means "But I'm not gifted", where gift is used in the sense of talent, of course. --dcabrilo 17:53, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

English conjugation

Where can I find paradigms of English verbs when there was still some significant conjugation? Shakespeare's use of the lady doth protest too much probably exceeds that period a little, but I assume that doth was kept for to do while perhaps other forms were dropped. I'm just curious into the latest paradigms of verbs before they were mostly deprecated. I guess this really should be on wiktionary (project with great potential - just needs a lot of content) but I can't find much information there. John Riemann Soong 23:20, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You might look at Old English morphology. That kind of inflectional morphology had mostly eroded to a much simpler form by the time Middle English emerged, but you can still find some info at Middle English#Verbs. -(e)þ was the ME third person singular present ending.· rodii · 02:55, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]