Language desk
< June 13	<< May \| June \| Jul >>	June 15 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

June 14

Gramatically Correct

Our organization recently agreed to accept males as well as females as members. We need to rewrite our procedures to be appropriate for either gender. How do I write the following sentences to be grammatically correct when referring to male or female? What word do I use where the (????) are?

Example: The "Outstanding member of the year" shall be chaired by the Junior Past President. (????) shall receive names of the "Outstanding ESA Members of the Year" from chapters in good standing.

Example: The "Junior Past President shall be a member of the Executive Board, responsible for obtaining new rosters from each chapter in good standing postmarked by May 15; be chairman for the program "Outstanding ESA Member of the Year"; and be in charge of the Disaster Fund. (????) shall record the outstanding events of ???? year as President by inserting a page in the "History of Indiana State Council of Epsilon Sigma Alpha" book.

Thanks a lot. 66.52.142.3 01:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"She or he" alternating with "he or she" or...the contentious singular they. Clarityfiend 03:15, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not use singular they. Please. I beg you - don't give it credence through popular usage. Some people think it's correct; I am not one of them.

Just repeat the title again (President), or say "this/that person/position."

--67.177.170.96 04:45, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The corollary of your exhortation is that nobody would ever use this construction, it would become extinct, and we'd have to radically change our article about it. I fear this would be breaching the spirit of OR. -- JackofOz 05:00, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Corollary? How about summary? Synopsis?

My argument is that SINGULAR nouns should be paired with SINGULAR pronouns, not PLURAL pronouns. BUT, as more and more people say something, common usage starts to make ignorant ideas halfway acceptable. That is why I wished him not to the construction: 1) it isn't correct, and 2) by using it, he popularizies an incorrect usage, which, over time, will be absorbed more readily into the English lexicon, pushing the English gramatical structure ever-so-much closer to imploding at the seams.

--67.177.170.96 05:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I absolve you, but you must do penance. Say two Hail Marys and three WP:NPOVs. :-)

Seriously, it depends on how formal you want to be. As someone said above, using "he or she" or avoiding pronouns is a good formal solution. A still more formal solution is to leave the document as it is, except you add a line like "In this document the masculine gender includes the feminine" or "This document shall be read with all grammatical changes necessary."

A less formal option is "he/she" or "(s)he". And then of course there's "they". This is particularly recommended if you want to annoy people like the last poster. But maybe you'd rather not do that. --Anonymous, June 14, 06:02 (UTC).

Basically you have to choose who you want to upset. Avoiding pronouns violates English information structure (topic and comment in particular: sorry, don't have time to dismabiguate), and makes texts wooden and difficult to read. As in fact does specifying gender previously unspecified, unless 'he' is taken as generic (no new information should be presented with a pronoun). Alternating 'he' and 'she' also messes this up, which is where 'they' comes in. Everybody I've heard arguing against it use it in their speech. (look, I just used it, did you notice). Even Shakespeare did. Sometimes it doesn't work well, sometimes it slips by unnoticed. Would work very well in (????) shall record the outstanding events of ????their year as President. Whoever disagrees with this has a right to voice their opinion. Drmaik 06:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

PS. I used singular they in my PhD thesis in linguistics, and no-one noticed..

As Drmaik said, "you have to choose who you want to upset", or rather "who you want less to upset", that's the crux of the problem.--K.C. Tang 06:59, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is no need to upset anybody, just rewrite the sentences to avoid the problem.

Example: The "Outstanding member of the year" (committee?) shall be chaired by the Junior Past President. The chairperson shall receive names of the 'Outstanding ESA Members of the Year' from chapters in good standing.

Example: The "Junior Past President shall be a member of the Executive Board, responsible for obtaining new rosters from each chapter in good standing postmarked by May 15; be chairman for the program "Outstanding ESA Member of the Year"; and be in charge of the Disaster Fund. A page recording the outstanding events of each President's term shall be inserted into the 'History of Indiana State Council of Epsilon Sigma Alpha' book.

--LarryMac | Talk 13:44, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen cases where "he or she" is used, followed by a note that for clarity only one would be used thereafter. Since you have a tradition, and probably more femal members, you might try making a note that the female pronoun will be used but that both genders are meant. Eran of Arcadia 14:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How about, The "Outstanding member of the year" shall be chaired by the Junior Past President. The Junior Past President shall receive names of the "Outstanding ESA Members of the Year" from chapters in good standing. It seems to read odd at first, but people will get used to it. Of course, there always is "s/he". -- Jreferee ^(Talk) 19:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"She or he" works but is clumsy. Singular they is probably your best bet: everyone will understand and nobody will care except a few pedants. There are also some more daring alternatives if you're feeling adventurous. Marnanel 15:57, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Japanese title usage

I know "-san" does at the end of a person's name.

Ex: "Jin-san"

However, if someone is refered to by their full name (note last name first), do you still need a title at all?

Ex: "Akagi Jin-san"

What are the rules for this? Thanks, --67.177.170.96 04:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

we use -san to show respect, while calling a person's given name is considered impolite in most cases in Japan. So I guess it's rather unlikely that you'd do the two things at the same time. Cheers.--K.C. Tang 06:53, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So, Akagi-san, then?

--67.177.170.96 18:15, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Language Speciation

I have a preety hard question, If you had two groups of people who spoke the same language and seperated them so they no longer had any contact how long would it take for there languages to have diverged to such an extent comunication would be impossible? Can any one provide me with a citation for this? I realize this is a pretty difficut question and I probably wont get any answers but any help at all would be apriciated. Thank you. -Ĭ₠ŴΣĐĝё 07:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

but what do these two groups of people do after their separation? Do they interact with other peoples who speak other languages?--K.C. Tang 07:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

He said they no longer have any contact. szyslak 08:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

they don't have contact with each other (split), but they may have contact with other people speaking other languages. That's a factor.--K.C. Tang 08:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My mistake. I forgot to read your whole post. I agree that contact with other languages is a major factor. Afrikaans, which I discuss below, is a good example. After speakers were separated from the larger Dutch-speaking community, they acquired vocabulary and other features from surrounding African languages, Malay and others. szyslak 11:05, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There's no set time frame for language speciation. Even if the speech of the two groups diverged to the point where they "spoke different languages", communication wouldn't necessarily be "impossible". For example, Afrikaans and Dutch are classed as different languages by SIL and similar groups, but linguists differ on whether Afrikaans is a "dialect of Dutch" or a separate language. Nonetheless, the languages are still close enough together that an Afrikaans speaker and a Dutch speaker can converse, though with some adjustment. Think of how a person from a remote American village would comprehend the English spoken in a remote Irish village, though in the case of Afrikaans and Dutch the differences are greater. This paper gets into the issue of mutual comprehensibility between written Afrikaans and Dutch. I found its results interesting: the Afrikaans speakers had a harder time understanding written Dutch than vice versa. Thus, comprehensibility wasn't "symmetrical." This is after maybe 400 years of separation between the Dutch and Afrikaners. szyslak 08:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dutch and Afrikaans is an interesting example, but there's the factor that school and church in South Africa would have been mainly in Dutch until early 20th century, so Afrikaans speakers would have been getting influence from Dutch for around 300 years, presumably slowing the separation. It's a big question, and there would be lots of problems with any clear answer (which I assume is what is desired!) Problems include measuring intelligibility (very few people actually do this, but lots of people talk about it: I remember doing a literature search on this, and could only find material from SIL on it. I'm sure there's more, but where?), and then you get the difference between inherent intelligibility and acquired intelligibility, e.g. in my own experience most Tunisians feel Standard Arabic and Tunisian Arabic to be mutually intelligible, but when meeting someone who grew up in France speaking only Tunisian at home and French outside, but who hadn't had contact with the standard via Quranic schol, radio, or TV, I found he really couldn't understand the standard: the intelligibilty is primarily acquired, helped by linguistic similarity. And it seems that some languages sometimes change faster at some times than others... literacy seems to slow this down. Hey, I'll say 300 years and someone can shoot me! (or accuse me (proabably rightly) of WP:OR). Drmaik 11:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would argue for something more like 400 years, at least without significant contact with other languages. According to The History of Iceland by Gunnar Karlsson, the Icelandic form of Old Norse remained mutually intelligible with the western Norwegian dialects, from which it was mainly derived, up until about 1300, about 400 years after Iceland's settlement in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. After the initial period of settlement, Iceland had only very limited contact with Norway, with only a few ships making the journey most years to trade with the Icelanders. Most Icelanders would never have dealt with the Norwegians during this period. Iceland had almost no contact with speakers of other languages during this time. Also, the Maori arrived in New Zealand from Tahiti and other Polynesian islands no later than 1300, and after this date had little or no contact with other Polynesians or any other people. However, when Captain James Cook arrived in New Zealand in the late 1700s with an interpreter from Tahiti, the Tahitian was able to communicate, imperfectly and with difficulty, with the Maori. Marco polo 13:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think there is any one answer to this question because some languages change more quickly than others, and some sound changes are more recoverable than others. In some cases, it might be as little as 200 years; in others it might be as much as 600. —An gr 19:25, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks guys! -Ĭ₠ŴΣĐĝё 19:55, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is this correct English?

As he talked… Moved… Smiled… You can tell he was simply adorable.

I would change to "As he talked...moved...smiled...you could tell he was simply adorable." --Richardrj ^talk ^email 08:46, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

thanks

can you tell me how to use minor sentances to describe a chracter?

What do you mean by a minor sentence (note the correct spelling)? --Richardrj ^talk ^email 09:16, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While grammatically correct, the use of the verb "tell" in the sentence above is a bit strange. Normally you would only say "you could tell [that] ..." if the "..." is something that is not immediately and readily apparent. For example: "You could tell she was very bright", or "You could tell he was used to dealing with manservants". Another example: "You could tell that once, long ago, the flag had been red". It is strange to say: "You can tell the flag is bright red" unless this is a conversation between colour-blind people. In this sentence you can simply leave it out: "As he talked... moved... smiled... he was simply adorable." --Lambiam ^Talk 12:33, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Have you a good reason for punctuating with ellipses rather than "As he talked, moved and smiled"? (I've had email from a lot of people who don't seem to know that punctuation exists in any form other than "...".) Anyway, for the reason Lambiam gives, I'd make it "The way he talked, moved, smiled was adorable." ("simply" adds nothing.) —Tamfang 21:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Frau Doktor

For a woman referred to in German as (e.g.) "Frau Doktor Weiss" -- does this mean:

The wife of Doktor Weiss
A woman, surname Weiss, holding a doctoral degree

Could it be either, or both (and thus ambiguous without further clarification)? Also, how to render this in English?-- Thanks, Deborahjay 10:06, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Frau Doktor is the correct form of address for any woman doctor; you could address Angela Merkel as Liebe Frau Doktor Bundeskanzlerin. But is also the rather old-fashioned polite form of address for the wife of a Herr Doktor; without further context of knowledge you can't know which of the two is meant. In both cases Doktor can be an M.D. or a Ph.D. This is difficult to translate in English; if you want to keep the couleur locale of the old-fashioned form, you could choose to simply not translate this form of address. --Lambiam ^Talk 12:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum. According to the information given here, the wife of a Herr Doktor would nowadays only be called Frau Doktor if hubby is a medical doctor. --Lambiam ^Talk 12:46, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Would Liebe Frau Doktor Bundeskanzlerin roughly mean Mother Lady Doctor Chansellor Angela Merkel? -Czmtzc 14:17, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Liebe means Dear, not Mother! Lova Falk 15:56, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And in this context Frau is simply Mrs. and not the lofty title of Lady. --Lambiam ^Talk 21:40, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The source text, the title of a portrait drawing, is WWII-era. Retaining Frau Doktor in the original is an option, primarily to avoid the awkward "Mrs. Dr." that—as far as I know—was and is not used in English...? Unfortunately, our database program doesn't support italics, so I'll have to rely on the [website's online archives] readers recognizing these fairly familiar German words. That being the situation, I suppose it would be wise not to abbreviate. -- Deborahjay 12:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is indeed better to avoid "Mrs. Dr." – although not unheard of, it makes me think of Mrs. Dr. Possible. In that era the now old-fashioned formal address was still in full use. However, lacking further information, the possibility of a female doctor cannot be completely dismissed without further information. --Lambiam ^Talk 13:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's interesting that in English the wife of a doctor, a professor, or military officer (field-marshal, general, colonel, air commodore, admiral, etc) is just Mrs or Ms Smith, whereas the wife of a British peer or knight is Lady Smith. -- JackofOz 22:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"Only God Can Judge Me" in French

How do you translate the phrase "Only God Can Judge Me" in French?

Dieu seul peut me juger. --Lambiam ^Talk 12:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on the exact shade of meaning of "can" that you mean.

Dieu seul peut me juger. Only God is able to judge me.

Dieu seul sait me juger. Only God knows how to judge me.

Dieu seul a le droit de me juger. Only God has the right to judge me.SaundersW 14:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively, Dieu seul me jugera. only god will/shall judge me. Circeus 05:48, 18 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalization

Hi! If I want to write an English title/headline with capitalized initial letters, should I write High-quality Services, or rather High-Quality Services? Or would High Quality Services work even better? Does a style guide give any recommendations on this? Thanks in advance. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 18:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you want intitial caps on each word (other than articles and small prepositions), the correct form would be "High-Quality Services". Both elements of a compound modifier such as this are capitalized, and the hyphen cannot be omitted. However, the Wikipedia style for this title would be "High-quality services" (caps only for the initial letter of initial words and proper nouns or adjectives that would capitalized in running text). The most widely used source for these questions in the United States is The Chicago Manual of Style. Marco polo 19:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Marco polo! Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 20:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stress patterns in Slavic languages

In Czech and Slovene, the stressed syllable is always the first, while in Russian it can vary. What is the case with other Slavic languages and is it known why the stress pattern is different between Russian and Czech or Slovene? I'm guessing that it might be partially related to the near-extinction of both languages and their revival as part of nationalist movements, but I'm just guessing here. Donald Hosek 23:47, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The stress can also vary in Bulgarian. In Macedonian, it falls on the 3rd-to-last syllable. In Polish, it is the penultimate (2nd-to-last) syllable. In Slovene, it is not the first syllable as you say, but the syllable with a long vowel. Conclusion: The variations between the Slavic languages are so immense that the "near-extinction" of Czech is very unlikely to be the reason. Anyway, Czech was close to extinction only in terms of written, literary language; people never stopped speaking it. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 00:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Free stress in useful for distinguishing different words, as, e.g., "insight" from "incite". The following Slavic languages have fixed stress: initial (Czech, Slovak, Sorbian), penultimate (Polish), antipenultimate (Macedonian). Other Slavic languages have a free stress. There are transitional phenomena, too: Eastern Slovak dialects have penultimate stress, just like Polish. Some Kashubian dialects have initial, some penultimate and some free stress. Fixed-stress languages have stress exceptions (mainly in recent loanwords), while free-stress languages sometimes have more of less predictable stress. Ukrainian perhaps has the least predictable stress of all Slavic languages. It may be argued that early Proto-Slavic had fixed penultimate or final stress which distinguished it from other Indo-European languages. I derived this material from Roland Sussex's The Slavic Languages (Cambridge, 2006). --Ghirla^-трёп- 07:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have heard it suggested that the initial stress of Czech (etc.) shows the influence of nearby German's stress-pattern. No idea if that's right or widely accepted. Wareh 13:04, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard of that. Generally, German words are stressed on the first syllable of the word stem, which is by far not always the first syllable. In Czech, the stress of individual words is fully regular. Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 17:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The German stress patterns are more complicated than that. Anfänger has stress on the first syllable, although you could say fang is the stem. Anfängerin has stress on the last syllable. --Lambiam ^Talk 19:17, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's why I said "generally," meaning not always (exceptions are words with separable prefixes, compound words, etc.). Why do you think Anfängerin has stress on the last syllable? That would be news to me. :) Daniel Šebesta (talk • contribs) 19:32, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, Anfängerin has stress on the first syllable, except when being used to contrast with Anfänger ("Sie ist kein Anfänger, sie ist eine Anfängerin!). —An gr 20:06, 15 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In Proto-Indo-European as reconstructed, accent could apparently go on any syllable (most likely a pitch accent). Early Latin had a strong stress on the first syllable, which is why some roots change their vowel when they get a prefix. Later Latin had a fixed stress on the penultimate syllable (or, if that's short, the antepenultimate). So the original question, it seems to me, is merely an example of "Why do languages change?". —Tamfang 06:20, 20 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 June 14

Contents