Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 February 6

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February 6

A or An

For the sentence:

"A HFH team" (HFH = Habitat for Humanity"

Should it be "A" or "an"

"An HFH team"

99.240.177.206 (talk) 01:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

The preceding article depends on how you actually say the first letter. So, it will depend on whether you say "aitch" or "haitch". Which is a bit of an issue in itself, and when it comes to a written text, I don't know how you'd decide what the reader would expect. If the expectation is "aitch", it would be "an HFH team"; if "haitch", it'd be "a HFH team" (although some would prefer "an" either way). Best I can do. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I never heard the name of the letter "H" pronounced "haitch", only "aitch". In which dialects/sociolects is it pronounced "haitch"? However, it is my impression that saying "an historian" etc. is becoming more common, even when the "h" is pronounced. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:27, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Maybe the reason you've never heard this pronunciation is that you've been a bit restricted in your movements, having been nailed to your perch since the early 1970s. :) H will answer this question. It doesn't mention, however, that many Australians say "haitch". Some other Australians consider them to be displaying ignorance by so doing, but maybe those critics are in turn displaying snobbery. -- JackofOz (talk) 05:19, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Lol. Thanks for directing me to the article. I added your information and that from ColinFine to H#Pronunciation --NorwegianBlue ^talk 16:11, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Recently we have a question related to this issue, which has been filed here. Pallida  Mors 06:01, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

While I see "an historian" written often, as an American speaker it strikes me as either a Britishism or an affectation. I've only seen it on the words "historian" and "historical". I'm curious what's in NorwegianBlue's "etc." -- are there any words not derived from "history" where people commonly say "an" before a pronounced H? rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 06:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Pretty sure this issue, including some very nicely formulated rules, has been discussed previously. Follow the link above?--PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 06:57, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

However, the general rule would be that the article "an" can be used when the first syllable of the word beginning with h is not stressed, for example "an hotel", "an hysterical attack", but "a hysterectomy", "a high building". SaundersW (talk) 10:12, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Whose general rule is that, SW? Is it prescriptive or descriptive (roughly speaking!)? In fact stressed is ambiguous in what you have written. In hysterectomy the first syllable is stressed relative to the second syllable (usually), but not relative to the third syllable. See the discussion linked above (here) for my descriptive treatment of this matter.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 01:25, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

'Haitch' is common in parts of Northern England as well. However, I suspect that the original question wasn't about either the name or the pronunciation of the letter 'H', but about whether to pretend the abbreviated phrase had been spelt out or not. (I may be wrong, though). If that is the question, I would say that it depends on whether you expect your readers to expand the abbreviation when reading it: usually not. --ColinFine (talk) 23:59, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Of all the words of tongue or pen...

Of all the words of tongue or pen, what are the saddest? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.26 (talk) 11:06, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

See John Greenleaf Whittier#Quotes. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:11, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

There are others. "Melancholy" must be on the list. -- JackofOz (talk) 01:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

"Melancholy" must be on the list. - It might have been -- Q Chris (talk) 13:54, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

The University library is open today.

I am refering to a specific university: which is correct?

The University library is open today. The University Library is open today. --137.120.37.73 (talk) 11:24, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Whether or not to capitalize is one area of English where one opinion is often as good as another. The style guides get downright byzantine about it, to the point where a lot of us just apply general principles sometimes. The general rule I think is when in doubt, don't. I like "university library" unless the name of the place is "University Library", but then you should omit the leading article. I don't think you need to capitalize "university", because you're already talking about a specific library at a specific university. You normally only capitalize a word like "university" when you need to differentiate it from the generic ("the Board" vs. "the board") or when it is part of a name (Podunk University) or when there is some other good reason to. See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(capital_letters)#Institutions. --Milkbreath (talk) 11:40, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Note, however, that Cambridge University Library, Glasgow University Library and Harvard University Library (and probably other examples as well) are always capitalised, as they are names of organisations, not just buildings - like the Bodleian Library or the British Library. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree that, unless you are giving the proper name of the library or the organization operating the library, "university library" should be all lower case:

The Podunk University Library is open today.

The Hubert Q. Moneybags Memorial Library is open today.

but: The university library is open today.

Marco polo (talk) 17:15, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

"The University Library" is the unique name of a particular library in a given university, as opposed to any number of departmental or college libraries, so it would be appropriate to capitalise it in your context. SaundersW (talk) 10:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

That's if there are any such other libraries, which we don't know because all we have is a bare sentence with no surrounding context. If there's only one (and "the university library" suggests there is only one in this case), then the need for disambiguation doesn't arise. If there were more than one library, and the intention was to refer to the main library, calling it "the university library" seems a litte ambiguous. It's possible, but I doubt the actual official title of a library at a university is "The University Library". In fact, it probably wouldn't have an official title, any more than the cafeteria has an official title, unless it were deliberately named something like "The Elsworth K. Merrywether Library". There are various imponderables here, but I don't yet see a case for capitalising "university library". -- JackofOz (talk) 21:20, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

French and its silent letters

Why is it that most French words end in a silent letter? It's derived from Latin, but I don't see any other Romance languages having so many words with silent letters at the end. Is there any point to this, or is it just historical because they wanted to be different for some reason? Or am I just ignorant and the letters are actually pronounced? Chris16447 (talk) 21:30, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, speech always changes, but writing is comparatively resistant to change. The silent letters can give hints about liaison, so I'd say they are not wholly pointless. --Kjoonlee 21:50, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

That depends on which letters. When I first learned French I was impressed how the response to a sneeze, souhaits, has only three sounds (/swɛ/) distributed across eight letters. —Angr ^{If you've written a quality article...} 22:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Or mangeaient for [mãže]... AnonMoos (talk) 18:28, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

You are correct that most French words end in a silent letter. This is the result of a kind of historical accident, and not because the French "wanted to be different". It so happens that French, in the form of Old French, acquired a standard written form earlier than any other Romance language. Many modern French spellings record Old French pronunciations of 1,000 years ago. It also so happens that French has undergone more radical phonological changes over its history than have other Romance languages. Some of these changes have involved sounds ceasing to be pronounced, particularly at the ends of syllables. The result is a written language much more at variance with the spoken language than any other Romance language. Marco polo (talk) 23:41, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

So why has French had a larger shift than other Romance languages. We often discuss the huge effect of French on the English language, is this an effect of English on the the French language? Rmhermen (talk) 14:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

The causes of language change are not well understood, but there seems to be a correlation between social heterogeneity or diversity and social change on the one hand and language change on the other. The homeland of the French language, in northern France, experienced great social heterogeneity and change during medieval and early modern times. (Incidentally, Romanian is another major Romance language that has diverged strongly in its lexicon and phonology from the Romance parent language, Vulgar Latin. Proto-Romanian speakers experienced a degree of social heterogeneity comparable to that of Old French speakers in early medieval times.) Relative to their population, the northern French (then known as Galli or Gauls) experienced a larger influx of Germanic speakers—the Franks—than other speakers of Vulgar Latin. Just as the occupying Norman French later transformed the English language, so the Franks transformed the language of northern France. Probably more important than the changes in lexicon and verb morphology resulting from exposure to Old Frankish were changes in vowels and in internal consonants, as described in our article on Old French. These kinds of changes tend to occur in societies with diversity in class and ethnicity and in which people from different regions or social groups compete for influence. Members of different social groups may adopt innovative pronunciations or vocabulary to express group solidarity and distinctiveness. As different groups gain in status, their speech innovations spread to other groups. Medieval France had not only ethnic diversity, with Franks forming a distinct ethnic group in the first centuries of the Middle Ages and Norsemen (the original Normans) appearing a couple of centuries later. Medieval France also had class stratification and frequent warfare among the regional nobility that offered a means for both class mobility (mainly through military service) and for regional mobility (also mainly through military service). This constant social churning would have tended to accelerate linguistic change. In the early modern period, the growth of towns and cities, the presence of people with different regional backgrounds at the royal court in Paris, and the rise and fall of social movements such as the Huguenots probably brought continued linguistic ferment and the gradual transformation of spoken French to its modern forms. These changes occurred before the English language had gained any international stature and thus cannot be the result of influence from English, to answer part of your question. During this time, French emerged as the standard and official language of the Kingdom of France, particularly after the promulgation of the Ordinance of Villers-Cotterêts. Royal officials and clerks formulated standards for written French at this time that were conservatively based on Latin or Old French spellings and that did not reflect the actual pronunciation, even in the 16th century. (A similar process occurred with written English, by the way.) Marco polo (talk) 16:08, 7 February 2008 (UTC)