Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 November 9

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.

November 9

Ho hum he him, I smell the blood of a grammarian.

Per the day's first question, is it "let he who is without sin..." or "let him..."? Clarityfiend (talk) 16:18, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

John 8:7, in the King James Version, has "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," so one might say that it doesn't really answer your question (although "let him" is certainly a clue). Modern usage definitely requires "Let him who is without sin …"; would you say to someone who is restraining you, "Let I go"? Deor (talk) 17:11, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

The pronoun "him" is the direct object of the verb "Let"; the pronoun "who" is the subject of the verb "is".

-- Wavelength (talk) 18:17, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

This is a subjunctive expression with an imperative form. (In another context, where permission to throw is discussed, it can be an imperative expression.) Other languages often express this with a subjunctive form, using a subjective form for the person throwing the stone.

See:

John 8:7 But when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up,

John 8:7 Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin

John 8:7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

-- Wavelength (talk) 19:09, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

See Jesus and the woman taken in adultery. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:15, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely with your first comment, Wavelength, but I had to read your second comment several times before I saw its relevance: I think your point is that though in meaning it is subjunctive (like 'May he that ...') in form it is imperative (like 'Tell him that ...'). Clarityfiend is in copious company, as a google of 'Let himhe that is' will show. I think this is an example of the uncertainty about the forms of personal pronouncs created in many English speakers (and particularly writers) by the clash between natural English on the one hand, and a prescriptive standard (based on a language (Latin) with different grammatical rules) on the other. --ColinFine (talk) 19:29, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Should we start discussing why Eliot wrote "Let us [objective] go then, you and I [subjective], …" rather than "Let us go then, you and me, …"? Deor (talk) 20:17, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Because "me" doesn't rhyme with "sky". —Angr 20:37, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

It is obligatory when this topic comes up to mention mix-ups of whom and who in the Bible, Shakespeare, and modern sources. See Who_(pronoun)#Subject_whom for a thorough survey. Add this instance, from Othello:

IAGO. Not this hour, lieutenant; 'tis not yet ten o' the clock. Our general cast us thus early for the love of his Desdemona; who let us not therefore blame. He hath not yet made wanton the night with her, and she is sport for Jove.

As for Eliot, what can you expect from a man who tried to pass off his gaffe juvescence (for juvenescence, in his Gerontion) as a properly formed word? Wherefore a generation of minions applaud his mastery of the language. It even got into OED, with him as the sole source! (Apart from Spender's slavish copying thirty years later, that is.)

Let us go then, you and I? Hmmm. Tricky. Let us all – you, me, and them – consider Shakespeare, in Merry Wives of Windsor:

MRS. PAGE. Well, I will muse no further. Master Fenton,

Heaven give you many, many merry days!

Good husband, let us every one go home,

And laugh this sport o'er by a country fire;

Sir John and all.

I do think that, if the speaker had to be added explicitly in the last of these lines, it would be with me, not I:

Sir John and me, and all.

–_⊥^{¡ɐɔıʇǝo}Noetica!^T– 22:52, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Animal groupings and sexual identitites

First of all, I apologize as someone gave me a partial answer to this and, like a jerk, I didn't bookmark the page!

I am seeking two things and don't know how or where to find them.

How are animal groupings named? i.e., gaggle of geese, mrder of ravens and so on?

How to find how each groups males and females are named, i.e., Cock and Hen or Bull and Cow and so on. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lvcabbie (talk • contribs) 17:42, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

See List of animal names for some help. On the "exaltation of larks"–type names for groups of animals, see also this; few of these have ever had much currency in real life. Deor (talk) 17:58, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

1: There is an article on collective nouns. At he bottom you find a few links to WP lists for birds, fish, etc. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:30, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia also has lists of collective nouns or [1]. (But maybe cookatoo gave that already) Julia Rossi (talk) 22:25, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Question [global financial crisis]

Why is the global financial crisis always referred to by that exact name? Why isn't it ever referred to as something like the "worldwide economic catastrophe" or the "international pricial problem"? JCI (talk) 22:59, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

With your 2nd option, there are a few google hits for "pricial", but most of them seem to be misspellings of "principal", so I'd guess it's not a recognised word. Your question is a bit like asking why the 2nd World War is never referred to as the "Latest International Military Conflict". Labels are used for a purpose - so that everyone knows what we're talking about - and using a different set of words can be change for its own sake. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:21, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Where I live it is usually referred to as the Financial Tsunami, although I dislike the term. DOR (HK) (talk) 03:32, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Credit Crunch seems quite common in the UK[2], though as things have got worse it might sound too light-hearted for some people, with the BBC preferring "global financial crisis".--Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 18:15, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

You may be seeing the effects of the Media echo chamber. Initially, the event has no name. Either it is so nascent that it isn't recognized as an independent entity, or it is referred to by oblique wording, as it does not yet have a name. Eventually one reporter (or economist or politician) refers to it with a catchy turn of phrase, and the rest of the media seize upon that phrase as a convenient description. Eventually, politicians, economists and other people interviewed start using the standard terminology in their quotations, so even holdouts change over to the "accepted" terms for consistency. Since people rarely use a single news outlet, comprehension is aided by all the news media using the same phrasing for the same thing. That's not to say that such references stay constant. There have been a number of instances where a determined public relations campaign by one side or the other have caused the news media to change their default terminology. "Greenhouse Effect"/"Global Warming"/"Global Climate Change"/"Anthropogenic Global Climate Change"/etc. comes to mind. Usually, the intent of driving this change is to influence people's thinking, and affect the timbre of the discussion (e.g. "Prisoner of War" versus "Enemy Combatant"). -- 128.104.112.72 (talk) 23:55, 10 November 2008 (UTC)