Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 June 3

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June 3

Correct word?

Sometimes, we encounter a phrase such as "when it comes to applying your make-up, remember that less is more" ... or ... "the only thing predictable about Jim is that he is unpredictable". Things of that nature. Is there some type of word (a noun) to describe these statements? I am familiar with adjectives such as, say: ironic, absurd, illogical, facetious, oxymoronic, etc. But, I am looking for a noun so that I can fill in a sentence like: "That statement is a truism" (or whatever the correct word is). Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 06:30, 3 June 2009 (UTC))

I guess that "contradiction" works ... but I'd like a "better" / "fancier" word. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 06:41, 3 June 2009 (UTC))

What's wrong with something you've already mentioned - oxymoron? Clarityfiend (talk) 07:25, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

See Inverse relationship. -- Wavelength (talk) 07:40, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Paradoxon. 99% sure. --88.74.25.123 (talk) 17:01, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Cliché? Bus stop (talk) 17:18, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I think that paradox was what I was looking for. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:51, 5 June 2009 (UTC))

'The' plus album title

I want to refer to an album called The Mix. In writing a sentence with this title, would it be correct to put "I bought the Mix album", "I bought The Mix album" or even "I bought the The Mix album"? I tend to prefer the first, because it flows like a proper sentence, but then the full title of the album is not being quoted. The second seems wrong because it's missing the definite article, and the third just sounds silly to me. Any thoughts? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 07:42, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

It's a problem TV stations have grappled with and not come to an ideal solution - probably because none exists. "The all new Two and a Half Men" is OK. But when it comes to "the all new" <name of program that starts with the word "The">, they alternate between "The all new Simpsons" and "All new The Simpsons"", but never "The all new The Simpsons". Sorry if that's not any help. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:19, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

"I bought the album titled The Mix" might help, if you want to put it in writing. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 08:28, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

It may depend on if the "The" is part of the actual name, or is considered to be more of a particle which is part of the name's formal representation. e.g. "I just bought the "The The" album," sounds fine to my ears, whereas "I just bought the "The Beatles" album," doesn't. -- 128.104.112.106 (talk) 16:40, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

To me, any X in "I bought the X album" should be the name of the artist, not the title of the album. Thus in 1983 I might have said "I bought the David Bowie album", but not "I bought the Let's Dance album". ("I bought the album Let's Dance" or simply "I bought Let's Dance" are okay.) In this case, though, I wouldn't double the the: "I bought the Beatles album", not "I bought the The Beatles album". (I don't know what I'd say in the case of The The, since I'd never buy one of their albums in the first place.) I did once get corrected by a friend for referring to "the Talking Heads album", since the name of that band has no definite article, but I explained that the the referred to album, and that the construction is the same as "the David Bowie album". +Angr 13:08, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Angr, for what little that's worth. I wouldn't say "I'm reading the Too Many Women book," either. —Tamfang (talk) 20:14, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. You see a Shakespeare play, or "the play Romeo & Juliet", you don't see "the Romeo & Juliet play". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 03:06, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Unless, of course, you remember the names of the lead characters but not the title of the play. —Tamfang (talk) 02:37, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Why do Japanese and African words/names sometimes sound similar?

I don't know if I'm the only person to have noticed this, but there are some African words and names that would not sound out of place in Japanese, and vice versa.--These girls should eat less bisquits... (talk) 14:27, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Probably because both Japanese and many African languages (especially the Bantu languages) require fairly simple syllable structures, eschewing consonant clusters and favoring words ending in a vowel. +Angr 14:35, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Certain Greek words can sometimes sound very similar to certain Japanese words too. +Angr 14:37, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Japanese has a vowel system with 5 vowels spread out in a way that maximizes contrast. This is a pretty common occurrence across the world (Spanish and Greek have similar systems), so it wouldn't be a surprise if many African languages were similar.

While Japanese doesn't generally allow consonant clusters, one exception to this is the moraic nasal, which allows consonants to be preceded by homorganic nasals. Similarly, many African languages (which as Angr pointed out, favor Consonant+Vowel syllable structures) have prenasalized stops.

In addition, Japanese and many African languages allow polysyllabic words with, I believe, limited vowel reduction. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:26, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I do apologize, but even I, as a linguist and specialist in Japanese, have no idea what the last post was all about. It's total gibberish to me. Best explaining it in simple terms. Most people who ask questions here don't know the answer - that's the reason they ask the question. While I do agree with what you are saying, Ƶ§œš¹, it would be better to say it in layman's terms. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 22:45, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Gibberish? The whole thing? Let's see, Japanese has five vowel phonemes (see right). Note how they're spread equally apart in the potential vowel space. That's very common cross-linguistically. A consonant preceded by a homorganic nasal, such as in Japanese Ando is similar to a prenasalized consonant such as in Ndugu Umbo.

A polysyllabic word is one with multiple syllables. Not all languages have words with more than one syllable. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:43, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

So, what do you mean by polysyllabic words with limited vowel reduction? By this, I take you to mean vowel harmony, which you find in Finnish, Hungarian, and Turkish, but not in Japanese, nor any African language I've ever encountered. By the way, when I said it was gibberish, it meant it was difficult to understand, and was not meant as a personal attack, so don't worry. --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 05:25, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Vowel reduction is the tendency of unstressed vowels (in some languages and not others!) to shift toward schwa. Avoiding it in English is an easy way to fake an African accent. —Tamfang (talk) 07:31, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, in that case, I would say that Japanese and most African languages do not in any way have vowel reduction. Am I reading Ƶ§œš¹'s post wrongly? --KageTora - (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 14:37, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I think we're on the same page now. I didn't mean vowel harmony. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 19:05, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, another language some of whose words and names have a resemblance to Japanese is Finnish. Of course they're distinguishable -- you won't see "sh" as a single sound in Finnish, or umlauted letters in Japanese -- but consider Tokyo and Nokia, Kokura and Kotka, Niigata and Naantali, Tahara and Tampere. --Anonymous, 00:01 UTC, June 4, 2009.

The Ural-Altaic hypothesis would have Finnish and Japanese as related languages. (Proving once again that anyone can conceive of any nutty idea!) Adam Bishop (talk) 18:33, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

What to call this grammatical construction

Is there a term for the grammatical construction consisting of a wh-word followed by either an infinitive phrase or a statement? Or are there separate terms for the infinitive form and statement form? Other examples, besides the title of my post, would be the book titles Why People Believe Weird Things and How to Win Every Argument. 69.224.113.202 (talk) 16:27, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems to be a hybrid of interrogative and relative constructions. I do not have an answer ready, but here is related information about Spanish words with and without accents. Other interrogative and relative words are used similarly in Spanish.

• ¿Dónde está Juan? (Where is John?)
• No sé dónde está Juan. (I do not know where John is.)
• Quizás esté donde está María. (Maybe he is where Mary is.)

This might provide editors with search terms and other ideas for seeking the answer(s). -- Wavelength (talk) 22:37, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Here are some web pages with information to ponder.

• LINGUIST List 6.598: Relativizer/Interrogative Question
• CHE (Under "Interrogative Adjective and Pronoun", the clause in example 4 is called an "indirect interrogative clause".)
• Marciano Escutia ENGLISH EMBEDDED INTERROGATIVE CLAUSES
• Relative Clauses and Indirect Questions

Apparently, there is a variety of terms for this. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:30, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

One book about ancient Greek has a table titled "Correlative adverbs", in which "direct adverbs" are distinguished from "indirect adverbs" by the prefixed element ὁ in the latter, for example, που (direct adverb, "where?") and ὁπου (indirect adverb, "where"). These are illustrated by the examples "where are you?" and "I don't know where I am." The book omits accent marks.

Another book about ancient Greek explains "conditional relative sentences" with examples that include "I (always) do whatever he wishes." All the examples involve the word whatever and in the Greek the element ὅ is a separate word (ὅ τι, literally "the what"). The book uses accent marks. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:10, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

In Latin, the question words stay the same, but the verb changes to subjunctive if it's an indirect question. An example of this construction without a verb at all is Cur Deus Homo, which is usually translated as "Why God became Man". Adam Bishop (talk) 01:51, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Uni...?

How come a UNI-cycle has one wheel, whereas a UNIsex hairdresser does both male and female heads? Does uni mean one or all?Popcorn II (talk) 22:35, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting observation, one I'd never noticed before. I'd say the "uni" in unicycle refers to one wheel, and the "uni" in uni-sex is about treating all customers regardless of their sex; so in a sense it means "all" but it's probably more a reference to the fact that they can both turn up at the one shop and be served, rather than having to go to different shops. Funny how we talk about a unicycle but a monobrow, rather than a monocycle and a unibrow. We live in the universe, not the monoverse. Technically speaking, I think there's some terminological inexactitude going on here, but I'll leave it for others to explain it properly. -- JackofOz (talk) 23:30, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Uni- is Latin, mono- is Greek. See Numerical prefix. As for "unisex", it is a slightly odd word. "Omnisex" would, perhaps, make more sense (although, since there are only two sexes, dual-sex or something might be better). I think the "one" in the word is actually the thing being described as unisex, rather than the sex, which is rather different to how such prefixes usually work. By far the best numerical prefix, however, is sesqui-, I love sesqui-! --Tango (talk) 23:39, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Generally mono- is used for single simple entity, whereas uni- is used for one object made from the union of parts. A unisex thing is presumably the union of a male and a female hairdressers. A university is many scholars united in one body, a monogamous relationship is one with only one marriage. Unicycle is odd in that regard, should really be monocycle. 131.111.184.8 (talk) 09:59, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

for instance, I am a sesquisexual individual, at least theoretically. --194.95.184.202 (talk) 06:22, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Universe is Latin, a compound meaning "one turning" or something similar (or "one thing having been turned" I suppose). "Monoverse" would mix Greek and Latin, but then, so does "unicycle" and no one seems to mind. (And I do hear "unibrow", but "brow" is English, so you can mix anything with anything...) Adam Bishop (talk) 23:44, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

As in "one and the same", the word for "one" and the word for "same" are the same in some languages. Perhaps this is somewhat similar. --Kjoonlee 09:20, 4 June 2009 (UTC)