Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 April 27

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April 27

"nearly avoiding crash"

Emirates aircraft nearly avoids major crash is a news headline seen here. Literally it would mean the plane was about to avoid crashing at some point but perished anyway. How idiomatic and acceptable is this "nearly avoiding crash" which one encounters in news papers? --117.204.80.252 (talk) 12:37, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Almost is one definition of "nearly". Another is closely [1]. Maybe that is the intended literal meaning, though I too stumbled over this headline. ---Sluzzelin talk 12:48, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Still, it sounds very bad. I would have written, "Emirates aircraft narrowly avoids major crash". +Angr 12:55, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Angr. At best, the headline is ambiguous as written. -- Coneslayer (talk) 12:57, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

The site it comes from appears to be Indian. Perhaps it's acceptable in Indian English. +Angr 12:58, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, "narrowly" is the term they're looking for. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:41, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

A similar expression is Near miss (safety). -- Wavelength (talk) 13:54, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

See Headlinese. Newspaper headlines are purposely written in a certain way. --Kvasir (talk) 18:19, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

But sometimes they really do say something other than what they mean. "Four patients critical after horror bus crash claims 17 lives" - suggests 4 people survived and are complaining about something: maybe their hospital treatment is inadequate, or maybe they weren't happy about the state of the road, or maybe the driver was under the weather. In fact, "critical" here refers not to the patients per se but to their condition. Being in a critical condition usually means they're in no state to be criticising anything or anyone, and are just grateful to be alive at all. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:01, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

You say that's not what it means, I say it's a natural extension of the previous meaning and this is the way the language grows. --Anonymous, 20:37 UTC, April 27, 2010.

Um, what? rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:48, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Anon, I can't accept that. This only ever appears in dumb headlines. People in critical conditions are not otherwise referred to as "critical patients". People in serious conditions are not referred to as "serious patients". Patients in excellent conditions are not referred to as "excellent patients". -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 09:29, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

"Four patients critical" is headline writing shorthand for "four patients in critical condition", and as written it's certainly ambiguous. I could see Jay Leno making the point Jack is making. Meanwhile, what's a "horror bus"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:43, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Headlines are infamous for these kinds of ambiguities. See [2]. rʨanaɢ (talk) 20:48, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

See Syntactic ambiguity for other examples, my favourite is "Monty flies back to front". Mikenorton (talk) 22:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

As to Jack's factual claim: people may not say "critical patients" yet, but if a patient is in critical condition, they certainly do say "He's critical". Fortunately not a conversational subject I've had experience with, but I've heard it said on TV. And if you'd like print-based evidence, try a Google Books search on the phrase plus additional words such as "hospital" or "stable" to rule out other meanings. --Anonymous, 04:12 UTC, April 29, 2010.

I think everyone is being too charitable to the awful editor and headline writer — "nearly avoids major crash" does literally mean that the aircraft crashed. There is no ambiguity about it. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:27, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary. Since language is a device for communication, not a recondite game, it clearly means that it did not crash. There is, as you say, no ambiguity. See Gricean maxims. --ColinFine (talk) 22:53, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Comet Tuttle. The headline was not ambiguous: it clearly stated that the airplane crashed, and thus stated the opposite of what it meant. Even the Gricean maxims don't let you do that, unless you're being sarcastic. Who knows, maybe the headline writer was being sarcastic, although it seems an odd time to do it. +Angr 06:14, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes. If you "nearly" avoid a crash, then you failed to avoid the crash, hence you crashed. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:22, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Gay dog

In light of this incident, can anyone confirm if "gay" and "guide" are homophones in Australian English? thx --Kvasir (talk) 21:08, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Judging by the article, it seems likely that the waiter who was mishearing "guide" was a Vietnamese immigrant and not a native English speaker. rʨanaɢ (talk) 21:11, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Well yes obviously. How can someone grew up in Australian culture this day and age would conceive the idea of a gay dog AND refuse service. Here I'm suggesting perhaps Australian English may have something to do with it as well, assuming Mr. Jolly and his gf speak Australian English. (Even more bizarre was that they produced proof that fido is in fact a guide dog, and the owners still didn't get it.) --Kvasir (talk) 21:17, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

To this American, an Aussie would say "gay dog" as "guy dog", and "guide dog" as "goyd dog". But they could sound similar to someone who does not speak English natively. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:56, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

According to Australian English phonology, the vowel of gay is [æɪ] and that of guide is [ɑe]. So they're pretty different. But if a Vietnamese immigrant heard [gɑed], they would likely have difficulty with the coda consonant (as mentioned here). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 23:05, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Kool thx. Wouldn't an AE speaker also link the [d] in guide and [d] in dog? as in [gɑedɔg] comparing with [gæɪdɔg]. --Kvasir (talk) 23:17, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that was the point. The words could run together and sound like different words. A common example is the term "a nickname" which supposedly was originally "an eke name". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:21, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I also recall some fast-talking guy on the radio with a promo to "meet head coach Smith" or whatever, and it sounded like "meathead coach Smith". A frequent oddity in English. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:22, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Mairzy Doats is another example of that. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 05:48, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Another way to approach this was that I considered this same sorry episode had it occurred in Canada, no one would confuse [geɪdɔg] with [gaɪdɔg], even for an immigrant. Not sure about other varieties of American English. --Kvasir (talk) 00:02, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

There's some evidence, given the pronunciations I hear from Vietnamese-speaking immigrants, that it's possible. The [æi]/[ai] distinction is sometimes unclear for Vietnamese ESL-ers. I would have thought that context would have made it clear, however. Steewi (talk) 01:14, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Extra: Given Australian English's reputation for pronouncing these two diphthongs oddly, it makes a bit of sense. I'm thinking of the stories I've heard about new arrivals mishearing "Where are you going today?" as "Where are you going to die?" Steewi (talk) 01:16, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

True enough. The first time we visited Australia some 15 years ago having never been exposed to Australian English we came out of the car rental office at the airport puzzled over what the clerk was on about "car case". Then as we opened the doors it finally darned on me that she was talking about returning the car keys. --Kvasir (talk) 02:33, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

No-one seems to have linked Language Log yet. Algebraist 02:43, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Excellent link. thx. --Kvasir (talk) 05:20, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

If I may address your original question directly, Kvasir: No, "gay" and "guide" are not homophones in Australian English, and couldn't be, because one ends in a "d" sound and the other doesn't. But even "gay" and "guy" are not homophones, even if a gay guy is another kind of homo. Aussie vowels are sometimes very easy to misinterpret, even for us locals. In some people's enunciation, "phone home" sounds like "fine hime", whatever that is. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 09:23, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I just happened to watch Muriel's Wedding for the millionth time last night and found the actor's pronunciation are quite varied as well. --Kvasir (talk) 16:53, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Another funny example here. --Магьосник (talk) 17:16, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Parts of a sentence

I will use this sentence as an example: John ate pizza. John is a noun; ate is a verb; pizza is a noun. These classifications (noun and verb) are called the "parts of speech". In the same sentence: John is the subject; ate is the predicate; pizza is the direct object. These classifications (subject, predicate, and direct object) are called what? I assume that they are the "parts of the sentence" ... but is there an actual word to describe them? Thanks. (64.252.65.146 (talk) 22:15, 27 April 2010 (UTC))

"Parts of speech", which is what we were taught to call them, redirects to Lexical category, which I suppose is the more formal terminology you're looking for. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:25, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

No, no, no! "Parts of speech" (or lexical category) refers to noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc. That is not what my question was asking. I am asking about the overall "umbrella" category for things like subject, predicate, direct object, indirect object, etc. Thanks. (64.252.65.146 (talk) 23:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC))

How about "words" or "grammar"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:19, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

But 'predicate' is not lexical category. It's a sort of phrasal category, though I don't think any of the modern theories of grammar recognise use the term. 'Constituent' is a word that could be used for these, though it's a word with so many meanings that without context it would be too general. --ColinFine (talk) 22:58, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

See Grammatical relation. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:46, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

Wavelength is right. Grammatical relations (alternatively grammatical categories) are what you want to talk about. Semantic relations are also important here. Steewi (talk) 01:20, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

"Parts of the sentence", what the OP suggested, seems most logical to me. That's what it's called Polish grammar books, too. Is there any reason not to use it in English? — Kpalion^(talk) 12:25, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Some googling gave me this and this and this in favour of "part of [the] sentence". Before reading the above discussion, I wouldn't have hesitated to use "part of the sentence" as the English term for what the OP is asking for. In Bulgarian we have част на речта, literally "part of the speech", for nouns, verbs, etc., and част на изречението, lit. "part of the sentence", for subject, predicate, object, etc. I have never presumed the English terms would be anyhow different from that. --Магьосник (talk) 13:04, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

The closest term is grammatical relation (as opposed to semantic relations—in terms of theta roles, there is not a one-to-one mapping between, for example, subjects and "doers" or between objects and "doees"). But how you construe subjects and objects largely depends on what theoretical framework you are working inside of, so different experts would answer this question in different ways. rʨanaɢ (talk) 13:26, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to all ... much appreciated! (64.252.65.146 (talk) 21:44, 2 May 2010 (UTC))