Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2010 March 12

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March 12

Hung or hanged?

In German the verb hängen (to hang) has two past tense forms:

Er hängte das Bild an die Wand. (He hung the picture on the wall.)
Das Bild hing an der Wand. (The picture hung on the wall.)

hängte indicates there was motion, while hing does not. (This is important in German because it determines in which case the preposition an takes its object -- accusative or dative.) Recently, I was told that the same difference exists in English. "hanged" indicates motion, while "hung" does not, and the first sentence should read "He hanged the picture on the wall" in order to be grammatically correct. However, in Wiktionary, not an actual dictionary, nor a Google search, I cannot find anything to support any usage of "hanged" outside of "executed". Has anyone else heard of this difference? Xenon54 / talk / 03:06, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Related questions seem to have been discussed at [1] and [2]. Not sure if any of these will help answer your question... rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 03:13, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, a hung man is certainly a different thing from a hanged man - if he's hung he is "well-hung", that is to say, he has "good things hanging from him", referring to admirable genitals. A hanged man was executioned by hanging. When talking of objects and other stuff that can be hung on something, I'd always use hung since hanged gives such a strong feeling of the gallows. I've never heard that in English hung and hanged would contemporarily have any sort of difference between "motion" and "non-motion". Logically thinking, if you want to make clear that there is motion (or there is none), you'll need to add adverbs or similes to make the point. From [www.dictionary.com]: "Hang has two forms for the past tense and past participle, hanged and hung. The historically older form hanged is now used exclusively in the sense of causing or putting to death: He was sentenced to be hanged by the neck until dead. In the sense of legal execution, hung is also quite common and is standard in all types of speech and writing except in legal documents. When legal execution is not meant, hung has become the more frequent form: The prisoner hung himself in his cell." Pitke (talk) 06:46, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

From Blazing Saddles: "They said you was hung!" "And they was right!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:42, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

What you are describing as a difference of motion is described by linguists as a difference of valency. "Hang/hing" is an stative (intransitive) verb, "hang/hängte" is a transitive verb (and its weak conjugation suggests it is a derived form as opposed to the strong root verb). English has many examples of verbs which have both stative and transitive meanings (besides 'hang', there is for example, 'stand', 'sit' and 'rest'), but I cannot offhand think of one where the two forms have different past tenses. "Hang" certainly does not. At some time in the last three hundred years, the past forms "hung" and "hanged" have become distinguished in meaning but in a different way, as "hanged" is only used in the sense of "executed by hanging". The latter form is necessarily transitive, but "hung" is used both statively and transitively. --ColinFine (talk) 08:48, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Hanged in English basically always refers to execution by hanging. "I hanged the prisoner at dawn" is a correct sentence but "I hanged the picture on the wall" is ungrammatical. The poem A Visit from St. Nicholas mentions "The stockings were hung on the chimney with care", if that matters. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 11:10, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

My Webster's, somewhat surprisingly, says that either one is correct, but that the conventional usage is as you say. I like to say that the rope itself was hung, and the prisoner was hanged. Kind of like, the ball flew out to left field and was caught for an out, hence the batter flied out. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:34, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Whatever "I hanged the picture on the wall" is, it is certainly not ungrammatical. It uses a word in a sense that is not usual today, and those who get their kicks from judging other people's use of language may well call it 'incorrect' - but that is only the choice of word, not the grammar.

In The Language Instinct, Pinker discusses "flied out" at length, arguing that the "weak" inflection ("flied vs flew") is because the verb is taken from a noun phrase, which blocks its connection with the normal verb "fly". (It read oddly to me, who knew nothing of baseball, and wasn't familiar any of the terms). --ColinFine (talk) 18:06, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

When you hear "flied out" for the first time, it does sound kind of funny. If you hit a fly ball for an out, you have flied out. If you hit a ground ball for an out, you have grounded out. And if you take a third strike for an out, you have third-striked out. No, you haven't - you've struck out. That's where the analogy breaks down. d:) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:22, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry but "I hanged the picture on the wall" still sounds ungrammatical to me (native US English speaker). Not "wrong choice of words", but "syntactically wrong". I would say I'm interpreting "hang" (what you do with a picture) and "hang" (a way to execute prisoners) as homonyms--different words with related but differing meanings, spelled and spoken the same way--that I'll distinguish by writing "hang1" and "hang2", where hang1 has an irregular conjugation while hang2 does not. The preterite (simple past) of hang1 is "hung" while for hang2 it's "hanged". I do not hear the sentence as "I hanged the picture on the wall" as erroneously containing the verb hang2 where it should instead have hang1. I instead hear it as containing an incorrect conjugation of hang1, which is to say I hear it as a grammatical error. However I guess it can be taken as iffy, since apparently not everyone hears it that way. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 22:55, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Can't be arsed

Firstly, review my expostulation here on the uses of the word 'arsed'.

Now, it seems to me that 'arsed' in "I can't be arsed" is the passive form of the putative verb "to arse". This is never used in the active form in the way that 'trouble' or 'bother' can be used. Examples:

• "I can't bothered to get up" cf. "Could I bother you for a match"
• "He is a troubled youth" cf. "Could I trouble you for the time"

But

• "I can't be arsed looking this reference up" has no active counterpart such as "I'm really hoping this new project arses me somewhat. I'm rather tired of being unable to be arsed".

What's this called, when a verb is used only passively. Are there any other examples?

Also, it seems that the expression "can't be arsed" uses the British/Commonwealth spelling "arse" exclusively, and never the US version "ass". Maybe it's just not used much in the USA; but if it were, it'd be "can't be assed". Maybe? -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 12:46, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Not an expression used in the US as such, more likely to be "can't be bothered to get up off it", which I assume is what it implies in British/Aussie English? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:18, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Arse can be used actively, as in "stop arsing about!", but that doesn't have the same sense as "being arsed." More than that, I can't be arsed don't have time to think about at the moment. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:19, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I concur, it's not an American expression, although I've started using it since hearing British co-workers use it. And when I do, I do say "can't be arsed" with my rhotic pronunciation of arse, a word I otherwise never use. I've read somewhere (don't remember where, so I can't provide the source) the hypothesis that the phrase might have originated as "can't be asked" which in non-rhotic "broad-BATH" accents like Southern British sounds practically the same (/ɑːskt/ undergoing consonant cluster reduction to /ɑːst/). I don't know if there's a term for verbs that occur only in the passive; could it be a rare English-language example of a deponent verb? +Angr 13:27, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

It might relate to "buggered" as in the idiom "I'll be buggered if I do that" which means there's no chance of me doing that - but in that case the verb makes sense as "I'm as likely to do that as I am to engage in homosexual intercourse". "I'm buggered if" is "used to show that you certainly will not or cannot do something"[3].

Or it might be just a typical swearword thing. "fucked" is sometimes used in a similar context "I can't be fucked to do that", and in numerous expressions like "get fucked", without meaning anything in particular. Sorry I can't find any more information at the moment. --Normansmithy (talk) 13:36, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

There is a short section on "Passives without active counterparts", giving the example of rumored. ---Sluzzelin talk 13:44, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

The info in the urban dictionary may be of interest:[4] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:00, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Fascinating how it's been highjacked for so many different meanings. Tks. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:38, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Seems to be a modern invention - I had to ask for a repetition when I first heard it in the 1990s. Alansplodge (talk) 20:48, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

@ Normansmithy: I get what you're saying about the literal meaning of "I'll be buggered if I do that". But funnily enough, when someone who is into receptive anal sex (e.g. some male homosexuals) utters this expression - and they do - it means the exact opposite of what it would otherwise mean. In those cases, they engage in buggery on a regular basis, but are expressing a very negative attitude to whatever this other thing is.
I also just realised that if you go off half-cocked, you're likely to do things half-arsed. Funny that. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 01:50, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to know why the above explicit comment is any less offensive than my harmless (and implicit) comment about menstruation that created such a brouhaha. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:51, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Then maybe you should read the talk page, as people told you, where people explain why they found your comment offensive. Hint: it wasn't because they were prudes. 86.178.167.166 (talk) 14:30, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

If they're offended by a normal biological process such as menstruation, then there is nothing they have to say to me that's worth reading. Hence the talk page remains off my watch list. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:50, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

And if you're not going to read why people were actually offended, it is somewhat ridiculous to ask for people to explain why they were not similarly offended by a completely different thing. Why should they explain themselves to you here, when they have already done so elsewhere? You have assumed it was the topic that offended people, on the basis of nothing. 86.178.167.166 (talk) 15:57, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

They had no valid reason to be offended by my comment unless they're squeamish about menstruation, which I'm not, and hence it never occurred to me that anyone would rip into it with some of the most over-reactive remarks I've ever seen here, and I have no reason to read more of those over-reactive comments on the talk page. I got the idea in part from a drink called "Shark Attack", which used to be sold at Red Lobster and is apparently currently sold at Joe's Crab Shack. The link someone provided in that one section had something about one woman stuffing yogurt into another woman during menstruation. The mental picture of red and white was provided by the article, and also triggered my recollection of the Shark Attack drink. Feel free to quote me on the talk page, but I'm not going there. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:21, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

How crazy this is. You're defending yourself here, and on your own talk page, but refuse to do so in the actual place where the issue has been raised, and refuse to actually read what the issue is that you're defending here. But next time you have a problem with some "fly-by", what are you going to do? Raise it on the ref desk talk page but studiously avoid reading anything else there? All on some nameless principle? And then expect us to take you seriously? You remind me of a child who holds his breath till he turns blue. Best of luck, young man. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 18:36, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

If that's actually your picture on your page, I noticed that not only are we about the same age, but we look a lot alike. I wonder if you're my long-lost brother who stowed away on a ship heading for the far east? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:11, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

First and only time in the 4 years that photo's been there that anyone's ever questioned its veracity. But please let us not be sidetracked; we're already in an off-topic conversation for this thread. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 07:28, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I've had over 100 of the damn things, so I am well past being squeamish about them. If squeamishness were the reason, people would have reacted to the original question and sensible answer. Either read the talk page, or accept that you have no idea what people's objection actually was. 86.178.167.166 (talk) 20:15, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

There is no valid excuse for the comments to the effect that my harmless little quip was the most horrible thing they've ever seen on the internet. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:50, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

But by definition you don't know who they are and don't know what their experience of the internet is. Denying that somebody else feels the way they feel, or has a right to feel the way they feel, is absurd. You have to deal with what is, not what you think should be. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:01, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I do see that they are perfectly at home talking about anal intercourse, but that anything about women's bodies is "ooo, gross". So there is unlikely to be anything useful being said on the talk page - more likely just the usual suspects taking their usual shots at registered users, until they get tired of it and wait for the next victim to pounce on. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:06, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

But you'll never never know if you never never go there, so .... -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 21:20, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Translate poster

I would like a translation of the text on this poster: here. As near as I can make out, it says "El angel de La Paz de los fascistas!" and "Las juventudes libertarias lo Sabran destruir !". (It's really in all caps, but I know how people here hate that, so I changed it to mixed case.) The first part, I believe, translates as "The angel of La Paz of the facists!". I have more trouble with the 2nd part, though. The best I can come up with is something like "Youths, it is up to you to liberate or destroy Sabran !". Also, any interpretation of what they're talking about would be helpful. There's a swastika in the picture, and it was suggested it might be about Spanish collaboration with the Nazis, but La Paz is the capital of Bolivia and Sabran is a region in France, so I'm fairly confused. StuRat (talk) 16:55, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I guess Bolivia is not involved, "el angel de la paz" means "the angel of peace".—Emil J. 17:15, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

And a quick Wiktionary search confirms that "sabrán" is not a proper name either, "lo sabrán destruir" apparently means "will know how to destroy it". I'll leave the rest to someone how actually knows Spanish.—Emil J. 17:21, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I only speak intermediate Spanish, but here goes: the first phrase translates to "the angel of peace of the fascists", while the second phrase is something along the lines of "the Juventudes Libertarias (Libertarian/Anarchist Youths, members of the Federación Ibérica de Juventudes Libertarias, I would guess) will know how to destroy it". I don't know what they're referring to. Rimush (talk) 17:30, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

This is clearly a propaganda poster from the Spanish Civil War. The poster is clearly meant to encourage support for the FIJL, which in turn would have supported the Popular Front Republican government in its conflict with Francisco Franco's Nationalists, whom the Republicans labeled Fascists. The poster draws on fears that the German Nazis (notice the swastika in the poster), who were providing military support to the Nationalists, would bomb Republican cities with poison gas (note the gas mask). Marco polo (talk) 18:42, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Cf. Calgacus' ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant. Deor (talk) 18:57, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't speak Latin, so you'll need to translate that into English for me. StuRat (talk) 19:51, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

The last eight words of the quotation in the article I linked. Deor (talk) 20:15, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

"...they make a solitude and call it peace" ? What does that have to do with this poster ? StuRat (talk) 20:29, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

• More traditionally translated as "They make a wasteland and call it peace." - Jmabel | Talk 21:21, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

The fascists' idea of an angel of peace. Deor (talk) 20:36, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Or rather what the Federación Ibérica de Juventudes Libertarias claim is the fascist's idea. StuRat (talk) 20:44, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Greek letter that looks like an "L"?

I'm stuck, does anyone know what this letter is? It looks sort of like a capital L with an apostrophe or something next to it. It's in Ptolemy's 'Geography' in the original Greek, and appears quite a lot throughout the book in the coordinates given. (Go to Claudii Ptolemaeus: Geographia and type the page "xxiv" into the page no. box at the top. It's in the list on the bottom of the left hand page.) Zooming in also helps. According to the 'Index numerorum fractorum' in the book, the L on it's own means a half. But what letter is it and what is the name of the letter? Can I find it on Unicode? Your's thankfully, Yazmyn (talk) 21:08, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

It seems to me that mention of the character can be added to Greek numerals. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:29, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

It is definitely related to the Greek numerals, but it is not one of the standard symbols, apparently. I also don't really get why the symbols are fractions instead of having their normal values. Rimush (talk) 21:35, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

See A Manual of Greek Mathematics - Google Books, page 20. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:52, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

At http://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U10140.pdf, the official name by Unicode is "GREEK ONE HALF SIGN" and the hexadecimal code is "10175". Apparently, it does not correspond to a letter. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:15, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Ah, excellent! :) Thankyou, I also found a book here explaining it, and I'll add the signs to that Wikipedia article, but does anyone know how to get a picture of the letter in an article, the link for quite a few ancient Greek numbers no-one has done is here and there are three versions of the half sign: 1, 2, 3. Only comes in Cardo font though :/ Yazmyn (talk) 02:33, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

You can look for Greek numerals in Character Map in Windows, and in a similar program on a Mac computer.

-- Wavelength (talk) 03:36, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

"Leave on the computer"-- ungrammatical or just odd?

I find the following two sentences equally acceptable:

(1) Turn the computer off

(2) Turn off the computer

I also this sentence acceptable:

(3) Leave the computer on

But this one strikes me as questionable(it also gets about half as many Google results as sentence 3, for what that's worth):

(4) ?Leave on the computer

What underlying rule could be behind my grammatical intuition? Or is it just that I haven't heard the construction from (4) nearly as often, if at all(I don't think I'd heard anything like it before I came up with it)? 69.107.248.69 (talk) 22:05, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

The difference is that "turn (...) off" is a phrasal verb, and "leave" is not (it's a normal verb that can take all sorts of complements, like "leave the computer in my room"). Phrasal verbs, in many situations, allow the object to come either in the middle ("turn [the computer] off") or after the particle ("turn off [the computer]"). Since "leave" is not a phrasal verb, it doesn't allow that; "on" is not part of the verb so the only structural position where it can appear is after the object. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 22:16, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

The missing corresponding statements would be, for (1) Turn the computer on; (2) Turn on the computer; (3) Leave the computer off; and as you note, (4) doesn't work, unless you're literally leaving some object on the computer, such as a sticky note. In this case "turn" is a colloquial synonym for "power". "Turn on" or "turn off" is also a mild double entendre: "Did you turn on the computer?" "Yeh, and what a night we had!" or even, "Yeh, I got my revenge!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:24, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Reminds me of a pun from Canadian Bacon: "It's time to turn off that war machine and turn on our children! I mean...turn on our children...". 22:32, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's quite correct to say "turn" is a colloquial synonym for "power." The OED gives citations for "turn on" starting in 1833, and my impression from reading them is that this phrase had already been in colloquial use for some time. It seems likely that the first uses of "turn on," used with gas, steam, etc., were referring to the literal action of turning a valve or knob, and then this phrase was applied metaphorically to other situations (the third citation, from Mark Twain in 1866, refers to turning on "honest snickering.") The OED's first citation for "power up" is from 1925, and "power down" apparently didn't appear until 1962. So it's "power" that's the newcomer, not "turn." —Bkell (talk) 23:43, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I've seen the suggestion that "turning on" a switch or function derives from turning a knob before, but I don't believe it. Deciduous trees "turn green" in the spring, and the fall weather "turns them yellow"; this type of use is equally sensible as a possible origin of "turn on", and is old enough. --Anonymous, 00:23 UTC, March 13, 2010.

"Turn" is not really a synonym for "Power", it's just used that way in this context: "Turn on" = "Power on". You're right, "turn" has many diverse uses in English, as with other words like "up" and "down" and so on. One good "turn" deserves many others. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:48, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

See the Tao of programming item 7.3, about using a fancy workstation as a platform for new programs (i.e. by stacking listings on top of it). 66.127.52.47 (talk) 23:01, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd say "on" here function as a shortened form of "turned on". In other words it is better analysed as an adjective (which dictionaries do agree it can be, even without the "clipped" analysis that gets me there), so the construction is the same as "leave the window open" -> "?leave open the window". Trying to analyse it as an hypothetical "leave on" phrasal verb is just going to lead to a lot of hair-pulling. Circéus (talk) 01:50, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

It sounds to me like it is a faulty translation by a person whose first language is not English, more likely one of the Romance languages where the syntax is different from English. "Déjalo enchufado, el ordenador" - literally "leave it plugged in, the computer" Caesar's Daddy (talk) 11:21, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone tried to say "leave on" was a phrasal verb... rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:07, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I didn't mean to say that. I understood that sentence (4) and the problem of 69.107 seemed to me like they stemmed from an attempt to treat the verb as one. Circéus (talk) 16:18, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Ah, I see. rʨanaɢ (talk) 16:24, 15 March 2010 (UTC)