Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 July 5

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July 5

president on down

I've come across this sentence while reading an article about Michael Fay :"Most Americans may balk at caning people, but from the president on down they don't mind killing them." Could you please explain what this sentence means? I don't particularly understand the phrase in italics. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.240.243.100 (talk) 06:53, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I think the part in italics means "people on various levels of political or social hierarchy, starting from the president on top and going down from there". — Kpalion^(talk) 07:01, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

That's about it. "from the president on down" is a common expression which reports about 193,000 Google hits for me. It's also called "from the president and down". PrimeHunter (talk) 11:04, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I've never heard "and down", and I don't see any ghits for that version. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:04, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't dispute that "from the president on down" is a well-used phrase, but be aware that the headline Google hit counts are Large Random Numbers. They are totally meaningless even as a rough quide to how many times that exact phrase appears on the web pages that Google has indexed. 86.160.222.173 (talk) 02:49, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

The metaphor conceives of a scale of people and going "down" it from the highest to the lowest: so "from (some point) on down" means "from that point onwards". --ColinFine (talk) 15:46, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I read the "on" not as indicating that the president is "on" top (this is how I am reading Kpalion's interpretation of the "on" part, apologies if I have misunderstood), but as short for "going on" or "proceeding on". So "from the president on down" can be read as "[starting] from the president [and then going] on [and counting] down [the hierarchy]", and you could just as easily have "from the lowliest urchin on up". --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:00, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

This is also how I understand the word "on" here; sorry for not being clear. It is the "president" that I interpret as the highest office that there is in the country and thus "on top" of the ladder. If the text read "but from the secretary of agriculture on down", then I would interpret it as "people on various levels of political hierarchy, starting from the secretary of agriculture and going down from there, but excluding those above". — Kpalion^(talk) 11:25, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Japanese word

What's the difference between 唄 and 歌 And how we use 々? 我我 or 我々、時時 or 時々、人人 or 人々？ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.90.230.210 (talk) 10:22, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

唄 is mostly used when referring to songs of traditional Japanese music. 歌 is a joyo kanji but not 唄. As for 々, see iteration mark. Oda Mari (talk) 17:55, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Vibhishana

What does the name Vibhishana mean? 174.88.11.116 (talk) 15:02, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Sanskrit vibhīṣaṇa literally means "terrifying", "horrible" (source: Monier-Williams Sanskrit-English Dictionary). Angr (talk) 18:11, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Looking further in MMW, I find bhī 'fear' (v.) and –sana 'presenting, offering' (which would change to –ṣaṇa by sandhi). —Tamfang (talk) 01:26, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Is there a term for the distinction between these uses of nouns?

Consider the following sentences:

1. Dogs are close relatives of wolves.

2. Herbert was attacked by dogs.

3. My friends are Americans.

4. Americans enjoy swimming.

In sentences 1 and 4, the speaker is implicitly referring to all dogs or Americans. Sentence 4 is not usually read as referring to just some Americans; it is a generalization. Meanwhile, sentences 2 and 3 are referring to a subset of dogs/Americans, and this is also straightforward without context. No one would think that Herbert was attacked by all the dogs in the world, or that I am friends with every American.

All this is unambiguous to native English speakers, yet none of the sentences contains the words "all" or "some" or any articles. What's going on here? Do grammarians have a word for this distinction? 72.72.197.183 (talk) 16:52, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

All four are examples of "bare plurals". Sentence 1 and 4 require a generic interpretation, while sentences 2 and 3 require an existential interpretation. (I'm sure there are better links). ---Sluzzelin talk 18:07, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Sentence 4 is a generalisation, which implies it doesn't necessarily apply in every individual case, so it does indeed effectively refer to "just some Americans". -- ♬ Jack of Oz ♬ ^{[your turn]} 19:57, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. Just so we're clear on this, I would argue that if it were the case that exactly two out of the 300 million Americans enjoyed swimming, then the primary or "natural" meaning of "Americans enjoy swimming" would be false; the subset we're talking about has to include at least half of them. Yet the statement would still be true in a technical, smart-alecky way. Yes? (PS: I'm the original akser, using a different computer.) 71.58.75.183 (talk) 22:51, 5 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd avoid that formulation entirely at wikipedia. But most people would accept it as true if and only if it applied to a majority of the population. μηδείς (talk) 00:38, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Over the next four months Americans are going to hear many declarations of the form "Americans know that the only party that can save the country from {insert national fate worse than death here} is...{insert random party name here}" I submit that the first usage implies all, but the second usage is a special one reserved for politicians where they clearly know it's not all but they would like you to think it was. HiLo48 (talk) 00:44, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Or they're stating a definition: "Those who understand that only my program makes sense are the real Americans." —Tamfang (talk) 00:44, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

BTW, Sindarin marks a plural versus a total number. μηδείς (talk) 00:49, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

and Lojban has distinct gadri for the-really-is, the-i'm-describing-it-as, the-typical and the-stereotypical. But these don't tell us much about English. --ColinFine (talk) 14:25, 6 July 2012 (UTC)