Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 January 28

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January 28

The case

Why do we refer to something that is true (or we believe to be true) as "the case"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:52, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

• Many languages use the term meaning "fall" to indicate what happens, such as the English term befall. Casus is simply the past participle of the Latin cadere, to fall. We let the facts fall where they may. μηδείς (talk) 01:37, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Brings up an interesting point. In English, "it is not the case that..." is just a longwinded way of expressing the logical negation operator. That is, it could almost always be replaced by "it is not true that..." (here one should review the disquotational theory of truth).

In Italian, though, it means something more like "it is not opportune or desirable that...". How did these diverge? Are there comparable expressions in other related languages, say French or German (or even better, Dutch, since it's closer to English), and what do they mean? --Trovatore (talk) 02:04, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

The English is a borrowing, a calque, from French: Ce ne'est pas le cas qu'elle fume; "It's not the case that she smokes." The Spanish is No es el caso que fuma, while suceder, from cadere, means "to happen". Vorfallen means "to happen" in German. (As a side matter, Dutch is not actually closer to English. Dutch and German are sisters in one branch of Western Germanic, English and Frisian are sisters in other. Dutch simply lacks some innovations that make High German seem further away from English.) μηδείς (talk) 02:32, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, so what I was getting at is, the English phrase "it's not the case that she smokes" is just a roundabout way of saying "she doesn't smoke". On the other hand, the Italian non è il caso che lei fumi doesn't mean that; it means "it is preferable that she not smoke". The Spanish, I couldn't say. Which, if either, does the French version mean? --Trovatore (talk) 06:02, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

If that's what the Italian means, it seems to be an odd further development. Both the French and Spanish forms simply reflect the same meaning you find in English, that it is or is not the case, and this follows rather simply from the Latin, and parallels other usages of fall to refer to something that happens (to be or not to be). See, as always, etymology online. μηδείς (talk) 06:37, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Medeis -- Dutch and English don't group closely together in a pure cladistic (tree) model, but due to the geographic position of Dutch (in close proximity to Frisian, and for many centuries having closer contacts with England than did speakers of most other continental West Germanic) in some respects -- such as pronouns -- it is in fact closer to English than (standard) German is. There are some derived characteristics that Dutch and English share, such as the disappearance of almost all noun, adjective, and determiner case distinctions... AnonMoos (talk) 20:22, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Dutch is closer to German, with which it forms a dialect continuum, than it or German is to English. The parallel losses in English and Dutch are due to convergence, not due to an innovation that they inherited from a common root. Indeed, most of the Norse languages share the same losses you mention. This has nothing to do with any of them being closer to English than to German. μηδείς (talk) 20:45, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Dutch is more connected to German than to English, but that doesn't mean that the fact that Dutch is more connected to English than most other German dialects are isn't also relevant. English has been borrowing from Dutch and/or coastal North Sea German (not always distinguished in past eras) continuously for many, many centuries, but the number of High German borrowings into English was rather negligible (a very few metal or mining related terms) before the late 18th century. And the word you're looking for seems to be "drift", but if Dutch and English have drifted together in some respects, while standard German has drifted apart, then most people (who are not exclusively preoccupied with cladistics) would take this to mean that English and Dutch are closer than English and German... AnonMoos (talk) 17:04, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I agree — the family-tree model for languages has its uses, but the differences from the biological case have to be kept in mind. Languages are never born, may never exactly die, do not have parents or children. A biological analogy would be the way bacteria trade genetic information. Linguists like to keep the tree model but then qualify it with talk of "substrates" and "superstrates", but I think they should admit that the existence of substrates and superstrates actually refutes the tree model altogether (which, as I said, is not to say it doesn't have its uses). --Trovatore (talk) 18:09, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

I am sorry, but this is simply ridiculous to the point of ridiculosity. I'll assume we all know the Lord's Prayer in English. Compare it the the Dutch:

Onze Vader, die in de hemelen zijt,

geheiligd zij Uw naam.

Uw rijk kome,

Uw wil geschiede

op aarde als in de hemel.

Geef ons heden ons dagelijks brood,

en vergeef ons onze schulden,

gelijk ook wij vergeven aan onze schuldenaren.

En leid ons niet in bekoring,

maar verlos ons van het kwade.

And the German:

Vater Unser im Himmel,

Geheiligt werde Dein Name,

Dein Reich komme.

Dein Wille geschehe,

Wie im Himmel, so auf Erden.

Unser tägliches Brot gib uns heute,

Und vergib uns unsere Schuld,

Wie auch wir vergeben unseren Schuldigern.

Und führe uns nicht in Versuchung,

Sondern erlöse uns von dem Bösen.

μηδείς (talk) 02:10, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

That's nice -- Dutch lacks the high German consonant shifts (Vader vs. Vater), has some pronoun forms more similar to English (wij vs. wir, though there are some more striking examples not contained in this mini-text), and lacks case endings such as seen in German von dem Bösen... -- AnonMoos (talk) 05:53, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

The source site for this is the Convent of Pater Noster which lists the Lord's Prayer in many hundreds of languages. It's excellent if you want a quick subjective comparison of two languages, or a sample text. (The standard caveats about the artificiality of translations and sacred texts apply. For example, the common English versions do not sound anything like normal daily speech.) μηδείς (talk) 18:25, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

For what it's worth, in Dutch the equivalent of something being "the case" is het geval, which is indeed related to vallen ("to fall") and voorvallen ("to happen/befall"). A voorval is an "event/incident". Also in German falls is short for "in the case that" - Lindert (talk) 13:00, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

We also have the word "befall" in English.--ColinFine (talk) 17:21, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

• Perhaps related is a now archaic usage, which I have seen mostly in English ballads is "as it fell out" meaning simply "it happened" or perhaps "it chanced to occur" suggesting an unplanned or random event.DES ^(talk) 17:39, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

There's a formal language/logic parallel that Trovatore hints at: case analysis, best case analysis, worst case analysis, etc. Though the natural language preceded the formal senses, I think many people who say things like "It is not the case that X is a Y" are often influenced by formal analytical training, be it mathematical, legal, medical, etc. If you're up for some adventure, check out our article on modal logic, and search in the page for "case" -- many of uses these are formal instantiation of a logical case, but some are metalogical cases for comparing different notions of modality, and some are just natural language uses of the word :-/ SemanticMantis (talk) 20:29, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

• All very, very fascinating, thanks muchly.
• People sometimes say a certain woman "fell pregnant". Does this have any connection to the "befall" mentioned above, or is it more related to a quick descent from angelic divinity to satanic wrongdoing? As in the Fallen angels and the Fall of (wo)man. There is the expression "fallen woman", but that doesn't necessarily connote pregnancy. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:53, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Given no one's responded, my OR is that the term "fell pregnant" (which I have never heard in the NE US) is probably an old one using the word fall in its age-old sense of "become". μηδείς (talk) 02:57, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

That's surprising. It's very common down here, but this seems to confirm it's uncommon in the USA. Wiktionary is resorting to guessing about a possible biblical origin. They're just the first 2 of over half a million hits for "fell pregnant". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:21, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Bifil that in that seson, on a day,

In Southwerk at the Tabard as I lay,

Redy to wenden on my pilgrymage

To Caunterbury, with ful devout corage,

At nyght were come into that hostelrye

Wel nyne and twenty in a compaignye

Of sondry folk, by aventure yfalle

In felaweshipe, and pilgrimes were they alle

--Shirt58 (talk) 11:40, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Pronoun

I saw this sentence in the news just today: "Erick Munoz chose to name what would have been he and his wife's second child." (I added the bold). Is the word "he" used correctly? It doesn't seem to be, at least to me. Is "his" the correct word to be used there? That doesn't seem quite right, either. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:12, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

No. Taking out "his wife's" leaves "he second child." "His" is right. Clarityfiend (talk)

It's not formally preferred, but it does reflect the clause-final or clitic use of the 's possessive, as in "the Queen of England's husband", which is perfectly acceptable, even in formal contexts. See Joint and separate under Apostrophe#General_principles_for_the_possessive_apostrophe. μηδείς (talk) 08:07, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

It sort of depends on whether you consider "he and his wife" to be a single unit (in a grammatical sense) or separate entities linked by the word "and". That is, whether there are two entities "He" and "His wife" and those two entities each possess the child, or whether you consider "he and his wife" to be a single entity that possesses the child. If you consider the former to be the sense, then the phrase "his and his wife's second child" would be correct. If you consider the latter to be the sense, then "he and his wife's second child" would be perfectly acceptable per Medeis note about phrasal nouns and the use of the apostrophe (Queen of England's) --Jayron32 15:14, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Except that he is more marked than him (imho), and its marking is nominative; "{him and ...}'s" would be called sloppy but I think it's less incorrect than "{he and ...}'s". —Tamfang (talk) 22:31, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

It can be corrected to: "Erick Munoz chose to name what would have been the second child of him and his wife."

—Wavelength (talk) 16:56, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I am looking at Jayron's post above, in relation to Wavelength's suggested correction. This correction would apply if we used Jayron's first interpretation (two entities possess the child). If we use Jayron's second interpretation (a single entity that possesses the child), then the suggested correction should be "Erick Munoz chose to name what would have been the second child of he and his wife." Is this correct? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:13, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

No, it's still wrong because "he" is the subjective pronoun. The objective case is "him". It's not wrong to say "of him" in place of "his", but it sounds odd because the "of him" form is normally reserved for situations not involving possession or when there is further qualification of "him". Compare (or rather contrast) the idiomatic usages: "the death of him" and "the making of him" with "his death" and "his making". Dbfirs 17:42, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Those who believe that "correct" is a meaningful word in this context and that they know when it applies, would universally answer "No", and emend to of him and his wife. Incidentally, three quotes is the preferred way to embolden text in Wikipedia. --ColinFine (talk) 17:25, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Turn it around and put it his own voice: Would one prefer (a) I, Erick Munoz, chose to name what would have been my wife and I's second child or (b) I, Erick Munoz, chose to name what would have been my wife's and my second child. We're all voting for (b), right? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:45, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

We had that discussion last year, the proper option was (c) I, Erick Munoz, chose to name what would have been mine and my wife's second child. μηδείς (talk) 01:05, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

As I recall, you asserted, without any evidence, that such was "the" proper option. I didn't agree with your assertion then and nothing's changed since to alter my view. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 04:39, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, that sounds good. --Jayron32 22:03, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to all for the above input. Much appreciated! Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:35, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Seeking brief English summary of Hebrew news article.

Hello, I'm seeking help summarizing very briefly an Israeli journalist's take on the independent film Zeitgeist: The Movie, which is published here: http://www.themarker.com/markerweek/1.1620957

I machine-translated the article using Google, Microsoft, and FreeTranslation.com and used only content that the three translations have in common, but another editor still contests my writeup.

This summary would only need to be about the film, and thus would most likely only need to concern portions of the first section of Mr. Schechter's article (up until the bold "העתיד שייך למחשבים" subheading).

Schechter's article was previously summarized in the film's Wikipedia article as:

TheMarker characterized the evidence presented by Joseph in the movie as, for the most part, incomplete at best, and based on speculation at worst. TheMarker also wrote: "After all, the film was an art project, not intended as a coherent socio-economic analysis but to serve Joseph's creativity." TheMarker wrote that Joseph received severe criticism, and summarized the criticism by The Irish Times [which also appears within the same Wikipedia, a few paragraphs above]

I re-summarized it as:

Writing for TheMarker, Asher Schechter praised the film's viral popularity and foreshadowing to the Occupy movement, while admitting its evidence to be poor. Schechter excused its deficiencies in light of the movie originally being created as an art film, and he called its reach as an activist effort a success.

Either a completely new re-write of Schechter's opinion of the film, or if easier, a simple confirmation of my re-write, would be very welcome.

If greater context is desired, see:

• Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#Triple.E2.80.93machine-translated_article_as_source_for_views_on_independent_movie.
• Talk:Zeitgeist:_The_Movie#Deletion_of_cited_review
• Zeitgeist:_The_Movie#Critical_response

Thanks again! startswithj (talk) 21:47, 28 January 2014 (UTC)