Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 September 12

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September 12

At chapter...

Would it be correct to say "I'm at chapter 4.." instead of "I'm on chapter 4"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yashowardhani (talk • contribs) 16:09, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Both read as grammatical/correct to me. We say "on page 2" more often that "at page 2", but preposition often serve multiple purposes, and there are many situations where many choices will all be "correct". SemanticMantis (talk) 16:26, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

To my ear either is correct, with somewhat different connotations:

1. "on chapter 4" is most common. It implies that you are reading (or writing) the chapters in sequence, and you have started reading (or writing) chapter 4.
2. "at chapter 4" is less common. It doesn't imply as much: you may be reading the book all the way through, or you may have randomly opened to that page, or you may be using it as a reference.
3. "in chapter 4" is similar to "at chapter 4", except that "in chapter 7" and "in chapter 11" mean something else entirely!

For most situations "on chapter 4" is the most idiomatic. --Amble (talk) 17:00, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Actually I think there is a subtle difference, though it may be a personal perception: to me, "at chapter 4" means at the beginning, if not already started chapter 4, whereas "on chapter 4" could mean the same (at the beginning, just started) or in the middle of it. To confirm these shades of meaning, I compare the phrases "i stopped at chapter 4" versus "i stopped on chapter 4." Generally though i agree they can be used interchangeably, with "on" being more common. El duderino ^(abides) 10:19, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

• "write an essay on chapter four for Friday, please." "I haven't finished the book, I'm only on chapter four."

You weren't here last Friday when we finished the prior chapter, but please start reading at chapter four." "You'll notice the narrative voice changes from omnisicient to first person at chapter four, and back to omniscient at chapter six."

On would seem to express content or location within, while at expresses a boundary. (You can be somewhere on chapter four, but not somewhere at chapter four. With and in can also be used according to meaning and context. In very few circumstances will it matter, listen to others and encourage them to correct you. μηδείς (talk) 20:46, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the help, good people! :D --Yashowardhani (talk) 11:23, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Minutes and seconds in 19th century literature

In Jane Eyre, there are several uses of the word "minutes" where the normal meaning of "60 seconds" would seem a remarkably long time, but where the number of minutes mentioned seems too specific for the word to mean just an indeterminate short time: "he spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could without damaging the roots"; "Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time in perfect possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehursts produce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics"; "At last, having held a document before her glasses for nearly five minutes, she presented it across the counter".

Was there ever a meaning of "minute" corresponding to the modern "second"? Henry^Flower 20:54, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

@Henry Flower: I am not sure but just by the context of having read books like Longitude, set in the 18th-century, it seems to me the unit was probably of the same order of magnitude, even if not delimited with atomic clock precision. To my ear, in all three uses quoted above the only reason the amount of time each matter took is mentioned is to emphasize the long duration. Take the tongue thrusting – saying it took three seconds would be a somewhat odd detail to include normally, whereas saying he did it over the course of three minutes does not seem odd because the duration detail is significant/serves a function. (I don't think Brontë was saying the child kept his tongue out for a full three minutes mind you, but that he directed this at her a number of times over a period of three minutes.) The same for the others.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:37, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Ah, some confirmation. Jane Eyre was published in 1847. In This treatise on arithmetic by an English writer from 1834, he calculates that there are "1440" "minutes in a day" and "3600" "seconds in an hour".--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:54, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Hyperbole is part of Charlotte Brontë's style, though a factor of 60 does seem rather excessive! Dbfirs 08:44, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. :) The "number of times" point is a fair one, and might explain the tongue, but it doesn't seem to fit the other two cases so well (there's nothing else in the narration at those points which would seem to fill up the remaining time).

The narrator does mention at one point that "watches were not so common then as now"; perhaps Brontë grew up with a rather flexible sense of time? Henry^Flower 09:33, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Or maybe the sense is "At last, having held a document before her glasses for what felt like nearly five minutes, she presented it across the counter" If she's given to hyperbole, then the experience of time distortion when waiting for something imminent, such that every second seems to last for 10 or more seconds, would be familiar territory to her and could be safely presumed to be familiar to her readers too. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:41, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

• Once again, see the etymology. Originally there were prime minutes (divisions of sixty) and second minutes (a further division of sixty.) Until second became set as meaning second minute, the meaning might depend on context. μηδείς (talk) 22:12, 13 September 2014 (UTC)
  • ... but "minute of a minute" had been obsolete for centuries before the date of writing (1846?) and before the date the novel is set (1800?). See Chaucer: "Thise degrees of signes ben euerich of hem considered of 60 Mynutes, & euery Minute of 60 secondes." (around 1400). Dbfirs 09:09, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
    • I suppose the thing to do would be to compare other popular works of the same era, but all I can glean from my source is that it came in around 1400 but was codified in the public mind in the 17-1800's. I wonder how many parsecs it took her characters to do the Kessel Run.
      • Anagram of Ken Russell. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:31, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
        • Unfortunately Ken had two ellls. I have tried using wordsmith's anagram server to fit in "in under twelve parsecs" but it won't take inputs of more than thirty letters and the partial attempts are not very promising. μηδείς (talk) 03:09, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

Latin and the letter J

Latin, as written since classical times to the present, but using classical pronunciation, originally had I and V for both vowels and semi-vowels, and later a distinction was made using I/J and U/V. In the last century or so, the letter J has fallen out of fashion and I is used for both vowel and semi-vowel. Why did this happen? On the surface it seems a useful distinction to make, and there are enough ambiguous cases for it to be worthwhile. Peter Grey (talk) 21:16, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

By last century, are you referring to the 20th century or the end of the Roman era. Because J is still in use. Mingmingla (talk) 21:46, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

He means the 20th century, and he's right: J is not very widely used for Latin anymore. Open a modern Latin dictionary or textbook and you'll see iocus alphabetized somewhere between inter and ipse, but vacca is alphabetized after ut. I think it's because the u/v distinction is not always predictable in Latin (e.g. serui "I have sown" vs. servi "slaves"), while the i/j distinction always is. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:54, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

"The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday – but always iam to-day." —Deor (talk) 22:05, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

The front matter of a Latin-English English-Latin dictionary (by Collins) in my possession explains that its use of consonantal "v" and "i" (instead of "u" and "j") follows the practice of modern publications of Latin texts.

—Wavelength (talk) 22:22, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

All known by me Latin-Russian dictionaries and textbooks consistently use both j and v.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 22:39, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

That's interesting. I just looked through 10 Latin dictionaries and textbooks for speakers of English and German, and all of them use v, but only one uses j, and the one that uses j was published in 1870. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 00:56, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

The question is: why is that the current practice? Many hundred-year-old Latin books (e.g. on Project Gutenberg did use J, but newer ones, at least in the English-speaking world, do not. Peter Grey (talk) 00:11, 13 September 2014 (UTC) Until very recently, and in only some publications, there was no similar trend for the U/V alternation. Peter Grey (talk) 00:17, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

I attempted to answer why above: u and v can contrast in Latin, i and j can't. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 00:36, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Is there a rule to distinguish vowel and semi-vowel I, or are they considered interchangeable? Peter Grey (talk) 02:20, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

A very rough rule would be, if the word has evolved into an English word that now uses a J, it is acceptable to spell it with a J in Latin. So, "ejectus" for example, although the underlying verb "iacere" is usually spelled with an I since that didn't come into English except in forms with prefixes (hic iacet, alea iacta est). You can also use J when there are two I's in a row - for example, "eicio" (from which we ultimately get "eject") can also be spelled "eiicio", and then the first I can be wriiten as a J, "ejicio". But that's not really a defined rule...in fact maybe that is my own personal rule, maybe I made it up. I think it's really up to the editor (or the publisher). For published editions, tastes change over the years - using only I and U would make it seem more authentically classical, assuming that "classical" means "capital letters carved in stone monuments". Actual classical handwriting didn't look like that, and there were many other types of writing other than monumental capitals. And for the classical literature that only survives in medieval manuscripts (to say nothing of all the medieval Latin literature), the letters would be different - manuscripts might use only I, I and J interchangeably, only U, only V, or both U and V. One current trend in editing is to use whatever the manuscript uses, instead of trying to classicize the language. (This also affects the classical diphthongs OE and AE, which in manuscripts are often just written as E, or something like Ę). But it really depends on the publishing company. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:54, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

A rule that requires no reference to English is I is a semivowel before another vowel, unless the I is preceded by a consonant. Another advantage to distinguishing U and V is that it makes the rule for I easier to keep track of: in forms like iuuenis and fluuius it's easy to lose track of which u's and i's are syllabic and which aren't. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:56, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

The interrogative and relative pronoun cuius (wikt:cuius) has the potential for various diphthongal interpretations, and is the source of Italian cui (wikt:cui) and Portuguese cuj-o, os, a, as (wikt:cujo) and Spanish cuy-o, os, a, as (wikt:cuyo), which reflect the fact that i in cuius was a semi-consonant. However, the third-person singular perfect indicative active verb iit (wikt:iit) and its compounds (abiit, adiit, circuiit, etc.) each have two consecutive identical vowels.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:42, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

>The question is: why is that the current practice? Many hundre....

My answer: Academics found out or know they weren't part of the original latin language. Clues can be found in words like wine (latin vinum) and Latin-back-to-Greek translations.

i to j and u to v, specially if they were the first letter of the word started to change in the romance languages. Pretty soon a tradition started be cast in stone. Even if you know how they are supposed to be pronounced, it is hard to go against tradition and the stereotype. Try speaking in Shakesperean English. However it beholdens Academicians Academicians are obligated to uphold the truth in knowledge. --Jondel (talk) 04:43, 16 September 2014 (UTC)