Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 January 21

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January 21

Secretary

Back when I was in high school, the people who worked in the administrative office cubicles but did not hold the window offices were mostly secretaries that came from an older generation and thus preferred to be called "secretaries" - or so I'd heard from a schoolteacher. The same schoolteacher also mentioned that nowadays (mid-2000s) we should call those office workers "administrative assistants", unless the person preferred to be called a "secretary". Eh? Is this attitude widespread? Do people really get offended by the use of the term "secretary"? What's wrong with "secretary"? Is it because the term is too ambiguous and may refer to the government position (i.e. Secretary of State)? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 01:29, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think secretary has gone the way of stewardess. I'm not sure why, in either case. I seriously doubt that Secretary of State had anything to do with it. You might ask an administrative assistant or flight attendant. ―Mandruss ☎ 01:38, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The original concept of a "secretary" was one who kept secrets; who was a confidant of an executive.[1] In the olden days, they were typically male. In the business world, the title was fitting, as secretaries were often "in on" things that not everyone knew. The nature of the job changed over time, in the business world at least, and "administrative assistant" describes the job better now. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:05, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

See Euphemism treadmill. Come back if you don't understand the article, or don't understand how it applies to this topic, and someone here can explain it to you. --Jayron32 02:26, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I understand the article. But what does "secretary" have to do with euphemism? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 02:33, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The term used to be "secretary". Over time, the word "secretary" came to mean a subservient woman who typed up letters and fetched coffee for their bosses. Modern employees who fill the same roles that "secretaries" used to are now called "Administrative assistant" because they resent the pejorative view of what a secretary was seen as. Thus, the term changes every generation or so. That's what Stephen Pinker means by "Euphemism treadmill": The term for a thing changes every generation because the thing carries a pejorative sense. The problem is that the pejorative sense tends to transfer every generation to the new term, so terms have to constantly be reinvented: thus the "treadmill" thing: the creation of new terms for old ideas is a continuous process, and it never ends. Thus what used to be "iditotic" or "moronic" becomes "retarded" becomes "mentally handicapped" becomes "mentally challenged" becomes "IEP". The secretary to administrative assistant transition is simply another one of the euphemistic substitutions. --Jayron32 02:41, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Dumb became mute, but that was like a century ago. What's the holdup?? ―Mandruss ☎ 02:48, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The core concept behind the euphemism treadmill is that the pejorative-ness behind pejorative terms is really attached to the idea the term describes, rather than the term itself. This means you can escape the euphemism treadmill if beliefs or society change enough such that the concept no longer carries a pejorative connotation. I think that's what's behind the lack of treadmilling for "mute". It used to be that a lot of emphasis was placed on verbal intelligence and rhetoric skills. If one could not speak intelligently, one was not intelligent. Therefore, if you were unable to talk due to a medical condition, your lack of speech was taken as a proxy of your lack of intelligence in general. Our concepts of intelligence have changed over the years, to the point where rhetoric - part of the old trivium - is no longer treated as a "standard" university course in most universities. As part of this change in how we view intelligence, we no longer view an inability to speak as being indicative of not being intelligent. So "mute" doesn't pick up any pejorative sense from the underlying condition it's describing. -- 160.129.138.186 (talk) 18:57, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

• Twittery. (The term, not the comments above.) If you google "help wanted" "administrative assistant" you will see the results advise "He/she will perform advanced secretarial...". This means instead of a raise, you get a title. Next they'll start giving out OBE's (Official Boss's Errand-runner's). Anyone who's had an assistant position knows the boss can't function without you. I'd see both Yes, Minister and, especially, Peter Principle. μηδείς (talk) 03:10, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Talking of Yes Minister, the first episode has Sir Humphrey Appleby listing the (Civil Service) staff of his department, all of whom are called "[something] Secretary". At the end of it, Jim Hacker jokingly asks "can they all type?", and Sir Humphrey replies "None of us can type, Minister. Mrs MacKay types: she's the secretary." AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:42, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I think it is part of the trend for people wanting more highfalutin titles. Here in Blighty, the people who check your ticket on the train used to be called "conductors". Now they are called "train managers". The people who randomly get on the train to check your ticket, used to be called "inspectors". Now they are "revenue protection officers". I've been working in the computer game for 35 years, and when I started, I was "in computing" or "in DP". Now I am "in ICT", although I don't use that term. At the college where I work, the "caretaker" is now "estates manager". TrogWoolley (talk) 13:58, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

If I may quibble slightly, the historical UK term for the chap in charge of a train was "guard" - "conductor" was (and might still be) the American term. A conductor on the UK railways was the equivalent of a nautical pilot - a more experienced railwayman who assisted the driver through unusual situations (such as engineering works). Tevildo (talk) 18:13, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

(EC) It's not a matter of what the individual workers prefer to be called, but how employers describe the posts involved. ObPersonal: I have worked (in the UK) in the field of 'Office Administration' for 3 decades, and from time to time have had to look for a new job. Posts are very rarely described as 'Secretary' any more – the closest usual current equivalent would be 'PA' (for 'Personal Assistant'). Preference for 'Admin Assistant' and variants thereof is (I suggest) in part because office tasks have significantly changed with the increasing prevalence of IT, and with even quite senior managers using their own PCs and/or laptops for many tasks rather than delegating them to subordinates. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 14:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Agree with IP, Secretary (20th century usage) is now Personal Assistant (PA). Admin Asst. is a more general role, often departmental, which may be related to Junior Clerk, Office Boy, Man (or Woman) Friday, Gopher, Dogsbody. The title, however, is far more neutral and a number of Admin Assistants I have worked with have moved into more senior roles without the difficulty I would imagine previous generations might have had. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:12, 21 January 2015 (UTC).

Even the "assistant" bit of "administrative assistant" is falling out of use. Where I work (a UK government agency) the lowest grade is "administrative officer", above that "clerical officer" and then "senior clerical officer". Above that you're in middle management. Oddly enough, "secretary" has risen a bit in status. The term "secretary" is used for the personal assistant of a director (only directors and the chief executive have secretaries), and is usually of senior clerical officer grade. A bit off-topic, but my dad and I were discussing it recently and comparing it to the army, where you have three ranks of enlisted men and about ten ranks of officers. --Nicknack009 (talk) 19:25, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, with "secretary" no longer used for a typist/file clerk, it may return more to it's original meaning, as a high level executive, as in Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, etc., which never went away completely. This may be a good thing. StuRat (talk) 19:34, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Why is K^w a consonant?

I read about the theories about the Indo-European language family.
And I wondered how come is that K^w is considered one consonant and not complex of consonants for example.
14:30, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The reason why the 'w' is superscript is because the 'K' and 'w' are considered to have been pronounced simultaneously. Hence, the transition to 'p' in the Celtic and Indo-Iranian languages. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 14:47, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

See secondary articulation for more on that kind of thing. In regards to your question of why, specifically, PIE is considered to have such consonants, you might check out Indo-European sound laws. *kʷ may have made more sense than *kw because, comparing the corresponding sounds in its daughter languages, it made more sense to see it as a single co-articulated consonant than a cluster. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:03, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Could it be a double stop as in Igbo? —Tamfang (talk) 06:29, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

We don't actually know how it was pronounced (though we can guess). The reason that it is treated as a consonant is that it behaves the same way as the other consonants, and not like clusters. There probably was a semivowel /w/ in Indo-European, (which was the zero-grade of the vowel /u/), and there could have been words where this followed /k/ (I'm not sure); but if there were they will have developed differently from /kʷ/. --ColinFine (talk) 17:11, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Quibble: As I misunderstand and misremember it, /*w/ is expressed as [*u] in zero-grade forms of stems that otherwise have [*ew] or [*ow]. —Tamfang (talk) 06:29, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

• The biggest argument is because the /k^w/s pattern like other single consonants, and not like strings. It normally always develops as a unit, not as a /k/ followed by a separate /w/. Also it fits in a pattern:

p--t--k--k^w

b--d--g--k^w

b^h--d^h--g^h--g^wh

where forms like /p^w/ are absent. /tw/, /sw/, and /dw/, etc., are usually treated as strings, because the /w/ segment can end up taking its own stress, as in Latin duo, as ColinFine alluded to. The situation is complex, and there are respected minority views that disagree with some of what I've said above. I would suggest Szemerenyi and Lehmann as good conservative sources. Ivanov and Gamkrelidze is a more recent work that discusses the possibility of alternative analyses. μηδείς (talk) 18:39, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Identification and textifiction of three images

The following are in a) Don't know, b) Arabic and c) Russian.

1. What is the language of the first?
2. Can you provide text of one or more (and translations)?

Three of the translations issued by Charlie Hebdo on the day of the shooting.

• 
  Another language
• 
  Arabic
• 
  Russian

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 16:16, 21 January 2015 (UTC).

The first one is Farsi. It says "من چارلی هستیم ", and the Arabic is "انا شارلي", which are both "I am Charlie". But the Persian is wrong, I think? It mixes up the singular and plural, basically it says "I are Charlie" - it should be either "من چارلی هستم " or "ما چارلی هستیم ". (Once again Omidinist will have to confirm!) I'll leave the Russian to a Russian-speaker, but it looks like it says "I am Charlie Hebdo", while the Farsi and Arabic don't have the "Hebdo" part. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:39, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Confirmed! Omidinist (talk) 04:44, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

A transliteration of the Russian would be Ya Sharli Ebdo (Я Шарли Эбдо) "I Sharli Ebdo" with "am" implied and no idication of the silent French 'H'. μηδείς (talk) 18:01, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure "implied" is the right word there. The correct translation is "I am Charlie Hebdo". Russian doesn't use the present tense of the verb to be except in some very obscure places that most speakers never encounter. So it's not a matter of an "am" being implied, per se. It would be just as wrong for the English version to be without "am" as it would be for the Russian to include their verb. Neither does Russian use definite or indefinite articles, but when translating we need to insert them into our English version wherever appropriate. We don't talk of these being "implied". There is generally not a one-to-one correspondence between the words in the source language and the corresponding words in the target language, which is why it's the meaning of the whole sentence or the whole expression that's the focus of the translator's energy, not the meaning of the individual component words. Otherwise, we'd translate s'il vousplaît as "if it you pleases" rather than just "please". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:04, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Similarly in Japanese, the verb 'to be' can be omitted. 俺、チャーリー・ヘブド。 would be perfectly acceptable when spoken. A bit like 'Me Tarzan, you Jane." KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 14:23, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

I am aware of this, but I didn't use the word translation. I gave a transliteration (I wanted to use ja, but I won't get into that) and a word-for-word gloss. (S'il vous plaît would be "If it please you", which is perfectly cromulent English) μηδείς (talk) 22:59, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

If you're giving a transliteration then there's no need to say anything about "implied" at all. That would be part of a translation. --Viennese Waltz 23:11, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I gave a transliteration in italics, as well as the original as text in Cyrillic, and a word-for-word gloss in quotes, which does indeed require comment, or the English speaker with no familiarity with Eastern Slavic might think I'd left something out. μηδείς (talk) 20:25, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Likewise, the Arabic actually word-for-wod says "I Charlie", as it doesn't even have any present-tense forms for "to be". (Normally the pronoun would be omitted, but in this case there's no verb to carry that info.) Adam Bishop (talk) 16:52, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Many thanks to all! All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 00:36, 23 January 2015 (UTC).

What can cause stark idiolectal differences in the speech of children anent their parents?

I'm a rare case in that my speech is far more conservative than my parents for a multitude of reasons, one being my linguistic studies, as well as my appreciation for my local speech.

However, if we look on the flip side...

What can cause stark idiolectal differences in the speech of children from their parents?

Now I'm not talking about switching whole dialects or anything, I'm just talking about notable differences in the manner in which a child speaks from their parents, even though they speak the same dialects (and have most of that dialect's notable traits).

So I am not referring to when someone picks up a completely different dialect from their local one as a prestige dialect (unless they merely adopt "prestige" elements from it into their idiolect), I am referring to when a parent and child speak the same dialect, and yet that have notably different idiolects to the point where, for instance, they might sound like they each speak different subdialects of their local dialect (by which I mean those dialects that are categorised like like "Eastern Examplesville Dialect", "Northern Examplesville Dialect", "Western Examplesville Dialect", etc.)

So does anyone here know? Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 18:17, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Interaction with friends who speak a different sub-dialect (e.g. at school) is probably the primary factor. Education can also be another. TV may also be another. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 18:39, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, although I would expand "TV" to all spoken media, like movies, radio, and online audio. Hopefully we don't pick up our dialects from our cars, or we will all end up saying "The door is a jar". :-) StuRat (talk) 19:38, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

What can cause it? Snobbery on the part of the parents, I'd say. My mom worked hard on her accent to make it sound less Black Country and more posh, and was utterly mortified when I took pride in my Black Country accent to the extent of studying it as part of my degree course! --TammyMoet (talk) 21:06, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

My accent changed due to interaction with non-English speakers for most of my life. I can revert to my own Scouse accent if I need to (some people feel intimidated by someone who speaks with a 'posh' accent). My mum tried to teach me to 'talk posh' when I was a kid, by using her version of 'talking posh', which incidentally made her sound more Scouse, and got angry when I spoke with a male Scouse accent (male and female Scouse are different). My Scouse accent is still discernible to a degree, for non-Scousers, but Scousers always ask me where I am from. By the way, Tammy, we don't use 'mom' in the UK..... :) KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 21:15, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Now this is a case in point. "Mom" is definitely used in the Black Country and has been for a very long time. In the rest of the country it's generally "Mum". So yes, "Mom" is used in the UK in one small part of it - and I am proud to come from that part! --TammyMoet (talk) 16:42, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Wow, before I followed the link, I imagined the "Black Country" as some remote, mysterious, romantic place. Now that I know what it means, all I can say is, I'm sorry. Hope it's gotten better since the coal ran out.

There are some places I just find depressing. I know a lot of people think that about my city, Los Angeles, which I love, in spite of her flaws. But there are very nice places to go within a couple hours' drive, except to get there, you have to go through the Inland Empire, and that just always saps my spirit a bit. What can it be like for those who actually live there? I suppose they must find a way to reinterpret the things that get me down. --Trovatore (talk) 16:56, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

On reflection, the above was a bit rude and I apologize. I was reacting to the meaning of the "black" part of "Black Country", which was really disappointing, but on further reading it appears that those conditions have not obtained for quite some time — maybe kind of like Pittsburgh, which is now quite a beautiful city. --Trovatore (talk) 17:42, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

It could be worse. I live in Detroit, but there are bright spots even here. StuRat (talk) 18:03, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

A case in point is Geoffrey Robertson (hear here). He's often been accused of deliberately acquiring a plummy (and most un-Australian) accent in order to advance his legal career or show off or whatever. This is not the case. He was a very late talker. His mother had the radio on all day, tuned to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In those days (the late '40s and early '50s), ABC persons all spoke with plummy British accents. Robertson was an only child who didn't mix much with neighbouring children, and from the time he started speaking he unconsciously emulated the speech patterns of the radio announcers he'd been hearing all day every day. He didn't intentionally reject whatever way his parents spoke. Then there's Josh Thomas (comedian), who somehow developed a unique accent that stumps everyone who hears him for the first time. He says he just created it all by himself at a very early age, and now it's totally natural. See this. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:52, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

This may be obvious and not what you were looking for, but it is quite typical for children to speak differently from their parents due to generational language change. One of the main ways language change takes place is that children adopt speech patterns which are common to their generation and different from those of their parents' generation. In the United States, it is often possible to identify a person's generation from his or her speech. The same is probably true elsewhere. Marco polo (talk) 22:03, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

The articles on age-graded variation and apparent-time hypothesis might be of interest here too. ---Sluzzelin talk 01:47, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

• Here are a gajillion sources to answer the OPs question. Many of them are quite good. --Jayron32 02:15, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

@KageTora: What does "education" entail in the context of your response?

@TammyMoet: Whilst, on the other hand, the part of New England that I am from does use mum, contrarily to the rest of North America (as far as I know). However, it is often spelt "mom" (though I have seen both spellings used). But phonetically, it is /mʌm/ here.

@Marco polo: Doesn't that vary at least to a certain extent upon the general conservativeness of a dialect? I mean, I agree in the general accuracy of your statement, but at the same time I've seen plenty of (even group-wise) cases in which that was not really the case at all. Furthermore, I was born in the late-mid '90s, and yet, for as long as I can remember, most people that I have run into that were not local to my area have grouped mine and my sibling's idiolects in with those of bygone generations.

@Jayron32: I don't subscribe to Google. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 19:10, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Google is not a subscription service. By the way, this is the first time I have seen 'anent' used in a work written after the Second World War. Your own idiolect is pretty idiosyncratic. AlexTiefling (talk) 23:44, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

It does indeed have a musty smell. Perhaps it's due for a revival by people who like mustiness. (Cf [if you "subscribe to Google"] an implausibly popularized trisyllabic alternative to "if".) -- Hoary (talk) 01:12, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

If you can't be bothered to click my link, and then click a second link, I don't know why you expect us to do any more for you. --Jayron32 00:42, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

 Like -- Hoary (talk) 01:12, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@AlexTiefling: Definition three, hotshot. Also, since when was the fact that I am a linguistic purist--a fact that I have openly stated on my user page for years now--that, whilst does not usually show itself in my work here due to my linguistic purism being generally reserved for poetry, has nothing to do with my local dialect or local wordstock, and thus not having any particular influence other than to the extent that I indicated in my original post, have to do with anything?

@Jayron32: I'm not exactly sure what that statement is supposed to mean, but let me assure you that I have clicked on no links to searches linked on this page over the course of this discussion. I'm not singling out you or anything. I actually did search the Web on this subject, though I used a different search engine that isn't controlled by what I personally feel is an ill-willed, hypocritical, tyrannical, megacompany). I very much appreciate the sentiment, however. But, like I said, I just don't use Google products anymore. They've done me wrong far too many times in the past. Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 01:54, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

whilst does not usually show itself in my work here due to my linguistic purism being generally reserved for poetry: hmm, this comes as a mild surprise, as I'd have thought that somebody calling themself a "linguistic purist" would demand an "it" immediately before "does", and "purism's" rather than plain "purism". (The former worries me only slightly, the latter not at all.) ¶ I normally use Duckduckgo myself. Use what you will. -- Hoary (talk) 02:49, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@User:Tharthan I mean the difference between the education of the older generation and the younger generation. We don't sit in the playground playing marbles these days and then going off to work in factories. We have much more experience of and interaction with the outside world via the internet. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 04:46, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

@KageTora: True enough. But what does that have to do with it? Do you mean that, because people are quite constantly interacting, that these things would happen far swifter than before, or something like that? Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 19:02, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Essentially, yes. It's a case of having more social interaction with people from different parts of the country (and world), via internet, which is provided in schools and elsewhere. Also, young people like to speak like their peers, in order to fit in socially. If their peers speak in a different way, then so will they. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 19:23, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps, but I've actually seen the exact opposite happen far more often (as a response to what you are suggesting). Something similar to "counterculture"-type concepts. Then, the result is that very little ends up changing dialectally. Sort of like an "up hill, down dale, up hill, down dale" type thing, if you get what I'm saying. What would cause such a thing to happen, though? Furthermore, on a broader scale, what causes "reversions" of certain perceived processes of the sort, à la TammyMoet's example? Is it purely pride, or is there something else to it? Tharthandorf Aquanashi (talk) 19:38, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Not really. To take the example of Scouse I mentioned above, there has been a massive change between the way Scouse was spoken 50 years ago when The Beatles were first starting up and Scouse spoken now. Language changes over generations, and we are now in a position to make recordings to actually monitor that change. It's a pity we couldn't do that thousands of years ago, because that really would have been interesting. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 04:48, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

If one is defiantly proud of one's roots, this can lead to an effort (conscious or otherwise) to seek out and use as role models the elders of one's sub-culture and regional sub-dialect, in a quest for "authenticity", even if one's parents deliberately sought assimilation to the dominant culture. This is not unrelated, I'm thinking, to the local Native American tribes who use part of the proceeds of casino operations to subsidize schools in which the children of the tribes are schooled by the few surviving speakers of the tribal languages, lest they be lost forever (see language death). --Orange Mike | Talk 00:48, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

Grammar question

I just typed this sentence on another Reference Desk. After I typed it, I realized how "funny" it sounded. The sentence is: Some form of it, I'm sure, has had to have occurred over the past 50+ years. So, let me remove the extraneous words. The sentence, at its root, is: Some form of it has had to have occurred over the past 50+ years. Is that correct and proper grammar? I am referring to the verb: has had to have occurred. And, what tense is that? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:04, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Lose the "had" and you've probably got it. But it would read better as "must have occurred". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:18, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. This is simply a post for the Wikipedia Entertainment Help Desk. (See here: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Entertainment#Super Bowl question about cheating.) So, I am not concerned with re-writing it or with making it sound better. My real question is: is that proper grammar or is there something wrong in there? Is it grammatically correct, even though it sounds funny? Or is there a grammatical error? If so, what? (And what tense is that?) Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:47, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

It's gramatically correct, but it sounds funny. must have occurred - you could pick at the technical correctness, but it's common usage for that meaning. ―Mandruss ☎ 23:51, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Losing the "had", as per Bugs' suggestion, does very slightly change the nuance. I agree it's an unusual construction, using as it does three forms of the verb "to have". It's sort of treating "to have to have occurred" as a single verb and putting it into the past continuous tense. This may or may not be legitimate, but it's deliciously inventive. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 00:03, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

It cannot be the past continuous, as that that would be 'was having had to have occurred'. It's the present perfect. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 07:52, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

It sounds perfectly normal to me. I must've used the same construction more than once. I'd say it's fine as it is, at least when writing colloquially, though admittedly, parsing it is a bit tricky. — kwami (talk) 01:33, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Agreed it's perfectly grammatical, and not that rare in speech. I would avoid writing that and similar have/had/has clumpings in anything other than casual contexts. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:37, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Anybody know the tense? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:12, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

It's an auxiliary verb in the past perfect linked to a perfect infinitive. Really the tense is past, but the aspect is perfect. Marco polo (talk) 15:30, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

MP is correct except that "has had" is the present perfect, the past perfect would be had had. μηδείς (talk) 18:35, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

According to pluperfect, past perfect would be had written (and I guess "pluperfect" is now a deprecated near synonym of "past perfect" for English grammar). So wouldn't *had had written be past pluperfect? SemanticMantis (talk) 19:07, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Anyway, MP's description of past tense and perfect aspect is exactly what is described at the pluperfect article. While I think OP's *has had to have is semantically different from had, I'm not sure that it has any different grammatical quality. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:07, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, I was mistaken. SemanticMantis is correct. Marco polo (talk) 16:57, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

"Had had written" is not relevant or analogous. (He has had to have written me at least 50 times over the last month would be analogous to the case here.) The phrase in question is has had to have occurred and the "had" here is the past participle of have. If you can say "it has to have occurred" in the present, then you can say "it has had to have occurred" in the present perfect. This is no different from the present "it needs to have occurred by noon monday" and the present perfect "it has needed to have occurred by noon before." μηδείς (talk) 22:51, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. I am following all this discussion about past tense, etc. But what is "aspect" that Marco polo mentions above? I have never heard the term "aspect" as a term for grammar before. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:14, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Grammatical aspect is looking at time from the inside, so to speak. Anyway, it's present perfect (has had) plus infinitive perfect (to have occurred). Only the first and third "haves" are modals, ~ "I have wanted to have been there, but don't any more". — kwami (talk) 23:33, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Agree 100% with kwami. μηδείς (talk) 20:20, 23 January 2015 (UTC)