Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 July 29

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July 29

Antonym (etc.) of "backlog"

Does the English language have an antonym (possibly "frontlog") for the noun "backlog" or for the verb "backlog"? It would involve tasks which can afford to be deferred (or which should be deferred) until a backlog (of backlogged tasks) has been cleared. Also, is there a term (possibly "midlog") with an intermediate sense (as a noun or as a verb) involving tasks which are in neither of the two other sets, that is to say, tasks whose speed of being performed needs no adjustment?
—Wavelength (talk) 03:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

You may find project management vocabulary relevant. The Project Management Institute's PMI Lexicon of Project Management Terms requires registration to access; Quizlet.com offers open access: Lexicon of Project Management Terms. See, for example:

Predecessor Activity: An activity that logically comes before a dependent activity in a schedule.

Successor Activity: A dependent activity that logically comes after another activity in a schedule.

Start-to-Finish: A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot finish until a predecessor activity has started.

Start-to-Start: A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot start until a predecessor activity has started.

Finish-to-Finish: A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot finish until a predecessor activity has finished.

Finish-to-Start: A logical relationship in which a successor activity cannot start until a predecessor activity has finished.

Path Convergence: A relationship in which a schedule activity has more than one predecessor.

Path Divergence: A relationship in which a schedule activity has more than one successor.

Precedence Diagramming Method: A technique used for constructing a schedule model in which activities are represented by nodes and are graphically linked by one or more logical relationships to show the sequence in which the activities are to be performed.

More at Dependency_(project_management)

-- Paulscrawl (talk) 03:42, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I suggest that the antonym of "backlog" is "tasks done in advance of an anticipated need". I don't think there's a single word for it, though "reserve" might work in some cases. --65.94.50.73 (talk) 09:09, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps the tasks could be shelved until the backlog is cleared. See http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/shelve (2nd def.) 196.213.35.146 (talk) 09:21, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

From a warehouse POV, the opposite of "orders on backlog" is "orders in stock". StuRat (talk) 14:37, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

The origin of the term "backlog" and of one sense of "log" may be enlightening.[1][2] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:08, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Can someone explain why logarithms are so called? 86.134.217.46 (talk) 18:36, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

From New Latin logarithmus, term coined by Scot mathematician John Napier from Ancient Greek λόγος (lógos, “word, reason”) and ἀριθμός (arithmós, “number”). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:00, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

If you permutate 'loga' you get 'algo' (that permutation can be written (lao)), which is entirely irrelevant Contact Basemetal here 20:20, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Annexure- for building?

Can an annex to a main block alternately called annexure? --117.253.191.159 (talk) 14:33, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Wiktionary defines the noun annexure as "something annexed". However, I've never heard the word, and I don't believe it would be common usage. Rojomoke (talk) 16:49, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

This [3] explains that the surviving usage is almost solely as a synonym for "appendix" in certain legal documents. While OP might be able to defend such a usage as "That class meets in the annexure of the math building" it would be confusing to many readers, and look archaic/pompous/efete to most of the rest. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:33, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Legalese is a law unto itself. For example, in a legal document the word "user" does not mean what you think it means, it means "usage". Conversely, these special terms can trickle out into the ordinary language, as many specialist terms do. The "premises" in a lease are the conditions attached to the demise, but in ordinary language the word has come to mean the building itself. Are there any other words which are plural but have no plural connotation? 86.134.217.46 (talk) 18:30, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Scissors, spectacles (glasses), trousers, pants, knickers, series ... and for fun, chaos and kudos. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:47, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

User:JackofOz Since when is "chaos" a plural of any sort? It's just a word that ends in -s. Straight through ancient Greek to Latin to Old Fr to Eng [4]. $\chi \alpha \mathrm {o} \varsigma$ is just a third declension singular nominative form in Ancient Greek [5], and it originally meant "void" or "abyss", which are both singular concepts. See also Chaos_(cosmogony), which says it's from a verb, but wiktionary says that is uncertain [6]. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:37, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I did say "for fun". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:21, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

And famously grits: "I'm not sure if I'll like them, so you better just give me one grit to start with". StuRat (talk) 19:12, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Apropos of grits, when living in Scotland I learned that "porridge" used to be treated as a plural word: e.g. "These porridge are delicious." I gather this is now only an historical curiosity. {The poster formerly known as 87,81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 17:23, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

What I was getting at is these examples from Jack relate to more than one leg, lens or whatever. Series can be infinite. 86.134.217.46 (talk) 18:59, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, we treat them as if they were plural (we never talk of a trouser or a scissor) and they take plural pronouns (these knickers, not this knicker) but they still connote singular objects. Series can be either singular or plural depending on the context, as can sheep, fish etc, but the default would be singular. An infinite series is still just one (1) series. I'm sure there would be an infinite number of infinite series. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:55, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

"A scissor" is substandard but not unencountered in AmEng. μηδείς (talk) 21:20, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Double negatives are not unencountered either. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:31, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

We do say trouser leg, when talking about one particular part of the trousers, Jack, and we can say scissor blade, when talking about one particular part of the scissors. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 11:45, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Wait, chao DOES have a singular. shoy (reactions) 12:25, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Kage, in those contexts "trouser" and "scissor" are adjectives. It's the norm to remove the plural endings when (morphologically) plural words become converted to adjectives. Thus, "I walked for seven miles today" becomes "I went on a seven-mile walk today". If someone were to eat your testicles in between 2 slices of bread, they'd be having "a testicle sandwich". There are exceptions, though: The case for one's glasses is still "glasses case", not "glass case", because the latter would connote a case made of glass. See, English is smart, that way. We make exceptions to any rule if it suits our convenience in communicating exactly and unambiguously what we mean. As long as everyone accepts the exception (rather than excepts the acception), that system works just dandily, and if it ain't broke, there's no case for it to be fixed. For example, everyone accepted that it's referred to the abbreviation for "it is" or "it has", and its referred to the 3rd person singular neuter possessive pronoun (or possessive adjective, if you prefer). That worked brilliantly; until some uneducated* people decided it was more logical to insert an apostrophe into its, thus introducing a needless ambiguity and acting in contravention of a very longstanding international agreement with which nobody had a problem. Others followed suit, and now the entire language is utterly wrecked, ruined, smashed, violated and perverted, hyperbolically speaking. (* It's the fault of the "education" systems under which they suffered.) I seem to have meandered off track. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:10, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

They are not adjectives, Jack, they are attributive nouns, which still means they are nouns, and in my examples they are perfectly fine with having singular forms. I challenge thee to a dual (and not a plural). KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 23:06, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I accept your jewel. Make mine an emerald, to match my eyes. Rubies and lapis lazuli are acceptable, too. But no diamonds, please; they're so common. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:19, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Negation

The negation of can is "cannot". The negation of shall is "shall not". The negation of do is "do not". So, why is the negation of eat "do not eat" and not "eat not"? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 18:44, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

It can be, in poetic language. Same for go not, speak not, write not, etc.

See Arthur Hugh Clough's "Say not that the struggle naught availeth / The labour and the wounds are vain / The enemy faints not, nor faileth, / And as things have been they remain." -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:53, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

So, it's only part of poetic language and not everyday language? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 18:59, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

"do", "can" and "be" are auxiliary verbs, the rules are different for them. "Eat not" would be regular somewhere around the 14th century (it still works in German), but today it sounds archaic and this is also what gives such expressions their poetic quality Asmrulz (talk) 19:09, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

These constructions come about because they're frequently called on and easy to say. They are contracted for that reason. This happens in all languages: Portuguese em + o becomes no. In English you get can't, don't, won't, sha'n't (when did sha'n't reduce to sha'nt?) 86.134.217.46 (talk) 20:21, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

According to this, "shan't" [sic] is actually older. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 20:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

See Do-support. --ColinFine (talk) 23:16, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Adjectival form of "lacking imagination"

I'm struggling with the way "imaginationless" fails to roll off the tongue smoothly, can anyone suggest an alternative? I'm trying to write something like "Such an imaginationless person shouldn't be allowed to read to children." It's a statement about a specific person thus "Someone without imagination shouldn't..." doesn't fit well either. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 19:02, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

How about "insipid" or "uncreative"? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 19:04, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

"The unimaginative shouldn't attempt...". StuRat (talk) 19:05, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Or more directly, "Such an unimaginative person...". --65.94.50.73 (talk) 03:46, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure a person can be called unimaginative, I would only use it to describe a work or action - "unimaginative plan/decor/menu/novel". Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 14:07, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Lower-left-brained. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:12, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Dull. DuncanHill (talk) 16:49, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Bless, blessed

In general parlance, someone may say, "We feel so blessed at this dinner!" which means "We feel so happy at this dinner!" However, the verb form "bless" seems to depart from the happy meaning, because "We feel so holy at this dinner!" just doesn't make any sense, but "We feel so favored at this dinner!" makes sense, because the inviter probably invited the guest to be at the dinner. The Merriam-Webster dictionary says that to bless someone or something means to make something holy, not to make something or someone happy, though I suppose happiness may be the result of being holy. Anyway, I find that the discrepancy between "bless" and "blessed" highlights the idiomatic uses of the words. When people ask their parents for a blessing of their marriage, I presume they are really asking their parents' permission to marry, because "approve" is one of the accepted Merriam-Webster's definitions. Can someone please clarify for me the difference between "bless" and "blessed"? Are they related terms or not? What about the emotion involved in "feeling blessed"? Why "blessing someone" doesn't mean "making someone happy"? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 19:46, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I think you will find that those using this terminology are using it in a religious sense: favored by God. StevenJ81 (talk) 20:12, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

[ec] Such a use of "blessed" isn't idiomatic in UK English - "We feel so blessed at this dinner" would only be said by a very religious (not necessarily Christian) person with a deliberately religious meaning; that is, it _would_ unambiguously mean "we feel so holy". It might be used to mean "fortunate" ("We've been blessed by good weather today"), but it always has religious overtones. Tevildo (talk) 20:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I wonder if accurse and accursed would be the opposite of bless and blessed. However, I never hear anyone say, "I feel so accursed!" or "I curse you to ten years of unhappiness and bad luck!" 71.79.234.132 (talk) 20:51, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think you have to be religious to feel that food is provided by God's gift. When I was at school lunch ("dinner") was preceded by grace - a prefect would say "for what we are about to receive may the Lord make us truly thankful" and then everyone started eating. Cf. the Blessed Sacrament, which is a meal of bread and wine received by Christians and "manna from heaven". 86.134.217.46 (talk) 20:34, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

71.79, that's the goodness of human nature shining through. 86.134.217.46 (talk) 20:54, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Part of the subtlety is that there is an underlying assumption that both God and human beings can bestow blessings. If someone says "we feel so blessed" at a dinner, the implication is, as I perceive it, is that God has provided abundant food and good health to those present. But this can be metaphorical as well as literalistic. One can be grateful for nature's bounty and one's own good fortune, and frame it in vaguely religious language, without believing in a God who says to himself, "I think that I will bless that splendid McNamara dinner party in Scranton, Pennsylvania this evening", while simultaneously saying "I think that I will withold the blessings of thin soup today from that Somali family in that refugee camp, and let typhus take their child". That would be a horrifying God. Much is left unsaid when such language is used. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 07:11, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

"To bless" doesn't mean "to make happy" and "blessed" doesn't mean "happy", except by extension of that fact that if you were blessed you would probably also become happy as a side-effect. The original meaning of blessing was to bestow divine favour on someone/thing. (The term is Germanic pagan in origin, not Biblical, and etymologically related to "blood", which would have been used in the ritual. Similar concepts occur in many other religions though, hence its use in English translations of the Bible). Originally if parents gave their blessing to a marriage, they would literally be invoking the gods to ensure it was successful. Over time, the meaning was watered down to merely "approving and expressing hope that it was successful". Likewise, originally if someone said they felt blessed at a meal, they would literally mean that they felt as though the gods were favoring them. If people are now using it to mean simply that they are feeling happy, that is a change in meaning from the original. If people are not also using "bless" to mean "make happy", that's because English (unlike French) doesn't have anyone to force people to use words consistently. Iapetus (talk) 14:44, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I wonder if the meaning "happy" of blessed was also partly influenced by the etymologically unrelated bliss (which is related to blithe instead). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:50, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Syntax: not...either

Are all of the following sentences correct / acceptable, syntacticallly?

1. "I'm not old, and you are not old either".
2. "I'm not old, nor are you old either".
3. "I'm not old, and I'm not tall either".
4. "I'm not old, nor am I tall either".

84.229.167.93 (talk) 21:45, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

The two that have both "nor" and "either" are wrong.

• "I'm not old, nor are you old either" should be "I'm not old, nor are you old", or "I'm not old, neither are you old".
• "I'm not old, nor am I tall either" should be "I'm not old, nor am I tall" or "I'm not old, neither am I tall".

The other two are fine. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks a lob ! Oops, I meant thanks a lock ! Oh sorry, I meant...thanks a lodge... What's this? Sorry again, I meant...thanks a log... Oh no, What's happening with me today? Thanks a loll ! No no no...

I just called, to say, thanks a lot ! Oh, that's it ! Thanks a lot ! Thank you so much, Jack, I appreciate your answer ! Thankxs ! 84.229.167.93 (talk) 09:23, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I'd shorten them a lot, too:

• "I'm not old, nor are you."
• "Neither of us is old."
• "I'm not old, nor tall."
• "I'm neither old nor tall."

I prefer the 2nd and 4th. StuRat (talk) 14:30, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Me too. Your version #3 is ungrammatical, imo. "I'm not old, nor am I tall" can't be reduced to "I'm not old, nor tall". It ought to be "I'm not old, or tall". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:49, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

OP's comment: I was just looking for grammatical sentences with "not...either" (or "nor...either", had this been grammatical) 84.229.167.93 (talk) 10:04, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

big-bigger, vs. good-"gooder"

Since English has "warm-warmer", "high-higher", and likewise, why doesn't English have "good-gooder"? Has the word "gooder" - always been abnormal - in all periods of English?

HOOTmag (talk) 22:05, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

See suppletion. It is neither uncommon with frequently used paradigms, nor unique to English. μηδείς (talk) 22:18, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

The very phenomenon of suppletion, is well-known in many languages - including English of course (e.g. "He has" instead of "He haves"), but my question is mainly about the psychology hidden behind specific cases (e.g. "gooder" "badder"), which - due to some reason - became cases of suppletion, i.e. my question is about what this reason was.

Take "badder" as an example: I can only guess, that maybe people don't like it because it can easily be confused with "better" - which has just the opposite meaning, so they preferred the other word - "worse" - which was already used before it was preferred to "badder". Anyways, I still wonder about "gooder": what's bad in using it, and why people decided to prefer "better". Notice that I'm not asking about "better": I assume it derives from words like "beneficial" and the like: I'm more curious about why "gooder" was ruled out... HOOTmag (talk) 22:39, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

• Mere irregularity of form such as have~has is not suppletion. —Tamfang (talk) 05:48, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

See also the word origins, which may help:[7][8][9] [10][11][12] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:28, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm not a linguist, but good-better has an exact equivalent in German: gut-besser, so that one seems to predate the separation of the two languages. 81.146.50.197 (talk) 22:34, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

This is a particular example of the tension between Words and Rules, extensively discussed in Pinker's book of that name. --ColinFine (talk) 23:19, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

A more recent example is person~people. "Persons" is still used in formal writing, as is "peoples". They are historically completely different words, but have become identified with each other. Why that happened is an extremely difficult question to answer. — kwami (talk) 04:11, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Going by the OED, which may be out of date, it seems that 'bad' is a relatively recent word, originally meaning s.t. like 'sissy'. It used to be 'evil > worse' or 'ill > worse'. (He's ill, he's gotten worse.) When 'bad' displaced evil/ill, it inherited the comparative 'worse', and the original comparative 'badder' dropped out of use. (You can see this a lot, actually: I'm fucked, but you're worse -- does that make 'worse' the comparative of 'fucked'?) — kwami (talk) 04:22, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Interesting question. Leo Tolstoy once said to Anton Chekhov: You know I can't stand Shakespeare's plays, but yours are even worse. Worse than what? Does "I can't stand X" automatically mean "X is bad"? Not in my world; when did the definition of "bad" become "whatever Tolstoy didn't like"? Or anyone else? It seems Tolstoy is inviting Chekhov to believe that Shakespeare is bad, but he doesn't explicitly say so. I'm sure this is subtly related to your foregoing question. Somehow. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:41, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Suppletion is usually found in highly frequent words. Good vs. bad, many/much vs. few/little, big/great vs. small/little, young vs. old, high vs. low, these kinds of highly frequent adjectives have irregular comparative and superlative forms (and also adverbial forms) in other languages, too. There are languages in which there are only a limited number of adjectives in the first place (compare Adjective#Distribution and Part of speech#Open and closed classes), and they usually designate exactly those kinds of qualities I have just enumerated. The psychological explanation may simply be that the luxury of having separate unrelated words or roots for paradigmatically related or derived forms is only affordable for extremely frequently used concepts, while in less frequent lexemes, they tend to be regularised even if they were once irregular (as a result of sound change, for example) as otherwise they would be too big of a burden on memory. This may mean that the "default" state is actually to have completely separate, unrelated lexemes for related concepts (person – people, king – queen, good – well, go – went, one – first, healthy – ill/sick, big – size), and what requires explanation is the presence of a relationship of form. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:39, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

• Suppletion specifically means the replacement of one or more forms in a grammatical paradigm where a regular form might be expected, by another form from an entirely different root. It has nothing to do with synonyms (small, little), opposites (young, old) or words with similar meanings (fewer, less) which are used in different contexts.

Examples of suppletion in English include good/better, person/people, and go/went. These three sets are highly susceptible to suppletion, with Spanish having bueno/mejor, persona/gente, voy/fui and Rusyn having dobry/lepszy chelovek/lyudi, idu/poshol.

Some suppletive pairs have no surviving alternatives, like good and better which do not admit of gooder and bet. Others still have regular forms like persons and peoples which retains special meanings (bodies and ethnic groups). While went is still somewhat transparently from wend, English has lost the preterite form of go, although German still has ich ging and we have lost the realization that "gang" is derived from "to go". Florian is correct that the reason suppletion is retained is due to frequency. Infrequent irregular forms of all sorts are normally lost over time. μηδείς (talk) 21:54, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

I merely listed the kinds of meanings that irregular and suppletive adjectives, and closed-class adjectives, usually have. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:12, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

• "Gooder" actually has found use as a verb, as in "Do-gooder". Eman235/talk 10:17, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Do-gooder is a flippant coinage using the agentive noun -er suffix, not the adjectival comparative suffix. English is odd in using -s, -er, -ing, and -en so commonly yet with different meanings. μηδείς (talk) 17:42, 1 August 2015 (UTC)