Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 March 10

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March 10

Property to reflect light

From Gloss (optics): "Gloss is an optical property of a surface to reflect light in a specular (mirror-like) direction". The meaning is obvious, but I'm uncertain that you can combine the word "property" with an infinitive. Upon reading it again, I have a feeling that it's borderline ungrammatical, but I can't find an equally elegant alternative. A previous version read: "Gloss is an optical property describing the ability of a surface to reflect light into the specular direction.", which sounds more apt, but a tad roundabout. What do you think? No such user (talk) 09:17, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

How about: "Gloss is an optical property of a surface which makes it reflect light in a specular (mirror-like) direction"? — Kpalion^(talk) 15:07, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Not really: gloss doesn't make the surface shine – on the contrary, the surface makes the object glossy. The older formulation is always an acceptable fallback, but I'm more interested what native (and native-like) speakers feel about acceptability of the current one. No such user (talk) 19:34, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

"Gloss is an optical property which indicates how well a surface reflects light in a ...". Clarityfiend (talk) 00:08, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

And you live up to your username [I suppose it's wikt:fiend (5)] ;). Thanks. No such user (talk) 08:13, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Anymore

Do many other languages have a direct translation of the English adverb anymore (as in "I don't do that anymore")? An adverb meaning "I used to [x], but not for some time" seems like it would be relatively uncommon, but maybe I'm completely wrong. The Wiktionary definition is to me eminently unsatisfying. Wiktionary does list some translations, but I don't know whether there's a one-to-one situational correspondence with English. Also curious as to how we get to the current non-literal (i.e., merely comparative) meaning of "anymore" from "any" + "more". 58.7.138.46 (talk) 09:26, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Judging from the Wiktionary translations, European languages employ equivalents of "more" and "longer", i.e. they are able to express the concept, but do not utilize a specialized adverb. It could be argued that English does not strictly need one either, i.e. *"I don't do that more" and *"I don't do that longer" could be used without ambiguity,... well, except that they don't. But I don't know the answer to the question which language does have one. No such user (talk) 09:49, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

AFAIK, French uses the "ne...plus" construction to say "Don't XXXX anymore". That's a pretty straight-up translation. "Plus" means "more", so "Je ne vais plus" means "I don't go (there) (any)more." --Jayron32 13:18, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Similarly, German uses "nicht mehr". "Ich gehe nicht mehr" means "I don't go anymore." Marco polo (talk) 13:59, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

And likewise, Dutch uses "niet meer" (no more) or "niet langer" (no longer, less common). Hebrew used עוד (`od), which has the basic meaning of still: "לא ... עוד" (not ... still = not .. anymore) - Lindert (talk) 15:39, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

This is a side note, but עוד kind of just means "more" in general when dealing with nouns. עוד מים בבקשה! (More water please!) Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie | ^{Say Shalom!} 19 Adar 5775 15:50, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Polish uses już nie, which combines już 'already' and nie 'not'. "I don't go there anymore" is Już tam nie chodzę.

— Chodzisz tam jeszcze? "Do you still go there?"

— Już nie. "Not anymore."

— Kpalion^(talk) 15:15, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

もう＋[negative verb] in Japanese. It is 'mou' in romaji, and pronounced exactly like 'more' in non-rhotic accents. 'Mou yattenai' means 'I don't do it anymore'. The actual word means 'already', however, and is used in the exclamation "MOU!" to mean "OK, ALREADY!", if translated into Americanese. Compare 'Mou dekita yo' - which basically means 'I've done it already'. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 15:23, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Possibly helpful: "I used to do X" in English often implies that X is no longer being done. So many languages might just use that type of a structure, without the need to specify "but I don't anymore," because it is clear from context. Related: "I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too." SemanticMantis (talk) 15:31, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

On the crux of it, that just means "I have been doing drugs" with the completely unnecessary repetition of the fact that the person used to do drugs and is still doing drugs, which is implied by the simple statement "I have been doing drugs". KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 15:59, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

If I said to you "I used to live in California" you'd expect that I no longer live there, right? Or is this yet another way that BrEng differs from AmEng? It's a joke, it's toying with the literal semantic meaning vs. the idiomatic meaning, or perhaps the connotation vs. denotation. But yes, jokes are usually, and perhaps by definition unnecessary... I shared this one not just to have a laugh, but because I thought it illustrated a relevant concept :) SemanticMantis (talk) 19:41, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok, so if I said to you "I used to be British", what would you think? That would most certainly imply that I am not British anymore. Or, "I used to be a man", would only mean I am no longer a man. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 19:54, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Point taken, but I would never say things like that, nor do I hear them commonly from native English speakers. Instead, I hear "I am British" or "I am a man". In my experience, "used to" almost always implies that that thing being referenced is no longer the case. Indeed, if I heard "I used to be a man", I would assume the speaker had changed their gender or sex, or had somehow conceptually emasculated themselves. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:48, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

58.7.138.46 -- the general Wikipedia article is Polarity item... -- AnonMoos (talk) 15:30, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

In Spanish it's nunca más, which literally means "never more", which is pretty close. They also use ya sometimes, which translates more like "by now". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:51, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes Yo fumaba durante 20 años, pero ya no ("I smoked for 20 years, but I don't anymore) would be the normal way to state it as an established fact that you have already quit, and Prometo que no lo haré nunca más "I promise I won't do it anymore" would be appropriate if you walked into the doctor's office smoking, then he showed you an xray of your lung cancer. μηδείς (talk) 17:25, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Part of the problem could be that "anymore" is very idiomatic and a literal translation doesn't really work. You can say mas for more, but "any" is qualquiera, which literally translates more like "which wants", and that's not quite what "anymore" means. The meaning of nunca mas is pretty obvious, but I was curious about that ya. Turns out it's from Latin iam (or jam), which means "already", among other things, as ya does. And as you already noted, I see that the Royal Academy website indicates ya is connected with past events. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 17:54, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

The important thing with ya is that it has to pair with no to mean not anymore, just as anymore has to pair with not. I do not like her anymore. (But, see positive anymore.) Ya can mean anything from already (Ya he leido tres libros) to "coming" as an answer when someone knocks at the door insistently, to "I will, okay already" in response to the command for a child to clean his room. There are also cultural differences.

There's simply no way to map Spanish adverbs of time onto English in a one-to-one manner. "Ahora" (at hour) and "ya" (already) can both mean "now", but in different ways. If you ask a Mexican if he is on his way, and he says ahora, he doesn't necessarily mean he's on his way, he probably means soon. (This caused me problems and disagreements when I used to carpool with Mexicans to our restaurant jobs, and drove me to have to say things like "do you mean that you have finished preparing and in the very moment are ready" in response to "ahora" which would get me the answer, "no." "Ya" in this case would indicate what an American would interpret as "I am on my way now." But it's still ambiguous.

Then there's ahorita "a little now" which means very soon. That's the one word that's not ambiguous, it's bascially "in a second" or "soon" and doesn't have the ambiguity of ahora voy which could mean I am already on my way, or could mean I am coming as the next thing I do. μηδείς (talk) 21:08, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

• I'm surprised no one has pointed out that it should be "any more" and not "anymore". "anymore" is about as welcome as "alright". 86.155.201.180 (talk) 12:56, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

No one has pointed that out because it's incorrect. The only time anymore would be unwelcome is if it is used as an adjective. So *I don't need anymore clothes. There are also some American dialects that use anymore for something that is semantically negative but not grammatically so, such as "Video games are so expensive anymore."

It's news to me that alright is deprecated. It's how I distinguish between saying that someone's test results are perfect ("Her answers were all right") and barely passing ("Her answers were alright"). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:08, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

'Anymore' is an adverb, not an adjective. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 03:00, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Right. Anymore is an adverb. Any more is an adjective. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 04:48, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

No. 'Any more' is an adverbial phrase. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 09:58, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Maybe in some instances. But in the sentences I can come up with, it seems to me like they're adjectival or possibly some other part of a noun phrase. Take the example I gave above. You could replace "any more" with an adjective like blue and it would be perfectly grammatical: "I don't need blue clothes." You can't do the same with adverbs. *"I don't need quickly clothes." I'm not very proficient in syntax, but since adverbs modify verbs and any more is not modifying the verb here, it wouldn't seem to be an adverb. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:20, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

"Anymore" is adverbial. "I don't want any more rutabagas." Adjective, modifying "rutabagas". "I don't eat rutabagas anymore." Adverb (modifying "do"). ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:39, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

"Anymore" is a long-standing, valid construction.[1] "Alright" is apparently an alternate spelling, which was likewise news to me.[2] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:35, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I forgot, it's American. "In British English, the spelling anymore is sometimes considered incorrect, and any more is used instead" [3]. "alright" is widely condemned in British English. 31.51.1.242 (talk) 22:08, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

This talks about how it's used in the South Midlands, which I assume refers to England. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:01, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm not so sure about that. This says that the same usage is "especially associated with the South Midland and Midwestern states", talking about the US, which seems an odd coincidence. Even if your reference is referring to the UK Midlands (I can't say it's familiar), the fact that the phrase may be used in a certain way in a spoken regional dialect doesn't really say anything about its spelling in standard British English. 31.51.1.242 (talk) 01:02, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

That's rather odd, since the term "South Midland" is not a term Americans would use to describe a part of America. However, there is a South Midlands in England. So there seems to be a missing piece. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:01, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

There are a few credible-looking Google hits for "south midland states" in a US context (e.g. this from the NY Times), so it seems that the term is not completely unknown. 31.51.1.242 (talk) 02:35, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

I reckon Safire should know what he's talking about, but it's not a commonly used expression. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:51, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Here's a map that shows what South Midlands refers to regarding American English. There are much more useful dialect maps, but this is clear enough for all intensive purposes. μηδείς (talk) 03:44, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Yikes, I hope "intensive purposes" is tongue-in-cheek!

109.152.146.39 (talk) 14:59, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

The phrase wasn't unintentional. I came acrost it here one day and decided I had to have it. μηδείς (talk) 17:06, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

'For all intents and purposes' is what our esteemed colleague meant. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 15:06, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

In Esperanto, you say you don't do that anymore as "Mi ne fares tion plu": I don't do it further, I guess you'd say, from some stopping point. --Orange Mike | Talk 04:17, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Hunt breakfast

During an episode of M*A*S*H, Hawkeye sees Radar with a tray heaped full of food in the mess tent and comments "I see you opted for the hunt breakfast." Radar doesn't understand the reference and starts to ask what Hawkeye means. Hawkeye just mutters "forget it" and wanders off. I'm in the same boat as Radar and don't get the joke. Can someone explain it to me? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 21:26, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

See this or this. OED has some quotations dating back to 1877 Trollope. Gotta admit that it's an odd reference to be found in MASH. Abecedare (talk) 21:38, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Here is one of the many Web pages that Googling for "hunt breakfast" leads to. Although hunt breakfasts are traditionally quite substantial, Hawkeye's quip, in addition to referring to the quantity of of food on Radar's tray, was probably intended to play on the contrast between the mess-hall slop and the upper-class associations of a hunt breakfast. Deor (talk) 21:44, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Good source and good point. And now, I'm hungry :) Abecedare (talk) 21:47, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I see now! Thanks! Dismas|^(talk) 00:30, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Resolved