Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 August 15

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 15

Which is correct, or preferable, and why?

"One thing I constantly learn is that a lot of people are a lot smarter than me."

or

"One thing I constantly learn is that a lot of people are a lot smarter than I am."

Which is correct, or preferable, and why? Bus stop (talk) 14:24, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Both correct. It's a matter of preference, rather than anything else. 86.150.12.166 (talk) 14:35, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Smarter than me is a colloquialism. Smarter than I (am) would be the correct way to say it, but the other is so common that smarter than I tends to sound pretentious. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:45, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Only if by "correct" you are talking about a social judgment which has nothing to do with linguistics, Bugs. --ColinFine (talk) 19:43, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

As in, "...smarter than me am." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:26, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

It's a disjunctive pronoun. Perfectly good grammar. 86.150.12.166 (talk) 15:10, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Thank you everybody. Bus stop (talk) 23:36, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

I'm trying to figure out whether "than" in Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? is a preposition or a conjunction, to be able to determine whether it should be capitalized or not per MOS:CT. Currently, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? and Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? (U.S. game show) use two different forms of capitalization in their title. nyuszika7h (talk) 17:44, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

It's properly a conjunction; the copula is elided. The Underlying question is: "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader is?" or "Are You Smarter Than is a 5th Grader?" The current informal and long=standing usage makes it preposition-like. μηδείς (talk) 18:02, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

It's a preposition. The question is given in the show's title; there is no reason to invent an "underlying" rewording to suit your grammatical prejudices. --69.159.9.219 (talk) 18:11, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you say it's a preposition while linking to a site that only says it's a conjunction. Loraof (talk) 21:29, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

You didn't read far enough down the linked page. It can be either. Since "than a 5th grader" is a prepositional phrase, it's a preposition here. --69.159.9.219 (talk) 02:37, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Also, as far as capitalization goes, look for how it is capitalized in reliable sources, preferably in plain text writing (rather than as a logo or trademark). In Wikipedia we follow the sources, so look for several examples of the title written out in major, well respected sources, and follow what they do. --Jayron32 18:04, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

In this case the base best reference is a primary one, i.e. do what the show's own producers do, if you can find a place where they don't write it in block capitals. --69.159.9.219 (talk) 18:08, 15 August 2016 (UTC), confusing typo fixed later.

IP 69 you are being contrary and careless. In the sentence "The problem is harder than I thought it would be" the only possible interpretation is the conjunction, The problem is harder than [I thought it would be]. One cannot reword this as The problem is harder than I, or even The problem is harder than me. Please don't introduce nonsense. It is entirely possible to say that one part of speech is being used similarly to another, such as "to forgive is divine" where the infinitive verb is treated as a noun. but "treated as" is the essential point. And you are abusing the OP if you want to engage in such naivete. μηδείς (talk) 22:04, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, in that sentence of course "than" is a conjunction. This is different from the original sentence where it is a preposition. As stated in the reference I cited, it can be either. Many English words can be different parts of speech in different contexts; there's nothing special about this one except that some people used to make a fuss about it. --69.159.9.219 (talk) 23:29, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Short version: It's a preposition. ¶ Longer version: It's a preposition, unless (perhaps) you understand the question as an elided version of "Are you smarter than a 5th grader is smart?" The latter option is far-fetched, as questions of the form "Are you smarter than a 5th grader is smart?" are very rare. But let's suppose that yes, it is an elided version of that (to me) unidiomatic-sounding sentence. So "than" is the "than" within "I was more insistent that we kept on climbing than he was to return to the base camp." "Than" is now a [fanfare] preposition. No, prepositions do not need noun phrase complements; yes, they can take clause complements. No, there is no category "conjunction" that's meaningfully divided into "subordinating" and "coordinating" conjunctions. All of this is explained in The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, currently the most comprehensive of reference grammars, and a work that is in no way revolutionary (other than for those who have an interest in the grammatical misinformation industrial complex). See Geoffrey K. Pullum, "Lexical categorization in English dictionaries and traditional grammars", especially pp. 263–270. ¶ But the question is about how to apply WP:CT. Unsurprisingly, the latter is based on "traditional grammar" (i.e. outdated myth), e.g. that if is a "subordinating conjunction". (There's no such thing. The if of "If it rains, I'll go to the museum" is a preposition; that of "I wonder if it will rain" is a subordinator.) ¶ In Wikipedia, for this particular purpose, we don't follow the sources. After all, the sources will say that SONY, SANYO, ELLEGARDEN and many more are so written. Say this thing is a preposition: (i) that's what it is; (ii) that avoids any reason to capitalize it, and therefore decreases the awkwardness and pomposity. -- Hoary (talk) 13:26, 18 August 2016 (UTC) ... slightly reworded, and augmented 22:50, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

To "modern" users of English, "than" may be used as a preposition. Historically "than" was a conjunction. Bergen Evans believed that English is mutable. Others do not so believe. As for everyone always using words "correctly" - that situation has never existed at all. With regard to trademarks, we do not follow logo capitalization, but generally follow "corporate capitalization" as we are not using logos as names. That aside is, alas, quite off the mark. I also point out that "AIDS" in the US is "Aids" in much of the rest of the world. Just as is my aside that I do remember Down You Go on TV. Collect (talk) 09:45, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Yes, you're right about the misconception that somewhere in the past, all speakers of English (or even all sober, well-educated speakers of English as a first language) did so "correctly". Those who don't believe that English is mutable may wish to try reading Beowulf. Or for a syntactic change in standard US English so recent that it will have occurred in the lifetime of one who remembers Down You Go, consider "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" (1954, speaker born in 1890). ¶ Sanyo (the electronics company since gobbled up by Panasonic) consistently represented itself as SANYO even within body copy. This practice (to me, a repellent one) is not unique to Sanyo. -- Hoary (talk) 22:59, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

Using the word post box to mean p.o. box?

Is it common in Indian English to use "post box" for "p.o. box" (i.e. "post-office box")? Is "p.o. box" also understood/used in India concurrently with "post box"? Can "post box" also mean "letter box" in Indian English (as it does in Britain)? Thanks. Contact Basemetal here 18:28, 15 August 2016 (UTC)

There's no mention of it at Indian_English#Vocabulary. I'm not sure what standard dictionaries to refer to. Is there an Indian OED? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 11:20, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

I don't know. As an example among others of the first usage I can mention the title of the 1958 Hindi movie "Post Box 999" (with Sunil Dutt, etc.) where it is obvious that the "post box" of the title (and of the story) refers to a "post office box". Contact Basemetal here 11:31, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

Having worked for a Bell company in the US back when we demigodlings determined people's listings in the phone book, we were told that "P. O. Box 1234" was okay, but that "P. O. B. 1234" or any othe format was improper, and this was a directive from the USPS itself. It was in the user manual you were issued on day one, although the manual is a trade secret, so you'll have to trust me.

Why? I suspect we were looking in the late 90's at directives from the 70's or earlier when mechanical sorters got confused by improper formats. Nowadays most people write "POB 1234" and have done with it (I do). I suppose this might still be a problem for people who live on Pob Street in Wales. μηδείς (talk) 21:54, 16 August 2016 (UTC)

For the curious, pob is a preposition in Welsh meaning "all", "each" or "every", depending on the mutation. Also Welsh language street names would use "stryd" instead of "street", but I'm being picky now. Alansplodge (talk) 12:25, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

If we're being picky, it's not a preposition. It's a determiner (specifically a quantifier). I believe it is cognate with Latin 'quoque' ('also'). --ColinFine (talk) 17:53, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Ach! And here I figured it meant Pub Strasse. hehe. μηδείς (talk) 21:54, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

Note: "Pob lwc" means "Good luck" and "Pob hwyl" means "All the best". But there's also another, very popular Pob in UK created in the 1980s by Ragdoll Productions. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:09, 18 August 2016 (UTC) ... or if you fancy a sing-along, you can always try "Mae d'eisiau di bob awr" aka "I need Thee every hour," wrth gwrs.

BTW, the Welsh for pub is tafarn or "the pub" mutates to y dafarn; cognate with the Latin taberna. Alansplodge (talk) 13:20, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

But to the OP: in UK English there has been a long-standing distinction between "post box" (usually that pillar box in the street) and a "PO Box" which is merely a registered secure deposit point at the "GPO" or Royal Mail Sorting Office (where one had to direct one's postal orders for all those shady adverts in the back of Exchange and Mart etc.) But I'm really not sure about usage in Indian English. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:57, 18 August 2016 (UTC)

So the Welsh pub is a "tavern", then. There is a Tavern Street in Ipswich and no doubt many other places. I don't know what a pillar box is in French, but "P.O. Box" is "B.P.", presumably an abbreviation of Boîte Postale. Portugal has pillar boxes, Gilbert Scott - style telephone boxes and double - decker buses as in Britain (they also have iconic trams and a prototype of the Eiffel Tower). I don't think this is seen elsewhere on the continent. A "P.O. Box" is "C.P." (Caixa Postal). The word for post (mail) or post office is correio. A pillar box is caixa de correio. In Britain a "letter box" is either the opening in the front door through which the postman passes the mail so that it lands on the doormat or a pillar box. For India, see the Post Office Guide [1], clauses 26, 29 and 55 (especially 55(12)) and [2]. 80.44.89.199 (talk) 14:40, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

The Welsh for pub (or inn) is properly tafarn (although watch out for the archaic tafarn datws, which means fish and chip shop). But you'll find that most Welsh people call it a pub. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:05, 19 August 2016 (UTC)