Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 November 30

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November 30

Occurance [sic]

This misspelling of 'occurrence' is becoming very widespread, and it leads me to wonder how people who write 'occurance' think it's pronounced.

Do they actually say 'ə-kyoo-rəns'? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:08, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

I don't think it's any kind of tortured phonetic reading. In fact, I assume that people who make the misspelling are simply not aware of the phonetic meaning of doubled consonants. For them, it's just the logical "occur" + "-ance". To put it another way - there are lots of people who misspell "starring" as "staring", but that doesn't mean they pronounce it that way. Smurrayinchester 09:15, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Also, the issue with the vowel reduction and schwa in English; when phonetically spelling a word that has a schwa, (as occurs in the last syllable of occurrence), there's not a lot of rhyme or reason to which vowel is chosen; indeed the spelling comes from a type in historical English before the vowel reduction occurred, so wheras the spelling used to make more sense, today it has become somewhat divorced from the phonetic pronunciation of the word. This is especially problematic in words like Wednesday and colonel and Mrs. and gunwale, but also shows up in many words with schwa vowels. For occurrence, consider interference from other /əns/ ending words like "avoidance" or "acceptance" or "fragrance" etc. Following regular patterns of both pronunciation and word formation, "occurance" fits a logical pattern. That it's not spelled that way is a quirk of history, and one of the many many many ways that written English is just weird. --Jayron32 12:04, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

• I think you meant the third syllable. --76.71.5.45 (talk) 12:55, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

So corrected. --Jayron32 13:44, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

That leads to my next question. Has anyone ever compiled a truly complete catalogue of (a) the rules of English spelling and (b) all of the multitude of exceptions to said rules? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 12:48, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

JackofOz, it's called a dictionary. --ColinFine (talk) 13:00, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article titled English orthography which gives an overview and a place to start your research. --Jayron32 14:20, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

@JackofOz: There have been a lot of comprehensive and thorough researches. From the bibliography provided I would recommend you to pay much attention to the works of Bell (she has a blog), Carney, Cummings, Hanna, Venezky, as well as of David Crystal, Christopher Upward, and Greg Brooks (Dictionary of the British English Spelling System). Those are very good works, especially the latter, which can be read free (under CC BY) on Google Books.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 16:29, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, Tovarisch Lüboslóv. I've had a look at Brooks' book, which seems very comprehensive, but I'd have to acquire a hard copy version. It's not quite what I was after, but it's the closest thing so far. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:39, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

@JackofOz: Probably, then, you may look at Carney's and Cummings's. The former is even more comprehensive and more scientific with statistics and many peculiar detailed rules, though he does not provide full lists of words and exceptions. But that's rather a thorough theoretical framework than a desk reference. Cummings's is more easy to read with many useful and interesting thoughts and evaluations, but may miss some details or peculiar cases. Brooks's seems still to be the most handy reference on the topic, if not the only one of such a kind.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 17:29, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

English nouns ending in -ance and -ence are related to Latin present participles of verbs of the first conjugation and of other conjugations respectively. (A relatively small number of words are derived from French, where all present participles end in -ant[e][s], and the corresponding nouns end in -ance[s]. Examples include assurance and poignance. Another relatively small number of words are formed directly from English verbs. Examples include clearance and utterance.) Likewise, English adjectives ending in -able and -ible are related to Latin verbs of the first conjugation and of other conjugations respectively. (A relatively small number of words are formed directly from English verbs, and have the ending -able. Examples include doable and movable.) For additional information, see wikt:-ance#Etymology and wikt:-ence#Etymology and wikt:-able#Etymology and wikt:-ible#Etymology.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:01, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Here's a related ref-desk thread that Jack started some years ago. Deor (talk) 19:43, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

In addition to the noted irregular formation dependant from the Latin verb dependere the same is seen with "ascendant" from ascendere and "descendant" from descendere. I suspect that the French present participle, which apparently always ends in -ant, may have something to do with this. 81.134.89.140 (talk) 01:08, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

That's British spelling, of course, and therefore peculiar. In American spelling dependent is the usual form. Google it at site:irs.gov for easy evidence. --76.71.5.45 (talk) 03:51, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

That may not be correct. My Oxford Dictionary gives dependent, or U.S. (sometimes) dependant, so it seems your claim may be back to front. Akld guy (talk) 06:24, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Oxford? What would they know about English? :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 06:49, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

What the OED actually says is " French dépendant adjective and noun, properly present participle of dépendre to depend v.1 From the 18th cent. often (like the adjective) spelt dependent, after Latin (both forms being entered by Johnson); but the spelling -ant still predominates in the noun: compare defendant, assistant." British English uses spelling to distinguish between adjective (with an E) and noun (one who depends)(with an A). Dbfirs 09:19, 1 December 2016 (UTC)

Chinese comets

Can someone give me the Chinese characters for po-hsing and hui-hsing, which are ancient Chinese names for comets? SpinningSpark 15:23, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Also, is this Mandarin, or something else? SpinningSpark 15:27, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

If they're "ancient" Chinese, they're likely to be Classical Chinese: the modern topolect called Mandarin on which Standard Chinese is based is a more recent development. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 176.248.159.54 (talk) 16:50, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Hui-hsing would be wikt:彗星 (Mandarin, huìxīng, "broomstick star"). There is another word for comet that I know, wikt:掃把星 (Mandarin, sàobǎ xīng, "broom star"). I'm not sure about po-hsing. Maybe 破星 (Mandarin, pò-xīng, "broken star")? —Stephen (talk) 20:43, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

@Stephen G. Brown: The translations I have for the two terms are "bushy star" and "broom star" respectively. The source is this article from New Scientist. SpinningSpark 20:55, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

I think "bushy star" refers to 星孛 (xīng bó, "fuzzy star", literally, "star become fuzzied"). Other terms are: 長星 (zhǎng xīng, "long star"), 客星 (kè xīng, "guest star"), and 掃帚星 (sàozhǒu xīng, "broom star"). —Stephen (talk) 21:47, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

"Fuzzy star" or "bushy star" can't be 孛星? That fits the pattern of the others with the "star" element at the end. SpinningSpark 22:19, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

You're right, it can be either wikt:星孛 or wikt:孛星. —Stephen (talk) 04:52, 1 December 2016 (UTC)