Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 May 2

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May 2

"Roll" in "thunder"

Could the phrases like "rolling thunder" or "the thunder rolls" originally refer to the rolling chariot of thunder gods, like Thor and thus have pre-Christian origin? Interestingly, the Russian-language equivalent of "roll" in the thunder context, раскат (raskat) also has the same root, meaning "to roll". Brandmeister^talk 15:34, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

This discussion at Stack Exchanges cites the OED as dating the use of "roll" in the sense of thunder from 1602, and of sounds in general to the 1520s. Etymonline suggests 1590s, and hints that it may relate to the rolling of a ball. --Jayron32 15:36, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

The traditional way to recreate the sound of thunder in a theatre was to roll a cannonball across the floor, or down a chute. https://www.shakespearesglobe.com/uploads/files/2014/06/special_effects.pdf Wymspen (talk) 19:24, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

According to Washington Irving in "Rip Van Winkle", thunder in the Catskills is due to mysterious spirits playing ninepin bowling: "the noise of the balls...whenever they were rolled, echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder." -- AnonMoos (talk) 23:30, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Using "we" for prehistoric human-like animals

I know some people have a habit of referring to prehistoric human-like primates with the "we" pronoun. At what point in the evolutionary tree do people stop considering these animals human and use "they"? Is the first bipedal primate the cut-off point? 140.254.70.33 (talk) 19:15, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

We cannot speak to the reasons why those specific people choose those words. If you want to know more about human evolution (rather than what words "some people", whoever they are, may choose to use for whatever reason), we have articles like the surprisingly titled human evolution. General consensus is that anatomically modern humans have existed for about 200,000 years, but it isn't like 200,001 years ago they blinked into existence out of nothing. Evolution is a process that occurs gradually and over long time periods. We also have a concept of behaviorally modern humans which generally is taken us back to about 50,000 years ago, and history, which started in different places at different times, but can't be dated to earlier than about 8,000 years ago with the neolithic revolution. Going in the other direction, there's archaic humanss which are generally taken to mean subspecies or closely related species to Homo sapiens, taking us back to about 500,000 years ago, and the Homo genus (which are usually all classified as "humans") which takes us back about 3 million years ago. Which moment in history you pick as the "dividing line" is unimportant. You make your own decisions (and it is really relevant what criteria you use), instead try to appreciate the breadth and complexity of the situation. Singular and exclusive definitions are far less important than understanding relationships and processes. --Jayron32 21:31, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

• Part of this question is about the use of "we" rather than "they", but part is about who we do or do not consider "human". The article Human discusses this question. Loraof (talk) 22:37, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Is "underwhelming" a perfectly normal word?

It has 5.730.000 Google hits compared to overwhelming wich has 149.000.000. Still, to my (non-native) ears it sounds like a play on overwhelming, and Google Trends suggests it is being used a lot more now than 10 years ago. Joepnl (talk) 21:54, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

I too thought it was just a play on "overwhelming", but Wiktionary treats it like any other word. Loraof (talk) 22:32, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Well, it's a bit of both. It's a play on "overwhelming", which is obvious because the prefix "over" in "overwhelming" relates to being overturned, overcome, etc., whereas "under" is the opposite of a different sense of "over". But it's become sufficiently well known that some dictionaries list it as a word. --76.71.6.254 (talk) 23:27, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, it's well past the neologism stage, which I guess puts it on course to becoming a "paleologism". Clarityfiend (talk) 01:20, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

EO calls it "a facetious play on overwhelm."[1] To overwhelm something is like capsizing it. So to underwhelm would be to exert not nearly enough force to capsize something, i.e. it's unimpressive. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:36, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

I wonder if things are different here, where Underwhelmed is a classic of 90s Canadian music. Adam Bishop (talk) 03:05, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, well-past its neologism stage. The big OED has an entry for the verb to underwhelm with six cites starting in 1956, and the entry has not been updated in the last 30 years so there will be many more cites available now. Dbfirs 07:07, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Well, well past its neologism stage: "The Bedimmed Flashes from Heaven that now glare on the amazed Consciences of the prisoners enclosed & underwhelmed", from an entry in one of Coleridge's notebooks made in June 1826. Obviously he's giving the word a different sense from the modern one. And yes, I have told the OED. --Antiquary (talk) 09:13, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Txs all! I was reading it in a lot of reviews etc, thinking "this joke is getting old" but apparently it's so old it's not a joke anymore. Joepnl (talk) 17:29, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

See also recency illusion. jnestorius^(talk) 19:34, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

More a frequency illusion I guess. My brain knows it has far too few data on usage of English words to decide that a word wasn't used 20 years ago :) Joepnl (talk) 20:34, 4 May 2017 (UTC)