Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 March 6

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.

March 6

"undermined with"?

Hello, I've been "arguing" with Peacemaker67 about the said expression reincluded by him here, and to be honest, I still don't get what exactly it is supposed to mean, as for me only "undermined by" really seems to make sense in this context. So, can somebody please enlighten me? Thanks a lot in advance.--Boczi (talk) 16:15, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

The correct usage is definitely "undermined by" and not "undermined with". But I think confusion has arisen in this caption because, according to the body of the article, Bader's standing in Berlin had been undermined by Meyszner in Meyszner's reports to Himmler. I have amended the text of the caption to make this clearer. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:40, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Thank you very much indeed, Gandalf61! Best--Boczi (talk) 17:28, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I took the liberty to fix the section title, (but not the same typo in Boczi's post above). See Muphry's law. No such user (talk) 12:20, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, No such user!--Boczi (talk) 10:02, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Replacing W with T in the question words...

My son recently pointed out that for three of the question words in english, What, When and Where that an answer could be made from replacing the W with a T, respectively That, Then and There. Does this represent a common change (in Anglo-Saxon???) I can't come up with what Who and Why would change to and I'm not sure on How at all, but I'm wondering if there is something to this...Naraht (talk) 16:19, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

It's not a change in Anglo-Saxon, but ultimately reflecting a very old alternation in Proto-Indo-European. Simplifying somewhat, IE tended to have question elements beginning in *kʷ- (which later ended up developing into w in Germanic), and demonstrative/pronominal elements in *t- (which later developed into th- in Germanic). Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:28, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

kʷ– became hw– in Germanic, and most Germanic languages later lost the contrast between hw and w — but not all; besides those English dialects that preserve it, hv apparently is still a thing (as the young people say) in Scandinavian. —Tamfang (talk) 21:32, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Not only What When and Where, but also: Wherefore, Whence and Whither. Additionally, not only by replacing the W by T, but also by removing the W: Where, Wherefore, Whence and Whither. HOTmag (talk) 16:52, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

The triplets are "here, where, there", "hither, whither, thither", "hence, whence, thence" "herefore, wherefore, therefore", etc. DuncanHill (talk) 20:52, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Compare Latvian 'kur', Russian куда (kuda) "whither" vs Latvian 'tur', Russian туда (tuda) "thither". Exactly the same alternation: kʷ has become /k/ in Baltic and Slavic. --ColinFine (talk) 19:14, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Right, and each one of those four words either expresses a question about locality or begins with the semi-word "where" expressing a question about locality. HOTmag (talk) 07:55, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Wherefore/therefore/herefore are not to do with locality. DuncanHill (talk) 15:11, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Have I claimed they are? Please read again what I wrote ("or begins..." etc.). HOTmag (talk) 17:48, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

"each one of those four words either expresses a question about locality or begins with the semi-word "where" expressing a question about locality" Unfortunately as you didn't say which four words you were talking about nobody can know what you meant. The indent of you post made it look like you were replying to my post. Having carefully re-read in the light of your latest comment, I now have no idea what you are talking about. DuncanHill (talk) 19:32, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I was replying to your post. Yes, each one of those four words either expresses a question about locality or begins with the semi-word "where" that expresses a question about locality. By "either...or" I mean that each one of those four words has either the first property or the other one. Check: "Your username begins with D whereas my username begins with H, so each name either begins with D or begins with H". What's wrong with that? HOTmag (talk) 08:17, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Naraht, I'm intrigued by your use of "Wikinger" and "Theoderich" to refer to the letters W and T. Google has not enlightened me about this. Can you explain? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:49, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Heh, that was a piece of vandalism that slipped through [1]. Will fix in a moment. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:58, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Maybe it could be part of a new phonetic alphabet :-) Nyttend (talk) 04:17, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Let's have fun, we need to extend this mechanism and start using "- Who did that? - Well, tho did it, not sure who" (meaning someone) and "- Why did they do it? - Thy!". We already have "- How? - Thus!", just need to start pronouncing "How" like "Whow" and "thus" like "thow". --Lgriot (talk) 15:04, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

Lgriot -- in some forms of Middle English, "tho" was the plural form of the definite article. "Why" originated as the instrumental case form of the interrogative. The instrumental case form of the Old English definite article and/or demonstrative survives in Modern English as correlative "the" (i.e. "The more the merrier"). AnonMoos (talk) 22:20, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

It might be helpful to summarise:

From demonstrative stem *kⁱ-:

hence = from this place

here = in this place

hither = towards this place

From demonstrative stem *th^a-:

that = demonstrative pronoun

then = at that time

thence = from that place

there = in that place

thither = towards that place

From interrogative stem *kʷ^a-:

what = interrogative pronoun

when = at what time?

whence = from what place?

where = in what place?

whither = towards what place? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.155.146.232 (talk) 18:07, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

You forgot: herefore, therefore, wherefore. HOTmag (talk) 18:58, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Those are prepositional compounds, a little different... AnonMoos (talk) 23:43, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Why do some scientific publications require submissions to be in the country’s dialect?

If the author is a non-native English speaker in America and decides to submit to a British journal, does the author have to pay a translator to translate from US English to UK English? 140.254.70.33 (talk) 17:21, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

For the first question, see: Nationalism. There will probably be some arguments about the publication desiring "clarity" (as if the two dialects are mutually incomprehensible) or uniformity (as if that's somehow different from nationalism), but it's pretty much nationalism.

For the second question, that could be an option. That's not necessarily the only option, but it could be one. They might be able to get a friend to do it, or research how to translate it themselves. Ian.thomson (talk) 17:31, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

US English and UK English are not different enough to require a translator; normal proofreading can catch the differences. Most are small differences in orthography (i.e. honor vs. honour) and a few minor terminology differences (petrol vs. gasoline), and most importantly for journal submissions, date formatting (that is June The Third Two Thousand and Eighteen would be written 6/3/2018 in AmEng and 3/6/2018 in BrEng) It should not be difficult for a native speaker of one dialect to find such things themselves, or have a professional proofreader catch them. Translators are necessary only for non-mutually-intelligible languages. Standard American English and Standard British English (especially their written forms) are not different enough to be so considered. --Jayron32 17:35, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

In my experience (neuroscience), most journals don't specify. Amusingly, I did submit one paper to a journal that required submissions to be in American. I of course refused to do this, and they published it anyway. I don't think it's generally a bit deal. Fgf10 (talk) 19:10, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I've been paid to translate from UK to US English, and even from US to Canadian English. It's a field of translation called localization. People could certainly do it themselves for free, but if they're willing to pay a professional translator a few bucks, who am I to say no? Adam Bishop (talk) 01:41, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Canadian to American: We traveled to Vancover with the instrument.. American to Canadian: The proupeller landed at Site Zed-A eh.. American to British: Analysis of male trouser preferences at funerals, 1869-2016 British to American: a substance responsible for male pattern baldness, β-LOKE (*bloke is British for guy)..Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:44, 7 March 2018 (UTC)

Broader question: is there any organized resistance to this notion of "national dialects"? Traditionally the U.S. had many dialects of English, with terms like y'all famously associated with one and not another. Conversely, to my ears, dialects from other countries don't seem like they should be off-limits to Americans; I feel there is one language, English, and that people should be free to mix and match as desired, though at the same time being wary about colloquial terms ("public school") that are prone to misinterpretation globally. I can't understand that mind-set that any new word like "meme" that comes along becomes OK to use in your writing, but some prat can object that words in centuries-long usage are off-limits to people from your country. Wnt (talk) 16:23, 10 March 2018 (UTC)

Wnt -- the style guides of most scientific journals rigorously exclude the 2nd person, so the question of "y'all" would not even arise. However, even if that were not the case, constructions and forms which are not allowed in the expository prose of nationally-distributed "newspapers of record" are unlikely to be allowed in the expository prose of academic journal articles... AnonMoos (talk) 23:54, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, I was thinking there of usage beyond scientific journals, though I think similar examples exist in this context. Wnt (talk) 22:03, 13 March 2018 (UTC)

How do I access this study?

I found an interesting study (https://www.researchgate.net/project/Heritage-Speakers-Approaches-to-Raising-Bilingual-Children). Is there a way to read it? 140.254.70.33 (talk) 18:35, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Have you tried WP:REX? People who help out there may be able to help you. --Jayron32 18:48, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't see anything there to indicate that they have actually published their results - this is a described as a project, and I note that they did a presentation about their project at an anthropological conference last November in a session which lists about 20 presentations in two hours. You may have to keep an eye on it until they announce that they have published. Wymspen (talk) 22:10, 6 March 2018 (UTC)