Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2019 August 21

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August 21

"advocated for"

Just noticed in today's featured article the expression "Clinton advocated for", to my (British) mind this should read be "Clinton advocated", is "advocated for" an Americanism, or have I just led a sheltered life?...GrahamHardy (talk) 11:06, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

In US English, at least, my take is that they aren't the same. You "advocate" a cause, while "advocating for", meaning "on behalf of", a person or organization. So, you can "advocate" women's rights and "advocate for" the National Organization of Women. Of course, it is also often misused. SinisterLefty (talk) 11:16, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

The Hilary Clinton article has "Clinton advocated for healthcare reform" and "Clinton advocated for medical benefits for first responders", which do not look right, should they be changed to "Clinton advocated healthcare reform" and "Clinton advocated medical benefits for first responders" ? GrahamHardy (talk) 12:06, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

I would say yes, for the first case, but no for the 2nd, since there she was "advocating for" first responders. You might also change the first usage to "supported", just to avoid the repetition of "advocated". SinisterLefty (talk) 12:24, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

"Clinton advocated medical benefits for first responders" - it is 'advocated for'. sorry, I misunderstood. --TotallyNotSarcasm [lɨi̯v ə me̞sɪ̈dʒ] [kɔnt͡ɹ̠̝̊ɹ̠ɪ̈bjɨʉ̯ʃn̩z] 15:07, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

"Advocated for" is possible (and contrasts with "advocated against"), but that is not an example of it. In that example "for" goes with "first responders", not "advocated". --76.69.116.4 (talk) 20:04, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

It's used in Britain. "Brooks Newmark: tweeting Tory who advocated for more women in party" (Guardian, 2014). And one can be an advocate for whatever, not only an advocate of it: in the same article, "a prominent advocate for widening Conservatives’ appeal to women". (Though again in the same article, he "advocated a flat tax across the board" and "advocating mentoring of young women who wished to progress in politics".) -- Hoary (talk) 12:38, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Yes, the big OED has nine cites for this usage with dates ranging from 1607 to 1983, including two by Daniel Defoe. Dbfirs 13:51, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Plurals of foreign-origin nouns adopted into English

Sorry, this was posted in error before I'd finished typing; early responses moved to next thread
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
People who love English will argue for criteria, not criterions; phenomena, not phenomenons; stimuli, not stimuluses; and many more examples from Latin and Greek. But when it comes to words from (almost ?) any other language, we use the English plural (-s or -es). Sometimes we don't even know (or care) that the original word was plural to begin with, and we still add our English ending, such as blinis, pirozhkis, ... -- 20:52, 21 August 2019 JackofOz

Plurals of foreign-origin nouns adopted into English

People who love English will argue for criteria, not criterions; phenomena, not phenomenons; stimuli, not stimuluses; and many more examples from Latin and Greek (although there are many exceptions even to this rule: see English words of Greek origin#inflectional endings and plurals). But when it comes to words from (almost ?) any other language, we use the English plural (-s or -es).

There are some exceptions, such as the German Lieder rather than Lieds. In this case we even adhere to the German rule of capitalising all nouns (we only do that for proper nouns, of which this is not an example). But other German nouns don't get either of these considerations, virtually all other German words taking the English plural.

Sometimes we don't even know (or care) that the original word was plural to begin with, and we still add our English ending, such as blinis, pirozhkis, pelmenis, ... or use singular pronouns (this spaghetti, not these spaghetti as the Italians say).

So, why is it that we let Latin and Greek decide how we anglophones pluralise (some) words we've stolen from them; but, when it comes to words stolen from any other languages, we run our own show (isolated exceptions excepted)? Is it just because Latin and Greek were traditionally taught in schools, but other foreign languages were not? And why should this matter anymore? And why do we insist on criteria, phenomena etc but couldn't give a toss about conundra, tantra, fulcra, pentathla … ? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:24, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

I'm not seeing a question to answer here, but English plurals may be of interest to you -- especially the sections under English plurals#Irregular plurals from foreign languages.--William Thweatt ^TalkContribs 21:14, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

There are some French plurals (or used to be) such as "bureaux", and some others in specialized contexts (e.g. "cherubim"). I also remember reading that there are some geology terms from lesser-known languages that some geologists use with their native plurals, though I can't find them right now by Google searching. However, in general the willingness to incorporate foreign inflections is based on the relative prestige of the two languages, and for many centuries the classical languages had almost unique prestige in Western European cultures (until the end of the 19th century, most boys going on to any kind of further education beyond elementary school would have spent a lot of their time studying Latin). For Persian-language speakers during the Islamic period, the Arabic language has had unique prestige, and traditionally a lot of the Arabic "broken plural" apparatus was incorporated into Persian (though apparently they've been attempting to cut down on this in recent times)... AnonMoos (talk) 21:20, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Agreed, although I was going to put more emphasis on who introduced the words to English. If it was a member of the upper class, like a bishop, member of royalty, or scientist, all of whom would have been trained in Greek and Latin, then there would be more respect for the way they formed plurals. But if it was used by some common immigrant, perhaps to describe a type of food they sold, nobody would much care how they formed the plurals. SinisterLefty (talk) 00:18, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

You use the word "inflections" but we've been very selective even there. We might pluralise some words in the native way, but when it comes to case endings for accusative, dative etc uses, we just use the nominative. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:31, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Creating inflectional categories which simply don't exist in the borrowing language goes beyond normal word-borrowing into some form of language mixing (what linguists call "code switching" and literary critics call Macaronic language). AnonMoos (talk) 07:31, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Try "Noun Inflection", the thirty-page-long chapter 7 of Bauer, Lieber and Plag's Oxford Reference Guide to English Morphology. -- Hoary (talk) 21:59, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Can you give me a quick plot summary, without spoilers?  :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:02, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

When Jack says we use the nominative of the foreign word in forming the plural that's not the whole story. Latin words come to us via the accusative case, for example virgo (maiden), accusative virginem, becomes "virgin". Here the plural "virgins" is not much different from the Latin equivalent virgines. 2A00:23C1:E101:4900:F9D6:E449:7B77:7388 (talk) 11:42, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

I do note the smiley face, and am not at all offended by the request. But no all the same. You seem genuinely interested. The book I recommend is not so cheap; but copies are plentiful and used copies in excellent condition are easy to find. (I bought the hardback, used but in "fine" condition, for less than the regular price of the paperback.) This is one of a handful of books that are very much worthwhile for a description of English. It's morphological, not historical; for an old but still very worthwhile combination of the synchronic and diachronic, see Hans Marchand's The categories and types of present-day English word-formation (2nd ed, 1969); if you're patient, an inexpensive copy will eventually pop up on your wants list at Abebooks or similar. -- Hoary (talk) 23:59, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Hoary. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:22, 27 August 2019 (UTC)

" Is it just because Latin and Greek were traditionally taught in schools, but other foreign languages were not?" Probably.

"And why should this matter anymore?" It probably shouldn't and seems to be becoming less common.

"And why do we insist on criteria, phenomena etc but couldn't give a toss about conundra, tantra, fulcra, pentathla …" Probably due to frequency of use of the singular word. More commonly used terms are more likely to have known plurals, while less well known ones will just be subjected to the general rules. --Khajidha (talk) 17:35, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

So, is there a list of all nouns for which the use of the standard English plural would be marked as definitely wrong? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:10, 22 August 2019 (UTC)

Don't know of any, but I have seen signs that "criteria" is moving towards being seen as singular with the standard plural "criterias". Makes my brain hurt, but I've seen it. And it isn't even unprecedented. See "agenda". --Khajidha (talk) 00:37, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

What I (perhaps mistakenly) infer to be your ideas about English surprise me. English is a natural language. Natural languages vary over time and from speaker to speaker. If you'd care to pay me a large sum, I could produce a list of all the nouns in some English dictionary for which the expected English plural would be definitely wrong for me. As examples, phenomenon and half would be within that list. I don't presume that they'd be on analogous lists made by every educated, adult L1 speaker of English that I know. If I read of "phenomenons" or "halfs" in text by an L1 English speaker I'd be mildly surprised but I wouldn't censure the writer. Meanwhile, if I wanted to see the degree to which "phenomenons" or "halfs" was used, I'd look it up in one or more of these corpora. -- Hoary (talk) 23:58, 23 August 2019 (UTC)

A large sum? Certainly. My $1 is on its way to you as we speak. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:20, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

Until well into the 19th century, modern living languages (French, Italian etc.) were not really academic subjects at all, in the way that such things were thought about then. There were no modern language or literature courses at universities -- only in languages with a classical written form (mainly Greek and Latin, of course, but to a lesser degree also Hebrew, Arabic etc). Most people thought that it was highly inappropriate for girls to learn Greek or Latin, while it was appropriate for girls to learn French or Italian. AnonMoos (talk) 23:02, 22 August 2019 (UTC)