Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2020 March 17

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded 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 17

Silent-letter acronyms

I'm looking for any examples of acronyms/initialisms of the type where the letters are spoken separately (like FBI, CIA) but every one of the letters is silent in the words they represent. For clarity, in TKO the K represents knock, which is sounded with an N sound because the K is silent. We still say TKO, not TNO. I want an example where every element of the acronym is like the K in TKO. Does such a beast exist? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The first question might be, which initial consonants can be silent? It's not a long list. Examples include G (gnome), K (know), M (mnemonic), P (pneumatic) and W (write). Are there any others? <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 00:21, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Also H as in "hour", "honest" and W as in "who", "whore"... AnonMoos (talk) 00:59, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Barenaked Ladies' "Crazy ABCs" has a few more, such as bdellium, maybe ouija ... ---Sluzzelin talk 01:11, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

A for 'orses, B for mutton, C for miles... DuncanHill (talk) 01:17, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Meaning what? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:22, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Hay, Beef, See... HiLo48 (talk) 03:39, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Sheep are cows? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:29, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

See Cockney Alphabet. Normally, you're Grandpunster Flash! ---Sluzzelin talk 04:43, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't know whether you count "Europe"/"European" as words with a silent initial letter, Jack, but if you do, that might lead to an acronym fitting your conditions (perhaps in connection with "psychology", "psychiatry" ...). ---Sluzzelin talk 01:35, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

The "E" is not really silent in the sense of a historical sound which was deleted, leaving the letter which formerly wrote the sound in place. Instead an overall falling-sonority diphthong flipped to a rising-sonority diphthong... AnonMoos (talk) 01:53, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Isn't there some New York-based group of composers of mysterious and often incomprehensible yet seemingly wise psalms, the Knickerbockers' Gnomic Psalmists?  --Lambiam 05:05, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Ah yes, the KGP (NNS). :) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:22, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

That's funny, a lot of these words are pronounced with an initial "n___", in at least four cases of different silent letters (Knickerbockers' Gnomic Mnemonic Pneumologists, the KGMP aka NNNN). ---Sluzzelin talk 10:56, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps The three Rs? Alansplodge (talk) 18:02, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

It’s typical for a word starting with ex- to use the letter x instead of e in an acronym. I’m sure it’s for the sake of distinction between redundant acronyms. The letter x also does some heavy lifting as a placeholder, of course. Temerarius (talk) 04:48, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Good point. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:08, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

After Googling some possibilities I found Knock Knock (company) makes something called a KK Pad in some places like [1]. KK site:knockknockstuff.com also gives some uses of the abbreviation. It may be cheating when the same word with a silent letter is repeated. A search on "KK joke" also finds some results about knock-knock jokes. PrimeHunter (talk) 19:35, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Ellipsis

"Then happened exactly what had always been our greatest fear ..." -- Considering the beginning (lacking a subject, in fact), is that proper English usage?--Hildeoc (talk) 19:58, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I think it has a subject: "exactly what had always been our greatest fear". You could rewrite it as "Then exactly what had always been our greatest fear happened". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:16, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it's an example of inversion (linguistics). --69.159.8.46 (talk) 23:49, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

It's pseudo-poetic or pseudo-archaic English. I won't go as far as to say it's ungrammatical, but it wouldn't occur in normal modern usage. I guess I could imagine Jean-Luc Picard saying it in his Winston Churchill voice on Star Trek. 2601:640:105:A5EA:F50:4B35:8E5:C407 (talk) 23:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Hildeoc -- it's an example of V2 word order, which used to be common in earlier English, and is still common in some circumstances in the German language today, but is rather limited in modern English. AnonMoos (talk) 01:04, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

It is not that uncommon: "First came the lack of toilet paper, then the worry their business might close for good"[2]; "In front of the building was the infinity pool, and next to the building was the spa."[3]. In the last sentence, you cannot even move the subjects to before the verbs (unless you are Yoda). You can do it with the first sentence, but it does not sound too good.  --Lambiam 04:57, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Lambiam, Columbusalive's sentence: "First came the lack of toilet paper, then [came] the worry their business might close for good" (in which "[came]" shows where "came" is unspoken but understood). Without inversion: "First the lack of toilet paper came, then the worry [came that] their business might close for good" (in which "[came that]" shows where "came that" is unspoken but understood). -- Hoary (talk) 05:56, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, as I wrote, you can say that, but I think the inverted version flows better.  --Lambiam 06:42, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Lambiam -- it occurs in English in somewhat restricted contexts (as discussed in the V2 word order article); outside of those contexts, it can sound literary or archaic or affected. It occurs in a much wider range of contexts in German...

Hoary -- would you change Naked Came the Stranger to "The stranger came naked"? -- AnonMoos (talk) 08:03, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Why not? (Thanks for the link: I'd not heard of that book. As I gaze at Category:Literary forgeries, I recognize only seven of those listed. So I've just now discovered a new area of my ignorance of the world of letters, let alone the worlds in general.) -- Hoary (talk) 10:12, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to see the rest of the sentence. The post-positioning of the subject can be effective when it immediately precedes the revelation of the fearsome event. Jmar67 (talk) 10:59, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

My old English teacher once asked us to rearrange the words of "The ploughman homeward plods his weary way" without altering the meaning. Google reveals the full list of 11 transpositions from an 1843 education journal. Alansplodge (talk) 17:58, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Weary the ploughman his homeward way plods.

Weary the ploughman plods his way homeward.

The eleven in the book have to preserve the rhyme, mine do not. Curiously, the first one I give above, which isn't one of the eleven listed in the work linked, was the first to come to mind. DuncanHill (talk) 22:26, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

You've changed "weary" from modifying "way" to modifying "ploughman" (also, there should probably be a comma after "Weary" in your sentences). AnonMoos (talk) 23:43, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Mining contact info from Japanese site.

In order to send OTRS request to the anime producer ClockUp I need a contact info, but their site is in Japanese. Anyone can lend a hand here? אילן שמעוני (talk) 23:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The middle link (お問い合わせ) of the five links near the bottom of that page leads to their contact page. The widgets there, from top to bottom, are:

• お名前（会社名）: Name (company name)
• E-Mailアドレス: E-mail address
• カテゴリー: Category – a drop-down menu with a choice of:
  • 一般のお客様: as ordinary customer (the default)
  • 店舗様: as shop
  • 会社様: as company
• お問合せ内容: Content of the esteemed inquiry

All are required. Of the two buttons under the content box, the left one (送信) is Submit, while the right one (リセット) is Reset.  --Lambiam 04:41, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks galore. אילן שמעוני (talk) 12:25, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Given your name, might you have useful input regarding the issue raised here on Wiktionary?  --Lambiam 17:51, 18 March 2020 (UTC)