Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 June 11

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June 11

Some new slang that the kids be using

I'm apprehensive about asking this here when I could just as easily go to Urbandictionary or some website for parents that claims to be informed about teen slang of the current times, but many of those sites tend to offer meanings that differ greatly from each other, and I stubbornly wanted to refrain from constantly relying on Urbandictionary, Know Your Meme, Stack Exchange, or some other cruddy place just to figure out where some recently born slang came from, or how it makes any lick of sense. Thanks to the very nature of slang (and magnified by social media usage), there is barely a consistency for lots of terms these days, to the point where I can no longer deduce the meanings of some of them by common sense alone (which is at least easy to do for most videogame slang). It took me months to figure out what "yeet", "on fleek", or "thot" meant, let alone where they originated. Probably doesn't help that I'm someone not hounded by social media out of a conscious choice. So to me its either Urbandictionary, with all its messy, volatile, and at times ambiguously nonsensical "advisement", or here, where its calmer and I'm more familiar with, but dealing with folks who are very likely 20-30 years my senior.

For now, I would like to confirm the origins and intended meanings of the terms "sus", "based", "periodt", and a certain sense of "cringe". For the former two, I've got some idea, if it really is true that "sus" originated as jargon from some multiplayer game that got popular very recently, and "based" being deduced as a sort of synonym for "unbiased" or "having a solid source or foundation", from how I've seen it used. For "periodt" however, I am completely clueless. Whether its an intentional misspelling of peridot or not, I don't know. The same with "cringe" as an interjection or exclamation. I understood its usage as a synonym for "embarrassing" or "cheesy", but I am unsure what meaning is intended when its just shouted out with little outside context. --72.234.12.37 (talk) 02:39, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Despite this being a "reference" desk I am going to venture an opinion here, which is that these kids are not getting this vocabulary from books or dictionaries, parents or teachers, but by using words that their mates are using so as to appear as cool as them. So far, so obvious, but I would also venture that they do not discuss the precise meaning of these terms with their peers, because that would not be cool. This is why they keep saying "You know what I mean?" or "You know what I'm saying?" Because they know full well that these terms do not have precise meanings and they are not really sure what they are communicating.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:03, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

That is a fair assessment and makes sense, considering the "groupie" social mindset that starts becoming prevalent at around the puberty age range. People seek acknowledgement and acceptance, illusion or not. That is a part of being an innately social creature. I can definitely say I've been on both giving and receiving ends of "You know/get what I mean/saying?" whenever sufficient detail of something could not be communicated properly for whatever reason.

In hindsight, I may be holding some frustration that I can no longer understand what my peers are saying, because they are more quick to adopt the current slang than I am, and I remain stuck in my era. I've always believed slang to be a generational phenomenon, a marker of sorts that unintentionally highlights when a speaker was born and raised, much like how a regional dialect would do the same for where someone was raised. Also, slang back in my childhood was for the most part, a lot more straightforward than most terms now. At least for me, the meanings of "aiight", "Psych!", "banger", "the shit/bomb/tits", "chillaxin'", or "homie" are more obvious and fluid than say, "bae", "flex", "hits different", "mansplaining", "mood", or "a Karen". Hell, I'm inclined to believe even "booyah" makes more sense than half the stuff coming from the mouths of teens nowadays. But of course, familiarity with one's own era is the main bias here. --72.234.12.37 (talk) 02:37, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Wiktionary gives the etymology of sus as being a clipping of suspicious. For based, the etymology given is that it is a reference to freebase cocaine, via basehead, coined by Lil B. The meanings given are (1) "Not caring what others think about one's personality, style, or behavior; focused on maintaining individuality"; (2) "Praiseworthy and admirable, often through exhibiting independence and security". The interjection periodt is explained as an altered spelling of period, used to underscore a statement or (much like the unaltered interjection in North-American English) to indicate that it is not open to dispute. No interjection cringe is listed there, but the meaning seems pretty transparent: "This makes me cringe" (mostly from vicarious embarassment).  --Lambiam 08:15, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

In England, we even had a Sus law. Alansplodge (talk) 10:40, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

• The game that "sus" grew up in the culture alongside of is Among Us, an online multiplayer version of the old social game Mafia (party game). --Jayron32 13:51, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Since Jayron32 doesn't explain what "culture" he is talking about, I can't directly challenge that statement. But having grown up in England, I have been familiar with "suss" and "suss out" as a normal if informal part of English at least since 1970, and I've never heard of the game Mafia before ten minutes ago. --ColinFine (talk) 17:41, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

You should have learned a long time ago that I'm always wrong. Please pay me no mind. I apologize for my bold incorrectness. I would say I will try better in the future, but we all know I'm not only incapable of being useful, but ifn stopping myself from being horrible. I am quite sorry. --Jayron32 01:46, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

See also suss out. Alansplodge (talk) 10:15, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Ah okay, so that helps to dispel my thought that "sus" is an esoteric term within Among Us ("His activity was pretty sus"), in much the same manner as "ganking" for League of Legends, "poggers" for Twitch streamers, or "simp" for fans of virtual Youtubers. I've also been told it is a clipping of "suspect".

For ColinFine, I'm sure Jayron meant to say "The video game community that "sus" grew up alongside is that of Among Us", as in Among Us players are the reason why "sus" gained widespread use thanks to the game's recent popularity surge.

As for the Mafia game, I've heard of the concept before, but under many different names and variations; the most common name I've come across being "Werewolf", and the most hilarious I've known being Secret Hitler.--72.234.12.37 (talk) 02:37, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

To me, based has a connotation of reckless courageousness, with a side of being correct. Temerarius (talk) 21:51, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

That makes sense with the usage I've seen, so less of an "unbiased" option or opinion and more of "bold" or "audacious". Still trying to wrap my head around "periodt", and failing. Like Lambiam mentions, "period" already exists, equivalent to "full stop", "no contest", "we're done here", and many more, so I don't really see what's different from adding a T at the end. I honestly thought someone was too lazy to type an exclamation mark or something. --72.234.12.37 (talk) 02:37, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Ironically misspelling things on the Internet is fun, that's pretty much the only reason. Another recent one was "stonks" instead of "stocks". Why? Because it's hilarious, that's why. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:39, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Primarch

So I found myself replaying Mass Effect again, courtesy of the legendary edition, and the word "primarch" caught my attention. In-universe, the word refers to the highest rank possible a member of the Turian race can obtain through a meritocratic hierarchy of 27 distinct "citizenship tiers". Taking into consideration that the Turian civilisation was directly inspired by the Romans, the closest Latin word I know of that it could possibly be derived from is primārius, while its intended meaning of "leader of the world's government or colony group" may be modelled after Prīnceps. I am also aware of the word's presence in Warhammer 40000, so perhaps it started or originated from there, then spread over time to several other works, including Mass Effect (though I'm not exactly aware of many other works of fiction that extensively used the word "primarch").

So I guess what I'm asking is: Was "primarch" ever a legitimate word, or was it just an invention by some science fiction creators to use in whatever civilisations/factions that are utilising the trope of "space Romans"? Latin dictionaries I've looked online suggest that the word does not exist. --72.234.12.37 (talk) 02:39, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

For what it's worth, it's not in (my edition of) the Oxford English Dictionary, which suggests it hasn't been used historically. The nearest is "primar", an obsolete Scots term (from primarius) for the head of a university.

That said, its intended meaning (literally "first ruler") seems to me to be fairly obvious to anyone acquainted with Latin, even at one remove via Latin elements used in English. I'm genuinely surprised that it's actually (as far as I can tell) a modern neologism.

From the ISFDB, it has only been used in a title in SF/Fantasy for The Primarchs, an anthology edited by Christian Dunn and published by Black Library/BL Publishing on 29 May 2012 in the US. This is part of a series called The Horus Heresy set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, and a Wikipedia search shows the term has previously been used in other Warhammer works, so it seems this might be its origin, but it's so obvious a coinage that the Warhammer writers may have picked it up from a previous use elsewhere.

"Primarch" appears in Rottweiler as part of the name of a dog photographed in 2008, but since the Warhammer franchise has, I gather, been translated into German, this doesn't prove an independent origin. The same criterion applies to the 2019 rock-opera album The Clockwork Prologue by Gandalf's Fist which features a character called "The Primarch."

All other appearances of "Primarch(s)" in Wikipedia are related to Warhammer 40,000 or to the Japanese franchise Final Fantasy which seems to have cross-pollinated with it – I can't tell which of these two might have primacy of usage. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.0.58 (talk) 04:02, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Prim- is a Latin root, while the suffix -arch comes from Greek and is rarely found attached to Latin roots. There are very few exceptions. The only one in common use is matriarch, modelled after patriarch (which is of true Greek provenance). Another one, really rare, is the hybrid neologism omniarch^[1] (chosen by the author for unknown reasons instead of more regular *panarch, from a fully Greek but unattested *πανάρχης). Primarch appears to be, likewise, a neologism.  --Lambiam 07:54, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

The OED has the fully-Greek protarch, from proto- + arch, described as "rare" and defined as "a chief ruler; (in extended use) any leader." AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:54, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

By "cross-pollinated", did you mean to say that one work may have directly or indirectly influenced the other? --72.234.12.37 (talk) 02:37, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes. For example, the final paragraph of the Final Fantasy article's Legacy section includes the sentence: "Mass Effect art director Derek Watts cited Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within as a major influence on the visual design and art direction of the series." Since they are both long-running franchises in similar niches, and have been running concurrently for over 13 years, it seems not unlikely that other less obvious influences in both directions have occurred: some of the Wikipedia sub-articles I found by searching on "Primarch" also seemed to suggest mutual influence.

Perhaps we should also consider whether Primark, a commercial name invented in 1973, may have prompted the later coining of "Primarch." {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.0.58 (talk) 03:51, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

What does "same set" refer to?

Sentence: These programs ran until March 30, 1985, using the same set that would later be used by Jim Crockett when he purchased the WWF time slot from McMahon (see below). Source: Black Saturday (professional wrestling)

What does "same set" refer to? Rizosome (talk) 13:05, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Set (film and TV scenery). --Jayron32 13:45, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

I've added Jayron's link to the article. (Who says the Ref Desk doesn't help improve Wikipedia?) In the old days, movie sets would be used over and over again, for different things. Thanks to home video releases, eagle-eyed observers have found many recurring sets, one famous one being a New York City street with brownstones and stoops, used in many films over the years. Building those sets was a cost-savings by studios. There are also naturally-occurring "sets", such as Monument Valley, which was used as a backdrop in many a John Ford western. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:58, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

A famous British example is Carry on Cleo, a low budget comedy, that used the same set and costumes as Cleopatra, an epic blockbuster which "was the most expensive film ever made up to that point and almost bankrupted 20th Century Fox". Alansplodge (talk) 10:08, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

See also Backlot, where semi-permanent sets were built and reused. Alansplodge (talk) 12:51, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

A famous U.S. example is the set of The Andy Griffith Show (a/k/a Mayberry RFD), which was used for part of the legendary original Star Trek episode "City on the Edge of Forever". --Orange Mike | Talk 18:45, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

That same backlot was used for the first 26 episodes of Adventures of Superman. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:01, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Why do American rules say "this." and never "this". should be used??

Many online sites say that Americans are supposed to write "this." and never "this". regardless of which is more logical. But they're not helpful with the reason we have to write "this." even if "this". is more natural. Does it derive from the rules of Latin?? Georgia guy (talk) 14:02, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Can you provide a full sentence with that usage? Or are you merely talking about the placement of punctuation with quotation marks? <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 14:12, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Georgia guy, is this something like MOS:LQ? Elizium23 (talk) 14:13, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes; it's about how to place punctuation adjacent to quotation marks. Georgia guy (talk) 14:39, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Not all rules (or even most rules) have reasons why, beyond "consistency". Which is to say, someone sets a rule arbitrarily, solely for the purpose of having a consistent system, and there is no reason why that rule was chosen over a different, but equal, rule. It just is. And by "someone" I don't mean "someone" so much as "indeterminable people". This blog post hosted by the Chicago Manual of Style states "This traditional style has persisted even though it's no longer universally followed outside of the United States and isn't entirely logical." and goes into some detail on this quirk of American English style. The rule first appeared in the 1906 Chicago Manual of Style (2 years after the first edition) and it appears that the influence of the CMOS was great enough that it propagated through all of the major AmEng style guides in the early 20th century. MLA recommends the same style, and that page also cites Strunk and White was recommending it in 1959. The MLA citation does cite typographic conventions as the main reason for it (the same situation that mandated the "two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence" rule), and that modern digital typography has obviated the original need for the rule. I will also note that the rule is slowly changing, the Purdue Online Writing lab (OWL), a very commonly used online style guide, is no longer as stringent in its application of the rule as most other US style guides are. --Jayron32 14:20, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Some things are indeed arbitrary, but others are plain illogical and deserve condemnation. Such as including a trailing comma inside closing quotation marks, when the comma was never part of the quote. "You are not my father," he said. Triple yuck!!! -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:38, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

One also wonders what proponents of quote mark switching propose for a sentence like, "Am I my brother's keeper?", he asked.  --Lambiam 09:19, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article is Quotation marks in English#Order of punctuation. British or "logical" quoting is based on including within quote marks only that which is actually quoted. American quoting seems to be based at least partly on an old printing practice of printing quote marks directly above commas and periods (stops) to save space. When this was no longer done, putting the punctuation after the quote mark seemed to some to be visually uglier than putting the punctuation before the quote mark. The Wikipedia "Manual of Style" recommends British conventions be used for the positioning of quote marks with respect to other punctuation (many American computer geeks have preferred logical punctuation for decades), but recommends American conventions for outermost quote marks being double... AnonMoos (talk) 21:00, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Any reason?? Georgia guy (talk) 21:04, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

The reason is because

When I was in school, my teachers said one should never use the phrasing "the reason is because." Yet I have heard this expression used by educated people and seen it used in reliable sources. How accepted is this usage? TFD (talk) 15:12, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

It rather depends on how formally (or in what register) one is writing or speaking. It's an easy wording to fall into when speaking spontaneously, and doubtless I've done so myself, but in careful and formal speech or writing most would avoid it, because its tautology ("the reason is" and "because" mean the same and can stand alone) irritates some auditors or readers. This is something that careful speakers and writers generally try to avoid, even when the particular irritant usage is not actually incorrect, so as not to break their audience's attention. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.0.58 (talk) 15:49, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

There are more than two levels of formality involved here. "The reason [for] ... is [that] ..." and "[Something is the case] because ..." are certainly considered by everyone to be unobjectionable in formal prose. As Former 87.81.230.195 says, "The reason ... is because ..." is considered by many to be pleonastic. Still fewer folk approve of the construction "The reason why ... is because ..." Deor (talk) 16:02, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Like many, many, many of the grammatical proscriptions that people used to insist on in the past, but which have always been bullshit, this is right there with "splitting infinitives" and "ending sentences with prepositions". This proscription has a singular source, basically one grammarian in 1926 got a bug up his ass about it, and then it was decided it was gospel. As seen here, that grammarian was Henry Watson Fowler, and there is no evidence that the rule existed before he wrote it down; it seems to have been an annoyance peculiar to himself, but his status as an authority on the English language meant that prescriptive linguists have latched on to it since then; descriptive linguists have noted, however, that aside from Fowler and those that followed, it has never been a marked construction in English usage. The blog post I cite there notes several prominent uses of the construction from both before and after Fowler invented the proscription against it, by several prominent and learned writers from all over the Anglosphere. Which is not to say that you should start using it. Both "The reason is... because..." and "The reason is... that..." are perfectly acceptable, and if one does not fit into your idiolect, feel free to not use it. But there is no "rule" in normal English against it. --Jayron32 16:18, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

And, in case you want a better authority than the Motivated Grammar blog, try Merriam Webster on for size "In sum, "the reason is because" has been attested in literary use for centuries. If you aren't comfortable using the phrase, or feel that it's awkward, don't use it. But maybe lay off the criticism of others—there's really no argument against it." The Merriam Webster entry cites a usage of "the reason is... because..." to E. B. White of Strunk and White fame. If that's not an endorsement that the usage is cromulent, I don't know what is. --Jayron32 16:22, 11 June 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but given Strunk & White's endorsement of ludicrous punctuation as noted in the thread above, I hardly think their opinion is to be relied upon. DuncanHill (talk) 10:21, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Different is not a synonym for wrong. --Jayron32 01:52, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

This could be a difference between modern Commonwealth and American usage, like "this". and "this." TFD (talk) 14:07, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

References

Those look identical, unless I need my glasses checked. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:59, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

I think it's about the full stop inside or outside the inverted commas, but they are indeed identical. Alansplodge (talk) 19:04, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, I corrected it. In American English, “By convention, commas and periods that directly follow quotations go inside the closing quotation marks” (MLA).[2] But in Commonwealth English, they are placed before the closing quotation marks. It's useful to know if one is writing or editing articles for publication in different countries. TFD (talk) 19:54, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

Uh.... I think you've gotten confused again. I think you meant to say that "in Commonwealth English, they are placed after the closing quotation marks." --Khajidha (talk) 22:07, 12 June 2021 (UTC)

That doyen of British grammar, Henry Watson Fowler, has this to say on the subject:

The reason why so few marriages are happy. is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.

The reason Adam was walking along the lanes at this time was because his work for the rest of the day lay at a country-house about three miles off.

Jonathan Swift and George Eliot could be called for the defence of the modern journalist who writes The reason was because they had joined societies which becane bankrupt, or The only reason for making a change in the law is because the prostitute has an annoyance value. But there is obviously a tautological overlap between reason and because: the young ladies' so spending their time, the work's lying in that direction, their joining those societies and the prostitute's having an annoyance value are the reasons, and they can be paraphrased into the noun clauses that the young ladies spend etc., but not into the adverbial clauses because the young ladies spend etc. And so, although the reason is because often occurs in print and oftener in speech, the reason is that is more correct and no more trouble.

A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, Second Edition 1965, pp. 504-505. Alansplodge (talk) 22:17, 12 June 2021 (UTC)