Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 August 27

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August 27

As it were

Just struck me what an odd expression this is. The "were" appears to be the preterite subjunctive (or irrealis) but what is the rationale? Something like "as though it were the way I'm speaking"?

But that isn't what it seems to mean. It means something more like "this is possibly a slightly imprecise figure of speech, or maybe a deliberately provocative way of putting my point". --Trovatore (talk) 06:22, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps the original meaning was more about how something appeared to be, while knowing it was mere appearance. I can imagine how "He looked as if he were a ghost" can turn into "He was, as it were, a ghost". (Just guessing.)  --Lambiam 07:47, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Wiktionary gives the Old English reconstruction *ealswā hit wǣre. The basic meaning of the conjunction ealswā is "as if".  --Lambiam 07:58, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

The comparative sense of "as it were" is frequently used in the Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible, dating from the 16th and 17th centuries:

Like as a lion that is greedy of his prey: and as it were a lion's whelp, lurking in secret places. (Psalm 17, v. 12, BCP)

And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia... Book of Revelation, ch. 6 v. 9, KJV

Alansplodge (talk) 10:49, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Especially the latter fits well with the as if meaning: John the Divine reports that what he heard sounded as if a great multitude were saying, Alleluia.  --Lambiam 23:04, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I've always thought of it as a fossilised phrase, particularly: "preserving of ancient linguistic features which have lost their grammatical functions in language". Vanishingly few users would even have heard of the preterite, let alone know what it means, so they use this expression mainly because others of their ilk have done so. The meaning comes not from the grammar or its deep etymology but from its more recent usage.

Here's a quote you might like: "We seem, as it were, to have conquered and peopled half the world in a fit of absence of mind." (Sir John Seeley). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:59, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Preterite is really just a pretentious way of saying past. A lot of people know the past subjunctive for counterfactuals ("If I were a rich man"). Our English subjunctive article seems to be limited to the present subjunctive for some reason. I tried raising the issue at some point but couldn't get much traction. I might marshal up my sources and try again someday, but I suspect there may be people who hang around there who would push back, so it would have to be when I'm ready to deal with that. --Trovatore (talk) 20:00, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Trovatore -- Think of it as equivalent to "as it would be" in more modern English. AnonMoos (talk) 21:21, 28 August 2024 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to capture the meaning with which it's used today. --Trovatore (talk) 18:38, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

How does a tonal language get along with songs? Doesn't their music change the lexical tones, which actually influence the meaning of words?

Maybe the musicians compose an appropriate music, for the lexical tones of the given text to be kept under the appropriate music? If this is the case, then translating a given text from another language into a tonal language, while keeping the original music, won't be an easy task, will it?

It will probably be a bit analogous to the task of translating a given poem from another language into English, while keeping the rhymes, right?

HOTmag (talk) 10:24, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

In my experience of listening to far too much Chinese pop music tones are ignored. I can think of a few reasons for this. The main one is the challenge of combining a modern tune with the tones of speech. Many songs are intended for overseas markets where the tones would make no sense. In particular Chinese pop songs are often sung in different varieties of Chinese (so Mandarin songs are sung in Cantonese and vice versa), where the tones are totally different.

This is "in my experience" so it might not be universally true. In fact I can think of one example where lexical tones and music are combined, Chinese opera, though I have no real experience of that. --2A04:4A43:907F:F6B6:C44D:CDCA:A3DE:F694 (talk) 11:18, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Interesting. HOTmag (talk) 11:39, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Here [1] is an academic article studying the differences in tone realization in singing in Mandarin and Cantonese. In modern-style Mandarin singing, as 2A04.* above pointed out, the tones are generally ignored, but Cantonese seems to have a pattern where some correspondence between musical melodic contours and linguistic tone is expected. Fut.Perf. ☼ 11:48, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

One more thought. Chinese pop songs almost always have subtitles. So any time you can't follow what's being sung including due to tones not being clear you can read what's being sung. It also helps speakers of other varieties of Chinese follow along.

Subtitles are widely used in Chinese video media, so in films and TV series. This means they can be sold in other markets where people speak other varieties of Chinese, as Written Chinese is the same independent of the variety of spoken Chinese. Or at least it's close enough that people can easily follow along.

For songs people want to not just follow along but also sing along, in e.g. Karaoke. There the small differences in the written language become important, and have to be dealt with. E.g. 不 is a common character "bu" which means "not" in Mandarin. But it's not used in Cantonese, which forms negatives in different ways. But if 不 appears in a Mandarin song which is sung in Cantonese the character is normally sung, as "bat", even though that then makes no sense in Cantonese. --2A04:4A43:907F:F6B6:C44D:CDCA:A3DE:F694 (talk) 12:33, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Moreover, it seems to be qualitatively the same as with any other language: it's telling that it's the exception rather than the rule for one to "know all the words" to a given song, right? It's always going to impact lexical comprehension, and the medium doesn't really require it as such. Remsense ‥ 论 12:37, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Quite so. I may enjoy the music of David Bowie; the words and tune together make the song, but meaning is irrelevant, or secondary at best, witness mondegreens. "Chain chain chain/ Ouvrez le chien" doesn't need to mean anything to be memorable. Doug butler (talk) 13:12, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Des Pudels Kern, nicht wahr? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:32, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I guess I'm just weird. To me, the tune is experienced by my whole body, but I listen to the words. If a word or expression is unclear to me, I enjoy the song less. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:19, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

It really does depend on factors at every level (position in the meter, genre, penmanship...), including whether the discrepancies Genius would consider correct are actually mondegreens of my own perfect version. Remsense ‥ 论 14:31, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Confused. Which Bowie song is that? Changes?  Card Zero  (talk) 11:20, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

"Ouvrez le chien". A rather late, relatively unknown song from the 90's, apparently. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:05, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

It's sung over the fadeout of All the Madmen, released in 1971. --2A04:4A43:906F:FA63:517F:9E16:E299:9C8E (talk) 02:21, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Seems like it's often ignored due to artistic license. I guess it could be somewhat compared to Eminem's rapping, where the intonation often is all over the place. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:32, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

There's a similar issue really even in Western music. It's very challenging to sing falling stress when the pitch rises. The line placida è l'onda, from "Santa Lucia", I find almost impossible to sing without stressing the -ci- syllable. --Trovatore (talk) 17:56, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

Without disagreeing with all of the above, it may be useful to understand that Chinese tones are not really musical, but rather a rising (like asking a question: "is it?"), falling (e.g. a sharp command: "STOP!") or a combination thereof. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 23:22, 29 August 2024 (UTC)

I've noticed that it's possible to impose other tones, which are just tone of voice, on top of those tones.  Card Zero  (talk) 16:27, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

It is pretty similar to how intonation is used in English for effect. I mean, Chinese tones are not fixed. They cannot be as if they were they'd be too high or low for certain speakers. Instead tones are based on three or more levels, with individual tones either being at one of those levels or moving up or down between them.

And as long as the levels are clear, so tones can be told apart, whatever is said can be understood. So a speaker can vary their tone of voice, raising or lowering their tones, or making them more or less distinct/separate.

But there are limits to this. Cantonese in particular has the most tones of any Chinese language today. It uniquely among Chinese languages has a large set of sentence ending particles which do many of the things that people use tones for in English. --2A04:4A43:906F:FA63:517F:9E16:E299:9C8E (talk) 02:44, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Rhyming slang

Does rhyming slang also occur in languages other than English? --40bus (talk) 21:34, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

There are various, similar cants, argots and language games worldwide. Backslang might be the most common variant, cross-linguistically. I haven't heard about rhyming slang varieties in other languages than English, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:18, 27 August 2024 (UTC)

I clicked on all the language links for our article, French, Spanish, Russian, Finnish etc. They all say that it's peculiar to the English language amd originated in London. Alansplodge (talk) 17:23, 28 August 2024 (UTC)