Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 August 14

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August 14

Comma after dash

I want to know if the punctuations in the 2nd sentence of personal god are correct?--71.108.3.143 (talk) 13:54, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

cursing the worshippers—,intentions

--71.108.3.143 (talk) 13:59, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Commas tend to be vague, but in that instance, yes, it is correct to have the comma after the dash. If the text within the dashes wasn't there, you'd definitely have to have a comma, so you still need it, even though it looks a bit odd. --Alinnisawest(talk) 14:00, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I changed the dashes to parentheses, as putting a comma after a dash looks really, really odd. —Angr 14:04, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Does anyone know the difference between parentheses and dashes in such instances for elucidatory remarks?--71.108.3.143 (talk) 14:07, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I would say that dashes are meant to interrupt a thought, so they don't belong at the end of a sentence, clause, or list item like they were in this case. -- Coneslayer (talk) 14:09, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

A dash is sort of breaking into a sentence, like inserting an aside into a speech, but parentheses sort of give extraneous information. It's like you could take the parentheses out altogether and not miss much, if that makes sense? --Alinnisawest(talk) 01:59, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

English language word.

What is the English word for the following text. "Teenie, weenie, meanie,Jeanie"71.208.104.209 (talk) 15:36, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Those words all rhyme. More specifically, I think this is a feminine rhyme. Gandalf61 (talk) 15:49, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Taunt? Deor (talk) 16:05, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

The whole thing could be also called a rhyming reduplication. ---Sluzzelin talk 16:07, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I've always wondered why they call it reduplication, when it's only repeated once, not twice. Moving on, "teenie weenie" belongs to a class of expressions whose name escapes me. The class includes some double dactyls, and some flip flop words, and many Hobson-Jobson terms would be in there as well. -- JackofOz (talk) 21:36, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

French or Spanish

What language do you suggest I study French or Spanish? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hovercraft Experts (talk • contribs) 16:20, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

1) Do you intend to study either language at a higher level e.g. college? 2) Which would be the most useful for you to know? i.e. if you live in the U.S., Spanish would be quite useful. If you lived in Europe and holiday in France, then French would be a good choice. Fribbler (talk) 16:25, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Estonian name

Ah, I feel kind of foolish but I'm getting conflicting answers on the internet. Kat-rin [1]? Kaht-reen [as in Katrina] [2]? I'm sure both are used, I'm just not sure which one (or another?) is used in Estonia. Thanks! Kinou (talk) 02:01, 14 August 2008 (UTC) moved from misc. desk by El aprendelenguas (talk) 20:30, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

This is what happens when people use ad-hoc "pro-nun-see-AY-shun" guides instead of the IPA. I'm sure both of those are intended to represent the same pronunciation. My best guess for the Estonian pronunciation is [ˈkɑtrin]. —Angr 20:47, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Singing in English

You can hear the difference between the Queen,s English,American English and Australian English when spoken.Why is it you cannot tell the difference when singing ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.240.27.249 (talk) 20:33, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Often, you can. While classically trained singers take diction classes to learn the one acceptable pronunciation of English for their genre, popular singers usually use their native accents when singing. Listen to how Bette Midler, Cher, and Madonna hit their postvocalic R's and you can tell they speak with a rhotic accent. Or how Paul McCartney rhymes "aware" with "her" in "I've Just Seen a Face", and you know he's from northeastwest England. On the other hand, even popular singers sometimes "cover their tracks": despite coming from London, David Bowie sings "Let's D[æ]nce", not "Let's D[α:]ns". —Angr 20:43, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

McCartney from northeast England? Shome mishtake shurely! DuncanHill (talk) 21:25, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

D'oh! —Angr 22:01, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

For spectacular examples of singing in a regional accent, listen to pretty much anything by Slade. DuncanHill (talk) 20:45, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Or these guys. - Eron^Talk 21:09, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Or these. DuncanHill (talk) 21:12, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

At the same time, I've noticed that people sometimes sing a foreign language better than they speak it -- possibly because of the limited and unchanging vocabulary, and examples of pronunciation supplied by listening to other singers for whom it's a native language. (Having said that, I'm remembering a radio interview with Sheena Easton. Her singing was easily understood in the U.S., but for Americans the interview almost needed subtitles.) — OtherDave (talk) 21:20, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

At the other extreme are singers who speak perfectly clearly but become virtually unintelligible when they sing, even in English. Many opera singers (bless them) are in this category, and Dame Joan Sutherland would have to be the main offender. Fantastic voice, but what the hell's she singing about? -- JackofOz (talk) 21:43, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

And then in a parallel universe there's this - X201 (talk) 21:59, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you - that was the best thing I have seen and heard in a very long time! DuncanHill (talk) 22:09, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

For another good example of singing in a regional accent, try Billy Bragg. And at the other extreme there's Elizabeth Fraser whom I've heard described as "singing English in French". Grutness...wha? 00:08, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Most modern popular music forms originated in America, and people learn by imitation, so the majority of popular singers sing in some kind of approximation of an American accent - sometimes called a "mid-Atlantic" accent - which will obscure the singer's place of origin. There seems to be a small trend in recent years for some British and Irish singers to "reclaim" their own accents - Lily Allen and Duke Special being examples that immediately spring to mind - and I'm all for it. I try to do it myself, but after a liftime of singing along to my favourite records, it's surprisingly difficult. Try singing along to Ian Dury and not going cod-cockney! --Nicknack009 (talk) 10:42, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

It's interesting that country singers keep their Southern accents when they sing but so many rock singers, even those who don't speak English as a first language, sound like they come from Cleveland, Ohio. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 11:58, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Agreeing with Nicknack009: as music director or assistant MD for a number of musicals in a predominantly student group in England, I have been surprised how often as soon as somebody starts singing, their accent heads out across the Atlantic. Some of the vowels change, alveolar stops get voiced and flapped, and their non-rhotic speech acquires post-vocal [r] (sometimes in words where there's no etymological /r/, so Americans wouldn't pronounce one). It's generally not conscious, and even when it is pointed out they often find it hard to stop doing. --ColinFine (talk) 22:26, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Verbs that are only transitive for one object

This Dinosaur Comic from 23 July 2008 makes an interesting observation (and I am trusting that Dinosaur Comics is correct): that "poop" is a transitive verb only when applied to "pants". (It could work with others like "diapers", "underwear", but these are just variations of "pants".) Compare "I pooped my pants" to "I pooped the bushes". Are there other verbs like this, that are only transitive for a single word (or a small set of similar words)? Alternatively, are phrases like "I pooped the bushes" technically correct, but seem incorrect because they are so obscure or uncommon? — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 23:34, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

How about I pooped myself? Matt Deres (talk) 00:14, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I suppose you could say "I pooped" or "I am/was pooping" (cf. "I pissed", "I am/was pissing"), but normally it takes an object. But it's funny that you can say "I pooped myself/my pants", "I shat myself/my pants", or "I crapped myself/my pants" - but not "I defaecated myself/my pants". Well, you can say it, but it's not a standard expression like the other ones that use the ... less technical verbs. You'd have to resort to "I soiled myself/my pants". (I can't believe I'm actually talking about this rather messy subject online, but every day brings a new surprise.)-- JackofOz (talk) 00:24, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Counterexample: a common expression in my part of the world for "I made a bad mistake" is "I shat the bed". --Sean 13:25, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

And there's always this wonderful expression for someone who is uncomfortably fearful: "He's shitting bricks." - Eron^Talk 13:48, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I've heard poop used with an object of what is excreted, including non-idioms. "If you swallow a tooth, wait a day or two and you'll poop it out."--El aprendelenguas (talk) 19:57, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

This discussion has pooped me out. Yep, I'm pooped, alright. DOR (HK) (talk) 02:24, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

The phenomenon is a specialised form of subcategorisation, though our article is only a stub. --ColinFine (talk) 22:29, 18 August 2008 (UTC)