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October 10

Pronunciation of Tyen

Latest comment: 11 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

How do English and French tongues pronounce Vietnamese make-up artist and photographer Tyen? --KnightMove (talk) 09:15, 10 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

[1] at 1:09; [2]; [3]; [4] at 2:53. You might choose the version you like best ... -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:CD03:6D59:F57B:96B7 (talk) 10:14, 10 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Coinage of Zoombombing

Latest comment: 11 days ago2 comments2 people in discussion

When was the term, “Zoombombing”, coined? YourMadeZoom (talk) 11:09, 10 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well, the article you linked says "The term had appeared in mid-March 2020 on technology and news websites" (with three references). Deor (talk) 12:40, 10 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

October 12

Questions 2

Latest comment: 8 days ago29 comments11 people in discussion

Is there any language with vowel reduction where reduced vowels can be long?
Why word city is not spelled with an S? In word-initial position, using letter S unambigupusly means /s/, so why it is not spelled sity?
Has English ever had a Germanic word for "emergency"?
Why word "capital" is not "head city", cf. German "Hauptstadt?
Are books and websites ever written in romanized versions of non-Latin-script languages?
Which language is as close to Polish as Slovak is to Czech?
Has English ever been the first official language of Ireland, before Irish?
Are there any English-first or English-only public signs in Quebec, at least in areas where Francophones are a minority?
Are there any native words in most European languages with onsets /tl/ and /dl/?
Are there any words in English where complex onsets occur in non-initial syllables?
Are there any words in Arabic which start with a vowel-less consonant?
Are there any words in English which end in /h/ sound?
Are there any words in English where /h/ occurs in non-morpheme-initial position, like made-up words mihy and olheck? In Finnish such words are common.
Why ordinal "second" is not "twoth", cf. German "zweite"?
Why does Japanese have native word for "fork"?

--40bus (talk) 14:27, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

2: C followed by i is also unambiguously /s/. There's an etymological reason to use c and the English are so fond of traditions that they don't change spelling only to simplify it. BTW, the i in city is ambiguous. PiusImpavidus (talk) 15:36, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

4: Capital comes from capitalis, as in urbs capitalis, Latin for head city. For such upper class words English has a preference for loans from Latin (often via French). PiusImpavidus (talk) 15:46, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

12. This may be an argument from incredulity, but I'm going to say no, just because I can't imagine how that would sound. I guess you'd have to say cheetah or galah and exhale sharply at the end. That would be silly.

13. Alcohol, for a start. What do you call a morpheme? In nihilism the morpheme belongs to Latin, so does that count or not? Vehicle counts, but it's old fashioned to pronounce it so carefully. Do you want something Germanic / Old English?

14. Ordinal numeral says that second replaced an earlier form of other, a word still in use to mean "second" in one specific context, "every other". wikt:ander#German says that the equivalent German word is similarly an obsolete way of saying "second".

15. Does Japanese have a native word for fork? What is it? I see ancient Chinese forks mentioned at fork, though, so those might have had a Japanese name. There's also the dangpa, a Korean martial fork. Card Zero (talk) 15:29, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

13 Aha, yahoo etc. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:16, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Maybe those are morphemes, ha and hoo? It's hard to be sure when it comes down to giggling noises. Card Zero (talk) 16:22, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Ah, [h] might be initial for the second syllable, when I think about it. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:47, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

3. OED gives "[a] dire situation, an emergency; a position of extreme difficulty" as one sense of the phrase dead lift, "[c]hiefly in at a dead lift". It lists it as an obsolete term with citations ranging from 1567 to 1868, and quotes its own first edition (1894) as calling it "Very common in the 17th cent.: now archaic or dialect". It still has a weightlifting sense. --Antiquary (talk) 16:52, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

There's Old English nied, an ancestor of need. For a word still in use, there's mishap. Card Zero (talk) 17:02, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

A cognate of German Not and Dutch nood, still used in the sense of "emergency". PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:53, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

6. In the sense of significant mutual intelligibility, I guess Kashubian. Double sharp (talk) 16:54, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

9. In most European languages? The only one that comes to mind is Polish. E.g. pl:Tlen. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:C543:7F80:C86:C043 (talk) 17:21, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

15. Is your question:Why does Japanese have a word ...(which word?) or Why does Japanese have no word ...?. Fork (as cutlery) wasn't necessary as Japanese used chopsticks. Spoons are need for soup, and knives obviously have a role, e.g. in the preparation of food. See [5] - it has no native translation (only a katakana word) for fork in the sense of cutlery; it does have native translations for the garden fork, or a forking of a road. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:C543:7F80:C86:C043 (talk) 17:26, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Why didn't Japanese use forks as cutlery before Western contact? --40bus (talk) 20:02, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

What Japanese word for fork were you asking about? Nardog (talk) 01:59, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yep, 40bus, could you please provide clarifications of your questions when being asked? Questions 9 and 15 at least are confusing and I suspect were asked the wrong way. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:7437:322F:9875:9564 (talk) 06:47, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't really understand #11, either. I don't speak Arabic, and I have a rather vague understanding of how it fundamentally functions, but on top of that, I don't understand the question. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:12, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Why didn't we in the West use chopsticks before contacts with East Asia? Forks weren't needed; any bulky food items will be cut into small pieces with knives before the meal, such that everything can be eaten with chopsticks (plus spoon for fluid matters). -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:7437:322F:9875:9564 (talk) 06:43, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Forks weren't used in the West, anyway, until modern times. (Deliberately vague statement to encompass 1600-1800, early adopters being Italian.) Why is there an Old English word for fork? Wiktionary has fork descending from a Middle English word for "digging fork", from Old English words for "forked instrument used to torture". Card Zero (talk) 07:47, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

The additional piece necessary for chopsticks strikes me as inefficient. If you prefer clamping to stabbing, why not tongs or forceps? And cutting things into small pieces before cooking just increases prep time.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:47, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

That page lists 音叉, tuning fork, and 叉 is just "fork", but this is a personal name kanji ... but used as part of words? It's glossed as (また), so it means "fork in a tree, river, etc.", but I could imagine this becoming the Japanese for table fork in a world where foku was less fun to say. Card Zero (talk) 08:05, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's quite common that a specific Kanji is rarely used in isolation (personal names are a different thing though) but is a regular component of several two-Kanji expressions/nouns. So if this were to develop into table fork then more likely in a firm combination with another Kanji that stands for "table", "meal" or something similar. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:7437:322F:9875:9564 (talk) 08:15, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I see. And the furigana say to pronounce it "chiya", I think? Card Zero (talk) 08:18, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

If you mean the チャー in the On-reading - that's pronounced "chā" (it's the small "subscript" ャ which modifies the vowel of the preceding character into a). -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:7437:322F:9875:9564 (talk) 08:23, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

That's just the first part of a Cantonese loan... Nardog (talk) 11:11, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I was over-focusing on the char siu. (It's easy to casually imagine char means "roast", but in fact it's "fork" and the siu is "roast".) In our made-up Japanese word for table fork I guess it would be sā probably. Card Zero (talk) 13:40, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Just because something is a jinmeiyō kanji doesn't mean it's used only in personal names. Nardog (talk) 11:14, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

8. I think the OP has asked this question before. In any case "Under the Charter, the general rule is that public signs and posters as well as commercial advertising displayed in the province of Québec must be in French. While they may also be both in French and another language, the French version of the sign, poster or commercial advertising must be “markedly predominant” relative to text shown in another language. See here. Xuxl (talk) 13:39, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Are there any exemptions of areas with large Anglophone population? Or signs breaking that law? --40bus (talk) 19:22, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Languages in censuses

Latest comment: 8 days ago11 comments6 people in discussion

Are there any official statistics about minority languages in Western European countries? Are there any official statistics about whether:

some places in Schleswig-Holstein have a Danish- or North Frisian-speaking majority
some places in Lower Saxony have an East Frisian-dpeaking majority
some places in the Netherlands have a West Frisian-speaking majority
some places in eastern Germany have a Sorbian-speaking majority
some places in Sweden and Norway have a Sámi-speaking majority

Thus, does any Western European country register people according to mother tongue like Finland does? Why don't Sweden and Norway do that like Finland? --40bus (talk) 17:28, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sorbian: from:de:Sorben: The center of the Upper Sorbian language area, in which Sorbian is the everyday language used by the large majority of the population are the communities of Crostwitz, Ralbitz-Rosenthal, Panschwitz-Kuckau, Nebelschütz and Räckelwitz as well as parts of the neighbouring communities of Neschwitz, Puschwitz and Göda. Another center is the community of Radibor. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:C543:7F80:C86:C043 (talk) 18:08, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

The references go to academic publications, by the look of it, so this isn't a census or register. Card Zero (talk) 18:18, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

According to [6], the last time languages spoken were part of the German census was in 1950; it was reintroduced in the 2017 Microcensus but this only covers 1% of the population, which will make it difficult to make specific local conclusions. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:C543:7F80:C86:C043 (talk) 18:30, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Why does the main German census not ask about language? --40bus (talk) 20:01, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure on why Finland has considered it important to maintain registers about native languages, and Sweden hasn't. Maybe it's due to that in Finland the main linguistic minority (Swedish speakers) has always been a privileged, high-status group, while in Sweden, Finnish speakers have largely lacked privileges and status. And now Finnish speakers in Sweden have lost their role as the main linguistic minority to Arabs, who also largely lack privileges and status. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:31, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

East Frisian: The East Frisian language is largely extinct. Its only remaining dialect is Saterland Frisian which survives in the community of Saterland. Estimates are that there are between 1500 and 2500 speakers, while Saterland has 14000 inhabitants. The East Frisian language is not to be confused with the East Frisian Low Saxon dialect. 2A02:8424:6281:D401:C543:7F80:C86:C043 (talk) 18:13, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

North Frisian: See North_Frisian_language#Current_situation. Please note that Föhr and Amrum have around 11000 inhabitants, out of whom around 3500 speak North Frisian. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:C543:7F80:C86:C043 (talk) 18:17, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Are there any precise official figures about speakers of these languages? --40bus (talk) 20:01, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well, what was said above about the German census will apply here as well. Data is usually based on estimates, scientific studies, but not a census of the whole population. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:7437:322F:9875:9564 (talk) 06:34, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Blue area is mostly Frisian speaking

West Frisian in the Netherlands: Researchers occasionally perform polls, so there are records, but this isn't collected systematically or stored in any official records. As you can see on the map, Frisian is not surprisingly spoken mostly in the province of Fryslân (not all over the province; note the area southeast of the river known as Tsjonger in Frisian or Kuunder in Lower Saxon), but also in the village Opende (where my greatgrandmother was born) in the province Groningen. Censuses are virtual in the Netherlands. The relevant data are extracted from official databases, subjects not relevant to the government aren't included. The government doesn't have to know who speaks what language. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:41, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Odd- and even-numbered day

Latest comment: 5 days ago14 comments10 people in discussion

Is concept of odd- and even-numbered days ever defined whether ordinal of the day in the whole year, from start to end, is even or odd? For example, today (12 October) is 285th day of the year, so is today an "odd-numbered day", since 285 is an odd number? These methods would make odd and even dates alternating for the whole year except between 31 December and 1 January and even then only in common years. Are they ever used? --40bus (talk) 19:25, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Never seen it. Definitely not here in Australia. HiLo48 (talk) 23:34, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Not sure this is a language issue but no. If someone needed to track alternate days they'd do it over much shorter periods. Over a week e.g. so you might have shifts that were either Monday-Wednesday-Friday or Tuesday-Thursday-Saturday. If someone alternated shifts they would effectively be working even or odd days in the year, but they would not be tracked as such. They'd just track which weeks were MWF, which TTS. --2A04:4A43:903F:F2A9:FC78:E106:BD22:CAE4 (talk) 02:52, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

The construction "285th day of the year" is extremely rare in American English, I only see it in a very few highly formalized settings. Conversely, the idea of odd-numbered or even-numbered day is a very informal one. The idea of the two coming together in the manner you describe is virtually unthinkable. -- User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 11:42, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

As we traditionally use weeks of seven days, the ordering feels highly unintuitive and impractical. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:05, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Agreed. Additionally, since few people even know Oct 12 is the 285th day of the year - they'd be inclined to think of that day as being "even" since it's the 12th. The initialisms for days aren't standardized AFAIK, but the scheme I've seen most often is UMTWRFS for Sunday-Saturday. Using what amounts to "Unday" and "Rsday" is certainly jargon, but is unambiguous. You also see H for "Hursday". Matt Deres (talk) 14:12, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

What about Tu/Th and Sa/Su? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:22, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

They're more than one character. I mean, you can use whatever shortforms you like for whatever purpose; there's no law. At my place of business, we happen to use UMTWRFS for things like delivery days. It's compact and also allows for easy counting. Adding additional characters or commas would take up more real estate on the screen. Matt Deres (talk) 16:42, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

While in theory there could be practical uses ("Our children have to shower every other day"; "We take turns in who does the cooking every day"; "Every day one of us visits mum"), those are usually not previewed in a whole-year perspective. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:7437:322F:9875:9564 (talk) 14:24, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Many of the situations where it could be practical actually reset or take days off on a regular basis. It is rare that parents would require kids to do something on a strictly alternating day schedule. Such a rotation would mean that one week a child would be doing something on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday and the following week on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I think most parents would set specific days to do things as it would be easier for the child to keep track of. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 14:43, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

It would be the 286th day, almost one year in every four, because of poorly-planned astronomical arrangements. Does 40bus's plan respect leap years? Either the day numbering becomes inconsistent after February, or you live with the possible discontinuity when February 29 appears. It would be even, yet followed by March 1, also even. Card Zero (talk) 14:42, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I kinda figured it was a running system, which would mean that it would only be consistent from year to year when a year follows a leap year... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 15:20, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

The closest thing to this in America might be in large cities during the winter, where people are required to park on one side of the street on odd-numbered days of the month (1st, 3rd, 5th, etc.) and the other side on even-numbered days (2nd, 4th, 6th, etc.), to make things as efficient as possible for the snowplows. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:52, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Or during the 1979 oil crisis, when California implemented even-odd gas rationing: cars with even-numbered plates could only fuel up on even-numbered days. This made it tricky for commuters like me -- my commute was 120 miles round trip, and my MGB held just a bit more gas than two days worth of driving. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 22:26, 16 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Is this construction correct?

Latest comment: 8 days ago4 comments4 people in discussion

Is this construction correct: Can in Finland be drunk water from a tap? In Finnish, word-for-word translation Voiko (or Voidaanko) Suomessa juoda vettä hanasta is correct, and is the most common way to say about the thing that in Finland it is possible to drink in this way. And is the version In Finland can be drunk water from tap correct like Finnish Suomessa voi (or voidaan) juoda vettä hanasta? --40bus (talk) 19:28, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's not grammatically incorrect, but you'd have to have drunk copious amounts of something other than water to say it in normal conversation. Clarityfiend (talk) 21:12, 12 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

There's a phrase on the tip of my brain that sounds like this. It's going to drive me nuts till I remember it. The first thing I thought of was Der Dativ ist dem Genetiv sein Tod but, no, I'm pretty sure it's something in English, broadly construed. UPDATE: I also don't think it's someone set up us the bomb, but I feel like I might be getting closer. AH GOT IT!!! It's Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance!

This is one of those things that would probably be accepted by a naive Backus–Naur form parser for English, but would never be produced by a native speaker except as a joke or to make a point. The closest thing that actually sounds like idiomatic English would be [c]an water be drunk from a tap in Finland?. Even that sounds a little "off" for some reason; more likely one would use the impersonal you and say something like [i]n Finland, can you drink water from the tap?. --Trovatore (talk) 04:06, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

This is so weird I don't think even Yoda would say it that way. A poet might, in some circumstance. But the easiest way could be "In Finland, can water be drunk from a tap?" I'm also curious about why someone would ask that? Is Finnish tap water polluted? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:54, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

October 13

Past tense

Latest comment: 7 days ago8 comments4 people in discussion

Some older sports articles still contain present or future tenses. I can usually fix it to the past tense easily, but now I'm confused by one sentence:

If England will be among the seven group winners, then the best runner-up team will also qualify.

So I tried to fix it as follows:

If England were among the seven group winners, then the best runner-up team would also qualify.

But then I realized: Damn, they are after all among those seven group winners! I think I can't use the above sentence in such a case. I'm racking my brains on how to write that strange past tense. So please advise me something simple and grammatically correct. Thanks, Maiō T. (talk) 20:15, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure I completely follow the substantive details here, but counterfactuals in the past generally take the subjunctive past perfect for the hypothesis and the present perfect conditional for the consequent. So that would be [i]f England had been among the seven group winners, then the best runner-up team would also have qualified. That doesn't seem to address your concern about the seven group winners, which as I say I didn't really understand. --Trovatore (talk) 20:43, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

You can also do a direct citation, I guess. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:45, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Is this now in the past and England indeed won their group? Then there's no need for if. Since England were among the seven group winners, the best runner-up team also qualified. --Wrongfilter (talk) 20:56, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Ah, there it is, that's what I personally was missing! Thanks, Wrongfilter. Maiō T., does this address your concern?

I would note in passing that conditionals with the hypothesis in the future tense are not idiomatic in English, except possibly in an extremely formal register, so the sentence being changed is clunky. It should have said [i]f England is among the seven group winners... (or possibly [i]f England are... depending on how you use plurals for groups of persons). --Trovatore (talk) 21:00, 13 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Let me make it all clear: These unique qualifications always consist of seven groups whose winners qualify for the final tournament. Add to that the organizer and we have a nice eight-team final tournament. But sometimes it happens that the organizer of the final tournament wins its qualification group, so in that case the best second-place team from these seven groups also advances to the final tournament.
So to sum it up: In articles, until the qualification is completed, we use the future tense; for example:
If Spain will be among the seven group winners, then the best runner-up team will also qualify.
Then, after the qualification is over, if the organizer of the final tournament did not win their qualification group, we will change the text as follows:
If Portugal were among the seven group winners, then the best runner-up team would also qualify.
And in case the organizer of the final tournament won their qualifying group, we could write what Wrongfilter suggested:
Since Germany were among the seven group winners, the best runner-up team also qualified.
I think it could stay that way. Or do you have any other comments on that? Maiō T. (talk) 11:13, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

For the second case, If Portugal had been among the seven group winners, then the best runner-up team would also have qualified. seems better. The difference is that this is a concrete event. Your solution is better for continuing conditions in the present: If black were white, then pigs would be able to fly.. --Wrongfilter (talk) 11:40, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Thank you, Wrongfilter. I have an idea: Let's rework the wording of those sentences. I think it can be written a bit more clearly. I removed "among the seven group winners"; I don't like it very much. I also removed the words "then" after commas and added a round name:

If Spain wins a Round 2 group, the best runner-up team will also qualify.
If Portugal had won a Round 2 group, the best runner-up team would also have qualified.
Since Germany won a Round 2 group, the best runner-up team also qualified.

What do you think about that? I think this could be used in articles. Maiō T. (talk) 17:07, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

October 14

Ripping (digital media) origin

Latest comment: 1 day ago7 comments5 people in discussion

How did "ripping" come to mean copying digital media from one place to another? HiLo48 (talk) 02:28, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Googling "why is it called ripping a cd" leads to some ambiguity, but it suggests "ripping off", i.e. "stealing". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:19, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

It may originally have referred specifically to extracting music and/or graphics from digital games. So the software "ripping" this content from a game did not copy the file as is, but "tore off" the audio and visual content for storage while excluding the remainder of the content. (I have no sources to back up this explanation.) ‑‑Lambiam 05:43, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

That's another theory posed by some responses to Googling it, as with "ripping" a page out of a book. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:36, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

WHAAOE - see Ripping. Alansplodge (talk) 14:24, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

That article did not answer my question. (And yes, I DID look at it before posting here.} HiLo48 (talk) 23:14, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

One of the earliest examples of C64 game music ripping on CSDB, 1001 Crew's The Tune from Trap (1986), explicitly uses the "ripped out" sense on the title screen. I'm sure the "ripped off" sense helped to reinforce it, though; certainly when I encountered the term on the Amiga around 1990 that's what I assumed it meant. Adam Sampson (talk) 16:30, 20 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sense origin of (rhetorical) frame

Latest comment: 5 days ago9 comments4 people in discussion

One can frame a message by constructing a frame for conveying the message, that is by placing it an interpretive context that colours its content. Calling an anti-narcotics campaign "the war on drugs" can serve to give some kind of moral approval to acts that might be accepted in a real war but otherwise would be considered unjustifiable. I can think of two senses of the term frame that gave rise to this use in a rhetorical sense:

frame in the sense of a structural framework around which something can be constructed;
frame in the sense of a picture frame, such as a rectangular structure around a canvas.

Is it possible to determine which original sense gave rise to the rhetorical one? ‑‑Lambiam 07:24, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Not sure this entirely answers your question, but the etymology/evolution of "frame" is interesting.[7] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:41, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't understand sense 1. Does it mean the message is the frame for building the context? Here's Dickens using "frame the message", anyway. Card Zero (talk) 15:45, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sense 1 as in this quotation:

What is the office of the bones ?.
They are the frame around which the other parts of the body are built.^[8]

Without frame to hold it up, the message would fall flat.

If it can be established that the use as a verb (as per Dickens) precedes the use as a noun, this would IMO settle the question in favour of sense 2. ‑‑Lambiam 20:54, 15 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Or perhaps not. Wiktionary gives the etymology of the verb as from a Middle English verb meaning primarily "to construct", and defines the rhetorical sense as:

7. (transitive) To construct in words so as to establish a context for understanding or interpretation.

Unlike the framing of a picture, which does not modify the picture itself, framing in the rhetorical sense modifies the form in which the message is expressed. The interpretive context is not expressed explicitly anyway; it is evoked by the framing, as when calling tax cuts for the wealthy "tax relief", thereby implying that the tax is a difficult burden for them. ‑‑Lambiam 21:24, 15 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Yes, but the frame is, as you say, "an interpretive context", and a context goes around the outside of the message. So the bones here are an exoskeleton - but, OK, I get the distinction now: conceptually supportive rather than decorative. Yes, and in practice the framing manifests in choice of words, so it's located inside the message. Well, not always, there can be external context such as a preamble, or poisoning the well: those are framing too but leave the main message unchanged. Card Zero (talk) 03:25, 16 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

In phrasing the original question, I leaned on the definition of the noun sense on Wiktionary, "A context for understanding or interpretation." The use of the term in our article Framing (social sciences) is confused, to say the least. Consider this gem, "Frames in communication consist of the communication of frames between different actors." ‑‑Lambiam 07:01, 16 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Well I don't mean to other sociologists, or impose oppositionality on them, but they love to verb, and sometimes noun. Card Zero (talk) 12:10, 16 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Gregory Bateson, who is said to have been the first to write about psychological framing, does refer to pictures:

"Psychological frames are related to what we have called "premises." The picture frame tells the viewer that he is not to use the same sort of thinking in interpreting the picture that he might use in interpreting the wallpaper outside the frame. Or, in terms of the analogy from set theory, the messages enclosed within the imaginary line are defined as members of a class by virtue of their sharing common premises or mutual relevance. The frame itself thus becomes a part of the premise system. Either, as in the case of the play frame, the frame is involved in the evaluation of the messages which it contains, or the frame merely assists the mind in understanding the contained messages by reminding the thinker that these messages are mutually relevant and the messages outside the frame may be ignored."

Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972).

In his introduction to Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience (1974) Erving Goffman refers to Bateson as well: "Bateson introduced his own version of the notion of “bracketing”, a usable one, and also the argument that individuals can intentionally produce framing confusion in those with whom they are dealing; it is in Bateson’s paper that the term “frame” was proposed in roughly the sense in which I want to employ it." ---Sluzzelin talk 07:05, 17 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Muzan's speech

Latest comment: 7 days ago1 comment1 person in discussion

In the popular Japanese cartoon and comic series Kimetsu no Yaiba, the overarching antagonist character Kibutsuji Muzan originates from the Heian period, but lives to the time of when the series story takes place, in the Taishō era; 1915 to be more specific. However, despite having lived for over 1100 years, the character speaks modern standardised Japanese, presumably for the convenience of the audience and the main characters, instead of old Japanese.

I suppose that what I want to ask is, if Muzan were to speak in old Japanese reflective of his home era, would people from the Taishō period, let alone the modern day (since spoken Japanese has changed a lot more than most people think or realise in the last 100 years, due to plenty of loanwords that were incorporated into the language), would be able to understand him enough to have a grasp of what he is saying? Admittedly, I do not possess a clear understanding of how well scholars and linguists may have reconstructed old Japanese; one of the few things I think I do know of is the phonetic change/shift of P sounds to H sounds in some words, such as with the name of the semi-mythical shaman queen Himiko. 72.234.13.221 (talk) 15:45, 14 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

October 15

No lorem. No ipsum. No dolor. No sit. Just amet.

Latest comment: 6 days ago4 comments2 people in discussion

Would it to be correct to refer to this type of construction as a negative parallelism, just like "Not only lorem but also ipsum"? If not, then what is it called? – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 10:54, 15 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

This type is mentioned as the last one in that section. I am not sure that the term "negative parallelism" has an established and fixed meaning as a term of art. Without such a fixed meaning, the question is moot. ‑‑Lambiam 20:37, 15 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I was the one who added it there, and I'm asking if I was mistaken to classify "No X. No Y. No Z. Just W." constructions as negative parallelisms. If I was mistaken to have done that, then I'd like to know if any pre-existing name exists for that particular type of construction, otherwise I may just call them "no ..., no ..., just ..." constructions. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 23:29, 15 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

At least some authors use the term in such a way that it appears to cover this type, although none that I saw bothered to define the term before using it, so this is an extrapolation from extracting patterns from observed uses. (Some authors appear to use the term for "no ...; no ...; no ..." constructions, some for any parallelism involving some negation, and some for parallelisms involving both affirmation and negation, called by yet others positive–negative parallelisms.) ‑‑Lambiam 06:04, 16 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

October 16

Word function identification

Latest comment: 3 days ago6 comments4 people in discussion

What part of speech is the word “long” in the second verse of the British anthem and what role is it playing? Primal Groudon (talk) 19:24, 16 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's an adverb, it qualifies the verb "live", which is in the subjunctive mood. The line expresses the wish that the king/queen live for a long time. --Wrongfilter (talk) 19:33, 16 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I’m referring to the second verse or stanza, the one that goes “Send him victorious, happy and glorious, long to reign over us, God save the king.” Primal Groudon (talk) 19:39, 16 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Ah. Still an adverb, I'd say: to reign over us for a long time. --Wrongfilter (talk) 19:45, 16 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Americans may be more familiar with its use in the phrase "Live long and prosper". -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 17:14, 17 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

We find the same construction here:^[9]

In youth hope whisper’d he was long to prove
The joys of friendship, and the charms of love.

This can IMO be viewed as being analogous to

"he was late to grasp the volatility of the situation"^[10] or

"he was late to come to realize the changes in Eastern Europe".^[11]

I suppose late to grasp ... can also be analyzed as a predicative adjectival clause; applied to the British anthem, this analysis would give us the three-pronged adjectival parallelism

victorious,
happy and glorious,
long to reign ... .

‑‑Lambiam 11:39, 18 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

October 17

What's the English term for an advocate of scientism?

Latest comment: 4 days ago8 comments6 people in discussion

In Romanian, it's scientist. (For scientist, they have om de știință, man of science.) Card Zero (talk) 11:35, 17 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't think there's a single term in English. Which isn't surprising, since 'advocate of scientism' is ambiguous. To some scientism is a belief in the efficacy of the scientific method as a means to explore reality. To others it is a pejorative, applied to those who (allegedly) misuse 'science' or its terminology in contexts well beyond its scope. And its not a word that's used much, anyway. [12] AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:14, 17 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

As Andy says, it's not a word in common discourse in English, and no term appears to have been coined. --Orange Mike | Talk 12:22, 17 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I don't know of any word with that meaning. I do, however, know many words for those who aren't such advocates. My favorite is "idiots". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:21, 17 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

I was more concerned with the technicality of how to construct such a word, since all I can think of is *scientismist. But the term has two meanings, as Andy points out. Thomas Szasz was possibly an idiot, but he wasn't anti-science. This is from Our Right to Drugs:

Adam Smith, generally regarded as the father of free-market capitalism, was not an economist (there was no such thing in the eighteenth century). He was a professor of moral philosophy. As such, his brand of economics made no attempt to be value-free. Today, professional economists and observers of the economic scene err in their efforts to make the study of these human affairs into a value-free social "science."

He doesn't say scientism there, but by putting science in quotes he's invoking the concept, in the sense of the application of science to a context beyond its scope. Since in this instance it involves morality, it's similar to the is-ought problem. You can measure things very scientifically, but measurements alone don't tell you what you ought to do, and if you claim that science tells us what's proper behavior, you're being ... scientistic, I guess. Scientismistic. Card Zero (talk) 21:12, 17 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

The obvious could be "scientismists". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:04, 17 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Sounds like they advocate scientismism. Card Zero (talk) 21:13, 17 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

It might just be scientist. Wiktionary has an entry for antiscientist. Context also matters. 122.57.208.7 (talk) 00:35, 18 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

October 18

Meaning of "sanies"?

Latest comment: 1 day ago4 comments4 people in discussion

Skimming over a short story 'The Horror from the Hills' (Weird Tales, January 1931) by Frank Belknap Long, I have encountered a puzzling reference.

A curator at the 'Manhatten Museum of Fine Arts' is examining a just-acquired idol of the (obviously fictional) "Elephant-god of Tsang", whose description contains the following passage:

". . . the statue itself, with the exception of the tusks, had apparently been chiseled from a single block of stone, and was so hideously mottled and eroded and discolored that it looked, in spots, as though it had been dipped in sanies."

Can anyone explain what "sanies" refers to? My best guess is perhaps a corrosive cleaning product extant in the 1920s/30s US. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.193.153.108 (talk) 16:08, 18 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Apparently, "a thin mixture of pus and blood serum discharged from a wound". Deor (talk) 16:18, 18 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

(1) Thank you, Deor. (2) Yechh! (3) I thought I'd consulted Wictionary amongst my other searches, but doh! (4) Entirely in keeping with the theme of this horror story. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.208.246 (talk) 15:04, 19 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

And here I thought it was the sane version of the zoomies, i.e. when a dog or cat runs around in a perfectly rational manner. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:53, 20 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

October 21

Imperfect and conditional

Latest comment: 8 hours ago5 comments4 people in discussion

Is the past tense in Germanic languages called an "imperfect"? The article mentions a tense called "imperfect" in Romance languages, but does not mention existence of that tense in any of the Germanic languages? In Finnish, both the Finnish, Germanic and Romance tenses are called "imperfekti". Is English played, German spielte, Swedish spelade and Icelandic spillaði an "imperfect"?

A second question: Is there a "conditional mood" in Germanic languages? Is "would do" conditional, let alone a mood? Or German "würde tun" or Swedish "skulle göra"? --40bus (talk) 19:56, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Question #1: in German, the past tense has sometimes informally been called "Imperfekt" by people who uncritically transfer terminology over from Latin, but that usage is considered linguistically incorrect and not what you'll find either in academic linguistic writing or in school grammars or dictionaries. The established and correct term for the past tense is "Präteritum" (English "preterite"). I'd expect this terminology to be similar in other Germanic languages, but I can't speak for those. A real "imperfect" is something semantically different; it's a tense that has an aspectual meaning (roughly speaking, something to do with either ongoing, habitual or static situations). Romance "imperfect" tenses have this function; the Germanic preterites don't.

Question #2: periphrastic constructions with modal verbs such as "would", "würde" etc are just that: modal verb constructions. Calling them "moods" has come out of fashion in linguistics, if for no other reason than that they belong to a much more loosely defined and larger set than actual morphological moods usually do (we don't have a "mood" label for 'I ought to go', 'I might go', 'I can go', 'I should go'; so why would 'I would go' require such a label?). When it comes to real (morphological) mood categories, German has the two "Konjunktiv" categories (Konjunktiv I: 'er gehe', Konjunktiv II: 'er ginge'). Those are real moods, and the Konjunktiv II partially functions like a conditional, but it's not normally called that in German. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:25, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Swedish linguists use the term preteritum, but the colloquial term dåtid, literally "then time", is more common. Analogous terms are used in the other Scandinavian languages. The Dutch term is onvoltooid verleden tijd, literally "uncompleted past time". (The words tid and tijd, translated here as "time", are calques of the Latin grammar term tempus, which is also the etymon of English tense. The word onvoltooid is a calque of imperfectum.) ‑‑Lambiam 21:36, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Is "would" + infinitive along with "would have" + infintive ever included in the paradigm of verbs in grammars in most English-speaking countries? And Finnish imperfekti does not have an aspectual meaning and it, along with Germanic past tenses, corresponds to both Romance imperfect and preterite, with aspectual distinction being made with case of object. Does English have a "future tense" and a "conditional mood"? The closest equivalent of future tense in Finnish is "tulla" + third infinitive, like tulla tekemään. And is Romance conditional a tense or amood? --40bus (talk) 21:48, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

It's long been common for popular and school textbooks to say that German has an imperfect tense. See this example in a book entirely about German verbs from Collins, a major British educational publisher. Or another example in a textbook from Nelson Thornes, which is apparently now part of OUP. Or these examples from a textbook by OUP itself. I'm not sure whether these examples are all British indicates that this is a regional phenomenon or whether there is some skew in what Google Books UK is showing to me or in the names that I recognize as respectable publishers. Matt's talk 22:50, 21 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

October 22

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