Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2025 February 15

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February 15

Newly born WORD

how to give an official shape to a newly born WORD ? 103.240.206.170 (talk) 16:32, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Word which is new born,how to varyfy the construction of it within grammatical correctness? 103.240.206.170 (talk) 16:36, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

New words generally get adapted plain naturally by the speakers that coin and use them. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:22, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

you have to write out each and every letter,

in the word, which you are using (or coining), and i know that it's quite uncommon in our day and age to do this

each and every letter which you would that the word should comprise, or compose, or which should as parts of a whole (separate but whole) constitute the word in question

and then specify your meaning 130.74.58.24 (talk) 19:00, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes new words arise for no discernible reason, and even with no discernible meaning (skibidi, anyone?), but the most common process is that there is an existing and important notion that can only be described with a lengthy phrase, such as "not having a fixed gender but a gender that ondergoes changes in the course of time", which is very awkward when discussing it. Coining a term such as "genderfluid" saves a lot of verbiage. There are no rules for how neologisms are formed, but in most cases they are obtained by gluing or blending components that have meanings related to the notion, like pizzagate from pizza parlor + Watergate. For more information, see the article Neologism.  ‑‑Lambiam 21:46, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia is not for something you made up one day. If a new word is coined and actively put into use, notice will be taken by reliable sources and the word, as put into actual use, will become part of the language into which it is adopted. Only then, if it attracts sufficient notice, would an article be appropriate for Wikipedia. We are not arbiters of taste or grammar and will issue no rulings on grammatical correctness; we are an encyclopedia. --Orange Mike | Talk 17:46, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is no "official" authority for new words in English, so there is no "official shape".Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:05, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like you want to revive the Sniglet. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:07, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why does T voice here?

Why does T become voiced to a more D-like sound in some words like “utter” (which sounds just like “udder”) and “beating” (which sounds like “beading”)? To my knowledge, the other voiceless plosives don’t do this (for example, “rocket” does not become “rogget” and “happen” is not pronounced as “habben”). Primal Groudon (talk) 19:43, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is rarely heard in British English (except in Cardiff and Ulster), but mainly in the North-American pronunciation and also in Australia and New Zealand. Not only is the intervocalic /t/ realized as voiced, but its manner of articulation also changes from a plosive to the flap consonant [ɾ] in a process known as flapping. Also in American English, utter and udder are not fully homophonic – the [d] of udder remains unflappable. I'm not aware of a theory explaining why this process is specific to the unvoiced alveolar stop, but note that the velar plosive /k/ of rocket is not a lateral consonant, while the only voiced velar flap that I know of, [ʟ], is actually a tapped voiced velar lateral approximant.  ‑‑Lambiam 21:01, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

AmE /d/ lenites to [ɾ] in the same environments as flapped /t/ all the time. The contrast between utter and udder, or writer and rider, is maintained by the presence or absence of pre-fortis clipping (and possibly by Canadian raising for the latter pair). It's Commonwealth English where /d/ doesn't get flapped even if /t/ gets flapped. Nardog (talk) 18:34, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it must have something to do with where flapping occurs on the tongue. The [t] and [d] sounds of "utter" and "udder" are formed near the tip of the tongue, where flapping can occur naturally and thus can often sound the same in American speech. The [k] and [g] sounds of "rocket" and "rogget" come more from the back where flapping seems impossible. --DB1729^talk 17:35, 20 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Dates

Does English ever use all-numeric dates by abbreviating month to numbers in running text? Do English speakers ever write as follows?:

• Today is 15.2.2025.
• Today is 15/2/2025.
• Today is 2.15.2025.
• Today is 2/15/2025.
• Today is 15.2.
• Today is 15/2.
• Today is 2.15.
• Today is 2/15.

--40bus (talk) 21:43, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The first two are acceptable and usual in British English, but not the others. The second two might be recognised to be American notation, unless the number of the month made it ambiguous (i.e. 2/12/2025 would be understood as 2nd December in Britain).However, "2.15" would be understood to be the time (i.e. a quarter past two). Alansplodge (talk) 21:48, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I, a native English speaker, personally use the month-initial slash forms, so yes to those two. I don’t remember seeing periods in dates a lot except for the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. Primal Groudon (talk) 21:51, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Which native English? The dot (full stop [UK], or period [US]) form is common in Britain, but a little less so than the slash format. Alansplodge (talk) 21:56, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Only Americans ever put the month before the rest of the date. It makes no sense, but since usage makes things correct in language, I guess it can be correct for that 5% of the world's population. HiLo48 (talk) 22:01, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That “It makes no sense” line is false. Primal Groudon (talk) 23:16, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm guessing you're part of the 5% I mentioned. HiLo48 (talk) 02:47, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have always found the Month-Day-Year format as inherently confusing. And it might not necessarily be the Americans' fault, but I have seen many errors occurring in international contexts where different participants have used different standards. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 02:42, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm Canadian and when I look at things like store receipts I see all sorts of date formats. The claim that "only Americans" use month-day-year is wrong. The claim that it makes no sense is also wrong, since it corresponds to the form "February 16, 2025" that's usual on this continent. --142.112.222.162 (talk) 08:31, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Putting the month-before-day (when written in full) was fairly standard in Britain before the end of the 19th-century, and then both forms were used interchangeably; but I believe the day-before-month format was mandated by banks when writing cheques. The idea of putting day, then month, then year, has a certain logic, since the unit of time increases from left to right. Alansplodge (talk) 18:39, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

M/D/Y is returning to the UK under the cover of incompletely naturalised Windows installations. Has any US president recently banned non-US formats on US products? Just asking... -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 19:52, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think such a ban would be necessary. Most of my fellow Americans are vehemently opposed to DMY dates (and 24 hour time... and metric units...) to a level that I find flabbergasting. Any company that tried to foist DMY dates on the American populace would soon know what Dr Frankenstein felt staring out at the crowd carrying torches and pitchforks.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:47, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Americans will fully adopt metrics when or if they see a reason to. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:20, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Are American political decisions on what to adopt and what to dismantle governed by reason now? When did that start?  ‑‑Lambiam 11:06, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Don't jump to conclusions! I'm talking about the general public. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:52, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I am also American and I agree with the rest of the world that there is no sense in MDY dating. It isn't "largest unit to smallest unit" (YMD) or "smallest unit to largest unit" (DMY), so what is the rationale? I mean, today isn't the February of the 18th day, is is the 18th day of February.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:50, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But it is February 18, 2025, an ordering that is far more acceptable in the UK when the month is in words. I assume that this is what MDY derives from. But is there any evidence? -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 17:59, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

But that ordering still makes no sense. The units are still all mixed up. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 01:39, 19 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The fourth and eighth are standard American usage. The others would not be understood by many Americans.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 22:02, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just to add that only using the last two digits of the year is also acceptable in the UK (i.e. 15/2/25) and was almost universal before the Millennium. Alansplodge (talk) 18:39, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]