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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:admin="http://webns.net/mvcb/" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"> <channel> <title>Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with linguistics</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/tags/linguistics</link> <description>Questions tagged with 'linguistics' at Ask MetaFilter.</description> <pubDate>Sun, 10 Mar 2024 19:30:22 -0800</pubDate> <lastBuildDate>Sun, 10 Mar 2024 19:30:22 -0800</lastBuildDate> <language>en-us</language> <docs>http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss</docs> <ttl>60</ttl> <item> <title>This title isreallygreat</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/378772/This%2Dtitle%2Disreallygreat</link> <description>Is there a linguistic term for adding filler words, especially adverbs, spoken so quickly that they don't slow down the speaking of the main words in a sentence? For example, if someone would say "I don't want that" at a deliberate pace, they say "Iabsolutelydon'twant that" in the same amount of time. Also, is there research on why some people do this?</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2024:site.378772</guid> <pubDate>Sun, 10 Mar 2024 19:30:22 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>michaelh</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>Why do we say 'Thanks Driver!' but not Thanks OBGYN' or 'Thanks Plumber'</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/377072/Why%2Ddo%2Dwe%2Dsay%2DThanks%2DDriver%2Dbut%2Dnot%2DThanks%2DOBGYN%2Dor%2DThanks%2DPlumber</link> <description>Some people and professions get reduced to single word titles, 'Thanks Doctor', or 'Thanks [bus] Driver', but most professions do not and would sound either strange or ludicrous were they reduced to such short titles. Why? The linguistic strangeness of who is allowed to be 'Thank you job title' and not 'Thank you title name' is a curious one. Why are these things like this? Why do we have a rough sense of who you're allowed to address by their jobtitle, and who isn't. I'd say 'Thanks Postie!' for the postman, or 'Thanks Driver' to a bus driver. But 'Thanks Shopkeeper' would get me thrown out of the place for weird manners. Does this work in other languages? What is going on here exactly?</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2023:site.377072</guid> <pubDate>Fri, 08 Dec 2023 10:35:55 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>Augenblick</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>When did we start using "have" to mark past tense?</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/376113/When%2Ddid%2Dwe%2Dstart%2Dusing%2Dhave%2Dto%2Dmark%2Dpast%2Dtense</link> <description>In a discussion about language I realized how strange it is to use "have" to mark past tense, in a sentence such as "I have built a house". Modern English, German and French do it, but this way of marking past tense was not part of the Indo-European language from which they all have developed. Somewhere along the way, people started using "have" as a way of expressing past tense - when did this happen? Could you recommend some articles to read about this topic?</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2023:site.376113</guid> <pubDate>Fri, 20 Oct 2023 21:21:51 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>Termite</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>Linguistic difference between "poo" vs. "poop"</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/375695/Linguistic%2Ddifference%2Dbetween%2Dpoo%2Dvs%2Dpoop</link> <description>Is there a definitional difference between "poo" and "poop"? Seeking evidence-based linguistic answers. I can't believe I'm asking this, but here we go. <br><br>My boyfriend insists that "poo" and "poop" mean slightly different quality of f(a)eces. To him, "poo" is diarrhea (6~7 on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_stool_scale">Bristol stool scale</a>), whereas "poop" is the more solid variety (1~5 on the scale). <br><br>I have literally never heard of this distinction before. Does it really exist or is it just him? How can I find out?<br><br>This is what I've found so far:<br>- This <a href="https://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com/2017/02/poo-poop.html">blog article</a> cites the BBC as claiming that "poop" is more American whereas "poo" is more British. The blog article continues on to debunk the notion.<br><br>- According to the OED, "<a href="https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=poo">poo</a>" is a variant of "pooh". For "<a href="https://www.oed.com/search/dictionary/?scope=Entries&q=poop">poop</a>", the OED lists six different definitions for the noun form -- none of which are related to execrement. My target definition only comes up in verb form, "to poop," meaning to defecate. So, it seems like there really may be some difference in usage between "poo" and "poop," though it's not the distinction that my boyfriend draws?<br><br>How else could I find out whether or not there is a distinction between these two words? <br><br>Also, I can't help but wonder if there is regional variation. FWIW, my boyfriend is from the east coast of the US, whereas I grew up primarily in western Canada but have lived abroad recently.</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2023:site.375695</guid> <pubDate>Fri, 29 Sep 2023 21:26:58 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>tickingclock</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>"Hard" vs. "soft" sibilants</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/375185/Hard%2Dvs%2Dsoft%2Dsibilants</link> <description>Consider the pair of words (1a) mace, (1b) maze, as well as the pair (2a) zing, (2b) sing. Each pair has a single difference in sound. In each pair, would it occur to you to call one of the sounds "hard" and the other "soft" (or, if it wouldn't occur to you naturally, would you nevertheless have a strong instinct about which was which if someone else used those terms)? If so, which word in each pair has the "hard" sound?<pre></pre><strong>Please note:</strong> I know the terms linguists would use instead of "hard" and "soft"; no need to mention those or to explicate the distinction. This question is about folk usage.</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2023:site.375185</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 07 Sep 2023 11:29:48 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>aws17576</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>How can I compare the frequency of two words in English?</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/373806/How%2Dcan%2DI%2Dcompare%2Dthe%2Dfrequency%2Dof%2Dtwo%2Dwords%2Din%2DEnglish</link> <description>I want to compare two words to see which is more commonly used. ("Shard" vs. "shart") I don't want to compare searches, because people don't necessarily search on a word they know well. Google Ngram seems to stop at 2012, and only measures uses in books. Is there a tool that compares how common words are across the Internet?</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2023:site.373806</guid> <pubDate>Fri, 07 Jul 2023 05:04:38 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>musofire</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>Grammar of "I see him [verb]"</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/372888/Grammar%2Dof%2DI%2Dsee%2Dhim%2Dverb</link> <description>I'm curious about the grammar of the underlined part of this sentence from <cite>The New Yorker</cite>:<blockquote>In spite of her experiences <u>witnessing protocols fail or be subverted</u>, Easthope still argues strongly for disaster and recovery plans.</blockquote>Some specific questions inside... I gather there is a class of verbs in English which can take complements of the form [direct object] [infinitive verb phrase without "to"]. These verbs definitely include "see", "hear", and "watch", as well as the phrases "look at" and "listen to":<br><ol><br><li>She sees him run.</li><br><li>I hear babies cry / I watch them grow.</li><br><li>Look at 'em go!</li><br></ol><br>This kind of sentence also seems <em>maybe</em> possible with some other verbs that have "perceive"-like meanings. These sentences sound acceptable to me, if faintly questionable:<br><ol><br><li>I notice her stumble.</li><br><li>I observe them scatter.</li><br><li>She witnessed protocols fail.</li><br></ol><br>Other than these "seeing"-like verbs, I can think of one other semantic cluster of verbs that allow this syntax, exemplified by the following:<br><ol><br><li>You made me cry.</li><br><li>I'll have you know...</li><br><li>I bid thee depart.</li><br></ol><br>But most verbs don't seem to allow this syntax, including some verbs with semantic features similar to the above. For example, I don't think "know" is in this class. ("I know her to be honest" is a non-example as it uses "to"; "I know [that] he knows" is also a non-example as the complement is a finite verb phrase.)<br><br>Is there a name for this class of verbs? Where I can read more about it? Can you think of other verbs that belong to it? And just for the record, how do you feel about that <em>New Yorker</em> sentence?</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2023:site.372888</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 25 May 2023 17:33:51 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>aws17576</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>Linguistic History of HIV/AIDS</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/371623/Linguistic%2DHistory%2Dof%2DHIV%2DAIDS</link> <description>I recall a shift, sometime in the late 80s or early 90s, when people moved from saying someone had AIDS to someone being HIV positive. I'm wondering if my memory is correct and if so when, more precisely, that shift happened. I came of age when there were no treatments for people with HIV and I feel like I remember a shift happening around the time when AZT came on the market. So pre AZT people "had AIDS" and as AZT came into broader use people "were HIV+. I'm most interested in how and when the terms were used in the general/popular culture and not so much in academic or medical circles; I imagine the latter used the more medically correct term of HIV+ long before the general public.<br><br>This question is mostly founded in curiosity. I'm reading a novel set in 1989 and a character is talking about people having HIV and it struck me as not period specific. It's just niggling my brain and I'm hoping to figure it out.</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2023:site.371623</guid> <pubDate>Fri, 31 Mar 2023 08:08:28 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>brookeb</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>What is the newest durable eponym? </title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/370081/What%2Dis%2Dthe%2Dnewest%2Ddurable%2Deponym</link> <description>My husband asked me this last night and I'm stumped. Please help me come up with more recently coined eponyms that have successfully caught on! We're not counting all eponyms--no diseases named after doctors or policies named after politicians, for example. More rules below the fold. We're looking for eponyms that function like "sandwich" or "guillotine" or "leotard": things that are named after a person who created or popularized them and that have come to be generalizable nouns you can use to describe any object in that category (so Ponzi scheme counts, because you can say "that business model sounds like a Ponzi scheme to me", but Obamacare doesn't because there's just the one Affordable Care Act and nobody is calling single-payer healthcare in other countries Obamacare). <br><br>The most recent ones we've come up with are Jheri curl (1980s) and Zamboni (1950s). <br><br>Lou Gherig's Disease as a name for ALS is an edge case as it's named after a famous person who had it, not after a doctor who studied it. Edge cases welcome! Also words that aren't that recent but are surprisingly eponyms (shrapnel! who knew!), just for fun.</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2023:site.370081</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 26 Jan 2023 12:47:08 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>cabbage raccoon</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>Research on referring to others by fullname or part of name</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/368438/Research%2Don%2Dreferring%2Dto%2Dothers%2Dby%2Dfullname%2Dor%2Dpart%2Dof%2Dname</link> <description>Sometimes in conversation, people tend to refer to other people (not in the conversation) by full name, every time. Like saying "Ted Danson" several times instead of switching to "Ted" or "Danson". But sometimes we don't, e.g., "Biden". Is there research about patterns in who does this, which names get truncated vs. not, etc.? I have intuitions but would want to double-check. Would this be a linguistics thing, maybe interdisciplinary with sociology?</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2022:site.368438</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 17 Nov 2022 06:14:06 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>brainwane</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>I'm losing my mind over a point of grammar</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/367484/Im%2Dlosing%2Dmy%2Dmind%2Dover%2Da%2Dpoint%2Dof%2Dgrammar</link> <description>I'm due to happily march my high school sophomores through the difference between compound and complex sentences. I do not understand how they are actually different. Please help me understand. This is the canonical explanation: A compound sentence combines two independent phrases of equal importance with a coordinating conjunction (usually rendered as FANBOYS - for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so). So for example, here are two independent phrases:<br><br>It started raining.<br>I went home.<br><br>Then a compound sentence is "It started raining <strong>so</strong> I went home."<br><br>A complex sentence combines an independent phrase to a dependent phrase, one which has been made dependent by the addition of a subordinating conjunction, e.g. although, before, that, though, whether, unless, until, then, that, where, while, even if, so that, rather than, because, etc.<br><br>So:<br><br>I went home because it started raining.<br><br>In this formulation, "because it started raining" is a dependent clause, meaning it cannot stand on its own. Fine. <strong>But "so I went home" is also a dependent clause, isn't it</strong>? Why are we counting the conjunction as part of the second clause in one and not the other?<br><br>I'm especially flummoxed by why "for" is a coordinating conjunction while "because" is a subordinating conjunction. Look:<br><br>I cannot help you for I am broke.<br>I cannot help you because I am broke.<br><br>The first is a compound sentence, the second is a complex sentence. This seems completely arbitrary to me.<br><br>Am I out of my mind? I'm about to explain this but I can't believe what I'm explaining. Help me out here.<br><br>(By the way, I would talk to my fellow teachers about this but they would have little tolerance for this kind of thing. Just teach it and be quiet.)</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2022:site.367484</guid> <pubDate>Mon, 10 Oct 2022 08:23:37 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>argybarg</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>On the two uses of the appositive/idiom: "if not impossible"...</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/367417/On%2Dthe%2Dtwo%2Duses%2Dof%2Dthe%2Dappositive%2Didiom%2Dif%2Dnot%2Dimpossible</link> <description><b><i>English idiom usage</i></b>: In contemporary English language use, does the appositive: "if not impossible" -- as used in the example sentence: "It would be difficult, <i>if not impossible</i>, for this machine to produce 100 widgets in a day" -- most commonly imply: A.) "It would be difficult, but I'm specifically allowing that it's not impossible..." or, B.) "It would at the very least be 'difficult'; and if not merely difficult, it might actually be impossible."? I'm not a prescriptivist, and I'm not looking to enshrine one or the other as the "right" usage... and I know that both implications are probably commonly used. But I guess I'm also looking for an answer deeper than just a survey of "what it means to me/you, personally?" <br><br>And I'm not sure what form that would take, but maybe some insight into historical usage, or its use in technical/engineering writing, or some third option I've not considered? Thanks for your time and your expertise.</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2022:site.367417</guid> <pubDate>Fri, 07 Oct 2022 04:27:33 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>jjjjjjjijjjjjjj</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>How is the X prounounced?</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/367081/How%2Dis%2Dthe%2DX%2Dprounounced</link> <description>"-x" is becoming more common in Spanish as a gender-neutral suffix (e.g. in "Latinx," typically pronounced in Enligsh as "Latin-ecks"), but today I saw it in the book title "Nosotrxs." I was talking about the book with a coworker (one of the item records attached to the bib record was acting oddly) and realized I didn't know how to pronounce it. My first inclination was to pronounce it "nosotros," but a millisecond of thought made it clear that that approach would just be <em>wrong</em> since it would reinforce the linguistic assumptions which the authors chose to refuse/rebuke.*<br><br>I'm guessing it's also not pronounced "nosotras"; otherwise the authors would have written "nosotras." No, with "nosotrxs" the authors are clearly stating that they're not making assumptions about gender.<br><br>It has been decades since I spoke Spanish with any regularity, and the "x" in lieu of a presumptive "o" didn't have currency then. So, fluent speakers: how is the "x" pronounced in Spanish when it's treated as a vowel? Is it a schwa? Is it something else? Is it one of the options I thought was wrong?<br><br>*(In Spanish, a male group or a mixed-gender group gets male pronouns; only a group of all women gets female pronouns. Four men = ellos; four women = ellas; six million men = ellos; six million women and one three-year-old boy = ellos. People are increasingly not okay with this. Don't @ me. I'm just explaining it in case the background seems puzzling, but I am very explicitly not asking for a debate: this question isn't about the underlying linguistics, whether they are "correct," or whether anyone is or isn't justified in their reactions to them. This question is about pronunciation. Thanks.)</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2022:site.367081</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 22 Sep 2022 18:30:26 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>johnofjack</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>Why are ethnonyms and nationalities proper nouns?</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/366748/Why%2Dare%2Dethnonyms%2Dand%2Dnationalities%2Dproper%2Dnouns</link> <description>Everywhere I look on the internet, ethnonyms and nationalities (Turk, Serb, Pole, etc) are considered proper nouns. Same for members of a religious group (Jew, Christian, etc). This doesn't seem to fit with the definition of a proper noun. Why is this? Wikipedia says a proper noun "identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity", as opposed to a common noun, which "refers to a class of entities […] and may be used when referring to instances of a specific class".<br><br>It seems pretty clear to me that "Turk", for instance, is not a single entity, but refers to a instance (a single person) of a class (people who are Turkish).<br><br><a href="https://archive.org/details/cognitivepsychol0000vale/page/2/mode/2up">This book</a> seems to point to the same idea, writing on page three:<br><br><blockquote><br>Proper names are written with a capital initial letter. This property does not perfectly distinguish proper nouns from common nouns, since not all nouns beginning with a capital letter are proper nouns. For instance, in English, ethnic or national adjectives (African, Canadian) are written with a capital initial letter but they are not proper names (see Quirk <i>et al.</i>, 1985)<br></blockquote><br><br>I can also draw comparisons to other names for individuals who are part of a particular class which are not proper nouns — for instance "golfer" is a common noun, but grammatically, it seems like it should operate in the same way as a ethnonym (I don't mean this comparison to minimize ethnic identity or imply that these are the same — I just don't see why they'd be different for the purposes of being considered a proper noun, given the definitions of "proper noun" that I've seen).<br><br>This seems like it should be a common question, but I haven't found anything written about it. Is there a good explanation of why this is, or a definition of a proper noun that makes this clear?</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2022:site.366748</guid> <pubDate>Sun, 11 Sep 2022 01:08:35 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>wesleyac</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>Can you give some examples of subdomains of English?</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/366383/Can%2Dyou%2Dgive%2Dsome%2Dexamples%2Dof%2Dsubdomains%2Dof%2DEnglish</link> <description>I'm not quite sure what to call what I'm asking about, which is part of my question. I'm thinking of specialized subsets of English, that have their own constraints and grammar and vocabulary and quirks. Are these subdomains? They aren't dialects or variants per se; I don't know what linguists would call them. Some examples inside. An example is <a href="https://www.marine-society.org/posts/maritime-english-a-introductory-guide">Maritime English</a>, which is technically in English but has a very narrow set of properties and protocols. Here are some of my other examples, of varying degrees of strictness:<br><br>auction calling<br>medical notes<br>programming languages (arguably in English)<br>crossword clues<br>legalese<br>driving directions<br>touts and carnival barkers' patter<br>jokes/riddles<br>restaurant kitchen communication<br>recipes<br>text messages/DMs<br>medical notes<br>horoscopes<br>headlines<br>resumé English<br>mission statements<br>The Dozens<br>capsule reviews or descriptions, e.g. of movies<br>square dance calling<br>toasting (e.g., in reggae)<br>air traffic communications<br>coded diplomatic language<br>sports summaries (e.g., of horse races in the Daily Racing Form)<br><br>Each one has its own conventions and rhetoric (as does literature or persuasive writing generally). What am I missing? And what is the correct name for what I'm talking about?<br><br>This is for my classroom, by the way.</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2022:site.366383</guid> <pubDate>Sun, 28 Aug 2022 19:41:09 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>argybarg</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>What language is this and what does it mean?</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/366223/What%2Dlanguage%2Dis%2Dthis%2Dand%2Dwhat%2Ddoes%2Dit%2Dmean</link> <description>"Peunk Chuckeye Glavey" - Google is not helpful, and I don't know the magic phrases to figure it out. Context inside. A friend's grandfather (perhaps German) used to have the kids give him really hard tight hugs and then would say this phrase. The phrase was also cross-stitched on a pillow in the house. No clue what language or what it means, and she's been trying to figure it out for years. Latin alphabet, no accents on the letters, no letters not found in English. <br><br>Can you solve this mystery? I said I had "smart people to ask."</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2022:site.366223</guid> <pubDate>Tue, 23 Aug 2022 16:48:08 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>Ms Vegetable</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>What languages (if any) grammatically require subjects in commands?</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/365471/What%2Dlanguages%2Dif%2Dany%2Dgrammatically%2Drequire%2Dsubjects%2Din%2Dcommands</link> <description>What languages (if any) grammatically require subjects in commands? I have varying degrees of familiarity with four languages: English, Japanese, Spanish, and Korean. In all four languages, commands have no subjects:<br><br>Don't kill!<br>殺すな!<br>¡No mates!<br>죽이지 마! <br><br>The reasoning makes sense (since you're always giving a command to someone, "you" is understood). Also, I understand that you can add clarifiers when it's unclear (like, "Bob, don't go to the store!"). However, that's not really a subject in the same way as "Bob went to the store", it's more an appended clarifier.<br><br>Are there any languages in which, grammatically, a command <i>requires</i> a subject?</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2022:site.365471</guid> <pubDate>Tue, 26 Jul 2022 18:19:13 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>Bugbread</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>Pronounciation of PIE word ḱóymeh</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/364845/Pronounciation%2Dof%2DPIE%2Dword%2Dymeh</link> <description>Looking for best-guess pronunciation of the various forms of <a href="https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/%E1%B8%B1%C3%B3ymos">*ḱóymos/*ḱóymeh</a>. Is there some software I can drop this into and get something generated? Hidden youtube somewhere of someone reciting these? Or can you share something phonetic that I can relate it to?</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2022:site.364845</guid> <pubDate>Mon, 04 Jul 2022 15:03:46 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>curious nu</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>My, what a lovely demi-dingle. (Huh?)</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/364371/My%2Dwhat%2Da%2Dlovely%2Ddemi%2Ddingle%2DHuh</link> <description>What did "demi-dingle" mean in 1929? And also, where was this rotten link supposed to lead? I was looking at a historical record for a house (on MACRIS, a database of the Massachusetts Historical Commission) and it said: <em>"Jeremiah was the builder of the present house..., a structure which Brewer refers to as being 'a lovely demi-dingle...'"</em><br><br>I googled it and found <a href="https://ininet.org/the-valley-road-and-silver-street-by-m-louise-brewer-september.html">the original text</a> by the above-mentioned Brewer, written in 1929. The relevant bit says, <em>"Down the curving slope to the old wooden bridge, perched high above the brook, the planks resounding under hurrying hoofs and wheels. Hemlock trees up and down beside the brook, as now, but just beyond at left <strong>was a lovely demi-dingle, tenanted by hemlocks</strong> </em>[emphasis mine]<em>, the high hill beyond covered with mountain laurel. Fourteen years ago, Jeremiah Day cleared away many of the hemlock trees and built a cottage and later grubbed from the steep hill the laurel, to plant potatoes."<br></em><br>The past tense <em>"was"</em> and the fact that hemlocks were in the demi-dingle suggest to me that Brewer intended <em>"demi-dingle"</em> to describe some feature of the landscape, contrary to the MACRIS interpretation of it referring to the house. But what is a demi-dingle?<br><br>Also, on the site above, the words<em> "slope to the old wooden bridge"</em> are a link, but the link's destination is no longer relevant. (In fact, the whole site is kind of a puzzle -- I don't get what it is or why this Brewer text is on it.) But I'd love to know what that link was meant to lead to.<br><br>Since I haven't turned up any other references to this term, I wonder if the original was handwritten, and <em>"demi-dingle"</em> was a misreading. I found a longer version of the Brewer document <a href="https://studylib.net/doc/8621646/the-valley-road-and-silver-street">here</a>, but I admit that I haven't read much beyond the excerpt above.</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2022:site.364371</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 16 Jun 2022 04:55:00 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>daisyace</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>Umbrella/generalist terms for jobs/roles that have distinct subroles?</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/362570/Umbrella%2Dgeneralist%2Dterms%2Dfor%2Djobs%2Droles%2Dthat%2Dhave%2Ddistinct%2Dsubroles</link> <description>During a <a href="https://metatalk.metafilter.com/26046/183-Severance-not-Succession">recent MeFi podcast conversation</a> I found myself explaining "recordist" as term used by folks who do some mix of recording, engineering, mixing, performing, etc. music, and specifically that the term was useful as an umbrella term because it was distinct from someone who did only a given specific sub-role as their focus or primary job. Which got me wondering: what other examples are there of umbrella terms (for a vocation or avocation or ?) that aren't simply less-specific generalizations but useful for encompassing that jack-of-all-trades role in particular vs. a dedicated specialty? To chart out the territory a little more: this doesn't feel quite the same as the use of "programmer" for someone who does any number of more specific things involved in software development; someone whose primary focus is e.g. microprogramming, or software engineering, or compiler optimization, all might also refer to themselves as programmer in a general context. By contrast I wouldn't expect a professional mastering engineer to refer to themselves as a "recordist" even though mastering is one of the things that a self-described recordist might do.<br><br>So that's the nub of it: role terms that aren't merely generalizations that apply to both the specific role(s) and the general collection of them, but which are more or less separate and distinct from the specific roles and not casually interchangable.</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2022:site.362570</guid> <pubDate>Wed, 13 Apr 2022 10:58:59 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>cortex</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>Programming/computer science/IT terms that refer to obsolete tech?</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/358699/Programming%2Dcomputer%2Dscience%2DIT%2Dterms%2Dthat%2Drefer%2Dto%2Dobsolete%2Dtech</link> <description>We all know that software bugs were named after an actual <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/sep9/worlds-first-computer-bug/">bug</a>. But just today I learned that core dumps are so called after <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic-core_memory">magnetic-core memory</a>. I had always vaguely wondered where the name came from when my debugger said "dumping core..." but never thought to look it up. Now I'm wondering what other names for tech things refer to tech that's no longer in use, particularly if they wouldn't even be recognizable to many practitioners. I'm particularly interested in terms that refer to something specific to the old, more physical manifestations of computing - like anything that comes from tape or punchcard terminology. But any others you all can think of are welcome too. Even newer ones like when people talk about "writing to disk" although on many modern PCs there is no "disk" as such.</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2021:site.358699</guid> <pubDate>Fri, 05 Nov 2021 23:36:50 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>potrzebie</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>Linguistic SF recs?</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/353587/Linguistic%2DSF%2Drecs</link> <description>I'm looking for examples of science fiction where linguistics is the science in question, or one of them anyway. A few examples I'm already aware of (and love, thus my wanting to find more): Babel-17 by Samuel Delany, Embassytown by China Miéville, the story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang (that the movie Arrival was based on), arguably aspects of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy. Any SF where translation plays a major role would probably fit the bill. <strong><em>Qapla’!</em></strong></description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2021:site.353587</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 08 Apr 2021 19:42:19 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>slappy_pinchbottom</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>Word for a trick parallelism?</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/351069/Word%2Dfor%2Da%2Dtrick%2Dparallelism</link> <description>Friend just showed me a humorous headline: <a href="https://blogs.fangraphs.com/padres-give-up-prospects-for-yu-darvish-while-cubs-give-up/">”Padres Give Up Prospects for Yu Darvish While Cubs Give Up.”</a> I seem to recall there’s a term (possibly a very new one, invented in the internet age) for this kind of silly parallelism, where the same word is used twice but it means something different the second time. What is it? I could only come up with “snowclone” and “eggcorn,” but those don’t seem to be it.</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2020:site.351069</guid> <pubDate>Tue, 29 Dec 2020 22:12:45 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>stoneandstar</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>Good layman's book on historical linguistics + archeology?</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/350902/Good%2Dlaymans%2Dbook%2Don%2Dhistorical%2Dlinguistics%2Darcheology</link> <description>Some time ago I read a neat book about, among other things, the Yamnaya people, who are believed to be the source of all Indo-European languages. There is limited archeology. But scholars can examine which words are common to all IE languages. Presumably the Yamnaya had those things. E.g. apples, and cart axels. Apples suggest an origin near Kazakhstan; cart axels suggest how they spread. To continue learning, what should I read? For bonus points, there was analysis of when peoples brushed up against each other in their migrations, based on the forms of loan words. Words change sounds over time. The word for a round thing might be "disc" at one point and "dish" at another. Historical linguists can deduce that if a language imported the old form, then the cultures were next door to each other in one era; if it imported a later form, then they were next door later. (English loves to import words multiple times, e.g. link/linchpin.) Books about this meant for non-scholars would be awesome.</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2020:site.350902</guid> <pubDate>Mon, 21 Dec 2020 20:05:27 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>musofire</dc:creator> </item> <item> <title>A Whole Bunch of Vote</title> <link>http://ask.metafilter.com/349704/A%2DWhole%2DBunch%2Dof%2DVote</link> <description>When did the word ‘vote’ represent both the singular and the plural? Legit English usage or wonk-ese? After watching hours of election coverage on MSNBC, I kept being distracted by the anchors and interviewees referring to multiple votes using the singular word “vote”. As in “we expect a new batch of vote to be coming in” or “the amount of vote is not enough to call the state.” <br><br>This is really a common usage of the word or are the wonk political class continuing their butchering of the English language?</description> <guid isPermaLink="false">tag:ask.metafilter.com,2020:site.349704</guid> <pubDate>Fri, 06 Nov 2020 14:03:59 -0800</pubDate> <dc:creator>thejrt</dc:creator> </item> </channel></rss> If you would like to create a banner that links to this page (i.e. this validation result), do the following:
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