Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 September 2

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September 2

English accent

Can anyone tell me what kind of English accent this is? [1] Thanks.

I'm not sure it's a dialect, at least it's not a regional accent. - it sounds like somebody with fairly close to Received Pronounciation from a few decades ago, mostly likely someone from a fairly privilidged background - ie public school, oxford or cambridge university - followed by career in academia or the civil service (goverment). Pretty much the voice of the ruling class. Does that help?83.100.250.79 (talk) 09:34, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Agree, it's not regional, it's "educated English". At a guess this person went to Eton or Harrow School. --TammyMoet (talk) 09:55, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't call it just "educated English" (aka BBC English, RP, Oxford English) - it definitely has a touch of "upper class" about it: somewhere between Prince Charles and Ralph Mayhew. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:44, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It is definitely someone of the upper class or upper-middle class. 86.4.181.14 (talk) 13:43, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I realised it's a little disingenuous (what does it mean) for me to describe the voice as ".of the ruling class". That may come across wrong - it's a very nice accent - I'd have no issues with narration with this voice etc.

Additionally, I can't really tell the difference - but is there a difference between this accent, and what I perceive to be forced "received pronunciation" accent found elsewhere?83.100.250.79 (talk) 16:12, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes there is a difference. Modern RP (a typical speaker might be Sir Trevor McDonald) has vowels produced farther back in the palate than the accent in the clip, where the "a" sound is more like a modern "e". If you can find a clip of the first broadcast made from Alexandra Palace, you will find it sounds more like "Elexahndre Pelece". --TammyMoet (talk) 18:24, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I don't think such a clip exists of the first 1936 television broadcast from the Ally Pally (from which I used to live halfway down Muswell Hill), since the creators of a fictional anniversary TV story based on that day had to improvise their material from press accounts and memoirs. I don't know about the first wireless (radio) broadcast, however. But there are plenty of clips of wartime radio news broadcasts that announcers like Sir Trevor would begin, "This is the BBC Home Service. Here is the nine o'clock news." The web sites of the BBC and the Imperial War Museum would be good sources. They'd also have examples of the slightly-different speech of royalty. —— Shakescene (talk) 05:44, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

I went to the "filedropper website,' entered the check text, and clicked "download," but I don't see or hear a file. How do you listen to it? Edison (talk) 17:55, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Gerunds and pronouns: "his being" or "him being"

I’m not a native speaker of English and I stumbled upon a grammar problem in the movie Pretty in Pink. In one scene, Andie tries to convince Duckie of the fact that the Russian Revolution did not take place in Germany. “What was Karl Marx, then?”, Duckie replies. Andie admits that Marx was indeed German, but goes on: “Yes, but his being German has nothing to do with where the Russian Revolution occurred!”

If I’m not mistaken, “being” is a gerund in this context and “his” is its notional subject, in the form of a possessive determiner. So my question is: Would it be acceptable to substitute “his” with “him”? If so, which would be more correct or common? Is there a general rule when to use “me, him, them, etc” instead of “my, his, their, etc.” in sentences like the above or in “Do you mind me/my opening the window?” Thank you, --213.163.71.100 (talk) 09:21, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

As you have noticed, a gerund in English is the present participle of a verb (the -ing form) acting as a noun. ("Painting is tedious" = "The process of applying paint to a wall is tedious.") The article suggests that the possessive is "preferred." Thus "his being German" is the equivalent of "Marx's being German."

Note that the "gerunds in English" portion of the article has a subsection on gerunds preceded by a genitive (a possessive). This says, in part, that the genitive "is preferred in formal writing. The objective case [e.g., "him standing"] is often used in place of the possessive, especially in casual situations."

In ordinary speech, "him being German" is a little like "It's me" rather than "It is I" -- widely used, if frowned upon by grammarians with time on their hands. --- OtherDave (talk) 13:00, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Dave is right that both usages occur, while the possessive is preferred. I would say though that, in spoken English, nearly everyone will say "It's me" rather than "It is I". The latter, "It is I", sounds awkward and unnatural to most native speakers. With gerunds, I don't think that it sounds awkward or unnatural to use the possessive, and use of the possessive with gerunds is not unusual in spoken English. Use of the objective is also very common, but to my ears it suggests that the speaker is not well educated or does not want to appear well educated. (Please note that this does not mean that I think that this usage is therefore "inferior".) Marco polo (talk) 13:16, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I see no connection between "it's he/him" and "his/him being": While "it's him" can be well justified by the fact that the verb "be/is" may naturally be considered as a transitive verb, consequently followed by its object (hence: "it's him", i.e. him is the object), it's very hard to justify "him being German", unless we consider this expression as including some hidden words, e.g. "[considering] him [as] being German", etc. HOOTmag (talk) 18:04, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The connection was one of analogy, HOOTmag—it's not a grammatical similarity, it's a similarity in everyday usage.

And is is most definitely not a transitive verb. It's a stative verb, and "him" is most definitely not its object. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 18:23, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Who said that is is a transitive verb? I just said that is "may naturally be considered as a transitive verb", i.e. although it's not what it may naturally be considered. To sum up: what I've claimed is that "it's him" can be well justified (although the justification is based upon a wrong grammatical assumption), while "him being" cannot. HOOTmag (talk) 18:53, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I see; I had misunderstood your previous message.

As for "justification", that is quite a prescriptivist view. Obviously when speakers say "him being German" instead of "his being German", it sounds 'right' to them (in fact, I'll admit that it sounds more natural to me as well; I know that "his being" is 'correct', but I sometimes don't use it because it sounds stiff and formal). If it sounds 'right' or 'natural', it is probably by analogy to some other feature of English syntax...maybe a feature that you and I can't think of as easily as analogy to transitive verbs, but a feature nonetheless. In other words, just because you and I can't think of a "justification" for it doesn't mean it's "unjustified". (And that's even if we assume that there's a such thing as "justification" for grammatical constructions at all. I would venture to guess, though, that almost all linguists today would reject that, since they only discuss what people do say, not what people are justified in saying.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:02, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure you misunderstood what I mean by "justification": I mean justification hidden in the speaker's unconciousness. hence, I don't talk from a purely linguistic point of view, but rather from a psycholinguistic point of view (just as my previous thread you've archived - arose a question asked from a sociolinguistic point of view - rather than from a purely linguistic point of view).

You're right: the linguists are interested in describing what the people do say; However, the psycholinguists are interested in psycological factors, e.g. hypercorrection etc., which make people say what they say. My proposal is that what makes me say "it's me" is (unconciously) considering the verb "to be" as a transitive verb (consequently followed by its object). I've also suggested a justification for "him being German": some additional words are perhaps hidden in my subconciuosness, i.e. when I say "him being German" - I simply mean: "[considering] him [as] being German", or something like that. However, the latter justification is "inferior", compared to the first one, since it really needs some "hidden" words, while the first one doesn't. HOOTmag (talk) 19:41, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Now I believe we're talking about the same thing; unconscious justification is exactly what I was referring to when I said certain constructions "sound better" to me and that they do so by way of analogy to known rules (which I believe is what you were referring to with "justification"). There is also a term for "hidden" words; these are usually called "implied" (or "non-overt", which is used more often in things like theoretical syntax). The only difference between our messages is that I don't think either is superior or inferior; whatever set of rules (or frequency-based habits—since there are plenty of linguists, and even more computer scientists, who believe that our language use is governed by learned habits rather than rules) is in your head determining what you say, a linguist's main job is to figure out what that set of rules is and how it works, rather than to determine whether any one is better than another. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:54, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Note that I've put the word "inferior" in Scare quotes. Of course, it's not really inferior, although it may seem to be inferior...

I totally accept your opinion about the linguist's main job; However, as I've mentioned above, I don't talk from a linguistic point of view - but rather from a psycholinguistic point of view. Take a well-known phenonemon: hypercorrection: it can only be explained by assuming that our mind hides some rules, which govern our speech.

I'm sure we don't really dispute, except for my denying your opinion that we do dispute...

HOOTmag (talk) 20:12, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Don't worry, I'm talking from a psycholinguistic point of view as well; my own field of study is neurolinguistics, which is almost the same thing. I agree with you that in our minds we known 'rules' or habits and overgeneralize them; all I'm saying is that all we can really do (especially within the psycholinguistic framework) is see when these overgeneralizations happen and which do not; we can't make any comment on whether one kind of overgeneralization is more "justified" or "superior" to another (although, on the other hand, we can use statistics and good experimental methodology to look at which sorts of overgeneralizations are more likely, or more common, among which populations of speakers...for example, looking at differences between how different aphasics hypercorrect can reveal things about how the brain handles language). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:31, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Now I believe we've never disputed!

You claim: "all we can really do (especially within the psycholinguistic framework) is see when these overgeneralizations happen and which do not". I agree; and I also add that when the overgeneralization happens, then the specific linguistic phenonema - governed by that overgeneralization - are (as I put it) "justified" by that overgeneralization.

You claim: "We can't make any comment on whether one kind of overgeneralization is more 'justified'...to another". I agree. the overgeneralization is not "justified", but rather is (unconciously) "justifying" the specific linguistic phenonema - governed by that overgeneralization.

You claim: "we can't make any comment on whether one kind of overgeneralization is more...'superior' to another. It depends on what you mean by the word "superior" which you've put in scare quotes. For example, when I put the word "inferior" in scare quotes I meant: "which needs to be based upon some hidden words not stated by the speaker". Interpreting the word "inferior" (in scare quotes) this way, we can make a comment on whether one kind of overgeneralization is more "inferior" to another, and I'm sure you agree with me.

HOOTmag (talk) 21:26, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

This construction sounds very archaic to me, like Jane Austen, "my playing the pianoforte". I expect people to reply to everything with "indeed!" Adam Bishop (talk) 19:51, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Which construction? HOOTmag (talk) 20:12, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I think he's referring to the "correct" his being German. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:31, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, probably. HOOTmag (talk) 21:26, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, sorry, the possessive+gerund. Adam Bishop (talk) 23:21, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

First off, I agree that his being German is considered correct, that him being German is often encountered, and that the world will not end if you use the latter. Having said that, I'll offer another reason to prefer the possessive construction: it has logic in its favor. In the conversation being discussed (the one about Marx), what is the single word from the sentence at issue that most fully answers the question "What has nothing to do with where the Russian Revolution occurred?" Is it him, meaning Marx, or is it being? Since the phrase being German expresses the thing that has nothing to do with, we may proceed then to ask ourselves, "OK, so what purpose does his or him play?" And the answer to that is: it modifies being, it clarifies precisely which act of being German is under consideration. And to fulfill the purpose of modifying we'd prefer to use an adjective (like his) rather than a nominal (like him). Of course, much of English (or any other natural language) is far from completely and consistently logical, so this consideration is hardly universally compelling. As with any "grammar rule," speakers are, in fact, entirely free to do with it as they choose.—PaulTanenbaum (talk) 23:46, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Am I late to the party? Anyway, I agree it should be possessive in this case. The gerund is "being German", not just "being". (c.f. "His swimming was irrelevant"). If it's not possessive, then "being" becomes a participle instead. What you're saying when you say "him being German" is really "Marx, being German,". It's a sub-clause. This works if you're saying "Marx, being German, was fat". It doesn't work with "Marx, being German, has to do..." because the tenses of the verbs disagree. That's how I see it: "Him being German" would be a typo, or at least difficult to understand. --Pykk (talk) 20:32, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I notice that "his" equates to the act of being German that Marx performs, and makes it sound as if he's doing it on purpose. 81.131.24.239 (talk) 15:28, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Part of the problem here is the application of grammatical rules that went out of the window when Middle English merged "-ung" and "-end" into "-ing". So yes, there is some lateness to the party here. But it's not just you, Pykk. ☺

This merger occurred centuries ago, and its consequent effects of eroding the distinction between participle and gerund in English are becoming quite old at this point, too. The rules that applied in Old English and Latin were not even applying in the time of Charles Dickens, who in 1864 in Our Mutual Friend had a gerund with a genitive subject and a direct object: "You must excuse my telling you.". By the 19th century, when an "-ing" construct was the subject of the main verb, as in the sentence that began all this, the subject pronoun could be relatively interchangably nominative, objective, or genitive. Jane Austen used a nominative pronoun in 1811: "They being her relations, too, made it so much the worse." (Sense and Sensibility). Dashiell Hammett used an objective pronoun in 1934: "Him hanging around like this, just messing things up, don't fit in anywheres that I can see." (The Thin Man). Henry Fielding used a genitive pronoun in 1782: "It cannot be wondered at that their retiring all to sleep at so unusual an hour should excite his curiosity." (Tom Jones)

Those people who are late to the party here because they got held up in the 14th century might want to read Otto Jespersen's A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles, which gives these examples and others. ☺ Indeed, Hendrik Poutsma discussed objective pronouns with gerunds as sentence subjects, treating it as a quite acceptable construction (and also contending that the use of objective instead of genitive did not turn gerund into participle). And that was in A Grammar of Late Modern English, some 80 years ago.

There's more on this subject, a lot more, in Heidi Quinn's The distribution of pronoun case forms in English (John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2005, ISBN 9789027228062). Uncle G (talk) 03:38, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Informative! Well, at least I seem to be right that when it's not genitive, the gerund or whatever is sub-claused so the second verb refers to the original subject (Subjective: "They... , made"). But with the objective.. I agree you can make use of it, at least informally. It's quite clear that the Hammett quote is intended as a representation of quite informal speech. There's no pretension of subject-verb agreement either ("him ... don't"). Having thought about it some more, it's clearly entirely accepted in some cases: "Him being German, and all". But in the given example, genitive is clearly preferable, so 'has' unambiguously refers to the gerund. Were it nominative, the verbs disagree, whereas objective would appear to cause a subject-verb disagreement between 'him' and 'has'. I think that's why people think it sounds bad; rather than the idea that objective pronoun + gerund are always wrong. --Pykk (talk) 10:15, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Banana

Does banana refer specifically to certain type of larger variety as seen here [2], like the word Galaxy used to refer to Milky Way especially? Can somebody with access to OED verify if it refers to a specific variety of plantain fruit as banana? --Schneipper (talk) 11:13, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

^{How much of a child of materialism and advertising am I? I read that and was confused thinking you mean the chocolate bars Galary and Milky Way. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 15:15, 2 September 2009 (UTC)}

Many English speaking people may refer to this fruit as a banana if they were not familiar with it. Some speakers might refer to different varieties of bananas by their particular name if they know the type of banana and if it is important in the context of the conversation. The OED defines a banana as "a long curved fruit with yellow skin and soft flesh, which grows on a tropical or subtropical tree-like plant." 86.4.181.14 (talk) 13:39, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

More specifically, the OED defines a banana as any plant belonging to the genus Musa. Clearly the plants you ask about belong to this genus. The OED defines a plantain as a "banana with a high starch" content. So a plantain is a type of banana. Marco polo (talk) 14:30, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Naw, 'banana' doesn't refer to any specific member of the family any more than 'apple' does (the Malus genus, as it were). Most banana (and apple) variants eaten are domesticated from one or several species to the extent that the originals are referred to as 'wild bananas' (again, same goes for 'wild apples'). So, no. As long as 'banana' and its cognates have existed in most languages, its been as a general term, although the very first meaning of banana in its original language may have referred to a particular species. (but not necessarily) --Pykk (talk) 20:01, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, Banana is the larger class of fruits, of which the Cavendish banana is the one nearly any english speaker thinks of when they think of a "Banana" in an unqualified way. Plantains are a type of banana, and there are many other varieties. But if one says "banana" in an unqualified manner, since most Anglophones will only ever encounter a Cavendish banana in their own lives, they often think of that single variety as the only true "banana". --Jayron32 21:07, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Is it ever right to use sensitive as a noun?

My query comes from a person who recently stated that they were "a sensitive." I made sure I understood right, and they did mean to use 'senstive" as a noun. Now, after searching, giong through links, and then reading the article about highly sensitive people, I was tempted to ask this ont he science desk. But, I figure most language people would know how terms were used in many fields.

So, is "sensitive" ever used as a noun? Could it be from the HSP thing - some of the things in that article match this person.Somebody or his brother (talk) 12:03, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

My dictionary tells me no, because sensitive is always an adjective. Where in that article do you see the word used as a noun? I see the word "sensitiveness" used as a noun a few times, but that is a noun by definition. Xenon54 / talk / 12:10, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I've seen it used as a noun to describe people with alleged psychic abilities. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:22, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

It isn't used int he article itself. I was saying that it was possible that - even though the article doesn't say it - there might be some psychologists who do use it as a noun, and that they would use it as a noun because of the development of HSP as a diagnosed condition. Sorry if I caused confusion with that. (After all, just because the article doesn't *say* it can be used as a noun doens't mean it couldn't be - I know Wikipedia's articles aren't all perfect.)Somebody or his brother (talk) 12:23, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 6th edition, includes:

sensitive adjective & noun

...

B noun

1 A being or bodily part capable of sensation. LME–E18.

2 The faculty of sensation. Only in E17.

3 = sensitive plant (a) above. E18.

4 a A person sensitive to paranormal or occult influences, a medium. M19. b A person very susceptible or responsive to artistic, emotional, etc., impressions; spec. an aesthete. L19.

Mitch Ames (talk) 12:24, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

---

I'm pretty sure I've read the term "sensitive" used as a noun (referring to someone with certain psychic detection abilities) in some science fiction books, maybe by Andre Norton. For a parallel case, a few years back there was a segment called Psychic Sandwich on the David Letterman show -- a rather pointless guessing game involving someone who called herself "an intuitive" (not actually a psychic)... AnonMoos (talk) 16:49, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, all; that was interesting. I'd never heard of that before. The psychic part doesn't sound like the way she was meaning it - but the B4b part might.Somebody or his brother (talk) 17:49, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm embarrassed to know this, but (apparently) in Star Wars jedi and chums are said to be force-sensitive, as in "Our Kevin is a Force-sensitive". -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:52, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

As a side-note of sorts, you could do this pretty freely in older English. The Germanic -ing (or -ling) ending can/could be tacked onto a noun to form a new word denoting something of, or relating to, that noun. (e.g. viking, 'person from a bay [vik]', 'gosling', 'farthing', 'tiding') So in this case, you'd take the noun 'sense' and form "sensling" - "a thing or person who senses [well]". Not that those constructions are used much in English anymore. Perhaps because it's been obscured by the unrelated -ing suffix denoting present participle. (Old English typically used the suffix -ende for that; as does modern Norwegian and Danish) --Pykk (talk) 19:43, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

• Many words ending "-itive" can be both nouns and adjectives: "fugitive", "positive", "genitive", "additive", and so forth. They all are derived from Latin words with the Latin suffix "-itivus", just as "sensitive" (which is derived from the past participle of "sentire") is. Some, such as "competitive", have no noun senses in English. Uncle G (talk) 02:11, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Was the person who said this French maybe? It seems more common in French to use sensitive as a noun, e.g. "Il suffisait d'un mot pour la faire changer de couleur; c'était une sensitive" in Huis clos Tinfoilcat (talk) 10:14, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

No, they seem to have been in the U.S. all their lives, though I suppose if the person took years of French in high school, maybe they got used to talking that way. (I don't know what that phrase was in English, mind you.) She's said things along the lines of, "Any sort of correction bothers me becuase I am a sensitive." Which led me to the comment about HSP above.Somebody or his brother (talk) 01:26, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Title of the Russian civl servant of the lowest order

I was very familiar with the term often occurring in Dostoevsky, Gogol etc. But I can't remember. I looked through the list of Russian words also. Can't see it there. Can somebody help? --Schneipper (talk) 12:10, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

You might be more likely to find an answer at the humanities reference desk. Is there a Wikipedia article anywhere about Russian civil servants? rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 12:17, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

How about Peter the Great's Table of Ranks? --- OtherDave (talk) 13:03, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

What I think you're most probably looking for is chinovnik (чиновник), although, technically, it referred to a civil servant of any rank. The lowest chin ("office") in the Table of Ranks was kollezhsky registrator (коллежский регистратор, "collegiate registrar"). — Kpalion^(talk) 13:45, 2 September 2009 (UTC)