Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2009 November 6

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November 6

Dumb words and expressions

Sort of related to the above question. There's a suite of words and expressions that have achieved currency here, originally as jokes or casual colloquialisms, but I'm hearing them more and more, and for some people they're almost at the point of replacing their originals. Examples include "ginormous" (a hybrid of "gigantic" and "enormous"), "Brisvegas" (apparently coined in a nod to Las Vegas when Brisbane gained its first casino), "Taswegian" for Tasmanian, "one foul swoop" (instead of "one fell swoop"). And many others. I don't know how one might classify these other than as "words and expressions that some dickheads constantly and irritatingly use". Is there a more professional way of describing them? -- JackofOz (talk) 04:33, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

They're a sort of mix of different word formation processes. Ginormous and Brisvegas are examples of blending and I know that one foul swoop is an eggcorn. I'm not sure what Taswegian is an example of; it might also be a blend.

Unfortunately, there's no objective classification of your examples. One man's dick-head term is another man's vocabulary choice. What do you make of burger or the use of fridge for any refrigerator that isn't a Frigidaire? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 05:13, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd assume that "Taswegian" is a blend of "Tasmania" and "Glaswegian", suggested by the rhyme, although I don't know enough about mainland Australians' views of Tasmanians or English folks' views of Scots/Glaswegians to know whether there is some disparagement intended. Deor (talk) 05:30, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

'Ginormous', 'Brisvegas', and 'Taswegian' are all meant to be humorous, or at least slightly amusing. Other words that would probably bother you, besides the aforementioned eggcorns, would be unnecessary or redundant back-formations, most notably orientate. —Akrabbim^talk 05:33, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd always assumed - and the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary agrees - that fridge is simply an abreviation of refrigerator, not derived from a particular brand name. Thus presumably it might once have been ’fridge’, with apostrophes indicating the missing letters (much like influenza -> ’flu’ -> flu), although note that the fridge has an extra letter "d" in it. Mitch Ames (talk) 05:44, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

"Ginormous" is a great word. I accidentally said that to one of my thesis advisors and he gave me a funny look, but didn't say anything, heh. Adding "Vegas" to a dinky little town is kind of common, and doesn't always have anything to do with a casino. I've heard the little town of Strathroy, Ontario referred to as "Strathvegas", for example (just as a sarcastic remark about how dinky and unglamourous it is). Adam Bishop (talk) 05:52, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know where Adam Bishop is from (too lazy to look at userpages right now) but I've also heard this used for dinky little towns. Around here, Morrisville, Vermont (article?) is referred to as "MoVegas". Dismas|^(talk) 06:22, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

'Taswegian' seems to be used by Tasmanians and mainlanders alike, without anything pejorative intended. The first few times you hear it, it's slightly amusing, but after that ... I never knew whether it's connected to 'Glaswegian' or 'Norwegian', to both, or neither. There are far more people of Scots descent in Australia than of Norwegian descent, but apart from that I can't see any obvious connection between Glasgow and Tasmania. It seems to hook into an Australian penchant for finding ways of saying things in a non-standard way (but the new way then becomes the standard for a lot of people - which doesn't seem to matter because anything goes, as long as they're not being seen to be kowtowing to authority, except the peer group they wish to be associated with, i.e kowtow to). I'd guess that very few people who regularly use this expression have ever asked themselves "Why am I saying 'Taswegian', rather than 'Tasmanian', other than because other people are saying it?" -- JackofOz (talk) 05:57, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Sadly, "eggcorns" are all too common and annoying for language pedants (no names mentioned...) One that seems to have a fair deal of currency here that makes me wince every time is "the proof is in the pudding". As for the blendings/conflations, the constant reference to all political scandals as "X-gate" and all film industries as "X-llywood" (e.g., Bollywood, Wellywood) wears a bit thin after a while... Grutness...wha? 08:42, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

And "the devil is in the detail", and somebody has "signed off on" some proposal, and "we've done the hard yards". Oh, they're endlessly mindless and mindlessly endless. -- JackofOz (talk) 08:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Would that be a Tasmanian devil in those details? Come to think of it, has the use of "Tasmanian" as an adjective for an animal influenced the use of a different term to apply to the people? Contrast that with Canadian people and Canada geese. The latter are often mistakenly called Canadian geese, as if they were citizens, eh? As for words like "ginormous", that's kind of a portmanteau, as Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty explained to Alice about words like "chortle", which is a combination of snort and chuckle. I looked for "fridge" in my old Webster's, and it's not there - so the unanswered question now is whether "fridge" came before or after "Frigidaire". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:31, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Or independently? As a Briton I've seen plenty of fridges but never a Frigidaire, and it might explain the Webster's/Oxford difference. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 14:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The wikipedia article, as well as this one[1] indicate that the Frigidaire was the first commercial refrigerator. Wiktionary is of no help, as it basically says "we need an answer". I've got a hunch that Frigidaire became synonymous with refrigerator, and hence "fridge" actually stands for both of them. Like "Victrola" as a synonym for "record player", even if it was a Columbia Grafonola, for example. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:53, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

But if the brand name didn't cross the Atlantic either as effectively or until much later, it's not inconceivable that the slang would develop independently of it. I've not heard of a Victrola either, but I'm not willing to rule out being born after their demise as a reason for that. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:04, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Ironically, although "Hoover" is an American brand, it's never used by Americans as a generic term for a vacuum cleaner. 99.166.95.142 (talk) 17:11, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I brought up fridge as an example of a brand name being applied to similar products made by other companies. Other examples include xerox, iPod, and possibly Tivo. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I think Jack is just noticing the normal progress of language. I don't think it's uniquely Australian, since I see it happening all the time in the UK. Even online: I now find I default to 'internets' rather than 'internet', which is slightly scary. Different language fits different registers, and a lot of these words and phrases that start out as clever jokes become gently humorous or light-hearted markers that indicate light-heartedness of the conversation. They aren't necessarily meant to be funny any more, just indicators that the conversation is in a lighter register. 86.142.224.71 (talk) 15:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense, thanks 86.142. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

isn't the original question's classification of people who use such words itself dumb and irritating?--80.189.132.211 (talk) 17:08, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps. That's why I was after a more appropriate description of these forms of expression. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Is the following sentece acceptable?

I would like to know English native speakers opinion about the acceptability or grammaticality of the following sentence:

For what did you hit me?

Thanks 121.242.23.197 (talk) 11:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya

It's not really acceptable. You would say "What did you hit me for?" or "Why did you hit me?" instead. --Richardrj ^{talk email} 11:58, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Very technically, you aren't supposed to end a sentence with a preposition, such as for, but almost all native speakers I know ignore that rule when speaking. Falconus^{p t c} 12:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

For very good reason, as there is not, and never has been, any such "rule". AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:39, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Andrew beat me to this: it's not a rule. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 20:52, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It's back-to-front, but in terms of being understandable it's fine. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 12:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

"For what did you hit me?" would be considered a funny way to say it, by someone being pretentious or something. There's a quote somewhere about Winston Churchill being criticized for his grammar, for ending a sentence with a preposition, and responding that that was a complaint "up with which I will not put!" ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:21, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Looking at Language Log for what they say on ending sentences with prepositions, I found this investigation of that anecdote.

On topic, Language Log unsurprisingly says that it's perfectly fine to end sentences with prepositions. They quote The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (co-written by a Language Logger) saying the rule against ending sentences with prepositions is a made up one,

"apparently created ex nihilo in 1672 by the essayist John Dryden, who took exception to Ben Jonson's phrase the bodies that those souls were frighted from (1611). Dryden was in effect suggesting that Jonson should have written the bodies from which those souls were frighted, but he offers no reason for preferring this to the original."[2]

AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 14:27, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The Churchill quote is fun, but apocryphal. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the sentence can be understood easily as it is than if it were grammatically correct. However, the sentence is grammatically incorrect. That is: a) if ‘for’ is a preposition, it cannot begin with an interrogation; b) if ‘for’ is a particle, it has to follow the verb in order to complete the sentence. Allthough if a deixis can be understood anaphorically as an ellipsis, but here again, the ‘wh’ interrogation ‘what’ is not a correct semantic substitution. Is this correct?--Mihkaw napéw (talk) 17:46, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Either I'm misunderstanding you, or almost all of that comment is wrong. First of all, the sentence is not grammatically incorrect (see my other comment below). Secondly, a prepositional phrase can begin an interrogative sentence ("With whom did you go to the party?"—slightly uppity, but not awkward like the 'for what' sentence here). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:07, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. You are correct. However, a preposition does not always not act as a prepositional phrase, i.e. it can be of verb particle, ect. And the question and many comments here are about the treatment of ‘for what’ in the context of an interrogation. So my comment was that a preposition cannot begin an interrogation. However, a prepositional phrase does. Let me simplify this further. That is, ‘whom’ is a pronoun but ‘for what’ as it is mentioned here for ‘why’ is not a pronoun. Is this makes sense now, or do you have further comment?--Mihkaw napéw (talk) 22:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

If something is acting as a particle, then it's not a preposition, it's a particle. And in any case, I don't see how that's relevant, as the "for what", "for what reason", "for whom", and whatever other thing you use in this sentence is a prepositional phrase. Structurally (i.e., from a word category point of view]], "for what" and "for whom" are absolutely no different. The difference is semantic: they're both prepositional phrases made up of a preposition head and a noun complement (in this case, a wh-word). rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:04, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Let me ask you this question. Can you begin an interrogation in English with any prepositions plus ‘why’ like, in why…, to why…, with why…, etc.? However, the answer is, yes, if there is pronoun like, what, whom, etc. Why do you think these are different?--Mihkaw napéw (talk) 00:35, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Again, yes, a question can begin with a preoposition. More specifically, a question can begin with a prepositional phrase, and a prepositional phrase begins with a preposition. (For example: "At the football game, what did you eat?") rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 01:32, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Your first sentence doesn't really make sense to me: I'm not sure what you were trying to say. As to "what for": "what" by itself would not be the correct interrogative word, but "what for" means the same as "why", as does the archaic "wherefore". Using "what for", or "for what" as the sample sentence does, is unusual and sounds slightly arch, but is understandable and grammatical to a native speaker. However, it would be more natural (and pretty common) to separate them as "What did you hit me for?". 86.142.224.71 (talk) 18:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

it would seem that the passage is arranged so forth because it is archaic. the other would be for emphasis. 'For what' would ask the reason directly why you hit someone- for what gain, for what purpose. i would agree with the text on one point- that is the contextual use of 'wherefore' by Shakespeare in "Romeo and Juliet" which indeed asks why are you Romeo and not where Romeo is. 80.189.132.211 (talk) 20:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.132.211 (talk) 20:36, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It's possible to ask "For what reason did you hit me?", but "For what did you hit me?", while comprehensible, is ungrammatical. -- JackofOz (talk) 20:45, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

If you find "For what did you hit me?" ungrammatical, what do you think of the (twice) suggested "What did you hit me for?" -- 128.104.112.237 (talk) 20:57, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I have no issue with that. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

@JackofOz: it's not ungrammatical. It's just bad. The grammatical structure itself is fine (real ungrammatical would be something like "Max's of pizza" or "He's in the going").

@ 128.104.112.237: it's just like people said, "what did you hit me for is fine". More specifically, "what for" (or "what...for") in English generally means the same as "why". But "for what" can't be extended like that. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 21:04, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

In many European languages, the question "why" is expressed as "what for"/"for what". English is a bit of an exception in having a distinct word. Vadför?, pourquoi?, почему?/зачто?, perche?, ¿porqué? So it would be quite natural for a learner to construct "For what...?". But in English For what did you hit me? would be understood as "for what thing" not "for what reason". It could be answered by "For a bet" or "For you kissing my girlfriend just now" or "For a hundred dollars". Not a usual construction. Sussexonian (talk) 21:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

"Not ungrammatical", Rjanag?: It's certainly not prescriptively grammatical, and it's such an unusual formulation that it would hardly have been recorded descriptively. So how does it get to be grammatical? You say it's grammatical but "bad"; I say it's comprehensible but ungrammatical. Maybe we're really agreeing without appearing to. -- JackofOz (talk) 22:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't violate any grammatical rule. It has a well-formed prepositional phrase ("for what") acting as an adjunct, and the rest of its structure is also well-formed. The reason it's awkward is that the preposition phrase "for what" doesn't have the meaning you want it to. As a linguistic example, it would probably be written with a # mark rather than a *. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 00:00, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I am a non-native of English, and I think the expression is a ellipsis in colloquial English. In grammar, it can be:

• For what purpose did you hit me?--purpose in question
• Why did you hit me?--reason in question. Nevill Fernando (talk) 04:18, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

No, it's not ellipsis. rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 04:50, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the helpful comments. By the way, "For what did" occurs some 3 to 4 times in the corpus at http://www.americancorpus.org 121.242.23.197 (talk) 11:16, 8 November 2009 (UTC)Vineet Chaitanya

Medieval word meaning

What is the meaning and etymology of "discryued" and "discryuying"? 64.138.237.101 (talk) 13:17, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

What is the context? Looks like an alternate spelling of "describe", with a V instead of a B (and with the V spelled as U). Adam Bishop (talk) 13:40, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

In this[3] comparison between Old, Middle and Early Modern English (BCP), "discryued" is translated as "taxed".Alansplodge (talk) 13:47, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

There it's used in translating the Latin "ut describeretur universus orbis" and "haec descriptio prima facta est praeside Syriae Cyrino", referring to the taking of the census (for the purpose of taxation). The basic meaning of the Latin and the English is nonetheless "described" and "description"—although a better translation might be "enrolled" in this case. An example of a more normal use is The Assembly of Ladies, ll. 512–13: "Of this lady hir beauties to discryve / My konning is to symple verily." Deor (talk) 14:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Since the OP asked for the etymology, I should have added that it is, of course, from Latin describere, "to write down". Deor (talk) 21:14, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the meanings and etymology. 64.138.237.101 (talk) 23:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Palatalization in English

Is it acceptable to pronounce the word “never” with a word-initial [nʲ]? --88.78.239.53 (talk) 14:45, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

What Not where I am (in the south of England). Algebraist 15:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I think Algebraist means "Not where I am" (based on his/her edit summary). It would sound odd to me (a Northerner) too. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 15:12, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I can't think of any variety of North American English that would have that pronunciation. In fact, it doesn't sound like a pronunciation I would associate with any part of the world where English is spoken as a native language. That pronunciation, however, is pretty common among people whose first language was Russian or another Slavic language. I think that most native speakers perceive it as a foreign accent. Marco polo (talk) 16:08, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

It's a hang up linked not to the n but to the e. In Russian the letter е in нет starts with a y sound (yes I know, I really should learn IPA). -- Александр Дмитрий (Alexandr Dmitri) (talk) 14:12, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Which of the following words are pronounced with a word-initial [kʲ]: key, cue, coo? --88.78.228.228 (talk) 20:41, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Cue. --TammyMoet (talk) 21:20, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

These sound like homework questions. Check out palatalization and English phonology. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 23:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Is it acceptable to pronounce the word “knee” with a word-initial [nʲ]? --88.78.2.122 (talk) 08:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Well a native English speaker wouldn't, if you did it would definitely mark you out as being foreign. Whether that equates to "acceptable" I really couldn't say.--TammyMoet (talk) 12:59, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Because English-speakers tend to blend their segments together, I wouldn't be surprised if English dialects that didn't undergo yod-dropping would have a palatalized coronal before the yod so that new would be pronounced [nʲju]. No guarantees, though. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi]} 01:37, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

These questions seem to be coming from the IP range 88.77.144.0 - 88.78.255.255, the same range where the repeated "Why can't **** be a German/English/whaterver word?" questions came from. --Kjoonlee 07:35, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Term/name for different "flavors" of a (math) denotaton?

What is the term/name for a math (or other) character/symbol that has a modification to denote a relationship to a base character symbol? The most common example is the appostrophe or "prime" to denote a function's derivative: F = function; F' = the function's derivative. Another example would be a reduction or expansion of a variable:

$\scriptstyle {{\widehat {Q}}=\arctan(\cos(M)\tan({\tilde {Q}}));\qquad \;{\tilde {Q}}=\arctan(\sec(M)\tan({\widehat {Q}}));}$

I'm not sure if it was somewheres here in Wikipedia or an 1800's book from Google.Books, but I believe the word is "s___" or "sa___" something. ~Kaimbridge~ (talk) 15:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

In general language use, a symbol added to a letter, often to modify it, is a diacritic. For Unicode names of mathematical symbols, you can visit Code Charts, scroll down to the heading "Mathematical Symbols" in the second of four columns, and select from various charts. You might find what you are seeking. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:55, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

If forced to give it a name, I would call them modifiers. Diacritic is a better word for those which are indeed diacritics, like the ${\widehat {Q}},{\tilde {Q}}$ above, but the prime symbol $f'\,$ is not a diacritic. — Emil J. 14:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

The word modifier is used at SESSION 6: MODIFIERS AND MISCELLANEOUS SYMBOLS. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:32, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

subject vs citizen

Are the people who live in Canada subjects or citizens? Googlemeister (talk) 16:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I suppose in some arcane way we are subjects of the Queen, but otherwise there is normal Canadian citizenship. Adam Bishop (talk) 16:48, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree, they are subjects of the Queen and citizens of Canada. --Tango (talk) 17:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

In older Canadian passports( until the 1970s I think), it was written that "the holder is a British subject". This is no longer the case. --Xuxl (talk) 18:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

That would be until the British Nationality Act 1981.Sussexonian (talk) 21:54, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

See also History of Canadian nationality law —— Shakescene (talk) 07:19, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Bird law

what does it mean to refer to something as "bird law" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.201 (talk) 16:48, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

(Added title to question --Lesleyhood (talk) 17:17, 6 November 2009 (UTC))

In what context? --Tango (talk) 17:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

A quick Google suggests either a firm of lawyers from Atlanta, Georgia[4] or law relating to birds (the feathered kind).Alansplodge (talk) 19:51, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

What does khazh mean?

What does the word khazh mean? Is it really an English word? It is used in something called a khazhsuit, which is a form of one-piece suit I think. The Great Cucumber (talk) 18:33, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean a Hazmat suit ? --Xuxl (talk) 18:35, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

No, I have taken the word litterary from the name of the group http://sports.groups.yahoo.com/group/snowkhazhsuit/ The Great Cucumber (talk) 19:15, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

And there is the slang term khazi, meaning lavatory. 86.142.224.71 (talk) 18:42, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Seems to be a Warcraft character[5]. Whether he wears a one-piece suit or not I don't know!!!!Alansplodge (talk) 19:44, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

And there is the fabric, khaki, which could certainly be used to make a one-piece suit if you wanted to. --Tango (talk) 19:58, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Are these guillemets?

《 》 . These are often used in Chinese (around book and movie titles, for instance), and are bigger than normal guillemets (which look like «» ). I'm just curious, is there a name for this punctuation? (Typing them in the search box just redirects to Bracket.) rʨanaɢ ^talk/_contribs 19:46, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

They are given a mention in the article on Chinese punctuation, but unfortunately there is no name given. Maybe this could be added when you find one. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 20:54, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Unicode has "300A 《 LEFT DOUBLE ANGLE BRACKET" and "300B 》RIGHT DOUBLE ANGLE BRACKET" (http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U3000.pdf). -- Wavelength (talk) 21:36, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The Chinese Wikipedia has the article zh:書名號, which discusses them. Maybe someone reading this Reference Desk page can provide a translation of the most relevant information. The one interlanguage link is to the English Wikipedia article Quotation mark, non-English usage, which seems to have no mention of them. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:25, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Hello? 書名號 literally means book name mark, and is used around the names of books, articles, journals, music, pictures etc.F (talk) 09:33, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Rusyn people

I'm trying to find a list of people capable of speaking (preferably at a native level) Carpathian Rusyn and/or Pannonian Rusyn, either ancient kings, saints, politicians, modern writers, actors... --151.51.14.218 (talk) 20:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I suppose most of the people listed at Category:Rusyn people were able to speak, or at least understand, Rusyn. — Kpalion^(talk) 22:18, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I fixed your category link, Kpalion - you have to put a colon before it in the link or it just adds this page to the category instead -Elmer Clark (talk) 23:33, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

good fricative luck!:)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.125.97.141 (talk) 16:23, 8 November 2009 (UTC) 

Geographic appositives

I have a question about what you might call geographic appositives - putting a city's location immediately after its name, for example "Boston, Massachusetts", "San Francisco, California", "London, England" or "Paris, France". Is this a distinctively American thing? I ask because I often hear British people use the preposition "in" in these cases - for example, the Scottish-born talk show host Craig Ferguson will say that he's reading an email from "Springfield in Missouri" or "Toronto in Canada". --140.232.10.216 (talk) 21:22, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I think it is mainly a North American thing (not just the USA but also Canada) to use these appositives outside of postal addresses, for example in conversation. These appositives do occur in postal addresses elsewhere in the Anglosphere, but occur less commonly in sentences elsewhere, at least in Britain. Marco polo (talk) 21:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

We do use them in Britain but they aren't needed as often since we don't duplicate place names as much as the US does. To us, "London" unambiguously refers to the British capital city, similarly with Paris. In the US there are often multiple places with the same name so specifying the state is necessary. --Tango (talk) 22:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

I think the question is about exactly how the British specify the different places. For example, if it were necessary for a Britisher Briton to distinguish Paris, Texas from any other Paris, would they tend to say "Paris, Texas" (U.S. style) or "Paris in Texas" or "Paris (the one in Texas)", or what? -- JackofOz (talk) 22:22, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Britisher? What's wrong with Briton? 86.142.224.71 (talk) 23:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Nothing, really. I've changed it now. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:28, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

At least you didn't go with "pommy bastard". ;-) -- 128.104.112.237 (talk) 01:02, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Any one of those could be used. The first one feels a little more formal to me. In informal speech you might hear something like "Paris (the Texas one, not the real one)" - we don't like to miss an opportunity to insult America! ;) --Tango (talk) 22:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

The British have never been known for their warm and cordial relations with the French (and vice-versa, I hasten to add). So it's interesting that they'd opportunistically pal up with the French when it comes to a chance to insult Americans.  :) -- JackofOz (talk) 22:43, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Don't forget Paris, Illinois! Regarding Texas, your typical Texan will say, "[city name], Texas" to anyone who's not a Texan, because they like to brag about being from Texas. And you wouldn't want to hear what they would probably say about "Gay Paris" in France. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:08, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

(after ec) FWIW, I'd say that - here in New Zealand, at least, but possibly elsewhere - the usual system is to use the appositive you mention but only when the place mentioned is a less well-known one either through importance/"well-knownness" (San Francisco vs San Francisco in Colombia) or through it being in this country (Hamilton vs [[Hamilton in Scotland or Hamilton, Ontario). We would talk about London (meaning the one in England), but of "London, Ontario" or "London in Canada". Oddly, it seems to be common, when needed, to refer to "Foo, X" when X is a subdividion of a country and "Foo in X" when X is a country, but that may just be me. Given that a surprising number of placenames are either unique or only have one really frequent usage, they're not used particularly often. There's seems little point in saying "Melbourne in Australia", "Los Angeles, California", or "Kathmandu in Nepal" if "Melbourne", "Los Angeles", or "Kathmandu" alone gets the point across 99.9% of the time. Grutness...wha? 23:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Dialogue from All in the Family:

Mike: A lot of places have the same names; like Portland, Maine, and Portland, Oregon.

Gloria: Birmingham, England, and Birmingham, Alabama.

Edith: New York, New York.

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:26, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

In the UK, duplicate names often have a descriptive tag added: hence Newcastle-under-Lyme, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Newcastle Emlyn. In normal speach you would just say Newcastle unless you needed to clarify. You're right, I would say "in" too. Reading the para above I was thinking "Ah yes, and there's Portland in Dorset too..."Alansplodge (talk) 09:55, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Maybe this is too far off on a tangent, but... when talking about the entire set of British islands, how common is for a place name to be exactly duplicated? I believe all US states and Canadian provinces expressly forbid exact duplication within their own borders. So, while there are many Springfields, there's only one Springfield, Illinois. What I'm getting at is that if it had been the norm for there to be a London, England and a London, Wales, and a London, Scotland, etc. that the UK would probably have adopted the same kind of pattern you see in NA. On the other hand, if it was the case that only one city on the entire set of islands could have a particular name, there'd obviously be no reason to use the comma-subregion form. Matt Deres (talk) 13:20, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I must disagree. Go to http://factfinder.census.gov/ and look up Greenville in New York (Greenville, New York. There are two towns in different counties with that name (ignore the CDPs, as they are for statistical purposes with no government of their own). Additionally, you can have villages that have the same name of the town that they are in, even though they are not coterminous or may extend into neighboring towns (e.g., Mamaroneck). (New York is a messy state: Administrative divisions of New York) --Nricardo (talk) 15:12, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Their only purpose isn't to disambiguate between similarly named cities, they serve to give a more general idea of where the city is. The United States is huge - the chance that everybody you speak to has any idea of where a particular city is is pretty small, so we narrow it down by adding the state. It's probably less common in England, where there aren't any divisions similar to the American state (especially since England is about the size of some America states). —Akrabbim^talk 15:36, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

There are duplicates in Britain, but usually only for small places (there may be one big place with the name, which takes priority over the others, but there will rarely be more than one big place). Often it is due to them having very unoriginal names - for example, several new ports have been named Newport. --Tango (talk) 18:14, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

We actually have two Newports in Wales, the big one in the southeast, 3rd largest town in the country, and a little one in the southwest - though we might disambiguate them by using their not-at-all similar Welsh names, Newport/Casnewydd and Newport/Trefdraeth. -- Arwel Parry (talk) 01:11, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

There are loads of small places with identical names, but they are mostly places nobody has ever heard of anyway. The larger places that started out with the same names tend to have been differentiated later: apart from Newcastle, as above, there are examples like Northampton and Southampton; Poole and Welshpool; East Grinstead and West Grinstead. Examples of those that have not been differentiated are Newport, Gwent and Newport, Isle of Wight; various Whitchurches (Whitchurch, Hants; Whitchurch, Salop etc); Wellington, Salop and Wellington, Somerset; and for these the usage is the same as that in the US. Ehrenkater (talk) 23:03, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

There are a couple of duplicates that are notable, but mostly - as pointed out - only one will be well-known. Bangor (one in Wales, one in Northern Ireland) is one fairly notable one which has not been mentioned. Other than that - as Alansplodge points out - "disambiguators" are used, as in Kingston-upon-Thames and Kingston-upon-Hull. Grutness...wha? 23:47, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Another one, which illustrates another method of disambiguation, is the village of "Kingston near Lewes" in Sussex. Among lots of other Kingstons, there are also two plain "Kingston"s within about 20 miles of one another in Dorset Ehrenkater (talk) 16:53, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

And it's not just settlements that get duplicate names. There are three River Rothers, for example (two of which are pretty close together). "Rother" apparently means "cattle", so it's not even just a local word for "river" (a lot of rivers are just called "river" in a local old language). --Tango (talk) 01:28, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

See List of the most common U.S. place names. -- Wavelength (talk) 00:59, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The British Isles have ambiguous river names.

• River Inny, River Inny, Cornwall
• River Bann, River Bann (Wexford)
• River Blackwater, Essex, River Blackwater (River Loddon), River Blackwater (River Test), River Blackwater, Northern Ireland
• River Dee, Aberdeenshire, River Dee, Wales, River Dee (Lune), River Dee, Galloway, River Dee, County Louth
• River Don, Lancashire, River Don, South Yorkshire, River Don, Aberdeenshire
• River Eden, Cumbria, River Eden, Kent, River Eden, Fife
• River Avon, Devon, River Avon (Warwickshire), River Avon (Hampshire), River Avon (Bristol), River Avon (Falkirk), River Avon (Strathspey)
• River Tweed, River Tweed, England
• River Ouse, Yorkshire, River Ouse, Sussex
• River Wye, River Wye, Derbyshire, River Wye, Buckinghamshire

-- Wavelength (talk) 06:49, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

As a minor but possibly useful point of usage, it's quite common practice in the UK, when referring to one of these name-duplicating rivers, to use the formulation "The Yorkshire Ouse", the Sussex Ouse", etc. This might also be used to refer to a particular section of a river that flows through more than one county. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 06:22, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Americans have the Red River and the Red River of the North. -- Wavelength (talk) 21:37, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

[6]See this 2degrees ad on Cambridge, England, Cambridge, Australia and actual Cambridge. F (talk) 06:54, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Disambiguation. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:02, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

So when the Beatles reported four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire, was that an Americanism? —Tamfang (talk) 00:55, 23 November 2009 (UTC)