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July 17

"Two English"

An American man and an American woman are "two Americans". This is gender-neutral and unambiguous. An Englishman and an Englishwoman are "two English". However, this is not that well understandable as it is not your first connotation when you hear "two English". What is talked about here? A translation from Spanish "to English"? Is the girlfriend of a Scottish boy "too English" for his grandmother? Is there a better, unmistakable way to address two mixed-gender people from England? --KnightMove (talk) 10:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Two English people? HiLo48 (talk) 11:23, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think HiLo48 has the best answer. "Two Englanders" is understandable but will leave you sounding like a comedic stereotype. "Two Britons" is correct but less precise. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 13:00, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When not in England, the term "Brits" (albeit in this particular case, as you say, imprecise) is something I've heard commonly used and used myself. Mikenorton (talk) 16:46, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a little curious about this. When I hear someone described as a Brit I generally assume they're English; I don't really think of the Scots or the Welsh and certainly not the Northern Irish. Is that the common understanding? --Trovatore (talk) 20:30, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I worked in Norway as an ex-pat for over five years and the Brits included Scots and Welsh as far as I can remember, but that's just a personal recollection, no citations available, sorry. Mikenorton (talk) 22:15, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In absolute terms, most Brit(on)s are English (84% of the UK population is in England).

Relatively, Northern Ireland is the only constituent country whose residents are more likely to identify as solely British (41%) (or solely Irish at 25%) than solely of their constituent country (21%). AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 09:45, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I am not aware of a generic & specific term for two people of mixed gender. The word "couple" may be useful, but it does not define two random people. Two Americans, two Britons, two Spaniards (or whatever) can be any combination of genders / sexes. And two Viennese könnten ja ein Paar Würschtel sein. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 13:15, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Are you drawing a distinction between thigs like " there's a couple of people standing in that corner" and "there's a couple standing in that corner"? Because I would say the first about any 2 people but the second only if they were romantically linked. Except I would also say "there's a couple in that corner" as a response to the question "how many people are in this room?" Again, without regard to their sexes, genders, or relationship statuses.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:39, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Occasionally, people use just "two English" as a noun phrase.^[1][2][3] --Lambiam 14:55, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I think that would normally be considered non-standard, though. There are some (most?) demonyms which are both adjective and noun (e.g. American/an American, German/a German), some which have different words for each (e.g. Spanish/a Spaniard, Danish/a Dane) and some which are (generally) only used as adjectives (e.g. French, Irish, Chinese). Generally those in the third category need "person" added to make a noun phrase (or "-man"/"-woman" in some cases), and that's where I'd put "English". There seems to be a slight shift towards treating the third category the same as the first category and using the adjective as a noun (e.g. I've seen "a Chinese" instead of "a Chinese person"), which is presumably why there are a few instances of "two English" being used, but it still sounds odd to my (British English) ear. (Admittedly, it does sound a little less odd in the plural. "I saw two English walking down the street" would be odd, but "I saw an English walking down the street" would be downright bizarre.) Proteus (Talk) 15:27, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Possibly the closest we can come in standard-speak is "The English are a curious race", or "You English are despicable". Not even "some English" works for me.-- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 15:46, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't find the usage in the first and third links, and the second was definitely with nonstandard grammar.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 20:31, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, here in Australia we also have the useful word "pom", sometimes expressed more fully as "pommy bastard", especially when an Ashes series is underway. Although the word almost always refers to male English people.HiLo48 (talk) 23:47, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

On my only visit to Australia many decades ago, I was proud to be referred to as a "to and from". Alansplodge (talk) 10:48, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Is that rhyming slang? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:19, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like it, but I've never heard that one. There are expressions used throughout our wide brown land, but then there are some others that have currency only within much smaller communities. The Aussie way is to use such little-known expressions on unsuspecting strangers, whether they be from other parts of the country or overseas, causing the strangers befuddlement. They ask for a translation, and this immediately marks them as "not a local", and hence automatically suspect until such time as they can earn a degree of acceptability. That may take a few minutes, or a few generations, or anywhere in between. Xenophobia works on many levels, not just between nations. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:19, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

"to-and-from n. [rhy. sl. = pom (see POMMIE n.)] (Aus.) a British immigrant to Australia." see Green, Jonathon. "to-and-from". Green’s Dictionary of Slang. DuncanHill (talk) 22:27, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't have so be an immigrant. "Pom" works for visitors too. I believe our King is visiting later this year. He will be called a pom by plenty of Aussies when he's here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HiLo48 (talk • contribs) 11:54, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We Londoners are perfectly fluent in rhyming slang, so there was no befuddlement. Alansplodge (talk) 11:26, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I should bleeding coco! Mikenorton (talk) 19:09, 20 July 2024 (UTC) [reply]

We have Terminology of the British Isles and Glossary of names for the British... AnonMoos (talk) 18:10, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

May someone tell me what language this video are in?

--Trade (talk) 21:11, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Based on the framed picture in the background, this is probably Daniela Mercury on the left and her wife Malu Verçosa Mercury on the right speaking Brazilian Portuguese. GalacticShoe (talk) 22:41, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The subtitles appear to be in Russian and Arabic, though. Or possibly some other Slavic language in Cyrillic, and Persian. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:07, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The first video has no sound. I listened to the second and can confirm the language is Portuguese. Since I initially found the accent difficult to follow it is undoubtably the Brazilian variety. 2A00:23D0:7C1:5201:8531:C651:42DE:A528 (talk) 11:23, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It does indeed have sound. Maybe you'd need to update your browser or something. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:06, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not really interested in the subtitles. Only the audio Trade (talk) 12:14, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Didn't even realized the videos featured celebs Trade (talk) 12:16, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Drone as a German word

Hey friends, having another puzzle over a wördle.de answer. Yesterday the solution was "DRONE" which has left me baffled. Any help on what the German language means by this word please? All I get from de.wikipedia are proper names. Thanks! 70.67.193.176 (talk) 22:53, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

German wiktionary lists only an English word under that spelling (without "h"). AnonMoos (talk) 23:59, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly, that's why am confused.70.67.193.176 (talk) 02:23, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Could the alternative spelling "Drone" have become common in German in recent years? Given how much has been written, discussed, etc. about these unmanned flying machines in the past decade, I wouldn't be surprised. It's now become the standard term in French. Xuxl (talk) 07:56, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience, it hasn't. "Drohne" and "drone" are not just different spellings, but also pronounced differently. I guess many German speakers may be more or less familiar with the English term too, but in my perception at least the German term is still the one commonly used, in both meanings of the word (bees and flying devices). Fut.Perf. ☼ 08:12, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't appear as a German word on LEO.org either. AlmostReadytoFly (talk) 08:47, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Short of a misspelling, the only think I can think of is the English word "drone" (as in "droning sound") that is sometimes used when talking about music. It doesn't seem sufficiently common to count as a loanword, though. In principle, it could also be the plural of a word *Dron, but that doesn't exist either. For a German (not English) word *Drone, the pronunciation would be the same as Drohne — the existing word Krone ("crown") is a perfect rhyme. --Wrongfilter (talk) 12:42, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As a native speaker (as is Fut.Perf.), I have never seen the AngloSaxon word "drone" used as a loan word in colloquial German. A typo can be excluded, as Wördle is a constructed linguistic game.

Is it possible, that the solution is NOT "Drone", but a similar German noun / verb / whatever? The OP seems to be Canadian. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 16:59, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

We're all native speakers here ;-) I entered "DRONE" into wördle today and it was accepted, which means that it is in the database. I haven't found out how the database was created and what is or is not in it (misspellings seem unlikely but not entirely impossible). Maybe the creator is a Sunn O))) fan and put Drone (Doom) in by hand... --Wrongfilter (talk) 18:32, 18 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The unmanned aerial vehicle is supposed to be spelled Drohne in German (like the male bee), but I suspect that the English spelling without the h is common in unedited writing. Even de:Unbemanntes Luftfahrzeug once uses the word Hubschrauberdrone spelled like that. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:16, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not any more. --Wrongfilter (talk) 10:40, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm typically using "raise" as my starting word in English Wordle. Interestingly I could also use it in wordle.at and I still have no idea what it is supposed to mean in German. I've switched to a more regular German word (Saite) in the meantime. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 15:02, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Regular plural of Rais, it seems. [4] 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:58, 25 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

d:Q650316 (Drone music) reports that the article is not present at de.wp, but gives Drone as the German label. Folly Mox (talk) 12:03, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

As has been noted, there exists a German Wikipedia article for Drone Doom. It is a rather niche genre, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 14:35, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for all the discussion. It's not the first time this database has been weird, so I guess that's what's going on here. "drone" was indeed the solution, it tells you :) 70.67.193.176 (talk) 01:33, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It just might be the german spelling of the Drône (river), as we have no accent circonflexe in German. Lectonar (talk) 11:13, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Are other French river names accepted, such as LOIRE and SAONE? --Lambiam 00:37, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

LOIRE is accepted, SAONE is not. RHEIN is also accepted. GalacticShoe (talk) 01:11, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note that Drône is an archaic spelling; the current French orthography is Dronne. Since the Saône is a much more significant and better-known river than the Dronne, presence in the Wördle db as the Germanized spelling of archaic DRÔNE is IMO not a satisfactory explanation. --Lambiam 09:34, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]