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May 27

"Away team"

On the original Star Trek, a group of people who left the Enterprise to go down to a planet, for whatever reason, were called by terms like "landing party", or no special term was used for them. When Star Trek: The Next Generation began, they began to be called an "away team", a team which has continued in use in subsequent shows.

Where did they get the phrase "away team" from? Did it originate as naval or other military terminology, was it invented by the show's writers, or what? In the OED Online the only use of the phrase is to refer to the "visiting" team in sports. --~2026-31658-34 (talk) 18:23, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The same question was asked 12 years ago in this Reddit post; On the etymology of "Away Team". The only relevant answer was from a respondant who says that his grandpa used the phrase in the WWII US Navy (without any backup). Google AI (about as much use as an opiniated bloke down the pub) says that the phrase in a naval context was coined by Ray Mabus, the United States secretary of the Navy from 2009 to 2017, but this postdates the Star Trek series by several years. Alansplodge (talk) 20:57, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The term is used in Australian sporting contexts where a team (the away team) travels from another part of the state, or the country, to play against a team that's based where the match is held (the home team). In the Australian Football League, the longest part of the season consists of the series of matches between opposing teams to determine who qualifies for the finals (that's called the "home and away season"), followed by the finals, and ultimately the grand final. I'm sure this terminology has its counterparts in other sports, and other countries. (The title of the soap opera Home and Away has nothing to do with this, btw.) -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 22:43, 27 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Wait, is that not said in other countries? JordyGrey talk🧸 11:13, 2 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Google Ngram Viewer finds a small blip of usages from 1800, another in 1836–49, and continuous usage from 1856 onwards with a fairly steep rise after 1986 (perhaps driven by Star Trek). In my experience, the term has long been routinely used in UK sports writing and conversation in all sports where it would be relevant.
Perhaps someone can find out where it first appears in Star Trek canon (which, let us remember, also includes many original novels, comics, etc., in addition to TV and films and the printed works based on them). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-27434-43 (talk) 06:15, 28 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The question was about Star Trek usage, not sports usage, where the phrase is familiar but unrelated in meaning. --~2026-31927-22 (talk) 21:51, 28 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The Memory Alpha article you link to states: "The type of team tasked with performing away missions was, during preproduction of Star Trek: The Next Generation, to be called an "away-mission team," before this was simplified to become "away team." (Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Continuing Mission 1st ed., p. 17) The latter term entered common use at the beginning of The Next Generation, and continued its usage throughout the subsequent television series, up to and including the prequel Star Trek: Enterprise." That suggests that the writers invented the term, and that the fact that it is the same phrase as the sporting term is a coincidence. Proteus (Talk) 09:58, 28 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, good point. I didn't read that far down. So I guess that's it. (Original poster) --~2026-31927-22 (talk) 21:51, 28 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

May 30

Amadeus dialogue line

Not sure if this is the right desk but the others aren't so great either. There's a scene in Amadeus where Emperor Franz Josef asks Salieri whether to commission Mozart to write an opera in German. Salieri intuits that the Emperor is really trying to troll the Archbishop (Hieronymus von Colloredo I guess) and starts to say so. Timestamped YT link: [1]. The Emperor interjects something like "you are cateevo, court composer", i.e. I can't understand what he says. The automatic caption is useless too. Can anyone else make it out? Thanks. ~2026-30934-27 (talk) 04:18, 30 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It's "cattivo", which is Italian for "bad". --Viennese Waltz 06:06, 30 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
In this specific context, "naughty" is a better translation.  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:38, 30 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Historically, it was arguably rather Mozart that was cattivo, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 18:37, 30 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I never would have figured that out, and I'd expect similar for other of movie's viewers. ~2026-30934-27 (talk) 20:26, 30 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

May 31

The same?

Good afternoon. What is the diffrence between á and à? ~2026-22534-68 (talk) 15:22, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In what language? -- ~2026-32288-60 (talk) 16:48, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There are relatively few languages I can think of that use both of them over an a vowel. An example is Portuguese. In Pinyin, the acute marks the 2nd tone and the grave the 4th. -- Jungleman33 (talk) 16:56, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I meant why are both on Google keyboard? ~2026-22534-68 (talk) 18:32, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Hungarian uses á and Italian uses à, for example, I think. Google Keyboard presumably wants to support both languages. ~2026-30934-27 (talk) 19:20, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Spanish and and Portuguese – a much larger market – also use ⟨á⟩, as seen in Spanish and Portuguese abacá, while Catalan and Italian use abacà. And ⟨à⟩ is also used in French.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:43, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
No it àin't. It's not in the French alphabet.  Card Zero  (talk) 20:07, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Copy-paste error, now corrected.  ​‑‑Lámbiàm 07:35, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
If only we had articles about á and à. DuncanHill (talk) 21:55, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
bá =aunt in Vietnamese
bà =grandma in Vietnamese
ba =father in Vietnamese
bà =father in Chinese
Some like that Alms bowling (talk) 20:58, 4 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a source/dictionary which shows flap T as well as flap D?

Cambridge and OALD shows flap T:

But not flap D:

~2026-32447-12 (talk) 21:54, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Since I'm an ignoranimous, pray tell me what a "flap T" and a "flap D" would be. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots22:18, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
See Flapping. DuncanHill (talk) 22:41, 31 May 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the link. Next question: How do those 4 links posted by the OP have anything to do with the OP's question? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots02:58, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Well, you can see that the first two pages show flap T /t̬/, but the last two don't show flap D (they use ordinary /d/) ~2026-32492-47 (talk) 07:33, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Wiktionary shows flapped t/d's, representing them by the IPA letter [ɾ]: water[ˈwɔ.ɾɚ]; leader[ˈli.ɾɚ].  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:30, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't. For example, Cambridge and OALD show flap T for the word 'infinitive', but Wiktionary does no such thing: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/infinitive ~2026-32492-47 (talk) 07:36, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That page for infinitive only shows a phonemic transcription, in slashes. The flaps only show up in phonetic transcriptions, as indicated by our editor above using square brackets. PiusImpavidus (talk) 15:02, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't make any difference. A reader doesn't know whether the word 'infinitive' should be pronounced with a flap or not because that page doesn't indicate it in any way ~2026-32596-63 (talk) 15:54, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Oh the humanity! Wiktionary doesn't give phonetic transcriptions of every English word in every English dialect! It's incomplete! PiusImpavidus (talk) 16:26, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, 'infinitive' isn't some rare uncommon word (2 occurrences per million words according to OED).
Secondly, the problem isn't only incompleteness but also unusefulness; Cambridge and OALD also don't provide every English word, but at least they are useful for a reader: /t/ means [t] while /t̬/ means [ɾ]. Wiktionary's /t/ can mean both [t] and [ɾ] (and much more considering that anyone can edit it) ~2026-32666-49 (talk) 16:34, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You should read the footnote next to /t/ at Help:IPA/English. (Dia)phonemes don't need to show the exact pronunciation, and regarding the flap as a phoneme in AmE as those other dictionaries do is not exactly accurate. Flapping is a realization of the /t/ and /d/ phonemes.
While they don't use IPA but instead their own system, take a look at Merriam-Webster's transcriptions for later and infinitive, then listen to the audios they provide. You'll notice both are transcribed with \t\, yet the consonant sounds completely different, because they are the same phoneme but different realizations. They also expect you to read their pronunciation guide and not just the transcriptions (they explain the same situation of flapping at \t\ in said guide as we do for our own here). ~ oklopfer (💬) 22:53, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I'm perfectly aware of all those things, but you need to think about an average reader/learner. They wish to learn how they should pronounce a word. It's unhelpful to use /t/ for both [t] and [ɾ] and not provide allophonic/narrow transcription because the reader/learner has not clue how to actually pronounce the word. Cambridge and OALD avoid that problem. Merriam-Webster and Wiktionary don't ~2026-32711-16 (talk) 04:53, 2 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There is no one way to actually pronounce the word. M-W and Wikt avoid over-specificity and dialectal preference by listing the phonemes, expecting readers to consult a pronunciation guide per-accent; as I mentioned below, infinitive can be pronounced by AmE speakers with an aspirated stop or with a flap, among other possible realizations. It is therefore more useful to write the phoneme rather than privileging a particular allophone.
Meanwhile, Cambridge and Oxford use phonemes inconsistently, taking accent- and even speaker-specific approaches, treating the flap allophone as if it were a phoneme. This improperly blurs phonemic and phonetic transcription, and is a disservice to the average reader.
Learners should understand the conventions used by a given dictionary rather than assume perfect concordance with phonetic realization. Expecting such precise transcriptions as allophones for a general-purpose dictionary is impractical and would quickly become unwieldy if made exhaustive, considering how fluid pronunciation is.
Given the situation, I expect you're the same logged-out user that's been going on this flap /t/+/d/ crusade for a few weeks. I'm not sure what your end goal is, but it is starting to feel like an intentional abuse of editors' time. You are asking why systems are arranged the way that they are, we are explaining them to you, and then you are refuting that those systems are wrong. ~ oklopfer (💬) 13:18, 2 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
There is actually only one most common way to pronounce the word. And that's exactly what an average learner looks for. Cambridge and OALD are far more useful in this regard than Wiktionary.
My end goal is to find a source/dictionary that marks flap D in a similar way as Cambridge and OALD marks flap T. It's written in the title of my question. The goal of the question isn't to discuss the pronunciation of the word 'infinitive' or to discuss allophonic/phonemic transcription. It wasn't me who started to discuss it, so don't blame for wasted time.
That being said, I have good news for you: I'm not going to talk about it more. Only one reply here actually tried (though failed) to answer my question while other people are mostly focused on explaining me that 'infinitive' isn't pronounced with a flap or why Wiktionary is so great because it uses a phonemic transcription (which is useless for learners in this case if it doesn't provide an allophonic transcription, BTW). I don't see a point in spending more time with people who are more focused upon explaning me why I'm wrong than upon the question itself. Bye ~2026-32792-42 (talk) 16:02, 2 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Since when do Americans pronounce it "infinidive"? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots12:05, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Since 1900 at least: https://www.oed.com/dictionary/infinitive_adj ~2026-32543-04 (talk) 13:04, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Nonsense. See flapdoodle. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots14:54, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
What with it? What's your point? ~2026-32596-63 (talk) 15:54, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That the notion that Americans pronounce it "infinidive" is bogus. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots17:11, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It's not. Both OED and Cambridge and OALD disagree with you ~2026-32655-44 (talk) 17:46, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
And they're wrong. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots22:25, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
They're not wrong, but they're oversimplifying. I've heard both [-tʰɪv] and [-ɾɪv] from AmE speakers; the former when the final syllable is (secondarily) stressed, the latter when it isn't. To regard only one pronunciation in either direction is the inaccuracy here. ~ oklopfer (💬) 22:39, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Your last sentence is on point. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots17:57, 2 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Dictionaries are rarely "wrong", in the sense I think you mean. Despite what is popularly supposed, dictionaries do not dictate how words are to be spelled, how they're to be pronounced, or what they mean. They simply record that such spellings, pronunciations and meanings have actually been encountered in the real world, in sufficient numbers to be considered significant for a record of them to be published. Any reader is free to disagree with anything they read, but framing it as right/wrong is missing the point. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 20:39, 2 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It comes down to what to believe? The opinion of some anonymous Brit? Or my own ears? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots21:19, 2 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Despite what is popularly supposed, dictionaries do not dictate how words are to be spelled, how they're to be pronounced, or what they mean. They simply record that such spellings, pronunciations and meanings have actually been encountered in the real world, in sufficient numbers to be considered significant for a record of them to be published.

That's not true. There are prescriptive dictionaries which indeed 'dictate how words are to be spelled, how they're to be pronounced, or what they mean'. Some examples:
  • A Dictionary of the English Language
  • Wielki słownik poprawnej polszczyzny PWN
  • Dictionnaire de l'Académie française
There are also mainly descriptive dictionaries, which contain prescriptive usage notes. Some examples from modern English dictionaries:
~2026-32927-96 (talk) 22:50, 2 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Well, those diktats ring hollow to me. Lexicostrophists and grammatologists can prescribe all they like, but precisely zero people are forced to comply, by virtue of the dictionary itself. Such forces do exist, but they are social, cultural or educational in their nature. Teachers and other kinds of authority figures may well correct or exercise some influence over the speech and writings of others, using dictionaries etc as their ultimate source of Truth. Others are more guided by what their grandmothers taught them, and are just as convinced of those Truths, and if there's ever a mismatch, they consider the dictionary makers have it all wrong. Any honest lexicographer will admit they're always way behind the 8-ball, because it takes time to record and publish usages that come to their attention. In other words, they are recording language change after it has already happened out there in the RW. Once something gets into the dictionary it gets a cachet of authority, but by that time it's changed again, in a thousand ways. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 22:08, 3 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

June 1

Which one of the articles is correct?

There are some differences between the article 'Agreement (linguistics)' [2] and the article 'Agreement in the English language' [3]. They are mostly discribed in the discussion page of the former. Could you perhaps look at those two articles and say what isn't factually correct? ~2026-32653-88 (talk) 08:35, 1 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion the article Agreement (linguistics) is incorrect in that it's examples are not proper American English though they are probably good British English. See American and British English grammatical differences#Subject–verb agreement. Eluchil404 (talk) 01:13, 2 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

June 3

Etymology and semantic shift of "cooking" / "let him cook"

Hi all, I am trying to trace the recent semantic shift and ultimate origin of the slang phrase "let him cook" (and the related adjectival use, "is cooking"), meaning to allow someone to freely perform a task they excel at, or to recognize someone's brilliant execution.

I have checked standard crowdsourced repositories like Urban Dictionary and Know Your Meme, which point heavily toward 2010s hip-hop culture (specifically the rapper Lil B) and subsequent popularization via NBA and NFL internet subcultures. However, these sources are light on the precise transition from the literal or metaphorical culinary sense to its current abstract meaning of creative freedom or momentum.

Does anyone have access to digital media archives, early 2010s Usenet/Twitter corpora, or dialectology papers that record the earliest citations of this specific usage? Specifically, I'm curious if this was an independent innovation within African American Vernacular English (AAVE) that was later co-opted by sports fandoms, or if it evolved from an earlier, unrelated idiom. Thanks! ~2026-33106-46 (talk) 21:44, 3 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It certainly goes back a lot farther. Expressions like "now you're cookin'" go back to at least the 1930s, possibly with a jazz connection. I'm reminded of this segment of "Birdland" (Weather Report song): "Bird would cook, Max would look - where? Down in Birdland; Miles came through, 'Trane came too - there Down in Birdland; Basie blew, Blakey too - where? Down in Birdland; Cannonball played that hall - there Down in Birdland"
Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots22:25, 3 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed Bugs's link to the song. Deor (talk) 23:23, 3 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
(Edit conflict.) I might not understand how specific you are, but Etymonline states;
Phrase what's cooking? "what's up, what's going on" is attested by 1942.
To cook with gas "do well, act or think correctly" is 1930s jive talk.
I also found this Reddit discussion; [4]. Just seems like a minor semantic shift from decades-old slang to me. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:44, 3 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
That Reddit discussion there mentions the exact phrase "Let him cook!" used in a Breaking Bad episode, with a sequence that later became a meme, so it might be the direct source for the current popularity. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:04, 3 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
This link mentions the usage of "devising a plan", which I guess might be a shortening of "cook up". 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:08, 4 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@Wakuran @Baseball Bugs @Deor When did it become mainstream? ~2026-33106-46 (talk) 23:29, 3 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly by the early 1940s.[5]Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots00:18, 4 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It would depend on which particular sense you are referring to. Many of them overlap, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 01:12, 4 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Can it be found in print literature or books? ~2026-33106-46 (talk) 08:00, 4 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Did you read the EO link I posted a couple of lines above? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots14:53, 4 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Here's cooking with gas used in 1939 in the promotion of gas cooking. Note that the phrase is in quotes, so we can infer that it's already a meme. Here's the metaphor "cooking with gas" ascribed to Bob Hope in 1941; in the Etymonline entry, he was also said to be among those using it on the radio in 1939. I found the phrase used daily in newspaper and magazines in a literal sense, for promotion of gas cooking, for thirty years or more, to such an extent that it was difficult to scroll through 1910. I didn't find evidence of 1930s jive talk, but I don't know where that would be documented. Here's a September 1940 show tune, Now you're cooking with gas, and "cooking with gas" as a metaphor, December 1940.  Card Zero  (talk) 15:13, 4 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Daffy Duck uses the "cooking with gas" line at the end of the 1943 cartoon The Wise Quacking Duck. WB often incorporated already-well-known catchphrases in those cartoons. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots16:00, 4 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

June 4

pronunciation of Palestinian in reference to the Texas city

There's a city in Texas called Palestine, pronounced (as I understand it) /ˈpæləˌstin/ rhyming with mean unlike the place in the Middle East that's /ˈpæləˌstaɪn/ rhyming with wine. At least occasionally, e.g. here and here, I see the inhabitants of the Texas city referred to as Palestinians (in the same way that people from Ottawa are Ottawans, etc). Two questions:
1) Is Palestinian in reference to the inhabitants of the Texan city pronounced any differently than Palestinian in reference to the Middle Eastern people? For example, are Texan Palestinians pronounced /-stin.i.ən(z)/ rhyming with Armenian(s)?
2) Is Palestinian the usual demonym for people from Palestine, TX, or is some other term more common?
-sche (talk) 18:59, 4 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience, cities that small don't really get demonyms in ordinary usage. There are Angelenos and San Franciscans, but not really Sunnyvalians (and Sunnyvale, California is many times as large as Palestine). --Trovatore (talk) 18:21, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The Texas town is pronounced PAL-uh-steen. The people there are Palestinians. It's pronounced Pal-uh-steen-ians. I don't know of a better cite than that. Officials and local news usually say, "residents of Palestine" and things like that. For example, this local news segment has 'a Palestinian woman' in the online text, but in the on-air version the broadcaster said "a Palestine woman'. Wikipedian-in-Waiting (talk) 21:52, 7 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

June 5

Explanation of English IPA symbols used in dictionaries

I feel I don't really know how I should pronounce English IPA symbols which are used in dictionaries. This is probably because they seem misleading. For example, I was shocked when I first heard that /iː/ in 'fleece' is actually pronounced as [ɪj] or that /uː/ in 'goose' is pronounced with [w].

Sadly, there's nothing in those characters that suggests such pronunciation, so I guess I need an explanation of those symbols designed for learners. I want more than just voice audios. Something like 'this symbol should be pronounced long even though it doesn't have /ː/' or 'when you say this sound, you also need to add [w]'.

For context, my first language is Polish, and I wish to learn RP. Note also that I'm not asking for an explanation why those characters are bad, what is phonemic transcription, how dictionaries work or for a new set of symbols. I'm asking for an explanation how I should pronounce English IPA symbols used in dictionaries ~2026-33268-60 (talk) 09:39, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to me that you want an explanation of English Allophones specially for Polish speakers, which takes into account any overlap with Polish allophones. Otherwise it would confuse you by giving details of sound distinctions that you can't even perceive, which would only be helpful to somebody from, say, Thailand.  Card Zero  (talk) 10:36, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
How is somebody hearing a "w" sound in "goose"??? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots16:32, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
It's after the vowel, I think. Like "gu-wuss" said quickly? wikt:goose has (Standard Southern British) /ɡʉ͡ws/. W is similarweasel words to a fast oo sound, anyway, so this pronunciation adds a u sound (or a brief null vowel) after the oo. W is the semivocalic counterpart of a close back rounded vowel [u], whatever that means, but anyway I bet it gets mostly absorbed into the preceding vowel and just amounts to a barely perceptible grunt. So a minimalist diphthong instead of the US version with a single vowel.  Card Zero  (talk)  18:01, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
A Southern Briton writes: Presumably the Wiktionary entry was written by someone who has never heard the word "goose" spoken. DuncanHill (talk) 18:15, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Bearing in mind what it says in Allophones, Native speakers of a given language perceive one phoneme in the language as a single distinctive sound and are "both unaware of and even shocked by" the allophone variations that are used to pronounce single phonemes, we're liable to be overconfident about these matters. Like "Nonsense! I have no accent!"  Card Zero  (talk)  18:17, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
As another Southern Briton, I can definitely detect (partly by lip-feel) the slight closing 'w' sound of the vowel in 'goose' when I say it, but without this discussion I would never have been consciously aware of it. Such obliviousness to the sounds we (the English) 'actually' utter is not uncommon, because we're not aware of them and English listeners are not expecting them, so we don't notice them. Other languages also have their own 'deaf spots', which develop in childhood.
Examples are the unaspirated and aspirated versions of 'b' and 'p', which English treats as single 'letters' but to which Hindi and similar languages, for example, give a separate letter each. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-27434-43 (talk) 19:36, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
the semivocalic counterpart of a close back rounded vowel [u], whatever that means
It essentially means [w] (as in wet) is the non-syllabic equivalent of [u] (as in goose), though generally also with slightly more stricture in its pronunciation (i.e. how close the tongue is to the roof of the mouth, in this instance).
To demonstrate what that means, make a W sound ([w]) and try to prolong it; you will notice it becomes an OO sound ([u]). On the inverse, try to say OO-et with a very short vowel on OO; you will notice it essentially becomes W (basically as you had described, Card Zero). One might also notice a slight difference in how the words wow and yay start and end.
I think it's also important to keep in mind what is noted in Diphthong#Transcription as well: transcribing the offglides of diphthongs with ⟨j, w⟩ vs ⟨i̯, u̯⟩ vs ⟨ɪ̯, ʊ̯⟩ vs ⟨ɪ, ʊ⟩ is often more a matter of convention, and not necessarily the precise pronunciation.
The transcription that ⟨ʉ͡w⟩ is describing is that it is diphthong-like with an offglide sound, and that offglide sound is further back in the mouth than where the vowel starts. It is not unique to SSBE either; as we describe in General American English#Vowel tenseness, there are both monophthongal and diphthongal realizations of this vowel in AmE, the latter having a similar situation of starting further forward in the mouth, and moving further back through the pronunciation. It just happens to be the transcription convention for the SSBE phoneme on Wiktionary.
Apologies if this is over-explaining. ~ oklopfer (💬) 23:04, 5 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you, that was great. Do [phonetic] dictionaries exist at all? I'm trying to find an RP one, as the OP wants. Or I suppose a guide to the general phonetic meaning of RP phonemic transcription might exist?  Card Zero  (talk)  01:55, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Gimson's Pronunciation of English and the EPD are probably the gold standard for what OP is looking for when it comes to RP. LDOCE and OED provide phonemic transcriptions using IPA or IPA-adjacent symbols, but also include guides to varying degrees of phonetic description. Gimson's in particular gives rather precise descriptions of allophones in RP. ~ oklopfer (💬) 02:54, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Ooh, Matron. MinorProphet (talk) 15:19, 8 June 2026 (UTC) [reply]

June 6

Pled vs pleaded

Our article on a charming resident of my Australian city, Avi Yemini, uses both those words in the one paragraph. It says "Yemeni pled guilty to assault after he threw a chopping board that hit his former wife on her forehead in 2016. He also pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to harass by sending abusive text messages to her..."

Do the words have the same meaning, or are they different? If they're the same, I will tidy up the article. HiLo48 (talk) 02:26, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Pleaded is the more formal term, while pled tends to be used in speech, though they are synonyms. We should probably be consistent within an article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:47, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I shall tidy up the article. HiLo48 (talk) 05:37, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The phrase that puzzles me is "carriage service". I assume that is a US expression? Shantavira|feed me 07:10, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Not a US term. Googling "what is a carriage service" reveals that it is an Australian term for a telecom network. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots07:27, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Here on Wikipedia Carriage service provider is a redirect to Mobile network operator. HiLo48 (talk) 07:33, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Pled is considered an "alternative" version of "pleaded".[6]Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots07:30, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Pled is American. Use pleaded for everywhere unAmerican. DuncanHill (talk) 08:27, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
What about Scotland?[7][8][9]  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:48, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Good question: "chiefly Scottish and U.S.", says OED. --Antiquary (talk) 11:11, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yup, a little searching seems to confirm this. The origins of 'pled' seem to lie in Scotland, and presumably crossed to the US with immigrants. Having said that though, I'd have to say that nobody would think it out of place in ordinary spoken 'English English' now. Why a word that almost certainly entered English from Norman French should have taken on a pseudo-Germanic past tense in Scotland is anyone's guess. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:16, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
"Pled" sounds distinctly American to me (in Southern England), but then I don't like "proven" either, another Scottish legal term adopted across the Atlantic. Alansplodge (talk) 17:59, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe by analogy with leadledled, which is a Germanic verb, coming from Proto-West-Germanic laidijan (compare Dutch leiden). That, however, is a weak Germanic verb. The English form may have become strong by analogy with Middle English liþen (Old English liþan, Proto-West-Germanic līþan, compare Dutch lijden), meaning to suffer, which is a strong Germanic verb.
BTW, Dutch leiden and lijden are homophones in present tense, but the contrast of -ei- vs. -ij- is a fairly reliable indicator that the former is weak and the latter is strong. PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:16, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Also, read-read-read in its pronunciation. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:10, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Alansplodge, both about pled and proven, which in this house should only ever be not. DuncanHill (talk) 21:11, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
You me and Kipling; "For the young men's feet are turning / To the camps of proved delight". Alansplodge (talk) 21:43, 7 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Google translator error

One of the most common errors i have noticed when using Google Translate is third person being translated into first person. This happens most often with Japanese. Why? ~2026-22534-68 (talk) 02:37, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This may have something to do with Japanese being a topic pro-drop language. Would you happen to have a specific example sentence in mind? GalacticShoe (talk) 02:58, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
The issue does not arise with Turkish, also pro-drop, since Turkish verbs are conjugated for person. Japanese verbs are not, so Japanese null subject sentences tend to be ambiguous when analyzed without context (and sometimes even with context).  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:43, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
In my experience, Japanese communication often felt very implicit and ambiguous, but it might be due to me having a very limited command of the language. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:15, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Latin abbreviations and "anf vroin"

an furo. In.?

From the Hunt-Lenox globe, are there any theories about these words, which are written above "here are dragons" in an area that might be meant for anywhere from India to Sumatra?  Card Zero  (talk)  16:26, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Most of what I can find about this phrase was written by the Stefaan Missinne who reportedly discovered the H-L globe's predecessor Da Vinci globe, and his work unfortunately ranges from low-quality noncommittal stuff published in predatory journals — his America’s Name Baptized on a Globe in 1510, Advances in Historical Studies, 2021, 10, 93-133, lists it together with toponyms as if it too might be a place name, but is not even grammatically correct in places, and SCIRP is "a predatory [...] publisher of [...work] of questionable quality"; his Unfolding Leonardo DA Vinci's Globe (ad 1504) to Reveal its Historical World Map, ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, volume IV-2/W2, 2017, says only that "the word ANFVROIN [...] remains a mystery" — to fantastical explanations that seem like a real stretch to me: in the book The Da Vinci Globe (2019) he suggests that an could be short for anima, furo = 'fury', in = 'in', and (interpreting the draconites that apparently? supposedly? follow it as it they were a word) so it means "vigorous fury in [the dragon stones]" supposedly in references to mountains of diamonds (in which light sparkles furiously). -sche (talk) 20:03, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the Ostrich Egg Globe guy. I don't see how diamonds can get angry, but I suppose "vigorous fury, in here are dragons", or Dagroians, kind of works. The toponym theory is plausible too, since I think every other label on the globe is one, but "Anfuroin" is a weird one. I thought maybe an furo[rum] in[dicus], "if we believe the ravings of the Indians", but my grammar is probably all over the place. (I'm amused by how a quarter of the globe is different kinds of India: from west to east, there's India Intracancem, India Extra, India Orientalis, India - which might be China, and India Superior.)  Card Zero  (talk)  21:06, 6 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, the lettering looks to me to be divided into two (likely abbreviated) words: ANF U/V+ROIN.
Tangentially, the location of the wording appears to be on the South Chinese coast in the vicinity of Macao (the landmasses in this part of the globe are displaced south, so their position relative to its equator is misleading). China is/was of course host to extensive dragon legends, the sale of 'dragon bones' as medicines, some giant salamanders, and is not all that far north of Komodo, which really is only a little south of the equator. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-27434-43 (talk) 14:35, 7 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Everywhere be dragons
Sure, but Earth offers an extensive range of monitor lizards. The Bengal monitor in particular is largish and dragony, in a modest way, and widely available. To an explorer who has seen a monitor, Komodo dragons look very obviously like big monitors (and only twice as big). I agree that the dracones label is plausibly in south China, and China is admittedly good at dragons. But this is some phantom geography called, I've just discovered, the Dragon's Tail (peninsula), so it might also be in Vietnam. Regarding word divisions, the anf vroin has a space in it to make way for a little line representing a river, not necessarily to separate words. There's an island at the foot of our image of the northern hemisphere, labelled like this:
   T A
   P R
O     B
A
N         A

Which is Taprobana.  Card Zero  (talk)  16:14, 7 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging some members of Wiktionary's Latin workgroup, @Nicodene, Sartma, Imbricitor, and Urszag:: do any of you have any guesses what ANFVROIN might mean in Latin here? Is there any Asian placename it might be a rendering of, or anything it is likely to be an abbreviation of? Could it be as suggested above an furo(...) in hic sunt dracones? -sche (talk) 20:30, 7 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed wikt:anfitrión (or anfitrion in 16th c. Italian) looks similar, if you misread tr as u and get the i and o the wrong way round. But I don't think it meant "host" back then, and the legendary Amphitryon wouldn't feature in a travel book or on a source map.  Card Zero  (talk)  21:14, 7 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
@-sche My best hypothesis would be: “An eurō in hōc sunt dracones?”, meaning “are there dragons in this (part of the) East?”. This would be by taking the F as an E. Can’t make any sense of it otherwise. Sartma (talk) 06:31, 8 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Very nice! I choose to believe this one.  Card Zero  (talk)  15:29, 8 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

June 7

Origin and grammatical status of the word "okay"

I am interested in the history of the English word "okay" (or "OK"). What is the most widely accepted explanation for its origin, and how did it come to function as different parts of speech (interjection, adjective, verb, noun, etc.) in modern English? Are there comparable examples of other words that underwent a similar development? ArcadeFair (talk) 22:46, 7 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

See OK. -- Jack of Oz [pleasantries] 22:49, 7 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]
Here, in a book from 1865, we find an early use of the term "O. K." as an adjective, in a song with the title "Walking in the Zoo". As the lyrics make abundantly clear, on Sunday afternoons this is "the O. K. thing to do".
And here a letter is printed, dated February 12, 1875, submitting court documents relating to the irregular issuing of vouchers in lieu of lawful checks. A recurring use of the term "O. K." is as a mark of endorsement written on these vouchers. There are a few (not independent) uses of the term as a verb:
  • He said if I would go and see Judge Story, and get him to approve it, he would O. K it.
  • When he said “ O. K. it, ” I thought I might get the face of the accounts.
  • Sarber did not O. K. these accounts ; ...
and related uses as a noun:
  • In the mean time I found what the O. K. meant ; ...
  • ..., he said 75 cents was all the O. K. was worth.
This shows uses as an adjective, verb or noun could be found pretty soon after the term gained popularity.  ​‑‑Lambiam 13:00, 8 June 2026 (UTC)[reply]

June 8

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