Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 February 11

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February 11

In English, why are boats, ships, cars, and churches female?

How do people determine the gender of an inanimate object? Are boats, ships, cars, and churches ever male? The "church" may be a strange case, because it may refer to a Christian building that is used for worship, a Christian denomination, or a community of Christians. Is the word "church" in all three examples female or gender-neutral? 71.79.234.132 (talk) 18:04, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

See Gender_in_English#Ships, and then more generally Gender_in_English and Grammatical gender - not answering all of your questions, but a good start. --Tagishsimon (talk) 18:11, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

By the way, none of these things are ever female. Just "feminine". "Feminine" refers to gender; "female" refers to sex. --Trovatore (talk) 18:14, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Men who want to attract females generally refer to the things they are fixated on (as a replacement) as 'she'. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 18:43, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, perhaps. Supposing that's true, though, it doesn't affect my point. --Trovatore (talk) 18:52, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

But other languages refer to ships in the masculine... I can't recall the example for ships, but consider Homeland#Motherland and Homeland#Fatherland as illustrating the point. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:07, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Here's a nice write up that addresses your question [1]. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:07, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Treating these items as feminine is a type of markedness, that implies animacy, but not of the same sort of animacy as the men who have traditionally run them. See Fire, Woman, and Dangerous Things. This has been discussed before, so searching the archives may be of benefit. μηδείς (talk) 19:36, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Because (other than the church) big, Hemingwayesque macho he-men are attracted to 'em. None of that male bonding nonsense, no siree ,not that there's anything wrong with that. Clarityfiend (talk) 08:34, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

The church is referred to in one of Paul's letter as the Bride of Christ, so its traditional femininity goes back to its very early days. "These are those who have trusted in Jesus Christ as their personal savior and have received eternal life. In the New Testament, Christ, the Bridegroom, has sacrificially and lovingly chosen the church to be His bride (Ephesians 5:25-27)." SaundersW (talk) 16:04, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

But writing to some other Christians in Corinth, Paul says; "Now you are the body of Christ..." 1 Corinthians 12:27 which would make you think it should be masculine. But nobody has ever accused religion of being logical. Alansplodge (talk) 17:54, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

That man and woman become one body in marriage goes back to Genesis 2. It isn't something Paul came up with. The one body of a married couple is both masculine and feminine. - Lindert (talk) 20:14, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

"A boat is like a woman, the rigging costs more than the hull." (Traditional nautical saying.) RomanSpa (talk) 12:36, 14 February 2015 (UTC)

Transcription dilemma

I'm a great advocate for complete accuracy when transcribing people's spoken words. If they used a word that doesn't belong there according to grammatical rules, too bad – they said it, so it goes into the transcript.

But sometimes it's not possible to know which homophone is the one to choose, and it's a particularly excruciating choice when neither version should have been uttered in the first place. Except, it was uttered, so we can't get away from that reality.

Here's a case from today's news:

• "If only the Labor Party had've been more upfront about the true state of the budget," he said.

Now, that's from the Sydney Morning Herald online edition. The hard copy edition of The Age, the SMH's sister rag from Melbourne, has it as follows:

• "If only the Labor Party had of been more upfront about the true state of the budget," he said.

It's the same story, with the same byline (Mark Kenny, Peter Martin), so it's not as if they wrote it out twice, one for each paper, and changed a word or two the second time. No, surely some pesky sub-editor stuck their nose in and changed "have" to "of", or vice-versa, in one of the versions but not the other.

Of course, as we experts know, neither formulation is correct. "If only the Labor Party had been …" would of have been the way to satisfy the purists. But we know that people often insert a stray "have" when using the perfect tense of the verb "to have" (because "had have" sounds like it's in the same family of utterances as "should/could/would have"), and we also know that "should/could/would have" and "if they had have [sic] been" are often written as "should/could/would of" and "had of been" by those who know no better.

So, when it comes to transcribing what sounded like "had-əv been", which erroneous word would one choose – "have" (or its abbreviated form 've), or 'of'? Can we assume that a senior politician would never say "had of", but would still be happy to say "had have"? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:23, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

There is a tendency (to the particular chagrin of prescriptivists) to write what are clearly contractions of have (should've, could've, would've) as if they instead have the word of (should of, could of, would of). I feel like the of construction in your above examples is one of those. The contraction had've (and its noncontracted friend, had have been), although nonstandard, makes a little more grammatical sense than the alternative. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 22:36, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

I would simply not assume that a blatantly illiterate transcription of a perfectly grammatical statement was correct. If the SMH writer doesn't know enough to write [sic] after "should of" (and how could he, regarding a recording?) he should be sent back to the fourth grade, and be docked four year's pay, assuming the SMH hired him at age 14. μηδείς (talk) 04:45, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I think you've misinterpreted the question. If I were the journo listening to the recording in order to transcribe it, and I heard what sounded like "If only the Labor Party had-əv been ...", would I choose to transcribe it as "had've been" or "had of been"? And why, given that both are grammatically incorrect? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 04:53, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I take your point that the "had've" construction is not preferred here. In fact, "If only they would've (or "they'd've") been more upfront" is a very common (improper) substitution for the subjunctive. But there is no situation where "had of been" used as a verb phrase is ever correct. Putting the "of" in this case is either ignorance on the writers part or, worse, an intentional misrepresentation. What would we think of a writer who said Obama began the interview by saying "Eye wood of bean hear inn thyme, butt foreign axe a dent"? Reporting "had of" smacks of the writer "knowing" that the speaker was illiterate,

As a professional linguist, I would transcribe it as 'had have been'. It may sound incorrect, but your job is to write what is said, not to correct them. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 09:20, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Nowhere did I suggest I want to correct them. Quite the opposite. Please re-read my opening para. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:54, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

'Had have' and 'had of' are both pronounced the same in our colonial territories. I would've written it as it was intended. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 11:32, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

That's the thing. How does the transcriber know which word was in the speaker's mind? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:55, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

'Had've' would've been perfectly fine, if that is what had been said. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 12:00, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

But you've just admitted that "'had have' and 'had of' are both pronounced the same". Sorry to be fussy here, but not to be fussy would be to miss the point of my question entirely. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 17:35, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Does it matter what is in the speaker's mind at that time? It is for the interlocutor to interpret what he is saying. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 18:23, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, sure. But what if the speaker clearly said "had of"? The interlocutor would still interpret what was meant, but the transcriber would still be required to write "had of", and not "had have" or just "had". So, getting back to the original scenario, if it's unclear just exactly what it was that the speaker said, and it could have been "had have" or "had of" with roughly equal likelihood, what does the transcriber write? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:29, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

This is the difference between grammaticality and acceptability. "Had have" is generally unacceptable, especially in formal circles. It might be argued that, in standard English, it is ungrammatical; however, there are dialects and registers where it is grammatical. "Had of" however, is never grammatical. Not even in informal English. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 18:35, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

If descriptivism governs what is and is not grammatical, why are those who say "had have" given a tick but those who say "had of" not? They're equally wrong from a prescriptivist viewpoint. But this misses the point of the question. It's about accurately recording what a speaker actually said, warts and all, not what some listener thinks he should have said. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:42, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Or are you saying that "had have" is the lesser of two evils, so we should give the speaker the benefit of the doubt? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:46, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm saying, even from a descriptivist perspective, "had of" is not grammatical in any variety of English. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:57, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

Can you explain why not? Who or what decides that one diversion from the prescriptivist norm is descriptively grammatical, but another is not? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:19, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

What decides it is usage. Different varieties have nonstandard use of auxiliary verbs (for example, might could in the American South) but (AFAIK) no one uses of before been like that. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 00:15, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

There are over 10 million hits for "could of", 10 million for "should of", and 18 million for "would of". There are almost 8 million hits for "had of", and 193,000 for "had of been". These atrocities are common enough to have become someone's pet peeve. Any decent reference will tell you that these are all wrong. But the same references will also tell you that "had have been" is wrong. What's the difference? Why is one more or less wrong than the other? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 05:11, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Those are common typographical mistakes. Even people who type "could of" are actually saying "could've." In that sense, people don't actually say "could of" or "would of" etc. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 07:10, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

But they DO, mate. I've heard them time and time again. It is quite unambiguously "could of", "should of", etc, and that's why they write that. It is not a case of typographical error, but a case of people genuinely, if erroneously, believing these sets of words are an accepted part of our language. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:18, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

No, they don't. They say "could've" etc. It's the same with loser/looser. People may commonly type "you're a looser" but even for people who pronounce loser identically with looser, it's still a typographical error and "you're a looser" would never be grammatical (and certainly, from context, would also not likely be what was intended). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 07:20, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Typing "looser" when the word "loser" was meant is indeed a typo, and certainly isn't grammatical. But with a little charity, it's easy to see how some people think it's spelt "looser". It is still essentially the same word. But typing "he should of arrived earlier" when the correct version is "he should've arrived earlier" (or "should have") is in a different class altogether. "Of" is not the same word as "have". I maintain that some people really and truly believe that the "of" version is correct. They say it that way and they write it that way, as my links above attest. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:41, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Your original question was in the context of audio transcription. If a speaker of, say, Chicano English says "you're a [ˈluːsɚ]", context and spelling would guide the transcriptionist to type that last word as "loser." There is no way that "looser" would be seen as correct. I really question your claims that people don't just pronounce a contracted should have identically to should of and that their actual mental grammar is one that uses of in an auxiliary aspect. I think that flies in the face of normal linguistic analysis of naturally spoken English. If you can find a source that says otherwise, I'll stand corrected, but the null hypothesis is that should-əv is a contraction of should have, no matter how people spell it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 07:50, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I like your last sentence from "but" onwards, and will treat it as the definitive answer I've been seeking. Thanks. I accept your challenge about those who say and write "should of", and proof will be forthcoming. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:02, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

If I'd've been in that situation, I'd've had to speak normally, and therefore, have my speech transcribed as it sounds to the interlocutor. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 20:36, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

I propose the use of IPA symbols for such utterances (in this instance, [ˈhædəv]) and for other utterances with no standard spelling (nonce words, neologisms, onomatopoeias, and gibberish), and the use of accompanying " [sic]".

—Wavelength (talk) 21:16, 12 February 2015 (UTC)

It rather depends what your purpose is. For most purposes, there is no need for even the degree of precision that conventional spelling can for the most part provide. (Let alone a need for IPA. And if you were to use IPA, then you'd have to ask yourself how broad the transcriptions should be, how well trained your ears are, how alert you can be to avoid errors caused by normal top-down processing, etc.) If transcriptions were this precise, then o- you sh- could have all sor- kinds of of repetitions and so on. This makes for laborious transcription and eventually for laborious reading. There's usually a certain degree of smoothing ("you could have all kinds of repetitions and so on"). As long as you could be confident that no sane person would claim that the simplification risked changing the meaning in the slightest, you could simplify (perhaps using ellipses and brackets). Indeed, it gets pretty difficult if you don't do this. In my imagined monologue just there, I started to say "one" but didn't reach that syllable's coda. How should I represent this? (I wrote "o-", but this could be misinterpreted. I could write "wu", but this too could be misinterpreted and even if interpreted correctly it has an odor of eye dialect about it.) ¶ If I were the journo listening to the recording in order to transcribe it, and I heard what sounded like "If only the Labor Party had-əv been ...", would I choose to transcribe it as "had've been" or "had of been"? And why, given that both are grammatically incorrect? Yes you probably would, if you believed you were under some obligation to do this, if you were obliged by your boss to do it, or if you were tired and the error slipped by you. If I were the journo and for some reason felt obliged to transcribe in such detail, I'd start with the assumption that "could of" is likely to be merely an orthographic error for "could (ha)ve" and that people shouldn't be gratuitously ascribed spelling mistakes (especially in their speech). So I'd use "had've". ¶ Another question worth a moment's thought is whether this really was a performance error, or whether by contrast it's an error-free example of the speaker's idiolect. It seems odd to me, but then I rarely hear Australian English. Possibly there's some new aspectual or other subtlety emerging. (The string isn't easy to find via Google, which does turn up false positives such as "The models we've had have been too skinny".) -- Hoary (talk) 07:37, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

Au contraire, here are 120,000 hits for "if he had have been", for starters. But thanks for the foregoing comments. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 09:02, 13 February 2015 (UTC)

I paged through the hits and there were only 278, or 430 with very similar pages included. The estimate on the first page is often wildly inaccurate—I think it ignores proximity and correlation of the search terms. Still, this is interesting. -- BenRG (talk) 21:41, 15 February 2015 (UTC)