Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 June 22

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June 22

Lords and Graces

With regards to nobility, why is it "My Lord" but "Your Grace"? Dismas|^(talk) 06:13, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Presumably because he was literally your liege lord back then, but the grace (or majesty or whatever) is his/her own supposed property, not yours to appropriate, Your Wikipedial Subliminity. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:18, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

"Your grace", "your majesty" etc. are ways of "indirectly" addressing royalty or nobility or whatever. Likewise with "My Lord." Third person singular. I suppose you could say "My King", but the others are customary. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:14, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

But instead of guessing, here's a reference (applicable to the UK):

"Your Grace: This covers dukes and duchesses. If the Archbishop of Canterbury is present, 'Your Grace' (or 'Your Graces' if a duke or duchess is also attending) should be mentioned before 'My Lord Chancellor'. Similarly, the Archbishop of York is covered by including 'Your Grace' immediately after 'My Lord Chancellor'.

"My Lord: For peers other than dukes, peers by courtesy, for diocesan bishops by right and for other bishops by courtesy. In the absence of any peers, the form 'My Lord Bishops' may be used."

See Debrett's - Preamble Precedence. Alansplodge (talk) 15:45, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Google "your majesty third person", and then you can retract your insulting comment about "guessing". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:20, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

If it's so easy to get good references, why did you not include any in your posting on the reference desk? Or even in the second comment? A google search is not a reference, and certainly not a WP:RS. Without a reference, we can't tell if you are guessing or making things up. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:03, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Hence you jump to a false conclusion and issue a personal attack. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:46, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

What? I made no conclusions, and made no attacks of any sort personal or otherwise. My final sentence is merely a statement of fact. If you think it is hostile when someone requests references on the reference desks, maybe you shouldn't be posting things without reference here. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:36, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Surely, as Clarityfiend noticed straight up, the real point of the question is not to just get a list of the appropriate forms of address for different levels of nobility etc, but to explain why it's "your ..." in some cases but "my ..." in other cases. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:50, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Exactly, Jack! Thank you! Dismas|^(talk) 06:15, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Apologies everybody, I picked up the wrong end of the stick. Alansplodge (talk) 12:58, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Getting back to my question

Either I wasn't clear or I don't understand the answer(s) that was/were provided. I'm asking why one is preceded by "my" and the other by "your". From what Alan said, it would appear to be just the way it's always been said. But why has it become this way? Why isn't everyone called "my" whatever, e.g. My Lord, My Grace? Or why isn't everyone "your", e.g. Your Lord, Your Grace? Is it as Clarity suggests? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 06:14, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

This Stack Exchange English forum's answer is similar to Clarity's: "Lord" (and "Lady") = someone, a person or personified deity / "Majesty", "Honour", "Highness", even "Lordship" = attributed traits, qualities, concepts belonging to the person being addressed, so it becomes their [Attribute X] (not yours). ---Sluzzelin talk 08:31, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

That's right. If you try it in reverse, it sounds absurd. "Your Lord" would mean either you were saying the person is his own superior/liege or that you were referring to a third party (the lord of the person you were addressing), while "My Honour" just sounds like bragging. Clarityfiend (talk) 11:22, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Eine Frage zum "Hanover" oder "Hannover" <note: post contains comically bad German>

Hallo WP:RD/L Leute.
Auf Deutsch es ist "Hanover", aber auf Englisch es ist "Hannover". Auf Deutsch es ist "Hannover", aber auf Englisch es ist "Hanover".Was ist der Deal mit dass?
It doesn't seem to be adequately explained at Talk:Hanover.
One thread would seem to relate it to vowel umlaut. Obviously incorrect, as this is about consonants. (Büt thät spürïöüs thïng ïs äll pärt öf thë fün.)
So what should it be in English: Hanover or Hannover?
Pete AU aka --Shirt58 (talk) 10:43, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

It's Hanover in English. I don't know why the other n was dropped. Maybe it was lost in Munich? Matt Deres (talk) 13:07, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually the German spelling is Hannover -- see for example https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannover. "Hanover" is an English variant. Looie496 (talk) 13:21, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

In the 18th century, spelling had not yet been standardized in German or in English. When George, Duke and Prince Elector of Hanover became King George I of Great Britain in 1714, Hannover's name was still sometimes written with just one 'n' in German, and it was this version of the name that became current in English. Marco polo (talk) 14:30, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Gender of Pronouns Question About non-English Indo-European Languages

Most Indo-European languages have either three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) or two genders (masculine and feminine). English has three genders in pronouns but no grammatical gender for common nouns. My question has to do with usage in other Indo-European languages (Romance, non-English Germanic, other) when the antecedent or referent is an animal. Animals have biological gender that sometimes is the same as their grammatical gender but not always. The question is whether, if the biological gender of the animal is known, as it normally is when referring to specific horses, dogs, and cats, and some other farm animals, the pronoun used is the one that matches with the referent noun as opposed to the one that corresponds to the actual animal or the proper noun by which the animal is known. (In English, where the common noun is essentially genderless, either an animate pronoun or a neuter pronoun may be used, and the speaker who uses a neuter pronoun may be corrected.) Robert McClenon (talk) 17:54, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

in German, if the gender of a common mammal is known and relevant, then an appropriate gendered noun will be used, and the pronoun will reflect the animal's biological gender. For example, the generic word for "the dog" is der Hund (masculine). This word would be used if the gender of the dog is unknown or unimportant, and it would call for masculine pronouns (which also depend on grammatical case). However, if you want to emphasize that the dog is male, you would say der Rüde ("the male dog"), which likewise takes masculine pronouns. On the other hand, if it matters that the dog is female, you would say die Hündin ("the female dog), a feminine noun that takes feminine pronouns. Most common mammals have generic and gendered names. This is true to some extent in English, where we have, for example, boar for an adult male pig and sow for a female pig, though these terms are not so often used off of farms any more. Marco polo (talk) 18:54, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

"Biological gender" is a confusing term. Do you not simply mean "sex"? There are a few notions of non-human gender, but if you happen to really mean that (i.e. some property of an animal that is not simply its sex), then you'll have to explain what you mean (a female chicken that performs male chicken gender roles?) and maybe have a look at Joan Roughgarden's Evolution's Rainbow, wherein (from gender) "[she] argues that some non-human animal species also have more than two genders, in that there might be multiple templates for behavior available to individual organisms with a given biological sex.[39]"

I can't comment on the guts of your question, but in English it's not always so simple either - many of the words we use as common nouns for animals are sex specific (even if grammatically ungendered), we just forget. You will occasionally hear people get things mixed up - "A male cow", "A female peacock", etc. Then there's some that can either be sex neutral or sex specific, depending on context. E.g. "Duck" means a female bird in the phrase "ducks and drakes", but often doesn't carry sex meaning "there are ducks in the pond". SemanticMantis (talk) 18:56, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

In Dutch, the practice of using pronouns corresponding to grammatical gender is considered a bit archaic and it not commonly used in today's standard Dutch. Instead, the default pronoun for animals is masculine. When it is known and relevant (e.g. if it has a name) that an animal is female, a feminine pronoun is used. Analogously to English, a person using a masculine pronoun may occasionally be corrected. - Lindert (talk) 18:57, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I've heard Flemings joke that the Dutch say "de koe, hij...". That alludes to the fact that the feminine gender is more alive in Flanders than in the Netherlands, but that joke is actually a caricature as that is true only for inanimates, not for animals like "de koe". Contact Basemetal here 00:21, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Until recently with modern thinking about gender identity in humans, biological gender and biological sex were considered equivalent. It is more subtle and complex now. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:12, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

The points about gendered nouns in English are well-taken, and there is ambiguity sometimes when a noun can either refer to any animal of the species (or genus) or to a particular sex, such as "duck" or "cow". That is, there are a few gendered common nouns in English, such as "stallion" and "mare", or for that matter "man" and "woman". Robert McClenon (talk) 19:12, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

The correction that I was saying one would get in English was referring to an animal using the neuter pronoun when the sex of the animal is known. In Dutch, which has evidently lost the neuter pronoun of its West Germanic sibling languages English and German, the correction would be for using the masculine pronoun when the animal is female. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:12, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Hunters refer to deer using gendered nouns, because the licensing requirements for hunting bucks and hunting doe are different. Doe hunting permits are issued when it is necessary to reduce the breeding population of deer in a region. The hunting of bucks does not reduce the breeding population of deer because they are polygynous. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:12, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree that there are a few gendered common nouns, because they refer to animals of a particular gender/sex (including humans, a non-gendered term for a species of ape). Robert McClenon (talk) 19:12, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually, Dutch does have a neuter pronoun and a neuter gender for nouns. Nouns referring to some animals in Dutch in fact are neuter in gender. Lindert's point was that in Dutch it is archaic to use neuter pronouns even for these animals whose names are in the neuter gender. Presumably, Dutch, like English, avoids the neuter pronoun for referents deemed to be animate. This isn't true in German, where neuter pronouns are used for animals whose generic names are neuter, such as das Schwein ("the swine" or "pig"). Marco polo (talk) 19:43, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

I see. So Dutch does have the three genders that its West Germanic sibling, German, does, and the use of the neuter pronoun for animals whose referent nouns are neuter is considered "archaic". It isn't considered ""archaic" in English, because gender is downgraded in English, but it will still result in the speaker being corrected. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:59, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Sort of. Dutch nouns fall into two gender classes: common and neuter. (The common class collapses the historical masculine and feminine genders.) However, like English, Dutch has pronouns for all three Germanic genders. Also like English, Dutch tends to avoid the use of the neuter pronoun to refer to animate beings. Marco polo (talk) 00:34, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

In French, if I'm not mistaken, it is the grammatical gender that matters if that is the feminine but not if that is the masculine. For example "a whale", "a mouse", "a tortoise" ("une baleine", "une souris", "une tortue") and many other animals are grammatically fem. irrespective of the actual sex and will always be referred to as "elle". That would be the case even if you append a word to make it clear you're talking about a male individual, e.g. "Ils virent une baleine male. Elle s'est approchée..." On the other hand if the word is grammatically masculine and the sex is known then it is the sex that counts, e.g. "Ils virent un requin femelle. Elle s'est approchée..." However I'm not 100% sure. Contact Basemetal here 00:21, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Sometimes animals have masculine and feminine forms, if the "base" form is masculine - un chat/une chatte and un chien/une chienne, although I don't know if those are used regularly, since the feminine forms are kind of rude (just like English, pussy/bitch). But there is also un rat/une rate. Adam Bishop (talk) 13:10, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

As far as I know feminine forms are used regularly by default and w/o restrictions. Can't even think of a circumlocution for a lady to avoid "ma chatte est mouillée" when her female cat comes in from the rain, even though this is bound to elicit hilarity. Contact Basemetal here 16:10, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

When I was at school my German master would always remark that their young women were grammatically neuter - das Maedchen - which comes about because the diminutive is always neuter. He pointed out, however, that they were sensitive enough to use the pronoun sie rather than es. Another thing that tickled him was that an enemy was der Feund - a fiend - and der Moerder was not murder but "the murderer". I think we all know that advertisers don't talk about gifts in Germany because das Gift is poison. 87.81.147.76 (talk) 12:12, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Gender Error

This evening I heard the radio say that in the US-Colombia soccer match, the Colombian team was playing a man short for most of the game. "A man short" is the generic expression, but in the match in question, the gendered expression "a woman short" would have been correct. (Sometimes "man" is interpreted as generic, and sometimes as masculine, but in women's soccer, the players are women.) Robert McClenon (talk) 03:05, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

AFAIK, in a sporting context, "man" is a common describing a player even when describing women. For example, in women's ice hockey, they still use the term "defencemen", see here "female defencemen", or here "Tessa Bonhomme was a quietly solid defenseman for a decade with Canada's national women's team". The use of "man" to describe a woman's soccer/football player is also common: "Playing man down in second half, women's soccer falls at HPU", Similar usage here and here. Whether such usage is "correct" is to be debated by others, but such usage is common enough and quite widespread. --Jayron32 03:17, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

In fact, this specific question was addressed during a recent interview on the BBC of one of the England Women's Football team (it'll still be somewhere on the iPlayer). She explained that using "man" (meaning player) was far quicker and easier when communicating during play, such as shouting "man on" as a warning to a teammate, so man is generally used as the default. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 212.95.237.92 (talk) 12:30, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

That seems to indicate that the old gender-neutral usage of the word "man" hasn't entirely died out. --Nicknack009 (talk) 16:24, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

English animal genders

Don't mean to sidetrack, but this question reminds me of the odd habit I've seen that all dogs are masculine and all cats are feminine (i.e. even bitches get called "he"). I thought it was just some weird thing people in my area did, but an episode of NewsRadio confirmed to me that it's reasonably widespread. "Daisy [a dog] is obviously a girl." "All dogs are boys and all cats are girls." "That's biologically impossible." "Oh, it's not a question of sex, but of gender." How widespread is that line of thinking? Across the anglosphere? Just NA? Matt Deres (talk) 13:37, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

TV Tropes has an article on that: FemaleFelineMaleMutt --Amble (talk) 15:22, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

All of which makes Pepé Le Pew cartoons less funny than they could be Contact Basemetal here 16:00, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Most ginger cats are toms, as ne fule kno, and almost all tortoiseshells are female. Top Cat was of course male. DuncanHill (talk) 16:41, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree with the general sentiment that dogs are more likely to be seen as masculine than cats, but I think that people just fall into the same traps as they do for humans, equating gender stereotypes with actual sex of an individual. E.g. American_Staffordshire_Terriers get flagged as male/masculine, and Japanese Chins get flagged as female/feminine, regardless of the animal's sex. I think the tendency to relate animal appearance to human gender norms must be fairly universal, Japan has plenty of catgirls but not many catboys. "Puppy play" seems to be mostly practiced by men, though there are probably exceptions to that as well ( see e.g. Animal_roleplay#Puppy_play - don't click if you might be offended by sexual content, but the choice of photos there also illustrate some gender disparity in how we think of cats and dogs). SemanticMantis (talk) 17:54, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

When I was young, our family kept both dogs and cats. The dogs were always female (bitches). My mother described how while walking the dog with my little sister she met another dogwalker who looked at the animal and enquired "Is it a dog?" whereupon my sister looked at the woman as though she thought she was mad. My mother explained that the woman only wanted to know if our pet was male or female. I don't know where NA is, but what Matt describes doesn't happen in England.

A lot is certainly down to ignorance. A farmer referred to a rural story in which a heifer was mentioned and the reporter used the pronoun "he" to describe it. I'm interested in the reason for the use of "she" to describe ships - is this widespread? It seems to extend to rivers as well - the latest Saga holiday brochure is advertising a holiday entitled "RIVER CRUISE|THE RHINE AND HER TRIBUTARIES". There was a correspondence in the "Daily Telegraph" some years ago about the naming of rivers - is it "River X" or "X river"? In the English speaking world outside Britain the second construction seems universal - the Swan River runs through Perth, Western Australia, not the "River Swan". In Britain the first construction seems more usual but is not universal - that was the point of the correspondence. In Suffolk, for example, there is the Rattlesden River, and I've never heard it called anything else. 87.81.147.76 (talk) 11:59, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Ships have always, to the best of my knowledge, been referred to as "she". Vehicles are often referred to as "he" or "she". In English, it is obvious if you are personifying something. Robert McClenon (talk) 15:03, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Whales sometimes too: "Thar she blows!". Sometimes cars and engines. I was removing once my motorcycle's engine and getting help from an American fellow. When we had finally unscrewed everything that needed to be unscrewed and the engine started coming down he went "Here she comes". That particular fellow was from Ohio, though I hardly think it makes any difference. Contact Basemetal here 16:11, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

How about rivers that are neither in England nor in another English-speaking country? Does usage vary between English-speaking countries also in that case? Contact Basemetal here 12:40, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Noticed everywhere it's "X county" (e.g. Middelsex County) except in Ireland where it's "county X" (e.g. County Armagh)? Contact Basemetal here 12:34, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

We also have County Durham in the UK, though I think that's the only English county to use the construction: you never see "Cornwall County" or "County Kent". (Possibly "County of Kent" and the like in formal or ceremonial usage.) Of course, many British counties are identified by the older -shire suffix. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:46, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Then why are some "shires" and some not? Somerton gave rise to "Somerset", Wilton to "Wiltshire". Durham is special because it doesn't give rise to "Durhamshire" and the same with Armagh. It's "County of Durham" and "County of Middlesex" and "Durham County Council" and "Middlesex County Council". 87.81.147.76 (talk) 13:30, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Shire#Shire_names_in_the_United_Kingdom explains why some counties are called -shire and otheers aren't. Names like "Durham County Council" are parsed as "Durham (County Council)" (i.e. County Council of Durham) rather than "(Durham County) Council". It's true that Durham 'doesn't give rise to "Durhamshire"', but that is also true of the other non-shire counties, and none of them are ever called County X. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 14:55, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Historically, terms like Dorsetshire and Somersetshire were widely used - and Devonshire still is, although the generally accepted correct name is simply Devon. Ghmyrtle (talk) 22:15, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm sure I've heard Americans speaking of "the Thames River". 87.81.147.76 (talk) 13:35, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

That is no different from Britons speaking of "the River Potomac" or "the River Mississippi". Robert McClenon (talk) 15:04, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Maybe they mean this one? Or this one... Adam Bishop (talk) 14:16, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

The point about County Armagh, County Durham etc. is that they are the same as their county town, so the word "County" is a disambiguator. Somerton/Somerset doesn't have that problem. 87.81.147.76 (talk) 15:05, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

I never heard a Briton speaking of the "River Mississippi". Which country are you from? 87.81.147.76 (talk) 15:09, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm an American. I know that in British English, River precedes the name, and that in American English, River follows the name. Maybe all Britons know that. Many Americans don't. One can avoid that issue by using only the name of the river and referring to "the Mississippi", which, with "the", is unambiguous. (Without "the", it is also unambiguous, because then it is a state.) Robert McClenon (talk) 18:10, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Or a songDuncanHill (talk) 08:44, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

It's not always "River ___" in BrEng, Robert (or should I say that in BrEng there always exceptions to every rule). List of rivers of England reveals that, while most are "River ___", there are some that are "___ River". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:37, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Little Avon River for example (but not River Avon). Alansplodge (talk) 22:00, 25 June 2015 (UTC)