Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 March 8

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March 8

The/that moment when ...

Has anything been written about the meme (I think it is one) of describing an experience by introducing it with "The moment when ... " or "That moment when ... ", rather than just saying what happened. I did it myself on Facebook this morning, and looking at why, I think it certainly distances it from myself, and I think it also gives a sort of wry humour to it. Somebody must have noticed it and written about it, surely? --ColinFine (talk) 11:06, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

KnowYourMeme always has good stuff about these things: here is their "That awkward moment" page. Adam Bishop (talk) 11:44, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, that's related, but I know it without the "awkward" (and not as a hashtag). --ColinFine (talk) 13:16, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Or how about This Magic Moment ? StuRat (talk) 21:18, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

In fact, I realise that what I'm looking for is linguistic discussion of the usage (e.g. pragmatics, discourse theory or rhetoric). --ColinFine (talk) 11:46, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Sanskrit anyone?

I am helping someone with the article for the Sanskrit term Satcitānanda (सच्चिदानन्द) - and neither of us have much experience with linguistic articles or Sanskrit.  Any assistance would be appreciated, especially in tidying-up the lead and etymology sections.  There are some scribbled notes on my talk page which may or may not be of use.  Even if you don't know Sanskrit and only can help with proper form for this type of article, it would be appreciated.   ~Thanks, ~Eric _the Read  74.60.29.141 (talk) 17:58, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Conditional Simple

Conditional Simple=Second Conditional ?--82.81.4.201 (talk) 18:08, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

You'll have to explain more clearly what your question is and which language you're referring to. Lesgles (talk) 18:24, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I mean in English Conditional Simple=Second Conditional ?what is Conditional Simple.I know what is Second Conditional but not onditional Simple. And I also have other question - in English there are 4 moods, right? Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative, Conditional. Which moods is Past Simple, Present Simple , Present Perfect Simple etc? -- 19:37, 8 March 2013‎ 82.81.4.201

82.81.4.201 -- "Second conditional" is not a standard or commonly-used English grammatical term, so you'll have to explain what you have in mind. It's very doubtful whether modern English has a functional subjunctive mood in any case... AnonMoos (talk) 03:40, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

It appears from our article English conditional sentences that simple conditional refers to a verbal construction would xxx, whereas first conditional refers to a whole construction ("If it rains, I will not go"). It seems to me from reading these, that the simple conditional is used in second conditional constructions, not first conditional. As AnonMoos's comments indicate, these terms are almost unknown except among teachers of English as a second language, which is unfortunate because then learners ask questions in terms that most of those who might answer won't understand. -- -- 11:58, 9 March 2013‎ ColinFine

"gotten" in British English

While giving writing advice to an English friend of mine recently, I noted that she had used the simple past "got" in past-perfect construct, where (I had thought) "gotten" would have been more appropriate. When I told her this, she replied that, as a Brit, she never used the word "gotten." I was a bit confused at this, as I wasn't aware of any difference between SAE and British English on this point. Our Wiktionary entry on "gotten" lists it as "now mostly, North America, Ireland, Northern British," but how exactly did this occur? When did "gotten" fall out of favor in Standard British English in favor of (the normally simple past) "got?" Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 19:38, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Map of Maine in the Arostook War, showing what the British had got out of the deal

This is a fairly common question, see these many discussions. The interesting part most people are unaware of is that the difference in usage dates back to the settlement of the Aroostook War of 1838 and 1839. While the American land claims in Maine were valid, and the stronger, American negotiators didn't want to prolong the conflict. As part of a compromise brokered by American Secretary of State Daniel Webster, the extreme northern claim was ceded to Britain in exchange for various concessions, including exclusive right to the past participle gotten for the Secretary of State's cousin Noah Webster's new dictionary, over which there had been some dispute with Oxford. The British were allowed to keep the simple past, got, and were expected to use getted as the past participle, although this wasn't widely adopted. This allowed the British to go home claiming they got everything they wanted, while the Americans could claim the British hadn't gotten a thing. The copyright has long expired, but the habit stuck in the British court, hence the situation we have today. μηδείς (talk) 20:30, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Medeis is, of course, pulling your leg. Noah and Daniel Webster aren't cousins, at least not likely anymore than Medeis and I are. Daniel Webster's family first settled on the New Hampshire lakes region in the vicinity of Salisbury, New Hampshire and the family was well established in New Hampshire for many generations. Noah Webster was a descendant of John Webster, who settled first in Cambridge, Massachusetts and later was one of the early settlers of Hartford, Connecticut. The New Hampshire Websters and the Connecticut Websters nearest common relative would have been in England at least some two centuries before the two prominent Americans were born, if not older than that. The rest of the discussion, regarding the usage of the word being part of a negotiated treaty, is unmitigated bullshit. --Jayron32 20:40, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

That's hardly fair of you to say "unmitigated". μηδείς (talk) 21:42, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Oddly enough, Richard Armour stated in It All Started With Columbus that Noah was in fact Daniel's cousin, and that he wrote down every word Daniel said, which formed the basis for his dictionary. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:09, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Oddly enough, Richard Armour is a humorist and not a genealogist. --Jayron32 23:19, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Precisely. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:17, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Hardly! Neither of your statements are precisely odd enough. μηδείς (talk) 01:41, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

... while yours are decidedly more than odd. Enough. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 02:48, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

• As for the OP's question, the difference is just an irregular linguistic change that can't be explained phonetically (like the regular correspondence of rhotic and non-rhotic forms in SAE and RP. The loss of the -ten form is an innovation apparently of Southern English. (Although there is a partial explanation in the fact that gotten is used only lexically, while got is used as a helping verb. For example, one could say he knew he had got to do something, but not even in America can one say he knew he had gotten to do something in the sense of obligation. I.e., gotten can only mean received, never been obliged.) Linguistic innovation centered on a prestige dialect like that of educated Southern England; things like rhoticism, the trap-bath split and plural verbs with collective singular nouns have spread from there. There is no particular explanation available for this change. μηδείς (talk) 03:45, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I can't explain it either, except to say that "gotten" is retained in regional British dialects (including my own), but in just one expression of standard (southern) British English: "ill-gotten gains". If I read any other modern usage of "gotten", I would assume that the text was American, but in older British texts (before the mid-1800s) it was standard British usage. Do you say "bit" or "bitten"; "put" or "putten"? There seems to be no rule or logic to the loss of the "-en" forms. Dbfirs 10:16, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes I was always told that the Americans have "gotten" because the early settlers came from regions that had that word as part of their vocabulary. However, since they left, the south-eastern dialect became the basis for modern English, and that dialect didn't have "gotten" as part of it. Hence the split. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:59, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

And "forgotten"... AnonMoos (talk) 15:46, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Oh yes! That's a word I'd forgot to mention. Why did this one gain an "en" (along with written, bitten and smitten), when others (such as shotten, slotten, flotten, besotten) were losing theirs? Dbfirs 16:50, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

They didn't "gain" an -en, they simply failed to lose it. Angr (talk) 18:29, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps "gained it back again" in some cases, because "forgot" and "writ" were common as past participles a few hundred years ago. Dbfirs 19:11, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

That's likely evidence of Fixation (population genetics) as applied to linguistics. Imagine an island of largely brown eyed people with some blue eyed people who colonize a second island, by random chance with a relatively large population of blue eyed settlers. In the beginning both variants are found. But due to genetic drift over time, simple random processes cause the blue-eyed gene to disappear in the homeland and brown-eyed genes to disappear in the colony. This happens all the time and is one of the important factors in speciation. It applies just as well when original variation in two dialects is regularized over time, but to two different options. μηδείς (talk) 19:45, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

That's an interesting comparison! Pepys and Shakespeare used "forgot" and "writ" as past participles, as did Jonathan Swift in 1801, and John Locke in 1836, but standard English seems to have reverted to the "-en" forms soon afterwards, perhaps under the dominant influence of the Authorised (King James) version of the Bible. Dbfirs 22:03, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage has an article on this. It says that got and gotten were in "free variation" in Britain in the 17th century, and that gotten was still "usable" there as late as the 1820s (it quotes Lord Byron writing in 1824). However, it was already "passing out of use" there at the turn of the 19th century. So it's probably not the case that there was a big difference between the regions of Britain when America was settled, and that the colonists brought a regional usage with them. It seems that the word gotten simply stopped being used in southern Britain later on.96.46.207.169 (talk) 09:39, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I think you are correct about "gotten", and the same applied to "forgot" and "writ" in the 17th century. The King James Bible has 25 "gotten"s and just one "got" as past participle. I'm still curious about why "forgotten" and "written" came back into standard use. Could it have been just that one translation of the bible that influenced them? "Forgotten" occurs 46 times and "written" about 270 times in the KJV (AV), with the "non-en" variant count being just one "thou hast forgot" presumably missed by proof-readers who preferred the "en" forms. Dbfirs 22:53, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Shall I not?

There was a short conversation on a TV show where the secretary asked his boss: "Shall I [organize the papers on your desk]?" To which the boss rather angrily replied "You shall not". I understand that the reply was humorous, but I was wondering if this response is ever used in English as a real (jocular) alternative to "Don't do it", or was it just a single instance of a phrase invented by the script writers. --Pxos (talk) 20:22, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

You shall not is a fairly common phrase. Consider the NIV translation of the Ten Commandments: [1] which uses that exact phrasing extensively. Such phrasing is present in other translations as well. Gandalf's last stand against the Balrog to was climacticly announced with the phrase "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!": [2]. So it doesn't sound strange at all. --Jayron32 20:32, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Is it just me or does he not say "You cannot pass"? Adam Bishop (talk) 22:15, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Definitely sounds like "shall" to me - in fact the "sh" seems slightly elongated. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 22:23, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, so it is. But apparently he says it twice, and it's "can not" the first time. (And I'm pretty sure he only says "can not" in the book, which must be what I'm thinking of.) Adam Bishop (talk) 23:37, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

Of course, we have an article on everything. Adam Bishop (talk) 23:38, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

(ec) It's far from a newly minted expression. See the Ten Commandments, which contain many "Thou shalt not ..."s, which is the olde world version of "You shall not ...". In this case, he was simply providing an answer that was parallel in form to the question. Much like "Do you take this woman ...?" - I do (rather than Yes). -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:36, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I am familiar with the phrase, but perhaps my question was poorly formulated. –Hey, shall we go to the beach? –We shall not. Is this so normal that it does not sound strange at all? --Pxos (talk) 20:41, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I guess the usual negative response would be "No". But those of a certain literary/legalistic bent might find themselves saying "We shall not" more often than not. Or, if one wanted to make it clear that such a proposition was absolutely out of the question and it was wrong to even ask. A sort of high dudgeon version of "No". It's exactly the sort of thing I can imagine Sir Humphrey Appleby saying to Bernard Woolley in response to the latter's enquiry, "Sir Humphrey, shall I inform the Minister that the Department of Administrative Affairs have failed to produce the report for the Prime Minister he required by today?" - You shall not!. But I can find no instance of his actual use of this expression. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:54, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

So it's matter of style then. "You shall not [touch my desk]." = Know your place and do not ask again, perhaps? --Pxos (talk) 21:05, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Pretty much, yes. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:08, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

The phrase used in the title "Shall I not" is a common one around the Stoke on Trent area and other parts of the North Country of England. "We shall not" is everyday speech as far as I'm concerned (UK resident).

Shall in general has fallen somewhat out of use in American English, it sounds very British and/or formal to my American ears. However, I have British friends that use that exact phrase "You shall not." just like that, very naturally. --Jayron32 20:54, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

The TV show was West Wing. That's why I thought the reply was not something that is common in America. --Pxos (talk) 21:02, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it is unheard of in America. I wouldn't say it hanging out with my buddies on poker night. I probably wouldn't hear it among the average crowd at a rock concert or standing in the checkout line at the supermarket; but in more formal settings, or in certain contexts, it would seem fine. The word "shall" carries a bit of a formal register which would be very much in place in, say, the halls of the White House, but may not be in others. --Jayron32 21:07, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

"We shall not, we shall not be moved" has a bit more heft than "We won't, we won't be moved". -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 21:12, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

But the questions "Shall I/shall we..." are less formal than other uses of shall, aren't they? Or is there a certain formality in asking "Hey [poker buddies], shall we play tonight?" Or "I'm going out to get some beer, shall I buy a bottle of wine for you or do I just go to the pub?" --Pxos (talk) 21:24, 8 March 2013 (UTC) Addition: As opposed to "hey guys, are we playing tonight?" --Pxos (talk) 21:28, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

No, the very word "shall" itself is a sort-of shiboleth for formal discourse. The word itself sounds stuffy and formal and pretentious when used in non-formal contexts. If I said "Shall we play poker tonight?" it sounds like I'm being facetiously formal, as opposed to "Are we gonna play poker tonight?" which sounds natural If I were in a board room discussing company policy, I would use "shall" as my audience and context have changed, and it wouldn't necessarily sound out of place. That's why I linked Register (sociolinguistics) above. The word itself, in the context of American English, is a marker for a more formal register, and would not show up in any usage in less formal register communication. --Jayron32 16:21, 9 March 2013 (UTC)

I think that what you're hearing in you shall not is actually an echo of the will/shall distinction that few people, especially here in the States, understand consciously, but which nevertheless is present enough in the literature that people may have some intuition about it. Basically, for the first person ("I" and "we"), shall is the unmarked form, whereas will implies a conscious intention or determination. On the other hand, in the second and third persons, will is the unmarked form, whereas shall implies an exercise of the speaker's authority. So shall I do such and such? is the normal form, but you shall (not) do such and such is essentially an order. --Trovatore (talk) 21:30, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

My inspiring English teacher at high school told us about the incident where a Scotsman fell into a river in England and cried to the people "I will drown and no one shall help me!", which he did. This was to illustrate the inverted use of will/shall. What would his saviour have said to him while jumping into the river? "No, you shall not!" or "No, you will not!" --Pxos (talk) 21:46, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Is the distinction here: "No, you will not drown, because I will help you". / "No, you shall not drown, because you owe me money." --Pxos (talk) 21:58, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

My reply to "You shall not" would be "Shant I ?" StuRat (talk) 22:02, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

Is the "I shall" nowadays rather a marked form in US English? People who declare a conflict of interest might say: "I will take care that..., I will make sure tha...t, I will recuse myself from..., and at the end: "If I am specifically asked to step down, I shall resign." Or is that the same distinction where the declarer is willing to do various things, but when it comes to the point where nothing helps, he/she "shall resign" even if they are not willing to do so? --Pxos (talk) 22:16, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

What Il Trovatore says above squares with what my English teachers used to say; namely, that "will" and "shall" in first person correspond to "shall" and "will" in second and third person. This difference is illustrated in the following Gilbert and Sullivan lines from The Mikado: "My object all sublime / I shall achieve in time..." "His object all sublime / He will achieve in time..." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:21, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

My point is that these mechanical rules do not help at all for people whose mother tongue is not English. When Richard Nixon announced on television his resignment, he said "I shall resign ---". Was that a statement of fact, was he perhaps more used to the form, or was there perhaps a subtle meaning to it which would not be obvious if he had said "I will resign." --Pxos (talk) 23:54, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

The implication here is that the resignation is going to happen - but, against his will. ~:74.60.29.141 (talk) 18:34, 9 March 2013 (UTC):~

It must have been his will. When we're faced with an unpleasant decision in the face of an even worse prospect (in this case, his impeachment and dismissal), and we choose the former, that is by definition what we have decided to do. So it is certainly our will; but it may not be our desire, unless we take the Viktor Frankl approach in Man's Search for Meaning and consciously choose to be in the very bad situation we find ourselves in, which we would never normally have chosen to be in. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:14, 9 March 2013 (UTC)