Language desk
< August 24	<< Jul \| August \| Sep >>	August 26 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 25

Did - didn't

1 "Didn't I tell you that yesterday?"

2 "Did not I tell you that yesterday?"

3 "Did I not tell you that yesterday?"

What is the grammatical rationale for the unbundled contraction to be proper when written as sentence 3 above but not sentence 2 above? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 00:52, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(3) is a result of English subject-auxiliary inversion. (2) used to be grammatical (I don't recall exactly when, 100 or 200 years ago), I assume because subject-auxiliary version once worked differently and let the negative be pied-piped with the auxiliary. (1) is, I assume, a leftover vestige of when (2) used to be grammatical; (2) stopped being used, but since (1) looks like there's only one word coming to the front of the sentence, we still accept it. rʨanaɢ (talk) 00:59, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that "100 or 200 years ago" was a slight exaggeration, so I tried to find usages since 1950, but nearly all of them were written in "historic English" of various types. The only usages of "did not I" that I could find were in The art of doing science and engineering: learning to learn, By Richard W. Hamming; and in Diet and Health, by Lulu Hunt Peters, 2006. I think Rjanag must be correct, therefore, in claiming that "did not I" is no longer considered grammatical in modern English, but continues to be used to give a "dated" feel to a text. (3) is formal and (1) is informal, of course. Dbfirs 09:48, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the affirmative plays a role too. "I didn't tell" = "I did not tell" and there is no confusion. When inverted for a question, "I did not tell" -> "Did I not tell", because in modern English the auxiliary cannot be negated; but "I didn't tell" effectively contains a single-word negative verb "didn't", which inverts with the subject: there's no independent negative to worry about. --ColinFine (talk) 20:24, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From a more descriptive linguistic perspective, it's ultimately because "did not" and "didn't" are two different things entirely. Historically forms like "didn't", "won't", etc, emerged as contractions, but in modern English it's not really accurate to call them contractions (though that's still done due to tradition). At some point in history these "contractions" became unlinked with the full phrases they emerged from, and when phrasings like "did not you?" fell out of use, the "contracted" forms like "didn't you?" were left behind as a relic of the original ordering. Voikya (talk) 02:02, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How do you pronounce Vančura

How do you pronounce the European name Vančura? (i.e. what is the č sound?) Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:41, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is Czech, and pronounced 'VAN-chu-ra' - the 'č' is like English 'ch'. The pronunciation in IPA is given for Vladislav Vančura in his article. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 02:13, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

Thanks (I don't know how to read IPA). Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:54, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What is a qualifying question?

I used to think that's a question that puts the responder into a category (like: are you a good cook?). Is that right? If yes, why would someone consider them rude?Quest09 (talk) 13:19, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the context of the qualifying question was rude itself. There's lots of ways to be rude. It's impossible to say why without having more context. --Jayron32 13:26, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some people don't want to be put in certain categories. Some direct questions are socially awkward, but not outright rude. 88.9.108.128 (talk) 13:30, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The expression "qualifying question" seems to be most commonly often as part of sales technique, where the salesman tries to find out things like how much the prospect is likely to be willing and able to spend, and who is responsible for the budget. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:01, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You want to know whether someone is in a position to make a purchase, according to sites such as this. Bus stop (talk) 16:13, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Many a real estate salesperson have gone broke because they didn't ask qualifying questions before trying to sell a house. Qualifying questions are necessary in sales, especially for expensive items, and the idea is to use tactfulness when asking qualifying questions. Many times when selling expensive items (i.e. real estate) it is an accepted practice on the part of the salesman to ask the buyer qualifying questions (i.e. what are you looking for exactly, how much do you made, how much cash do you have for a down payment, how long have you been looking, have you been prequalified by a bank yet for a loan). I never found these type of questions to be rude by the potential buyer in my 20 year career as a real estate salesman. In fact, just the opposite. Then they knew I was a smart salesman that didn't want to waste my time or theirs. Then I could find just the property that suited them that they could actually purchase.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 21:59, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Posted is a Buyer's Questionaire I used in my real estate business in the 1980s to qualify the buyer to see if he was capable of purchasing a property. Those that sent back the form filled in I worked with, those that did NOT fill in the form I dropped. Then I was working with only qualified buyers capable of purchasing a property. Made it a lot easier to sell properties.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 11:55, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And as a side-question: why do unqualified buyer (also, non-buyers) go around shopping? There not only wasting your time, but also theirs... Quest09 (talk) 19:57, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They're not wasting their time: they presumably enjoy it, or are doing it because they're curious to see in other people's homes. --Colapeninsula (talk) 21:20, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes they already have an offer on another home and just want to make sure they have a good deal by compairing to comparable houses.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 22:28, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes they are really (secretly) seller's of their own home, so they want to get an idea what their home is worth by pretending to be a potential buyer. They then have a Realtor haul them around gathering information, never telling the Realtor that they really might like to sell their own home someday. If they get enough information, then they try to sell their home by themselves, For sale by owner.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 22:55, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese question about time

Does this short sentence seem correct?: "多长时间从你的房子到大学？" I'm meaning to ask: "How long does it take to get to college from your house?" What about this one?: "从Miami大学开车开了去你的家几个小时？" --Ghostexorcist (talk) 14:00, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Chinese is pretty flexible, but in these cases (particularly the second one) you would usually add 要 before the question word-- e.g. 从miami大学开车回家要几个小时? In my intuition, the first sentence sounds slightly acceptable without the 要 (at least in informal speech) because the time expression is moved to the front of the sentence in a sort of "comment-topic" format, which already gives it a more informal spoken feel; in "proper" language, though, this sentence would be more like 从你的房子到大学要多长时间? rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:22, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Also, it's not relevant to time particularly, but the other change I made in your first sentence was rewording the verb as 开车回家. The typical way of expressing that sort of thing in Mandarin is with a verb or verb phrase expressing manner, followed by another one expressing direction or class; thus e.g. "bike to the office" 骑车去办公室, "walk to class" 走路去上课. I also replaced 去你的家 with 回家 just because that's a more natural way of saying 'to go home' [which usually implies returning home]; this isn't a grammatical issue, though, just a stylistic one. rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:27, 25 August 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Thank you for the info. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 14:30, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another small thing...I'd say 到学校 rather than 到大学, I think 学校 refers more to the physical location whereas 大学 refers more to the entity. rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:09, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would use 从你的物资到大学要多久？ (instead of 几个小时) but I am quite out of practice. —Kusma (t·c) 21:16, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree 多久 sounds a bit more natural to me, although neither one is grammatically wrong. (I assume you meant 屋子 rather than 物资?) rʨanaɢ (talk) 23:11, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I did, sorry. —Kusma (t·c) 05:24, 26 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Moral lessons

What word is used for expressing moral lessons mixed into a story line?--Doug Coldwell ^talk 21:40, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My first thought was "parable", but I'm not sure if that's the part of speech that you want. Apparently there is also a verb "parabolise" [1], but I think it's pretty rare. 109.151.39.110 (talk) 22:14, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have always heard and used the single word 'moral', as in "the moral of the story". Our article backs me up here. —Akrabbim^talk 22:21, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On second thoughts, I don't think this question is really answerable without knowing which grammatical word function the OP requires. A word for, literally, "expressing moral lessons mixed into a story line" would have to be a word with a function like "parabolisation". We have "moralisation" and "moralising" of course, but to me these have different nuances from that required. 109.151.39.110 (talk) 22:47, 25 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

General term of literary criticism is didacticism... AnonMoos (talk) 10:43, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks AnonMoos. I do believe that is the exact word I was looking for.--Doug Coldwell ^talk 12:56, 27 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]