Language desk
< January 24	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 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.

January 25

Spanish subjunctive question

I wish to translate the phrase "I believe that we will win." My first instinct was, "Creo que vayamos a ganar," but translated literally that would mean "I believe that we are going to win." I realize that this is an acceptable translation, but that raised this question: does the subjunctive exist in the future tense? If not, I suppose the correct translation would be "Creo que ganaremos." 71.213.67.251 (talk) 00:05, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe Spanish has a separate future subjunctive. I know Italian does not, and the two languages are pretty similar on this sort of point. I think the point is that the subjunctive, more or less, connotes uncertainty or at least a disclaimer of a full assertion, and the future has some of the same aspect to it, so it probably disappeared because it was a little bit redundant. (If I recall correctly, Latin does have a future subjunctive, which is why I say "disappear".) --Trovatore (talk) 00:15, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm thinking it would be Creo que gánemos, but Creo que vamos a ganar is more likely. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 02:49, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't "vamos" change to "vayamos" in the subjunctive? 71.213.67.251 (talk) 03:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but I'm not too sure how much the subjunctive would be used. The Mark of the Beast (talk) 06:10, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Latin does not have a future (or future perfect) subjunctive, Travatore. As for the question, no, Spanish does not have a future subjunctive. And, actually, you probably would not use the subjunctive in that sentence. Use of the Spanish subjunctive is often a value judgment: creer takes the subjunctive if the thing being believed is unlikely to happen (this indicating doubt). Thus no creo que vayamos ganar, but creo que vamos a ganar. If not, indicative. Also, you forgot the é in ganarémos. 68.54.4.162 (talk) 08:03, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It'd be Creo que ganaremos or Creo que vamos a ganar. The accent would be redundant in *ganarémos - it's spelt ganaremos. Spanish does have a sort of future subjunctive but it would not be used here. -- the Great Gavini 12:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Spanish future subjunctive is obsolete, except for certain restricted legal contexts (in relative clauses, to convey hypothetical future situations). See Ralph Penny, A History of the Spanish Language, Cambridge University Press 2002, p216. Penny also states that there are a few set phrases, like sea lo que fuere, where it is being replaced by others containing a present subjunctive (sea lo que sea). --NorwegianBlue^talk 16:53, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, WP:WHAAOE, and here it is: Spanish_verbs#Future subjunctive (futuro (simple) de subjuntivo). --NorwegianBlue^talk 17:56, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have to vs I must not

The phrases "I don't have to" and "I must not" do not mean the same thing in English. How does one make this distinction in French? Or, is this distinction made in French? I can think of "Je ne dois pas" of course, but I'm not sure which one of these this refers to, or if it can be used for both. Widener (talk) 01:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Again, I'll treat the analogous question in Italian, which I know better; I suspect French is similar though I'm not sure of that. In Italian, non devo, though it literally seems to mean "I don't have to", really means "I must not". This is something to watch for if a native Italian speaker tells you, in English, that you "don't have to" do something. It's quite likely that she's telling you not to do it. The word "she" here is not used by chance :-).

To say "I don't have to" do something, circumlocutions are necessary — you can try to render it as non sono costretto a..., that is "I am not required to...". I've never really found a nicer solution, unfortunately. --Trovatore (talk) 03:07, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My French is a bit rusty, but I would say "Je n'ai pas besoin de <infinitive>" for "I don't have to <do something>" where as I'd say "Je ne dois pas <infinitive>" for "I must not <do something>". For example "Je n'ai pas besoin d'aller" for "I don't have to go" and "Je ne dois pas aller" for "I must not go". You'll want to look up the usages of "devoir" and "avoir besoin de." --Jayron32 03:15, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My French is suspect as well, but to me that use of besoin sounds like it's about what I feel the need to do, whereas "I don't have to" is more about what I'm required to do. Maybe je ne suis pas tenu a... or something like that? --Trovatore (talk) 03:57, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"Je ne suis pas obligé de..." then maybe? As in "I'm not obligated..." French doesn't take the same sort of "short cuts" that English does, and it tends to be a very verbose language; I would not be surprised if there weren't a simple single verb which correctly captures the sense of "have to" does in colloquial English. --Jayron32 04:19, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

We had the same question a few months ago, although I'm not sure it was fully answered then. As a non-native speaker I would just use devoir for both, and I would say that you would never use "besoin" this way. There are lots of impersonal phrases you could use (il faut que, il est necessaire que, il est interdit, etc). Sometimes you hear "avoir de" or "avoir à", exactly the same as English...maybe it's a gross anglicism and not strictly grammatical, although avoir was also used that way in Old French. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:09, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

To keep it simple. "I must not" (obligation) can be translated as "il ne faut pas que je", "je ne dois pas". "I must no repeat my mistakes": "il ne faut pas que je reproduise mes erreurs", "je ne dois pas renouveler mes erreurs". "I don't have to" can be translated as: "je n'ai pas besoin de", "je ne suis pas obligé de", "je ne suis pas forcé de", "je n'ai pas à". "I don't have to work next Sunday" : "je n'ai pas à travailler ce dimanche". — AldoSyrt (talk) 08:52, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Like in English, you can unambiguously express obligation not to using something like je dois ne pas... or il faut que je ne pas.... I think that, like English, these are less natural than the technically ambiguous alternatives AldoSyrt listed (compare "I don't have to X" vs. "I have to not X"). rʨanaɢ (talk) 14:06, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is a false friend in German too: "ich muss nicht" means "I don't have to", it does not mean "I must not", which is "ich darf nicht". --ColinFine (talk) 13:05, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

*Il faut que je ne pas is not possible in French, because il faut que governs the subjunctive and may never be followed by an infinitive. You can say il faut ne pas [+ inf.] or even il me faut ne pas [+ inf.] (although to me the last one sounds extremely stilted). Don't use these constructions if either infinitive has a complement. 24.92.85.35 (talk) 18:20, 28 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Smash the granny

I'm watching an episode of Being Human (the UK version (Hope that's okay to say since it's what Netflix calls it)) and one of the characters just used the phrase "smash the granny out of it". After a bit of Googling, I see that it means to have rough sex but I'm curious as to where the phrase came from. Can anyone clue me in on the etymology? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 04:05, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Slang expressions don't usually have a formal etymology, but I assume per granny = docility? e.g. "She's like a granny in bed."... "Well I'll smash the granny out of her." (Not an expression I would ever use myself of course.)--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:00, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See, given that this is the UK, I usually default to rhyming slang and would have guessed that granny = fanny; and in the UK, fanny = vulva, so "smash the granny" is "to treat the vulva roughly", aka to have rough sex. That's just a WAG, but I'm American, so I don't always "get" British slang, especially rhyming slang. --Jayron32 12:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

But with rhyming slang you start off with two nouns, and the actual rhyming part is dropped, so you just have to know what the rest of the phrase was. If you rhyme fanny with granny, you would have to come up with a phrase like "gramps and granny" or something, and then you would use "gramps" when you mean "fanny". Adam Bishop (talk) 12:42, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Rhyming slang is overhyped and rarely used these days in my experience (and I say that as a Cockney who lived in Bethnal Green for many years).--Shantavira|^{feed me} 20:22, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, the coining of new rhyming slang seems to have ground to a halt in the 1980s although I have recently heard "Britneys" for "beers". Alansplodge (talk) 12:33, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have googled "smash the * out of" and learned that there are many different things one can smash out of something or someone, not just grannies (including "dickens", "tripe", and "stuffing"). The most popular choices are expletives, followed by "hell", "bejesus" and "daylights". At some point, someone somewhere in the UK apparently had the idea to add the granny to the list.--Itinerant1 (talk) 09:05, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Most of those would refer to "smashing" someone literally. smash, at least in UK slang, can also be a way of saying "have sex with". It's not especially common, though most people are familar with it at least since football pundit Richard Keys was sacked for, in part, asking Jamie Redknapp if he "smashed it" - "it" being an ex-girlfriend of his (an interview which also gave us the delightful hang out the back of it, as in "You could have gone round there any night and found Redknapp hanging out the back of it"). In this case, I think it's smash as in sex they mean - "fuck the granny out of her" would mean pretty much the same thing and in that context the meaning is clearer. Smurrayinchester 13:48, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Any chance of identifying which episode this was, and which character said this line? Perhaps it was misheard, or was context specific. --LarryMac | Talk 14:56, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I too was only introduced to this rather distasteful usage of "smash" by Mr Keyes, so I am no expert in its deployment, but is it possible that the OP misheard "smash the cranny out of it"? This would make marginally more sense as "cranny" is a British slang word for vulva. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.202 (talk) 15:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Confirmed by this page. See also Nookie (a term in very common usage hereabouts) which is indeed rhyming slang (Jayron32 has his credibility restored). Alansplodge (talk) 22:17, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the clip, Doesn't help much. - X201 (talk) 15:47, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That's it and it definitely sounds like granny to my American ears. Dismas|^(talk) 21:51, 27 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I do

"Yes I do"
OR
"Yes, I do"
OR
"Yes; I do"
Widener (talk) 17:26, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Any, depending upon how you feel and what message you're trying to convey. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:29, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, English offers writers some leeway on punctuation in this case. In order, your forms indicate an increasingly long pause between "Yes" and "I do". However, the traditional and standard way of punctuating this would be "Yes, I do". Marco polo (talk) 19:34, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also acceptable, indicating an even longer pause, would be "Yes — I do." — Michael J 22:24, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

And "Yes. I do". Even "Yes... I do." On the very odd occasion, "Yes? I do". English, eh? We just don't care ;) --Tagishsimon (talk) 22:54, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would use typically use a comma if both the "yes" and the "I do" were direct answers to the question. The only time I would use a semicolon would be if the "yes" was a direct answer to the question and "I do" was an explanatory comment that did not directly answer the question - ie it could stand alone as a sentence. Example:

Do you like green eggs and ham? Yes, I do. Analysis: Yes comma I like green eggs and ham. [Answers the question directly]

Does anyone like green eggs and ham? Yes; I do. Analysis: Yes [some people like green eggs and ham, answers the direct question] semicolon I do [provides additional related/clarifying data that could stand alone as a separate sentence]. Mitch Ames (talk) 01:22, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Sam! Alansplodge (talk) 12:30, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]