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

Any ambiguity in "Have you lived in the UK for 5 years ... ?" ?

"Have you lived in the UK for at least 5 years since you were 13?" I am not sure if this question is ambiguous for a native speaker or not. If someone lived in the UK from 2004 to 2014, but they have left the UK since, should they answer yes or no? Does the question "Have you lived..." imply that the you should still live there to be able to answer "yes"? Highly related: is it incorrect to say "I have lived in the UK from 2004 to 2014" if we are in 2015? --Lgriot (talk) 14:13, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Taking your questions one at a time:

1) If someone lived in the UK from 2004 to 2014, but they have left the UK since, should they answer yes or no?

The answer depends on when that person turned 13. If the person was already 13 or older in 2004, then the answer is yes. If the person turned 13 more than 5 years before his or her departure in 2014, then the answer is yes. Otherwise the answer is no.

2) Does the question "Have you lived..." imply that the you should still live there to be able to answer "yes"?

No. It means, "Up to and including the present moment, does your time living in the UK total at least 5 years?"

3) Is it incorrect to say "I have lived in the UK from 2004 to 2014" if we are in 2015?

Yes, it is incorrect, because you have placed an end date on the time span in the past. If an activity covers a time span that ended in the past, you can't use the perfect tense. You have to use a form of the past tense, typically the simple past "I lived in the UK from 2004 to 2014." Nonetheless, you can still say "I have lived in the UK for more than 5 years since I was 13" because that statement does not include or imply an end date. It means, up to and including the present, your time in the UK totaled more than 5 years.

This is a more subtle point, but if the question were simply "Have you lived in the UK for at least 5 years?", then there would be some ambiguity, as one interpretation of the question would be that it asks whether you are still living there. Adding the "since" clause removes this ambiguity by setting up a time period running from the time the person turned 13 to the present and implying that the 5 years could be any part of that period.

Marco polo (talk) 14:27, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, so adding "since" removes the ambiguity. Indeed that is very subtle.--Lgriot (talk) 14:45, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just to clarify a bit more, there are different verb tenses which carry different senses. There's the simple, or preterite, past tense "I lived in the UK from 2004 to 2014", there's the imperfect or past progressive "I was living in the UK from 2004 to 2014", there's the pluperfect, "I had lived in the UK from 2004 to 2014", the past perfect progressive "I had been living in the UK from 2004 to 2014", the present perfect progressive "I have been living in the UK since 2004". All of these carry a sense of "pastness", but they indicate different relationships between the speaker, the event, the present time, and the temporal relation to other events which may be related. --Jayron 32 16:14, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Usually the simple question "Have you lived in the UK for at least 5 years?" would only be asked if the person was known (or assumed) to be living in the UK. --65.94.50.17 (talk) 16:20, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Marco Polo, If you lived in the UK from 2004 to 2014 - and you left the UK in 2014, then I can still say: "You have lived in the UK for at least 5 years". Can't I ? I will be quite surprised if you say I cannot... Further, I will be totally wrong, If I claim in that case: "You have not lived in the UK for at least 5 years", won't I ? Anyways, I don't think the word "since" is needed in that case for removing any ambiguity. HOOTmag (talk) 18:03, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Grammatically, the strenuously correct way to say it is "You had lived in the UK for at least 5 years". You use the pluperfect tense to indicate events which happened in the past and stopped happening in the past. When you say "You have lived..." you're using the Present perfect, which implies that the "end" of the action is the present time. So, to say "You have lived in the UK for at least 5 years" usually implies that the "living in the UK" could still be going on. If you use had, you would be implying that you don't live there currently. --Jayron 32 18:51, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I agree to your last claim - that using "had" means the event is over, and I also agree to your first claim that "have" means the event could still be going on. However, "have" does not mean the event must still be going on. Using "have" is grammatically incorrect - only if a specific time in the past is indicated, e.g. in the following ungrammatical sentence: "You have done that yesterday". However, "I have done my homework", does not imply that I'm still doing my homework. Similarly, "You have done this five times", does not imply that you're still doing this. I can say "You have visited me five times", even if you have already stopped visiting me. Similarly, I can say "You have lived in the UK for at least five years" - even if you have already left the UK. If you want to make sure the event is still happening, you must indicate that somehow, e.g. by saying: "His stories have always been wonderful", or by saying "I have lived in the UK since 2004". HOOTmag (talk) 19:54, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There is quite a lot of ambiguity in what you mean by living in the UK for a year. Obviously if you take a two week break abroad you would still count that as living in the UK, but from the point of view of the Inland Revenue you could spend 182 days abroad, or in some circumstances more and still count as living in the UK for that year. -- Q Chris (talk) 09:02, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Soft sign and palatalisation in Russian

The introduction of the Soft sign article notes that the sign indicates the Palatalization (phonetics) of the preceding consonant, but the "Palatalization sign" begins by pointing us to Palatalization (sound change) to explain the glyph's purpose. Is the soft sign meant to indicate (phonetics) or (sound change)? In other words, does it have some historical-linguistics function (comparable to the difference between "rite" and "right", perhaps?) for two words with identical pronunciations, or does it actively demonstrate that the two words are pronounced differently, or am I misunderstanding the situation altogether? Nyttend (talk) 18:32, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For examples of minimal pairs, I consulted my copy of Russian—Elementary Course—Book I, by Nina Potapova, published in Moscow in 1959, and available on Amazon. I found these examples.

брат ("brother") and брать ("to take")
мол ("pier") and моль ("moth")
мел ("chalk") and мель ("shoal")
лук ("onion") and люк ("hatch-way")

For audio files, I consulted Forvo at http://forvo.com.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:49, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Rule of thumb for Russian (can't speak to other languages). Generally, the soft sign does indicate a difference in pronunciation, as the opening paragraphs in the Soft sign article suggest: either a palatalization of the preceding consonant, or else a vowel that is "iotated." There are cases in Russian where a soft sign is written but not pronounced, e.g. дочь. These spellings may indeed tell you something about grammar or the development of the language.......but they're much rarer. Herbivore (talk) 20:45, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Right, the relevant link here is palatalization (phonetics). The soft sign makes a difference in the pronunciation of a word today, and it is used in all kinds of foreign loan words for its phonetic function. It's certainly not indicating any historical sound change when it appears in FDR or William Randolph Hearst. --Amble (talk) 21:13, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Link is now fixed. --Amble (talk) 21:16, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It also should be noted that the soft sign (or the palatalized consonant it represents) also affects the preceding vowel somewhat, so that the o vowels in мол ("pier") and моль ("moth") are not identical. JackofOz and Любослов Езыкин can comment. μηδείς (talk) 01:25, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Nyttend: your question is covered in most historical grammars of Russian (the so-called process of "the fall of the extra-short vowels", падение редуцированных). Unfortunately for English-speakers, most of them grammars are expectedly written in Russian, but you might consult two Russian Historical Grammars in English either by Kiparsky (1979) or by Matthews (2003).

To give you a general idea. In Old Russian the "soft" and "hard" signs (yers) originally designated two short fronted and backed vowels respectively, supposedly they were close to /ɪ̆~ɘ̆/ and /ʊ̆~ɤ̆/. They could be either strong or weak (see Havlík's law). At the same time all consonants, that were not already palatal, were palatalized before all front vowels, namely ⟨е и ь ѣ ѧ⟩. That palatalization was not phonemic but allophonic. Then around the 12th-14th centuries all weak yers was lost, while strong yers changed: ⟨ь⟩ to ⟨е⟩ and ⟨ъ⟩ to ⟨о⟩. This led to phonologization of the previous palatalization of the consonants before the soft yers. In other words, the words like мелъ and мель were initially different in the quality of their last vowels (back ant front), but later in the quality of their last consonants (hard and soft). Or in other words, the lost of the extra-short Slavic vowels led to the phonemic palatalization of Slavic consonants. This happened not only in Russian but in other Slavic languages also (with some exceptions, but it's too much to explain here). The hard sign was written at the end of words before 1918 for some orthographic reasons (often anti-etymological), but the soft sign is still used as a palatalization sign and usually corresponds well to the etymology of words.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 08:36, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What about the soft sign affecting the preceding vowel? μηδείς got me intrigued. I never heard of that. I certainly pronounce the o in both words the same. Wiktionary, too, transcribes both o's simply as [o]. Asmrulz (talk) 18:45, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know the exact rules, I only took Russian 101, and have a limited command of the Rusyn language, but the teacher explained to us that the prior vowel was subject to "palatalization" as well, so that the textbook by Slavonica publishers would transcribe the two words as [mol] and [mo^yl^y]. (This is not a standard linguistic transliteration, but one meant pragmatically for Russian students.) The difference in the vowel is allophonic, not phonemic, so it might not be noticeable in the way that most English speakers don't notice the difference between "light l" and "dark l". This [1] describes it as vowel raising, which would essentially be a form of i-mutation. μηδείς (talk) 19:15, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Because this is allophonic, and allophonic variation is rarely perceived by (native) speakers. The chapter about phonetics in Русская грамматика (1980) very well explain this issue.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 08:22, 27 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, μηδείς and Lüboslóv Asmrulz (talk) 11:40, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Peggy is diminutive of Margaret?

Why is "Peggy" diminutive for "Margaret"? They don't even sound similar to each other. One begins with M, and the other a P. The vowels don't line up. 140.254.226.236 (talk) 20:03, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's history seems to be based on rhyme: Margaret > Meg > Peg(gy). See Margaret#Nicknames_of_Margaret, and here [2] [3]. SemanticMantis (talk) 20:53, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As with Mary > Molly > Polly, for example. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:36, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Happens with male English names too: Richard > Rick > Dick .... William > Will > Bill .... Robert > Rob > Bob, etc. --Jayron 32 18:13, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Also Edward, as Ed, which can become Ted, or in the old days, Ned. And Robert can become Robin, and in the old days, Dobbin. One of those oddities of English. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:32, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

And also Ellen or Helen > Ellie > Nellie. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:34, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm... Nellie is generally for Eleanor, see Eleanor Parke Custis Lewis and Nellie Stewart. 18:53, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

There's a little bit in our article on hypocorism, but far more in Zairja's response here, at Stack Exchange. ---Sluzzelin talk 23:06, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia article on Ellen allows that it can be considered derivative of Helen, Eleanor ... or Elizabeth. StevenJ81 (talk) 21:29, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Slovenian question

I took this photograph of people giving away free Coca-Cola in Ljubljana, Slovenia. What does the text on the Coca-Cola container say? JIP | Talk 20:04, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The adverb ênkrat means "once". (See also http://en.pons.com/translate/slovenian-english/enkratna.) The conjunction kot means "(just) as, (just) like", and the noun "kót" means "angle; corner". The adjective pŕvi" means "first". The noun poljub means "kiss".

—Wavelength (talk) 20:48, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

So I'm guessing this means something like "Just like a first kiss"? JIP | Talk 20:52, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am guessing similarly, but I need to find out more about the first word.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:56, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

[Correction: Wiktionary categorizes kot as a conjunction, but the text on the Coca-Cola container uses it as a preposition.

—Wavelength (talk) 04:02, 26 August 2015 (UTC)][reply]

The Slovenian expression Res je enkratna! at http://wol.jw.org/sl/wol/d/r64/lp-sv/102006293 (published by Jehovah's Witnesses) is equivalent to the English expression It is fabulous! at http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/102006293. Probably enkratna means "fabulous'", and then the complete text means "Fabulous (just) like a first kiss".

—Wavelength (talk) 21:11, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ioscius (talk · contribs) isn't really active on the English Wikipedia, but if you can find him, he speaks Slovenian and can probably help. Adam Bishop (talk) 01:00, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"[As] unique as a/the first kiss". μηδείς (talk) 01:19, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

'Unique' makes sense, and if that is what is intended, 'As special as the first kiss' is probably better idiomatic English. Akld guy (talk) 02:08, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

See here and here. Two separate adjectives exist: ênkraten (fem. -tna, neut. -tno) means "one-time, one-off, one-shot", while enkráten (fem. -tna, neut. -tno) means "unique". The tonal marks are sometimes indicated in dictionaries, but are not part of the standard Slovene orthography, so both adjectives are standardly written enkraten (masc.) / enkratna (fem.) / enkratno (neut.). Apparently, the second one is meant here. --Theurgist (talk) 20:01, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think that Akld guy's "As special as the first kiss" is nearly perfect, in English it's necessary to turn that definite article into a possessive pronoun, so "As special/amazing/unforgettable as your first kiss". -Ioscius ^∞ 13:26, 27 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd point out that JIP asked what the slogan says, not what would be a good way to express the sentiment idiomatically in an English language commercial. Literally, the sign says "unique as first kiss", full stop. Adding [as] and [a/the] is appropriate only as the bare minimum necessary to make the sentence grammatically acceptable in English. Starting to write polished advertising copy in English (something I have done a bit of professionally) is far beyond what was requested. μηδείς (talk) 02:19, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, nobody can complain that JIP hasn't been given enough information. You, on the other hand, would have given him the barest minimum. Akld guy (talk) 03:13, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Summation: literally translated, the sign says "unique as first kiss". However, a proper translation would be "as good as your first kiss". Eman235/talk 04:40, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the answers. I appreciate being told both what the sign literally says and how it would be properly translated. JIP | Talk 06:01, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Giving someone a translation (something several of us here have done a bit of professionally) typically means "expressing the sentiment idiomatically in English". I'm not sure why you'd want to give someone a literal translation alone, if it makes no sense. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:13, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, what I was asking for was both a literal translation and an idiomatic way to say the same thing in English. I can't think of how someone would think I would have been literally only interested in a literal, word-by-word translation. After all, I speak exactly zero Slovenian, so I was interested in knowing what the expression meant in the first place. JIP | Talk 19:25, 28 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and the correct answer was "[As] unique as [a/the] first kiss". μηδείς (talk) 00:24, 31 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

replacing a word with its initial (e.g. "F word")

Is there a term for euphemistically referring to a word as it's initial followed by "word" (e.g. "F word", etc)? It isn't covered at the euphemism article. Thryduulf (talk) 20:55, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The term is "Phonetic euphemism", and it is already covered ibid. HOOTmag (talk) 22:32, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I say "citation needed". The other things classified in the article as phonetic euphemisms relate to the sound of the word, as "phonetic" implies, whereas this particular usage is based on the name of the initial letter. That's not necessarily "phonetic" as it will often include sounds that aren't in the word being euphemized, like the initial E sound in "F word". --65.94.50.17 (talk) 03:54, 27 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Request for translation from Spanish

I wonder if a good Spanish speaker could translate this?: Estamos pensando también salir del país. Esta semana nos han saludado mucho de México, demasiado. Debe ser porque últimamente fueron los Villa y Tomo como Rey y es un granito que se deja allá. Google Translate makes a hash of it. The first sentence I understand; I'm giving it for context. The speaker is a musician from Chile (Alonso "Pollo" González from Santa Feria); his language is often very idiomatic. Tomo como Rey is the name of a musical group; there is no need to translate it. Looie496 (talk) 23:17, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Here is my translation, with expressions which are probably not idiomatic enough.

"We are thinking also of leaving the country. This week they have greeted us much from Mexico, too much. It must be because recently the Villas and Tomo como Rey went and it is a small thing that it is left there." (Alternatively, the last part can be "it is a small thing that is left there." The word granite can mean "granite" or "small grain".)

—Wavelength (talk) 23:59, 25 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's hard to be exactly sure without the wider context (e.g., are these members of another group talking?) but this sounds like:

"We're also thinking of leaving the country. We've been welcomed by much of Mexico (i.e., "seen a lot of"), too much. It must be because los Villa y Tomo como Rey recently left, and there's only a little bit remaining."

What this little bit of is (the tour, fans, the country we haven't seen?) is unclear. μηδείς (talk) 01:14, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, the last sentence is still a bit opaque but I get the gist of it. Looie496 (talk) 13:56, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]