Language desk
< December 7	<< Nov \| December \| Jan >>	December 9 >

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.

December 8

The bank was robbed by one Joe Schmoe

What's the significance of the "one" in a sentence like that? Just melodrama? Or is it to distinguish from a situation where the bank is robbed by two or three Joe Schmoes? I don't see it much in other types of contexts. Thanks. 50.0.136.56 (talk) 03:15, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's usually used to emphasize the unusualness or humor of the name, such as the Catholic archbishop of Manila was one Cardinal Sin. It has nothing to do with number as such. μηδείς (talk) 04:30, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's definitely not melodrama. It's a technique used to introduce a new individual to the narrative. If it simply said, "The bank was robbed by Albert Jones", the reader is called upon to halt and consider whether a) Albert Jones is an individual who has already appeared in the narrative, b) Albert Jones is a certain well-known or notorious individual. By employing "one Albert Jones", the writer signals that this is an unremarkable and not previously mentioned individual who is named here only in connection with his act of robbing the bank. Akld guy (talk) 04:40, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, both are cases of emphasis. One could also say "a certain Albert Jones" in the later case. μηδείς (talk) 05:33, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Akld, but not with Medeis. "Emphasis" would be applicable if you wanted to call attention to the name being familiar, as in "robbed by Joe Schmoe, the same Joe Schmoe who is wanted for six similar crimes". --76.71.5.45 (talk) 06:11, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In writing the above, I wanted to link to Wikipedia's article on emphasis achieved by the use of wording, but I couldn't find one. There are articles on emphasis through typography (like this, emphasis through tone of voice, and on the general use of marked constructs, but nothing that covers simple examples like "Schmoe did commit the crime" or "Schmoe and only Schmoe is the one responsible". Did I miss something? --76.71.5.45 (talk) 06:11, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The word you seek is Intensifier. "...a modifier that makes no contribution to the propositional meaning of a clause but serves to enhance and give additional emotional context to the word it modifies." --Jayron 32 13:10, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And after I thought to search for "emphatic tense", I also found do-support, which the intensifier page doesn't even mention. I've added cross-references and added both of them to the emphasis disambiguation page. Thanks. --76.71.5.45 (talk) 20:02, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, the thing is, I've only seen the usage in a context where the person is accused of having done something bad. 50.0.136.56 (talk) 10:52, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Just coincidence for your small sample; μηδείς's and Akld guy's explanations correspond with my own (55-year) reading experience. The idiom is perhaps becoming rarer. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.200.136.117 (talk) 11:26, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm seen a similar kind of construction where the "one" becomes something more elaborate, like "the esteemed..." (ignoring cases where that's part of a title or honorific, etc.). Same kind of thing? Matt Deres (talk) 18:19, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is sense 20(b) of "one" in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Vol.7 p.121 Senses 20 and 21 are both pronouns:
20. A person or being whose identity is left undefined; some one, a certain one, an individual, a person (L. quidam}. A following pronoun referring to one is in the 3rd pers. sing., as 'One showed himself to his townsmen, who derided him'. In this sense one has the stress of an independent word, which distinguishes it from the next.
a. simply (arch. or Obs.)

b. Defined by a sb. in apposition. [He died in 1859, leaving the property in question to one Ann Duncan.]

c. Defined by a clause or phrase. [The first time that I have heard one with a beard . . avouch himself a coward.]

21. Any one of everybody; any one whatever; including (and in later language often specially meaning) the speaker himself; 'you, or I, or any one'; a person, a man; we, you, people, they (= OE. man, ME. me, G. man, F. on). Poss. one's, obj. one, reflexively ONESELF (formerly one's self) ; but for these the third person pronouns his, him, himself were formerly usual, and are still sometimes used; thus, 'If one showed oneself (himself) to one's (his) townsmen, they would know one.' (The pl. prons. their, them, themselves, were formerly in general use on account of their indefiniteness of gender, but this is now considered ungrammatical.) In this sense one is quite toneless (wən), proclitic or enclitic.
To my mind, the core idea is as Akld guy says, to introduce a new person without asserting that there is anything special about the person. The "archbishop of Manila was one Cardinal Sin" is a kind of irony, where the assertion that the name means nothing in particular is subverted. jnestorius^(talk) 12:35, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"One Joe Schmoe" indicates that the person being spoken to is not likely to have prior familiarity with Joe Schmoe. The "one" in that locution distances the Joe Schmoe for the benefit of the listener. The listener is alerted that they need not search their memory bank for prior encounters with that name because the speaker does not believe that prior familiarity exists. This is merely a way of alerting the person being spoken to that the name that you are about to mention would not mean anything special to them. Bus stop (talk) 16:40, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Reading Japanese, but pronouncing kanji as hanzi

Is there a name (and or article) for the phenomenon of reading Japanese, but pronouncing the kanji as thought it was Chinese. For example, 「日本」という漢字による国号の表記は as "riben to iu hanzi ni yoru guohao no biaoji wa". I thought I remembered reading about this happening somewhere... but I don't recall where.

Duomillia (talk) 23:26, 8 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Kyowa-go maybe? --Jayron 32 01:32, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The examples given on that page don't seem to include this phenomenon; 日本 is given as nippon, for example, rather than riben. Henry ^Flower 08:38, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Onyomi might be what you're thinking of, although few onyomi readings actually correspond exactly to the modern Chinese pronunciation - most onyomi readings are based on Tang dynasty Chinese! Smurrayinchester 09:57, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(Apparently not. There is no onyomi reading that would let you read 日本 as riben) Smurrayinchester 10:36, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't speak Chinese, but as I apprehend it, there are several dialects of the language that are not mutually intelligible. (And they would likely be considered languages in their own right, if not for various historical, political, and cultural reasons.)

Pronouncing 日本, (literally `sun root`) as "riben" corresponds to the predominant Mandarin dialect, but I imagine that in southern China, native speakers of other dialects such as Cantonese, Shanghainese, and Fukinese would pronounce it differently. Perhaps a good place to start would be language transfer. For instance, here in the Americas, it has become increasingly common for Latinos to incorporate English words into Spanish and Portuguese. e.g. la troca instead of el camion `truck` or no trabaja instead of no funciona `It's not working`.

Pine (talk) 06:36, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And what's the connection with "the phenomenon of reading Japanese, but pronouncing the kanji as though it was Chinese"? Henry ^Flower 08:09, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, this is just my speculating, but it may very well constitute a peculiar form of linguistic interference where the (traditionally Chinese) characters are not naturalized into Japanese. As I understand it, the Japanese invented the syllabic hiragana writing so as to accommodate their grammar, whereas Chinese words generally don't conjugate or decline.

One can easily conceive of a Mandarin speaker who memorized the pronunciation of the—46 or so—hiragana, but continues to pronounce the (literally thousands of) glyphic characters in his native tongue. But, again, I'm not an expert on Asian languages, so please take what I just said with a grain of salt.

Pine (talk) 11:22, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]