Language desk
< January 3	<< Dec \| January \| Feb >>	January 5 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded 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 4

Not homework: confused by a crossword clue

I am working on a Crossword puzzle. The clue is "assibilate", which I did not understand. The answer is "lisp". I have looked at the Wikipedia articles Lisp and Assibilation, as well as the Wiktionary entry for assibilate, and I still don't fully make the connection. I understand that a list is a speach impediment involving mispronouncing sibilants, but I don't see how that directly relates to assibilate which I think creates sibilants. Obviously I am misunderstanding something. Can someone help explain how assibilate equals lisp? RudolfRed (talk) 02:48, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

EO says "assibilate" means "to change to a hissing sound".[1] Whether a lisp qualifies could be a matter of opinion. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 05:00, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Linguists use the noun form ("assibilation") more than the verb, and use it to refer to a sound change which makes something into a sibilant... AnonMoos (talk) 12:27, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Some kinds of lisps change an "s" sound to a "th" sound, which is the exact opposite of assibilation... AnonMoos (talk) 12:31, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Side note: assibilation is not always a speech impediment or a lisp. Some dialects assibilate as a normal thing. For example Quebec French and New England French assibilates the "t" sound between two vowels, such that words like "petit" become realized as /pəsi/ or even /psi/ instead of the Metropolitan French pronunciation of /pəti/. A related concept is frication, which is the "th" sound that AnonMoos notes above, frication is also a normal feature of some dialects, such as in some Spanish dialects, notably Castilian Spanish. See Phonological history of Spanish coronal fricatives. --Jayron 32 13:39, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, everyone, for the replies. Very helpful. RudolfRed (talk) 16:36, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I hadn't heard the word assibilate before, but I'd have guessed it meant the total opposite: removal of an S sound. They should have gone for essibilate, or ensibilate, or adsibilate, or something. Temerarius (talk) 23:20, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Temerarius -- the Greek negative prefix (or "alpha privative") does not double following consonants (as opposed to when the "d" of Latin "ad-" assimilates to the consonant of the stem to which it's attached). So "asymmetric" vs. "assimilate". AnonMoos (talk) 07:11, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cool, but why is it a negative prefix? Temerarius (talk) 20:46, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't. —Tamfang (talk) 03:04, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The word assimilation is itself a nice example of ad-similation. --Lambiam 09:54, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Borg with a cold: You will be assibilated. Clarityfiend (talk) 07:34, 5 January 2021 (UTC) [reply]

"For those interested..."

I've occasionally heard and even used the phrase: "For those interested..."; which, to my ears, sounds okay. It seems grammatically incorrect, however. Is it? Of course, it is shorthand for: "For those of you who are interested...", which is proper. --107.15.157.44 (talk) 13:00, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Those" is a demonstrative pronoun and can be a subject of a clause/sentence. It seems perfectly grammatical to me to say "those interested...". --Jayron 32 13:13, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

107.15.157.44 -- It's compressed/elliptical, but I don't see how it's ungrammatical: "Interested" is a verb passive participle, and such passive participles are often used as adjectives. In this case, the adjective is used in a noun slot, but does not take a noun plural inflection, as is usually the case ("The poor are always with us" etc). AnonMoos (talk) 13:19, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's not just an "adjective used in a noun spot", it's a honest-to-god pronoun all on its own. See the Wikipedia article demonstrative, which describes the concept of a "demonstrative pronoun", to wit, "A demonstrative pronoun stands on its own, replacing rather than modifying a noun" --Jayron 32 13:27, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have little idea what you're talking about -- I was referring to the word "interested", not the word "those", as seems quite clear from what I wrote above". "Those" is actually behaving very normally in 107.15.157.44's clause; it's "interested" which is in a slightly unusual role... AnonMoos (talk) 13:47, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, of course you're right and I'm wrong. I'm an asshole as usual. I'm quite sorry to have misinterpreted your response. I apologize profusely. --Jayron 32 13:51, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you both for explaining. The complexities of English. Sentence fragments. Often useful, rarely proper. Discuss later, perhaps? 107.15.157.44 (talk) 13:37, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please unlearn the concept that there is such a thing as "proper" English. There are only different registers. --174.95.161.129 (talk) 21:24, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ain't it the truth. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 22:10, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Proper - adjective: Called for by rules or conventions; correct.^[2] --2603:6081:1C00:1187:214B:A1BF:7A5C:E912 (talk) 22:20, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. There ain't no such thing. --174.95.161.129 (talk) 04:07, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Therefore, there is no register of English that has rules or conventions. It is quite ironic that by your rules and conventions, it it improper for me to use a "register" of my choice. 2603:6081:1C00:1187:214B:A1BF:7A5C:E912 (talk) 04:54, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is a very generally used construction. From just one page on the website of The New York Times: "those in the president's orbit", "those in the president's circle", "those receiving the shots", "those at high risk from the coronavirus", "those sick with an unknown respiratory ailment".^[3] The construction is most commonly seen with the demonstrative pronoun those, referring to a group of entities, often people, with some common characteristic. The uses above stand for "the people in the president's orbit", and so on. For a single entity with a specific characteristic, the pronoun the one is used: "the one with the suspected case",^[4] "the one without air conditioning",^[5] "the one in the dry-cleaning wrap".^[6] A rare occurrence of the construction using the pronoun that: "that in the garden".^[7] The pronoun replaces "the tree" – "the tree in the garden"; in the context it is obvious the speaker is referring to a tree, so this does not have to be repeated. --Lambiam 09:48, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The title of every episode of the "Friends" TV series started with "The one..." -- AnonMoos (talk) 14:15, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Except the last one, "The Last One". —Tamfang (talk) 03:06, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

interested is here a kind of reduced relative clause, specifically one resulting from Whiz deletion (which to my surprise we have no article about or that even mentions). --ColinFine (talk) 18:04, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]