Language desk
< September 28	<< Aug \| September \| Oct >>	September 30 >

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.

September 29

Domestic terrorism

Please help me understand the origin of this term, any kind of basic, agreed upon definition, and educate me as to what domestic terrorism used to be called in the past, as well as to understand if more current terms are in use that might supersede it in the future or are considered equal or better than this term. I won’t be replying to this discussion so that I can focus on learning from the comments. Thank you. Viriditas (talk) 00:18, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

On Newspapers.com (pay site), I'm seeing the term "domestic terrorism" as far back as 1850. Domestic means it's coming from the citizenry, foreign means it's coming from another country. That just leaves the term terrorism to ponder. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:46, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Etymology online says:

1795, in specific sense of "government intimidation during the Reign of Terror in France" (March 1793-July 1794), from French terrorisme, noted in English by 1795 as a coinage of the Revolution... General sense of "systematic use of terror as a policy" is first recorded in English 1798 (in reference to the Irish Rebellion of that year).

Alansplodge (talk) 12:40, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Domestic comes from the Latin word for home. Asparagusus (interaction) 01:31, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Demake

Please help me investigate whether the unabridged (paid) edition of Merriam-Webster includes this word (I do not have adequate money to do so), since I've consulted the free edition, finding out that it is not included at all, despite being used by PC Gamer, Kotaku, etc. If the unabridged edition does not include it as well, then it is no doubt a shame for Merriam-Webster, because demake is a popular world among video game fans, not likely to be obsoleted in the near future.--RekishiEJ (talk) 15:53, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds more like PC Gamer, Kotaku, and video game fans in general have poor vocabularies. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:33, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Neither dictionary.com nor dictionary.cambridge.org have this word. English is not a prescribed language, so if your word is new and starts to be used constantly then it will likely make its way into them in due course. Bazza (talk) 18:43, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't heard of any dictionary for any living language that would lay any claim to be "complete". There are always omissions due to words being archaic to the level of obsolete, highly dialectal or otherwise non-standard, or current neologisms. Sometimes new coinages catch on widely, though. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 19:39, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. Dictionaries, by their very nature, are always years behind the 8-ball. They record words that have come into use. By the time the writers have compiled enough evidence to justify the inclusion of a new word, that word has already become established in at least some corner of the language. A camera can only capture images of things that already exist. A dictionary works in a kind of similar way, only much more slowly. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:53, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@JackofOz Being behind the 8 ball is a good thing, right? If you're in front of it, it's like having the cart before the horse. Of course. David10244 (talk) 06:35, 7 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

See Wiktionary:demake. Alansplodge (talk) 20:40, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, the online OED, arguably the most "complete" English dictionary that exists, does not contain "demake". It takes time for newly-coined specialized jargon like this to make it's way into dictionaries. Google's ngram viewer shows zero occurrences of the word in any English book published through the year 2019. CodeTalker (talk) 05:37, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I've googled demake discovering that some books and magazine issues prior to 2019 did use this word ([1]).--RekishiEJ (talk) 09:04, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

And you don't bother using the unabridged edition of Merriam-Webster to examine whether "demake" is included, just tell me that dictionary.com, dictionary.cambridge.org and OED3 do not contain it, yet Wiktionary does.--RekishiEJ (talk) 09:08, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

We might have other things to do with our money, as well. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 10:46, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Double plurals

Does English have plenty of words that are plurals of words that originally were intended to be plural but later re-defined as singular?? The agendas of anyone who posts in this section are to give some examples and to make sure you're an expert on whatever words are used as examples. (Note the word I have in bold, which is the only example I know of.) Georgia guy (talk) 16:01, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, there are lots of examples of this pattern. Medias, phenomenas, criterias. Of these, media in the singular is widely accepted; phenomena and criteria as singulars are still widely considered inferior usage. --Trovatore (talk) 16:17, 29 September 2022 (UTC) ...and always will be, if I have anything to say about it.[reply]

@Trovatore: Although I'm not a native English speaker, I clearly know that "media" should not be used as a singular noun (it is merely a plural one, and the singular form is "medium"), according to language prescriptivists.--RekishiEJ (talk) 09:11, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

In Latin (though I may be wrong; I've only been studying for a bit), the plural of nominative feminine media is mediae and the plural of nominative neuter medium is media.

Asparagusus (interaction) 01:29, 5 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) You can find some listed in English plurals#Plural form became a singular form. Opera and insignia are pretty common ones. Deor (talk) 16:21, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Double plural is focused on fossilized plurals, not these you point out. --Error (talk) 16:56, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

By "you", I mean youse, y'all, etc. ;)

Is there a plural for "United States"? "Americas"?

--Error (talk) 17:01, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Those are plurals. Shantavira|^{feed me} 18:20, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

That was sort of the original point of the question.

That said, there are at least two classes here, probably three. Agendum and opus are not really English words in the first place (I'm sure there are specialized exceptions, but in any case they're not ordinary English words in the senses relevant to their etymological plurals), so "agendas" and "operas" are unobjectionable. Then there is the intermediate case of "media" — "medium" is an English word, and could be applied to, say, a compact disc, but "medias" is widely acceptable for different sorts of storage modalities. Finally "phenomenon", "criterion", "bacterium" remain the only acceptable singular forms to use in good written English; so that *phenomenas, *criterias, *bacterias are still clearly inferior. --Trovatore (talk) 18:32, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Then there's the case of redefinition without changing the spelling. This ngram for "data" looks like that one is on the cusp of redefinition grammatically.70.67.193.176 (talk) 19:49, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Winston Churchill wrote A History of the English-Speaking Peoples -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 20:02, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"People" is often singular. "The English, not being a spiritual people, invented cricket to give themselves some concept of eternity" (Lord Mancroft). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:39, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly what the OP asked for. Whereas I'm not sure that J. R. R. Tolkien's hobbitses was (were?) what they were after. -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 20:44, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, no, I think that one's different. The regular plural of "person" is "persons". I suspect using "people" as a genuine plural (as opposed to a plurale tantum) is most likely the innovation. --Trovatore (talk) 20:52, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

It's archaic now, but the KJV features cherubims and seraphims. (Possible explanation here.) -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 20:57, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A golf links is derived from the plural of link: rising ground; a ridge, a bank (SOED) -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 22:10, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

"Children" is a double plural: child -> child-er -> child[e]r-en. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 09:17, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Be careful with those words ending in -a derived from Latin: it can be the plural of a neuter word in second or third declination, but also the singular of a word in first declination. Many of those modern Latin words were invented by people who didn't have that great grades for Latin, so it can be messy. If I were to translate the modern word agenda to Latin, I would make it agendae, a feminine plurale tantum of the first declination, from res agendae, the things to be dealt with, with agendae the feminine plural gerundivum of ago, to deal with something. Agendum (the act of dealing with something) or agenda (acts of dealing with something, or a single thing to deal with) make less sense.

A similar confusing case is the word visa (permission to visit a country). In English, visa is singular, with visas the plural; in Dutch visa is plural, with visum the singular. Wiktionary tells me that the English version is the original, coming from charta visa, but by simply replacing charta with some neuter word, we can make an etymology for the other version and switch to that if we think it makes more sense. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:41, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

The neuter adjective agendum primarily means "being to be done", as seen used e.g. here. Compare also referendum in quod senatus decreverat, id postea referendum ad populum non arbitrarentur ("what the senate had decreed should not be deemed to have to be next referred to the people"). Neuter adjectives are commonly nominalized in Latin, "something that is ...", like datum "something that is given", "a gift". Interestingly, for actum only the plural form, acta, is a common nominalization. For an "act of dealing [with something]" one might use actio. --Lambiam 11:05, 1 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Kontakion of the Departed

The Kontakion of the Departed was recently sung at the committal service of the Late Queen (see this YouTube clip) and it has been sung at several royal funerals starting with ~~Edward VII}},~~ Prince Henry of Battenberg in 1896. However, it is not mentioned in our kontakion article. I have found several reasonable sources, but before I put pen to paper (as it were) I really need the original Greek and Russian texts to match the format of the rest of the article. My ignorance of Byzantine liturgy is exceded by my lack of Greek and Russian, so any help would be greatly appreciated. The English text begins: "Give rest, O Christ, to thy servant with thy saints: / where sorrow and pain are no more; / neither sighing but life everlasting..." Also, anything about the attributed 6th-century author, Anastasios (apparently a popular name in Constantinople). Alansplodge (talk) 21:21, 29 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Where did you see an ascription to this Anastasios? As far as I could figure out, this (or at least, the melody) is originally Russian. The Old Russian text most commonly given is:

Со святыми упокой, Христе, души раб Твоих, идеже несть болезнь, ни печаль, ни воздыхание, но жизнь бесконечная.

With the saints give rest, O Christ, to the soul of Your servant, where there is no sickness, no sorrow, no sighing, but endless life.

One would expect the text to be longer, but I did not find extended versions. As heard sung here, it is the full text. --Lambiam 06:48, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks Lambiam, reference for Anastasios is:

...it is not until the middle of the sixth century, the "golden age" of the kontakion, that the Byzantine church found its poetic voice in the work of writers like Anastasios (whose kontakion for the departed still appears in the Large Euchologian, the book of rites and blessings)... [2]

Also: The kontakion Funeral Chant by Anastasius is well known... [3]

But perhaps this is not the same work? Alansplodge (talk) 11:24, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

While scouring the bowels of Google Books for more clues, I found Protestancy Without Principles, Or, Sectaries Vnhappy Fall (1668) p. 444 by Edward Worsley, which has the Greek text: Μετοι των Αγίων ανάπαυσον χρισε την ψυχήν... which I suspect has been mangled by Google. Is this the same text? Alansplodge (talk) 12:01, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Fourteen early Byzantine cantica has Chapter III - Anastasios: On the Departed, but sadly no English translation of the Greek text, but it seems similar to the Google result above. Alansplodge (talk) 12:21, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, I found a full text version of that book here which gives:

Μετὰ τῶν ἁγίων ἀνάπαυσον, Χριστέ, τὰς ψυχὰς τῶν δούλων σου ἔνϑα οὐκ ἔστι πόνος, οὐ λύπη, οὐ στεναγμός, ἀλλὰ ζωὴ ἀτελεύτητος: ἀλληλούϊα.

Bing translate suggests that this is the right one. Can anyone confirm for me please? Alansplodge (talk) 12:32, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Some of the translations to Modern Russian suggest that the number of departed for which this is sung is ambiguous in the Old Russian version. The English translation I gave above uses the singular. In the Greek version it is unambiguously plural. If the ambiguity exists, the Old Russian text is a faithful but ambiguous translation of the Koine Greek, which however has the additional acclamation ἀλληλούϊα (English "hallelujah"). --Lambiam 20:25, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you kindly. See Kontakion of the Departed. Feel free to edit if I've messed up. Alansplodge (talk) 23:06, 30 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]