English questions

[WarpedWartWars]

The construction "[number] or so" means "about [number]", could be more or could be less by any plausible amount. In the case of "five", you'd expect someone to usually be able to give a certain amount for smaller numbers, so it's most likely that the number is in the range of five-six than the range of four-five, but it doesn't denote a specific set-in-stone range. It depends on the context. The reason why someone would say "five or so" instead of just "five" also depends on the context: it might be that someone is estimating the amount of something they only got a glance of (too fast to count), or trying to remember how many times something occurred and is not sure if they missed one (or more) times.

Ah.

("five or six" there had an unstressed "or", [ɹ̩], as opposed to a stressed one, [oɹ]. "five or six" for me is "about five to six", "five ór six" is five, or six, (or both sometimes) but nothing else.)

[Raphael]

Most of us probably have some idea of what we mean by it when we describe a text as "dry". But are there any words or terms for a text that is not dry, that is perhaps even the opposite of dry? I've never heard anyone talk of a "wet" text, and I'd be pretty weirded out if I would. So what do we call such texts?

(Perhaps this is not, strictly speaking, an English-only question, because the same logic should apply to German "trocken".)

[Estav]

Most of us probably have some idea of what we mean by it when we describe a text as "dry". But are there any words or terms for a text that is not dry, that is perhaps even the opposite of dry? I've never heard anyone talk of a "wet" text, and I'd be pretty weirded out if I would. So what do we call such texts?

(Perhaps this is not, strictly speaking, an English-only question, because the same logic should apply to German "trocken".)

I would say “lively” or “engaging”. For something with the same sort of metaphor, “juicy” kind of fits, although not exactly.

[alynnidalar]

I also think "juicy" works pretty well!

[zompist]

"Engaging" is pretty good. Also maybe "light" or "accessible."

"Juicy" sounds to me like it'd be about sex or scandals.

[Creyeditor]

Also, I think lively/lebhaft vs. dry/trocken keeps the metaphor under the assumption that it's from leaves of a tree or something were dry is the opposite of lively.
Fesselnd, unterhaltsam and kurzweilig might also work in German.

[Raphael]

Thank you, everyone!

[Raphael]

Something I saw elsewhere on the web reminded me of this: apparently, in English, when talking about a creative person - let's say a writer or an academic researcher - people will use the present tense even if the person is long dead ("Austen employs this narrative device in order to..."). How common is that? Is it considered standard English?

[bradrn]

Something I saw elsewhere on the web reminded me of this: apparently, in English, when talking about a creative person - let's say a writer or an academic researcher - people will use the present tense even if the person is long dead ("Austen employs this narrative device in order to..."). How common is that? Is it considered standard English?

Yes, this is standard. I suppose the idea is that, even if the author is gone, the book is still there: it’s the same reason we say “Austen is the author of Pride and Prejudice”, not “Austen was the author of Pride and Prejudice”.

[Moose-tache]

Something I saw elsewhere on the web reminded me of this: apparently, in English, when talking about a creative person - let's say a writer or an academic researcher - people will use the present tense even if the person is long dead ("Austen employs this narrative device in order to..."). How common is that? Is it considered standard English?

This is metonymy. When people say "Shakespeare uses iambic pentameter," they mean "the works of Shakespeare use iambic pentameter." If you said "Shakespeare used iambic pentameter," it would make it clear you were talking about the person.

“Austen is the author of Pride and Prejudice”, not “Austen was the author of Pride and Prejudice”.

This is simply a gnomic present. You use the present tense for facts that are currently true and cannot become false.

[Travis B.]

Something I saw elsewhere on the web reminded me of this: apparently, in English, when talking about a creative person - let's say a writer or an academic researcher - people will use the present tense even if the person is long dead ("Austen employs this narrative device in order to..."). How common is that? Is it considered standard English?

This is metonymy. When people say "Shakespeare uses iambic pentameter," they mean "the works of Shakespeare use iambic pentameter." If you said "Shakespeare used iambic pentameter," it would make it clear you were talking about the person.

Hmm, I don't interpret it this way; to me it is more like the gnomic present.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Something I saw elsewhere on the web reminded me of this: apparently, in English, when talking about a creative person - let's say a writer or an academic researcher - people will use the present tense even if the person is long dead ("Austen employs this narrative device in order to..."). How common is that? Is it considered standard English?

This is metonymy. When people say "Shakespeare uses iambic pentameter," they mean "the works of Shakespeare use iambic pentameter." If you said "Shakespeare used iambic pentameter," it would make it clear you were talking about the person.

Hmm, I don't interpret it this way; to me it is more like the gnomic present.

I would also note that, at least in my mind, Austen does not cease to be the author of Pride and Prejudice by dying, since "being an author" does not have "being alive" as a prerequisite as long as the book survives, since authorship is an immutable quality of the work as long as the work itself continues to exist.

[Moose-tache]

Something I saw elsewhere on the web reminded me of this: apparently, in English, when talking about a creative person - let's say a writer or an academic researcher - people will use the present tense even if the person is long dead ("Austen employs this narrative device in order to..."). How common is that? Is it considered standard English?

This is metonymy. When people say "Shakespeare uses iambic pentameter," they mean "the works of Shakespeare use iambic pentameter." If you said "Shakespeare used iambic pentameter," it would make it clear you were talking about the person.

Hmm, I don't interpret it this way; to me it is more like the gnomic present.

Actually, I think it might be both. If it weren't metonymy, it couldn't be gnomic. The sentence still makes sense with almost the same meaning in the past tense. The whole point of gnomic presents is that they can't not be present. So "Austen used foreshadowing" is definitely referring to Austen the human, and if "Austen uses foreshadowing" is a gnomic present, it is referring to the work, not the human.

To put it another way, "Bob eats pie" and "Bob used to eat pie" both make sense, so "Bob eats pie" is not gnomic. Facts about Austen's body of work only make sense in the present tense (i.e. "Austen's work used to use foreshadowing" makes no sense), so they are gnomic.

[Travis B.]

This is metonymy. When people say "Shakespeare uses iambic pentameter," they mean "the works of Shakespeare use iambic pentameter." If you said "Shakespeare used iambic pentameter," it would make it clear you were talking about the person.

Hmm, I don't interpret it this way; to me it is more like the gnomic present.

Actually, I think it might be both. If it weren't metonymy, it couldn't be gnomic. The sentence still makes sense with almost the same meaning in the past tense. The whole point of gnomic presents is that they can't not be present. So "Austen used foreshadowing" is definitely referring to Austen the human, and if "Austen uses foreshadowing" is a gnomic present, it is referring to the work, not the human.

To put it another way, "Bob eats pie" and "Bob used to eat pie" both make sense, so "Bob eats pie" is not gnomic. Facts about Austen's body of work only make sense in the present tense (i.e. "Austen's work used to use foreshadowing" makes no sense), so they are gnomic.

Consider "Foucault argues that prison did not become the principal form of punishment just because of the humanitarian concerns of reformists" (to quote the wiki) when speaking of his book Discipline and Punish. It just does not seem right to me to read this as meaning "Foucault's work"; rather, this speaks of Michel Foucault's argument itself for me.

[zompist]

I'm not sure it's quite metonymy or gnomic, though they're close. Maybe we should call it the auctoric present.

We can say things like "Mark Twain both revels in and rebels against his yokel origins". If that's metonymy for "Mark Twain's books", then Mark Twain's books seem to be sentient objects which, suspiciously, share Mark Twain's psychology and biography. We can also say "In his California period, Mark Twain is the brusque but chatty voice of a rising nation", which isn't exactly gnomic as it's limited in time.

If we want to get fancy, we might point to the unique author-reader experience, which is just a text communicating thoughts, and yet is a human communicating thoughts, even when that human is dead. You can have Mark Twain talk to you again just by opening his books, and even say new things, if you pick up one of his books you haven't read before. We read in the present, so maybe it's not surprising we talk about authors that way.

Free conlang idea anyone can borrow: use the present for authors we like, the past for authors we hate.

Other languages are even freer with the present. French Wikipedia uses the present for its biographical portrait of Foucault: "...Sa vie quotidienne à l'École normale supérieure est difficile et mouvementée ; il souffre de dépression grave. Un jour, l'un des enseignants le retrouve étendu dans une salle, la poitrine lacérée à coups de rasoir." And it's not just authors— the article on Louis XIV is written the same way.

[Moose-tache]

Hmm, I don't interpret it this way; to me it is more like the gnomic present.

Actually, I think it might be both. If it weren't metonymy, it couldn't be gnomic. The sentence still makes sense with almost the same meaning in the past tense. The whole point of gnomic presents is that they can't not be present. So "Austen used foreshadowing" is definitely referring to Austen the human, and if "Austen uses foreshadowing" is a gnomic present, it is referring to the work, not the human.

To put it another way, "Bob eats pie" and "Bob used to eat pie" both make sense, so "Bob eats pie" is not gnomic. Facts about Austen's body of work only make sense in the present tense (i.e. "Austen's work used to use foreshadowing" makes no sense), so they are gnomic.

Consider "Foucault argues that prison did not become the principal form of punishment just because of the humanitarian concerns of reformists" (to quote the wiki) when speaking of his book Discipline and Punish. It just does not seem right to me to read this as meaning "Foucault's work"; rather, this speaks of Michel Foucault's argument itself for me.

Yes, the argument, not Foucault the human. We are saying the same thing.

[FlamyobatRudki]

Why is english such a stupid language?

[Travis B.]

Why is english such a stupid language?

Umm what? How does such a non-sequitur make any sense in the first place?

[Moose-tache]

Why is english such a stupid language?

Umm what? How does such a non-sequitur make any sense in the first place?

No, no. They're right. It's stupid.

[Raphael]

Which natlang isn't kinda "stupid" if you think about it?