English questions

[bradrn]

wild almonds : crop almonds :: rapeseed : canola

Except it’s not that simple, because it’s possible to have canola which isn’t derived from rapeseed at all.

If i may ask, what canolas are made from other plants? (by 'other', i mean plants not of its genus)

They’re all of the same genus; just different species.

[Raphael]

When you're talking about the "Low Countries" as a whole, in which order do you usually list them? For some reason, "Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg" somehow feels the most "right" to me, although it's neither the right order alphabetically nor geographically - alphabetically, it should be "Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands", while by size (either population or area) it should be "The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg". So what's your take?

[Linguoboy]

When you're talking about the "Low Countries" as a whole, in which order do you usually list them? For some reason, "Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg" somehow feels the most "right" to me, although it's neither the right order alphabetically nor geographically - alphabetically, it should be "Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands", while by size (either population or area) it should be "The Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg". So what's your take?

1. I literally never need to do this.
2. If I had to, I would go "Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg" because "Benelux".

[Richard W]

I think the order is fairly firmly established by the name 'Benelux' for the combination of the three.

[Raphael]

Thank you!


What did the word "engine" mean before it got its modern meaning during the Industrial Revolution?

[WarpedWartWars]

What did the word "engine" mean before it got its modern meaning during the Industrial Revolution?

Online Etymology Dictionary entry for "engine"

[Raphael]

Thank you!

[Raphael]

When you're talking about two people who, together, own something or created something, do you write "Lisa's and Michelle's latest album..." or "Lisa and Michelle's latest album..."?

[zompist]

When you're talking about two people who, together, own something or created something, do you write "Lisa's and Michelle's latest album..." or "Lisa and Michelle's latest album..."?

You can write either, but I'd write the latter. The possessive 's attaches to NPs these days, not nouns.

(Though, God help you if you need to include pronouns-- there's no good way to do it in writing!)

[Raphael]

Thank you!

[Rounin Ryuuji]

When you're talking about two people who, together, own something or created something, do you write "Lisa's and Michelle's latest album..." or "Lisa and Michelle's latest album..."?

I would say the second one, but probably write the first, or recast it entirely as something like, "The latest album from Lisa and Michelle."

[Travis B.]

I have noticed that many NAE-speakers have a voiceless final postvocalic realization of /z/ that is not simply shorter than /s/ in the same position, but different in quality (despite being voiceless); to my ears it sounds like [sʲ] whereas /s/ in the same position is [s]. (I should note that I personally realize /s/ and /z/ identically as [s] in this position.) Has anyone else noticed this?

[Kuchigakatai]

I have noticed that many NAE-speakers have a voiceless final postvocalic realization of /z/ that is not simply shorter than /s/ in the same position, but different in quality (despite being voiceless); to my ears it sounds like [sʲ] whereas /s/ in the same position is [s]. (I should note that I personally realize /s/ and /z/ identically as [s] in this position.) Has anyone else noticed this?

Yes, and I have posted about this before. I really started noticing it when I started studying some Arabic (back in the day), a language in which word final /z/ is very clearly voiced.

[Travis B.]

I have noticed that many NAE-speakers have a voiceless final postvocalic realization of /z/ that is not simply shorter than /s/ in the same position, but different in quality (despite being voiceless); to my ears it sounds like [sʲ] whereas /s/ in the same position is [s]. (I should note that I personally realize /s/ and /z/ identically as [s] in this position.) Has anyone else noticed this?

Yes, and I have posted about this before. I really started noticing it when I started studying some Arabic (back in the day), a language in which word final /z/ is very clearly voiced.

Well much of English does not even have real fully voiced final obstruents except when they are intervocalic (and even then it's not consistent); it rather weakly voices them at best, and uses vowel length and preglottalization or lack thereof (for plosives) to pick up the slack. It is not classic "final devoicing" like in German, Dutch, Polish, Russian, Catalan, or like, so people tend to overlook it. But /s/ and /z/ differing in quality aside from voicing is something new to me that I've only recently noticed (especially since it seems somewhat foreign to the dialect here).

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Just tried this; I think my /z/ is somewhat apical, but not fully [z̺], where my /s/ isn't, and veers towards dental, but not fully [s̪]; I had no idea of this before.

[Raphael]

Capitalization question: "Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury" or "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury"?

[Rounin Ryuuji]

The second; English usually has all major words in a title (typically nouns, adjectives,and verbs), and also the first word, in uppercase. Non-initial function words usually have lowercase initials, cf. The Princess and the Goblin, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

[Raphael]

The second; English usually has all major words in a title (typically nouns, adjectives,and verbs), and also the first word, in uppercase.

Thank you!

Non-initial function words usually have lowercase initials, cf. The Princess and the Goblin, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

But those seem to be examples of titles of books. Now, there is a book with the title "Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury", but I'm not talking about that book; I'm talking about the address itself.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

Oh, oops, I was thinking it was the title of a book (or a short story).

[Raphael]

Just for added fun, another capitalization question: over the last few years, I've written a few texts that discussed or mentioned different Christian denominations, and in these texts, I've generally capitalized "Catholic", but didn't capitalize "protestant".

My reasoning behind this was something like this: there is generally one Catholic Church (ignoring the sedevacantists and the various self-appointed "True Popes" for now), so the word "Catholic" is derived from the name of a specific organization, the Catholic Church, and therefore subject to the rule that words derived from proper nouns should be capitalized; meanwhile, there are a lot of different protestant churches (despite the sometimes dominant position of currently or historically established state churches in some places), so the word "protestant" is not derived from the name of a specific organization, and therefore shouldn't be capitalized.

My decision was not in any way meant to slight protestants - I'm from a protestant background myself, although I no longer consider myself a Christian. But I'm still kind of getting second thoughts, because I worry that protestant readers might feel insulted.

So what do you think?