English questions

[KathTheDragon]

A clear example of this, I think, would be I'd be upset if you or anyone else hurt themselves.'

This is not as clear as you'd think, because the reflexive of singular "them" often turns up as "themselves" rather than "themself".

[Travis B.]

A clear example of this, I think, would be I'd be upset if you or anyone else hurt themselves.'

This is not as clear as you'd think, because the reflexive of singular "them" often turns up as "themselves" rather than "themself".

To me themselves is the formally "correct" usage, whereas themself is common in everyday usage.

[Raphael]

I saw this in a Mastodon post:

President Biden, August 7-10, will travel to #Arizona, #NewMexico and #Utah, the White House announces.

Am I the only one to whom this way of phrasing it sounds a bit as if "August 7-10" would be a part of Joe Biden's name or title?

[zompist]

I saw this in a Mastodon post:

President Biden, August 7-10, will travel to #Arizona, #NewMexico and #Utah, the White House announces.

Am I the only one to whom this way of phrasing it sounds a bit as if "August 7-10" would be a part of Joe Biden's name or title?

You can put things besides appositives in that slot, e.g.
"according to current plans"
"responding to the crisis"
"between European trips"
"so it seems"

But yes, it's odd to put a date without a preposition in that slot.

Ironically, "August 7–10" would be fine if it appeared at the front of the sentence, or after "Utah".

[WarpedWartWars]

Ironically, "August 7–10" would be fine if it appeared at the front of the sentence, or after "Utah".

Even those sound off to me. I only ever use a date by itself if I'm omitting something like "The day is". E.g., "The day is August 7th, and X is about to happen." would be "August 7th. X is about to happen.". But even that doesn't sound quite right to me.

[Travis B.]

Ironically, "August 7–10" would be fine if it appeared at the front of the sentence, or after "Utah".

Literally saying "August 7-10" at the head of a sentence does not sound right to me, but saying "August seventh through tenth" does in that same position.

[zompist]

Ironically, "August 7–10" would be fine if it appeared at the front of the sentence, or after "Utah".

Literally saying "August 7-10" at the head of a sentence does not sound right to me, but saying "August seventh through tenth" does in that same position.

Oh come now. If you got a business e-mail, would you even blink at this?

August 7–10, I'll be in Topeka.

Some very quick Googling found an example on Twitter: "August 9th I'll be featuring for. @ChrissieMayr. who will be headlining in AUSTIN!! Get your tickets now."

Also, if you can say it, you can write it— orthography is not really part of the language, and a sentence doesn't have to put on its Sunday clothes to be real.

[Travis B.]

Ironically, "August 7–10" would be fine if it appeared at the front of the sentence, or after "Utah".

Literally saying "August 7-10" at the head of a sentence does not sound right to me, but saying "August seventh through tenth" does in that same position.

Oh come now. If you got a business e-mail, would you even blink at this?

August 7–10, I'll be in Topeka.

Some very quick Googling found an example on Twitter: "August 9th I'll be featuring for. @ChrissieMayr. who will be headlining in AUSTIN!! Get your tickets now."

Also, if you can say it, you can write it— orthography is not really part of the language, and a sentence doesn't have to put on its Sunday clothes to be real.

I suppose it works that way, but only in writing; it does not sound right when actually spoken to me.

[linguistcat]

Literally saying "August 7-10" at the head of a sentence does not sound right to me, but saying "August seventh through tenth" does in that same position.

Oh come now. If you got a business e-mail, would you even blink at this?

August 7–10, I'll be in Topeka.

Some very quick Googling found an example on Twitter: "August 9th I'll be featuring for. @ChrissieMayr. who will be headlining in AUSTIN!! Get your tickets now."

Also, if you can say it, you can write it— orthography is not really part of the language, and a sentence doesn't have to put on its Sunday clothes to be real.

I suppose it works that way, but only in writing; it does not sound right when actually spoken to me.

Do you read it as "August seven through ten"? I read it exactly the same as "August seventh through tenth" personally, to the point that I hadn't even realized the <-th>s weren't there. Or is there some other way you read it?

[Moose-tache]

This is as much a Germanic question as an English one, but how old is the construction "there is/was/etc.?" It's found in multiple Germanic languages today, but how far back do the attested forms go? Is this an areal feature or a feature inherited from Proto Germanic?

[WeepingElf]

This is as much a Germanic question as an English one, but how old is the construction "there is/was/etc.?" It's found in multiple Germanic languages today, but how far back do the attested forms go? Is this an areal feature or a feature inherited from Proto Germanic?

German uses a different construction, Es gibt.., so this is probably not even of Common West Germanic age.

[hwhatting]

This is as much a Germanic question as an English one, but how old is the construction "there is/was/etc.?" It's found in multiple Germanic languages today, but how far back do the attested forms go? Is this an areal feature or a feature inherited from Proto Germanic?

German uses a different construction, Es gibt.., so this is probably not even of Common West Germanic age.

Standard German could be innovative here... OTOH, English there is / are, Dutch er is / zijn etc. are just extensions of existential "to be" with some place adverb, which could have arisen independently (see also Italian ci sono) from the use of the pure existantial verb (like Latin est / sunt, Slavic jest', etc.). To decide, one would have to look at what consctructions, if any, are attested in Old English, OHG, Norse, Gothic, etc., and trace the development. Not something I have the time for, unfortunately.

[Moose-tache]

After consulting my Old Norse grammar, it seems ON only used the verb. So the "there is" construction of modern Scandinavian languages is probably a recent development that parallels the one in English. It's curious that the same construction has emerged at least three separate times in Germanic.

[zompist]

Can't help thinking of French il y a (lit. "it there has"). This sort of thing isn't always genetic; there could be some Sprachbund phenomena going on.

[bradrn]

While re-reading T. H. White’s novel The Sword in the Stone (1938), I noticed that a number of his characters consistently speak in what appears to be a highly archaic English dialect. For instance, a hedgehog asking not to be eaten:

Good Mëaster Brock, shew mercy to a poor urchin and don’t ee be tyrannical. Us be’nt no common tiggy, measter, for to be munched and mumbled. Have mercy, kind sir, on a harmless, flea-bitten crofter which can’t tell his left hand nor his right.

Or Little John:

That bain’t the way to name ’un, measter, not in the ’ood […] They’m free pleaces, the ’oods, and fine pleaces. Let thee sleep in ’em, come summer, come winter, without brick nor thatch; and hunt in ’em with the good earth in the springtime; and number of ’em as they brings forward their comely bright leaves, according to order, or loses of ’em by the same order backards: let thee stand in ’em that thou be’st not seen, and move in ’em that thou be’st not heard, and warm thee with ’em i’ the golden light of their timbers as thou fall’st on sleep – ah, they’m proper fine pleaces, the ’oods, for a free man of hands and heart.

Or the nurse:

Now Master Art, my innocent, be off with thee to thy bed upon the instant. And thou, Sir Ector, let thee think shame to be playing wi’ monsters’ heads like a godwit when the poor child stays upon the point of death.

I’m curious to know: how closely do these samples correspond to any real dialect of English, current or historical? What particularly piques my interest is the use of so many grammatical structures which are unknown in many contemporary dialects — things like “fall on sleep”, “number of ’em”, “they’m”, and the apparently correct use of subjunctive “be’st”. On the other hand, the only other reference I can find on “tiggy” is Beatrix Potter’s story, The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, which rather makes me suspect that White is inventing at least some of this ‘dialect’. (Unless both Potter and him are drawing on an older word? But I can’t find that word anywhere else.)

[Estav]

The OED only quotes Potter and White for "tiggy" (assuming I'm not missing anything on the awful new site).

British English has many dialects; I'd imagine that White had plenty of material to draw from without needing to invent things out of whole cloth. That's not to say that I recognize where everything comes from or would be surprised if some of these characters combine features from multiple sources. "Am" outside of the 1st-person singular also shows up in some dialect portrayals of Southern US speech,

[bradrn]

The OED only quotes Potter and White for "tiggy" (assuming I'm not missing anything on the awful new site).

Huh, interesting…

British English has many dialects; I'd imagine that White had plenty of material to draw from without needing to invent things out of whole cloth.

Oh, I know, but I’m hardly familiar with most dialects: hence my question.

[Rounin Ryuuji]

On the other hand, the only other reference I can find on “tiggy” is Beatrix Potter’s story, The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, which rather makes me suspect that White is inventing at least some of this ‘dialect’. (Unless both Potter and him are drawing on an older word? But I can’t find that word anywhere else.)

I had always assumed Tiggy-Winkle was a nonsense word Beatrix Potter had invented herself, though she did use dialectal or otherwise now-uncommon words for naming other anthropomorphised animals (Tommy Brock, Mr. Tod), so I could imagine tiggy being a dialect word for "hedgehog" (perhaps a hypocorism originally — it sounds rather like sticky, in the sense of stick meaning poke, pierce, prod).

It also occurs to me that T. H. White may have gotten the word from Beatrix Potter. He would certainly have known of her (the dates line up for him to have read her as a child, if I understand right). Beatrix Potter was, herself, incidentally still alive at the time of the publication of The Sword in the Stone, though by then she was 72.

[bradrn]

It also occurs to me that T. H. White may have gotten the word from Beatrix Potter.

That’s precisely what I meant to suggest!

[bradrn]

On a completely different tack: is Rousseauian the only English word containing four different vowel letters next to each other?