Zompist Bboard Again

anxi wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 10:01 am How would “I asked Charlie but the guy wouldn't help out” behave in that situation, from the perspective of a native English speaker?

Well, I picked "Charlie" in part because the internet assures me it's now thoroughly ungendered, so "guy" is maybe a bit off, but other than that it's grammatically fine for me; I don't think it would even strike me as unusual.

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 10:37 am Although thinking about it, I suppose it does work, with other permitted descriptors: "I have repeatedly asked the Prime Minister for a response, but my right honourable friend has not yet replied".

Yeah, that's a good example.

To me Charlie is still gendered, despite what the Internet may say.

Ah, looks like I was served American data (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_(given_name)).

i'd expect the female ones to use the /š/ pronunciation and the males the /č/, but it suggests that a lot of the girls named Charlie are just toddlers now so that may change.

Pabappa wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 2:03 pm i'd expect the female ones to use the /š/ pronunciation and the males the /č/, but it suggests that a lot of the girls named Charlie are just toddlers now so that may change.

I would expect the same myself w.r.t. pronunciation.

Pabappa wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 2:03 pmi'd expect the female ones to use the /š/ pronunciation and the males the /č/, but it suggests that a lot of the girls named Charlie are just toddlers now so that may change.

I didn't even realise there was an /ʃ/ pronunciation.

Also I grew up with these advertisements: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Sn8H42FZcI.

Nor did I.

akam chinjir wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 1:50 pm Ah, looks like I was served American data (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_(given_name)).

Mmm, it's more popular as a name of new people, but I suspect most Americans named "Charlie" are still (adult) men. It's definitely a name that I first think of as a "male" name, even though I don't find it hugely unusual for women to have it (although for adult women, I would expect it to be a short form of e.g. Charlotte)

I am also not familiar with pronouncing "Charlie" with /ʃ/, for either men or women.

Whether male or female, I still think of Charlie as more of a nickname. I don't know how I'd feel meeting someone with the actual given name "Charlie"; I'd assume it was short for something

linguistcat wrote: ↑Wed Feb 13, 2019 2:05 pm Whether male or female, I still think of Charlie as more of a nickname. I don't know how I'd feel meeting someone with the actual given name "Charlie"; I'd assume it was short for something

I agree - Charlie does not seem like something that would actually be one's legal first name.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Feb 13, 2019 5:35 pm

linguistcat wrote: ↑Wed Feb 13, 2019 2:05 pm Whether male or female, I still think of Charlie as more of a nickname. I don't know how I'd feel meeting someone with the actual given name "Charlie"; I'd assume it was short for something

I agree - Charlie does not seem like something that would actually be one's legal first name.

Disagree, especially for women. Using diminutives as given names is a longstanding American tradition. My ex' father was legally named "Joe" and, were he still alive, he'd be a hundred by now. My great-aunt, his contemporary, was legally named "Peggy".

In the age group I grew up in it was the norm for kids to be named one longer formal name legally, and to actually use a shortened, often diminutive version most of the time in Real Life (e.g. be legally named Elizabeth, Jonathan, Katherine or Robert but be called Liz, Jon, Katie or Kate, or Rob respectively. However, those people's own kids do not seem to follow that pattern, where now they just have single first names they go by, rather than a longer formal, legal name and a shorter/diminutive informal name.

Salmoneus wrote: ↑Tue Feb 12, 2019 6:30 am So a phrase like "his excellency" isn't just a noun with a possessive attached; it's a lexical unit in its own right. And it's a lexical unit that's only ever used pronominally. You can't, for example, say "there were seven his excellencies in the room" (or even "there were seven excellencies in the room", unless by jocular wordplay).

I think *seven his excellencies is out for separate reasons, namely (a) his can't refer to multiple individuals, and (b) possessive pronouns can't be immediately preceded by numerals. seven of their excellencies seems fine to me, and so does their seven excellencies at a stretch.

Someone could try to make an argument that if your excellency was really a second-person pronoun it would trigger second-person agreement, which it doesn't. (Your excellency is ... not Your excellency are ....) I think such an argument would be moderately convincing, but then we do also have second-person pronouns like German Sie or Spanish usted that similarly occur with third-person verb endings.

Welsh has "emphatic pronouns" which are all two syllables instead of the usual one syllable for the regular pronouns:

minnau, innau, finnau (< mi, i, fi) - 1st. sing.
ninnau (< ni) - 1st. pl.

tithau (< ti) 2nd. sing.
chithau (< chi) 2nd. pl.

fyntau (< fe/e, fo/o) 3rd. sing. masc.
hithau (< hi) 3rd. sing. fem.
nhwythau (< nhw) 3rd. pl

That's about all I can contribute, I've never come across longer ones as far as I know.