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October 21

Imperfect and conditional

Is the past tense in Germanic languages called an "imperfect"? The article mentions a tense called "imperfect" in Romance languages, but does not mention existence of that tense in any of the Germanic languages? In Finnish, both the Finnish, Germanic and Romance tenses are called "imperfekti". Is English played, German spielte, Swedish spelade and Icelandic spillaði an "imperfect"?

A second question: Is there a "conditional mood" in Germanic languages? Is "would do" conditional, let alone a mood? Or German "würde tun" or Swedish "skulle göra"? --40bus (talk) 19:56, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Question #1: in German, the past tense has sometimes informally been called "Imperfekt" by people who uncritically transfer terminology over from Latin, but that usage is considered linguistically incorrect and not what you'll find either in academic linguistic writing or in school grammars or dictionaries. The established and correct term for the past tense is "Präteritum" (English "preterite"). I'd expect this terminology to be similar in other Germanic languages, but I can't speak for those. A real "imperfect" is something semantically different; it's a tense that has an aspectual meaning (roughly speaking, something to do with either ongoing, habitual or static situations). Romance "imperfect" tenses have this function; the Germanic preterites don't.

Question #2: periphrastic constructions with modal verbs such as "would", "würde" etc are just that: modal verb constructions. Calling them "moods" has come out of fashion in linguistics, if for no other reason than that they belong to a much more loosely defined and larger set than actual morphological moods usually do (we don't have a "mood" label for 'I ought to go', 'I might go', 'I can go', 'I should go'; so why would 'I would go' require such a label?). When it comes to real (morphological) mood categories, German has the two "Konjunktiv" categories (Konjunktiv I: 'er gehe', Konjunktiv II: 'er ginge'). Those are real moods, and the Konjunktiv II partially functions like a conditional, but it's not normally called that in German. Fut.Perf. ☼ 20:25, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Swedish linguists use the term preteritum, but the colloquial term dåtid, literally "then time", is more common. Analogous terms are used in the other Scandinavian languages. The Dutch term is onvoltooid verleden tijd, literally "uncompleted past time". (The words tid and tijd, translated here as "time", are calques of the Latin grammar term tempus, which is also the etymon of English tense. The word onvoltooid is a calque of imperfectum.) ‑‑Lambiam 21:36, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is "would" + infinitive along with "would have" + infintive ever included in the paradigm of verbs in grammars in most English-speaking countries? And Finnish imperfekti does not have an aspectual meaning and it, along with Germanic past tenses, corresponds to both Romance imperfect and preterite, with aspectual distinction being made with case of object. Does English have a "future tense" and a "conditional mood"? The closest equivalent of future tense in Finnish is "tulla" + third infinitive, like tulla tekemään. And is Romance conditional a tense or amood? --40bus (talk) 21:48, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's long been common for popular and school textbooks to say that German has an imperfect tense. See this example in a book entirely about German verbs from Collins, a major British educational publisher. Or another example in a textbook from Nelson Thornes, which is apparently now part of OUP. Or these examples from a textbook by OUP itself. I'm not sure whether these examples are all British indicates that this is a regional phenomenon or whether there is some skew in what Google Books UK is showing to me or in the names that I recognize as respectable publishers. Matt's talk 22:50, 21 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It used to be quite common in Germany too to call it "imperfect". In my view it's only in the last couple of decades that the term has been widely considered to be obsolete. -- 2A02:8424:6281:D401:7948:D073:F201:67C1 (talk) 07:49, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It was certainly called 'the imperfect' in English when I was learning Latin in the late 1960s/early 1970s (though our textbooks were not exactly brand-new). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.208.246 (talk) 17:11, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I recall it being called "imperfekt" in Swedish in my earliest grammar studies among the late 80s-early 90s. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:49, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the question was about the Germanic languages. To all my knowledge for Latin (in contrast to the Germanic languages) it is still considered the standard term. -- 81.65.149.159 (talk) 07:38, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fair point, but our English lessons, to the extent that they named tenses etc. at all, used the same terms as did our (5 years of) Latin instruction, and we learned more about the technicalities of English grammar from the latter than the former, and to a lesser extent from our French lessons, where again the same terminology was applied (which I supposed saved unnecessary duplication). (Being all or nearly all native English speakers, we obviously had the usual intuitive grasp of that language.) {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.1.208.246 (talk) 20:57, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I believe all Romance languages have an imperfect/ preterite distinction, where imperfect actions are habitual or not completed, and preterite actions are single or completed, but it appears that Latin didn't function just like that. And in Germanic languages, there's mainly just one form, which I guess has been deemed more similar to the preterite, or preterite is considered more correct for some reason. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:58, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I would be sort of curious to learn how it did function in Latin. I took one year of Latin in high school but we didn't manage to dive into subtleties like hat.

I don't quite agree with the proffered distinction, at least in Italian. Imperfect generally denotes (or at least connotes) something that is not happening anymore, and is in that sense completed. For a habitual action that continues into the present, you would normally use the present, or perhaps occasionally the passato prossimo (largely equivalent to the English present perfect, but with some differences).

In Northern Italy, where I lived, the preterite has mostly disappeared from common speech, and is used mainly in writing and a few other stylized contexts. In ordinary discourse, the passato prossimo has subsumed the functions of the passato remoto (preterite) in addition to its "own" functions, and so the distinction the student has to learn is between imperfetto and passato prossimo.

I personally found this very difficult, partly because the rules they give you in textbooks and classes don't always seem to be quite correct. For example they say that repeated actions should be in imperfetto, but this is not correct when you consider them as a single unit with consequences, no matter how long a time it took. I eventually came to view imperfetto as giving background information, but passato prossimo (or passato remoto, in those contexts where it's used) to refer to an action considered as a single unit, even if spread out across a time interval without precisely specified endpoints. --Trovatore (talk) 18:34, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In Latin the imperfect was indeed used to denote "something that is not happening anymore" but without specifically implying a termination—something ongoing in the past, as it were. One usually translates the imperfect docebat as "he was teaching" as opposed to the perfect docuit, "he taught". (In beginning classes [in the U.S at least], the imperfect conjugation is usually taught before the perfect conjugation, since it's just like the present conjugation with the addition of the -ba- infix; so the early exercises in these classes use imperfect in all past-tense sentences. My first junior-high-school Latin class was experimenting with audio tapes for teaching languages, and I will always remember having to listen a recorded version of "The Ant and the Grasshopper" in which the speaker drew out the long vowels to what seemed ridiculous lengths: "Misera cicaaada cibum nooon habeeebaaat.") — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deor (talk • contribs) 21:11, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds very close to my understanding of the usage in modern Italian (except without the "considered as a unit" part). Wakuran suggested that Latin used it differently than modern Romance languages do, which is what I was interested in hearing details on. --Trovatore (talk) 23:47, 23 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There are many different terms used for this past tense in Germanic languages, in school books and maybe among linguists too, and those terms may or may not be entirely appropriate according to the latest linguistic fashion. What's more, there are subtle difference in use of these tenses among Germanic languages, so it may be linguistically appropriate to use different terms. It depends on how narrowly one defines them. For example, it's entirely normal to say in Dutch: “Mijn schip is gezonken, daarom ben ik laat.” (My ship has (lit.: is) sunken, therefore I'm late). You could say: “Mijn schip zonk, daarom ben ik laat,” (My ship sank, therefore I'm late) but that would imply that it's normal for ships to sink. I don't believe that using the simple past would have that connotation in English.

There is a mood that can be used for conditionals. Dutch has aangevende, gebiedende and aanvoegende wijs, calques from Latin indicativus, imperativus and coniunctivus, and the last of those can be used for a conditional or some other uses, but it isn't common any more. Usually one uses the past tense of zullen (like English should), which is also used for a future-in-the-past, so where a future-in-the-past is expected, some people may opt for a conjunctive anyway. In fact, in one story I wrote I wanted to be unambiguous and used a future-in-the-past in conjunctive mood, but I never encountered one of those in the wild in modern Dutch. PiusImpavidus (talk) 15:33, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Waret gij in ene tijdmachine gestapt, die U naar de negentiende eeuw had getransporteerd, dan zoudet gij, heelhuidsch in de tijd van bestemming aangekomen, zulke vormen in het wild hebben aangetroffen, in wat toentertijd als hedendaagsch Neêrlandsch gold. ‑‑Lambiam 21:52, 22 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

װאַס ? я тебе не понимаю

不明白啊、、、 130.74.59.100 (talk) 12:50, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Υπάρχει κάτι τέτοιο όπως το Google Translate. ‑‑Lambiam 12:56, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

October 24

Discussion at Talk:Aubrey Plaza § RfC: Do brackets interfere with readability of a direct quotation?

You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Aubrey Plaza § RfC: Do brackets interfere with readability of a direct quotation?. Sundayclose (talk) 15:16, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

October 25

Next night

Is "next night" a phrase in English meaning a night between today and tomorrow, like Finnish "ensi yö"? --40bus (talk) 13:47, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No. We use

"last night" - between yesterday and today
"tonight" - between today and tomorrow
"tomorrow night" - between tomorrow and the day after

But "the next night" would be the night after any particular night that you were already referring to. -- Verbarson ^talk_edits 14:21, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Do English speakers ever say "Next night will be cold", "Hope I sleep well in the next night"? --40bus (talk) 17:40, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@40bus: Not in my version of English. We have a single word for that: "tonight". Bazza 7 (talk) 19:59, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Does English use words "last evening" and "next evening"? In Finnish, we don't usually use words "viime ilta" and "ensi ilta", instead we use words "eilisilta" and "huomisilta". And does English ever say "the day changes" when the clock turns from 23:59 to 0:00, like how Finnish says "vuorokausi vaihtuu" then? --40bus (talk) 18:21, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@40bus: No, for your first question.

The sequence when using "today" as the reference point is:
- yesterday (yesterday morning, yesterday afternoon, yesterday evening)
- last night
- today (this morning, this afternoon, this evening, tonight)
- tomorrow (tomorrow morning, tomorrow afternoon, tomorrow evening, tomorrow night)

Technically yes for your second question, but I can't think of when that phrase would be used. Another more common phrase might be "the start of a new day". Bazza 7 (talk) 20:39, 26 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Last evening" would be understood, but "yesterday evening" would be more common. If the exact time wasn't important, it would be rendered as "last night" (the distinction between evening and night is not always kept). "Next evening" is not common and it would be considered ambiguous between whether that day's evening or the next day's evening is meant. For example, I would understand "next evening" to refer to tomorrow evening. Canadian English. Matt Deres (talk) 14:16, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Answering the phone by saying a phone number

I was reading a german high school textbook for english from 2004 and in a lesson about phone calls they don't simply answer the phone with "hello" or by saying a name but rather by mentioning a city name (presumably where the person answering the phone lives) followed by an area code and the phone number: Cork 0212 574 301. After that the call goes on normally. Is (was?) that actually a thing? I don't remember anyone ever answering my calls like that. The only thing I found is that operators of the phone company did that before dial service was a thing. 188.23.201.207 (talk) 20:12, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It was certainly a thing in the UK. It's what my parents did when I was young and how I remember everyone I rang answering. Seemed to die out about the end of the 1980s. Nthep (talk) 20:32, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How you answer the phone could depend on whether it's at a business or on your home phone. If it's a business, identify yourself. If it's a home phone, give them as little information as you feel like giving. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:30, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm old. Back in the 1950s I was taught to say "Moe 238" with Moe being the name of our local exchange, because the human operator might have stuck a plug in the wrong hole. (They rarely did.) It meant a wrong number could be identified before any further conversation occured. HiLo48 (talk) 22:57, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's how we were taught to answer the phone in 1970's Britain. "Exchange name, number". So I would answer "Camelot 223" (lightly fictionalised to protect the current inhabitants). Before STD you could also ask the Operator for a number in the same way, eg "Whitehall 1212 please". When answering the phone at a business you would say "Universal Exports, extension please?" or suchlike. DuncanHill (talk) 23:11, 25 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In East London, we changed to a fully numeric 7-digit code in the mid-1960s, so instead of saying "Leytonstone" ("LEY" being the exchange name which you dialled using those letters), we said "539" instead. The prefix "01" was used when dialling from outside London, but we rarely quoted that. Alansplodge (talk) 21:34, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In Australia, at home in the 1970s we answered with the 7 digit phone number, ignoring the state code as most calls were local. I think this died out, when phones were able to remember phone numbers and names, as now I can answer "Hi John". At work, I was taught so say the name of the business but not to identify myself. This always seemed impolite. MLWoolley (talk) 10:55, 27 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In the Eighties or Nineties I made some calls to a place in rural England, which were answered “One six five six,” no locality mentioned. —Tamfang (talk) 21:06, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

October 28

Japanese Railway Stations

Is there a resource somewhere explaining the etymology of Japanese railway stations? Some of them seem pretty obscure and only a minority has its origin included in our articles (for example the Warabitai Station comes from the Ainu word Warunpifuru, "hill of ferns"). Thanks! 87.1.58.145 (talk) 12:26, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't they named for place names, mostly? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:27, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Some. Some I believe could be from historical names, from microtoponyms or from poetical references. Obviously I'm not asking about the transparent ones. --87.1.58.145 (talk) 13:47, 28 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the fast majority is derived from a toponym, line Zen Station is located in Kasukawa-cho Zen. Can you give some examples of opaque railway station names? ‑‑Lambiam 09:21, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Some examples are: Abekawa Station, Aimi Station, Aizuma Station, Akagi Station (Gunma), Akagi Station (Nagano), Akasaka Station (Gunma), Akogi Station, Etchū-Daimon Station, Fujiyamashita Station, Gokuraku Station, Ikuji Station, Kitahara Station, Kosugi Station (Imizu), Kurikara Station, Maruyamashita Station, Tennōjuku Station, Tomari Station (Toyama), Yamasaki Station ...87.1.58.145 (talk) 17:56, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Picking one at random, Fujiyamashita Station is actually located at the foot of a "Mount" Fuji, as can be seen on google maps. --Wrongfilter (talk) 18:28, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Gokuraku (paradise): It was named after the former Gokurakuji Temple. When you get off at the station, there is a fun gimmick related to paradise. Card Zero (talk) 15:44, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Picking the first three:

Abekawa Station is close to the Abe River, in Japanese 安倍川 (Abe-kawa).
Aimi Station is located in the Aimi neighbourhood of Koda Town, Nukata District, Aichi Prefecture. The Aimi River runs along the neighbourhood.
Aizuma Station is close to the Aizuma River.

‑‑Lambiam 18:18, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There was a person named after a Japanese railway station Shirt58 (talk) 🦘 02:34, 2 November 2025 (UTC) [reply]

October 29

"Captain" no matter the rank.

I was wondering where I can find the info for a captain of a ship in the United States Navy being called Captain, even if they are below the rank of Captain. (I apologize if this question makes zero sense, I'm writing this quickly at this moment of writing, so I can explain further when responded to) TheClocksAlwaysTurn (The Clockworks) (contribs) 18:04, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's pretty much universal, the commander of a ship is called Captain, even if not formally a Captain. See Captain_(naval)#Etiquette. Our article Captain (United States O-6) says "the term captain is used as a military title by officers of more junior rank who command a commissioned vessel of the Navy, Coast Guard, or National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of patrol boat size or greater." DuncanHill (talk) 21:30, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In Australia, and I think more broadly, James Cook is almost always called "Captain Cook" (the alliteration helps a lot). He did ultimately rise to the official rank of captain, but at the time of his major explorations and discoveries (eg. the east coast of Australia), he was plain Lieutenant Cook. OTOH, Arthur Phillip is mostly called "Governor Phillip" or just plain "Arthur Phillip", even though he did hold the rank of captain when he commanded the First Fleet and established the Colony of New South Wales in 1788. He was later promoted successively to Vice-Admiral, Rear-Admiral, and Admiral of the Blue, but nobody ever remembers that. Go figure. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:16, 29 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Lieutenant Commander Obvious is vastly relieved. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:51, 30 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

November 2

Syndicat and syndic

I was just reading Syndicate and trying to work out exactly what a syndicate is. The etymology section says The word syndicate comes from the French word syndicat which means "administrator" or "representative" (syndic meaning "administrator"). Is that really the meaning of syndicat? I'm inclined to change it to say just The word syndicate comes from the French word syndic meaning "administrator", because so far as I can tell syndicat means "syndicate". Wiktionary has syndicat d'initiative as a dated term for "tourist office", so it seems to have funny shades of meaning, but is "representative" really one meaning? Card Zero (talk) 22:02, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Concern and Konzern

Concern (business) has this enigmatic line: Outside of professionals, the term Group, also mistakenly within the meaning of large companies – regardless of its corporate structure – is understood. This presumably originates from the German article, maybe from Der Begriff Konzern ist deutschen Ursprungs und auch in anderen deutschsprachigen Ländern gebräuchlich. Grundsätzlich aber ist er nicht immer begriffsidentisch übersetzbar. In der englischsprachigen Welt ist concern ＝ „Firma, Unternehmen“ zwar geläufig, gilt jedoch als deutscher Import und wird nur selektiv verwendet. Gebräuchlich ist dort eher die „corporate group“ oder einfach „group“. I'd like to rewrite the English version. But what is it even trying to say? Card Zero (talk) 22:09, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Going off of machine translation, but I agree the English article text should be rewritten, as it makes no sense as is. The German text doesn't mention anything being "mistakenly". It only says that the English word for "konzern", "concern", with this specific meaning, is known in the English speaking world but is somewhat uncommon, and is seen as being an import from German, and that "group" or "corporate group" are more common in English. 76.20.114.184 (talk) 23:16, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The article is tagged with "multiple issues", including "poorly-translated text, needs attention from an expert in business." That tag is from 2009. Maybe in another 16 years such an expert will appear and fix it, but in the meantime I think it would be good for non-business-experts to make some guesses and knock some comprehensibility into it. Card Zero (talk) 23:36, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The oldest version of the English article is a translation of the German article as it was on 27 May 2008. The mysterious reference to "the Banking Act" concerns the German Kreditwesengesetz, so this does not offer a global view. The enigmatic line, in the oldest version, was:

Outside of professionals, the termGroupalso mistakenlywithin the meaning of large companies- regardless of its corporate structure - understood.

This was the attempted translation of:

Außerhalb der Fachkreise wird der Begriff Konzern fälschlicherweise auch im Sinne von Großunternehmen - unabhängig von seiner Gesellschaftsstruktur - verstanden.

Translated, somewhat freely:

Outside of professional circles, the term Konzern is often mistakenly understood to mean any large company, regardless of its corporate structure.

(Compare the definition on Wiktionary of the English term concern: "A business, firm or enterprise; a company.") ‑‑Lambiam 00:01, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. One should perhaps restructure the article so that it opens with the (nebulous) English concepts of "business concern" and "a going concern", and then has a section devoted to the (well-specified) Konzern concept. Card Zero (talk) 01:01, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

November 3

A word to describe myself

Is there a word for someone who loves researching obscure cities and has an intense enthusiasm for local history? —TWOrantula^TM (enter the web) 03:46, 3 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]