The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.
I tripped over this quote in a cognitive science paper ([1]):
When sensory inputs are constant, a well-tuned perceptual prediction system will adhere to the old adage about weather forecasting – “tomorrow will be the same as today” – and will be correct in this prediction.
What they're trying to say is clear enough, but calling the quote an "adage about weather forecasting" feels a bit off. Do you recognise it as an adage, or maybe part of one?
In searching for the expression, I found a teacher's guide for an environment curriculum saying, "In predicting weather, predicting that tomorrow will be the same as today is known as a persistence forecast, and it is generally correct more than half the time." By searching Google Books for the expression plus the word persistence, I found a bunch of things about weather forecasting that contain the expression and explain ways of refining a prediction beyond the persistence approach, such as this. So it does appear that it's an "adage" familiar in the weather-forecasting community. Deor (talk) 16:06, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, okay. Meteorology's null hypothesis, basically. That makes plenty of sense. Thanks!
There are a few cases where the number 0 is routinely pronounced as "oh", as if it were the letter O. Phone numbers and postal codes are the most obvious examples: .... 4036 is usually said "four oh three six". Even in those cases, we might say "zero" rather than "oh" if we want to ensure it's not misheard as "eight".
But there's a new one creeping in: "Carlton is now oh and 3 for the first time since 2019". This means that Carlton has lost the first 3 matches of the season and its running tally is 0-3. I've heard this a few times now.
Where else do we ever refer to the single number 0 as oh? 1 minus 1 = oh? Nope. Even in other sporting results, such as the current score in a particular match, it's "13-nil", never "13-oh".
I think this "oh" is common in more contexts than you're admitting, Jack. In the Who's song "905", the lyrics are "My name is nine-oh-five ...". (There used to be a chain of liquor stores in my area with the same name—from the address of the original location, as I recall—and it was always called nine-oh-five.) The obsolete Boeing aircraft was always a seven-oh-seven. James Bond is Agent Double-oh-seven, not nought-nought-seven or zero-zero-seven. And here in the United States all the baseball sportscasters, in addition to usages like "oh and three" or "seven and oh" for a team's record, also use "oh and two" and "three and oh" for balls-and-strikes counts and "He was oh for four today" if a batter has no hits in four at-bats. It seems rather common to me and probably based on whatever is euphonious and understandable in the context. Deor (talk) 20:03, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Deor, I'm just waiting for the day when some commentator says "They've won oh games so far this season". That would be "euphonious and understandable in the context", and since anything is fair game these days, it's only a matter of time now. -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]18:37, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Presumably, the main reason the number 0 isn't pronounced "oh" when it's on its own is to avoid confusion - with the word "oh" or the letter O or whatever. The presence of other numbers lessens this risk sufficiently that the use is deemed unproblematic. Extending this to multi-number phrases with a pattern like "[number] [conjunction] [number]" makes sense to me.
How about in arithmetic expressions? "One plus oh equals one", "two minus two equals oh"? Probably not, that could be the letter used as a variable...
Are house numbers in English-speaking world read as respective cardinal numbers such as number 12288 as "twelve thousand two-hundred eighty-eight" like cardinal 12,288? Or are they read just like phone numbers? --40bus (talk) 21:44, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Off the top of my head, I'd say they're conceptually numbers, not strings of digits like phone "numbers". But in practice, they're not necessarily prounounced quite the same way as regular numbers, but use the more "streamlined" patterns that are also used for years. So "1600" would be "sixteen hundred" rather than either "one six double oh" or "one thousand six hundred", "1666" would be "sixteen sixty-six", and so forth.
As for the UK: good question! It is so rare to have street numbers greater than three digits that I don't think there is an "official" line. The highest house number in the UK is 2679 Stratford Road, Hockley Heath: the very last numbered house in the West Midlands before you cross the county boundary into Warwickshire. (Stratford Road (i.e. Stratford-upon-Avon) is the old A34, now the A3400, which is continuously named as such all the way from the Warwickshire boundary to The Middleway, Birmingham's inner ring road, and is built up with houses, shops etc. the whole way. It is unusual for an urban road to bear the same name for such a long distance, hence the rarity of high house numbers.) At a guess, I would think it would be spoken as "two-six-seven-nine Stratford Road". Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!)22:28, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Hassocks5489: what, so are houses numbered consecutively starting at 1 or something, then? In the States, four-digit numbers are common in ordinary suburbs, and five digits in urban areas. But of course they aren't consecutive and don't start at 1. Just because there's a 2904 Yew Lane doesn't mean there's a 2903 or 2905; the closest might well be 2884. And there might not be any Yew Lane house below 2316 or something.
@Trovatore: Yes, invariably numbering starts at 1 and continues until the road name changes. It is usual, but not universal, for odd-numbered houses to be on one side and even-numbered houses to be on the opposite side, but the numbering is still consecutive. Incidentally, If a building (say, a large individual house) is demolished and new houses/shops/whatever take its place, they will typically take the number of the old building, suffixed by a letter. For example, if 11 High Street stood between 9 and 13 High Street but was demolished for 3 new houses, the latter would typically be numbered 11a, 11b and 11c High Street. You occasionally come across something like e.g. 55½ High Street, but this is unusual. Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!)19:39, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It depends on where in the US, fwiw. A lot of streets in older (by US standards) cities have building numbers that start at 1 and go up to the hundreds or thousands. (And a few do also have oddities like fractional building numbers.) -- Avocado (talk) 19:54, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
But British highway numbers commonly include four digits, like the B1408 in Colchester for a random example, and I believe that would be proncouned with "fourteen oh eight" just as we North Americans would pronounce 1408 in a street address or apartment number. --142.112.221.85 (talk) 02:14, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't say "B fourteen oh eight". I normally speak each digit, except for:
two-digit numbers ("A sixty-five")
three-digit numbers ending in 00 ("A five hundred") and optionally those ending in 0 ("A six five oh" or "A six fifty")
four-digit numbers ending in two or three zeros ("A one thousand", "A sixty-one hundred") but not normally those ending in one zero ("B three one four oh").
When I've talked to others about this, people have told me that they use forms like that for some roads that are local to them, particularly if they start "10" (eg "A ten eighty-four") or end with a zero ("B sixty-three forty") ColinFine (talk) 13:28, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like the general lesson here is that it doesn't take many digits til one gets to the point where there are so many options, and where the way speakers, usually subconsciously, pick one of them gets so complicated, involving competing preferences at various levels, that making firm predictions about how a particular numeric sequence is going to be pronounced by a particular speaker gets borderline impossible.
For a (part of a) phone number or a postal code, I'd pronounce that as one-two-two-eight-eight. As a house number, probably twelve-two-eighty-eight. (American here.) -- Avocado (talk) 00:23, 8 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The very interesting Word Histories site (a blog, but it cites its sources very well) has an article here which goes into detail about the phrase. Essentially it has 1940s rhyming slang origins, and is also used in Australia. (I'm British and am only familiar with its use here. I admit to using the phrase quite regularly myself!) Hassocks5489 (Floreat Hova!)20:04, 28 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It was a joke. She was just the first (of several) Nellie Duffs I found. I doubt very much there was a real Nelly Duff intended in the phrase. DuncanHill (talk) 21:46, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I keep listening to it over and over, but I don't understand German, even when I've taken some German courses on DuoLingo.
So what do the lyrics sing in English? And is there an English-language track of this same song uploaded elsewhere on YouTube, SoundCloud or anywhere else?
Oh well, that's a kind of vocabulary difficult to find in translation dictionaries. Ätsch is a taunt word, it's not the kind of English vocabulary I'd be familiar with but from what i can see "neener" could fit (a typical situation: You expected to beat/trick me but I got ahead of your game and now you're the loser). And for "Pustekuchen" - it's also somewhat taunting in the sense of "we/you were expecting something but the outcome is absolutely zero". Ätsch would typically be used by children, while "Pustekuchen" could be used sarcastically by adults. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 14:15, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The English Wiktionary has the longer form ätschibätschi, said to be an extended form of ätsch and defined as: "(childish or humorous) Used to taunt someone and express joy over their misfortune, especially if it is the speaker's doing or to their advantage; na-na na-na boo-boo".
The English Wiktionary has no entry for Madita, but the German Wiktionary defines Madita as a female given name, originally introduced by the translator of Astrid Lindgren's novel Madicken (1960), whose Swedish title is the Swedish nickname of the (fictional) main character, Margareta Engström, reappearing in later books. The TV series is after the books. ‑‑Lambiam22:06, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The Swedish lyrics might be found here; [5]. "Pilutta dig" ("Pilutt on you") is a made up nyah-nyah taunt, but apart from that, the lyrics aren't more complex than a web translator could handle. (My German is a bit passive, and I have trouble following spoken German without written out German subtitles.) 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:53, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well so yes overall we may be dealing with a direct translation of the song lyrics. On the other hand, I would not call the few words we're dealing with here as a literal translation. One Swedish taunt phrase has been replaced by two German taunts. Based on what the web says, "Pilutta" is a new word invented by the author, Astrid Lindgren. In German, "Ätsch" is more of a taunting sound-forming word. While "Pustekuchen" is more metaphorical, pusten means to blow, to puff and Kuchen means cake. I am not sure when and why the use of Pustekuchen first occurred, it may well have to do with its closeness to Pusteblume, a colloquial expression for dandelion clocks. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 11:07, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
This upbeat Iraqi Arabic military song - can someone please translate the title & lyrics?
Google Translate turns the caption into "Republican Guard Anthem -- From the Heritage of Saddam's Qadisiyah". (The cryptic name "Saddam's Qadisiyah" was a propaganda name for the Iran–Iraq War, trying to draw on the heroic repute of the historical battle of al-Qadisiyyah.) ‑‑Lambiam21:33, 30 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a particular reason why, in Japanese, the vertical stroke in 飛 is written before the throw and vertical-throw? Typical Japanese stroke order "rules"/patterns would suggest that the latter two be written before the vertical, and indeed the component kanji 升 these strokes form is written with such a stroke order as is the whole character in Chinese. I'm far from an expert in this area, but insofar as I have studied most of the jōyō kanji I am yet to encounter/cannot recall another case in which any section of a character is written right-to-left like this. Are there any other such cases? Are there examples in Chinese stroke order, and/or are there other Han characters where only the Japanese stroke order does this? (fugues) (talk) 10:44, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Courtesy link: Vowel diagram#IPA vowel diagram with added material. As I understand it (possibly wrongly), this partly arises from the actual anatomy of the mouth cavity, with the tongue (whose positions greatly effect the vowels being made) being able to reach positions further apart at the cavity's top than at its bottom.
The idea is shown in this image. Personally, I don't think my tongue is more retracted for sounding an /a/ than an /i/, but this may be atypical. ‑‑Lambiam12:48, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Physical correspondence of the vowel trapezoid with a formant plot Besides the physical correspondence with the anatomy of the vocal tract and the tongue position, i.e. articulatory phonetics, there is also a physical correspondence in terms of acoustic phonetics. The acoustic equivalent of the front-back distinction in vowels is the F2 formant. Formant differences between a typical [i] and [u] are larger than those between a front [a] and a back [ɑ]. If you look at a formant plot, like File:Catford formant plot.png, you will see that it corresponds quite closely with the shape of the IPA-style vowel chart. Fut.Perf.☼13:20, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In English, abstract nouns tend to be paired with adjectives using the same root: competence/competent, clarity/clear, persuasiveness/persuasive, objectivity/objective, and so on. What is the adjective paired with "integrity" (using the same root)? ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 18:21, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Next to integrous, Wiktionary also gives integrious and integritous. In Latin, integer is an adjective, literally meaning "untouched", a literal meaning it shares with intactus, but it more commonly means "whole". Figuratively, it can mean "honest", "not corrupt", "having integrity". The latter figurative meaning is the meaning of the identical Dutch adjective integer, first attested in 1873, either a backformation from the noun integriteit, or a learned loan directly from Latin. ‑‑Lambiam23:33, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The adjective integer with that meaning exists in German too. Not to forget the Romance languages, like intègre in French and integro in Spanish. Only in English it seems to have drifted away. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 07:19, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
íntegro is the Latinate form. The inherited form is entero ("whole" among other meanings).
Maybe it's a relatively neologistic back-formation from in-TEG-rity, but certainly Down Here it's normal to hear tv journalists talk of something being in-TEG-ral to something, never IN-teg-ral. That's reserved for the mathematical term, which is probably spawned from the adjective but has become a noun in its own right. -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]17:56, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's just weird that English doesn't have a commonly used word for that concept. I can't think of a single other case. I somewhat often need that word and have to use several words instead. Offensive to my goal of concision. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 12:05, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not really. Honest is the only one of those three that even comes close. And it doesn't quite get there; there is more to integrity than mere honesty. For example, keeping one's word is part of integrity but not honesty. Adhering to a principle even when it doesn't serve your purpose to do so is part of integrity but not honesty. Paying your bills is part of integrity but not honesty. And so on. Honesty just means truthfulness, and any other use would be misuse.Virtuous has age-old connotations about sexual conservatism, particularly as applied to women. Elizabeth I was virtuous; Anne Boleyn was not. ―Mandruss☎ IMO. 18:05, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Another case is "standing in solidarity". There is an adjective solidary, but this is not commonly used. French, German and Greek all have adjectives with this sense that are in common use ("Nous sommes solidaires avec ...", "Wir sind solidarischmit ...", "Είμαστεαλληλέγγυοι με ..."). ‑‑Lambiam12:34, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that languages conduct themselves by comparing themselves to other languages, seeing what usages they have that we should also have, and adopting them. Look at the third person singular personal pronoun for the indeterminate gender (he, she, it, XX), and its possessive counterpart (his, her, its, XX). Many people have noted that we lack a word for the situation where the gender of the referent is irrelevant, or we have reasons not to specify it. Some other languages do have such a word, and various suggestions have been made for English counterparts, but despite that, our language has not yet seen fit to follow suit. We have to say such monstrosities as "A child will conduct himself or herself appropriately. He or she will open his or her exam paper only when told to". Or use "they", "their", etc. Neither solution is ideal, but that's all we have to work with, short of restructuring the message to eliminate the pronouns, which may seem like too much hard work for very little payback. Conversely, English has useful features that many other languages lack, but they don't look like taking their marching orders from English any time soon. The advent of global communications has meant that a great deal of language change has occurred quickly, that otherwise may have taken centuries, or never happened at all. But there are still plenty of holdouts manning the linguistic barricades, defending themselves from incursions by feelthy foreigners. -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]17:47, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Manning" — I see some are also still holding out against the rampaging woke mind virus that is destroying our ability to express ourselves and thereby the very fabric of civilization. ‑‑Lambiam10:05, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe you are being ironic but calques and loanwords are literally "languages conduct[ing] themselves by comparing themselves to other languages".
And speaking of English, Anglicisms are other languages "taking their marching orders from English".
In English, are months in dates ever read as their ordinals, such as today's date the first the fourth? In Finnish, it can be read as ensimmäinen neljättä along with ensimmäinen huhtikuuta. --40bus (talk) 07:33, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I do not believe so, unless you get into bulky expressions like the first day of the fourth month. In German the answer would be yes (Erster Vierter Zweitausendfünfundzwanzig) but I am not aware whether this is the case in other languages. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 08:01, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You do hear this occasionally (although always with "of" between them: your example of simply "the first the fourth" does not sound like English to me), but I think mostly when the year is also included, e.g. when stating a date of birth ("the first of the fourth, sixty-three"). This is in British English; in American English I'm not sure whether it works because dates (other than 7th July) are generally spoken as "April first" rather than "the first of April", and I can't imagine anyone specifying today's date as "fourth first". Proteus(Talk)08:51, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Use of ordinals with dates in the US is extremely rare (barring "4th of July"). I hear people give their birthdates in the format "nine, fifteen, eighty-six" or give the current date as "four, two" (remember that US usage is month-day-year), but I have never encountered the style you mention. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:12, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm gonna disagree with you on that. In the States, today's date is normally said "April second" (possibly occasionally "April the second" though that sounds stilted), practically never "April two". --Trovatore (talk) 19:58, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What might the Esperanto word firmaanooiupj mean? I encountered it at eo:Helpo:Oftaj demandoj#Kio estas Vikio?. It looks like a compound including firmo'company' and ano'member', which would make sense in context (something like "in a company's wiki, only firmaanoiupj may edit"), but I can't figure out the rest of the word. I don't think word-final "pj" obeys Esperanto phonotactics and Esperanto grammar, so maybe it's a typo of firmaanooiuoj? But that results in a sequence of five vowels, so I'm not sure. jlwoodwa (talk) 21:50, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Could it be a typo for firmaanoj iuj "some company members" or a similar phrase? Google translate has no problem rendering the sentence as "There are many wikis, for different purposes; for example, in a company wiki, usually only company members are allowed to edit." Firmaanoiupj doesn't look like a well formed plural Esperanto noun to me but my Esperanto grammar is quite basic. Eluchil404 (talk) 22:10, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was curious who wrote it, so I checked the page's history. The edit simply added extra letters to the word firmaanoj. Probably just vandalism then. That's disappointing. jlwoodwa (talk) 22:27, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is there actually a specific part of Edinburgh (any more?) where all the men, women and children have that same accent as Sean?
Was talking to a friend of mine from Glasgow who said he's never heard another Scottish person who sounds like that in his life, but that he's not been everywhere. He agreed that it would be hilarious if there was a little corner of the world where everyone was like "shurely shome mishtake, mishter". 146.90.140.99 (talk) 13:38, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The lisp aspect of Sean's accent is particular to him, though doubtless other individuals with his regional accent also have a lisp. {The poshter formerly known ash 87.81.230.195} 94.2.64.108 (talk) 18:50, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Once the name of vending machine restaurants was settled to be "automat", all of the automats were retroactively branded automats. So, if I look at an article on automats from 1900, they will all be called automats. But, the word wasn't in use at that time. What was the name of automats before the name "automat" was settled upon? I asusme there were multiple names floating around and automat was just one of many. I also expect it to be a German word, not English. But, I am having difficulty finding a reference because all articles I find use the current terminology, not the original terminology. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 13:47, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That does not appear accurate. I fully agree that "automat" is short for "automaton." But, I doubt that vending machine restaurants were ever called automata. Nobody ever said, "I'm hungry. I'll pop on down to the automaton and get a sandwich." I feel that "automat" is a word adopted after the popularity of automats caught on. The original ones wouldn't have used that name. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 15:39, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The articles Automat and Quisisana (the German company that introduced the concept in 1895), and the documentation of the first photo in both articles, certainly implies that that company used the term from the outset (and why not – Germans were no worse Classicists than anyone else). My German is not great – does the German Wikipedia article provide any more definite information? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.64.108 (talk) 16:03, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
A larger version of that photo of the Quisisana automat in Vienna is on Commons: File:Quisisana Austria Kärtnerstraße.jpg. (Poster formerly known as: It appears to me that much of the German WP article was just translated from the English one. No, I take that back. Since that the same two editors seem to have been heavily involved in the development of both articles, they were probably developed in parallel. In any case, the German one doesn't contain anything of consequence that isn't in the English one.) Deor (talk) 16:29, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. This helps. Now, I have a new task. When I lived in Germany (1977-1991), "automaten" was strictly used for "vending machine." Did it mean vending machine in the 1890s or is it that the meaning of the word changed to match what it was being used for? I think I am going down a rabbit hole I don't want to explore. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 16:32, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That is basically where this whole mess began. I was tasked with finding origins of the use of "automatic" in advertising in the 1950s. Everything was automatic at that time. I found it in German advertising, which made me think of automats which made me go back to see when automats became known at automats, which ended up with this thread of inquiry here. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 16:58, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Far earlier: Here's a reference for usage of "automaton" in 1784. [12]. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 17:27, 4 April 2025 (UTC) PS: And in German from 1789: (Mehrere Schriftsteller hatten ihre Muthmassungen über diesen Automaten bekannt gemacht) [13][reply]
There is no argument that "automaton" was once a popular word for what we now call "robot." I feel that there are two threads here. One is delving into the origin of the word "automaton." That is known. It goes back to automatos in Greek. The second thread, which is based on the question posed, is the use of "automat" (not automaton) referring specifically to a restaurant made up of vending machines. In German, the word "automaten" is used to refer to vending machines themselves (even just one vending machine, not necessarily a building full of them). It appears that the introduction of the automat at the World's Fair called it an "automaten buffet", which would be a "vending machine restaurant." Then, as the concept spread, automaten was shortened to automat. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 18:09, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
1. Automat is not limited to vending machines in German, and has never been. My links above show that, and they show that even in the late 18th century it was no longer used as a loanword (automaton) but had been adapted into the language. 2. Automaten is not a different word. Automat is nominative singular, while Automaten can the dative, accusative singular or pretty much any of the plural cases. In the composite Automatenbuffet (note there is no space in-between in proper German), the -en- in the middle could be either just a connection ("Fugenlaut") or it could indicate the plural form (i.e. there are multiple automats in the place). -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 19:12, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As is shown by the images here, the Quisisana location in Vienna was called either, on the building and on one of the tokens, "Automaten Buffet" (two words) or, in the newspaper clippings, "Automaten-Buffet" (hyphenated) or, on the other token, "Automatenbuffet" (solid). Deor (talk) 20:29, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Though that is specific to English, and as the entry says, it may have been taken from prior usage in German, which is what the OP is interested in. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.64.108 (talk) 00:30, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Note: I am translating German words to English so this makes sense. Words in quotes are the translations. I found German interviews with the founders of Quisisana. While they referred to the restaurant as "automatic," the public called it "vending machine." Another interview, it is explained that "food vending machine" was on the bottom of the sign on the restaurant, so people called the restaurant itself "vending machine." It was a matter of weeks before the concept opened in other countries (because it was shown at the World's Fair previously) and the German use of automat was being used as meaning a restaurant containing food vending machines. So, to answer my original question, the term automat was popularized immediately and the use of automatic restaurant did not catch on. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 01:15, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I discovered an issue of translation. Where I grew up, "vending machine" means "a machine you can use to get something without interacting with a human." A snack machine is a vending machine. The token booth is a vending machine. A cash changer at the car wash is a vending machine. An ATM is a vending machine. But, I found that others grew up with vending machine referring strictly to food-type items like snacks and drinks. When I lived in Germany, if you saw a sign with the word "Automaten" on it, it meant that there is some machine there you can do stuff with without interacting with a human. To me, that is a vending machine. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 17:34, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I was just thinking that it is weird to say "I've found her". Found her what? What did you find that she owns? I wondered why it isn't "I've found she" and then realised that for males, you say "I've found him". You don't say "I've found his" (equivalent of "I've found her") which was strange. Then I realised that for males, there's "he, him, his", but for females it's only "she" and "her". Why is there three for males but two for females?? And how have I only just noticed this? ―Panamitsu(talk)01:45, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"He" and "she" are subject pronouns. "Him" and "her" are object pronouns. "His" and "hers" are possessives. However, "her" also serves as a possessive. So it's dual-purpose. To find out why, you'd have to look into the etymologies. I'm fairly certain this question about "her" and "hers" came up a few years ago. Maybe someone could find that discussion in the archives. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 02:19, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is not quite clear how the present English system developed. Old English made no distinction between possessive determiners (in Modern English my, thy, his/her/its, our, your, their) and possessive pronouns (mine, thine, his/hers/its, ours, yours, theirs). Modern English introduced the distinction (see Middle English § Pronouns); as Middle English was not a unified language but a collection of dialects with no strong centre, for most forms several variants have been attested. Just for modern her, we have Middle English hire, hir, hyre, hyr, ire, ir, here, her, ere, er, heyre, heore, hare, hure, hur, hurre and huere. In Middle English, we find, for modern hers, versions with ⟨s⟩ (hires, hyres, hirs, hyrs, hirres, hyrres, heres, hers, hereys, heores, hures) and without (hire, hiren). The most likely is that the ⟨s⟩ was added as the "Saxon genitive", just as for its from it + -s, by analogy to other forms. (The insertion of an apostrophe for nouns is a later invention.) Since his already ended on an ⟨s⟩, it was spared this fate. ‑‑Lambiam06:03, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Looking up Wiktionary, apparently the merger of the genitive and dative goes back to Old English. It is the same in Old Dutch. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:46, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You think that’s confusing? We have exactly one word for the definite article "the". It’s used for all genders, numbers and cases. Simples.
In German, however, it’s stupidly complicated. Firstly, there are 6 different forms of the word: das, dem, den, der, des, die. But wait, there's more! The way each word is used in any gender/case/number combination is unpredictable if logic is your guide.
das: neutral nominative and accusative
dem: masculine and neutral dative
den: masculine and plural accusative masculine accusative and plural dative
der: masculine nominative, feminine dative and genitive, and plural genitive
des: masculine and neutral genitive
die: feminine and plural nominative, and feminine and plural accusative.
One might think that this would lead to teutonophones avoiding the minefield, and not being specific about anything but preferring to speak in vague terms. Yet the opposite is the case: exactness and certitude are the (at least stereotypical) hallmarks of the German ethos. -- Jack of Oz[pleasantries]18:12, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Is "historicopous" the correct spelling of this term for trigger finger, and if not, what is the correct spelling? I saw this word listed at our entry on Trigger finger and found only a few Google hits for it. I am skeptical that this is the correct spelling, because a noun would end in -us, not -ous -- unless the O were pronounced separately, as in Cabassous. A Google search for the next obvious spelling, "historicopus", has not turned up anything either. 2601:644:4301:D1B0:643F:95BF:431:1282 (talk) 20:40, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect it's just a piece of vandalism that slipped through and entirely made up. It was first inserted by an anon IP editor in 2016, without an explanation and under a false edit summary [15], and then moved from the lead sentence into the infobox by User:Doc James in 2017 [16]. Doc James is of course a competent and good-faith editor on medical articles, but this one may well have slipped his notice. @Doc James: maybe you can comment here? Fut.Perf.☼21:36, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Pub names says: "Pig and Whistle: a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon saying piggin wassail meaning "good health"." Is this really true? There is no source given there. Thank you. 205.239.40.3 (talk) 10:36, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Some further discussion here. Piggin/ Pig and wassail would rather mean "drinking container (i.e. cheers), good health", but it's likely a folk etymology, anyway. [19]惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:38, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure that article link is very helpful, sorry, as it says nothing about the origin of the name. Looks just like random promo/advertising. But the other sources are very interesting, thanks. I don't see much about Anglo-Saxon there. 205.239.40.3 (talk) 11:54, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Question about various fear-related compound words
I realise that this may be unanswerable (or at least have no answer beyond "language development is arbitrary"), but I'm wondering if there is any explanation for this pattern (or rather lack of pattern) that I've noticed:
We have several words relating to fear or similar emotions: fear, dread, fright, awe.
We have several compound words formed by combining these with suffixes -some, -ful, -ed.
But there is inconsistency in how these are used:
Fearsome and awesome are common words, but dreadsome and frightsome are rare/dialectal (most dictionaries I've looked in don't include them, although my browser spellchecker at least does recognise them, unlike "frighted").
Dreadful, frightful, and awful all mean "causing fear/fright/awe" (or more loosely "bad"), but fearful usually means "experiencing fear". (I was taught that the latter only means experiencing fear, and is incorrect to use to mean causing fear, although having checked the dictionary I see that both are valid, and indeed the original usage was consistent with fear/fright/awful).
"Feared" and "dreaded" refer to something that causes fear or dread, but "frighted" and "awed" refer to something that is experiencing fright or awe.
Which suffixes can be combined with which words is generally entirely idiomatic and not governed by some rule. Something can be diresome, but it can't be *awfulsome. It can be bleaksome and drearisome, but not *palesome or *drabsome. There is no logic to it.
As is the case with much of modern English's illogicalities, this is mostly a consequence of its complex historical development. The Romance languages, for example, all descended from a single progenitor (Latin) over a similar span but in different regions, resulting in some local consistency, but regional differences due to linguistic drift and influences from different non-Romance neighbors.
By contrast, English was formed within Great Britain following the Sub-Roman period by the merging together of the several different Germanic languages (Anglic, Saxon, Jutish, Frisian, Frankish, 'Danish' and probably etc.) of the continental migrants and later, which though sometimes close to mutually intelligibility had already accumulated many differences since diverging from their Proto-Germanic origins. This merging was not orchestrated by literate scholars (who somewhat controlled Latin, which continued to live alongside its developing vernacular offspring), but by the general populace who came up with their own ad hoc choices from and modifications to this goulash of tongues, including a 'Column A/B/C' approach to pronouns. Throw in minor Celtic influences (Brythonic, Welsh, Cornish), Latin from the Church and from later proscriptive philologists, and imposed Norman-French from the most recent invaders, and the grammatical result is a working but illogical mess of pottage. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.194.109.80 (talk) 16:09, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved
