Language Overflow

« first day (1600 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (1933 days later) »

AIQ

00:48

Does anyone think this sentence is really weird - "Over the years, however, the program’s intended purpose of safeguarding unemployed workers has fallen far short of expectations."? I think "performance" is the word that needs to go there instead of "intended purpose".

I just don't see how "purpose" can fall short of expectations.

Anonymous

I think it gets the idea across, but it does seem a little weird, yeah.

AIQ

01:05

@snailcar Thank you!

7 hours later…

Martin Sleziak

08:12

Is it "a historical mystery" or "an historical mystery"? I have noticead this question on MathOverflow: An historical mystery : Poincaré silence on Lebesgue integral and measure theory?

Google returns several hits for "an historical mystery", mostly related to translation of a book by Honore de Balzac.

3 hours later…

CowperKettle

11:24

Word of the day: cooking bananas

5 hours later…

ColleenV

15:55

@MartinSleziak I would say “a historical” but “an hour”. Because it’s about the sound and not the letters, and “a/an” are easy to typo, it’s not unusual to see mixed opinions on which ones should be used with “h” words.

Q: "An hour" or "a hour"

Which indefinite article should precede hour — a or an? an hour a hour Does the usage of an vs a depend on the pronunciation — a history, a hobby, but an hour, an honor?

Anonymous

It used to be common not to pronounce the h in historical, so an made sense. It’s typically pronounced these days, so you’d expect a, but some people grew up seeing an historic(al) because it was used in older titles and such, and so they imitate it today. It gives it a bit of an old-fashioned feeling.

M.A.R.

17:05

@MartinSleziak What Colleen and snail said. You can extend this to abbreviations (an MI vs a mathematical induction, I just googled for a math abbreviation that started with an m), or basically anything else, but it's I guess the only consistent language "rule" in English if you judge it right; that is, by the sound it makes and not the letter.

Martin Sleziak

17:20

Thanks for the responses!

M.A.R.

@snailcar Now I can't stop doing it

Martin Sleziak

Since you say that there used to be "an" in the past, probably it's better if I do not edit that title.

I knew that some accents/dialect often omit h at the beginning of words. But I thought that's incorrect usage. WP: H-dropping

Anonymous

17:50

@MartinSleziak Yeah, you can probably leave the title alone. I wouldn't call it wrong, just a holdover from a bygone era.

Anonymous

Compare *an history book and an historical occasion. The /h/ in the former didn't disappear because the first syllable in history is stressed, so people didn't (and don't) say *an history. The /h/ in the latter optionally did disappear for some speakers, which was possible because it wasn't stressed, making both a historical and an historical possible. But these days, most speakers always pronounce the /h/, and that's becoming more and more true as more time passes.

Anonymous

Some people do say an historical occasion, but if you listen, most of them pronounce the /h/, which tells you they aren't saying an because they're dropping the /h/. Rather, they're saying it because they were taught at some point that it was more correct than how they naturally speak, or because they saw it in the title of a respected published work and for whatever reason tried to copy it.

CowperKettle

19:12

Word of the day: asterism

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle Worshiping *?

CowperKettle

Yes

M.A.R.

@CowperKettle \o

Anonymous

19:28

@CowperKettle I tritasterismed your message.

M.A.R.

Every word that uses tri- is automatically awesome

Anonymous

In this case, it was actually trit(o)-, the prefix for 'one third'.

Anonymous

Which is tri-'s lesser known cousin.

M.A.R.

Tri . . . tripo . . . trypto

Nevermind

Anonymous

Nice tri.

M.A.R.

20:22

A: Das ist ja wohl nicht dein Ernst - meaning of particle "ja"

This word is a modal particle. Here on German Stackexchange we already have 80 questions dealing with this part of speech: modal particles on German.SE There is an article about Modalpartikel in German Wikipedia and you also find modal particle in English Wikipedia. In English Wikipedia there is...

@Snail is it really almost unique to German?

AIQ

Hi all. Just wondering if I should ask one question or two questions. I have a problem with sentence A and a problem with sentence B (A and B are both from the same source). The sentences are different, but the problems are quite similar - I don't understand them. Should there be one question with both A+B or should they be separated? I don't want to separate them but I also don't want anyone saying too many questions in one post.

M.A.R.

@AIQ If they have really no connection at all you should try different posts, but IMHO the deciding factor here is how well you'd be able to explain why you don't get them. "I don't understand" is not a question and you should elaborate on what your take is on the sentences and why they don't make sense (in the context or whatever)

AIQ

Oh yes for sure, thanks ...

Anonymous

20:42

@M.A.R. Nah, lots of languages have modal particles. They're all over in Japanese, for instance.

M.A.R.

21:08

@snailcar Mhm, I was thinking about انّ in Arabic

Although I haven't explored this much so I had my doubts

« first day (1600 days earlier) ← previous day next day → last day (1933 days later) »

all rooms