Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 May 21

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May 21

The NATO phonetic alphabet is prescriptive, not descriptive

Can anyone tell me exactly what this means?? I'm used to these adjectives as dictionary descriptions. Prescriptive dictionaries tell only the definitions of words perceived as proper; descriptive dictionaries tell all the definitions of words people actually use. (In my experience, most dictionaries fall in between these 2 descriptions.) But how do these terms describe the NATO phonetic alphabet?? Georgia guy (talk) 16:33, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

That phrase doesn't appear in our article, so there's no way for me to take context into account, but it seems pretty straightforward: the codes used are prescribed (i.e. you have to use the ones provided or you are using them incorrectly) and not described (i.e. the set you see was not built up of what users were already found to be using and you may choose to follow or not follow it). Sorry, maybe I'm misunderstanding your question. Matt Deres (talk) 17:27, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps (I'm guessing) someone wanted to contrast the sense of phonetic alphabet as used in the name "International Phonetic Alphabet" with that used in "NATO phonetic alphabet". Someone familiar with both, not knowing how the name Slough is pronounced, will be helped by the IPA transcription /slaʊ/. To them, this transcription describes the pronunciation. The NATO phonetic alphabet is not informative in this respect; it does not describe pronunciations. If that is indeed what is meant, it represents a limited viewpoint. We can help someone desiring to know how to write the name of this little town by spelling it out as Sierra Lima Oscar Uniform Golf Hotel. The NATO phonetic alphabet describes spellings. IPA transcriptions are not informative in this respect.

Neither alphabet is prescriptive in the usual sense of that term. Some organizations prescribe the use of the NATO spelling alphabet for spelling purposes.  --Lambiam 06:52, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

In other words, "NATO phonetic alphabet" is simply a misnomer. "NATO spelling alphabet" would be a more accurate name. — Kpalion^(talk) 14:55, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Even more accurate: "ICAO spelling alphabet".  --Lambiam 06:19, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

occupation-derived names

is there a term for the name trend that includes swimmer's ear, tennis elbow, plumber's crack, etc.? — Arlo James Barnes 19:00, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

An eponym variation? — 136.54.106.120 (talk) 19:21, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

I don't know a name for such compound terms with an occupational epithet, but here are a few for your collection:

• baker's dozen
• baker's itch
• banker's dozen
• banker's lamp
• banker's ramp
• barber's block
• barber's clerk
• barber's itch
• brewer's droop
• bricklayer's itch
• builder's bum
• builder's mug
• builder's remedy
• builder's tea
• businessman's LSD
• businessman's lunch
• butcher's apron
• butcher's bill
• butcher's broom
• butcher's mourning
• butler's assistant
• butler's steak

— Lambiam 08:31, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Occupational eponyms. — jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 14:04, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

"Businessman's lunch" reminds me of "Merchant's Lunch", a strange song well-known to fans of the Red Clay Ramblers or Austin Lounge Lizards... — AnonMoos (talk) 21:05, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Another: "washerwoman's beetle" (type of mallet to assist in handwashing clothing). And ploughman's lunch. — Arlo James Barnes 21:55, 28 May 2024 (UTC)

And let's not forget the everso jolly Miners' lung, Trumpeter's wart and Housemaid's knee (although I think that last one no longer qualifies you for Universal Credit). Martinevans123 (talk) 10:04, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

English article

Words such as user and union begin with vowel letter but with consonant sound. Are words like year and yellow also such words? Does English consider letter Y to be vowel?--40bus (talk) 20:09, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

English considers y in year and yellow to be a consonant, in rye, city it is a vowel, see Y#Vowel. TSventon (talk) 20:28, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

And yet the sound of it is a semivowel, as is w. Even so, "a year" is easy to say, whereas saying "a hour" involves a slight glottal stop, a habit to which most of us are not accustomed. Actually I take that back, Glottal_stop#Before_initial_vowels says that we are accustomed to it, maybe that's why I'm calling the effect "slight".  Card Zero  (talk) 12:22, 25 May 2024 (UTC)

• This has nothing to do with the English article, despite your title.
• Kids are typically taught about vowels as being letters, and nothing else. And that there are exactly 5 of them (A,E,I,O,U), and no more. And that every word has at least one of them. That mash of misinformation gets them so far, but then trouble strikes when they consider words like my, fly, shy, hmm, shhh etc. Where's the missing vowel?, they cry. Then they're told that the Y substitutes as a vowel, but it's really not a vowel at all. And that hmm and shhh are not even words to begin with, just sounds we make - except they appear in dictionaries, so ... let's just pretend that's not so. Again with the misinformation.
• What they should be told is that vowels are sounds first and foremost, and that we have created a wide array of letters and letter combinations to represent those sounds. Most of the sounds can be represented using the iconic 5 letters we're taught as children, but there are some cases where extra help is required. Such as pity, my, fly, cry etc. Pity has 2 vowel sounds, which we represent using a I and a Y. In this case, Y is a vowel letter, exactly like A or I or O. In year and yellow, Y is a consonant letter, as it is in most other cases. So Y has a dual role. Even W is sometimes a vowel letter, as in cwm (borrowed from Welsh but now accepted as a Scrabbleworthy English word).
• I'm sure a case could be made for some other consonant letters to be considered vowel letters in some circumstances. Take hi - that's pretty straightforward. But what about high? Is it that the vowel is I, and the G and H are just silent letters? Or is it that the entire set of IGH is a vowel letter-combination? Or is it that each of I, G and H are vowel letters? Hmm. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:27, 21 May 2024 (UTC)

JackofOz -- It does have to do with the indefinite article (the distribution of the forms "a" and "an")... AnonMoos (talk) 03:30, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I am so bored to see "a year", "a unit", "a European", "an hour", "an MRI", "an S" etc., since "an year", "an unit", "an European", "a hour", "a MRI", "a S" etc. would be better as the first three begin with a vowel letter and the last three with a consonant letter. In Hungarian, definite articles a and az are determined similarly to a and an, but there are no words in Hungarian that begin with vowel letter but consonant sound. It would be better if English articles were determined by grammatical gender rather than this. --40bus (talk) 05:32, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Unit and European are examples of words that begin with a vowel letter but a consonant sound. Whether something is considered a vowel for a/an purposes depends, as I stated above, on the sound, not the spelling. The initial sounds in year, unit, and European, are consonant sounds (y), hence they take a, not an. The initial sounds in hour, MRI and S are vowel sounds (the h is silent in hour, and the initialisms are spoken letter by letter (em-, es-). Hence they take an, not a. Comparing this feature of English with Hungarian or any other language would seem to be somewhat unproductive, imo. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:31, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I am truly sorry to hear that the particular features of the English language, having occurred through centuries of evolution, would bore you. 惑乱わくらん Wakuran (talk) 09:30, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Wakuran, I truly share this feeling with you. –Austronesier (talk) 18:38, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I am more than sorry, I am pissed off. 40bus has a habit of asking about why certain languages (most often English) do things and speaking about how they wish that it was done some other way (often saying that it "should" be done another way). It is rude and arrogant. If 40bus has such a dismissive opinion of English, they are welcome to stop using it. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 10:37, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Maybe he's not bored enough yet. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:16, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

40bus -- I am of course distressed to learn of your emotionally fatigued state, but "year" has always begun with a consonant sound in the English language, and "hour" with a vowel sound. It's only the spellings which might indicate otherwise -- and in fact, in practical terms, the spelling of "year" is NOT very ambiguous, since "y" is almost always a vowel letter only in Greek words and word-finally (and in a very few other cases, such as to distinguish "dyed" from "died", or also as the second element of visual diphthongs, if you want to count that). "Year" doesn't look much like a borrowing from Greek, and the "y" is not at the end of the word, so that the "y" letter is unambiguously consonantal there. And when there was a diphthong sonority shift from [iw] to [ju] in early modern English, this did not happen for the purpose of inconveniencing speakers of other languages, or giving them material with which to spin conlang reform fantasies. English spelling as we know it today is the result of historical relics caused when spelling did not change after pronunciations changed, and also due to conflicting influences and tendencies being accommodated within the same system; if you can't handle that, then best not to bother with English (or restrict yourself to the spoken language only)... AnonMoos (talk) 09:34, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Sadly, there's a growing tendency for young persons to say things like "In this box is [sic] a apple, a orange, a apricot, a abacus, a octopus, a elephant, a ultra light aircraft, a imitation diamond, a upper molar, a intrepid explorer, and a expired library book". (This may not be an actual quotation, you understand.) If newbies to the language copy such atrocities, as newbies are wont to do, heaven knows where it will all end. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:53, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

It is the logical continuation of the n-dropping that started when people ceased to properly articulate an bōc, an cū, mīn cyningdōm for an hors, and so forth, and began to say a book, a cow.  --Lambiam 22:53, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

In my euphonious world, ugliness is never logical. The world I'm forced to live in against my will is populated by creatures with tin ears and hollow hearts and mashed brains. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:23, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

The "rule" governing the use of a vs an is (apart from the "phonologically deviant prestige construction" of an historic and the like) is completely independent of written English. It is acquired by English-speaking children before they begin to learn to read. ColinFine (talk) 09:47, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I got confused when I saw an historic, but apparently it's a native variation, rather than a prescribed form. 惑乱わくらん Wakuran (talk) 10:28, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Yes: older/traditionalist BrE speakers use 'an' before 'h-' if the word is not stressed on the first syllable – so "a history lesson" but "an historic occasion". Usually the 'h' is barely pronounced at all, so the latter may sound like "an 'istoric occasion".

Then again, some varieties of informal/"lower class" accents/dialects drop the initial 'h' of all words, and therefore use 'an' before them. This is characteristic of, though not confined to, Cockney.

I myself do the former in written and formal speech, and the latter in informal speech. 94.2.67.173 (talk) 17:15, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I knew about the Cockney 'abit of "dropping the aitches". I would assume there's been jokes about Cockney speakers hypercorrectingly saying stuff like "a hour", as well. 惑乱わくらん Wakuran (talk) 17:45, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

There's a gag in My Fair Lady where Higgins tries to get Eliza to sound the h's in the sentence "In Hertford, Hereford, and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen." She repeats it as "In 'ertford, 'ereford, and 'ampshire, 'urricanes 'ardly hever 'appen." Deor (talk) 18:00, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Google finds this in an 1892 novel:

"What queer Henglish these Yankees speak! It's not Queen's Henglish, such as we native Londoners use at 'ome, my darlink." [1]

However, I lived in East London for the first 50 years of my life and have never heard anybody speak that way. Alansplodge (talk) 18:49, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

I have heard some Italians speaking English and randomly dropping or inserting aitches, though... 惑乱わくらん Wakuran (talk) 21:55, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

What a mistake-a to make-a! DuncanHill (talk) 23:24, 22 May 2024 (UTC)

Notes