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September 20

Questions

1. Dpes Spanish have an imperative form of verb used with the pronouns él, ella, ellos and ellas? Wiktionary conjugation table for Spanish verbs only lists the pronoun usted and ustedes used with the third-person imperatives, which are identical to the third-person subjunctives.
2. Does German ever use the word bitte with du rather than Sie form of imperative, like Bitte wähl du instead of Bitte wählen sie for "Please choose"?
3. Are there any words in English where ⟨ii⟩ is pronounced /iː/?
4. Does English ever use the word "port" to mean "gate"?
5. Is this correct: "I request that the price is lowered."
6. Is this correct: "Yesterday, I drove through a road that leads from Boston to New York."

--40bus (talk) 21:10, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

1. It feels inherently strange to me using the imperative with anything but second-person. I can't really understand the logic, here. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:06, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

2. Apparently, in modern German there is a small movement that has proposed the form Du (with a capital D) as a variant reasonably polite but more informal than Sie, for instance in smaller businesses. However, both the variants "Bitte wähl Du" and "Bitte wähle Du" get very few Google hits. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:19, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

3. There are some Japanese loanwords such as shiitake, torii, Riichi mahjong and kuchisabishii. Of these, shiitake might be the most widely known. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:30, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

4. See Wiktionary. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:09, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

1. Usted and ustedes are directed to the individual you're talking to. As Wakuran indicates, directing an imperative to a true third person doesn't make sense. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:12, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

In Finnish, there is a commonly used third-person imperative like syököön hän and syökööt he. Similarly in English, there are forms let him eat and let they eat. So, in Spanish, is there a third-person imperative too? --40bus (talk) 04:38, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Who is the speaker "let him/them eat" actually talking to? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:11, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

It's impersonal; commonly a let form translates a subjunctive, as in Let there be light. —Antonissimo (talk) 19:30, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

In "Let him eat", the imperative is "let", directed to the second person. The "eat" is not imperative. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:43, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Yeah, I thought about the sentence "He must eat", but then the implications are rather "You must make him eat". I don't know about the semantics and connotations of the Finnish construction. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:13, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

The Finnish contruction is quite formal and not usually used in colloquial speech. --40bus (talk) 17:38, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I still have trouble understanding its contextual usage. Using "be" in a passive tense, I could see the point of after some thinking. (Like "Right here, we're just existing.") But I don't really understand in which context the Finnish constrution would be used, is it similar to the Spanish Optative Subjunctive mentioned elsewhere? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:07, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

It is quite similar to Spanish optative subjuntive. Eläköön is just like Spanish viva. But viva is not an imperative, whereas eläköön is. --40bus (talk) 04:27, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

3. It does not appear so... except with some proper names, such as the ballplayer Torii Hunter.

5. You could say, "I request that you lower the price."

6. You could say, "I drove ON a road..."

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:09, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

4. 'Port' used to mean 'gate' (as in gate in a city wall) in the Middle Ages. Some British cities and towns whose walls have partially survived call the gates 'ports' or name them individually as, for example, "the Westport." Note that, again as a retention from the Middle Ages and particularly in the North of Britain, 'gate' can actually mean 'street' rather than a potentially closable access point, and sometimes the two senses are not fully distinguished.

5. It is not incorrect enough to be objectionable: personally, I would say "I request that the price be lowered", but I enjoy using old-fashioned constructions.

6. Not in British English at any rate: rather than 'through' it would be 'on' or 'along' or over' (or 'across' (i.e from one side of it to the other at a crossroads, if that was what was intended). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-43920-01 (talk) 22:15, 20 September 2026 (UTC)

(4. About "gate" meaning "street": See also Danish gade and Swedish gata, from the same source as "gate" and meaning "street", but historically or less commonly also used for a passageway and other more gate-like stuff.) TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:39, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, I noticed gata'' in the Swedish names of streets in Helsinki when I visited: I found it easier to navigate using the (to me) more readable Swedish names rather than the Finnish names, because although I don't speak it, being Germanic it's closer to English than Finnish is. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-43920-01 (talk) 13:24, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

It's often borrowed into Finnish as katu, I believe. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 16:53, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

3. Wii TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:46, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

6. If you crashed your car through the surface of that road and got underneath it by doing so, then yes. TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:51, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Earlier this year, not too far from where I live, some people drove their campervan through a bikepath: a bridge couldn't handle their weight. Or when your strong vehicle is too tall for a weak viaduct/bridge over your road and cuts through. Ships do that sometimes. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:25, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

2. It depends on context: In a (semi-)formal context "Bitte wähle Du" would never be used. E.g. it cannot be used for "please choose" in an Internet form, this would be wrong grammar. However, it can be used very naturally when there is an emphasis on "Du" as opposed to someone else. E.g. a dialogue in a restaurant could be like: "Which salad should we choose for sharing?" - "I can't really decide. You choose please" - this would be "Bitte wähle Du" in German. -- Jungleman33 (talk) 07:41, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

1&2: AFAIK (which is limited to some European languages), proper imperatives only come in second person, both singular and plural. Further, proper imperatives tend to come without a subject, even in languages that normally don't allow dropping the subject. But sometimes something strange happens when a third person is reused as a formal second person and requires it's own imperative, like in Spanish, German or Dutch. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:56, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

1:I guess the Optative Subjunctive might be considered what comes closest to an imperative, in expressions like ¡Viva España! or ¡Viva el Rey! (Long live Spain! or Long live the king!) -- Jungleman33 (talk) 11:28, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

2. The imperative singular (just like the plural) in German is used without a personal pronoun: wähl(e) 'choose', gib 'give', mach(e) 'make'/'do'. Weak verbs can have an -e at the end but it can also be left out. Some strong verbs (with vocal change) do not have an -e: miss 'measure', iss 'eat', vergiss 'forget' etc. and the imperative of sein 'to be': sei: Sei [imperative 1] so gut, und öffne [imperative 2] bitte das Fenster. 'Would you be so kind and open the window, please?'

"Bitte wähle du" is possible but only in this form and if someone wants to leave the choice to someone else, - a known person that is a child, a friend, a relative, someone familiar: Bitte wähle du (für mich, i. e. anstelle meiner): saying something like: please choose instead of me. So you could also say: "Sei so gut, und öffne du (nicht ich oder jemand anderes) das Fenster." This is very rare, since the meaning shifts away from 'open the window, please' to I would like you - yes, you and noboby else - to open the windows.--~2026-51048-33 (talk) 11:33, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

The informal/familiar form of the exhortation "Please choose wisely", expressed as "Bitte wähle mit Bedacht", can be found e.g. here: , , .  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:47, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

3. Some speakers in some dialects might pronounce skiing in that fashion, especially if talking fast and not using much enunciation. I could be completely wrong, but it seems to me American Midwesterners and possibly Canadians would be more likely to do this.

4. As others have said, 'port' did used to mean gate, and I will also note this is the origin of the English would 'porter', which occupation, in the Middle Ages, was the gatekeeper at a castle. (Porters still exist but aren't castle gatekeepers anymore).

5. Is technically incorrect, but like the poster formerly known as 87.etc said, not incorrect enough that many would object to it. But the correct conjugation of the verb 'to be' in that sentence would be be, not is. HierophantOfOmens (talk) 11:34, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Addendum 2.: The imperative with Sie can be used for one or more persons. It is a plural: "Öffnen Sie das Fenster bitte." It could be adressed to one particuliar person or to anybody that is in the room. "Sie" implies distance, the speaker doesn't know the adult person or it is someone who is ranked above the speaker (speaker is a child speaking to an adult, employee to employer etc.). The pronoun cannot be left out. If the persons are familiar, well-known - friends, family members, children etc. - then the imperative plural is used without a personal pronoun: "Öffnet das bitte Fenster." "Öffnet bitte das Fenster." (the speaker could be a teacher advising the class to open the window).--~2026-51048-33 (talk) 11:42, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

"Öffnet das bitte Fenster"? Is that correct, or some kind of mistake? The syntax feels very odd to me. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:01, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Indeed. It would have to be "Öffnet bitte das Fenster". ("Bitte öffnet das Fenster" or "Öffnet das Fenster bitte" are possible too). -- Jungleman33 (talk) 12:56, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Just a typo. I wanted to type Öffnet bitte das Fenster.--~2026-51048-33 (talk) 15:06, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

For "Listen y'all!", you can use "Höret Alle!".  ​‑‑Lambiam 20:00, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

But that would be rather old-fashioned or comical because of the /e/. I would say: "Hört mal alle (zu)!" The /e/ was frequently used in Early High German, remaining in use until the 18th/19th century, especially in literature, cf. Goethe, "Über allen Gipfeln ist Ruh / In allen Wipfeln spürest du / Kaum einen Hauch; / Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde. / Warte nur, balde / Ruhest du auch." or "Reineke Fuchs": "Ihr höret so manchen / Höret diesen denn auch." However, this came out of fashion in the 19th century. Today, it can be heard in "ecclesiastical" texts, e. g. the Bible. Thomas Mann wrote this in "Doktor Faustus": "Hört nur den Schluß, hört ihn mit mir" (Th. Mann: Doktor Faustus. Das Leben des Tonsetzers Adrian Leverkühn erzählt von einem Freunde, Frankfurt a. M. 1994, p. 648 [end of chapter XLVI]). Mann also quotes older works (Faust book etc.) or refers to Adrians works. In these quotations you can find the older forms, e. g. "'Wachet mit mir!' Adrian mochte im Werk wohl das Wort gottmenschlicher Not ins Einsam-Männlichere und Stolze, in das 'Schlafet ruhig und lasst euch nichts anfechten!' seines Faustus wenden [...]" (ibd., p. 648)--~2026-51057-80 (talk) 14:35, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

4) Not really. 'Portal' can overlap with gate and 'Porte' exists in a few fixed old phrases.

5) To my American ear it is quite wrong. I would say "I request that the price be lowered" or rephrases it as "I request that you lower the price".

6) No, one does not drive through a road. Prepositions that work include "down", "along", "on", "via", or "by" though they may have slightly different shades of meaning. Eluchil404 (talk) 20:08, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

September 21

Predicting flapping in General American

In General American pronounce /t/ or /d/ as [ɾ] in these patterns:

1. vowel or /r/ + unstressed syllable beginning with /t/ or /d/ followed by a vowel

• city: /ˈsɪ.ti/ [ˈsɪ.ɾi]
• ladder: /ˈlæ.dɚ/ [ˈlæ.ɾɚ]
• party: /ˈpɑr.ti/ [ˈpʰɑɹ.ɾi]
• sanity: /ˈsæ.nə.ti/ [ˈsæ.nə.ɾi]
• editor: /ˈɛ.də.tɚ/ [ˈɛ.ɾə.ɾɚ]
• bottle: /ˈbɑ.t(ə)l/ [ˈbɑ.ɾl̩]
• pedal: /ˈpɛ.d(ə)l/ [ˈpʰɛ.ɾl̩]

Exception: /t/ or /d/ + syllabic /n/ (regional differences may exist)

• button: /ˈbʌ.t(ə)n/
• mitten: /ˈmɪ.t(ə)n/
• certain: /ˈsɝ.t(ə)n/

2. stressed vowel or /r/ + /t/ or /d/ + word boundary + unstressed syllable

• get it: /ˈɡɛt ɪt/ [ˈɡɛɾɪt]
• that is: /ˈðæt ɪz/ [ˈðæɾɪz]
• heart attack: /ˈhɑrt əˌtæk/ [ˈhɑɹɾəˌtʰæk]

3. vowel or /r/ + /t/ or /d/ + morpheme boundary + stressed vowel

• whatever: /wɑtˈɛ.vɚ/ [wɑɾˈɛ.vɚ]
• heartache: /ˈhɑrtˌeɪk/ [ˈhɑɹɾˌeɪk]

Are my rules reliable? Can you think of any counter example? Weltrusten (talk) 09:58, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Speaking from experience in my own capacity as a native American English speaker, I don't believe there are any "rules" regarding "when to flap" vs "when not to flap". The "flapping" that sometimes is the realization of d or t is allophonic, so it is something most speakers are not consciously aware of, and most American English speakers are probably not consciously aware that the phenomenon even exists at all. Further - and this is my own personal opinion - flapping is somewhat a product of a "lazy" kind of speech that is common amongst Americans generally. In other words, it is a kind of "reduction" in phonetics. It is most certainly not phonemic, anyway, and speaking with fully enunciated [d] and [t] sounds at all times in American English would never be considered 'wrong' (and would probably be perceived by most as "better" or more proper speech). HierophantOfOmens (talk) 11:53, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

To clarify, since I kind of mixed up two distinct concepts in that post: there are some allophones in English that actually do generally follow standard "rules", even though most speakers are not conscious that they're doing so (e.g. "light" and "dark" /l/. But flapping of /d/ and /t/ is not one of those, as not flapping for those consonants would not be perceived as wrong/improper. HierophantOfOmens (talk) 12:01, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

I agree completely with the statement "I don't believe there are any rules". The accents come from learned muscle movement, not a mental list of rules for adapting phonics. An example previously mentioned here is the Northern Missouri accent. It is a very rapid form of English to the point that the lower jaw barely moves. As a result, phonics are malformed and you get an accent with "her" instead of "here" and "wursh" instead of "wash." It isn't a mental "When ear finishes a word, use er instead." It is "I'm not going to move my lower jaw enough to fully form the 'ee' in 'ear'." When you add learned cadence to it, you get a complete accent. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 12:02, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

If you believe there aren't any rules regarding when to flap, can you give any counter example to the rules above? I'm not saying there are no regional differences, but it seems to me that most GA speakers do follow those rules in informal speech ~2026-50873-86 (talk) 12:32, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Consider "sanity" as an example. Pronunciation is not based on learned rules. It is based on learned mechanics. You can observe the mechanics of speech and develop complex rules that mostly describe them, but you will end up with an exception, then exceptions to the exception, then exceptional exceptions that occur sometimes and not others. If you drop the concept of phonetic rules and focus on the physical mechanics, pronunciation patterns become easier to understand. I should explain that my opinion is based on acting. Voice coaches don't give you phonetic rules. They grab your jaw and train you to physically move your mouth the correct way for the accent. Once you follow the physical mechanics properly, the accent forms by itself. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 12:53, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

You're wrong. "sanity" is not a counter example. The OP gives it themselves as an example and it strictly follows their first rule: "vowel or /r/ + unstressed syllable beginning with /t/ or /d/ followed by a vowel". Many dictionaries like Cambridge, OALD, OED also say there is a flap in this word: ~2026-50953-00 (talk) 13:20, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

If this mechanical description is truly how it works - and I'm not qualified to argue against it so I won't - then that makes it 100% certain that it causes a fairly predictable change to the pronunciation rules compared to people who don't do it. The chance that such a specific mechanical change could instead cause just random unpredictable sound changes isn't worth considering.

No accent from anywhere can "form itself", though they're usually formed very early in life, without much conscious consideration. And if this accent really had no pronunciation rules, then not only would it be impossible to figure out who was really getting it right, it would even be impossible to tell the difference between native speakers and new immigrants over the phone; "no rules" really does mean that every new immigrant automatically nails the accent on their first day (only because in a no-rules accent there's no such thing as a wrong pronunciation, but still). TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 22:51, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

If you believe there aren't any rules regarding when to flap, can you give any counter examples to the rules above? I'm not saying there are no regional differences, but it seems to me that most GA speakers do follow those rules in informal speech ~2026-50873-86 (talk) 12:31, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

It is true that speakers do not think in terms of phonetic rules but they still exist and can be discovered and studied by linguists. No speakers of ancient Germanic named, or probably even noticed Grimm's Law but it certainly exists and can be stated as an exact rule with all exceptions accounted for with no more complexity than OP's flapping rules listed above. Also, I noticed my own flapping as a child before I studied phonetics or could described phonetically. Specifically I thought of [ɾ] as a /d/ rather than a /t/ sound so that since 'ladder' and 'latter' were both flapped I "said latter with a 'd'". That is in my idiolect [ɾ] is an unnoticed allophone of /d/ but a noticed allophone of /t/. I believe the rules given above are correct for General American. I disagree that flapping is optional in such cases, avoiding it makes one's speech sound overly articulated or hyper-corrected like that of a teacher or second language learner. Actual Americans, of all social classes, and even in formal settings flap all those stops. To not do so is to use a spelling pronunciation that is only natural in slow, hyper-articulated speech as when teaching a new word to a child. Eluchil404 (talk) 17:14, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Wiktionary gives the GA pronunciation /ˈbɑɾɫ̩/ for bottle. It does not give a pronunciation for the phrase pedal to the metal, but mentions pedal to the medal as an eggcorn. I do not see this handled in your rules. Note, furthermore, the nasalized flap pronunciations /ˈkaʊ̯ ɾ̃ɚmɛʒɚ/ for countermeasure and /ˈpɪ ɾ̃əl/, [ˈpʰɪ ɾ̃ l̩] for pintle.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:27, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

Flaps [ɾ] in "bottle" /ˈbɑ.t(ə)l/, "pedal" /ˈpʰɛ.d(ə)l/, and "metal" /ˈmɛ.t(ə)l/ all come from the first rule.

Flaps [ɾ] in "countermeasure" and "pintle" seem to be less common. OED says they use ordinary [t] not flaps [ɾ]. This is also true for words like "winter" or "twenty". We could call it nt-flapping since all those words contain "nt" Weltrusten (talk) 20:21, 21 September 2026 (UTC)

It depends on how you split the unflapped version into syllables. Wiktionary gives [ˈmɛd.ɫ̩] for the pronunciation of medal, and, as I see now, also /ˈpɛt.i/ for petty. Your rule needs [ˈmɛ.dɫ̩] and [ˈpɛ.ti], which seems a sensible syllabification to me but is perhaps not obviously the only valid version. Considering [ɝ] to be a vowel, the issue can be circumvented by rephrasing rule 1 as applying to an intervocalic [t] or [d].

It occurred to me that the first of the two syllables of rule 1 needs to be stressed; AFAIK the endings -ity (as in quality) and -idy (as in subsidy) are unflappable.  ​‑‑Lambiam 19:08, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm not an expert at syllabification, but Merriam-Webster agrees with me. I consider it to be a better source than Wiktionary.

Both OALD, OED, and Cambridge indicate that there id a flap in "quality". I can also hear a clear flap in "subsidy" in the recording from OALD and OED Weltrusten (talk) 08:08, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't think I have a nasalized flap in "counter" or "winter" I am pretty sure that the /t/ is elided completely and the cluster is simplified to just [n] so that "winner" and "winter" are homonyms. Eluchil404 (talk) 20:12, 22 September 2026 (UTC)

Other speakers might have one.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:28, 23 September 2026 (UTC)

(I'm Canadian and have a very distinct full /t/ in "winter", the exact same /t/ I use in "turn". I'm not saying all Canadians do this; I was an early reader and probably have more "spelling pronunciations" than average.) TooManyFingers (he/him · talk) 06:09, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Taking a look the only wikipedia article is the general one on Flapping. This is obviously an area in which more research or at least more wiki writing could be usefully done. I am not a trained expert on English pronunciation but know that most features of my own ideolect are common or universal in General American. I don't think I use [ɾ̃] but I don't doubt that some people do. I have a hard time distinguishing [ɾ] and [d] even though in some dialects of English (and Spanish which I know a little of) they are completely separate sounds and not allophones of each other. Eluchil404 (talk) 17:01, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

September 25

Rail in Sandrail

Where did the name come from, and what does it actually mean? The article doesn't say, and its Talk page has couple of unresolved debates on the matter. HiLo48 (talk) 09:20, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

An answer might be found in the article Front engine dragster: "These early dragsters were nicknamed "rails", due to the frame's longitudinal members (rails) being exposed to view." --Wrongfilter (talk) 09:48, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Long before the sandrail vehicle came along, in Newspapers.com I found the term "sandrail" in reference to a machine used for dredging. Since the term "drag" in drag racing also seems to refer back to dredging, it could be that these terms are all related. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:20, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

A sandrail is literally a rail designed for driving on sand. A rail is a straight-line racecar. Starting in the 1940s, straight-line (drag) racers began reducing car weight by discarding the body parts and replacing much of the frame with straight steel rails. The result was long straight cars with visible rails, so people referred to the cars as rail cars (or simply rails). A dune buggy is classically a Volkswagen Beetle modified for beaches (and deserts to some degree) with fiberglass bodies. Some racers wanted the straight-line racing feel, so they removed the bodies, replaced the frame with straight rails and ended up with sandrails. ~2026-46630-01 (talk) 12:38, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

That sounds credible, but do you have a reliable source for it? I would like to fix the article. HiLo48 (talk) 23:02, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Semantic link between urination and anger

What could have possibly given people the idea to start using "p***ed off" to mean angered, and why is that phrase such a popular synonym for it? – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 14:18, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

It's easy to find the historical record of the usage of the expression. Why people started using it is unattested. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 14:23, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

www.etymonline.com says:

Pissed off "angry, fed up" is attested by 1946 (Partridge says 1937); said to have been used in the military in World War II; in common use from 1970s.

I suspect it may be connected with an early meaning of "pissed" which is being intoxicated (drunken people are often angry), but that's just my guess.

BTW, the exact origin of "taking the piss" is equally mysterious.

Alansplodge (talk) 14:52, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

Why "off"? Surely the command piss off, meaning go away, must have preceded the state of being pissed off. Or it could be by extension from ticked off, which Etymonline says is from World War 1, and has a sense of being summarily ticked off from a list of names and consigned somewhere.  Card Zero  (talk) ※ 13:39, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

User:Card Zero, perhaps related to the slightly earlier and equally curious "browned off", also meaning fed-up. Alansplodge (talk) 12:53, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

There's a connection in Chaucer: He is as angry as a pissemyre. Pismire is a word for ant, because the formic acid produced by the angrier varieties of ant smells a bit like urine.  Card Zero  (talk) ※ 13:33, 27 September 2026 (UTC)

September 28

Scottish Gaelic sentence

I’ll admit I only know about enough Gaelic to get by in basic conversations, but I encountered this sentence on gd-wiki: 'S e An Eala Bhàn òran gaoil le Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna, and it doesn’t look correct to me. Should that be ’S e òran gaoil le Dòmhnall Ruadh Chorùna a ‘th ann An Eala Bhàn? I’m pretty sure that’s correct, but I want to fact check it before I change it and I’m not sure where to ask on gd-wiki. Thanks! Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) 09:06, 28 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't know a word of Irish, but I can confirm that other articles on the Scottish Gaelic Wikipedia (Dàin do Eimhir, Hallaig (dàn), Òran na Cloiche) follow the "’S e definition ann topic" pattern. So this appears to be a more common way. But the opening sentence has had this challenged form since 22 September 2014 after an edit by a gd-3 user who is an administrator with 2,350 live edits, and the article has been viewed over 700 times since then. It has, furthermore, been edited since then by three other users, including a gd-2 user with 982 edits and a user who is a bureaucrat and administrator with 12,600 live edits. If the opening sentence is seriously wrong, one would expect at least some of these to have spotted it.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:24, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

That’s a good point. Thanks, just checking! Cheers, 𝔰𝔥𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔯 ^{(𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔨)} (any/all) 08:26, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

September 29

Irish - Was Dev your unscrupulous friend?

On the website "Documents on Irish Foreign Policy" is the letter of 30 September 1921 from Eamon de Valera to David Lloyd George accepting the latter's invitation to a conference in London. The Irish text is signed "Mise, do chara gan cháim", the official translation gives "Faithfully yours". Google translate, on the other hand, translates "Mise, do chara gan cháim" as "I, your unscrupulous friend". A moment of humour from Dev? Or a cock up by Google? I think we should be told! DuncanHill (talk) 22:42, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

I'm taking a wild guess here that "Dev" is a nickname for de Valera? If that's true you might say so; not all of us recognize it. --Trovatore (talk) 22:49, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

Yes, "Dev" is a nickname for "de Valera". DuncanHill (talk) 23:02, 29 September 2026 (UTC) I suspect that anyone who speaks Irish would recognise it. DuncanHill (talk) 23:11, 29 September 2026 (UTC)

I speak not a word of Irish, but I understood it instantly from context. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 03:44, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

I don't speak any Irish at all and I'm going at this piecemeal without any claim to complete accuracy.

Mise is just the emphatic form of "I" or "me".

Wiktionary's definition of do, under etymology 3, explicitly lists do chara as meaning "to/for a friend" (do means "to/for" and gets combined with a lenited dative, chara is the lenited form of cara which is such a dative and means "friend".)

Gan cháim appears to be the phrase causing issue. Google pointed me to a couple of examples of this phrase, one in a blog about a hymn composed by Father Peadar Ua Laoghaire and another in an Irish language forum discussion of a book entitled An Mám ó Dheas. The definitions given in these posts are "flawless" and "guileless". It seems that gan triggers lenition, and the unlenited caim derives from cam meaning "crooked", so the meanings naturally derive from idea of something being without crookedness.

As to how this could become translated as "unscrupulous" is unclear; there might be a term similar in spelling to caim which has the complete opposite meaning of scrupulousness, or it might just be that Google Translate does was not trained on a large enough Irish corpus. GalacticShoe (talk) 12:30, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

September 30

English tenses

Does English ever say: ”Yesterday, I drove on a road that leads from Boston to New York.”? Or should it be: ”Yesterday, I drove on a road that led from Boston to New York.”? --40bus (talk) 06:00, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

You could use either one. The one with "leads" sounds a little more natural to me (because presumably the road still leads there) but the one with "led" sounds slightly more "technically correct". See sequence of tenses for a more in-depth discussion. --Trovatore (talk) 06:07, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

I concur with Il Trovatore. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:29, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Arguably "...leading from Boston to New York" would sound more natural, but I'm not a native speaker, anyway, and the sentence feels a bit strained to begin with. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:15, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

Given the choice between the two, the first sounds more natural. But a native speaker would probably say just "I drove from Boston to New York". The "on a road" part seems superfluous. Like, what else I drive on? The sidewalk? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:31, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

You could have entered the road at Framingham and driven as far as Sturbridge. You might choose to describe it as "a road that leads from Boston to New York" if the point you were making was about how distances along that journey are signposted.

As to the tense usage, in statements like this you should use the past tense if the fact you're citing might have changed, but if you don't believe it would have, then it's common to use the present tense. "Yesterday I was told that Boston is (or was) the capital of Massachusetts", but "Yesterday I was told that it was raining in Boston." --~2026-52517-31 (talk) 16:18, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

I sometimes get irritated when, for example, science fiction contains a phrase like The Galaxy was a very big place. —Antonissimo (talk) 22:02, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

If the entire work is narrated in the past tense from the point of view of one of the characters (as is common), then it would be more natural to phrase it so. Using 'is' would transform the narrator into a timeless omniscient observer, which is also a possible mode, but the two cannot usually be mixed, unless the participant's narration is embedded within a framework of that of the omniscient observer. However, if the observation about the galaxy is made in some character's quoted direct speech, 'is' would be fine in all circumstances.

In the context of science fiction, 'the Galaxy' could, of course, refer to one that no longer exists. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-41275-62 (talk) 23:14, 30 September 2026 (UTC)

If the Galaxy has ceased to be a very big place within the lifetime of the narrator, I want to know why. [The poster formerly known as a minor irritant] —Antonissimo (talk) 00:40, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

When I was young, the village I grew up in was a very big place. Now, having travelling the world, I see it is among the humblest of humble hamlets.  ​‑‑Lambiam 06:06, 1 October 2026 (UTC)

The only other (theoretical) possible way to drive between Boston and NY without the road is the train. However, I don't think people can drive trains for recreational purposes and that there are limits on how long train drivers can work without a pause (similar to HGV/bus drivers). Its why train drivers don't drive between London and Glasgow/Edinburgh, but rather Preston/Newcastle, at least not without a pause. JuniperChill (talk) 10:58, 3 October 2026 (UTC)

Yes. If you had driven a train, you would say you drove a train, unless driving trains in general was already a subject under discussion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:48, 3 October 2026 (UTC)