Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 June 16

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June 16

antonyms

looking for antonyms of "control"68.151.25.115 (talk) 04:52, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

You've been provided links to thesaurus websites in your prior questions about antonyms. Are these sites not giving you the answers you want? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:39, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Louis Pierre Vossion

Can someone help me translate the handwritten texts in this image? Please place in the image description as well. Is Louis Pierre Vossion in the assembled group?--AlohaKavebear (talk) 06:24, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

- Îles Hawaï - Mgr Gulstan Ropert, des Sacrés-Coeurs de Picpus, est depuis 37 ans dans les îles. Il fut l'ami du R.P. Damien, martyr. - L'évêque catholique d'Honolulu - le doyen des Missionnaires (58 ans dans les îles). Le chef de la Division Navale du Pacifique et l'Etat-Major du Croiseur Français Duguay-Trouin, Nov. 1898 - (L. Vossion (?) Consul de France (?). Akseli9 (talk) 06:49, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Wrong ship - must be French cruiser Duguay-Trouin (1873) for which we have no article. Rmhermen (talk) 12:01, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

No, Louis Vossion is not on the picture. Perhaps he's the one who took the picture? Akseli9 (talk) 06:54, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

The name of the file is "Documents iconographiques rassemblés par Louis Pierre Vossion", i.e."pictorial documents assembled by Louis Pierre Vossion". So, the picture may simply have come into his possession in his role as French consul. --Xuxl (talk) 12:35, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

"centralized" antonym

i often hear "decentralized" computing etc. but isnt there an antonym to "centralized" without using a prefix?68.151.25.115 (talk) 10:48, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

"Distributed"? Fut.Perf. ☼ 10:54, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

"Dis-" is a prefix. Rojomoke (talk) 11:53, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Not in its English usage. Distribute comes from the Latin distribuere, where the dis- is a prefix (meaning "asunder"). But in English you can't knock off the prefix and have a sensible verb - to tribute, anyone? Phil Holmes (talk) 14:54, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

How about "localized"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 12:39, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Or regionalized. SemanticMantis (talk) 14:33, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

See: Distributed computing — 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:8C81:A23:E9F2:E55E (talk) 15:42, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "eighth"

In everyday speech, we simply say it to rhyme with faith. However, a few Wikipedia articles say that this word is property pronounced with a t+th. Any sources saying that this is still the standard pronunciation?? Georgia guy (talk) 18:59, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

I don't have sources to hand, but I can certainly report that I pronounce it /eɪtθ/ even in fast speech. --Trovatore (talk) 19:12, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Ditto on pronunciation. I checked four dictionaries, all giving /eɪtθ/, none giving /eɪθ/. I'm not sure I've ever heard /eɪθ/. -- Elphion (talk) 19:33, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

(added) American Heritage gives both pronunciations. -- Elphion (talk) 19:39, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Wiktionary gives both for the US but not for Britain. Loraof (talk) 20:14, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

The only pronunciation I have commonly heard in England has the t+th sound. If I heard it as ryming with faith, I would assume that someone with a lisp was trying to say "ace" Wymspen (talk) 20:01, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

• Must be a regional thing. I only pronounce it to rhyme with faith. (I grew up in upstate New York and upstate South Carolina.) Loraof (talk) 20:14, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

The only pronunciation I have ever heard in America has the t+th sound (U.S. south central, southwest, midwest, west). —Stephen (talk) 20:20, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Here in the UK, only /eɪtθ/ is correct (per OED). No-one would rhyme it with faith unless they had a speech impediment or possibly were speaking very quickly. Dbfirs 20:46, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

(Detroit) I also pronounce it the "t+th" way. However, note that it may not be easy to hear the diff, so that if somebody hears it in childhood as just "th", they may start to say it that way, especially before they see how it's spelled. Same with similar words, like "heighth" (although "height" is more formal). StuRat (talk) 21:54, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

There is no such word as "heighth". Height is not simply formal, it's the only version. Unless you're an American, and then anything goes. Akld guy (talk) 22:24, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Actually, some Cockneys say ""heighth" - it's used in A Clockwork Orange (the book): "dressed in the very heighth of fashion" . But you're correct, it's incorrect. Alansplodge (talk) 01:04, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Being from Detroit, that would make me a 'merkin. :-) StuRat (talk) 22:50, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Do you even comprehend what you were attempting to do? That is, mislead the unwitting reader not proficient in English that "heighth" is merely an alternative to the correct "height". You are either an uncaring idiot or one of those Americans bent on perverting everything in the rest of the world to the American way. I strongly suspect you are not an idiot. So stop with the misleading. There are rules in English. Your localized perversion used by a tiny fraction of the world's population is no substitute for what the rules of English say. Akld guy (talk) 03:14, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

So Americans may make up a small percentage of the world's population — but something close to two thirds of native English speakers. That said, "heighth" is not standard in American English either, so even if we did want to make the world speak AmE, it wouldn't include "heigth". --Trovatore (talk) 07:42, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

I did not include all Americans in "tiny fraction of the world's population". Did you take the time to read what I wrote and ponder it for a moment or two, or just jump to a kneejerk defensive reaction? Akld guy (talk) 00:15, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

It may not be standard in the UK these days, but the OED gives it a British history going back to the 13th century:

c1290 S. Eng. Leg. I. 266/190 Fram þe eorþe heo was op i-houe þe heiȝþe of fet þreo.

Later examples cited:

1667 Milton Paradise Lost viii. 413 To attaine The highth and depth of thy Eternal wayes.
1673 J. Ray Observ. Journey Low-countries 76 Stakes or Poles of about a mans highth.
1809 J. Roland Amateur of Fencing 22 It depends on the person's heighth.
1890 J. D. Robertson Gloss. Words County of Gloucester Hecth, height.

--Antiquary (talk) 09:05, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

And on checking the British Newspaper Archive I find they break down the number of hits for heighth like this:

1700-1749: 58
1750-1799: 685
1800-1849: 1101
1850-1899: 1310
1900-1949: 610
1950-1999: 23

Difficult to draw statistically meaningful results from that without knowing how many newspapers they looked at in each period, but at any rate it looks like heighth was not too uncommon in British English up to the early 20th century. --Antiquary (talk) 09:40, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

And I find over 5 million Ghits for heighth. Far less than height, but still rather significant usage. That, along with the historic usage, would seem to qualify it as a "variant, now chiefly AmE". StuRat (talk) 12:26, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Am I correct in saying this is the only English word where "th" is pronounced /tθ/? -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 01:48, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Don't know, but no counterexample comes to mind. Actually I can't even think of another example of the /tθ/ cluster, with any spelling. Seems like it ought to be spelled eigtth. --Trovatore (talk) 02:22, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

If you mean with minimal departure from current standard spelling conventions, it should be "eightth"... AnonMoos (talk) 02:54, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Whoops, right. I thought something looked funny but couldn't find it. --Trovatore (talk) 03:23, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Naughth?--Wikimedes (talk) 15:01, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

While the words width and breadth are spelt with -dth, I think the pronunciation is /tθ/. —Stephen (talk) 22:25, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Where I come from, the "d" in those words is enunciated. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:28, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Agreed, who says "with" and "breath" for those words ? StuRat (talk) 12:23, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Probably the same ones who say "strenth" instead of "strength". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:31, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Regardless, even if these words were spoken that way (which they're not), this would not be a counter-example for my question. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 20:53, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

True. For that matter, how many English words end in "hth"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:01, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

The answer appears to be 13, with 9 of them being words ending in "eighth" and the other 4 being non-standard spellings as discussed earlier. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:10, 18 June 2017 (UTC)

Joining the chorus: We do not rhyme it with faith in Western Canada, either. t-th is it. Mingmingla (talk) 02:10, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Midwest: we say eight-th, although we've heard eigh-th in some regions. We also sometimes hear height-th rather than height, but that's considered a hick expression. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:40, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

• I, an AMERICKAN, and say eight-th, but I have heard eith. 14:57, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

---

By the way, "eighth" is pronounced as if spelled "eightth", while "Matthew" is pronounced as if spelled "Mathew"... -- AnonMoos (talk) 09:53, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

Now, that is an interesting observation. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 11:24, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

The origin of Matthew/Mathew may help. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:30, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

"Here in the UK, only /eɪtθ/ is correct (per OED)", says somebody above. I don't think that the OED is designed to be, or should be, used in this way. The OED doesn't purport to be a guide to how all non-trivial British groups of L1 English speakers say words both deliberately and rapidly. I think I say /eɪtθ/ but I wouldn't be at all surprised if an analysis of my actual output revealed that I sometimes said /eɪθ/. As for other words with the /tθ/ cluster, I suspect that my commonest pronunciation of "width" is /wɪtθ/. I'm not even sure that a true [wɪdθ] is possible for monoglot L1 English speakers; but the distinction (if any) between relevant allomorphs of /t/ and /d/ can be problematic. More.coffy (talk) 05:04, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

The OED gives the standard pronunciation. If there was a widespread alternative, it would be stated there. I agree that there are wide regional variations in pronunciation of many words, and that consonants might often be omitted in rapid speech, but the OED is generally considered to be the authority for those who wish to use standard English. I don't use OED pronunciations for my local dialect, but I do for more formal speech. Like you, I struggle to pronounce width as /wɪdθ/ (though I do try). The OED does allow /wɪtθ/ as an alternative for those of us who tend to unvoice the plosive. Dbfirs 08:21, 22 June 2017 (UTC)