User talk:Æ&Œ

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User:Æ&Œ
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Welcome to the discussion page of Æ&Œ. Users may also refer to him as ‘Seth.’

English /s/ vs /z/

Hey Seth, can you help me? I want to know if there’s a rule to predict whether a word final s is pronounced /s/ or /z/ in English. Why does is have /z/ and us /s/? — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 02:32, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Na maioria vasta de casos, é quando um termino termina‐se com um consonante vocal (b, d, g, j, l, m, n, r, v or z) ou uma vocal, é /z/. Penso que há um fenómeno quando um /ə/ ou um /ʌ/ (u) ultimo significa que a s é silencioso. is se pronunciava silencioso até o sigilo XV. Está esse prestável? --Æ&Œ (talk) 02:52, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Sim. Obrigado.

maioria vasta → vasta maioria; termino → termo; um consoante → uma consoante; consoante vocal → consoante sonora; vocal → vogal; ultimo → último; a s → o s; silencioso → surdo; sigilo → século; está esse prestável → está prestável ou está esse(a) something prestável. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 03:11, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Wow, that was terrible. At least I was comprehensible…I think. --Æ&Œ (talk) 03:13, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Don’t worry about it. The first mistake is excusable, since Portuguese normally has the adjective follow the noun. Surdo and sonoro are phonetic terms, I doubt most native speakers would know what’s the correct term. Getting the genders correct is something that takes time. To get things like that last clause correct you will have to spend years reading stuff until the notion of what’s correct and what’s not is “carved” into your brain, and you might never be as good at it as a native, no matter how much you try (like I never know when to use on, in or at). Vocal and ultimo are minor mistakes. That leaves you with termino and sigilo as the only “major” mistakes. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 03:32, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Labouratory

Hello Æ&Œ,

First let me remark that I have no experience in editing Wiktionary, so I seek your advice on this.

I just came across your entry for labouratory, which describes it as "Alternative form of laboratory." I notice that around the same time you added a lot of "ou" variant spellings, but mostly indicated they were rare or obsolete. I believe one of those qualifiers should be added to "labouratory." Possibly both of them.

The claim that it is a variant spelling raised my eyebrows a little, so I did some checking. It is not listed at all in several reasonably large dictionaries that I have consulted. I note that most "ou" vs. "o" variants occur in words imported from French, which does not appear to be the case for laboratory. It was coined from whole cloth from laboratorium, and its etymology never involved a "u".

Googling gets 38,000 hits; a small number, but admittedly not microscopic. However on checking the first few dozen of those, none give any confidence that this is a variant spelling rather than an error. About 40% of these hits are a single "ou" spelling in an article that otherwise uses "o": suggestive of a typo, "thinko", or the depredations of a misbehaving spell-chequer. Of the remainder, the great majority are evidently written by non-native English speakers. These are mostly Nigerians as it happens, but also quite a few Indians, and also much East Asian advertising material. (I am not going to accept a "variant spelling" from someone who offers me "labouratory equipments ... to help yuo perform ...", or whose offerings of "labouratory" supplies includes those for "filteration" and "plastcs".) A few are written by native English speakers who have generally poor spelling.

The sole instance I have found that resembles an actual variant spelling is Staffordshire pots and potters, which quotes the spelling from a 1693 ledger entry by a potter. That would be entirely unconvincing except that this potter happens to have held an M.A. from Oxford.

The prevalence of Nigerian usages of "ou" had me wondering about other languages, so I checked on Google Translate for every language that I could read (i.e. those that use Roman, Greek or Cyrillic alphabets). Unfortunately, Google doesn't offer Igbo. However in none of the rest is the "ou" spelling used. All of them either use a different word entirely, or stick to something very close to the Latin (indeed, "laboratorium" itself is by far the most common.)

All pretty thin stuff to say that it is anything but an error. At any rate it is certainly rare, and as a modern, intentional usage by an educated native speaker it is either non-existent or extremely rare.

Thank-you for your time and consideration. -- 203.20.101.203 01:56, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I considered it justified as an acceptable spelling since it is more consistent with the related term labour, but standardness need not be consistent. Given its extreme rarity amongst modern native Anglophones, you are correct that it is not an easily acceptable alternative. There is only one real citation available before the 19th century on Google Books. I do not feel quite comfortable marking it as rare since I usually reserve that for terms with less than one hundred results, and am not sure if it is really notable as on obsolete spelling, so ‘common misspelling’ seems O.K. to me, which I shall go change it to now. If you have any objections or comments you may let me know at any time. Thanks for the message, it’s definitely the most interesting one that I’ve had in a long time. --Æ&Œ (talk) 04:55, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Woe art thou!

Eu ia postar isso em WT:REE, mas como você gosta de coisas arcaicas, ei-las para ti, se quiser. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 01:38, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

Penso que é melhor dizer «woe is [pronome obliquo]» pra a consistência. --Æ&Œ (talk) 09:03, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

*pissio

I think that it should be *piscio based on the descendants that are listed. —CodeCat 22:29, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

*pissio seems to be an acceptable spelling regardless, but it could be a degenerated form of *piscio. We could change pissio to an ‘alternative form of’ style entry and move the bulk of content to piscio. --Æ&Œ (talk) 22:35, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

But why would it need to be -ss- at all? I think all of the languages that do have -ss- have a regular sound change -sc- > -ss- anyway, so there is no difference. On the other hand, Catalan has -sc- > -x- but not -ss- > -x- so only -sc- fits it. The same for most of the others. —CodeCat 22:37, 9 June 2013 (UTC)

Well, because I based the form on etymologies that I found in entries. (See Special:WhatLinksHere/Appendix:Vulgar_Latin/pissio) --Æ&Œ (talk) 22:40, 9 June 2013 (UTC)