Category: English

If only. No, it’s a novel elliptic construction (drop the copula and subject, by default, including an expletive subject: because reasons = because there are reasons). The form Wellington Mendes reports, because wow, is a straightforward analogy. But the function, meaning, and phonetic content of because has not changed: it’s still a conjunction. Its scope […]

I’m OP, and the question isn’t mine. The question in details is my third cousin’s, Manny Sfendourakis’. Let me explain his question, and then go to the more general answer. The Nicene Creed refers to the Christian Church as “one holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church”. Catholic back then meant just Universal. Of course, you call […]

Thanks to Robert Charles Lee for his answer. The one grammatical difference I’ve noticed is that British English allows do next to auxiliary verbs as a pro-verb; Australian English does not. So Did you ever see the Pope? can be answered I haven’t done in British, but only I haven’t in Australian. Answered 2016-10-25 [Originally […]

Any Goddess of Barley in Greek would be named for the Greek for barley: alphi. That derives from proto-Indo-European *albhi- , and Albanian elp is a cognate. Albion is the Celtic name of Britain, which survives as the Gaelic for Scotland, Alba. Its cognates are Welsh elfydd < *elbid ‘world, land’ and Gaulish albio– ‘world’. […]

*Looks at profile of OP Tia, hoping for a hint* … You’re Australian, and in fact live on the same train line as me (my wife used to live in Berwick). Well, shit, Teah, that doesn’t help me at all. You’re Australian, so that name could be from anywhere. 🙂 Let’s think. Names ending in […]

Not that I know, but there’s a region of the South that does a stereotypically Canadian thing. The stereotypically Canadian thing is Canadian raising: pronouncing the diphthongs /aɪ/ and /aʊ/ as /ɐɪ/ and /ɐʊ/ before voiceless consonants. It’s the thing that Americans make fun of, by saying Canadians say aboot instead of about. Canadian raising […]

Peter J. Wright is correct that it is [dɪsˈeinia], but doesn’t explain why. And I knew he was right, but I also confirmed that the first -a- in the Greek word ἀνία is short. So is the first -a- in the Greek μανία. So why is it a long a? Traditional English pronunciation of Latin […]

Thanks to posters, and in particular those I agree with 🙂 — Lee Ballentine, Sng Kok Joon Leonard. Some answers brought up how the word was coined, so I went to the Oxford English Dictionary. As it turns out, the entry for Chinaman has not been updated yet, and Google Books was if anything more […]

Depends. Recent country names are carried across from whatever the country is calling itself, without much alteration: Bhutan, Nepal, Senegal, Angola. Neighbouring countries that England had close contact with traditionally would have the most diverse names—mainly based on what those countries called themselves, but looking Germanic, and not made to be consistent. Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, […]