Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language - Wikipedia

Per Wiktionary, it's pronounced: /θi.əˈloʊd͡ʒən/. The same is true for its pronunciation in the audio of GoogleTranslate. But Wiktionary (mentioned above) also gives a (single) audio, pronouncing: /θi.əˈloʊd͡ʒiən/, unless I don't hear well. Are both forms recognized as a native pronunciation? ~2026-22374-78 (talk) 17:43, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. I think of /θi.əˈloʊd͡ʒiən/ as kind of a spelling pronunciation, but it's pretty common. Pronouncing it that way would not mark you as non-native in my experience. Matt Deres (talk) 18:21, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I think of /θi.əˈloʊd͡ʒən/ as a slightly lazy pronunciation of /θi.əˈloʊd͡ʒiən/: my copy of the (Compact) Oxford English Dictionary (1971 edition) gives the pronuciation as Þīolō^u'dʒiān. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-76101-8 (talk) 20:04, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I trust any pronunciation that doesn't include a single schwa . Matt Deres (talk) 20:28, 13 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

OED gives /ˌθiːəˈləʊdʒ(ə)n/ thee-uh-LOH-juhn and /ˌθiːəˈləʊdʒiən/ thee-uh-LOH-jee-uhn for British English, and /ˌθiəˈloʊdʒən/ thee-uh-LOH-juhn For American. I have to say the "ee-uhn" pronunciation sounds to my ears like someone has never met the word before and is guessing from the spelling. DuncanHill (talk) 22:49, 13 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Guessing the pronunciation of a word from the way it's written? What a crazy thought! — Kpalion^(talk) 10:04, 15 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Particularly for such a common word as "theologian". 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:52, 15 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

OK, well what I should have said is "guessing without being aware that the i modifies the preceding consonant rather than being pronounced as a distinct vowel, as in mathematician, politician, and pronunciation". Like the j in Swedish sjö. DuncanHill (talk) 13:48, 15 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In Finnish, the following constructions are commonly used when talking about temperatures:

• Lämpötila on viisi astetta lämmintä/pakkasta. (lit. "The temperature is five degrees warm/frost.")
• Lämpötila on viisi astetta nollan yläpuolella/alapuolella. (lit. "The temperature is five degrees above/below zero.")
• Lämpötila on viisi astetta pakkasen puolella. (lit. "The temperature is five degrees below freezing.")
• On pakkasta. (lit. "It is frost.").
• Pakkanen lauhtuu/kiristyy. (lit. "Frost becomes milder/tighter.")
• On plusasteita/miinusasteita. (lit. "There are plus/minus degrees.")

Are there any equivalent constructions in English? Some of these would not work when using Fahrenheit scale, where the zero point is not the feezing point. --40bus (talk) 19:50, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The second and third examples are standard - if slightly stilted - English. We wouldn't normally use "warm/cool/cold" directly with a numbered temperature and "frost" is not the correct word. We use adjectives to modify temperatures in cases such as where wind chill or humidex impacts the experience: "It's a muggy 35C out there". In English, "frost" refers to what's covered in the article; it's not an adjective or adverb. "Frosty" would be used: "It's frosty out there!". Your fifth example is so different from English I'm not certain what's being conveyed. "Tighter" has no meaning to us when describing temperature. Finally, we might say that "It is minus two outside" or "It is plus five out there", but we would not use the multiple "there are" and we'd omit the degrees as it's normally unambiguous. Matt Deres (talk) Matt Deres (talk) 20:12, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In UK weather forecasts it was and is not uncommon to hear an expression such as "There will be five degrees of frost", meaning a temperature of 5 degrees below freezing. Now this means a temperature of minus 5 degrees centigrade: in years gone by it meant (as everyone understood) a temperature of 27 degrees Fahrenheit, which is of course not the same as -5C. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-76101-8 (talk) 20:30, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It does go to show that online, when reading comments, I sometimes have to check whether the channel is from the US or not, so that I have an idea whether they using C or F (or the date format). When I see temps over 50, then I assume its in F. I was so shocked that Americans could survive 100 degrees every day in the summer, until I realised they measure temperature differently and that its 37,8c. Same with different measurement systems, date formats, paper sizes, etc. JuniperChill (talk) 21:25, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Fahrenheit is the American system I have most troubles wrapping my head around. It's both that the degrees are smaller, and the zero level is different. The date format is of course fairly easy to understand, but it still leads to frequent mix-ups. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:50, 13 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, 95.6 % of the World is out of step with the US 4.3% (plus the 0.08% comprising the Bahamas, Belize, Liberia, the Cayman Islands, and Palau, which also still use Fahrenheit). {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-76101-8 (talk) 18:55, 13 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Fahrenheit's finer gradient gives it an advantage over Celsius. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:10, 13 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this an advantage? I doubt if anyone human can directly sense a difference of as little as 1 degree Fahrenheit, and if fine gradations are needed, either scale can employ decimal fractions of a degree. Scientists always, and engineers most of the time, use Centigrade because it integrates with all other SI units.

Being old, I grew up in the UK (and Far East) using Fahrenheit for everyday temperatures, especially weather (though Centigrade for science, etc.), and still need to convert C to F in my head (trivially easy) to know how an air temperature will feel, but that doesn't mean I think F is in any way 'better'. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-76101-8 (talk) 22:22, 13 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

How does Celsius integrate with other SI units? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:43, 13 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It's elephantly described in the article International System of Units... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:09, 14 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

How is Celsius dependent on grams and meters, or vice versa? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:19, 14 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The degree Celsius isn't the SI unit of temperature; that's the kelvin. It depends on the second, Planck's constant and Boltzmann's constant. The size of a degree Celsius is equal to a kelvin, so for changes in temperature they're equivalent. Fahrenheit not only requires a shift, but also scaling. And meteorologically speaking, having zero at the freezing point of water is more convenient than having it at the freezing point of an eutectic mixture of water and ammonium chloride, as the former is more relevant. PiusImpavidus (talk) 11:40, 14 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It's mostly about the metricists' obsession with powers of 10. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 13:38, 15 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The noun pakkanen in the sentence "Pakkanen kiristyy" does not mean "frost" but "frosty cold", that is, sub-zero cold (where zero = 0°C).  ​‑‑Lambiam 07:31, 13 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal for April 9, Terence Tao appears keying Morse code. Can you transcribe it? Thanks. --Error (talk) 20:08, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

take that Jenkins ---Sluzzelin talk 20:20, 12 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Article Two of the United States Constitution sez:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

If we separate out the residency part of it, I think we get

[...]shall not have[...]been fourteen Years a Resident[...]

Now, the present perfect in English (and I suppose, by extension, the future perfect) can be used in (at least) two ways, to indicate something occurring in past time (as referred to future time in the future perfect case) but that is not precluded from occurring again, or to indicate something that continues into present (future) time.

If we interpret it the first way, it means that you just have to have been a US resident for 14 years at some point, perhaps not even consecutively, whereas if you interpret it the second way, it means you have to have been a resident for the 14 years immediately preceding.

I don't see anything in either the Article II article linked above, nor in President of the United States#Eligibility, that addresses this ambiguity. Does anyone know if there has been any court case or scholarly analysis that does?

This came up because someone asked if Pope Leo XIV could be elected president. I would assume he can, but it does seem slightly ambiguous in terms of the plain text. --Trovatore (talk) 22:57, 14 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Herbert Hoover, for example, lived in London from 1910 to 1917, and when he ran for election in 1928, he had only lived, on his return, to the U.S. for 11 years. This did not disqualify him from the presidency.]. So the interpretation seems to be "a total of at least 14 years in their whole lifetime so far". -- ~2026-23229-92 (talk) 07:15, 15 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Provided a person lives long enough, they attain, during their lifetime, "to the Age of thirty five Years". The attaining is a one-time event, which takes place exactly thirty-five years after the person's birth. If we consider the use of the future perfect in the second exclusion criterion after the semicolon ambiguous, we should do likewise for the first criterion. This then implies that to be elected President of the United States on November 7, 2028, might require the candidate's birth date to be November 7, 1993. Conversely, if the first use is considered to mean, like duh!, that the future-perfect event must have become fulfilled some time in the past of the future frame, the second use should certainly be treated the same.  ​‑‑Lambiam 11:14, 15 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

And of course, depending on how you parse the sentence, you might also claim that only those who are under 35 years old AND have lived in the USA for at least 14 years are excluded from the presidency even if they are a natural born citizen. -- ~2026-23229-92 (talk) 11:57, 15 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I saw this as click-bait on FB and thought I'd turn here to see what the answer might be: what are the longest homophones in the English language that share no letters between them? The longest I could come up with is YOU and EWE, which is only three. Are there any with four or more? Remember, no letters can be shared, so eight/ate is not valid. Matt Deres (talk) 14:55, 15 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Another 3+3 in RP: auk and orc.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:21, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

faux and pho. The former is from French, the latter is from Vietnamese, but both are readily understood in English (my spellchecker passes both without complaint). --~2026-23374-42 (talk) 16:37, 15 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If the sound file on pho is correct, they're not homophones; the vowel in faux is more rounded. Though I guess that's the Vietnamese pronunciation; I would consider them homophones in English. Matt Deres (talk) 19:14, 15 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

DJABFDISK (talk) 12:45, 17 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

1. Are there any polysyllabic words in English where word-final "ey" is pronounced as /eɪ̯/? I know some such monosyllabic words such as hey and grey, but not any such polysyllabic words? The /eɪ̯/ in such polysyllabic words would be unstressed, as if the word money were pronounced as /ˈmɒ.neɪ̯/. Are there any words in English where the "long" vowels /eɪ̯/, /iː/, /aɪ̯/, /oʊ̯/, /uː/ and /juː/ occur in unstressed syllables?
2. Are there any verbs in English where letter J is pronounced /j/?
3. Are there any words borrowed from French where French ca, co, cu appears as ka, ko, ku in English?
4. Are there any words in English that end in /h/ sound in all dialects?
5. Do any English speakers consider it significant when the clock shows 22:22, with four 2's?
6. How is 24:00 pronounced in English? In Finnish, it is pronounced as kaksikymmentäneljä nollanolla.

--40bus (talk) 21:23, 15 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

1)Nothing come to mind. The short answer to the second part of the question is surely no, but one could probably find a word where the only real evidence for the secondary or tertiary stress usually assumed for a syllable is the long vowel sound itself.

2)Not that I can think of; /j/ for 'j' is quite rare in English and only occurs in foreign words which are mostly nouns.

3)I don't think so. Why would such spellings be used in English where they are generally avoided even if potentially justified, as for example, by a borrowing from German.

4)Not any I know since we rarely use 24hour time and never think of clocks showing it (I work in healthcare and both my work phone and car clock show 24hr time but I still consider it niche and rarely use it in speech).

5)Midnight. In 'military time' it might be 2400 "twenty four hundred hours" but I've always seen it written as 0000. Eluchil404 (talk) 02:13, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

If we cheat by allowing for foreign-origin names, then for 1. there is at least the Spanish-derived Monterrey. Not much else comes to mind, however. GalacticShoe (talk) 02:39, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I have almost never seen 2400 time ever displayed, let alone spoken. Its why GB railways don't have trains that are scheduled to depart/arrive at 2400/0000 and choose 2359/0001 instead to reduce passenger confusion. Perhaps the only time I've ever seen a source use 2400 is when I was curious on HGV driving hours. under 'weekly rest periods' A fixed week starts at 00.00 on Monday and ends at 24.00 on the following Sunday. [emphasis added] JuniperChill (talk) 11:08, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

2)The only thing that comes to mind is when Wally Walrus says "By yumpin' Yiminy", but that's because of his Scandinavian accent.

5)Only trivia buffs maybe. Like with the time 11:11. Or "special" days like March 14th and May the 4th.

6)As noted by Eluchil, 24:00, if used, would be "twenty four hundred hours". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:43, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Except in military contexts, where 24:00 is called "zero hundred hours". [1] Alansplodge (talk) 11:42, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

1) One of the pronunciations of survey has its stress on the first syllable. Also heydey, an alternative spelling of heyday. If the stress may be final, there are also agley, convey, obey and purvey.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:03, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

But it mayn't. Oy-vey! --Antiquary (talk) 09:56, 17 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

1: Lamprey, a fish. Wiktionary lists two pronunciations, one of which matches.

4: I'm not aware of any use of /h/ (or /ɦ/) in any Germanic language, other than as the sole consonant in a syllable onset. But then, I don't speak every Germanic language, let alone every dialect. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:04, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any words in English where /h/ occurs before a consonant like in Finnish words tahra, nahka and pehmeä? In these cases, the Finnish /h/ is pronounced as [x] is after back vowels and [ç] if after front vowels. Are there any such words in English? --40bus (talk) 20:53, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, using phonemic transcription (in slashes) in the question and in my answer provides some vagueness. /h/ is a phoneme which is typically, but not necessarily always, realised more or less as [h]. Now I gather that in Finnish [h], [x] and [ç] are allophones and are all phonemically transcribed as /h/. But in Germanic, /h/ and /x/ are normally considered separate phonemes (they contrast in onset), so when we encounter [x] in coda position, we transcribe it phonemically as /x/, not /h/. English however lost /x/. The <gh> spelling in words like plough and laugh indicates that the sound used to be there. /x/ does occur in Scottish and Irish dialects, but is no allophone /h/. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:47, 17 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There's Autobahn which is of course borrowed from German. (and the h remains silent, as it does in German where its function is to stretch the a vowel). -- Jungleman33 (talk) 10:38, 17 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

2. Hallelujah, apparently, if considered a verb. According to Wiktionary, Jäger/ jäger is only used as a noun. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:25, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I'm an Australian, with a lot of exposure to a wide range of British accents, but this one has me puzzled. It's particularly the soloist at the beginning that's got me stumped. It kinda reminds me of some over-the-top stuff I used to hear as a kid in church from rather pretentious ladies, but maybe it really is just natural for some people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAZN1oVir5A HiLo48 (talk) 03:13, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It's a style that is/was not uncommon in well-trained church choral singing, in the same way that certain 'voices' in opera singing are not usually heard outside that context. It doesn't stem from the actual regional accent of the singer. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-76101-8 (talk) 05:53, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's not an unusual singing accent. Our article says "The theme music was a setting of Psalm 23 composed by Howard Goodall, and was performed by the choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, with George Humphreys singing the solo". Humphreys is now a baritone, and has a website here. DuncanHill (talk) 10:01, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Most English Anglican cathedrals have a dedicated choir boarding school, where children live full-time (boys and in recent decades, girls too in some cases) and are highly trained to sing in a centuries-old traditional style to produce a distinctive sound. In contrast to continental European choral singing, there is little or no vibrato, and emphasis is placed on enunciation, since performance is in vast medieval buildings without amplification. Details of this particular choir school are at Christ Church Cathedral School. Alansplodge (talk) 11:30, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I often struggle to follow the lyrics in choral singing and opera, since the rhythm feels so unnatural. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:55, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps try Anglican chant which has no set rhythm. [2] Alansplodge (talk) 12:34, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Why word-final /d͡ʒ/ in English is spelled ⟨dge⟩ instead of ⟨j⟩? For example, why is bridge not brij? --40bus (talk) 22:44, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The short answer is preserved, etymological orthography. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:32, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at the etymology in the OED: the various spellings of "bridge" using G to represent the sound come from Old English/Old French, and their earliest example is c.1000 (brycg). The letter J wasn't widely used in English until the 1630s, by which point the -dge spelling was well established. Adam Sampson (talk) 17:27, 17 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any verbs in English that get both ending -ed and ablaut in the past participle? There are some such forms such as kept and brought where the sound of the ending is the same as in -ed, but the ending are spelled differently. Are there any verbs where the ending is also spelled -ed, as if kept and brought were spelled keped and broughed respectively? --40bus (talk) 22:46, 16 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

flee — fled — fled.  ​‑‑Lambiam 05:48, 17 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam Are you sure there's an ablaut involved? It seems to me, that this is just a shortend form of a weak verb form: fledde/fledden - fledd, cf. have - had - had, spread - spread - spread. The ablaut should have been something like /o/, cf. German fliehen - floh - geflohen. This side suggests "flug" - "(ge)flogen" in Old English. Obviously the form changed from a strong verb form with an ablaut to a weak verb form in Middle English. In Low German you also have such changes and shortend forms, e. g. stöten - stödd (Middle Low German stödde) - stött (MLG gestött) 'push, poke', whereas in High German an ablaut can be found: stoßen - stieß - gestoßen.--~2026-23783-51 (talk) 17:00, 17 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It is not the "Indo-European" ablaut, but it is an ablaut in the general sense of a change of vowel signifying a change of meaning, in this case of the tense. The ablauts of the supplied examples, kept and brought, are also not instances of the IE ablaut.  ​‑‑Lambiam 18:11, 17 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Similarly bled, bred, fed, sped, and led, in that case.  Card Zero  (talk) 00:11, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Dream and dreamt? DuncanHill (talk) 23:12, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambian But this use is not verified by Wikipedia or Webster: "a systematic variation of vowels in the same root or affix or in related roots or affixes especially in the Indo-European languages that is usually paralleled by differences in use or meaning (as in sing, sang, sung, song)". Maybe someone could then add that to the article because the vowel change in German denken - dachte - gedacht is not classified as an ablaut but as a so-called "Rückumlaut" - same goes for nennen - nannte - genannt, rennen - rannte - gerannt etc. The vowel change in geben - gab - gegeben are ablauts but the change in ich gebe - du gibst is an i-umlaut. louse - lice or to fall - to fell are also umlauts, cf. the article Germanic umlaut, but could - using your description - be ablauts. I think there must be some clarification then.--~2026-24438-24 (talk) 15:42, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes when people threaten others, they'll say I'll kill you last. Why use this specific threat? Does being the last kill make them the most satisfying one? ~2026-22534-68 (talk) 00:38, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

"The last to go will see the first three go before her!" per the Wicked Witch of the West. Is that the kind of thing you mean? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:49, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly considered a sentence to let the victim fear in suspense for the longest time, or so. Also, it might be the symbolic value of having finalized a task, I guess. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:56, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That's what the WWW had in mind, it would seem. However, she turned out to be all wet. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:42, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I've also seen it phrased as a (sarcastic/ironic) kind of "favour". "Ha ha! You're a funny guy: I think I'll kill you last!" kind of thing. Matt Deres (talk) 17:35, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I presume that watching someone else (presumed to be friends, family, loved ones) being killed would be traumatic, thus the last one killed is psychologically tortured (by being forced to watch the first ones killed) and then killed, whereas the first one is only killed (not tortured by watching others killed). Mitch Ames (talk) 03:42, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

1: Are we sure that Akkadian actually lacked certain Semitic sounds like hey and ayin and it’s not just the cuneiform script lacking the means to represent them?

2: Did Akkadian and/or Sumerian lose some consonant distinctions in syllable-final position? The Wikimedia Commons image for the Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform syllabary shows many instances of different final consonants sharing the same sign (for example, the same character represents the VC pair ak, ag, and aq).

3: Did aspirated Latin stops behave differently than their non—aspirated counterparts in Latin’s evolution to the modern Romance languages? Primal Groudon (talk) 16:30, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

1: Very much not an expert, but if Akkadian did have those sounds, would the scribes not, in over 1,500 years, have introduced cuneiform characters for them? {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-76101-8 (talk) 22:02, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

3. If your referring to the sounds spelled ph, th, and ch in Classical Latin, I'm not sure they were ever pronounced as aspirated stops in the common/Vulgar Latin that forms the basis of later stages of the language. They are learned spellings of foreign sounds borrowed from Greek by speakers continously pronouncing Greek words in a Greek rather than Latin way. Certainly by proto-Romance they had completely merged with f,t,c phonetically. Eluchil404 (talk) 19:27, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

1. Also not an expert, but, in any case, linguists are not sure at all: "Akkadian phonology remains an educated guess."^[3]  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:42, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

2: (Not an expert on this matter) Our article on final-obstruent devoicing doesn't mention Akkadian or Sumerian, but this devoicing appears quite common. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:15, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Why do Japanese and Korean not have a native word for "sausage"? --40bus (talk) 22:26, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly for the reason that there isn't an English word for Spaghetti Bolognaise, or Tofu? Loanwords are common in many languages. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:07, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Even in a meat-eating society, the idea to first chop and grind the meat and then case it into the animal's own intestines might not come naturally. Particularly since supposedly the intestines would often be considered among the most unclean parts. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:28, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

"The emulsified high-fat offal tube" (YouTube: The Emulsified High-Fat Offal Tube | Yes, Minister: 1984 Christmas Special | BBC Comedy Greats (at 1 min 10 s)) would be useful to translate into Japanese. Furthermore, it kind of leads me to think that Tofu is just an acronym. --Pxos (talk) 23:32, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

"Tofu" is from Chinese words meaning "rotten beans".[4] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:44, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm, apparently sausagemaking seems to have originated as some kind of meat preservation technique. If you spiced and encased the meat, it would last longer. That's a more logical origin than I first pondered. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:37, 18 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Meat consumption had a very minor role in traditional Japanese cuisine, so no need may have been felt there to develop meat preservation techniques.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:11, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

According to Korean cuisine, it appears as if cattle were only butchered if they have grown too old for plowing, but pork was eaten rather frequently. It does appear as if the intestines weren't wasted, but processed for eating, yet the idea of sausagemaking doesn't seem to have struck the Koreans. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:08, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I am disappointed in the Portuguese Jesuits for forgetting to bring sausage recipes to Japan. There's traditional Filipino longanizas. There's also a sausage tradition in Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam. Those spherical longganisas in the picture resemble Sai krok Isan.  Card Zero  (talk) 18:57, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

On a related note, Americans still use 'fish and chips', even though their chips is our crisps. And Brits use '(french) fries' to refer to those served at fast food places, which are smaller. And its still called 'fish and chips' even in foreign languages after checking French, German, Italian, Spanish and Japanese Wikipedias. JuniperChill (talk) 17:47, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I had a little trouble working out what you meant by their chips is our crisps. To be clear, y'all's crisps are our potato chips. You have to say "potato". The bare word "chips" doesn't sound like a food item (except in phrases like "bag o' chips"); it's more likely to mean gambling tokens, real or metaphorical (as in "cash in one's chips"). --Trovatore (talk) 20:01, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, in Britain, fried chipped potatoes are the primary meaning of "chips", other uses require disambiguation; gambling chips, wood chips etc. Alansplodge (talk) 17:08, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In this house it's tortilla chips. —Antonissimo (talk) 17:16, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

English doesn't really have a native word for sausage either; the word sausage is, like many food items, borrowed from Norman French. The native word would have been a cognate of Dutch worst, German Wurst and Frisian woarst. In fact, German Wurst has been borrowed back into English, but only for German-style sausages. PiusImpavidus (talk) 09:43, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently, Old English had mearh, which seems to have been lost completely, but is cognate to some Old West Scandinavian words. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:57, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

"English doesn't really have a native word for sausage"—Yes we do: "banger". Or "toad". Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:41, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Snorkers. DuncanHill (talk) 15:01, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Pigs (as in blankets) (not on the wing!), but 'Zeppelins' (as in a smoke screen) is obviously some sort of loan word. -- Verbarson  ^talk_edits 14:57, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

'this banger is a banger' JuniperChill (talk) 17:53, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

And some sausages are puddings. Alansplodge (talk) 17:05, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Korean does have a native word sundae for the traditional Korean sausage. Other sorts of sausage aren't described with the same word; it could be because Western sausages were originally known in the form of small tinned sausages, which wouldn't have seemed very similar. --Amble (talk) 02:24, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, excellent. What's this word, wikt:腸詰, "chōzume"? No etymology given, but it's mentioned early in the Japanese sausage article, ja:ソーセージ. The title of the article is sōsēji, but it says In Japanese, it is expressed as 'chōzume', citing Daijirin, Third Edition.  Card Zero  (talk) 08:17, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose the etymology needs to be checked. Even if it's written in kanji, it might not necessarily be that old. It might have been a borrowing from Chinese (although in modern times, the opposite direction seems to be a lot more common) or it might have been a more recent coinage from Japanese roots. Today, a popular example of the last situation is 野球 (yakyū) for baseball, but many others seem to have vanished. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 12:41, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The word in the Japanese sausage article is 腸詰め. Literally translated, this means "intestine-stuffing". I wonder if wikt:腸詰 is misnamed.  ​‑‑Lambiam 22:59, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

According to Wiktionary, wikt:순대 'sundae' is from Manchu and only attested in Korean from 1880. So it's also not as "native" a word as I had assumed. The food itself has a longer history in Korea, but I don't know what other name it might have had. --Amble (talk) 18:29, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

So, what do Asians call what we call a "Sundae", if anything? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:22, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

선디 instead of 순대.  ​‑‑Lambiam 23:02, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Transcribed seondi, apparently... 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:16, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities#Tokyo Teishitsu Hakubutsukan. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:37, 19 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Have I been pronouncing the Hungarian ethnonym wrong all this time? From only having seen it in writing, I assumed it was "Magg-yar" with a hard "G", but their new Prime Minister (according to the BBC at least) calls himself something more like "Madj-ar". Is that more authentic for the national name too? Rojomoke (talk) 21:33, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

wikt:Magyar lists both pronunciations in English. The original Hungarian pronunciation, as heard in the audio file in the Wiktionary, has a voiced palatal plosive which, in my opinion, sounds closer but still not too similar to the hard "G" pronunciation. GalacticShoe (talk) 22:04, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I hear /–jj–/ with a ghost of a stop. I guess that's what /ɟ/ sounds like. —Antonissimo (talk) 23:41, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

To my English-speaking ears, that's what I hear as well; given the "softness" of the /ɟ/ sound as Lambiam points out below, it's not too surprising that the /j/ dominates. I can only presume that "dj" pronunciation as Rojomoke points out comes from misreading the g as an English soft g, i.e. the voiced postalveolar affricate /d͡ʒ/. GalacticShoe (talk) 19:46, 25 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The digraph |gy| stands for a voiced palatal plosive, represented in IPA notation by ɟ. This phoneme does not occur in English. The "hard g" is a voiced velar plosive, differing only in the place of articulation, being the soft palate instead of the hard palate. (Somewhat counterintuitively, the [ɟ] articulated on the hard palate sounds softer than the hard [g] articulated on the soft palate. The place of articulation it is halfway between those of [g] and [d], but right at the place of [j], the voiced palatal approximant. To English ears, it sounds about as much like a blend of the qualities of [g] and [j] as it sounds like a blend of [d] and [j]. In a little table:

voiced	alveolar	palatal	velar
plosive	d	ɟ	g
approximant		j

‑‑Lambiam 22:43, 20 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Is the word "two" ever pronounced as /tsuː/ or /t͡ʃuː/? Long time ago, I got an impression that it is pronounced so. When counting, pronouncing with /ts/ or /t͡ʃ/ fits better in one, two, three, in my opinion. Do native English speakers ever pronounce "two" as /tsuː/ or /t͡ʃuː/? Is there any dialect where two is pronounced differently from too? --40bus (talk) 05:09, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

For your first (and repeated) question: not intentionally, but someone speaking carelessly may accidentally make the 't' a little less hard that usual by separating their tongue from their alveolar ridge slower than usual, which can result in something like those sounds.

Some modern British English dialects, particularly in the North of England and in Scotland, use the word "twa" for two – this is not a variant pronunciation of "two", but an actually different word from different varieties of Old English (stemming from different Germanic languages) than the Mercian dialect which evolved into the East Midlands dialect of Middle English that together with the Kentish dialect became the basis of standard Modern English: see Old English#Dialects. My maternal grandparents, from County Durham, used it routinely, and I began to do so when I lived in Scotland for a few years.

In various parts of England and Scotland, an old counting system derived from pre-Anglo-Saxon, Brythonic Celtic dialects (notably Cumbric) survived, in which "one, two, three (etc.)" is "yan, tan, tethera" or variations. This is still used to a limited extent in local crafts and occupations, and taught in schools in some places as cultural heritage. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-76101-8 (talk) 08:43, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The /t/ in /tu/ is aspirated, so, more narrowly, we get [tʰu̟u], where the + sign indicates that the onset of /u/ is advanced in the vocal tract before moving to the normal pronunciation of this vowel. The aspiration means that more air escapes at the moment of plosion of the /t/, and the air flow of a particularly strong aspiration may turn the sound of this unvoiced alveolar or dental plosive fleetingly but sometimes still perceptibly into that of an unvoiced alveolar or dental fricative ([s] or [θ]). Since this is not distinctive or pronounced, it is normally not denoted even in narrow notation.  ​‑‑Lambiam 09:04, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard any American put an "s" sound in the middle of "two". Maybe it happens in Britain somewhere. Speaking of which, EO says "twa" was Old English.[5] As noted above, Scottish uses "twa" for "two". One convenient thing about "twa" is that it rhymes with expressions like "far awa". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 14:09, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:Ly Xīnzhèn M. Zhǎngsūn Brown § Pronunciation of first name. – MrPersonHumanGuy (talk) 21:13, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The surest way to know how someone's name is pronounced is to find a recording of them saying their name. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 22:23, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

As "Ly" appears to be a shortening of "Lydia", probably as the first syllable of the unshortened name. But note that the given name is not just "Ly" but "Ly Xīnzhèn".^[6]  ​‑‑Lambiam 22:44, 21 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

1. Are there any words in English derived from Latin ⟨au⟩ where English ⟨au⟩ is pronounced as /aʊ̯/? Do English-speakers ever pronounced e.g. automatic /aʊ̯təmætɪk/?
2. Why words photograph and photographer are pronounced as /foʊ̯təɡrɑːf/ and /fətɒɡrəfər/ respectively, and not as /foʊ̯toʊ̯ɡrɑːf/ and /foʊ̯toʊ̯ɡrɑːfər/ where each vowel (except the -er suffix in photographer) is pronounced as full vowels?
3. Can verbs ever be indeclinable? When searching wikt:Category:Indeclinable_terms_subcategories_by_language, I found that it does not containg a category for indeclinable verbs, unlike all other parts of speech which are commonly declined.
4. Why the word breakfast is pronounced as /brɛkfəst/, not as /breɪ̯kfæst/, like independent words break and fast?
5. Is there any Germanic language that has not undergone Grimm's law?
6. Is there any language where the verb meaning "to be" is fully regular but some other verbs are irregular?
7. Is there any Germanic language where the verb meaning "to bite" is regular (weak)?
8. Why English modal verbs are defective, unlike in other Germanic languages?
9. Are any Chinese characters that are not in the main CJK Unified Ideographs block ever commonly used in any language? Are there any jōyō kanji that are not in that block?
10. Are romanizations words in a language? For example is Nihongo a "Japanese word"?
11. Are pronouns in English ever omitted if they can be deduced from context, such as Am here.?
12. Is there a an equivalent of Finnish takatalvi, a wintry weather in spring (after there has been warm weather for a while)?
13. Is the form "would have been been" ever used, like "There would have been been happy if that had not happened"? --40bus (talk) 18:53, 22 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

2. Vowel reduction of whichever o is unstressed: see Stress and vowel reduction in English.

10. Yes, because that is just orthography. Similarly, Japanese written using a replacement cipher is still Japanese.

11. Certainly in informal contexts where brevity is desired. I was once buying a second-hand bike, and mentioned in a text to the seller that I'd also need to buy bike lights, and he sent back a text that just said "have!". I notice also that in the last sentence I omitted the second I by referring implicitly back to the first I.  Card Zero  (talk) 19:02, 22 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

1. Automatic is Greek, not Latin. Otherwise, presumably it might happen in some fixed phrases, such as sapere aude and audi alteram partem. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 23:39, 22 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

5. I cannot imagine any. It's a basic definition of what constitutes the family. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:48, 22 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

7. Afrikaans byt, it seems. [7], [8] 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:46, 22 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

13. Your sentence is difficult to understand. I would believe the answer is No, but I can't really make out what you are trying to express. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 22:57, 22 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

2. You may hear each as a long "o" when the speaker is being deliberate. Also, that survives in the shortened version, "photo". Some of the shift may have been after the word was invented. Somewhat of a parallel is the word "record", as in "phonograph record", which in the early days of the phonograph was pronounced to rhyme with "cord" or "lord". Over time it changed to rhyme with "curd" or "bird".

4. I expect it comes from the natural English-speaker tendency to kind of slur words. In contrast, at least some Scots I've heard say it the way it's spelled, as "break" + "fast".

6. Don't know if this counts, but you may observe that Black American vernacular (aka Ebonics) tends to use "be" by itself rather than using "am", "are", etc. For example, "I be going" instead of "I am going". Also poetically, as with the giant in "Jack and Beanstalk" saying, "Be he alive or be he dead..."

10. Japanese speakers are very willing to bring in words that suit their purpose. One example, if you listen to Japanese public address announcers at figure skating events, various English words will slip into the announcements, such as "program". Japan also adopted the word "baseball" as something akin to "bah-say-bar-oo", which means nothing by itself in Japanese - as with "futbol" in Spanish, which means soccer but is otherwise meaningless in Spanish.

11. Sure. One example is, "Got it" instead of "I've got it". Another, which may be kind of peculiar to the American midwest, is someone who's about to leave the house asking, "Do you want to come with?"

12. Didn't you ask this one before?

13. Not that I've ever heard.

←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:40, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The form be in "Be he alive or be he dead..." is the present tense of the subjunctive. It is not indeclinable: in the past tense it changes: "Were he alive or were he dead...".  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:44, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

"...I'd have ground his bones to make my bread, in principle."  Card Zero  (talk) 20:32, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

10. Romanization here means Japanese words spelled in the Latin alphabet. Not Japanese loanwords from English (which are usually spelled in katakana). 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 11:28, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I see. Do numbers qualify? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:59, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so. They have traditionally been written in the Chinese manner, but more recently, the international "Euro-Arabic" system is more common. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:42, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Re 2.: This is doubtless as you say in American English, but in British English "record" does rhyme with "cord" and "lord", at least in my South of England accent, and it certainly does in RP. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} ~2026-76101-8 (talk) 14:29, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

12: There's no generic term that I am aware of. The closest is probably "in like a lamb, out like a lion", referring to a mild start to March followed by a wintery close. It's a proverb rather than a term, but close. Indian summer, referring to the opposite (a warm fall after a frost), links to blackberry winter, with several other regional versions of what you are looking for. Meters (talk) 06:53, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

And why are you asking this? Your link takatalvi already gives you "blackberry winter" Meters (talk) 08:42, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

2. Here in Australia we play recORds, not recURds HiLo48 (talk) 07:08, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

How do Aussies pronounce "breakfast" and "photograph"? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 10:58, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Brekfst. Fotograf. (The second syllable rhymes with gaffe.) HiLo48 (talk) 23:17, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Or brekky. Q. What's a song about breakfast? A. Achy brekky heart. I posed that to a cafe waiter yesterday. They were mystified. I mentioned Billy Ray Cyrus. Never heard of them. Ah well. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:33, 23 April 2026 (UTC) [reply]

4. The modern English word breakfast, pronounced /ˈbɹɛk.fəst/, is inherited from Middle English brekefast, pronounced /ˈbrɛːkfast/ or /ˈbrɛkfast/. This word is a compound of the root of the Middle English verb breken +‎ fast. The Middle English verb breken was pronounced /ˈbrɛ̞ːkən/. So the question should be, rather, "Why did modern English spelling replace breke(n) by break?". Also, note that the Early Modern English pronunciation of break was /brɛːk/; in some areas of England it is still pronounced /bɹɛk/.  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:32, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

13. I suppose this is an attempt to calque olisi ollut ollut. The answer to the question is a resounding NO. Why oh why does Finnish have such a sillily redundant way of saying "would have been"?  ​‑‑Lambiam 08:56, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

This is passive voice. In Finnish it is olisi oltu. Ollaan = is been, oltiin - was been, on oltu - has been been, oli oltu - had been been, oltaisiin - would be been, olisi oltu - would have been been. Compare e.g. olisi pesty - would have been washed. --40bus (talk) 12:57, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Let's analyse would have been been, shall we?

would: Actually an auxiliary for the future in the past, but it has the semantics of some sort of irrealis mood. As discussed earlier, English, like the other Germanic languages, has three moods: indicative, imperative and something else. This is the something else mood.

have: Auxiliary to indicate a perfect aspect. Must be followed by a past participle. Or it's a lexical verb, but then it must be the final verb in the chain, which isn't the case here.

been: Auxiliary. If followed by a present participle (not here), it indicates a continuous aspect. If followed by a past participle (the case here), it indicates a passive voice. And 40bus just told us it is indeed a passive voice.

been: The final verb in the chain, therefore not an auxiliary. It must be either a copula, meaning “equals” or “has the following property”, or a lexical verb, meaning something like “exists”. Does not compute: this is an intransitive verb; it has no passive voice. PiusImpavidus (talk) 18:10, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Are passive voice forms of to be ever used? In Finnish, passive forms of olla are commonly used in existential clauses like täällä ollaan vihaisia (lit. '"here is been angry"). --40bus (talk) 18:55, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It seems as if you are mixing up adjectives and nouns, which confuses matters even further. I guess "Here, there has been some anger" is theoretically possible, but sounds somewhat forced. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:40, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, “There has been some anger,” is active voice, present perfect tense. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:03, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

It seems as Swedish has a similar construction, judged from the examples; "Här (så) arbetas det." ("Here, it's being worked." I.e. Work is being done.), "Här (så) sparkas det boll." ("Here, balls are being kicked.") 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:02, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we have that in Dutch too: “Er wordt gewerkt.” (“There becomes worked.” → “People work.”; an impersonal passive voice, simple present tense). “Er is gewerkt.” (“There is worked.” → “People have worked.”; an impersonal passive voice, present perfect tense). “Er worden ballen getrapt.” (“There become balls kicked.” → “Balls are kicked.”; a regular passive voice, simple present tense, with a dummy pronoun as subject in first position and the real subject in third position).

But it only works with specific classes of verbs. Those classes may be somewhat fluid, but at least in Dutch, our version of to be (zijn/wezen/bennen) doesn't allow any passives. “Er wordt geweest,” – no way. And English is more restrictive in its use of impersonal passives. PiusImpavidus (talk) 15:44, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it sounds strange. Swedish *"Här varas det." might rather be interpreted as "Here, pus is emerging." 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 17:24, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

In Finnish, because, olla cannot get an object, which is normally used in passive sentences, passive forms of olla are not used with sentences similar to e.g. Talo maalataan. = The house is painted. Passive forms of olla are used in only in existential clauses similar to Täällä pestään pyykkiä. (lit. "Here is washed clothes.") Are passive voice forms of verbs equivalent to "to be" ever used in Indo-European languages, e.g. English is been, German werde gewesen, Swedish varas, Spanish es sido, French est été or Italian è stato? --40bus (talk) 18:55, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There is such a thing called impersonal passive voice, but, considering the lack of English examples on that page, it appears pretty rare in English. Further, it requires an unergative verb, where the subject “is an agent that actively initiates the action expressed by the verb.” I don't think that applies to to be. PiusImpavidus (talk) 08:01, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

3. Possibly in Chinese varieties, I suppose. In Standard Mandarin, verbs typically have the same form in any situation, and tense, number and aspect are marked in different ways. As I have understood, generally, verbs have one standard form, and one perfective form, by adding a 了 (le)-character. So, there's a distincion between a general action and a completely finalized action. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 13:10, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Also see isolating language. PiusImpavidus (talk) 15:45, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

13 questions in one section is far too many, it's impossible inconvenient to match the answers to the questions. —Antonissimo (talk) 23:43, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=is+more+than+one+of+them%2Care+more+than+one+of+them&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3 shows that the choice of "is" or "are" flip-flopping through the years. Why is this and how has it settled on "is" since 1980?

Similarly, "more than one of them is/are" started chaotic but has settled to "is": though "more than one is/are" is clear-cut.

Thanks, cmɢʟee τaʟκ (please add {{ping|cmglee}} to your reply) 09:46, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Cmglee: I'm not sure I would characterize that as flip-flopping: both usages have varying degrees of popularity, but the peaks and valleys often overlay rather than alternate. I'm not familiar with what options are available to you with ngrams, but at least part of what you're seeing here is English variation in agreement. Broadly speaking, collective nouns are considered singular in American English, but plural in British English. There are exceptions and edge cases; see here as well. Matt Deres (talk) 18:47, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

@Matt Deres: thanks, I didn't realise that. cmɢʟee τaʟκ (please add {{ping|cmglee}} to your reply) 22:25, 23 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

So much confusion could be prevented if the country didn't have a name identical to a U.S. State. Someone who's wrong on the internet (talk) 22:40, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

We could adapt the Russian name and call it Gruzia —Antonissimo (talk) 23:43, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The country in question has been called Georgia by others at least since the name's appearance on a Mappa Mundi in 1320 – see Names of Georgia. It therefore has at least 412 years' precedence over the North American entity.

Being as the American Province/State was named after a British monarch, perhaps it might like to choose a different name.

Gruzya is actively deprecated by the current Government of Georgia. ~2026-76101-8 (talk) 23:44, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the American state could rename itself "George-the-Second-ia" and reduce the confusion for the geographically challenged. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 23:54, 24 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Georgiia —Antonissimo (talk) 03:53, 25 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

That's not how they refer to it in their own language. Someone who's wrong on the internet (talk) 02:57, 25 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

The country's own name is Sakartvelo, literally "the land of the Kartvelians." The people are Kartvelebi, and the language is Kartuli. So the proper English equivalent should be Kartvelia or Sakartvelo, not Georgia. Someone who's wrong on the internet (talk) 03:00, 25 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Or Kartulia, obviously a cognate, easier on the Anglo tongue, and better than some of our other important exonyms. But one cannot wave a wand and make language more logical, as we keep reminding 40bus. —Antonissimo (talk) 03:58, 25 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

There are plenty of nations whose name for themselves is way different from the name us English speakers use. And not just us. Who'd-a thunk that Deutschland, Germany and Alemania are all the same country? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:00, 25 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

While you're at it, I suggest you also campaign for Dietsland instead of Germany, Easteric instead of Austria and Hellas instead of Greece. Sometimes (rarely) such campaigns have effect. PiusImpavidus (talk) 07:58, 26 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly that would end confusing Greece with grease. Also, Turkey and Ivory Coast have had at least some success in pushing news sources to use their preferred names. Maybe it depends on who you know. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:04, 26 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

But then there would be one less thing to mock geographically challenged Americans about. "Y'all are pulling my leg, right? I ain't dumb enough to believe there's another Georgia." Clarityfiend (talk) 12:07, 25 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe they don't like being alone. (The solution to this crypticism is left as an exercise for the reader.) -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 18:15, 25 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a Garboled message. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:10, 25 April 2026 (UTC)[reply]