Language desk
< April 7	<< Mar \| April \| May >>	April 9 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

April 8[edit]

"Mass amounts"[edit]

Maybe this is me being a naively amateur grammar Nazi, but I have been unable to find anyone who had even considered this question before, never mind answered it. I have noticed a trend recently of people using the phrase "mass amounts" to describe a large number of things or quantity of stuff. For a while I chalked it up to teenagers modifying language on the same scale as the phrase "on accident", but I finally lost it when listening to this video where an older, obviously educated scientist used the phrase in an interview about semiconductors. So my question is: What's the deal? Where did this phrase come from? Has it been around for a while and I just haven't noticed it? It doesn't seem to be proper grammar by any of the definitions that I could find, but am I wrong? Thanks in advance. -RunningOnBrains^(talk) 14:16, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Usually in a phrase of the form mass (something), "mass" refers to a mass of people, as in mass hysteria, mass market, mass media, mass murder, and mass transit. So it is a bit outside the pattern. Grammatically, I interpret it as a noun being used as an adjective, similar to "beer cellar", for instance. It refers to a type of amount, an amount of the type mass, where mass is definition 4 here: [1] "a considerable assemblage". This is a long winded way of saying "a lot", (or "a mass", come to that) and so I dislike it, but I think it's grammatical. 213.122.53.188 (talk) 15:22, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(OR) I've heard and used "massive amounts" for years. Maybe it is just lazy speech from modern youth. --TammyMoet (talk) 15:26, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The usage has been around at least since the Coneheads were "consuming mass quantities" in the late 1970s (see the third paragraph under "Summary" in the linked article). Of course, their English usage was supposed to be rather idiosyncratic. Deor (talk) 16:40, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Having looked at the first dozen or so pages of Google Books hits for "mass amounts", I'd say that the use of this expression rather than "massive amounts" didn't become widespread, at least in print, until the late 1990s. For some reason, it seems to be singulary prevalent among U.S. government officials. Deor (talk) 00:50, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard the expression. If I did, I would assume it meant amounts of mass (though I wouldn't be sure what that meant either). Dbfirs 16:42, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds related to the (not used as such in) French phrase en masse. StuRat (talk) 18:37, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In favour / against vs. agree / disagree[edit]

Is there any difference in meaning, even subtle or stylistic between the phrases: "to be in favour of a proposal" and "to agree with the proposal" on one hand and "to be against" and "to disagree" on the other hand? To put the question in context, if the votes/opinions of a straw poll are counted and listed as follows:

(1)	In favour	Against
(2)	Agree	Disagree
–>	55 votes	22 votes

Are the words absolutely interchangeable? --Pxos (talk) 19:44, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, OED AND Merriam Webster online seem to suggest that in favor of has more of a 'in sympathy with' meaning, vs agree, which is "to accept or concede," or (chiefly British) "to settle on by common consent." (quoting straight from m-w, there). I guess the idea being In favour of and against are mental states, where agreeing and disagreeing are actions. Personally, in the use you describe, I would almost reverse the meanings, though. I agree that all people are created equal; I am in favor of drafting a resolution declaring all people to be created equal, if that makes sense. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 20:05, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would not so reverse the uses - I am in favor of (U.S.) health care reform, but I wouldn't say I necessarily agree with most of the proposals bandied about for enacting it. I suspect the roughly equal validity of Some Jerk's and my personal preferences would indicate that neither of us is prescriptively "right" on that question. ☯.Zen Swashbuckler.☠ 20:16, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, with factual statements (true or false), you can only agree or disagree, you can't be "in favor" of them. (If someone says the mass of the Earth is one kg, I can disagree, but I can't say I'm not in favor of that.) StuRat (talk) 20:14, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What about the Indiana (?) legislature, which came within a whisker of voting to declare the value of pi to be some arbitrary figure. The individual members would have been either in favour of the motion or against it. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:53, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) The "motion" here is an action, not a proposition. A state legislature can declare that evolution does not exist, and you can be in favor of those resolutions. But ultimately what you and the state are doing is carrying out the act of saying, "I disagree with the proposition that life evolved gradually via mutation and natural selection." You (dis)agree with statements while you favor or oppose actions. And the truth of a statement has f***-all to do with whether or not you agree with it. Which bears a depressing degree of repeating. ☯.Zen Swashbuckler.☠ 21:32, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think in most cases when referring to a proposal or prospective action they're interchangeable; however, it's possible to agree with something but not be in favor of it. Somebody said half a million articles need to be deleted to maintain a degree of quality on Wikipedia. I agree with that evaluation, but I know it's not practical, so I'm in no way in favor of it. (Hypothetical) Juliancolton (talk) 21:29, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that's the right way of putting it. You agree that half a million articles need to be deleted; that's one thing. Seems to me you would be in favour of going ahead and actually deleting them, as long as there was some rational, consensus-based, WP-compliant process for deciding which articles are for the chop. But since no such process exists, and is probably never likely to, it isn't going to happen. That doesn't suddenly mean that you're no longer in favour of the possibility of such a process being identified and executed. In the interim, you can't say you're either in favour of, or against, a non-existent process. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 22:29, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you all for this clarifying discussion! I guess when you vote "yea", you can either be in favour of, agree with, accept or just concede the proposal, in a descending order of sympathy. Yet another question has come to mind: am I right in assuming that when someone agrees with an idea, this is the general sense, but if someone agrees to it, this means that they accept an idea put to them by their subordinates, i.e. they are in a position where they decide whether to accept/implement the idea or not. Can you even disagree to something, or is this ungrammatical? --Pxos (talk) 01:10, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The negative counterpart of "agree to do something" is not "disagree to do something". Her mother asked her to clean her room before lunch, and she agreed to do so ==> Her mother asked her to clean her room before lunch, but she ~~disagreed to do so~~ refused. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 01:34, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"To be in favor of a proposal" and "To agree with a proposal". The main thing that needs to be focused is with respect to two things "favor" and "agree". When in comes to "favor" it means that majority is with you but the decision making process is yet to be over, and when it comes to "agree" it means that the decision making process is over. The decision has been made. In the above scenario the term "favor" and "agree" are with respect to voting pattern and hence they can be interchanged, but only with respect to the above mentioned scenario or the above mentioned criteria. aniketnik 05:12, 13 April 2011 (UTC)

Chinese[edit]

In pinyin there is a sound represented /b/ (as in 班: bān), which your article indicates transcribes the IPA sound [p] (no aspiration). However I know some Chinese native speakers and it seems to me that they pronounce the sound as the IPA [b] (as in English boat) and not [p] (as in French pain). Which is correct? Thanks. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 21:04, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

a "footnote for the phonologically sophisticated" on this UC San Diego site states:

English p t k differ from b d g in that: (1) p t k are aspirated, whereas b d g are not, and (2) b d g are voiced, whereas p t k are unvoiced. In most European languages you have studied, you will have been told that b d g are voiced and unaspirated as in English, but that p t k are both unaspirated and unvoiced, and aspirating them is part of an English or American accent. In Chinese neither series is voiced, but p t k are heavily aspirated, while b d g are unaspirated. Thus in some systems of romanization (including Wade-Giles), the letters b,d, and g are avoided as implying voicing; both series are spelt p t k, and the aspiration is shown with an apostrophe (p', t', k') or an h (ph, th, kh). Using voicing rather than aspiration to distinguish the p t k and b d g series in Chinese is a mark of a disastrous European accent. Using voicing as well as aspiration marks a less confusing English or American accent. Similarly, c, ch, and q are unvoiced and heavily aspirated, while z, zh, and j are unvoiced (or rather start their articulation that way) and unaspirated.

It's been a decade and a half since I studied the language seriously, but I seem to remember native Mandarin speaking instructors trying to convey the same point to us. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 21:27, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So Chinese b and French p are both supposed to be voiceless and unaspirated. But the OP says that (s)he can hear a difference between them, so what's going on? Lfh (talk) 08:49, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I moved your edit it so it follows mine, rather than splitting the quote and my comment, Lfh. I hope you don't mind. I guess I offer the quote as an example of what appears to be the accepted pronunciation of b and p in Mandarin Chinese. I did some more searching and got results that seem to corroborate. That said, if the OP is hearing native Chinese speakers voicing b, then there is some evidence that under at least some circumstances in which it occurs. I suppose the OP could be talking about Chinese speakers who also speak another language that's influencing their pronunciation, or could be conditioned by his/her own native language (assuming English, but not necessarily the case) to expect a voiced b, and so hears it where s/he knows it would be if the spoken word were spelled out. Those are just conjectures, though, so who knows. Anyway, speakers of a language are what make a language, so the real world trumps an academic website, in my book. Just throwing out some information, and a couple of half-baked ideas, for what they're worth. --some jerk on the Internet (talk) 17:36, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whoops, sorry about that, I didn't mean to split your comment up. I don't know Chinese, I was just trying to make sure the question was properly understood. I guess we'd need to hear an example before we could take this further. Lfh (talk) 20:01, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Outdent: In word-initial positions, Chinese (Hanyu Pinyin) <b> is IPA [p], the voiceless unaspirated bilabial stop; Hanyu Pinyin <p> is IPA [pʰ], the voiceless aspirated bilabial stop. As Some jerk points out, the phonetic distinction between these sounds is clearer in romanizations like Wade-Giles, which transcribe these sounds as <p> and <p'> respectively; Hanyu Pinyin focuses on the phonemic differences rather than the phonetic ones. rʨanaɢ (talk) 03:27, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Punctuation[edit]

Can a smilie face '(:' be used as punctuation or only to sign off an SMS? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.243.52.237 (talk) 21:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Emoticons like this are not "proper" punctuation, and are not appropriate in formal writing. You can use them in any sort of casual writing, like SMS messages, internet chat, etc. 109.153.233.227 (talk)

French expressions[edit]

Hi again. What are some French expressions (not integrated into English, preferably those which would be common in France) that are motivational? Where can I find a list of such expressions ? (I found the About.com list worthless). THanks. 72.128.95.0 (talk) 22:10, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you would consider "motivational", but French proverbs at Wikiquote gives some French proverbs of a somewhat aphoristic and encouraging nature. -- the Great Gavini 04:12, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]