Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 November 25

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November 25

Where did the idiom "cold turkey" come from?

Where did the idiom "cold turkey" come from? As in "to quit cold turkey". 107.77.207.96 (talk) 04:41, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

EO has a theory:[1] ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:30, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

As Snopes.com says here, that explanation doesn't make a lot of sense; a better idea is that it comes from "talk turkey" combined with "cold". Merriam-Webster's page here also supports that explanation. --76.71.5.45 (talk) 06:40, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

"Turkey" itself has meanings as applied to humans. A turkey is "a person or thing of little appeal; dud; loser" or "a naive, stupid, or inept person."[2] Due to the withdrawal symptoms a person is likely to feel the compound implications of being a "loser" and being "cold". Our article notes these "pleasant" effects: "Withdrawal symptoms from opiate abuse (such as heroin/morphine) include anxiety, sweating, vomiting, and diarrhea." Bus stop (talk) 06:43, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

I can't say if Snopes has it right or not, but it's older than they're saying. I subscribe to a pay site called newspapers.com. I looked for the expression "quit cold turkey". The first item that turned up with that exact phrase was in the Cincinnati Enquirer for April 20, 1898. There's a story about a boxing match in which one of the contestants gave up after four rounds. The headline says the boxer, La Manche, "Caught a Tartar and Quit Cold Turkey." The term "catch a Tartar" means to "get hold of what cannot be controlled."[3] The article says La Manche "could not do what he pleased" with his opponent, and quit after the fourth round of a scheduled 15. It's clear enough that the expression "quit cold turkey" was already well-known by 1898. Another example is in the Pittsburgh Press for May 29, 1900. The Pirates defeated the N.Y. Giants 14-0, and the report said the Giants were so discouraged that "they quit cold turkey before half the innings had been played." Most or all of the early references appear in reports of boxing matches and ball games. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:03, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

The explanation I read several decades ago is that during withdrawal from heroin a sufferer exhibits horripilation (mentioned as "goose bumps" in Opioid use disorder) which resembles a plucked turkey's skin – presumably when the term arose geese were no longer a common food item. I don't assert that this is correct, but mention it as nobody else has so far. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.30.195} 176.248.159.54 (talk) 11:24, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

That theory is mentioned, and refuted, in the Snopes item linked earlier. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:59, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

My bad: I actually looked at that link, but skimmed over the initial text. However, while not disputing the expression's demonstrated use prior to its recorded application to drug withdrawal, it's possible that the additional coincidence of the goose-bump symptom popularised its use in that regard. A more remote possibility is that it did originate orally as such a reference, but was not initially recorded in print due to the disreputable context. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 176.248.159.54 (talk) 06:52, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

increase of "about who"

I'm interested in recent changes in Standard English.

Google Ngram Viewer shows that the use of "about who" has increased rapidly (about 20 fold) since 1960. This increase is not paralleled by a similar increase for any other prepositions I looked at (for example, "for who"). As I looked at some of the new examples of "about who" that Ngram Viewer shows me, I don't notice anything especially "new" about them.

Does anyone have any idea of how English may have changed? Thank you. More brownies plz (talk) 07:06, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Can you give a sentence containing that expression? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 07:10, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

As I look in Ngram Viewer, I see for example "Now we want to spend some time using those same methods to see what we can discover about who Jesus is." There's nothing obviously (to me) unusual here. We could change "discover" to "search" and "about" to "for", and the result would still be OK. For other examples, such a change (one preposition to another) is not so easy. But what I can't even start to guess at is, why/how the twentyfold increase? (By the way, I really appreciate your fast response, but I have to rush off to work now. Back in a few hours!) More brownies plz (talk) 07:17, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Not offering a real answer so far, just saying that your example sentence is not really a canonical example of "about" governing "who"; this is the preposition "about" governing the entire clause "who Jesus is", in which "who" just happens to be the subject/question pronoun. I take it that what you're really interested in would be sentences with "about" governing "who" directly, as in "About who did they think that she is pregnant?" – Oh, and you seem not to have specified what other phrase you were actually comparing it with on Ngrams; was it "about whom"? Fut.Perf. ☼ 07:31, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

"About who did they think..." would be bizarre; if you don't care about using "whom", you won't care about avoiding putting prepositions at the ends of sentences. Nyttend (talk) 12:49, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Ngram "about who,about whom,about which,about why,about whether" has similar increases for "who", "why", and "whether", but not so much for "whom" or "which". The complement of "about" is a nominal. Both wh-clauses and relative pronouns are types of nominals. Maybe wh-clauses have become more common as complements of "about". Maybe "about" is doing work that was previously done by other words; or maybe "about <wh-clause>" is doing work that was previously done by other constructions. jnestorius^(talk) 15:33, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

I appreciate all your responses. What Fut.Perf. pointed is right, my interest was the preposition "about" governing just "who" instead of the entire clause following after that. I was comparing the preposition phrases "about who" and "about whom" with other preposition phrases (e.g. headed by for, to, from, on, against) with "who(m)" as their complement.Google Ngram Viewer shows the string "about who" has more tokens than the string "about whom", in contrast to any other preposition that I tried. And If jnestorius is right to say that both the complement of "about" and wh-clauses are nominal therefore "about" and those "wh-clauses" are put together, is this likely to be the direct reason for the twentyfold increase of "about who"? More brownies plz (talk) 21:31, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Neil Nunes on the shipping forecast

Neil Nunes is a Radio 4 continuity announcer who has a very distinctive way of talking (example at 02:40). On the shipping forecast, when reading the numbers on the Beaufort scale, he can be distinctly heard to say, "four arrr five" instead of "four or five" (this link might work (01:03)). In contrast he certainly says "three or four". He seems to be the only person who does this. Is it a deliberate enunciation, and is there anyone else who does this? 91.250.5.253 (talk) 11:28, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

John Prescott#Life after government. 86.169.56.237 (talk) 11:41, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

• Shipping Forecast doesn't say anything about pronunciation per se, but this Telegraph article bangs on about enunciation and clarity. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 21:10, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

"Four arrr five" seems to me to be merely a feature of Nunes' Jamaican accent, which to my observation has become significantly less marked over the last year or two: when he first appeared on the airwaves I sometimes had momentary difficulties understanding him. Perhaps his occasionally more RP "ors" are a symptom of conscious or unconscious efforts to moderate his accent. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 176.248.159.54 (talk) 07:04, 26 November 2016 (UTC)

What I hear sounds like a side effect of linking r - he pronounces it as "four-roar-five" (like most British English speakers would), which lets him say the phrase quicker. Because he speaks faster, he reduces the vowel in "or" to something like a schwa. By contrast, "three or four" contains a brief stop between "three" and "or", which means he pronounces the "o" sound more fully. Smurrayinchester 11:00, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

Me cyan b'leeve dat 'eavy weather ova Nunes, maan. Am jus lovin dem four arrrr fiveFaeroes. Ire. Martinevans123 (talk) 23:07, 28 November 2016 (UTC)

building back into cloud

WP:OR, not a question
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Heard here and seen here in text form, the Microsoft Cloud advertisement says "And we’re building what we learn back into the cloud, to make people and organizations safer." The word "back" should be omitted, because what they are building into the cloud never existed before. Bus stop (talk) 15:08, 25 November 2016 (UTC) In the text version, the previous paragraph says that they learned something from the cloud; then this paragraph says they are building it back into the cloud. "back" is relevant since the process started in the cloud. Loraof (talk) 00:46, 26 November 2016 (UTC) I guess you are referring to the sentence reading: "The Digital Crimes Unit uses Microsoft cloud technology and data analytics to detect and assess threats so law enforcement agencies can stop them." Yes, that is a valid point which I had not considered. Thanks. Bus stop (talk) 14:19, 26 November 2016 (UTC)