Questions relating to the scientific study of language.
1
vote
2answers
430 views
Is there a known reason that English has so many short words?
Anyone who has played scrabble-like games in English and other languages cannot help but notice that English has an extremely high number of two and three-letter words.
Is there a known ...
17
votes
2answers
953 views
What is the origin of the “-th” suffix? What is the linguistic term for the meaning it adds to words?
I was teaching my young nephew some math the other day, and from discussing the typical sort of word problems he's encountering in class, I noticed that the "-th" suffix adds a distinct meaning to ...
6
votes
2answers
989 views
British upper-class pronunciation of words like “what” and “when”
More from the BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' Bleak House.
I've noticed in these sort of movies, when some very upper-class speakers talk, like the lawyer in the series, Mr. Tulkinghorn, they have ...
8
votes
3answers
204 views
Verbs of inaction
It seems to me that most English verbs always convey some action. That is, no words (to my knowledge) convey that absence of an action. Let me explain. Let's assume that I wanted to say that a certain ...
7
votes
3answers
602 views
Was what happened to the pronunciation of the word “church”, as compared to the Scots-English “kirk”, a general phenomenon in Middle English?
The other day, I was reading a history of the Norman and Angevin kings, and came across the word kirk in an ecclesiastical context, which I had to look up, having no clue of its meaning. The Online ...
15
votes
3answers
626 views
Are there sounds where the tongue is not symmetrical?
Are there sounds in English languages and accents where the tongue does not move symmetrically in the mouth, i.e. the right side of the tongue is not moving like the left side?
11
votes
2answers
1k views
Is the history of h-dropping in English in any way related to the silent h of French?
I was reading up on Richard the III, and his exploits just now in Wikipedia — as is the nature of Wiki, that further me led to stumble to Stafford, Duke of Buckingham's page, where I learned ...
4
votes
1answer
135 views
Why is the state of being resident “residence”, but the state of being president “presiden-cy”?
Resident : Residence seems like the normal pairing to me. Residency isn't exactly unknown (see here), but it's far less common.
But with President the derivatives are reversed and then some. ...
5
votes
2answers
157 views
Modern replacement for checking frequency tables?
What is the most up-to-date, robust, and reliable way to check verb (or other POS) frequencies in current usage?
Is there any hope of an algorithm involving counting Google hits and dividing by some ...
4
votes
2answers
493 views
Syntax for marking incorrect examples of language
I have noticed various marks in example sentences to denote incorrect examples of English:
This is correct.
*This incorrectly.
The former is left alone; the latter has an asterisk marking ...
7
votes
3answers
401 views
Why do we say 'commentator' instead of 'commenter'?
Another thread addresses the Englishness of the words. My question is different and a lot more convoluted: I hope I can make it plain and simple.
I. There are straightforward nouns of action and ...
8
votes
4answers
2k views
Is there a term for “*cough*<something>*cough*”?
What I mean is the act of "coughing" something that you don't actually want to (or rather dare) say outright. So instead of writing, say, "Miss Parker", you'd write "*cough*Ms Parker*cough*" or fake ...
3
votes
3answers
316 views
Is there a name for the kind of sounds commonly found in profanities?
Fuck. Shit. Bitch. Cunt. I remember reading somewhere -- a very long time ago -- that these "hard" sounds are virtually necessary in profanities. The explanation I roughly remember is that because ...
