Noun on first syllable; verb on second
Michael J Hardy
or adjectives when the accent is on the first syllable
and verbs when on a later syllable (usually the second,
but not always? There are about 100 such words in English.
Mike Hardy
CyberCypher
You don't happen to have a nice neat list of them, do you?
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor.
Michael J Hardy
absent abstract accent addict address admit advert
affect affix ally annex
array (In some dialects, this word belongs in this list.)
attribute combat combine compact compost compound
compress commune concert conduct confines conflict
conscript console consort construct consult content
contest contract contrast converse convert convict
"crack down" decrease default defect detail desert
digest discard discharge discount dismount "drop out"
entrance envelope/envelop escort essay excerpt exempt
exploit export extract "fall out" finance "hand out"
impact implant import impound incense incline increase
insert insult intercept interchange intrigue invite
"make up" object overcount overlay overlook
perfect permit pervert present proceed produce progress
project protest rebel recall recap recess record
redress refund refuse regress reject relapse remake
research retake retard retract subject survey suspect
transform transplant transpose transport undercount
unit/unite update uplift upset
Evan Kirshenbaum
> mjh...@mit.edu (Michael J Hardy) wrote on 10 Jan 2004:
>
> > Is there any concise name for words that are nouns
> > or adjectives when the accent is on the first syllable
> > and verbs when on a later syllable (usually the second,
> > but not always? There are about 100 such words in English.
>
> You don't happen to have a nice neat list of them, do you?
Here's one:
The following is a list of English words that have the same
spelling (homographs) but different accentuation according to
their grammatical function. In such pairs the noun usually has
the accent on the first syllable, the verb on the second.
ABsent (adjective) abSENT (verb)
ABstract (noun or adjective) abSTRACT (verb)
ACcent (noun) acCENT (verb)
ADdress (noun) adDRESS (verb)
Adept (noun) aDEPT (adjective)
aRITHmetic (noun) arithMETic (adjective)
AUgust (noun) auGUST (adjective)
COLLect (noun) coLLect (verb)
COMmune (noun) comMUNE (verb)
COMpound (noun) comPOUND (verb)
COMpress (noun) COMpress (verb)
CONcert (noun) conCERT (verb)
CONduct (noun) conDUCT (verb)
CONflict (noun) conFLICT (verb)
CONsort (noun) conSORT (verb)
conSUMMate (adjective) CONsummate (verb)
CONtract (noun) conTRACT (verb)
CONtest (noun) conTEST (verb)
CONvict (noun) conVICT (verb)
CONvoy (noun) conVOY (verb)
DEcrease (noun) deCREASE (verb)
DEfault (noun) deFAULT (verb)
DEScant (noun) desCANT (verb)
DESert (noun) deSERT (verb)
DEtail (noun) deTAIL (verb)
DICtate (noun) dicTATE (verb)
DIgest (noun) diGEST (verb)
DIScount (noun) disCOUNT (verb)
ENvelope (noun) enVELope (verb)
EScort (noun) esCOURT (verb)
ESSay (noun) eSSAY (verb)
EXpert (noun) exPERT (adjective)
EXploit (noun) exPLOIT (verb)
EXport (noun) exPORT (verb)
EXtract (noun) exTRACT (verb)
FERment (noun) ferMENT (verb)
FREquent (adjective) freQUENT (verb)
IMpact (noun) imPACT (verb)
IMport (noun) imPORT (verb)
IMpress (noun) imPRESS (verb)
IMprint (noun) imPRINT (verb)
INcense (noun) inCENSE (verb)
INcrease (noun) inCREASE (verb)
INstinct (noun) inSTINCT (adjective)
INsult (noun) inSULT (verb)
INterdict (noun) interDICT (verb)
INvalid (noun or adjective) inVALid (adjective)
MInute (noun) miNUTE (adjective)
misCONduct (noun) misconDUCT (verb)
NAtal (noun) NAtal (adjective)
OBject (noun) obJECT (verb)
RECord (noun) reCORD (verb)
PERfect (adjective) perFECT (verb)
PERfume (noun) perFUME (verb)
PERmit (noun) perMIT (verb)
PREsent (noun) preSENT (verb)
PROduce (noun) proDUCE (verb)
PROject (noun) proJECT (verb)
REbel (noun) reBEL (verb)
REcord (noun) reCORD (verb)
REfill (noun) reFILL (verb)
REsearch (noun) reSEARCH (verb)
SUSpect (noun) susPECT (verb)
TRANSport (noun) transPORT (verb)
TRANSfer (noun) transFER (verb)
http://www.traditio.com/tradlib/lateng.txt
Some dialects add "cement" and "police". (Menken gives "cement"
without comment.) I'd add "defense", "reject", and "subject". My own
dialect uses only the first syllable accent for "accent", "august",
"convoy", "consummate", "expert", "natal"; and I don't have "collect"
as a noun, "descant" as a verb, "ferment" as an adjective, "instinct"
as an adjective,
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |There's been so much ado already
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |that any further ado would be
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |excessive.
| Lori Karkosky
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
John Lawler
No, there isn't. But you could call the nouns, anyway,
'initial-stress-derived nouns' and linguists, at least,
would understand you mean words like 'address' or 'recall'.
There's a dialect in the U.S. referred to informally as 'P/U'
or 'Police/Umbrella' because in that dialect these nouns
(along with 'cigarette', 'insurance', and many others) are
stressed on the first syllable to conform with that rule.
-John Lawler http://www.umich.edu/~jlawler/disclaimers.html U Michigan
------------------------------------------------------------------------
#include disclaimers.h
Michael J Hardy
> > Is there any concise name for words that are nouns
> >or adjectives when the accent is on the first syllable
> >and verbs when on a later syllable (usually the second,
> >but not always? There are about 100 such words in English.
>
> No, there isn't. But you could call the nouns, anyway,
> 'initial-stress-derived nouns' and linguists, at least,
> would understand you mean words like 'address' or 'recall'.
I created the page at
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_that_are_nouns_or_adjectives_when_the_accent_is_on_the_first_syllable_and_verbs_when_on_a_later_syllable>
(which has been edited by various other people since then, so
I'm not necessarily to blame for anything offensive you find
there) and someone sarcastically responded by creating a new
page titled <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedia_articles_considered_by_some_to_have_outlandish_and_ridiculously_long_and_verbose_titles_which_could_easily_have_been_shorter_and_much_more_concise_if_anyone_with_half_a_brain_had_taken_a_moment_to_think_about_it_before_they_cre>.
Hence my question. -- Mike Hardy
CyberCypher
Thank you, Michael.
CyberCypher
Thank you, Evan.
Sebastian Hew
> I don't have "collect" as a noun
Hmm... what would you call the short prayer that is usually known by
this term?
John Lawler
> Hence my question.
I see. Well, wikipedia is sort of a dead loss, for that reason, I'm afraid.
What is said there about languages and linguistics, for instance, is
unreliable and often completely wrong. I gave up after seeing how it works.
-John Lawler www.umich.edu/~jlawler Univ of Michigan Linguistics Dept
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful.
Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good." -Lao Tzu
R F
On Sat, 10 Jan 2004, John Lawler wrote:
> I see. Well, wikipedia is sort of a dead loss, for that reason, I'm afraid.
> What is said there about languages and linguistics, for instance, is
> unreliable and often completely wrong. I gave up after seeing how it works.
Hear, hear, Prof. John Lawler! I've been shocked to see (a) reputable AUE
posters quoting the wikipedia as if it were some sort of reliable source
of information (Hi, [REDACTED]!), and (b) reputable AUE posters indicating
that they *participate* in the wikipedia process (Hi, M[EDACTED]!).
Aaron J. Dinkin
> Michael J Hardy <mjh...@mit.edu> writes:
>
>><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Words_that_are_nouns_or_adjectives_when_the_accent_is_on_the_first_syllable_and_verbs_when_on_a_later_syllable>
>>(which has been edited by various other people since then, so
>>I'm not necessarily to blame for anything offensive you find
>>there) and someone sarcastically responded by creating a new
>>page titled
>><http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:List_of_Wikipedia_articles_considered_by_some_to_have_outlandish_and_ridiculously_long_and_verbose_titles_which_could_easily_have_been_shorter_and_much_more_concise_if_anyone_with_half_a_brain_had_taken_a_moment_to_think_about_it_before_they_cre>.
>
>> Hence my question.
>
> I see. Well, wikipedia is sort of a dead loss, for that reason, I'm afraid.
I'm sorry, for what reason?
> What is said there about languages and linguistics, for instance, is
> unreliable and often completely wrong. I gave up after seeing how it works.
Isn't the solution to that problem to correct the misinformation, rather
than to give up on it?
I've been spending time correcting wrong information in Wikipedia about
towns in Massachusetts, such as "Woods Hole is a town in Barnstable
County, Massachusetts." (It isn't.)
-Aaron J. Dinkin
Dr. Whom
Evan Kirshenbaum
I'd call it "not in my vocabulary".
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Giving money and power to government
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |is like giving whiskey and car keys
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |to teenage boys.
| P.J. O'Rourke
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Ray Heindl
> Here's one:
>
[list snipped]
> Some dialects add "cement" and "police". (Menken gives "cement"
> without comment.) I'd add "defense", "reject", and "subject". My
> own dialect uses only the first syllable accent for "accent",
> "august", "convoy", "consummate", "expert", "natal"; and I don't
> have "collect" as a noun, "descant" as a verb, "ferment" as an
> adjective, "instinct" as an adjective,
I might add "repair", though I've only heard it used that way in a
certain production plant.
--
Ray Heindl
(remove the Xs to reply)
mUs1Ka
In my dialect and, I suspect, a lot of the UK consummate would be
distinguished by a change of the last vowel sound; the same with estimate.
Adj: con - soo - m@t
Verb: con - soo - mate
m.
Michael J Hardy
> I see. Well, wikipedia is sort of a dead loss, for that reason,
> I'm afraid.
Good news: you're wrong. Is a.u.e. a "dead loss" because
postings are not supposed to be authoritative? _Authoritative_
is NOT what Wikipedia claims to be.
> What is said there about languages and linguistics, for
> instance, is unreliable and often completely wrong. I gave
> up after seeing how it works.
I sympathize and agree, EXCEPT FOR THE BOTTOM-LINE CONCLUSION.
The lower-level math articles (first-year calculus; perhaps
to a lesser extend second-year) are for the most part clumsily
written, but I think that will change for reasons I will explain.
The more typical ones are sometimes beautifully done and usually
compentent if not pedogogically beautiful. Now consider:
(1) All it takes is a small number of experts in a field putting
a few dozen articles on their watchlists, so that they see
all changes done, to raise the standards enormously; because
(2) Among the participants, even those who know little are almost
always eager to learn and happy to be guided by those who know
more.
(3) Language may be one of the fields in which (1) (above)
has not yet happened.
(4) Vandalism is surprisingly rare. When it happens to any
article on someone's watchlist, it gets fixed quickly.
Even when it doesn't, it is seen by many, because the
"recent changes" list and the "new articles" list are
watched by dozens of people 24/7. It's really easy to
fix because _all_ earlier versions of an article are
immediately visible by clicking on "page history".
As an example of (2), I think of an article titled "improper
integral". Everyone who's had first-year calculus knows this
topic; most do not realize it has subtleties involving
_conditional_ convergence; someone who did realize this wrote
some alarmist hyperbole ("Nothing can be taken for granted
about these integrals ...") that was short on hard facts.
I and several others eventually stepped in and cleaned up the
relative mess. The earlier authors seemed to appreciate that
opportunity to learn more; if they were not inclined in that
way they wouldn't have been there in the first place.
Mike Hardy
R F
On Sat, 10 Jan 2004, Aaron J. Dinkin wrote:
> I've been spending time correcting wrong information in Wikipedia about
> towns in Massachusetts, such as "Woods Hole is a town in Barnstable
> County, Massachusetts." (It isn't.)
What's the point, if Joe Schmoe Wise can come along and change it back?
You can argue that it's not *likely*, but there's still the question about
the point of bothering. There's a correction mechanism, but there's no
corrective pressure on the correction mechanism, IYFM.
I spent a few hours trying to correct some wikipedia stuff in an area or
two where I know probably more than the average person. I gave up because
there is so much misinformation, some of it potentially dangerous, that it
actually discredits a person to have anything to do with wikipedia. It
makes more sense simply to condemn, castigate and mock wikipedia and
instead encourage people to get information from other sources.
Michael J Hardy
> > I've been spending time correcting wrong information in Wikipedia about
> > towns in Massachusetts, such as "Woods Hole is a town in Barnstable
> > County, Massachusetts." (It isn't.)
>
> What's the point, if Joe Schmoe Wise can come along and change it back?
> You can argue that it's not *likely*, but there's still the question about
> the point of bothering. There's a correction mechanism, but there's no
> corrective pressure on the correction mechanism, IYFM.
There's _lots_ of such pressure, in _some_ fields, e.g.,
of which advance mathematics is one, even if less so in more
elementary mathematics.
And an amazing degree of civility generally prevails, for
an internet forum. -- Mike Hardy
Michael J Hardy
> > Is there any concise name for words that are nouns
> >or adjectives when the accent is on the first syllable
> >and verbs when on a later syllable (usually the second,
> >but not always? There are about 100 such words in English.
>
> No, there isn't. But you could call the nouns, anyway,
> 'initial-stress-derived nouns' and linguists, at least,
> would understand you mean words like 'address' or 'recall'.
Thank you. I will probably put this information to
practical use. -- Mike Hardy
Richard R. Hershberger
(John Lawler) wrote:
>Michael J Hardy <mjh...@mit.edu> writes:
>
>> Is there any concise name for words that are nouns
>>or adjectives when the accent is on the first syllable
>>and verbs when on a later syllable (usually the second,
>>but not always? There are about 100 such words in English.
>
>No, there isn't. But you could call the nouns, anyway,
>'initial-stress-derived nouns' and linguists, at least,
>would understand you mean words like 'address' or 'recall'.
Is "address" really a good example? The in the sense of "a formal
speech" I would be surprised to hear the stress on the initial
syllable, and in the sense of a description of a location e.g. a
postal address, I find either stress pattern unremarkable. I would
only pronounce the verb with the stress on the ultimate syllable, but
MW11 lists both pronunciations.
Richard R. Hershberger
Truly Donovan
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>"Sebastian Hew" <rada...@hotmail.com> writes:
>
>> Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>>
>> > I don't have "collect" as a noun
>>
>> Hmm... what would you call the short prayer that is usually known by
>> this term?
>
>I'd call it "not in my vocabulary".
Not surprising. It's a prayer in the Roman Catholic Mass (and possibly
elsewhere).
My on-line AHD has this in the *Thesaurus* section:
A petition made to an object of worship : prayer, collect, devotion,
invocation, orison, rogation.
---------------------------------------------------------
Excerpted from American Heritage Talking Dictionary
Copyright © 1997 The Learning Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
--
Truly Donovan
Lexy Connor mysteries: Chandler's Daughter, Winslow's Wife
http://www.trulydonovan.com
tr...@trulydonovan.com
Alan Jones
"Truly Donovan" <tr...@lunemere.com> wrote in message
news:l7i400d83laol1i6f...@4ax.com...
> On 10 Jan 2004 10:37:21 -0800, Evan Kirshenbaum
> <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>
> >"Sebastian Hew" <rada...@hotmail.com> writes:
> >
> >> Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
> >>
> >> > I don't have "collect" as a noun
> >>
> >> Hmm... what would you call the short prayer that is usually known by
> >> this term?
> >
> >I'd call it "not in my vocabulary".
>
> Not surprising. It's a prayer in the Roman Catholic Mass (and possibly
> elsewhere).
Certainly elsewhere: in the Anglican churches three collects are said or
sung at Matins and Evensong, the first specific to the day, the other two
unchanging. A collect for the day is also said at the Eucharist (usual C of
E term for the Mass).
Alan Jones
Mike Lyle
> CyberCypher <cybercypher2...@NOSPAM.net> writes:
>
> > mjh...@mit.edu (Michael J Hardy) wrote on 10 Jan 2004:
> >
> > > Is there any concise name for words that are nouns
> > > or adjectives when the accent is on the first syllable
> > > and verbs when on a later syllable (usually the second,
> > > but not always? There are about 100 such words in English.
> >
> > You don't happen to have a nice neat list of them, do you?
>
> Here's one:
> REsearch (noun) reSEARCH (verb)
[...]
In BrE, the stress falls, "classically", on the the second syllable in
both noun and verb; but the pattern you mention is nonetheless now
widespread, including among English literature academics. I myself
would never say "REsearch".
Mike.
Bob Cunningham
> > >"Sebastian Hew" <rada...@hotmail.com> writes:
> > >> Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
It seems possibly worth mentioning that there's a dialectal
lay noun* "collect" meaning " place where water collects",
and also stated to be a synonym of "sinkhole".
I wonder what dialect that might occur in. It's not in
mine.
I would have thought the word "sink" would be more
appropriate than "sinkhole" for a place where water
collects. Isn't a sinkhole a place where the ground at the
surface has collapsed into a subterranean chamber? Is there
another name for that?
"Sink" can refer to a place where things collect in a more
general sense. An engineer I once worked with found it
amusing to identify sources and sinks of paper clips. He
found that one desk, a source, would need a continual
resupply of paper clips while others, sinks, accumulated
them.
Some people were continually clipping things together before
sending them through the internal mail system, while other
people were removing and saving the paper clips before
discarding the received packets or portions thereof.
* Source _Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary_ also
known as _Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ on
CD-ROM.
Robert Bannister
> Some dialects add "cement" and "police". (Menken gives "cement"
> without comment.) I'd add "defense", "reject", and "subject".
'Cement, police, defense' stressed that way definitely are Americanisms,
and I'm a little unhappy with the noun use of 'reject', although I've
undoubtedly used it with the stress you describe.
My own
> dialect uses only the first syllable accent for "accent",
What about 'accented', eg 'accented syllable'?
"august",
I think I may vary on this one.
> "convoy",
I've never heard the second syllable stressed.
"consummate", "expert",
'Consummate' is different for me, although I don't use the adjectival
form a lot. I've never heard 'expert' stressed on the second syllable -
sounds like 'formerly pert'.
"natal";
I can't even think how this can be used except as an adjective. I stress
the first syllable too.
and I don't have "collect"
> as a noun,
Only for prayers - not a word I would ever use.
"descant" as a verb, "ferment" as an adjective, "instinct"
> as an adjective,
Likewise.
--
Rob Bannister
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>
> > My own dialect uses only the first syllable accent for "accent",
>
> What about 'accented', eg 'accented syllable'?
Still first syllable. It moves in "accentuate".
> "natal";
> I can't even think how this can be used except as an adjective.
I've seen it meaning "relating to the nates", typically in laws
prohibiting exposure of the "natal cleft".
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |The misinformation that passes for
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |gospel wisdom about English usage
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |is sometimes astounding.
| Merriam-Webster's Dictionary
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | of English Usage
(650)857-7572
John Holmes
>
> It seems possibly worth mentioning that there's a dialectal
> lay noun* "collect" meaning " place where water collects",
> and also stated to be a synonym of "sinkhole".
>
> I wonder what dialect that might occur in. It's not in
> mine.
>
> I would have thought the word "sink" would be more
> appropriate than "sinkhole" for a place where water
> collects. Isn't a sinkhole a place where the ground at the
> surface has collapsed into a subterranean chamber? Is there
> another name for that?
I would say that a sink or sinkhole would be better defined as a place
where water disappears (into the subterranean chamber beneath). Even
whole rivers can disappear down sinkholes, to continue flowing
underground. Is "karst" the other name you were thinking of?
I don't recall seeing "collect" used, but it sounds like it ought to
mean something more like a rock hollow which collects rainwater that
stays there until it evaporates. If that is the case, then the
dictionary's definition might be correct, but equating it to sinkhole
looks like an error.
>
> "Sink" can refer to a place where things collect in a more
> general sense. An engineer I once worked with found it
> amusing to identify sources and sinks of paper clips. He
> found that one desk, a source, would need a continual
> resupply of paper clips while others, sinks, accumulated
> them.
I'd still be inclined to stay with the idea of a sink being somewhere
that things disappear rather than collect. A person in the office who
bends and destroys paperclips would be a sink but not a collector. A
kitchen sink is a sink because it's where you pour stuff down the drain
to get rid of it, not because it collects anything. A heat sink is for
getting rid of heat, not retaining it. I suppose it does gather the heat
temporarily, but it is with the aim of radiating it away out of the
system.
>
> Some people were continually clipping things together before
> sending them through the internal mail system, while other
> people were removing and saving the paper clips before
> discarding the received packets or portions thereof.
>
> * Source _Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary_ also
> known as _Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ on
> CD-ROM.
In Australian vernacular, a collect can mean a winning bet. Is that used
anywhere else?
--
Regards
John
Raymond S. Wise
news:bu086t$7in$1...@perki.connect.com.au...
> Bob Cunningham wrote:
>
> >
> > It seems possibly worth mentioning that there's a dialectal
> > lay noun* "collect" meaning " place where water collects",
> > and also stated to be a synonym of "sinkhole".
> >
> > I wonder what dialect that might occur in. It's not in
> > mine.
> >
> > I would have thought the word "sink" would be more
> > appropriate than "sinkhole" for a place where water
> > collects. Isn't a sinkhole a place where the ground at the
> > surface has collapsed into a subterranean chamber? Is there
> > another name for that?
>
> I would say that a sink or sinkhole would be better defined as a place
> where water disappears (into the subterranean chamber beneath). Even
> whole rivers can disappear down sinkholes, to continue flowing
> underground. Is "karst" the other name you were thinking of?
>
> I don't recall seeing "collect" used, but it sounds like it ought to
> mean something more like a rock hollow which collects rainwater that
> stays there until it evaporates. If that is the case, then the
> dictionary's definition might be correct, but equating it to sinkhole
> looks like an error.
*The Century Dictionary,* an American dictionary of 1895 at
www.century-dictionary.com , does not have the definitions which Bob found
for "collect" in Webster's Third. It does have another definition, that of
"collection," which it identifies as rare.
For "sink" it has the following:
[quote]
5. Same as _sink-hole,_ 3.--6. An area (which
may sometimes be a lake or pond, and at other
times a marsh, or even entirely dry and cov-
ered with more or less of various saline com-
binations) in which a river or several rivers
sink or disappear, because evaporation is in
excess of precipitation : as, the _sink_ of the
Humboldt river, in the Great Basin.
In the interior there are two great systems of drainage,
one leading through the Murray River to the sea, the oth-
er consisting of salt lakes and _sinks._
_The Atlantic,_ LXIII, 677.
[end quote]
For the sense of "sink-hole" referenced above, it has the following:
[quote]
sink-hole [...]
3. One of the cavities formed in limestone re-
gions by the removal of the rock through the
action of rain or running water, or both. The
rock being dissolved away underneath, local sinkings of the
surface occur, and these are sometimes wholly or partly
filled with water, forming pools. Similar sinkings occur
in districts in which rock-salt abounds. Also called _swal-
low-hole,_ or simply _sink._
The caves form the natural drains of the country, all
the surface draining being at once carried down into them
through the innumerable _sink-holes_ which pierce the thin
stratum overlying the Carboniferous Limestone.
_Nature,_ XLI. 507
[end quote]
>
> >
> > "Sink" can refer to a place where things collect in a more
> > general sense. An engineer I once worked with found it
> > amusing to identify sources and sinks of paper clips. He
> > found that one desk, a source, would need a continual
> > resupply of paper clips while others, sinks, accumulated
> > them.
>
> I'd still be inclined to stay with the idea of a sink being somewhere
> that things disappear rather than collect. A person in the office who
> bends and destroys paperclips would be a sink but not a collector. A
> kitchen sink is a sink because it's where you pour stuff down the drain
> to get rid of it, not because it collects anything. A heat sink is for
> getting rid of heat, not retaining it. I suppose it does gather the heat
> temporarily, but it is with the aim of radiating it away out of the
> system.
>
> >
> > Some people were continually clipping things together before
> > sending them through the internal mail system, while other
> > people were removing and saving the paper clips before
> > discarding the received packets or portions thereof.
> >
> > * Source _Merriam-Webster's Unabridged Dictionary_ also
> > known as _Webster's Third New International Dictionary_ on
> > CD-ROM.
>
> In Australian vernacular, a collect can mean a winning bet. Is that used
> anywhere else?
I thought it interesting that the Century did not have the noun
"collectible," but it did have an entry for the adjective: "collectable,
collectible [...] Capable of being collected." I see that *Merriam-Webster's
Collegiate,* 11th ed., dates the adjective to 1660, and dates the noun
(with, in both the adjective and the noun sense, "collectible" being
encountered slightly more often than "collectable") to 1953.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com
Louisa Hennessy
in this week's Radio Times crossword :-)
--
Louisa
Essex, England, Europe
Bob Cunningham
<hol...@smart.net.au> said:
> Bob Cunningham wrote:
> > It seems possibly worth mentioning that there's a dialectal
> > lay noun* "collect" meaning " place where water collects",
> > and also stated to be a synonym of "sinkhole".
> > I wonder what dialect that might occur in. It's not in
> > mine.
> > I would have thought the word "sink" would be more
> > appropriate than "sinkhole" for a place where water
> > collects. Isn't a sinkhole a place where the ground at the
> > surface has collapsed into a subterranean chamber? Is there
> > another name for that?
> I would say that a sink or sinkhole would be better defined as a place
> where water disappears (into the subterranean chamber beneath). Even
> whole rivers can disappear down sinkholes, to continue flowing
> underground. Is "karst" the other name you were thinking of?
No, "karst" is new to me. The word I was trying to think of
seems vaguely associated with Florida in my mind. It may
have been "pothole", but that doesn't seem to ring quite
true. While "karst" seems to refer to the circulation of
water after it has gone underground, the word I was looking
for would pertain to a surface phenomenon, an abrupt sinking
of the ground above a collapse into an underground chamber.
The thought is persistent in my mind that some people would
call that a sinkhole, although I haven't found support in
dictionaries for the thought.
> I don't recall seeing "collect" used, but it sounds like it ought to
> mean something more like a rock hollow which collects rainwater that
> stays there until it evaporates. If that is the case, then the
> dictionary's definition might be correct, but equating it to sinkhole
> looks like an error.
Yes, that sounds right. The equation of "sinkhole" to
"collect" seems considerably off the mark.
> > "Sink" can refer to a place where things collect in a more
> > general sense. An engineer I once worked with found it
> > amusing to identify sources and sinks of paper clips. He
> > found that one desk, a source, would need a continual
> > resupply of paper clips while others, sinks, accumulated
> > them.
> I'd still be inclined to stay with the idea of a sink being somewhere
> that things disappear rather than collect. A person in the office who
> bends and destroys paperclips would be a sink but not a collector. A
> kitchen sink is a sink because it's where you pour stuff down the drain
> to get rid of it, not because it collects anything. A heat sink is for
> getting rid of heat, not retaining it. I suppose it does gather the heat
> temporarily, but it is with the aim of radiating it away out of the
> system.
That, too, all sounds good. I haven't seen that engineer
for the past fifty years or so, but if I ever run into him
I'll tell him his analogy was faulty unless he could
demonstrate that the paper clips disappeared at the sink
rather than being reused.
That was in a way true of my desk, in that I didn't reuse
most of the paper clips, but now and then dumped a handful
of them into a container in the supply cabinet on the chance
that someone else might want to use them.
Even a sink where a river disappears isn't the last page in
the water's history. In many cases it will probably go into
an aquifer and be recovered to some extent by means of
wells. In other cases it will find its way to an ocean and
eventually return to the land as rain or snow.
By the way, I wonder if anyone has ever estimated how many
years it takes for, say, fifty percent of the water in the
world's oceans to be recirculated through the
evaporation-rain-river mechanism.
I also wonder if there is a net loss to outer space of
Earth's air and water, and if so how many millions of years
it will take for Earth to become another Mars.
Stewart Gordon
sprinkled little black dots on a white screen, and they fell thus:
<snip>
> ADdress (noun) adDRESS (verb)
Here in Britain, both are adDRESS.
> Adept (noun) aDEPT (adjective)
> aRITHmetic (noun) arithMETic (adjective)
> AUgust (noun) auGUST (adjective)
> COLLect (noun) coLLect (verb)
That's unusual. Are there any other words in your dialect where the
stress falls on just a consonant?
<snip>
> DIScount (noun) disCOUNT (verb)
In the sense of "ignore", yes. In the sense of "reduce the price of",
debatable.
<snip>
> NAtal (noun) NAtal (adjective)
What's the difference between NAtal and NAtal?
<snip>
> Some dialects add "cement" and "police". (Menken gives "cement"
> without comment.) I'd add "defense",
<snip>
We have "deFENCE", not "defense" over here. And it exists only as a
noun. What does it mean as a verb or adjective where you are?
Stewart.
--
My e-mail is valid but not my primary mailbox, aside from its being the
unfortunate victim of intensive mail-bombing at the moment. Please keep
replies on the 'group where everyone may benefit.
Ben Zimmer
>
> While it was 10/1/04 1:01 am throughout the UK, Evan Kirshenbaum
> sprinkled little black dots on a white screen, and they fell thus:
> <snip>
> > without comment.) I'd add "defense",
> <snip>
>
> We have "deFENCE", not "defense" over here. And it exists only as a
> noun. What does it mean as a verb or adjective where you are?
The noun "defense" is pronounced in AmE with first-syllable stress
primarily in sports usage (AHD: "a. Means or tactics used in trying to
stop the opposition from scoring. b. The team or those players on the
team attempting to stop the opposition from scoring"). The sports usage
has also spawned a transitive verb form (AHD: "1. To attempt to stop
(the opposition) from scoring. 2. To play defense against (an opponent);
guard"). I heard a sportscaster use the verb "defense" in one of the
NFL playoff games last weekend, and sure enough, he used second-syllable
stress.
A recent addition to the paradigm is "embed/imbed", which gained a new
sense as a noun during the invasion of Iraq (meaning "a reporter placed
with a military unit"). I noted last year that American reporters and
newscasters tended to pronounce the verb as [@m 'BEd] and the noun as
['Im bEd] rather than ['Em bEd] (even though the preferred spelling is
"embed" rather than "imbed").
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3E82A060...@midway.uchicago.edu
Evan Kirshenbaum
> While it was 10/1/04 1:01 am throughout the UK, Evan Kirshenbaum
> sprinkled little black dots on a white screen, and they fell thus:
>
> > COLLect (noun) coLLect (verb)
>
> That's unusual. Are there any other words in your dialect where the
> stress falls on just a consonant?
Are you addressing me or the people who compiled the list I quoted?
> <snip>
> > Some dialects add "cement" and "police". (Menken gives "cement"
> > without comment.) I'd add "defense",
> <snip>
>
> We have "deFENCE", not "defense" over here. And it exists only as a
> noun. What does it mean as a verb or adjective where you are?
As a verb it is again largely confined to sports (and primarily
football) and means "defend against". You talk about how well a team
"defenses the pass" and such.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |A specification which calls for
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |network-wide use of encryption, but
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |invokes the Tooth Fairy to handle
|key distribution, is a useless
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |farce.
(650)857-7572 | Henry Spencer
Robert Bannister
> Robert Bannister <rob...@it.net.au> writes:
>
>
>>Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>> "natal";
>>I can't even think how this can be used except as an adjective.
>
>
> I've seen it meaning "relating to the nates", typically in laws
> prohibiting exposure of the "natal cleft".
>
I'm no wiser. The only time I would stress the second syllable is for
that region in South Africa, but I wouldn't consider that to be an
English word.
--
Rob Bannister
Robert Bannister
> Stewart Gordon wrote:
>
>>While it was 10/1/04 1:01 am throughout the UK, Evan Kirshenbaum
>>sprinkled little black dots on a white screen, and they fell thus:
>><snip>
>>
>>>Some dialects add "cement" and "police". (Menken gives "cement"
>>>without comment.) I'd add "defense",
>>
>><snip>
>>
>>We have "deFENCE", not "defense" over here. And it exists only as a
>>noun. What does it mean as a verb or adjective where you are?
>
>
> The noun "defense" is pronounced in AmE with first-syllable stress
> primarily in sports usage
Heard this morning on Australian radio: RESpite (place where you put
your old folks away while you go on holiday). Note: the second vowel was
'pite' not 'pit'. Another speaker on the same programme pronounced it
REEspite.
--
Rob Bannister
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>
> > Robert Bannister <rob...@it.net.au> writes:
> >
>
> >>Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>
> >> "natal";
> >>I can't even think how this can be used except as an adjective.
> > I've seen it meaning "relating to the nates", typically in laws
> > prohibiting exposure of the "natal cleft".
>
> I'm no wiser.
Reach behind you and put your hands in your pants. You will encounter
two fleshy areas. These are the "nates", pronounced /'neItiz/,
otherwise known as "buttocks". If you move your hands toward the
midline, you will find that they are separated. This region of
separation is the "natal cleft".
Lawmakers who don't think they can go on record as saying "Ya can't
expose yer butt-crack", satisfy themselves by requiring that the natal
cleft be covered.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Theories are not matters of fact,
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |they are derived from observing
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |fact. If you don't have data, you
|don't get good theories. You get
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |theology instead.
(650)857-7572 | --John Lawler
Aaron J. Dinkin
> A recent addition to the paradigm is "embed/imbed", which gained a new
> sense as a noun during the invasion of Iraq (meaning "a reporter placed
> with a military unit"). I noted last year that American reporters and
> newscasters tended to pronounce the verb as [@m 'BEd] and the noun as
> ['Im bEd] rather than ['Em bEd] (even though the preferred spelling is
> "embed" rather than "imbed").
Could be the "pin"/"pen" merger. I'm not sure it is, though, because I
don't have the merger and I'd rather say "imbed" than "embed" for the
noun as well. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that most of the
stress-shifting verb/nouns are based on prefixed Latin verbs, and "in-",
not "en-", is the Latin prefix, so the "en-" in "embed" gets the
pronunciation of "in-".
Steve Hayes
wrote:
>Lawmakers who don't think they can go on record as saying "Ya can't
>expose yer butt-crack", satisfy themselves by requiring that the natal
>cleft be covered.
When you first mentioned it, I thought it referred to the anterior cleft, from
which birth takes place.
Wrong etymology of natal, no doubt.
--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk
Jerry Friedman
> On Sat, 10 Jan 2004, John Lawler wrote:
>
> > I see. Well, wikipedia is sort of a dead loss, for that reason, I'm afraid.
> > unreliable and often completely wrong. I gave up after seeing how it works.
I sympathize, since even I could see serious problems with some of
those articles. I rewrote the one on "grammar" a bit, but it needs
professional attention.
Instead of giving up, though, one possibility would be for you to
assign each student in your classes (at the appropriate level) an
article to correct. Seeing mistakes motivates a lot of people, the
exercise would be just as good as many other exercises you could have
them do, and the result would be more valuable to others than
classroom exercises usually are.
> Hear, hear, Prof. John Lawler! I've been shocked to see (a) reputable AUE
> posters quoting the wikipedia as if it were some sort of reliable source
> of information (Hi, [REDACTED]!), and (b) reputable AUE posters indicating
> that they *participate* in the wikipedia process (Hi, M[EDACTED]!).
"Jerry" with a J. (Yes, I figured out who you meant.) And why is it
more disreputable to correct people and get corrected in Wikipedia
than here?
--
Jerry Friedman
Robert Bannister
> Robert Bannister <rob...@it.net.au> writes:
>>>I've seen it meaning "relating to the nates", typically in laws
>>>prohibiting exposure of the "natal cleft".
>>
>>I'm no wiser.
>
>
> Reach behind you and put your hands in your pants. You will encounter
> two fleshy areas. These are the "nates", pronounced /'neItiz/,
> otherwise known as "buttocks". If you move your hands toward the
> midline, you will find that they are separated. This region of
> separation is the "natal cleft".
>
> Lawmakers who don't think they can go on record as saying "Ya can't
> expose yer butt-crack", satisfy themselves by requiring that the natal
> cleft be covered.
>
I suppose I should have looked it up, but one of the things I love about
AUE is how I learn new things almost every day.
--
Rob Bannister
John Holmes
> Robert Bannister <rob...@it.net.au> writes:
>
>> Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>>
>>> Robert Bannister <rob...@it.net.au> writes:
>>>
>>
>>>> Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
>>
>>>> "natal";
>>>> I can't even think how this can be used except as an adjective.
>>> I've seen it meaning "relating to the nates", typically in laws
>>> prohibiting exposure of the "natal cleft".
>>
>> I'm no wiser.
>
> Reach behind you and put your hands in your pants. You will encounter
> two fleshy areas. These are the "nates", pronounced /'neItiz/,
> otherwise known as "buttocks". If you move your hands toward the
> midline, you will find that they are separated. This region of
> separation is the "natal cleft".
>
> Lawmakers who don't think they can go on record as saying "Ya can't
> expose yer butt-crack", satisfy themselves by requiring that the natal
> cleft be covered.
Yes, but what is the noun "natal" (apart from a South African province,
Natal)? I think that is what Rob was trying to ask.
--
Regards
John
Martin Ambuhl
> Yes, but what is the noun "natal" (apart from a South African province,
> Natal)? I think that is what Rob was trying to ask.
[OED1]
Natal [...]
B. /sb./ † 1. [...] A birthday-feast.
[...]
† 2. /pl./ [...] Birthday celebrations. /obs./
[...]
This escapes the SOED4=NSOED & SOED5 compass of words active since 1700.
--
Martin Ambuhl
Steve Hayes
The provance is now KwaZulu/Natal, or KZN for short. But the name has nothing
to do with buttocks, rather with birth.
To me, "natal" is an adjective relating to birth.
Robert Bannister
> The provance is now KwaZulu/Natal, or KZN for short. But the name has nothing
> to do with buttocks, rather with birth.
>
> To me, "natal" is an adjective relating to birth.
But, the English word 'natal' rhymes with 'fatal'. Stress on first
syllable and an [ej] sound.
--
Rob Bannister
Steve Hayes
So it does.
I've just never assocated it with buttocks, though I have heard that there
have been some children who believed that babies were born from arseholes.
John Holmes
... which reminds me of "reckoning by my natal day" in the Pirates of
Penzance, but then we are back to the adjective. I guess the nouns above
were probably nounings from the adjective.
Nowadays, 'natal' usually appears with ante-, pre- or post- appended:
referring to births but not birthdays.
Thanks, Martin.
--
Regards
John
R H Draney
>
>> John Holmes wrote:
>>
>>> Yes, but what is the noun "natal" (apart from a South African
>>> province, Natal)? I think that is what Rob was trying to ask.
>
>referring to births but not birthdays.
Also with "peri-"...used to see it on a door I passed on the way to the physical
therapy clinic....r
Steve Hayes
The noun is, I believe, derived from "Terra Natalis".
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Nowadays, 'natal' usually appears with ante-, pre- or post- appended:
> referring to births but not birthdays.
"Peri-" as well. I don't think I've heard "antenatal", although I see
that Google turns up 136,000 hits to 997,000 for "prenatal". MWCD10
dates both of them to roughly the same time: 1817 for "antenatal" and
1826 for "prenatal".
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |All tax revenue is the result of
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |holding a gun to somebody's head.
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |Not paying taxes is against the law.
|If you don't pay your taxes, you'll
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |be fined. If you don't pay the fine,
(650)857-7572 |you'll be jailed. If you try to
|escape from jail, you'll be shot.
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | P.J. O'Rourke
Frances Kemmish
> "John Holmes" <hol...@smart.net.au> writes:
>
>
>>Nowadays, 'natal' usually appears with ante-, pre- or post- appended:
>>referring to births but not birthdays.
>
>
> "Peri-" as well. I don't think I've heard "antenatal", although I see
> that Google turns up 136,000 hits to 997,000 for "prenatal". MWCD10
> dates both of them to roughly the same time: 1817 for "antenatal" and
> 1826 for "prenatal".
>
"Ante-natal" is the usual term in England for care before the baby is
born. After the birth, there's "neo-natal" as well as "peri-natal", and
then "post-natal". I have an idea that "neonatal" applies more to the
baby than the mother, but I may be wrong.
--
Frances Kemmish
Production Manager
East Coast Youth Ballet
www.byramartscenter.com
Skitt
> "John Holmes" writes:
>> Nowadays, 'natal' usually appears with ante-, pre- or post- appended:
>> referring to births but not birthdays.
>
> "Peri-" as well. I don't think I've heard "antenatal", although I see
> that Google turns up 136,000 hits to 997,000 for "prenatal". MWCD10
> dates both of them to roughly the same time: 1817 for "antenatal" and
> 1826 for "prenatal".
Are abortionists anti-natal?
--
Skitt (in SF Bay Area)
Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through
the leather straps. -- Emo Phillips
Arcadian Rises
<ski...@comcast.net> writes:
>Are abortionists anti-natal?
>--
The same way pro-lifers are contra-ceptives.
Steve Hayes
>Are abortionists anti-natal?
They run anti-natal clinics.