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"Retronym" is not really a related concept. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.180.42.47 ( talk) 04:13, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Much of the following paragraph (transferred from the article) is misleading and needs to be rewritten if it is to be included in the article:
"In English, one sure indicator of a deliberately archaic style is the contemporary use of the second person singular pronoun thou and its related case and verb forms. Ironically, the word thou fell out of English speech because it was thought abruptly colloquial, like French tu (see T-V distinction). Thou is now seen in current English usage only in literature that deliberately seeks to evoke an older style, though there are also some still-read older works that use thou, especially religious texts like the King James Bible. The word ye and its related forms also are indicative of archaism, however in spoken English it might be hard to tell the difference, especially if the speaker has an accent that seems strange to the listener."
If the article on thou is accurate, this paragraph needs to conform with what is said there if any of its content is to be restored to the article. Adrian Robson 11:48, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I also somewhat dispute its factual accuracy, since according to the article on thouAlthough originally a familiar pronoun, it has been misinterpreted as a respectful one by many modern Christians.
Originally, thou was simply the singular counterpart to the plural pronoun ye, derived from an ancient Indo-European root. Following a process found in other Indo-European languages, thou was later used to express intimacy, familiarity, or even disrespect...
Please see
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Feedback request and
Wikipedia:Use modern language.
--
Wavelength (
talk) 04:14, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
The article currently says:
This is false. The present subjunctive is still fully in use in expressions like It is important that you be prompt. Substituting are sounds inferior, especially in American English. -- Trovatore ( talk) 15:38, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
In "Usage" I found this opening paragraph:
I found it quite odd that the editor should have listed science, technology, and geography as practices in which people frequently encounter archaisms. The second sentence refers only to ritual and literary uses, so it needs to be amended to include philosophy and law. It is not clear what the third statement means—everybody recognizes archaisms as archaisms, and since archaisms are already a part of the living language, they cannot be revived; at any rate, the possibility that an archaic word might be restored to general use is irrelevant to the matter of the contexts in which one most frequently encounters archaisms.
The second paragraph ran:
The writer has confused obsolete words for archaic words: phlogiston is obsolete as a scientific term, but it is not an archaic, let alone an obsolete word, since anyone who deals in the history of science knows the word. The fact that science and technology continually make discoveries and that technical terms fall out of use as the disciplines advance is irrelevant to the question of whether people encounter archaisms in the current language of science or technology. "Wireless" is not a good example of a word that has fallen out of use with the advance of technology, since even when it was in current use in Britain, it was never in use in America, though all Americans knew that the Brits called the radio "the wireless." The word "wireless" is old-fashioned, but it is not archaic." "Ice box," for instance, is the name of an appliance that was displaced by the refrigerator, and when I was growing up (b. 1957), my parents called the refrigerator the "ice box," so the word is old-fashioned, but it is not archaic, because there is no restricted context in which its use has been frozen.
The third paragraph ran:
"Persia" is not archaic—it is just the former name of the country, and is in general use in various contexts like history or literature. "Bombay," far from being archaic, or even particularly old-fashioned, is still in use by Indians like Salman Rushdie who see no reason for the politically-correct "Mumbai." "Madras" has the same chronological linguistic status as "Bombay" with respect to its replacement—it is just a former name, not archaic. "Cathay," by contrast, is not archaic, but obsolete—there is no universal context in which it is ordinary to use "Cathay" instead of "China." It's just poetic—like calling Britain "Albion."
Since people do encounter archaisms in literature, law, philosophy, and ritual, examples should have been given from these domains. Everybody knows the words "damsel," "brethren," "Hear ye," etc.
The section really needs a complete re-write. Wordwright ( talk) 12:50, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
In the opening section I found:
“A form of speech or writing” is too vague; we should distinguish clearly archaic words and archaic styles. “No longer current” and “current only in a few special contexts” are both too broad: the term “Negro” is no longer current, but it is not archaic; “Uncle Sam” is current only in a few special contexts, but it isn’t archaic, either. An archaism is a word, a sense of a word, or a style of speech or writing that belongs to an epoch long beyond living memory, but that is currently in restricted use in a few practical settings or affairs.
Dictionaries do not typically discriminate synonyms. Here is Merriam-Webster's definition:
Here is the American Heritage Dictionary:
In neither is there any contrast to the obsolete. Here now, however, is the distinction between the archaic and the obsolete in the article as it stands:
Note that a new, different, and inaccurate definition of an archaic word is given. “Still has some current use” is unexplained—what justifies the “still”? “Dwindled to a few specialized contexts” implies a historical process that is not identified, and “dwindled” always presupposes size or amount, not distribution; “outside which it connotes old-fashioned language” is inaccurate: a word cannot “connote” old-fashioned language in the sense of having old-fashioned language as its emotional color—an archaic word is not old-fashioned, it is archaic, and its connotations can vary from the humorous (nobody uses “forsooth” seriously) to the highly formal (What say you?) to the solemn (With thee do I plight my troth).
Fossil words are not archaic, but obsolete—nobody knows what vim or kith means.
“An outdated form of language” is yet another definition of archaic and is yet again too broad—the expressions “iced tea” and “iced cream” are outdated, but they are not archaic. Finally, the fact that some languages or dialects contain archaic traits is irrelevant—only linguists can recognize a feature of language to be archaic because only they have the scientific and historical knowledge of how languages develop to know which features are archaic; but ordinary people who speak the language don't perceive those features as archaic—they are just ordinary.
In a revision, only these items need be retained: (i) an accurate definition; (ii) an indication of the emotional color of archaisms; and (iii) a brief indication of the contexts in which one finds them. Wordwright ( talk) 16:13, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Spannerjam: Could you please clarify the following (incomplete) sentence fragment? I can make neither heads nor tails of it.
And also because of the rhetorical effect they evoke by the use of two of the four fundamental operations in rhetoric, permutation (immutatio) and addition (adiectio). -- Florian Blaschke ( talk) 12:35, 29 April 2020 (UTC)
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"Retronym" is not really a related concept. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.180.42.47 ( talk) 04:13, 19 January 2009 (UTC)
Much of the following paragraph (transferred from the article) is misleading and needs to be rewritten if it is to be included in the article:
"In English, one sure indicator of a deliberately archaic style is the contemporary use of the second person singular pronoun thou and its related case and verb forms. Ironically, the word thou fell out of English speech because it was thought abruptly colloquial, like French tu (see T-V distinction). Thou is now seen in current English usage only in literature that deliberately seeks to evoke an older style, though there are also some still-read older works that use thou, especially religious texts like the King James Bible. The word ye and its related forms also are indicative of archaism, however in spoken English it might be hard to tell the difference, especially if the speaker has an accent that seems strange to the listener."
If the article on thou is accurate, this paragraph needs to conform with what is said there if any of its content is to be restored to the article. Adrian Robson 11:48, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
I also somewhat dispute its factual accuracy, since according to the article on thouAlthough originally a familiar pronoun, it has been misinterpreted as a respectful one by many modern Christians.
Originally, thou was simply the singular counterpart to the plural pronoun ye, derived from an ancient Indo-European root. Following a process found in other Indo-European languages, thou was later used to express intimacy, familiarity, or even disrespect...
Please see
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Feedback request and
Wikipedia:Use modern language.
--
Wavelength (
talk) 04:14, 3 June 2009 (UTC)
The article currently says:
This is false. The present subjunctive is still fully in use in expressions like It is important that you be prompt. Substituting are sounds inferior, especially in American English. -- Trovatore ( talk) 15:38, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
In "Usage" I found this opening paragraph:
I found it quite odd that the editor should have listed science, technology, and geography as practices in which people frequently encounter archaisms. The second sentence refers only to ritual and literary uses, so it needs to be amended to include philosophy and law. It is not clear what the third statement means—everybody recognizes archaisms as archaisms, and since archaisms are already a part of the living language, they cannot be revived; at any rate, the possibility that an archaic word might be restored to general use is irrelevant to the matter of the contexts in which one most frequently encounters archaisms.
The second paragraph ran:
The writer has confused obsolete words for archaic words: phlogiston is obsolete as a scientific term, but it is not an archaic, let alone an obsolete word, since anyone who deals in the history of science knows the word. The fact that science and technology continually make discoveries and that technical terms fall out of use as the disciplines advance is irrelevant to the question of whether people encounter archaisms in the current language of science or technology. "Wireless" is not a good example of a word that has fallen out of use with the advance of technology, since even when it was in current use in Britain, it was never in use in America, though all Americans knew that the Brits called the radio "the wireless." The word "wireless" is old-fashioned, but it is not archaic." "Ice box," for instance, is the name of an appliance that was displaced by the refrigerator, and when I was growing up (b. 1957), my parents called the refrigerator the "ice box," so the word is old-fashioned, but it is not archaic, because there is no restricted context in which its use has been frozen.
The third paragraph ran:
"Persia" is not archaic—it is just the former name of the country, and is in general use in various contexts like history or literature. "Bombay," far from being archaic, or even particularly old-fashioned, is still in use by Indians like Salman Rushdie who see no reason for the politically-correct "Mumbai." "Madras" has the same chronological linguistic status as "Bombay" with respect to its replacement—it is just a former name, not archaic. "Cathay," by contrast, is not archaic, but obsolete—there is no universal context in which it is ordinary to use "Cathay" instead of "China." It's just poetic—like calling Britain "Albion."
Since people do encounter archaisms in literature, law, philosophy, and ritual, examples should have been given from these domains. Everybody knows the words "damsel," "brethren," "Hear ye," etc.
The section really needs a complete re-write. Wordwright ( talk) 12:50, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
In the opening section I found:
“A form of speech or writing” is too vague; we should distinguish clearly archaic words and archaic styles. “No longer current” and “current only in a few special contexts” are both too broad: the term “Negro” is no longer current, but it is not archaic; “Uncle Sam” is current only in a few special contexts, but it isn’t archaic, either. An archaism is a word, a sense of a word, or a style of speech or writing that belongs to an epoch long beyond living memory, but that is currently in restricted use in a few practical settings or affairs.
Dictionaries do not typically discriminate synonyms. Here is Merriam-Webster's definition:
Here is the American Heritage Dictionary:
In neither is there any contrast to the obsolete. Here now, however, is the distinction between the archaic and the obsolete in the article as it stands:
Note that a new, different, and inaccurate definition of an archaic word is given. “Still has some current use” is unexplained—what justifies the “still”? “Dwindled to a few specialized contexts” implies a historical process that is not identified, and “dwindled” always presupposes size or amount, not distribution; “outside which it connotes old-fashioned language” is inaccurate: a word cannot “connote” old-fashioned language in the sense of having old-fashioned language as its emotional color—an archaic word is not old-fashioned, it is archaic, and its connotations can vary from the humorous (nobody uses “forsooth” seriously) to the highly formal (What say you?) to the solemn (With thee do I plight my troth).
Fossil words are not archaic, but obsolete—nobody knows what vim or kith means.
“An outdated form of language” is yet another definition of archaic and is yet again too broad—the expressions “iced tea” and “iced cream” are outdated, but they are not archaic. Finally, the fact that some languages or dialects contain archaic traits is irrelevant—only linguists can recognize a feature of language to be archaic because only they have the scientific and historical knowledge of how languages develop to know which features are archaic; but ordinary people who speak the language don't perceive those features as archaic—they are just ordinary.
In a revision, only these items need be retained: (i) an accurate definition; (ii) an indication of the emotional color of archaisms; and (iii) a brief indication of the contexts in which one finds them. Wordwright ( talk) 16:13, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
@ Spannerjam: Could you please clarify the following (incomplete) sentence fragment? I can make neither heads nor tails of it.
And also because of the rhetorical effect they evoke by the use of two of the four fundamental operations in rhetoric, permutation (immutatio) and addition (adiectio). -- Florian Blaschke ( talk) 12:35, 29 April 2020 (UTC)