Dear Expert

[pooka]

I would have started singing "when Reginald was home with flu..."

[Annie Subjunctive]

I was wondering the other day about Indo-European words for mother and father.

In Latin, mater and pater have the same initial vowel sound. In French, Spanish and Italian they all retain matching sounds, though in French the /a/ became /ɛ/. But in English, mother and father don't have matching vowels anymore, and I was wondering if this happened just to English but realized that German is Mutter and Vater. Any idea whether those vowels would have changed after Germanic languages broke off and why?

Also, most European languages use variations on mama and papa. Where the heck did dad come from?

[rivka]

Baby talk. "da-da" is one of the first sounds babies make.

[BlackBlade]

Since English and Farsi both have roots in Indo-European languages, they share some common words.

In Farsi, Pedär is formal and respectful word for father. Baba is the informal word for dad. Same deal for mom.

Mother = Maadar - مادر
or
Mum/Mom = Maamaan - مامان

[Jonathon]

I know I've posted about this before, but the forum search is failing me. I'll try to post a longer answer later, but here it is in a nutshell: the differing modern vowels come from the different PIE vowels in *pətḗ(r) and *mātér. In Latin these vowels apparently both became /a/, but in Germanic languages they went different ways. I think PIE /a:/ usually rose in Germanic languages, but I don't know all the details.

I came across a fascinating paper once that explained how baby talk actually creates familiar terms for "mother" and "father". "Papa" and "dada" have no etymological connection to other words for "father"; babies makes them up, and we take them to be meaningful and then expect later generations of babies to use those terms.

[rivka]

I came across a fascinating paper once that explained how baby talk actually creates familiar terms for "mother" and "father". "Papa" and "dada" have no etymological connection to other words for "father"; babies makes them up, and we take them to be meaningful and then expect later generations of babies to use those terms.

I remember that. You either linked to it or sent it to me, IIRC.

[rivka]

This is not the one I was thinking of, but it's clearly considered a classic: http://www.scribd.com/doc/54278465/13/WHY-MAMA-AND-PAPA

[Jonathon]

That's not the one I remember either.

[Jonathon]

Here's the discussion. It was goofy, not me, that linked to it. The orignal link is broken, but this appears to be the same paper.

[rivka]

That link won't work for me, but I think this one might be functional: www.sussex.ac.uk/english/documents/where-do-mama2.pdf

I'm not sure if that's the one I was thinking of. Possibly. Or I've conflated more than one source in my memory.

[Jonathon]

Weird. That's goofy's original link, which didn't work for me a minute ago. Now both links are going to the same place.

[rivka]

How bizarre.

[BlackBlade]

So even babies have some pull as far as language goes?

[Jonathon]

Yup, though infants' contributions are probably mostly limited to words like "mama" and "dada".

[BlackBlade]

Is it true that the phrase "capital" as in "capital crimes" is derived from Latin, and meaning that a crime was seriousness enough to warrant the forfeiture of one's head, hence capital?

[Jonathon]

So it would seem.

[BlackBlade]

So in a show Tristan was watching, they were reading The Swiss Family Robinson. They said the following sentence,

"The Swiss Family Robinson was sailing in a boat."

Shouldn't it be "The Swiss Family Robins were sailing in a boat"? (An aside, should the preceding question mark be in the quotation marks)?

[rivka]

"Was" is correct, as the singular noun (family) refers to the entire group. But is still singular.

And the question mark only goes inside the quotation marks when it is part of the quote. So no. But it should have been inside the parentheses.

[Jonathon]

"Was" is grammatically correct, since "family" is a singular noun, as Rivka said. But plural verbs are fairly common (especially in Britain, I believe), and it's especially common to refer to "family" with the plural pronoun "they".

Rivka's also right about the question marks. In the first you're questioning a quote, not quoting a question. In the second the whole parenthetical sentence is a question. Generally, punctuation only goes inside quotation marks if it's part of the quotation, but in American practice periods and commas always go inside, whether or not they're part of the quotation.

[rivka]

but in American practice periods and commas always go inside, whether or not they're part of the quotation.

Except for those of us who have rebelled against such insanity. Join us!

[BlackBlade]

Thanks.

[Tante Shvester]

but in American practice periods and commas always go inside, whether or not they're part of the quotation.

Except for those of us who have rebelled against such insanity. Join us!

Shvester!  I consider myself to be a conscientious objector.

[Jonathon]

I wonder how long it'll be before the logical method becomes common in edited text. Publishers and style guides are holding firm for now, even though it's pretty common in educated usage.

[BlackBlade]

Plan, plot, ploy. These words all mean similar things, are they all descended from the same word? Plot and ploy seem to mean plans where you are not up front with people that you have them. Plan can kinda go either way.

[Annie Subjunctive]

They're all from the Proto Indo-European root /*pl*ēu/, which means "This is a serious step. I want you to go over by that trampoline and talk about it first."