What's the word for someone who does productive things because they're bored? TWOrantula^TM (enter the web) 00:28, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The idea of "prodcrastination" might come close to what you're looking for. It refers to engaging in semi-productive activities while avoiding main tasks, often due to boredom or procrastination. --136.56.165.118 (talk) 01:36, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a particular reason why, in Japanese, the vertical stroke in 飛 is written before the throw and vertical-throw? Typical Japanese stroke order "rules"/patterns would suggest that the latter two be written before the vertical, and indeed the component kanji 升 these strokes form is written with such a stroke order as is the whole character in Chinese. I'm far from an expert in this area, but insofar as I have studied most of the jōyō kanji I am yet to encounter/cannot recall another case in which any section of a character is written right-to-left like this. Are there any other such cases? Are there examples in Chinese stroke order, and/or are there other Han characters where only the Japanese stroke order does this? (fugues) (talk) 10:44, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Why is the IPA vowel chart a weird half-trapezoid shape with low/open front not going as far left as high/close front? Primal Groudon (talk) 14:25, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Courtesy link: Vowel diagram#IPA vowel diagram with added material. As I understand it (possibly wrongly), this partly arises from the actual anatomy of the mouth cavity, with the tongue (whose positions greatly effect the vowels being made) being able to reach positions further apart at the cavity's top than at its bottom.

Hopefully a real linguist will confirm or refute this. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.2.64.108 (talk) 94.2.64.108 (talk) 15:40, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For the hell of it: previous thread. Deor (talk) 23:42, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The idea is shown in this image. Personally, I don't think my tongue is more retracted for sounding an /a/ than an /i/, but this may be atypical.  ​‑‑Lambiam 12:48, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Besides the physical correspondence with the anatomy of the vocal tract and the tongue position, i.e. articulatory phonetics, there is also a physical correspondence in terms of acoustic phonetics. The acoustic equivalent of the front-back distinction in vowels is the F2 formant. Formant differences between a typical [i] and [u] are larger than those between a front [a] and a back [ɑ]. If you look at a formant plot, like File:Catford formant plot.png, you will see that it corresponds quite closely with the shape of the IPA-style vowel chart. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:20, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In English, abstract nouns tend to be paired with adjectives using the same root: competence/competent, clarity/clear, persuasiveness/persuasive, objectivity/objective, and so on. What is the adjective paired with "integrity" (using the same root)? ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 18:21, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

There is integrous, but it's very rare. See [1]. --Viennese Waltz 18:22, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Too rare to be included in Merriam-Webster. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 18:36, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The common adjective from that root is integral but it's meaning doesn't really fit in modern usage. I'm pretty sure this is just a case of ordinary semantic drift. Eluchil404 (talk) 20:52, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I'm a very integral person. ;) ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 22:00, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Next to integrous, Wiktionary also gives integrious and integritous. In Latin, integer is an adjective, literally meaning "untouched", a literal meaning it shares with intactus, but it more commonly means "whole". Figuratively, it can mean "honest", "not corrupt", "having integrity". The latter figurative meaning is the meaning of the identical Dutch adjective integer, first attested in 1873, either a backformation from the noun integriteit, or a learned loan directly from Latin.  ​‑‑Lambiam 23:33, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The adjective integer with that meaning exists in German too. Not to forget the Romance languages, like intègre in French and integro in Spanish. Only in English it seems to have drifted away. -- 79.91.113.116 (talk) 07:19, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

íntegro is the Latinate form. The inherited form is entero ("whole" among other meanings).

--Error (talk) 22:40, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Entire" is an English cognate.

--Error (talk) 18:47, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The word "integral" is pronounced differently depending on whether it's an adjective (in-TEG-ral) or a noun (IN-te-gral). -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 07:32, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard the noun pronounced in-TEG-ral, but pronouncing the adjective as IN-te-gral seems to be fairly common.^[2][3][4]  ​‑‑Lambiam 12:17, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it's a relatively neologistic back-formation from in-TEG-rity, but certainly Down Here it's normal to hear tv journalists talk of something being in-TEG-ral to something, never IN-teg-ral. That's reserved for the mathematical term, which is probably spawned from the adjective but has become a noun in its own right. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 17:56, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd use the in-TEG-ral pronunciation of the adjective in it's independent meaning but the IN-te-gral when in a math context. Eluchil404 (talk) 20:58, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's just weird that English doesn't have a commonly used word for that concept. I can't think of a single other case. I somewhat often need that word and have to use several words instead. Offensive to my goal of concision. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 12:05, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. There are plenty of words that have the meaning you are trying to convey. Honest, decent and virtuous all work. --Viennese Waltz 19:12, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. Honest is the only one of those three that even comes close. And it doesn't quite get there; there is more to integrity than mere honesty. For example, keeping one's word is part of integrity but not honesty. Adhering to a principle even when it doesn't serve your purpose to do so is part of integrity but not honesty. Paying your bills is part of integrity but not honesty. And so on. Honesty just means truthfulness, and any other use would be misuse.

Virtuous has age-old connotations about sexual conservatism, particularly as applied to women. Elizabeth I was virtuous; Anne Boleyn was not. ―Mandruss ☎ IMO. 18:05, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Honorable? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:36, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Principled?--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 18:38, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Another case is "standing in solidarity". There is an adjective solidary, but this is not commonly used. French, German and Greek all have adjectives with this sense that are in common use ("Nous sommes solidaires avec ...", "Wir sind solidarisch mit ...", "Είμαστε αλληλέγγυοι με ...").  ​‑‑Lambiam 12:34, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that languages conduct themselves by comparing themselves to other languages, seeing what usages they have that we should also have, and adopting them. Look at the third person singular personal pronoun for the indeterminate gender (he, she, it, XX), and its possessive counterpart (his, her, its, XX). Many people have noted that we lack a word for the situation where the gender of the referent is irrelevant, or we have reasons not to specify it. Some other languages do have such a word, and various suggestions have been made for English counterparts, but despite that, our language has not yet seen fit to follow suit. We have to say such monstrosities as "A child will conduct himself or herself appropriately. He or she will open his or her exam paper only when told to". Or use "they", "their", etc. Neither solution is ideal, but that's all we have to work with, short of restructuring the message to eliminate the pronouns, which may seem like too much hard work for very little payback. Conversely, English has useful features that many other languages lack, but they don't look like taking their marching orders from English any time soon. The advent of global communications has meant that a great deal of language change has occurred quickly, that otherwise may have taken centuries, or never happened at all. But there are still plenty of holdouts manning the linguistic barricades, defending themselves from incursions by feelthy foreigners. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 17:47, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

"Manning" — I see some are also still holding out against the rampaging woke mind virus that is destroying our ability to express ourselves and thereby the very fabric of civilization.  ​‑‑Lambiam 10:05, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you are being ironic but calques and loanwords are literally "languages conduct[ing] themselves by comparing themselves to other languages".

And speaking of English, Anglicisms are other languages "taking their marching orders from English".

--Error (talk) 18:47, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]