# What decisions do English speakers make subconsciously? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 23, 2022, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655 "2022-10-23T02:49:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2022, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/81 "2022-10-26T06:48:14Z")
> [@UDS1](#): > > The rule in France is that you can call your child any name you like - there are no lists of permitted or forbidden names. My wife was born in Iran. There, she says, a whitelist of accepted names _is_ maintained. When you have a baby, you pick a name out of this book, full stop. There is an exception process where you can ask the authorities to approve a name that’s not listed, but she says it’s arduous and rarely results in an approval. (This feels like a new topic, branching away from the OP, so if anyone wants to follow up in a new thread, I’ll add more detail there.) ---
**Author:** ![Tusculan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecd19e/32.png) [@Tusculan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tusculan)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2022, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/82 "2022-10-26T07:55:51Z")
Yes, emphasis is difficult because it is irregular where you wouldn’t expect it. For instance, only quite recently I noticed how AD-mirable and for-MI-dable are pronounced, in contrast to the French where it would all be admiRAble and formiDAble (and of course ‘able’ is pronounced differently as well, but that is not the point). A further complication is the difference between British and American English, as well as when colloquialisms and common sayings are appropriate. Some expressions may be dated, or only used in American movies, or only academic. If you are exposed to a lot of different examples of English from movies, novels, professional writing, you may not always recall the exact context or cannot judge the appropriateness when you think of an Engilsh expression or word that covers what you want to convey. I presume that native speakers do this selection process without thinking about it. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2022, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/83 "2022-10-26T13:12:14Z")
> [@Tusculan](#): > > I presume that native speakers do this selection process without thinking about it. They certainly are more likely to get the “WTF did you just say???” treatment than a foreigner who might be expected and tolerated to talk funny. The more exposure to the local vernacular, the more likely to understand what “fits”. Brings to mind a practical joker I worked with who liked to eat a tin of sardines at lunch. Sometimes he’d hide the empty tin in someone’s desk drawer to see how long before they noticed. The fellow from Hong Kong had been subject to this at least once, so when one of the ladies sniffs and says “what smells like fish??” he replied “Have you checked your drawers?” When everyone laughed heartily, he grabbed his dictionary to see what was so funny. (Basically, “drawers” is a fairly anachronistic expression for underwear that is almost never used in conversation, but not so anachronistic that native English speakers haven’t encountered it often enough to make the connection.) ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/84 "2022-10-27T01:56:22Z")
Shouldn’t you be writing differently _to_? Or does that only apply to “different”? ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/85 "2022-10-27T02:00:30Z")
Another thing English learners have trouble with is word order in questions, and the need to add a helping verb (and to use an uninflected form of the main verb). He **eats** the cookies. **Did** he **eat** the cookies? ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/86 "2022-10-27T02:19:42Z")
I’ve been listening to “The History of English Podcast” (Thanks @Qadgop_the_Mercotan) and he mentions how much more important word order is in English compared to other languages. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2022, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/87 "2022-10-27T11:11:45Z")
IMO as a very much not expert … With far fewer declensions and particle words than most languages, English needs word order to carry more of the total semantic load. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2022, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/88 "2022-10-28T00:59:15Z")
This topic has made me ponder “once”. We say “I will do that once I am done this…” which is not really what once means. it’s colloquially standing in for “when”. I assume a lot of languages have these sort quirks with certain words, and also the exact same usage of “once” does not carry over in other languages? Or is this something that crept into English surreptitiously once upon a time? ---
**Author:** ![UDS1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47774/32.png) [@UDS1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UDS1)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2022, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/89 "2022-10-28T02:37:46Z")
It’s not that big a semantic shift. “Once” means “on one occasion” (as opposed to “on multiple occasions”) and therefore can also mean “on an occasion” (as opposed to “on no occasion”). So “X will happen once Y happens” means “X will happen when Y has happened; X won’t happen unless Y has happened”. It’s a very old usage; OED has instances goind back to the thirteenth century. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2022, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/90 "2022-10-28T02:44:07Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > This topic has made me ponder “once”. We say “I will do that once I am done this…” which is not really what once means. That’s entry 4 [here](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/once): **once** as a conjunction meaning “at the moment when” or “as soon as.” It sounds completely natural to me. What strikes me as weird is when (older British) writers use the word “directly” in this way (i.e. as a conjunction rather than an adverb). ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2022, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/91 "2022-10-28T09:58:53Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > this type of word-stacking _Agglutination_ being the term of art. ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2022, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/92 "2022-10-28T13:43:09Z")
> [@SCAdian](#): > > He **eats** the cookies. > **Did** he **eat** the cookies? In addition to questions, English requires an auxiliary verb in simple statements. Consider, what does “He eats the cookies” really mean? It means that eating the cookies is a regular occurrence for him, that it’s something that he does very often. If we want to talk about what he is doing at this very moment, we have to say “He **is eating** the cookies.” That’s a weird little quirk of English that most of us don’t think about very often. English does not use the simple present tense to describe events happening in the present. We have to use a form of “to be” plus the present participle of the verb. It’s called _present progressive_ or _present continuous_, and most other languages don’t do it that way. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2022, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/93 "2022-10-28T14:33:32Z")
Even weirder than that, is that English requires an auxillary verb to negate a statement in the simple present: He eats the cookies He **does not** eat the cookies. Most other languages would simply put a single negation word in the sentence, something like: He no eats the cookies. I think the Celtic languages and some German dialects have something similar, so it’s not unique but definitely rare. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2022, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/94 "2022-10-28T14:43:41Z")
> [@zimaane](#): > > Most other languages would simply put a single negation word in the sentence, something like: > > He no eats the cookies. > > I think the Celtic languages and some German dialects have something similar, so it’s not unique but definitely rare. This use of “do” is something Old English picked up the Celtic languages of Britain. ---
**Author:** ![OldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/3bc359/32.png) [@OldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OldGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2022, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/95 "2022-10-28T14:49:27Z")
Another issue with English is how suffixes change pronunciation. FI-nal becomes fi-NAL-ity, moving the accent but in FI-nal-ly the accent remains on the first syllable. The reason, so I’m told, is that -ly is a Germanic suffix while -ity is French/Latin. The latter move accents, while the former do not. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2022, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/96 "2022-10-28T18:05:24Z")
> [@zimaane](#): > > Most other languages would simply put a single negation word in the sentence, something like French also has kind of odd negation with the _ne … pas_ construction for negation. (I know you said “most,” but it’s kind of interesting to see how other languages negate.) In some other languages, negation may play with the case of the noun being negated (Polish: I have a book _Mam książkę_ I don’t have a book _Nie mam książki_) or split up a splittable verb in the negated sense (Hungarian: I enter the room. _Belépek a szóbaba_ I don’t enter the room: _Nem lépek be a szóbaba_.) There’s probably other languages that do unexpected things with negation, but those are from ones I know. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2022, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/97 "2022-10-28T18:06:49Z")
> [@MrAtoz](#): > > Consider, what does “He eats the cookies” really mean? It means that eating the cookies is a regular occurrence for him, that it’s something that he does very often. > > If we want to talk about what he is doing at this very moment, we have to say “He **is eating** the cookies.” Not necessarily. If I were reporting what was happening right now I could say “look, he eats the cookies” ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2022, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/98 "2022-10-28T18:07:30Z")
That does sound slightly odd to my ears. I would use the continuous/progressive there. ---
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2022, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/99 "2022-10-28T18:11:14Z")
I agree. It sounds odd. If you took out the article, it would make sense but it would alter the meaning. I pity people that have to learn English. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2022, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655/100 "2022-10-28T18:11:47Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > That does sound slightly odd to my ears. I would use the continuous/progressive there. Well it would depend what precedes that sentence but that’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say. e.g. as a live commentary “he sniffs them, prods them, wrinkles his nose and thinks for a while but then, finally, look, he eats the cookies” And I don’t know what is meant by “continuous/progressive” I have very little technical grammatical knowledge. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-decisions-do-english-speakers-make-subconsciously/973655.md?page=6)