Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 April 10

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April 10

Slang use of "hang"

The meaning "to associate with someone" seems very old, as in Ben Franklin's: "We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately" [1]. This also seems related to the term "hangout", but not really to suspending something/the form of execution. So, what's the origin of this usage ? StuRat (talk) 17:41, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

EO gives 1811 and relates it to the phrase "hang out a shingle" [2]. shoy (reactions) 18:18, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

But that's after Franklin used it that way. StuRat (talk) 18:43, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Seems to be a special case of (2nd ed.) OED's sense 14 of intransitive hang, "to attach oneself for support; to cling, hold fast, adhere", for which the earliest citation dates from c. 1330. The earliest citation for hang together in the sense "to hold together; to be associated, united, or mutually dependent" (where it cites Franklin's quip) is from 1551. It's hang out in the sense "to reside, lodge, live (colloq. or slang)" that has an 1811 earliest citation, and the related noun hang-out seems to date from the middle 1890s. Deor (talk) 19:25, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I note that at its hang (v.) entry, EO says, "Teen slang sense of 'spend time' first recorded 1951; hang around 'idle, loiter' is from 1828, American English." Deor (talk) 08:01, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

• Synchronistically, only 2 days ago I read that the expression "hang loose" goes back at least as far as Samuel Johnson: "he hung loose upon society". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 22:43, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks all, for the replies. StuRat (talk) 15:49, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Mr. Bean

Why does Mr. Bean have a full stop in its title? It's not a mistake by us, since the title card clearly shows the punctuation. Nyttend (talk) 23:02, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

But then, we don't follow the title card exactly, by replacing "MR" with "Mr". -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 23:10, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

And by replacing "BEAN" with "Bean". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:49, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Sometimes Mr has been mistakenly appended with a full stop, as sometimes happens with St or Mrs. It's all wrong, but in Mr. Bean's case, we go with the verifiable sources. The Rambling Man (talk) 03:08, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Google Image "mr bean logo" and you'll see a number of variations, some as "Mr" some as "Mr." ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:46, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Already covered that. In British English, the full stop is not required, full stop. The Rambling Man (talk) 03:49, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

There's a difference between "not required" and "all wrong". It could be that the show's producers don't care that much about it either way. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:56, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

That's not relevant. The point is that the grammatically correct answer in British English is Mr Bean. That other variations exist is just meh. The Rambling Man (talk) 03:59, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

"not required" and "all wrong" are not the same thing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:09, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

That's right! The Rambling Man (talk) 04:09, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

There ya go. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:12, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

That's right! The Rambling Man (talk) 04:13, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

The British shift to not using periods after Mr and Mrs, is fairly recent. If you look at old newspapers [3], In the fifties, they used the full stop quite a lot. In the 70s it started to fade out, and by the mid eighties it was rare in British newspapers.

I mention this because the Mr. Bean character first appeared in 1990. So whoever made the title card might have assumed that using the full stop was proper formal British English. (As opposed to newspaper English.) We'll need some period English textbooks to nail down whether that was technically the right choice or not.

I wish I could find a comparison of style guides through the ages to pinpoint this more precisely.ApLundell (talk) 16:32, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Certainly when I was at school, we were taught that if abbreviations had the first and last letter, e.g. Mister becomes Mr or Missus becomes Mrs, then they should not take a full stop. The Rambling Man (talk) 00:16, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I was taught always to include the full stop regardless of the type of contraction, but I remember the "open punctuation" style being introduced for business letters in the 1970s. See here for example. Dbfirs 07:15, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

I concur with Dbfirs experience (having left school in 1975), but the point most people are missing is that (in the UK) there's no "official" authority laying down such rules. Different publishers have different "House styles" and many people and organisations choose to follow one or the other (Oxford University Press's being popular as they publish theirs in a range of inexpensive books: other publishers supply house style manuals only to their own staff and authors – I possess examples of both), while others go their own way. Often a publisher will insist on a work following their usual house style rules, sometimes an author will insist on his/her own variations, perhaps for stylistic reasons. The nearest thing to being 'wrong' is to mix different house styles or otherwise be inconsistent within a single written piece or publication. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.217.249.244 (talk) 15:48, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Concur with the users above, I was taught to use a full stop after Mr. at school in London in the 1960s and 70s, but wouldn't use one now. Alansplodge (talk) 10:24, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

[Continued] At the supermarket earlier today (Asda, if anyone cares), I noticed (because of this discussion) a selection of Mr Bean [sic] cartoon DVDs: all of them omitted the stop after "Mr" on the front cover, so evidently the franchise isn't concerned one way or the other. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.217.249.244 (talk) 19:08, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

• Here's the OED's opinion on the matter. By the way, as an American: the dot after "Mr" is not a full stop; it's a period. I mean, it's not 'stopping' anything, is it? --M@rēino 20:50, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Thank you for that link. (One might ask "how long is the American period", but I won't bother.) Perhaps some day someone will invent a new symbol and a new consistent name for a "full stop"/"period" that isn't either, or perhaps we will just stop using it for this purpose. Dbfirs 20:59, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
    • IN my childhood (70's for writing) I was taught that a period was used for a full stop or an abbreviation. If anyone needs a reference? μηδείς (talk) 23:53, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

• • Where I come from (American Midwest) "." is either a period (in a sentence or abbreviation) or a decimal point (in a number). Also informally a "dot". The only "full stop" we heard about was what a driver is supposed to do when there's a stop sign or a red light. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:03, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
    • Full stop proves it exists. Plus it's the PRIMARY ARTICLE, so "go figure"! The Rambling Man (talk) 02:06, 15 April 2017 (UTC)