Thread: one

Господа, проясните пожалуйста...
В русском языке очень часто употребляется слово "один" перед существительными.
"мне один человек сказал..."
"все кошки черные, а одна белая"
"все молчали, а один (одна) спросил(а)".
В английском вроде на этот случай неопределенный артикль есть... но так и хочется вместо него "one" поставить. Это будет корректно?

Только тогда, когда подчеркивание, ээ, подчеркивается.
"мне один человек сказал..." - A person/someone told me...
"все кошки черные, а одна белая" - All the cats are black, but one is white
"все молчали, а один (одна) спросил(а)". All were silent, but one (of them) asked something

В первом примере, употреблять 'one' просто неправильно без контекста, а конечно, если разумеется что 'из многих людей лишь один человек мне сказал...' , то возможно употреблять 'one'.

On a related topic, a little quiz for the Russians:
Did you know that recently (let's say over the last 50 years) a new article has been added to the English language? Apart from a/an/the, we also have ...?

Da? Is it an 'instinker', as we call it in Dutch?

Some and any are articles too! :P

What about "sorta" and "kinda"? There is a joke about their Russian counterparts that they are articles in Russian.

To Oddo: no, as I understand it, they're quantifiers, which are a subset of determiners. Articles are another subset of determiners.

Summit like that anyhoo.

The one I'm referring to is a very specific new language development. Very common in speech, but not in written form.

To Friendy: what are the Russian words? I'm thinking типа , такой, какой ..?

Originally Posted by waxwing

To Friendy: what are the Russian words? I'm thinking типа , такой, какой ..?

You are right, I meant "типа". I should have written in singular.

между прочим, не угадала

Originally Posted by waxwing

между прочим, не угадала

Знаю.

Originally Posted by waxwing

On a related topic, a little quiz for the Russians:
Did you know that recently (let's say over the last 50 years) a new article has been added to the English language? Apart from a/an/the, we also have ...?

It's one of those tricky ones, right? BTW, why didn't you mention the zero article?
I understand them dialect forms don't count, like t'Yorkshire 't' for the cos for one thing they are just regional forms of your usual articles and they surely have been around much longer than 50 years. Also, the weak form of the definate article which sounds kinda like the indefinate article 'a' because 'th' is dropped - as in the Cockney 'na' for 'the' (onna telly, onna blag, etc.) - those are simply pronunciation quirks, not really a new article. Now, I'm tired and my brain won't listen to me so I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about but I'm sure it's something that we've all heard a thousand times and when you tell us we'll all go Семён Семёныч.... so please tell us - what's that new article you're talking about?

Two friends are chatting in the pub after a hard day's work. One says to the other:
"You'll never believe what happened to me yesterday. I was sitting right here in this pub, when this guy comes up to me and says he's found a new article in the English language! I was gobsmacked. I said nah, never mate, you're wrong. And then he takes out this grammar book and says 'there it is mate, look, plain as the nose on your face'".

Notice the present simple for the past. That's a related feature.
If you're interested, try to decide what the purpose/meaning of this new article is..

Originally Posted by VendingMachine

Originally Posted by waxwing

BTW, why didn't you mention the zero article?

забыл

Originally Posted by waxwing

Two friends are chatting in the pub after a hard day's work. One says to the other:
"You'll never believe what happened to me yesterday. I was sitting right here in this pub, when this guy comes up to me and says he's found a new article in the English language! I was gobsmacked. I said nah, never mate, you're wrong. And then he takes out this grammar book and says 'there it is mate, look, plain as the nose on your face'".

Notice the present simple for the past. That's a related feature.
If you're interested, try to decide what the purpose/meaning of this new article is..

Maybe it's an indefinite article with a touch of definiteness? It seems to me if it was replaced with "a", something would be lost in the meaning, I think it emphasizes something but I can't formulate what.
Btw, if I was translating this paragraph into Russian I could still translate "this" as "этот" (сижу я типа в баре и тут этот тип такой подходит... ) but in Russian I tend to classify it as "слово-сорняк" ("типа" I classify as слово-сорняк too) Just some reflections.

Семён Семёныч.... Just like I said I would. Heard that a million times never really paid much attention to it though - maybe because in Russian we kind of have a similar thing as Friendy has pointed out... Live and learn...

Well, I gave you a clue about the present simple in the past. When is that used? For what purpose?

And yes, it definitely is an indefinite article. But I don't think there's any touch of definiteness
And слово-сорняк , what is it? Literally 'weed-word's? So words which have no linguistic value, meta-language or whatever?
Heh that's a nice phrase, must remember that
'this' as indefinite article isn't a weed-word though.

and to VM: of course you've heard it, given the amount of colloquial BrE you know.. but a vanishingly small number of native speakers, apart from language specialists, would have been able to answer my question, despite hearing it every day.

Would any Americans like to chip in with :
-how common is it in American speech?
-when did it first appear?

It's hugely common in American speech (at least in this region - it's hard to generalize about American English), and I have no idea when it first appeared. I've certainly been hearing it my entire life.

Originally Posted by waxwing

Well, I gave you a clue about the present simple in the past. When is that used? For what purpose?

I always thought it is used just for simplicity. It's like you go back to the point on the time scale where the events began and tell it as if you are going through it all once again. But now I'll try to think more about it.

Originally Posted by waxwing

And слово-сорняк , what is it? Literally 'weed-word's? So words which have no linguistic value, meta-language or whatever?

Yes, the words that usually have no linguistic value and used too frequently in one's speech, another word for them is "слово-паразит". Btw, is there any special name for such words in English?
Some common слова-сорняки: ну, вот, ну (так) вот, ну вобщем, короче.

I can confirm it's pretty common in my region too, if not the whole US. I don't have perfect English as Joysof does, so I often use this and other words that have no linguistic value. I can't even remember what the term is.

Friendy, yes, that's basically it: immediacy. I think that's the key concept. By using 'this' instead of 'a', you try to project the listener into the position of 'first person'. So that the story seems more dramatic. Using the present simple instead of a past tense can have the same purpose, when you're telling an anecdote or story.

Pravit: I don't think 'this' in this context is a weed-word - any more than 'a' or 'the' are.
The English for слово-сорняк? Apart from meta-language, I'm not sure I know ... my Russian grammar book calls words like 'ну' particles .. I guess that's not the same though?
Hey, let's start a thread about the dreaded 'like' вот это слово-сорняк! да?