Margaret Marks has a post called “Resp. and other non-existent English words,” about Germans transferring usages from their own language to English, where they cause befuddlement. She mentions “the word furtheron, which seems like a combination of weiterhin and furthermore” and says, “Recently I saw a.o., clearly meaning among others. Of course, German unter anderem really means inter alia or among other things, not among others, so that too was misused.” But the main part of her entry concerns a word that always vaguely puzzled and annoyed me back when I had to plow through German linguistics journals:
Now I have read a query from someone on a forum with a German member whose English is very good. However, he keeps including the abbreviation ‘resp.’ in his postings, and English speakers can’t make sense of it. Here are two examples:
There are two kinds of suitable Polyurethane foam. One is single component. Works well, only requires some water moisture resp. wetness to react and set.
And I see that the vast majority of users resp. members still would like to post ‘Wanted’ ads here.
To quote the questioner:
I thought at first it meant “with respect to”, but I think he’s actually using it to offer an alternative word for the one he has just used. I suspect he’s using a literal translation of a German abbreviation, but it doesn’t quite get his meaning across in English.
This is interesting, because every time I read resp. I know from German what the writer means. Beziehungsweise usually means and or or. But respectively has a narrower meaning: ‘each separately in the order mentioned’, to quote the Longmans Dictionary of Contemporary English. Example:
Classes A, B, and C will start their exams at 9.30, 10.00 and 10.30 respectively.
Beziehungsweise can mean this, but more often it is used the way the German uses resp. above: water or wetness, members or users.
It makes me wonder what mistakes are typical of English-speakers writing in other languages.
Croatian has the word “odnosno” with the same meaning and usage as the German word. It is a very useful word meaning which is approximated by the English “respectively”. But as noted in the article, the English word cannot be used to mean “and/or”. English is the poorer for it. Maybe we should adopt the usage of “resp” in English.
I wonder if the Croatian usage is a calque from the German?
“others” == “other things”; what is the problem there?
It makes me wonder what mistakes are typical of English-speakers writing in other languages.
Not exactly in the same vein, and not just English-speakers, but this amused me.
It makes me wonder what mistakes are typical of English-speakers writing in other languages.
In most European languages, I suspect that a typical mistake is to use present participles as gerunds, possessives instead of demonstratives, and maybe other habits we picked up from the Insular Celts.
It makes me wonder what mistakes are typical of English-speakers writing in other languages.
Joy Burrough wrote a book – Righting English that’s gone Dutch (ISBN 90 57 97008 2) – on how the Dutch make their own English. The second edition of this book will be published this year.
I was watching this “teach yourself Spanish” instructional DVD, and in the midst of a blandly whimsical “fun” presentation, the host gets all serious and says, “Be absolutely certain to put a tilde on the n when spelling the word “años.”
The host’s sudden gravity immediately sent my non-Spanish-speaking self to Larousse’s.
I wonder how many tourists and students blithely inform the authorities in Spanish-speaking countries that they are at least 21 assholes.
“Be absolutely certain to put a tilde on the n when spelling the word “años.”
Amazon lists Garcia Marquez’s magnum opus as Cien Anos de Soledad.
What a sad book that would be…
“others” == “other things”; what is the problem there?
I didn’t respond to this back in 2004, but obviously “among others” does not mean “among other things,” as should be clear to any English speaker.
The OED thinks otherwise: it defines among others s.v. among as ‘= inter alia‘, with these examples, some of which I don’t think fit (crossed out here), but some of which do.
521 tr. C. de Pisan Bk. Cyte of Ladyes iii. vii. sig. T.ii.v The Emperoure..made her to be tourmented with dyuers tourmentes and amonge others he made to nayle her heed with a thousande nayles lyke to the helme of a knyght.
1577 B. Googe tr. C. Heresbach Foure Bks. Husbandry iii. f. 153v The olde husbandes in hyring of a shepheard, did alwayes couenant among others, that he should be sound of body and limme.
1677 J. Armstrong Souls Worth & Danger 71 Such an earnest care of thy Souls welfare let it be thy principal care, because, among others, it may have these deserved commendations, to be holy and easy, safe and successeful, prudent and profitable.
1784 W. Gilpin Life T. Cranmer xxviii. 227 He was averse to the sounding titles of the clergy; and when these things, among others, were settled, he would often say, ‘We might well do without them.’
1876 J. Durand tr. H. Taine Origins Contemp. France ii. i. 100 If..I count the titular nobles I find, among others, 68 almoners or chaplains, 170 gentlemen of the bedchamber or in waiting, [etc.].1993 Wire Feb. 8/1 Lillian has been..recording with—among others—the cream of the modern-day New Orleans gumbo-aristocracy: Allen Toussaint, Dr John, Lee Dorsey.2019 E. Snowden Permanent Rec. xv. 154 Because of these headers, your Internet browsing can easily be identified as yours by, among others, webmasters, network administrators, and foreign intelligence services.
The last one is doubtful, because although webmasters and network administrators are persons, foreign intelligence services are only composed of persons. But it is one reason why I don’t dismiss this usage as archaic. Here are some phrases from COCA:
Michigan Quarterly Review, the New York Post, and the Antioch Review, among others
the rivers Banana, Bananito, Sixaola, Sarapiqu and Cariblanco, among others
Turkey, India, Malaysia, and China, among others
the councilman representing El Sereno, Eagle Rock and Glassell Park, among others
I currently own a 7D, (among others)
the Los Angeles Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and LA STAGE Alliance, among others
Lloyds, Barclays, ING, and the Royal Bank of Scotland, among others
many things besides an atheist (e.g. skeptic, freethinker, and humanist among others)
Georgia, Illinois, Texas, and Virginia (among others)
this ugly monkey movement, alone among others
design thinking, agile methods, service design, social design, among others
countries like Bangladesh, Haiti, the Philippines and Burkina Faso among others
I decided to actually try the products (D7000 and OM-D among others)
Quant. suff.!
You seem to have missed the point. Let’s try replacing “among others” with “among other things,” shall we? (I ignore premodern OED cites as utterly irrelevant to contemporary usage.)
Want to rethink your supposition? Or do actually think those work (meaning, where applicable, the same as “among others”), in which case we speak very different forms of English?
I’m confused as to what the disagreement here is. I think you may be typing past each other.
JC is denying my statement that “among others” does not mean “among other things,” citing a bunch of quotes which I say do not prove what he thinks they prove — it is clear to me that the two expressions cannot replace each other. What is your take on it? To take a specific instance, does “the councilman representing El Sereno, Eagle Rock and Glassell Park, among other things” sound like normal English to you? (To me, “among other things” cannot mean “among other such places.”)
You’re right that the two expressions are not absolute synonyms, but what expressions are other than technical terms? We are not told the English context of this a.o., but my take on it is that Marks’s objection is that among others means ‘among other people’, and it is that objection which I was concerned to refute. In other words, she’d be fine with “the councilman representing El Sereno, Eagle Rock and Glassell Park inter alia“, setting aside questions of register. I may of course be quite wrong.