5 ms·
How do you communicate someone's name then? You can't say "the name IS", or "He/she IS called". The cognate to the word all the other Germanic languages use has
by legulere 11y ago
How do you communicate someone's name then?
You can't say "the name IS", or "He/she IS called".
The cognate to the word all the other Germanic languages use has become archaic and even lacks a present tense form:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hight#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hight#English
Maybe: "One calls her/him"?
- TeMPOraL 11y ago"He/she calls himself/herself X"?
- veridies 11y agoThis is what Spanish and Italian do normally. "Mi chiamo" and "me llamo" both translate to "I call myself." Other languages probably do the same, but I'm not qualified to speak about anything else.
- TeMPOraL 11y agoIn Polish we use either "mam na imię X" ("I have the name X") or "nazywam się X" ("I call myself X"). Honestly, I only just realized that the latter form is literally what we're talking about - for my whole life I just had it stored in my head as a phrase meaning "me.name == X".
- RyanMcGreal 11y agoFrench is similar: Je m'appelle Ryan (I call myself Ryan).
- Scarblac 11y agoDutch has a specific verb ("heten") just for "to be named". Jij heet veridies.
- megaman22 11y agoAlso German - Ich heisse X (that's supposed to be an eszett)
- pmontra 11y agoAFAIK Russian, which lost the present tense of "to be", just says "my name X" (Меня зовут X). Italian, which has the verb to be, nevertheless uses a different form: literally "I call me X" (mi chiamo X). "I'm X" (io sono X) would be understood but it's more the answer to who are you than to what's your name.
- andrioni 11y agoThe Russian phrase means "[They] call me X". "My name [is] X" would be "Моё имя — X".
- pmontra 11y agoMy Russian is very very basic. Sorry.
- untothebreach 11y agoSpanish, as well: "Te llamas $NAME" = "You call yourself $NAME", "Me llamo $NAME" = "I call myself $NAME"
- niccaluim 11y agoAlso German. Ich heiße Bob / I am called Bob; wie heißt du / how are you called?
- Semiapies 11y agoTwo ways occur to me. In passing: This guy walking up, Jake, handles our servers. Imperative: Call me Ishmael.
- ghshephard 11y agoA not uncommon phrase is "They prefer to be called xxxx".
- chippy 11y ago"to be"
- austinjp 11y agoHe has the name Jack. It encourages the separation of entities and their properties, and helps to more accurately represent these. Perhaps :)
- desdiv 11y agoI would suggest "He introduced himself as Jack." since we don't actually have access to the name property of people. Perhaps English speakers found his real name too hard to pronounce, or perhaps he lives under an alias after joining the witness protection program, or perhaps he works as a super spy.
- lisivka 11y ago"A boy called Jack"
- level3 11y agoA few more options: He goes by the name Jack. He bears the name Jack. He answers to the name of Jack. Everyone calls him Jack. His parents named him Jack.
- morganvachon 11y ago...all of which seems circuitous, as if one is being dishonest or misleading. That's the biggest issue I have with E-Prime; speaking in it constantly makes one seem as if they are trying to hide something. For example: I hear "He goes by the name Jack" and I think, "okay, but what is his real name?" Or: "Everyone calls him Jack" implies once again that "Jack" is not his real name. "His parents named him Jack" implies that he now goes by another name, not his given name. E-Prime is an interesting thought experiment, but it's simply not practical for real world, everyday speaking. I will grant that it can be effective in writing, but it still seems as if it's only trying to prove a point, and aggressively at that.
- level3 11y agoDefinitely, using "to be" seems more efficient and understandable for expressions like this, but a lot of other expressions become clearer and more active. I personally wouldn't force myself to only use E-Prime, but I can see the value in trying to avoid "to be" as much as possible, within reason.
- triangleman 11y agoPerhaps it seems that way because we are so used to identifying with our names? Not only that but in typical American etiquette we commonly follow up questions of identity with a nonchalant "what do you do?"... I just met you and I'm already seeking job/rank/social status. It's like we are just dying to box people into a convenient category. If you think about it, a human being has 3 different identities: 1. His true self. Unfortunately we will never know the real Jack, just as we will never really know ourselves. 2. His appearance. This is the sum total of your interactions with Jack. The empirical Jack. 3. His being. You could call this Jack's spirit, or the effect that Jack has on you. #3 is distinguished from #2 because Jack might be a real jerk, or he may have done something that seemed jerkish to you. Either way, it's clear that he both 1) did something and 2) it had an effect on you. There is an ongoing relationship between you and Jack, and while people are known by their actions, they are not confused with their actions. Therefore we must differentiate between Jack's actions and Jack himself, and so we call the man "Jack" though we often think we are talking about the #1 definition of selfhood when we call him that. But as I mentioned, you truly don't know Jack.
- omg2k 11y agoMy Birth Certificate, friends, family, and employers identify me as "Blah".