{"id":23312,"date":"2024-03-15T15:20:44","date_gmt":"2024-03-15T15:20:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=23312"},"modified":"2024-03-15T15:20:44","modified_gmt":"2024-03-15T15:20:44","slug":"whimperatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=23312","title":{"rendered":"Whimperatives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When you ask someone to do something for you, but in an indirect kind of way, or in other words, you phrase an order or imperative obliquely as a question, this is apparently called a <strong>whimperative<\/strong>. For example, you might say \u201cWould you mind closing the window?\u201d, rather than the more direct \u201cPlease, close the window\u201d or \u201cClose the window!\u201d. Or you might say \u201cWhy don\u2019t you be quiet?\u201d instead of \u201cBe quiet\u201d [<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thoughtco.com\/whimperative-sentence-types-1692606\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/atoach\/12416974223\/in\/photolist-jVfeQt-apqHkj-6y6nxc-fjkMd3-KqU4F7-aqDjCp-2nBjf3J-PsxA9k-4j5Esd-4KV6jL-Jjjbd-bAPx73-5Js9Q3-771Akv-24HYR4i-628U3p-6yaw9h-U6p1Dp-CrpdpG-73DuDs-61HAVf-8BW8F-2nBqFAH-fzvYC4-mWnP1n-69NfZy-aXhC2D-4BVhy7-6gjRE3-2nBjf1p-2nBpjsS-8pNifH-9zMB4V-rkeFLT-3dnK6P-aFCvTg-537EFx-7iDd8U-5yWPgc-HAHW8a-2nBjf2r-2nBrN9G-J3E4W-5vnpVo-2ozyQsR-XDcsKd-RAR6wb-2mGfRxE-bBS6XP-8VdkiC\" title=\"Do Not Discard It In The Void\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/3822\/12416974223_d234f7bb73_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" alt=\"Do Not Discard It In The Void\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>This word was coined by Jerrold Sadock, a professor of Linguistics at the University of Chicago, in an essay he wrote in 1970. It\u2019s a blend of <strong>whimper<\/strong> and <strong>imperative<\/strong>. Another term for a <strong>whimperative<\/strong> is <strong>interrogative directive<\/strong> [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/whimperative\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p><strong>A whimper<\/strong> is a low intermittent sob, and <strong>to whimper<\/strong> means to cry or sob softly and intermittently, to cry with a low, whining, broken voice, to whine, to complain, or to say something in a whimpering manner [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/whimper#English\">source<\/a>]. <\/p>\n<p>It is probably of imitative origin, or may by related to <strong>wimmern<\/strong> (to whimper, moan) in German. The words <strong>wimp<\/strong> and <strong>wimpy<\/strong> possibly come from <strong>whimper<\/strong>, and were likely influenced by the charcter J. Wellington Wimpy in the Popeye comics [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/whimper#English\">source<\/a>].<\/p>\n<p><a data-flickr-embed=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/paprihaven\/51063451828\/in\/photolist-2kNixcS-W2HjY7-2on7vFV-5gFH2k-uEihJ4-dwTUC9-NjSDvZ-2g4y6KN-egi2JS-e3ufYi-2m3wiTH-2ebZpgx-7UacJc-9ord62-Z7MUyf-2efmh5h-abDR5E-4Rxfhc-ehZfGE-74NGrn-2LG2fb-RMgTYx-Qxv51R-gHWJtE-4YjZd-21QUiQD-74sjJb-4h6AbK-Mx3gm-r8822F-q9Zex1-8RMFhd-8BsoGH-239pj8w-74dhqg-2p4zwdS-Mxbsx-Mx3cy-iFyKq-Mx3sC-Mx3ou-Mxbpc-UDqSEo-Mx3jN-8w2Gtj-rTy6va-9uNfwx-nhXUcu-2iLqBu1-3LHXZb\" title=\"Always Tuesday - Bijou Planks 81\/365\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/51063451828_738b2fcc0f_z.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" alt=\"Always Tuesday - Bijou Planks 81\/365\"\/><\/a><script async src=\"\/\/embedr.flickr.com\/assets\/client-code.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The word <strong>imperative<\/strong> (essential, crucial, expressing a command) comes from the Latin word <em>imper\u0101t\u012bvus<\/em> (of or proceeding from a command, commanded), from <em>imper\u014d<\/em> (to comand, give orders to, demand, rule, govern), from <em>in-<\/em> (in) and <em>par\u014d<\/em> (to arrange, order, resolve) [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/imperative#English\">source<\/a>]. <\/p>\n<p>Words from the same roots include <strong>pare<\/strong> (to cut away the outer layer from something, especially a fruit or a vegetable) in English, <strong>parer<\/strong> (to adorn, bedeck, fend off) in French, <strong>parer<\/strong> (to stop, halt, put up, lift, stand up) in Spanish and <strong>paratoi<\/strong> (to prepare) in Welsh [<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/paro#Latin\">source<\/a>]. <\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/my.kualo.com\/uk\/go\/00572\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.kualo.com\/rewards\/uk-unlimited2-468x60.gif\" width=\"468\" height=\"60\" border=\"0\"\nalt=\"Unlimited Web Hosting - Kualo\"\/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When you ask someone to do something for you, but in an indirect kind of way, or in other words, you phrase an order or imperative obliquely as a question, this is apparently called a whimperative. For example, you might say \u201cWould you mind closing the window?\u201d, rather than the more direct \u201cPlease, close the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,111,116,10,15,64,77,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-french","category-german","category-language","category-latin","category-spanish","category-welsh","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23312"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23317,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23312\/revisions\/23317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}