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Sunday, July 26, 2020

United States Census Bureau

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Bureau of the Census
Seal of the United States Census Bureau.svg
United States Census Bureau Wordmark.svg
Agency overview
FormedJuly 1, 1902
Preceding agency
  • Temporary census offices
HeadquartersSuitland, Maryland, U.S.
Employees4,285 (2018)
Annual budgetUS$1.5 billion (2017)
US$1.5 billion (2018)
US$3.8 billion (est. 2019)
Agency executives
Parent agencyDepartment of Commerce
Websitewww.census.gov

The United States Census Bureau (USCB; officially the Bureau of the Census, as defined in Title 13 U.S.C. § 11) is a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The Census Bureau is part of the U.S. Department of Commerce and its director is appointed by the President of the United States.

The Census Bureau's primary mission is conducting the U.S. Census every ten years, which allocates the seats of the U.S. House of Representatives to the states based on their population. The Bureau's various censuses and surveys help allocate over $675 billion in federal funds every year and it helps states, local communities, and businesses make informed decisions. The information provided by the census informs decisions on where to build and maintain schools, hospitals, transportation infrastructure, and police and fire departments.
In addition to the decennial census, the Census Bureau continually conducts over 130 surveys and programs a year,[5] including the American Community Survey, the U.S. Economic Census, and the Current Population Survey.[1] Furthermore, economic and foreign trade indicators released by the federal government typically contain data produced by the Census Bureau.

Legal mandate

Census headquarters in Suitland, Maryland

Article One of the United States Constitution (section II) directs the population be enumerated at least once every ten years and the resulting counts used to set the number of members from each state in the House of Representatives and, by extension, in the Electoral College. The Census Bureau now conducts a full population count every 10 years in years ending with a zero and uses the term "decennial" to describe the operation. Between censuses, the Census Bureau makes population estimates and projections.

In addition, Census data directly affects how more than $400 billion per year in federal and state funding is allocated to communities for neighborhood improvements, public health, education, transportation and more. The Census Bureau is mandated with fulfilling these obligations: the collecting of statistics about the nation, its people, and economy. The Census Bureau's legal authority is codified in Title 13 of the United States Code.

The Census Bureau also conducts surveys on behalf of various federal government and local government agencies on topics such as employment, crime, health, consumer expenditures, and housing. Within the bureau, these are known as "demographic surveys" and are conducted perpetually between and during decennial (10-year) population counts. The Census Bureau also conducts economic surveys of manufacturing, retail, service, and other establishments and of domestic governments.

Between 1790 and 1840, the census was taken by marshals of the judicial districts. The Census Act of 1840 established a central office which became known as the Census Office. Several acts followed that revised and authorized new censuses, typically at the 10-year intervals. In 1902, the temporary Census Office was moved under the Department of Interior, and in 1903 it was renamed the Census Bureau under the new Department of Commerce and Labor. The department was intended to consolidate overlapping statistical agencies, but Census Bureau officials were hindered by their subordinate role in the department.

An act in 1920 changed the date and authorized manufacturing censuses every two years and agriculture censuses every 10 years. In 1929, a bill was passed mandating the House of Representatives be reapportioned based on the results of the 1930 Census. In 1954, various acts were codified into Title 13 of the US Code.

By law, the Census Bureau must count everyone and submit state population totals to the U.S. President by December 31 of any year ending in a zero. States within the Union receive the results in the spring of the following year.

Data collection

U.S. Census Bureau Regions and Divisions

Census regions and divisions

The United States Census Bureau defines four statistical regions, with nine divisions. The Census Bureau regions are "widely used...for data collection and analysis". The Census Bureau definition is pervasive.

Regional divisions used by the United States Census Bureau:

Uses of census data

Many federal, state, local and tribal governments use census data to:
  • Decide the location of new housing and public facilities,
  • Examine the demographic characteristics of communities, states, and the US,
  • Plan transportation systems and roadways,
  • Determine quotas and creation of police and fire precincts, and
  • Create localized areas for elections, schools, utilities, etc.
  • Gathers population information every 10 years
In the first quarter of 2020 the website census.gov was one of the most popular and reliable sources in Wikipedia.

Data stewardship

The United States Census Bureau is committed to confidentiality, and guarantees non-disclosure of any addresses or personal information related to individuals or establishments. Title 13 of the U.S. Code establishes penalties for the disclosure of this information. All Census employees must sign an affidavit of non-disclosure prior to employment.

The Bureau cannot share responses, addresses or personal information with anyone including United States or foreign government and law enforcement agencies such as the IRS or the FBI or Interpol. "Providing quality data, for public good—while respecting individual privacy and, at the same time, protecting confidentiality—is the Census Bureau's core responsibility"; "Keeping the public's trust is critical to the Census's ability to carry out the mission as the leading source of quality data about the Nation's people and economy." Only after 72 years does the information collected become available to other agencies or the general public. Seventy-two years was picked because usually by 72 years since the census is taken, most participants would be deceased.

Despite these guarantees of confidentiality, the Census Bureau has some history of disclosures to other government agencies. In 1918, the Census Bureau released individual information regarding several hundred young men to the Justice Department and Selective Service system for the purpose of prosecutions for draft evasion. During World War II, the United States Census Bureau assisted the government's Japanese American internment efforts by providing confidential neighborhood information on Japanese-Americans. The Bureau's role was denied for decades but was finally proven in 2007.

United States census data are valuable for the country's political parties; Democrats and Republicans are highly interested in knowing the accurate number of persons in their respective districts. These insights are often linked to financial and economic strategies that are central to federal, state and city investments for locations of particular populations. Such apportionments are designed to distribute political power across neutral spatial allocations; however, "because so much is at stake, the census also runs the risk of being politicized."

Such political tensions highlight the complexity of identity and classification; some argue that unclear results from the population data "is due to distortions brought about by political pressures." One frequently used example includes ambiguous ethnic counts, which often involves underenumeration and/or undercounting of minority populations. Ideas about race, ethnicity and identity have also evolved in the United States, and such changes warrant examination of how these shifts have impacted the accuracy of census data over time.

The United States Census Bureau began pursuing technological innovations to improve the precision of its census data collection in the 1980s. Robert W. Marx, the Chief of the Geography Division of the USCB teamed up with the US Geological Survey and oversaw the creation of the Topologically Integrated Geographic Encoding and Referencing (TIGER) database system. Census officials were able to evaluate the more sophisticated and detailed results that the TIGER system produced; furthermore, TIGER data is also available to the public. And while the TIGER system does not directly amass demographic data, as a geographic information system (GIS), it can be used to merge demographics to conduct more accurate geospatial and mapping analysis.

In July 2019 the Census Bureau deprecated American Fact Finder for the new platform data.census.gov, providing support for data users accessing the new site.

Ongoing surveys

A survey is a method of collecting and analyzing social, economic, and geographic data. It provides information about the conditions of the United States, states, and counties. Throughout the decade between censuses, the bureau conducts surveys to produce a general view and comprehensive study of the United States' social and economic conditions. 

Staff from the Current Surveys Program conduct over 130 ongoing and special surveys about people and their characteristics. A network of professional field representatives gathers information from a sample of households, responding to questions about employment, consumer expenditures, health, housing, and other topics. Surveys conducted between decades:

Other surveys conducted

The Census Bureau collects information in many other surveys and provides the data to the survey sponsor for release. These sponsors include:

Organizational structure

U.S. Census Bureau Regional Office Boundaries

Since 1903, the official census-taking agency of the United States government has been the Bureau of the Census. The Census Bureau is headed by a Director, assisted by a Deputy Director and an Executive Staff composed of the associate directors. 

The Census Bureau has had headquarters in Suitland, Maryland, since 1942. A new headquarters complex there was completed in 2007 and supports over 4,000 employees. The Bureau operates regional offices in 6 cities: New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, and Los Angeles. The National Processing Center is in Jeffersonville, Indiana. Additional temporary processing facilities facilitate the decennial census, which employs more than a million people. The cost of the 2000 Census was $4.5 billion. During the years just prior to the decennial census, parallel census offices, known as "Regional Census Centers" are opened in the field office cities. The decennial operations are carried out from these facilities. The Regional Census Centers oversee the openings and closings of smaller "Area Census Offices" within their collection jurisdictions. The estimated cost of the 2010 Census is $14.7 billion.

On January 1, 2013, the Census Bureau was to consolidate its 12 regional offices into 6. Increasing costs of data collection, changes in survey management tools such as laptops and the increasing use of multi-modal surveys (i.e. internet, telephone, and in-person) has led the Census Bureau to consolidate. The remaining regional offices will be in: New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Denver, and Los Angeles.

The Census Bureau also runs the Census Information Center cooperative program that involves 58 "national, regional, and local non-profit organizations". The CIC program aims to represent the interests of underserved communities.

Computer equipment

Census Bureau employees tabulate data using one of the agency’s UNIVAC computers, ca. 1960.

The 1890 census was the first to use the electric tabulating machines invented by Herman Hollerith. For 1890–1940 details, see Truesdell, Leon E. (1965). The Development of Punch Card Tabulation in the Bureau of the Census, 1890–1940: With outlines of actual tabulation programs. US GPO. In 1946, knowing of the Bureau's funding of Hollerith and, later, Powers, John Mauchly approached the Bureau about early funding for UNIVAC development. A UNIVAC I computer was accepted by the Bureau in 1951.

Handheld computers (HHC)

Historically, the census information was gathered by census takers going door-to-door collecting information in a ledger. Beginning in 1970 information was gathered via mailed forms. To reduce paper usage, reduce payroll expense and acquire the most comprehensive list of addresses ever compiled, 500,000 handheld computers (HHCs) (specifically designed, single purpose devices) were used for the first time in 2009 during the address canvassing portion of the 2010 Decennial Census Project. Projected savings were estimated to be over $1 billion.

Security precautions

The HHC was manufactured by Harris Corporation, an established Department of Defense contractor, via a controversial contract with the Department of Commerce. Secured access via a fingerprint swipe guaranteed only the verified user could access the unit. A GPS capacity was integral to the daily address management and the transfer of gathered information. Of major importance was the security and integrity of the populace's private information.

Success and failure

Enumerators (information gatherers) that had operational problems with the device understandably made negative reports. During the 2009 Senate confirmation hearings for Robert Groves, President Obama's Census Director appointee, there was much mention of problems but very little criticism of the units. In rural areas, the sparsity of cell phone towers caused problems with data transmission to and from the HHC. Since the units were updated nightly with important changes and updates, operator implementation of proper procedure was imperative. Dramatic dysfunction and delays occurred if the units were not put into sleep mode overnight.
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I before E except after C

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"I before E, except after C" is a mnemonic rule of thumb for English spelling. If one is not sure whether a word is spelled with the digraph ei or ie, the rhyme suggests that the correct order is ie unless the preceding letter is c, in which case it is ei. For example:
  • ie in believe, fierce, collie, die, friend
  • ei after c in receive, ceiling, receipt, ceilidh
The rule is very well known; Edward Carney calls it "this supreme, and for many people solitary, spelling rule".

The rule is sometimes taught without regard for the particular sound represented by the spelling, and sometimes taught as applying only to particular pronunciations. Two common restrictions are:
  • excluding cases where the spelling represents the "long a" sound (the lexical sets of FACE /eɪ/ and perhaps SQUARE /ɛər/). This is commonly expressed by continuing the rhyme "or when sounding like A, as in neighbor or weigh"
  • including only cases where the spelling represents the "long e" sound (the lexical sets of FLEECE /iː/ and perhaps NEAR /ɪər/ and happY /i/).
However, whichever version of the rule is used, there are exceptions, such as caffeine, policies, seize, species and weird. Some words are exceptions under some versions of the rule but not others, such as leisure and rottweiler. Other words, such either, may or may not be exceptions depending on both which version of the rule is used and how an individual pronounces them. Some authorities deprecate the rule as having too many exceptions to be worth learning.

History

History of the spellings

The Middle English language evolved from Old English after the Norman conquest, adding many loanwords from Norman French, whose sounds and spellings changed and were changed by the older English customs. In French loanwords, the digraph generally represented the sound [eː], while represented [ɛː]; was later extended to signify [eː] in non-French words. In the Great Vowel Shift, sounds [eː] and [ɛː] were raised to [iː] and [eː] respectively. Later, the meet–meat merger saw the vowel in many [eː] words change to [iː], so that meat became a homonym of meet, while conceive now rhymed with believe. Early Modern English spelling was not fixed; many words were spelled with and interchangeably, in printed works of the seventeenth century and private correspondence of educated people into the nineteenth century.

History of the mnemonic

The mnemonic (in its short form) is found as early as 1866, as a footnote in Manual of English Spelling, edited by schools inspector James Stuart Laurie from the work of a Tavistock schoolmaster named Marshall. Michael Quinion surmises the rhyme was already established before this date. An 1834 manual states a similar rule in prose; others in 1855 and 1862 use different rhymes. Many textbooks from the 1870s on use the same rhyme as Laurie's book.

The restriction to the "long e" sound is explicitly made in the 1855 and 1862 books, and applied to the "I before E except after C" rhyme in an 1871 manual. Mark Wainwright's FAQ posting on the alt.usage.English newsgroup characterises this restricted version as British. The restriction may be implicit, or may be explicitly included as an extra line such as "when the sound is e" placed before or after the main part of the rhyme. 

A longer form excluding the "long a" sound is found in Rule 37 of Ebenezer Cobham Brewer's 1880 Rules for English Spelling, along with a list of the "chief exceptions":
The following rhymes contain the substance of the last three rules : —
i before e,
Except after c,
Or when sounded as "a",
As in neighbour and weigh.
"Dr Brewer" is credited as the author by subsequent writers quoting this form of the rhyme, which became common in American schools.

A Dictionary of Modern English Usage discusses "i before e except after c". Henry Watson Fowler's original 1926 edition called the rule "very useful", restricting it to words with the "long e" sound, stating further that "words in which that sound is not invariable, as either, neither, inveigle, do not come under it", and calling seize "an important exception". The entry was retained in Ernest Gowers's 1965 revision. Robert Burchfield rewrote it for the 1996 edition, stating 'the rule can helpfully be extended "except when the word is pronounced with /eɪ/"', and giving a longer list of exceptions, including words excluded from Fowler's interpretation. Robert Allen's 2008 pocket edition states, "The traditional spelling rule ' i before e except after c ' should be extended to include the statement 'when the combination is pronounced -ee- '". Jeremy Butterfield's 2015 edition suggests both "when ... pronounced -ee-" and "except when ... pronounced -ay-" as extensions to the rhyme, as well as listing various classes of exception.

In 1932 Leonard B. Wheat examined the rules and word lists found in various American elementary school spelling books. He calculated that, of the 3,876 words listed, 128 had ei or ie in the spelling; of these, 83 conformed to I-before-E, 6 to except-after-C, and 12 to sounded-like-A. He found 14 words with i-e in separate syllables, and 2 with e-i in separate syllables. This left 11 "irregular" words: 3 with cie (ancient, conscience, efficiency) and 8 with ei (either, foreign, foreigner, height, leisure, neither, seize, their). Wheat concluded, "If it were not for the fact that the jingle of the rule makes it easy to remember (although not necessarily easy to apply), the writer would recommend that the rule be reduced to 'I usually comes before e,' or that it be discarded entirely".

Modern views

Sandra Wilde in 1990 claimed the sounded-like-E version of the rule was one of only two sound–letter correspondence rules worth teaching in elementary schools. The rule was covered by five of nine software programs for spelling education studied by Barbara Mullock in 2012.

Edward Carney's 1994 Survey of English Spelling describes the ["long-e" version of the] rule as "peculiar":
Its practical use is ... simply deciding between two correspondences for /iː/ that are a visual metathesis of each other. It is not a general graphotactic rule applicable to other phonemes. So, although seize and heinous (if you pronounce it with /iː/ rather than /eɪ/) are exceptions, heifer, leisure with /e/≡ or rein, vein with /eɪ/≡ are not exceptions; is not a usual spelling of /e/ or /eɪ/.
As to the usefulness of the rule, he says:
Such rules are warnings against common pitfalls for the unwary. Nevertheless, selection among competing correspondences has never been, and could never be, covered by such aids to memory.
The converse of the "except after c" part is Carney's spelling-to-sound rule E.16: in the sequence , the is pronounced /iː/. In Carney's test wordlist, all eight words with conform to this rule, which he thus describes as being a "marginal" rule with an "efficiency" of 100%. Rarer loanwords not in the wordlist may not conform; e.g. the Gaelic word ceilidh is pronounced /keɪliː/.

Mark Wainwright's FAQ posting interprets the rule as applying only to the FLEECE vowel, not the NEAR vowel; he regards it as useful if "a little common sense" is used for the exceptions. The FAQ includes a 1996 response to Wainwright by an American, listing variations on the rule and their exceptions, contending that even the restricted version has too many exceptions, and concluding "Instead of trying to defend the 'rule' or 'guideline', "'i' before 'e' except after 'c'", why don't we all just agree that it is dumb and useless, and be content just to laugh at it?"

Kory Stamper of Merriam-Webster has said the neighbor-and-weigh version is "chocked with tons of exceptions", listing several types. On Language Log in 2006, Mark Liberman suggested that the alternative "i before e, no matter what" was more reliable than the basic rule. On the same blog in 2009, Geoff Pullum wrote, 'The rule is always taught, by anyone who knows what they are doing, as "i before e except after c when the sound is 'ee'."'

Teaching English Spelling (Cambridge University Press, 2000) provides a system of sound–spelling correspondences aimed at correcting common spelling errors among native and ESL students. The chapter "The sound 'e' (/iː/)" has sections on spellings "ee", "ea", "-y" and "ie and ei", the last of which uses "I before E except after C" and lists five "common exceptions" (caffeine, codeine, protein, seize, weird).

The 2009 edition of Support for Spelling, by the English Department for Education, suggests an "Extension activity" for Year Five (10-year-olds):
  • Children investigate the rule i before e except after c. Does this always apply? What sound does ie make in these words?
In the Appendix, after a list of nine "useful spelling guidelines", there is a note:
  • The i before e except after c rule is not worth teaching. It applies only to words in which the ie or ei stands for a clear /ee/ sound and unless this is known, words such as sufficient, veil and their look like exceptions. There are so few words where the ei spelling for the /ee/ sound follows the letter c that it is easier to learn the specific words: receive, conceive, deceive (+ the related words receipt, conceit, deceit), perceive and ceiling.
There were widespread media reports of this recommendation, which generated some controversy.

The Oxford Dictionaries website of Oxford University Press states "The rule only applies when the sound represented is ‘ee’, though. It doesn’t apply to words like science or efficient, in which the –ie- combination does follow the letter c but isn’t pronounced ‘ee’."

David Crystal discusses the rule in his 2012 history of English spelling. He first restricts it to the /iː/ vowel, then accounts for several classes of exception. He states that, while the exceptions are fewer and rarer than the words that follow the rule, there are too many to learn by heart; the factors are "too great to reduce to a simple rule", but "a basic knowledge of grammar and word-history" can handle them.

Exceptions

The following sections list exceptions to the basic form; many are not exceptions to the augmented forms.

Words which break both the "I before E" part and the "except after C" part of the rule include cheiromancies, cleidomancies, eigenfrequencies, obeisancies, oneiromancies.

cie

Some large groups of words have cie in the spelling. Few common words have the cei spelling handled by the rule: verbs ending -ceive and their derivatives (perceive, deceit, transceiver, receipts, etc.), and ceiling. The BBC trivia show QI claimed there were 923 words spelled cie, 21 times the number of words which conform to the rule's stated exception by being written with cei. These figures were generated by a QI fan from a Scrabble wordlist. The statistic was repeated by UberFacts.

With the "long e" vowel

The vowel represented by ie in words spelled cie is rarely the "long e" vowel of FLEECE (/iː/), so few words are exceptions to the version of the rule restricted to that sound. Among them are specie, species.

For those with happy-tensing accents, the final y in words ending -cy has the FLEECE vowel, and therefore so do inflected forms ending -cies or -cied (fancied, policies, etc.). 

If the vowel of NEAR (/ɪər/) is considered as "long e", then words ending -cier may also be exceptions. Possible examples include: fancier, if pronounced with two rather than three syllables; or financier, if stressed on the final syllable or pronounced with a happy-tensing accent.

With other sounds

These are exceptions to the basic and "long a" versions of the rhyme, but not to the "long e" version.
Types include:
  • Adding suffix -er to root in -cy, giving a two-syllable ending -cier; For example, fancier (adjective "more fancy", or noun "one who fancies")
  • Words of Latin origin with a root ending in c(i) followed by a suffix or inflexion starting in (i)e; such as
    • fac or fic "do; make" (efficient, stupefacient, etc.)
    • soc "sharing; kin" (society)
    • sci "know" (science, prescient, etc.)
  • Others: ancient, concierge, glacier

ei not preceded by c

Many words have ei not preceded by c. In the sections which follow, most derived forms are omitted; for example, as well as seize, there exist disseize and seizure. Words are grouped by the phonemes (sounds) corresponding to ei or ie in the spelling; each phoneme is represented phonetically as at Help:IPA/English and, where applicable, by the keyword in John C. Wells' lexical sets.

An asterisk* after a word indicates the pronunciation implied is one of several found. Some have an /iː/ variant more common in America than Britain (e.g. sheikh, leisure, either have /eɪ/, /ɛ/, /aɪ/ respectively).

With the "long e" vowel

Words where ei, not preceded by c, represents the vowel of FLEECE (/iː/), are the only exceptions to the strictest British interpretation of the "long e" version of the rhyme. Less strict interpretations admit as exceptions those words where eir, not preceded by c, represents the vowel of NEAR (/ɪər/).
Some categories of exception:
  • Many proper names, often because they are adopted from other languages. Fowler says the rule "is useless with proper names"; Carney says "As one might expect of any rule, there are likely to be even more exceptions in names, many of which are Scottish":
  • Chemical names ending in -ein or -eine (caffeine, casein, codeine, phthalein, protein, etc.). Here -ein(e) was originally pronounced as two syllables /iː.ɪn/
  • Scottish English words (deil, deid, weill, etc.) Mark Wainwright writes "There are many exceptions in Scots, so speakers with a large Scots vocabulary may as well give up on this rule."
Other exceptions:
/iː/ FLEECE
either*, heinous*, inveigle*, keister, leisure*, monteith, neither*, obeisance*, seize, seizin, sheikh*, teiid
/ɪər/ NEAR
madeira, weir, weird. (This sound may also be spelled ier, as in pierce.)

With the "long a" vowel

There are many words where ei, not preceded by c, represents the vowel of FACE (/eɪ/). There are a few where eir, not preceded by c, represents the vowel of SQUARE (/ɛər/). These groups of words are exceptions only to the basic form of the rhyme; they are excluded from both of the common restricted forms.
/eɪ/ FACE

  • With eigh spelling: eight, freight, heigh-ho*, inveigh, neigh, neighbo(u)r, sleigh, weigh
  • Others: abseil, beige, capoeira, cleidoic, deign, dreidel, feign, feint, geisha, glei, greige, greisen, heinous*, inveigle*, nonpareil*, obeisance*, peignoir*, reign, rein, seiche, seidel, seine, sheikh*, skein, surveillance, veil, vein. (While Carney says this sound is never spelled ie, the last vowel in lingerie* is often the FACE vowel.).
/ɛər/ SQUARE
heir, their. (This sound is never spelled ier)

With other sounds

These are exceptions to the basic and "long a" versions of the rhyme, but not to the "long e" version.
This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.
/aɪ/ PRICE

  • German origin: einsteinium, gneiss, leitmotiv, Rottweiler, stein, zeitgeist.
  • Others: eider, either*, feisty, heigh-ho*, height, heist, kaleidoscope, neither*, seismic, sleight
(This sound may also be spelled ie, but only at the end of a morpheme as in die, pies, cried.)
/ɪ/ or /ə/ (see weak-vowel merger)
counterfeit, cuneiform*, foreign, forfeit, reveille*, sovereign, surfeit
/ɛ/ DRESS
heifer, leisure*, nonpareil*, peignoir*. (This sound is spelled ie in the word friend.)
/æ/ TRAP
reveille*
/ɜ/ NURSE
O'Beirne
e and i in separate segments (and often separate syllables or morphemes)

  • Prefixes de- or re- before words starting with i (deindustrialize, reignite, etc.)
  • Inflection -ing of those verbs with roots ending in -e which do not drop the e (being, seeing, swingeing, etc.)
  • Others: albeit, atheism, cuneiform*, deify, deity, herein, nuclei, onomatopoeia

Popular culture

The rhyme is mentioned in several films and TV episodes about spelling bees, including A Boy Named Charlie Brown, The Simpsons episode "I'm Spelling as Fast as I Can", The Pen Is Mightier Than the Pencil episode of The Odd Couple (1970 TV series), and an episode of Arthur; and also in the musical The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, when Huckelberry Finn is being taught how to read. The rhyme was used as a climactic plot device in the 1990 TaleSpin episode "Vowel Play" when Kit corrects Baloo's spelling by reciting the second half ("or when sounding like A, as in neighbour or weigh") of the mnemonic. 

I Before E (Except After C): Old-School Ways To Remember Stuff was a miscellany released in the UK for the Christmas 2007 "stocking filler" market, which sold well.

"I Before E Except After C" is a song on Yazoo's 1982 album Upstairs at Eric's. The Jackson 5's 1970 hit "ABC" has the lyric "I before E except after C". "I before E except after C" was a 1963 episode of the TV series East Side/West Side.

I Before E is the name of both a short-story collection by Sam Kieth and a music album by Carissa's Wierd, in each case alluding to the unusual spelling of the creator's name. Until the 1930s, Pierce City, Missouri was named "Peirce City", after Andrew Peirce. A 1982 attempt to revert to the original spelling was rejected by the United States Census Bureau.

Comedian Brian Regan employs the rule in a joke on his debut CD Live in the track Stupid in School.
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Love of money

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Christian tradition, the love of money is condemned as a sin primarily based on texts such as Ecclesiastes 5:10 and 1 Timothy 6:10. The Christian condemnation relates to avarice and greed rather than money itself. The Christian texts (scriptures) are full of parables and use easy to understand subjects, such as money, to convey the actual message, there are further parallels in Solon and Aristotle, and Massinissa—who ascribed love of money to Hannibal and the Carthaginians.. Avarice is one of the Seven deadly sins in the Christian classifications of vices (sins).

Judaism

Berachya Hanakdan lists "love of money" as a secular love, while Israel Salanter considers love of money for its own sake a non-universal inner force. A tale about Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heshel of Apt (1748–1825), rabbi in Iasi, recounts that he, who normally scorned money, had the habit of looking kindly on money before giving it to the poor at Purim, since only in valuing the gift could the gift express love of God. Berachot 54a teaches businessmen to "elevate their love of money to the same status as their love of God, which means that they should thereby love God enough to follow his commandment."

Christianity

Source text

The original Koine Greek reads, ῥίζα γὰρ πάντων τῶν κακῶν ἐστιν ἡ φιλαργυρία (Rhiza gar pantōn tōn kakōn estin hē philargyria) — "for the root of all evils is the love of money."

The Greek word αργυρία(argyria) may, like its cognates in many European languages be translates as silver or money.

A popular current text, the King James Version shows 1 Timothy 6:10 to be:

For the love of money is the root of all of evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Another popular text, the New International Version has "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil...."

During the reformation, Martin Luther (1483–1546) translated the then Latin Bible into German, and 1 Timothy 6:10 "For avarice is a root of all evil;..."

Soon after Martin Luthers' translation of the Bible to German, William Tyndale (1494–1536) did a similar translation into English as "For covetousness is the root of all evil;..." 

The grammarian Daniel B. Wallace lists six alternative possible translations of the primary Greek text, 1 Timothy 6:10. There are two reasons for this: first, it is difficult to tell whether the noun "root" is intended to be indefinite, definite, or qualitative. Second, the Greek word for "all" may mean "all without exclusion" or "all without distinction". But by reading more verses either side of 1 Timothy 6:10 a greater surety and confidence that the message is the coveting and striving of greed for something on earth is the sin the Jews and Christians define, where money could be exchanged with anything else on the earth eg power. The opposite of greed is charity, each of the Seven deadly sins has a counterpart in the Seven virtues.

Cultural history

Augustine defines love of money as a subcategory of avarice. Luther referred to the love of money in strong accusations against the Catholic Church in his initial work of the Ninety-five Theses or Disputation on the Power of Indulgences. He saw the selling of an indulgence by the church, ie paying money to the church to gain a reduction of penalty of sins in purgatory (a belief unique to the Catholic church) as being more commercial greed of the church than it was doing actual good for the Christian person. Later in some sermons he shone the spotlight on commercial money lenders which happened to be Jewish and one can argue have anti-semitic undertones. However, more to the point is thesis 43 of the Ninety Five thesis "A Christian who gives to the poor or lends to those in need is doing better in God’s eyes than one who buys ‘forgiveness’ (buys an indulgence)", as in a Jew who changed from being a money lender with greed to a money lender with charity would be doing better in God's eyes than simply purchasing a piece of paper that said they will spend less time in purgatory from Luther's point of view.
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Centum and satem languages

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Map showing the approximate extent of the centum (blue) and satem (red) areals. The origin of satemization according to von Bradke's hypothesis is shown in darker red (marked as the range of the Sintashta/Abashevo/Srubna archaeological cultures), but that hypothesis is not accepted by the majority of linguists.

Languages of the Indo-European family are classified as either centum languages or satem languages according to how the dorsal consonants (sounds of "K" and "G" type) of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) developed. An example of the different developments is provided by the words for "hundred" found in the early attested Indo-European languages. In centum languages, they typically began with a /k/ sound (Latin centum was pronounced with initial /k/), but in satem languages, they often began with /s/ (the example satem comes from the Avestan language of Zoroastrian scripture). 

The table below shows the traditional reconstruction of the PIE dorsal consonants, with three series, but according to some more recent theories there may actually have been only two series or three series with different pronunciations from those traditionally ascribed. In centum languages, the palatovelars, which included the initial consonant of the "hundred" root, merged with the plain velars. In satem languages, they remained distinct, and the labiovelars merged with the plain velars. 


 *kʷ *gʷ *gʷʰ labiovelars Merged in satem languages
Merged in centum languages *k *g *gʰ plain velars
*ḱ *ǵ *ǵʰ palatovelars Assibilated in satem languages

The centum–satem division forms an isogloss in synchronic descriptions of Indo-European languages. It is no longer thought that the Proto-Indo-European language split first into centum and satem branches from which all the centum and all the satem languages, respectively, would have derived. Such a division is made particularly unlikely by the discovery that while the satem group lies generally to the east and the centum group to the west, the most eastward of the known IE language branches, Tocharian, is centum.

Centum languages

The canonical centum languages of the Indo-European family are the "western" branches: Hellenic, Celtic, Italic and Germanic. They merged Proto-Indo-European palatovelars and plain velars, yielding plain velars only ("centumisation") but retained the labiovelars as a distinct set.

The Anatolian branch probably falls outside the centum–satem dichotomy; for instance, Luwian indicates that all three dorsal consonant rows survived separately in Proto-Anatolian. The centumisation observed in Hittite is therefore assumed to have occurred only after the breakup of Proto-Anatolian. However, Craig Melchert proposes that proto-Anatolian is indeed a centum language.

While Tocharian is generally regarded as a centum language, it is a special case, as it has merged all three of the PIE dorsal series (originally nine separate consonants) into a single phoneme, *k. According to some scholars, that complicates the classification of Tocharian within the centum–satem model. However, as Tocharian has replaced some Proto-Indo-European labiovelars with the labiovelar-like, non-original sequence *ku; it has been proposed that labiovelars remained distinct in Proto-Tocharian, which places Tocharian in the centum group (assuming that Proto-Tocharian lost palatovelars while labiovelars were still phonemically distinct).

In the centum languages, PIE roots reconstructed with palatovelars developed into forms with plain velars. For example, in the PIE root *ḱm̥tóm, "hundred", the initial palatovelar *ḱ became a plain velar /k/, as in Latin centum (which was originally pronounced with /k/ in spite of various contemporary pronunciations with /s/, for example), Greek (he)katon, Welsh cant, Tocharian B kante. In the Germanic languages, the /k/ developed regularly by Grimm's law to become /h/, as in the English hund(red).

Centum languages also retained the distinction between the PIE labiovelar row (*kʷ, *gʷ, *gʷʰ) and the plain velars. Historically, it was unclear whether the labiovelar row represented an innovation by a process of labialisation, or whether it was inherited from the parent language (but lost in the satem branches); current mainstream opinion favours the latter possibility. Labiovelars as single phonemes (for example, /kʷ/) as opposed to biphonemes (for example, /kw/) are attested in Greek (the Linear B q- series), Italic (Latin qu), Germanic (Gothic hwair ƕ and qairþra q) and Celtic (Ogham ceirt Q) (in the so-called P-Celtic languages /kʷ/ developed into /p/; a similar development sometimes took place in Greek). The boukólos rule, however, states that a labiovelar reduces to a plain velar when it occurs next to *u or *w.

The centum–satem division refers to the development of the dorsal series at the time of the earliest separation of Proto-Indo-European into the proto-languages of its individual daughter branches. It does not apply to any later analogous developments within any individual branch. For example, the conditional palatalization of Latin /k/ to /t͡ʃ/ or /t͡s/ (often later /s/) in some Romance languages (which means that modern French cent is pronounced with initial /s/) is satem-like, as is the merger of *kʷ with *k in the Gaelic languages; such later changes do not affect the classification of the languages as centum.

Satem languages

The satem languages belong to the "eastern" sub-families, especially Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic (but not Tocharian). It lost the labial element of Proto-Indo-European labiovelars and merged them with plain velars, but the palatovelars remained distinct and typically came to be realised as sibilants. That set of developments, particularly the assibilation of palatovelars, is referred to as satemisation.

In the satem languages, the reflexes of the presumed PIE palatovelars are typically fricative or affricate consonants, articulated further forward in the mouth. For example, the PIE root *ḱm̥tóm, "hundred", the initial palatovelar normally became a sibilant [s] or [ʃ], as in Avestan satem, Persian sad, Sanskrit śatam, сто / sto in all modern Slavic languages, Old Church Slavonic sъto, Latvian simts, Lithuanian šimtas. Another example is the Slavic prefix sъ(n)- ("with"), which appears in Latin, a centum language, as co(n)-; conjoin is cognate with Russian soyuz ("union"). An [s] is found for PIE *ḱ in such languages as Latvian, Avestan, Russian and Armenian, but Lithuanian and Sanskrit have [ʃ] (š in Lithuanian, ś in Sanskrit transcriptions). For more reflexes, see the phonetic correspondences section below; note also the effect of the ruki sound law. 

"Incomplete satemisation" may also be evidenced by remnants of labial elements from labiovelars in Balto-Slavic, including Lithuanian ungurys "eel" < *angʷi- and dygus "pointy" < *dʰeigʷ-. A few examples are also claimed in Indo-Iranian, such as Sanskrit guru "heavy" < *gʷer-, kulam "herd" < *kʷel-, but they may instead be secondary developments, as in the case of kuru "make" < *kʷer- in which it is clear that the ku- group arose in post-Rigvedic language. It is also asserted that in Sanskrit and Balto-Slavic, in some environments, resonant consonants (denoted by /R/) become /iR/ after plain velars but /uR/ after labiovelars.

Some linguists argue that the Albanian and Armenian branches are also to be classified as satem, but some linguists argue that they show evidence of separate treatment of all three dorsal consonant rows and so may not have merged the labiovelars with the plain velars, unlike the canonical satem branches.

Assibilation of velars in certain phonetic environments is a common phenomenon in language development (compare, for example, the initial sounds in French cent and Spanish cien, which are fricatives even though they derive from Latin /k/). Consequently, it is sometimes hard to establish firmly the languages that were part of the original satem diffusion and the ones affected by secondary assibilation later. While extensive documentation of Latin and Old Swedish, for example, shows that the assibilation found in French and Swedish were later developments, there are not enough records of Dacian and Thracian to settle conclusively when their satem-like features originated. Extensive lexical borrowing, such as Armenian from Iranian, may also add to the difficulty.

In Armenian, some assert that /kʷ/ is distinguishable from /k/ before front vowels. Martin Macak (2018) asserts that the merger of *kʷ and *k occurred "within the history of Proto-Armenian itself".

In Albanian, the three original dorsal rows have remained distinguishable when before historic front vowels. Labiovelars are for the most part differentiated from all other Indo-European velar series before front vowels (where they developed into s and z ultimately), but they merge with the "pure" (back) velars elsewhere. The palatal velar series, consisting of Proto-Indo-European *ḱ and the merged *ģ and ģʰ, usually developed into th and dh, but were depalatalized to merge with the back velars when in contact with sonorants. Because the original Proto-Indo-European tripartite distinction between dorsals is preserved in such reflexes, Demiraj argues Albanian is therefore to be considered neither centum nor satem, like Luwian, but at the same time it has a "satem-like" realization of the palatal dorsals in most cases. Thus PIE *ḱ, *kʷ and *k become th (Alb. thom "I say" < PIE *ḱeHsmi), s (Alb. si "how" < PIE. kʷiH1, cf. Latin quī), and q (/c/: pleq "elderly" < *plak-i < PIE *plH2-ko-), respectively.

History of concept

Schleicher's single guttural row

August Schleicher, an early Indo-Europeanist, in Part I, "Phonology", of his major work, the 1871 Compendium of Comparative Grammar of the Indogermanic Language, published a table of original momentane Laute, or "stops", which has only a single velar row, *k, *g, *gʰ, under the name of Gutturalen. He identifies four palatals (*ḱ, *ǵ, *ḱʰ, *ǵʰ) but hypothesises that they came from the gutturals along with the nasal *ń and the spirant *ç.

Brugmann's labialized and unlabialized language groups

Karl Brugmann, in his 1886 work Outline of Comparative Grammar of the Indogermanic Language (Grundriss...), promotes the palatals to the original language, recognising two rows of Explosivae, or "stops", the palatal (*ḱ, *ǵ, *ḱʰ, *ǵʰ) and the velar (*k, *g, *kʰ, *gʰ), each of which was simplified to three articulations even in the same work. In the same work, Brugmann notices among die velaren Verschlusslaute, "the velar stops", a major contrast between reflexes of the same words in different daughter languages. In some, the velar is marked with a u-Sprache, "u-articulation", which he terms a Labialisierung, "labialization", in accordance with the prevailing theory that the labiovelars were velars labialised by combination with a u at some later time and were not among the original consonants. He thus divides languages into die Sprachgruppe mit Labialisierung and die Sprachgruppe ohne Labialisierung, "the language group with (or without) labialization", which basically correspond to what would later be termed the centum and satem groups:
For words and groups of words, which do not appear in any language with labialized velar-sound [the "pure velars"], it must for the present be left undecided whether they ever had the u-afterclap.
The doubt introduced in that passage suggests he already suspected the "afterclap" u was not that but was part of an original sound.

Von Bradke's centum and satem groups

In 1890, Peter von Bradke published Concerning Method and Conclusions of Aryan (Indogermanic) Studies, in which he identified the same division (Trennung) as did Brugmann, but he defined it in a different way. He said that the original Indo-Europeans had two kinds of gutturaler Laute, "guttural sounds" the gutturale oder velare, und die palatale Reihe, "guttural or velar, and palatal rows", each of which were aspirated and unaspirated. The velars were to be viewed as gutturals in an engerer Sinn, "narrow sense". They were a reiner K-Laut, "pure K-sound". Palatals were häufig mit nachfolgender Labialisierung, "frequently with subsequent labialization". The latter distinction led him to divide the palatale Reihe into a Gruppe als Spirant and a reiner K-Laut, typified by the words satem and centum respectively. Later in the book he speaks of an original centum-Gruppe, from which on the north of the Black and Caspian Seas the satem-Stämme, "satem tribes", dissimilated among the Nomadenvölker or Steppenvölker, distinguished by further palatalization of the palatal gutturals.

Brugmann's identification of labialized and centum

By the 1897 edition of Grundriss, Brugmann (and Delbrück) had adopted Von Bradke's view: "The Proto-Indo-European palatals... appear in Greek, Italic, Celtic and Germanic as a rule as K-sounds, as opposed to in Aryan, Armenian, Albanian, Balto-Slavic, Phrygian and Thracian... for the most part sibilants."

There was no more mention of labialized and non-labialized language groups after Brugmann changed his mind regarding the labialized velars. The labio-velars now appeared under that name as one of the five rows of Verschlusslaute (Explosivae) (plosives/stops), comprising die labialen V., die dentalen V., die palatalen V., die reinvelaren V. and die labiovelaren V. It was Brugmann who pointed out that labiovelars had merged into the velars in the satem group, accounting for the coincidence of the discarded non-labialized group with the satem group.

Discovery of Anatolian and Tocharian

When von Bradke first published his definition of the centum and satem sound changes, he viewed his classification as "the oldest perceivable division" in Indo-European, which he elucidated as "a division between eastern and western cultural provinces (Kulturkreise)". The proposed split was undermined by the decipherment of Hittite and Tocharian in the early 20th century. Both languages show no satem-like assibilation in spite of being located in the satem area.

The proposed phylogenetic division of Indo-European into satem and centum "sub-families" was further weakened by the identification of other Indo-European isoglosses running across the centum–satem boundary, some of which seemed of equal or greater importance in the development of daughter languages. Consequently, since the early 20th century at least, the centum–satem isogloss has been considered an early areal phenomenon rather than a true phylogenetic division of daughter languages.

Alternative interpretations

Different realisations

The actual pronunciation of the velar series in PIE is not certain. One current idea is that the "palatovelars" were in fact simple velars *[k], *[ɡ], *[ɡʰ], and the "plain velars" were pronounced farther back, perhaps as uvular consonants: *[q], *[ɢ], *[ɢʰ]. If labiovelars were just labialized forms of the "plain velars", they would have been pronounced *[qʷ], *[ɢʷ], *[ɢʷʰ] but the pronunciation of the labiovelars as *[kʷ], *[gʷ], *[gʷʰ] would still be possible in uvular theory, if the satem languages first shifted the "palatovelars" then later merged the "plain velars" and "labiovelars". The uvular theory is supported by the following evidence.
  • The "palatovelar" series was the most common, and the "plain velar" was by far the least common and never occurred in any affixes. In known languages with multiple velar series, the normal velar series is usually the most common, which would imply that what have been interpreted as "palatovelars" were more probably simply velars but the labiovelars were most likely still just *[kʷ], *[gʷ], *[gʷʰ] due to them being the second most common.
  • There is no evidence of any palatalisation in the early history of the velars in the centum branches, but see above for the case of Anatolian. If the "palatovelars" were in fact palatalised in PIE, there would have had to be a single, very early, uniform depalatalisation in all (and only) the centum branches. Depalatalisation is cross-linguistically far less common than is palatalisation and so is unlikely to have occurred separately in each centum branch. In any case it would almost certainly have left evidence of prior palatalization in some of the branches. (As noted above, it is not thought that the centum branches had a separate common ancestor in which the depalatalization could have occurred just once and then have been inherited.)
  • Most instances of the rare to non-existent /a/ phoneme without the /h₂/ laryngeal appear before or after *k, which could be the result of that phoneme being a-coloring, particularly likely if it was uvular /q/, similar to the /h₂/ laryngeal which may have been uvular /χ/. Uvulars coloring and lowering vowels is common cross-linguistically as in languages such as Quechuan or Greenlandic where /i/ and /u/ lower to /e/ and /o/ when next to uvulars meaning the lowering of /e/ and /o/ to [a] or [ɑ] would be possible.
On the above interpretation, the split between the centum and satem groups would not have been a straightforward loss of an articulatory feature (palatalization or labialization). Instead, the uvulars *q, *ɢ, *ɢʰ (the "plain velars" of the traditional reconstruction) would have been fronted to velars across all branches. In the satem languages, it caused a chain shift, and the existing velars (traditionally "palatovelars") were shifted further forward to avoid a merger, becoming palatal: /k/ > /c/; /q/ > /k/. In the centum languages, no chain shift occurred, and the uvulars merged into the velars. The delabialisation in the satem languages would have occurred later, in a separate stage.

Only two velar series

The presence of three dorsal rows in the proto-language has been the mainstream hypothesis since at least the mid-20th century. There remain, however, several alternative proposals with just two rows in the parent language, which describe either "satemisation" or "centumisation", as the emergence of a new phonematic category rather than the disappearance of an inherited one. 

Antoine Meillet (1937) proposed that the original rows were the labiovelars and palatovelars, with the plain velars being allophones of the palatovelars in some cases, such as depalatalisation before a resonant. The etymologies establishing the presence of velars in the parent language are explained as artefacts of either borrowing between daughter languages or of false etymologies.

Other scholars who assume two dorsal rows in Proto-Indo-European include Kuryłowicz (1935) and Lehmann (1952), as well as Frederik Kortlandt and others. The argument is that PIE had only two series, a simple velar and a labiovelar. The satem languages palatalized the plain velar series in most positions, but the plain velars remained in some environments: typically reconstructed as before or after /u/, after /s/, and before /r/ or /a/ and also before /m/ and /n/ in some Baltic dialects. The original allophonic distinction was disturbed when the labiovelars were merged with the plain velars. That produced a new phonemic distinction between palatal and plain velars, with an unpredictable alternation between palatal and plain in related forms of some roots (those from original plain velars) but not others (those from original labiovelars). Subsequent analogical processes generalised either the plain or palatal consonant in all forms of a particular root. The roots in which the plain consonant was generalized are those traditionally reconstructed as having "plain velars" in the parent language in contrast to "palatovelars".

Oswald Szemerényi (1990) considers the palatovelars as an innovation, proposing that the "preconsonantal palatals probably owe their origin, at least in part, to a lost palatal vowel" and a velar was palatalised by a following vowel subsequently lost. The palatal row would therefore postdate the original velar and labiovelar rows, but Szemerényi is not clear whether that would have happened before or after the breakup of the parent-language (in a table showing the system of stops "shortly before the break-up", he includes palatovelars with a question mark after them).

Woodhouse (1998; 2005) introduced a "bitectal" notation, labelling the two rows of dorsals as k1, g1, g1h and k2, g2, g2h. The first row represents "prevelars", which developed into either palatovelars or plain velars in the satem group but just into plain velars into the centum group; the second row represents "backvelars", which developed into either labiovelars or plain velars in the centum group but just plain velars in the satem group.

The following are arguments that have been listed in support of a two-series hypothesis:
  • The plain velar series is statistically rarer than the other two, is almost entirely absent from affixes and appears most often in certain phonological environments (described in the next point).
  • The reconstructed velars and palatovelars occur mostly in complementary distribution (velars before *a, *r and after *s, *u; palatovelars before *e, *i, *j, liquid/nasal/*w+*e/*i and before o in o-grade forms by generalization from e-grade).
  • It is unusual in general for palatovelars to move backwards rather than the reverse (but that problem might simply be addressed by assuming three series with different realizations from the traditional ones, as described above).
  • In most languages in which the "palatovelars" produced fricatives, other palatalisation also occurred, implying that it was part of a general trend;
  • The centum languages are not contiguous, and there is no evidence of differences between dialects in the implementation of centumization (but there are differences in the process of satemisation: there can be pairs of satemized and non-satemized velars within the same language, there is evidence of a former labiovelar series in some satem languages and different branches have different numbers and timings of satemization stages). This makes a "centumisation" process less likely, implying that the position found in the centum languages was the original one.
  • Alternations between plain velars and palatals are common in a number of roots across different satem languages, but the same root appears with a palatal in some languages but a plain velar in others (most commonly Baltic or Slavic, occasionally Armenian but rarely or never the Indo-Iranian languages). That is consistent with the analogical generalisation of one or another consonant in an originally-alternating paradigm but difficult to explain otherwise.
  • The claim that in late PIE times, the satem languages (unlike the centum languages) were in close contact with each other is confirmed by independent evidence: the geographical closeness of current satem languages and certain other shared innovations (the ruki sound law and early palatalization of velars before front vowels).
Arguments in support of three series:
  • Many instances of plain velars occur in roots that have no evidence of any of the putative environments that trigger plain velars and no obvious mechanism for the plain velar to have come in contact with any such environment; as a result, the comparative method requires three series to be reconstructed.
  • Albanian and Armenian are said to show evidence of different reflexes for the three different series. Evidence from the Anatolian language Luwian attests a three-way velar distinction *ḱ > z (probably [ts]); *k > k; *kʷ > ku (probably [kʷ]). There is no evidence of any connection between Luwian and any satem language (labiovelars are still preserved, the ruki sound law is absent) and the Anatolian branch split off very early from PIE. The three-way distinction must be reconstructed for the parent language. (That is a strong argument in favor of the traditional three-way system; in response, proponents of the two-way system have attacked the underlying evidence by claiming that it "hinges upon especially difficult or vague or otherwise dubious etymologies" (such as Sihler 1995).) Melchert originally claimed that the change *ḱ > z was unconditional and subsequently revised the assertion to a conditional change occurring only before front vowels, /j/, or /w/; however, that does not fundamentally alter the situation, as plain-velar *k apparently remains as such in the same context. Melchert also asserts, contrary to Sihler, the etymological distinction between *ḱ and *k in the relevant positions is well-established.
  • According to Ringe (2006), there are root constraints that prevent the occurrence of a "palatovelar" and labiovelar or two "plain velars", in the same root, but they do not apply to roots containing, for example, a palatovelar and a plain velar.
  • The centum change could have occurred independently in multiple centum subgroups (at the very least, Tocharian, Anatolian and Western IE), as it was a phonologically natural change, given the possible interpretation of the "palatovelar" series as plain-velar and the "plain velar" series as back-velar or uvular (see above). Given the minimal functional load of the plain-velar/palatovelar distinction, if there was never any palatalisation in the IE dialects leading to the centum languages, there is no reason to expect any palatal residues. Furthermore, it is phonologically entirely natural for a former plain-velar vs. back-velar/uvular distinction to have left no distinctive residues on adjacent segments.
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