Talk:cause

cause

The reason for. The cause of the car accident was the driver talking on his cell phone.

Another meaning for the English verb

I've added a new meaning for the English verb; being a non-native speaker, I can see a clear difference between sentences like Gravity causes things to fall and The judge caused the unruly attendant to be expelled from the courtroom. This is supported by two online dictionaries I've checked. I've further included two translations into my mother tongue, Portuguese — This unsigned comment was added by 189.79.92.233 (talk).

I agree with you about the distinction, although it is a bit bit subtle sometimes in English. I've added two example sentences that may help people understand the difference. The difference is between a passive, indirect result and an active, direct result. --EncycloPetey 18:30, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Both of your phrases can be translated to Portuguese using fazer or causar:

• A gravidade faz as coisas caírem and O juíz fez o atendente descontrolado ser expulso da corte.
• A gravidade causa a queda das coisas and O juiz causou a expulsão do atendente descontrolado da corte.

The difference between them is: fazer is acting as an auxiliary verb, so it modify verbs; and causar modify nouns. So, I have changed one of your translations. Daniel. 03:21, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

s oder z ending

The English audio sounds to me clearly as an s ending not a z like in zoo. Are my ears bad or the audio or is the IPA incorrect? —A11w1ss3nd (talk) 13:29, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Not so clear. There's certainly a lot of sibilance and the voicing isn't very obvious. Still, English doesn't rely on phonetic voicing to determine phonemic voicing. From the vowel length alone I would call this "voiced", though I might not write it that way in a narrow transcription. This is well within the normal range of variation for General American pronunciation, which is why narrow transcriptions (enclosed in [ ]) make me nervous in an entry like this. Pinging @Mahagaja, in case I'm missing something. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:14, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

There's still some degree of voicing in the /z/: compare File:en-us-cause.ogg with File:en-us-sauce.ogg pronounced by the same person and you can hear that there is a difference in the final consonant as well as in the length of the preceding vowel. (And vowel length is not the only indicator of the voicing of a coda consonant in English: rabbit and rabid are not homophones even though there's no lengthening of the unstressed vowel in the latter.) I don't see the point of including narrow transcriptions anyway; /kɔːz/ is sufficient information for a dictionary entry IMO. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:20, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

give cause for

give cause for (something) To justify something: The news that Callie's cancer was in remission gave cause for us to celebrate. --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:36, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

The good news was a cause for rejoicing

What meaning is used in The good news was a cause for rejoicing ? --Backinstadiums (talk) 15:25, 16 August 2021 (UTC)