User talk:Dentonius/2021

Jamaican newspapers

Rewrote everything: User:DTLHS/word tracking. You can use User:DTLHS/exclude.js to quickly cross out words and they will be removed when I run the script again. DTLHS (talk) 19:31, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

• DTLHS, this is wonderful! Thank you so very much. I'll check it out and give you some feedback as soon as I get the opportunity. You also added the Jamaica Observer. Cool! Please consider the Jamaica Star as well. — Dentonius 21:38, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

Clarification

Re this: What exactly do you mean by "To be fair to him, he's looking out for his interests. Wake up and smell the coffee."? On another note, I quite like your statistics page, although it currently doesn't seem very useful because of its limitations. How many of these do you think you will be able to iron out? Imetsia (talk) 16:56, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

• Hey, Imetsia. I'll try not to be too wordy about this. There's a lot that I could say about the dynamics here. There's a great amount of cohesion in your group. You have a lot going for you: the CFI, a number of admins, lots of true believers that this mission to remove redundancy from the dictionary is, in fact, the right way forward. (I've actually seen the end game of this viewpoint on another Wiktionary and the dictionary itself stops resembling a dictionary and starts resembling a parse tree (Please don't ask me to name that Wiktionary). Having an admin who doesn't believe in that mission will create tension. The admins are actually workhorses. They do a lot of unpaid work for Wikimedia Foundation and have no more clout in decisions than any ordinary user. So, in a sense, it's actually kind of a drag to be an admin. However, in the context of what they mean for this dictionary, they lend credence to ideas. When an admin supports your position, it makes that position stronger. This is how humans think -- they defer to authority figures. People here somehow believe that they need to wait for admins to do something before they make a move. It's simply not true as this is, in principle, an egalitarian community. "Looking out for your interests" means keeping people away from authority who will cause others to question their belief in what you're doing. As for the statistics page, the next major change will be to track RFD nominations and reversal of positions (e.g., crossing out delete/keep and changing to something else). I'm happy you like it. Technically, I'm making your team's work easier since you now have a reference for who the true believers are. It is divisive, they say, to talk about this spectrum: inclusionist - centrist - deletionist. However, denying it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There are parallels to this in real life. There are minorities who complain that their rights are being trampled. The majority, however, says that these problems are imagined and that they don't see differences in people; there's a level playing field. This microcosm of society here is really fascinating for me, actually, and I truly enjoy interacting with you all (even the ones you think I don't like). ;-) — Dentonius 17:32, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

endroit (English)

Do you know anything about the usage of this word? I can find it used extensively on jamaicaobserver.com but not on other Jamaican news sites like Jamaica Star, nor in books. DTLHS (talk) 22:22, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi, DTLHS. What's new? The people who used the term are demonstrating their knowledge of French. You'll see that the articles have a lot to do with food and cooking (hence, the French reference). In this case: "endroit" is just "place" or "spot". The term isn't used in our Creole. At best, it might have been borrowed from one of the other French speaking islands. Have a nice weekend. — Dentonius 09:30, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Percent encoding

Dunno how often you have to deal with URI encoding / decoding (the percent encoding often seen in URLs, like %20 for a space). I have to muck about with that some in my day job. If you can get a hold of Notepad++, I recently found a plug-in for doing this, called just URL Plugin, that allows you to encode or decode selected text with a keypress.

Cheers, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:33, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Hi, Eiríkr Útlendi. Thanks for the suggestion. That's very thoughtful of you. I appreciate it. I saw your question in RFD a while back -- the one I didn't answer. It's nothing against you. I've learned the hard way that I don't have anything to gain by justifying my voting decisions there. My conversations with the RFD regulars often lead to trouble. So I'm doing them and myself a favour by just sticking to voting. :-) Have a nice weekend. — Dentonius 07:51, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

fuck someone's brains out

Erm, did you make up these translations?. Google has exactly 0 hits for each. Oxlade2000 (talk) 16:47, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi SUC. I would never do any such thing. It's very unlikely that you'll find a Creole speaker writing dictionary entries online (writing things in a generic style). Try searching for an actual usage like "fuck har mek she bawl" or "put it on pon har". Let me know if you have any questions. Have a good one. — Dentonius 16:51, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

I searched. Nice videos, Dent... Oxlade2000 (talk) 19:44, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Keep on keepin' it real, dude ;-) — Dentonius 20:33, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Example sentences and Quotations

I think I've mentioned this before to you, but some of your example sentences are extraordinarily long. While Jamaican Creole is not my area of expertise, I would say that some of the ux's you have added on, for example, mi come yah fi drink milk, mi nuh come yah fi count cow or same knife stick sheep, stick goat are too long for the entries. WT:USEX states clearly, "Try to avoid writing lengthy example sentences. There should be just enough information to clearly present the word's use, without additional material that may confuse English learners. A simple sentence, with a single verb, is usually preferable to a lengthy one that includes additional clauses."

On top of that, some of the quotations you've added are also in tension with our current policies. At WT:QUOTE, we explain that "[a]ll quotations should be from works written in the language of the word in question" (my emphasis), whereas many of the quotes you've added are from works written in English. Imetsia (talk) 20:56, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

None of the two entries are exceedingly lengthy. "...just enough information to clearly present the word's use" may include placing it into context, especially in case of idioms or other terms which lack exact equivalents in English. Context is properly provided in these two cases. The design details of the "dialog format" can be discussed, though. I use it too, occasionally, see here, example under the sense 3.2 Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 23:58, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

bowcyat

Found this in lyrics in this song after searching nyam pum pum. Song also contains expressions like fuck batty. I assume Two man wrap up inna sheets me no inna dat hya. means "I'm not gay", right? And Woman fi tekk buddy dat ah dem mission? "A women's mission is to please a man?" A beautiful language! Yellow is the colour (talk) 15:20, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Your translations are accurate. Unfortunately, homophobia and hypermasculinity are still a problem in our society, but the majority of the people on the island deal with peace and love and ignore the crude slogans. We all have friends and family members who are all over the spectrum in terms of sexuality. Sadly, it's some of the angriest people in our society who get a platform to air their views. — Dentonius 15:25, 2 April 2021 (UTC)