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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wiktionarian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk (discussion) and vote pages using four tildes, like this: ~~~~, which automatically produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the beer parlour or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! RJFJR 14:12, 25 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

ghee edit

Could you have a quick look at ghee. My Madhur Jaffrey cookbook says that ghee can mean any cooking oil. SemperBlotto 16:28, 25 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

I'm very surprised. As far as I was aware she considered Ghee to be clarified butter, but was of the opinion that insisting on the use of ghee rather than vegetable oil at all times was pretentious and showy. So I think she believes that you can use oil as a substitute for ghee (slight change in taste in my experience, but much better for the arteries).

I've never seen any instances of people using ghee to refer to oil (As far as I know, of course, they could be using it in that way but I've never seen anyone define it thus).

Please remember to sign your entries edit

especially on the busier conversation pages.

dopiaza edit

Hi again. I would have made it a noun rather than an adjective - "a style of curry . . .". You could presumably have several "chicken dopiazas". SemperBlotto 10:12, 2 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Yes, I mused about that for a while as it's often used as a noun without the meat being mentioned, but I couldn't work out how to format it so it made sense.
Perhaps we could try and get everyone to refer to more than one as 'chickens dopiaza'. Then again, perhaps not.
If you could reformat it in a better way, I'll follow the same format as I gradually add other entries.Moglex 10:21, 2 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

p.s. Does the "dopia" part of the word mean twice? (like Italian doppia)

I believe it does (I've always assumed that to be the case), but I have no actual evidence. Moglex 10:21, 2 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

vet edit

This now has two verb sections that need to be merged. SemperBlotto 17:48, 2 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Ooops. Confused myself thinking the previews were of the whole entry. Must try harder! Corrected now.

References edit

Hi there. In steam ship and steam power you cite OED2 as a reference. The 2nd edition of the Oxford English Dictionary has neither of these phrases. Does your OED2 mean something else? SemperBlotto 22:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

No. Mea Culpa. I checked some things as a batch in the OED (presumably without the space) and must have inserted the space when I came to do the edits. Trying to keep track of the three possible forms (steamship steam-ship steam ship) in the wiktionary and the OED seems to require a bigger set of buffers than my brain provides. A pen and paper would appear to be the solution.
In fact, rechecking those entries OED does not have an entry for steampower at all (odd). Removed reference to reference.

individualism edit

For nouns like this, use {{en-noun|-}}, they are uncountable. Robert Ullmann 11:34, 3 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thanks, I will remember that.
In this case, though I was not sure that an individualism actually is uncountable. e.g. "They would not work together because their various individualisms could not be reconciled". Or even: ."Because of their different backgrounds and strengths of will their individualism prevented a harmonious coexistence" - here the word seems to be plural but looks correct in the singular form.
Uncountable nouns can take either singular or plural concordance (not sure that it the right word for English, it is used for verb and adjective to noun-class concordance in Bantu languages). "his individualism", "their individualism". One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish! Which teaches that "fish" is uncountable, and that it can take adjectives without modifying the uncountability: one red fish, two red fish. And I'll bet you thought Dr. Seuss was just for fun? Robert Ullmann 11:58, 4 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

expedience edit

I think the plural is expediencies, modeled on expediency ... Robert Ullmann 13:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

True - corrected.

OED2 edit

You are referencing the OED2 quite often. You are being careful to write your own original definitions, and not violating their copyright, yes? --EncycloPetey 18:35, 3 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Yes. I usually try and write them before I check the OED and I rarely (can't actually remember doing it) add words I don't already know the meaning of (although I may expand the definition as a result of what I see). Of course, for very short definitions it's probable that eventually I'll choose the same wording as the OED. I'm quoting the OED2 as a reference far more than I want to in an attempt to avoid spurious rfv's.

Verb form & Templates edit

I've noticed that sometimes you use the templates, but sometimes you don't. Did you know that there is a list of (most of) them available in the character edit screen? In particular, you didn't use the {{third-person singular of}} template when you wrote the entry for botches.

Actually I've not used that template at all. I've tried to follow extant examples, but have inevitably missed/forgotten some. I'll spend some more time familiarising myself with them.

Also, we don't use ===Verb form=== as a header. The discussion is on-going at WT:POS, but the community view disfavors using them in English entries. We have yet to decide officially whether we'll use it in non-English entries. --EncycloPetey 18:56, 3 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Noted.

plurals edit

Hi there. Plurals now get generated automatically by a bot. It ran last night. SemperBlotto 11:30, 4 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Oh good. That sort of grunt work is not the most rewarding! Thanks for letting me know.

clutches etc edit

Don't forget that many of these are also nouns - "plural of clutch" etc. SemperBlotto 19:50, 5 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Will the 'bot not take care of them? I assumed it would. I can easily do the noun plural at the same time as the TPS if not. Moglex 19:59, 5 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

The bot currently only does 'new' entries - so if you enter a TPS only, it will skip the 'correction.' --Connel MacKenzie 20:01, 5 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

unblockable edit

Good to see you unblocked. I told Connel you weren't Wonderfool. Which is lucky. Good luck, and soon you'll be an admin too. --80.47.169.143 19:38, 12 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

bot-added verb forms edit

As a side note to the whole Beer Parlour brouhaha, and without abrogating anything I said there, I would not think any less of you if you were to throw up your hands and say "Fine, if copyright paranoia is such a problem, forget it, I don't need this kind of abuse." Me personally, I don't spend any time adding verb forms by hand, or thinking about writing a bot to add them automatically (even though I otherwise love automating tasks that are a mindless nuisance to do by hand). The notion that Wiktionary needs a separate, explicit page for every declension of every verb is a very recent one, and not one I personally agree with. It pains me to think of all the time people are spending entering them by hand, but I suppose it's their choice. I mostly try to ignore the whole issue (though it's harder given that the verb-form templates are now generating glaring redlinks for all the missing forms on each verb's primary page). —scs 03:16, 13 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

I agree that having a separate page is not the best solution, but I doubt that anyone would change it now. It's too much a case of "let's do what the paper version does but do it more". I would far prefer to see e.g. think, thinks, thinking, thought, thoughtful etc all end up on a page that deals with thought and includes all the related terms. No doubt that approach would cause problems of its own.
I'm not keen to throw in the towel because, as I said in the BP, a very important principle is at stake here, namely whether it is permissible to use extant, copyright, dictionaries to look up words. If you cannot even check a word's existance, how much more dangerous it must be to actually look up its meaning.
Clearly you (as a person) can look up a word in a dictionary. Where there might be a question is whether you can use a computer program to look up lots of words at once in an electronic dictionary. Here, I think the answer is clear, but there are some superficially similar situations that can get much stickier, and where copyright holders do attempt to vigorously defend their "rights" even though you and I felt that our "infringement" was perfectly acceptable. —scs 15:11, 13 November 2006 (UTC)Reply
And if I don't check words before adding them, does that mean that we need to have an entry in the Wiktionary to request that no one who doubts the word's existance should dare to look it up in OED or MW in case it infringes copyright. I'm afraid that the whole idea is just too ludicrous (which, knowing the way the law works, does not preclude Connel being correct :-) ).

Common root edit

"Common root" is not one of our standard sections. You mean ===Related terms=== - which is placed after the definition and translations. SemperBlotto 11:35, 23 November 2006 (UTC) p.s. And it is ==English== not ===English===Reply

The '===English===' bug is corrected.

I specifed the problem with 'related terms' in the 'revised 'bot proposal' entry in the tea room. To recap, because related terms is specific to the POS, it isn't really suitable for these concordances. Would they be added for each POS? I said what I was going to do in the tea room article to see if anyone had any immediate objections, and have just done it for one infinitive so that people can see and comment. I don't doubt that it will end up being named and placed differently and when the name and placement are agreed I'll change all the 'access' entries. Moglex 11:47, 23 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

STOP RIGHT NOW. edit

--Connel MacKenzie 20:37, 23 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

You said on WT:BP you would test one entry. So now you are blitzing your incorrect format everywhere? What happened to soliciting a week of comments before proceeding? (Not to mention, however long a subsequent vote might take!) --Connel MacKenzie 20:42, 23 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thank you for the pause edit

Thank you for the stopping. Would you prefer I itemize the rest of my complaints with your edits on WT:BP (where others can offer additional feedback) or here, where the discussion can proceed faster (if you are willing to believe that I know what I'm talking about, that is.)

Normally, seeing 'bot activity under a non-bot account, I am supposed to block you right off the bat. I'm glad it didn't go that route, or their might have been negative feelings from you. --Connel MacKenzie 20:53, 23 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

I still don't know what you mean by a pause. There was one test, of the parts of speech of 'access', done just after 12:00 GMT and finished at 12:38 GMT.
True I forgot to change the login, but it is not robot activity. The edits were done using the Opera browser, albeit with assistance generating the input. No sections produced by anyone else were altered in any way during this test.
In the test I did exactly what I said I was going to do, and that was stated for anyone who objected to do so.
I see you have already itemised your complaints in the beer parlour.

Moglex 21:16, 23 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Well, no, I meant for additional comments. I hope you aren't suggesting that you manually entered concusss. --Connel MacKenzie 23:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

thermonuclear . . edit

Hi there. Every resource that I can find says that thermonuclear reactions, bombs etc involve nuclear fusion rather than nuclear fision. So the weapon seems to be a H-bomb but not an A-bomb. In the case of an H-bomb, the high temperature needed is provided by an A-bomb. Any objection to me reverting your changes? SemperBlotto 23:01, 25 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Not at all. If you're sure. I'm finding it very hard to get a definitive answer one way or the other. I've always used the expression to refer to any fusion/fission reaction weapon, (or thermonuclear to refer to any fusion/fission reaction) and I've assumed that is what other have meant, but how can I know? I assume they mean what I think they mean. It's a bit circular.

I should have known you'd researched it and not made such an obvious mistake.

No problem. Nuclear fission is not affected much by temperature, but for nuclear fusion to take place two nuclei have to be brought together, and it takes a high temperature to overcome the strong repulsive forces between them. Cheers. SemperBlotto 09:58, 26 November 2006 (UTC)Reply
Ah, thanks for pointing that out. I'd thought the destinction to be arbitrary, (because, of course, it does get quite hot in an A-bomb). Now I see that it's related to a necessary initial condition for a fusion reaction to become established. You learn something new every day. (Well, quite a few things, actually, working here).

Restarting this account edit

I have been using the name 'House' for the last few days as I had (call me Mr. StupidHead) forgottten the exact spelling of this one.