Wiktionary:Tea room/2022/August

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← July 2022 · August 2022 · September 2022 → · (current)

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Підліток

Can we add this Ukrainian word? Duolingo says it means "teenager," but I'm not sure whether that's an exact equvalent, i.e., ages 13–19. Thanks. Peter Chastain (talk) 01:35, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

you are aware there are requested terms pages as well as other request templates, yeah? — This unsigned comment was added by Vininn126 (talk • contribs) at 14:46, 5 August 2022 (UTC).

Here you go: пі́дліток (pídlitok). There is an additional sense of "young bird that has just learned to fly" which isn't there yet but will be added later. Voltaigne (talk) 15:24, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

I wonder if the animal sense is the original one (like it is for English kid ).  --Lambiam 16:23, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that seems more plausible to me the more I think about it - but the Etymological Dictionary of the Ukrainian Language only mentions the 'fledging' sense of пі́длі́ток as a derivative of леті́ти / літа́ти (“to fly”) and doesn't mention the 'adolescent'/'teenager' sense at all, maybe either because they aren't linked or because the link was considered too obvious to mention. The equivalent Russian word for adolescent/teenager подро́сток (podróstok) is a deverbal of подрасти́ (“to grow up”) which seems to me to lend credence to пі́дліток (pídlitok) similarly being a deverbal of підлітати (pidlitaty, “to fly up”). Voltaigne (talk) 17:22, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Fanservice

While the term indeed typically refers to content of a racy or sexual nature in the context of anime, manga, and Japanese video games, it also sees broader usage in discussion of fiction as a whole where this is not necessarily so. In those cases the definition is closer to the given synonym of fanwank, where it simply refers to "elements included in fiction to appeal to fans".

Furthermore, according to both English and Japanese Wikipedia, the term was not originally a native English construction, but actually a wasei eigo term borrowed from Japanese. The original Japanese term (ファンサービス) also has a distinct meaning from the current English definition. It originally referred to things done by celebrities such as performers and athletes to please their fans, such as meet-and-greet and autograph sessions. Now it also can refer to elements included in fiction to appeal to fans similar to its English descendant, although perhaps with a less negative connotation. Most importantly, though, it lacks any strong racy or sexual implications, despite that often being the case in English when the term "fanservice" is used in the context of Japanese media. It seems ファンサービス was conflated with a related term, サービスカット (lit. "service cut"), which does have those implications, when the former was borrowed into English as "fanservice". PaperSplash (talk) 12:32, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

qualcuno

@Jberkel, I see you've added alcuno and qualche as synonyms but afaik they can't be used as pronouns. --Whitekiko (talk) 15:28, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

the year-earlier month

As in "the monthly load factor rose 3.1 percentage points in May from the year-earlier month", and similar using "the year-ago month", "week", "quarter", or "season" (but I haven't spotted e.g. "the decade-ago month", nor e.g. "the year-earlier action"). The phrases like "the year-earlier month" seem unusual (idiomatic?) to me, but since other things can be subbed in for "month", the key kernel seems to be "year-earlier" / "year-ago", which then sounds more intelligible when you say it by itself like that. So is year-earlier / year-ago idiomatic, or no? - -sche (discuss) 19:31, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

It might be possible to decode it, which is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for SoPitude. But the construction does not readily transfer to other periods, eg, the month-earlier week, the week-earlier day, the day-earlier sunset, let alone other time periods decade-earlier, biennium-earlier, millennium-earlier. DCDuring (talk) 21:35, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

abiogeneza

Hello!

The Polish word abiogeneza has articles created for its plural forms yet the declension table only shows singular forms. Should the plural forms be deleted or the table updated? The English translation abiogenesis says countable and uncountable, plural abiogeneses. Jonteemil (talk) 20:53, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

They should be deleted. I cannot find attestations for the theoretical plural forms. I have gone ahead and deleted them. Vininn126 (talk) 21:50, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

Okay, thanks.Jonteemil (talk) 23:05, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

hoedens

Hello!

The Afrikaans word hoedens is defined as plural of hoed, however hoede is the only plural form listed on hoed. On nlwikt both hoede and hoedens have articles and are linked from hoed. On afwikt only hoede is mentioned as plural in the declension table however hoedeñs is mentioned as an alternative plural form further down on the page. Now is hoede like the main plural form and hoedens/hoedeñs a more alternative plural form? Also, which spelling is correct, the one with n or ñ, or both? Jonteemil (talk) 19:48, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

There is no ⟨ñ⟩ in the orthography of Afrikaans. The Afrikaans Wikipedia has a Kategorie:Hoedens.  --Lambiam 08:47, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

@Lambiam: Okay, so afwikt is hence wrong there? How about my first question: Now is hoede like the main plural form and hoedens/hoedeñs a more alternative plural form?.Jonteemil (talk) 23:40, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

It seems to me that the form hoedeñs, found nowhere else, is a curious typo. The regular plural form is hoede; compare vloed – vloede. The form hoedens is one of a few irregular plurals in -ens.^[1]  --Lambiam 03:48, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

oxford

Defined as "Alternative letter-case form of Oxford (cloth)", linking to Oxford, but that entry makes no mention of a kind of cloth AFAICT. 98.170.164.88 20:58, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article Oxford (cloth). I think we should have an article Oxford cloth, ((countable and uncountable), plural Oxford cloths: “A type of woven fabric used to make dress shirts”) and define a common noun sense of Oxford as “Oxford cloth”.  --Lambiam 09:11, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

to call a place home; the place one calls home

Worth an entry somehow? We don't speak of a place that one calls school, or calls work, so this seems idiomatic. Equinox ◑ 08:27, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Maybe a translation target. DCDuring (talk) 13:04, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

On one hand, the basic meaning is (broadly) what it says on the tin; on the other hand, it has nuance that exceeds that basic meaning, in that it often means one feels at home, and people say things like "(you|they|I|etc) couldn't really call it home" in a situation where you could in fact call the place "home" and be correct and the issue is just that it's not a good, fitting, or homey place. I can find examples of "the place he calls work", "school", etc, but they seem literal, clinical, and seem to lack the nuance of this phrase. So maybe it's weakly idiomatic? - -sche (discuss) 20:22, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

It strikes me as SOP. Nicodene (talk) 11:05, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

α΄ (and other Greek numeral entries)

We give quite a strange usage note on Greek numeral entries, where we state that The Greek numbers from 1 to 999 are properly marked using the Greek numeral sign (κεραία, keraía). This appears in Unicode as greek numeral sign ʹ (U+0374), which is anomalous on Wiktionary and improperly links as ʹ (modifier letter prime, U+02B9). This entry is encoded using the modern Greek accent mark (τόνος, tónos), which appears in Unicode as tonos ΄ (U+0384).

The problem with this statement is that it misunderstands why the Greek numeral sign links as the "modifier letter prime", which is that the Unicode standard currently states to treat them as equivalent characters (i.e. to treat them as the same thing). That isn't anomalous behaviour by Wiktionary - it's because it's compliant with Unicode. As a result, using a genuinely nonstandard symbol (the tónos, which really isn't supposed to be used for this), is a really odd choice. I'm not really involved in Greek entries, but this seems like something that we should probably fix.

One thing to point out is that the names of Unicode characters are not relevant (and in several cases actively wrong), so don't be fooled by the name. Tagging @Saltmarsh and @LlywelynII, who seems to be responsible for this. Theknightwho (talk) 16:25, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

For what it’s worth, the Greek Wikipedia and the Greek Wiktionary use the (non-combining) tonos U+0384 – although the Greek Wikipedia occasionally switches to U+02B9 (Modifier Letter Prime). Where exactly does the Unicode standard state that U+02B9 and U+0374 are to be treated as equivalent? I think they messed up royally by unifying the apostrophe and the single quotation-close mark; is this another messed-up thing?  --Lambiam 16:40, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

It's declared in the Unicode data file (which is a little difficult to interpret, but has "02B9" (modifier letter prime) in field 5 (counting from 0) for U+0374, which according to the key is the field for character decomposition mapping. Canonical decomposition is a way of tying together codepoints (or groups of codepoints) in a way that declares them to be equivalent. A more human-friendly place to check is also the Greek and Coptic code chart, which states ≡ 02B9 ʹ  modifier letter prime underneath U+0374. Theknightwho (talk) 19:35, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Nick Nicholas, who I believe to be quite knowledgeable on issues of Greek Unicode, writes "At this point, one might wonder whether the keraia ("horn", the Greek name for this sign) does anything that U+02B9 Modifier Letter Prime doesn't do already. The answer is no, and U+0374 canonically decomposes to U+02B9 accordingly." ("5. Keraia", Numerals, opoudjis, last revision: 2005-04-09) I'm not sure I understand what "is anomalous on Wiktionary and improperly links as ʹ (modifier letter prime, U+02B9)" is supposed to mean, and without further explanation, I'm in favor of switching to using U+0374/U+02B9 in our entries.--Urszag (talk) 18:27, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree. I also don't like the self-reference being used in Wiktionary voice. Theknightwho (talk) 12:47, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

orc

I noticed some back-and-forth about whether this, in reference to "a Russian soldier or gangster", is an ethnic slur, so I'm raising it here to get more eyes/input on it. On one hand, it does seem to be used as a derogatory term for people of a certain ethno-national group, on the other hand maybe the restriction to soldiers rather than all Russians matters? But I wouldn't be surprised to find uses where it refers to any Russian. Or maybe the fact that the soldiers may belong to other ethnic groups like Tuvans rather than Russians (ethnic group) complicates it being an "ethnic slur"? But the sort of people who'd use Kraut would probably include a German-speaking Sorb from Germany in the scope of it, and I'm not sure that invalidates our defining it as an ethnic slur for a German. IDK. - -sche (discuss) 01:09, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't think the restriction counts for much. Soldier is general enough to still make it basically a ethnic slur; it's basically an attack against Russians. It's not a term like jarhead, that one group of Russians might use against another.

We define ethnic as "Of or relating to a group of people having common racial, ancestral, national, religious or cultural origins." Russia is 80% ethnic Russian, and ethnic slurs often don't go to the "good" members of that ethnic group. I don't know how ethnic Russians are being treated in Ukraine right now; are they being viewed as implicit traitors, such that an ethnic Russian member of Ukraine's military might get called an orc (maybe in sheep's clothing)?--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:47, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, because Russia is disproportionately using non- ethnic-Russian troops in Ukraine, a higher percentage of the people who get called orcs are non- ethnic-Russian than the demography of Russia might suggest. Still, if we're defining "ethnic slur" as including national slurs, that's probably for the best, and persuades me that this probably is an ethnic slur. - -sche (discuss) 19:25, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

It feels a bit like Hun, meaning a German. (We don't call that an ethnic slur, but probably should.) Equinox ◑ 18:50, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Ha, that one gets some kind of prize for using the neutral name of one ethnic group as a slur for a different ethnic group. But surely we shouldn't be defining Huns as a plural proper noun... Fixed (IMO). - -sche (discuss) 19:28, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

foreslay citations

Any idea what the 2010 citation is supposed to mean? It seems gibberish to the point of unhelpfulness as a citation. I can't say I understand the 2000 citation either. Equinox ◑ 15:10, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Scientific terms containing ethnic slurs

I've labeled negrophilia and negrophiliac as (now offensive or historical) but I'm not 100% happy with this labeling. To me it seems that, used in the right context (namely historical/intersectional analysis), these words are not derogatory or offensive, they merely reference the offensiveness, they don't use it themselves if that makes sense (at least that's my reading of the quotations). Obviously, outside of these specific contexts (like if you called somebody this) they are actually racist. Same goes for blackophilia, where I didn't touch the (nonstandard, rare) label put there by @-sche. How do we best label these terms? — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 18:03, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

"Negro" wasn't even offensive at the time, was it? See the usage notes at negro, mentioning e.g. the UNCF (United Negro College Fund). Equinox ◑ 18:46, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Maybe something like "now only historical, otherwise offensive"? As Equinox says, at the time they were coined they may not have been offensive (although without period examples, it's hard to say). Is our current definition accurate, or does these terms connote/denote not merely "interest" but "racist interest" (patronizing/patriarchal, clinical/objectifying, whatever)? Would a Black person who loved his own race be said to show negrophilia in his writings, then or now? I labelled blackophilia nonstandard and rare because it indeed seemed to be, one of (probably-)PAM's creations; I didn't perceive it as offensive (do you?). Maybe "nonstandard" is not right, maybe it's a fine term; maybe even "rare" is no longer right, as I see many books from 2019, 2021, etc containing it now where weren't around when I added the label. - -sche (discuss) 19:16, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

I personally don't perceive blackophilia to be offensive, others have however opined that it is "clearly" denigrating. "now only historical, otherwise offensive" sounds good, alternatively something like "now only in jargon, otherwise offensive" could also work. Alternatively, we can also just omit the offensive part as long as there are no quotations demonstrating offensive use. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 19:35, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

It also occurs to me that it'd be good to clarify in some way what we mean when we say it's "historical"; unlike with Czechoslovakia where it's clear that the label relates to the fact that the country no longer exists, it's not obvious what's historical about "An affection for, or interest in things related to, the black race.", since people still have that today. (But the word isn't "dated", because the examples are from even last year.) So we need to improve the definition in some way. Does it relate to an interest widespread in a particular era, and which might have some particular distinguishing characteristics? - -sche (discuss) 20:30, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Would a label like "sometimes offensive" work? With the right context or tone of voice I suppose any term could be used offensively, so that in justifying "sometimes" we would need to exclude such usage if it was very uncommon. DCDuring (talk) 19:21, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Hun

The derogatory sense "A German" is labelled as a "Britain, Australia, US" thing. Is it really only used in the US but not Canada, only in Australia but not New Zealand, only known in Britain but not Ireland? That seems unlikely. Or did it originally just say "Britain" and other people added their own regions because it was familiar to them, too, when the real situation is that it's not particularly dialect-limited? - -sche (discuss) 20:33, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

I suspect you're right. There is the option to add "Commonwealth", but even as a Brit I give that term the side-eye, because it's used to encompass places that are emphatically not in the Commonwealth (like Ireland). Theknightwho (talk) 12:49, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Jew Yorker

Should this be tagged as derogatory/offensive? For that matter, does it specifically refer to Jewish New Yorkers, or is it used for all New Yorkers as is currently stated? 70.172.194.25 20:53, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Since New York jews may be moderate to secular, it would be difficult for the term not to have secular connotations that can apply to any other New Yorker as well, but hardly all of them except in metonymy. There is for example a German text that has "anti-Amerikanischen" in one breath with Jew-Yorker (Norman Mailer, so the original is likely English). Another one has "Jew Yorker, huh?" respond to "New York City." in what sounds intentionally backwards (Reed Farrel Coleman). Both are fiction and may be appropriately exaggerated. 109.40.242.155 16:46, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

Cited PseudoSkull (talk) 16:59, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

On the other hand, I doubt the Blue Jew Yorker was intended to be self-deprecating in the same sense. The third quotation thanks to PseudoSkull already refers to Jewishness in the title. It is clearly derogatory if refering to New York by any other name, but it doesn't always refer to that entity which is difficult to paraphrase anyway. 109.40.242.155 17:31, 9 August 2022 (UTC)

The first quotation (Andrew Hunt) seems to be referring to Jewish people as well, especially considering that the sentence immediately prior to the quote is "He reserved most of his animus for Jews.", implying that the following listed groups, including "Jew Yorkers", are subsets of Jewish people. The second citation seems to have this sense too (searching for "Jewish" in the Victoria Moran book yields the fragment "I honor my Jewish heritage", but I can't view the original page for context).

I'm not seeing any evidence of use for non-Jewish New Yorkers among the current quotations, but I would not be surprised if that usage existed. 70.172.194.25 13:10, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I edited the definition from "New Yorker" to "Jewish New Yorker" based on that. If it also refers to non-Jewish ones, I suspect it would be in the context of the New Yorker being "seen as having some connection to or coming under the influence of Jewishness", which we could probably expand the definition to cover if necessary (perhaps even with wording just like that, or better if anyone can do better). - -sche (discuss) 18:09, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Attestation of ඞ

As many have noticed, the Sinhalese ඞ character is quite similar in appearance to an amogus. The character is often used online to mean several Among Us-related terms. However, these senses are only attested from online-only sources like Twitter ([2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]) and Reddit ([8]).

According to Wiktionary:Criteria_for_inclusion#Attestation, Other online-only sources may also contribute towards attestation requirements if editors come to a consensus through a discussion lasting at least two weeks.

So the question is: should online-only sources be used to contribute information to the entry for ඞ?.

Ioaxxere (talk) 11:50, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

(For some context, this discussion started on my user talk page.) I maintain that most of the uses that can be seen by opening the links are not conveying meaning, but are simply graffiti (or "so random" type of humor). I can see some uses where there is a meaning that can be discerned, but any such uses are in a minority from what I can tell. — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 12:07, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

WT:FICTION suggests that your "several Among Us-related terms" will not meet the inclusion criteria. 109.40.241.227 08:00, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

The terms s*s and imp*ster (which have been represented by ඞ) are often used in non-Among Us-related contexts, meaning that WT:FICTION doesn't apply.

(I have to censor these words for whatever reason to allow the post)

Ioaxxere (talk) 20:13, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

WT:FICTION only forbids terms originating from fictional works, it doesn't say anything about fandom slang. Binarystep (talk) 05:50, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

User:Surjection have you changed your mind in the last two weeks? Again, I've found that ඞ is often used as shorthand for "s*s" or "imp*ster" in non Among Us-related contexts, so at the very least these senses should be included.

Ioaxxere (talk) 14:28, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

No. Gather valid citations under the citation page if you insist. — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 15:30, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Alright, I'll do as you say.

Ioaxxere (talk) 18:05, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

near on/near-on

Should this have an entry? Is it SOP? It means "nearly". No dictionaries I could find have it, but it seems plausible as an entry to me. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 23:39, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

You might have trouble citing it. There are so many false positives it's hard to find any cases with the two words in the same phrase and viewable on Google Books. In the first couple-hundred hits I found exactly one that wasn't "near[ly] on", as in "they were near on top of us". Almost all the rest were in separate columns joined incorrectly by the OCR, "near. On", etc. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but it does seem to be rare in print, and there are hundreds of thousands of bad hits to wade through. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:08, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

berserkr (Old Norse)

The senses seem repetitive. Can someone tidy up the entry? — Sgconlaw (talk) 13:50, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

orignal

In the entry for this Canadian French term, the etymology says this was originally "orignac" (without linking to that spelling, which is currently a redlink), and the single citation also uses the "orignac" spelling.

That doesn't look right in a dictionary that's arranged by exact spellings. What's the best way to fix this, since (judging by TLFI and a quick look at Google Books) the "orignac" spelling is completely missing from modern usage? Chuck Entz (talk) 15:04, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

I would move the current quote to the citations page for orignac. Since the pronunciation would have been distinctly different, this isn't really an example of spelling evolving over time, which is really the only case in which we allow uses of spellings different from that of the actual entry. It should be pretty easy to find cites for orignal if you want to show usage in the entry. I took a quick look for cites for orignac to see if we could create an entry, and with a bit more digging it might be possible to find enough. I don't have time to do that now though. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:34, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Spiritual Adoption

Worth an entry? Polish mono-lingual dictionary WSJP includes it as a lemma here, but I can't seem to find it in other dictionaries. It does not seem SOP as it has a rather limited definition. Vininn126 (talk) 14:08, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

I must confess, although I am a practising Catholic, I was not familiar with the sense described in that Polish dictionary that you linked to.

In fact, prior to reading the definition given, I would have assumed that it referred to what Catholics believe occurs upon baptism: God adopting that person as his child; an "adopted son" or "adopted daughter" of the Lord.

So unless there is evidence of the word being used in the way described in that Polish dictionary in English, I wouldn't think that it would make sense to include it. Tharthan (talk) 15:37, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Can't seem to find it. This looked promising (though it's in quotation marks, suggesting a nonce coinage) until I realised they weren't just "adopting" the babies: 2006, Frank A. Pavone, Ending Abortion: Not Just Fighting It! (page 202): The project is a form of “spiritual adoption,” by which the entire parish, as a community, “adopts” the abortion mill, all the babies who are brought there, the mothers and fathers, the employees and volunteers, […] Equinox ◑ 15:41, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

https://archny.org/ministries-and-offices/respect-life/get-involved/spiritual-adoption/

Here's a link with it. It seems to be more of a thing on the internet. It does seem to mostly be a calque into English by Polish speakers. Vininn126 (talk) 15:51, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

terms containing ethnic slurs but which don't denote (members of) an ethnicity

Various entries which don't denote a person or ethnicity are nonetheless labelled and categorized as {{lb|en|ethnic slur}}s either because they contain slurs (apefirmative action, WT:RFVE#niggership) or simply are racist (e.g., prior to my edit in 2020, you can take the monkey out of the jungle, ..., or prior to now, get someone's Irish up). Having been reminded of this by that RFV, and considering the point from the discussion in 2020 that it can still be useful to flag some such entries with the words "ethnic slur" and categorize them, how do people feel about revising them to say something like {{lb|en|contains an|_|ethnic slur}}? IMO it's misleading to label a term like nigger lover (defined as "A white person...") as an "ethnic slur", because it suggests it's slurring the white person for their whiteness, which is...not it. (IMO some entries, like get someone's Irish up, should just be recategorized into something like Category:en:Racism, although maybe we could say something like {{lb|en|slurs an ethnicity}}? Or maybe other people feel these are ethnic slurs, despite not denoting an ethnicity?) - -sche (discuss) 22:44, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

@-sche: I'm personally in agreement with your position; I don't think apefirmative action and the likes are ethnic slurs. I have however myself started to label these terms as ethnic slurs based on feedback I've received (see here; not the only time if memory serves). I'm not sure how I feel about {{lb|en|contains an|_|ethnic slur}}: it's redundant (the label describes one of the constituents, not the term itself) and it also furthers the label bloat that many ethnic slurs suffer from (see Talk:nigger lottery for a discussion on this). I would actually be on board with removing the labels "offensive" and "derogatory" from all ethnic slurs, just like we don't have "informal" for colloquial entries etc. Note that Category:English ethnic slurs is actually a subcategory of Category:English offensive terms, so this actually an example of the kind of "both in a cat and in a subcat"-category smell that I vehemently fight against (tangentially related: my first comment in this discussion). As to categorization of racist terms that don't slur their referent, maybe plain categorization without a label is the way to go. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 23:28, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

It's just metonymy to call these terms ethnic slurs (among OneLook dictionaries WordNet has an entry for ethnic slur, but doesn't require that the term refer to a member of the ethnicity. Nor does the word slur.). They certainly slur the ethnicity even when they are not directed at a member of the group. I don't like the suggested longer label because it is ... longer. I don't like adding new labels and categories. I suppose we could call them something like indirect ethnic slurs. DCDuring (talk) 23:50, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

We basically do this all over the place in categories though. For example Category:en:Birds might contain things that relate to birds, but are not birds, like "birdcage" or "bird feeder". (That example doesn't seem to have any, but I've seen many, many categories that do act like this.) Equinox ◑ 23:54, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

I feel like this parallel is not quite apt. Unlike with topical categories, we are not as lax in this sense when it comes to usage categories; colloquial is rightly not part of Category:English colloquialisms. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 00:16, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

Right, it makes sense for a topic category to have terms related to the topic (although there's the longstanding, oft-discussed and still-unresolved problem of how to distinguish "X category is for the topic 'Birds'" from "Y category is a list containing words for birds"), but "ethnic slurs" isn't a "topic" category, it's a usage set like colloquialisms or adverbs (and we don't put adverb into Category:English adverbs) ... or else words like ethnophaulism should themselves be labelled or at least categorized as {{lb|en|ethnic slur}}s since they relate to the topic. But maybe I'm mistaken about the scope of the set / term; maybe a term doesn't have to denote an ethnicity, and just incidentally slurring one while denoting something else still counts as an "ethnic slur". I still think we should use something like "contains..." when a term directly denotes a person or an ethnic group but the slur is not against that group (like with nigger lover). - -sche (discuss) 01:43, 12 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm not going to make a huge fuss about this one (but thank you for taking it seriously, 'cause I know you, -sche, took this from one entry where we were reverting each other): however, to me, "ethnic slur" is clearly about intention, and not about orthography, right. I could teach some non-English-speaker to write a massively racist sentence, but he/she wouldn't know what it meant. Equinox ◑ 08:04, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Things in a "category of type X" that aren't themselves cases of the type X

(This was from the above convo, "terms containing ethnic slurs but which don't denote (members of) an ethnicity", but I decided it was too derailing.) A bit of a de-rail, but let me take the opportunity: if a category called (say) "vehicles" is supposed to be a list of actual things that are vehicles (tractor, car, bus, taxi) then we should try to make this clear. There are things like odometer that might be very relevant to a vehicle, but aren't themselves vehicles. If we are trying to be OmegaWiki and a category is a list of things -- well, it's a thought. Equinox ◑ 08:00, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree, the lack of clarity here is a longstanding problem; I recall Rua and I discussing on RFM and elsewhere ways to clarify things... I think we need to either explicitly add "List" or "Set" to the names of categories that are just intended to be lists/sets, like renaming "Category:en:Alcoholic beverages" to "Category:en:Set:Alcoholic beverages" (which might be the least work, since currently I think we have more topic categories), or else add "Topic" to the name of the topic categories ("Category:en:Topic:Brewing"), or both. - -sche (discuss) 08:28, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Follow-up thought: this kind of category might be actually more useful to computers than to humans (seriously; look at what we are doing with AI these days). I like -sche's idea of "set" as a term, bc a set is a collection of things with no particular ordering or whatever, it's just all the stuff that is X. "List" I think is too overloaded. Equinox ◑ 15:00, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

First Nations

The [First Nations] article currently identifies the term as primarily Canadian. I've found that there is increasing usage of the term in Australia, both in government sources and popular media.

https://www.stylemanual.gov.au/accessible-and-inclusive-content/inclusive-language/aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-peoples

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/aug/04/horrific-first-nations-missing-and-murdered-cases-to-be-focus-of-australia-wide-inquiry

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-11-28/2023-women-s-world-cup-leaving-first-nations-legacy/100587244 Farside268 (talk) 12:20, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, this is true. I added a separate sense at First Nations, but it might be better to collapse it into one of the Canadian senses. This, that and the other (talk) 02:51, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

syvätä

Finnish. If the word is derived from syvä, shouldn't the conjugation be syvään etc. instead of sypään? The verb is unknown to me. The existence of syväys instead of sypäys surely suggests so. (Syväys is actually a word that I knew, but only in the nautical meaning which isn't derived from a verb.) Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 17:06, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

@Surjection, HekahekaMölli-Möllerö (talk) 08:19, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

I think it's just a simple mistake on my part. — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 08:29, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

I added another definition and links to references. The verb seems to mean data extraction in general and to have a specific meaning in image processing.--Hekaheka (talk) 11:15, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

dies Mercurii

An IP has noted on the talk page that "Judging by the stress placement, most are from older (diēs) Mercurī, with contracted -iī, not from analogical (diēs) Mercuriī." Rather than replying there, I thought it would be better to bring the discussion here where it more people will see it.

My reply: Perhaps, but in that case we would need to create an entry for that spelling and make one of them an alternative form of the other. It looks to me like the two forms should be treated as one variable term, rather than two different ones- it doesn't look like speakers would have considered them to be distinct from each other, except possibly for sociolinguistic matters such as whether a given form would be standard/correct and/or formal vs. colloquial and/or old-fashioned vs. modern, etc. Of course, I don't know much about such things when it comes to Latin, so I'll bring some others in on the discussion: (Notifying Fay Freak, Brutal Russian, JohnC5, Benwing2, Lambiam, Mnemosientje, Nicodene): Chuck Entz (talk) 21:55, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

The contraction should not influence the stress, so the stress in our IPA for the contraction is correct. I suspect that in Late Latin after Christianization and ensuing loss of historical sensitivity they did not understand the meaning of Mercuriī / Mercurī and reinterpreted it, at the same time dropping diēs as herba in herba Sabīna (we say “ellipsis of ‘day’” in miércoles, which is only half the truth), as some noun of a measure like corpus, corporis so stressed, perhaps a dative ***mercorī from a **mercus imagining a saint to which the day would have been dedicated (benefactive case). Fay Freak (talk) 23:16, 13 August 2022 (UTC)

I've seen posts online arguing that the rule about stress for second-declension genitives in -ī falling in the same place as in the uncontracted form must be a late convention of grammarians, and that in the early Latin period, when the uncontracted form was never used for nouns, the stress should be assumed to have followed the regular rule. I'm not sure whether any published sources discuss this, but Spanish miércoles and Romanian miercuri do seem like strong evidence for a Latin form [ˈmɛrkʊriː].--Urszag (talk) 00:11, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

I found a discussion in Latin Grammarians on the Latin Accent: The Transformation of Greek Grammatical Thought, by Philomen Probert (2019); it doesn't seem to support the use of forms like [ˈmɛrkʊriː] in the genitive. Probert quotes a passage where Aulus Gellius cites Nigidius Figulus. Per Gellius, Figulus described a difference in accentuation between genitive Valéri and vocative Váleri. Gellius's comment is that in his time, accenting the first syllable in the vocative Valeri would be laughable. Thus, it appears per Probert that in Gellius's time, both the genitive and vocative of such words were stressed in the same position as the nominative case. (pages 269-274)--Urszag (talk) 00:36, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

Per the circumstance that during the development of Romance the genitive case fell into disuse for a two-case system which did not include the genitive, shouldn’t it be our prime suspicion that, as I have outlined, the classical term was replaced by a term of no genitive phrase? Where do we really have to assume anything inherited from a Latin genitive? Fay Freak (talk) 02:53, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

The hypothesis that you presented is implausible to me. If you find anyone else suggesting something similar, it would be good to know.--Urszag (talk) 03:26, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

The reverse seems implausible, in comparison. Fay Freak (talk) 12:12, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

I've now found a blog post by Jon Aske, Professor Emeritus at Salem State University and holder of a PhD in Linguistics from University of California, Berkeley, about the etymology of miércoles which does explicitly trace it to a Latin form Mĕ́rcŭrī with initial stress per the regular Latin stress rule ("The names of the days of the week, Part 4: Sp. miércoles and related words", Wednesday, June 14, 2017, Spanish-English Cognates). Aske doesn't address the topic of sources that say there was irregular stress of the type Mӗrcŭ́rī in genitives of this form. Nevertheless, I think this lends support to the point made by the talk page IP.--Urszag (talk) 03:42, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

It’s basically a petitio principii: “Romance has this stress so the Classical Latin term must have been stressed this way.” He also just assumes “Latin stress followed very regular and predictable rules” in spite of the known exception of contraction. Fay Freak (talk) 12:12, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz The etymologically regular spelling of the Genitive Sg. for nouns ending in -ius in Classical Latin is with a single < i > (Jūlī, fīlī, Mercurī), which distinguishes it from the Nom. Pl. which has <ii>, Republican standard <iei>. Adjectives however have <ii> (iei) in both forms even in Plautus, due to strong analogy, one suspects. This spelling difference accurately reflects the difference in the number of syllables as well. The first noun with Gen.Sg. is first attested in Vergil (fluvii, probably only instance) but is rather frequent in Ovid, and becomes prevalent in Late Latin. But the Romance descendants reflect the correct Classical form, and the wiktionary entry doesn't. They also show that the stress in nouns was as expected from a trisyllabic form, /'Mercurī/, /'Valerī/. The Vocative was originally identical in spelling and stress, the attempts by Nigidius Figulus et al. to distinguish them that Gellius describes are likely artificial. See the answers by Alex B and Asteroides. —The vairiation in names of weekdays is not just in the number of vowels, but in the word order as well. We have many alternative form pages for these, as I remember. Alternative forms for bare Genitive Singulars are obviously required, and I see no reason not to have alternative forms for each spelling in phrases like this one. —By the way, after the disgusting assault on the Latin pronunciation module, which still hasn't been resolved or reverted, the pronunciation of double /iī/ is incorrectly transcribed in the phonetic transcription with a single [i:], when this was clearly a variable process suspended in poetry recitation – otherwise it wouldn't scan. Brutal Russian (talk) 11:30, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Speaking of "disgusting assaults": it may be right, it may be wrong, but this is a wiki. Deal with it. Chuck Entz (talk) 12:50, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

@Brutal Russian: Even if you claim that in Latin nouns ending in -ius the stress switched position like in some Russian word it would be likely that this distinction was regularized to disappear later. So in the time of A. Gellius the stress was laughable because it was bare archaizing; as controversial as imposing a superceded stress pattern upon a Russian word. Fay Freak (talk) 11:48, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Spanish alguno as determiner

It's my understanding that algún is m.sg. determiner and alguno is m.sg. pronoun, but the latter is currently given in both functions. The example sentence doesn't convince me, however. "Quieres alguno más?" to me is pronoun + adverb, not determiner + pronoun. So should the determiner use be stricken? 88.64.225.117 06:58, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

You might argue that the determiner use before a masculine noun demands algún, ¿Haces algún deporte?, and that this is not the case while más is not a noun (not even a mass noun) or that an uninflected noun has to be masulinum by default. It's probably not that simple. 109.40.242.47 20:22, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

मोहन

Hi, this is my first time posting here so this might be the wrong place, but I was somewhat confused by a definition on this word.

Instead of “the being deluded or infatuated, delusion, infatuation, embarrassment, mistake” it might be better to say “the state of being deluded or infatuated, delusion, infatuation, embarrassment, mistake”, but I'm not entirely sure, since it could change the intended meaning.

Are there any Sanskrit experts who know anything about this? Kosinvita (talk) 21:37, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

The meanings of the noun delusion include "a state of being deluded", and those of infatuation include "a state of being infatuated". So, without any knowledge of Sanskrit, I believe the definition can be tidied up by deleting the part up to and including the first comma.  --Lambiam 17:49, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

villhöva and conjugations

sv:villhöva on svwt has this term but includes a usage note that seems analogous to WT:NEO. If appropriate for enwt, it would be nice to have this entry translated; but not being a Swedish speaker I don't feel it's within my skill set to find durably archived citations, so I'd appreciate it if those knowledgeable could offer their perspective. Arlo Barnes (talk) 07:06, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

jacket

Our jacket entry claims that Appalachians use jacket to mean vest. Does this refer to the item of clothing otherwise known as a waistcoat or to the other type of vest (an undershirt or singlet)? Vest and jacket are used interchangeably by many people in the context of a life/safety/tool vest/jacket, not just in Appalachia, and it seems unlikely they’d say ‘bulletproof jacket’ instead of ‘bulletproof vest’, so I’m assuming this refers to what I’d call a waistcoat (after all, how can this not be considered to be a type of jacket, or possibly coat? Not that I’d actually refer to a ‘waistcoat’ as a ‘jacket’ in speech or writing though.). Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:21, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

CFI for -ussy

Well, I have been informed that the page that people have been meming about for oh-so-long has been made. On the Discord server we have stated that this entry would have to be proven to fit CFI, which the creator has not done. Does anyone have any quotations, etc. of -ussy used as a suffix? — 義順 (talk) 07:58, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

@ND381: The discussion is at Talk:-ussy. J3133 (talk) 08:07, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for informing — 義順 (talk) 08:25, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Pronunciation of English quale

We currently state that this is homophonous with quail. I have always pronounced this as a two-syllable word. Which is correct? Both?  --Lambiam 17:41, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Here’s someone saying it with two syllables on YouGlish[9]. There’s another hit where someone says it with one syllable and another where someone rather oddly seems to be saying ‘koala quale party’ with two syllables. Every dictionary on OneLook apart from Wiktionary lists it as two syllables too[10]. Overlordnat1 (talk) 23:31, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

I think it's nearly always used in the plural, but the singular "should" be two syllables based on the standard patterns for pronouncing Latin words (cf. simile); however, that doesn't constitute much of a guarantee (cf. rationale and Clostridioides difficile). Since Wiktionary is meant to be a descriptive dictionary rather than taking the prescriptive viewpoint of judging what's "correct", Overlordnat1's method of looking for actual audio of the word seems most appropriate. I'd imagine we should list multiple pronunciations.--Urszag (talk) 05:23, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Valencian ordinals: huitanta-huitè, huitanta-quatrè: alt forms or misspellings?

It appears that correctly spelled Valencian ordinals end in -é, e.g. huitanta-huité, huitanta-quatré. Forms with -è are standard Catalan forms, which use a v not an h: vuitanta-vuitè, vuitanta-quatrè. Forms like huitanta-huitè, huitanta-quatrè appear to be misspellings, and were created by User:Carolina wren, who per their user page knows almost no Catalan. As a result I'm tempted to just delete the misspellings but before doing that I'd like to verify that these forms truly are misspellings and not legitimate alternative forms, as they currently claim to be. Can someone help? There are, for example, only 10 Google hits for huitanta-huitè, and all or almost all originate from Wiktionary. Benwing2 (talk) 03:10, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

@Espreon, Ultimateria Can you comment on this? Espreon set up the soft redirect from huitanta-huitè to huitanta-huité; I don't know if that means it is a real form or it just came about through a random iterative process and should be removed. Benwing2 (talk) 19:36, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

@Benwing2: I think those can safely be deleted. I'll also ping @Vriullop for comment. Ultimateria (talk) 21:26, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

No, don't delete just yet. See below.

Espreon (talk) 21:57, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

@Benwing2:, @Ultimateria: Canonically speaking, the Valencian norm is to write the ordinal indicator as -é (acute accent), reflecting the pronunciation of this with /e/ rather than /E/ (I use X-SAMPA here). However, in spite of the this difference in pronunciation, some writing Valencian prefer to write it with a grave accent mark instead (-è) - the AVL (the language academy overseeing Valencian and the development/maintenance of the offical norms) permits this usage and has these forms in their dictionary.

Therefore, the forms with the grave accent should be kept in some regard, but it should be made clear the forms with the acute accent are the primary Valencian forms

Espreon (talk) 21:57, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

@Espreon OK thanks, I will see about doing that. Benwing2 (talk) 22:07, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Right. See entry huitanté at DNV. Both accents are used for ordinals, although the è variants are not so common for huitanta-x. Vriullop (talk) 06:04, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

स्मित​

Not sure if it belongs here or in the etymology scriptorium, as I am new here. There isn't any page on it but I was curious about what Indo-European root it comes from. Intuition says a relative of *smey but is there a particular formation of it because *smey is a verb. If in the wrong place, I'll post it in the right place. 122.148.185.44 10:40, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

queen

I believe there is a definition (or two) of queen that can be induced from comma queen, complain queen ^[sic], coupon queen, garage queen, hangar queen, scream queen, speed queen, and welfare queen. I can't put my finder on it at the moment. Any suggestions? DCDuring (talk) 18:36, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Also chili queen. A revival of Old English cwene (“woman”)? For hangar queen I suppose the affectation of referring to aircraft using feminine pronouns plays a role, while garage queen is then an extension to less lofty craft. The linguistic femininization of the comma queen remains unexplained, as for drama queen, but carries strong sexist overtones.  --Lambiam 21:48, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

harlequin rather suggests "king"; "Harley Queen" is just another wordplay. mannequin however is just a suffix and more likely related to -kin, mankind, Menschenskind, like like, *liką "body", *-lik"-ly", I guess. 2A00:20:608C:7F78:D477:3899:2281:BF37 12:52, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Comma queen might well be modelled on drama queen, as it sounds quite similar and has the same derogatory feeling of somebody making a needless fuss. Equinox ◑ 13:00, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

A queen is a ruler; and an "X queen" is someone who is dominant or ruling in a certain area (a scream queen is specifically known for, and good at, the horror roles; a drama queen is full of drama, not just occasionally; etc.). Just like Elvis being "The King", i.e. the greatest or best, or Sanford Wallace calling himself "the Spam King" because he was such a prolific spammer. See queen senses 3 and 4. Equinox ◑ 12:58, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

I was hoping for a single definition that covered (almost) all the cases. But the "excellent in" cases may be adequately covered by existing sense 3.3 "A woman pre-eminent in a particular group or field." I don't think that we can include hangar queen and garage queen without breaking a definition out of def. 3 (due to queen referring to a thing in those cases). Complain queen, welfare q., and speed q. seem inherently pejorative, but that must be just due to the nouns. Maybe it all works if we alter 3.3 to read "{often in combination) A woman (or thing regarded as female), pre-eminent in a particular group or field or exemplifying it." DCDuring (talk) 22:01, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Others may disagree, but I think my suggestion above about the general senses of queen is probably correct, and I don't believe that the existence of a bunch of X queen phrases requires a new sense at queen (especially if you'd have to gloss it with something like "only after another noun"). Yeah, there is an interesting meaning of the word in those phrases, but it doesn't give queen ALONE a new sense. Equinox ◑ 04:28, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

I think this is productive: I found garage queen in five minutes. (Didn't realize we had it.) I doubt that we want to have entries for every such combination. DCDuring (talk) 15:23, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

If I'd been certain, I wouldn't have brought the matter here. DCDuring (talk) 18:00, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

@Equinox, DCDuring FWIW I agree with Equinox and I doubt this is productive in the normal sense of "productive", which means you can freely make up new forms. If this were productive, I could make up terms like "computer queen" and "phone queen" and "desk queen" and everyone who know what they mean. Non-productive doesn't mean it's impossible to create new phrases of this nature, but it can't be done freely; in this situation it seems to happen only occasionally and only in cases of strong analogy (drama queen -> comma queen, etc.). Benwing2 (talk) 19:42, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

It is productive in the sense of "excellent female purveyor of X", where X is some kind of merchandise (also X Queen as some kind of "female symbol promoting X", eg Brexit Queen) and in the sense of "excellent performer of X", where X is some kind of behavior ("scream, complain(t), drama", displaying characteristic X ("ice") or using copious amounts of X ("commas" or "speed"). There is always some need for flexibility in exact interpretation of combinations. DCDuring (talk) 20:55, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

You could try to distinguish properties that could be seen as stereotypically female, eg. shreeking, complaining hysterically (Karen), grocery shopping (soap opera targeting soap advertisement at house wifes), being a plain, apparently – ie. exocentric compounds. The Brexit example is special because because being the Queen is predisposed being female, and someone's driving Brexit is just one type of challenging the leader. Harley Queen might also shows this endocentric coding but differently, in which Old English cwene (“woman”)? or better "wife, mate, concubine" is understandable. The comma queen I don't know, is that something like a spelling bee? 109.40.242.203 20:51, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

those who can't use their head must use their back

Has anyone heard of this? If it exists, I suspect it would be better to lemmatise it at a different form. I only found it in one Google Book: [11]. (I also found "you can’t use your head if you can’t use your back" here, which evidently means something different.) This, that and the other (talk) 12:52, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

Seems to appear only in dictionaries, translating a proverb from some other language. Equinox ◑ 12:56, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

...and the author of that one Google Book a website in German. RFV time... This, that and the other (talk) 22:50, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Although this does raise the question of how to handle translations of proverbs that do not exist in English but exist in several other languages. This, that and the other (talk) 22:51, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

What is there to handle? If language X has proverb A, and language Y does not have a corresponding proverb B, then we are not obliged to create a B entry. And some things are untranslatable. Equinox ◑ 04:26, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Of course. But, assuming that the translations of those who can't use their head must use their back are real and idiomatic in their respective languages (at least the German appears to be), we have no way of indicating that these proverbs are equivalents/translations of one another, because translations aren't allowed on foreign language entries, and there is no central English entry to centralise at. I don't have an answer to this problem though. This, that and the other (talk) 04:40, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

I think the solution to your problem lies in Wikidata, not in Wiktionary. We do enough by allowing content-less "translation only" entries. In this case we don't even have a headword. Equinox ◑ 07:00, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

I have found it a great circumvention to host the translations in a template since technically they weren’t inside foreign language entries so arguably not forbidden, also from a teleological interpretation since the single most reason for that rule is to avoid synchronisation issues, better than hosting at a made-up name one would not think of like yes-no. Fay Freak (talk) 08:16, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Maybe but errrm doesn't this create a risk of "mutual translation bubbles" linked from nowhere else? lol. It is exactly the problem that Wikidata was trying to solve, i.e. dealing with concepts instead of "names" or "terms". Equinox ◑ 08:33, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

There is always a risk that people peruse their time for something peculiarly useless. It is embarrassing and again leads to effects of ineptitude if one formulate one’s rules around them. Yet you can easily defend the position that there is a kind of anti-bloat principle disallowing it to create such a section with but one or two translations, weighing it also with the legislative intention to avoid translation sections in foreign language entries altogether. Fay Freak (talk) 08:47, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

What does "peruse their time" mean? Equinox ◑ 08:58, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

A mere reinforcement of use, see also Latin per-. There is more than one meaning listed in the OED which we fail to describe, including “to use up”, from which the others are derivative, however the derivative uses, too, partook in my usage, since people figuratively casually wander through their time on this website, often while getting purpose out of sight. Fay Freak (talk) 10:43, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

'Peruse their time' has a grand total of three hits on Google (two of which have 'time' as the first part of a compound noun), versus millions for the same phrase with 'spend' or 'waste'. Latinized Denglisch is never a good combination. Nicodene (talk) 10:47, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

It may happen that I utter a once-in-a-million thought. Those Antibarbarus authors did not consider well that if you have to talk Cicero you will also be restricted to think like Cicero, and were ultimately the demise of discourse taking place at all in the language. The cornucopia of conventions hindering progression as well as violation of them is most observable in the Anglo-Saxon cancel culture right now. After all, thinking towards a plan is difficult, people can expect some shortcuts! That’s what anything idiomatic is for. Fay Freak (talk) 11:45, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

The thought isn't 'once-in-a-million': the way you tried to phrase it is. Put another way, it's unidiomatic. Nicodene (talk) 12:12, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

@Fay Freak I suggest you peruse the terms pretentious, malapropism and bullshit (verb sense 3). Theknightwho (talk) 10:16, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

In cases where there's no possible English translation hub name, I do think crosslinking the non-English entries from each other is a good idea, and I like the idea of having a central template or appendix page that can be updated rather than having to add to every entry's ===See also===. Let's categorize the templates into the same category as translations hubs to help with findability; Appendix:X is a beautiful language is already so categorized. - -sche (discuss) 19:39, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

This could be a solution for vouvoyer and the like. (See Talk:address with the formal pronoun, Talk:address with the polite V-form, Talk:address formally.) PUC – 19:55, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

A postscript to this discussion: I set up an experimental solution at Appendix:Terms with no English equivalent. (Not the best title, but I couldn't think of one that was both 100% accurate and appropriately succinct.) This, that and the other (talk) 10:58, 9 October 2022 (UTC)

ash gourd

Is the name derived from the ash tree or the fire ash? Dunderdool (talk) 11:46, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

 Done The fire. Equinox ◑ 12:57, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

-ing

Should we really have ‘ink’ listed as a pronunciation for -ing in Kent and parts of Australia? The closest I can think of would be the typically Brummie pronunciation ‘somethink’ for ‘something’ but that’s not really an example of the -ing suffix. If we keep it, it should surely be listed as a German pronunciation (or perhaps just as ‘non-native’ to account fully for other possibilities). Overlordnat1 (talk) 17:21, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

It's definitely a Kent/Essex thing, but I'm not sure how prevalent it is. Theknightwho (talk) 10:18, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I’ll take your word for it, I have no intention of ‘watchink’ The Only Way Is Essex to find out! Overlordnat1 (talk) 12:36, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

grub, larva

Senses 1 of grub and larva are respectively:

• "An immature stage in the life cycle of an insect"
• "An early stage of growth for some insects and amphibians".

Are these glosses accurate? In my view, a larva is not a "stage" but an insect in a certain stage (maybe we could reword the first definition into "An insect in an immature stage of its life cycle"?). The numerous occurrences for "grub stage" and "larva stage" seem to bear this out, but I'd like to hear from native speakers about this, for example from @-sche, @Chuck Entz or @Equinox. PUC – 19:03, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree with your proposed redefinition of this as an insect at a stage, not itself a stage (per se). Sadly there are probably quite a few entries with this kind of sloppiness in how they're worded. - -sche (discuss) 20:15, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

This is a problem we frequently encounter in English, where the term for a set and a member of that set are used interchangeably. Theknightwho (talk) 15:46, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

authenticity

What is the difference between sense 1 ("The quality of being genuine or not corrupted from the original", with "I hereby certify the authenticity of this copy." as a usage example) and sense 2 ("Truthfulness of origins, attributions, commitments, sincerity, and intentions" > "The authenticity of this painting is questionable") supposed to be? PUC – 18:57, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

It goes back to the entry's creation in 2005 and is undoubtedly another example of the phenomenon that was so common back then where people would add multiple ways of expressing the definition on different lines as if they were different definitions (which is, in fairness, a thing many online translation dictionaries do). - -sche (discuss) 20:13, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I remember Wonderfool, when they were crap at writing definitions, doing that: writing three crappy definitions for a term, and hoping other users would select the "best one". Oh, what fun...Dunderdool (talk) 20:43, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Words Rarely Spoken

At Sijiangou (an archaeological site & the top result for this term in Google), I made an rfp|en (request for pronunciation of an English language word). However, I sincerely doubt that anyone but archaeologists says this word aloud. Should I give a speculative pronunciation based on Mandarin? Is there a standard pattern to English-Mandarin loan word official pronunciations? If I don't give a pronunciation, should I just remove rfp|en or let it sit there a few decades? And any critique of that page and its validity or place within Wiktionary & of other associated pages or my other similar edits is welcome. Thanks for any guidance. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 20:19, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

In theory, if the term is used there must be a way its users say it (at least in their heads), so in theory an RFP should be fine. In practice, putting RFPs on terms like this where it's nigh-impossible to find spoken examples (YouTube / Youglish has even less nothing than it had for Zhuang) means just cluttering up the RFP category with requests that aren't realistically meetable — even if someone added a pronunciation, we'd have no way to verify it beyond checking whether it looked plausible based on the Chinese pronunciation, so if they added anything other than an anglicized version of the Chinese pronunciation which any of us could add mechanically right now ourselves, it'd probably get removed as dubious and unverifiable — which degrades the usefulness of the category, a problem Anatoli and I and other editors have complained about with regard to various requests categories and pages. (It's something that made the formerly useful top-of-the-watchlist list of wanted pages useless and led to it being deleted: certain editors added any obscure barely-attested or unattested crap they could find to it.) So in practice maybe it'd be better to collect specialized terms like this that need pronunciation info somewhere else, like a userspace or appendix page. - -sche (discuss) 21:22, 21 August 2022 (UTC)

Not sure who to ping but I'd like more input here. Most entries in Category:Requests for pronunciation in English entries are Chinese placenames which may have never been spoken aloud in English anywhere we could find, creating the problem that many requests are practically unfillable or, if filled by someone, like I just added a pronunciation to Dongshan, unverifiable. Even though in theory any request is valid, in practice this makes the category less useful since the often-unanswerable Chinese placename requests swamp the more answerable requests for pronunciation of other words. Should we move these requests to a subcategory or a page somewhere, or let this category become a near-duplicate of Category:en:Placenames in China...? - -sche (discuss) 20:30, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

Some of our users may not be as capable of coming up with a plausible pronunciation as you suggested above. Why not try to fill the request for the more obviously common ones? DCDuring (talk) 21:10, 4 September 2022 (UTC)

OK, I've been adding pronunciations based on how the syllables tend to be pronounced, cross-checked against spoken examples of the full name when possible. For a few common names, a spectrum from very un-Chinese anglicization to very Chinese un-English pronunciation can be found (and I sometimes add them, as to Xiang), with some speakers basically code-switching into any of a variety of Chinese lects. For other entries, no spoken examples exist, so the expected pronunciations are not checkable. - -sche (discuss) 15:52, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative I would encourage you, in lieu of RFPing every Chinese placename and making the RFP category just an unusable duplicate of the Chinese placenames categories, to generate pronunciations yourself like this (cross-checking against things like Youglish and other dictionaries where possible). E.g. -ai is /aɪ/, -ao is /aʊ/, -ing is /ɪŋ/, etc., or mutatis mutandis for the "AHD" pronunciation notation. - -sche (discuss) 16:01, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

@-sche, DCDuring Sorry, I didn't see your Aug 21 comment until just now. I have no idea how to proceed; I will stop adding these for now since it has become an issue. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 16:26, 7 September 2022 (UTC) (modified)

tickets

Has anyone noticed the word tickets being used to refer to a single ticket? For example:

"I managed to get tickets to the concert" = "I managed to get a ticket to the concert"

Collecting citations for this usage isn't easy, since it's often impossible to tell whether someone has actually bought multiple tickets. Hopefully a few others can confirm whether this is a thing.

Ioaxxere (talk) 03:05, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I found a Reddit post about this which seems to confirm it.

Ioaxxere (talk) 03:11, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I've heard this before. I've also heard (and used) "keys" to refer to a singular car key (but not any other kind of key). Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:31, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

Same here, for both. Theknightwho (talk) 15:57, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

I’m pretty sure I’ve heard the same for house keys too. It reminds me of hand someone his cards/give someone his cards, as that’s a phrase that also uses an odd pluralisation. Overlordnat1 (talk) 17:20, 6 September 2022 (UTC)

It's almost like people are thinking of it as a mass noun. What do people (plural) need in order to hydrate? Water. What does one person need in order to hydrate? Water. What do people need in order to get in to the concert? Tickets. So what does one person need? Tickets.
Another case of somewhat odd plurality: you can order a burger and get onions or peppers (or pickles, etc, etc; this seems to be a very general phenomenon not specific to any one word) on it, meaning the cook might slice up (say) only part of one onion or pepper up and put the slices on it, not necessarily that the cook will put multiple onions on it. What sense of onion should a usex about a "burger with onions" go under, just the general "bulb" sense? - -sche (discuss) 19:28, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

corbata francesa

What's the term in English for this sex act? titty blowjob? Dunderdool (talk) 18:49, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but please please please can we avoid terms like "mammary intercourse" in entries? It's got 2 hits on Google, and this kind of pseudo-formal language for sex-related entries always comes off as bizarre to the point of prudishness. e.g. a Wiktionary search gives 13 hits for "homosexual intercourse", because apparently some editors are terrified to write "gay sex". Honestly. Theknightwho (talk) 01:45, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, it only has two hits because you misspelled it. It's even the title of the relevant Wikipedia article. Anyway, what would you use instead? Most of the slang terms enumerated on the WP article are, well, pretty vulgar, but maybe that's okay. 70.172.194.25 05:42, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

That'll teach me for posting at 2am - sorry! I guess I'd gloss it as something that's the equivalent level of formality/vulgarity in English. I keep seeing entries like buttfuck (“An act of anal intercourse.”) or fuckroom (“bedroom or any room used for fornication”) which seem to be going out of their way to sound as Victorian as possible; often at the expense of clarity. Not to mention the etymologies like this, which reads like something out of a David Attenborough documentary. I guess it's down to hypercorrection. Theknightwho (talk) 09:35, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

The word you're looking for is titjob. Binarystep (talk) 05:33, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

That refers to mammary intercourse, but does it include the oral aspect? 70.172.194.25 05:46, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

I can find a handful of hits for titblowjob in reference to this act, but it's hard to tell whether it's lexicalized, since it occurs in places that often have gibberish wordsmashes, and hits in longer phrases like "big titblowjob" are obviously just the careless omission of a space from "[big tit] [blowjob]". - -sche (discuss) 20:27, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

When I was in sixth form with SemperBlotto, we called it a "soapy tit wank". Soap might be optional but it feels so good. Equinox ◑ 14:48, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

vrijen, hook up

Might it be of some value to reference the English phrasal verb "hook up" in the usage notes of Dutch vrijen?

There seems to be a comparison to be made with regard to the multitude of senses and the ambiguity in both words, and the variance in its meaning when it comes to romance and things sexual.

Sense 3 of vrijen can be compared to a subsense of "hook up," sense 3 (in a romantic sense) "Did you hear? Rob and Kathy hooked up. I always thought that they were good for one another" ("hook up" here meaning simply "are going out"/"started dating"), whereas sense 1 of vrijen is essentially the same as sense 4 of hook up. And sense 2 of vrijen is yet again a sense of "hook up" as well, though we don't mark it as a distinct sense. We do make reference to it in the usage notes of "hook up," though.

I admit that it has probably been almost twenty years since I last heard "hooked up" used to mean "started dating," but still. Tharthan (talk) 22:54, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

I have the impression that sense 3 is dated, used in a setting where premarital sex was still a no-no.  --Lambiam 19:14, 23 August 2022 (UTC)

tape

Apparently there's an archaic slang usage which we don't have listed:...

Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (Ⓒ Oxford University Press 2007)

tape teɪp

2 Strong liquor, esp. gin. arch. slang. e18.

Chambers (13th edition, Ⓒ Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. 2014)

tape /tāp/

noun

9. Alcoholic drink (slang)

It's tricky to find citations for it though given that it is a dated expression and the word tape is so prevalent in other places. Any takers? -Stelio (talk) 08:44, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

@Stelio: I've heard of this: from what I understand, domestic servants would talk about "ribbon" or "tape" (typical necessities for a female servant repairing clothes, etc.) as euphemisms for alcoholic drinks. Look at John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary (1873), and search for "ribbon", "tape", etc. and you will find this discussed. Finding actual citations is, as usual, a little more difficult. Equinox ◑ 14:47, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

The old out-of-copyright version of the OED has this as slang, not marked as obsolete (at that time), defined as "spiritous liquor, esp. gin (white tape), red tape, brandy". Several of their citations have it as British prison slang, FWIW. They had pointers to two works which used it, which I tracked down and put at Citations:tape. If we could find one more cite... Other sources agree it was also used by domestic servants or women buying lace (who desired to also buy alcohol). Collocations mentioned in various dictionaries include white tape, Holland tape and blue tape (supposedly all for gin), and red tape for brandy or wine. Sadly, although I found a second quotation of Lytton, I can't find a third independent quotation yet. - -sche (discuss) 01:48, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

@-sche: I've found one more for you; though this adds some new old jargon, such as "college" as a euphemism for "prison". -Stelio (talk) 08:00, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

particularly, merge senses?

We have five senses here.

• (focus) Especially, extremely. quotations: The apéritifs were particularly stimulating.
• (degree) To a great extent.
• Specifically, uniquely or individually.
• In detail; with regard to particulars.
• (dated) In a particular manner; fussily.

Let's ignore sense 5 which is a fine old oddball. Is it correct and reasonable to have four senses for the modern everyday "particularly"? Just throwing it out there. This entry gave me a slightly strange smell. Equinox ◑ 14:44, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

All make sense to me. The third is sentence adverbial. The fourth must be &lit in some particular way. 109.40.242.203 05:06, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

I think the focus sense is meant to be the same as that of in particular, which could actually replace the current definition, while the apéritifs usex is not particularly apt for this sense. The degree sense is a different sense; one cannot reword the pizza was hot, fresh and particularly delicious as the pizza was hot, fresh and in particular delicious. In many uses several senses of the term may make sense, and it is not always clear which one was intended, so we should be particularly careful to pick usexes that illustrate particularly the sense for which they are supplied.  --Lambiam 14:25, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, it seems like some of these should be merged, but deciding which ones will require care (and clearer usexes, as you say). - -sche (discuss) 16:37, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

uses of x: to cover at x or as affixes -x and -x-?

@WordyAndNerdy and anyone with an interest in grammar: x can replace parts of words for various reasons, e.g.

1. as a placeholder for a value that may vary ("30x" for "301, 302, 303..."; "5xx" for "501, ... 555, ..."), or
2. forming a more inclusive version of a word (e.g. Spanish latinx/Latinx, Spanish lxs, English alumnx, womxn, thexlogy for theology, thealogy).

We cover this duplicatively and inconsistently both at [[x]] as a Translingual symbol and English and Spanish letter and at [[-x]] and [[-x-]] as an English and Spanish affix. (We even put Portuguese todxs at -x.) What is the best way to handle this? The same issues apply to @ as in Latin@, Pin@y. In the past it's been argued (e.g. by Equinox) things like this aren't suffixes because you don't form Chicanx by adding -x to Chican. (In that light, it's also odd we list x-for-(c)ks as a suffix -x. It's also not limited to the end of words, e.g. in historical variants like Blaxtone for Blackstone, and couldn't something be folxy?) Prior discussions: 2015, 2019. - -sche (discuss) 18:42, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

This is one of those cases where I set out to do something relatively simple and it quickly cascaded into something more complex. I wanted to create Category:English words suffixed with -x to be able to collect and keep track of relevant terms. But in order to implement this category, I found I had to create a new English suffix sense at -x, since this didn't fall under the "replacement for a -ks- sound" sense. That further meant having to modify your etymology template so it would automatically add the category to entries. But then I discovered this template was used for Spanish entries. So I had to do something to separate them from the English category. Which meant creating an infix entry and category to cover them. I also didn't want to unilaterally delete the existing sense at x, which is why I left it alone while create new definitions for the suffix and infix.

I'm agnostic on how to best classify x used in this fashion. But, from the standpoint of wiki-functionality, I think it needs to be treated as an affix. I can't see another framework for integrating it into the categorization system. And there's certainly a precedent for it. The "ks sound" sense of -x predates my addition of the gender-neutral sense. And we already had a single-letter English infix. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 22:24, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I agree it'd be good to have a category for this; we can still do that even if we decide these aren't affixes, since the category could be something like "terms formed using inclusive x" or something (which would also group terms regardless of where in the word the x is, lxs and latinx or womxn and alumnx alike), so I think we can try to figure out the POS without imperilling that goal. (And maybe they really are affixes and the current categories are fine and it's x that should go, I don't know, that's why I'm asking for broader input.) In the examples in Category:English words infixed with -h-, -h- really is infixed into beer → bheer, etc. Is x an infix in womxn where it replaces another letter? I'm on the fence, though I will say contra Equinox's argument in the 2015 discussion, we do now treat -a and -o and -us etc as suffixes (either in English, as with -o, and/or in the source languages of the relevant terms, e.g. Latin for alumn(us|a|x)), so treating the -x of Chicanx or the -@ of Chican@ as a suffix might be perfectly consistent with that. (Even with Pinoy, we have -oy and -ay as suffixes, so I guess the question would just be whether to make -@y.) OTOH, that means distributing this across multiple entries (e.g., for @: -@, -@-, -@y, ...). (I recall now that the same issue applies to e btw, as in les, latine, Latine.) - -sche (discuss) 23:15, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

It seems to me that -x functions as a suffix in English, in that it replaces or modifies a variety of gendered suffixes including -a/-o, -a/-us, and -ess. As for English -x- it may very well be more characteristic of a disfix or simulfix. But we're not just writing this dictionary for people with advanced linguistic knowledge. As a concept, infixes are more likely to be familiar, or at least accessible, to general readers. Our current definition of infix doesn't seem to preclude insertions that replace rather than simply displace morphemes. I'd say the best approach for handling @ would be to create a separate entries and categories for it. Trying to find a one-size-fits all approach to cover all inclusive affixes might prove too unwieldy. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 01:48, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, if auto-generating the desired categories is messing up the templates, then perhaps we can add the cats manually. We're not dealing with a large number of items. kwami (talk) 00:09, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

(e/c; neat that kwami and I both thought of Portuguese o/a→@)   It's not that I think womxn or thexlogy is more a simulfix than an infix, it's that I'm not sure womxn/thexlogy and latinx are best viewed as using two different affixes (a suffix -x in some and infix -x- in others), as opposed to one process of replacing elements that indicate gender (including, in womxn, the vowel that makes for the string man/men, which motivated replacements like womyn and womon before) with the symbol x, much like with replacing 301, 302, 302... with 30x and 554, 555, ... with 5xx (which, again, we currently also duplicate at x and -x). I think the fact that x, @, and e operate comparably across languages means we should consider this carefully : when the articles Portuguese o/a and os/as are rendered @, @s, are we now in a position of claiming there is not only a suffix -@ and infix -@- but also a prefix @- as well as a symbol @? It seems like it could be simpler to consider this a single symbol @, and a single symbol x. This seems like it might also better account for odd cases like goddex, which (despite the ety) does not appear to have suffixed -x to goddess per se, or even to have swapped out the suffixes (it keeps the e), it seems to have blended goddess with x using the "replacement" process that AFAICT accounts for all the various positions x (and @) can appear in inside a word in a unified way. - -sche (discuss) 01:00, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

It seems like some of the impetus to consider these affixes may be coming from the fact that there should be a category for the entries, and affixes readily get categories (whereas we don't currently seem to individually categorize "replacements" much, like English words where /h/ has been dropped are not categorized beyond their generic categorization along with other things as pronunciation spellings) ... but in terms of how the x/@ phenomenon operates, it seems to me perhaps more like a replacement of gendered elements with x than like a four-way split of suffixation in some entries and infixation in other entries and prefixation in other entries and whatever affixation o (article)→@ would be. So maybe we should just make a category like "[language] terms formed using inclusive x" or whatever better name we could come up with? (That could also easily be added by T:-a-o-x. Although, the template was just my own earlier way of tracking these entries and it can certainly be totally changed or entirely removed if we want to handle these entries differently.) - -sche (discuss) 01:33, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

In the case of the Portuguese definite article @ (pl. @s) it's not an affix, but it's nonetheless part of the same convention as alumn@, where we could argue it is an affix. But if we do call that an "affix", how is it pronounced? How do we read @s alumn@s aloud? A morpheme with no pronunciation is weird.

Perhaps a linguist might call these "archimorphemes". They aren't actual morphemes themselves, but stand for a set of morphemes in linguistic analysis. {@} stands for { masc, fem }, however those meanings are realized in a particular word. I'm not sure that calling that an "affix" is helpful, and that's one reason I would support keeping it in the @ article. kwami (talk) 00:20, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Does anyone else want to weigh in? Otherwise, since the only people commenting are Kwami and I (who think it's better centralized in one place than split as if it's sometimes a substitution as in @, sometimes a (?)prefixation as in @s, sometimes infixation as in lxs, and sometimes suffixation as in latinx) vs WordyAndNerdy (who seems to have split it in part because that enabled slotting it into the existing category-generating templates, which can be addressed by creating a category for this and optionally making the existing -a-o-x template generate it), I am inclined to undo the split / re-centralize these back on x, @, etc with a single category per language — probably something along the lines of "[langname] terms formed using inclusive x" (m.m. for @, etc), but better ideas are welcome! - -sche (discuss) 20:48, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

To me these uses of x seem to be most readily understood as of a suffix. Treating -x- as an infix seems inferior to treating it as a substitute, but that seems to me to be something that belongs in a definition or usage notes or labels at the suffix entry. The infix and substitute uses seem to be secondary or are inferior means of understanding, at least for normal people. Perhaps [[-x-]] should be a hard redirect to [[-x]]. There does seem to be merit to categorizing -x#English into categories for infix (if we don't have a separate entry or redirect for -x-) and substitute (if there are enough other examples in English or other languages). I realize there is some inconsistency/incompleteness possible in this kind of presentation, but IMHO neither logical perfection of categories nor proliferation of term classes (let alone PoS headers) should interfere with the most straightforward way of presenting important information to normal users. DCDuring (talk) 15:25, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

ability

Definition 8: "(sociology) the capacity and/ or potential to undertake a physical or mental task"; just added. Is this meaningfully distinct from sense 2 (the general sense for "capacity to do something")? - -sche (discuss) 19:27, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Both are redefining the word with capacity en lieu of capability which is just slightly more elaborate than ability. The difference being that ability is restricted to beings, so that capacity might appear more objective because it usually refers to objects, containers in particular. Abilities may be granted by black boxes in a type of shoe box thinking. Thus, the black box is inscrutable in either sense. However, I imagine that sociology understands very specific black boxes, which may be elaborated by related sciences. That makes it more of an encyclopedic topic. The distinction in the jargon is still notable. 109.40.242.203 20:02, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

@-sche: Personally, I don't see any meaningful distinction between senses #2 and #8:

2. (uncountable) The quality or state of being able; capacity to do or of doing something; having the necessary power.

...

8. (sociology) the capacity and/ or potential to undertake a physical or mental task.

User Jamzze (talk • contribs) added that "sociology" sense earlier today, presumably as part of their efforts discussed also at Wiktionary:Information_desk/2022/August#People_within_Wiktionary and at Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2022/August#Landing_page_for_Sociology.

@Jamzze, could you weigh in here? How is sense #8 distinct from sense #2? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:28, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Having read this again in the morning, this is an overzealous addition on my part. Will remove and add a sociology cat instead. Jamzze (talk) 07:17, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

let know

Shouldn't let know be at let someone know (currently a redirect)? Cf. let someone go, let someone have it, let something slip. The phrases "let know", "lets know" and "letting know" all seem to be impossible without an object in between in actual English. Furius (talk) 16:25, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes, probably (leaving a redirect, of course).
I notice that the employment sense of let someone go (the only sense listed in that entry) is duplicated at let go; we should fix this somehow too; in that case, maybe by redirecting let someone go to let go, though, because it can be used without the object interposed ("several employees were let go", even though I concede the object is still present) and because it's confusing when senses of verbs that can take objects are spread between two entries... - -sche (discuss) 19:13, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Doesn't this suggest that we need to have an entry at Appendix:Glossary for the placeholder terms: one, someone, and something? For one thing, in our usage in headwords, each of those can, at least sometimes, stand in for a plural or collective. Eg, I let Pat and Jean know, I let the team know. We might have to have usage notes or labels to indicate whether a given expression is incompatible with plurals, collective nouns, or, possibly, singular objects. Adding the usage notes or labels would be a fairly big project, the linkage to the glossary entry from the headword would require technical skill and effort, but at least the glossary entries would be relatively easy. DCDuring (talk) 14:26, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

French bugger pronunciation

The templated pronunciation table for French bugger with infinitive pronounced /bœ.ɡe/ generates the implausible /byɡʒ/ for the first person present (and similar for the rest of the table). French Wiktionary[12] has /bœɡ/. I admit I have never heard this word used, but it sounds more natural for the vowel and consonant of the stem to remain unchanged. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 17:50, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

@Vox Sciurorum: Usually using |pron=beuguer would have worked, but the module is complaining because the ending is different (bugger vs beuguer). @Benwing2 Could you fix this? — Fenakhay ^{(حيطي · مساهماتي)} 01:09, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

@Fenakhay This is not so easy to fix due to the way the module currently works. I'll have to look into how to handle this; for now I've added an entry to User:Benwing2/todo so it doesn't get forgotten. Benwing2 (talk) 04:00, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Expansion of an About page

Would there be value in 1) writing up a tutorial on how I find first attestations and 2) how I get collocations on WT:About_Polish? It could also double as a list of trusted resources for editors. Vininn126 (talk) 08:29, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and done so at WT:APL. Someone yell at me if there's something wrong or if they disagree. Vininn126 (talk) 21:15, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

explicted

Could this be deleted per Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2022-06/Disallowing typos as misspelling entries? Equinox ◑ 01:07, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't think so. It looks like the people who write this actually mean to spell it that way. I suspect that they have no clue how to spell the word and are just guessing, but that's apparently not covered by the text of the vote. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:08, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

The adverbial sense could probably be deleted at least, since it fits a general pattern of people mistakenly dropping the -ly from adverbs ("he specific said all his memories from NFL are in a Falcons uniform", "I've occasional bought men's clothes", "I usual don’t talk about my job"). I assume this is a typo, at least. Binarystep (talk) 04:12, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, yeah, it doesn't seem like a typo, since it's probably ignorance of how to spell it which led to explicted, not slips of fingers which were trying to hit the right keys to spell explicit. It should possibly even be categorized as a T:misconstruction of rather than a misspelling. This spelling probably seems plausible to people who reduce /-ɪsɪtɪd/ to /-ɪs(ɪ)t/~/-ɪs(ɪ)d/ (I vaguely recall seeing other misconstructions than mixed up -ed and -it, especially after similar preceding syllables like here), who thus probably pronounce this /ɪkˈsplɪs(ɪ)(t/d)/, just or almost like they'd pronounce the correct spelling. (The adverb, if kept, seems even more to be a misconstruction or other kind of error and not just a misspelling, since it's dropping a whole different syllable.) - -sche (discuss) 00:03, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

замужем

Moved from Talk:замужем.

Why so you say "замужем"? If you ask a woman she should be замужемa. Rasmusklump (talk) 16:14, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

@Rasmusklump: “замужем” is an adverb, not an adjective and is only used in the predicative positions - “она замужем” (she is married). The adjective is замужний-> замужняя - “замужняя женщина” (a married woman).

Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 06:12, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

manso

The noun POS of one of the etymology sections has this definition:

1. bellwether (the leading sheep, goat or res of a flock)

This was added to the definition by @Matthias Buchmeier within a minute of the edit adding the definition itself. I'm guessing this is Spanish res slipped in by mistake. Our definition for English bellwether only refers to sheep, but it's easy enough to find usage refering to goats and cows as bellwethers.

To fix this, we only need to decide what the English term is for a "res". I'm guessing it's a general term for what I would call a cow (for me, a bull is an adult male cow), though for some a "male cow" would be an oxymoron (pun intended, though such people would refer to the human who udderuttered that phrase as the moron, not the animal). (sorry!) I supose we could use bovine, but that includes yaks and bison.

We might also consider changing the definition for bellwether to include other species while we're at it. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:50, 28 August 2022 (UTC)

Acording to the RAE, res means "quadruped animal which belongs to certain domestic (cattle, sheep, etc.) or wild (deer, boar) species." And, in Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico and Puerto Rico, it means specifically "cows".

In my personal experience, res also has a nuance of being designated to slaughter. I've also never heard it as "a res" (una res). Whenever people talk about reses as animals (in contrast to their meat as an ingredient), they use it more as a category or an adjective for ganado (livestock). It's almost never used as a gender-neutral version of vaca (cow) and toro (bull).

If we look at RAE's relevant definition of manso, it says "About sheep, goat or bovine livestock, ram, billy goat or ox which works as a guide for the others."

So we can use "ox" instead of res to be faithful to this meaning. This is also consistent with everyday speak. Whenever people know the sex of the res, they will either say vaca or toro or buey. Note, however, that "ox" is not the English term for res. HappyMilkxD (talk) 17:44, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

bits and bats

In the phrase bits and bats, what kind of bat is it supposed to be? I doubt it's the animal, but I suspect it maye just be "bat" coz it sounds like "bit", and not referring to any particular thing... Almostonurmind (talk) 12:45, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Seems like one of those terms that's been reduplicated where the reduplicated term doesn't mean anything. Vininn126 (talk) 13:29, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

I suspect you’re right. The same is probably true for bits and bobs, I can’t imagine it actually refers to pendulum bobs. Overlordnat1 (talk) 13:36, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

on cue

I thought this can be used more or less synonymously with on command. Is there such a sense out there (not borne out by other dictionaries), or was it just a misunderstanding on my part? PUC – 15:10, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Not really a misunderstanding, but the connotations are from acting, not the same as those from the military or other hierarchy. DCDuring (talk) 15:45, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Yes. Plus you might use this saying when someone does something very predictable, with no association with telling someone what to do. e.g. if you're trying to catch someone red-handed, and you know they always do it at a certain time. Theknightwho (talk) 16:06, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

投注

Rfv for pronunciation: Cantonese king1 zyu3, Hokkien kheng-chù. @Tooironic. --沈澄心✉ 03:38, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Translations on Translingual

I remember once seeing somewhere we allowed translations on Translingual pages but I can't find the text and I want to make sure. I ask because many of the Polish words for families are calqued and there's no corresponding English term, e.g. bananowate. Vininn126 (talk) 08:50, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I have seen lots of these on taxonomic entries, so I wouldn't worry about it. I can't see anyone thinking it's a problem. Theknightwho (talk) 11:29, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, translations in taxonomic entries is common if not standard. I am also aware of cases where languages have translations for other translingual things, e.g. German using J for I (“iodine”) or English using mL, L or mℓ, ℓ for ml, l (“litre”), which we should probably discuss how best to handle... and we should update the draft Wiktionary:Translations... - -sche (discuss) 14:47, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

If there is a unique English vernacular name (or an uncapitalized "English" version of the taxon) in the definition, then that would probably be the best place for a full translation section, possibly referenced by {{trans-see}}. But there are many species and other taxa that have no unique English vernacular name, so they only suitable place for translations is on the Translingual page. One could make a consistency argument that most such translations should be on the Translingual page, but that argument comes acropper with English words like bee, for which the Translingual term is quite unfamiliar. DCDuring (talk) 15:50, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I figured that was the case - I didn't specify it but my question was about ones where there isn't. Vininn126 (talk) 16:01, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

I think there's value in having translation tables on those taxonomic pages too, but it should be done by scraping the translation section from the relevant English entry - not by duplicating everything in wikitext. Theknightwho (talk) 16:33, 31 August 2022 (UTC)

Schnellbomber

I've just added this as a German term, which refers to a bomber specifically designed to be able to outrun fighters, rather than relying on heavy armour. I'm on the fence as to whether the term exists in English, too: it only ever applied to a small number of bombers from the mid-30s through to the end of World War 2, and was primarily a German design philosophy (as far as I can tell - I'm no expert). Usually, terms such as light bomber are used when referring to aircraft from other countries that fulfilled the same role, except when comparing them to the German ones.

However, I do think there are signs that this is actually used as an English word. The Wikipedia page doggedly sticks to putting the term in italics (though capitalisation is inconsistent), but clearly uses it as a regular noun throughout. There are also uses such as this one, which says The emergence of the German Schnellbombers, such as the Heinkel He 111 and the Dornier Do 17 ..., which use the English plural marker -s (the German plural is just Schnellbomber). Theknightwho (talk) 11:26, 31 August 2022 (UTC)