Wiktionary:Tea room/2022/July

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

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總統蔣公逝世紀念日

A month ago, I nominated the term 總統蔣公逝世紀念日 for deletion based on SOP, partly due to my rashness, and partly due to the term is a rather unidiomatic summing of 總統+蔣公+逝世+紀念日 (as stated in the deletion request). After analyzing the reasons available, I think the only possible reason to keep the term is WT:LEMMING, just like how Washington's Birthday and Martin Luther King Jr. Day would have be kept by sources provided by Geographyinitiative.

Regarding online dictionaries, currently I can only find this entry from the Ministry of Education Mandarin Chinese Dictionary. Can someone help to find other dictionary sources that mentioned the term? Many thanks.廣九直通車 (talk) 10:14, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

"Doting"

On 16 April 2021 I added, to the earlier definition of "doting" ("Characterized by giving love and affection"), a second definition: "Showing a decline of mental faculties, especially associated with old age; weak-minded; senile". The same day, my addition was delected by User:Fish bowl.

I see no reason for the deletion. This is a common and perfectly good use of the word. Should it not be restored?

Thank you.

Nihil novi (talk) 19:33, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

don't copy from other dictionaries —Fish bowl (talk) 19:43, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

It had been my understanding that it is desirable to provide sources for contributions.

I've repaired my error in the case of "doting".

Nihil novi (talk) 00:53, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

genitalia

Is the headword-line note "pl (plural only)" correct, given that about a third to a fourth of all uses take singular verbs ("his genitalia was exposed", as opposed to "were")? Is there a headword parameter for "singular or plural"? feces exhibits the same behaviour. - -sche (discuss) 03:12, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

There isn't a parameter for "singular or plural", but {{en-noun|genitalia}} should be close enough. Binarystep (talk) 14:46, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

I wonder what the best way of handling this is. Should we add a parameter for something along the lines of "(may be treated as a singular or plural)"? (How many words are like this?) Should we make two separate noun sections, one for "genitalia pl (plural only)" and one for "genitalia (plural genitalia)"? (That seems bad, involving lots of duplication.) Or as you say, should we recast this as {{en-noun|genitalia}}? (But that privileges the less-common treatment of the word as a singular over the more-common treatment of it as a plurale tantum.)
Sometimes genitalias is attested as a plural of genitalia or perhaps by confusion with genitals (google books:"and" "genitalias", "Women are supposed to gag at their own genitalias enough here"), although mostly (but not entirely) as an error in texts that are poorly copyedited ("such desperate looking lower abdominal walls and genitalias that really the only we thought we could reconstruct them") and/or by non-native speakers, or that are jocular (but jocular words are still intentional words!). - -sche (discuss) 19:09, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

Imo, the best approach would be to add a "(singular and plural)" parameter to Template:en-noun. I've never been a fan of the repetition in our current system.

As for how many words this would apply to, I could probably put a list together. It'd be useful if we had a category for this sort of thing, though. Binarystep (talk) 09:55, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Actually, on second thought, I'm not sure how well a "(singular and plural)" parameter would work. Although genitalia only has one common plural form, some words (such as fish) are a bit more complicated. Binarystep (talk) 09:58, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Maybe we could model it on {{en-noun|~}}'s "beer (countable and uncountable; plural beers)", and have something like "genitalia (treated as plural, or as singular, plural genitalia or genitalias)", complete with the existing options to label individiual plurals as rare or dialectal etc? (Wording to be improved, but I think something like "treated as" or "as" is necessary because just saying "plural, or singular, plural foo" seems confusing, but maybe I'm wrong and that shorter wording is fine.)
This reminds me of another issue which has been discussed before, which is the way the template treats "(usually) not pluralized" and "(usually) uncountable" as the same thing, although these are arguably distinguishable (this 2014 BP thread, 2019 TR thread or 2021 TR thread might be the best summarizations I've been able to find; other discussions are here (2022), here (2021), here (2016), although they all seem opposed to distinguishing the two qualities so I guess things are fine as they are in that regard). - -sche (discuss) 17:18, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I, for one, don't know what the inflection line for genitalia ("genitalia pl (plural only)") is supposed to mean. The usage notes are more helpful. Don't users just want to know whether to use the noun with singular and/or plural verbs, pronouns, and determiners? If someone is not a frequent user of a given dictionary or if the dictionary is not consistent in how and whether it addresses that question, then perhaps they would look to the usage notes. It would be great if Wiktionary were consistent (at least for each language) in presentation on the inflection line and there were a one-to-one correspondence between the display on the inflection line and the content of the usage note. The result would be that a user would eventually learn what the inflection-line display meant and would not need to consult the usage note. The same concept could apply to sense-specific treatments as well.

I realize this would probably mean that we would need — Horrors! — a style guide. DCDuring (talk) 17:46, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

There are more than enough instances even in technical publications to support a new entry genitalias which would be a possible plural of genitalia and thus mean the (external) sexual organs of more than one individual. There are some hits where genitalias refers to a particular sex organ of more than one individual, in other words it’s the plural of the noun sense of genital but not enough to support an entry. We only have the following four passages:- [1] which says ‘he only wears shirts with his genitalias on it’, clearly a typo for genitals or genitalia, [2] which refers to ‘a woman’ and ‘the vagina’ in the singular, so it should clearly read genitalia or genitals instead, the poorly written book published by a cult mentioned above that says not only that women should gag at their own genitalias, which suggests that each women has two or more pairs of each sexual organ but goes on to say ‘every time they remember themselves popping out loved ones in their own genitalias here’ which would read better if rephrased as ‘every time they remember themselves popping loved ones out of there own vaginas/genitals’ - we define the noun sense of genital as a rarely used word referring to an individual sexual organ and genitals to be the sexual organs of an individual and hence a synonym of genitalia but perhaps the plural genitals could refer to the particular sexual organ of more than one individual and so be a synonym of ‘vaginas’ or ‘penises’, though such a usage would be best avoided as it’s rather ambiguous. Finally the only other odd use of genitalias I can find is this [3] which says ‘sometimes my woman forces me to lie on top of her and mash my genitalias inside of hers’ which should probably be ‘genital’ or ‘penis’ instead but then it is written by a so-called ‘comedian’ who was probably trying to be funny. Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:56, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

collection of sex organs

Splitting out my second question and still hoping for an answer: what is sense 3, "A collection of external sex organs", trying to express? It sounds like it's saying if a museum has a bunch of penises preserved in jars that's the museum's genitalia, but I suspect it's actually some more normal thing and the wording has just confused me. (Does it mean [an organism's] "sex organs, collectively"? If so, is this meaningfully different from the other two senses?) - -sche (discuss) 22:17, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

I think it's trying to refer to the entire external sex organs of a particular human or animal, taken collectively (as opposed to one or more individual external sex organs taken individually). Whoop whoop pull up ^{Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes} 02:29, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

RfV is an multi-purpose tool. Either (someone can figure out what might have been intended and cite it OR we fail to cite it) or we just let it die uncited as it stands. Maybe the OED has something. DCDuring (talk) 02:45, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

It does not. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:11, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

(I just dropped it. I don't think it's distinct from the other two senses.) - -sche (discuss) 19:25, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

genital

We should change the noun sense of genital to list both genitals and genitalia as plurals and remove genitalia from the definition. The word genital is almost always pluralised to genitals when used as a noun but it clearly shouldn’t be defined as genitalia (or genitals). A singular word is not the same as its plural form. Not all murderers are mass murderers or serial killers! Overlordnat1 (talk) 10:13, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

I’ve removed the word genitalia from the definition and I think that this, combined with @- -sche removing the redundant sense at genitalia and creating the non-standard plural genitalias resolves all issues. Overlordnat1 (talk) 21:07, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

squash and stretch

Used in video game design in reference to how characters move. Entry worthy? Vininn126 (talk) 20:43, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

If you're talking about this kind of thing, it seems like the ordinary senses of the verbs:

• 2019 January 14, Jonathan Cooper, Game Anim: Video Game Animation Explained: A Complete Guide to Video Game Animation, CRC Press, →ISBN:

  Principle 1: Squash & Stretch. This is the technique of squashing or stretching elements of a character or object (such as a bouncing ball) to exaggerate movement in the related direction. For example, a character jumping up can be stretched vertically during the fast portion of the jump to accentuate the vertical, but can squash at the apex of the jump arc and again on impact with the ground.

- -sche (discuss) 04:47, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

It does seem rather like normal uses of the verbs. I was wondering if it might otherwise sense it seems to have entered a more technical jargon sphere of use. Vininn126 (talk) 08:27, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Uses found^[4][5][6] indicate this is a term of art, which can be used as a verb but also as a noun.  --Lambiam 12:40, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Might be worth an entry, in that case, per the prior knowledge test. Vininn126 (talk) 07:56, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I thought you were talking about adding a video game sense to squash and to stretch. If you're talking about an entry for squash and stretch, ehh, to me it still feels like just the ordinary meaning of the words, but hopefully more people weigh in. - -sche (discuss) 19:36, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

nessuno

For Italian speakers: if I wanted to say "no glasses", for example, would it be nessuni occhiali, or would it be something else? The entry says it has no plural, but all of its synonyms are informal or archaic. Esszet (talk) 13:30, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

No Italian speaker / not an Italian speaker: From playing with an online translator you write Italian senza or informal Italian niente are available. Full sentences would more likely negate the verb. Where -uno is "one" it cannot work in plural. If an adverb meaning English any (synchronically "one" + "-y") existed, I don't know. Certainlynotsensibleseason (talk) 05:10, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree that in most contexts you should simply negate the verb, like there were no glasses in the drawer → non c’erano occhiali nel cassetto.. Otherwise, the problem can be solved by using the singular occhiale, as in, Per la vista nessun occhiale potè giovargli.^[7]  --Lambiam 12:33, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

In this particular case, "nessun paio di occhiali" can be used. The same applies on other pluralia tantum terms like pantaloni or forbici. All of these feature an archaic/dialectal/literary singular variant, like occhiale, pantalone and forbice, which shouldn't be used in formal speech. Catonif (talk) 17:15, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Alright, thanks, one final question: how would you translate "No two snowflakes are exactly alike"? Esszet (talk) 23:21, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

The natural ways of saying it are "non esistono due fiocchi di neve identici (tra loro)" (like what Lambiam said) or "nessun fiocco di neve è identico a un altro". One could even say "nessuna coppia di fiocchi di neve è identica" to get the message accross, though it's kind of ambiguous, as it could mean "no two snowflakes are the same of another two snowflakes". Catonif (talk) 11:09, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Alright, thanks, to be clear, there's no way to say "no, none" in the plural at all? Esszet (talk) 22:59, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Apparently no, not with an adjective like this one. It's interesting how the Whorf theory plays out here, since when I think in English it's normal for me to think the plurality of nothing, while if I'm thinking it Italian, it suddenly becomes an impossible crazy concept how the plurality could be defined of something whose number I already know is zero. Catonif (talk) 23:36, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

OK, thanks, and yes, indeed it is. Esszet (talk) 16:35, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

嫇奵

Discussion moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification/CJK § 嫇奵.

Chinese. Specifically the Mandarin pronunciation, because it doesn't seem to match what I can find. Theknightwho (talk) 03:37, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

The Kangxi Dictionary says:

• 嫇：【廣韻】莫迥切【集韻】母迥切，𠀤音茗。嫇奵，自持也。一曰面平貌。
• 奵：【廣韻】【集韻】𠀤都挺切，音頂。嫇奵，自持貌。

So technically speaking, it should be míngdǐng.
Side note: To those that have not heard of it, I highly recommend zi.tools for this kind of problem to Chinese-reading people. It has basically everything you need about a character in one page.--ItMarki (talk) 11:49, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

@Theknightwho This is not the venue for verifying pronunciation. Are you also doubting the existence of the word? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:14, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

@ItMarki, Theknightwho: I don't think it's a good idea to just take the Kangxi dictionary at face value. The fanqie for 嫇 is pointing to a third tone reading, and Hanyu Da Zidian and 教育部異體字字典 agree, saying that 嫇 is read as mǐng in this word. That said, 五南國語活用辭典 does have míngdǐng as the reading, so it could be included as a variant. The current pronunciations seem to be wrong. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 01:24, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

Changed to mǐngdǐng and míngdǐng. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 06:26, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

方寧

Discussion moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification/CJK § 方寧.

Chinese. Mandarin pronunciation. Theknightwho (talk) 10:51, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

@Theknightwho: This is not the right venue for verifying pronunciation. Are you doubting the existence of this word as well? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 17:10, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Also pinging @LlywelynII who made the entry. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 01:31, 26 June 2022 (UTC)

This is probably a typo, which was also seen in 方亭. Changed the pronunciation of 方寧 to Fāngníng. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 06:27, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

kick oneself

This is currently a redirect to kick, which has a "reflexive" sense "To reproach oneself for making a mistake or missing an opportunity". I think this should instead have a full entry, just like its listed synonym beat oneself up. Any objections? In that case I would remove the "reflexive" sense from kick, and make it a derived term, I suppose. Equinox ◑ 00:29, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Oh God, the plot thickens. Turns out that beat oneself up was actually linked to beat up... Equinox ◑ 00:30, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

To clarify, would it follow from your proposal that all reflexive senses of English verbs should be removed from the main entry for the verb? If so, I'm not sure that, for example, removing the reflexive sense of save from the entry and moving it to a separate entry would be the most useful way of presenting it. Graham11 (talk) 05:33, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

@Graham11: I'm not saying anything about "all of everything must follow a rule", I am talking about this one. Equinox ◑ 19:29, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm just trying to figure out what principle we're applying here, because I'm sceptical of the proposed approach. Are there other cases that should have an English-language reflexive sense listed, in your view? Graham11 (talk) 20:50, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Nah forget it, if anyone else cares, they would have commented by now. I guess it's done correctly. Equinox ◑ 22:25, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

kick oneself is used (almost) exclusively in a figurative sense (!"I kicked myself for not telling them off"), whereas kick#Verb is not (much) used transitively with the same sense (*"I kicked you for not telling them off"}. Isn't that enough for separate lemma entries? DCDuring (talk) 23:52, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

I suppose one could say the same of most figurative senses (including most senses marked "by extension", I suspect), though. Graham11 (talk) 02:24, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

My gut reaction was to agree with Equinox and DCDuring that the "beat oneself up" sense should be at kick oneself, if (as seems to be the case) it's almost exclusively reflexive. But I admit it's subjective to decide when a sense is better handled as verb oneself and when it's better handled as [[verb]] + {{lb|en|reflexive}}. I notice we have a ton of bad duplication, e.g. bear, carry, soil and bear oneself, carry oneself, soil oneself. In the first two cases, I'm inclined to consolidate the content on bear/carry, because they can also take objects which are only semantically and not directly grammatically reflexive, e.g. (from Google Books) "he bore his body with all the swing and flexibility of youth", "he bore his body with the authority of a noble mind"; I'd also be inclined to consolidate the last one at soil, since there too you can not only soil yourself but also your pants, your diaper, etc. We also have duplication at play with vs play with oneself and probably a lot of other entries; bah. - -sche (discuss) 20:03, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Spanish güevedoces

I saw this on a requested entries page. I think it's a great candidate for creation, and it even has a Wikipedia article already, so there's no question that the word exists and that it means what people say it does. However, I want to do it right. My understanding is that the term is a contraction of ''huevos a doce'' .... the Spanish for "eggs (that is, testicles) at twelve" .... and not from a word for penis. The Wikipedia article links to a Spanish print dictionary listing that term as a Dom. Rep. regionalism for penis. But, just because something appears in print doesnt mean it's right. Our own entry for güevo lists it as being simply derived from a regional pronunciation of the word for egg, huevo. I think this is more likely.

However I admit that I found very few instances of people typing out the phrase ''huevos a doce'' on the Internet and that most of them are in English or are happenstance occurrences of the words "eggs at twelve" occurring in unrelated contexts. So I suspect the person I heard this from was mistaken. Perhaps we're both wrong .... that's why I came here for advice.

Also I think most likely this word should be created as a singular as we normally do.

I apologize for the formatting ... I seem to be stuck in a mode where sometimes the visual editor loads, and sometimes the old-school editor .... Im still trying to figure it out.

Thanks for any help and advice,

—Soap— 01:17, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

My mistake was leaving out the definite article. The correct Spanish grammatical expression is huevos a los doce. Searching up the proper expression turns up an abundance of writings about the medical condition and very few about people eating eggs at noontime. I also didnt notice until now that we already have an English language page for the term, at guevedoce, which Equinox created before I made this post. This makes me much more of myself when I say that the expression comes from huevos, and that it means eggs in the sense of testicles, and that the researcher who said it was singular and meant penis was mistaken. But still this isnt resolved. And we still dont have a Spanish language page for the term yet. All the best, —Soap— 11:11, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

I consider this a done deal now. The researcher who said it meant penis clearly made a mistake. It's easy to find other dictionaries of Spanish slang that list the word with its expected meaning. Therefore I have created the new page güevedoce and will create the plural in a few minutes. My only other question is that I exactly copied the definition from the previously existing English article guevedoce (which I was not aware of until today), and I wonder if it woul be better to just make the Spanish definition link to the English. —Soap— 16:49, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Norwegian Bokmål word tilnærming

The current entry says the word means "an approach", but "approach" in English has many senses. Can anyone help clarify which sense is being meant here? Betty (talk) 02:55, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

We have the same problem also for Norwegian Nynorsk, and in either case also for the sense “an approximation”, which in English can mean “an act of approximating” but also “an imprecise solution”. The problem also rears its head at French approche. For German Annäherung, we disambiguate with the gloss “(act of drawing near; access or opportunity of drawing near)”, but do not make clear this can be (and most often is) figurative (as in “Annäherung zwischen den Rivalen Saudiarabien und Iran”^[8]), and also fail to give the sense “approximation” (imprecise solution) (as in, “Annäherung der Kreiszahl π”^[9]).  --Lambiam 12:16, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Quotations for senses of credulous

We give two senses for the adjective credulous, each “supported” by a single quotation. In the first of the two quotations, it is impossible to make out the sense from the text, but the defined sense does not fit very well, unless you are credulous enough to believe that eyes can believe. Should we find a more supportive quotation? And is it me, or does the term as used in the second quotation actually reflect sense no. 1?  --Lambiam 10:08, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

biangulate

I think the verb sense might be wrong (or at least it isn't the most common sense): see Google Books. Equinox ◑ 15:12, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Should conspiracy theorist still be marked derogatory?

I've seen the term increasingly used to describe people who, in general, subscribes to conspiracy theories. It still has a bad connotation, but given how general the term has become (especially in the media), should it be updated to reflect that? (e.g. saying "often derogatory") KlayLay (talk) 00:28, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

People often say "if 'alternative medicine' worked, we would just call it medicine". Likewise, I suppose if "conspiracy theories" were provable, we would just call them opinions, or politics. If you can't bring any proof, or evidence, and you keep going on about the same thing anyway, for a year, of course, that's a conspiracy. I'm not sure that it is "derogatory". It's merely a fact. It means: this person is obsessed with an idea they cannot prove. I know a Finnish guy who is a total conspiracy theorist — his politics are purely idiotic paranoia — but I like him a lot and he is my friend. So it's not always a derogatory term. Equinox ◑ 00:37, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Were Woodward and Bernstein conspiracy theorists when they suspected that the break-in at the Democratic Party offices was linked to the White House? If someone said they were conspiracy theorists, the intent would have been derogatory in all likelihood. DCDuring (talk) 01:19, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

I think there's an issue with knowing after the fact whether something was true vs how the speaker feels at the time. I'm sure plenty of people called them kooks at the time. Vininn126 (talk) 17:00, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't know that something being derogatory and something being a fact are mutually contradictory. Graham11 (talk) 02:13, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

"Conspiracy theory" is surely a polemical term today (Kampfbegriff in German). It serves as a discursive weapon and is used to deligitimize political criticism and nonconformist views. I don't know if "derogatory" is the best way to indicate that, but I suppose it wouldn't be wrong. 90.186.72.39 16:10, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree, though there are times when the term is appropriate and times when it isn’t. At its core, it still refers to claims made without (or with dubious) evidence, and that’s always what it’s an accusation of. Theknightwho (talk) 23:07, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

• The term conspiracy hypothesist seems like it should be less derogatory, but it has been used about one Mandy Richards, who seems more like a conspiracy innuendoist. DCDuring (talk) 16:50, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't see how using "conspiracy theorist" to mean "person who believes conspiracy theories" is derogatory at all. Is the label trying to reflect that the term can be used incorrectly to insult people by saying they believe conspiracy theories, and/or to reflect the judgement that believing conspiracy theories is bad? I don't think this makes the word {{lb|en|derogatory}}, in the way we use labels. (Or at least, we'd need two senses, like at conspiracy theory.) I mean, being bad is undesirable, so if I say someone is bad I may be derogating them, but that doesn't mean the word "bad" should be labelled {{lb|en|derogatory}}, does it? - -sche (discuss) 20:18, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Agreed. Vininn126 (talk) 20:24, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

This is a problem with many terms that have become derogatory, eg. dead white male. I'm sure that once could find non-derogatory uses of conspiracy theorist, but the dominant usage now seems to be derogatory. DCDuring (talk) 20:47, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

For contemplation and, perhaps, reading pleasure: 2019, The Stigmatization of Conspiracy Theory since the 1950s: "A Plot to Make us Look Foolish", Katharina Thalmann

Providing an in-depth analysis of academic and media discourses, Katharina Thalmann is the first scholar to systematically trace the history and process of the delegitimization of conspiracy theory. DCDuring (talk) 20:55, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Old Portuguese requested entries page

I sometimes come across old cantigas in the internet. They often have several words I'd never seen before but should still be in Wiktionary, I think. Since I don't actually know what the words mean, I can't go and create the pages myself; I'd have to request their creation via the requested entries page. However, there's no 'Old Portuguese requested pages' article. Shouldn't that page be created? 177.42.111.228 17:37, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

stybian pot

Any idea what this means? It is in one of the quotes on pettifogulize. I can't find any other uses of the phrase, and I don't know what stybian means in isolation either. 98.170.164.88 19:07, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Could it be a typo for stygian pot ^[10]?  --Lambiam 09:56, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Sounds plausible, thanks. 98.170.164.88 02:00, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Alfa, Bravo, Charlie etc. - which part of speech?

Specifically, the letters of the NATO phonetic alphabet. I'm not sure what the part of speech should be for these:

• If they were written down, I'd classify them as symbols (which is what we use for codes that represent something else, like country codes), but that feels quite strange for terms like these which are usually verbal.
• However, I'm not sure that they're letters either, for the same reason that they're codes representing the letters rather than the letters themselves.
• At the moment they're classified as nouns, but that doesn't seem right (you can't have "an Alfa", and they're certainly not mass nouns).

Maybe proper nouns? Theknightwho (talk) 04:53, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I'd imagine both parts of speech are attestable. Vininn126 (talk) 09:22, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

Of the allowed POS headers, “Interjection” seems to be the least inappropriate.  --Lambiam 09:33, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

At least some of these are used in running text as nouns in phrases like "from Alfa to Zulu", "starting with Alfa", "all the way to Zulu". (I couldn't find "Papas and Quebecs" at Google Books.) It is hard to find them being used as nouns outside of set or nearly-set phrases. DCDuring (talk) 13:47, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

That is true, and a couple have developed senses from that (e.g. Mike (“minute”) and Tango (“target”)), but I don't think we can use that to determine POS for the codes themselves because these codes can be used in place of any letter. Theknightwho (talk) 23:03, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I'd call them Symbols. There doesn't seem to be any English syntactic category that works for them. There really can't be a syntactic category for them in any language if they are supposed to function translingually. DCDuring (talk) 03:01, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm leaning towards this. I'll do a bit of digging into whether there's a name for the verbal equivalent of a symbol. Theknightwho (talk) 21:09, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Please take a look at User:Guy Macon/Alfa or Alpha? Juliett or Juliet?, especially the "They aren't the words you think they are" and "Why does Wiktionary say that 'Alfa' is English?" sections. I want to make sure that that page doesn't contradict Wictionary. Guy Macon (talk) 23:22, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

@Guy Macon: if you look at the revision history, Wiktionary has never called Alfa English: the section with the phonetic alphabet sense has a Translingual header, and all the regular templates in that section use the "mul" language code. One of the categories was wrong because @Theknightwho used "en" instead of "mul" for the language code in the {{tr}} template, but I fixed that. The etymology says it is from English alpha, but that doesn't make it an English word any more than the etymology of the English entry at alpha saying it's from Ancient Greek ἄλφα (álpha) makes alpha an Ancient Greek word. We use the "Translingual" header for terms that are used in multiple languages and are independent of the languages that use them (see WT:AMUL). Chuck Entz (talk) 00:16, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Thanks! I rewrote the section and renamed it to "Why does the English Wiktionary list 'Alfa' as a word?". Please look it over and let me know if it needs further corrections. Guy Macon (talk) 01:01, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

They should stay as they are. "Symbol" isn't a part of speech. That tag is used for written symbols that don't correspond directly to a spoken word and therefor don't have a part of speech. But these are all spoken words: they're the names of the letters of the alphabet. As such, they're the same part of speech as zed or zeta. The NATO alphabet is just ⟨ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z ⟩ (that is, the English alphabet). What we're talking about is using a different set of names for those symbols/letters than the usual a bee cee dee ... in English, or a be ce de ... in Spanish, etc. They are no more proper nouns than either of those or alpha beta gamma delta are.

I suspect the reason no-one says "one alfa and two bravos" is because that's not the normal domain of usage. Apart from a few phrases and derivations like "Bravo Company", these code names are pretty much only used for spelling out words in situations where you don't want any miscommunication. Not something that lends itself to articles or plurals, or creativity in general. (I think for two A's you can say "double alfa", but I'd need to double check.)

The capitalization is not distinctive. It's a product of the tendency of the US military and NATO to capitalize any words that are being focused on, where normally today we'd use italics. The capitalization was established in the days of manual typewriters when capitalization was a lot easier to produce. Go back a little further, and they're in all caps, because this kind of military communication (telegrams, Morse code and the like) tended to be in all caps.

BTW, the pronunciations should be in [square brackets] because there's no analysis to determine that e.g. /æ/, /a/, /aː/, /ɑ/, /ɑː/, /ɔ/, /ɔː/, /o/, /oː/ are all phonemically distinct. It's meaningless to speak of a translingual /a/. kwami (talk) 00:04, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Not finding in most dictionaries, but Random House College Dictionary identifies alfa as a noun. Note: they do not capitalize it!

alfa (alʹfə). n. a word used in communications to represent the letter A. [var. spelling of ALPHA]

(BTW, that's the English pronunciation of the word, just as we'd get in "Charlie Company", not the international standard.) kwami (talk) 01:05, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

The pronunciations given for Alpha to Zulu, the numbers 0 to 9, and the words ‘Decimal’ and ‘Thousand’ in the official document[11] are largely strange and confusing in any case. Also what it says in the ‘International phonetic representation’ column and the ‘Latin alphabet representation’ column doesn’t always correspond. If we really must include these ridiculous pronunciations then we should at least list the actual pronunciations alongside them, whether in square brackets or not. Overlordnat1 (talk) 00:48, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

The problem is identifying what exactly the pronunciations are. We could transcribe the recording, though there might be OR objections to that, because these are not English words and we cannot necessarily rely on English-L1 intuitions to guide us.

I suspect that the people transcribing them didn't know what they were doing. I find it inexcusable that no-one's fixed the mess since, but the NATO, ITU, IMO, SIA, FAA etc. transcriptions are just as bad, and so don't help us much.

We can at least list both the ICAO pronunciations where they disagree. You can't extract a lot about the vowels out of the respelling ('golf' obviously doesn't agree, but does e.g. PAH-PAH mean the first vowel isn't a schwa? That's about as clear as it gets), but the respelling is distinctive for stress, syllabification and [n] vs [ŋ]. We do want something, because this is a spoken code, so these are primarily spoken rather than written words. kwami (talk) 01:14, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Ah! DIN 5009 just came out with a 2022 edition that has IPA transcriptions of the pronunciations, correcting the obvious typos/oversights of the old ICAO pub. I'm not sure about some of the details, so have requested verification (of Appendix B) on WP-en, but will start adding what we have. kwami (talk) 21:56, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Per kwami, I don't understand why we would consider these anything other than letters. They are just the translingual NATO names for the letters of the English alphabet, so it would be very strange if we classified them differently than say, aitch. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 20:10, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

people

We have good people defined as ‘a good person’ in slang, which is accurate, but people can be used more generally than that. In S1E13 of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, titled Intermission and first broadcast in 1970, 02:03 in we hear the line “I’m plain people and I’m proud of it”. Perhaps we should add a new sense at person to cover both ‘plain people’ and ‘good people’ and then remove good people as SOP? Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:58, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

"Good people" is probably by far the most common, for whatever that's worth. It's the only one I've heard personally. So at the very least it should be kept as a collocation. 98.170.164.88 20:26, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

It could be a the IN A JIFFY test, but it does feel like the term people has flattened out in meaning. Vininn126 (talk) 22:24, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

On one hand, "good people" does seem to be the most common phrasing, as the IP says. OTOH other qualifiers go back a long time, as Overlordnat shows, so I suppose we need at sense at people, to which good people could at least redirect (or perhaps it can be shown to be the earliest phrase). One wonders whether the phrase originated as an intentional use of people as a singular, or whether it originated in the sense of I'm [of] plain people (etc). - -sche (discuss) 00:00, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Oddly enough, the earliest instance of ‘he’s good people’ I could find was also from 1970[12] and it is by far the most common phrase using people in this way, so good people should probably be kept, but ideally we could do with another sense at people. Overlordnat1 (talk) 14:12, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

doomed if you do, doomed if you don't (page move)

Would it be better if it were moved to doomed if one does, doomed if one doesn't? Tharthan (talk) 04:40, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

As a "proverb" it would be the you version, but the one version works more broadly. I have detected a certain disdain for the Proverb PoS. DCDuring (talk) 12:16, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

I've definitely heard this used with first and third person pronouns as well. Is the issue that we normally put proverbs at the second person form? Theknightwho (talk) 14:28, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

It's certainly not policy, but I'd bet on the 'you' version being the most common form as a proverb. Other forms could be redirects. If this expression is derived from or us an alternative form of the proverb damned if you do, damned if you don't, then the 'you' form is probably derived from the proverb. DCDuring (talk) 14:43, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

And “Prepositional phrase” is PrePoSterous.  --Lambiam 15:58, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps it should simply be listed as a “phrase” like for can’t do right for doing wrong? Overlordnat1 (talk) 12:37, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

consanguinamory

@StarTrekker and I have been engaging on a low-level edit war between these two options for the definition of this entry, and to avoid further conflict I would like to discuss it here.

Here are the two options presented:

Option 1: (neologism) Romantic love of family members; consensual adult incest.

Option 2: Neologism used to refer to consensual adult incest by pro-incest advocates in an attempt to make it appear as a romantic orientation

Which one is more appropriate? I'm personally in favour of Option 1. -insert valid name here- (talk) 16:29, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Option 2 is not a definition. It's heavily biased and talks about the word like an essay, rather than defining its meaning. Equinox ◑ 16:33, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Its a neologism and the description is accurate for what its used for. The Wikimedia project shouldn't endorse or propagate fringe obscure euphemisms used by advocacy groups.StarTrekker (talk) 16:38, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

This item should be treated like minor-attracted person.StarTrekker (talk) 16:40, 8 July 2022 (UTC) The term is literally only used by abusers to try to appropriate LGBT terminology.StarTrekker (talk) 16:49, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Option 2 is about the worst way to handle this. Vininn126 (talk) 16:35, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

• Option 2 to me is the accurate description. There is no indication that this kind of desire is an orientation nor that this word is a widely accepted or used term outside of fringe advocate spaces.StarTrekker (talk) 16:37, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

  Option 2 is not a definition. It is more in the nature of a usage note. Option 1 would benefit from a euphemism label, as well as a usage note. DCDuring (talk) 16:53, 8 July 2022 (UTC)

Consensual sexual relations between adult close relatives are legal in large parts of the world. Is it immoral to advocate the decriminalization of marijuana consensual adult incest in the US? We must avoid imposing personal moral views when defining the meaning of terms. Otherwise there are plenty of folks who would define polyamory rather differently (A term used by certain people in a transparent attempt to normalize their shameless promiscuity). BTW, the term romantic love does not imply sexual consummation.  --Lambiam 10:00, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

"Consensual incest" doesn't exist, these people want to have sex with their children. This "movement" is monstrous and so is anyone who apologizes for it. Your comparisons are laughable and offensive.StarTrekker (talk) 10:53, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

1) You should read about the general wikimedia policy to present information without a bias.

2) That simply isn't how the word is used. That'd be like trying to say "tape" is a demonic device for opening portals and should be burned, which is simply just not how people use the word. Vininn126 (talk) 11:00, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Incest is abuse no matter how delusional people try to twist it. Deciding that its ok to ask your own child for sex once they turn 18 is pure evil and I'll rather be dead before relinquishing this position.StarTrekker (talk) 11:04, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

That isn't what's happening by providing a definition. You are confusing ideology with lexicography. Vininn126 (talk) 11:06, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

This site is giving legitimacy to the term by using the fringe definition of the advocates.StarTrekker (talk) 11:14, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

"Bias is when you think bad things are bad".StarTrekker (talk) 11:05, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

For your reading pleasure. Vininn126 (talk) 11:07, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I guess pedophilia should say "romantic love of children", since thats what pedophile advocates think of it as.StarTrekker (talk) 11:14, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

We are neither condemning nor condoning, simply documenting what is meant by a given word, yes. You're getting it! Vininn126 (talk) 11:16, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Um no, the pedophilia entry clearly isn't using the advocate version.StarTrekker (talk) 11:20, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Neither does the first one of consanguinamory. You are allowed to disagree with the ideology it represents, but that's what the word means. Get used to it. Vininn126 (talk) 11:21, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

No. And pedophobia will never mean "An irrational or obsessive fear or dislike of pedophiles or pedophilia advocates" either, it means fear of children and pro-child abusers will never change that. Fringe groups shouldn't be endorced when they try to twist language to fit their agenda.StarTrekker (talk) 11:24, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Option 1 is clearly preferable as the sort of non-judgemental and relatively neutral definition that befits a serious dictionary. It could be improved by rewording it as “sexual attraction towards family members; consensual adult incest” though. Overlordnat1 (talk) 12:24, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

There is no reason to be "non-judgemental" against abuse.StarTrekker (talk) 20:42, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Option 1, but with the additional label "nonstandard", and a usage note that explains who actually uses the term. Theknightwho (talk) 20:54, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't think it has to do with standardization. Vininn126 (talk) 20:58, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Compare the entry at minor-attracted person. The majority of speakers simply reject the validity of the term altogether. Theknightwho (talk) 21:05, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I suppose with the idea of "not accepted by the majority of speakers", but can we prove that here? Vininn126 (talk) 21:10, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I'd bet the house on it, but finding evidence of that with such a rare term may be trickier. It doesn't seem to have received any mainstream attention at all. The same groundwork is there, though: it's a sanitised/abstracted, seemingly unnecessary neologism for a highly taboo sexual activity. Anyone with more than half a braincell can see what game is being pulled here. Theknightwho (talk) 21:16, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't see why it is our role to say the behavior or inclination behind the term is right of wrong. Do we have such comments in the entries for incest, murder, genocide, lying, stealing, cheating, etc.? That this terms is euphemistic seems clear from the citations. I had already added the euphemism label. Incest is one of the most universal of taboos among humans, which is a reason why incest is not considered a dysphemism. There are euphemisms for most of the terms above, sometimes with the intent of making them seem morally acceptable, at least in some circumstances. As has been observed, the challenged term is new and pretty rare, so it may not be possible to get much evidence of the details of usage. Once we have wording we're all satisfied with, we might need for this entry to be protected, both from advocates and opponents of the behavior/tendency. DCDuring (talk) 22:19, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

If it was coined to be a sanitised term, that is relevant to the etymology. If it's rejected by some speakers, that is relevant to the usage note. I have no issue with saying "I believe incest is wrong", but that is the first time I've expressed an opinion on the subject-matter in this conversation. What I actually said was that it's highly taboo, which is relevant to the question of whether the term would likely be considered deceptive in the same way minor-attracted person is. I was just theorising, though. Theknightwho (talk) 23:33, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

The motivation of a coiner may be relevant for a term so rarely used, but usage governs. Neither incest nor consangiunamory seem to be taboo as terms (except perhaps to young children), notwithstanding the taboos against the behaviors. If we are to get into deceptive and misleading use of terms, we will have a lot of work to do. DCDuring (talk) 03:49, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

Lamentably, the stridency and unprofessionalism of option 2 seems to be resulting in some of the shortcomings with the more lexicographic (but imperfect) option 1 being overlooked. In particular, if the term refers to sexual activity and not just romantic love, that's one shortcoming (compare pedophilia, nominally a philia, using a word meaning "love", but referring to something else...), and if the term also includes adults having sex with children, as suggested above, that's another, bigger problem/omission with the definition / option 1. BTW, if we're looking at adding usage notes to terms like MAP that are used to sanitize pedophilia, to explain that that's a purpose behind them, another one is pedosexual / pedosexuality (designed to make it sound like a sexual orientation). - -sche (discuss) 22:28, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps this could work better:

(nonstandard, euphemistic, neologism) Romantic or sexual involvement between family members; incest, especially consensually and between adults. -insert valid name here- (talk) 00:12, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

What makes it non-standard? DCDuring (talk) 02:47, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

It’s being a neologism and the described practice being avoided by respectable society, such that not even the term is shared by it—so cut it. Fay Freak (talk) 08:53, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

1. We are referring to the word, not the practice.
2. I wouldn't see those conditions as being sufficient. New slang terms for murder are invented fairly frequently. We don't label them as non-standard. (Slang doesn't mean non-standard.) DCDuring (talk) 14:25, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I see no evidence that the term is meant to be used for “having sex with (consanguine) (non-adult) children”, or even specifically for intergenerational relations. While there may be instances where the term is used in reference to such a relation, this then applies equally to such terms as romantic love and infatuation.^[13][14] Many by themselves neutral terms can be used for bad things. The term wealth can be used for ill-begotten gains, and so on and so forth. The fact that a term can also be used in reference to socially unacceptable or morally questionable behaviour is not a valid argument for burdening the definitions of the term with condemnatory language.  --Lambiam 12:50, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

To clarify, I'm not saying the definition needs to be child-specific, I'm saying that (if the claims above are correct) it sounds like it needs to be child-inclusive: infatuation is defined as "an immensely strong love or sexual attraction" and romantic love is defined as "a feeling of love for, or a strong attraction towards another person", neither is adult-specific, both cover uses that refer to children. If consanguinamory is also used in cases involving children, then the adult-specific definition ("consensual adult incest") needs to be broadened (-> "consensual incest"). Notes about how it's used / who uses it seem like useful usage notes. - -sche (discuss) 14:15, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Many people, communities, and legal systems don't believe that children younger that some age can give consent. DCDuring (talk) 14:19, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

This is true, and I'm open to improving the wording in that regard, too. "Voluntary incest"? - -sche (discuss) 14:30, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I suppose voluntary is less fraught with legal meaning than consensual, but it still seems to imply some kind of choice. DCDuring (talk) 15:19, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

It seems to me that the term is being used, at least some of the time, to describe relationships between two people that would be fully legal and uncontroversial if they were not related (e.g. adult siblings of similar ages who could both legally consent to sexual activity with an unrelated adult) and so at least some such relationships are voluntarily entered into. My understanding is that the term was intended to exclusively refer to these sorts of relationships, and likely was used exclusively in that manner initially. Whether it still is I'm not sure, but I'm not immediately seeing anything obvious where it is being used in a way that includes children and/or other involuntary partners (as distinct from people claiming those advocating for legalisation/acceptance of incestual relations between consenting adults are really wanting to legalise paedophilia, etc). Thryduulf (talk) 16:12, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

This reminds me of energetic disassembly, which was actually used seriously to refer to explosions in nuclear power plants before the inherent absurdity of the term made it a joke. The original usage isn't nonstandard, but anyone outside of the nuclear power industry would have recognized it as a deceptive euphemism if they thought about it.

It should be be labeled as a euphemism, the etytmology should explain that it was coined by an advocate to provide a neutral-sounding alternative to incest, and a usage note should point out that it's only used by advocates of the practice. No need to even implicity comment on anyone's motives- readers will be able to figure it out.

My guess is that the euphemism treadmill will eventually render it obsolete, anyway. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:02, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I think I can get behind this. Vininn126 (talk) 15:07, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

What evidence do we have "that it's only used by advocates of the practice"? I'd expect that it is usually used by advocates, but we should have evidence. How could we get reliable evidence for the "only" claim? DCDuring (talk) 15:24, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

• Could we use our topical categories for this, using a category like "Taboo/criminal/'negatively valenced' behaviors"? The problem still may be that we don't have (and probably can't get) strong direct evidence of the validity of the categorization. DCDuring (talk) 15:29, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

rainbow flag, meaning the US flag

Lexico gives three definitions for "rainbow flag". The latter two can easily be cited. But the first sense, "The flag of the United States.", perplexes me. Personally, I can't imagine ever calling any variant of the red, white, and blue US flag a "rainbow flag", as it's not particularly colorful. Can anyone find a use of the term in this sense? Maybe someone with OED access can confirm it has some basis in reality. 98.170.164.88 22:47, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

A brief scan at COCA shows it only means the first definition. Vininn126 (talk) 09:46, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

You mean the first one on Wiktionary, not the first one on Lexico, I guess. The term occurs in John Neal’s poem “Perry’s Victory”^[15] I find this use puzzling, and I am not inclined to grant it lexical status.  --Lambiam 12:05, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I found another use: [16]. If a third use could be found, could it be added as a sense? IMO, it's less SOP than the LGBT flag meaning if anything, since I would never have assumed "rainbow flag" = the US flag. But it's also not that common or lexicalized. 98.170.164.88 01:16, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Here are what I think are two more uses: [17], [18]. The term flag of the rainbow has also been used: [19]. The sense is clearly obsolete. I wonder if it stems from some symbolic sense of rainbow that was then understood, like a symbol of peace^[20][21] or a symbol of promise.^[22][23]  --Lambiam 12:26, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

This historical flag of China is another "rainbow flag" (google books:"rainbow flag of China", google books:"Chinese rainbow flag"). I am a bit surprised the US flag would be referred to this way. I wonder how many other striped flags are referred to as rainbow flags. - -sche (discuss) 04:44, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia has Category:Rainbow flags that includes the flags of Mauritius and Seychelles (my first thoughts) and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast and others. A short search for uses of "rainbow flag" in relation to the Seychelles finds only uses relating to the Pride flag in Seychelles or with the Seychellois national flag with one exception We don our team colours (for me this means the rainbow flag of Seychelles).[24] Initial searches relating to Mauritius looked more hopeful, but when looking in detail none actually used the term (or if they did it wasn't in the preview available). All sources I've found relating to the description of the JAO flag in this manner seem to originate with Wikipedia. Thryduulf (talk) 13:16, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Once we feel like we've put all the lexically attestable national/regional rainbow flags in, I'll/let's add a little {{multiple images}} collage to show them. - -sche (discuss) 14:34, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Good idea. That visual evidence might be suggestive that including the US flag is implausible. DCDuring (talk) 15:31, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Looking at Rainbow flag and the categories on Wikipedia and Commons, the flags all have:

• At least 5 different colours
  • including all of: red, yellow, blue
  • and at least one of: green, white
• Most or all of the colours are arranged in stripes
  • The flag of Herri Batsuna is an exception to this; the Flag of South Africa is arguably an exception.

This assumes that the flags in those three places form a complete set of all rainbow flags. Note that the Wikipedia article includes prayer flags, which are collections of large numbers of different single-colour flags, but all the others follow the 'rules' above. The US flag, lacking any yellow, would not meet this definition. The national flags of Comoros and Central African Republic would also be rainbow flags by this definition, but I've never seen them so described (but haven't looked just now). Thryduulf (talk) 16:38, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Looking at Google images while trying to exclude all the LGBT-related flags (as they overwhelm all other uses) I have found exactly two uses of "rainbow flag" that didn't fit the criteria above, both on the same site however as one of them was a picture based on the flag of Tunisia labelled as the "rainbow flag of Tonga" (and also tagged as both the flag of Denmark and the flag of Chad) and the other was a picture of two flags of Cuba hanging vertically labelled as the "West Indies Federation rainbow flag" (Cuba was not part of that federation), I'm going to regard it as extremely unreliable. Thryduulf (talk) 19:12, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Good info. We'll still need a weasel word ("usually"/"generally"/"apparently"/???) to allow specifics of color in the def. DCDuring (talk) 19:26, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Looking at this more closely because I was about to add a sense for this, I have instead added it to the citations page for now because some of the citations linked above are ambiguous enough that I didn't personally feel confident using them. E.g. it seems entirely possible that "streaming from a thousand spars, freedom's rainbow flag of stars, the symbol of our land" could be referring to a notional rainbow-and-stars 'flag' of Freedom and not necessarily the red-white-and-blue US flag. - -sche (discuss) 19:15, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

New definition in "float"

Just been looking at the page for "float" and I noticed a meaning is missing. In the UK at least, a "float" is someone whose job is to move around and backfill others, for example to work temporarily in a department when someone is off sick or on leave, and it can also be used as an adjective, so "I'm a float secretary" and "I'm a float" or "floater". I believe I heard it used as a verb but that's not as often. It's kind of like a permanent, internal temp. I'm not sure how best that would be defined, so I just thought I'd flag it here as something for you to think about. Strigulino (talk) 13:04, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Is this the same as US substitute (“substitute bus driver”, “substitute custodian”, “substitute secretary”, “substitute teacher”, ...), usually used as an adjective, but sometimes as a noun^[25]?  --Lambiam 16:25, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Also, in US, floater (Noun, def. 2). DCDuring (talk) 18:34, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes and constructions like ‘substitute teacher’ are by no means US specific either. Overlordnat1 (talk) 19:17, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

In reply to Lambiam, not entirely. "Substitute" implies just any person doing another person's job temporarily, but a "float" implies a permanent worker. A large company or organisation might have so many staff of a certain role, that it is worth them employing a permanent member of staff, purely to move departments covering people on leave or off sick. For example, a float secretary in a large hospital would be employed to float, not to work in one specific department - they might be covering for a Respiratory secretary one week, then move to Neurology for a couple of weeks, then Gastroenterology when someone there goes off sick. It's more of a permanent member of staff in a large organisation, employed purely to be a substitute for others. It makes sense in large organisations that have a lot of staff in certain roles, to cross-cover them internally rather than call in a temporary member of staff from an agency, or employ someone on a temporary basis for just a week or two, and the float, being a permanent staff member, can be available to cover immediately in an emergency. So yes, a substitute, but a specific kind. --Strigulino (talk) 13:56, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

In my experience, assignment as a "substitute" can be 'permanent' (lasting, say, a school year) and as "floater" temporary ("I need you as a floater this week."). Artful wording of our definition(s) is needed to avoid having either our wording exclude any such variation in 'local' usage or multiple definitions that are not significantly different. DCDuring (talk) 14:09, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

If someone is a float for a worker who is off sick or on leave, what happens when that worker who was off returns to work? Does the float remain on the payroll?  --Lambiam 11:06, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, unless the floater is a temp. DCDuring (talk) 12:01, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

"Fair" as an interjection?

An exchange on a Discord server I'm a member of:

• Person 1: I don't think it's NSFW in the usual "adult content" meaning, but in the "do not do this at home" meaning
• Person 2: Fair

Person 2 here is using "Fair" to mean roughly "that's a good point, I think you're correct" (or at least "I'm not going to argue against that being correct"), but I don't think that quite matches any of the definitions we currently have at fair and it's not quite fair enough either I don't think (although there is certainly overlap with the meaning of the latter). Thryduulf (talk) 21:19, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

It has the same meaning as in the sentence "That is a fair point.", so one of the adjective senses should technically cover it. But I'm personally okay with having it added as an interjection as well. The counterargument would be that you can use many other adjectives similarly ("reasonable!", "clever!", etc.). I don't see how this is any less worthy of inclusion than the interjection sense of good, though. 98.170.164.88 01:23, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

I think that there is an interjection sense of “good” but we do not reflect it. As IP (make an account!) notes one can shout any adjective whatsoever, lame! We have recently seen this for Talk:extrem that the weightiest argument in the end is avoiding redundancy, and if you do not gloss anything not already covered by the other part of speech plus grammar then you don’t need the second part of speech. Fay Freak (talk) 08:49, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, I suppose it's sort of adjective sense 5 "Adequate, reasonable" but lacking in the "not excellent" connotation. That it could be better is, I feel, an important part of that meaning which is completely lacking from the use as an interjection - the point being made was good enough, there is no judgement being passed on whether or not it could be better because that isn't seen as relevant. I suppose "satisfactory" (and maybe also "sufficient") is a close meaning here, although not identical as there is sometimes (but not always) a subtext of could be better which, in the uses I can think of at least, is never present here. I guess what I'm saying is that I think an interjection entry for fair wouldn't be completely redundant, but I'm not certain. Thryduulf (talk) 11:36, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

We do list an interjection sense of “good”, which too is elliptical.  --Lambiam 11:47, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

"[Y]ou can use many other adjectives similarly". True.^[26] Really? No, not really. You can use some adjectives similarly, but not that many. (“We’ll increase the bid to $55 million. *Acceptable!”)  --Lambiam 11:54, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

That use of true came to mind when reading this discussion too. We could perhaps add a definition of ‘likely to be correct or true’ to cover this, which would be similar to definition 3 in Collins and definition 6 in McMillan [27]. Overlordnat1 (talk) 12:20, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

• Disagree. How does the Interjection PoS add value to users? These and many other with similar modes of usage are words with very common meanings which are interpreted as ellipses, each for specific sentences, the exact possible one(s) being situational. That makes this part of syntax nor semantics. DCDuring (talk) 14:16, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Considering it works like go on, it has a weak sense of assent. It is not recognized as verb, so what can you do but have it as interjection? I notice this because it sounds like intransitive fare in my reading, fairly unjudgemental. This can be distinguished via intonation because it is not exclaimed, unlike not fair. It is not syntax (you wrote "nor syntax"?). That makes it a proper interjection like yes. 2A00:20:6011:65E7:19A5:AB67:CE1D:6A08 20:02, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

It's just an adjective, used in context as a deixis. Many adjectives can be used just the way under discussion. The precise function they serve derives from their semantics. Needless proliferation of PoS sections that are highly duplicative wastes contributor and, more importantly, user time. DCDuring (talk) 22:04, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Fair. Please, go on! 2A00:20:6090:C098:F1CF:1E6F:AC37:2F10 11:39, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with DCDuring here, this is just the adjective. It has the same sense in "Fair point." or even the full sentence "That's a fair point.", so one of the adjective senses should cover it, or one should be added to cover it. In various circumstances, various other adjectives (or, as the IP above points out, verbs, etc) can be used as interjections, but I'm not convinced we need separate POS sections for them all. ("Proceed." "Go on." "Sensible." "Insane!" "Never." "Absolutely.") I see we do already have some interjection senses at some words. Perhaps some should be deleted, or we could see if any have lemming support, etc. - -sche (discuss) 17:34, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

I would not count this separately as an intj. It's like "Not bad!" upon seeing a decent performance. Equinox ◑ 17:44, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Length of iota in Ancient Greek ἰθύς

(This appears to have been missed when I asked at the end of last month, so I am posting it here.)

The page for ἰθύς doesn't mark the iota as long or short and has a comment <!-- length of iota unknown -->; however, of the dictionaries it links to, Liddell & Scott, Bailly, and Cunliffe (I checked the Internet Archive's version, since your link requires a login) say that the iota is long, as does Brill's Etymological Dictionary of Greek. (Autenrieth's Homeric dictionary doesn't give a vowel quantity, even in a version without the typo in Perseus's version of it, though it does mark both iotas in the compound ἰθυ-πτίωνα as long.) I looked up a few occurrences of the word in epic poetry and found only occurrences where the meter seems to require it to have a long iota, e.g. Iliad 24.471 "ἵππους ἡμιόνους τε· γέρων δ’ ἰθὺς κίεν οἴκου" (where the meter, if I am reading it right, is --|-uu|-uu|--|-uu|-- in the notation used at w:Dactylic hexameter) and Argonautica 1.1032 "ἀλλὰ μιν Αἰσονίδης τετραμμένον ἰθὺς ἑοῖο" (-uu|-uu|--|-uu|-uu|-u) and 2.100 "ἰθὺς ἀνασχόμενοι Πολυδεύκεος ἀντιάασκον" (-uu|-uu|-uu|-uu|-uu|-u). Is this sufficient to mark the iota as long? If not, what additional evidence would be required, or what contrary evidence prompted the original uncertainty? - LaetusStudiis (talk) 02:18, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

You must be right, innit. Go on, be bold. Fay Freak (talk) 08:43, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

Empty Arabic entries

(Notifying Atitarev, Benwing2, Mahmudmasri, Metaknowledge, Wikitiki89, Erutuon, ZxxZxxZ, عربي-٣١, Fay Freak, AdrianAbdulBaha, Assem Khidhr, Fenakhay, Fixmaster, M. I. Wright, Roger.M.Williams, Zhnka): Some months ago a user emptied three Arabic entries without nominating them for RFV or deletion. What should be done with بطنة, وسّان and ويلت – deleted or recreated? brittletheories (talk) 06:22, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

@Brittletheories I believe the person who blanked the pages, hence they should be deleted (but that person should be informed that blanking a page is not the way to contest it, you should send it to RFV). Benwing2 (talk) 06:33, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Emptied by User:عربي-٣١. They should be nominated for deletion instead. User:Chuck Entz already told him at User_talk:عربي-٣١#Blanking_Entries.

I have deleted وسّان and ويلت. However, بِطْنَة (biṭna) is a word in Arabic ("gluttony"). --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 06:35, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

@Brittletheories, عربي-٣١, Chuck Entz, Benwing2: I have converted بِطْنَة (biṭna) to an Arabic entry with a reference. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 06:42, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

@Brittletheories The person who created these pages does not speak Arabic and most certainly doesn’t know Hijazi, he just made up those pages and i deleted بِطْنَة (biṭna) because his definition was weird and not the current one, and i didn’t know this word even existed in Arabic, Im sorry that i didn’t know how to delete pages before, the Indian city Patna is written as بتنة باتنا باتنة etc. not بطنة as User:Al-khataei imagined. --عربي-٣١ (talk) 20:10, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

@Atitarev I think I came late, but as I checked the source you added to بطنة, I could only find it in Lisan al-Arab, not in Hans Wehr as now claimed. I searched, because I would have never understood the word, and in fact, it's my first time to stumble upon it. I was curious to see a full English description for it. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 09:05, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

@Mahmudmasri: بِطْنَة (biṭna) is on page 79 in Hans Wehr. As you know, HW is sorted by root letters for native words. The entry link opens on page 78 (بطن). Just navigate on -> to go to next page and it's in the first half of the page on the left, still under the same root letters ب-ط-ن. It's defined as "gluttony, overeating, indigestion". User:Fenakhay removed the "indigestion" sense in diff. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 12:53, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

@Atitarev, Fenakhay: It is still defined as Verdauungsstörung in {{R:ar:Wehr-6-de|page=71a}}, to wit. Lorenz Kropfitsch was bookish towards his end, presumably (he died before being able to write a foreword and about his sources, but I judge so since he was an old geezer and I have somewhat looked into what is missing in his dictionary), so with Mahmudmasri’s suggestion Fenakhay may consider to mark the whole word as uncommon, literary, or unknown in the dialects in a usage note, or the like. Fay Freak (talk) 16:25, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

formerly

The two definitions we have now seem the same, and it seems like we're missing the meaning of "in a non-casual manner". Thoughts? Vininn126 (talk) 11:13, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

1. Yeah, these two senses should be merged.
2. {{misspelling of|en|formally}}? I have definitely seen uses of "formally" where "formerly" would be more appropriate, but I have to ask, is the other way around commonly seen too? --ItMarki (talk) 11:34, 12 July 2022 (UTC)

   I am unsure - I feel like I have seen it somewhere, but I'll have to check later. Vininn126 (talk) 10:20, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Sproftacchel

This is an odd word because it shouldn't exist, yet it does. It was added as a synonym to photo stand-in in February 2021. In hindsight a classic case of citogenesis.
But it came remarkably close to meeting WT:Notability!

• June 2021: Lincoln BIG annual report "with children’s activities including making IMP coasters, IMP Sproftacchel for selfie opportunities and much more"
• July 2021: Weeder's Digest "H.O.P.E. Gardens now has a Sproftacchel thanks to Jonanne Beckman."
• March 2022: Books for Keeps "For me, it was a family of stoats laughing uncontrollably at a gurning wolf who has stuck its head through a wooden Sproftacchel."
• 2 April 2022: New Zealand Herald "there are some extra references to Shakespeare and his work, with some sproftacchel (picture cutout boards) allowing people to make themselves the star of some moments from A Midsummer Night's Dream"
• 7 April 2022: Hingham Town Council "This usually consists of Santa’s Grotto, Santa’s Cabin, a reindeer, sleigh, Christmas gnomes and a sproftacchel."
• After 10 May 2022: islington.gov.uk "The structure comprised an interactive questionnaire aimed at children, integrated information boards, and playful features such as a marble run and a Sproftacchel (a photo stand-in)."
• June 24-26 2022: Sproftacchel Park. What have we done..
• Various other mentions online on social media etc.

In regards to WT:Notability, the main issue I see is that to pass as an attested term the instances of recorded media must be "spanning at least a year". As the oldest quote above is from June 2021 and Sproftacchel Park is probably not recorded, it seems to be 1 month short. (though the consultation report from islington.gov.uk isn't dated, but I suspect it's from May)
The notability check can also be passed by "clearly widespread use". I'm guessing Sproftacchel need not apply, but "clearly widespread use" is not defined at all, so I actually don't know for sure.
But the policy also says that "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, here we are I guess? User:Thryduulf suggested at w:en:Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 July 12#Sproftacchel that a Wiktionary entry could be used as the target of a soft redirect on Wikipedia. Alexis Jazz (talk) 00:37, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

This is another recent use (6 July 2022) found in the wild, where the term is used without context or any explanation. Also an on-line source, but it is clear that the term is here to stay.  --Lambiam 10:59, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Brazilian aardvark is another example of a ghost word originally coined as a hoax in Wikipedia. I guess iff this one gets enough hits, Brazilian aardvark might provide a template for how to write the etymology. - -sche (discuss) 19:23, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

For the sake of (future) completion, since Wikimedians invented it: can somebody render the pronunciation of this in the International Phonetic Alphabet or an audio file? Maybe WF? Fay Freak (talk) 22:47, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps an earlier use of the word in the title of an artwork from 2019, though the page itself was published more recently

ileri görüşlülük

This entry seems to have had various definitions since its creation so I'm wondering which is right... Seems it was first latitudinarianism, then later advancementalism, prudentialism after that and now finally ptosctionism, which seems to be utter nonsense as it gets no google hits. So my question is: what is the correct meaning? Acolyte of Ice (talk) 13:15, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Based on the same editor's other edits, that's a typo for proactionism... whatever that means... Chuck Entz (talk) 13:25, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

The collocation ileri görüş, literally “forward sight”, can be translated more idiomatically as “foresight”. (The TDK dictionary defines this as “the act of thinking about what may happen later, vision”.) I guess you can translate ileri görüşlü then as “foresighted”, and ileri görüşlülük as “foresightedness”. That is IMO a better definition than “advancementalism” or “ptosctionism”.  --Lambiam 14:33, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

(Updated) This is what an average native would think. More on talkpage of the entry. Flāvidus (talk) 10:55, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

day of preparation

This was made a redirect to Friday back in 2007, but @BlueCaper questioned this on Talk:day of preparation. I agree. This is the day before the sabbath in Judaism, which happens to be Friday, but we don't redirect Shabbat to Saturday. There's more to this than what day it falls on in our calendar. It's true that there are words for Friday in some languages, notably Greek Παρασκευή (Paraskeví), that are derived from the biblical term for this, but it's not the same thing. I think we should have an entry for this, which is, by the way, definitely not SOP. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:59, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

WP has preparation day. Equinox ◑ 15:07, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

conscious

What does Mr. Bennet mean by "You look conscious" in Pride and Prejudice Chapter 57? Eric Kvaalen (talk) 17:47, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

In the context it seems to mean "uneasy", "embarrassed".  --Lambiam 20:12, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

self-conscious? Equinox ◑ 20:16, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Check out some 19th-century uses of "with a conscious look": [28], [29], [30], [31], [32]. It seems to imply an inability to hide one’s feelings.  --Lambiam 20:23, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

I think that in those examples it means guilty, conscious of something somewhat embarrassing. I see that here they say that the original meaning in English was "aware of wrongdoing", which is also one of the meanings of conscius in Latin. I suppose that is the meaning in what Mr Bennet says, but I don't really see why he would think that Elizabeth was feeling guilty or something -- after all, he thinks that the whole idea that she has any good feeling for Darcy is completely ridiculous. Maybe he's just noticing that she's blushing, though he sees no reason for it. Eric Kvaalen (talk) 06:43, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

There is also ‘conscious rap/hip hop/reggae/dancehall’ where there seems to be something of a semantic change from ‘conscious’ meaning ‘aware (of right and wrong)’ to ‘moral’. Overlordnat1 (talk) 12:48, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Definition/example discordance on the -ful page

# {{ngd|Used to form nouns indicating a great deal of the quantity expressed by the noun.}}
#: {{suffixusex|en|sin|sinful}}

‘Sinful’ is not a noun. Either the definition is wrong, or the example is wrong. A possible duplicate of the definition derived from the first etymology. — Kiutsushou (talk) 21:32, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

 Done Fixed. Equinox ◑ 21:35, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

Hong Kong Cantonese com

I've added the entry, but I'm not really sure whether it should be at com or comm since both are equally valid as clipping of communicate. I can't find sources to support either spelling, since the word is never used in a written environment, and also rare in spoken contexts, usually only in business environments by educated ones, maybe from a specific generation. (Haven't found any actual usage but there should be some in older talkshows or Youtube videos, also can attest it as a native speaker)

I am also wondering if the etymology should be communicate (in Hong Kong English it would be pronounced kʰɐm˨ miːu˥ niː˩ kʰeit̚˩ which becomes kʰɐm˥ by clipping, the tone change is possible when the word is considered to be a content word in English but it's not really that common for a tone change to happen during clipping), it could also be from some variation of come (HKE kʰɐm˥) or even a native Cantonese word that I've mistaken as an English word?-- Wpi31 (talk) 14:26, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Or it could also be common (HKE kʰɐm˥ mɐn˩). ɐm is more complicated to deal with since it also involves a recent merger of ɔm into ɐm in Cantonese (hence hypercorrections) so it's really easy to overlook things… Wpi31 (talk) 23:10, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

ἄγω, I drive

axiom#Etymology ends with:

from ἄγω (ágō, “I drive”).

The ἄγω page does not confirm this translation. Anyone speak ancient Greek who can verify or correct this?

--173.67.42.107 16:16, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

ἄξιος (áxios) comes obviously from the weighing sense of ἄγω (ágō).  --Lambiam 22:53, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

Pronunciation of nobody

Would it be a good thing to add a note explaining that, of the given pronunciations, the last ones for UK and NAmer are generally used for the Noun, and the others (first for UK, first & second for NAmer) for the Pronoun ? Am I correct in observing that ? Leasnam (talk) 19:16, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

I think the first pronunciation is more common even for the noun, although I haven't found data or tried to test this by looking for examples in songs, shows, etc yet. It's tempting to think the difference might come down to stress/emphasis (with the last pronunciation reflecting stress / emphasis), but I think you could emphasize "he was a nobody, an absolute nobody" and still use the schwa or ʌ, so my initial gut feeling is that the last pronunciation might just be a {{q|less common}} (not POS-specific) variant? - -sche (discuss) 19:45, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

At least here in the US, one would be hard pressed to hear anyone say "That guy's a /ˈnoʊ.bə.di/". Even unstressed it would be "He's a /ˈnoʊ ˌbɑ.di/ with a slight separation between 'no' and 'body', or as /ˈnoʊ ˌbʌ.di/. Plural: "This club is full of /ˈnoʊ ˌbɑ.diz/ or /ˈnoʊ ˌbʌ.diz/ " never "This club is full of /ˈnoʊ.bə.diz/". Leasnam (talk) 22:00, 14 July 2022 (UTC)

I am in the US and I would certainly say "That guy's a /ˈnoʊ.bə.di/". I don't think I use /ˈnoʊ ˌbɑ.di/ at all unless I'm intentionally modifying my pronunciation.--Urszag (talk) 12:12, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

I too am in the U.S. and would also never say /ˈnoʊ ˌbɑ.di/ unless I were for some reason imitating, say, some sort of Southern dialect (or whatnot) that is known for using /-bɑ.di/ rather than /-bʌ.di/ / /bə.di/ in -body words. Tharthan (talk) 20:27, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

+1 from this American. Benwing2 (talk) 05:22, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

In the UK, you'll definitely hear both. It's probably contextual, but I'm not sure that there's much of a pattern to it beyond what stress fits best in the sentence. Don't quote me on that, though - perhaps there's something more regular to it that I can't think of off the top of my head. Theknightwho (talk) 06:34, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Sam Cooke famously sang "Another Saturday night and I ain't got no body...", which led to a spoof showing a disembodied head lipsynching to the song. I generally don't say /ˈnoʊ ˌbɑ.di/ unless I'm referring to the lack of a corpse. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:51, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

I tend to say the word nobody without a schwa in it but I’m not sure how representative of other Brits I am, it varies from person to person and place to place somewhat. That Sam Cooke song reminded me of the African American pronunciation of sister that is sometimes heard (I think I’ve heard Al Sharpton say it?), so I’ve created sustah and suster. Overlordnat1 (talk) 11:20, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

Okay, Thank you, Everybody ! I appreciate your input. Leasnam (talk) 20:52, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

knock dead

Is this the best entry title? As far as I know, you can "knock 'em dead" or "knock them dead", but that's it. Never "I'll knock the interviewer dead tomorrow", nor "they were knocked dead". Equinox ◑ 14:18, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

@Equinox Are you sure? [33] has examples like:

Your design is going to knock the judges dead. They're going to swoon over it. (Farlex Dictionary of Idioms)

She knocked us dead with her stunning performance. (McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions)

a performance that knocked the audience dead. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language)

If you search in Google for "knocked the judges dead" you find several uses from various newspapers, blogs, Facebook, etc. Benwing2 (talk) 05:21, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

@Benwing2: Thank you, that's interesting. But doesn't that suggest knock one dead or knock someone dead? Equinox ◑

@Equinox: Wiktionary isn't consistent about whether to lemmatize with or without "someone" in phrasal verbs. I prefer the form without "someone". Compare take to task, which we have lemmatized without "someone" but which normally occurs as "take someone to task" rather "take to task someone". (But the latter is possible with a heavy object, e.g. "take to task everyone who works for Facebook". Similarly "I'm gonna knock dead all the people interviewing me tomorrow".) Benwing2 (talk) 05:16, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

True. Doesn't this suggest we should discuss and try to standardise? Equinox ◑ 06:26, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes. (And we should make sure they all have usexes showing where the someone goes. And probably redirects to whichever form we lemmatize from whichever form we don't, take someone to task ←→ take to task.) I guess the occurrence of the "knock dead all (the/those)..." forms, even if they're not super common, would suggest knock dead is better, given how we seem to reduce idiomatic expressions down (e.g. have an ax to grind → ax to grind). - -sche (discuss) 07:39, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

It's easy to find hits for "knock it dead", as in "You played that piece by Chopin. That piece was brutal and you knocked it dead.". So "someone/one" is too limiting for the lemma, though it would be useful as a redirect. In fact don't redirects make the argument less than important? "Knock someone dead", "knock something dead", and even "knock one dead" and "knock [PRONOUN] dead" could all be redirects to [[knock dead]]. DCDuring (talk) 15:10, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

feuille de pompe

In this expression, what pompe does this come from? pump or pomp? Dunderdool (talk) 18:19, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Just a guess: might be similar to the idea of "pumping" someone with information, i.e. providing it. Equinox ◑ 19:21, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

The verb pomper has a student slang meaning to copy (someone else’s work), a form of cheating.  --Lambiam 20:53, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

"clean on" (of clothing)

How would we parse the phrase "clean on", as in: "That shirt was clean on today" (meaning that it hadn't been worn previously since being washed, so was fresh when put on)? Equinox ◑ 19:42, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

What makes you think it is a phrase? I interpret the sentence as equivalent to "That shirt was clean (when first (put)) on today." We have the meaning at on#Adjective (3), but is seems adverbial to me. DCDuring (talk) 21:49, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

I don't mean it has to be a Phrase entry here: I just mean the word sequence. I've never heard "dirty on", and you can't say something you are removing was "clean off" either. Nor could you say a shirt was "wet on" or "warm on" if it had those properties when donned. Equinox ◑ 22:03, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

I have never heard this particular usage of on; I was just trying to parse it. You aren't saying that Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry) couldn't say clean off, are you, punk? In any event clean was modifying off. DCDuring (talk) 01:04, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

The word "today" isn't necessary, but is helpful for searching. So, the first page of a Google Books search for "clean on today" has: […] knickers were clean on today so there was no chance of any foreign bodies being in them. || Can you sleep here? Sheets are clean on today, which is great. || “These clothes were clean on today.” I sincerely doubted that, judging by the state of him, but I forced myself to be polite. || “You haven't changed your clothes”! we exclaim, “I have, these are clean on today” he says, pointing at his fleece and pants covered in various types of food stains. || 'My boxer shorts are clean on today!' he affirmed, colouring again as Kate briskly took the offending garments from him […] || Arthur asked if I had any dirty clothes for him to put in his washing machine overnight, so I pointed to the wardrobe. “Just what's in there down the bottom in a bag. What I'm wearing is clean on today.” Equinox ◑ 02:09, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

I would call it an ellipsis of "clean going on" ("going on" as opposed to "coming off"). Chuck Entz (talk) 03:48, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: I can't find even one single example of "clean going on" in Google Books referring to clean clothes being put on a person. I do not believe that this can be an ellipsis of a phrase that has never been used in human history ever. Equinox ◑ 00:13, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

@Equinox I didn't mean that people used to say "clean going on" and shortened it to "clean on". I was trying to explain the "on" part by positing an underlying phrase that came out in actual speech as just "on". I did check for usage beforehand, and found mostly (someone has) "been clean going on " (some period of time) and various random occurrences of "clean" followed coincidently by "going on". Chuck Entz (talk) 16:00, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Another tangent may be the remnants of changing participle and gerund endings, perhaps this shirt was *wash-en / washing / in the wash (Anglo-Norman **en cleanant? clearance), parallel to my car needs washed / washing (the latter is still productive in some regions). Negation and double negation can distort such meanings beyond recognition. 141.20.6.69 17:59, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Since it only works in this phrase, and not with "off" or any adjective but "clean" (see comments above), does it then deserve an entry? It would seem so. Equinox ◑ 20:02, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree with Chuck that it seems like the origin, or at least meaning, is "clean going on" or "clean when it went on" or something where on has about the same meaning as in those phrases. If this were the only phrase on was used this way in, I suppose it'd merit an entry. But I think there are other phrases that use on this way, so it may be better handled at on(?). I found cites of "fresh on", "new on": Citations:on (and as Equinox says, it's not limited to "...today"; I added some cites of "...this morning" to show this). - -sche (discuss) 22:13, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

I’ve found one instance where on isn’t followed by any length of time [34]. I’ve just added it to the citations page, in fact it’s the earliest use I could find (from 2002), though I’m sure earlier uses must exist. Overlordnat1 (talk) 00:02, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

I added several earlier uses from the 19- and 1800s. - -sche (discuss) 15:40, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Looks good 👍. Overlordnat1 (talk) 01:59, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

trust, but verify

Definition: "You can only rely on things you verified yourself." Is this really the definition? It doesn't seem to mention "trust" at all. Shouldn't it be something like: "you should trust as far as possible, but must also check things"? (Wikipedia has an article on this phrase, but manages to completely avoid defining it.) Equinox ◑ 20:04, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Your interpretation agrees with the original usage context. DCDuring (talk) 21:51, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

 Done I've changed it, in line with trust everybody, but cut the cards. Equinox ◑ 22:04, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Pauschale

This word is neuter gender in Austrian German only (in Germany, it is feminine). Is there a way to specify a second gender (and declension table) and mark it as specific to Austrian German? 2A02:908:121:6600:7DB9:F343:330E:65A 22:08, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Yes, see Klafter or Kiefer for a model. - -sche (discuss) 02:51, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

 Done – Jberkel 12:26, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

eccillos

Please see Talk:eccillos. I don't speak Latin (who does?) but I think this might be misuse of a redirect, because it seems to be a word form (where we would usually have a full entry). If I am wrong, please explain why. Equinox ◑ 05:48, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Redirected by @Nicodene. J3133 (talk) 09:11, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Fixed, with an added note. Nicodene (talk) 14:09, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

@Nicodene: “May not actually be attested”: if it is not attested, it should be marked with an asterisk; is it attested or not? J3133 (talk) 14:25, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

I cannot find any attestation, nor is such a form mentioned by the source cited on eccillum, which collects about a dozen examples of such forms.

That said, I have not looked exhaustively. I am not particularly inclined to in this case. Nicodene (talk) 15:15, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

3 mistakes in 1 entry

Hello, Mister/Miss; in the entry of the word 'siege' in the English language, there is an instance of a source (date, author's name, and title of a literary work) that does not have any quotation under it and itself not under a 'quotations list'. It too is immediately beside the 11th sub-definition of the 2nd sense.

The 'References' section does not have any content but the heading itself.

The present 1st sub-definition of the 1st sense adduces, "A prolonged military assault or a blockade of a city or fortress[...]''. Whereas the present definition, which is the only one yet, of the word as a verb adduces, "To assault a blockade of a city or fortress[...]". I believe that the latter must have been, "To assault or block a city[...]", or some close synonym of it.

Please either remove or edit them all. Thank you.

A Mediocre Lifetime Student (talk) 21:55, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

I’ve reworded the verb definition so it makes sense and sent the poorly cited subsense of the word (‘a workbench’) to RFV. I have no idea why the reference is completely missing though, that should perhaps be speedily deleted. Overlordnat1 (talk) 00:41, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

extra phoneme

Hello, Mister/Miss; in the entry of the word 'ford' in the English language, the audio clip for its standard British pronunciation that is labelled as (UK) audibly has a postalveolar sibilant at the end, which is not in any standard pronunciation of the word.

Please either remove or replace it. Thank you.

A Mediocre Lifetime Student (talk) 22:40, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

It does sound a bit strange. I've removed it. In future, if you want to talk about a specific entry, please use that entry's talk page. I'll copy this information there, this time. Equinox ◑ 22:44, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Where do things stand as far as getting a list that tells Commons' bots not to readd certain audio? Will this just be readded in a while? - -sche (discuss) 22:56, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

If I wanted to troll Wiktionary baaaaad I would definitely do it with audio. It's much harder and slower to audit. Mind you, I've listened to a lot of WF audios and they have always been unexceptionable. Re your question: sometimes I've encountered audios that were purely wrong (I seem to remember one of Wiktionary's very earliest users, Dvortygirl, recording vigilance like "village-ence"). And it is tempting to mark the file like "this can never be any use to anyone, it's purely just wrong". On the other hand I suspect that AI will be able to generate audio on the fly in 100 accents in the next decade, so you may be wasting your time. Equinox ◑ 23:13, 16 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello, Equinox, I have created a talk page on the 'Discussion' tab in the entry of the word siege. Please check it out. Is it alright? A Mediocre Lifetime Student (talk) 12:13, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

There are templates for this (like rfdate) but yeah, I hope somebody will respond to your message. Unfortunately it's not on my radar right now. Thanks for pointing out the deficiency. Equinox ◑ 06:29, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

how to format non-reflexive portions of reflexive verbs?

@Ultimateria, JeffDoozan, Metaknowledge I am cleaning up Spanish non-lemma forms to use {{es-verb form of}} and have it autogenerate the inflection of line(s) based on just the verb conjugation. What should be done about non-reflexive portions of reflexive verbs, e.g. jambe in the present subjunctive me jambe or se jambe from jambarse? Currently {{es-verb form of|jambarse}} when invoked on jambe gets formatted like this:

1. only used in me jambe, first-person singular present subjunctive of jambarse
2. only used in se jambe, third-person singular present subjunctive of jambarse
3. only used in se ... jambe, syntactic variant of jámbese, third-person singular imperative of jambarse

It combines forms when possible, e.g. {{es-verb form of|jambarse}} for jambamos where nos jambamos is either present indicative or preterite:

1. only used in nos jambamos, first-person plural present/preterite indicative of jambarse

However, I'm not quite sure what to do about jambando, which normally appears as jambándose but can also be separated, as in se está jambando. Using the above approach, we'd get:

1. only used in jámbandose, gerund of jambarse

But that seems a bit strange since jámbandose is a single word. Similar considerations apply to words like jambar, which is often defined as infinitive of jambarse but this is totally wrong; jambarse is the infinitive, and jambar is only a portion of the infinitive and should always co-occur with a reflexive pronoun somewhere. Benwing2 (talk) 05:11, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

If no-one has a better idea, what about defining jambando along the lines of "inflected form of jambarse used with a reflexive pronoun"? Optionally specify more closely what kind of "inflected form" it is and/or add an example: ", as in se está jambando". - -sche (discuss) 08:27, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

I like the suggestion, but "inflected form" is pretty vague. "Gerund of jambarse with separate reflexive pronoun"? This could work for jambar too: "Infinitive of jambarse with separate reflexive pronoun". Agreed though that "infinitive of jambarse" isn't really correct... Maybe just "Alternative form of jambarse with separate reflexive pronoun"? (Or "unattached"/"proclitic"/whatever.) Ultimateria (talk) 18:07, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

What do people think of something like non-reflexive portion of jambándose, gerund of jambarse? Benwing2 (talk) 02:58, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

"Non-reflexive portion" is a bit awkward and unclear; the verb is still reflexive. I'd stand by my previous suggestion. Ultimateria (talk) 02:08, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I like Ultimateria's idea, but maybe say "used with" instead of just "with"? I think "non-reflexive portion of jambándose" has the additional issue of suggesting that the place jambándo occurs is in the word jambándose, but then why would we have a separate entry for it? We have an entry because it occurs separated from the se (as se ... jambándo, etc). And yeah, since the verb is still reflexive, calling it "non-reflexive" would be a bit odd. - -sche (discuss) 02:33, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

@-sche, Ultimateria What I'm trying to convey by "non-reflexive portion" is that (a) this is a part or portion of a verb form, where the full verb form consists of two words (possibly separated), and (b) it is specifically the part that does not include the reflexive pronoun. jambando is not a gerund of jambarse, it's a portion of the gerund se ... jambando, which is a syntactic variant/alternant of jambándose. Maybe it should read

only used in se ... jambando, syntactic alternant of jambándose, gerund of jambarse

although that is a bit long. To me, gerund of jambarse with separate reflexive pronoun is too ambiguous and unclear; gerund of jambarse when used with separate reflexive pronoun is a bit better, but neither quite conveys the essential idea that jambando and jambar must cooccur with a reflexive pronoun, and have no real meaning outside of that cooccurrence. Benwing2 (talk) 06:12, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm okay with the last line you suggested. I don't think length is much of an issue, especially since these aren't very common forms. Let's make it as explicit as it needs to be. I'd pick "variant" over "alternant". Ultimateria (talk) 21:06, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, that works (and I agree with switching to "variant", "syntactic alternant" is a rather obscure phrase). The length is probably fine, but if we wanted to make it shorter, one idea is "only used in se ... jambando, a gerund of jambarse", letting jambarse tell people about jambándose. - -sche (discuss) 05:10, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

"substantial" with broad A

I've heard it pronounced /səbˈstɑːnʃəl/ by an English person, but I can't find any references for that pronunciation. So I'd like to ask whether this is somewhat common or, if not, whether it ever was. 92.218.236.54 15:11, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

It’s not very common though you will hear it reasonably often. It’s a hypercorrection used by some people from Northern England or the Midlands who are trying to sound posh, they get this idea in their heads that as last is ‘supposed’ to be pronounced as ‘lahst’ it must follow that ‘plastic’ should be pronounced as ‘plahstic’ and a similar train of thought leads them to say ‘substahntial’, ‘sahndwich’ and ‘bandahna’ instead of substantial, sandwich and bandana. Listening to the first 100 hits of a Youglish search for British English examples of people saying substantial provides us with two examples of this phenomenon: [35] (see #18 and #42).

I also should note that the American states of Alabama[36] (see #68, a lady in the House of Lords says it - I don’t know her name or age), Louisiana, Indiana and Montana are traditionally pronounced with a broad A in British English, though you’d probably be hard-pressed to find anyone under 70 who still pronounces it like that. Nevada and Colorado are still pronounced with a hard A by virtually 100% of the population though. Overlordnat1 (talk) 01:02, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Okay, so it's never existed as an actual, native variant in RP, but is just a hypercorrect form (used mainly by northern speakers without broad A in their own accents). Understood. Thanks a lot. 92.218.236.54 12:57, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

mantolín

Is there a word for this in English? It's for these guys. "Tasseled emblem" was the best I could do, but it's probably not accurate... Dunderdool (talk) 09:40, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

Oh, this is frustrating, because it seems like there should be a word, there are no shortage of pictures, but I can't find anything. - -sche (discuss) 23:49, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Antonym != male -> female

I've noticed a bunch of articles where antonym is given as the other gender. I assume this is wrong based on https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary_talk:Semantic_relations. Examples include avó, père, Mutter. Based on my understanding, the actual antonym would be neto/neta, enfant, and Kind (at least, Kind is included as one of the antonyms).

Am I being a bit pedantic, or should we be fixing these as we come across them? And is there a different word if we wanted to include the other gender anyway. SupermanReturns (talk) 23:56, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

I have occasionally seen entries which qualify such 'antonyms', along the lines of (using mother as an example) "father (with regard to gender), child (with regard to age)". (I can't find any entries using that exact phrase, though, so the exact phrase must've been something else.) That seems helpful if we're going to list both 'antonyms', as in Mutter. I see some entries list such things as coordinate terms, and I suppose this might be a better term, but I don't think "antonyms" is wrong enough that I would bother changing them, myself. - -sche (discuss) 01:27, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I am not a fan of these. I usually prefer "coordinated term". Vininn126 (talk) 09:57, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

IMO Vin is correct and these should be co-ordinate terms. A man is not the opposite of a woman. (Well, not inherently. Just sometimes works out that way.) Equinox ◑ 12:38, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I also add these terms as coordinate terms. J3133 (talk) 12:51, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, nouns don't usually have antonyms, except nouns that are closely related to adjectives like thinness. 2A0D:6FC2:4380:8500:DCF1:B8F7:54A4:E2C7 13:34, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, great, let's change these entries, then. (I had expected more "grr, it's fine to list them as antonyms", lol.) - -sche (discuss) 16:58, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I agree they're not antonyms, and it kind of pisses me off when I see this sort of thing. (It pisses me off more when children's books imply things like "cat" is the opposite of "dog", but I'm pretty sure no one at Wiktionary would be so insane as to list cat as an antonym or even a coordinate term of dog.) —Mahāgaja · talk 08:18, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I think dog and cat are coordinates in some respects, just as the suborders Feliformia and Caniformia are coordinates, both being part of order Caniformia. Obviously the system of taxonomic names is intended to support such relationships, whereas vernacular names are not. In taxonomy Aves is a hyponym of Reptilia; in a pet store bird is a coordinate of reptile.

There are large classes of nouns that may have antonyms: those that have prefixes like anti- and un-.

I'd be happy if we militantly patrolled English noun sections to rid them of silly antonyms. There may be a case to be made that all of them should be deleted (or converted to coordinate terms) on sight. DCDuring (talk) 19:29, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

Well, I changed Mutter and père (to "Coordinate terms"). If there are others, please change them. - -sche (discuss) 18:56, 15 August 2022 (UTC)

EULA

ˈjuːlə I think. — This unsigned comment was added by 2A0D:6FC2:4380:8500:DCF1:B8F7:54A4:E2C7 (talk) at 13:32, 21 July 2022 (UTC).

Based on what evidence though? I pronounce a lot of things wacky in my head but if I had to say it in a meeting I would say E - U - L - A. Equinox ◑ 14:06, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

[37], all use some form of /ˈjuːlə/ (you have to skip some videos) –Jberkel 17:06, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, that's the only pronunciation I can find (in videos of music producers advising musicians about EULAs their fans/customers will be interacting with, etc). (Now the question is whether E-U-L-A also exists...) - -sche (discuss) 17:13, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

mayon(n)aise

copy of my comment on User:Equinox's talk page

Hi, I see you deleted the entry for the word/spelling variant mayon(n)aise. You linked to the criteria for inclusion, which as far as I can see this meets. Like I said in my edit summary, this is not a nonce-word. A google image search will convince you that (along with the truncated form "Mayo") this is a standard way of labelling mayonnaise in Belgium (certainly by the major supermarkets; this isn't a fringe thing), and a google search will provide any number of examples of the form being used in monolingual english, french, and dutch text.

I admit I was a bit flippant in creating three languages separately, but I can't find what the Wiktionary-approved way of creating a cross-language term is besides Translingual, which didn't seem to apply to this being only for a small subset of languages.

Can you elaborate on what the problem was with this entry?

Labels: The big supermarkets: Aldi Carrefour Colruyt Delhaize Lidl

Others, by brand: dl manna coraKoolzaadVandemoortelede Kroon (there are loads more but I think this makes the point)

Other uses (excluding where it's referring to a specific product; this is where it's being used as a common noun): Linéo (this one the jar isn't labelled with this form, but the page text uses it) Dutch text English text "How to make Belgian Mayon(n)aise by hand" Menu usage; French and Dutch English text English text Another menu, this one in some weird combination of French, Dutch, and English, depending presumably on what the proprietor thought would be most generally understood. This is not that uncommon...

Thanks, Pseudomonas (talk) 09:36, 18 July 2022 (UTC)

We don't usually include brand names (WT:BRAND) and we usually wouldn't include brackets that are used purely to include or exclude letters (yes you can find rare exemptions like the very common (s)he, but nothing like say his/hers). In addition this doesn't seem to have any meaning beyond actual "mayonnaise", so it's really just a hacky way to write that in several languages while saving ink and labels. Please discuss at WT:TR. Equinox ◑ 15:13, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

As requested, I've copied the conversation to WT:TR

a) It's a translingual spelling variant for a generic. It's not a brandname (as evidenced by the eleven different brands using it that I provided examples of). It's not a nonceword, which I think was your claim on deleting it.

b) Should we remove lite or donut as "these are just hacky ways of writing a word with fewer letters to save space on packaging"? How about abbreviations?

c) I wasn't aware that "having a meaning that no other word has" was a criterion for inclusion. We include spelling variants here as standard. Besides, as I said in the entry before you deleted it, it is sometimes used to emphasize the Belgianness of the substance or of the context. Some of the prose examples I linked to use it as such.

Pseudomonas (talk) 16:12, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Are there other examples of this, or is just mayon(n)aise? – Jberkel 16:52, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm sure I've seen some similar things on posters where there was a desire to save space, but I can't recall the details and I think they struck me as noncewords rather than being a common usage. Normally things are written out in full in both languages, even if the words are reasonably similar. Pseudomonas (talk) 17:04, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

The L2 is definitely not English or even Benglish. Perhaps Dut(Fren)ch, for which we have, however, no language code; “{{head|nl(fr)|noun}}” does not work. An alternative name may be Belgian labelese.  --Lambiam 09:35, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I feel like there needs to be a less expansive version of Translingual (code: mul), that isn't "across many languages" but "across more than one language". Either by altering the scope of Translingual or by creating a new scope of Interlingual. As for this term, it is attested in English text (see the examples above), though you might argue it's acting as a non-established loanword. Pseudomonas (talk) 12:25, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Is there a problem simply adding it to the respective languages separately? I've seen Translingual used with terms that occur in only two languages, and it honestly feels like a disservice to them. Translingual feels more for stuff used in a very large number of languages in the same way. With this particular term, you can simply note in the etymology that it's adapted for use in X, Y and Z languages, but fundamentally it's still used in each language in its own right. Theknightwho (talk) 23:33, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I did precisely that, and added it to the languages separately. An admin deleted the article (without going through any deletion process) and when I requested a clarification they asked me to take it here. Pseudomonas (talk) 13:05, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Ah I see - well my personal opinion is that we should have this, but with the entries in the respective languages. Theknightwho (talk) 22:19, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Entries in the respective languages is what we had. Would some admin mind undeleting it? Pseudomonas (talk) 21:39, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

@Pseudomonas I'll make an undeletion request at WT:RFDN. Theknightwho (talk) 06:46, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Weird Spanish combined forms

(Notifying Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV, Metaknowledge, Ultimateria, Koavf): @Dunderdool, JeffDoozan, Ultimateria Can someone help me understand whether the following Spanish non-lemma forms (which all currently exist) are legitimate and if so, why?

1. agermanarlos, agermanarle, agermanarlo, etc.; incautarlos, incautarle, incautarlo, etc. These claim to be compounds of respectively agermanar and incautar with a clitic pronoun, but there are no such verbs agermanar and incautar; there are only reflexive agermanarse and incautarse. I would expect that the forms need to be incautárselo, etc. and I'm not even sure agermanárselo makes any sense either, as the verb agermanarse means "to join a guild" and doesn't seem to take another object.

   RAE states that incautar is valid. agermanar, however, isn't so those forms can be deleted. incautárselo would be wrong, as would incautárselo, because it needs "de". Dunderdool (talk) 09:23, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

2. duérmase: claims to be "third-person singular imperative combined with se of dormir". I believe this is impossible as dormir is intransitive. Instead this should be simply the third-person singular imperative of dormirse, right? There are tons of similar forms, e.g. deleznándolo, deleznarlas, deleznándonos, deleznándose, deleznaros, etc. just for deleznar/deleznarse. I suspect all of these should either be forms of a reflexive verb or deleted.

   duérmase is a correct construction. I reckon it could work either as a form of dormir or of dormirse Dunderdool (talk) 09:23, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

   According to RAE, deleznar was historically transitive, so these forms would be valid Dunderdool (talk) 09:23, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

3. animose, preguntóle, mirome, ...: claim to be combined forms of a preterite with a clitic. Is this archaic or obsolete or something? I have never seen such forms.

   Yeah, these forms were used a lot in older Spanish, both with and without the accent. You can check with Wikisource. I sometimes see it in modern texts too, when they're being deliberately archaic, maybe akin to an imaginary conversation one might have while teaching a grandparent to use a computer "thou downloadest an mp3 when thou clickest hereupon" Dunderdool (talk) 09:23, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

4. tratábase, habíala, decíame, ...: similarly, claim to be combined forms of an imperfect with a clitic. What is the deal here?

   Again, these were very commonly used in older texts, and should be tagged as obsolete if kept Dunderdool (talk) 09:23, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

5. Thanks. Benwing2 (talk) 00:44, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

BTW I see that some of the forms in (3) and (4) are marked as obsolete, but some not, and forms like preguntóle have a superfluous accent that may be incorrect. I think Wonderfool created all these forms. I think we need fairly strict CFI requirements when it comes to obsolete non-lemma forms; each needs to be cited, otherwise they are deletable, because these forms cannot be freely generated. Benwing2 (talk) 00:47, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Wonderfool did make most of these, true, and mentioned the "stray accents" to someone, possibly Stephen, but we couldn't work out why some texts included them and others didn't. Wonderfool only added ones which had many hits on Wikisource, but I'm pretty sure they added a few fake ones in there, because that's the kind of annoying user WF is... Dunderdool (talk) 09:23, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

• While on the topic, if we're gonna delete obsolete Spanish verb forms (I'd say no, let's not), we should bear in mind stuff like hobiere and hobiese. Dunderdool (talk) 09:29, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

French satisfaire conjugation

The conjugation table gives "satissatisfaisons" for the nous present-tense indicative form. This is obviously wrong (it should be "satisfaisons"), but I don't know how to fix it (it uses fr-conj-auto, so I guess that template has a bug). TTWIDEE (talk) 18:01, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

Well spotted. The same error is present in contrefaire, défaire, méfaire, refaire. Voltaigne (talk) 20:21, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

@TTWIDEE, Voltaigne Should be fixed now. Benwing2 (talk) 20:31, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

all in together

How can there be no entry, is it WT:SOP? The full phrase is a kind of interjection, "All in together now!", as per Wu-Tang. 46.189.28.112

What do citations suggest it means? DCDuring (talk) 02:03, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

is minor-attracted person offensive?

One editor removed the label, another restored it. It's the odd entry out; AFAICT {{lb|en|offensive}} usually means a term insults its referent (fag), or contains such a term (n*gger toe); I also see a few terms like anally inflicted death sentence which use antagonistic language to antagonize people associated with the referent. Here, the term isn't insulting, it's {{lb|en|euphemistic}}... but we have that label for that. It's inflammatory, implying legitimation or comparison between sexual orientation and pedophilia, but I think it might be clearer to just have the usage note (or label!) saying that, and that the term is chiefly used by supporters of pedophilia; "offensive" suggests to me it'd be a good term to use to offend its referent (no!), or that it's vulgar (no), particularly because synonyms like kidfucker use the same label for that purpose. What do you think?
If we want to use "offensive" here, how many more euphemistic or neutral terms for things some people would prefer to offend should we deploy the label to? There are other pedophilia-related euphemisms like boylove, but also, some people take offense at Israel or Palestine because they only recognize the other entity, homophobes get mad at calling gay marriages marriages, ... it seems like a can of worms. - -sche (discuss) 20:15, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Experiencing attraction to minors is not a person’s choice; it happens to them. I suppose being an outcast because of something you have no control over is frustrating. Asking for destigmatization of the condition does not in itself seek to legitimize criminal behaviour. Not every person who is attracted to forbidden fruit also savours it.  --Lambiam 21:41, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is relevant to the conversation about the term. Theknightwho (talk) 21:50, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I marked it as offensive because the term is heavily rejected by a large number of speakers, because use of the term outside of mentions is frequently interpreted as outing the speaker as a paedophile, or an attempt to covertly include them as part of the LGBT movement (which is why the term was coined, iirc). Offensive terms don't need to be intentionally offensive, but you also seem to be assuming all offensive terms are derogatory, which they aren't. They're words that offend. Theknightwho (talk) 21:49, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I disagree that the term itself is offensive; it's a euphemism, but it's not the only euphemism that makes people mad. (Calling the deliberate killing of civilians collateral damage makes people mad too, but that doesn't mean the term itself is offensive.) And whether it makes people mad or not, "minor-attracted person" is a useful term in that it's a cover term for pedophile (“person attracted to prepubescent children”), hebephile (“person attracted to pubescent children/younger teenagers”), and ephebophile (“person attracted to postpubescent teenagers still under the age of consent in their jurisdiction”). Without "MAP", we're left with only pedophile to cover the entire range, which is imprecise and will also make people mad. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:13, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

offensive sense 1: Causing offense; arousing a visceral reaction of disgust, anger, hatred, or indignation. Otherwise, what distinguishes offensive from derogatory when used in labels?

Arguments that the term is useful are not particularly relevant, given that we're talking about how the term is commonly perceived, and not whether you personally think it's helpful. Theknightwho (talk) 16:00, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

The term is clearly a euphemism. I entirely agree with Mahagaja. The vote Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2022-06/Attestation criteria for derogatory terms makes it clear to me that euphemisms per se fail the intent test:

A term is considered derogatory if it is apparently intended to:

denigrate a named individual in any way; or

denigrate an unnamed person, group of persons, or geographical location on the basis of ancestry, ethnicity, gender or sex, religion, or sexual orientation, or with the use of a demeaning or obscene term.

DCDuring (talk) 17:33, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I'm not arguing it's derogatory. I'm arguing it's offensive, and drawing a distinction between offensiveness and being derogatory. My point was that the examples presented by -sche are all derogatory terms, and you yourself seem to be treating them as synonyms. In any event, something can be both a euphemism and offensive, and "making people mad" fits our current definition of offensive. What's particularly key is that it's the term causing the offence, because substituting minor-attracted person for pedophile would not cause that reaction in many cases. Theknightwho (talk) 17:43, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I had assumed that the discussion concerned the differential treatment of terms under the recent vote. In the discussion and its aftermath and in some of our definition labels "derogatory" and "offensive" seem to be used interchangeably. Of course they are not necessarily the same despite overlap.

I'm offended by many misuses and imprecisions of language (excluding, of course, my own) and by terms that refer to things I don't like. The latter is not really a lexical matter, being concerned with the referrent, not the term itself. The former is idiosyncratic and therefore also not lexical. I also do not take the intent of use of these terms to be necessarily derogatory. I think of derogation to be largely a matter of intent. It is when derogatory intent, directed at individuals or groups, and offensive effect, upon those same individuals or groups, coincide that we have most of the kind of terms that were the subject of the vote. There are also cases where the intent may not be derogatory, but the term is offensive to one to whom is directed, eg, you people. It is also possible, in principle, to have derogatory intent that fails to offend, as possibly in cases where gay is intended to be derogatory, but is not taken as negative.

Using the offensive label to apply to cases where some object to a term not directed at them on grounds that it is deceptive would open us up to so marking all terms that some find are used deceptively in PR, political campaigning, eulogies, ads, product packaging, education, etc. DCDuring (talk) 21:17, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

This is a term used by people who are sexually attracted to children to try to get away from the term "pedophile" (and possibly, I don't know, to try to get under the LGBT umbrella). Our entry currently says: (euphemistic, highly nonstandard, often offensive). I think "euphemistic" is very true (it's specifically used to try to avoid being called a pedophile); it is also probably nonstandard (although I dunno what "highly" is supposed to add, except one editor's disapproval); I do not see, however, why it would be offensive, even if the people who use it are bad people. Equinox ◑ 00:13, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

An earlier generation (?) of these people (irony?) often used the term childlove, subdivided into boylove and girllove. Equinox ◑ 00:19, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Many of its uses are euphemistic, but as noted by Mahāgaja above it's also filling a lexical gap as it encompasses "paedophile", "hebephile" and "ephebophile" (and also "infantophilia" according to w:Chronophilia) for which there isn't (to my knowledge) a single term to use when the context either doesn't require specificity or applies to more than one age range. Its further complicated by the fact that in some contexts "paedophile" (and similar terms) are reserved for those who are dysfunctional as a result of their attraction, and in the opposite direction by the conflation of "paedophile" and "child abuser" (actually just overlapping sets with neither encompassing the other). So perhaps "frequently euphemistic" or "usually euphemistic" would be more accurate. I don't see how the term itself is offensive any more than the terms for other sexual attractions are offensive even if some (or even most) people are offended by the idea of (others) being attracted to that person/thing. Thryduulf (talk) 08:02, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

To chime in and reiterate what has been said, this is a euphemism, and people may find the use of a euphemism offensive (because what it designates is thought to be too offensive to euphemize), but almost by definition, euphemisms aren't offensive. Andrew Sheedy (talk)

Euphemisms don't start out as offensive, but can become so later (w:Euphemism treadmill), e.g. "colored" when used to refer to people in American English, but this has not happened to "minor-attracted person". Thryduulf (talk) 11:53, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

We should not label it as euphemistic unless there is clear evidence that the term is actually used (as per the CFI) as such. I have doubts as well about labelling this nonstandard. I don’t think this label is meant to cover situations in which some people are offended by what they see as abuse of a term.  --Lambiam 17:06, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Kyiv and Kiev

Pinging some people that might be interested in this: @Atitarev, Benwing2, Mahagaja, Mzajac, Lambiam, Surjection, Vininn126, feel free to ping others

So, this has been a long time coming, but we need to figure this out. Currently, our English lemma is at Kiev, with any use of Kyiv in definition lines being replaced to the former variant. Now, for obvious reasons this solution is less than ideal. As such I propose the following:

• Use "Kyiv" for (modern) Ukraine-related entries (Ukrainian Київ (Kyjiv), any mention of it in modern Non-Russian language place names, etc.)
• Use "Kiev" for (modern) Russia-related entries (Russian Киев (Kijev), any mention of it in Russian-language place names, etc.)
• Use "Kiev" for (historical) Rus'-related entries (Old East Slavic Киевъ (Kievŭ), any mention of it in historical contexts, etc.)
• Use both for languages where there is one form denoting both a word relating to the modern city and its historical counterpart (other than in English, Ukrainian and Russian).
• Things like "Kyiv oblast" and "Kiev oblast" are treated the same as the city name)

What are your thoughts on this? I was personally also wondering about languages in Ukraine other than Ukrainian and languages in Russia other than Russian, as well as maybe always using both except in historical contexts. Anyway, I'd love to have a discussion about this. Thadh (talk) 21:50, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

I have been thinking it's time to shift which entry is the lemma; it seems clear that usage has been shifting, and since the latest Russian invasion I've only seen Kyiv in English media (which ngrams shows was already on the uptick, and Kiev on a downward trend, since independence, in data that only goes up to 2019). I think shifting to Kyiv at least for mentions of the modern city is a good idea. Does this mean splitting the historical vs modern senses between Kyiv and Kiev (doable; not the first placename with such a split, e.g. Germany, Germania; Alexandretta, Iskenderun), or leaving the entries as they are and just changing the spelling mentioned in other articles, piping where necessary? - -sche (discuss) 22:22, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

(e/c)@Thadh So, when saying this city I pronounce it like "Kiev" but personally I think when referring to the modern city it should be spelled Kyiv in all contexts. In a historical Rus'-related context it can be spelled Kiev. It's going to get too complicated to alternate the spelling of the modern city depending on the context, and I can't recall any parallel situation in Wiktionary. Benwing2 (talk) 22:23, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

@-sche I think we should both move the lemma text to Kyiv and change the spelling in other articles, without piping. Benwing2 (talk) 22:28, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

It's unusual to have a split in name usage with a cut-off so recent (compare Beijing and Peking), but I think the key difference here is language. That being said, it's not like Ukrainian wasn't being used before 1991. Theknightwho (talk) 22:29, 23 July 2022 (UTC)

Note that the English pronunciation /ˈkiːɪv/ is closer to the Ukrainian pronunciation than to the Russian, which strongly palatalizes the /k/ and devoices the final obstruent.  --Lambiam 01:46, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

@Lambiam This is arguable; the Ukrainian pronunciation is [ˈkɪjiu̯], with the first vowel more like in "bit", the second like "beat" and not ending in a /v/ but more like a /w/. Benwing2 (talk) 01:58, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I support using the spelling Kyiv for modern contexts. Less sure about "Kievan Rus", etc. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:45, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Definitely isn't, but that's not the point at all. Thadh (talk) 06:54, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I support having the main entry be "Kyiv". I don't think we need two separate entries à la Alexandretta vs. Iskenderun, but it would be interesting to see how the name of the city is most commonly spelled in recent literature (say, since 2010 or so) when it's referring to the city of the Middle Ages or so. In other words, how would most modern historians write "In 1203, Prince Rurik Rostislavich captured and burned K__v"? As for the English pronunciation, I personally pronounce it /ˈkiː.ɛf/ (like "the key of F" without "the" and "of"), which is definitely closer to the Russian pronunciation than the Ukrainian one. If I was aiming for a more Ukrainian-ish pronunciation I'd probably go with /ˈkiːju/ to rhyme with pee-ew. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:02, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

Unimpressed by fashion trends in language, largely formed by ephemeral media which we are not, I advise against trying to entertain artificial distinctions such as modern city vs. Oblast vs. historical state unless this has a basis in the language of the region referred (sometimes a city is renamed while the surrounding province is not and the like). Kiev is the historical English name for any name form, such as Brunswick for Braunschweig, and appears more natural as well as traditional, so that you can’t go wrong with it. It is as safe as using man to mean humankind in bulk or generic he without resorting to they—you will just appear conservative, a Thatcher rather than Putin fan. To dispel any suspicion that such a stance on Wiktionary would be an opportunity pushed by Kremlinbots, I note that I actually militantly #supportUkraine and wish her forces luck to grab Moscow by winter. Fay Freak (talk) 10:01, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

This could be a situation where we can attest a meaning of "Kyiv" and "Kiev" for modern usage, however Kiev seems to be the predominant one. We could lemmatize the more used version and add a usage note explaining the differences. Vininn126 (talk) 14:29, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

I know I can't vote, but I would strong advise against following such recent trends. It's always been "Kiev". The form "Kyiv" was hardly ever seen before circa 2010 (beginning of US-Russian tensions over Ukraine). It has since been gaining ground, but one shouldn't switch lemmas before it has been clearly established that "Kyiv" has won out. The media certainly don't represent generally language use. Another point is that we are in the middle of this war, and one (!) realistic outcome of it is for the city to be put under some kind of Russian suzerainty, which would mean that it's official name would be "Kiev" again. Speculation, okay. But nevertheless, I don't see any reason for rushing into this. 92.218.236.54 22:14, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

^{(You could vote with an account)} I think part of the issue is we can attest the spelling Kyiv AS WELL AS Kiev in accordance with our CFI. I am unsure we'd be able to do the same with with the pair in historic contexts. Kiev has been and will probably continue to be the main, most attestable form for both meanings, but that doesn't mean Kyiv hasn't gained traction. This is why I think a usage note (probably on both pages) explaining what's happening is a good idea. Vininn126 (talk) 22:32, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

At the start of Russian-Ukraine hostilies we saw this whole thing going on with the chicken Kiev article (I shit you not!). So before saying anything about anything, go and see what they said about it. To save time. Equinox ◑ 00:14, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Ukrainian оби́два (both)

Hello. Having experimented and searched around, I have found оби́два most often described and used as either a determiner or a pronoun, but I am certainly not an expert. Some sources have used other terms, and some have been ambiguous.

I have created a simple page anyway, as I know that various Ukrainian beginners who first look to wiktionary would be glad of at least some information about this word. Any suggestions, additions or deletions at all are welcome (including any help with my cobbled-together declension table, as I could not find an appropriate template.) — This unsigned comment was added by DaveyLiverpool (talk • contribs) at 15:04, 24 July 2022.

@DaveyLiverpool - I've reclassified it as a numeral, as it is classified as a "collective numeral" (збірний числівник) in the sources listed at обидва#Further_reading. This is consistent with our treatment of Russian о́ба (óba) and Polish oba. (But there is also a strong argument for determiner as well/instead, as this would also seem to match the various use-cases.) Voltaigne (talk) 19:46, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

@Voltaigne - Yes, I was originally toying with something like "collective numeral" or "numeral (collective)" from the Kyivdic entry and from myself looking at examples in other languages, but after much thrashing about online, I ended up in circles and eventually completely talked myself out of it. Thanks again, Voltaine. DaveyLiverpool (talk) 21:37, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

abnormal hieratic

A lowercase proper noun? Methinks not... Dunderdool (talk) 20:52, 24 July 2022 (UTC)

 Done Moved to Abnormal Hieratic (although I love the weirdness of the official name of a thing being "Abnormal" -- if you've ever spent any time whatsoever in standards committees, like the sorts of nerd who spend all day deciding which tags will go in HTML5 -- anyway -- yeah, that's abnormal and hieratic). Equinox ◑ 00:40, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Oddly, the lowercase form does seem to be most common, although the capitalized form is not infrequent; I can also find a few cites of mixed-case forms like "abnormal Hieratic"; see Citations:abnormal hieratic. - -sche (discuss) 07:00, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

That would seem to justify at least adding it as an alt form. Should the lowercase version perhaps even be the main form, given its predominance? 98.170.164.88 07:11, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Thesaurus:male homosexual to Thesaurus:gay man?

One of our chat-based users who is too blushingly shy to start the discussion (or doesn't want to deal with the fallout) said last night: "Can we move Thesaurus:male homosexual to gay man? Homosexual as a noun is a bit grim." I replied: "Sounds a bit like a dinosaur fossil. The only objection I can see is that not all males are men (there are also boys). But life's too short, would be ok with move, pretty neutral. I don't think homosexual as a noun is 'grim', just dated, and medical. [...] People usually say gay now." So: is there community consensus for this move? (To make it blindingly clear: I am in favour of the move myself, too.) Equinox ◑ 07:04, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

"gay man" is certainly a more usual term. I'd be in favour of the move. IMO we can tolerate the terms also being applicable to boys (or we could even rename to "gay male"). We also have Thesaurus:female homosexual which could move... - -sche (discuss) 07:20, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Let me piggyback "Thesaurus:female homosexual to Thesaurus:gay woman" on this suggestion too, then, as I can't imagine anyone supporting the one and not the other. (They have the special word "lesbian" but in any case "gay woman" seems slightly better than FEMO HOMO). Equinox ◑ 14:19, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

@Equinox: But woman usually refers to adults (which, as you stated, is the case with man, too). J3133 (talk) 14:31, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

"Gay male" doesn't work because male can apply to animals, and homosexual as a noun is becoming really dated these days, similarly to how black has as a noun for black people. Both are obviously fine as adjectives. (I'm not interested in getting into the reasons behind that because it's a minefield - it's just an observation of current perception.) Theknightwho (talk) 14:41, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

@Theknightwho: The question is whether using man and woman would be exclusionary to children/teenagers. J3133 (talk) 14:43, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

I think it's okay - a lot of words at Thesaurus:man can be extended to boys as well (dude, chap (in the UK, so sense 1), fellow etc.), but I don't think it'd be accurate to put them in Thesaurus:boy, really. It's pretty contextual. Theknightwho (talk) 14:54, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Are there any terms that refer specifically to gay male animals? (Gaynguin? Gayraffe? Gayzelle?) We have male human as a (sub)sense of male#Noun, and if there aren't any animal terms, then the possibility for confusion with the broader sense that includes animals seems small. (But I agree "man" is fine.) - -sche (discuss) 18:22, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Nope, but I don't think there are any terms that only refer to gay teenagers either, are there? It's irritating that English doesn't have a convenient noun for "male human" that isn't regional, loaded or informal, but hey ho. Theknightwho (talk) 22:43, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Right, so "man" should be fine (since none of the terms are applicable to male homosexuals but not men [or males] — sorry if it seemed like I was disagreeing on this point — and I think we can ignore the fact that they're also marginally applicable to boys, like the terms on the man page also are). I'm moved the pages. - -sche (discuss) 00:11, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

No gayzelle but only gayelle. Equinox ◑ 23:38, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Since this is getting a bit controversial (I didn't expect it), please let me withdraw the "female" one and we'll just stick with the male one in this discussion. I would hope that any man/boy argument also applies to woman/girl, but one thing at a time. (BTW it was of course User:Theknightwho who raised the point, and I said "I will create the thread for you", now he is here, he may take credit.) Equinox ◑ 22:39, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, I wouldn't have thought this was controversial; it looks like most of us agree on changing to the "man"/"woman" wording. - -sche (discuss) 22:48, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

@-sche: The titles are now inconsistent, as the man/woman pages were moved, but not the person page. J3133 (talk) 07:21, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Well, it's not any more inconsistent that it was when it was "male (adj.) homosexual (n.)" (where the issue was with using homosexual as a noun) vs "homosexual (adj.) person", but yes, I guess we should also move "homosexual person" to "gay person". (Many terms also apply to other queer people, e.g. bisexual people, so maybe we also need a page for that.) - -sche (discuss) 18:44, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

What about “Male gay person” and “Female gay person”? — Sgconlaw (talk) 04:53, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Pronunciation of escaravelho

According to some dictionaries, such as Priberam and OxfordLanguages for Google, the correct pronunciation of the last two syllables of the word escaravelho is /-ˈveʎu/, as opposed to /-ˈvɛʎu/. However, this entry shows the latter, both in the IPA transcription and the audio file. In this case, which pronunciation should be considered correct, "escaravêlho" or "escaravélho"? Is "escaravélho" (/ɛ/) a mispronunciation or just an alternative pronunciation? (Personally, as a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker, I have always pronounced this word with a closed /e/ sound, and that's how I've always heard it being said.) OweOwnAwe (talk) 03:57, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I suppose it is pronounced just like the last ⟨e⟩ in coelho, conselho, parelho, vermelho, ... . No plausible phonological process could make this one exceptional.  --Lambiam 15:24, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Declension tables on त्वम् and युष्मद्

Right now these two pages have different declension tables. Shouldn't they be identical? I would fix it myself but I don't want to make any error so I ping @AryamanA @Svartava ᛙᛆᚱᛐᛁᚿᛌᛆᛌ ᛭ Proto-Norsing ᛭ Ask me anything 15:39, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

@Mårtensås There doesn't seem to be a major difference I could see. In the latter some forms have been split into another table as poetic variants and a few less common forms missing (aside from the typo यवयोः (yavayoḥ) in one instance for युवयोः (yuvayoḥ)). I'll get to the issue tomorrow. —Svārtava (talk) • 15:59, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

shabine, chabine

Are these French words really masculine? That wouldn't match my expectations of French grammar, where these would be the feminine forms of shabin and chabin respectively. That also means they shouldn't be listed as "alternative forms". Someone who knows French should confirm. 98.170.164.88 20:22, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I only know some French, but I found a dictionary that confirms your suspicion: Dictionnaire pratique du créole de Guadeloupe (Henry Tourneux and Maurice Barbotin, 2008) defines Creole "chaben" in French as "'chabin', homme à la peau claire [etc.]" and Creole "chabin" in French as "'chabine', femme à la peau claire [etc.]"--Urszag (talk) 02:21, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

First Person singular present hez

In the Conjugation note at hair and hadir it makes mention of a "first person singular present hez" yet I see no form "hez" in the paradigm. Can this please be looked at ? Leasnam (talk) 12:33, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

my version of the origin of the word "partisan"

I have a different version of the origin of the word "partisan". In my opinion, this expression arose during the war of the Romans under the leadership of Emperor Trajan against Parthia in 115-117 AD (Trajan's Parthian War). The Romans captured most of Parthia, but could not hold it, mainly because of the uprisings of the local population, which waged a real guerrilla war against them. The Roman soldiers were afraid of the locals, they were afraid to fight with them in the mountainous regions of Parthia. Many Roman soldiers died at the hands of the Parthian rebels. In Italian, a resident of Parthia is PARTIGIANO. In my opinion, this is where the name of the word "Partizan" came from. Mark Lerer (talk) 09:30, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Source? Vininn126 (talk) 10:01, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

From book " Emulating Alexander: How Alexander the Great's Legacy Fuelled Rome's Wars…" by Glenn Barnet

https://books.google.co.il/books?id=W9bLDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT104&lpg=PT104&dq=parthian+guerilla&source=bl&ots=XEDiFNqnS6&sig=ACfU3U3NidRu_6y1Cuxly5GARvdB4-7TTQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiqnbPe2aL5AhUGLMAKHcWAB8kQ6AF6BAhIEAM#v=onepage&q=parthian%20guerilla&f=false

Chapter Trajan: In Alexander's Footsteps

Once Trajan had occupied southern Iraq, resistance came in the form of guerrilla warfare. Squabbling among Parthian princes was suspended because of the Roman threat. Parthian warriors infiltrated Roman-occupied towns in Mesopotamia and picked away at Roman garrisons and small detachments. They were even victorious against larger Roman units. At the same time, several Jewish communities within the Eastern Roman world rose up in revolt, perhaps at the instigation of the Parthians.

With tough fighting, Trajan was able to recapture much of what he lost to guerrillas but he was in danger of being trapped in Babylonia, cut off from supplies to retreat to Syria. He died soon after.

In his war on Parthia, Trajan had been a sound tactician. He had protected his flanks an kept his supply lines open but he could not effectively counter Parthian guerilla tactics to the small urban settings of the day without recourse to massive retaliation and what we would call 'collateral damage'. 77.137.69.187 17:21, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

This is just a quote from a book saying Parthian and has nothing to do with partisan. When I asked for a source, I meant from a trusted etymological dictionary. These are just ramblings. Vininn126 (talk) 17:58, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

How is that talking at length without direction? It is straight to the point. Not the point you wanted, nevertheless it is just. Your position is however confused, this is not WT:ES. They seem to be beating around the bush to ask for verification of the meaning of partigiano, which they have unfortunately reported without the necessary credentials. 2A00:20:6005:E69:3D4C:DC0:7720:71BB 11:25, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

The Italian term for the ancient Parthians is Parti. The corresponding adjective is partico. The current residents of the area are called Iraniani or Persiani.  --Lambiam 18:09, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

partigiano already exists, indicating pars, which may be unexpected in face of bipartisan and its synonym paramilitary, where bi- is reminiscent of dis-. While partake too indicates pars, the root is uncertain, indeed. Pars is ultimately uncertain as well.

Both etyma agree in hypothetical comparisons with पर्शु (parśu) ("side, flank" or "rib", respectively, the latter as per 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿, 𐎱𐎼𐎰𐎺, Parthia), in this dictionary. It would be helpful if your claim could meet WT:CFI (with one citation if a given dialect is a minor language) to stand a chance. 2A00:20:6058:5800:C0E2:37F2:1EF7:5CF2 21:56, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

...???

• The roots for partake are not at all uncertain. This is from part + take, nothing at all about Persia or Parthia. The English part etymon Latin pars also does not appear to be related to Persia or Parthia.
• bipartisan and paramilitary are not at all synonymous. Is this a strange attempt at political trolling?
• The bi- in bipartisan means "two, both" and does not strike me even remotely as reminiscent of dis- (“not; bad”).
• Old Persian 𐎱𐎠𐎼𐎿 (p-a-r-s, “Persia”) and Old Persian 𐎱𐎼𐎰𐎺 (p-r-θ-v, “Parthia”) do not appear to be etymologically related.
• WT:CFI is the criteria for including a term. This policy page doesn't say much about etymologies.

... none of which is particularly germane to the derivation of English partisan. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:20, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, the Italian Wiktionary entry at it:partigiano derives this from Italian parte + artigiano. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:35, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I suspect this may be the gibberish-spouting Rhyminreason/Apis again. - -sche (discuss) 23:44, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Just to be safe, I checked- definitely not. At any rate, there's a lot more logic and less knowledge behind this person's arguments. Amateurish, yes, but none of the stream-of-consciousness free-association-style spewing of random comparanda. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:14, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

I apologize to 2A00 then. - -sche (discuss) 08:18, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

The Italian Wiktionary says it is from parte + the suffix of artigiano. It does not analyze the latter, but the entry in Pianigiani supposes Latin *artesianus and compares cortigiano from cortese and borghigiano from borghese,^[38] so the suffix appears to be -igiano.  --Lambiam 14:43, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

Bruh. Nicodene (talk) 06:24, 29 July 2022 (UTC)

request for erasure of a particular quotation

Hello, in the entry of the word "therapy" which is present only in the English language yet, under the 1st sense of it, the topmost quotation which is labelled as 1849 does not indicate any use of the word. It does contain the word itself but with some diacritics. Therefore, I request that it be erased. If there is any rational reason of why it should remain, please mention them to me, and I will concede.

Thank you. A Mediocre Lifetime Student (talk) 22:39, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

I've moved it down to a reference/further-reading section (not because of the diacritics, but because it's just another dictionary's entry and, as you say, not a use of the word). - -sche (discuss) 23:53, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ page is edit protected but seems to have a typo (visible when you expand the Quotations section). Please add underscores to the sentence For more quotations using this term, see Citations:¯\ (ツ) /¯. Thank you. --173.67.42.107 06:03, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

This uses the standard seemoreCites template. Therefore the template must have a bug that does not show underscores correctly. Equinox ◑ 06:04, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

@Equinox: Not a bug, as underscores are supposed to be treated as spaces; the page uses DISPLAYTITLE to make them underscores in the title; thus {{seemoreCites}} would need a display parameter. J3133 (talk) 06:26, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

Rather than adding a parameter, it would be better for some backend module to determine if the page is using DISPLAYTITLE and to replace the text accordingly. This is possible with a getContent() call in Lua on the page's title object (which returns the page's raw wikitext), parsing for the text {{DISPLAYTITLE: and, if found, extracting any text between that and the following }} to use instead. Theknightwho (talk) 22:27, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

In theory or if we had a higher Lua memory usage cap that would be better, but in practice it sounds like it might be "expensive" to check for that on every page, compared to setting a parameter on the few pages that need it. - -sche (discuss) 23:01, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

Possibly - {{zh-see}} and {{zh-forms}} already use that method for extracting definitions from other pages, so it might be worth testing with those to see how heavy it is. Theknightwho (talk) 06:35, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

Although this is the "right" way to do it (at least while we still have to fuck around with substrings and no API): performance-wise, I am inclined to agree with -sche that running the extra bit of code on every page (with cites on it) to support way fewer than 1% eccentric pages is not a good plan. Unless the cost is really close to zero. It would be less effort to tweak the tiny handful of pages with some boring underscore parameter. Equinox ◑ 10:18, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

i confess, when it comes to wiki code, i do a lot of finding something that does what i want and hitting copy-paste without really knowing how it works. How important is it to actually use the template all the time? Just for this one entry, what about changing the line to

*For more quotations using this term, see [[Citations:¯\_(ツ)_/¯]]

or even

*For more quotations using this term, see [[Citations:¯\_(ツ)_/¯#Translingual|Citations:¯\_(ツ)_/¯]]

yielding

• For more quotations using this term, see Citations:¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The code may be different, but the result sure looks the same to casual readers like me, other than including the missing underscores. (i also took the liberty of skipping the period at the end of the sentence to reduce the chances of it being mistaken for part of the mostly-punctuation-marks pictogram, but that's a separate, minor issue.) --173.67.42.107 07:19, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

frear vs. freiar

In Brazilian Portuguese, the verb frear is commonly pronounced /fɾejˈa(ʁ)/, as if it were written freiar, probably influenced by the noun freio. However, the standard spelling remains frear. Should the entry freiar be removed or should it be just labelled as a common misspelling or a nonstandard variation? OweOwnAwe (talk) 21:15, 30 July 2022 (UTC)

䊧

Does this actually have Japanese readings? Added by a user who has made extremely questionable contributions. The only Japanese dictionary it shows up in is 篆隷万象名義, which says 孚謂反。惡氣。, which will have simply been copied from the original edition of the Chinese Yupian. The fanqie for this character (孚謂) and that given for the component 費 elsewhere in the dictionary (孚味) both resolve to fèi in modern Mandarin, so I think the user has made the inference that because 費 has the reading ひ in modern Japanese, so must 䊧, which seems dubious, because I question whether this has ever existed in Japanese at all. (I doubt they've actually gone and looked at 篆隷万象名義 either - they've probably just assumed 費 is a phonetic component without checking anything.) Theknightwho (talk) 22:08, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

The edit's been reverted, so I'll close this. Theknightwho (talk) 06:32, 1 August 2022 (UTC)

touche

The French nominal definitions 1 and 4 aren't really different senses. Definition 4 reads "(sports) touch" but definition 1 reads "touch", which would cover its use in sports. Is there a need for a separate definition of when touch is called in sports? It's still used in a nominal sense. Could we remove definition 4 so it's less confusing? Jclu (talk) 22:33, 31 July 2022 (UTC)

The French Wiktionary defines a sports sense of touche as the act of returning an out ball into the playing area; a ball that is outside the side bounds of the playing area is en touche.  --Lambiam 01:35, 2 August 2022 (UTC)