Wiktionary:Tea room/2024/March

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← February 2024 · March 2024 · April 2024 → · (current)

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EN: tempera

The English definition of tempera has "A medium used to bind pigments in painting, as well as the associated artistic techniques." In this definition the pigments are not constituents of the tempera medium. Whether the term is ever used with that meaning, I am not sure. However, it seems clear that the term is often (usually? always?) used to refer to the medium comprising a mixture of binder and pigment(s). So either the existing Sense 1 should be changed, or a new sense should be added.

Also, "medium" is rather vague. The WP article on tempera states that the binder was traditionally a "glutinous material such as egg yolk", and more generally is "water-soluble". Furthermore, it mentions tempera paint as a synonym for poster paint in the USA.

Finally, the WP article on tempera also has a sentence on the etymology: "The term tempera is derived from the Italian dipingere a tempera ("paint in distemper"), from the Late Latin distemperare ("mix thoroughly")."

—DIV (1.145.23.181 09:08, 1 March 2024 (UTC))

Is the dis- prefix needed? Just unprefixed Latin temperō already means to combine, compound or blend properly. This is Classical Latin. The WP article Distemper (paint) writes that distemper is a decorative paint and a historical medium for painting pictures, and contrasted with tempera. [My emphasis by underlining. --L.]  --Lambiam 19:53, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

In oil painting, the medium is oil paint, which includes the pigments. It is not hard to find uses that refer to tempera as the paint that is applied to a surface, that is, with the pigments mixed in. For example, “This tempera possesses the valuable property of retaining its colour the same as when first laid on”.^[1] I don't see uses of the term that refer specifically to the carrier in which the pigments are suspended. The definition should best avoid the highly polysemous term medium and simply state something like,

A paint in which the pigments are suspended in a water-soluble emulsion, such as of egg yolk or gelatine, which hardens and becomes insoluble on exposure to air.

(The water-solubility is what distinguishes tempera from oil paint.)  --Lambiam 20:32, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed with Lambian- Wiki's etymology is a bit silly. Tempera is simply from the Italian tempera, derived from the verb temperare, from the Latin temperāre. Nicodene (talk) 11:44, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

verpus

At Ancient Greek δρῖλος (drîlos) we define the term as "verpus" yet we do not have an English entry for this term. 17:51, 2 March 2024 (UTC) Leasnam (talk) 17:51, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

@Leasnam: This seems to be copied from Liddell & Scott, which seems to be saying that it's glossed somewhere as "verpus" and they don't know which sense of "verpus" is meant. Of course, this is the sort of subject matter that might be in the class of "Things Which Shall Not Be Named" that used to be replaced with Latin in writing to avoid the vulgar English term (e.g. membrum virile). Chuck Entz (talk) 19:29, 2 March 2024 (UTC)

The other L&S has for verpus: “a circumcised man”,^[2] and defines verpa as “membrum virile”.^[3] We have a more specialized and vivid definition for the latter term (“membrum virile in statu erecto, glande denudata”).  --Lambiam 22:02, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

comping

Should comping have the additional sense of "refunding"/"waiving"? --Azertus (talk) 16:38, 3 March 2024 (UTC)

I think this is intended to be covered by "present participle and gerund of comp" and then the two "complimentary item" senses at comp#Verb (because it's not limited to the present participle, this sense applies also if you comp something in the present tense), but we could stand to revise those a bit. As you suggest, it seems possible to read the current wording as just covering providing someone with what you explain at the start is a free drink (they never take any money out of their pocket), but it also needs to cover refunding (they took money out of their pocket and paid you a while ago, thinking they were making a normal money-for-goods transaction, and they drank the drinks, and then you later give them the money back because of reasons, e.g. one of the servers insults them and you want to apologize). - -sche (discuss) 00:14, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

quote ... unquote

The second usage on this entry is listed as an "adverb", with the definition, used to delimit a quotation in the same function as quotation marks. The example given is: Adam Smith claimed that a capitalist is, quote, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention, unquote.

How is reading out the name of a punctuation mark that is part of a quote in any way adverbial usage?

Hermes Thrice Great (talk) 07:32, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

tripping

"(slang) Undergoing a hallucinogenic trip. (slang) Saying crazy things or acting foolishly." These are listed as Adjective senses, but isn't it a verb form? Equinox ◑ 19:33, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

The collocations "the tripping hippy" and "the tripping shaman" have some ghits, but I forget where to look regarding operational tests for making the grade to arrive at unassailable pos=adj status. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:15, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

It just looks like an ing-form to me. It passes noun tests, just like any other ing-form, but there is no novel meaning beyond what is found in the verb. For participles, one of the adjective tests is eliminated, but *"seemed tripping", *"very tripping", and the absence of new meaning say this isn't an adjective either. DCDuring (talk) 13:10, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

vampire time

Isn't this a bit excessive (cites and all)? "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see vampire,‎ time. > Time, when considered relative to a vampire's immortal lifespan. | The manner in which a vampire perceives or measures time. | The time at which one encounters a vampire." We don't usually list a lot of SoP combos like this. Equinox ◑ 19:36, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm inclined to keep it limited to "[&lit]; especially, [principal example]." Given that Wiktionary is not allowed to enter SoP, setting this limit prevents a slippery slope. Someone will object that even the "especially X" part is too much, but I find that objection counterproductive; I think one principal example is tolerable if it has a bit of usefulness beyond what &lit says. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:08, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

PS: I just realized that if closing time and Colored People's Time pass WT:CFI, then I'd have to ponder harder about the senses given for vampire time regarding CFI. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:18, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Words ending -toxinA, -toxinB etc.

Botulinum toxin lists a lot of biosimilars like "abobotulinumtoxinA, daxibotulinumtoxinA, daxibotulinumtoxinA-lanm, evabotulinumtoxinA, incobotulinumtoxinA, letibotulinumtoxinA, letibotulinumtoxinA-wlbg, onabotulinumtoxinA, prabotulinumtoxinA, relabotulinumtoxinA, rimabotulinumtoxinB". No space before the A or B. I've never seen such words before. Are they dictionary terms? Are they still words if you remove the final A or B? Equinox ◑ 20:21, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

Since the advent of biosimilars, people have been asking each other how best to make naming conventions for their nonproprietary names. The themes have involved some suffixes, such as the hyphenated four-letter ones and the solidly affixed ones seen here. The USAN system has adopted some conventions, which can be seen at work in the FDA Purple Book (whereas the FDA Orange Book is for small molecule drugs.) The names referred to above are USANs. The WHO has tried out some things regarding the INNs for biosimilars, not all of which have stuck permanently. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:52, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Cranefly

How do you say cranefly in Hebrew? JulieKahan (talk) 20:58, 4 March 2024 (UTC)

The Hebrew Wikipedia has טיפולות (probably /tipuˈlut/) with an image of the European cranefly.  --Lambiam 22:18, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

This /tipuˈlot/ is just a transcription of the taxon and hardly living language, as with many article titles on Hebrew and Arabic Wikipedia. Fay Freak (talk) 13:19, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

One probably says יַתּוּשׁ (yatū́š), which also serves the title of the superordinate taxon on the mentioned Wikipedia page. Fay Freak (talk) 13:23, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

outstand

I didn't know this was a word, though it stands to reason. However, current definition 2 seems to include more than one definition in it, don't you think? --Cromwellt|Talk|Contribs 04:07, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

To me, lavishing attention and definitions on this archaic word seems a bit silly. I note that there are no citations for any of the senses, which may be not just archaic, but obsolete (or insufficiently attested for inclusion). I don't view citations and usage examples involving outstanding have much bearing on this term. I further note that MWOnline does not have an entry for this, indicating that they don't find it a word in current use. DCDuring (talk) 17:08, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

I just added a total of three quotations for the first two senses, and there are more where they came from. There is nothing silly about attending to a perfectly good and useful term simply because it is dated. It would be far sillier to define, say, emojis in a dictionary, but it seems we have time for that. Multiple Mooses (talk) 05:54, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

summator

I just added an entry for this term after coming across it in Augustine's Confessions. I have only added the obvious sense, however, with a couple of supporting quotations. When I search Google Books, it seems that the term more commonly refers to either a device or a mathematical concept; however, I am not familiar with these, and I cannot find such technical definitions in dictionaries. MW simply has "one who summates". Is there anyone with the expertise and the time to add the missing senses? Multiple Mooses (talk) 05:54, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Almost all the uses I could find related to an element in logic circuit or control system design, which I’ve added as a definition. (I don’t think the mathematical usage is separate from this sense.) It may be there are still more missing senses. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 18:53, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

good old boy

Sense 2. Can we get someone to look at this ? Sounds really biased. Not saying some of the qualities listed are never found among some, but I don't think all are necessarily defining qualities. Maybe something like, "one who is accepted by the community at large, often deriving undue favour based on longstanding familial ties within the community" (?) Leasnam (talk) 17:37, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree the definition needs some cleanup; I would not have thought of "friendly", "unambitious" or "uneducated" as definitional features of a good old boy. E.g. a lawyer could be a good old boy, at least in the sense I'm familiar with, and be educated and ambitious! I also think the "chiefly Southern US" in the label is misplaced... or perhaps we're actually dealing with two separate senses, if there is also a sense by which is this (approbatively?) "one who is accepted by the community at large and derives favor"? The sense I am familiar with is when people make topical reference to the culture/politics of the South (i.e., our mention of the South should be in the definition, not the dialect label), and they say that e.g. a particular sheriff is a "good old boy" = he's a (white) Southerner regarded as embodying stereotypical Southern culture like loyalty to the [white] group / racial bias and conservatism, as an explanation of why he's e.g. stonewalling an investigation into police killing a black man. Dictionary.com defines "good old boy" as "a man who embodies some or all of the qualities considered characteristic of many white men of the southern US, including an unpretentious, convivial manner, conservative or intolerant attitudes, and a strong sense of fellowship with and loyalty to other members of his peer group". - -sche (discuss) 21:42, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

Dendragapus

Do you guys think that Dendragapus comes from the Greek dendron (tree), Greek aga- (intensifying prefix, going back to Indo-European *mǵh2- "large, great"), and Greek -pous (___footed?) 70.119.117.26 18:02, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm sure the start is from dendron, but not sure about aga- (I hadn't seen that prefix before, so I think it might be more obscure) or -pous. Is the genitive attested? A genitive in -podis would confirm that it ends in -pous; a genitive in -pi wouldn't establish it for sure one way or another. These sources suggest the second element is ἀγαπάω (agapáō): http://utahbirds.org/birdsofutah/Profiles/BlueGrouse.htm, https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/key-to-scientific-names/search?q=dendragapus I guess it would then represent a hypothetical Greek *δενδραγαπος or something like that.--Urszag (talk) 22:41, 7 March 2024 (UTC)

The original description doesn't say anything about what Daniel Giraud Elliot had in mind, but I always thought it came from Ancient Greek δένδρον (déndron) + Ancient Greek ᾰ̓γᾰπᾰ́ω (agapáō), as something that "loves trees". According to the page for the genus on Wikipedia, these are birds that live on the edges of forests in mountainous areas of western North America, while many of the better known grouse species live in moors and prairies. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:11, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

There is a suffix -οῦς (-oûs), meaning “-ful”. So perhaps ἀγάπη (agápē) +‎ -οῦς (-oûs) “full of love” (for trees)? The genitive would end in -οῦντος (-oûntos).  --Lambiam 11:17, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

per w:Dendragapus: "Their breeding habitat is the edges of conifer and mixed forests in mountainous regions of North America and Eurasia. Their range is closely associated with that of various conifers." DCDuring (talk) 19:28, 8 March 2024 (UTC)

Adding definition to existing entry

Under advisory, there should be another definition relating to the state of being under an advisor. There is a StackExchange thread about this usage, and some additional sources using the word in this way are: [4][5][6][7] BhamBoi (talk) 01:33, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

While the SE thread you've linked actually discredits the propriety of this usage, and Twitter statuses (stati?) don't count as citations AFAIK, I have added this sense with a couple of decent quotations. I have also tagged it as uncommon and possibly nonstandard per the SE thread. Multiple Mooses (talk) 02:55, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

Is that "supervision of an advisor" or "supervision by an advisor"? DCDuring (talk) 15:46, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

"Under the supervision of an advisor" aka "with supervision by an advisor". I'm going to make it "by" for clarity. Quercus solaris (talk) 06:54, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

vernacular

Too many senses, some should be merged. PUC – 12:56, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

signie

_{Sorry if this posts more than once; i tried posting on the Tea room's main page, which normally adds my topics to the current month automatically, no problem... This time i think it didn't like me trying to add an external link.}

Is Signie a word or a typo? (Sign makes sense in context.) Signie appears in the first quotation under hamburgery#Noun, attributed to a 1935 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette available at newspapers DOT com (but not available to me unless i create an account for that site).

--173.67.42.107 02:32, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

There was evidently during the 1930s and 1940s a type of regiolectic in-joke going with the regular readers of that paper's "Pittsburghesque" column by one Charles F. Danver, judging from the multiple hits at https://www.newspapers.com/search/?query=signie&p_province=us-pa&p_city=pittsburgh&dr_year=1930-1950. It is apparent from the context that Danver and his readers were evidently using the word signie (sign + -ie, diminutive) to mean a humorous fault in the wording of a sign, or a sign containing such a fault. So yes, akin to the word typo in a way, but having to do with wording/phrasing more often than typos or misspellings. In a cursory inspection I didn't see evidence that the word had any currency outside of this column; and it apparently died out circa 1950, if my half-ass inspection was comprehensive enough to detect the timing accurately. If anyone cares enough to spend more time with it, it could be nailed down further. I don't think I'll bother to try to enter signie in Wiktionary because it was evidently only a regiolectic in-joke that died out eventually. Probably if one were to scour WT:CFI it would back up that gut feeling (i.e., Wiktionary probably doesn't want it). Quercus solaris (talk) 06:41, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Neat! Thanks for chasing that down. ...Tempted to link that page to this conversation so people aren't tempted to "fix the misspelling" like i considered doing. --173.67.42.107 15:07, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

 Done Great idea. And it's a good point because WT's ux rules want the vocab in ux items to be fairly clear. I provided a short unobtrusive gloss, and I also commented out a link straight to this discussion thread, which people will encounter if they open the hood there. Quercus solaris (talk) 15:54, 14 March 2024 (UTC). PS: All this talk of 1930s hamburgeries reminds me that I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:14, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

mad dogs and Englishmen

This seems like a weak entry. The definition doesn't express how this can be used in a sentence, and the "citation" is just a paraphrase of the source poem. Is it really a dictionary entry, or just "here is a poem that people sometimes quote"? Equinox ◑ 17:19, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

čiriklo, háček, röck döts and ümlaut as autological

Autological terms refer to themselves, but these only only refer to diacritics that they contain, not to the whole words. We don't include aitch in Category:English autological terms, so why include these? Chuck Entz (talk) 22:47, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Theknightwho (talk) 22:52, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Geltung Plural

The wiktionary article for Geltung says that it has no plural, but Collin's gives "Geltungen" and it is attested in Edmund Husserl's Ideen I. It's not an old Genitive form because it is preceded by 'von ihren' which is only possible if it's dative plural. Should Geltungen be added to the page for Geltung? Mennonitischer Metaphysiker (talk) 07:28, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Spectrology

wiktionary definition includes "1. The science of spectrum analysis." This is incorrect; spectrum analysis is SPECTROMETRY. 86.25.146.134 09:48, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I added a label to mark the sense as obsolete. Apparently there was a time when at least a few people used the word spectrology to mean what we today would only call spectrometry, per Webster 1913. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:11, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Schwank - Schwang

What's the semantic connection between Schwank (“drollery, prank”) and Schwang (“swing; fashion”) (which does seem to be related to schwanken (“to fluctuate, to vary”))? Moreover, Schwank is the supposed etymon of Polish szwank (“harm, wrong”), but I'm not seeing a clear connection there either. @Mahagaja? PUC – 19:08, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't know, but German Wiktionary's entry for de:Schwank says "Die ursprüngliche Bedeutung war „Schlag“ oder „Fechthieb“, die Bedeutungen „witzige Erzählung“, „Streich“ hat sich im 15. Jahrhundert entwickelt." (The original meaning was "blow" or "fencing stroke"; the meanings "witty tale", "prank" developed in the 15th century.) —Mahāgaja · talk 19:27, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

It tells you in the first definition of Grimm’s dictionary: in older language Schwank was a more evil prank, trolling or something, but probably as mondane and physical as a simple blow, swinging one’s arm. And then as Schabernack and Possen it can be used like Unfug, ‘something purposefully inappropriate’. Schwang in the sense of ‘current fashion’ was fashionable, the current thing, around 1900 and means the same as now “der neueste Unfug”. See also Schwalch for the variation. Fay Freak (talk) 19:35, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

warwicensis

Dear Latin speakers, if anyone is able to discern what the correct or natural vowel length of this term should be, please fix it if it's currently wrong. 137.205.213.94 17:55, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I'd say you've done it right. The suffix is as it should be, and deliberately marking either vowel in Warwi- as long (on what grounds?) would be a bit ridiculous. Nicodene (talk) 21:38, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

Is every given name "English", if used in an English sentence?

Would like to know if most people agree with this or not: User_talk:CitationsFreak#Kia. Equinox ◑ 21:09, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

I certainly don't agree with CF's blanket pass. I think it's a difficult question though. PUC – 21:20, 13 March 2024 (UTC)

By the same logics they are translingual. In reality what decides what language a name is is racist or culturalist idpol, but this must be left unexpressed if only because we are more academia than in reality, in our aspirations. There is no easy, purely rational rule to tell people what names they can create, instead this is planned ambiguity young editors get ahead of over time. Better no rules than bad rules or something, lack of clarity can be rectified by experience, guided by actually felt needs or lacks rather than abstract ideals of what we could add and get away with it because there is no formula against it: you don’t live in a Cartesian plane, go for the verisimile, where you get 80 % of the revenue with 20 % effort: Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2019-11/CFI policy for foreign given names and surnames, Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2023/August#Determining language for a vote on multiple accounts. Otherwise we can go through the top 1000 list of Turkish forenames and create them for German and so on, it will be certain, if you care so much for what is certain.

Just be reminded that the entries must be useful for someone, not follow some essentialist who’s-who-assignment. Sometimes everything is told but with unusually circumstantial language specification, as with those Dacian words, or when it is less important whether something is English or Middle English or Middle French or Old French or Middle High German or New High German (e.g. I was not decided what chronolect the vulgar quote at rumsen is in), or words spread in several Arabic dialects are added under the general Arabic heading, or I didn’t bother to add the IPL definition of dépeçage to more than one language section (you understand its meaning in a German law text with the French entry; Geographyinitiative clearly was guided by his greater drive for completion of the dictionary when he copied the definition for an English section), or when in a single word glossed in a medieval margin you don’t know whether it is Old French or Middle English (→ dittander). Fay Freak (talk) 00:09, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

There's tension between the theoretical goal of the Wiktionary project to describe "all words of all languages" and the fact that the way the site is set up at the technical level, and how contributors edit entries, realistically prevents this from ever being accomplished. Not all aspects of names are translingual: language-specific information can include pronunciations (if there is anything more specific than "as close as you can manage to the pronunciation of the name in another language"), inflections, even spelling in some cases. The citations showing usage are themselves language-specific data. None of that seems inherently unsuitable to a dictionary to me; I don't really get what's interesting about adding names in many cases, but what's interesting is subjective. It does seem like it would lead to technical problems to have extremely broad inclusion criteria for names, though, because I'd guess there are probably some that can be attested in even more languages than all but the biggest single-letter entries.--Urszag (talk) 00:30, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

@Urszag: @CitationsFreak: Well, you may be arguing towards every name being Translingual (!!). But not every name being English. I would like to hear more logic and philosophy supporting this. Equinox ◑ 16:53, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Honestly, I could see us putting every name in Translingual. CitationsFreak (talk) 17:19, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Unless we retain pronunciation info, I don’t think it’s a good idea. Plus, many languages phonologically adapt spellings, even though English doesn’t. Plus, there are often alternate forms that are only used in particular languages. It just seems like a recipe for oversimplification. Theknightwho (talk) 17:26, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

The names are definitely used in English, even if the people who have them may not be from English-speaking areas. As an example, take Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He is from Ukraine, a non-English-speaking nation. But no one speaking Ukrainian spells it like that, as they use a different script. So, it is English and not Ukrainian. CitationsFreak (talk) 17:33, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm confused how I'm "arguing towards every name being Translingual" when I explicitly wrote "Not all aspects of names are translingual" and gave examples of things that could be specific to the English entry (citations, pronunciation and spelling).--Urszag (talk) 20:42, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't see the interest either in most cases but don't have serious objections to adding names either. As an anti-flooding measure we could set a random standard like ‘belongs to someone who has won an Oscar’ (at which point we'll have to RFD Leonardo of course). Nicodene (talk) 20:50, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Maybe a more justifiable standard would involve applying criteria such as the following:

1. The name must be attested according to the usual standard set out in WT:ATTEST.
2. Subject to the following criterion, do not treat a name as English if it originates from a modern language other than English.
3. However, treat such a name as English if it is the name of a notable person whose first language is English. A person will be regarded as notable if they have a Wikipedia article about them in any language.

— Sgconlaw (talk) 22:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

One good reason to list names such as Joaquin as English is that they have nativized pronunciations in English. If we force them all to be translingual, there will be no way for the reader to figure out that it's pronounced /wɑˈkiːn/ and not one of the many other possible pronunciations one could come up with for this name. Jose needs to stay too because it has two completely different pronunciations, both unpredictable from knowing the Spanish.

Unless we want to start putting multilingual pronunciation sections under the Translingual header, but I'm sure that would just lead to another argument later on where they could get deleted and leave us with nothing. —Soap— 07:41, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@Soap, Sgconlaw, Urszag: Individually collapsed pronunciation sections under multilingual sections make a lot of sense. Sometimes we need other language-specific information - inflection and gender come to mind. --RichardW57m (talk) 17:39, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

fundamental

From Late Latin fundamentālis, from Latin fundamentum (“foundation”), from fundō (“to lay the foundation (of something), to found”), from fundus (“bottom”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰmḗn. However, fundō and fundus are from 2 different root. Please verify. Duchuyfootball (talk) 05:49, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

@Duchuyfootball see fundo#Etymology 2. Ioaxxere (talk) 06:33, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

bix nood

Could the protection level on this entry be decreased so that it may be created? See Citations:bix nood, which has recently been expanded by @Mynewfiles. Ioaxxere (talk) 06:40, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

if we can get this cited, i agree it should have a page, as offensiveness doesnt disqualify a word. but i dont agree that it's cited. looking at the cites page, all i see is two cites for each sense (because three of the four in the second category are by the same author). i'm not sure we can really count the cites in the third section. —Soap— 15:24, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

@Soap The three qualifying citations for the sense "African-American" could be: 2006 November 16 by Ace Lightning, 2007 January 23 by nikolai kingsley, and 2008 April 3 by Don Stockbauer. Ioaxxere (talk) 21:25, 18 March 2024 (UTC)

ستان

What does this word actually mean? The entry defines it as -stan, -istan (ie with a transliteration!) and going to those entries tends to direct the reader back to this page. -istan has been under discussion in the tea room for 3 years as being "a gloss of the Persian" - that's an especially serious problem if the Persian is itself undefined! 2A02:3037:409:8190:7AB7:9366:EB03:8AD6 12:47, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

Al

Al#English says Al is A diminutive of the male given names Alan, Albert, Alexander, Alfred, or other names beginning with Al- but shouldn't we mention some women/girls also have that nickname? Alison, Alexandra... i tried to remove the word male but the template must need that field because it became A diminutive of the unknown-gender given names...

--173.67.42.107 14:55, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

i changed it to other male or female names beginning with Al- but i'm still curious about the template. (For example, does the template automatically add it to male categories, and should it also be in female or gender-neutral categories?) --173.67.42.107 15:01, 14 March 2024 (UTC)

I can certainly believe there are some women named Al, but i'd think they must be much rarer than the men. Could we have two definition lines, one for men and one for women, to give better attention to detail so a foreign language learner would know that the name is still primarily male? Thanks, —Soap— 12:05, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I like that suggestion. Two senses entered instead of one. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

feus, plural of feu (French)

could someone please touch up the feus page? We list it as the plural of feu, but we dont say which feu it is. Is it the word for fire, in which case feus would be an alternate splelling of feux? Or is it the "dead" sense, in which case it should either be changed to an adjective, or listed as both noun an adjective? Thanks, —Soap— 12:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

EN: Nos.

The abbreviation Nos. lacks an etymology. Maybe the logic is that it is formed by appending -s to No., so calling is a plural is sufficient explanation. But, hypothetically, it could perhaps have come from Latin numeris?

OK, having written it out, that [latter] hypothesis is making less and less sense. Nonetheless, is there (ideally) supposed to be an etymology? There is one at days#Etymology_1 for instance. —DIV (1.145.111.69 10:49, 16 March 2024 (UTC))

It comes from No.#Etymology with a plural -s tacked on without regard for philologic fine points, much like lbs, bbls, kgs, kms, and others. It is without doubt descriptively a thing, widely used, regardless of any prescriptive urges to discourage it. As for how Wiktionary would best convey those facts in a way whose tone passes muster: it could be worked out. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:23, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

Good contribution. I have split the added text to retain some under Etymology, and shifted some to Usage Notes.

BTW, much as Nos. might not observe the philologic subtleties, I had been on the verge of amending No. to No's, which apparently doesn't get used at all. In my mind I had initially — vaguely — interpreted the full-stop as indicating truncation of the original word, perhaps a hypothetical *nomera, for which the hypothetical plural *nomeras could be formed by use of an apostrophe! Apparently the full-stop there is actually just a general marker of any sort of abbreviation, in the same vein as Mr. for mister.

Personally I prefer № over No.. Not sure whether № has a plural form; №s doesn't look quite right. (And N^os is not much better!) —DIV (1.145.62.225 01:12, 21 March 2024 (UTC))

The tweak looks good, thanks. Undoubtedly many people handwrote forms looking like N^os and N^os. in the era of handwritten business ledgers (1800s-1900s). I doubt there will ever be a Unicode code point assigned to that character identity, but it could happen. Quercus solaris (talk) 20:44, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

ꝇ / Ꝇ Spanish usage

The pages for ꝇ and Ꝇ claim that it can be used in Spanish for 〈ll〉 "chiefly in handwriting". It is totally unsourced and when I searched for it outwith Wikimedia sites, people seem to be thinking it's either a mistake or just made up. I can't personally find ꝇ being used in Spanish, but perhaps someone saw something like *lᷝ somewhere and misinterpreted it as ꝇ? I can see how lᷝ could be used in a manner similar to uͤ/oͤ/aͤ in older German or Swedish texts.

There is also no corresponding page in Spanish. The Wikipedia pages in both English and Spanish don't mention it being used in Spanish either at the moment.

Should the Spanish section of the pages for ꝇ and Ꝇ be removed? Senicasilurum (talk) 14:05, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

• It's bullshit. Removed Phacromallus (talk) 23:52, 18 March 2024 (UTC)
  • I removed it again P. Sovjunk (talk) 23:21, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Egyptian Hieroglyph cats?

Looking up 𓃀, there is the text "This glyph was conventionally colored red." Similar for other colors for other characters. Should we create a handful of color categories for red/blue/green etc? 92.71.60.61 11:35, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Interesting idea! We could even use a template, so instead of manually writing "This glyph was conventionally colored..." and manually adding a category, we could write e.g. {{egy-hiero-color|red}} (this is just a placeholder suggestion; change it if someone has a better idea) and that'd add the text and category. This would cover a lot of glyphs, although we'd want to think about how to handle polychrome glyphs like the vulture or woman (e.g., categorize them as polychrome and manually state what colors were used? is probably a better idea than categorizing them as both polychrome and red and green, etc), and glyphs that have multiple conventional colorings (e.g. 𓊌 was conventionally either white or blue, and there's added verbiage about what stone each color represented: maybe that has to be handled manually, or the template could have syntax to add both the "white" and "blue" categories and suppress the auto-generated text so the longer explanatory text could be written out?). - -sche (discuss) 16:04, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

@-sche: I think this is a decent idea and generally agree with your suggestions on handling polychrome glyphs and so forth; I do think a lot of cases will need to be handled with manually added text, but as you say, we could just have a parameter in the template to suppress the default text in that case. (Unrelatedly, forgive my lateness in replying in the other discussions about hieroglyphs/hieratic we were having; due to computer issues, I lost the reply I had drafted and was demoralized for a bit, but I do still intend to get back to you!) — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 20:26, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

No worries. As for hieratic, I've run out of steam for adding large numbers of characters for now, but if you identify any characters c:Category:Hieratic glyphs (Georg Möller) is missing which you consider important, I'll prioritize adding them.
Do you have any thoughts on what to name these categories? "Category:Red Egyptian hieroglyphs"? "Category:Egyptian hieroglyphs which were conventionally colored red"? - -sche (discuss) 21:46, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

OK, I've set up a very simple {{egy-hiero-color}} and categories like Category:Red Egyptian hieroglyphs. Please flag issues, make improvements, etc. I have not yet categorized all glyphs. - -sche (discuss) 21:40, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

unqualified

Sense 2: "Her cooking ability, while mentioned, was unqualified by her." What does it mean? PUC – 18:58, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Not expanded upon i.e. "They said she can cook, but not to what degree". Vininn126 (talk) 19:01, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

Why "by her" though? "She said she can cook, but not to what degree"? The passive voice sounds really weird, do people really talk like that? PUC – 19:05, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

I agree with "by her" is weird; it makes it seem more like a verb form. "her unqualified abilities" would be better. But I've just replaced the usex with two book quotes. - -sche (discuss) 19:10, 19 March 2024 (UTC)

One cannot help but wonder, were her unqualified cooking abilities an unqualified success?  --Lambiam 21:03, 20 March 2024 (UTC)

It must mean that she mentioned her own cooking skills, but didn't give any details. (As suggested by PUC.) Otherwise "by her" doesn't work. I don't think anyone talks like that, but they do write like that. It's probably intended to give an ironic tone. 90.186.83.227 04:09, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

In a bit, in a bizzle, IAB and family

Hello, I intended to create "IAB" (as a text messaging abbreviation) but noticed its full form, in a bit, currently does not exist, although I think it's idiomatic enough to warrant an entry. Likewise, the alternative in a bizzle should be created as well if this is deemed worthy of addition.

Should we create entries for these? 2A02:C7C:6B0B:9000:BD6C:6E99:18AD:9682 02:55, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

For 'in a bit' I would say no, as we already have it in what is currently the 8th sense of bit in the noun under English Etymology 1. For bizzle, we would probable need 3 quotations immediately, as the word has already been deleted. --RichardW57m (talk) 12:12, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

gain time

I see lose time has an entry but not gain time. Thoughts? Justin the Just (talk) 17:43, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

“gain time”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. DCDuring (talk) 20:05, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

in future: only 'from now on', or also 'at a future time'?

Our entries say the UK uses "in future" = "from now on", and "in the future" = "at (a) point(s) in the future" (whereas the US uses "in the future" for both), However, I find British speakers using "in future" in contexts where it seems to mean "at (a) point(s) in the future", not "from now on".
For example, at 14:20, Hannah Fry talks about computers guessing if someone will "commit a crime in future", and at 1:52, a British defense ?analyst? speculating about potential future uses of Britain developing a laser weapon, mentions it could be used on various platforms "in future", which (in context) I would more easily interpret as saying the laser weapon could be useful on various platforms as they are developed as time passes / at points in the future, rather than saying "from now on we're going to use this on various platforms".
(On Youglish, I also turned up this US-born, UK-based costumer saying "in future" at 6:18 in a context that, again, I can only take to mean "at (a) point(s) in the future", not "from now on".)
So it seems like the claimed distinction is not quite right, and "in future" is (sometimes?) just a general/all-senses (UK) synonym of "in the future"...? - -sche (discuss) 20:45, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

I revised the entries. - -sche (discuss) 00:36, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

tài phiệt

This is currently categorized as "Japanese Vietnamese" (Vietnamese as used by Vietnamese speakers in Japan) due to sense 3 having a "Japan" label. However, sense 2's "South Korea" label wikilinks "South Korea" to avoid categorizing as "South Korean Vietnamese". Is sense 3 maybe also not intended to claim tài phiệt is only used to mean zaibatsu by Vietnamese speakers in Japan, but rather is just trying to say that when the topic is Japan/zaibatsu, these are called tài phiệt by Vietnamese speakers even in Vietnam? If so, is there a clearer way we could indicate that, than via the labels which (in the Japanese case) categorize this as belonging to a regional dialect, or (in the Korean case) are confusingly visually indistinguishable from that? (Compare what I did for xenium, which an IP had categorized as "Roman English".) - -sche (discuss) 03:45, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Sep vs. Sept

My grammar book lists the abbreviations for month names as follows:

Jan Feb Mar Apr Aug Sept Oct Nov Dec

That is, only Sept is four-letter. In Wiktionary we also have Sep. Do we know which one is more common, and whether this is due to any regional variation? --Z 09:32, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Z 09:32, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

With dots, Ngrams finds "Aug. Sept. Oct." to be several times more common than "Aug. Sep. Oct." Without dots, it says "Aug Sep Oct" is more common than "Aug Sept Oct". Dots are generally more common in the US and less common in the UK, so this broadly lines up with what various other places online say, that the US uses "Sept." more than "Sep.", while the UK uses either. (There's also variation between writers, and possibly regions, in whether only July, only June, both, or neither gets abbreviated.) - -sche (discuss) 16:42, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Since the advent of ubiquitous computer use (via the microcomputer revolution and then the web era), because the use of codified date formats is so widespread (such as YYYY-Mmm-DD or DD-Mmm-YY, as input masks and output masks), people do tend to be influenced toward using the same number of letters (i.e., 3) for all 12 months. This is why it is widespread to use "Jun" and "Jul" even though there is hardly any abbreviating "savings" by chopping off merely 1 terminal letter, and it yields "Sep" instead of "Sept" as well. This "just follow the [character-count] pattern invariably" factor is interesting because before the PC era and web era it did not figure into usage choices quite as much, although some earlier instances existed too, such as when postal codes were introduced in the 1960s and new sets of postal abbreviations (with uniform character count for all set members) were codified. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:18, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

ellipsis

The ellipsis page says in part, used to indicate ... (in mathematics) that a pattern continues (e.g., 1, ..., 4 means 1, 2, 3, 4). Is this a standardized mathematical notation? Looking at 1, ..., 4 from a linguistic perspective, i wouldn't be comfortable assuming the sequence or set to be 1, 2, 3, 4. Maybe a better example might be 1, 2, 3, ... 98, 99, 100 or 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13... or 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13... IF any of those correctly use the mathematical notation. Come to think of it, should the usage with numbers be split out from its usage with words? --173...67...42...107...173.67.42.107 16:59, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Mathematical notation has not been standardized, but $1,...,4$ is definitely highly unusual. The common practice is to give at least two, but usually three or more elements before the ellipsis. For examples on Wikipedia, see the section Ellipsis § In mathematical notation, as well as Series (mathematics) and Natural number § Notation.  --Lambiam 23:05, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

The def seems way too big in the first place. How about: "A mark consisting of more than one period."? CitationsFreak (talk) 00:16, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Almost all of the info given in the first sense there is cogent and bears keeping. The definition of what an ellipsis is consists not only of which glyphs constitute the character but also what the character means semantically. The part about spaces versus no spaces could be deleted because Wikipedia covers it so Wiktionary doesn't have to. Style guides have wasted ink on it over the years and many users of style guides are under the impression that it matters (independently of whether it truly does). Quercus solaris (talk) 03:33, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Got it. Kept most of the def, just removed the specific number of dots reference and converted the two examples into a usage note. CitationsFreak (talk) 05:30, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

zoophile

The definition is currently "A person sexually attracted to non-human animals." which is accurate from a sciences viewpoint, but I don't think quite accurately represents its common use. I think an appropriate common use definition would be "A person who desires sex or is sexually active with non-human animals." Identifying as a Zoophile is taboo in most of the world, so I think it is important to be as clear as possible. It could also be argued that a Zoophile could be defined as: "A person who has had sex with a non-human animal or chooses to self-identify as such". Those that do identify as zoophiles might have a more refined definition though. Subanark (talk) 17:33, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

Can sexual attraction exist without desire? Otherwise, what is the difference between “being sexually attracted to” and “desiring sex with”?  --Lambiam 23:11, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

The difference is intent. Attraction just means "you feel a connection", while desire is a "wants or planning too". The idea being that you can't really control attraction as it is a in the moment feeling, While desire is a more of a continuous emotion. A better phrase than desire might be "hopes too have" Subanark (talk) 23:38, 22 March 2024 (UTC)

🔛🔝

I fail to see how 🔛🔝, 🔙🔛🔝, or 🔙🔛🔝🔜 constitute idiomatic expressions. They are just constructing phrases with emojis, i.e. sum of parts. I do, however, think other emoji combinations can be idiomatic, like 😐😑😐 (slow blink conveying a stunned reaction), 👉 👈 (felling shy), or 🐂💩. I propose that 🔛🔝 be deleted unless someone disagrees. Nosferattus (talk) 16:02, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't see how 🔛🔝 is any less idiomatic than the literal English phrase on top. Binarystep (talk) 07:15, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

@Binarystep In that case, isn't it just an alternative spelling of on top? Nosferattus (talk) 20:39, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

@Nosferattus That's what it's already listed as. Given the existence of similar terms like 🧢 for cap, 🗑️🔥 for dumpster fire, and 🐂💩 for bullshit, it might be a good idea to make a separate category for rebus spellings. Binarystep (talk) 00:12, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Five CJKV characters with common component

I have come across five characters 更, 茰, 㤤, 㻀, 䛕 which have a common component that can be described as either "曳 mirrored" (i.e. ⿾曳), or 日 and 乂 combined (i.e. ⿻日乂). I have decomposed them according to the latter in those five entries, but I have also added the five characters to the derived section of 曳.

I do not think that we should make a new page just for this component, but which decomposition is better? Other suggestions are also welcome. --kc_kennylau (talk) 17:18, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

hese

What is "hese" (rhymed with "these" and "please") in the third verse of The Sausage Man? It is not listed at hese. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:03, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing I couldn't find any other citations that were similar. I wonder if it's short for something else, like "Borghese". Nosferattus (talk) 20:01, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing I solved the mystery. "Hese" is a typo (or ink smudge). The word is actually "Hose", short for "pantyhose". The word is intended to rhyme with "those" two lines up. "These" rhymes with "please" further down. Nosferattus (talk) 20:10, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Would like to include more Latin words in the category: -idus

Hi! There are many English words ending with '-id' actually comes from Latin terms with the affix '-idus' and there is a category named Latin terms suffixed with -idus. To include a new word in this category, one is supposed to use {{af|la|base|-idus}} in etymology section of an entry, for example, for acidus#Latin, {{suffix|la|aceō|t1=I am sour|idus}} is all fine. At the same time, the {{C|af|la|-idus}} doesn't make sense to add a latin word without a direct combination of base and -idus in this category, for example, solidus#Latin and insipidus#Latin. So I'm feeling a bit puzzled about how to include these words in this category as well. Thank you! (talk) 21:19, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

Well, you don't. If there is no base word to derive your word ending in -idus from, then that word is not actually suffixed with -idus, it just ends in -idus. PUC – 21:24, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

I see, thanks! AnnHarryArb (talk) 21:33, 23 March 2024 (UTC)

principle of least change

Idiomatic? See google:"the principle of least change", google books:"the principle of least change". I see we do have lots of other principles, e.g. principle of least action, principle of least astonishment. - -sche (discuss) 15:22, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I think we might also want to create an entry for the principle of least effort. Let's take the path of least resistance and create them all. PUC – 17:11, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

I support that idea. I think it's reasonable and appropriate even within WT:CFI limits. Quercus solaris (talk) 21:05, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

balance the sheets

I'm not convinced the current definition is accurate. PUC – 17:17, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

To me it looks like a weakly pejorative/dismissive term for balance the books. DCDuring (talk) 23:57, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

impignorate

p. pl. of impignorare... What is p. pl.? P. Sovjunk (talk) 23:22, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Should be perfect passive participle. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:43, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

altispinus - and other such latin words

Could those with good knowledge of latin please check the entry for altispinus, does everything there seem well formed? Then a broader latin question, if presented with the word-form of "altispīna" without context, could that also be interpreted a something akin to a compound noun? (if so i hope you would explain carefully as i struggle with how to form compound words in latin!) Sjl197 (talk) 07:17, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Wouldn't we be better off with a more terse entry (eg, no declension table) under a Translingual L2? I am skeptical that we can find citations apart from species names. In this case, at Catalog of Life, I don't find altispinus in species names, but I do find 7 instances of altispina; 2 of altispinosa, 3 of altispinosus; 3 of altispinis; 1 of altispinnis. On this evidence we could not exclude altispina being a noun. In one instance (Dirhinus altispina) it follows a masculine genus name, which would support altispina being a noun. DCDuring (talk) 12:36, 25 March 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for feedback, if there's agreement that it can fit a latin adjective (i.e. latin noun and latin modifier), then i'd currently prefer it stays that way - rather than say translingual. You hit the crux of my concern though, it's about formation of species names from that - where as it seems you know well, the species epithet for adjectives and participles should have gender, number and case agreement. The cause of my query is a related (but different) case of the same issue. I liked your idea of searching name usage in Catalog of Life in that way - hence no instance of altispinum, and e.g. i find that same set of 7 and instances of altispina - which i fear includes another in a neuter genus, also on my mind. Anyway, per your example, i'd agree that particular genus Dirhinus seems masculine (I only quickly infer that), and I find it useful that you highlighted it in this context. However, where i cannot agree is agree that particular name-formation "would support altispina being a noun" - only that others have perhaps somehow thought it *could* be. I just checked the source of Bouček & Narendran, 1981, as sometimes later listings do not reflect the actual original combination is, but it's indeed originally the same, which as you seem fully aware of, if treated as an adjective then that does not agree in gender. Sjl197 (talk) 03:16, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

There is no metaphysical PoS status apart from usage. If users use it a as a noun, it's a noun. We have no indication of altispinus being an adjective and at least weak indication of it being a noun. "Weak" is better than "none". DCDuring (talk) 14:27, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

Well said. Admittedly it may break some hearts to hear the metaphysical emptiness. Yea, shall we ask what a POS is, only to find that a POS is as a POS does. If lexical categorization can't be handsome, at least it can be handy. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:41, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm saddened by the advanced erosion of the distinction in English usage (quantifier selection) between countable and uncountable nouns ("10 items or less"). I am also troubled by the ambiguous status of temporal/locative words and phrases ("I am home."). Usage doesn't always conform neatly to our Latin-derived PoS categories, but we don't want too much proliferation of PoS categories that normal users learned nothing about. We have to take advantage of hard evidence, however sparse, when we have it. DCDuring (talk) 14:04, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

@DCDuring, Sjl197: What's the evidence that Dirhinus is assuredly or originally masculine? There's also the species Dirhinus caerulea, which speaks for feminine gender. I'm not a Grecian, but it looks to me like a Greek adjective of two terminations (i.e. the feminine is the same as the masculine). --RichardW57m (talk) 16:35, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

I didn't find Dirhinus caerulea among the species of Dirhinus at Wikispecies (which doesn't have an entry for the genus) or at the Catalogue of Life (current version). Where did you find it? I found it at IRMNG, which cited COL 2006, presumably superseded by the current online version. The search of the current CoL database yielded 45 species of which no instances of unambiguously feminine adjectives and had many instances of unambiguously masculine adjectives as specific epithets. I also did a cursory search at Wikispecies for genera ending in rhinus (not rrhinus, using intitle:/[A-Z][a-z]+[^r]rhinus/) and found hardly any unambiguously feminine specific epithets and many unambiguously masculine ones. It is not unusual to find gender errors in the literature and, less often, in the taxonomic databases. Other sources that had Dirhinus caerulea include WP, whose list of 70 species of Dirhinus had ~25 with unambiguous masculine specific epithets and one other that was feminine (cornuta). Though this is not an exhaustive search, it supports the idea that current usage in the taxonomic community seems to indicate the Dirhinus is masculine. Any contrary evidence (not anecdotes or hypotheses) is welcome. DCDuring (talk) 18:54, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

As names in -rhinus seem to be adjectival in origin, the gender could be either. As a lot of the species names are genitives, it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the namers of the species have overlooked the possibility of feminines (or indeed neuters) in -us that aren't tree names, like anus f (“old woman”). Robert Heinlein's planet name Tellus Tertius always makes me wince. As you say, there are plenty of errors in gender.

Names in '-rrhinus' are also germane; the gemination is a feature of Greek.

I first found D. caerulea on Wikipedia, but there were hits elsewhere. --RichardW57 (talk) 02:56, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of cases among specific epithets for species of Dirhinus and of other genera ending in rhinus says they are masculine and, therefore that altispina is a noun in Dirhinus altispina. Further evidence about altispina being a noun when used as a specific epithet is its use in Paecilaema altispina, Paecilaema being neuter. So, there are two cases incompatible with there being Translingual usage of altispinus as an adjective. There are also two related terms, altispinis, used with masculine genus Serrasalmus, and altispinosus, used with masculine genus Mikrogeophagus, suggesting that those authors didn't have faith that altispinus was an adjective. DCDuring (talk) 14:51, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Thank-you all for continued discussion. Before holding up "Paecilaema altispina" as another poster-child where the species suffix doesn't appear to fit the neuter genus, then i just wish to highlight that same paper, the author describes several other species in that same genus, and notably formed ALL apparent adjectives in their feminine, i.e. his P. maculata, P. vittata, P. oculta. Many species suffixes were subsequently altered from their original "feminine" to reflect the neuter in Kury, 2003 or Kury & Alonso-Zarazaga 2011. It's actually one on my mind since the start of my question - i just tried to avoid mention any named genera or specifically about nomenclature issues, but here we are. Actually, there are a bunch of other potentially discrepant species names with variations on same theme, e.g. paucispina, longispina, brevispina - and all of these often get treated as adjectives with varying gender. The key question i had was at core whether altispina (or really any of those others like paucispina) without any context *could* be interpreted as a noun. I think sadly i now fear so. Where i have since lost all hope is that due to vagaries of "metaphysical emptiness" or just by authors forming taxon names 'badly' or not defining their word origins, then trying do define whether some are better seen as nouns or adjectives can be an exercise in futility! I've seen other cases where appeal was made to the classical literature, especially if they have been used historically as nouns. If done that way, then i'm doubtful of any use of 'altispina' can be found beyond the taxonomic literature. It then seems rather a circular argument to use taxonomic nomenclature to define whether words used in taxonomic nomenclature can be taken as nouns or not.

Else, back to Dirhinus - i half-remember 'rhinus' and ones like it sometimes get complication from similar words [here e.g. ῥῑνόν • (rhīnón) n <- neuter], but if origin is with the usual stem [ῥῑνός • (rhīnós) f], then at least for zoology, i think it's that the latinization of the suffix as "-us" takes us to definine the genus as masculine (per ICZN 30.1.3 = a genus-group name that is a Greek word latinized with change of ending, or with a Latin or latinized suffix, takes the gender normally appropriate to the changed ending or the Latin suffix)". Anyway, as said, it looks like the genus is being treated as masculine from general listings and various other species described by multiple authors. I found those divergent "Dirhinus caerulea" and "Dirhinus cornuta" listed on en-Wiki (WP), but also in IRMNG [8] Even if those species not currently in that genus (by revised listings), they look like they'd been in that genus as some time, according to someone, but i'd anticipate those combinations may have just been malformed, etc.. Sjl197 (talk) 16:34, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I have little appetite for the Codes. I follow taxonomic usage, which reflects, 1., names from the era when taxonomists knew Latin, 2., modern taxonomists imitating historical practice in the genera they work on, and 3., the Codes' allowing/encouraging taxonomists to correct erroneous gender. When necessary I use the classical dictionaries. Not all errors are corrected, but prevailing practice usually agrees with classical practice. Relatively few taxonomists are good classicists, so we see a great number of epithets in genitive case, having the same form for both masculine and feminine genera, or invariant, sometimes because they are not Latinized. DCDuring (talk) 03:40, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Shouldn't this be listed as Translingual instead of Latin? Nosferattus (talk) 20:37, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I would think just altispina, as a noun. I haven't seen any citations for 'real' Latin. DCDuring (talk) 03:40, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't get why any desire to adopt "translingual' if all parts of the etymology of altispinus are clearly latin. But hey, i'm still stuck on why other words formed the same way are being taken as adjectives both here and in the taxonomic literature, e.g. longispinus#Latin Sjl197 (talk) 13:01, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Etymology is not what governs, but usage. Latin is no longer the language of species descriptions as it formerly was, so species names in current use appear only embedded in some non-Latin language. It would be fine with me if Scientific Latin, Medical Latin, Legal Latin, herbal-medicine Latin, and motto Latin ("e pluribus unum")) were all called Latin, whether or not they followed Latin grammar and spelling and whether or not they were used as idiomatic units (non-SoP) only when embedded in non-Latin text. There is no consensus favoring that position. In fact, there is more of a consensus opposing it. DCDuring (talk) 15:35, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

I don't know about the other types of technical terms, but modern taxonomic Latin has some peculiarities:

1. Minimal grammar. There are no sentences, only names.
   1. Ranks of genus and higher are only nouns in the nominative.
   2. Ranks of species and lower are adjectival in function and modify the generic name as:
      1. Adjectives in the nominative (agreeing in gender with the generic name
      2. Nouns in the genitive (agreeing in gender with the referent). These are of two main types:
         1. The referent is not a taxon
         2. The referent is a taxon, usually as a way of indicating that the live on or parasitize the organisms in that taxon.
      3. Nouns in the nominative, in apposition (no gender agreement at all)
2. Everything is coined by people who are not native speakers from:
   1. Latin words
   2. Ancient Greek words converted to Latin
   3. Words in any other language or arbitrary sequences of letters converted to Latin

There are four ways to determine gender of generic names:

1. For Latin or Latinized Ancient Greek, from the gender of the etyma
2. The gender of the specific epithets assigned to it in the original publication of the genus
3. A statement by author in the original publication of the genus
4. A determination published later by a taxonomist

Gender of higher taxa can only be determined if they are referents of epithets for taxa at the rank of species or below in the genitive.

As I've said before, this is a very reduced subset of Latin which I've compared to a hen which spends its entire life in a cage laying eggs. As an artificial system dictated by taxonomic codes, it's inherently prescriptive. Any departures from the codes can be corrected in publications by other taxonomists, or overruled by the decision-making bodies of the taxonomic organizations. Of course, the literature is full of taxonomic names that have been determined to be incorrect, so any scientific manual listing the taxa of an area includes a synonymy for each of them that gives other names for each of them along with who published them. Also, real-world considerations don't have much influence. I'm sure there are taxonomic names still in use honoring vile and discredited people, etc., as well as incorporating racist and otherwise offensive terms. At least some of the codes have prohibitions on creating new names that are offensive, but I don't know if they're enforced. I also don't know what would happen with an epithet in the genitive that got the gender of a transgendered person wrong.

That said, there are also pockets of fully formed Latin in taxonomy: it used to be that the formal publication of a taxon had to include a diagnosis in Latin describing the taxon in enough detail to tell it apart from other taxa. Going further back, reference works and other publications meant to be read by taxonomists outside the authors' own countries were generally written in Latin. The increasing use of the vernacular has swept through all the codes, to the point that the code for viruses has abandoned Latin for even the names, though taxonomists have the option to use it if they want. There are some taxonomic names that appear in Latin prose written by taxonomists in taxonomic publications that include inflected forms not part of the taxonomic naming subsystem- I'm not sure where we would put that information. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:03, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

Bab

This Zazaki word is defined as "the big daddy", in a family category. What does that mean? Equinox ◑ 09:07, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

My money's on the big papa, a patriarch of the clan. Probably not not cognate with baba. I'm too ignorant to confirm it, but I placed my bet here for fun. If it turns out I'm wrong then I'm on the hook for 5 bones to big papa Jimbo. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:44, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

PS: I'd link the lexicalized collocation big daddy at the Bab entry, but I'll leave it to someone who confirms the nature of the bigness. Quercus solaris (talk) 20:50, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Just to be clear, did you mean it's probably not not cognate, or not not not cognate? Thanks, —Soap— 22:25, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Ha ha, just a bit of litotes there; it wasn't not unnecessary, strictly speaking. I'm rollin them bones on both the meaning and the apparent cognation, to make it interesting. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:48, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

We do have an entry for big daddy, but it's errrr open-ended at best. @Quercus solaris if you feel able to make the decision for this ethnic group, let's narrow it down. If you think you might be colonialising, let's not. Equinox ◑ 02:02, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

Agreed on those latter points. I'm going to leave it alone, and hopefully someday someone will come along who can bring more confirmation to it. Given how much the archetypes of typical human family units have interesting transcultural homology, my money's on dramatis personae that include big daddy (often a grandpappy) as the patriarch, big mama as the matriarch, and so on. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:11, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

@Quercus solaris: We love you even if you don't show off with the long words. I am not a total idiot (hopefully) and I've defined more Renaissance inkhorn abortions (which I personally dislike) more than you've had hot dinners but I feel as though "transcultural homology...dramatis personae" helps you (or your ego) more than our readers. Equinox ◑ 02:27, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

LOL, merely mots justes. It would make for more time and longer sentences if I were to circumlocute. (I already get plenty of ass-whuppins for the time and length parameters without exacerbating.) In all seriousness though, I'm just having fun talking shop in the non-mainspace namespaces. I don't do that in the mainspace. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:30, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

If I am to read this as "nobody would appreciate my comedy elsewhere" then yes, I withdraw it :) Equinox ◑ 02:40, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

spanking

If someone with OED access wants to look at their entry to judge whether it's worth splitting our own entry as spank into two etymologies, one for the intransitive "move along" sense and one for everything else, that'd be nice. if it's just an OED tradition to split based on transitive vs intransitive, then we wont need to. if OED sees two origins even if theyre both sound symbolism, then im not sure what our tradition usually is. thanks, —Soap— 12:44, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

@Soap I can check OED entries for you in small numbers. No batch botting. Just saying. Equinox ◑ 02:17, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

I've split spank. Please have a look. Leasnam (talk) 03:54, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

It looks good. Is spanking new related to the former practice of spanking new born babies so they draw breath or is it just a coincidence that people did that? The first number 2 single in the UK charts was the following in fact[9]. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 08:06, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

My gut instinct is that spanking new is Etymology 2, from the practice of trotting or prancing something out (making a debut) Leasnam (talk) 13:58, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

finality, intentionality

This is missing, but I believe the word finality is also used in philosophical contexts where it means "goal-directedness" (or even the goal itself).

Also, I might be mixing things up but I thought intentionality had a pretty similar meaning. There is already a philosophical definition listed there, and it sounds about right, but I just thought the definition was broader than that. Again, maybe I'm mixed up. 2601:49:8400:26B:ACC8:1FA9:C36C:B330 14:53, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

For finality, Century 1911 has "In philosophy, the doctrine that nothing exists or was made except for a determinate end; the doctrine of final causes." But this is probably not what you mean exactly. DCDuring (talk) 18:10, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

Well it's definitely related to final causes, but I was thinking of it more as a concept, not a doctrine per se. One usage was something like, "A pen's intrinsic finality is to hold and release ink. The pen's extrinsic finality could be to use it to take notes, or to jam it in a door and use it as a doorstop, or many other things--even things it wasn't designed to be used for". 2601:49:8400:26B:ACC8:1FA9:C36C:B330 19:51, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

It sounds very plausible. If you could find three or more examples of it in use illustrating that sort of meaning (See WT:ATTEST), we could be more sure of having the right definition. I had trouble finding a single distinct meaning of finality not applications of the common sense in the 40 examples of use at Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, but someone else could probably do better. DCDuring (talk) 20:37, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

As to intentionality the "Dictionary of Philosophical Terms and Names" has a definition very like our philosophical definition. DCDuring (talk) 20:40, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

See also the Greek words about a final goal, telicity etc. Equinox ◑ 02:25, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

The definition on de:Finalität works for either meaning, but unlike the English finality, in German legal language Finalität is usually employed for goal-directness, e.g. for the concept of an interference into a subjective right in public law (→ klassischer Eingriff) and more specialist for subjective elements in certain criminal offences, put as a synonyms to Zweckhaftigkeit and subjektive Anreicherung.

EUR-Lex does not show much of such usage in English, but has examples; Mr Prodi wrote, unambiguous due to the versions in other languages: “The Commission's choice of which projects to finance is based on the finality of the action itself and not on the political goals of the organisation supporting the projects.” Mrs Gradin wrote that “ the preamble of the protocol clearly stated that it respected the finality and objectives of the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to the status of refugees”, and also Mr Vitorino wrote that “the preamble to the protocol states that it respects the finality and objectives of the Geneva Convention of 28 July 1951”. You should tell us whether this English sounds strange.

Didn’t bother with the philosophical meanings. Fay Freak (talk) 21:39, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

pirmas

How is the neuter of Lithuanian pìrmas (“first”) pronounced? Is it pìrma as in the inflection table or pirmà as on the the headword line? If the inflection tables are correct for ordinals and the like, then the accents need to be changed in the headword lines of most of the ordinals listed in cat:Lithuanian ordinal numbers. @BigDom, Vedac13. --RichardW57 (talk) 14:49, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

@RichardW57 I haven't looked at Lithuanian in a few years (travelled around the Baltics/eastern Europe in 2019 and got interested in the language then, but ended up concentrating on Polish) but my understanding is that the inflection table is correct. This website is great for showing the accentuation of unaccented Lithuanian words, and when looking at pirma we get for the neuter version:

• pìrma | sktv. (numeral), bev. g. (neuter gender), kelint. (ordinal)

Agree with your assessment that many of the other words in that category also need sorting out for various reasons. I'm currently in Vietnam so don't have loads of time for editing but I'm happy to work through them slowly. BigDom 00:43, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

@BigDom: Thanks, your reply will help me greatly in fixing these words. I wasn't planning to do a massive review of our Lithuanian entries, I was just going to improve our handling of our Lithuanian collation and its effects! --RichardW57 (talk) 00:48, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

@RichardW57 No problem! A couple more links that may or may not be useful:

• Lithuanian dictionary which gives the stress pattern, e.g. (3) for pirmas, as well as some alternative forms.
• Lithuanian declension tables gives declension tables but not the accentuation so have to cross-check with the earlier link.

Cheers, BigDom 00:59, 30 March 2024 (UTC)

cheat code

Isn't this also used figuratively? PUC – 11:18, 31 March 2024 (UTC)

Cheat code to success is probably very attestable, something akin to "shortcut". Vininn126 (talk) 12:11, 31 March 2024 (UTC)