Talk:gleeman

Anything "professional"

Apparently, a gleeman can entertain in any way that strikes his (not her) fancy, but must be "professional". By joining a guild? By demonstrating fine mien? By gathering cast nickels? By keeping trade secrets?

Shall we put any notion of song, glee, and glee clubs right out of our minds? This article makes gleemen of the Washington Redskins, but not of budding bards, nor college choristers, for want of "professionalism" or, perhaps, membership in a professional gleemen's guild. Except for quite thin applications, the word must be eradicated from English, by fiat.

The key concept is "professional", and then not "amusement", but "entertainer", including professional belly-button picker, and the prostitute who catches our eye, as long as she's "professional" about it, but she might not count, belonging to the more populous, oft-overlooked gender. Male transvestites who earn a living must be "gleemen", but not if they undergo operations. Unfree 16:39, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Etymology

Are none of those original words in the least bit hypothetical, or doesn't this application have a way of indicating them so? Unfree 16:44, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Quotation

I get that quotation, but it is rather cryptic, and its reason for being there is obscure. How do poets accomplish the acquisition of their "sacrosanct" "persons", whereas gleemen evidently must not, without risking their "professions"? It's the only "documentation" in the entry, and doesn't say much, except in a roundabout way, that somebody once distinguished gleemen from poets, not that anybody else might. Unfree 16:55, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Note how skillfully Robert Graves avoided hinting when "ancient Celts" were, and when "originally" was. It could have been at a time when not an ancient Celt was in sight, or before, or after. When, exactly, poets were judges, etc., is left floating in a lighter-than-air thought balloon, so to speak, which isn't well, but you get my drift. Are we to infer gleemen lacked judgement, or were never asked to answer a question? And that poets, by contrast, were called upon to mediate business and property disputes as a matter of course and send miscreants to the gallows, wearing robes and powdered wigs, from high perches, amidst all those "ancient" baffled Celtics, marveling in such pompous displays of legal authority? I love Robert Graves, but... Unfree 17:10, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Pronunciation

There are excellent reasons, no doubt, for not giving pronunciation help the conventional dictionary way, but they're mistaken, or mistakenly applied, against other, more valid reason. Offering no help to most people is a good thing for them, I suppose. It may encourage them towards self-elevation, cryptic-symbol-wise. Especially if they care about pronouncing "gleeman", right? And they have utterly no valid excuse for declining to master that insisted-upon thing, that "alphabet" of sorts, to know it. Unfree 17:23, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

English

I found the English section easily enough, but where, I wonder, are all the others? Koine Greek would be nice to know. Unfree 17:27, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Noun

The "Noun" subsection's the best one, giving a definition of "gleeman", but why does it show up so far down the list, and where's the "Definition" one? Who'd ever think of looking under "Noun", instead, in a dictionary, oblivious to other parts of speech off the bat, without already knowing the word or experiencing its usage unambiguously in a context? Unfree 17:34, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Anagrams of gleeman

There are two items in the list under "Anagrams", but only the second, "melange", is one. The former, "Anagrams of gleeman" isn't a link to anything, just a heads-up of sorts to what's ahead, the second. Clearly, under "gleeman", visitors to this webpage are puzzled as to what an "Anagrams" section is, unless the first item on the list gives them a hint it's about "gleeman", and the other page, on the plural of "gleemen", offers no mention of anagrams at all. Furthermore, there's no hint at how exhaustive that list is, or how it was compiled. I conclude that there is precisely one anagram of gleeman in the English language, or may not be, and an untold number for gleemen, or may not be, and that something about this "Wiktionary" webpage leaves one in the dark, as if I cared about anagrams enough to seek them here, or needed such info close at hand here, rather than in some other place that generates them by the billion automatically, having nothing better to do with its nanoseconds.

Can't the foundation set up a robot for such an arcane application, and coin a name for it, with a more appropriate "web presence"?

What if we wanted to know how gleeman's spelled backwards, wouldn't anybody tell us, or alphabetize the list on a Cray supercomputer for us, forwards and backwards? We could always sic a massive army of clueless suckers on the job, eh?

What about crossword puzzle solvers? They're looking for help, too, easily provided by software engineers. Did you notice, for example, that the third letter in gleeman's an e, etc.? Unfree 17:55, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

My intention

My intention on this talk page hasn't been to ruffle a feather, but if there's anyway I may be of assistance, I may be glad to, if I'm free. Unfree 17:59, 25 December 2009 (UTC)