User talk:Metaknowledge/2020

The following discussion has been moved from the page User talk:Metaknowledge.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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This page shows conversations on my talkpage from 2020.

mbili and sufuri

Please fix. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:52, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. This is what I get for not waiting for CAT:E to update... —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:37, 14 January 2020 (UTC)

Edit warring?

Can you prove that I did edit warring? If not, I have to report you? Where can I do this? --Meatbowl (talk) 01:14, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I can: it's in the edit history for all to see. By the way, you should be happy I haven't reported you, because your other accounts are globally locked, and this one would be as well if I cared enough to do something about it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:58, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

lobo del mar

Hey. This should be lobo de mar. Can't move it as am a n00b. --AcpoKrane (talk) 13:01, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

It's definitely real — why don't you make it an alt form? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:48, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

pontic revert

Thanks, man. I didn't even catch that distinction... I hope that you might do me a favor, though. I tried, in the reverted addition, to provide a couple of links to Wikipedia pages, as I have seen done before on Wiktionary, but I screwed them up a bit (the links worked, but left a confusing presentation on the Wiktionary page). Do you know how to correctly do that, and if so, will you give me the "short course"?

Sure. Inline Wikipedia links should use {{w}}. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:10, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I think that means inside double curly brackets, one should put "temp|w: (followed by the title of the Wikipedia page)", would that be correct?

No. It means that you should use the template {{w}} and feed the title as a parameter. For example, use {{w|Khan}} in order to generate Khan. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:53, 6 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your help with that. The proper use of templates on Wiki platforms remains largely an unknown to me.

Dawg

Is google books the only source you can look in? Sources of other places show the part of the chainsaw as a dawg. I see nothing in any help articles about having to use books. --Tadfafty — This unsigned comment was added by Tadfafty (talk • contribs).

Well, in my last revert, I summarised the pertinent part of WT:ATTEST for you. If you can't find it in any books or other durably archived media, we're not likely to be able to include it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:18, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

How is dawg not just a different spelling of dog? Definition 9 of dog would seem to include the chainsaw-specific definition. DCDuring (talk) 16:55, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

It wasn't easy to find a citation of dog in the chainsaw-specific sense, but I have included it at definition 9 for dog. DCDuring (talk) 17:12, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

speculate and specula

Hello, Metaknowledge.

There is a matter which I would like to raise regarding the etymologies of English verbs in "-ate"; I will illustrate my thoughts about this using the verb speculate as a subject. It seems that the etymologies of these words often indicate the Latin past participle as the origin, which is a seductive thought, since the Latin p. part. of verbs is indicated by -atus (though the "-a" is part of the stem here). It seems strange to derive a verb, though, from a participle, which essentially has an adjectival function. I did a bit of speculating (sorry, but I could not refuse the pun) on this, and I think that such etymologies may be questionable. My rationale, using the subject speculate, follows: (i) "-ate" first appeared acting adjectivally in participial forms (e.g. "speculate" as a participal) adapted from the second participle of the Latin first conjugation in the late Middle English period, meaning before the end of the 15th century (see here: http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~cpercy/courses/WordFormation.htm), (ii) later, most of these participle forms took the "-ed" suffix (e.g. "speculated" as a participle), then, (ii) from the from the 16th century onwards, "-ate", having become independently productive in verb formation ("morphologically transparent"), was used to form verbs from Latin nominal stems (e.g. "speculate" as a verb) (ibid.), (iii) "speculate" as a verb in particular (not as a participle), first entered English in the "Early Modern English" period, specifically in the 16th century (see here: www.merriam-webster.com › dictionary › speculate, under "Did You Know?"). Does it not seem more sensible, then, that English "speculate" particularly as a verb was formed within English in the 16th century, by suffixing an independently productive "-ate" to the base of Latin speculatio, rather than speculate being a borrowing from Latin adjective speculatus? I would tend to think that most of these English verbs in "-ate" have been derived similarly, and I would like to have your thoughts on this.

While I am at it, I would like to indicate that the etymology at specula seems to be questionable, in that it indicates a direct derivation from specio. The problem with this is that -culus/-cula was not suffixed to verbs, but rather to nouns to form diminutives thereof. I think that the etymology there should read as follows: "specula From speciēs (“a seeing, a viewing, a looking”) +‎ -culus (“suffix forming diminutives of nouns”)", what do you think?

Re -ate: I don't know if this is knowable. As for speculate in particular, Etymonline calls it a back-formation.

Re specula: Who says diminutives can't be applied directly on verbal stems? That would be an obstaculum to certain other etymologies. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:36, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

As pertains to specula, you are quite right: it is specio + -culum. Thanks for that. Concerning speculate, I think that by indicating it as a back-formation, what is meant is a back formation from English speculation, which is ultimately from speculatio through French spéculation. In such a case, it seems that English or French "speculation" rather than Latin "speculatus" should appear in the etymology. If it is determinable that "speculation" predates "speculate" in the lexicon, then I think one has the answer. That may be difficult, but the OED, to which I do not have access, may indicate the first appearances of these. I guess that I would rather think it produced within English from speculor + (16th century English) -ate as opposed to a borrowing of the participle directly from Latin. Another possibility, of course, is that English -ate was suffixed to the stem of French spéculer. It just seems strange to me that a Latin participle, which does not have a verbal function, would be borrowed directly into English as a verb, especially given the intervening French influence. Something to mull over at leisure... Take care.

Inadvertent deletion

In this edit you also deleted a contribution of mine.  --Lambiam 09:58, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Sorry for the trouble. I have no idea how that happened, seeing as I created a new section using the +. In the future, if someone inadvertently removes your contribution, I recommend that you simply replace it yourself. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:35, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

rape apologist

Hello Metaknowledge, you deleted rape apologist that have been created by an IP on several wikis. on the French Wiktionary, we are wondering what to do with this entry. So, could you explain a bit why you have chosen to delete it? Is there no specific meaning (i.e. it only means rape + apologist)? Or something else? Thank you in advance. Best regards. Pamputt (talk) 10:33, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

I can't speak for Metaknowledge, but the entry deleted looks like a rant about attitudes the contributor doesn't like disguised as a dictionary entry. The definitions are more accusations than definitions. The first definition is almost salvageable, but the rest have the fatal flaw of defining a behavior-based term (an apologist is someone who does something) based on what the person thinks. The last definition is arguably a call for mob justice, and would be disputed by the mainstream of human rights advocates. Basically, the whole entry is an indirect way of saying "people like this are rape apologists", without saying what a rape apologist is. I would have deleted it as "no usable content given". That's even before considering whether it's sum-of-parts. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:39, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

@Pamputt What Chuck said, and: if defined accurately, it seems like it mostly just means "rape + apologist", as you say ("an apologist for rape"), like also google books:"lynching apologist", google books:"crime apologist", etc. That some of the Books and raw Google hits are applying "crime apologist" to criminal defence attorneys doing their duty to defend their clients, or to proponents of reforming the legal system, shows that the tendency to accuse people one doesn't like / whose position on something related to X one doesn't like of being "X apologists" extends beyond what was seen in the now-deleted entry. It also extends to other words, e.g. people can be accused of being "rape fans", "fans of rape", not to mention "supporters of lynching", etc. But I concede that "rape apologist" seems to have recently become a more common collocation than the others ("crime apologist", "rape fans", etc), and at least slightly less obviously literal than some of the others ("lynching apologists" and "supporters of lynching" might be more likely to be limited to people who explicitly defended or promoted lynching or lynchers, and "rape fans" / "fans of rape" may also be more literal), and if fr.Wiktionary is more tolerant of SOPness you might reach a different decision than en.Wiktionary probably would about whether or not to keep it. - -sche (discuss) 16:28, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

red clump -- and countability in general

My understanding is:

• Some things can be counted: one apple, two apples; one dog, two dogs.
• Some things are an indiscriminate mass that we don't normally count: some rice; some sugar; the data. (We can say "two sugars" if we are comparing them from a technical standpoint but it's not normal.)
• UNRELATEDLY: there are things of which there can only be one, or there only happens to be one, such as universe or protagonist or Eiffel Tower. Let's call them "uniques".

I believe that uniques are not grammatically uncountable. If we say that "red clump" or "universe" etc. is uncountable, purely because only one exists, or because we can't find a plural attested, we are saying that it doesn't have the grammatical countability property. But that's not true. We know very well that it's a singular thing that could have a plural if we ever found a second one of those things. Equinox ◑ 03:01, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

A careful perusal of BGC suggests we've been saved here, and a plural is attested. But I seem to remember arguing with you about something like this before. Your examples of uniques are terrible: there are probably multiple universes if we believe modern physics, there are definitely multiple protagonists because multiple novels exist, and Eiffel Tower is a proper noun. The issue here is definitional: if we found more red stars where the red clump is, we wouldn't get a new clump, just the same clump comprising more stars. If we found a bunch of red stars clumping elsewhere, they wouldn't be at the H-R coördinates in the definition. I modified my definition to encompass any clumping of red stars, but if there hadn't been cause to do that, your edit would have been deeply misleading: implying that we can't attest something because it hasn't been written about enough, when in fact it would be a meaningless concept. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:53, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

It's very easy to test countability of uniques: for every unique X, you should be able to say "there are no other Xes." Chuck Entz (talk) 07:11, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

As Chuck's example implies, proper names can readily form plurals without any implication as to the existence of multiple referents. Ultimately, we are only concerned with the behavior or words, not with the existence of referents or even concepts. DCDuring (talk) 07:44, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Whether there are other Xes is not grammatical though, is it? Countability is a grammatical property. That's why I carefully said "there only happens to be one". You seem to be accusing me of the exact thing I was describing as a mistake to avoid. Equinox ◑ 12:55, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Lazuri and Georgian script

Hello,

You just deleted my entry for "magurale" due to Latin alphabet. In Turkey, there is 1.6 million Laz people, approximately 300.000 of them speaks Lazuri natively and all of them uses Latin alphabet to write in Lazuri. What is your purpose for enforcing Georgian alphabet in Lazuri entries? --Magurale (talk) 01:23, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

(p.s: Lazuri and Margaluri are different languages.) --Magurale (talk) 01:25, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

There was a lot more than the script that was wrong with the entry- if I had seen it first, I probably would have deleted it as "no usable content given". I left a message on your talk page with our welcome template, so you can see what Wiktionary entries require. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:12, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Please help me

Can you help me in this matter: by preparing a Template for Telugu-English dictionary:: or suggest someone who is best suitable. I am working on an Telugu-English Dictionary (1862) by Peter Percival (1803-1882) in English Wikisource. Can someone help me and prepare a template for the Telugu dictionary entries in here. Here is its commons link: [1] Thanking you. Stephen G. Brown has helped me earlier in making the Template:R:te:CPB, which was very useful. This template may also work in similar way.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 10:13, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

@Rajasekhar1961:  Done, see {{R:te:TED}} (and feel free to rename it). By the way, what's the deal with {{R:CPB}} and {{R:te:CPB}}? Can one of them be removed in favour of the other one? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:29, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Wholeheartedly Thank you very much sir. I have started using the template. See this page: జ్వాల... the link is taking to the wikisource page; not to the book page. Which one is better.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 11:00, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

@Rajasekhar1961: What do you mean by the "book page"? And could you please answer my question about CPB? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:39, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

{{R:CPB}} is taking us to the search page whereas {{R:te:CPB}} taking to the concerned page. If possible, you can combine both of them. What I mean "book page" is the page printed on the book; where the scan page (which is different) from it and does not corresponding to it.--Rajasekhar1961 (talk) 07:20, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

@Rajasekhar1961: Re TED: I see; the scan page number was simply easier. Would you like me to change it to the printed page number?
Re CPB: It sounds like {{R:te:CPB}} is superior, so if you can switch over all uses of {{R:CPB}} to {{R:te:CPB}}, we can delete {{R:CPB}}. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:16, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

{{R:CPB}} requires no page number, unlike {{R:te:CPB}}, and therefore, it is much easier to use and enter. But if you want to delete {{R:CPB}}, please use the deletion process and ping me. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:22, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Your block

Why did you block me? J3133 (talk) 17:24, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I blocked you from private messaging me on Discord. You are not blocked in any way on the Wiktionary Discord server nor on Wiktionary itself. Please stop wasting my time. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:29, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Of course I meant the Discord PM block, not a block on the Wiktionary or its Discord, that is obvious. As for the "wasting my time" response, if merely trying to have a discussion results in users being completely blocked, I would say it's the opposite, you are wasting the users' time by failing to discuss. J3133 (talk) 17:38, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

@J3133 Meta has a history of bullying other editors. If it were up to me, they wouldn't have blocking rights on either Discord or on Wiktionary. The fact that Meta is failing to engage in productive discussion or explain their block confirms this. Purplebackpack89 15:52, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Purple, I have every right to block someone from DMing me off-wiki. You seem a bit confused. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:40, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

tree of life

"(religion) A term used in the Hebrew Bible that is a component of the world tree motif." Any ideas about this? Clearly a tree isn't a term, so it needs a real definition. How does it differ from the other senses? Equinox ◑ 12:53, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Our current senses #3 and #4 are awful, but the problem is that it's a symbol with lots of meanings in Judaism: some are mystical (like what #4 is describing), some are biblical (possibly failing WT:FICTION?), some are physical (the poles in a Torah, or a metaphor for the Torah itself). I really don't know what's attestable in English, but if you want to be thorough about it, you could replace the offending sense with several specific ones. See Etz Chaim for more. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:46, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Admin hammer

Hey MK. Can you use your good judgement to get rid of a few of the crappy entries in Category:Requests for deletion in Spanish entries? Some are very clear cases. --Alsowalks (talk) 21:31, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Nah, due process is awarded to all Spanish entries in good standing. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:41, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

It's because of my new album. I've recorded all the songs already, and am hoping to get signed. I'll give you a free CD if you come to the launch. --Alsowalks (talk) 23:37, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Nigger

Why did you revert my edit for the word nigger? — This unsigned comment was added by SillySympathy3 (talk • contribs).

The definition wasn't correct. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:39, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Trump

I really don't think my Trump edit should've been reverted. A lot of people will think about Donald Trump when they hear the word trump. Dictionaries are meant to be descriptive of how people use words.

Also, if the Churchill entry, for example, is allowed to have Winston Churchill as a definition, I don't see why the same can't apply to Trump.

Lastly, next time you're going to revert an edit of mine, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could tell me why. It's just frustrating if I have no idea why my edit got reverted. — This unsigned comment was added by SillySympathy3 (talk • contribs).

I had to revert a bunch of entries because you were making a mess. In this case, I think you're right. I'll edit the entry to show you what I think a good format is for this. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:37, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Could you explain why you think that format is better? I only see a slight difference but ultimately you're still adding a definition that includes Donald Trump like I did. SillySympathy3 (talk) 05:43, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it's basically the same — my revert was in error there. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:44, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

I see a lot of Wiktionary:SOP in the terms used in Trump derivatives. BoldLuis (talk) 23:35, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Single words in English cannot be SOP. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:36, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Old English: Is hit swā

Hello,

Why did you delete the entry? The phrase is an attested phrase from the period.

Leornendeealdenglisc (talk) 21:46, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

I told you why in my deletion summary. Please see WT:SOP. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:47, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Delete my addition

What gives bro Joe goes (talk) 00:35, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Your definition is obviously wrong, to the degree that it doesn't even match the part of speech in your example sentence, and I doubt it exists anyway. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:38, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

There are lots of missing synonyms in the language data

I did not intend to move or merge any languages – not my business to meddle in remote fields –, but like missing words are still entered into the mainspace so those language datasets still need to be expanded with missing alternative spellings/synonyms, otherwise people do not find the language they want to add a term in and compare terms instead of by language code by plain text as at عدس because they did not find the language category or language code (they can look the codes up sometimes in external sources like Wikipedia but sometimes Wiktionary has codes for elsewhere codeless languages and not everyone is that smart), so I wanted to help out and expand/add fields aliases and scripts. I informed a user that he could search at Category:Language data modules to find the language code but this cannot be said well if the used spelling of the language name cannot be found by the search box for lacking alias field. I think it would clog the Grease pit, make a mountain out of a mole hill, and double work (for somebody would have to look again whether the synonym is true, and perhaps nobody would do anything?), if every time I find one missing alternative spelling or synonym I create a new section at the Grease pit. Or should I do that? Or should we open another project page for quick fixes proposed in this matter to keep the people with template editor flag small? People would not watch it, like the module talk pages. And it’s not WT:RFM if it isn’t moving or merging, and WT:GP is filled with various and sundry technical questions, but this is a recurring issue. So what would be ideal for these data lists is if there was a system like some wikis have where changes can be made but do not go live instantly but editors make changes and the changes have to be confirmed to go live, but this isn’t here. I hate to ask, you see, and many envisaged changes are already forgotten before formally proposed. I have never seen anyone specifically proposing aliases, and for the said reasons they fit no existing section, so what is left only is to ask for template editor flag, which could be at the Grease pit because it is not a recurring technical issue but for which there is no formalized procedure either as far I remember so I – perhaps somewhat impertinently – did it in an edit summary. You may of course move this talk or ask around but I did not want to bug more readers of the Wiki-pages, wanting to keep my fingers away from all changes but the incontrovertible ones. —Why do my messages end up longer than everything anyone has written to the same page? I must be the most circumspect person ever. Fay Freak (talk) 18:20, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, last things first, I have told you for a while that you would benefit from learning concision. But to the point, it seems like you have a reasonable request for being a "template editor", so I will nominate you for that momentarily. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:00, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Question about reversion

Hey quick question, my edits on קוגל were reverted, could you please tell me why? WikiMaster111 (talk) 14:32, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

I reverted it because it was wrong. I'll put it the correct etymology. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:24, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Arabic spellings

(Re ياس.) Comparing e.g. كُوْنِڠْ, we don't seem to have a dedicated template, although another possible way of doing it seems to be {{spelling of|CODE|Arabic|WORD}}, like on سارسەنبى. - -sche (discuss) 06:13, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

@-sche: Thanks. That seems less than ideal; I think we once had something like Category:Afrikaans terms in Arabic script, and it seems like it would be useful to have that back, via a template that puts it in said category. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:22, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree it'd be useful to have a category. Ever since it was deleted, I've had a hard time finding the entries when things like this come up. For Romanian there is Category:Romanian Cyrillic spellings. For Afrikaans, I think there used to be a catch-all category, and then it got split by POS like Category:Afrikaans nouns in Arabic script. I see I deleted the latter (which was empty at the time) following this discussion, which however showed support for a catch-all/POS-agnostic category. "Afrikaans terms in Arabic script" (etc.) sounds good, but then we probably want to standardize the Romanian category's name to match. - -sche (discuss) 08:12, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't even know where in our infrastructure this kind of thing goes any more (assuming we want to make it {{auto cat}}able and all that). @Erutuon? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:12, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: Probably the easiest way to do this would be to add the categories with Module:headword. That might have been what was done before the categories were removed. (The category pages can be generated using a new Module:category tree submodule.) But generating the lists from the dump instead might be better, to save Lua resources. — Eru·tuon 20:47, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

That's not really the kind of solution I'm looking for. This isn't a cleanup mission, but rather a categorisation that is helpful to me as a user, which I think we go well with a template for this situation. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:00, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

race (competition) cognate

I know that Latin rorarii is cognate with English race (in the sense of a competition). But, you reverted the edit. I know this isn’t supposed to have random cognates, but this cognate should be there in my opinion because this is not listed anywhere. Bernspeed (talk) 21:24, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

If the PIE is valid, it will be created someday. In the mean time, stop adding random cognates and making disruptive edits or you will be blocked. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:33, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Metaknowledge, I will stop doing it because I wasn't sure if it would ever be created. Thanks. :) — This unsigned comment was added by Bernspeed (talk • contribs).

Admin unhammer

Hey MK. Thanks for the mass deletion of Spanish crap. While you're around and in a good mood, can I ask you to undelete the userpage of User:AcpoKrane - it's for the new album, which can probably be released now that most of the links are red. --Gorgehater (talk) 21:51, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Done, and I want to hear the album! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:10, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Here's the tracklist --Gorgehater (talk) 23:27, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

1. Buena Racha
2. Todo Lo Demás
3. Sonido de Bip
4. Rayo de Sol
5. Amar no es Amor
6. Pelo Suelto
7. Me Toca A Mí/Te Toca A Ti
8. La Raza
9. Hace Poco
10. Con Entusiasmo
11. Necesito una Copa
12. Yo No He Sido

Swahili IPA

Repeating what I said on the https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Swahili_pronunciation talk page: I was under the impression that Swahili had long vowels, hence why pumbaa and pumba are spelled differently. I understood that these where allophones (like the long vowels in British English) hence why they are not on the main IPA chart on Wikipedia. However, the pronunciation pages are supposed to list the allophones as well (hence the ɱ). I haven't added the (ː) because I want to make sure that I'm not missing something. — This unsigned comment was added by MToumbola (talk • contribs).

@MToumbola: Yeah, I didn't make Appendix:Swahili pronunciation, and it's basically just a copy from Wikipedia. You're right that it's not really phonemic (in the sense that it's still a sequence of vowels as far as stress etc are concerned and cannot have a minimal pair), but I like to mark it as length even in our broad transcriptions. (And on Wiktionary, we never make broad transcriptions maximally broad, e.g. the English rhotic.) So adding length to that page is a good idea. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:12, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Asante sana! I'll change the Wikipedia page to match this one. -MToumbola (talk) 12:06, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Donk revert

I added a 4th etymology for the word Donk and now I see it has been reverted. I don't understand why? Donkplanet (talk) 11:10, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Your username, combined with your disregard for our formatting and roundabout definition, made me rather suspicious. I see that this is indeed real, so I have added it back with a new definition to cover the uses I see on Google Books, many of which do not actually limit the term to Caprices and Impalas as you might wish. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:06, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I am a newcomer

Can u teach me stuff I am only 9 yrs old and want to do stuff without being blocked Darren1515 (talk) 02:14, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

@Darren1515: Hi Darren. What you can do for now is read Wiktionary. Editing Wiktionary is something you may be able to help with in a few years, but not yet. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:17, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Ok thanks Darren1515 (talk) 02:18, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

You reply so quick how many hours a day do spend on Wikipedia or wictionary (maybe I spelled that wrong) Darren1515 (talk) 02:20, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Because of quarantine I couldn't meet my friends and so I did of a lot of browsing on wictionary so I when you did stuff to my admin page edit I got interested in you "meataknowledge "I spelled that wrong maybe Darren1515 (talk) 02:25, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I believe your reverting of my revision to the Anti-Antifa page was made in error Xecular (talk) 02:17, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

The page originally contained a statement claiming that all individuals and groups supporting Anti-Antifa are politically right-wing. This claim is made with no source and cannot be considered accurate without tangible evidence to suggest that one have a right-wing affiliation to protest the Antifa movement. For this reason, I removed these statements from the page as to uphold the standard for providing unbiased and factual information.

@Xecular: You seem to be politically motivated. The entry is correct and accords with usage; if you edit war over it, you may be blocked. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:21, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I do not believe it is politically motivated to remove serious potentially politically-charged claims which were not created with proper evidence. Being that Anti-Antifa is a term which has no inherent place in the political scale, it more seems that the claim of Anti-Antifa being a right-wing symbol is inherently politically motivated as it was made with no evidence and can be disproved through observation of the wide group of people that are seen using it on the internet. It is simply more reasonable not to allow this claim on an informational page until it can be reliably sourced instead of being based off a personal experience or belief (Since anti-Antifa itself is only related to the actions of the Antifa movement and not specifically people that fight fascism, there is nothing to suggest that the usage of this is right wing and not just holding the movement accountable for activities related to Antifa).

I'm not sure you even realise that it's a German entry, not an English one. Anyway, editing when logged out counts the same as when logged in. This is your last warning. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:16, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Too late. They did it again, so I blocked them. Both IPs were anonymous proxies, so I made it permanent. The account was created 4 minutes before the reverted edit, so I doubt they were planning anything constructive, anyway. I didn't even bother checkusering the IPs, because the behavioral evidence was more than enough. Even if it wasn't the same person, it was obviously someone acting under their direction. Apparently they thought hiding their identity with proxies would keep them from getting blocked- instead it just proved their dishonesty and bad faith. It would be nice if that would put a stop to it, but I'm sure they'll try again, or get someone else to. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:53, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Dispute over sign language transcription

Recently, you made a comment on Wiktionary:Requests for moves, mergers and splits#CAVALO^LISTRA where you said that Wiktionary's sign language policy wasn't voted on. That is wrong; see Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2008-08/Wiktionary:About sign languages. --Numberguy6 (talk) 23:27, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

I saw your ping; the talk-page notification was unnecessary. I had not known about that vote, and I now think there should be a new vote to modify it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:30, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

Reference to English-language works for esperanto tenses ?

Hi, is it possible to have some of the references you used to describe esperanto tenses? I know that languages have different ways and terminologies to describe languages, but I corrected the table here bacause we recently corrected it on the French Wiktionary, as it was written "Subjonctif/Impératif".

Please ping me if you answer. :)

Thank you by advance Lepticed7 (talk) 10:59, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

@Lepticed7: I'm not an Esperantist myself; looking around, I see "imperative", "volitive", and "jussive" all being used to describe the -u form. In general, I think that it's informative that you say "we" when referring to the change at fr.wikt (implying a mutual decision), whereas you made this change at en.wikt without any discussion and in a module that most Esperanto editors would not notice. I don't have any problem with a change, but I want to make sure our community is agreed first. I would recommend that you post in widely read forum, perhaps WT:BP, and see if people like the idea before changing the module again. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:12, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi, this is strange, I didn't receive the notification. No problem with that. Before posting on the BP, I will try to find some references written in English. Thank you! Lepticed7 (talk) 18:10, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

I am not a linguist, but I learned Esperanto some years ago. The "-u" is mainly used for imperative. --BoldLuis (talk) 13:44, 15 May 2020 (UTC)

What did you change?

Hi Metaknowlwdge it has to my attention that you reverted the changes i had made to the "Narutard" page and I would like to know why?

Sincerely yours Sarake Uchiha Sarake Uchiha (talk) 20:41, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

You messed up the formatting and added no content, only new lines. By the way, your addition of content to Anime was completely wrong, and if you continue to make disruptive edits, you will be blocked. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:47, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

Actually I didn't change anything on the Narutard page I pressed the edit button my mistake and I got lost in what to do it was my first day and the content of anime it isn't wrong,tell me something that I had out in which was false?

And am still new St this it's not like there is editors class Sarake Uchiha (talk) 21:29, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

If you have to ask, then you don't have the maturity to edit Wiktionary. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:03, 17 May 2020 (UTC)

@Sarake Uchiha You seem incredibly confused. You said in your first comment that you are unaware as to why your change to "Narutard" was reverted, and even included an edit summary six words in length in that particular edit. But then you made a second comment, saying that you "didn't change anything on the Narutard page" and "pressed the edit button by mistake". I see how this could've happened legitimately, like if you somehow didn't know you could just close the tab you're currently in and when prompted by the browser, click "Leave". Going by the assumption that this is what happened, being blunt here, sorry, but such a lack of knowledge on basic browser operation is a hint that you lack experience necessary to properly edit Wiktionary (or maybe you're using a really bad/outdated browser).

Also, it seems you've reached the wrong website, anyway. Your user page states that you "chose to come to Wikipedia". You're at Wiktionary, Wikipedia's sister project that is a dictionary, and not at Wikipedia, which is an encyclopedia project. Maybe try and take your edits there. But your editing habits probably wouldn't fly there either. Test edits, or unformatted, ungrammatical edits, as you have made here, are not acceptable in the mainspace of any wiki. On the subject of test edits, usually there's a sandbox for those, as we have here.

I have blocked your account here temporarily for these reasons. If you wish to come back, after the block has expired, please consider some advice from Wiktionary:Tutorial (as we do indeed have an "editors class" of sorts) before deciding to make future edits. PseudoSkull (talk) 01:49, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Proteranthous

Go to User talk:Equinox an read and think a bit, what ist that for a crap that you edited, so when you not a botanist, please stay away. The definition is clear, also the greek language. Gray und Lindley defined it clearly, it was later corrupted, confused. Its clear because its the contra of hysteranthous. It cant be both. And the sources that i added are (very) reputable, the original source from Gray!!, so its a no go that you ignored them. Should actually be a VM to you. Where comes he made a mistake, why he?, give source. I dont like wrong sources.--Kingbossix (talk) 00:30, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I have never met an adult German with as poor English as you have, so I am going to assume that you are either poorly educated, pretending to be German, or both. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:28, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

I moved this discussion to Talk:proteranthous. There seems to have been some historical confusion about the meaning of the word. Whoever calls my editing crap can meet me in the car park and get bruised. Equinox ◑ 18:40, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Kamarupi Prakrit

Hello, Kamarupi Prakrit is an ancestor of Assamese, but it's not yet added as an ancestor on Wiktionary which is why the error occurred on আন. — This unsigned comment was added by Msasag (talk • contribs).

I don't know anything about the Prakrits, so maybe @AryamanA can help with this and add it if needed. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:35, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

For the Record...

Just to avoid any appearance of hiding things from you this time, N.G. Smokingloon (talk • contribs • global account info • deleted contribs • nuke • abuse filter log • page moves • block • block log • active blocks) registers about 11 on my LW-meter- especially the sadly misplaced delusion of cleverness re: the name. The content looks like basically a continuation of his Ndołkah edits from before he got overconfident and reverted to being LW.

Of course, that's just a hunch, and I'm not going to use the checkuser tool unless it's needed to prevent bad edits. He seems to be working from a dictionary, so I'm not all that worried for the time being. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:08, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: Thanks for the heads-up. Just to be clear, I don't feel like you're hiding things from me, so don't worry about it — but communication is always appreciated! I wonder if we really want to get in the habit of tolerating LW like WF, though — LW doesn't strike me as being especially linguistically knowledgeable, and we don't really have anyone with the expertise or interest/time to go through books on Western Apache and do some spot checks (unless you want to!). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:44, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

-ception

I apologize for my edit on -ception, it took a while for me to notice what I've done wrong. I realized as well that words like “have” and “capture” derives from *keh₂p-; it was pretty normal for me to see English words deriving from Latin (and Greek) but unaware of the English language's full history. --84.219.192.173 12:47, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Etymology question

Hello! I have no objection to the edit you made moving the quotation from The Matrix movie. It is just fine as it is. However, I was wondering if you could help me clarify my theoretical understanding of the use of early quotations in etymologies. On the page 風馬牛不相及／风马牛不相及 (fēng mǎ niú bù xiāngjí), I provided the classical quotation from which the phrase arose. Wouldn't "red pill" by analogy also be allowed to display the quotation which popularized the phrase? That was the theoretical logic I was proceeding on when I made my edits. You made the quote a reference, saying, 'This doesn't belong in the main text of the etymology, so I've converted it to a reference. (footnote)' I have no problem with that methodology on its face. My only question is: am I not putting quotations in the etymologies of Chinese character terms? Is there a distinction? Again, this is a technical point about the theory behind the method of writing etymologies- I don't really think either page needs to be changed: both methods are good enough for me. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 00:14, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

(I am aware the subject matter of 'red pill' is a somewhat politically sensitive topic, but I want to try to look past that directly to this etymology question if possible.) --Geographyinitiative (talk) 00:49, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I think the accepted style in Chinese etymologies is poorly executed (in multiple ways; e.g. no pinyin in the quote), but is essentially standard there. I won't try to change the Chinese entries, but that doesn't mean we should introduce that style into English, where it is not standard. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:54, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

There is Hanyu Pinyin in that quotation if you open the drop down (not that that's the language that the author of the passage used anyway- should be in Old Chinese or Middle Chinese honestly, or seperately listed under a Mandarin Chinese version of Classical Chinese). But the original or very early quote can be important to understanding a word in some cases, couldn't it? That's my feeling. The 'red pill' concept is reliant on the context of the Morpheus monologue. In Chinese characters, 紅丸 (literally 'red pill') brings to mind court intrigues of the Ming dynasty. Sorry again to discuss this word, but I want to address the theory behind including quotations in etymologies. In my opinion, the 風馬牛不相及／风马牛不相及 (fēng mǎ niú bù xiāngjí) quote is absolutely needed to "get" what's happening in the word 風馬牛不相及. In Wuhan, they taught me that it literally meant "horses and cows don't interbreed", a popular misunderstanding of the literal meaning immediately rectified by reference to the quote that made it a well known phrase- it actually literally means 'the horses and cows of our two distant nations would not be able to wander close enough that they might breed', and without the quote in the etymology, the Wiktionary reader can't get a grasp on the literal meaning behind the metaphor. Similarly, dry reference to a movie and a main character are not enough, especially when the context around the word in the classic usage are what imbue the term with its meaning. This red pill example is not a scientific phrase we are track8ng down to its first usage in a journal where the context surrounding the first use is unimportant: these two terms 離不開 the context of the first usage. So I am in favor of the way the Chinese character page is formatted and think it would be good for English terms to follow suit where a term is heavily dependent on that initial context. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 07:32, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The terms have become divorced from their initial context (e.g. lots of people who have not seen The Matrix are using the term). We should be sparing in etymology sections, which appear so high up in the entry, and relegate deeper context to footnotes or autocollapsed boxes. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:00, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The etymologization of قسورة attributed to Ibn Abbas

Hello,

Regarding the definition and etymology of قسورة, so many dissimilar, and possibly contradictory, explications are attributed to Ibn Abbas. In fact, almost all of the given definitions are attributed to him. The following quotations are from Al-Tabari's exegesis:

حدثني أبو السائب، قال: ثنا حفص بن غياث، عن حجاج، عن عطاء، عن ابن عباس، في قوله: ( فَرَّتْ مِنْ قَسْوَرَةٍ ) قال: الرماة.

Here, "he" defines it as "bowmen" or "archers."

حدثني محمد بن سعد، قال: ثني أبي، قال: ثني عمي، قال: ثني أبي، عن أبيه، عن ابن عباس، ( فَرَّتْ مِنْ قَسْوَرَةٍ ) يعني: رجال القَنْص.

Here, it is said to mean "hunters."

حدثنا ابن المثنى، قال: ثنا محمد بن جعفر، قال: ثنا شعبة، وحدثنا أبو كريب، قال: ثنا وكيع، عن شعبة، عن أبي حمزة، قال: سألت ابن عباس عن القسورة، فقال: ما أعلمه بلغة أحد من العرب: الأسد، هي عصب الرجال.

حدثنا ابن المثنى، قال: ثنا عبد الصمد بن عبد الوارث، قال: سمعت أبي يحدّث، قال: ثنا داود، قال: ثني عباس بن عبد الرحمن مولى بني هاشم، قال: سئل ابن عباس عن القسورة، قال: جمع الرجال

In these, "he" defines it as "a group of men." And in the first, "he" supposedly claims that he has never heard the word being used to mean "lion."

وقال آخرون: هي أصوات الرجال. حدثنا أبو كريب، قال: ثنا ابن عيينة، عن عمرو، عن عطاء، عن ابن عباس ( فَرَّتْ مِنْ قَسْوَرَةٍ ) قال: ركز الناس أصواتهم.

Here, "he" defines it as "human noise or clamor."

دثني محمد بن خالد بن خداش، قال ثني سلم بن قتيبة، قال: ثنا حماد بن سلمة، عن عليّ بن زيد، عن يوسف بن مهران، عن ابن عباس، أنه سُئل عن قوله: ( فَرَّتْ مِنْ قَسْوَرَةٍ ) قال: هو بالعربية: الأسد، وبالفارسية: شار، وبالنبطية: أريا، وبالحبشية: قسورة.

حدثني عليّ، قال: ثنا أبو صالح، قال: ثني معاوية، عن عليّ، عن ابن عباس، قوله: ( فَرَّتْ مِنْ قَسْوَرَةٍ ) يقول: الأسد.

Only in these two does "he" define the word as "lion," and in the first, "he" etymologizes it as being of Abyssinian origin.

Therefore, I believe that the recent edits reflect some of the inconsistency of what has been attributed to Ibn Abbas regarding this word (as well as the verse in general). Roger.M.Williams (talk) 03:25, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Well, I am now thoroughly confused. Maybe we should just leave off any mention of ibn Abbas and leave the whole thing as being a summary of ideas given mostly without etymological speculation by al-Tabari. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:29, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Very well Roger.M.Williams (talk) 03:36, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Yoruba "Partridges"

I don't know African fauna that well, but after browsing around a bit: there are true partridges (Phasianidae subfamily Perdicinae) in northern and eastern Africa, but West Africa seems to have the stone partridge (Odontophoridae, aka "New World Quails"), and various francolins. See this reference] for a good listing. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:04, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

More discussion at Talk:aparo. That book is helpful, but I may need to present a set of images to a native speaker (if I can get ahold of one). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:13, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

See this page, which has a picture on the flip side of a flash card for the word. It's hard to be sure, but It seems to be closer to the stone partridge. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:08, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

On the other hand, it might just be a generic file image of an actual partridge used by someone who doesn't care about taxonomic accuracy. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:37, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

This page mentions the Double-spurred Francolin in a very inconclusive way... Chuck Entz (talk) 07:01, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

I've been reading a lot about Ifa divination today, but I didn't expect it to come up in species determination! That website led me to this book, which seems to confirm that it's correct. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:06, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

An Avibase checklist of birds of Nigeria yielded the following list of galliform birds:

GALLIFORMES: Numididae

Helmeted Guineafowl Numida meleagris

Black Guineafowl Agelastes niger

Crested Guineafowl Guttera pucherani

GALLIFORMES: Odontophoridae

Stone Partridge Ptilopachus petrosus

GALLIFORMES: Phasianidae

Blue Quail Synoicus adansonii

Common Quail Coturnix coturnix

Harlequin Quail Coturnix delegorguei

Double-spurred Francolin Pternistis bicalcaratus

Ahanta Francolin Pternistis ahantensis

Scaly Francolin Pternistis squamatus

Clapperton's Francolin Pternistis clappertoni

Coqui Francolin Peliperdix coqui

White-throated Francolin Peliperdix albogularis

Latham's Francolin Peliperdix lathami

I'd bet on the word being as non-specific as sparrow, partridge, grouse, hawk, etc. DCDuring (talk) 14:05, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Avibase looks to be the source of w:List of birds of Nigeria. DCDuring (talk) 14:16, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

axkoxxa

Hey, I want to add the Afar entry, but the autoblock prohibits me from doing it (related to "xx"). Here is the entry:

==Afar==

===Pronunciation===

* {{IPA|aa|/ʌɖˈkoɖɖʌ/}}

===Noun===

{{head|aa|noun|head=axkóxxa|g=m}}

# [[polemic]], [[controversy]]

====References====

* https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01368253/document

I was instructed to inform you of this problem to try and fix it. As you can see, no vandalism was intended. Thadh (talk) 11:44, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

I have stumbled upon another one... (ixxu):

==Afar==

===Pronunciation===

* {{IPA|aa|/ˈiɖɖu/}}

===Noun===

{{head|aa|noun|head=íxxu|g=m}}

# [[number]]

====References====

* https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-01368253/document

Same problem, same solution needed. Thadh (talk) 14:56, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

@Thadh: I think it's because of you not being whitelisted, which is something I've now started the process of amending. I'll deal with these two entries. On an unrelated note, I see that you're just using a bare URL in the 'References' section, which is acceptable, but not ideal. Much better would be to create a reference template with complete bibliographic information (and the link). Do you need help creating such a template? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:19, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes please, that would be great, as I didn't know such a template type existed. That would make my editing much easier, as I often use the same source for a long time. Thadh (talk) 18:23, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

@Thadh: Here you go: {{R:aa:Hassan Kamil:2015}}. Just replace the URL with this template, and you should be good to go. By the way, do you have Hassan Kamil's Parlons afar or Bliese's thesis (the generative grammar)? You might find those useful as well. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:35, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you so much! This is great, and thanks for telling me about the Parlons afar and Bliese's thesis. I did not know about them, and these are amazing. Thanks! Thadh (talk) 18:40, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

@Thadh: If you start using them as sources, let me know if you need reference templates made (even better, you can try your hand at making them yourself based on the existing one, and ping me if you need help). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:44, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Kaupo rollback error

you have undone my valid addition to Kaupo, which is a name in South America. Why being so destructive? --Caeschfloh (talk) 07:44, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

@Caeschfloh: Your addition had multiple problems. I could have fixed the formatting, if that were the only error, but I'm not even clear on whether it's Spanish or Mapudungun, or if it's used as a complete name in either of those languages. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:47, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Was this automated?

Your reason for removal: "Hi Ryan. Not all of these terms seem to pass WT:ATTEST, which is our rather stringent measure of whether an entry is acceptable in Wiktionary. If you aren't sure, please ask before creating more of them. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 01:28, 18 July 2020 (UTC)" - This Page

This was a list of links to terms that were mostly already on Wiktionary, so I'm not sure how they aren't "acceptable in Wiktionary". Was this an automatic response or something? Thanks, AntisocialRyan (talk) 02:15, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Edit: It looks like the page wasn't removed after all? Thanks if you misunderstood and undid it.

@AntisocialRyan: I understood, I did not remove anything, and nothing I did was automated. I was referring mostly to the red links on the page, and assuming that you were the same person as 65.94.171.4 (talk). Even if you aren't, you created alternative and plural forms of entries created by that IP which are likely in contravention of our policies (and which I sent to WT:RFV, where they will be deleted if sufficient evidence is not found). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:45, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: Sorry, I'm new to this and I didn't realize you made a talk page instead of replacing the page. I should've started this conversation there. I am not whoever that is. I recently created alternate form pages because they were linked and weren't created yet. The red links I had on that page were also on other pages, so I put them there because I assumed they would be added at some point. It's no big deal, I can take down the page or remove the red links if it's a problem, let me know which. AntisocialRyan (talk) 02:51, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

@AntisocialRyan: No need to ping me on my own talk page. And no need to take down your user page; you can do whatever you want with it, but you shouldn't create red links just because they're red. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:55, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Ah alright, thanks for the help! I still have to learn a bit, I don't want to break any rules. AntisocialRyan (talk) 02:59, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Abbreviated scientific names

I do not think we keep these, do we? Some anon. had created the following Translingual entries, N. donaldtrumpi & T. donaldtrumpi, so you might want to delete those. Thanks in advance! —inqilābī [inqilāb zindabād] 22:58, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

There's no rule against it; cf. T. rex. They might not be citeable (and same for the full binomina), but that's a matter for RFV. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:04, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Well, if you go by this, then it is possible to create alternative-form entries for all binomina— which would be a "wastage" of pages. Therefor, I deem it wise to redirect such pages (as I mentioned above) to their main-entry pages. (Such entries as T. rex should obviously be an exception because these list abbreviated forms of many binomina together.) —inqilābī [inqilāb zindabād] 23:35, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

They shouldn't be redirected, because more species that happen to belong to a genus starting with the same letter might be named. Wiktionary is not a physical dictionary, so there is no "space" to waste. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:47, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

As I told you before, we can obviously have entries that list multiple abbreviated binomina in which the respective generic names begin with the same letter; I suggested redirecting only those for which there are no other species having a generic name beginning with the same letter. —inqilābī [inqilāb zindabād] 21:31, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, and that's bad practice. When we make redirects on Wiktionary, we want them to stay redirects for all time (else we'd create plurals as redirects and undo that when it turns out another language has a graphically identical word). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:25, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, you are right that redirecting is a not commendable, so here is another suggestion that might be adopted: we can give citations of abbreviated binomina in the entry for the full binomina itself, and thus there would be no need of having entries for abbreviated binomina, which are redundant (and this should apply only to those species for which there are no other species having a generic name beginning with the same letter; entries for abbreviated binomina that list in their definitions multiple species are fine). However, your plural-analogy is not good, because in entries for inflected terms, we can provide the diachronic etymology, pronunciation, etc., right? —inqilābī [inqilāb zindabād] 00:36, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

When abbreviated scientific names are used as the taxonomic codes prescribe, their usage shouldn't warrant inclusion: they are like a document-specific term or definition. T. rex and E. coli are common, in part, because journalists are used to being obliged to shorten their stories and also to not challenge their readers with big, unfamiliar words. The two referred to above are likely to appear in news stories. When used without prior use of the full name in the story such are quite likely to be valid attestation. DCDuring (talk) 11:17, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

@DCDuring: That's a good basis for a standard, but it's not one that we've actually adopted. How do you feel about Au. africanus (currently a redlink)? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:03, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I think it is an application of our general approach to usage in taxonomic literature. If several academics each feel compelled to define some acronym for purposes of their works, I don't think we view that as a use in the language. I am always looking for rules of thumb to shortcut the tedium of finding cites where 95+% of the time they will be found. In the end policy governs, but we often waste each other's time. As to Au. africanus, how common is it outside of scholarly books and articles? DCDuring (talk) 19:09, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't think people talk about australopithecines outside of scientific contexts much, but it's also not a usual application of the code, right? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:21, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

There are all those popular science and nature books and textbooks, which are read by normals in which the abbreviation might appear, but even so, it's extremely unlikely that it would be used without prior use of the full taxonomic name.

I'm not sure what it refers to in your reply above. Some of the codes have what seem like style recommendations about abbreviations. I can't tell what force such things have, but they do seem to influence behavior. DCDuring (talk) 19:28, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Derived terms of donaldtrumpi

Why did you remove the derived terms? They are derived from this word and two of them have entries. The RFV is for the senses. J3133 (talk) 04:18, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

That part of the edit was a mistake, and I've now undone it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:11, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

candlestick citation removal

What looked wrong to you? "This is the argument and this the the philosophy" is acceptable grammar, like "he is the father and she the mother of the child". Equinox ◑ 11:36, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Oh, the "the" was doubled, I notice now that I paste it here... Equinox ◑ 11:36, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Deletion of least favorites

I am requesting that the page least favorites be restored, and I thought I'd explain why. The page that failed RFV/RFD back in the day was least favorite (without the "s" at the end) and it was an entry for the adjective sense of least favorite. The entry I created earlier today I created as a plural noun entry, which I added with a citation with the help of Google Books. Inner Focus (talk) 22:42, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

If it should exist as an entry, it should be the plural of a noun lemmatised at least favorite, which failed RFD for the same reasons. You can post in WT:TR about it if you want. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:07, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Lashi

Just a heads up; a year ago I have created some 300 entries in Lashi. Much like with Zou, the author of the paper I have been following completely ignored the fact that the language should have been written in the Morse Orthography ⁽¹⁾ , so now I am going to move them all over. This might result into a lot of pages that are going to become candidates for speedy deletion. I'm terribly sorry for that. Thadh (talk) 11:15, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for dealing with it! I'll be on the lookout... —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:41, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Nothing too important, but

...thank you for your revision on mulceō. I am happy that someone read one of my labours of love, and so attentively, at that, to spot that error. As a Latin editor I sometimes feel like I’m shouting into a void, so I take joy in having my work noticed. --Biolongvistul (talk) 21:51, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but I wasn't actually reading it attentively, rather searching for instances of "the the" across the entire wiki. But thank you for your work all the same! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:55, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

oh --Biolongvistul (talk) 21:58, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

This conversation led me to realise we didn't have enough The The lyrics. I added a couple from the better songs. I'm gonna have to get out my The The vinyl and give it a proper listen again. --Kriss Barnes (talk) 22:03, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Question about emoji pages

I couldn't find where to ask a question, but you said to reach out if I had any. Am I allowed to add pages titled with just emojis that don't yet have a page and only include what the emoji pictures? Or, more importantly, will it just be removed? That's alright if you don't know, but I could use a link to the place where I'm supposed to ask things like this anyway. Thanks! AntisocialRyan (talk) 05:25, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Asking me directly is fine; otherwise, you can use the Information desk. Creating emoji entries should only be done if you are certain the emoji can be attested in newspapers, books, etc — not online-only sources. Google does not search emojis effectively, so it's challenging to determine whether this is the case for a given emoji. When in doubt, avoid creating the entry, and remember that this is a dictionary, rather than a catalogue of all valid Unicode codepoints. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:56, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

-ius etymology

I'm pretty sure I do understand and I do know that Wiktionary almost never lists Old Latin etyma in Latin entries especially if the only difference is the thematic vowel changing to u in the final syllable. I would accept it if forever reason there was actually a separate entry for this OL lemma. This maybe a pointless thread but I am bothered, sorry. (Also would I be supposed to keep this discussion at the -ius entry? I'm not sure how to tag you over there) Anatol Rath (talk) 23:53, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@Anatol Rath: This is a fine place to discuss it. Wiktionary rarely lists Old Latin etyma, but it probably should more when they are nonidentical. It can be quite useful, after all (e.g. at luna). Whether the entry exists or not is immaterial; any valid entry that doesn't exist should exist, but in the mean time we can still link to it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:56, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

What I am saying is that the change from o to u is seen in so many words that it seems very arbitrary to mention it only on this page. I would rather work on some more proto-italic entries as there are surely some cognates of -ius and with PI there is always a chance that some interesting process related to this was still productive. I agree that lemmas like luna and honos definitely need the notice that the old form was still used in the early literary period.

Anatol Rath (talk) 10:05, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

This is a suffix entry, so the thematic vowel is proportionately a much bigger part of the term. It's also a central place where we can afford to go into details that we wouldn't want to repeat in all of the whole-word entries. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:42, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

IP Block Exemption request

Hi, I'd like to request an IP block exemption for my account. I've moved to somewhere IRL where the wifi is public, so I use a VPN. Thank you in advance. Kritixilithos (talk) 13:49, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't see why you need an exemption. If you have already moved and are able to edit, then you don't (yet) need it. If you do find yourself unable to edit, you are already on Discord, so you can easily leave a message asking for IP block exemption at that time. Except in cases of clear need, there is tradition to avoid giving block exemption to inexperienced users. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:51, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Nahuatl language

Maybe Classical Nahuatl is a revitalized language, I don't know.--Marrovi (talk) 04:34, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Let's keep this conversation in one place (your talk page). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:43, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Annulation of RFV for Werra

We can add "vulgar Latin" to the tag for werra & guerra that already have the Medieval Latin tag. I don't understand the reason why there should be one reconstructed Latin "werra" and one regular Latin "werra" Aearthrise (talk) 01:51, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

I removed your RFV because you weren't actually looking for verification. That said, this is a valid conversation to have, but the Tea room might be a better place for it. I like keeping the stages of Latin separate in this way, especially because the mediaeval attestations are likely influenced, if not borrowed in some cases, from the Romance forms that in turn are inherited from the Vulgar Latin. And we shouldn't just add a 'Vulgar Latin' label to the entry, because it's not attested in that lect! But others may disagree, so you are free to start a discussion. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:54, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

Acela Republican

Redirects do not have to pass RfV (and saying they do is making up rules that don't exist). I have recreated this, as I believe your deletion of the redirect was in error and your interpretation of what should be a redirect and what should be an article is inaccurate. Please do not delete it again without first obtaining a consensus to do so. Purplebackpack89 20:58, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

I'll let this one go because you gave me a good laugh with your hashtags. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:15, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Another question

I'm trying to verify OnlyFans, as in an OnlyFans account. They said it needs to fit WT:BRAND but it's confusing to me. I have sources, but how and where do I add them? I only know how to add quotations like I did already. Also, can I cite a song's lyrics? AntisocialRyan (talk) 02:46, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Add your quotations to the entry, like the existing one (although I'm not sure TechCrunch is durably archived; it doesn't come out in print, does it?). Song lyrics count. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:27, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Academia

@Metaknowledge: Are you aware of any administrator arranging emails from Academia, because if so, I should like to thank them very much; although that is very unlikely. An identical name with over 1 700 mentions keeps being sent to my email; but I sincerely hope that it is not me, as I do not wish to make my mark with them or in Wiktionary, for that matter. My endeavour is simply to enhance the accuracy of etymologies that I know and which can be referenced as documented. I have been long aware that most of my original edits were blatantly out of order on three counts, for which I duly apologise! Am also sorry for going beyond my terms of reference in the edit for gull since that of wail cannot be referenced as far as I know; and that of fid was merely carelessness, due to not remembering that online (only) dictionaries cannot serve as references as per Wiktionary rules. So both of those edits were block-worthy. Regarding that of adze, the relevance of my edit (which is substantiated in the Oxford Etymological Dictionary), the terms: 'adosa' and 'adosan' were both older forms in early Old English and, as such, discount the fabricated reconstructed PG form, that no other reputable dictionary I have seen recognises! The truth is that its etymology beyond Anglo-Saxon is unknown. I was not inclined to revert the previous edit in dog that was lucid to the layman, in contrast to the obscure change which may appear more scientific, but reduces the credibility (that is already lacking amongst the public) of Wiktionary - a similar recent edit has also done this! That was why I did not delete the most recent edit there. Also, the masterpiece of the etymology of dog had been changed to a garbled one, by the same editor! I had left it for a whole month before replying on purpose, as self-discipline not to edit compulsively without suitable verification. Kind regards. Andrew H. Gray 17:41, 29 August 2020 (UTC) Andrew (talk)

Wiktionary.org is unrelated to Academia.edu. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:49, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

When you sign up for an account with Academia.org in order to view an article, you also sign up to receive emails from them. They make their money by getting people to pay to see their paywalled articles, so they're constantly sending out emails to let members know about any articles their algorithms suggest they might be interested in. I've never published anything, but there are a Hungarian botanist and a Canadian soil scientist (no relation) who share my surname. That means I've gotten a lot of emails saying my name was mentioned in some article. If you don't want to receive those emails, you would probably have to cancel your Academia.edu account. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:42, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

FWOTDs

Given that you were the one to get in touch with me about doing FWOTDs, I believe that you're probably the best person to mention this to. I'm no longer in a position where I can set FWOTDs like I've been doing for the past year or so (right now, there's about a month's backlog of FWOTDs). Would you (or someone else) be fine handling them, or should I try and work something else out (like appealing for people to handle FWOTDs at the Beer Parlour)? Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 09:26, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

@Hazarasp: First of all, you've been doing a great job. I'm really glad that someone else took on the mantle for as long as you did. I don't want to go back to setting FWOTDs, because I did it alone for a long time and burned out. Appealing in the BP is a good idea, although I'm not sure it will work. If no one steps up to the plate for a while, we could always set the template to show FWOTDs from 2013 or something — it's been running long enough that I doubt most readers will remember what we featured before! (In that case, I'd just check for moving holidays and whatnot, which wouldn't take too long.) —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:24, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

I'll have a think through things and see what I can do before the backlog runs out - it's just that things have been quite challenging for me personally as of late, so I'd prefer to wipe my hands of FWOTDs as much as possible. Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 08:15, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

I understand that. If you want to go the recycling route, I can help with that. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:22, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Africar

See Africar. I dunno what this is exactly: a brand name, trademark (I doubt it), just a type of car? I thought I'd dump it in your lap because you have some clue about parts of Africa. *dusts hands* best wishes, Equinox ◑ 04:21, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

@Equinox: Never heard of it. I'm having trouble even telling if the relevant cites at google books:"Africars" pass WT:BRAND. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:38, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Yeah probably forget it. I found it in a list of "blends"/portmanteaus. Some were trademarky. Thanks anyway. Equinox ◑ 05:50, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Paumanok

I have restored the definition from the Algonquin family of languages. It should not have been speedily deleted in the manner in which you did it. It is easily provable that one of the Algonquin family of languages has a word for Long Island called Paumanok. Your actions seem less about building the project and more about grinding some ax with me. Purplebackpack89 20:46, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

@Purplebackpack89: Algonquin is not a family; it's a language, spoken nowhere near Long Island. You added an incorrect entry in a language you know nothing about, and you were then informed of this by someone who does know about it, and replied "I'll be darned". I removed the entry upon finding out that it was obviously wrong, which is what you should have done upon being informed of your error. Now that you have decided to readd it after being told it was wrong, which is hardly "building the dictionary", unless, of course, you want this to be a faulty dictionary. Consequently, I have blocked you. Please do not ping me during your block, as I don't intend to engage any further. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:01, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

Request for promotion

Hello. May I have rollbacking rights, please? I know it is strange to seek it myself, but I sometimes come upon pages where some editors have made multiple disruptive edits, which I have to undo one by one. So an elevation of my user rights would be quite helpful to me. Thanks for considering! — inqilābī ^{[ inqilāb zindabād ]} 17:48, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

The rollbacker right is given out quite rarely, as we tend to rely on admins to do that work. I have hardly ever interacted with you, and I cannot tell if you have the kind of depth of experience expected of someone with that role, so I'm not going to nominate you. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:15, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

I would add that rollback marks the edit(s) as patrolled, so admins and other patrollers will no longer see them. If those edits require action such as blocking that only an admin can do, that makes you responsible for bringing it to an admin's attention.

Fortunately, You don't have to undo edits one by one. If you view the history of a page, you'll see that there are two links next to each revision. The one marked "prev" will display that edit on one side and the previous state of the page on the other. The one marked "cur" shows the state of the page at the time of that edit on one side and the current state of the page on the other. The neat thing about this is that clicking "Undo" while you're in the "cur" view will allow you to undo all the way back to that earlier edit.

I do this quite often because rollback only reverts the edits done by the contributor of the last edit, and there may be more than one disruptive editor. Undoing from the last good edit gets all of the edits after that one regardless of who made them. You also can customize the edit summary, which you can't do with a rollback- instead you're stuck with a canned message saying to leave a message on your talk page if they think the rollback is in error. A canned message is a lot better than no message most of the time, but sometimes you want to explain things.. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:10, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

Re: "isn't [רַכֶּכֶת] probably just a phonosemantic matching of the English anyway?"

I can't promise that neither rickets or rachitis had any effect on whoever coined רַכֶּכֶת (rakékhet), but רַךְ‎ (rákh) really is the word for "soft", and there are other similarly-constructed words where it's clear that they're purely semantic calques (such as שַׁפַּעַת (shapá'at), from a root that forms words related to influencing; cf. influenza). Neither Klein or Even-Shoshan mentions either rickets or rachitis in the etymology. —Ruakh_TALK 06:01, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

It's just not clear why "soft" would necessarily be the most obvious semantics here, and the similarity to rachitis in particular is striking. But if the experts don't mention it, I'm not so wedded to the idea that I would add it to the entry without scholarly support. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:05, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Re "lock on"

You still haven't justified your beef with my original edit - specifically, why it wasn't an improvement. A reversion due to the original's conformity with other entries that need similar attention is inadequate rationale. My concern doesn't relate to similar infirmities in other entries, however. It's just that in my work, I occasionally refer students to Wiktionary entries for phrases such as "lock on", but only if the given sense matches the taxon. I urge you to leave the second iteration of my edit as is, or to at least substitute whatever intransitive definitional sense satisfies you.

Indeed, I take further issue with the English phrasal verb and English phrasal verbs with particle (on) classifications in the "lock on" entry. I.e., the first phrasal verb meaning properly applies the the transitive sense of "lock on," but the second phrasal verb meaning soesn't apply. As accordingly defined, the "on" in transitive sense of "lock on" can only be properly construed as a preposition, not an adverbial particle. This is a classic instance of conflating the transitive and accusative concepts. Yet, correcting the classification from phrasal verb to verb phrase is beyond the scope of my immediate interest. I would nonetheless laud anyone's effort to make those corrections. --Kent Dominic (talk) 01:32, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

I responded on your talk page. I would have done so sooner, but I was occupied. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:10, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Re. your last edit, I hadn't seen the cites in my prior edit, which was intended as a partial reversion. Didn't go as planned. My bad. --Kent Dominic (talk) 07:04, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

And you apparently didn't bother to read my edit summary either. Provide quotes before making an edit. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:39, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

ǃXóõ redirects

Hello, I've nominated some redirects to ǃXóõ language terms that initially redirected to pages you had moved without leaving a redirect and so were broken. I don't speak ǃXóõ though, so could you please review them and delete those where there is an actual spelling mistake? 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 17:40, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

• The pages where deleted, but you might still want to have a look at them: ɡjɔ̰̀, ɡɔŋ, ã`hʻã`, ŋǁàʻm, ŋǁâʻẽ, ǁqáʻã, ǂáʻã, ŋ!àʻiŋ!àʻi, ʻŋǁaki. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 19:37, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Etymology of Latin rēgia?

Hi, Metaknowledge. I have a question regarding the etymology of rēgia. The etym. given on the page is: "Substantive noun from rēgius...". I would have thought, however, that a substantive from rēgius would be a nominalization of the nominative neuter form, and so yeilding a noun rēgium having the same meaning as the subject rēgia, as is the common way that substantives were created from Latin adjectives. I am unfamiliar with substantivization of the nominative feminine form (which should not be construed as extraordinary, as I am a Latin learner to whom much is unfamiliar). Of course, -a does not yeild nouns from adjectives, so that cannot explain rēgia. The only alternative to the given etymology, therefore, seems to be: rēgia = rēgius + -ia. I don't even know, however, if adjectives in -ius can be suffixed with -ia; such a construction would seem to be extraordinary. Furthermore, -ia creates abstract nouns, of which rēgia is not an example. Can you help me to understand this? — This unsigned comment was added by 68.112.86.146 (talk) at 17:38, 7 October 2020‎.

I think you're overthinking this. Any adjective can be substantivised, as the boundary between nouns and adjectives is very flimsy in Latin. The choice of gender is somewhat arbitrary, because you can think of it as originally agreeing with an implied noun. In this case, it might be aula, urbs, whatever — or even inspired by basilica, to which the etymology compares this formation. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:43, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

So, I guess the meaning of the etymology is, that someone someone sort of "willy-nilly" decided to substantivize the nominative feminine declentive because they were inspired by the Greek example of noun βασιλική from adjective βᾰσῐλῐκός? Well...that's actually a bit distressing for one who has always thought of Latin as fairly rigorously following prescribed rules (I have, in fact, always considered that to have been part of why Latin triumphed over Oscan, Etruscan, and the other local languages). Well...there go more of my illusions...guess that's part of the learning process. Thanks, man, and btw, I think it's your example that I have to thank for the rather elegant quotation template that I have been using of late. If it is, then: "thanks!" — This unsigned comment was added by 68.112.86.146 (talk) at 20:35, 7 October 2020‎.

Latin is a very willy-nilly language, and the grammarians have made it seem regular. Look at any classic Latin literature, and you'll find that exceptions abound. Latin triumphed for political reasons, not linguistic ones. (And I didn't make the quotation templates — I don't even know how to use some of them!). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:33, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Oh, I don't know why, but I have thought it to be your template. Whoever created it has my thanks, because it is, as I say, quite 'elegant'. Superlatively "willy-nilly" you say? That's good to know as I pursue studies in Latin, so that I won't expect too much regularity. I have found one example of a noun in -ia derived from an adjective in -ius: gōgrāvia from gōgrāvius, but I think that's a medieval construction, and at that time the rules seem to have been "made to be broken". Take care. — This unsigned comment was added by 68.112.86.146 (talk) at 22:05, 7 October 2020.

en-prop

Thanks for correcting Gion. I thought there must be an English-specific template for proper nouns, but couldn't guess what it was! Cnilep (talk) 01:27, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

@Cnilep: {{en-proper noun}} might be easier to remember (and conforms to the usual format). While I'm at it, it wouldn't be bad to use {{place}} in that entry either, but I tend not to recommend it due to its complexity. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:29, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Guanche

I should have said this earlier, but thank you for the Guanche material you sent me over email!--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 21:10, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

No problem. If there's anything else you need or want to discuss, you can always email me. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:18, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

shebka

Once upon a time you edited shebka to be an alternative form of sabkha. I think there are two words for features of the same part of North Africa, and the ones beginning with sh come from شَبَكَة (šabaka, “net”) instead of سَبْخَة‎ (sabḵa, “salt flat”). I've been looking at this after coming across la chebka in a French play set in North Africa. It seems to be an arid inland region distinct from the often coastal salt flats known as sebkha. From a German point of view, see this glossary of North Africa-related terms. "Chebka, schabaka, Schebka (arab. شَبَكَة)" and "Sebkha, Sebcha, Sebka, Sebhka, Sebkra ( سَبْخَة) ". I can continue my research but perhaps you have the answer at hand. I have no useful knowledge of Arabic. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:21, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

@Vox Sciurorum: You're right, I seem to have gotten confused. I'm not sure how best to define this one, so you can feel free to have at it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:06, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

@Vox Sciurorum The Arabic word for "sebkha" has two readings: سَبَخَة (sabaḵa) and سَبْخَة‎ (sabḵa). If you open this site and enter "سبخة‎" in the search, you will find an entry in Hans Wehr dictionary, page 458. @Fenakhay, Fay Freak, Benwing2: FYI. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:36, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Afar verbs

Hey, I messed up and I would like a second opinion before I fix everything in a wrong way. Here are the points which I am about to change:

1. I wrongfully assumed that the given Afar verbs were infinitives, so I intend to reshape every entry ("I see" instead of "to see") (Category:Afar verbs)
2. I have marked all derived verbs (i.e. frequentative, passive, causative, inchoative and autobenefactive and all combinations thereof) as {{inflection of|aa}}. These I intend to redo as derived verbs with the respective affixes. (Category:Afar verb forms)
3. I am not sure whether to see a negative verb as an inflection or derivative. I intend to make it a derivative (like mentioned above), but please correct me if you see it another way.
4. I have created a very simple {{aa-conj}}, which I intend to delete from each page that now contains it and make it fully functional (with all aspects and moods that I have not yet added).

I hate to be a nuisance, I hope I don't ask too much of you. Thadh (talk) 08:33, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thadh, I'm very sorry to have left this unanswered. I have been quite busy in real life and didn't know enough about Afar verbs to answer, but I have now done the requisite reading. If I can help you move forward on this in any way, let me know (and no, you're not a nuisance). 1. They're not all 1S though, right? If we're lemmatising on the verbal stem, then it would be best to just give the verb and avoid "to" or "I" altogether. 2. Yes, they should be derived verbs. You might consider making a template analogous to {{sw-derform}} to do that. 3. I believe it is an inflection. Why do you think otherwise? 4. That's a good idea; it's always better to design the infrastructure as completely as one can before deploying it. We'll probably want different templates for the three inflectional paradigms. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:52, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer, no need for apologies. You're right, the class III verbs are 3sg, I should've been clearer. Also, cool thing about the sw-noun, I haven't ever come across it, but it seems about like what we need (although we need a possibility of multiple derivation in a custom order.

Now, do you really think lemmatising a verb without any personal marker is a good way forward? Won't that create any confusion regarding the definitions (I thought there was a custom about defining verbs with markers)?

I thought that since the negative seems to have exactly the same inflections as the positive it mightn't differ too much from the derivative. Just like there can be a derivative of a derivative (e.g. autobenefactive causative), so a negative can be derived from a derivative.

We could indeed create the three classes with automatic generation. I'll need some help with this though, templates and I aren't really best friends. Maybe basing them on the main table would be the easiest way. Thadh (talk) 20:29, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

@Thadh: For Swahili, I handle multiple derivation as a derivation of a derivation. I think that should work here; is there a reason to prefer presenting it as multiple derivation (e.g. examples where the intermediate form doesn't actually exist)?

There is indeed a custom of defining verbs with markers, but we can choose to break it for Afar. I don't see how it could cause confusion, given the Verb header.

I just don't think the negative is a new lemma by any means. It will certainly fatten up the conjugation tables, though (compare {{sw-conj}}).

Creating a core table template and then three templates that call it seems like the way to go here. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:36, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't know any double derivations without intermediate of the top of my head, so we could indeed just do that. I certainly hope Afar conjugation table will be nothing like Swahili's :). Thanks for your help, I'll try implementing all this, but that might be a little slower than usually, since I'll be busy in real life and with fixing Cree. Thadh (talk) 11:46, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

I have expanded {{aa-conj}}. The question I have about it is: is there a way to make the compound tenses expandable? I have also created {{aa-derverb}}, but we'll need to create the category Category:Afar autobenefactive verbs before we can use it. How do I do that? Thanks in advance. Thadh (talk) 21:51, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

@Thadh: I think that looks good. I'm not much good at tables; maybe @Erutuon would be able to help with the expandable bit? As for autobenefactive, I've added it here; let me know if you want me to tweak the wording. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:57, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

@Thadh: See here for the method used by Module:se-nominals (in {{se-infl-noun-even}} for instance) to hide a subtable, if that's the kind of thing you mean. — Eru·tuon 06:55, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Vandalism

Hi! Deleting proper entries without WT:RFV/WT:RFD (such as nå in diff, Brot in diff and diff and diff) is vandalism.
nå even was attested (version history: the source contains usages from 2018!) before it got deleted with incorrect claims ("outdated academic transcription"). Best regards, Der Zeitmeister (talk) 00:23, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

clbuttic

You said in your reverting edit summary that you can find the plural of clbuttic in Google Books. Why does it say that it's uncountable? If it's too rare for a dictionary, wouldn't something like "plural not attested" be more appropriate, as is marked on Pippi Longstocking? Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 10:49, 8 November 2020 (UTC)

@Mölli-Möllerö: Indeed, that's the best tack to take. Changed accordingly. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:13, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Edits at dila

Can someone merge or hide the IP address on the latest edit on the Ilocano entry for dila? I've not realized I've been logged out in the background, and I've gone anon which may concern some users. I've restored those changes as my edit. --TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 06:41, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

There's nothing improper about making a few edits while logged out unless you're doing it to get around the rules or deceive people. The main reason not to do that is that anyone can tell your physical location from your IP address, within a hundred miles or so. They may call IPs anonymous editors, but editing as an IP means less privacy, not more. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I also had have that embarrasing moment in Wikivoyage, and has something to do with me not checking the "keep me logged in" box when I log in at times. TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 07:21, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Re. transivity

You never replied to 25 September 2020 post regarding "lock on". That post took issue with your assertion that, “definitions do not have to match the transitivity or valency of the lemma being defined. That's why we have labels.” Of course they don’t have to match, but I think they should.

For the record, I’m not a member of the transivity or valency watchdog team. However, I strive for that type of matching regarding all of the verbs, phrasal verbs, and verb phrases defined in my own lexicon. Some of my entries contain external links to synonyms that don’t elsewhere appear in the corpus of my work. I include links only to sources where the given sense and examples align with the purported transivity.

Accordingly, at Wiktionary, I typically edit only those pages corresponding to my links if the relevant synonym here has a taxonomic label or definition that needs reconciliation. The phrasal verb, “lock on,” is one such link.

For context, my corpus entails a woman who is “tuned in” to her own thoughts. (Let’s ignore the valency issue from the accusative argument regarding the verb’s relevance to her thoughts.) My lexicon defines “tune in” (intransitive) as “to attune regarding, focus on, or be mindful of a particular person or thing.” Synonyms had included “dial in” (intransitive) and “lock on” (intransitive), which linked to Wiktionary. (Note: Wiktionary’s “tune in” and “dial in” entries don’t distinguish their respective senses based on transivity.)

Initially, “lock on” was defined broadly enough here to suit my purposes, but the sense of it was written in transitive terms. That’s why I edited it in September. The interim definition stood with my changes until late November. The current definition is more limited in its purview as it regards two senses that relate solely to technology; i.e., there’s no longer room for extension to, e.g., a politician who has locked on to a certain idea or an athlete who is locked on to his or her performance.

I’m troubled neither by the change in definition nor by:

1. The lack of linguistic fidelity in an assertion that “To begin tracking a target via an automated system” is somehow intransitive. It’s not. It should be, “To begin tracking via an automated targeting system.”
2. The interpolation of “begin” in that definition, as can be inferred by, “the robot continued to lock on and as it moved directly toward the triangle.”

Your edit summary said not to remove valid cites. (I’m sure you meant valid quotes.) Your talk page said to provide quotes before making an edit. My only quandary is why you seem to think that quotes are necessary to reconcile my preferred wording, i.e., “to track via an automated targeting system,” which, by way of your September 24 comments, would imply a target without its explicit, transitive mention.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not losing sleep over this. If the entry stays as is, so be it. I’ll just use a different synonym. For me, writing even a long a post such as this is preferable to repeatedly pressing the point or adding another sense. I mean, if I went to the trouble of writing another sense for “lock on,” I’d keep my proprietary interest in doing so by including it in my own lexicon. You know?

Again, although I’m compulsive in demanding my own definitions’ exactitude, I’m not obsessive about the lack of it here. If so, I’d correct Wiktionary entries like let go, which is mistakenly labeled as transitive in the “let go of” phrase: it’s not a horrible mistake to overlook how “go” is noun in its archaic sense, making “let go of” a fossilized phrase that syntactically translates as “permit freedom of,” but it’s a mistake nonetheless. (Ask the author of the label whether he or she thought “go” was a verb in that phrase and, if so, why the phrase might nevertheless be construed as intransitive.) I have no interest in making the correction in Wiktionary since the phrase is properly glossed in my own lexicon.

In summary, if any of this adds up for you, consider changing the relevant “lock on” sense as indicated above. I can’t speak for every Wiktionary user, but the main reason I read dictionaries is to sort out the etymology and transivity of phrasal verbs and verb phrases as I parse those that might be considered idiomatic. If even one future Wiktionary user gets trapped by the “lock on” anomaly, my hands are clean. Thankfully, Wiktionary doesn’t label such phrases as “idioms” like some dictionaries do. --Kent Dominic (talk) 07:49, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Quotes (sometimes bafflingly referred to as "cites" around here, sorry about that) are the basis of any proposed definition. Go to Google Books, present quotes that support the semantics you were trying to introduce, and then we can talk about it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:31, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

Re: User talk:Bankster

Hi. I added those meanings as I've seen many Spanish-language speakers in Latin America employ them in some situations. I'm a native Spanish speaker myself (I'm from Peru), so I can confirm by personal experience the second meaning of "fujimorista" colloquially. I've also seen on Colombian social media the use of "uribista" with a similar meaning, however I'm not so sure about "correísta" in Ecuador.

Unfortunately I don't have any source to back up that claim and I do not think I would find that usage in Google Books, although I could be wrong. You can keep the revertion if you'd like to. --Bankster (talk) 21:45, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

@Bankster: It's better to keep these conversations in one place; I hope that you don't mind that I edited the title of this section to refer back to where I left the original comment. Anyway, there may be some colloquial usage that extends the meaning, but people are sometimes merely uncareful in how they refer to political opponents in speech, and in ways that they wouldn't be in writing. As Wiktionary is based on (mainly written) durably archived media, all of our definitions need to be backed up by that kind of evidence, which is why I recommended you sift through Google Books results to prove your case. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:21, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

Re. hear, hear

Hey Metaknowledge, I’ll forever deny being obstructionist, but I readily admit being too lazy to invest the time needed to figure out proper protocols regarding the change indicated here. If you’re interested in doing it yourself in a way that avoids ruffling feathers, have at it. Cheers. --Kent Dominic (talk) 15:57, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

Dictionary-building Strategy Question

Hey Metaknowledge- I would like to ask you or someone about my strategy with respect to documenting the non-Hanyu Pinyin derived geography words of China-related geography that I have been working on. For example, with the words Huang-ch'i and Huangchi, I am 1000% sure that these words are a) a legitimate part of 20th century English and b) are in the literature. I am confident of this because the town is very close to the Matsu Islands, and I'm sure that, at minimum, secret military documents from the period will have references to that location using both of those words and close variants thereof. However, because I'm just a random dude, I don't have the resources to prove beyond doubt that these two words satisfy Wiktionary:ATTEST.

So my questions are: First- can you verify/attest/cite these two words better than I already have? Second, if you can't, does that mean these two pages are "on the chopping block" one day when the anti-history Hanyu Pinyin-only cohorts come rolling in (I have been harassed on Wikipedia and Wiktionary by 50 Cent Party-like now-banned proxy IPs and accounts specifically targeting non-Hanyu Pinyin derived words, with the most prominent example on my Mandarin Chinese Wikipedia talk page) and start picking off the weaker parts of the work I have done so far? These two questions will help guide me on my strategy for making new pages in this area and attesting these kinds of words (if you can do better than me in finding sources, then I hope to learn new search methods, but if you can't, I hope to learn more about the Wiktionary attestation policy mechanics). Thanks for any guidance. If you can't help me, please ping someone that could give me advice. Thanks for any help. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 16:48, 10 December 2020 (UTC) (modified)

I don't think that Huang-ch'i can be cited, and as you knew that, you shouldn't have created it. You are suffering from a persecution complex, so you will always imagine you are the target of attacks by the 50 Cent Party or someone else. In reality, the only times you run into trouble on Wiktionary is when you let your ideology get in the way of following Wiktionary rules and procedures. Your strategy should be to follow WT:CFI. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:08, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

WF audios

Hi. I think it was you who was checking all Wonderfool audios. She's done a big batch since then (including all in the WOTD archive except multiworders), so if you feel like checking them, let her know if there's any crap in there - hopefully there'll only be 5-10% crap. Kilo Lima Mike (talk) 19:50, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm not enough of an angel to do that kind of work. @Ultimateria is the one who did it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:43, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

?

Would you explain why did you remove my etymology for Turkish word otag? Alireza9992 (talk) 13:19, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

What entry are you referring to? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:40, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Regarding a questionable page on an autopatroller's user page

There has been a user, who I will link, that has been quite helpful to me , I think she's an autopatroller. She has a "word sandbox" link on her user page, which seems to be a collection of words that she wishes were real. They're obviously not attested, because searching up any of the coinages yield no search results that match with her supposed definition, so they are certainly her inventions. That's probably why she named this page a "word sandbox".

The issue with this page, which you will notice shortly after opening it, is that it's quite replete with racist and anti-Semitic coinages, words that describe supposed problems that would only exist in the mind of someone who is paranoid about the "non-white people".

I'm not sure what I want to happen here, but I look forward to your response as an admin. She has been quite cordial to me in all of her communications, but nonetheless I find what she has posted on her public user page to be quite unacceptable. GoateeBoi (talk) 21:57, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

I haven't seen that page before, but I was aware of her political views as expressed off the wiki. I will delete the user page in question, as I consider it to be in contravention of our policies. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:48, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

Freedom of speech is not just for the people that the governments of nations, the Wiktionary community or GoateeBoi agree with. The concept of freedom of speech is specially designed specifically for the people that governments, communities, and GoateeBoi disagree with. There is no freedom of speech on Wiktionary if this post leads to actual action against Apisite, and that should scare us all- to draw an analogy: 'First they came for the racists, and I said nothing because I was not a racist.' Every edit I make on Wiktionary with reference to Wade-Giles is mortally despised by the admins in the Chinese languages department here, but the words exist and the ideal form of Wiktionary clearly includes them. Likewise, it would be wrong to censor someone here no matter how absurdist their page is as long as there is not direct interference caused by their behavior with the goal of creating the ultimate dictionary. "You are the censors you are looking for." would almost seem an appropriate conclusion here.

在控制科學普及以及個人言論自由這方面，現代的政治正確概念所提出的作用並不亞於中世紀的歐洲暴君與天主教的教皇使用的宗教思想所提出的。 [MSC, trad.]
在控制科学普及以及个人言论自由这方面，现代的政治正确概念所提出的作用并不亚于中世纪的欧洲暴君与天主教的教皇使用的宗教思想所提出的。 [MSC, simp.]

Zài kòngzhì kēxué pǔjí yǐjí gèrén yánlùn zìyóu zhè fāngmiàn, xiàndài de zhèngzhì zhèngquè gàiniàn suǒ tíchū de zuòyòng bìngbù yàyú Zhōngshìjì de Ōuzhōu bàojūn yǔ Tiānzhǔjiào de jiàohuáng shǐyòng de zōngjiào sīxiǎng suǒ tíchū de. [Pinyin]

In terms of the control of the spread of scientific knowledge and of freedom of speech of the individual, the effect of modern political correctness is by no means inferior to that of the religious ideology used by the tyrants and Catholic popes of Medieval Europe.

[2] --Geographyinitiative (talk) 22:56, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

1. You are lying, and foolish to boot. 2. There is no free speech on Wiktionary. The only speech that belongs here is speech in service of building the dictionary. We are not your soapbox. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:07, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

She's quite brilliant with languages, generous with her time and in general very nice to work with, but there's something about her neurological makeup that renders her completely unable to judge credibility. She has an equal chance of accepting whatever she comes across- correct or incorrect, worthy or unworthy. You just have to accept that a certain percentage of what she sincerely believes in is going to be vile, stupid and/or utter nonsense. It's best not to take her seriously, and there are times when we have to intervene to keep her from unwittingly doing serious damage. It's sad, because she deserves better- but there are some things you just can't fix. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:33, 30 December 2020 (UTC)

How to merge a misnamed category

From now onwards I will name categories in the uppercase plural, taking heed of en-en categorization conventions.

I think I made this mistake for quite a few entries. Is it possible to merge the misnamed category into the right one? Otherwise, I can just open all the entries in the misnamed category and change manually correct their categorization.

GoateeBoi (talk) 07:39, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

The category names are not always predictable; sorry for the trouble. Category:ml:Food only has 3 entries, so you can fix it by hand. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:44, 31 December 2020 (UTC)