Unorthografair

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Second, thanks for your work on etymologies. A couple of notes concerning them. First, Category:Greek derivations should not be used. It's best to simply use {{Gr.}} in the body of the etymology, which adds the category automagically. Second, most of the words which are "Greek derivations" are actually not from Greek, but from Ancient Greek, in which case one should use {{AGr.}}. On Wiktionary, Greek means modern Greek. Finally, you may want to check with Widsith about the proper term for various periods of the English language. For example, we're using Old English instead of Anglo-Saxon. More importantly, I don't believe we're using the term Medieval English, but perhaps Middle English. Widsith will know for sure. Any questions, feel free to ask. Thanks. Atelaes 21:31, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Wiktionary has quite the plethora of rules, regulations, and formatting policies. Be observant and you'll pick them up in time. Your initial edits seem quite advanced for a newbie. :-) If you like, take a look at the changes I made to calm. Atelaes 21:48, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Huh, I did not know that. All of my "standard" etymology sources simply stop at caleō. And my Latin sources are shit, and don't give any etymological information at all. Feel free to add it, if you like. Atelaes 22:11, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

It would get appended at the end, right after caleō. Atelaes 22:24, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Caleō is listed as a possible etymon by the OED, among others. Atelaes 22:39, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Latin < Greek

Funny you should mention that, as I spent a good chunk of last week emptying and deleting Category:Latin words from Greek. All of the entries are now found at Category:la:Ancient Greek derivations. The syntax for this uses the {{AGr.}} template I mentioned earlier. What is done is to put the code for Latin (la) as a parameter of this template, which looks like this: {{AGr.|la}}. Bear in mind that this can be done with any etymology template with any language, so that we have all of the subcategories that are seen at Category:Ancient Greek derivations. Does that answer your question? Atelaes 05:41, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

A few pages that I thought you might enjoy/find useful/despise me for pointing out to you are Wiktionary:About Latin, Wiktionary:About Ancient Greek, and Wiktionary:Etymology (check the talk pages as well, as they sometimes contain more information than the main pages). Atelaes 05:54, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Bold vs italics is a currently debated topic on Wiktionary talk:Etymology. I am the leading proponent of using bold instead of italics, and it would seem that I might win this particular argument, but it is not yet policy, so feel free to do whatever you like for now. I won't change an etymology simply because it uses italics instead of bold, but whenever I fix an etymology for any other reason, I generally switch italics to bold, simply because it's my preference. Atelaes 17:42, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. Perhaps you should consider putting forth your opinions at Wiktionary talk:Etymology#Bold vs. Italics. We have surprisingly few folks taking an active interest in etymologies here (I would have thought that every language nerd would go bonkers over etymologies, but I guess that's just me). Atelaes 18:06, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Bryophyta

I am removing your Derived terms that you added. First, neither bryophyte nor bryophytic should be capitalized. Second (and more importantly), neither of those words is Translingual. The Derived terms section is used only for words in the same language as the entry in which they appear. --EncycloPetey 21:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, when you edited the etymology, you eliminated the Latin root. Please don't do this. It is good to continue the etymology of words back into Greek, but the immediate source for translingual use of Bryophyta was Latin, so that language should be mentioned.

Finaly, watch the language of entries that you edit. Whenyou inserted the etymology template {{AGr.}} into the page, you categorized it as English even though the header says Translingual. Currently, the etymological templates are not set up to categorize Translingual entries, so it's best to just link the language name for now for those entries. --EncycloPetey 22:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Etymology stuff

Could you please try and remember to include the breathing marks for Ancient Greek etymons? Thanks. Atelaes 00:10, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

equus

My impression was that equus was a cognate, and not a descendant of the Greek. However, if I am mistaken, then this should certainly be included. We strive in all things for completeness in etymologies, and the earliest attested form is quite important. Atelaes 23:49, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm not sure I completely understand where you're coming from on this one. Certainly it would be quite reasonable to list ίκκος as an old cognate, but I wouldn't consider it necessary, as they're different words, and not in each other's lineage. What I think would be best is to simply cite the PIE root, have an entry on the PIE root (the current Wiktionary policy on which is a bit......messy), and then discuss the various descendants of the PIE root on its own page. As for endings that Latin picked up from Greek, I guess I just don't know where something like that would be discussed. I guess that seems like something that might go on the 'pedia. Also, you may want to be a bit more cautious with some of the etymologies. I've noticed a few of them where you claim a Latin word comes from Greek where others are simply calling them cognates. Atelaes 19:38, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately one of the drawbacks of writing a general-purpose dictionary is that one is rather prevented from doing new, interesting, and unconventional things. However, you would probably be safe if you keep it vague. So, saying a Greek word is related to (possibly the the origin of) a Latin word is quite different than saying that word is the origin of the Latin word. And in cases of doubt, it's generally safe to simply list it as simply a cognate. The thing about etymologies, especially ancient etymologies, is that they are always speculative, and so listing a few possibilities is often a good idea. Atelaes 20:11, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

entropie

German nouns start with a capital letter. But only add the word if you know its gender and plural. SemperBlotto 09:40, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Welcome back

Good to see another editor back onto etymologies. However, you may want to reread some of my earlier messages about etymology templates, breathing marks, Ancient Greek vs. Greek, etc. Thanks. Atelaes 10:18, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Hey, sorry to keep hassling you about format, but two fairly minor things: First, a new template, {{term}}, has been introduced, which should be used to encapsulate etymons. I'll let you look over the documentation, but it has a number of parameters, and is very helpful in standardising format. Second, we have a standard romanisation format for Ancient Greek entries, which can be found at Wiktionary:Ancient Greek Romanization and Pronunciation. Again, I apologize for being so nitpicky, but such is the requirements of dictionary making. If you like, take a look at some changes I made to ballista. Thanks for all your good work. Atelaes 07:13, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. You are not nitpicky at all; you just help a newbie to improve! I'll work on the new template and the romanisation format. And hey, sorry to keep harassing you about format too! Unorthografair 08:33, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

genus

Hi. Do you maybe have a reference for this particular etymology? All of my sources indidate that Latin genus is cognate of Ancient Greek γένος (génos), not derived from it. --Ivan Štambuk 10:48, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

You are right, my mistake. I fixed it. Unorthografair 11:58, 23 January 2008 (UTC)