Wiktionary:Information desk/2015/December

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← November 2015 · December 2015 · January 2016 → · (current)

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Why did writers use conjunctions after semicola?

I thought that you weren’t supposed to use a conjunction after a semicolon. Here’re some examples: [1] --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 19:40, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Punctuation is a visualization of the flow of a sentence, not part of the sentence itself. What you should be asking is why they put a semicolon when there is already a conjunction. And to answer that, you would have yourself what you would have put in its place and why. --WikiTiki89 20:00, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't know the rules for Spanish, but for English the rule is that a semicolon is not only a weaker period/full stop (in that it separates two independent clauses with no conjunction between them), it's also a stronger comma. In the latter role it can be used where a comma would be used if the elements to be separated by a comma already include a comma themselves, e.g.:

The teacher divided the 12 students into three groups of four: James, Patricia, Gregory, and Robin; Karen, Quincy, Henrietta, and Stephen; and Ignacio, Olivia, Frederick, and Marianne.

Do you want to go to the zoo tomorrow, provided it doesn't rain, and provided my sister will lend me her car; or should we instead go the train station, buy tickets to San Francisco, and eat dinner at Fisherman's Wharf?

Also, at least in English, 19th-century writers used commas and semicolons much more loosely than they do today. Maybe that's true of Spanish as well. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:24, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

A weaker period is only one use of the semicolon in English. You can also use it as a stronger comma, especially in the case of a lists of phrases that already contain commas. For example: “There was an apple, which was red; a pear, which was green; and a banana, which was yellow.” --WikiTiki89 21:27, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

The most important thing, I think, is that every language has its own rules for punctuation. The period (full stop) is often (but not always) used the same way by many languages, while some other marks have quite different rules and usages. The Spanish punctuation on that page looks antiquated, but fine. One of the biggest differences between English and Spanish punctuation is the long dash (—). —Stephen ^(Talk) 03:48, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

reception desk, front desk

Are reception desk and front desk synonyms? Should the translations be merged? —suzukaze (t・c) 03:38, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Only in some contexts: a hotel, for instance, has a front desk, but no receptionist. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:04, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

atomic breakfast

What’s an atomic breakfast? --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 06:18, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Where did you encounter the term? All Google seems to know is breakfast menus at cafés called Atomic. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:04, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Ancestor additions needed for some languages

For Module:languages/data3/p:

The entry for Middle Persian (m["pal"]) needs to have the following attribute added: ancestors = {"peo"},

The entry for Old Persian (m["peo"]) needs to have the following attribute added: ancestors = {"iir-pro"},

Right now, the languages module claims Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Indo-Iranian, and Old Persian are not ancestors of Persian.

For Module:languages/data3/o:

The entry for Ottoman Turkish (m["ota"]) needs to have the following attribute added: ancestors = {"trk-pro"},

Right now, the languages module claims Proto-Turkic is not an ancestor of Turkish.

I also want to suggest adding the language Old Anatolian Turkish (code "1ca"), which was an intermediate stage between Ottoman Turkish and Proto-Turkic, and making that the ancestor of Ottoman Turkish and its ancestor Proto-Turkic in the language module data.

I would make the first two edits myself, but the source is locked. Ithinkicahn (talk) 21:52, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

I've added the ancestors you requested. Old Anatolian Turkish doesn't have an ISO 639 code (the code "1ca" is the Linguist List's code; ISO 639 codes never use numerals). If it's unacceptable to use any of the Ottoman Turkish code ota, the Old Turkic code otk, or the Old Uighur code oui for Old Anatolian Turkish, we could invent a code of our own for it, e.g. trk-oat. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:48, 10 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the changes. I made a mistake for the Persian; Old Persian should have the ancestor "ira-pro" (Proto-Iranian), and that language should have the ancestor "iir-pro" (Proto-Indo-Iranian). Could you add that into the middle of the hierarchy? For the Turkic part, thanks for the attempt there as well; I think it's better to leave it as it is without adding anything, since Old Turkic doesn't seem to be ancestral to Turkish according to most sources. Ithinkicahn (talk) 00:41, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

If neither otk nor oui is ancestral to Turkish, then the options are (1) treating Old Anatolian Turkish as an early variety of ota, and (2) creating a Wiktionary-specific code for Old Anatolian Turkish. I don't know enough about the history of Turkish to have an opinion on which option is better. And I've fixed the ancestor of peo (the ancestor of ira-pro was already set to iir-pro). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 07:17, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

I think we should just leave it as is; a lot of Turkic intermediate stages seem to be used to refer to different things by different people, and I don't want to risk getting it wrong (I am only slightly more experienced in the Turkic languages!), especially since OAT doesn't even have an ISO-639 code for it yet. You've been of great help! Ithinkicahn (talk) 09:32, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Hello, all. I am a newbie with thousands of questions!

December 11, 2015

To whom it may concern,

Hello. I am a newbie. My Username is AgentProvovateur518. I am in the process of constructing a proper User page. I am trying to find, and use, all the reference material I can find. I would truly value, the spare time of a knowledgeable mentor, willing to initiate a newbie into this community. Your efforts will not be wasted.

At present, I am not completely sure of what I can contribute to this effort. But, I will surely findto out along the way!

I am an open-minded person, open to all reasonable possibilities, and suggestions. If anyone could point me in the direction of the reference material needed, would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your time,

When you sign a comment, simply type ~~~~ (four tildes) at the end of the comment and it will add your signature automatically. As for your contributions, it depends on your abilities and what your interests are. If you know one or more other languages, put a Babel box on your userpage, like this: {{Babel|en|fr-4|de-2|ru-1}} (where en = English, fr = French, de = German, ru = Russian; and 1 through 4 indicates beginner through advanced). Some people are expert at writing templates, or modules using Lua programming language. Others are good at writing etymologies or definitions. —Stephen ^(Talk) 07:08, 12 December 2015 (UTC)

Errors in page I created because I have no clue on how to do it right

I have created an entry for "isten veled" It is a Magyar (Hungarian) phrase. I was unable to figure out how to flag it so. Or for that matter even create a entry for Magyar as a language. Which is the correct label to what is commonly referred to as Hungarian

Magyar is the language (hungarian) Magyar or Magyarok (plural) are the people (Hungarians) MagyarOrszag is the land (Hungary)

Any help to make such corrections would be appreciated

So would an Wiktionary for Dummies page..

Thank you.

We call the language Hungarian here; its code is hu. See here for corrections, to give you an idea how to format Hungarian entries in the future. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:49, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

I have cleaned it up for you. As a general rule, if you don't know how to format (let's say) Swahili adverbs, just find another one and see how it's formatted. SemperBlotto (talk) 14:51, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

One question: is it usually written lower-case isten veled? Or is it usually capitalized Isten veled? According to our entries isten and Isten, Hungarian seems to follow the same principle as English: lower-case isten is any old god (especially one in polytheism), while upper-case Isten refers to the monotheistic God. The second seems more likely to me in a traditionally Christian country like Hungary. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:54, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

The Hungarian Wiktionary does not have the term. But, in its translations of "adieu" and of "adiós" is give the capitalised form "Isten veled". SemperBlotto (talk) 15:01, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

@Panda10, Tropylium, what do you guys say? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:14, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

I double checked it in a couple of printed dictionaries, the phrase is not capitalized. --Panda10 (talk) 19:32, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

request for review

Being fairly new here, i'm not sure if I adhere to all of the guidelines and/or use all of the up-to-date templates. I've created an entry which I plan to use in further editing (a polish noun, patyk) and would like to know if this is the correct layout. Can anyone with more experience than me check it's validity?

profesjonalizm • reply 21:34, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

That looks great to me. Obviously there is always more that could be added to an entry (like quotations, references, and more), but that's a perfectly good (and professional xD) entry as it stands. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:38, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Very good. Renard Migrant (talk) 21:56, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

wasd in game

am in a game that gives w/a/s/d: as quick find...whats that mean Im to do next?

It probably means to use the "W", "A", "S", and "D" keys on your keyboard to move around. They should serve the same functions as the arrow keys: W = up, A = left, S = down, D = right. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 00:32, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

kuda

kuda is also the name of a semi-secret martial art, later renamed "hakuda" by one of its practioners, teacher named Leroy, who taught al abiden of California usa.