Wiktionary:Information desk/2020/September

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← August 2020 · September 2020 · October 2020 → · (current)

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Category error

Someone is adding and/or modifying Indonesian entries in a way that is adding them to the category "English terms derived from German".

Specific instances:

odol, stabilo. 70.188.165.229 00:59, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Fixed the problem on those two pages. Pinging @Rex Aurorum:, who added these entries, so they know there's a problem. OR AlexMC (talk) 07:32, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

My fault, sorry for that. Thanks @OR AlexMC for corrections. Rex Aurorum (talk) 09:39, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

meaning of [w̌] and [ ǰ ]

I encountered these symbols used for Ancient Greek, but how can a non-syllabic vowel have a tone? Dngweh2s (talk) 15:35, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

It's easy for sonorants to have tone or pitch, but almost always in conjunction with a neighboring vowel. Where did you encounter these symbols for Ancient Greek? I don't think {{grc-IPA}} generates them, does it? —Mahāgaja · talk 09:15, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

In the International Phonetic Alphabet this diacritic denotes extra-shortness. Does that fit the uses? A high and falling pitch on a two-mora vowel, if fully notated, is represented by a combination of the acute and grave diacritics, as in [ɛ̂ː], seen e.g. in the ancient Attic pronunciation of μῆρα. Note that the extra-shortness diacritic of IPA is a “smile”, while in many fonts for Ancient Greek the circumflex polytonic accent is written as a “frown” (upside-down “smile”).  --Lambiam 13:16, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

The diacritic shown in the subject line above is not the breve (the "smile") that denotes extra-shortness; it's the hacek that denotes rising tone. —Mahāgaja · talk 22:19, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

I see — what I didn’t see.  --Lambiam 10:43, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

It's from the ancient greek phonology wikipedia article. It give's κελεύω as /ke.leú.ɔː/ [ke.lew̌.wɔː] (wiktionary: [ke.lěu̯.ɔː]). I don't know why something like that is written in []. I also didn't know at the time that the accent is written on the second letter of diphthongs which made it more confusing. Also, are they just copying the acute into IPA because it means high tone in IPA. --Dngweh2s (talk) 20:07, 7 September 2020 (UTC)

There are many different ways of transcribing a diphthong with a contour tone (rising or falling). Another option would be /ke.lèẃ.ɔː/ or /ke.lèú̯.ɔː/. It's all just a matter of deciding on a convention. The IPA is flexible enough that there can be multiple correct ways of transcribing an utterance. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:57, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

REQUEST FOR PICTURE VIEW.

Greetings

I hope this email finds you in good spirit. I just an overview of this project, since i'm curious to be a part.

Thank!🐼🌍 — This unsigned comment was added by MOLONGELA (talk • contribs).

@MOLONGELA: It's hard to tell what your post is going for but are you trying to add pictures to Wiktionary to make it easier to navigate? We do have some visual dictionary work that's already been done and you could definitely add a lot to that if that's what you're asking. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:43, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Searching: Terms with special or accented characters not appearing in results when only normal characters are used in the serach box

How can one ensure that a term entry that has special or accented characters will appear in search results if a user types in normal characters without accents? An example is the Chickasaw entry chokka' á̠a'. If a user does not type in <<chokka' á̠a'>> exactly like that with the accented and underlined "a", it doesn't show up in the results (e.g. typing just <<chokka' aa'>> doesn't work). I couldn't find this topic in the Help pages. If there is a section that covers all of this and how to work around or through it, please let me know. It would be much appreciated. WiktionaryFan (talk) 10:55, 11 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't know; it works for me. Specifically, if I type chokka' aa' into the search box I do see chokka' á̠a' right there below it, ready to be clicked on. It isn't bold, the way a perfect match would be, but it's there. If that doesn't work for you, it's probably an issue with your browser. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:34, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

If I do the same, I'm sent directly to the chokka' á̠a' page, without intervening step; there is nothing for me to click on. (Tested on Chrome, Firefox and Safari.)  --Lambiam 14:06, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

I assume you're only sent to that page after you press enter or click the 'search' button, no? (Otherwise, how does the browser know when you're finished typing and are ready to be sent to a page?) If you don't press enter, you should see the drop-down of suggestions for what you might be looking for (not useful here, where just going directly to the page like you did is preferable, but useful if there were also a page chokka' aa'). - -sche (discuss) 07:23, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Sorry if obvious question. Where can I find the alphabetical list of all English wiktionary entries?

I want to browse all words, even the ones I can't search for because... I don't know them yet! — This unsigned comment was added by JesusCrackHead (talk • contribs) at 12:26, 12 September 2020 (UTC).

@JesusCrackHead: See CAT:English lemmas for all basic forms and CAT:English non-lemma forms for all inflected forms. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:32, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

And if you mean all pages on this, the English Wiktionary (regardless of what language the words on the page are from), then Special:AllPages. - -sche (discuss) 07:17, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Is there somewhere I can ask about admin actions (and if necessary complain about an admin)

The title says it all. 152.32.99.116 17:44, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

I think there are more productive things to spend your time on.  --Lambiam 22:14, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Your reply isn't productive. 152.32.99.116 18:03, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Classic case of Antandrus' 33rd observation. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:42, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

It's strange, you'd imagine that an organization that talks so much about consensus and cooperation would be more than happy to point someone in the right direction with such a question. Obviously, people would rather make dickish comments than actually deal with a problem. Oh well. 152.32.99.116 10:20, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

You think there is a problem. You may be alone in that. But if you persist, there will be a problem.  --Lambiam 13:57, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

why are you so upset and offended by a simple request that you have to resort to veiled threats? "Hey honey, someone asked an inappropriate question on an online dictionary, and I put them in their place with a cutting response" You're my hero. 152.32.99.116 08:33, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Are you going to contribute productively to the dictionary or not? Acting passive-aggressive on this thread isn't going to achieve anything, much less for you, and will probably instead get you blocked again for wasting everyone's time. If you're not here to contribute, please go do something else instead of wasting your and our time here. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 08:41, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

I'd love to contribute, however I asked a simple question regarding the ins and outs of wiktionary and instead of answering the question, there have just been a lot of condescending and antagonistic answers, including your own. A simple response such as "here is where we discuss policy" or "there isn't anywhere we discuss such things" would have resolved this issue a long long time ago. So, I'd suggest it's users such as yourself who are intentionally wasting everyone's time by turning a simple request for information into a drama. But it's okay, you can still answer the initial question and we can move on. (or you can make more accusations and drag this BS out ever more) 152.32.99.116 08:49, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

The Beer parlor is the place for general policy discussions and proposals. We don't have a forum specifically for discussing admin actions. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:06, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

If "you'd love to contribute", then contribute. The reason nobody answered your question before is that your case is open-and-shut - you added POV text to an entry, got reverted, decided to still try to add it back, got blocked and immediately thought you got blocked only because the admin felt like it. There are simply no grounds for your complaint to be built on, and for that reason it would simply be ignored, hence my "wasting your time" argument. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 09:17, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Mahāgaja thank you very much, that seems to answer my question perfectly. Have a great day! 152.32.99.116 09:22, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Page missing from Chinese classifier category

Is there a reason that the page for 噴 isn't showing up in Category:Chinese classifiers? (I compared the markup with pages like 則 and 間, but I wasn't able to figure out what was on those pages that was missing on the first page.) Thanks! Katya0133 (talk) 22:54, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

The categories are inserted into/by? the pronunciation template. —Suzukaze-c (talk) 04:47, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! Katya0133 (talk) 02:11, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

lynch descendants' template usage

Why is Italian coded as {{desc|it|linciare|der=1}} ("reshaped by analogy or addition of morphemes" while Spanish is {{desc|es|linchar|bor=1}} (just "borrowed")? (Because of the added -i-? How regular is addition of i after a loanword in /-ʧ/ and before -are?) - -sche (discuss) 08:17, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I bet it's because of the addition of the -are, but that seems silly to me. I'd change |der= to |bor=. (It may have even simply been a typo.) —Mahāgaja · talk 10:37, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

I thought about the -are, but then why would Spanish adding -ar not be labelled the same way - just inconsistency? But yeah, I wouldn't consider adding either of those to constitute "reshaping" the word. - -sche (discuss) 16:30, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Proto-Indo-European roots consistency

Currently, the PIE roots situation in Wiktionary is something of a shambles. There are a small number of systems of categorising and writing PIE roots. There are some genuine controversies but in the main these systems are mutually consistent. Rix differs somewhat Pokorny in this regard for instance. If two words are uncontroversially descended from the same PIE root then it would be desirable for the etymology on both pages to link back to the same PIE root page but at present they quite often link back to two different pages that, in reality, are describing the same putative root. I think we need to pick a primary system of PIE roots for the purposes of naming pages, and stick to it: within the pages we can discuss the various different versions according to different authors. We could conceivably do this solely via redirects. I want to kick off a project to get this done. I could just hoe in and do it as I see fit but it's probably better that there's a bit of a discussion and consensus about the way forward. Is there a mechanism within wiktionary for me to initiate such a project?Ordinary Person (talk) 10:24, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Can you give an example of "two different pages that, in reality, are describing the same putative root"? —Mahāgaja · talk 06:19, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

Do people use regionalisms unconsciously?

I have this very vague memory of using a British spelling under the mistaken assumption that it was standard everywhere in the world, which certainly sounds possible but I have never heard of anybody else doing that. I do, however, remember thinking that the hair sense of ‘ginger’ had always been normal in American English, only to find out later that it was imported through the Harry Potter series. I feel like the accessibility of the Internet has lead to a significant increase in people applying regionalisms outside of careful writing, but I don’t know how somebody would go about proving that. —(((Romanophile))) ♞ (contributions) 22:43, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

The Internet has, unfortunately, led to unnecessary dialectal levelling (especially in English). It has also led to instances of regionalisms from a thousand miles away replacing local terms.

People are, moreover, lazier in their writing just generally speaking these days. Tharthan (talk) 22:52, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

It's certainly true that the hair sense of ginger is relatively new in American English, but I didn't know that it was Harry Potter that had introduced it. The first American publication I encountered using it was South Park. At any rate, an introduction through either Harry Potter or South Park would not be attributable to the Internet, as books and TV are both pre-Internet media. And my own use of British expressions like "I can't be arsed" and "Are you taking the piss?" is attributable to the fact that since moving to Germany I've encountered more speakers of British English than I ever did when I lived in the U.S., and not to the Internet. Nevertheless, it probably is true that the Internet has introduced people to regionalisms they otherwise never would have heard. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:32, 20 September 2020 (UTC)

I always supposed that Ginger Rogers’ first name was based on her hair colour, but it appears to be a nickname derived from mispronouncing her birth name Virginia.^[1]  --Lambiam 14:25, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

I don't know what Ginger Rogers's natural hair color was, but I always think of her as blonde, not red-haired, not even really strawberry blonde. I've known other women named Virginia who went by Ginger, too. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:38, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Philistine

Can we get a citation for the listed Old English etymon? Tharthan (talk) 22:48, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

BUMP. Tharthan (talk) 08:00, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

@Tharthan: I looked in the OED's entry and the two Old English forms in the etymology seem to have been taken from quotations there:

• eOE Metrical Dialogue of Solomon & Saturn (Corpus Cambr. 422) ii. 192 Filistina flet, fæsten Creca, wudu Egipta, wæter Mathea, cludas Coreffes, Caldea rice.
• OE Homily (Hatton 115) in D. G. Scragg Vercelli Homilies & Related Texts (1992) 177 Se Samson ealle Fillestina þeode gererde & heora duguþe afylde.

— Eru·tuon 06:25, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Erutuon. If someone could add those as a citation to the entry, that would be much appreciated. I would do so myself, but I don't have much experience adding non-Web-based citations to Wiktionary entries. Tharthan (talk) 13:19, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Wikitionary How to search from one language into all others ?

Wikitionary allows searching translation from one foreign language. For instance: we click on an indonesian word, and we hase its translation into english. Is it possible to do the opposite way, that is to say searching , for a word in english, all its translations in all languages found in the wikitionary ? — This unsigned comment was added by 2a01:cb00:a08:f200:5584:fe92:6f04:d69e (talk).

Most English words have a ===Translations=== section toward the bottom listing as many translations as people have been able to add. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:11, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

hoax words

Are there enough words which were coined as hoaxes or jokes to merit a category for them? I can think of azidoazide azide, bananadine, Brazilian aardvark, and Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg. (On the other hand, I understand that—as people say whenever someone complains about neologisms or neopronouns or whatever—all words were made-up at some point, so maybe there would be a lot of edge cases and grey areas. Indeed, compare miscegenation, foxcore, and maybe quiz.) - -sche (discuss) 21:17, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure. I think there may actually be a stronger case for categorising words created accidentally (e.g. medireview, cdesign proponentsist), and we don't have a category for that either. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:23, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Oooh, those seem like the sort of thing that belongs in the Wiktionary:Hall of Fame#Anteroom_of_Silliness, if nothing else. (Maybe the "real fake words" could go there, too.) - -sche (discuss) 23:52, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Would that include ghost words like esquivalience and zzxjoanw, or fake words in humorous works like anatidaephobia? What about Mountweazel and nihilartikel? Chuck Entz (talk) 00:42, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes, anatidaephobia is in the same boat as bananadine and foxcore, words coined as jokes, if we want to consider that the same category as hoaxes. Esquivalience and zzxjoanw would also be perfect examples if they existed, but apparently they don't. (Edit: actually, esquivalience has enough citations that I restored the entry for it.) (In turn, Dord/dord, would be another word coined by mistake, if it existed.) Nihilartikel is interesting if the etymology given is correct — if, like Brazilian aardvark, it was coined on Wikipedia — although it seems to be a sincere coinage rather than a hoax or joke(?). - -sche (discuss) 02:48, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

According to English celt, Latin celtis is an erroneous creation by scribal error, and Ajuga is an erroneous creation by misreading. durmast oak may also result from scribal error, and Mabinogion, and Hebrides. (There are also several Armenian ghost words, which I will list here for lack of somewhere better: are they attested? խորդերամ, կապարասի, նքողնակ, ծղնի.) - -sche (discuss) 11:06, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

+ Diapensia, and maybe Tanacetum if we become sure about its etymology (see its talk). Likely Arnica. The name of the spice mace derives from a misreading of macir. English fario borrows an obscure fish-name with a common f for ſ error. Translingual Aerva seems to be Forsskål’s malaria. Sophora is pretty bad, too. comfrey or related forms? Does hocus-pocus, open sesame and the like count? camphire, in a sense many dictionaries exclusively include, is a hoax by the King James Bible, slinging translations without having a clue. Armenian cucumber merits the label well because of being invented by marketing in spite of not being Armenian. The greatest hoaxes are English cunnilingus, anilingus and so on, which are bad Latin as I mentioned on an earlier revision more explicitly. Fay Freak (talk) 13:34, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Don't forget turmeric Chuck Entz (talk) 13:59, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Is this a literary monster? I left out distortions that derive from speech and are “legitimate”, like from plain metathesis, folk-etymology and adaption to native forms (e.g. English stavesacre, baldmoney, German Odermennig) etc. But maybe the sausage-name English saveloy by reason of the spelling too is a literary corruption. Fay Freak (talk) 14:12, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

I love the idea but I’d not include words that coined alongside a referent which is the hoax proper (e.g. bananadine). A separate Hoaxes category is better for these cases, but it might be a tad too controversy-ridden for us (bigfoot? Scientology?).

Also, name it something like Terms coined as jokes or hoaxes rather than just hoaxes. It’s kind of disparaging to call the likes of azidoazide azide a hoax. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 15:51, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not sure what the category should be called; I recognize I've ended up mentioning three distinguishable things here (jokes, hoaxes, and unintentional errors of reading/writing), though it's possible they could all fit under the designation "ghost words". Or perhaps only the last one should be considered ghost words, and the others should be "jokes or hoaxes", as you suggest. - -sche (discuss) 19:05, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

I have been putting things like կապարասի (kaparasi) and շագանակ (šaganak) in Category:Armenian misconstructions, but I think we should create a Category:Ghost words by language for the words discussed here, including hoaxes. --Vahag (talk) 18:23, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

• I support categorizing կապարասի (kaparasi) and the other Armenian words as ghost words. And although they originated as intentional fakes, rather than via "misinterpretation or a typographical error", I think we could also categorize esquivalience and Brazilian aardvark as "ghost words". This way, we also don't have to decide what else to call them ("words coined as fakes"? "words coined as hoaxes"?). And based on w:Ghost word's inclusion if feamyng, I gather we can consider Ajuga / celtis / Hebrides to have originally been ghost words, in that they originate from "misinterpretation"? (Our entry claims ghost words must have been "originally meaningless [...when] published in a dictionary" or other reference work, but that is a bit daft; what dictionary publishes a word without asserting a meaning for it? So I take it to mean the string itself must have had no meaning before its coinage / publication...?) Are medireview and cdesign proponentsist also ghost words, or are they something else? Should they (and also Ajuga, celtis, etc?) be categorized as "words derived from misreading or typographical errors" or something? - -sche (discuss) 04:03, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

  For lack of a better term, we can use "ghost word" loosely and put there all literary creations due to errors, jokes and hoaxes. --Vahag (talk) 05:12, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Listing for completeness: another misprint is Moreton Bay. See also Albireo (or should only a Latin etymon be categorized?), livadus(?), possibly cenit#Latin; see also nt-jqrt, Ulysses, Eaglescliffe, λαῦρος (and plentitude or is that "mere" contamination?). praemunire and praemunire facias are also the result of errors, and newsfroup is the result of a typo, but I'm not sure they count as ghost words. As a separate issue, we have Crimean Gothic entries that say they're misprints but haven't been normalized: fyuf, iel vburt, menus, thunetua, thunetria, vburt (and baar). I've only been categorizing the language that originated the error or in which it first started to be used as a word, e.g. syllabus#Latin but not syllabus#English, on the theory that the English word was taken over without errors from the Latin word once the Latin existed. (This would also mean barberry would not be categorized.) But this is debatable; perhaps syllabus#English should also be categorized; I'm not sure. Entries where either the entry or its etymon needs to be categorized include basalt, chabazite, gravy, Madagascar(?), morion, rasceta, and rinatrix. Latin obsidianus looks like another candidate if someone could clarify its etymology a bit: the sentence "the more common nomen Obsius was used by Sillig, but the correct name was Obsidius" is worded as if to contradict the sentence before it and say that obsidian is not a ghost word or misreading. - -sche (discuss) 06:48, 30 September 2020 (UTC)