Wiktionary:Information desk/2025/May

Baduy transliteration

Hello, how to make Module:bac-translit work on every Baduy template? Alfarizi M (talk) 23:44, 1 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Alfarizi M this needs to be set up at Module:languages/data/3/b. @Benwing2 may be able to advise. This, that and the other (talk) 11:29, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Can you set it up? I want the transliteration work automatically without a manual input just like Sundanese, for example ᮙᮤᮒᮧᮠ. Alfarizi M (talk) 19:29, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hello, have any answer? It's not that hard @This, that and the other, @Benwing2. Alfarizi M (talk) 10:25, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Alfarizi M:

Done. I've deleted Module:bac-translit, and moved Module:su-translit to Module:Sund-translit. — Fenakhay ^{(حيطي · مساهماتي)} 18:03, 11 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! This is perfect. Alfarizi M (talk) 00:03, 12 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Puzzling etymology for 'tell off'

tell off has an etymology that has no clear relation to the phrase in question. It reads as follows:

From the military order: "number" - when starting with the first soldier, each would number himself out loud, counting in sequence file by file and rank by rank.

As far as I can tell, this etymology isn't connected with 'tell' or with 'off', or with the entire phrase 'tell off', so that it remains mysterious how the phrase could have its origins thereby explained. I'm not sure what to do in a situation like this. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! 2603:7080:A507:A8E1:B47E:E6CD:55E3:20C6 00:30, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at the entry for tell, that word can mean count, though that meaning isn't used much anymore. There are a surprising number of languages where counting and storytelling are related:

count / recount / account

German zahlen (“to count”) / German erzählen (“to tell”) / German Erzählung (“tale”)

Spanish contar (“to count / to tell”) / Spanish cuenta (“story”)

Hebrew סָפַר (“to count”) / Hebrew סִפֵּר (“to tell”) / Hebrew סֵפֶר (“book”)

In general, if you have doubts about an etymology you can tag it with {{rfv-etym}} and ask about it at the Etymology scriptorium. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:41, 2 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I added a sense template to the etymology, but it could still do with some clarifying along the lines of Chuck's comment. This, that and the other (talk) 11:28, 7 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Please unprotect page

Please would an admin unlock my user page for editing. While I was an admin, I protected it for admin-only editing, and forgot to unprotect it before I was de-adminned for lack of use of admin tools. Thanks. --Enginear 06:10, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:42, 9 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

valen - middle english section - vandaliziation

The page for "valen" in the middle-english section under the valen definitions, appears to have been vandalized. I don't know enough about local community standards nor the mechanics of Wiktionary to make any fix. 68.201.186.94 18:04, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, fixed. Oddly enough, an admin undid the next edit without noticing that it was one of two. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:42, 10 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Durian or durain

So, I only saw the word "durian". But few days ago, I found that the word "durain" exist, and there is no source that says which word is correct. Is durian or durain correct? ThomasDracoLucitor (talk) 09:44, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@ThomasDracoLucitor: See durain (a type of coal), durian. J3133 (talk) 12:39, 15 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

dayılar

Is there a good reason for presenting predicative forms here? I didn't know that Turkish predicative forms can have their own pages. If so, predicative forms of adjectives may have their own pages too? It would be inaccurate to…:

…not show these forms in almost none of the other pages which contain noun forms such as sular and bilgisayarım
…not include red links to create pages through templates such as {{tr-pred-c-adj}}
…not allow these adjective forms even though there is no reasonable difference between allowing them for nouns and adjectives (only one page with predicative is currently present: yapayım)

Also, it looks lexicologically weird to present these forms on seperate pages. All nominative plurals in Turkish are technically 3rd person predicative forms, so why fill these pages with this piece of information anyway? MustafaCavlak (talk) 20:11, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

New username in old posts

How can I automatedly substitute my new username for the old one? As in here https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Talk:made-to-order#to_order JMGN (talk) 20:55, 16 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Technical support?

I haven't found anything in the help pages about feature requests, software issues, explanation and handling of error messages and the like.

Searching for "technical support" yielded zero results. How do we address the developers?

issue #1

Recently I have found myself thinking: With all the new developments such as the visual editor etc. shouldn't there be a one-click option to add translations to a word definition page that has no translations yet?

Do I really still need to go to a page that already has translations and copy and paste the code from there to the page without translations? Am I missing something? Is everone else remembering the code by heart?

issue #2

I have never used the visual editor yet. But while searching for the one-click-solution to add translations I thought why not go and see if the visual editor has it.

Turns out I am not even able to switch to the visual editor. When I open the selection box above the editing box and click on "Visual editing" the screen flickers but nothing else changes. "Source editing" in the selection box remains highlighted.

When I have already begun editing as usual and then try to switch I receive the error message: "Tried to load the editor in wrong mode (data type: "visual", editor mode: "source")."

Now what am I to do with this?

issue #3

With the new editing interface there also seems to be no one-click preview option any more. Do I actually have to click on "Publish" first and then click "Show preview" in the pop-up box? Seems somewhat counter-intuitive and impractical.

issue #4

How many different editing interfaces are there actually? Sometimes the editing box displays only the "Publish" button on top. Other times the box still has the "Publish", "Show preview" and "Show changes" buttons on the bottom as it used to be in the olden times.

Reminds of of Wikimedia commons where the whole page seems to look a little different everytime I open it, especially on the mobile phone.

It might be good to have a little box on the side that displays the kind and version of editing interface that is currently active - now that there are several varieties (i.e. on the main pages versus the discussion pages; "source editing" versus "visual editing"; "mobile view" versus "desktop view"; "old look" versus "new look") some of which seem to open up arbitrarily. Otherwise it is hard to know what we are actually talking about.

thank you, KaiKemmann (talk) 13:44, 17 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@KaiKemmann

The Wiktionary:Discord server is the closest thing we have to technical support chat.
One click translation-adding can be done via the "Add translation button" see:WT:EDIT
But for entries without translation, yes, we memorize the code and type it in. Once you understand what each component does and why it's needed, recall is barely an issue. Looks like:

====Translations====
{{trans-top}}
* French: {{t|fr|oui}}
{{trans-bottom}}

Yes, the Visual Editor is glitchy and not very good. That's why not many people use it. If you'd like to give feedback or file a bug report, visit: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/VisualEditor/Feedback
If the editing interface keeps changing on you, keep in mind that mobile and desktop versions use different skins. In addition, if you're logged out, the skin that's enabled may be different from the skin that's enabled when you're logged in. Go to Special:Preferences, click "Appearance", and choose the skin you like best. Each skin offers slightly different site appearance and interface.

--Vuccala (talk) 21:14, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Acehnese/Cham resources and Jawoë

Hi! I'm rather new to wiktionary and I wanted to add more Acehnese and Cham words with their respective cited resources, but I've been stuck with a couple issues. The resources that I'm using for Acehnese and Cham words are unavailable to cite (or that I don't know how to cite them), here are the resources:

Acehnese
Bakar, Aboe and Sulaiman, Budiman and Hanafiah, M. Adnan and Ibrahim, Zainal Abidin and Syarifah H., Syarifah H. (1995) Kamus Aceh Indonesia 1. SERI 1 A-L . Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa, Jakarta. (Acehnese Dictionary A-L)
Bakar, Aboe and Sulaiman, Budiman and Hanafiah, M. Adnan and Ibrahim, Zainal Abidin and Syarifah H., Syarifah H. (1985) Kamus Aceh Indonesia 2. SERI 2 M-Y. Pusat Pembinaan dan Pengembangan Bahasa, Jakarta. (Acehnese Dictionary M-Y)
Kamus basa Acèh = Kamus bahasa Aceh = Acehnese-Indonesian-English thesaurus (Acehnese Thesaurus)

Cham (Eastern)
Nguoicham Cham Dictionary (Online Cham Dictionary)

Are there any way of citing these for their respective pages?

And also, Acehnese has another writing system for writing the language derived from Malay's Jawi, which is called Jawoë, I wanted to do the same thing as Malay, where the Jawi writing of the Malay word is displayed next to the word
e.g. minda (Jawi spelling ميندا)

I saw that there's a special way of doing this for Malay Jawi:
ms-(part of speech)|j=(Jawi spelling)

Is there a way to also make this for Acehnese Jawoë or is putting (head|ace|(part of speech)|Jawoë spelling|(Jawoë spelling)) fine too? Thank you Zayn Kauthar (talk) 16:57, 19 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Is this the kind of thing you could use {{cite-book}} for? If you want to use the same citations in lots of places, you should consider making reference template — look at, e.g., {{R:pt:Michaelis}} (more simple) or {{R:itc:EDL}} (more complex). Polomo47 (talk) 23:18, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I'll see what I could do

Do you have any ideas on how I could do for the Jawoë transcription template? Zayn Kauthar (talk) 14:16, 26 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Future words

Hey, are things based on things that will be real in the future allowed?, thanks! - Nail123Real (talk) 15:22, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See WT:CFI. Protologisms are not allowed. Words with enough attestation referring to hypothetical future technologies are. It all depends on CFI. Vininn126 (talk) 15:24, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

so adding words based on things that will exist in the future isn't allowed like 6G, Thanks! - Nail123Real (talk) 20:52, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Those things might not exist (maybe there'll never be a World War 3). If they do come to exist, they might not get the name you expect (there was no Internet Explorer 12, but "Edge"). Wait until the things exist, if they do. 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:8F0:AE47:2B24:9157 20:54, 21 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

oh ok Nail123Real (talk) 08:31, 22 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

quoting play characters

What are the standards when having to write down characters' names if we need to quote several lines from different speeches to make out the sense of the headword in said lines?

I have this far been using: |text=X: ...<.br>Y: ...

I'm still trying to figure out how to force <.br> to be shown literally without having to add the coma. Saumache (talk) 16:04, 25 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Saumache: I'm not sure what you mean by "the coma". If you mean the "." in "<.br>" that would be a period, and "," would be a comma (not a coma).

At any rate, the standard way to get the MW software to leave something unconverted is wrapping it <nowiki></nowiki>. It works for the current layer of transclusion, but if the result is transcluded, that would have to be wrapped again in <nowiki></nowiki> to keep it from being converted there.

Thus {{para|text|X: ...<nowiki><br></nowiki>Y: ...}} --> |text=X: ...<br>Y: ....Chuck Entz (talk) 01:13, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Chuck Entz yeah I wrote this one quite late... thanks. Now for the quotation part? I thought it weird that not a word is said about plays at Wiktionary:Quotations#Spelling and typography, I'm thus rather lost as to how to formatize these play dialogues. It may be somewhere else for all I know, but if not, it should doubtless be; looking at the "Poetry" heading too, I think it lacks guidance on how to bring about line breaks for example. Saumache (talk) 07:04, 1 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Should we include pronunciations of the plural on the page for the lemma form?

I was looking at the page for simulacrum and its plural simulacra, and I was wondering if I should delete the pronunciation information of simulacra from simulacrum, since that information is already on simulacra. To be honest, the main reason I want to do this is because I've been using WikiPron which scrapes Wiktionary for pronunciations, and as a result, it erroneously scrapes the pronunciation of simulacra as an alternative pronunciation for simulacrum. But I assume machine-readability isn't a priority on Wiktionary. Awelotta (talk) 08:55, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thesaurus pages for names with many diminutives?

While adding to the pages of Jaz, Jas, and Jazz that each can be diminutives of Jasper, I went ahead and fixed some other formatting things. While editing Jas specifically, I noticed it had
Synonyms
(diminutive of Jasmine): Jaz

The page Jaz listed Jas as an alternative form, which made more sense to me, so I fixed that, but then also took the opportunity to add
Synonyms
(diminutive of James): Jamie, Jaime, Jem, Jemmy

Which, to me, made more sense to be listed as "synonym" and was helpful I thought to see other nicknames for James.

I went to add that synonym list to the other pages (apologies for the double edit in quick succession this caused). After doing that I clicked Jamie to see if that was consistent. Then I realised that, not only did it list nicknames under "See also" instead of synonyms OR alternative forms, it also included ones I hadn't thought of, like Jim and Jimmy. James itself lists Jay, Jake, Jimbo, and Jambo as well.

Every new one I clicked seem to have another new diminutive for James and none of them are consistent. At this point I'm wondering, wouldn't it make more sense to list all of the diminutives for James in a thesaurus page? Is there a precedent for this?

If that was fine, I can think of a couple other names which perhaps use a thesaurus. Elisabeth has tons of diminutives for example, to name a few: Elisa, Elsie, Ellie, Ella, Lisa, Liza, Liz, Lizzy, Beth, Betty, Bessie, Bess, and many many more. AmbiguouslyAnonymous (talk) 18:43, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Surjection keeps deleting my edits

I'm a new user here and am trying to make a contribution to this page: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/generational

But Surjection keeps simply deleting/reverting my edits.

I'm new here and may not know how to properly edit the dictionary entries here in the correct format. I think that instead of simply repeatedly deleting/reverting my edits, Surjection and others should try to see if there's any value in my edits and if so, help me format them accordingly.

And if there's no value in my edits, let me know (instead of simply and bizarrely claiming that I'm "spamming links"). Osfdigbhsdfoig (talk) 10:24, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If you are tring to add a usage example, use {{quote-av}}. Vininn126 (talk) 10:34, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Osfdigbhsdfoig Such information should be found in the Usage notes, not the definition. See jealous#Usage_notes for an example. You don't need to link to YouTube videos with titles demonstrating your point. Vuccala (talk) 20:51, 8 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]