Wiktionary:Tea room

Latest comment: 4 hours ago by Phacromallus in topic ꝇ / Ꝇ Spanish usage

Wiktionary > Discussion rooms > Tea room

WT:TR redirects here. For guidelines on translations, see Wiktionary:Translations

A place to ask for help on finding quotations, etymologies, or other information about particular words. The Tea room is named to accompany the Beer parlour.

For questions about the general Wiktionary policies, use the Beer parlour; for technical questions, use the Grease pit. For questions about specific content, you're in the right place.

Tea room archives edit
2024

2023
Earlier years

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007
2006
2005
2004
2003


Please do not edit section titles as this breaks links on talk pages and in other discussion fora.

Oldest tagged RFTs

February 2024

Palestinian National Authority edit

We have an entry for Palestinian Authority but not Palestinian National Authority (I have added PNA as an abbreviation of the latter, which we didn't have for years as compared to PA). TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 07:33, 1 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Thinking of creating a proper noun entry for it, but quite hesitant. TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 07:33, 1 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'm all OK having just the initialisms and the lexified short form. -TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 01:21, 2 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Will you not create it after all? Kiril kovachev (talkcontribs) 23:43, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Translation of binduga and Floßlände edit

Any ideas? Vininn126 (talk) 09:58, 1 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

I changed one of the existing definitions of binduga to "log driving". However, I realized that it might instead refer to timber rafting. Could you make sure it's correct? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 15:47, 1 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Both would seem to fit. Vininn126 (talk) 15:59, 1 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

intellego edit

Can someone please explain to me the idea behind inter (“between”) +‎ legō (“to select”) = understand? Thank you. Duchuyfootball (talk) 01:50, 4 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

*[Select between] → [distinguish; tell apart] → [discern] → [perceive; understand]. All but the first are attested. Nicodene (talk) 03:35, 4 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

metacoelom edit

I have feeling this has an irregular Latinoid plural Demonicallt (talk) 09:43, 4 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'd expect it to be the same as with coelom, which is regular. Coelom is often misspelled *coelum but it is not Latin in origin. It actually patterns like -stome which is also regular. Soap 20:28, 6 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

on the novenus page edit

This form does not exist as is, we should delete this page in favor of noveni (this one is clearly a copy paste of perseus dictionary on which novenus has been wrongly given the distributive entry, compare deni or octoni on the same website). The same must be said about the binus/bini relation. Please share your thoughts and I will change it accordingly. Tim Utikal (talk) 13:09, 4 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Despite the general practice of dictionaries, singular forms are not necessarily unknown for words of this type. I don’t have time to check this particular one right now but you can add it to RFV if you think the singular cannot be attested. Urszag (talk) 05:08, 5 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Even if it can be attested, wiktionary must not be confusing to its users. Either we change each distributive numeral pages to a theoretical singular or keep them in their plural, which has thus far been the norm. I have yet not find a single usage of them in the singular, be it in my readings or through a quick search I just made via Perseus (the website is partially broken which does not help...). Tim Utikal (talk) 08:56, 5 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Update after some more research. While the form 'novenus' itself appears unattested in Classical Latin, there appears to be an example of the feminine ablative singular novēnā in Statius, Silvae 1.2.4: "novena / lampade", although it has been doubted whether this should be emended to something else. Additional singular examples in Medieval Latin are cited by the DMLBS. Roby's Grammar of the Latin Language notes that "In the singular the distributives are sometimes used, chiefly by poets, e.g. centauri corpore bino, a double body; centenāque arbore fluctum verberat assurgens (Verg.), with an hundred-fold shaft, i.e. a hundred oars; novena lampade, with nine torches (a torch repeated nine times)" (page 443-444). "Binus" occurs in Ovid, Epistulae ex Ponto 4.9.64: "inque domo binus conspicietur honor." I found a paper "Los distributivos singulares en latín", by Sebastián Mariner Bigorra, that notes that dictionaries usually lemmatize these words at the plural, although some have attested singular forms. (There is more information and argument here, but it's in Spanish so it's been a slow read for me.)
Another useful paper that mentions some singular uses of the so-called 'distributives' is "The so-called Distributives in Latin", J. P. Postgate, The Classical Review 21:7 Nov. 1907, pp 200-201. Postgate 1907:200 writes that the singular of these words can have a collective sense in poets, citing Lucr. 4.448 "binaque per totas aedis geminare supellex" as an example of singular bina and "in Later Latin" Statius, Silvae 5.2.136 "septenus ... Hister" and "gurgite septeno" in Lucanus, Bellum Civile 8.445. Postgate also writes the following: "trino nundino, Quint, ii. 4. 35, seems to have been formed by a mistaken analogy from trinum nundinum (for nouem dinum), an elliptical genitive plural. The -um genitive is regular in the ' distributive'" (p. 201). Indeed, the -um genitives of these words seem to have been usual whether in poetry or prose, so I don't agree with discribing them as poetic: to take a random example, the PHI corpus has 3 matches for quaternorum vs. 19 for quaternum, and many of the latter are in prose e.g. Livy and Pliny.
Overall, I would say that these words are usually not used in the singular in Classical Latin, and we should indicate this in the definitions or usage notes, but the reason for this is not so much that the singular forms are lacking, but rather that by nature of their meaning it is rarely appropriate for these words to be singular. But given that singular forms of this type of word occur occasionally already in Classical Latin, and can be attested later, I think they deserve to be in the tables, and (even if it's a bit odd to lemmatize at a less common form) I think it is best to use the masculine nominative singular, whether it happens to be attested or not, as the headword for all of these adjectives per our usual practice. There are other words that we lemmatize at an unattested nominative singular form.--Urszag (talk) 19:20, 5 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
...this makes me realize how inconsistent we are about this kind of thing. On one hand, if these are almost always plural-only and only rarely/poetically singular, we could just continue to lemmatize the plural forms and just add "singular of..." pointers at the singular entries, and that would be consistent with what we do for e.g. binoculars, faeces, etc. OTOH, lemmatizing the singular would be consistent with various English (or Latin entries where we put plural-only senses at the singular. Well, we should try to be consistent across these few Latin number-related entries, at least, so whatever we decide, let's revise novenus and octoni et al. to use the same approach... - -sche (discuss) 19:44, 5 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
What should we do then, is it enough to start a vote? I do think lemmatizing each singular forms after what Urszag (talkcontribs) said seems the most objective. Tim Utikal (talk) 19:56, 7 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
If nobody else voices objections to it here, I think it will be OK to proceed with moving the entries without requiring a formal vote. Aside from the entries themselves, pages that link to them and Module:number list/data/la will have to be edited, so I think it makes sense to wait a bit before moving forward. For now I will try to use novēnus as a test case since it already exists: does the presentation there seem good? I think that we should not be using the label "distributive" since based on how the automatic categories work, that seems to be intended for verbs (hence Category:Latin distributive verbs is all inaccurate right now).--Urszag (talk) 07:59, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I think a Note heading should be added to specify distributive numerals' uses (since unknown in English) and to aknowledge for their usual plural form. Other than that it's great, though the Etymology section may still be refined. Tim Utikal (talk) 14:34, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thanks! I added a 'Usage Notes' section to novenus (using general wording so that the same information could be put in a template and copied to each distributive numeral entry). How do you think the note looks? Are there any specific points that you would suggest clarifying with the etymology?--Urszag (talk) 07:19, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
The note section is really well put, but it lacks their common use in combination with adverbial numerals (as in "bis deni" not "bis decem" / decies triceni...). Tell me if you find it anecdotal or if you can think of any other specific usage. As for the etymology part I just thought it a bit confusing and not that informative, is the affix related to -nus or any other remarkable one? Sorry for not putting work into it myself, I'm a bit busy right now. Tim Utikal (talk) 20:27, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thanks, I've add the use with numeral adverb and a reference to Roby, who describes the uses of these forms. I'm planning to make this usage note into a usage template, add it to the other pages on distributive numerals, and move these pages to singular forms.--Urszag (talk) 20:04, 27 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I don't know what entries using a usage templates look like, how is the link implemented? can you link me one? Thus far it's not too bulky a usage notes, it may be just fine leaving it that way. Tim Utikal (talk) 15:36, 28 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
The way it works is that the usage notes now 'live at' Template:U:la:distributive_numeral, and the notes from there are copied to each page by placing the code {{U:la:distributive numeral}} in the page's Usage Notes section (as you can see by looking at the page code for e.g. binus). This means the notes can be edited in the future without having to edit each page separately. I also think these notes seem brief enough as-is, but if it is decided they are too long, an appendix could be created and the notes could instead provide a shorter summary with a link to a longer description in the appendix. I have now mostly updated the entries for 2-9; some linked pages and etymology sections in that range still need more work.--Urszag (talk) 21:33, 29 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Urszag: I see the pages have been moved, but the inflections (e.g., quadrageni) should not be redirects, as we do not allow redirects for this purpose. Also, inconsistently, some are numerals and some adjectives. J3133 (talk) 07:23, 7 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Yes, I am still clearing up the inflections. Most seem to have been marked as numerals so I will be working to make that uniform.--Urszag (talk) 07:26, 7 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
I just checked distributive forms from 7 to 10, some were lacking inflexions or accents, labelized as adjectives and categorized through the 'adjective form' inflection. Some are sill said to be inflections of the former plural-lemmatizing system and other forms not made into proper entries because morphologically identical to other entries. So I advise keeping an eye on these, though you still might need to double-check on me. Tim Utikal (talk) 18:44, 7 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Oh, and some few forms were also categorized as 'numeralform' instead of 'numeral form' through their inflection heading. Tim Utikal (talk) 18:47, 7 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for the assistance. Yes, the issue with inflected forms not being made when they have preexisting pages occurs for many other words as well; it's more difficult to create such pages automatically or semi-automatically. I plan to go through the words somewhat slowly now starting from the first and working my way up.--Urszag (talk) 19:18, 7 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

tarted-up edit

I spotted Citations:tarted-up, and it's not hard to find more cites of it, but... what is the part of speech? Is it the attributive form of tarted up#Verb (an inflected form of tart up, compare google books:"tarting up", like dolled up is given as a verb form of doll up)? In that case, does our vote against attributive forms mean we can't have an entry? - -sche (discuss) 01:47, 5 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Adjective. I don’t know how one can even be insecure about it. Obviously dolled up does not serve an argument to proliferate lexical treatment of the like kind but someone (everyone) was just too lazy to create a full entry. Like by times we are too lazy to give proper translations to Arabic “verbal nouns” and just refer to the verbs so the reader can extrapolate the meanings. Back to English, the verb might not even exist or derive secondarily from the -ed form—so Equinox taught me about furniturized, and I suspect of caked up in one of the two senses I discerned. Fay Freak (talk) 02:38, 5 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Does it actually meet the adjective tests that might distinguish it as an adjective from the past participle of tart up? I've heard it used in each of the senses of tart up. DCDuring (talk) 13:52, 7 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

-ussy again edit

Most of the examples given at -ussy are blends, not suffixes. Suffixes attach to stems. Why is this so hard to understand? Also where is the discussion to undelete this? Vininn126 (talk) 21:56, 5 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Does петрушка also mean “puppet”? edit

https://dict.leo.org/russisch-deutsch/Петру́шка claims that петрушка, even uncapitalised, also means Hampelmann or Handpuppe. Is this correct? Neither we nor Russian (nor French or Spanish) Wiktionary give this sense, but we lack Петрушка, for which ru:Петрушка does give the sense of “the main figure in (the Russian equivalent of Punch and Judy)”, as well as “a childish form of Пётр (Pjotr)”. “петрушка” is also not given as a translation at puppet. PJTraill (talk) 13:57, 6 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Not sure about the capitalization part, but Petrushka is a traditional character used for children performances in different occasions. «The Hand Puppet Guy». Tollef Salemann (talk) 16:44, 6 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Back in the day, he was probably also used for adult performances on street theaters like Punch and Judy. Tollef Salemann (talk) 16:48, 6 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
You can also see at w:ru:Петрушка (персонаж). Tollef Salemann (talk) 16:53, 6 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Come to that, we also have w:Petrushka! So there are two jobs to be done: creating Петрушка (Petruška); searching for use of the lower-case form in this sense (which does not occur in w:ru:Петрушка (персонаж)), and adding the sense if necessary. PJTraill (talk) 20:30, 7 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
The lower-case form is very uncommon, so I deleted it anyway. Tollef Salemann (talk) 05:50, 8 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Laugh edit

We don’t have any pronunciations for the obsolete past tense forms and past participles listed at laugh or for the obsolete past tense of latch with the same spelling as one of these forms (laught). Could someone who knows how they were said please enlighten us or better yet add pronunciations to the relevant entries? Overlordnat1 (talk) 13:42, 7 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Overlordnat1: This is not an answer to your question, but I've added latch to our list of Appendix:English formerly irregular verbs. If you know other verbs like that, please let me know or add them there! PUC13:52, 7 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I've added Pronunciation at low. Leasnam (talk) 02:06, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Well "laught" is pronounced the same as "laughed". It's like learned/learnt, crossed/crost etc. 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 19:32, 16 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

petatearse: should the entry be the infinite form of the verb? [Spanish] edit

Given that on Wiktionary:About French guidelines specifically state that "Reflexive forms should be given as separate definition lines on the standard non-reflexive infinitive page, with a {{lb|fr|reflexive}} tag.", I wonder why this rule isn't explicitly mentioned on Wiktionary:About Spanish. Does the same apply to Spanish or does it depend on the case? For example, morirse is redirected to its infinitive form morir, where morir might be intransitive or reflexive. I ask this because the entry petatearse is currently the main one, and its infinitive one petatear isn't created yet, the thing is, "petatearse" is only used in the reflexive form. Thanks in advance! Saviourofthe (talk) 17:41, 7 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Check out personar#Spanish, which is a similar case Vilipender (talk) 16:43, 11 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thank you! Saviourofthe (talk) 12:51, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Template:table:colors/en edit

I think this page will need some cleanup, and I realized this when I saw "pink" and "magenta" as separate colours and "lime green" and "mint green". When was the last time you heard someone call something the latter two? I've heard "turquoise" to refer to bluish-green but more importantly English recognizes only 11-12 colours: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple/violet, pink/magenta, black, white, grey, brown and perhaps indigo (though cyan is an additive secondary colour, so I would want it to stay in the template). So the template should only display those colours, no matter how much a nerd might want to call the colour between cyan and blue "azure". Wiktionary also portrays purple as if it is equivalent to dark magenta, but that is not at all how the vast majority of English speakers or even the major dictionaries think of it as. To them, it's the same as violet. And when was pink defined as reddish-magenta? A Westman talk stalk 17:08, 8 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

This weird colors (like lime green and turquoise) are infact used in color-related jobs, but most of people don't use it as ground colors. Can maybe set the colors in a rainbow order with like 6-8 colors pluss black, grey and white. Tollef Salemann (talk) 07:20, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Editors need to be made aware of the purpose of this page, and of the underlying template {{table:colors}}. I think that might be “to display, for any given language, the colour names commonly used by non-specialists”. That could be amplified with a more exact specification of which colour names to include. A motivation could also be given: is it to make it easier to find the name of a particular colour, to provide a list for study, because it may come in useful, or perhaps because such a list is pleasing?
Most of the above is only useful to editors, but normal users might also like to know about other ways to find more colour names, in particular the category «language code»:Colors. PJTraill (talk) 12:49, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Very agree on it! Tollef Salemann (talk) 15:43, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

"trivia" on skibidi, Skibicki edit

"Trivia" section on both of these pages claims that optical character recognition systems confuse the two. Uncited and rather irrelevant. -saph 🍏 15:53, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

  Done Removed. Equinox 15:55, 9 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Rather moot now, but another point is that surely any "confusion" would be dependent upon the specific OCR technology used (and probably the nature of the source text, such as the font used, etc.), rather than being inherent to all OCR systems (and all source documents). —DIV (1.145.111.128 01:05, 11 February 2024 (UTC))Reply

Gloss, non-gloss & mixed definitions (in English) edit

Looking at isoprene, I felt the existing definition was a mixture of gloss, and non-gloss in a single sentence with uniform styling (no italics). Looking for guidance:

There are two basic styles of definition:
  1. In explanatory style, beginning with a capitalized first letter and ending in a period.
  2. translation style
Most English entries follow the first style, so that their definitions should begin with a capital letter and end with a period. In other words, such definitions are formatted as if they were sentences, even if they are actually sentence fragments. In contrast, most non-English entries follow the second style, since they typically translate the non-English word to one (or a few) English terms. However, there are non-English terms defined in the first style, especially when the term has no simple or straightforward English translation, and so it must be explained fully rather than just translated. When translating a word with a single English term, you can use template {{gloss}} to disambiguate the used term.

To me this seems to be saying that in English using a non-gloss definition is more common (and doesn't need special styling), but in other languages using a gloss definition is more common and needs special styling, viz. the gloss template should be used.

Use this template to apply the correct styling to a definition that is not a gloss.
Most definitions in the English Wiktionary are worded as glosses.
Most dictionaries use a different style for these rare definitions that are not glosses [...].

To me this seems to be saying that in English using a gloss definition is more common (and doesn't need special styling); hence in English entries using a non-gloss definition is less common and needs special styling, viz. the non-gloss template should be used.

Are these consistent or inconsistent? What is ultimately the recommended practice in the example of isoprene?

—DIV (1.145.111.128 01:02, 11 February 2024 (UTC))Reply

I don't use n-g for commentary that is still a sort of definition (like "blah blah; they once inhabited the X region"). I do use it where the "definition" cannot be substituted into a sentence, and rather "talks about" the word (like "Used to describe such-and-such"). Equinox 12:09, 11 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for the feedback.
Maybe I've been reading it too literally, as otherwise, from the help/template pages, I would have interpreted that we must either:
  • choose to use only gloss or non-gloss — "a tribe of 16th century warriors" or "May be used to describe a tribe of 16th century warriors." — and
    • rewrite short commentaries to suit — "a tribe of 16th century warriors that once inhabited the X region" or "May be used to describe a tribe of 16th century warriors; they once inhabited the X region."; or
  • use a mixture of gloss with longer non-gloss comments in separate sentences (one styled, the other not), rather than being separated by semicolons — "a tribe of 16th century warriors. The tribe once inhabited the X region, until they were overrun by enemies from all surrounding territories in the 17th century.".
If your practice is commonplace, perhaps it can be mentioned (and an example included) somewhere in the help?
And, lastly, do you have any advice on whether the two resources I identified are consistent or not? If not, then ideally they should be harmonised.
—DIV (1.145.89.110 06:52, 12 February 2024 (UTC))Reply

podotheca edit

Is it the same as a scute? Vilipender (talk) 15:23, 11 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

No. I'm not trained in bird or reptile anatomy, but, as I understand it, a scute is a structure that may or may not be part of the scaly covering on an animal's foot. ~~

Main current meaning of the English word "fee" is missing? edit

As far as I can tell, the main current meaning of the English word "fee" is "a payment made to a professional person or to a professional or public body in exchange for advice or services". Wiktionary gives as main meaning "an additional monetary payment charged for a service or good, especially one that is minor compared to the underlying cost", which I didn't even know existed, and then goes on with technical meanings in the Anglo-Saxon customary judicial system followed by historical and obsolete meanings. Imerologul (talk) 20:46, 11 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Sense 7 ("Money paid or bestowed; payment; emolument") seems to be the everyday sense, but is marked as obsolete! Equinox 04:16, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I've RfVed the definition in question and added two others that encompass most modern usage. The two new definitions effectively split old definition 7, which probably could be deleted. DCDuring (talk) 04:55, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

po polsku edit

The polsku entry includes only an adjective sense, which is marked archaic. The polski entry has the noun section, but the declension table does not include polsku, despite it being the form listed in all the usexes. Can a Polish speaker add the missing info? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 22:28, 11 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Andrew Sheedy: The entry should be converted to an adverb to use this
===Adverb===
po polsku (not comparable)
  1. Only used in po polsku
Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 00:00, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Atitarev: So should it not be listed in the usexes at polski then? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:34, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Andrew Sheedy: I've edited the page but then reverted. Unlike the Russian ру́сски (rússki), which is only used in по-ру́сски (po-rússki), the Polish etymology may be a little different and there could be two PoS - 1) adjective form, the current entry and 2) a portion of an adverb only used in combinations, e.g. po polsku. @Vininn126. Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 02:44, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Anatoli T. That would be more correct. Vininn126 (talk) 08:44, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Vininn126: Done.
@Andrew Sheedy: Pls check as well. I think if it was decided not to add archaic forms to the inflection tables, then it’s fine as is. Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 21:31, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Atitarev, Vininn126:, thank you for your help. I moved the usexes that were at polski to po polsku. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 22:05, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Hi @Vininn126. My edits on polsku have been reverted twice by Gugugagasraniewbanie, then by SujkaNiewydymka. Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 06:02, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
My take is - the form polsku is an archaic adjective form but it's a perfectly normal part when used inside this adverb. That's how it can be done. @SujkaNiewydymka reverted my edit with insults, so I hid the revision summary. Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 06:09, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Atitarev Eh, we can have it like this. Vininn126 (talk) 08:49, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Atitarev, I have added po polsku in a "See also" section in that entry. Hopefully that will be satisfactory to those who reverted you. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:34, 18 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Rhymes:English edit

In the General American rhymes table it says "pep /ɛ/ from /ɛ/" I think this should be changed to "pep /ɛ/" since the additional "from /ɛ/" is unnecessary. 2001:BB6:B84C:CF00:6CD9:69F6:F9CA:3E5D 19:15, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Similarities of cwm and khoum edit

So I want to add in the homophones of cwm: khoum, but I am unsure if an almost near-perfect homophone is even allowed on there. Because the beginning sounds are almost the same (see MW). So am I allowed to put khoum onto cwm's homophone section? Heyandwhoa (talk) 21:15, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Heyandwhoa: what is different about the beginning sounds? They both start with /k/ (and phonetically, [kʰ]), do they not? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 22:08, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Andrew Sheedy Look at Merriam-Webster's audios for both words, they're slightly different. Heyandwhoa (talk) 22:25, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Andrew Sheedy In British English cwm is /kʊm/, in my experience (and the OED agrees), whereas I'd interpret khoum as /kuːm/. I don't think there's any difference in aspiration at the start, though. Theknightwho (talk) 00:43, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I may have misunderstood what you meant by "the beginning sounds". The vowels are sometimes different, but it depends on the pronunciation, as Theknightwho pointed out. So the best solution is for you to list them as homophones, but with the qualifier "(some pronunciations)". Andrew Sheedy (talk) 16:01, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

next door (adjective) edit

We currently have an adjective sense with the example sentence: Try the place next door. I don't think this counts as an adjective. It's an adverbial attribute, same as "the bed in my room", "the weather today", "the restaurants around here". Or would anyone considers these adjectives in English grammar? I do think that "next door" can be adjective, but only in phrases like "my next-door neighbour" (vs. *"the around-here restaurants). 92.218.236.121 23:31, 12 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'm inclined to agree with the adverb interpretation. But next door#Noun, like almost any English noun, can be used attributively, carrying the same meaning. We voted not to have adjective PoS sections that essentially duplicated a term's noun section. But see WT:ADJ for some tests that would support including an adjective where usage met certain conditions. I don't think next door warrants an adjective section. DCDuring (talk) 02:40, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

possible edit request edit

Is Appendix:Glossary#clitic accurate in saying English 'em is a clitic version of them, and always attaches to the preceding word? i rarely if ever see 'em attached to another word: i usually see a space or hyphen in between, as in shoot-'em-up or read 'em and weep. If 'em is a clitic, maybe both those pages should link to each other, and Appendix:Glossary#clitic could rephrase its description of how a clitic affixes to other words? If 'em is not a clitic, Appendix:Glossary#clitic should use a different example. Thanks.

...Would Wiktionary benefit from all the words listed in Appendix:Glossary having their own pages link to Appendix:Glossary, perhaps in a See also hatnote or a Further reading section? For example, Appendix:Glossary#clitic links to clitic, but not vice versa, clitic does not link to Appendix:Glossary#clitic. (clitic does link to Wikipedia:clitic, though...) Appendix:Glossary#clitic also has a link to verb, but it looks like a link to verb when it's actually a link to Appendix:Glossary#verb.

Is the Glossary actually redundant? What does Appendix:Glossary#verb say or need to say that verb does not? Does Wiktionary's Glossary have, for example, special instructions for how to use those terms specifically on Wiktionary? i guess if nothing else, in some cases a term might have multiple meanings and the Glossary could clarify which are relevant to Wiktionary (I'd is a word or phrase shortened in speech, not an act of incurring debt, or a strong and often painful shortening of the uterine muscles prior to or during childbirth... but i checked a few randomly chosen contractions without finding one that links to Appendix:Glossary#contraction or contraction. Some don't even mention contractions!)

i'm not thrilled about the idea of deleting all the hard work that's gone into making the Glossary, but if all it does is make it necessary to check if an error or omission here also needs correcting over there...?

--173.67.42.107 09:44, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

As to words in Appendix Glossary, we generally use them in exactly one sense whereas in the wild they may have more than one (as you say) or be controversial. Also our sense may not be attestable. I'd like to think that the glossary might be usable to standardize our use of the terms included, though I doubt that happens often. DCDuring (talk) 16:21, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for pointing this out; I have changed the example to 'll. - -sche (discuss) 19:11, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'm also thinking about what the glossary should be for. My understanding is that it lists all not-entirely-obvious terms we use, explains how we use them in maybe slightly more basic terms than the entry definitions. It's a reference for both reading and writing Wiktionary entries. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 13:26, 16 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

biota and Biota edit

The second English definition given on the biota page is A coniferous tree, Oriental arborvitae (Platycladus orientalis) (syn. Biota orientalis). (Bold marks a typo i fixed.) i intend to hide this definition and link my edit summary here to explain why.

From what i can tell, Biota is a genus, and Wikipedia says The scientific name (or the scientific epithet) of a genus is also called the generic name; in modern style guides and science, it is always capitalised. Thus, this Wiktionary entry belongs on the non-existent capitalized Biota page, not the lower case biota page.

The definition includes three links, all to sites other than Wiktionary. i feel like Wiktionary should make it easier for readers to tell without clicking if links go to other sites.

The first link is to Wikipedia, which redirects from a vernacular ("common") name for the species to the scientific name of the genus, so that's a little misleading.

The other two links go to Wikispecies, but the link that actually says Biota linked to a non-existent page that i created as a redirect to the second link (the main synonym).

i'm not sure i'm reading Wikipedia and Wikispecies correctly, but i think Biota is an outdated synonym for Platycladus?

G2G --173.67.42.107 12:15, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

There's the taxonomic name, which is capitalized, and the English name, which isn't. It's quite common for vernacular names to be based on the taxonomic ones, so you can say "the azaleas in my yard are starting to bloom." They also don't have to be botanically accurate: try telling the people at Sequoia National Park that it's really "Sequoiadendron National Park". Chuck Entz (talk) 13:55, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I've created [[Biota]], with the occasionally used, generally understood, but never widely accepted definition as a taxonomic empire and the now disused definition as synonym of genus Platycladus. DCDuring (talk) 17:17, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Glyph origin of edit

This is missing. Duchuyfootball (talk) 14:54, 13 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Duchuyfootball Slightly slow response on my part but check it out now. Kiril kovachev (talkcontribs) 02:15, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thank you for your work. Duchuyfootball (talk) 04:19, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Cultural appropriation edit

The entry for appropriation doesn't mention "cultural appropriation" (heavily cited at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_appropriation). I have done minor tweaks to Wiktionary before but I don't know how this kind of qualified noun is handled. Would someone advise? (or just do it and then I can see for future reference how it is done?). JMF (talk) 11:48, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

@JMF: yes, it does appear in the entry. It is a form of appropriation, so it is listed as a hyponym of appropriation. — Sgconlaw (talk) 11:51, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
My apologies for wasting your time, I should have noticed that. But it's an ill wind etc: I have learned a new word: hyponym! --JMF (talk) 12:13, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@JMF: no worries! — Sgconlaw (talk) 13:07, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Discussion moved to Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/English#promogulate.

Obsolete pronunciation of leap year edit

In the entry leap year the following pronunciations, marked obsolete, are included: /ˈlɛp ˌjɪɹ/, /ˈlɛp ˌjiːɹ/. They are referenced to Otto Jespersen's A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (1909), but as I cannot view the entire work I cannot tell if the pronunciation indicated refers to modern English (perhaps a dialectal pronunciation?) or even Middle English. Should we retain these pronunciations in the entry? If so, should they remain labelled "obsolete" or should some other label be used? I have to say this is the first time I’ve come across an entry that features such an obsolete pronunciation transcription. — Sgconlaw (talk) 13:51, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

They should remain, provided at least they postcede the Great Vowel Shift, for which time datings are complicated. If you don’t know the timeframe then you can’t label much better. Fay Freak (talk) 13:58, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Re to your update. I have found it good to know in route. And that’s only one I remember specifically. Fay Freak (talk) 20:04, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Fay Freak: I think route is distinguishable because both the /ɹaʊt/ and /ɹuːt/ pronunciations are still used (and according to the entry /ɹaʊt/ was still used in the 19th century). However, I don't think anyone has pronounced leap as /lɛp/ for, I'm guessing, centuries. Thus, my questions are these:
  • Is it possible to establish satisfactorily if the pronunciation was ever used in modern English, or was it only used in Middle English or earlier? If the latter, we should move it into a Middle English, etc., entry.
  • If it is plausible that it was used in modern English, do we want to make it a practice to add IPA transcriptions for obsolete pronunciations of all words—for example indicating how they were pronounced in Shakespeare's time? We can establish this to some extent, as I am aware David Crystal has compiled a dictionary on this. (As far as possible, the period when the pronunciation was in use should then be stated as well.)
Sgconlaw (talk) 22:45, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Sgconlaw: If somebody wants to do this, which is a motivation not easily formed nor spotted, he will likely have a plan by himself, so no need to establish any layout just yet. Fay Freak (talk) 22:52, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
It is a modern English pronunciation, not a Middle English pronunciation. Jespersen writes "E 1787 has also short e in [...] leapyear" (§4.36), where E 1787 = Elphinston Propriety Ascertained and "In the 18thc. leap was often /lep/, probably on the analogy of leaped, leapt [lept]; now [liˑp]. The Irish still say "to lep a horse" (§8.41). Unfortunately I don't see a reference to where Elphinston 1787 gives this pronunciation, and Elphinston uses a respelling system so it's hard to search for it.--Urszag (talk) 00:17, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Urszag: ah, thanks! I would then suggest we indicate in the entry that this pronunciation was used at least into the 18th century. Also, perhaps it should be moved to leap. — Sgconlaw (talk) 04:21, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Any thoughts on this talk page ? edit

https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Talk%3ADeuteronomy#Turkish_translation Flāvidus (talk) 19:25, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

So what do you think the correct translation of Deuteronomy in Turkish is? — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:44, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Ukrainian: Page move from сім'я to сімʼя edit

using ʼ (U+02BC MODIFIER LETTER APOSTROPHE). Do we want this? —Fish bowl (talk) 22:56, 14 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Maybe we could do what we do for French? We use ' in entry titles, but everything is displayed as ʼ. Here's an example. PUC11:23, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Fish bowl, @PUC: No, we don't want to move. I think @Theknightwho is already doing the apostrophes like that (as with French) for Russian. @Benwing2. Ref: Module_talk:ru-translit#curly_apostrophe. Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 11:48, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I don’t know how one can even reckon it the same way as an apostrophe, curly or not. The function is that of a modifier letter, more like palochka, hence by Unicode guidelines modifier letter apostrophe is recommended, while curly or ASCII apostrophes do not behave like letters, splitting a word into two such that the text selection in your browser works suboptimally. Fay Freak (talk) 12:01, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
This is a good point, I think we should make it use this character in the headword at least. It's hard to search if we really do use it in titles, though. Kiril kovachev (talkcontribs) 23:36, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Why "hard to search"? —DIV (1.145.19.119 13:13, 17 February 2024 (UTC))Reply
I would rather us leave it as-is. Benwing2 (talk) 07:28, 20 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I agree. Leave it as-is. Voltaigne (talk) 13:03, 20 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I also think it makes more sense in Russian than Ukrainian, because it creates a distinction in the transliteration between ь (ʹ) and . Theknightwho (talk) 13:15, 20 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

have something/anything to say about it edit

...as in "Not if I have anything to say about it!" (= I will try to prevent it), or "The boss will have something to say about that" (= s/he will disapprove). This seems more than SoP. What should the headword be? Equinox 11:20, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

have to say, with hard-redirect of have to say about. We also have have a say. Fay Freak (talk) 12:02, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I think the "something/anything" is necessary. For example, "I have to say..." (= I must say; I feel it necessary to remark) is something quite different. Equinox 12:04, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Well it is, I don’t reckon this clumsy part a part of the page title though, not making this comparison. Should also be hard redirect then, assuming other people like you are intuitively anankastic about it. The same goes with German etwas zu sagen haben, colloquially shortened was zu sagen haben and with other objects viel zu sagen haben (to have to say much), nichts zu sagen haben (to have no say), wenig zu sagen haben (to have little say) (and nominalized das Sagen haben, while the previous translations in English are in your view nouns already), clearly from usage such as Ich habe dies zu sagen … (I have this to say about it). I cannot easily put into Russian, there is a wild variety of translations, maybe @Atitarev will be decided about the best equation. име́ть сказа́ть (imétʹ skazátʹ, literally to have to say) is only used in the last literal sense “I have to say this”. Studies have shown that translators struggle being acquainted with or having access to resources enough to make optimal use of idiom and collocation collections, @PUC. Fay Freak (talk) 12:28, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Fay Freak: Not idiomatic, I think. име́ть сказа́ть (imétʹ skazátʹ) is not necessary the most common way, specifically using име́ть (imétʹ, to have) for that purpose
  1. у меня́ есть что сказа́ть (u menjá jestʹ što skazátʹ) - I have something to say
  2. мне не́чего сказа́ть (mne néčevo skazátʹ) - I have nothing to say.
I don't think any of Reverso translations are entry worth.
have a say can be translated as something like име́ть пра́во го́лоса (imétʹ právo gólosa) Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 21:55, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'm sorry mate, all I got out of that paragraph was "I really want to use the word anankastic". Equinox 22:36, 15 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
"Иметь сказать" is only used in "я имею вам сказать" LOL. We also have it in Norwegian as "ha noko å seia" or "ha noe å si". Should definitely have an entry on the English expression, because it is not so obvious as a SOP would be. Out of my experience, not all people use this phrase in their languages, not even in a European language like in Swedish. Tollef Salemann (talk) 20:32, 17 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
It seems the answer to your specific question of what the headword should be comes from considering which words can be dropped (or exchanged?) without affecting the core meaning.
have something to say about it
~ have something to say about that
~ have something to say about this
~ have something to say about the lateness of your arrival
I cannot think, off the top of my head, of an alternative for have (besides had), and it can't be dropped.
As you mentioned, something is required.
What's wrong with have something to say about it as the headword, perhaps with redirects from ... this and ... that? I would assume there's some WT policy or practice for preferring one of those for the main entry, just as one is preferred over he or she or I or you in various phrases.
...Or is there's something to say about it close enough in meaning? Maybe not. Getting closer with there'll be something to say about it!? So that would tend to favour something to say about it as the headword.
Analogously for have anything to say about it (perhaps not anything to say about it).
...Goodness me, now I'm wondering whether to drop it as well: have something to say about / something to say about and have anything to say about???
—DIV (1.145.19.119 13:01, 17 February 2024 (UTC))Reply
Regarding whether to include it (or similar) at the end or not, FWIW roger that and copy that exist, while whip it was created and then deleted back in 2007. I'm sure there are some closer parallels that some clever souls can come up with. —DIV (1.145.19.119 13:10, 17 February 2024 (UTC))Reply
This is a generic problem with families of related common expressions. How should we be attempting to address considerations discussed in pragmatics or discourse analysis in a lexicon? Do we really have to lexicalize all forms of constructions like these because we can't write good definitions, labels, usage examples, and usage notes of the constituent words?
In this case, I think the meanings of (almost?) all the expressions are recoverable from have#Verb, [[say (or say#Noun), and something/not+anything, ie, SoP. We could have hard redirects of these SoP expressions to the appropriate sense of say#Verb where we could have a few representative usage examples. This works best where there is a unique sense of say involved. Otherwise we may be creating the illusion that each of these for which we have an entry is a set-phrase idiom. DCDuring (talk) 17:13, 17 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Just to complicate things, there are "have a say", "have a say in", "have one's say", "have something to say to" and similar expressions with a semantic range from speaking or responding to expressing ones opinion to having ones opinion contribute to a decision to making a decision. Some of the meanings in this whole group of expressions:
  • First there's simply a response, whether expressing an opinion or not: "what do you have to say about the allegations?", "what do you have to say to her"
  • Then there's just expressing an opinion and having it heard: "let them have their say"
  • Then there's having an opinion on something: "let's see if they have anything to say about it"
  • An opinion that one needs to be concerned about: "they will have something to say about your coming in late"
  • Having one's opinion considered in the making of a decision: "all stakeholders will have a say in the outcome"
  • Then there's "have the final say"
I could also bring in expressions using "word", but that's all I have to say for now. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:42, 17 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

well actually edit

There's lots of bullshit on that page. Starting with the statement that it's a nounDemonicallt (talk) 09:08, 16 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Demonicallt The quotations support it being a noun. Please don't start w:WP:IDONTLIKEIT threads. Theknightwho (talk) 02:17, 20 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Most threads are "I don't like it" threads, I just use more swear words and have a surprisingly poor command of English, for a lexi-dude Denazz (talk) 22:20, 21 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

croche deer term edit

Defn given is obsolete: A little bud or knob at the top of a deer's antler. What's this called in modern English? Some suggest crown or nub or peduncle, but I'm not sure... Demonicallt (talk) 09:37, 16 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

навальный edit

What's the connection between senses 1 and 2? Might the second be actually related to French naval? PUC13:06, 16 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

No, not from French. Both meanings derive from вал, which has 2 meanings. The original meaning is "billow, roller" (a kind of wind), and the meaning of gross output probably derives from that, because gross output envisages production as proceeding as a kind of billow. 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 19:37, 16 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

restive edit

I've always thought this was a strange word. Why does it mean restless? Shouldn't it be unrestive, if so? How did this word come to have this meaning? 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 19:30, 16 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Well, it does seem like the word ought to mean its antonym. Merriam-Webster's "Did You Know" section draws a line of logic from its etymological origin (same as the word rest), its original meaning of "sluggish" or "inactive" (more in line with the definition of "rest"), its application to horses who refused to do as they were commanded (you can imagine a horse being commanded to go, instead being inactive), and then an eventual connotation with unruliness.
It does seem counter-intuitive but this sort of thing just happens as people use words and their meanings shift, I reckon.
The etymology doesn't really lend itself to this information. Perhaps some sort of attestation of the evolution of the word could be found and included in the entry? Ethanspradberry (talk) 17:21, 19 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I went ahead and edited the page: restive
I'm a new editor, so if anyone more experienced wanted to double-check me, I'd appreciate it! Ethanspradberry (talk) 23:26, 19 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

(s) edit

i just added (s)#English and suddenly i'm wondering if it should actually be -(s) (like -s).

--173.67.42.107 21:28, 16 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

I have moved it to -(s). J3133 (talk) 17:24, 19 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Encyclopaedic information at horsepower#Usage_notes? edit

Encyclopaedic information at horsepower#Usage_notes? Delete/alter/move/retain? Can it go under etymology??? —DIV (1.145.19.119 12:41, 17 February 2024 (UTC))Reply

Definitely better as moved to a more appropriate place; done. As for refusing to let Wiktionary contain it at all, I wouldn't force that, but someone might. Quercus solaris (talk) 06:33, 18 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I think it's definitely better in the etymology section. — Sgconlaw (talk) 17:53, 18 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. Yes, coming back to this the Etymology section feels like a better fit. —DIV (1.145.127.239 01:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC))Reply

crow edit

Our definition (sense 1) doesn't distinguish between crows and ravens. In my experience, they are pretty consistently distinguished, but I wasn't sure whether to modify the definition or label it somehow and add an additional sense. Is there anywhere where crow can refer to ravens? Is it an older/archaic usage? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:31, 18 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

The answer to "Is there anywhere where crow can refer to ravens?": Yes — in broad usage, which is to say, in natural language whenever it's not trying too hard (which it's recidivist about). That's exactly why the lede opener of the WP article on crows says "more broadly a synonym for all of Corvus" and why the lede opener of the WP article on ravens says "There is no consistent distinction between crows and ravens." Various other major dictionaries at various senses s.v. crow and s.v. raven support the assertion of the breadth for the broad senses. Natural language is sloppy and polysemic. True that it can be forced into varying degrees of precision when narrower senses are used; ambiguity often reigns anyway, as the intention about choice of sense isn't always clear unless the chooser belabors it. Quercus solaris (talk) 06:50, 18 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

wilderness years edit

I think that "wilderness years," in the sense of a period of diminished fame or influence between high points, is a common enough idiom to merit inclusion, but I've never created a page here and wanted to get a bit of input first. I've seen it used in a decent number of places, notably in reference to the political careers of Richard Nixon and Winston Churchill, and, perhaps less notably but quite consistently, the period between the TV runs of Doctor Who. My impression is that this fits the criteria for inclusion of idioms, and it's included in a couple of dictionaries I was able to find easily online, but again, I'd like to get at least one other person's opinion before moving forward with it. Thanks! Ambisinistral (talk) 14:56, 18 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Mmmm, we already have as a figurative sense of wilderness "a situation of disfavour or lack of recognition; (specifically, politics) of a politician, political party, etc.: a situation of being out of office" (sense 3.3). Thus, wilderness years seems to be sum-of-parts, being merely wilderness + years (the years which someone spends in the figurative "wilderness"). — Sgconlaw (talk) 17:52, 18 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Ah, yeah, that makes sense! I think I glossed over that entry. My bad, and thanks! Ambisinistral (talk) 23:39, 19 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

peru edit

This is an entry about the computer name for a specific color. It's under a Translingual header, but otherwise it's formated as an English noun. I'm not sure whether to make a Translingual entry out of it (How do we do it with other color names? Is it really a noun?), or English. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:34, 19 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Delete: not human language. It's similar to a variable or class name in a program. Basically an enum member! X11 color names even states, "In some applications multipart names are written with spaces, in others joined together, often in camel case." Of course Peru is usually capitalised as a country name. Equinox 11:46, 19 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Honestly, it feels like something that could be a part of natural languages, as in "He was wearing a faded peru shirt advocating for some old hacker to become President, blue jeans stained with coffee, and worn-out sneakers that were last cool in the 1970s." Then again, we would need evidence... CitationsFreak (talk) 20:51, 19 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Equinox, CitationsFreak: I've sent it to RFVN. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:16, 19 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Saying "Then again, we would need evidence" and not creating the RFV is very uncool. Some day Uncle Chuck will have a heart attack. Equinox 04:24, 21 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

metabolism versus metabolisation edit

I associate metabolism with the organism that is digesting something ("She has a high metabolism.") and metabolisation/metabolization with the thing being digested ("Metabolisation of low-GI foods is slow."). In any case the current definitions don't seem clear to me, when considered together.

So metabolisation is the process of chemical processes?!
—DIV (1.145.127.239 01:10, 20 February 2024 (UTC))Reply

I took a stab at improving metabolization and metabolism. I'm sure there's room for further improvement if anyone else wants to try. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:47, 20 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
It's certainly better now than it was. —DIV (1.145.127.239) 1.145.127.239 05:42, 21 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I agree with the thrust of the efforts. The differentiation is hard to state succinctly off the top of one's head, but it has to do with the degree of cognitive emphasis on patient state versus agent state: the food versus the eater. A mention of metabolism often focuses cognitively on the state of being of the metabolizer, whereas a mention of metabolization often focuses cognitively on the catabolization of the food. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:38, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

"Jakarta Malay" edit

We have 6 terms in CAT:Jakarta Malay created by User:Surat Layang and others. AFAIK there is no such thing, since the Malay language in Jakarta goes by the name "Indonesian" and we have a separate L2 for this. Can someone who knows Indonesian help clean up these entries? Some of the probably need to be moved to the Indonesian header but sometimes there's already an Indonesian header as well as a Malay header. Benwing2 (talk) 02:14, 20 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

  • abang mantu — One sense only. "Further reading" covers this definition, although in the reference it's not marked as "Jakarta" usage (rather implying general Malaysian usage). Additionally cites Kamus Dewan Perdana, Kuala Lumpur: Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka, 2021, →ISBN, page 2.
  • abu-abu — "Further reading" covers Et2 only (the one in this "Jakarta" category), although in the reference it's not marked as "Jakarta" usage (rather implying general Malaysian usage). Et1 (noun & adjective) match the Indonesian entry, and are marked as "Indonesia". Is "Indonesia Malay" more acceptable than "Jakarta Malay" as a label?
  • anteng — "Further reading" indicates Java/Javanese, and gives slightly different definitions (contented; quiet).
  • emperit — One sense only. Cites Wilkinson, Richard James. An Abridged Malay-English Dictionary. Macmillan. 1965.
  • lukut — "Further reading" covers Senses 1 & 2 only. There is no entry for listed "descendent" lukut#Indonesian.
  • pirit — "Further reading" covers Et1 only.
If I had to guess, I'd be thinking that the above six words may be dated (at least in the marked senses), or the references used may be out-of-date (when "Malay" was perhaps more commonly used to describe the language(s) spoken in Indonesia), or both.
—DIV (1.145.127.239 05:39, 21 February 2024 (UTC))Reply
Thanks for the detailed investigation! Do you mind going ahead and cleaning these up? Not knowing Indonesian I'm not quite sure how to do that. Benwing2 (talk) 05:47, 21 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'm not sufficiently fluent to be conclusive... —DIV (1.145.127.239 12:15, 21 February 2024 (UTC))Reply

Middle Irish declension edit

Does anyone know of resources describing in detail declension in Middle Irish? Thanks -saph 🍏 18:29, 20 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Is Compromisation a Standard English Word? edit

I can’t find this word in any of these.

Merriam-Webster https://www.merriam-webster.com

Cambridge Dictionary https://dictionary.cambridge.org

Collins Dictionary https://www.collinsdictionary.com

Nor does it come up in Online Etymology Dictionary https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=compromisation

So, do you agree that this word should be removed from Wikipedia's Wiktionary? E Birdy (talk) 21:02, 20 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

It's got 5 citations, which is 2 more than is required. Please see WT:CFI. What other dictionaries have doesn't determine whether we include or exclude things: conversely, we don't include a number of words that do crop-up in some traditional dictionaries, because we can't find any evidence that anyone has actually used them.
We're also not "Wikipedia's Wiktionary". We're just Wiktionary, thanks. Theknightwho (talk) 21:30, 20 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Well put. OP, one thing to realize is that any descriptively valid word, even a rare one, belongs in Wiktionary as long as there are at least a handful of attestations for it that meet the criteria for inclusion. Another thing to realize is that even among words with many more attestations, there are many that other major dictionaries fail to enter (to date). There is many a word that has hundreds or even thousands of published attestations, plus orthodox morphology and regular spelling, and yet is missing from most major dictionaries — even words without any usage prescription against them (let alone the ones that do have that). Therefore, a canvassing of other dictionaries, by itself, doesn't explain enough. The reasons for their spotty coverage are, depending on one's mood, interesting, depressing, commentworthy, unremarkable, or otherwise. As for any prescriptive usage advice, such as "you oughtn't use the noun compromisation because you ought to use the noun compromise instead," the correct epistemic framing at Wiktionary is to (yes) enter the headword, definition, and citations (attesting quotations) and then add a short usage note that explains the phenomenon from a neutral point of view, such as, "The noun compromise is far more common than compromisation, and many English speakers might object that the former is preferable to the latter; compare also orient versus orientate or development versus developmentation." In fact, if I don't hear any credible objections here shortly, then I'll add such a note at compromisation soon. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:32, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Coincidentally, in the course of working on Words of the Day, I have just come across chronostasis and galamander which aren’t in the main dictionaries but which appear to be fairly well attested. — Sgconlaw (talk) 04:47, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'll be damned. Thanks for sharing those. I've had the stopped-clock illusion myself and never realized that it was a well-known phenomenon with an established name. In retrospect it is not surprising; I knew it was obviously some sort of psychological illusion, but I never thought to google the phenomenon when I experienced it. Quercus solaris (talk) 05:30, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
We could stand to label it "nonstandard" or something, though. (I suppose the usage note is adequate.) - -sche (discuss) 21:12, 25 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Both compromisation and compromization appear to meet WT:CFI independently, so the real question to me is how to understand this phenonmenon. @E Birdy's core issue remains: it is not in the authoritative dictionaries, and may not be standard. I will say I was struck by the apparent useage in medical studies. The word evokes George Carlin's commentary on the shift from single syllable or short words to less understandable multi-syllable terms. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 13:16, 26 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I heartily agree that a "nonstandard" label is appropriate and desirable. Surprised I didn't think of that earlier. Thanks for the tip. I will go add the label. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:49, 27 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Missing tie bar on Bengali affricate sounds edit

Hi, there is an inconsistency for "the tie bar" for the affricate sound in Bengali Rarh pronunciation. The correction transcription of the word অকার্য is /ɔkaɾd͡ʒo/. It's not allowing me to update the pronunciation. Any suggestion how I can contribute? Arundhatisgupta (talk) 19:13, 21 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

etaoinshrdlu edit

to me, you missed the whole raison d'etre of etaoinshrdlu.

it is a seat of the pants thumbnail of the letter frequencies for english.. whence it ended up ordering linotype keys, i guess. but it is an important resource for people playing steganography et al. or maybe you are trying to keep that as a secret.. i wanted the rest of the letters beyond my memory, and you had that.

thank you. 74.220.44.15 17:26, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

  Done Tweaked at etaoin shrdlu#Etymology. Now mentions the whys behind the string. Quercus solaris (talk) 20:42, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

castle doctrine edit

Does this come from the proverb a(n English)man's home is his castle? PUC22:16, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Yes; most specifically, growing up as an AmE speaker, the version that one hears more often in AmE is a man's home is his castle. WP agrees on the connection, per w:Castle_doctrine#History. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:35, 22 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/h₃reǵtós edit

Surely this can't be attributed to Proto-Indo-European. If this really did exist at the Proto-Indo-European level, then shouldn't the expected form be **h₃r̥ǵtós? Same with every other violation of suffix ablaut that can simply be attributed to independent developments. -saph 🍏 03:22, 26 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Add derived terms edit

Hi! Can someone please add the following Derived terms to these protected pages that I can't edit?

If you're interested in helping to link entries, Wiktionary:Todo/compounds not linked to from components is a decent place to start Denazz (talk) 22:51, 26 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Long pole in the tent edit

Do we have an entry for this expression? It's meant to mean "bottleneck", something that takes the longest to do or which generates the most hassle. I couldn't find an existing entry, but maybe it exists. I have a quote also for it. 185.69.144.233 01:18, 27 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

detrita as plural of detritus edit

We list detrita as an acceptable plural of detritus, even though detritus is usually uncountable. What, then, makes this word distinctively countable and thus plural? It seems like they may be both uncountable to me, like material and matter. Soap 15:43, 28 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

It may be worth noting that none of the cites at Citations:detritus pair the word with a plural verb. Soap 15:55, 28 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Some results from this Google Books search using are, were, have and this one using these, those. many show instances. DCDuring (talk) 16:59, 28 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. I couldnt get a single one of those links to load .... even the ones that say "Read free of charge" .... but I'll assume the cites must be in there. If you weren't American i'd just assume it's a copyright issue where I'm getting your URL's to load but not what they allow you to access ... but now Im confused. Anyway thanks. Soap 17:19, 28 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Although many from the "detrita are/were/have" collocations were spurious, usually because detrita was the object of a preposition, not the subject of the verb, some seemed real AFAICT. The other search generated more certainty from the snippets. DCDuring (talk) 19:35, 28 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Several other occurrences were specific epithets, as in Ocneria detrita.  --Lambiam 17:24, 1 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
The Catalogue of Life has 50+ accepted species that use forms of detritus as specific epithet. DCDuring (talk) 22:06, 1 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
To a Latinist this only makes sense as the plural of the nominalized neuter adjective dētrītum, supposedly meaning “a piece of detritus” or “a detritus deposit”. Indeed, the term detritum can be attested in English texts: [1], [2], [3]. So one might surmise that the English plural detrita is the Latinate plural of detritum, just like bacteria is a (or even the) plural of bacterium and spectra is a plural of spectrum.  --Lambiam 17:48, 1 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Missing definition of plodder related to "soap plodder" edit

What does the English word plodder mean in a "soap plodder"? An appropriate definition couldn't be found in the wiktionary page. Could someone please help make an edit on the defintion of this page? (I'm a newcomer in wiktionary. Please feel free to inform me if this is not supposed to be a good place to discuss this kind of trivial issue here. Thanks!) AnnHarryArb (talk) 18:24, 28 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

From what I could find by searching around, it seems to be a large, expensive machine used in industrial soapmaking. I couldnt find any evidence of the term for similar occupations like candymaking or die casting, which share a lot in common with soapmaking, nor would I expect someone who just makes soap as a hobby to be able to afford one of these machines at home, as the prices run well into the tens of thousands of dollars. As for giving it a definition, I wish I could help more, but while it's easy to find definitions that use technical jargon, and it seems that plodder may be a synonym for extruder, that doesn't get me any closer to writing a definition that someone unfamiliar with the industry would be able to understand. If I had to write something, I'd say that a plodder is
A large machine used in industrial-grade soapmaking.
It's possible that the term may have come about as a variation of plotter, because one manufacturer I found calls them plotters, but I think it's more likely that the two terms are simply confused. I hope this helps at least a little bit. Soap 19:37, 28 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
  Done Added based on what I found in Google Books. The verb is plod. Equinox 19:45, 28 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
Not limited to soap, but also margarine and other items, usually vegetable oil products. Seems to usually involve a screw or helix rotating in a cylinder with tight clearance between the screw/helix and the cylinder interior so that the material is forcibly extruded, often with low gas and liquid content. A plodder may be combined/integrated with other devices to accomplish mixing, material separation, etc. A plodder seems to always include a screw in a cylinder. DCDuring (talk) 20:27, 28 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
There seemed to be a use of a plodder (screw inside cylinder forcing material through a die) in a tubing manufacture patent. I'm not confident I understood the drawing and wording of the patent. DCDuring (talk) 20:36, 28 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

punk edit

The Etymology is in poor shape. It has a long history, first created in 2011, touched up once (diff), reverted and extended a year later (diff), reverted again while keeping the amendment (diff), reverted repeatedly by the original editor (diff) until @-sche stepped in, split the two etymologies and added yet another claim to it (diff), which stood for five years, not counting reverts and vandalism, until a new IP reverted said claim on insufficient grounds in 2019 (diff).

The -sche's edit was sourced by {{R:Dictionary.com}} (which was a redirect to another TLD back then) which is currently not supporting the claim but the Internet Archive proves that it had said so ("C16: via Polari from Spanish pu(n)ta prostitute, pu(n)to male prostitute"[4]). Greens Dictionary of Slang {{R:GDoS}} repeats the claim though not unanimously. The take away from this and OED is that citations of fire wood tinder spunk funk punk date later and cannot explain the former sense of puta mardre gay cat piker county trash punker.

Speaking of, punquetto is sometimes adduced (Green's, OED²), and I thought rebracketing of -(qu)-ette is indicative of confusion with -cat, perhaps rebracketing -y, -iȝ, -ich < -iġ, groovy cat, since cat is "Probably partly also a borrowing from French" (OED online), viz. chat. "cat; pussy" would at least explain cat "prostitute" (a century prior to "genitals"). I am just not knowledgable of evidence to that effect and this is not an RvE.

Hence I suggest to create (Polari) punto or refer back to Spanish puto. This isn't giving undue weight because we clearly state in accord with the references that the origin is ultimately uncertain and contaminated. It seems to be assumed the n is simply eyedialect for a nasalized back vowel /ũ/, while k for t may be due to t-glo'alization. This is not clearly said. For example, see also punt and thus punter, a swindler, gang affiliate or prostitutes client, which might represent an intermediate form in the development to punked (which has its own Usage Note here). Hurtmeplenty (talk) 20:08, 28 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Moët et Chandon edit

/ˌmoʊət eɪ ʃɑːnˈdɔːn/ —French [moe e ʃɑ̃dɔ̃]. Similarly to Adidas, etc. JMGN (talk) 11:01, 29 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Send to RFV as the term would need to comply with WT:BRAND before it can be created. — Sgconlaw (talk) 11:47, 29 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I suspect that Moët is attestable as a generic term for “fancy champagne”, but I doubt the full term is. Theknightwho (talk) 12:30, 29 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
I think the /t/ is pronounced, even just in the name Moët. I know I've heard it pronounced in English, and the Wikipedia article suggests it's pronounced in French too. The French Wikipedia doesnt say this directly, but does say that the name Moët is a homophone of Mouette ... which means either the o is irregular too, or (more likely) that they're using the term "homophone" loosely. Soap 17:05, 29 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

deep dive, deep-dive edit

These two verbs need deep dove or deep-dove as an alternate simple past, but not as past participle. I can't get it to work. Equinox 13:46, 29 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

i found code at nosedive that worked. It requires the use of a bare 4 as the final parameter, which is supposedly equivalent to past_ptc2, but when I tried using the full form (figuring the code would be easier to read that way) it just gave the deep dived link twice. So for now we may need to leave the parameters the way they are. Soap 18:33, 29 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

What is "Cant. Crew" in this etymology? edit

See nig-nog ety 1: "From Cant. Crew nigmenog, a very silly fellow." My guess would be the Cambridge University rowing team (Cantabrigian) but I am not sure. Equinox 21:21, 29 February 2024 (UTC)Reply

Assuming the page is still the same as it was, the source (itself taken from Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary) used by the originating editor just used the lowercase word cant, like thieves' cant. They were editing in good faith, but I think it's time to a second look at the etymologies of both senses, as even that editor wasnt too confident about the second one. I doubt the Urban Dictionary contributor would really know such a precise list of areas where the word is used anyway. I can at least say I've never heard it out loud and that I've always assumed it was (UK, Australia) but that is just based on hearsay. Soap 23:22, 29 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
“Canting crew”, I believe—an old-fashioned way of referring to people who speak in cant. See A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew (c. 1698). Cant. Crew might even refer to that specific work. — Sgconlaw (talk) 23:43, 29 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
That'll be it: it must be naming that work as the source. (The capitalisation was telling.) I will change it. Equinox 23:53, 29 February 2024 (UTC)Reply
The term does indeed appear: Nigmenog, a very ſilly fellow.[5]  --Lambiam 17:15, 1 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

March 2024

EN: tempera edit

The English definition of tempera has "A medium used to bind pigments in painting, as well as the associated artistic techniques." In this definition the pigments are not constituents of the tempera medium. Whether the term is ever used with that meaning, I am not sure. However, it seems clear that the term is often (usually? always?) used to refer to the medium comprising a mixture of binder and pigment(s). So either the existing Sense 1 should be changed, or a new sense should be added.

Also, "medium" is rather vague. The WP article on tempera states that the binder was traditionally a "glutinous material such as egg yolk", and more generally is "water-soluble". Furthermore, it mentions tempera paint as a synonym for poster paint in the USA.

Finally, the WP article on tempera also has a sentence on the etymology: "The term tempera is derived from the Italian dipingere a tempera ("paint in distemper"), from the Late Latin distemperare ("mix thoroughly")."

—DIV (1.145.23.181 09:08, 1 March 2024 (UTC))Reply

Is the dis- prefix needed? Just unprefixed Latin temperō already means to combine, compound or blend properly. This is Classical Latin. The WP article Distemper (paint) writes that distemper is a decorative paint and a historical medium for painting pictures, and contrasted with tempera. [My emphasis by underlining. --L.]  --Lambiam 19:53, 1 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
In oil painting, the medium is oil paint, which includes the pigments. It is not hard to find uses that refer to tempera as the paint that is applied to a surface, that is, with the pigments mixed in. For example, “This tempera possesses the valuable property of retaining its colour the same as when first laid on”.[6] I don't see uses of the term that refer specifically to the carrier in which the pigments are suspended. The definition should best avoid the highly polysemous term medium and simply state something like,
A paint in which the pigments are suspended in a water-soluble emulsion, such as of egg yolk or gelatine, which hardens and becomes insoluble on exposure to air.
(The water-solubility is what distinguishes tempera from oil paint.)  --Lambiam 20:32, 1 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Agreed with Lambian- Wiki's etymology is a bit silly. Tempera is simply from the Italian tempera, derived from the verb temperare, from the Latin temperāre. Nicodene (talk) 11:44, 7 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

verpus edit

At Ancient Greek δρῖλος (drîlos) we define the term as "verpus" yet we do not have an English entry for this term. 17:51, 2 March 2024 (UTC) Leasnam (talk) 17:51, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Leasnam: This seems to be copied from Liddell & Scott, which seems to be saying that it's glossed somewhere as "verpus" and they don't know which sense of "verpus" is meant. Of course, this is the sort of subject matter that might be in the class of "Things Which Shall Not Be Named" that used to be replaced with Latin in writing to avoid the vulgar English term (e.g. membrum virile). Chuck Entz (talk) 19:29, 2 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
The other L&S has for verpus: “a circumcised man”,[7] and defines verpa as “membrum virile”.[8] We have a more specialized and vivid definition for the latter term (“membrum virile in statu erecto, glande denudata”).  --Lambiam 22:02, 5 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

comping edit

Should comping have the additional sense of "refunding"/"waiving"? --Azertus (talk) 16:38, 3 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I think this is intended to be covered by "present participle and gerund of comp" and then the two "complimentary item" senses at comp#Verb (because it's not limited to the present participle, this sense applies also if you comp something in the present tense), but we could stand to revise those a bit. As you suggest, it seems possible to read the current wording as just covering providing someone with what you explain at the start is a free drink (they never take any money out of their pocket), but it also needs to cover refunding (they took money out of their pocket and paid you a while ago, thinking they were making a normal money-for-goods transaction, and they drank the drinks, and then you later give them the money back because of reasons, e.g. one of the servers insults them and you want to apologize). - -sche (discuss) 00:14, 4 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

quote ... unquote edit

The second usage on this entry is listed as an "adverb", with the definition, used to delimit a quotation in the same function as quotation marks. The example given is: Adam Smith claimed that a capitalist is, quote, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention, unquote.

How is reading out the name of a punctuation mark that is part of a quote in any way adverbial usage?

Hermes Thrice Great (talk) 07:32, 4 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

tripping edit

"(slang) Undergoing a hallucinogenic trip. (slang) Saying crazy things or acting foolishly." These are listed as Adjective senses, but isn't it a verb form? Equinox 19:33, 4 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

The collocations "the tripping hippy" and "the tripping shaman" have some ghits, but I forget where to look regarding operational tests for making the grade to arrive at unassailable pos=adj status. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:15, 6 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
It just looks like an ing-form to me. It passes noun tests, just like any other ing-form, but there is no novel meaning beyond what is found in the verb. For participles, one of the adjective tests is eliminated, but *"seemed tripping", *"very tripping", and the absence of new meaning say this isn't an adjective either. DCDuring (talk) 13:10, 6 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

vampire time edit

Isn't this a bit excessive (cites and all)? "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see vampire,‎ time. > Time, when considered relative to a vampire's immortal lifespan. | The manner in which a vampire perceives or measures time. | The time at which one encounters a vampire." We don't usually list a lot of SoP combos like this. Equinox 19:36, 4 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'm inclined to keep it limited to "[&lit]; especially, [principal example]." Given that Wiktionary is not allowed to enter SoP, setting this limit prevents a slippery slope. Someone will object that even the "especially X" part is too much, but I find that objection counterproductive; I think one principal example is tolerable if it has a bit of usefulness beyond what &lit says. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:08, 6 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
PS: I just realized that if closing time and Colored People's Time pass WT:CFI, then I'd have to ponder harder about the senses given for vampire time regarding CFI. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:18, 6 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Words ending -toxinA, -toxinB etc. edit

Botulinum toxin lists a lot of biosimilars like "abobotulinumtoxinA, daxibotulinumtoxinA, daxibotulinumtoxinA-lanm, evabotulinumtoxinA, incobotulinumtoxinA, letibotulinumtoxinA, letibotulinumtoxinA-wlbg, onabotulinumtoxinA, prabotulinumtoxinA, relabotulinumtoxinA, rimabotulinumtoxinB". No space before the A or B. I've never seen such words before. Are they dictionary terms? Are they still words if you remove the final A or B? Equinox 20:21, 4 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Since the advent of biosimilars, people have been asking each other how best to make naming conventions for their nonproprietary names. The themes have involved some suffixes, such as the hyphenated four-letter ones and the solidly affixed ones seen here. The USAN system has adopted some conventions, which can be seen at work in the FDA Purple Book (whereas the FDA Orange Book is for small molecule drugs.) The names referred to above are USANs. The WHO has tried out some things regarding the INNs for biosimilars, not all of which have stuck permanently. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:52, 6 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Cranefly edit

How do you say cranefly in Hebrew? JulieKahan (talk) 20:58, 4 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

The Hebrew Wikipedia has טיפולות (probably /tipuˈlut/) with an image of the European cranefly.  --Lambiam 22:18, 5 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
This /tipuˈlot/ is just a transcription of the taxon and hardly living language, as with many article titles on Hebrew and Arabic Wikipedia. Fay Freak (talk) 13:19, 6 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
One probably says יַתּוּשׁ (yatū́š), which also serves the title of the superordinate taxon on the mentioned Wikipedia page. Fay Freak (talk) 13:23, 6 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

outstand edit

I didn't know this was a word, though it stands to reason. However, current definition 2 seems to include more than one definition in it, don't you think? --Cromwellt|Talk|Contribs 04:07, 7 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

To me, lavishing attention and definitions on this archaic word seems a bit silly. I note that there are no citations for any of the senses, which may be not just archaic, but obsolete (or insufficiently attested for inclusion). I don't view citations and usage examples involving outstanding have much bearing on this term. I further note that MWOnline does not have an entry for this, indicating that they don't find it a word in current use. DCDuring (talk) 17:08, 7 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
I just added a total of three quotations for the first two senses, and there are more where they came from. There is nothing silly about attending to a perfectly good and useful term simply because it is dated. It would be far sillier to define, say, emojis in a dictionary, but it seems we have time for that. Multiple Mooses (talk) 05:54, 8 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

summator edit

I just added an entry for this term after coming across it in Augustine's Confessions. I have only added the obvious sense, however, with a couple of supporting quotations. When I search Google Books, it seems that the term more commonly refers to either a device or a mathematical concept; however, I am not familiar with these, and I cannot find such technical definitions in dictionaries. MW simply has "one who summates". Is there anyone with the expertise and the time to add the missing senses? Multiple Mooses (talk) 05:54, 7 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Almost all the uses I could find related to an element in logic circuit or control system design, which I’ve added as a definition. (I don’t think the mathematical usage is separate from this sense.) It may be there are still more missing senses. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 18:53, 8 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

good old boy edit

Sense 2. Can we get someone to look at this ? Sounds really biased. Not saying some of the qualities listed are never found among some, but I don't think all are necessarily defining qualities. Maybe something like, "one who is accepted by the community at large, often deriving undue favour based on longstanding familial ties within the community" (?) Leasnam (talk) 17:37, 7 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I agree the definition needs some cleanup; I would not have thought of "friendly", "unambitious" or "uneducated" as definitional features of a good old boy. E.g. a lawyer could be a good old boy, at least in the sense I'm familiar with, and be educated and ambitious! I also think the "chiefly Southern US" in the label is misplaced... or perhaps we're actually dealing with two separate senses, if there is also a sense by which is this (approbatively?) "one who is accepted by the community at large and derives favor"? The sense I am familiar with is when people make topical reference to the culture/politics of the South (i.e., our mention of the South should be in the definition, not the dialect label), and they say that e.g. a particular sheriff is a "good old boy" = he's a (white) Southerner regarded as embodying stereotypical Southern culture like loyalty to the [white] group / racial bias and conservatism, as an explanation of why he's e.g. stonewalling an investigation into police killing a black man. Dictionary.com defines "good old boy" as "a man who embodies some or all of the qualities considered characteristic of many white men of the southern US, including an unpretentious, convivial manner, conservative or intolerant attitudes, and a strong sense of fellowship with and loyalty to other members of his peer group". - -sche (discuss) 21:42, 7 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Dendragapus edit

Do you guys think that Dendragapus comes from the Greek dendron (tree), Greek aga- (intensifying prefix, going back to Indo-European *mǵh2- "large, great"), and Greek -pous (___footed?) 70.119.117.26 18:02, 7 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'm sure the start is from dendron, but not sure about aga- (I hadn't seen that prefix before, so I think it might be more obscure) or -pous. Is the genitive attested? A genitive in -podis would confirm that it ends in -pous; a genitive in -pi wouldn't establish it for sure one way or another. These sources suggest the second element is ἀγαπάω (agapáō): http://utahbirds.org/birdsofutah/Profiles/BlueGrouse.htm, https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/key-to-scientific-names/search?q=dendragapus I guess it would then represent a hypothetical Greek *δενδραγαπος or something like that.--Urszag (talk) 22:41, 7 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
The original description doesn't say anything about what Daniel Giraud Elliot had in mind, but I always thought it came from Ancient Greek δένδρον (déndron) + Ancient Greek ᾰ̓γᾰπᾰ́ω (agapáō), as something that "loves trees". According to the page for the genus on Wikipedia, these are birds that live on the edges of forests in mountainous areas of western North America, while many of the better known grouse species live in moors and prairies. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:11, 8 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
There is a suffix -οῦς (-oûs), meaning “-ful”. So perhaps ἀγάπη (agápē) +‎ -οῦς (-oûs) “full of love” (for trees)? The genitive would end in -οῦντος (-oûntos).  --Lambiam 11:17, 8 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
per w:Dendragapus: "Their breeding habitat is the edges of conifer and mixed forests in mountainous regions of North America and Eurasia. Their range is closely associated with that of various conifers." DCDuring (talk) 19:28, 8 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Adding definition to existing entry edit

Under advisory, there should be another definition relating to the state of being under an advisor. There is a StackExchange thread about this usage, and some additional sources using the word in this way are: [9][10][11][12] BhamBoi (talk) 01:33, 9 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

While the SE thread you've linked actually discredits the propriety of this usage, and Twitter statuses (stati?) don't count as citations AFAIK, I have added this sense with a couple of decent quotations. I have also tagged it as uncommon and possibly nonstandard per the SE thread. Multiple Mooses (talk) 02:55, 9 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Is that "supervision of an advisor" or "supervision by an advisor"? DCDuring (talk) 15:46, 9 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
"Under the supervision of an advisor" aka "with supervision by an advisor". I'm going to make it "by" for clarity. Quercus solaris (talk) 06:54, 11 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

vernacular edit

Too many senses, some should be merged. PUC12:56, 9 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

signie edit

Sorry if this posts more than once; i tried posting on the Tea room's main page, which normally adds my topics to the current month automatically, no problem... This time i think it didn't like me trying to add an external link.

Is Signie a word or a typo? (Sign makes sense in context.) Signie appears in the first quotation under hamburgery#Noun, attributed to a 1935 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette available at newspapers DOT com (but not available to me unless i create an account for that site).

--173.67.42.107 02:32, 10 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

There was evidently during the 1930s and 1940s a type of regiolectic in-joke going with the regular readers of that paper's "Pittsburghesque" column by one Charles F. Danver, judging from the multiple hits at https://www.newspapers.com/search/?query=signie&p_province=us-pa&p_city=pittsburgh&dr_year=1930-1950. It is apparent from the context that Danver and his readers were evidently using the word signie (sign + -ie, diminutive) to mean a humorous fault in the wording of a sign, or a sign containing such a fault. So yes, akin to the word typo in a way, but having to do with wording/phrasing more often than typos or misspellings. In a cursory inspection I didn't see evidence that the word had any currency outside of this column; and it apparently died out circa 1950, if my half-ass inspection was comprehensive enough to detect the timing accurately. If anyone cares enough to spend more time with it, it could be nailed down further. I don't think I'll bother to try to enter signie in Wiktionary because it was evidently only a regiolectic in-joke that died out eventually. Probably if one were to scour WT:CFI it would back up that gut feeling (i.e., Wiktionary probably doesn't want it). Quercus solaris (talk) 06:41, 11 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Neat! Thanks for chasing that down. ...Tempted to link that page to this conversation so people aren't tempted to "fix the misspelling" like i considered doing. --173.67.42.107 15:07, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
  Done Great idea. And it's a good point because WT's ux rules want the vocab in ux items to be fairly clear. I provided a short unobtrusive gloss, and I also commented out a link straight to this discussion thread, which people will encounter if they open the hood there. Quercus solaris (talk) 15:54, 14 March 2024 (UTC). PS: All this talk of 1930s hamburgeries reminds me that I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:14, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

mad dogs and Englishmen edit

This seems like a weak entry. The definition doesn't express how this can be used in a sentence, and the "citation" is just a paraphrase of the source poem. Is it really a dictionary entry, or just "here is a poem that people sometimes quote"? Equinox 17:19, 10 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

čiriklo, háček, röck döts and ümlaut as autological edit

Autological terms refer to themselves, but these only only refer to diacritics that they contain, not to the whole words. We don't include aitch in Category:English autological terms, so why include these? Chuck Entz (talk) 22:47, 10 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Agreed. Theknightwho (talk) 22:52, 10 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Geltung Plural edit

The wiktionary article for Geltung says that it has no plural, but Collin's gives "Geltungen" and it is attested in Edmund Husserl's Ideen I. It's not an old Genitive form because it is preceded by 'von ihren' which is only possible if it's dative plural. Should Geltungen be added to the page for Geltung? Mennonitischer Metaphysiker (talk) 07:28, 12 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Spectrology edit

wiktionary definition includes "1. The science of spectrum analysis." This is incorrect; spectrum analysis is SPECTROMETRY. 86.25.146.134 09:48, 12 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I added a label to mark the sense as obsolete. Apparently there was a time when at least a few people used the word spectrology to mean what we today would only call spectrometry, per Webster 1913. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:11, 12 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Schwank - Schwang edit

What's the semantic connection between Schwank (drollery, prank) and Schwang (swing; fashion) (which does seem to be related to schwanken (to fluctuate, to vary))? Moreover, Schwank is the supposed etymon of Polish szwank (harm, wrong), but I'm not seeing a clear connection there either. @Mahagaja? PUC19:08, 12 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I don't know, but German Wiktionary's entry for de:Schwank says "Die ursprüngliche Bedeutung war „Schlag“ oder „Fechthieb“, die Bedeutungen „witzige Erzählung“, „Streich“ hat sich im 15. Jahrhundert entwickelt." (The original meaning was "blow" or "fencing stroke"; the meanings "witty tale", "prank" developed in the 15th century.) —Mahāgaja · talk 19:27, 12 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
It tells you in the first definition of Grimm’s dictionary: in older language Schwank was a more evil prank, trolling or something, but probably as mondane and physical as a simple blow, swinging one’s arm. And then as Schabernack and Possen it can be used like Unfug, ‘something purposefully inappropriate’. Schwang in the sense of ‘current fashion’ was fashionable, the current thing, around 1900 and means the same as now “der neueste Unfug”. See also Schwalch for the variation. Fay Freak (talk) 19:35, 12 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

warwicensis edit

Dear Latin speakers, if anyone is able to discern what the correct or natural vowel length of this term should be, please fix it if it's currently wrong. 137.205.213.94 17:55, 13 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I'd say you've done it right. The suffix is as it should be, and deliberately marking either vowel in Warwi- as long (on what grounds?) would be a bit ridiculous. Nicodene (talk) 21:38, 13 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Is every given name "English", if used in an English sentence? edit

Would like to know if most people agree with this or not: User_talk:CitationsFreak#Kia. Equinox 21:09, 13 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I certainly don't agree with CF's blanket pass. I think it's a difficult question though. PUC21:20, 13 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
By the same logics they are translingual. In reality what decides what language a name is is racist or culturalist idpol, but this must be left unexpressed if only because we are more academia than in reality, in our aspirations. There is no easy, purely rational rule to tell people what names they can create, instead this is planned ambiguity young editors get ahead of over time. Better no rules than bad rules or something, lack of clarity can be rectified by experience, guided by actually felt needs or lacks rather than abstract ideals of what we could add and get away with it because there is no formula against it: you don’t live in a Cartesian plane, go for the verisimile, where you get 80 % of the revenue with 20 % effort: Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2019-11/CFI policy for foreign given names and surnames, Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2023/August#Determining language for a vote on multiple accounts. Otherwise we can go through the top 1000 list of Turkish forenames and create them for German and so on, it will be certain, if you care so much for what is certain.
Just be reminded that the entries must be useful for someone, not follow some essentialist who’s-who-assignment. Sometimes everything is told but with unusually circumstantial language specification, as with those Dacian words, or when it is less important whether something is English or Middle English or Middle French or Old French or Middle High German or New High German (e.g. I was not decided what chronolect the vulgar quote at rumsen is in), or words spread in several Arabic dialects are added under the general Arabic heading, or I didn’t bother to add the IPL definition of dépeçage to more than one language section (you understand its meaning in a German law text with the French entry; Geographyinitiative clearly was guided by his greater drive for completion of the dictionary when he copied the definition for an English section), or when in a single word glossed in a medieval margin you don’t know whether it is Old French or Middle English (→ dittander). Fay Freak (talk) 00:09, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
There's tension between the theoretical goal of the Wiktionary project to describe "all words of all languages" and the fact that the way the site is set up at the technical level, and how contributors edit entries, realistically prevents this from ever being accomplished. Not all aspects of names are translingual: language-specific information can include pronunciations (if there is anything more specific than "as close as you can manage to the pronunciation of the name in another language"), inflections, even spelling in some cases. The citations showing usage are themselves language-specific data. None of that seems inherently unsuitable to a dictionary to me; I don't really get what's interesting about adding names in many cases, but what's interesting is subjective. It does seem like it would lead to technical problems to have extremely broad inclusion criteria for names, though, because I'd guess there are probably some that can be attested in even more languages than all but the biggest single-letter entries.--Urszag (talk) 00:30, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Urszag: @CitationsFreak: Well, you may be arguing towards every name being Translingual (!!). But not every name being English. I would like to hear more logic and philosophy supporting this. Equinox 16:53, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Honestly, I could see us putting every name in Translingual. CitationsFreak (talk) 17:19, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Unless we retain pronunciation info, I don’t think it’s a good idea. Plus, many languages phonologically adapt spellings, even though English doesn’t. Plus, there are often alternate forms that are only used in particular languages. It just seems like a recipe for oversimplification. Theknightwho (talk) 17:26, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
The names are definitely used in English, even if the people who have them may not be from English-speaking areas. As an example, take Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He is from Ukraine, a non-English-speaking nation. But no one speaking Ukrainian spells it like that, as they use a different script. So, it is English and not Ukrainian. CitationsFreak (talk) 17:33, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
I'm confused how I'm "arguing towards every name being Translingual" when I explicitly wrote "Not all aspects of names are translingual" and gave examples of things that could be specific to the English entry (citations, pronunciation and spelling).--Urszag (talk) 20:42, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
I don't see the interest either in most cases but don't have serious objections to adding names either. As an anti-flooding measure we could set a random standard like ‘belongs to someone who has won an Oscar’ (at which point we'll have to RFD Leonardo of course). Nicodene (talk) 20:50, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
Maybe a more justifiable standard would involve applying criteria such as the following:
  1. The name must be attested according to the usual standard set out in WT:ATTEST.
  2. Subject to the following criterion, do not treat a name as English if it originates from a modern language other than English.
  3. However, treat such a name as English if it is the name of a notable person whose first language is English. A person will be regarded as notable if they have a Wikipedia article about them in any language.
Sgconlaw (talk) 22:20, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
One good reason to list names such as Joaquin as English is that they have nativized pronunciations in English. If we force them all to be translingual, there will be no way for the reader to figure out that it's pronounced /wɑˈkiːn/ and not one of the many other possible pronunciations one could come up with for this name. Jose needs to stay too because it has two completely different pronunciations, both unpredictable from knowing the Spanish.
Unless we want to start putting multilingual pronunciation sections under the Translingual header, but I'm sure that would just lead to another argument later on where they could get deleted and leave us with nothing. Soap 07:41, 15 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

fundamental edit

From Late Latin fundamentālis, from Latin fundamentum (“foundation”), from fundō (“to lay the foundation (of something), to found”), from fundus (“bottom”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰudʰmḗn. However, fundō and fundus are from 2 different root. Please verify. Duchuyfootball (talk) 05:49, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Duchuyfootball see fundo#Etymology 2. Ioaxxere (talk) 06:33, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

bix nood edit

Could the protection level on this entry be decreased so that it may be created? See Citations:bix nood, which has recently been expanded by @Mynewfiles. Ioaxxere (talk) 06:40, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

if we can get this cited, i agree it should have a page, as offensiveness doesnt disqualify a word. but i dont agree that it's cited. looking at the cites page, all i see is two cites for each sense (because three of the four in the second category are by the same author). i'm not sure we can really count the cites in the third section. Soap 15:24, 15 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
@Soap The three qualifying citations for the sense "African-American" could be: 2006 November 16 by Ace Lightning, 2007 January 23 by nikolai kingsley, and 2008 April 3 by Don Stockbauer. Ioaxxere (talk) 21:25, 18 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

ستان edit

What does this word actually mean? The entry defines it as -stan, -istan (ie with a transliteration!) and going to those entries tends to direct the reader back to this page. -istan has been under discussion in the tea room for 3 years as being "a gloss of the Persian" - that's an especially serious problem if the Persian is itself undefined! 2A02:3037:409:8190:7AB7:9366:EB03:8AD6 12:47, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

Al edit

Al#English says Al is A diminutive of the male given names Alan, Albert, Alexander, Alfred, or other names beginning with Al- but shouldn't we mention some women/girls also have that nickname? Alison, Alexandra... i tried to remove the word male but the template must need that field because it became A diminutive of the unknown-gender given names...

--173.67.42.107 14:55, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

i changed it to other male or female names beginning with Al- but i'm still curious about the template. (For example, does the template automatically add it to male categories, and should it also be in female or gender-neutral categories?) --173.67.42.107 15:01, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

I can certainly believe there are some women named Al, but i'd think they must be much rarer than the men. Could we have two definition lines, one for men and one for women, to give better attention to detail so a foreign language learner would know that the name is still primarily male? Thanks, Soap 12:05, 15 March 2024 (UTC)Reply
I like that suggestion. Two senses entered instead of one. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

feus, plural of feu (French) edit

could someone please touch up the feus page? We list it as the plural of feu, but we dont say which feu it is. Is it the word for fire, in which case feus would be an alternate splelling of feux? Or is it the "dead" sense, in which case it should either be changed to an adjective, or listed as both noun an adjective? Thanks, Soap 12:03, 15 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

EN: Nos. edit

The abbreviation Nos. lacks an etymology. Maybe the logic is that it is formed by appending -s to No., so calling is a plural is sufficient explanation. But, hypothetically, it could perhaps have come from Latin numeris?

OK, having written it out, that hypothesis is making less and less sense. Nonetheless, is there (ideally) supposed to be an etymology? There is one at days#Etymology_1 for instance. —DIV (1.145.111.69 10:49, 16 March 2024 (UTC))Reply

It comes from No.#Etymology with a plural -s tacked on without regard for philologic fine points, much like lbs, bbls, kgs, kms, and others. It is without doubt descriptively a thing, widely used, regardless of any prescriptive urges to discourage it. As for how Wiktionary would best convey those facts in a way whose tone passes muster: it could be worked out. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:23, 16 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

/ Spanish usage edit

The pages for ꝇ and Ꝇ claim that it can be used in Spanish for 〈ll〉 "chiefly in handwriting". It is totally unsourced and when I searched for it outwith Wikimedia sites, people seem to be thinking it's either a mistake or just made up. I can't personally find ꝇ being used in Spanish, but perhaps someone saw something like *lᷝ somewhere and misinterpreted it as ꝇ? I can see how lᷝ could be used in a manner similar to uͤ/oͤ/aͤ in older German or Swedish texts.

There is also no corresponding page in Spanish. The Wikipedia pages in both English and Spanish don't mention it being used in Spanish either at the moment.

Should the Spanish section of the pages for ꝇ and Ꝇ be removed? Senicasilurum (talk) 14:05, 16 March 2024 (UTC)Reply