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Wiktionary:Tea room Nov 28th 2012, 22:05 Revision as of 18:19, 28 November 2012 (edit) Latest revision as of 22:05, 28 November 2012 (edit) (undo) DCDuring (Talk | contribs) Line 2,597: Line 2,597:   :::I think that this is used sufficiently often that it warrants inclusion as a subsense of sense four or at least as an "especially" there. I hope rewording to make it sexual-preference-free doesn't make it too cumbersome for a dictionary. Some artfulness of wording is definitely needed. [[User: DCDuring |DCDuring]] <small >[[User talk: DCDuring|TALK]]</small > 13:37, 25 November 2012 (UTC)   :::I think that this is used sufficiently often that it warrants inclusion as a subsense of sense four or at least as an "especially" there. I hope rewording to make it sexual-preference-free doesn't make it too cumbersome for a dictionary. Some artfulness of wording is definitely needed. [[User: DCDuring |DCDuring]] <small >[[User talk: DCDuring|TALK]]</small > 13:37, 25 November 2012 (UTC)   ::::I've taken a stab at rewording an recontextualising it. [[User:-sche|- -sche]] [[User talk:-sche|(discuss)]] 16:28, 28 November 2012 (UTC)   ::::I've taken a stab at rewording an recontextualising it. [[User:-sche|- -sche]] [[User talk:-sche|(discuss)]] 16:28, 28 November 2012 (UTC)   + :::::That looks good. But doesn't the rating-scale context belong at the sense level, not at the subsense? [[User: DCDuring |DCDuring]] <small >[[User talk: DCDuring|TALK]]</small > 22:04, 28 November 2012 (UTC)       == [[jack-in-the-box]] ==   == [[jack-in-the-box]] == Latest revision as of 22:05, 28 November 2012 Wiktionary > Discussion rooms > Tea room WT:TR redirects here. For Translation requests, see Wiktionary:Translation requests. For guidelines on translations, see Wiktionary:Translations Wiktionary discussion rooms (edit) see also: requests Information desk comment | history | archives Newcomers' questions, minor problems, specific requests for information or assistance. Tea room comment | history | archives Questions and discussions about specific words. Etymology scriptorium history | archives Questions and discussions about etymology- the historical development of words. Beer parlour comment | history | archives General policy discussions and proposals, requests for permissions and major announcements. Grease pit comment | history | archives Technical questions, requests and discussions. All Wiktionary: namespace discussions 1 2 3 4 5 - All discussion pages 1 2 3 4 5 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 technical operation of Wiktionary use the Beer parlour. For questions about specific content, you're in the right place. Archives Wiktionary:Tea room/Archive 2003 Wiktionary:Tea room/Archive 2004 Wiktionary:Tea room/Archive 2005 Wiktionary:Tea room/Archive 2006 Wiktionary:Tea room/Archive 2007 Wiktionary:Tea room/Archive 2008 Wiktionary:Tea room/Archive 2009 Wiktionary:Tea room/Archive 2010 Wiktionary:Tea room/Archive 2011 Wiktionary:Tea room/Archive 2012 Please do not edit section titles as this breaks links on talk pages and in other discussion fora. Oldest tagged RFTs inversion pack model maze fasces paradox particular ooze pull a Homer quote unquote downgrade misd sex on a stick real McCoy loth fascinum rub it in more than one can shake a stick at one and one's SRU professional wrestling Fates meandering stoutness never-never land polar cone pantograph say grace shapen graphics card spreadeagle not a sausage aggravated assault Nihilarian score a brace panacherie lateral area nothing to see open sunshine purgatoric price point on one's tod scrape put one's trousers on one leg at a time pin snitch ope potted show a clean pair of heels include me out startling see mui li hing mui meatatarian wist stand pat red face test meatgrinder sit on the fence open redline partyer precedent it's all Greek to me szukać wiatru w polu invert honorary programing coffee something vive la différence seal make love, not war toss around measles sarcoptic mange of all take the game to mustest look who's talking naked as the day one was born seven-up autogas dilemma unwedable of a arduous leant scoring serve somebody right sortsa submission outcome miles ple- house hit statistics sooner or later tasty superflip famously last in required basicamente passage PRO odds alto striked western world sure leading chick plural programmer developer Emmanuel Immanuel dark horse natural quite llámame me, myself and I toad rhetoric pigtail ponytail that sangfroid succumb mankind o dinosaur help in bed abracadabra pregnant thon code repudii bad girl bad boy זהו allino כדאי spoken for fine kerned a lot raindrops last night Manchurian οἴκημα huh situate seeing is believing eschew barză children at a stand antisplenetic manor registrabilità means strict pilot ifen gold Bos grunniens grunniens historical Streisand effect Portunidae affluent Contents 1 July 2012 1.1 pride 1.2 worse (noun) 1.3 Acronyms no longer 1.4 et#Conjunction 1.5 panggang 1.6 no such thing as 1.7 Schrödinger's cat 1.8 a square peg in a round hole 1.9 have someone going 1.10 publically 1.11 get fresh 1.12 Blood flushing the fruit 1.13 sērsna snow crust? 1.14 Chinese characters in Vietnamese translations for some words 1.15 Caramel carmel 1.16 onomatopeia 1.17 Bumping your nut? 1.18 Latvian komandants 1.19 Valley girl 1.20 wenis 1.21 pregnant 1.22 abracadabra 1.23 That's what's up, whassup, wassup 1.24 thon 1.25 Category:Georgian terms derived from Hittite 1.26 page-turner for audiobooks? 1.27 lawbreaking 1.28 Term for the fruit 1.29 party favor 1.30 oppressor vs oppressour 1.31 xiguas 1.32 Comparing English Wiktionary with other dictionaries 1.33 His 1.34 code 1.35 wheelchair fencing et al 1.36 Category:Religion 1.37 some 1.38 ally 1.39 injun 1.40 looking for a word 1.41 repudii 1.42 cut down 1.43 stilliards 1.44 powers that be 1.45 regelate 1.46 endian 1.47 fallowness 1.48 bad girl 1.49 זהו 1.50 cannot 1.51 yon 1.52 froward 1.53 greaseball 1.54 niggerling 1.55 כדאי 1.56 onion idoms 1.57 Garra pingi pingi 1.58 enfonceur de portes ouvertes 1.59 allino 1.60 spoken for 2 August 2012 2.1 dinged-up -- from the verb ding or dinge ? 2.2 aboriginal 2.3 hidden 2.4 pan-Romance 2.5 amo, amas, amat 2.6 Nefarious etymology 2.7 storage 2.8 Does Wiktionary need a kerfing? 2.9 fine 2.10 kerned 2.11 Rhymes:Kurdish:-êv 2.12 inclusion of the word 'OVERSKIES' in wiktionary 2.13 a lot 2.14 Does demerit slip merits inclusion? 2.15 As per 2.16 factitive 2.17 raindrops 2.18 hurry-furry merger 2.19 Mary-marry-merry merger 2.20 eat out 2.21 last night 2.22 Category:Akkadian determinatives 2.23 युवन, युवन् 2.24 gehenna/Gehenna 2.25 Manchurian 2.26 tot up to - separate from just tot up? 2.27 Doing better than Wikipedia from a standing start 2.28 Splints (horse - bone swellings) 2.29 mirror 2.30 huh 2.31 Bubba 2.32 situate 2.33 closet (verb) 2.34 virtual machine 2.35 maegth 2.36 seeing is believing 2.37 eschew 2.38 syytinki 2.39 bind 2.40 beat up enemy's quarters 2.41 biz(n)atch 2.42 barză 3 September 2012 3.1 gray magick 3.2 children 3.3 faggot verb 3.4 wergeld and weregild need combining 3.5 at a stand 3.6 own 3.7 iron 3.8 whereabouts 3.9 halt 3.10 ride bitch 3.11 carling 3.12 Vulgar 3.13 nexus 3.14 Mythology 3.15 heaps 3.16 antisplenetic 3.17 Monash 3.18 by and by 3.19 western world 3.20 manor 3.21 thou 3.22 disbandon 3.23 registrabilità 3.24 compartmentalization 3.25 meal ticket translations 3.26 wrought 3.27 50 shades of Asturian colors 3.28 lemon platt 3.29 khaki 3.30 Plural of Dutch "bod" 'offer' 3.31 -ing 3.32 means 3.33 You may light on a husband that hath no beard 3.34 teddy (kind of lingerie) 3.35 Japanese honorific suffixes in English 3.36 mouse pad and mouse mat 3.37 good edit? 3.38 a very large number: billion, nonillion and novemdecillion 3.39 трожь and трожьте 3.40 knock back & knockback 3.41 Geniuses 3.42 treat 3.43 hours counted in 24 3.44 look copulatively, if you dare 3.45 Shorthand 3.46 dream 3.47 fashion-monging - a form of "fashionmonger"? 3.48 strict 3.49 Munique 3.50 bruja 3.51 arnaut capitalization 3.52 clutch: two etymologies or one? 3.53 abbreviation 3.54 pilot 4 October 2012 4.1 air 4.2 die slow 4.3 exportive/nonexportive 4.4 foreign policy and foreign affairs 4.5 prevent 4.6 €urope 4.7 dude 4.8 Wagen and Wägen 4.9 uremia 4.10 In-migration and out-migration 4.11 Chicago 4.12 valenced 4.13 "nip and tuck with me": adverb or adjective? 4.14 ifen 4.15 ныбжьэгъу 4.16 gold 4.17 False direct 4.18 potshot 4.19 pre-commissioning, precommissioning 4.20 Achilles heel and feet of clay - synonyms? 4.21 prone 4.22 Hello you bunch of filthy fucking rotters 4.23 Help with parts of speech 4.24 Troll 4.25 proceed/ procede 4.26 nerd 4.27 purpose 4.28 d'après 4.29 cliche vs. cliché 4.30 copyleft 4.31 family 4.32 Bos grunniens grunniens 4.33 put someone in their place 4.34 a quick drop and a sudden stop 4.35 tomato tomato 4.36 dictatrix#Latin 4.37 use of with 4.38 Citations:reprəsentation 4.39 marshmallow and anachronistic translations 4.40 wherever 4.41 another grammar question - this time about no matter 4.42 en el 4.43 poi#Etymology_3 4.44 what 4.45 hobson-jobson 4.46 garçon 4.47 excambio as a Vulgar Latin appendix page 4.48 thong (flip-flop sense) 4.49 phiz 4.50 dairy farmer 5 November 2012 5.1 光軍 5.2 شيطانية 5.3 esmelter 5.4 pearls 5.5 historical 5.6 Streisand effect 5.7 Soviet 5.8 butter#Verb (translations) 5.9 be 5.10 heed#Noun 5.11 Bar, not quite FUBAR 5.12 Template:partrhyme 5.13 remember, forget 5.14 Spend time and spend money 5.15 frenchified 5.16 pound 5.17 see you in hell 5.18 heat in the sense of "heater" 5.19 casher#French 5.20 Special:Contributions/62.173.126.242 5.21 les/лес 5.22 ג׳אודיו־איספאנײל 5.23 vaginal 5.24 Portunidae 5.25 -s, 's and s': Biassed or lacking? 5.26 redox and redox reaction 5.27 ᐊᖏᖅᖃᖅᑐᖅ 5.28 extended meaning of "itch" 5.29 ten 5.30 jack-in-the-box 5.31 promiscuous and libertine ? 5.32 de-eye? 5.33 brownfield as two words? 5.34 paparazzi 5.35 accommodations 5.36 I can't even 5.37 pompatus 5.38 "call time" or "call time on" 5.39 affluent 5.40 mežainums It seems that a certain noun sense of the word, ie a celebrating or identifying movement such as w:Gay pride is missing from this page. Since there are several pages of this kind on Wikipedia (w:Black pride, w:White pride) and they are listed on the pride disambiguation page, it seems strange not to include them on the Wiktionary page. This whole thing came up because a friend said she was going to a local pride at the weekend, reminding me that it is common usage to refer to these celebratory events as such. -- 46.208.131.107 09:36, 1 July 2012 (UTC) Does this actually suggest a noun? "His mood took a turn for the worse." Equinox ◑ 11:05, 1 July 2012 (UTC) I wouldn't say so. You can put any comparative there: 'for the better', 'for the greener', 'for the more grammatical'. I think it's just a substantivised adjective. —CodeCat 11:38, 1 July 2012 (UTC) It should be removed then. Also how about the noun at "new": "out with the old, in with the new". That's just elliptical for "in with what is new". Not a noun. Equinox ◑ 14:32, 1 July 2012 (UTC) CGEL (p 529 "Further adjectival functions") calls this a "fused modifier head ... combin[ing] the functions of internal modifier and head in NP structure.". "Fused-head constructions": They're not just for determiners. DCDuring TALK 17:39, 1 July 2012 (UTC) I would speedy delete this as an adjective, not a noun. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:36, 1 July 2012 (UTC) [edit] Acronyms no longer Is there a term (or category) for names that used to be acronyms (or initialisms) but no longer stand for them (e.g. w:BRAC (NGO) used to stand for "Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee" but no longer does)? This is visually similar to names that the holder prefers to be in all caps (e.g. w:Gigabyte Technology likes their name to be "GIGABYTE"). --Bequw → τ 11:46, 1 July 2012 (UTC) I seem to think ESPN is the same. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:00, 1 July 2012 (UTC) Wikipedia calls them Pseudo-acronyms Chuck Entz (talk) 16:15, 1 July 2012 (UTC) And now Category:Pseudo-acronyms by language But the 'full' WP article is actually w:Orphan initialism, which seems to me to better communicate the idea. The article also has a score of examples. DCDuring TALK 16:57, 10 July 2012 (UTC) I saw that. I thought the phrase using acronym was better as some of them are pronounced as words and others letter by letter so "acronym" in its broader sense would apply to both. But I'm open to changes. --Bequw → τ 04:59, 13 July 2012 (UTC) I have never seen a independent Usage of this as a Conjunction, unless you count the ampersand. It is used in Phrases to be sure though, but it seems implied here that it was us'd in general. --Æ&Œ (talk) 14:34, 1 July 2012 (UTC) I'm guessing you meant the term in English? —CodeCat 14:56, 1 July 2012 (UTC) Yes, that is what the Link returns, does it not ? --Æ&Œ (talk) 14:59, 1 July 2012 (UTC) On Wiktionary you can never rely on a link pointing you to the right section, unfortunately. In this case, there are many Conjunction sections on the page, and you are linked to the first one, but for all I know you could have meant the French or Latin one. —CodeCat 15:24, 1 July 2012 (UTC) These would make a good rfv, wouldn't it? Use of 'et' to mean and in English sentences. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:08, 1 July 2012 (UTC) I'm sure it would have no difficulty passing RFV overall (just the first two pages of results at google books:"et so on" already find one · two · three cites), but we might have some difficulty finding appropriately obsolete cites. :-P   —RuakhTALK 20:28, 1 July 2012 (UTC) I hardly disputed that the Significance exists, but I expected the Scope of its Usage to be much more limited. You can go ahead and test this in Requests for Verification, I am going to pass. --Æ&Œ (talk) 20:35, 1 July 2012 (UTC) The header says 'verb' but the sense is an adjective. I think the sense may be wrong because fr:panggang lists verb senses, but I don't know Indonesian so I can't be sure. —CodeCat 18:45, 1 July 2012 (UTC) [edit] no such thing as "There is/are no such thing(s) as ____" is a common set phrase in English, but it seems to me that a learner wouldn't be able to deduce how to create the phrase, even if s/he knew the definitions of each part. Would that make it NSOP and deserving of an entry? Or could some of the the individual entries (or such as) be improved to explain this kind of phrase? Siuenti (talk) 11:57, 2 July 2012 (UTC) IMO no, because we are a dictionary, not a grammar book (though a WikiGrammarBook would be a fine project). How would such an entry cover all the bases: "no such thing", "no such thing as", "there isn't/wasn't such a thing", "does such a thing exist? no"... A dictionary cannot be an all-purpose sentence construction kit; it deals with units (word and set phrase); rules must be shown as rules and not by a million examples. Equinox ◑ 12:15, 2 July 2012 (UTC) See b:English Grammar. Textbooks are Wikibooks' domain, not ours. —Angr 13:08, 2 July 2012 (UTC) This expression is certainly decodable using a dictionary. Encoding phrases, including those that are decodable piecewise, seems to be the province of a phrasebook. If we had a well-defined purpose and agreed-on criteria for phrasebook entries, rather than simply treating it as a dumping ground for SoP expressions that would have otherwise failed SoP (or worse), then expressions such as this, which are not included in any monolingual dictionary, would be good candidates for inclusion therein, IMO. DCDuring TALK 13:25, 2 July 2012 (UTC) I'm not sure what the distinction between the common and proper noun is, if any. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:58, 2 July 2012 (UTC) Yes. They both look encyclopedic, devoid of lexicographic value, even in a translating dictionary. DCDuring TALK 23:20, 2 July 2012 (UTC) The more I look at it, the proper noun almost looks like a deliberate joke. It's a bit like saying my cat is a proper noun because there's only one of it. Sigh. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:01, 3 July 2012 (UTC) It's a Daniel Carrero entry, telling them apart from deliberate jokes is sometimes a bit tricky. Harsh but true. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:04, 3 July 2012 (UTC) The difference is the syntax: one is used as a common noun, and one as a proper noun. It's just like having a separate ===Noun=== and ===Adjective===, or a separate {{countable}} and {{uncountable}}, when a single sense shows syntactic diversity. —RuakhTALK 00:41, 3 July 2012 (UTC) So... it remains in an undefined state- neither noun nor proper noun- until you use it in a sentence? ... Chuck Entz (talk) 05:52, 3 July 2012 (UTC) "Cat" in the citations for the proper noun meaning is not capitalized, but there is no article indicating the proper noun POS is correct. I wonder if the common noun meaning can be handled by grammar along the lines of "Is there a John in the room?" --BB12 (talk) 08:56, 3 July 2012 (UTC) Re: "I wonder if the common noun meaning can be handled by grammar along the lines of 'Is there a John in the room?'": I'm not sure, but I don't think so. Judging by the quotations, it looks to me like there're just two different conceptualizations of Schrödinger's cat (both the term and the concept): some people (myself included) imagine the thought experiment as applying to a single, specific, imaginary cat, whereas others apparently imagine the thought experiment as an experiment that is imaginarily performed repeatedly on many imaginary cats. —RuakhTALK 17:10, 3 July 2012 (UTC) I don't understand how you get that from the quotations. Under the common noun section, there is one quotation using the indefinite article and one using the plural form. Under the proper noun section, the quotations are all singular with no article (which is a characteristic of proper nouns). --BB12 (talk) 18:16, 5 July 2012 (UTC) I think I agree with you. Chuck you made me giggle... that was clever. :) —CodeCat 10:34, 3 July 2012 (UTC) It is redundant to have this at both noun and proper noun, when they mean the same thing. Compare Jesus, Talk:Jesus. Equinox ◑ 19:50, 5 July 2012 (UTC) The difference in article usage seems to indicate that one is proper and one is not. How else could this be handled? --BB12 (talk) 00:46, 6 July 2012 (UTC) I would call it a proper noun, and explain in a usage note that it sometimes takes an indefinite article. The "language" sense of [[German]] is similar in this regard: although "the language with the ISO code 'de'" is a proper noun, I can still say "he spoke an archaic German". There, "German" = "a kind of (the language) German", just like "a Schrödinger's cat" is presumably "an instance of (the thought experiment) Schrödinger's cat". Would that work? - -sche (discuss) 01:02, 6 July 2012 (UTC) I don't understand the definition at all. It's worded as a verb, but the phrase and the (only) translation rather suggest a noun. -- Liliana • 08:26, 3 July 2012 (UTC) Yet more crap from User:Sae1962. We already have a reasonable entry at square peg into a round hole. It should be deleted. SemperBlotto (talk) 08:31, 3 July 2012 (UTC) No usable content? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:25, 3 July 2012 (UTC) Wiktionary:Beer parlour#User:Sae1962. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:40, 3 July 2012 (UTC) I cannot find this treated as an idiom in any OneLook reference. It is superficially an instance of the construction used in "I had him whitewashing fences for me in no time.". But I could not identify a sense of go#Verb that fit the meaning it seems to have here, perhaps "upset, excited", either in Wiktionary or at MWOnline. Nor could I find a suitable sense at any PoS at going. I cannot imagine go being used with this meaning in any other expression. Is this an idiom or have my less-than-exhaustive research and imagination missed something? DCDuring TALK 15:16, 3 July 2012 (UTC) Yes, but I'm having trouble coming up with a really good definition. An example :- "You had me going there for a minute!" means "I was taking you seriously for a while - until I realised that you were joking". SemperBlotto (talk) 15:55, 3 July 2012 (UTC) A possible definition: "(transitive) To temporarily convince (someone) of a falsehood".​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:32, 3 July 2012 (UTC) @SB For that example, our closest seems to be go#Verb ("to make an effort"). Perhaps this sense from MWOnline captures it: "to begin an action or motion". With some extension of the wording, "or an emotional state or thought process", that might encompass both my thought about how this is used and yours. Perhaps broadening to "To begin an action or process". Does this sense of go exist outside this expression. MWOnline has a usage example for their sense "Here goes." It is clearly semantically related to "he is going to do something" and some dialect use of go as an auxiliary or intensifier. Is it an "intransitive" version of "She went riding". DCDuring TALK 17:50, 3 July 2012 (UTC) There are at least two meanings for to have someone going. One is as both SB and msh say, but there is also "to make someone upset, to provoke someone". These meanings are certainly derived from a sense of go, but is enough meaning added in the whole expression to constitute an idiom? DCDuring TALK 17:55, 3 July 2012 (UTC) I'm thinking it's an idiom, but I wonder why others don't. DCDuring TALK 18:10, 3 July 2012 (UTC) "Get" can be used in place of "have": "He really got her going." "You got me going there for a moment." The usual distinction between "have" and "get" (someone is in the state of "going" vs you bring someone into that state) applies, but seems too subtle to merit having two entries or trying to move the content of the idiom to [[going]] just because it can take two verbs, not one. It certainly does, as you seem, seem like an idiom. - -sche (discuss) 19:48, 3 July 2012 (UTC) Thanks all. DCDuring TALK 22:08, 3 July 2012 (UTC) I do not believe that this term should be classified as an alternative spelling, but Ruakh disagrees. I would rather not continue arguing about this with him, so I would like to see your opinions on this instead. 'Publically' and 'publicly' mean the same thing of course. So do uncorrect and incorrect. However, the affixes in these terms are significantly separate, and thus I believe that they should be treated as synonyms. If you have objections, please explain your positions. --Æ&Œ (talk) 20:10, 3 July 2012 (UTC) Are they pronounced differently? I suspect not, except perhaps out of hypercorrectness. DCDuring TALK 20:25, 3 July 2012 (UTC) Not that many of the (underlying) references at publically at OneLook Dictionary Search have publically except as a redirect to publicly. MWOnline presents it as they would an alternative form or spelling, but also some derived terms. WordNet (which doesn't have alternative forms, being a semantic network, not a dictionary), has the two as synonyms. Most of the others convey no information relevant to the distinction under discussion or incorporate or reference WordNet. DCDuring TALK 20:40, 3 July 2012 (UTC) I recall in my primary-school spelling tests, we were read a lot of words like politically and publicly to spell, and we would listen closely to try to discern a telltale -al- in the pronunciation, but our teachers always read in a way that we could not hear any difference. We often spelt them "politicly" or "publically", which were considered incorrect spellings and unacceptable. So for us at least, "publicly" and "publically" were one and the same word (except that only one of them was correctly spelt). —Stephen (Talk) 21:04, 3 July 2012 (UTC) Am I the only one who feels like this idiom means more than just "flirt"? I think it also has a connotation of doing so inappropriately. ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:43, 4 July 2012 (UTC) Just realised we already have the two meanings at fresh - 1. Rude, cheeky, or inappropriate; presumptuous; disrespectful; forward. 2. Sexually aggressive or forward; prone to caress too eagerly; overly flirtatious. - Perhaps this idiom is SoP after all? ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:50, 4 July 2012 (UTC) And the word fresh is often used playfully in speech, as part of flirting. DCDuring TALK 16:49, 4 July 2012 (UTC) While looking at the entry, I added the "inappropriate" sense (i.e. "to come on to (someone)"). I specifically remembered this usage from televion shows when I was a kid. Leasnam (talk) 21:19, 5 July 2012 (UTC) get#Verb + [adj OR past participle] is a common standard construction in English. Which is why get fresh at OneLook Dictionary Search and get drunk at OneLook Dictionary Search show that we are not with a lexicographically distinguished group of lemmings with these entries. I doubt that it could be called idiomatic. Both would be wonderfully appropriate for an English phrasebook, because they are vastly more common in speech, I think, than any one-word English synonyms. Of course one can be fresh with someone. Become occurs as well. DCDuring TALK 22:39, 5 July 2012 (UTC) I'd say SoP. Getting frisky is another one, and Mark Morrison had that awful song called Get Horny. Equinox ◑ 21:21, 5 July 2012 (UTC) [edit] Blood flushing the fruit "Who plants a seed begets a bud, Extract of that same root; Why marvel at the hectic blood That flushes this wild fruit?" (Fruit of the Flower by Countee Cullen, 1925) What is the meaning of the "flushing" here = a rush of juice into the fruit that makes it ardent\colourful, or "flushing" closer to the "flushing" of game by hunters, i.e. making the fruit appear\come out of a plant? I think the first one. Then wouldn't it be proper to change the (intransitive) mark in the article on flush (verb, meaning 4) or add an additional meaning with markings (poetic, transitive) to the list? --CopperKettle (talk) 03:03, 5 July 2012 (UTC)  Done Two transitive senses added. DCDuring TALK 22:41, 5 July 2012 (UTC) Thanks! --CopperKettle (talk) 16:46, 6 July 2012 (UTC) I'm wondering if there is a better English expression or word for this concept -- frozen snow, a layer of frozen snow. Is 'snow crust' OK? Is it the best term? Thanks in advance! --Pereru (talk) 04:51, 5 July 2012 (UTC) Well, both w:Alpine skiing and w:Types of snow define crust as a thin layer of hard snow with softer snow under it. Is that what sērsna means? —Angr 07:25, 5 July 2012 (UTC) snow crust and snowcrust look attestable. DCDuring TALK 11:50, 5 July 2012 (UTC) See this technical glossary for non-technical definition and more encyclopedic explanatory material. DCDuring TALK 11:53, 5 July 2012 (UTC) Thanks, people. The best online Latvian dictionary I am aware of has this definition for sērsna, which translates more or less into English "a blanket(=layer?)-like crust of snow which is usually formed by the upper part/layer of wet snow when it freezes". Given the links you have found, it seems 'snow crust' is indeed the adequate translation. (Out of curiosity: should the English phrase snow crust (snowcrust?) also be added to Wiktionary?) --Pereru (talk) 23:59, 6 July 2012 (UTC) Because snowcrust looks to be attestable (not just with what might be mistaken spacing), our rules would permit snow crust as well. Whether it should be a rule or not, one-word spelling such a compound is at least suggestive evidence that the compound is thought of as a unit, even though its meaning fairly transparent from the meanings of its components. IOW, yes it should, IMO. DCDuring TALK 01:01, 7 July 2012 (UTC) [edit] Chinese characters in Vietnamese translations for some words I'm curious to know why there are Chinese translations in the Vietnamese translation section for some English words, for example: brave (strong in the face of fear). I'm a Vietnamese myself and I can confirm that nowadays people there don't speak Chinese at all. It's confusing to see the Chinese characters in those sections. So I tried removing them, but then some bots reverted it back. I'm new here, so please help to explain. Thanks! Ben —This unsigned comment was added by Pckben (talk • contribs) 12:19, 5 July 2012‎ (UTC). Weren't Chinese characters originally used to write Vietnamese, though? —CodeCat 12:48, 5 July 2012 (UTC) It's not Chinese, but rather Chu Nom (a writing system, based on that of Chinese, that was formerly used for Vietnamese). But I agree with you; there's no reason to give Chu Nom renderings in translations-sections of English words. —RuakhTALK 14:39, 5 July 2012 (UTC) There is no harm in providing the original Chinese character for Sino-Vietnamese words or words coined using he Sino-Vietnamese roots, despite the anti-Chinese sentiment in Vietnam. I know Vietnamese dictionaries don't provide Chinese characters, so it's often very hard if not impossible to know that trà ("tea") is the Sino-Vietnamese reading of 茶 and thời tiết ("weather") is the Sino-Vietnamese reading of 時節, gia đình ("family") - 家庭. Dictionaries such as Unihan provide this information. The Chinese characters appear in brackets and by no means signify that Chinese characters can replace the Vietnamese words, the same is true for Korean, although the usage of Chinese characters in Korean is more recent and is still in use sometimes. Previous Vietnamese editors supported this idea, so do other CJKV enthusiasts, so let's NOT change it. It is useful for etymology. We have a collection of Sino-Vietnamese words, which needs expansion. --Anatoli (обсудить) 05:18, 6 July 2012 (UTC) I agree with you that we should definitely provide the Chu Nom in the Vietnamese entries, e.g. in trà. I also agree with original poster (and Ruakh) that we should not provide them in the translations tables of English entries. - -sche (discuss) 06:15, 6 July 2012 (UTC) In the case of brave, the Vietnamese equivalent dũng cảm doesn't have an entry yet. It seems a pity to lose the information even though it's in the wrong place, so perhaps the Chu Nom can stay there until an entry is created? Siuenti (talk) 20:23, 6 July 2012 (UTC) Sounds like we all agree; Latin script for translations, but Chinese writing should be very much encouraged in Vietnamese entries, the same way I'd encourage Runes in Old English and Old Norse entries, Glagolitic script for Old Church Slavonic and so on. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:30, 6 July 2012 (UTC) I didn't say I agree with removing Chinese characters from translations where a Vietnamese term happens to be Sino-Vietnamese, even if an entry exists. I don't think it's in the wrong place. --Anatoli (обсудить) 03:30, 9 July 2012 (UTC) If you want to keep the Chinese characters, then they should be moved to a Chu Nom nested subsection, as done for other languages with multiple scripts. Matthias Buchmeier (talk) 09:10, 11 July 2012 (UTC) [edit] Caramel carmel I came to Wiktionary hoping to learn how acceptable/unacceptable is "carmel" for "caramel". I find that carmel rudely (without warning) redirects to Carmel, and Carmel currently does not acknowledge at all the common noun carmel to be itself enormously common (as a variant?/misspelling?/mispronunciation?). I am not arguing that "carmel" must be accepted as a valid variant, but I am arguing that the matter cannot be completely ignored (as it currently is). I don't know what to do about it. Ideas? --→gab 24dot grab← 20:32, 5 July 2012 (UTC) If carmel is a common misspelling of caramel, then it should be de-redlinked and labeled a {{misspelling of}} caramel. But if people frequently pronounce caramel [ˈkɑɹməl] while still spelling it caramel, then [ˈkɑɹməl] should be added to the pronunciation line and labeled {{nonstandard}}. —Angr 20:50, 5 July 2012 (UTC) People do frequently pronounce caramel ˈkɑɹməl while spelling it caramel: wealready have that pronunciation listed, and I don't know that it's nonstandard. I don't know whether carmel is a common misspelling: cites will tell.​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:11, 5 July 2012 (UTC) google books:"eating|of carmels", restricting to those works whose previews Google lets me see, shows me exactly four relevant results, one of which uses a lot of eye-dialect spellings, of which this may be one. The same search with caramels yields hundreds.​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:28, 5 July 2012 (UTC) How is Carmel pronounced? If with emphasis on the first syllable (/ˈkɑɹməl/), then we can link between it and caramel using {{homophones}}.​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:11, 5 July 2012 (UTC) I think I've heard both /ˈkɑɹməl/ and /kɑɹˈmɛl/ for it. —Angr 21:33, 5 July 2012 (UTC) I pronounce "Carmel" /ˈkɑɹ.ml̩/, "caramel" /ˈkɛəɹ.ə.məl/ or /ˈkɑɹ.ml̩/, and "Carmelo" IPA: /kɑɹ.mɛl.o/. I've also sometimes heard "caramel" pronounced /ˈkɑɹ.ᵊ.məl/. - -sche (discuss) 01:17, 6 July 2012 (UTC) I pronounce 'caramel' as IPA: [ˈkʰaɹᵊmɫ̩] while 'Carmel' is [ˈkʰɐ˞mɫ̩] —CodeCat 13:18, 6 July 2012 (UTC) I've created 'carmel', perhaps incorrectly (insufficiently?). --→gab 24dot grab← 13:50, 26 July 2012 (UTC) Mmm. The deletions of decayed diphthongs is not usually considered incorrect in America, so it is strange for me to see this classified as a misspelling. Are we sure that there are no establishments that support this form? --Æ&Œ (talk) 03:50, 6 July 2012 (UTC) Fairly sure, but you might find contrary evidence at onomatopeia at OneLook Dictionary Search and at google books etc. DCDuring TALK 04:40, 6 July 2012 (UTC) That is, authority is one possible basis for argument and fact (relative and absolute frequency of various spellings) another. DCDuring TALK 04:42, 6 July 2012 (UTC) The OED has it as the oldest form (1450), followed by 1553 and 1577. The Google Book hits are a definite minority, but this spelling is clearly still in use with 22.6K raw hits. --BB12 (talk) 06:40, 6 July 2012 (UTC) I have made it an "obsolete spelling, rather than a misspelling. I hope users view it as a bit more than a question of being up-to-date. Of all the ways one could misspell onamatapia, this is may the least bad. DCDuring TALK 11:58, 6 July 2012 (UTC) I looked at Google Books, and this is clearly still in use, so I changed "obsolete" to "alternative." See, for example: 2011, 2007, 2009 and 2004. --BB12 (talk) 06:15, 11 July 2012 (UTC) I found a similar specimen : phenix, markt as 'archaic', which is also dubious. --Æ&Œ (talk) 02:04, 13 July 2012 (UTC) [edit] Bumping your nut? Please help with a meaning: in "The Good Girl" (2002 movie) a religious guy says to the heroine: " It's a church. You can't make water without bumping your nut on a bible." (She told him previously that she forgot her bible - as an excuse for not attending a religious meeting the night before). I just don't get it. I feel there may be a joke in there somewhere.. but it slips from my grasp. --CopperKettle (talk) 16:42, 6 July 2012 (UTC) Since he's a religious guy and uses nut in the singular, he probably means sense 4 of [[nut]], but he might mean sense 10. Sense 11 seems rather unlikely. Oh, and [[make water]] means what that says, too. —Angr 17:07, 6 July 2012 (UTC) I think you're right that it's nut ("head"). Of the three hits at google:"bumped his nut on", two certainly mean "head", and the third is irrelevant (because it's the result of a mad lib; the person who supplied the word "nut" did not know what the context would be). But Wikipedia describes the movie as a "black comedy-drama", so perhaps the audience is supposed to notice an unintended ambiguity with nut ("testicle"). —RuakhTALK 17:20, 6 July 2012 (UTC) Yeah, it's probably supposed to be a double entendre. I haven't seen the movie, but I can imagine the point is to make fun of the naive religious guy for unintentionally saying something risqué. (Like the nuns at the private Catholic college where my father taught when he was young. They put on Shakespeare plays, bowdlerizing the dirty bits, but the dirtiest bits they left in because they didn't get the jokes.) —Angr 17:27, 6 July 2012 (UTC) Thank you! The "make water" helped me see the sense in the phrase; I wasn't aware of that meaning, my mind automatically perceived it as "to extract water". With your hint my mind escaped from that gestalt and all became clear. (0: The religious guy's meaning was "C'mon, Bibles are easy to come by". --CopperKettle (talk) 02:59, 7 July 2012 (UTC) I don't really feel sure about the English translations I've provided, based on 'commandant' and 'commander'. I'm not sure about the difference between these two words (and the commandant and commander entries here didn't seem helpful), which means I'm not sure if the English translations I used actually exist as terms for certain kinds of military officers (to say nothing about how acurately they correspond to the Latvian terms I've found). Would you guys mind having a look, to tell me if the translations I used actually exist in English? Again, thanks in advance! --Pereru (talk) 00:08, 7 July 2012 (UTC) w:Commandant explains the usage in various anglophone countries. It has only specialized use in the US for military academies, for the Marines and for the Coast Guard. I'm not whether watch officer, officer of the day, duty officer correspond to your last sense. But these are just clues (or red herrings), not answers. I don't know. DCDuring TALK 03:15, 7 July 2012 (UTC) Having lived all my life in the San Fernando Valley, I think I can give some insights into the term. I'm just not sure how to work it into our framework. The term "Valley girl" was popularized by Frank Zappa, who recorded the song of the same name, with his daughter Moon Unit providing spoken examples of the much-imitated Valley-girl talk. "Valley girl" is actually a bit of a misnomer, since typical Valley-girl speech is more characteristic of the Santa Monica Mountains/aka the Encino Hills/aka the Hollywood Hills on the south edge of the Valley, where the expensive homes and upper-class residents are concentrated. As a resident of the flatlands "north of the Boulevard" (Ventura Boulevard, at the south end of the Valley), I never really heard Valley-girl talk until the song came out. My sister, however, worked in a store on Ventura Boulevard, and she assured me that she heard girls talking exactly like that all the time. So, basically, a Valley girl is someone from upper-class areas on the south end of the San Fernando Valley, and the term as part of regular English comes from the Frank Zappa recording. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:27, 7 July 2012 (UTC) By the way, we have Valley Girl, Valley girl, and valley girl, with all three trying to be the lemma. Valley girl would make the most sense, since Los Angeles residents usually refer to the San Fernando Valley as simply "the Valley". I'm not sure which is the most widely used, though. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:34, 7 July 2012 (UTC) During a long stay in Los Angeles I found myself explaining the meaning of Essex girl to a group of Angelinos. They unanimously offered "Valley girl" as an American translation, which definitely indicates our definition has shortcomings. SpinningSpark 10:00, 7 July 2012 (UTC) I was trying to find a way of saying what Spinningspark was able to express with his example. That seems more like what our definition should look like. BTW, w:Valley girl could use some work. Is there any 'scholarship' in some journal of American Studies or Cultural Studies that could form the basis for improving it? DCDuring TALK 16:15, 7 July 2012 (UTC) They could replace it with content from w:Valspeak and it would be ten times better. They use the term sociolect, which is right on the money. When I was at UCLA in the '80s, we had to do a sort of informal "research project" for an undergrad sociolinguistics class. I chose valspeak as my subject. I actually went to a few high schools in the area and recorded students reading a text with some of the phonemes where valspeak was different. Even in the limited sample, you could tell that it was associated with socioeconomic variation. The strongest valspeak I heard was at w:Birmingham High School, which draws students from both the affluent hills and the middle-class flatlands. I think it served there to distinguish which area a student came from. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:21, 7 July 2012 (UTC) But there's more to being a Valley Girl than language. —Angr 17:26, 7 July 2012 (UTC) My impression is that what is culturally and definitionally relevant outside the LA area is valspeak. I'm not sure that the socio-economic marking is conveyed outside the LA area. It seems more demographic: young, white, female, from southern California, perhaps not poor. Once we had some good hypotheses, we could test 'em against usage. DCDuring TALK 17:46, 7 July 2012 (UTC) google books:"like a valley girl" suggests that speech is far and away the main salient attribute. (It's not the only attribute — one hit has "keep my nose up like a valley girl so that I look dismissive rather than coy", one has "Like a valley girl who wears high heels and expensive clothing and smokes and has a lot of boyfriends", one has "She was dressed like a Valley girl, not like a mamacita but like a worker", and so on — but it seems like 80–90% of hits are about people speaking like a Valley girl, talking like a Valley girl, sounding like a Valley girl, and so on.) —RuakhTALK 18:27, 7 July 2012 (UTC) google books:"like a scouser" mostly gets people talking about people speaking Liverpudlian, but I wouldn't call speech the main attribute of a scouser. It's just an especially useful comparison to make, and one that's familiar to most people (at least in the UK). Searching Google for "define:valley girl" gets the following results from various dictionaries and encyclopedias: A fashionable and affluent teenage girl from the San Fernando valley in southern California A girl who grew up in the tract housing in the San Fernando Valley Girl from the valley area of Los Angeles. Valley Girls originated in the San Fernando Valley (just outside Los Angeles) in the early 1980s. The profile: white, affluent, materialistic, self-centered, sex on the mind, a master of teeny bopper colloquial language {see Like, above}, and generally… [clueless] A term referred to affluent upper-middle class young girls living in the bedroom community neighborhoods of San Fernando Valley. Airheaded, spoiled girls in California's San Fernando Valley. Later, valley girl talk or valspeak inhabited the 80s across America. A Valley Girl would of said something like: "That stud is like, omygod, so rad!" Based on that, I'd say in order, the most important attributes of a valley girl are 1) teenage girl 2) from the San Fernando Valley 3) who is affluent, 4) fashionable, 5) and speaks with a distinct slang. Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:40, 8 July 2012 (UTC) What one would expect to occur has occurred, only the distinctive features, geographic location and valspeak, remain after extracting the attributes shared much more widely in the US population. DCDuring TALK 13:18, 8 July 2012 (UTC) A long-standing school-kid hoax is the assertion that the skin of the elbow has the little-known name of "wenis". The idea is to see what kind of double entendres can be gotten away with based on the similarity in sound between "wenis" and "penis". The term is, of course, a completely fraudulent made-up word, perhaps originally a blend of weenie and penis. That said, I think it's time we created an entry for this, in order to document what seems to have become a widespread part of school-age folklore. There are plenty of examples on Usenet, and even some on Google Books. They might be dismissed as nothing but mentions, but I would contend that this pattern of mentions comes from the nature of the term, and that it has become part of the language. The remaining issue, then, is: how do we handle the context labels/usage notes? The word "hoax" should be be in there somewhere, along with the fact that it's a complete fabrication created as a prank. Beyond that, I'm not sure. Thoughts? Chuck Entz (talk) 07:28, 9 July 2012 (UTC) I would have no objection to a Citations page (to show that mentions exist) and a talk page (to explain the hoax) but not an actual article page. SemperBlotto (talk) 08:12, 9 July 2012 (UTC) I doubt that we will be limited to mentions, but starting with citations is usually a good idea. From looking at Usenet, I think that wenis is often used for penis, perhaps to escape e-mail content filters. I have also seen claims that it is used to mean a wearable cast of a penis. That might give us three distinct etymologies. And google books rewarded my searches with what I claim are the first citations on Wiktionary of Snooki. DCDuring TALK 13:49, 9 July 2012 (UTC) People often use pregnant about a couple. It seems this would require a new sense ("(of a couple (two partners in a relationship)) Having a pregnant (carrying developing offspring) member"). What think y'all?​—msh210℠ (talk) 22:41, 10 July 2012 (UTC) I think it belongs at we. The term we is used often to refer to something that directly involves one of the members of the couple but is deemed to be shared, eg, "We got a promotion." and "We're having a baby.". It seems like usage-note material because it doesn't clash with the definitions. DCDuring TALK 23:31, 10 July 2012 (UTC) Good point: that sounds right: it belongs at we. I'm not sure, though, whether it should, as you say, be relegated to a usage note.​—msh210℠ (talk) 04:30, 11 July 2012 (UTC) I've already put "we're pregnant" in a usage example at we. If you can think of a worthwhile way to word a sense, I'd love to see it. AHD has 5 senses, some non-gloss. Compact Oxford is good, but none of them capture what you've noticed. It is pragmatics. I find it hard to imagine apart from a couple or a family, possibly an extended family, at least in Western culture. DCDuring TALK 05:44, 11 July 2012 (UTC) I think "pregnant" also refers to human males with a pregnant partner. See, for example, [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]. --BB12 (talk) 06:30, 11 July 2012 (UTC) The first of your links doesn't support the sense you describe: that writer is making fun of a man for saying "we're pregnant", by pretending to think that he's thereby calling himself pregnant. · The second counts, but is not very convincing IMHO: that's a humor book titled The Pregnant Father. · The third doesn't support the sense you describe: at the time that the father is described as "pregnant", his child is six or seven years old. · The fourth counts, but is a fictional example of a woman laughing at a man for calling himself "pregnant", so still not very convincing IMHO. (When a writer who mocks a usage (s)he sees as infelicitous, that doesn't inspire confidence in the writer's understanding of the usage.) · The fifth doesn't support the sense you describe: it uses "'pregnant'", with scare-quotes, in reference to men with sympathetic pregnancy.   —RuakhTALK 14:25, 11 July 2012 (UTC) The first link can be read that way, but it's clear that the idea of a man being pregnant (i.e., his wife being pregnant) is being discussed. As to the second, AFAIK, humor counts. You're right about the third. The fourth seems to be very strong to me because what happened is that the man called himself pregnant, demonstrating that men do so. The fifth one uses the quotes indicating that the term pregnancy is being extended to men; I don't see those as scare quotes at all. So at least my second, fourth and fifth seem to still qualify. Here's one more: [6]. Also, here's a citation from Usenet: [7]. I imagine there are a lot more, hidden under "I'm pregnant," but nearly impossible to find because the vast majority are women. --BB12 (talk) 18:50, 11 July 2012 (UTC) Re: first link: I don't follow you. A woman is requesting advice about her husband's use of "we're pregnant!"; the advice-columnist replies that it's stupid for the man to say he's pregnant. But he's not saying he's pregnant, so it's actually the advice-columnist who's stupid. (Stupid for our purposes, I mean. She may be a smart lady in other ways, but clearly she was not wearing her competent-lexicographer hat when she wrote that advice.) · Re: second link: Humor counts, yes; more specifically, it counts as humor. If all we've got are humorous cites, then we need to tag the sense accordingly. · Re: fourth link: No, what happened is that a female fiction writer depicted a man as implying he's "pregnant" — followed immediately by a woman laughing at him, and the man resorting to "You know what I mean!", without anyone having to explain what's funny about it. (As far as the CFI are concerned, we do accept cites from fictional dialogue — we'd be screwed if we didn't — but this isn't very strong evidence for the claim that a man can really be "pregnant" by virtue of having a pregnant partner.) · Re: fifth cite: Regardless, that source is clearly not operating under the belief that the term "pregnant" has a sense "(of a man) having a pregnant partner". —RuakhTALK 19:31, 11 July 2012 (UTC) I'm not going to debate this further as we disagree on what the citations mean. In any case, I think that my initial citations plus the other two (plus the fact that my citations are based only on searching for "he's pregnant") make this a pass. --BB12 (talk) 19:54, 11 July 2012 (UTC) Sorry, I guess I'm not sure what we're "debating"; your phrase "make this a pass" doesn't seem suited to a tea-room discussion. (It's not as though anyone had RFV'd such a sense.) By the way, one of your "other two" cites is actually the same as one of your "initial citations". I think you must have copy-and-pasted the wrong link? —RuakhTALK 20:35, 11 July 2012 (UTC) I'm happy to just add the definition and then it can be debated on a more suitable page, then. I'll do that tomorrow if there are no objections. --BB12 (talk) 23:49, 11 July 2012 (UTC) I think all we need is a meaning "anticipating the birth of a child" or something like that to cover the "we're pregnant"/"pregnant dad" senses. The current primary definition "carrying developing offspring within the body" really does not work with the example sentence "I went to the doctor, and guess what, we're pregnant!" because we are not carrying developing offspring within the body (unless we are a lesbian couple each of whom has a baby in her womb). —Angr 21:46, 11 July 2012 (UTC) I don't think someone saying "we're armed!" is lying if he's the unarmed spokesperson/leader for a group of armed soldiers or policemen. Nor is a spokesman for a company saying "we're working on a new release of the AntiPro 3000 software package" lying even if it's a one-person project done by someone in the company the spokesman has never met. We're doing something is generally considered is generally considered true even if the speaker has a tenuous connection to the person in the group who is actually doing it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC) If I find three qualifying instances in print of something like a stay-at-home spouse saying "we got a promotion", when, as we usually would say, the working spouse gets the promotion, should I add the sense to get a promotion, get, or promotion? If a football player assists in scoring a goal, can he say "We scored!"? What about another team-member on the field? Off the field? A coach? A retired player? The team owner? A resident of the city the team is from? A fan? I think we may be trying to ascribe to one predicate something that can be true, in principle, of almost any predicate. If anything, it is associated with we, but it could be associated with any plural personal pronoun, eg, "You Republicans are trying to repeal Obamacare." It might be even more general, including many instances of metonymy. DCDuring TALK 23:30, 11 July 2012 (UTC) On the other hand, I think I'd be confused if someone used "we're black" to mean "my spouse is black", or "we're turning thirty" to mean "my spouse is turning thirty", or "we're a beautiful woman" to mean "my wife is a beautiful woman", or "we're her best friend" to mean "my spouse is her best friend", or . . . well, you get the idea. —RuakhTALK 02:09, 12 July 2012 (UTC) Yes, I think there is non-lexical social knowledge about the scope of acceptability of this kind of use of pronouns (and similar deixis and anaphora?). It is like knowing that, outside of fiction, one is not likely to be able to say "my car is putrefying". Isn't this pragmatics or discourse analysis? We can only hint at this kind of thing in usage notes. DCDuring TALK 02:49, 12 July 2012 (UTC) Aren't the uses of we in the examples above simply a form of synecdoche, as in totum pro parte? The unacceptability of many similar appearing usages seems to derive from social considerations – I suspect that being black, a beautiful woman, someone's best friend, and turning thirty are considered highly individual properties that the spouse is not responsible for, while pregnancy, promotion etc. affects the couple as a collective unit, and they're events, not properties (turning some age may not really be a distinct event on some cognitive level, even if it's verbalised just like an event). At least several of the examples seem to involve some sort of spokesman's we. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:40, 29 July 2012 (UTC) We have some etymology on this page already, but I'm skeptical how accurate it is. The OED dates it back to post-classical Latin abracadabra, but largely throws up it hands after that. It mentions Abraxas, but skeptically, and mentions Hebrew and Aramaic (but says there's no attestation in Jewish sources predating the Latin) but not any of our specific claims. I'm especially skeptical of the claim "It may also be the combination of three Hebrew words ארבע-אחד-ארבע when it is read from right to left Prosfilaes (talk) 22:53, 10 July 2012 (UTC) [edit] That's what's up, whassup, wassup I've struck upon the phrase while watching the w:Inside Man. It turns out that the phrase originally recorded at Wiktionary as that's what's up also exists as that's wassup and that's whassup. The second article was created by me 'cause I did not know that the first already existed. Should the third variant also be created as article? Should it be a simple "redirect" ("What's whassup: alternative spelling of..) or a full article with examples from literature? Google books finds plenty of instances for each of the three variants of spelling. Cheers, --CopperKettle (talk) 14:30, 12 July 2012 (UTC) Can something really be an archaic neologism? Isn't that a contradiction in terms? Smurrayinchester (talk) 16:48, 12 July 2012 (UTC) As pronouns are usually rather old in origin, formation within in the last 200 years might make it a neologism among pronouns. But it doesn't seem that it would convey the right impression to a normal user. This is a case where an appendix for recently coined pronouns (eg, s/he and relatives) and extended pronoun usage (singular, gender-neutral they, them, their) might help more than a new category. Including some less successful earlier proposals such as thon might be interesting. DCDuring TALK 17:07, 12 July 2012 (UTC) This question has been asked before: [9]. Maybe a usage note like the one I just wrote is better than the context tags. Geefdee (talk) 18:45, 13 July 2012 (UTC) The ===Etymology=== sections of the entries in this category imply that their terms come directly from Hittite into Modern Georgian, but of course, almost three thousand years elapsed between the extinction of the one and the development of the other. Is this just total nonsense, or are the ===Etymology=== sections merely incomplete, or . . . ? —RuakhTALK 20:20, 12 July 2012 (UTC) Since Hittite had neither a v nor an f, I'm gonna call bullshit on the etymologies of სუფთა and ველი. Duddumili really is an adjective meaning "silent", so I suppose it's possible that the Georgian word is an indirect loanword (having gone through several intermediate steps), but it's more likely to be a coincidence. —Angr 20:48, 12 July 2012 (UTC) I have used quite reliable source - Georgian History -- issued in 2012 (in 4 volumes). I believe these etymologies to be true and I agree that these borrowings were indirect and transmitted from parental languages of Georgian. I have made relevant changes to these words. Concerning the absence of V in Hittite, I mistook it for w. Both words are basically the same in Georgian. The word w exists in hittite, see - wine#Etymology 1. I have made similar mistake with suffi, where I replaced f with P - pʰ. I have also added Hattic etymologies for some Georgian words but I have no other source than what I stated earlier, so I'm unable to check it. You are welcome to participate in that as well. --31.192.45.156 06:27, 13 July 2012 (UTC) Well, suppi and wellu are real Hittite words, but the problem with your source is that historians aren't linguists, and non-linguists are very prone to seeing vague surface similarity as evidence of an etymological relationship where none exists. While the four-volume book may well be a reliable source for the history of Georgia, it is not necessarily a reliable source at all for the history of Georgian, and I still view these etymologies with extreme skepticism. —Angr 17:51, 13 July 2012 (UTC) Is there a term that describes a captivating audiobook that references the listening process (like page-turner does for paper books and to some versions of e-books)? I vaguely remember a phrase used to describe captivating audio programs for the car (radio or song) that mentioned staying in the car and listening even after arriving at one's destination. --Bequw → τ 05:03, 13 July 2012 (UTC) Ah! it's a driveway moment.--Bequw → τ 01:46, 22 July 2012 (UTC) What part of speech is "lawbreaking" in this sentence: "In this case, I think a court would see clearly that your involvement was in no way lawbreaking." ---> Tooironic (talk) 09:13, 13 July 2012 (UTC) Good question. When you say "part of speech", I assume you mean for Wiktionary PoS-header purposes. I would say that the sentence does not provide unambiguous evidence to discriminate between Noun and Adjective. At least it provides evidence of use other than as a Verb , though it could be read that way if "your involvement" is interpreted metonymically as "you, indirectly". DCDuring TALK 11:44, 13 July 2012 (UTC) Well the New Oxford American Dictionary lists it as both a noun and an adjective. In light of this I've added the "unlawful" sense. ---> Tooironic (talk) 13:02, 13 July 2012 (UTC) I took the liberty of replacing the ambiguous usex with one that is not. I would take the placement of the ambiguous one as an assertion that it was an adjective in that use. I agree that it might be. Also, surprisingly I could not attest comparative use. Such use might be attestable on Groups. DCDuring TALK 15:01, 13 July 2012 (UTC) Fantastic, looks great. Thanks DC! ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:16, 13 July 2012 (UTC) [edit] Term for the fruit (a) Fruit of some plants What is the term that you most commonly use to refer to the fruits shown at the picture? --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:27, 14 July 2012 (UTC) (b) Some more fruits What do you call the fruits in the second picture? --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:00, 14 July 2012 (UTC) I would call them all peppers; the ones in picture (a) I would call specifically bell peppers. I'm American. An Australian friend of mine would call them all capsicums. —Angr 09:05, 14 July 2012 (UTC) I would call the first ones 'sweet peppers' and the second just 'peppers'. I'm British, BTW. Sharon2001 (talk) 12:08, 14 July 2012 (UTC) NYC US: a: "peppers", "green peppers", "sweet peppers", "bell peppers", ("orange peppers", "orange green peppers", etc) NYC US: b: "hot peppers", "chili peppers", "peppers" DCDuring TALK 12:46, 14 July 2012 (UTC) (Upper Midwestern U.S.) I'd call the top ones "peppers" or "bell peppers" or "red/yellow/green peppers". I'd probably call the bottom ones "hot peppers" or "chili peppers". I don't think I'd call them just "peppers", but I might call them "those peppers". —RuakhTALK 13:16, 14 July 2012 (UTC) (Irish-Dutch) I'd call the top ones 'paprikas' and I don't know what the bottom ones are. —CodeCat 14:03, 14 July 2012 (UTC) The now-complete (but for supplements, the first to be released in 2013) w:Dictionary of American Regional English would probably provide good, fairly current information about the distribution of the terms in the US as the P-Sk volume was published in 2002. DCDuring TALK 14:38, 14 July 2012 (UTC) (Southern California US) I'd call the top ones "bell peppers". The bottom ones look like a cultivar advertised by American seed companies as Hungarian Wax or Hungarian Yellow Wax, which is moderately hot. There's also a cultivar called Sweet Hungarian Yellow Wax that looks similar, but isn't hot. I don't know what I'd call them if I didn't know them from seed company usage. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:53, 14 July 2012 (UTC) Thanks! --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:08, 15 July 2012 (UTC) I'd call a fruit in the top picture "a red/yellow/[-] pepper", "a [-]/[-]/green pepper", or "a (color) bell pepper" (in decreasing order of likelihood); I don't recognize what kind of pepper the ones in the bottom picture are, so I'd probably just call any of them "a pepper": if I know it (e.g. from a label) to be hot, "a hot pepper"; if I know it to be a certain kind, "a chili/jalapeño/habanero/whatever pepper"; if I don't know what kind it is but want to distinguish it from a pepper as in the top picture, "a pepper, you know, the long kind, not a bell pepper" or possibly even "a long pepper" with a hand motion to indicate what I mean.​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:00, 16 July 2012 (UTC) I would call both types 'peppers', but if I had to make a distinction between the two, the top ones are 'bell peppers' and the bottom 'chilli peppers' (I'm English, from East Anglia way) Gpcfox (talk) 21:16, 17 August 2012 (UTC) I call the top one a red bell pepper, the second one a yellow bell pepper, and the third one a green bell pepper, or just a bell pepper. The picture at the bottom are of paprika peppers. —Stephen (Talk) 21:27, 17 August 2012 (UTC) Australian: mild ones are capsicums, hot ones are chillies. ZackMartin (talk) 11:17, 19 August 2012 (UTC) New Zealander: The top three are capsica (red, yellow, and green) and the bottom ones are not a fruit which I often see... chillies, I guess (Though chillies are usually the small narrow bean-shaped spicy ones only...). None of them is a pepper - Pepper is a powder for making food spicier Furius (talk) 14:36, 13 September 2012 (UTC) American spelling aside, is this really American English? I heard it said by an Aussie guy the other day. ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:48, 14 July 2012 (UTC) w:Party favor#Around the world is under the impression they're called by different names outside North America. —Angr 12:19, 14 July 2012 (UTC) I was wondering if 'oppressor' is en-us spelling and 'oppressour' is en-uk spelling. Is this true? Tony6ty4ur (talk) 23:08, 14 July 2012 (UTC) The UK spelling is "oppressor", never seen it spelt with a "u" before. BigDom (t • c) 23:20, 14 July 2012 (UTC) It was used in the US around the end of the period it was used in the UK. Little use by the middle of the 19th century, possibly earlier. Residual use in in quotes and republications of books from Early Modern English. See here. DCDuring TALK 23:45, 14 July 2012 (UTC) -our isn't used for agent nouns in contemporary British English. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:53, 15 July 2012 (UTC) The original definition (indeed, the whole entry) was "Edible friut similar to watermelon, only shorter in size." In reality, xigua is just Pinyin xīguā without the macrons, and that is the Mandarin version of a Chinese term for watermelon, 西瓜. At most, the fruit referred to is just a smaller type of watermelon, not a separate kind of fruit. The original entry is a plural, so it was cleaned up by making it into a "plural of" entry, but the entry for the singular was never created. I'm a bit torn: on the one hand, it's pointless having a "plural of" entry with no lemma, and there may well be enough cites for the original sense (from non-Chinese who frequent Asian markets). On the other hand, the original sense is, as far as I can tell, a factual error based on a misunderstanding. It's true that such occurrences are part of the normal evolution of language, but it seems wrong to add to the confusion by referring to a non-existent type of fruit. What's the best way to proceed? Chuck Entz (talk) 07:51, 15 July 2012 (UTC) I've just sent it to RFV, as I cannot attest it. Without attesting quotations, it is hard to figure out a definition. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:37, 15 July 2012 (UTC) [edit] Comparing English Wiktionary with other dictionaries At User:DCDuring/Dictionary comparisons/MW3rd1993/Addenda I have a small, carefully drawn random sample (n=31) of items (bolded words) from Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1993) Addenda. The Addenda (some 11,000 words) must have been the most important omissions from and new items after the closing of the first edition c. 19651. Of the 31 items we have all but 7 in the same spelling and capitalization. The seven: Peg-Board (Brian0918, HippieTrail) - pegboard phosphodiester bond (Brian0918, msh210, deleted by SB) - phosphodiester + bond bariatrician (Brian0918) enterobacteriologist (entero-) flower bug (Brian0918, HippieTrail, Msh210) - flowerbug (none) free electron laser (Msh210) - free-electron laser (Msh210) water fowler (none) - waterfowler (Brian0918), water-fowler (none) In parentheses are the names of users who have lists that include the terms. One conclusion from this limited sample is that we have lists that include unentered terms that a print dictionary with limited space finds room for, even among relatively recent terms. I intend to at least triple the size of this sample. I intend to do a similar, larger random sample of hundreds of entries from the main mass of entries in MW3 and small samples from some of its supplementary listings, such as "Forms of Address" and "Abbreviations Used in this Dictionary". Any comments are welcome. DCDuring TALK 16:04, 16 July 2012 (UTC) Brilliant. I think we'll find that we're not missing much from what is in print. bd2412 T 20:15, 16 July 2012 (UTC) 5/31 missing is a little disappointing. I didn't yet check whether we had all the senses MW3 was adding or whether MW3 was adding senses to headwords that they already had in 1961. My expectation is that there will be large areas where our coverage is weak because of the lack of interest in certain fields among our contributors. Note that 4/5 of the missing items are "technical" (yes, even flower bug) and "water fowling" (hunting) is not something our contributors are likely to look neutrally on, let alone practice. DCDuring TALK 22:02, 16 July 2012 (UTC) This doesn't really mean "belonging to God", at least not so straightforwardly, does it? It means "belonging to him", where "he" is understood, in a Jewish or Christian (or Muslim) context, because of the capitalisation, to mean God. Thus, the definition isn't strictly wrong, it's just that as Equinox pointed out on Talk:He, any pronoun can be capitalised when it refers to a god: Genesis 1:26 YLT uses "Us" and "Our", Matthew 6:13 YLT uses "Thou" and "Thine", many hymns use "You", "Your", "Yours", "Thy"... and many gods are referred to with capitalised pronouns: in Wiccan contexts, "He" refers to the male deity of Wicca and "She" the female deity. Like "we", "We" and "You" can even refer to a monarch (in royal proclamations and supplications, respectively), and "He" and "She" and "You" can refer to a dominator or dominatrix (in BDSM books). (And all of the pronouns are surely attested in capitalised form in reference to all kinds of people in those old texts that capitalised all Important Words.) We could have separate senses in each entry subject to attestation... but wouldn't it be better to define "His", "Your" etc only as a capitalised alternative form of "his", "your" etc, and have a usage note explain that pronouns are capitalised in some contexts, such as when used by worshippers in reference to gods? - -sche (discuss) 06:26, 17 July 2012 (UTC) When all you've got is a hammer, you treat everything as a nail. We tend to treat lexically many things, such as the use of ordinary nouns and proper nouns as interjections, which often triggers the creation (and retention) of an Interjection PoS section in fairly ordinary nouns and proper nouns. This latter point provides an interesting contrast with the case you raise: Jesus#Interjection. Is that use more in need of a dictionary entry section than His? DCDuring TALK 09:58, 17 July 2012 (UTC) I think it's appropriate, since it has a completely different meaning, and is used by some non-Christians. There are even some odd variants, such as Jesus H. Christ. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:40, 17 July 2012 (UTC) LORD may also be related. - -sche (discuss) 13:55, 17 July 2012 (UTC) I agree (w/-sche). (It's not just pronouns, BTW; nouns such as father and king are also capitalized when they refer to G-d.) —RuakhTALK 13:17, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Of course -sche is right, and other examples would include Mother among Marianists and Lamb more widely among Christians. But wouldn't we want to follow the principle of not lexicalizing every type of grammatical event more generally? Category:English interjections is chock full of nouns, proper nouns, and phrases that occasionally or even commonly function to convey an emotion. We have had the same kind of thing with some bare-noun prepositional phrases. How do we distinguish between grammatical features that we treat in an entry and those we leave to Wikipedia or to some future WikiGrammar? Would we use a quantitative criterion, including only features shared by a small number of terms? Does the usage context matter? DCDuring TALK 13:39, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Ruakh's comment reminds me that in English-speaking Islam, there is a list of 99+ capitalised terms ("the Merciful", "the Guardian", etc). At least one religious sense of "Father" seems more nuanced and thus worthy of inclusion than "Him"; I suppose it would be for citations to show whether or not terms like "King" and "Guardian" are attested with sufficiently nuanced meanings. - -sche (discuss) 13:52, 17 July 2012 (UTC) @Chuck: It is a different use, not a different meaning. If it had no connection with religion, it would not be as functionally effective in the use in question. I agree its use warrants a separate non-gloss definition under the Noun PoS, just as much all other terms, whether nouns, verbs, proper nouns, or phrases attestably used in this way should have such a non-gloss definition. This seems to me to be just the kind of usage fact that we would unquestionably find worth covering were it not a sectarian religious usage. DCDuring TALK 14:07, 17 July 2012 (UTC) It also makes me appreciate the wisdom of Philip Gove in minimizing the role of capitalization in MW3. All headwords are lower case, except abbreviations, with some italic notation like usu. cap. DCDuring TALK 14:16, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Yes, though it takes a while to get used to the fact that MW3's "usu. cap." actually means "invariably cap.". —Angr 14:28, 17 July 2012 (UTC) This entry is a bit of a mess; not being very experienced around here, I thought to turn it over to the regulars for a look. In particular, I don't think definition 1 is the most common, and the examples are rather strange. (The old example for definition 1, which I removed, was terrible...) 124.168.113.250 11:39, 17 July 2012 (UTC) If I were to create pages for wheelchair fencing and other wheelchair sports, how likely is it that they'd be deleted? Will anyone be dumb enough to use the argument "I though it was fencing using wheelchairs as the weapon"? --BLurpty (talk) 16:27, 17 July 2012 (UTC) I would challenge such entries. I don't know what the outcome of the challenge would be. DCDuring TALK 17:40, 17 July 2012 (UTC) I would have thought wheelchair fencing was like rabbit fencing or deer fencing: used to keep those pesky things from tearing up the garden- but I could be wrong... ;p Chuck Entz (talk) 05:25, 19 July 2012 (UTC) What's with Category:Religion? The text doesn't seem right. Malafaya (talk) 16:47, 17 July 2012 (UTC) The problem dates to this template-related edit of Daniel Carrero's. Now fixed. (Oh, and, for next time, WT:RFC might be a better venue.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:44, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Registered :). Thanks, Malafaya (talk) 23:16, 17 July 2012 (UTC) Shouldn't this be classified as an indefinite article? --Æ&Œ (talk) 20:19, 17 July 2012 (UTC) No; English's only indefinite article is a(n). —RuakhTALK 20:37, 17 July 2012 (UTC) I learned that, as an aid for translating to languages with different article usage, some should be considered the plural indefinite article in English. I don't know whether this is linguistically sound, but I'd like to see an argument for why it isn't. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 07:25, 18 July 2012 (UTC) As I understand it, some is often the best translation for a plural indefinite article in another language. But some is a determiner with other functions so it often cannot be translated by a plural indefinite article in another language. Moreover one of its uses use as a singular indefinite where a might also be appropriate, though with a change in implication. For example, "A/Some contributor forgot to document his template." Furthermore, some (and any) cannot be used in places where a is used in the singular and a bare noun is used for the plural. "Foo and Bar are [] contributors" vs. *"Foo and Bar are some contributors." CGEL has more classes of cases where some fails to function as a plural indefinite and explicitly rejects the analysis of some as plural indefinite, which they say others follow. DCDuring TALK 10:26, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Hmm. Food for thought. Unless I'm much mistaken, your explanation suggests that some (and any) may function as indefinite articles but often do not. I think a usage note is required. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 23:43, 18 July 2012 (UTC) Just so long as appropriate recognition is given to the major role of the bare "[plural noun]" as plural of "a [singular noun]". It is fairly complicated. What about the role of any instead of some in [] negative polarity clauses? I had never given much thought to the various uses and meanings of [] determiners and [] articles. I am skeptical that [] usage notes can cover all this complexity and remain intelligible to our supposed users. Wording truth simply and briefly is not easy. Note that "[]" marks places where some might be a candidate were it really a general-purpose plural indefinite article, but is not actually appropriate. DCDuring TALK 03:18, 19 July 2012 (UTC) Can this term safely be utilized as a synonym for friend or pal? --Æ&Œ (talk) 02:42, 19 July 2012 (UTC) Given the connotations, hardly. For me, at least, it tends to have bellicose or taxonomic implications, and to suggest groups rather than individuals. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 02:52, 19 July 2012 (UTC) No. An ally is someone who's on your side, not necessarily someone you like, or who likes you. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" shouldn't be taken literally. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:35, 19 July 2012 (UTC) Isn't this term offensive (to anyone)? --Æ&Œ (talk) 09:41, 20 July 2012 (UTC) I'd bet that someone will find it offensive in some uses. See this. Urban Dictionary's lead definition says it's offensive. Most online dictionaries that have it call it offensive, but not Collins. DCDuring TALK 10:32, 20 July 2012 (UTC) I've labeled it "often offensive". Sometimes it could just be jocular or old-fashioned, and I doubt anyone would seriously be offended by "honest injun". —Angr 12:35, 20 July 2012 (UTC) [edit] looking for a word I'm looking for a word in English to describe someone who other people notice immediately when they enter the room. Someone who commands people's attention without any kind of conscious effort. Consider, for example, the character of Miranda Priestly from the Devil Wears Prada. The Chinese word I'm translating is 气场 but I couldn't think of its English equivalent apart from something like "s/he has an aura about them". :S ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:58, 20 July 2012 (UTC) Someone who "turns people's heads" or "makes people's heads turn"? —Angr 12:31, 20 July 2012 (UTC) charismatic? DCDuring TALK 12:57, 20 July 2012 (UTC) striking?, magnetic?, or arresting. I'd pick the last for a single-word adjective translation, but it is not very dramatic. I'm also not sure about a noun. DCDuring TALK 13:09, 20 July 2012 (UTC) Noun: head-turner, perhaps.​—msh210℠ (talk) 15:46, 20 July 2012 (UTC) If someone could check the Esperanto definition for this entry, I would greatly appreciate it! Cannona (talk) 15:08, 21 July 2012 (UTC) Why did you add it if you don't know the definition? And why not at least add three cites to make it verifiable? I see no reason to think it's right. Wikitrans offers "Mi repudias vian realecon kaj anstataŭaĵon mia posedi" for "I reject your reality and substitute my own"; not terribly reliable, but an example. "Monda Socia Forumo (MOS) repudias novaliberalismon" comes from [10] and "art. 11a: Italio repudias la militon kiel ilo por ofendi la liberon de aliaj popoloj kaj kiel rimedo por sovi internaciajn kontrastojn"[11] (from the Italian constitution) are from political discussions on Yahoo Groups. I see no reason to believe in your definition. Please post your three cites; and if you don't have three cites or can't produce them, why did you create this entry?--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:44, 22 July 2012 (UTC) I think there's another sense: [12]. Maybe equivalent to slay? --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 21:16, 21 July 2012 (UTC) MWOnline has five senses, including one like that: "to strike down and kill or incapacitate". I think almost any phrasal verb retains some specific differentiating residual of meaning from the components. I don't think that you can cut down someone by blowing up their car or poisoning them. With a single shot perhaps not, but by automatic weapons fire certainly. DCDuring TALK 21:57, 21 July 2012 (UTC) What is a "pair of stilliards" and how does it work? Judging from Google books [13] [14] and images, a single stilliard seems to be a pole with hooks on it, used as a scale...? How is it used? - -sche (discuss) 22:55, 21 July 2012 (UTC) If the image results are correct I know what it is. The iron bar has numbers written down; you hang something in a hook and place a weight in the iron bar. When the bar is horizontal the weight of the object is the number written down where the weight is placed. They are common in rural areas of the state where I live. — Ungoliant (Falai) 23:06, 21 July 2012 (UTC) Aha! Fascinating, and useful. And thanks, DCDuring, for the information that it's an alternative spelling. I figured from the spellings like shiers (shears) and syths (scythes) that I found near it that it might be, but I couldn't guess what the standard spelling would be... not that I would have understood the meaning of it (steelyard), either. - -sche (discuss) 07:27, 24 July 2012 (UTC) I must have forgotten to save my edit here, linking to steelyard. Good old Century Dictionary had this. It's a bit more comprehensive than Webster 1913 it seems. I think it is just a portable balance scale. The original question was about the 'pair' aspect, was it not? Is one (or more) yard used to support the calibrated yard? Is one yard used as the sliding weight? The whole setup might be designed to be long and thin for ease of transport and storage, as to rural markets. DCDuring TALK 12:13, 24 July 2012 (UTC) Some of the usage has Justice holding a pair of stilliards, which suggests it means a balance scale. This might be a reinterpretation of steelyards by people who had never seen a large-scale one, but knew it was used for weighing. I did not find stilliard in Robert, so the spelling seems Frenchified rather than French. DCDuring TALK 12:25, 24 July 2012 (UTC) [edit] powers that be The phrase "the powers that be", which I have now learned (thanks to Wiktionary) is really from the KJV, has just reminded me of a discussion back from January about "lexical be". What is be in this archaic phrase? Subjunctive, imperative, infinitive, habitual, whatever archaic or dialectal (probably not merely dialectal, at least not back in the 17th century) form like those possibly found in the other examples we had discussed? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:20, 22 July 2012 (UTC) The habitual is the only one that would make sense in the context. This verse, incidentally, is one of the few things Noah Webster changed in his revision of the KJV: he wrote "The powers that are, are ordained by God". —Angr 20:50, 22 July 2012 (UTC) I would say be is being used in the subjunctive mood here like in the following example: "My rules require that he be good when home alone." (See w:English subjunctive) --WikiTiki89 (talk) 15:39, 24 July 2012 (UTC) But why would you use a subjunctive here? Paul is talking about the powers that really exist, not about a hypothetical or desirable situation. —Angr 18:33, 24 July 2012 (UTC) You can also twist it and ask what the use of the subjunctive indicates about the original meaning of the phrase. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 20:39, 24 July 2012 (UTC) Certainly nothing about the original Greek, since there's no subjunctive there, just a participle. A more literal translation would be "the existing powers" and I think some modern Bible translations do say that. There's simply no grammatical reason to use a subjunctive here, but there is a good semantic reason to use a habitual. —Angr 20:48, 24 July 2012 (UTC) Ok well I didn't really intend to say it had to be specifically the subjuctive. I just meant to point out that there are other tenses and moods and whatnot that people tend to forget about, of which the most common (I think) is the subjunctive). --WikiTiki89 (talk) 21:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC) Well, given that the subjunctive was the first possibility I listed, and it was also given its due in the linked discussion, people here clearly need not be reminded of it. :-Þ Thank you, Angr! Clearly, the habitual is the most sensible interpretation, I was just wondering if I might have missed another explanation. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:09, 29 July 2012 (UTC) Another instance I just encountered (again): here be dragons, even though the phrase as such does not seem to be authentic, but essentially a modern invention (though with a few dispersed precursors on old maps that could have served as inspiration). This, too, would seem to be a use of the habitual sense. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:07, 23 August 2012 (UTC) [edit] regelate A word to be added - found in 19th century technical text describing ice or metal fusion as "Regelation" <a href="Ineuw (talk) 04:55, 23 July 2012 (UTC) regelate, regelation, regelated, regelates, regelating. We lacked the inflections of the verb. DCDuring TALK 11:12, 23 July 2012 (UTC) The entry suggests that "big-endian" and "little-endian" are derived from this word, when it is the other way around: "endian" is derived from "little-endian" and "big-endian", coming as they do from the nicknames for two groups of people in Gulliver's Travels. Hence "little-endian" and "big-endian" are related terms, not derived terms, and "endian" should be listed as a derived term under both of these words. Similarly, "endianness" is a derived term, not a related term. — 146.179.8.172 13:06, 23 July 2012 (UTC) Yeah. I have changed Derived to Related at endian. Equinox ◑ 13:14, 23 July 2012 (UTC) The digitised copy of Webster 1913 that can be found on the Internet defines fallowness as "(US) A well or opening, through the successive floors of a warehouse or manufactory, through which goods are raised or lowered. [Bartlett]". I think there must have been some mistake here. Does anyone know the word (presumably alphabetically very close to fallowness) to which this definition really belongs? Equinox ◑ 14:17, 23 July 2012 (UTC) I know what the definition refers to (my first job was in an animal-feed mill), but I can't think what it was called. (maybe something like "fall space"?) SemperBlotto (talk) 07:47, 24 July 2012 (UTC) My first recent use of my parents' old Webster's Second International: It's definitely fallway. DCDuring TALK 12:45, 24 July 2012 (UTC) Good lad! Equinox ◑ 00:43, 18 August 2012 (UTC) Defined as "a female criminal", but I don't think that's right, is it? Certainly google books:"a bit of a bad girl" doesn't imply criminality — not even a slight criminality IMHO. —RuakhTALK 03:31, 24 July 2012 (UTC) I reckon if we found an accurate definition, it would be SOP. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 03:41, 24 July 2012 (UTC) Bad boy does have a male criminal sense, and not added by the same user. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:50, 24 July 2012 (UTC) It seems that it just needs a secondary definition that is something to the likes of "has a tendency to break rules or refuse to conform but not quite criminal" --WikiTiki89 (talk) 15:23, 24 July 2012 (UTC) I believe that's just being bad. Hence my SOP argument. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 17:43, 24 July 2012 (UTC) They way this is pronounced makes me think of it as idiomatic, but I can't think of a definition that would not be SoP. bad girl at OneLook Dictionary Search shows only Wordnik (no definition, but usage examples) and Urban Dictionary to have this. Of course there are book and song titles and band names. And there are plenty of citations for badgirl. DCDuring TALK 19:49, 24 July 2012 (UTC) Yeah I agree with DCDuring. It is pronounced as one lexical unit and therefore should be identified as a separate term. After all, compounds like doghouse deserve their own entries even though it is clearly just a house for a dog. And words like baker deserve their own entries even though it is clearly bake + -er (someone that bakes). It's all because it is used as a single lexical unit. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 21:10, 24 July 2012 (UTC) Can someone help me with the parts of speech for each sense of this word? I was thinking of contraction but that isn't really a part of speech and I'm not sure whether it is a contraction. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 15:17, 24 July 2012 (UTC) It would be a phrase if it were two words, I suspect. Compare id est. The fact that it is one word leaves contraction as the obvious L3 header; compare don't and shan't. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 16:31, 24 July 2012 (UTC) I'm hesitant to mark it as a contraction though since the second part of it (הוא) is obsolete in the sense of is (it is still used as a masculine singular pronoun though). --WikiTiki89 (talk) 17:16, 24 July 2012 (UTC) That has nothing to do with it being a contraction. I would argue that the grammatical usage of be in powers that be is obsolete, but the fact that it has persisted only in select phrases does not affect the lexical classification of such idiomatic uses. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 17:46, 24 July 2012 (UTC) It's not really a contraction IMHO, since contractions are a linguistic phenomenon, whereas I think this is chiefly orthographic. (There are stress and intonational differences, but if those made something a contraction, then anyway would be a contraction of any way.) Also, it's not true that הוא is obsolete in the sense of "is"; I'm not sure where you got such an idea. It's very much alive and well. You can see it in the first sentence of a large proportion of Hebrew Wikipedia articles, since so many of them start out "masculine noun (linguistic info) is […] ". —RuakhTALK 17:57, 24 July 2012 (UTC) I will trust your sizeable Hebraic knowledge, but you haven't actually resolved what to call it. Also, out of curiosity, what would you call a contraction? זל? --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 18:01, 24 July 2012 (UTC) Re: first sentence: I don't know. Shortly after I posted my comment, and just before you posted yours, I edited the entry to use ===Particle===, which is a pretty safe catch-all; but I'd be happy with a less punt-y POS if there's one that fits.   Re: second sentence: ז״ל is usually just a written abbreviation (pronounced e.g. /ziχ.ʁoˈno liv.raˈχa/), sometimes a spoken abbreviation -slash- acronym (pronounced /zal/). But it's still not a contraction, because even when it's reflected in pronunciation, that's a secondary effect of the orthographic abbreviation. As for what is a contraction — if I correctly understand the extension of that term, then I think that forms such as בַּ־ (ba-) (combining בְּ־ (b'-) and הַ־ (ha-)) count, even though they differ from English contractions in that the uncontracted forms are ungrammatical. (English contractions don't always have the same grammar as the uncontracted forms — "don't you" = "do you not", not *"do not you" — but the uncontracted forms always exist, at least.) The form /ta-/ (combining אֵת (ét) and הַ־ (ha-)) also seems to be a contraction, if English dunno and gotta are. —RuakhTALK 20:06, 24 July 2012 (UTC) I've used particle in those sorts of situations as well, but I didn't know that such was possible in Hebrew. Do other dictionaries have this term? If so, how do they treat it? That's very informative, thanks. I'm pretty backwards as far as Hebrew grammar goes (I never understood את, for example), so this is a good overview for me. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 20:36, 24 July 2012 (UTC) I don't even know if I would call בַּ־ (ba-) a contraction. I remember reading that the definite article was originally just the doubling of the first consonant with an extra vowel inserted before it if there isn't already one to aid pronunciation. This would explain בַּ־ (ba-) instead of *בְּהַ־ (beha-). Better examples of what I think are contractions are שֶׁ־ (she-) from אֲשֶׁר (asher) and מִ־ (mi-) from מִן (min). But as far as the POS of זהו, I would also like something better than particle. For the "that's that" sense I was thinking interjection maybe? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 21:02, 24 July 2012 (UTC) It's not an interjection, q.v., IMO. That said, I've got nothing better than particle either. Note that other Hebrew words that might be part of the same discussion are מַהוּ and אֵיזֶהוּ.​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:51, 24 July 2012 (UTC) Re: "I remember reading that the definite article was originally just the doubling of the first consonant": You may well have read that, but I'm reasonably confident that it's not true. It doesn't account for any of the facts except the presence of consonant doubling. (See some discussion here. I think it's obvious that Lameen Souag's arguments are more convincing.) —RuakhTALK 15:49, 26 July 2012 (UTC) I read the post and it seems to me that the two sides have equal likelihood. There really isn't enough evidence to be able to tell, although I am not an expert in the field. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 16:49, 26 July 2012 (UTC) But there's a great deal of evidence. Imagine that you are presented with two photographs of the same kitchen: photograph A shows it with a stack of ceramic plates piled high, teetering on the edge of a table, and photograph B shows it with the same plates scattered across the floor, all shattered to bits. The question: which photograph was taken first? In one sense, there's no way to tell: if you believe that photograph B was taken first, and that the plates were then all picked up, assembled, mended, and stacked before photograph A was taken, then there's nothing in the pictures that could disprove that. But in another sense, there's plenty of evidence — the entire rest of the world — and we have no difficulty making the correct inference. It's the same thing here: Herman posits a sequence of sound changes that is completely unknown from the world's languages, rather than the reverse sequence, which is well-known. (For that matter, there actually is a fair bit of more direct evidence against his theory, including definite-article suffixation in Aramaic (which he may or may not be aware of), the Hebrew demonstrative éle (which he is presumably aware of, but without recognizing its significance), and the fact that Arabic orthography uses an L (which he acknowledges, but dismisses as not-definitive-proof). Plus, of course, the almost total lack of evidence for his theory. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, but when a theory doesn't make sense, doesn't account for anything, and is not supported by any evidence, it's a bit generous to even call it a "theory". We might as well speak of the "theory" that cannot originated from can't via insertion of an epenthetic vowel, and insist that can't is therefore not a contraction.) —RuakhTALK 17:39, 26 July 2012 (UTC) I find lk > kk and kk > lk equally unlikely. And lʔ > ʔ and ʔʔ > lʔ even less likely. And who's to say which of a > ha and ʔa > a is more likely? That seems to me what it basically comes down to although I'll admit the Aramaic thing looks suspicious. Proto languages are all just thoroughly researched speculation. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 19:43, 26 July 2012 (UTC) lk > kk is known from other languages. (And FWIW, nk > kk is known from Hebrew.) I agree that lʔ > ʔ is unlikely, but it's not needed; the effect of such a change could result from leveling. —RuakhTALK 15:07, 31 July 2012 (UTC) As much as I like arguing, this debate doesn't belong on this page. It would be better if you responded to my question on כדאי. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 15:35, 31 July 2012 (UTC) I am confused as to why cannot is a considered a contraction if nothing is contracted. I asked this on its talk page but no one seems to be responding (I mean who reads talk pages anyway?). --WikiTiki89 (talk) 10:51, 25 July 2012 (UTC) Good question. It doesn't look like a contraction to me as there are no omitted letters and no apostrophe. I'd put it under a Verb PoS header, as it had been from 2004 to mid 2007. DCDuring TALK 11:54, 25 July 2012 (UTC) The problem now is that {{en-verb}} displays nonexistent forms and I can't seem to figure out how to make them go away without resorting to '''cannot'''. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 12:09, 25 July 2012 (UTC) Actually {{head|en|verb}} worked. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 12:11, 25 July 2012 (UTC) The contraction bit can go in the etymology, or {{form of|contraction|can not}}. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:37, 25 July 2012 (UTC) Or in the edit-history. ;-)   —RuakhTALK 15:48, 25 July 2012 (UTC) This is actually something I have wondered about before. If the definition of a term is its etymology, should we include only the definition, or both (with obvious duplication)? —CodeCat 15:16, 26 July 2012 (UTC) Since no letters are omitted isn't this a compound? — Ungoliant (Falai) 15:31, 26 July 2012 (UTC) I think it is a compound and isn't a contraction. DCDuring TALK 16:22, 26 July 2012 (UTC) An editor has modified this to add a sentence where a neighbour is addressed as "yon neighbor". It sounds like fake-mediaeval speech to me. Is this a legitimate kind of example? (I think he added it through disagreement with the existing usex for that part of speech, but still, maybe someone could find some real usages to add...?) Equinox ◑ 00:33, 26 July 2012 (UTC) I added a usex and a cite and deleted the one given. How could a neighbor one is asking a question be yon? The pronoun could use some help too. DCDuring TALK 00:55, 26 July 2012 (UTC) Is it really an adjective? I'd have thought it was a determiner - in modern English, it's more or less interchangeable with the determiner that. Smurrayinchester (talk) 07:44, 26 July 2012 (UTC) Is/was it ever used alone? ?"Yon is four miles distant."? ?"How do I get to yon?" DCDuring TALK 15:11, 26 July 2012 (UTC) Those sound wrong to me, but that just means it isn't a pronoun, as that can be. —Angr 15:47, 26 July 2012 (UTC) Never heard of it before, and does no longer seem all too common Google NGram stats. Should this be marked as obsolete or dated or archaic or so forth ? ZackMartin (talk) 10:27, 26 July 2012 (UTC) You have to look at the recent citations and at how other dictionaries treat it. OneLook provides convenient access to a number of good online dictionaries. (See froward at OneLook Dictionary Search.) Some have a "habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition" sense unmarked, some say archaic, so that's not conclusive. Is it ever used in books with recent publication dates other than reprints, in quotations of older works (including anthologies)? If not, it is probably obsolete. If it is sometimes used, say, in fiction, it might be archaic. If older folks still use it, but nobody else, it might be dated. DCDuring TALK 15:28, 26 July 2012 (UTC) FWIW, said humorously in a comment: Thou art wise to go to the hotel, and froward is the man that avoideth it. ... There there is Cape Froward ... From a 2010 book, p175: If you are disrespectful and spiteful toward your employer, you are being froward. ... It may be somewhat seldom noted, but I wouldn't rush to tag it archaic or obsolete. --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! (talk) 20:18, 17 August 2012 (UTC) The 2010 book had to take the trouble to explicitly define the word for its readers. The 2004 use is from a website about Asian English language misuse apparently based on naive use of dictionary translations. Cape Froward was named in 1587. I expect that most folks are mildly curious as to who Captain Froward might be. ... named the place after the climate's roughness with rains and winds. Does it matter if the 2010 book took the time to define it? ... And then go on to note it a lot! I did say that it was noted humorously in the 2004 ... but it was noted! Again, it may be seldom noted, but it does pop up time to time. --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! (talk) 01:53, 18 August 2012 (UTC) COCA shows historical and literary usage. COHA shows a marked reduction in usage after the opening decades of the 20th century, with the remaining usage being literary and historical. Looking at Usenet, it is hard to find usage that is not a misspelling, related to older texts, or a discussion of the meaning of the word. Of the first 30 or 718 hits from Google N-Gram post-1925 with preview available, I found no departure from the pattern of historical usage, except for cases where the word was the subject of discussion (ie, a mention not a use). DCDuring TALK 20:56, 17 August 2012 (UTC) So when do we label something archaic? For me, anything from the early 1800s onward is not archaic. There are many classics written in that time that has words like this. And definitely after 1900 ... And even if the word was the "subject of discussion" ... it was still noted for whatever reason. I think twice ... thrice ... before I label a word archaic or obsolete. Seldom noted doesn't mean archaic. I don't see the behoof in tagging it archaic or obsolete or how it adds anything. I think the tag it has now chiefly literary and historical is more than enuff. --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! (talk) 01:53, 18 August 2012 (UTC) I've changed "historical" to "dated". "Historical" means that the referent of the word doesn't exist but the word is still used in discussions of that no-longer existing thing (e.g. "Czechoslovakia" is historical). Disobedience still exists, it's just that the word "froward" is "dated" (not used very much anymore). - -sche (discuss) 02:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC) In my researches I found it used in historical works quoting older usage and occasionally using the word. The most coherent use of dated that I've seen refers to terms that were still in current use, but only by older generations, more or less as in Wiktionary:Obsolete and archaic terms, which is not entirely in accord with Appendix:Glossary and does not mention the useful {{defdate}}. Froward might be archaic, but not dated. I wonder how far back we would have to go to find evidence that it was widely understood. DCDuring TALK 03:58, 18 August 2012 (UTC) I went with "dated" to humour AnWulf, but given your comment, I've now changed it to "archaic". I've also removed "literary"... feel free to reinstate that tag if you think the term was only literary even when it was current, or to alter the {{context}} further as you deem appropriate. - -sche (discuss) 04:52, 18 August 2012 (UTC) LOL … Well thanks for humoring me! From the glossary terms, dated might be a good fit if one truly feels the need to tag it: Formerly in common use, and still in occasional use, but now unfashionable … Dated is not so strong as archaic or obsolete. Digging about a bit it seems that froward is fairly well understood and "still in occasional use". "Froward" is in the KJV 21 times. "Frowardly" once. "Frowardness" thrice. All that is likely what it often shows up in religious talks. It is also in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew: That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward. So I would guess that it is well known among followers of Shakespeare as well … and even among those who don't like Shakespeare as in this blog: However, it does make one wonder — if William Shakespeare were the creator of all these froward, literate, and often powerful women, why did he let his own daughters grow up illiterate? It may also start showing up this political season in the US as this political/religious blog (from June, 2012) shows: Forward or Froward? … the Communist/Marxist/Progressive/Globalist meaning of the term "Forward" can more accurately be labeled as Froward … and she puts out about every meaning of froward she could find to show her point! So my two cents is that it's a bit too soon to be slapping an "archaic" tag on it. Truthfully, for now, I wouldn't put any tag on it. I think it's better to err on the side of no tag than a bad tag. --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! (talk) 13:05, 18 August 2012 (UTC) I think you're misunderstanding what archaic means. An archaic word is one which is currently used, but only with the understanding that it's an example of the way people used to talk. People still quote and understand Shakespeare and the King James Version of the Bible, but they only use many of the words from them when trying to evoke the feel of those works or of that period. It's not uncommon for someone to dig up an old word like froward and play with it, but they're not treating it as a modern word, rather they're using the contrast between the modern context and the old word for humorous effect. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:19, 18 August 2012 (UTC) Oh I understand what archaic means but I don't get wrapt about the axle whether a word is "dated" or "archaic" ... I would call ambuscade archaic since it has been fully supplemented by its shorter sibling: ambush but it's tagg'd as "dated" ... meh. For froward, this may be an AmE-BrE thing. The Oxford Dict. (Brit. version) lists it as archaic but the Oxford American doesn't. And thinking about it, the noting of it did seem to be by Americans. So maybe it should say: "Considered to be archaic in British English." Again, I'd rather see no tag than a bad tag. We're dealing with millions of nativ speakers over the world with sundry backgrounds and ages. What may be dated or archaic to yu or me may not be to many others ... and what worth does it add to the word to tag it as such? It's not an outdated slang word. It's not an outdated form of grammar. It's not a word that has been besteaded by a shorter version of itself as with ambuscade/ambush. I saw the word insuperable for the first time today. It too has a pretty dismal ngram slope and seems to be one of those quaint old words. Does that make it dated or archaic since in XX years I'v never seen the word or for that unsurmountable is the word one would expect to see? Of course not. I look'd at the word chrononaut, it's tagg'd "science fiction" and "dated". Truly? A sci-fi word that's still noted in some time travel sci-fi stories (see The Chrononaut, by Richard Hamliton, 2011) and it's tagg'd dated as if it went out of style in 50s? ... Wait, looks like it didn't show up til 1970 ... but someone tagg'd it "dated"? At least the ngram has an upward slope! That's a bad tag! ... --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! (talk) 22:25, 21 August 2012 (UTC) Isn't this slur also applied to people of Latin American descent (especially Mexicans)? --Æ&Œ (talk) 11:42, 27 July 2012 (UTC) Looks as though it's a general ethnic slur and one specifically for Italians. I don't see it as specifically for Hispanics/Mexicans. I didn't check very carefully, though. We do seem to missing a sense: it seems to be a baseball pitch, or the ball thus pitched.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:12, 27 July 2012 (UTC) I've only ever heard it used specifically to Italians, the closest I have heard for Latins is greasy mexican, greasy cuban, greasy salvadoran etc. But even that is rare and stinking is usually used for those groups, stinky is used for Indians and pakis. And greaseball/greaser/guide for ItaliansLucifer (talk) 22:01, 27 July 2012 (UTC) How is this entry doing? Is there anything I missed?Lucifer (talk) 21:59, 27 July 2012 (UTC) Looks good to me. I fixed it per Ruakh's comments. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 17:54, 28 July 2012 (UTC) The adverb sense of כדאי seems to be defined with adjectives. This makes me wonder whether it should really be an adjective of whether the definition needs to be changed. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 10:54, 28 July 2012 (UTC) I had difficulty with this one, so I hewed pretty closely to the information in Even-Shoshan (the listed reference). As far as I can tell from his assignment of cites to senses, he considers it an adjective when it modifies a noun (or pronoun, or implicit subject of an appropriate copula), with or without an infinitive complement, and an adverb when it stands alone with an infinitive. The former seems indisputably correct to me. The latter is trickier. I doubt that Even-Shoshan is really saying that it's an adverb in a very strict sense; it's just that in traditional grammar, "adverb" (or תה״פ) is a bit of a catch-all POS (like "particle" in more modern grammar). I'd be O.K. with listing the "adverb" as an adjective. It's different from the currently-listed adjective in that it would apparently be modifying the infinitive, whereas with the currently-listed adjective the infinitive is clearly a complement; but that's not a big deal. I guess that would put it in Category:Hebrew impersonal adjectives. —RuakhTALK 17:18, 28 July 2012 (UTC) Example: כדאי לך לקרוא את הסיפור הזה. In English this would translate to "It is worthwhile for you to read this story." Here worthwhile is an adjective and I always thought of the Hebrew version as containing an implicit "it is". But now I thought about it more and realized that in Russian it translates to either "Стоит тебе прочесть этот рассказ." or "Желательно тебе прочесть этот рассказ." In the first case, "стоит" is a verb meaning "[it] is worthwhile", while in the second case "желательно" is an adverb meaning "desirably" (I could not think of an adverb for worthwhile but grammatically it makes no difference). Clearly for an English speaker, כדאי takes the place of an adjective and therefore seems like it is an adjective, but for a Russian speaker (since it clearly is not a verb) it replaces an adverb and therefore is seen as an adverb. I now wonder, how does a native speaker of Hebrew interpret כדאי in the example above? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 19:11, 28 July 2012 (UTC) Well, native speakers aren't always great at identifying POSes; in fact, they're often pretty terrible at it. But my instinct, as a more-or-less-native speaker, is that k'dái is the same POS as nóakh, namely "adjective" (or what I think of as "impersonal adjective" — though N.B. that's not a standard term). Certainly k'dái and nóakh can, as you put it, "take the place of" the other. They both can take just an infinitive, or an object-with-to plus an infinitive, or a she- clause (though they differ in that k'dái with a she- clause generally does not take an object-with-to, whereas nóakh with a she- clause generally does). —RuakhTALK 17:24, 31 July 2012 (UTC) Alright, I think it should be an adjective then. But I'm not quite sure how to change it to adjective while keeping it separate enough from the other sense so it is clear they are not used in the same way. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 19:23, 31 July 2012 (UTC) [edit] onion idoms A bizarre chain of events led me to some idioms about onions. know one's onions seems definitely idiomatic — and missing — to me. I'm rather less sure of the French regretter les oignons d'Égypte. It comes from the Christian Bible, and idiomatically translates into German as sich nach den Fleischtöpfen Ägyptens sehnen and into English as to sigh for the fleshpots of Egypt. But it's a fairly straight reference to Numbers 11:5–6. For what it's worth, it is listed under the entry for oignon in the 19th century Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, alongside such things as être vêtu comme un oignon (redlinked on fr:) and en rang d'oignon (c.f. fr:en rang d'Oignon). Comments please. Uncle G (talk) 10:59, 28 July 2012 (UTC) I've added the English idiom. No idea about the French. But I'll add Johnny onions next (I haven't seen one since the early 1950s). SemperBlotto (talk) 11:19, 28 July 2012 (UTC) Wikipedia uses the term Onion Johnny rather than "Johnny onions". Can that be sourced too? —Angr 12:08, 28 July 2012 (UTC) I imagine so. ☺ See also ISBN 9781862322202. Uncle G (talk) 22:27, 28 July 2012 (UTC) What attestation standards apply to taxonomic name entries? If the only works using a taxonomic name are by the same author does that meet our independence criterion? In the case of this term there might be some difference of opinion as to whether Garra pingi pingi is really a synonym of Garra imberba, rather than a different species. If we can't find use of Garra pingi pingi outside of Chinese works, does that mean it isn't translingual. If it isn't accepted translingually, is it really a taxonomic name? DCDuring TALK 02:11, 29 July 2012 (UTC) If I came up with the word agsplargh and published several novels using it, unless other people and other authors start using it, it would not meet inclusion criteria. So what's different about a taxonomic name? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 04:36, 29 July 2012 (UTC) Taxonomy has very particular rules about whether a name is valid. For the name Garra agsplargh to be valid, it would have to be published in a recognized, durably archived taxonomic work, have a description of the species that meets certain standards, and meet a variety of other requirements. The publication of a taxonomic name isn't just an occurrence in print, it's a taxonomic act. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:54, 29 July 2012 (UTC) Taxonomic usage is quite foreign to our CFI. To be a valid taxonomic name, it only has to be published once in an approved work, and meet the standards for taxonomic names in the code that covers the taxonomic group in question (in this case the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature). There have been a number of cases where a name is published, then never mentioned again for decades or even a century or two- but then someone realizes that it applies to a taxon widely known by one or more names that were published later. If there are no rules in the relevant code to make an exception because of the disruption the renaming would cause, that name is then the accepted name for the taxon. The ornamental Coleus is just such an example: a lot of people still know it as Coleus blumei, but the correct name is now considered to be Solenostemon scutellarioides To make things even more counterintuitive, the ICZN (probably the other codes do as well, but I don't know them as well) has a provision that publishing a new species automatically counts as publishing the subspecies of the same name. A trinomial name could theoretically be the only valid name for a subspecies without ever having appeared in print at all. I really don't know if we should even have entries on most taxonomic names that consist of more than a link to a reference like wikipedia or wikispecies- we really have no business making decisions about the validity of taxonomic names. If you think wikilawyering is bad, you should see some of the arcane debates in scientific publications about whether a given name is valid according to the taxonomic code. As for the question of whether a taxonomic name is translingual: if the work in question isn't written in Latin, there's more than one language involved, right there. Besides which, taxonomic nomenclature as a system is translingual, so any of the names that make it up is, by definition, also translingual. It's like saying that a sentence that's never been uttered isn't English, even though all the words are English and they're spoken by a monolingual English speaker according to the grammatical rules of the language. As to this case: Garra pingi pingi (if it was validly published), is a valid taxonomic name, if only as a synonym for Garra imberba. Fishbase gives a 2005 reference for the current taxonomy, so it no doubt appeared in that. The ICZN requires durable archiving for a work to be taxonomically valid, so I'm pretty confident there are at least 3 durable cites. I would contend that listing in a synonymy is more than a mere mention: it's saying things about the name beyond the mere fact that it exists. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:44, 29 July 2012 (UTC) I was not questioning the validity of the name in taxonomy. I only meant that it probably should not be included on Wiktionary, which is not a taxonomic dictionary but a general-purpose dictionary. If the word isn't used by anyone except for one person, it doesn't seem like it would be useful to anyone here. Wikispecies seems to be a much better place for it. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 07:36, 29 July 2012 (UTC) Is there any reason not to include it? People aren't forced to read the entry. So if it meets WT:CFI, mainly in terms of being idiomatic and being attested, just keep it. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:03, 29 July 2012 (UTC) @Wikitiki89: In part it's a question of how we go about adding taxonomic names. I've never wanted to include species names which seem to include the least attested, least accepted taxons. Users really would probably like to know whether a species name is "correct" or accepted and, if it isn't, what the "correct" name is. Can we can provide that? I think there is more stability at some higher levels, though plenty of change. Even Wikispecies has large gaps at the level of species. OTOH, I have been working to regularize species epithets and taxonomic names at the level of genus, which is often the most intuitive level. There is a BP issue in this, but I couldn't formulate it now. Most comprehensive general-purpose dictionaries (Webster's, at least since 1913, and Century) have included many taxonomic names. The OED does not. Smaller dictionaries do not. We are both comprehensive and multilingual and operate under the slogan "All words in all languages". We have more reason than most to include the words that make up the language of taxonomic classification. DCDuring TALK 13:13, 29 July 2012 (UTC) @MG: I would love not to include species-level names. EP shared this preference, AFAICT. I find it hard to provide some of the information that users would most like to know. DCDuring TALK 13:13, 29 July 2012 (UTC) I don't have a problem with taxonomic names, just with the fact that only one author has written about it. It may be enough to be accepted in the taxonomic community but it certainly does not meet any of the 3 criteria for attestation on WT:CFI. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:27, 29 July 2012 (UTC) I will link to this discussion and to Talk:Garra pingi pingi, the presumed destination for archiving purposes for it or a link to its archive location. DCDuring TALK 04:27, 9 September 2012 (UTC) FWIW, I agree with Wikitiki. "Wiktionary […] is not a taxonomic dictionary but a general-purpose dictionary". WT:CFI: "A term should be included if it's likely that someone would run across it and want to know what it means." If a taxonomic name is only used once, in a work that (necessarily) describes it, then the rare person who reads that work will already know what the name means, because the work will have explained. - -sche (discuss) 05:16, 9 September 2012 (UTC) It will be interesting to see what this means for some of the species and subspecies that we already have. In Finnish we have a few vernacular names with definiens that include subspecies taxonomic names. I haven't examined the attestability of the subspecies names. I suppose we always have the fall-back of omitting the taxonomic name entry. We thereby reduce the likelihood that we would collect the vernacular name in other languages, eg, Sami, Swedish. DCDuring TALK 11:44, 9 September 2012 (UTC) Wiktionnaire gives this as Personnage qui se vante d'avoir surmonté des obstacles qui n'existaient pas ou qui n'existaient plus (Person who brags about overcoming obstacles which didn't existed or didn't exist any longer). Have we got in English a good translation for this concept? Also valid is the noun enfoncer des portes ouvertes (one dictionary gives the translation state the obvious which doesn't seem right to me). Any help? --Le Fondu (talk) 10:00, 29 July 2012 (UTC) FWIW, state the obvious seems a highly plausible candidate for an entry in English. --Le Fondu (talk) 10:01, 29 July 2012 (UTC) How about Captain Obvious? --Le Fondu (talk) 10:02, 29 July 2012 (UTC) I don't think Captain Obvious brags about overcoming nonexistent obstacles, nor do I think that such bragging is the same thing as stating the obvious. —Angr 10:19, 29 July 2012 (UTC) It's not easily translated. braggadocio, braggart, and fanfaron encapsulate most of the meaning, but miss some of what is being boasted about. Apparently, we used to have, a century and a half ago, Tommy Noodle as an idiomatic translation for this, but that seems to have dropped out of usage. Uncle G (talk) 14:50, 29 July 2012 (UTC) I think "One who brags about overcoming nonexistent obstacles" (per Angr) is a good definition, with perhaps a mention that it literally means something like "one who breaks down (or through?) open doors". As for state the obvious, I'm not sure it's not SOP. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:58, 29 July 2012 (UTC) The perfect stem given in the principal parts doesn't match the perfect stem in the conjugation table. I'm not sure which is right (I can't seem to find this word in Perseus), but if the conjugation table is wrong, a lot of the bot-created inflected entries are going to have to be deleted. This, that and the other (talk) 11:02, 29 July 2012 (UTC) I've fixed the conjugation table. I'll tidy up later. SemperBlotto (talk) 11:06, 29 July 2012 (UTC) (ec) Unfortunately, they were both wrong, as were the supine/past participle forms. I've corrected it now: the perfect is allēvī and the supine is allitum. This is a derivative of lino, which is one of a few verbs in Latin that has an -n- in the present stem but not in other forms. —Angr 11:10, 29 July 2012 (UTC) I added {{R:L&S}}. The entry name works just fine for finding the word at Perseus. You may have tried the headword (macron) form. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:38, 29 July 2012 (UTC) Also adlino? This, that and the other (talk) 22:54, 29 July 2012 (UTC) It should be the same, since it's made up of the same parts. The only difference is that it lacks the assimilation of the d to the following l that normally happens when a prefix ending in d is added to a word starting with l. Lewis & Short list it as part of the header for the allino entry ("al-lĭno (adl- ), lēvi, lĭtum"). Chuck Entz (talk) 23:06, 29 July 2012 (UTC) I realise that. Could some kind soul please fix the same problems that exist at adlino? This, that and the other (talk) 03:13, 30 July 2012 (UTC) BTW, I was accessing Perseus via the "Word Study Tool" (http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=allino&la=la). It is, as you can see, not returning anything for "allino". Maybe the 1s pres ind act form is not attested, because forms like http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=allinet&la=la give results. This, that and the other (talk) 03:20, 30 July 2012 (UTC) I copied the relevant parts from allino and changed all to adl. If that's wrong, feel free to revert. As for the Word Study Tool: I'm not so sure it's complete, though I have no way of knowing. From the number of titles that have no hyperlinks in the dictionaries, I gather they don't have the complete corpus of either Classical Latin or Ancient Greek in their databases with morphological tagging. It could be a matter of which works they've already processed. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:37, 30 July 2012 (UTC) Am I right in thinking the verb sense should just be {{past of|speak for}} retaining the usage note and the example sentence. Also I'm not sure the adjective is one, isn't it also {{past of|speak for}}? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:03, 30 July 2012 (UTC) I think so, but I can't speak for what others. Has anyone used the sense of speak for that is the origin of spoken for [in the last centtury]? - ?"I spoke for my share of reward." The usage example seems at least archaic. If it is archaic, I would think we should join the several OneLook lemmings that have it as an adjective. There is also the quaint sense of spoken for meaning "engaged to be married, or nearly so" (or something. I question whether all (any?) the senses of speak for are, first, phrasal verbs and, second, meet CFI. Some lemmings have some of the senses, but, of course, not MWOnline. Tellingly, McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Idioms and Phrasal Verbs, not bashful about claiming (*speaking for) verb-particle combinations as phrasal verbs only has the adjective sense. DCDuring TALK 20:36, 30 July 2012 (UTC) Also, the translation target rationale is not very compelling for phrasal verbs as there are hardly any phrasal verb entries that have translations. DCDuring TALK 20:38, 30 July 2012 (UTC) I'm certainly not feeling the current implicit claim that when a person is spoken for, it's an adjective, but when seats are spoken for, it's a past participle. Either they're both adjectives, or they're both past participles, or they're both both. —Angr 22:12, 30 July 2012 (UTC) I think the rationale for including the adjective (absent evidence of gradability) would be that the verb speak only has the meaning "claim" in archaic current usage. Is there such a concept in etymology as a stranding of a sense of an inflected form? DCDuring TALK 22:20, 30 July 2012 (UTC) If we don't like ===Adjective===, we can instead say that this sense of speak for is now restricted to the passive voice. Brett (talk • contribs) wrote here about 23 verbs that occur more commonly in the passive voice than in the active, and similar sorts of restrictions are seen with various other verbs (for example, "I've never been to China" uses a sense of be that's restricted to the perfect aspect), so it's not completely farfetched. —RuakhTALK 03:42, 31 July 2012 (UTC) That's how MWOnline presents it. I wish we had the ability to redirect users who search for "spoken for" to a specific sense of a polysemic term like speak. As we lack that ability, why don't we direct users to spoken and place our definition there. I haven't found an instance at google books of "[speak] for a seat" and only one of a "seat [being] spoken for", so our usage example seems to be a stretch. DCDuring TALK 04:59, 31 July 2012 (UTC)   1941, Jean Ingram Brookes, International Rivalry in the Pacific Islands, 1800–1875, University of California Press, page 76: […] Australia and New Zealand, the only suitable places, were already spoken for by Great Britain. "Most of the good colonial territories were already spoken for; […]" — ISBN 9780847684694 p. 106 "The school was very partial to legacies and 30 of the places were already spoken for." — ISBN 9780470604540 p. 219 "We were informed that there were fifty-four seats onboard the aircraft for this mission, but approximately thirty of the seats were already spoken for." — ISBN 9781440125621 p. 515 Uncle G (talk) 14:55, 31 July 2012 (UTC) Thanks. Great to have reasonably current cites. Now we need to finally decide on the entry ([[spoken]], [[speak]], or [[spoken for]]?) and the PoS header if [[spoken for]] is the entry (Adjective or Verb). My preferred order is the order given. DCDuring TALK 15:17, 31 July 2012 (UTC) I've started the dinged-up and is unsure whether it is derived from "to ding" or "to dinge". Would be grateful for clarification. Cheers, --CopperKettle (talk) 13:36, 1 August 2012 (UTC) Definitely ding (in the sense "To inflict minor damage upon, especially by hitting or striking"). Chuck Entz (talk) 13:51, 1 August 2012 (UTC) Thank you! I'll start the new article for "to ding up" then. (Watching a movie "The Right Stuff, saw this dialogue: "A horse threw me last night and I dinged up my goddamn ribs"). --CopperKettle (talk) 13:57, 1 August 2012 (UTC) [edit] aboriginal Is it possible that the word aboriginal true meaning is god's original? I based this thought on the premise that in most cultures that when a word is prefixed with (Ab).it is to note god.as (Ab) is derived from the word Abba , meaning father.I also find it strange that words are changed to deceive people. such as nigger which is not a mispronunciation of negro. but is a mispronunciation of Niger the Latin name for an African nation .negro is a mispronunciation of negro, the Latin word for black.both words were derived from Nero the black king of Rome whom, making the use of the word, not an insult. but a compliment.as calling someone a nigger is tantamount to calling them king. Webster changed its meaning to mean lazy person.this is an attempt to hide the true guides of the word being a negative term.in the eyes of fools. they should have given it a positive meaning they would have neutralized the use of the word.and it would have lost its power in it's bigotry form.because bigots could not use the word for hate.but with the definition of lazy shiftless person, it leaves it open for use as a negative part of history. Ethiopian is another word that is used to discriminate. Ethiopian some will tel you that Ethiopian means people with burnt faces, but what they don't tell you is it really says more. the (E)sound of the word notes god. Ethiopian means gods people of burnt faces. we call the Christ the king of kings. by the way was only given to the line of Menalech the son of Solomon.the king of Ethiopia.also the the son of the queen of Sheba. hum? The OED gives "ab" as meaning "from." The OED says both "nigger" and "negro" derive (probably) from the Latin "niger," meaning "black." See Nero on Wikipedia to learn about his family. The origin of "Ethiopia" is not clear. It comes from the ancient Greek (as far back as the "Iliad") Αἰθίοψ, (Aithiops), meaning "an Ethiopian." Beyond that, Wikipedia says that modern scholars believe it comes 'from the Greek words aitho "I burn" + ops "face".' It is easy to corrupt words and invent etymologies to confuse and deceive people. Even if it's true that "Ethiopia" comes from "I burn face," that does not mean that in ancient Greece it was considered a mark of discrimination. Does the expression "flaming red hair" indicate discrimination against people with red hair? --BB12 (talk) 04:53, 2 August 2012 (UTC) @BB: Note that the form "I burn" is just because the lemma form for verbs in Ancient Greek is 1st person singular present active indicative. Αἰθίοψ is more likely to be from the past participle of that verb, thus "burnt face". @96: We call this a folk etymology. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 05:11, 2 August 2012 (UTC) What the hell did I just read? You find it strange that words are changed to deceive people? I find it strange people make up nonsense etymologies that "coincidentally" fit their views and spread ludicrous fake historical "facts". — Ungoliant (Falai) 15:12, 2 August 2012 (UTC) I was about to remove the translations for "Past participle of hide", but then I hesitated. Any opposition or ideas? --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:13, 2 August 2012 (UTC) The "definition" of the adjective read the same as the definition of the past participle would: "that has been hidden". But something that has the attribute "hidden" need not have been hidden by anyone or anything. I have added two adjective senses, one about ~invisibility, the other about ~obscurity. It would not surprise me if all the adjective translations warranted {{ttbc}}. Are the translations in the past participle section any worse? Maybe all the translations, from both PoS sections, should be in one big checktrans table. DCDuring TALK 20:01, 2 August 2012 (UTC) We voted on this, the translations of "Past participle of hide" are invalid per the vote (cannot remember the name, sorry). Mglovesfun (talk) 16:52, 3 August 2012 (UTC) What does this term mean? --Æ&Œ (talk) 22:08, 2 August 2012 (UTC) Across all Romance languages. —Angr 22:30, 2 August 2012 (UTC) I get the feeling that this is an English interjection, but I'm a bit on the fence for both the language and the part of speech. Moreover, I don't know what the meaning is. Should I say An interjection used to denote elementary Latin education? (P.S. Yes, I can cite it in English texts.) --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 15:33, 3 August 2012 (UTC) It may be more of a meme than an idiomatic phrase. —CodeCat 15:53, 3 August 2012 (UTC) In this case, I don't know how to differentiate. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 16:16, 3 August 2012 (UTC) I suppose it's about the difference between social/cultural aspects and language aspects. A meme seems like something that is known and used because of its place within social and cultural norms, while an idiom is part of the language. I don't really know how else to say it. Think of an idiom as "that's how we say it in our language" while a meme is "that's how we say it in our social/cultural group". They can coincide, and often do, but they don't have to. —CodeCat 16:20, 3 August 2012 (UTC) I agree because it seems that this could be used in any language really. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 10:55, 4 August 2012 (UTC) [edit] Nefarious etymology The nefarious article has an etymology that diverges a bit from "CopperKettle (talk) 13:00, 6 August 2012 (UTC) I don't understand. The etymologies are almost identical to one another. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 20:33, 6 August 2012 (UTC) Never mind. I see that DCDuring just fixed it. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 20:36, 6 August 2012 (UTC) Great. I'm just not versed in Latin to decide which etymology was more correct. --CopperKettle (talk) 01:01, 7 August 2012 (UTC) The second sense currently reads "A place for storing goods", and has a quotation. But it seems to me that the quotation doesn't support that sense. After all, the place where water was stored didn't literally plunge, it was the amount of stored water that decreased. So I think the quotation actually supports a sense that is still missing from the entry? —CodeCat 20:13, 7 August 2012 (UTC) That seems right. DCDuring TALK 01:13, 8 August 2012 (UTC) Strongly agree that the quote doesn't back up this sense. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:28, 8 August 2012 (UTC) [edit] Does Wiktionary need a kerfing? kerfing - from "to kerf" - a technique of bending wooden workpiece by weakening it on one side with parallel incisions, or kerfs. Does the gerund merits an inclusion in the dictionary in the sense of a noun? --CopperKettle (talk) 23:59, 7 August 2012 (UTC) If the "ing"-form, 1., attestably occurs as a plural or, 2., has a different sense than the verb, we would have an entry for it. Kerfing looks like it might make it on both accounts. See this specialized glossary for a definition, not closely related to what you are referring to. The plural seems mostly connected to this different sense. DCDuring TALK 00:58, 8 August 2012 (UTC) Very interesting, thank you! --CopperKettle (talk) 01:47, 8 August 2012 (UTC) I don't think the source is linguistically reliable, in that their definition of kerf#Verb and its etymology seem implausible and are not supported by any dictionary I've looked at. It would make more sense to me to think of (countable) kerfing to be derived from the meaning of kerf as "cut" so a kerfing would be a kind of "cutting", perhaps a very thin, flexible one, like a spline. Relatedly, is there a word for a strip of wood used to fasten two thin panels together? Imagine making a box out of veneer or very thin plywood. Each pair of abutting edges of the panels could be fastened to a molding strip on the inside of the box. Fastening could be by glue or other means. The molding strips need not be joined to each other to form a frame. A glue strip is this kind of strip, but isn't there a generic one-word term? DCDuring TALK 11:47, 8 August 2012 (UTC) Hm.. For guitars at least, that word may be "lining" - I've found that most probably the "kerfing" is a lutherie cant word for "kerfed lining". --CopperKettle (talk) 10:33, 11 August 2012 (UTC) Is fine as in "I paid a fine" the same sense as "I received a fine"? In the former, the "fine" means "money paid as punishment", but you can't substitute that same meaning into the latter - I didn't receive money off someone, I received a notice telling me that that I have to pay someone else money. Are these separate, or am I reading too much into this? Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:51, 8 August 2012 (UTC) I think it has more to do with senses of pay and receive. One receives a bill, an invoice. etc. and pays the same. Chuck Entz (talk) 11:36, 8 August 2012 (UTC) "I received a bill" and "I paid a bill" are both using the same sense of bill, "a notice of money owed" (with pay as in DCDuring's sense given below). The point I was trying to make (which I probably didn't make clearly enough) is that the term fine seems to refer both to the notice and the money itself. Perhaps it's clearer to illustrate it like this: you couldn't say "This money here is the bill", but you could say "This money here is the fine". Smurrayinchester (talk) 13:08, 8 August 2012 (UTC) It's hard to know when to stop adding definitions to cover metonymy. DCDuring TALK 15:26, 8 August 2012 (UTC) As is so often the case with our entries for the most common words, we lack the transitive sense of pay: "to discharge a debt for". We had a corresponding intransitive sense. We could have edited down and split the verbose Webster's 1913 definition: "To discharge, as a debt, demand, or obligation, by giving or doing what is due or required; to deliver the amount or value of to the person to whom it is owing; to discharge a debt by delivering (money owed)." DCDuring TALK 12:17, 8 August 2012 (UTC) I agree with Smurrayinchester. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:40, 8 August 2012 (UTC) Adjective: Having part of the face projecting beyond the body or shank; -- said of type. Worded this way the connection to kern#Verb is obscured. Is it attestable in this meaning as opposed to as a past participle of kern? I can't find evidence of comparability of gradability. But Webster 1913 had this definition. Our etymology follows Online Etymology Dictionary, a usually reliable source, from a French word meaning "corner". Century has the sense evolution as kern ("grain") => kern ("a projecting bit of a letter") (metaphor). From there, for both the evolution continues => kerned ("having such a projection") (suffix), from which the evolution continues => kern ("to adjust letter spacing for such projections") (back-formation) => kerned#Verb (inflection). We lack the older senses of kern, which Century has or at least supports. In a strictly contemporary dictionary, the adjective PoS would not belong. We would, I'm sure, be happy to have the older, missing senses of kern. To do this justice, we should have each milestone on the evolutionary path recorded and both etymologies. Is this too obsessively complicated? Am I missing or imagining something? DCDuring TALK 18:43, 8 August 2012 (UTC) Is ê an IPA character? Mglovesfun (talk) 10:10, 9 August 2012 (UTC) According to w:IPA, it is a tonal mark that indicates a falling tone. I don't know if that is what it means in Kurdish though. —CodeCat 10:31, 9 August 2012 (UTC) WP says it's [e]. — Ungoliant (Falai) 18:42, 9 August 2012 (UTC) Everything in Category:Kurdish rhymes seems to be based on Latin orthography rather than IPA. As long as the orthography faithfully represents the pronunciation (like Finnish and unlike English) I don't see a problem. —Angr 19:56, 10 August 2012 (UTC) The problem would be when two terms rhyme but aren't spelled the same. In English fair and fare would do it. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:00, 11 August 2012 (UTC) Not necessarily, provided words are entered onto rhyme pages according to their pronunciation rather than their spelling. Say Kurdish borrows the English word save for use in computing contexts, retains the English spelling, but pronounces it as a homophone of sêv ("apple"). In that case, save#Kurdish could still be listed at Rhymes:Kurdish:-êv even though it's not spelled with -êv. —Angr 09:33, 11 August 2012 (UTC) [edit] inclusion of the word 'OVERSKIES' in wiktionary Can the word 'OVERSKIES' be included in wiktionary? This word is used in the novel '3rd planet' published on amazon.com to indicate space travel. The book imagines life on other planets and travel between the galaxies and in that context this word is used. Can someone help? —This unsigned comment was added by Bravikiransingh (talk • contribs). The word overskies is very rare. It seems to be invented from the word overseas. Basically, you need to be able to provide three independent citations of its use. Good luck. SemperBlotto (talk) 07:19, 11 August 2012 (UTC) A search on Google Books for "overskies" ([15]), yields three or four citations with one or two meanings, and that does not include "3rd planet," so you should be able to add it. --BB12 (talk) 07:36, 11 August 2012 (UTC) As always when defining a term or sense not in other dictionaries, before trying to produce a definition, collect a few citations (on the citations page, if you'd like). It may not be used most commonly with the meaning it might have in the novel. Most of the usage seems literary. But poetry rarely makes a good citation, since the meaning is often highly ambiguous. Also, the occasional use in technical papers is likely by non-native speakers and so may be of questionable use. DCDuring TALK 14:09, 11 August 2012 (UTC) And, obviously you should look at both oversky and overskies as the relationship between the two is probably much like that between sky and skies. DCDuring TALK 14:11, 11 August 2012 (UTC) I've started some collections at Citations:oversky and Citations:overskies. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 14:39, 11 August 2012 (UTC) I've made a first attempt at overskies. SemperBlotto (talk) 14:51, 11 August 2012 (UTC) I am bothered a whole lot by the presentation of this as an adverb. (idiomatic) Very much; a great deal; to a large extent. Thanks a lot for listening to me. It's a lot harder than it looks. (idiomatic) Often; frequently. I go swimming a lot. It seems to me that it is based on a confusion of levels of analysis. A lot functions adverbially but is obviously a noun phrase. That it is a noun phrase can be seen most clearly when it either accepts an adjective modifier in any of the usage examples from the entry or can become an object of a prepositional phrase: Thanks a whole lot for listening It's a hell of a lot harder than it looks. I go swimming an awful lot. The ability to insert such modifiers also demonstrates that it is not a set phrase, at least not for native speakers. The plural form lots can be substituted for a lot in at least two of the original entry usage examples (?Thanks lots is certainly attestable). In addition, various other nouns can substitute for lot in this class of usage and related classes, such as load, bunch, ton, heap, bundle, million. Also, I am not sure that thanks a lot is a good usage example for this, being itself as much a unit as a lot. All that said, the very high frequency of this term in this kind of usage warrants inclusion. My inclination would be to put all of the usage for the entire entry under a Phrase L2 header, perhaps providing the peculiarly adverbial usage with a grammatical usage label. Thanks a whole bunch for giving this your attention. DCDuring TALK 13:26, 11 August 2012 (UTC) Also note that you can replace lot with virtually any noun associated with being large (e.g. a ton, a heap, a million, a bunch, etc.). --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:42, 11 August 2012 (UTC) That was a good read. I think it functions adverbially, and thus considering it an adverb makes perfect sense. The insertion of modifiers is highly standardised, and I would argue that they are in fact simply there for emphasis, and their placement like modifiers is a throw-back to an age where people really considered this to be a noun phrase (the extremely common nonstandard spelling alot is testament to how much that is no longer true). --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 15:39, 11 August 2012 (UTC) Function is not the sole issue. Should we have a load#Adverb, a bundle#Adverb, a heap#Adverb, a ton#Adverb, a buttload#Adverb, all of which would be attestable, as well as many I haven't thought of. Should we have a lot of#Adjective? If making sense were the sole consideration, we wouldn't be putting non-constituents under the "Phrase" header. Almost any adjectival intensifier will do to modify lot as well as words like surprising, huge, scary in contemporary usenet and print usage, usually informal. Emphasis is what intensifiers provide, but they usually do so in conformity with syntax. The use of a modifier with lot is quite abundant currently. The word lot is still used abundantly in other, related ways that are even more "throwbacks" to earlier usage. The spelling a lot is more than 3,000 times more common than alot at COCA. a whole lot is 60 times more common. The purpose of have a Phrase section would be to properly treat the abundant non-SoP usage that breaks the set-phrase mold into which our entry attempts to force this idiom without having to duplicate everything to include both adverbial usage with modifiers and use of a lot in the construction a lot of. To some people, even a majority, our presentation may seem adequate, but to a lot it isn't. DCDuring TALK 18:38, 13 August 2012 (UTC) Once you also consider antonyms like a little and a bit and everything in between (a small amount, a decent amount, a good amount, a good bit, etc.), it becomes clear that it is a noun and that the usage of this type of noun phrase as an adverb is better explained by English grammar than by definitions. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 18:58, 13 August 2012 (UTC) I think we could still keep definitions at a lot#Noun (or a lot#Phrase) for "(used adverbially) In a large quantity; often". That definition covers a lot, but not well, so perhaps we should retain the two senses. Usage notes and usage examples might be the best ways to handle the variations. DCDuring TALK 19:58, 13 August 2012 (UTC) AFAICT, [[a damn sight]] and [[a fuck sight]] have the same POS issue. - -sche (discuss) 19:27, 7 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] Does demerit slip merits inclusion? demerit slip - does it merits an inclusion? As I understood, the meaning is generally such: 1. a written notice of demerit given to a pupil or serviceman for bad conduct. 2. An unfilled paper form, with some possible offenses pre-printed, given to a pupil or servicemаn to have on himself at all times in case a demerit should be given to him by his superior. --CopperKettle (talk) 15:51, 13 August 2012 (UTC) What's idiomatic about it? This is just the ordinary sense of slip as a small piece of paper (used as a token, voucher, note, or record). The same constructions exist with chit: sales slip/chit, receipt chit/slip, meal slip/chit, and so forth. Uncle G (talk) 18:26, 13 August 2012 (UTC) OK, I was also unsure. I just saw the phrase in my English-Russian online dictionary. Thank you for the answer. --CopperKettle (talk) 02:02, 14 August 2012 (UTC) Just a note about the section title: In English you don't normally see two inflected verbs in the same sentence: when there's an auxiliary verb such as "do", it takes the inflected form (here the 3rd-person singular form "does"), but the main verb is just the bare infinitive (here it's "merit"). It's not that big a deal, but I figured you would want to know the correct way to say it. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:51, 14 August 2012 (UTC) Sense 2 up there (pre-printed form) seems idiomatic to me. Siuenti (talk) 18:53, 14 August 2012 (UTC) [edit] As per I feel sure that the 'as' in this phrase is redundant. —This unsigned comment was added by 194.176.105.142 (talk • contribs) 2012-08-13 15:40:56‎. Very likely. However, that's what people actually say. SemperBlotto (talk) 15:48, 13 August 2012 (UTC) Like of a after an adjective instead of simply a, you mean? You could have told 194.176.105.142 that it wasn't that big of a deal, for example. Or you could have explained that once something reaches that great of a use descriptivist lexicographers regard exclusion as too wrong of an idea. (Yes, the emphasized phrases are all fairly well attested colloquialisms, however much you might be thinking "Damn it! Really?" right now. ☺) There's an interesting usage note in ISBN 9780195142365, on p. 81, saying that as per "originat[ed] in commercialese". Uncle G (talk) 17:54, 13 August 2012 (UTC) I have often come across this word in books and articles to denote a verb derived from a noun or adjective, typically in the context of Indo-European. So I think this may be missing a sense but I am not quite sure what that sense actually is. Wikipedia is no help either, it redirects w:Factitive to w:Causative and doesn't make any mention of this kind of usage at all. —CodeCat 17:52, 13 August 2012 (UTC) Sense 2: Rain, considered as a countable plural. Raindrops keep falling on my head... — words by w:B. J. Thomas, music by w:Burt Bacharach. What is that supposed to mean? That raindrops is a suppletive or something? I'm guessing that this should be deleted, but.... DCDuring TALK 18:02, 14 August 2012 (UTC) Silly: the song means that literal raindrops, drops of rain, are falling. The given sense is misleading and not needed. Compare snowflake, hailstone. Equinox ◑ 18:04, 14 August 2012 (UTC) I agree with Equinox; delete. - -sche (discuss) 19:17, 14 August 2012 (UTC) I agree with Equinox and -sche; delete. (BTW, such terms are called "singulatives", at least in the context of languages where they're a more productive feature of the grammar.) —RuakhTALK 20:08, 14 August 2012 (UTC) Thanks. I was about to lose my temper over this and could not think straight. Should this go through the RfD process or can it be speedied? DCDuring TALK 20:45, 14 August 2012 (UTC) Just speedy it. The original version of that page didn't present "plural of raindrop" and "rain, considered as a countable plural" as two separate senses IMHO. —RuakhTALK 21:01, 14 August 2012 (UTC) Gone. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:31, 14 August 2012 (UTC) [edit] hurry-furry merger Can someone check that the pronunciations in [[hurry]] and [[furry]] are correct, and label them as "with the hurry-furry merger" or "without the hurry-furry merger" as appropriate? I've assumed that if (as WP says) /ɜː/ is the vowel in the RP of "furry", /ʌ/ must be the vowel of "hurry" in accents that use different vowels in the two words. (This issue was brought to my attention by a thread on Ruakh's talk page.) - -sche (discuss) 19:41, 14 August 2012 (UTC) UNMERGED: hurry: /hʌɹi/ furry: /fɝ.ɹi/ Tharthan (talk) 20:04, 14 August 2012 (UTC) So, if the "hurry-furry" merger results in "hurry" (which is otherwise /ʌ/) being rhymed with "furry" (/ɜː/), then furry should never be pronounced with /ʌ/, regardless of the merger. Right? - -sche (discuss) 21:50, 14 August 2012 (UTC) I think so, yes. —Angr 22:10, 14 August 2012 (UTC) [edit] Mary-marry-merry merger What are the vowels of unmerged "Mary", "marry" and "merry"? And what vowel is used when they are merged? As I commented here: WP gives the merged pronunciation as /ɛ/ (which is the vowel of "met", and of "merry" in unmerged speech), but I generally heard the words merged with the sound of "mare", which WP says "Mary" has (and which [[mare]] gives as /ɛ(ə)/). - -sche (discuss) 20:01, 14 August 2012 (UTC) Unmerged: Mary- has the "a" of "scary." Merry- has the "e" of "met." Marry- has the "a" of "hat." Tharthan (talk) 20:04, 14 August 2012 (UTC) When they're merged, the vowel is /ɛ/, i.e. that of unmerged merry, but there's no difference between that vowel and the vowel of mare in accents with the merger, so it's not inaccurate to say the merged vowel is that of mare too. —Angr 21:02, 14 August 2012 (UTC) When they are merged, in America at least, the vowel is the same as that of Mary for those without the merger (IPA: /eə̯/ in General American, although I would describe it as a unique sort of vowel that doesn't quite fit within IPA). --WikiTiki89 (talk) 21:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC) I don't know about you, but I don't have anything even approaching a diphthong when I say "Mary/merry/marry", and when I compare my merged pronunciation with the unmerged pronunciation of British friends, "merry" is the one word we pronounce alike. My pronunciation of all three words is different from the Brits' pronunciation of "Mary". —Angr 21:36, 14 August 2012 (UTC) I would agree that it is not a diphthong, that is just how I've seen it transcribed. It is some sort of vowel that I have not been able to precisely identify. I am from New England, and for me it is the same vowel as in man (with æ tensing). There are people here with full mergers, partial mergers, and no mergers, and the commonality is everyone pronounces mare the same way, no matter which merger they have or don't have. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 21:58, 14 August 2012 (UTC) Well, I don't have æ-tensing, but I identify the vowel before the /ɹ/ in all four words (mare, marry, Mary, merry) as /ɛ/. More generally, I don't have any vowels before /ɹ/ + vowel that I don't have before /ɹ/ + consonant or syllable boundary, so sorry/starry have the same vowel as star, marry/merry/Mary have the same vowel as mare, serious/Sirius have the same vowel as steer, forest/Laura/glory have the same vowel as horse/hoarse (as those two are also merged), and hurry/furry have the same vowel as fur. Other accents (non-North American as well as more traditional East Coast accents) have more vowels before /ɹ/+vowel than before /ɹ/+consonant/syllable boundary. —Angr 22:19, 14 August 2012 (UTC) (after e/c) FWIW, I agree with the analysis of "mare" as having something more like /eə/ than /ɛə/. MacMillan's British dictionary has "mare" as /meə(r)/, "airy" as /ˈeri/ and "Mary" (in their entry for "Hail Mary") as /ˈmeəri/ but with audio that sounds to me more like "airy" than "mare". They also have "merry" as /ˈmeri/, with audio that (to my ear) clearly distinguishes it from "Mary", but also sounds subtly different from "airy". And they have "marry" as /ˈmeri/. I'm not sure that's helpful... their transcriptions merge "marry" and "merry" but not "Mary", and their audio seems to only subtly distinguish "merry" and "marry". - -sche (discuss) 22:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC) If they imply that airy and Mary don't rhyme, it's a mistake. I don't think there's an accent of English anywhere in which airy and Mary have different vowels. —Angr 22:37, 14 August 2012 (UTC) I would like to point out that I pronounce dairy as DAY-ree (IPA: /ˈdeɪ̯.ɹi/). However this only applies to dairy and not other -airy words, although this might just be a me-ism. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 22:47, 14 August 2012 (UTC) I'll record my pronunciations if anyone's curious (south-east England). They are three distinct vowels, like bad, bed, bared (BrE is non-rhotic). One thing I note is that the vowel in "Mary" is longer in duration than the others. Equinox ◑ 22:21, 14 August 2012 (UTC) (after e/c) I'd be quite interested to hear how you pronounce them. :) - -sche (discuss) 22:22, 14 August 2012 (UTC) Here ya go: [16] Equinox ◑ 22:30, 14 August 2012 (UTC) Equinox's pronunciations would be considered standard in the UK. There are regional variations, of course, but I can't think of any regions that have merger in careful speech. (No doubt someone will insist that, where they live, they can't tell the difference between two of the pronunciations, but I would suggest that such merger is rare in the UK. I'm puzzled by MacMillan's suggested similarities.) Dbfirs 11:39, 18 August 2012 (UTC) Does this term also mean 'to perform anilingus'? --Æ&Œ (talk) 20:18, 14 August 2012 (UTC) I'd say so, yes. —Angr 20:58, 14 August 2012 (UTC) "Eat out that ass" gets hits on Google Books. Whether "eat someone out" (a person) can refer to anal, I am not sure. P.S. Yuck. Equinox ◑ 22:03, 14 August 2012 (UTC) I think it can apply to pretty much anything (not only body parts), only that when you are referring to a person, there is a specific implied body part. So I think one sense can cover it all. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 22:11, 14 August 2012 (UTC) The translation table has "the previous night or evening", which reflects the definition immediately preceding the current one: (often used adverbially) The evening or night immediately before the present. (This entry is here for translation purposes only.), with the usage example: He said he didn't get any sleep last night and I know he hadn't gotten much the previous night. As a definition "The previous night or evening" misses the fact that this is used only relative to the speaker's present. The usage example may not be ideal for the long run but it illustrates the difference between previous and last, which may be useful for translators. Previous definitions have wavered between these two definitions. Do all of the translations need checking? The PoS is properly noun, but the use of the noun phrase is very often adverbial. The distinction between the Noun and Adverb PoS is silly from a monolingual dictionary point of view. Do our translators need the separation to be reminded of a possible distinction? Given the apparent difficulty contributors have with this, it seems we need to have a real entry rather than one that "is here for translation purposes only." DCDuring TALK 20:34, 15 August 2012 (UTC) I agree with your third point. Since this entry survived an RFD, I think it is reasonable to let it live on without that bizarre "translation purposes only" disclaimer. As such, I've removed it. This, that and the other (talk) 12:03, 18 August 2012 (UTC) The description at the top of the category is a bit strange. It says 'words' but at the same time they are used along with 'logograms'. To me, that means that these characters, when used in that function at least, are purely an orthographic device and not a part of speech (which is where this category is currently placed). Can anyone who knows more please shed some light on this? —CodeCat 16:38, 16 August 2012 (UTC) I've never studied Akkadian and I can't read cuneiform, but I've studied Ancient Egyptian and I'm starting on Chinese, which are both very similar. I think that these are correctly identified as belonging to a POS unto its own. At least in Egyptian, they are not pronounced, but they provide context to the preceding phonogram (and they identify it as being a phonogram rather than an ideogram). For example, indicates that the previous character(s) is/are the name of a deity. Similarly, in Chinese, 河 means "river"; historically, its pronunciation was probably very similar to that of 可 ("able"), which is etymologically unrelated. To disambiguate the characters, 氵 was added to the left side of 河, as an abbreviated form of 水 ("water"), with 氵 serving as a determinative. Does that explain it sufficiently? --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 17:34, 16 August 2012 (UTC) Doesn't that make them more like punctuation? Like how we use ! to indicate a nuance that is lost in writing? If they are not pronounced at all, ever, it seems very strange to call them "words". —CodeCat 17:36, 16 August 2012 (UTC) I don't think so. The problem is that we can argue endlessly about whether they are words or not, because they are not in the Western tradition. Wiktionary was not designed to cater to the oddities of most non-Western scripts, which is why our Chinese, Manchu, and other selections are really bad - our basic organizational premise does not fit the way the scripts work. Basically, we should treat them as words because they belong in a dictionary, and I know from experience that I stumble upon them and want to know what they mean. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 17:49, 16 August 2012 (UTC) Wiktionary includes lots of things that are not words. My question was only whether it is right to call them a part of speech, when they not used in speech. —CodeCat 17:55, 16 August 2012 (UTC) It's a similar problem, to which I give a similar answer: call it a part of speech, because under the Western system, it's close enough. Or just categorise straight to Category:Akkadian language, so we don't have to worry about how logically people think when they're looking for it. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 18:01, 16 August 2012 (UTC) As I understand it, there are two things you want to change: (1) you don't want Category:Akkadian determinatives to be a subcategory of Category:Akkadian parts of speech; (2) you want the category description to say something like "Akkadian symbols that […] " instead of "Akkadian words that […] ". Is that correct? If so, then I agree with you on both counts. —RuakhTALK 18:43, 16 August 2012 (UTC) Mostly the first, but I think the second point makes sense too. —CodeCat 18:45, 16 August 2012 (UTC) I'm as far as one can get from being a Sanskrit specialist, but aren't these two the same word? In which case, shouldn't their respective entries be joined into one page? --Pereru (talk) 03:09, 17 August 2012 (UTC) The entries are the same, but the spelling should render them different. Devanagari (at least as used in Sanskrit) is inherently syllabic: the default is that each consonant has a vowel. If the vowel isn't supplied by the diacritics, than the vowel is a schwa or similar short vowel (transliterated normally as "a"). The diagonal mark suppresses the implied vowel, which means that the first word should be transliterated as yuvana, not yuvan. If it were Hindi, yuvan would be correct. I wonder if the first one was a typo, with the second one being created because a search for the correct spelling went to a redlink. Of course, it's been a quarter of a century since I took Sanskrit at UCLA, so I could be forgetting some exception to the rules. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:21, 17 August 2012 (UTC) Following the link at युवन to the Monier-Williams dictionary page, the definitions used for युवन are all under the युवन् entry, and युवन is defined as "yuvana (?), m. the moon, L." That means that युवन is definitely an error. The etymologies should be reconciled and merged into the युवन् entry, and then युवन should be changed to include only the moon definition- or simply deleted. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:39, 17 August 2012 (UTC) The question mark in "yuvana (?), m. the moon, L." makes me reluctant to include it here, and the "L." means it's only found in lexica (ancient word-lists), not in running texts, so it probably doesn't meet CFI. And AFAICT युवन yuvana isn't even an inflected form of युवन् yuvan, so युवन yuvana should just be deleted. —Angr 10:00, 17 August 2012 (UTC) Do we need both? They're both English. In Edgar Rice Burroughs' book A Princess of Mars, it is lower case: I had but jumped from purgatory into gehenna. We keep both, because they're separate spellings, but we should probably turn gehenna into {{alternative capitalization of|Gehenna}}.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:53, 18 August 2012 (UTC) Should also sync up the etyms and the even the meanings. I think Gehenna has the better etym but I don't want to get in the middle. I rather let someone a little more knowledgable clean 'em up. --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! (talk) 13:22, 18 August 2012 (UTC) Used to say that "Manchurian" especially applies to non-Manchu; now says that it especially applies to non-Han. Which is it? Is it more complicated than either version? —RuakhTALK 01:28, 20 August 2012 (UTC) I think that it's correct now. I know somebody from Shenyang who is ethnically Han, and she does not identify as Machurian, nor do I think any modern sources would label people thus, but the Manchu, Jurchen, and other traditionally pastoral peoples, especially in Heilongjiang province, would not unlikely be called Manchurians in ethographic studies. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 04:13, 20 August 2012 (UTC) [edit] tot up to - separate from just tot up? tot up is listed to mean "to calculate the sum": "If Debbie can tot up the scores". But there's also a meaning "to aggregate to a certain amount, to equal, to amount to": Appropriations By Congress Tot Up To 13,110,000,000 (3rd July 1939). Should this meaning be included in the "tot up" or should a new article, "tot up to", be started? Does the preposition "to" tots it up to a separate linguistical entity? (0: Cheers, --CopperKettle (talk) 07:30, 20 August 2012 (UTC) A second sense at tot up sounds good. See add up, which can also work both ways. Equinox ◑ 10:17, 20 August 2012 (UTC) In US English I have heard tot up ("Let me tot up the bill") as the same as tote ("I toted the package upstairs"). Is it the same in UK English? What I hear is consistent with the etymology, but not with the double-t spelling or the "ed" and "ing" forms, which do, nevertheless, appear to be attestable. DCDuring TALK 12:51, 20 August 2012 (UTC) I think what you heard was tote ("To add up; to calculate a total"). Equinox ◑ 12:54, 20 August 2012 (UTC) I think that tot, being an abbreviation of total, is likely to be pronounced like tote. tote would then be an alternative spelling that reflects some people's pronunciation. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:56, 20 August 2012 (UTC) Lemming check: Chambers has verbs tot and tote, but does not list the tote (long o) pronunciation as a pronunciation for tot. Can you find a dictionary that does? Equinox ◑ 14:09, 20 August 2012 (UTC) The problem is, in spoken language, you can't tell how a word is spelled, while in written language, you can't tell how it is pronounced. It takes a bit of experimentation to find the right answer and this doesn't seem to be an important enough word for anyone to have conducted experiments on it. Here is what I think: In British English, it may well be that tot is pronounced with a short o, but in American English, the short o differs too much from the original long o in total for tot to be heard as a short form of total. Therefore tot would have to be seen as independent word to be pronounced with a short o in American English and it is not widespread enough in spoken language for this to be the case. If tot is seen as merely a short form of total, it will be pronounced with a long o in American English. Unfortunately, this falls under original research and I cannot find any proof, since if I here someone use a long o, there is no way to tell that they would spell it tot rather than tote. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 14:27, 20 August 2012 (UTC) There is no NOR here. Both forms clearly exist. The relative frequencies of single-t and double-t spelling of the ing and ed forms might have given some indication of the pronunciation of tot, but don't. At Google Books (One must discount Google's estimated totals on the first page of results.): tot/tote up the bill: 1.41; tots/totes...: 1.58; totted/toted...: 2.15; totting/toting...: 1.06. If long-o spellings had been more relatively more frequent in forms other than the base form than in the base form, that would have suggested that writers thought it was pronounced with a long o. I haven't looked at other corpora, but expect similar results. I also expect US speakers, at least, to agree that tot has a long o in the sense in question. In any event, I think these facts suggest that tote and tote up could be considered alternative forms of tot and tot up. DCDuring TALK 15:01, 20 August 2012 (UTC) I checked. To my surprise, WNW and AHD showed the same pronunciation for tot#Noun ("young child") and tot#Verb ("total"). I don't think we can call one an alternate form of the other. DCDuring TALK 15:15, 20 August 2012 (UTC) [edit] Doing better than Wikipedia from a standing start [edit] οἴκημα w:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oikema οίκημα (el:οίκημα) οἰκήματι Liddell and Scott I said that we could. Do you feel like proving me right? Uncle G (talk) 16:45, 20 August 2012 (UTC) It still needs a good inflection line and a declension table, and the reference templates seem to need work. DCDuring TALK 18:40, 20 August 2012 (UTC) Not a very difficult challenge to be honest. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:02, 20 August 2012 (UTC) True. But it visibly makes a point that I've been making for some time, now. We really can do lexicography better from a standing start, this being the lexicography project and all. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 22:04, 20 August 2012 (UTC) I've started adding quotations to the senses. :) - -sche (discuss) 19:18, 20 August 2012 (UTC) I've added a pronunciation, an inflection line, and a declension table. And !voted to delete the Wikipedia article without transwikiing it here. —Angr 21:22, 20 August 2012 (UTC) Thank you. Keep up the good work. Uncle G (talk) 22:04, 20 August 2012 (UTC) [edit] Splints (horse - bone swellings) See w:Splints - usually mentioned in plural, as far as I've understood; should this meaning be added into splint or into splints? (Was watching w:War Horse (film) and saw a mention at an episode where a horse undergoes a vet exam before being requisitioned into Army: "No curbs, no splints. Good feet and teeth.") Cheers, --CopperKettle (talk) 07:28, 21 August 2012 (UTC) I've heard and seen this term used quite a lot in online gaming to refer to a match between players playing the same ingame "faction" against each other (rather than two different factions). Such a match is called a mirror match, often shortened to just mirror. I wonder if mirror by itself would be a noun in this sense, or an adjective synonymous with mirrored? —CodeCat 20:41, 21 August 2012 (UTC) If it walks like a noun, and quacks like a noun, then it's a noun to me! I mean, it's taken from an adjectival past participle, but it's used as a noun (mirror's / mirrors / mirrors' ) Leasnam (talk) 20:45, 21 August 2012 (UTC) I don't get what the contributor was getting at with this sense: 4. (slang, with falling pitch) Used either to belittle the issuer of a statement/question, or sarcastically to indicate utter agreement, and that the statement being responded to is an extreme understatement. The intonation is changed to distinguish between the two meanings - implied dullness for belittlement, and feigned surprise for utter agreement. (belittlement) A:"We should go to an amusement park, it would be fun." B:"Huh." (agreement) A""Murder is bad." B:"Huh!" I have made some changes, but my changes may not have been good ones for this sense. See this earlier version, which reflected User:SCOTIMUS's original 2005 conception. DCDuring TALK 20:55, 22 August 2012 (UTC) Seems to me it's just sarcasm and should be removed or moved to a usage note. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 21:44, 22 August 2012 (UTC) Metaknowledge's edit to Southern belle (which I agree with; even a Google image search for "black Southern belle" turns up almost entirely white women) has me wondering how many other terms imply race. Is "Bubba" used of African Americans, or should "white" or "(usually white)" be added to some or all of its definitions? Also: I suspect "memaw", "papaw" and similar terms may be restricted to white usage, with AAVE using different words. If that is the case, is there a context tag for this like {{AAVE}}, or is it something to put in a usage note? - -sche (discuss) 06:30, 23 August 2012 (UTC) A Bubba is definitely white, as is a Southern belle, though it is not limited to the antebellum South, carrying over to recent times and possibly the present. We have {{Appalachian}} and {{Southern US}} as tags, but they don't apply to Bubba and Southern belle, which are merely about the South. Appalachian might fit some small number of terms like memaw and papaw. The definitive source for this kind of thing is DARE, which has recently completed its first run through the alphabet. DCDuring TALK 08:38, 23 August 2012 (UTC) I have always assumed that "Southern US" was not limited to white speech. Appalachian is, being from the hilly and mountainous parts of the South, but extending into West Virginia and possibly Pennsylvania, in which few blacks lived. DCDuring TALK 08:44, 23 August 2012 (UTC) Two separate definitions, to place in a physical place, and to place metaphorical, non-physical place. Do we normal, or indeed ever outside this entry, make this distinction? I don't think so. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:24, 23 August 2012 (UTC) And the example sentences actually seem to be for a participial adjective situated, rather than for the verb itself. —RuakhTALK 15:55, 23 August 2012 (UTC) We currently define the verb "closet" as "to have a private meeting", but the usage example is "the ambassador has been closeted with the prime minister all afternoon", which seems to be slightly different grammar. Should the usex be changed, or the definition? The usex sounds OK to me; I'd change the definition to something like "to be in a private meeting (with)". —Angr 18:55, 24 August 2012 (UTC) But that sounds like a definition for "be closeted", rather than for "closet". —RuakhTALK 19:02, 24 August 2012 (UTC) Oxforddictionaries.com defines "closet" as "shut (someone) away, especially in private conference or study". How about "shut (someone) away in a private meeting"? - -sche (discuss) 20:21, 24 August 2012 (UTC) I have added two senses and the somewhat fusty quotations from Websters 1913. Some of their wording seemed wrong, even for their examples. I also stretched the wording of the second to encompass the most common current sense. We could use some contemporary examples. The first added sense seems to correspond to the LGBT sense, which might warrant an 'especially', if not a separate sense. The "closet" metaphor in that sense was used to include situations of both concealment and confinement. DCDuring TALK 22:09, 24 August 2012 (UTC) I have combined the second of the senses you added with the sense which was already in our entry. I think the entry looks good now, although I wonder whether "interrogation" should be split off from or taken out of the current first sense. - -sche (discuss) 02:14, 25 August 2012 (UTC) I'd have to look at et some of the older citations again, but there were definitely uses that involved confinement and close (!) questioning or lecture and threat. Maybe it was all metaphorical then, as in the cite in which an entire Legislature was closeted. DCDuring TALK 04:17, 25 August 2012 (UTC) Alright, I've undid the merge, but I have changed the wording of the original sense (that is, the one which was first in the entry) from "to have a private meeting" to "to shut away for private discussion". Do you think the interrogation sense should have a {{dated}} tag, or is it still used? - -sche (discuss) 04:27, 25 August 2012 (UTC) I'll look at this again on Sunday. It needs some cites for the older senses. I see good continuity with the contemporary senses, but lots of change. DCDuring TALK 04:46, 25 August 2012 (UTC) We have two senses that I think refer to the same kind of thing and should be merged. Note that they do not appear to correspond to Wikipedia's distinction (which seems to refer to platform-independent machines, such as the Java VM, versus OS-hosted environments for running software from other platforms); even so, both are the same thing basically. Equinox ◑ 18:44, 26 August 2012 (UTC) Both definitions seem like encyclopedic detail to me. Isn't the essence of the matter that the virtual machine 'behaves' like a real machine from the point of view of an OS programmer? DCDuring TALK 19:27, 26 August 2012 (UTC) Yes, that's my point. What you use a virtual machine for (which might be running Microsoft Office on a Linux system, or simply running a Java applet in your browser) doesn't change the fact that any software emulation of a (real or theoretical) processor and environment is a "virtual machine". Equinox ◑ 19:31, 26 August 2012 (UTC) First, it is a just question of how the words are used, not what is actually true. Aren't the people who use the term virtual machine OS programmers or similar, who are interacting with the machine at the relevant virtual-machine-specific level? If I have a Mac and run a Windows emulator, would I call that a virtual machine or virtual Windows or what? DCDuring TALK 20:57, 26 August 2012 (UTC) I don't see them as the same thing; a program running on a JVM can still be entangled with the details of the operating system its running on, like where the files are stored, whereas an OS hosted environment is more of a virtual computer, in that programs running on it can't (in theory) figure out what the underlying system is or necessarily that they're even running on a virtual computer. We're talking about two completely different styles of encapsulation.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:00, 27 August 2012 (UTC) Those seem to be two distinct uses of virtual machines, rather than two distinct meanings of "virtual machine". To compare: the fact that some operating systems can reach outside their own remit and look at other OSes on the same disk doesn't really give us a separate sense of "operating system". Equinox ◑ 03:43, 27 August 2012 (UTC) I don't see that as parallel. A full operating system has control over the whole machine and can look at anything else on the machine. The virtual computer sense strikes me as almost SOP; it's a virtual machine that's running on. The JVM, OTOH, is not a machine that's been virtualized.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:46, 27 August 2012 (UTC) I agree with Prosfilaes; these are two different uses of the same word-sequence. If someone said "I ran the program on a virtual machine", and it turned out they just meant that it was a Java program that they ran using java.exe . . . well, I'd be completely confuzzled. —RuakhTALK 03:43, 27 August 2012 (UTC) I don't know about one or two definitions here, I only ever use this term in the second sense. I do think that the use of the word "partition" is dangerous, because it has a very specific meaning in computing and I don't think that is the meaning intended in the definition. - TheDaveRoss 23:30, 27 August 2012 (UTC) Re: "[partition] has a very specific meaning in computing": I don't think that's true. You can 'partition' a hard drive (meaning that a single physical disk holds multiple separate filesystems); you can 'partition' a database table (meaning that a single logical table is comprised of multiple separate table structures); you can 'partition' a database (meaning that different parts of the database on located on separate servers); you can 'partition' a system's memory (meaning that each process is assigned a well-defined block of memory); and so on. The common factor is generally that entities at one level of abstraction are in a one-to-many or many-to-one relationship with entities at a lower level of abstraction. —RuakhTALK 18:12, 31 August 2012 (UTC) Does "maegth" mean "a girl's name", or is it a girl's name? See Talk:maegth. - -sche (discuss) 23:40, 26 August 2012 (UTC) Is it any of those? — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:49, 27 August 2012 (UTC) Not hard to find. Look on one of the many sites for baby names: Maegth girl's name. I chang'd it to: a girl's name: Maegth ... If someone wants to split it off and make it another entry, be my guest. --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! (talk) 16:59, 31 August 2012 (UTC) As such (a female given name), it should be spelt: Maegth, which it is at its proper entry. I can't think of any time one would spell their name with a lowercase letter...Leasnam (talk) 17:43, 31 August 2012 (UTC) Nowadays it's trendy to spell proper nouns with lowercase. I see this all the time with company names and occasionally with given names. I don't think we should have entries for that though. — Ungoliant (Falai) 17:48, 31 August 2012 (UTC) Is it attested, though? I see absolutely no relevant hits on Google Books for "dear Maegth", "named Maegth", "called Maegth", "her Maegth", "Ms/Mrs/Miss Maegth", etc. To RFV it goes... - -sche (discuss) 19:41, 31 August 2012 (UTC) illusion delusion Is this definition accurate? The second half ("visible facts cannot be denied") sounds right to me, but the first half ("You need to see something to believe it") seems backward. To me it the expression seeing is believing means only that seeing requires believing, not that believing requires seeing (which is what "You need to see something to believe it" implies). Is that just me? —RuakhTALK 03:32, 27 August 2012 (UTC) Edited 03:47, 27 August 2012 (UTC) in the hopes of de-confusing Equinox. "You need to see something to believe it" = "seeing something is a prerequisite to believing that thing" = "believing requires seeing". What am I missing? Equinox ◑ 03:37, 27 August 2012 (UTC) Ruakh is saying he doesn't think it means "believing requires seeing"; he thinks it only means "seeing requires believing". (Consider the Mad Hatter's distinction between 'you see what you eat' and 'you eat what you see'.) But actually I think it may mean "you may not believe it until you see it, but once you've seen it you'll believe it", which seems to be close to the current def? - -sche (discuss) 03:45, 27 August 2012 (UTC) Seeing is surely a prerequisite for believing, but more surely more than that, as suggested by the images on the left. (RE: "What am I missing?") In the one, you see a gray bar of physically invariant shade that physiologically looks variant from context to context. In the other, you see black dots appear and disappear at random at the crosses. What's seen isn't fully truthful or trustworthy, but more or less like a mirage -- perhaps the gravest grave of empiricism and positivism. Therefore, you'd better see (than just hear) to believe, and best see what's unseen (yin) from what's seen (yang). I hope the definition could reflect this principle so as not to misguide the readers. Cheers. --KYPark (talk) 05:13, 27 August 2012 (UTC) Well, we're just a dictionary; our goal is only to tell people what's meant by the saying "seeing is believing". We don't care whether the saying is accurate or not. (Note that we can include both absence makes the heart grow fonder and out of sight, out of mind, both sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me and the pen is mightier than the sword, both statutory rape and if there's grass on the field, play ball, and so on.) —RuakhTALK 05:23, 27 August 2012 (UTC) Simply, this is just a dictionary. More precisely, however, it is much more than that, say, perhaps the greatest global conglomerate unprecedented. Simply again, the dictionary is just a collection of some common uses or definitions, which nonetheless may have served for sophistry as well as telling the truth. More precisely again, therefore, it is much more than that, than usual; it would or should tacitly try to exclude bad, untrue and immoral uses, if any. Unlike the typical dictionary entries, the very proverbs come in pairs, as heavily but slipperily loaded by a sense of truth and morality perhaps too much for a mere dictionary, but anyway ... A proverb ... is a simple and concrete saying popularly known and repeated, which expresses a truth .... I hope indeed this would, if not should, better remain a tool of truth than sophistry. --KYPark (talk) 08:26, 27 August 2012 (UTC) FWIW, The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy (third edition, page 56) defines "seeing is believing" as "I'll believe it when I see it with my own eyes." The Free Dictionary defines it as: "It is hard to believe something you have not seen. (Implies that you will not believe the thing under discussion until you have actually seen it.) Jill: They say Melissa has become a wonderful housekeeper now that she has her own apartment. Jane: Seeing is believing. I really didn't think that Jerry's girlfriend could be as pretty as he said she was, but seeing is believing." "something that you say which means you can only believe that something surprising or strange is true if you see it yourself I'd never have imagined my parents could dance, but seeing is believing." - -sche (discuss) 01:26, 28 August 2012 (UTC) I've always pronounced this "es-CHEW", which matches the pronunciation we list, as well as the pronunciations listed by other dictionaries. However, I've twice recently heard it pronounced as "e-SHEW" (with the <sch> being /ʃ/, German-style): once on an episode of the TV show Bones, and once on today's edition of the Cleveland radio program "Around Noon". Is this just a mispronunciation, or has it become an accepted alternative pronunciation? Should we mention it? —RuakhTALK 16:55, 27 August 2012 (UTC) I have heard the 'shew' pronunciation more than the 'chew' pronunciation, but the word is not one that I hear nearly as often as I read. I assume that experience is shared by those who have trouble with the pronunciation and continue to eschew this word in speech. Garner's (2009) has: eschew, v.t.; eschewal, n., The second syllable of both words is pronounced just as the word chew is pronounced: /es-choo/. Many seem to think that the esch- sequence is pronounced /esh/. It is not. The /esh/ sound makes the word resemble a sneeze. Of course, the 'choo' pronunciation corresponds to the conventional achoo/atchoo representation of a sneeze as well, so the rationale is merely a rationalization. That Garner's includes it suggests we should, too. DCDuring TALK 18:18, 27 August 2012 (UTC) MWOnline has the 'shew' pronunciation first and also includes as 'skew' pronunciation. Some others have a 'tchew' pronunciation. Perhaps the 'shew' pronunciation is US? DCDuring TALK 18:23, 27 August 2012 (UTC) (On the very rare occasions when I say the word,) I say /ɛ.ʃu/, but German is probably influencing me there. I happen to be video-chatting with a friend from Florida; I wrote "I eschew such formalities" on a piece of paper and asked her to pronounce it; she said /ɛ.tʃu/. The Germanic etymon would have had /sk/, whereas the modern German cognate has /ʃ/. - -sche (discuss) 20:45, 27 August 2012 (UTC) /ɛ.tʃu/, not /ɛs.tʃu/? How strange! Should that be listed, too, then? —RuakhTALK 21:14, 27 August 2012 (UTC) (And Garner thought /s.ʃ/ sounded like a sneeze!) I'm still impressed DCDuring found a dictionary with /sk/. /s.tʃ/, /s.ʃ/, /sk(j)/? or /s.sk(j)/?, /tʃ/ ... it's a free-for-all, apparently! Probably because no-one knows the word well. Ideally, we'll be able to find a Dialect-Survey-like overview of regional pronunciations...or we'll be able to cobble our own together from isolated references. - -sche (discuss) 22:44, 27 August 2012 (UTC) There's a WordReference thread about this: [17]. MacMillan has /ɪsˈtʃuː/ (but the accuracy of MacMillan's pronunciations has been cast into doubt recently), and my print copy of Cassel's German & English dictionary has /isˈtʃuː/ (but I don't know how much weight I would attach to that). - -sche (discuss) 22:49, 27 August 2012 (UTC) Keynon and Knott's A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English gives us ɛs'tʃu, ɛs'tʃɪu.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:48, 27 August 2012 (UTC) Does /ɪu/ (or [ɪu]?) mean the sound of "you"? —RuakhTALK 23:56, 27 August 2012 (UTC) I'd seen the /ɪsˈtʃuː/ pronunciation only at Macmillan. I have heard the second syllable vowel as something like /ɪu/, I think, that is, like "you". DCDuring TALK 00:01, 28 August 2012 (UTC) I don't have /j/ in "chew" or "eschew"; for me /tʃj/ is an impossible onset, always reduced to /tʃ/ (yod-dropping, y'know). —RuakhTALK 00:05, 28 August 2012 (UTC) My knowledge of pronunciation is such that I am not a reliable reporter on details of this kind of thing, but I think I have heard it. But it may have only been someone laboring over the pronunciation. DCDuring TALK 01:01, 28 August 2012 (UTC) They list you as ju; there's a long section that starts with "In words containing 'long u' there is variation between the sounds ju, ɪu and u too complicated to be fully described here." and ending (after several paragraphs) "In the vocabulary, the symbol ɪu is always taken to mean ɨʉ." (except that it's small-cap I-bar, which I can't find.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:51, 28 August 2012 (UTC) ᵻ? - -sche (discuss) 00:54, 28 August 2012 (UTC) Using all the references we've found, I've made a pronunciation section on Talk:eschew (under "To be moved to the entry when ready"). See what you think. PS, A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language (1838), in its initial section on how pronunciations of modern English words do or don't match their roots, has perhaps the most impenetrable comment I've seen: "the English first pronounced [it] e-schew, and afterwards es-tshow (ou French)". - -sche (discuss) 00:46, 28 August 2012 (UTC) No additional opinions beyond those already expressed, but I have copy edited the Talk page section, as there were some stress marks done with an apostrophe, and there were a lot of misplaced syllable markers. The "." is not normally used when a stress marker appears in the location of the syllable break, as the stress marker necessarily implies a syllable break. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:14, 28 August 2012 (UTC) Just out of curiosity while we are talking about the ".", when is a dot necessary and when is it not necessary at a syllable break without a stress mark? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 06:35, 28 August 2012 (UTC) In English, it's never necessary to explicitly note a syllable breaks, but a given entry should either consistently include them or consistently exclude them, lest readers read too much into the difference! —RuakhTALK 13:54, 28 August 2012 (UTC) There are some editors who never include "." for syllable breaks, and others (like myself) who prefer to include them. We've never made an explicit decision on the matter that I know of. I prefer to include them, so that a reader can determine how many syllables a word has, and so English learners won't think words like paranoia end in a complex triphthong. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:41, 29 August 2012 (UTC) And I prefer to omit them, because a large proportion of syllable breaks in English fall inside consonants rather than between segments. For example, happy is neither [ˈhæ.pi] nor [ˈhæp.i], but [ˈhæpi] with an ambisyllabic [p], which there's no convenient way of representing without drawing tree structure. [ɪs.ˈtʃuː] has a clear enough syllable break, but [ɪsˈtʃuː] is unambiguous without the dot, so why bother with it? —Angr 00:10, 30 August 2012 (UTC) This is a legal arrangement known at least in Nordic countries and Germany. I wrote the Finnish definition as follows: A pension-like arrangement in which a former owner of a property retains the right to dwell in some part of the property and often receive a regular payment or in-kind settlement for a fixed period of time or lifetime; this type of arrangements are typically agreed on in connection with selling a farm. Is there an English word for this? There's no Wikipedia article in English on it, at least not one which would be linked to fi, sv, de etc. articles. It appears that it would fall within the concept life interest, but life estate it isn't. --Hekaheka (talk) 11:26, 28 August 2012 (UTC) Google Translate says Life annuity, though its somewhat statistically-generated translations are not always to be trusted. Equinox ◑ 18:04, 28 August 2012 (UTC) According to Wikipedia "life annuity is a financial contract in the form of an insurance product". Syytinki is a private contract, often between relatives, e.g. when parents cede a farm to their siblings they may retain the right to live in a building on the farm and to receive a regular subsidy of some sort. --Hekaheka (talk) 07:47, 30 August 2012 (UTC) Syytinki seems to be, like Ausgedinge, a sort of partial w:life estate plus pension. I find exactly one usage of "retired farmer's life interest" on Google Books as a term for the Polish equivalent. in the end, I think the def you have, rather than any clumsy gloss like "retired farmer's life interest", is best... this is one of the rare cases in which I think Wiktionary should allow non-English entries to host translations, so we could link syytinki to Ausgedinge and other translations without just a lot of see-alsos. - -sche (discuss) 08:42, 30 August 2012 (UTC) PS other glosses of the German equivalent (Altenteil/Ausgedinge) include "anticipated inheritance" (from the child's point of view) and "farmers' old age security". See also [18]. There is no good gloss, so a definition is best. - -sche (discuss) 09:02, 30 August 2012 (UTC) Wow. Our definition for the main verb sucks here. "To connect". Gives no image of the action whatsoever. Can anyone help? ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:44, 28 August 2012 (UTC) Any better? I wonder if we need to distinguish between binding things together and binding something to something else. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:47, 28 August 2012 (UTC) Each sense could use transitive/intransitive tags. At least those in fairly frequent current use could use a usage example or two. Then it should be easier to tell what's missing. COCA and the other BYU corpora are very good, much better than anything google has to offer, at checking for the relative frequency of collocations, such as with to and together. DCDuring TALK 14:25, 28 August 2012 (UTC) I wonder if we should distinguish physical from nonphysical binding: binding someone by tying them to a chair seems likely to have a different set of translations than binding someone by (having them swear) an oath. - -sche (discuss) 20:25, 28 August 2012 (UTC) I have added everything that Webster 1913 had - which was a lot - and put it into our format. The wording is only lightly edited so far. The added material includes two legal senses and a general figurative sense. I really couldn't figure out what corresponded to "couple". Lots of fun for translators. I assumed that all of the translations were for transitive senses. I haven't matched the senses against COCA yet. DCDuring TALK 23:57, 28 August 2012 (UTC) [edit] beat up enemy's quarters beat up has a lot of quotations under "to attack suddenly, to alarm" and they all have as their object the enemy's quarters, the enemy's camp. Seems to be a stable, a bit antiquated, expression dating from (probably) 17th century, English Civil War era. Maybe this expression needs a separate article. --CopperKettle (talk) 08:36, 29 August 2012 (UTC) It might be worth splitting and citing the "alarm" part of that sense at [[beat up]]. The prevalence of quarters in the cites might be an artifact of the search process for attesting the term. From the variation of the object, even just between camp, quarters, and pronouns replacing them, I don't see why it should be a dictionary entry. I'd hardly be surprised if there weren't other terms, not to mention modifiers. DCDuring TALK 12:31, 29 August 2012 (UTC) [edit] biz(n)atch The pages for bizatch and biznatch describe those terms as eye dialect spellings for bitch. How exactly are they eye dialect? The pronunciation is clearly different. The point of eye dialect spellings is that the pronunciation does not really diverge. The Dictionary of American Slang given on biznatch describes it as an altered pronunciation. The actual origin seems to be the "hip hop infix" -iz(n)-. Compare shiznit. So the correct template to use would be something different, but I'm not sure which one would be the most appropriate here. Can somebody have a look at that? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 11:30, 29 August 2012 (UTC) Use {{context}} with what you think is appropriate. DCDuring TALK 12:34, 29 August 2012 (UTC) It reminds me of Pig Latin, which we mostly omit. But see Category:Pig Latin. DCDuring TALK 12:36, 29 August 2012 (UTC) I don't really know anything about this, but I've found a discussion thread on the Straight Dope forums which suggests that a variant of Double Dutch is the origin of this slang phenomenon. (Any better sources? Language Log perhaps?) However, shiznit, biz(n)atch, hizouse and perhaps a few others seem to be lexicalised, and even I myself have encountered them "in the wild", i. e., not specifically among hip-hop enthusiasts – I do not frequent such circles, neither online nor off. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:36, 29 August 2012 (UTC) See Ubbi dubbi, Double Dutch Bus and -izzle. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:43, 29 August 2012 (UTC) As you said, they are not eye dialect, in any event. We do have a few non-pharmaceutical infixes as partial precedents and models: -fucking- and -bloody-. There probably is a WP article that cover this to some extent. DCDuring TALK 21:39, 29 August 2012 (UTC) Sociolinguistically, I think this is closer to rhyming slang than anything else- used to make it harder for outsiders to follow, and to skirt taboos. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:14, 30 August 2012 (UTC) Yeah, "Dizzouble Dizzutch", like "shizzolation", is a cant/cryptolect (or at least an in-group/subcultural lect), but language games like Pig Latin, gibberish and Double Dutch serve cryptolectal purposes, too. Verlan and Louchébem are cryptolects, but based on language games, just like "Dizzouble Dizzutch". Leet is similar in that it is based on regularly (but not bijectively) derived distortions of plain words, not primarily on special vocabulary, like rhyming slang. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 09:30, 30 August 2012 (UTC) For our purposes, some examples have been lexicalized. I'm not sure that we have a "context"-type label that is both accurate and intelligible by ordinary dictionary users. "Cant" might be the best we can do, unless there has emerged some term to characterize this particular cant. DCDuring TALK 13:16, 30 August 2012 (UTC) Words like "bizatch" seem to have become more widespread than most -iz- terms. I think "cant" should be part of etymology, not a {{context}}. - -sche (discuss) 18:46, 30 August 2012 (UTC) See also biatch and all the alternative forms, which had not included bizatch and biznatch. DCDuring TALK 20:44, 30 August 2012 (UTC) I agree, let's simply use "slang". (BTW, Leetspeak is not a good example, as the cryptolectical property is primarily in the written medium; LOLspeak may be a better one, but it's still too much writing-centred.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:51, 5 September 2012 (UTC) I've received an email on the subject of User:Torvalu4 and his insistence on putting Albanian into Romanian etymologies, removing all other etymologies. The email was inappropriate as it addresses me personally and I have no knowledge on the subject so I have nothing useful to add. So am bringing it up here. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:54, 30 August 2012 (UTC) I've asked our resident Romanian-speaker, Robbie SWE, for input. - -sche (discuss) 20:57, 30 August 2012 (UTC) He was the one who emailed me. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:27, 31 August 2012 (UTC) I noticed yesterday that Torvalu4 edited the etymology of barză, ridding the article of the linguistic discussions surrounding the term and its history. Unfortunately, this is neither the first time nor the first term that Torvalu4 has stripped of ambiguity in favour of an Albanian etymology. Word dewd544 and I brought the matter to Torvalu4's attention in order to have a productive discussion and hopefully come to an agreement, but with no results. My main reasons for reverting his/her edits have been 1) using sources selectively to promote chosen theories (e.g. Torvalu4 criticised the use of DER 1958-1966 for being outdated and, I quote, "[...] a sign of incompetence" - then he/she uses bits and pieces of the same source to motivate a reedit), 2) trying to make Romanian terms appear as if they were borrowed from Albanian just because they coincide semantically - historians and linguists have a hard time making such strong affirmations taking into account that historical documentation is nonexistent, and 3) not taking into consideration that neither Word dewd544 nor I ever denied or expunged Albanian cognates where they have been evident – for concrete examples, just compare the history of articles such as barză, viezure and mal. For me personally, this situation is bizarre because it's quite evident that drawing straight lines from words in language A to language B just because they share certain similarities, isn't a mark of serious linguistics and has definitely no place in this project. How would I be confronted if I changed the etymologies of stâlp (obviously from Swedish stolpe; same meaning), târg (also from Swedish torg; similar meaning) and wasp (from Latin vespa), excluding linguistic discussions surrounding the terms? Naturally, these examples are preposterous. However this is basically what has happened to several Romanian terms. For more information about the discussions held with Torvalu4 see his/her talkpage (under "Romanian-Albanian cognates") and the discussion with Word dewd544 (under "Concerning Torvalu4"). PS: yes, I contacted Mglovesfun with this matter since I am not completely acquainted with the procedures governing issues like the one I'm addressing. I apologise for contacting you directly and assure you that I now know how to make issues known to the community. Regards, --Robbie SWE (talk) 10:37, 31 August 2012 (UTC) This is clearly wrong. Firstly, deleting other etymologies as if the Albanian one was the only possible one. Both languages are only relatively recently attested, so there's no direct evidence of the history of either language to support Torvalu's assertions as provable facts. They may be right, they may be wrong, but they're not proven. Second, deriving them from modern Albanian (like deriving English castle from French chateau), rather than some earlier stage in the language. Were the two languages even in contact at that time? Chuck Entz (talk) 19:23, 31 August 2012 (UTC) If Torvalu removes other valid/cited etymological information, that should be reverted. If Albanian etymons are added to entries which previous had no etymology section, we must decide whether having an etymology which is (given the discussions on Torvalu's talk page) likely POV is better or worse than providing (in those entries, until such time as other editors can look into their etymologies) no etymological information. Unfortunately, this case is in some ways similar to the cases of KYPark and Nemzag, whose copious edits to etymologies ultimately had to be reverted because they were so often POV and inaccurate. - -sche (discuss) 20:42, 31 August 2012 (UTC) Indeed, keep undoing any seemingly bad edits you find, let the admins deal with the rest in terms of warnings/blocks, especially since you've already tried. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:13, 31 August 2012 (UTC) Hi. I'm a little shocked that no one here seems to be talking about the actual word or its etymology. As best as I understand the policy here, anyone is allowed to challenge anyone else's work, and that's what I've done, even providing tagline comments with my edits. I've also provided rather extensive citations, although those seem to have been overlooked here, whereas I can't say the same for Robbie. If you read her etymology (and I don't understand why everyone seems to have sided with Robbie without any investigation), you'll find that it quotes (rather closely) an etymology given in a single dictionary (1959-1966) (here: [19]) (which is then contradicted by more recent dictionaries) and makes rather blatant errors (about Sp/Fr, Romanian b ~ g being interchangable, etc.). I addressed this very briefly in the comment taglines on the edits. If anyone would like, I can talk at some length about the word in question. Otherwise, I'll continue to undo Robbie's edits, all of which I might add, are taken directly from the same 50-yr old dict. Torvalu4 (talk) 20:04, 1 September 2012 (UTC) This is not a question of who sided with whom – it's a question of whether or not your edits are admissible and there is reason to suspect that they aren't. If we return to the subject at hand, you seem to overlook that examples of the "g" to "b" confusion are given (for instance Latin rubus > Romanian rug; Latin lingua > Romanian limbă etc.). Where is the inaccuracy? Garza means "heron" in Spanish, as does garça in Portuguese. Again, where is the inaccuracy? Although you provided citations, these were taken from linguists you have criticised for being treated by DER which is according to you "[...] a sign of incompetence" (e.g. Hasdeu who died 1907). Why are you selectively using Romanian quotes to motivate edits? I'm not acquainted with your knowledge of the Romanian language - fact being that you have refused to create a user page letting us know which languages you master and to what degree you master them - the "cf." in DEX'98 does not mean "originates from"; it means "confer". I've tried telling you about the debates within the Romanian community concerning DEX'98 and its shortcomings (even DER's shortcomings), the most notable one being an oversimplified approach to etymologies which in some cases has proven to be wrong and in other cases oversimplifying the findings of renowned linguists. That's the reason why DER is referenced on dexonline.ro; that's the reason why Word dewd544 cites DER occasionally and that's the reason why I've tried talking to you about this. However, neither I nor anyone else seem to be getting through to you. It's a pity to have to keep an eye on this cluster of words in danger of being altered to the point of expressing speculative linguistics. Rest assured Torvalu4, every time you will undo Romanian etymologies, I'll be there to reedit them. --Robbie SWE (talk) 21:01, 1 September 2012 (UTC) Good, you're finally talking to me. Romanian g doesn't become b but instead [ʤ] (cf. generis > ginere, ligare > lega, frigus > frig, ingluttire > înghiti), whereas only -gu- [gw] becomes b (lingua > limbă (as you stated); but not always sanguem > sânge). As for rug, it must come from a variant *rugus (cf. Ital. rogo ~ rovo, Sard rúgu ~ rubu), plus it's a homophone of rug "pyre", which incidently comes naturally from L rogus. As for Sp/Pg, yes, they mean "heron", but they are (quite obviously) not from g + ardea (!); they're traced back to *kárkia; the z ~ ç can only come from -ki/e-. So, this bit is pure nonsense. Same thing for Fr barge, which is actually from < *bardica (attested form bardala). As for citing the DER, I lifted it's citation list to show EVEN the DER recognizes the long list of scholars who tend toward Alb. for this word. I haven't committed a taboo, and if you take offense, then it's probably because it's the only source you've ever cited. You can talk 'til you're blue in the face about DEX'98, but you've got too many other scholars to contend with, and if you're not happy with 1 dict., you don't fall back on another that's 50 yrs old without consulting other refs. Then there are the phonetics of the word itself (which you keep avoiding): barză, along with the dial. forms bardăș, bardoș 'heron' & Arom bardzu 'white' clearly show that barză < bardz-, and is in particular consistent with Rom outcomes of Alb -dh- (z < dz < dh; cf. viezure < vjedhull, mazăre < modhull ~ d < dh; cf. urdă < urdhë, Transyl. dandăr < dhendhër). In all other phonetic respects this word is identical to Albanian, which isn't possible if they've been separated for 1500 years and are part of different language families. Besides, IE *bʰerHǵos 'white' > Dac *berzas > Rom *bierz (not -dz- ~ -d-). The other options don't make any sense. Torvalu4 (talk) 23:34, 1 September 2012 (UTC) "the z ~ ç can only come from -ki/e-". This is outright wrong, the most common source of <ç> is Latin <ti> or <te>. It can also come from <di> (almoço, calabouço, caroço, impeça), although this is not particularly common. — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:37, 2 September 2012 (UTC) Ti/e isn't relevant. But, yes, di/e does give ç/z in some cases, but usually doesn't (Sp día < diem, urdir < ordire, caer < cadere, poyo < podiu). calabouço/calabozo is disputed (not attested during MidAges; probably from Arab., compare Sard. kalavóyu, kolovóyu w/out -d/z/cc, etc.); impeça: while there's a ç in Pg, there's no corresponding -z- in Sp. (impida, impidió). almoço/almuerzo and caroço/carozo do come from -d-. Torvalu4 (talk) 04:18, 5 September 2012 (UTC) @Torvalu: you're welcome to add information that certain reference works or linguists derive certain Romanian words from Albanian; the problematic thing is your insistence on removing other theories which also have references. You shouldn't do that. - -sche (discuss) 22:07, 1 September 2012 (UTC) This isn't really a question of "certain... other"; it's the vast majority. And any theory will have a reference... if you can't remove material because of that then there are a lot of hairbrained notions that could potentially be added all over Wiktionary that would then be unremovable by your logic. At some point you have to discuss the actual material and get into the specifics, which I've tried to do, whereas Robbie hasn't. Above I've addressed how the other theories don't make any sense (the Sp/Pg/Fr ~ ardea fantasy, etc.), and I've talked about how Robbie's one source isn't trustworthy. What more can a person do? Also, you say "shouldn't", but nothing I've seen so far on this site indicates that users behave that way. Ultimately, whether something is sourced can't be the measure of its validity. Torvalu4 (talk) 00:16, 2 September 2012 (UTC) I've been talking to you all along Torvalu4, but your antagonistic inclination has prohibited you from taking notice of my tries to solve this conflict. Your attempt to dismiss the "g" vs. "b" example proves yet again to the entire community that you don't know Romanian at all. Are you saying that lega, frig and înghiți prove a [ʤ] development? Wow, this statement left me gobsmacked - have never seen such a blatant disregard for semantic and phonetic evolution. If only Latin <gu> became "b", how do you explain Latin interrogāre > Romanian întreba? Several ortographic phenomena exist in Romance languages: when Latin "b" became "g" (e.g. nebula > Romanian negură); when Latin "v" became "g" (e.g. naevus > Romanian neg); when initial "v" became "g" (vastāre > Italian guastare) and when "b/v" (habēre > Occitan aver) became "v/b" (vir(i)dia > Spanish berza, vĕtĕrānus > Romanian bătrân). These changes are attested and not at all unusual – do you deny their occurrence? You are mistaken when you discuss the Spanish and Portuguese words garza/garça, the latter remarked upon by Ungoliant. The French term barge is believed to have originated from the Vulgar Latin form bardea, a variant of Gaulish bardal(l)a. How many examples should I keep giving, because it's starting to get ridiculous? The linguists you mention express the theory that the Romanian and Albanian terms are related, that they have a common ancestor – not that one is derived from the other. My point is, I'm not advocating a Latin origin, a substratum origin or an Albanian origin of the term barză – I'm advocating (in accordance with Wiktionary's guidelines) the use of "an origin unknown" or an "origin disputable", with an account of the different theories attributed to the word, since historic documentation does not exist - unless relying on guesswork is the new fad. The article on Wiktionary is today presented with the linguistic discussion surrounding the term, unless you once more leave your mark upon it. I have more than one source Torvalu4 (which I don't use selectively like you do). However, I don't see how literary works in DER, which are evaluated by the Romanian Academy are poppycock especially when they present several different – and at times conflicting – theories. Do you look down upon Dictionnaire de l'Académie française, huitième édition (1932-1935) and Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) as well because of their age, despite them being considerable providers of material in several Wiktionary projects? What really bugs me is that you have a condescending and obnoxious tone towards other people and their work. "Hairbrained" (correct form is "harebrained", FYI), "'til you're blue in the face", "blatant errors" etc.; the list is long – degrades everyone even you. I'm at my wits' end with this matter and I regret apologising for my initial remark concerning your ability to take part in a rational discussion – it is evidently impossible. --Robbie SWE (talk) 13:09, 2 September 2012 (UTC) First, even the DER explains that întreba < *interguare < interrogare; this is also shown in OFr enterver, where the -gu- was switched with -v- (which occasionally happened); the normal outcome for -g- in OFr would be total loss. I don't follow whatever point you're trying to make about v/b, which seems irrelevant. In the case of Ital guastare, the word is borrowed from OProvençal, where the -gu- comes from Gmc influence, and this is where a lot of -gu- sequences come from in western Romance. In the case of CLat naevus, it had already contracted to *neus (> mod.Ital neo), and a variant inserted a yod *neju (> OItalian niego, Rom neg). Negură < *negula, which also gave OFr nieule, Sicil negghia. Sp berza < OSp verça, along with a handful of words, shows a recent change internal to Sp (because v/b = [β]). Romanian bătrân is random; isolated or initial v doesn't regularly change to b. Ultimately, however, you haven't explained the underlying problem of a meaningless g- being randomly prefixed to ardea. While Ungoliant is right, so would be ki/e-. garza/garça are nonetheless etymologized as from Celtic *kárkia (Corominas, 1996). About barge, this is a great example of where you keep making the same methodological mistake; if you look at a more recent edn. of the Académie's dict. (TILF), or any other, you'll find that (1) barge doesn't mean "heron", but "godwit", and coupled with Liguro berta "magpie", is semantically too distant; (2) it comes from *bardea (or potentially *bardica) (the root was *bard- in any case), and this is also attested as bardal(l)a (w/ diff. suffix) in Latin, and (3) this goes back to Gaulish. As for the use of old dictionaries, it's a terrible idea to use them to supply a 21st cent. dict. w/ info., since language changes and etymologies are always being revised. They were imported initially as a quick, copyright-free way to build the Wiktionary backbone, but the entries have since been heavily revised with... more recent, accurate material. The idea that anyone would still be using Webster's Int'l from 1913 is ridiculous. I haven't relied at all on guesswork. At every turn I've provided mainstream, up-to-date explanations for everything, and I'd consider that rational. You still haven't addressed a number of the issues I raised earlier, and continue to fumble around with this v/b/g non-issue. Torvalu4 (talk) 04:18, 5 September 2012 (UTC) As I stated in my previous post Torvalu4, this discussion isn't going anywhere. I hope you realise that practically all your examples to contradict my examples are reconstructed hypothetical terms, not found in written documents of the time (e.g. *interguare, *neus, *neju, *negula, *kárkia). DER explained that Meyer-Lübke and Rosetti proposed *interguare (hypothetical form) as a possible source, but that this explanation wasn't necessary to explain the transition from interrogāre < întreba. Bătrân is not an isolated development; vetus < biet, *verrucata, verruca < beregată, vox < boace, vessica < bășică. Although the initial "g" in gardea might seem meaningless, it provides a theory as to the development of garza/garça and potentially even barză. I'm well aware that barge means "godwit" and not "heron". However, it is not uncommon that terms used for birds designate other species in modern use. Mainstream work is not always the most reliable Torvalu4, especially when it completely disregards previous findings - instead of discussing them rationally, providing facts (N.B. not guesses). I have tried to address every question you have raised Torvalu4, but you contradict everything I say so I'm not going to waste my time anymore especially when you condescendingly believe that I "fumble around" when I provide examples. My point with the consonant shifts in Romance languages was to make you see that these at times unexplained changes are frequent and present in all Romance languages. Languages are alive – they are not static – and regardless how much we would like to logically explain phenomena, we sometimes don't have answers. You base too many of your assumptions on "shoulda coulda woulda" and that just doesn't cut it, even though you provide references that do the same thing. You can't cut the puzzle piece to make it fit – sometimes you have to accept that a definite answer isn't there and move on. --Robbie SWE (talk) 10:55, 5 September 2012 (UTC) Sorry for the delay. The reason this conversation is going nowhere is because you keep harping on the same non-issue and refuse to talk about any of the other points I've raised. If you don't, then you'll be forfeiting. Here are some facts: you've so far shown that v > b in certain instances in Romanian, but this isn't the sound change involved here. You haven't shown conclusively that g > b because all of your examples are ambiguous; either a -u- is present or there's another explanation. You've also ignored the fact that neither garza nor barge are etymologized back to ardea in Sp or Fr literature, plus g > b is phonetically impossible in Fr, and you still haven't explained the random prefixation of a meaningless g-. And despite your appeals to the randomness of language, languages actually evolve for the most part in predictable ways - that is after all the basis of historical linguistics, including etymology. It's hypocritical to exclude reconstructions when it suits you, while relying on a far-fetched reconstruction yourself for your argument. A little bit more about neg: naevus > nevus > neus is precisely attested by It neo, Sard neu, and is the regular outcome, and this should have given *nău in Romanian (cf. reus > rău); compare rivus > It/Sp rio, Rum râu, vivus > Rom viu, novus > nou. A -g- in this word must come not from the -v- but from another sound that would not have been dropped, as attested by OIt niego. For negură, here again, the presence of a -g- is attested in Sicil negghia, OFr nieule. As for interguare it's necessary enough that the DEX'98 used it, and it's the only way to explain the Rom and OFr cognates. Mainstream and recent; don't forget that. You can't disavow 3 mainstreams at once, and relying on grossly outdated material is a bias. It's the very definition of "backwards". Torvalu4 (talk) 18:44, 15 September 2012 (UTC) This is not a question of winning and losing, even less forfeiting - it's about having a civilised discussion. This infantile approach to the matter is not worthy of this project. I've addressed all your issues and I feel content with the point I was making. This is the last time I'm going to comment your remarks, because my initial prediction that discussing this with you would be futile has been confirmed. And by the way, at least I didn't desperately try to make a point by using a source from 1891 (!) and bringing ethnogenesis to etymologies. --Robbie SWE (talk) 19:41, 15 September 2012 (UTC) Well, I engaged you on all the points you've raised, but you still haven't addressed mine and apparently never will. Nor have you dealt with the weaknesses of your own argument. Beyond the DER, you haven't quoted any sources that corroborate your theory. Sadly, no one else has really weighed in either. I never, at any point, brought "ethnogenesis" into this - where in the world did you get that from?! 1891 - what are you even talking about? Because it's certainly not the word barză or this discussion. Torvalu4 (talk) 01:56, 28 September 2012 (UTC) You can pick apart competing etymologies all you want, but you haven't explained why yours should be stated as if they were fact, with no possible other explanation. Where are the attested precursor and intermediate forms? Where is the evidence that we know all the languages in the area that might have had contact with Romanian? It all no doubt seems quite straightforward to you, but etymological certainty in a language with no documented history beyond its modern form is extremely optimistic, at best- especially when the source of the alleged borrowings is equally undocumented. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:21, 15 September 2012 (UTC) The possible explanations put forward by Robbie are not possible, thus they shouldn't be mentioned. The explanation, in full. Romanian has dial. (Transylvanian) bardzu "white", also in Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian, and barză would be the expected feminine, with regular archaic dz > modern z. So, Alb bardhë 'white' > bardzu, -ă 'white' > barză 'stork' (nominalized adjective). Incidently, Aromanian is conservative enough that it can often stand in as an immediate precursor to the Romanian forms, at least in certain respects. In addition, the dial. (Oltenia) masc. forms bardăș, bardoș "stork", with middle -d-, strongly imply (1) common derivation from an adj. (diff. endings/diff. genders), and (2) that -z- in barză < -dz-; the split Alb -dh- > dz > Rom z vs. -dh- > Rom d is attested elsewhere. Anyway, the sense development "white" > "white bird" is pretty normal, at least in the area: Alb. dial. kan(j)ushë 'stork' < L canus 'white'; Gk pelargos 'stork' < pel- + argos 'white'; Serb-Croat labud, Bulg lébed 'swan' < *olbǫdǐ < IE *h₂elbʰ- 'white'. The other theory adduced, one connecting the word to L ardea "heron", by means of a random g- prefix is highly unlikely, esp. since ardea was nowhere else preserved in Romance and a g- prefix is otherwise unattested and unexplainable. Sp garza/Pg garça "heron" and Fr barge "godwit"/NItal berta "magpie" are unrelated phonetically & semantically, and are etymologized to completely different words. As for Dacian (aka the substrate), even though it's rather theoretical, the sounds involved are some of the least theoretical, so IE *bʰerHǵos 'white' > Dac *berzas > Proto-Rom *bierzu (not -dz- ~ -d-; wrong vowel) > mod. Rom *bierz. Dac. was a satem lang., so ǵ > z, bʰ > b are expected; short e > e common (and attested), o > a attested and common regionally (Gmc, Balto-Slav, Alb); loss of -H- pretty much universal. In any case, taking the word back to Dacian when there's a good fit in Albanian seems totally unwarranted, esp. since it essentially replicates the Alb. etym. while roundaboutly avoiding Alb. Reminder: most of the languages that did have contact with Romanian are actually well documented. First, Romanian is from Latin, which is well documented, and so are the Romance languages, which means the Latin element is far from theoretical. Greek & the Slavic langs are well-documented and thoroughly etymologized; Hungarian, though an isolated late-comer to the area, is also earlier documented than Romanian and part of a wider language family (Finno-Ugric). Albanian is poorly documented, but it's now rather well etymologized. Even Dacian, which is virtually unattested, is an IE lang., which means it too can be compared against what we know about IE. So, there are actually a lot of good bases for comparison, and things are nowhere near as up in the air as you claim. In any event, the problem here doesn't have anything to do with documentation. No matter what language is involved, no matter how well attested, there are always certain lexical elements that simply aren't transparent etymologically, but that doesn't mean those etyms. are unrecoverable. Torvalu4 (talk) 01:56, 28 September 2012 (UTC) This refers to "magic polarity". What is that? Even a Google Web search reveals little. Equinox ◑ 22:12, 1 September 2012 (UTC) From context, I assume that the "poles" are white magic and black magic, such that "transcends the magic polarity" means something like "is not entirely on one side of the white-magic–black-magic dichotomy". But that definition was added by Luciferwildcat (talk • contribs), so I don't set too much store by it. —RuakhTALK 22:47, 1 September 2012 (UTC) Why isn't this a much simpler entry, possibly with an elaborate etymology, possibly the "children of Israel" sense distinguished? DCDuring TALK 06:01, 3 September 2012 (UTC) {{plural of|child}} anyone? Mglovesfun (talk) 08:58, 3 September 2012 (UTC) That's obviously what it should be, why should it be treated differently to any other plural? BigDom (t • c) 11:44, 3 September 2012 (UTC) "More than one young person, or none" ha. Does looks curiously like a joke. Anyway done. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:29, 3 September 2012 (UTC) I remember seeing this form discussed. It seems to be the regular descendant of the Old English dative plural ċildrum, actually. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:57, 5 September 2012 (UTC) That would be very strange. The dative plural isn't exactly the most common plural form, the nominative and accusative are. So it would be surprising if it was the only form to survive. —CodeCat 23:19, 5 September 2012 (UTC) See Category:English words suffixed with -ren. DCDuring TALK 00:00, 6 September 2012 (UTC) No matter how interesting the etymology (and we should keep anything distinctive about it), unless there is some sense distinction beside number, it still seems to be the plural of child. See our treatment of went#Verb. DCDuring TALK 00:00, 6 September 2012 (UTC) It's not directly from ċildrum. It's from childer + the plural ending -en known from oxen, which used to be quite productive in some dialects of English. Another example is eyren, a Middle English dialect form for "eggs", famous from an anecdote Caxton told: "And one of theym named Sheffelde a mercer cam in to an hows and axes for mete, and specyally he axyed after eggys. And the good wyf answerde that she coude speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry for he also coude speke no frenshe but wold haue hadde egges and she understode hym not. And thenne at laste a nother sayd that he wolde haue eyren. Then the good wyf sayd that she understood hym wel." —Angr 11:35, 6 September 2012 (UTC) Does this mean that "-ren" was never a productive suffix but is an accidental co-occurrence of "r" and "-en". If so, there may be five entries that need correction. DCDuring TALK 12:21, 6 September 2012 (UTC) It was never fully productive in the sense that it could be freely added to new coinages. All of the nouns listed as having the -ren suffix started out as having the -ru suffix in Old English, which became -re/-er in Middle English, which then became -(e)ren when -en was added to it. AFAICT -ren was never added to a noun that didn't already have a plural suffix with an R in it. —Angr 12:54, 6 September 2012 (UTC) Dutch has a development that is completely parallel to this, happening in the same words: kinderen, eieren, kalveren, lammeren. In Dutch, the -en plural eventually became the most common plural, but these words still have a double plural marking like the English words. —CodeCat 12:45, 6 September 2012 (UTC) AAVE and other non-standard varieties of English have re-marked this word as a plural again in [[chilluns]] (i.e. children + s), making it triply marked (child + r + en + s). We don't have an entry for "chilluns" yet, but there are plenty of b.g.c. hits. —Angr 13:10, 6 September 2012 (UTC) The problem is that you can't simply add a plural ending -en to what is already a plural, even though many linguists operate with such arbitrary "analogies" and heaping-on of suffixes. That was actually the point of the example. Wherever you can actually trace the development of a language in detail, it turns out that proportional analogies are sufficient to explain the changes and no other forms of analogies (though often postulated) can be demonstrated to have taken place; if I remember correctly, Juliette Blevins has written about that. The only way it is conceivable that children could be formed this way would be if childer could be re-analysed as a singular (perhaps in ambiguous sentences such as I shall care for the childer), and according to a productive pattern like singular -er vs. plural -ren a new plural children was created. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:29, 24 October 2012 (UTC) faggot is a verb, an alternative spelling of fagot (to bundle up sticks etc.). The page is locked because of vandalism. Could someone add it, please? Equinox ◑ 21:53, 3 September 2012 (UTC) It said only registered users could edit. You are registered. DCDuring TALK 22:23, 3 September 2012 (UTC)  Done DCDuring TALK 20:16, 5 September 2012 (UTC) wergeld and weregild seem to duplicate each other and need combining, but I'm not competent to do it -- dougher (talk) 14:41, 4 September 2012 (UTC) Thanks for pointing that out. :) The two forms seem equally common on Google Books, so I've made wergeld the standard form, because it was also the Middle English and Old English forms. - -sche (discuss) 23:08, 5 September 2012 (UTC) In what English is this used? I don't recognize it in my experience of any English. DCDuring TALK 20:15, 5 September 2012 (UTC) Maybe a variant of at a standstill? Either way, I don't think it is idiomatic. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 06:29, 6 September 2012 (UTC) When is the telic sense of the verb own ("defeat") first attested? Does the OED even list it? It sounds like a late 20th century slang development to me, but I could be wrong. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:16, 5 September 2012 (UTC) I remember reading that the verb pwn was first used as a misspelling in Warcraft I (1994), so presumably the original verb in that sense is older. —CodeCat 23:16, 5 September 2012 (UTC) Yeah, but how old? Is it really a recent development (no more than a few decades old) or is it perhaps attested considerably earlier, counter to my intuition? I'm just curious because it sounds rather odd to me to use own as a telic verb in formal English. Owning a slave does not mean defeating or embarrassing the slave. Anyone have access to the OED? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:55, 6 September 2012 (UTC) But that's not the primary and original sense, the original meaning in its gaming sense is 'to dominate' or 'to show who's boss'. —CodeCat 20:18, 6 September 2012 (UTC) That's still a telic use of the verb, even though it is otherwise atelic. Therefore I'm wondering how old that use is. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:38, 24 October 2012 (UTC) The metal tool for flattening clothes is Etymology 1. The verb "to iron" (flatten clothes) is Etymology 3. Would it not make more sense to merge these two sections entirely? Equinox ◑ 09:22, 6 September 2012 (UTC) I think all three are one Etymology. The separation was perpetrated by an anon in 2007. (I'm glad it wasn't me.) DCDuring TALK 11:41, 6 September 2012 (UTC) Is whereabouts#Noun, necessarily "approximate location"? I'm pretty sure it can be used for exact locations also. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:38, 6 September 2012 (UTC) I think "location, especially approximate" or similar would capture the usual use for approximate location without short-changing more specific use. Certainly, "What is his location?" asks for more specificity than "What are his whereabouts?". DCDuring TALK 15:22, 6 September 2012 (UTC) I could imagine someone saying "I don't know his location, but I do know his whereabouts." DCDuring TALK 15:23, 6 September 2012 (UTC) I can't. To me they're synonymous, or very nearly so.​—msh210℠ (talk) 22:12, 6 September 2012 (UTC) @msh: Another sound only the dogs and I can hear. DCDuring TALK 23:14, 6 September 2012 (UTC) I can't imagine someone explicitly distinguishing "location" from "whereabouts" (by saying a sentence like the one you suggest), but I support having "especially approximate" or "often approximate" as part of the definition. - -sche (discuss) 06:10, 10 September 2012 (UTC) It's definitely not necessarily approximate; google books:"exact whereabouts" claims to find tens of thousands of hits. —RuakhTALK 15:56, 6 September 2012 (UTC) Isn't the sense 3 of halt (Etymology 1) "to waver, to be hesistant" simply that of the verb halt (Etymology 2) "to waver, to falter"? In this case, sense 3 should be removed. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:51, 6 September 2012 (UTC) Thanks.  Done Removing clearly redundant senses is the only deletion action that doesn't necessarily need to go through RfD or RfV. Redundancy is less obvious across etymologies or with different valences, connotations, or claimed contexts. DCDuring TALK 19:32, 6 September 2012 (UTC) See Lucifer's edits to the etymology. Is there any chance that the "riding" an erection/sex bit is accurate? Surely it's just ride (a bike) + bitch (in the style of a woman). Equinox ◑ 20:10, 7 September 2012 (UTC) I'm really regretting that I abstained from the vote to permablock him. But on the bright side, maybe he'll come up with something interesting for ride shotgun? —RuakhTALK 20:17, 7 September 2012 (UTC) Yeah, I favored giving him another chance, but he still insists on adding crap (like that ridiculous "birfday" etymology)... I wouldn't mind at all if someone blocked him again. - -sche (discuss) 20:20, 7 September 2012 (UTC) Well, that vote applied to everything up to there, not everything since. It's a bit like if you're acquitted of murder, doesn't mean subsequently you can murder as many people as you like and not go on trial for it. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:26, 8 September 2012 (UTC) Um, what's with you and over-the-top murder analogies? LOL --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 05:24, 10 September 2012 (UTC) I don't see what's "over-the-top" about them. Murder is just a basic thing that everyone agrees is bad and that can therefore be used as a convenient starting-point for analyzing the logic of law and ethics. No one is saying that other things are as bad as murder, just that they're bad, and therefore subject to the logic of bad things. —RuakhTALK 15:10, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Well, I can see that this discussion is looking even less fruitful than the last one. It's kind of like doing a botched murder and then murdering someone else in a totally different place just to get it out of your system. Seriously, though, the "law of bad things" doesn't allow for the ample grey area that one encounters in life. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 01:20, 13 September 2012 (UTC) Well, sure it does. But regardless, the point of analogies is to clarify reasoning by simplifying matters and capturing an essential point. Sometimes this doesn't work, and something essential is lost in the simplification, in which case you should say so; but if the only "something essential" in question is that nobody died, then well, I think that's implicit in the fact that we're discussing a block, not a notification to the civil authorities. —RuakhTALK 12:28, 13 September 2012 (UTC) In addition, he has added the "non-standard" form rided bitch (perhaps copying from ride), but I doubt it exists in this phrase prevalently enough to be worth a note. Should perhaps be removed. Equinox ◑ 23:07, 8 September 2012 (UTC) FYI, I have blocked him. Although the straw/spark was [[rided bitch]], I made clear in the block summary that the block was for cumulative/longterm behaviour. - -sche (discuss) 00:43, 9 September 2012 (UTC) I support that. He didn't improve one bit since the vote. — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:51, 9 September 2012 (UTC) I don't know... I'd prefer a year, maybe. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 05:24, 10 September 2012 (UTC) I have reduced the block to 1 year. - -sche (discuss) 07:19, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Thank you. --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 01:20, 13 September 2012 (UTC) Etymology 2 says "Alternative form of care, used in Carling Sunday or Care Sunday". However, Carling Sunday suggests that a carling is some kind of dried pea eaten on that day, while Care Sunday seems to come from some other word. So is this sense of carling accurate? Equinox ◑ 00:30, 9 September 2012 (UTC) [edit] Vulgar I have noticed an over-enthusiasm to label anything related to the reproductive organs as "vulgar". I feel uncomfortable with that because it is sometimes a stretch. i hope this gets addressed. Pass a Method (talk) 19:19, 9 September 2012 (UTC) Can you give us some examples? — Ungoliant (Falai) 19:34, 9 September 2012 (UTC) English unfortunately doesn't have a middle level for talking about the reproductive organs; either you go formal like "the reproductive organs", or you go vulgar, like "dick". I think there's been some normalization in there in recent times, but there's still times where "penis" is too formal, "dick" or "cock" is too vulgar, and "willy" is too childish. In other languages, it will have to be weighted on a language and culture-specific basis.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:43, 10 September 2012 (UTC) For instance horny which i removed.Pass a Method (talk) 05:04, 10 September 2012 (UTC) The question isn't whether you consider it vulgar or not, but what the general attitudes are among speakers. It may vary regionally, I suppose, but there are plenty of people who would consider horny to be vulgar. Ignoring that opinion because you, personally, disagree with it would be a disservice to non-native-speakers who don't know the context. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:58, 10 September 2012 (UTC) There's two cites attached to it, both of which are clearly vulgar. (And it's not really related to the reproductive organs.) It's slightly questionable; most of the books I saw that used it in the title on Google Books were self-published or erotica or both, but [20] is a use in what seems to be a respectable guide to sex in pregnancy. And there's [21] published by the University of Georgia, that labels an item the "Horny Hillbilly" (I can't tell if it's actually labeled such on the packaging). Otherwise, the uses in this sense range from the borderline vulgar to the clearly vulgar. Your first sentence just doesn't fit the facts. We're labeling words that are vulgar as vulgar, which some natural room for discussion one way or the other. The fact that most of them are related to sex and the genitalia is a fact of life in English.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:27, 10 September 2012 (UTC) I'm not at all convinced that those cites are "clearly vulgar", and I heard the word "horny" (in its sexual meaning) on American commercial prime-time TV in the 1970s, when there was still strict censorship of vulgarities, indicating that professional prudes whose job it was to stamp out vulgarities didn't consider it one. —Angr 11:32, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Some lemmings use a three point system. One star for "informal only", Two stars for "mildly vulgar", and Three stars for "vulgar". So we would expect something like penis no stars, willy one star, dick two stars, and prick possibly three stars. Not a bad system imo. Could we copy it in some way? -- ALGRIF talk 11:36, 10 September 2012 (UTC) I'd move both willy (informal, childish) and prick back a notch. There's no word for penis that really reaches the vulgarity of cunt, which could probably be taken as around the maximally vulgar English word.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:30, 11 September 2012 (UTC) "Get it in all the way... please, please do... I'm horny." is pretty vulgar to me. More generally, you're probably right; old-school prime-time TV can probably be taken as a pretty decent judge of what was considered overtly vulgar.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:30, 11 September 2012 (UTC) The sentence as a whole is vulgar, but that that doesn't make the individual word "horny" vulgar any more than it makes "way" or "please" or "I'm" vulgar. Also, the sentence would be no less vulgar if it were "Get it in all the way... please, please do... I'm sexually aroused." —Angr 12:42, 11 September 2012 (UTC) @Prosfilaes: There are love muscle, John Thomas, Johnson, and other similar informal, non-vulgar terms. DCDuring TALK 11:41, 10 September 2012 (UTC) But English doesn't have a term like Irish bod, which is neither as clinical as penis, nor as vulgar as dick or cock, nor as euphemistic and/or childish as love muscle and John Thomas, but is rather as neutral a term for its referent as English elbow is for its. —Angr 12:42, 11 September 2012 (UTC) For the English word nexus, we offer the possible plurals nexuses or nexus or nexûs or nexūs. I can't believe that nexûs and nexūs are English. Who would use such accents in English? Equinox ◑ 23:50, 9 September 2012 (UTC) Apparently some philosophers do. The spelling with the circumflex (nexûs) in running English text is just barely attestable [22], and with the macron (nexūs) isn't that much more so [23], but it exists. Such usage seems to always trace back to w:Alfred North Whitehead and w:Process philosophy. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:36, 10 September 2012 (UTC) If it's only just barely attested, it doesn't seem appropriate to mention in the headword line. We should have entries for those plural forms, but the rare plurals should be confined to usage notes. (DCDuring rightly worries that using obsolete / rare terms in translations where modern / common terms are available will mislead non-native speakers. Highlighting such rare plurals is similarly misleading.) - -sche (discuss) 03:51, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Agreed. Those forms were added by Doremítzwr, who always was fond of such things. You would need more than a Wiktionary entry to be able to use the term properly in the contexts where those plurals are expected, so a usage note should suffice. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:58, 10 September 2012 (UTC) I took a shot at a usage note in the main entry. I'm not quite sure what we should do with the nexûs and nexūs entries (we don't do separate entries for spellings with macrons in Latin, so Latin sections are missing from entries that are arguably more Latin than English- which is odd). Chuck Entz (talk) 05:22, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Maybe we should have the entries on [[nexus]] itself, since diacritics are never mandatory in English. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 09:07, 11 September 2012 (UTC) Diacritics aren't mandatory, but when diacritic forms are attested, they get their own entries (soufflé vs souffle, etc). @Chuck: I suppose {{also|nexus}} and the mention of the Latin form in the etymology section are sufficient. - -sche (discuss) 20:48, 11 September 2012 (UTC) [edit] Mythology I have noticed a double standard regarding the usage of the term myth. For example soul, angel, devil have no such descriptions. However, unicorn, fairy, vampire do. This double standard also exists regarding deities, i.e. Krishna vs Zeus. Are there any guidelines on this? Pass a Method (talk) 08:06, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Modern mainstream religion is not regarded as "mythology" by neutral sources, only by POV-pushing atheists. Equinox ◑ 10:01, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Many so-called neutral sources are co-written by religious folk. I personally believe we should only accept the highest quality sources for issues such as this one. Besides, acording to some sources there are roughly 4200 religions out there. Who gets to decide which religion is "mainstream"? Pass a Method (talk) 11:35, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Anyway, it isn't true that modern mainstream religion is never called mythology, or at least that aspects of it aren't. See w:Christian mythology, w:Jewish mythology, and w:Islamic mythology for example. A myth is just "a traditional story or narrative that embodies the belief or beliefs of a group of people"; it doesn't mean it's false. I'm a mainstream Anglican Christian myself, but I have no hesitation in considering the Christmas story, for example, a myth of my religion. —Angr 11:43, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Maybe we could call all of them hypotheses, like the Big Bang theory. DCDuring TALK 13:00, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Just one note... If it's a theory like you say, it's no longer a hypothesis. :) —CodeCat 13:34, 10 September 2012 (UTC) @DCDuring. I did try to call all of them hypotheses back in April, but i ended up being reverted by Mglovesfun, and blocked by Equinox.Pass a Method (talk) 13:57, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Calling religions "hypotheses" is absurd. Religion doesn't compete with science and doesn't follow the scientific method; the two complement each other but have totally different methodologies. —Angr 13:51, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Angr, i dont want to call religions itself hypotheses/mythological, but rather certain implausible aspects within religions, such as devils etc.. Pass a Method (talk) 14:05, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Shall we call string theory mythological then too, just because the existence of 10 dimensions is implausible? I actually don't object to calling devils and angels mythological since they're part of Christian/Jewish/Islamic mythology (and the mythologies of some other religions too), but I do object to calling them hypothetical, as if people were gathering data to form a theory about them. —Angr 14:32, 10 September 2012 (UTC) We could use (angeology) and (demonology). — Ungoliant (Falai) 14:40, 10 September 2012 (UTC) I should probably clarify I'm speaking generally above. In terms of what labels to actually put on these terms at Wiktionary, I think {{religion}} is probably sufficient for things like angel; there's no particular need to tag it {{mythology}} as well. —Angr 14:42, 10 September 2012 (UTC) google books:Hindu mythology turns up a lot of things that don't look like the POV pushing of atheists. William Joseph Wilkins seems to have been a missionary, and w:A. Berriedale Keith would probably mention if this respected British official was a POV-pushing atheist. And considering the demographics, Zeus probably has more worshippers today then he's ever had in history.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:17, 10 September 2012 (UTC) I wonder whether a British (presumably Anglican) missionary might have chosen to refer to elements of Hinduism as "Mythology" for much the same reason that a PoV-pushing atheist would want label all religions "mythology". Zeus has seen far better days: his modern-day worshippers, the Hellenic Polytheistic Reconstructionists, hover somewhere below three thousand worldwide - and they don't even offer him sacrifice! Furius (talk) 11:18, 24 November 2012 (UTC) What tag is appropriate for soul? There are some studies on it so maybe "hypotheses" is applicable? Any thoughts? Pass a Method (talk) 16:03, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Since the definition already contains the hedges "usually thought" and "often believed" I don't think it needs any tag. —Angr 16:26, 10 September 2012 (UTC) @Pass a Method et al: I don't think hypothesis is a serious candidate for a category or label in a public utility such as Wiktionary. It might work on a free-thinkers' wiki. All knowledge is partial and potentially falsifiable or subject to disbelief, but folks strongly hold some hypotheses beliefs. DCDuring TALK 17:37, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Oh, sorry. I already added a hypotheses tag to sixth sense. Feel free to remove it. Pass a Method (talk) 19:00, 10 September 2012 (UTC) "Folklore" is another possible tag for usage as in leprechaun. Pass a Method (talk) 08:46, 14 September 2012 (UTC) This issue applies to soul in the modern usage, with the meaning of spirit. I'd doubt anyone would label soul in the meaning of mind as mythical. DAVilla 08:41, 19 September 2012 (UTC) Personally, I don't think we should be deciding any of this. A unicorn is a unicorn and an angel is an angel whether or not either of them exist, are believed to exist, or are just fantasy. All that is extraneous information that belongs on Wikipedia (mostly because it can't be sufficiently summarized). --WikiTiki89 (talk) 09:54, 15 September 2012 (UTC) I strongly disagree. It is extremely important to know whether or not something exists. This endeavor should not be abandoned as futile insomuch as writing a concise definition is futile. To state how it is interpreted, the extent that it is believed, and by whom, we must simply choose our words carefully. DAVilla 08:41, 19 September 2012 (UTC) I remember a TV ad, in which a Diet Dr. Pepper salesman joins a support group including Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, and Bigfoot, where they too scoffed at a soda pop with no calories being so tasty. Sometimes, their status as beings of myth can be their most relevant feature. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 21:55, 24 September 2012 (UTC) I've been watching a lot of Australian TV lately, and it seems like they use the word heaps differently than we do in the US but I can't put my finger on it. Does it have a particularly Australian meaning? I think I've heard it used as an adjective too but I can't find an example of that. (One big example I'm thinking of is the South Australian boy from Angry Boys and We Can Be Heroes, who uses the word "heaps" in like every sentence). Happerslaffer (talk) 22:49, 10 September 2012 (UTC) Could you give some examples of the sentences you are hearing? Equinox ◑ 09:07, 11 September 2012 (UTC) Our only current sense is "Good as a remedy against disease of the spleen". I tried citing it and any other senses I could find, but the cites I found seem to mean "Acting against the spleen". I'm really not sure, though. There's also another sense in use, that seems to mean "Acting against spleen (bad humor)", but, again, I'm really not sure. More pairs of eyes would be helpful.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:48, 11 September 2012 (UTC) I don't think the senses are distinguishable. I didn't see any truly medical usage in the sole sense we had, inherited from Webster 1913 and found in Webster 1828. I think the "spleen disease" was some kind of excess secretion of a humor, in line with your second sense. Century had no cites to support its definition. Its definition of splenetic is pretty much what we would have, with just a hint of a medical basis for the association of ill humor with spleen, the organ, rather than spleen, the humor. I have the suspicion that we won't find any usage that is distinguishable from the other sense, which I cited and labeled as literary or historical. The labels might be proven wrong. I don't think there is much modern medical usage, either. DCDuring TALK 20:39, 11 September 2012 (UTC) No, the modern medical usage is of antisplenic (current redlink) AFAICT.​—msh210℠ (talk) 22:38, 11 September 2012 (UTC) Would appreciate it if someone added the IPA pronunciation real quick. Thanks ---> Tooironic (talk) 14:06, 12 September 2012 (UTC) [edit] by and by Good evening! I'm reading the "Tempest" and in the commentaries the "by and by" phrase is explained as "immediately" but in more modern dictionaries it is given to mean "eventually". Has the meaning shifted in the centuries and if yes, is it OK to add (archaic) "immediately, right away" meaning to the "by and by" entry? Cheers, --CopperKettle (talk) 17:23, 12 September 2012 (UTC) The meaning has shifted, becoming much more vague. I conjecture that the use of the term in religious consolation, probably predating the publication of the hymn In the Sweet By-and-By in 1868, influenced the shift. Such consolation usually frames the time until one rejoins recently deceased loved ones as relatively short. But in ordinary experience, it is not, so hearers of the hymn may have stretched the definition of by and by to fit their understanding of the time frame. DCDuring TALK 18:38, 12 September 2012 (UTC) If the conjecture is true, then the sense shift should have occurred earlier in the US than elsewhere. DCDuring TALK 18:40, 12 September 2012 (UTC) Thank you! Very interesting! --CopperKettle (talk) 00:39, 13 September 2012 (UTC) There is circumstantial evidence from Southwest Pacific English-based creoles that suggests that it was used in Australian English by the mid-1880s, in the sense of "sometime in the future". --Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 01:31, 13 September 2012 (UTC) Before yesterday, I've only associated it in my mind with the lyrics of Pie In The Sky, where it is used also in the "sometimes" sense. (0: --CopperKettle (talk) 01:40, 13 September 2012 (UTC) I noticed that our byembye has a second sense, "hereafter". Equinox ◑ 10:41, 13 September 2012 (UTC) In 1882 Tennyson, in a cite in the entry, distinguished between now and by and by, so, wherever the sense shift originated, it seems to have spread fairly widely by then. But neither Century nor Websters noted it in 1913. The OED might be a help for this. DCDuring TALK 11:00, 13 September 2012 (UTC) Yes, the OED marks this sense as obsolete, citing Tyndale's 1526 bible (Mark i. 31 "... in the By and by the fever left her" where Coverdale has "immediatly". Shakespeare normally used the expression in the modern sense to mean "soon", as in Henry IV, Part 1 V. iv. 108 "Inboweld will I see thee by and by, Til then in bloud by noble Percy lie.". The OED records the latest usage with the "immediately" meaning in 1690 (W. Walker). I still consider "soon" rather than "eventually" to be the usual meaning here in the UK. Dbfirs 07:28, 15 September 2012 (UTC) A "hereafter" sense seems archaic in our terms, being present in religious texts, hymns etc, where no one has trouble understanding it, but wouldn't imitate it. DCDuring TALK 14:54, 15 September 2012 (UTC) An alternative view is that the hymnwriters meant "soon", and we, with our modern wishful thinking, interpret this as "much later in the distant future". Dbfirs 20:43, 15 September 2012 (UTC) Sorry, that's more or less what you said earlier! Dbfirs 20:48, 15 September 2012 (UTC) I'm glad you independently came to a similar hypothesis. DCDuring TALK 20:59, 15 September 2012 (UTC) The current definition is "All of the countries of the world other than those in Asia taken as a whole," which feels unsatisfactory - It includes a lot which I would not have thought of as Western (principally Africa and the Pacific Islands) and excludes a few areas which I would consider western, like Israel, Singapore and (perhaps) Hong Kong, South Korea, and Japan at times as well. When I think about the concept, I feel like there are a lot of grey areas and a lot of bleed-through from first world. I wonder whether a specific definition is possible? Furius (talk) 08:51, 13 September 2012 (UTC) It probably needs a third sense, separate from the others, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a solid definition, but it could be fuzzily defined along the lines of "A loose group of developed countries whose cultures share characteristics, often including democracy, capitalism or postindustrialization, associated with North America and Western Europe." Wikipedia uses a different defintion, based on European decent and the Greek and Roman empires, which I've not come across before, which if we cited it would be yet another separate sense. Smurrayinchester (talk) 11:13, 13 September 2012 (UTC) Given the existence of western practices, western economies, western clothing, I think we should be adding this sense at western rather than focusing on western world. Equinox ◑ 11:16, 13 September 2012 (UTC) I would avoid using the word "countries" as countries have borders while the western world has no clear border. I think it would be best described as a family of cultures. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 11:25, 13 September 2012 (UTC) This seems like classic SoP, where the meaning of western world is entirely dependent on what western and world mean. I'll bet we already have satisfactory definitions for both. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:32, 13 September 2012 (UTC) Just noticed that [[West]] already has a reasonable definition. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 11:37, 13 September 2012 (UTC) The UK slang sense of this doesn't seem to line up at all with how I've heard it used. I'm familiar with it mostly as a London (especially South and East London?) word that just means neighbourhood, without any reference to authority, policing or crime. The cites I can find generally seem to back this up: 2005, "Beckham kicks off last minute Olympics campaigning", The Guardian Beckham was asked what it would mean for the Olympics to be held in his old neighbourhood. "You mean my manor?" Beckham replied, in fluent East End argot. "I'm obviously from the East End, so it would be incredible for me if it was held there. It could go down as one of the best games in history." 2012, "My East End manor is now as smart as Notting Hill", The Evening Standard 2012 "Golden balls: West Ham United's co-owner reveals his cunning plan for the Olympic stadium", The Independent And, Gold adds, he can understand that West Ham's famously dedicated supporters, Londoners though they themselves mainly are, may mistrust businessmen "coming into the club and talking about loyalty. But this is my manor. I worked on Stratford Market, where the Olympic Stadium sits now. I remember the bomb falling on West Ham football ground and thinking: my God, they're coming after me. West Ham is my passion." Nevertheless, it is sourced (albeit to a site that doesn't seem to be working), and the one citation given: 2007, Terror raids on homes of uranium ex-employee, The Telegraph A Thames Valley police source said: "We were contacted by the Met as a matter of course as they were operating in our manor." arguably does back up the current sense (though "operating in our neighbourhood" would still make some sense in context), so I'm reluctant to change it. Is the current sense ok, or is it too specific? Smurrayinchester (talk) 10:56, 13 September 2012 (UTC) Wow, I've never heard of this at all. Chambers 1994 has "an area or base of operation, esp a police district (slang)". Equinox ◑ 14:19, 13 September 2012 (UTC) Ah, so we might have two separate senses here? Smurrayinchester (talk) 20:06, 13 September 2012 (UTC) Anyone remember (or at least heard of) Dixon of Dock Green? Here's some publicity quotes: "When PC George Dixon and the rest of the staff of the Dock Green manor went on holiday earlier this year, ..." or "The Dock Green manor has never considered itself short of odd characters ..." In those days the British police certainly worked in well defined manors AFAIK. -- ALGRIF talk 09:36, 15 September 2012 (UTC) This looks quite parallel to US usage of turf ("the territory claimed by a person, gang, etc. as their own"), at least in the non-police sense. If a policeman said "They were operating on our turf without telling us" I would think he was referring to his precinct, but I would still think that he meant his "territory". DCDuring TALK 16:54, 15 September 2012 (UTC) So then there are two definitions. One is that manor means a vaguely defined area, territory, or neighbourhood. The other that manor means (for the police, or other organization) a specifically defined area with known borders. -- ALGRIF talk 11:57, 16 September 2012 (UTC) The definition of thou says that it is dialectal. Are there any dialects that still use it? If so, which ones? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:53, 13 September 2012 (UTC) Wikipedia says "it is used in parts of Northern England and by Scots". I associate it with Yorkshire. See Yorkshire_dialect#Vocabulary_and_grammar. TV and globalisation are probably well on the way to killing it. Equinox ◑ 13:57, 13 September 2012 (UTC) Yes, Lancashire and Yorkshire are the main hold-outs, although the way the word is pronounced nowadays doesn't sound much like the Biblical/Shakespearean /ðaʊ/, being more like /ðaː/ or /daː/ (hence the nickname for people from Sheffield, "dee-dahs", from the way they (historically) pronounce "thee" and "thou"). Smurrayinchester (talk) 14:11, 13 September 2012 (UTC) I don't know whether there are still Quakers in the U.S. who use it, but for a while it was fairly characteristic of them. In The Philadelphia Story Jimmy Stewart's character goes to the library and is asked by the librarian, "What does thee wish?" For more info on current usage, see Wikipedia's article w:Thou. —Angr 14:22, 13 September 2012 (UTC) My understanding was that Quakers typically, or at least stereotypically, used thee, but not thou. (But I could be mistaken.) —RuakhTALK 15:55, 13 September 2012 (UTC) True, even in my cinematic example. But then, as Smurrayinchester says, other people use "tha" rather than "thou" too, so maybe no dialects use "thou" per se. —Angr 16:18, 13 September 2012 (UTC) Yes it's /ðaː/ in my bit of Yorkshire, I don't know anyone I would say thou mind you. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:46, 14 September 2012 (UTC) I've heard "thoo", but not the exact biblical pronunciation of "thou" in dialect. Dbfirs 07:34, 15 September 2012 (UTC) Do any dialects that use any form of thou still preserve the -(e)st verb endings? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 09:45, 15 September 2012 (UTC) Yes, my local dialect (Yorkshire–Cumbria border) retains "doest thou" but in abbreviated form: do'st t'. Dbfirs 20:38, 15 September 2012 (UTC) Agreed. Do'st th' is pretty much standard in those parts of UK. Can easily be found in any eye dialect book about folks from there, such as James Herriott's books for a start. -- ALGRIF talk 12:02, 16 September 2012 (UTC) So how would that be pronounced, /dʌstθ/? Also, is -(e)st regularly used in other verbs? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 14:16, 19 September 2012 (UTC) Well on your last point, and speaking of Herriot, the typical greeting he tended to get was "Mr 'Erriot! How ista this mornin'!" (To which the appropriate Dales response is "Nobbut middlin', lad, nobbut middlin'.") Ƿidsiþ 14:34, 19 September 2012 (UTC) ... and on your first point, the pronunciation /dʌstθ/ might be retained in some regions (though it sounds archaic to me), but is usually shortened to either /dʌs.tə/ or //dʌs.ðaː/ (or maybe /dʌs.θ/) depending on region. I'm not familiar with the Sheffield variant. Dbfirs 09:04, 4 October 2012 (UTC) This word, possibly a blend of disband and abandon,* is or was clearly in fairly wide use, but what does it mean? I can't find it in any dictionaries, and it's not obvious from the uses what it could be, beyond having something vaguely to do with abandonment or disbanding. Smurrayinchester (talk) 13:15, 14 September 2012 (UTC) * "This gang is disbandoned!" "No... "dis" what?" "Disbandoned." "Disbanded, do you mean?" "Abandoned?" "Yep, all of those things!" Smurrayinchester (talk) 13:15, 14 September 2012 (UTC) The definition of this Italian word is recordability. We don't have an entry for that English word, and the definition seems to waver in the Google Books hits; except for the OSHA definition (which may be statuary), the rest seem to be repeated reinventions. Can we get a better definition?--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:34, 14 September 2012 (UTC) We are missing many of the extended senses, including the famous one used in psychology (see Wikipedia page). Anyone care to help? ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:10, 15 September 2012 (UTC) I was looking for a way to say this in Spanish. I still don't really know the best answer, but I'm pretty sure that primo ain't it. I'm also pretty sure that the Italian entries aren't correct either. Would someone(s) care to check out the translations in this entry? Cheers. -- ALGRIF talk 09:30, 15 September 2012 (UTC) I hav two problems here: 1. 2, Simple past tense and past participle of wreak which is wrong per the Oxford Dict. Online (wreak) and M-W (wrought) which only has it as the past tense of work, not wreak. And, 2. then in the usage note it states: In a past tense verbal sense, wrought has come to be used as a past tense of wreak more often than work (it wrought havoc). Yes, but wrought as in "worked" is acceptable here (per the Oxford Dict. Online, wreak)) which states: The phrase wrought havoc, as in they wrought havoc on the countryside, is an acceptable variant of wreaked havoc. Here, wrought is an archaic past tense of work. It is not, as is sometimes assumed, a past tense of wreak. For that matter, I think the most of the usage note is more opinionated ... or at least needs to be rewritten. --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! (talk) 17:37, 15 September 2012 (UTC) Yes, it looks like "wreak havoc" has eclipsed the lesser-used "work havoc" in the present tense, probably because both wreak and havoc are starting to disappear except in set phrases. I wonder, though, if the historically-wrong concept of wrought being the past tense of wreak may have taken hold in actual usage, just as pea replaced pease as the singular form for that word. I wonder if there are any uses of wreak that are incompatible with work that we could use to check for wrought vs. wreaked as a past tense of wreak. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:43, 15 September 2012 (UTC) I did an ngram on wreak havoc and work havoc and was I amazed by that there was so many hits for "work havoc". For many years, it topp'd "wreak havoc". Along with the aforemention'd quote from the Oxford Dict. Online, I found it back'd by M-W: 1994, Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage[24], edition 2, revised, Merriam Webster, ISBN 9780877791324, page 966: Usage commentators, who seem to be unfamiliar with the work havoc variant, regard wrought simply as an erroneous substitute foe wreaked, they issue stern warnings against its use. It is not an error, ... I also found sundry byspels of "work havoc" in Google Books. Anway, it all points to that it is not a past tense for wreak. That should be taken off. The rest of the usage note should be rewritten. If I want to write, "Yesterday I wrought the metal before I welded it on the truck", that is grammatically fine; maybe a little odd but likely not to a metal worker. --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! (talk) 19:41, 15 September 2012 (UTC) Yes, you've given lots of reasons for a prescriptive dictionary to remove the reference to wrought being a past tense of wreak. Too bad we're not a prescriptive dictionary. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:27, 15 September 2012 (UTC) Oh, the admin been hella prescriptiv on a few of my entries. The thing is, work havoc is also a set phrase so one can't say that wrought is the past tense of wreak from wrought havoc ... that is the past tense of work havoc. Thus, where is the proof that it is a past tense of wreak? Now if someone can show me where it is clearly the past tense of wreak other than with the word havoc, then I'll this go. But right now, this may go to an rfv ... and I don't like RFVs. --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! (talk) 20:58, 16 September 2012 (UTC) I agree with AnWulf about this: is there any evidence that wrought is the past tense of wreak? If the only "evidence" is the ambiguous phrase "wrought havoc", where "work(ed) havoc" is an equally attested alternative form bzw. lemma, it would be conjecture on Wiktionary's part to say "wrought" was also a past tense of "wreak". Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com both say it is only the past tense of "work". - -sche (discuss) 21:20, 16 September 2012 (UTC) [edit] 50 shades of Asturian colors So, working with Asturian colors. I've been left scratching my head about the colour red. Various sources give it as coloráu[25], roxu[26], bermeyu[27] and encarnáu[28]. I link to the Asturian Language Academy too. It looks like all are red or shades of red, but it's beyond my pay grade. Any tips? --78.147.181.7 21:05, 15 September 2012 (UTC) As an Asturian speaker, I can help you saying that is usually depends on what you want to say. Now, now must know that, from all words you've used there is une which does not mean "red" actually i.e. "roxu". Even though it might be used for concepts as the Red Army (Exércitu Roxu), the mein reason is because it sounds pretty close to Spanish "Ejército Rojo", but "roxu" actually means two things: readhead or blonde. And it can be used either for people or animals. For instance, for those who are readhead or blonde (such as Xuan Xosé Sánchez Vicente, an Asturian regionalist politician from the 90s), they are usually called "el roxu". But also you find it for those animals which have red fur, such as both Asturian cow races, the "Asturiana de los valles" and "Asturiana de les montañes" are both "vaca roxa". So that's for the word "roxu", but what about the other three? Well, I must tell you they simply depend on the contest, and I don't really think there is any rule about it. I would say you can normally use any of them as long as you are referring to something merely "red". Now, what I can tell you is a few cases in which we use one or another: Red card e.g. football: la (tarxeta) encarnada Red light (traffic lights): bermeyu/a Red Cross: Cruz Bermeya Red Army: Exércitu Roxu I personally prefer using "bermeyu", since it was the most common word used in my house, but as I told you this is a very free-use issue. I hope I had helped you —This unsigned comment was added by Iniciati (talk • contribs) 10:06, 16 September 2012‎. Only occurs in James Joyce. We define it as "lemon-tasting sweets", which seems like a reasonable guess from the context, but nobody seems to know what kind of sweets. Is it right to have an entry for a Joyce nonce word where the definition can only be vaguely guessed at? Equinox ◑ 23:18, 15 September 2012 (UTC) This isn't an answer to your question, but I've been tagging other such terms used only by one famous author and where the meaning is guesswork with {{context|used only by _}} to emphasize to potentially unaware, non-native readers the unlikelihood of anyone understanding the term should they choose to use it. - -sche (discuss) 21:14, 16 September 2012 (UTC) The OED has a non-Joyce citation: 1965 Amer. N. & Q. III. 117/2 'Lemon Platt', commonly sold as 'Yellow Man' at fairs in the North of Ireland,..derives its name..from its flavor. Ƿidsiþ 14:30, 19 September 2012 (UTC) There is a hidden section at khaki. Could someone clean this entry? Best regards --Yoursmile (talk) 16:13, 16 September 2012 (UTC) Fixed. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:23, 16 September 2012 (UTC) [edit] Plural of Dutch "bod" 'offer' This anon edit just showed up on my watchlist. That the gender is masculine and the diminutive is bodje seems entirely plausible to me. That the plural of bod is biedingen (as opposed to, say, bodden), on the other hand, doesn't. Can anyone confirm or deny? —Angr 22:07, 17 September 2012 (UTC) biedingen is the plural of bieding, boden is the plural of bod. I don't really know how else to say it. Also, the gender is neuter. —CodeCat 22:58, 17 September 2012 (UTC) The usage note doesn't seem very NPOV and has no citations. Can anyone back this up? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 14:19, 19 September 2012 That the participial form originally lacked the -g is definitely true, the two have distinct etymologies. Whether that is still reflected in a difference in pronunciation I don't know, but it's certainly plausible. —CodeCat 15:35, 19 September 2012 (UTC) The English upper classes have (stereo)typically retained a tendency to use -in, as in the famous pastimes of "huntin', shootin' and fishin'". This has been defended on occasion as harking back to the original "original" word endings, rather than representing the same g-dropping phenomenon as evidenced in the working classes. It doesn't really make a lot of sense, as the original present participle ending was -ende, so historically speaking, even if you're not dropping a G, you must be dropping a D. I think some British dialects have traditionally kept a slight distinction between the PP and the verbal noun (especially in Scotland), but generally speaking, nowadays, anyone who says "singin'" for "singing" will do so whatever part of speech it's fulfilling. Ƿidsiþ 15:48, 19 September 2012 (UTC) What about the 60% figure? I would really like a cite for that. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 21:11, 19 September 2012 (UTC) An anon points out on the talk-page that this can be singular: "a means to an end". —RuakhTALK 14:58, 19 September 2012 (UTC) Yes it's a bit weird, the OED describes this usage as "plural, with singular concord and sense". Ƿidsiþ 15:12, 19 September 2012 (UTC) What do they mean exactly? How do we tell a plural from a singular until we know the concord and determiners it permits? Do they just mean that it ends in "s"? It is not obviously identical to the "resources" sense that we have either. (Is a person, method, or technique a "resource"?) The missing sense is something like "something useful for a desired goal". It seems to be countable, with plural identical to the singular in form. And not just in a means to an end. DCDuring TALK 15:50, 19 September 2012 (UTC) Re: "Do they just mean that it ends in 's'?": Certainly not. Presumably they mean that, etymologically speaking, singular 'means' is an extended use of the plural of 'mean'.   Re: "And not just in a means to an end": Right. That was just an example. Another example is "a means of blahing" (meaning "a way to blah"). —RuakhTALK 15:59, 19 September 2012 (UTC) Only before 1800 were there periods when "a mean to an end" was more frequent than "a means to an end", per Google NGrams. Webster 1913 has "In this sense the word is usually employed in the plural form means, and often with a singular attribute or predicate, as if a singular noun. By this means he had them more at vantage. Bacon. What other means is left unto us. Shak. By their concord shall you know them. Webster also shows the "resources" sense after this, with "Hence". DCDuring TALK 16:04, 19 September 2012 (UTC) [edit] You may light on a husband that hath no beard There's an abstruse passage in the "Much Ado About Nothing" that I've stumbled upon: BEATRICE. Just, if he send me no husband; for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord! I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face: I had rather lie in the woollen. LEONATO. You may light on a husband that hath no beard. Does that mean "to alight", i.e. "to lie on", "to sleep with"? Please enlighten me on this. --CopperKettle (talk) 05:58, 20 September 2012 (UTC) No, light on just means 'come upon, discover, end up with'. But there are lots of sexual double-entendres going on in this passage which make it fairly complicated to understand. It's part of a long bit where Beatrice's uncles are teasing her about what kind of man she'll end up with, and she keeps objecting to all their suggestions: here she complains she can't bear their beards, and they say she might find one without a beard (but she goes on to say that a man without a beard would be no better than having a woman). Ƿidsiþ 06:20, 20 September 2012 (UTC) (We have it at light#Etymology 4 at the moment. If it only takes "on" and "upon", presumably we could have entries for light on and light upon as well.) Smurrayinchester (talk) 10:01, 20 September 2012 (UTC) Thanks everybody for the answers! --CopperKettle (talk) 14:30, 21 September 2012 (UTC) [edit] teddy (kind of lingerie) "Why on earth are these called teddies?" someone asked me. I don't know why. Do you? Equinox ◑ 20:07, 21 September 2012 (UTC) The Online Etymology Dictionary doesn't. It just says "meaning 'women's undergarment' ... is recorded from 1924, of unknown origin, perhaps from some fancied resemblance to a teddy bear, a theory that dates to 1929". —Angr 20:57, 21 September 2012 (UTC) [edit] Japanese honorific suffixes in English Just a note: we have -san in English, but we have -chan, -sama, -sensei only in Japanese (and I suppose there are further honorifics). In fact, practically all Japanese honorifics are now thrivingly present in English, mainly because of the younger generation's large fandom for anime and manga. It can be found particularly often in fan fiction. Obviously they don't really understand the social rules, and just attach the honorifics to be cute and trendy. However, they might well be attestable, even from Usenet alone. Equinox ◑ 00:39, 22 September 2012 (UTC) Is "mouse pad" really US English? In Australia we always say "mouse pad", I've never heard "mouse mat" before. ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:40, 22 September 2012 (UTC) Yes, mousepad or mouse pad is US English. I've never heard of a "mouse mat" either. —Stephen (Talk) 09:08, 22 September 2012 (UTC) Being marked US doesn't mean a term is necessarily exclusively US. If the term is used in Australia as well, you can add an Australia tag to it. —Angr 11:16, 22 September 2012 (UTC) But it does tend to indicate that it is not common in UK. Which is contrary to my experience. It should not really carry any tag at all AFAICT. -- ALGRIF talk 13:06, 28 September 2012 (UTC) [edit] good edit? Is this a worthwhile edit? --81.9.217.33 08:59, 22 September 2012 (UTC) I think this is the link you want. —Angr 11:19, 22 September 2012 (UTC) I could find no previous discussion of this, though I thought I recalled some. In any case, all three of these have as one definition "a very large number". The billions example sentence--"There were billions of people at the concert"--sort of supports this, but I'd rather just call it hyperbole. The others have cites that don't support it, IMO. Both nonillion and novemdecillion have 'I then looked into the zatetic forest behind it / And saw a nonillion, no, a novemdecillion of them!'; which makes no sense if they're synonyms. 'When we say 2 we mean exactly 2, not 2,00001 or 2,0000000000000001 or 2 with a novemdecillion zeroes and then a 1...' is not using novemdecillion exactly, but I see no reason to interpret it as "a very big number" instead of "1060". "The odds that one of the Cowboys linebacking corps reads this blog is one in... oh, let's use a really big number... a novemdecillion" doesn't support the definition, as it uses novemdecillion as an example of a very large number, not meaning very large number.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:41, 23 September 2012 (UTC) As you know we often insist on lexicalizing various kinds of tropes and features of grammar as they catch someone's fancy. Here some hyperboles have so been memorialized. But is there any non-hyperbolic use of such terms? I'd bet one could not attest to the meaning, rather than the existence, of such terms. Are there a lot of calculations that use them? Sometimes lawyers write out formulas using words, but there is little call for such large numbers in contracts, legislation, or regulation. What scientist or practical numerate person would use them? The folks who use such words are almost certainly innumerate and have no need for precision in their use of the terms. There may be a partial ordering of such terms that would be attestable, though it may have more to do with the numbers of syllables than the semantics. Don't we have appendices that explain how these are formed or that provide a table of some of them in various languages? DCDuring TALK 14:12, 23 September 2012 (UTC) Maybe the senses should stay, but with a non-gloss definition along the lines of "Used in hyperbole."? —RuakhTALK 14:49, 23 September 2012 (UTC) Maybe even just a usage note? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 14:53, 23 September 2012 (UTC) Wouldn't we be just a little bit interested in knowing whether they are used and how, ie, what the content of the entry is, before deciding how to present it? DCDuring TALK 16:06, 23 September 2012 (UTC) A usage note means no citations. A non-gloss definition means that the cites stay, supporting the non-gloss def. I think unsupported usage notes are a step backward. We already have {{hyperbolic}} used hundreds of times for related instances. DCDuring TALK 09:40, 24 September 2012 (UTC) A quick Google Books search clearly shows that nonillion can be attested. After ignoring mentions, there's certainly hyperbolic uses (which I haven't used to cite it), but they're dwarfed by the number of actual uses. It's the number of IP6 address, there's the repeated line that "In Hungary during World War II it took 1.4 nonillion pengoes in 1946 to buy what one pengo could purchase a few years earlier", it's an estimate for the number of ice cubes needed to cool down the sun, etc. I get the impression few use it hyperbolically because used normally it needs an explanation (and gets one in most cases of normal use.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:07, 24 September 2012 (UTC) I want to create entries for these terms but I don't know how to classify them. They are exclusively negative imperatives but I don't know if they belong to трогать or some other verb, which perhaps is otherwise obsolete. Perhaps the entries should be не трожь and не трожьте instead since they are only negative. If they do belong to трогать, then should they be included in the conjugation table? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 09:59, 23 September 2012 (UTC) I've been editing these two. Do Americans also use these words? ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:49, 23 September 2012 (UTC) The only sense I am sure is used in the US is the drinking sense. "We knocked back a few more beers and drove home." DCDuring TALK 14:26, 23 September 2012 (UTC) As a gamer, the first sense that pops into my mind is the MMORPG sense of bumping a PC or monster backward when they get hit. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 20:31, 23 September 2012 (UTC) But that's the literal sense. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 08:17, 24 September 2012 (UTC) I'm only familiar with meanings two and three (& the SoP meaning, of course). Meaning one sounds odd to me. But I'm a New Zealander. Furius (talk) 10:04, 24 September 2012 (UTC) [edit] Geniuses I regularly come accross userpges where editors claim they can speak 8 or more laguages. I find this hard to believe because that is rare. Is wiktionary filled with geniuses or are some editors exaggerating their linguistic abilities? Pass a Method (talk) 15:03, 24 September 2012 (UTC) What kind of people you expect will be drawn towards a multilingual dictionary? I don't think anyone is exaggerating too much. There's WF, but in his case it's outright lying, not exaggeration. — Ungoliant (Falai) 15:37, 24 September 2012 (UTC) Of course, some people even have a problem with English. SemperBlotto (talk) 15:41, 24 September 2012 (UTC) Also, the Babel boxes on user pages really only represent the languages the user feels comfortable handling lemmas in at Wiktionary; it doesn't necessarily mean they can fluently carry on a conversation in those languages. For example, my Babel boxes include Old Irish and Modern Irish, but my ability to converse in Modern Irish is highly limited and my ability to converse in Old Irish is nonexistent. —Angr 15:45, 24 September 2012 (UTC) Yes, this is a general problem with Babel boxes - they say "speak" but most of us just assume that this means "read" and "write". SemperBlotto (talk) 15:48, 24 September 2012 (UTC) Worse yet, some of them say "contribute" implying that we'll be writing Wiktionary content in those languages. —Angr 16:00, 24 September 2012 (UTC) The Babel box didn't accommodate fractional (less than 1) levels of attainment when I completed mine. DCDuring TALK 16:43, 24 September 2012 (UTC) From now on i'm just going to assume that "advanced" means intermediate and "intermediate" means basic. I speak 4 languages but can write in two and have difficulties in one. And people tell me i'm impressive, lol. Pass a Method (talk) 08:32, 25 September 2012 (UTC) When I was studying linguistics back in the 80's just about every general linguistics class had a questionnaire you filled out on the first day to let the instructor know what the areas of expertise there were among the class. There was one that I still remember, because it was completely different. Dr. Ladefoged's version was (I don't remember the exact wording): "What languages can you ask for a dozen eggs in?" Chuck Entz (talk) 13:26, 25 September 2012 (UTC) The only languages that I would claim I can actually "speak" are those that I regularly use: Bavarian, my native language (although the dialect I speak is urban and full of Standard German interferences), Standard German (with occasional Bavarian/Upper German regionalisms) and Standard English. My English is supposed to be largely British but ends up sounding like a mix of American and British, I suspect. My written command of English is quite good, I'm sure, even if far from perfect, but my listening comprehension is lacking a lot and whenever I try to talk English it's downright horrible, I'm sure (strong accent, struggling for words and phrases, and awkward, clumsy, halting, even when it comes to grammar, I fear – well, you know what they say about Broken English). I'm much more comfortable reading and writing it, especially when there is no time pressure and I can polish my run-on sentences. I think I manage to sound fairly idiomatic and not too foreigner-like. It's sad that even thorough linguistic training does not give you magical language-mastering skills (although I think that it makes it considerably easier for you to acquire a language when needed), but languages are famously like muscles (or musical instruments, etc.) and require regular training to be good at them; even though I may have studied Italian and also some Spanish, even a bit of Finnish and Russian (not to mention various ancient languages), and do manage to decipher connected texts in various Germanic and Romance languages such as Swedish, French or Portuguese largely by transfer (i. e., by way of similarity to those already studied), I would never claim I can actually usefully read and write any of these, much less understand or speak. I never give much credence to people who claim to "speak" dozens of languages anymore, and am not impressed by those who can speak eight languages but it turns out four of these are Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin and the rest are Slovenian, Bulgarian, Macedonian and English. :P Show me someone who can lead even simple everyday conversations in Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, Georgian, Tamil, Inuktitut, Korean, Mongolian, Vai and English, and read simple texts in these languages (in the original scripts!) and then I'll be impressed. The combination of divergent lexicon, phonological and grammatical typology, idioms and of course writing systems is going to keep anyone busy. (Hey, I've spared you Tagalog, Navajo, Irish, Skolt Sami, Ancient Egyptian, Hurrian, Klingon and ASL!) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:33, 24 October 2012 (UTC) Missing important sense of treat as "I'll treat sb to a sth". Maybe split defn 6, which is biased towards food and drink? --81.9.217.33 00:51, 26 September 2012 (UTC) [edit] hours counted in 24 We often count hours in units of 24. This might be worth exploring for Wt's sake. [edit] look copulatively, if you dare Clicking on "copulative" on defn 3, we get directed to a null page. Also, the less astute of users may not understand what copulative means. Both should be more user-friendly. Yes, good point. I've changed Template:copulative to link to our entry copular verb. The experts might have a better solution. Dbfirs 08:53, 4 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] Shorthand I found mention of "Shorthand" as a level 3-er. Added by this guy. WTF is it? --81.9.217.33 01:23, 26 September 2012 (UTC) We have been keeping the Shorthand headings as a monument to ill-conceived, soon-abandoned projects. DCDuring TALK 01:46, 26 September 2012 (UTC) Worth keeping tho? —This comment was unsigned. Perhaps they should be moved to usage notes or alt forms? - -sche (discuss) 01:56, 26 September 2012 (UTC) They are in the next least conspicuous place after anagrams. What could be better? We have any number of non-conforming headers in various other languages, such as the 1,825 Pronunciation n headers, only one of which is in English [[imp.]]. DCDuring TALK 02:32, 26 September 2012 (UTC) We're missing adj. sense of dream - a dream house, my dream job, a dream date etc. Sounds like attributive use of the second noun definition: house/job/date of one's wishes. You can't say "this house is more dream than that one" even if you desire this house more than that one. — Ungoliant (Falai) 01:38, 26 September 2012 (UTC) Looks like a non-comparable adj to me —This comment was unsigned. Almost every sense of almost every every noun can be used attributively. We need more than attributive use of a noun to determine it is worth having an adjective entry. It should behave like an adjective in other ways. See WT:English adjectives. DCDuring TALK 01:54, 26 September 2012 (UTC) Correct, you cannot really say "This house is dream (adj)" or "This job is very dream (adj)"--that would make it an adjective. Leasnam (talk) 18:46, 2 November 2012 (UTC) It is a compound, not an adjective. You can tell because of the intonation. "dream house" has the same intonation as "coalmine" but different from "large house". —CodeCat 18:48, 2 November 2012 (UTC) It's sort of a backwards compound though because it does not mean a house containing dreams, but a house that is dreamed about. --WikiTiki89 18:59, 2 November 2012 (UTC) [edit] fashion-monging - a form of "fashionmonger"? From "Much Ado..": ...I know them, yea,  And what they weigh, even to the utmost scruple,  Scambling, out-facing, fashion-monging boys,  That lie and cog and flout, deprave and slander... Does it belong in the fashionmonger ? As an adjective or as an -ing form of a verb? Cheers, --CopperKettle (talk) 12:50, 26 September 2012 (UTC) Well no, it's a separate word, an adjective. And apparently a nonce-word. Ƿidsiþ 10:41, 28 September 2012 (UTC) [From my talk page:] Hi there - regarding the usage note you wrote for the Wiktionary entry for "strict": What's the source for saying that "more strict" / "most strict" is most often used outside the UK? I've lived in the US all my life, and I've never heard "more strict", only "stricter". "More strict" sounds very odd to me. All the North American dictionaries I can find give only the -er / -est forms. I think this usage note should be removed unless a reference can be given to back it up. Thanks. Seansinc (talk) 07:09, 26 September 2012 (UTC) I was greatly relieved to find that someone else had added that remark originally in this edit. I merely moved it this past March from the inflection line to a usage note. I checked COCA for relative frequency both over the whole corpus and in speech. It shows a bit more than the usual use of "more" and "most" rather than the "-er" and "-est" forms. In speech "more"/"most" were about 10% as common, in writing about 4%. At BNC there were no instances of more and most. This suggests to me that perhaps some US speakers don't like to pronounce "cter" and "ctest" and avoid it when they have a choice. Let's take this to WT:TR where some who are more knowledgeable about speech than I can weigh in. DCDuring TALK 14:36, 26 September 2012 (UTC) Anyone? DCDuring TALK 14:36, 26 September 2012 (UTC) My understanding is that any single-syllable adjective can take -er, -est, and it certainly seems more natural in this case. More/most sound rather strange to me (UK). SemperBlotto (talk) 14:41, 26 September 2012 (UTC) I would guess that it's a style issue, and you might use more strict if you wanted to emphasise the moreness, and otherwise probably use stricter. — Pingkudimmi 15:13, 26 September 2012 (UTC) What I found curious is that, though the usage note is wrong, there is something behind it. US writers and speakers are noticeably more likely to use the "more"/"most" expressions and more likely to do so in speech. That is what made me think of it as possibly phonetic in origin, associated with a US region perhaps. DCDuring TALK 17:30, 26 September 2012 (UTC) Just thinking about this quickly, I realized that in my English (New England), out of the words that have their own comparatives and superlatives, there seems to be a set of words that absolutely cannot take more and most. These words include good, bad, fast, big, small (that's what I thought of off the top of my head). Other words can take more and most pretty much interchangeably (possibly depending on emphasis, or other such things). These words include strict, dry, brave. I don't know if there is any pattern to determine which group a word belongs to other than maybe its frequency. A grammar freak is likely to correct you if you use more or most with these words but it is nevertheless common to do so. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 10:55, 27 September 2012 (UTC) moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification What's gender or is it genderless? See User_talk:O_ec#Munique_.28capital.29_has_no_gender_in_Portuguese. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 08:15, 27 September 2012 (UTC) Sorry, just to be clear you're disputing the validity of the word Munique which you just created, right? Mglovesfun (talk) 09:53, 27 September 2012 (UTC) I couldn't find a better way to check some info regarding this word - issue too small for BP, IMHO. Not verifying the existence but the gender of the word. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 10:02, 27 September 2012 (UTC) The Tea Room is the place to discuss individual words, isn't it? As for the gender of Munique, Portuguese Wikipedia's article w:pt:Munique uses feminine agreement of adjectives in the phrases "Munique é atravessada pelo rio Isar", "Munique também já foi atingida em sua região por climas intensos", and "Munique está bem ligada às linhas internacionais de trens", so I guess it's feminine. —Angr 10:07, 27 September 2012 (UTC) Finding out the gender of place-names in Portuguese is difficult, because most of them don't take articles. For example: "o Reino Unido é belo", "o Brasil é belo", "o Paraguai é belo"; and "a Alemanha é bela", "a Inglaterra é bela", "a Rússia é bela"; but "Portugal é belo", "Munique é bela", "Moscovo é belo""Moscovo é bela". Having feminine adjectives doesn't necessarily mean it's feminine, because it may be the result of an implied a cidade ("(a cidade de) Munique é atravessada pelo rio Isar"). But in this case, I think it is feminine. — Ungoliant (Falai) 16:40, 27 September 2012 (UTC) That's a good point. w:pt:Hamburgo and w:pt:Moscovo use feminine adjectives too despite the very masculine-looking -o at the ends of the names. —Angr 17:05, 27 September 2012 (UTC) If Moscovo and Hamburgo always take feminine adjectives because of an implied "cidade de", doesn't that just mean that they are feminine despite the ending? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 17:37, 27 September 2012 (UTC) We could do that. {{pt-proper noun}} should also display whether the proper noun takes an article or not. — Ungoliant (Falai) 17:46, 27 September 2012 (UTC) James Taylor's A Portuguese-English Dictionary has "Munique, Muníquia (f.) Munich." - -sche (discuss) 17:50, 27 September 2012 (UTC) Does (f.) apply to Muníquia only or to both (Munique and Muníquia)? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 22:49, 27 September 2012 (UTC) User:O_ec (native Portuguese speaker) insists the word has no gender when we had a bit of an edit war on Munich (about the Portuguese translation). I have invited him to join the discussion bu he declined. I don't agree that languages with grammatical genders may have "genderless" words. In my opinion, in such languages some words may have multiple genders or gender is unclear, unknown or not YET established (used too seldom or in such contexts where the gender is irrelevant or not clear). So far we don't have any solid evidence for either claim. What should we do? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 22:47, 27 September 2012 (UTC) I think we have as much solid evidence as we can get about such a relatively obscure topic: we have a print dictionary which marks it as feminine (Taylor's), pt.Wikt marks it as feminine(!), and Ungoliant (also a native Portuguese speaker) thinks it's feminine. If it doesn't take an article, that may be why O_ec thinks it doesn't have gender. - -sche (discuss) 02:06, 28 September 2012 (UTC) Thanks. You probably missed my little question about the dictionary - Does (f.) apply to Muníquia only or to both (Munique and Muníquia)? It's not obvious. Ungoliant didn't sound very sure. I thought I could make an analogy with Russian - obscure or rare foreign words with uncommon endings are hard in terms of determining their gender. However, country, company and river names become feminine, city names become feminine because of the common name gender. Even the same word, which means both country, city and/or river may have various genders depending on the meaning. Russian doesn't have articles but adjectives, verbs in the past tense and pronouns reveal the gender. Does it apply to Portuguese? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 02:43, 28 September 2012 (UTC) You're right, I'm not sure. I'm starting to suspect every city name that doesn't take an article is feminine, because w:Caçador also takes feminine adjectives despite its etymon being the masculine noun caçador (hunter). — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:01, 28 September 2012 (UTC) I have removed the -rft, despite some doubts. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 23:27, 1 October 2012 (UTC) Pursuant to the discussion of #barză here and on my talk page, I blocked Torvalu4 (talk • contribs) for one week. That block has now expired and the user has returned, and Robbie has questioned if Torvalu's recent edits to Spanish and Basque entries check out. While our paucity of Romanian-speakers tempered the previous discussion, I think we have enough Spanish, Basque (and Old Irish) speakers to sort this out. Robbie specifically wondered if it was appropriate to remove the {{unk.}} tag from [[bruja]]. - -sche (discuss) 19:20, 27 September 2012 (UTC) Removing {{unk.}} from bruja was not appropriate at all. Its etymology is NOT certain. Hispano-Celtic is a possibility, but many others are suggested: Latin bruchus; bruscus (doesn't mention language, but I assume it's the same as Italian brusco); Basque buruz. — Ungoliant (Falai) 19:32, 27 September 2012 (UTC) I removed the unknown bit because it said unknown rather than uncertain, which seems like a contradiction if there are theories. If there are theories, then the origin isn't exactly unknown, and those theories should be mentioned, as opposed to the total absence of info. that was there before. What's the problem? In any case, the current wording doesn't pose a problem at all. Mountain out of a molehill? Torvalu4 (talk) 01:12, 28 September 2012 (UTC) It is unknown, those theories are only guesses (as evidenced by the fact that there are at least four of them). You could have changed it to uncertain which, I agree, is somewhat more accurate. Certainly more accurate than not saying anything about the fact that it's an uncertain etymology. No one is questioning the addition of the Hispano-Celtic etymology, it was a good edit. The problem is that in bruja and elsewhere your edits make it seem (whether intentionally or not) that words with theoretical etymologies have a certain etymology. Does the word bruja come from Hispano-Celtic? It's the most convincing theory I've found so far, but implying that we're sure of it is misleading. — Ungoliant (Falai) 01:36, 28 September 2012 (UTC) So, to recap, we agree. And removing unknown was apparently appropriate after all. Thank goodness this was brought to the tearoom. Torvalu4 (talk) 02:16, 28 September 2012 (UTC) No it wasn't. If you had replaced Unknown with Uncertain it would have been appropriate. But that's not what you did. — Ungoliant (Falai) 02:21, 28 September 2012 (UTC) Not only bruja lost its uncertainty. So did terco and vega (no longer akin to Basque, but derived from Old Basque). As said before, I'm not contesting the information added. However, removing ambiguity is peculiar. --Robbie SWE (talk) 10:34, 28 September 2012 (UTC) If it were an inhabitant of Albania etc., shouldn't it be capitalized? w:Arnauts mentions it in the 1st reference with a capital A in the second ref as does the Free dictionary. --biblbroksдискашн 21:55, 28 September 2012 (UTC) Since no input for 2 days decided to move it to [[Arnaut]] as well as plural. Will rfd arnaut. --biblbroksдискашн 14:04, 30 September 2012 (UTC) [edit] clutch: two etymologies or one? Etymonline.com offers separate etymologies for the clutch as "transmission \ clasping fixture etc." and "the set of eggs laid by a single female bird". Traces the latter to "klekken"="to hatch", probably of Scand. descent. Other dictionaries lump both the mechanical and zoological senses under one etymology. Who's to believe? Cheers, --CopperKettle (talk) 02:15, 29 September 2012 (UTC) MWOnline also has a separate etymology for the eggs. DCDuring TALK 03:53, 29 September 2012 (UTC) So does American Heritage. What dictionaries lump them together? —Angr 09:30, 29 September 2012 (UTC) Century Dictionary. --CopperKettle (talk) 10:23, 29 September 2012 (UTC) And so does the 1913 Webster's. But I would trust new dictionaries to be better informed about etymologies than older ones. —Angr 10:36, 29 September 2012 (UTC) See also English from Scots cleek; we may also need an entry cleck ("to hatch") (Scottish; courtesy Chambers).— Pingkudimmi 10:49, 29 September 2012 (UTC) It's definitely two words; I've split the entry. Ƿidsiþ 08:47, 1 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] abbreviation I'm wondering if definition #7 of abbreviation ("Reduction to lower terms, as a fraction.") is correct. I've never heard it (I know "reduction"), references don't mention it, and I couldn't find it searching google either. -Fedso TALK 02:23, 29 September 2012 (UTC) Take a look at abbreviation in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911. Century is very good for dated definitions. They seem slightly more complete than Webster 1913. I keep a browser tab with it. DCDuring TALK 03:59, 29 September 2012 (UTC) Thank you for the link, definitely a useful new entry in my bookmarks! -Fedso TALK 15:52, 29 September 2012 (UTC) Although they seem reliable, their standards for inclusion were probably not the same as ours, so RfV may still be appropriate, though it might be tedious to cite the sense. It would seem to need a context and/or a usage tag. I don't see it in MW3. If none of the more complete dictionaries or specialized glossaries have it, perhaps we can say it is obsolete. DCDuring TALK 17:31, 29 September 2012 (UTC) The senses in the adjective section don't seem very adjective-y to me . . . —RuakhTALK 16:04, 29 September 2012 (UTC) I have added a sense to the noun pilot ("something used for a test or trial"), which covers a large portion of the attributive use. For the noun, the road transport sense "pilot car" would seem to warrant a sense of "guide or escort". I didn't find any use of pilot alone to mean "pilot car". DCDuring TALK 18:48, 29 September 2012 (UTC) How should the general American and British pronunciations of "air" be transcribed, broadly and narrowly? I have seen a number of transcriptions: /ɛəɹ/, /ɛɹ/, [ɛɚ], /eəɹ/ and [eɚ] for the American (rhotic), /ɛə(ɹ)/, /ɛ(ɹ)/ and /eə(ɹ)/ for the British (non-rhotic). This affects all words which have the same sound (with the TR#Mary-marry-merry_merger influencing how many such words there are for any given speaker). I think the vowel is different from simple /ɛ/ or /e/, [ɛ˞] or [e˞]... :\ - -sche (discuss) 18:50, 1 October 2012 (UTC) Haven't we had this conversation before (#Mary-marry-merry merger)? I've generally seen /ɛə(ɹ)/ for British and /eə(ɹ)/ for American but personally, I think the nuances of this sound are beyond the scope of IPA and that's why we have audio samples. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 20:18, 1 October 2012 (UTC) According to Appendix:English pronunciation, air should be transcribed /ɛə(ɹ)/ for RP and /ɛɹ/ for General American (assuming what we're calling General American has the Mary-marry-merry merger). The audio samples are a nice extra, but they're meaningless to anyone who isn't already familiar with English phonology, at least subconsciously. —Angr 20:33, 1 October 2012 (UTC) I don't know why you think audio samples are "meaningless to anyone who isn't already familiar with English phonology". I think audio samples are the best thing we can provide in terms of pronunciation, much better than IPA, as long as they are good enough quality recordings. IPA is only useful to those who are already familiar with both IPA and English (or whatever other language) phonology enough to reconstruct the sound from the IPA. I think the reason /ɛɹ/ is used for American is because (to those with the complete Mary-marry-merry merger) it is just the allophone of /ɛ/ before /ɹ/, but the allophone of /ɛ/ in /ɛɹ/ is certainly different from the one in (for example) /ɛt/. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 21:00, 1 October 2012 (UTC) They're meaningless because simply hearing someone pronounce a word doesn't tell you anything about the phonology of the word if you don't already know what that language's phonemes are. If I hear a recording of someone saying a word in a language I know nothing about, I don't know whether the pitch they're using is crucial or not, because I don't know if it's a tone language or not. If I hear a voiceless aspirated stop at the beginning of a word, or a nasalized vowel next to a nasal consonant, I don't know whether those features are phonemic or allophonic. I may be able to parrot back what I've just heard, but I haven't learned anything about the structure of the language. Only a broad phonemic IPA transliteration can give that information to me as a learner of the language. —Angr 21:39, 1 October 2012 (UTC) So for you a broad transcription would suffice which need not delve into the subtleties of the /ɛəɹ/ sound and a transcription of /ɛəɹ/ would suffice. But an audio sample is much better than a narrow transcription if you want to know what a word actually sounds like. In the end, to speak a language, you need to produce the sound, not identify phonemes. Don't forget, most of our users are not linguists and don't even know what phonemes are. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 22:23, 1 October 2012 (UTC) Subconsciously they do. And hearing what a word sounds like is all very well, but unless you're already familiar with the language it doesn't actually help you pronounce the word, because you don't know what information is important and what isn't. —Angr 22:45, 1 October 2012 (UTC) They need both, which is why we provide both broad transcriptions and audio samples. But the narrow transcription, like I just said, can never be accurate enough so there's no point in getting it to be perfect when we can provide audio. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 22:59, 1 October 2012 (UTC) In traditional RP it's /ɛə/, but the OED abandoned that several years ago and now gives the more familiar British pronunciation /ɛː/. Ƿidsiþ 13:17, 4 October 2012 (UTC) What about when the /ɹ/ is pronounced, as in Mary is it /mɛəɹi/ or /mɛːɹi/? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:21, 4 October 2012 (UTC) The latter. Ƿidsiþ 13:31, 4 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] die slow Should there be a page created called die slow? It is used as an expletive when you wish harm on someone, as in "die slow!". Pass a Method (talk) 14:34, 2 October 2012 (UTC) I read the latter in a journal article and don't know what it means. We have neither nonexportive nor its antonym exportive on this Wiki. Can somebody create them, or at least tell me what they mean? (I also added them to the English requested entries list) Purplebackpack89 (Notes Taken) (Locker) 15:57, 2 October 2012 (UTC) You didn't say what field, but this pdf uses it in the context of coral reef ecosystems, and there "nonexportive" seems to mean not taking things out of the system, like one would do by catching fish for use elsewhere. It would seem that "exporting" is roughly equivalent to "removing". Chuck Entz (talk) 04:43, 3 October 2012 (UTC) Is there any difference between these two terms? According to our current definitions there's hardly any: foreign affairs: "Policy of a government in dealing with other countries or with activities overseas." foreign policy: "A government's policy relating to matters beyond its own jurisdiction: usually relations with other nations and international organisations." I am used to think that "foreign policy" refers to the decisions and guidelines which guide the dealings of a country with other countries whereas "foreign affairs" refers to the practical issues dealt with within the guidelines set by the foreign policy. --Hekaheka (talk) 05:44, 3 October 2012 (UTC) They are very close in meaning indeed but "foreign policy" also is related to diplomacy, IMO, not just the dealings with foreign countries but the rules for these dealings, perhaps. However, the verbal translation of "foreign affairs" is not so common in some languages, the literal translation of "foreign affairs" is used in the name of the ministry in Russian, for example. Perhaps, the definition of "foreign affairs" should have another sense - "dealings with foreign countries", which sounds awkward to me because people mean the foreign policy when using this term ("foreign affairs"). My two cents, I might be wrong. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 06:06, 3 October 2012 (UTC) "Foreign affairs" though implies more than just policy, and furthermore is not limited to diplomacy. In journalism for instance, 'foreign affairs' simply means 'things of interest happening abroad'. Ƿidsiþ 06:25, 3 October 2012 (UTC) "foreign policy" is policy on "foreign affairs". I've never heard of "foreign affairs" on its own referring to the policy itself. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 09:22, 3 October 2012 (UTC) My New Oxford American Dictionary lists the following sense for prevent: archaic (of God) go before (someone) with spiritual guidance and help. Can this be attested? ---> Tooironic (talk) 07:18, 3 October 2012 (UTC) From Article X of the 39 Articles of Religion: "Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ preventing us that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will." I found some other archaic usages of prevent where it clearly doesn't have its modern meaning, but doesn't take a person as its direct object either: [29], [30]. (I looked specifically for "God preventeth" as I thought using the archaic verb ending would be a good way of finding archaic usages.) —Angr 07:42, 3 October 2012 (UTC) The latest issue of a academic review journal, the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, just arrived in my inbox, and it includes an interesting term which I've not seen hitherto - €urope. Assuming it's not a typo, I assume that the term refers to the Euro-zone? Is this a common term that I, distant from Europe, just happen not to have encountered yet? Or a neologistic fad? The context: "no need to ask why the topic of falsification should have such magnetism in Spain—in €urope—today" (http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2012/2012-10-02.html). Furius (talk) 07:37, 3 October 2012 (UTC) I'm sure it's not a typo. It's presumably just a way of saying "Euro zone" or maybe just "money-obsessed Europe", parallel to "U$A". —Angr 07:45, 3 October 2012 (UTC) For "money-obsessed", compare Micro$oft and Ke$ha. Equinox ◑ 09:20, 3 October 2012 (UTC) These are called w:Satirical misspellings. — Ungoliant (Falai) 17:02, 3 October 2012 (UTC) In fact that article mentions "€urope" specifically. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 17:09, 3 October 2012 (UTC) Couple questions: The etymology and sense #3 seem to contradict each other. Is the interjection sense of "Dude!" (meaning "What the fuck!" or "What the hell are you doing?") a separate sense from #2? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 11:08, 3 October 2012 (UTC) Sense 3 seems to be based on dude ranch, which is the earliest usage of dude most people are aware of. I have my doubts about whether it really exists separate from the "tourist" and/or "dandy" sense ("tourist" may also be from "dude ranch"). As for the interjection: among its core practitioners, "dude" can mean just about anything, depending on context, intonation and gestures. Basically, it's a sort of carrier for non-verbal communication. I can imagine an entire conversation starting with "Hey,dude!", followed by an exchange of nothing but a series of variations on "Dude!" Chuck Entz (talk) 12:58, 3 October 2012 (UTC) So is the interjection worth adding? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:00, 3 October 2012 (UTC) I remember an old Stan Freberg comedy recording called "John and Marsha", which consists of an entire old-fashioned soap opera based on John and Marsha saying "John" and "Marsha" to each other. Just about anything can be used as an interjection. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:20, 3 October 2012 (UTC) I remember that too. (And my sister Marcia has been constantly reminded of it all her life, especially since marrying a man named Jon). —Angr 13:21, 3 October 2012 (UTC) Which is why I'm asking if it's distinct from the vocative noun sense. From what I can tell you're saying no it isn't. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:23, 3 October 2012 (UTC) It isn't. Maybe fodder for a usage note, at most. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:53, 3 October 2012 (UTC) Users seem to love the use of terms as interjections, so if we don't insert something that reduces the incentive of would-be contributors to add the meaning of the term in their idiolect, we can expect to be removing the interjection L3 section from this a few times a year. DCDuring TALK 16:34, 3 October 2012 (UTC) [[Wägen]] says its the plural of [[Wagen]], but [[Wagen]] won't admit any relation to [[Wägen]]. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 11:22, 3 October 2012 (UTC) According to Duden, Wägen is Austrian/South German while Wagen is standard elsewhere. Smurrayinchester (talk) 12:46, 3 October 2012 (UTC) Yep. I've edited both pages accordingly. —Angr 12:54, 3 October 2012 (UTC) User:Da Desirer 2 has added a whole bunch of translations to the entry. That same user already added similar huge amounts to entries yesterday and before. In each case, one or more of the translations was wrong. And I figured if one of them is wrong, there is no telling how many more are, but I don't have the knowledge to check them all. So I reverted all, it seemed like the safer option. The user has now added a list of translation to the talk page instead. Could someone please have a look at them, and maybe also talk to the user? I don't think they're quite understanding me... —CodeCat 23:51, 3 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] In-migration and out-migration Is anyone familiar with the terms in-migrate/in-migration and out-migrate/out-migration? I have just been pointed out on Wikipedia that in-migration refers to internal migration within a country, and that the term is not to be confused with immigration. Out-migration, then, seems to be a general term covering immigration and emigration across country borders. Neither Wikipedia nor Wiktionary have entries (Wikipedia used to have one on out-migration that was redirected to w:Human migration with the rationale that it covered the same thing as emigration, which I have now reason to think is not correct), but Google turns up definitions along these lines. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:06, 4 October 2012 (UTC) They don't sound kosher to me. Internal migration within a country is just migration. External migration outside of a country is also just migration. Immigration is coming into a country, emigration is the exodus. —Stephen (Talk) 05:48, 4 October 2012 (UTC) COCA has about a hundred hits for in-migration vs. 17,000 for immigration. Definitions fitting the usage would be "migration into a jurisdiction (as a US state or county) without a formal legal process", "immigration", and "(figurative) inflow of something, as capital", probably in that order of frequency. The highly formalized, legalistic nature of much international immigration in developed countries may make a different word seem appropriate for inward migration flows into sub-national regions. The term seems often used in sociological or other scholarly and policy discussions. DCDuring TALK 06:08, 4 October 2012 (UTC) See in- (Etymology 1). A relevant definition for out- has not yet been written. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 07:32, 4 October 2012 (UTC) Stephen: That's not what I've written. I did not say that I understand out-migration to mean "external migration outside of a country", but "border-crossing migration" (i. e., "international migration"), referring to both immigration and emigration (not relative to any specific country), as opposed to in-migration or internal migration (i. e., "intranational migration"), which is neither. That may be somewhat confusing or difficult to follow, but I cannot state it any more clearly. Apparently in-migration can also specifically refer to all inward or inbound migration, for example into a subdivision of a country, whether from the same country or from abroad (and presumably analogously for out-migration). There seem to be several different definitions and uses, however. The definitions Merriam-Webster gives for in-migrate and out-migrate do not seem any different from what I understand immigrate and emigrate respectively to mean, so it seems they can be synonyms, or they can have a different meaning in technical contexts. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:13, 7 October 2012 (UTC) Also, in speech, to clarify a distinction between immigration and emigration people will augment immigration with into and emigration with out of. In-migration and out-migration accomplish the same purpose. DCDuring TALK 13:31, 7 October 2012 (UTC) Is the usage note necessary? It can apply to any city, are we going to put a similar usage note on every city name on Wiktionary? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:05, 4 October 2012 (UTC) Not every city would attestably have such usage. Try "Syracuse", for example. Such usage of a toponym might be a way of discriminating entry-worthy from non-entry-worthy toponyms, were we not opposed to having such discrimination. DCDuring TALK 13:53, 4 October 2012 (UTC) It looks to me like the usage note is serving to hold citations supporting the assertion that Chicago is an adjective: in one it's modified by uniquely and in two it's modified by very. Those are both ways of proving that something is a real adjective rather than just a noun used attributively. —Angr 13:57, 4 October 2012 (UTC) Here ya go. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 13:59, 4 October 2012 (UTC) Aside from references to an institution called "The Syracuse Way to Go" and to a street called "Syracuse way", those are almost all instances of "how we do things in Syracuse" rather than anything associated with characteristics of the city. There's one case where the assertion is that the city is associated with high-quality workmanship/technology, but that's it. "Very Syracuse" returns nothing relevant. Some more examples. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 14:08, 4 October 2012 (UTC) Another one. It seems like (informally at least) this can be done to any sort of proper noun, including the whole being-modified-by-an-adverb thing. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 14:14, 4 October 2012 (UTC) Harvard and Boston are somewhat iconic, also. The mere existence of the phrase "the [city name] way" isn't a good test for this kind of usage, since it's often used without reference to iconic attributes of the city, just to the way things are done there. "So [city name]" and "very [city name]" are better. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:32, 4 October 2012 (UTC) I'll analyze the three cites on [[Chicago]]: You can replace "Chicago" with any city or place and the adjectives in the latter half with adjectives suitable for that city and you get another equally valid sentence. Refers to "how things are done" in Chicago. Refers to being the kind of thing a Chicagoan would like. Just because smaller cities wouldn't have as many durably archived citations about them doesn't mean they are any less valid to use as the same kind of adjective. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 15:48, 4 October 2012 (UTC) What is the meaning of the word valenced in the following quotes? Although taboo words are used to study emotional memory and attention, no easily accessible normative data are available that compare taboo, emotionally valenced, and emotionally neutral words on the same scales. Naive causal understanding of valenced behaviors and its implications for social information processing. Attentional bias for valenced stimuli as a function of personality in the dot-probe task. Social sharing of emotion following exposure to a negatively valenced situation. ... and other similar ones. SemperBlotto (talk) 14:22, 5 October 2012 (UTC) It is denominal: "having a valence". The sense of valence is simply a "value", often an emotional one or connecting with approach and avoidance. It is definitely common in psychology and used in semantics and sociolinguistics. DCDuring TALK 15:05, 5 October 2012 (UTC) It seems to be comparable and limited to relatively scholarly usage in social sciences. DCDuring TALK 15:15, 5 October 2012 (UTC) It would also be a home for the combining form as occasionally used in chemical writings. DCDuring TALK 15:29, 5 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] "nip and tuck with me": adverb or adjective? It was nip and tuck with me between holding on to my stock and being sold out; but by great industry and prudence I managed to keep a little ahead and my mouth above water. Is "nip and tuck" here an adverb or adjective? My guess is that's the former, but just to be sure.. --CopperKettle (talk) 01:02, 7 October 2012 (UTC) After a copula, it would be an adjective. DCDuring TALK 01:07, 7 October 2012 (UTC) Thank you! --CopperKettle (talk) 11:53, 7 October 2012 (UTC) The entry just says "eye dialect of if", but where does this (and similar words like "iffin", "if'n" etc) actually come from? What's the mysterious "'n"? Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:44, 7 October 2012 (UTC) I believe it's and sense 2.1 or an Etymology 2 sense 1, both meaning if – in other words, if'n is just a reduplication. Ƿidsiþ 09:41, 7 October 2012 (UTC) I don't think "reduplication" is the right word. More like "redundancy" IMHO, except that that has negative connotations . . . —RuakhTALK 21:04, 8 October 2012 (UTC) Quite right. Ƿidsiþ 20:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC) Is there a better English word for "person of the same age (as you)" (Gleichaltriger) than "peer"? - -sche (discuss) 01:18, 8 October 2012 (UTC) We often translate the Russian equivalent - ровесник (rovésnik) m. / ровесница (rovésnica) f. as peer or "age-mate" (no entry yet). --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 01:36, 8 October 2012 (UTC) I'd use coeval. —Angr 20:43, 8 October 2012 (UTC) How about contemporary? Reminds me of Chinese 同龄人. ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:34, 9 October 2012 (UTC) Both coeval and contemporary are not defined (yet?) as "person of the same age". Do they have this sense? How about an entry for "age-mate"? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 05:55, 9 October 2012 (UTC) [[age-mate]] is great; I've created an entry for it. :) - -sche (discuss) 06:06, 9 October 2012 (UTC) Does age-mate actually exist? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 07:12, 9 October 2012 (UTC) I created the Icelandic entry jafnaldri the other day and wondered if there was a better word than "contemporary" which I used. Never heard of age-mate before but apparently it does exist (on Google Books at least). BigDom (t • c) 08:24, 9 October 2012 (UTC) It's even defined in Merriam-Webster dictionary. It's a colloquial word but it's attestable and it's used, no doubt about this. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 03:20, 10 October 2012 (UTC) Etymology 2 needs a bit of help. This is a real sense, but the part of speech may be wrong. -- Liliana • 06:04, 8 October 2012 (UTC) I've cited and tidied up the adjective sense (can't make heads or tails of the adverb sense). However, I don't think it's actually an adjective - I've searched, but there are no hits I can find for "the game was gold" or "the gold game". It always takes "go" - "the game had gone gold", "the game will go gold". As a result, I think this is a verb, go gold. Smurrayinchester (talk) 07:50, 8 October 2012 (UTC) It's not just used there. Many product names used this meaning of gold (Netscape Navigator Gold may be the most well-known example), and then there's stuff like Brian Stanford-Smith, Paul T. Kidd: E-business: Key Issues, Applications and Technologies, IOS Press, Amsterdam 2000, p. 216: The development of ActiveMARK™ eventually led to the Gold version of the product in May 2000. -- Liliana • 14:43, 8 October 2012 (UTC) Also, looking at Google Books, the term gold is verifiable even before the advent of computing, so {{programming|of software}} cannot be correct. -- Liliana • 12:14, 9 October 2012 (UTC) Examples? There are hits about records going gold, but that's in the sales sense (going gold = selling half a million records in the United States), not the production sense. There are also a couple of pre-computing hits for "gold master", but these date back to the days when they were literally made of gold. The "final version" sense of "gold" seems computing specific. Smurrayinchester (talk) 05:38, 10 October 2012 (UTC) Also, I'm not sure those cites fit the given definition of "gold". "Netscape Navigator Gold" is not the final version of Netscape navigator, it's the premium version - it shared the marketplace with Netscape Navigator Standard - and "gold" in this case seems to mean "valuable". It wouldn't make much sense for a product to be called "Gold" because it was the finished version - by definition, every piece of software released commercially is gold. The ActiveMARK one might be valid, but the capital "G" on "Gold" makes it seem like that too might be a specific product name. Smurrayinchester (talk) 14:22, 29 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] False direct Why does Druid (capital D) direct to druid (lower-case) d)? I tried to create a seperate article but the create page won't show. Pass a Method (talk) 18:54, 9 October 2012 (UTC) Never mind, the red link showed up here and i created the page. Pass a Method (talk) 18:56, 9 October 2012 (UTC) For next time, you can click on the link in the redirect message. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 06:44, 10 October 2012 (UTC) There was no redirect message; maybe its a glitch. It was plain. Pass a Method (talk) 08:46, 10 October 2012 (UTC) Is the second definition right? Should it be "criticism of an easy target, a cheap shot"? - -sche (discuss) 02:49, 10 October 2012 (UTC) I've changed it. - -sche (discuss) 19:02, 13 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] pre-commissioning, precommissioning pre-commissioning, precommissioning - does it deserve inclusion? Seems to be used quite widely, judging by googlesearch. There's also a Pipeline pre-commissioning article at Wikipedia. --CopperKettle (talk) 02:53, 10 October 2012 (UTC) Are these two synonyms? If not, what is the difference in meaning and usage? Thanks. --Panda10 (talk) 19:21, 11 October 2012 (UTC) Your Death Star has an Achilles heel if it has an exposed exhaust port large enough for your enemies to shoot down. Your religious leader / politician has feet of clay when you realize he's slept with a new woman every town he's spoke in. Feet of clay is more about moral failings, I believe, whereas Achilles heels are more moral neutral.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:18, 12 October 2012 (UTC) I agree with Prosfilaes. In addition, I feel like the Achilles heel is a tiny flaw which proves fatal, while the feet of clay are a substantial absolutely fundamental failing. Furius (talk) 04:15, 12 October 2012 (UTC) My American Oxford seems to suggest that this has usually used negatively - [ predic. ] (prone to/prone to do something) likely to or liable to suffer from, do, or experience something, typically something regrettable or unwelcome. Should we adding this connotation to our entry? ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:53, 15 October 2012 (UTC) I think yes. You can say "He's prone to eating all our cookies." but you can't really say "He's prone to bringing us free cookies." --WikiTiki89 (talk) 09:18, 15 October 2012 (UTC) It does seem to add a negative valence to whatever it is used with. The 'regret' or 'suffering' is in the relationship between the complement of prone and what is modified by prone. "He's prone to eating all our cookies" implies it is bad for him, eg, he's diabetic or he's going to earn our enmity. "He's prone to bring us free cookies" could make some sense if it were to be interpreted as "He's prone to bring us cookies that he can ill afford to buy on his pension." DCDuring TALK 13:11, 15 October 2012 (UTC) I agree that "He's prone to bring us free cookies." could make sense if it is bad for him financially. I was thinking that myself but decided not to mention it. I disagree though, that "He's prone to eating all our cookies." can only imply that it is bad for him. For example: "Try the cookies before he gets here because he's prone to eating all our cookies." This is similar to how "My cellphone is prone to going off in the middle of meetings." does not imply it's bad for the cellphone but that it's bad for me. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 15:49, 15 October 2012 (UTC) You might be right. It seems like a research project. We can just go with OAD for now. DCDuring TALK 17:00, 15 October 2012 (UTC) @Wikitiki: It didn't take much research to convince me that you are right. I was just focused on the somewhat more common situation, but the more general usage is quite abundant. DCDuring TALK 17:19, 15 October 2012 (UTC) Somehow though, I have a feeling that this "more general usage" originated as a figurative or ironic form of what you described. But that's just one of those sixth-sense feelings that has no basis in anything I know of. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 18:39, 15 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] Hello you bunch of filthy fucking rotters What is the word for an object that a group of people would treat as a identifying sign? e.g. the Star of David to the Jewish race. There's some fucktwirling word for it. Tell me immediately. 94.4.86.142 21:19, 15 October 2012 (UTC) emblem... maybe. Equinox ◑ 21:35, 15 October 2012 (UTC) No, it might not be a word for a general object, but possibly a code word that would identify people. It sounds a bit more mystical than emblem. ethnic emblem/symbol. — Ungoliant (Falai) 21:55, 15 October 2012 (UTC) Symbol, but why the douchebaggery? — Ungoliant (Falai) 21:36, 15 October 2012 (UTC) There's a problem with your question. The people who "treat" "the Star of David" "as a[n] identifying sign" for "the Jewish race" are not Jews, but rather Nazis. That's a pretty important distinction. —RuakhTALK 22:08, 15 October 2012 (UTC) You might want to edit Wikipedia's Star of David page then, because it's sounding pretty Nazi by your standards. 94.4.86.142 22:12, 15 October 2012 (UTC) I think Ruakh's implication is that only a Nazi would consider Jews a race. There is no doubt that the star of David is used by the Jews to identify themselves. But as far as I know, Jews consider themselves a people and/or a religious group, certainly not a race. —CodeCat 22:39, 15 October 2012 (UTC) Yes, more or less. I mean, insofar as Jews form an ethnic group, it can be merely very-old-fashioned (rather than specifically Nazi) to refer to that group as a "race"; but the use of the Star of David as a racial identifier is primarily a Nazi one. —RuakhTALK 23:00, 15 October 2012 (UTC) Why even bother answering? I blocked the IP for obvious reasons, although I put "Stupidity" as a reason. Such behaviour is stupid. Please don't unblock without agreement. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 22:44, 15 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] Help with parts of speech Can anyone tell the PoS of the Fala word mais in these sentences? hasta "oito" o mais. (up to "eight" or more) a nossa fala é un tesoiru mais entre elas. (Fala is yet another treasure among them). My guess is pronoun and determiner. — Ungoliant (Falai) 14:23, 15 October 2012 (UTC) Try WT:TR. —This unsigned comment was added by 146.163.152.147 (talk). Stupid me. — Ungoliant (Falai) 01:28, 16 October 2012 (UTC) Why would it be a pronoun? I would say its a determiner in both. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 07:29, 16 October 2012 (UTC) I've been adding translations for troll (in its noun Internet sense) like crazy. Come join in the party and add translations (with information on gender, counters, etc.) for languages we don't yet have! It's at troll#Translations_3. Jeremy Jigglypuff Jones (talk) 09:49, 16 October 2012 (UTC) I've added a few. I wonder where you got your Chinese and Korean translations from? I will verify them and remove/change. To me, 网路特务, 网路特工 and 网特 (abbreviation of the first two) seem the most apporpriate. Korean uses the English borrowing 트롤. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 04:52, 2 November 2012 (UTC) I resorted to the "In other languages" section of the Wikipedia article [[w:troll|troll], and got several more from the interlanguage links at the Wikipedia article. Oh, BTW, thanks for your additions! Jeremy Jigglypuff Jones (talk) 02:04, 6 November 2012 (UTC) [edit] proceed/ procede 'common misspelling'? I would prefer to see it as 'archaic' or perhaps 'obsolete' spelling. it is the original correct spelling, unless you want to undergo a minor proceedure (or you are going to receed into the distance, or take preceedence, or conceed a point). for goodness' sake. —This unsigned comment was added by 124.171.49.227 (talk) 00:50, 17 October 2012‎. Here is a discussion initiated by Ticklewickleukulele (talk • contribs) on Talk:nerd. Essentially he's disputing the current definition. What do you guys think? <quote> "intellectual,skilled in one or more fields, and generally introverted." That def is WAY off. First, it says that simply being intellectual makes you a nerd. second, it says that nerds are introverted. The key term is "overly intellectual". Having A's in school doesn't necessarily make one nerdy. As for the introversion, that may not be the case. Most nerds are either socially excluded (not allowed in conversations and peer groups), or socially inept (lacking social skills entirely.) I have heard of many nerds in schools that want to be extroverted, but cant, because of bullies, sometimes leading them to suicide. If they were introverted, they wouldn't care. Also, "nerd" is a really common term for referring to a person heavily obsessed with a fantasy interest (e.g. comics, Pokémon), both as a derogatory ref and a reclaimed term. Nerd is one of the few derogatory terms with no standard definition. It just refers to people with odd interests, personalities, appearance, etc. It also has a different meaning when reclaimed by a targeted group (e.g. scientists, retro video game enthusiasts). The more common derogatory meaning is "a person who is overly intellectual, obsessive, odd, or socially impaired." But in reclaimed usage, it refers to any person heavily interested in something. Ticklewickleukulele (talk) 21:20, 14 October 2012 (UTC) </quote> —This unsigned comment was added by Jamesjiao (talk • contribs) 02:00, 17 October 2012‎. We were definitely missing a sense. I added one that doesn't imply intellectuality or introversion: "One who has an intense, obsessive interest in something. a computer nerd; a comic-book nerd". Equinox ◑ 07:29, 17 October 2012 (UTC) Just because you're introverted doesn't mean you're completely happy with your lack of social skills. Think of all those involuntary celibates. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:39, 24 October 2012 (UTC) "(transitive, passive) Designed for some purpose." This is not a verb definition but an adjective one. Is it even a distinct sense? Equinox ◑ 09:27, 17 October 2012 (UTC) Or a noun, used attributively in an adjectival sense? Chuck Entz (talk) 12:40, 17 October 2012 (UTC) I don't see why a passive sense needs a separate definition, though from the wording I haven't yet been able to judge whether we have the corresponding active sense. I see current citations at COCA that are of a transitive sense "to give a purpose to" something (I've not yet seen it refer to another person.), which we seem to lack. One can find enough use of purposed#Adjective to warrant inclusion, though I'm not sure of the sense(s) of the adjective. I'd just look at uses with "more […] than", "very", and "too" to determine adjective senses. The definitions at both purpose#Verb and purposed#Adjective seem a jumble to me, partially because of what is omitted. I always find it easier to assess the coverage of definitions if the grammar is clear (transitive, intransitive, other complements) and if one allows for persons, other animates, and things to be objects. I'm not getting that clarity as the definitions are worded and labeled now. Hmmm. That seems to warrant an rfc, doesn't it? DCDuring TALK 14:19, 17 October 2012 (UTC) I feel like this is also used in English but I can't find any evidence to back this up since all the search results anywhere I search are in French, even when I try my best to add more English words to the search. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 11:38, 17 October 2012 (UTC) Are you sure you're not thinking of après without the article? I've never seen d'après in English. Chuck Entz (talk) 12:35, 17 October 2012 (UTC) No because the sense is "according to". It's possible that it's just interference from my knowledge of French, but I wanna know if anyone else has heard this. --WikiTiki89 (talk) 12:47, 17 October 2012 (UTC) The only possible citation I can find is: 2007, Rosso: the transient form, page 54: Gavroche and the copy of Niccolò da Uzzano can be seen in two photographs of the salon-atelier and living room of Rue de Lisbonne, in Paris 2004, pp. 38, 42-43; in ibidem, p. 147, the sketch d'après the Frileuse by Houdon is published. I searched for "d'après the", which also turned up a lot of French texts that were saying things like "d'après The Oxford English Dictionary", etc. - -sche (discuss) 06:27, 18 October 2012 (UTC) Is this Google Ngram search accurate? If so, then why do we seem to be proscribing cliche? --WikiTiki89 (talk) 15:11, 17 October 2012 (UTC) Seems to have been a very old issue, partially corrected in 2009 (before which it also had odd an usage note). I've now changed it to "alternative form of". - -sche (discuss) 06:31, 18 October 2012 (UTC) But still if the Ngram is accurate, then it's cliché that should be an alternative form of cliche. --WikiTiki89 09:32, 18 October 2012 (UTC) No, it's not accurate. Look at some of the hits for cliche from the links on the bottom; you'll see a lot of cliché. There's no strict rules on how to use "alternative form of"; inferring fine details of popularity from it is incorrect, and using it to imply such fine details pales compared to a good usage note.--Prosfilaes (talk) 11:40, 18 October 2012 (UTC) This badly needs a better definition. It doesn't explain what copyleft is at all. —CodeCat 13:36, 18 October 2012 (UTC) I made a few changes that I think are a good start. --WikiTiki89 13:48, 18 October 2012 (UTC) It's definitely better, but I think there is also an adjective sense. You can say "this licence is copyleft". —CodeCat 13:55, 18 October 2012 (UTC) Doesn't feel adjectival to me. Can a licence be "more copyleft" or "too copyleft"? Equinox ◑ 14:07, 18 October 2012 (UTC) According to many hits on Google for "is more copyleft", and a few for "(is) too copyleft", yes. :) There is even result that says "your coverage of these kinds of issues tends to lean too Copyleft for my taste" which makes it seem almost like an adverb. —CodeCat 14:17, 18 October 2012 (UTC) I added the adjective sense. and also copyleftist (uncommon but attestable). --WikiTiki89 14:43, 18 October 2012 (UTC) As documented on the talk page, the adjective section failed RFV because there was no durably-archived evidence of adjectival use. Cite it or lose it... - -sche (discuss) 17:05, 18 October 2012 (UTC) Doesn't this fall under 'clearly widespread use'? To me, it is clearly an adjective. —CodeCat 17:13, 18 October 2012 (UTC) It wouldn't hurt to cite it though. --WikiTiki89 17:32, 18 October 2012 (UTC) @CodeCat: if it previously failed RFV, then no, it obviously can't be claimed to be in clearly widespread use. It's also worth reading the previous RFV discussion to see why it failed: because the common use of it is as a noun, sometimes modifying other nouns. To be an adjective, it has to pass tests of adjectivity, like "more/less copyleft than". - -sche (discuss) 19:06, 18 October 2012 (UTC) What if it's uncountable? (Not that it is, since it seems to be countable) —CodeCat 19:28, 18 October 2012 (UTC) It's still possible to tell the difference. For example, in the thread Materializm dialektyczny, czyli kod vs projekt in pl.comp.os.advocacy, someone posted: "The MPL has a limited amount of 'copyleft' - more copyleft than the BSD family of licenses, which have no copyleft at all, but less than the LGPL or the GPL." In that case, "copyleft" is an uncountable/mass noun like hair or water. On the other hand, I've found three citations (here) where it's an adjective... but I haven't found three citations of a coherent sense yet: the 1992 and 2012 citations mean "subject to a copyleft licence", the 2007 citation seems to mean "in favour of copyleft philosophy" - -sche (discuss) 05:50, 20 October 2012 (UTC) Sense 9 simply says "Used attributively". This is not a separate sense of the word; indeed, any of the 8 preceding senses could be used attributively. We would not (I hope) have a separate sense line at tractor saying "Used attributively" just because of e.g. "tractor parts". Equinox ◑ 17:10, 19 October 2012 (UTC) As an attributive sense distinct from the others, I could only think of those which are in the adjective section. — Ungoliant (Falai) 18:00, 20 October 2012 (UTC) This is one of the taxa for the domesticated yak, now a redlink. Is the domesticated yak just the yak that has been domesticated? Or is it inherently distinct because the subspecies is deemed to have its own scientific identity? I expect that normal folks, should they ever talk about such things and still remain normal, would have the SoP definition in mind. If domesticated yak is SoP, should we have a translation table at Bos grunniens grunniens? DCDuring TALK 23:27, 19 October 2012 (UTC) According to something called the Principle of Coordination in the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, any time you describe a species, you're also describing the subspecies of the same name. That means that Bos gruniens gruniens is technically correct. No one would bother using it, though, unless there's another subspecies to contrast it with- Bos gruniens and Bos gruniens gruniens would mean the same thing, so why bother? If one considers the wild yak to be a different subspecies of the same species (Bos gruniens mutus), then it would make sense to talk about Bos gruniens gruniens. There was a ruling by the International Committee Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, which has authority over the ICZN (the code), that explicitly gave Bos mutus priority over Bos gruniens when they're applied to the same species, which means you can have Bos gruniens and Bos mutus, but when considered as subspecies of the same species, it's Bos mutus gruniens and Bos mutus mutus (w:Yak seems to have misunderstood this). In accordance with the ruling, Bos gruniens gruniens is therefore an obsolete synonym unless it's redundant. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:37, 20 October 2012 (UTC) When was the ruling? As B. grunniens was in Mammal Species 3rd (2005) I figure that there must be some usage thereof. DCDuring TALK 02:16, 20 October 2012 (UTC) 2012 Google Scholar has both in almost equal number. That would be the third or fourth possible modern name. I've picked those species that have gotten or are getting their genome sequenced to do as full a job of handling synonyms etc as possible, before I throw in the towel on taxonomic names. In any event, what about the vernacular names? They look SoP to a normal human. Are they something special to some group of users? If so, then do we put translation tables in Translingual sections? DCDuring TALK 02:28, 20 October 2012 (UTC) I think I'll just use the second reply I was preparing as is, even though your reply to the first one has made it partly obsolete: As to your main point: a taxonomic species and a common name aren't the same thing. They often coincide, and one can be used to explain the other, but changing one doesn't change the other. "Domesticated yak" and "wild yak" mean the same things they always have, regardless of whether they coincide with valid taxa. After all, a wolf is still a wolf, and a dog is still a dog, even though they're now taxonomically both Canis lupus instead of Canis familiaris and Canis lupus. The term yak refers to both domesticated and wild yaks, just as camel refers to both the Bactrian camel and the dromedary. I think domesticated yak isn't quite SOP, because you can tame a wild yak, but it's not the same as a domesticated yak. In the same way, a feral domestic yak is wild, and it's a yak, but it's not really a wild yak.Chuck Entz (talk) 02:44, 20 October 2012 (UTC) I agree with Chuck that a yak which has been (individually) domesticated is distinct from a domesticated yak; I think domesticated yak deserves an entry as much as tennis player (see that entry's talk page for the relevant "tennis player" test of idiomaticity). - -sche (discuss) 03:17, 20 October 2012 (UTC) Re: "I think domesticated yak isn't quite SOP, because you can tame a wild yak, but it's not the same as a domesticated yak": I think that's mostly because "domesticated", in current technical usage, does not mean exactly the same thing as "tame": it implies genetic, or at least heritable, changes. Taming a single lion doesn't make it a domesticated animal, and conversely, domesticating a fruit tree doesn't make it obey commands. —RuakhTALK 03:49, 23 October 2012 (UTC) As for the ruling, it was in 2003 [31]. The word "explicitly" that I used above is probably not quite right, since the ruling itself doesn't actually say one has priority over the other. There's a paragraph further down in the article on p.83 that addresses that issue, but "can't be distinguished" is ambiguous, so it doesn't exactly nail it down. Even so, it's the same ruling that justifies Bos primigenius taurus instead of Bos taurus taurus and Canis lupus familiaris instead of Canis familiaris familiaris, and both of those are widely used. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:40, 20 October 2012 (UTC) It is not at all uncommon for various types of professionals to talk of feral domesticated horses. See wild horse for an example of the polysemy of this type of terminology in vernacular names. Vernacular names are not quite what normal people use, at least not in English or, I assume, any language with enough professionals and money to standardize terminology. They seem to attempt to duplicate the specificity of taxonomic names. I think vernacular name in this sense may deserve and entry. DCDuring TALK 04:01, 23 October 2012 (UTC) I would subsume the last two definitions of "wild horse", namely "a feral horse" and "an untamed horse", into {{&lit}}... - -sche (discuss) 06:49, 23 October 2012 (UTC) A feral horse is one that has "gone native", that may be descended from domesticated animals, but also may have been born in the wild and be living in the wild. An untamed horse is a horse not yet tamed, but quite possibly living in a barn. I could see that one might argue that {{&lit}} would cover this last sense, but it is not the same as "feral horse". DCDuring TALK 12:06, 23 October 2012 (UTC) Do we usually inflect idioms like this, idioms which contain placeholder pronouns? How is this the past tense of "put oneself in someone's place"? (Oh, because Lucifer created the entry.) - -sche (discuss) 04:38, 20 October 2012 (UTC) put oneself in someone's place is similarly poorly defined. - -sche (discuss) 04:38, 20 October 2012 (UTC) It looks to me like LW copy-pasted the second verb section directly from put oneself in someone's place and forgot to change it to fit the new enry. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:57, 20 October 2012 (UTC) You can say "puts someone in their place" and "putting someone in their place," but wouldn't the past participle be "someone, put in their place" on account of the past participle being passive? At any rate, it doesn't really feel like the idiom inflecting so much as "put" carrying on as usual... Furius (talk) 06:43, 20 October 2012 (UTC) What about "They had put someone in their place." That's a past participle. If I were dictator here, I would say entries such as this belong in [[put in place]]. But otherwise, I'd rename it to [[put one in one's place]]. --WikiTiki89 09:39, 20 October 2012 (UTC) Oddly enough, it was the RFD for put in place that lead me to look at this entry, and notice its format problems. The logic for using "someone" (another person) instead of "one" (the subject of the sentence) is that you usually say "I put him in his place", not "I put myself in my place". - -sche (discuss) 16:27, 20 October 2012 (UTC) Does one always have to refer to the subject? Isn't that what oneself is for? --WikiTiki89 04:39, 21 October 2012 (UTC) The practice in almost every dictionary that covers idiomatic expression is to use "someone" and "something" rather than "one" and "something" when they need placeholders. As we are trying to communicate with those whose expectations are formed by such dictionaries and as we are less space-limited than the print dictionaries, I don't see the advantage in using "one". DCDuring TALK 05:27, 21 October 2012 (UTC) Fair enough. --WikiTiki89 05:31, 21 October 2012 (UTC) AHD has a run-in entry at "put" for "put (someone) in (someone's) place". I think [[put someone in someone's place]] would work for us with redirects to it from all the relevant all-pronoun forms (you, him, her, them, us, me) (6 forms) and "put someone in his/her/their place(s)" (4 forms). DCDuring TALK 17:21, 20 October 2012 (UTC) Whether or not it is inflected is part of the general question of inflecting multi-word verbs. I think it is appropriate for short ones (two words? three?) using irregular verbs, eg, some "phrasal verbs". I think it is completely inappropriate for long expressions using regular (weak) verbs. I don't know about the other two categories. DCDuring TALK 17:29, 20 October 2012 (UTC) Does anyone have any idea what the asterisk is doing in the plural? --WikiTiki89 12:44, 20 October 2012 (UTC) See definition 3 of [[*]]. —Angr 13:53, 20 October 2012 (UTC) Maybe the person thinks the plural doesn't exist. Shouldn't the entry be at quick drop and sudden stop with redirection from the forms with articles in various combinations, including a/the quick drop and sudden stop? DCDuring TALK 13:58, 20 October 2012 (UTC) I agree it should be at quick drop and sudden stop. As for the plural not existing, it may not meet our CFI, but it certainly exists. --WikiTiki89 15:02, 20 October 2012 (UTC) I notice a lot of those hits are our page, and a lot of the other hits are nonidiomatic references to literal quick drops and sudden stops, e.g. on a roller coaster. The only one I found that seems to actually refer to hanging is a comment to a YouTube video: "Quick drops and sudden stops are the only thing little kkk wannabe pussys like you deserve". —Angr 15:56, 20 October 2012 (UTC) Like I said, it doesn't meet our CFI, but it exists. But it's not like I'm saying we need an entry for it. --WikiTiki89 16:02, 20 October 2012 (UTC) It is attestable, based on Google Books alone by dispensing with the lead article. More attestation can be found by allowing plurals (and dispensing with the second article) and going to Usenet. OTOH, no additional joy on News or Scholar. DCDuring TALK 16:36, 20 October 2012 (UTC) Umm... Is this attestable, with this exact spelling in written text. If I read this somewhere with this spelling, I would read it as /təˈmeɪtoʊ təˈmeɪtoʊ/ and thus it loses its significance. Should we add a usage note that this always either spoken or written in eye-dialect? --WikiTiki89 05:47, 21 October 2012 (UTC) Can we remove the humorous tag? It seems like the equivalent of putting {{humorous}} on feminism (i.e. it's not exclusively used humorously), although I don't speak Latin. --WikiTiki89 09:33, 21 October 2012 (UTC) Remember that Latin was spoken natively thousands of years ago. Their society and what they thought about women was totally different from what we do and it's quite possible that the thought of a female dictator was a joke to them. — Ungoliant (Falai) 10:36, 21 October 2012 (UTC) I don't see why that's any different today. As I just said though, how likely is it that it was exclusively humorous? --WikiTiki89 10:42, 21 October 2012 (UTC) It is quite rare, but is definitely used as such in one of Plautus's comedies. SemperBlotto (talk) 10:46, 21 October 2012 (UTC) Any word can be used humorously. That doesn't mean we have to tag them all as humorous. --WikiTiki89 10:59, 21 October 2012 (UTC) Well, all you have to do is find a Latin text where it is used seriously - no problem. SemperBlotto (talk) 11:02, 21 October 2012 (UTC) So are you saying that for any rare Latin word that happens to be attested only once, and in a comedy, we would have to mark it as humorous? --WikiTiki89 11:06, 21 October 2012 (UTC) If that's the only use attested, then perhaps it should be marked thus - it might very well have been coined by Plautus for humourous effect. Furius (talk) 08:34, 22 October 2012 (UTC) I tend to agree with Wikitiki here, but Furius has a good point, it may have been a humorous coinage by Plautus, while other words were used in serious discussion. See Talk:πεδίον for a sense that is unattested outside of innuendo in a single Ancient Greek play, which is nevertheless not (yet) tagged {{humorous}}. If this is to be tagged, that should be tagged, too... - -sche (discuss) 20:46, 22 October 2012 (UTC) Can we tag it {{context|perhaps|_|humorous|lang=la}}, and perhaps add a usage note? —RuakhTALK 02:33, 23 October 2012 (UTC) Sounds like a good solution. - -sche (discuss) 03:38, 23 October 2012 (UTC) I'd like to ask an English grammar-related question which has bugged me for some time. A lot of people who translate from Chinese into English come up with a sentence which reads something like this: With the development of the economy, people's living standards have risen. Does anyone else find this usage of "with" ugly/awkward/incorrect? If so, how would you correct it? ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:36, 22 October 2012 (UTC) It's stylisitics, not grammar. I dislike compounding prepositional phrases. Other ways of saying it are: "As the economy has developed, ..." or "With economic development, ..." DCDuring TALK 05:51, 22 October 2012 (UTC) That sentence sounds perfectly natural, but it's stylistic like DCDuring said. Some people would say it that way, others would say it another way. The word with here is perfectly correct. --WikiTiki89 08:45, 22 October 2012 (UTC) It sounds ugly/awkward/incorrect to me as well; I think what I don't like is the "with"-phrase as a sort of dangling modifier, modifying the whole sentence rather than any one part of it. (The compounded prepositional phrase is not what bothers me: "with greater freedom, cultural activity has blossomed" sounds just as bad to me.) —RuakhTALK 15:31, 22 October 2012 (UTC) Um, that's not the way I understood it. I understood the with clause to be adverbial and modifying risen. In other words, people's living standards have risen together with the development of the economy. --WikiTiki89 15:40, 22 October 2012 (UTC) Either I'm misunderstanding you, or I think you're misunderstanding the sentence. "The development of the economy has risen" sounds absurd, and I don't think it's what was meant. Rather, I agree with DCDuring's reading, whereby the relationship is {the economy : develop :: people's living standards : rise}. —RuakhTALK 16:42, 22 October 2012 (UTC) Yes you're misunderstanding me. "The people's living standards have risen with the development of the economy." In other words "The development of the economy brought with it the rise of people's living standards." Does that clear it up? --WikiTiki89 16:54, 22 October 2012 (UTC) Nope, sorry. To me "The people's living standards have risen with the development of the economy" still makes it sound like the development of the economy is rising. —RuakhTALK 17:22, 22 October 2012 (UTC) I would read "with the development of the economy" as an adverbial phrase indicating circumstance. This kind of sentence reminds me of very similar construct used in many of the older Indo-European languages, particularly those that still had a case system. In those languages, instead of a preposition like "with", a particular case would have been used (so "development" would have been in, say, the instrumental). There is also a construction called the absolute which is similar in function (like "[with] the economy having developed, ..."). —CodeCat 16:49, 22 October 2012 (UTC) That interpretation is exactly what Ruakh was talking about and formal English often regards this as an incorrect use of with. --WikiTiki89 16:54, 22 October 2012 (UTC) Even though it has existed for thousands of years? —CodeCat 17:00, 22 October 2012 (UTC) There are many things in English grammar that are historically correct but today are considered incorrect by traditional formal grammar. --WikiTiki89 17:09, 22 October 2012 (UTC) I'm not applying "traditional formal grammar", I'm applying my own native-speaker judgment. Naturally, that is shaped mostly by how Americans have spoken during the past twenty-seven years, rather than by how Angles and Saxons spoke twelve hundred ago. (Though for the record, the absolute construction with 'with' sounds fine to me, e.g. in "With the economy developing at an unprecedented pace, living standards have risen substantially in the past decade." It's only 'with' with an unpredicated-of noun that I find ugly/awkward/incorrect.) —RuakhTALK 17:21, 22 October 2012 (UTC) By "traditional formal grammar" I mean the grammar taught in schools. Obviously it varies from school to school and obviously it is not completely in sync with common usage. And yeah, I figured it was probably the fact that development is a noun that was bothering you, but VERB + -ment is just as much of a verbal noun as VERB + -ing and is often preferred with French/Latin-derived verbs. --WikiTiki89 19:15, 22 October 2012 (UTC) Re: first and second sentences: I understood you the first time. My response stands. I was not applying some rule of grammar I was taught in school, because this isn't a rule of grammar I was taught in school; rather, I was applying the grammar of English that I have internalized as a native speaker of the language. And Tooironic was obviously doing the same. I don't know why you're unwilling to accept that.   Re: last sentence: Sorry, but that makes no sense at all. In "with the economy developing at an unprecedented pace", developing is a participle (a "verbal adjective", here functioning predicatively), not a "verbal noun". The grammatical difference between "with X Y-ing" and "with the Y-ment of X" is obvious. —RuakhTALK 19:49, 22 October 2012 (UTC) I only brought up formal grammar as a response to CodeCat. Pointing out a similarity between your native instincts and formal grammar is not an insult and I don't know why you seem to be taking it that way. Re: the second part: Sorry, I misread your example sentence and thought you were using developing as a gerund. I was not referring to -ing the participle but to -ing the gerund/verbal noun. If you want to understand my interpretation, I think this wording makes it the clearest: "The development of the economy brought with it the rise of people's living standards." If that sentence makes sense to you then just get rid of the subject ("the development of the economy") and the verb ("brought") and replace it with what it refers to (again "the development of the economy") and then turn the verbal noun phrase at the end ("the rise of people's living standards") into a clause in the past tense ("the people's living standards have risen") and you're left with the original sentence. So if you understood me correctly you will now see how the with can be interpreted as a normal with rather than a dangling, context-establishing prepositional phrase. So do you see it now? --WikiTiki89 20:10, 22 October 2012 (UTC) I find the "brought with it" version to be unexceptionable — there, with heads an adverbial complement of bring — but the various transformations don't work for me. (I'd also have no problem, by the way, with "With the development of the economy has come a rise in people's living standards", where "with" heads a complement of "come". I mean, it's awkward, but only stylistically; it doesn't twinge my ungrammaticality antennae.) By way of analogy: "he thought of leaving" and "the thought of leaving" may seem superficially similar, just with a transformation from the noun "thought" to the verb "think", but the result is a totally different sense of the complement-introducing preposition "of". Not all seemingly-logical transformations are possible. (Or, as in this case — possible for all speakers.) —RuakhTALK 20:42, 22 October 2012 (UTC) I guess what I'm saying is there is a difference between "With the cleaning of the reservoir, our tap water has become drinkable." and "With the clean reservoir, our tap water has become drinkable." or even "With the reservoir having been cleaned, our tap water has become drinkable." (Just to be clear, I see the first one as correct, the second and third as incorrect but acceptable in less formal contexts). --WikiTiki89 07:53, 23 October 2012 (UTC) That's intersting - I would consider the third option the most natural. The first doesn't seem "wrong", but is not something I'd be inclined to write, while the second looks quite odd to me. I suspefct that what feels stylistically naturally to a given person is just the forms that they/use and see most often - and therefore largely accidental. Furius (talk) 09:24, 23 October 2012 (UTC) That usage of with is ugly‽ Damn, I've been using it for some time. Portuguese also forms sentences like that. As for alternatives, I can think of "Following the …", "Because of the …", "After the …", "As a result of the …". — Ungoliant (Falai) 03:11, 23 October 2012 (UTC) What are the odds that is an intentional spelling (for which we should be collecting citations) vs that one of the pieces of type got flipped and it is merely a (literal) typo? - -sche (discuss) 08:52, 22 October 2012 (UTC) You'd have to look at the original and see if the schwa is vertically aligned with the rest of the word. --WikiTiki89 09:08, 22 October 2012 (UTC) Or you could just consider the source. DCDuring TALK 10:26, 22 October 2012 (UTC) Not sure what you mean by that DCDuring. But I just checked the Google books page and I was right the schwa is not vertically aligned with the rest of the word indicating that -sche's suspicion was correct and it is a flipped e. --WikiTiki89 11:14, 22 October 2012 (UTC) We've had a couple of contributors who have devoted an enormous amount of effort to typographic variation, which seems to be of little interest to anyone else, AFAICT. DCDuring TALK 12:50, 22 October 2012 (UTC) I tracked down the scan of the original, and it's just a typesetting error. There's no reason for this to be here. —Angr 20:44, 22 October 2012 (UTC) I've stripped out the typo and moved the citation to Citations:Honduras (since it's still a fine citation of that term). - -sche (discuss) 03:34, 23 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] marshmallow and anachronistic translations Do we have a policy on anachronistic translations? [[marshmallow]] (the modern confectionary sense) currently has a Latin translation and a request for an Old English translation. I've noticed similar things on other pages such as [[Israel]] (the modern state sense). --WikiTiki89 13:48, 23 October 2012 (UTC) I don't know if we have an official policy recorded anywhere, but if an entry for a term would fail RFV, then it shouldn't be given as a translation, either. (But the Latin term for "marshmallow" might actually be citeable, since we use ==Latin== for all forms of Latin, including those still in use by the Vatican and elsewhere. Our translation does agree with the Vicipædia article: w:la:Pasta hibisci.) —RuakhTALK 19:01, 23 October 2012 (UTC) What Ruakh says is my view as well, though other editors have other opinions. (Most recently, Labneh and Labné were added as German translations of labneh over my objection that the two terms get <20 relevant, German Google hits between them, and absolutely nothing durable.) I tend to look the other way in cases like Labneh (where the word is starting to exist, and no other word for the thing exists), but I would definitely remove any Old English word for pickup truck, as it could only be made-up. - -sche (discuss) 19:31, 23 October 2012 (UTC) Old English is like Latin, new words are regularly added to the language. For instance, an airship is w:ang:lyftscip. It is also true of Old Church Slavonic. These languages are still spoken by some people (or in the case of Old English, again spoken), and they have words for all the new technology, including pickup trucks. —Stephen (Talk) 18:29, 1 November 2012 (UTC) Really? Is there a reliable source for lyftscip? Are there three? (I don't know how it'll be interpreted, but I certainly oppose letting words like that get by on the one source basis.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:51, 2 November 2012 (UTC) We had a vote on rare languages, which only require one source, not sure if ang and cu belong there, though. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 06:55, 2 November 2012 (UTC) ang belongs there; I think 21st century innovations on ang should be counted as constructed languages and take 3.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:17, 2 November 2012 (UTC) That's like saying English is a constructed language, or any other language that expands its lexicon to include new concepts and technology. That is not what a constructed language is. —Stephen (Talk) 11:45, 2 November 2012 (UTC) A living language where speakers are expanding the language is simply not comparable here. I want to exclude words stuck in languages that no real speaker of the language would use. I want to exclude stuff by people playing around with language and not actually using to communicate, and I want to keep a distinction from ancient language long dead and modern stuff written in revived forms of that language. (Latin has a living tradition going back to ancient times, but I still hope we note new Latin and ancient Latin; I would have distinguished ancient Hebrew and modern Hebrew, but at least modern Hebrew is more valuable then the ancient Hebrew whose patterns it's obscuring.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:37, 3 November 2012 (UTC) Old English is most certainly not like Latin. It has a closed corpus; no new words are added to it. The so-called Old English Wikipedia is written in a modern conlang that has some superficial similarity to Old English but isn't Old English. (The same is true mutatis mutandis of the so-called Gothic Wikipedia.) If it isn't attested in or before the 11th century, it isn't Old English. —Angr 11:53, 2 November 2012 (UTC) I was having a hard time working out how the first two adverb senses are different from the conjunction sense when I noticed that Dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster in fact treat them as conjunctions. (MW also has "explore northward or wherever" as an adverb sense we're missing.) Is there any argument against reclassifying those senses as Conjunctions? - -sche (discuss) 18:42, 23 October 2012 (UTC) Whatever. I don't object. And MWO's sense that we lack should be added whenever. DCDuring TALK 18:46, 23 October 2012 (UTC) We also classify both pan-dialectal senses of [[whenever]] as an adverb: "At whatever time: Visit whenever you want to." (MW agrees with us, Dictionary.com has this as a conjunction) "Every time: Whenever he has a pair of aces, his eyelids twitch." (MW has this as a conjunction, Dictionary.com doesn't have it) [[Whatever]] is probably muddled, too. - -sche (discuss) 18:49, 23 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] another grammar question - this time about no matter How would you correct this sentence? In today's ambitious education and professional environments, no matter what people apply for is high schools or reputable career positions, participation in extra-curricular activities is arguably a prerequisite for admission to top universities and organisations. In particular, I don't know how to fix "no matter". Cheers! ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:24, 24 October 2012 (UTC) I would replace "no matter what people apply for is high schools or reputable career positions" with "(no matter) whether people are applying for high school admission or a career position". "No matter" is definitely optional, which is to say redundant IMO. I think of it as more colloquial or informal. DCDuring TALK 06:02, 24 October 2012 (UTC) I would correct it like this: In today's ambitious educational and professional environments, no matter what people apply for—high schools or reputable career positions, participation is arguably a prerequisite to top universities and organizations. But that's still a bit wordy and awkward. If you are ok with a bit of a rewrite then I would say it more concisely like this: In today's ambitious educational and professional environments, participation in extracurricular activities is arguably a prerequisite both for top jobs and for admission to top schools. (I don't know about Australia, but in the US, the word schools would encompass high schools as well as colleges and universities and whatever else.) --WikiTiki89 08:06, 24 October 2012 (UTC) In New Zealand usage (usually similar to Australian), "schools" without qualification would tend not to refer to tertiary institutions (And a "college" is a high school). As for the sentence, I'd be inclined to change the what to whether, as DCDuring did Furius (talk) 10:15, 24 October 2012 (UTC) There's been a request on my talk page to restore en el, Spanish for in the. I've refused but would like a second opinion. My argument, using an example here, is that en el does NOT function as a single unit. En el banco is en + el banco (in + the bank) not en el + banco (in the + bank). Mglovesfun (talk) 12:50, 24 October 2012 (UTC) I think the reason this is wanted is because of words like Italian nel and Portuguese no, but those are only included because it's a single word. --WikiTiki89 13:00, 24 October 2012 (UTC) Right, there's nothing about 'en el' to warrant an entry; it occurs whenever 'en' happens to be followed by 'el'. It's certainly not a "preposition", as our entry claimed. —RuakhTALK 19:31, 24 October 2012 (UTC) Is there a source that backs this up? It used to say that this term was from *postius, but it was changed. --Æ&Œ (talk) 14:27, 24 October 2012 (UTC) Well, FWIW, *postius > poi does not seem to agree with what I know about Italian historical phonology. In fact, I believe poi (if from *pos), in combination with dopo (if from *de pos), is one of the main pieces of evidence (besides noi < *nos and voi < *vos) for the proposal that the normal development of Proto-Italo-Western *-os in Italian was *-oj, which then became -oi or, when unstressed, -o, just like *-as > *-aj > -ai or (when unstressed) -e (compare crai < *kras, amiche < *amikas) and *-es > *-ej > -e(i) or (when unstressed) -i (compare tre, dialectally trei < *tres, Giovanni < *Joannes). See also w:Romance languages#Apocope and w:Romance plurals#Origin of vocalic plurals. But I'd have to check this at the library. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:04, 24 October 2012 (UTC) Which sense of what is used in the following sentence: What? --WikiTiki89 14:31, 24 October 2012 (UTC) Pronoun. It's elliptical for "What did you say?". —Angr 17:41, 24 October 2012 (UTC) Fair enough. But what about in this context: Person A: Your house burned down today. Person B: What? --WikiTiki89 18:09, 24 October 2012 (UTC) I think it's still elliptical for "What did you say?" or "What are you talking about?". Still a pronoun. —Angr 18:38, 24 October 2012 (UTC) Different languages use different words for that, though. I don't think French quoi? works the same way, and in Dutch you occasionally hear welk? ("which?") used synonymously to wat? ("what?") when asking someone to repeat themselves. —CodeCat 21:59, 24 October 2012 (UTC) I want to call it an "interrogative interjection", but I'm not sure if that's a separate part of speech from either interjection or interrogative pronoun. --WikiTiki89 01:12, 25 October 2012 (UTC) It's clearly an interrogative. It may also be interpreted as a pronoun with the rest of the phrase elided, but that is hard to maintain in the face of welk which doesn't seem to be an elision of anything. It stands by itself. —CodeCat 17:44, 7 November 2012 (UTC) I've also heard AAVE speakers use Who? in this way. —RuakhTALK 00:28, 8 November 2012 (UTC) [edit] hobson-jobson The entry Chelm says that this is a "hobson-jobson" of Polish Chełm. I don't understand what a "hobson-jobson" really is, even after reading the definitions at hobson-jobson and Wikipedia. My impression (judging from the eponymous term) is that it should refer to a considerable distortion or corruption (and optionally partial or complete re-interpretation, as in folk etymology) of a foreign word or phrase, as in hocus-pocus, abracadabra or simsalabim, which are usually traced to recognisably similar sounding Latin, Aramaic/Hebrew and Arabic phrases respectively, as mere phonetic (and phonotactic) adaptation is trivial and probably occurs in any or virtually any borrowing. The examples at Hobson-Jobson (and the related term mondegreen) also suggest that much more than mere phonetic adaptation is involved in a "hobson-jobson". The amount of adaptation seen in Chelm from Polish Chełm fits the definitions given at Wiktionary and Wikipedia, but by these definitions, and by the measure of the example Chelm, virtually any borrowing qualifies as a "hobson-jobson". My suspicion is that – much like in the case of portmanteau, though in this case this was justified by the original definition –, a cute-sounding esoteric technical term has acquired some lay popularity, especially among geeks, and seen use far beyond its linguistic definition ("a fusional morph" in the case of "portmanteau", while the popular sense is covered by the linguistic term "blend"). --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:00, 24 October 2012 (UTC) "Eye dialect" seems to be another one of these not really understood technical terms. Sigh. I just had to remove it from Hobson-Jobson – "eye dialect" sure refers to a kind of deliberate distortion, too, but you cannot render something in "eye dialect" that is not from the same language. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:13, 24 October 2012 (UTC) I understood a hobson-jobson to be when a foreign word is heard as if it were a (usually silly) English word/phrase? So Ligurno being borrowed into English as Leghorn might count, but not Chełm to Chelm. Furius (talk) 21:27, 24 October 2012 (UTC) There are two distinct questions: What is a useful linguist's definition? How do folks use the term? I agree that a useful definition has to involve a distorted hearing, memory, or repetition of an FL expression. I don't know whether [[Chelm from Polish Chełm could be that, or it could be a spelling pronunciation where the different orthography was not respected or even perceived or could not be rendered conveniently. How folks use or misuse the expression is a question for RfV. If they attestably use it to mean "mumbo-jumbo", we need to retain the sense. DCDuring TALK 22:40, 24 October 2012 (UTC) But you only removed "eye dialect" from the ety, where we get to select appropriate words by our lights. So there is only one question. DCDuring TALK 23:03, 24 October 2012 (UTC) I've changed "Hobson-jobson of" to simply "From"... - -sche (discuss) 22:41, 24 October 2012 (UTC) Why do we translate garçon as "waiter" and waiter as "garçon" (first!) if it's not used that way except as a bad joke gone awry for learners of French? I also thought we had this discussion before, but it's not archived on the talk page. DAVilla 21:48, 24 October 2012 (UTC) I don't understand. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:01, 24 October 2012 (UTC) I don't see where waiter is defined as "garçon". --WikiTiki89 01:21, 25 October 2012 (UTC) Re: "it's not used that way except as a bad joke gone awry for learners of French": What makes you say that? Our entry tags that sense as "rude or dated", which sounds about right to me. —RuakhTALK 01:39, 25 October 2012 (UTC) But fr:waiter defines waiter as garçon, so maybe garçon is not as rude/dated as we thought? --WikiTiki89 02:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC) Yeah, maybe. That entry was created by a bot, and has been only lightly edited by native French-speakers, so I'm not sure exactly how much to trust it; but on the other hand, I've never spent much time in any French-speaking country, so my own impressions of what's considered rude in French are also probably not reliable. (BTW, I think one complicating factor is that garçon is used both in reference to waiters and in addressing waiters, and my impression — again, probably unreliable — is that the latter is much ruder-or-dateder-or-English-touristier than the former.) —RuakhTALK 03:28, 25 October 2012 (UTC) That's what I was thinking too. I also, haven't spent much time in French speaking countries (and most of that not-much-time was in Quebec where things are a bit different anyway). --WikiTiki89 09:10, 25 October 2012 (UTC) Nah, I think it is pretty outdated. Everyone just uses serveur nowadays in my experience. Ƿidsiþ 11:54, 26 October 2012 (UTC) No, it's used. An (official) example: http://www.infa-formation.com/index.php?option=com_diplome&view=vDiplome&id=42 It's probably less used when addressing waiters, though, but I don't think it would be considered as rude. Lmaltier (talk) 20:18, 26 October 2012 (UTC) Interesting. I stand corrected. Ƿidsiþ 20:22, 26 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] excambio as a Vulgar Latin appendix page I realize the page for excambio should probably not have been created as a normal page, but rather as a Vulgar Latin reconstruction appendix page. However, now all the inflections have been made and separate pages exist for the inflected/conjugated forms of the verb. How would this be affected if the page were to be removed and instead made an appendix page separate from the main dictionary? Should those pages be removed also? Should this be done in the first place? As far as I know it's a hypothetical term and not directly attested, unless someone else has any evidence to the contrary. Just wondering what to do in this case, thanks. Word dewd544 (talk) 17:43, 25 October 2012 (UTC) I think you've summed it up perfectly well, actually. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:10, 25 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] thong (flip-flop sense) I noticed that on this page, even though thong is singular (although usually used in the plural thongs), many of the translations are listed in the plural. Should they be changed to the singular (when such a singular exists)? --WikiTiki89 13:43, 28 October 2012 (UTC) I doubt that this is the only entry which has triggered this contributor behavior. Would it be wise to have a translation table in the plural form with a sense that corresponds to the "usually plural" sense to move these to? DCDuring TALK 14:37, 28 October 2012 (UTC) Yes, IMO. Thongs in this sense is a plurale tantum, and should appear at thongs with its own translation table. Ƿidsiþ 14:43, 29 October 2012 (UTC) I'm sure it can be singular, it's just that, like "sneakers" or "shoes", one usually has two of them. Here's an example [32] Furius (talk) 18:07, 29 October 2012 (UTC) No, IMO. A separate translation table just for the plurals of the things in the other table? A waste of space. Or did you mean a table only for such languages as have the term as a plurale tantum? Just include it in the singular's table with a brief note. And as for erroneous contributions in the singular's table of plural translations into languages with a singular, I don't think having a second table will put much of a dent in those; readers will just have to figure out (until such are fixed) that the intent is to the plural (which should be obvious to people who know a bit about the language, though they might not know the singular exists; but which should be obvious also in such cases as we have the foreign plural entry in question, in which case it will also indicate the singular).​—msh210℠ (talk) 01:07, 30 October 2012 (UTC) So are you saying that they should be fixed? --WikiTiki89 08:04, 30 October 2012 (UTC) Are you simply repeating your original question? My answer to that one is yes.​—msh210℠ (talk) 15:37, 30 October 2012 (UTC) A quote from To My Cigar What though they tell, with phizzes long, My years are sooner pass'd? I would reply, with reason strong, They're sweeter while they last. Do the "phizzes" here mean "faces" or is it a designation for "inhalings" (long puffs of one's cigar)? Would be logical that the years should pass sooner with long (deep) inhalings. --CopperKettle (talk) 18:53, 28 October 2012 (UTC) I'd say "phizzes long" means "long faces" (i.e. sorrowful ones). Equinox ◑ 18:56, 28 October 2012 (UTC) Yes - see also phizog. SemperBlotto (talk) 18:58, 28 October 2012 (UTC) Thank you! Cheers, --CopperKettle (talk) 12:26, 29 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] dairy farmer Is dairy farmer a synonym to dairyman? Maro 15:36, 31 October 2012 (UTC) No. A dairy farmer raises cows; a dairyman works in a dairy or delivers milk. SemperBlotto (talk) 15:41, 31 October 2012 (UTC) [edit] 光軍 光軍 <-- Is there a single character that is composed from these two characters? --Ans (talk) 11:29, 1 November 2012 (UTC) Yes: 輝. —Stephen (Talk) 18:11, 1 November 2012 (UTC) Thanks a lot --Ans (talk) 16:49, 2 November 2012 (UTC) Its pronunciation in Mandarin is "hui" or "fei"? --Ans (talk) 02:28, 8 November 2012 (UTC) huī. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 12:56, 9 November 2012 (UTC) I think this uses vowel marks. Should it be moved? —CodeCat 17:59, 1 November 2012 (UTC) I don't see any vowel marks. —Stephen (Talk) 18:09, 1 November 2012 (UTC) Nope, no vowel marks. Those dots are part of the letters. With vowel marks it would look like this: شَيْطَانِيَّة. --WikiTiki89 18:15, 1 November 2012 (UTC) Ok, thank you for checking. I can't read Arabic at all... —CodeCat 18:41, 1 November 2012 (UTC) Is {{context|loanword}} a context? (Note who added this: LW) --WikiTiki89 18:20, 2 November 2012 (UTC) I say no, that it's a "loanword" is etymological information. - -sche (discuss) 18:38, 2 November 2012 (UTC) Fixed. —Angr 19:12, 2 November 2012 (UTC) Can be. Recent loanwords are italicised. A better solution would be {{context|usually italicised}} and |head=''esmelter'' IMO. — Ungoliant (Falai) 20:03, 2 November 2012 (UTC) Is it, in fact, usually italicized? —Angr 07:56, 3 November 2012 (UTC) I am having trouble finding an additional sense (that being 'breasts') for this term. I know that the sense is definitely used in the movie Talladega Nights, but Google Books and Google Groups are not rich with results for this sense. Anybody want this one? --Æ&Œ (talk) 22:20, 2 November 2012 (UTC) I' wondering whether, "pearls" meaning breasts is a metaphor, rather than a separate sense? Furius (talk) 04:45, 3 November 2012 (UTC) I think there are really two separate senses here; it doesn't mean quite the same thing in phrases like "historical research" and "historical fiction" (denoting things that are "historical" from the get-go, because they have to do with one time-period's relationship to another) as in phrases like "historical figures" and "historical writing systems" (denoting things that become "historical" over time, as they cease to be current). Right? Actually, maybe even three senses: in the past of the past of the study of the past ? —RuakhTALK 16:33, 3 November 2012 (UTC) Many of the quotations placed in Streisand effect and Citations:Streisand effect are mentions rather than uses of the term. Should I feel free to remove the mentions from the pages? If not, why? --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:02, 4 November 2012 (UTC) In the main namespace, sure. Leave them in the Citations page, though, since that is for both quotations and references. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 10:15, 4 November 2012 (UTC) I've gone ahead and removed mentiony quotes from the main page. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 14:53, 4 November 2012 (UTC) Thanks very much to Robin Lionheart (talk • contribs) for the quality improvements to the page. I agree the best quotes should go on the main entry page and others should remain as both quotations and references on the citations page. :) Looks like this is successfully addressed. -- Cirt (talk) 17:29, 4 November 2012 (UTC) Dan has reopened this conversation in Wiktionary:Beer parlour#Mention quotations in the mainspace and Citations namespace. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 22:27, 5 November 2012 (UTC) I'd say that the earliest mention would be be worth keeping, as such mentions later become coinages. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:07, 13 November 2012 (UTC) Agreed, and we are keeping it, at Citations:Streisand effect. :) -- Cirt (talk) 05:11, 13 November 2012 (UTC) Isn't this also used to mean 'citizen of or from the U.S.S.R.'? --Æ&Œ (talk) 03:53, 5 November 2012 (UTC) I wouldn't have thought so. But maybe you can supply evidence. SemperBlotto (talk) 08:00, 5 November 2012 (UTC) You mean like in "He is (was) a Soviet." I would say yes although I would not specify the word "citizen". --WikiTiki89 08:16, 5 November 2012 (UTC) Seems to be quite common. b.g.c. has plenty of hits for things like "Soviet dancer" and "Soviet cellist" where the only reasonable menaing "dancer/cellist who was from the USSR". Also as a straightforward noun in —Angr 22:10, 5 November 2012 (UTC) Do we really need SOP translations that mean to "spread" "butter", like "намазывать маслом"? I feel like that's what the translation tables on [[spread]] and [[butter#Noun]] are for. This table should contain non-SOP translations like "намаслить". Maybe we should have some sort of translations see-also link like "See also translations on spread and butter". --WikiTiki89 09:02, 5 November 2012 (UTC) That's an interesting idea: the translation table equivalent of {{&lit}}. DCDuring TALK 18:51, 5 November 2012 (UTC) I see nothing wrong with having SOP translations if that's the most idiomatic way of saying it in the language under discussion. They just shouldn't be linked as single words: it should say [[намазывать]] [[масло]]м or words to that effect, not [[намазывать маслом]]. —Angr 22:41, 5 November 2012 (UTC) I agree (w/Angr). —RuakhTALK 22:59, 5 November 2012 (UTC) It might still be useful to link to the parts though. I just created {{trans-top-also}} and added it to butter. What do you guys think? --WikiTiki89 08:53, 6 November 2012 (UTC) Since no one seems to be objecting, I'm going to start using {{trans-top-also}} on other pages. --WikiTiki89 09:56, 13 November 2012 (UTC) I use SoP translations very often just because it's quick and easy. намазывать маслом (ru) (namázyvatʹ máslom) (butter#Verb) is much easier and faster to add than намазывать маслом (namázyvat' máslom). I strongly object to any removal of valid translatons. The SoP translations can be converted to the above or to use {{t-SOP}} but not removed. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 10:54, 13 November 2012 (UTC) So the reason I brought this up was because I think we are misusing translation sections. Translation sections are not a place for an English word to be defined in a foreign language (that's what the foreign language Wiktionaries are for). They are for aiding English speakers in translating to a foreign language. When an English speaker looks up translations for the word butter#Verb, he is not looking for translations that mean "to spread butter" because if he was, he would have looked up spread and butter#Noun. He is looking for something that is either one word or at least idiomatic, since usually he knows that he can also look up spread and butter#Noun for more options. What appalls me is that we fill up translation sections with things like "намазывать маслом" in every possible language that can already be found on spread and butter#Noun, and then miss the important ones like "намаслить" that more accurately represent the word "to butter". Filling up these sections with SOP translations just distracts us from providing useful and good translations. --WikiTiki89 11:44, 13 November 2012 (UTC) Let's agree to disagree. In English we "butter bread", in Russian мы "намазываем маслом", not мы "маслим". A dictionary's purpose is not to search only words that match one to one in the number of words for translations and discarding translations, which are correct in a given language but require a different number of words. So, theis verb's translation into Russian is "намазывать маслом", into German "mit Butter bestreichen". It's the most common and correct way. The hard work of deciding how to translate has been long decided in commercial dictionaries (see (scroll down to 2. гл.) and I don't think we should restart this discussion. Not providing a correct translation is doing a disservice to use who will use dictionaries not obsessed with SoP problems but are concerned with accuracy. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 12:10, 13 November 2012 (UTC) Yandex is a Russian dictionary, this is an English dictionary. Of course the ru.wikt would probably want to define "to butter" as "намазывать маслом" because it is more specific. en.wikt is supposed to contain translations that would help English speakers who are learning Russian rather than the other way around (when such a learner wants to know how to say "to spread butter", he is not going to look up "to butter"). In this specific case, I don't think there is any difference between the English and Russian connotations. I'm just as unlikely to say "I buttered the bread." as I am to say "Я намаслил хлеб." because I would usually say "I spread butter on the bread." On the occasion that I would use "butter" as a verb, I would also use "намаслить" if I were speaking Russian. Also, let's forget about the word SOP because that is not really the issue here. The real issue is that we seem to be providing the same exact translations on near-synonyms. Another example is the translations such as French mandarin on [[Chinese]]. Just because one of the definitions of Chinese is the Mandarin language, does not mean that we need to fill that translation table up with words like French mandarin, when a better translation would be chinois, which has largely the same denotations and connotations as English Chinese. In this specific case, it was easy to replace the translation table with a {{trans-see|Mandarin}} because words like chinois are already given for the primary, less specific definition of Chinese. But in the case of "to butter", there is no reason to duplicate the translations that are already located at spread and butter#Noun. It would have made some sense to use a trans-see there and omit the whole table, but there still is a reason to keep the table there and that reason is solely for the inclusion of words such as "намаслить". I don't know if you see my point here or not: I don't want to remove translations, just to avoid duplicating the same translations on every page. --WikiTiki89 12:49, 13 November 2012 (UTC) I don't see your point or maybe our views are fundamentally different. You seem to know English well, maybe better than me but I don't think "to butter" and "(на)маслить" are equivalent. Yes, we are an English dictionary and teaching English speakers that a correct and idiomatic translation is "(на)маслить" is wrong. To me "намаслить" is more like or also "soak in butter/oil" and much less common and much less natural than "намазывать маслом". As I said, намазывать маслом (ru) (namázyvatʹ máslom) could (or should) be split as an obvious SoP (no need to have it as a separate entry) but it's the most equivalent and thus the correct translation of "to butter", whether this dictionary is intended for English speakers or foreign language speakers. "(на)маслить" is a less common and an ambiguous synonym. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 21:28, 13 November 2012 (UTC) Ok, I will take up your offer to agree to disagree. --WikiTiki89 07:54, 14 November 2012 (UTC) I can see why Anatoli wants to keep the multi-word translations of "spread butter" at butter; since the sense is there, and we're giving translations of it, it makes sense to give the most common translations of it, even if they're multi-word and decomposable. (Personally, I would be unlikely to "spread butter on the bread" rather than "butter the bread", so, there's no accounting for linguistic taste.) I think a template like {{trans-top-also}} would still be very useful, however — for directing users to synonyms. Look at the translation table of [[whore]]'s "prostitute" sense, for example: it probably should contain only words that are vulgar or slang, while semi-technical words like "prostitute" should be in [[prostitute]]. {{trans-top-also}} could help keep users from adding prostytutka, etc, to [[whore]]. I've already effected a similar split at [[Gypsy]] vs [[Rom]]. I was hoping to find a conjugation template for early modern English forms of "to be", to include wast, beeth, etc. Is there something like that already or can someone more knowledgeable than me make one? Happerslaffer (talk) 02:56, 6 November 2012 (UTC) It doesn't require any special knowledge — you could just copy the relevant part of be#Inflection and paste it into a template — but to be honest, I really don't see the point. —RuakhTALK 03:01, 6 November 2012 (UTC) Two questions: Senses #1 and #2: Aren't they the same thing? Sense #3: Does any have any idea what this even means? --WikiTiki89 19:03, 6 November 2012 (UTC) Probably - why not try to merge them. Nothing - just delete it (Wiktionary is full of such meaningless stuff). SemperBlotto (talk) 08:03, 7 November 2012 (UTC) Done. Don't even think the merger was worth nominating, but if you object you can restore it and nominate it. --WikiTiki89 08:39, 7 November 2012 (UTC) The definitions that you objected to were from Webster 1913. The characteristic defects I find with their definitions is that they included list of synonyms as definitions. You simply deleted the synonyms. They often have older senses, which they sometimes mark and which sometimes have become less current. We seek to include dated, archaic, and obsolete sense, appropriately marked as well as the latest sense. With respect to your criticism of sense 3, we cannot delete everything we do not understand. The cite from Shakespeare in Webster 1913 (which, being from a well-known work, is sufficient cite the sense) supports the meaning. The difference between senses 1 and 2 is that sense one omits the ideas of "careful" and "obedient". I think examining a sufficient number of citations would make it clear that those ideas have been intended by authors to be conveyed by heed. DCDuring TALK 20:16, 14 November 2012 (UTC) Definition two seems to be a sub-type of definition one, then, at best. On definition three, was it supposed to be "a look or expression of heeding" rather than "heading"? (In which case, a heed would be... a look which signifies that you are paying attention?) Furius (talk) 21:34, 14 November 2012 (UTC) Oh yes, I'd noticed the typo but didn't think of it as a possible source of the intelligibility problem. And here is the quote from Webster 1913 for sense 3: "He did it with a serious mind; a heed / Was in his countenance. Shak." One could call that metonymy and delete it, but many included definitions have a similar relationship to other definitions. DCDuring TALK 22:16, 14 November 2012 (UTC) Also the sense of "obey" is clearly present in some Judaeo-Christian writings about the commandments: See these searches at bgc: for the verb and for the noun. DCDuring TALK 22:39, 14 November 2012 (UTC) [edit] Bar, not quite FUBAR Though correctly re-identified as a noun, the definition for the word bar "the metasyntactic variable" or placeholder name "representing an unspecified entity, often the second in a series, following foo", should be placed under a different/new etymological section for the word "bar". From what I have read, both "foo" and "bar" may be clippings of "foobar", or "foobar" may be the concatenation of the two syllables. In either case, the meaning of "bar" may very well be unrelated to the etymology of the other given definitions of "bar". Instead, it may originally be a nonce word adopted by the MIT hackers who were among the first to use it. If you look at the text of this template, I didn't think we allow partial rhymes (sic) on our rhymes pages? The whole point of rhymes pages is all the words rhyme, isn't it? Mglovesfun (talk) 17:34, 7 November 2012 (UTC) Different languages have different rules for rhymes. I'm not sure if there are any languages that have both full and partial rhymes though. —CodeCat 17:40, 7 November 2012 (UTC) This is User:Paul G's baby. He has added it to several rhyme pages, and added a few partial rhymes. Paul doesn't edit much these days (should probably be de-sysopped) so you might want to drop him an email. SemperBlotto (talk) 17:43, 7 November 2012 (UTC) [edit] remember, forget Can "remember" and "forget" be used as imperatives with the "-ing" form of verbs? Please comment here: Appendix talk:English catenative verbs#forget.2C_remember. My gut said Algrif's addition of the note saying that cannot be was right, but I undid it because I didn't (and don't) understand why my counterexamples don't prove it wrong. - -sche (discuss) 05:27, 8 November 2012 (UTC) As far as I'm can see "Remember swimming to Venice!" & "Don't forget swimming to Venice!" are imperatives in form and meaning. They have a different meaning from "Remember to swim to Venice!" & "don't forget to swim to Venice", but that exactly parallels the difference in meaning between the two structures in the indicative mood. It seems that Algrif's objection is semantic, that the idea of ordering someone to remember a thing which the ought to already remember bothers him. But, while it's rarer to order somebody to remember past events, it is hardly unheard of. Furius (talk) 05:46, 8 November 2012 (UTC) Actually, does he think you are objecting to the idea that "I remember swimming" and "I remember to swim" have different meanings? Furius (talk) 07:21, 8 November 2012 (UTC) [edit] Spend time and spend money We have an entry for spend time, but not spend money. Should spend money be added or should spend time be deleted? Both seem like some of parts. Boxieman (talk) 21:20, 9 November 2012 (UTC) As much as I favor economy of entries, the second sense of spend time is often used as a kind of elision of spend time together. Thus it is a sum of three parts one of which is not present. Ergo, it seems idiomatic. The usage examples fail to convey the elision. The first sense seems non-idiomatic to me and, if so, should be replaced with {{&lit}}. DCDuring TALK 21:29, 9 November 2012 (UTC) To illustrate the elided usage of spend time meaning "spend time together": 2011, M. Gary Neuman, Connect to Love: The Keys to Transforming Your Relationship, page 54: Sadly, when couples don't spend time, they don't even think about what to tell each other from their day, You can "spend" anything that is a resource. Spending it is using it up. I don't see much justification for either of the entries spend time and spend money. Equinox ◑ 23:30, 10 November 2012 (UTC) Spend money is 100% SOP. Spend time is a little more justified but I still think it is worth nominating it for deletion. --WikiTiki89 09:42, 11 November 2012 (UTC) >1. (vulgar, slang) Having contracted a venereal disease. Damn, that's racist. I do not think that this term is vulgar so much as it is racist. Should the tag be modified? --Æ&Œ (talk) 13:12, 10 November 2012 (UTC) We have a category Category:English ethnic slurs that should provide analogous cases. DCDuring TALK 15:53, 10 November 2012 (UTC) I suppose that I shall go ahead and replace the vulgar tag with the ethnic slur tag, since 'French' is hardly a curse to begin with. Compare: 'niggerlike.' --Æ&Œ (talk) 23:46, 10 November 2012 (UTC) The French aren't really a race, are they? Xenophobic rather than racist then. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:57, 11 November 2012 (UTC) Race is subjective. Italians are sometimes considered to be of a separate race from 'white people,' and my friend told me that modern Frenchpeople have traces of Italian blood in addition to the Frankish blood and Gaulish blood. --Æ&Œ (talk) 13:44, 11 November 2012 (UTC) Race vs. ethnicity is a useless and arbitrary distinction. I don't think anyone would dispute the existence of the French ethnicity, but I don't know if there is an ethnic equivalent of racist (ethnicist doesn't seem to exist). --WikiTiki89 14:06, 11 November 2012 (UTC) background: User talk:Mglovesfun#pound We both agree that pound is a plural of pound (they money, pound sterling). I call it the most common and therefore standard plural, Algrif calls it nonstandard. We need more British English speakers to form a consensus (speaker of other English dialects are welcome too). Mglovesfun (talk) 12:56, 11 November 2012 (UTC) I consider both as standard British English, just "three pound fifty" is perhaps more common in the north. I teach my students that both forms are acceptable ways to say the price. --Adding quotes (talk) 13:03, 11 November 2012 (UTC) The think the "three pound fifty" form is irrelevant because even in the US, you say you are "six foot four" not "six feet four" (even though without the four, it is "six feet") and that does not mean that "foot" is a plural form. One important question is: Without a number preceding it, is pound ever found as a plural? There is an analogous situation in Israel, where it is common to say חמש שקל (khamésh shékel, "five(f.) shekel(m. sg.)") even though it is strongly considered that this is nonstandard and that the only proper form is חמישה שקלים (khamishá sh'kalím, "five(m.) shekels(m. pl.)"). But I do not speak British so I can only ask the questions not give the answers. --WikiTiki89 13:22, 11 November 2012 (UTC) From the OED: "Formerly used without change in the plural (reflecting both the Old English unchanged neuter nominative and accusative plural and the genitive plural in -a ). The unchanged plural was long retained following a cardinal number, a common feature of words denoting units of measurement (compare foot n. 7a, mark n.2, etc.), and still common in colloquial and regional English." My feeling is that, though common in informal English, the use of the singular is now considered dialectal and thus "nonstandard". Dbfirs 22:11, 11 November 2012 (UTC) As far as I can tell, the increasing use of the plural form started with decimalisation - people who used to say "five pound ten" started to say "five pounds fifty pee". Where I live (in the South East) you hear the plural form used more by the young and by non-native English. Us old fogeys still use the singular. SemperBlotto (talk) 22:18, 11 November 2012 (UTC) Other old fogeys consider that the correct plural of "new penny" is pence not pee but I agree that the expression is common amongst the younger generation. I would say "five foot ten" informally, but in formal writing I would write "five feet ten inches". I think the plurals (pounds and feet) pre-date decimalisation. Dbfirs 22:52, 11 November 2012 (UTC) I don't consider five foot ten or even six foot to be colloquial. I consider them standard, at least my part of the UK. Six feet tall to me is US English. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:29, 11 November 2012 (UTC) Putting the plural as a standard alternative is misleading. Sure, in the Nth of England, one can hear a lot of similar (what I consider mis-)usages with ounce, pound, stone, ton, gram, kilo, inch, foot, yard, mile, metre, kilometre, etc. etc., being used singular for plural. It possibly also has its root in the adjectival forms "a ten-foot pole", for instance, leading to some communities starting to say things like "That pole is nine or ten foot long" instead of the hugely more common "That pole is nine or ten feet long". In foot there is a usage note about this. But to state that pound is its own plural is going too far, IMO. Surely a usage note would be the best answer here. -- ALGRIF talk 11:44, 12 November 2012 (UTC) There seem to be differing opinions on usage. Perhaps my viewpoint is coloured by dialectal usage of the singular (e.g. to walk five mile), quite separate from the hyphenated usage that is standard (a five-mile walk). I think we have just retained the Old English for longer and with more units than in "standard English" (if that exists). Perhaps Algrif's suggestion of a usage note would be appropriate. I wonder why "pound" has retained the Old English genitive for longer than other units. Dbfirs 21:44, 12 November 2012 (UTC) ... (later, after thought and research) The general plural of "pound" has always been "pounds" (at least since Chaucer), but the continuing use of the Old English genitive or neuter after numerals is so common in some regions that it can be considered still correct despite the OED opinion that it is "colloquial and regional". I think we need a usage note. I'll add one. Please adjust as you think necessary. Dbfirs 16:29, 16 November 2012 (UTC) Example sentences for regular plural: There are tons and tons of examples. (No-one would say There are ton of examples, even colloquially.) He has lost pounds and pounds since he went on a diet. Dbfirs 08:39, 17 November 2012 (UTC) I was going to nominate this for deletion as it is useless for a phrasebook, but then I thought "Could this be idiomatic?" Anyone have any thoughts? --WikiTiki89 14:57, 11 November 2012 (UTC) Oh come on, surely it doesn't mean "I will meet you in Hell (the place of eternal torture)". Mglovesfun (talk) 18:28, 11 November 2012 (UTC) "Interlocutor"???? Is this some kind of joke? Who uses such words in phrasebook definitions? DCDuring TALK 20:18, 11 November 2012 (UTC) I literally just checked to make sure we don't have "my hovercraft is full of eels". People seem to have fun coming up with really inappropriate phrases to add to the phrasebook, so life is starting to imitate comedy. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:51, 11 November 2012 (UTC) [edit] heat in the sense of "heater" I added this sense. However I don't think it's that simple. It can't be used for heater in all cases. One can say: "Could you turn on the heat ("heater")?" But not: "That building has a heat ("heater")." 4.238.6.95 16:52, 11 November 2012 (UTC) Does "heat" really mean "heater" in that first sentence, or is it actually being used as though "heat" were something abstract that you can turn on or off? —CodeCat 16:55, 11 November 2012 (UTC) You can say "That building has heat." So I guess in this sense "heat" means something more like "heating" or "heating system". --WikiTiki89 17:03, 11 November 2012 (UTC) It seems to work something like "the weather": it's either by itself or with "the", and both singular and plural constructions seem wrong. Just as you can talk about turning on the heat, you can talk about changing the weather (you can "turn on the weather", but that's really short for turning on the TV/Radio to view/listen to a weather report). Chuck Entz (talk) 17:13, 11 November 2012 (UTC) @Wikitiki: "Since the power failed, they've had no heat" (very topical around the New York area recently) does not mean that they have no heating system. "I don't know why my building has no heat." (only said when there might be a need for it) suggests that this sense of heat is the result of the system, not the system itself. @ChuckEntz: You are saying the word is uncountable, aren't you? It can certainly be used with much and not with many, which suggests uncountability. DCDuring TALK 18:20, 11 November 2012 (UTC) I think when it seems to refer to the heating system it is a metonymy. That it only seems to mean "heating system" in very restricted circumstances makes it misleading to give it a distinct sense as "heating system", IMO. DCDuring TALK 18:25, 11 November 2012 (UTC) What about "I just had heat installed yesterday."? --WikiTiki89 09:23, 12 November 2012 (UTC) We have the difficulty of using a countable definiens to define a term that seems to resist behaving countably in most senses. This problem has occurred before, without resolution. It would seem to be singular only in this sense. It certainly resists most determiners when referring to a system. Does it accept any determiners at all? If it doesn't, what does that say about it as a lexical item? To me it seems like clear evidence of metonomy. DCDuring TALK 13:06, 12 November 2012 (UTC) It definitely accepts the and possessive determiners (my, etc.). It might accept uncountable quantifiers (much, some, etc.) in some cases. It definitely does not accept a and is never plural. --WikiTiki89 13:22, 12 November 2012 (UTC) In the "heater/heating system" sense, I don't think it accepts the quantifiers, but yes I wasn't thinking of the possessives and articles, which it clearly does. Don't other terms have senses that behave this way: gas (heating and cooking fuel), cable, internet, water, perhaps backup and access. I think that it comes up in cases where folks are very aware of the (uncountable) result and the means by which the individual person, organization, or location gains that result is of less salience or is beyond the speaker's ken. —This unsigned comment was added by DCDuring (talk • contribs) 14:33, 12 November 2012. TV is definitely one, as is any kind of service (room service, etc.). And there is another import determiner that they definitely do accept: no. --WikiTiki89 14:46, 12 November 2012 (UTC) "Can we have some heat in here? I'm cold!" "We need more heat- I'm still freezing!" Chuck Entz (talk) 15:56, 12 November 2012 (UTC) I am hypothesizing for all similar terms that there are two senses, one (uncountable) for the result (or the ability to achieve the result), the other (singular only) for the durable equipment (including connection and/or authorization) that enables the result. I guess that it is quantifiers that the singular-only sense does not accept in many cases. DCDuring TALK 16:15, 12 November 2012 (UTC) (after edit conflict) There's also "music", as in "I'll put on some music", or "Can you turn up the music? I can barely hear it!". Not to mention various kinds of programming in the media: "Could you turn on the news? I want to hear the weather." It seems like a special type of mass noun that includes both the amorphous something, and the means by which it's produced or obtained. I suppose it might be explainable by metonymy, but it doesn't feel like either is derived from the other. It reminds me of particle physics: an electron can behave as either a wave or as a particle, depending on what test you use. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:25, 12 November 2012 (UTC) Note that "air" for "air conditioner" is similar. And we have that sense at air. You can say "could you turn on the air?", but you can speak of *"an air (air conditioner)" and it can't be pluralized. Shoof (talk) 22:06, 12 November 2012 (UTC) If it were always "air (conditioner)" it would be different, I think: mere elision. But I think people use it mean "ventilation system": "The air goes off in my building at 8PM." But it raises an interesting point, how much of this is due to using a mass noun attributively in a noun phrase with a countable head and then eliding the countable head? It still seems limited to a subset of such instances, however. DCDuring TALK 23:16, 12 November 2012 (UTC) I've readded the "heating" sense of "heat". Since it does exist, it should be mentioned on the heat page. Have the "air conditioning" sense at air, but not having the "heating" sense at heat is inconsistent. "Could you turn on the air?" and "Could you turn on the heat?" refer to the air conditioner and heater. If it is misleading it should be modified, not removed. Shoof (talk) 20:22, 13 November 2012 (UTC) fr.wikt lists it as invariable, but all of its usage examples are inflected. I am assuming that it is traditionally invariable but many people still inflect it, can anyone confirm this? And do we have a French adjective template for "usually invariable"? --WikiTiki89 09:28, 12 November 2012 (UTC) Everything is explained in fr:casher: you're right, it's traditionally invariable, but an official recommendation is that it should be variable. Lmaltier (talk) 19:39, 14 November 2012 (UTC) Can someone check what 62.173.126.242 (talk • contribs) has been doing? At the very least, the definition "written spells" needs to be changed to something less ambiguous. --WikiTiki89 13:26, 12 November 2012 (UTC) An IP removed the Serbo-Croatian definitions and substituted a new one, loess. I reverted the change, but it seems that judging from the interwiki links at w:Loess, their definition may be correct too. Can a SC expert shed some light on this? —CodeCat 20:00, 12 November 2012 (UTC) Yes, Serbo-Croatian les/лес can also mean loess. —Stephen (Talk) 20:38, 12 November 2012 (UTC) Added loess as a new definition to the Ekavian form. The Ijekavian lijes/лијес doesn't have this meaning. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 21:59, 12 November 2012 (UTC) I think it probably belongs under a separate etymology, though. It seems like it is a German loanword. Or is the loess-sense also from Proto-Slavic, and German borrowed it from there? Or a coincidence? —CodeCat 23:44, 12 November 2012 (UTC) Oh yes you're right. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 23:52, 12 November 2012 (UTC) Could someone reformat please? I'm not too comfortable with entries with multiple etymologies. Not sure about levels. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 23:53, 12 November 2012 (UTC) I have changed it now. I don't know if the genders, declension or pronunciation are the same for both, so someone will have to check that. —CodeCat 00:12, 13 November 2012 (UTC) Thanks for that. Gender and pronunciation are the same but I removed the declension. Not sure about SH but in Russian native words and loanwords often differ in forming plurals, declension and stress patterns for the inflected forms. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 00:35, 13 November 2012 (UTC) I am almost positive this is spelled wrong and even more so that it shouldn't use ligatures. The problem is, I don't know what the right way to spell it is. I'm fairly sure it is like this: ג(׳)(א)ודי(א)ו־איספאניי(א)ול. But I don't know which א's to keep and which to not and I don't know how necessary the chupchik is. Do we have anyone that knows anything about Ladino orthography beyond what is written on Wikipedia? --WikiTiki89 14:02, 13 November 2012 (UTC) Does vaginal really rhyme with "final" in any accent? If so, why do the pronunciations given in the entry not reflect this? - -sche (discuss) 22:02, 14 November 2012 (UTC) Does the first UK IPA have a typo in it? It says /vəˈdʒʌɪnəl/ but it should be /vəˈdʒaɪnəl/. I don't even know what /ʌɪ/ represents. It still sounds weird to me, I only say /ˈvædʒɪnəl/. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:12, 14 November 2012 (UTC) Some UK dictionaries use /ʌɪ/ for what we call /aɪ/. It's not a typo, it's just not our practice. And yes, /vəˈdʒaɪnəl/ is a common pronunciation (maybe the most common one) in Britain. —Angr 23:18, 14 November 2012 (UTC) Notably the OED now uses /ʌɪ/, because in fact [ʌɪ] is what most people in Britain actually say. [aɪ] is the old-fashioned RP pronunciation. I tend to use IPA: /ʌɪ/ for 'UK' pronunciations. Ƿidsiþ 15:57, 16 November 2012 (UTC) Yes it does, in my accent and most UK accents I would have said. For instance, famously: [33]. Ƿidsiþ 16:00, 16 November 2012 (UTC) This entry is not extreme example of a problem with many taxonomic names entries: they don't convey very much useful information on the page itself. The page is something of an exercise in taxon morphology. In this case the stem portun- is repeated four times, six if you include the project links. The sole useful word for defining is the word "crab", which is a word almost all English speakers have been exposed to. In some cases the word corresponding to "crab" isn't even in the definition: it might say "the portunids". The etymology is often uninstructive as it links to a genus page, which may itself not have, the next level up on the taxonomic tree may be a quite uninstructive, unfamiliar taxonomic name. Possible remedies include, of course, fuller definition. Unfortunately the defining elements of many taxonomic terms is not at all obvious or instructive to a casual observer. Mentioning specific members of the taxonomic genus or higher as the definition can convey a misleading impression of the overall meaning of the term. The same is true for pictures. An alternative, more in the spirit of taxonomy, is to have large lists of hyponyms (one level) and hypernyms (all the way to some relatively familiar term like Mammalia). Finally, one can simply value the entry as a link to more substantively satisfying sources on information, both within Wiktionary and in other projects (WP, Wikipecies, and Commons). Inevitably there will be some principle of good lexicographic entry design violated by any general approach to this. At the level of species it is relatively easy to make a good entry. Definition and photography are very helpful. A full set of hypernyms put the species in context. At the genus level sometimes it is easy, but the general problems start to appear. It is at higher levels that the problem is bad and gets steadily worse. Any opinions, preferences, ideas, or miscellaneous comments welcome. DCDuring TALK 17:12, 15 November 2012 (UTC) This is one reason why I don't think Wiktionary should bother with taxonomic terms. They are really more encyclopedic than dictionary material. Perhaps adding images would help though? --WikiTiki89 18:42, 15 November 2012 (UTC) There have been times when I shared that opinion and I may yet again. I haven't added very many, lately mostly those for species whose genomes are being sequenced. We already had thousands of taxonomic names, mostly at the genus and species level. I am mostly interested in seeing whether they can be improved. The highest priority IMO for new taxonomic entries is for those that are in the definiens of normal-language terms, where they can often help to disambiguate definitions. There are some items of interest in the etymology of genus names, where the ingenuity and creativity of biologists provides some interesting puzzles: How did they come up with that name? We also have amazingly lame entries for "English" terms like portunid. Pictures provide ostensive definitions for species and subspecies and sometimes genera. They really only provide visual interest for most entries at higher levels such as Portunidae. Yet another approach is to use some kind of template that provides some kind of topical categorization and a visual clue about what broad type of living thing the entry refers to. WP has plenty of those. DCDuring TALK 20:05, 15 November 2012 (UTC) @Wikitiki: I have added an image and hyponyms (some of which I have improved) and replaced portunid with swimming crabs (SoP?) and some differentia. The hyponyms shown often contain some information that serves as differentia from the taxon at the next higher level and thus supplement the explicit definition in the entry. Do the additions help or does the entry remain useless? DCDuring TALK 20:01, 16 November 2012 (UTC) @DCDuring Yes, that's much better. Now I know it's some family of crabs, while before it was all just meaningless words. --WikiTiki89 09:05, 17 November 2012 (UTC) All terms, including taxonomic terms, have an etymology, a sense, etc. Here, the etymology is the genus Portunus. I don't understand how a term may be more encyclopedic than dictionary material (of course, page contents must be encyclopedic in Wikipedia, and must be linguistic here). Lmaltier (talk) 22:24, 16 November 2012 (UTC) @Lmaltier It would take a long debate for me to explain and I'm not up for it since I know I'd lose. --WikiTiki89 09:05, 17 November 2012 (UTC) [edit] -s, 's and s': Biassed or lacking? H3llo! I have three lines of inquiry about this site's handling of s suffixes: I've noticed that the -s definition has no information regarding that suffix's use on years, such as 1960s, nor acronyms. It seems to me that Wiktionary is lacking a counter to the 's use in this regard. Is there a reason for this? Is it just me and my personal preferences, or is the 's definition biassed towards using it as a pluralization? For example, in the following quote I question the use of "some": "The use of 's to form plurals of initialisms or numerals is not recommended by some authorities..." My concern with s' is much the same my concern with -s. I ask to hopefully make certain possible future edits productive. :) Starfleet Academy (talk) 08:47, 16 November 2012 (UTC) I can answer this in a general sense: Wiktionary's primary job is to record how people do, in fact, use the language, and not to make stylistic usage recommendations (which necessarily vary by district and time period). So we try to keep Usage Notes sections brief and for essential information only. That said, there's no reason why you couldn't add something to the -s page if you wanted to specify that S is often used to pluralise numbers and initialisms but that some usage guides don't recommend it. As for bias, I don't understand what your problem is with the quote exactly – do you think it should be 'all�', or 'none'? Because I have books which recommend both, so..... Ƿidsiþ 09:08, 16 November 2012 (UTC) I know the generalized bit, hence my query still stands: Why aren't the alternatives noted? However, you have answered this... With the bias thing, I suppose that I'm saying that it could be worded better, and less ambiguously. For example, "There are authorities that recommend against the use of 's to form plurals." To me it it currently sounds like those in favour of apostrophe s are in the majority. Which, from some light research, I've found to be largely untrue — even in North America. ;) Starfleet Academy (talk) 09:29, 16 November 2012 (UTC) What sources are you using to form your conclusions? I personally have great respect for the systematic efforts of the Garner usage-information factory: 2009, Bryan A. Garner, Garner's Modern American Usage, edition 3rd, Oxford University Press: When referring to decades, most professional writers today omit the apostrophe: hence, 2010s instead of 2010's. That's the dominant style (although The New York Times uses the apostrophe). DCDuring TALK 13:48, 16 November 2012 (UTC) ... so would it be in order to say "most authorities" rather than "some authorities" [omit the apostrophe]? Dbfirs 14:27, 16 November 2012 (UTC) It would be fine with me, perhaps "most authorities currently seem..." to emphasize the non-definitive nature of our pronouncements. Perhaps we could do a little research among more recent editions of the "authoritative" style guides (AP, Chicago, APA, MLA, NYT, etc). My selection probably has a US bias. A couple of UK guides, perhaps something from Canada, ANZ, India to supplement them? DCDuring TALK 16:25, 16 November 2012 (UTC) @DC: I use university hand-outs to form my judgements. I didn't know that this site was so based on what ordinary people use over what is formal. Personally, I don't care. People can get it wrong, and isn't this the EN Wiktionary not the US Wiktionary? I'm completely biassed of course, mainly since I cannot understand the use of apostrophe s in these situations. Btw, I'm Australian and anything printed here would be the same as the UK, thus I'd guesstimate that Aussies don't use the apostrophe s on acronyms or numerical decades. :) @Dbfirs: I wasn't game to go that far, but thanks for agreeing with me. ;) Starfleet Academy (talk) 04:21, 17 November 2012 (UTC) University handouts do not tell you what is correct, they tell you what style your institution prefers. This is not a matter of anyone "getting it wrong". Ƿidsiþ 08:30, 21 November 2012 (UTC) I've adjusted the usage note along the lines of DC's suggestion. If someone comes up with current style guides that recommend "2010's" etc, then I'd be happy to change it back, but the usage makes me ask "what do they own?" whenever I see it! Dbfirs 13:43, 23 November 2012 (UTC) Right now we have both of these defined as synonyms. If a redox reaction is a reaction involving redox, yet redox and redox reaction have synonymous definitions, then I imagine our definition of redox is really wrong. I'm not sure if it even is a noun, it seems more like a bound morpheme similar to auto-. —CodeCat 22:49, 16 November 2012 (UTC) redox (definitely a noun) is a process; a redox reaction is one which uses such a process. I've adjusted the definition a little, but chemists do, in fact, use the terms synonymously. SemperBlotto (talk) 08:25, 17 November 2012 (UTC) Hi, all could you please delete this page which is a wrong translitteration of angiqqaqtuq. For the moment I made a redirection to ᐊᖏᖅᑲᖅᑐᖅ the correct one. Thanks a lot. Unsui (talk) 12:08, 17 November 2012 (UTC) [edit] extended meaning of "itch" When someone talks of a "seven year itch" what is the meaning of "itch" in this context? I think we should add this metaphorical sense to our current entry. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:38, 21 November 2012 (UTC) I would think that sense 2 includes it. DCDuring TALK 04:36, 21 November 2012 (UTC) Desire/want? Sounds pretty ambiguous to me. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:45, 24 November 2012 (UTC) MWOnline has "a restless usually constant often compulsive desire". The sense "A beautiful woman" is currently marked as Jamaican slang, but it's also used outside Jamaica, isn't it? I've heard "she's a ten" on US and IIRC UK TV shows. For that matter, it's also used of men... all the numbers are used, without regard to sex. So would it be better to remove the "Jamaica" tag and expand the sense to include men, and add similar senses to the other numbers 1-9, or to regard the elision/metaphor as something a dictionary shouldn't handle? (Alternatively, if you subscribe to the philosophy some expressed in a recent RFDO discussion, it's not misleading that a sense used elsewhere is tagged only "Jamaica", and things are OK as-is.) - -sche (discuss) 05:07, 21 November 2012 (UTC) I would say that this is something a dictionary shouldn't handle. But no one's going to agree with me. --WikiTiki89 08:16, 21 November 2012 (UTC) Isn't it a subset of sense four "A superb specimen" anyway - with both being short for "ten out of ten" Furius (talk) 11:58, 25 November 2012 (UTC) I don't think that we can really say that this is an ellipsis for any specific expression, rather than that it depends on the hearer/reader understanding the 10-point rating scale. I've never been happy with calling this kind of thing an ellipsis, though I have done so in several entries. I think that this is used sufficiently often that it warrants inclusion as a subsense of sense four or at least as an "especially" there. I hope rewording to make it sexual-preference-free doesn't make it too cumbersome for a dictionary. Some artfulness of wording is definitely needed. DCDuring TALK 13:37, 25 November 2012 (UTC) I've taken a stab at rewording an recontextualising it. - -sche (discuss) 16:28, 28 November 2012 (UTC) That looks good. But doesn't the rating-scale context belong at the sense level, not at the subsense? DCDuring TALK 22:04, 28 November 2012 (UTC) Was discussing the plural of jack-in-the-box with a friend, I said it was jack-in-the-boxes and she said jacks-in-the-box. Seems that both are attestable, is one more common or considered more standard than the other? Basically, I can't be arse to do the research myself. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:36, 21 November 2012 (UTC) I've never seen multiple jacks in one box, but, like you, I'll wait for others to do the research. Dbfirs 09:28, 22 November 2012 (UTC) There are also "jacks-in-boxes" and "jacks-in-the-boxes". - -sche (discuss) 16:36, 28 November 2012 (UTC) Good evening, I am wondering if these two terms are synonyms. Thank you, --Fsojic (talk) 19:44, 21 November 2012 (UTC) [edit] de-eye? Do we have a word in English equivalent to desgüeyar "to remove the eyes of"? uneye, disoculate and deeyeify unfortunately aren't words. --Adding quotes (talk) 22:11, 21 November 2012 (UTC) To "gouge someone's eye(s) out". Nothing I can think of that's a single word. --WikiTiki89 22:19, 21 November 2012 (UTC) One might derive something from the surgical term oculectomy, but that probably doesn't meet CFI itself. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:40, 21 November 2012 (UTC) enucleate. — Ungoliant (Falai) 22:41, 21 November 2012 (UTC) I use exoculate. Jeremy Jigglypuff Jones (talk) 15:56, 22 November 2012 (UTC) Ocular enucleation is the removal of the eyeball, leaving the adjacent structures of the eye socket and eyelids intact. Ocular exenteration is the removal of everything in the eye socket, including muscles and eyelids. —Stephen (Talk) 16:33, 22 November 2012 (UTC) Is there a Spanish cognate for this word? DTLHS (talk) 16:46, 26 November 2012 (UTC) Normally to "put out" someone's eyes. Ƿidsiþ 16:51, 26 November 2012 (UTC) Is brownfield sometimes spelled brown field? RJFJR (talk) 17:05, 22 November 2012 (UTC) According to Google (who would have thought of using Google to search for things?) yes, but not often. Also brown-field gets a few hits. SemperBlotto (talk) 17:07, 22 November 2012 (UTC) I tried to google for "brown field" but I got too many hits on things that I wasn't looking for, like it seemed to be finding brownfield even though I used quotes and a space. Thank you for checking for me. RJFJR (talk) 23:51, 22 November 2012 (UTC) Is it more common/correct to say "paparazzi" or "the paparazzi"? E.g. in the sentence, "The paparazzi are prone to sensationalise the stories of celebrities." ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:14, 24 November 2012 (UTC) The latter seems far more natural to me. Furius (talk) 10:54, 24 November 2012 (UTC) Is this plural form accommodations "correct"? It sounds wrong to my ears, but I may be mistaken. ---> Tooironic (talk) 23:24, 25 November 2012 (UTC) Too many doubled letters? It's fine. DCDuring TALK 23:35, 25 November 2012 (UTC) I came across this phrase in several sites and I wonder if this would be acceptable here as an article. This seems to be an ellipsis for « I can't even breathe » (hence the missing last word), usually in cases of fangirling (don't ask me where I found this, ok ?). Dakdada (talk) 16:36, 26 November 2012 (UTC) Well, I have never come across it. It is, of course, virtually impossible to search for on Google. SemperBlotto (talk) 16:41, 26 November 2012 (UTC) Not as far as I know, unless you can say where you found it I don't think we can help. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:43, 26 November 2012 (UTC) There seems to be quite a lot a it among the « I can't even [breathe/think/another-verb] » on Twitter like this, this or this. These can only be found manually I guess. Dakdada (talk) 16:52, 26 November 2012 (UTC) Oh yeah, and there is this entry in Urban dictionary. Dakdada (talk) 16:54, 26 November 2012 (UTC) Supposedly "one who is pompous", but it seems to be a meaningless noise word in the first citation (the original song) and has no clear meaning in the third. Equinox ◑ 21:56, 26 November 2012 (UTC) Los Angeles Magazine had an article that finds an earlier coinage than the Steve Miller song. It makes it seem even more of a fanciful, poetic invention. I find a lot more mention than use of this. I wonder if this isn't a citations-only term. Can {{only in}} be made to serve this? DCDuring TALK 23:39, 26 November 2012 (UTC) [edit] "call time" or "call time on" Good day. I've started call time but the phrase is chiefly used with "on" (smth/smn.) so maybe it should've been instead started as call time on. I'm unsure. Cheers, --CopperKettle (talk) 08:45, 27 November 2012 (UTC) I've added what I believe to be the normal use of the term (i.e. the landlord of a pub typically calling out "Time, gentlemen, please" to anounce that you have to drink up and leave the pub.). I believe that call time on derives from that. SemperBlotto (talk) 08:53, 27 November 2012 (UTC) Noun: "someone who is wealthy." It seems to me misleading to call this a noun, but "the [optional modifiers] affluent" is a common nominal and the plural exists. There is no change in sense from the adjective sense. It does not behave much like a noun for most speakers, resisting almost all determiners (at least, to my ear). Is this just an adjective in an advanced state of transition to being a widely accepted noun? Does anyone else share my view of most use of this (except with the) as being somehow wrong and worth a usage note? DCDuring TALK 23:15, 27 November 2012 (UTC) It seems to be used mainly to indicate subgroups in studies, like insureds and marrieds. Equinox ◑ 16:42, 28 November 2012 (UTC) A word that apparently describes how forested a region is; I had thought "forestedness" would be a good translation, but this word is a red link and apparently doesn't exist in English -- or does it? If it doesn't, how would you translate this nice Latvian word into English for the eponymous entry and examples? Thanks in advance! --Pereru (talk) 12:27, 28 November 2012 (UTC) woodedness exists in reasonable number, at least in the world of books. Forestedness might be attestable, but is much, much less common and seems awkward to my ear. DCDuring TALK 12:45, 28 November 2012 (UTC) Personally, I think in these cases it is better to just define the word rather than finding a perfect translation. --WikiTiki89 12:56, 28 November 2012 (UTC) In the example sentence given in the entry, I'd translate it with "forest cover". —Angr 13:07, 28 November 2012 (UTC) I don't think that "state" of being wooded covers the usage example. It is not substitutable into that example. Although the word wooded includes "state" in its definition it also includes "degree" which is clearly required in a large fraction of the Google books hits for woodedness. DCDuring TALK 15:29, 28 November 2012 (UTC) Funny, my (non-native) ears felt "forestedness" sounded better than anything based on "wood" (words like "woodedness" made me think of wood the substance, not wood the set of trees). This clearly shows that it's better to go to native speakers for this kind of information. Thanks a lot for the improvement. (I'll bet that a number of my translations / definitinos, as well as example translations, would need similar improvements; if any of you guys feels the need to explore Latvian, I hope you'll find the words and translation doesn't sound more like engrish than English and correct them! Thanks! --Pereru (talk) 18:19, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

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