Talk:Norgay

RFV discussion: June–August 2022

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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Norgay

West Undies

Buttswana

Porntugal

— SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 05:49, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Cited Norgay. Binarystep (talk) 09:49, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Are you sure none of those are referring to Norway's homosexual population? None of them are typos? This shouldn't be in Wiktionary. - TheDaveRoss 12:37, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

We waste so much time at RFD and RFV on such dross. The (usually anonymous) editors creating such entries essentially expect other people to do the verification work for them. I am seriously considering proposing that entries which are offensive to individuals or groups of persons should have three qualifying quotations added to them within two weeks (one week?) of creation, otherwise they may be speedily deleted (without prejudice to re-creation if that rule is satisfied). Should I raise this at the Beer Parlour first, or go straight for a vote? — Sgconlaw (talk) 12:41, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Agreed, and I would question whether words like this are even lexical. They’re just nonce words that have been used multiple times by virtue of being obvious, and (dare I say it) close to being sum of parts: it’s always just X blended with an offensive/rude/demeaning term meaning X (but in a derogatory way). Totally formulaic. Theknightwho (talk) 12:55, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. I think perhaps it's better to raise this at the Beer Parlour first, so editors can help to refine the proposed new policy. — Sgconlaw (talk) 13:04, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

@Surjection, TheDaveRoss, Theknightwho: OK, created a discussion at "Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2022/June#Stricter attestation criteria for offensive entries". — Sgconlaw (talk) 14:20, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

@TheDaveRoss: To review the cites:

• 1999 August 12: Patently not a typo (capitalized GAY; homophobic attack right after) and very likely talking about the country, not a specific subpopulation of it.
• 2000 July 18: Patently not a typo (talks about Varg right before who is gay) but the author could perhaps have also meant "the Norway gay black metal scene", though I personally find that a lot less likely.
• 2001 May 17: Patently not a typo (talks about homosexuals in the same sentence) and patently about the country of Norway.
• 2001 July 7: Patently not a typo (talks about gay men in the same sentence) and patently about the country of Norway (countries have prison populations, not some subpopulations).
• 2003 March 20: The person replied to somebody asking about dating services in Norway, so the person unmistakably addressed the country of Norway with their utterance; whether it was a typo or not: the facts that 'w' and 'g' are not adjacent on a QWERT[YZ] keyboard combined with the conversation being about dating makes this very likely deliberate. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 16:26, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

1999 is clearly a nonce word, which is why it's been spelled "NorGAY" for emphasis, and so are both 2001 cites which pair it with the word "homosexual". Only 2000 and 2003 are potential candidates for it genuinely being part of the lexicon, and even then I'm doubtful. Theknightwho (talk) 17:13, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

@Theknightwho: Why is them being or not being nonces of any relevance to their inclusion? WT:CFI makes no distinction between nonce and lexicalized items as it shouldn't; independent usage conveying meaning is all that matters. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 17:21, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Because they haven't lexicalised. They're arbitrary substitutions that are dependent on their immediate context to spell-out what they mean, and there is no context in which you can drop Norgay into a conversation that isn't itself already about Norway, or without drawing special attention to the substitution (like with NorGAY). In other words, there is no group of people for whom "Norgay" actually means "Norway" on an ongoing basis, whether in general or as part of a field/group/subculture/whatever. The fact I could start exclusively using Noryay from this point forward and you would immediately know what I mean would not make any of those uses genuine evidence that it's part of the lexicon, because they effectively amount to mentions, and its meaning would evaporate once this conversation is over. The same applies to Norgay with most of these cites.

There are plenty of horrible words which this doesn't apply to, like reparations collector: it's obviously a racist dogwhistle, and could be used by racists without any conversational context being necessary (which is, after all, the point of a dogwhistle). There are still others like Amerifat or Europoor that have developed into genuine words that convey meaning regardless of context (to the right people, at least). As absurd and crass as they are, they stand on their own merits as words because of widespread use, and the substitution of fat or poor no longer need any surrounding context for the words to make sense.

None of that applies to any of the words listed above. They were simply coined for the occasion by a few different people, and that's it.

Theknightwho (talk) 18:42, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

@Fytcha I wasn't saying they were all typos, I was saying some may be typos and some may be referring to something else (the gay scene in Norway). I understand the appeal of blogs and UseNet for cites, they are much more likely to have slang and they are searchable. But they also have a tremendous amount of noise, and the CFI does not adequately filter noise from such sources. It is on the editors to apply some form of filter when citing from non-refereed sources, to try and determine if usage is pervasive enough to really show that it has become a term in the language instead of a nonce or misspelling or typo.

If a word appears three times in the New York Times over a few years one can assume that it has been thoroughly considered by multiple writers and editors and determined to be valid English, the CFI is built around such a situation. Three UseNet posts just don't mean the same thing as three uses in an edited periodical or (not self-published) book. I don't know why some folks are so eager to include the most marginal "words", I am not sure who that is helping. - TheDaveRoss 19:07, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Similar principle to treating one complaint as equivalent to 50 unhappy customers. It's representative.

It's frustrating to waste time with entries like this, while we struggle to meet attestation requirements for words which are all over Twitter etc. Theknightwho (talk) 23:04, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

The solution is to expand our coverage, not reduce it. Binarystep (talk) 09:59, 11 June 2022 (UTC)

Regarding Norgay, I regard it as passed. I removed two quotations that might contain typographical errors, but the minimum requirement of three qualifying quotations has been met. — Sgconlaw (talk) 06:24, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Cited Buttswana. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 15:51, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

The fourth cite you provided is clearly an intentional use of the term, I am not convinced that the other ones are not typos, or spelling mistakes. This is the problem with blogs and UseNet as primary or exclusive evidence of terms, there are billions of strings of characters which have been typed, even unintentional noise may have been repeated often enough for us to declare that it is a part of the language, rather than a mistake which happened to arise three times. Also should not be on Wiktionary. If I coin a dumb word now for dumb words, how about calling them donces (for dumb nonces), well I bet that there are a few ambiguous typos for "dunce" out there which could validate my new word as a long-lasting and important English language word. - TheDaveRoss 16:05, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Donce is exquisitely autological.  --Lambiam 22:01, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

This is an excellent point. I also find that there's a tendency with these kinds of words to just let someone spend the time citing them, and then they just get ignored because nobody else wants to spend the time on them. That means that issues like this can very easily sneak through. Theknightwho (talk) 16:51, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

For context: I believe we have an unusual situation with this flood of low-quality new entries. I kept wondering why the Minecraft-themed accounts of a newby editor kept getting blocked as socks of a vandal. I think what we have here is two adolescent-or-younger people who live in the same area of Melbourne and know each other- perhaps even brothers. The sincere newby started creating Australia-related entries at Wikipedia and then here. The other got wind of it, and decided to embarass and humiliate their rival by adding lots of trashy content, though there also may be an element of competition: "I can do that, too". Since they live so close together, it's hard to tell them apart, and the "good" editor keeps getting blamed for the "bad" editor's vandalism. The result is lots of deliberately bad Australia-centric content that's hard to block without collateral damage. That's not to say that the "good" editor isn't capable of an occasional "bad" edit, and some of the "bad" edits may be worth keeping, but you get the idea. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:02, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that these are actually two separate people. It seems more like a "good hand" and "bad hand" situation to me. — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 16:13, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

@Surjection yes, that's possible, since these all look very similar on the back end. But take a look at Kajin Majel's talk page. Aside from a Sidney IP, all the reverted edits are by accounts that are identical on the back end and very similar, but not quite identical, to Kajin Majel's earlier edits. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:40, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

This doesn't seem simple at all. I interacted with them once, and they spoke nicely that I thought, well, maybe they aren't the real vandal. But what they wrote was quite complicated and had a good possibility of being just made-up, or as Surjection says, indicative of the "good hand" vs "bad hand" situation: The main reason I created this account was to report a false global block with Enderman123456789, who is a mate of mine. He is not a sockpuppet, his brother has repeatedly made accounts such as Te Reo Ahitereiria to vandalise, but Enderman just wants to edit. He is says he is offended that his pages were deleted on enwiki and asked me to seek an unblock request. I am currently visiting his house now, which is why my IP says it's the same, but I am not a sock either. —Svārtava (t/u) • 17:52, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

Nicely spoken indeed, but nevertheless very similar to the evasive banter I’m used to seeing on Wikipedia from users trying to not get blocked for sockpuppetry.  --Lambiam 21:20, 10 June 2022 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Porntugal and West Undies deleted pursuant to WT:DEROGATORY. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:24, 20 July 2022 (UTC)

Buttswana passed. — Sgconlaw (talk) 06:24, 24 August 2022 (UTC)