Talk:ejusdem generis

I have moved this bit from the entry to here:

“[a] general word or phrase [that] follows a list of specifics ... will be interpreted to include only items of the same type as those listed.” Black's Law Dictionary 556 (8th ed.2004). In other words, we apply the ejusdem generis canon to determine the meaning of a catch-all phrase by looking to the common elements among the specific things mentioned in the list. Andrews v. U.S., 441 F.3d 220, 223 (4th Cir. 2006) abrogated by Ali v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 552 U.S. 214 (2008).

- -sche (discuss) 04:20, 19 August 2011 (UTC)

RFV

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

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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Needs citations of use in English (no italics, no quotation marks). DCDuring TALK 00:16, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

There's no actual rule about italics and quotation marks. You can use italics for things like crème brûlée as it's a foreign phrase, but it's still English in the sense 'used in English'. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:49, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

If we want to start blurring the distinction between use and mention, we can. I thought we didn't want to. I don't want to. DCDuring TALK 14:28, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

But the use of italics doesn't mean the phrase is only mentioned, not used. Surely this is an example of "ejusdem generis" being used in English. In the following paragraph, personal names and even the words May and July are italicized. —Angr 15:33, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't seem sure to me.

Also, what part of speech does the phrase assume? Our definition defines it as a noun, a "rule", which would possibly make it English if it is so used. Is it common or proper?

But the example in the link you provided seems to deploy the italicized phrase borrowing its grammar from Latin: as if it were a prepositional phrase serving as an adjective (though it might also be deployed as if an adverb). DCDuring TALK 16:48, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

You do agree, though, that it's clearly a use and not a mention? (I'm not dismissing your other concerns, but given your earlier comment, I'd like to be clear on whether we need to keep arguing about that point or not. :-P   ) —Ruakh_TALK 17:04, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Some quotations that appear to use the phrase, requiring the reader to know what the phrase means in order to understand the quotations: [1], [2], [3], [4]. There are two quotations that do not even use italics: [5], [6]. The phrase "ceteris paribus" is often used in italics, but it is still used rather than mentioned; the use of italics has nothing to do with the use-mention distinction; and it is a phrase that Wiktionary should better define as one that is used in English, albeit a foreign one. --Dan Polansky 10:14, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Correcting myself: the use of italics has something to do with use-mention distions, as italics is often used in English instead of quotations marks. So instead of '"sun" is a word', you can write 'sun is a word'. But I do not think that the practice of putting Latin phrases in italics indicates that they are used in quotation marks, as it were; but even if they were, the italicized Latin phrases are still being used rather than mentioned. --Dan Polansky 10:24, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

An additional issue: Whether or not we allow an English entry for (deprecated template usage) ejusdem generis, we can't have Latin entry at that page title, either — Wiktionary:About Latin#Prefer spellings with I; do not use J requires eiusdem generis. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 16:09, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't the later Latins (Medieval, Ecclesistical, New) use "j" and "u"?

Is "English" the right L2 for such terms rather than "Translingual"? I would think that many expressions in legal and medical Latin similarly are used in more than one European language. DCDuring TALK 17:23, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Re: DCDuring above "If we want to start blurring the distinction between use and mention, we can". Are you suggesting that de facto (as an example) when italicized isn't English, but used with no italics, it is? Use of italics can demonstrate a non-English word/term, but it's not the only way to use italics. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:33, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

What bothers me is that it is a stretch to call these English. The italicization is an indication. The expressions are used in English text as if they were idioms. They do require lookup for most users. They may not be idiomatic in Latin. Should we call these Translingual based on use in multiple European languages or Latin if only in English? I really don't see why they have to be considered English. DCDuring TALK 22:00, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Because they may not be idiomatic, or even grammatical, in Latin? When a monolingual speaker uses a phrase in his native language, then there's a good argument that it's in his native tongue, especially if it has a set meaning, and isn't a quote. It's quite likely the meaning of this in Latin, if it has one, is not nearly as limited and formal as its meaning in English.--Prosfilaes 22:44, 10 March 2011 (UTC)

Some legal and medical Latin may actually be Translingual (more or less European). The meanings may be sufficiently shared in that community even if not idiomatic in Latin.

@DCDuring: Yeah, that bothers me, too, though not to such an extent that I would want the ==English== entries removed. But it would be nice if they had some sort of context tag, something to clearly mark them as foreign. Would that make the entries more palatable to you? The OED used to do something like that; it used a symbol (viz. ‖), but of course we always prefer textual tags for things. (In its key, the OED glosses that symbol as "not naturalized, alien". (alien) is not very clear IMHO, but (not naturalized) might work. What do you think?) —Ruakh_TALK 00:32, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

That might work for me, but how about ordinary users? Garner's Modern American Usage has some pertinent observations in its short article on italics. "[W]hen that [naturalization] happens, the terms are written in ordinary roman type." The article concludes: "A good dictionary usually provides guidance on which terms should be italicized." Would "not naturalized" be better than "usually italicized"?

I was thinking that medical and legal Latin might have merited Translingual treatment. But the problem of presentation of not-yet-naturalized terms is more general. I think it is much more noticeable for multiword terms, which are common in legal Latin. Such multiword terms seem to often resist naturalization. DCDuring TALK 01:58, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Translingual and pronunciation: One reason for not having these phrases as translingual is that their pronunciation varies with language. Placing a tag "often italicized" or "always italicized" somewhere to the entry, whether on the definition line or into a usage note, seems worthwhile. --Dan Polansky 09:13, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

When, as and if we actually have differing pronunciation for these usually written terms we should definitely accommodate such. In the meantime why bother? DCDuring TALK 13:24, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

If at least two languages use the phrase, then there will be at least two pronunciations at some point. If only English uses the phrase, then filing the phrase under the head of "English" seems just right. I don't understand why you bother to try to get deleted this phrase via RFV, a phrase that is often used in English: I get 102,000 Google web hits and 62,400 Google books hits for the phrase when the search is constrained to "English". Your introducing statement "Needs citations of use in English" showed no sign of hesitation as if you were proceeding as a matter of routine or common practice, which really is not the case. --Dan Polansky 20:16, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

I originally thought that this might perhaps not be attestable except in italics, which indicates either that a term has not been naturalized as English or that it is being mentioned not used. DCDuring TALK 22:32, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Kept: clearly widespread use, (and were this RFD) no consensus for deletion. - -sche (discuss) 02:04, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Discussion should be reopened once we have clear, agreed-upon guidelines for translingual terms. - -sche (discuss) 22:02, 23 October 2011 (UTC)