Talk:mischief

/'mɪsʃtʃɪf/ can't be right, did you mean /'mɪsʃɪf/?--87.162.3.225 20:20, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

The pronunciation shown is a common US pronunciation. It is not the sole pronunciation in the US in my experience. I don't know whether it is the most common in the US or whether it is used elsewhere, nor how to find out. DCDuring TALK 11:37, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Another usage

I have read that the term can also apply to a group of rats, similar to the way the term murder can refer to a group of crows. – (unsigned edit by Special:Contributions/108.12.182.20)

Ah, now I remember why I started to work on the entry :) Jberkel (talk) 21:46, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

RFC discussion: February 2016–November 2022

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup (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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mischief

English. Confusing entry. Jberkel (talk) 23:10, 12 February 2016 (UTC)

I had trouble with the definitions, too. I hope I have not been a mischief (3.1.1) and that any mischiefs (1.3) I may have undertaken do not rise to the level of (serious) mischief (2.1). If the definitions are comprehensible then it would be easier to proceed to the specific problems that @Jberkel had.

I had the most trouble believing in the "agent of trouble" definitions (3), but found one citation for each and could probably find more. DCDuring TALK 01:07, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, I moved some synonyms around and removed the quotations header, it's a bit better now. Jberkel (talk) 13:28, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

It would benefit from some simplification, but the older uses seem quite distinct, at least in degree, from the most common current senses. DCDuring TALK 14:03, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't think synonym lists should be removed from mainspace and moved to Wikisaurus. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:36, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

In general I agree and avoid moving things to Wikisaurus but for these longs lists it makes sense, it's even specifically mentioned in WT:ELE: "Instead of listing many synonyms in each of several synonymous entries, a single reference can be made in each to a common Wikisaurus page". – Jberkel (talk) 14:45, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

It is one thing to add a reference to a Wikisaurus page to an entry that had no synonyms, and it is another thing to remove lists and replace them with the references only. WT:ELE should probably be edited to clarify whether editors find such a replacement okay. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:52, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

I liked this revision and found nothing confusing. By contrast, what I see now seems rather confusing, above all the subsensing, although it is probably more accurate and refined. I especially do not understand what is going on with the 3rd sense. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:56, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky I like oversimplifications sometimes too. We could achieve a much simpler entry that remained true to the (selected) facts if we ignored the no-longer-common definitions. DCDuring TALK 21:22, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't see why moving things around is such a controversial thing, especially given the size of these lists. Why can't entries be modified according to guidelines? Some options we have: 1) Keep synonyms in the entry and add a mechanism with a collapsible display, similar to {{der3}} and {{rel3}} which makes it feasible to include long lists 2) move long lists of synonyms to Wikisaurus + add references. 3) cap the size of lists. I personally prefer 1). – Jberkel (talk) 15:26, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky Sense 3 and its subsenses are about cause. The others about effect. DCDuring TALK 15:29, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

While we're here, am I the only one that pronounces it /ˈmɪstʃiːf/ (as chief in other words)? Renard Migrant (talk) 17:14, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

For me it rhymes with tiff. DCDuring TALK 17:22, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

For me it (and handkerchief) also rhymes with chief, as it does for the vast majority of people in the Midlands and Northern England. Most dictionaries say it rhymes only with tiff in the U.K and U.S but not only is that simply factually inaccurate, showing heavy bias towards the Southern English pronunciation, but Collins goes so far to the other extreme that it actually gives the chief version as the only U.K pronunciation (and the tiff version as the only American pronunciation) here:- https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/mischief. Bearing that in mind I’ve added the chief pronunciation as a possible U.K variant pronunciation. Overlordnat1 (talk) 02:22, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

@Jberkel: Too many people oppose moving content away from the mainspace; multiple people proposed abandoning Wikisaurus and moving its content to mainspace. It is therefore wise to tread lightly and avoid harming Wikisaurus position and reputation by avoiding associating Wikisaurus project with content being moved away from the mainspace. As for the comma-separated list to be too long to display directly, I think you'll find you are in the minority of people who have any problem with them. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:57, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't like long lists of anything (except definitions) unless they can be concealed by a show-hide. These particular lists seem like a hodge-podge of things which don't match the headword's various definitions very well, so they could readily be shortened, one list at a time, once the definitions were stabilized.

But in this case the lists would be made more useful if they could match some of the definitions. For example, the main current sense of mischief as something "minor trouble or annoyance" would warrant a subset of the current list which does not differentiate by degree of trouble or harm. Thus, annoyance, nuisance, and prank might belong whereas sabotage might not.

A more drastic approach would be to not have any long list of synonyms for any obsolete sense or one that is currently rare. A Wikisaurus link could still provide access to a fuller set of synonyms. One advantage in the case of this entry is that it would somewhat reduce the weight of the obsolete/less common senses in the entry.

For any of this to be worth doing we first need to stabilize the entry. OED has even more senses than we now show. I don't know whether a fuller set of definitions can usefully be brought into any sense/subsense structure that I can produce. DCDuring TALK 20:33, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

If the lists are deficient as for accuracy or coherence, they need to be pruned rather than dumped to Wikisaurus. If they are considered too long even after that pruning, they may get shortened to contain only the most salient or common synonyms. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:45, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

BTW, could someone with access to the OED see whether they have a different, preferably shorter, list of senses and a similar delineation of which senses might be considered archaic, which countable, etc. Cambridge Advanced Learner's has only two senses, both uncountable, one for "behavior that is slightly bad", another for "damage or harm", but links to entries for do sb/yourself a mischief (we don't have any corresponding entry), ie, countable mischief, and make mischief which means about the same as stir the pot. DCDuring TALK 17:41, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

I am informed that the OED has 13 senses and subsenses, but some of them seem to be archaic (they label them obsolete) or rare in current use. Two are legal, too finely distinguished for me to even paraphrase. DCDuring TALK 18:38, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

• Confusing word ⇒ confusing entry. DCDuring TALK 21:24, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
• @Jberkel As the nominator, are you satisfied with the current state of the entry? The only possible remaining issue I see is the length of the synonyms list. - excarnateSojourner (talk | contrib) 04:53, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

  Yes, while not great, it's now less confusing than before. Jberkel 08:26, 10 November 2022 (UTC)