Talk:pornography

RFD discussion: October–November 2017

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for deletion (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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pornography

(Scots) My argument is that it is not really a distinct Scots word. DonnanZ (talk) 10:08, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Sounds like a case for RFV. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:33, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

I don't think so, not if it has exactly the same meaning as in standard English, it would be virtually impossible to verify. DonnanZ (talk) 10:41, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Why? If it's found in a text clearly written in Scots, then it's a Scots word. There must be diagnostics for telling whether a text is written in Scots or English. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:06, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

There's a challenge for you. But it's not Scots in the same way as doon, brae or auld (some words are also found in Geordieland) or indeed auld lang syne or "Auld Reekie", an old nickname for Edinburgh.

As I see it, it's a question of what are acceptable Scots entries, and I think they should be limited to those that are peculiar to the Scots (and Geordie) dialect. DonnanZ (talk) 17:25, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

I definitely don't. We treat Scots as a separate language, which means we include all Scots words, not just the ones that are distinct (orthographically, semantically etc.) from their English equivalents. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:00, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

I think Scots must be a borderline case as a language, I would rather call it a dialect. Looking through Category:Scots lemmas more entries like pornography can be found, yet other more worthy candidates have been omitted, such as twinty or twintie and poond - see this spoof of a twenty pound note. I used to know a Glaswegian who asked "hae ye got a poond?" when he needed money for a can of lager. If you can verify the use of pornography in Scots dialect I will withdraw this nomination, not otherwise. DonnanZ (talk) 23:05, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Here. "The ae spammers that’s aye deleevered whit wis hecht wis thaim sellin pornography." But I strongly doubt that the word could survive RFV. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 09:37, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Interesting. DonnanZ (talk) 10:32, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

It's not the obligation of anyone to verify the use of any word on Requests for Deletion. Scots is treated as a language on Wiktionary, and whether or not it uses the same spelling or word as English as irrelevant as it would be for German or French.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:51, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Keep. Unsubstantiated claim is not a valid reason for deletion. Questions of whether a word exists in a language are a matter for RFV. The failed RFV would constitute a reason for deletion. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 09:59, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Obviously Keep according to this request (although it may not be an easy job to cite/verify it). Ƿidsiþ 11:56, 13 October 2017 (UTC)

Delete. Only words (or spellings) that are not used in standard English should be listed as "Scots", otherwise it would just get silly. Mihia (talk) 13:43, 15 October 2017 (UTC)

That's a dramatic rule change inconsistent with treating Scots as a language, and thus should be taken up on WT:BEER, not in a random entry on WT:RFD.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:08, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

If we consider Scots a language then it is entirely independent from English vocabulary. If you think that is silly you should advocate for its demotion. DTLHS (talk) 04:10, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

It's not quite that simple: pretty much all speakers of Scots are also speakers of English and often switch between the languages depending on the situation. It's not always easy to be sure that someone isn't switching to English when there isn't a native Scots term for something. I'm not saying that's the case here, but it needs to be kept in mind. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:59, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Keep in mind that even Kulturwörter from English may have alternative forms that are specific to Scots, like -graphie vs. -graphy. Besides, for verbs a rule like this may lead to deleting the lemma form and keeping the inflected forms, which is also silly. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 09:33, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Surely the question isn't "should we have entries for things that English and Scots speakers refer to by the same term?" but "are English and Scots different languages?". We have already decided the second one by having separate codes and language sections for them. "There will be a lot of tedious repetition" shouldn't really override that, right? Equinox ◑ 05:01, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

I believe that common sense should prevail. There might be thousands, possibly even tens of thousands, of ordinary English words that could be attested in a "Scots" context. Having separate "Scots" entries for every one, where the definition is in every case identical to the headword, seems to me to be absurd. Mihia (talk) 19:22, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, why should we have thousands of Portuguese entries that are just ordinary Spanish words that could be attested in a "Portuguese" context? Having separate "Portuguese" entries for every one, where the definition is in every case identical to the Spanish section, seems to me to be absurd. (Keep, if my sarcasm wasn't obvious enough.) —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:13, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

The difference is whether any reliable Scots to English dictionaries exist, whether they are online or in book form. I would like to know the answer to that. But even then they may not cover words that don't have a Scots equivalent. I think this will have to go to RFV after all. DonnanZ (talk) 09:21, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

It would seem a lot easier for you to do the searches on Amazon and HathiTrust and judge whether they're reliable in your opinion, rather than for me to do it and trying and summarize the results here.--Prosfilaes (talk) 13:08, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

If any Scots-to-English dictionaries list thousands of standard English words that might be used in Scots dialect with the same meaning, then it would only be to make a point, not to actually serve any useful lexicographical purpose. Mihia (talk) 01:42, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Again, same thing with Portuguese-to-Spanish dictionaries? I've got a Dutch-German dictionary that has a lot of word -> Word entries.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:22, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Of course, there are many cases where a word in one language is the same as a word in another. However, the fact that legitimate examples exist does not license the creation of thousands of bogus "Scots" entries. Scots words are distinct dialect words or variant spellings. Ordinary English words like "pornography" are not "Scots". Mihia (talk) 23:51, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Scots is a distinct language from English, just like Portuguese is from Spanish. And if we are to treat it as a dialect, it shouldn't get a separate header from English.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:11, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Whether Scots qualifies as a distinct language is very debatable. I see that the Wikipedia article says "A 2010 Scottish Government study of 'public attitudes towards the Scots language' found that 64% of respondents [...] 'don't really think of Scots as a language'." In any case, having separate "Scots" entries for words such as "pornography" is patently daft, so if present Wiktionary rules entail this, then the rules need to be looked at again, I would suggest. Mihia (talk) 00:03, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

What would you do with forms ending on -graphie? I don't think pornographie can be attested, but orthographie is attestable. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 14:25, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Scots/Scottish spelling variants would have to have entries where they meet general inclusion criteria. I don't think there is any doubt about that. Mihia (talk) 00:03, 24 October 2017 (UTC)

Keep and move to RFV, where it will probably meet its end anyway. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 09:33, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Keep; move to RFV if necessary. Why treat Scots as a distinct language and as a subset of English at the same time? — Ungoliant ^(falai) 15:00, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

• RFD passed and sent to RFV. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:10, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

RFV discussion: November 2017–January 2018

The following information has failed Wiktionary's verification process (permalink).

Failure to be verified means that insufficient eligible citations of this usage have been found, and the entry therefore does not meet Wiktionary inclusion criteria at the present time. We have archived here the disputed information, the verification discussion, and any documentation gathered so far, pending further evidence.
Do not re-add this information to the article without also submitting proof that it meets Wiktionary's criteria for inclusion.

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pornography

This Scots entry was the subject of a long thread at RFD, but no cites have been produced. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:11, 13 November 2017 (UTC)

Is Scots really a WDL? -84.161.53.34 09:44, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

No, but so far not even the verification required for an LDL entry has been provided. —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 17:23, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

@ User:Donnanz and everyone else, I missed the long, drawn-out RFV debate, despite being the creator of this entry. I feel bad that I missed it. I'm surprised that I wasn't pinged.

Not having anything to do with the RFV debate, my opinion is, as said by others, that, since current rules treat Scots as a completely separate language on Wiktionary from English, then if pornography is attestable in a Scots context it should be included, regardless of the "clutter" it would cause. I think I was the one who created at least most of the "English-borrowing entries" in Scots (at one point, I created a lot of them, like electromagnetic). I had a discussion with someone else about how to treat Scots words that could be found in English at some point even before this RFD debate. I think it was Angr, who is now User:Mahagaja, and User:Leasnam that I discussed this with. They said it was okay at that time too.

Regardless of the linguistic debate that comes with it (and it is quite huge, and it happens outside of Wiktionary too, even), Wiktionary currently classifies it as a separate language and not a dialect. It might be a good idea, actually, to bring this up in BP, since the discussion sure did explode in just one single RFD discussion of one single word. But for words like pornography though, it's probably best to delete them, regardless, on the completely different note that they aren't attestable anyway. PseudoSkull (talk) 04:58, 17 December 2017 (UTC)

• RFV failed. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:16, 15 January 2018 (UTC)