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User:DCDuring

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
UTC-5 This user's time zone is UTC-5 and observes Daylight Saving Time UTC-4 (c March 11 — c November 4).
Wiktionary:Babel
en-US This user is a native speaker of American English.
de-1 Dieser Benutzer hat grundlegende Deutschkenntnisse.
fr-1 Cet utilisateur peut contribuer avec un niveau élémentaire de français.
la-1 Hic usuarius simplici lingua latina conferre potest.
grc-1 Ὅδε ἐγκυκλοπαιδειουργὸς ὀλίγον ἀρχαίως Ἑλληνιστὶ γράφειν οἷός τ’ ἐστίν.
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I don't believe in some of the practices followed as they have changed.

This is not a dictionary I would rely on without checking other authorities or data.

A mathematics professor is giving a lecture and has made an assertion as part of his presentation. A student, not understanding the basis for the assertion, asks why it is true. The professor responds that "It is obvious." Then the professor steps back, stares at the board and ponders for several minutes. Then he turns and walks out of the lecture hall. He is absent for a fairly long time and finally one of the students goes to look for him. He sees the professor in his office working on the blackboard which he has covered with mathematics. The student returns and reports to the class. Finally, just before the class is scheduled to end the professor reappears, and announces "Yes, it is obvious."

My idiolect

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  • Parents not native speakers (German [Lower Franconia] and Letzebergisch). My father's accent was about as thick as and similar to Henry Kissinger's (Middle Franconia)
  • Born and schooled (through grade 8) in Brooklyn, NY, 9-12 in Manhattan, 12-14 in Indiana, 4 years in Boston area, balance of time in Manhattan and Westchester.
  • No cot-caught merger.
  • No pin-pen merger.
  • No r-dropping.
  • bad does not rhyme with had.
  • father rhymes with bother.
  • I don't do the prototypical New York pronunciations except in jest:

Usability stages

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The Nielsen-Norman Group posits 8 stages of usability development, of which the first four seem somewhat relevant to en.wikt.

  1. Hostility toward usability: We don't need no stinkin' users
  2. Developer-centered usability: Hey, I'm a user! (WE ARE HERE, mostly!)
  3. Skunkworks usability: I'm too smart to be a typical user.
  4. Dedicated usability budget: (which might mean a respected cadre of admins and users with such a focus).
    The above are summarized at [1].

Our motto, annotated

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All1 words2 in3 all4 languages5

The ordinary-word meaning of this slogan is somewhat misleading. The following notes explain the qualifications:

1Not every word is included at all, let alone in a meaningful way. Obviously we haven't gotten around to all of them. Attestation requirements exclude many. Due to the narrowness of our contributor base many languages are unrepresented and many specialized contexts are unrepresented, even in English.
2"Word" can include letters, numbers, symbols, abbreviations, proverbs, idiomatic expressions, some non-idiomatic expressions, clitics, affixes.
3Some "words2" could fall between languages. A multi-word expression borrowed from a foreign language could be non-idiomatic in its original language and thereby not includable in that language. It may also only be found in italics or quotation marks in running text in other languages, indicating that authors and editors don't think it has entered the lexicon in that language.
4See Vote on Serbo-Croatian.
5Translingual is not a language. Many non-words are better characterized as things. Things that are not words are not part of languages.

Quotations

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On excuses
17 And he sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden. Come, for all things are now ready.
18 And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it: I pray thee have me excused.
19 And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused.
20 And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.
21 So that servant came, and shewed his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind.
22 And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room.
23 And the Lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.

Luke XIV 17-23

  • 951, Abd al-Rahman III, first Caliph of Córdoba (15 October 961)
    I have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: they amount to Fourteen: — O man! place not thy confidence in this present world!
  • 1600, John Marston, Antonio's Revenge:
    fie, 'tis not in fashion to call things by their right names. Is a great merchant a cuckold, you must say he is one of the livery. Is a great lord a fool, you must say he is weak. Is a gallant pocky, you must say he has the court scab.
  • 1611, King James Bible, 2 Corinthians 11: 19:
    For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise.
  • 1650 August 3, Oliver Cromwell, to the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland:
    I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken.
  • a. 1680, Samuel Butler (poet), “Paedants”, in Satires and miscellaneous poetry and prose‎‎[2], page 165:
    For Paedantry is But a Lewd Caprich / Which Pupills Catch of Tutor's like the Itch; / And many nere Recover, till th' are Men, / But still grow worse till th' are twice Boys agen;
  • 1778, Samuel Johnson
    It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.”
  • 1790, John Adams, “Discourse Three”, in Discourses on Davila:
    The poor man’s conscience is clear; yet he is ashamed. His character is irreproachable; yet he is neglected and despised. He feels himself out of the sight of others, groping in the dark. Mankind take no notice of him. He rambles and wanders unheeded. In the midst of a crowd, at church, in the market, at a play, at an execution, or coronation, he is in as much obscurity as he would be in a garret or a cellar. He is not disapproved, censured, or reproached; he is only not seen. This total inattention is to him mortifying, painful, and cruel. He suffers a misery from this consideration, which is sharpened by the consciousness that others have no fellow-feeling with him in this distress. If you follow these persons, however, into their scenes of life, you will find that there is a kind of figure which the meanest of them all endeavors to make; a kind of little grandeur and respect, which the most insignificant study and labor to procure in the small circle of their acquaintances. Not only the poorest mechanic, but the man who lives upon common charity, nay, the common beggars in the streets; and not only those who may be all innocent, but even those who have abandoned themselves to common infamy, as pirates, highwaymen, and common thieves, court a set of admirers, and plume themselves upon that superiority which they have, or fancy they have, over some others. There must be one, indeed, who is the last and lowest of the human species. But there is no risk in asserting, that there is no one who believes and will acknowledge himself to be the man. To be wholly overlooked, and to know it, are intolerable. Instances of this are not uncommon. When a wretch could no longer attract the notice of a man, woman, or child, he must be respectable in the eyes of his dog. “Who will love me then?” was the pathetic reply of one, who starved himself to feed his mastiff, to a charitable passenger, who advised him to kill or sell the animal. In this “who will love me then?” there is a key to the human heart; to the history of human life and manners; and to the rise and fall of empires. To feel ourselves unheeded, chills the most pleasing hope, damps the most fond desire, checks the most agreeable wish, disappoints the most ardent expectations of human nature.
  • 1842, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Sir Galahad”, in Poems:
    My strength is as the strength of ten, / Because my heart is pure.
  • 1847, Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights, Chapter 7
    A person who has not done one half his day's work by ten o clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.
  • 1859, Charles Darwin, On the Origin of the Species, page 492:
    There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
  • 1861, James Legge, transl., The Chinese Classics Vol.1 Confucian Analects, the Great Learning, and the Doctrine of the Mean, page 128:
    If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on successfully. When affairs cannot be carried on successfully, proprieties and music will not flourish. When proprieties and music do not flourish, punishments will not properly be awarded. When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do not know how to move hand or foot. Therefore the superior man considers it necessary that names should be used appropriately, and that his directions should be carried out appropriately. A superior man requires that his words should be correct.'
  • 1876, Charles Darwin, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin: Including an Autobiographical Chapter, page 282:
    But then arises the doubt, can the mind of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as low as that possessed by the lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such grand conclusions ?
  • 1924, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Chosen Thoughts (unknown translator), quoted in The Neuroscience of Intelligence (2017), Richard J. Haier, page xiii
    Nothing inspires more reverence and awe in me than an old man who knows how to change his mind.
  • 1930, D.H. Robertson, Economic Commentaries:
    It is his [the economist's] function to emit a warning bark if he sees courses of action being advocated or pursued which will increase unnecessarily the inevitable tension between self-interest and public duty; and to wag his tail in approval of courses of action which will tend to keep the tension low and tolerable.
  • 1958, Nelson Algren, A Walk on the Wild Side‎ (novel), page 312:
    But blow wise to this, buddy, blow wise to this: Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own. Never let nobody talk you into shaking another man's jolt. And never you cop another man's plea. I've tried 'em all and I know. They don't work.
  • 1968, “Good Morning Miss Brown”, in Taj Mahal (music), The Natch'l Blues‎[3]:
    Good morning Miss Brown  / Mamma how do you do? / I said good morning Miss Brown / Mamma how do you do? / She say I'm feelin' fine and lookin' good / Maaan what about you? / I say I got the misery and the back ache baby / And my feets hurtin' me when I walk / You know I got the misery and the back ache baby / And my feets hurtin' me when I walk / And you know too much conversation hurt my tongue to talk
  • 1995, Herbert C. Morton, The Story of Webster's Third, page 80:
    Native speakers of English take the great variety of senses in stride. No conscious sorting and selecting are required. The context of an utterance (or writing) makes clear the sense that fits the occasion. They are not aware of having to decide when magazine means reading matter and when it means storehouse. CS Lewis refers to this as "the insulating power of context"; that is, "the sense of a word is governed by the context and this sense normally excludes all others from the mind."
  • 2001, Bruce Sterling, Digital Decay‎[4], retrieved February 7, 2012:
    Originally delivered as the keynote address for Preserving the Immaterial: A Conference on Variable Media at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum on March 30, 2001
    Bits have no archival medium. We haven't invented one yet. If you print something on acid-free paper with stable ink, and you put it in a dry dark closet, you can read it in two hundred years. We have no way to archive bits that we know will be readable in even fifty years. Tape demagnetizes. CDs delaminate. Networks go down.
  • 2008, June 26, Geoffrey K. Pullum, Language Log
    The problem I am pointing to, however, is not about web programming or sorting technicalities. It is a simple problem that afflicts us all: people with any kind of technical knowledge of a domain tend to get hopelessly (and unwittingly) stuck in a frame of reference that relates to their view of the issue, and their trade's technical parlance, not that of the ordinary humans with whom they so signally fail to engage. I have written about this before — in Per bus per journey, for example, and probably on several other occasions. The phenomenon — we could call it nerdview — is widespread.
  • 2009, Fiona Talbot, How to Write Effective Business English‎[5], page 25:
    Let's say you are a non-NE writer, you are online and you type a word in your own language for 'outcome'. I tried this in German once and the online dictionary offered, amongst other words: corollary and consecution. Corollary is a word that people may know but would use only in a specific context. Consecution, though? That is definitely online dictionary-speak.
  • 2012, Robert Trivers, The Folly of Fools, page 314:
    Faced with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the the proof.

Based on his own direct subjective and other experience, DCDuring is a fallibilist.

Things I favor in making Wiktionary choices

  • Economizing on user time
  • Making the first screen that a user sees have as much as possible of what is needed while encouraging the user to look for more
  • Not misleading users or WP editors (an important retail channel of distribution for Wiktionary)

Level 1 is an exaggeration of my language capabilities in any of the four languages shown in the box on the right.

Topics of interest

[edit]
  • How to give WT users access to generic names given trademarked names. (easy: redirects or {{only in}})
  • Improving the requested entries list by having some kind of structure for new entries designed to elicit more info from requester. (Maybe, but not soon and probably not with help or push from me.)
  • Improving the handling of those trying to make a contribution to WT for the first time. (More patrolling, commitment to hand holding. Yuck.)
  • Measures of Wiktionary success (search engine hits, click-throughs, etc.). (Not enough of those with skills care, esp in light of community indifference)
  • Wiktionary user data (demographics, interaction) (deemed against the rules. see immediately above)
  • Accommodating dialectical entries. (Not a big problem)
  • Accommodating new terms rapidly. (We try)
  • Making entry pages more loaded with what users want, not what they don't (Evidence ignored)
  • Linguistic theories:
w:Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG),
w:Lexical-Functional Grammar (LFG), and
w:Tree-Adjoining Grammar (TAG).
w:Discourse-Functional Grammar
w:Cognitive Grammar, and
w:Construction Grammar.

Posture

[edit]


Phrasebook

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If we were a different wiki (possibly with radical differences in the interface for users and contributors), we could be the best phrasebook ever. We could be tuned principally for mobile devices with pronunciations recorded for all entries, with different stress patterns and usage advice for those patterns where warranted. We could take requests, including in the forms of recorded sounds and images.

But we are what we are: a participatory but otherwise largely conventional dictionary of pan-lingual ambition and multilingual accomplishment, that competes ably with commercial sites, exploiting timeliness, flexibility, and completeness, against selectivity and uniformity of quality.

Projects

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  • Autocategorization of diachronic etymological and synchronic morphological derivation. BOTH.
  • Construction grammar (snowclones)
    quantization/quantification
  • Ostensive definitions
    Images
    rhetorical and grammatical examples
    other classes for use of examples boxes
  • New Latin
  • Modernizing definitions
  • Quality improvement of English entries
  • Remove overly technical terms from labels, eg, ergative

To Do

[edit]
Snowclone/construction prototypes
Variety
header matching etc
follow-up
new entry lists

User:DCDuring/Latin suffixes

entries to think about
projects
missing definitions
how-to
1. Delete buffoon
2. Move Transwiki:Buffoon to buffoon
3. Delete buffoon again
4. Go to Special:Undelete and restore all revisions
To merge histories, delete the existing main-namespace page, move the transwiki page to mainspace, and undelete. Then edit/undo/rollback the page as needed to update it to the best version. This is fast and easy once you get the hang of it, but I don't know (to answer your question) whether it's documented.—msh210℠ 18:19, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
And Dmcdevit has just commented elsewhere that the first step, deleting the existing page, need not be done separately, but can instead be done as part of the move by checking the "delete the target page" box. Even better.—msh210℠ 19:28, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

cat cleanup Where can i find out more about using "HotCat" as you did recently. ?

See my importScript line User:Bequw/common.js and for documentation see w:Wikipedia:HotCat. It makes category cleanup much easier. Horizontal scroll bar appearing on browser window

Due to long link. Ungoliant
Confirmed. I've now wrapped the relevant comment in <div style="overflow:scroll">, so it has its own scrollbars and won't cause the whole page to need them. (This may not be the most elegant solution, but it's the first one that came to mind.) —Ruakh
Regex fragments:
\{\{IPA\|en\|([^|{}]+=[^|]+\|)*[^|}=]*y
Alphabetizing long lists: derived, related terms, etc.
If no one alphabetizes such lists in the edit window (ie, in the wikitext, not just in the HTML), these will remain a long time.
You can do this with the {{sort}} template that @Erutuon wrote, which I've since modified specifically to deal with these kinds of edits by Wonderfool. Now, it (a) removes duplicates (unless they have different modifiers, such as <pos:...>), (b) alphabetically sorts them, and (c) makes sure every term is followed by a single line-break. Because of the way subst works, you have to be careful to format the opening and closing brackets like the example below: 
{{col3|en
|{{subst:sort|en|termA
|termB|termC|termD
|termE
... more terms with crappy formatting ...
|termY
|termZ}}}}
Note the {{subst:sort}} starts on the second line, after the | and straight before the first term; it also takes a language code as well (so it knows how to sort them). The 4 closing brackets should be grouped together on the same line as the last term. This ensures everything lines up properly once the subst goes through: 
{{col3|en
|termA
|termB
|termC
|termD
|termE
... more terms ...
|termY
|termZ
}}

Taxonomy

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humor
taxonomy lists and categories

Lawn wildflowers

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Other

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Quotation/Attestation

[edit]

Review

[edit]
to review
Light verbs

Terms

[edit]
word lists
inseparable-pairs-of nouns
fasteners
  • box nail - a wire nail with a head; box nails have a smaller shank than common nails of the same size
  • bright nail - no surface coating; not recommended for weather exposure or acidic or treated lumber
  • casing nail - a wire nail with a slightly larger head than finish nails; often used for flooring
  • CC coated nail - "cement coated"; nail coated with adhesive (cement) for greater holding power; also resin- or vinyl-coated; coating melts from friction when driven to help lubricate then hardens when cool; color varies by manufacturer (tan, pink, are common)
  • common nail - a common construction wire nail with a head: common nails have larger shanks than box nails of the same size
  • duplex nail - a common nail with a second head, allowing for easy extraction
  • finish nail - a wire nail that does not have a "head"; can be easily concealed
  • galvanized nail - treated for resistance to corrosion and/or weather exposure
  • helix nail - the nail has a square shank that has been twisted this makes the nail very difficult to pull out; often used in decking
  • ring shank nail - small rings on the shank to prevent the nail from being worked back out often used in flooring
  • sinker nail - Same thin diameter as a box nail, cement coated (see above), the funnel shaped head is easier to nail flat and the head has a grid on the strike surface to keep the hammer strike from slipping; these are the most common nails used in framing today
  • spike - a large nail (usually over 4" - 100 mm)
  • Length - distance from the head to the point of a nail
  • Phosphate-coated - a dark grey to black finish providing a surface that binds well with paint and joint compound and minimal corrosion resistance
  • Point - sharpened end opposite the "head" for greater ease in driving
  • Electrogalvanized - provides a smooth finish with some corrosion resistance
  • Mechanically galvanized - deposits more zinc than electrogalvanizing for increased corrosion resistance
  • Hot-dip galvanized - provides a rough finish that deposits more zinc than other methods, resulting in very high corrosion resistance that is suitable for some acidic and treated lumber; often easier to bend than other types of nails
  • head - round flat metal piece affixed to the top of the nail; for increased holding power
  • shank - the body the length of the nail between the head and the point; may be smooth, or may have rings or spirals for greater holding power
Comic graphics
structured poetry forms
blue-collar "technical" vocabulary
zombies
words ending in -latry

Copulas

[edit]
@WP
copula in almost all uses
mixed with transitive and intransitive
A reasonably exhaustive list of copulative verbs
subjective complements
objective complements
reflexive complements
[edit]
Tools

I know a specific edit number for a WP edit that allegedly triggered a ban of a veteran user. I'd like to see it and the context and judge for myself. I don't know what page was being edited, nor the date. If you don't know how to do this, do you have any idea where I can look? DCDuring (talk) 12:03, 12 June 2019 (UTC) 

   @DCDuring: If I understand correctly, you can look up the diff by entering https://[wiki domain=]en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=[edit#=]895438118. You don't need the page name because all edit numbers on a wiki are unique. If you then want to look at the history for more context, you can note the date, click the History tab, and enter the date to view edits around that time. — Eru·tuon 18:16, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

       Thanks. It worked perfectly. I am right now finding the confrontation that probably led to the ban. DCDuring (talk) 19:14, 12 June 2019 (UTC)
Examples
Reference links
stats
Notable print works in my possession
references
  • CGEL (2003) !!!
  • Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (1999), Douglas Biber and Stig Johansson
  • A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, and Svartvik (1985)
  • A Grammar of the English Language, George O. Curme (1935)
  • Webster's International Dictionary Second edition
  • Webster's Third New International Dictionary and Seven-Language Dictionary
  • Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (New Edition) (1987)
  • Collins COBUILD English Dictionary (New Edition) (1995)
  • The American Language, H. L. Mencken
  • Dictionary of American Regional English Volumes 1-3 (A-O)
  • APA Dictionary of Psychology (2006)
  • Penguin Dictionary of Psychology
  • What's What: A Visual Glossary of the Physical World (1982)
  • A Topical Dictionary of Statistics
  • The Way Things Work
  • A Dictionary of Philosophy, Flew
  • Modern American Usage (2009) !!!
  • MWDEU
  • McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Idioms and Phrasal Verbs
less notable
  • The Chicago Manual of Style (14th ed)
  • Black's Law Dictionary (3rd ed)
  • Fowler (2nd ed)
  • Modern American Usage
  • Some dictionaries of business and economics
  • Lexical Analysis: Norms and Exploitations, Patrick Hanks (2013) !!!
  • Semantics, James Lyons (1977)
  • Lexical Semantics
  • Cognitive Linguistics
UI Diagnostics

Subpages

[edit]
Planned, running, and recent votes [edit this list]
(see also: timeline, policy)
EndsTitleStatus/Votes
Dec 24Word of the Yearfailed
Dec 27Updating COALMINE rulefailed
Jan 21A few users for debureaucratization8 4 1
(=3)[Wiktionary:Table of votes](=70)
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