User talk:Graeme Bartlett

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—Ruakh_TALK 16:51, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

dihydroxyaluminium

See the picture here. [1] Definitely water ligands, not hydroxyl groups. SemperBlotto (talk) 13:51, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

SemperBlotto that PubChem entry is wrong. The clue is the ^^ symbol on the Aluminium indicating unpaired electrons or radical. If it was really two water molecules, it could be called diaquaaluminium or aluminium dihydrate]]. The diagram here is a more realistic example: [2] Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:02, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Creating new entries

Hi! When you create a new entry it may be better to leave the "edit summary" box blank, as then it will show up as the actual content that you added. (So I'm lazy and it's easier for admins to patrol the new edits. But there's not much to say about a new entry anyway.) Thanks for your work. Equinox ◑ 01:35, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

BTW, if you like minerals: you may enjoy the (massively out-of-date) User:Equinox/Minerals. Equinox ◑ 01:38, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

OK I will leave it blank as that is easy! I like minerals, chemicals, and rocks. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:40, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I don't have statistics but I bet if we compared our coverage against (say) the OED we would mostly be leaping ahead in various weird chemicals/organic compounds. Whether that is good or bad, I will let you decide. Equinox ◑ 01:43, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I suppose we should have the sum of all dictionaries. I have a chemical dictionary from around 1950, and was making a list of missing Wikipedia pages, but I should also run it against Wiktionary to see what was missed. w:User:Graeme Bartlett/missing chemicals Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:47, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Fair warning, we've never really decided when the name of a chemical compound is includable or not includable due to being non-idiomatic (sum of parts). DTLHS (talk) 01:50, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

When I first started it was an experiment to see if they would stay, but the chemical name fragments are relatively uncontested as compared to some other words I have added. But if they meet the criteria - multiple use over multiple years in permanent media, then they should be acceptable. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:55, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm not talking about usage. Something like "2-Naphthylamine-6,8-disulfonic acid" is definitely used but we probably shouldn't have an entry for it. There are potentially millions of such entries and there's nothing interesting lexicographically or linguistically to say about them. DTLHS (talk) 02:03, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

2-Naphthylamine-6:8-disulfonic acid is in the old chemical dictionary with ":" instead of ",", so it may not be as unimportant as you suspect! Perhaps we need some extra tool that can accept a word, then verify that it is a well formed name of a chemical and then link to the parts that make it up which should have entries. But I think we should ahve entries for the chemical substance names that are not built up systematically, e.g. emetine Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:05, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Yes, we will work this out once we have decided more important things, about the names of Pokémon. Equinox ◑ 01:56, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Also I'm in love with Category:Long English words and about 97% of them are stupid chemical dyes everyone hates. Equinox ◑ 01:58, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Aaaaannd sorry I keep writing extra stuff, but: if you have a legit old chemical dictionary, a lot of the terms have changed (as you know!); for example I was interested to learn that radon was (apparently) once called "emanation". My current "read it on the train, on the way to work" book is Oliver Sacks' Uncle Tungsten and he has a very convincing/sympathetic piece on names for elements that never stuck. When I've gone through old books (even maybe only 60-70 yr old) there are often names of compounds that you can tell (by searching) are obsolete but it can be hard to work out what they actually are and what we would call them today. Or maybe it's just old beardies thinking that an alloy was an element. muh. Equinox ◑ 02:03, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

Alternative forms

Hi! Thanks for adding all these missing words. When adding two alternative spellings of the same word, like kelong and kellong, you can just put the definition/content in one of them (ideally the most common — Ngrams can be used to get a sense of that), and define the other one as an {{altform}}. Otherwise, someone will one day come along and revise the definition of one of them but not the other, and then it will seem like there's a distinction between them. PS: for Indian English terms, if you make sure "India" or "Indian" is set off as its own label (e.g., like {{lb|en|northwest|_|India}}), the terms will get categorized into CAT:Indian English. PPS: the header is "alternative forms" even when there's only one of them. :) - -sche (discuss) 01:37, 24 December 2018 (UTC)

Multiple languages in one entry

Hi. There needs to be a ---- line between different language sections, so the software can recognise and format them properly. See my edit at avaz. Thanks. Equinox ◑ 23:20, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Units X per Y e.g. kg/m

I'd hold off on these. It's generally understood that any two units X and Y can be put into the form X/Y, even if it's something unusual like hr/kg. I don't think they are suitable for dictionary entries (and they aren't English either but Translingual). Equinox ◑ 23:36, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Some I would count as English as they include "h" for "hour". Anyway I will stop making the entries with "/". I was adding them as they are in use. I would not add fabricated entries like hr/ft! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 23:43, 4 September 2019 (UTC)

Hours per foot can be found in some descriptions of materials being installed by people. (I didn't see hr/ft thus abbreviated, but I didn't look too hard and it would be understood if someone did write it that way.) Non-SI units mentioned in the SI might suggest some sort of argument for h as hour outside English. Equinox ◑ 01:16, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

That was supposed to be a dumb counter example! Perhaps I should start a central discussion about whether to add these or not. I will add sometimes symbols without / or <sup-1 in the meantime. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:25, 5 September 2019 (UTC)

Etymologies

Hi. otolin isn't -lin and pentel isn't el. Just leave the ety out if unsure. Thanks. Equinox ◑ 12:44, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

pentel comes from pent (for 5) + el for element Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:50, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

terated

Hi. Where did you find this word? I can't seem to find it, but it's hard because of hits for "adulterated" etc. Equinox ◑ 09:36, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

@Equinox I find my words in Wikipedia, and then verify they exist in Google scholar or books. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3ASearch&search=%22terated%22&go=Go&ns0=1 . It has some meaning to do with multidimensional polygons, but I cannot tell what it is. Perhaps I should ask the person who wrote on Wikipedia. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:27, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Attestation

Hi Graeme. I think your recent entries should be fine, but I noticed that they were just barely passing WT:ATTEST in terms of quotations I could find on Google Books. I just wanted to check — are you ensuring that your entries are attested before adding them? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:52, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

For Japanese loans it's worth checking the plural too because sometimes the same word is used, instead of adding -s. Equinox ◑ 21:56, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

I am checking Google books to see if they are there. Likely the plural is not attestable. Should I add "-" or "?" to suppress that?

If there is a plural but it's identical to the singular, use {{en-noun|sushi}} (where sushi is the same word again). Equinox ◑ 23:33, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Mainatinae

Where exactly did the name come from? -inae is the normal suffix. Presumably the genus (original) was Maina or Mainas, but I haven't found either taxon yet. (I haven't searched taxonomic literature.) DCDuring (talk) 04:46, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

@DCDuring I found it in https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwarki which references http://listaptakow.eko.uj.edu.pl/passerines4.html#Mainatinae which also leads to a wikidata entry, It appears in other more reliable sources though: in Vol. 2 of the Howard and Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World (ed. 4) 2014 Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:46, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Do you have any idea about Maina(s) as a taxonomic name? I'm having trouble with the etymology of both Mino and Maina(s), both descending from Hindi मैना (mainā)/Urdu مینا (mainā). I have yet to find any mention of Maina as a synonym of any current genus. How Mino got its "o" eludes me as well. DCDuring (talk) 12:28, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

I don't - I did have a quick look for a possible genus and found nothing. I also tried to see what Lesson's publication would be, but did not discover it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:33, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

sympetally

The spelling I learned in Botany class is sympetaly. There are coordinate terms such as synandry which show that the suffix is -y, not -ly. Google books has 26 hits for "sympetally" and 2290 for "sympetaly". Chuck Entz (talk) 04:43, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, lets get it deleted! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:45, 19 March 2023 (UTC)

devilweed aster

You have this defined as "A common name for Chloracantha spinosa". You're getting your levels of abstraction mixed up. This would be like starting every definition in the dictionary with "a term for...". Yes, it's a common name, but what does it mean? Is it the name for a plant? An animal? A prokaryote? If all you've got is a taxonomic name, why bother?

Most of your entries for organism names are stubs as it is, but this is dangerously close to nothing at all. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:04, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Well I would say that some definition is better than nothing. Should I expand to say it is a plant? To not be a stub, what do you recommend? Should I add synonyms? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:36, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

phyllo-decaoxotetrasilicate

The word only seems to be in the context of calcium copper phyllo-decaoxotetrasilicate'. I don't think it's a valid entry by itself. Krypt (talk) 19:33, 29 October 2023 (UTC)