User talk:Metaknowledge/2015

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This page shows conversations on my talkpage from 2015.

Category:Missing Spanish feminine adjectives

Hey. You mentioned a year ago about a bot for these Spanish adjectives. You said that your bot ("clunking thing") could process them. Is that option still there? I'm not allowed to run a bot anymore, sadly. At least, only if I run it very slowly. --Enterloppd (talk) 23:45, 1 January 2015 (UTC)

My life being as busy as it is, I can't commit to it for sure, but I'd like to help you out. I'm on holiday this week, but feel free to email me and I'll see if I can get the thing running on this computer. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:33, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup#Acinetae

Could you take a look at this and see if you can make sense out of it? The definition as stands now is totally useless due to completely obsolete 19th-century terminology. There are a few Google Books hits for the terms used, but you have to know enough biology to read between the lines and figure out what they're referring to in modern terms- and my high-school biology from 40 years ago doesn't cut it. Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 04:43, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

I've given my opinion there. I am slightly confused by the fact that Wikipedia claims that flagellated organisms were considered infusoria, whereas the Google Books hits seems to be trying to restrict it to ciliates alone, but that doesn't really change the taxonomic identification of this term. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:38, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

Template.

You're right. I'll be more careful in my next edits. - Alumnum (talk) 20:41, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:48, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry about that

Sorry about the confusion on the vote. I thought it was still open. I didn't look at the date until you just reverted it.Reguyla (talk) 20:02, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

@Reguyla That's okay. You can see that it's closed at the bottom, by the way. And as I noted, you can see at WT:V that you need more edits to be eligible to vote. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:31, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

I didn't know that either. Good to know, I'll just have to create a few missing terms then. Reguyla (talk) 18:24, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Yin May Lwin

Thank you!

Hi! This is my first talk.

Thank you for your edit. Yin May Lwin (talk) 16:55, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Myanmar Language Please

(1)Myanmar language.

I'm from burma.My nationality is Myanmar.Government says Myanmar is not the name of a nationality.But it isn't true.

There is not a language called Burmese.The word Burma belongs to many nationalities.Those nationalities have their own languages.

A man created a word that belongs to nationalities in my country.That word is Burma. Nay Win,dictator,wanted to erase people's memories about great leaders.That man was a great leader of my country.So,everything about him was deleted.But the word burma can't be deleted.So,Nay Win maked people believed that Burma belongs to only one nationality.

(2) Not etymology It's not real etymology. It's just my thought about that word.I know I shouldn't do like this.But I want to know whether my thought is right or wrong. Everyone can edit wiki.So,if my thought is wrong,someone will edit it.I thought someone will edit it. Bye Bye. Have a good day Yin May Lwin (talk) 17:58, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

Wiktionary does not follow any political point of view, and the name Burmese is used because it matches what most modern linguists and scholars use. Also, please do not add anything that you think may be wrong. We do not have enough staff to fix everything that is wrong, so only enter it if you know it is correct. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:59, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you!

It's my mistake.I shouldn't write something which is not proved.Thank you for your advice. Yin May Lwin (talk) 13:40, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks again

Wiktionary does not follow any political point of view

So,you read it.Oh,thank you.

Yin May Lwin (talk) 13:43, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

Wiktionary doesn't. We're a descriptive dictionary: we describe the language as it is, not how it should be. If the speakers of a language use a term in a way that's illogical or factually wrong, we describe it rather than pretending it's something else that might make more sense. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:06, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

My father scolded me.

Well,my father scolded me for telling you about no 1. He told me that it wasn't true.

Well,I have nothing to say but to apologize. I'm sorry. Really. And I wish you not to meet annoying person like me in the future. Have a good day

I'm sorry you have such a low opinion of yourself and that you feel you must apologise to me if your father scolds you. I don't know what "no. 1" refers to. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:11, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Presumably the point in the discussion above that is labelled (1). Equinox ◑ 18:58, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Metaknowledge and I are both from the United States. In our culture we don't have the emphasis on showing humility that many Asian cultures have. If one makes a mistake, it's usually enough to apologize. We also don't have as much of an emphasis on showing respect and obediance to parents and other elders. I think Metaknowledge was forgetting about these differences- I'm sure your response was quite normal and proper for your culture.

Wiktionary is an international dictionary, so it's best, in general, not to focus on governments and their policies, since people have so many different views and there are so many ways to unintentionally antagonize people. While I disagreed with what you stated before, I was not offended by it. I can't speak for Metaknowledge, but I interpret his response to mean that he wasn't offended, either, and was puzzled by the depth of your apology for merely stating an opinion. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:06, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank You

Thank you :) For the changes :) Adjutor101 (talk) 10:57, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

Of course. Please feel free to ask if you ever need help. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:16, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

categories over labels

[1]

I’m not so sure that I agree with that. A context label gives the reader a good idea of what to expect sans necessity for long descriptions. Technically, you can use both simultaneously, but I think that just one tactic suffices. Now, I can’t say for sure to what our readers pay the most attention, I don’t have any proof, but I personally doubt that they always look at the categories after reading the definitions. Even so, context labels are tied directly to particular definitions, whereas categories are not.

As for the edit per se, I agree that ‘anthropology’ was an imperfect selection, but in my defence it was the most approximate thing that I could find. Your categorization was good because it was more accurate, but I still feel like the definition could be better. --Romanophile (talk) 04:55, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

I can't pull up any discussions from memory, but I believe that other editors have agreed that categories are for navigation and labels, although they do categorise, also serve the purpose of disambiguating the context in which a word is used. For example, a word like server#English can mean both a person and a computer, so the context label (computing) is necessary to show that one meaning is particular to a certain field. The word in Mohawk for "boy" is not used solely in the context of anthropology (i.e. by anthropologists or in anthropology textbooks) but instead is the normal, default word. In such cases, the most specific category is helpful for navigating between words in the same lexical field, but it would make inappropriate presumptions on the range of a word's usage to apply a context label. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:48, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to de-sysop/de-checkuser Connel MacKenzie

Since you participated in the the 2012 vote to de-sysop and de-checkuser Connel MacKenzie, you may wish to participate in the current discussion of this proposal. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:00, 7 April 2015 (UTC)

Removal of rights

At least, you should have notified me so that I could respond to your allegations. --Diego Grez (talk) 22:42, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

You have been completely inactive since December 2014, and whitelist status is not even something that editors are normally notified about. In fact, it has no direct impact on your editing. As for the allegations, it is clear that you have created many entries without checking whether they would pass WT:CFI, so it seems reasonable to delay whitelisting until it is clear that your entries do not need to be checked. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:14, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

I have created way more entries than those Pichilemu-related ones... --Diego Grez (talk) 23:18, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm afraid that's immaterial. If you don't understand what qualifies as an entry and what does not, it doesn't matter how many entries you've created. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:19, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

I meant that much of the material I added has remained uncontested mostly since 2010. Anyway... Diego Grez (talk) 23:27, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

That's because noöne checked and noticed how many uncitable entries you'd been adding. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:32, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you !!! Can you make the grammar category. Sorry I am not that tech savy Adjutor101 (talk) 05:56, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

@Adjutor101  Done You can generally copy how existing pages handle it to figure out the format, but I'm happy to help if it's too confusing. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:00, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Oh okay thank you so much. Wish you guys had a course. I am good at languages but but bad at all this techinal stuff. May God bless you :) Adjutor101 (talk) 06:04, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Dear @Μετάknowledge how can I make conjugation for verbs and declension & cases for nouns; in Pashto

Adjutor101 (talk) 06:09, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't reckon I have time to do that, considering I'd have to learn Pashto morphology. Some templates already exist (like {{ps-decl-noun}}), but I'm not sure how to use them. @Dick Laurent, do you still give any shits about Pashto around here, and if so, wanna help out? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:21, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

I can add the grammar and everything. Just need to learn how to do it. Adjutor101 (talk) 07:59, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Trust me, explaining basic Pashto grammar is easier than explaining how our template system works. I just don't personally have the time right now. I'm not sure if anyone else has interest in Pashto besides Ric... @Atitarev, any ideas of who would be good to help? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:42, 21 April 2015 (UTC)

Maybe User:Stephen_G._Brown, User:Dijan, users like User:CodeCat or User:Benwing should be able to help with coding

A basic entry structure (noun):

==Pashto==

===Noun===
{{ps-noun|g=GENDER|tr=TRANSLITERATION}}

# DEFINITION

Grammar categories are automatic (parts of speech) and applies to all languages, see Category:Pashto lemmas. If a specific template is missing, {{head}} could be used. Inflections would require more work. Help can be sought in the Grease pit. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:25, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Etymologies

Always appreciated. Greek orthography is the one thing that hasn't survived in any digitisation of the old Websters, plus I can't read Greek, so even when I recognise the prefix, I don't know how to write it. Thanks! Equinox ◑ 04:30, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I ought to do more, but my Greek sucks and I haven't any short-term plans to study it, so for now I can only do the obvious ones when they pop up on the RC. Thanks for the encouragement! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:32, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm really enjoying the "supplement". It is full of all these cutting-edge high-tech things like "chronophotography" and "aerobuses", and you look them up and realise "oh! that thing turned into 'movies', or slide projection", and "that thing turned into passenger aircraft", and "that health treatment doesn't exist any more because we realised that the radiation was giving everybody cancer". What I wouldn't give to see the dictionary from, say, 2200. Or let's be conservative and say 2400 because I'm terrible at dying, and someone might fix cancer. Equinox ◑ 04:36, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

So that's what you're working from, huh. Where will you find words after you've finished with that? It's strange; sometimes I feel that we're running out of places to mine English vocab and sometimes I find myself using a word like retrosynthesis in speech and, after a check on impulse, finding we don't even have an entry for it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:45, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

I did most of W1913 a while ago, but someone recently turned up and pointed out that the "supplement" words were missing; so, yeah. It's pretty small and I've done probably 90% of it by now. Some other word sources are listed on my user page; I also tend to come across things in the newspaper (although I mainly only read stolen papers to pass the time on the train, HI GCHQ! or The Telegraph in the pub because I want to do the cryptic crossword). Paying any attention to computing, linguistics, or social sciences tends to throw up new words here and there. It really is one of those gaseous things that fills all available space (time). And yes, I always carry a notebook (because I do anyway; I might remember a dream or something!) and it tends to end up with the margins full of "WT" notes. WT means that I have written a word down so I can check whether it's in Wiktionary. I refuse to carry a mobile phone (we need a W1913 word for this: wireless telespeakomatic) so I tend to end up with pockets full of paper. Equinox ◑ 04:49, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Elks

There is a fraternity for men in the USA called Elks, so why did you rollback my edit adding that definition?--PaulBustion88 (talk) 20:26, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, but if that's indeed true, it would be a proper noun and need its own L3. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:45, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Your entries are very poorly formatted. Please stop creating them until you can do so in a way that follows WT:ELE (see my changes to Sovereign Military Order of Malta, for example). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:48, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

Is this formatting better, https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Grand_Orient_Freemasonry&action=history? --PaulBustion88 (talk) 20:58, 30 April 2015 (UTC)

@PaulBustion88 The formatting was better, although you made a careless spelling error; more importantly, your definition was simply incorrect. There are other branches of Freemasonry in France besides that one. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:12, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

etymology רביצין

you gave an etymology for רביצין, I can believe it being a normal -in, but I'm skeptical of the explanation of how the tsade got there, do you know where you originally found this etymology?

I don't remember, I'm afraid, but I remember coming across the Slavic explanation and being suspicious, hence my noncomittal wording of the etymology. I really don't know where to look for a better answer; the OED merely says that -tsin is a feminine suffix, which seems to me to be an odd statement considering that I cannot think of any other examples, although I'd accept it if there were. That said, it doesn't explain where -tsin would come from either, so it leaves us in the same place. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:45, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Fun facts are fun

I had the idea to do that with the yi-noun template a while back and made a note about it on my userpage... But since I'm lazy somebody else made the changes to the template, and that note to myself is still there.

Incidentally, I spent an hour this morning trying to figure out a natural way to say "to grow a beard" in Yiddish. What would you say? — [Ric Laurent] — 17:59, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure I added that functionality, although Wikitiki89 (and possibly others) have done more and better work on the template than I have.

Strangely enough, Google Translate was right for once. The most natural way is וואַקסן אַ באָרד. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:29, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

That's the one I was leaning most toward, but Google has surprisingly few hits for things like "וואקס(ט) א בארד" or "וואקסן בערד", although that second one does return "מיר לאזן זיך אלע וואקסן בערד" which looks more like the first phrase I saw. YDO lists "farlozn zikh" as meaning "to let grow" (as in a beard or your fingernails) which made me think it might be something like "ikh farloz zikh di bord" but my other primary dictionary only had "farlozn zikh oyf" with an entirely different meaning. I feel like Yiddish looks a lot easier than it really is. — [Ric Laurent] — 18:50, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

You're right, I'd think more would come up too. I think that the incomplete standardisation of various regional lects and insufficient resources addressing it is why Yiddish is so hard sometimes. But with the resources I have, I can't come up with anything else that seems to unambiguously refer to this... —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:50, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

It occurs to me that probably most Yiddish speakers who grow beards aren't big on the internet, thus limiting the beard-talk. I think I might try to look up farlozn zikh in another dictionary. If I don't forget. Anyway, thanks for this. — [Ric Laurent] — 22:23, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

How is it surprising? Minority languages are almost nonexistent in cyberspace. --Romanophile (talk) 22:33, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

Sure, but I like deluding myself with the fact that a whole lot of well-off cyberJews still hold Yiddish in some nostalgic place of esteem, even though that doesn't seem to do much it being used in the end. I'm complicit myself; my Yiddish was never especially amazing and it's only atrophying. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:54, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

I've been kind of obsessed with Yiddish recently. I dunno how much I'll realistically be able to learn now, but it's fun making up silly example sentences. — [Ric Laurent] — 23:00, 3 May 2015 (UTC)

If you don’t mind me asking, do you yourself have some middle eastern heritage? I myself may have a tiny amount of Jewish blood from my mother’s side, but nobody knows for sure. --Romanophile (talk) 00:28, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

More Yiddish content is always good, although I wish you'd transliterate your usexes so the algorithm doesn't produce shit. Oh, and yeah, I'm pretty sure anyone who cares has figured out I'm a Jew by now. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:04, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I protest the algorithm by allowing it to function normally :D — [Ric Laurent] — 05:06, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

You saw already how I feel about it. But there aren't too many people here who get Yiddish phases of any kind, punctuated or enduring, and you know full well that one of them, probably me or Wikitiki or Angr, is going to fix them eventually. Yeah, I'm trying to guilt you really transparently, but hell, you know dictionary-makers are the most manipulatable souls around or we wouldn't keep coming back to improve our beloved dictionary. Just give that a thought, anyway. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:50, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I think I've successfully gotten over my love of Wiktionary as an idea, so the guilt will only go as far as to keep me from misbehaving more than usual. But I don't think it will make me less lazy. I only edit here now to reinforce what I'm learning. I feel like Wiktionary is mostly useful to people who edit Wiktionary, you know? People who find it and think it's useful end up getting sucked in. — [Ric Laurent] — 06:07, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

As long as it keeps me off the streets. Equinox ◑ 06:23, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

I’m not really motivated by serving the public (not that that’s wrong), I just edit these projects because it gives me something constructive to do and pass the time if I don’t feel like playing video games. Perhaps nobody will ever use my entries, but that prospect no longer discomforts me. --Romanophile (talk) 08:01, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I rationalise it with the idea that it's to be useful to other people, but really I don't think I'm so good of a person as to have that motivate me, although it does make me feel less guilty about editing. But my main urge is one of perfectionism, that the idea is sufficiently impossible that a reasonable attempt of it must be made for its own sake. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 08:20, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

In many ways Wiktionary would be better if editing access were more limited. I wonder if it would be possible to limit the number of edits new users can make per day until they're learnnedd. Ugh I hate that I allowed myself to waste another good idea on this place :D — [Ric Laurent] — 10:15, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Honestly, that sounds like a great way to scare away noobs, but I guess we already have some good ways of doing that, by which I mean people like us. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:06, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

@Dick Laurent This search turns up a number of good results: google books:בארד|בערדל וואקסן|געוואקסן|וואקסט. --WikiTiki89 19:34, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, Wiki. I should really try using those search modifiers. — [Ric Laurent] — 07:23, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Also perhaps @Metaknowledge and @Wikitiki89 would like to take a take a second look at איז דאָ (iz do). I'm not sure if "right after I wake up" is the time I'm most likely or least likely to make mistakes, and since I put so much in there... — [Ric Laurent] — 08:11, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Also do either of you guys accidentally type קמץ all the time like I do? — [Ric Laurent] — 12:11, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

idle pedantry

"I can understand, but not communicate, in X language": unless you're talking about "understanding in" a language, shouldn't those commas be moved? Equinox ◑ 01:10, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, makes sense I'd never bother rereading my userpage after writing it. Feel free to edit it yourself next time. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:16, 4 May 2015 (UTC)

docga

According to the article on Latin-script digraphs, the digraph cg is, in Old English, pronounced dʒ. ZFT (talk) 01:00, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

Normally, yes, but it's hard to be sure when the spelling is only attested once and the other form is dogga. You have to realize that Old English was not standardized, so there was a lot of variation in spellings between manuscripts- I would guess even more so during the later period. The texts that have been published are usually edited to even out the random variations, so the orthography seems more uniform than it really was. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:44, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

And more importantly, you shouldn't edit something unless you are sure that you're right. A cursory check of Old English resources would have shown that scholars who specialise in the subject have come to this conclusion for the pronunciation of docga. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:44, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

???

Why did you revert Sigehelmus' edit at 'güey? Tharthan (talk) 01:07, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

An * indicates an unattested term, which shouldn't be hard-wikilinked to: either it will be a redlink to an entry that shouldn't be created, or it will be a bluelink to an unrelated term that just happens to share the same spelling. Also, I'm not too thrilled about wikilinking language names to Wikipedia articles, but I don't know if that's just me. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:46, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

It was an edit that made a rambling, off-topic etymology even messier. I've solved the problem by removing everything that isn't appropriate for the word itself; anything else can go on güey. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:05, 13 May 2015 (UTC)

"The only thing that's a major issue is that Kephir really shouldn't be blocking people he's in a dispute with"

How are you going to get him to stop doing that? Many have tried, none have succeeded. He is making the editing environment very uncomfortable for me; I shouldn't have to look over my shoulder every edit to wonder if a Kephir long block is coming. Purplebackpack89 18:13, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't know, and it doesn't really matter, since someone else can always change it. But if you want to be less worried about being reverted and blocked, maybe make more good edits. Looking in your last 50 edits, only one was in mainspace and it was a bad redirect. Regardless, I really don't want to discuss it further with you. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:21, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

What do you think of me?

Reading the above topic makes me wonder about your thoughts on me. Am I labouring arduously? Not arduously enough? Are my modifications (generally) good or are they the opposite? Do my entries belong here? Are there any flaws in myself that I should fix? Seriously, I do care. --Romanophile (talk) 13:45, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

I don't have any standardised way of judging an editor, so I'll try the method I used above, as you suggest. (Note that I'm sure there are times, perhaps even right now, when I would find myself to be lacking if I assessed myself. Only a few editors, like Equinox or Semper, seem to devote all their time to the creation of good entries and fighting vandals.) Your edits were good in the sense that they were productive and mostly in mainspace; I note that many are based off of other editors (e.g. everywhither after I added everywhence, or adding migero as a translation after Kozmonaut added the entry), but that's a good thing because otherwise those related tasks will be neglected for a while. You made a formatting error, you added a macron to amīcam but not in both places and without using the requisite template, and you added Latin translations without macra (I have fixed all of these). Of these issues, the first was bad but would be caught by an autoformat bot if we actually had one that ran, the second did improve the entry, just not enough, and the third was exceedingly minor. So my analysis of these 50 edits makes you seem like an overall good editor right now. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:57, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

Nobody asked me, but I've seen Romanophile ask essentially the same question of a few users, so hey I'm just being pre-emptive. R, relax, you are one of the "good guys", and you have a basically good reputation around here. And (as much as Meta's comment above is flattering) most people literally don't have time to write down and research and add a zillion brave new words. If you aren't Equinox or Blotto (or, hell, Wonderfool, who was doing this years before I turned up), it probably just means you aren't hugely obsessive or bored, and have other stuff to do. And my own amount of time to do this goes up and down. You're fine. You'll be okay. Chill. We like you. Equinox ◑ 00:08, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Lua-based Yiddish conjugation tables

@Metaknowledge, Dick Laurent, Angr, CodeCat

Take a look and give me feedback:

• User:Wikitiki89/גיין
• User:Wikitiki89/מאַכן
• User:Wikitiki89/ציִען
• User:Wikitiki89/וויסן

I plan on adding support for separable prefixes soon. --WikiTiki89 17:56, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Oh those composed forms <3

How about for reflexives? That's one thing I've been thinking about recently. Also, will the verbs with separable prefixes include the form with the infixed -tsu-? — [Ric Laurent] — 18:56, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I'm planning on supporting reflexives, as well as Hebrew-participle-+-zayn verbs like מבֿטל זײַן (mavatl zayn) (is there a name for them?), and the separables will of course have the -tsu-. I'm still confused about word order for reflexives. --WikiTiki89 19:13, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

The only thing I remember offhand when reading about reflexives is that zikh generally comes as close as possible to the inflected verb form. Luckily Yiddish isn't obsessed with word order.

While we're on the subject of verbs, I wonder how we should address perfective forms of simple verbs? I like how our Russian templates address them in the headword line, but I can see why it might not work as well for Yiddish. — [Ric Laurent] — 19:54, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

@Dick Laurent: I don't think we need to do indicate perfective forms of verbs in the headword line. It would be enough to just list the prefixed forms in the derived terms and maybe even mark their aspects. --WikiTiki89 20:26, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

• I think they look great! Thank you, Wikitiki! I've always been worried when adding conjugations, because I've never had much formal Yiddish grammar and thus have an eternal lurking fear that there's something irregular I'm missing unless I check every form on Google. In any case, it'd be good if we could get templates on every page (and maybe mass-create inflected forms as well). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:12, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

  I have had zero formal Yiddish education. I'm learning as I go. I didn't know about the pluperfect until yesterday, for example. --WikiTiki89 20:26, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Translation of gregarious

What was the issue you had with this edit to gregarious that made you revert it? BlaueBlüte (talk) 02:41, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

(If I had to guess), the display not being what was linked to. If Herden- warrants being displayed in a translation table, it probably merits an entry, or a mention on Herden. Displaying Herden- while linking to Herden wouldn't be a big deal. — קהת — 05:37, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

It would help if the entry had real definitions, rather than "Describing..." and "Of...". I think the problem is that the second sense makes very little sense, and the reverted edit translated what it said rather than what it must have meant. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:38, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

shithead

Dear Metaknowledge, your rollback of my edit on shithead is in error. Please see the relevant Wikipedia article (linked from the Wiktionary page on shithead). The definitions I added are commonly used. Please consider undoing your rollback. Thanks and regards, IjonTichyIjonTichy (talk) 17:18, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article is irrelevant. The definitions you added were too specific for a term this general, which, in my experience as an L1 speaker, is general enough to refer to any person whom the speaker despises regardless of cruelty. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:16, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

etymologies

The Chinese ones confuse me a bit because I don't know my Cantonese from my Mandarin (nor my claret from my beaujolais). Equinox ◑ 16:48, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

But at least you could use the code zh in {{etyl}} so it categorises. And now that Unified Chinese is a thing around here, you should definitely never have to use {{term}} with a lang= parameter, because zh will always be the right thing to use there. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:52, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

great work

Thanks for all the Spanish, BTW. If you ever want to add plurals, I wouldn't mind at all! --Type56op9 (talk) 14:53, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Maybe when I get back, I can get a bot running to deal with all those missing plurals. Perhaps you'll be kind enough to help my incompetent self when the time comes? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:52, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Yeah. I've got a bot code for Spanish already. I'll fish it out from somewhere. --Type56op9 (talk) 09:23, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

I hope it addresses entries that have both adjective and noun sections, so that we don't neglect to address both POS's in the inflected forms. Might be worth doing a bot run just for catching those entries that don't, but shouldn't. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:00, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

User:Visviva/Pais 20150704

Hey. Visvia has got a tool to find missing Spanish words, if you feel like helping out create some more entries. --A230rjfowe (talk) 13:01, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

"Anything interesting happen whilst I was away?"

Haven't you heard? We finished Wiktionary. --WikiTiki89 19:16, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Oh good. That'll make learning every language ever considerably easier for me now. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:19, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Welcome back! No sooner are you back than you're back to blocking vandals — nice! Let me know if you agree or disagree with what I did at WT:RFM#Kiyaka_language. - -sche (discuss) 19:52, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Lol I can't believe you say whilst — Z. [ קהת ] b"A. — 20:34, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

An old habit; I tend to write in a different dialect than the one I speak. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:45, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Rollback or Undoing

Hey! This edit was not vandalism. You should not have used rollback, because it has been meant to vandalism. You should have used the normal undoing.--85.76.55.245 10:20, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

This is not Wikipedia, and administrators are not expected to notify people when the crap they've added to an entry is summarily removed. We don't have enough people patrolling recent edits to take the extra time to undo an edit that isn't strictly vandalism. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:48, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Rollback to histi- and histo-

Hello! I saw that you reverted my addition of the English prefix histi-. It is listed as a combining form in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary online. Just wondering?

Aryamanarora (talk) 21:22, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

It looked to me that what you were adding was, if anything, an example of histio-, not histi-. However, it looks like you're right that histi- is a real prefix, so I'll un-revert and format those. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:25, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Also, you made a lot of formatting mistakes, so please see my changes at histi-. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:26, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, I'm just getting started so I'm still learning formatting. Aryamanarora (talk) 20:02, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

gametogénesis

Did you mean to put the plural as gamétogenesis? --A230rjfowe (talk) 06:39, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that; I was retyping those by hand. By the way, also unsure about the plural for céfalon and BGC isn't helping. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:45, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps it is one of those words in Spanish where the stress changes in the plural, like espécimen, carácter , régimen, and others. --A230rjfowe (talk) 06:47, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Are you sure céfalon is attestable? DTLHS (talk) 06:48, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

@DTLHS: Very sure. Just look at BGC; easily citable in the singular. I tried cefálones, however, to no avail. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:52, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

• @A230rjfowe, DTLHS: I added a bunch more to User:Metaknowledge/Español; what I added comes from ~50 pages' worth of Borges, so we clearly have much work left to do in terms of adequately covering literary Spanish. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:44, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
  • Yep, we certainly do. However, it's not so bad seeing as the majority of those are "form-ofs" - plurals, conjugated forms, feminine forms, which can be readily added by means of a friendly bot. --A230rjfowe (talk) 23:12, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Yiddish מײַן

There are two problems with this entry (and the other possessive forms):

(1.) In the example Er iz mayn bruder, the word is not a pronoun but a determiner (according to the terminology that is predominant among Anglophone grammarians).

But my actual point is that (2.) I think the declension table is not quite correct. It says that the masculine nominative is mayner and that mayn is the "neuter indefinite". Obviously, mayn is (also?) a masculine nominative, as can be seen from the example sentence above. I personally don't speak Yiddish, but I think the bare form mayn is much more widely used, too. It can also be feminine: mayn mame instead of mayne mame, if I'm not mistaken. -- Long story short: There must be some kind of change. If you know what kind, and if you have the time, I would kindly ask you to make these changes. Thanks! Kolmiel (talk) 14:35, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

If you don't speak Yiddish how do you know there "must" be a change? Yiddish isn't German.

Some kind of appendix describing which forms are used where would be useful, but the Yiddish adjective template does not need to resemble the German one. — Z. [ קהת ] b"A. — 15:41, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

[Technically speaking, in the old-fashioned Yiddish that constitutes most of this Wiktionary's coverage of Yiddish, "mayne mame" would be incorrect. Possessive pronouns before singular nouns always use the neuter indefinite form and the inflected forms (mayner, maynem etc) are used pronominally. I can't remember whether those forms are used predicatively; the predicate might also use the neuter indefinite.] — Z. [ קהת ] b"A. — 15:45, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

At least how I speak, those forms are indeed used predicatively as well. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with the page per se; what we really need is a usage note for the personal pronouns or a link to a grammatical appendix that does not yet exist. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:02, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

(e/c) What do you mean by "old-fashioned Yiddish"? The inflected ones are also used post-nominally: מאַמע מײַנע איז ... (mame mayne iz ...). --WikiTiki89 16:05, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Basically that most people who speak Yiddish as their literal mameloshn don't speak the Yiddish that's taught in colleges. — Z. [ קהת ] b"A. — 16:10, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

That doesn't have to do with oldness, but with standardness. Even at the time YIVO was created, no one spoke YIVO Yiddish, and no one has since, but the same can be said for any standard of any language. --WikiTiki89 16:13, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Old-fashioned was admittedly not a perfect phrase, but if more of the focus is on "fashioned" it's not completely inaccurate. I wonder how long it will be before someone does a really nice thorough description of modern Hassidic Yiddish. — Z. [ קהת ] b"A. — 16:20, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

The other day, a chosid tried to explain to me how Yiddish is a more perfect and refined version of German. The problem with modern Chassidic Yiddish is that every sect has its own sectolect and every family its own familioect. --WikiTiki89 16:52, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Heh, interesting... German does seem rather up its own butt about terribly minute grammatical points.

I don't know that I'd call that a problem, unless describing it as a problem of working out a descriptive grammar. There's another language I studied that has no real practical standard but is more of a continuum of rather distinct dialects. I can't remember what language it is. Maybe Pashto. — Z. [ קהת ] b"A. — 17:34, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that there is too much data to be gathered and not enough places to gather it from. --WikiTiki89 17:40, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Nah, not in this age of big data. It would just take a consummate zealot. :) — Z. [ קהת ] b"A. — 17:52, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Just for the record: I didn't even say a single word about German. I said that I didn't speak Yiddish because I don't. I said that there needed to be a change in the template, because I knew that mayn was used differently from what the template said. The template is still wrong, obviously. But, whatever. Kolmiel (talk) 19:46, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

@Kolmiel: The point was that German and Yiddish work differently in this regard, and the template is correct; the entry could just use some clarification. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:18, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah. I got that. But I didn't say that it works like German. I know it doesn't. -- The template has mayn as a "neuter indefinite". How can it be a neuter indefinite if you say mayn bruder (masculine) and mayn mame (feminine). If mayn is the general determiner form, then I don't see why it is correct to call it a "neuter indefinite". Kolmiel (talk) 20:28, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Btw, the fact that I said I'd heard mayn mame already proves that I didn't mix up German and Yiddish, because German always keeps the -e before feminine nouns. Kolmiel (talk) 21:14, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Lithuanian doesn't have neuter-gender nouns, but it still has a "neuter" adjective form. The template isn't wrong. The template doesn't "say" anything about the way any form of the word is used. It's a label. Labels might not always meet your standard of "correctness." — Z. [ קהת ] b"A. — 04:02, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, fine. The least you can say is that it's utterly confusing. If Lithuania doesn't have neuter-gender nouns, then a "neuter" adjective form is less confusing in that language than calling a form for all genders neuter in a language that does have actual neuter nouns. But if you love your template so much, then leave it as it is. I don't care. Kolmiel (talk) 11:31, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Yiddish adjectives in general are confusing. Looking at a template doesn't tell you how to use every form of an adjective in every possible scenario. I can't remember ever seeing the bare adjective form called anything but 'neuter indefinite' and 'stem', but calling it "stem" in the template would be even worse, since most languages don't use "stems" as complete words. If you can find a traditional grammar of Yiddish that calls this form something else, I'd be interested in seeing what Yiddish linguists call it. Otherwise I don't see the label as being more important than an appendix describing the grammar of adjectives. — Z. [ קהת ] b"A. — 16:53, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Hebrew Transcription

Hey there, quick query about Hebrew transcription on קנא#Hebrew: when you altered the transcription I put (qɑ'nnɑʔ), you replaced it with "kaná". While I can understand the q > k being based on Israeli pronunciation having lost the distinction between כ and ק, why is the gemination on the נ unmarked? To my knowledge, even formal Israeli Hebrew marks gemination in consonants (ie. **kanná), if not in the spoken vernacular (which, of course, some have argued is a different language). Can you please shed some light on this transcription system? Thanks! Benjitheijneb (talk) 23:48, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Not to mention, of course, that the word in question is almost exclusively bound to Biblical Hebrew usage, not to modern spoken Israeli Hebrew, which if I recall correctly favours קנאי over קנא. Benjitheijneb (talk) 23:51, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps I shouldn't've changed it; I was just trying to templatise at first. We follow WT:HE TR here, but there's always a lot of debate on the matter. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:11, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

And suddenly it gets more confusing; that chart recognises at least two romanisation systems? According to the "scholarly romanization" sections, the first two consonants as I rendered would've been acceptable (with q for ק and doubled consonant for the dagesh/geminate), though naturally my vowels and IPA glottal stop were certainly out of place. Might I go ahead and tweak the transliteration midway to "qanná", leaving the template as you had fixed it? Again, on the basis of marking out the archaicisms of what is essentially a fossilised phrase. Benjitheijneb (talk) 00:33, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

The template actually needs a bit more work until it's good; see the documentation at {{he-adj}}.

As for romanisation, I don't know, but the scholarly one might be a good choice since it's biblical vocabulary. Personally, most of the Hebrew I'm exposed to is biblical or similar with pronunciation essentially based on modern Israeli standards, but you ought to check with actual Hebrew editors about these issues rather than me. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:49, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

You would be mixing transliteration schemes if you put qanná (by our "scholarly" scheme it should be qannā), but regardless, our general practice is to always use the Israeli-based scheme and only sometimes when you feel like it add the scholarly one in addition to it. Sometimes only in etymology sections of words derived from older Hebrew you can omit the Israeli-based scheme if it provides no useful information. --WikiTiki89 11:24, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Also, even the most formal Israeli Hebrew does not pronounce gemination in consonants (although a handful of very specific individuals do this). Maybe you are referring to the fact that the Academy's transliteration scheme preserves geminate consonants, but that is an entirely different matter. --WikiTiki89 11:36, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I was indeed inferring from the Academy's transliteration usage that gemination was prescribed but not practiced, as with a number of "correct" Hebrew phonological characteristics; this based on the fact that the formal written register retains more archaicisms which the vernacular spoken register does not. Maybe if Hebrew on Wiktionary distinguished between Biblical and Israeli Hebrew (or for that matter regional and diachronic variations between the two), it would be easier to argue for the scholarly pronunciation. But that is a matter for the larger body of editors, and for so long as that is not the case, I can't help but agree with the standardisation to Israeli pronunciation. Thanks for the clarifications! Benjitheijneb (talk) 16:21, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

If it were just Biblical vs. Israeli Hebrew, I might have supported separating them as different languages, but there is so much in between that blurs the distinction quite a bit (Mishnaic, Medieval, etc.). --WikiTiki89 16:42, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Babel

Could we get a standard Babel template on your user page? I'd appreciate it. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:22, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

I used to have one, but it annoyed me that everyone assesses what the numbers mean differently. I reckon what I've done is actually more informative. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:33, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

I think Babel is much more convenient. The numbers are approximate but they give a very quick first glance. Multiple words instead of a single number do not given that glance. And the information is much harder to locate on the page than it is with Babel. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:37, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

The extra 10 seconds of reading will not harm you. — Z. [ קהת ] b"A. — 16:44, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

As input from the owner of User:Dick Laurent, which does not show any language info, it does not sound very convincing. And it is not only about 10 seconds; it is also about a sense of confusion and expectations not met.--Dan Polansky (talk) 16:54, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

A sense of confusion? The very first numbered section on Meta's page says "My languages." Each tier is clearly described in a straightforward manner. Could you explain to me precisely which part of that you find confusing?

You certainly must know this, but for the benefit of reinforcement: Meta isn't required to meet your expectations. This is Wiktionary, not the White House. — Z. [ קהת ] b"A. — 18:15, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Végèce

Re your edit summary, yeah, what you added is what I figured. I'm aware, however, that my French is fr-<1 at best, so I didn't want to get anything wrong. There could always have been an intermediate Middle or Old French etymon, after all… (Though, regarding the IPA, I can't conceive of any other way Végèce would be pronounced, given that spelling, so I should indeed have just gone ahead and added /veʒɛs/.) Thanks for answering the requests; I'll try to be a little bolder in future. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 17:34, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

No worries. And there may have been an intermediate I'm unaware of, although it was probably reborrowed straight from Latin regardless (e.g. Middle English Ciceroun being replaced by Cicero). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:02, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Aye, there is that. The problem is French's tendency to adapt Latin names so extensively. In English, we'd call him "Vegetius", with the same spelling as in Latin, but "Végèce"?! Jeez… — I.S.M.E.T.A. 18:09, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, but they do it according to a regular formula, as it were. Just like how one can predict Italian Vegezio, Spanish Vegecio, and Portuguese Vegécio. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:45, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, but that regular formula has the effect of simulating descent via Old and Middle French, which is what makes it difficult to tell when a name entered the language without looking for dates of first attestation. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 19:26, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I've created Vegetius — Latin and English. Are all the descendants I've added to the Latin section meant to be there? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 20:20, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Looks good, although I have a suspicion that they're not all citable. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:30, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

I copied them from the various foreign-language Wikipedia editions' articles. Please feel free to remove any of them that you think wouldn't satisfy the CFI. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 21:13, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

No point in bothering, really; I doubt any of them are actually wrong, just possibly made up. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:06, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

OK. And I would say it's fairly likely that, if they were made up, they were taken from the Latin. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 11:31, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Whitelist

Dear Metaknowledge you added me to the Whitelist what does that mean ? Adjutor101 (talk) 02:18, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

It means that your edits would be automatically approved, but it doesn't change anything for you. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:37, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

“if you don't think shashimamishi is one of the best-sounding words ever, you need psychiatric help”

Enbilulugugal. Your move. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 03:49, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Impressive indeed. But was it as scrumptious in the original Sumerian (I suppose)? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:54, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Glad to see you're linking to Arabic words

Presumably you managed to get hold of that Swahili etymological dictionary and learn some of the Arabic script? Benwing (talk) 08:19, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

The true story is not so rosy. I have a very weak grasp on Arabic script now, hardly sufficient, and the etymological dictionary turned out to be terrible, but I found another that serves the purpose. I am generally copy-pasting for the etymologies, though, so rest assured that good links to Arabic depend on good Arabic entries! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 08:23, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

OK. I'd like to think the Arabic entries are generally pretty good :) ... at least, the spelling should be correct, so if you copy-paste the lemma, it should be fine. Benwing (talk) 09:54, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Most of the Arabic entries are good, although we definitely need more. But if you feel like doing cleanup work, there are unfortunately a fair-sized pile of entries like this one. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:43, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, I know about those proper-noun entries (and certain common-noun entries, like the whole series of chemical elements that someone stuck in). Unfortunately in most of these cases I don't have any sources for how these words are pronounced, so I don't know how to fill in the vowels or translit. Benwing (talk) 16:49, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that one. For the rest, are there really no exhaustive dictionaries of MSA that would include them? If nothing else, forvo.com and Youtube clips could probably provide the vowels for almost all of them. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:06, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

I've added diacritics and declension for باكستان. It's easy to find. I used almaany.com. Whether it's prescribed to pronounce "p", not "b", is not so important, IMHO but I'll check with Hans Wehr. I've noticed that a number of foreign place names have various pronunciations. All depends on speakers' knowledge of foreign languages and phonology. Alternative letters, borrowed from Farsi, Urdu, etc. are extremely rare in real life. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:18, 8 August 2015 (UTC)

Werdna Yrneh Yarg[edit]

The following message was for the above named: Werdna Yrneh Yarg.

• This is becoming mildly annoying. Please stop continuously posting on my talkpage. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 14:46, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

dance

Your last edit there went south and I couldn't figure out what you were trying to do. Could you please fix it? Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 02:28, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that; I'd forgotten that I have to use the alt parameter. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:46, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Woops

Thanks for this this. Sometimes I get confused... —JohnC5 00:19, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm just shocked that other people edited it and didn't notice. And that apparently nobody is running any bots along the lines of Autoformat to find these machine-obvious errors. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:06, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

Rollback of "umbrella"

link here

In the current version of umbrella it is written that this word is pronounced as IPA^(key): /ʌmˈbɹɛlə(ɹ)/ in the UK. The R at the end is strange, I haven't heard anyone pronounce it like that. I consulted several dictionaries and they all say it's pronounced IPA^(key): /ʌmˈbɹɛlə/ (which seems to be obvious). Why did you revert my edit? Zaqq (talk) 21:44, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

Mainly because it was removal of content without any explanation. Your reasoning seems sound, so I'll fix the UK pronunciation accordingly. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:54, 28 August 2015 (UTC)

You are right, I should've added some explanation, my bad. Thank you for fixing though. Zaqq (talk) 13:47, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

Words like umbrella are often pronounced with an R at the end in the UK (and other places) when the next word begins with a vowel. That was the intention, but I'm not sure we need to mention that. --WikiTiki89 14:51, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

If we decide to list such pronunciations, they should be separated from the r-less pronunciations, either on their own line or at least like (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ʌmˈbɹɛlə/, also colloquially, before a vowel /ʌmˈbɹɛləɹ/. But if r-intrusion is predictable, then it's probably best not to bother noting it. - -sche (discuss) 00:55, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Gādēs vocative

Howdy! It's been a bit. I see you've been looking a lot at the declensions of non-native Latin words lately with META and Kenny. Where'd you find the vocative plural Gādibus for Gādēs? Is there some rule that should be implemented in the templates? Just curious! —JohnC5 04:09, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm in the midst of a Latin geography project around here. Place-names were pretty much the one thing where grc was definitively way ahead of la, but I'm making progress. As for the 3rd declension locative plural, yes, that needs to be changed to -ibus, as the templates are outputting the wrong form. All the classic grammars seem to agree on this, although I'd be hard pressed to cite it, due to interference from the ablative of location. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:18, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Wait a second, you meant locative, not vocative, didn't you? I was freaking out there for a second. —JohnC5 04:30, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

You said vocative, but I assumed you meant locative, given that I added the latter and did not touch the former. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

You must have updated the voative on Gādēs by accident in this edit, which is what started the confusion in the first place. Everything's great now! —JohnC5 04:39, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Ah, you are right. I'm very sorry for having misassigned the blame to you, and am thankful that you caught it. The problem still stands, however, that the template predicts the wrong locative form. (The only other affected entries I know of are Sardīs and Sardēs.) —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:42, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I know how to fix the template, but I am curious why Kenny would have such an error in the first place. Have you asked? —JohnC5 04:57, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I hadn't gotten around to it. It's not a priority, but it could use fixing. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:00, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Also, Allen and Greenough agree with you, which is proof enough for me. —JohnC5 05:06, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

All fixed now! Tell me if you run into any more of these things. I love weirdo Latin declensions! —JohnC5 05:11, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

You do? Then boy, do I have work for you... If you could deal with the issues I mentioned over at Meta's page, that would be great. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:13, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I'll certainly take a gander tomorrow! (Also, I realize how awkward it was of me to call I.S.M.E.T.A. “META” on your page. It was terribly confusing and unthoughtful of me.) —JohnC5 05:16, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Not at all; I am perfectly fine with us both having the same shortened moniker. You can refer to me as "MK", but there's really no option of comparable brevity for ISMETA. Anyway, thanks for the help! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:19, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, what mistake did I make? --kc_kennylau (talk) 06:45, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

No worries, John fixed it. But would it possible to add the logic of {{la-decl-1st-Greek-Ma}} to the module so it can support multiple accusatives? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:15, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

How complete do you think we are?

From the remarks you recently made at Equinox's talk page, I gather that you think the English-language portion of this project isn't fully built out. I think I disagree with you. I think nearly all the single-word English entries have been created. Purplebackpack89 04:50, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I've no idea, but you're so stupendously wrong that it's funny. Visviva is scraping lots of new missing single-word English terms every day, and I find them not unoften when adding terms in other languages, and then realise the word I'm linking to in the definition doesn't even have an entry yet. (It just happened with Pisidian.) If you spent your time helping out with the effort, you'd see what I mean. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:03, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

What's Visviva? Purplebackpack89 12:56, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

That should be "who". A longtime admin who compiles lots of useful lists. As for missing words: there are lots of them, but not many of the obvious, everyday ones. There are a good number in specialized areas like plant and animal names. If you broaden it to nouns with modifiers, there are tons of non-SOP specialized terms that we're missing- I add them all the time. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:58, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Visviva's bot is here: [2]. As stated above, it seems to find a lot of legitimate missing words almost every day. Equinox ◑ 14:17, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

• The usage frequency of the English words that we add now is rather low and many are proper names. OTOH, the inadequacy of our coverage of definitions is obvious but hard to quantify. Creating a new entry seems to be much easier and more fun than actually making sure we have good definitions in an existing entry, especially those that need multiple definitions. DCDuring TALK 13:24, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

  BTW, Translingual entries are by no means exemplary in this regard: about 20% (~2,500/~12,500) have no definition except for rank and a hypernym. Many more have only a vernacular name as a gloss. In many cases an ordinary user wouldn't know whether the entry was for a fish or a fowl (or a mollusk or a mastodon). DCDuring TALK 14:49, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

  DC, I see you complaining about this all the time, but why don't you go deal with it? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:17, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

  I'm not the trained linguist here. DCDuring TALK 13:07, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

  Are you implying that I am? My real-life occupation is probably rather interpretable from things I've said, but I can tell you that I've only had basic formal training in linguistics, and the rest has been interest. You can do a good job regardless. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:58, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

• Yes, ordinary, everyday words that you will come across reading a newspaper or novel - we have nearly 100% coverage, but often with crap definitions. For technical words that you will come across in scientific (and, especially, mathematical) journals - we have more that any other dictionary, but nowhere near all of them. But we are improving every day. SemperBlotto (talk) 14:09, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

False Friends

Hello I want to say hello before you do. please check my last 2 contributions.

1. popraviti
2. popravit

I havent seen a remark on False Friends but if they are not provided they should be mentioned.

Rasmusklump (talk) 09:22, 3 September 2015 (UTC) Thanks Rasmusklump (talk) 09:22, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

False friends should not be mentioned that way, because there is no 'False friends' header in WT:ELE (which you really ought to read now). Because this is a dictionary through English, it's rarely appropriate to make usage notes for any false friends except those between English and a target language. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:01, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

BTW I HAVE READ IT. And I noticed that there is none, but I have also found some Categories that are not in these text. And please note that I have come to you with my lasting questions.

But thanks to your answer, although I have another opinion I accept this, you have brought good arguments :) Rasmusklump (talk) 16:34, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Specific categories are not enumerated in the policy, but headers are. Please ask if you have any other questions. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:30, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks :) Rasmusklump (talk) 16:34, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Your rollback on ex

I was wondering why you rolled back my transcription of the audio, but realized that I had neglected to change the slashes to brackets when copying the IPA template over, implying that the [iks] transcription was phonemic. Before I change that back (with the correction), I wanted to make sure there wasn't any other problem with what I did (or if you dispute my transcription). I question the audio as well, but I don't know nearly enough about Classical Latin to make a judgement about it. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:08, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Please do not add [iks] unless you have a reference for that, because I know of no evidence for it. The audio says /eks/, more or less, just as it should (the vowel seems to be somewhat erroneously diphthongised, but that is normal in American classicistic pronunciation). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:13, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Really? It doesn't sound at all like [eks] to me, but I'll leave it as is. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:42, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

In all my American Latin training, I've never encountered the pronunciation in that audio file. That sounds very odd to me, and I've heard a lot of different Latin in classicistic and liturgical contexts from many different traditions. I wonder whence that came. —JohnC5 03:47, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

It came from EncycloPetey (talk • contribs), who has been known to make mistakes in Latin pronunciation. (Then again, so have I, but I think this may be due more to my poor hearing, which expects to hear /eks/ and thus makes me interpret that I heard something that is close enough.) If you have good hearing, I trust your judgement and you should remove the audioclip, or even better upload your own recording as a replacement. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:40, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I think it's an ɛ which is very strongly tensed and clipped, which makes it sound higher than it is. At any rate, it's not a good illustration of the pronunciation. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:14, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Re: Added Content

This is Msflair. Thank you for your suggestion that I read WT:ELE. I just came from that page and did not see any discussion about "adding content." Is there another page I should read?

Thank you for your help. I am not intentionally doing things incorrectly. I need to learn and how can I learn without instruction and how can I find that instruction if not taught? Msflair (talk) 13:05, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

ELE is all about the way we add content, and how said content is formatted. You can learn by making a real attempt to follow the links that have been posted to your talkpage and asking judicious questions there if you still do not understand. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:11, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

"I still think that obvious, basic etyms are a good thing"

So do I, but I add so many entries that I can't be bothered typing Etymology 999 times a day, and I lost the extension that let me use shortcuts to add text to a box. Let me know if you find it! (Chrome.) I forgot the name after a reinstall. Curses. Equinox ◑ 04:17, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm not really sure... perhaps Permanent Clipboard or something else in that vein? Anyway, it'll be more typing regardless, but it's useful considering that it's (usually) unlikely that anyone else will come back for a long while to edit those pages. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:26, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Once I've added every English word to Wiktionary, I'll go back and do the audio recordings and cleanup. Haw. You know, I was actually thinking about seeing if OUP had any lexicographical jobs, but I realised I'd have no hobby any more. So I'm going to do some other job. Equinox ◑ 04:42, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

You could always get going on a foreign language and work on that; most of them need a lot of help. I'm stalling in Swahili now because I am struggling to figure out how to present the conjugation, but once I do that I'll be able to put forth a good showing for Swahili, and then hopefully do the same for other languages (rather than dabbling, which is more what I've tended to do in the past). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:05, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Earth Science question

Hi Metaknowledge. You offered to help out with my efforts on the missing definitions when the topic was earth science type stuff. There is one of those missing on the word "replacive". I can find lots of citations, but no real definitions. Can you help out here? Kiwima (talk) 21:02, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

I suppose nobody's defined it because it's pretty much just what it looks like. Do you think the definition I added covers it well enough? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:22, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

That's what I would have guessed, but with technical jargon, you never know if there is some nuance that is not obvious. Kiwima (talk) 01:09, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

On the bright side, the nuances may also be non-obvious to scientists themselves. I know a guy who collected a bunch of definitions of sexual selection from various science textbooks, lexica, and evolutionary biologists and found that most of the definitions disagreed with the majority of the others in at least one aspect. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:13, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, I've now finished my first pass on the missing definitions. There are a few I'd like you to look at if you get the chance:

• backshot (geology)
• backstep (geology)
• cotranslation (genetics)
• exolve (geology)
• foreshot (geology)
• milkwood
• passageable (biology)
• urceole (botany)

Thanks Kiwima (talk) 04:28, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

@Kiwima: I've never been exceptionally good at genetics, although I think cotranslation is referring to what's defined here. I'll deal with the rest of them tomorrow to the best of my ability. By the way, I see you have some maths terms left to define as well, so you should try asking Keφr and msh210, who are professional mathematicians. Cheers! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:44, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

I see you've been making good progress -- thanks Kiwima (talk) 18:27, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll ask them! Kiwima (talk) 05:57, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

• @Kiwima: All done except cotranslation (per above) and urceole (I really don't have any background in botany, I'm afraid — all my biological training is centred on animals and some biochem). Thanks to Chuck for handling milkwood. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:58, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Urceole is difficult because it's obsolete, but at the time it was in use everyone took for granted that everyone knew what it was (I suspect it's a variant of urceolus). At any rate, it's obviously so named because it's urceolate in shape, and from the usage in Google Books it seems to be a structure (possibly more than one type) that surrounds the ovary/ovaries, but it's been 35 years since I took Botany, so I'm having trouble figuring out the exact modern equivalent. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:52, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

User:Conrad.Irwin/creationrules.js – diff

Was there anything wrong with the last addition/do you know what was wrong there?

I assume something must have been wrong there because after it was added green links disappeared altogether in Moksha entries (e.g., ши (ši)) but I didn't have time research further.

The thing was a carbon copy of the Turkish rules, now, at least after the revert they seem to be working just fine (e.g., yardım). Neitrāls vārds (talk) 11:10, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I see that you've found the relevant discussion in the Tea room. I'll leave you and CodeCat to it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:21, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

flag jacker

Please refrain from claiming those entries are disruptive. There is no requirement that one has to look on Google Books before creating an entry, and you should not be foisting one upon me. I stand 100% by the creation of those entries.. Also, I consider it hideously disengenuous that you are complaining about the entries I created, but you are not threatening User:IQ125, who created the original flag jacking, with similar actions. It's also premature to be discussing all this as we haven't even determined whether they pass or fail. You shouldn't be threatening me at all, Meta, but at a minimum, you need to wait until the RfV has failed before claiming the creations are disruptive. Purplebackpack89 04:25, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, it's spelt disingenuous. Secondly, you have been warned. I don't particularly want to discuss this any longer. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:57, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, that's just too bad, because I do. You're acting like I intentionally created something that I knew could not be cited. That's not the case. You also apply this test to some and not others; you apply it to me and not to IQ125. That is unfair. Purplebackpack89 11:57, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

Seleucia

I didn't do the full list from the dab but you're welcome =) — LlywelynII 08:55, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

I have a (temporarily halted) project to add place-names in Latin, but the ones that refer to multiple cities are seemingly always a mess, and I don't think I handled them optimally. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:16, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Possible error archiving from RFV

This discussion wasn't closed, and the challenged entry hasn't been deleted or de-tagged. Was the archiving an error, or am I missing something? —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 01:49, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

It's obviously suboptimal, but archiving things without closing them first is a good way to get things off the page that are clearly hopeless (and clearly passed). I hadn't deleted it because of a pressing requirement in meatspace, but will now. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:10, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

exolve

Why did you revert this? Is it not a borrowing? The etymology suggests it is. —CodeCat 18:26, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think we have much of a defined policy with respect to borrowings, but it just seems silly considering that the form and meaning have been adjusted. I suppose I shouldn't have reverted you, though. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:43, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

That doesn't mean it can't be a borrowing. Swedish sjoför is quite obviously borrowed from French chauffeur despite the respelling. And there's nothing that says loanwords can't change meanings too. Given enough time, many do. —CodeCat 18:46, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Afrikaans "tamatie"

Yallo, what is the plural form of the substantive "tamatie"? I think it's "tamatien". --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 19:03, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Nvm, I think it's "tamaties". XD --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 19:04, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

That's correct. @Zo3rWer, if you're going to create stub entries, please remember to tag them with {{attention|af}} or similar. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:16, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice. Last time I was tagging them with {{attention|af}} or similar, I got told off. Lol. --Zo3rWer (talk) 07:46, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

@Zo3rWer: I personally find it annoying when there is an attention tag without an explanation. It would be better to add {{attention|af|please expand}}. If all that's missing is the plural, then there is no need for an attention tag, since it is automatically added to Category:Afrikaans entries needing inflection. --WikiTiki89 15:26, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks WT. In the future, I'll do sth like that when making awfully bare, poorly-referenced, cheap, quickly-made entries for languages I have no idea about. --Zo3rWer (talk) 07:46, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation

Hi. I had added a pronunciation section in φίλε and φίλη but obviously I forgot to do it in φίλον. Thanks for pointing it out.SoSivr (talk) 21:16, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

No worries. Thanks! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:36, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

Ladino diacritics

Is Modern Judeo‐Spanish supposed to be written with diacritics all the time? I’m assuming that diacritics are reserved for education materials. Saludos, --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 01:44, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't know what most speakers do. There's no single standardised orthography, and I haven't exposed myself to enough Ladino texts to get an idea about what non-scholarly texts use as orthographic norms. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:25, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

What is "Modern Judeo-Spanish"? There is a very limited amount of written Ladino being produced today, and in many different orthographies. See this archived discussion from my talk page: User talk:Wikitiki89/2014#Ladino orthography. User:Universal Life mentions at least 12 Latin-script and 5 Hebrew-script orthographies and each one has its own rules about whether and how to use diacritics. --WikiTiki89 14:13, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

your revert of háček

[3]

IMHO I moved "Etymology" into the proper place; namely 95% etymology is for the Czech word. While in the page the czech section got only a pitiful blurb. So I moved it in to cz: part, while adding a wikilink from en: to cz:.

Please advise which rules did you apply during the revert of my changes and what alternative remedy you would suggest to the drawback described above. Staszek Lem (talk) 03:01, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

It's something of an exceptional case, because the English entry for háček has been subjected to efforts to make it unusually complete. However, moving the etymological information as you suggest may be a good idea; I am unsure, myself. Perhaps other editors would care to comment here with their opinions? (And you could always post to WT:TR if opinions are not forthcoming.) —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:20, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

On a second thought, I may agree with the approach of prioritizing the English section, because it is en:wiktionary. Therefore to avoid duplication while maintaining completeness, I will add a link from Czech etymology section to English. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:32, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

BTW what does "more information below" mean in section #English#Etymology? Can it be a stray from the times when there was more info in the Czech section? If it is so then it must be removed, otherwise clarified/linked. Staszek Lem (talk) 19:38, 16 October 2015 (UTC)

Gagga, Gogga & Doolally

I wonder what your objection is to my additions to these three.

Gagga is in general use in Britain and has been for at least a century, to mean slightly mad.

I spent much of my childhood in Africa, and "we" always called them Goggos - which is nearer to the original.

My grandfather served in the British Indian Army, and "my" version of doolally is "family folk-lore", doubtless inherited from him.

You say, "Please take much more care in your editing. I've had to remove all your additions so far, because they were misspelled or did not contribute to the entry." That is your opinion - mine is different. "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, to think it possible that you may be mistaken." Oliver Cromwell. RobinClay (talk) 22:01, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

The first is misspelt; you're thinking of gaga. The second is a spelling that is simply not attestable, as far as I or the OED can tell, by our standards. Both of these were very poorly formatted. The third is indeed folk-lore, and as such does not really belong in the entry unless you can cite some reference claiming that, as it does not even seem to be true. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:06, 17 October 2015 (UTC)

Afrikaner

• German Afrikaner means African, person from Africa, not English Afrikaner. (Else, please cite this uncommon usage of "Afrikaner" and add it to the German section.)
• Bur might exist - though it's not in the duden -, but does it? If it does, please re-add it. (It might be an misspelling of Bure though, see below.)
• The concept of Afrikaner can be described with Bure, which means the same as French Boer. (The gender was incorrect, but that was just a minor mistake and doesn't justify a revert.)
• Afrikaaner might mean the same as Afrikaner, but maybe that's not 'attestable'. Duden has Afrikaander but gives another definition than English Afrikaner.
• Afrika is related to Afrikaner - it might that Afrikaner is Afrika + n + -er, the n being added as "-aer" wouldn't be "good".
• Linking with {{l|de|Afrikanerin|g=f}} is better than linking with [[Afrikanerin]] {{g|f}}

Also:

• Why don't you admin guys mention a reason for your reverts? Even in case of obvious vandalism one could add something like "vandalism(?)". In cases were a reason would be to long, one could add a note that the user should asks for reasons.
• Why do you admin guys revert everything? E.g. there shouldn't be any doubt that the other way of linking (with that l template) is better. So why revert everything and not just parts?
• Why do you admin guys revert instead of fixing small errors? E.g. instead of reverting because the gender was incorrect, one could correct the gender. (This question doesn't perfectly fit here, but in other situations it's fitting.)

-84.161.56.106 10:36, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

I had forgotten that indeed, Afrikaner means "African". Looking around at Google Books, I see that Afrikaander, Afrikander, and Afrikaaner are all attested with the right meaning. Note that Boer has a different shade of meaning; the two can be synonymous, but Boer applies more to the original settlers and has a historical sense. Major European languages seem to all conserve this cultural distinction of the terms, so it would be better to keep Bure as a translation at Boer.

We have a massive amount of questionable edits to look through, and if I see anything that's clearly wrong, that makes me instantly lose trust in the anon adding the edit, and I'll usually revert (adding a reason is much more time-consuming, due to the way the interface works). I try to fix actual small errors when I trust that everything else will be correct. It would be nice to be able to be more discriminating about it, but we simply haven't the time. However, I sympathise — that's why I was the one who created the vote that established that default rollback summaries would encourage people to come to the rollbacker's talkpage if they had a concern. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:06, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

• duden.de writes: "Afrikaander - in der Republik Südafrika geborener, Afrikaans sprechender Weißer" (in the Republic of South Africa born and Afrikaans speaking white person)

Here at "Afrikaner" it is: "A member of an ethnic group of northwestern European ancestry and associated with southern Africa and the Afrikaans language." (southern Africa, which is different from the state South Africa)

So, does "Afrikaander" really mean "Afrikaner"? By those definitions, it could very vell be a jargon term with a different meaning, like "Farbiger" (colored/coloured) in case of South Africa doesn't mean "colored person" (black, brown, also yellow, red etc. = Negro, Asian, Indian etc.), but "mixed-race person". Of course, it might also be that "Afrikaander" or "Afrikaner" has two meanings (a strict sense restricted to South Africa and a broad sense refering to southern Africa), or that the definition at duden is somewhat incorrect.

• Afrikaner also includes the translations French "Boer" and Afrikaans "Boer". I don't speak French and Afrikaans, but that should mean the same as German "Bure" (in case of French the dictionary Pons says that German "Bure" and French "Boer" mean the same). So, if German "Bure" is excluded, shouldn't also French "Boer" etc. be removed?

-84.161.31.53 12:14, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I looked at that Duden entry, and my judgement was that our definition for Afrikaner and theirs for Afrikaander were two attempts to define the same concept; I think ours is slightly better, because it seems unrealistic that an Afrikaner born in what is now Namibia would be excluded from the label. And yes, I think the other Boer equivalents probably ought to be removed, but it'd be good to check monolingual dictionaries for those languages first. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:35, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

"people ought to tag the pages"

I did tag science rap, but the piece of work that created the entry changed the tag to rfv in an apparent attempt to reframe the debate as one they could win. I'm starting to think we may be dealing not just with someone who's very childish, but with an actual child who's been reading up on certain subjects and thinks they understand more than they do. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:12, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

How annoying. Sorry for getting a mite mad in my edit summary, then; it was the second time that's happened to me in a week or so, and I thought it was editor negligence. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:07, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm not upset at you. It happens enough for real that your behavior was understandable.

That clear sign of bad faith led me to extend the two-week single-IP blocks I've been doing to a one-month range block in both of the ranges that they've used. I don't like to do that, normally, but I adjusted it to cover only those ranges that no one else has ever used (still pretty broad, though). I'm hoping it will lead them to go someplace else, but I'm not going to be surprised if it doesn't work.

I did a wildcard search for their contributions, and spent the day yesterday removing almost all of their questionable edits (which is, in reality, almost all of their edits, period). The only things I left alone were the stuff that was already going through the verification or deletion process, and the rare cases where they got things right (plus some talk pages).

After reading their body of edits as a whole, I've become convinced that they're not someone who's knowledgeable in certain areas and has been getting into trouble by straying from those areas, but someone who tried to go from complete ignorance to expert level by just reading some articles online. I don't even trust their Greek edits (presumably their native language)- they're too willing to fill in the gaps in their knowledge with bad guesswork. My comments at Talk: Chlamydiaceae pretty much sum up my understanding of their approach.

There were quite a few of their edits that I let slide because I didn't know the subject matter, but, knowing what I know now, I don't think I'll ever leave one of their edits unless I know they're okay, or unless they're being dealt with by someone who knows more about the subject matter than I do.

Once the blocks expire, I would go so far as to recommend a blanket revert policy wherever there's any doubt: even the potential removal of good edits is justified by the possibility that it may encourage them to go away, or at least slow them down. I've helped the Japanese editors in figuring out how to deal with the Sky UK-based IP who makes up Japanese terms and adds all kinds of supernatural cruft to other pages. This IP is just as bad, if not worse- we have fewer people that can sort through the specialized subject matter. Right now I would say that their edits are the largest single contributor to the recent rfd/rfv workload, and I've had to post a couple of their entries in rfc, too. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:30, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I'll take a look at those. Tell me if there's anything related to subjects I'm knowledgeable in, and I'll help clean it up. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:38, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

E-mail reply

Sorry that I took a few days for that, I replied to your e-mail. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 21:58, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

No worries. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:04, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

a moment please

Mate, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but can you give a bloke a moment to check and edit the entry they are in the middle of creating (seriously I had just actually put it in like a blooming second ago) before jumping in an editing it and causing an editing conflict that causes them to frig about fixing things up like they were going to do anyhow?Pisanus Fraxi (talk) 16:29, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

There's a button just to the right of 'Save page' that says 'Show preview'. If you're checking what you've done, which is always a good idea, you can click that and then you won't have anyone else editing it until you're done. Cheers! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:38, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. BTW - how did you know the term was even there so quickly?Pisanus Fraxi (talk) 23:07, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Special:RecentChanges. One of the jobs of the admins is to look there in order to spot vandalism (among other problems). Chuck Entz (talk) 01:26, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thanks. I have another query, but don't know where to post it. I want to edit the entry for queef - but it has not edit functionality it seems - so I guess it is blocked due to a run of previous vandalism or some such, but it doesn't say "blocked" or anything. How does one edit it? ... And, where should one post a query like this?Pisanus Fraxi (talk) 09:53, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

As you might imagine, it's an obvious target to vandals. Just tell me what you want to add and I'll edit it for you. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:53, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Dear Metaknowledge

I saw that you left a message on my talk page. Unsure if I should reply on my own talk page, or on yours (I know that you can use a colon to reply to messages, but I don't know if the person you reply to will get notified), so I ended up replying on your. First off, I only created Shrek, please as a joke/attempt of vandalism. Stupid, and a waste of your time. Should probably have ended up in Wiktionary:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense. Second off, when I added all those translations to Confucius, it was after having an idea. The idea went a little like this: "Let's go to Wikipedia, look up Confucius, look up the same article in other languages, and import the translations to Wiktionary, because why not!". So I did that (but I stopped before I had done that for every single language because I got tired). After having read your message, I won't make the same thing again. In the future, I will ask on the discussion page before adding a translation. Sorry, if this message seemed poorly written, I am awful at communicating with other people, even in my native language. VulpesVulpes42 (talk) 18:14, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

@VulpesVulpes42: The standard way to respond to a message on Wiktionary is to do so where the message is left. I (and, I'm sure, all other admins) always watchlist pages I comment on, so I would've seen it, but if you ever want to notify somebody you can use the {{ping}} template, as I just did.

I don't upkeep WT:BJAODN, and it doesn't particularly interest me. Vandalism, as a bad joke to waste my time, tends not to be especially funny.

Wikipedias make stuff up all the time. They care about the accuracy of facts, but not what things are called; we care about both here. But this is just part of a general rule: try not to add things that you don't know are correct, and we'll have a better quality dictionary overall.

Finally, discussion pages are not a place where people are likely to respond to you. Asking individual contributors or in forum pages is a better bet. Your communication skills are not as bad as you seem to think, you merely need training (like all newbies), and thus feel free to ask if you have any further questions. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:26, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Reversion of D and d

Why were my edits of D and d referring to their use as written Cantonese transcription of 啲 reverted? 啲#Alternative_forms shows both D and d as alternative forms, and w:Written_Cantonese#Use also shows this usage. Usage is also recorded by language professor Victor Mair in The Roman Alphabet in Cantonese: 呢D書 ["these books"], e d (for 呢啲, "these") Thisisnotatest (talk) 01:56, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

They were poorly formatted, and I wasn't sure of evidence that they are attestable by our standards (Victor Mair is interested in emerging parts of language, and therefore not all the examples he uses are sufficiently widespread for Wiktionary, although I think this one probably is). Perhaps one of our resident Chinese editors who have dealt with script issues can help you format this. @Wyang, Tooironic, Atitarev —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:06, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

This usage is most certainly existent. For example, [4] (a Danny Chan music video; lyrics read "仲要落D") —suzukaze (t・c) 02:15, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I refer you to the above link; I'm not disputing its existence. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:19, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

(After multiple E/C) I might check this later, if nobody does. In any case, we should agree on a format of such cases before adding them. Cantonese speakers often suffer from the lack of input that matches the Hong Kong standard of the written Cantonese, use Mandarin cognates, e.g. 的 (but pronounce them the Cantonese way - a known phenomenon with places with diglossia, also applies to news and movie transcripts/subtitles) or use some funny combinations like o的 or Roman letters.

suzukaze Yes but if we do, we have to use the right format. The L2 "Cantonese" header is no longer allowed and you know it. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:19, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

@Atitarev I though the vote only applied to character entries. —suzukaze (t・c) 02:32, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps you're right. Otherwise, Chinese lemmas will get lots of rubbish chat-style entries. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}

I've read the vote on unified Chinese and the question becomes, is D being used as a Chinese character (in which case the H2 would be Chinese) or as something else (in which case the H2 might not be). It does seem to be being used as a Cantonese character, which implies the heading should be Chinese (and then an H3 Cantonese? I'm not fluent in Wiktionaryese). And what about "call機" (Cantonese slang for pager)? Is that Chinese?

I was hampered by the fact that many links in that article are no longer available, but the page for le̍k-sú has Min-Nan, not Chinese, as H2 so apparently it's not banned altogether. Thisisnotatest (talk) 03:43, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

@Thisisnotatest. In short, Chinese terms in non-Chinese characters is not regulated yet. It doesn't mean, it can be anything. Yes, using a precedent is a good example, trying to find citations is also a good idea. Note that many Internet slang terms in non-standard spellings, used by Mandarin or Cantonese speakers have been deleted in the past for various reasons. They are discouraged, especially if there is no solid evidence and no agreement on the format, so is Chinglish, mix of English words in a Chinese sentence, unless they are Chinese inventions. E.g. even if you find examples of "打tennis" instead of the standard 打網球／打网球, we don't add it but we do have 三K黨／三K党 (Sān-kèi-dǎng) because it's a Chinese invention. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:59, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

@Atitarev, Anatoli T. Ah, but wouldn't "打tennis" be ineligible because the phrase is not idiomatic? "call機" (call-machine) for pager, on the other hand, is idiomatic; otherwise it would be "page機". (And well attested: 350K Google hits, and Google images returns many images of pagers.) Thisisnotatest (talk) 05:36, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Attestation is not enough in this case. Code-switching or use of English words inside Chinese sentences is very common, especially with foreign names and abbreviations. "吃pizza" is attestable but we don't include "pizza", "bacon", "tennis" as Chinese words. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:43, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Respectfully, call機／call机 isn't a case of an English word inside a sentence, it's an English word that has been fused to a Chinese word to create a new, slang Chinese word whose meaning cannot be inferred from its component parts. So in this case, I believe attestation is sufficient. Thisisnotatest (talk) 06:48, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

It's a worrying trend when people with low Chinese skills or some agenda prefer to use romanised words over native Chinese words (I don't mean you). That gives a wrong impression about the language to learners genuinely interested in a language. You have added slangy call機／call机 at pager but not the standard term 傳呼機／传呼机 (chuánhūjī). Also, we always added traditional and simplified forms in translations. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:55, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I can't add what I don't know. call機／call机 is the only form I was aware of, primarily because it was so obvious on the page when I first saw it 15-20 years ago. I do in fact have low Chinese skills; thank you for adding the standard forms and correcting the call機／call机 to specify slang. Thisisnotatest (talk) 06:28, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

I see, sorry for being a bit negative. We had a history with a vandal who kept creating romanised Chinese entries and Chinglish and avoided various blocks. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 06:36, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

For the record, I don't have an agenda to promote slang terms - I'm just more likely to notice that they're missing than a standard term - but I would hope there wasn't an agenda against them either (and I don't believe you have one, as you did not erase the slang term, but simply added the standard terms). Thisisnotatest (talk) 06:48, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

• Can't help, sorry, I don't speak Cantonese. ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:20, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Ping @Tooironic It's not so much about the knowledge of the language but also about the language policies. We do have Min Nan Pe̍h-ōe-jī entries but Chinese character entries are all under ==Chinese== header. Not 100% sure any more. Bring it up in BP? --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:28, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you to @‎Suzukaze-c for the edits on D, d, and pager. Thisisnotatest (talk) 05:36, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Rollback at nasi ambeng

Hi Meta, seems that the dish is Javanese and so I made the assumption that it would be a Javanese compound noun, and since nasi means cooked white rice in Javanese... Seems strange that it should be a blend of Malay and Javanese. Do you think it that is likely? That said, can't find ambeng in any Malay, Indonesian, or Javanese dicts available to me (which is not much for the last two languages), so I was leaving the second part as the original input had it for the time being.Sonofcawdrey (talk) 05:50, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Trying to tease out the paths of borrowing among Malay, Javanese, Indonesian is very messy, and not something that I can trust myself to do correctly. I do know that nasi means "cooked rice" in all three languages, and that one of either ambeng or ambang seems to be used in reference to this dish in all three languages, although the directions of borrowing remain unclear to me. I reverted you because I thought it better to trust the original creator of the entry, rather than try to reassign the languages. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:27, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Rollback of сразу

Any reason for this? If I'm doing something wrong it would be more helpful to let me know what it is than to simply undo my work without explanation. Katya0133 (talk) 22:35, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

I had only seen the last edit of the three you made, and mistakenly reverted them all. I still don't know why you added "Russian language" in Russian and that year (perhaps the publisher and publishing date of your particular edition?), but it isn't necessarily appropriate (you can read WT:Quotations to learn best practices). It seems Anatoli has restored your edits, for which I thank him.

As for why I did not give an explanation, I'm sorry to report that we have a flood of questionable edits and we simply do not have time to give unsolicited constructive feedback on each. However, I am happy to answer here and help in any other way that I am capable of doing so. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:05, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Yes, confusingly, "Русский язык" is the name of the publisher of the edition I have at hand. (See this library catalog record.) Is there a way to make it more clear that this is the publisher name? I added the publisher and date to the quotations because that is the recommended practice, according to WT:Quotations. Katya0133 (talk) 18:33, 9 November 2015 (UTC)

bacon, bakin'

Are these homophones in any dialects? Surely the final vowel sound is different. Renard Migrant (talk) 23:42, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

I'd say they're about the same in my GenAm dialect. —JohnC5 00:02, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

I pronounce them identically. --WikiTiki89 00:18, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

• I suppose we'd best mark them as (US). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:38, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Different last vowels for me. Bacon has a schwa; bakin' has /ɪ/. Equinox ◑ 20:46, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

Talkback

Just wondering, did you see it? Porchcorpter (talk) 09:29, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

I missed it, sorry. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:47, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

You reverted back my edit to https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Sargent. Why?

To https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Sargent I added the following:

   "Not to be confused with Sergeant, a military rank."

You reverted my edit. Why?

Here are 19,500 examples of people confusing "Sargent" with "Sergeant": https://www.google.com/search?num=30&q=%22rank+of+sargent%22

108.64.118.44 06:54, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Never mind. I see that you reverted my change and then did it your way.

What a delightful way to edit.

If you 'correct' things in a single edit, then people can see what your preferred way is, rather than trying to intuit it from your edit history.

108.64.118.44 06:57, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry that you were offended by that; my edits are not designed to instruct others, but instead are to improve the page in an efficient manner. If you want to learn more about formatting standards here, please read WT:EL. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:59, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

Willy2000 evading block?

Is Special:Contributions/36.83.111.107 the same person as Special:Contributions/Willy2000? —suzukaze (t・c) 03:40, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Sure looks like it. Willy2000 started out by adding interwikis to Indonesian Wiktionary, and this IP geolocates to Indonesia. And, of course, there's the indiscriminate adding of entries from a large number of unrelated languages. I've blocked them for a couple of weeks. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:58, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. I'm rather bothered by the fact that we can't check these effectively; I've cleaned up his Yiddish and Maori entries, but I can't do much more, and many of the languages are those that we have no editors working on. I haven't found any definitive errors, but there are some warning signs of carelessness and possible copyright issues. I am unsure whether to add {{attention}} en masse to his entries or just nuke the ones he made as an IP (which, seeing as I lack automated editing, would be a whole lot easier, but not necessarily the right choice). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:15, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

I was going to say nuke the IP stuff, but we do have people working on Lithuanian, which is close to Samogitian, and on Polish, which is close to Kashubian- they may have access to references. I forget which Sorbian Angr is working on but he may be able to check the Lower Sorbian entry. That just leaves Chichewa and Bambara. As for the Willy2000 edits, we have people working on maybe half of the languages in question, and I'm not too worried about the Indonesian ones. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:52, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

Chichewa is a long-term goal for me, but I haven't the time to get going on that soon. Maybe someone would be willing to tag all the edits by Willy and the IP with {{attention}}? @DTLHS, since you have so kindly done botwork on request before. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:14, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge It is done. DTLHS (talk) 17:50, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

@DTLHS: Thank you so much. @Stephen G. Brown: I have removed the attentions from the pages I checked; please do the same for any you checked. Thanks. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:32, 7 December 2015 (UTC)

popsicle

Is there anything wrong with popsicle? Your revert removed the {{blend}} template that I had added in that revision, so the entry is not categorized in Category:English blends anymore. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 03:44, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I meant to rollback the neighbouring edit in RC to utantur but evidently missed. I've reverted myself. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:03, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

Thank you. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 05:12, 14 December 2015 (UTC)

doodgaan

Hi Meta. Can you check the present participle of the Afrikaans word? I think it should be doodgaande. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 14:05, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Yes, of course it should be. I hope that one wasn't my fault. I'll check all the other gaan-verbs we have to make sure they all have correct present participles as well. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:38, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

Daytshmerish of Yiddish?

Could you explain the usage of the word "Daytshmerish" and its meanings? Happy Winter Solstice. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 09:29, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

@Lo Ximiendo: It basically refers to the use of Germanisms in Yiddish, such as Germanized spelling or borrowings from German. The word is generally used pejoratively with the implication that such Germanisms aren't "real Yiddish". --WikiTiki89 15:26, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Thoughts (and @Angr if he wants to contribute): should we be categorising these? And if so, what should we call it? Is using the word 'Daytshmerish' in an entry not appropriate (it's the only term I ever learned)? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:26, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Aren't we already categorizing them in Category:Yiddish terms derived from German? Or is that more general? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:29, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

That's definitely more general. E.g., that category should have פֿונט (funt) despite that not being daytshmerish in the least. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:34, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Daytshmerish also implies replacement of native Yiddish words, such as שפּראַך (shprakh) replacing לשון (loshn) or יוד (yud) replacing ייִד (yid). --WikiTiki89 18:50, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Russian borrowings from Yiddish

Thanks for diff Also @Wikitiki89 There are quite a few alleged borrowings from Yiddish in the Russian criminal slang. There are no proper dictionaries for these terms, so the theories floating around the web are unreliable and most Jews in Russia and Ukraine, especially in the criminal world, didn't leave any written evidence and almost nothing in properly written Yiddish. Among words, supposedly of Yiddish origin are кси́ва (ksíva), шу́хер (šúxer), шмон (šmon), халя́ва (xaljáva), шала́ва (šaláva, “whore, slut”), ша́ра (šára, “freebie”), пара́ша (paráša), фе́ня (fénja), хана́ (xaná, “end, curtains”), блат (blat), бо́тать (bótatʹ), ша́хер-ма́хер (šáxer-máxer, “suspicious manipulations”), му́сор (músor, “cop, snitch”). The true etymology is sometimes hard to establish. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:13, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Some terms just need the Yiddish spelling, like кайф (kajf). --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:16, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that some of these words are in fact from Yiddish, and for a couple I've hunted down Russian etymological sources to find a better answer, but I know hardly any Russian, so it's rather hard work. What I did find is a post that you made some years ago on a wordreference forum claiming that these are from Yiddish, but it seems that you did so without any basis. I'm removing the requests for entries like шмон (šmon) where there's no reason to request Yiddish at all (and by the way, the etymology you gave sounds rather difficult to believe). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:21, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

I am not claiming, I am just interested in their etymologies and it's not my theory. In Talk:кипеш I've quoted a phrase from a published book claiming that шмон (šmon) and хи́пеш (xípeš) (original spelling of ки́пеш (kípeš)) are of Yiddish origin. These theories are not proven but they do exist and they are not mine. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:42, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Is that a reliable reference? @Vahagn Petrosyan might be better for Russian etymologies. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:45, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

No, it's not a reliable reference but it's just one theory, which can be listed until the proper etymology is found. These terms are fairly recent and they don't appear in etymological dictionaries, such as Vasmer. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:51, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

There's really no source whatsoever? I really don't think Wiktionary should have unreferenced guesswork that lacks any justification (even just a similar-sounding word with appropriate semantics in source language), and such etymologies are normally removed. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:54, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

As sources on Russian slang I recommend {{R:ru:Grachev}} and {{R:ru:Elistratov}}, which have etymological sections. Admittedly, those sections are not thorough. Serious etymological dictionaries omit slang words. --Vahag (talk) 09:47, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. When an actual source word/meaning is identified, it's a lot easier to figure out the origin. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:41, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

It is true that the Jews in Odessa contributed many Yiddish words to Russian criminal slang; however, as Anatoli pointed out, the precise etymologies are difficult to trace. We have to remember that as much as we want to have etymologies for these words, we (the editors at Wiktionary) cannot be expected to look through magical crystal balls to find etymologies that no one else in the world has been able to figure out. So yes, we should use whatever resources we have available to find as much information as we can, but when those resources come up short, we shouldn't worry too much. --WikiTiki89 00:17, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

rollback

looks like you like rolling back since you have so much metaknowledge. Well, if you think you know something, correct it, rather than reverting it. Try to improve something, rather than just pretending you know more than others.

Why did you revert my definiton for 'wordie' ?

Hi Metaknowledge. You reverted my definition for the entry wordie. I am curious and would like to ask you why? Hope I can learn. I am new here, how do I know whether you have replied to this message? Hope I'll see a notification. Amin wordie (talk) 19:55, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

@Amin wordie: The definition you added was covering essentially the same semantic territory as the definition that was already there, which is more general. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:05, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Wiktionary:About German

You're in error. As said before: "1st conference didn't deprecate anything; some spellings deprecated in 1902 are nowadays not uncommon anymore (e.g. dass)". To repeat that with other words:

1. No spelling was deprecated after the first orthographic conference.
2. Some spellings deprecated in 1902 after the second orthographic conference are no longer obsolete (e.g. dass)

-91.16.60.114 00:47, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

That document was written by German editors (i.e. not me), whom I trust much more than you. You'll have to take it up with them; WT:T:ADE would be the best place to do so. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:28, 28 December 2015 (UTC)