User talk:Strabismus

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to Wiktionary. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• Wiktionary Tutorial
• Community Portal
• Entry layout explained
• Criteria for inclusion
• FAQ
• How to edit a page
• How to start a page
• Wiktionary Sandbox (a safe place for testing syntax)

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wiktionarian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk (discussion) and vote pages using four tildes, like this: ~~~~, which automatically produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the beer parlour or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome!

--Stranger 15:54, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Request

Please join us in wishing SemperBlotto a happy birthday here. --Dvortygirl 05:44, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Language templates

Please do not use language templates in the Translations section. Thank you. Ncik 16:36, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Why not? It saves time and takes up less space. Indeed, why do they exist in the first place? I like them. On all the other wiktionaries I work with (ca. 34) they use them there. I've been an editor for as far as my memory runs not to the contrary and the template concept is a marvellous boon. Do we really need to type out everything and take up more disk space and throw ourselves into another wretched fund drive?

If we had 100 translations on each of our 100,000 pages and the average language templates saved us 4 letters (=bytes), we would reduce Wiktionary's size by 10 MB. Ncik 20:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Are you worried that contributors aren't aware of the names of the languages for which the ISO codes stand?

Not only I am. Everyone else here is. One of the reasons we don't use them. Ncik 20:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

Or are you the type who likes to alphabetise everything and are discouraged because the codes' corresponding language names are not in direct alphabetical sequence?

This is indeed another reason. Ncik 20:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

As I say, it works everywhere else. So why not here, Little Saint Ncik?… Hmm?…

Hey, where the hell did my time stamp go from last time? Tsk-tsk-tsk. I guess you're going to put another half-assed comment below this one (this half-assed comment, that is). And, Ncik, please don't dissynchronise my my talk page! It's inaccurate and borders on vandalism. Leave these debates in their original order! Okay, kiddo?

«Not only I am.»??? Grammatical vagaries aside, WHY? Why are you (all of you) children afraid that others (who are likely twice your age) don't know what the codes stand for? There's not a single language template I use for which I don't the corresponding language. I don't like having to type out… blah, blah, blah… (i.e., read my notes below).

«Everyone else here is.» That is sad. Everyone else is worried that contributors aren't aware of the names of the languages for which the ISO codes stand.?? Are you sure of this? Do you know this for a fact? Are you taking any MAO inhibitors? Does your master know that you are out of your cage? (NB—Careful, with your comments on mine, Ncik: the size of this page may grow to colossal proportions and throw us into another wretched…) How feckless can you be and still be given moderator privileges? Are you even human? (don't answer that, kiddo!) Look, I don't come to your job jumping up and down on the end of the… who-knows-what!

«One of the reasons we don't use them». Who are "we"? You and your imagination? Shut up!, I haven't finished yet! Don't you see any purpose for them? If not, then I'm gonna need to have a little word with JW. (Who?) You know "who"! A bulk of Internet users think¹ that they're so safe behind their computers, just typing whatever pisses² somebody else off! Y'know, from my experience³ humans aren't bullet-proof, but that's neither here nor there! (Why do I feel like Luke Skywalker talking with the Emperor?⁴)

«Is it?»: what the hell⁵ does that mean⁶? Is it what?⁷ Hang on, kiddo, I'm runnin' out of space here. In short⁸, I am not interested in your criticism so p-l-e-a-s-e just get off my back and leave me alone henceforth, okay? So, beat it! Hit the road! Am-scram! Get, outta here, kid, ya bodda me! OKAY? Do I have to report you? (That's a rhetorical question and a warning.)

---

¹Yes I am sure of this, etc.…
²Does the phrase "poverty of intellect" ring a bell?
³Experience, what's that? (Exactly.)
⁴Well, I think we know what became of the latter… (And, yes I realise that was just a movie.)
⁵Nine blocks in a row, the first one is…
⁶Good question? Good answer. Next.
⁷I doesn't seem so to me. If time is money, then I am stoney broke.
⁸Yeah, I know, "Why didn't I save us all some time and put the last sentence first/instead?" Funny. Okay, one last comment: GIVE ME A BREAK, I'M NOT PERFECT, YOU'RE NOT PERFECT, NOBODY'S PERFECT, IM JUST TRYING TO HELP THE WORLD COMMUNICATE MORE EASILY, I MAY NOT BE DOING THE BEST JOB BUT NEITHER ARE YOU, SO LET'S NOT TAKE THE PISS OUT OF EACH OTHER, DEAL? REMEMBER: IRON SHARPENS IRON! ᏙᎾᏓᎪᎲᎢ.—Strabismus 06:35, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Font templates

Hi, Strabismus, I would like to ask you to refrain from removing the font templates, such as {{ARchar|}}, as you did in English. Some of them are required so that most people can read certain unusual characters, as with many of the non-Slavic languages that employ Cyrillic script; and others are needed for purposes of font size or clarity, as with Arabic and Thai.

Also, Ojibwe is now being taught and written with a certain Roman orthography called the Fiero double vowel system, and since that is how the language is written, that’s the spelling we use. What you changed it to is just to show pronunciation, like writing [nät] for English knot.

Another thing is that we don’t like using language codes here ({{ja}}), and we’ve spent a lot of time converting them to regular English.

It would save me a lot of time and effort if I just reverted your edit, but this one time I will try to repair the English page without losing what you’ve added. —Stephen 11:15, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Mr. Brown, I will try to refrain from removing any more font templates. I didn't realise they had much use outside of instructions for display. Thank you for informing me of that.

My choice of romanisation for ᐊᓂᔑᓇᐯᒧᐏᐣ was not based on phonetic representation "just to show pronunciation" as you so glibly put it but rather on saving space and attempting to prevent some of these agglutinative amalgamations from amounting to alphabetic anathemas. I'll let you in on a little secret: my method of transcription/transliteration is for the most part contrapuntal, to wit, there is one-to-one grapheme-correspondence. Some people don't care for this approach, and I probably wouldn't have when I was a kid, but it does the trick for me. You can spell "gooseberry" however you like, be it suuboomeen or zhaaboomin or whatever, but I find that žābōmin is orthographically more practicable and, I think, more representative. In any case, I won't contribute another lexical item from this Algonkian tongue if it elicits such insulse protervity.

Another thing is that I don't like typing out the entire names of languages whenever I provide their vocabulary as translations. "Numana-Nunku-Gbantu-Numbu" is an awfully long name in comparison with its three-letter code {{nbr}}. I don't know a word of Numana-Nunku-Gbantu-Numbu, but if I did and I chose to include it here, I'd stick to my better judgement and use the trigraphic ISO 639-3 abbreviation. After all, that's part of why we have them, isn't it? Or are they just for decoration? Do you have any idea what use they are if you can't even use them?

It would save me alot of time and effort if I could use language templates which were each assigned a short, two- or three-lettered code which presented, in full, the names of the languages for which they stood. And it does, and I can, and they do. And that's why I will continue to use them. Who knows? Maybe one day others will notice the convenience of using them and say to themselves: "Y'know what? This really saves me some typing time." And they could, and they would, and we do, and it does. Now, there is one issue I'd like to bring up about the language templates: someone needs to adjust their function in terms of serving as links to articles of the same name. I'm not particularly crazy about seeing almost every word of a sentence in a definition be highlighted. I can figure out the basics of a definition—I mean, it's supposed to be just that, right? It'd be a real drag to have to look up each individual word of a definition, it would defeat the purpose and make for rather cumbrous reading. Having said that, I think that if there's a need to link the name of a language giving the translation to an English entry it should be typed/written as [[{{pjt}}]] (or [[Pitjantjatjara]]) and not {{pjt}}. After all, we've all heard of French, haven't we? Aha! Which reminds me, the template {{fr}} which I will use again but without the "nowiki" tags appears normally as: Template:fr, as do {{hr}} and {{sr}}. Compare that with the templates for German and Spanish (bzw. & resp.): Template:de, Template:es. Do they really need to link to anywhere? If so, why don't {{fr}}, {{hr}} and {{sr}}? I am frequently working with several non-English wiki's and most of them use templates too but theirs don't link anywhere: which is cool and would/will be so here if/when it is considered/effectuated. But until then, please bear with me. Thank you.—Strabismus 05:05, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Exotic languages

Hi Strabismus. I see you're doing a lot of work adding translations to all kinds of languages. One thing we try to do here on the English Wiktionary is to wikify any language name which we feel is "exotic" to the casual reader. There are no set rules as to which these are but some rules of thumb are constructed languages and minority languages which do not consist mostly of the English name of a country. Also in the case where the name of a rare language might be very similar to another word or might be ambiguous in some way.

Keep up the good work. — Hippietrail 23:10, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Hip, I appreciate the encouragement you offered in the last sentence! I'm glad to see that others find my work to be edifying and worthwhile! Thank you! However, I didn't actually understand your message in any of the preceding sentences. This may be due to a technical flaw or perhaps you spelt a few words incorrectly. Would you care to elucidate this imbroglio? (in other words, "Huh?…")—Strabismus 17:19, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Ligatures for Serbo-Croatian

Hi Strabismus! I just wanted to ask you kindly not to replace nj (and other letters in the Serbo-Croatian language) with ligatures such as nj. The ligature is harder to type for most users and therefore is useless. Instead of the ligature, use individual letters where needed. Thanks. --Dijan 06:04, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Di, I regret that I am unable to fulfil your request on account of the fact that it is utterly egregious. The ligatures dž, lj, and nj are explicitly intended for use in writing the Croatian language in the Roman alphabet and function autonomously (i.e., are considered to be individual letters). These digraphs correlate directly to the Serbian letters џ, љ, and њ, respectively, providing a one-to-one graphemic correspondence, and are therefore not "useless". The idea of presenting the Croat language in the Roman alphabet was introduced by Ljudevit Gaj in the 19th century and remains the standard method of orthography in present-day Croatia.

The difficulty in typing/using said ligatures online is immaterial; all three occur well within the earlier part of the Unicode standard (01C4-01CC) as do their initial-capital and full-capital counterparts. Contrast this with the thousands of characters used daily that are in the extremely high range of Unicode (e.g., supplementary CJK, Coptic, Gothic, etc.). The Unicode standard is relatively straightforward; there are enough characters in it to present most of the writing systems of the world. I swear by it, for it is a phenomenal methodology providing unification and lack of ambiguity. And, as there is no other proposed standard in such widespread use, I will continue to use it regularly.—Strabismus 18:30, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I did not say that the Roman alphabet was useless. I said that the ligatures are useless because whether it is a ligature or not that is used, it is the same "letter" and sounds the same. My request of you, out of simplicity, was to not use ligatures, but rather use two letter combinations to represent the ligatures. Using two letters, instead of the ligature, does not mean that it does not represent the Roman alphabet of Croatian (Bosnian or Serbian) language. --Dijan 06:24, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I did not say you said that the Roman alphabet was useless. I said that you said that the use of the ligatures was useless, which it isn't. These ligatures were especially designed for the employment for which I have been using them. In a Croatian crossword puzzle, for example, the digraph "lj" takes up an entire square. There are special single-characters to represent the "nj" and "lj" ligatures but those haven't been unicoded. My reason for using the ligs is simple: they each represent "one" letter, "one" sound. True, on paper there's absolutely no difference between a digraph and two letters written side by side, viz.: "nj" & "nj". They both look the same, of course. But they both utilise different methods of input. At the end of a line a word containing one of these ligatures is moved to the next line. In Latvian similar letters are written thus: Ļ/ļ and Ņ/ņ, these are palatal sounds and Slovak has the letters Ľ/ľ and Ň/ň for this purpose. Croatian (and Bosnian and other Southern Slavic languages) use LJ/Lj/lj and NJ/Nj/nj (as well as DŽ/Dž/dž). It would be nice to have glyphs that look like single letters but that's neither here nor there; i.e., Croatia has enough problems of its own. I prefer to use these glyphs because they're already there and they are there. And they ought to be used while they're there. Likewise, Serbian also continues to use the preset ligs for Љ/љ and Њ/њ, instead of Ль/ль and Нь/нь, and it's really not something worth getting upset about; I mean, after all, the guys at Unicode have done all the hard work. At any rate, I will continue to use these glyphs because that's what they're for, in the first place, and because I prefer accuracy over expediency.—Strabismus 07:02, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Your argument seems very ustable as you might as well argue that since single letters are "already there" (as you put it) we should just use those instead of ligatures. As for the crossword puzzles, that has nothing to do with Wiktionary. I understand that the ligature can fit into the box, but so can a two letter combination (if set to Croatian, Bosnian, or Serbian language). The ligatures are not used on Wikipedias, Wikitionaries, nor other projects written in those languages, therefore, they should not be used here. By the way, is there a ligature for lower cased "DŽ"? --Dijan 07:16, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Who's arguing? I'm simply corresponding with you, back-and-forth, answering your questions, etc. Incidentally, did you mean to put the word unstable? If not, your spelling seems a little…, uh, well, you know. Anywho, why shouldn't we use the ligatures if they've already been prepared for this purpose? I think the people at Unicode knew what they were doing when they did this. So it only follows that it's a good idea to go ahead and use them, after all (and for the umpteenth time:) that's what they're there for. Crossword puzzles have nothing to do with Wikipedia, yet. Personally, I'm not looking forward to Wiki covering every media platform in existance (although I'd love to see Wiki in print and on paper). I mean, do we really need a Wikisearch.org, or a Wikimail.org, or a Wikisingles.org (not to mention Wikicoffeemugs, WikiT-shirts, Wikiballcaps, &c.)? What's next, WikiTV (a.k.a., WikiVision), WikiWorld (the themepark), WikiGalleria (the shopping mall), or even (…gulp…) WikiLand (the omnicratic self-governing nation "that anyone can govern")? (pause) But I digress… (as usual)

EPILOGUE:
Here's why the ligatures should be used:
a) They are self-explanatory. (duh!)
b) They fill a logical need to express and emphasize the singularity of the ligatures; i.e., that they are single sounds written with a digraph.
c) They cannot be hyphenated, which reminds the users of the language that they are inseparable and do not represent separate letters juxtaposed.
d) They are impossible to misspell, i.e., "twiddle" (e.g., „nezadovojlan” pro „nezadovoljan”). Of course, you could also accidentally twiddle the ligature with an adjacent letter; but, then again you could also be dyslexic.
and e) Serbian uses digraphs in Cyrillic; which, when romanised would be rendered accordingly (i.e., the Cyrillic digraphs correspond to the Croatian digraphs: љ ⇔ lj, њ ⇔ nj).
Once you've really considered the preceding five advantages to using the digraphs, you'll agree that there is no reason not to use them. Why use anything else? Many people don't have access to them?? So what?! Many people don't have access to Cyrillic and other encodings; let alone a computer. If we jettison characters because they're not available on a computer running Windows93®, or because they're "too hard to find" or someting like that, then who needs Unicode? (That was a rhetorical question.) Vietnamese uses alot of special characters and most of them are way up in the Unicode range (1EA0-1EF9). Don't tell me those are any easier to find or use than the three simple digraphs DŽ, LJ, and NJ! And, BTW, there is "a ligature for the lower cased DŽ" (the all-cap itself at hex 01C4): it's "dž", at hex 01C6; its initial-capital is at hex 01C5. Simple.—Strabismus 01:36, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I refuse to use the ligatures. And yes, this is arguing. Argument does not necessarily mean fighting, but it does mean a situation where two parties do not agree on something. As far as I know, we do not agree on the usage of ligatures. Thanks for the info on uncapitalized "dz". By the way, which fonts actually support this character? I currently have all sorts of fonts installed (910 to be exact) and not one supports this character. The only character that displays is the "dz" without the caron (hachek). By the way, please stop referring to Serbian Cyrillic as this is in no way connected to it. I understand what you are trying to prove by using it in your "argument" for support of the ligatures, but it is not directly related to the topic, therefore drop it. Why would Serbian Cyrillic use the soft sound, when clearly it is visible that it would be two characters and not one? In Latin/Roman script it is clear that there are two characters, however, whether the reader is informed that the two characters (when together) are pronounced as one, is not the issue here. How does a person know that the ligature is not just two letters not pronounced jointly? He does not. Not even if he sees that it is only one ligature. He could assume that there is a problem with his font support or with Unicode or Wiktionary font rendering in general. I know that we will not settle on this issue nicely, so you may do as you wish. However, please be advised that your edits will be changed (to the liking of simplicity) if found to contain ligatures. Have a good day. --Dijan 04:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

That's fine, you may refuse to use the ligatures. Is it really possible to argue on the Internet, other than with an i-cam, for example (i.e., real live argument); as far as I can tell, you have neglected the vast majority of my points and seem to have answered most of them with choplogic non-sequiturs with somewhat slapdash syntax. You jump to conclusions when presenting a rebuttal to almost all of my points, merely contradicting them and claiming that they have nothing to do with the issue at hand, when indeed, they themselves are the issue. In short, you are begging the question. You know, a good debate can often involve agreement at many points. If you just contradict whatever the other person says, then you're liable to start contradicting yourself (for example, if/when s/he starts agreeing with you).
The fonts I use which support Unicode in various blocks are numerous. Some of the most important are:

• Gentium: http://www.sil.org/%7egaultney/gentium/files/Gentium1.sit[1],
• jGaramond: http://www.janthor.de/jGaramond/jGara.zip[2],
• MPH 2B Damase: http://mirror.tamu.edu/debian/pool/main/t/ttf-mph-2b-damase/ttf-mph-2b-damase_001.000.orig.tar.gz[3],
• Thryomanes: [4],
• TITUS Cyberbit Basic: http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/unicode/tmp/tmp1/tu5367.zip[5],
• Cardo98s: http://scholarsfonts.net/cardo98.zip[6],
• Code2000: http://home.att.net/~jameskass/CODE2000.ZIP[7].
• and many, many more… (though not 901, at least, not all in the same Fonts folder, my computer would blow up if I had that many fonts installed!)
  

I like Gentium the best because it is the most legible and esthetic in design and layout. It features most of the letters in the Latin script that are used in Unicode. It also has a nice design for Greek script. The other fonts are also good and important to have. Most of the fonts listed above support the dž ligature (and I don't think Unicode are going to jettison these ligs any time soon). Code2000 doesn't particularly work well on my computer but I have it installed nonetheless, "just in case". But some people like it and say it works for them. I sincerely urge you to try to find them and install them if you don't have them.
EPILOGUE II, Attack of the Close (Final Decree): Well, let's bring this sally to a close before one of us gets an aneurism. I'd say it's been fun, but I'd be lying my ass off if I did! And I'm sure you will agree. So, who knows, maybe one day you'll come to like using the ligatures, then again maybe not. Who knows? Anyway, you've got tenacity, kid! Most people would have given up long ago. I must admit that you made no sense whatsoever the whole way through. But that's okay, I love reading foreign languages! ;-) Live and learn… I always do. 〠—Strabismus 23:49, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

pusinas

Hi. In the entry fir, you listed Thracian pusinas as a translation of English fir. What is your source for this? Alexander 007 19:32, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Lex, I must admit that I research from alot of different sources. I don't quite recall exactly where I found the Thracian translation, but I guarantee it wasn't from some simple Google® search. Does it seem to be incorrect? If so and if you know the correct Thracian word for "fir", by all means: fix it. If you were asking just because it seemed like a scarce piece of information, then that makes two of us! I don't know any living Thracian who could shed some light on this discrepancy, but, again, if you know better, then please correct it. Thanks for your question.—Strabismus 01:49, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for entering translations

Hello,

Thank you for entering translations. As a formatting note, you could save us all some additional edits by following the conventions here at the English Wiktionary. That is in particular, please do not use the language templates in the translations sections (or anywhere.) Perhaps in some languages, the ISO 639 codes correspond to the language name. In English, it is difficult to alphabetize items by language name, since the code often does not correspond well to the name (e.g. {{ga}} == Irish.) Even though the use of templates was tried here initially, far too many problems with them were encountered. The resulting decision was that for consistency, no templates should be used for languages here on the English Wiktionary. (Server performance during rendering was another significant consideration at that time.)

Please save me (and others) some edits cleaning up your entries, but using the correct language name instead of the depricated templates, from the start. Thanks again, and please keep them coming!

--Connel MacKenzie T C 07:55, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

In all honesty, I think the deprecation of the language templates is completely moronic. All the other Wiki's¹ I'm with use them consistently. Let's say someone here at the English Wiki has been incorrectly spelling the name of a language and has already contributed a great deal in that language. How are you going to fix that? One could go in and change each occurrence of the typo, one-by-one. Or one could say, "Hmm, I don't get it…" Either way, one is an idiot. I'm sure there's some rationale about certain inconveniences such as these, but I've yet to hear it (much less a sound rationale).

The "sorting" issue is inapposite. If you sort a list of translations when submitting it to a non-English Wiki you will still need to know the names of the languages in the language of the other Wiki. Furthermore, you'd have to type them all out in the other language, and doing so would consequently result in a non-English Wikipedian converting the names to their corresponding templates. And whose loss was it? Who knows/cares?

I've had plenty of experience with dictionary making and one thing consulters couldn't care less about is the IQ of the person/people who wrote it². A reference work must be entirely free of inutility if it is to be of use. If the aim is to show off one's intelligence, then a different platform must be sought instead.

It seems we³ are in an age where dominance is the key virtue. A good example of such a circumstance is wonderfully described in the book The Lord of the Flies. If often think of that book and the scoundrels betold of therein when I contemplate on the phenomenon known (among other things) as the Internet. "Who's in charge?" is a good question, the answer to which remains elusive. To my words people continuously turn a blind eye. This leaves me crestfallen. Too bad Lord Byron isn't here. Et cetera, et cetera.

Shall we judge by the majority or the minority? (That point, too presented in TLotF) I know I'm just one person, and my views are considered too inaccessible by many, but I care about how reference works are made, not just that they are made. And I may be seen by those in contemporary lexicography as a bit of an old fogey, but that's their loss. I've been around and I know what works (and what doesn't). I see no need for all-out newfangledness.

If the Internet were a highschool, I'd be in the principal's office half the time. Remember Adrian Cronauer? Y'know, Good Morning, Vietnam? He was not looked upon favourably by those involved in many of the desicion making processes with which he was connected. So what did he do about it?? Watch the movie. You'll find out.

Anyfart, I guess nothing is going to change you peoples' minds about templates and this and that and such. So, I guess I can stop typing pretty soon. But, if you doooo, if you doooo change your mind, then… then… well, then I'll feel less paranoid when working here, but I'll also appreciate it very much, because for me it's all about getting the job done. Shortcuts are used here and there when needed; that's all part of the process. The important to remember is to enjoy it. After all, nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Well, bye for now.

---

¹ some 50+
² it = whatever it is they are consulting
³ we = people who ought to know better
—Strabismus 08:47, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

<<edit conflict>>

Ahem. I don't recall saying that it was my preference. The rationale behind it is sorting. I suggest you take it up in the Beer Parlour or with Eclecticology. Apparently Gerard devised those templates here and was soundly rejected, so for revenge propagated them to each new Wikt: telling people they had to use them. (That is my understanding of the situation, from before I was here.) Other languages may have an easier time sorting them; I don't know. But I do know they are not intuitive in English. I also know that they have been repeatedly rejected here. At least twice, they have all been deleted. --Connel MacKenzie T C 08:52, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

P.S. In general, I do not watch movies. --Connel MacKenzie T C 08:54, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Holy shit, you are a fast reader! Only four or five minutes after I had written in response to your "Thanks for entering translations" message and you've already not only read what I typed but have provided me with another message. Wow! This is almost as fast as a chatroom!

So you don't watch movies, eh? Hmm… that's peculiar. I mean, I've heard of people who don't watch TV (or even have one), people who don't read books, people who don't chew bubblegum, even people who don't laugh. But people who don't watch movies, well now, that right there is flat bizarre! So you don't watch movies, eh? Why not? Y'know what, nevermind, I probably don't need to know…

But getting back to the matter at hand, how did you read that (my message, that is) so soon? Were you like sitting there waiting for your watchlist to "light up"? This couldn't be a coincidence, now, could it? You ain't a spy, is you?

I've never heard of this Gerard fellow and I don't really care one way or the other. But, I like the templates. Why the hell doesn't anybody else around here? Jeez-Louise! I simply can not do without them. Now, I'm an okay typer. I don't have to look at the keyboard when I type and I know how to spell. But I absolutely hate doing anything when there's a shortcut for it. I use macros all the time on my computer and they made the work I do much easier. I also have what you might call "touch memory", whereby I remember certain key-combos, etc., and how they "feel" and alot of the time for me, typing is muscular (and mental, too). This also shows up in my piano playing and guitar playing and many other things which involve muscle coordination. As a result, I have a real tough time not typing certain things when working with a particular application or for a particular website. I can control what I type, it's just that it slows me down a bit. Hence, one of my interests in using templates. I don't care who thought of them first: be it Hitler, Ben Ladin, or Satan! I like using them because they fill a need or two or three… So, don't get angry if you find some weird-looking entries that aren't preppy or snazzy enough! I just like to get as much done in as little as time as I can.—Strabismus 09:31, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

1. I'm glad I was busy with a couple other entries before replying this time! The tool I use to monitor Special:Recentchanges is CDVF, and yes, that does flag stuff as "interesting" for me.
2. I avoid TV (went a decade without one, but lost that battle a while ago) avoid chewing gum, read a hell of a lot of books, and laugh whenever I can.
3. As I said earlier, take it up in the Beer Parlour or with Eclecticology. I don't think the templates are quite Satanic...but I do not find them useful. Worst of all is when some are language names, and some are templates.
4. I am not angry at all. I hope only to encourage you to behave nicely while here on en.wikt:, so I don't have to contine going through your edit history and auto-subst:'ing the templates. That is the opposite of anger; I'm trying to help you out dude! --Connel MacKenzie T C 09:51, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I've noticed that you double space quite often…

à-propos:"Worst of all is when some are language names, and some are templates." What does that mean? I'm sorry, I'm slow when it comes to polysemia among the computer generation…

Incidentally, I don't find the templates not useful; but you already knew that.

Chewing gum can be good. I noticed you stated that you avoid this. How come?

By the way, I don't really need "help". At least, not in the "mental" sense. But, thanks anyways.

Don Knotts' death made me unhappy. Indeed, he was a funny guy. Will miss him. (Who's Will?…, uh, nevermind)

Y'know the late Pentagon used to feature 68,000 miles of telephone lines! Mercy!

Sapos mi rait long Tok Pisin, yu save yet wanem mi tokim yu? Tok Pisin i naispela tokples, em i namba wan! Yumi i no nidim tokples doti tumas! Watpo ol manmeri i no mekim pren? Ol manmeri i mas gat hepi taim! Orait, mi mas go nau, lukim yu.—Strabismus 10:24, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

Mi bin giaman. Mi laikim pike tru. --Connel MacKenzie 03:36, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

RFP

Please use {{rfp}} or {{rfap}} rather than add "Schoolbook" or "Last resort" pronunciations. They have no meaning here. --Connel MacKenzie 00:29, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Not YET, they don't, sonny Jim! But, if you'll notice, the entries to which I've been providing the aforementioned phonetic guides have basically been those which have generally been of words commonly mispronounced; e.g., ague; or of those potentially mispronounceable; e.g., bungee (m.p. as /ˈbʌŋ.i/). My rationale behind these pronunciation systems is based on the fact that there are basically three different levels of readers, videlicet "postgraduates", "undergraduates", and "hamburger-flippers". The respective pronunciation guides, for which these three groups I have heretofore considered, are relatively self-explanatory.

1. The first, you are already familiar with—the IPA.
2. The second, I so named "schoolbook" because of its streamlined semantic nature. It has long been used adjectivally to refer to rudimentary educational instruction. Furthermore, it is based on the simple phonetic guides with which most standard desk/collegiate dictionaries are furnished. Some people know nothing about the IPA (forsooth) and would therefore, find having it as the only pronunciation guide a bit daunting.
3. The third, is thus yclept on account of the fact that it simply has to be the most easiest pronunciation guide imaginable! After all, it's the kind of spelling used by people who only know what the word in question sounds like. Indeed, many books that are intended for the "average" reader and that are not technical in nature include these kinds of pronunciations. Take the word "koala", for example. Using these three pronunciation guides, their phonetic renderings would ensue thus:

IPA: /ko.ˈɑ.lə/

Schoolbook Phonetics: (kōäʹlu̇)

Last Resort Phonetics: koh-AH-luh

The first guide looks almost the same as the word it represents. The second deviates a little more from the word's spelling. And the third looks like it is being recited s-l-o-w-l-y. But that's exactly how one goes about learning to do something for the first time! Do not despise small beginnings…

What I'm trying to get at is that as long as Wiki wishes to remain universal, inasmuch as is tenable, it ought to (I almost said must) cater to the needs of those less-educated. And that includes those who are as unfamiliar with the IPA as most people are with, say, juggling. Personally, I like using the IPA; I do most of my phonetic work using it. But that's only because I've taken the time to figure out what sounds those weird letters (ə, ɹ, ʈ, ɧ, etc.) represent. Others are fortunate enough even to have a computer; let alone a working knowledge of linguistics. In all honesty, I truly think that these three levels of matres lectionis appellationum would fit perfectly in the Wiki environment, whatever they be named. So, please excuse my didactic creativity; I just felt that it would be appreciated and (more importantly) used.—Strabismus 01:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Unblocking

Dear Strabismus,

The IP address you listed as having been blocked by me, was blocked as an open proxy. Perhaps, somehow, you are unaware that you act as a portal for the denizens of the darker side of the internet. Now me, I personally can't imagine someone wouldn't notice their computer happened to be being used for very high volume spam operations, while at the same time providing access to numerous other disruptive activities (such as low volume Wiki vandalism.)

To give you the highest possible benefit of the doubt, I'll tell you what you can do. First of all, use add/remove software to remove the various add-ons you have loaded on your computer. Then, turn Windows firewall back on. Then get some anti-virus software from someone else's computer, burn it to a bootable DVD and run the AV on your computer. Then, download or install AVGfree or one of the other antivirus packages, and update it daily. Then, run WindowsUpdate, and get your computer OS software updated. Then run a proxy tester against your IP address. If you get failure messages, start over (perhaps removing even more of the add-ons you have loaded.)

Once your machine comes up squeaky clean, go to each of the open proxy checkers that get linked on WT:OP for each nasty IP address. For each one that still lists you as a high-volume spammer, send a request for official "retesting" with each of those sites. (Some of these can take up to a week, so do try to get them all at once.)

Once you have closed down your spam-friendly gateway, and cleared the reputation of your "maligned" (enormous benefit of the doubt) IP address, then, and only then, please come back and request unblocking here.

--Connel MacKenzie 04:46, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Unblocked

I'm unblocking, as a result of checking this IP manually tonight, now that it is no longer listed on the "nomorefun" blacklist. Welcome back. --Connel MacKenzie 05:31, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you! :))))) —Strabismus 05:41, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

pidocchio (updated)

Hi there. We have a template that we use for Italian nouns - you get the category for free. SemperBlotto 07:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Cool, thanks.—Strabismus 07:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Categories

Please be careful to put your entries into the proper categories. None of the entries you've created lately are English names of countries, but you have put them into Category:Countries, which is only for English names of countries. --EncycloPetey 03:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Only for English names? Hmm. Well, if you could fix that, I'd appreciate it: I don't know in which other categories to put them. Should I just start one? E.g., [[Category:Pashto names of countries]]. It'd be nice to be able to index all the parts of speech and semantic categories for each language without too much trouble.—Strabismus 03:20, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

No, the correct category for Pashto names of countries is Category:ps:Countries. Topical categories use the ISO code + the name of the English category. Only grammatical categories use the full name of the language, like Category:Pashto nouns.

Out of curiosity, when did you learn to speak Pashto? Given the other languages you've been adding I assume you live (or lived) near India. --EncycloPetey 03:24, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

ISO codes. I'll remember that, thanks.

I don't live in India nor do I (adequately) speak Pashto, I'm simply trying to help out with some of the lesser-known languages, especially since they are often misrepresented by those who don't have access to, say, academic textbooks. I can help with any language for which I have resources/knowledge. There are plenty of experts here at en.WT who can cover the areas of the “familiar” languages (e.g., French, German, Spanish, Italian, Classical Latin, Sanskrit, Biblical Hebrew, Biblical Greek, etc.). I add material in any given language as (and when) I see fit. It's sad how many languages today are verging on extinction, it's as though there's not enough oxygen for them: it's being all consumed by the “major” languages. Don't get me wrong, I love English, I love French, etc. In fact, I don't think there's one language I actually hate. And it's because of this fact that I try to chip away at people's lazy leanings towards systemic biases by “balancing things out”, if you will. Not too much, that is, not to where each language is represented the same amount. Additionally, some of the lesser-known languages are harder to cover more thoroughly; there may not yet be enough vocabulary that has been collected or there may be several dialects which are similar enough so as to cause confusion among the linguistic community as to which dialect is the “standard” dialect. Nevertheless, I am encouraged by the idea of such schemes as the Swadesh word list which could be filled out in virtually every language, maybe not all 217 (is that the right number?) words, since there are quite a few languages that do not have a word for “snow”, e.g. But there is also, as you know, the basic list of 100 words which is pretty minimal; so, if a language doesn't have a way of expressing one of those 100 words, there's gotta be a good reason. At any rate, thanks for caring/sharing!—Strabismus 03:52, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

porcelain

Where are you getting your translations? We have to be careful not to violate the copyright of books or other media. --EncycloPetey 04:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The translations you saw at porcelain may seem to have been meticulously copied from a non-GNU free-licence or non-public domain source but they weren't. The semantic distinction between many abstract and concrete nouns is often blurry. For example, the word porcelain can refer to either a) the material itself or b) an object made from this material. In addition, senses a & b could “combine” to give a meaning of a collection of objects made from this material. My point is, the senses for that vocable were similar enough to where all of the translations (excluding Japanese) could refer to either sense and therefore appear twice identically (again, excluding Japanese).—Strabismus 04:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Your reply may seem to be an answer to my question, but it isn't. --EncycloPetey 04:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Your ultimate comment may seem to have been obvious at the time of the penultimate, but it wasn't. I was under the assumption that you were reminding me not to copy-n-paste from copyrighted sources. However, given that my response fell completely to blind eyes, I shall attempt to answer your question more thoroughly. The translations for porcelain were taken from several Wikipedias in different languages. I figured, that way, it's less likely to misspell the title of an article than it is to mistype a lemma out of context. Plus, it keeps things more “inter-wiki”, since it is a sister project.—Strabismus 04:59, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Etymologies

Hi!

Ideally, you'd be formatting Yurok etymologies like this, by using {{etyl}} and {{term}} templates. Cheers. --Ivan Štambuk 02:14, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

OK. I was hitherto unaware of this method. Thanks.—Strabismus 02:16, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Great! Another minor thing—ISO code for Yurok appears to be yur, not ccc as Nadando has used, for use with {{etyl}}. --Ivan Štambuk 02:18, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

OMG, that's just what I was about to type!

Incidentally, the ISO code for Yurok is yur and NOT ccc which is the code for Chamicuro. Please fix this at your soonest convenience. Regards.

How crazy is that?!—Strabismus 02:21, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Categories and ISO codes

Our de facto policy is to use ISO 639-1 if it exists. So your Yoruba insects should go to Category:yo:Insects. -- Prince Kassad 22:19, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Gotcha. I was so used to working with languages that only had ISO-639-3 codes. Thanks for pointing that out.—Strabismus 22:21, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Yoruba

You're adding Yoruba entries? That's great. Please check Wiktionary:Requested entries:Yoruba to see which ones still need to be added. 24.29.238.60 22:30, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

{{yo}}

Could you please use {{yo}} for Yoruba instead of {{yor}}? I know they both say Yoruba, but apparently we use 2 letter codes if they are available ({{en}} versus {{eng}}, and others). Don't ask me why, I don't know. Nadando 23:27, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

No, I do understand. And I will use {{temp|yo}}. Thanks for the tip!—Strabismus 23:29, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Santali

Do you have Santali support on your computer? All the Santali entries are written in Latin, and not in Ol Chiki as they're supposed to. -- Prince Kassad 01:19, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

It is true that Ol Chiki (a.k.a., Ol Cemet) is Santali's unique alphabet. But it is also true that the rate of literacy among users of Ol Chiki is somewhere between 10% and 30%! In addition, the Latin alphabet has been used to represent this langauge for awhile and seems to be gaining ground. Moreover, there seem to be no Ol Chiki fonts that are Unicode-native and I have only found a single font family for the Ol Chiki writing system (see here). If, however you DO happen to know of a Unicode-compliant font which includes glyphs in the Ol Chiki block (1C50-1C7F) by all means, PLEASE inform me! I would love to have such an addition to my Unicode font collection! Thank you.—Strabismus 01:38, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Sadly, the only font I know of that supports Santali is Code2000. So we might not see free Ol Chiki support anytime soon unless someone is willing to do it. -- Prince Kassad 01:42, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh, weird! I have Code2000 and apparently can't get the glyphs to display. :( BTW, I'm running Mac OS 10.3.9, if that makes a difference. Yes, indeed, Alan Woods' Unicode pages are a true boon to Windows users (and Mac users to a degree). Alas, I have noticed a few issues using Code2000 on the Mac. I'm not certain what it is...

Incidentally, I think a good idea would be to take the aforementioned Ol Chiki fonts and REallocate the glyphs into the Ol Chiki Unicode block! If you know how or know anyone who knows how to do such a thing, please do so! There are way too many well designed fonts that happen NOT to be Unicode-savvy. In my understanding, it doesn't seem like it would be all that difficult to do a character reallocation. Whaddaya think?—Strabismus 01:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I've heard of Code2000 being jerky on Mac. But it sounds more like you've got an outdated version of Code2000 (i. e. not 1.17). Anyway, reallocating characters is no problem, it would only violate copyright. -- Prince Kassad 01:58, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I think my version of Code2000 is fairly recent: I installed it a few months ago. I'm not certain of the version of the font I have itself but I'll figure something out. (Could be my browser. Opera v. 9.63)

À propos the copyright violation: *Sigh* Yes, that may be true. HOWEVER, it would grandly behoove the makers of that font family to upgrade to Unicode (5.0). It's just better, easier. And soon, I believe, it will be the only coding used online.—Strabismus 02:06, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

If you can see the Santali on water you have the correct version. That particular page uses a template to force Santali display on Opera/IE. -- Prince Kassad 02:10, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I see. Thanks.—Strabismus 02:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Strabismus

Just created Strabismus for you, because i like to learn new Category:German nouns ending in -ismus. Couldnt believe you didnt already add it ;) Mutante 22:25, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Wow! Thanks! Yeah, I didn't even think to check and see if it existed here! Thanks again!—Strabismus 22:34, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Frisian entries

Please remember to use "West Frisian" as the language name and in the category names. On Wiktionary, "Frisian" refers to a language group, not to a specific language. --EncycloPetey 23:32, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Correct. I had been used to editing at the West Frisian-langage wiktionary using only Frysk. Force of habit.—Strabismus 23:35, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Category:"Elements"

That should be "Chemical elements"; there is no category "Elements" in any language. --EncycloPetey 00:26, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

OK. Thanks for pointing that out.—Strabismus 00:57, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

Etymology

Please add etymology sections before pronunciation, as indicated in WT:ELE. --EncycloPetey 05:28, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

I will. Thank you.—Strabismus 05:29, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Middle Greek

We treat it as a phase of the "Ancient Greek", so instead of gkm ISO code please use generic grc. Thanks :) --Ivan Štambuk 00:31, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, OK. I just thought I'd be as specific as possible. But I'll just use {{grc}}, unless the policy changes. Thanks for the tip.—Strabismus 01:17, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

It's certainly possible to put "Medieval {{etyl|grc}}" or something like that. Hopefully the templates will become more sophisticated in the future and allow specific coding for such things, but for now we're stuck with such workarounds. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 04:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. I'll try to make the best of it all. :)—Strabismus 04:40, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

piscis

In etymologies of Classical langauges, we compare to other ancient languages, not to modern ones. --EncycloPetey 04:32, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Are you referring to the Descendents section? If so, that wasn't my editing. If not, then what? Proto-Indo-European is about as far back and un-modern as you can get when it comes to, well, Indo-European languages.—Strabismus 04:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I've trimmed the etymon list a bit. What he's talking about is that we generally wouldn't include Dutch or Irish cognates in a Latin etymology, but rather Old Irish or Old Norse, etc. However, modern cognates are better than nothing, so I've left the Russian. Also, one etymon from each language family is generally sufficient. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 04:40, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok. That's what I thought. But if you check the history of the entry you'll see who added the modern languages in the derivatives list (it wasn't me). Also, I agree that it's hard to call English "grave" a descendent of Latin "gravis". I mean, after all, it was borrowed from Middle French so it's not REALLY a cognate as such.—Strabismus 04:43, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

The descendants section looks fine to me as is. We include modern descendants of ancient languages, even if they're borrowings. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 04:46, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Alright. Fair enough. :)—Strabismus 04:47, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Descendants and cognates are different things. Cognates are words that developed independently in two lines from a common root word in a parent language of both. Descendants are words that come from a parent word. We don't worry about cognates when creating Descendants lists, though the items in the list usually are cognates of each other. We instead worry about whether the words descend from the same parent word. We make exceptional allowance for English borrowings from Latin, since (1) English is a hybrid language of Old/Middle French and Old English, and (2) This is the English Wiktionary. As Atelaes notes, the Descendants are often words in modern languages --EncycloPetey 04:49, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

re: descendants/cognates — Sort of. This way would you say the (Norman/French/direct Latin) vocabulary of English descended from Latin? Maybe so. And you seem to think of cognates as almost translingual doublets. Well, maybe they could be... Anyways, like I said, I didn't add the descendents section or any of its lemmata. My point is that I only added the Proto-Indo-European etymological connection in the piscis entry. That's all. :)—Strabismus 04:59, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

One other rather minor thing. We've generally been using the newer laryngyal format with reconstructed forms for PIE. For example we generally prefer h₂u over ū, etc. Take a look at the changes I've made to gravis. It's not terribly important, but its the ideal. If you only have access to sources with the older format, then that's certainly ok. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 04:54, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Right. The laryngeals. You know you're treading on controversial ground here typographically. Sorry, just teasing. :/ Seriously though, thanks for that point. I'll keep that in mind.—Strabismus 04:59, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

• If you don't have access to etymological dictionaries that provide "laryngealized" spellings, just put the non-laryngeal ones and it'll get fixed sooner or later (prob. later rather than sooner). Also, if you're interested, there's this newly-created discussion board for etymologies WT:ES so you might check it out from time to time if you think you have something useful to say ;) Excellent work doing you are with the etymologies tho. Cheers --Ivan Štambuk 00:49, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! :) Yes, there are a bit too many ways to spell the reconstructed PIE forms. Some are too simple (e.g., *per-) and some just too complex (e.g., *ṕʰ̰ə̃r̥[ʷ̯]-). OK, I made up that last one, but I must admit that if given my druthers, I'd choose the complex spellings for the simple fact that they give us more detail regarding the status (albeit, hypothetical) of the PIE root in question. The less detailed the reconstruction the more homonyms/homographs are strewn across the PIE landscape. At any rate, thank you, again!—Strabismus 00:56, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I would like to align to Ivan's opinion about your excellent work, especially with regard to the Gothic script wherewith you provided 50 entries, I would not have had your patience. Keep on. Bogorm 11:53, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you!—Strabismus 20:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

• Also note that once you open the talkpage discussion, you should also update the WT:ES with Wiki markup that will transclude those discussions like this, so that people who have ES on their watchlist are notified of their existence. Also, ES is meant to discuss some problems or for general questions in etymologies, and I've in that diff, as you can see, added only 2 of those pages as those are the only two that appeared as potentially worthwhile of discussion. If the etymologies are uncontroversial and can be corroborated by various sources, just place them in the entries themselves.. If you think that they need discussion, just place a remark or two on the talkpage for others to see what did you have in mind ;) (if that was indeed the case with other talkpages you opened beside those two, feel free to add them on the EC master page!). Cheers --Ivan Štambuk 10:31, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Ok. My main purpose of including these etymologies from Webster's New World Dictionary (1959; ed. Guralnik) is that many of them I can't find elsewhere. In addition, some of them seem questionable and I wanted to know what other wiktionarians thought about them; whether or not they were valid, are they common and/or familiar to any other etymologists, etc.—Strabismus 20:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Hieroglyphs

There is no such header, and it gets tagged.

Just put it where it belongs, as the headword. See wnb. Robert Ullmann 23:25, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I see. Thanks for pointing that out.—Strabismus 20:23, 24 February 2009 (UTC)

hbny

Eventually Hieroglyphics will get encoded into Unicode (I believe we're expecting them in 5.2, along with Avestan). When this happens, all Egyptian entries and all mentions of Egyptian will need to be converted to Unicode characters, instead of transliterations. Of course <hiero> will then be obsolete. This may be a good year off, so I didn't make a fuss about you removing the rfscript's, as we can just have Robert run a check for all uses of <hiero>, and any pages which link to Egyptian entries, and that should fairly well cover it. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 02:58, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Hieroglyphs in Unicode! What a dream come true that will be! But stacking and modifier hieroglyphs will be a huge hump for Unicode to get over, even WITH Michael Everson's help (neener!) ;) When is U5.2 scheduled? Do you happen to know? Damn, I can't wait! It's driving me nuts! I have to work on alot of things and some of those happen to include writing systems that aren't officially Unicoded. :( At any rate, thanks for the tip! :)—Strabismus 13:20, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm not really sure, but I keep hearing 2009/2010 for 5.2. And yeah, it should be pretty sweet. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 18:29, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

cow

On Wiktionary (rather unlike almost any other project) deceptive links are almost never ok (except in defs). So, it should really be [[Bemba]], not [[Bemba|Chibemba]]. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 23:01, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I had originally used just [[Chibemba]], but noticed that there was no article for Chibemba. I guess I can just use [[Bemba]] henceforth. It should be understood in these situations that it is the language and not the ethnicity which is being referred to. Thanks for the tip.—Strabismus 23:48, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

tø

Are you aware that this means that there is no Wiktionary in that language? All of the translations in gelada have Wiktionaries. Nadando 20:56, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks. I thought it could ALSO be used to avoid the interwiki link when the translation wasn't at the respective WT, along with the {{t-}} code.—Strabismus 21:02, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Babel

Hello, I have noticed at your user page: "NB—I have specifically not included a Babel table listing the sundry languages which I speak to varying degrees because such would be unnecessary at this point. I am still learning. Always will be." I for one find Babel tables useful, at least to know whether I deal with a native speaker. I automatically set a higher tolerance level for non-natives, and am quicker to expect that I have expressed myself not clearly enough when a misunderstanding occurs. Also, I more readily assume that I have misunderstood the intended message of the speaker. It would be nice to know at least your mother tongue. --Dan Polansky 07:33, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

English is my mother tongue. It is also the only language in which I can carry on a spoken conversation without sounding mentally handicapped. :( Notwithstanding, I still am able to correspond in other languages with a little (read: ALOT of) help from dictionaries and grammars. And although English is my native language, I am open to essentially any language. You see, I am here to help edit an enormous dictionary and that's basically it. I don't care to tell people how many languages I "know". Also, I have added a couple of hundred words in Chamicuro, yet I don't speak a single word of that Arawakan tongue. That doesn't bother me in the least. My intention is to spread knowledge of as many languages as I can. I am an editor by nature. I deal with words and formatting them. So as long as I help to keep WT well-organized (still trying!) and comprehensive I will be doing my part. Thank you.—Strabismus 19:56, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I happen to like the Babel boxes. They are quite common here at Wiktionary, and do no harm. Anyway. Dan Polansky 20:55, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

alf

Man, it seems like I'm ragging on you all the time. Rest assured that I do still appreciate all you do, even if I can't deny my calling as a spaz and formatting nazi. Anywho, "Frisian" is not a kosher L2, but West Frisian is. Since you used {{fy}}, I'm going to assume that's what you meant and make the requisite changes (of course if that's not what you meant, some further changes will need to be made, of course). If you could use West Frisian from here on out, that'd be sweet. Cheers. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 02:59, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes. This was pointed out to me by EncycloPetey. I have thenceforth been using "West Frisian" for West Frisian, if you catch my drift. If you go to the West Frisian WT we just use Frysk (i.e., Frisian) for all the native vocables. So I guess I had just gotten into the habit of using just Frisian. Thanks for caring about accuracy. It's important in today's crazy inaccurate world!—Strabismus 19:50, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Hebrew translation request

I have (belatedly) replied at Wiktionary:Translation requests#english_to_aramaic_.22child_of_God.22.—msh210℠ 19:43, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

using the translation tool

Hi. Thanks for the translations. One comment, however: can you bear in mind that some English terms don't have a direct translation into FL. An example is with the translations to baby-sit or babysit (I forget which). In these cases where the translation is not 1-to-1, the editor is recommended to avoid the [very handy] auto-translate tool in favour of manual editting. This is also the case with technically --> teknik yönden (I'm pretty sure it is sum of parts in Turkish). Any questions, please ask me, or Stephen --Rising Sun talk? 00:54, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. BION, some languages have actually borrowed a large number of words wholesale from English, French, German, Russian, &c. I am aware that some of these loanwords don't do much justice to the borrowing tongue but sometimes, as there are no exact equivalents, a word will be used from another language as this often lends a subtle nuance to an otherwise foreign idea. Cheers!—Strabismus 01:07, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, thx for the reply. AFAICT, the noun translations you've made are good. I assume the Asian language translations are OK, but I'm not into the Asian languages... The thing with idiomatic phrases, however, is special - we don't want loads of red links pointing to unidiomatic FL phrases, as it is confusing. I believe we translate them here with links to the individual terms, but I'm not sure. I'll ask Stephen about this. --Rising Sun talk? 01:14, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Right. Good.—Strabismus 01:20, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Czech contributions

Hi, there are some issues with your recent Czech contributions:

• "site map" is almost certainly not "místní mapa".
• "lip-sync" is a verb and thus not "přesná synchronizace"
• "a drop in the bucket" is an idiom while "malá část" is not; that should better be "kapka v moři" I guess but I'd rather check this.
• "bury the hatchet" is an idiom while "skončit boj" is not; could be "zakopat válečnou sekeru" but I would have to research this.

--Dan Polansky 09:29, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Why would you 'have to research/check' those? Do you speak Czech or not?

Site map IS "místní mapa", FYI. If you know of an additional translation, please add it.

Also, please explain thoroughly why "malá část" and "skončit boj" are inappropriate. BTW, 'just because' is NOT a sufficient reason.

Idioms are very difficult to translate between languages and oftentimes one idiom just doesn't exist as such in another language. It was requested that the idioms for which I added Czech translations be translated. If this is not feasible then perhaps Czech doesn't need to be in those particular entries.

BTW, thank you for being so courteous and using correct English. Cheers.—Strabismus 23:50, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I am a native Czech speaker, but I prefer to verify some of my estimations.

Site map is not "místní mapa"; the term "místní mapa" is not used by Czech speakers to refer to the navigational aid of a web site known as "site map".

For most English idioms a Czech idiom can be found as a translation. If you are not a native Czech speaker and you do not know the best Czech idioms, you'd better avoid entering Czech sum-of-part translations where idioms would be appropriate.

What are the languages you speak, anyway? Why have you no Babel boxes? --Dan Polansky 12:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Also:

• at "polar bear" you gave "ledový medvěd" but should be "lední medvěd".
• at "belie" you gave "neodpovidat", a word that is spelled "neodpovídat"
• at "hostile takeover" you gave ‎"nepřátelskê převzetí" instead of "nepřátelské převzetí"
• at "farrow" as a verb, you have entered the noun phrase "vrh podsvinčat"

--Dan Polansky 12:18, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I sincerely apologize for my typos! I HATE it when I make mistakes! :(((

Regarding "místní mapa", I've actually seen that used by some websites.

http://www.penzionulazni.cz/mapy.html

http://www.ubytovanifany.cz/mapa.html

http://www.kramerwirt.at/cz/mistni_mapa/

There are probably other instances.

Slovnik.cz gives "stanovištní mapa" for "site map". Here are some sites that use it:

http://www.borga.cz/cz/stanovistni_mapa.html

http://www.wood-mizer.eu/main/map.aspx?lc=CZ

http://www.waterjel.net/index.php?option=com_mambomap&Itemid=380&lang=cs_CS

What do you suggest we use?

I haven't created a Babel box because I am essentially a monoglot. I know a little here and there but not enough to hold full-length convos with others.

Incidentally, which dialect of Czech do you speak? I am curious. Cheers!—Strabismus 21:52, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Placing {{Babel|en}} to your user page is the right thing to do, if the only language that you speak is English.

Web searches relevant to "místní mapa" and "stanovištní mapa" as candidate translations of "site map":

• Google Web, Czech language, "místní mapa" - 463 hits
• Google Web, Czech language, "stanovištní mapa" - 621 hits
• Google Web, Czech language, "mapa webu" - 1,300,000 hits
• Google Web, Czech language, "mapa stránek" - 4,330,000 hits

What I take from this is that "místní mapa" and "stanovištní mapa" are rarely used; the occurrences counted in the searches for "místní mapa" and "stanovištní mapa" also include those that refer to geographical maps, unlike "mapa webu". Recall that a term cannot be attested by merely being found in a few web sites; normally, an attestation in durably archived sources is required. A prototypical source of durably archived sources is Google books, but that is not applicable to a term that denotes one part of a web site; in such cases, being plentifully found in web sites, as "mapa webu" is, should suffice for attestation.

--Dan Polansky 09:39, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

So, "mapa webu" is a good all-round Czech translation of "site map", then. OK.—Strabismus 22:15, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Script requests you are fulfilling

Where did you get the cuneiform spelling for Iranian *hamazan? According to Wikipedia the word is not attested. I have a feeling you are adding scripts by looking at the Latin transliteration and transliterating back into the requested script according to your knowledge of the script's orthography and not the actual attestation: is that true? This confirmed my suspicions. --Vahagn Petrosyan 13:49, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, I tend to "detransliterate" words into their respective writing systems. My question is that even if we haven't seen first-hand a lemma in its proper script should we not go ahead and detransliterate it when any ambiguity is eliminated?--Strabismus 03:51, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

How can you say that? The ambiguity is almost never eliminated: you could not have known for sure which romanization scheme was used, in what spelling was the word attested (unattested spellings do not pass WT:CFI), or if the transliterator had made a typo (like here). Now someone needs to go back and return {{rfscript|Avestan}} to all those entries you edited. --Vahagn Petrosyan 23:01, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Please show me the attested spellings then, if you are so certain mine are incorrect.--Strabismus 03:58, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I am not saying all your spellings are wrong. I'm sure the vast majority of them are correct, but you still need to verify them and only then "detransliterate". For Avestan you can use this dictionary. --Vahagn Petrosyan 06:02, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Re: Avestan: it's very tricky because there are several graphemes for the same sounds, plus it's often provided in a scholarly transcription and not the real, literal transliteration. BTW Strabismus, you can find new "light" Unicode 5.2 Avestan font here (as opposed to that ALPHABETUM fatty), just made it the other day. It works find for me on 64-bit Vista and Firefox, but there appear to be some glitches on 32-bit versions and I have no idea why (the 𐬀 letter doesn't display). I've been reading a lot on Avestan in the last few days and I hope to kick-start some Wiktionary entries soon on it! (it's incredibly similar to Sanskrit, 90% of inflectional endings are the same or trivially differing!) --Ivan Štambuk 04:08, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Ivan. Is Vahagn right in calling me out for this? I wasn't frivolous in my detransliterations. I used VERY specific transcriptions as per the Wiktionary transliteration table. Help me out, huh? Also, I can't get Code2000 to install on my computer: Windows 7 64-bit. Can you advise me on that too please? Thank you.--Strabismus 04:13, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Nope, I haven't check any of those so far, but I do plan to. They're not the mainspace entries, so there's no real damage done, if they are misspelled. I have no idea why Code2000 wouldn't install on Windows 7. Windows 7 is supposed to be completely backwards compatible with Vista (on which Code2000 works). BTW, I also have "Avestan typewriter" HTML page hacked out if anyone's interested (the sort of where you type e.g. avestan and get 𐬀𐬬𐬈𐬯𐬙𐬀𐬥 in the editbox) I would have uploaded it somewhere if I had a website, but I don't. --Ivan Štambuk 04:23, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I have an Avestan font that you made via AlphabetumDEMO on my Mac (I don't remember exactly where I DLed it from). And I downloaded the one you suggested above, yet I see nothing in the example you just provided. Furthermore, I even created an Avestan keyboard layout for OSX via Ukulele. It helps SOOOO much. I just need to find an app that lets me do the same for Windows 7.--Strabismus 04:28, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Heh observe this mess: Appendix:Avestan alphabet. Even the most comprehensive Avestan dictionary available online (that of Justi) uses a "lossy" transcription. Looks like every single word should be verified against the scriptures :(--Ivan Štambuk 17:55, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I see. For the most part the xlits are straight-forward but I'll admit I had no idea there were so damn many xlit schemes. :((( I apologise for the confusion. BTW, thanks for the heads up.--Strabismus 00:02, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Kannada entries

I don't know where you are getting your sourcing for Kannada entries, but I've marked about 9 of them so far with deletion tags because they were completely incorrect. Please stop making Kannada entries unless you know the language, which is obvious, you don't. Thank you, Razorflame 13:30, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Prove it, son.--Strabismus 07:21, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Strabismus, what is your source for the Kannada entries that you have created?

Using what web links and web searches can Wiktionary editors verify that the Kannada entries that you have created are correct? --Dan Polansky 10:18, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

The thing is Strabismus, that the user who created the entry carries the burden of proving that the word actually "exists" (i.e. passes WT:CFI, and can be attested in written literature). Now, I don't know anything about Kannada and cannot read its script, but it strikes me as really unusual that so many of the entries you created are alleged not to "exist". Perhaps if we could find the exact reason?! Certain spelling mistake consistently propagated, faulty transcription scheme used to wrongly generate Kannada script, or something?! I'm sure the problem is systematic in character, rather than being you randomly typing Kannada letters.. --Ivan Štambuk 11:48, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

I understand, Dan. And, Ivan, I can assure you that I AM NOT SPAMMING and therefore do not merit a permanent block. Here's what could be the problem: I have found several online dictionaries in other languages which MAY feature archaic vocabulary. There are a few in Kannada which are now in the public domain and thus may be why many of the terms are out-of-date. Additionally (and what I think confused Razorflame), there are OTHER LANGUAGES which use the Kannada script! I have added several lemmata in those tongues. In general, they are Dravidian languages which are therefore related to Kannada proper but not necessarily mutually-intelligible. Maybe Razorflame (out of arrogant consternation) saw my entries and because those vocables did not occur in either of his big Kannada dictionaries (YES, including the one with "forest fire") he assumed they were altogether nonexistent.

However, I also tend to use the many many Wikipedias for vocabulary as this helps us to keep the sister projects "in sync" and allows for cross-referencing beyond a single project.

To sum up, I still stand by my work and make no apologies for confusion over rare vocables and/or minor languages written in the script of another well-known language. Make of that what you will. If indeed the Kannada terms are out-of-date, then they should be listed as such and not jettisoned wholesale. I appreciate your time and understanding.--Strabismus 21:56, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Let me rephrase the first question: (a) What is the as-complete-as-possible list of online and offline sources that you have used to create Kannada entries, each source identified at least by (i) its title but ideally also by (ii) its author and (iii) publication date?

I repeat the second question: (b) Using what web links and web searches can Wiktionary editors verify that the Kannada entries that you have created are correct? --Dan Polansky 08:22, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

For better context, the Kannada entries questioned by Razorflame: ಕಂಠೀರವ-allegedly lion, ಕಂದಿಲ್-allegedly candle, ಕಂಧರ-allegedly neck and cloud, ಕಂಮ-allegedly Spring, ಕಚ-allegedly hair, cicatrice, cloud; all created in January 2009 by you, Strabismus. These entries have now been sent to RFD, although I'd thing they belong to RFV, but in any case their verification is now sought. --Dan Polansky 08:30, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

To my recollection, the following works were consulted.

[8]

[9]

[10]

In addition, kn.wikipedia.org is a source that I would largely rely on.

I second Dan's proposal that it is thoroughly ascertained that the vocables in question are in fact completely erroneous. In the event that they are, I offer my sincere apologies.--Strabismus 23:37, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the links. The two sources found on the links:

• A Kannaḍa-English school-dictionary by J. Bucher, Ferdinand Kittel, 1899[11]
• A dictionary, Canarese and English by William Reeve, 1858[12]

I have not proved or ascertained anything about the correctness of the listed entries myself; I merely listed five entries that have been sent to RFD for their being tagged for deletion by Razorflame.

If you say that you cannot demonstrate the correctness of the five entries, or you even say that you can demonstrate their incorrectness, you should say so in Wiktionary:RFD#ಕಂಠೀರವ, so the entries can be deleted. --Dan Polansky 08:48, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I was not "confused". I checked two Kannada-English dictionaries (in print, that I bought), three online Kannada-English dictionaries, kn.wikipedia and kn.wiktionary, and it did not appear on any of those eight sources, which is why I marked them for deletion. I am not doing this out of arrogance; I am doing this out of correctness, because I don't want any incorrect entries on the English Wiktionary. Razorflame 02:12, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

If the terms are nonexistent (i.e., have NEVER existed in any dialect of Kannada) then they are eligible for deletion. One important note is that the Kannada script has been used to transcribe languages other than Kannada (e.g., Tulu and sometimes Konkani; the former being a southern Dravidian tongue along with Kannada). Make absolutely certain that the entries you have RFD are indeed nonexistent Kannada terms. BTW, I too do not wish there to be any inaccurate entries here. :)--Strabismus 03:03, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I know that the Kannada script is used for other languages than just Kannada, and yes, I would not RFD them unless I was certain they do not exist. Razorflame 00:17, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

OK, good.--Strabismus 07:08, 22 February 2010 (UTC)

"Please stop making Kannada entries unless you know the language, which is obvious, you don't." Razorflame, don't be a fucking hypocrite, kthnxbai. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 23:59, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

I lol'd.--Strabismus 01:00, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

hieroglyph

Hello, I saw you have created some articles about Ancient Egyptian (like this). I think this discussion could interest you. Cheers. Pamputt 11:10, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for the late response. Thanks.--Strabismus 01:00, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

ouch

What does (♪: ^-╮) represent? —Internoob (Disc•Cont) 01:58, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

O man, I'm surprised that was still there. That was supposed to be something like the pitch pattern of the phrase. I'm sorry if it troubled you or other users. It was something of an experiment. No worries.―Strabismus 03:34, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

lindo

You might be able to help at [[Wiktionary:Tea room#lindo]].​—msh210℠ (talk) 23:26, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Where have you been?

Your contributions were really good. 3 years has been too long. GoodSpeller2015 (talk) 01:30, 5 July 2015 (UTC)