Wiktionary:Information desk/2019/April

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← March 2019 · April 2019 · May 2019 → · (current)

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Hi,

The above page has been blocked by adblock - This was discussed on the #wikimedia-tech IRC Channel (see https://wm-bot.wmflabs.org/logs/%23wikimedia-tech/20190404.txt). Adblock have also been made aware via https://help.getadblock.com/support/tickets/62765.

Pinging @Zppix who was invloved in the discussion

Thanks, RhinosF1 (Public) (talk) 13:50, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

uBlock Origin seems to block it too by setting display: none; to whatever is a top display element, which hides all of the page. Chrome calls it an "injected stylesheet" in the Developer Console. It seems to be caused by EasyList rules, and based on those, it should also happen to advert and ad, and indeed the former is blocked, while bizarrely enough the latter is not. — surjection ⟨?⟩ 14:02, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Confirming the above is same for me. RhinosF1 (Public) (talk) 14:03, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

@Surjection - https://github.com/easylist/easylist/issues/3188 filed. RhinosF1 (Public) (talk) 14:21, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

 Whitelisted RhinosF1 (Public) (talk) 14:49, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Whitelisted by whom? Adblock? I still see an all-white page, also after clearing the cache. The source is fine. Neither can I edit the page; https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=ads&action=edit shows an equally blank page.  --Lambiam 18:15, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

I've asked for action to be taken to prevent a simmilar issue in future affecting any wiki at https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikitech-l/2019-April/091887.html RhinosF1 (Public) (talk) 16:29, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Why would anyone using AdBlock (Plus)/uOrigin/Privacy Badger/etc. run them on WMF sites? I have them all whitelisted on all my ad blockers. I guess that's a bit rhetorical: another way to put it is that I recommend whitelisting. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:11, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

People who just pass every so often might not think to. RhinosF1 (Public) (talk) 19:40, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm going to start a incident report at some point. RhinosF1 (Public) (talk) 21:16, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Incident report @ https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech/20190404-Adblock-issue RhinosF1 (Public) (talk) 21:34, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

FWIW this is a known issue and has come up often enough that I documented it in the WT:FAQ/Help:FAQ a while ago; I just expanded the Q a bit to also cover "ads". The issue seems to be something for the adblockers to fix, not us. - -sche (discuss) 01:59, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

@-sche, Part of the response to this will prevent future incidents involving and blockers. Wiktionary is already whitelisted so should face no further issues. RhinosF1 (Public) (talk) 06:10, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

@-RhinosF1 (Public): FWIW (regarding this being due to a "rule matching the pages on the 4th September 2018"), this issue or a similar one has been reported since at least 2014/2015, so there may be more to fix. - -sche (discuss) 07:22, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

@-sche, All Wiktionary domains are whitelisted against all rules on easylist not just that specific one. RhinosF1 (Public) (talk) 11:00, 5 April 2019 (UTC)

Reference Tooltips

I find the reference tooltips option on Wikipedia much more convenient than clicking back and forth to the citations list, on articles with many inline citations. After a bit of clicking back and forth in a Wiktionary article, I went to adjust my Wiktionary preferences to enable the option, and haven't found it. Is there not some way I may use reference tooltips on Wiktionary? Phillip Alan Gulley (talk) 02:20, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

@Phillip Alan Gulley:, The files are missing on Wiktionary. It could be added but we'd need a user with the permission to edit the MediaWiki area. I'll try to raise it on IRC as well. RhinosF1 (Public) (talk) 07:41, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

ndołkah

How do I format the pronunciation of ndołkah for the IPA?Ndołkah (talk) 18:32, 6 April 2019 (UTC)

You would use {{IPA}}. I removed the pronunciation you gave, because it didn't seem to be IPA, but rather some kind of other transcription. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:21, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

it was ipa, ipa for western apacheNdołkah (talk) 17:39, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

No, it wasn't. If you don't know IPA, you shouldn't add it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:33, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

For the benefit of those who haven't looked at the edit history, the alleged IPA is "ndołkʰh". Apparently Western Apache has prenasalized consonants, and "nd" is one way to represent that. I'm skeptical, though, about "h" directly following "kʰ" without an intervening vowel. There are some languages, such as Persian, that have "h" after vowels, but I've never seen a language with syllabic "h", and it seems even stranger to have it following an aspirated consonant, since "h" is itself pure aspiration. Still, I'm not an expert on phonology, so it's possible I'm missing something. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:48, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

In the spelling of Western Apache lemmas we use ⟨ł⟩ (e.g. łóg), ⟨ɫ⟩ (e.g. ɫigai), and ⟨ɬ⟩ (e.g. ikaɬ), next to a plain ⟨l⟩, as in diʼil. Are these all meant to be different letters? The Omniglot site recognizes only ⟨l⟩ and ⟨ł⟩, the latter representing [ɬ].  --Lambiam 23:17, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

I think ɫ is a mistake for ł: note this move. The difference is fairly subtle, and it's easy to miss if you don't know to look for it. The pronunciation is quite different, though: the first one is a velarized voiced lateral approximant, as in the Polish dark l, and the other one is a voiceless lateral fricative, as in Welsh ll. Now that you mention it, the "IPA" discussed above does use the orthographic ł rather than the phonetic ɬ, which is a definite problem. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:24, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I've moved those two to the correct orthography. @Julia, did you create any other Western Apache entries with nonstandard orthographies? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:04, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

We still have aɬdóʼ, aɬkʼidą́ʼ, bijatɬane, ditɬid, diɫhiɫ, Dziɫtʼaadn, dzitɫ ndeʼyú, hishtɫish, iɬdíʼgee, ɫibaa, nadzeeɫ, naʼitɬʼíígí, tsinaʼeeɫí, tsʼaaɫ, tudiɫhiɫi, yiʼaaɫ, and yídiɫig.  --Lambiam 09:18, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

I've moved all of those. @Julia, would you mind finding the remaining Western Apache entries you created with "someone who..." definitions? It seems that they should all be verbs, and you were confused by the lemma form for Western Apache, which is 3rd pers. sing. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:34, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

@Ndołkah, Metaknowledge, Chuck Entz, Lambiam: Anything that shows up in this search should be looked over or deleted. I made them when I was fairly new to Wiktionary. They are not quality entries and I don't know anything about Western Apache; I just copied a wordlist. Anyways, the correct orthography can be found here: fr:Apache occidental, which is from this study if you want a direct source. I'd rather an admin make moves because it doesn't leave a redirect, but I can provide a list if needed. For the corrections, ' and ɬ should be substituted with ʼ and ł respectively. I also found a bunch of vowels that have diacritics other than the ogonek. I don't know if this is wrong or just an alternate orthography. Julia ☺ ☆ 17:46, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Well, looking through the word lists in several languages, I see a good number that are in sort of a quasi-phonetic shorthand, so I wouldn't use those a guide for spelling. As for diacritics, the acute accent is used to mark high tone in Western Apache. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:10, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

• I based it on what i found here[1]Ndołkah (talk) 05:19, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

  Since ł is not one of the IPA symbols, that guide is incorrect.  --Lambiam 21:28, 9 April 2019 (UTC)

• maybe they didn't gave a way of inputting it on their device?Ndołkah (talk) 01:24, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

  Entering ɬ in the HTML source would have done the trick.  --Lambiam 07:23, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Construction of adjective without noun

In English, when you have a noun phrase that includes a adjective, but you want to leave out the noun, you have to replace it with one, e.g. the green one or a big one. In other languages, you are often able to leave out the noun altogether and don't need something else in its place. The adjective then takes on the role of a noun to some degree, but there is still the implication that a noun belongs there, you just didn't specify it (to avoid repeating yourself or whatever). What is such a construction called? It's not Nominalization, which is a derivational process that converts other words into nouns. In the case I am describing, the adjectives remain adjectives, the noun they modify has just gone missing. —Rua (mew) 17:19, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

metonymy? DTLHS (talk) 17:21, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

ellipsis? pronominalization? (I think Talk:le_mien has dealt a bit with this issue; see Wikitiki's posts) Chignon – Пучок 17:52, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

When a German says “der Alte” – which was a nickname for Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and also for a police detective in a popular German Krimi series – I don’t think they feel a noun was omitted. The common term for turning an adjective like alt into the noun Alter is nominalization; I do not see what makes you (Rua) think this is not covered by the term.  --Lambiam 20:25, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

It is clearly not nominalization, because the noun is still implied, just elided, as I said before. For more detail, I'm asking what is the proper term for the West Frisian adjective form described here. I want to include it in an inflection table, but that requires having a term to put in a table header cell. —Rua (mew) 20:35, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence that a noun is implied, or is just your feeling it is? Is a noun implied in the sentence “the rich are getting richer by the day”? I can invent some noun, like “bastards”, to follow the word “rich”, but I don’t think there is a gap left by an omitted noun to put it in.  --Lambiam 21:32, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Based on your Taalportaal link, maybe just label the cell "with nominal ellipsis", "with elided noun" or "with noun elided"?
FWIW, I think you can also do this in English without "one", like: John Alessio, Social Problems and Inequality (2013, →ISBN): "Citizens [...] might entertain the dilemma of which of the two pills they want: the red or the blue." (I expect "...a red or a blue." is also possible, but searching is difficult.)
I poked through google books:"adjective" "implied noun" and didn't spot anything particularly helpful. This book refers to "stand-alone adjectives" in Hebrew where a noun can be inferred or implied.
I also checked if it might be called "pseudo-nominalization" but apparently not: this book uses that word for "the red" (presumably as in "the red of her car is different from his" or something), and this book uses it for things like "das Ich" and "un autre moi".
- -sche (discuss) 21:11, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

mit

Is used colloquially in England for hand but doesn't appear in Wiktionary.

We have it. It's spelled mitt. Equinox ◑ 08:01, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Automated references?

I'm trying to figure out how to reference a new dictionary. I see that major languages like Arabic have a code set up that references a common dictionary or glossary. I have virtually everything that's ever been published on Gulf Arabic, including a dictionary with about 8000 entries. Is there a way that I can set up a reference page for Gulf Arabic?

MarkDShockley (talk) 12:12, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

@MarkDShockley: You can create your own templates. Look at Category:Arabic reference templates how such templates are coded, and you add your template under a convenient name, Template:R:afb:blabla. It is easy. (If there is something complicated in the templates, it is mostly because the template also links to online scans by page name.) Fay Freak (talk) 14:16, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Western Apache shash

Is Western Apache shash really pronounced as [tʃatʃ]? All sources I can find (which however appear to copy each other) suggest that the pair ⟨sh⟩ is pronounced like in English, that is, like /ʃ/, while /tʃ/ is the realization of ⟨ch⟩.  --Lambiam 13:47, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Doubtful; I've removed it. @Ndołkah, I've told you a few times now, you really have to stop adding IPA to entries that you're just copying from an unreliable source when you don't actually know any IPA. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 14:37, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I know IPA just fine sh is ʃ and ch is tʃ I made a mistake, I am moving slowly. I just wanted to include the Ndee biyátiʼ alphabet in here. I know how to say it in person just not in perfect IPA because the chart I used was wrong that's all.Ndołkah (talk) 07:20, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

@Ndołkah – I believe it is better to use the “broad” (phonemic) notation /.../ than the “narrow” (phonetic) notation [...]. The latter should be reserved for pronunciation nuances differentiating for instance Tonto from White Mountain.  --Lambiam 22:02, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

what's this? Please explain!Ndołkah (talk) 00:34, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

Study the article International Phonetic Alphabet on Wikipedia, in particular the section Usage. See also the article Phonetic transcription on Wikipedia, in particular the section Narrow versus broad transcription.  --Lambiam 07:46, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm just using the table available on the article on Wikipedia I don't know how much more simple I can make it!2600:1700:94A0:2720:81B0:7554:65A3:F6A9 04:39, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Abuse filter...

"This action has been automatically identified as harmful, and therefore disallowed.

If you believe your action was constructive, please inform an administrator of what you were trying to do. A brief description of the abuse rule which your action matched is: strips L3"

I was trying to edit 僵屍 until I tripped an abuse filter because many of the soft redirects do not have a level 3 (part of speech) header. So I made a workaround.

The abuse filter above does not apply to autopatrolled users (whitelist), so I have to wait for someone else until I am nominated as one. Eyesnore (talk) 21:34, 18 April 2019 (UTC)

"Requests for creation"?

I'm hardly a newbie, obviously (going to have been here for almost a decade soon), but where exactly ought I to go to discuss the potential creation of an entry?

I could hypothetically just go and create the entry that I wish to discuss the possibility of creating, but I really would rather not create an entry just for it to get RfDed fairly swiftly due to a lack of good attestations.

I've already found one possible citation for the phrase that I am suggesting have an entry, and perhaps I am being overly cautious and ought to just be bold and create the entry already. Nevertheless, even if in this case I am just being over-chary, it would still be good to know where to bring questionable entry suggestions in the future.

Would I take something like this to Requests for verification, perhaps? Tharthan (talk) 16:12, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

You may simply create a citations page with your citation. If you would like the page to be RFV'd you should create a full entry first. DTLHS (talk) 16:21, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Done. Tharthan (talk) 20:05, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Our rules are such that you don’t have to leap through hoops in order to create new entries, nor need you fear swift removal of your creations (unless patent nonsense or suchlike); they would need to go through rfv first. When torn by doubt concerning a potential entry, the Tea room would seem to be a cosy place for a friendly chat.  --Lambiam 09:55, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, Tea Room! It's intended for discussing specific entries. Doesn't matter if they haven't been created yet. Equinox ◑ 23:50, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

genty

Is that quote of Burns really dialectal English, or is it Scots? --Xx Adeliza xX (talk) 07:23, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

I think it is Scottish English.  --Lambiam 09:47, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

tako̱lo lakna'

I want to contribute more Chickasaw but the letter o (an o with a macron beneath it does not seem it exist here, how can I add the color orange then [[takolo lakna']]?Ndołkah (talk) 05:09, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

@Ndołkah: Use o̱, as found at w:Chickasaw language#Vowels. It uses o + the "macron below" character, instead of HTML formatting. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 05:12, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

Thankies, I had tried that but had thought it was going under the LNdołkah (talk) 05:16, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

@Ndołkah: Some fonts don't handle "strange" characters very well, sadly. It appears correctly in fonts like Charis SIL. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 05:20, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

@Suzukaze-c: I see thankies.Ndołkah (talk) 06:53, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

reset "always translate this page" option

I went to Wiktionary home page: https://www.wiktionary.org/

Then I clicked on the Pycckiy (Russian language) button) which took me to here--https://ru.wiktionary.org/

On this page I opened the Translation options box and clicked on Always translate this page.

This was the beginning of my nightmare, for now I can never see any Russian page in Russian any more. How do I reset the always translate into English option? I tried every way I could think of to reset it, but nothing works, not even restarting my computer.

But what I really, really want to do, however, is to be able to move through all the Russian word entries in Russian alphabetic order (starting with a and going sequentially until I get to я, the last letter of the Russian alphabet. I was able to do this before I clicked on Always translate this page. Now I can no longer find this index to all Russian language entries in ru.wiktionary.

I have searched all the help info I can find, and I cannot find any way to ask a question of anyone at Wikimedia except through the above email address.

I am a frequent donor (ca. $100/year for many years) and a frequent editor of Wikipedia and Wiktionary pages.

I am not sure that I am sending this request to the right people within Wikimedia, but I cannot find any way to ask any kind of question of anyone in Wikimedia except this method. Please forward this question to someone who can answer it if you are unable to answer it.

Thank you very much.

Bill Fairchild

Franklin, TN, USA

Isn't "always translate this page" a Google Chrome browser option, rather than part of wiki pages? Have you tried the Chrome settings in Chrome's menu (top-right of screen)? Equinox ◑ 21:46, 27 April 2019 (UTC)

The Chrome setting is on a language-by-language base. This Google support web page presents instructions for undoing “always translate“ in Chrome, but only for the Chrome app on an iPhone or iPad. On Chrome under macOS, when opening a page in a random language, I see a pop-up near the top that says “Translate this page? [Options] [Translate]”. The [Options] button gives rise to a dropdown menu with an option “Change Languages”. Clicking this, you get a box “Options / Page language: [     ] / Translation language: [    ] / [ ] Always Translate / [Translate] [Cancel]”. Selecting “Russian” for the page language, making sure the Always Translate button is unchecked and clicking [Translate] should undo a prior Always Translate.  --Lambiam 11:03, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

Sorry for the delayed feedback. Your response looks likely to be what I need to do. I'll try it out and get back to you with my results in a few more days. IMHO, I greatly dislike a software product (e.g., Chrome) that encapsulates another software product (e.g., Wiktionary) and changes the appearance of displays produced by the inner product silently, automatically, "helpfully", and with apparently no warning that it is doing so or info on how to undo the outer product's "helpfulness". This is not the only reason why I dislike Chrome. Grrrr...

Copyright

Today I have created the page durchleuchten, as one of the first of mine, and I have taken pretty much all English translations from my dictionary of choice Langenscheidt. I have quoted in a Sources section, which I think I have never seen used before. This led me to the question "Can we just copy from other dictionaries?". On the one hand, it could be considered compiling info from all sources, so that it is easily available on one website, on the other hand, those translations are still someone's mental property. The info page on Copyright talks about fair use but I have a feeling that is rather about quoting from authors or something. Can you help me? Anatol Rath (talk) 19:45, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

@Anatol Rath: Good question. Generally, no we cannot just copy and paste from other dictionaries (the big exceptions being others with a free license or those in the public domain); their content will be protected by copyright. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:26, 28 April 2019 (UTC)

That being said, I think it's probably fine to include information that two unrelated dictionaries have in common. Reduplicating translations is unavoidable, but it's best to include only what you can find in more than one source. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 00:17, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

How do I automatically add pages to a category?

It may seem like a newbie question, but I've never done such a thing in a wiki. I'm currently compiling the Category:English hybridisms and there are many pages that still need to be included. However, editing every single page, adding the code and saving is pretty tiresome. Is there a faster way to do this, perhaps with bots, scripts or something? - Alumnum (talk) 21:13, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Yes, you could probably write a script to do it if you have an algorithm that can determine when a word is a "hybridism". DTLHS (talk) 21:20, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

BTW, I think "(etymological) hybrid" may be a more common word for these than "hybridism". Equinox ◑ 21:22, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm looking for a more simple tool, like one that could add a page to a category with one click (instead of having to open, edit and save the page) or categorize all pages in a written list. Is there anything like this? - Alumnum (talk) 22:49, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

[2] DTLHS (talk) 22:52, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I'm gonna take a look on that. - Alumnum (talk) 23:39, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

Since the term "hybridism" is defined as anything with different origins, I'm assuming that any term inherited from Middle English plus any term not inherited from Middle English already qualifies? That's an extremely broad category. I've added meat wagon to demonstrate. —Rua (mew) 23:00, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

I think the term refers to individual hybrid words only. Phrases would indeed make the category extremely broad. - Alumnum (talk) 23:39, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

I don't consider meat wagon a phrase, but a simple noun-noun compound. —Rua (mew) 23:42, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

But it's still two separate words. At least according to the Wikipedia article it is limited to words. There is meatwagon, though. - Alumnum (talk) 00:00, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Orthography has nothing to do with words. DTLHS (talk) 03:41, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn‘t consider meat wagon a hybrid, since it was formed as an English compound from English meat + English waggon. That these two English words have etymological origins in different languages is in my opinion not sufficient to warrant the “hybrid” label. For that, a word needs to have been forged from components taken from different languages at the time of coinage. Otherwise there is no end to it; for example, normalize goes back on Latin normalis + Ancient Greek -ίζειν (-ízein). But forlorn hope is an etymological hybrid, from the English calque forlorn + a loan from hoop.  --Lambiam 14:19, 30 April 2019 (UTC)