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September 2011

Citations:tip

Does anybody have some good ideas about how to handle this AAVE usage of "tip"? I am not yet sure that this exists in anything other than "on the X tip", which knowledge wouldn't help very much. DCDuring TALK 15:45, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not always "the X tip", but close. I've just found (i) "I never really spoke to them Puerto Rican niggers because they be on some exclusive tip"; (ii) "Whenever Dink questioned him about it, on some concern tip, he always either had a poor excuse or got defensive"; (iii) "On a morbid tip, a lot of brothas out there don't even make it; they don't even know what had hit 'em." Equinox ◑ 15:49, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I added some stuff. It could use improvement once we get a contributor whose native language is motherfucking hip-hop. See the talk page. Equinox ◑ 22:47, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You're braver than I. I have someone I could ask, if I remember. DCDuring TALK 00:27, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

last

We have an adjective sense:

Most recent, latest, last so far.
The last time I saw him, he was married.

And a determiner sense:

The one immediately past.
Last night the moon was full.

We went there last year.

Last Tuesday was Hallowe'en.

We also have the following example sentence attached to the determiner sense:

Last time we talked about this was in January.

It sounds to me like a dropped the, with last an adjective. But maybe I simply haven't been around enough.—msh210℠ (talk) 16:13, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How about changing it to Last time, we talked about this too.--Brett 15:52, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(deprecated template usage) last doesn't seem much like an adjective in many of its common uses. But it does seem to be in "He was last in the race." and "This is my last race.". That sense would seem to be the first sense of last#Adjective. Is the adjective sense above not really the determiner sense? I don't think it can appear as predicate, for example. *"The time I saw him was last". DCDuring TALK 17:18, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do determiners follow determiners?—msh210℠ (talk) 18:52, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That depends on what you mean by determiner. There are lexical categories (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) and syntactic functions (head, complement, modifier, coordinate, etc.). Unfortunately, many people ignore this fact, even though they know it well. The result is that determiner is used both to denote a lexical category and a syntactic function. To distinguish between them, I'll use dc for the category and df for the function.

English never has two dfs for one head noun in a noun phrase (NP), though it can have nested dfs. Consider this erroneous example from The Grammar Book p. 303. Larsen-Freeman and Celce-Murcia, typical of ESL material writers, fail to distinguish between dc and df. The result is the tree on the right. It is clearly wrong, since it is not my daughter-in-law. The correct analysis is that the genitive pronoun my functions as a df in the genitive NP my neighbour's. This entire NP, in turn, functions as df in the larger NP.

English can, however, have two contiguous dcs. The key thing to realize is that only one of these will function as df. The other typically functions as a modifier. For example, in all the people, both all and the are dcs, but only the is a df. Similarly in the many people, both the and many are dcs, but only many is a df.

I hope that is helpful and not confusing.--Brett 01:51, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. What's the function of the in the many people, then, please?—msh210℠ (talk) 20:09, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, it looks like I confused myself. I should have said only the is a df, since the NP the many people is definite as is the people but not many people. Here, many functions as a modifier in the NP. In situations like the more we work, the fewer people we meet, the is a modifier in the DP.--Brett 14:29, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Archaic use of "force" for river?

Hi. It seems that there's an archaic use of the word "force" that means either river or rapids. This seems consistent with etymology #2 at force. Can anyone clarify this? Here's an example. Cheers. Haus 16:55, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the North of England it is a waterfall. SemperBlotto 17:01, 1 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, a waterfall, not a river. See also foss. The example you cite could refer simply to the force of the flow, but waterfall seems much more likely. Dbfirs 09:52, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

punt

I've been punting in Oxford before. Can someone add a definition for that to punt. --Chers lecteurs 11:40, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't that the verb definition under Etymology 1? —An gr 14:32, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

cheat

Can this also mean deceive/trick? ---> Tooironic 12:07, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Collins Thesaurus thinks so, but to me (deprecated template usage) cheat implies that there is a specifically applicable set of rules to be broken. Deceive and trick do not require any particular set of rules. The uses of "cheat" in situations where there are no particular rules strike me as metaphorical extensions of the rule-breaking sense, as in cheat death. The implication would seem to be that there were "rules" which one had to break in order to survive. DCDuring TALK 15:49, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The transitive sense doesn't seem to cover all the transitive uses; "he cheated me at cards"[1] is an transitive use of the existing intransitive sense. But there's also "Thou son of Shaitan, thou hast cheated me; there is thy dagger. Return me my ten dollars."[2], and more commerce related senses, which don't seem to have any sense of rules. "Agathinus was counting on my own greed, you see, and he used it against me. He cheated me."[3] is another commerce related one, and "He cheated me out of seven years of life."[4] is in reference to marriage. I see a deceive/trick sense here.--Prosfilaes 03:32, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Laws are rules. DCDuring TALK 11:02, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, and for some of the commerce related ones, one could make that argument, though it doesn't feel right to me. But "He cheated me out of seven years of life."? No laws or rules broken there. Or "This boy ... has cheated me. ... This boy ... made me think he had some oats for me. He caught me unfairly."[5] where the speaker is a pony. Or "My fate has not cheated me of my all."[6] Or "He cheated me. God cheated me. Life cheated me."[7] "You've cheated me of her all these years! You've cheated me of her love, cheated me of the fatherhood of her child, you've dragged her down, you've dishonoured her !"[8]. I'm having a hard time with a definition--some of these might be "to take from unfairly"?--but I don't see extending the rules sense to work here.--Prosfilaes 00:53, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying it is the exclusive meaning. I think it is the central meaning or, possibly, just an important distinctive meaning. DCDuring TALK 02:02, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

passeriform bird

Is this redundant to passeriform? The definitions are rather dissimilar. Equinox ◑ 17:55, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say speed delete, not dissimilar from Alsatian dog or Jack Russell dog. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:05, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

index

For which definition listed on index does "index" in "color rendering index" and "refractive index" pertain? Maro 22:36, 3 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's closest to 5 (economics). Should we generalise that sense, or add an extra very general sense. The OED has "In various sciences, a number or formula expressing some property, form, ratio, etc. of the thing in question.". I think several other senses are missing from Wiktionary. Would you like to add them, or shall I have a go? Dbfirs 16:23, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

... later ... I've added a couple of senses. Please criticise or amend. Dbfirs 16:01, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

news

Isn't this a pluralia tantum? ---> Tooironic 08:20, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think so; google books:"a plurale tantum". Mglovesfun (talk) 10:06, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh sorry I had a brain fart. The word I was questioning was in fact "news". ---> Tooironic 10:46, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In which case, no as it takes the singular case, doesn't it? 'The news was terrible day' (not were terrible). Mglovesfun (talk) 10:51, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In early days it varied. There is a famous anecdote about a foreign correspondent who received a telegram from his pedantic editor asking "Are there any news?" He cabled back, "Not a new." Ƿidsiþ 08:54, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

composition

Is "composition" as "essay" common usage nowadays? I hear my Chinese friends use it like this all the time but to my Australian ears it's weird - we would most probably say "essay" instead. ---> Tooironic 08:54, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds dated in its literary sense to my UK ear. I'm not sure about elsewhere. Dbfirs 09:42, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely old-fashioned, I've not heard it used since primary school (55 years ago!). SemperBlotto 09:46, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is still in use in the US as part of (deprecated template usage) composition book. Such blank books are among the cheapest one can buy, ~ 1% of the price of a comparable size Moleskine. They have a standard look with marbled cardboard covers. DCDuring TALK 11:11, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have an article coming out soon in the TESL Canada Journal with "college composition classes" as part of the title.--Brett 11:49, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As author, you decide what you mean, of course, but I'd have read composition there as "act or process of composing" not as "thing that was composed" (or any particular such, like an essay).—msh210℠ (talk) 20:15, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I see. I wasn't reading carefully. I recognize, but wouldn't use "a composition".--Brett 14:43, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To me (U.S.) uncountable "composition" meaning "essay-writing", and "freshman composition" meaning "an essay-writing class traditionally required of college freshmen", are not old-fashioned, just a bit formal. The former wouldn't surprise me in the title of a textbook; the latter wouldn't surprise me in a screed about how kids these days aren't learning enough. I wouldn't be likely to use either one, myself. But countable "a composition" meaning "an essay"? Very old-fashioned, I think. It sounds strange to me, at least out-of-context. —Ruakh_TALK 17:26, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Composition in the sense mentioned by Tooironic is still common in Singapore. — Cheers, JackLee ^–talk– 18:45, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We used composition to mean "short written work" — essay — in elementary school. In fact, IIRC, it was distinguished in the later years of elementary school from essay in that the latter referred to something having an "essay structure" (which I don't remember: probably something along the lines of intro, body, conclusion) and composition referred to other things also. I have not seen it in use since grade school AFAIR; perhaps elementary-education texts have more on the term.—msh210℠ (talk) 20:15, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1997, Lynn Z. Bloom with Donald A. Daiker and Edward Michael White, Composition in the Twenty-First Century: Crisis and Change, page 59:
I wonder if freshman composition isn't a metaphor for a time long passed. I wonder if we shouldn't rethink the position of requiring all incoming students to be 'skilled' in this anachronistic fashion

DCDuring TALK 21:02, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OMG

We have four very similar sense, oh my God/Goddess/goodness/gosh, and one that I don't fully understand: (computing) Object Management Group (who define CORBA). Suggestions? Help? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:00, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I find it unbelievable that this stands for "oh my Goddess" and merits a "feminism" gloss. Equinox ◑ 20:20, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My issue with the four similar definitions is how can they be attested separately? When I say OMG it doesn't really represent any of these, I just say it because other people say it and I've picked it up. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:29, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It does sound like there should be a single definition along the lines of "An expression of excitement, amazement or shock", with the various competing expansions mentioned only in the etymology. 81.142.107.230 09:34, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

81.142.107.230 proposes a good solution. - -sche (discuss) 19:09, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I too like that solution. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:56, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So it has been done, using {{non-gloss definition}}. - -sche (discuss) 21:10, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"nifties" (plural noun)

I've just come across this in PG Wodehouse's 'Sam the Sudden' (Everyman, London:2007, p.20) - anyone know what he means? I haven't been able to find it anywhere so far.
"...being stuck in a hut miles from anywhere with nothing to read and nothing to listen to except the wild duck calling to its mate and the nifties of a French-Canadian guide who couldn't speak more than three words of English-"
(Maybe utterances that the guide thinks are nifty?) Thanks.--Person12 02:00, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Other dictionaries say it means a witty joke.—msh210℠ (talk) 13:46, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

POS for Navajo color words

Navajo color words appear to be stative verbs, or in YM's nomenclature, "neuter" verbs, and they appear to conjugate as verbs, such as łigai "it's white" -> dałigai / daalgai "they're white". The rule of thumb here on WT is to list the POS in the source language, not the POS of how the translated word would be used in English, yes? I noticed that łitso "yellow" is properly listed as a verb, but łibá "gray" and niłhin "gray-brown" are both listed as adjectives. I haven't yet gotten my hands on Young and Morgan's various tomes, so I thought I'd ask here. -- TIA, Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 16:55, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it, our practice is to give the POS of the source language (exception: if the POS is not used in English, eg "quasi-adjective", other considerations apply), and to give a translation (definition) that matches that POS, which means the POS is also the POS of the translation: "to be yellow" is a verb in English, just like "łitso" is a verb in Navajo. - -sche (discuss) 19:07, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. And when there's mismatch between what's idiomatic in the source language and what's idiomatic in English, example sentences can help clarify a great deal. —Ruakh_TALK 19:45, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

if that

From this discussion on Stack Exchange, I'm not sure if we have this meaning of if. As in,

The meeting should last 10 minutes, if that.

It's not the same as definition #3, is it? 81.142.107.230 12:20, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a stab at a definition. Can't be sure of the part of speech - might be used as an adjective or an adverb. SemperBlotto 12:49, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've always interpreted "should last ten minutes, if that" like the first stackexchange commenter does: as "should last (no more than) ten minutes, if (indeed it even lasts) that (long / length of time)", ie a regular sense of if. - -sche (discuss) 14:53, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: There's concurrent discussion at [[WT:RFD#if that]].—msh210℠ (talk) 15:49, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

citations:in

I've added a citation to [[citations:in]] for (deprecated template usage) in as eye dialect for (deprecated template usage) isn't, which I happened to come across while reading. I suspect it may be citeable, but am having a heck of a hard time searching bgc for additional cites. Anyone (happen to know of any or) have an idea on how to search for this?—msh210℠ (talk) 15:46, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've got nothing. Since this is clearly the same thing as the first syllable of innit, I tried searching for co-occurrences of "innit" with "in e". I even found one relevant hit on b.g.c.; only problem, it was the same cite you'd already added. :-P —Ruakh_TALK 01:03, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

citations:required

I've added a cite showing required used in "It is required to.." (like "It's necessary to...", with it serving as a placeholder. I don't know what grammarians, or what linguists, call this. WP uses the word extraposition). Does that make required an adjective? (We currently list it only as a verb.)—msh210℠ (talk) 21:05, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the answer to your exact question is "no": I think it's possible (but British or old-fashioned?) for a verbal passive clause to have an infinitive clause as its extraposed subject (e.g. this is clearly a verbal passive, IMHO, since it's eventive, whereas adjectival passives are normally stative). At least, it's obviously possible for it to have a content clause serve that role (e.g. here).

But yeah, I'm pretty sure required (“necessary, mandatory, requisite”) is sometimes (in British or old-fashioned usage?) an adjective: see google books:"seems required". (If you have access to CGEL, see page 1437.)

—Ruakh_TALK 01:50, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Out of curiosity, what POS is "required" in cases like this, of "became required"?

2003, Robert A. McCaughey, Stand, Columbia : a history of Columbia University, page 293:
In 1946 the Humanities B courses abandoned the lecture format for the small-section and discussion format characteristic of the rest of the Core; a year later they too became required of all Columbia College students.

Is that just "became {required of all Columbia College students}"? What about:

2005, Peter A. Sammons, Buying knowledge: effective acquisition of external knowledge, page xiii:
Organizations increasingly became required to manage a vast array of data inputs in order to develop usable information.

Compare these uses of "became commanded" that I don't quite understand. (Are they our verb sense 4, "(transitive) to dominate through ability, resources, position; to overlook", or a related adjective?) Also this... - -sche (discuss) 02:41, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Re: "required": Adjective, I believe: "became" is like "seems" in this respect, accepting an adjective phrase, but not a participle phrase, as its complement. (But for the record, it is "became {required of all Columbia College students}". I'm not sure what distinction you're asking about there, sorry.) Re: "commanded": Again, adjective, I believe, though I wasn't familiar with this sense until now, either. —Ruakh_TALK 03:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

sissy

Err, as far as I know, the adjective sense (which is missing at the moment) is more common. ---> Tooironic 01:45, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh? I know only the noun, and its attributive use, of course, but perhaps there is another sense that is common in your part of the world. Dbfirs

I can’t think of an example that uses it as an adjective in AmE, either. I think it’s only a noun. —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:28, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

More common in American English than British English I'd say! But aren't sissier and sissiest attested? How about "more siss", "most sissy" and "very sissy"? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:48, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am unfamiliar with it in US English as an adjective, but some dictionaries have it. I wouldnn't be surprised to find it attestable as an adjective. DCDuring TALK 11:59, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah loads of citations; "very sissy" gets 132 and "the sissiest" gets 62. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:51, 9 September 2011 (UTC) (NB I mean on Google Books). Mglovesfun (talk) 21:52, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I forgot to check those. It does seem to be used as an adjective, doesn't it? Dbfirs 20:40, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, Sissy means sister as a noun. Or, Sissy could mean girly as a verb. 184.163.238.18 01:53, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

walk back a US thing?

I've never encountered the expression (deprecated template usage) walk back (e.g. "you can't walk back that promise") before today. Is it an Americanism? Fugyoo 11:44, 9 September 2011 (UTC) While I'm here, there seems to be an expression about not being able to "walk back" a cat, does that deserve an entry? Fugyoo 11:47, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The additional sense is the spy sense? If so, here's a mentiony citation from COCA:

1995 August 27, “William Safire Discusses 'Sleeper Spy,' His New Novel”, in NPR_Weekend:
WILLIAM SAFIRE: Ah, the other great internal piece of slang or colloquialism or metaphor used by the spooks, is walking back the cat. Now, to walk back the cat, as any cat owner would know, you'd have to have the cat retrace it's steps. And what you do with walking back the cat is when you learn something new suddenly you catch a spy, then you say, in the light of what we now know, let's go back a few years and see who else knew, who else should have known. In the case of Ames, who were his supervisors,

There also seems to be a noun, with plural walk backs, with several senses. — Pingku^dimmi 14:45, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Our entry for (deprecated template usage) walk is deficient in figurative senses that encompass "Let me walk you through [the factory/our plans for the event]". Consequently one must use a more reliable and complete dictionary to determine the basic senses for purposes of determining whether (deprecated template usage) walk back is SoP. (I don't think (deprecated template usage) walk through is the only collocation for that sense of walk.)

The definition given for walk back at present is so narrow that it might not be attestable. It also may be that any reasonable definition of walk back would be SoP once we had all the missing senses of (deprecated template usage) walk. DCDuring TALK 15:17, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

pranotherapy

The Italian Wikipedia has an article w:it:Pranoterapia that ought to be translated as pranotherapy but this term (or anything like it) is not in the OED or any other normal dictionary. It seems to be related to the term (deprecated template usage) prana and seems to mean faith healing by the laying on of hands. Does anyone know if it is real, and deserves an entry (nothing in our Wikipedia). SemperBlotto 07:43, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It definitely exists (bgc), but I'm not sure that all the cites refer to the same thing, though all seem to refer to some religious or pseudoscientific method of healing illness or relieving pain. Some discuss palpation, another moving the hand over the body without touching it, and about still others I'm not sure what they refer to.—msh210℠ (talk) 15:25, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Same for (deprecated template usage) pranotherapist (bgc).—msh210℠ (talk) 15:26, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

only a matter of time

My WT-foo suspects there's something not quite right about this entry. Dodgy definition or POS or lemma perhaps. --Rockpilot 20:31, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should be a noun and the main entry should be matter of time or maybe a matter of time. Fugyoo 21:08, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The example sentence given, "it looked only a matter of time before they would break through", seems odd to me. I'd have said "it looked like it would be (only) a matter of time {and/before} they would break through", in which I think of "a matter of time" as meaning "a short duration" (noun). I may be alone, though. I don't have the wherewithal to seek cites now.—msh210℠ (talk) 21:23, 14 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The example sentence sounds British to me (as indeed it is). But even in U.S. usage, I think "it's only a matter of time before X Ys" means something like "it's certain that X will eventually Y; the only thing that's needed is time" (as opposed to, say, "it's a matter of raising the necessary funds") or "it's certain that X will eventually Y; the only question is when" (as opposed to, say, "it's a matter of whether he can raise the necessary funds"). I don't think it normally implies that something will be soon, except insofar as someone is unlikely to make that sort of prediction about something they see as far-off. —Ruakh_TALK 03:04, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Move to a matter of time, retaining redirect, and add redirect from just a matter of time. DCDuring TALK 14:02, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe move to matter of time with redirect from a matter of time. One can find some adjectives, such as (deprecated template usage) simple and (deprecated template usage) mere, modifying (deprecated template usage) matter and some instances of no article. DCDuring TALK 14:07, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, move to matter of time with redirects from only a matter of time, just a matter of time, and a matter of time. I wonder if we're missing a sense of [[matter]], though (like # Question), to account for phrases like this and "it's a matter of money". - -sche (discuss) 20:33, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, none of the definitions given at [[matter]] really captures this sense, where "matter"="question". I wonder if it might be possible give a broader definition covering this sense along with senses 6 and 7 ("situation" and "cause" respectively. There are also the literary genres, often capitalised: the w:Matter of Britain, of France, and of Rome. --Avenue 09:42, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

disappear

I think we don't have yet a sense of disappear that fits the sentence "The food was so good it disappeared in five minutes." --Daniel 19:38, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You can replace "disappeared" in your sample sentence with sense 1 of disappear, "vanish", with no change in meaning: "The food was so good it vanished in five minutes." Is there some other implication or allusion that I'm missing? -- Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 20:20, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Right; compare WT:RFV#presume... it may be too much to expect a dictionary to explain the implication that it disappeared into guests' stomachs and not into thin air. - -sche (discuss) 20:27, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I dunno. This is definitely the main sense, but I think the main sense could probably do with some expansion. There's obviously a common element in these examples:

“You will never see me again,” said the genie, and disappeared.

My keys seem to have disappeared.

There used to be an option to turn off syntax-highlighting, but it disappeared in the latest version.

With increased competition from online bookstores, many brick-and-mortar stores have seen their customers — and their profit margins — disappear in recent years.

(plus Daniel Carrero's example), but the bare definition "to vanish" doesn't seem to do the sense justice. (Or actually, maybe all that's needed is to add a diversity of example sentences?)

—Ruakh_TALK 20:36, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it's just my current headspace or maybe even my upbringing and resulting perspective on English (grew up in Wash DC to northern US parents), but in all the examples listed here, replacing "disappear" with "vanish" gives me exactly the same meanings and impressions - the subject is gone / no longer visible. -- Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 21:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. The surrounding details of why and how the thing disappeared are left to the reader's intellect. Equinox ◑ 21:24, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As an addendum, my previous post was by no means intended as any opposition to including sample sentences as Ruakh mentions -- by all means, add some illustrative examples. :) -- Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 21:41, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Other dictionaries have two intransitive senses: 1., to cease of be visible or apparent; 2., to cease to be. I have no idea whether that bears on Daniel's problem with the vanishing food example. DCDuring TALK 00:32, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- That makes good sense. The syntax-highlighting-option and profit-margin usexes given by Ruakh, above, match the second of those, but not the first.—msh210℠ (talk) 17:10, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

have a handle on

For some reason, the headword is (deprecated template usage) get a handle on. (Was it moved?) I'm bringing it here rather than the cleanup page because this suggests that a sense at (deprecated template usage) handle might be all we really need. Equinox ◑ 22:35, 15 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, "(informal) understanding" or the like, with good usexes.—msh210℠ (talk) 16:55, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

extricate

Gtroy is insisting that the emergency medicine definition is not the same as the general definition (#1). My instinct is to revert and give a short block for disruptive edits, but given the history of the user, is that appropriate? Mglovesfun (talk) 10:02, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that the emergency medicine definition is exactly the same as the main definition but used in a specific context. I can't honestly see the need for a separate definition for each situation that requires extrication. SemperBlotto 10:09, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The added (redundant) sense doesn't even match the citation. Gtroy has been advised to avoid reading extra meaning into words just because the emergency medical manual uses them as trigger words for details of procedures. Much of the extra information would be more suited to Wikipedia than Wiktionary. I think the problem is enthusiasm rather than vandalism, so I'd be inclined to repeat the advice rather than block, but how do we encourage Gtroy to learn about dictionaries? Dbfirs 16:49, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Same sense. Merge it in.—msh210℠ (talk) 16:54, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, just delete the vehicle sense. Even in Emergency medicine, the word can be used for structures other than vehicles. Dbfirs 01:29, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

basicamente

Common misspelling of básicamente. Is it wise to include Spanish words with missing stress accents as misspellings? Spanish is my third language by a long way behind English and French, but I know from French that colloquially, such as on Internet forums, any word can be spelled with accents. So mère can be spelled mere (NB it's also an obsolete 'spelling' of mère before the grave accents was widely used). For me, including this is no different from including

[[england]]

as a common misspelling of England in English. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:37, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't spend enough time reading Spanish to know what misspellings are common, but -mente adverbs are complicated enough that I could readily buy this. Some of their weirdnesses:

When multiple -mente adverbs are coordinated, the -mente-s on all but the last one can be dropped. For example, "lenta y suavemente" means "{slow and soft}ly", i.e. "slowly and softly".
Prosodically, there are two accents: one on the adjective and one on the -mente. For example: /ˈlen.taˈmen.te/, /ˈba.si.kaˈmen.te/
No accent mark ever appears on the -mente.
An accent mark appears on the adjective if and only if it would appear on the adjective without -mente.

(All this becomes very simple, actually, if you turn it on its head: the only weirdness is that they're written without a space. Logically it should be básica mente, and then it would all make sense. But given that it's written as one word that defies the normal rules for accents, I can readily buy this sort of error being common.)

—Ruakh_TALK 13:51, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

you name it

I suggest this is a pronoun, not a noun. --Rockpilot 23:07, 16 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Category:English placeholder terms and Category:English coordinates. It is often used as the last element of a sequence of adjectives, verbs, nouns, nominals and whatnot. DCDuring TALK 02:37, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it is an indeterminate pronoun as is Wikipedia:Singular they. Fred Bauder 02:47, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Word Engaging

What does this sentence mean? What was the most engaging part of the story? 184.163.238.18 01:51, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The part that most engages the attention. — Pingku^dimmi 05:56, 17 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This question should've probably been asked on Wiktionary:Information desk. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 21:54, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. Striking. Equinox ◑ 21:55, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

passage

For the dressage sense, I'd hazard a guess that pronunciation is like massage. amirite? --Rockpilot 13:17, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it's just pronounced the same as the other senses of passage. BigDom (t • c) 10:47, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

to be honest and honestly

There's a difference between these two terms, isn't there? I don't think they're interchangeable at least. ---> Tooironic 23:57, 18 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I imagine that for any given speaker they won't be interchangeable, but personally I rather doubt there's any consistent difference across speakers. I dunno. What difference did you have in mind? —Ruakh_TALK 00:04, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think "to be honest" can be used as an interjection or comment of exasperation of surprise, as "honestly" can. "Honestly, if it's not one thing with you it's another." (2009, Mike T. Dark, The Church of Irrelevance, page 4.) I also don't think "to be honest" can be patronising, as "honestly" can. "But honestly Monica, the web is considered 'public domain'". - -sche (discuss) 01:54, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quite right; and also, only "honestly" can be a regular manner adverb; but I assume that Tooironic meant in their respective senses of (roughly) "frankly", since we already cover the other senses. (I believe the patronizing use that you describe is actually the same as the interjective expression of exasperation; "Honestly, I don't know why I try" is ambiguous between "Honestly! I don't know why I try" and "I don't know, honestly, why I try", where only the former reading can express exasperation.) —Ruakh_TALK 02:12, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

kicking boots

In this sentence, there's a nice construction "if he'd remembered his kicking boots" which means "if he'd been kicking the ball well". This construction is worthy of inclusion here, but where to put it? I'm housing it at kicking boots for now, but this doesn't seem right. --Rockpilot 09:27, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

- 2011 September 18, Ben Dirs, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 41-10 Georgia”, in BBC Sport‎^[9]:
  As in their narrow defeat of Argentina last week, England were indisciplined at the breakdown, and if Georgian fly-half Merab Kvirikashvili had remembered his kicking boots, Johnson's side might have been behind at half-time.

Similar phrases might be throwing arm, coaching hat, running socks, ski legs. --Rockpilot 09:30, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And sea legs, outside a sporting context. Equinox ◑ 17:32, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

made of sterner stuff

This could also be "made of stern stuff" (as in one of the quotations currently on the page), "made of less stern stuff", "composed of such stern stuff", etc, so I suggest a main entry at stern stuff with soft redirects from (made of) sterner stuff etc. Fugyoo 11:08, 19 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

... but only made of sterner stuff is an idiom (or do I mean cliché?) Each of the others is just a sum of parts -- or maybe just a play on the words of the standard phrase. Dbfirs 13:45, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

GIYF

Hi guys. What is the standard pronunciation for this acronym? --ArséniureDeGallium 18:15, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I expect most people would just pronounce the letters if they were going to pronounce it at all. Fugyoo 23:09, 20 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

nasılsın

A phrase? Or interjection? --Rockpilot 19:40, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say a phrase. nasıl is "how" and the suffix -sın is "you are". It's also informal, and the formal way would be nasılsınız. Whoot — [Ric Laurent] — 19:44, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

finish with

Is this really idiomatic? After all, you can be finished with your morning paper. ---> Tooironic 21:57, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can "'finish with' a glass of port and a cigar", too. This all stems from having entries for phrasal verbs with no objective criteria for distinguishing a phrasal verb from an ordinary verb with an adjunct. DCDuring TALK 23:13, 21 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I remember first coming across this, in a Red Dwarf book: "Dave, she [an ex-girlfriend] finished with you." It sounded curious to me, like one of those specifically American idioms (I've no idea whether it is one). "She finished things with you" or even "she has finished with you" would sound more natural somehow. Equinox ◑ 19:40, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

exactly

What are some synonyms of exactly? Please provide at least two as soon as possible. Thanks! 01:15, 13 September 2011 (UTC) — This unsigned comment was added by 75.6.249.43 (talk).

I don't know which usage of exactly you have in mind, but I think precisely is usually the closest match. Quite and just are also often pretty close. And in specific situations, there may be other words with the same effect; for example, "exactly opposed" and "diametrically opposed" are synonymous, but exactly and diametrically are not generally synonyms. —Ruakh_TALK 02:46, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ruakh: See the last comment in the section "Hello". 00:24, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

don't mom me!

Can Wiktionary be used to understand the second sentence of this small conversation?

— Mom...

— Don't "mom" me!

--Daniel 14:22, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt it. This is a pretty regular pattern in English; see google books:"don't yes dear me", google books:"don't honey me" (especially this one, which discusses it), etc. The sense is sometimes clearly "Don't say ... to me" and sometimes clearly "Don't call me ...", but IME usually ambiguous between the two. —Ruakh_TALK 14:41, 22 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When this exchange happens, whether it’s "don’t ‘mom’ me", or "don’t ‘sweety’ me", "don’t ‘honey’ me", or whatever, it means that the first speaker is trying to reason with the second speaker, to try to calm him or her down. So, "don’t ‘mom’ me" means "don’t try to assuage my anger," "don’t try to soften me up."

BTW, this is different from saying something like "I’ll "Golden Bull" you", which is a manner of threat. —Stephen ^(Talk) 17:15, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cf. hello yourself, and see how you like it, another use of a word used in greeting turned into a verb with direct object the one being greeted. I doubt it's keepable. (Yes, I know I wrote it.) Likewise, I doubt a verb sense of mom is keepable: and certainly not if it's only attested with quote marks around it, as in the examples given above.—msh210℠ (talk) 04:12, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not whatever; "don't boy me" isn't about the first speaker trying to calm the second speaker down.--Prosfilaes 02:42, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do other languages do this (i.e. turn a phrase or intj into a makeshift verb)? Equinox ◑ 19:37, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here are my random answers to what people said above:

In Portuguese, there is a perfect translation for "Don't 'mom' me!": "Não me venha com 'mãe'!"
Very good explanation, Stephen. When I started this thread, I assumed I already knew the mening of "Don't 'mom' me", but you made everything simpler, for my personal mentalese.
In Google Books, about half the results for "Don't mom me" in the first page don't have quote marks around "mom".

--Daniel 10:23, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No doubt the first speaker wants to sound reasonable, but may not actually be reasoning: they might be sweet-talking or bamboozling; that at least is how it might appear to the second speaker, eliciting the response. But presumably some relationship also has to be involved: in what circumstances might someone say, for instance, "don’t ‘Professor’ me", "don’t ‘Super Intendant’ me"?

surveil

Is it really "nonstandard"? According to whom? ---> Tooironic 06:17, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Me apparently! I changed {{neologism}} to {{nonstandard}}, 71.111.229.19 (talk) added the original neologism tag. --Mglovesfun (talk) 08:38, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why, though? There are over 35,000 hits on Google Books. ---> Tooironic 11:37, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you mean 'why did I use a nonstandard tag' the IP added neologism, then added it back when it was removed, so I tried to find a 'happy medium' between that and no tag at all. FWIW I thought the standard term was survey. How do you pronounce surveil, do you drop the 'l' and pronounce it as survey, or what? --Mglovesfun (talk) 11:41, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, the L is pronounced: like sir-veil. London is the most surveilled city in the world, with four million cameras. It doesn’t mean survey, it means watch, observe. —Stephen ^(Talk) 16:33, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Chambers 2005 has surveille (verb) but not surveil. Equinox ◑ 16:34, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merriam-Webster has surveil but not surveille. M-W says surveil is a transitive verb meaning to subject to surveillance; a back-formation from surveillance; first attested in 1914. —Stephen ^(Talk) 17:23, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Aside from this, we're missing surveyance, which is defined in several other online dictionaries. —CodeCa t 15:47, 2 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ﬁsherwomen

The first character is a ligature of f and i together. Are these entries standard practice and desirable? Equinox ◑ 15:58, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t think so. In English printing, these ligatures (ff, fi, ffi, fl, ffl), although very important in high-end typography when setting text in certain fonts (most of the serif fonts), are never input or stored as ligatures. The ligatures are a feature that is turned on or off inside the graphics layout program (Quark XPress, Adobe Illustrator, etc.). There is no need to use hard ligatures like this, and they interfere with spell-checking, hyphenation, search functions, line justification, and other DTP actions that need to be performed. —Stephen ^(Talk) 16:23, 23 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nasty!. Should be deleted (make sure you delete the right one - I can't see the difference). SemperBlotto 07:05, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ligatured ﬁsherwoman already redirects to unligatured fisherwoman, so I'm just redirecting this one to unligatured fisherwoman. Semper, if you can't see the difference, try selecting the word with your cursor one letter at a time. If the f and the i can't be selected separately, you've got a ligature. —An gr 08:26, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So now we have entries for ligatures that can't be seen in the default typeface of Wiktionary? WTF? DCDuring TALK 12:34, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can't we make the auto-redirect feature catch ligatures and redirect them to the non-ligated form, much like what's done with long ſ? To me, this appears to be easier than creating thousands of possible redirects. -- Liliana • 13:09, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Our existing auto-redirect can't easily be extended to do that, no. I was actually surprised to find that it doesn't already catch it, but it turns out that {{uc:ﬁ}} produces ﬁ (i.e., no change) rather than FI, so my convert-to-uppercase-then-back-to-lowercase trick (ſ→S→s) doesn't work for ﬁ. That said, our existing approach is about redirecting from redlinks to bluelinks, so it makes use of server-side {{#ifexist:…}}, which means it depends on server-side techniques for generating the new page-name; but in the case of entry-titles containing ﬁ, we may want to redirect them even if the destination is a redlink, too. —Ruakh_TALK 14:05, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Anything to discourage the creation of actual entries with such characters. Who would be looking up terms with these characters other than a creator of such entries? DCDuring TALK 15:53, 24 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'd consider this a sort of vanity entry. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:00, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

final table

I'm trying to decide if "final table" in the context of poker is sum of parts or not. It means when there is a field of players, when enough have them have been knocked out that the remaining players can combine onto one table. Seems kinda SoP, it goes to the heart of WT:CFI's "An expression is “idiomatic” if its full meaning cannot be easily derived from the meaning of its separate components." It depends how good you are at decoding. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:28, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does it refer to the table formed from the remaining combined players, or (as you seem to be saying) a point in the game where such a table can be formed? Equinox ◑ 13:31, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It refers to the lineup of players; I added the sense to table#English yesterday. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:32, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at a number of cites it does seem to be used as any of these: the group of players comprising the final table ("one of the eight players who make up the final table for Sunday"), the point in a tournament where the final table is established ("after the break we will move on to final table play"), and a way of describing success other than victory at a tournament (akin to "top-10s" or "showings", "he has had eight final tables since 2002"). For a term as loaded as that I might say it is worth defining even if some or all of those meanings are SoP individually. - [The]DaveRoss 13:41, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the last two are the same. "A very strong final table" refers to the players, or "a very young final table", but as you say, "Hellmuth holds the records for most WSOP cashes (85) and most WSOP final tables (45), overtaking T. J. Cloutier." (w:Phil Hellmuth), that really refers to the stage of the tournament. I think the two senses overlap, but it's very hard to word them into one sense without using the word or which suggests separateness. I've commented on this at Talk:table. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:59, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Now I think about it, at the US Open of tennis, a "young final" would also refer to the players. Perhaps it is just one sense. Still, I think final table might still meet CFI, depending on how you interpret the passage. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:19, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

hemeroteca

I came across the Spanish word hemeroteca in a news article. We didn't have an entry for it, but it turns out to be a pretty common word, whose primary sense is roughly "A place where periodicals are archived for consultation"; in that sense it usually refers to a part of a library, to the point that es:hemeroteca defines it as one. (The term also has some extended senses; for example, it can refer to the archived periodicals, taken as a whole, and it can refer to an online location instead of a physical one. In general, think library, but specific to periodicals.) The same word exists in French, in the form hémérothèque, but in that language it seems to be relatively rare.

Is there an English word for this? Obviously there's not a common one — even the prosaic "newspaper library", es:hemeroteca's English translation, doesn't get nearly as many Google-hits as hemeroteca does — but I wonder if there's even a rare calque?

—Ruakh_TALK 14:24, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(deprecated template usage) Hemeroteque gets some use — [10], [11], [12] — not enough AFAICT to meet the CFI. (My strategy was to Google +"hemeroteque|hemerotheque" -hémérothèque. There were a couple of other results, but they seemed to be quoting French, even though they did so unitalicizedly.)—msh210℠ (talk) 15:13, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if I'd even say, based on your links, that hemeroteque gets "some" use; all three of those are by Spaniards, and the second and third are by the same Spaniard whose English in 2007 was really bad. By 2010 his/her English seems to have improved, but still, it doesn't inspire much confidence. :-P —Ruakh_TALK 23:29, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Periodicals room, periodical room, periodicals reading room, and periodical reading room all see some use, though all are SOP, natch.—msh210℠ (talk) 19:18, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! —Ruakh_TALK 23:29, 25 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

IMO, sums of parts need to be includable as translations, for those languages that don't have a term for something. They just probably shouldn't be linked or have their own pages. Equinox ◑ 19:33, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

öf

Hello.

I bought some salmon in the Dublin airport, and the plastic bag they use to pack my smoked fish was marked with the label "Wrights öf Howth". See also this image.

Do you know the reason why they are putting an umlaut on öf? --ArséniureDeGallium 17:30, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just looking at the photo, it appears to be purely stylistic -- note that the signage on the right of the photo, where the words are all in caps, there is no umlaut. If the umlaut were important to the spelling, it would be included, even in the caps, as can be seen here with the text Hofbräuhaus München, for instance. -- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 17:47, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That is known as the w:Metal umlaut, or heavy-metal umlaut. It’s decorative. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:42, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A.k.a. röck döts. But I'd never seen it outside the context of metal music. Equinox ◑ 19:46, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's used here to invoke a Germanic sentiment either, because Howth is a peninsula near Dublin known for its fishing industry. Although Dublin does have a connection with the Vikings, so maybe... —CodeCa t 10:36, 27 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So it doesn't exist in English (nor in irish gaelic). Thank you for the answers. --ArséniureDeGallium 21:00, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Skirty meaning sarcastic or rude

Is there a use of the word "skirty" with this meaning, or something like it? (or any meaning I guess) Possibly dialectical? — This comment was unsigned.

shirty means something like this. I've never heard of skirty. Equinox ◑ 19:30, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The OED has "skirty" as both a noun and an adjective. The noun is just skirt + -y, a colloquial or childish form of skirt. And the adjective is a Lincolnshire dialect word for a fen which is a mixture of peat, silt and/or clay. BigDom (t • c) 22:25, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Pokémon again

I find it hard to see the rationale for us having Basic Pokémon and Baby Pokémon (both hyper-specific terms within the Pokémon toy community) when we have long since removed the entry for Pokémon and turned it into a Wikipedia redirect. Comments? Equinox ◑ 20:23, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How does this satisfy CFI? I am interested to know. Does this mean I can start include card types from w:Magic the Gathering as well? Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 21:46, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Words used in specific games are a confusing issue. Knight is included in the chess sense, but the entry does not have any of the senses of it being used in other games (w:Settlers of Catan, for example). I have no idea what would happen if I added the w:Xiangqi sense of elephant to the entry. We have three in-game senses of king (card games, chess, checkers), but there are probably many lesser-known games that use "king" for other things... --Yair rand 21:59, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I find it hard to believe that those are analogous. The name of a generic piece within a game (like knight in chess, or tile in Scrabble) is not the same thing as the name of a specific character within a game (like Pikachu in Pokémon, or Colonel Mustard in Clue/Cluedo). The latter are more akin to characters in books. Equinox ◑ 22:05, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Basic Pokémon and Baby Pokémon aren't fictional characters within a game the way that Pikachu is. They are types of cards, like a jack, only in a far lesser-known game. --Yair rand 22:10, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. Okay. But they are respectively (i) Pokémon that are basic (simple or unexpanded in some way) and (ii) Pokémon that are babies (small or ungrown in some way). This can already be determined from our definitions at (deprecated template usage) basic and (deprecated template usage) baby. It is not for us to list every specific meaning of an adjective in every specific game: they are specialisations chosen by the game creator. Equinox ◑ 22:14, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, I don't know. They are spelled with capital letters, so they might be similar to "(capitalized direction) (place name)", referring to a section of the place in the direction, but with specific borders... Or perhaps they're similar to the card game sense of hearts, which basically refers to cards with heart shapes on them, or revealed check, which also seems to be a specialization... --Yair rand 23:07, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some people, in past discussions, seemed to give far more value to terms of chess, and card games, and other games, simply because they are mainstream, or very old, or something like that. This reasoning is worthy of being considered, either as a simple catch-all solution to this problem, or as a big bureucratic can of worms of "what" can be valuable that way. Tetris, Monopoly and Minesweeper are mainstream enough to me, for example; even though I don't know exactly why anyone would seek a glossary for the last one.

"Basic Pokémon" is not a character, in the sense that it does not have a role in a fictional story. It is an object of a game. To be fair, someone could conceivably utter a sentence like "My Basic Pokémon defeated yours!", that does seem to rationalize the game object as a character. However, that is not exclusively a privilege of Pokémon; for one can do the same thing with chess pieces, as well: "My pawn took your queen." --Daniel 23:58, 26 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

-corn

Is this an English suffix, as shown? What English words have been formed with it, that aren't wholesale borrowings from other languages? e.g. the example unicorn wasn't formed in English. Equinox ◑ 22:02, 28 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well there's cavicorn, clavicorn, lamellicorn, longicorn, naricorn, nodicorn, pectinicorn, plenicorn, plumicorn, quadricorn, ramicorn, serricorn, taxicorn, tricorn, and tubicorn, but they all look Latin to me. I would have thought that the suffix was more common in modern non-scientific English with the other etymology. Dbfirs 01:19, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Many

NOTE: These are not homework questions. 01:31, 30 September 2011 (UTC) — This unsigned comment was added by 75.6.243.251 (talk).

So, what are they? —Ruakh_TALK 15:44, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Adverb

Adverb form of continue? 01:31, 30 September 2011 (UTC) — This unsigned comment was added by 75.6.243.251 (talk).

continually. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:19, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

continuedly. — Pingku^dimmi 16:36, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

continuously. Ƿidsiþ 05:58, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fundamentally none, since continue isn't an adjective, you can't form an adverb from it. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:15, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

-mb

Words that end in silent "mb" (example: comb, climb)? 01:31, 30 September 2011 (UTC) — This unsigned comment was added by 75.6.243.251 (talk).

bomb, climb, comb, crumb, dumb, jamb, lamb, limb, numb, thumb. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:19, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also corymb and iamb (presumably). You can find mostly English words ending like this by searching for

*mb

There might be a way to exclude non-English results but I don't know it. Fugyoo 21:39, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, the B is pronounced in both of those. Ƿidsiþ 05:59, 1 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ei

Words with "ei" (example: receive)? 01:31, 30 September 2011 (UTC) — This unsigned comment was added by 75.6.243.251 (talk).

ceiling, conceit, conceive, deceit, deceive, eight, either, freight, heifer, heir, leisure, neigh, neighbor, neither, perceive, receipt, reign, rein, seize, sheik, skein, sleigh, their, veil, vein, weigh, weight, weir, weird. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:19, 30 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]