Wiktionary:Tea room/2014/June

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This is an archive page that has been kept for historical purposes. The conversations on this page are no longer live.

duis

Latin is an obsolete language, thus I don't think the "archaic" tag makes much sense. --WikiTiki89 23:06, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How about pre-Classical? — Ungoliant (falai) 23:21, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
If that is what was meant, then sure. The problem is it is not clear (at least to me) what was meant. --WikiTiki89 23:29, 1 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This might even be Old Latin, which we now consider a separate language (itc-ola). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:56, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Also: Category:Latin archaic terms, Category:Latin archaic forms, Category:Latin terms with archaic senses, Category:Latin terms with obsolete senses. --WikiTiki89 14:05, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

deperdits - found the Paley quote

I just came across "deperdits" while reading Paley. I looked it up and landed here, where the wiki page was asking for a quote from Paley! I am not sure of the syntax for editing the page, so I will copy the quote here and ask someone to fix it.

"...we might have nations of human beings without nails upon their fingers, with more or fewer fingers and toes than ten... No reason can be given why, if these deperdits ever existed, they have now disappeared."

Paley, Natural Theology, Ch. 5, objection #4 https://archive.org/stream/naturaltheology00pale#page/n15/mode/2up

It's a very interesting quote, because it poses the question that Darwin's idea of Natural Selection answers. — This comment was unsigned.

Done Done Added. Thanks. Equinox ◑ 17:27, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

katabasis

The definition of katabasis includes "a trip from the interior of a country to the coast." But katabasis is given as an antonym for anabasis, and the most common use of this word is for Xenophon's work describing of a trip from the interior of the area we now call the Middle East to the coast of the Black Sea (at Trapezus [Trebizond], if I remember correctly). There seems to be a disconnect here. — This unsigned comment was added by Mzthguy (talk • contribs).

Anababasis in the title of the work refers to the first part of the trip—from Sardis into Babylonia. After defeat in Babylonia it was a katabasis, through Armenia to the coast of the Black Sea. --Vahag (talk) 22:38, 3 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

foret

I was looking up the Latin form 'foret' and it only gave me 'third-person singular present active subjunctive of forō', which I assume is there automatically, since it is a regular inflection of that word. However, in the text I'm translating (Ilias Latina), and probably a lot more frequently, it is a actually third-person singular imperfect active subjunctive of sum, which can only be found in the entry 'fore', and there only in the Etymology section ('old Latin has alternate present and imperfect subjunctive forms fuam and forem (for classical sim and essem)'). I didn't want to change anything, since I don't know whether there is any standard way of adding alternate or archaic forms to the standard inflections, and I don't know whether it's standard policy not to list such forms. If it isn't, however, someone who knows how to do it might want to change it. Sorry for weird sentences, English isn't my first language.

We actually treat Old Latin as a separate language from Latin (just as we treat Old English as a separate language from English, although there the differences are much greater than between Old Latin and Classical Latin), and our coverage of Old Latin is minimal at the moment. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:23, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
So the correct way of doing it would be adding an entry for Old Latin sum and then somehow adding alternate forms for that entry? — Blarkh (talk) 10:29, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

quaeram

I'm pretty sure that this is 1st person singular PRESENT active subjunctive, not future active subjunctive.

Actually it should be both present active subjunctive and future active indicative. --Blarkh (talk) 12:52, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed. I just said "future" rather than "future indicative" since the future tense is always indicative in Latin. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:38, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

pussy-puller, pull some pussy

I'm not sure what these locutions mean. What sense of pull is used here? It seems close to 6, but when I read this from Urban Dictionary ("I can pull pussy from my GIRLFRIEND, not nasty hookers.") I don't know if it applies perfectly. --Fsojic (talk) 21:27, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps sense 4? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:42, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I read it as simply "get, obtain". Checking MWOnline shows that among the 28 senses that it has for pull (verb), none of which is restricted by region or register, are "extract" and "obtain, secure". The other subsenses with "extract" are more or less concrete, so "obtain, secure" would seem the closest, which fits my reading. DCDuring TALK 23:32, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

not know that

Would it be possible to mention somewhere the type of construction seen here or here? --Fsojic (talk) 23:05, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If we had an appendix on w:Epistemic modality, especially w:Evidentiality, I would suggest a redirect to it. But I don't know that we will ever have such an appendix and I doubt that a redirect to the wikipedia article would be a sufficient service to Wiktionary users. A lexical entry using both {{&lit}} and {{n-g}} (non-gloss def.) that resembled Oxford's seems appropriate. Alternatively we could redirect to a suitable usage note at know#Verb or an appropriate sense of know.
Further, if this type of modal expression is not SoP entirely, isn't its use to express doubt limited to its use in the first person, almost always singular, but possibly plural. DCDuring TALK 23:25, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Seemandhra

I wonder what the proper noun is used to mean in Indian English. Are there any ideas about that? Is it related to Andhra Pradesh? --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 18:48, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Seemandhra = సీమాంధ్ర (sīmāndhra) in Telugu, from సీమ + ఆంధ్ర (Andhra region). Even though it is a Telugu state, the name Andhra Pradesh is Sanskrit, meaning Andhra country, country of the Andhra tribe. Seemandhra means Andhra region. —Stephen (Talk) 18:06, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
TY for answering, Stephen. --Lo Ximiendo (talk) 01:17, 2 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

pushi

Someone told me that pushi means cat in Papiamento. There is no WT:RE:pap so this was the best place I could think of. Renard Migrant (talk) 20:18, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Done Done. — Ungoliant (falai) 22:47, 7 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

just so you know

Worth an entry? --Fsojic (talk) 22:29, 8 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

As much as many. DCDuring TALK 01:00, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think so. --WikiTiki89 13:54, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

humble abode

Surprised this was deleted. Any chance we can rethink this? (BTW it has an excellent translation in Chinese - 蝸居). ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:02, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

See the brief RfD discussion. DCDuring TALK 12:25, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Where should we put translations for this then? —CodeCat 13:02, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
At abode, perhaps? This feels awfully SOP to me. It's a cliché, but not an idiom. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:47, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
But that's the problem with these kinds of fixed phrases. The translation of the phrase may not be the same as the translation of each part. In Dutch, the translation is nederig stulpje, but it's not at all obvious from any information that's currently on Wiktionary. It's also not obvious where it would be placed. Certainly putting it as a derived term of nederig and stulp is not going to help anyone looking for a translation of humble abode. I therefore continue to believe that English fixed phrases should have entries with transliteration tables, even if they consist of words that can be understood individually in context. —CodeCat 14:55, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This exists in a grey area. It has a stronger claim of idiomaticity than a set phrase like "take a photograph", IMO, and it has a very different register / connotative meaning (it's informal) than "abode" has outside this phrase (it's obsolete / literary). On the other hand, it is possible to understand the denotative meaning of the phrase from [[humble]] and [[abode]]. The translations are similarly grey: nederig stulpje and bescheidene Hütte are just "humble [word for a kind of abode]", not really anything counter-intuitive enough that I would think [[humble abode]] needed to exist as a translation target. On a technical note, the standard place to request undeletion of things is WT:RFD (but I personally don't mind one way or the other, if we move this discussion or keep having it here). - -sche (discuss) 16:28, 9 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It is sufficiently well established that "welcome to my humble" is understood. Rich Farmbrough, 15:17, 17 July 2014 (UTC).[reply]
Yeah, but that's just as likely to be omitting "home" as "abode". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:20, 17 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Merely being a common collocation does not merit an entry in a traditional dictionary. "Dark night" is overwhelmingly more frequent than "black, gloomy, dull, etc. night" (it's a well-known example in corpus linguistics) but I don't see why it should have an entry. We would have to devise some entirely new form of dictionary to accommodate such things. Equinox ◑ 13:26, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ferris Wheel

No etymology given. — This unsigned comment was added by JohnWheater (talk • contribs).

We have got {{rfe}} for that. — Keφr 09:20, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The Ferris wheel was named after its designer, engineer George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., in 1893 at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. —Stephen (Talk) 18:45, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Done Done Equinox ◑ 18:53, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

тоже

In "usage notes" for the Russian word тоже it says: "The word тоже (tože) can only be used when two different subjects share the same verb" - but I have seen many examples of it being used with two objects that share the same verb and subject: ("я хочу сок, воду... и пиво я тоже хочу"). Could someone with better knowledge of Russian clear this up? - Ryan White (talk) 19:44, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think that usage note is complete bogus. The real difference between тоже (tože) and также (takže) is that the former means "also/too/as well" and the latter means "likewise/in a similar manner". --WikiTiki89 21:56, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There is no real difference between то́же (tóže) and та́кже (tákže). The former is more common and they have different etymologies - то́же (tóže): то́ же (tó že) (the same object, neutral), та́кже (tákže): та́к же (ták že) ("likewise, in a similar manner"), cognate with Polish także and Ukrainian тако́ж (takóž) with the same meaning. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 23:37, 11 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

(the) other man

Surprised we don't have this since we already have (the) other woman. ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:34, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't you make it? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 00:48, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think either of them are idiomatic, and additionally I have never heard the male version. --WikiTiki89 12:29, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
other woman is definitely idiomatic, and other man is probably attestable though rather rarer. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:09, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Of course they're idiomatic. And "the other man" should be attestable on Google Books, though obviously not as common. ---> Tooironic (talk) 23:54, 13 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Added, attested from three titles, all of them found on WP. Choor monster (talk) 13:13, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

laughing

There's something about this word that we don't adequately cover (and it might possibly be specific to Britain), as in: "The exam sounds hard, but read such-and-such a book and you're laughing [i.e. in an advantageous position]." It only occurs in the -ing form so it is rather tempting to add it as an adjective, but then it also only occurs predicatively (never attributively); can we usefully document it, and how? Equinox ◑ 20:42, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • The lemma should be and you're laughing (and it is most definitely British or Commonwealth, and not really very old). I would suggest the phrase means something like "(after carrying out some operation) there will be no problems and everything will work to your advantage". SemperBlotto (talk) 09:24, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see how the pronoun can be part of the lemma as other pronouns can work. It seems like progressive/continuative aspect. It could also be used with the present tense, at least the "historical present" and with a kind of "irrealis" in which someone is talking about an imagined situation. I could also imagine the futue progressive. I would put it at laugh, say that it was "usually" in the continuative, progressive form and "usually" UK/Commonwealth. Usage examples and sense-specific redirects might be appropriate from some of the particularly common forms. DCDuring TALK 17:23, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Is this derived from laugh all the way to the bank or the source of it? DCDuring TALK 17:27, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

fuck you

On the talk page, an IP raises the IMO valid point that senses 1-3 all seem to mean the same thing and could be merged into sense 2. - -sche (discuss) 21:05, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely. The interjection has very little intrinsic meaning beyond a very strong rejection of the person being spoken to. The shades of meaning all come from the context. It would be like breaking ow up into senses for "stop it, you're hurting me!", "I just stepped on something", and "touché- that argument hit home". Chuck Entz (talk) 22:09, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Definitely merge 1 and 3. Perhaps 2 as well. Equinox ◑ 00:12, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

ouch

Funny that Chuck would mention "ow" (in the previous section), since we do split a number of senses of "ouch". I don't mind that, except that I don't think the last sense, "expressing surprise at a high price", is actually limited to the Commonwealth. Even Americans would say "ouch, that's almost enough to buy a house" if told a car cost 100 000 dollars, wouldn't they? - -sche (discuss) 02:26, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like a Borgesian listing of definitions. IMO 3, 4, and 5 should be combined. They are not a mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive list of all virtual or metaphorical pains or causes of virtual pain. Nor do they even span the range of possibilities. Sense 2 should include sympathetic reaction to another's virtual or metaphorical pain. DCDuring TALK 03:55, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would merge all five. --WikiTiki89 07:05, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"An expression of pain caused by an (emotional or physical) injury, insult, disappointment or shock, or by sympathy for another's pain."? Hmm, that fits all of the current senses under its roof. It does seem a bit broad as a result. OTOH, other dictionaries only have one sense: oxforddictionaries.com "used to express pain", Merriam Webster "sudden pain", Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary "sudden pain", dictionary.com "sudden pain or dismay". - -sche (discuss) 15:21, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The use of ouch to express sympathy seems to be a use that other dictionaries miss and that is different in kind from a use relating to one's own pain, whether physical or not. The same sound is used to both elicit and express sympathy. It seems as distinct as hello as a greeting and hello to draw attention to a surprise affecting another person. It is a kind of speech act which merits mention as much as the various loving differentiation we lavish or tolerate in other terms.
BTW, it looks as if ouch#Noun and ouch#Verb, both in this etymology, are attestable. DCDuring TALK 18:39, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Nauruan definition

For the Nauruan word nga, English wiktionary lists the definition "I, me", whereas the Nauruan Wiktionary seems to indicate that the word means "moon". Are both definitions correct? Orthogonal (talk) 22:35, 14 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To confuse things more, there's this article at Nauruan Wiktionary Wikipedia, as well as the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database, that say the word for moon is maraman, which doesn't seem to be from the Proto=Oceanic root (*pulan) common to related languages. There is a Proto-Oceanic root *ŋau for I that shows up as ŋa for many of the Oceanic languages in Blust's Austronesian Comparative Dictionary, so our definition is at least plausible, though the Austronesian Basic Vocabulary Database gives a and aŋa. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:34, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Whereas, if nga meant "moon", it would also (like maraman) seem to be a loanword, taken like nga#Vietnamese from Chinese.
This fellow on na.WP has tables of pronouns, said to be based on "Kayser’s Nauruan Grammar and other written sources", which have "nanga~naña" / "a~A" as the first person singular. Lisa M Johnson's Firstness of Secondness in Nauruan Morphology has some examples of Nauruan pronouns in sentences, including
  • a pudun
    1sing fall+Vn
    I fell
    a nuwawen
    1pers.sing. go+Vn
    I did go. (I left.)
    a kaiotien aem
    [1pers.sing.] [hear+Vn] [your words]
    I hear what you said.
    a nan imoren
    1pers.sing. FUT health+Vn
    I shall be cured (get better).
... which doesn't get us closer to determining what "nga" means, per se, but it confirms that "a" is a first-person pronoun.
- -sche (discuss) 02:04, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, the simple expedient of searching google books:Nauruan nga moon turns up nothing, while google books:Nauruan nga pronoun turns up
  • 1978, Pacific Linguistics, issues 1-2 / 61, page 1081:
    [...] represent an early fusion of an 'emphatic' absolute pronoun prefix *ng(a) to a pre-PMC *a|. This prefix is found on all absolute pronouns in Gilbertese and on a set of emphatic/Subject proouns in Nauruan (a language not otherwise considered in this study). It might be noted that NAU ng- prefixes to all emphatic pronouns in that lanuage except anga 'I (absolute and emphatic/subject)'. Gilbertese ngngai 'I (absolute)' [...]
...while this confirms that "moon" is maraman. I'd say just move the content which is current at nga to a. - -sche (discuss) 02:17, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It turns out that maraman has a perfectly respectable Proto-Oceanic pedigree: it comes from the root *ma-ramaR meaning "shine, shining, bright", which has a strong tendency to be substituted for the other root I mentioned above as a word for the moon: in Proto-Nuclear-Micronesian (*rama, *ma-rama), and even Hawaiian malama. I find it curious that the Austronesian Comparative Dictionary has only three Nauruan words, and the Micronesian Comparative Dictionary carefully avoids Nauruan altogether- even though Nauruan is generally classified as a Micronesian language. Apparently, Nauruan doesn't play well with comparativists...
At any rate, the answer to the OP's question: "Are both definitions correct?" would seem to be "no, neither is", except when a prefix is added to the real first-person pronoun, a. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:10, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thanks! As per the suggestions, I've removed the definition from nga and added it to a.Orthogonal (talk) 03:14, 15 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Both nga and a appear to mean "I" in Nauruan. Don't think a hypothetical Nauruan nga ("moon") could have come from Chinese via Vietnamese (V. nga); if that is the case, one might as well argue for a Sino-Tibetan origin of Nauruan nga ("I") (V. ngã)... Wyang (talk) 00:30, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The Nauruan Wiktionary entry is probably wrong. The same edit that added moon as its English translation added the Spanish translation lua, but that’s Portuguese. The IP is confusing languages. — Ungoliant (falai) 00:52, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

bring oneself to sth

Worth an entry? --Fsojic (talk) 12:42, 16 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have usage examples? I think what you mean is bring oneself to do something: I can’t bring myself to break up with her. She could not bring herself to sell her dog. —Stephen (Talk) 14:30, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I should have added "do". So, do you think "bring oneself to do sth" is idiomatic? --Fsojic (talk) 15:41, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In my opinion, it is idiomatic. —Stephen (Talk) 15:48, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 21:16, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Me too, and it isn't covered by any current sense of bring as far as I can tell. But the lemma should be bring oneself to, without "do". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:23, 19 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

am I right?

We have an entry for the rhetorical question "am I right or am I right". A plain "am I right" is also used as a rhetorical question. Is that worth a separate entry? Choor monster (talk) 14:17, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I created "am I right or am I right" because "or" isn't generally used this way; it's humorous and unusual. "Am I right?" seems transparent in meaning to me. Equinox ◑ 17:31, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I feel like it's actually a snowclone. You can say "Am I awesome or am I awesome?" --WikiTiki89 19:19, 17 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The rhetorical version is also humorous, if less unusual. Certainly if you google for "am I right" you will get endless examples that are ordinary questions. As evidence for this distinction, the rhetorical version alone has mutated into amirite. That is, the rhetorical version is inherently funny, worth emphasizing. There's nothing funny with the ordinary version, so nothing to emphasize. Choor monster (talk) 13:23, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sounding like sonding?

Am I crazy, or is this mistaken? The entry sounding gives separate UK (/ˈsaʊndɪŋ/) and US (/ˈsoʊndɪŋ/) pronunciations. I've never heard that supposed US pronunciation, and I lived in the US for much of my life. I note that sound doesn't have /soʊnd/, so maybe somebody just misunderstood IPA transcription? Cnilep (talk) 07:57, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it's just a mistake. The US line even included enPR: soundʹĭng, which means /ˈsaʊndɪŋ/, so I think someone was thrown off by the "ou" in the enPR transcription. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:36, 18 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

There are references to the origin of "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" as being found in the bible. I heard it also said to be from the Trojan horse story. It goes like this: The wooden horse was looked upon as a suspicious gift. Soldiers climbed a ladder to see inside its mouth and saw nothing to concern them. So: Don't look a gift horse in the mouth...look in it's belly. Jake Schur--Viboraojo (talk) 15:23, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's not in the Bible itself, as far as I know, but is said to have appeared in a Latin introduction written later. As for the Trojan Horse derivation: that seems like one of the stories people make up to explain phrases like this- it doesn't match the meaning of the phrase, nor does it seem to fit the story of the Trojan horse. Besides, looking in the mouth of a horse is something one would have done before buying a horse: there's a lot to learn about the horse's age by looking there. The expression makes perfect sense without resorting to questionable stories. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:48, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Latin spelling

What is correct spelling of Latin words? by this I mean what are the rules of assimilation? because I saw that we have for an example obsideo and opsideo, one is spelled morphologically other phonologically. Are there similar cases and which is correct or at least considered more correct. This is sore interesting, for there are no examples of dual spellings in for example supscripsi or subscribsi, or nubta form nubo but only nupta. This is also seen in words like adpropero and appropero or similar words. So basically what I ask is if there are some principle or rule by someone or somewho that would decide or byput which spelling is more correct for upnow use in modern Latin. 95.178.129.219 21:51, 20 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

dug

The current entry reads:

dug (plural dugs)

(chiefly in the plural) Mammary gland on domestic mammal containing more than two breasts.
Apparently this has been a bit different in the past. An English-Dutch dictionary from 1648 by Hexham has:
een vrouwe die groote mammen heeft, A woman that hath great Duggs.

Jcwf (talk) 02:40, 22 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

ethnic slurs

Americunt seems to be a good example; it has (slang, offensive, derogatory, ethnic slur). Why not just (ethnic slur), or at least (slang, ethnic slur)? Ethnic slurs is a subcategory of offensive terms, making this improper in categorization terms. As for derogatory and slang, aren't those also clear attributes of ethnic slurs?--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:29, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would definitely drop the "derogatory" label from anything that is already labelled a slur, because it's redundant. My inclination would be to keep "offensive", even if it is redundant, to make the offensiveness absolutely clear. (Compare this related thread from a couple of years ago where DCDuring also argued for retaining "offensive" on ethnic slurs.) I don't think "slang" is necessarily redundant; many ethnic slurs are slangy, but something like sense 1 of nigger was historically found even in legal, medical and scientific documents, and so doesn't seem to be "slang" even though it is an ethnic slur (whereas, something like "pizza nigger" for "Italian" is slangy). As to Americunt, is that even an ethnic slur? Our definition doesn't say it's restricted to any particular ethnicity. - -sche (discuss) 13:54, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think I tend to interpret "derogatory" as how the speaker intends it, and "offensive" as how the speaker listener interprets it. Since what is offensive to whom, when spoken by whom (see e.g. the reclamation of "nigga" by black gangsta rappers, and "faggot" by some gay people), is very variable, I suppose it will take a lot of thinking to do this properly, if it's even possible. Equinox ◑ 20:22, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I assume you mean "[...] 'offensive' as the hearer interprets it." As DCDuring commented a couple years ago about 'pejorative', is there any derogatory term for people that isn't offensive to some people? (And is there any offensive term for people which is never used derogatorily?) If not, then "derogatory" seems unnecessary when "offensive" is present. And anyway, "derogatory" is redundant to "slur", so I maintain that "derogatory" can be dropped when "ethnic slur" is present. - -sche (discuss) 20:37, 24 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Wigger? Hinjew? Choor monster (talk) 12:51, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

crow's foot versus crow's feet

I added a citation from Jane Austen of crow's foot used in the singular to denote a wrinkle next to the eye. The OED cites two other singular instances. I'm not sure how the two entries should be synchronized: a simple crow's feet is the plural of crow's foot, all senses, or the plural's wrinkle sense left in place. Certainly the plural-only tag needs revision. Choor monster (talk) 12:35, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

body part

The current definition suggests that anything that is in the body, at least as a functional element of it, is a body part. Does this mean that things like blood, stomach acid, cells, DNA etc are also body parts? If not, then what term includes these? —CodeCat 23:22, 23 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would say that things like blood, stomach acid, and DNA would not be considered 'body parts' albeit they are technically "parts" of the "body". Body parts encompass things like limbs (arms and legs), head, midriff, genitals, etc. and perhaps, in certain contexts, major internal organs (heart, liver, entrails, etc.) Leasnam (talk) 00:11, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
How would you incorporate such a distinction into a definition? DTLHS (talk) 00:45, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
sections or segments which make up the body, usually including bones, muscles, and organs? Leasnam (talk) 01:04, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Definition

Can someone define steropoeic for me?

I think it may be a medical term from the context; the lady scientist is offering herself as a bribe for the technician's silence:

Tech: I felt my face relax in a brief smile.
Her eyes narrowed."Who (are) you going to tell?"
Tech: "Nobody , I guess I was ... reconsidering your offer." My own snicker sounded nervous.
Christie's face darkened and her eyes fell, clouding over with anger. Then she said,"I ... I'm not steropoeic."
Tech: Not ... I suddenly realize the magnitude of her bribe, what it might've cost her to make the offer.

Thank you PeteBB <email redacted> Include "Wiktionary" in the heading of Email.

This long thread wanders past several theories (including that it derives from the name of Sterope, a woman in Greek mythology who had sex, and thus that a woman who is not steropoeic is a virgin) before reaching the conclusion that "Having now read the story in full, I think "steropoeic" must mean 'making sterile'." At one point in the story, a woman is said to have a red dot indicating a "steropoeic implant" which makes her sterile. Being not steropoeic, this woman is potentially fertile. (And the technician apparently wants to have kids.) In any case, the word seems to have been made up by the author. - -sche (discuss) 05:54, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

palaver

Shouldn't the meanings of 'excessive talk' and 'excessive activity, trouble' be uncoupled in palaver? The word is sometimes used to describe activities that may proceed with no talk at all, as in this article:

"Nevertheless, male astronauts are still expected to leave their bus, unzip their suits and urinate on the back right hand tyre. Suit technicians then have to redo the palaver of zipping them all up again." (See also this definition).

--CopperKettle (talk) 08:34, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

They certainly are different. But I am not familiar with the talk-free use — not that I don't believe Longman's. DCDuring TALK 17:09, 25 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I also was surprised to see it used in this way in the article quoted above. But then scanned Google Books, Google News, and it seems it is used in a non-talk-related fashion sometimes. --CopperKettle (talk) 02:05, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My understanding of "what a palaver!" is "what a lot of chaotic and mostly pointless effort!". Whether or not speech is involved, it makes me think of a lot of people going to a great deal of effort, which may or may not be relevant or useful, all at once, and mostly at cross purposes. A complicated mess.
e.g.:
  • 1986, Mohinder Singh Randhawa: Indian Paintings: Exploration, Research, and Publications [1] p.317
    I shall mail them to you at your camp office in Chandigarh, as I know what a palaver mail-delivery is out at the Garden House, and if I send them to you by name at your camp office, delivery should be prompter and safer.
  • 1999, Marc Millon, Creative Content for the Web [2] p.49
    But what a palaver, what an adventure just to get what TV can already deliver so effortlessly.
  • 2007, Javier Mar-As: Dance and Dream [3] p.107
    'What a palaver,' I thought, 'what a lot of minor complications, we men have it much easier'
  • 2009, Jack Dee: Thanks For Nothing [4] p.196
    What a palaver it was, poncing around with scones and Sachertorte.
--Catsidhe (verba, facta) 07:38, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

غسل کردن

What's the actual language of this "English" verb : غسل کردن ? Lmaltier (talk) 20:49, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's Persian. کردن is "to do" and غسل is Arabic for "washing" but could easily be a loanword in Persian. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:57, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

“slob” as a verb

The current definition of “slob” includes only the noun interpretation (“a slovenly person”). However, is its use as a verb, meaning “to be lazy/slovenly”, commonly accepted? I use it, partially influenced by the early series of w:Red Dwarf, where Rimmer frequently uses “slob” as both a noun and a verb (and also a noun derived from the verb, meaning “a session of slobbing”). People seem to understand. N4m3 (talk) 21:16, 26 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

as a verb I've pretty much only ever heard it to mean slobber on, and only in a sexual connotation, as in "slob my knob" Leasnam (talk) 02:53, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've mostly heard it as the phrasal verb slob up, as in "don't slob up the living room- I just cleaned it". Chuck Entz (talk) 04:30, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, it looks unlikely that any description is widely accepted. But anyway, here's a use of the sense I'm talking about: q:Red_Dwarf#Future_Echoes (1988). Minor insults don't usually make it onto Wikiquote, but this one has. N4m3 (talk) 19:54, 30 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling variants "Souf Effrikan", etc for "South African"

It seems in various online forums I've seen "Souf Effrikan", "Souf Effriken", etc. and similar variants used as English imitations of phonologizing either Afrikaans or South African-English pronunciations of the country/nationality. Is there any good way to add these variants to en.wiktionary? MatthewVanitas (talk) 04:21, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, we can give them entries, if they're in actual use — perhaps with an "eye dialect" gloss. Compare Strine, New Zild, Engerland. Equinox ◑ 13:40, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

other sense to haiduc

I think there might be another sense to haiduc. That's because it seems out of place in Dragostea, as an outlaw (in my opinion) wouldn't normally boast about being one, as the guy in Dragostea evidently seems to, and because a Romanian friend of mine said it means something else, if I remember well "cool" or "good boy", and totally disagreed on the translation as "outlaw" when I asked her to help me understand Dragostea and told her about this translation. I tried the Discussion for that entry, at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Talk:haiduc, but it seems to have drawn little or no attention, so I'm forced to double the question here. I don't like asking duplicate questions, but if it is necessary to get an answer, well, I do. So could we look into this and add a hypothetically present other sense to the article? Thx. — This unsigned comment was added by 87.8.50.210 (talk).

One of the big differences between us and Wikipedia is that our discussion of terms happens almost entirely in discussion rooms like this one rather than on entries' own talk pages. That's because we have so many entries it's hardly possible for very many people to watchlist them all. So a comment on an entry's talk page may go months or years without being seen be anyone else. So bringing the issue here is the better option. As to your question, I don't know any Romanian, but I don't see anything intrinsically unlikely in someone in a song boasting about being an outlaw. (After all, Johnny Cash boasted about shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die.) —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:10, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, the Romanian Wiktionary lists two senses:
  1. om care, răzvrătindu-se împotriva asupririi, își părăsea casa și trăia în păduri, singur sau în cete, jefuind pe bogați și ajutând pe săraci; haramin
    man who, rebelling against oppression, left home and lived in the woods, alone or in a group, robbing the rich and helping the poor; haramin
  2. soldat mercenar
    mercenary soldier
- -sche (discuss) 15:28, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]


OK. Well, I wouldn't see such a boast as nicely coupled with «primește fericirea» (accept happiness), as I would expect a decent police service to ultimately catch the outlaw and put him in jail, and I really don't see what happiness could derive from a partner in jail. In any case, even abandoning reason 1, there is my Romanian friend. Now she may have partly forgotten her language following her stay in Italy, she may have only known a dialectal variant, but I wouldn't expect a native to look at me with a question mark on her face when I gave her a translation of a Romanian term, which she did, nor to totally deny that translation and offer another one, which she also did. And the other sense seems more fit for boasting about, which is the real reason I ask this question for. The Romanian Wiktionary lists those two senses. Btw what is a haramin? Spanish Wiktionary says "forajido" (outlaw), Malagasy wiktionary has "faraidina", which the French wiktionary translates to "canaille", "rascal". Now "rascal" is definitely not something I would see nice in a boast. Anyway, I think we should investigate this, for the reasons above. And p.s. http://www.servidellagleba.it/~fabbrone/dragostea.html translates "haiduc" to "cavaliere", i.e. "knight", or "gentleman". Which fits in with my friend's explanation. Another translation (http://lyricstranslate.com/it/dragostea-din-tei-amore-sotto-il-tiglio.html) has "fuorilegge" (outlaw). http://musica.excite.it/haiducii-dragostea-din-tei-il-testo-N35747.html has "galantuomo", "gentleman". This (https://it.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081218051552AAEO7m8) may be a duplicate, but still it has "cavaliere" again. So statistically translations of this song disagree with the entry we have here. Also, https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragostea_din_tei seems to suggest "dragostea din tei" may be a set phrase with a different meaning from the literal translation, which is "love from the linden" or "love in the linden". It suggests it might mean "love at first sight". I think this may be an entry to create, also to explain the origin of this expression. See finally here www.dartagnan.ch/article.php?sid=2278, haiduc->knight. MGorrone (talk) 15:34, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Unrelated to this: when you use initialisms, could you please link to entries explaining them? Today I have seen quite a few initialisms I did not know about, so I would appreciate having a link to an entry that explains them, rather than searching for it myself, hoping to find it directly: at least a link ensures I will find something. FWIW, for example, I just learnt about. Thx. I am not English. MGorrone (talk) 15:38, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t understand what you mean. The only example you mention is FWIW, and in FWIW there are definitions, and the definitions link to other entries that explain them. —Stephen (Talk) 19:18, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
He/she is asking for people to link the word when they use it in discussion. Equinox ◑ 19:33, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It seems the translations at https://mg.wiktionary.org/wiki/faraidina should be organized into senses, since "ribaldo" and "tapino" are simply semantically unrelated, and the entry at https://mg.wiktionary.org/wiki/haiduc should include a sense distinction if all those translations are right. In any case, whichever sense was meant is not "outlaw" but "rascal" or similar, and not something to boast about at all. Also, the french entry for faraidina should be expanded to include the other senses. Perhaps I should put this in the French Tea Room. It carries more confusion about haiduc, so it is not totally out of place here. In any case, I will put this in the French Tea Room too, maybe they will do something about the french entry for faraidina. And besides, I don't know any Malagasy, so I hope someone who does will read this and edit the mentioned malagasy entries accordingly or bring up the issue in the Malagasy Tea Room. MGorrone (talk) 15:51, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

That is the Malagasy Wiktionary. This is the English Wiktionary. We at the English Wiktionary do not have any input or influence over the Malagasy Wiktionary. If you have questions for the Malagasy Wiktionary, you have to bring them up with the Malagasy editors on that Wiktionary. —Stephen (Talk) 19:18, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: take a look at the senses the English word hajduk has. Do any of them fit? I think it's entirely plausible that haiduc would have some of the same senses. - -sche (discuss) 19:20, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]


@Stephen G. Brown I see no reason whatsoever to assume the intersection between the set of editors of the English Wiktionary and that of the editors of the Malagasy one is empty. For example, I myself am an editor both to the English and French Wiktionary, and could be an editor to many more, as long as I knew the languages in which they are written. And I can't bring it up there because I suppose that would require writing in Malagasy which is completely unknown to me. In any case let's drop this discussion.

@-sche, the last two senses seem to be somewhat close to what I remember my Romanian friend telling me about the meaning of "haiduc", but they would require an extension to adapt them to a modern song, because they both refer to historical realities that now – as far as I know – do not exist any longer. Somewhat like "cavaliere" in Italian, which from "knight" has come to mean "gentleman".

P.S. How do I "tag" users to notify them of my edit when it is addresed to something they previously wrote? MGorrone (talk) 21:04, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Simply wikilinking to their username in a signed edit should work: User:MGorrone, though a lot of people are using the {{ping}} template, so {{ping|MGorrone}} produces @MGorrone. I monitor the discussion forums pretty closely, so pinging me is pretty much useless, but others may appreciate it. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:44, 27 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]


Thanks for the tip Chuck. Anyway bringing up the Malagasy issue now makes more sense, as the translation given for haiduc is faraidina. See here: http://malagasyword.org/bins/teny2/faraidina. So "the poorest rank of people", huh? Nothing to do with "outlaw", or with "canaille" in any case. Which makes me wonder what "haiduc" actually means. Now Google translates it to "outlaw", and gives back-translations "haiduc, exilat, surghiunit" for "outlaw". So either haiduc has many meanings, or the Malagasy wiktionary is COMPLETELY wrong. MGorrone (talk) 09:41, 28 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The Malagasy Wiktionary is almost entirely bot-generated. I wouldn't believe anything I saw there, as little or none of it has been vetted by native Malagasy speakers. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:16, 28 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]


I asked my Romanian friend just now and she said «Normalmente haiduc significa un uomo che vive nelle montagne ma in quella canzone non ha un significato sono solo parole buttate lì» (Normally haiduc means a man who lives in the mountains but in that song [i.e. Dragostea] it doesn't have a meaning they're just words thrown there). For the meaning in Dragostea I guess I'll have to ask another friend :). However «man living in the mountains» matches none of the senses I have found, not directly, we have at least to suppose that historically there were outlaws who lived there, got that name, and then there was an extension of the meaning of haiduc to "outlaw". Could you enlighten me on that point? I'm ignorant in History, let alone that of Romania which is neither an important country in History nor my country. MGorrone (talk) 12:02, 5 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]


I asked another Romanian friend of mine about the translation controversy, and she said «Mmh, non lo definirei cavaliere.. Il termine brigante è molto più vicino per le caratteristiche che lo descrivono a haiduc.. Haiduc è una persona che abbandona la sua casa per andare a vivere nei boschi, rubando ai ricchi per aiutare i poveri.. Non so se rende molto l'idea» (Hm, I wouldn't define it as "cavaliere"… the term "brigante" (brigand) is much closer, for the characteristics describing it, to haiduc… Haiduc is a person who abandons their home to go live in the woods, stealing from the rich to help the poor… I don't know if you get the idea very much). That is precisely the Romanian definition. It sounds like something borderline between positive and negative, and in the song it is definitely on the positive side. The singer is probably boasting about being like Robin Hood or the likes, and Robin Hood in my book is more good than bad. On the other hand, the English Wiktionary definition has "outlaw", which could be a translation though it sounds more negative than positive, but also "rogue", which is definitely negative. On the basis of the definition given by my second Romanian friend, I suggest this be removed and that the comparison with Robin Hood be explicitly added, since it fits perfectly with the Romanian Wiktionary's definition 1 and my friend's definition. Also, a page for haramin should be created. Note the relationship of haramin to haramija, meaning "bandit", "robber". And حرامی, same meaning. Unrelated: what is the Wikipedia equivalent of the Tea Room? MGorrone (talk) 09:20, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

These days, now that there aren't many outlaws, I think outlaw may be more positive (like badass) than negative; notice that Robin Hood himself is described as an outlaw. Rogue does seem to be mostly negative (except in video games and board games, where it's positive). What do you think of this: [5]? - -sche (discuss) 09:37, 5 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

limited company vs. limited liability company

The way our entries for these two terms are formulated leads a reader to believe that they are not quite the same thing. The definitions do not explain the difference, however - if there's any. Also Wikipedia has separate articles for them but they are not very clear either. My understanding of this is that "limited company" is chiefly a British term which covers "public limited companies", called "corporations" in the US, and "private limited companies", called "limited liability companies" in the US. Is this correct? If it is, what is the US term corresponding to "limited company". --Hekaheka (talk) 06:43, 30 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Generally speaking, the US equivalent is a corporation. Equinox ◑ 12:20, 30 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
To expand on that, the reason for this morass is that these forms are dictated by state law in the U.S. You might be surprised that, despite corporations having different federal tax liabilities in the U.S., there is no federal statute governing the form of corporations. This is unlike the UK which has generally had a national Companies Act. A "corporation" in Alabama will have very different shareholder obligations and structural limitations from one in Massachusetts. It is correct that "corporation" is very similar to "limited company", but entities correctly labeled as such will have certain specific characteristics dictated by their nation of origin.
As for the limited liability company, that is a U.S. innovation that is different from a corporation in that it strips away most of the safeguards required by corporations, such as a shareholder-elected board of directors, minimum notification periods before undergoing a substantial change, and legally enforceable duties against director self-dealing. Of course, an LLC can choose to impose such things on itself, but generally speaking state laws do not require them to. bd2412 T 12:31, 30 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Wiktionary:Tea_room/2014/June&oldid=65118574"