Wiktionary:Tea room/2014/March

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palp

The second sense is "fleshy part of a fingertip". It seems that the word is used in this sense only in James Joyce's Ulysses - at least none of the Onelook dictionaries recognizes this sense. I think we should avoid giving our readers wrong impressions and thus we should somehow indicate that this sense is specific to James Joyce. Therefore I added a context label stating "as used by James Joyce". I would like to invite discussion on this. --Hekaheka (talk) 09:08, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Is he even using it to mean "flesh part of a fingertip"? From the quote, it looks to me like he's using it in a sense much more directly derived from the verb, namely the act of feeling with the fingers. It could even be considered a clipping of (deprecated template usage) palpation. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:34, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is a wonderful illustration of why our acceptance of attestation based on a single citation from a well-known work (well-known to whom?) is a bad policy for a dictionary. The citation provides no evidence of a definition that is shared. It could be a finger. It could be a palpation. It could be some other touch. It could have something to do with the zoological definition, eg, predation. Some of the meanings might be based on context, some on the stem, some on related terms, some based on driving users to one of the few dictionaries that have the term. IOW, it's all context and connotation, no denotation. DCDuring TALK 13:51, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Could it be a mistake for pulp? Perhaps even a deliberate one. That sense of pulp isn't listed in our dictionary either, but I've seen it in use. Pulp basically just means "soft squishy mass" and palp is more appropriate for what it describes. Soap (talk) 03:39, 16 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Latvian rakstīt

I haven't been able to find a good English translation for sense nr. 6 (the last) in this word. Besides its general meaning of "writing" (deriving from an earlier "carving (symbols)"), it can also mean something that I could only describe as "sewing, knitting, forging in such a way that the resulting object contains symbols, letters, patterns". Is there a way to describe this with one word in English? And the examples I give -- I really don't know how to translate them adequately into English (I even added question marks to the words I used to translate rakstīt in them, because they sounded so weird/wrong to me). Maybe some of you could help me out? Thanks! --Pereru (talk) 15:46, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you'll find a single corresponding English word. Decoate works for a subset of the "symbols, letters, patterns". Otherwise, there are circumlocutions that involve each technique or words for specific types of decorations (foliate, vermiculate, scallop, even gargoyle#Verb. DCDuring TALK 16:23, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There's figure, which overlaps quite a bit in meaning, but still doesn't quite seem to work for the example sentences. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:52, 2 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree that we shouldn't be reaching too far into the closet for obscure matches. However, I don't know that I'd agree with your characterization of inscribe uses: a 1915 edition of The University of Chicago Magazine uses inscribe to describe a sweater here: “The cartoon represented the Chicago squad huddled together on a small island, flying as a signal of distress a sweater inscribed with the season's scores.” It's not the most common usage, granted, but it does appear to be used by native speakers. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 19:55, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The standard I would advocate is that for definitions we only use words included in a basic dictionary like Longman's DCE and, especially, only the senses that such a dictionary includes. I think that would keep us from misleading those translating into English by providing terms that make their translation hard to understand. If English only has circumlocutions for the word using the restricted defining-vocabulary restriction I favor, then they should use those circumlocutions. I've never understood why there is such an overwhelming preference for one-word glosses for terms that may not have a readily intelligible one-word English gloss. It always seemed to me that translators who used such uncommon glosses were only doing half of a translator's job, the part that could be done by, say, Google's translation algorithm. DCDuring TALK 21:22, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Ah, yes. Your reply here helps me realize that I need to better express my underlying two points. :)
    1. Our entry at inscribe is overly narrow.
    2. As a descriptive dictionary, my understanding is that we concern ourselves less with what is in other dictionaries (which are very often prescriptive), and more with what is used in the wild.
I'm certainly open to argument and education regarding the above.
And about glosses and translations, I fully agree. I make my bread and butter translating, and I've seen plenty of awful "technically" correct translations that were impenetrably obtuse and effectively unusable for the intended audience. And those were rendered by living breathing humans, who were often supposedly native speakers of the target language.
In this specific instance of rakstīt, my personal experience and understanding makes inscribe a good fit, but I'm learning that other folks may have a different take on inscribe than I expected. As said in Japanese, 勉強になります (benkyō ni narimasu), literally “that becomes a study” → “that's new to me, I've learned something”. :) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 18:19, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that a broader sense of inscribe will probably be supportable by attestation, if your citations don't already do so, but still think inscribe is not a good gloss for rakstīt.
I have been advocating an effort to get rid of obsolete, archaic, dated, and rare (OADR) terms and senses of terms in all definiens, which is unfortunately not easy to do. Even terms that have only OADR senses are not in any categories that do not also contain terms that ought be allowed in definiens. (Also, there are certainly some OADR and technical terms that connot readily be defined without using OADR and technical terms and senses.) DCDuring TALK 18:43, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The principal reason I would advocate using other more selective dictionaries to get a defining vocabulary is that the words and senses they contain are the ones most likely to be immediately understood by the overwhelming majority of our users and the least likely to lead learners and translators astray. I see little reason for us to duplicate their efforts in producing a usable defining vocabulary.
One of the places in which prescriptiveness is warranted is certainly in the kind of English that we select for definiens, for which broad intelligibility provides a strong and practical norm to guide us. DCDuring TALK 18:49, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
definiens and definiendum are words I learned in the last couple of years reading some works on lexicography. They've started to feel natural, but are also afford an object lesson in the problems of using words not in an appropriate defining vocabulary. “definiens”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. suggest that MWOnline is too inclusive to be our defining vocabulary. DCDuring TALK 23:49, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The free portion of MWOnline would also provide a suitable defining vocabulary, though it would be necessary to exclude Americanisms. DCDuring TALK 22:33, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think inscribe + the current def (separate by a colon, semicolon or {{gloss}}) is a good def of rakstīt. Certainly inscribe seems like a better translation of the usexes than design! - -sche (discuss) 18:35, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

French "la bretelle"

Hi

The entry for la bretelle" gives only one sense of the word. I am not a linguist, so I do not have the courage to edit this! Aniconist01 (talk) 18:13, 3 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

How about you edit it the way you see fit, and we will check it. --WikiTiki89 18:15, 3 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have added a couple of other senses. SemperBlotto (talk) 22:32, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

mount

Sense 1 says "To move upwards." but I don't believe this is ever the precise meaning of the word: it is just a convenient umbrella for that set of subsenses. What to do? Equinox ◑ 00:06, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Send it to rfc. It has multiple problems: non-standard citation format; fails to split transitive and intransitive, a significant problem when subsenses of a given sense are both transitive and intransitive; fails to indicate which objects are part of the definition and which are attempts to characterize the restrictions on acceptable objects. DCDuring TALK 00:22, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I would remove sense one and promote the subsenses OR reword it to include only transitive senses for which the object is something that one ascends. Some of the other transitive senses could easily be placed under such a properly worded transitive sense, including the mating sense. I've never understood how one could even attempt to write definitions for polysemic verbs without splitting intransitive from transitive senses. I wish we had some kind of style manual for definitions, but prospects for agreement on such a thing are nil. DCDuring TALK 00:41, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
There is also at least one missing sense, the one in "mount an exhibition/show/campaign" which is very similar to "mount an attack". Something like "organize" is the extended modern sense. DCDuring TALK 01:45, 4 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Artist's conception

This is my first time at Wiktionary, so forgive me if I'm at the wrong place. I was editing over at that other place and was looking for someplace to link Artist's conception['artist's conception'], which is a common term with surprisingly few (none that I could find) "reliable sources" defining or explaining the term. Concept art is fundamentally related, but the WP article doesn't mention the term, and I don't want to add it without a cited source. This might simply be one of those "everybody knows what it means" terms that nobody has bothered to document.

A quick look at “artist's conception”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. shows that other reference works, including some 116 specialized arts glossaries, don't find this worthwhile, probably because the basic meaning is derivable from the component terms. Are you aware of any dictionary or glossary that has the term? DCDuring TALK 18:25, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In general, you can request missing entries at WT:RE. Remember that, unlike WP, we don't start page titles with capital letters, unless the word is always capitalised (e.g. nouns in German). Equinox ◑ 18:27, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
As a specific example of how I believe that artist's conception is a distinct term with nuanced properties that cannot be easily derived from artist + conception -- would an altered photograph be considered an "artist's conception"? Specifically this photo which is an altered version of this original? Personally, I believe not; however, this artwork definitely is an artist's conception of same. ~E:71.20.250.51 19:17, 5 March 2014 (UTC) -- Entry added at WT:RE 21:24, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, at Wiktionary we don't need reliable sources "defining or explaining the term". We need examples of the usage of the term (that conform to WT:CFI#Attestation) and the term must meet other requirements such as not being an obvious summation of parts. All of this is explained in WT:CFI. --WikiTiki89 23:56, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Therein lies the problem. There are oodles of examples meeting requirements 1 and 2 in WT:CFI#Attestation; however, no. 3 ("conveying meaning") is generally derived from images -- at least I cannot find suitable references otherwise. 71.20.250.51 00:48, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's not a problem. "Conveying meaning" just means, well, that it's being used to convey meaning. (As opposed to, say, "book is a strange word", which is not using the word "book" for its meaning.) Even just labeling an image "artist's conception", with no further text, would be using it convey meaning. —RuakhTALK 03:32, 7 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Something like this would count: "The 1915 four-stacker artist's conception of the Gibbs express liner may be considered the first drawing of the United States. In 1919 a revised artist's conception was widely used in newspapers around America." --WikiTiki89 01:03, 6 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Artist's conception is, in my experience, usually used to refer to a rendering by an artist of what a planned physical structure or object will look like when it's been built. The rendering is called not "a rendering of an artist's conception of the future home of XYZ" but "an artist's conception of the future home of XYZ": the picture is itself is called conception. We have no such sense at [[conception]]. So either this is not SOP or we need to add a sense of conception (but I'm not sure which is the case).​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:42, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Tinker to Evers to Chance

In the latter portions of the above phrase's entry, the names Tinker, Evers and Chance are linked ("Tinker to Evers to Chance"). However, these come from the surnames of the people involved in the creation of the phrase, and have no relation to any definition for these words, including as proper nouns. I therefore can't see any reason to link those words on this page, especially as the phrase's origin is explained at the top of the page, along with links to Wikipedia for the individuals themselves. This also goes for the phrase's common misspelling, Tinker to Evans to Chance. -- Taohinton (talk) 20:20, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. --WikiTiki89 23:56, 5 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Go for it. DCDuring TALK 12:45, 7 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with unlinking them, as following those links will not bring the reader to the particular Tinker, Evers, and Chance referenced in the idiom. bd2412 T 16:08, 7 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Why not link each of them to the appropriate Wikipedia article. SemperBlotto (talk) 16:11, 7 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Those are already linked in the etymology. bd2412 T 16:13, 7 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, de-linked. Thanks. -- Taohinton (talk) 23:59, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

dysphemization

Today I realized that my mother alternately uses euphemism and dyspheminism as having the same meaning; they are actually antonmys. The word,dyspheminism, means substitution of derogatory term(s) for neutral one(s).

In a paper written by R. Reeder, The Gestalt of Behaviorism and Phenomenology in Evolutionary Application: pre-biblical Goddess not an archetype but as real then as God is now, there is a discussion on the linguistic dysphemization of things feminine through the history of English speaking people. However, the word, dyspheminism itself implies that to dis-feminize is to render something deplorable.

I think you're confusing languages. euphemism and dysphemism are originally Ancient Greek terms, while feminine is from Latin. The two "fem-" parts have no relation to each other. —CodeCat 03:47, 7 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Entry for 同人

I don't speak much Japanese, but from my knowledge of anime/manga-related terminology, wouldn't the definition listed under the Chinese for fan-made goods also be a correct definition for 同人 in Japanese? Morningcrow (talk) 12:39, 7 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find such a sense. There is 同人誌 (どうじんし, ​dōjinshi) ("magazine published by fans, a fanzine"), though but it's formed by adding component 誌 (し, ​shi) (abbreviation for "magazine"). --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 13:39, 7 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks - I had a feeling the term I was thinking of was just 同人誌 anyway, but I really couldn't be sure since I don't know much Japanese. Morningcrow (talk) 22:05, 7 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Kikai

In the entry for 瓜, does anyone know what the section heading "Kikai" refers to? The information in that section appears to be related to Japanese. 86.176.208.60 22:39, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It is a language spoken in the Amami islands. — Ungoliant (falai) 22:41, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the rapid reply. Could we have a Wiktionary entry for that word? Even Wikipedia has no mention that it is a language. 86.176.208.60 23:00, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Added. — Ungoliant (falai) 00:31, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Great ... By the way, I think the reason I got confused about "Kikai" -- in addition to just not having heard of it -- is that the section contains an actual definition of the individual character 瓜, which is lacking altogether in the "Japanese" section. So, I thought originally that "Kikai", which coincidentally directly follows "Japanese", was part of the Japanese language entry, especially because it has hiragana and romaji readings, and I imagined that "Kikai" was a Japanese language term referring to a type of character usage within the language. I know that a general definition of the character is given in the "Translingual" section, but, on top of that, is there a reason why a definition should be given for a very obscure language and not for Japanese? Or is it just that no one has so far got round to adding one for Japanese? 86.176.208.60 01:25, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Wiktionary's entries for "Chinese" characters are in bad shape. One reason is that they were created by having a robot copy and paste the contents of the Unihan database. The definitions that the Unihan database provided for the characters were copied into the Translingual section, although there is increasing agreement that this is the one place definitions do not belong [in the case of Chinese characters], because definitions are not translingual (not all languages retain all meanings of all terms, and many languages have other meanings, or—crucially—limit the definitions to certain contexts) — this is most obvious when definitions are WT:RFVed. It would be ideal if each language's section recorded the definitions that the term had in that language. However, the number of entries that need to be cleaned up, and the amount of work required to clean them up, is so great that it will take a long time to complete. - -sche (discuss) 02:12, 9 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Visigoti, etc

Visigoti, Vandali, Normanni, Longobardi, Galli, Franchi, Tedeschi (how is this different from tedeschi?)... these words are described as pluralia tantum, but they do have singular forms, namely Visigoto, etc. Should the singular forms be made the lemmata? - -sche (discuss) 04:37, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is not an encyclopaedia. --Vahag (talk) 19:35, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"ample" = "enough" (etc.)

"ample" is shown to have the comparatives: ampler and amplest. Something is either ample or it is not. In fact, "ample" in some dictionaries has the added "more than enough". So there should not be an ampler, amplest. 75.28.56.237 10:40, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

People tend to say the same about perfect and impossible, but both are very attestably "comparable". Equinox ◑ 22:50, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

strike twice

Does this warrant an entry? Or perhaps lightning strikes twice? The quote I wanted to add to WT was "no one truly expected lightning to strike twice." --Back on the list (talk) 12:52, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

English terms for neutered / spayed animals

For cattle, we have bull and steer. For horses, stallion and gelding. For cats, tom and gib.

  • Are there any such terms for dogs?
  • Are there any such terms for female animals? For instance, I have a spayed female dog; is it still terminologically correct to call her a bitch?

Curious, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 17:39, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I would dispute that bull and stallion refer specifically to uncastrated males. I think they are just the general terms for males. --WikiTiki89 17:54, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • YMMV and all that, but in my experience, bull != steer, and stallion != gelding -- at least, if both former and latter terms of either pair are used within the same context, they are contrastive. I have heard the former terms used to refer to male animals of their respective types in general, but I've never heard these terms used to refer to castrated male animals in specific. That's what I'm getting at. If I were to point at a steer and call it a bull, my farming-country relatives would laugh. :) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 18:16, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    You are right about their contrastive use, but if someone brings you to a farm and "this is a bull", he is not trying to imply "we haven't castrated him". Would you be ok with a definition such as "An adult male of domesticated cattle or oxen." and a sub-definition such as "Specifically, an uncastrated one."? --WikiTiki89 18:44, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Here in the UK, "bull" might be used to contrast with "cow" when speaking to children, and we have the term "bull calf" (but we use bullock rather than steer). Similarly, a "tom" might, occasionally, be used to refer to a "neutered tom" (gib isn't commonly used), so Wikitiki89's suggestion seems best. Dbfirs 12:44, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Let me restate the main questions I'm trying to ask. :)

  • Are there any English terms specifically for castrated dogs (regardless of how commonly known they might be)?
  • Are there any English terms specifically for spayed female animals (again, regardless of currency)?

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 17:51, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't even know of a term specifically for a male dog regardless of testicular status, let alone one specifically for a castrated male dog. I've never heard of there being specific terms for a spayed female, probably because traditionally in animal husbandry it wasn't common to spay females. I suspect that's partly because spaying is a much more difficult process than castration (you have to be a veterinary surgeon to spay a female animal, but anyone can learn to geld a male) and partly because keeping neutered females around the farm wasn't as useful as keeping neutered males (which tend to run to fat and so make tastier meat). Other terms for neutered male animals not yet mentioned are (deprecated template usage) capon and (deprecated template usage) wether, and (deprecated template usage) ox is often used to refer specifically to a castrated male used as a beast of burden. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:44, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

factly, naturedly, oldfashioned, and other common 1-grams that are red links.

I know this kind of thing has been done before, but I had a go at finding the most common English words that Wiktionary is missing. I used Google's ngram data and ranked by word count from the English Fiction corpus from 1950–2008. I manually filtered out obvious scannos, e.g. *hetter (better) and *gendeman (gentleman); partial words, e.g. *cially, *cessful and *pected; and most of the number-words (twentyfive was the most common). I only considered lowercase terms, at least six characters long.

I guess we've got pretty good coverage of English because there weren't a lot of interesting words left :) But if anyone's looking to create new English entries, you might find some below.

Most of the remaining words at the top are either compound words or are restricted to phrases (factly: matter-of-factly, uncared: uncared for, togethers: get-togethers)

Here's the top of the list. The first word (factly) is found 120,918 times across 75,724 books (volumes) since 1950. The last (sightedness) 10,173 times across 8,644.

(hyphens manually added) factly, naturedly, old-fashioned, yearold, twenty-five, walkie, good-looking, so-called, drawing-room, dining-room, high-pitched, open-source, heartwarming, self-control, dark-haired, humouredly, wide-eyed, middle-class, sitting-room, great-grandfather, self-confidence, peared, well-dressed, half-dozen, half-hour, humoredly, three-quarters, self-consciously, togethers, brand-new, broad-shouldered, uncared, self-respect, eighteenth-century, self-consciousness, white-haired, reg'lar, self-defense, first-class, part-time, last-minute, empty-handed, self-esteem, unself, exhusband, ever-present, half-past, poohed, dressing-gown, self-preservation, martialed, musn't, two-story, sightedness, more ...

Looking further along the list, there's a lot of self- compound words (self-contained, self-pity, self-explanatory, more ...) which we have a good coverage of when the hyphen is included. There's a bunch of proper nouns that are commonly spelled all in lowercase in the source material (christian, jewish, gefilte, george, sunday, sabbath, satanists, christmas). There's a bunch of abbreviations and dialectical terms (howe'er, y'self, diff'rent, never've, meetcha, whadda, willna, may'st, should'st, m'self, yo'self, musn't, twasn't, tisn't, wuzn't, somethink, someting, would'st, wadn't, better'n, ever'thing, more ...). There's a lot of pluralized gerunds (moanings, mouthings, cummings, watchings, sighings, visitings, flutings, junketings, more ...), odd adverbs (goodhumouredly, temperedly (-temperedly), assessingly, stoppingly, comprehendingly), and alternative spellings of various parts of speech (tranquillised, enquirers, barbequed).

Some of the best candidate words I've been able to dig out: seabag, hilled, exhusband, sinkful, snaggled, irritatedly, sweatered, prismed, pistoning, wimmen, liddle, reenforced, cocksucking, suspicioned, lookie, sighings, locoed, unforgiveable, scabbarded, scufflings, savouries, pyramided, pinkening, humphed, garroted (=garrotted), metahistorical, glinged, weare, wrestlings, rollings, suiter, goddamit, incher (-incher), slashings, stammerings, secrecies crashings, hubble, krauts, yander, coshed, muzzily, fictionality, fulfillments, prowed, menfolks, anodier, happinesses, exboyfriend.

I've created a few of them already. If anyone wants a specific list of something like words ending in -room or -ings or containing an apostrophe, let me know. —Pengo (talk) 23:33, 10 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Lovely. I'm creating a few now. Equinox ◑ 01:26, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Nice work, Equinox. I've uploaded a list of missing -ings words and a fairly raw list of missing 1-grams if you want to dig through it. Pengo (talk) 20:35, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
And a list of missing contractions—words containing an apostrophe ('). Pengo (talk) 21:37, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
One more: User:Pengo/missing self- words - Only words where both forms are redlinked, e.g. selfdiscovery and self-discovery are both currently red links. Pengo (talk) 05:42, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Many of these -- "oldfashioned", for "old-fashioned", "selfconfidence" for "self-confidence", and so on -- simply look like spelling mistakes to me. 86.169.36.54 22:05, 16 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
    Indeed. The loss of the hyphen seems to happen in the scanning/OCR process, as the original books seem to mostly actually have the "old-fashioned" spelling but Google has read it in as "oldfashioned". I'll automatically remove all words like this (e.g. where an entry for old-fashioned already exists), as well as the many common scannos, when I refresh the list (perhaps after Wiktionary's next database dump). —Pengo (talk) 07:31, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Is that the right thing to do? In some cases both the hyphenated and unhyphenated forms may be valid. I think that the decision needs human oversight. In the meantime, can we reassess the Wiktionary entries such as oldfashioned, selfconsciously, etc. that have been added as a result of this process? If there are sufficient valid recorded uses of these forms then I suppose they have a place, but I think we are doing readers a disservice by not at least noting that they are not the preferred forms and may indeed look like an error to many people. At the moment, someone, say an English learner, can look up "oldfashioned", for example, and find what appears to be a completely valid spelling, with no indication that they really should not be using it. 86.129.17.12 12:57, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, perhaps I was too hasty in adding these, though I think "selfconsciously" is used without the hyphen. Google is not our friend here because many of the hits in Google Books also have other words run together. It's not letting me see originals -- can anyone else see them? Should we have a template for "rare spelling of" rather than "alternative spelling of"? It would be useful for lots of other strange spellings that we include. Dbfirs 16:01, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We have a whole host of rare form of templates — whether you parse that as "(rare) (form of) templates" or "(rare form of) templates", lol. ;) We have {{rare spelling of}}, {{rare form of}}, {{archaic spelling of}}, {{archaic form of}}, {{archaic synonym of}} (designed for certain entries, particularly but not exclusively Latvian, but apparently not used), {{obsolete spelling of}}, {{obsolete form of}}, and {{obsolete typography of}} (for things like vp). - -sche (discuss) 17:44, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. I've tried this out at oldfashioned. There are probably hundreds of other rare spellings where this template would be better than "alternative". Will anyone object if we change to "rare" (for spellings that really are rare, of course)? Dbfirs 21:37, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Go right ahead; that's what the templates are for. :) - -sche (discuss) 22:46, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Well, "X is rare and a form of Y" and "X is a rare form of Y" only differ in regard to whether Y is rare, the situation is the same either way for X. --WikiTiki89 18:10, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Many of the compound words I've checked, authors do use them without the hyphen. E.g. midseventies is used often, oldfashioned sometimes, though "selfconfidence" I haven't seen in the wild. I've also been having trouble with Google Books—half the time the highlights are shown in the wrong place, which makes searching tedious. Whether you can see the original usually depends on the book (or rather, the publisher). If there was a better corpus to cross check automatically, that would be great. The hyphenated forms generally seem to be more popular though, so, for example, the lemma for midseventies should be probably moved to mid-seventies, leaving "midseventies" as an "alternative spelling of". Pengo (talk) 22:22, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm saying that the templates are both "(rare) (form of) templates" (templates, which are relatively rarely used, which display form of) and "(rare form of) templates" (templates that display rare form of). - -sche (discuss) 22:46, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Gotchya. --WikiTiki89 03:58, 18 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

bleating

Hello. I gave the following example of the use of "bleating" in its talk page:

John Dryden's translation of Virgil, Eclogues, vii, 51 (Hic tantum Boreae curamus frigora,/Quantum aut numerum lupus aut torrentia flumina ripas.)—

"We fear not more the winds and wintry cold,
Than streams the banks, or wolves the bleating fold."

(This was later famously paraphrased by Francis Bacon as: "It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep be.")

Perhaps this example should be moved to "Citations". (I'm not sure. It's my first time visiting.) Thanks, and cheers, DanielTom (talk) 13:09, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I have added this quote to the entry in more-or-less the usual way. You can see it there. Cheers! bd2412 T 18:13, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This is a very literary example. Wouldn't it be better on the citations page, with an example illustrating normal usage on the main page? Dbfirs 19:05, 11 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I believe our standard is three examples, of which we have only this one. It would be fine on a citations page - if we had something to replace it. bd2412 T 12:20, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've put a couple of clearer examples on the main page, and moved the adjectival example to the citations page. Dbfirs 08:41, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

machiolate

Discussion moved to WT:RFD.

jambonneau, jambonneaus

Hello. "Jambonneaus" is not a word. Jambonneaux is the plural of jambonneau. I don't know how to make this change myself. — This comment was unsigned.

Thanks. Done Done Equinox ◑ 01:59, 12 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

cissexual

The current definition of cissexual presents it as "not transsexual", which seems inaccurate to me. I understand it was likely coined in opposition to transsexual, but the concepts of asexuality and intersexuality aren't (to my knowledge) consider to be under the cissexual umbrella. Could someone take a look at this? I'm thinking that a definition closer to the lede of the Wikipedia article would be best, but I'm not confident in my ability to 1) gauge the meaning of the word in a non-niche context and 2) provide a concise definition replacement if necessary. Thanks, - BalthCat (talk) 18:49, 16 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing this out. I've taken a stab at defining the term. - -sche (discuss) 19:02, 16 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Awesome, thanks. - BalthCat (talk) 19:08, 16 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

solandro

Any idea what this language is called in English? It is described in the Italian, but not in the English, Wikipedia. SemperBlotto (talk) 09:59, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. It's usually considered a dialect of w:Ladin. Chuck Entz (talk) 12:05, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

falar

The example under point 3 of the Portuguese language section is not appropriate. "3.to say something Para de falar bobagens. Stop saying nonsense." In English, this would be "stop talking nonsense" and is more appropriate as an example of point 1. A possible example would be "para de falar isso" = "stop saying that", but I am not a native Portuguese speaker. And there may be a better example.

Also, at least in Brazil, falar can be used as a noun. Again, I am not a native speaker, so I cannot judge the quality of this usage. I have seen "dar uns falares" meaning "have a chat", which is presumably a colloquial usage. And it has been used by the linguist Joaquim Matoso Câmara Júnior to distinguish a sort of lesser dialect from a more major linguistic variation: "As oposições superficiais, ou secundárias, criam dentro de uma língua as divisões chamadas falares, que por sua vez são agrupáveis em dialetos." (p6 http://www.filologia.org.br/soletras/7/04.pdf). But I can't tell whether this was his neologism, or not.

I'm also aware that my examples are plurals, not sure whether the same usage exists in the singular.

Manolan1 (talk) 19:11, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed the usage example. It’s not appropriate for definition 1 since that definition is intransitive.
Every impersonal infinitive can be used as a noun in Portuguese. Distinguishing between nominal use of the infinitive and a noun derived from it can be tricky, but the two examples you’ve given are clearly true nouns and can be added if they are within our criteria for inclusion (3 independent uses spanning over a year). I am a native speaker of Brazilian Portuguese but have never encountered anything similar to dar uns falares, but I’ll try to find citations. I have seen falar meaning a cant, dialect or regional language, but not as a specific classification rank as Câmara is using it. However, the way he wrote it does not imply it is his neologism. — Ungoliant (falai) 19:28, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
So, perhaps not his neologism, but the ranking may be his. There is actually a discussion going on over at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineiro about whether it is a dialect or not. I came here looking to see whether there was anything specific listed as a noun. Not finding anything, I went looking for more scholarly articles and found the one I quoted. But that doesn't mean that the "ranking" aspect is an established usage. I am struggling to find anything that makes a definitive statement, and I'm fairly certain that we would translate both "falar" and "dialeto" as "dialect" in English. The other usage I have seen somewhere, possibly a text message to me (not very authoritative!). Manolan1 (talk) 20:05, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Added the lect sense. google books:"uns falares" gives 2 results for the lect sense and one unclear, and there is nothing on Google Groups. I suspect the text-messenger may have coined it on the spot, or it may be limited to his town. — Ungoliant (falai) 23:52, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

guardia di finanza

I don't quite understand the English definition. Can someone with more Italian knowledge expound this term for me? Jamesjiao → T ◊ C 20:41, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've rewritten its definition, provided a link to the Italian Wikipedia and moved it to the correct Guardia di Finanza.

Serviceman

Does the military sense include both those permanently employed by the miltary and conscripts? --Hekaheka (talk) 18:03, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

In the US, it would include all non-civilian male employees of the military, whether volunteers or conscripts. DCDuring TALK 22:14, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

creditable

The first definition of creditable is "Credible or believable." Is this is a misspelling for credible? I would find using creditable for credible to be substandard at best, but I'm not convinced of my intuition on this, nor do I know the best way to mark this.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:12, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Many of our "competition" agree with you and don't list this sene, but then again, many do:
[1] 2. Worthy of belief: a creditable story.
[2] 2. (obsolete) credible
[3] 1. worthy of belief <a creditable report>
[4] 3. OBSOLETE credible
[5] Worthy of belief. [Obs.] Divers creditable witnesses deposed. Ludlow.
Among those who have it, a narrow majority of those that I checked says it's obsolete.--Hekaheka (talk) 22:10, 19 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Two or three of the 107 uses of creditable on COCA seem best interpreted with that definition. I think it wrong to call it obsolete. And the usage didn't seem archaic either. DCDuring TALK 00:55, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
None of the 117 uses on BNC support the definition in question. So perhaps it is a US definition. DCDuring TALK 01:07, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
AHD and MWOnline do not call it obsolete. DCDuring TALK 01:09, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know that it's obsolete, but it doesn't seem currently in reputable use. Searching for "creditable" on Google Books turns up English Literature and the Wider World: Creditable warriors, 1830-1876 from the Irish Ashfield Press, and that's only non-government use (mostly for another definition) on the first page, so I'm skeptical about it being a US definition. Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage For Dummies says "Creditable — not to be confused with credible (meaning believable) — means something that can be credited or counted." The Concise Oxford English Dictionary says "People sometimes confuse the words credible and creditable. Credible chiefly means 'able to be believed; convincing' (few people found his story credible), while creditable means 'deserving acknowledgement and praise but not necessarily outstanding." https://www.google.com/search?q=credible+creditable offers a lot of pages pointing out the difference between the two words, so I think "creditable" for "credible" deserves at least a usage note pointing out it's generally considered wrong.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:22, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
"generally considered wrong" ... yes, I agree. My feeling is that "creditable" for "credible" is simply a mistake -- confusing two similar words. 86.129.17.138 14:56, 20 March 2014 (UTC) Sorry, I had second thoughts about this, so scratching my comment. You can "credit" something, in the sense of believing it (e.g. as in the phrase "You wouldn't credit it"), so now I'm thinking why not "creditable" = "believable"? 86.129.17.138 01:21, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I don't have access to my copy of Garner's Modern American Usage or MWDEU , so I can't report their summaries of prevailing prescriptive opinion in their times. DCDuring TALK 23:47, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The OED has this sense with ten cites ranging from 1594 to 2011, but it also comments: "Now commonly regarded as erroneous by usage writers." with two cites for this opinion. I think we should keep the sense but add a usage note (or a proscribed tag, though the usage is common in my home dialect and would not be considered sub-standard except by pedants). Dbfirs 08:48, 22 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

奥运匹克

A regular IP user is persistently requesting entry 奥运匹克. I have commented on Wiktionary_talk:Requested_entries_(Chinese)#.E5.A5.A5.E8.BF.90.E5.8C.B9.E5.85.8B. It seems partially attestable but, considering how big Chinese web penetration currently is, 23 Google books hits is not a lot. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 04:47, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It is an ignorant misspelling by someone uneducated. It doesn't even make sense. Someone really should change the policy on misspellings - it makes me somewhat uncomfortable seeing words like becuase, Amercia, buisness, Croation, et. al included like other literate ones. In the meantime, someone can support the illiterate and create that entry if they really want to, but I definitely wouldn't. Wyang (talk) 05:43, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think that "Common misspelling of" is clear enough for anyone who reads the entry itself, but I suppose a worry is that headwords may appear without the essential caveats in places like [6] or [7], or in word list downloads. 86.129.17.138 15:01, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It's probably easier to make mistakes, typos in Mandarin, than in English, there are also misspellings caused by faulty conversion from simplified to traditional and problems with various IME's, which may produce an unwanted character. Having Chinese "common misspellings" is low priority. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 00:41, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

incompacity

(Currently a redlink.) I see quite a few bgc hits for this in the sense of "incapacity", including in seemingly well-edited works. More, indeed, than I'd expect, which leads me to wonder: Is it derived from (e.g. {{misspelling of}}) incapacity, or does it have a separate etymology?​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:29, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe there's influence from compact. Do any of the uses have any connotations of lack of compactness? Even if not, the phonological similarities between the words could theoretically lead to "cross-fertilization" between the two. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:02, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Sheep and Goats

I think the Christian Biblical metaphor of separating the sheep from the goats definitely merits an entry- but what should be the lemma? Chuck Entz (talk) 13:53, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

separate the sheep from the goats"? 86.129.17.138 14:54, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've made a first attempt. Feel free to improve. SemperBlotto (talk) 15:04, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Are sheep supposed to be superior to goats, or vice versa? --WikiTiki89 19:31, 20 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Sheep > Goats. --Catsidhe (verba, facta) 01:30, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Goats are a symbol of Satan. — Ungoliant (falai) 13:07, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, but I think that symbolism is later than the New Testament. If there's any connection between the two, then it's the NT discourse that influenced the symbolism rather than the other way around, but it's more likely that the symbolism comes from a reassociation of European pagan Horned Gods as Satan. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:02, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't even caught up to the New Testament yet, let alone anything later than it :P --WikiTiki89 17:58, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What language

Hey. What language is this - http://www.jw.org/que/

Quechua. — Ungoliant (falai) 13:05, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

corban

I'm confused about the second usage note, which seems to be encyclopedic. I'm tempted to delete it, but I first want to try to understand why it's there. --WikiTiki89 18:37, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's obviously an attempt to explain the quote on the first sense, which is part of an argument by Jesus that being able to avoid giving things to one's parents by declaring those things corban is an example of pharisaic tradition conflicting with commandments to honor one's mother and father. While it might be helpful to Christians trying to understand the passage, Bible commentaries do a far better job at explaining such things- so it should go. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:22, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Jargons??

'Jargon' is an uncountable noun. However, found a wiki page with the word 'Jargons' http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/jargons#English

Please check on this.

Please look at our definition of jargon. --WikiTiki89 09:38, 22 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

ordo#Latin

The entry says the first vowel was long, but Latin phonotactics generally disallowed sequences of long vowel + sonorant + consonant per w:Osthoff's law. The vowel was regularly shortened in such sequences, as is visible in many words and inflectional patterns (1st conjugation -ānt > -ant, 2nd -ēnt > -ent etc.). (An exception was nasal + fricative, where lengthening occurred instead.) So can this long vowel be verified, and how did it arise? —CodeCat 19:51, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Another example is Mārs, which is a contraction of Mavors. I don't know how it arose in this word (which Watkins takes back to a Proto-Italic root *ōrd- from earlier *ōrəd(h)), but it's confirmed by the Romance and Brythonic descendants, which can only have come from ō, not ŏ. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:18, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

due to (adjective) reasons

Subject was: ==due to reasons==

I sometimes encounter the phrase "due to (adjective) reasons", as in "the southern dialect is considered a separate language due to political reasons". It sounds unfluent to me. Does it to you? To me, "for political reasons" sounds better, while "due to" is OK when the word "reasons" isn't present: all of "(due to / owing to / on account of / because of / ) its long isolation" sound OK to me.
We have a usage note at [[due to]], but it seems to be about something else, since "due to" seems to serve the same grammatical role in "due to political reasons" as in "due to severe illness". - -sche (discuss) 05:02, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It's fairly common, even if technically redundant. --WikiTiki89 05:07, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Tangential comment: I've encountered the slangy phrase "because of reasons"/"because reasons" on the Internet, as in "I like Minecraft because of reasons" or "I want to see a movie where ninjas fight zombies because reasons," implying that the reasons in question are so self-evident as to not require elaboration. SOP or not SOP? -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 05:27, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Cloudcuckoolander Those are definitely SOP in that the "because (of)" means the exact same thing it normally does. However, this may indicate a colloquial sense of "reason(s)" meaning something like "obvious reason(s)". --WikiTiki89 05:40, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
(For some values of "normally". I mean, the whole "because <noun>" construction is not really "normal" yet IMHO.) —RuakhTALK 06:10, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The way I see it is "because" must be followed by an otherwise independent clause, and thus "reasons" is being used as a full sentence. Another example, How did we win? — Because Chuck Norris. --WikiTiki89 07:27, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that "for political reasons" sounds better, but I find "due to political reasons" merely a bit awkward — probably not "unfluent", depending what exactly you mean by that. —RuakhTALK 06:10, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that it sounds awkward, but it occurs very frequently in uncareful speech, i.e. casual conversations. Sometimes it seeps into careful speech. --WikiTiki89 07:27, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I view due to reasons as simply a way of saying that the speaker does not think the type or quality of the reasons are worth specifying. Any adjective would be a comment beyond the knowledge or caring of the speaker and/or listener. DCDuring TALK 18:20, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but even with an adjective "due to ___ reasons" is technically redundant, and that's what makes it sound awkward, not the lack of an adjective. I would guess it occurs when the speaker starts say "due to" but then decides not to elaborate and instead of saying something that makes sense grammatically like "something", the speaker says the most prominently relevant word that comes to mind which is "reasons". --WikiTiki89 18:36, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

about that life

What does "I'm not about that life" mean? --Fsojic (talk) 16:08, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is a common structure of the last 20 years or more which exists with many objects:
She's all about healthy living now.
The negative would be:
She's not about healthy living any more, she's into politics.
I think about that life is an instance of that type of negative.
I'm not sure whether the novel-seeming part of this is in a`n extension of the meaning of about#Preposition, an expansion of the scope of objects allowed with an existing meaning of about, or some other change in collocation. DCDuring TALK 18:14, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Verbal morphology for 'escrever' is incorrect

Hello,

The past participle for the Portuguese verb 'escrever' should be 'escrito/a' rather than 'escrevido/a' (look up on www.conjugemos.com). I would have changed it myself but I wasn't sure what the irregular verb syntax was. Thanks all.

Fixed. Thanks for bringing it up. — Ungoliant (falai) 19:27, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

accessory

I noticed this edit, and although the editor is right that the pronunciation in the IPA stresses the the antipenultimate syllable, I think the note may have referred to a pronunciation such as /ˈæk.sɪs.ɹi/. Has anyone heard of such a pronunciation or does anyone know how John Ash (not sure which John Ash) would have pronounced this word? --WikiTiki89 23:52, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This was my mistake. This note was based on Webster 1913, which actually states the following: "Ash [i.e. John Ash] accents the antepenult; and this is not only more regular, but preferable, on account of easiness of pronunciation. Most orthoepists place the accent on the first syllable." Equinox ◑ 23:56, 24 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Then either way, we are missing the pronunciation accented on the first syllable. Is it completely obsolete? The OED makes no mention of it. --WikiTiki89 00:05, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

developed country and developing country

Should we have entries for these? There are plenty of hits on OneLook (including online Oxford and Cambridge dictionaries), and the translations (in Chinese at least) are not simply developed/developing + country. ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:37, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Definitely idiomatic, because a developed country can be developing as well. — Ungoliant (falai) 17:35, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
developed and developing seem to have appropriate senses. I imagine they can also be used with other nouns such as "nation". Equinox ◑ 17:44, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I think that if we can show that the word "country" is linguistically tied into the phrase, then it is not SOP; i.e. do these senses of "developed" and "developing" ever occur attributively with words other than "country"? --WikiTiki89 17:50, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
You’re right. But developing/-ed country is much more common than “developing/-ed nation or state. — Ungoliant (falai) 18:08, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
But there are also developed world and developing world, which are quite common. Other nouns that are commonly modified are area, region, economy, society, market, state, democracy, institution (developed). "Developing" seems to have the same distribution of nouns. All per COCA. DCDuring TALK 18:28, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps developing country has an element of non-SoP lexical content inasmuch as it has been sometime used euphemistically, originally replacing underdeveloped country. But the same euphemism would seem to apply with others of this group of nouns modified by developing. DCDuring TALK 19:16, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Tooironic Which Chinese translation do you have in mind? I only know (simplified Chinese) 发达国家 (fādá guójiā, “developed country”) and 发展中国家 (fāzhǎn zhōng guójiā, “developing country”). There are other synonyms, which can be also considered SoP. I have no problem with having developed country and developing country entries. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 00:30, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I found 发达国 (fādáguó) and 发起国 (fāqǐguó) and 发达国家 (fādá guójiā) (as one word) is included in dictionaries. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 22:07, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
ZH:WIKT actually has an equivalent - 先进国 (xiānjìnguó), must be a borrowing from Japanese. It's used, so will make an entry. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 22:31, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

紫菀

The use of the term Asteracea in the original Mandarin definition ("root of the Asteracea (An herb used in traditional Chinese medicine")) suggests that the reference from which this is sourced is using archaic taxonomic names, not uncommon in our Chinese herbal medicine definitions. The original definition made it seem that Asteracea was a particular genus or species, but Asteracea is an old taxonomic name that best corresponds to the large family Asteraceae or is a mistaken spelling of Asteraceae.

Does anyone know whether the Mandarin refers to a subset of Asteraceae, any member of Asteraceae, or something else? Any references accessible to a non-Mandarin reader? DCDuring TALK 14:09, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

  • The ZH WT entry at [[zh:紫菀]] includes a Russian translation that gives this term as a specific species, Aster tataricus L. (астра татарская). The ZH WP article at [[zh:w:紫菀]] gives this same species, and links through to the EN WP article at [[w:Aster tataricus]], which mentions that this plant “is one of the 50 fundamental herbs of Traditional Chinese medicine, where it has the name zǐwǎn (Chinese: 紫菀).”
That said, I'm no fluent reader of Chinese, I just know enough to get around online. Corroboration from a native-ZH speaker would be lovely. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 16:50, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. That agrees with what the Japanese L2 says. If I don't get contrary indication in a week, I'll go with that. DCDuring TALK 18:44, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
A Google image search for "紫菀" also turns up mostly pictures of Aster tataricus, with the occasional missile thrown in. - -sche (discuss) 20:21, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Pleco, Nciku dictionaries also give definitions: aster (w:Aster tataricus). --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 21:43, 26 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Jamesjiao, @Wyang Is there anything to add? --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 05:03, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've taken the liberty to close this, as there is enough evidence that "an aster, a Michaelmas daisy: Aster tataricus, is one of the 50 fundamental herbs of Traditional Chinese medicine" is a correct definition. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 05:06, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good to me. Jamesjiao → T ◊ C 00:54, 28 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

social anxiety

Worth an entry? --Fsojic (talk) 16:44, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it just social + anxiety? -- Liliana • 23:19, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
social + anxiety implies normal anxiety from social interactions, however social anxiety generally refers to a specific anxiety disorder in which that anxiety response is heightened, which may be chronic and disabling, so not quite SOP. Pengo (talk) 21:34, 30 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, I take that back, social anxiety only sometimes refers to social anxiety disorder (aka social phobia). So I dunno if you'd call it SOP or not. Pengo (talk) 21:45, 30 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
In the US the official w:DSM-5 disorder names are arguably idiomatic as legalistic idioms. Each of the preceding DSM (I-IV with further variations) has somewhat different definitions, each with some legal force from publication of the definition to publication of any distinct succeeding definition. I'd expect something similar in other jurisdictions. I don't think that just any name of a range of diagnoses is inherently worth an entry, when the definition is not somehow fixed by some official action. DCDuring TALK 00:43, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
See w:Social anxiety disorder (SAD). DCDuring TALK 00:50, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Why would a dictionary definition give a precise psychiatric diagnosis or a legal definition, or why would it need to be "fixed by some official action"? We don't give kowtow to the myriad fixed legal definitions of madness, schizophrenia, marriage, etc, etc, etc. If you think that one of the most common psychiatric disorders, with "12% of Americans having experienced it in their lifetime", has such an ephemeral definition that it's merely an idiom of a psychiatric manual, then I think you need to look at it again. Pengo (talk) 02:37, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The best justification IMHO for inclusion of a relatively vague SoP term like this is that it has a specific meaning that is well-defined in some context (eg, law, justification for prescription medication, and insurance reimbursement). The definition we use could usefully summarize and refer to the specific DSM paragraph, without necessarily copying it (which might even be COPYVIO). DCDuring TALK 11:36, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

jener#German

Isn't this also a determiner? —CodeCat 20:48, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, so is dieser (“this”). --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 22:42, 27 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

neoromanzo

I'm trying to translate this Italian adjective into English. It seems to be referring to new(ish) dialects of Romance languages. Should I translate it as Neo-Romance? The term seems to have some usage but is quite rare. SemperBlotto (talk) 10:12, 30 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Gallo-Italic. — Ungoliant (falai) 14:46, 30 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Some seem to be using it as a synonym of romanzo (for Romance languages in general), and there is also a literature sense. I’ll do some more research. — Ungoliant (falai) 14:54, 30 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Romance is the most common sense. I suspect it may be an unnecessary blend of neolatino and romanzo, similar to how irregardless was formed. — Ungoliant (falai) 16:01, 30 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

raging

"(of an erection) Extremely aroused, rock-hard, long-lasting, insatiable." This seems stupidly overspecific (not to mention that an erection itself isn't aroused, rather the bearer of it): what about "raging lusts", "raging hormones"? It's not just dicks. Equinox ◑ 16:52, 30 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It was added by Luficerwildcat (as an IP), who was known for his obsession with dicks and for making stuff up. I suggest we speedy this. — Ungoliant (falai) 17:00, 30 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It seems raging in definition 2 is the same as definition 1. Deonyi (talk) 09:41, 28 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've removed the sense. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 16:07, 25 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

To rip somebody a new one

Also: "to tear somebody a new one", or "to tear / rip somebody a new asshole". Does this deserve an entry? The entry for "tear" has an example of this under Definition 4 but I don't think its idiomatic sense is apparent unless the reader has encountered it before.203.219.39.42 09:02, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

maidan#English

The etymology was recently changed, indicating a Persian source rather than Arabic. Every etymology I can find says this is from Persian (and Urdu), both ultimately from Arabic. Questions:

  1. Is there any evidence supporting this etymology?
  2. Since this is a form-of definition, the full etymology should be moved to the main entry meidan, right? Based on WT:ETY#Lemma

 —Michael Z. 2014-03-31 16:19 z

Re the second question: yes, content should be on the lemma. However, maidan seems to be the most common spelling of both homographs, so I have made maidan the lemma. That has the added benefit of allowing all the definitions that maidan can have to be in one place. - -sche (discuss) 17:45, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The ultimate source is definitely Arabic, from which other languages derived. I don't agree with the IP edit diff. If there is no objection, I will restore the original etymology as in this revision. --Anatoli (обсудить/вклад) 21:47, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I think you were correct to do that. The OED says "Partly from Persian maidān and partly from Urdu maidān, both from Arabic maydān" in their Third Edition entry (updated June 2000). The word "maydanum" in Latin is post-classical, so is probably derived from the same source. Dbfirs 08:14, 8 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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