Wiktionary:Tea room/2015/September

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← August 2015 · September 2015 · October 2015 → · (current)

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out-and-out

out-and-out is missing a definition relating to breeding. This was a new find for me this evening, as I was wondering about how it got its "thorough" meaning. In a Google books search I could find farmers using "out-and-out horse" and "out-and-out work". In poultry books, "out-and-out breeding" means to rotate in genetically different roosters each year (cf poultry "in-breeding", inbreed). I'm guessing that such thorough mongrelizing is the basis for the "thorough" meaning of "out-and-out" which, confusingly, seems to have an opposite meaning in thoroughbred. - 58.96.54.118 09:32, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

on the daily

What is "on the daily", when used as a (chiefly AAVE) synonym for just "daily"? For instance:

• 1996, The Fugees, "How Many Mics?"

• How many mics do we rip on the daily?

• 2005, Black Eyed Peas, "My Humps"

• I drive these brothers crazy, I do it on the daily

• 2012, Macklemore and Ryan Lewis, "Same Love"

• "Man, that's gay" gets dropped on the daily

Is this a special construction of on, a special definition of daily or an idiomatic phrase? As an argument against the last suggestion, I can also cite "on the weekly" and "on the monthly":

on the weekly / on the monthly

• 2010, Wafeek, "The Meaning of Life"

  I hang with Hussain on the weekly

• 2011, Rapsody, "One Time"

  Megazine, zine, I write on the weekly

• 2013, Joe Budden, "Tell Him Somethin'"

  Or, tell him you cherish our bond on the weekly.

• 2000, Lil' Kim, "Aunt Dot"

  Y'all bitches bleed like me, on the monthly

• 2003, Babbletron, "One Shot"

  Stab you in the heart, reissued on the monthly

• 2008, Curren$y, "Factor"

  Shorty on the monthly, I call it the red light

and "on the yearly", "on the hourly" get occasional hits:

on the hourly / on the yearly

• 2013, Jesse Jagz, "Redemption"

  Revolutionary soldier on the hourly. No home and no family.

• 2014, Anack$, "Shoot Em Up (Shot U Down Freestyle)"

  Go through a lot on the yearly and pick apart just what fears me

Smurrayinchester (talk) 11:39, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I'd call them all idiomatic, since it's only in this phrase that "the daily" (etc.) is used to mean "a daily basis" (etc.). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:27, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

To me they seem like syntactic constructions with the following formula to transform the expressions into mainstream English: "on the Xly" ⇒ "(on) every X", where every is probably often hyperbolic. I don't know how to add a definition to on that would help. This seems meant for Collocation space, but we could also have an entry for on the that had two "definitions": {{&lit|on|the}} and a non-gloss AAVE entry. That would need redirects from and usage examples of all of the collocations in the usage instances above and possibly more. DCDuring TALK 14:01, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

There's also on the regular (“on a regular basis”). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:05, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

attached

I had a little shock when I read that attached to someone meant “in a romantic or sexual relationship”. Because I thought I might have used it terribly wrong on many an occasion. But now Google has given me 7 million quotes for “attached to his mother”, which don’t seem to speak of incest. So I suppose the word can indeed mean “fond of, devoted to” as I thought it did.Kolmiel (talk) 04:33, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Added. Equinox ◑ 04:35, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I think that's the more common sense. DCDuring TALK 11:20, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

myself, yourself and similar - pronouns?

These forms are currently denoted as pronouns. And most uses are indeed pronoun-like, such as I wash myself. But some of the uses seem more adverbial, like I myself have seen it or I'll do it myself. You can replace "myself" with "alone" and you can see how they are syntactically very similar. So is this an omission on our part? —CodeCat 18:30, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Although they're not known for piercing up-to-date analysis of things like part-of-speech, FWIW the "lemmings" cover the "adverb-ish" uses as pronouns, e.g. Merriam-Webster: "pronoun 1: that identical one that is I — used [...] for emphasis 'I myself will go'", MacMillan: "pronoun 3a. used for emphasizing that you do something without help from anyone else : I arranged everything myself." In German, where selbst is both a pronoun and an adverb, uses like "ich selbst habe das Essen gekocht" (I myself cooked the meal) and "es waren die Tunesier selbst, die [das taten]" (it was the Tunisians themselves who did that) are typically considered to the using the pronoun (while the adverb covers uses like "selbst wenn du mir nicht glaubst, ..." = "even if you don't believe me, ..."), although the Duden labels both uses "particle"s. I've yet to find any in-depth analysis of the (English) matter, besides the hint that the specific term for this is "intensive pronoun". Does CGEL have anything to say? - -sche (discuss) 02:59, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Surely in "I myself will go" the two pronouns are merely appositional - for emphasis. I don't think myself is modifying the verb (will go), so not an adverb. With "I'll do it myself" again myself is not modifying "do" - rather it is equivalent to (and perhaps a variant of) "I'll do it by myself", where myself is clearly a pronoun as it is preceded by a preposition.Sonofcawdrey (talk) 08:20, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

Who said adverbs have to modify verbs? --WikiTiki89 13:06, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

• Myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, and themselves are collectively referred to as reflexive pronouns Purplebackpack89 13:35, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

neger, néger

1. Neger says "now chiefly Caribbean", but the only citation is from 1700. The modern hits at google books:"a neger" suggests that, in addition to referring to a type of WWII submarine, this is just a variant / synonym / eye-dialect form of nigger and it does not seem to be specific to the Caribbean.
2. Can anyone vouch for or against this?

- -sche (discuss) 02:24, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Regarding the Hungarian word: Maybe both is "correct"? Like, leftists and pc-ists saying it's a bad word and only treating it as a bad word, and traditionalists and rightists saying it's neutral. So for some people it'd be a bad word, while for others it isn't.

Comparing it with German Neger - which here rather has a presriptive point of view and unjustifiedly got 'closed' from editing -: Neger was a neutral word,¹ for some it still is (older ones, traditionalists, rightists), while for some it's bad (leftists, pc-ists). That is, instead of that POV-wording² "(now dated and an ethnic slur) negro, black: nigger" it's rather "1. (now rare, politically incorrect) negro, black; 2. (now an ethnic slur) nigger".

¹ By context the word "Neger" might seem bad, but many negroes were slaves and less educated, so it was the situation which was bad and not the word.

² negro and nigger are different terms, and the entry mixes them up: negro has a more neutral meaning (e.g. King used it in his "I have a dream" speech), as does have Neger, while nigger is more derogatory (more commonly used by rightists), for which nowadays sometimes Neger is used, but Nigger (from English) is more common. E.g. in German children's books like "Jim Knopf" or "Pippi Langstrumpf" it is Neger in a neutral way (now it's pc and sometimes got removed), while in German RAC it is for example "Gestern durften Nigger auf Plantagen schuften [...]" or even "Hurra, hurra, ein Nigger brennt", which is derogatory. It's like nigger/Nigger has a harder tone (maybe because of that gg and the short i) or is shorter (two short vowels), and thus is prefered in rightists contexts.

-Rdm571 (talk) 12:43, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

away (in a restaurant)

In the UK (not sure of elsewhere) a waiter in a restaurant will shout to the chef "table <n> away" when the people at that table have finished their starters and are ready for their main course (In Italy the word used is via). What is the part of speech? What do waiters in other countries say? The OED doesn't seem to have a definition for this meaning. SemperBlotto (talk) 17:58, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Sounds like an adjective. Possibly (guessing) in the sense "at a specified distance in space, time, or figuratively", a bit like when horses in a race are said to be "away" (at the point of starting). Equinox ◑ 20:25, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

I think it's a procedure word, and not an English sentence. Pengo (talk) 02:28, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

Well the pos is somewhat obscured by the elliptical syntax, i.e. short for "table X is away" - so seem adjectival to me.Sonofcawdrey (talk) 04:59, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Category English language contains items that don't belong there

Items like Maroon Spirit Language, Kriol language, Tok Pisin language shouldn't be included. I think they are included because English is listed as on of the ancestors for them, but they themselved aren't English. I think only pages that have English section should be included in Category:English language. Yurivict (talk) 18:44, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Can you give some examples of words in Maroon Spirit Language, Kriol, or Tok Pisin that are miscategorized as English? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:11, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

For languages that have their ancestor set in the modules, the language category is automatically categorised into the ancestor's language category by {{poscatboiler}}. —CodeCat 20:15, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

But this doesn't make much sense, because in English language category people would expect to see "English language", not some other languages, even though English is within the set of their ancestors. There should be the separate category "Languages having English as ancestor". Yurivict (talk) 21:30, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

Most of such categories would only ever have one language in them. —CodeCat 22:10, 6 September 2015 (UTC)

I never noticed this before; is it new? At any rate it seems to me to be a very bad thing that Category:English language is a daughter of Category:Middle English language, which is a daughter of Category:Old English language, which is a daughter of Category:Proto-Germanic language, which is a daughter of Category:Proto-Indo-European language. That's not what membership in a category is supposed to mean. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:03, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

{{langcatboiler}} should probably have a Descendants field in addition to Ancestors. (But it might have to be truncated to immediate daughters, at least in the case of things like Proto-Austronesian or Proto-Indo-European.) --Tropylium (talk) 20:50, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Could a native speaker of English check this definition?

Hi everyone,

I defined 'рунетчик' as "A user of the Russian segment of the Internet", but shortly after that the definition was changed to "user of the Russian segment of Internet". The removal of the indefinite article before the word 'user' isn't particularly important; the absence of 'the' before 'Internet', however, looks grammatically incorrect to me.

Could a native speaker of English provide an opinion on the matter?

Thanks! Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 06:50, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

"of Internet" doesn't sound right to me. —suzukaze (t・c) 10:05, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

My experience is that "the Internet" has been in dominant use since the early 1990s. Some 1980s american TV news reports used "Internet" without the article (see youtube). Also, "segment" does not seem like the right word to me; "part" might be better. 58.96.54.118 13:50, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Is (national) subnet common or transparent enough to replace segment in the definition? DCDuring TALK 15:01, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

The thing is, this 'segment' of the Internet is not a technical 'segment'. People who use the word 'Рунет' use it to describe all the Russian-language sites on the Internet as sort of a separate cultural space. The problem is – such a space obviously doesn't exist. And secondly – it's hard to decide which sites should be considered part of 'Рунет' and which shouldn't. For example, Russian Wikipedia and Russian Wiktionary – are they part of 'Рунет' or not? So, I'm pretty sure that 'рунетчик' could be defined as a user of 'Рунет'. How to define 'Рунет' – I know not.

And also, does it even belong in an English definition if it's a Russian word that isn't really used in English? Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 15:23, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, suzukaze and 58.96.54.118, for your contributions.

Yes, a Google search of phrases like “French segment of the Internet” and “Chinese segment of the Internet” exposes the use of the word ‘segment’ in this context as a Russianism. If any word should leave the definition, it’s this one.

The word ‘Internet’ should obviously be preceded by a definite article. The native speakers in this thread, as well as Google and the Oxford Dictionary of English all agree.

As for the ‘a’ at the beginning of the definition, it’s not that I feel strongly that it should stay – rather, I don’t understand why it had to go. The aforementioned ODE routinely uses it in its definitions, and it’s commonplace to start definitions of countable nouns with ‘a’ on Wiktionary as well.

But all of this still leaves me with the question of how the word should be defined. Technically, the Internet is not divided into segments or parts based on language.

I guess the easiest way would be to define ‘рунетчик’ as a user of ‘Рунет’ – and let those who understand what the latter is define ‘Рунет’. Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 15:09, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I did my best to reword the definition. I can't think of any reason to remove the, though whether to use a seems more like a personal preference. As for defining Рунет, look at Anglosphere for an analogous term. I would suggest "the collection of all Russian-language sites on the Internet", or "the Russian-language sites on the Internet, taken as a whole", or something like that. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:29, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz Thank you for your work on defining 'рунетчик'! I also think that your two definitions of 'Рунет' are about as precise as one can be with this markedly imprecise term. Come to think of it, I might borrow one of them verbatim for the definition. :) Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 10:42, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Currently it's: "A user of Russian-language sites on the Internet", which I think is much better than the "segment" expression, yet not really quite right; for example I am a Russian learner, and would come under this definition, but I am not a рунетчик (least, I think not, not yet). I think "(the) Francophone Internet" is probably widely understood; would "the Russophone Internet" be clear (and neater)? Imaginatorium (talk) 06:58, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

I think it goes a little beyond being a "user". It's about actively participating in the Russian-language community online, by interacting with others in that community. Even if a person uses exclusively Russian-language sites, but only reads them, they are not a Runetchik. Receiving and sharing information of some sort is a requirement, read-only users are not Runetchiks. Eishiya (talk) 22:12, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

woodpigeon vs. wood pigeon

Shouldn't wood pigeon be the main entry? Woodpigeon seems to be an Americanish spelling, but I don't think they live in America (or do they?). We always spelt it "wood pigeon" in NZ (referring to the native species there). Donnanz (talk) 14:07, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

The data in Google n-gram indicates that indeed wood pigeon should be the main form, with woodpigeon and wood-pigeon being alternatives. Why do you say woodpigeon is a US spelling? DCDuring TALK 14:52, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think "woodpigeon" is used in British English, so I assume it's an American form (I don't know for sure), and "wood pigeon" is the customary spelling here [1]. They come into my garden, by the way. Donnanz (talk) 15:21, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

The RSPB uses woodpigeon, as does the BOU British List. Authorities generally seem to be split between the three forms. Keith the Koala (talk) 15:36, 7 September 2015 (UTC)

Very surprising, so where do we go from here? Absolutely nowhere, I suppose. Donnanz (talk) 07:42, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Au contraire, we correct the 2009 change that switched the main entry from [[wood pigeon]] to [[woodpigeon]]. The 2009 edit summary rationale for the change by User:Top Cat 14 (apparently not using "Move", let alone WT:RFM) was "Moved the page here becuase woodpigeon is the preferred spelling and used more". Which rationale is contrary to what Google N-grams and COCA show. BNC shows all three forms roughly equal. It would have been nice to see some hint of the source of evidence. DCDuring TALK 10:21, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

•  Done DCDuring TALK 10:47, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely brilliant! Thanks a lot! Donnanz (talk) 11:09, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

nip

I've heard this used (by Brits) as an insult, like "idiot" or "knob", but I'm having trouble finding citations. Has anyone else heard of it? What's the etymology? - -sche (discuss) 06:04, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Could it have actually been nit? It can be pretty easy to mistake one unreleased final stop for another. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:47, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

I can find it written on a few websites, like here, just nowhere durable. - -sche (discuss) 17:02, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

No, doesn't ring any bells I'm afraid. SemperBlotto (talk) 07:37, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

For nitwit one can't get ANY semantics from what passes for our etymology (which goes back to PIE). In contrast Online Etymology Dictionary more helpfully gives "nitwit (n.) "stupid person," 1922, probably from nit "nothing," from dialectal German or Yiddish, from Middle Low German (see nix) + wit (n.). DCDuring TALK 10:52, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

Interestingly, American dictionaries seem to like the German/Yiddish root idea, while British ones prefer a more literal "having the brains of a nit" (although Chambers goes with US). The earliest (non-scanno) hits in Google Books are from the US Northeast (which surprises me, since now it's quite a British-sounding insult), so I'd go with the German root. Added both to the entry, with preference to German. Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:46, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I haven't heard of this either. Renard Migrant (talk) 20:49, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Nor have I! Equinox ◑ 13:43, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

I've lived in Northeast US almost all of my life. I've never heard this. Looks like a job for DARE. DCDuring TALK 16:58, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

summon

Perhaps I'm re-listing this (it's already tagged but I see nothing on its talk page) but it summon used as a noun as opposed to summons? Or to put it another way, is it currently used as a noun, that is, is it archaic, dated, current, what? Renard Migrant (talk) 15:27, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

It's rare and possibly archaic. I can find a 1817 citation of "which took place the night preceding his summon of his uncle" and a 1979 citation (by a non-native speaker?) of "His summon of all the Northern emirs", a few citations of google books:"his summon to", in all of which cases I think it could be defined as "(rare) singular of summons". - -sche (discuss) 16:47, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

"white hope"

The phrase "white hope" deserves explanation and an entry. I think it is to be distinguished from the common or vulgar understanding of the phrase "great white hope", which as far as I can tell is basically that of a white boxer or other athlete.

The phrase "white hope" apparently has a true, much older significance. Thus, one finds in "The Decline of Bismarck's European Order", by George . Kennan, Princeton University Press (1979), p. 93, at the asterisk at the bottom of the page, the following: "*Skobelev's death, it might be further noted, occurred within a few weeks of that of her other great hero and white hope, Gambetta ...."

It's clear that the use by Kennan is free from any racial reference, and that "white hope" has an independent meaning. In this older, non-vulgar sense, the phrase "white hope" is deserving of an entry in Wiktionary.

Does anyone know what this phrase really means, and its derivation, with other examples of its usage?

The Oxford Dictionary of English does: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/white-hope Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 19:37, 9 September 2015 (UTC)

See “white hope”, in OneLook Dictionary Search., especially MW's definitions. DCDuring TALK 03:29, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

airhead

Hi there. We currently have: "A silly, foolish or unintelligent person". I thought that it was more like a forgetful, distracted, or unaware person. But since English is a second language to me, i consult y'all instead of making a change. Of course a second sense/def could be added, but i think it overkill, as i believe the word to have but one meaning. Opinions? Thanks in advance.--Jerome Potts (talk) 16:30, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

See “airhead”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. DCDuring TALK 16:34, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Ah, so there is another sense. Thanks. Note that i don't copy from other dictionaries, i want us to make our own. But the "consensus" is always interesting. --Jerome Potts (talk) 18:42, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

The idea is that their head is filled with air rather than with a brain. --WikiTiki89 16:49, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Europeanize or europeanize?

? --2A02:908:C30:EBE0:69A9:8A6F:CD91:312C 00:15, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Euro- words are more often written with a capital. Equinox ◑ 00:18, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

BGC Ngrams confirms that the capitalized form is way more common. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 06:14, 12 September 2015 (UTC)

Oxford agrees with the capitalised form [2]. Donnanz (talk) 09:32, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

अझ़दहा

Is there a way to change the title of the article अझ़दहा? The title should be अज़दहा. There is no such word as अझ़दहा in Hindi. This word exists in Urdu, but that doesn't mean it also exists in Hindi. In Hindi, the modified form अज़दहा is used instead. Here is a dictionary entry with अज़दहा, and as you can see there is no अझ़दहा present.--Foreverknowledge (talk) 07:48, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

This seems to be correct, so I have moved it. @Dijan, Stephen G. Brown —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:57, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Actually, the former is an alternative spelling used to indicate the Persian/Urdu pronunciation with the voice palato-alveolar sibilant, a sound which isn't native to Hindi, just like the word itself. That doesn't make the word non-existent as the claim above suggests. --Dijan (talk) 05:04, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

If the word were existent in Hindi, one would expect to find at least some references to it in literature. However, you can see for yourself, there are 0 results for अझ़दहा/अझदहा in Google books. In a general Google web search, all results for अझ़दहा/अझदहा are either derived from, influenced by, or based on Wikipedia/Wiktionary. In other words, अझ़दहा/अझदहा is not a real Hindi word, but a word Wikipedia/Wiktionary created for Hindi. It is, however, an appropriate transliteration for the Urdu/Persian word. --Foreverknowledge (talk) 03:45, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

"Pot Noodle" or "pot noodle"?

Pot Noodle is a registered trademark of Unilever, but it seems to have entered general usage and used for other manufacturers' identical products, and it is also written completely in lower case. Other manufacturers have to use a different name, the ASDA product is called a "noodle snack". The question is whether it's worth an entry. Donnanz (talk) 09:25, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Interesting. I've eaten those damn things a few times (I prefer "Super Noodles") but I've never seen it written in lower case or used generically. Want to make a Citations page? Equinox ◑ 09:31, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

The generic, lowercase, term is instant noodle I think. SemperBlotto (talk) 09:37, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

p.s. Apparently you can only eat them after you have been soaked in boiling water. SemperBlotto (talk) 09:39, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Citations pages aren't my speciality, in other words I've never done one. A little bit of info here :: Citations pages aren't my speciality, in other words I've never done one. A little bit of info here [3] may help.

Maybe Semper Blotto should rephrase that last comment. Donnanz (talk) 09:44, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

That's what our definition seems to say to me. Perhaps it needs a comma or something. SemperBlotto (talk) 09:47, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

"It is eaten after being soaked in boiling water." Cf. "it is thrown away after being used". No grammar problem. Equinox ◑ 09:48, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

The way I read it, you yourself have been soaked in boiling water. Ouch! Donnanz (talk) 09:52, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

The first reading is supported by the weight of the grammatical evidence and of the context, but the other reading isn't completely ruled out, especially with the looong distance between the two clauses. It's also more fun to talk about... Chuck Entz (talk) 10:05, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I've swapped the words around a bit - any better? Keith the Koala (talk) 20:05, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

I think "pot noodle" is more specific than "instant noodle", in that it implies the boiling water can be poured directly into the styrofoam cup packaging. Not sure how to judge how generic the trademark has become. Can't say I knew it was a trademark. Pengo (talk) 13:06, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

• It seems to be pluralised as well [4], and has a Wikipedia page. Donnanz (talk) 13:38, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

RMOS Consultancy new word addition in your dictionary

hi i want to add a new word RMOS Consultancy in your dictionary so plz help and describe me by and by process to do so

That is definitely not going to happen. It's commercial spam, or advertising. If you add it, you will be blocked. Equinox ◑ 09:46, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

Jewes and jewes

The current state of these two entries is rather problematic, but I don't actually know what to do with them (besides the obsolete spelling listed in Jewes, of course). Would {{only used in}} be appropriate, perhaps? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:54, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Hm, I wasn't aware of that template when I made those pages or I would have used it. I'll wait and see if someone's got a better plan though. FTR, there's a lot more than just those two pages, there's about a billion variations on it, all of them are in Category:English particles (all of the Js in that category). WurdSnatcher (talk)

All I know for sure is that they oughtn't to be particles! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:45, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I originally named some nouns but thought they didn't really act like nouns, maybe nouns that are only used attributively? WurdSnatcher (talk) 21:07, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

proprioception, nociception, etc.

Where does the ception bit come from? I don't think it's a suffix, I don't think it's directly from Latin (would be capiō or captiō not ceptiō) so where's it from? Reception, inception, what? Note we have -ception but with a completely different meaning. Renard Migrant (talk) 20:47, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

perception presumably. Equinox ◑ 20:50, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Latin noun inflection table templates

I've recently migrated a great number of Latin noun inflection table templates to Module:la-noun and so rendered many of them obsolete; all of the locative templates have been superseded by the |loc= parameter, which simply has to be set to ‘yes’ to add the locative row as well as the appropriate forms of the word to the table, and the one plural template has long since been superseded by the |num= parameter, which can be set to ‘sg’ or ‘pl’ to eliminate the singular or plural column, respectively. In addition, most of the templates for irregular nouns have also been rendered obsolete; named parameters such as |nom_sg= and |dat_pl= can be used to specify irregular forms of the word, and an {{la-decl-noun-irreg}} template can be created and declensions added to the module for highly irregular words such as domus. JohnC5, I'm so meta even this acronym, and Metaknowledge all think getting rid of the obsolete templates is a good idea; I haven't discussed with them the possibility of creating an {{la-decl-noun-irreg}} template, but I don't think that will be a major bone of contention. Anyone have any objections? Esszet (talk) 22:39, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion: the parameters should be |noms= and |datp= to match the syntax used in {{inflection of}} (and Module:gender and number in general). --Tweenk (talk) 23:23, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

@Esszet: No objections from me. I'd like to recommend {{la-decl-irr}} in place of the overlong {{la-decl-noun-irreg}} (irregular adjectives could be handled by {{la-adecl-irr}}, per {{grc-adecl}}).

@Tweenk: Parameter names like |nom_sg= and |dat_pl= are a legacy of the templates' wikicode parameter names pre-Lua. I think I prefer the _sg and _pl forms, rather than the the _s and _p forms, but that's probably just because that's what I'm used to; however, I see the merit of having uniform abbreviations, so I can support the _s and _p forms. That being said, I certainly believe that we should keep the underscores — they improve readability (just like {{inflection of}}'s pipes) — imagine conjugational parameter names sans underscores: |3spresactvindc= rather than |3_s_pres_actv_indc=, for example…

 — I.S.M.E.T.A. 13:35, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

up shit creek without a paddle

I always assumed that this referred to the situation of being stuck in a bathroom after having taking a shit without toilet paper, given both the human tendency to wrap such situations in metaphor, and the closeness of the imagery.

The existing entry for this phrase is, by its own admission, dubious, and contains no citations, so I'm interested to see more evidence. — This unsigned comment was added by 50.250.211.179 (talk).

If you believe the article needs better citations, you may want to start a Request for verification. Purplebackpack89 14:07, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

'dâm' (Vietnamese)

The Vietnamese word 'dâm' has 'being a pervert' listed as one of its meanings. This definition sounds very strange to me. What does it mean exactly? 'Pervert'? 'To commit perverse acts?' 'Perverted'? It's listed as an adjective, but 'being' is a state, and therefore indicates a noun... In short, I'm confused. Maybe somebody who is familiar with this particular sense of the word could come up with a better definition? Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 16:19, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

•  Done Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 12:30, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

blarophant

Do we have a place for this word? The citation is "He was illiterate, and he has made frequent boast that he never saw the inside of a schoolhouse. His habit of mind was singularly illogical, and his public addresses the greatest farrago of nonsense that ever was put in print. He prided himself on being a great financier, and yet all of his commercial speculations have been conspicuous failures. He was blarophant and pretended to be in daily intercourse with the Almighty, and yet he was groveling in his ideas and the system of religion he formulated was well nigh Satanic." Salt Lake Tribute on Brigham Young's death. There does not seem to be another use, but Wikipedia quotes this, and there are many places on the Internet asking what it means. Is there some appendix page where this notable nonce word can live?--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:53, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

@Prosfilaes: It belongs in Appendix:English nonces. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:39, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

tengah hari (afternoon) in Malaysian Sign Language

I know how to the sign. Left hand crosses infront of chest, left palm facing below, right hand elbow besides ribs contacted above left hand, stand still and right palm towards left. I want to contribute it to here but not sure how… --Malaysiaboy (talk) 14:10, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

holloways

Hi,

Although I'm a registered user, I don't know the ins and outs of how to create an entry here. Perhaps someone could set up this using the following as info: http://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/a-startling-hidden-treasure-exploring-the-holloways-of-dorset-england-1.2564028.

Good work being done here. Humbug26 (talk) 19:22, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Excellent catch. We didn't have holloway, sunken lane, or hollow way. I'm not at all sure that sunken lane is necessarily dictionary material (See sunken + lane. DCDuring TALK 23:18, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for adding. I would never be able to provide that level of detail. I'm now starting to use this site more, especially now that I'm processing material at Wikisource. Every once in a while, there are some words that I really need to get the meaning of to have the context make sense. Really quite a good resource. Humbug26 (talk) 01:16, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Accelerated inflection creation gadget doesn't work any more

Missing links don't show as green any more for no apparent reason. It still worked yesterday. Yurivict (talk) 05:01, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

@Yurivict, CodeCat: It seems to be due to an edit made by CodeCat, which I have reverted. I hope she can identify the error so that Latvian & Co. can be added successfully. (For future reference, WT:GP is a better forum for technical concerns.) —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:36, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! Yurivict (talk) 05:43, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge I copied and pasted the code that User:Neitrāls vārds had provided in User_talk:Conrad.Irwin/creationrules.js, assuming it was correct. Should I have checked for errors beforehand? —CodeCat 12:30, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Could you do that? That'd be great, if it helps it is practically a verbatim copy of the Turkish rules (as Turkish doesn't appear to have any complex modules, and is pretty heavily inflected, I thought that'd be a good reference point...)

And I suspect that Latvian in particular is what could've been the culprit (mdf and myv had it set to stick the rules in {{inflection of}} but Latvian has a custom inflection-of template.) Adding the three of them one by one could give clues, I assume. Neitrāls vārds (talk) 12:52, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that's the problem. The problem was actually in the script itself, something was throwing an error and that brought everything else down. It might be an undefined variable or something. —CodeCat 13:01, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

CodeCat, there is a semicolon missing after every the last curly brace in all three of those blocks. Could this be it? Neitrāls vārds (talk) 13:20, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

onct

Just created onct - Google suggests strongly that it's an eye dialect of once, but I can't even guess what dialect it might be. SHould it be pronounced "wunst"? --Zo3rWer (talk) 18:19, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm tempted to drop an RFV on it right off the bat. If you're going to create it, especially with it being unclear as to dialect, you should put cites on it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 20:32, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

"Onest" also exists (google books:"onest upon"), as does "onst". - -sche (discuss) 21:13, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I think this is just a spelling variation of oncet, or possibly a guess by someone not familiar with the more usual spelling, which can happen with rare and dialectical forms. Your pronunciation is correct, and much easier to understand than the existing IPA guideline. P Aculeius (talk) 23:46, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Fabulous = Gay?

I've started a discussion on the talk page for fabulous with respect to a new sense that was added today. I'm not convinced that the examples cited demonstrate a meaning that can be clearly distinguished from the existing senses of the word, and that the meaning asserted is derived from the context in which the word is used, rather than the word itself. Apologies if I've posted this in the wrong area; please feel free to move it to the right place if I have! P Aculeius (talk) 23:43, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm a new kid here, and I'm afraid I don't quite understand the procedure. We had a brief discussion on the talk page, where 2 users were kind of in favor of removing this new definition, one user sort of wanted it amended, and yet another user seemed to be quite happy with the way the entry is now. Then everybody went silent... What happens next? Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 19:54, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

@Pfftallofthemaretaken: Talkpages are an uncommon place for discussions, as it may be difficult for them to show up on others' radar. In a case like this, I would encourage you to put {{rfd-sense}} on the definition line and create a discussion at WT:RFD. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:18, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge Thanks! I think it would be more logical for @P Aculeius to do this, as he was the one who started the whole discussion. Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 20:24, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

@Pfftallofthemaretaken: It's not at all illogical for you to do it. Anyone can, after all. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:26, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

• FWIW, I like how definition 6 is worded. It's kinda of a low-level/underhanded way of saying you're gay without actually SAYING it. Purplebackpack89 20:25, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Well, that's the problem. It doesn't say it. Just because a word or phrase has a sort of loose association with something else doesn't mean that the said something is a definition of the word. In every example offered, the reason for using "fabulous" is supplied by other words creating a general context, while the word "fabulous" just sort of sits there ambiguously meaning "extremely amazingly wonderful" or something even less specific. Never done an RFD before, but I guess I'd better look into that. P Aculeius (talk) 02:07, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

@P Aculeius: Feel free to ask me if you need any help. Cheers! —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:12, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Just tagged it, about to add an entry on the RFD page per instructions. If I've placed it in the wrong spot, please fix it! P Aculeius (talk) 02:17, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Fabulous! But really, does anybody know what happens next? Or, perhaps, I should ask—is there a procedure for such cases? Do we get to vote or smth? Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 07:03, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

First a discussion of the presence of absence of any aspect of usage that should make it easier to make a decision. After that and also while the discussion is progressing: voting. DCDuring TALK

Kira

This is also a variant spelling of Ciara, of Irish origin. I'm not really sure how to put it in the entry though. —CodeCat 00:54, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

If the same string has origins in two languages, one could try to distinguish an Etymology 1 and 2, like at Amber... though I can see how it could be hard in many cases to tell which uses of a name have which etymology, since they're synonymous and context (like someone being born to Irish vs Persian parents) could be missing or unreliable. Pragmatically, one might need to have one etymology saying "In some cases, from X. In other cases, from Y."
In cases where a name has its origin in one language and then came to be applied to another thing, however, we seem to use just one etymology and note the sense evolution: toad covers "amphibian" and "man" under one etymology. It's debatable which of the two situations the use of an English name to anglicize / respell / re-form an Irish name is more similar to, but in practice we mostly handle them under one etymology, as in Humphrey and most other entries (where the info is in the etymology), Cornelius (where it's in usage notes), or Jeremy (where it's in the definition). I think Angr's edit to Kira was the way to go.
Straying off-topic, perhaps a dedicated template for that would be useful; it would take the Irish name as a parameter and produce something along the lines of the existing wording, "Used to anglicize Irish Amhlaoibh" (add nodot=1 and add "from Olaf" manually).
- -sche (discuss) 17:39, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

knaue

I can't figure out what knaue means in Middle/obsolete English. I guessed at new, know, knave, but the quotes don't make sense. --Zo3rWer (talk) 10:51, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure those are all knave, many of them in the meaning "boy" (compare German Knabe). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:53, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

OK, thanks. So a knave child is a babie boye. --Zo3rWer (talk) 10:55, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

The distinction is typographical. Written English at this period didn't distinguish between 'u' and 'v', even though spoken English did. In other words, they were treated as the same letter with two pronunciations (like many letters today). I've been transcribing church records from the 16th Century this week, and I can confirm that 'u' and 'v' are written the same way, as are 'i' and 'j' (except that both shapes are used; the j shape is usually found at the end of a word or numeral). P Aculeius (talk) 16:35, 19 September 2015 (UTC)

deus

Deus says "Only the vocative retained the -v-", but none of the five vocative forms contain a v. (One contains a u, but the nominative and accusative also have u.) Are we missing a form, or was the v retained only in Old Latin and lost in Latin, in which case we could spell that out in the interest of clarity? This article suggests that v-forms of divus (dívum or dívom) were sometimes used as forms of deus, which seems like something to include in a usage note. - -sche (discuss) 18:08, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

deus and inflections don't have a v. (Nowadays u and v - as well as i and j - are different letters, so DEVS or devs is rather a deprecated spelling.)

Somewhere also other forms of divus where mentioned as inflected forms of deus, like dive for the vocative singular - which could explain why some say there's no classical vocative of deus. (Maybe "Template:la-decl-deus" had deus with vocative dive (maybe instead of deus and dee) and the quote maybe refered to that?)

Also: In Georges' dictionary it is "Vokat. Sing. deus, erst spätlat. dee" (voc. sg. deus, in Late Latin dee), which seems to contradict "The vocative singular of deus does not occur in classic Latin, but is said to have been dee; deus (like the nominative) occurs in the Vulgate." from your source.

-Rdm571 (talk) 11:48, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

Pinging Latin-speakers @Metaknowledge, I'm so meta even this acronym for their input. (The issue is: the entry says "Only the vocative retained the -v-", but none of the vocative forms contain a v.) - -sche (discuss) 23:06, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Looking at the deleted history of {{la-decl-deus}}, it did indeed have the vocative dive. --WikiTiki89 23:31, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

• It's confusing, and probably deserves a usage note; I'd view forms with -v- to be suppletion that doesn't belong in the declension table, though. This paper is a good place to start, if anyone wants to get on that. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:14, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

  If it is not attested, maybe we should simply not include it and provide a usage note listing some reconstructions and/or later forms (if they exist). --WikiTiki89 01:14, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

@-sche, Rdm571, Wikitiki89, Metaknowledge: I read the paper to which Μετάknowledge linked. In nuce, there is insufficient evidence to reach a conclusion. The end of the paper's final paragraph sums it up nicely:

• 1997 April, John Rauk, “The Vocative of Deus and Its Problems” in Classical Philology, volume XCII, № 2, page 146:

  [I]f we are to ask…, “What was the classical vocative of deus?”, how are we to respond? The examples are few and uncertain, but this is no basis for claiming that the vocative was not occasionally used in classical times. Nor is there any way to determine whether deus was preferred over dee, or whether both were used. The form dee does appear, though infrequently, in early Christian writers. Deus was overwhelmingly favored in the Latin Bible and later Latin, but neither can be used to reach conclusions about usage in classical times. In the end it is necessary to recognize the for all the armament of scholarship that can be brought to bear upon it, the vocative of deus is a question that must be left open. All that we can do is say what the vocative of deus might have been. We cannot say what it was.

 — I.S.M.E.T.A. 02:58, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm glad you seem to have enjoyed the paper. I was thinking we ought to write a usage note, but perhaps the quotation above would suffice. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:01, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

dominical

I added a second definition to the French word ("from the Lord (i.e. Jesus Christ)"), but I couldn't think of any English adjective meaning "from the Lord." Can anyone think of one that isn't obsolete or archaic? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 19:28, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

In Christian contexts, divine is often taken to refer specifically to the Christian god, but I think "of the Lord" may be the best translation (and quite common). "...brought (the wrath of the lord | divine wrath) down upon them" (either phrase works). - -sche (discuss) 23:57, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Węgierek

Wiktionary describes as Węgiereka: Hungarian woman. Not sure exactly how to add 80 grams of a Hungarian woman to a plum cake recipe. Any suggestions? — This unsigned comment was added by 66.72.175.161 (talk).

Wiktionary entries are case-sensitive, so the entry is correct. The problem is that that nobody has created an entry for the lower-case counterpart, węgierka (yet). Do you know anyone who speaks Polish that could do that?. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:19, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

It's not even on the Polish wiktionary yet. SemperBlotto (talk) 07:57, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

Old English mægþ, noun sense 2

The etym explains where sense 1 comes from -- girl, presumably cognate with German Magd. Sense 2, however (power, i.e. might, presumably cognate with German Macht), must surely have a different derivation. Could someone split these senses up by appropriate etymology? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:23, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

done Leasnam (talk) 20:15, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

• Thank you, Leasnam!

You're welcome ! Leasnam (talk) 21:28, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm curious, does the power sense really derive from Proto-Germanic *maigiþō (“shamelessness, wantonness, wickedness”), rather than from *maganą (“to be able”)? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:03, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

There is already a derivative miht. —CodeCat 21:07, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I wonder that too. I am not sure, it could have evolved out of the "ambition" sense, or have been influened by sound-alike meaht. I wasnt able to trace it adequately to any derivative of *maganą. Leasnam (talk) 21:28, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

What do we do with ngọn đuốc now?

I created an entry on the Vietnamese word ngọn đuốc yesterday, then started doubting myself. I know, ideally it should work the other way around. The problem with the entry is that ngọn actually looks like a classifier, and we already have an entry on đuốc. Two of the dictionaries that I use list ngọn đuốc as an independent word. Another dictionary lists this word only as part of the entry on ngọn, but doesn't specifically call ngọn a classifier. I asked a native speaker, and to said native speaker ngọn looks like a classifier. Still, words can function like classifier but actually not be classifiers... Does anybody have any idea what should be done with this entry? Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 06:28, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Delete or redirect to the main entry. We don't make Vietnamese noun entries with classifiers. Classifiers belong in the |cls parameter in {{vi-noun}}. Similar entries have been converted to redirects or deleted. Pls. don't add {{attention}} if you have questions about words, use {{rft}} and discuss senses here.--Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 06:47, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

But we haven't established yet if it is a classifier... But as you will. Also, I wasn't the one who added {{attention}} to đuốc, and the person who did did so because they weren't sure whether the word can also mean flashlight. Maybe you could put {{attention}} back in? Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 06:59, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Fine, I'll do it myself. Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 19:37, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Tuttle Concise Vietnamese Dictionary, page 214, states that ngọn can be a noun as well as a classifier: ngọn n. peak, top (of mountain, tree, flame): ngọn lửa flame; ngọn nến candles (CL for flags cờ, trees cây, lamp đèn, etc.) —Stephen ^(Talk) 12:10, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. It would seem that in this case it is indeed a classifier. One of the dictionaries that I have lists "ngọn đuốc" alongside "ngọn cờ", and Tuttle says that "ngọn cờ" is classifier + noun. Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 19:37, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Geomythical places experience

I would like to know if someone could help me to understand what geomythical places experience means in the women health and nursing care context. Thank you

Cecília Marques - Brazilian Journalist

• Meaningless twaddle. SemperBlotto (talk) 07:05, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Pronunciation of bon appétit in English

Stephen left a note on the page:

do some speakers really pronounce this "bone a pay tee"? In Australia it's always "bon app a teat" with the final "t" pronounced as it's slightly anglicized and we're not familiar with French. ANSWER: I have usually heard it pronounced app-a-teat in the U.S. Whenever I hear someone say app-uh-tee in English, I consider it pedantic. —Stephen

And I completely agree. I can safely say that I have never heard the pronunciation /ˌboʊn æpeɪˈtiː/ given on the page. I did some research in dictionaries and found this (converted to our IPA scheme from whatever system was used):

• Merriam-Webster: /bɔː.næ.peɪ.tiː/
• ODE: /ˌbɒn æpɛˈtiː/
• ODE (AmE): /ˌboʊn ˌæpəˈtiː/
• Dictionary.com: /bɔː.næ.peɪ.tiː/
• Collins (AmE): /bɔ̃̃ːnæpeɪˈtiː/

Those are all the dictionaries I found that include this term and it seems the lexicographers at every one of these dictionaries is suffering from a serious case of francophilia and lives in a quarantined environment. I would say that each of the variations of bon listed above probably does occur, but I have never an /eɪ/ sound for the -é- and have never heard this pronounced without the final /t/. The American version of the ODE comes the closest to how I would usually pronounce it: /ˈboʊnˌæpəˈtiːt/ (and incidentally, through the glottalization of the final /t/, it does come close to being dropped). --WikiTiki89 20:22, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I found as well. Surprising. And I agree, ODE (Ame) comes closest. What I say and hear is: /ˌboʊnˌæpəˈtit/, /ˌbonˌæpəˈtit/, /ˌbɒnˌæpəˈtit/ —Stephen ^(Talk) 23:48, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

• WordReference's R. H. Learner's Dict. of American English: /ˈbɔn ˌæpəˈti/ - bô nᴀ pā tē′
• dead-tree Wordsworths Concise English Dict. →ISBN: "bo-na-pə-tē" = /bo(ʊ).næ.pə.ti/
• dead-tree Oxford Dict. of English (2012, →ISBN and the COED (2011, →ISBN: /ˌbɒn apɛˈtiː/, French: /bɔn apeti/

But I usually hear /ˌbɔn ˌæpəˈtit/ from English-speakers. Like Wikitiki, I have never heard this with /eɪ/, and almost never without /t/. - -sche (discuss) 00:18, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Having looked at dictionaries, let's look at actual uses via one corpus it's easy to search the text of and then find the audio of: songs.

• Detroit Michigan rapper Angel Haze, in 22 Jump Street ~2m37s rhymes it with "sweet" as /boʊn.æ.pə.tit/
• Detroit Michigan hip-hop duo Insane Clown Posse, in Dead Pumpkins ~38s, rhyme it with "dick or treat" as /boʊn.æp.ə.tit/
• Lexington North Carolina horror punk/metal singer Wednesday 13, in All American Massacre ~1m49s, says /boʊn.æp.ə.tit/
• Detroit Michigan rapper Eminem, in Don't Front ~2m13s, rhymes it with "eat"+"beat" as /boʊn.(æ|ə).pə.tit/ (I'm not sure of the 'a' vowel)
• Harlem New York rapper Azealia Banks, in Fierce ~1m17s, says /boʊ.n(æ|ə).pə.ti/ without /-t/ (but I'm not sure of the middle vowel)

I think that's enough evidence to give /boʊn æpətit/ (without syllable breaks because those seem to be variable) as an American pronunciation. - -sche (discuss) 01:37, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps it needs a usage note explaining that those familiar with the French term may insist that the English term be pronounced the same, but in actual usage it isn't. As for the final t: final stops are often unreleased when there's nothing with an initial vowel after them, especially in rapid speech. I'm not sure if I would call it glottalization, but it's very common. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:55, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

You'll notice it has become a glottal stop if you pronounce a vowel right after it. In the US, this is common before vocalic [n̩] (bitten = [bɪʔn̩]) and in Britain this can happen before any unstressed syllable. If there is a pause after the /t/, then it is pretty much the same (bit = [bɪʔ]), but usually the tongue is ends in a position as if it were about to articulate a /t/, so you could call it an unreleased stop if you want, but the glottalization is still there. --WikiTiki89 02:16, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Another data point: Michelle Obama, from Chicago, says /boʊn.æ.pə.ti/ at the 2015 Kids State Dinner, ~14m24s. - -sche (discuss) 02:00, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

One more data point because it's a favourite film, the French-accented waiter (played by English actor Bryan Pringle) in Terry Gilliam's Brazil, does not pronounce the final -t (which I can't say I ever picked up on before now). —Pengo (talk) 04:07, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Interesting. I'm used to hearing this with and without the final [t], not that I hear it every often. Renard Migrant (talk) 12:16, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

More data points: Craig Benzine (born in Wisconsin, lives in Chicago) says /ˌboʊn ˌæpəˈtit/ at the 45s mark of this Mental Floss video. Hank Green (born in Alabama, lives in Montana) says /ˌbVˌnæ.pəˈti/ (not sure if the first vowel is /o(ʊ)/ or /ɔ/) 15 seconds in to this Sci Show episode and /ˌboʊn ˌæpəˈtit/ at the 11m20s mark of this CrashCourse episode. Ian Somerhalder, who was born in southern Louisiana and who might therefore be expected to have heard the phrase in French, says /ˌboʊnˌæpəˈti/ in the Vampire Diaries episode I'll Remember (playing a character from Virginia). - -sche (discuss) 21:25, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

marriage equality usage notes

The Usage notes section of the entry on marriage equality says, "Mainly used by supporters of such equality"—just as KKK members don't have much use for the term "racial equality". Nor do male chauvinists refer to the concept of "gender equality" by its proper term. Quite frankly, whatever equality you take, it will only be called that by those who support it. Therefore, this usage note doesn't make much sense, and I propose that it be removed from the entry. Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 14:11, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Yes, usage notes like this are more commonly used on the less preferred term. It might make more sense to add a usage note to "gay marriage" instead, noting that many prefer to simply refer to it as "marriage", or as "marriage equality" when framing the politics. —Pengo (talk) 03:36, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Words that are loaded with political meaning should have usage notes. "marriage equality" is now moribund as a word, at least in the gay sense in the US, UK, Ireland and Canada. I don't know about Australian and Indian English, but I'm quite sure it's a political term there, used preferentially and non-neutrally by one side.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:50, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Following this logic, we should include a usage note on the word 'black', in the sense 'a person of African descent', saying that only one side of the debate uses the word, and white supremacists prefer the word 'nigger'. Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 20:05, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Hello, slippery slope fallacy. - -sche (discuss) 20:26, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

gay—Vietnamese translations

Could somebody correct the Vietnamese translations for the word gay? (The entry is locked for editing.) The Vietnamese translations for the adjective should be đồng tính—without người, which in this context means 'person' and makes the whole word a noun. This applies to both the sense "homosexual" and the sense "typical of homosexual appearance".

It would also be nice to add {{qualifier|male}} before both Vietnamese translations for the noun 'gay', as the English definition of the word says "A homosexual, especially a male homosexual". (Although, maybe it would be better to just define the noun as "male homosexual", because, quite frankly, who would say, "She is a gay"?) Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 19:36, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Thank you, Μετάknowledge, for making the edits! We still need {{qualifier|male}} in front of "người đồng tính nam" (noun). Or, seriously, let's just get rid of that especially part? 'Gay' the noun means 'male homosexual', period. Who uses it to describe lesbians? Is Ellen DeGeneres a gay? Should we start a new discussion about this somewhere? Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 23:18, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

There are lots of female homosexuals who dislike the word "lesbian" and refer to themselves as gay. Ellen DeGeneres is, in fact, one of them: if you watch the episode of Ellen where the Ellen Morgan character comes out of the closet, you'll notice the word "lesbian" is never used. Ellen herself, and the other female homosexual characters, are consistently referred to as gay. Using "gay" as a noun is more complicated; I'd never say "Ellen DeGeneres is a gay", but then I'd never say "Tom Daley is a gay", either. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 06:55, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

The noun form is probably more often used in the plural: "Are there any gays in the audience?" would be assumed to include lesbians. Keith the Koala (talk) 08:16, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I also know homosexual women who have no aversion to "lesbian" but who vary between describing themselves as "gay" and "lesbian" since both the broad and the narrow labels apply. Ingrid Nilsen is an example. And to be clear, it's not just self-reference; after Ellen Page came out by saying "I am gay" at a Human Rights Campaign event, the HRC congratulated her "for taking the steps to live openly and come out as lesbian", and people have used both words to describe her ever since. (She went on to do an interview with Ellen Degeneres where they both only used the word "gay".) See also google books:"gay woman". - -sche (discuss) 08:48, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

@Angr "There are lots of female homosexuals who dislike the word "lesbian" and refer to themselves as gay."—ah, but that's a case of the word being used as an adjective, which is covered elsewhere in the entry and is totally uncontroversial. The definition of the noun though...

@Keith the Koala "The noun form is probably more often used in the plural: "Are there any gays in the audience?" would be assumed to include lesbians."—I'm not sure about that. If I were in that audience I would assume the speaker was asking whether there are any gay men in the audience.

To be fair, though, I doubt too many people would say that, and not "Are there any gay people/men/women in the audience?" Just feels more natural. Which the use of the word 'gay' as a noun doesn't. Should we add a qualifier 'unnatural', or something like that?.. 'Archaic', perhaps? The use of the word as a noun is definitely going away—a Google search of "are there any gays" turns up exactly 3000 results... Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 18:09, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Using "gay" as a noun sounds odd in the singular and in the plural when it's specific, but sounds find in the plural when it's general: compare ^?"I met a gay at a party last night" and ^?"I met two gays at a party last night" vs. "Gays were outraged by the verdict." The first two sound very odd (and even somewhat offensive) to me; the third sounds fine. The first two also probably refer only to males, but the second easily includes both males and females. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:36, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Is that true of other words, too? "Obama is a black" sounds a bit odd (possibly offensive?) but "blacks were excited by the nomination" sounds OK. If there are several words like that, we could make a usage note template. Transgender and a number of 'related' words (e.g. genderqueer) are similar: they are usually adjectives, and sound awkward and offensive as nouns (in my experience and per style guides) — notably even in the generic plural. Btw, I cited gays in the sense "homosexual people (including women)". Citing the singular may be harder. - -sche (discuss) 20:15, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Interesting. It does sound odd, and possibly offensive, with a hint of 'objectifying' the person mentioned. "I met that thing at a party", "Our president is that thing"—gives you that kind of feeling. Or maybe I'm just imagining things. But then, all three of us are imagining the same thing. Curiously, if you google "as a gay I", "as a black I", you find lots of people talking about themselves in this way. In most cases we, of course, have no way of telling whether the person saying that is a native speaker. Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 20:42, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Using gay as a noun is rare and awkward except in the case of "gays and lesbians", which seems more accepted (probably because "gay men and lesbains" sounds overly verbose). Perhaps a usage note could be added to this effect. Kaldari (talk) 20:12, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

For many people, Jew also works this way, even though it can only be a noun: "I met a Jew at a party last night" and "I met two Jews at a party last night" sound vaguely offensive to many people, whereas "Jews were outraged by the verdict" doesn't. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:29, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

I think Jew is much, much more commonly used as an inoffensive noun than gay is. --WikiTiki89 21:07, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

mansplain

This is labelled "(sarcastic)", but doesn't seem sarcastic to me, it just seems like the word you use when the phenomenon (in your subjective judgement) has happened. Likwise mansplainer, mansplaining, mansplanation. In contrast, "surprise surprise" deserves its "(sarcastic)" label, since you say it when something unsurprising has happened. - -sche (discuss) 03:47, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

It is used with a sarcastic (sardonic?) tone, but it is not literally sarcastic. Shouldn't be in the context label. —Pengo (talk) 04:16, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

While we're at it, I really doubt that it's "chiefly Internet". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 07:02, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

• As another 2p in the same mien, I've only ever heard this term verbally -- this thread is the first time I think I've personally ever seen the term in print. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 07:22, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

ahaua

Hi again. I've been playing with a wordlist from 2008 - User:Connel MacKenzie/Gutenberg, and I created all the required entries except for one! It is ahaua, which certainly means something. But I can't figure it out. Googling suggests it has a meaning in Maori, possibly one in Latin, and there's lots of crap to wade through. Can someone give me a clue, and we can delete the Gutenberg page. --Zo3rWer (talk) 07:58, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I think in Latin it may be a spelling of the Ahaura River. There's a river of the same name in New Zealand too, though the Maori word looks more like a personal name to me? Or maybe it's both. WurdSnatcher (talk) 12:28, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

It certainly means something in the Kaqchikel language, but I don't see cites for the lowercase in any other language. It's not present in my (fairly exhaustive) Maori dictionary. And the Latin should be at Ahaua (as an alternative spelling of Ahava), but as an obscure placename in the Vulgate I'm not thinking it's especially important to add. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:41, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

In the Vulgate, it's spelled Ahavva anyway. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:48, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. Oddly, that comes up much less on Google Books. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:52, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

In Latin, it is Ahava in Historia Scholastica. In English, the Bishops' Bible spells it Ahaua, but only because it always uses u for v ("And euen there at the water beside Ahaua I proclaymed a fast, that we might humble our selues before our God"). The usual spelling in modern English Bibles is Ahava. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:56, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

sarsenet

Sarsenet and sarcenet have different (albeit not radically different) etymologies. I can't find any of the supposed Old French etyma in the Godefroy or http://www.anglo-norman.net/. If you use the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub you can search using regex which is extremely useful (example: sa(r|rr)a(z|s|ss)ine(t|tz|ts|z)) and the definitions are in English, so if anyone fancies it, feel free. Renard Migrant (talk) 12:13, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

-tion

The page for -tion says that it is not productive, yet words seem to still get make by it. For example, "fertilization" was invented in 1857 according to the online etymology dictionary. Tideflat (talk) 16:29, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

That was formed from -ation, not -tion. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 16:30, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

crying game

I've often heard this term used but I've never understood it. Any ideas? And should we include it here? ---> Tooironic (talk) 17:04, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

I've gathered some citations here and here. The capitalized form is a reference to a 1992 film (the definition is a spoiler of the movie's "twist" – which probably isn't as shocking as it was 23 years ago). -Cloudcuckoolander (talk) 21:17, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

How many strokes in 謎?

Some fonts show an extra dot above the center radical (motion radical) in this character. Other fonts do not. Even on the Wictionary page for this character (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E8%AC%8E), on my computer at least, I find it listed both ways.

This is a very interesting inconsistency that ought to be at least mentioned on the page, don't you think? 71.226.53.101 21:11, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

It's a font thing. It's like the difference between g and ɡ:

辶

辶

辶 —suzukaze (t・c) 21:19, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Cryptesthesia?

I'm interested in a word that I can't completely recall. It was in my reading of the work of Carl Jung. It referred to a phenomenon when something was read, casually in passing, a long time ago, then recurs spontaneously, seeming to be an original thought. The word was something like "cryptesthesia" That's the best that I can reconstruct it. I'd really like the accurate spelling.

Cryptomnesia DTLHS (talk) 02:32, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

independista - in English?

Hi. I'm looking for a good one word translation for Spanish independista. Springs to mind separatist. but is there anything closer? -- ALGRIF talk 10:00, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

independentist? Equinox ◑ 10:19, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

• That's odd. I didn't find that! (Maybe I mispelt ?¿?). Thanks. -- ALGRIF talk 10:26, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

Glaswegian

Wanted to add another sense to the entry on Glaswegian—wasn't sure whether to call it an accent or a dialect of English (Oxford was no help, as it literally says "dialect or accent", but the way that I see it, it's either one or the other), so looked it up on Wikipedia, and it claims that it's a dialect of Scots. Who knew...

So, does anybody know what it actually is? Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 20:07, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

"Accent" refers only to pronunciation/phonology, so if Glaswegian is distinct from other varieties of Scots in morphology, syntax, or lexicon, then it's a dialect and not just an accent. I suspect it's a dialect of Scots rather than of English (under our definition of Scots as a separate language from English), but I don't know enough about it to be sure. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:46, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

There's no reason it couldn't be both: most of Scots coexists with Scottish varieties of English, so someone might switch between Glaswegian Scots and English with a Glaswegian accent, depending on the situation and the audience. It does make more sense, though, for Scots to have the stronger geographical variation of the two. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:13, 27 September 2015 (UTC)

без (Macedonian)

The example "Не могу жить без тебя." is Russian. I'm pretty sure it's not Macedonian, as жить is an infinitive, which Macedonian wouldn't use. PierreAbbat (talk) 05:32, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Good catch, someone must have misplaced it. --WikiTiki89 17:50, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Macedonian doesn't use ь or я either. —CodeCat 17:56, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Wikitiki89, when you moved the not-Macedonian example into the Russian entry, you moved it into the wrong sense. I was going to move it to the correct sense, but it doesn't fit stylistically. I think the example is worth keeping, but I'm not sure how to make it look good. Since it's a full sentence, bullet-points seem inappropriate. Eishiya (talk) 23:50, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I didn't realize there was another sense (in fact I don't think that sense should really be separate). The entry needs to be reformatted anyway, and I'm too lazy to do that. --WikiTiki89 14:27, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

quotation in Weedjie

We have a quote from Trainspotting on the page for Weedjie: " Ah've never met one Weedjie whae didnae think that they are the only genuinely suffering proletarians in Scotland, Western Europe, the World." Nice one, but the word is listed as English, and the sentence isn't written in English, as words in bold indicate. Pfftallofthemaretaken (talk) 06:32, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

Well whae and didnae aren't English, but ah can be (see ah#Pronoun). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 07:37, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

To me, it looks like pretty standard literary English with a few Scottish pronunciation spellings (didnae is a familiar part of Scottish English). Irvine Welsh would generally be described as writing in English (the Scots Wikipedia calls Trainspotting an "Inglis-leid film") – to be honest, I think very little modern published writing could genuinely be called Scots, even when it has a slight Scottish flavour – there's a big difference between throwing in a few naes and actually using Scots idiom and vocabulary. For contrast, here's a couple of sentences from the Scots Language Centre's website: "Dr O’Donovan hauds a puckle degrees sib tae langage fae the Versity College, Cork, the Versity o Limerick an the Versity o Dublin City. Afore takkin up this post she wis the Heid o Langage Inpit at Harper Collins in Glesca an haes skeel in biggin up baith the body o wark on the leid an wirkin wi langage material deegital-wise." Translate it word-for-word and it certainly doesn't sound like idiomatic English (she "has skill in building up both the body of work on the language and working with language material digital-wise"?) Smurrayinchester (talk) 14:41, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

When I read Trainspotting, my impression of the dialogue was that it was chiefly Scots/English code-switching. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:44, 28 September 2015 (UTC)

I think often it's not even as simple as code-switching. The problem is that, realistically, Scots and Scottish English exist on a continuum, and most writers are somewhere in the middle, moving towards one or other pole in different sentences for different effects. Ƿidsiþ 15:15, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

sg

The entry am in the English verb section has "sg" put in the middle there. Is that an error or does it mean something? WurdSnatcher (talk) 01:52, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

The template didn't recognize "sg" as an abbreviation for "singular", so it just output it unchanged. I changed the parameter to "s", which the template does recognize. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:08, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

past continuous

Have a stepped beyond my competence? I have added "imperfect" and "imperfective past" as synonyms.   — Saltmarsh^{συζήτηση-talk} 16:19, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

• Seems reasonable to me. SemperBlotto (talk) 06:30, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
• Past continuous describes a grammatical tense of the English language. Imperfective aspect and imperfect are generic grammatical terms that are used to describe their respective phenomena in any language that employs them. What's more, imperfect and imperfective aspect aren't synonymous. that guy 13:00, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
• It's a bit tricky: different languages can have tenses called by the same name that differ in significant ways from each other. For English, imperfect and past progressive seem to be synonyms, but there's no guarantee that's true for all languages. Also, as pointed out above, aspects and tenses are two quite different things: not just past, but present and future tenses can be imperfective. It has more to do with whether an event or state is viewed as continuous or as a point in time rather than when it occurs (and even that is probably only accurate for some languages). Chuck Entz (talk) 13:45, 30 September 2015 (UTC)
• Would anyone care to venture what traditional English "tenses" (conflating tense and aspect) the following underlined verbs are?
  1. I was wondering why she said that.
  2. I have been wondering why she said that.
  3. I had been wondering why she said that.

I'd expect there to be more than one name for at least some of these. I think it would be a modest service to English language learners if we could make sense out of the last two or three centuries of English grammar terminology. DCDuring TALK 17:54, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

1. Past continuous.

2. Present perfect continuous.

3. Past perfect continuous.

'Continuous' can be replaced with 'progressive' in all three.

It is true that what English grammarians usually call 'tense' is actually tense+aspect, but in practice that makes learning easier, not harder. What makes English tenses difficult is the fact that their practical application is even more messed up than the famously convoluted and inconsistent English spelling/pronunciation. A big headache for those trying to learn English as a foreign language. that guy 18:11, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

At least we have all six of those.

In the case of present perfect continuous/present perfect progressive (I have been wondering), I have a little difficulty in the use of the term perfect "(grammar, of a tense or verb form) Representing a completed action." Is that a defect of our definition of perfect, a missing definition thereof, or a misnomer that is a justification for the idiomaticity/non-transparency of present perfect continuous/progressive? DCDuring TALK 22:58, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

When I hear "completed action", I think pluperfect/"had SOMETHINGed". The perfect tense is usually rendered in English as "has SOMETHINGed". The perfect can be a continued tense, the pluperfect can't be. Purplebackpack89 23:07, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

Oh, and in answer to your hypotheticals, I'd say 1) past progressive, 2) perfect progressive and 3) pluperfect progressive. Purplebackpack89 23:10, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

@Purplebackpack89 Actually, 'perfect' means 'completed' in the grammatical sense, and 'pluperfect' means 'completed by a certain point in the past'. Only, learners of English wouldn't know the term 'pluperfect', as to them it's known as 'past perfect'. And why can't it be continuous? Construction number 3—'had been wondering'—is continuous pluperfect.

@DCDuring Well, present perfect continuous might or might not be completed. Consider this example: you have been working on something for hours, and now somebody has just ruined your work. You say, "I have been working on this for hours..." Are you still working on it? But of course, as you said, it could also be the case of the action still continuing into the present moment (and that's how this tense is used in the majority of cases)—as your example number 2 above shows. But even in that case, the speaker arguably directs our attention to the past, i.e. the fact that he/she has been wondering about it for some time. If the speaker wanted to emphasize that they haven't stopped wondering even now, they would use present continuous: "I'm still wondering why she said that." that guy 07:08, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

@Pfftallofthemaretaken Are you saying something can be both continuous and completed? That seems counterintuitive. Purplebackpack89 13:45, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

@Purplebackpack89 Actions cannot be both continuous and completed, but English tenses can. To form any past perfect sentence (including the continuous) you need 2 types of past: a distant past, and a more recent past. The latter might be either specifically stated or implied, but let's take a sentence in the full form: "I had been vacillating for months before I made the decision." Here, 'vacillating' is a continuous action in the distant past, which had ended the moment something happened in the more recent past—in this case, the moment 'I made the decision'. Here's an example timeline for this tense (but a different example sentence): [[5]]. that guy 15:05, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I wonder why "I will have been wondering ..." makes sense, but "I will had been wondering ..." doesn't. SemperBlotto (talk) 07:11, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

I guess because past perfect requires 2 types of past—distant and more recent—and that's just too much to drag into the future. Have some shame, English grammar! You're confusing enough as you are already! that guy 07:25, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Actually, that's because in "I will have been wondering", "have" is in the infinitive, not in the present tense. In short, only the first auxiliary verb can change number and tense, so the past tense would technically be "I would have been wondering." --WikiTiki89 17:40, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Bah, only dem grammarians be intrested in dis stuff! :) that guy 18:12, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Declension of народ-богоносец

Can somebody help me get the Declensions table in the entry on народ-богоносец to work? It requires some sophisticated wiki-magic that I haven't mastered yet. that guy 17:29, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

The template does not yet support compound nouns (but maybe it will soon). This diff is what we have generally been doing. You can create богоно́сец (bogonósec), using the declension template {{ru-noun-table|a|богоно́сец|*}}. --WikiTiki89 17:49, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

OK, thanks! Maybe I will some day, although not sure. Researching and writing that entry isn't going to be as much fun as it was for народ-богоносец. :) that guy 18:52, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

I created it. You don't have to do detailed research for every entry you create. --WikiTiki89 19:04, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

Great, thanks! that guy 19:39, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

boom#English

It looks like we are missing the sense as in "The population boomed". —suzukaze (t・c) 21:10, 30 September 2015 (UTC)

That sense seems to be covered by Etymology 3. Will change the Etymology 3 definition to fit. Hillcrest98 (talk) 22:15, 30 September 2015 (UTC)