Wiktionary:Tea room/2016/March

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cast (an accusation, an aspersion)

Even though there are dozens of definitions at cast, this definition seems missing. Can someone help add it or supply a good definition? Benwing2 (talk) 02:08, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If sense 6 were better worded or had a more figurative paired definition, we would have such a definition. Instead we have an entry for cast aspersions, as if that were the only way that a user would try to find the meaning. I don't think that accusation is a common collocate with cast. DCDuring TALK 13:09, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, "cast an accusation" sounds normal to me, but I see there are only a few Google hits. Maybe it's more normal to "level" or "make" an accusation? Benwing2 (talk) 13:24, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At COCA one can find cast blame with 21 hits and cast judgment with 4, compared to cast doubt(s)|suspicion(s) with 365. There was only one instance of cast her accusations and one each of cast doubt on the accusations and cast his net of accusations, and no occurrences of singular accusation within four words of forms of cast. DCDuring TALK 14:22, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

honkin'/honking

Is there any reason why the main definition (for the intensifier sense) is at honkin', while honking is relegated to an "alternative spelling"? I would have expected it to be the other way around at least, but I'm wondering whether honkin' even needs an entry at all, given that any of the millions of -ing words can be thus abbreviated. Does Wikitionary aim to include include all -in' variants individually? I looked up a few, and results were mixed. 81.152.230.182 21:29, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes this actually reflects usage, e.g. ballin' vs. balling. Equinox ◑ 22:54, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Yiddish used to do that, too, writing אונ׳ (un', “and”) (c.f. German und) since at least as far back as the 16th century. --Wiki Tiki 89 23:37, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

bleeded

Is this actually standard in any contexts, as claimed? (Claim introduced in diff.) - -sche (discuss) 22:04, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that there are only 392 real results in google books:"bleeded" (after actually paging through) makes this claim pretty dubious. --Wiki Tiki 89 22:20, 1 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Canton

Random question: anyone know why Canton can refer to both Guangdong province and Guangzhou city? Wouldn't that be entirely confusing? How did this strange turn of events come about? ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:41, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe this might shed some light on your question. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 14:08, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

aardworm

This word has an old clean-up request from 2012 for the figurative sense that was added by a somewhat notorious user. The sense is decently attested on Google Books and it is also separately noted in the WNT (which may well have been the source for the user's edit). It seems a (minor) trope in older Protestant devotional texts. (1) (2) (3) (4) I'd like to get the clean-up tag out of the lemma, but I'd like to know whether you think there's any purpose to keeping this sense in the first place. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 11:13, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the English translation, earthworm, has two figurative definitions:

3. (figuratively) A contemptible person.

4. (figuratively) Death.

I'd say if aardworm is also used more generically, somewhat like #3, then make the figurative sense more generic but include a quote from the older Protestant texts.

Thanks, I've remodelled it after #3. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 13:12, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This opens up an earthworm question

BTW, I have never heard of an earthworm being figuratively used for death, although I have often heard of worms eating folks after death. "Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love." — Rosalind, As You Like It, Act IV, scene 1. First comes death, then worms.

Should earthworm definition #4 A) be considered correct and therefore should stay as it is, B) be modified to "the grave" (as in "give my body to the worms"), or C) be considered completely wrong and therefore should be removed entirely or D) shifted to worm?

Sorry all I can do is point these things out, but my real-life limitations are getting in the way of doing this myself and might also prevent me from making it back here to review your responses. Thanks in advance if you can work on this! — Geekdiva (talk) 08:53, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is plenty of figurative use of the worms:

"but only cares to please posterity when he has done with me and left me to the worms"

"When this Queen is dead and worms have taken her, what of your work then? RALEIGH. To the worms also, I suppose."

Search for similar phrases using to the earthworms and the earthworms took|take is not very fruitful. DCDuring TALK 11:53, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have RfVed the "death" sense. The other seems attestable. DCDuring TALK 13:07, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think I've ever seen anything to indicate what kind of worms are involved. On the one hand, various beetle and fly larvae do the work in the early stages of decomposition, and it's only after everything is reduced to generic organic matter that worms have anything they can eat. On the other, earthworms are the most visible and characteristic invertebrates of ordinary soil. As for earthworm vs. worm: you have to pay attention to register/tone. These are literary/poetic, while earthworm is a more prosaic, almost technical term. Similarly, you wouldn't insult someone by calling them a fly larva- only maggot would sound right. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:05, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Good idea. Next time I need to insult someone I will call them a fly larva. --Wiki Tiki 89 14:12, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why don't you sit over here and I sit over there.

This is commonly used to give suggestions or commands with a suggestion-like quality, often used by someone trying to organize a group of people, but not only. It seems that this can only take the form "why" + negative present tense contraction of "do" and can be used with any person/number, followed by any number of subject-phrase + infinitive-phrase clauses, and sometimes followed up with independent future-tense clauses (usually with "will", not "going to": Why don't you sit over here and I'll sit over there.). Does anyone disagree with this description? Where should this be handled? At why? At why don't? We don't seem to currently handle it anywhere, although we do have the entry why don't you pick on someone your own size. --Wiki Tiki 89 16:07, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Let it be treated under rhetorical question, why don't you? DCDuring TALK 16:57, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is a general use of why for all sorts of rhetorical questions. McGraw Hill Idioms Dictionary has any entry for the tag question above, but that doesn't cover the more general uses. "Why not think this through?" "Why haven't you left yet?"

The trouble is, other questions have the same force: some kind of polite order or suggestion. "Are we ready to start the meeting?" "Isn't it time to review our policies?" "Would this be a good time to take a break?" "Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?" DCDuring TALK 17:12, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

But it's not like that. It could just be a rhetorical question, but in certain circumstances it basically becomes a command and even loses its question intonation pattern, so you can't really call it a question anymore. --Wiki Tiki 89 17:44, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

But questions of many forms are often used that way, with varying degrees of force to the "recommendation". I suppose rhetorical question suggests a more specific use and might not be the right term for this. DCDuring TALK 18:18, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Can you give an example? --Wiki Tiki 89 18:22, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

One might order someone "how about you shut up?". - -sche (discuss) 19:02, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good point, "how about" can be used in basically the exact same way as "why don't", but I still don't think this can be generalized. --Wiki Tiki 89 19:06, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Each of the questions above, in the right circumstance, could be anything from an order through a suggestion to a straightforward question. No dictionary could possibly cover all the circumstances, probably no existing corpus (including any Google corpus) either. DCDuring TALK 19:09, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. I think there is a very limited set of phrases that can begin a "question" like this. --Wiki Tiki 89 19:11, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't it be fun to prove me wrong? DCDuring TALK 20:32, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Can't anything that can be a tag question be used in this way? DCDuring TALK 20:34, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, here the proof works the other way. You need to show me counterexamples. And unfortunately, "can't anything ..." is not concrete enough for me to know what you are talking about. --Wiki Tiki 89 20:36, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't that be exactly backwards? You're the one making a claim for the special nature of one particular structure of question, aren't you? Haven't I already provided numerous examples of questions that can have the force of an order or request or invitation or suggestion, as well as a straightforward question? What do others have to say? DCDuring TALK 20:53, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's not about who's making the claim, it's about logic. To prove that something exists, you just need to give an example, while to prove that something doesn't exist, you have to refute every example given. So that's how it has to work, you give examples and I refute them. As to the examples you already gave, I would not interpret them as commands directly, but only as implications that someone should do something, the differentiating factor being that they still require question intonation. --Wiki Tiki 89 21:08, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you think you can say that your single question structure must be a kind of order, rather than a suggestion or recommendation, without having presented a single instance of its use in writing or in speech? Isn't it time to put up an entry and let it be RfVed? DCDuring TALK 21:27, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not saying it must be an order, rather than a suggestion or recommendation. It could be any one of those. But your examples are none of those, except in implication. If you want quotations, I'll be happy to look for some. --Wiki Tiki 89 21:40, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here you go:

Note the omission of the question mark (it's not always omitted, but it's definitely an indication that sentence doesn't sound like a question). --Wiki Tiki 89 21:56, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

pants on fire

This is a metaphor used in American English to signify that a person is lying egregiously. I am considering creating this entry, but I am not sure what part of speech it is. Purple backpack89 19:37, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Part of speech can only be decided in context, so we need quotations or examples. Note that we already have liar liar pants on fire (which is currently very poorly defined, in my opinion). --Wiki Tiki 89 19:40, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, liar liar pants on fire is generally used as a childish pejorative statement. When pants on fire is not used following "liar liar", it is still used to indicate lying, usually seriously. But I'm still not sure what part of speech pants on fire is. Is it also a phrase? Purple backpack89 19:50, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's either an idiom or a phrase, I wouldn't class it as a noun: liar liar pants on fire is classified as a phrase. I've never heard of it in British English. Donnanz (talk) 19:52, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Did you totally miss what I just said? We need quotations or examples in order to determine the part of speech. --Wiki Tiki 89 20:02, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, yes, I heard you from here. Donnanz (talk) 20:09, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I meant PB89. --Wiki Tiki 89 20:29, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you are looking for examples, Google "Donald Trump pants on fire". this refers to Trump's pants being on fire, while several fact-checking websites have a category called "pants on fire" for egregious lies. News articles that reference these fact-checking sites usually say something on the lines of, "X statements were rated as 'pants on fire'". Purple backpack89 20:15, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That last and the category titles seem mention-y to me. We need the actual citations, preferably with links back, to make an evaluation. DCDuring TALK 20:24, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We particularly need citations as we can't imitate other dictionaries, as is indicated by “pants on fire”, in OneLook Dictionary Search., which links only to WP articles about films, albums, or books, and a dab page and to UD. DCDuring TALK 20:31, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, there it's PolitiFact's name for a category of fact-check results and is not suitable for inclusion. --Wiki Tiki 89 20:29, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The headline in the CNN article linked to above is "Donald Trump's pants are on fire", which suggests that one derived term from liar liar pants on fire is one's pants are on fire (“to tell lies”). Looking through Boogle Gooks, I think pants on fire stands without "liar liar" before it often enough that it deserves either an entry of its own or at least a redirect to the full version. It very rarely stands alone in any grammatical relationship to a fuller sentence, so I'd just call it a phrase. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:40, 2 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is paranormal a noun?

I added the noun meaning for paranormal, but some user (SemperBlotto) moved my example into the adjective section and deleted the noun meaning. Cambridge dictionary says that it is a noun. In my example (We who study the paranormal always hope for strong readings with our equipment.) paranormal is obviously a noun. So why it was moved under the adjective section? 73.71.174.75 10:07, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is a general feature of English grammar that most adjectives may be used as a plural noun with the meaning of "<adjective> things" or "<adjective> people". We don't normally include the noun sense here. SemperBlotto (talk) 10:59, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think paranormal ("a person with paranormal powers"), which behaves like a noun in many ways that paranormal ("realm of what cannot be explained by science") cannot, should be a separate noun PoS.
Done DCDuring TALK 00:51, 7 April 2016 (UTC)][reply]

For example, it forms a plural, can be modified by many determiners, readily accepts adjectives, and can be subject or object. Though it might be possible to argue (against several dictionaries, including the OED) that paranormal (adj) includes the first adjective-like definition, I don't think one can dispute that paranormal in the second sense is very noun-like. If one has the second sense as a noun, one needs to also present the second in the same PoS to avoid misleading users. DCDuring TALK 16:55, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think paranormal is different from the regular adjectives that can function as nouns, and in the Cambridge dictionary example investigations into the paranormal it is a noun. 73.71.174.75 18:30, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
~~Would you therefore have a Noun section for ultraviolet~~

Not sure who asked this but, ultraviolet is a) a noun and b) I don't see any relevance. Renard Migrant (talk) 18:53, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah exactly, a noun just an uncountable one. Renard Migrant (talk) 18:52, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see how it's any different grammatically from "the esoteric", "the unreachable", "the unknowable", "the unseen", "the impossible", "the unexplored", "the inevitable", etc. For most of these, we include the countable noun sense, if it exists, but we omit the uncountable noun sense, which is regularly formed from the adjective. --Wiki Tiki 89 19:46, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

[After e/c] Many adjectives can function as nouns without being enough like nouns to merit a Noun PoS section. For example honest/dishonest, tall/short and other adjectives used of people. At least some other adjectives with an evaluative element (eg, grammatical/ungrammatical) are also used as nouns in some ways, but don't behave enough like nouns to be classified as nouns by dictionaries. I don't think that personal intuition is at all reliable in making these determinations. Grammarians find it useful and necessary to make distinctions between word-class membership and grammatical function because in English many word classes have members that sometimes perform functions more typically performed by members of other word classes. DCDuring TALK 19:58, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

-cyte

Can it really be from New Latin -cyta, feminine? Note link is blue because some Lower Sorbian conjugation of cytaś. Sobreira (talk) 14:15, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That might be a neuter plural. Taxa above the level of genus use plural forms. If there were taxa or terms like taxa used in the mid 19th century ending in "cyta", they could be the basis for the English suffix. DCDuring TALK 15:25, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There definitely are some genus names ending in "cyta", which would be feminine. Eocyta and Mocyta are higher taxa, which would be neuter plural. DCDuring TALK 15:43, 3 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt it. The latinized form of κύτος (kútos) would be cytos, as seen in the prefix cyto-. As for taxonomic names, most basic medical and biological terms come directly from Latin rather than by way of taxonomic names. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:56, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was so confused when reading the answer, User:DCDuring. I didn't even remember what was the question about, because you misled me (;P), then I realised the issue was a different one. Thanks anyway. It is not about taxa, it's about the preffix for cells (most known for me are erythrocyte and leukocyte, but I heard also about osteo-, blasto-, oo-, karyo- and lympho-). I have the same doubt. Sobreira (talk) 08:07, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

From the emphasis on feminine in the initial inquiry I thought gender or, more generally, inflection, was the focus of your question. I really have no idea what your concern was if not that. DCDuring TALK 10:44, 4 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ESTIMATE ETYMOLOGY

The english word "estimate" as the spanish word estimado do not arise from a latin root, as it semms to be the reference, but directly arises (as the prementioned latin root, also)from the greek words "εις τιμήν" (eis timin)which can be roughly translated as "into value". I have to say that I am astonished with so many views of etymology on different occasions, passing by (not on purpose, I want to believe)greek language,the true motherlanguage of all european languages, which, though, today remains secluded and out of the official list of European Union. Best wishes —This unsigned comment was added by Insulamed (talk • contribs) at 08:26, 4 March 2016.

Greek is not the mother language of all European languages, although most have borrowed quite heavily from Greek as well as Latin. Anyway, what is your source for the claim concerning the Greek etymology of estimate? The OED certainly doesn't seem to be aware of said Greek etymology, but derives it plainly from Latin aestimo (through the participial stem aestimat-). --Pinnerup (talk) 14:20, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In other words, you're just plain wrong I'm afraid. Renard Migrant (talk) 14:38, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(The following comment has been moved from the now deleted duplicate section below)

Sorry, dictionaries are not the place for fanciful etymologies driven solely by wishful thinking. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:38, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/oḱtṓw

According to the etymology, this term is the dual of PIE *(H)oḱto-. Under this term would belong Avestan ašti- (“breadth of four fingers”) and presumably the descendants of Proto-Kartvelian *otxo- (Georgian otxi (“four”)). Does anyone have any sources for any of this? KarikaSlayer (talk) 19:16, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Kartvelian was connected to PIE by Georgy Klimov in his {{Template:R:ccs:Klimov}}. --Dixtosa (talk) 19:34, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Any idea on what to reconstruct for *(H)oḱto-? Klimov 1994 seems to imply *oḱt, without *H (or *h₁ as *oḱtṓw) says). KarikaSlayer (talk)

For future reference, etymology questions should be posted at the Etymology scriptorium. When the entries are reconstructions, as in this case, even most non-etymology questions should probably be posted there, too. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:36, 4 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

rêver

I don’t know where this etymology came from. An anon added it in 2009. The transfer from from ‘consider’ to ‘hallucinate’ looks odd to me, and so far I haven’t found any outside sources that propose a Frankish origin. (CNRTL suggests a Latin origin.) @Widsith, do you have any comments? --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 19:54, 5 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There seem to be many hypotheses. CNRTL takes it back to *reexvadare; the Larousse Dictionnaire étymologique takes it back to either rē- + aestuō or rē- + ex- + vagus. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:42, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

{{R:FEW}} links it back to *reexvagus. Renard Migrant (talk) 12:49, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

consider (= "mull over, think about") > imagine > dream/hallucinate really isn't that hard to trace... Leasnam (talk) 15:01, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is the sense of ‘imagine’ attested anywhere in Old French? Or probably used in Old Frankish? I haven’t read anything that suggested that. --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 17:33, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Neither {{R:ANOLH}} nor {{R:Godefroy}} have an entry for that. Renard Migrant (talk) 19:26, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Off the topic of rêver, but on the subject of dramatic semantic changes to French words for "hallucinate", I learned the other day that some Pacific dialects of French and derivatives thereof use délirer (“to be delirious”) to mean simply "to do". I can't find enough examples to merit adding the sense, though. - -sche (discuss) 21:14, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've added a referenced etymology. Leasnam is free to add his Germanic etymology back with a source. Renard Migrant (talk) 12:37, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Seems fairly clear from CNRTL that the earliest citations mean ‘rave, hallucinate’ (indeed English rave was borrowed from Anglo-Norman very early, maybe 12th c.). Already in Old French it meant all those different things – rave, wander, consider, imagine…. As for the ultimate source, I would just say ‘of uncertain origin’ since I don't see any consensus on it. Ƿidsiþ 12:41, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good. Leasnam (talk) 12:49, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Concerning the noun (rêve), isn't this attested as Old French resve ? The Etymology has it as a more recent deverbal. Leasnam (talk) 15:54, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We have a Middle French entry for the same (not sure if it goes back further). Although I use it a lot, I sometimes take CNRTL with a li'l bit a salt... Leasnam (talk) 15:58, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was about to delete the Middle French entry until I found this which is ambiguous but seems to be a noun. It might be worth deleting it anyway as that citation (sadly a snippet not a full review) doesn't seem to demonstrate a meaning. Renard Migrant (talk) 11:16, 8 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

pleonastic accent in cumpàri

The Sicilian lemma for godfather is normally spelled ⟨cumpari⟩. The accent isn't written because the stress defaults to the penultimate syllable. Italian dictionary headwords may have the accent included to indicate pronunciation unambiguously, but not in ordinary orthography. Oughtn't the entry be moved to cumpari minus the accent? P.S. I just created the page cummari without the accent. --Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 01:33, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, I've moved it. Johanna-Hypatia (talk) 15:12, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

cardinal point vs compass point vs cardinal

Hi. cardinal point, compass point and cardinal direction are synonyms completely? --Vivaelcelta (talk) 21:20, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As our definitions and the definitions in other dictionaries indicate, cardinal point and cardinal direction are strictly synonymous. Compass point can be synonymous with these, but often refers to an extended set of points on a compass rose, especially 32 points, but also 8, 16, or even 128, where the others do not. DCDuring TALK 22:13, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@DCDuring: Thanks. --Vivaelcelta (talk) 07:06, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Jew and Muslim derogatory synonyms

Both the Jew and Muslim entries contain Synonyms sections that include several derogatory terms (indicated as such); the Jew entry additionally includes the verb in the derogatory sense. In contrast, the Christian nouns include no synonyms, and the synonyms for the adjectives are all positive ones. (Note that a Wikipedia article includes plenty of derogatory Christian synonyms.)

I'm certainly not against including documented usages of derogatory terms—it's the role of a dictionary to describe usage as accurately as possible. That said, the comparison between these entries implies a bias for Christianity, or at least a heavy dose of ignorance of the non-Christian religions. To elaborate, consider that a Jew might use "Jewish" as a positive adjective, as in this blog post (note that "Jewish" in this usage implies more than just the religion or culture), yet the Jewish article includes no such reference. The aforementioned Christian adjectives, on the other hand, are: "kind, charitable, helpful, kind, neighbourly, sweet".

Should anything be done about this imbalanced treatment of Abrahamic religions? 86.135.14.131 22:03, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You said "Jewish" in this usage implies more than just the religion or culture, but I can't see where you mean in the linked article. Which sentence couldn't simply mean the religion and culture? Equinox ◑ 22:07, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do you know of any derogatory terms for Christians in English? I certainly don't (other than Yiddishims/Hebrewisms like shiksa and goy). This is probably because Christianity has always been the majority religion in English-speaking countries, so the majority of English speakers never had any use for derogating themselves. The word Jewish is certainly used in positive ways by Jews, but it is not used quite in the same way that Christian is used to mean "kind, charitable, helpful, kind, neighbourly, sweet." Jewish never strays far from the literal sense. For example, "nice Jewish boy/girl" certainly implies a lot of positive things (well, to some people these things may be negative), but it still means that the boy/girl is literally Jewish (i.e. ethnically, culturally, and/or religiously). However, "that's very Christian of him" does not necessarily even imply that "he" is Christian (religiously/ethnically). The funny thing is, I chose the example "nice Jewish boy/girl" without having first looked at your link, and "that's very Christian of him" without having first looked at the usage example on the page Christian. --Wiki Tiki 89 22:21, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reasoned reply. The Wikipedia article that I linked includes terms like Bible beater/thumper/basher, Fundie, and Holy roller, all of which I've heard used in the US. I also found a few (poor) sources mentioning choora as a Pakistani slur for Christian (admittedly not English). I've also seen terms like "Creationist" used in a derogatory fashion, and while "Sheeple" may initially seem like a more general term, it's almost always applied to Christians.

I'm afraid this comment implies that I just want a bunch of derogatory Christian terms to be added in order to "balance things out". That's not really my point, though. I was just surprised at the contrast, and it seemed a bit slanted (unintentionally, I assumed). I think that you and Renard (below) both make good points that this is simply an emergent result of English populations historically being majority Christian.

Thank you for considering my comment. I'm satisfied now; no real changes necessary. 86.135.14.131 00:19, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note that the terms you listed are derogatory terms for certain subcategories of Christians, and so are not synonymous with "Christian". They are often used by Christians themselves to derogate other types (usually more extreme types) of Christians. --Wiki Tiki 89 16:20, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Basically, we can only include stuff that actually exists. The problem here is comparing 'Jew' and 'Christian' in this way. Renard Migrant (talk) 23:01, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Giaour comes close but isn't a synonym of Christian. Similar to goy above. Renard Migrant (talk) 23:03, 8 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

-ere

This is a common Italian infinitive ending, so the "Usage notes" and "Derived terms" sections seem like a bad idea. How much of it should we keep? Chuck Entz (talk) 14:01, 9 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see much of a problem. If there are in effect two different Italian suffixes -ere then if they're not separated by category then maintaining two lists in the entry seems reasonable. Renard Migrant (talk) 17:25, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

prestige

What does "prestige" mean in "prestige accent", "prestige dialect", etc.? I don't think we currently include this sense at prestige. It is notable that one does not say prestigious accent, dialect. ---> Tooironic (talk) 14:11, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Actually we do say prestigious dialect, but I think it sometimes has a slightly different meaning. "The prestige dialect" implies "the most prestigious dialect", but not as strongly. --Wiki Tiki 89 14:15, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Our definition is poorly worded: prestige isn't the amount of high regard and positive reputation, but the high regard and positive reputation itself. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:21, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

oldtown vs. old town

I'm not sure whether usage of oldtown is common stateside, but old town is used in Br. Eng. (Oldtown may be used as a place name though, like Newtown). Anyway as there was no translations section under either entry, I have opened one under old town; does that put the cat amongst the pigeons? Donnanz (talk) 16:26, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well the translations should be where the entry is. I don't care which page the entry is on, but it doesn't make sense to have the entry on one page and the translations on the other. --Wiki Tiki 89 16:43, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. Can you tell me which form is more common, bearing in mind US usage? Donnanz (talk) 17:05, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think old town is more common, but I don't encounter this word written very often. --Wiki Tiki 89 18:09, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At Ngrams, "old town" is massively more common than "oldtown" both on its own and with every collocation I tried ("the old town", "old town district", "historic old town", etc). In my experience, quite a few terms which are more commonly spaced were given unspaced entries early in Wiktionary's history and long before their spaced versions because the people who entered the terms were sure that single words were idiomatic, but less sure if the spaced versions were also idiomatic. In this case, the unspaced word was entered only three years ago and at the same time as spaced version, but the IP's reasoning may have been the same, i.e. I doubt the choice of lemma was intended to reflect which form was more common. - -sche (discuss) 18:27, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I tried "the oldtown in" and "the old town in"; old town won hands down. I think the main entry can be moved from oldtown, leaving references to the place name behind. Donnanz (talk) 19:22, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Count me as agreeing with Wikitiki that "old town" is the more prominent. Generally, "old town" is used to describe the historic part of a city..."Old Town Sacramento", for example. Occasionally, it is used to describe a town that primarily consists of a single historic district. Purple backpack89 20:19, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Changeover made by User:-sche. Donnanz (talk) 09:52, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

he#Spanish

I know that the Arabic origin is advocated by La Real Academia Española, but I don’t see anything that rules out the possibility that this is just another use from habeō. (As a side note, the Portuguese mention looks somewhat incongruous here.) Does anybody here favour the Latin proposal? --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 18:51, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I guess what you have to look at is where and in what contexts was this first used. --Wiki Tiki 89 18:54, 11 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

allied arts

I hear the term bandied about from time to time, but I can't find a nice, clear definition. I think it's something along the lines of a synonym for fine arts or visual arts. Little help, please? Purple backpack89 18:07, 12 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

GPS receiver vs GPS

GPS receiver in the #2 definition (A device using a global positioning system to navigate) and GPS are synonymous? --Vivaelcelta (talk) 08:26, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Whether it's worth having GPS receiver in a dictionary I doubt, partially because the GPS in my tablet is just a GPS receiver. I haven't ever heard it called that however and its meaning seems completely transparent. DCDuring TALK 11:07, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@DCDuring: Thanks. --Vivaelcelta (talk) 07:27, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

anagram

It seems to me that a jumble of letters that isn't a word (or a phrase) to be solved it also called an anagram. Not sure how citable this is. By that I mean, how much effort it would take to cite it; I don't doubt that it's possible to cite it. Renard Migrant (talk) 14:42, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You mean just a mass of random letters? What would that be an anagram of? Equinox ◑ 17:02, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As an example, "solve this anagram: eeiudnt" eeiudnt isn't a word so it falls outside of our definition of anagram#Noun. Renard Migrant (talk) 17:45, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, right. IMO it is a word (though not a meaningful one) because of its structure, at least for the purpose of anagram games. Perhaps it is "word" that needs revising? Equinox ◑ 18:45, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hm, possibly, because one can also say "unscramble this word: eeiudnt". - -sche (discuss) 19:53, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, just to be clear, you're saying eeiudnt is a word? Renard Migrant (talk) 20:04, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it's sense 2.1 of word, which has several citations including one which is almost exactly along the lines of my "unscramble this word" example. "A sequence of letters or characters, or sounds, which is considered as a discrete entity, though it does not necessarily belong to a language or have a meaning." - -sche (discuss) 20:15, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Then again, it could be interpreted as "unscramble this word that I have scrambled", where the "word" is the underlying original one that's now out of shape, rather than the result of scrambling. Equinox ◑ 20:22, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're missing the point; our definition of anagram says you have to start with a word and end with a word like listen/tinsel in the usage example. eeiudnt/detinue doesn't work per our definition unless eeiudnt is a word. Explain to me how eeiudnt meets your criteria for word? How is a discrete entity? Are all sequences of letters discrete entities, does aaaaaa count? Renard Migrant (talk) 23:46, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

'Unscramble this word' not analogous as it just refers to an actual word. My question was to Equinox, your point -sche while entirely accurate as far as I can tell, has no relevance whatsoever. Like 'fix this clock' refers to an actual clock even if it's in separate pieces. Renard Migrant (talk) 23:49, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Renard: yes, it's a word to me: a nonsense word. (We don't say "nonsense nonword".) Equinox ◑ 11:42, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Surely in that case eeiudnt and detinue are the same word, and a word can't be an anagram of itself. Renard Migrant (talk) 17:23, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If context helps, someone on the French Wiktionary asked what the mixed up letters of a word are called when the idea is that they be rearranged into a word. I concluded that if it were English, we'd call it an anagram (thought it depends on the context, 'scramble' I've heard as a noun). But our definition of anagram doesn't cover it. I'm aware that it's minor to the point that it almost doesn't matter. Renard Migrant (talk) 17:23, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why it makes them the same word. Scrambling the real word dog yields the nonsense word ogd. Equinox ◑ 13:22, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think there should be a sense for anagram as a puzzle containing characters that can be rearranged into meaningful text. After all, there are over a thousand Google Books hits for "solve the anagram", a phrase that's incompatible with our current definition. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:11, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Phrases like "solve the anagram" are just a shortened version of "solve the anagram puzzle", with the sense of a puzzle about or related to the anagram. Anagram could be said to have its original sense from Greek of scrambled letters/word(s)/writings, and solving the anagram would mean unscramble the letters/word(s)/writings; but in English "solve the scrambled letters/word(s)/writings" will not necessarily mean "unscramble the letters/word(s)/writings", while "solve the scrambled letters/word(s)/writings puzzle" have the meaning of "solve the puzzle related to the scrambled letters/word(s)/writings", which will be much like "solve the bricks puzzle", or anything like that. Gottliber (talk) 18:32, 20 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

heckuva, helluva, heckova, hellova: really adjectives?

I wonder if these should be contractions, instead. They don't seem to behave like adjectives (no comparative, no predicative, etc.), which makes sense given the origin. Equinox ◑ 18:52, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Plus, in e.g. "helluva big problem", it would have to be an adverb! Equinox ◑ 20:25, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It can be used attributively and there is no noun with the same spelling, so we call it an adjective. The problem is the absence of any suitable alternative, I think. DCDuring TALK 21:57, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking "contraction", like didja. Equinox ◑ 21:59, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hella (fuckuva) good idea. DCDuring TALK 22:35, 13 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I concur. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:44, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oxford says contraction [1] Donnanz (talk) 13:19, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As long as we understand that "contraction" isn't really a part of speech and that it's just a cop-out (since in many cases the contraction doesn't have a single part of speech, like I'm is just a noun and verb, but together there is no defined part of speech). If a similar phrase written as "hell of a" (if it were idiomatic) would just be called a "phrase". --Wiki Tiki 89 15:14, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The expanded forms aren't even phrases, strictly speaking, as they are not constituents. Grammatically, "a hell" is an NP; "of a" begins a prepositional phrase. It goes without saying that it isn't a phrase in the sense presented in Appendix:Glossary#P where one might hope to find a working definition for how we use the word phrase in the body of the dictionary, especially as it is used in PoS headings. DCDuring TALK 15:54, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What I meant is that we would probably call it a phrase, for lack of any better POS header. --Wiki Tiki 89 16:03, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd call them all determiners. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:13, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

On what objective criteria should we rely to agree with this conclusion? DCDuring TALK 15:59, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that they behave like determiners: they modify nouns (heckuva deal) and adjective + noun phrases (heckuva good deal), but they don't occur in the predicative or comparative/superlative. They can occur everywhere uncontroversial determiners like every occur, and can't occur anywhere uncontroversial determiners don't occur. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:35, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think I'm gonna have to agree. At the very least, because the final part of the contraction is "a", which is a determiner, and the final product is still a noun phrase. --Wiki Tiki 89 17:39, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, maybe; there's a helluva lotta words in Wiktionary. Donnanz (talk) 18:13, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I know they aren't adjectives.

What other determiners can occur after a/an? DCDuring TALK 19:37, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, good point. Maybe the determiner is actually a helluva, though on the other hand I've also heard "one helluva". Maybe they are just contractions. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:46, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The words that are determiners that can be used after a, like certain and little, are also in other word classes like adjective. Note also that there are several determiners that have fused a/an as an integral part of the headword, like a few, a little, and the extreme case of fused an: another.

These suckers are challenging, having lots of behavior that is a property of only one or a very small number of them. DCDuring TALK 20:14, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Huddleston (1984) suggested that "a lot of (eggs, etc.)" might be a determiner. Seems a bit radical for us though. Equinox ◑ 16:41, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why that's radical. I agree with it. --Wiki Tiki 89 16:51, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Huddleston and Pullum (2002), CGEL, didn't include a lot of as a determiner and didn't even include Huddleston (1984) in their bibliography. I find it hard to justify including any of the partitive constructions beginning with a and ending with of among determiners without including them all, eg, a lakh of, a piece of, a dram of, a houseful of. Perhaps Huddleston (1984) was able to make some grammatical distinction or perhaps someone else can. DCDuring TALK 18:48, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That makes no sense. Classifying them as determiners does not exempt them from the SOP criteria. "A household of" is both a determiner and SOP. --Wiki Tiki 89 18:52, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So you actually hold that all partitive constructions that begin with a are determiners, though they are also SoP. Grammatically, "a girl just like" has the same characteristics and must also be a determiner by the implicit grammatical criteria that justify that holding. What is a determiner in all of these cases is [[a] and nothing but a. That a lot of might have a meaning that is not based on a current definition of lot, and therefore might be considered as meeting CFI, does not put it beyond grammatical analysis into its components, by which analysis a is the determiner. DCDuring TALK 22:21, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Let me clarify, constructions that end in a determiner are determiners. And "a lot of", in most of its uses, is followed by the null determiner (i.e. the plural/uncountable indefinite determiner), and if the null determiner can be interpreted as being part of "a lot of", then "a lot of" would be a determiner since it would end in a determiner. And the fact that the construction contains a determiner in it is irrelevant, just like "sneak" being a verb does not prevent analyzing "sneak out" as a verb. --Wiki Tiki 89 15:33, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You could have been a medieval Ptolemaic astronomer. DCDuring TALK 16:01, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How do you know I wasn't one? --Wiki Tiki 89 16:58, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, it would explain a lot. DCDuring TALK 21:00, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is radical because "lot" would traditionally be seen as the head of the phrase "a lot of eggs". Determiners aren't heads. Equinox ◑ 19:11, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like a bit of a non-sequitur to me. Yes, "lot" is the head of the phrase "a lot of eggs", but "a lot of" as a whole is still determining "eggs" and that doesn't mean that suddenly all determiners need to be heads. But note that in order to consider "a lot of" a determiner, you must have it include the null plural/uncountable indefinite determiner as part of it, and the null determiner can be replaced with any other determiner ("a lot of the"). Once you do that, you realize that "a lot of" (including the null determiner) is really SOP of "a lot of" (without the null determiner) + the null determiner and "a lot of" (without the null determiner) should be analyzed as a preposition. Since we do not include SOP phrases, our entry for a lot of must be seen as not including the null determiner, and thus is a preposition. Sorry if that's too confusing. --Wiki Tiki 89 19:41, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It will certainly be far beyond what we could make intelligible to most students of language let alone normal contributors here, let alone normal Wiktionary users. There are very good reasons to stick to a surface analysis of grammar in a document intended to be useful to normal people. Or do you think we should shuck off the responsibility to be useful to normal people? DCDuring TALK 22:21, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At the moment "a lot of" is redirected to a lot, but it is really a standalone term however it is classified, and a possible translation target; it translates to mye in Norwegian for example. "A lot of" is listed here (see Usage) [2]. Donnanz (talk) 15:48, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Does Norwegian have determiners? Many (all?) Germanic languages do. DCDuring TALK 15:52, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any natural human language that doesn't have determiners? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:54, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Czech, for one. --Droigheann (talk) 23:36, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. I read that Bloomfield asserted their existence only for Germanic languages and explicitly excluded Latin. DCDuring TALK 15:59, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Linguistic theory, including the definition of determiner has changed a lot in the 67 years since Bloomfield's death. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:54, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

But has it attained truth? Or even stability? DCDuring TALK 23:15, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I note that mye is not in Category:Norwegian Nynorsk determiners or Category:Norwegian Bokmål determiners. DCDuring TALK 15:52, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, it shouldn't be, it's an indeclinable adjective. Norwegian determiners don't always correspond to English ones. Donnanz (talk) 16:08, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I will second Donnanz in that what is a determiner in one language does not have to correspond to a determiner in another language. --Wiki Tiki 89 16:58, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Gan Chinese translations

We don't have any support for Gan Chinese (language code - "gan"). I think because there are no reliable resources for written Gan. @Wyang will know better. Should the existing translations into Gan be kept? We don't have any standard for Gan transliterations and I can't find any. We have no Gan lemmas. @Justinrleung, Suzukaze-c, Tooironic, Eirikr, TAKASUGI Shinji, -sche You might be interested in this. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:33, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have just deleted empty Category:Gan lemmas. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:34, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW {{zh-pron}} does support Gan formatted as IPA (as well as Jin and Xiang). —suzukaze (t・c) 07:37, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Suzukaze-c Thanks. The only support I can see is for audio files (not IPA), which you can add to Chinese entries with "|ga=". So if we have audio recordings for Chinese words, they can be added to Chinese entries and this should also populate Category:Gan lemmas but it's empty. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:43, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The docs don't mention it but |g= works: link —suzukaze (t・c) 07:46, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

w:gan:分類:Help:贛語辭典 and w:gan:分類:Help:維基辭典/漢字音 seems to have some sort of romanization system going on. —suzukaze (t・c) 07:51, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Suzukaze-c If [kon ɲi] is a correct Gan pronunciation, I guess we could add some words, make Gan lemmas >0. I see no tone info, though. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:57, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Or dialect info. —suzukaze (t・c) 07:58, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is the Pha̍k-oa-chhi romanization for Gan, although I don't think this is actually used much. Wyang (talk) 10:23, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe we could reach out to the Gan Wikipedia. It looks like one of their active users amd administators is also the one who contributed the Gan Swadesh list to the English Wiktionary. —suzukaze (t・c) 11:37, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For characters, this resource might help. It has data for many varieties, including Gan. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 01:14, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's an entry in Category:Gan Chinese: 個. The fact that Category:Gan Chinese is a separate category from Category:Gan language and Category:Gan lemmas is confusing. Let's try to find references for the Gan translations we have. It should be possible to find reliable references for at least some words; Wikipedia notes that several surveys have been published, plus a dictionary of one dialect. - -sche (discuss) 21:33, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(Category:Gan Chinese is generated by the context label template (=this word has a special Gan usage), as opposed to Category:Gan lemmas generated by zh-pron (=this entrry has a Gan pronunciation).)—suzukaze (t・c) 22:11, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'm aware of how the categories are generated; my point is that a term used in Gan is also a Gan lemma, but we're currently splitting the lemmas into two categories, which is confusing for users who might be trying to find them. - -sche (discuss) 23:34, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Written Gan is used in numerous dictionaries like Nanchang dialect Dictionary, etc., as well as all scholarly resources that register Gan vocabulary. Also, two romanization systems exist, the Phak-oa-chhi and pinyin. However, I am personally reluctant not to contribute to English Wiktionary any more since it put all sinitic languages under "Chinese", even though they have respectively separate ISO code.--Symane (talk) 12:13, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

sticks & stones

This deserves the {{lb|en|dated}} tag. Many of the modern citations that I found are from people who deny this adage, rather than people who still take it seriously. (Curiously, many of the critics of this phrase also happen to be religious people.) --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 10:51, 14 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's not actually dated, though it may be in your neighborhood. Further, people disagreeing with the adage demonstrate its continued currency, not its datedness. — LlywelynII 14:21, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is probably still current, I have used it myself, and remember it from my childhood days. Donnanz (talk) 14:03, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I seem to remember an alternative form ending in "names will never hurt me", meaning when someone describes you as being something derogatory. Donnanz (talk) 15:07, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

prasátko

I've just added two senses - can anybody have a look in case there exist simple English translations to use instead of my clumsy non-gloss definitions? (I suspect the "reflection" sense does have one, boys must have been playing with "sending" these to their classrooms' walls (and their schoolmates' eyes) the world over.) Thanks, --Droigheann (talk) 00:27, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

glint; gleam?—suzukaze (t・c) 23:36, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, but these seem to me to refer to the direct reflection of light on a surface, e.g. sun -> "glints" on a lake. Prasátko always refers to a "secondary" reflection, e.g. sun -> mirror -> "prasátko" on a wall. It occurred to me people apparently also tease their pets with this, so I found on YT this video [3], maybe it will show better than my explanations what I mean. --Droigheann (talk) 23:14, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thomas

Added the Latin use of Thomas and included the declension template. Standard 1st is obviously off and {{la-decl-1st-Greek-Ma}} seems the right fit... except for the bizarre Thoman showing up as the accusative form. Google is aware of about 200 appearances of "Thoman Aquinatem"... and 10000+ appearances of "Thomam Aquinatem". Google Scholar only has 270-odd appearances of "Thomam Aquinatem"... and exactly 1 of "Thoman Aquinatem".

First off, we need to fix this entry. Is there a way to override one or all of the fields of the template?

Second, and this may need to be crossposted somewhere else, but I don't think this is an exception: the idea that accusatives with terminal -n were ever a thing seems massively hypercorrect and the template busted. At the very least, it needs to display the standard -m form above the alternate and much less common hypergrecian one. — LlywelynII 14:18, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, the British National Archive's page on the topic, though they have the Medieval forms with -e instead of -ae. — LlywelynII 15:02, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

-an is a valid accusative, e.g. "Aenēas ...; acc. Aenean often, after the Gr. Αινείν, Ov. F. 5, 568; id. H. 7, 36". Of course, instead of using templates one could search for each word which forms do really exist and not just hypothetically.

As for google books results, sometimes google has incorrect OCR. As for google scholar, that shouldn't proof anything. As for your search "Thoma* Aquinatem", there are other Thomas, so in case of this single person the -an might be rarer, but that doesn't say anything about other Thomas.

Also, it could be that -an is more common in Classical Latin, but -am more common in Church Latin. So maybe those languages should be separated somehow.

-84.161.54.131 18:30, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

πωλέω

I discovered this guy by surfing around the suppletion page on Wikipedia. But there it said: "pōleō, apodōsomai, apedomēn, peprāka, peprāmai, eprāthēn". I checked the Wiktionary pages and the suppleted forms are nowhere to be seen.

I then tried to look up the parts. ἀποδίδωμι apparently has "apodōsomai, apedomēn". πιπράσκω 's got "peprāmai, eprāthēn". "pepraka" didn't turn up. What's wrong? Hillcrest98 (talk) 18:13, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, LSJ does not seem to imply that πωλέω or ἀποδίδωμι are suppletive. —John C5 18:38, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Should the part I quoted be deleted of Wikipedia? Hillcrest98 (talk) 19:44, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's up to you, but I might wait for someone else to chime in, maybe? —John C5 19:49, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I should wait. I did look in LSJ too. Hillcrest98 (talk) 19:53, 15 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I see πέπρᾱκα (péprāka) in the entry on πέρνημι. Yes, the LSJ doesn't explicitly say that πέρνημι (pérnēmi) and ἀποδιδομαι (apodidomai) supply some of the tenses of πωλέω (pōléō), but it's possible that the future πωλήσω (pōlḗsō), aorist ἐπώλεσα (epṓlesa), and so on are actually used much less frequently for the meaning "sell" than the same tenses of πέρνημι (pérnēmi) and ἀποδίδομαι (apodídomai), and that L & S & J simply failed to correctly analyze the situation and comment on it. They aren't infallible all the time. So maybe there's suppletion, but they didn't recognize it.

However, from looking at the number of citations that L & S & J give for some of the forms, you can kind of figure out which tense-forms of which verbs are more commonly used than others. For instance, lots of citations with aorist middle forms from ἀπεδόμην (apedómēn), just one for ἐπώλεσα (epṓlesa). That suggests suppletion. — Eru·tuon 02:13, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

hemerology

We seem to be completely missing this kind of common academic term. What does it mean? Can anyone help? ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:59, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks SemperBlotto! ---> Tooironic (talk) 09:34, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

theses

Can someone double check the IPA I added for the pronunciation? The audio file seems wrong. It should be pronounced thee-SEAS. ---> Tooironic (talk) 15:15, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The IPA is right; it should be stressed on the first syllable, not the second. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:25, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The audio file is wrong (it had /ˈθiːsəs/ instead of /ˈθiːsiːz/), so I've removed it. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:05, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You'll need to get it deleted at commons, or Derbethbot will put it back the next time it runs. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:55, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I personally think that User:Derbeth needs to reprogram his bot not to re-add pronunciations that have been removed, and until then, User:DerbethBot should be blocked. I have discussed this with him before and he explicitly refused to do so. --Wiki Tiki 89 14:34, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't seem economical for a bot to check all previous diffs of a page to determine if a file has been removed, and it seems downright impossible for the bot to distinguish correct removals (which may or may not have been reverted by a persistent vandal) from incorrect (e.g. vandalistic or just misguided) removals which may or may not have been reverted by another user. I would be loathe to block a bot which normally does good work (work it would be hard for a human to do: notice which droplets in the sea of audio files on Commons are new and not present here) just because it couldn't do such an undoable thing. If the audio is wrong, let's request deletion at Commons. Commons does sometimes decline to delete files that are incorrect by our standards, e.g. File:En-it-Christmas tree.oga; perhaps a blacklist (which it would be more feasible for the bot to check) could prevent re-addition of such files. - -sche (discuss) 22:00, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Checking the history is not the only solution (and it's actually not quite as difficult for a bot to do as it may seem). We could have a blacklist or something like that, like you suggest. The point is that Derbeth has seemed to be unwilling to work toward any improvements and his position has always been that the solution should be to delete things at commons. I think this is too extreme. Commons should be allowed to host audio files that we at Wiktionary decide do not fit our standards or needs. --Wiki Tiki 89 22:20, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've added an audio. How about a vote on blocking Derbethbot? I'm betting he'll be much more willing to work towards a solution if the bot is indefinitely blocked. Renard Migrant (talk) 12:33, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Those were my thoughts exactly. --Wiki Tiki 89 17:01, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I will repeat what I've written in User:DerbethBot#FAQ: I think it is unethical to use a blocklist for English Wiktionary. There are more bots than mine that automatically add pronunciation. There is no way to reach all of them, there are too many Wiktionary language versions. Those bots keep adding the wrong files. Audio files come also from other Wiktionaries and you already benefit from them. Don't you think it would be fair to give something in return and help them get rid of incorrect files?

The solution is to deal with the issue on Commons. Even if you cannot get the file deleted, you can always ask to rename it to a form that won't be parseable by the pronunciation bots. You gave File:En-it-Christmas tree.oga as an example of an unacceptable audio file. For me it's a good example of a correct approach to the problem: Commons admins refused to delete the file, but they changed its name to reflect it's not standard. You cannot say Commons is not willing to help with the problem. For me, they do their job correctly and reasonably fast. See the revision history of Christmas tree - this page was never edited by my bot.

Angr: why haven't you tried to delete the file on Commons if you have deleted it on Wiktionary? Renard Migrant: why are proposing blocking my bot because it adds an invalid file you admitted you have added? Have you thought of taking an action on Commons? You suggest blocking my bot as a way to force me to work harder. Do you really think using intimidation is a way to motivate people in a project run by volunteers? I help your project in my spare time, I'm not a wikiaddict, so nothing keeps me here.

My bot operates on about 400,000 audio files in 70 languages. You want to block it because it uses ~~2 wrong files~~ 1 wrong file (theses) in 1 language. Is this beneficial for Wiktionary?

So, you were proposing a radical solution to fix a problem that actually was already solved in a better way. Can we get back to the facts? --Derbeth ^talk 09:03, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't try to get the file deleted at Commons because I know Commons deletion discussions well enough to know people there will say that being a mispronunciation isn't a good enough reason to delete a file. They'll say, "if it's wrong, just don't use it". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:24, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Aɴɢʀ: Any diff or link? --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:23, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To what? My personal experience at Commons? No, of course not. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:30, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Aɴɢʀ: Your experience at Commons is experience with something online, isn't it? Do some keyword searches come to mind that would help verify that deletion from Commons is hard and see whether this is because of policies or admins? And is renaming also hard, to, say, "...-nonstandard.oga"? --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:41, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Renaming wouldn't be hard. Deletion from Commons wouldn't be hard because of policies or admins, but because of the general attitude there of keeping anything that's freely licensed and isn't obscene. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:44, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Aɴɢʀ: Thank you. Is renaming problematic files on Commons a practical way of solving this problem, by your assessment? Or does it at least appear promising? --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:03, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think it's promising and practical and probably the way that will cause the least drama. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:28, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Derbeth You say "See the revision history of Christmas tree - this page was never edited by my bot." I did look at the history and in fact it was edited by your bot here and after the file was removed it was added again by your bot here. So, "Can we get back to the facts?" --Droigheann (talk) 14:47, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It was in 2008, centuries ago in Wiktonary time. The edit was before the file was renamed on Commons. Does this invalidate any of my claims? What is the purpose of your remark? --Derbeth ^talk 20:17, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, 'salright, I've got what I was looking for. --Droigheann (talk) 13:15, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Don't block the bot. The problem is solved now, isn't it? From looking at the history of Commons:File:En-uk-thesis.oga, it was previously named "File:Theses.ogg" and was renamed by Steinsplitter on 19 March 2016 to File:En-uk-thesis.oga. Is there any other problem that persists? I think Derbeth is generally right.
If Commons refuses to delete a problematic file, we should be able to rename it to contain "-nonstandard" as a suffix, or the like, should not we? --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:23, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Derbeth: Can you please point me to 1 to 3 successful deletions of wrong pronunciations on Commons? --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:43, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- 364 files in Spanish, 1 file in Polish or Russian, Arabic one not done by me. It was hard for me to find requests by other people because most search results for "deletion request ogg" return cases where the file was clearly out of scope of Commons. --Derbeth ^talk 14:58, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  - @Derbeth: Thank you. I made a very bold edit of User:DerbethBot and added the links there. Please revert me as you see fit--it's your user page--but I found the tone, the repetitiveness and the exclamation marks harm the PR of the bot, which otherwise is very useful. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:30, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
    - I'm ok with it, thanks. --Derbeth ^talk 20:17, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Paskudnyak

A Yiddish terms used to comment in a very negative way about a person 1.e. "he is a poskudnyak, overcharged me for my purchase."

Leo Rosten is cited as saying this term applies to both a man and a woman. I wouldn't dream of correcting him.

In Brooklyn however, where I grew up, the female word was "Poskudtzve."

Eh, I wouldn't necessarily trust Rosten. I can't find any cites for yours, assuming I'm spelling it right, and I can only find one cite (in the plural) for פּאַסקודניאַטשקע (paskudnyatshke), another putative feminine form. Searching for unambiguously female referents of פּאַסקודניאַק (paskudnyak) doesn't sound easy either, though. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:22, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

under the hood

Idiomatic? Do we need an entry? --Wiki Tiki 89 18:16, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I presume you're talking about vehicles. It would be "under the bonnet" in Br. Eng. Donnanz (talk) 18:19, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The vehicle sense is probably SOP. I'm talking about the figurative sense that is derived from the vehicle sense. It refers to the inner workings of something, usually software, I think. I don't know whether BrE transfers that meaning to "under the bonnet" or borrows it whole as "under the hood". --Wiki Tiki 89 18:28, 16 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid I haven't heard of the figurative sense. Donnanz (talk) 09:04, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's "under the hood" in BrE too, and yes, refers to the internal workings, e.g. "Google is simple to use but there's a lot going on under the hood." Equinox ◑ 13:23, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

But I'm wondering whether it ever refers to things other than software? --Wiki Tiki 89 14:37, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looking on OneLook (now the entry has been created) it seems to apply to hardware as well. Donnanz (talk) 11:05, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at hundreds of hits on Google Books for "under the hood", I only found use for computer systems, though I expected and sought broader application of the metaphor. I suppose that other metaphors must be used for somewhat similar meaning in other realms: behind closed doors, behind the scenes, in a smoke-filled room, in the sausage factory, in the trenches, on the front lines etc. DCDuring TALK 12:35, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

in case

The preposition "in case of" is included in this entry. Shouldn't they have separate entries, in case users are looking for in case of? Donnanz (talk) 00:50, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was hoping there would be some comment, but there was enough evidence to support a new entry, so in case of has been created, and the relevant content transferred from in case. Donnanz (talk) 10:36, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've added a bit and worked on the synonyms in the event (that) and in the event of. DCDuring TALK 12:36, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

verrühren

rühren currently exists in the system. I have recently seen a German language instructor use the imperative "verrühr", suggesting that "verrühren" by extension is also valid. Google translates it as "stir" the same as base "rühren", but English Wiktionary does not seem to know about it, and German Wiktionary lists it as a Wortbildung (derived term) with a red link and not as a distinct word. I'd like to suggest further research into this. 216.137.192.89 21:33, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Verrühren means to "stir up, mix, scramble". It's a real word. I'll make an entry for it Leasnam (talk) 02:46, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Done. English Wiktionary is a work in progress. We don't yet have all words in all languages, but we are definitely working diligently toward that goal. You're welcome to join in :) Leasnam (talk) 02:58, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

copyfraud entry

While fraud requires intent, copyfraud does not. (Mazzone's article makes it clear that copyfraud does *not* require bad faith: "Falsely marking a public domain work undermines expression even if the false marking was not made with any intent to trick somebody into making payment. ... it makes sense to impose liability for copyfraud without requiring plaintiffs to establish all of the elements of the traditional tort of fraud." Without intent, there can be no fraud. Mazzone coined the term copyfraud; he does get to define it, IMO.) I'm not sure how to modify the entry to note this. Would appreciate it if someone more familiar with this project could make it so. It's sort of implied and consistent with the use examples, but I think it should be explicit, as I find folks often assume otherwise - they assume copyfraud is a kind of fraud. --Elvey (talk) 23:01, 17 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The entry doesn't actually claim that copyfraud is fraud. What do you want to change? Equinox ◑ 00:08, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Make it explicitly clear that the term copyfraud does *not* imply bad faith or fraud. Done. Elvey (talk) 08:38, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

uodal

I know nothing about this, but Wikipedia says uodal is Old High German for heritage, so I started an entry. Is this right? bd2412 T 22:39, 18 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The entry has no templates and no categories, so it has no connection to the rest of Wiktionary. It's also ambiguous: the original sense for heritage of "inherited property" is well on it's way to being displaced by the sense referring to ancestral background, traditions, values, etc., so most dictionary users would get the wrong idea from your definition. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:14, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's not attested according to Koebler's OHG dictionary, though he does include the entry as a reconstruction. —CodeCa t 02:17, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There's uodil, and uodal is an element in names (see the etymology for Ulrich). The entry at *ōþalą claims that uodal is the OHG descendant. Does anyone know the OHG name for the O-rune? Chuck Entz (talk) 02:44, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, whatever you need to do. bd2412 T 02:44, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, uodal is attested in compounds (both proper nouns/names and common nouns), including fateruodal (“patrimony”), per Ernst Aufderhaar; fateruodil is also said by some references to be attested. (Gotische Lehnwörter im Althochdeutschen, 1933, page 16: Im Althochdeutschen ist uodal auch als erster Bestandteil in Eigennamen und im Kompositum fateruodal zu belegen.) - -sche (discuss) 03:03, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

choicier/choiciest - where do they belong?

choicier/choiciest are the forms of the adjective choice. Should they be added to choice as forms along with choicer/choicest, or should they be labeled as alternative forms, or as misspellings? Please note that there is also the adjective choicy but choicier/choiciest aren't its forms as one might think. 73.71.174.75 20:55, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure the adjective forms are choicer and choicest... Purple backpack89 21:15, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I am sure too, but choicier has over 100 hits in google books. 73.71.174.75 21:18, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

90, if you go to the end, and a great amount of these not in English. --Droigheann (talk) 00:28, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At choicy. They should belong there. Leasnam (talk) 23:21, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Except they are often/mostly used as a form of choice (adj), not choicy (adj):

1947, Natalie Anderson Scott, The Story of Mrs. Murphy ...

Each looked at the neighbor's plate to see what part of the chicken the neighbor had and it seemed that that particular bit of meat was, indeed, better, choicier, than the meat on his own plate, but that didn't look so bad, either.

Meat isn't discriminating, it is especially good or preferred. Same in most other examples. 73.71.174.75 07:15, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Nope, that's a second sense of choicy, which I've now added. Equinox ◑ 12:23, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@73.71.174.75, because, as you point out, choicier/choiciest can suppletively be used as comparative/superlative of choice (adj), I've added a link on both pages there pointing to the other. Leasnam (talk) 16:41, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

inherited vs derived descendants of Latin mel and PIE *mélid

Maybe this fits better as a beer parlour question, but I just wanted some brief clarification on something. Why is it that for the Romance descendants of Latin mel (“honey”), they are listed as inherited ({{|inh}}) up until Latin, but for the Proto-Indo-European stage, they shift to simply derived and use ({{|der}})? For example, with Spanish: ===Etymology=== From Old Spanish miel, myel, from Latin mel, from Proto-Indo-European *mélid. Is the PIE term in this case not considered a direct ancestor of the Latin word (and hence all its descendants)? Word dewd544 (talk) 04:53, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The difficulties are in accounting for the geminate -ll- in Latin, as well as the loss of the stem-final dental. If the Latin term was indeed directly inherited from the PIE one, then those points would need to be explained. Otherwise it becomes "it came from this PIE word, but don't ask how", which is not very rigorous. —CodeCa t 23:54, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

cuck

Does it actually mean "cuckold" in any of those senses? I was under the impression it was a slur for "emasculated" men, e.g. those who support feminism, or somehow "have no balls"... Equinox ◑ 00:20, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

C1 control characters

I see that some or all of the C1 control characters are presumed by the MW software to be CP1251 rather than Unicode and mapped to same-glyph Unicode character. For example, https://en.wiktionary.org/?title=%94 is not the cancel character U+0094 but ” U+201D, because CP1251 hex 94 is ”. The same is true (m.m.) for 85 and 93, at least; I haven't checked any others. Thus, we can't possibly have an entry on the cancel character. Can we get this feature turned off? Do we want to?—msh210℠ (talk) 20:50, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

At least some control characters can be entered, and were redirected per RFD (Talk:︀) to Appendix:Control characters. Would anyone actually want, be able (on the input side, regardless of what MW does), and try to look these up? We could put links at the top of ” etc like: "CP1251 redirects here. For the cancel character, see Appendix:Control characters." - -sche (discuss) 17:03, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think we go overboard with characters. Don't forget that we are a dictionary, and not a Unicode reference manual. I don't think the cancel character constitutes a word in any language, nor is it used with any meaning in any non-computer language. --Wiki Tiki 89 17:27, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think these redirects and appendixes should be deleted. —CodeCa t 23:51, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Should NIMBY have Noun and Adjective sections?

I added them, but somebody reverted my change. If NIMBY occurs in texts as noun and adj shouldn't wiktionary have the sections? 73.71.174.75 21:49, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You've made the point yourself. Is it used as an adjective? Bear in mind all nouns can be used attributively, like Wiktionary policy, computer screen (and so on) but Wiktionary is not an adjective, it's just a perfectly standard use of the noun Wiktionary. Renard Migrant (talk) 22:01, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The question here is about both noun and adjective because both were deleted. So you think that there should be a noun section but not an adjective section? I have never been clear on what makes a word an adjective in addition to a noun in the situation like this. 73.71.174.75 22:11, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've just compared NIMBY and nimby. Ack. We have to go by usage. Nimbyer, nimbier, nimbyest and nimbiest would attest the adjective nimby without further ado. Also if we can attested the noun nimby then can't the 'phrase' nimby get moved to the etymology of the noun? Unless there's usage that 'noun' won't cover. I have no immediate answer here. Renard Migrant (talk) 22:19, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See [[Wiktionary:English adjectives#Tests of whether an English word is an adjective]].—msh210℠ (talk) 22:26, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The best treatment of this, IMO, is by Webster's New World College Dictionary which has two noun definitions

1. opposition by nearby residents to a proposed building project, esp. a public one, as being hazardous, unsightly, etc.

2. a person who opposes such a project.

Most other dictionaries just have the second definition.

I don't see the point of the "phrase" section. DCDuring TALK 22:53, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@DCDuring The point is that NIMBY is a contraction of the phrase "not in my backyard". Purple backpack89 23:24, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is an acronym, not a contraction. I am not familiar with the acronym's attestable use other than in the noun definitions that WNW offers. There might be some such use, but I haven't found a dictionary that finds it worth including. DCDuring TALK 23:58, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd also move everything that's attestable to NIMBY and have nimby as the alternative form. Renard Migrant (talk) 22:55, 21 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

On COCA NIMBY is by far the most common form, with NIMBYs, not NIMBYS, the more common plural form. I found an instance of "be thoroughly NIMBY", which suggests there may be true adjective use. DCDuring TALK 00:22, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've cited a definition of NIMBY#Noun like the WNW definition above. DCDuring TALK 01:12, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is nouns are occasionally used that way, like "be thoroughly Manchester United" (surely there's no suggestion that Manchester United is an adjective). Renard Migrant (talk) 11:38, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, what does the label (chiefly US, Britain) (both at NIMBY and nimby) mean? That it's commonly used in the US and UK but not in Ireland, Canada or Australia? Seems sort of improbable to me. --Droigheann (talk) 01:17, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It means that it originally said "mainly US", but an etymology was added showing that its origins were apparently in the UK, and "UK" was later added by an English editor (Renard Migrant). Describing distribution is rather tricky when you only have information about two places, but there's nothing inherently ruling out use elsewhere in the world. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:01, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The earliest print use found so far (which refers to earlier spoken use) was in 1980 in the US. BNC reports use no earlier than 1985 (several uses are for a 10-year time interval 1985-1994). The more specifically dated uses commence in 1989. Use reported in COHA begins around the same time. Per Google News abundant use of the term in print on both sides of the Pond seems to begin after 2000. DCDuring TALK 11:00, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

By the way: the definition refers to structures, but it can really refer to just about anything newly-introduced where people are- for instance, a new business of an undesirable type moving from elsewhere into a local building could trigger opposition from nimbies. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:13, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ʻVV, tàʻa BV kV, tVʻVV-sà kV, tVjà kV

Are these actual terms, or is this ǃXóõ linguistic notation? DTLHS (talk) 05:35, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The uppercase V means "vowel" (the vowels change in various environments). For example, tàʻa BV kV can be tàʻa bé kè. As to whether words should be listed in that way, it depends. Somebody would have to study the language for a while to see how it works, and then make a decision on how citation forms should be entered. These terms with V might be the best way, but we don’t have enough information to decide. —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:23, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This notation would only make sense if each "V" behaved exactly same way (i.e. becomes the same vowel in the same environments), which I highly doubt is the case. --Wiki Tiki 89 14:50, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That’s not the only way it would make sense. It could make sense as long as a user understands enough about the grammar to select the proper vowels for each case, regardless whether they become the same vowel in the same environment. There are seven nominal agreement classes in two tone groups, which combine for nine or more grammatical genders. In any case, there is no way to decide without studying the language to see how it works. —Stephen ^(Talk) 16:18, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What I mean is that if you are an expert on the grammar and you are given a word that you didn't previously know, would you be able to figure out what each V should be for every environment? --Wiki Tiki 89 16:38, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it, the vowels marked as V are determined by grammatical concordance and other grammatical uses, and they are not specific to a word (somewhat similar to vowels in Arabic). So if a user knows the grammar, he can fill in the vowels depending on the use, even if he has never seen the word before. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:01, 5 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

But even in Arabic, some words have different endings, such as diptotes and -in words. I'm just concerned that there may be some word-specific information that we are leaving out. --Wiki Tiki 89 15:27, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

mulatto

African and Caucasian were changed by an anon, because - and I quote - "all black people aren't from Africa and it's just simple to say "black" and "white"". I'm not sure if this is in line with our guidelines. --Robbie SWE (talk) 09:56, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Though this is not an RFV issue as you're not disputing the existence of the word. Renard Migrant (talk) 11:39, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've moved this discussion from RFV to the tea room. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 12:00, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

African and Caucasian are ethnicities as well as about place of birth. I wasn't born in the Caucasus region but I'm ethnically Caucasian. On the second point of the anon, I don't mind either way, except it's not like black and white don't have other meanings also. Renard Migrant (talk) 12:20, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Would someone who is part Australian Aborigine and part Caucasian, be called a mulatto? --Wiki Tiki 89 14:54, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Probably not in the 19th century when "mulatto" had any kind of prevalence. They probably had a different word for it. Back then, they loved making up new words for various racial permutations. Example: octoroon. Purple backpack89 15:10, 22 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

back-formation

The definition does not consider the Semitic languages, in which some words are created using roots and patterns (beside using "morphemes", etc.) For example, فَرَادِيس pl (farādīs) > فِرْدَوْس (firdaws) is a typical back-formation in a Semitic language. --Z 13:32, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's fine if you consider the CaCāCīC pattern to be a morpheme. And you could easily see it as a morpheme that forms the plural of a masculine nominal with four (or more) consonants, whose last syllable contains a long vowel or diphthong. But I think it might be clearer to say something like "the reversal a perceived process of word formation when a word is perceived to have been formed by that process." --Wiki Tiki 89 14:27, 23 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Armoric "kars", "korsen"

In the etymology of carse, there is "Compare Armoric kars, korsen".

I suspect "Armoric" is a dialect of Breton, so I added the language code "br" to {{m}}. Please let me know if that's correct. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 08:21, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OOB

I'm calling bullshit on this. Only contribution of an IP, been there since 2008 except for being rewritten to be clearer. On the page OOB. Since it's been there so long, I'll leave it here for input. Any thoughts? Thanks :) Goldenshimmer (talk) 21:50, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any reason to keep it there. --Wiki Tiki 89 21:54, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cool, thanks :) Goldenshimmer (talk) 22:22, 24 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well OOB really is boo spelled backwards, just, it has nothing to do with a dictionary! Renard Migrant (talk) 16:12, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Argo#Latin

The declension there (especially dative and ablative) obviously were made up by wiktioanrians ("reconstructed"). And compared with the declension of Dido and echo the made-up form aren't Latin. Thus they should be removed.
As additions:

Latin grammar books state that Argo is declined like Dido and echo, see e.g. books.google.de/books?id=BqMAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA33 and books.google.de/books?id=EPpKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA64 . And that makes more sense than Wiktonary's constructions.
Dictionaries also mention the accusative "Argon" (e.g. "Argon, Prop. 1, 20, 17 M." or "Argon, Prop 1, 20, 17 Müll" or just "acc. Argo(n)"). So the declension of Argo should have been incomplete and thus in some way incorrect anyway.

-84.161.32.66 23:27, 24 March 2016 (UTC) and 00:07, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It says right above the declension table that Only the genitive and accusative are attested. The remaining forms have been reconstructed based on the Greek inflection. If by "obvious" you mean "written right there on the page", then I agree with you.

That aside, I note that the linked reference work states that Argo is third declension, while our entry currently lists it as fourth declension. The entry at the online Dizionario Latino similarly shows third declension. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:59, 25 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ @84.161.32.66, Eirikr: Please see Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Others#Template:la-decl-4th-argo. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 11:54, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ghibli

This entry does not give any pronunciation for the "English" word "ghibli" (fairly obscure: it's not in the SOED); and I don't know anything about Arabic, so cannot deduce anything from the transliteration qibliyy. Can anyone come up with some IPA? I am looking at the Wikipedia entry for Studio Ghibli, where there is a mention of the fact that the Japanese name is basically a mispronunciation, being (ja) ジブリ(jiburi) instead of (ja) ギブリ(giburi). Imaginatorium (talk) 09:56, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably /ˈɡɪbli/, but I've never heard the word pronounced, and trying to find a video online of someone pronouncing it is almost impossible due to interference from Studio Ghibli and the Maserati Ghibli. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:05, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that actually the WP article says this is from Italian ghibli, in which case the pronunciation is clear. (How is the Maserati name pronounced, "in English"?)

I had an unrelated question: the entry includes the plural ghiblis, which is linked to a separate entry saying it's the plural of ghibli. Shurely shomething wrong here? Imaginatorium (talk) 10:20, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No, why should there be something wrong? ghibli says its plural is ghiblis; ghiblis says it's the plural of ghibli. Looks right to me. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:31, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but I do not see any point in ghiblis within the entry for ghibli being *linked* to a separate entry just for the plural. It doesn't give any more information at all. Imaginatorium (talk) 14:03, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Someone might encounter the plural and not realise it's a plural, thus believe our dictionary has no entry. Equinox ◑ 14:13, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Anyway, it's not just this entry. Look up pretty much any countable English noun and there will be a link to the entry for the plural form. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:17, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The COED →ISBN confirms Angr's suspicion that the name of the wind (from Arabic) is /ˈɡɪbli/. Using a non-IPA system, The Facts on File Dictionary of Weather and Climate has /gib-lee/ (elsewhere they transcribe the ge- in geo- as /jee/). Several dictionaries mention the alternative spelling gibli, which we lack. - -sche (discuss) 21:16, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

When did we quit pronouncing terminal e’s?

Have, are, ease, use, tease, purple, table, goose, hope, fire, stone, Europe et cetera… when did we all quit saying the e’s? Somewhere in Middle English? (Also, does anybody know why?) --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 12:52, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See Silent_e#History. Equinox ◑ 12:56, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Some of these words never had a final shwa to begin with. I know that includes at least goose, fire and stone. —CodeCa t 20:11, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Short answer: in the 15th century, probably also in the later 14th century except in formal/poetic speech. Benwing2 (talk) 21:05, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Short answer for why: Because they had lost grammatical significance and their functional load was low because of changes like Middle English open-syllable lengthening. Benwing2 (talk) 21:06, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Also, they were silent when the following word began with a vowel, and this clipped pronunciation was then extended to all pronunciations. Leasnam (talk) 00:04, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

attention

Does it make sense to have attention#Interjection and not have parade rest#Interjection and all the others? DCDuring TALK 17:17, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No. We should have left wheel, present arms and all the others (some of which have transpondian variations). SemperBlotto (talk) 06:10, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The inconsistency bothers me, but I would not have a separate interjection PoS for any command. I'd bet left wheel#Noun (as in They practiced/performed/did/executed a left wheel.) would be attestable. [It is. DCDuring TALK 12:57, 27 March 2016 (UTC)][reply]

I have long thought that we overuse the PoS header 'Interjection'. DCDuring TALK 12:55, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

πέσσω

@Erutuon The inflected forms in the table have an extra e- in front. Is this an error? —CodeCa t 20:10, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. There should only be an initial ἐ- (e-) in the past tenses. — Eru·tuon 20:43, 26 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

teller

If "bank teller" is an Americanism (news to me, seems common enough in Australia), what is the British English equivalent, if any? ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:17, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A "counter clerk". (person who works at a counter, interfacing with the public) SemperBlotto (talk) 06:08, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Could be a cashier. Equinox ◑ 06:25, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

teller is not used frequently in the UK, thought we do use the term ATM John Cross (talk) 10:30, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@John Cross: I thought you call them cash machines. Which term is more common? --Wiki Tiki 89 14:43, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

cash machines is the more common of the two, but the abbreviation 'ATM' is used reasonably frequently. John Cross (talk) 15:21, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In the UK, the machines are also called cashpoints, from a trademark, or hole-in-the-wall. Equinox ◑ 15:30, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A definition using the word clerk seems quaint or non-US to my ears. That we have such wording in a definition is in part a product of not having a style guide. DCDuring TALK 12:49, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I use the word teller myself, but then I'm a Kiwi. Donnanz (talk) 15:38, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
My bank has an automated system that says 'cashier number one please'. I'd definitely call that person a cashier. I call the machines cashpoints and I don't think ATM is widely understood in the UK, though I have heard it. Renard Migrant (talk) 15:44, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

to make go

Seen on menjalankan. What does it mean to "make go"? --178.4.30.124 10:48, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is poor English, probably added by a non-native speaker. Perhaps he means to make something go/work/operate. SemperBlotto (talk) 11:07, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

One could say She made the car go, but it suggests a very limited vocabulary and/or a simplistic view of the situation. Both make and, especially in this context, go are highly polysemic. As a result the sentence is highly ambiguous and context would not always resolve the ambiguity. Does it mean "She started the car." (engine); "She pressed the gas pedal."; "She drove the car."; "She repaired the car."; "She caused the car to leave."? If all of those are consistent with the meaning of menjalankan, then it might be an adequate translation. DCDuring TALK 12:44, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

- I don't know any Indonesian, but I assume that menjalankan is the causative of jalan, and I can imagine that the causative of a verb meaning "to go on, go forward; to walk; to pass" could also cover such actions as compelling someone (by violence or threat) to go somewhere, and maybe even something as simple as successfully asking someone to go somewhere. (If I ask my mother to go to the market for me, and she does, maybe I have menjalankaned her to the market.) —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:13, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
- All that said, however, at jalan itself the gloss of menjalankan under Derived terms is "to drive, to operate; to start, to put into operation; to carry out, to perform". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:15, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've made the entry a bit more detailed after checking how multiple dictionaries defined the word and then finding short usexes confirming each sense in Google Books. - -sche (discuss) 14:32, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

salve

How are the interjection and its derived verb pronounced? —CodeCa t 21:23, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

/ˈsæl.vi/, apparently. I would have expected /ˈsɑl.weɪ/ (which Dictionary.com does mention as a Latinate pronunciation) or /ˈsɑl.veɪ/, but Century, Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, third edition and Dictinary.com all say the English pronunciation is /ˈsæl.vi/. - -sche (discuss) 21:35, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Probably a relic of the traditional English pronunciation of Latin, in which historical long e underwent the Great Vowel Shift and became /i(ː)/. — Eru·tuon 21:43, 27 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How was colour pronounced centuries ago?

How did people pronounce colour in Shakespeare’s time? --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 06:04, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Probably pretty close to how modern North Americans pronounce it. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 07:06, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is "renomated" an english word?

I stumbled across the word "renomated" this morning and became interested in it. It has around 6,000 google hits. A quick review leads me to believe that it's a faulty translation from the German "renommiert" (and similar words in Dutch, etc.) which I'd translate to "renowned." About 1/4-1/2 of the 33 hits in Google books are typos for "renominated." Not quite sure how wikt deals with situations like this, but wanted to point it out. Haus (talk) 11:27, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Not standard English, and you seem to be correct about "renowned" (e.g. "Cassiano Dal Pozzo was renomated in whole Europe for his artistic sensibility"; note "in whole Europe" suggests a non-native speaker). Most of the Google hits don't seem to be using the word but merely listing or mentioning it, which can result from spambots and crawlers copying other pages. Equinox ◑ 11:41, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

ceremony as /ˈserɪmənɪ/

Can ceremony really be pronounced as /ˈserɪmənɪ/? It seems really weird to me, especially the final /ɪ/. —suzukaze (t・c) 12:42, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, I'm sure that's a mistake for /i/. I have changed that final syllable. Equinox ◑ 14:13, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a mistake, it's just a feature of older RP. It's even in our Wiktionary logo. However, we follow the more modern approach and transcribe it as a short /-i/. The mistake was the US label. --Wiki Tiki 89 14:46, 28 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think the UK pronunciation is /ˈsɛɹəməni/, which becomes [ˈsɛɹəmənɪ] in the north of England. However /ˈsɛɹəməni/ is the correct broad (most inclusive) pronunciation. Renard Migrant (talk) 11:37, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

delete plural of landing gear

Hi, I'm a newcomer to wiktionary.

As far as I know, there is no plural of "landing gear", since "gear" in this context is a mass noun. http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/english/gear

How can I delete the entry, which was created by MewBot:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/landing_gears#English

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/landing_gear

Thank you for your help, and understanding.

I agree, but this has to be approved via Requests for Deletion (RFD), and unfortunately that doesn't always give the desired result. Donnanz (talk) 11:20, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why would landing gear be a mass noun? http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/english/gear doesn't contain the word 'landing' by the way I use Ctrl + F. [4] has a nice countable singular use. The OED listing something as uncountable does not imply that it's never countable, just that unusual enough for it to be countable for them to not include it in their definition. Renard Migrant (talk) 11:34, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Erm ... Oxford Dictionaries do have an entry specifically for landing gear and it contains examples with a countable use ("you can get hit by a landing gear") and with a plural ("all three landing gears"). --Droigheann (talk) 13:04, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I guess that settles that. Donnanz (talk) 13:58, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, as a native speaker of English who grew up near Washington DC, landing gears sounds exceedingly unnatural to me: the plural gears to my ear sounds like it must be the sprocketed wheel kind of gear, and not the equipment kind of gear. (I can't seem to view the Google Books link provided above, for some reason, and the Oxford Dictionaries link doesn't show me any examples of plural use for landing gear, only for gear. For that matter, sense 2 for gear explicitly says [MASS NOUN, USUALLY WITH MODIFIER]...)

Are we sure this exists in valid contexts? If it does, is there any chance that this is a regionally or historically limited use? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:53, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it sounds odd in the plural; nevertheless, searching b.g.c reveals that while the plural is rare, it isn't unattestable: [5], [6], [7]. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:16, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(I find it oddly suggestive that two of those Google Books texts were apparently written by native German speakers. That said, the author in the first link seems to be very American.) I wonder if this is similar to the case for water or fish: a plural may be used when discussing different types of the noun? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:30, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See Google Books hits for one of the landing gears. For example: "If only one of the landing gears is not fully extended and locked, the green light will not illuminate." A mass noun would not make for good usage in an operator's manual for an aircraft. DCDuring TALK 20:30, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Google books NGRAM viewer shows usage of the plural. Presumably when comparing the landing gear of different aircraft. SemperBlotto (talk) 20:41, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Aircraft must have at least three points of support when on the ground. On most aircraft each point of support is a landing gear. Usually there are two main landing gearS and one nose or tail landing gear. If one is operating, servicing, designing, manufacturing, or evaluating an aircraft, a mass-noun use of landing gear does not have practical value. I don't think one could actually find landing gear in use with a determiner unambiguously indicating its uncountable use. DCDuring TALK 21:26, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing more of the hits, I no longer dispute that this is in use. I do dispute its naturalness :), but that's a separate matter.

If presented with this term as a translation target option, I would write something more like landing gear units or landing gear wheels, etc. Using gear in a countable context unavoidably sounds like

. I also find it interesting that landing gear is apparently used as a mass noun when talking collectively about all of the wheels / struts / whatevers on an airplane: “the landing gear is down”, not “the landing gears are down”. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:40, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I even found a use of "much landing gear": WHERE DO ALL THE WHEELS GO ON A B-52? * Boeing had a problem of too much landing gear. But such use is very rare. DCDuring TALK 22:16, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is "nanoplanedo" really an alternative form of "preskaŭplanedo"?

As far as everything I've been able to find (and it's really not very clear) the use of the Alternative Forms heading is for spelling variation of the same word and not for synonyms.

On the page preskaŭplanedo, shouldn't nanoplanedo be moved to a similar terms or synonym heading?

The main entry literally means "almost planet", while nanoplanedo literally means "dwarf planet". I don't intend to discuss which may be better or more used Esperanto, simply whether they are alternative forms of the same word. —Sollupulo (talk) 14:25, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Done Changed to synonym. Equinox ◑ 22:54, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Equinox. So you seem to think like I do about what constitutes an alternative form? Since I didn't find it specifically stated in any guideline, I just wasn't sure that it was a misuse of the section. Sollupulo (talk) 15:33, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

recording

At present the entry only covers the musical sense, but I'm sure the noun can also be used for the recording of information (putting it on record), and not just as the present participle. Oxford is no help here. Donnanz (talk) 20:03, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Our definition of the noun is "A reproduction of sound and/or video stored in a permanent medium."

I don't think that "stored in a permanent medium" is essential when referring to the content. There is, I think, a separate sense for certain permanent media, eg, drums and discs with analog sound impressions, magnetic tapes (and discs?), laser-read discs. What about static RAM? What about a flip book?
We don't say that a court stenographer makes a recording of the testimony. I don't think we say that one makes a recording of mere text or data concerning static phenomena, eg, a photograph. What about a high-frequency sample of temperature data or data on insensible interstellar radiation or terrestrial smells?
Some good KWIC data from a large corpus would ~~help with this~~ be essential to do a good job with this. DCDuring TALK 20:57, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally the existing definition isn't great: "reproduction" might be misunderstood to mean "process of playback", which is the opposite of recording. Equinox ◑ 22:53, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Unsurprisingly this definition was not in Webster 1913. The wording in that work, however dated it may be, was professional. Our efforts to write definitions often lack that.

I suppose we should make sure that our definitions accurately reflect typical current usage while preferably not precluding too many older, newer, and atypical cases. BYU.corpus has been down so I couldn't pull any KWIC data from COCA, COHA, BNC, etc. DCDuring TALK 23:25, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly there have only been two substantive edits of this definition, the creation and one by Bequw. DCDuring TALK 23:31, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This cite is an example of a recording of data, albeit of the deemed-continuous type:
- 2010, Theodore A. Stern, Massachusetts General Hospital Handbook of General ...‎^[8], page 289:
  Electrocardiogram (ECG): A recording of heart rhythm. • Electromyogram (EMG): A recording of the activity of the left and right tibialis anterior muscles and the submental (chin) muscles. • Respiratory efforts: A recording of nasal and oral airflow
  DCDuring TALK 23:55, 29 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Some examples from Google - seismological recordings [9], meteorological recordings [10], weather recordings [11], recording of archaeological ... [12]. There's probably more lurking under the surface if I can think of them. Donnanz (talk) 16:31, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think you have to search for "a recording of" and "recordings of" to make sure that you are getting hits for the noun, not the ing-form of the verb. DCDuring TALK 17:19, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It also depends what you mean by permanent. A CD or a cassette can't really be expected to last forever. You might think recording something on 'paper' is permanent but there are bits of paper with legible writing on them from thousands of years ago. Renard Migrant (talk) 18:09, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]
At the moment the definition only covers the recording of audio and video, whether it's permanent or not it is probably intended to be permanent. Recording of data can be made in computer systems, and they can go wrong too. Two more examples using "the" - I am trying to avoid audio recordings and the like: the recording of data (although this could be onto a CD, but not as audio) [13], the recording of archaeological [14]. Donnanz (talk) 18:29, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"I am trying to avoid audio recordings and the like" But that's the point: there isn't very much of it. You could try '"a recording of"|"recordings of" * data' to get candidate citations.

By doing your search instead you have failed to exclude verb use. The semantics of the verb are not guaranteed to transfer entirely to the noun. DCDuring TALK 18:51, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think I have already proved it, it's someone else's turn. Donnanz (talk) 11:52, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The undigested mass of links you have provided "prove" it only for the verb, AFAICT. DCDuring TALK 14:27, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I beg to differ. Look again. Donnanz (talk) 16:20, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There are samples of noun uses of 'recording' in every one of the links provided. In many of the instances there is an article modifying the word (you may have to omit intervening adjectives to see that the 'the' or 'a' is indeed for the word 'recording') which means it is being used in a noun sense. Further, the use of adjectives to modify 'recording' clearly indicates a noun. On the broader point, the definition does seem to be too narrow. A recording is meant to somehow capture a transient event into a more stable form for later review. 'Permanent' may be too strong of a description, perhaps 'durable' would be better. What I can't seem to get a grip on is why we use 'recording' sometimes and 'record' at other times. There doesn't seem to be a clear cut way that stands out to me for me to explain it to a second language speaker of English as to when to use one vs. the other. Sollupulo (talk) 15:21, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see three such citations that were of unambiguous noun usage. It would make for a good entry if we could actually support claims with evidence. Positive demonstration of existence settles the matter. It's not that hard to format the citations and put them in the entry or on the citations page. DCDuring TALK 15:58, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How about one from each link above:

seismological recordings:

[quote]The first attempt at standardizing seismological recordings was made when the WWSSN network was installed in the early 1960's. [/quote]

Source: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kTUBCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=%22seismological+recordings%22&source=bl&ots=q_YfovpdZM&sig=GIg2qIw3QJMZvbJrToHE5HO8dlY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj6hb-F_e3LAhVFQyYKHZhTA6QQ6AEIQjAI#v=onepage&q=%22seismological%20recordings%22&f=false

NOTE: Here 'recordings' is a plural gerund noun object of the verbal 'standardizing' and modified by the adjective 'seismological.' We know 'standardizing' is verbal because we can substitute the infinitive form and it still makes sense, if you do that with 'recordings' it looses all sense. Try it: The first attempt to standardize seismological to record was made...

meteorological recordings:

[quote]For example, in the Alias of Britain the meteorological maps show actual mean meteorological recordings, rather than interpolated isohyets, isotherms and so on, and will use color to allow the reader to distinguish geographical patterns without the distraction of the traditional firm lines by which meteorological information has been conveyed hitherto. [/quote]

Source: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=y04isqnVLZ8C&pg=PA84&lpg=PA84&dq=%22meteorological+recordings%22&source=bl&ots=5YcbRalb6-&sig=CDin0pF0U4E_v2D-izfX0FWAZUk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiQmqCI_e3LAhVIRyYKHZ5qCEQQ6AEITjAJ#v=onepage&q=%22meteorological%20recordings%22&f=false

NOTE: The adjective 'meteorological' qualifies two other nouns 'maps' & 'information.' This time 'recordings' is an object of the verb 'show.'

weather recordings:

[quote]The weather recordings don't constitute a weather briefing, however; they're designed to give pilots a quick look at the weather conditions. [/quote]

Source: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4TR0YdLhd0sC&pg=PA74&lpg=PA74&dq=%22weather+recordings%22&source=bl&ots=xaPFMt6o0y&sig=0Xl1dZrbZS6ZNZwZbuRfz1q5p5E&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjp3LyL_e3LAhUFbiYKHScADDYQ6AEISjAG#v=onepage&q=%22weather%20recordings%22&f=false

NOTE: Here we have the word 'recordings' as the subject of the sentence with both an article and adjective modifier. Try subbing the infinitive form and see if it changes the sense: The weather to record don't constitute a weather briefing… It shows the verb 'don't constitute' agrees with a plural noun which 'weather' isn't. To make it make sense you would have to change 'weather' to 'weathers' or 'don't' to 'doesn't.'

recording of archaeological:

[quote]This guidance covers the graphical and plane table survey methods for the recording of archaeological earthworks. [/quote]

Source: https://historicengland.org.uk/advice/technical-advice/recording-heritage/

NOTE: Again, there's an article for the word 'recording.' Also, subbing the infinitive ruins the sense, unless you also remove both prepositions surrounding it. This instance of the word is a prepositional object and is also modified by a prepositional phrase.

Sollupulo (talk) 18:52, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I had a consult with CGEL, which clarified my thinking and brought me into full agreement with your discussion of the grammar.

There is one lexicographical point which has to do with presentation more than anything else. I know of no good reason to have separate definitions for participles and the lemma verb they derive from. All ing-form participle are used as adjectives and nouns as well as elements of verbs. When they do not have semantics distinct from the base form of the verb, I don't see why we should duplicate the presentation of the definitions of the verb with reworded definitions at the -ing-form (and the past participle). So definitions of the noun recording should not be of the process or activity or recording, but of something else. Most dictionaries have such a definition, but their definitions only cover the products of recording performances or, more generally, of sound and video.

The citations partially fit the bill:

The 'seismological' citation is ambiguous as to whether it is the end product or the process that is being standardized.
The 'meteorological' and 'weather' citations seem unambiguously to be about the end product.
The 'archaeological' citation seems to unambiguously refer to the process of recording.

Thus, by my strict standards, we have two good citations. Though I am reasonably sure that 'recording' is very rarely used of anything other than sound and video and I would not like to have to complicate the definition for what is exceptional usage, our standards for inclusion of a term and confirmation of any aspect of its definition require only three unambiguous citations.

Also, my hypothesis that only dynamic, nearly continuous data (ie, time series) would be on recordings seems not to be consistent with the citations about 'meteorological' and 'weather' data.

I will try to find more citations about the range of data on recordings. DCDuring TALK 01:05, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See Citations:recording. DCDuring TALK 01:58, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

rarity

90% sure this is refractory outside of Mary-marry-merry. Hillcrest98 (talk) 16:53, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is our entry for refractory missing a definition? DCDuring TALK 17:21, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Possibly, though we do have an entry for refractory rhyme. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:49, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How is arity pronounced by non-Mary-marry merged people? --Wiki Tiki 89 17:53, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, good call, Wikitiki! When you encounter specific fields you learn the existence of a myriad of specific vocabulary... Hillcrest98 (talk) 20:59, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! But actually that wasn't a rhetorical question, I actually want to know. Are you implying that arity does rhyme with rarity (keeping in mind that arity is derived from -ary)? --Wiki Tiki 89 21:21, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Nah, I was having doubts if rarity had any potential rhymes before I was going to put it in the refractory rhymes category. Hillcrest98 (talk) 22:40, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Let me rephrase: If you don't have the Mary-marry merger, does arity rhyme with rarity or with clarity? That's the question I want an answer to. --Wiki Tiki 89 22:46, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea. Hillcrest98 (talk) 23:57, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ok. So let's wait for someone who does. --Wiki Tiki 89 00:17, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would rhyme it with "clarity", but this is based on no evidence, just my personal feeling. 86.171.43.97 03:43, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Free Dictionary has arity pronounced (âr′ĭ-tē) like rarity (râr′ĭ-tē) and unlike clarity (klăr′ĭ-tē). - -sche (discuss) 17:40, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

FYI @Wikitiki89 - -sche (discuss) 19:28, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@-sche: That is what I suspected, but is The Free Dictionary a trustworthy source on minutiae like this? --Wiki Tiki 89 21:45, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

disingenuity

It is marked as obsolete - is it really? OED only says " = disingenuousness (which is now more usual)" and I got quite a few hits in Google Books even when I restricted the search for 21st century. --Droigheann (talk) 20:19, 30 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think you should go ahead and change it per your own comments. Renard Migrant (talk) 13:02, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

All right, I turned it into an alternative form of disingenuousness and put some Books quotes on the Citations page. --Droigheann (talk) 11:19, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is that really what alternative form means? DCDuring TALK 18:47, 6 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've been corrected already [15] --Droigheann (talk) 05:00, 7 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

~ a spanner in the works

I just added put a spanner in the works as a variant of throw a spanner in the works, but then it occurred to me that several other verbs could go there too, e.g. chuck a spanner in the works, lob a spanner in the works, and so forth. What is the Wiktionary policy for dealing with such situations? Would it be better to have an entry for "(a) spanner in the works"? 86.130.67.229 20:04, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

spanner in the works would be good. The common verbs might be listed under a Usage notes header, or illustrated by book citations. Equinox ◑ 20:39, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and of course the phrase can be used outside the pattern altogether, as in "That's a real spanner in the works", for example, and so "spanner in the works" seems to be the underlying unit of meaning. 86.130.67.229 22:00, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

BNC has only throw (6) and put (3) as main verbs preceding a spanner in the works. It is also used after be (1) and literally once. The US substitute is monkey wrench. In the US the term monkey wrench is often used figuratively without works following (per COCA), whereas spanner is less often so used (per BNC). DCDuring TALK 23:19, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Nevertheless, my examples of "chuck a spanner in the works" and "lob a spanner in the works" are perfectly reasonable things to say, as is my further example "a real spanner in the works". 86.171.43.97 03:41, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bilirubin: yellow or red?

Bilirubin is one of the molecules produced by breaking down Heme. Heme (inside red blood cells) appears red while bilirubin (in bruises and in cases of jaundice) appears yellow.

However, -rubin stands for "red". Does anyone know what the history of this is (why choose red and not yellow for this molecule)? Myoglobin (talk) 22:07, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure it's always yellow? I found a book defining it as "red bile pigment". Equinox ◑ 23:18, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think you may be right; Sigma Aldrich describes their powdered bilirubin as "orange-brown", which is pretty close to red. I suppose bilirubin is only yellow when seen through the skin, similar to the perception that deoxygenated hemoglobin is blue when it is actually just darker than oxygenated hemoglobin. Thanks! Myoglobin (talk) 16:23, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

πλῆτο

@Erutuon This form is given here as part of the paradigm of πίμπλημι (pímplēmi), but it's not listed there. Where would it belong? —CodeCa t 23:03, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like both the LSJ and Cunliffe consider ἐπλήμην, πλῆτο, πλῆντο, -πλησο, -πλῄμην, -πλῇτο, -πλήμενος (eplḗmēn, plêto, plênto, -plēso, -plḗimēn, -plêito, -plḗmenos) all to be athematic second aorist (root aorist) forms. The form πλῆτο (plêto) is just unaugmented. Added them to the tables. — Eru·tuon 23:17, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Erutuon Are you sure you did it right? Some of the forms in the table are missing accents, including πλῆτο (plêto) in particular. —CodeCa t 20:17, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure that's the way. Perhaps there's a problem in the module; perhaps unaugmented root aorist middles weren't anticipated. — Eru·tuon 20:21, 1 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like the module is incomplete; {{grc-conj|aor-hmi}} isn't adding stress marks the way the other components of {{grc-conj}} do. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:08, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

sententious

Are the divisions of the syllables in the second pronunciation correct? And are either of those pronunciations really limited to the UK, or are they more or less universal? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 15:16, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. The [t] may be present phonetically sometimes, but it's not phonemic. The syllabification looks OK. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:31, 2 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]