Wiktionary:Tea room/2017/April

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← March 2017 · April 2017 · May 2017 → · (current)

---

Obsolete IPA character

Which IPA character should be used instead of the crossed I shown in Hartlepool (apparently obsolete)? It should sound like hart-le-pool. DonnanZ (talk) 13:28, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps /ɪ/ or /ə/. (See ᵻ.) — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 16:57, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

/ɪ/. /ə/ would be used to transcribe dialects in which the phoneme /ɪ/ does not occur unstressed (i.e., it has merged with /ə/). — Eru·tuon 17:45, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks to both, I think it may be ɪ, le is actually from Norman. I couldn't format it for {{IPA}} as the pronunciation I filched from Wikipedia has that invalid character. DonnanZ (talk) 18:19, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

You can still use {{IPA}}- the error message will only show up in the preview. DTLHS (talk) 18:23, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Oh I see, I didn't chance it, thanks. DonnanZ (talk) 18:27, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

not quite

Is that a good definition? --Barytonesis (talk) 23:54, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

I think it's pretty accurate, but it doesn't seem to capture the connotation of not quite, which I think has a bit more emphasis on the negative than your definition implies, if that makes sense. I can't think of a good way to make it better though. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:13, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

@Andrew Sheedy: That's what bothers me. Pragmatically, you can't use it like you would "almost" or "very nearly". Is it rather a synonym of "not exactly", or "not really"? --Barytonesis (talk) 17:19, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

I think "not exactly" is pretty close in meaning. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:28, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

con

• We currently claim the deceiving sense is slang. This seems highly unlikely, since it is such a common usage in all English speaking countries. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:59, 2 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Yeah, that doesn't seem right to me. Maybe someone was referencing an older dictionary that classified it as slang? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:16, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
    • I feel that we constantly use "slang" where it doesn't apply. Particularly it's often used for "informal" or "colloquial". In my understanding, slang requires that a word can't be used towards a vast portion of society, because they would either censure it or not understand it. Kolmiel (talk) 10:23, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Is this the same usage as "the con of man" from The Da Vinci Code? I would say that it is not a slang usage; "informal" might be the best descriptor. Nicole Sharp (talk) 08:24, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

informationization

Is this a word in English? ---> Tooironic (talk) 09:21, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Not to my knowledge. It sounds awful anyway. DonnanZ (talk) 12:15, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

It gets more than enough hits on Google books to be includable. DTLHS (talk) 14:56, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes; created. Equinox ◑ 16:36, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

• Thanks everyone. ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:13, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

These abominations show up all over the place, especially in technical contexts. Start with a verb (inform), evolve into a noun (information), transmogrify into another verb (informationize, unattested to my knowledge), then burst forth as yet another noun. This is mechanically doable in English through the magic of lexical suffixes, a process that has no limits in principle but eventually unravels into verbal refuse. Just stop it.

Who are you telling to "stop it"? The English language has been doing things like this for hundreds of years and a stupid dictionary is hardly going to stand in its way. DTLHS (talk) 22:43, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Down with antiaffixizationers! --G23r0f0i (talk) 21:12, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

affix, clitic

Each of these entries links to the other as a coordinate term, but the difference between them is not made clear. MW's definition of clitic implies that it is used only of that which results from a contraction, but then the English possessive -'s is clearly not an enclitic.__Gamren (talk) 17:53, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

An affix turns one word into another word (or form of a word). A clitic functions grammatically as its own word, but is pronounced as part of another word. The possessive -'s in English is a borderline case where a former affix has taken on some properties of a clitic, such as being able to be applied to phrases, rather than individual words. Take for example "Jack and Jill's pale", if the -s were still purely an affix marking the possessive "case", then you'd expect "Jack's and Jill's pale". --WikiTiki89 16:15, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

ileus

The definition is incorrect (cf. ileus on Wikipedia). Wyang (talk) 11:04, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

I tried to fix it myself... after several days of unresponsiveness. Wyang (talk) 08:58, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

rench

Is this a word in English? ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:31, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

I can't find anything useful on b.g.c. except an old-fashioned dialectal form of rinse (e.g. [1], [2]). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:05, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

It would be an understandable misspelling for wrench. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:25, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

How to conjugate irregular compound verbs

I just heard a commentator on SoCal public radio (KPCC) use the term 'greenlit' in reference to a film project initiated some years ago. I often hear an irregular compound verb like this conjugated like the basic verb. I think we all agree that the past tense of 'undergo' must be 'underwent' if only because 'undergoed' sounds horrendous. In the case of greenlight, however, the word derived from a noun--an electric traffic control--so the choice between 'lit' and 'lighted' is more nuanced. Are there rules here or merely stylistic preferences? — This comment was unsigned.

I have heard it said that verbs formed from nouns are always conjugated regularly -- hence "the batter flied out" (not "flew out"), and "the soldiers ringed the fortress" (not "rang the fortress"), which suggests that "greenlighted" is correct since it's formed from the noun phrase "green light", as you note. Benwing2 (talk) 17:31, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

In the case of ring, the verb and noun are unrelated, so it wouldn't make sense to say "rang" anyway. For "fly out", people always seem to be tempted to say "flew out" even though everyone says "flied out" is correct. With "greenlight", however, I think "greenlit" is the most commonly used form. --WikiTiki89 17:38, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm guessing that the only player who ever actually flew out was Yogi Berra. — This unsigned comment was added by Robinsjo (talk • contribs) at 22:43, 3 April 2017.

Which proves that they are not "always conjugated regularly". They just may be or tend to be. There are probably other examples for both cases. Kolmiel (talk) 20:20, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Of course, this tendency could be a factor in the collapse of the system of English strong verbs, which we expect to happen in the 32nd century. Because the main factor that blocks forms like flied and eated is that they sound strange and give you a little shiver deep insde. But when you can say "flied out", with time "he flied to Amsterdam" might not sound just as strange anymore. Kolmiel (talk) 20:33, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

All we need is a generation of children to grow up without parents or schoolteachers. That should take care of all the strong verbs. --WikiTiki89 20:37, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

You think? I'm not sure. All Germanic languages except Afrikaans, even including all dialects, still have them, although those were spoken for maybe 1700 years since Proto-Germanic without any education among the normal population. Kolmiel (talk) 21:08, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Down with parents and teachers! --G23r0f0i (talk) 21:10, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I mean those people did have parents, but not educated ones. Kolmiel (talk) 21:09, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Yeah but look what happened to Afrikaans in a matter of a couple centuries. --WikiTiki89 21:24, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Admittedly, there is a difference now with people moving around so much, and so many non-native speakers using English. So maybe you're right with regards to English at least. But nah, I like strong verbs. Of course, it's only because I'm used to them. But, actually, it's the only thing I would change about Afrikaans. It's a cute language, but something like ek het gevind ("I has finded")? No, sorry, I'm too conservative for that. Kolmiel (talk) 21:44, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

When I was studying morphology in college, we discussed this in two separate contexts: the regularization of irregular verbs with significant semantic drift and irregularity in novel compounds. For the first category, we had the "flied out" example, as well as the fact that many people consider the plural a computer "mouse" to be "mouses". Similarly, I have since noticed speakers' unwillingness to make the past of "to grind on someone" (the dance move) as "He ground on her" with most people favoring "grinded" (though this could represent the effect of verbification if the etymology is "to do the grind" > "to grind").

For the second category, one of my friends noticed that, when asked to form the past of a compound verb where the first member was irregular, the speaker might doubly mark the past tense. So some speakers would consider the following conjugations well formed:

• "to breakdance" → "to have brokedanced" or "to have breakdanced"
• "to sleepwalk" → "to have slepwalked" or "to have sleepwalked" (but not "to have *sleptwalked")

All this to say that these effects can go in either direction depending on a wide variety of factors. —JohnC5 00:12, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Looking at language histories, I think that simple past forms will disappear altogether before the strong verbs get regularized. Crom daba (talk) 22:07, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Indeed that has happened in some languages. Afrikaans, again. And also in most of High German the simple past is at least unproductive. In Yiddish and Swiss German it has disappeared entirely. In Luxembourgish, as a northern High German language, it's restricted to some 20 simple verbs. However, all High German dialects still have strong verbs, because they use the perfect tense and the perfect participle remains strong. In English, maybe people will substitute he did fly, so that would mean they're gone. Kolmiel (talk) 22:33, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm speaking about trends I see in English, not general cross-Germanic or cross-linguistic trends. In American English, the pluperfect will soon be replaced entirely by the simple past. So the simple past is not going anywhere. The simple present, on the other hand, is more likely to disappear, for active verbs at least, although as of now its habitual-aspect uses and non-indicative uses are still highly productive. My comment about strong verbs disappearing is based on the fact that children do tend to say things like "flied" and "eated" until they are taught not to; although there are some strong verb patterns that are on the contrary likely to grow in usage, like the -ing/-ang > -ung pattern (note also that the simple past/past participle distinction is collapsing into just one form), so sang/rang will be gone in favor of sung/rung, and brought will become brung, and I wouldn't be surprised if weak verbs like banged become bung. --WikiTiki89 23:35, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes. The perfect is also used less (I think especially in American English) than what traditional grammar would imply, isn't it? You're likely to hear I brought you some flowers instead of I've.... So the English past tense seems stable. -- I think small children are likely in most languages to use regularized forms. They also do in German. But the fact that older children don't, needn't be because they're told "don't say that", but because they adapt later on. Of course, it's hard to find out and distinguish. Kolmiel (talk) 00:40, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

centoctovigesimal

• Is "uncentoctovigesimal" "centoctovigesimal" the correct term for base-128 numbers? I can't seem to find any citations other than "wikipedia:List of numeral systems#Standard positional numeral systems," which contains a lot of terms not on Wiktionary, and is missing citations. I would suggest that we need an appendix here listing the names for number bases. Nicole Sharp (talk) 18:41, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
  • 2: binary
  • 4: quaternary
  • 8: octal
  • 16: hexadecimal
  • 32: duotrigesimal
  • 64: tetrasexagesimal
  • 128: centoctovigesimal??
  • 256: ducentahexaquinquagesimal? ducentohexaquinquagesimal
  • 512: pentacentaduodecimal?? quingentoduodecimal

• Zero Google Books hits; zero Google Groups hits. Words that only appear in lists, and not in usage, are not for us. The correct and standard term is "base 128". I have never seen such a base used by anyone for anything. Equinox ◑ 18:46, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Yes, I cannot find much on Google either. The only citations for "ducentahexaquinquagesimal" I can find seem to be from Wikipedia, for which the entry is marked as missing a citation. Even if the terms are not in usage though, they can still be added in a Wiktionary Appendix for reference. The naming system seems fairly systematic to create new names for arbitrary bases, as I did with 128 and 512, but I am not sure of the origins or formalism of the naming system. Nicole Sharp (talk) 18:54, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Other than Wikipedia, this is the best citation that I can find: http://www.mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/60405.html, which additionally cites "Schwartzman S (1994). The Words of Mathematics: an etymological dictionary of mathematical terms used in English →ISBN." I don't have access to the book cited, but the prefixes listed on the webpage seem to confirm "centoctovigesimal" as the non-numerical term for base 128. Nicole Sharp (talk) 19:51, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
    • "Centoctovigesimal" (I miswrote it as "uncentoctovigesmal" earlier) does have one citation on Google: [3]. Not sure if the poster there is the same as user "@double sharp" here on Wiktionary. Nicole Sharp (talk) 19:51, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
      • Yes, it is me. I got it from http://www.numberbases.com/terms/basename.html, as you cited. I'm not entirely sure if the adoption is widespread enough to justify putting them here, but realistically it could not get much higher for bases like this. Double sharp (talk) 02:43, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

appendix

• I have gone ahead and created "Appendix:Number bases." If anyone has any additional resources on how to systematically name number bases higher than 100 (in particular bases 128, 256, 512, and 1024), please add them to the talkpage there. Nicole Sharp (talk) 21:12, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
  • I just found this, there apparently is at least one consistent system for naming bases of arbitrary number, the Lamadrid system, which is also cited here [4]: http://www.numberbases.com/terms/basename.html. In the Lamadrid system then, base 128 is centoctovigesimal, base 256 is ducentohexaquinquagesimal, base 512 is quingentoduodecimal, and base 1024 is milletetravigesimal. Nicole Sharp (talk) 22:17, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

beshit

Is it vulgar? --Barytonesis (talk) 22:18, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps it should also be marked as rare or archaic. Crom daba (talk) 08:04, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Saare County and others

User:BD2412 recently added a bunch of entries for Estonian counties, all with "County" at the end of the name. I'm wondering, firstly, if they are not known better by their Estonian names (e.g. Saaremaa), but also whether this combination is SOP or not. —CodeCat 22:53, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

=Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion#McClain_County? —suzukaze (t・c) 22:54, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

I think this is different, though. The US counties are rarely if ever used without "County". I'm not sure if that's also the case with Estonian counties. —CodeCat 22:56, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

• A few things on this. I created them because Saare County is on Robert Ullmann's list of missing red links. Although they are called "counties" they are top-level administrative divisions, and therefore the equivalent of U.S. states; it hardly seems fair that we would include U.S. counties, but exclude state-level subdivisions from another country. If they are sometimes used with "County" (all the Wikipedia articles are so titled), then they would at least be legitimate alternative forms. bd2412 T 22:58, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia articles can be SoP though, so that doesn't help us here. What I'd be more interested in is whether English speakers really do use these "County" names or if they're something Wikipedia writers invented. I would just call it Saaremaa myself. —CodeCat 23:04, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
    • Google Books returns a few thousand hits for "Saare County"; whether or not it is the best usage, it is attested as a unit. bd2412 T 23:06, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
      • Ok, that is one thing down. What about the name Saare alone, is that ever used? The funny thing about this is that in Estonian, saare is a case form, the lemma being saar (“island”). So it seems like the creators of Saare County just tore off the Estonian word maa and replaced it with county regardless of Estonian grammar. The names without maa are never used in Estonian to refer to these counties, it would be like using Eng alone to refer to England. —CodeCat 23:09, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
        • These aren't ==Estonian== entries. bd2412 T 00:50, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
          • I'm aware. I just find it striking that whoever coined the term knew enough Estonian to analyse it as (name) + maa, yet not enough to recognise that saare is a genitive form. —CodeCat 01:04, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
            • Well whoever did it, it seems to be in use since about 1991. bd2412 T 23:25, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Spanish coquizar, coquificar

• "To use heat to decompose high molecular weight hydrocarbons, in order to obtain petroleum coke" ([5]). Is there an English verb for this? DTLHS (talk) 03:46, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
  • cokify? Nicole Sharp (talk) 04:02, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
    • "Cokify" is used in the translation for French "cokéfier," and there is also "coking" ("to coke"), but that seems to be a different context. Nicole Sharp (talk) 04:07, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
    • "Coking" is the term used on "wikipedia:petroleum coke." It would have to rely on context though to refer to either the production of the coal byproduct (coke) or the petroleum byproduct (also coke). Nicole Sharp (talk) 04:12, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
      • Thanks. I guess it's better just to provide the gloss rather than rely on a potentially inaccurate one word translation. DTLHS (talk) 17:47, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

squad, section, platoon, company, etc.

Shouldn't we try to organise these terms? --193.190.242.4 15:52, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Turkish proverb in usage examples for "alan": noun or adjective sense?

I just stumbled upon alan and the Turkish section has the same proverb, "Atı alan Üsküdar'ı geçti", as a usage example both for adjectival usage (in the only present sense, with translation "The one who is the recipient of the horse has already passed Üsküdar. (It is too late to do anything; you have missed the train.)") and noun usage (in sense 2, with translation "[The person] who took has passed Üsküdar. (Too late to do anything about it, as the chance has been missed.)"). While I see that the senses are very close, using the same usage example for both, and with different translations, seems fishy to me. From the translation it seems clear that this is an example of the noun sense, and analyzing word-by-word gives "horse (acc.)-recipient-Üsküdar (unknown case, I have no inflection table at Üsküdar or at wikt:tr:Üsküdar)-passed (simple past, third person singular)", which reinforces the impression that this is a noun usage, and that a more appropriate translation would be "The person who received the horse has passed Üsküdar". This means that the usage example for the adjective sense is missing, and the translation for the noun sense had better be changed to include "the horse". I will do this, but I cannot provide a new example for the adjective sense. Can someone do that for me? Also, is this "alan" a passive active participle that can be used as adjective or noun or is it a verbal noun that can be used as an adjective? MGorrone (talk) 16:35, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm guessing that this is a present participle of almak (and Üsküdar'ı is the accusative).

Turkish participles AFAIK can be used both attributively (as an adjective) and substantively (as a noun), you are right in noting that the example displays a substantive usage, but it should arguably be listed under a single participle or verb heading and linked to the main entry anyway. Crom daba (talk) 20:01, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

However, we don't seem to list -an participles as verb forms currently. @Anylai, could you tell me the reasoning behind this convention, are such words treated as independent form? Crom daba (talk) 20:09, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

It is not a verbal noun, -an makes adjectives, although there is not a very clear line between adjectives and nouns or adjectives and adverbs in Turkish.

Let's take a look at another sense of al- and derive alan in a different sense. Using the sense "to buy";

alan kişi (buying person),

Alan razı, veren razı. (the buying (person) is willing, the selling/giving (person) is willing). The second one is a proverb, meaning "mind your own business".

I guess we need some sort of a template, otherwise we can never get out of the complexity of -an, -en creates, it is very productive and meanings will depend on context. See above, alan in the second example can mean "buyer". Well sometimes words get specific senses, I guess they can be mentioned separately. I wish I were competent enough in this subject to decide on whether it is past or passive active participle. --Anylai (talk) 20:29, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the response @Anylai:. My approach to participles/converbs and other non-lemma forms in Mongolian is to omit such nuances or even a translation, and merely link the lemma form and the suffix, the user should provide their own knowledge of syntax and grammar of a language to use the dictionary properly (I try to give a bit of that in the suffix entries however). See баяжсаар and -саар to see what I mean. Crom daba (talk) 20:53, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Dutch participles

@CodeCat, @Lingo Bingo Dingo, @KIeio: Inspired by the paragraph above this: We don't treat participles as verb forms in Dutch either. I'm not sure if that's good, but at least it should be standardized between languages. Right now German gelogen and Dutch idem are different parts of speech, although there's not the slightest difference in how they're used. (Except that in Dutch you can say thinks like na gegeten te hebben, but I don't think this is a factor here.) So may I ask to hear your arguments? Kolmiel (talk) 20:49, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

To call it merely a verb form would ignore the fact that participles behave like adjectives as well. That's what the different header is meant to signify. To call it a verb while giving it an adjective inflection table is weird. —CodeCat 20:58, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Okay. Thank you. I don't think I agree, though. Adjectives can be nouns and adverbs, as well. In Dutch they even have different nominal inflections (with the -en form; the -s form has been called nominal as well). The point for me is that participles are always derived from verbs. That's what makes them participles and hence verb forms. I suppose you will answer that it makes them deverbal derivatives, but that doesn't seem to be justified when half of the conjugations requires this form to be used. Kolmiel (talk) 21:04, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

IMO, the formatting of Dutch entries is good, but participles should be categorized under verb forms in our cat tree hierarchy. Crom daba (talk) 21:15, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

What about other languages that use the "Participle" header, such as Latin? If we're going to phase this header out, we should do so for all languages. —CodeCat 21:16, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Actually now I see that particles are already categorized as verb forms.

In case I wasn't clear, I do like the participle header. Crom daba (talk) 21:27, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I didn't see that either. I admit that it makes the situation a bit different. I found it particularly strange that they should be lemmas, but they aren't. Still, there should be a consistent policy for at least all continentenal West Germanic languages. Kolmiel (talk) 21:36, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

I also like the Participle header and use it in a wide variety of languages. However, I think "accelerated page creation" or whatever it's called with the green links automatically inserts a ===Verb=== header for participles, which is why so many participles (and probably not just in German) are labeled Verb. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:02, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

@Angr Part of the reason is probably that for English entries, we have one definition for both the past tense (which is called "simple past" for English for some reason) and past participle. And with English being the oldest language on Wiktionary, it probably set the practice for later languages. I think Latin and perhaps Ancient Greek were the first ones to use Participle, and I've certainly adopted the practice for Dutch based on those languages. —CodeCat 21:02, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

I believe the "simple" in "simple past" refers to morphological simplicity- the tenses based on participles, etc. are compound tenses. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:20, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

gelogen

By the way, can Dutch say the equivalent of Das ist gelogen! to mean "That's a lie!" or gelogenes Alter to mean "an age that's been lied about"? I think we have to consider those usages a real adjective, and not just the past participle of lügen. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:02, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Dat is gelogen, yes. Do you think really think this is an adjective? It's the same as: Das ist ausgedacht. Das ist bestätigt. Das ist richtig gerechnet. I don't know the exact grammatical term for this is, but it tends to be considered a second form of the perfect tense: Der Kuchen ist gegessen. ("The cake is eaten.", i.e. "gone"), versus: Der Kuchen ist gegessen worden. ("The cake has been eaten.", i.e. "someone ate it".) The thing is that in Dutch there's no distinction. Both would be: Het gebak is gegeten. — The adjectival use is rare in Dutch, but it's also rather rare in German. This could be an adjective since you can't generally construe lügen with a direct object. So that could be the point. Kolmiel (talk) 22:28, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

The term I've seen used for this construction in German is stative passive. Crom daba (talk) 22:45, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. I googled "static perfect" and found nothing. Yours is right. Kolmiel (talk) 22:47, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Well, maybe the direct-object argument refers to the first usage as well. But only in this verb then, not with transitive verbs. Alternatively one could say that lügen is occasionally used transitively. Er hat die Geschichte gelogen instead of erlogen is a bit doubtful to my ears, but definitely not impossible. Descriptively speaking. Kolmiel (talk) 22:40, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Yet another way would be to read "das ist gelogen" as an impersonal passive. Then it underlying sense wouldn't be "That has been lied about", but rather "They who said it lied." Kolmiel (talk) 22:46, 4 April 2017 (UTC) No, this might work for "das ist gelogen", but not when the subject is not a neuter pronoun. Kolmiel (talk) 22:56, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

The main reason I think this is a real adjective is that lügen is an intransitive verb; that's the difference to Das ist ausgedacht. Das ist bestätigt. Das ist richtig gerechnet. Der Kuchen ist gegessen. Could you call a conversation held on the phone ein telefoniertes Gespräch? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 23:11, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I realized. Only instead of "transitive" I said "construed with a direct object". Yes, you're probably right, as I implied somewhat unclearly in my last not stricken answer above. Of course, you couldn't say ein telefoniertes Gespräch. I did mention that lügen can sometimes be transitive. However, this latter construction is (prescriptively at least) nonstandard, while das ist gelogen is not at all. So, yes, we should probably have that as an adjective. I just didn't realize at first that you were speaking about the word "gelogen" specifically. Kolmiel (talk) 00:31, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Done. Kolmiel (talk) 00:58, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Meriare?

Is the Italian entry meriare some kind of dialectal term or something, because I can't seem to verify its existence in standard dictionaries? Word dewd544 (talk) 23:16, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

It seems to be Tuscan http://kielipiha.blogspot.rs/2013/06/meriggiare-curioso-e-raccolto.html "Una variante toscana di meriggiare è meriare." Crom daba (talk) 23:31, 4 April 2017 (UTC)

colonist

The two definitions "A person who is a founder of a colony" and "An original member of a colony" do not seem distinct. Our definitions of colony are also suboptimal. - -sche (discuss) 01:36, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

I see it as differentiating specific creators of the colony from the general people who moved to the colony to live/work there. Anti-Gamz Dust (There's Hillcrest!) 14:40, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

arabic definite article

Hi, in حق#Etymology_3 we find

        (in the plural, law) rights, claims, legal claims (الْحُقُوق — law, jurisprudence). 

The lexicographic treatment of الـ definite art. is quite complex, and usually overlooked, yet I think it would enrich the wiktionary to add in the descriptions its definiteness if necessary, e.g.

        (in the definite plural, law)

Granted, I do not know whether حقوق may be used withouth it meaning 'law, jurisprudence science' (the examples appearing in other entries seem to corroborate it) --Backinstadiums (talk) 14:02, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

If you mean that under اَل (al-), we could give some basic (!) information about how the article is used in Arabic, then yes, that may be a good idea. It's not that complex actually, pretty much the same as in Romance languages. Except that it's also used with adjectives, of course. Kolmiel (talk) 18:33, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

But maybe you don't mean that. Er, yes, sometimes it may be worthwile to add a note that a particular use is always definite. Most of the time, grammar already implies it, but we can add notes when we think it helpful. I've seen that being done in other languages, too. Kolmiel (talk) 18:38, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

I think it might be incorrect to use the word "always". I'm sure there are cases where حقوق is used in the indefinite with this meaning (it's certainly used in the construct state, but the resulting construct is also usually definite). --WikiTiki89 18:50, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Finnish "kauaksi"

kauaksi has only one sense:

Adverb

1. To far away.

Is this entry OK? It could be just me, but I don't think that definition sounds like normal English.

Going out on a limb: if it's an adverb, should it be distantly? --Daniel Carrero (talk) 15:05, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

I suspect what it means is far away but with motion towards a far-away place, i.e. "he's going far away" but not "he's living far away". @Hekaheka, what say you? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:23, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

That seems to be the case. Compare kaukana. —CodeCat 15:33, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

In that case, "towards far away" might be a clearer definition. - -sche (discuss) 16:48, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

That doesn't sound like good English to me. Equinox ◑ 17:43, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

Neither does "to far away". In fact it's very tempting to interpret that as a misspelling of "too". --WikiTiki89 18:11, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

I think it is translated into English as "far". In English the difference between being far away and going far away must be inferred from the context. In Finnish there's different word for "in a faraway place" (kaukana) and "to a faraway place" (kauas, kauaksi). "From far away", btw., is kaukaa in Finnish. I have edited the entry. Is it clear now? --Hekaheka (talk) 21:02, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Perhaps a usage note could be helpful. Crom daba (talk) 08:23, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

This is a standard thing in Finnish. I don't think we want to have to put usage notes everywhere this happens. Someone with a basic knowledge of Finnish will already know that the translative case indicates a change of state. —CodeCat 13:08, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I see. Crom daba (talk) 17:14, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

dry hump

Is dry hump a hyponym of dry run? --Barytonesis (talk) 16:47, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Not that I know of. Why did you think so? Equinox ◑ 18:10, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

@Equinox: I'm trying to broaden my vocabulary; to that end I make as many associations as possible. This one was a bit off, though --Barytonesis (talk) 15:11, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Confusion of different kinds of sentence-modifying adverbs - reason for the objection to "hopefully"?

I just put this on the talk page for "hopefully":

Some sentence-modifying adverbs "really mean" "it is x that," e.g.:

Naturally, she dyed her hair. (It is natural that she dyed her hair.)

Unfortunately, he died. (It is unfortunate that he died.)

You can't say, "It is hopeful that the war will be over soon," therefore, "Hopefully, the war will be over soon" is wrong.

But other sentence-modifying adverbs describe the manner in which the statement is made:

Frankly, he annoyed me. ("Frankly speaking" or "I tell you frankly.") (I don't think anyone would claim that this means, "He told me exactly what he thought of my daughter's singing.")

Confidentially, its aroma leaves much to be desired. ("I tell you confidentially")

Briefly, he says she's a fake. ("To be brief") (I'm summarizing his eighteen volumes.)

Truthfully(!!!!), I haven't started it yet. (Nobody seems to object to this one.)

(It is frank that? It is confidential that? It is brief that?)

The "incorrect" use of hopefully seems to me entirely analogous. — This unsigned comment was added by Kostaki mou (talk • contribs) at 18:52, 5 April 2017.

You can say "It is hopeful that the war will be over soon." and you can "It is truthful that I haven't started it yet." --WikiTiki89 19:05, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

You can say anything. These are hardly idiomatic and the first changes the meaning. Kostaki mou (talk) 19:36, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Of course it's not idiomatic and hardly anyone would say it, but it does not change the meaning and grammatically it makes sense. --WikiTiki89 19:44, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Kostaki that it changes the meaning. "It is hopeful": what is? It's not like the other sentences. Equinox ◑ 19:48, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks! Also, "truthfully" seems to be more logically analyzed as "truthfully speaking" or "I tell you truthfully" than "it is truthful that." People do say "it is true that," but not "it is truthful that." The meaning is not quite the same though. Kostaki mou (talk) 20:49, 5 April 2017 (UTC)

aforementioned (alternate pronunciation)

The pronunciation given (/əˌfoː(ɹ)ˈmɛn.ʃənd/) is the only one I have seen in dictionaries. In recent years I have heard the pronunciation "/ˌæ.fə(ɹ)ˈmɛn.ʃənd/" ("AFFermentioned")from several people. Any idea when that came into use? — This unsigned comment was added by Kostaki mou (talk • contribs) at 23:26, 5 April 2017 (UTC).

I've heard that pronunciation too (and find it quite frustrating). I don't know when it arose. It probably indicates that the speaker isn't aware of the morphology of afore, or they would destress the prefix a-. — Eru·tuon 00:31, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

My guess is that it's an overcorrection based on pronunciations like "AP-li-ka-bl" (for "applicable") and "FOR-mi-da-bl" (for "formidable") (both of which I myself use) and "DES-pi-ka-bl" (for "despicable") (which I don't). Many people pronounce any or all of these words with the accent on the second syllable, which seems to be most accepted for "despicable" and least accepted for "formidable". Kostaki mou (talk) 21:06, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

I think I've figured it out: It's by analogy with "affirmation"! Admittedly, it is a bit clumsy to have two accented syllables following each other. Still, "AFFerMENtioned" grates on my ears in a way that "AFFerMAtion" does not. (I don't think anyone says, "af-FER-MA-tion.") I suppose it's because the displacement of the accent in "AFFerMENtioned" alters the vowel, while in "AFFerMAtion" it doesn't. Kostaki mou (talk) 18:24, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Also, I don't think anyone says, "AFFersaid" or "ABBuvmentioned." Kostaki mou (talk) 19:11, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Baptism?

Is the Baptist religion referred to as "Baptism" in English? (In German, we do have Baptismus, but it may be an independent [back?]formation from "Baptist".) Kolmiel (talk) 05:42, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't think so. Baptism only refers to the ceremony. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 06:55, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

I've used both "Baptism" and "Baptistry" jokingly to refer to the Baptist denomination, but in fact, neither word has that meaning. You have to just say "Baptist denomination/faith/beliefs", etc. Actually, Baptistism is attestable, but it's very rare. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:14, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

كَسْلَى

Hi, in the declension table of كسلان the form كسلى seems to be both msc. pl. and fem. singular. Could sb. confirm this? I cannot find it in any grammatical resource. Thanks in advance. --Backinstadiums (talk) 07:14, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Figurative senses of "warm"

I think we're missing figurative senses, as in google:warm piano sound. —suzukaze (t・c) 08:44, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

I took a stab Leasnam (talk) 22:14, 7 April 2017 (UTC)

laugh on the other side of one's face

What does it mean? --Sonovobić (talk) 23:13, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

If you tell someone that they will laugh on the other of their face, you're saying that something bad is going to happen to them and they won't laugh like they are now. Equinox ◑ 23:26, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

I know it as laugh out of the other side of one's mouth. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:36, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Category:en:Scouting

There are a LOT of Scouting-related terms that are attested, and I keep adding ones that blow my mind that they weren't here already, such as merit badge. I propose creating the new category Category:en:Scouting, and appending Scouting terms with the new label "Scouting", which will automatically add Category:en:Scouting to the page. PseudoSkull (talk) 00:22, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Yep. Don't forget Venturer Scout, woggle, and dyb! Equinox ◑ 00:26, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

I have created User:PseudoSkull/Scouting. A mess, and contains some likely entries, although I suppose some of them may be SOP. Could someone look over them from time to time? Oh, and scouting terms seem to have a lot of alternative forms. PseudoSkull (talk) 00:59, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

philosophistic

This entry has one sense:

1. Exhibiting a love of sophistry or logical reasoning; philosophical; may include fallacious reasoning.

Is it OK? The part "may include fallacious reasoning" looks off to me. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 07:19, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not personally familiar with this word. Maybe it's an RFV matter? Equinox ◑ 01:29, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

It seems rare / obsolete. DTLHS (talk) 01:30, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I created an RFV for it. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 21:23, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

neighborhood

Definition 9 currently reads "(topology) The infinitesimal open set of all points that may be reached directly from a given point." The part about "may be reached directly" is probably a handwavy way of saying "connected space", but that seems wrong. I have no idea what "infinitesimal" is supposed to mean in this context, and I am not sufficiently confident in my math-fu to remove it summarily.__Gamren (talk) 18:10, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

w:Neighbourhood (mathematics) gives two definitions:

Intuitively speaking, a neighbourhood of a point is a set of points containing that point where one can move some amount away from that point without leaving the set.

If $X$ is a topological space and $p$ is a point in $X$, a neighbourhood of $p$ is a subset $V$ of $X$ that includes an open set $U$ containing $p$.

It seems like one of those math words that you can either give a clear English definition, or a precisely correct one, but not both.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:53, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

How about "A set containing a given point and an open set around it"? Our definition of open set is pretty nice so I'd be happy with sending the reader over there. Crom daba (talk) 18:43, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

@Crom daba: that seems to be exactly definition 8. For all I know, definition 9 should just be deleted. The only mathematical sense of "neighborhood" I know is definition 8, i.e. the one you gave. For the moment, I fixed the "open set" to "open set" (single link to "open set" instead of double link to "open" and "set"). I leave it to someone who is more expert in maths than me (and maybe has studied it in English rather than Italian) to remove or otherwise edit that definition. MGorrone (talk) 12:34, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

I think the difference between definition 8 and definition 9 is whether you're referring to a neighborhood of a point or the neighborhood of a point. For example, if I want to say that $f(x)$ does not take the value $0$ near a point $p$, I could say that it does not take the value $0$ in the neighborhood of $p$, which would mean that $f$ is nonzero on some open set containing $p$. This use may be more common when explaining intuition than when stating theorems rigorously. Germyb (talk) 19:16, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

pushed out the door, he returns through the window

The above is what we now have in Czech vyhodíte ho dveřmi, vrátí se oknem. google:"he returns through the window" suggests to me this is not a native English idiom, or is it? Is there a native idiom? --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:40, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

I've certainly never heard it in English. What does it mean? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:53, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

• @Dan Polansky, is it equivalent to fall seven times, stand up eight? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:34, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

  @Metaknowledge: Probably not entirely; the saying you quote seems to describe a response to adversity in general rather than a response to human rejection of a proposal in particular. Furthermore, the Czech saying seems to complain of someone's persistence, whereas the quoted fall-saying seems to commend it, but I do not really know. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:27, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

• It seems to me that it means that someone is impossible to get rid of. Get rid of them one way, and they just sneak back in another way. —CodeCat 20:44, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
  • That seems accurate. It seems to indicate the behavior of someone who does not get easily rejected; once their proposal is rejected, they come up with a modification of the proposal, doing that again and again, or they come up with a proposal that merely appears to be different. However, I do not use the Czech saying and the quotations that I find do not provide all that much context from which to extract the meaning so I am not really sure. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:27, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

side

It seems that the sense in "it was lying on its side" is currently missing. Sense 5 comes closest, but that refers to the human body. It could probably be generalised somewhat? —CodeCat 23:09, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

Until I added it 13 months ago, we didn't even have that sense! Feel free to generalize it, or add a new sense along the lines of "the corresponding part of an animal's body". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:48, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

It can apply to objects too. A spinning top can also lie on its side, for example. So I'm not sure how to define that accurately, and there are people here who are better with English definitions than I am. Non-English is more my thing here. —CodeCat 18:47, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Isn't that just sense 2? A spinning top doesn't really have a front and back to distinguish from its sides, the way a human or animal body does. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:40, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Although, come to think of it, a house does, and we do speak of the side of a house as distinct from its front and back. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:41, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

luminescence

Is there a less technical definition of the word that we're missing, or am I thinking of another word? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:26, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

can of worms

Not sure why we need two separate definitions here. Can't we merge them? --WikiTiki89 15:30, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Category:Arabic_verbal_nouns

Hi, unlike the categories for the rest of the verbal forms, the verbal nouns are not grouped in different categories according to the forms they belong to. Could this ordering be systematically implemented? --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:26, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

I think the same is true for participles: there's no category for Form I participles, for example. I wonder if it would be desirable or possible to make {{ar-act-participle}} and {{ar-pass-participle}} automatically determine the form and categorize. If not, editors would have to go through and add a |form= parameter to all instances of these templates in order for them to categorize. — Eru·tuon 23:35, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Verbal nouns of the form I are unpredictable and numerous, hence its priority. --Backinstadiums (talk) 07:01, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

(not) be a patch on

"The second film isn’t a patch on the first.": Aren't we missing this sense of patch? --Barytonesis (talk) 20:57, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

We do have not a patch on. Equinox ◑ 17:21, 11 April 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, hadn't looked hard enough. I'm a bit baffled by the "preposition" header btw. --Barytonesis (talk) 18:04, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Pronunciation for Mandarin and mandarin

Is there an actual difference between /ˈmæn.də.ɹɪn/ (on Mandarin) and /ˈmæn.dəɹ.ɪn/, /ˈmæn.dɚ.ɪn/ (on mandarin)? — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 04:10, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

No, just a difference in transcription habits. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:28, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

In rhotic US English, the /ɹ/ of the /ɚ/ and /ɹ/ at the onset of the last syllable is the same /ɹ/, which makes the transcription tricky. --WikiTiki89 17:50, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Should there be some sort of convention we should stick to to make things less confusing? It's really odd to have different transcriptions for basically the same word. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 04:34, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

heteronym

Is the pontificate#Etymology 2 pronounciation actually what is heard? It sounds like that the stress(es) is applied on the first or the last sylllable. Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 06:46, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

The stress is kind of ambiguous, but I'm hearing the stress on the second syllable. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 07:29, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

About Punktum definition

Punktum is a definition of when i close a conversation without any respond to recive,or when i say about a thing it is done and do not need further work. Thank you. Robert Dioszegi.

catalog, catalogue

Now that we have, I very much hope, abandoned the total nonsense of maintaining two entirely separate sets of definitions for mere spelling variants, can anyone see any special reason, before I merge them, for preserving these two separately? Mihia (talk) 01:03, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

You're sure this isn't a like the distinction between program and programme, where the former is an alternate spelling, but also has unique senses? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:16, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't know. However, even if any unique senses exist, these can be handled as exceptions, with notes or whatever. It is no reason to duplicate all the common definitions. Mihia (talk) 03:18, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

That wouldn't make sense, because if the sense wasn't attested in one spelling, or if it was really rare, then it would be inaccurate to put it under on the other page. That doesn't jive with what we've done in the past. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:31, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

monumental

• What is the word to describe writing systems that are used for monuments? E.g. Egyptian hieroglyphs or Roman majuscule letters. It is not "monumental." Nicole Sharp (talk) 06:06, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
  • I believe it's "epigraphic". Chuck Entz (talk) 07:38, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Thanks! Nicole Sharp (talk) 08:29, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

samlandano

Is there evidence that the stress really should be on the antepenultimate syllable rather than on the penultimate? Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 10:18, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

@Aryamanarora added that, no idea why. Esperanto is perfectly regular, so I've replaced it with {{eo-IPA}}. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:29, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge I must have done it when I was learning a little Esperanto, and as a novice I though the stress would be where I kept it. I was not aware of {{eo-IPA}}, I'll be sure to use it if I ever make any Esperanto entries. —Aryamanarora ^{(मुझसे बात करो)} 20:32, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Bluetooth

An anon changed this from Translingual to English. Is that right? DCDuring (talk) 21:04, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

It's wrong of him to have changed it. It should have been RFV'd or something. Other than that, he might be right that it should be English. --WikiTiki89 21:38, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Different languages have different pronunciations and possibly even different spellings/scripts for this word, so it can hardly be translingual. Also, the etymology is wrong, it's named after Harald Bluetooth. —CodeCat 21:40, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

This last consideration hasn't prevented us from having Translingual entries for taxa. DCDuring (talk) 21:44, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

The scientific names are properly translingual, aren't they? Would a Russian writer write Vulpes zerda or would they transliterate it? What about Chinese? —CodeCat 21:45, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Not sure about Chinese, but in Russian you would either write Vulpes zerda (in Latin letters), or use a Russian scientific translation of the Latin name. Anyway, I've fixed the etymology of Bluetooth. --WikiTiki89 21:55, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

I thought the issue was about pronunciations. DCDuring (talk) 22:04, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

• Are the three derived terms "bluejacker", "bluejacking", "bluesnarfing" translingual? Likely not, even in Wiktionary they are English and not translingual. So if the English terms are given as Translingual derived terms, then it doesn't fit. With English instead of Translingual it works.
• According to WT:Translations "Translation tables are to be given for English words only". That is, as there is a translation table, it has to be English and not Translingual, or the translations would have to be removed. In contrary to that, WT:ELE#Translations states "Translations should be given in English entries, and also in Translingual entries for taxonomic names". As Bluetooth isn't a taxonomic term, this exception doesn't fit here. So again it makes more sense to change the language than to delete information.
• WT:About Translingual doesn't have Bluetooth as accepted or rejected, but it's likely rather to be rejected like place names and musical terms than to be accepted like taxonomic and chemical terms.
• As there was a Translingual and a Portuguese term without any special Portuguese meanings, the Portuguese term seemed to be redundant as that could fit under Translingual (although a Portuguese entry would be permitted by WT:About Translingual#Other languages even if there is a Translingual term). Alternatively instead of having or removing a redundant Portuguese section it makes more sense to change Translingual to the more fitting English.
• Bluetooth does have a gender in many languages - but the Translingual entry didn't mention any. So like with the other points it rather was an English entry.
  Also, if it would be Translingual, how should the genders be mentioned? "g=m|g2=none|g3=n" as in many Romance and Slavic languages it's masculine, in English and some other genderless languages it's genderless and in German it's neuter? That doesn't seem to be a good idea. A usage note would work, but would have been missing.

@Wikitiki89: Changes of languages happened before (misleadingly from Translingual to Latin, correctly from Latin to Translingual or English) and, as least AFAIK, often without having a discussion anywhere.

@CodeCat: Translingual doesn't mean it's used in all languages. So a taxonomic term in a Latin script could be limited to languages with Latin script and it still could be translingual/Translingual. That is, one can ignore languages with non-Latin scripts. BTW as for Chinese, I've once seen a case where they used Chinese characters and added a Latin-script taxonomic term in brackets (Talk:jinianum#From Chinese placename ?).

-84.161.7.226 20:50, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

計有

Not sure about the definition. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:48, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Haplorhini

Haplorhini was just recreated as a valid alternative spelling for Haplorrhini. A case might be made to reverse this to make "Haplorrhini" the alternative after reading why the en-Wiki article was renamed on its discussion page.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  14:47, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Ach, what a mess. Based on multiple measures of commonness, as well as the law of priority, Haplorhini should be the lemmatised spelling. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:41, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Good. I shall raise the issue at Wikispecies.  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  22:47, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing it to our attention. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:55, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Pleasure! and thank you for an almost instant response and fix!  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  02:19, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

be well shot of, get shot of

We already have the relevant sense of shot at 4), but couldn't we create this? --Barytonesis (talk) 21:06, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Is it British? I have not heard it before. It looks similar to get shed of. —Stephen ^(Talk) 03:17, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

@Stephen G. Brown: I found this. Labeled as "British informal". --Barytonesis (talk) 11:51, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

So that's the same as American get shed of. The American might also be informal. I use it quite often, but I rarely write it. An alternative form of the American phrase is get shut of, which might be dialectal. —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:55, 27 June 2017 (UTC)

universal value

Def might be a bit off: "Something that has the same value or worth for all, or almost all, people." Is the "something" really the value, or is the value a property that the something possesses? Equinox ◑ 00:28, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

The lead sentence of en-Wiki's article: "A value is a universal value if it has the same value or worth for all, or almost all, people." This appears to say that the "something" is the value. It might be improved; however, I'm not sure how. Perhaps "A value that has the same worth for all, or almost all, people." (?)  Paine Ellsworth  ^put'r there  02:34, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

coitus

A very specific sense has been added, which is quite plausible but may need a context label, since many uses are hardly that specific (they use sense 2; compare Dictionary.com's similarly broad "sexual intercourse, especially between a man and a woman"). {{lb|en|formal}}? {{lb|en|medicine}}? {{lb|en|law}}? - -sche (discuss) 05:14, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Opposite of status quo?

Is there are word for a status which isn't a status quo? Seems like status-non-quo might pass the CFI. Siuenti (talk) 06:19, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

opposite of status quo: advancement, progress? d1g (talk) 16:30, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

change? --Daniel Carrero (talk) 16:31, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

-нулевой суффикс

I find this strange. I feel it would be like creating an entry -null morpheme, then say that "resurrect comes from resurrection +‎ -null morpheme". Take одурь (odurʹ): одуре́ть (odurétʹ) +‎ -нулевой суффикс (-nulevoj suffiks). And there are inappropriate redirects: -Ø, ...Ø. Pinging @D1gggg --Barytonesis (talk) 10:51, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Please cite a paragraph where о- is able to form nouns (from дурь) without an morpheme.

о- is covered by 511, 529, 540.

Russian morpology is Russian, not English. d1g (talk) 10:57, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not disputing the existence of a null morpheme, merely the way you're implementing it in entries. When you read "одуре́ть (odurétʹ) +‎ -нулевой суффикс (-nulevoj suffiks)", the expected result is literally "**одуре́тьнулевой суффикс (odurétʹnulevoj suffiks)", which makes no sense --Barytonesis (talk) 11:10, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

True, -нулевой суффикс is not represented by any characters or sounds.

I'm not able to create a page with 0 charaters or use 0 charters to retrieve this linguistic concept or send a link.

-Ø or ...Ø make no sense either, but academic reference using it regardless.

Anyone can use these charters to retrieve only relevant results.

"нулевой суффикс" and "нулевой аффикс" were used in literature.

"-..." is a notation for suffixes used in Template:affix d1g (talk) 11:25, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

This is English Wiktionary, so we don't use Russian terminology in Cyrillic script in etymologies. This is a term for a concept, so use an equivalent English term. As mentioned above, you're getting levels of representation confused: to paraphrase w:The Treachery of Images, Ceci n'est pas un morphème à signifiant zéro... Chuck Entz (talk) 17:08, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

I could have sworn I saw an entry like -Ø here at one point. —suzukaze (t・c) 17:12, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

If we create an entry for zero suffixes, it should be -∅ with the empty set symbol. —CodeCat 17:22, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

In this particular case though, I'm not sure if there's actually zero suffixation though. The verb has a suffix -e- on the stem which disappears in the noun, so part of the stem is actually removed. Wikipedia calls this a disfix. —CodeCat 17:30, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

We need to fix the entries which link here... - -sche (discuss) 21:11, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

If you write шить (šitʹ) + ∅, the resulting form would still be шить (šitʹ), but with a different meaning. шить (šitʹ) + ∅ means there there exists a suffix that has neither form nor sound, but we know it exists because it changes the meaning in a regular way. That is not what is going on with шов (šov). If you're trying to say that ∅ stands for the removal of -ть (-tʹ), the morpheme that marks the infinitive, that's not correct. шить (šitʹ) + ∅ does not result in шов (šov). If шов (šov) is made from шить (šitʹ), it is made in a different way. The final -в looks like a past-tense deeprichastiye, but that does not explain the vowel о. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:20, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

@Stephen G. Brown please review 5457400832 as it provides more context on what's going on in РГ-80

• шить - шов covered in following books:
  • РГ-80 § 1078 p 429
  • →ISBN p 149 refers to РГ-80:
    • 1.1 affixial
      • 1.1.2 root word - 1. flexies () 2. null-suffixiation, 3. alternation of vovels

We don't have templates to show alternation of vovels. d1g (talk) 11:11, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

arabic hamza

Hi, I cannot find the rules the community follows regarding the seats for ء. Shouldn't they appear in Wiktionary:About_Arabic ? Furthermore, in that page, regarding 3. -iyy-, -uww- are used in place of -īy-, -ūw-., could sb. please add an example thereof? I think that is not an exception but the formal citation form. Thanks in advance. --Backinstadiums (talk) 14:00, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

The spelling rules don't necessarily belong to language policy pages, such as Wiktionary:About_Arabic (this is how you should link Wiktionary pages, not the full URL). The seat of hamza is an important rule for writing correctly in Arabic but we would include terms if they didn't follow the rule but were attestable.

We transliterate nisba as in عَرَبِيّ (ʕarabiyy) with -iyy (plus any endings), etc., which is different from Hans Wehr dictionary. That's what the statement means. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 14:17, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

@Atitarev: Where can I find the rules the editors have agreed to follow then? Or at least the orthographic variation they regard as acceptable? --Backinstadiums (talk) 14:33, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

Any attested Arabic spelling is acceptable. An expert on the language can mark it as slang, irregular spelling, rare, dialectal, etc. As a guide we write out hamza over and under alif أ إ, dots under yaa ي and taa marbuta ة. The other, relaxed spellings are acceptable but treated as alternatives. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:22, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

@Atitarev: I thought there'd be templates for the different seats of ء, therefore I'd suggest creating them for easy of edition. --Backinstadiums (talk) 07:35, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Templates, for different seats of hamza? I really don't know what you're asking?!

Initial hamza over alif: أ (ʔ): أَجَلّ (ʔajall) (with "a"), أُسْتَاذ (ʔustāḏ) (with "u"); hamza under alif with "i" إ (ʔ): إِبْرَة (ʔibra)

Hamza over alif in the middle of a word إِمْرَأَة (ʔimraʔa)

Hamza over yāʾ ئ (ʔ): أَسْئِلَة (ʔasʔila)

Hamza over wāw ؤ (ʔ): لُؤْلُؤَة (luʔluʔa)

Stand-alone hamza ء (ʔ): شَيْء (šayʔ)

What templates are you talking about? Do you know how to enter Arabic letters? You don't need templates for entering Arabic. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 11:12, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

tsiganology

Should this be labeled as offensive and or obsolete? DTLHS (talk) 17:49, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

top of the morning

The usage notes and context label disagree on whether this is used in Ireland. - -sche (discuss) 21:32, 15 April 2017 (UTC)

schoolman and Schoolman

I believe these articles should be merged. It's not clear why there is a capitalized entry as the word is a common noun, not a proper noun. Aabull2016 (talk) 01:23, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Probably yes. There is (although I personally disagree with it) a consensus to keep capitalised variants like Pope and Colonel, but I doubt this word is used in that way. Equinox ◑ 01:28, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

So, how would that be done? The capitalized entry could be reworked as a variant if it could be shown to exist, but I'm not sure that's the case (the only capitalized example I've found is in a 16th-century text in which many common nouns are capitalized). So it seems best simply to delete it and move any relevant content into the lower-case entry. Aabull2016 (talk) 02:46, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

half-plane vs. halfplane vs. half plane: which is most used?

I just stumbled upon the halfplane entry, and was surprised to find halfplane, and not half-plane, which I always used, nor half plane. Even the alternate forms at halfplane don't list half-plane (or anything for that matter). A quick Google search for half-plane gives both half-plane and half plane, with the former more common (at least in the first 10 results), and no halfplane at all. In fact, the first 20 results of Googling halfplane only have one result with that form: the Wiktionary entry. So is it right to have the entry under what seems to be the least common form, and with no alternate forms section? If not, what should we do about this? I would go for half-plane as the entry with halfplane and half plane as alternate forms. Do you guys agree? MGorrone (talk) 14:13, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

halfplane, half plane, half-plane at the Google Books Ngram Viewer. suggests halfplane is the least often used of the three. I moved it to half-plane, which seems very slightly more common than half plane. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:55, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

lot lizard etymology

It says: "The term was invented by Christopher Echard, the self-proclaimed 'Minister of Filth'." Who is that? I can find nothing on Google. Equinox ◑ 14:32, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Ask anon. —suzukaze (t・c) 15:08, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Dubious. I've removed it. Equinox ◑ 15:09, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Strong case for RfD, IMO, despite our having lounge lizard. See definition 6 at [[lizard]], which I have just added. See w:Lot lizard and the Fairlex Dictionary of Idioms (2015) which have it, though with a somewhat different definition. DCDuring (talk) 18:22, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

أيها

أيها I'd like to know which feminine collective term is the following sentence from أيها referring to (ٱلْعِيرُ?)

"When addressing a female, a group of females, or (occasionally) a feminine collective noun (فَلَمَّا جَهَّزَهُم بِجَهَازِهِمْ جَعَلَ السِّقَايَةَ فِي رَحْلِ أَخِيهِ ثُمَّ أَذَّنَ مُؤَذِّنٌ أَيَّتُهَا ٱلْعِيرُ إِنَّكُمْ لَسَارِقُونَ), the form أَيَّتُهَا (ʾayyatuhā) is used."  Thanks in advance. --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:30, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

This topic might be helpful. Plural inanimates are always grammatical feminines, so if you talk to objects (theoretically), use the form.--Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 08:09, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

@Atitarev: Thank you, yet I'd still like to know what the term the entry is referring to. --Backinstadiums (talk) 21:44, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

The example given refers to عِير (ʕīr) - "caravan"?.--Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:55, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

lick into shape

How do you use that? "My girlfriend was feeling a bit down in the dumps, so I licked her into shape?" --Barytonesis (talk) 18:54, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Licking into shape isn't simple cheering up, but more like discipline or punishment. Your example sentence wouldn't be used for that reason, and probably also because of connotations of oral sex! A book example: "We shall see, before long, how much trouble [the lazy soldiers] brought on Custer, and how he at last licked them into shape." Equinox ◑ 19:14, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

This expression uses a sense of lick that seems to derive from the noun sense "A stroke or blow", and is fairly close to the "defeat decisively, particularly in a fight" verb sense. It's basically the same idea as whip into shape, which we don't seem to have yet, either. Both use the metaphor of employing severe, painful punishment to make the object of the verb behave/improve. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:02, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Hmm, Chambers 1908 has a different etymology: "from the notion that the she-bear gives form to her shapeless young by licking them". Equinox ◑ 18:36, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Translations of teal: someone check please!

I just stumbled upon the teal entry, and looked at the translations to be checked. I know neither Serbo-Croatian nor Persian, so I had to come up with tricks. Now, for Persian, I loaded Wikipedia articles in English and saw what the links in the Other Languages sections pointed me to. This way, I obtained the already-present sense 1 خوتکا (xutkâ), and the sense (2) سبز دودی (sabz-e dudi), which I added because I saw it "somewhere" -- and now I just saw it's in the color table at قهوه‌ای. These are, however, not the translations to be checked. I fed those to Google Translate, and "mala divlja patka" yielded "small wild duck", which I confirmed word-by-word with Wiktionary:

1. mala is the feminine singular of mal, small;
2. dlvlja is the feminine singular of divlji, "wild, savage";
3. patka is "duck".

مرغابی جره (morghabi-ye jarre) gave "teal" on Google Translate, and سبزآبی (sabzabi) gave "cyan", with a suggestion to change it to "سبز آبی", which translates instead to "green blue". And indeed, سبز (sabz) means "green", and آبی (âbi) means "blue", according to the Wiktionary.

So what should we do about these? Can someone check those (and confirm that those I added are correct)?

PS Why does Persian here on Wiktionary never appear on my computer, except in the article titles? I mean, Arabic works just fine, but Persian is invisible and zero-width, save for article titles, and I can copy-paste it from translation sections and the Search bar (after pasting it there), but the links are not clickable, and to load those Persian Wikipedia articles I had to use "Inspect Element" from Firefox and find the link in there. Any idea why this happens?

EDIT: Persian appears nicely in this discussion, but not at آبی, where Urdu appears just fine. MGorrone (talk) 12:05, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

schizophrenic - a note from some mental health professionals

OTRS ticket # 2017041110003446

We received a note from a mental health service provider from Australia concerning our definitions of schizophrenic. They asked us to consider adding a usage note which highlights the difference between the accepted mental health definition of the term and the more colloquial uses. The full text of their letter (sent to us and several other online dictionaries) is below (by permission).

Dear Wiktionary,

I am writing to you to seek your support in reducing stigma for those living with a mental illness. One
Door is a non-government organisation who advocate on behalf of people with mental illness.
One Door is concerned over the definition of “schizophrenic” in your dictionary. Currently your
dictionary defines “schizophrenic” as:

Adjective
1. Of or pertaining to schizophrenia.
2. (of a person) Afflicted with schizophrenia; having difficulty with perception of reality.
3. (figuratively) Behaving as if one has more than one personality; wildly changeable.

Despite common practice, the correct usage of the term “schizophrenic” does not refer to multiple or
contrary points of view. In its correct clinical definition, schizophrenia refers to a serious psychiatric
illness characterized by disturbances in thought (such as delusions), perception (such as
hallucinations), and behaviour (such as disorganized speech or catatonic behaviour), by a loss of
emotional responsiveness and extreme apathy, and by noticeable deterioration in the level of
functioning in everyday life.

We believe that the connection of the term schizophrenic and schizophrenia to contradictory
elements further stigmatises an already misunderstood condition.

Although we appreciate that figurative use is not formed by the choice of the dictionary, rather by its
general use, we seek your support through the addition of a usage note along the lines that:
“The non-medical and figurative uses of this word cause some concern to those who are trying to
increase community knowledge of the medical condition of schizophrenia. The general use of the
word to mean ‘more than one personality’ or 'changeable’ is best avoided.”

An inclusion along these lines has been made by several other online dictionaries.

At One Door, we will continue to work to raise public awareness of the incorrect and stigmatising the
use of the word. We appreciate your time and effort.

Yours sincerely,
Dr Ellen Marks
General Manager, Advocacy and Inclusion

I think that there is some merit to including usage notes on technical terms which have been co-opted into similar but distinct meanings. I am sure there are plenty of other terms in the mental health lexicon which could bear similar scrutiny. - TheDaveRoss 12:50, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

As with the SI units: we have to go by actual usage, and not what people put in lists of words, or would prefer something to mean. But a usage note might not hurt. Equinox ◑ 22:22, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

The medical meaning is used, just not by the general public. I think we'd do well to include the meaning that medical professionals ascribe to the term. —CodeCat 00:07, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Note that the word under discussion is schizophrenic, not schizophrenia, and we do have the definition "Of or pertaining to schizophrenia" at the former (and what seems to be an accurate medical definition at the latter). Andrew Sheedy (talk) 00:31, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

A usage note clarifying that the popular definition has its problems is not unreasonable, I see no reason not to honor that request. — Kleio (t · c) 01:27, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Equinox and KIeio, but a usage note should have a more neutral tone than the one they propose.

Re “Although we appreciate that figurative use is not formed by the choice of the dictionary, rather by its general use, [...]”: it’s great to see an organisation that has a grasp on our inclusion criteria instead of the typical “remove it cuz its wrong”! — Ungoliant ^(falai) 12:10, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm puzzled that the non-medical sense is labeled "figurative". I don't see what's figurative about it; it would be more accurate to call it colloquial or something. — Eru·tuon 00:46, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

I've changed that and added a little usage note. I'm not sure about the wording yet but didn't want this to be buried without any action taken, so if anyone could check it and possibly find a better wording, by all means do so. — Kleio (t · c) 06:50, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

курительный (verbs to adjectives in Russian)

base verb is кур-и-ть

My question is: do we keep suffixes or do we discard them?

1. old: кур- new: -ительн-ый
2. old: кур-и new: -тельн-ый

d1g (talk) 16:23, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

earth

Forgive me if it's been discussed before, but earth in lower case as a proper noun? It's a sticky point, I think, but I would say no, it isn't. DonnanZ (talk) 20:16, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Looks wrong to me too. Equinox ◑ 22:21, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

We've established before that (for English at least) capitalization is to be ignored when determining whether something is a proper noun. So I'd like to hear the arguments why it should be considered a proper noun in "We saw the Earth from Mars", but not in "We saw the earth from the porthole". --WikiTiki89 23:59, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

My position is that the planet Earth (capital E) is a proper noun, but earth (small e) is soil, not a planet: like how Mars is a planet but mars is a verb form of mar. It's just a "misspelling" but with case rather than letters. I realise that's prescriptive but it's based on very intense and very wide reading. Equinox ◑ 00:02, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I think that's grossly inaccurate. The uncapitalized form "the earth" is very frequently used as the name of the planet. See these two Ngrams. --WikiTiki89 00:15, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

A Google Books search for "blow up the earth" returns results in nearly equal proprtions Leasnam (talk) 00:21, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Ngrams are more accurate, but you're basically right. They also show how it's changed over time. It seems historically (i.e. before the 1990s) the lower case form was by far more common, but now they are about even. --WikiTiki89 00:26, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Interesting! I'm very surprised. I must have read a rather anomalous set of books. It would be nice to see them broken down by science/astronomy, literature, penny dreadfuls, etc. Equinox ◑ 00:23, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I remember we previously found that scientific works tend to overcapitalize nouns. You'll find things like "The main types of Eukaryotes are Plants, Animals, and Fungi." --WikiTiki89 00:30, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

It has been my experience that the name of the planet is capitalized far more often in science fiction than in other genres, and least of all in fiction books that don't have a focus on space. Non-fiction books related to astronomy fall somewhere in between, I think (and like Wikitiki says, those kinds of books tend to capitalize a lot of words). But that's just my general impressions. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 00:36, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

You do see capped "the Sun" and "the Moon" quite a bit too, but of course there are other suns and moons; there aren't other earths (in the scientific sense of planet). Equinox ◑ 00:48, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

My Oxford hard copy gives Earth, Moon and Sun as alternatives for earth, moon and sun respectively, but avoids calling them proper nouns. Some Wiktionarian has obviously decided that they should be, probably based on the fact that other planets such as Jupiter are usually written with a capital letter. Oxford avoids calling these proper nouns also. DonnanZ (talk) 09:50, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Does Oxford call anything at all proper nouns? --WikiTiki89 14:44, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Apparently not. I checked London, Paris, Amsterdam, New York and some others which are unquestionably proper nouns. DonnanZ (talk) 15:47, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I would think they're proper nouns, not based on capitalization, but just on the fact that they're treated the same way as place names, and each refer to a single object... Andrew Sheedy (talk) 13:06, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm afraid I disagree, and consider any noun which can normally be written in lower case as a standard noun. Would you use the same argument for heaven / Heaven and hell / Hell? DonnanZ (talk) 15:47, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

So if I decide to call you donnanz with a lower case letter, that makes it a common noun? --WikiTiki89 16:00, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

No, as it's not intended to be a common noun. As some user names (which are a totally different ball game and should be left out of this argument) are written in lower case that is feasible, but you will have a problem with case sensitivity if trying to contact me. DonnanZ (talk) 16:23, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

What do you mean by "intended to be a common noun". If I write the earth and "intend" it to be proper noun, why isn't a proper noun? --WikiTiki89 17:10, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

• "earth" (uncapitalized) is frequently (and arguably incorrectly) used as a proper noun. Technically, the usage as a proper noun should always be capitalized. E.g. "We arrived back on earth." is a common spelling, though it actually should be spelled as "We arrived back on Earth." "earth" (uncapitalized) can also be used to refer to any earthlike (Earthlike) planet, as in "there could be thousands or millions of earths (but not Earths) in the Galaxy," from the usage of "earth" as "soil," i.e. indicating planets with organic life and plant debris to form soils (so that the Planet Terra was actually not an earth before the evolution of plants). To avoid this conflation of usages, "Terra" is the preferred spelling used in much of science and science fiction to refer specifically to Earth as an astronomical object, especially in contexts where there could be more than one earth. "moon," "Moon", & "Luna" and "sun," "Sun," & "Sol" have the same complications, with only the Latin names not having ambiguity in English. Note also the usage of "galaxy" versus "Galaxy" (the Milky Way) and "universe" versus "Universe" (our universe within the multiverse [ Multiverse ]). Nicole Sharp (talk) 22:35, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
  • Not sure what point you're trying to make. In a descriptive dictionary, "wrong" doesn't exist. Nor is it the role of a descriptive dictionary to suggest alternatives in order to avoid confusion. So the only question is whether it is still a proper noun when it is used as a proper noun but spelled lower case. --WikiTiki89 22:46, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
    • Yes, that's why I had to grit my teeth and add "arguably." Just because most people use a word a certain way, doesn't mean that I have to think that it is a correct or viable usage. That's my personal opinion though, and not Wiktionary policy of course. The descriptive versus prescriptive dictionary debate is an old one: wikipedia:The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language#History. Nicole Sharp (talk) 22:57, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
      • Which brings us back to my original point, which was that I don't know what point you're trying to make. --WikiTiki89 23:02, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
        • Just that these astronomical bodies are frequently named as lowercase proper nouns, even though they shouldn't be (since it is confusing and inconsistent). Usage notes for these entries are probably the best route for Wiktionary. Nicole Sharp (talk) 23:11, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
          • And put what, "Nicole Sharp doesn't like this usage"? Note that I even learned in school that the lower case form was correct when there is no other capitalized planet involved (i.e. "the sun and the earth", but "the Sun, the Earth, and Mars"). --WikiTiki89 23:32, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
            • Of course not. I would argue that the lowercase form is a colloquial or informal usage, particularly for geocentric writing. Versus the capitalized forms are more often for use as astronomical objects, particularly in contexts where there can be more than one earth, moon, sun, galaxy, or universe. E.g. "the Earth revolves around the Sun" versus "you should not stare at the sun" or "the earth was once devoid of life." The lowercase forms are linguistic inheritances from before Copernicanism. There is little consistent usage though, which is why I advocate for using the Latin names in English to avoid any possible confusion. Nicole Sharp (talk) 01:04, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
            • Just for a nonastronomical example, Wikipedia and Wiktionary follow a similar pattern to wikipedia and wiktionary, with the lowercase form being ambiguously able to refer to either a proper noun or a standard noun, depending on context. Though personally, I would still always use the capitalized forms, despite the usage otherwise. Nicole Sharp (talk) 01:16, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
              • How can you say it's colloquial or informal when they teach this in grammar class in schools? You can disagree with what they teach in schools, but you can hardly call it colloquial or informal. --WikiTiki89 11:15, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
• Oxford does have a definition for proper noun though: "A name used for an individual person, place, or organization, spelled with an initial capital letter, e.g. Jane, London, and Oxfam. Often contrasted with common noun." A common noun: "A noun denoting a class of objects or a concept as opposed to a particular individual." I daresay someone will argue the toss about that, no mention of proper nouns in lower case. DonnanZ (talk) 22:56, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

  Those definitions are clearly incomplete. If you go strictly by those definitions, then "the earth" is neither a proper noun nor a common noun, and neither is "the Odyssey". --WikiTiki89 23:15, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

  In other words, it doesn't say what you want it to say. DonnanZ (talk) 16:04, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

  @Donnanz: No, they're objectively incomplete. If all nouns are either proper or common (which maybe isn't the case, but then we need to know what the other categories are), then it's a problem that the two nouns I just gave as an example don't fit either of those definitions. By those definitions, "the earth" is not spelled with a capital letter, so it's not a proper noun, and it's neither a class of objects (because there is only one) nor a concept (it's a physical thing, or place if you will), so it's not a common noun either, and "the Odyssey" is not person, place, or organization, so it's not a proper noun, and it's not a class of objects or a concept, so it's also not a common noun either. What part of that is just my personal bias speaking? --WikiTiki89 02:29, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

• I would rank "earth", when it refers to the very large, apparently flat, object on which we walk, that contains a whole lot of soil and whose end we cannot see, as a common noun, alongside with "world", "universe", "multiverse" but also "heaven". It seems to me one should not be confused by the original singularity of reference. If we define "earth" as "any very large apparently flat object on which the language users walk and whose end they cannot see", there happens to be only one such object, but that's an accident. The definite article before "earth" is of interest; we find it in "the world", as well. The argument is probably not fully conclusive, but rather hints at a certain direction of thought. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:26, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

  I would say that the earth as a thing is a common noun, but as a named specific location in the universe it's a proper noun. As a common noun I would liken it to "the ocean": all of the oceans on our planet are connected and can be referred to as a single entity, but are treated in English in a more generic way. Individual, named parts as geographical locations are proper nouns, though. Synonyms may be helpful, as well: if you can substitute "the world", it's probably a common noun, but if "Terra" is more appropriate, it's a proper noun. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:17, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

D1g's Russian changes

@Atitarev, Cinemantique, Wikitiki89, Wanjuscha, KoreanQuoter I am getting frustrated dealing with D1g's changes and I would like some input here. He is a native Russian speaker but lacks a linguistic background, has been making wholesale changes to Russian etymologies without seeking consensus, and makes lots of mistakes. When I try to correct them, he edit-wars. When I point out the need for consensus, he says he doesn't need consensus because he has a grammar book that supposedly backs him up. Much of what he adds has errors in it and he adds a lot of stuff, making it hard to go through and fix it rather than just revert it. Benwing2 (talk) 09:12, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

One example: -тельный vs. -тельн-. I already created -тельный awhile ago. D1g attempted to delete it, and in its place substitute -тельн-. The difference here is that -ый is the masculine nominative singular ending that is part of the lemma form. I believe it's more helpful to give suffixes in their lemma form rather than as pseudo-infixes. In D1g's page, he completely ignored the work I already did on this page (e.g. my usage notes section), substituted a totally different and IMO inferior page (e.g. with multiple definitions that are copies of each other), which has lots of errors (e.g. his usage examples are missing the English translation, missing stress marks, and have a spurious right arrow in them that gets copied into the transliterated form). Benwing2 (talk) 09:15, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

Another example: красноречи́вый (krasnorečívyj, “eloquent”), literally "beautiful-speaking". His analysis of красноречивый is typical: He writes красн- + -о- + речь +-ив- + -ый, using the noun речь (i.e. confusing nouns and verbs) and segmenting out all the possible morphemes without respecting the linguistic structure. In my analysis, this is красно- (a combining form of кра́сный (krásnyj, “beautiful”)) + -речь (-rečʹ, “to speak”) (a verb that is no longer attested as such in modern Russian but still found in prefixed form; note that -ивый is always added to verbs, not nouns) + -и́вый (-ívyj), an adjective-forming suffix. You could further analyze e.g. -ивый into -ив- + -ый, but I don't think it's helpful to do so at the top level; if this is to be done at all, do it on the -ивый page. D1g doesn't seem aware that morphemes can be analyzed into smaller morphemes and wants to do it all at the top level, and confuses the noun речь (rečʹ, “speech”) with the verb -речь. Benwing2 (talk) 09:06, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

While my knowledge of Russian is not that great, I'm not impressed by his wholesale reformatting of etymologies. Even I can tell that it doesn't makes sense to do it that way. Hiding behind a book is no substitute for consensus, so I think you are justified in pointing out that consensus is needed. —CodeCat 17:17, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

@Benwing2 Wikitiki89, Atitarev could join at your talk page, don't repeat the same questions.

> e.g. with multiple definitions that are copies of each other

1. Read labels carefully. POS are different, all examples are different.

2. Rules covered at en.wiktionary.org are incomplete compared to the book. Book is always provides better definitions, therefore I placing references every time.

@Benwing2 never does that because he has no references.

> D1g doesn't seem aware that morphemes can be analyzed into smaller morpheme

Could please stop claiming what I assume when I don't do that? Quite sure I know what морф is.

@CodeCat we need better templates to clarify etymology vs word formation.

@CodeCat I used Template:affix because it was in Category:Morphology templates.

I lost a hour or so arguing with @Cinemantique that affix could be used for morphology, not just etymology (as Cinemantique so violently insist).

I'm sure there an easy way to disambiguate definitions. d1g (talk) 18:40, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

@CodeCat I don't want to hide behind the book, but I want to expose book to readers, please consider what option would be the best for everyone. A new template; not affix, then what? d1g (talk) 18:40, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I am also very concerned about D1gggg's mass edits without any previous agreement and some of his methods and styles were followed by Awesomemeeos (currently blocked). They also lack quality and looks, missing stresses or redundant transliterations of various symbols. I wasn't able to follow many edits as I am very busy now but what I've seen so far seems substandard or dubious but I can't say definitely "wrong". I don't have any suggestions for any actions at this stage, just asking D1gggg to be cooperative before any punitive action is required. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:46, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

> edits without any previous agreement

I asked 2 users about "prior agreements" I broke, but I got silence (@Benwing) or taunts (@Cinemantique) as the response.

Not terribly healthy atmosphere.

As I said above, English section absolutely missing at least single way to define morphology of the word.

@Atitarev And instead of technical solution you seem to seek solution in people and blocks, that's just disgusting. d1g (talk) 11:22, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

@D1gggg I don't seek blocking just for blocking. Did I ever block you? If you refer to Meeos, you should know why he gets blocked first. I mention blocking because cooperation is the key but you refuse to listen to concerns.

I can offer you semi-regular guidance in creating standard Russian entries, not sophisticated, no etymologies (or simple ones) but which will follow acceptable standards. Learn to walk before you can fly. You can choose a list of words you want to create - various parts of speech with various inflection types, including multipart words. I will make them or tell you what you need to get them right. It's no use fighting the community, if you can't beat them, join them. You were blocked in the Russian Wiktionary, you can get end up having the same here. We have to do it slowly - I am busy too and I can't catch with your mass edits. You could have spent the time understanding our complex templates, study existing entries. Believe me, they are not that hard for a native speaker and there's documentation and help is available. There are good reasons why they are complex - well, Russian inflection is very complex and Benwing2 did a great job making it all work. Note that Russian lemmas don't really require mass edits, they are in the good shape, if you want to join the efforts, it's to make them better quality, not worse! We can get by with less editors but editors who are here make a difference not a point. We are more forgiving with editors who work with languages, which have no other contributors but there's a limit to everything. Thanks for understanding. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 06:13, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

What to call “script form” loanwords?

When a word in language A is loaned into language B, only in its script form and not pronunciation, and becomes a new word which is phonetically quite dissimilar, how should the etymology of the word in language B be described? I feel this is similar to a calque, but it's calquing only with regard to how the word is written, and a template is missing for this type of loanwords. Some examples include:

Recipient language	Recipient word	Donor language	Donor word
Chinese	取消 (qǔxiāo, “to cancel”)	Japanese	取(と)り消(け)し (torikeshi, “cancellation”)
Korean	할인 (割引, harin, “discount”)	Japanese	割(わり)引(びき) (waribiki, “discount”)
Korean	엽서 (葉書, yeopseo, “postcard”)	Japanese	葉(は)書(がき) (hagaki, “postcard”)
Vietnamese	Nga La Tư (俄羅斯, “Russia”)	Chinese	俄羅斯／俄罗斯 (Éluósī, “Russia”)

Wyang (talk) 10:23, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I think they don't fit into the definition of loanword. I would simply write "Logogram from <language_name> <term>". That's how I often mention Aramaic logograms in Middle Persian (using {{arameogram}}), and have created a new category to distinguish it from loanwords in Middle Persian. I support creating a new template, similar to "der" and "borrowing". --Z 12:09, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

@ZxxZxxZ: If I understand Wyang correctly, it's not actually a logogram. It's more like (but not exactly like) the phenomenon of Iran being borrowed from Persian /iːˈrɒːn/, but pronounced in English (at least by some) as /aɪˈɹæn/. This phenomenon becomes more extreme with Chinese characters, and I see why Wyang is tempted to call it a calque. That said, I don't know what we should call it. --WikiTiki89 14:51, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I'd call it an orthographic loan. —CodeCat 15:04, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

@Wikitiki89: Are you saying you consider these a kind (an extreme kind) of spelling pronunciation? Because that's what I'd call /aɪˈɹæn/. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:19, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

That's why I said it's not exactly the same phenomenon. Chinese takes a word that was coined in Japanese, and reads it as if it were coined in Chinese, but that's the normal way for these Japanese coinages to be borrowed into Chinese if they come through the written language, which is unlike spelling pronunciations, because spelling pronunciations have a connotation of being the "wrong" way to pronounce something. --WikiTiki89 11:19, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

@Angr: A better parallel would be that it is like Germans pronouncing Hamburger (the food) the proper German way rather than as Hämbörgör. --WikiTiki89 11:50, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

It's somewhat related. It's how speakers of these languages read Han characters when they see them written, without any knowledge or use of the knowledge of the Chinese pronunciation, any variety, any period. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 08:43, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Borrowings from Japanese kanji with native Japanese readings (kun'yomi) are especially extreme. Any similarity in pronunciation in the target language may only be coincidental.--Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 08:47, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

jay

Does the sense "joint, marihuana cigarette" belong to the bird? Or isn't it rather from the letter? Kolmiel (talk) 19:18, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I always assumed it was from the letter. --WikiTiki89 20:51, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

subject area

Just dropping by. Do you think subject area is not SOP? I found it on http://www.mnemonicdictionary.com/word/subject%20area . It means "a branch of knowledge, field of study". PseudoSkull (talk) 22:48, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

• I think it's SOP. You can also say "area of study", or "that's not my area". --WikiTiki89 23:04, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
  • But is it really the area of a subject? PseudoSkull (talk) 23:06, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
    • Yes, see definition #4: "The extent, scope, or range of an object or concept." --WikiTiki89 23:12, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
    • I would describe it as a reduplicated compound noun. "Subject" and "area" can be used synonymously, so you know the definition of "subject area" if you know the definition of either "subject" or "area." Nicole Sharp (talk) 23:17, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
      • I saw this at: "Last high school course grade in each subject area: English (a, b, c, d, f) Math (a, b, c, d, f) ..." etc. PseudoSkull (talk) 01:09, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

the sky and the ceiling

Common sarcastic responses to what's up. Should there be entries for these? Why or why not? PseudoSkull (talk) 13:03, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

No. This has more to do with the ambiguity of what's up (even though the ambiguity itself is sarcastic and not real ambiguity) than with the response itself. You can just as easily say "that lamp" or something. --WikiTiki89 13:45, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

category for arabic label ("modern")

Hi, I'd like to know whether it's feasible to automatically create a category for those terms with the lable ("modern"), as is in توقع#Etymology_1 the sense 3. ("modern") to request. Thanks in advance. --Backinstadiums (talk) 15:20, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Dank meme = overused meme?

I am under the impression that the intended meaning of "dank meme", by people who take it serious, does not use the term ironically and for things that are overused, at least not usually. I'd argue that when people overuse memes, they are not dank, but "cringe" or "cringeworthy" as they would call it. Reference: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dank_meme#English --Luka1184 (talk) 23:55, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I find this surprising. I’ve only ever dank memes used with the implication that the memes are excellent rather than trite (which our definition of dank would cover), but Know Your Meme supports the current definition. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 02:18, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

It seems to have two definitions. I suggest doing &lit as a second definition. PseudoSkull (talk) 02:45, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

I see "dank meme" as a really campy, over-the-top way to say "excellent meme". —suzukaze (t・c) 05:13, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

the years pass by; through the years; over the years; remembering years past

Which definitions of year do the usages in the above phrases correspond to? I get the feeling that they're more metaphorical and emotional(?) than "365 days of the Gregorian calendar", but they are still used to describe a time period of multiple years. (see also the translation of Chinese 歲月 / 岁月 (suìyuè)) —suzukaze (t・c) 05:12, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

What does the Gregorian calendar have to do with anything? A year is a full cycle of the earth around the sun, manifested visibly by a full cycle of seasons. Even if you don't count the days, a year is still a year. I don't know about Chinese 歲月 / 岁月 (suìyuè), but the English word "year" probably should not be interpreted the same way. The easiest way to explain this I guess is that "years" in your examples establishes an order of magnitude of many literal years. You could replace the word "years" with "days" in some of these examples and get essentially the same meaning but with an order of magnitude of many days instead (in the other examples, this would be too short of an order of magnitude for it to make sense). Another point is that these phrases evoke a feeling of years passing by one at a time: one year goes by, then another—clearly literal years. --WikiTiki89 09:54, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Arabic dialectal synonyms template

Hi, chinese entries are really informative, even showing a "dialectal synonyms template". I wonder whether a similar template could be created for the Arabic language, which would enrich its entries a great deal. --Backinstadiums (talk) 07:21, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

We've had Chinese editors who worked very hard and did tons of research to create those lists of dialectal synonyms. If you want to volunteer to do that same work for Arabic, go ahead. --WikiTiki89 09:59, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

I could try working on the technical side of things, but I wouldn't be able to contribute content-wise with my close-to-zero knowledge of Arabic. Also, it might be a good idea to generalize the templates and modules for use in other (macro)languages. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 13:00, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Don't worry about the technical side. Until we have someone who could contribute enough content (and we don't), we won't be able to do this. --WikiTiki89 13:22, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

@Justinrleung For experimenting, you can try making dialectal forms of what#Translations. It's true that there is very little comprehensive research but there are dictionaries of dialects, textbooks and phrasebooks. We have some contributors for Egyptian and Hijazi Arabic. Lexically, Arabic dialects don't differ that much from MSA, it's pronunciation, relaxed grammar, form of expression and those very frequently used words but low in number that differ from MSA. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:54, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Do such resources for dialectal equivalents, comprehensive or otherwise, exist for Arabic? There is a somewhat comprehensive reference for Chinese, and several references covering some of the dialectal groups, which provided inspiration for the creation for the Chinese dialectal template and modules. Wyang (talk) 07:10, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Not as far as I know. --WikiTiki89 02:31, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

You can find resources for specific dialects, they may not be online - Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi, Moroccan, Libyan, Saudi, Levantine, Gulf, etc. Not necessarily by country but by standard Arabic dialect classifications. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:54, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

• Don't speak Arabic, but just want to add that that dialectal synonyms system is incredible. If other editors could adapt it for other languages, it would make Wiktionary a truly exceptional, multilingual tool. ---> Tooironic (talk) 08:08, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

生得

Are 生得 (shēngdé) and 長得／长得 idiomatic to be included? Both are not so straightforward cases, IMO.

1. 生 (shēng) and 長／长 (zhǎng) are normal verbals with meanings "to be born" and "to grow up"
2. 得 (dé) is a verb complement particle, which links verbs to adverbs, e.g. 你說得很對／你说得很对  ―  nǐ shuō dé hěn duì  ―  You are right
3. User:Wyang says the above are SoP's. E.g. in the phrase 她長得很漂亮／她长得很漂亮  ―  tā zhǎng de hěn piàoliàng  ―  she is very beautiful, it just "she has grown (how) very beautifully". Or, 他生得很聰明／他生得很聪明  ―  tā shēng de hěn cōngmíng  ―  He is very smart (i.e. "he was born smart").

Any other opinions? @Tooironic, Justinrleung, Suzukaze-c? --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:37, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

• Probably SoP. Chinese dictionaries don't include them. The simple reason is that an unlimited number of verbs can collocate with 得 - just because the resulting combination does not have a direct equivalent in English, doesn't make it idiomatic in Chinese. Example sentences and usage notes are useful of course, but they can be given in the respective 子 entries. ---> Tooironic (talk) 08:06, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

1. @Tooironic ABC English-Chinese/Chinese-English Dictionary includes both, which can be seen in Wenlin software.
2. The other endless collocations with 得 don't change the meaning, they are just used to link verbs with adverbs. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 11:07, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

   Wenlin also includes SoPs though. And, like I said, the usage of 得 in these cases is typical Chinese syntax, and not idiomatic. ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:41, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't know.—suzukaze (t・c) 17:28, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not too sure. Guoyu Cidian has a definition "生、顯" under 長. It might be useful to keep these, but it might be enough just to have an example under 生 and 長. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 19:24, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

fobia#Portuguese

Is it true that this word is stressed on the first syllable (and with the /u/ vowel) in Portugal, but on the second syllable in Brazil? Wouldn't /ˈfuβiɐ/ have to be spelled *fúbia? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:18, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

A native speaker of European Portuguese did add it, but it sounds wrong to me. I've modified it under the assumption that it was just a thinko. @Liuscomaes, Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:09, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

That’s certainly the case. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 20:47, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Metaknowledge is wrongly reverting my edits

Reversions e.g. [6] and [7]. This has been discussed; see [8]. I disagree with the reversions. What is consensus? Equinox ◑ 01:31, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

I thought that alternative-form entries were not supposed to have Etymology sections. But I am not sure if this is official policy or not. — Eru·tuon 01:41, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

There may be cases where an alt-form entry needs its own Etymology section, but I don't believe the two instances linked above are such times. I agree with Meta that Etymology sections are unneeded in those two entries. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 04:35, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

• As is standard practice here, and as CodeCat agreed in that discussion you linked to, we don't need to give trivially different etymologies for alternative forms. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 05:05, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

I have to agree with the others- it's best to keep entries for minor variants as minimal as possible (minor as in trivially different from the lemma, not minor as in unimportant). Chuck Entz (talk) 05:47, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Why have an entry as trivial as that then? Wouldn't a redirect be better if we were dead-set against having any actual information on the page? - TheDaveRoss 12:46, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Correlation (such as alternative, misspelling or whatever) to a linked term is a piece of information. --Dixtosa (talk) 13:16, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Alternative spellings can be redirects, with the alternative spellings documented on the primary spelling page. Since every combination of characters which is not the correct spelling is a misspelling I would rather not have them at all. - TheDaveRoss 12:30, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Forgot to mention my original reason for posting - if a good-faith editor makes an intentional edit like these, reverting is not the correct action. The first place to go is to Equinox's talk page to raise the issue, and if you are going to undo the change yourself you should do so with an edit comment. Reverts are for obvious and un-contentious changes only. - TheDaveRoss 12:51, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Except that we already discussed this on my talk-page. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:14, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Even in that case, I think that an edit summary is appropriate. - TheDaveRoss 12:30, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

And what about the categories? {{suffix|en|Athabascan|ist}} adds the entry into a suffix cat and without it, the entry is not added into the cat. But of course the entry does belong into Category:English words suffixed with -ist and should be added to that cat. -84.161.41.33 13:06, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

The categories are the strongest argument against. Wikimedia categories are navigational aids for finding entries that have something in common, not statements of classification. Having all the minor variants in the categories adds unnecessary clutter. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:02, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

• Personally I agree with Equinox. That is, I agree with Metaknowledge that "we don't need to give trivially different etymologies for alternative forms", but that is not to say that they are not allowed, or should be deleted if someone has gone to the trouble of adding them. Ƿidsiþ 14:32, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Mathematical angle brackets for the orthographic representation

Today, this entry was created: ⟨ ⟩. It uses the "MATHEMATICAL LEFT ANGLE BRACKET" and "MATHEMATICAL RIGHT ANGLE BRACKET" and is defined as "(linguistics) Encloses orthographic representation."

Is that correct? Do we use these specific characters for that purpose? It sounds off to me, but what do I know.

This definition was removed from 〈 〉, which uses "LEFT ANGLE BRACKET" and "RIGHT ANGLE BRACKET" and has a Chinese and a Japanese section too. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 11:50, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia cites (emphasis mine): “The angle brackets or chevrons at U+27E8 and U+27E9 are for mathematical use and Western languages, whereas U+3008 and U+3009 are for East Asian languages. The chevrons at U+2329 and U+232A are deprecated in favour of the U+3008 and U+3009 East Asian angle brackets. Unicode discourages their use for mathematics and in Western texts, because they are canonically equivalent to the CJK code points U+300x and thus likely to render as double-width symbols.”

These characters are indeed used for linguistic purposes; Wikipedia uses them for its angle bracket template, which is used in a wide variety of language-related articles. Please do not be misled by just reading the names Unicode gave to these characters. ―Born2bgratis (talk) 12:13, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. Maybe we could explain that in both entries, as usage notes. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 12:19, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Right now I’m not sure about what to put on Usage notes, but for now I’ve added an {{also}} template to both entries. And the new entry is missing the definition for the actual mathematical sense (LOL); I’m adding that as well. ―Born2bgratis (talk) 12:34, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by the statement that U+2329 and U+232A (⟨⟩) are canonically equivalent to U+3008 and U+3009 (〈〉), because in my browser they look identical to U+27E8 and U+27E9 (⟨⟩). Perhaps it's a font thing or something. — Eru·tuon 19:49, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Linguists don't use Unicode codepoints, they just use angle brackets. And I guarantee that more linguists will choose the code points < > to represent their angle brackets than ⟨ ⟩. The fact that Wikipedia chose such an obscure set of Unicode characters for their linguistic purposes is very annoying because most fonts can't even display them. --WikiTiki89 13:13, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

The characters are obscure, you say? Give me a break, I’ve just found them in the very first linguistics book I took from the library: Photo (wasn’t sure if I could upload it to Commons).

And many free and open-source fonts do display them; grab a recent copy of e.g. Roboto, Vollkorn or STIX. Or update your operating system and you’ll get ’em in the system fonts. ―Born2bgratis (talk) 00:35, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

I said the Unicode characters are obscure. Not that the shapes are obscure. Of course people have been printing them since before Unicode added a codepoint for them. --WikiTiki89 14:37, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Which isn’t true, of course. They’ve been assigned since Unicode version 3.2, released back in 2002 (fifteen years ago), so they aren’t more obscure than, say, the Russian ruble symbol. And you can find them in freaking Times New Roman. Unless your OS is Windows XP?, is that your problem? List of fonts that support it FYI, Windows (with Segoe UI Symbol), Linux (DejaVu Sans), macOS and even Android (Roboto) have out-of-the-box support for this character.

P.S. A recent Typophile thread where somebody used ⟨ ⟩ which I’ve just incidentally found. ―Born2bgratis (talk) 23:43, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

How long it's been in Unicode has nothing to do with its obscurity. --WikiTiki89 14:26, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Using less-than and greater-than is just a makeshift solution when you don't want to bother with using the correct characters, like using a plain hyphen-minus in place of an n-dash in phrases like Iran–Iraq War. I would be disappointed if a publisher used < > in a linguistics book. I try to enforce the standard of using actual angle brackets on Wikipedia. — Eru·tuon 00:43, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm puzzled that you say that most fonts can't display these symbols, because my default ones in Chrome seem to. Of course, maybe there's some background font selection going on. — Eru·tuon 00:44, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Latin prox

wiktionary's definition: "fart"
L&S: "by your leave"
Is wiktionary's definition a joke or do dictionaries like L&S contain an error? -84.161.41.33 13:00, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

• Vandalism that has gone unnoticed for some time. Fixed. SemperBlotto (talk) 13:45, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Pronunciation of atony

Could someone review this? I'm not familiar with this word but my intuition says the second syllable should probably be a schwa. Benwing2 (talk) 18:41, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

• Fixed. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:07, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Is televise really ambitransitive?

We claim it is. I've never heard anything like "that show televised well!" or "the golf will televise this afternoon". Equinox ◑ 23:26, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

I couldn't help but laugh. No I don't think it can be used that way. --WikiTiki89 13:15, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

@SemperBlotto: Apparently you are the one who added this definition back in 2005. --WikiTiki89 13:16, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

I've added a citation of such use.

OT: The term ambitransitive (ditransitive, too) should be cleaned out of English L2 sections, IMO, because they are syntacticist jargon. Are "ambitransitive" verbs translated by the same verb in both transitive and intransitive usage in all languages? DCDuring (talk) 14:57, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

We sometimes put "ergative" on cases like this. Equinox ◑ 15:14, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Ambitransitive is ambiguous in cases like this, "ergative" is more specific and informative. But we should only put that it's ergative if it's actually commonly ergative. If it's just a rare usage, then it should be separated and marked as rare. --WikiTiki89 15:37, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

I think that intransitive use of televise in non-technical works is much more common than the use of ergative and ambitransitive in dictionaries. I think the use of such terms is at the very least off-putting and could readily be seen as an indication that inmates are running the asylum. DCDuring (talk) 15:04, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Most English dictionaries I've seen don't even make a distinction between transitive and intransitive and ergative and whatever else. If we're going to be thorough and include the information, we should try to present in as friendly a manner as possible, but not shy away from using accurate terminology with a link to a glossary. --WikiTiki89 15:07, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

駅

What's the usage of 駅 in Chinese Cantonese, specifically in Hong Kong? Is it the same as の (de) for visual effect only and never in a running text? From what I know it's used instead of 站 (zhàn) and is pronounced "zaam6" (站), not "jik6" as 驛／驿 (yì) would be pronounced in Cantonese. Should this be sent to RFV? --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 12:32, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Kindly refer to etymology 2 of 站 for usage preferences of 驛 / 驿 (yì) against 站 (zhàn) . Note that Chinese characters are often corrupted in the past prior to the existence of national standards such as GB 18030 (mainland China), CNS 11643 (Taiwan), Big5 (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau). KevinUp (talk) 13:02, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

What does it tell us? We all know that in Sinitic and Sino-Xenic world 站 (zhàn) is used in (greater) China and Vietnam and derivations of 驛／驿 (yì) in Japan: 駅(えき) (eki) and Korea: 역 (驛, yeok). It still doesn't explain the role of the Japanese character 駅 in a Chinese context or the claim that it's also Chinese. And yes, I saw the image. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 13:10, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Note: Many Japanese characters (shinjitai characters) were in fact derived from historical 楷書, 行書 or 草書 in China dating back to the Tang dynasty (Refer to the calligraphic works of 顏真卿 and 歐陽詢). Other shinjitai characters were based upon a 1935 draft document (第一批简体字表) which was never realized due to the outbreak of war. As to why 駅 is used in Hong Kong instead of 驛 / 驿 (yì), it is due to 駅 being included in the Hong Kong Supplementary Character Set HKSCS which contains private use characters used either in Cantonese or for writing names of places in Hong Kong. I highly recommend getting a 書法字典 which is an eye opener for studying calligraphic scripts as well as variant characters. Chinese calligraphy is much more versatile compared to Ming typefaces, only used in printed books and of limited variety before computer fonts were invented. KevinUp (talk) 13:55, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

It's not how works here. The inclusion in HKSCS doesn't make a difference. The actual usage needs to be attested to meet our WT:CFI. I'm sending it to RFV. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 14:02, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Steve the atmospheric phenomenon

A new atmospheric phenomenon was recently named Steve by its discoverers. Wikipedia already has an article about it, albeit small. Should we include it as a hot word? —CodeCat 18:50, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes. PseudoSkull (talk) 00:55, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

grow on

I've heard the verb "grow on" used in a gardening context, but it seems like a British thing and I don't really know what it means. Would anyone mind taking a stab at defining it? — Eru·tuon 00:13, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

freedom of expression

This is not American English, as far as I know. Commonly used in British and Australian English. ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:53, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

This is used in American English too. PseudoSkull (talk) 00:55, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

But the point is, it shouldn't be tagged "chiefly US". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:47, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Removed tag. Anti-Gamz Dust (There's Hillcrest!) 14:14, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

応

I'm not familiar with the involved languages, but the changes in this edit do not seem 100% kosher. At best it leaves a headword without a definition line and a lone "Etymology 1" section. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 12:47, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

It's not that bad. Only the etymology 1 header was an issue. We should not have definitions under the translingual header for Han characters because they are different depending on the respective languages. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 14:34, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Right, I'm glad I didn't intervene in this entry. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 15:33, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Wrong declension for "manes" in Latin

The declension table for "manes" shows the incorrect form for the genitive "manum", while the correct one is "manium" as shown above. I don't know how to edit the table myself. All dictionaries confirm this. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0060%3Aentry%3Dmanes — This unsigned comment was added by Mozziekiller (talk • contribs).

Fixed. —JohnC5 16:33, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

could have done without

This is totally wrong, isn't it? It's not the "simple past" of anything. Equinox ◑ 21:40, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

The lemma should just be do without. The rest is SOP. --WikiTiki89 21:48, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Redirected. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:11, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Should could do with redirect to do with? - -sche (discuss) 17:20, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

That's a trickier one. Is do with ever used without could? It's similar to could use. --WikiTiki89 17:25, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

I can find a few uses of "will have to do with a" where it may carry a sense like "[will have to] make do with [a]", e.g. "Man will have to do with one Man as God's representative, as the upholder and proclaimer of the covenant; he will have to do with a prophet", "The few fully resolved windows for the brighter stars allow for a PSF reconstruction, those for the fainter stars will have to do with a reconstructed LSF." Maybe it's best left as is. I see make do with redirects to make do. - -sche (discuss) 17:51, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Names of Scripts

Does anyone else think this is confusing where Serbo-Croatian is concerned ?

• • Balto-Slavic:
    • Lithuanian: blę̃sti
    • Slavic: *blęsti (“talk nonsense”)
      • South Slavic:
        • Old Church Slavonic: блѧсти (blęsti)
        • Serbo-Croatian:

          Cyrillic: блести

          Latin: blesti

It always takes me a second to realise that it's not a Latin word borrowed from Serbo-Croatian, but the Serbo-Croatian word rendered in Latin script. If it were a borrowed word, would it look any different ? How would we be able to readily spot the difference ? Leasnam (talk) 16:47, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting we change the names of the scripts, but could we not rather show this as:

• Serbo-Croatian:
  • блести (Cyrillic), blesti (Latin)

or just

• Serbo-Croatian:
  • блести / blesti

Leasnam (talk) 16:49, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

I think at one point we were writing "Roman" instead of "Latin" for precisely this reason. However, I agree that the slash syntax is even better. We could have a template that allows you to enter one script and have it link to both. --WikiTiki89 16:55, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

What about for Old Church Slavonic? —JohnC5 17:01, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

I personally think for OCS we should give only Cyrillic in most places and only link to the Glatolic as an alternative form from the entry itself. --WikiTiki89 17:12, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

{{sh-l}} and {{sh-m}}, parallel to {{zh-l}} and {{zh-m}}? —CodeCat 17:02, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, and {{sh-t}}. --WikiTiki89 17:12, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Is it possible to automatically generate one script from the other? DTLHS (talk) 17:03, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Module:sh-translit. But it's only completely accurate in the Cyrl > Latn direction. —CodeCat 17:05, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

I support listing script variants in the same line, even removing the redundant qualifiers (“Latin”, “Cyrillic”). Our Japanese translations do it right. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 21:44, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Although to be fair, the situation in Japanese is a bit different, since the different "scripts" are really part of the same script and are all used together in the same texts, while with Serbo-Croatian it's either one or the other. --WikiTiki89 21:57, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Why does pussy mean ‘coward’?

— (((Romanophile))) ♞ (contributions) 21:38, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

Likely due to association with effeminacy. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 21:40, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

See also scaredy cat and fraidy cat. DCDuring (talk) 22:25, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

And pusillanimous? (Not really.) Equinox ◑ 22:29, 26 April 2017 (UTC)

This exists in many languages. It's really unfair, particularly when I think about childbirth. Kolmiel (talk) 23:16, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Syntax der arabischen Schriftsprache der Gegenwart

Apparently the best syntactic analysis of Arabic is that of the 'Syntax der arabischen Schriftsprache der Gegenwart', yet the work is only offered in German. I'd like to know whether it'd be possible to organize a group of users interested in translating it into English, dividing the work among them proportionally yet helping each other so that it is not that cumbersome. After completing it, we'll be able to edit arabic entries to the level of other languages such as Chinese or English. --Backinstadiums (talk) 15:00, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Wiktionary really isn't the place to suggest such things. --WikiTiki89 15:15, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Wikisource hosts Wikimedian-led translations, but only of public-domain works. This book is still under copyright, so any translation of it would be a copyvio unless we had permission from the copyright holder. And in that case, it wouldn't be usable under our CC-BY-SA and GFDL licenses anyway. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:09, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

@Angr: It can be used for reliable reference added by editors, but it cannot be hosted by the wikifoundation. Adding sentences from it cannot copyvio since such examples are taken from a public corpus of language, i.e. sentences are not made up by the authors themselves since it's a pure descriptive grammar. Granted, tea_room might not be the most proper page to suggest this, so please let me know if there's a better page where I can post my suggestion --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:22, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Quoting individual sentences would probably fall under fair use, but hosting it publicly anywhere (even on a non-Wikimedia site) would be a copyvio. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:27, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

@Angr: That's it, it cannot be 'hosted' or similar anywhere, which obviously I have not mentioned at all. It would be a collaborative personal work from which the entries would benefit, but wiki foundation itself does not have to be involved at all. I hope I have expressed myself clearly, otherwise just let me know --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:02, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

I understood it that way to begin with, which is why I said Wiktionary isn't the place to suggest such things. --WikiTiki89 17:06, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

@Wikitiki89: I know here there are people who love languages and learning, who are more experienced and savant than me; yet, I'd like to know of any alternatives you could have in mind, if any. --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:10, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't know where the right place is, but it's inappropriate to ask for volunteers for a private project on a public project like Wiktionary. --WikiTiki89 17:18, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

@Wikitiki89: Perhaps I can mention it as part of my personal info., in my personal page or profile, just as an interest or future project -Certainly, it's the first time I cannot find an important work from the XXI century that's not published/translated in english. --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:44, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Appendix:Unicode/Arabic Presentation Forms-A

Hi, in the appendix of the Unicode ligatures for arabic the column where the images are shown should use a different typeface (Unicode pdf document shows one similar to 'Arabic Typesetting').

PS Would this fit best in beer parlour? --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:28, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

I see only one image, for the Allah ligature. The other column is plain text. —suzukaze (t・c) 18:33, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Even that image was overly calligraphic, so I've removed it. --WikiTiki89 18:49, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

This is how they should appear. The wikipedia page shows the same issue. --Backinstadiums (talk) 19:50, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

@Backinstadiums: Feel free to gather up the images, and I'll show you where to add them. --WikiTiki89 19:54, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

@Wikitiki89: I have them all in a word document. Perhaps I can ask in MS forum for a macro to turn them all into images, but I have no idea about the format needed here. How's it work? --Backinstadiums (talk) 19:58, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

@Backinstadiums: First of all, you need to make sure you use a font that has a compatible license. The "Arabic Typesetting" font is owned by Microsoft and I doubt it has a usable license. Images can be uploaded at the Wikimedia Commons. Ideally they should be PNG files with transparent backgrounds. You can download GIMP which should help you create those. You should probably name the files after their Unicode codepoints. Then you'd need to list them at Module:Unicode data/images/00F. --WikiTiki89 20:06, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Actually, ideally they should be SVG files with transparent background, shouldn't they? Commons even has templates and categories requesting for existing images to be converted to SVG. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 20:15, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

+1 for SVG, infinitely resizable vector graphics. —suzukaze (t・c) 21:35, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure how well that would work with text when the font matters. Would the font have to be embedded in the SVG? --WikiTiki89 21:43, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Nope. —suzukaze (t・c) 01:51, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

@Wikitiki89: First I'll ask in stackoverflow about the possibilies of Adobe Acrobat DC, since we already have a pdf. Do you know whether wiki foundation has asked Unicode for something similar before? Maybe Unicode can somehow provide those images directly --Backinstadiums (talk) 20:11, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Unicode uses a proprietary font that they don't release in their PDFs. The PDFs don't have images, just text directly rendered with the fonts. --WikiTiki89 20:16, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

what's new

This noun sense isn't justified, is it? Kolmiel (talk) 23:17, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Totally SOP and unnecessary. --WikiTiki89 23:44, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Also, it's a noun phrase, not a noun. If it is kept, it should be moved to the Phrase section. — Eru·tuon 00:50, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

We treat noun phrases as nouns, just like we treat verb phrases as verbs. --WikiTiki89 14:18, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Could you give some examples of noun phrases being treated as nouns? This noun phrase doesn't even have a noun as head (its head is a pronoun, what), whereas verb phrases generally have verbs as heads. — Eru·tuon 18:26, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

The first one I thought of was apple of someone's eye. We could call it a pronoun then. --WikiTiki89 18:29, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

I guess the difference between that and what's new is that one has a noun as head, whereas what's new is a phrase headed by an interrogative pronoun (complementizer). So, apple of someone's eye can have the inflectional characteristics of a noun (for instance, pluralization: apples of someone's eye), while what's new doesn't. Not sure if there's a better word for what's new, parallel to calling a prepositional phrase that and not naming it an adverb or adjective from its function in a given sentence. — Eru·tuon 19:05, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

That's why I said we could call it a pronoun. --WikiTiki89 19:55, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Ohh, that's what you were saying. That sounds odd too: it's a phrase headed by a pronoun, but I'm not sure that makes it a pronoun. — Eru·tuon 20:01, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

The noun definition should be moved to the Phrase PoS. I don't think that the nominal use of what's new is equivalent to what is new, ie, I asked him to tell me what's new is not equivalent to I asked him to tell me what is new. DCDuring (talk) 01:43, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

That's a good point, I'll have to think about it. In the given usage example, however, it's certainly SOP. --WikiTiki89 14:19, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Is it any more SoP than the definitions under the phrase PoS? That two expressions using synonymous, indeed mostly identical, components (-n't being equivalent to not) cannot be used interchangeably is evidence of the idiomaticity of one of the expressions. I think that what's new as a nominal refers means only the kinds of things that might be elicited by the expression as a question, which several dictionaries find idiomatic. DCDuring (talk) 23:48, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

حُمَّاض

Some books like Medieval Arab Cookery (2001) by Maxime Rodinson et al say that حُمَّاض (ḥummāḍ) (by itself) meant "citron" as well as "sorrel", and the derivative حُمَّاضِيَّة (ḥummāḍiyya) denoted a sort of stew made with citron. Is this still the case in more modern Arabic? - -sche (discuss) 02:33, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

@-sche I couldn't find this meaning in Hans Wehr but the root letters ح-م-ض (ḥ-m-ḍ) are about acidity. Also: حَمْضِيَة (ḥamḍiya, “citrus fruit”), حَمُضَ (ḥamuḍa, “to be/become sour”), حَمْض (ḥamḍ, “acid”). --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 11:00, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

yen

Ido: yen, etymology 1.

There are currently three part-of-speech headers for the particle yen. I think the interjection header is appropriate, but the other two seem mismatched to me and I'm not sure what the best option is as they do seem distinct. The example at the section "preposition" is interesting because it governs a clause and yen is synonymous with yen ke, appending ke is normally the way to form a conjunction from a preposition. Esperanto jen may also provide a proper model. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 13:02, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Hi. I found all this information in the text book by Talmay (1919) and in the Dyer dictionary. I tried my best to interpretate it correctly and add good examples (please correct me if any of my information is incorrect). Here's an excerpt from Talmay: https://imgur.com/gallery/jYptK. – Algentem (talk) 10:03, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I think your interpretation of the described options is reasonable, it's just that the word doesn't really behave like a preposition or a conjunction semantically. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 09:59, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

sugar high, sugar rush

Isn't hyperactivity from sugar a myth? Do the entries need changing? Equinox ◑ 03:17, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

How about "caused, or believed to be caused, by"? But I don't think it's a myth that sugar gives you a burst of energy that drops off rapidly, even if there's no evidence that sugar consumption causes ADHD. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 06:45, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I think in all our definitions, perception is implied. If some day it is discovered that dinosaurs never existed, but that unicorns do exist, in theory that shouldn't change our definitions. --WikiTiki89 18:48, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

autistic

I added a second adjective sense based on psychological/medical jargon from the 1910s and 1920s (describing a different diagnosis that was considered child schizophrenia) and continued pejorative use, but should it be labeled offensive? Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 11:34, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Just as the literal meanings of words shift over time, so do the implications. I think we have to be careful with glosses that have changed over time: one very basic approach is to say "now offensive" rather than (implicitly always) "offensive". Equinox ◑ 13:27, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

The APA Dictionary of Psychology has a second definition of autism: "abnormal introversion and egocentricity. It is one of the primary signs of schizophrenia described by Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler. See also fundamental symptoms."

Many polysemous terms have bits of evaluation that bleed from one definition to others. It might be historical or dated. Apparently Bleuler is the source of a few psychiatric terms. DCDuring (talk) 22:55, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, the OED deals with this sense thus: "A condition or state of mind characterized by patterns of thought which are detached from reality and logic, formerly sometimes regarded as a manifestation of schizophrenia or other psychiatric illness. Now hist." (my bolding) --Droigheann (talk) 23:55, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I've also added a historical sense at autism equivalent to that. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 10:31, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

indeterminate gender

Especially since this is a PaM entry, I suspect the def is wrong. Gender isn't physical sex, is it? - whereas intersex does refer to physical attributes. Equinox ◑ 12:10, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I would expect that it would refer more to a state of ignorance about the grammatical gender of a word, or about the sex of a person, rather than definite knowledge of being intersex, but I don't have documentation on that... AnonMoos (talk) 15:42, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, some speakers use "gender" to mean "sex", but even then, the meaning of this phrase is that the gender (in whatever sense of that word) is not determined (not specified or not clear), not that it is definitively intersex; google books:"of indeterminate gender" shows this. And that makes this seem rather SOP. (For a direct "gender" counterpart to "intersex", see "intergender" as in e.g. google books:"intergender people".) - -sche (discuss) 22:21, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

I've started Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion#indeterminate_gender. - -sche (discuss) 22:37, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

murder will out

How is this parsed syntactically? Is "out" a verb, or is it an adjective, with verb elided? (Cf. Shakespeare: "Truth's a dog that must to kennel.") Equinox ◑ 12:46, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Fascinating question, Equinox! Is it not same as verb sense 5 though? (And, oddly, not all that different from verb sense 2.) --Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 17:26, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Sorry, that was only a partial reply. Isn't it verb phrase ellipsis? (E.g. "come out" with the "come" elided? Or "will out itself" with the "itself" elided)?--Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 18:47, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

It's an adverb, with the main verb implied. ‘Out’ here means ‘be discovered’, ‘become known’, and it used to be used more widely – but now only exists in these specific set phrases. Ƿidsiþ 19:14, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

That's interesting. What's the implied main verb, just out of curiosity? --Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 20:17, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Well – "get", "become", "be", that sort of thing. Ƿidsiþ 20:25, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Thanks :) --Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 20:33, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I know that in Middle English, one could say "I will to [location]" and the verb go was understood. Not sure if that construct ever included come or get but why not ? Leasnam (talk) 18:53, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Tactile Sign Language

Hi, I haven't researched a lot about this version of sign language, but at least its alphabet should be added to Wiktionary. I don't know whether it should be a a type of fingerspelling or rather a new language as such. http://www.deafblindinformation.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/db-tactile-alphabet.pdf Thanks in advance. --Backinstadiums (talk) 12:52, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

go from strength to strength

[Copied across from RFV.]

I was just wondering whether the article should be on "from strength to strength" without the "go". If I am right about that then it would not be a verb. John Cross (talk) 07:12, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

• I think it should be left alone, it makes more sense as it is now. DonnanZ (talk) 09:09, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

This isn't really an RfV question, rather a Tea Room item.

From strength to strength is occasionally used with other verbs, such as grow, continue, went on, as well as in titles without any verb. I would try to reword the definition to suit the prepositional phrase, move the entry to [[from strength to strength]], and make [[go from strength to strength]] a redirect as it is by far the most common use in running text. DCDuring (talk) 09:52, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

Move this to the Tea Room then. DonnanZ (talk) 10:39, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

[Now in Tea Room]

Copied across. John Cross (talk) 15:15, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Just wondering why we don't have it as "to go from strength to strength"? The definition uses a "to". --Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 17:05, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Same reason our entries are for eat and sleep, etc., not "to eat" and "to sleep". Equinox ◑ 17:08, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Oh, I thought we put a "to" when it's an idiom. I'm sure I've seen one like that here at some point in the last 8 years or so but can't remember which.--Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 17:28, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't think we ever do that for verb phrases. It's different if the headword is an entire clause or sentence, like to err is human. Equinox ◑ 17:32, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

homophone formatting

Hi,

Since in Australia & New Zealand, "shown", like known, is often pronounced as two syllables, I was thinking of adding something like the following to the pronunciation section of shown, except that I don't know how to replace the comma (between "show" and "un", below) with a hyphen.

• (Australia), (New Zealand) Homophone: show-un (some dialects)

Any help will be very much appreciated. --Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 17:02, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I've added it as follows for now. I hope that doesn't bother anyone too much.

• (Australia), (New Zealand) Homophone: show-un (some dialects)

--Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 18:30, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

We generally don't use {{homophones}} just to show a divergent pronunciation. It's used if there's another full word that has the exact same pronunciation as the current word. I'm not sure if what you say is correct (I've heard, I can't remember where, that the two-syllable pronunciation is a misperception), but it should be transcribed using the pronunciation respelling or the IPA as given at Appendix:English pronunciation. — Eru·tuon 19:08, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Ok, that's understandable. I would be very interested to read anything that discusses it at all, I haven't been able to find anything so far. Obviously I don't think it's a misperception. --Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 20:21, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

p.s. I'm interested in this idea of 'misperception'. Isn't perception of pronunciations a question of perspective? For example, with the homophones we've got under the pronunciation of "bin". The first one is from a non-New Zealand perspective, the second is from an NZ perspective. But if you have some kind of authoritative source on this I'd love (as I said above) to find out more. --Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 20:30, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I think it was a discussion somewhere – maybe on Wikipedia. I don't have any sources on this topic. Don't let my skepticism discourage you from adding the pronunciation using the IPA or the pronunciation respelling system (again, see Appendix:English pronunciation). — Eru·tuon 20:37, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Cool bananas. I did just find this [9] after searching for "known" and "shown" pronounced as two syllables, in case you're interested. --Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 21:16, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

For the purposes of the template, homophones are actual terms that sound the same. That's not the case here. That makes no more sense than saying that hippopotamus is a homophone of hip + opotamus. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:36, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that makes sense. I'll revert my addition now.--Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 20:21, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

About the homophone "shone", I'm pretty sure that's not a homophone of "shown" in the UK - is that right? If so should it have a US (and maybe Australia, NZ) qualifier on it? --Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 21:01, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I've just sub-sectioned the US homophony of "shown"/"shone", bullet-wise - hopefully that makes sense - I think (and hope) that that's right. --Philologia Sæculārēs (talk) 21:13, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

• On a related note, we often pronounce pool, fool and film as two syllables - POO-eul, FOO-eul and FILL-eum respectively. ---> Tooironic (talk) 13:08, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

hemorrhoidal face

I found this quotation that doesn't seem to match the usual meaning of hemorrhoidal, since it is used to describe the face. Does anybody know of other examples where the word is used this loosely?

• 1990, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (translators), Fyodor Dostoevsky (author), The Brothers Karamazov, North Point Press, →ISBN, page 659:

  The presiding judge was a stocky, thick-set man, of less than average height, with a hemorrhoidal face, about fifty years old, his gray-streaked hair cut short, wearing a red ribbon — I do not remember of what order.

Germyb (talk) 01:47, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Sounds like you have noted an extended use of hemorrhoidal. Perhaps "related to or resembling hemorrhoids". It would be handy if there were an illustration. What is the Russian word? What translation do other translators offer? DCDuring (talk) 18:38, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

Judging from this unlovely image it may refer to a face of a very fat person. DCDuring (talk) 18:41, 1 May 2017 (UTC)

The phrase in Russian is "с геморроидальным лицом". Another translator says "with a dyspeptic complexion". Germyb (talk) 01:09, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

The main word, геморроидальным (gemorroidalʹnym) in that phrase seems to be based on a Russian word for hemorrhoid, (In case you're wondering, г (g) is routinely used to represent an h in borrowings). The translators probably just transferred/calqued the literal meaning to English, and didn't bother with whatever figurative meaning it might have had in the Russian (@Atitarev might know what that is). You'd really need to find usage outside of a translation to even figure out what it means in English, if anything. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:32, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

The figurative dated sense of геморроида́льный (gemorroidálʹnyj) here is of officials who have been sitting on the same chair (i.e. occupying the same position) for a very long time (and got hemorrhoids as a result) - source--Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:03, 2 May 2017 (UTC)