Wiktionary:Tea room/2019/December

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← November 2019 · December 2019 · January 2020 → · (current)

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data-rich

Anyone game for this? In Rail, November 20 2019:

Lauren Sager Weinstein, chief data officer at Transport for London, said: "Our lives are now more data-rich than they have ever been, and therefore we are working to use this data to allow our customers to better plan their journeys and find the best routes across our network." DonnanZ (talk) 17:56, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

There are also “a protein-rich diet”, “a stimulus-rich environment”, “an experience-rich activity”, “a flavour-rich dish”, and so on. If we may apply the idiomaticity rules to hyphenated compounds, these will not be fit for inclusion. — This unsigned comment was added by Lambiam (talk • contribs) at 00:56 2 December 2019.

I am opposing that vote. DonnanZ (talk) 11:01, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Upon this confession, a suspense-laden silence fell. Then dish-bearing waiters appeared as out of nowhere, and news-hungry journalists sampled the insect-filled delicacies, prepared by award-winning chefs. But our Wiktionary editor had no time for such stomach-stuffing deliciousness. Too many attention-demanding hyphenated compounds needed inclusion, an energy-consuming business.  --Lambiam 21:43, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Don't tempt him... Canonicalization (talk) 22:04, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

...in more ways than one. Too late. DonnanZ (talk) 22:21, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

abends

I'm a bit confused about the sense "at night" given to the German adverb, abends. Shouldn't it be something akin to "at evening"? If not, can we make the example more clear and, in particular, make more self-evident the difference of it and nachts, which is listed as an antonym? - Sarilho1 (talk) 20:54, 1 December 2019 (UTC)

It is confusing. In English the term night can include the evening period, as in “last night we went to see a movie” while this was actually in the evening. In German the terms are more mutually exclusive; you‘d say something like “Gestern Abend sind wir ins Kino gegangen”. So when an English speaker uses at night they may mean abends or they may mean nachts – without more context you can’t tell; the term is ambiguous. It is better to use an unambiguous definition. At evening sounds strange to me, but I think in the evening should work fine (also for people who are not Led Zeppelin fans).  --Lambiam 00:36, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

As a native speaker, I decided to correct the translations and give explanatory notes to clarify the actual use/meaning. However, it would still be nice if someone could check and see if they can improve my phrasing a bit. --92.72.252.234 16:28, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

crinċġan

(Notifying Leasnam, Lambiam, Urszag, Hundwine): I've taken the liberty of adding User:Leasnam, User:Lambiam, User:Urszag and User:Hundwine to the Old English interest list at Module:workgroup ping/data. This means that it's easy to ping everyone in an Old-English-related topic using {{subst:wgping|ang}}. Please feel free to remove your name if you don't want it there. I have questions about the form crinċġan (“to fall, perish, die”), (possible) source of Modern English "cringe". First, how did it get the soft [dʒ] pronunciation? Other parallel verbs such as swingan, clingan, springan, stingan, wringan, etc. have hard [g] as expected, and no spellings with -cgan AFAIK. Spellings such as crinċġan indicate that the soft [dʒ] was present in Old English as well. Could this be a unique case of early contamination from weak verb *crenġan (not attested in Old English but reconstructed based on Middle English forms like crengen, crenchen)? Secondly, how do we think Old English cringan/crincan (when not written crincgan) was pronounced? Soft, hard, both ways? Bosworth-Toller lists present tense forms ic crin(c)ge, hī crin(c)gaþ but past forms only crang/crong, crungon, crungen so presumably the past always had a hard sound. Thanks! Benwing2 (talk) 00:11, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

The palatised g ("soft g") usually develops from g + i/j in PGmc, so interference from *cren(ċ)ġan (PGmc *krangijaną) is a distinct possibility. As far as the soft g sound, I'm not sure if the palatisation was carried over to other tenses, but I imagine that if it were, then past forms like crungon would be spelt cruncgon. On a side, but related note: I don't seem to be able to find a source for the OSX krengon anywhere. Leasnam (talk) 00:33, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I would guess that the spelling cringan/crincan represented a form pronounced with a velar consonant at least sometimes. The Oxford English Dictionary traces present-day "cringe" to *crenġan, and doesn't mention the form crinċġan (either as a strong or weak verb). I agree that crinċġan looks like a hybrid form.--Urszag (talk) 01:57, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

outside and inside children

"Outside" and "inside" mean something with regard to children and wedlock, judging by google books:"his outside children", google books:"my outside children", "an outside son", etc. It seems to sometimes refer to a child that someone has with a person who is not their current spouse (but who could have been their spouse at the time!), and to sometimes refer to a child who does not reside with the parent who is being spoken of, but these concepts may not be distinct. I took a stab at adding definitions but would appreciate other eyes on this as I'm not sure whether there should be one sense or two. - -sche (discuss) 00:35, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

It’s not only children. A man can also have an outside wife.[1][2][3]  --Lambiam 01:10, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

Ah, and that prompts me to look and notice that one can have an outside parent, too (which in at least one of the cites is defined as a nonresidential one). - -sche (discuss) 04:19, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I've tried combining the senses like this / this. - -sche (discuss) 17:36, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

It is a valiant effort, but can one call someone’s mistress, who lives somewhere else, a “family member”? Given some person P, it seems that for one to call another person Q their “outside” whatever, P either has to have (had) a (sexual) relationship with Q, or they have to be close blood relatives (not like a second cousin twice removed).  --Lambiam 21:20, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

"endearing" vs. "affectionate" gloss

desu is glossed "endearing" but it renders as "affectionate". I don't think that's right. They aren't the same thing. desu is endearing (supposed to make the writer sound cute); it is not expressing affection to anyone. Equinox ◑ 01:06, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

I think the problem is, rather, that the label endearing should be used when the speaker connotes their endearment with the referent, not when they are seeking endearment from their audience. In this case “cutesy” may be a better label. Or, perhaps, it should be labeled “affectation”.  --Lambiam 10:46, 2 December 2019 (UTC)

"Cutesy" is itself a cutesy word and not really appropriate as a gloss. And "affectation" is very judgemental. Equinox ◑ 03:43, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

rack as a baby rabbit

Hi,

I'm working on the French Wiktionary on the English word « rack ». I saw here that rack can be a baby rabbit. Do you have any examples of sentences using it, and a clue for the etymology ?

Bye, Lepticed7 (talk) 14:21, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

The term occurs in Ure’s Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines (1878) with a more precise definition: “racks, or young rabbits about two months old, which have not lost their first coat”. Given the context, I have the impression that the term may be found only in application to rabbits collected for their fur. The 1913 Century Dictionary says: “Origin obscure”.  --Lambiam 22:28, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

The uses I've found seem somewhat confused about whether it refers to the size of the rabbit or to its color:

1. 1869 February 13, “Rabbit Skin”, in All the Year Round, page 247:

   Now, sir, you would say a skin is a skin, we say it is a ' whole,' or a 'half,' or a 'quarter,' or a 'rack,' or a 'sucker. Suckers are skins of infant rabbits, and of little value. Eight racks are equal to one whole.

2. 1879, Ure's Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines, page 380:

   The skin of a sucker is white, of a quarter, black and white striped, of a rack all black, and of a best all white.

3. 1882, Bees, rabbits, and pigeons; how to breed and how to rear them:

   Those would be of different shades of colour according to the time of year at which they were produced, those bred about May-day undergoing no change from their white colour, but from a white rack become a whole skin; […]

4. 1892, Henry Poland, Fur-bearing Animals in Nature and in Commerce, page 289:

   Rabbit skins are sorted into wholes, halves, quarters, racks, and suckers, or very small skins.

DTLHS (talk) 22:44, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I guess the meaning is as given by Century; the age of the rabbit determines (with some statistical variance) the size and (to a certain extent) the colour of its fur.  --Lambiam 12:40, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the answers. If I can ask, how did you search for examples? I have some troubles on my side to find the correct meaning of rack. It has so many meanings… Thank you again. Lepticed7 (talk) 07:26, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Searching Google Books for things like ""rack" rabbit skin" restricted to the 19th century. DTLHS (talk) 16:44, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

tradwife

Alt-right lingo, right? Some editors seem to disagree. — surjection ⟨?⟩ 16:12, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

My impression is that the concept is associated with (relatively far-)right-wing and often white supremacist folks/ideals, so having something in the definition about that is probably appropriate. OTOTH, I've seen left-wing folks use the word when talking about [far-right/white supremacist] people who they presume identify with it, so I'm unsure whether the {{label}} should restrict it to white supremacists or not. (Btw, I notice that "master race" and "herrenvolk" don't have such a {{label}}. Should they? I'll have to think on this some more.) - -sche (discuss) 16:22, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

“Anecdote ≠ data”, and all that, but FWIW, I've only ever encountered the term in contexts discussing white supremacism. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:01, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

If it's used by such-and-such a group, that might be more appropriate for a usage note than within the definition. (Then again, would this hypothetical white supremacist talk about "African tradwives" meaning ones who follow African tribal traditions? Probably not.) Equinox ◑ 01:20, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I based the association with white supremacy on the majority of durable sources I could find at the time; it seems exclusively used of white women living like 1950s American Dream housewives. Perhaps the association is beginning to weaken in the minds of some (more recent cites do not really indicate this though), but I would venture that it is still strong and obvious enough to merit a phrasing like often according to white supremacist ideals if usually is considered too strong. I don't really know whether the label is appropriate. It clearly originated as a self-designation among white supremacists but most cites are by opponents—although these often indicate a self-designation as well. In any event I think it useful to communicate to users that this is less 'neutral' than garden-variety slang. (Parenthetically, lol at "it is clearly a racist opinion of User:Lingo_Bingo_Dingo".) ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:59, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

girl and boy plants, etc

These can also be used to mean "female" and "male" in reference to AFAICT anything that can have a sex or gender, i.e. not just animals and not just with reference to age, in a way that is sometimes quasi-adjectival, but probably still best viewed as use of a noun. For example, one can speak of "girl genes", "boy genes", "a girl plant", and "girl trees" vs "boy trees" (and for that matter, an adult man's or lion's "boy parts", etc). I have tentatively added this as a separate sense, "(somewhat childish) (A) female (tree, gene, etc)." (And mutatis mutandis on boy.) But this probably needs improvement. Another idea would be to incorporate it into the "female animal" sense. - -sche (discuss) 16:13, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

use a sledgehammer to crack a nut

Is there an antonymous idiom ("To use significantly insufficient force to carry out an action")? Canonicalization (talk) 16:40, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I see enough uses of people shooting (or hunting, trying to bring down, etc) an google books:"elephant with a BB gun" (or sometimes "with a pellet gun") that we could probably add an entry for that. "Send a boy to do a man's job" has a related meaning, but probably a different (more patriarchal) tone. And it might be possible to attest underkill as a noun for doing that (and hence, to say that something someone is doing "is underkill"). - -sche (discuss) 17:15, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

I’ve heard “(it is like) digging a hole with a spoon”. However, there the emphasis is more on the inefficiency (it takes too long) than on the inefficacy per se.  --Lambiam 22:01, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

@-sche, Lambiam: What about bring a knife to a gunfight? PUC – 08:13, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

cash - English

I have heard people use this word to mean readily available money as opposed to installment or credit. Am I correct? Should we edit the definitions? Dixtosa (talk) 19:14, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

One of the senses we list is “liquid assets”. How is that different from readily available money?  --Lambiam 21:52, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

That sense is marked with a finance label. Liquid assets also sounds like a finance slang. The sense I am talking about is used in everyday speech. Dixtosa (talk) 06:57, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Although the term finance often refers to the monetary resources of an institution, it can also be applied to a household (e.g. here) or (natural) person (e.g. here). The term liquid assets may sound like slang, but what counts here is the meaning.  --Lambiam 12:27, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I'd like to see examples of use. Cash used to mean currency: coins and bills. It still means that when banks aren't open, except that people have debit cards which give them limited access to funds in a checking account. Economists include checking accounts in the basic money supply, but robbers don't view a check as cash. "Hands up! Your money or your life!" "Can I write you a check?"

"Readily available" is a very elastic term. DCDuring (talk) 21:40, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

bags

What part of speech is "bags" in "Bags I have the top bunk!" (meaning that you claim the top bunk for yourself)? Mihia (talk) 14:51, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

For dibs we have interjection; I think this is the same.  --Lambiam 21:56, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

Rightio, I'll add it as that. Mihia (talk) 18:52, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

pretense

1. A false or hypocritical profession

   under pretense of friendliness

2. Intention or purpose not real but professed.

   with only a pretense of accuracy

3. An unsupported claim made or implied.
4. An insincere attempt to reach a specific condition or quality.

I have difficulty distinguishing four separate senses here. Do they all really exist distinctly? Mihia (talk) 18:55, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

MW Online has 7 senses/subsenses and does a better job of wording them.

Century has 5 including "(obsolete) intension".

Some terms need a lot of overlapping definitions to cover the range of usage. Things relating to mental states may be the worst. DCDuring (talk) 22:33, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

pretence has only one modern sense! The definitions for pretence and pretense need to be merged (but there is also the problem of what to do with the quotations). Mihia (talk) 22:02, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Use of spellings cg and ncg in Old English for velar and palatal consonants

(Notifying Benwing2, Leasnam, Lambiam, Hundwine): Does anyone have detailed knowledge of the use of the digraph "cg" in Old English? My impression was that although "cg" could be used intervocalically for velar as well as palatal geminates (e.g. frocga/frogga), the spelling "ncg" is thought to be associated specifically with palatal [nd͡ʒ] (although there is definitely not an exclusive relationship in the opposite direction: [nd͡ʒ] was more commonly spelled as just "ng"). I don't know though if the pattern I describe in the previous sentence was an actual convention, let alone one that was consistently followed, as there seems to be a fair amount of variation with some sources even using spellings like "gc", "cgg" and "gcg" ("Coins as Evidence", Philip A. Shaw, Oxford Handbook of the History of English). This is on my mind because I created an entry for senġan and its alternative spelling senċġan. I've gathered that Old English verbs with stems ending in a nasal followed by a palatal plosive/fricative showed depalatalization of the stem-final consonant to a velar plosive before the dental plosive of the past-tense suffix or before the dental fricative of the third-person present suffix: e.g. our entry for blenċan shows the forms "blencte" = [ˈbleŋkte] and "blencþ" = [bleŋkθ]. The conjugation table in the senġan entry shows this phenomenon by dotting the ġ before a vowel but not in the forms "sengþ" [seŋgθ] (or [seŋkθ] if assimilated in voicelessness), "sengde" [ˈseŋgde] and "sengdon" [ˈseŋgdon]. The conjugation table in the senċġan entry currently shows these same forms as "sencgþ", "sencgde", "sencgdon", representing [g] with the undotted digraph "cg". I felt a bit funny about showing <ncgd> as a spelling of [ŋgd], so when I first made the "senċġan" entry I just gave up and omitted conjugated forms, figuring that people could look at the entry for the primary spelling to see the conjugation. However, if forms like "sencgþ", "sencgde", "sencgdon" are attested or clearly consistent with the norms of Old English spelling, it is better to include that information. Is this known one way or another?--Urszag (talk) 21:31, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I have now read sources that indicate that "ncg", "ngc", and even "nc" could be used to represent velar [ŋg] as well as palatal [nd͡ʒ]. Aelfric's "The Forty Soldiers" An Edition, by John Thomas Algeo, says spelling variants with "ncg/ngc/nc" were sometimes used to represent velars, giving the examples befencg and cynincge (p 17). This web page (I'm not sure what the source is) says that "‘c’ may combine with ‘n’, and usually also with ‘g’, to form the complex litterae ‘ncg’, ‘ngc’ or simply ‘nc’ to indicate [ŋg] in nasal clusters, e.g. hrincg, hringc, hrincgan inf. RING, fincgr-, fincger, fincer FINGER, æncgel, ængcel, encgel, engcel ANGEL, -incg-, -ingc- in inflected forms of the verbal noun".--Urszag (talk) 19:00, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

That web page contains items from a database used for the CoNE project, a more complete title of which would be A Corpus of Narrative Etymologies from primitive Old English to early Middle English (: CoNEfpOEteME :). If you go to its main page, enter ncg in the search box labelled FOR STRING and tick both boxes labelled Change Text, Search Text will serve up the page about these complex litterae.  --Lambiam 22:32, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

lah-di-dah, la-de-da

The adjective senses at lah-di-dah are marked "British", and a usage note says "The adjective usage is not common in the US". However, at la-de-da there is a quotation from a US author in a US context: "Newberry was one of the most la-de-da colleges in the United States". Is this la-de-da merely a spelling variant of lah-di-dah, and hence the quotation is an example of "uncommon" US adjectival use, or is la-de-da somehow considered different in the US? The former seems likely to me, but I would like a US speaker to cast an opinion on this too. Mihia (talk) 23:39, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

There is no difference, just different ways of spelling the same thing. Benwing2 (talk) 01:36, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Mihia (talk) 18:42, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

left

Can someone familiar with Irish English look at etymology 3: if it is (as the part of speech header says) a verb, is it a lemma (what are the other forms?) or an inflected form (in which case the definition should mention this)? And is the usex "we were not left go to the beach" grammatical? The definition cannot be substituted into the usex (*"we were not permitted go to the beach"), so if the usex is right, the definition should be "permitted to", and then is that a verb?... - -sche (discuss) 01:58, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Not familiar with this usage but I would think it is a verb, like the "let" in "the captives were let go". Equinox ◑ 02:16, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

My theory is that it is the past participle from a strong conjugation of the verb leave, etymology 4. Have the conjugations of etymologies 4 and 5 been swapped? I’d expect leave in the sense “to produce leaves” to be a weak verb.  --Lambiam 09:58, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

An anon changed the original leaved for the latter sense to left without explanation; I’ve undone it.  --Lambiam 10:09, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

And according to the Century Dictionary the verb in the sense “to give leave to” has preterite and past participle left. Should this be changed too? And if so, is left etymology 3 general English – although somewhat archaic, but so is the whole sense of the verb – rather than specifically Irish English – although possibly not archaic there?  --Lambiam 10:30, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it seems likely that this could be reduced to "simple past tense and past participle of leave", with notes on regional non/archaicness there. - -sche (discuss) 03:08, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Edited. - -sche (discuss) 05:31, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Anyone for booties?

When I was growing up in 1970s Gloucester (UK), "bootee" (indeterminate spelling, because nobody never wrote it down as far as I know) was the word used to describe the experience of inadvertently stepping in a deep puddle, such that the water went over the top of your shoe and drenched your sock, and you were icky and squelchy from then until you arrived home for your telling-off. Does this chime with anyone else's recollection of childhood days? — This comment was unsigned.

Haven't heard of this one (1980s Berkshire kid). Equinox ◑ 22:09, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

(I meant "nobody ever", of course.) Um, presumably you had the experience of a "bootee" even if you didn't call it that. So what did you call it in 1980s Berkshire? 82.46.176.246 00:07, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't remember any special name for water in the shoes. But I do remember having school shoes that somehow picked up and held a little bit of rainwater at the front, so you could kick the air and spray little blasts of water at people. Good times. — Unfortunately it can be quite hard to find evidence for regional playground terms, like local names for types of marble etc. Equinox ◑ 04:38, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Hey look, here's someone talking about a trip to the Beverley Folk Festival in Yorkshire [4]: "As I made my move disaster struck, side stepping mud, and I went right into a puddle, not a little puddle it was more like a mini lake, and I got a booty." Equinox ◑ 04:48, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Speaking of which, there's this, set in Shropshire. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:26, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Quoting Chuck's linked text in case Google takes it down: "[Walter] would be sinking into the black mud at the tree's base, ice-cold water easily entering Frank's clodhopper, hand-me-down boots to end his reverie. / "Watty's got a bootie, Watty's got a bootie...wetty, wetty Watty" and similar astute observations made by his fellows soon brought Walter fully returned to the real world." The book is Robert Teme, The Life and Times of Walter Mann, and probably self-published, given the godawful cover picture. Equinox ◑ 08:45, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

take it from here, take it from there, handle it from here, handle it from there

Worth entries? Canonicalization (talk) 16:20, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Take it from me, it's not a good use of anyone's time. DCDuring (talk) 21:36, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

See also Wiktionary:Tea room/2019/June#You get it ready; I'll take it from there. The usex (at there, noun, sense 2), has since been changed to You rinse and de-string the green beans; I'll take it from there.  --Lambiam 12:53, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

reindeer

According to the entry on reindeer, the plural is primarily reindeers and secondarily reindeer. However, in OED, the plural is given as "reindeer" and "(rare) reindeers", and on our page reindeers it also says "nonstandard" despite being the primary plural form. We also have a category called Category:Reindeers. Which form should we use? --Lundgren8 (t · c) 21:23, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

The category is fine. In principle each of the language-specific subcategories should contain names of reindeer of different species, subspecies, etc. That's usually considered a legitimate use of the 's'-plural and is not rare in that kind of usage. If we had a category of categories for individually named reindeer, eg. Rudolph, Donner, Blitzen, etc, that would be Category:Reindeer.

Otherwise, reindeer is much more common and is standard. We usually include definition-specific plurals in a label at the beginning of the specific definition line. DCDuring (talk) 21:45, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

FWIW, I've never heard "reindeers". Central East Coast US upbringing. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:39, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

Only in the context of talking about different species of reindeer, ie, taxonomists, mammalogists, not normal folk. DCDuring (talk) 23:02, 5 December 2019 (UTC)

prima facie versus res ipsa loquitur

The usage notes at prima facie contrast its sense with that of res ipsa loquitur. However, the meaning assigned to the latter in these usage notes (viz. as referring to “an obvious conclusion”) does not jibe with that found as definition in the entry for res ipsa loquitur (the same as the meaning in the Wikipedia entry). The easiest fix is to simply remove the references to res ipsa loquitur, and I think that is a satisfactory solution. But let me ask first, are there any objections or ideas for a better solution?  --Lambiam 12:40, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

scaredy-cat

Is anyone able to verify how this is attributed to Dorothy Parker? I don't have the time right now to investigate the validity of this

It seems that it is in "The Waltz" an oft-anthologized short story. Probably because it is still in copyright I couldn't get more than a snippet from Google Books. DCDuring (talk) 09:47, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

My gut feeling is that fraidy-cat is the older form, and that scaredy-cat came later. That was always the feeling that I had growing up, and from a cursory glance with regard to looking into it, there seems to be evidence for that. Any thought about whether this ought to be mentioned on one or the other entry? Tharthan (talk)

Looking just at the 20th century data that appears to be so [[5]], but there is that curious blip circa 1870 Leasnam (talk) 03:46, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

For the scaredy-cat that blip comes from the misdating by Google Books of a piece of Soviet literature published in translation around 1970 as being from 1870.  --Lambiam 16:06, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

If there are no objections, I will add "Perhaps an alteration of fraidy-cat, which is attested earlier." to the etymology section. That wording is not ideal, though. Tharthan (talk) 19:36, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Sorry, I missed the point. It seems quite unlikely that she was the first to put it in print, let alone that she coined the expression. DCDuring (talk) 04:20, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

I inserted a citation from 1918 and eliminated Dorothy Parker from the etymology. DCDuring (talk) 04:34, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Well, afraid is an older word than scared, isn't it? Personally I've never heard anyone say fraidy-cat (but can vaguely remember scaredy-cat from early school days). Equinox ◑ 04:41, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

If we take DARE's interviews as evidence, many related terms and variants are also attestable, eg, scaredy, scareded cat, fraidy, fraidycat. Possibly fraidypants. DCDuring (talk) 17:11, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

静#Japanese

• Go-on: じょう (jō, Jōyō, uncommon)

What does "Jōyō + uncommon" mean? -- Huhu9001 (talk) 08:32, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

I suppose that it means that the reading じょう for the character 静, although listed in the Jōyō kanji, is actually rarely used. Note that じょう does not even list an adjectival sense. The same phenomenon of “Jōyō, uncommon” is found for some readings of 七, 上, 中, 主, 丼, 久, 事, 井, 仁, 仕, and many, many more kanji.  --Lambiam 15:51, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

@Huhu9001: See Module:ja/data/jouyou-yomi. Maybe "uncommon" is the wrong word. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 23:34, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

I guess that (see 「括弧でくくられた音訓」 sentence @ ja.wp) refers to the Japanese Wikipedia article 常用漢字一覧.  --Lambiam 00:56, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

@Lambiam: This may need some explanation. How about:

• Go-on: じょう (jō, Jōyō-listed, *)

-- Huhu9001 (talk) 04:53, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

I can only parrot what I see at the Japanese Wikipedia article. 静 is found at line 1133 of the table. In the 音訓 column we find: セイ、（ジョウ）、しず、しず-か、しず-まる、しず-める. Note that じょう is placed between parentheses. In the lead of the article, at the third bullet point, we find the explanation of this notation in the third sentence: it indicates 「特別なものか、又は用法のごく狭いもの」. This means that, apparently, the reading ジョウ = じょう for the character 静 is restricted to specialized or very narrow uses. We find it in 静脈 (じょうみゃく), which is the only use of the じょう reading I’m aware of. Rather than using the label “(specialized or very narrow)”, the author of Module:ja/data/jouyou-yomi has chosen for the shorter label “(uncommon)”. It could easily be changed if someone can think of a better label; personally I do not think that “(specialized or very narrow) is any clearer. It would also be possible to let the label link to a section in Wiktionary:About Japanese that offers an explanation.  --Lambiam 09:18, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

@Lambiam: The point is, we have 2 different kinds of "uncommon" here.

• (静) Go-on: じょう (jō, Jōyō, uncommon)
• (愛) Go-on: お (o)

The former means "listed in the Joyo table but labelled as 'uncommon' in that table". The latter means "not even listed in the Joyo table". By only saying "uncommon", the current label fails to clarify the reason why it distinguishes these two "uncommon".

Also literally, "Jōyō, uncommon" means "common, uncommon". This is confusing. -- Huhu9001 (talk) 11:51, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree it could be explained better. As to deciding on the specific way, I’m happy to leave that to editors who actually edit Japanese pages. All I’ve tried to do is explain the meaning of “(Jōyō, uncommon)” as I understood it.  --Lambiam 22:40, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm in favor of updating the way this template outputs.

• As @Huhu9001 has pointed out, the current labeling is potentially confusing to readers. We should clarify on two points:

1. What do we mean by "Jōyō"? I think we intend to point out that this kanji reading is included in the official list of "everyday use" kanji and readings, as promulgated by the Japanese government and educational system. The "Jōyō" text in the entry is at least a link through to w:Jōyō kanji, but that link is hard to see. I wonder if we couldn't at least use something like <abbr title="Included in the list of 'jōyō' (常用, "regular use") kanji and readings maintained by the Japanese government.">Jōyō</abbr> → Jōyō, to make things stand out a little bit better, and improve discoverability.
2. What do we mean by "uncommon"? Presumably that this particular reading is not commonly used? Turning the question around to a different angle, do we even need to specify this? Users can see at a glance that the list of compounds / derived terms only rarely uses this reading. If we are to use a label, that label should have some explanation attached, perhaps using <abbr>, or a link through to a glossary, or some other means.

• It has long bothered me that romaji in most cases are in italics, such as in the tr= param in {{m}} seen in {{m|ja|静か|tr=shizuka}} producing 静か (shizuka), but for some reason the romaji transliterations are not italicized in the output from {{ja-readings}}. This is visually even more confusing when mixing non-italicized romaji tranliterations with non-italicized labels and other wording, within the same pair of parentheses.

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:31, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

@Eirikr: I think "Jōyō" here does not mean the kanji is Jōyō, but the reading is "Jōyō" (listed in the Jōyō table). -- Huhu9001 (talk) 04:31, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

@Huhu9001: thank you for the clarification! Amending my brain fart above. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 07:33, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ As to the last bullet point, transliterations in entry headlines are also not italicized for other languages: ᾰ̔́πᾰξ • (hápax); уаха́ • (waxá); अक्तु • (aktú); ཏིང (ting); ... It would be good to have a typographic convention distinguishing the transliterations from extras like “Jōyō”. Perhaps use superscripts, as in “ら (ra ^Jōyō )”?  --Lambiam 01:09, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree that a convention would be good. I confess that the superscript is visually confusing to me. I note that {{m}} produces output like 静か (transliteration using tr, “gloss”, some descriptive note using pos). My preference would be for something similar (albeit without any “quoted gloss”) -- visual standardization would reduce cognitive overhead and make things easier to understand at a glance. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 20:17, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I am not a fan of superscripted "Jōyō". Per some others above, I would like to see the romaji in italics. Personally, I don't find "Jōyō, uncommon" confusing in itself, but in the target explanation of "Jōyō" it may be helpful to mention that, despite the "regular use" label, some Jōyō readings are uncommon (it already mentions that some Jōyō characters are uncommon). Mihia (talk) 19:45, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

@Huhu9001: I like the new "common" / "†" labels. But I wondered, what about "†" (Jouyou) / "‡" (Jouyou + restricted), for a more compact look? —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 08:32, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

I do not oppose. -- Huhu9001 (talk) 08:35, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

I oppose the changes. It is one thing to label readings as being on the Joyo list, but the labelling of standard readings as "common" looks unnecessary. We don't have "common" labels in other contexts, e.g. for senses of words, only "uncommon" or "rare". By the same token, readings should in my opinion be labelled if they are uncommon, and otherwise left unlabelled, if this type of labelling is desired. Also, the mouseover text implies an equivalence between "common" and being on the Joyo list, which may not always be correct. Mihia (talk) 03:28, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

• I agree with @Mihia's point about "common" -- if we are to apply such labeling, it would be less visually busy to only label "uncommon" instances.

And equating "common" with "being on the Jōyō list" is both misleading and technically incorrect.

As it is now, we have -- again -- the same confusion that prompted @Huhu9001's initial comment: the "common" label is confusingly at odds with the "†" notation that says this reading is "limited", i.e. "uncommon". I also disagree with the wording that "This reading is restricted to certain special words"; the word 静脈 (jōmyaku, “blood vein”) is not particularly "special", and is instead rather prosaic.

I'd like to suggest again that, if we are to label at all, we mark the Jōyō readings, and actually don't state whether a given reading is otherwise common or not -- that should be readily apparent by the presence of absence of that reading in the lists of derived terms and compounds. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 08:24, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

"limited" is closer to "nonproductive", not "uncommon". -- Huhu9001 (talk) 08:35, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

As the criteria, this is what the original table said:

* 音訓欄には，音訓を⽰した。("Jōyō")
* １字下げで示した音訓は，特別なものか，又は⽤法のごく狭いものである。なお，1字下げで示した音訓のうち，備考欄に都道府県名を注記したものは，原則として，当該の 都道府県名にのみ⽤いる音訓であることを示す。("Jōyō + uncommon")

-- Huhu9001 (talk) 08:49, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

• I have had a go at reworking the output of Module:ja-kanji-readings as an attempt at folding in some of the above, and at resolving the original "common and uncommon at the same time" confusion. Please have a look at 静. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:28, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Using † to signify Jouyou kanji in ja-readings template

Discussion moved from Wiktionary:Information desk/2019/December#Using † to signify Jouyou kanji in ja-readings template.

I considered putting this on Template_talk:ja-readings, but it is more likely that someone will see this here.

The ja-readings module currently marks Jōyō kanji with a dagger (†), in addition to creating a link and highlighting. As recently as a month ago, it instead spelled it out. While I'm all for abbreviation, the use of the dagger symbol for this is not the best choice. The Chinese language block, which immediately precedes the Japanese block on many if not most Han character pages, uses this character to denote meanings which are obsolete outside of certain fossilized expressions. In addition, the dagger is associated with death (for example, to denote an extinct taxon in biology and an extinct language in linguistics). This creates a misleading impression that those readings are obsolete or archaic, which is quite the opposite of the intent.

71.168.173.2 20:37, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

It was changed to the current situation in this edit, which was triggered by the Tea room discussion under 静#Japanese.  --Lambiam 00:54, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree. I'm afraid I'm not a fan of the dagger symbol either. Mihia (talk) 21:56, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

It's easy enough to change. (Yay, templates! :))

@71.168.173.2, Suzukaze-c, Lambiam, Mihia, anyone else: what would you prefer? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:40, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Apologies if I'm losing the thread, but what is the objection to the original "Joyo" label? That it is too long? Mihia (talk) 00:12, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm totally fine with "Jōyō", ideally with the addition of an explanatory tooltip and a link to the WP article. Others appeared to be opposed to using "Jōyō", but I'm not sure if I might have misunderstood. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:30, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't have any strong opinions right now. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 00:32, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Just use two other signs that have no specific connotations in this context, like § and ¶. This comes out, first in the comma-separated style used now and then in superscript style:

• Go-on: じょう (jō, ¶)
• Kan-on: せい (sei, §)
• Go-on: じょう (jō ^¶)
• Kan-on: せい (sei ^§)

 --Lambiam 00:35, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

I dunno ... this seems a bit random. Mihia (talk) 21:48, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

• I agree with Mihia, the pilcrow and section markers seem... odd. I'm not used to seeing either symbol used to indicate anything footnote-y, whereas I have often seen daggers, double daggers, and asterisks.

Counter-suggestion: we revert to using "Jōyō" as text to indicate regular Jōyō readings, and also add the dagger (or asterisk?) for those readings that are rare / restricted. Thoughts? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:03, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Personally I prefer this suggestion to what we have at the moment. Mihia (talk) 11:56, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

Another possibility would be to put Joyo readings in bold. The disadvantage is that this would have to be mentioned every time in a note, and also that the information would be lost if content is copied or output in plain-text format. Mihia (talk) 20:39, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

• I agree that lossiness on copy-paste or plaintext conversion are usability issues. In consideration of that, I have implemented the above suggestion to output [[w:Jōyō kanji|<abbr title="This reading is listed in the Jōyō kanji table. Click for the Wikipedia article about the Jōyō kanji.">Jōyō</abbr>]] → Jōyō for regular Jōyō readings, and [[w:Jōyō kanji|<abbr title="This reading is listed in the Jōyō kanji table, but is marked as restricted or rare. Click for the Wikipedia article about the Jōyō kanji.">Jōyō <sup>†</sup></abbr>]] → Jōyō ^† for rare or restricted Jōyō readings. Please see 静#Japanese for an example of how this looks in a regular entry. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 18:35, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

@Eirikr: Thanks, that looks good. Mihia (talk) 17:28, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

Aegis cruiser, Aegis class cruiser

These US military classifications seem a bit brand-namey to me (and maybe have some US editor bias; I note for example we don't have Trident for the UK's nuclear capability, even though that's hopefully a bigger deal than individual tanks or whatever). Could we at least handle it at Aegis and not have this multi-word terms? Thoughts? Equinox ◑ 08:41, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

We should probably get rid of all government brands, eg, White House, NHS, Obamacare, IRS, Inland Revenue, SPQR, HMSO, USS, HMS, etc. DCDuring (talk) 17:05, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

I assume you're being unhelpfully sarcastic as usual, but I will point out that abbreviations/initialisms are worth inclusion purely to answer "what does ___ stand for?": the expansion can be a Wikipedia link if necessary. Equinox ◑ 06:56, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

I view these as encyclopedic and, worse, resembling an expression like Starbucks coffee or Gauloise cigarette. If the simile is valid, then, if WT:BRAND were deemed to apply and were applied fairly, they would be almost certainly rejected. DCDuring (talk) 03:33, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

fruit

The second definition has an extensive bracketed quote that seems potentially a COPYVIO. Is it? DCDuring (talk) 21:11, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Regardless of the copyright issue, I don’t think we need such a TL;DR quotation to establish this horticultural-annex-culinary sense. It may be useful as a simple ref, without the long text.  --Lambiam 00:41, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

I think the main problem with the quotation is that it's used as an excuse to slip in a discussion of issues that are better addressed in a usage note. It's definitely not a usage example.

By the way, "a sweet, edible part of a plant" in the definition would exclude crabapples and probably some poisonous things we would call fruits as well, though I can't think of any at the moment. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:00, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Also, lemons. And we call unripe fruit fruit. DCDuring (talk) 06:12, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

A sweet potato isn't a fruit by most reckonings, nor is the sweet pith of many grasses. We are forced to define typical fruits and then acknowledge that there are numerous exceptions. A similar problem occurs with the definition of flower. DCDuring (talk) 06:19, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

pokeweed has poisonous fruit, as do many "berry" bushes. Sometimes they are eaten after some preparation. DCDuring (talk) 06:23, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps Wikipedia or the 1911 Britannica can be a bit of inspiration? Wikipedia has "In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) formed from the ovary after flowering." The 1911 Britannica has "... seed-envelopes of plants as are edible, either raw or cooked, and are usually sweet, juicy or of a refreshing flavour." [6] --Valentinian (talk) 00:08, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Not much better. Junipers aren't angiosperms, but juniper berries are definitely fruits. Technically speaking, the "seeds" on the surface of a strawberry and the core of an apple are the real fruits, not the edible parts. Blackberries aren't fruits- they're aggregates of numbers of drupes- but a pumpkin weighing a thousand pounds is a fruit. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:44, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

dick move

Does "dick move" warrant an entry on its own, or is it implied by dick etymology 1 sense 3? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 21:54, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm on the fence. I think it's SOP, but it's a set phrase, with interesting translations, and other dictionaries have it:

• “dick move”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “dick move”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022..

Canonicalization (talk) 22:01, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

Instead of ”typical dick move” you can say ”typical asshole move” without change of meaning; the fact that the first version is more common does not make it idiomatic; the second one is still fairly common. And ”typical douchebag move” also gets a respectable number of hits.  --Lambiam 00:19, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

• I would say it deserves an entry as it is potentially hard to understand from the parts. Mihia (talk) 18:26, 9 December 2019 (UTC)
• Totally deserves an entry --Vealhurl (talk) 11:59, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm with Canonicalization here. It's not hard to understand from the parts; it's a dick move or a move that is dickish.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:19, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Well, let me put it this way, if I were to ask my mother what "dick move" meant, furnished with our entries for "dick" and "move", I doubt she would figure it out, even in a reasonable context. Mihia (talk) 18:08, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm a fan of our current move entry; it's got a broad meaning that the noun definitions seem to overfragment and miss the core of. Once you figure out that "move"="action", which is a pretty core meaning that should be obvious from context, the meaning of dick being "A highly contemptible person; a jerk" should be pretty obvious from context.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:47, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Using dick like this is not unique: I found (i) "She feels she can rehabilitate the dick attitude right out of him"; (ii) "Jacob had found another woman around the time my sister was noticing his “dick” behavior". The phrase dick move does seem to be particularly common, though. Equinox ◑ 06:53, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

question mark used alone to indicate confusion or lack of understanding

The ? entry currently includes the following definition in the translingual section:

"(comics) Used by itself to convey that a character is confused."

Something very similar is used in online chats and similar to indicate the speaker is confused or otherwise doesn't understand what the previous speaker said, eg.

Person 1: How are you today?

Person 2: find

Person 1: ?

Person 2: *fine

Should this be added to the entry, and if so how? And is it translingual or only English?

Also, should it be noted that "??" and "???" are also used, sometimes as a pure synonym and sometimes to indicate greater confusion? If so, how? I don't know if they are also used in comics or if its just online chats and similar? Thryduulf (talk) 15:32, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

About repetitions, see WT:CFI#Repetitions and Wiktionary:Votes/2014-01/Treatment of repeating letters and syllables.

It's probably translingual, but probably only for some Roman scripts.

It's certainly used in places other than comics with more or less the same meaning, that the speaker/writer has a question. It is clearly not general confusion, but only "confusion" caused by the speech/writing or actions of another. DCDuring (talk) 17:05, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

It is a general symbol of uncertainty, not restricted to comics or to the Internet. You could scrawl it in the margin of a textbook. Equinox ◑ 18:52, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Chinese characters formed by duplication

Some Chinese characters can be duplicated to give a more complicated character with a related meaning, as in the sequence 火 炎 焱 燚 (fire, flame), or 木 林 森 (tree, forest). The glyph origin section for duplicated characters refers back to the singular form. It seems to me there should also be an indication on pages for 火, 木, etc. that they can be replicated two or more times. Possibly in the "Derived terms" box. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 01:57, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

For 火 we also have 炏 and 㷋. A somewhat extreme case, considering the stroke count, is 龘. “Derived terms” seems wrong to me; they are “derived characters”. I’m not sure why their du-/tri-/quadruplicacy should warrant a special treatment other than as a fun fact.  --Lambiam 09:37, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

crusader

Aren't most of the translations rendering the historical sense (which should probably be the primary sense instead, compare Onelook)? ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:37, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I think almost all do. Most also carry a contemporary sense; they are then related to the terms in these languages for crusade in the sense of a struggle for some “noble cause” other than Christian dominion of the Holy Land. A few of these translations do not have a specific historical sense, e.g. Irish agóideoir and Turkish mücahit and alperen. On the other hand, I think some exclusively have a historical sense, like Chinese and Japanese 十字軍 / 十字军 (shízìjūn).  --Lambiam 11:45, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I went ahead with the proposed changes. Such a mixed translation table is a big disservice to users. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 15:12, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

according

Shouldn't adverb definition 3 be moved to according to? Shouldn't definition 2 be moved to according as? - -sche (discuss) 08:37, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I think that the quotations can be moved and that the senses should be deleted; where the labels have “usually with ...”, the reality is that it is always with; these are fixed combinations that cannot be pried apart.  --Lambiam 11:56, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Is "according" in "according to" an adverb anyway? Mihia (talk) 15:03, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Historically, yes, but that adverb is now obsolete, having been replaced by accordingly. It would have disappeared from the English language except for the word surviving in these two petrified combinations, which function grammatically as prepositions.  --Lambiam 20:15, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Moved. - -sche (discuss) 05:31, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

string of farts

There is a nice word in Spanish pedorrera, meaning a string of farts. Is there a slang word or phrase that is better than "string of farts"? --Vealhurl (talk) 12:01, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not aware of a one-to-one match for this in English. More generally, I've heard tootle as a mild euphemism, but that could refer to just one flatulation as easily as several. Somewhat more crudely, machine-gunning could refer to a string of rapid outgassings. And I've heard the term cropdusting used to describe the act of letting off a series of farts, often silently, while walking ahead of someone. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 20:26, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Verbal descriptions go only so far. It would be most helpful if someone could upload an Ogg Vorbis file with the sound of an authentic pedorrera.  --Lambiam 22:09, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

attribut#French

Is the French audio file accurate? ---> Tooironic (talk) 13:43, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Technically, yes, but you have to listen really closely to hear it. The style that I've heard used by French speakers when demonstrating pronunciation tends to sound unnatural to English speakers: for instance, an article is added to nouns, so this is really "un attribut". Also, the intonation is different than in running speech. English relies more on pitch and length to indicate stress, so the accent can sound to English speakers like it's on a different syllable from what a French speaker would hear. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:47, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

?

(linguistics) Marks the following word or phrase as questionable for a grammatical or semantic-pragmatic reason.

There are two sections: "Punctuation mark" and "Symbol". The above definition is under "Punctuation mark", but should it be under "Symbol" instead? Mihia (talk) 15:27, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

sheesh

Noticed at Wikipedia w:Sheesh Mahal (Lahore Fort). Related? Hyperbolick (talk) 16:53, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Is what related to what? Are you asking whether our definition of sheesh, " An expression of exasperation", is related to the "sheesh" of w:Sheesh Mahal (Lahore Fort)? I wouldn't have thought so. Maybe you mean something else. Mihia (talk) 18:29, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

In Urdu sheesh(a) means “glass” and mahal means “palace”; together “Glass Palace”. The term sheesha was borrowed from Persian shishe. The English exclamation sheesh, on the other hand, is a devoiced version of jeez!, itself a shortened version of Jesus!, ultimately from the Aramaic male given name Yeshu.  --Lambiam 19:31, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I was asking. Hyperbolick (talk) 00:38, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

noun-verb homographs

Do some or many of the pairs on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initial-stress-derived_noun in fact consist of nouns and verbed nouns, not verbs and nouns derived from verbs as the title of the article claims? Do we have categories for these kinds of verbed nouns and nouned verbs? --Espoo (talk) 19:08, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Much of that list is incorrect. To start, the English noun absent is a nominalization of the adjective, which comes from a Middle French adjective, while the English verb absent comes from a Middle French verb. The English noun accent comes from a Middle French noun, and the English verb accent from an Old French verb. The noun and the verb advocate both have initial stress, so they have no business being in this list. The English noun affect comes from a Latin noun, and the English verb affect (in the related sense) from a Latin verb. The English noun alloy comes from an Old French noun, and the English verb alloy from an Old French verb. The English noun annex comes from a French noun, and the English verb annex from an Old French verb. And so on and on and on.  --Lambiam 20:02, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I love it when you talk diachronic. DCDuring (talk) 03:24, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

Surprising change in an attestation of risible.

Referencing these edits. A quote (It has been made the definition of man that he is risible.) was missing sourcing, attributed to an H More, so I did my best to look it up. It looks like it's actually from a contemporary, Richard Allestree, maybe? The book says it's by "the author of w:The Whole Duty of Man", which was published anonymously, and while Google Books attributes it to Allestree, apparently there's no consensus on that, though this dictionary attributes it to More explicitly. That, and other sources like this 1845 encyclopedia pointed me to "Government of the Tongue", which has a number of meanings, but which eventually led me to the source linked to on the page. So starting with a quote and the name of someone who almost certainly didn't write it, I found the original source, or something close to it.

Quite a rabbit hole--this stuff is hard! --grendel|khan 19:48, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

The wikipedia article says that The Whole Duty of Man has been attributed to at least 27 people. As you imply, Samuel Johnson's dictionary has the quote we have and attributes The Government of the Tongue to Henry More (1614–1687). The WP article on H. More does not mention either of these works. So probably at least 26 scholars have broken their lances advocating their candidates. Save yours for more winnable battles, especially those important for Wiktionary. DCDuring (talk) 03:19, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Lances are very useful for poking rabbit holes.  --Lambiam 10:31, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Duplicate definitions of ethereal?

The second (Consisting of ether; hence, exceedingly light or airy; tenuous; spiritlike; characterized by extreme delicacy, as form, manner, thought, etc.) and third (Delicate, light and airy.) definitions seem to have considerable overlap; the translations are all identical. Are these actually two different senses? grendel|khan 22:11, 11 December 2019 (UTC)

If definitions take from MW 1913 don't seem good, you can sometimes find better starting points for definitions in Century 1911 (See “ethereal”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC..) Modern citations would let you take it from there. DCDuring (talk) 03:24, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

It may make sense to distinguish the figurative sense of lightness (as of a thought or a melody) and the literal sense (as of a fabric or a foam), even though they may have identical translations. In actual uses, the figurative sense of lightness may not always be distinguishable from the heavenly sense, as with the æthereal muſick of the ſphæres.  --Lambiam 10:10, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

beer track, wine track

These are clichés in US political punditry roughly corresponding to "blue-collar" and "college-educated". As the beverage reference depends on cultural stereotypes and track is used figuratively, do they qualify as idiomatic? ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 11:24, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

I would imagine so. I haven't heard of them and couldn't deduce the meaning from the parts. Equinox ◑ 23:02, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Part of the reason for that is that we're missing at least one sense at track: see w:Tracking (education) and mommy track. I've also seen "management track" for employees who are on their way to becoming managers. It may have originally come from the idea of railroads with multiple tracks that allow trains to travel through the same area at different speeds and/or directions. Or it may just be from the idea of being on different paths.

Of course, there's an element of humorous (mis)application of the term that may very well make these idiomatic. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:48, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

tenure-track is another. The stretch to beer and wine does not seem very obvious to me. Equinox ◑ 07:31, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Note that tenure track is quite common as a noun; I think that tenure-track (and tenure track now labelled as an adjective) are simply attributive uses of the noun.  --Lambiam 12:21, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

The sense of track as (the forward projection of) a career path is not specifically education-related.  --Lambiam 12:21, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Assuming these are attested (preferably not just in quotation marks or very mentiony contexts), they seem more idiomatic than "tenure track", and indeed more idiomatic than "mommy track", and so probably entry-worthy. - -sche (discuss) 11:32, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Antonym of "ageing population"

I couldn't think of an antonym for an ageing population. Any ideas? I understand why it would not be a natural term in a language: we as individuals age, but we do not get younger, and so it may be that there is no verb for getting more youthful. -Stelio (talk) 16:19, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Suppose there is some nifty antonym (: evergreen population :). What should it mean? Can you give a definition to go with the antonym? One issue is that ageing population can mean very different things. For one, it can mean the segment of the total population constituted by the group of individuals who are ageing (becoming elderly), a segment between the middle-aged population and the elderly population (but overlapping with the latter). But often the meaning is a population in which the mean age is increasing through a combination of factors such as an increase in life expectancy and a decreasing birth rate.  --Lambiam 11:59, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

As you say, I am thinking of a population for which the average (mean) age is decreasing. -Stelio (talk) 12:48, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Oh, and juvenescent means “becoming juvenile or young (again)”. There are some Google search hits for “juvenescent population”.  --Lambiam 12:04, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

As you say, it's impossible for an individual to get younger, but there is a verb youthen that is the opposite of age. Equinox ◑ 12:13, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

@Equinox: /juðən/ or /juθən/? Tharthan (talk) 18:57, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Excellent, a juvenescent or youthening population. The former sounds better to my ear than the latter. Thank you both very much! -Stelio (talk) 12:48, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Even if "youthen" has been attested a couple of times in the 19th C, it is absolutely not in use. Juvenescent sounds right, as it is the opposite of senescent.

reach/raught/rought

From w:Quora: "According to Wiktionary, "raught/rought" in an alternative form of "reached". Will I be understood if I use it? Will people think I'm dumb?"

The good news: publicity.

But, in other news: We didn't eliminate the need for this question. DCDuring (talk) 22:12, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

By not eliminating it we rought a wider public.  --Lambiam 11:46, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't think there's anything more Wiktionary could've done to stop the question from being asked. The "obsolete" label is exceedingly clear (and it's not like it's some uber-specialized linguistic terminology -- "obsolete" is a normal English word), so this seems more like a case of typical Quora than a problem on Wiktionary's part. M. I. Wright (talk) 19:23, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Given that there's a usage note already, should we perhaps remove them from the header? I like having some mention of these forms in the entry, but the header might give them too much prominence, and mentioning them twice seems like overkill. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:25, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

What about putting them "under" a show/hide bar? It can take up more vertical screen space, but visually implies that they are of secondary importance. DCDuring (talk) 02:55, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I would support that. There's a few other entries with similar situations (e.g., go, preach, have). Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:32, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I moved the forms out of the headword line, now that they are in the usage notes. "Usage notes" is perhaps not the best place for such things, but it's better than the headword lien and it's where such things have been put in other causes, like laugh with its inflected form low (which I edited after a previous discussion). The most ideal place to list such forms is perhaps a conjugation table (with appropriate tags), which we make too little use of in English entries. - -sche (discuss) 08:39, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

We also need to add some more senses; see Talk:reach#Geographic sense. HLHJ (talk) 04:10, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

ward

The "guardian, watchman" sense appears under both etymologies 1 and 2, and is the only sense under ety 1. How best to resolve? Equinox ◑ 23:01, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Either you could ask Widsith or you could simply merge Ety 1 into Ety 2. There are hardly any differences in the etymologies and the sole sense of Ety 1 looks a lot like the first sense of Ety 2. DCDuring (talk) 23:24, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

We could just eliminate Etymology 2, sense 1, subsense 1. I would note that the quotes under that subsense are perfectly consistent with a protection or defense other than an actual person, for which we have no definition. I suspect that the changes to the locations of the quotes are out of sync with the changes to the arrangement of the definitions. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:49, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

sus

The definitions for the "suspicious" sense(s) are...not great. In the first usex, "questionable" does not seem like an accurate definition. I was tempted to change it to "suspicious (having suspicions)", but then it doesn't seem distinct from sense 2. Should the two adjective senses be combined and defined like "suspicious (having suspicions)"? - -sche (discuss) 11:26, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Combined. - -sche (discuss) 05:30, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

The problem is there's a just-as-common sense of "sus" that means "raising suspicion" rather than having. (I'd anecdotally say it's more common than the recorded sense, but that's just me observing my own regional slang.) I assume the original "questionable" sense was trying to refer to this usage I mention, but the quote didn't quite show it. M. I. Wright (talk) 19:17, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Good point. I've added that sense, because I have also heard it and although I had trouble finding citations I assume enough exist. - -sche (discuss) 07:03, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

unashamedly

One might naively assume that the pronunciation of unashamedly is simply that of unashamed + /li/. However, the adverb typically acquires an extra syllable through an epenthetic /ɪ/: /ˌʌnəˈʃeɪmɪdli/. This is not unique to unashamed; many other adjectives that started their lexical lives as the past participles of weak verbs exhibit the same behaviour. But it does not seem to be universal. Is there some rule governing this? If not, should we add pronunciation sections for the anomalous adverbs?  --Lambiam 12:33, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Adding the pronunciation sounds like a good idea, as any rule is probably not obvious the the consciousness of any but linguists. DCDuring (talk) 18:16, 14 December 2019 (UTC)

Add the pronunciations, but if there is in fact a rule, then recording it somewhere (like one of our appendices about pronunciation, or some templatized, transcludable note) seems desirable. Lexico (formerly OxfordDictionaries.com) has an entry for -edly, with one pronunciation listed: /ɪdli/. - -sche (discuss) 09:49, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Incidentally, is there a difference in meaning between this and shamelessly? If not, it should probably be deleted. Canonicalization (talk) 10:04, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Sometimes shameless suggests immoral behaviour (e.g. acting like a hussy), while unashamed might admire someone's bravery in standing up for their beliefs etc. A pair of contrasting examples from Google Books: "taking the language and symbols of religion and making them shamelessly gay" (disapproving tone), "He had a smile to die for, confidence that wouldn't quit, and was unabashedly and unashamedly gay. I'd been drawn to him..." (approving). Equinox ◑ 11:27, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Ah, I see, thank you. Canonicalization (talk) 21:39, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

Lambian, you raise a good point, and I'm not personally aware of a rule that would generate the pronunciation in all instances. But other words you could take into account here (kind of similar, even if not totally) are blessed and learned. Normally blessed would be pronounced /blɛst/, but in the religious context and calcified in some passages from the Bible, it is /'blɛsɪd/, "blessed art thou when XXX" (in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount). To illustrate this pronunciation, a grave accent is sometimes used: blessèd. Learned is the American spelling of the past participle learnt, but where it is an adjective and means an educated person, then it is learnèd, eg a learned professor, with /'lɜːnɪd/. So the adverbs blessedly and learnedly are both pronounced with the additional vowel you referred to in ashamedly, namely /'blɛsɪdli/ and /'lɜːnɪdli/. Cussedly also has an additional vowel, /'kʌsɪdli/. But is there a full list? I don't think so. There is definitely no such pronunciation as blestly or learntly or custly. — This unsigned comment was added by 81.135.13.141 (talk) at 11:32, 30 December 2019 (UTC).

Spitballing here: I'm thinking about what consonants /dl/ can directly follow, and whether it's affected by stress or how many syllables the word has before -ly is added. /ldl/ is allowed, e.g. in "troubledly", not to mention "boldly". There aren't many words ending in "-medly" from which to judge whether /mdl/ is allowed; I think I'd add an /ɪ/ in assumedly, deformedly, and presumedly, but if *trimmedly or *hemmedly were words, I think I'd pronounce them with /-mdl-/, but then, they're not (attestable) words, and maybe that's a sign the sequence is disfavoured. How would you pronounce maimedly? -gedly seems to sometimes add /ɪ/ (allegedly, but then alleged sometimes also has /ɪ/, so that example doesn't seem to "count" towards this discussion, of pronunciation changing from the adjective to the adverb) and sometimes it does not add /ɪ/ (discouragedly, which I would pronounce with /-dʒd.l-/). - -sche (discuss) 00:53, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

I think you're on the right lines, Sche, but some of these adverbs are rarely, if ever, used. I mean -- maimedly??? Searching the OED on CD Rom for any words in *medly, I see accustomedly has no additional vowel. The following all have an additional vowel: alarmedly, ashamedly, assumedly, charmedly, consumedly and presumedly. Deformedly is stated as having either pronunciation, and maimedly is stated as being obsolete, with no pronunciation given. Shamedly is stated as being rare, with no pronunciation given. These are all the words in *medly in the OED. Discouragedly is not given as a separate headword, although it can be regularly derived from discouraged. You could tentatively assume that where a long stressed syllable occurs immediately before the -medly, then an additional vowel is needed (in alarmedly, the stress in on -ar-, immediately before -medly, but in accustomedly, the stress isn't on the -tom- syllable). This suggests that if deformedly or maimedly were found, they would ideally have an extra vowel. This rulette (made-up word) might work well for -medly, but you would need to check all possible combinations to see if it applied to other possible clusters.

pseudoanthropomorphic

The definition seems meaningless to me: "Of or pertaining falsely to the attribution of human characteristics to non-human creatures or concepts." Pertaining falsely?! Equinox ◑ 14:16, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

diff. That first definition was possibly better, though not by much. Canonicalization (talk) 14:40, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

The creator of the entry summed it up quite well: This word is utterly useless. The meanings I find in actual uses are all over the place, but none appear related to the given definition.  --Lambiam 18:38, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

miching/michingly

Currently no entry for the adverb michingly. I find an example in the last sentence of chapter 15 of Sailing Alone Around the World, by Captain Joshua Slocum: "When we got to the ship he gave it [letter in the ship's mail addressed to Slocum] to the first mate; the first mate gave it to the second mate, and he laid it, michingly, on the capstan-head, where I could get it!" Figsyrup (talk) 20:19, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

We have coverage under various spellings and parts of speech, from which you could transparent derive michingly by adding -ly to make it an adverb. The best place to start is mitch, which also has the etymology. In this context, it looks like it's from the sense "To shrink or retire from view; lurk out of sight; skulk." Chuck Entz (talk) 00:01, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

spoken for

Adjective

1. (of a person) taken; unavailable; not single (compare with the obsolete: bespoken)

   I'm sorry, I can't go on a date with you – I'm spoken for.

Verb

1. claimed, reserved, or occupied

   I looked all over, but all the seats are already spoken for.

I can't see why these are listed as different parts of speech. Is there actually any distinction between verbal and adjectival use of this phrase in the relevant sense? If so, can anyone provide definitions and/or usage examples that explain or illustrate this difference more clearly? Mihia (talk) 20:33, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

I can't see any: the "adjective" sense is just metaphorical extension of the "verb" sense. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:46, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

OK, I have merged the existing definitions under "adjective", but also created a "verb" definition that just says "past participle of speak for". If anyone sees a better way to present this, please go ahead. Mihia (talk) 21:46, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

thieves in the temple

Is the biblical phrase "thieves in the temple" idiomatic enough to have a Wiktionary entry (in the sense of corruption, especially in high positions of power)?

Is the phrase actually biblical? I can't find it in the King James Version, which is the most common source of biblical phrases in English. Aside from Matthew 21:23: "And said unto them, It is written, My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves" (referring to money-changers and the like, not to the priests), the word "thieves" is never mentioned in the context of the temple. There are certainly quotes where various religious people are condemned as selfish or vain hypocrites and wrong-headed, but nothing accusing them of being thieves. I suppose you could arrive at the concept by reading between the lines and a bit of synthesis, but not the phrase. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:39, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

The phrase is not used as such in the Bible. In Mark 12 and Luke 20 Jesus accuses the scribes of depriving widows of their houses. which may be seen as a form of corrupt thievery. The scribes were powerful or at least highly respected, but the term “thieves” is not used and the connection with the temple is tenuous. So the meaning of the phrase cannot readily be determined from biblical use. Judging from the results of a Google Book Search, it does not seem to be very common.  --Lambiam 23:56, 15 December 2019 (UTC)

The verse Chuck cites occurs in the context of Jesus forcibly evicting moneylenders and those selling animals for sacrifice within the Temple courts. In the context of that verse, Jesus is criticizing them for using the Temple for purposes other than prayer, and for the corruption of those selling things in it. It's not much of a stretch to pull "thieves in the temple" from that, and in fact that Bible verse is exactly what I thought of when I saw the heading of this section. It might be more of an allusion than an actual SOP expression though. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:04, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Except that money changers (κολλυβιστής, not “moneylenders“) and sellers of doves are not really people in high positions of power, and the biblical account does not give rise to the notion that Jesus’ ire was provoked by the suspicion of corruption; rather, what set him off so unpeacefully was the mundanity of their way of earning a livelihood in a sacred space.  --Lambiam 14:41, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Wow, I didn't expect I would have to explain this phrase, which leads me to believe it may only be common within certain Christian groups (like what I grew up in). Chuck is correct that it refers to Jesus expelling the money changers from the temple. When I was growing up (in a strongly Protestant area of the US) the phrase was a shorthand way to refer to this Christian allegory, or to make an allusion to corruption (in the sense of loss of purity or integrity) especially within the church. Kaldari (talk) 15:06, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

Google Books gives three different books with the title "Thieves in the Temple", and ~200 matches for the phrase (from 1917 to present). The ~200 book matches seems too low to me. I wonder if Google Books has a hard time indexing longer phrases. Kaldari (talk) 16:45, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

It might just be more common in speech and/or things like newspapers than in books. And Lambiam, thank you for your correction. I still think corruption is implied by calling them thieves, which would only make sense if they were ripping people off. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:22, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Jesus quotes Jeremiah 7:11, which has הַמְעָרַ֣ת פָּרִצִ֗ים (hamʿarat paritsim). The word מְעָרָה (mʿara), traditionally translated “den”, more literally means “cave”, “grotto”, a traditional hiding place for baddies. The word פָּרִיץ (parits) occurs only a few times in the Tanakh, but is almost certainly related to the verb פָּרַץ (parats), “to break open”. Traditionally translated here by “robber” – giving "a den of robbers” although the Hebrew has a definite article – in other places we find “destroyer” (Psalm 17:4) or as an adjective applied to a beast (living creature) “ravenous” (Isaiah 35:9). So the term really means “villain” or “bandit” here, someone who does not shy away from violence, which has rather different connotations than the stealth of your typical corrupt official.  --Lambiam 00:08, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Pronunciation of tire

I question the phonetic pronunciation given for Canada and the Midwest US. Has anyone heard it? Where in Canada is it supposedly found? It's not a pronunciation I can recall hearing.... Did someone add it, not knowing how Canadian raising works? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:14, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

I can't say where it occurs, but I can believe that it exists for some speakers. The environments where "Canadian raising" applies seem to be expanded beyond the typically-described case of before a voiceless/fortis consonant for some speakers: I've seen some speakers describe it as applying in their accent before other consonants when the following syllable contains /ə/, and the Wikipedia article supports that, saying "Raising before /r/, as in wire, iris, and fire, has been documented in some American accents".--Urszag (talk) 07:02, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

[This is about /ˈtʌɪ̯ɚ/ just to be clear, added in this edit.] This is my own pronunciation as a Minnesotan. I pronounce tire and Tyre differently from tier (as in tie + -er). The distinction between /aɪ/ and /ʌɪ/ does seem phonemic in my speech; dryer or buyer or liar have /aɪ/, but fire and wire (and maybe lyre) have /ʌɪ/. These cases of /aɪ/ before /əɹ/ can all be analyzed as being derived from a word ending in /aɪ/, but I also have Meyer or Mayer with /aɪ/ and mire with /ʌɪ/ (not that I often use the word mire). In these words the distinction seems clear, but in other cases it's not as clear to me, I guess often in unstressed syllables (for instance, Siberia). It feels like a short–long distinction, with the raised diphthong being the shorter one. So in unstressed syllables it's easy to shorten (raise) the diphthong. — Eru·tuon 07:37, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

OK, interesting. I haven't heard it used in Canada, but I also don't think I make a phonemic distinction between /ʌɪ/ and /aɪ/, so it might escape my notice if I did (though /ʌʊ/ and /aʊ/ are phonemic for me). But I suspect it isn't used much, if at all, in Alberta. 01:18, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Ancient Universal History

I'm trying to figure out what the English original was of Algemeene Histori, beschreeven door een gezelschap van geleerde mannen in Engeland, uit het Engels vertaeld, a multi-volume universal history of which the first instalment probably appeared in the early 1740s. The work must predate Sale's Universal History but I expect that it still dates to the first half of the eighteenth century. The 19th century author Frederick Guest Tomlins seems to have made acknowledged, erm, good use of the work in his own compilation of universal history and it apparently went by the name "Ancient Universal History" at the time. [7] [8] ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 13:20, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

See this for a report on its early publication history 1740 et seq.. Boswell's Life of Johnson contains a report of the authorship of most or all of the twenty volumes, per Johnson. DCDuring (talk) 17:21, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

much

Currently, its sense as a tag question is confined to a usage footnote under the "adverb" sense. I'm not really seeing how it's an adverb, though, or why it's lumped in with the conventional senses of "to a great extent" and "often; frequently". Could we follow the example at eh and create an "interjection" sense that specifically indicates it's a tag question? M. I. Wright (talk) 19:10, 16 December 2019 (UTC)

It almost seems like some kind of particle- I wonder how much it contributes semantically, or whether it's really a question. As far as I can see, the basic meaning of the phrase more often than not is the same if you remove the "much" and just leave it as a question. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:53, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't have thought of it as a tag question. I am open to being persuaded that it's some other part of speech, but viewing it as an adverb (definition 1 or 2, depending on context) seems most sensible to me. It could be seen as elision, "[are you] desperate much?", "[do you] cherry-pick much?". Grammatically, it seems comparable to "often", "a lot", and "frequently" in e.g. "come here often?" or "[you] play often?" which are adverbs. (Inability to search for punctuation makes it difficult to tell whether phrases like "angry often?" or "cherry-pick a lot?" are attested outside of longer phrases like "is he angry often?", and hence to tell if those adverbs can be used as widely as "much", but I can at least imagine someone saying them.) I don't see evidence that "much" is an interjection. - -sche (discuss) 07:00, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Such evidence might be found in uses with a comma, such as “Tired, much?”, similar to the comma in “Tired, eh?” seen e.g. here. I saw no evidence of this, unlike the comma-less “Tired much?” spotted here.  --Lambiam 13:48, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Hm. I see a clear difference in meaning between "desperate much?" and "are you desperate much?", where the latter uses the adverbial meaning of "frequently; often" and the former is as Chuck Entz analyzed it above. In fact, you could even construct a question like "you like pizza much?" with two distinct readings: first "do you like pizza a lot?", with the adverbial meaning of "much" as in "to a great extent", and second with this same not-really-adverbial "much" added only for disparaging effect (for example, if the questioner is looking at someone scarfing down a whole entire pizza by themselves). But Lambiam's search does throw a wrench in my attempted classification — I personally wouldn't see anything wrong with writing "Tired, much?", so I'm not sure where to go from here. M. I. Wright (talk) 00:02, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Maybe just a matter of diligently searching further, also with other adjectives (“happy”, “satisfied”, “disappointed”, ...).  --Lambiam 01:09, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I found “jealous, much?”: [9], [10], [11] (parismom 5/19/04).  --Lambiam 18:19, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Wow! I tried my own hand at searching the other day, but I wasn't very diligent and I couldn't find anything of use like this. Good work. —M. I. Wright (talk, contribs) 05:29, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Used as an adverb only with negative and interrogative sentences. Confirmed in many other grammar sites, or forums.

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/fr/grammaire/grammaire-britannique/much-a-lot-lots-a-good-deal-adverbs

pathetic fallacy

should this be added to the derived terms of fallacy? I feel like the pathetic fallacy page should have an etymological detail of how this term came to reference the idea.

Derived terms are supposed to be morphological derivatives. The collection presently listed as related terms is somewhat haphazard; there are also bandwagon fallacy, base rate fallacy, black swan fallacy, fallacy of composition, conceptual fallacy, ethnocentric fallacy, fallacy fallacy, gambler's fallacy, genetic fallacy, just-world fallacy, logic fallacy, ludic fallacy, masked man fallacy, Monte Carlo fallacy, naturalistic fallacy, nirvana fallacy, no true Scotsman fallacy, sunk costs fallacy and Texas sharpshooter fallacy. I am not sure why we should list which ones, if any.  --Lambiam 12:35, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

most part

I've found the following quote in our entry for sensitive: "The sensitive faculty most part overrules reason, the soul is carried hoodwinked, and the understanding captive like a beast."

Does most part mean for the most part, or am I misparsing the sentence? Canonicalization (talk) 16:17, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I think it is a short version of the adverb. Although rather colloquial, people using it are in good company (see the second use on the page).  --Lambiam 16:53, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

learned borrowing, educated guess

Leaving aside etymology-2 learned ("Derived from experience; acquired by learning"), which isn't the right sense here, I think our definition of etymology-1 learned ("Having much learning, knowledgeable, erudite; highly educated") doesn't quite fit with learned borrowing. A borrowing can't be "knowledgeable" or "educated". Same for educated guess ("a guess having attained a level of higher education, such as a college degree"?). Might we have to add senses? Canonicalization (talk) 20:51, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Here's the Longman entry for learned: “learned” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.. They dedicate a full entry to the collocations "learned books" ("learned works", etc.), which they define thus: "books etc that are written by people who have a lot of knowledge". Canonicalization (talk) 20:56, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Not only do the two entries for learned have different etymologies, they also have different pronunciations. In learned borrowing the first word is disyllabic, so there can be no question it belongs under etymology 1. I don’t like the definition “written by people who have a lot of knowledge”. Some people who have a lot of knowledge have written children’s books; are these children’s books then learned books? Like German gelehrt – literally ”learned“, the adjective can also mean “scholarly” – in particular in the sense of exhibiting scholarship.  --Lambiam 23:45, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I agree Longman's definition is unsatisfying. Can I task you with adding your suggestions to the entries? Canonicalization (talk) 21:58, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

You can also give an educated estimate or an educated answer (or an uneducated guess), so I think it is worth recording a corresponding sense for educated: “Based on relevant information”.  --Lambiam 23:57, 17 December 2019 (UTC)

"reek" an entry in the dictionary of Scottish slang

I am a relative newcomer to your worthy project, but a septuagenarian logophile with long years of exposure from North America to my Gaelic heritage. I note "reek" is defined herein only as "stink" which I agree is a widely accepted modern usage. There is a traditional Scottish toast, however, of ancient provenance at that, "Lang may yer lumb (chimney) reek (smoke) wi' ither (other) folks' coal (fuel)." I suggest that at least this meaning for "reek" be added to your lexicon. I leave to your judgement if the other words, translated in parentheses, i.e., "lumb," "ither" and "coal" might be included. "Coal" is perhaps no' sae wurthy, although it would seem in my experience to refer to more combustibles than anthracite, bituminous and lignite, such as"peat" or "charcoal." Keep up your fine work.

We treat Scots as a language in its own right, and we do have this sense for reek under the heading Scots: “Of a chimney: to emit smoke, to fail to emit smoke properly, sending it back into the room.” We also have entries for ither and sae. But we have no Scots entry yet for coal, and no entry of any kind for lumb or wurthy.  --Lambiam 00:08, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

We have lum for chimney. Equinox ◑ 08:59, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

For reek, you can refer to it in DSL, also in the Concise Scots Dictionary (hard copy published by the Edinburgh University Press). DonnanZ (talk) 12:06, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan

Wiktionary is all over the place in defining the location of these countries ("Western Asia", "Eastern Europe", "Eurasia"). Accordingly, some use {{list:countries of Europe/en}}, others {{list:countries of Asia/en}}. I propose that we consistently define them as countries in Western Asia, because they are south of the Caucasus mountains, the classical boundary between Europe and Asia. Alternatively, we can use "Eurasia" and put them under both categories. But in no case should they be defined only as European countries. @Allahverdi Verdizade, Abkhazian1, Dixtosa. Also @Fenakhay, because you just moved Armenia into Asia. --Vahag (talk) 06:57, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Somewhat relatedly, see Wiktionary talk:Criteria for inclusion/Well documented languages § Apartheid; pinging @Lambiam. Canonicalization (talk) 09:20, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

This is a notorious problem. There is general agreement that the dividing line between Europe and Asia winds up through the Aegean Sea along the coast of Anatolia, then bending eastward, passing through the Dardanelles, Sea of Marmara and Bosporus to end up in the Black Sea. But where it enters dry land again is a free-for-all. Read all about it in Wikipedia, Boundaries between the continents of Earth#Europe and Asia. For its Georgia article, Wikipedia uses the description “a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia”, thus wisely evading the issue. We can do likewise.  --Lambiam 11:14, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Our definition for Georgia was the same until this edit. --Vahag (talk) 12:05, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

Sure, let's go with Western Asia. Allahverdi Verdizade (talk) 12:38, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

If the boundary between Europe and Asia is the range of the Great Caucasus, than Georgia (and Azerbaijan as well) is a country in Eastern Europe and Western Asia, but Armenia in Western Asia.--Abkhazian1 (talk) 01:35, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

We could put the countries in question for each language in a template and transclude this template in both the Asia and the Europe list. Fay Freak (talk) 02:03, 22 December 2019 (UTC)

I put all three in Eurasia and included them in both Category:en:Countries in Asia and Category:en:Countries in Europe. Let's see how long it will take until some insecure user deletes the "unprestigious" references to Asia. I bet the first one will be a Georgian. --Vahag (talk) 19:36, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

Old English þeowian

According to Ringe, the diphthong is short. That fits with the etymology, which is *þewēn and not *þeuwēn. —Rua (mew) 20:18, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

I believe analogy caused developments like ew > ēow in some Old English words, as a result of the development of tautosyllabic ew to the diphthong ēo. For example, take the related noun þēow: here, the word-final w in the nominative singular must have been analogically restored from the other forms, and on the other hand, the presence of "ēo" in the other forms is apparently from the influence of the nominative singular. So I don't think the etymology necessarily means þeowian had a short vowel in the first syllable. Can you give more information about what Ringe says (and where)?--Urszag (talk) 04:31, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

copper sense 2

Sense 2: (countable) Something made of copper. Like what? It can't be a coin (already sense 4) or a cooking-pot or kitchen fitting (sense 5). Equinox ◑ 12:08, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

I remember when I was young we had a boiler for washing that was called a copper. It was a large copper vessel in a brick surround heated by a fire underneath, and had a stovepipe chimney at the back. I think it was hardly used after we got a washing machine, except when my mother was preserving fruit. And starlings used to nest in the chimney... DonnanZ (talk) 12:24, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Sense 5 is a big pot. I'm specifically asking what "copper thing" could be covered by this word that isn't a coin, pot, etc. Equinox ◑ 23:59, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Ah, at least that confirms what I said. It was in a utility room called the wash house, not in the kitchen. DonnanZ (talk) 10:52, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm gonna RFV this bad boy! Equinox ◑ 03:53, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

Franklin’s “coppers”

There is a quotation at copper for the sense “copper coin”, ascribed to Benjamin Franklin and probably copied from The Century Dictionary: “My friends filled my pockets with coppers”. It is accompanied by a request: (Can we date this quote by Benjamin Franklin and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?). The author’s full name was a cinch. Trying to fill in the other details, I found the following. (1) The quotation is far from accurate. (2) As far as I can tell, the story this was lifted from was first published in July 1790, three months after Franklin’s death, in The American Museum, or, Universal Magazine, under the title “The Whiſtle—A true ſtory”. Foregoing long s’es, in modern typography, the opening sentence is: “When I was a child, at seven years old, my friends, on a holiday, filled my little pocket with coppers.” (3) The story was lifted from a letter Franklin wrote to one Mme Brillon in 1779 – or rather from the English version of the letter. Only, in that letter the sentence reads: “When I was a child of seven years old, my friends on a holiday fill’d my little pocket with halfpence.” Very possible the coins were halfpence, because in 1713 little Ben lived in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, a British crown colony, and not in the USA. But for unknown reasons, the (unknown) editor of The American Museum thought it fit to suppress this colonial reference. Or did Dr. Franklin perhaps himself edit this story with an eye to publication? My predicament is how to fit this in the quotation format. Who to present as the “author” of a quotation filled with coppers if they are probably not Franklin’s?  --Lambiam 06:29, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Our focus is on the word selection, not the authorship of the entire citation. Unusually, in this case we may have enough information to get specific about the individual word. For a selection of a word in a translation, "authorship" is by the translator. If the word selection was by an editor, "authorship" is by the editor. It may be the editor of The American Museum, or, Universal Magazine who should get the "authorship". I have had trouble getting this kind of thing into our quotation templates. DCDuring (talk) 08:10, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

It might be simpler to get another citation from the same issue of The American Museum, or, Universal Magazine. There are at least eight uses of the word copper apparently. Any one with the same meaning that has clear authorship would make it easier to be at once accurate and brief. DCDuring (talk) 08:23, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

“copper”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC. ascribes the quotation to The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, but it is unclear what edition they used. More rabbit warrens. DCDuring (talk) 08:32, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

Here is a usable citation:

• 1799, Benjamin Franklin, edited by John Bigelow, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, published 1868, page 255:

  I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften, and concluded to give the coppers.

HTH. DCDuring (talk) 09:10, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

run

Under the verb sense, there is a list of hyponyms, a list of idioms, a list of derived terms, and a list of related terms. There is a note saying that the hyponyms should be allocated to individual senses (but since the note refers to apparently irrelevant templates "syn" and "ant", the note may have been copied in error). My feeling is that these "hyponyms" should in general not be added to the senses, but should be merged with the derived terms and/or related terms. My feeling is that the idioms should likewise be merged. Does anyone disagree? This leaves the problem of what are derived terms and what are related terms. According to WT:EL, derived terms are "morphological derivatives". It gives the example "driver" as derived from "drive". At "run", the derived terms include such things as "also-ran" and "hit-and-run". Are these "derived terms" as envisaged by the definition at WT:EL? Then again, "runner-up" is said to be a "derived term" while "front runner" is a "related term". What is the difference? And again, "related terms" are, according to WT:EL, "words in the same language that have strong etymological connections". Yet "walk" and "move" are listed as "related terms". Do these have "strong etymological connections" with "run"? It all seems totally muddled and random, and I don't think the problems are limited to "run". Does anyone have a clear idea of how this stuff should work? Mihia (talk) 21:01, 21 December 2019 (UTC)

experience

This entry (noun sense) could really use some improvement. Firstly, the definitions seem to overlap somewhat. Secondly, I've just changed the first sense based on Webster 1913, since our definition was awful and didn't distinguish between knowing a thing (e.g. Battle of Hastings took place in 1066) and actually having experienced it, i.e. been there. That distinction is crucial. Equinox ◑ 13:02, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

None of the definitions are all that good- they tend to be verbose and hard to understand. We also need a usage note about the usage in announcements, etc. to give a more formal, detached tone: "you may experience some pain" vs. "this may hurt", "passengers may experience delays" vs. "the trains may be late". Chuck Entz (talk) 13:31, 23 December 2019 (UTC)

open-door policy

SoP ? We can have an open-door agency, open-door practice, open-door tendency, etc. Leasnam (talk) 04:17, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

I think so, and the second definition seems off anyway. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:32, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

evolution suffix categorization

Shouldn't evolution be categorized into Category:English words suffixed with -ution? I know it doesn't use the {{suffix}} template. Do we mean that the suffix wasn't added to the stem as it was already borrowed otherwise? If that's the case, the category description is misleading...

Dpleibovitz (talk) 06:43, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

That entire category looks misleading, as I wouldn't consider "-ution" a suffix: the suffix is better analyzed as either -tion or -ion, and the -u- in evolution, revolution, solution etc. is just part of the base to which the suffix is added. I think the general question is a good one and I'm not sure about the answer: it is an issue that I noticed when looking at the list of Category:English words suffixed with -al, which omits many -al words like final where the base is not an independent English word. --Urszag (talk) 07:17, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

A word in language X should only be categorized as formed with some X suffix if the suffixation took place in language X. English evolution was borrowed from Latin. Actually, French évolution is attested a century earlier and may have played a role. Additionally, evol is not a stem. One might as well attempt to analyze improbably as being a word suffixed with -bably :). And, since all words in the category end on evolution, why is it not Category:English words suffixed with -evolution?  --Lambiam 12:12, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Evolve is from Latin too. DonnanZ (talk) 13:28, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Shirley#Adverb

This strikes me as being a bit of humorous nonsense, and shouldn't be capitalised, surely (pun intended), even if it is common, which I doubt. DonnanZ (talk) 11:38, 24 December 2019 (UTC)'

It was a (somewhat lame) joke in the 1980 film Airplane!.[12] The only thing that made it funny was Leslie Nielsen’s deadpan delivery.  --Lambiam 12:20, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

I don't see why being a pun should deprive it of its capital letter. Equinox ◑ 12:21, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Next question: is it entry-worthy? Bah humbug! DonnanZ (talk) 12:48, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

I haven't checked but I think I created this one myself. It was popular on a certain Usenet group that I frequented back in the day. I'm sure it must come from some certain book, film, or stand-up comedian. If you object then put it through RFV. I do sympathise with the "yeah but it's just a pun!" position, but isn't this one extremely widespread, like Private Eye 's tired and emotional? Equinox ◑ 22:23, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, you did - diff. I will be kind and let you be the judge, but I'm not enthused. DonnanZ (talk) 23:13, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

wine cave

Hello fellows, the idiom wine cave was Speedy Deleted. Would you please put the idiom back and allow a Discussion for Deletion. I believe there are plenty of citations online and in books that can be used. Thank you TFSA (talk) 12:33, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

single-layer ejecta, double-layer ejecta, multi-layer ejecta

Are these terms SoP? Are they defined correctly: each type of ejecta is a crater, not just found around a crater etc.? Equinox ◑ 13:56, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Nah, it is an attribute, used in such phrases as “a single-layer ejecta crater", “a single-layer ejecta blanket”, “the single-layer ejecta type", “the single-layer ejecta morphology" and “the single-layer ejecta rampart portion of the blanket”. Apart from such uses, we find “the single-layer ejecta surrounding the crater”, making quite clear that the ejecta are not the crater.  --Lambiam 15:18, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

All speedied: incorrectly defined and SOP, created by a known offender in these matters (Sae1962). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:30, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Gender-point-making "goddess" phrases

The phrase oh girl (as variant of oh boy) was recently discussed, and we now note that this is 1. rare and 2. "making a point about gender". Is anyone going to be bothered if I add the same usage note at Goddess bless you, for the love of Goddess, and for Goddess's sake? These are phrases that I imagine would only be used by people who are particularly keen to redress some sort of gender imbalance. It is hard to imagine anyone saying these things in a "normal" way without conscious thought about gender. Equinox ◑ 23:55, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

I object, as that's a stupid way to put whatever you're trying to say. What point is being made? DTLHS (talk) 00:03, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Obviously, the question raised is this: shouldn’t we have usage notes alerting the reader to the fact that these expressions are rarely used, mostly to make a point about unequal gender treatment?  --Lambiam 00:35, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

Okay DTLHS, I know which side you are on, because you literally exploded when someone said "SJW" a few months ago. To clarify for your obvious good faith: there are everyday phrases that have been used for many many centuries, like "for God's sake!", and there are modern variations that deliberately and self-consciously modify those phrases to make them female, like "for Goddess's sake!"; it would be deliberately misleading to suggest that these two phrases have equal use, even if we want them to have equal use to attain some sort of political goal. A lot of our readers are learners who want to speak "normal" English that will be understood by typical native English speakers. I suppose we should help these people speak normal English and not push politics on them. Now do you get it? You can hate me but now do you get it? Equinox ◑ 00:49, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree with Equinox that we ought not to be pushing politics on our readers.

In any case, I would also suggest something with which I know not whether he agrees or disagrees: for any of those 'non-standard profane phrases' like the ones that Equinox mentions (and excluding those that simply replace the subject of the phrase with some random vulgar word), we ought to have some similar usage notes added to them. Something akin to this kind of template could be used:

This use of the expression is relatively rare compared with its synonym. It is typically used by someone who is also making a point about _____, since the more common phrase is [standard synonym].

Tharthan (talk) 06:22, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

"Rare" or "uncommon", sure (...separately, we should discuss criteria for distinguishing those labels), and "nonstandard", in cases where those are accurate. "Making a point about gender" isn't necessarily wrong, but it is vague; someone who says "men and children [should go] first" off a sinking boat or "gentlemen ... and ladies" may be making a point about gender, but potentially one different from "oh goddess" (those are bad examples, what I really mean is that one can make e.g. a feminist "point about gender" but also make a "masculinist" "point about gender", it's a vague phrase); then again, I don't know if we'd have clear enough citations/metadata to be sure of any more specific language about "promoting gender equality" or something. Meh. If we do this, I am inclined to see it templated it like Template:U:en:an h so wording can be tweaked centrally if needed (references could still be added to individual entries, where any are available).
Note that "oh goddess" is as often a religion (e.g. Wicca vs Christianity) -motivated variant as a gender (e.g. feminism) -motivated one. We could have the thing one is making a point about, or even the entire blank in "typically used by someone who is ___", be specified as a parameter. Eh. As a somewhat similar issue, German has some self-consciously "unmaled" words which have at times had ad-hoc, untemplated usage notes about being used by feminists or in particular contexts, which in turn have sometimes been (not unreasonably) deleted as being unreferenced (for example, mensch vs frau). - -sche (discuss) 16:22, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

My experience with people saying "goddess" is they are more often trying to make a point about religion than gender. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:44, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it is reasonable to have notes about that, though I would prefer that the notes specify it is typical of feminist or Wiccan/neopagan use. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:25, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

ġeōl

The entry lists both ġeōl and ġēol, citing Bosworth & Toller, but therein, I only find ġeōl. Jack Waugh (talk) 21:39, 25 December 2019 (UTC)

A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary apparently has gēol – unfortunately no proper preview of the page.  --Lambiam 23:15, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Is pinky informal?

"Pinky" is labeled as Scottish, American and informal, and it is what I call the little finger as an American English speaker. I don't consider it informal because it's the only word I have for the finger, and I don't perceive any type of register difference between "pinky" and "little finger". Do other speakers of Scottish or American English consider the term informal? Julia ☺ ☆ 05:57, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

I am an American English speaker, and I would consider "pinky (finger)" less formal than "little finger". I don't know how to precisely describe its register. I don't think "pinky" is quite as informal as "tummy".--Urszag (talk) 07:28, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

I am also an American English speaker and my experience is the same. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:42, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

I, too, agree with Urszag. DCDuring (talk) 19:24, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

The way I interpret such labels is that the commas are not conjunctive but disjunctive, that is, as declaring that the term is common in Scottish and American English, and furthermore used informally in the rest of the Anglophone world. It is certainly used informally in British English, as seen in this newspaper article. A more formal text, like this one from the NHS, uses little finger.  --Lambiam 13:13, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

I would not interpret the label that way, and if that is what was intended (or, in any case, if the term is also found in British English), it should be edited to be clearer, like the label in bit "(informal in US, archaic in Britain)" or well, well "(current in Britain, but dated in the US and Canada)". - -sche (discuss) 23:00, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Names of marmots

rockchuck is defined here as Marmota flaviventris but the word is reported to be used for other Western marmots. See the Mammalian Species paper on Marmota caligata (https://doi.org/10.1644/884.1 page 156, quoted below) siffleux is defined as groundhog or woodchuck but the same source applies it to M. caligata. Both words may also be applied to other Western marmots living in similar habitats. (In the genus, M. monax is the only eastern species and by far the most often encountered. The other species prefer undisturbed habitats or live in sparsely settled alpine or arctic habitats.)

Quoting Mammalian Species 884: "Common names [of M. caligata] are marmotte des rocheuses and siffleurs or siffleux (French-Banfield 1974; Howell 1915), Skwey-kwey (Ahtena or Ahtna-Richardson 1829), Thidnu (Nagailer or Carrier or Dakelh-Richardson 1829), and ground hog, whistler, whistling pig, whistling marmot, white whistler, whistler of the rocks, rockchuck, mountain marmot, watchman of the crags, and badger (English-Banfield 1974; Dufresne 1946; Howell 1915; Lechleitner 1955; Nagorsen 1990; Whitaker 1988; Woods 1980)."

I have never heard of ground hog being used for any species but Marmota monax but it could have happened. Maybe qualify it as (rare)?

According to Mammalian Species 591 (https://doi.org/10.2307/3504364) on Marmota monax the name woodchuck is northern and groundhog southern. This matches my experience growing up in the Northeast and hearing woodchuck. The author also notes "the Cree Indian name wenusk".

Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:41, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

get off, confusion of senses

Senses 4 and 13 seem thoroughly confused in various ways:

• #4 is "(transitive and intransitive) To stop (doing something), to desist from (doing something)". #13 is "(transitive, especially in an interrogative sentence) To behave in an presumptuous, rude, or intrusive manner".
• #4's usage example: "This is where you get off ordering me about!" (Is that even a plausible usex: "this is where you get off"? It does not sound right to me.) But then #13 has a (better-sounding) usex with that identical sense: "Where do you get off talking to me like that?"; and a 1981 citation for it: "just where does he get off!"
• #4's 2017 citation mentions "twentysomethings trying to get off heroin in Edinburgh": this means trying to get into a state where one is "off heroin", not really "get off" as a phrasal unit, and I doubt that it belongs here at all.
• #4's 2001 citation: "'Get off,' she said skeptically." This seems to mean "I don't believe you; rubbish" so is yet a third different kind of usage, all under #4.

Equinox ◑ 15:02, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

I removed the worst usage example. You are right that a lot more cleanup is needed. I will try and overhaul the entry more later. More things than just the heroin citation (even some of the senses themselves) seem to suffer from the problem of not being a lexical unit "[get off]" but rather "[get] [x] [off] [of y]". - -sche (discuss) 01:19, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

I've overhauled the entry. See what you think. The last verb sense should probably be an interjection. Some of the pairs of transitive and intransitive senses could be combined into "(transitive, intransitive)" senses with careful wording. - -sche (discuss) 09:10, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

I'd like to add the intransitive sense for exiting a highway, but I'm not sure how to word it. Also, is it US only? Ultimateria (talk) 15:34, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you -sche; this is an improvement. It's hard to know where to start on these huge entries for basic words. Equinox ◑ 03:57, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

half a dozen and half dozen

Why is half a dozen classed as a numeral and half dozen as a noun? This is inconsistent, both are nouns, surely? DonnanZ (talk) 17:22, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

pronunciation of microphone

/maɪ.kɹoʊ.foʊn/? Canonicalization (talk) 17:42, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Or perhaps /ˈmaɪ.kɹəˌfoʊn/? Compare microscope /ˈmaɪ.kɹəˌskoʊp/ (And for RP: /ˈmaɪ.kɹəˌfəʊn/; compare RP for megaphone and telephone.)  --Lambiam 23:05, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

I've changed it to the latter. The first pronunciation is maximum enunciation, in which case you could also use /ə/. Ultimateria (talk) 15:28, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

baby-killer

There are several "definitions" and a talk-page request that someone add some cites.

Among the definitions are:

4 (Britain, obsolete) A long-range Zeppelin bomber.

5 (slang, derogatory, dated, used by war opponents) A US-American Vietnam War veteran returning to the United States.

6 (slang, derogatory, dated, used by the Temperance Movement) A saloon.

My own intuition says that a sentence like "A Zeppelin/US soldier/saloon is a baby-killer" is not attestation of these definitions. Those uses of the term are saying that the predicate baby-killer can be applied to the referents. We would need usage like "A farmer, a rancher, and a minister walked in to a baby-killer ("saloon")." or "Close all the baby-killers!"; "The VA denied the baby-killer's claim for benefits." or "Those baby-killers don't deserve benefits.", and "The baby-killer had a payload of 15 tons of bombs." or "The baby-killers will be coming back".

I don't think that a report of people shouting "Babykiller" at a US soldier is attestation either.

But I'd really like advice on this. DCDuring (talk) 21:53, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Does anyone disagree? DCDuring (talk) 18:21, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

So why would a saloon be a baby-killer? Association with brewer's droop? DonnanZ (talk) 18:57, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Because drunken patrons thereof sometimes beat up on their pregnant wives.

Other things that have been called baby-killers in print include long-nippled baby bottles and alcohol-containing patent medicines etc. DCDuring (talk) 19:15, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

Sense 6 "a saloon" seems the most questionable- the others at least are mentioned. DTLHS (talk) 19:34, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

I would agree that someone shouting "baby-killer" at a soldier or saying "saloons are baby-killers" do not seem to attest the meanings in question, but rather, are alleging that soldiers or saloons kill babies. - -sche (discuss) 23:03, 26 December 2019 (UTC)

contact

In English, this can also refer to a phase of an eclipse, right? Is it worth including as a discrete sense? ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:47, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

It is more like an event defining when one phase proceeds to the next, taking place at a specific (observer-dependent) moment of time. For a total solar eclipse there are four such contacts; in each one a limb of the Sun and a limb of the Moon osculate. Totality is the phase between second and third contact. For a total lunar eclipse there are six, when a limb of the Moon osculates with an edge of Earth’s penumbra or umbra (and with both at once at the second and fourth contact). Now totality is the phase of a lunar eclipse between its third and fourth contact. Partial eclipses may have only as few as two contacts. I see no objection to adding this as a sense.  --Lambiam 11:03, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for the detailed explanation. You seem to know a lot about this subject. Would you mind adding a simple sense to the entry? ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:08, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

wiki (protected page)

Please add:

==Japanese==

===Romanization===
{{ja-romaji}}

# {{ja-romanization of|ウィキ}}

----

Thanks. --沈澄心✉ 08:26, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

 Done —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 03:18, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Prehabilitation

A different sense: exercise before cancer treatment - "newly diagnosed patients are being referred to exercise classes and personal trainers, we know that prehabilitation can support people during this difficult time" https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/nhs-cancer-patients-gym-chemotherapy-a9260681.html

"blockchain" countability

Is "blockchain" a count noun or a mass noun? We don't say. My impression is that it was originally intended as a count noun (Wikipedia: "A blockchain, originally block chain, is a growing list of records…"), as you would expect from its etymology, and it acquired an uncountable usage ("The use of blockchain in libraries…") due to confusion engendered by terms like "blockchain technology" and unfamiliarity with the word.

I think this should be clarified in the Wiktionary entry, and also the Wikipedia article should be consistent in its usage. —Kodiologist (talk) 15:32, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

Countable, because various cryptocurrencies have various blockchains (even though a computer may partake in multiple). Fay Freak (talk) 15:46, 27 December 2019 (UTC)

It would be nice to see blockchain modified by uncountable determiners like much, not just the zero determiner. DCDuring (talk) 02:26, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

For some uncountable nouns you may have to wait much eternity for such modification.  --Lambiam 16:11, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

омыть

I normally just ignore the English wiktionary, but this mistake is so egregious. The perfective future is not омыю but омою.

Yes. @Benwing2. I do find some hits for омыет (omyjet), but all such occurrences verge on Church Slavonic. Normal is омо́ю (omóju). Fay Freak (talk) 00:05, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

@Fay Freak Fixed. But I could do without the anon's gratuitous obnoxiousness. Benwing2 (talk) 03:11, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Benwing2, the English wiktionary is good as a start, but there are many mistakes on it. So in the end the Russian wiktionary has to be the gold standard. By the way, you're welcome with regards to my pointing out a problem to fix. I could do without your obnoxiousness.

Anonymous: You are welcome to improve upon entries if you think that there are problems. Remember that Wiktionary is an open dictionary. --Lundgren8 (t · c) 16:53, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I could have made the adjustment myself, but the declension patterns of Russian are complex and it is easy to apply the wrong template. In this case, class 12a perfective transitive needed to be applied, but Benwing2 knows what he is doing in picking the template to apply.

corruption

Definition 9, "something that is evil but is supposed to be good", mystifies me. It makes no evident sense and I cannot think of an example sentence. It either needs an example or, if none can be found, should be removed. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 06:44, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Send to RfV?  --Lambiam 16:14, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

My initial guess would be that it's a poor attempt at covering cases where, say, a law intended to protect an endangered species of adorable duck until its population reaches a sustainable level is being used to justify crushing baby ducks above that level, "a corruption of the law". But that seems to already be (intended to be) covered by the previous senses, especially sense 7 (though I may tweak the wording of some of those preceding senses a bit). - -sche (discuss) 17:19, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, I wasn't sure being a non-native speaker, so I decided to ask here first. I've RfV'd the sense, hope I did it correctly. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 07:55, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

I suppose what is meant is what is covered in the OED as "the perversion of anything from an original state of purity". Examples include violation of virginity, the changing of the meaning of a word. But in the Wiktionary entry these are covered in previous meanings of the word. The example sentences adduced all seem good, but the exact wording of definition 9 a little odd.

Xanadu

I agree with the talk page comment. Where is the figurative sense, which is described in other dictionaries and is fairly well known? Tharthan (talk) 08:24, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

mass grave

"a grave containing many human corpses, either as the result of natural disaster or war". It sounds a bit clumsy to me, as if natural disaster/war were a physical cause of there being many corpses (i.e. as if there were no human agent who buried them). Canonicalization (talk) 03:47, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

A mass grave can also contain the remains of victims of mass murder, or mass suicide, or an epidemic. And the corpses could be of dogs, pigs or cattle. So why bother with the back story? Simply “A grave containing many corpses” will do.  --Lambiam 17:13, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

 Done Equinox ◑ 18:17, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

screwing up in public

Do we have an expression in English meaning "to screw up in public"? In Spanish they have quedar como Cagancho en Almagro. --ReloadtheMatrix (talk) 10:05, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

There is the idiom egg on one’s face, which implies a somewhat publicly witnessed loss of face.  --Lambiam 20:24, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

There are a number of possible phrases. How about "to make a show of yourself?" E.g. "why did you have to go and make a show of yourself?"

吃豆腐

吃豆腐 has a definition, "to come on to someone" and also a usage note "slang for cunnilingus." Two thoughts. One, if it is slang for cunnilingus that is a definition, not a usage note. Second, a Chinese speaker told me the "tofu" refers to the texture of breasts and the expression refers to groping. Perhaps she was raised conservatively and it's a similar situation to the false etymology claiming "pussy" is derived from "pusillanimous." Or the page could be wrong. Or both meanings could be current. I don't know. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:35, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

I'm not a native speaker of Chinese, but my understanding is 豆腐 refers to any part of the exposed skin, and is not specific to a particular part of the body. If 豆腐 does mean the vagina/vulva, surely that is etymological information, not a usage explanation? ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:06, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

FWIW, the current usage notes were introduced in [13], at which time a very different usage note (and also a usex that contradicted that old usage note) was removed. - -sche (discuss) 07:10, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

I am reminded of schoolboys decades back discussing whether one had officially made it to second base with a girl. Different social groups might have different definitions. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 21:28, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Who do we have that we could ping who's active and speaks Chinese, who might be able to shed light on this? User:LibCae? (But I'm not sure how familiar/comfortable they are with this topic.) - -sche (discuss) 19:31, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

I do not know much about the phrase, sorry. There were several theories in the Chinese text, which most of them were definitions without sexual claim. There were proposed stories, I couldn’t distinguish if they’re trustworthy. LibCae (talk) 08:12, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

I found on the requested list of Chinese words "卖豆腐 - a euphemism for prostitution (tofu euph. for women's breasts)" which supports my Chinese friend's understanding. Since there are now four voices (albeit uncertain and not authoritative) for the primarily non-genital meaning my suggestion is we revert the edit cited above. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:28, 5 January 2020 (UTC)

adjourn

Sense 1: "To postpone". Sense 2: "To defer; to put off temporarily or indefinitely". I was going to merge these senses, which appear to be identical in meaning, but then noticed that some of the translations differ. Can anyone comment? Equinox ◑ 18:40, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

The first example is a well-defined change to a scheduled event, while the second is more indeterminate. In formal use a legislature may simply "adjourn" if it is expected to reconvene at some definite time, and "adjourn sine die" if it will not. Perhaps that is the kind of distinction being made. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:11, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

obby

Obsidian, in video games. Which game(s) is this used in? Is it specific to only one game? I've found and added precisely one citation in Google Books. Equinox ◑ 00:26, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Minecraft. But the game itself doesn't use "obby". Ultimateria (talk) 13:39, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

The single citation I found refers to an "obby shield and a fresh Verac Plateskirt", which seems to be from Runecraft. Equinox ◑ 16:33, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

 Done DTLHS decided to RFV this term so I guess we're done here. Equinox ◑ 03:57, 9 January 2020 (UTC)

English words without vowels

Should the category English words without vowels include terms such as æt. that include æ? John Cross (talk) 11:26, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Apparently "æ" is ligature of vowels a and e, called ash and a ligature is a character that visually combines multiple letters. John Cross (talk) 11:30, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

That is a vowel sound so it should preclude the category membership. Ditto œ. (Well, the category text says aeiouy but I think the creator just didn't think of these old ligatures.) Equinox ◑ 16:37, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

I agree and it seems uncontroversial so I've implemented it here. (This prevents words with æ and œ from being automatically added to Category:English words without vowels by the English headword templates.) — Eru·tuon 01:16, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. I appreciate the help on this one.John Cross (talk) 18:52, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

æ is a vowel in Danish and Norwegian, and Faroese and Icelandic I think, but is not used in Swedish. DonnanZ (talk) 00:48, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

More precisely, it is a letter in its own right (and not just a ligature of two letters) in the Latin alphabets of these languages. In Nynorsk, the letter can represent /æ/ (e.g. in bær), /e/ (e.g. in mæla), or even /ɛa/ (e.g. in læra), which are different vowels. It was also used in the orthography of Old Swedish, as seen e.g. in færþ.  --Lambiam 10:10, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Not only that, Æ is a distinctive capital letter. DonnanZ (talk) 10:47, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

And it has "crept" into English - see Æsop. DonnanZ (talk) 12:18, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you also for the additional comments. John Cross (talk) 18:52, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

commons:File:Fr-solennel.ogg

Is it me, or does the speaker say /sɔ.la.nɛn/ instead of /sɔ.la.nɛl/ in the audio file at French solennel?  --Lambiam 09:44, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

I think it’s a pretty clear /sɔ.la.nɛl/. --Lundgren8 (t · c) 16:11, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

Well, it's not a great file; it does sound kind of like -n. In general, with things like this (see also Wiktionary:Tea_room/2013/February#Dutch_enig.2C_Audio_file_file:Nl-enig.ogg, and look at the history of that file to hear how it originally sounded), even if some people think the existing file is adequate, the easiest/best thing to do is replace the file with one that's unambiguously better. Maybe ask someone on fr.Wikt? - -sche (discuss) 19:36, 1 January 2020 (UTC)

If you listen carefully, the n sound comes after the l, as what sounds to me like a sort of nasalized release. I think simply cutting off the recording a hair sooner would get rid of the confusion. Of course, I speak US English, so unreleased final consonants sound normal to me- a native speaker might disagree. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:47, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't hear an /n/. I hear /sɔ.lɛ.nɛ.lə/, which would be the result of over-enunciating the L at the end. I don't think it's a very good pronunciation, because the schwa sound is phonemic in French and it would not normally be added to the end of a word that didn't end in E. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 22:58, 15 January 2020 (UTC)

voor zo ver ik weet

Dutch voor zo ver ik weet (literally “for so far as I know”): two questions.

1. Shouldn’t the second+third words be univerbated to zover (cf. voor zover bekend) – or is this also allowed, orthographically?
2. Shouldn’t this be generalized to voor zover iemand weet (“as far as one knows”)? After all, it can also be used in forms like “voor zover wij weten” and “voor zover men weet”.  --Lambiam 10:33, 31 December 2019 (UTC)

1. Per the prescriptivist dictates it is not allowed, but I can't see a convincing reason for following that blindly and we go by usage anyway; zo is simply an adverb in that case. 2. It apparently can be generalised, yes. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:31, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

meaning of спелый

I posted a question about слепого граната meaning ripe pomegranate, but someone has cleared it up for me, and the phrase that I should have looked more closely at was спелого граната.