Wiktionary:Tea room/2019/January

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← December 2018 · January 2019 · February 2019 → · (current)

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seedy

Erm... I don't think that seedy and CD are true homophones. CD is /ˌsiːˈdiː/, whilst seedy is /ˈsiːdi/. Tharthan (talk) 06:30, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Good first catch of the year. Just remove the offending claim.  --Lambiam 09:53, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Done. Tharthan (talk) 12:18, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

It's basically just a stress difference in dialects where the pseudo-phoneme /i/ is pronounced /iː/. I wonder how many such pairs there are. — Eru·tuon 23:08, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

I found these:

• beedi :: BD
• ceety :: CT
• deedy :: DD
• peedie :: PD
• peepy :: PP
• peety :: PT
• peevy :: PV
• seepy :: CP

 --Lambiam 22:21, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

How about see you :: CU --Wonderfool Dec 2018 (talk) 10:55, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

kaypoh

Can someone please look at the second quotation added in this edit? KevinUp (talk) 17:43, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

 Done. I’ve looked at it.  --Lambiam 19:04, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Well, I can't find the source of that (vulgar) quotation. If it's an example sentence, then it's not friendly. The third quotation, "If people wants to be kaypoh, let them." doesn't reflect how the word is used (try substituting the same word with proud, hungry, greedy, sexy or any other adjective). KevinUp (talk) 20:34, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

I did find the source ([1]), but I agree it is not a good quotation; it only shows that the word is used, but not what it means.  --Lambiam 09:53, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

stretch limousine

I'm not speaking English natively, but it seems like stretch also means limousine (a large one), a sesnse missing right now it seems. Would you confirm? Should an entry stretch limousine also be created? BR, — Automatik (talk) 23:05, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster and Collins have two adjective senses for "stretch": elastic (as in "stretch pants"), and longer than normal (as in "stretch limo"). I think these belong at "stretch", and "stretch limo" would then be an unnecessary sum of parts. Ultimateria (talk) 04:59, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

MWOnline has a noun definition at stretch "a stretch limousine". DCDuring (talk) 17:15, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Other have such a sense too.

We also lack the adjective sense that MWOnline and others have that includes the usage in "stretch DC-8", "stretch 737", "stretch Humvee", "stretch aircraft", "stretch station wagon", "stretch taxi", etc. DCDuring (talk) 17:20, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Also “stretch bike”.  --Lambiam 20:56, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Several dictionaries, including MWOnline, have entries for stretch limo and stretch limousine. DCDuring (talk) 17:26, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

I have the feeling that stretch in stretch limo does not simply mean “elongated”, but serves to disambiguate the polysemic term limo. We see the same thing in the term economic crash. It does not signify a crash that happens to be economic; rather, it is simply one of the several meanings of crash, and the adjective tells us which one.  --Lambiam 21:05, 2 January 2019 (UTC)

Sure. But why do professional lexicographers, with the habit of economising on print space have stretch#Adjective, stretch#Noun, stretch limo, and stretch limousine, the latter three all referring to the same thing? DCDuring (talk) 03:47, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

complex - complexer, complexest, complices

Our treatment of the plurals and comparative forms of complex seem problematic to me; they are given equal weight and there is no notation that one is widely considered correct and the other widely considered incorrect (or archaic in the case of the plural). What should be done in cases such as this where, while ardent descriptivists may want the uncommon form included, there is an accepted form and an almost completely proscribed alternate form? I don't think a simple usage note suffices, I think we should exclude the "complexer" and "complexest" variants from the headword line. - TheDaveRoss 21:21, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

In the mathematical sense, the plural complices is, although less common, not considered archaic (as in the combination “simplicial complices” – kind of a mathematical oxymoron).  --Lambiam 22:37, 3 January 2019 (UTC)

far out

far out and far-out are missing definitions meaning "far away"/"far off". Danielklein (talk) 10:15, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Those "definitions" are just the definitions of the individual words. DCDuring (talk) 17:54, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

Why is far away a lemma? Following that logic, it can be understood as the two words separately. Danielklein (talk) 01:15, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

明星 (Japanese)

Is the sense about a magazine really a common noun and not a proper noun (sense 2 also looks like a proper noun to me)? ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 11:02, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

No, it's not a common noun, it's the title of a periodical issued from 1900 to 1910 (roughly). The characters basically mean "bright star", and this standardly refers to Venus, or the "morning star". I checked in Daijirin, and there is no mention of Antares. Imaginatorium (talk) 04:49, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

@Lingo Bingo Dingo, Imaginatorium: Daijirin can sometimes be a bit sparse in its definitions. See more discussion at Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion/Non-English#明星_(Japanese). ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:25, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Craste - possibly French?

As seen in/From wiki:Eyre#name, can I get confirmation of the language of 'craste' and possibly confirmation of its usage as 'ditch' like in fr.wiki:Craste?

Alternatively, how likely am I looking at a misspelling? G.translate is suggesting creste instead, but I know no French, so I won't hastily suggest anything.

Much appreciated. ~~ Elfabet (talk) 15:31, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

It looks like the term craste is correct: [2]. See also here. It is apparently a word local to the Moors of Gascony (spécifiquement landais), possibly from Gascon dialect. I don’t know what “NLPBG” stands for. “G” could be gascon(ne)(s) or girondin(e)(s), and “NL” might be nouvelle liste, but this is pure guesswork and does not bring us much further.  --Lambiam 17:50, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

“NL” can also stand for noms landais.  --Lambiam 15:11, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Caucasity/caucasity

We define Caucasity as mere "Whitness"...but I believe it's more than that in actual usage. The majority of examples I've seen and heard are actually a blend of Caucasian + audacity, and refer to the rude and blatant insistence of whites to presume entitlement in some way solely because they are white. Anyone else see this ? Leasnam (talk) 22:36, 4 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree it's more than just whiteness; I wasn't quite sure how to define it, but it seems like (and the second half of the definition does invoke) "stereotypical" whiteness. But The Leilani Nishime quote for Caucasity doesn't seem to invoke entitlement(?) or anything beyond appearance(?), and the Hau Chu quote for caucasity seems like just "stereotypically white dress", not any particular audacity. Other authors do seem to see acting entitled as a stereotypically white thing to do, though. Maybe the definition could be along the lines of: "Stereotypical whiteness, in attributes, clothing, behavior or sense of entitlement" ? Or how would you define it? - -sche (discuss) 01:06, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

The Hau Chu quote seems to imply an almost "so 'white' it's comical" aspect. Caucasity is certainly an unflattering term, as though to mean "embarrassingly 'white'", where the embarrassment is apparently unbeknownst to whites themselves but obvious to all others. I've heard it used in a lot of different ways: some using it to refer to "things stereotypically associated with whites or white culture", to the more extreme "audacity of Caucasians who feel entitled to assume privilege and consent when interacting with other cultures not their own". I feel the definition above is a little too general (but it does cover everything broadly...too broadly). What is meant by "stereotypical whiteness" ? That can mean anything. It can mean "bubblegum and Brittney Spears" to "Right to bear arms and lynching" (sadly), depending on what aspects of stereotypical whiteness one chooses to spotlight. Perhaps more than one definition is needed ? Alas, it's late, and I'm tired. I may be babbling. Let me look again at this in the am :) Leasnam (talk) 07:43, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Completely separate from the etymology or etymologies and their connotations, I think it is not correct to label the word as AAVE just because it is mainly used by African Americans.  --Lambiam 10:06, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, as I've heard it used by whites too, pointing out "dumb sh*t" other whites do... :] Leasnam (talk) 16:07, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Given the citations the "audacity" blend ety sounds highly plausible, especially with the given alt spelling caucacity. Many such racist/sexist blends are out there, mangry, brogrammer, etc. Equinox ◑ 12:59, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

As a definition, how about: "An umbrella term used criticisingly to refer to overt, unflattering, insensitive, or offensive stereotypical aspects of whites or white culture, especially those viewed as acceptable or ideal by whites themselves; arrogant and unabashed whiteness" ? In this I tried to capture the whole underlying connotation of [please forgive me, I don't mean to be offensive] "having the nerve to be so 'white' while at the same time not realising that we do not hold to your typically 'white' idealistic assessment of the situation" [end quote], but that's basically how it strikes me. In the Leilani Nishime cite it alludes to Emma Stone playing the part of a bi-racial Hawaiian by stating--"you must first get past the obvious stumbling blocks" and then proceeds to list out all the typically white things about her (that perhaps some of Hawaiian heritage might find offensively imposed upon them). Leasnam (talk) 17:47, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

That seems like more of a usage note description of the word than a gloss definition of what it means, and seems also itself rather broad, hitting qualities that don't strike me as definitional: e.g. "insensitive", but a hyper-sensitive white person "triggered" by a black man not standing up during a song, and yelling at or about him, also seems like Caucasity (especially if juxtaposed to e.g. white people disrespecting black music). "Criticisingly" and "offensive stereotypical aspects" seem like they might be better as a label → derogatory. Our not-infrequent use of "AAVE" to mean "African American speech" is something that should be addressed more broadly, I think (it is technically inaccurate, as Lambiam says). We should decide if we want to replace "AAVE" with another label in such cases. I changed the def to be closer to what we're talking about here. Further improvement is obviously possible. - -sche (discuss) 02:38, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Looks good. Thank you :) Leasnam (talk) 04:48, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Cebuano

Just curious why there are Cebuano entries for every single word, despite none of the words I come across having any relation whatever to Cebuano? Just so random to mention a word from opne language, under another language's category, when there is not relevance. For example, why do we not format entries as:

Pizza

Bulgarian

From the English for Pizza.

I don't get it? 110.54.248.93 15:13, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

For one thing, the Bulgarian term is пица. But under pizza we have Catalan pizza, Czech pizza, Danish pizza, Dutch pizza, Finnish pizza, French pizza, Icelandic pizza, Neapolitan pizza, Norwegian Bokmål pizza, Norwegian Nynorsk pizza, Polish pizza, Portuguese pizza, Slovak pizza, Spanish pizza, Swedish pizza and Turkish pizza. Only, we do not say “From the English”, but “Borrowed from Italian pizza”. Many words that were borrowed by Cebuano (like kumusta, from Spanish cómo está), were also borrowed by Tagalog, but is that a problem? It might be helpful if you can give concrete examples of entries that you consider problematic.  --Lambiam 22:49, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

boule

„Trasferite baccalà e patate in una boule, filtrate l'acqua di cottura e tenetela da parte.“ (servizitelevideo.rai.it) Boule does not only mean hot water bottle [3] but seems to be a stainer too – like boule à thé / tea strainer. --Edward Steintain (talk) 08:37, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

The Italian Wikipedia calls the term boule for hot water bottle a pseudo-francesismo. (The actual French term is bouillotte.) I think that in the recipe we see another pseudo-francesismo, the French word boule as if meaning “bowl” (“Transfer the cod and potatoes to a bowl, ...”). The actual French term for bowl in the sense of “food container” is bol. Interestingly, English bowl in the sense of “ball” comes from French boule.  --Lambiam 11:45, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, the chef Gennaro Esposito Vico Equense, Campania could be called a boule-fan. --Edward Steintain (talk) 17:23, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

thither elaboration of the usage note

Could sb please elaborate a bit the usage note? I cannot really grasp what it means. --Backinstadiums (talk) 14:38, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

You are not alone.  --Lambiam 14:58, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

I think that Usage note has it backwards. thereto is an example of pronoun (there = that) + preposition (to). Regardless, it's not relevant to thither Leasnam (talk) 15:28, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Somewhat relatedly, do others think of hither and thither as being antonyms? DCDuring (talk) 15:43, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

To call it a Usage note is misleading, particularly since thereto does not have literal locative meaning. It is more nearly of etymological interest. DCDuring (talk) 15:55, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps the note was intended to compare or contrast the use of "thither" with the use of "thereto", in which case it would qualify as a usage note, but unfortunately it does not get around to actually explaining how these words are similar or different in their usage. It just leaves it to the reader to figure out. (By the way, I think it is not impossible for "thereto" to have a locative meaning; see e.g. [4], though you have to ignore the many typos/scannos for "there to".) Mihia (talk) 20:34, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Since we already have attestation and since other OneLook Dictionaries (and Century) don't have the locative sense, we may as well add it. It is much less common than the non-locative sense. DCDuring (talk) 01:38, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Does anyone feel up to fixing the usage note? Otherwise I think we should just delete it.  --Lambiam 12:25, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

I say delete it. It doesn't do much more than confuse the reader in to thinking there is a caveat to look out for (when there really isn't), and as stated above, it's not really a guide to how the term ought to be used. Leasnam (talk) 05:15, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Usage note deleted. DCDuring (talk) 13:01, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

saporirsi + impepata

Something to add? impepata (noun): un condimento di aglio, olio e molto pepe, che va ad in saporirsi con l'acqua di vegetazione dei frutti di mare stessi, formando un brodetto molto saporito in cui intingere il pane.[5] --Edward Steintain (talk) 17:28, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

numskull

Usage note:

Numskull is often capitalized as the fictitious name of the traditional fictional butt of jokes.

Is this really important or significant enough to make a point of? I would say no. I propose deleting it, but if you disagree -- if there is some importance here that I'm not seeing -- please say so. Mihia (talk) 18:46, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

I've removed it. I wouldn't be offended if someone reverted, but I don't think it there is anything about this word that especially merits the remark. Morality plays are filled with such names. DCDuring (talk) 19:07, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree that it is not worthy of a usage note. - TheDaveRoss 19:14, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

• OK, thanks. Mihia (talk) 20:36, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

is it me

Someone left a dumb message on my talk page - "Is it me or has it been a while since you've nominated proper nouns of statues for deletion?" I should've just deleted the stupid message, but kept it because is it me looks lexical to me. --Wonderfool Dec 2018 (talk) 10:52, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

• Added two senses. Feel free to improve. SemperBlotto (talk) 11:38, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Also the variant is it just me or... etc. --Backinstadiums (talk) 12:03, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

a day late and a dollar short part of speech

This was changed from adverb to noun a while back, but it feels like an adjective or an adverb to me.
Most usage I am seeing is adjectival:

• "Not only was the snow a day late and a dollar short, but thanks to the timing of it all, it was all over the roads."
  

But some is adverbial:

• "...it's a lesson learned a day late and a dollar short."
  

Any thoughts? - TheDaveRoss 13:50, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

The first use is as a predicate, which by no means implies that the expression is not a noun.

The second use is an example of a common adverbial use of a noun. This is temporal, but there is also abundant locative adverbial use of nouns. Other temporal examples:

Did he play Sunday? He worked all last year. The store is open 365 days a year.

I'm inclined to minimize the number of word classes when there is virtually no semantic difference between the definitions of a word in its more common word classes and in its uses that differ grammatically. DCDuring (talk) 15:30, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Fair, and I am no grammarian so I defer, but I was having trouble using it in "common" noun situations, which made me wonder how noun-y it really is. - TheDaveRoss 16:10, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

@DCDuring: But couldn't you say "it's a lesson learned late"? "a day" looks like a premodifier to late (used to precise the extent to which one is late), and late looks like the (adverbial) head. Per utramque cavernam 17:42, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

That seems like a good analysis. What implication does it have for the word class for day? To what end would we add adverb sections for all the nouns that could function adverbially, whether locative, temporal, or other? DCDuring (talk) 19:17, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

Consider also day late, dollar short, currently labelled an adjective, a different part of speech from its longer synonym, above. Perhaps they should be labeleld as phrases? - -sche (discuss) 02:09, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Like so many English terms (on time, late, short), this can be used both as an adjective and an adverb. I don’t think it can be used as a noun. This sentence is fine: The company undertook an action that was taken too late and is too feeble to be of any use. This is not: *The company undertook a day late and a dollar short. The definition cannot be replaced by the definee, which is a sign something is wrong here.  --Lambiam 12:45, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

I'd be happy enough calling it a phrase. It is, at least, a constituent. I accept that I was wrong to defend its membership in the noun word class. Authors find it easy to modify the phrase with quantifiers and pluralization while retaining the same general idiomatic meaning. But in all cases the NP components of the resulting phrases serve a quantifying function for late and short, which can be either adverbial or adjectival in function. DCDuring (talk) 14:19, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

(bring?) down to earth with a bump, (come?) back to earth with a bump, (bring?) down to earth with a bang, (come?) back to earth with a bang

I don't know how to lemmatise this.

• “come back down to earth” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.
• “bring someone back down to earth with a bump” (US) / “bring someone back down to earth with a bump” (UK) in Macmillan English Dictionary.
• “with a bump”, in Collins English Dictionary.

Any suggestions? Per utramque cavernam 23:33, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

We have come down to earth. We could certainly add bring down to earth. I'd consider just adding usage examples that used with a bump. That way the failed-search page would bring users to relevant entries without us having to add too many lemmas. That Collins has an entry for with a bump suggests that that might be worthwhile too. DCDuring (talk) 00:30, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

shrimp scampi

Does this specific dish merit entry? Scampi#Preparation methods refers to scampi as the typically prepared dish of the arthropod (unheard of to me in the US) or the creature itself. We have a sense for the arthropod but not the preparation method; does it belong at scampi or shrimp scampi?

By the way, I looked up chicken-fried and chicken-fried steak to see another case of preparation method vs. most common dish, and I think the definition for chicken-fried is off, especially if you try to parse the meaning of chicken-fried steak or chicken-fried chicken. Ultimateria (talk) 23:43, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

I think shrimp scampi merits entry, though other dictionaries don't have it. I am finding it hard to find English attestation for scampi as a preparation applied to anything by shrimp. In the US it's connection with the meanings we have for scampi is tenuously indirect.

BTW, there is a great deal of redundancy in our entries for scampo and scampi. DCDuring (talk) 00:21, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Would a definition be something like "A dish of shrimp sauteed with garlic and any of many other ingredients, resembling how Europeans prepare Norway lobster or prawns."? DCDuring (talk) 00:46, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

That definition looks good. I've soft listed scampo as an alternative form of scampi (I'm never sure when to label as rare; "the scampo" has 2 real uses in Google Books) and removed the redundant senses of scampi. X as animal and X as food are not really distinguished here. Ultimateria (talk) 01:25, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Some of the vernacular names and taxonomic names are usually synonyms, too. I'll attend to them tomorrow. DCDuring (talk) 04:10, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

ID10T pronunciation

ID10T says it's pronounced ID ten T, but it doesn't have a pronunciation section. Is it pronounced /ɪd.tɛn.tiː/ or /aɪˈdiː.tɛn.tiː/ or both? Danielklein (talk) 01:09, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

I am only familiar with the latter, four syllables. - TheDaveRoss 14:30, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Four syllables makes most sense because the "ID" is presumably supposed to sound as though it stands for "identifier" (often found in error messages etc.). Equinox ◑ 15:50, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

The podcast ID10T pronounces it as /aɪˌdi.tɛn.ˈti(ː)/. On this (unrelated) video (poor audio quality) I hear /aɪˈdiː.tɛnˈtiː/. Apart from variations in stress and vowel length, it is the concatenation of the pronunciations of ID + ten +T.  --Lambiam 17:26, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

archicontinent

This is predominantly used by Chinese authors, possibly in translation (see Google Scholar)- is that worth mentioning in the entry? DTLHS (talk) 02:45, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Sure. A number of other entries have context labels or usage notes saying things like "chiefly by non-native speakers" (e.g. tranduce, analysize), and a few have specific labels like "Gallicism". - -sche (discuss) 06:46, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm also wondering if there's some Chinese term that it's translating / calqued from. DTLHS (talk) 19:19, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

How to find all words that are derived from a particular word?

For example, the word mycorrhiza is derived from the Greek words μύκης and ῥίζα. How can one find all words that are derived from μύκης or ῥίζα? Yurivict (talk) 06:42, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

You can use the what links here list. DTLHS (talk) 16:07, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

sabbiare / sabbiatura (gastr.)

sabbiare il burro con la farina (ridurre il burro freddo in pezzi e lavorarlo sfregandolo con le mani con la farina, fino a ottenere dei piccoli grani omegenei), poi aggiungere le uova, la scorza grattugiata, il sale, lo zucchero e fare l'impasto molto …[6] What is the English word for a cooking technic that prepares Streusel? Scuola di cucina: pasta frolla e sabbiatura. --Edward Steintain (talk) 08:03, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

All recipes I look at describe the technique (actually, a variety of techniques) in detail in many words. Although the same technique is used in crumble recipes, the English culinary language appears to lack a term for it.  --Lambiam 17:46, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Actually, on second looks, it appears like some recipe authors use the verb crumble with this transitive sense: [7], [8], [9]. This is distinct from the one current transitive sense, as no breaking is involved.  --Lambiam 18:06, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Will L'uomo della sabbia answer like this? # {{lb|it|sabbiare}} to rub butter and flower with fingers to get crumbles}} --Edward Steintain (talk) 21:43, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

@Edward Steintain: – Using the fingers is probably the oldest and (among accomplished home-cooking chefs) the most common technique, but the link you added above mentions three techniques none of which refers to fingers. I have added a new transitive sense of crumble that avoids specifying the technique, with a usex that gives one method. Perhaps we can just refer to that: # {{lb|it|sabbiare|transitive}} to [[crumble]] {{gloss|mix ingredients so as to form crumbles}}.  --Lambiam 12:14, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Lambiam, thanks for your advice, suggestion, and support. --Edward Steintain (talk) 18:40, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

crack on

Sense #1:

1. (intransitive, idiomatic, often with 'with') To continue at a (normally uninteresting) task.

Do people agree with "normally uninteresting"? Mihia (talk) 19:02, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

No, can be any sort of task. Equinox ◑ 19:04, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

That was my feeling too. Anyway, I've deleted it now. 22:00, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

The only US dictionary that has this calls it nautical. Collins has it. It isn't in DARE. Is it mainly UK? DCDuring (talk) 19:52, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

In this "continue at a task" sense, it is in widespread use in the UK. I don't know about usage elsewhere. Mihia (talk) 20:03, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

For information, I also changed "To continue at a task" to "To continue at a task briskly or promptly" since the former definition seems to omit the necessary connotations. Mihia (talk) 18:38, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Mohammedan

Could sb please add the reason Mohammedan is "now offensive"? --Backinstadiums (talk) 19:18, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

According to Mohammedanism, "The terms are sometimes said to be offensive because they suggest that a human being is central to Muslims' religion, and/or because they parallel the formation Christian, Christianity and thus supposedly equate Muhammad and Christ." DTLHS (talk) 19:22, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

w:Mohammedan also says a bit more. Beyond what those pages say, this seems like one of a number of terms (negro may be another) which have become offensive (or: more offensive) over time by virtue of not (or in some cases: no longer) being the term the people themselves use, and then over time not being the term people in general use, such that to use the term is to use an archaicism instead of the people's preferred term, which is often rude. - -sche (discuss) 11:53, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

asystolic

Does anyone understand how these two senses differ?

1. Pertaining to asystole.
2. Not systolic.

I was looking to add, or clarify, or give an example of, the usage of "asystolic" to refer to a person, meaning "not having a heartbeat", e.g. "The patient was asystolic when he arrived at hospital". However, looking at the existing entries I now feel unsure whether this is a new definition or an example of one of the existing ones. Mihia (talk) 21:58, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

I can imagine someone using the term asystolic for the architecture of a massively parallel pipeline that is not systolic. However, I don’t think I have seen this in actual use; the usual technical term would be asynchronous.  --Lambiam 23:17, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

• For now I have added it as a separate sense. If anyone thinks this is wrong, please make necessary adjustments. Mihia (talk) 18:32, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
• From a medical point of view I do agree. People tend to make up new words like boule in the Italian language as a bon ton. To encouter a asystolic state as a by-passing human means to meet someone with no pulse. Asystolic is a shadow of no pulse. People with no pulse need help, asystolic one's are just a matter of fate. --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:39, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Names of streets, roads, etc.

Should names of streets, roads, etc. be included? We do have entries for Main Street, Wall Street and the like, but it seems that they have significant notability, widespread usage and/or extended meanings. See Talk:山藩市 for some background for this discussion. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 06:55, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

Some prior discussion is at Talk:Schloss Burg (besides streets and that castle, people have tried to add names of individual rooms...) and WT:Votes/pl-2010-05/Placenames with linguistic information 2. When those discussions happened, we didn't generally include street names unless they had other meanings, and the vote was ultimately closed as passing, apparently establishing that "names of streets and other minor landmarks needed to create addresses, such as Madison Street or Elm Avenue[,] are not included if they can be recognized as street names or the like from their wording". (WT:CFI currently says only that "it is hoped [...] editors will develop criteria over time to provide greater clarity and address matters not currently covered[,] for example the names of streets".) I tend to think they should not be included except when, as with Main Street, they have extended meanings. That "Oak Street" is a street in several dozen Podunks does not seem like dictionary content to me. - -sche (discuss) 11:30, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

I also found Talk:Aldersgate Street. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 05:54, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

gaswork vs. gasworks ?

Does gasworks always have to be plural? I'm seeing several g.books hits for the singular (But they might be mostly Scottish?) and would appreciate its inclusion, if logical. Cheers! --Elfabet (talk) 14:09, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

There is a peculiarity of English grammar that when a plural noun is used as a noun adjunct, it tends to assume a singular form. See sense 1 of trouser and sense 3 of scissor. Possibly the ghits you see are attributive uses.  --Lambiam 23:17, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

 Done Created. I marked it dated and rare. Equinox ◑ 16:47, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Picking up on Lambiam's point, in attributive use, e.g. "the gaswork building" or "the gaswork site", it does not to me seem dated. It seems more like an attempt to avoid a plural attributive noun (though since "gasworks" may be treated as singular anyway, it is not clear that this is necessary). Attributive "gaswork" does seem much rarer than attributive "gasworks", though, so perhaps it is not worth complicating the entry by mentioning this issue? Mihia (talk) 18:30, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks! --Cheers! Elfabet (talk) 00:05, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

pacifism and other 2nd-rate definitions

"The doctrine that disputes (especially between countries) should be settled without recourse to violence."

1. Is pacifism a doctrine?
2. Would most pacifists object to having generals engage in jousts or boxing or wrestling matches to settle disputes?
3. Are all wars the result of disputes?

IOW don't we have yet another excessively narrow definition?

How should such second-rate (not exactly wrong) definitions be handled? RfV? Talk page? Simple rewrite without discussion? (This general question might be worth a BP discussion.)DCDuring (talk) 12:33, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Usually, when I see a sub-standard definition, I just fix it, sometimes consulting the better dictionaries for inspiration how to come up with one or more pithy phrases that cover all bases. The term pacifism (like some other isms) is difficult to handle, as different authors interpret the term differently. But I think that in principle no discussion is required for a rewrite, unless you know the issue has proven contentious.  --Lambiam 18:07, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Personally I do not have a problem with the existing definition (though I have no objections if anyone thinks it can be improved). Mihia (talk) 18:40, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

I like to use the tea room for such instances, or requests for cleanup in some egregious cases. - TheDaveRoss 19:15, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

I’ve taken a stab at it.  --Lambiam 11:52, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

I suspect that it will take more then one definition. Pacifism can refer to a policy, social movement, or a practice, not just belief, doctrine, etc. Pacifism also seems to be used to include an attitude or practice, usually personal, of avoiding conflict, not just violence.

Also, interestingly, the phonetic similarity of passivism ("passivity") and pacifism has lead to the occasional appearance of contrasts such as between "judicial activism" and "judicial pacifism". I hope this can be considered an error rather than further complicate the definition(s).

I don't think we need different definition lines for those things (policy, practice, belief, attitude etc.). Surely one can suffice, with an "or" if necessary. Personally I was happy with the original "doctrine". I don't personally see the present "conviction" as particularly an improvement. Mihia (talk) 12:24, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Orthologism

I would like to propose the word orthologism as an opposite for neologism. I suppose in itself it would be a neologism!!

It's cute but we don't really include people's individual inventions. Try Urban Dictionary. Equinox ◑ 08:55, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, but how does a neologism get created?

Usually, a word is coined and initially utilised by one or (hopefully) more people, and then generally spreads (if it does spread) when: a. it is used by someone who is influential, or b. the circumstance in which it is used/a specific instance in which it is used catches someone/some people's attention, and then (in either scenario) it spreads from there to the general population (or at least to enough people for it to be considered by the average person [or, ideally, a respected and well-utilised source like a well-known published dictionary] a "word", over time). Then it could be argued that it could be properly considered a legitimate "word" in the language in which it is used. With that said, Wiktionary has specific criteria of its own that need to be met for a word to be included in it. See WT:CFI for more information. Tharthan (talk) 15:35, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

saltiere and/or saltiera

saltiere and/or saltiera are missing.[10] On occasion[11] a saltiera is mixed up with a sauteuse (compare pictures). A saltiera is more like a sautoire if the news of RAI and my understanding of it are correct. Though, saltiera instead of ...e is hardly used as a written word. --Edward Steintain (talk) 08:57, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

As singular it.wp prefers saltiere.[12] --Edward Steintain (talk) 06:26, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

when

Conjunction sense 1:

1. At what time.

This has two usage examples and two quotations:

1. They were told when to sleep.
2. He doesn't know when to stop talking.
3. The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on an afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. […] Their example was followed by others at a time when the master of Mohair was superintending in person the docking of some two-year-olds, and equally invisible.
4. Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.

The only one that I would be confident is actually a conjunction is #4. What do you think about the others? #1 and #2 seem more like adverbs to me, and #3 seems to be what is sometimes called a "relative adverb". (Incidentally, "That time when the dog stole the turkey from the table", which appears to be the same usage as this #3, is given as an example of a different conjunction sense, so this doesn't seem right either.) Mihia (talk) 12:17, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

I would go the other way, moving some of the adverb examples into the conjunction PoS. To me, any example in which the clause subordinated by when can be a standalone declarative sentence it is obvious that when is a conjunction. Apparently nowadays English expressions subordinated by words like when that use infinitives or participles are called deranked subordinate clauses. So, in all the following examples when is a conjunction, subordinating deranked clauses:

1. When walked my dog pulls on its leash.
2. When walking on uneven surfaces I get more of a workout.
3. He told me when to go.

I am not sure that one can come up with a gloss that is substitutable, but a non-gloss definition for a function word is probably superior anyway. DCDuring (talk) 18:20, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

In #3, while "the master of Mohair was superintending ..." could be an independent statement in some context, it is not so within this context. Instead, "when the master of Mohair was superintending ..." modifies "time" (tells us what time is meant). Therefore I would say it does not meet your criterion. As far as cases such as "They were told when to sleep" are concerned, what in your view is logically the subordinated standalone declarative sentence? Later I thought of a slightly different example that may be illustrative: "He told me when I came home". This can be understood as meaning "When I came home, he told me (something)" or "He told me what time I came home". I would say that "when" in the former interpretation is a conjunction, and that "when" in the second interpretation is analogous to "when" in "They were told when to sleep", and is of a different nature. Anyway I hope some other people can also give their views. Mihia (talk) 20:22, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

It was not intended as a criterion. I view all of the expressions after when that contain some form of a verb as subordinate clauses, some "deranked", some not. From that PoV all such uses of when are as a subordinating conjunction. I also don't view the different semantic interpretations of "He told me when I came home" as having different implications for the word class of when in the sentence. The two interpretations do give different grammatical roles to the clauses: the first is a temporal adjunct clause, the second a nominal clause. DCDuring (talk) 04:35, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

stufatura

I would like to suggest stufatura as a procedure of stewing while simmering.[13] But also known in the production of cheese[14] as bacteria spread (which is not so much my speciality). --Edward Steintain (talk) 12:30, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

I think just stewing is an adequate translation. Here you can read about the process in cheese making.  --Lambiam 11:46, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, Lambiam. I shall see to the production of cheese later. --Edward Steintain (talk) 12:03, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Molniya orbit

Five senses?! It's not my area but this seems ridiculous. Can we merge or interpolate? Equinox ◑ 14:55, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

It seems that the first three could easily be merged, simply by adjusting the wording of the first one to allow for the other two. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 05:01, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Here is an attempt at unifying all into the generic sense of the term:

1. A highly elliptical satellite orbit around the Earth with an argument of perigee of −90 degrees or +90 degrees, and typically an eccentricity of 0.74 and an inclination of 63.4 degrees, resulting in an orbital period of close to half a sidereal day, thereby providing low apparent motion across the dome of the sky at apoapsis.

I am not sure we really need to go into such encyclopedic detail.  --Lambiam 11:01, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

brasatura (gastr.)

The noun of brasare (to braise) is brasatura (the braising (noun)): Food is first sautéed or seared at a high temperature, then finished in a covered pot at a lower temperature in liquids.[15] Brasato[16] is the result of brasatura / braising. Allright? --Edward Steintain (talk) 19:31, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

I've just added a noun sense “A dish (usually meat) prepared by braising” to the English noun braise. I don’t think a brasato is necessarily beef; what about a brasato di vitello?  --Lambiam 10:45, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

... also fish and vegan versions (e.g. onion). --Edward Steintain (talk) 12:41, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

@Lambian: “Il brasato è una carne (o più raramente un pesce)” brasato – please compare «pollo brasato». --Edward Steintain (talk) 05:47, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

scottona

The etymology of scottona-meat could be an approach to the discussion about hormone-treated beef.[17] For a quick glance only, start reading here → La scottona è fenomeno principalmente europeo e, in particolare, italiano, … --Edward Steintain (talk) 09:45, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

If I understand correctly the word is Italian for English heifer. The etymology ventured by Giovanni (not “Franco”) Ballarini may be a correct guess or not, but in either case it is not more than guesswork.  --Lambiam 11:18, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Is scottona the virgan animal or the meat of it? I think both. --Edward Steintain (talk) 12:07, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Either, depending on the context. These are animals, and this is meat.  --Lambiam 15:22, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Nice pictures, yummy! A new bit added to introduce Mediterranean diet. (Did you ever try cime di rapa?) --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:02, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

frollare

frollare means (gastronomia) far stagionare la carne degli animali appena macellati. (it.wiktionary, Tv Magazine Cucina, RAI) as described in well hung after a period of w:Meat hanging. --Edward Steintain (talk) 11:37, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Indeed, to age is what far stagionare means. --Edward Steintain (talk) 12:57, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Fishy business

Our entry braise gives the sense Pagellus bogaraveo, syn. {Pagellus centrodontus (sea bream), whereas braize gives the sense Pagrus pagrus. I suspect that these words do not truly have different meanings but are variant spellings of a common name that can refer to a variety of fish species.  --Lambiam 12:27, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

I wonder where @DCDuring got the identification of braise with Pagellus? All I can find are references to it as Pagrus. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:27, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

I'll try to dig that up. In the meanwhile:

• Based on Fishbase (which includes a comprehensive multilingual database of vernacular names in current use) searches for braise and braize:

  Braize refers to a single species (Pagrus africanus) of saltwater fish of the Atlantic coast of western and central Africa.

  Braise is not in use in any language, but following are near matches:

• Name Species Place of use Language
• Brasse Abramis brama Austria German
• Brasse Abramis brama Germany German
• Brasse Nemipterus virgatus Germany German
• Brasse Lethrinus harak Maldives German
• Brasse Lethrinus erythracanthus Maldives German
• braize Pagrus africanus UK English
• Brachse Abramis brama Austria German
• Brachse Abramis brama Germany German
• Brassen Abramis brama Germany German
• Breisen Abramis brama Germany German
• baiser Oncorhynchus mykiss Canada English
• baiser Salvelinus fontinalis Canada English
• brasen Abramis brama Denmark Danish
• brame Abramis brama France French
• Bräse Abramis brama Germany German
• Brasen Abramis brama Germany German
• Brisem Abramis brama Germany German
• [script needed] (baige) Sardinella longiceps India Kannada
• brasem Abramis brama Netherlands Dutch
• brasme Abramis brama Norway Norwegian
• baase Dentex gibbosus Senegal Wolof

That suggests that braise and braize are dated or worse. DCDuring (talk) 14:44, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

Found it:

Webster 1913 had: Becker \Beck"er\, n. (Zool.) "A European fish (Pagellus centrodontus); the sea bream or braise."

Currently I am more willing to rely on Century 1911 rather than Webster 1913 for association of vernacular names and species, except for North America.

Century had "A name of the fish Sparus pagrus, otherwise called braize and king of the sea-breams."

Sparus pagrus is a synonym of Pagrus pagrus (red porgy). DCDuring (talk) 15:11, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

I think they got the taxonomic name wrong. It's relatively easy to find authoritative references with the names in running text that equate becker=braise=Pagrus pagrus(or synonyms), but so far nothing for Pagellus. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:17, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Reminiscences of Eighty Years by John Urie (1910) describes how boys are fishing for braise or eels on a weir in the River Clyde near Glasgow’s Broomielaw Bridge. Also this web page quotes the Gazeteer for Scotland, 1880s, as stating: “Once everywhere a noble angling water for trout, perch, and braise, the Cart, both in its main body and in much of its upper streams, has been foully polluted by the discharges of public works.” (River Cart is a tribituary of River Clyde). The name must have been common in Scotland for some fish that was common in the Scottish rivers in the 19th century. Would Pagrus pagrus venture upstream? Or were they perhaps fishing for black seabream (Spondyliosoma cantharus)?  --Lambiam 06:38, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

The Scots references are a different fish, the roach, Rutilus rutilus. Oddly enough, the Dictionary of the Scottish language has a second sense with a quote giving the Pagellus ID, though I can't figure out what they're quoting from. Chuck Entz (talk) 09:07, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

It would be lovely to know what morphological or other features readily observable by ordinary humans like fishermen made a bream a bream, a ling a ling, a pout a pout, so we could anchor our definitions of vernacular terms in something other than the anachronistic Linnaen and, worse, post-Linnaan descent-based taxa. I am trying to provide a partial basis for such determination with extensive definitions (Hyponyms and derived terms), images demonstrating features related to the name, and geographic information for taxa. But we are far away from having the ability to provide such definitions now. Maybe we could start with birds: What makes a finch a finch rather than a wren? DCDuring (talk) 11:33, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

dolcetto o scherzetto?

In dolcetto «dolcetto o scherzetto» is mentioned which means «trick or treat» (it.wp "dolcetto o scherzetto?"); (German: „Süßes oder Saures“ – „Streich oder Leckerbissen“)[18]. --Edward Steintain (talk) 08:44, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Sweating (gastr.)

sweating: the meaning of w:Sweating (cooking) could be added. Sweating is to cook something at low heat in grease – appassire[19] or far sudare[20] like to sweat is To cook slowly in shallow oil without browning. --Edward Steintain (talk) 11:42, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

What foods are prepared this way? It would be useful to know in case we need citations, especially for an accurate definition of use in English. DCDuring (talk) 12:55, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Q: What foods are prepared this way? A: Nel linguaggio gastronomico, la cipolla (o altre verdure tritate) = vegetable → according to several dozen recipies.(accademia italiana della cucina)

When studying sweating I enjoyed: „Sweating is a generally a quiet operation; if the food is whispering, or worse, hissing, the moisture is probably evaporating too rapidly.“[21] --Edward Steintain (talk) 17:56, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

That helps a lot. I can see a pretty good number of Google Books hits for sweat as a verb with about the definition you suggest. DCDuring (talk) 02:44, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

At sweat#Verb I added the following: "(cooking) To cook at relatively low heat, usually in oil, to reduce moisture content." I hope you aren't bothered by it adjoining "to cause to perspire". DCDuring (talk) 03:00, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks, DCDuring. The Google-Searche «Glossario di Cucina: Appassire» discribes the sweating-procedure in Italian: appassire – scaldare a calore moderato, generalmente in un grasso, una verdura aromatica o altro, facendo attenzione a non far prendere colore.[22] --Edward Steintain (talk) 07:32, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Russian 'glasny'

Can I get some help finding a definition of the word glasny? Presumably a Russian position or title, related to law, probably a translation (how do those work on here?).

I found it first on Fyodor Kokoshkin (politician), and the talk page response has left me more confused, unfortunately. Ultimately, is this something that should be included on this project and what else can I supply to help with that if it should be? Thanks! Elfabet (talk) 13:18, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

See гла́сный (glásnyj), Noun, sense two. Per utramque cavernam 13:44, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

dziękować

It's a verb in Polish. I found it when I looked up dziękuję, which is defined as an interjection and a verb, the first-person singular present of dziękować. However, the second example of the use of dziękować is actually dziękuję as an interjection. Is this correct or should it be deleted? -⁠-⁠173.129.160.217 15:43, 15 January 2019 (UTC)
When I ask whether it's correct, I mean, is it correct to use the interjection as an example of the use of the verb. -⁠-⁠68.244.203.251 16:28, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

House and home

I am Italian and I was wondering the differences between “house” and “home”. Thanks!--151.49.78.7 18:54, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

A house is just the building. A home usually implies that people are living there in comfort. Sometimes people talk about the process of turning a house into a home, i.e. making it cosy and putting your own personal touches on it. Equinox ◑ 19:04, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Also, your home might not be a house. If you live in an apartment block or on a boat, that's your home. Equinox ◑ 19:05, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

I have better and more clear idea about this. Thanks!!! --151.49.78.7 19:09, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

bwana

According to the definition of doublet the following cannot be true Bwana: Borrowed from Swahili bwana (“master”), from Arabic أَبُونَا (ʾabūnā, “our father”). Doublet of abbot. --Backinstadiums (talk) 19:47, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

It is true, because the Arabic and Aramaic words share a common ancestor. It's so distant that I don't see how it's of any use to our readers, but that's another story. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:06, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

irmã

The audio file is not from a native speaker, right? Per utramque cavernam 20:39, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

"Native from: BR / São Paulo". —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 03:02, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

@Suzukaze-c: Ok, thanks. I'm surprised. I don't know anything about Portuguese, but that woman really sounds like a French speaker, and the name looks French too... Per utramque cavernam 12:39, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Anagrams which aren't anagrams

How can Davos and Vadsø be anagrams? An "ø" isn't an "o". DonnanZ (talk) 21:39, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

And another one: DARVO, Davor, and Vardø. DonnanZ (talk) 22:12, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Øh, dear! And here I thøught thøse Scåndahøøvians were just being silly.

Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër? See the løveli lakes, the wøndërful telephøne system, and mäni interesting furry animals, including the majestik møøse! A Møøse ønce bit my sister...

‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:40, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Sorry to disappoint you, it's Ö in Swedish, not Ø. DonnanZ (talk) 00:21, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm aware of that, but apparently the scriptwriters at Monty Python weren't.  :) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:34, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Ah, I guess it's too late to send the scriptwriters back to skola… DonnanZ (talk) 00:42, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

It is so because I will it to be. English letters (= letters that occur in words we call English) are normalized. I could post the full mapping if desired. DTLHS (talk) 23:33, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

Well, I will it not to be. I know the "headless chicken" will restore them if they are removed, so I will give them qualifiers in the morning. DonnanZ (talk) 00:21, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

gone bad

Is the adjective section SoP? Is it under the right part of speech? "He was a gone bad man"? Equinox ◑ 02:00, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

The only possible support for it as an adjective is use in predicates after forms of be.

?The milk is gone bad.

The milk has gone bad.

?My liver was gone bad.

My liver had gone bad.

But the is versions seem at best dialectal. DCDuring (talk) 03:20, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

How should one parse “a deal gone bad”? Like unrequited in “love unrequited”?  --Lambiam 08:37, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Past participle of go bad, IMO. Go doesn't work with very many adjectives, So the expressions of the form go + [adj/pastparticiple] might best be treated as lexical, eg go medieval, go native. But there are more go lesbian, go gay, go bookish. Maybe it is a productive construction. DCDuring (talk) 13:46, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

I've got a list of about 70+ fairly common collocations of forms of go with adjectives. In all cases the adjectives bear the sense of the use with go. Oftentimes a figurative sense of the adjective is the one used with go, eg. dry/wet ("(not) allowing public sale or consumption of alcohol") DCDuring (talk) 22:29, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Template error in Turkish kap

In the Turkish section of the word kap there is an unexpanded or improperly expanded template

kap (definite accusative {{{1}}}, plural {{{2}}})

Vox Sciurorum (talk) 11:58, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks,  fixed  --Lambiam 20:41, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

benzine (Dutch)

Could someone attest that the colloquial pronunciation /bəˈzi.nə/ exists? I don't think I've ever heard a pronunciation without the first n. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 14:05, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it definitely exists. Google Groups also attests a misspelling bezine. I think being in an unstressed syllable causes the first vowel to often become a schwa colloquially, from which point dropping the -n- feels to me like a logical development (intuitively speaking, not sure what the linguistics here is exactly). — Mnemosientje (t · c) 14:18, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

Wouldn’t it actually become /bəˈsi.nə/? I somehow associate this with the pronunciation /mɔt/ for moet and /ɦɛpy/ for hebt u.  --Lambiam 20:50, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

That sounds plausible too, although I personally tend slightly more towards the pronunciation with /z/. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 15:23, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Probably only default in the more northern Hollandic dialects. Productive word-internal onset devoicing is less common than word-initial devoicing. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 14:11, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

go hungry

The definition doesn't seem very good. Per utramque cavernam 16:43, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

See #gone bad. I think this is SoP. There may be a fairly large and growing number of collocations of forms of go + [adjective]. DCDuring (talk) 16:52, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

give someone a big head

I think the definition isn't substitutable: if you say "Please stop telling me how smart I am - you'll give me a big head!", you're not saying "you'll flatter me excessively!" but "you'll make me have a big head!", "you'll make me arrogant!".

"to make someone overly proud and arrogant by flattering them excessively", maybe? Per utramque cavernam 16:49, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

You can presumably make many collocations with big head and I don't see this one as particularly notable. I would delete it or redirect. DTLHS (talk) 16:55, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

We should add "inflated ego" as a sense at big head, right now we only have the sense of "a person with an inflated ego". I do concur that this phrase is non-idiomatic and should be a redirect at best. - TheDaveRoss 17:02, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

@TheDaveRoss: There's a difference in spelling, isn't there? The sense of "inflated ego" will always be spelled big head, while the sense of "person with an inflated ego" will be spelled either bighead or big head. Per utramque cavernam 21:01, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Totally agree. - TheDaveRoss 21:06, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

As used in the senses now given in the "real" definitions big head and bighead are pronounced differently. In the sense used with give/get/have, big head means something like "an inflated ego", as TDR said. I don't think it often means a "person with an inflated ego". I find it heard to imagine bighead being used in speech by someone older than ten and in writing by anyone other than someone writing for or about very young children. DCDuring (talk) 13:16, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

wheelbarrel

Because "barrow" and "barrel" are pronounced differently, this is not a misspelling, but a misconstruction. I changed it to remove "misspelling", but someone reverted. Voortle (talk) 17:46, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

I can imagine the somewhat uncommon word barrow (especially in the UK pronunciation) being misheard as barrel.  --Lambiam 21:43, 16 January 2019 (UTC)

nig

Under the definition of the word "nig" is a second etymology (Etymology 2). The history of this particular Etymology 2 only dates back to 1959. This second Etymology 2 is incorrect and there is no credibility to Etymology 2's origins. The words niggard and niggardly are sometimes misinterpreted as racial slurs because they sound like the highly offensive word nigger. However, the word niggard dates back to Middle English (1325-1375). The first element nygg-, nig- was borrowed from a Scandinavian source, and -ard is a pejorative suffix. The English word niggardly is a modern English formation from niggard. Therefore, these two words are NOT etymologically related to nigger.

Word origin and history for niggard: n. "mean person, miser," late 14c., nygart , of uncertain origin. The suffix suggests French origin (cf. -ard), but the root word is possibly from earlier nig "stingy" (c.1300), perhaps from a Scandinavian source.

Definition of nig: Stingy.

It's correct: try reading it again. Etymology 2 only applies to the "nigger" sense of the word that comes below it. Etymology 1 covers everything above that. Equinox ◑ 04:38, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

"nigger" is not a word, it is considered slang. "niggard" is a word and it is NOT considered slang. This is why there shouldn't be a Etymology 2 because it is misrepresenting the word niggard and/or nig. If slang is excepted as words to be referenced and used appropriately than there would be no end to all the Etymology 2's that could be added and represented by whom ever. In respect, At the very least, these two word references should be separate and not in the same word definition as niggard.

You sound very confused. 1. Slang words are still words. 2. Sometimes a word has two totally different meanings and origins, like "retreat" = "move backwards" or "treat for a second time". That's the case here. Equinox ◑ 08:01, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm confused, first you say "try reading it again" and then again "You sound very confused". I'm not going to read past that horse manure until an adult decides to address this concern. Is it the word? Does it offend you? That's about the only explanation I can make of your ignorance. Please let an adult respond thank you.

Equinox' explanation is entirely sufficient. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 13:47, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Okay. I pity your stupidity and I can assure you the page will remain as it is. Hugs n kisses, Equinox ◑ 13:58, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

My point exactly.

per lungo

per lungo is suggested as lengthways. Example: Tagliate le melanzane per lungo. --Edward Steintain (talk) 05:28, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Search wikitionary «sia … sia»

Search wiktionary does not find «sia … sia» nor «sia … sia …» - I call this hidden information. What can be done to make the search more effective? --Edward Steintain (talk) 07:24, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

The reason that you did not find sia … sia is because there is no such entry. If there were an entry for sia … sia, you would be able to search for it. Searches are only successful if the entry exists. By the way, it would not be advisable to use … in an entry name. Most people cannot type it. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:18, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

I imagine a standard search with two (or more) words in the translation sector would solve the problem of the hidden information – without dots. Is something already known about tra quanto tempo? --Edward Steintain (talk) 20:03, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Please back up a few steps and explain what "hidden information" means to you. I have no idea what you're asking. DTLHS (talk) 21:02, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for being interested, DTLHS. I mean the difficult access to the translation of complex word combinations. Wiktionary has more answers than in a first-step-search are offered. The existing search for « sia sia » reveals to much unuseful stuff – this is an overwhelming by substrate excess, I feel. One could call it 'no fun'! --Edward Steintain (talk) 21:30, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

• As a starter, it helps to realize a few things. One goal at Wiktionary is to contain all words in all languages. Many languages share the same scripts, so a given string of glyphs will often represent a term in multiple languages. When discussing terms here on the boards, it is thus helpful to indicate what language is relevant.

For sia, for instance, did you mean the sia term in Catalan? Or Chuukese? Or Esperanto? Or Ingrian? Or Interlingua? Or Irish? Or Italian? Or Kanakanabu? Or Latin? Or North Frisian? Or Old Dutch? Or Old Saxon? Or Scottish Gaelic? Or Swedish? Or Tetum? Or Tok Pisin? Or Venetan? Or Yami?

Secondarily, I confess I too am confused by your use of the term hidden information. We generally don't hide things here. Your mention of "complex word combinations" and your link to Italian tra quanto tempo suggests that you're trying to find entries for full phrases. We generally don't include such entries, unless the full phrase has some special meaning that is not deducible from its constituent parts. In fact, we call combinations like tra quanto tempo or blue house "sum of parts" entries or SOPs, and we actively remove such content as inappropriate for a dictionary. Please see WT:SOP for a related policy description.

HTH, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:47, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks, Eiríkr Útlendi. Ok, I get the idea. With hidden information I meant as a Wiktionary user „not easy accessible“. tra quanto tempo is SOP of tra quanto tempo → how soon before? --Edward Steintain (talk) 06:51, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

cramped for room

Is that an (archaic?) idiom? Per utramque cavernam 20:57, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

It is a common collocation, as is “cramped for space”. I don‘t think it is archaic or even dated. But is it idiom? The meaning seems clear enough if you understand the parts.  --Lambiam 13:36, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

духовный (Russian)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%B4%D1%83%D1%85%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%BD%D1%8B%D0%B9

I believe that духовный can mean not only "spiritual" but also "mental". Should we add that to the list of meanings for the word? (I'm not a native Russian speaker, so I don't think I should add it myself.) --AlanUS (talk) 21:56, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

go both ways

Definition 2 is very poor, but I'm not sure how to improve it. Consider e.g. "empathy goes both ways". - -sche (discuss) 19:13, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Maybe there's a way to make use of give and take, fair's fair? Per utramque cavernam 19:25, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

"empathy should go both ways" = "empathy is a mutual requirement"? Per utramque cavernam 19:27, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

Incidentally, some slang dictionaries (which offer citations) say this can also mean something along the lines of 'to be either a top or bottom / active or passive in male-male sex'. - -sche (discuss) 23:16, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Might be mutually impacting/reciprocate work for #2 Leasnam (talk) 13:41, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Tenterhook

In English, tenterhook can also be written "tenter hook". Should the latter have a separate entry or a redirect? How should it be included on the former page? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 16:27, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

In descending order of frequency at Google N-grams: tenterhook, tenter-hook, tenter hook. See [[tenterhook]] for how alternative forms are presented at the main entry. DCDuring (talk) 18:51, 19 January 2019 (UTC)

by your own admission

Worth an entry? Sounds like a set phrase, but a SOP one too. Per utramque cavernam 09:56, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

MWOnline (and no other OneLook reference) has an entry for by one's own admission, which IMO is the right main entry. DCDuring (talk) 18:25, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

English aircheck and Japanese エアチェック

Is English aircheck missing a sense, or is the sense at Japanese エアチェック a Japanese innovation? —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 10:04, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

It seems that it may exist in English. These links seem to refer to "aircheck" in the sense of "off-air recording of a program":

http://www.twincitiesradioairchecks.com/ktcrfmtapes.html

https://archive.org/details/schweizerairchecks?&sort=-downloads&page=2

BTW, the link to off-air from the definition at エアチェック also does not yield an appropriate definition.

Mihia (talk) 18:48, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

heinie or hiney? and similar words

Are the asterisks on the heinie entry typos? If not, what do they signify?

Are heinie and hiney both acceptable spellings, or is one or both incorrect? or is there no incorrect spelling when it comes to slang? Spellcheck underlines both in red, indicating unrecognized words.

What is the correct format for linking the entries to each other? Currently neither page mentions the other. Maybe "Alternative forms" or "Synonyms"? "Etymology"?

Does Wiktionary use Wikipedia style disambiguation headers? Not to be confused with heiny--or can that mean hiny, too?

Is Heinie an insult, as stated on Wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinie ? If so, is heinie part of Heinie's etymology?

The Heinie page has no pronunciation key, but the categories say it does and does not follow the I before E except after C rule. Which category is correct? or are multiple pronunciations correct? ...i'm assuming the rule includes "when it sounds like A, as in neighbor and weigh," but maybe that isn't true?

i may be pulling questions out of my ask, but for your help, i thank you from the heart of my bottom.

71.121.143.20 11:16, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Are the asterisks on the heinie entry typos? If not, what do they signify?

• *, Used before or after a term to denote that it is only hypothesized and not actually attested.

What is the correct format for linking the entries to each other?

• all three are arguably alright, but "Alternative forms" is the probably best option.

Does Wiktionary use Wikipedia style disambiguation headers?

• Sometimes "See also" + {{q|not to be confused with}} is used.

the categories say it does and does not follow the I before E except after C rule

• The code at [[Module:en-headword]] has determined this due to hei (not following the rule) + nie (following the rule) 🤷

—Suzukaze-c◇◇ 11:25, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Weill ie feil prietty stupied. Thanks for answering some of my questions. Anyone able to answer the rest? 71.121.143.20 07:33, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Sometimes "See also" + {{q|not to be confused with}} is used.

...i am defeated. Using the Wiktionary:Sandbox and the preview button, i have utterly failed to produce anything resembling the warning, Not to be confused with heiny. Is there some part(s) of that code i'm supposed to overwrite (tried replacing the tl, replacing the q, and replacing the tl|q), or do i type heiny or [[heiny]] somewhere (tried that a few different ways)...? 71.121.143.20 08:07, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

I only know the hiney spelling. I would misunderstand heinie, thinking it to be a misspelling of Heinie. Heinie is very insulting. —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:05, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

English grammar question regarding "give"

I was just wondering: why don't we say the phrase "give you" in English? We say "here you go", "there you go", etc. and "give it to me", "give that to her", etc., but not "give you". Is this something peculiar to the usage of "give"? Because in Chinese - and I imagine many other languages - we say 給你 ("give you"), no problem. ---> Tooironic (talk) 12:23, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't understand. What would you want "give you" to mean? Per utramque cavernam 12:58, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

The examples which use give are all imperatives. The use of imperatives to give encouragement to oneself is not as common as use to give orders to a second person, but it is common enough to be readily understood in first-person writings. In declarative and interrogative sentences there is nothing that prevents any of first, second or third person being the subject or the indirect object of give. DCDuring (talk) 18:50, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

When speaking to oneself as if an inner voice of the person being spoken to, kind of like Pinocchio’s Grillo Parlante, one uses second-person pronouns, as in, “Come on, don’t be afraid; you can do it.” If your interior monologue were to encourage you to give your own self, your cricket would whisper, ”Now give yourself wholly to this holy task.” *”Give you” is ungrammatical here, just like in standard first-person speech *“I’ll give me” is ungrammatical. When the object is the same as the subject, English uses reflexive pronouns.  --Lambiam 08:03, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

I do not know the right answer to this. My sort of intuitive native-speaker understanding (which MAY BE WRONG) is that "here you go" is saying something like "you can go along/continue successfully, with this thing here that I am giving to you" -- "you go or proceed thus". I don't see how "give you" would be parsed. Equinox ◑ 23:15, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

All the above comments seem true, but the mystery is really the point of the question. I take it that it has something to do with a grammatical structure in Chinese that doesn't have an obvious parallel in English. Those of us who don't know Chinese may not be able to help.

"Give you" is simply not an English sentence. English sentences (other than imperatives, some idioms, ellipses, etc) have subjects. "I am giving you my last potato chip." IS a valid English sentence using give you, but it is more of a speech act (implying that the recipient has some obligation to reciprocate) than a declarative sentence such as "He gave you his last potato chip." (Though that sentence too could be implying an obligation to reciprocate. DCDuring (talk) 01:21, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I think you're broadening things beyond the scope of the question: you're touching on "why are some languages grammatically SVO or SOV etc...": I think Tooironic's question is really related to the one verb "give". As I said above, "here you go" can be parsed as "you go [continue or progress], here [in this way, with this]" -- even if it's a bit obscure -- but "give you" cannot be meaningfully parsed as far as I can see, because that's just not the ordering that English uses. Equinox ◑ 01:42, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I'd love some clarification of the question. DCDuring (talk) 02:29, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

"give you into their hands" gives a bunch of hits in various Bible editions, FWIW. DTLHS (talk) 01:23, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Grammatically, you can use some form of "give you" anywhere you could use "gives him" or "gives me": "I give you what you ask for whenever you ask me.""I'm giving you access to the database.", "Since you asked politely, "I'm giving you half of my sandwich" "I give you this ring as a symbol of my love for you"(the examples of "give it to me" and "give that to her" are imperatives, and are only used when addressing someone else in the second person- you would never say "give him that" to describe what you're doing). It's true that it sounds odd to say "I give you this" except as part of a ceremony. I suspect that "Here." has replaced the simple statement that you're giving something to someone, except when it's not obvious that you're giving them something, or you need to explain what you're giving them or why. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:55, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

It has just struck me that you can drop the "I" in a lot of statements ("miss ya!", "wish you were here", "can't stand sardines!") but apparently not where it describes an action you are doing...? Maybe that's the issue. Equinox ◑ 03:08, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

But you could very idiomatically say "giving you this", or "wanted to give you this", or "meant to give you this", as you hand somebody an object. You couldn't say "give you this". Now I understand the question (or else I formulated a better one). Equinox ◑ 03:10, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

After looking things up, I understand better what you're asking about. English isn't a pro-drop language: we never leave out the subject except in imperative constructions. That's why we say "It's raining"- even when there's no real subject, we have to put a dummy one in there. In that respect, give is no different from any other verb. This is a major difference from Spanish, for instance, where they can tell gringos by the way they say "yo soy" ("I am") instead of "soy" (am). I don't remember this from Beginning Mandarin (though it was thirty years ago...), but apparently Chinese can leave out the subject if it's understood from the context. Again, it isn't peculiar to this particular verb. As Equinox pointed out, we sometimes leave out the subject in very informal, conversational speech, but you can leave out lots of things, and it isn't really considered proper grammar. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:16, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

給你 ("give you") isn't imperative, it's indicative (I give you), meaning here you are. I think almost every language has an idiom for it, and all different. In Russian, вот, пожалуйста (here, please), пожалуйста (please), or вот то, что вам нужно (here that that you need). In Spanish, aquí tiene (here you have). In French, tenez (hold), voici (here), or voilà (there). In German, hier, bitte (here, please), bitte schön (pretty please), or bitte (please). —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:27, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

dingy

In "dingy", English, Etymology 2, 1. Alternative form of dinghy (Can we find and add a quotation of Charles Dickens to this entry?) I've searched the works of Dickens mechanically and didn't find a lick. I was going to remove the request, as it may unfillable, but thought I'd post here first. It's one of a handful which raised the question of why for me.

Also, in discussion, someone was trying to add new etymologies. Really senses, I'm thinking, including "ditzy" and "penis" separately a couple of years ago. As a native speaker, I support "dingy" or "dingey" as a shortening of "dingbat". As for penis, the entry editor/responder missed "ding dong" as a origin for the the use of "dingy" as a childish usage for penis. I'm not completely suggesting these should be changed (added,) but only that a case should be made for them. I was a little boy once and that was said by adults and children, usually coyly or with admonishment. Put yer dingy away (indicating inappropriateness.) Watch your dingy (warning when zippering.)

L

Not Dickens, but: [23], [24], [25].  --Lambiam 07:42, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Dickens often used dingy, but not as an alternative form of dinghy. It actually seems to have been one of his favorite words. It appears in A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, Nicholas Nickleby, and many more. It modifies nouns like edifice, fly, hearse, mourning coach, trappings, sanctum, furniture, bird, mist, Turkey-carpet, interior, room, house, face, theatre, complexion, yard. DCDuring (talk) 03:34, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I've move the request for a Dickens quotation to Etymology 1. DCDuring (talk) 03:36, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Apparently I added this. I think the Dickens request is a mistake because we also have a Dickens request for the more common sense (which DCDuring mentions): a dull or dingy carpet, etc. I'm not say anything about whether the RFV should pass or fail, or whether we can spell the boat this way, but I'm saying the Dickens request might be an error. Equinox ◑ 03:37, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Although I'd better say that I wouldn't randomly add a new sense for no reason. Must've got this from an old Webster or Chambers. Look in dated sources, the kind of books that would say "by the time we rowed our dingy to the Hindoo, he was dead -- and so much the better for our wise Christian nation". Why are you looking at me like that. Equinox ◑ 03:38, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I had looked at Century 1911 and Webster 1913 but didn't see any mention of Dickens. It must have been Chambers. DCDuring (talk) 12:53, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

New address for the Wiktionary links dashboard

Hello all,

I just wanted to let you know that the URL of the Wiktionary Cognate Dashboard, providing all kind of interesting analysis about the links between Wiktionaries (presented here), is about to change URL: the new one to use is https://wmdeanalytics.wmflabs.org/Wiktionary_CognateDashboard/ The old one will be deactivated in a few days.

If you have any question about this tool provided by Wikimedia Germany, feel free to reach me. Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 11:33, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

break

Verb sense 9:

(intransitive, of a storm or a spell of settled weather) To end.

The forecast says the hot weather will break by midweek.

Fair enough for the settled weather, but when we say that a storm "breaks", does that mean that it ends? Mihia (talk) 17:45, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

I think so. I can also think of a fever breaking as well, meaning that the fever has run its course and is over. Leasnam (talk) 21:51, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm ... I have looked into the search results for "the storm broke" in a little more detail, and it seems clear that "break" is used for both meanings, both "begin" and "end", with "begin" seeming to be the more usual. I will adjust the definition accordingly. Mihia (talk) 18:26, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

become

I have no clear evidence to back up this supposition, but is it possible that the (most common) modern meaning of the word become in English may have originally arisen from a widespread (probably not originally widespread, but then spread over time) misinterpretation of the word as a form of (something along the lines of, or of a similar formation to) "come to be", instead of interpreting it properly? Because, at least from my knowledge, the word did not seem to have that meaning in Old English. Furthermore, I am not aware of any Germanic languages in which that sense is present (at least not currently, and not initially either).

Of course, it could alternatively just be a fairly simple evolution of the other most common (although less used today than I remember it being used in the past [at least in general everyday speech]) meaning, "to come to happen" (which was also present in other Germanic languages at one point). Plus, if I recall correctly, there was a meaning at one point in the development of at least one other Germanic language in which a similar (if not relatively close) meaning to the most common English meaning of the word become today was present in its cognate in that language. I may be misremembering something, though.

Does the record indicate anything about this subject? Tharthan (talk) 05:22, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

In some cases, the manner in which we interpret a word can certainly have an effect upon the way we use it, and can alter or influence its meaning. For instance, I think something similar may have happened to the word kingdom, which changed the meaning from "kingship, kingly authority" to a focus more on the actual realm of a king, due to association with the words dominion and domain (a king's realm was a figurative kind of use in Old English times). We almost never use it to mean a kingship today. It's very possible this also happened with become (= come to be), which is not too far away from the historical and etymological analysis of "come about". The use of become to mean "come to be" is actually fairly old...it was certainly in early Middle English, and probably in Old English as well (syþþan niht becōm = "after it became night"), it's difficult to say...because that could also be rendered "after night arrived" or "after the night came about", which all mean pretty much the same thing. Leasnam (talk) 06:12, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

@Tharthan, it'd be interesting to find another word that parallels with this (e.g. beget = "get to be", etc.)...Leasnam (talk) 06:17, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Am aware that you two guys are sort of Anglishers. Is this a case of "extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence"? If it's not, then do we need to downgrade the current/accepted etymology to say that it's not so certain? Equinox ◑ 12:20, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

@Equinox, I prefer to think of myself as an "Englisher", Thank you :p but in all seriousness I don't think we need to change the Etymology at become...it's quite accurate as-is. Leasnam (talk) 14:35, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree. My point in asking this question was to determine whether or not there was historical evidence in the record that I was not aware of that could back up my supposition. If there had been, then it might make sense to add such information into the entry. Tharthan (talk) 19:39, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

(♪: ╰— )

In the Pronunciation section of argh, what does "(♪: ╰— )" mean? --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:33, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I think it means that the “growled /ɹ/” (which I think can also be a growled /m/ depending on whether the speaker has their mouth open or closed) is sounded with a falling tone.  --Lambiam 15:04, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Perhaps it is a depiction of pitch contour. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 21:55, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

cárdeno: 2. black-and-white furred

What is the reason behind using cárdeno (meaning "purply") for a "black-and-white furred bull"? --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:49, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

Black-and-white furred makes me think of Friesian cows, but looking at images for toro cárdeno, that description seems misleading. I mainly see rather homogeneously coloured bulls of somewhat nondescript colours that in some cases might be described as a dull and dark purple.  --Lambiam 23:07, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I've cleaned up cárdeno so it makes better sense. Black-and-white furred is misleading. It means small, dense white and black patches that give a grayish or leaden appearance. In a human face (the faces of Spaniards are commonly somewhat brown), anger causes blood to rush into the skin, turning the face into a bruised color, almost a purple. On bulls, it means grayish, often produced by a tight mixture of black and white spots. The black spots on the bull work like the blood that flushes an angry Spaniard's face. —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:38, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

A picture would help, especially for the bull(-fighting) sense. DCDuring (talk) 17:54, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

French: falun as a geological term?

I'm seeing falun on fr.wiki (link) as a geological term. Is there a similar or equivalent term in English? Thanks! Elfabet (talk) 14:46, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Potentially additional insight in a definition? 1 Elfabet (talk) 18:49, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

The usual English term would be "shell bed", although the description makes me think that coquina might be an apt translation. In any case, the definition should make clear that the French generally use this term to refer to certain Cenozoic shell beds in France, not just any shell beds anywhere. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:02, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Sufficient to be added? Elfabet (talk) 13:35, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

when was chinstrap first used?

when was chinstrap first used?

These kinds of questions are unanswerable since we don't have a complete searchable record of everything that has ever been printed, but here is a use (hyphenated) from 1777. Unhyphenated, from 1842. DTLHS (talk) 16:08, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Google Ngram Viewer has usage from 1838. SemperBlotto (talk) 06:58, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

hot as hell

Isn't this SOP ? We can have cold as hell, broke as hell, good as hell, funny as hell, fine as hell, ugly as hell...<anything> + as hell. Leasnam (talk) 04:54, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

It is certainly SoP.

I wonder if this expression should be in the Etymology section of [[as hell]]. The other ADJ as hell expressions are SoP in the sense of ADJ + as hell, but this one was at one time probably SoP in the sense of (as) + hot + as + hell (is hot). DCDuring (talk) 16:08, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

It was already nominated for deletion before: Talk:hot as hell. Per utramque cavernam 17:16, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Related: Talk:hot as fire (kept). Equinox ◑ 00:48, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

Lieblingin

Wikipedia says to be bold, but Cite your sources. There is no deadline... or is there?

Wiktionary's Liebling entry is my only source for claiming that Lieblingin is the same word's feminine form. Would it be a bold misstep to create the page Lieblingin as a redirect to Liebling#Noun? just so anyone looking up Lieblingin gets some clue, without me bluffing my way through creating an uncited entry for a word in a language yo no hablo.

71.121.143.20 07:25, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

It is not difficult to find other sources, like der Duden. I think it would be preferable to create a page Lieblingin as a proper entry similar to Bäuerin or Königin.  --Lambiam 13:50, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Oh, and instead of a verifiability policy Wiktionary has an attestability criterion, but it does not require editors to cite their sources. A dubious and disputed addition may be subjected to a request for verification.  --Lambiam 10:47, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

FIGJAM

"Fuck I'm good, just ask me." Can someone explain the context in which this would be used? I can't find anything much in Google Books for "FIGJAM, mate!", "FIGJAM he said", etc. Equinox ◑ 00:00, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

This article has it as a nickname for a conceited person, which is also the definition in Collins, which spells the acronym in lower case and classifies it as a noun (and Australian slang). A GBS for “a real figjam” yields a few hits, there is a use (as, I think, an attributive noun) at Independent Australia, and at Google Groups I see uses in aus.cars (also Aussie).  --Lambiam 11:11, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

have someone's head

Can we confirm that this refers to literal violent killing, as the entry states? I always understood it as reprimanding somebody, like have someone's guts for garters. Equinox ◑ 00:47, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

The definition seems poor. I think this expression is most often used figuratively, but presumably the original literal meaning is much more specific, meaning to behead someone or have someone beheaded. Mihia (talk) 18:21, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

A major use appears to be as a threat or warning: ”Don’t you dare do that, or the Emperor will have your head” – sometimes complemented with “on a pike” or “on a silver platter”. It is stronger than a warning that one will be reprimanded. The image is that of execution by beheading, so a good definition might be: “To have someone beheaded”, with a usage note (and preferably a conforming usex) that this can be used hyperbolically (like so many uttered threats).  --Lambiam 22:27, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

problemata

Really an English plural of problem? Why do other major dictionaries not have it? Equinox ◑ 23:55, 26 January 2019 (UTC)

A good number of plural uses either have the term Capitalised, "in quotes" [[26]], [[27]] or are italicised [[28]], [[29]] Leasnam (talk) 02:32, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Clearly, this is a transliteration of Ancient Greek προβλήματα (problḗmata), the plural of πρόβλημα (próblēma), as seen in this quote from Leasnam’s third cited source: Although the tightly paradoxical formulation of the Aristotelian problema loosened over time, the genre of natural philosophical and medical problemata involved exclusively causal questions (in “why?” and synonyms), applied to commonly known particular phenomena. This use of problema refers specifically to problems from ancient problem collections such as Aristotle’s Problems. If we admit problemata as an English word, it should be defined as the plural form of English problema.  --Lambiam 10:35, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Right, I'm going to BE BOLD and do what you suggest. Equinox ◑ 02:25, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Talk:related

Please see Talk:related.Jonteemil (talk) 13:12, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

dick move

Worth an entry? Per utramque cavernam 19:33, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Isn't it simply SoP (dick #3 + move #2) ? Leasnam (talk) 20:47, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

I think so. DCDuring (talk) 00:10, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

dial into, dial in to

I just added the sense "To connect to a system or service by telephone" to "dial in". I now see, though, that we also have "dial into" in what seems to be essentially the same sense as "dial in to". Which should it be? My feeling is that it should properly be "dial in to (a system)" and not "dial into (a system)". What do you think? Mihia (talk) 19:59, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

According to Google N-Grams dialing into has been more common than dialing in to from 1920. Both forms grew dramatically starting around 1980, peaking in about 200- and declining to about 25-30% of the their peak since then. Most recently the into form is about three times more common.

Personally I prefer the dial in to, but my fingers might say otherwise in practice. DCDuring (talk) 00:24, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

I don't really see the case against "into" here. I see that "dial in", "log in", etc. are fixed phrases, but so is "break in", and you can "break into a building". Equinox ◑ 02:24, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

hat past tense of hit

hat#Etymology 2 uses The Dictionary of the Scots Language as its only reference. There is no entry for hat#Scots. I suggest moving this entry from English to Scots, unless evidence can be supplied showing that "hat" is also used this way in some English variants. Regardless, the entry for Scots "hat" should be created. Danielklein (talk) 00:43, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Overlapping senses at create

Sense 1 is "bring into existence": examples are God creating the universe; creating a colour by mixing others; creating a shipping hub in China; and creating a map of human genetics. Sense 2 is "design, invest with a new form, shape, etc.": examples are creating fashionable clothing and creating Internet content. What, really, is the difference? I think this might represent editors' confusion over time with what was actually intended as sense 5 ("confer a title"), i.e. to create somebody a duke. Should we merge 1 and 2? Equinox ◑ 02:23, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Not only that, but I would also include sense 4. I see, though that (e.g.) The American Heritage dictionary lists these as separate senses. To me the two senses 5 and 6 are also instances of one same sense, but they are rare and specialized enough to leave them alone. The Cambridge Dictionary labels sense 7 as “UK old-fashioned”.  --Lambiam 13:36, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

With absoluetely zero source to back my opinion up, I feel there is a difference between the two; one wholly didn't exist prior to, and the other is an alteration that seems to bring out or make a quality that wasn't evident before. (Although, I might be tempted to shift the "new color" example from the first to the second, as colors exist before hand, but you're making a new one from existing ones). Elfabet (talk) 13:42, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Most dictionaries have a definition for 'creation out of nothing', with God doing the creating. Whether human creativity is 'creation out of nothing' or involves 'standing on the shoulders of one's predecessors' or 'blending' (as in the color example) does seem to depend on one's belief system. Century allows for creation from 'nothing' and 'scattered materials'. I'd add 'combinable elements' to allow for intangibles and use of platforms. I'd strongly recommend looking at older dictionaries like Century 1911 as well as 'unabridged' dictionaries like MWOnline, as well as the OED, to see how others have covered usage. DCDuring (talk) 14:35, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Or is looking at the efforts of others too uncreative? DCDuring (talk) 14:36, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Also, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society by Raymond Williams contains a brief essay on creative, which covers early use of create. DCDuring (talk) 14:51, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Elfabet, maybe, but how do we draw the line? Suppose no colours yet exist, and God "creates" the colour orange out of nothing; is that semantically very different from me "creating" the colour orange by mixing red and yellow paint? I can see that one came from nowhere, and the other came from a process, but if the same sense line can explain both (producing a new thing in some way) then it seems redundant to have two. Equinox ◑ 17:03, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

But folks have used create with distinctly different senses. Notably, it was held by most in the first century or two of Modern English that only God could truly create (from nothing) and that creatures (eg, humans, whom God had created) could not themselves create. Humans could make things, but needed to work with what God had provided, ie, they merely mixed and assembled. I strongly recommend Keywords and its imitators for accessible and brief histories of a few (3-400) important words. DCDuring (talk) 23:08, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm a little skeptical. Looking at Shakespeare,

"If thou canst like this creature as a maid, I can create the rest: virtue and she Is her own dower; honour and wealth from me" King of France in All's Well that Ends Well

"[Waking] Sleep, thou hast been a grandsire, and begot A father to me; and thou hast created A mother and two brothers: but, O scorn!" Posthumus Leonatus in Cymbeline

"The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, Her ashes new create another heir, As great in admiration as herself;" Archbishop Cramner in Henry VIII

"Witness the world that I create thee here My lord and master." Regan in King Lear

"Now is the time of help; your eye in Scotland Would create soldiers, make our women fight, To doff their dire distresses." Ross, in Macbeth.

There are a lot of uses with Heaven or God as the creator, and a number of uses where a human confers a title (sense 5), but there's also a lot of times Shakespeare uses "create" as by a human or other creature. It sounds to me more like a statistical change in how the word was used and thought of being passed off as an absolute change, because that sounded better.

(I searched www.opensourceshakespeare.org; I know that Shakespeare is just one author of Early Middle English, but that was easy.)--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:43, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Humanists seem to have used the word create in our sense in EME. But others restricted creation to God and probably still do so. I don't see how one can proscribe that definition out of existence. It seems like religious-heritage denialism. DCDuring (talk) 13:39, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

What if we make the "make from nothing" sense, or both it and the "make from pre-existing things" sense, subsense(s) of a general "make" sense? That way translations, synonyms, unclear quotations, etc which don't make the distinction could be subordinated to the general sense, while still acknowledging that some people distinguish a narrower sense? (I'll see about giving the entry "basic English" treatment in a while, at least as far as seeing if we're missing any other senses.) - -sche (discuss) 16:07, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Sure. DCDuring (talk) 20:58, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

I overhauled the entry. I used subsenses to distinguish "create from nothing" and "create from pre-existing materials" under a single combined sense. I merged the "create him a cardinal" and "create him a duke" senses, which no other source I found distinguishes. I am left with a few questions and comments:

• Is the "make a fuss" sense British?
• Century also has a sense "To beget; generate; bring forth." I am not sure this is distinguishable from our first sense.
• An old, public-domain edition of the OED has a sense for being an actor who first performs a role and thus gives it is character, with quotations ("I have created . . . more than one important role", "she will create Boito's Opera Mefistofele". However, it is not clear to me that this is attested; there is too much interference from mentions of playwrights creating roles in sense 1.
• At least one other reference says this has a specialized meaning in basketball, if anyone wants to look into that.

- -sche (discuss) 00:30, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

I remember hearing create or terms related to it being used in football (soccer) commentary more often than in basketball commentary. I have never heard them in baseball or (American) football commentary. I don't understand what the terms are supposed to mean in those contexts. DCDuring (talk) 01:02, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Appendix:Braille script

Daniel Carrero undid my edit here: [30]. Thoughts? I can see how leaving the table cell empty might suggest there are no candidate patterns (this empty Braille pattern is a bit like the blank domino in a set), but to me the ]_[ notation is worse because it looks as though the braces mean something in Braille. I'm not aware of ]_[ as a general-purpose notation to indicate "just look at what's inside". Equinox ◑ 03:13, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

In your edit you also removed the link to the entry for the 0-dot Braille character. If you had just removed the square brackets, the link would have remained, but without any visible cue to its presence. The brackets were an (in my eyes not very successful) approach to making it visible. An alternative way of making it visible could be by drawing an empty box: ▯. @Daniel Carrero?  --Lambiam 13:19, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

I didn't just revert Equinox's edit at the time, I also removed the "0-dot" row altogether from the table and added the text "Click here for the entry about the 0-dot character." That seems to do the trick, but feel free to change that if you want. I don't claim the current state to be perfect, I merely would like some way to point to the entry "⠀" from the appendix.

I think I have a problem with the box suggested by Lambiam above. To me, it kinda looks like the character is expected to have a box around it. It's as if when writing Braille, we should use dots for most characters but an empty box when a space is needed. This is more or less like Equinox's argument that ] [ notation looks as though the braces mean something in Braille. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 13:42, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

BTW, I didn't realise you had made a change because it just registered in the history as an undo. Perhaps I didn't read something properly. Equinox ◑ 16:56, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

OK, that's alright. FWIW, my first revision was just the undo as you said. Then I did the rest as a second revision minutes later. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 17:06, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

What about using something similar to this? (but with dimensions adjusted):

0-dot:  

I don't think it looks like anything other than a visible space. —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:28, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

@Stephen G. Brown, Equinox, Lambiam: I like Stephen's idea. To repeat his words, I also don't think it looks like anything other than a visible space. I readded the 0-dot row with a visible background as suggested. Feel free to edit further if needed. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 09:46, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Cool. I’ve adjusted the size of the rectangle to be more like the other characters and removed the line with “Click here”, which is no longer needed.  --Lambiam 10:57, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Attempt to create Talk:Donglegate

I'm a long-standing editor of Wikipedia, but when I tried to improve Donglegate with a talkpage "A wider discussion, with media links, is at Geek Feminism Wiki" it got tagged as harmful. Where did I go wrong? Carbon Caryatid (talk) 16:15, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Not sure which edit filter you ran up against, but it is likely that you are still considered a "new" user since you hadn't made edits here previously. In a day or two you will be able to add external links. - TheDaveRoss 16:30, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

Pushing links to politically biased sites is not what talk pages are for, anyway. They are specifically for discussion of the entry and its contents. GF is way out on the fringe. Equinox ◑ 16:54, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

I agree. Whatever the nature of the target site, there is no reason to place a link to a "wider discussion" on a talk page unless it is in relation to a specific point about the Wiktionary entry. Mihia (talk) 00:59, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

frictions

Just typing that word gives me a rash. Frictions is not not proper English, since the term is not countable and takes no plural form.

Multiple citations from reputable sources confirm that uncountable nouns, like happiness, gold, lightning, information, friction, and other rubbish (pun intended) are not countable. Therefore, in English, we do not add an 's' to make it plural. Just ain't right.

In fact, you might recognize intuitively that when referring to a lot of those nouns, a countable qualifier is used. For example, one ounce of gold, 2GB of information, or three lightning strikes in an hour. There may even be a dozen points of friction, but that noun form never changes.

Let's remove the plural form from the English 'friction' entry in Wiktionary. Thanks for your time and attention.

Let's not. The plural is attestable. One example that might help desensitive you and alleviate your allergy is:

• 1995, James A. Desveaux, Designing Bureaucracies: Institutional Capacity and Large-scale Problem Solving‎^[31]:

  Yet there are always frictions associated with policy-making: frictions between bureaucracies, political executives, and legislatures; frictions among agencies competing over the same domain; and frictions that involve the actions of agencies as they affect nongovernmental actors such as private firms and interest groups. Furthermore, the coordination required to design and implement policy strategies involves frictions. To the extent that these frictions can be reduced or eliminated, the policy process is rendered more efficient. […] For instance, in the United States, frictions that involve legislative committees are the ones most likely to forestall the policy process. After a policy has been initiated, frictions that directly concern the bureaucracy […] become increasingly important.

HTH. DCDuring (talk) 18:53, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

The entry should be amended to show which senses are countable. DTLHS (talk) 18:54, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

AFAICT, only the first current definition might be only uncountable.

The entry should be made to include (or more clearly include) other senses of friction'.

Among the frictions that we don't seem to cover is the economic sense referring to the forces or costs that slow the operation of market processes. There's also something related to massages. DCDuring (talk) 19:34, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Try another Google search of "define frictions" and you'll get a response of Did you mean: define friction (singular) since most users don't agree with the aberration.

This isn't the result of a spell-checker -- it is the consequence of analyzing every prior search of the same text, and ending with the most satisfactory results (statistically speaking).

Attestable or not, most of the internet is not satisfied with frictions as a word. Other standard dictionaries also reject the plural form of friction. Cadamsfour (talk) 21:59, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Google is not a dictionary, the internet is not a dictionary. If you are confused about our criteria for inclusion you may read WT:CFI. DTLHS (talk) 22:02, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Collins includes the plural, as does Merriam Webster (unabridged). Pity about the internet though, I had hoped they would be on board. - TheDaveRoss 14:08, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

SPVM

In the Synonyms section, I removed the link to Montreal Police, not considering it dictionary material. I guess one or two synonyms from the French section should be removed too. --Pious Eterino (talk) 12:14, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

OOI

Stands for out of interest. Would out of interest be worth creating? Also, out of curiosity --Pious Eterino (talk) 12:25, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

out of sense 3 covers these terms and the whole family of similar terms well to my mind (out of spite, out of laziness, out of pity, out of ten thousand other nouns). - TheDaveRoss 14:02, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

A debt collector knocked on my door to collect interest, but he was out of luck, because I was out of interest.  --Lambiam 14:56, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

subject to

Surely subject to should have an entry, like according to? --Pious Eterino (talk) 12:38, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

That dress for feet you use for home

Ain't the anti slipper/anti-slipper/antislipper/anti slippers/anti-slippers/antislippers common? How comes we don't have them? Not native, but I thought they were the name in English, and it's the first image when googling. Am I wrong? Which ortography? Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 13:33, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

US English speaker here, and I have never heard any of those terms. Certainly slippers are common enough in the US as "comfortable footwear for use at home", but footwear meant to provide traction would probably be referred to as "anti-slip footwear" or "footwear with anti-slip sole(s)", with footwear often replaced by a specific article such as "shoe". - TheDaveRoss 13:57, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

I have both slip and non-slip slippers. But I slip both kinds on my feet. I never associated slippers with traction. DCDuring (talk) 16:08, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

(I associated slip to/with both meanings, but still having a hard time associating the slip/briefs [or the boxers also] with any slipping as if they were gloves. Only with sleeping. As a curiosity, at home we call the so-called slippers "Sasha and Misha"). Thanks DaveRoss Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 08:57, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

names of months of French Rev into EN

I know we have Wiktionary:Requested entries (English), but should we add the humorous English translations for the months of the French Republican calendar? Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 13:49, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

No. See WT:CFI.  --Lambiam 14:58, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Citations or usage examples might be ways of adding a little humor to the English entries for those names of months. DCDuring (talk) 16:10, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, the ref from wikipedia gives only as a list. Sobreira ►〓 (parlez) 00:28, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Do pardon my bluntness, but what kind of question is this? The whimsical month names pushed by the radical and extremist proponents (and, indeed, figures) of the well-intentioned (but very misguided, awfully executed, and terribly tragic) French Revolution mean fairly little in the first place, as they were only used in France for around twelve years (give or take), and one could say that people finally came to their senses (although if you want to be technical, it was Napoleon who signed the act, so it's technically thanks to him that France ditched it. Still, it can definitely be argued that a lack of true popular support in the Western world for it played a role in the calendar's demise) and went back to using the normal, functional, and well-established Gregorian calendar (although the French Revolution in many other ways did most certainly leave a terrible scar on France that it has yet to heal from [and I am not convinced that it ever will heal from, personally.]). Why in the world would one believe that it would be a positive and helpful contribution to Wiktionary to coin English neologisms based on this silly excuse for a calendar? I am utterly bewildered. Tharthan (talk) 06:50, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

extrincesista and intrincesista

I've just come across these two Spanish words, but cannot pinpoint their exact meanings. --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:24, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

• I suppose it would be extrinsicist and intrinsicist - but they don't seem to exist. SemperBlotto (talk) 16:43, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

break (2)

Verb sense 11:

(transitive, gaming slang) To design or use a powerful (yet legal) strategy that unbalances the game in a player's favor.

Letting white have three extra queens would break chess.

Does anyone understand this? How is letting white have three extra queens "legal"? Mihia (talk) 20:34, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

It's a theoretical example. DTLHS (talk) 20:35, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand how this explains it. Do you mean that three queens would be "legal" in a theoretical variety of chess in which a player was allowed three queens? Mihia (talk) 00:51, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

If theoretically the game of chess was changed to allow three queens the game would be said to be "broken". DTLHS (talk) 00:52, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

So, as I said, it is legal in a theoretical variety. The definition is far from clear that "legal" includes "legal in a theoretical situation that does not exist in reality". Mihia (talk) 02:24, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Replacing the verb by its definition turn the usex into something like,

Letting white have three extra queens would design or use a strategy that unbalances chess in white’s favour.

That doesn’t make too much sense.  --Lambiam 00:00, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Fair point. What about this?: "To design, use, or allow (within the rules of a game) a powerful strategy or other thing that unbalances the game in a player's favor." It could use some more tweaking, but I think "...or allow..." and "...(within the rules of a game)..." are improvements. - -sche (discuss) 01:46, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

In the uses I see two distinguishable senses, one in which the subject is a player (as in “I broke the game”), another in which the subject is a new or modified rule (as in “it would break the game”). The current def is for the first sense, but the usex applies to the second. Do we have a way of indicating the subject to which a verb sense can apply? If so, we might add a second sense using something like ”(of a proposed or considered change to the rules of a game) To make (a game) not worth playing.” The problem with new rules is not always an unfair unbalance; it can also be that the game is over too quickly even though all players have the same chances.  --Lambiam 11:47, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

That could work. I would tweak the label to something like "of a proposed or implemented rule in a game", because it seems perfectly possible to not just propose but actually make a rule that breaks a game (and "proposed [...] rule" still seems to cover even cases where the proposed rule is just a change of an earlier rule). OTOH, thinking about it more, it does also seem like "design, use, or allow (within the rules of the game) something that unbalances a game or makes it unplayable" could cover both "I broke the game" and "the rule broke the game". No? - -sche (discuss) 17:09, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

It looks to me like this about any change in a game that "ruins" it with some thought needed as to what would be meant by "ruin" in this context. I think what's already been discussed are just different examples of ways this could happen. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:33, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

I've taken a stab at rewriting it. I also tweaked the first usex in an effort to address some of the concerns expressed above. I think there is a strong tendency for "I broke the game" to mean one "hacked" the game (in a loose sense of that word) such that it became unchallenging to play (and, if a multiplayer game, maybe impossible for other players to win), rather than that one did something which made the game unwinnable for oneself, even though the latter could also "ruin" the game / "break" the fun of it. Further tweaking (or a {{qualifier}} or usage note) is needed to convey that. - -sche (discuss) 06:24, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

Presently the definition reads:

(transitive, gaming slang) To use or allow (within the rules of a game) something that ruins the game, making it unfun (e.g. unchallenging, for the player who benefits from the breaking) to play.

Changing the rules to let white have three extra queens would break chess.

I broke the RPG by training every member of my party to cast fireballs as well as use swords.

The verb object in the definition still doesn't seem to be the same as the verb object in the examples. I am not very familiar with this meaning, but, based on the examples, I wonder whether something along these lines would be better:

To render (a game) unchallenging by altering the rules in favour of an individual player or exploiting loopholes or weaknesses in the rules to gain an unfair advantage.

I'm kind of guessing that the second example is an example of "exploiting loopholes or weaknesses in the rules". Mihia (talk) 20:18, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

That's a good point, and a good way of putting it. - -sche (discuss) 18:20, 11 February 2019 (UTC)

a whole lot

Does a whole lot deserve an entry of its own? --Backinstadiums (talk) 00:20, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Either it or whole lot might if an awful lot/awful lot, a great lot/great lot, a fat lot/fat lot, a terrible lot/terrible lot, a powerful lot/powerful lot, a mighty lot/mighty lot, a fucking lot/fucking lot, etc. do. DCDuring (talk) 00:34, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Probably yes, it's idiomatic enough (or whole lot, depending on how you want to treat the article). Mihia (talk) 00:53, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

What about all the others? All attestable, all idiomatic sensu lato. Frequency is NOT supposed to be a consideration once something meets the attestation threshold. IMHO, none of these are worth including. They look like intensifying adjectives applied to lot, a lot. We have deleted super lot. I'm pretty sure that there is no end to the number of intensifying adjectives that attestably collocate with lot. (roaring, raving, raging, ripping are some I just found. DCDuring (talk) 01:26, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

"(a) whole lot" is not easily understandable from the parts for those who do not already know the meaning. It is not obvious, for instance, that "whole" does not (normally) mean "entire" or "complete". I don't recognise the others that you mention as known expressions. The fact that a few search results may exist for other random word combinations does not make a case that common expressions should be excluded. Mihia (talk) 02:20, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

"An awful lot" has ranged from being as common to being half as common over the last half century, and "a whole bunch" is about 1/5th as common. The others are indeed not common. But it seems to me that the meaning resides in "lot", "bunch", etc (one can also say "I have a lot of objections", "I see a bunch of reasons why this isn't idiomatic"), with "whole", "awful", etc just serving as intensifiers. Such an intensifier sense is currently missing from "whole", but seems attestable, in the several collocations mentioned here and probably in other situations (in slang I've even heard people say things like "I'm a whole lesbian" to emphasize that they are lesbian when e.g. rebutting the idea that they're doing something for men's attention). - -sche (discuss) 02:41, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Yes, on reflection I believe you are correct. Mihia (talk) 18:34, 2 February 2019 (UTC)

IMO, it probably does not deserve an entry, but should be given in a usex (or quotation) at lot and possibly whole. Besides the other kinds of "lot" DCDuring has outlined, one can also have "a whole bunch of" something, google books:"a whole mess of", etc. When expressing this sense, neither "whole" not "lot" is limited to this collocation, and the sense is not limited to being expressed by either of those words. I admit it's at least a little bit of a grey area, but I think the fact that the expressions are easy enough to make sense of using the usual senses of "lot", "bunch", etc, makes them very different from, say, "the whole nine yards". I see from DCDuring's list that "a fat lot" has an entry, which only notes the "sarcastic"-like sense, and not the more "direct" meaning which, although difficult to search for examples of, does also seem to exist (google books:"a fat lot of things"?). - -sche (discuss) 01:41, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

@-sche: What would be the more direct meaning of "fat lot"? --Backinstadiums (talk) 02:12, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

The same thing as "a whole lot of": the "large-size" sense of "fat" that's also used when referring to "fat stacks" of money, etc. - -sche (discuss) 02:18, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Oprah, Rosie O’Donnell and Jessica Simpson are a fat lot.  --Lambiam 11:56, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

minecraft

The term refers to warships that deal with naval mines. This can be attested in other dictionaries and material on WWII. The term can be seen used on Wikipedia in this page. I would create the entry myself but the page is locked. --Zyzzek (talk) 01:44, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

You're right; thanks for pointing this out. I'll create a stub entry. - -sche (discuss) 01:54, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

boricua - Can the page discuss that it is gender-invariant but inflected for number?

This is with respect to the English Wiktionary entry regarding both Spanish and English. (Side question: I, and certain other people, often refer to English Wikipedia as en-wiki, and Spanish Wikipedia as es-wiki. What is the suffix for Wiktionary? What is the shorthand to say I am referring to en-wiktionary and not es-wiktionary, but I am referring to the entries for both English and Spanish as seen on en.wiktionary.org - and Portuguese, for that matter, if someone were to add it.)

In both English and Spanish, the noun "boricua" is inflected for number (one boricua, two boricuas), but it is gender-invariant. I am not sure if that is epicene gender or common gender or what the technical term is in linguistics. It is not neuter, though. It is either masculine or feminine with the same spelling, but must agree with adjectives. The adjective "boricua" is also gender-invariant, similar to "feliz". It possibly bears mentioning that Spanish words that are not loanwords (this is a loanword) are generally not gender-invariant if they end with -a. However, Spanish words that are loanwords are usually either gender-invariant (as is the case here) or have a fixed gender (as is the case with basically all loanwords from English for objects that have no natural genders, such as "el link", masculine in Spanish, which is very common in my experience, although "enlace" is a synonym that is much older than hyperlinks).

Basically, the English page currently says "m" next to "boricua". I am technically aware of how to make it say "m, f" (using the es-adj and es-noun templates, if I remember off the top of my head - I would look up the templates again). My question is not how to indicate it is both masculine and feminine. My question is: We should make this tiny change at the very least, but can we also add a note? This is a word that a lot of English speakers who are possibly learning Spanish (or interested in Spanish at some level) are likely to look up, and this is a great opportunity to discuss an example of a Spanish word that is gender-invariant - both as a noun and as an adjective. It possibly also bears mentioning that the related term "borinqueño" is not gender invariant, the feminine is "borinqueña". I think this is only an adjective (but of course you can use it like a noun in the phrase "el borinqueño" to mean "the Puerto Rican one" if the context establishes that there are a few masculine singular nouns, and we are referring to the Puerto Rican item from among the set). I am not a native hispanohablante, and I don't hear borinqueño/a nearly as often as boricua, so I don't know. I have a general feel that it is more formal, but then there are less formal and possibly mildly humorous cognates like la boricuidad - this has Google hits, but possibly does not merit a Wiktionary entry. I suspect it may be as "real" as the English word "Puerto Ricanity". Which is to say, I hear words like this in English and Spanish, but they are almost jokes. They have meaning, so they are valid human language. That doesn't mean they belong in a dictionary. Fluoborate (talk) 16:39, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

This word does not have “epicene” gender (a single grammatical gender) but simply has two genders, masculine and feminine, that have the same form. With epicene genders you say una rata macho for a male rat, because the word rata is epicene feminine, and you say un ratón hembra for a female mouse, because the word ratón is epicene masculine, but you would neither say una boricua macho nor un boricua hembra. You simply say un boricua for a man, and una boricua for a woman. It is not clear to me what should be discussed at the entry; is “boricua m (plural boricuas, feminine boricua, feminine plural boricuas)” not sufficiently clear?  --Lambiam 12:46, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

I've edited the entry to display "boricua m, f (plural boricuas)", which is how our invariant gender entries like estudiante are formatted. The previous formatting which had "feminine boricua" was in fact incorrect. Thanks for pointing it out. Ultimateria (talk) 18:08, 1 February 2019 (UTC)

fisificidad

Can somebody please add the Spanish word fisificidad? --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:58, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Looks like a misspelling of fisicidad? DTLHS (talk) 17:01, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

@DTLHS Not many ocurrences of fisificar either --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:17, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

telescopic baton, telescoping baton

As synonyms of expandable baton. Worth entries? Per utramque cavernam 21:05, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Those all look like SOPs to me. —TeragR ^disc./con. 07:29, 25 February 2019 (UTC)