Wiktionary:Tea room/2023/April

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← March 2023 · April 2023 · May 2023 → · (current)

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₠

Has anyone seen ₠ for Common/Christian Era, or B₠ for BCE? I vaguely recall it, but it's not an easy thing to search for on GBooks. kwami (talk) 03:59, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Can't say that I have. — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:15, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Me, neither. Searching the web, the only occurences of "B₠" I see are mojibake/gibberish and 'fancy' letter replacements like "₸Ĥ₠ B₠$৳ B⨀⨀₭". - -sche (discuss) 01:24, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

template typo

i don't know how to edit templates.

Pitman shorthand uses the template(s)

{{no entry|en|{{pedia|{{PAGENAME}}}}}}

so the page displays text including 2 periods instead of 1:

this term is available in Pitman shorthand on Wikipedia..

How do you fix that?

173.67.42.107 18:18, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Fixed. Made the following change: {{pedia|{{PAGENAME}}|nodot=1}}. — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:31, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! --173.67.42.107 19:20, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

nien Vietnamese?

i don't know if Wiktionary considers bing.com/translator a reliable source, but it says nien is Vietnamese for Chronology. Who can verify?

--173.67.42.107 19:20, 4 April 2023 (UTC)

That's probably niên, meaning year. In a few sentences I'm sure it could translate the meaning of English "chronology", but for such a specific word, a one-to-one correspondence between languages in different families is highly unlikely. It even has two different meanings in English .... a less common one meaning the study of time, and a more common one meaning a list of events, also called a timeline. I couldnt find a close translation for the latter meaning in our dictionary .... we have biên niên sử, which is close, but I suspect there's a better translation out there somewhere that we just don't have listed. —Soap— 06:05, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Re: the first part of your sentence: machine translators like Bing and Google Translate are reliable sources. They can come in handy to get the gist of something in a language you don't know, but you always have to remind yourself that they often go wrong in unpredictable ways. Here's your sentence after I used Google Translate to translate it into Vietnamese and back again: "I don't know if Wiktionary considers bing.com/translator to be a reliable source, but it says nien which is the Vietnamese word for Date. Who can verify?". It's not as awful as it used to be when I did this years ago, but you can see that it makes mistakes that only a speaker of the language could spot, and it has no understanding of context or common sense. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:54, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

English pizzella / pizzelle / pizzelles

I see Wiktionary has English pizzelle listed as "plural of pizzella" which is basically the same as Italian (singular pizzella, plural pizzelle). No pronuciation is given on the English entry either for pizzella or pizzelle. But anyway, in my experience the word "pizzelle" (which I pronounce "pit-SELL") is used as a singular noun, and the plural form is "pizzelles" (pronounced "pit-SELLS"). I have never heard the term "pizzella" used in English. I think maybe it could be English speakers in different areas calling it different things, or maybe what I've grown up with is just wrong, but a Google search seems to indicate that "pizzelles" is not unheard of. Anyway, I'm just thinking the Wiktionary entry is incomplete. 2603:8080:C6F0:36D0:14D1:6FC0:CCCF:2BB6 14:00, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

If you can find quotes in text, then fine, add it. Vininn126 (talk) 14:13, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Added (with cites). More common than either clear singular or clear plural use is attributive use ("pizzelle iron"), which complicates searching for either the term or its pronunciation, which I would expect to differ when the word is singular vs plural. On Youglish I find one plural example pronounced with three syllables (ending in /-ɛl.i/), one attributive use pronounced with two syllables (/pɪtseɪl/ with the /s/ approaching /z/; the same speaker pronounces pizzelles with the same /-eɪl-/ sound), one attributive use in a musical context /ˈpɪt.sɛl/ (?!), and one from an Italian-American chef pronouncing her grandmother's "pizzelle cookie recipes" /pɪtsˈɛl/. - -sche (discuss) 16:28, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! 2603:8080:C6F0:36D0:717C:7341:8625:681E 22:54, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

laughter

Usage note states: Laughter is statistically the happiest English language word on Twitter according to the Hedonometer, an online tool that measures happiness, with an overall happiness score of 8.5 out of 9, followed by happiness, which scored 8.44, and love, which scored 8.42.

• Despite not giving a fuck about that, I tried to reference it. But I would rather just have it deleted. Is it bullshit as I predict?

It is probably (talk) 21:26, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

No fair to answer your own question. DCDuring (talk) 22:36, 5 April 2023 (UTC)

The usage note scores 9.3 on bullshitometer.org. –Austronesier (talk) 23:21, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Some people probably would find it amusing, even in its unsourced state. We would consider keeping it only if there were a linked source, but possibly not even then. DCDuring (talk) 14:56, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Personally I don't think that note would really belong in a dictionary... – Guitarmankev1 ^(talk) 18:01, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

• Removed It is probably (talk) 15:52, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

  See w:Hedonometer. I think the usage note belongs on Talk:laughter. DCDuring (talk) 17:02, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

*fahsą

Does anyone know where the Dutch descendants were sourced? —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 09:54, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

The Middle Dutch vas is sure, with the meaning of "headhair". It's attested here: << Dat Nero was ter maten groot ende sproete, ende blont sijn vas, Sp. II 1, 1, 22, Vlaanderen/Brabant, 1390-1405 (lat. corpore maculoso et fetido, capillo sufflavo). In Antw. Idiot. 415 en Waasch Idiot. 213 staat fas vermeld in de bet. “bakkebaard”. >> I cannot find it in Modern Dutch, but it's perhaps obsolete and my source only covers extant Modern words (?) Leasnam (talk) 19:09, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

gutted (and gutting)

We labelled gutting British, but I dropped that label because it's pan-regional. We also labelled gutted as British / AUS / NZ slang, but I dropped that because Americans, Canadians, etc can be gutted too. "Slang" was readded. Is it slang? It doesn't feel slangy, any more than crushed, crushing. But Collins does list it as British informal, and Merriam-Webster doesn't have an entry for it. The definition (both before and after Equinox recently improved it) also seems odd to me: I wouldn't describe it as "annoyed"; in Google Books, people are gutted by e.g. a loss or their father's death: I'd define it like crushed. Are we dealing with two separate senses here? In Britain a slang word with a less intense, broader meaning of "disappointed, annoyed", and in the US a word that seems more broadly usable (less slangy) but with a more intense/narrower meaning ("crushed")? Or what? - -sche (discuss) 18:36, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

It's not really "annoyed". I mainly remember it as a very popular school-playground taunt in the '90s, in response to humiliation, e.g. girl refuses to go out with you or whatever. Equinox ◑ 18:41, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

I would very definitely call this slang: it's using a term for dissecting a fish etc. to refer to a person. Not normal usage. e.g. pussy-whipped is not real whipping; that is slang. Equinox ◑ 18:42, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

I think (informal) is a better fit here, since I usually save (slang) for words that are maximally informal and/or restricted to some subculture. Ioaxxere (talk) 21:46, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

From what I see, Equinox’s application of the term “slang” is too broad in general. At some point he spoke in some edit summary about a kind of “common slang”; there is no such thing, as I understand it, it is a paradoxic expression: Slanginess implies some exclusivity, as opposed to being frowned upon in polite circles while still being well known. Hence, I removed the label “slang” from pussy, which then Equinox readded, while agreeing with the label on kitty in the same sense. Here we see that he infers slangy character from figurative usage (“not really whipping”), which mode of thinking is unheard to me. If -sche asks whether something is slang, editors may answer distinct questions, the term having different meanings. Fay Freak (talk) 18:55, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

This raises an interesting point: Wiktionary's glossary definition of slang, which the label links to, only covers sense 2 of our entry on slang, "jargon". It misses sense 1, "informal language" (which is, I now notice, also other dictionaries' first sense, e.g. Dictionary.com "very informal usage in vocabulary and idiom that is characteristically more metaphorical, playful, elliptical, vivid, and ephemeral than ordinary language, as Hit the road", "in English and some other languages, speech and writing characterized by the use of vulgar and socially taboo vocabulary and idiomatic expressions"). Like you, I had therefore taken slang to imply some restriction to a category of people, even if that category was very broad like Internet users or youth. We should expand the Glossary definition if we're going to use slang in sense 1 ("informal and/or idiomatic") and not just sense 2 ("jargon")! But then, if we just want to convey something is "(very) informal" and maybe "metaphorical"/"idiomatic", should we really be using the ambiguous word "slang" to express that, instead of directly using "informal" (like e.g. Collins uses for both pussy and gutted), optionally qualified as {{lb|en|very|informal}} or with {{lb|en|metaphorical}} added where needed? I wonder. - -sche (discuss) 19:48, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't know how workable it is, but a question I'm always asking myself when having to decide whether a word is slang or not is "would I use it when talking to my parents?". I can use informal language with them, but I don't use slang, which imo has a youngish feel to it. PUC – 16:16, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

@PUC: not particularly workable, I think! You can have dated slang that has fallen out of use among young people, but is still identifiable as such by older generations (“that’s groovy, hep cats!”). — Sgconlaw (talk) 17:55, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Fair enough, but I still think there's often a generational aspect to slang that doesn't apply to merely informal language. PUC – 11:35, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

That’s only a correlation of different exposure, to media and immigrants. There is also slang arising in older people, but less likely, because they socialize less aggressively; society was more homogenous in the past, too. In a word of Equinox, there could also be childish slang used by old people; indeed in general there must be some baby talk that is also slang of those “parenting communities” while teenage parents are less likely to use motherese, I suppose. Fay Freak (talk) 13:09, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

not of the body

Is the phrase "of the body", used here, idiomatic? That and various Google Books hits could be explained as straightforward uses of body (“group”), but digging around, I see it's a reference to a metaphor in 1 Corinthians 12 about a human body, which suggests that when used about groups, it's figurative...? - -sche (discuss) 02:00, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

@-sche: I think it's a reference to The Return of the Archons. Chuck Entz (talk) 09:17, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Analects quotation in 韞

In the quotation in the Chinese section, the character after 韞 is shown as 匵, while Wikisource shows it as 櫝. Are they variants of each other? Does this have to be changed? Mcph2 (talk) 08:17, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

I imagine they probably just reflect different versions of the text. But this question can't be answered without doing a collation. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:41, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

jealousy

I don't get why sense 1 is labelled "uncountable" but sense 2 "countable". Also I don't see a clear distinction between sense 2 and sense 3. @-sche, could you take a look at this entry? PUC – 11:54, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, the current setup looks weird to me. It seems like jealousy is sometimes used as an uncountable thing, and other times it's used countably, but that seems to be a separate axis from which type of jealousy (suspiciously guarding a spouse; resenting; envying someone's stuff) someone is talking about: I can find plural use also for sense 1 (google books:"husband's jealousies", google books:"husbands' jealousies"), and the citation already provided for sense 2 looks uncountable. I might be tempted to just drop the countable/uncountable labels and let the headword handle it, or maybe there is a better approach... Equinox is our expert on countability/uncountability, I think. As for how to divide the senses: Merriam-Webster offloads the issue to jealous (just defining it as "a jealous disposition"), but Dictionary.com does have our senses 1 and 2 (resentment of someone for an advantage; suspicion of unfaithfulness/etc) and our sense 4 (vigilance), and then they seem to make countable use its own sense (their sense 4). Our sense 3 ("envy") might be something a purist would consider incorrect (see the senses and usage notes at jealous) but I think it exists: you needn't resent someone, you can tell your friend excitedly that OMG you're so jealous of their cool new [whatever]. - -sche (discuss) 19:06, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Setting aside for now the issue of whether it is a good idea to have different senses based on the reason for the jealousy, how I usually deal with words that are both countable and uncountable is to write: "(uncountable) resentment towards someone for a perceived advantage or superiority they hold; (countable) an instance of this". I don't think any of the current senses are exclusively uncountable or countable, as @-sche has noted. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:38, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

We could (as M-W does) just define jealousy in terms of jealous to limit the number of places we separate out the various senses. (Or vice versa, just define jealous like "experiencing jealousy".) But I think we have to have some separate senses in at least one of the entries; "envy"/"envious" and "resentment"/"resentful" (at least) seem like very distinct senses; being resentfully "jealous of the slightest interference in household management" and being jealous of your friend's cool new shirt do not seem combinable into one sense IMO. - -sche (discuss) 19:53, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

client state - vassal state

vassal state is given as a hyponym of client state. Why? Aren't they synonyms? PUC – 12:02, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

ringmail

This is related to the mail cul de sac in English (due to fanciful and unlearned Victorian usage), but is this ever used with a distinct meaning, particularly in historical contexts? Most uses really seemed synonymous with mail and chainmail. I only saw definitions for the sense present in the entry, usually in fantastical contexts. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 14:33, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Bezbradica/Безбрадица

I'm wondering about the etymology of the surname "Bezbradica" (Безбрадица). The surname is held by mostly Serbs and Croats, could anyone provide its etymology? Bez means "without", I do not know about bradica. I could not find it on Wiktionary. Cheesypenguigi (talk) 16:05, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

I would wager it's from брада (“beard”) (with the suffix -ица), thus "beardless". See бѐзбрад / bèzbrad. PUC – 16:10, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

tougher nut to crack, toughest nut to crack

I am having difficulty seeing how these can be "alternative forms" of tough nut to crack. Equinox ◑ 17:09, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

If these are attestable, convert to a usage note stating that the term is occasionally used with comparative and superlative forms of tough. — Sgconlaw (talk) 17:50, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

blood diamond

Are these two really senses distinct from one another? ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:53, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

I doubt it. Sense 2 was added by an IP last year. Possibly they were just trying to convey that blood diamonds (mined by and sold to finance one side in an armed conflict) may be sold via organized crime / black markets. If there are people who really use "blood diamond" to refer to any illegal diamond even if it has no connection to armed conflict, that would be distinct (and nonstandard). I suppose it's an RFV question: does sense 2 exist in reference to diamonds other than the diamonds described by sense 1. - -sche (discuss) 05:40, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

Smack a moose upside ya head, like Kobe when he mack in his broads

This is a lyric for the rap song Stand Clear. What is the meaning of moose and mack? It is probably (talk) 15:56, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

mack has a verb sense "act as pimp", so the smack would be a pimp slap (stereotypically used to control one's stable of whores). Equinox ◑ 15:58, 10 April 2023 (UTC)

placeholder

Should we define the mathematics and linguistics senses of this term separately, as the OED does? ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:36, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Based on the WP dab page, we probably should have several more definitions. DCDuring (talk) 16:36, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

soratia

At 8m22s into [1] Zach says he got infected with "soratia", and even spells the word onscreen, but I can't find any medical condition spelled that way. Any idea what the intended spelling or word is? Buildingquestion (talk) 06:37, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

I think it must be Serratia. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 07:45, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

crown

I’ve added a new sense at crown to reflect the fact that wasn’t just a British coin but an Irish coin and Jamaican coin and later banknote (and the fact that it was used in some other Commonwealth countries). I’m not sure about the quote I’ve added from the song ‘Maggie Murphy’s Knickers’ though. I’ve added a YouTube link to the relevant sense at crown and transcribed it as ‘an interlock of knickers’ but is Richie Kavanagh really saying ‘interlock’ as that doesn’t seem to make much sense? Overlordnat1 (talk) 10:20, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

imposing stone

I added a picture at imposing stone, kinda guessing at what it is. Ideally, I'd have done high-quality in-depth investigation, going to my local printing museum if needs be, to nail down which part of the machine in the picture (if any) is the imposing stone, then edited the file, added some arrows and captions. But I'm a low-quality lexicographical drudge, so you get vagueness and unreliable information instead. I doubt anyone else cares enough. It is probably (talk) 11:27, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

COVID-19 English definition

The current gloss given in the English section at COVID-19 is {l|mul|COVID-19} – in other words, COVID-19 is glossed as "COVID-19". That seems unhelpfully circular. I would propose something like the following (but I see that the existence of an English section has been controversial, so I am not being bold).

1. A respiratory disease caused by SARS-CoV-2, a coronavirus discovered in 2019.

Cnilep (talk) 00:52, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I think it should be defined as an acronym of “coronavirus disease 2019”, and that the definition you have suggested should be in the latter entry. — Sgconlaw (talk) 05:26, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

COVID-19 defined as a time period

In March, a definition "The time period marked by the COVID-19 pandemic" was added, with a usex about things happening during COVID-19. Is this is best viewed as a separate sense? You can equally say something happened during a plague, during the pandemic, during an epidemic, during the outbreak, during a surge. Should we add definitions "the time period during which a _ occurs" to these? - -sche (discuss) 02:08, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not convinced it's distinct, but at the same time, people often refer to "COVID" as the period of restrictions, as opposed to the pandemic itself (or the virus). COVID is technically still current, but where I live, it tends to be referred to in the past tense, since all restrictions have been lifted. So I could see this going both ways. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:33, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I don’t think it is distinct. — Sgconlaw (talk) 05:24, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't either. It's even broader than "outbreak", "epidemic", etc. Something can happen during a concert, or during a dream, or an election. No need to say "time period" separately. Equinox ◑ 07:08, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

No. Not even World War II has this gloss, and it would be more annoying than useful to have such glosses. Fay Freak (talk) 15:18, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I haven't heard COVID-19 being used this way, but I often hear used and myself use COVID with prepositions before, during, and after and with early and the the beginning of. In the US Korea and Vietnam are used the same way to refer to multi-year time periods, not necessarily in the context of anything military or political, just as COVID is not used in the context of disease per se. Each of these intervals are associated with some general society-wide changes in everyday life. It is "mere" metonymy, but metonymy is often how words gain distinct meanings, eg, head, Wall Street.

Such uses are without a determiner, which distinguishes them from most other references to time periods, such as those Equinox has mentioned. The absence (loss?) of a determiner has led lexicographers to treat words like some of home (but not house), church (not? chapel), synagogue, temple, work (not job, employment), kindergarten, school, college, uni, jail, and prison distinctly.

To me, the relatively unusual way that COVID is used (in much of the English-speaking world AFAICT) and that Korea and Vietnam were used (at least in the US) would permit distinct treatment (as proper nouns, BTW). We often have more trivial metonymic usage honored with separate definitions. Someone, especially a non-native speaker might wonder about the "correctness" and generality of such usage (absence of determiner, etc).

OTOH, I don't think that language learners would have much trouble decoding the meaning of during COVID. DCDuring (talk) 16:39, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Gender on Translingual entries

Latin has gender, but "Translingual" isn't a language, and does not. How do we justify the inclusion of gender markers on Translingual terms like Tympanocryptis? Equinox ◑ 14:20, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Translingual isn’t by itself a language, but integrated into language, for phrases which expose nominal class. Due this status of the Translingual header it is logical to include information which only becomes relevant when the lexeme is embedded in another language (for another example, also language-dependent pronunciation); and not even that is a necessary logical step to reach the conclusion, as the choice of forms in derived terms is already gendered, in pursuance of Latin rules. Basically you are making a petitio principii here: though Translingual be not a language, we cannot do as though there were no rules to describe in its sections. Fay Freak (talk) 15:15, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I think it’s a justifiable objection when we don’t indicate that this is a translingual borrowing from Latin. With other borrowings, we would only put the original-language info at the entry for that language. Putting the gender in a Translingual entry blurs the boundary between languages too much, in my opinion. Theknightwho (talk) 17:42, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I don't have time to comment at the moment, but see this. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:23, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Taxonomic Translingual has been a part of New Latin in which it was used in running text. Some still read Latin descriptions of genera and species for which gender might matter. And currently, specific epithets are expected to agree in gender with the genus in a species name or other sub-generic name. Some of the organism codes mandate correction of errors in gender agreement. DCDuring (talk) 16:50, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

(e/c) It seems like some Translingual words have gender insofar as they interact with other Translingual words in forming taxonomic names, as Chuck and DCDuring have said. I do notice some languages change Translingual terms' genders, not just in cases where they don't have the gender in question and so have to move the term to another class (e.g. French seems to mostly treat Trifolium pratense n as masculine), but also in other cases (e.g. German has a neuter gender, but I can find the occasional book treating Trifolium pratense as feminine). - -sche (discuss) 16:52, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

In French, our translations of red clover (Trefolium pratense) are masculine (trèfle des prés m, trèfle violet), which might account for ascribing masculine gender to the Translingual name. If the German translation involves Klee, this hypothesis fails. DCDuring (talk) 17:04, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Let's examine the starting assumption. Since we see that some words which we put under the Translingual header have gender which other Translingual words which modify them inflect to match, where is the idea that Translingual "does not have gender" coming from? I guess we could replace the single-letter gender markers with long usage notes taking up a whole section of screen space to express in so many words that "Trifolium is neuter, and specific epithets are inflected to agree with it in gender, e.g. the neuter form pratense.", and mutatis mutandis to expain why Cardamine pratensis is feminine. I'm not sure if this would actually represent an improvement. - -sche (discuss) 19:35, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

mee as adjective

The example for mee as an adjective is "Ik ben niet meer mee." I've talked with Dutch linguists and they said this is specifically for not being able to follow a conversation and that it doesn't apply for physical movement. I propose for this to be specified in the example. Liubomirwm (talk) 22:32, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

is it right to create "fancy stitch"?

I was looking around the requested entries in English and came across the term "fancy stitch." I had the definition laid out for me so I said I might as well create the page.

The page was deleted back in 2018 by SemperBlotto, and the person who created it was blocked for vandalism too. The term creation page tells me that I am about to create a page that was previously deleted. I cannot see the reason that the page was deleted for some reason, but from the blocked user (and the word "butt" is shown in the very small preview), it was probably deleted for vandalism (butt was probably supposed to be something else, but it got cut off. i'm assuming vandalism xd)

Would it be wrong to recreate the page?

(not gonna ping blotto so he doesnt have some stupid notif lmao) ▶ Rockrugged ◀ (talk) 16:56, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

@Rockragged: It is not cut off (there would be an ellipsis shown); that was the entire content of the page. J3133 (talk) 17:40, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

You can make it, as long as you are not gonna make it read, for example, "BUTT BUTT BUTT POOPY'S PLAYTIME SUSSY BAKA BIG CHUNGUS!!!!!" CitationsFreak: Accessed 2023/01/01 (talk) 23:40, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

rape tree

This is currently defined and (un)labelled as a real thing that exists in general, as if you could potentially find one on any continent or era. As far as I can find (Citations:rape tree), though, it's actually specific to recent US border-guard / right-wing legends about the US-Mexican border, where it may or may not actually exist, which makes me think the definition needs to be more specific and it might need a label of some kind. - -sche (discuss) 18:12, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

According to a Border Patrol spokesman quoted by a Nexstar Media reporter[2] this is a decades-old legend. It might be a misunderstanding of clothes left out for other reasons – to dry, or as markers. The addition of "supposedly" to the definition is good enough. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 12:30, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

omnis

Our entry for omnis currently makes a distinction between singular ("every") and plural ("all"). However, I think this is perhaps misleading in its current form because, even if the Latin is singular, nouns with uncountable senses in English might require "all" in the translation. This diff is an example of the issue, where the justification for the change seems to follow the reasoning of our omnis entry. Art in the context of Seneca's letter is often viewed as uncountable, so I have seen "all art" often used to translate "omnis ars", against what our entry may suggest on the surface. Here are two other examples from Allen and Greenough: "Adēmptum tibi iam faxō omnem metum" (Ter. Haut. 34) is translated as "I will relieve you of all fear" (source), and "omnis speī egēnam" (Tac. Ann. 1.53) is translated as "destitute of all hope" (source). As an example from the Vulgate, the Greek "πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως" (Col. 1:15, where πάσης κτίσεως is genitive singular) is translated as "prīmōgenitus omnis creātūrae", and English translations generally go with "the firstborn of all creation" (ESV) and not "the firstborn of every creation". We have the same kind of issue with our πᾶς (pâs) entry, where we say "whole" for "in the singular". What do others think about this? --Thrasymedes (talk) 18:13, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

'faerie' – re-introduced, and link to Old French

The page claims it was 're-introduced into English' by Spenser from Old French, but I don't see any mention of it existing in English before then. The Oxford Dictionary entry states the origin as 'late 16th century (introduced by Spenser): pseudo-archaic variant of fairy' which seems to suggest it was never in English before that, and also does not reference Old French, suggesting that link might have been coincidental (though I suppose Spenser could have been aware of the Old French). This seems to be quite different to what the page says, so I'd love to see what sources anyone else has dug up about this. 2A00:23C7:5D12:FB01:28C6:13E6:80B8:DFAC 22:47, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

collapse#Noun

Sense 2 needs some rephrasing or cleanup. Equinox ◑ 16:28, 16 April 2023 (UTC)

tiptop

Does anyone know what became of the Tip-Top brand of freeze/ice pop? I’ve created a new sense at tiptop to reflect the fact that it is used generically to mean ANY ice pop, especially in certain regions (though with a lot of spelling variation wrt spacing, capitalisation and hyphenisation), but what about the actual brand? A Google Images search reveals the fact that Iceland (the supermarket) sold ‘Tip Top Freeze Pops’ at one point (though the website lists them as currently unavailable) as a sub-brand of the Calypso brand, then owned by Cotts. Cotts was then taken over by Refresco but Mr Freeze's ‘Jubbly’ brand is now owned by the 'Calypso' company, Mr Freeze was probably never taken over by Refresco but Calypso instead, as they are the current owners[3]. Perhaps the Tip Top brand has been discontinued at some point? When did the brand go from being owned by ‘Crystallized Confections’ to being owned by Calypso/Cotts in the first place? --Overlordnat1 (talk) 11:57, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Thesaurus:normophile

Can we move this to... something? As the entry states, normophile is extremely rare. Judging by other entries like non-kinkster (before I just edited it), this one particular editor really wanted to push the rare word "normophile" across Wiktionary. Equinox ◑ 07:57, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

amogus

The "popularized in memes around January 2021, in which a StoneToss.." etymology bit is contentious and should be removed unless backed up by a reliable source 2A0D:6FC7:339:C189:578:5634:1232:5476 09:08, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Simply find sources where it was used before 2021 and you can prove it should be removed. The current cites support the etymology since they begin at 2021. Equinox ◑ 09:09, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

I was referring to the popularized by StoneToss bit (who by the way doesn't even have a Wikipedia article) 2A0D:6FC7:32E:69BF:378:5634:1232:5476 14:00, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

doubloon in a meme/internet sense

The word "doubloon" is (albeit uncommonly,) used in memes and/or on the Internet in a joking sense to imply any form of currency, usually worth an unnatural amount of money. From what I've seen, it is almost exactly used in the same way as "kromer" (a word originating from Toby Fox's DELTARUNE.) This word might be a "hot word" (i'm not too familiar with this, but i mean it might come and go.) Would it be right to add this as a definition to the term doubloon?

In memes, one might pair the sentence "2 KROMER" with a GIF of the scene from Spongebob Squarepants where Spongebob and Patrick relax and eat popcorn while multiple large trucks dump great amounts of money (seen as paper dollars) onto their houses. In the same way, one might pair the sentence "5 dubloons" (commonly misspelled this way, likely uncommon in memes) with the same GIF. ▶ Rockrugged ◀ (talk) 14:22, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

@Rockragged: We have it at dabloon. J3133 (talk) 14:35, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

oh alright thank you lol ▶ Rockrugged ◀ (talk) 16:20, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

holy smokes!

Hey- I want to say that holy smokes is the only way I've ever used or heard this expression. How can I confirm that the ngrams are really the 'holy smoke' interjection and not maybe some reference to buring incense for religion? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 16:44, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

The slow way. DCDuring (talk) 21:11, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Frankly, it seems more likely that holy smoke would be attested in a literal sense (inflating its Ngrams numbers) than holy smokes. One approach might be to look at which form other dictionaries lemmatize. Or to search through all Google Books hits (to rule out literal uses) from a set period, like the last ten years, and see which form is more common there. Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com have the singular only; Cambridge lemmatizes the singular and has the plural as "also US holy smokes". The Free Dictionary has "holy smoke(s)", cleverly. MacMillan has "holy smoke​/​cow​/​mackerel etc." - -sche (discuss) 15:18, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

corrīdeō and conrīdeō

The former has the remark "no passive", but the latter does not. Also, all conjugation forms of the latter has been created, including the passive ones. I would like to check if the passive forms of the verb exist or not. --TongcyDai (talk) 16:49, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

It seems to be poorly attested overall. Lewis and Short calls the word "ante- and post-class." I added three citations to conrideo. Gaffiot has an entry for the perfect form corrīsī and some post-Classical examples of perfect forms can be found via Google, e.g. a, b, c, d. Here is an example of the passive form corridetur.--Urszag (talk) 22:23, 17 April 2023 (UTC)

Indon

Malay

A usage note states:

• The term is often misconstrued as pejorative in Indonesia, although it bears no negative connotation to Malaysian Malay speakers.

You can almost hear the writer saying "those silly Indonesians...". I just reverted an edit by an angry Indonesian who trashed the entry in the process of showing how really really REALLY offensive Indonesians find this word. This needs accurate labeling and useful usage notes from a neutral point of view. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:18, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Agree that the usage note is strange. If the word is pejorative in Indonesia, it should just state that rather than claim it is a “misconception” which makes little sense to me. If Indonesians find it derogatory then it is derogatory, and supposed misconception doesn’t come into it. — Sgconlaw (talk) 14:36, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

I've rewritten the usage notes based on what the Indonesian Wikipedia says about it (that Indonesia finds it offensive and objects to its use, Malaysia agreed to remove/ban it from official use, and media still at least sometimes uses it). (If there are no further comments after a few days, remember to remove the tea room template.) - -sche (discuss) 15:15, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: Kinda interesting you claimed I was angry, I was not. I was just reverting it to the previous long standing version with added source as @Danazach remove it with the reasoning of "no credible source". In any case, I would add the explanation of why it is offensive: that it means 'whore' in Pontianak dialect of Malay and later adopted as a slur against Indonesian domestic workers (mainly women) in Malaysia, as the source said. This explanation was already included in the previous version by @Gbacue, though in english section and no source. If its more neutral, I would put it under Indonesian (rather than malay) for pontianak malay explanation. How about that @Sgconlaw:, @-sche:, @Chuck Entz:? Envapid (talk) 02:51, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I removed it earlier because the source that the author was quoting from is some unverified website (not linguistically and etymologically proven and also verified that it is the main reason behind Indonesian reaction) that "Indon" is synonymous to "whore" in Pontianak Malay.

The main reason why Indon has become derogarotary is mainly because in Malaysia, when the Indonesian migrants and immigrants come to work and migrated in the 60s, they introduced themselves as Indon as a short form for Indonesian, as time goes by, Indon in Malaysia are associated with domestic workers, people who worked in construction, palm oil estate and mainly blue collar workers. Some lived in deplorable condition and others resorted to criminal activities (of course not all).

When the 2000s open the internet border between Malaysian and Indonesian, the Indonesian youth found that these are used derogatively in their virtual exchanges and started to blame Malaysians for creating the term (although it actually was originated by Indonesians themselves - since many sources from Indonesian media in the 60s and 70s even used that abbreviation - but slowly carried and evolved into a negative connotations)

The other reasons (like Pontianak Malay term to mean prostitute) are merely retro reasoning to justify Indonesianss disagreement with the term (logical fallacy), not really the main reason why "Indon" became derogarotary in the first place. Danazach (talk) 13:10, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree that @Envapid's version[4] was a bit over the top, including the tagging as "vulgar, slang" (when the sources would rather justify "colloquial" for the non-offensive part), the undue mention of random web trolling ("Hindunesia and Hindon"), and especially the misleading "Commonly linked by etymology experts" (which I could have all the reason to find offensive as a historical linguist). But no, @Danazach, you cannot tell people that they "misconstrue" things when they simply perceive it that way. Just like populist tabloid media all over the world love to do, Malaysian tabloid media often put migrant workers into the headlines with sexed up reports about them, using sloppy informal language. So more often than not, you will see the word "Indon" in a negative context in the media. Eventially, the massive use of an informal and not quite familar (for many Indonesians) term in negative narratives will create a connotation for the term itself ("it's used when they're badmouthing us"). This is exactly how exonyms turn into slurs. Yes, the pseudo-etyomology based on a reported Pontianak Malay word is just retro-active well-poisoning, but you can't unpoison the well simply by saying "that's not where the term is derived from". Take the term "Eskimo". Inuits have been pissed off by reading "the word means 'eater of raw flesh'" in every textbook to such a degree that they perceived the exonym as a pejorative. The etymology is probably wrong, but it is a fallacy to say "Inuits shouldn't feel offended anymore, because the etymology has been debunked". Once words carry a connotational baggage with them, you cannot unilaterally discard it by calling it a misconception. Austronesier (talk) 16:46, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Firstly, @Austronesier, I was merely reverting the version to an older edit after it was edited in a very extreme version of the Indonesians' opinion (where Malaysians in general are painted in a bad light, portraying Malaysian in general to be using it negatively albeit more often than not it is used as an abbreviation, similarly like how it is used by Australians, Singaporeans, Filipino etc).

Feel free to edit the word "misconstrue" as it was an older edit which was not mine, but the version before I reverted is heavily biased (and using Pontianak Malay reasoning as main justification).

You explanation is similar like what I have said, the term become derogatory over time due to association to low skilled workers and criminals, but really not linked to Pontianak Malay language. If that is the main reason, I am sure the Indonesian government would have put that as one of the reason when they issued out notice of objection on using the term to other countries in the 2000s Danazach (talk) 22:54, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Is iron oxide an alloy?

Wikipedia says An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which at least one is a metal.

Wiktionary's first definition of alloy is A metal that is a combination of two or more elements, at least one of which is a metal.

Iron oxide is a combination of iron (one metallic element) and another element (oxygen), but iron oxide is rust--is it really an alloy? But if it's not, what's the actual definition of an alloy? "A metal combined with at least one other element, not counting oxygen"? Sounds kind of awkward...

Posting this question on Wikipedia and Wiktionary.

173.67.42.107 21:45, 20 April 2023 (UTC)

Rust isn't a metal. One of its constituents is a metal, but that doesn't make the compound a metal. If you think about it, salts are also compounds containing metals: in the absence of anything that might combine with it, pure sodium has all the physical characteristics of a metal- but expose it to chlorine and you get table salt. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:29, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm no chemist, but intuitively it doesn't seem sufficiently metallic to be an alloy. Also, simply reading further in w:Alloy, one finds at the beginning of the second paragraph: "Alloys are defined by a w:metallic bonding character". Apparently, formerly the term alloy was only applied to materials with metallic properties, but now semiconductors are sometimes called alloys. The term alloy seems reserved to a material (consisting of metals and other elements) that is economically valuable or scientifically interesting. If not valuable or interesting it seems to often be called a metal with impurities. DCDuring (talk) 02:33, 21 April 2023 (UTC)

Ah, but what's a mixture? One can counter that rust is a compound of iron and oxygen (in fact, it typically also contains hydroxyl ions). 'Metallic mixture' is probably a more accurate description, but that definition heads for unhelpful circularity. RichardW57m (talk) 13:34, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

mayon(n)aise

This was undeleted per RfD, but the entries were removed due to bad formatting (the original content is commented out). I am putting this here in case anyone wants to change the {{no entry}} templates to entries. J3133 (talk) 07:14, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

(Pinging @Pseudomonas, who created the entry.) J3133 (talk) 07:50, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Ebrard#French

I think the French spelling of this surname is Ébrard. DonnanZ (talk) 12:39, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

based

I'm wondering whether the current definition(s) of "based" as an adjective/interjection fully encompass the meaning behind the word. I am not aware of the history of its usage within right-wing circles, but from what I have seen the word seems to have been co-opted by internet users of all political backgrounds.

When I think of the term "based," it seems like more than just an indication of agreement with an opinion -- it seems to be more an indication of agreement with an opinion that is either controversial/outside of the mainstream or indication of agreement with an opinion expressed by someone whose ideology/opinions one normally disagrees with. For example, if a right-wing politician expressed an opinion that is associated with left-wing populism, left-wing individuals on the internet might say "Based" because such an opinion is uncharacteristic of someone who espouses right-wing ideology, if that makes sense. With this in mind I believe a suitable definition would be:

based (Internet slang) Indicating approval of a statement or opinion by an individual with whom one normally disagrees politically; or of a statement or opinion that is particularly controversial or espoused by few individuals.

I am curious as to what your thoughts on this would be. Keithshep (talk) 17:34, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

This word attracts a lot of attention and discussions have come up before. Indeed there's still a link to a discussion from last summer on the entry page, at Wiktionary:Tea_room/2022/June#based, more recent discussion on talk:based, and one more discussion at Wiktionary:Requests_for_verification/English#Restore_deleted_sense_at_based. I agree with the first part of what you wrote, but I think it's better to keep the three senses separate, and that it doesn't need to be used in "unexpected" situations like someone praising an opponent. —Soap— 09:48, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

new english swear word

https://www.google.com/search?q=whitey&rlz=1C1GCEB_enUS1020US1020&oq=whitey&aqs=chrome..69i57j46i433i512j46i131i433i512l2j46i340i433i512l2j46i433i512j0i512l2.3258j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&safe=active&ssui=on Kylrie (talk) 21:01, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

We have an entry for it, and it's not new- it goes back at least to the 60's. Besides which: a racial slur isn't really a swear word, though they do overlap. It's used to insult or say something bad about someone, not to express negative emotions in general. Both are offensive, so both should be avoided- but they're not the same. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:26, 23 April 2023 (UTC)

a and ab

For the Latin preposition a/ab, at the moment, instead of having one page with all the senses and quotations, both pages have a (slightly different) copy of the same senses and mostly the same quotations. It would make sense to me to pick one of the two to be the lemma (Gaffiot (2016) and LaNe pick ā, for example), and to have a short entry for the other, where we just say Alternative form of ā (used before a vowel or h, sometimes also before a consonant) et cetera, so that we can provide one entry with an overview of ā, ab and other forms, with all the information in one place. --Thrasymedes (talk) 13:11, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

lasagna

I have lately seen lasagna used to refer to pastaless layered desserts, e.g. google:blueberry lemon lasanga, google:raspberry lasanga. I added a cite about "chocolate lasagna" under the "(by extension) A combination or layering of things" sense. Should this be a separate sense, placed between the pasta/meat sense and the very general sense? It's not metaphorical/abstract the way "a lasagna of lies" cite under the "combination or layering of things" sense is, it's just another kind of layered food dish. In fact — and complicating things — there seems to be a spectrum; some savory pasta lasagna dishes in Italy also use e.g. blueberries, some other lasagna dishes use apple together with ricotta cheese and pasta, and then some use berries and lemon and no pasta or cheese or savory ingredients. - -sche (discuss) 23:46, 24 April 2023 (UTC)

This is the case for many dishes, that there are senses on the periphery that are applied only by arbitrary choice but even the speakers themselves do not believe in a separate broad sense but are fully aware of bending terminology somewhat. Is a hot dog a sandwich? And a pop tart? It is probably more helpful when the definitions are most specific and have the archetypical details, from which readers can gain more meanings by their own abstractions. Shouldn’t look at the things that essentialistically. Fay Freak (talk) 15:04, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

I've had similar thoughts about French toast and eggy bread. We say that the original recipe for French toast didn't use eggs, which is true, but there are recipes telling you how to make French toast if you're vegan, or have run out of eggs, out there even now and that's not reflected in the current definition. Also eggy bread and French toast seem to be perfect synonyms in my opinion, I think both terms can refer to either dipping bread in eggs and frying or dipping bread in a batter made from eggs and milk whisked together and frying. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 18:45, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Word meaning a frivolous young woman

I am trying to think of a common word for a frivolous young woman (one who is flighty or giddy), but my mind has gone blank. This is one of the senses of the word hoity-toity but it is now only dialectal, and so I think the translations should be placed at a more common word if one exists. — Sgconlaw (talk) 21:27, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

flibbertigibbet, perhaps? Overlordnat1 (talk) 21:39, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Oh! But that’s also rather unusual, isn’t it? — Sgconlaw (talk) 21:52, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that's true. Maybe bimbo is close enough in meaning then? --Overlordnat1 (talk) 22:50, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

What about airhead? DonnanZ (talk) 07:45, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

An airhead is not necessarily flighty or giddy. I think the "manic pixie dream girl" stock character comes closer to what was intended in terms of behavior, but that is not the requested word. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 11:17, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

My impression is that a young woman regarded as flighty or giddy is not necessarily unintelligent, merely that she comes across as given to leisure and impulsive. Maybe I am overanalysing this, and maybe there is no common term for such a person. (I did come across frippet, but it is an obsolete word so not suitable as a place for translations.) I suppose if no one has a better suggestion we could use flibertigibbet which, at least, is not dialectal and which people have encountered before (at least if they have watched The Sound of Music…). — Sgconlaw (talk) 11:57, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

IMO, a hyponym of the desired term would be valley girl. DCDuring (talk) 16:10, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

ditz (though it may suggest foolishness rather than frivolity; they tend to overlap). Equinox ◑ 16:12, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

w:Valley girl uses some of the suggestions above, but adds only w:Essex girl. Following links in those articles finds lots of current, loclized terms, but nothing sufficiently generic.

Featherhead? DCDuring (talk) 16:25, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

until

If a sign says "bake sale, 2 pm until 3 pm.", is it using preposition until (as opposed to the conjunction)?
When signs say "bake sale, 2 pm until.", meaning "until everything is sold out"; do you think this is a sufficiently lexicalized ellipsis to be worth a sense? - -sche (discuss) 19:57, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

I would have had no idea what "2 pm until." meant, so if it's common, I would be inclined to include it. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 20:02, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

It's hard to search for, because of course just searching "[time] until" also brings up instances where something follows the "until", but here's a pop-up food seller advertising food TOMORROW (2pm until) AND SATURDAY (10am-3:30pm), someone selling wares saying "Come see us at Sam & Omie's this Tuesday from 4pm-until[,] for our holiday pop up", and a haunted house announcing both in speech and writing that it's casting Saturdays from 2pm until, starting April 23rd. - -sche (discuss) 20:57, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Prepositions seem to slip into zero-object usage regularly. Our users would probably call it an adverb. End of. DCDuring (talk) 02:28, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

안돼요

Shouldn't this be spelt: 안 돼요 (an dwaeyo), with a space ? Leasnam (talk) 23:56, 26 April 2023 (UTC)

Pinging User:Saranamd as the first recently-active Korean-speaker I found in CAT:User ko. - -sche (discuss) 00:08, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

@Leasnam@-sche Yes. That's an egregious misspelling.--Saranamd (talk) 00:45, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Thank you ! What shall we do with it ? As 안 돼요 (an dwaeyo) it's not a single word, but a particle (?) + adj/verb. Coincidentally, 안돼요 (andwaeyo) does mean something else, it's a form of 안되다 (andoeda). What to do about the entry (?) Leasnam (talk) 03:49, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

@Leasnam: I have moved the entry to 안 돼요 (an dwaeyo). 안돼요 now redirects to 안되다. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:56, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks all ! Leasnam (talk) 05:06, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

New Joisey

Can someone confirm or deny the usage note, stating that this NJ accent does not exist? Equinox ◑ 11:53, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

It's hard to prove a negative, that there are no NJ speakers that would say it this way, but indeed when I google it almost all the results make a point of mentioning that it isn't used by any or many New Jerseyians, only imitators. I'm not an expert on Jersey accents by any means, but my understanding (and Erica Friedman's answer here) is that the combination of r-lessness and oi could only(?) have occurred in the old New York (and far north Jersey) accent that famously used to pronounce bird as boid ... but that has been, as Wikipedia puts it, "near-extinct" since 1950. It's impressive how long it's lingered on as the stereotype of both states. I might professionalize the wording a little (sandbox demo here) but it seems broadly correct. Makes me think of how the stereotypical Canadian pronunciation is aboot but Canadians don't say aboot, they very clearly say something closer to aboat but Americans just...stereotype it as aboot. - -sche (discuss) 16:10, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

The tone of the usage note seems defensive to me. Shouldn't the entry say that New/Noo Joisey is pronunciation spelling, following an old/near-extinct New-York-metropolitan-area pronunciation which some northeastern New Jersey residents shared. AFAICT, that NY-metro pronunciation was also not spoken by more educated and wealthier residents of the area, nor by most non-native speakers, but rather by the children of immigrants and by their children's children, gradually becoming diluted by radio and TV. Late 19th and early 20th century print works and early films (through 1940s and '50s) marked immigrant pronunciations (esp. Irish, Italian, Yiddish) as well as children-of-immigrants/melting-pot pronunciations. DCDuring (talk) 17:19, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree - it does seem defensive. Even if we keep it, we should probably rephrase it. Theknightwho (talk) 17:22, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

It does sound defensive, it's not even the silliest stereotype of the area, that would surely be the claim made by many people that New Yorkers say 'Noo Yoik'[5]! I see what they're getting at though, theyre trying to reflect the fact that the placename is often pronounced with a twangy vowel, more like 'Noo Yaw-ik' (or sometimes 'Nyoo Yaw-ik') than 'Noo Yawk'. I would say that the Canadian stereotype is occasionally true though, Ricky from the TV series 'Trailer Park Boys' and J J McCullough on You Tube do often say 'about' as 'aboot'. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 22:35, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

ss. (scilicet)

The definition given at ss. seems weirdly over-narrow. It's hard to find that exact abbreviation ss. because so many other things are abbreviated SS, but at destinatory I added a quote where a "bank-note belongs 'in equity' to the destinatories [sc. beneficiaries]", where "beneficiaries" clearly aren't "the designated place within that jurisdiction [where] a legal document was executed", and of course google books:"scil. the" is also not so narrow, so it seems unlikely that this one spelling would be. - -sche (discuss) 17:01, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

"Pelé" as an adjective in Brazilian Portuguese

This https://apnews.com/article/pele-dictionary-entry-brazil-soccer-e44a0da874b0cc7e0147976a987948a8 claims that it's been added to a dictionary and then gives use cases that are all as a noun ("he's the Pelé of financial accounting", etc.) Does anyone know if it's genuinely used as an adjective? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:32, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Here is the entry itself. They are saying it is both an adjective and a noun. The definition given is not adjectival and I cannot quite imagine how the term would be used as an adjective (like Donald Trump é o pelé jogador de golfe de todos os tempos ?)  --Lambiam 19:17, 1 May 2023 (UTC)

Nor I. My Portuguese is pretty spotty, but these examples given for those who don't know Portuguese are "Ele é o pelé do basquet" / "He is the Pele of basketball" and "Ela é a pelé do tênis" / "She is the Pele of tennis", etc. No usages as an adejctive and I can't seem to find them in the wild, as doing an Internet search for "Pele" brings up a lot of discussion of the footballer or these noun-style usages where "he's the Pele of patent law!", etc. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:12, 3 May 2023 (UTC)

en echelon

We're either missing a geological sense, or need to broaden the current one so it can also refer to other things besides guns. See e.g. google books:horsts "en echelon". - -sche (discuss) 11:38, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

I rewrote the definition. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 16:55, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks! - -sche (discuss) 18:51, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

transgender offensive/proscribed usage

I recently added cites for a subsense of transgender in which transgender is understood only within a binary gender context. This was reflective of that same/similar subsense in Merriam Webster. [6] "especially : of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity is opposite the sex the person had or was identified as having at birth". Wiktionary says that this is offensive/proscribed. I agree that in theory this could definitely be the case. But I would like to ask for (1) specific academic journal articles or even online blog posts or whatever, where this sense is deemed proscribed, and/or (2) specific citations where this sense of this word is used in a blatantly offensive way. The cites I found did not seem blatantly offensive though perhaps in retrospect they might be considered mistaken etc. Why am I asking for this? Well, it just seems like it will be valuable to Wiktionary to clearly document that people are saying this sense is proscribed or ways in which this sense is used in an offensive manner. I don't know exactly what to look for, but I tried a few searches and will continue to look. Again, I am no expert on this and I apologize now if I offend anyone (and I will apologize again for any specific mistakes). --Geographyinitiative (talk) 17:53, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

As I suspected when I removed the label and put "see usage notes" (though I then didn't have time to flesh out the notes; sorry), the situation is more complex than a label can cover well, because there are several different things going on. Some nonbinary people don't feel seen by transgender, and that's one reason there are phrases like google books:"transgender or nonbinary" (compare the history of lesbians not feeling seen by gay groups); other people see trans as an umbrella encompassing nonbinary perfectly well (and likewise for gay), but I'd like to think nonbinary people (or lesbians) using more explicitly-inclusive terminology isn't proscribed — the label is in reference to something else, which is transmed-type people defining it that way for exclusionary reasons (excluding nonbinary people as trenders who aren't truly trans). It's like how there are famously people who put up signs defining "woman = adult human female" because they think that by doing so they're excluding trans women . . . but everyone else (including trans women, and including Wiktionary) was already using that definition, because it doesn't actually exclude trans women. So, I think usage notes will be clearer better than a label, if we can find (and yes, as you say, this is what we need!) sources documenting this in adequate detail. - -sche (discuss) 18:51, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Perhaps the usage note at Palestine is appropriate: "... sometimes seen as politically or emotionally charged; indeed, this is true of all terms for this region." Vox Sciurorum (talk) 20:05, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

subulcus, bubulcus

@Urszag, Catonif, Nicodene, do you have more info on the length of the first -u- in subulcus and bubulcus? And what's the suffix? PUC – 20:32, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

The -u- is expected from sūs, sŭis, and in bubulcus it could have been taken from subulcus (bōs is morphologically and etymologically rather wobbly). I ported on the entries what de Vaan says, although there's still an amount of uncertainty on the precise details. Catonif (talk) 22:14, 29 April 2023 (UTC)