Wiktionary:Tea room/2023/October

Latin oportebit should point to oportet too, not just oporteo

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/oportebit#Latin refers only to oporteo, not oportet, of which it is also a future form. 89.23.224.97 08:14, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's an odd one since they are functionally the same verb, just that only one sense is personal. The OLD and L&S have them under one lemma. If they are being treated as separate then I guess both should be listed there, yeah, though given that the only extra attested form for the personal sense seems to be the 3rd person plural I wonder if having a single lemma would be better. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 08:33, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think it would. Thanks for answering. How do I get someone to volunteer to do that? I don't feel experienced enough in neither Latin dictionaryty, nor wiktionarian editing to do it myself. But one or the other would be nice, because I got mislead to the wrong lemma looking up oportebit. 89.23.224.121 10:24, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

no human being is illegal

Definition is unclear. What is meant by "illegitimate" in the definition? It seems to be saying that it is illegitimate to believe in the law, which is obviously self-contradictory. I imagine in fact this phrase (though I've never heard it before) is just an exhortation not to use the word "illegal" to refer to people. Equinox ◑ 12:04, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've heard it before, but allways thought it is a quote of somebody, not a phrase. It is similar to "property is theft" or "eat the rich". Tollef Salemann (talk) 12:22, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If we want to have these – technically they aren’t even covered by the inclusion criteria but need a special case, similar to our Wiktionary:Phrasebook project or in expansion of it (“which phrases should I learn to become a successful entryist in another country’s politics?”) – then we should not categorize as “language proverbs” but as “language political slogans”. It is only the form of the assertion that allows an editor to claim it to be “a phrase expressing a basic truth which may be applied to common situations” as we now define proverb, but the actual speech act is to demand a certain treatment of people according to human dignity not exhausted by avoiding some objectifying language. We could also add Yankee go home, Ausländer raus and the analogy Nazis raus and for such demands it is even more patently inappropriate to declare them proverbs.

These entries appear to have a merit because as even this example shows, there is a need for explanation, though largely ideological contextualization. From the same author: scratch a liberal and you'll find a fascist – apparently she finds much commendable in this direction.

They are disrecommendable however because some of the attested phrases fall within the scope of an offence and thus even promoting them by phrasebook entry might be illegal according to the logics of some public prosecutors, who are definitely as smart as those who edit Wiktionary to “protect the trademarks” of their clients. Otherwise why wouldn’t one add the rhyming phrase Wer Deutschland liebt, ist Antisemit (“Whoso for Deutschland woos, must despise them Jews”) which has been recorded a few years ago but now waned mostly because of criminal sentences according to § 130 sect. 1 of the German criminal code? If it rhymes it is extra-inclusionworthy, was probably the thought of the IP editor who added diversity is perversity to our English rhyming phrases.

Overall I am concerned more about what audience is attracted than about the documentation of the matter per se. Fay Freak (talk) 14:58, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't doubt that this has the force of an admonishment proverb in some contexts. If indeed proverbs come in pairs, what will be the partner for this one? Will we treat it equally? DCDuring (talk) 16:56, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ignorantia juris non excusat :) Equinox ◑ 17:00, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That might might be a good test for proverbiality: If there isn't a contradictory partner, it isn't a proverb, it's a phrase! DCDuring (talk) 17:10, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Like Tollef, I've heard this but would not have thought of it as something to include in a dictionary: it's a slogan, like "leave means leave" or "no child left behind" or "make American great again". Including abbreviations is one thing (TINA, TATA, MAGA), but I would not have thought of slogans themselves as dictionary material, at least not when the basic meaning is intelligible from the individual meanings of the words. OTOH we do include some other comparably-transparent slogans like black lives matter and police lives matter, so who knows. - -sche (discuss) 20:38, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Im not defending to have slogans here, don't get me wrong. Wiktionary is not a corpus. But does any policy exist to what of phrases include or not? 'Cause otherwise just nominate for deletion all the slogans. Not all words put together which has a certain fast use must be in a dictionary.

And above all the stuff said by Fay Freak, i also wonder about the definition of slogan and quote. Bible has some thousands of phrases actively used here and there, but is it really good idea to include stuff like "the righteous will stay alive by his faithfulnes" and "snarling like dogs they prowl trough the city" just because some groups of people use this for defending their political views by giving it a certain definition which is not directly seen in the phrases themselfs?

I think it is weird to include political phrases 'cause allmost every phrase has a political context, and every quote of any book of historical cultural importancy has a political context, so literally everithing can be used as a slogan. What's the criteria? Tollef Salemann (talk) 04:17, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The first Bible quote feels provebial to me. Maybe it is one. CitationsFreak (talk) 17:06, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have a quibble with the new version of the entry. Do people use this phrase to refer to calling non-immigrants illegal? I've only heard it as a reference to Central/South-American immigrants entering American undocumentedly, especially after Trump. CitationsFreak (talk) 17:10, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you're not a North Korean citizen, and you waltz your way into North Korea, you are illegal. Doesn't matter how documented you may or may not be. Leasnam (talk) 18:09, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You can go to North Korea legally through China. CitationsFreak (talk) 18:19, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not too strictly speaking, in modern law, actions are what are illegal generally, not entities that perform illegal actions. DCDuring (talk) 00:30, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

big up

The Verb has a synonym section for "increase one's muscle mass", but the definition is only "to become big", nothing about muscles or workouts. Equinox ◑ 18:03, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I guessed that it would be easy to cite the "increase one's strength/muscle mass" sense, but I only found one cite in Google's big four corpora. I even find the "hype" sense on body-building/athletics websites. DCDuring (talk) 18:50, 1 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

xyrophilic

We define this as "Having sharp, razor-like leaves" and say it's from xyro- + -philic, but we only have -philic defined as "loving, having affinity for". Are we missing a biology/botany sense of -philic which explains xyrophilic meaning "having razor-like leaves", or is this a weird one-off use of -philic, or is the definition of xyrophilic wrong, or what? Is -philic here an error for -phyllous, -phyllic? - -sche (discuss) 01:36, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

They are all pronounced …fɪl…, right? So add {{IPA}} and {{homophone}} for some suffixes at least, if not {{misconstruction of}}. While the native speakers have difficulties in spelling, to the non-natives conversely pronunciations are unintuitive, depending on whether the language is constructed as spoken or as written first.

As you don’t dare to move the pages to the correct spelling which you find no attestations of. You may move though and slap {{normalized}} on it, since you can’t argue either that anyone is organically more likely to find the cited spelling, and this is perfectly in accordance with the formal inclusion criteria by reason that, as said on other places, you can even add words which aren’t attested in writing at all but in audio, where you choose your own spelling. Remember, descriptivism is also describing the normative forms, which authors could have adhered to but failed to adhere to in their attempts. Like an attempt is also a full-fledged crime. Fay Freak (talk) 02:34, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@-sche: The one quote in the entry is an obvious error for xerophilic. I think Doremitzwr let his enthusiasm for Ancient Greek get away from him. Anyone else would have realized it made no sense, instead of rummaging through lexica for anything that fit the spelling and making up a definition to match it. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:03, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Aha! I'll RFV it and we can presumably delete it in a month (or sooner if anyone wants to be bold). - -sche (discuss) 03:13, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

sex sells

Is this really a proverb? Sounds more like a catchphrase. Compare violence sells, blood sells ("blood sells. The bloody version of Mortal Kombat sold seven times better than the bloodless version"). P U C – 10:29, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say it technically meets the definition of proverb in most dictionaries, although people are unlikely to refer to it as such because they associate the word with more traditional sayings. People mostly seem to call it a saying, adage or maxim according to Google, but those aren't used as headings on Wiktionary. A catchphrase to me is usually from popular culture and associated with a particular person or character, so I wouldn't use that word. Weylaway (talk) 14:51, 2 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

dargah

The pronunciation of dargah is given as /ˈdʊəɡɑː/. However, the Indian English pronunciation is closer to /dəɹɡɑː/. Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 08:51, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, the error was uncaught since the entry's creation back in 2012. Dictionary.com has (for non-rhotic accents) /ˈdɜːɡɑː/, but that pronunciation may correspond better to the spelling durgah. I've removed /ˈdʊəɡɑː/ in any case. - -sche (discuss) 01:57, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. The spelling "dargah" is more common than "durgah" despite the pronunciation, because the pronunciation in Dictionary.com corresponds to the Indian English pronunciation (at least in my accent) /dəɹɡɑː/, which in turn corresponds to Hindi दरगाह (dargāh). --Sbb1413 (he) (talk • contribs) 02:59, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

alt-right

Is the definition accurate (and appropriate) ? <<opposed to multiculturalism and egalitarianism by race and sex>> & <<often supportive of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, white nationalism and white supremacy>> really ? Is this correct, or is this just what the alt-left assumes it is ? These are clear misinterpretations.
When compared to the definition of alt-left the difference is striking, and smacks of extreme bias.
It would be as if the alt-left were defined as <<opposed to national sovereignty and human rights>> & <<often supportive of Christianophobia, child mutilation, paedophilia, crime and corruption, elitism, fascism, globalism, hypocricy and anti-white racism>>. Can we make alt-right neutral ? As neutral as alt-left is ? Leasnam (talk) 21:21, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I mean one can add random stuff there like “typically supporting the Putin regime” and “using rare slurs towards other races” and then one will similarly come here to make a long argument why this isn’t accurately depicting the definition but at most a statistical distribution. You are right in your observation. This consideration should alert us. The nyms are random. Declaring neo-reactionary a synonym is ridiculous, neither is alt-right far right, just to some degree tilting and, most importantly coquetting into that direction, otherwise one could just call it far right and there would be nothing new.

That being said I know not exactly what it means, but it does not mean what is depicted on the entry page and I may give up on such terms, particularly American ones, always spearheaded and consequentially edited by those who, possibly fifteen years of age, have the least education about what fundamental isms mean, that in the US are projected upon a two-party system, becoming one of the least accurate map projections of thinking to reality. One must be fifteen and occupied by some dubious political organization to outline such terms unpaid, isn’t it? It is often true that the youths endanger each other. Many people stay at that age-typical intellectual development in political preferences, personality development supposedly finished, though identity could be a more spurious idea than ever. And if not, if one understands how people’s minds work, then, as the Dunning-Kruger effect vanishes, it is a challenging question to formulate what one understands, so more primitive people can get a grasp of your ideology. Everyone is telling lies in politics to promote a point of view, sadly necessary for simplification, and how publishing to not perish works in academia and journalists, exemplarily.

However this tirade of catchwords is also vastly redundant, rather than simplified. “supportive of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, white nationalism and white supremacy” is sufficiently covered by “opposed to multiculturalism and egalitarianism by race and sex”. This tendency of thinking marks right-wing views, resulting in those phenomena. No doubt about this because apart from ctrl-left sociologists, whom you trust not, there is intelligence gathering by neutral authorities in this matter, bound to define what they control. The interesting part for alt-right here is “sometimes claimed to be ironic”. I think this is the core of the matter. The demeanour is ironic. Alt-right is a literary genre. The “translations” into other languages are of course translationese. This alleged ideology works only in a baiting context of a language and at most culturally related languages. Say, what is a Chinese alt-right? You see.

To speak of “amorphous group” is also wise because it takes two to tango: You are alt-right because your friends, by family-resemblance, are alt-right. I can post as many Hitler portraits and Nazi music and argue the points of his party as I like, I will still not be a Nazi, because I mix my private ideology, like private language, only accessible to the choicest; would only be schizoid, it would be nice masking. Ideologies are also where one “fits in” socially. Allists are designed to lose internal identity, or symbiotize it with a mass. As said on other places, they are repulsed by logical stances, instead they need framing, so everything dovetails within their Dunbar number. There arises a scheme to microdose outrageous propositions, thus one does business with supposedly ideologically novel publications. Not saying they don’t have just fun either to “own the libs”. But it is a continuing language game. Politics seems like a videogame addiction for many. And hate sells. Most are bare needy for it, left or right, as for sex, for but the most privileged can always avoid being annoyed even theoretically. Fay Freak (talk) 23:07, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We could define it more concisely like Wikipedia does, "a far-right, white nationalist movement". "White nationalist" is definitional (the movement's main notable activities have been white nationalist rallies), but many of the other items in the "often supportive of..." list, while not per se incorrect, are maybe not vital / definitional — it does not seem like the alt-right contrasts with some other far-right movement by being "often supportive of [...] Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia" where the other one is not. (Whereas, the white nationalism and organizing Nazi rallies is relatively distinguishing/definitional, even if they aren't the only far-right movement doing it.) Dictionary.com defines it as "a political movement originating on social media and online forums, composed of a segment of conservatives who support extreme right-wing ideologies, including white nationalism and antisemitism (often used attributively)." Merriam-Webster has "a right-wing, primarily online political movement or grouping based in the U.S. whose members reject mainstream conservative politics and espouse extremist beliefs and policies typically centered on ideas of white nationalism." - -sche (discuss) 23:52, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Removed everything after "Internet", as well as "neo-reactionary" as a syn, per Fay Freak. I feel like "far-right" is related to "alt-right", and I may edit further to indicate this. CitationsFreak (talk) 01:15, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, it looks much better. Leasnam (talk) 13:22, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

xylographica

We have this defined as a plural of xylograph (and give cites of it there), but is that right? It seems more like a separate word, formed with -ica (“a collection of things”); indeed, one of the cites refers to "These block-books, or xylographica". - -sche (discuss) 02:08, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done Fixed. Equinox ◑ 13:21, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! - -sche (discuss) 09:30, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"sequence" label in adverbs

See this search for 16 terms that are in Category:English sequence adverbs that bear the label {{lb|en|sequence}}. Some 35 members of the category do not have that label.

It seems to me that raising the academic notion of "frequency adverb" to the level of a definition label seems likely to be confusing, especially without any link to an explanation. I have added similar labels (eg, degree) to other adverbs, but I now wonder whether they are more confusing than helpful. Even a link to an explanation or to the category directly from the label doesn't seem likely to be very helpful. This kind of label is what I would expect only in a learner's dictionary where the user can be expected to know how to interpret such things, but not in a general native speaker's dictionary. How can we address the needs of both types of users, both when unregistered and when registered? DCDuring (talk) 18:00, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

hasta el tuétano

Discussion moved from User talk:Sgconlaw.

I've received the following request from WF: "Hey. Can you undelete this page? Equinox deleted it in a fit of anti-Wonderfool frustration a few years back, although it was good shit P. Sovjunk (talk) 11:56, 4 October 2023 (UTC)"[reply]

The definition was "to the bone (completely)". However, I don't speak Spanish so I thought it was better to ask here whether the term is idiomatic or merely sum-of-parts. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:59, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Vale, I'll just make it again. Sorry for wasting your time P. Sovjunk (talk) 20:13, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@P. Sovjunk: no worries. I’m just not in a position to properly judge this entry. — Sgconlaw (talk) 20:17, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

right eigenvector

Which "right" do right eigenvector and right eigenvalue come from? Is it because they are on the right hand side of an equation, or that they are correct??? P. Sovjunk (talk) 21:13, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Probably this: Left and right (algebra). Equinox ◑ 21:18, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. Seeing as we have left eigenvalue, I could have figured it out myself. I kinda feel a bit stupid P. Sovjunk (talk) 21:25, 4 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

рентгениздат

I thought this and roentgenizdat would have the same meaning, but they don't. Should they be aligned in some way? Equinox ◑ 00:44, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Russian term is probably wrong, per etym. (X-ray + publishing house makes sense for the bone records, not the typical Flexi-Disc, plus a bone record sounds like it could be under the subset of "Flexi-Disc.") CitationsFreak (talk) 01:43, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done Appears to have been corrected now. Thanks. Equinox ◑ 08:16, 5 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Biscuit Etymology Doublet??

The etymology claims that the source(s) are a doublet, but do not make it clear which terms comprise the notional doublet, nor why they are a doublet, as they all seem to hark eventually from the Latin bis + coctus; sounds to me more like cognate than doublet. JonRichfield (talk) 11:07, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It claims that English biscotti is a doublet of English biscuit, which it is. Doublets are different terms in the same language from the same etymological source (generally derived via different routes) so all words in the same language that are cognates of each other are also doublets. Or did you overlook the fact that it linked to English biscotti and not Italian biscotti? Chuck Entz (talk) 18:11, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK, but the topic is so arbitrary and tortuous that I think we should include a link to Doublet (linguistics), since no adequate definition is likely to fit into a dictionary entry.JonRichfield (talk) 19:12, 6 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We could do that, but our usual practice is to link to the much shorter definitions in our glossary for the sake of readers who may flinch at being presented with such a long Wikipedia article. I suppose for some words we could link to the glossary, and then from the glossary link to Wikipedia if we feel some readers might want more details. —Soap— 05:50, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We do that already for some terms. Appendix:Glossary#areal feature links to Wikipedia’s Areal feature. Appendix:Glossary#aspect links to Wikipedia’s Grammatical aspect. And so on. --Lambiam 20:24, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

big sad

What sense of big is used in "big mad", google:"was big sad", google:"was big depressed", etc? - -sche (discuss) 09:38, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

“In a large amount or to a large extent.” Adjective POS apparently “Important or significant,” thus about replaceable by “significantly”. Fay Freak (talk) 09:58, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'd have the same def., but degree adverb modifying adjective. DCDuring (talk) 17:37, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Argentine Yiddish words of unknown degree of local usage

I posted this last month on the information desk and didn't get any response, so I'll repost here and see if anyone could help.

This concerns some words used in songs from Argentine Yiddish singer Jevel Katz. In particular, פּאַגאַריי (pagarey), כערענטע (kherente) and קוניעלע (kunyele) found in the song A tragedye fun a pagarey. Should I add these to Wiktionary even though I'm not sure whether anyone outside of Katz uses/used those terms? Although כערענטע (kherente) is probably just an ad-hoc borrowing from Spanish gerente and nothing systematic. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 10:02, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You could exercise editorial discretion to not bother spending time to add things that don't seem to really belong to the Yiddish language rather than to Katz's personal idiolect. I don't think there's anything in policy that would stop someone else from coming along and adding them, though, unless they are mere code-switching (like we wouldn't include the English words from the Wise Guys' song "Denglisch" as ==German==). We have some terms in various languages with labels or usage notes indicating that they're specific to someone's philosophy or that they're someone's nonces; I suppose you could add these and flag them as nonces, as the most future-proof option (against someone else just adding them with no indication of nonceness). - -sche (discuss) 20:55, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of an ad-hoc borrowing, the use of כערענטע could just be code-switching, like seen here for English. --Lambiam 20:14, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

طیاره

The Ottoman Turkish quote mentions a Canadian man whose name appears transliterated as "Jozef Gadbory", what English surname matches it better, my guess would be Gadberry, but it can't be due to phonological reasons. Rodrigo5260 (talk) 19:57, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Off the top of my head, "Gadbury" seems more likely. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:13, 7 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Rodrigo5260 (talk) 00:07, 8 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

From The St. John’s Daily Star of December 23, 1920, page 1, column 6 halfway down:^[1]

AVIATOR ISSUED BOGUS CHEQUES
Also Stole Airplane and Got Away With It

Winnipeg, Dec. 22—Following his arrival here yesterday by airplane from Minneapolis, Joseph Gadbury, wanted at Britt, Iowa, on charges of having passed worthless cheques amounting to thirteen hundred dollars, was today arrested by the city police. The man had been sought for by American police officers for some time.
The airplane has been parked under police auspices pending disposition of the case, it being understood that the prisoner is going to fight extradition.

--Lambiam 20:00, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Category: Zulu verbs

The inflection tables for isiZulu & the verb list are FANTASTIC! So is the Zulu Grammar!! I just want to point out that while the FULL inflection (almost full, anyway!) of these verbs is great (in the tables), some / many are not relevant or applicable to all Zulu speech or writing! Also, some columns in the tables are not correct ... for example, the participial in the STATIVE tables ... as well as certain statives themselves, such as '-jabule' - which would 'normally' be '-jabulile' - jabule MAY be correct (for example dialectically) for all I know! But it's not listed in the 2014, 4th edition of the Doke, Malcolm, Sikakana & Vilakazi (Wits University Press) dictionary!?? ... anyway, verbs like -khathala (INCHOATIVE, so a process: become tired, tire) may have the IRREGULAR stative form (-khathele) ... as with -mangala (> -mangele) & so on.

Please enlighten me on 'jabule' cf. '-jabulile' specifically, but also on the verbal inflection tables generally & their scope (& limitations) of application!! Umthini (talk) 11:48, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Adding a ping for @AztecWarrior28, the most active Zulu editor. tbm (talk) 02:54, 7 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What is the relationship between tai and tai chi?

See also: Beer_parlour/2023/April

Here, tai chi is put in the 'See also' section of tai. The only definition of 'tai' in English is a Japanese loan word for Japanese bream (a fish). The concept of 'tai chi' (spiritual excercise routine) has no semantic connection to the Japanese fish. So: what is the relationship between tai and tai chi? (Note: I do not immediately believe this meets the requirement of Wiktionary:Semantic_relations#Otherwise_related. This kind of thing is seen elsewhere (as at [2] Han-tan & Mu-tan-chiang, [3] Fo-chan and elsewhere).) --Geographyinitiative (talk) 12:43, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There's absolutely no relationship apart from the obvious one tat both contain the word "tai". Loads of similar links have recently been added by Wonderfools. If there are any that editors disagree with it, and feel like removing the link, Wonderfool (at least the current version of WF) is not bothered. P. Sovjunk (talk) 13:06, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on the fence. On one hand, they're not etymologically or semantically related; on the other hand, they're not claimed to be (they're not listed in "Related terms", nor "Synonyms" or "Coordinate terms" or the like). And the criteria for listing something as a "see also" are murky but — since I not infrequently see e.g. terms where the spelling is similar enough to be confusable crosslinked via ==See also== — certainly seem to extend beyond what's listed in WT:NYMS, which is...what? it's not even labelled as a guideline, I'm guessing it's just an (incomplete) explanatory page? "If you encountered and are looking up the word tai, be sure it's not part of one of these longer multi-word [multiple space-separated part] terms which have separate entries" could be a useful reason to see-also-link something, but it's also not something we do consistently: perhaps we should try to decide whether or not to do that in general, not only specifically in this case. - -sche (discuss) 16:57, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I feel that completely unrelated or very distantly related words shouldn’t be shoehorned into the “See also” section simply because they are superficially identical or similar. This is misleading and unhelpful to readers. It’s like putting widow in the entry window. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:02, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

They take up very little screen space, so I approve of connections like this. Somtimes we add a qualifier label (etymologically unrelated) to either one specific term or a whole group, though in this case I wouldnt think too many people, even English language learners, would connect tai chi with the fish. —Soap— 19:54, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the etymologically unrelated tag is something Wonderfool started. The wording was very deliberate. WF was gonna make a crappy template too, but meh... P. Sovjunk (talk) 21:12, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On the basis of the above, I hereby delete 'tai chi' from the See also section of 'tai' and also remove the entire See also section added at diff on that basis. (Done at: diff.) I also remove fan-tan Han-tan Mu-tan-chiang and tan shen, added in diff from the 'See also' section of tan. (Done at: diff.) Anticipating removal at feng of feng-huang, feng shui, and Hai-feng. Chau: diff. Here's an appropriate one: [4]. [5] Hang Hang Hau Tai Hang Wong Chuk Hang alien/Alien [6] --Geographyinitiative (talk) 11:29, 12 October 2023 (UTC) Modified[reply]

@Geographyinitiative: thanks! — Sgconlaw (talk) 12:57, 27 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ancient Greek: μετέχω

The given imperfect paradigm has the augment before the prefix: ἐμέτεχον. Shouldn't this verb have the same paradigm in the imperfect as all the other 'prefix + ἔχω' verbs, i.e. μετεῖχον? 176.93.243.5 16:19, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think so. LSJ has a quotation from Sophocles’ Electra (1168) using μετεῖχον. --Lambiam 19:40, 9 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Navigation templates

Why does this "navigation" category contain mostly quotation templates? DCDuring (talk) 17:02, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

These are templates to navigate to other quotations templates, not the actual quotation templates. Jberkel 20:56, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

They would seem to belong only in a subcategory, not to overwhelm the category. DCDuring (talk) 16:57, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@DCDuring Yes, I noticed this too. I was doing some cleaning up of these categories but haven't gotten to this yet. Benwing2 (talk) 03:45, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It would be like me filling a category called "Hypernym templates" with nothing but the contents of Category:Taxonomic hypernym templates, but this case is worse because what might be something a contributor would consider a navigation template is buried, whereas there are no general-purpose hypernym templates to be buried.

Why are stock symbols English?

Should be Translingual, I would have thought. See Category:en:Stock symbols for companies. Equinox ◑ 18:01, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Me too. DCDuring (talk) 16:58, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. Who feels like a mass deletion? Equinox ◑ 15:03, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Let our technos find a way to (semi-)automate the process of moving them from English to Translingual. Some attention might be paid to other similar items called English but used Translingually, eg, in academia, and international finance, trade, transportation and communication. DCDuring (talk) 15:23, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Russian warship, go fuck yourself

And the original Russian Русский военный корабль, иди нa хуй (Russkij voennyj korabl’, idi na khuj): Do these meet criteria for inclusion? (They are also often written with an exclamation mark.)

They appear many times in Google Books and Scholar results. They are not so much used in authors’ voice, but most occurrences are quotations of instances of use. They are also attested as used in many memes online, and many real-world banners, t-shirts, postage stamps, graffiti, etcetera.

There also occur attested bowdlerizations Russian warship, go . . . or Russian warship, go **** yourself. There are also variations in use, and for example Russian ship, go fuck yourself (not warship) might be sufficiently attestable. I’ve also seen the contraction нахуй (nakhuj). —Michael Z. 19:51, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The meme all your base are belong to us is used with the meaning, “haha, I powned and utterly destroyed you”, which makes it entry-worthy. Is this phrase used with a meaning, and if so, what is it? If it is not used in discourse with a meaning, it is not a lexical item. --Lambiam 07:11, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It’s an expression of defiance and refusal to surrender in the face of apparently overwhelming deadly force, literally “I refuse to surrender.” Used as a motto or battle cry, and insult to the enemy. See en:w:Russian warship, go fuck yourself for the background.

It’s very similar to give me liberty, or give me death. I am surprised that we have proverbs like you can't judge a book by its cover, but very few mottos or catchphrases like this one. —Michael Z. 04:20, 7 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

yaourt

Defined very old-fashionedly as "a liquor fermented from milk, originally by the Turks". It's just yogurt, isn't it? Equinox ◑ 19:52, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt it, but I could see you being right. Probably a copy+paste job from a public-domain dictionary, if it is. CitationsFreak (talk) 21:38, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I get the sense no-one is sure. The 1933 OED has this as "Yaourt (ya·ɹt). Also yao(o)rt, you(a)rt. [Turkish [...] yōghurt (with quiescent gh) YOGHURT.] A fermented liquor made by the Turks from milk." In contrast, it has various spellings of yogurt, like yoghourt and yoghurd, explicitly defined as yogurt (which it defines as "A sour fermented liquor made from milk, used in Turkey and other countries of the Levant"); it doesn't list yaourt among the many alternative spellings of yogurt. Either the editors thought yaourt and yogurt were different, or they were not confident that they were the same. I've yet to find anything conclusively saying they are or aren't the same, but searching is hampered, as I'm sure you also found, by the fact that it's also a French word. - -sche (discuss) 23:04, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Given that the French word means yoghurt and our etymology claims the word is borrowed from the French, is there really any good reason to think that English yaourt means something else? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:03, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The use of an obsolete sense of liquor in the definition strongly suggests that it is lifted from an old dictionary, probably indeed the 1933 OED or its precursor, A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, whose definition is identical. The Century Dictionary has, “[< Turk. yoghurt.] A kind of thickened fermented liquor made by the Turks of milk curdled in a special way.”. This dictionary has no entry for yoghurt or yogurt, while A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, after writing, “See also Yaourt”, defines yogurt as, “A sour fermented liquor made from milk, used in Turkey and other countries of the Levant.”. The name yoghurt only took off in the 20th century, while yaourt fell in disuse.^[7] So yaourt is clearly an obsolete name for yoghurt. --Lambiam 06:25, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done Christ, I am tired. Okay, I turned it into "obsolete form of yogurt". There are loads of linked and related terms but I'm sure the clueless, literature-uninterested philistine Wonderfool will fix them up. Bury me deep guys. Twenty feet. Next to SemperBlotto. Equinox ◑ 15:22, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ʔɔːt for "Ort": Reference?

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

I'm a native speaker and I'm not aware of ʔɔːt being a legitimate pronounciation (I can't rule out that some obscure dialect might have this, but then there would be loads of "wrong" pronunciations that are dialectal). A reference needs to be added.

See also the same here https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/dort -> There you also have the -ɔːt even though I believe it's not correct.

In my opinion, the standard pronunciation is [dɔʁt], with [dɔɐ̯t] being arguably more common and just as correct/just as legitimate. The latter sounds more modern, the former more old-fashioned. See also Art: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Art

[ʔaːʁt], [ʔaːɐ̯t], [ʔaːt] Here, ʔaːt is indeed correct as a third option because a long "a" plus an a-schwa, vs just a long a, is virtually indistinquishable. I have also read this somewhere in Duden. But a long ɔː sounds weird to me.

But I might be wrong. 2A01:C23:8147:1A00:D8E2:85EC:9990:FF48 23:37, 10 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

From an IP with bad ears. Fay Freak (talk) 19:06, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Fay Freak The pronunciation [ɔː] for word-internal /ɔr/ is in fact not just common, but likely the most common realisation in contemporary German. You also hear the corresponding monophthongizations [ɛː], [œː] for /ɛr/, /œr/, but these are admittedly much rarer. — If you need a source, I suggest one you can find on Google Books: Pracht, Henrike: Schemabasierte Basisalphabetisierung im Deutschen. Ein Praxisbuch für Lehrkräfte, Waxmann Verlag, p. 67. The author gives the examples [mɔːɡən], [fɔːnə] for "morgen", "vorne". You can also listen to the Audio here at "Zorn" for a clear example. — I'm going to reinstate the transcriptions you deleted. 88.64.225.53 10:26, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can imagine these pronunciation, and people without phonological erudition would hardly notice anything odd when one uses them so they must be used by some, but nope, it is just lazily spoken or heard, also by the IP who added it to dort and claimed the speaker used it, who clearly said [ɔʁ], and not plausibly “the most common realization in contemporary German”, where even [äɐ̯] in the whole region of Eastern Westphalia-Lippe is distinguished consistently, and thus appears on the graphs of Praat when linguistics students of the Bielefeld University take their phonetics courses. I am also a person who thinks we should not give [eː] variants for [ɛː] even if widespread. You are like those Soviet linguistics who contended the letter ъ should be abolished because the distinction is documented to have merged with that expressed by ь—a circumstance I have neither ever experienced in practice. Holier-than-thou language teaching. Of course I will not add such things not known first-hand, whatever some pedagogues claim to be common (dictionary-only pronunciations). Fay Freak (talk) 10:55, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Fay Freak What's the point. -- You and your fellow East Westphalians may distinguish [aɐ̯] from [a:] replace : with ː, invalid IPA characters (:), and that's great. But I certainly don't and neither do millions of Germans. (And in this case we really don't have to argue about it.) In the same way nobody doubts that there are people who say [ɔɐ̯]. But very many others say [ɔ:] replace : with ː, invalid IPA characters (:) (word-internally, usually not finally), and that's not "lazily spoken", much less "lazily heard". It is a variant, a common variant and therefore mentionable. The asker wanted a source, I gave him one. (What I will take back is the "likely" in "likely the most common realization" above. I'll replace it with "in my opinion", because I firmly believe it is, but may not have sufficient data to prove it.) 88.64.225.53 11:26, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In bad taste

One of the senses given for the adjective sick is “In bad taste”, as in sick joke. Which sense of taste is this? --Lambiam 04:43, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say sense 4. Vininn126 (talk) 07:27, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A good definition should allow substitution. For example, “The writing in this manual is very esoteric” → “The writing in this manual is likely to be understood by only a very small number of people with a specialized knowledge”. Or, “Their top hitman, Joe Russo, was on the lam after murdering Joe Barboza in San Francisco” → “Their top hitman, Joe Russo, was running away from the police after murdering Joe Barboza in San Francisco”. What can we do with “Vegan jokes are in bad taste”,^[8] using the definition for sense 4? Rewrite the sentence as “Vegan jokes are in someone's bad implicit set of preferences”? That is likely to be understood by only a very small number of people. --Lambiam 15:23, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. Good catch. MWOnline and 2 idioms dictionaries (@OneLook) consider in bad taste an idiom. Similar to to one's taste which should be at to someone's taste. DCDuring (talk) 21:32, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have added the lemma in bad taste. --Lambiam 18:24, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam, DCDuring: Not sure this is the right move, as there are quite a few alternatives: in poor taste, in dubious taste, in debatable taste, in awful taste, in horrible taste, in good taste, in excellent taste… P U C – 18:34, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder whether not in good taste doesn't occur more often than in good taste alone. DCDuring (talk) 22:05, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Evidently other lexicographic references find it worth including. We have lots of idioms for which synonyms can be substituted. I would be perfectly happy, no, eager to entertain definitions of taste that were substitutable in this expression and its antonyms and synonyms. I wouldn't bother looking at MWOnline since they gave up and include the expression as a whole. DCDuring (talk) 21:14, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What about seeing it as a synonym of judgment? Is in bad judgment a conceivable expression in English? P U C – 21:18, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Not in my idiolect. DCDuring (talk) 21:23, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It may be that we need our definitions to be less subjectivist/relativist and more objectivist/absolute (at least allowing the notion of consensus social values). Also, as I think it may be difficult for anyone here to come up with a substitutable, yet intelligible-to-normal-humans, definition, we may have to settle for a suitable non-gloss definition. DCDuring (talk) 21:24, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm wondering whether French faute de goût, literally “mistake of taste”, could not be translated as "lapse in judgment". If yes, I think it would be further confirmation that "taste" and "judgment" are semantically quite close. P U C – 21:28, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps, but not substitutable in this expression. DCDuring (talk) 21:40, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Both definitions 4 and 5 refer to personal preference. Prefer implies positive liking and def. 5 expicitly shows that. That is one reason why in bad judgment doesn't work. In fact, bad judgment refers to defective judgment, not a defect in what is judged. In addition, in bad taste implies that a reference group would share the perception or judgment, so the word personal used in both definitions is inappropriate. Perhaps taste in this sense would be "conformity to a social norm (of a reference group)." Not many dictionaries have such a definition, but Collins has "judgment or aesthetic or social matters according to a generally accepted standard". This definition is not substitutable in "bad taste". DCDuring (talk) 22:14, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The OED's definition III.8.b. might be what is sought here. I feel it's nearly synonymous with our sense 3 of fashion, which is "A style or manner in which something is done." The OED gives rather dated quotations such as "in the same Taste", "in the taste of the last century", "in the Moorish taste", and, critically, "nothing could be [...] in better taste", which matches the idiomatic usage as discussed by @PUC above. Qwertygiy (talk) 20:48, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

one man's X is another man's Y

Should one man's trash is another man's treasure, one man's meat is another man's poison, one man's loss is another man's gain, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter (and possibly others) be unified under a snowclone entry? I can't really find if we have a policy / guideline somewhere on how to deal with these. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 15:16, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There are various "Appendix:Snowclones/" entries.

I suspect one of the proverbs you mention is the basis for this snowclone and should be kept as is per WT:JIFFY, perhaps one man's meat is another man's poison (I'm much less convinced about one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter)... P U C – 15:24, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The slots of snowclones are in free variation; anyone can launch their instantiation by filling them in as desired. Try to complete simplicity is the new ____^[9] or ____ is the new cool.^[10] X does not fix Y, and Y does not fix X. In contrast, we know what to expect in one man’s terrorist is another man’s ____. These are somewhat set sayings. So I'd say, these are not snowclone instantiations. There is also one man’s fish is another man’s poisson, a pun that only succeeds because “one man’s meat is another man’s poison” is an established saying. --Lambiam 16:10, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think snowclone slots can be (and probably have to be) somewhat restricted. In this case X and Y merely have to be antonymic or coordinate terms. One man's rust bucket is another man's classic car. One man's basement is another man's mancave. DCDuring (talk) 21:54, 11 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One man's mistress is another man's wife. --Lambiam 07:18, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"illicit" vs. "proper". DCDuring (talk) 12:56, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

detalization

Hello, I came across the word "detalization" which seems nonstandard and might be in Runglish (?). I've seen it used mainly by Russian speakers; it may be based on the word детализация ("specification in detail").

Here are some examples: "the level of its detalization is low", [11] p. 138; "tasks detalization" ("more in-detail tasks") [12]; "with varying degree of detalization", [13] p. 62; search: Google Books, Google Scholar. There is also the spelling "detalisation": "some further detalisation" [14] p. 13; search: Google Books, Google Scholar.

On Reddit, I've found the following comments: 'And "detalization" really isn't a word..' [15]; 'Detalization is not a word. Just put "the details" I'm just being a stickler here tho.' [16].

Does this word belong in Wiktionary? Korg (talk) 12:09, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, provided the remaining part of the opus where the word occurs employs the language reasonably correct and we can therefore not deny it to be English, and as people might look it up, we have the label NNSE for this. Fay Freak (talk) 12:22, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the information! Korg (talk) 13:45, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I can also find google books:"detailization", google books:"detailisation", which seems like a more nativized (anglicized) spelling. - -sche (discuss) 15:51, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Korg (talk) 13:43, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

spoon chime

This singular seems exceptionally rare, if anyone cares. Plural spoon chimes is more common, though a bad-tempered bitch could still possibly RFV it and win. Just saying. xoxx Equinox ◑ 15:18, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

hard work

Might this be entry worthy? P U C – 17:43, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

10 years ago we thought not. The entry's creator was probably Wonderfool. We're also lacking work hard, but do have hard at work, make hard work of, hardworking and work hardening. P. Sovjunk (talk) 17:55, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Damn, Donnanz has been voting keep on RFDs for 10 years?

@PUC One wonders whether we might keep this word today as a WT:THUB. Here is the translations box on the deleted entry - there are a number of single-word translations:

something requiring lots of effort to do

Chinese:
Mandarin: 努力 (zh) (nǔlì), 辛苦 (zh) (xīnkǔ), 辛勤工作 (xīnqín gōngzuò)
Dalmatian: fataica f
Finnish: kova työ
French: labeur (fr) m
German: harte Arbeit f, Schufterei f
Greek: μόχθος (el) m (móchthos), κόπος (el) m (kópos)
Icelandic: erfiðisvinna f, erfiði (is) n
Irish: luain f
Italian: faticata f, operosità f
Russian: тяжёлая рабо́та f (tjažólaja rabóta), тяжёлый труд m (tjažólyj trud), труд (ru) m (trud)
Sanskrit: श्रम m (śráma)
Serbo-Croatian:
Cyrillic: тру̑д m

Roman: trȗd m

This, that and the other (talk) 22:21, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've recreated the entry. WT:THUB wasn't policy 10 years ago so I figure it's okay to bypass the RFD undelete request. This, that and the other (talk) 09:13, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@This, that and the other: I believe this sense is SOP ("work that is hard"), but THUB indeed applies, so fine by me. I was actually thinking of uses such as "through hard work and sheer determination, he managed to…"; "hard work goes a long way", which I believe are examples of another sense ("act of working hard"?). P U C – 12:42, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

immunity

The first sense, said to be uncountable, has a subsense with the following usex: "Feudal privileges often included tax and other immunities". Not really uncountable then...

And the second sense ("A resistance to a specific thing"), labelled as countable, is illustrated by the following usex: "Superbugs are bacteria that develop an immunity to antibiotics". But I don't see the meaning there as separate from the one in sense 1 subsense 1 ("Protective resistance against disease"): "Some people have better immunity to diseases than others."

Just not a very good layout, imo.

P U C – 19:14, 12 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Any significant record of confusion between "disbursal" and "dispersal"?

The usage of "dispersal of funds," when "disbursal of funds" is what is actually meant, is an error with a high likelihood of occurring, I would think.

If the record demonstrates as much, would it make sense to indicate that in a usage note in one or both of the entries? Tharthan (talk) 02:31, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes indeed. GMEU covers it (with attestations of the catachreses), as should Wiktionary too. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:43, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

PS: I well realize that Wiktionary is not prescriptive, but what I meant is that Wiktionary can easily explain to users that a prescription exists (which is an NPOV fact), without being snobby about it. Examples available on request. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:51, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Sex vs. Category:Sexuality

What is the practical difference? The former is defined as "English terms related to sexual intercourse or sexuality" and the latter is defined merely as "English terms related to sexuality". Category:Sexuality is a subcategory of Category:Sex, but definition 1 of sexuality is "the quality of being sexual; that which is characterized or distinguished by sex", which doesn't help clarify what the difference is. There is a lot of overlap, e.g. Category:Prostitution is a direct child of both. I kind of get it, e.g. Category:Sexual orientations and Category:LGBT are under Category:Sexuality, and so are Category:Paraphilias and Category:BDSM, but the actual line seems very blurry, as evidenced by the terms found directly under one or another category. I also think we need some serious updating of the definitions of some terms, e.g. the definition of paraphilia uses terms like "abnormal" and "pathological" that AFAIK represent an outdated conception of what a paraphilia is, and definition 5 under sexuality is "sexual identity, gender" which seems rather vague at the very least. Can someone help clarify the category definitions and subcategory membership? Benwing2 (talk) 03:43, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I feel that “Sex” is not a useful name because it’s ambiguous—it could refer to gender or sexual differences, or to sexual behaviour. Also, the hierarchy Reproduction > Sex > Sexuality isn’t ideal as not all sexual behaviour relates to reproduction. Perhaps “Sex” should be renamed “Gender and sex”, and both it and “Sexuality” made direct subcategories of “Life”. — Sgconlaw (talk) 04:48, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We have CAT:Gender already (no objection to renaming that one "gender and sex"). I agree "sex" is a terribly ambiguous name. Given that the current CAT:Sex defines itself as being for "terms related to sexual intercourse or sexuality", and we already have a CAT:Sexuality ... if we move all sexuality terms to CAT:Sexuality, will there be any "terms related to sexual intercourse" left that can't go in CAT:Sexuality? If so, could we create CAT:Sexual intercourse, and then eliminate CAT:Sex? - -sche (discuss) 12:44, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with everything here. AG202 (talk) 15:17, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think "sex" is very ambiguous. All ambiguity derives from the description on the category page "terms related to sexual intercourse or sexuality" instead of "terms related to the sex act" and its placement at the bottom of the topical category tree as opposed to under CAT:Sexuality. In my view "sexual intercourse" is more ambiguous because people disagree over whether it pertains to all sex acts. Maybe "sexual relations" would work, but "sex" is just much simpler. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 16:00, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I mean, the current content of the category being a mix of not only terms relating to intercourse and sexuality but also some gender-sex terms (which nothing in the category description would suggest including) proves that the ambiguity is in the name, not in the description which people don't even see when adding the category to pages. Any ambiguity in the scope of "sexual intercourse" is also present in the corresponding sense of "sex", hence all the debates in society (especially among teens or the religious) over whether something counts as sex, so "sex" offers no advantages, only equal ambiguity in that regard and greater ambiguity overall. - -sche (discuss) 18:14, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It only proves that if you assume editors add words to categories without looking at them first. Now, I can't vouch for others, but I look at the both the topic tree and the topic description before adding a word, both of which in this case suggest CAT:Sex is a catch-all category for everything "related to sexual intercourse or sexuality".

Wiktionary at least seems to agree with my intuition: sex is "Sexual activity, usually sexual intercourse", while sexual intercourse is primarily "Coitus or genital-genital sexual contact." The same goes for Merriam-Webster and Oxford Dictionary of English.

Lastly, the simplicity of "sex" over something longer shouldn't be discounted. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 00:47, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Caoimhin ceallach: mmmm, we can’t ignore the fact that all the dictionaries note that sex has multiple senses. For example, Merriam-Webster lists as the first sense “either of the two major forms of individuals that occur in many species and that are distinguished respectively as female or male especially on the basis of their reproductive organs and structures”, and “sexual intercourse” is sense 2b. The equivalent sense numbers in Wiktionary are senses 1 and 6. — Sgconlaw (talk) 04:55, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think when people talk about sex, they mean, well, sex. I would argue that the other meanings of sex are largely vestigial. They've mostly been superceded by gender. What remains is the fairly technical meaning "gender, but based solely on physical characteristics". (Side note: I think our entry sex used the OED as a template, which orders meanings chronologically. But we're not supposed to do that: WT:STYLE#Definition_sequence.) —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 12:30, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should be hierarchized vice-versa, and some categories now under Sex rather be under Sexuality. Like there are activities presupposing sexuality (a certain disposition that can merely express itself in ideations or fashion choices or whatever: the five senses at our entry sexuality are hardly conceptual reality), particularly sex, while pornography and erotic literature, genres, are not sex, and Incel community is also its negation and emphasizes community, while Seduction community is not necessarily directed at having sex but romantic relationships (?). Can’t rename Sex to gender and sex since, as it appears, it means sexual activity. Gender stuff can then by under sexuality, as people surely attempt to match it (stressing also that the term “gender” expresses an abstraction that did not catch on before the later 20th century), while reproduction should be under sex, as Sgconlaw rightly observed. Overall the categories are not too wrong, their definitions though … Fay Freak (talk) 13:28, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should do away with the name "Sex" altogether because it's just inherently vague. Perhaps, as @-sche suggests, rename "Gender" as "Gender and sex", and move content relating to sexual intercourse and sexuality (but not specifically to gender and sex) to "Sexuality". Create "Sexual intercourse" only if we really feel that we need to differentiate sexual intercourse from sexuality. As for categorization, I would suggest "Life > Sexuality > Gender and sex", and (if really required) "Life > Reproduction > Sexual intercourse". — Sgconlaw (talk) 16:00, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, it’s not vague: It means sexual activity, sexual acts, and I actually already said this. There is a slew of criminal law defined around such acts (cross-linguistically), sex and the law, the relevant statutes are based upon the concept, and most people, in most contexts and as their first idea, see it as some kind of activity, not those meanings of longer history. Lucky that we have thus short a name in English. You can of course rename it to one of the longer terms in order to distinguish it from the other meanings of the word, but the other meanings are hardly read into it in the context of a dictionary category. The formulation you propose is possible but somewhat peripheral to the likely meanings of the words, not to say idiosyncratic, apart from unnecessarily “turning around” the usage previous editors have exposed, which is quite problematic: Someone comes back and then the categories have the reverse purpose. Fay Freak (talk) 18:06, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Fay Freak: it's not useful as a category name because it can either mean (among other senses; see the entry) "a category into which sexually-reproducing organisms are divided on the basis of their reproductive roles in their species; the distinction and relation between these categories, especially in humans; gender", or "sexual activity, usually sexual intercourse unless preceded by a modifier". Category names should be as unambiguous as possible to avoid confusion. — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:26, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I do think there should be a category pertaining to the sex act and I think the most obvious name of such a category is Sex.

As an aside, it would be a good idea if the category page headers contained a few words explaining what the category is and is not about. This would dispel a lot of the ambiguities that come with them. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 12:30, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Caoimhin ceallach: usage notes can (and should in some cases) be added to category pages, but bear in mind that many editors will not visit the category pages to read them. Thus, potentially ambiguous names should be avoided. — Sgconlaw (talk) 12:51, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think we would be better off having subcategories in the format "Sexual xyz", where "xyz" can be things like "identity", "activity", etc. I'm not sure what they should be subcategories of, but at least it will give us the ability to be specific and clear. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:39, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Sgconlaw @Caoimhin ceallach I want to hard oppose any category with the term sexual intercourse: it’s awkward and old-fashioned, frequently used in a hyperformal way that is reminiscent of some of the more tongue-in-cheek entries we often see at Urban Dictionary, and - most importantly - is probably too narrow in scope (since it doesn’t cover many peripheral aspects of sex). I agree with @Chuck Entz, and would support sexual activity. It’s general enough, without having the issue of being ambiguous. Theknightwho (talk) 12:51, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Theknightwho: "sexual activity" seems fine to me. I did query in an earlier post as to whether it was necessary at all to have a separate category for "sexual intercourse", and suggested that if it was it should be a subcategory of "Reproduction". In other words, it would be restricted to use for categorizing biological terms. Maybe a better term for that would be "Sexual reproduction" (as opposed to "Asexual reproduction"). But, again, maybe its unnecessary to have such a narrow category, and terms relating to both sexual and asexual reproduction can just be placed in "Reproduction". — Sgconlaw (talk) 12:59, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

warhero

war-hero

(but not ~~war hero~~)

I stumbled onto these while fixing misspellings (war-hero was defined as "Alternate form of: warhero"). They were created by a sock of Luciferwildcat/GTroy. In typical fashion, the definition is rather lame, the choice of lemma is rather confused (I think he was afraid the obvious lemma, "war hero" would be deleted as SOP), and it seems to have been created solely to use in another dubious entry (Alchisay- name of an individual with no figurative meaning, and obviously created to make a political point). No brain cells were harmed in the creation of these entries.

I'm not quite sure what to do about them: if any of these should exist in the first place (are there any uses of "warhero" that aren't typos, scannos or dummy names for something else? Is "war hero" SOP?), the formatting is rather primitive and the definition(s) need help. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:28, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think they are all typos. As here in page 9a the printing looks bizarre. As often, amongst other editors in the past, it is an excuse to create an entry somebody was inept to argue for as idiomatic. Particularly since, if you are already banned, you want people to pay as little attention to you as feasible, rather than make them think. No less, war hero seems a word enough for me to include, like rock star and track star, also from a comparative perspective. Fay Freak (talk) 12:44, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The typography looks fine to me, in that issue. (But I can't find the term "war hero", in any spelling anywhere.) CitationsFreak (talk) 20:55, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Are you referring to a specific definition? Because the phrase "war hero" is extremely common, including in the titles of a number of books. Google books has almost a million hits for "war hero" and "war heroes". Leaving aside SOP issues, it would probably pass on "clear, widespread use". As I said, our definition is pretty lame and probably wrong for any spelling. Basically, a war hero is someone who has done something heroic in a war. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:44, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I meant in the provided text. CitationsFreak (talk) 21:47, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That makes sense. I had a feeling I was missing something, because it's not like you to say something so obviously, outrageously wrong. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:51, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, I couldn't find the the phrase there at all, either. You have to wonder why the link was provided. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:06, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Same here. There's not even a "page 9a" in the newsletter. CitationsFreak (talk) 22:39, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@CitationsFreak: Are you unacquainted with the practice of lexicography to divide columns of pages by letters? Page 9 is page 9a and page 9b. The third paragraph starts “Anderson’s career as a valiant 'warhero,' …, where the spacing between the r and h is strange and the h somewhat misaligned. Case in point that all such cases are misprintings. Fay Freak (talk) 22:46, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have never heard of that practice. And, yeah, the spacing is weird. However, it feels weird to claim that every use is an error in some way. CitationsFreak (talk) 23:01, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If you look at the quotations I added to warhero, you will find that, while rare compared to "war hero" and "war-hero", it does occur several times in google books. (Some of the links don't work until you replace the %22warhero%22 with "warhero"). Kiwima (talk) 00:21, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sadly appropriate quotation

Just came across this sadly appropriate quotation given the current 2023 Israel–Hamas war, and wanted to share it.

1641 September 17 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Hall, “A Sermon Preacht in the Cathedral at Exceter, upon the Solemn Day Appointed for the Celebration of the Pacification betwixt the Two Kingdoms. Viz. Septemb. 7. 1641 [Julian calendar].”, in The Shaking of the Olive-Tree. The Remaining Works of that Incomparable Prelate Joseph Hall, D.D. […], London: […] J. Cadwel for J[ohn] Crooke, […], published 1660, →OCLC, page 53:
Deſolations by vvarrs; hovv many fields have been drencht vvith blood, and compoſted vvith carcaſſes; hovv many Millions of men have been cut off in all ages by the edge of the ſvvord?

— Sgconlaw (talk) 22:41, 13 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Now it's just getting uncanny.

1858 September 24, Alfred B[illings] Street, “Poem, Delivered on Laying the Corner-stone of the New York State Inebriate Asylum, at Binghamton, September 24, 1858”, in The Poems of Alfred B. Street. […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: Hurd and Houghton, […], published 1867, →OCLC, page 53:
War! thy wild chariot rolls o'er piles of the slain, / Thou drenchest empires in thy crimson rain!

— Sgconlaw (talk) 15:52, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't seem too uncanny, mate. Looks like you're seeing patterns where they ain't. P. Sovjunk (talk) 16:00, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
If these are uncanny resemblances to Sgconlaw, it explains a lot of tenuous WOTD commemorations. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 21:24, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, this is just "war kills people", but in poetic language. It would make for a beautiful epigraph before an essay or other written text on the current war, but it's not "uncanny" that there is some relation between our world and the world of the 15th century. CitationsFreak (talk) 21:34, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It seems uncanny (or at least conincidental) to me as I don’t usually come across war-related quotations, and then two appear while the current war is raging. I suppose there is nothing new under the sun. — Sgconlaw (talk) 21:43, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
It's certainly sad that war is one of those things that has always been a part of the human experience, I'll give you that much. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:15, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

thirty-nine

Given the second rule in WT:WWIN, I think the following definition of thirty-nine should be added. (I'm sure it is very commonly used in the real world.)

Definition: the pretend age of a 50, 60, or 70-something who doesn't want to use their real age because they think it's too old.

Wiktionary allows quotes that have words that are under their definition, so including a quote by Jack Benny under this definition is something I think should be done. Any thoughts on the best wording for this definition?? Georgia guy (talk) 13:45, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure this is idiomatic. — Sgconlaw (talk) 15:53, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I guess it is right to assume that it is not. It would be another entry to our chain of merely contextually loaded numbers: → Talk:neunstündig, Talk:77 times, Talk:quater, Talk:8:46. If you got enough of them, you might write a paper. Fay Freak (talk) 18:14, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Georgia guy It strikes me as a concept rather than a lexical item. In other words, it's 39 rather than "39". It can be phrased in a number of ways in a variety of contexts. In the same way, the freezing point of pure water at a standard pressure is 32° Fahrenheit/0° Celsius. That's a fact- a very important one. It's not, however, a part of the language- you wouldn't have a dictionary entry for *0°. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:14, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience, I've never heard 39 used this way, but I have heard 18, 20, 25, 30, "20 for the 40th time" and all sorts of other combinations, which suggests to me that "39" simply happens to be more common in your circles than the other numbers, but not that there's anything special about it. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:16, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

immune system

What sense of immune is used in immune system? P U C – 19:04, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@PUC: one that we don’t have yet. OED has “Of or relating to the phenomena of and processes involved in immunity”. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:35, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure that's a separate sense from our sense 4. - -sche (discuss) 23:12, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@-sche, Sgconlaw: Not sure either, but then our sense 4 has to be reworded, otherwise it would make the definition of immune system circular. P U C – 11:06, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The applicable sense of the adjective immune can be defined as “related to immunity”, in which the term immunity is used in the medical sense. Compare immune response. However, since our definition of immune system does not rely directly or indirectly on a definition for immune, there is no danger of a circularity. --Lambiam 14:16, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Other dictionaries that have an entry for this fall into two camps: those that have paragraph-long "definitions" and those that have very simplified definitions. The long definitions run the risk of being TLDRs for many users, IMHO. If only there were a way we could allow all users the option of finding a long definition and more without overtaxing or repelling some of them. That would mean some kind of mechanism to allow users to see much more elaborate content if they wanted. Preferrably no one here would need to develop and maintain such content. If only there were such a mechanism .... DCDuring (talk) 14:27, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

track star

Does this term really mean "Somebody who excels in or is swift in executing a discipline"? From the cites presented, it seems to refer to running (as in track and field), and GB backs me up. CitationsFreak (talk) 20:57, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@CitationsFreak: Perhaps the origin. It was generalized and transferred manifold times, I would suppose. I started from poetic rap uses of course, not adding all quotes available, and figured my own definition, since no dictionary has it or in other words there were only uses but no mentions, save Urban Dictionary, surely written by children, who only abstracted inaccurate meanings from particular contexts and not your specific definition either. Fay Freak (talk) 21:28, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Fay Freak: The first three cites are about people running (as in the movement). The last sense doesn't, but is probably a pun on "running". Urban Dict. has this sense ass well, see the April 2007 definition. CitationsFreak (talk) 21:41, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@CitationsFreak: I have looked at the occurrences again, two weeks after newly engaging with the word, and redefined, in a manner that should insure us, “Somebody who is swift or excels in athletic running or in an occupation likened to it.” Probably any sport typically associated with “track”. As track and field. That Reddit Post refers to Jesse Owens, who, we find out, “was was an [Afro-]American track and field athlete”. And possibly car races as well, while biking would be odd. An intransparent, questionable term, with all kinds of puns, hence we need a dictionary entry. Fay Freak (talk) 21:43, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That is way better. CitationsFreak (talk) 21:50, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

white lady vs. White Lady

Two totally different cocktails? Equinox ◑ 21:03, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Per Wikipedia: "White lady ... is a classic cocktail that is made with gin, cointreau or Triple Sec, fresh lemon juice and an optional egg white. [It] sometimes also includes additional ingredients, for example egg white, sugar, cream, or creme de menthe.". I'm leaning towards yes. CitationsFreak (talk) 21:27, 14 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I consider it entirely plausible there are totally unrelated homonymous cocktails. After all, the number of combinations adj + noun is bounded, while the number of cocktail recipes appears to be without bound. That having been said, I very much doubt that homonymous cocktails are orthographically distinguished by the capitalizations of their names. --Lambiam 13:50, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, if separate senses can be attested, I doubt they are consistently distinguished by capitalization; here is an author who capitalizes the Cointreau cocktail, in this book (which establishes the ingredients of the cocktail) and in others (which are more use-like, vs this mention):

2018 December 6, Tristan Stephenson, The Curious Bartender Volume II: The New Testament of Cocktails, Ryland Peters & Small, →ISBN:
... drink called White Lady. Originally comprising two parts Cointreau to one part crème de menthe and one part lemon juice, the drink tasted like a bad throat lozenge and looked like that suspicious kind of swimming-pool water. It's a […]

However, I'm sceptical that these are conceived of as separate cocktails, as opposed to one cocktail with a slightly variable recipe: here someone calls for gin and triple sec (like our definition at White Lady), but says triple sec is interchangeable with Cointreau (which is, indeed, just a kind of triple sec) and calls for lemon (not lime) juice as well as egg white (like our definition at white lady):

2020 October 1, Gilli Davies, Royal Welsh Cookbook, eBook Partnership, →ISBN, page 74:
[…] To make that perfect White Lady, put 60ml of good gin into a cocktail shaker with 30ml of triple sec (or Cointreau) and 20ml of lemon juice. Add a large amount of ice and a dash of egg white. Shake vigorously […]

Wikipedia also seems to consider it one cocktail with variable ingredients, as CitationsFreak points out. So it seems like there may just be one thing, "a cocktail made of gin or creme de menthe, triple sec (such as Cointreau), and lemon or lime juice (and optionally egg white)". - -sche (discuss) 14:53, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have moved "White Lady" sense to "white lady", and reduced "White Lady" to an alt form. So that's a start. As discussed above, we probably still want to merge senses. I'm strictly not allowed spirits (last time I drank vodka I lost my house keys) so can't help in this case. Equinox ◑ 05:47, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

merged CitationsFreak (talk) 06:07, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

mute h

We have mute h as the main entry, but Google NGram view suggests otherwise: [[17]] Leasnam (talk) 01:00, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Leasnam I think you're comparing apples and oranges. Mute h mostly refers to the difference in French between initial h that allows liaison and initial h that doesn't. Silent h is rarely used for that, but is the main way to describe the initial h in words like English honest and honor where the letter is written, but not pronounced. By that definition, every initial h in French is silent, whether mute or not. Since far more English speakers are talking about English than about French, the references to silent h are far more numerous. I'm not sure there's an easy way to filter for just references to the phenomenon of h muet in French words. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:04, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I had a feeling that might be the case. If so, then English silent h probably needs its own stand-alone entry (?). Silent h is very common in English to refer to the h in hour, honest, etc. and is has a hit rate of 19,5 K in GBooks. Mute h only shows about 8 K hits. Leasnam (talk) 02:29, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Some gender/sexuality symbols

I mostly edit on Wikipedia so I mostly don't know the policies here on Wiktionary. I also don't know where I should add this: here or WT:RFV.

Some entries in the {{gender symbols}} template cite the source Signs & Symbols: Over 1,001 Visual Signs Explained, but Signs & Symbols doesn't support them.

For example, Wiktionary defines the symbol "⚪︎" U+26AA MEDIUM WHITE CIRCLE (which should be an outline of a circle, but Chrome shows it as a filled circle character/emoji) as "asexual" but Signs & Symbols says that it is a symbol either representing "female/feminine" or nonbinary people. Citing Signs & Symbols, Wiktionary also defines "⯱" U+2BF1 ERIS FORM TWO as "trans-female" and "" <no Unicode character> as "trans-male", but they are nowhere in Signs & Symbols.

I don't know what should be done in these cases. Any help would be greatly appreciated. LightNightLights (talk) 13:06, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Eris form two (and the total lack of use of it) was discussed a while ago at Wiktionary:Information desk/2023/September#Help_removing_unsourced_"trans_woman_symbol". Perhaps the best course of action is to RFV the questionable symbols and find out whether actual, real-world use exists, and then delete them if they're only sourced to one book's claims (mentions) or not even that. Update: I've RFVed the symbols. - -sche (discuss) 13:39, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't know about that discussion. Other than that, thank you! LightNightLights (talk) 15:01, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

égua

Why are there so many "related" terms at Portuguese égua? And how come none of them is cavalo? OweOwnAwe (talk) 18:48, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@OweOwnAwe. Wiktionary "Related terms" sections are for etymologically related terms, so those are technically correct (they are all from the same Proto-Indo-European root: *h₁éḱwos), while cavalo is completely unrelated. Still, including the descendant of an Ancient Greek name based on a compound including the related term, passed down through Latin and a Spanish ruler's name to the name of a country, and finally borrowed into Portuguese and suffixed to make it a demonym, is IMO a bit of a stretch. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:22, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I get it. I actually thought "related terms" had more to do with the meaning of the word rather than its etymology, that's why it took me a while to find out why "Filipe" and "Filipinas" were there. Thanks for clarifying. OweOwnAwe (talk) 20:40, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You're not the only one. It's a bit counter-intuitive, but it's a choice that was made early in Wiktionary's history and it's reflected in hundreds of thousands if not millions of entries, so we might as well be consistent. See WT:EL. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:49, 15 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

While we're at it, is "égua" used as an interjection really as vulgar/offensive as the terms we list as translations? If it's something more like "holy cow", then we need to fix that. Note that I've seen strongly vulgar/offensive English terms used to translate Portuguese exclamations or slang before, and I have a feeling they were added by someone who didn't have a good feel for the English terms. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:19, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

lekh kibinimat in Hebrew (vulgar)

Apparently, there is milder vulgarity in Hebrew derived from Russian where the second word (or is it two words?) sounds like a really bad vulgarity in Russian.

I heard it today on Belarusian opposition news talking about the Israeli knesset.

A Russian vulgar phrase (not mild at all!) is (a more grammatical form) is (иди) к ёбаной ма́тери (k jóbanoj máteri), which is (go to) "the fucked mother", "fuck off", go to hell)

~~I couldn't find a Hebrew spelling or a confirmation from reliable sources.~~

Is the phrase spelled לך קיבינימט (lekh kibinimat) in Hebrew? Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:57, 16 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Update: the Hebrew Wiktionary has an article קיבינימט and it looks attestable.

A less grammatically correct version of ёбаная мать (jóbanaja matʹ, “fucked mother(vulgar)”) are ебёна мать (jebjóna matʹ) or ёбана мать (jóbana matʹ), which are probably the source of the Hebrew word.

The ungrammatical form "(иди) к ебе́ней ма́тери (k jebénej mátjeri)" ("(go to) the fucked mother") also exists, which sounds closer to "kibinimát" but "мать" is indeclined in the Hebrew derivation.

I will request an entry for קִיבִּינִימָט (kibinimát) Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:04, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Inviting @Taokailam, @Ruakh. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:39, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I consulted a native speaker and indeed, it is vulgar. Taokailam (talk) 17:40, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It's pretty common phrase in Hebrew, and it is from Russian, but i have no clue what is the right way of spelling it. There is also a very similar phrase in Kazakh or Kyrgyz language, so it may be some reason of why the ending -eri is missing. Tollef Salemann (talk) 04:53, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

dubia

There appears to be an additional sense of dubia that means "work of doubtful authorship", as seen in w:Eubulus (poet), w:Annales (Ennius), etc. This arose at this discussion about the disambig page for dubia at Wikipedia. This books search turns up numerous references for this sense of dubia, and this page at "Author Unknown" (2014) by Don Foster contains a definition. If someone would like to expand dubia to add this sense, I'd appreciate it. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 00:17, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In the way it is used in Author Unknown it is the plural of dubium. Borrowing terms from Latin and Greek is not uncommon in textual scholarship, especially corpus linguistics (codex, hapax legomenon; editio princeps), typically with classically formed plurals (codices, hapax legomena; editiones principes). --Lambiam 17:22, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What Lambiam says. It does not mean but can mean “work of doubtful authorship”, depending on the context. This is to say it might merit an entry as an English word but only with a general definition. The rest of that discussion seems irrelevant to our lexicologic work. Fay Freak (talk) 17:39, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, the majority of scholarly uses I find refer to a passage in some old text raising a philosophical or theological question. Musical scholars appear to prefer the term opus dubium for works of uncertain ascription. --Lambiam 17:49, 17 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

whether or not

whether or not has been deleted here for being SoP. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/whether-or-not says it's an idiom. Who's right? — Alexis Jazz (talk) 08:30, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It is probably (marginally) an idiom, in the sense that the elision and alteration of truly transparent means of expressing the same thing are themselves not fully transparent to some. Taking the two examples from the link:

Whether or not you like it, I’m going out tonight. ⇐ Whether ~~you like it~~ or do not (you) like it, ....

Whether he wants to or not, he'll have to clean his room. ⇐ Whether he wants to or ~~does~~ not ~~want to~~, ....

To a native speaker the transformation is more or less automatic, ie, part of grammar. Perhaps it is less so to a language learner, DCDuring (talk) 15:26, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Arguably it was deleted out of process some 15 years ago, so it is good to review its exclusion now. DCDuring (talk) 15:28, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Common or not, I don't know whether it can be considered an idiom if either half of the phrase can be omitted without a notable change in semantics. In my opinion, like it or not, it's just two words being used in their standard senses, regardless of whether they are paired together or standing alone. Qwertygiy (talk) 18:19, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

One can omit neither half of the phrase from whether or not you like it, I’m going out tonight, whatever these “halves” may be. --Lambiam 18:24, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Touché. I can't come up with a natural, proper substitute for either while keeping that construction. "if'n or not" is quite far from standard English, and that's as close as I can get without shuffling clauses around. Whether that means it is idiomatic when paired directly, or that it's subject to a broader rule of grammar, I can't say or not for certain. (See, that does sound a bit stilted to me. Maybe not to others. Maybe or not to others? Hm.) Qwertygiy (talk) 00:41, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

brick up

Can brick up mean immure? P U C – 13:11, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Brick up is a troponym of immure, but brick in is a closer troponym. One can brick up a wall that doesn't enclose any thing, so to have pure troponymy one would need a narrow definition of brick up, possibly a subsense of a broader definition like "(transitive) to erect a wall with respect to". Perhaps one can brick up an embankment to make a retaining wall or brick up a building frame to make a wall of a structure. The two terms are in completely different registers: It's hard to imagine an RP pronunciation of brick up. DCDuring (talk) 14:54, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

'The Sad Story of Henry' is a Thomas the Tank Engine story where the Fat Controller decided to 'brick up' Henry and it could certainly be read with an RP accent but on a more high-brow level, 'The Cask of Amontillado' by Edgar Allen Poe opts for 'brick in'. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 15:10, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As an RP speaker, this is actually the first sense I think of when I hear the term out of context. I certainly wouldn't take brick up to mean "erect" (as in, "brick up a wall") - that sounds quite unnatural to me. Theknightwho (talk) 12:52, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Name of a feature in Russian

So, there is a common feature in Russian, characterized by the use of an em dash and lack of a verb like this:

Z — a user in Wiktionary.

What is the name of this feature? (if it has any) I ask because it also occurs in Tajiki and I wanted to know more about its usage in Tajiki. --Z 17:37, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

According to Wikipedia, at Dash#In_other_languages, it's used as a stand-in for the present copula, is/are/am. I don't know if the practice has a particular name. Qwertygiy (talk) 17:55, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The phenomenon is called zero copula. You can also search for the copula/"to be" being omitted or left out. Weylaway (talk) 19:49, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, in my experience it's an optional way of indicating the zero copula (but this can also just be omitted entirely, without even a dash). - -sche (discuss) 20:57, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@ZxxZxxZ, @-sche, @Qwertygiy, @Weylaway:

Please see a note in —#Russian: In the standard Russian orthography "—" can be used as a copula in the sense "A = B" when both parts are noun in the present tense. Not used with pronouns, adjectives or in the past or future tenses. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:15, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

espinha vs. cravo

The Portuguese entry cravo has "pimple" as one of its meanings, making it a synonym of espinha. However, at least in Brazil, these are not synonyms: espinha means "pimple" and cravo means "blackhead". Since they are not considered synonyms by other dictionaries, I wonder if they're even used that way. OweOwnAwe (talk) 18:08, 18 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if they're used the way Wiktionary lists them, but I can agree here: espinha and cravo aren't the same thing. MedK1 (talk) 12:30, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

ˈɪz.ɹɛəl

Is this a real pronunciation of Israel? In what accent? Added in diff. Merriam-Webster has, besides the main pronunciations we and most other dictionaries have (/ˈɪz.ɹi.əl/, /ˈɪz.ɹeɪ.əl/), also /ˈɪs-/ and /ˈiz.ɹəl/ (the latter of which I don't recall ever hearing), but no /-ɹɛəl/. - -sche (discuss) 05:44, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A disyllabic pronunciation that sounds like "is" + "rail" can be viewed as a "compressed" version of trisyllabic /ˈɪz.ɹeɪ.əl/ (or a version for speakers who have a general merger of /-ˈeɪl/ and /-ˈeɪəl/ as [ɛəl]). I'm pretty sure it exists. Actually, I would guess that a 'compressed' disyllabic [ˈɪz.ɹiəl] or [ˈɪz.ɹɪəl] ("is-reel") also exists, but not really as a phonemically distinct entity from [ˈɪz.ɹi.əl].--Urszag (talk) 10:41, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what the specific name of the accent would be, if it isn't considered simply "American South", but in the Carolinas, I believe /ˈɪz.ɹɛəl/ would be the accurate IPA of the way I've always heard Israel pronounced by 'average' speakers who are neither newscasters nor drawling. Although I can't directly attest to the existence of /ˈiz.ɹəl/, that is exactly how I would expect it to sound in the stronger Piedmont accent of central North Carolina, with Dale Earnhardt Jr. as a notable example. Qwertygiy (talk) 12:03, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

We should certainly have /ɪzˈɹeɪl/ listed as a pronunciation, this is in line with the pronunciation we give for Israeli (/ɪzˈɹeɪli/) after all. It's not just before an 'l' that such vowel reductions occur though of course, I say Ireland and island in the same way, both with 2 syllables and diamond is always di'mond for me too. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 23:45, 19 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Quibble -- it would not be /ɪzˈɹeɪl/ as in /ɪzˈɹeɪli/ because the emphasis differs. Israel vs. Israeli. The exact vowels might differ, but I've never heard of a standard pronunciation that stressed the second syllable.

It would have to be /ˈɪz.ɹeɪl/. Qwertygiy (talk) 15:10, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely, I just put the stress in the wrong place due to me lazily copy-pasting the pronunciation given in the Israeli article and not thinking about the stress mark. Overlordnat1 (talk) 21:51, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

how often

So the entry for how often was deleted as sum-of-parts, but literal translations don't exist or aren't idiomatic (natural) in some languages. Can it be reconsidered as a THUB or maybe phrasebook entry? Drapetomanic (talk) 08:18, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Felonia, Mglovesfun, msh210 Drapetomanic (talk) 08:22, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How combines with almost any adjective phrase. "How totally scrambled do you want your eggs?" may not be attestable, but it is perfectly grammatical and understandable. No OneLook dictionary has an entry for it, not even WordNet, which seems to bend over backward to include expressions for a multilingual semantic net that is almost as much conceptual as lexicographic. DCDuring (talk) 15:40, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

There is Latin quotiens, Ancient Greek ποσάκις (posákis) and Uneapa vahaziva. Archaic Russian сколь (skolʹ), Armenian քանի (kʻani) and South Levantine Arabic قديش mean “how much” or “how many”, but can also be used for “how often”. This does not seem enough to merit a THUB. Do you know other examples? --Lambiam 19:59, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

voter turnout

I think this is probably worth an entry, as it has a rather specialized meaning. If not, I think we should check if there are enough words for at least a t-hub. Polish has frekwencja, so that's at least one. Any objections? Vininn126 (talk) 12:09, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It seems pretty SOP to me, but I can see sense in making it a t-hub. Theknightwho (talk) 12:49, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It seems SoP to me too, but other OneLook dictionaries have it (really just WordNet 3.0; not MWOnline, AHD, Collins, Cambridge, Oxford). DCDuring (talk) 12:52, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Doing a quick, cursory check, it seems that at least a few languages have a single word for this, including German Wahlbeteiligung and Finnish äänestysprosentti (though our current def is "polling percentage, perhaps @Surjection can comment if "voter turnout matches), so we have at least 3 languages that might benefit. Strictly speaking, Polish frekwencja is "number of people participating in something", with "frekwencja wyborcza" strictly being "voter turnout", but very frequently (pun intended) you see a type of ellipsis where just "frekwencja" means specifically voter turnout. Vininn126 (talk) 13:01, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Both German and Finnish are highly synthetic languages, aren't they? We don't usually (and IMHO shouldn't) accommodate all of the possible words they can form with English translation hubs. DCDuring (talk) 13:20, 20 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Seems SoP to me. — Sgconlaw (talk) 04:46, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Make the damn entry already P. Sovjunk (talk) 21:59, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I dunno, to me it seems fairly SOP. Vininn126 (talk) 22:00, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep uncreated. P U C – 22:28, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Create it since it can serve as a good t-hub as per Vininn. MedK1 (talk) 00:38, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Vininn seems to have had a change of heart. DCDuring (talk) 12:56, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I was mostly keeping the joke going. I still want to see if there are enough entries for a t-hub. Vininn126 (talk) 12:57, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep uncreated, given that translations exclusively denoting turnout in the electoral sense can be (and are) accommodated at turnout#Translations with qualifiers. voter turnout and electoral turnout (less common but still used) could be added as collocations under sense 2. Or alternatively (or additionally) the electoral sense could be split out as a subsense of turnout sense 2 with its own translation box. Voltaigne (talk) 13:26, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What makes the definition of turnout for this collocation distinct from the definition in, say, volunteer turnout, marcher turnout, attendee turnout, primary turnout, caucus turnout? Turnout alone, in context, means "election/voter turnout". DCDuring (talk) 13:55, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

My suggestion was either to add voter turnout as a collocation under sense 2 (in which case it would illustrate a specific application of the broader "turning up and participating" sense, not a distinct sense), or adding a (nested) subsense of sense 2 (deriving from it, not distinct from it). Another possibility is to do neither of these. Voltaigne (talk) 14:30, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

self-confidence

Is there a difference between senses 1 ("the state of being self-confident") and 2 ("a measure of one's belief in one's own abilities")? P U C – 20:03, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Pretty sure that the writer of the def had in mind the nongradable/binary versus gradable/degree distinction, but it seems like stretching too hard in this instance. This strikes me as one that would take "the state or degree of" as a single def. I have been to that entry before but did not dwell mindfully on the asserted sense differentiation. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:42, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and did "the state or degree of" as a single def, per WT:BOLD. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:04, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

temperance

Same, is there a difference between senses 1 ("Habitual moderation in regard to the indulgence of the natural appetites and passions; restrained or moderate indulgence"), 2 ("Moderation, and sometimes abstinence, in respect to using intoxicating liquors") and 3 ("Moderation of passion")? Why would the quote under sense 2 ("On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion") not fit under sense 1? I don't see it supporting the distinction at all. P U C – 20:08, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The quote definitely fits sense 1, not sense 2. Sense 2 may be somewhat dated, but it is quite distinct in my opinion. The temperance movement, specifically, did not endorse consuming alcohol in moderation, or general restraint from all temptations. It was specifically about establishing the Prohibition of alcohol. To promote temperance was to be a teetotaler. Qwertygiy (talk) 23:20, 21 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, exactly. All three senses are distinct, but I think sense 3 could use some fleshing out. Sense 1 is the cardinal virtue of temperance, sense 2 is an alcohol-specific sense, which could perhaps be made a subsense of 1, and sense 3, as the synonyms illustrate, is not so much about restraint and more about having a calm demeanour (it's like the mood equivalent of a temperate climate). Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:20, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'd need to see quotations of sense 1 vs sense 3 to tell how distinct they are, but So many uses of temperance have meant sense 2 specifically to the exclusion of the other things sense 1 could refer to that I think it makes sense to have 2 as a separate sense, like the slavery-related sense of abolitionist. - -sche (discuss) 18:17, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

arrepender vs esbaldar-se

Portuguese. Both of "arrepender"'s senses are reflexive. Should the page be therefore "arrepender-se"? But then again, I really can't seem to be able to find a lot of Portuguese pages with "-se" in them. Maybe what should be done is change "esbaldar-se" to "esbaldar"? The reflexive can always be represented in the conjugation table like in my latest edit. MedK1 (talk) 12:38, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

through bridge and truss bridge are the same?

On WP, through bridge redirects to truss bridge. Our definitions look different to me, but that may be because through bridge uses 100-year-old English, and I am a fool P. Sovjunk (talk) 17:47, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The use of tissue in the MW 1913 definition suggests that one should exercise care in using extended metaphorical, figurative meanings of terms. Century 1991 had as a definition of tissue: "Figuratively, an interwoven or interconnected series or sequence; an intimate conjunction, coördination, or concatenation." But the flimsy nature of tissue paper and the lack of rigidity in biological tissue make the connection of tissue to a rigid structure of metal beams that could support railroads non-intuitive for us.

The Venn diagram of possible referents of the two terms would overlap. In principle several types of bridge structures could be called through bridges. In fact, it seems that there are through arch bridges and through truss bridges. I don't know whether anyone calls any suspension bridge or cable-stay bridge a through bridge, though such bridges have a deck that is mostly surrounded by the structure. Maybe the core requirement for a bridge to be called a through bridge is that the deck is completely surrounded by the structure. Not all truss bridges are through bridges, as the WP article shows. It would take some citation mining to find the (probabilistic) limits of application of "through" in bridge nomenclature. DCDuring (talk) 18:29, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

status quo ante bellum

The definition doesn't appear to be substitutable, at least not in the context I'm familiar with: "return to the status quo ante bellum". P U C – 18:00, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

And this isn't status quo + ante bellum ("pre-war")? DCDuring (talk) 21:55, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How is it a learned borrowing, given the wide use of the components? How is it just "legal" in its usage context; or is that just someone trying to indicate topic? DCDuring (talk) 22:04, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

bad faith

I find sense 1 ("The misrepresentation of one's own true motive") incomprehensible. And what is the difference between senses 2 and 3? P U C – 18:48, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sense 1 concerns false pretense about one's own motives, such as those of a manipulator or those of a troll for example. In 2 vs 3, I think the distinction they were after is fraudulent behavior generally versus nefarious/ulterior motives when filing suit specifically. For laypersons I'd agree that those don't need to be separate senses. Maybe a legal dictionary would keep them separate. For example, Black's 6e s.v. bad faith does give a contractual sense and an insurance sense as special cases of the general sense (given first). But that's not a general dictionary, whereas Wiktionary is. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:00, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding sense 1, all right, but I don't think the definition is substitutable. I do agree it has got to do with the (deliberate) misrepresentation of something, but I'm not sure "one's own motive" is the right term. P U C – 15:26, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

For sense 1, take the definition for sense 2 but omit the label “(law)”. In somewhat shortened form, we get: “Intent to deceive or mislead to gain some advantage.” A bad-faith interpretation is an interpretation made in bad faith, that is, an interpretation made with the intent to deceive or mislead to gain some advantage. --Lambiam 19:59, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam @PUC No, I don't think that's right: sense 1 refers to saying things with an ulterior motive in order to manipulate (e.g. trying to embarrass someone), but it needn't be overtly deceptive. Sense 2 refers to fraud, which is. Sense 1 is the general sense, and covers senses 2 and 3, but we need both of those because both they're technical uses of the term in specific contexts. Theknightwho (talk) 21:17, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Deceptive moves are usually covertly deceptive, unless the operator is totally inept. It will be helpful if we have examples of use of the term (in a non-legal or existentialist context) for which the definition “Intent to deceive or mislead to gain some advantage” is not applicable. Perhaps simply “Dishonest intent” or "Malicious intent”? --Lambiam 23:33, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

show willing

Again, does it really have four senses??? Sorry for the flurry of questions, but I've been stumbling upon many cases of poorly distinguished senses and it's driving me crazy. P U C – 19:55, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, other dictionaries indicate it's a Britishism, but our entry doesn't reflect that. P U C – 19:59, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It happens a lot with everyone's favourite quote-adder Kiwima (talk • contribs). P. Sovjunk (talk) 21:58, 22 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What are you saying about me? I never even touched that entry! What do I do a lot? Kiwima (talk) 03:23, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The two dictionaries referenced under Further reading, Merriam-Webster and Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, each have just one sense, basically the same sense (“show willingness”). I think this covers all uses in the quotations. --Lambiam 20:05, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

eat like a pig vs eat like a horse

The first page says the latter is a synonym for it. I kind of disagree; I feel like "eating like a pig" has negative connotations of bad manners and slobbery eating, while "eat like a horse" just means they ate a lot, not necessarily churlishly. I added a translation for "eat like a pig" into another language but then, seeing how the other page was already a translation hub and is considered a synonym, I moved the translation over. Does anybody agree with me that they've got different senses? Should I undo the move? MedK1 (talk) 00:36, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. I never would have thought they were synonyms. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:02, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Although one would not be surprised if one heard conflation of them, they are not synonymous. I would call them more cot than rel. Coordinate ways for humans to eat like an animal. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:33, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agree. — Sgconlaw (talk) 09:37, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I note that the entry for eat like an animal mentions only quantity. I thought it equally applied to eating with poor manners (i.e., "like a pig")? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 10:31, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed; I tweaked it. These various entries are definitely improved now, compared with when they asserted synonymy. If anyone quibbles about status as cot, I would accept see-also instead; but there is some essential coordinateness involved, and in my opinion it is best to try to show that when it exists. Quercus solaris (talk) 13:51, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If someone eats like a bird, do they eat like an animal? --Lambiam 20:09, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Have to say no, which shows the limits of figurativeness/metaphor in natural language. Each metaphor is valid within its constraints, but juxtaposing them shows the boundaries. So we show eat like a bird as ant to eat like an animal because that's what it is idiomatically, even though bird is hyponymous to animal. Quercus solaris (talk) 21:10, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I remember talking with someone who defended his use of the word animal as a synonym for mammal, saying that it only includes birds when used in juxtaposition with plants or some other non-animal group. I couldn't accept that but he has a point ... in many contexts, if I hear the word animal, especially stressed (you put humans alone on an island with ANIMALS?!!) Im going to think of large mammals first.

To me, eat like an animal means to eat without using one's hands, which we almost never do, and therefore I simply dont use this expression. I suspect most people don't take it so literally, but I bring it up because we might be able to find translations in other languages in which a word covers both the literal use and the figurative (e.g. consider English gobble). —Soap— 06:19, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Seems not quite synonymous to me. Compare to 'piss like a pig' (spatter) and 'piss like a horse' (a lot). But there are some people who avoid comparison of humans to pigs, so in this case i've heard of native English speakers the use of 'horse' as a dirty human. Tollef Salemann (talk) 08:31, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

some

Regarding the sixth determiner sense, which had been "approximately, about (with a number)" and was just changed to "Emphasizing a number": are we dealing with two senses here, for "about" vs "exactly"? Or are they both just emphasis? With bigger numbers, it seems to normally mean "about", not "exactly": Merriam-Webster has a sense "About" with the usex "some 80 houses" (they also assign "twenty-some people" to this sense), and Henry David Thoreau (born 1817) wrote in Walden (published in 1854, plausibly written sometime earlier, after his last book in 1849) "I have lived some thirty years on this planet [...]" when he was several years older than 30. - -sche (discuss) 17:22, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Equinox - -sche (discuss) 17:25, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If it is not exact, it must mean "at least": I don't think "some 10,000 pounds were spent on the project" could mean only £9,999, right? What you cite above must be a separate sense I've never heard of, maybe unused in BrE. Equinox ◑ 17:42, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Usually when people say "there were some 50 items pending" or "I have lived some thirty years on this planet", what "some" means is "about", that is, "approximately". It is done especially when they want to focus on the ballpark (sig figs) and ignore the spare change (that is, "they spent some 300 million on the boondoggle" means "they spent around 300 million and change on the boondoggle"). The ux items under what is currently numbered as sense 6 are properly illustrations of this sense ("approximately"). Quercus solaris (talk) 19:09, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Quercus solaris Are you agreeing with Equinox? DCDuring (talk) 18:55, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, I was maintaining that the "about"/"approx" sense needs to be maintained. But I just looked at the entry now and I see that both the "about" sense and the "emphasizing" sense are listed (6 and 7), and I'm fine with that. Thanks Quercus solaris (talk) 19:30, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I re-added the sense "about" with some cites and refs, but left "Emphasizing a number" for now. Is it distinct from the sense that's right after it, "a remarkable", as in "he is some acrobat!"? I don't want to burden people with wading through all the hits for "some [number]" that are other senses (including "about"), if the emphasis sense is also real. But off the top of my head, the only 'emphatic' interpretation of "She had been employed at that company for some five years now" that comes to mind is emphasizing the characteristics of the years, rather than emphasizing the number, like "She worked here for just two days, but she worked here for some two days: first we got robbed, and then she invented a cure for cancer!", which is I think the "remarkable" sense. BTW, we have this "approximately [a number]" sense as both an adverb and a determiner; which is it? Merriam-Webster and Dictionary.com have it as an adverb, but they also don't seem to recognize a determiner POS (at least for this word) at all. - -sche (discuss) 17:32, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Grammatically, for both these definitions, it seems to be the noun that is modified. I agree that semantically some can be replaced by approximately in most cases, which makes the adverb PoS seem right. I'd argue that cases like: "It was some three meters long." / "No, it was more like exactly 10 feet long." suggest that it is the NP being modified rather than the number. I would distinguish this from the [number]-some case where it is clearly the number being modified. DCDuring (talk) 18:55, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Y'all want some? How many? P U C – 19:33, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

poor usage note

"When the word poor is used to express pity, it does not change the meaning of the sentence..." etc. This seems, well, poorly worded... Equinox ◑ 19:34, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Can probably do without the usage note. It seems like it may have been prompted by an urge to provide ESL/EFL help, but I think that sense 3 and its ux probably does enough for any user (even ESL/EFL), especially if the soup line is moved up to be a ux there ("Used to express pity." / ux "Oh you poor little thing." / ux "Give this soup to that poor man!"). The usage note, although true, is probably not for Wiktionary as much as it is something that an ESL/EFL tutor would explicate while tutoring. Good effort though. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:50, 23 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the non-gloss definition is necessary. It seem to imply more than it should. Many dictionaries have a gloss definition or synonym "pitiable" or "exciting pity". It might be good to have a usage example in which poverty is not what is pitiable: "She didn't catch the mouse! Poor kitty!". (I hope someone can do better than that.) DCDuring (talk) 00:31, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Kitty caught the mouse. Poor mouse! --Lambiam 19:46, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The usage note appears indeed somewhat unnecessary. This is a common phenomenon in (AFAIK) all human languages. In “the dirty bastard had just stabbed me in the back”, the attribute dirty does not serve to avoid a misunderstanding that the perpetrator was some other, cleaner bastard. And in “he stared with disgust at the unappetizing mess”, the reader would not assume the presence of an appetizing mess. When we read that “the good woman had been very kind to him”, we know it does not serve to distinguish her from the not-so-good women. And so on and so forth. --Lambiam 19:43, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The usage note has been improved in this edit. --Lambiam 19:12, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed — it's that underlying theme of whether (or not) the adjective distinguishes one X from another X. My mind is reaching for the words determinative and restrictive and coming up a bit short, but yes, agreed. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:52, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia's article Restrictiveness has this: “Restrictive modifiers are also called defining, identifying, essential, or necessary; non-restrictive ones are also called non-defining, non-identifying, descriptive, or unnecessary (though this last term can be misleading).” --Lambiam 20:15, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Quercus and Lambiam, and have removed the usage note. Any adjective can be used purely to describe, without thinking that any disambiguation is necessary. The synonyms of this one all have the same characteristics in that respect; you can say "look at that pitiful creature" while gesturing at a scrawny animal, even if there is no other animal around that it needs to be distinguished from. - -sche (discuss) 21:26, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

enoki

The etymology says this is a calque, which it is not, by our definition. Is it a transliteration or is there a better word? DCDuring (talk) 15:51, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think it only says "Compare enoki mushroom, which is an incomplete calque of the Japanese.", which is true; I guess that longer term is being mentioned to convey that shortening the Japanese word to enoki is not unreasonable/uncommon. - -sche (discuss) 16:24, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm too careless and impatient to actually read!?!?!? DCDuring (talk) 18:35, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

shotgun marriage

The last definition is just "(countable and uncountable) Used figuratively." with no cites. Can we improve this in some way? Maybe fold it into the preceding senses? Or at least spell out the figurative meaning more? - -sche (discuss) 21:50, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@-sche: I'm guessing the figurative sense refers to a situation that doesn't involve an actual marriage but something like an reluctant agreement or alliance between parties (companies, countries, people, etc.). But we'd need some quotations to be sure it is used in this way. — Sgconlaw (talk) 22:00, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

“The failure of Silicon Valley Bank and the shotgun marriage of Credit Suisse won’t stop work on debt relief and Ukraine”.^[18]
“It’s also important to remember that Watson, Berry and Kevin Stefanski are still in the early stages of working together. Their shotgun marriage didn’t have much of a honeymoon phase last year, so everyone involved is still trying to figure out how they like their steaks cooked and how they take their coffee.”^[19]
“Thus, the arrangement that was finally consummated is a kind of shotgun marriage with which neither party is entirely happy, but both feel they can live with it.”^[20]

--Lambiam 17:19, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Luliang/Lüliang Pronunciation Difference

(1) A 1952 Gazetteer (referenced on the entries) gives the pronunciation of Luliang and Lüliang as identical. (2) A 1998 Gazetteer (also referenced on the entries) gives different(?) pronunciations for the two. (3) The 1952 Gazetteer and a 1979 Gazetteer (referenced on entry) give different pronunciations for the same Lü syllable as seen in Lü-shun. (4) What is the difference in pronunciation between Luliang and Lüliang in English, if any? Is there a "special" pronunciation in English for the Mandarin Lü syllable, that is used in some contexts? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 22:55, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The 1998 book is a bit of a disappointment. Here is a more direct link. I dont think we can really use that as a basis for an English pronunciation. —Soap— 21:02, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the 1998 Gazetteer is designed with the American audience in mind.
I think that the 1952 Gazetteer may have made a mistake on Lüliang's pronunciation, since (1) that same 1952 Gazetteer gives a different pronunciation for the Lü syllable in Lüshun, (2) 'Luliang Mountains' is written without the umlaut, and (3) the 'Luliang Mountains' entry comes right after the 'Luliang' entry, so they might have just thought they were the same thing. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 21:35, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well, there's no ü in English, whether American or British, and /ju/ wouldn't really be a good substitute in this case. If we can find English speakers pronouncing the Chinese name Lü Bu perhaps we could extrapolate from that. Personally I would just pronounce it as /lu: bu:/ despite being well aware that ü represents a separate vowel. —Soap— 21:44, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I already knew that Lü Bu had appeared in video games before I searched YouTube ... indeed that's where I remembered this name from. But I didn't expect that the video game references would so vastly outnumber the hits on YouTube for the actual character. Still, I hear a mix of /ly: bu:/ vs /lu: bu:/, and /y:/ is not a standard English phoneme. —Soap— 22:21, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As for the 1952 entry, perhaps i should create an acct so i can log in and see the pronunciation key. all i can say is that their transliterating lü as lü doesnt tell us much, but it's worth noting that they separate it from words that have IPA /u/. —Soap— 22:26, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is really interesting to me. I had always realized that the vowel in Lü (as /Ly:/) was not part of English, but I never fully realized that since there is no ü in English, it would mean that either (1) Lu and Lü are de facto identical in English, or alternately (2) there has to be some substitute/stand-in pronunciation. I think other words to check for on youtube etc would be Lüda, Lüshun ([21] 0:15, speaking English but then swtich to Mandarin to say Lüshun), Lüshunkou and maybe Lüeyang (different syllable)- I am looking for good quality uses from a news broadcast. I would like to encourage you to get an account on Internet Archive- they are a wonderful organization and it will be to your profit to have access to all their materials.--Geographyinitiative (talk) 22:41, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

growlery: duplicate entry

There are duplicates for “growlery”, one listed as “Growlery”, the only justification for which seems to be references to Growlery (as a particular room) in various quotations. The two entries should be combined as “growlery”, but I don’t know how to do this. Harry Audus (talk) 23:14, 24 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Harry Audis: growlery (with a lowercase first letter) is an alternative form of Growlery, which is why its definition is simply “Alternative form of Growlery”. We create alternative form entries for variants of terms, for example, mall-goth and mall goth for mallgoth. — Sgconlaw (talk) 04:33, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well its certainly odd to have a capitalized non-proper noun, I think. Of the three cites, the middle one seems to use nonstandard capitalization, and the last one is referencing some earlier book, which may in turn trace back to Dickens, which is the first cite. So I'd agree we should make the lowercase the base form. On the other hand, if Dickens coined the word, all the lowercase cites trace back to him too. —Soap— 19:08, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No objection to that. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:36, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

defense and defence still duplicate each other

Earlier today, I reverted an undiscussed change to the defense page that made it just an alternate spelling of defence. Most of the incoming links still point to defense, and that's where the translation tables are (even the person who edited the page left the translation tables in place).

The only other discussion I could find was Wiktionary:Tea_room/2017/December#defense_vs._defence_double_definition back in 2017, and that got very few comments. One of those comments tells us that NGrams favors the -s- spelling. But I'd be a hypocrite if I made an undiscussed change to defence after reverting the same change on defense. So I bring it here for others' opinions. There's more to spelling than NGrams, after all ... if we just went by the numbers almost all of our entries would be in American spelling. Thoughts? —Soap— 17:02, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I lean towards "s" because defencive and especially offencive are clearly out of place in modern English, no matter which continent you're writing in. Qwertygiy (talk) 19:27, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Note for comparison that offence is just listed as an alternate spelling of offense. It's worth noting that offence still has many incoming links, so perhaps whatever solution we come up with for defence should also address the question of what to do with links to the -c- spelling of both words. —Soap— 17:09, 25 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

weighing of souls

Is this entryworthy? @Andrew Sheedy? P U C – 11:56, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing particularly idiomatic jumps out at me about it (it doesn't mean much to me out of context), so it's hard for me to say. I imagine it refers to the judgement of souls? If so, I would think weigh souls would be equally idiomatic and I would see it as more of a metaphor, with many possible phrasings, rather than a lexical idiom. But it's possible it also has idiomatic use in certain Christian circles that I'm just not familiar with. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 16:28, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Andrew Sheedy: I'm asking because of this Wikipedia article. P U C – 15:21, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I think I understood correctly. Again, I'm not convinced this is lexical material. It refers fairly straightforwardly to weighing souls in a balance, even if the actual weighing is often figurative. I did a quick Google Books search and it's easy to find forms like "weighed his soul" or "weighing souls", and I think the motif in art could probably be expressed other ways too, so I'm not convinced it's lexicalized (try a Google search for: "souls in a balance" art and you'll see that the phrase is often extended in a way that leads me to think it's being used in an SOP way. Yes, it requires context to understand it, but that goes for anything SOP. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 20:03, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

capital goods

Is this really plural only? The coordinate term consumer good isn't. P U C – 20:44, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It isn't plural-only. The singular form capital good is well attested. Voltaigne (talk) 17:05, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Surbate(d)

The surbate entry says that it's derived from "surbated", and the surbated entry says that it's derived from "surbate". Could someone fix this? I've consulted the OED: microprinted single-volume edition, Second Edition text, don't remember year of publication. It gives "surbated" as the base form, with "surbate" as a derived form; it's derived from Old French "surbatu", from sur- exceedingly + batre to beat + -ed.

Could someone fix this? The only time I've contributed over here, I got a rather nasty reaction along the lines of w:WP:BITE (apparently I accidentally broke some minor rule), and I'm not interested in putting work into fixing an error, only to see it reverted. Nyttend (talk) 21:43, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing this out. I think our community has a somewhat different culture than Wikipedia where there are lots of welcome templates and people spend more time in friendly off-topic conversation.

The etymology you give makes sense to me, rather than expecting a root like surb-. That would make this word like berate, which also sometimes assumed to be Latin (see beration). If we took the form from Old French surbatu, it would then have been surbated in English and surbate could indeed be a back-formation. We could still put that information on the surbate page, though, rather than forcing the reader to click through to the non-lemma form surbated. Anyway, we don't have pages yet for surbatu or surbatre, so I will hold off on making the changes myself. But it seems the best explanation, so again thank you. —Soap— 21:51, 26 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I added the adjective (it's well attested - I'm surprised we didn't have it already), but it needs the etymology filled in. This, that and the other (talk) 05:31, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Does punch dialogue produce catchphrases?

I suspect that it does, but I'm asking to confirm because I know almost nothing about South Asian cinema except that there are a lot of -woods (there are a lot of trees in that woods). I'm thinking of the catchphrases that Arnold Schwarzenegger's characters are famous for (such as hasta la vista, baby) and wondering if those would ~~fall into the larger category of~~ overlap enough with punch dialogue. If so, a see-also link from punch dialogue to catchphrase would be appropriate. Quercus solaris (talk) 13:09, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Both terms are only loosely defined, yet even under a loose concept of catchphrase, most lines from punch dialogue are not memorable and do not become catchphrases. Conversely, most catchphrases are not associated with a specific actor and do not originate from punch dialogue. --Lambiam 18:28, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Good answer. Some overlap but perhaps not enough to bother having a see-also link. I'll go with that. Thanks. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:46, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Portuguese diabetes

Why is this word considered “plural only”? I'm pretty sure this form is used in the singular as well (o diabetes or a diabetes). I'd rather say that its plural form is just the same as its sigular form. OweOwnAwe (talk) 14:01, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You are right. I've fixed it. Voltaigne (talk) 17:00, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

сврсисходно

Sense 1 is "purposefully, appropriately" but those words are not synonyms in any sense. What was intended here? Equinox ◑ 16:32, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe "aproopriate for the purpose"? As in, "use the right tool for the job". Just a guess though. Slavic isnt my strong area. —Soap— 18:33, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

According to the link, it should just be "purposefully". Vininn126 (talk) 18:36, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't speak Serbo-Croatian, but I'd bet that the explanation for why someone may have added "appropriately" and lumped those two concepts into one line (instead of entering as two separate senses) is the same thing that goes on in English with the word advisedly: many a thing that was done purposely (as opposed to unintentionally) was done because it is appropriate (it was duly done), and people use the word advisedly instead of merely intentionally because it usually carries the added shade of "wisely"/"circumspectly". Quercus solaris (talk) 18:42, 27 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

As Soap guesses above, the meaning of svȑsishodan is essentially ‘fit for the purpose’, ‘appropriate for the purpose’, ‘corresponding to the intended purpose’, or, more simply, ‘expedient’. svȑsishodno is then the adverb corresponding to this adjective, ‘suitably for the intended purpose’, ‘expediently’. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 14:03, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 13:33, 13 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Done Thanks. "Purposefully" does not mean "appropriately for the purpose". Equinox ◑ 18:56, 21 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]

tacet

This is for the English entry- is it really English, or is it Translingual? And is it a verb form? It's borrowed from a Latin verb form, but it doesn't feel like a verb in this context. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:46, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Well it has a pronunciation. If we move it to translingual we'd need to list the pronunciations somewhere. It reminds me of stet, which we also classify as English. —Soap— 07:14, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is it really derived from Latin? Most music terms derive from Italian. CitationsFreak (talk) 07:27, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently the route taken was Latin → French → English. The assignment of parts-of-speech to verbally given instructions on musical scores is a mess. The concept of “part of speech” does not apply here; on scores they are symbols, where fortissimo and fff are synonyms and are just as symbolic as, e.g., 𝄐. As such they are IMO translingual. Some occur also as terms in natural language. For example, andante is not only the symbol Andante seen on scores,^[22] but also a common noun for a piece or part headed with this instruction (as in “Bilze ... had often played the Andante from my Quartet”^[23]). Likewise, an author can write that “the fortissimo of this motive should not be too loud and intense”.^[24] --Lambiam 21:54, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The OED doesn't assign tacet a part of speech. It does identify it as a musical term in English use derived from Latin, although with a sibilant c. Epanalepsis (talk) 05:38, 1 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

you understood

Either I'm too drunk, or there's something awry with the part of speech/countability Father of minus 2 (talk) 23:34, 28 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

While I wouldn't presume to say anything about your level of sobriety, the term just refers to the subject of a second-person imperative that's understood to be there due to the context, but not said. Think of it as "you (understood)". For instance, if I were ordering you to sit down, I would say "Sit down!" rather than *~~"You sit down!"~~, unless I really wanted to emphasize that it was you that I was telling to sit down. That missing "You" would be you understood. It certainly looks like it should be countable, but the plural doesn't seem to be attested. I've never used the term myself, so I can't be sure about that. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:13, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

What is the basis for including this? That, if it appears in complete isolation, some folks won't understand it? That there is omitted punctuation that makes it less transparent than "you" understood ("you" being a mention, not a use)? Atrocious is a word that comes to mind. DCDuring (talk) 01:11, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, it would help if this had cites showing how it's used. It seems SOP, but without cites I can't tell. - -sche (discuss) 15:18, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In early uses in grammar books ([25], [26], [27]) this is clearly SOP, just like the words word omitted in “That very section has a word omitted”.^[28] But in later texts we find uses in which this is treated as the name of a grammatical concept ([29], [30], [31]), sometimes even spelled with a hyphen “you-understood” ([32], [33]). --Lambiam 20:39, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

vanish

Defined as "The brief terminal part of a vowel or vocal element, differing more or less in quality from the main part". If I'm reading this right, it's the second phoneme of a diphthong. I think there's another word for this, right? P. Sovjunk (talk) 15:05, 29 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

shalom aleichem pronunciations

Why do all the US pronunciations have schwas in the second syllable of shalom and the /ɔ/ or /oʊ/ in the first syllable? I've only ever heard shalom pronounced /ʃəˈlo(ʊ)m/. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 20:58, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

From the Ashkenazi pronunciation of Hebrew. The pronunciation you mention is closer to standard Hebrew. Compare Yiddish שלום עליכם (sholem aleykhem). — Mnemosientje (t · c) 21:02, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, OK. Should pronunciations with /ʃəˈlo(ʊ)m/ be added then, or is this phrase mainly used by Ashkenazi Jews? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 21:32, 30 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

IMO yes, it should be added; I can find examples of it (or at least, of a pronunciation approximating Modern Israeli Hebrew, with a stronger vowel and stress on the second rather than the first syllable) on Youglish. The pronunciation of the -leich- syllable in the various examples on Youglish is also interesting. - -sche (discuss) 17:28, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for bringing YouGlish into my life by mentioning it here. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:15, 31 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Me, too. Wonderful to get so many real examples of word pronunciation so easily, though less formal speech is apparently not much represented, at least in English. DCDuring (talk) 14:54, 8 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]