Wiktionary:Tea room/2024/November

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← October 2024 · November 2024 · December 2024 → · (current)

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ummah

Is this usex OK? What are you doing akhi? Are you shoplifting? Astaghfirullah, look at the ummah today. - I find it difficult to understand and/or offensive. P. Sovjunk (talk) 17:39, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I believe it means something like "What are you doing, brother? Are you shoplifting? I'm shocked at the behavior of the ummah today." It is a little unclear, yeah. CitationsFreak (talk) 18:11, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

(However, it isn't offensive, and implying it is feels offensive to me.) CitationsFreak (talk) 18:15, 1 November 2024 (UTC)

I don’t think it’s offensive, but we should just replace it with a more straightforward usage example that doesn’t require a reader to look up the words akhi and astaghfirullah just to figure out what it means. Something like “Sunnis are the largest denomination of Muslims, making up about 85–90% of the ummah.” — Sgconlaw (talk) 11:55, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

slave to sin, servant of sin

Should we have entries for these? Compare German Sündenknecht. PUC – 18:07, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

@Andrew Sheedy PUC – 18:07, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

In English, I don't think so. We have figurative senses of slave and servant that suit these expressions and all the similar ones. DCDuring (talk) 18:29, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, I think I'm with DCDuring. They don't strike me as being sufficiently lexicalized to merit their own entries. You could also say "enslaved to sin" or "enslaved by sin" or "a slave of sin." The variety of different forms suggests to me that the concept is best expressed with figurative senses at "slave", "enslave(d)", and "servant". Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:21, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Researchship and research ship: heteronyms or homophones?

Are researchship and research ship (alternative form researchship) heteronyms or homophones? I had put them down as heteronyms (/ɹɪˈsɜːt͡ʃˌʃɪp/ or /ˈɹiːsɜːt͡ʃˌʃɪp/ (stress on the second or first syllable) v. /ɹɪˌsɜːt͡ʃˈʃɪp/ (stress on the third)), but @P. Sovjunk thinks they are homophones. I could be wrong, or can research ship be pronounced both ways? Thoughts? — Sgconlaw (talk) 22:14, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Of course, in English, people can make up and use any words they want, and once used, they are captured in dictionaries. Researchship, which in my view is accented on the second syllable, would be much more idiomatically "a research position". Research ship - well, the word "research" in itself was once accented on the 2nd syllable, and purists still insist on that, but not many people in England still insist on that. Research ship would normally have the primary accent on re- and the second accent on ship. The third accentual pattern you offered doesn't exist. 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:3F7E:AC4A:8A85:B364 07:19, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Just to be clear, are you suggesting the following?

• Researchship etymology 1 – /ɹɪˈsɜːt͡ʃˌʃɪp/. (Comment: since many people now pronounce research with the primary stress on the first syllable, presumably /ˈɹiːsɜːt͡ʃˌʃɪp/ also exists.)
• Research ship/researchship etymology 2 – /ɹɪˈsɜːt͡ʃˈʃɪp/.

— Sgconlaw (talk) 18:18, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

My instinct is to pronounce them the same (as /ˈɹiːsɜːt͡ʃˌʃɪp/), but I haven't heard the word "researchship" pronounced, so I don't know what is standard. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:45, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Formatting of definitions for words borrowed into English

there are is category of words that fall at the border between being considered "foreign" and "accepted" (so for example, they might still be written in italics). for many of these lemmas, such as baizuo, chuunibyou, gongbang, etc., the original language also has a definition rather than an expected gloss. should these be updated and reformatted as a gloss instead? Juwan (talk) 20:03, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Specific epithets associated with places

Many specific epithets are formed as Latinate adjectives. Many are associated with nouns, eg, toponyms, in various languages, eg, liberiacus (Liberia), noveboracensis (New York). For good reasons such noun entries do not have usually have adjective sections.

Under what heading should such specific entries appear on the associated English (in these cases) noun pages?

1. Descendants of, in the cases above, the English toponyms, because they are intended to associate a species name with a place.
2. Translations, though they are adjectives and the toponym has no adjective section
   1. as Translingual, though Translingual isn't a language.
   2. as Latin, though Latinists object to including scientific, ecclesiastical, medical, and legal Latin
3. See also, because they don't fit any other heading well.

Or should they not appear at all, because no user we care about would ever want to find such Latinate terms associated with toponyms or other nouns? DCDuring (talk) 13:31, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Does this seem like a BP matter, possibly leading to a vote? DCDuring (talk) 15:33, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

• "Latinists object to including scientific, ecclesiastical, medical, and legal Latin":
  That's not true at all; e.g.: nōmen (“noun”) and polygōnum (“polygon”) are scientific (linguistics; mathematics), āmēn (“amen”) ecclesiastical, trochiscus (“pill”) medical. But that's different from faux- or pseudo-Latin like Serpens Cauda (literally “Snake Tail (not: Tail of the Snake, the Snake's Tail or Serpentis Cauda)”).
• noveboracensis, for example, does not descendent from New York, so "Descendants" section would be wrong.
• noveboracensis is no translation of New York, so that "Translations" section would be incorrect. However, there are adjectives like New Yorkian.

--17:47, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

Term for a certain kind of mistranslation

A name for when an attempt to translate via a calque fails solely because the "attempted word" is an accidental gap. A species of near miss or nice try. There's an established name for this, I seem to recall, but I can't think of it, and neither can Gemini it seems. An example would be if one language has a word such as "embridgification" (meaning bridging or bridgebuilding) but the target language happens to lack the homologous form by mere accident. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:56, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

We categorise those under Category:Non-native speakers' English. I guess it's a "pseudo-anglicism" although that only refers to English terms that don't exist in native speakers' vocabularies. Smurrayinchester (talk) 11:44, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

(There's also the Wikipedia page Crosslinguistic influence. That doesn't give any name for this error other than "calque") Smurrayinchester (talk) 11:58, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Great link, thanks. I guess if a term specific to that subtype does exist, it is rare enough that I will give up trying to uncover it. Thanks again. Quercus solaris (talk) 15:05, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

objectsona

Hello, I don't do a lot on Wiktionary. My attention was drawn [1] to the word objectsona, and I noted that all the quotes are tweets. Is this considered good enough for inclusion around here? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:48, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

railroad in roleplaying

The definition we give seems wrong, almost backwards - I understand it as meaning "Forcing players to stick rigidly to the dungeon master's planned plot, rather than allowing them improvise actions that change the path of the story." For example, if the DM wants players to steal an artifact from a dragon, but the players have the idea of making a magical copy of the artifact instead, the dungeon master might railroad them by saying "Magic can't copy this particular item." But I haven't played RPGs much, so before I edit this I wanted to check if other people had the same impression. Smurrayinchester (talk) 11:36, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I think your definition is better than the existing one. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 08:23, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Changed the definition. Smurrayinchester (talk) 16:44, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Hey can you pull around?

Which of the 27 senses of pull is this: “Why Do Drive-Thrus Ask Customers to ‘Pull Around’?”? Or is pull around a phrasal verb missing an entry?  --Lambiam 08:32, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@Lambiam: I think we are missing the intransitive (?) sense "to drive a vehicle to a particular place". I'm not sure pull around is a specific phrasal verb; in the above article it seems to mean driving past a drive-through window, going around and pulling up to the same window. We also speak of cars "pulling up" to a curb, to a shop, etc. — Sgconlaw (talk) 12:27, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

But I don't think it works without something - either a preposition or an adverb. pull up, pull in, pull into, pull out, pull back, pull forward, pull over, pull around, but never just pull (unless your car has broken down). Is there some way we can format that without creating a dozen separate phrasal verbs? Smurrayinchester (talk) 13:41, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

@Lambiam, Smurrayinchester: maybe something like "Followed by out, over, up, etc.: to drive a vehicle in a particular direction or to a particular place", and then add some usage examples or quotations. — Sgconlaw (talk) 14:31, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

That's a good suggestion, have added it. Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:28, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

初次見面

(Notifying Benwing2, Fish bowl, Frigoris, Justinrleung, kc_kennylau, Mar vin kaiser, Michael Ly, ND381, RcAlex36, The dog2, Theknightwho, Tooironic, Wpi, 沈澄心, 恨国党非蠢即坏, LittleWhole): : Hi. Can someone please assess the frequency/currency of this phrase? It's commonly used by non-Chinese (Japanese or Korean speakers) in reference to their equivalent stock phrase or when trying to translate from Chinese into Japanese or Korean. I've got an example of such usage in my "Shadowing" book for Japanese learners (in four languages - Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean) - so I would oppose a deletion request.

Is it actually used by Chinese native speakers? Thanks in advance. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:55, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

@Atitarev: From my perspective, as a verb, it sounds conversational to me, though it might be SOP. For the phrase, I've never heard it used that way. Seems like a calque of 初めまして. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 02:52, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

@Mar vin kaiser: Thanks. Indeed, seems like a calque of the Japanese 初(はじ)めまして (hajimemashite) or Korean 처음 뵙겠습니다 (cheo'eum boepgetseumnida). It has penetrated multiple textbooks and dictionaries, as a standard translation of those phrases, including books published in China or Taiwan. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:01, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

At least in Singapore, it's not a very common phrase. But I can understand it without any problem. The wording is quite self explanatory. 初次 sounds exceptionally formal tough. It's not something I would use in a casual setting. The dog2 (talk) 03:10, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

It's certainly citeable as a phrase but often in those various bi- or multilingual resources. The phrase in ja and ko are very formal, so that's an equivalent in that sense. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:25, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

@Atitarev: I don’t know how idiomatic it is. It is a possible collocation, but I don’t think it’s a particular phrase used natively. It seems to be SoP on the surface. I would need to see more actual usage of the phrase (even by non-native speakers) that may show that there is meaning more than the sum of its parts. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 18:54, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

Hi @Justinrleung: Thanks. Please check the file in https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EbCBAE8claNorzKm70uOopQuYOE8whQg?usp=sharing. I've saved just a few Japanese/Chinese and Korean/Chinese examples (as a phrase) from published books. To me, it seems an attempt to translate as close as possible equivalent phrases in Japanese and Korean into Chinese, which seems not as common among native Chinese speakers. There are many more examples in textbooks, phrasesbook and dictionaries. Perhaps usage notes?

(This somewhat reminds of the Russian на здоро́вье (na zdoróvʹje) when it's used in the sense cheers! (toast).) Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 04:05, 10 November 2024 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: I've saved the references as screenshots in my link but I realised it's maybe not what you want. Basically I searched the Chinese phrase together with some Japanese and Korean translations in Google books. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:15, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

@Atitarev: The screenshots are a good starting point, but it would be good if you could include the actual Google Books links and cite them using the {{quote-book}}/{{zh-q}} templates. It would also be good to perhaps include examples where it might be less obviously translated from Japanese/Korean (i.e. things that are not phrasebooks/textbooks, but perhaps book translations that don't have the original Japanese/Korean right beside it). — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 06:24, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

@Justinrleung: I would need help quoting Chinese resources with the phrase used by native speakers and without Japanese or Korean. The usage is restricted on bilingual resources or translations from Japanese or Korean.

The below hits seem to be translations:

1. 初次见面 (1)
2. 初次見面(2)
3. 初次見面(3)
4. 初次見面(4)
5. 初次見面(5)

Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 09:28, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

@Atitarev: I see that you added some quotations, but they are not given with any references. Could you please add {{quote-book}} to them? Otherwise, it would be copyvio. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 16:19, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

たいと思う on 思う and たい

Hello. Can someone please say why 思う and たい usage notes have no about ～たいと思う with "to be going to" meaning? Frozen Bok (talk) 15:03, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

It's also for @Sgconlaw too. Frozen Bok (talk) 16:29, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

@Frozen Bok: not sure why I have been pinged, as I don't know Japanese and don't edit Japanese entries. Sorry I can't help. — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:04, 8 November 2024 (UTC)

@Frozen Bok: I don't think this means anything beyond the sum of the parts. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 22:31, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

@Fytcha Quote from Russian Wikipedia:

Добавляя к желательной форме на -たい словосочетание と思う, образуется выражение намерения: 行きたいと思う (собираюсь пойти, поехать)[2]

Dobavljaja k želatelʹnoj forme na -たい slovosočetanije と思う, obrazujetsja vyraženije namerenija: 行きたいと思う (sobirajusʹ pojti, pojexatʹ)

By adding ～と思う to desiderative ～たい, an expression of intent is formed

I have an example: [3] (on 0:10).

Then I googled that. Results: [4][5][6] (not an ad), but some people says "it's polite form of ～たい", others says "～たいと思う means "to want like"". If I'll google that in Russian, I get different results (e.g. [7]).

I searched that on other Wiktionaries such as German, French, Polish, Russian, Italian, Hungarian, Chinese and Japanese. Results: Polish Wiktionary has pages containing ～たいと思う with "to want like" meaning; Russian, French, Italian, Hungarian and German Wiktionaries have no results; Japanese Wiktionary has pages containing ～たいと思う but have no English translations of that; Chinese Wiktionary (sorry I must to use Google Translate) has pages containing ～たいと思う with just "to want" meaning.

So, can you say is meaning "to be going to" for ～たいと思う correct? And why English Wiktionary has no information about ～たいと思う? Frozen Bok (talk) 14:17, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Western Yiddish lb tag

Since most of our discussion and entries of Yiddish on here are of Eastern Yiddish, I feel like it would be helpful if someone could create a Western Yiddish category and lb tag, to demarcate words such as אָרן (orn) or האַרלע (harle) which aren't really used in Eastern Yiddish. Not "Netherlandic" though, because I think that just refers to the pronunciation of vowels of Western Yiddish as spoken in and around the Netherlands, and there's a whole separate Yiddish-speaking community in Alsace. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 08:27, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Kyrgyz and Kazakh жаз

Kazakh entry says Proto-Turkic *yāŕ (“spring, summer”).

Kyrgyz says From Proto-Turkic *jāŕ (“spring, summer”).

Is it correct that these are from two different proto turkic roots? Zbutie3.14 (talk) 22:25, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Fixed? Tollef Salemann (talk) 22:55, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

The new word 'Extracism'

the power of extra:extracism What's your favourite extra feature about your country or your community? At what extra length did you go towards your academic research? The economics of extracism:what is the value of the/an extra?

Bcoz there is nothing like being extra! What are your thoughts on extracism? Vocabwordsmith (talk) 17:05, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

Please see WT:CFI. This doesn't appear to be a complete protologism, but I'm not sure most Google hits pass our cfi. Vininn126 (talk) 17:08, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

отъезжать “only used in отъезжа́ть наза́д”?

отъезжа́ть (otʺjezžátʹ) has two definitions, the second of which is ‘Only used in отъезжа́ть наза́д (otʺjezžátʹ nazád, “to back up”)’. This is somewhat confusing, as it seems to contradict the existence of the first meaning. I guess that what is meant is that it only occurs in this sense in that combination. Moreover, it is not clear which of the 11 senses of ‘back up’ is meant. Could this not be better formulated? Incidentally, the sense of ‘back up’ is not given at ru:отъезжать, so far as I can recognise. PJTraill (talk) 00:43, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I think it's also incorrect: "Я отъехал от магазина" sounds to me like "back up", not "drive away". Thadh (talk) 06:20, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

It says something about the English translations instead of describing the senses of the Russian term. This is what is wrong. Just remove the second and put up a good usage example or quote. Nobody claims a gloss to cover all possible translations. Fay Freak (talk) 15:09, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

защи́тник: defence counsel?

защи́тник (zaščítnik) says this means “advocate, attorney” but ru:защитник suggests it means the counsel for the defence. This seems to need a correction or at least a usage note. PJTraill (talk) 15:04, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

You are right, the page is wrong, you can derive the formulation in Wikipedia from the legal definition in Article 49 RF Code of Criminal Procedure; on the opposite end there is typical translator sloppiness added by Stephen G. Brown when we did not take ourselves as seriously. Fay Freak (talk) 15:20, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

warmonger

Isn't the definition of warmonger lacking (in other dictionaries as well)? It states "advocates war", generally. Could an inhabitant of country A who writes an op-ed in a national newspaper to argue for war between countries B and C (neither allied to or against A) be considered a warmonger? That seems dubious. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 21:42, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

I'd say that descriptively it's within the realm of the natural. A warmonger is most broadly anyone who tries to "sell" the choice of making war. Even when they're not a belligerent in the sense of that word meaning one of the warring parties, they're belligerent in the sense meaning eager for war and warlike (bellicose). One of the factors here is that the word warmonger is tied so closely cognitively with monger as dealer and with arms dealer = merchant of death, someone who tries to "sell" war (= "sell" killing and death) either literally (e.g., $$$, ₽₽₽, CN¥) or figuratively (e.g., persuade, pitch, coax, egg on). As for the literal sense, people who sell weapons are infamous for the sometime tendency to sell to any and all customers, plugging back into the notion of "anyone anywhere who pitches war". Quercus solaris (talk) 15:14, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

To me, at least, it seems natural / correct to describe Op-Ed Writer A as a warmonger, if they're pushing for war (whether it involves them or not). It wouldn't surprise me if there also exists a second definition more closely tied to monger-as-merchant, though; is that what you're thinking of, or are you thinking of something else? Maybe we could search for cites that describe arms manufacturers (in peacetime and when they're not pushing for a new war) as warmongers, to try and distinguish that sense from the broad sense? - -sche (discuss) 16:17, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I think it might not be worth splitting into two senseid values; it's more the kind of thing where one senseid contains semicolons and (sometimes) "especially". A gossipmonger is anyone who spreads gossip (either sells it or sells it), even if it might be especially someone who literally sells it (e.g., tabloid/magazine editors). Quercus solaris (talk) 16:36, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I was a bit of time getting it done

Which of our definitions of be covers this:

• 1907, C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne, McTodd, page 232:

  The bag was crisp with ice, and with my fingerless gloves I was a bit of time unholing the buttons. But I got the flap turned back at last, and there was Ryan grey-faced and stark.

What about google books:"I was some time in", "he was some time quite covered with the cloud of dust", "He was some time Examiner in Natural Science, […] "? I don't get the sense that this use of be is uncommon, though I'm not sure if it's archaic or still current. - -sche (discuss) 16:38, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree that it sounds a bit old-fashioned. And yet I hesitate to call it dated or archaic. He was a long time getting that done. If I heard that in speech, it wouldn't draw my attention. If someone had said that to me today, before I read this Talk thread, I would not have thought twice about its form. Quercus solaris (talk) 16:45, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Which of the definitions of be covers this? (Are we missing a sense? The meaning is sort-of similar to, but is not, 3.4 "occur, take place"; in the phrases I can think of, it is more like "spend (time)", but perhaps the same sense can also be used in other phrases and the meaning is more general.) - -sche (discuss) 02:04, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I think of it as "UK", especially "a bit of time". Couldn't one say "I was four hours getting it done."? In the US one might say "I got it done in four hours." or "I was done in four hours." DCDuring (talk) 15:42, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Is this the same "to take a duration of time" sense as "Dinner will be 10 minutes", "It was an hour before he returned" (which I also don't think we have). If so, I'd say this is a very common current sense, but some constructions using it now feel a bit dated. Smurrayinchester (talk) 16:40, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

What's different I think, is that the subject is an agent, not the patient. DCDuring (talk) 18:28, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

I took a stab at adding a definition to cover this; please improve it if possible, revert if there are major problems, etc. - -sche (discuss) 20:52, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

Unsupported titles/S:t Michel

Would it be possible to remove the backslash from the head, so that instead of "S\:t Michel" it would say "S:t Michel" and still link to Unsupported titles/S:t? Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 11:27, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

Should be fixed. Smurrayinchester (talk) 14:47, 15 November 2024 (UTC)

the collectively referred to, again

This entry and this entry have a noun sense "(preceded by the) [Such] people collectively." Based on this RFD, should these be removed, because you can do this with any adjective (past participle, etc) as a feature of grammar? ("The wounded were mostly the unaffiliated, who were generally the poor, the religious, and the recently divorced or widowed, but not the formerly ordained or the chastised, the blind or the ethnically Latvian.") Or does being able to use at least the second of those words as a count noun change anything: do we want to have the 'collective' sense in cases where we already have a ===Noun=== section, for completeness? - -sche (discuss) 20:28, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't know how directly useful this comment is, but "aged" is a funny one, in that the two-syllable version has a slightly different usage from the one-syllable (for me, anyway). Our "Old people, collectively" sense would be two syllables for me, whereas there is in theory also a one-syllable sense meaning "ones that have matured or undergone the effects of time", e.g. "We have two whiskey stores, one for the aged and one for the unaged". Although we have that as an adj sense, we don't have it as a noun sense. Mihia (talk) 10:08, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree with Mihia about the two pronunciations of aged. In general, I think we have to be sensitive to the possibility that what is collectively referred to might be only one of several senses of the adjective (pp, etc.) or that there is some other shift or restriction in meaning.

I really doubt that all of the definitions at transgender#Adjective are attestable as adjectives and really distinct. Some just look like the normal range of attributive uses of nouns. DCDuring (talk) 16:58, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

to have another thing coming

Although definitely a derivative of "if you think ____, you have another think coming," this phrase sometimes has a bit of a different connotation in my experience.

"If you think _____, you have another think coming" has a similar connotation to "guess again."

It is fair to say that when "another thing coming" is used in the construction "If you think ____, you have another thing coming," the connotation is usually the same.

However, "have another thing coming," in my experience, can in certain contexts seem to have a quite forceful, sometimes almost quasi-threatening connotation.

Even if one considers a sentence like "If that punk thinks he can mock me, he has another thing coming!" the suggestion could be that the "punk" will be subjected to violence or otherwise a bad time. That, then, would be the "thing" that he has coming to him.

But I am certain that I have heard (rare) constructions like "Get ready, because you have another thing coming!" or "He has another thing coming to him!" or "Oh, let me tell you, she has another thing coming to her!"

In those cases, I would argue that "have another thing coming" is a bit different from "If you think ____, you have another think coming."

Does anyone else have thoughts on this? Tharthan (talk) 20:34, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

My take on it is that it refers to someone's arrogant assumptions being forcefully refuted. You wouldn't say "if you think π=22/7, you have another thing coming!".

It's not necessarily part of an if/then-type construction: I'm sure one could attest: "X thinks/believes/would have us believe/asserts,etc. […] X has another thing coming!". My guess is that the syntax is dictated more by the requirements of the semantics than by anything lexical. I can even see it as a response to something happening or being described that demonstrates unustifiable arrogance as far as the speaker is concerned: "[interjection]!", do they have another thing coming! Chuck Entz (talk) 22:09, 16 November 2024 (UTC)

The original (eg see Ngrams) is "you've got another think coming". The reason some people have converted this to "another thing coming" is 1) easy confusion between thing and think (see sumfink as a common pronunciation of "something"), but 2) more fundamentally, the use of "think" in "another think" was seen as ungrammatical, because "think" should be a verb and not a noun (or so such people reasoned). In fact the original phrase was deliberately humorous and deliberately used think as a noun in an ungrammatical way - that was part of the fun of the phrase - and then the prescriptivists moved in and said "think is not a noun" and reformatted it as "thing". As far as I know both forms are now common in England. 86.168.46.85 13:25, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

There's a difference between the etymology of the term and how it's used. Think about expressions like "the exception proves the rule" where the original meaning (the exception tests the rule) has been replaced by (the fact that there's an exception shows that there's a rule") I would contend that usage in the US has become disconnected from the original "think" expression. I'm trying to arrive at a description of this new formulation based on my intuitions as a native speaker of US English. Since I haven't looked through the current usage online, I could, of course, be quite wrong. Take it for what it's worth. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:23, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: I have often encountered the claim that "another thing coming" makes no sense, on the grounds that there could not have been another thing coming, if there had not first been an initial thing that came. However, if a phrase like "If that punk thinks he can mock me, he has another thing coming!" is interpreted as "That punk may have a notion [thing one] that he can get away with mocking me, but he will find that something quite different [thing two] is going to occur," then arguably the "another thing coming" construction can be said to make sense. Tharthan (talk) 18:14, 17 November 2024 (UTC)

@Tharthan. Of course, no one who's ever claimed that English always has to make literal sense has gotten very far in the long run. Anything that's the result of milions and millions of people from all over the world adding their own variations over half a millenium is going to defeat any attempts to make it tidy and sensible.

Whether this makes literal sense is beside the point. It means whatever the people who use it and interpret it think it means. One would only use either the original or altered form to point out that someone is going to have their assumptions proven wrong against their will- with the implication that the other party isn't just wrong, but deserves to be proved wrong. I think that's the underlying idea: it's a forceful rejection of what's asserted to be the other party's thinking. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:23, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I have always considered "if you think ____, you have another thing coming" to be merely a mishearing error for "think". I don't personally perceive anything more to it. Mihia (talk) 00:38, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

eggcup

Tagged as British. ORLY? P. Sovjunk (talk) 19:30, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

Haven't heard of it, not British. CitationsFreak (talk) 23:36, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

It's not specific to BrE (and M-W's and AHD's entries for it don't label it so). But it's an uncommon word for a combination of reasons: (1) serving and eating eggs that way is old-fashioned, and (2) having a special dedicated piece of china for it is rather … what's the word? The people who would do so would be of certain kinds … china collectors, rich people of yesteryear, … I think probably someone was guessing at why it struck them as not of their own variety and misguessed. I'm going to remove the variety label. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:15, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I seem to have learned about them through Enid Blyton books, along with cornflowers and treacle. — Sgconlaw (talk) 05:05, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Without wanting to post something too personal and promotional, I work for a place that sells eggcups for as little as £1 - porcelain ones at that (though obviously not fine China). There’s nothing old-fashioned about eating soft-boiled eggs in Britain. How would you go about eating them in America without an eggcup, or do you only ever eat them hard-boiled????! Overlordnat1 (talk) 06:09, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

We typically eat them hardboiled, yeah. I do know what an eggcup is, and the general method for eating one out of it (I think), but never saw one in the real world. CitationsFreak (talk) 06:47, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

When I was growing up (AmE) our household ate soft-boiled eggs out of regular cups (i.e., run-of-the-mill cups), although no doubt "we were doing it wrong" from someone else's viewpoint … but (both then and now), in the U.S., eggcup is not a word that most of us hear anyone say (at school, at work, at parties), or see written in any ads, hardly at all. But I don't think that that's because it's "not AmE" — rather, it's just that you're gonna hear it only in certain registers (e.g., in discussions of dishes/porcelain/china; among people whose households have eggcups). In diners, the breakfast menu options virtually never highlight/feature/emphasize soft-boiled eggs, although some places list it in the "a la carte" section (I don't recall seeing it recently, but then again I haven't been looking for it), and I doubt that any diner would bat an eye at making them off-menu. In my view the word is not not AmE and not not BrE. To apply uncommon to it strikes me as not the right move; what is true about it is that it is not in most AmE speakers' active vocabulary but many of us would not bat an eye upon encountering it (passive vocabulary). Quercus solaris (talk) 15:11, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I am English and I regularly eat boiled eggs out of an eggcup. It is a word that I would regularly use when necessary. When I was a child, in about 150 BC, my mother would place an egg cosy over my eggcup egg. Mihia (talk) 22:52, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

rzehakinid

How would this be pronounced? 115.188.72.131 07:44, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Fascinating word! It's named after w:Anton Rzehak, the surname a form of Czech Řehák, so me personally I'd attempt /'ʒehɑ:kɪnɪd/, but I have no idea how the average biologist would say it. Hiztegilari (talk) 08:10, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

paludi-

paludicolous, paludicole, paludification, paludiphile, paludiphilia, paludarium, ... is this enough to suggest a prefix paludi-/palud-? (Various reference works do assert one: google books:"paludi-" swamp prefix.)
Likewise, telmatology, telmophage, telmophagic, telmophagous, telmatic: telm-?
Or do we prefer to view these as the Latin/Greek word + the various suffixes and endings? - -sche (discuss) 18:02, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the most accurate answer is: diachronically likely the latter but synchronically nonetheless the former, in coexistence. In my opinion, Wiktionary ought to enter the prefix forms, while transparently admitting (e.g., via template:surf at etym of relevant words) that they represent synchronic reanalysis even if no one is sure whether they represent the true diachronic origin of any specific word. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:17, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I just noticed that the OED, too, has an entry for paludi-. I'll create an entry later. - -sche (discuss) 21:10, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

kimono, yukata

Our entry kimono says that in Japanese, a yukata is not considered to be a type of kimono. Our entry yukata, however, defines itself as a kimono, as does w:Yukata. Is it correct that yukata are not considered to be kimono in Japanse? (Pinging @MathXplore as a recently-active Japanese-speaking editor, who may know.) If so, how can we define yukata better, as its own thing rather than as a kimono? - -sche (discuss) 21:16, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

The best recommendation for the general case (i.e., a pair of terms where some people construe them mentally as hyponymous whereas others construe them mentally as coordinate, which [mild ontologic variability] is not rare [a famous example in English is hot dog [the whole dish including the bun] versus sandwich]) is to get sufficiently hypernymic (i.e., one degree higher hypernymically) within the def, for example, "a garment that blah blah" or "a dish consisting of blah blah". Then the counterpart term can be listed at template:cot but marked (for example) "qq:sometimes hyponymous". Quercus solaris (talk) 21:54, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello, I'm not an expert of this subject, but I would like to note what I found in my quick search.

• ja:ゆかた and w:ja:浴衣 defines yukata as one type of kimono, and the definition in jawiki is referenced.
• O-LEX Japanese-English Dictionary 2nd edition (published by Obunsha), Genius Japanese-English Dictionary 3rd edition (published by Taishukan), Grand Century Japanese-English Dictionary 3rd edition (published by Sanseido), and Shogakukan Progressive Japanese-English Dictionary 3rd edition (published by Shogakukan) explains yukata as a type of kimono, and their definitions are closer to w:Yukata.
• 明鏡国語辞典 3rd edition (published by Taishukan) also explains yukata as a type of kimono.
• During my quick search, I could not find sources that support the statement that "yukata are not considered to be kimono in Japanese."

I hope this helps the discussion. MathXplore (talk) 02:56, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

in regards to

I originally created in regards to as an "erroneous" form of in regard to. I see that this has now been changed to "alternative form". To me, "in regards to" is a pretty horrible error, and the first page of search results that I see for one versus the other seems to bear out the idea that "in regards to" is wrong. What do people here think? Mihia (talk) 22:45, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I once researched all these variants (in respect to, regarding, with regard to, etc. etc.) and found that plural 'regards' was much more colloquial and much less common, but I couldn't rule it out as a mistake. In British English it is out there in the wild. In the BNC (British National Corpus) I found 1660 hits for 'with regard to' and only 56 for 'with regards to'; 286 for 'in regard to' and only 7 for 'in regards to'. There was nothing for 'with respects to' or 'in respects to', so the 'regards' ones are perhaps contaminated by the verb use in 'as regards' (but then I found uses of 'as regards to'). It's a very complicated factual situation, but as an editor of serious text I felt entitled to change the plural to the singular. But that doesn't mean it's a mistake: it's just a minority usage (and, I think, very much BrE). Hiztegilari (talk) 23:00, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Someone charged with editing documents for formal publication will do best to change it (so as to escape reproach), but that doesn't mean that it can be defined as erroneous descriptively. I'd put it in the same category as is comprised of: lots of people hate it, but lots of others are fine with it, and among the latter, some even pride themselves on refusing to avoid it; nonetheless, anyone who wants to avoid reproach (e.g., preparing for formal publication) had better adhere to the prescription (even if they don't take that particular preference personally either way), because the one option is bait to haters whereas the other is not. I'd also compare it to the prescription that AmE is "supposed" to change towards (which is prescriptively alleged to be specific to BrE) to toward: OK, fine, whatevs boss (give the baby its bottle, make the change), but the fact descriptively remains that many people don't consider either one objectionable, on either side of the Atlantic. To Wiktionary's credit, its usage note there, as I'm writing this, is very good and is superior to the butthurt version of the prescription (i.e., feeling revulsion and indignation about the difference). Admittedly, though, when one is editing for formal publication, one needs to apply all the standard prescriptions about AmE and BrE (whichever is at hand at the moment), to avoid being accused of failing to do so. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:37, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

I believe that we do our readers a great service by pointing out usages that are likely to be perceived as wrong. Although I personally dislike the label "proscribed", since I believe that many or even most readers will not understand what it means, and/or will mix it up with "prescribed", I recall that we have had that debate somewhere before, so I can add a label "proscribed by some" or something similar. Mihia (talk)

Wholeheartedly agree: WT should definitely let them know, without coming across as endorsing the prescription. The concern about vocabulary has an easy solution: when we do it right, the word is linked, so it can effortlessly be clicked to take them straight to the glossary entry, and then the Back button takes them back again. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:32, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

The living desert (3)

desert#Etymology_3 tells us of desert: "(usually in the plural, now archaic) That which is deserved or merited; a just punishment or reward." Its newest quotation is from John Rawls, A theory of justice, 1971. I'm now reading Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What's the right thing to do, first published 2009, which also uses desert (singular) in this sense. Admittedly, many of these instances of desert in the context of Rawls' Theory. However, what is perhaps the earliest in the book -- Underlying the bailout outrage was a belief about moral desert: The executives receiving the bonuses (and the companies receiving the bailouts) didn't deserve them. (FS&G paperback, 2010, ISBN 978-0-374-53250-5 , page 14) -- comes before any discussion of Rawls. (Later instances include The renunciation of moral desert as the basis of distributive justice is morally attractive but also disquieting (page 178).) Nowhere, I think, does either Rawls or Sandel comment on the term itself (perhaps suggesting that though it may be an archaism it deserves to be wiped clean of cobwebs). Rather, it seems to be a straightforward item in the vocabulary of each philosopher. Granted, desert is only called "archaic", and not "obsolete"; but I wonder if even the former is a good description.

(Is it perhaps just the first half of a formula, moral desert? No: And yet it may not be possible, politically or philosophically, to detach arguments about justice from debates about desert as decisively as Rawls and Dworkin suggest. (page 179).) -- Hoary (talk) 01:39, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

The collocation moral desert does put me in mind of the collocation moral hazard (as well as of course just deserts), and the two concepts strike me as perhaps belonging to a common contrast set (perhaps along with moral imperative), but I'm no philosopher. (The other thing brought to mind about the living desert is that the Western Desert lives and breathes / in forty-five degrees. Lol.) Quercus solaris (talk) 03:16, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Quercus solaris, in recent years, moral desert has been much less common than moral panic, let alone moral hazard. (In the 1830s it was by far the commonest of the three.) Perhaps it would be fair to say that desert in this sense is now "rare". ("Well then, feel free to do something about the entry." / "Sorry, no: I've no appetite for reading up on the guidelines, etc. As it is, I don't even know how Wiktionary decides what is or isn't 'archaic'.") -- Hoary (talk) 04:53, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Given the evidence that you've adduced, I think "now rare" or "now chiefly technical" [i.e., outside of the fossil word use in just deserts] seems more accurate than "archaic". I could be WT:BOLD about it myself, but I'll wait a while to see whether anyone else objects. Quercus solaris (talk) 05:18, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I made the edit. Someone could overrule it, but I think it's hard to argue against, so I leaned WT:BOLD. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:23, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

And I've added a Sandel quote: it's easy to understand and almost half a century newer than the Rawls quote. The quote from Stoker uses a different template and usefully specifies the edition, etc; but it appears to do so via a Stoker-specific template. I'd have happily added that the quote from Justice is more specifically from the section "Justice, telos, and honor" within chapter 8, "Who deserves what? Aristotle"; and/or that it appears on p 187 of the NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010 edition (ISBN 978-0-374-53250-5; a year after the first edition because it's the paperback). -- Hoary (talk) 23:04, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Not that it matters to the main point or conclusion of this thread, but some of those "moral desert" Ngram hits (no idea know how many) could be the other kind of "desert" altogether: "Where Athens, Rome and Sparta stood / There is a moral desert now." Mihia (talk) 20:14, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Excellent point, Mihia. I was too careless. -- Hoary (talk) 23:04, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Addition or edit request - sarnt, colloquial for sergeant

I am not familiar with etiology or the policies here. But I have identified something that should probably get either a new page or an edit of an existing page. The word sergeant is often spoken among enlisted soldiers of the US Army as sarnt or sar'nt (sarn't?). I'm not sure if it should be considered a single syllable - some people say it quickly such that the nt is barely heard, others say it a bit slower, but still faster than the full word sergeant. This also extends to other forms of sergeants, such as a drill sergeant or first sergeant (which itself may be shortened to firsarnt or firsarn). Also, the T is almost always pronounced at least somewhat, with "firsarn" being the only exception I have ever heard.

This pronunciation is very widespread, but exclusively spoken, and never written as anything other than sergeant. So, I'm not sure if it should get its own page or a modification of existing pages. If one of you could take the right course of action, that'd probably be best :) 73.130.40.254 20:16, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I see that sarnt is well attested in informal written communication. So the form is not only a pronunciation variant orally–aurally but also has its corresponding pronunciation spelling (in informal-only use). It is comparable to nomsayin' in that respect, as well as tryna. I'll enter it sometime, via (1) a transcription for the variant at sergeant#Pronunciation and (2) a headword entry for sarnt that is quite short ({{lb|en|informal}} {{pronunciation spelling of|en|sergeant}} {{syn|en|sarge}}). Quercus solaris (talk) 20:54, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

rude (pronunciation)

Why is rude still pronounced /ɹuːd/, rather than Great Vowel Shifted from /uː/ to /aʊ/ like loud? - -sche (discuss) 21:17, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

@-sche: Because it was /riu̯d/ in Middle English, not */ruːd/. If it weren't for the loss of /j/ after /ɹ/ in (AFAIK) all accents of modern English, we'd be pronouncing it /ɹjuːd/. I assume that in Welsh English, where Middle English /iu̯/ has become /ɪʊ̯/ rather than /(j)uː/, it's still pronounced /ɹɪʊ̯d/, but we'd need a speaker of Welsh English to confirm. (According to WP there are also some working-class accents of Southern U.S. English that have /ɪʊ̯/ rather than /(j)uː/). The real question is why room didn't undergo the Great Vowel Movement and is still pronounced the same as Old English rūm. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:56, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

This is since Middle English /uː/ does not diphthongise before labials. The pertinent evidence is below; note that some words have counteretymological spellings since English orthographic conventions postdate the merger of ME /uː/ and /oː/ here:

• Before /p/: croup, droop, soup, stoop < ME croupe, droupen, soupe, stoupen /ˈkruːp(ə) ˈdruːpən ˈsuːp(ə) ˈstuːpən/
• Before /m/: room, tomb < ME roum, tombe /ˈruːm ˈtuːmb(ə)~ˈtuːm(ə)/
• Before /v/: dove, shove < ME douve, schouven /ˈduːv(ə) ˈʃuːvən/; ME /uː/ is regularly shortened in this position, thus remaining distinct from ME /oː/ > /uː/, though there is some confusion in Early Modern English.

Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 05:37, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Interesting. Palude and rude seem to have been used as rhymes in Middle English: is the fact that they still rhyme expected, or unexpected? (If unexpected, should I surmise that, like salute, palude remained sufficiently closely associated with the Latin etymon and its Romance reflexes which have /u/ to keep its /u/, whereas loud and lout shifted?) - -sche (discuss) 14:57, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

German -falls

@Sersovi (Notifying Matthias Buchmeier, -sche, Jberkel, Mahagaja, Fay Freak, Helrasincke): I'm not sure if I agree with the analysis of this as a suffix. Aren't all supposed derivations more readily explained as univerbations, as done here? — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 21:18, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the analysis as a suffix makes the most sense synchronically. It may have started out as a univerbation, but it's become a suffix. That isn't rare; it happened with -erweise as well and with -mente/-ment in the Romance languages. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:45, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the remarks. Just as @Mahagaja points out, I also tend to think that nowadays “-falls” has much more the character of a suffix than of a compositional (univerbation) element. It is not uncommon in German that original adverbial genitive phrases end up developing more or less productive suffixes (like the cited -erweise, but also -halber, -maßen, -seits, and others). All those lexemes are widely considered suffixes today. In the case of "-falls" there are nowadays examples that morphologically can not be explained well as an original univerbation, such as “ebenfalls” (see here) or “gleichfalls” (here). Sersovi (talk) 23:21, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

@Sersovi: Just a heads-up, for synchronic analyses, we usually put them after the real etymology using {{surf|...}} or 'Analyzable as {{af|...}}'. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 21:53, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, I will consider this. Sersovi (talk) 23:24, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

The question has to be asked whether they are arbitrarily formed enough to be a suffix. It could well be imagined to have been a century ago already, peculiarities of jurist usage were noted, but it is still not that productive and one rather forms constructions im Bestreitensfalle, im Abweisungsfalle etc., I don’t find *klagefalls, albeit klageweise. Therefore we barely have any entries for this alleged suffix. Sure, in some linguistics textbook one can use it as an example for German morphology, as we also have reconstructions that don’t exist in diachronic books, but the dictionary entry is stuff for deletion. Fay Freak (talk) 08:35, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

The productivity of a compounding morpheme does not determine whether or not it is an affix; there are many morphemes that function as no-doubt affixes much less productive than -falls, others are not productive at all anymore (e.g. emp-, -sal) and again many whose productivity is restricted to only a certain field.

I think the question is whether suffixoids can be generally classified as suffixes in Wiktionary or not (just as mere composition). There is room for discussion here. A case for -falls would be the already many present suffixoids with a suffix clasification here that behave much like -falls (e.g. -mal, -arm, -reich). Other cases are even more dubious not to be considered compositional elements (e.g. -äugig, -heim, schein-), and still there they are.

Note aside: there are many more entries not present in the Category page (see gegebenenfalls, schlimmstenfalls, nötigenfalls, widrigenfalls, etc). And other words still do not have an entry in Wiktionary (erforderlichenfalls, höchstenfalls, günstigstenfalls).

*klagefalls happen not to (be able to) exist because it uses a nominal base, not an adjective or a pronoun. Sersovi (talk) 10:26, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Well this shows that it isn’t in fact a suffix (but a suffixoid), if for etymological consideration the speaker needs to use an adjective (or demonstrative adjective, relative adjective, etc., which used in isolation are pronouns) properly inflected as if the noun is still there—not that arbitrary. Your page has a case no less if “derived terms” are thus displayed more tidily, and apparently editors are able to distinguish affixoids from affixes and compounded stems, so that we have to make related part-of-speech headers official. Is the same with scheiß, isn’t it. Somebody needs to think it through so we know which existing or eventual pages will be affected, at least for German. Fay Freak (talk) 11:09, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

motor

Adj. sense:

• Relating to motor cars.

  Motor insurance is expensive for youngsters.

I'm unconvinced that "motor" is an adjective in that example. AH has "motor oil" as an example for a similar adj. sense. Collins has "motor mechanic" and "motor industry". These don't seem convincing to me either. What do you think? Is this even an adjective at all? Mihia (talk) 22:43, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

No, it's a noun. The construction is that of "accident insurance" (*"accidental insurance"), "liability insurance" (*"liable insurance"), "household insurance" (....). I didn't think there was an adjectival derivative of household but looked in its Wiktionary entry. This presents the fiction that household doubles as an adjective. It does not. The attributive use of nouns is entirely normal in Standard English (and, I imagine, in any English). (Note that, unlike the vast majority of adjectives, they don't work predicatively: *"The insurance was motor"; *"The insurance was household".) -- Hoary (talk) 23:15, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

• Sent to RFD. Mihia (talk) 18:44, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

English disway; eggcorn?

Is this really an eggcorn? I thought it was simply di- +‎ sway. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 13:23, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Hey, that's an interesting one. Synchronically analyzable as not an eggcorn (using di-#Etymology_2), although possibly diachronically an eggcorn. I would expect that it is impossible to know who first formed the word and which way they did it. The etymology section ought to get across the following concepts: "synchronically either (1) di- +‎ sway or (2) an eggcorn of dissuade; diachronically unknown." Then the def should be just "[syn of|en|dissuade]". Quercus solaris (talk) 17:59, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps you can look at it disway or datway. Ha ha. But seriously, I cannot get my head around how "di- +‎ sway" can mean "dissuade". Mihia (talk) 21:37, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

It's because if you're diswaying them (i.e., discouraging them from believing or doing a certain thing), then you're swaying them (i.e., sway#Verb'ing their thinking = influencing, steering, causing to incline, causing to lean) away from (i.e., di-#Etymology_2 = dis-#Etymology = reverse, opposite, removal, not) the direction that you discourage. It would be equivalent to de-#Prefix-sway#Verb'ing them as well, if desway weren't a lexical gap. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:55, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Typically if you "di(s)-verb" someone/something, it means the opposite of "verb". E.g. "disqualify someone", "disprove something", "disregard something", etc. -- or even "dissuade" itself. By that token, "di(s)-sway" would mean the opposite of "sway", i.e. the opposite of the suggested meaning. But I guess you may be right, there may be a sense in which "dis" can reinforce the "away from" sense of "sway" rather than negate it. I find it a bit of a stretch personally that this could be a "genuine" etymology. More likely it seems like a mishearing/misunderstanding, but I could be wrong. Mihia (talk) 00:14, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

It's the same way that dis- acts in dissuade. Look at dissuade#Etymology. It's directly parallel with that. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:20, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Synchronic etymologies are "genuine" by the very nature of their unassailable mechanism; they are genuinely synchronic, regardless of whether they are diachronic. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:25, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Oh yeah, sorry, you're right, that one does seem similar. Mihia (talk) 00:31, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I edited the entry WT:BOLDly. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:07, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

that

• (Northern England, Manchester, Liverpool) Clipping of that is; used to reinforce the preceding assertion or statement.

  That's proper funny, that.

Is it true that "that" in this example is a shortening of "that is"? I don't perceive it that way. Mihia (talk) 19:32, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I know what you mean, in terms of how it feels mentally, and yet when one considers he's proper funny, he is, one notices that expressing the verb is is necessary idiomatically when the pronoun changes. There's an underlying unity across those. I think an issue involved is that that is as a unit is different from that is as a sum of parts, but one mustn't let the former influence one's appreciation of the latter in this case. But clearly it is not a clipping of that is; rather, I think I'd describe it as an ellipsis of that is (SoP). Quercus solaris (talk) 20:02, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I think the difference with "he's proper funny, he" may just be that, unlike "that", we do not use "he" emphatically in this way. It would be "he's proper funny, him". Mihia (talk) 20:14, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I wouldn't say so. It's an extraposition of the subject with a linked pronoun inside the clause. It can go before or after the clause. "My brother, he's got this amazing collection of seashells." "They're really weird people, your parents." The extraposed part can also be a pronoun: "Me, I think you're crazy." Hiztegilari (talk) 20:10, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

• Sent to RFD. Mihia (talk) 18:39, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Meant to add here earlier and forgot. The same thing that can happen with the following three forms is an underlying force happening with "that" above:

He's funnier than I am. [Perfectly acceptable idiomatically.]

He's funnier than me. [Perfectly acceptable idiomatically, although it has a long history of being proscribed in a misguided way that does not give idiomaticness its due.]

He's funnier than I. [Stilted; preferred by the aforementioned prescriptivism, but misguided because it violates normal idiom; it code-switches in a way that its prescribers do not adequately understand and appreciate.]

—

That's proper funny, that is. [Perfectly acceptable idiomatically to most ears.]

That's proper funny, that. [works as either subjective case or objective case with a zero morph difference marking the case]

—

He's proper funny, he is. [Perfectly acceptable idiomatically to most ears.]

He's proper funny, him. [Perfectly acceptable idiomatically to some ears, some more than others, lectally.]

He's proper funny, he. [Wholly unidiomatic; not done; not even misguidedly prescribed by anyone.]

Quercus solaris (talk) 22:40, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

if

1. Supposing that, assuming that, in the circumstances that; used to introduce a condition or choice.

   If it rains, I'll get wet.

   I'll do it next week, if I have time.

2. Supposing that; used with past or past perfect subjunctive indicating that the condition is closed.

   I would prefer it if you took your shoes off.

   I would be unhappy if you had not talked with me yesterday.

   If I were you, I wouldn't go there alone.

I am slightly struggling to understand this. What is a "closed" condition in #2?

The whole distinction would make sense to me if #1 was about conditions that may be (or may prove to be) either true or false, and #2 about counterfactuals.

However, is "I would prefer it if you took your shoes off" a counterfactual? It doesn't seem so to me.

So is #2 about something else?

What do you think? Mihia (talk) 18:20, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree with you; I think it all would make sense if only the "shoes" ux were moved up/moved out of the sense where it currently resides. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:43, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

PS: Perhaps the writer of the "shoes" ux had in mind a situation where the shoe-wearer has already refused to doff them and the displeased speaker is commenting afterward. But that's a stretch, so it shouldn't be given as a ux to teach WT readers; ux items should be straightforward. I'll remove it from that spot soon if no one adduces any great counterargument in favor of it. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:09, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

I edited the entry WT:BOLDly. Quercus solaris (talk) 20:52, 23 November 2024 (UTC)

if (2)

• Considering the fact that; given that.

The drain's blocked — and if the drain's blocked, the water won't flow.

• 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book I”, in The Faerie Queene. […], part I (books I–III), London: […] [Richard Field] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza ii, page 66:

  O what of Gods then boots it to be borne, / If old Aveugles ſonnes ſo euill heare?

I added the "drain" example (I don't understand the other example). This is the most blatant kind of example that I could think of, where the truth of the fact is explicitly stated, yet still it does not feel to me like it means "given that". Still it feels like a condition, but one that is known to be true, if that makes any sense. What do you think? Are there better (modern) examples? Mihia (talk) 10:49, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps whenever or when makes a better definition for that sense. (The drain's blocked — and whenever the drain's blocked, the water won't flow; The drain's blocked — and when the drain's blocked, the water won't flow.) Although given that also works (The drain's blocked — and given that the drain's blocked, the water won't flow), it has a slightly different feel regarding potential versus foreclosed. (If mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy; When mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy; a third option also works etically even though it breaks character emically regarding register (that is, it code-switches): Given that mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.) This line of thought also reminds me of how German uses wenn and wann in various ways that English speakers find interesting to learn about (wenn ich den Blah-blah hätte, etc etc). Quercus solaris (talk) 19:19, 24 November 2024 (UTC)

"when"/"whenever" could be yet another nuance to consider in the definitions, but I don't personally feel that the "drain" example particularly, or necessarily, suggests this. To me it could as easily be the case "The drain's blocked. It's never been blocked before ... but if it's blocked, the water won't flow." Mihia (talk) 18:18, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

"I know you didn't" - phrase? verb?

There's a construction I associate with AAVE to accuse someone of doing something wrong, using "I know you didn't just..." or "I know he didn't just..." (as a kind of mock innocent doubt that the offending party could have dared commit the wrong). For instance:

• 2004 03, T. Fulton, Da Joka: Frisco's Finest, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 179:

  I know he didn't just call me what I think he did. He didn't just call me a stupid bitch did he? Oh kay! And he really thought he was getting some from me, please. I don't give a fuck how cute he is.

• 2017 October 13, Nikki Chartier, Moonlight, Nicole Chartier:

  "Oh , I know you didn't just go there," I snap.

• 2024 April 12, Kasey Infinita, Warriors' Alliance - Vol. 4, Youcanprint, →ISBN:

  "Dan's also killed hundreds," I pointed out. "That doesn't make her dangerous."
  Karter gave me a deadpan look. "I know you didn't just say that."

What's the best way to format that? As a verb "know someone didn't", as a phrase, something else? Smurrayinchester (talk) 14:39, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

know someone didn’t just – it looks like SOP, does it? Tollef Salemann (talk) 15:10, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

• I don't especially know this as AAVE (don't really know anything about AAVE), but I am familiar generally with people saying e.g. "I'm sure you didn't call me an idiot" when they are called an idiot, or "He definitely didn't just say that you were stupid" when someone has said just that. I would consider it jokey-ironic in the same way that many things can be said ironically. Is your particular "I know you didn't just..." definitely enough of a distinct thing to have its own entry? Mihia (talk) 18:29, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

nothing if not

Or definition currently reads "to an extreme degree", which to me seems a bit too, um, extreme. For example, "He's nothing if not persistent" to me just means "he's certainly persistent", not really "he's persistent to an extreme degree". Yet M-W dictionary also has "to an extreme degree" as a definition, so I dunno. Any thoughts? Mihia (talk) 18:23, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree. A def of "very definitely" or "most certainly" is accurate, whereas a def of "to an extreme degree" is (to be fair) perhaps sometimes applicable as a second sense, but it is not the first sense. I have touched that entry before and did not think hard enough about it at the time. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:57, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I edited the entry WT:BOLDly. If anyone begs to differ, they're free to. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:01, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that. The first definition now reads much more as I understand the expression. I'm not sure I am familiar with the second meaning as distinct from the first, though. Would it be possible to add an example for this to show how it is different? Mihia (talk) 20:03, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

There's metonymy involved in it, to a slippery degree beyond denotation, where connotation is all that's left, but it's not nothing. The more I ponder it, the more I suspect that it is subtly catachrestic for nothing but, and semantically adjacent to good and, in a way that's only connotative, not denotative, but not not a thing though. In other words, the selfsame ux can be read both ways. Kind of like the dividing line between spelling pronunciation and eye dialect — it can't always be codified in writing alone because it hinges on unspoken intent. The outer limits of what lexicography can write down. Quercus solaris (talk) 21:54, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

I believe that if we cannot show examples that fit one definition but not the other then we should not have separate definitions. Mihia (talk) 00:15, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

That's a prescription that can usually work but can't fit invariably onto all aspects of natural language as she is spoke. There are many counterexamples, anytime irony, understatement, meiosis, sarcasm, metonymy, and other forces are at play. Consider he's a bit odd, isn't he: That same utterance can be a question seeking confirmation about a slight degree of oddness or an assertion about a large degree of oddness that the speaker considers a foregone conclusion. Context is king, including the layers of context that can't be written into an isolated ux. Quercus solaris (talk) 00:34, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't see enough difference to make separate senses. The entry seems over-complicated to me. Can others comment on this, please? Are there two senses or one? Mihia (talk) 15:11, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

I don't really see a difference either. PUC – 18:02, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

OK, I can rework it into a single senseid with a semicolon delimiter before the "sometimes, obliquely" flavor. Will do. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:33, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Done. The degree connotation has refs of both MWU and Collins, as commented there. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:45, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

≐

The description for this symbol is given as "approaches the limit", but my understanding is that it may stand for approximate equivalency (≈) instead, where use of the "≈" symbol may be discouraged. I'm Canadian, so I'm curious if it is used like this elsewhere, and whether it merits being mentioned. Người mang giấm (talk) 03:50, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

Are 'word of the year' quotes suitable to be Wiktionary quotes

Yesterday I added the quote below to Enshittification,today I see it was deleted (with no contact, reason given or discussuion). To me, this well written quote adds to the understanding of the word, and its inclusion should stay. Thoughts, please? ---- Quote: "24 November 25, Macquarie Dictionary, ‎[5]: Enshittification - A very basic Anglo-Saxon term wrapped in affixes which elevate it to being almost formal; almost respectable. This word captures what many of us feel is happening to the world and to so many aspects of our lives at the moment. - The Committee for Macquarie Dictionary Word of the Year 2024. Glenn.mar.oz (talk) 23:44, 26 November 2024" --- (BTW, you may note online, Enshittification as Macquarie Dic's 2024 WOTY was written up by many newspapers globally yesterday. just BTW & fyi.) Glenn.mar.oz (talk) 00:01, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

w:Use-mention distinction. Vininn126 (talk) 00:05, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

thank you, yes, will add that if after this discussion I decide to re-add the quotation. Glenn.mar.oz (talk) 21:49, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

And here I add the more general question, are 'word of the year' committee quotations and the like deemed suitable as quotation entries? I say they are, as they say much about the word, and the word at a certain point in time. And note I mean added as quotes - I say they are quotes. (I know they could perhaps should, also exist as references, but I ask here are they deemed suitable to be quotes. I say they are quotes, therefore should be.) Glenn.mar.oz (talk) 21:38, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@Glenn.mar.oz: Wiktionary is a descriptive dictionary based on usage, not on authoritative sources. It doesn't matter if there are 100 dictionaries, grammars and usage guides saying not to use a particular term such as irregardless- three independent, verifiable examples of usage that meet the requirements of our Criteria for inclusion mean we have an entry for it. Of course, we would fail in our descriptive mission if we didn't label it as proscribed, as well as pointing out when it would be considered a misspelling or offensive.

Quotes should show usage of the term, not what someone said about it. English is a well-documented language. We're a bit less strict with less-documented languages, but we still would use quotes that are in with the definitions to demonstrate usage and cite and/or quote references in etymologies, reference sections or usage notes. Also, per WT:NPOV, we would try to avoid even appearing to express opinions, including ones such as those in the quote. It does arguably use the term, in a very indirect way, when it says "This word captures what many of us feel is happening[...]", but it's not very good as an illustration of usage. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:34, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

OE bōia "boy" and related thoughts

Some questions about Old English bōia "boy":

• Is it really /ˈboː.i.ɑ/, with three syllables? Couldnt this instead be a transcription of an intervocalic /j/? Consider that we have it evolving from PGmc *bōjō. It would be quite unusual for a two-syllable word to expand into a three-syllable word, and then contract back to a form with /j/ in Middle English and forward.
• Can we assume the given name Boia represents this word, particularly given that it apparently once meant "younger brother"? As such it would seem likely that it was a common nickname, which in those times may have come to be used as one's preferred name. It may have even been a rare birth name for a younger brother. The same pronunciation question applies to this name.
• If the above is true, can we move the lowercase bōia out of the reconstruction space?
• If all of the above are true, I would like to mention boy on the etymology page for Boycott, which seems to bring up every theory except the most obvious one. Or else we could remove that paragraph and just have people read the etymology at Boia, which may or may not mention bōia depending on what we do above.

Thanks, —Soap— 17:21, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

Even if we cant be certain that Boia is bōia, I think it at least merits a mention unless we have some scholarly paper somewhere that's looked into it and definitively ruled it out, since it seems otherwise to be so obvious that I wouldn't think we'd need to write a research paper arguing for it. —Soap— 17:28, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@Soap: "Can we assume[...]?". No. It's one possibility, but we don't know enough about the language and its linguistic environment to answer questions without context like that with any certainty. "If the above is true, can we move the lowercase bōia out of the reconstruction space?" No, if it's not attested as a common noun. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:49, 27 November 2024 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz @Soap I don't see any issue with adding a note in the etymology of Boia like "Possibly connected to *boia (“younger brother”), unattested as a common noun."

Pinging @Leasnam regarding the pronunciation. This, that and the other (talk) 00:20, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I tend to agree with OP on the pronunciation. I can't imagine it being anything but /ˈboː.jɑ/ Leasnam (talk) 00:42, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

value

• The quality (positive or negative) that renders something desirable or valuable.

1. Am I missing something here? How can a negative quality render something desirable or valuable? Even if a normally negative quality is desirable in some instance, it is still positive within that context, I would say.

2. On a more subtle point, is "value" definitely the "quality that renders something desirable or valuable"? If I say e.g. "this idea has value", is it the value that renders it valuable, or is it in fact some other other quality that renders it valuable, and the "value" is the property of desirability or valuableness so obtained? Mihia (talk) 22:40, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

age

1. (countable) The whole duration of a being, whether human, animal, plant, or other kind, being alive.

Somehow I can't at the moment grasp what this definition is referring to. Can anyone give an example? Mihia (talk) 15:36, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

My first guess was that it might've been trying to cover things like "during the age of the T rex, ..." (the whole period of time when the T rex existed), but upon looking at the entry and seeing that it's sense 1, and looking through the edit history and seeing that in the early days, the entry only had this sense 1, without what is now sense 2, my new guess is that it's trying to cover the same thing as sense 2, but doing such a poor job of it that someone came along and added sense 2 as a separate sense, rather than just improving the wording of sense 1, because they didn't even realize sense 1 was trying to cover the same thing...? Does anyone see a reason we couldn't just merge it into (or remove it as redundant to) sense 2? - -sche (discuss) 17:25, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

We previously had "A particular period of time in history, as distinguished from others", examples including "the age of Pericles", which I thought might cover cases such as "the age of T Rex", but anyway I have beefed that up now with a subsense "The time or era in history when someone or something was alive or flourished", which should clearly cover your case. Mihia (talk) 18:29, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I wonder whether the distinction between (1) and (2) is, or originally was, supposed to be that (1) is a more general sense of length of existence, that would if quantified of course have to be measured in some units of time, but doesn't have a strong sense of being or needing to be quantified, whereas (2) is a sense like "What is the age of your child?" -- "He's four". I think I might try to combine them somehow along these lines, unless anyone has a better idea .... Mihia (talk) 22:03, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I note that MWOnline has 13 senses and subsenses for the noun age, with as many as five subsenses for a given sense.

MW 1913 has: "The whole duration of a being, whether animal, vegetable, or other kind; lifetime."

So the meaning evidently depends on the word whole. So, if a human dies after 75 years, said human is of age 75 for eternity thereafter. IOW, this def. only apply to entities that are no longer alive or in irrealis usage. If that is what was/is intended, it does not seem like the most common use of age, though it is reasonably common in: "They died (at) age 30.", "They were age 30 when they died." Its placement as first definition seems to be based on the primacy of such a definition of the Latin etymon. DCDuring (talk) 23:18, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

This puts me in mind of archaic language in the Bible; e.g. I find "And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years: so the age of Jacob was a hundred forty-seven years", meaning, as I understand it, that he died at that age, but in another version "the whole age of Jacob" (my emphasis), as if the former might not be understood by modern readers. Mihia (talk) 00:36, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

It seems to just be a rare sense of "lifespan". I edited to add two usage examples that I could find repeated examples of and moved the definition lower.--Urszag (talk) 00:32, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for moving it off the top and adding the examples. I think the article looks less confusing now to the average reader. Mihia (talk) 00:47, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

age (2)

2. (countable) The number of full years, months, days, hours, etc., that someone, or something, has been alive.

What is the age of your oldest child?

14. (uncountable) That part of the duration of a being or a thing which is between its beginning and any given time; specifically the size of that part.

What is the present age of a man, or of the earth?

Apart from the fact that sense 14 refers to "things" as well as "beings", which sense 2 could also usefully do, by addition of "or in existence", what is the difference between sense 14 and sense 2? I think we may assume that sense 2 includes the possibility of referring to age at "any given time" as well as "now" without needing to explicitly say so. Can anyone see what sense 14 is getting at? Mihia (talk) 15:51, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

I read sense 2 as being an extension of sense 14. If you look at the ways the usex questions might be answered, the question under sense 2 could be answered "21", whereas the answer to the question under sense 14 would have to be something like "21 years" (including a unit of measurement). Sense 2 is also restricted (perhaps unnecessarily) to living things. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 22:13, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Right, sense 2 (now sense 1) has been reworked, including so as to include non-living things, and I have now also added a usage note to explain the point that you raised. I think sense 14 ought to be covered one way or another now, so I think I'll send it to RFD. Mihia (talk) 15:25, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Oh, it's already been removed. That's fine then. Mihia (talk) 15:27, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

age (3)

"The people who live during a particular period."

No examples presently given. I can find e.g. "Our age expects something useful from all people" and "This age thinks well of our departed Bishop", but equally I can find "This century thinks of itself as digital and connected", so on that basis we ought to have "The people who live during a particular century" as a definition at "century". It seems to me that examples such as these are personifications of the age or era, and probably won't do. What do you think? Or are there other, better examples? Mihia (talk) 19:07, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Rather than personification, I see it as metonomy: using the period during which people live (a characteristic of such people) to identify them as a group. Perhaps the choice between the two devices is a matter of personal attitude/philosophy.

But, as to your main point, any period of time could fit similar cases, though periods of at least a year seem required for application outside of special contexts. Unsurprisingly, the same kind of metonomy/personification(?) occurs with places (town, neighborhood, state/province/etc, country, section, region). DCDuring (talk) 20:30, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Right, so you could say e.g. "this city believes that ...". So are you basically agreeing that examples such as the ones that I gave for "age" do not justify a separate sense? My feeling is not, else where would it end? (Of course, there could also be solid examples that I just can't think of at the moment.) Mihia (talk) 20:56, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

• Sent to RFV.

питам

@Chernorizets @Kiril kovachev @IYI681

The entry for the Bulgarian imperfective verb питам defines the perfective form as попитам, is this correct?

• The references do not mention a perfective form.
• The entry for попитам defines попитвам as the imperfective, not питам.

SimonWikt (talk) 22:24, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

age (4)

(countable) A generation.

There are three ages living in her house.

How common is this sense? The sentence given seems stilted to me, not how I recall hearing anyone speak, and google:"four ages living in" returns just three hits to me: an Indian text, a Nigerian government text, and a text (apparently relatively formal? about matrilocality and other technical terms for ways of residing) from UCLA. Is this sense {{lb|en|uncommon}} or {{lb|en|now|uncommon}}, formal, dated,...? - -sche (discuss) 16:54, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

I had never heard of it and probably wouldn't have understood the example sentence, at least not out of context. I eyeballed it recently when I was looking at this article and found just enough to persuade me that it exists (somewhere, somewhen). Mihia (talk) 18:29, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

I have tentatively tagged it as "uncommon, possibly dated". - -sche (discuss) 03:21, 4 December 2024 (UTC)