Wiktionary talk:Tea room

Documentation

The documentation of how Tea room works is in Wiktionary:Tea room/header.

Tea room is for discussion on individual or particular words, not on project policies and category structures.

Archiving: Tea room is archived into pages whose names are structured by year as "Wiktionary:Tea room/Archive 2003", and further by month "Wiktionary:Tea room/Archive 2008/January". For hyperlinks to archives, see Wiktionary:Tea room/header.

Discussion

Various

I had an idea...How about having a room dedicated to helping people find a word they were looking for to express their ideas? (with a link from the help and main pages) Maybe people could be encouraged to post their questions on the discuss page of By Topic or its subpages. I think this might help people do the ground work to make sure another appropriate word doesn't already exist before coining any new terms (related to my other suggestion at the main page where words could be flagged as newly coined--words not (yet) in circulation but which the submitter feels fills an expressive gap in the language) User:brettz9

By the way, speaking of which, are there attempts being made to make Wiktionary items list synonyms, antonyms, hypernyms, etc.?

These do appear on some articles for the first two. Eclecticology 11:40 Jun 14, 2003 (UTC)

That was Wiktionary:Requested_articles:English/Inverse_Requests. It's been ditched for some reason. Equinox ◑ 19:52, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Geologycal Terminology, terms-

 I have been unable to find anything on this subject, so I like to find the meaning for: WHAT IS A VENTURY ACTION?

You may get better results with the spelling Venturi. —Muke Tever 16:24, 12 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Archiving

I started to archive discussions to the entries' talk pages, as specified in Wiktionary:Administrators/Dishwashing, but then I became uncertain, as there are also archives "per year" linked from the top of the page. What should be done? Should discussion be put in their respective talk pages, those archives or both? Jon Harald Søby 08:48, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Way back when, the original intention was to have this go to the separate talk pages when a specific discussion settled down. I still support the idea, and don't feel that there is much value to archiving the stuff here. Passive users won't be inclined to search through archives to find an answer the their current questions. Of course it's much easier to cut and paste a single large block to archives that to do the detailed work of going to each talk page.

I wonder whether when a new question is raised on this page it might be a good idea for the person answering to create a link to the appropriate talk page, and put here only a message linking them to that talk page. Eclecticology 22:39, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Whomp / womp

(moved to the Tea room, Robert Ullmann 18:07, 8 October 2006 (UTC))

I need another word for subhuman i could no find enything

Comment moved to Wiktionary:Tea room#I need another word for subhuman i could no find enything. Please check there for replies. Rod (A. Smith) 16:16, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Archive link?

Could whomever it is doing the archiving here please put the archive link into the top-page banner thing? (These are kept, right?) --Connel MacKenzie 18:55, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Ugh, whatamess. I'll convert this to WT:BP (WT:BPA) month-by-month style at some point, I guess. 2007 Doesn't seem to want to archive into one large subpage. For now, I'll let Someone Else take a shot at it. --Connel MacKenzie 02:55, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I've archived up to November 2007, month by month. Ideally, each section could be copied to its talk page, but that would take a hell of a long time. --Keene 14:36, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Tea Room usage

Should these discussions about words be here (away from the actual discussion pages)?
Is there a way to have the tea room, be a list of categories (ideally with pages that have recent discussions?) with a bot that pulled recent discussion pages into a list (again, by category). I would be looking for something like Category:Sports/New or Category:Sports/Todo... Or do we have projects like Wikipedia...that I just cannot seem to find? -- Mjquin id 17:11, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

If we put the question for discussion on the word's talk page, it might be years before it's noticed; posting to tea room gets a lot of attention and then we can copy any interesting results that should be preserved to the word's talk or citation pages for a record. RJFJR 17:27, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

We have fewer registered users per entry than Wikipedia and need to handle such discussions as RJFJR says. In the rare case that there is an extended active discussion on an entry the discussion is moved to the entry talk page. DCDuring TALK 18:16, 16 November 2008 (UTC)

I was going to place some usage tip of a foreign word into the discussion page of that word (the tip came from a television program), and I was directed to place it into the tea room page. but upon going there (here), I find it is not language specific - can you make a tea room for specific languages that the translators for that particular language would be found in, rather than placing all the discussions together? This will make it more easier for the people who specialise in that certain language to "watch" the page and take on the tasks people highlight (as it is right now it would give alot of false alarms). Charlieb000 (talk) 04:37, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

We have about 2,500 languages at Wiktionary. Even though only a small fraction of those end up being discussed, that would still mean dozens of Tea rooms- not really practical. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:25, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

a friend in need is a friend indeed

The real meaning... (In my humble opinion....)

If someone is willing to show their weakness to you, and leave themselves vulnerable and open to judgment/attack, then they are truly a friend. — This comment was unsigned.

I like the punning ambiguities: "a friend in need is a friend in deed" and the question as whether the proverb is about needy people acting friendly or friends proving themselves when you need their help. DCDuring TALK 13:07, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Or that regardless of fact or feelings, you should treat a person being generous in your time of need as you would a friend ("don't look a gift horse in the mouth"). Pingku 17:04, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Auto-archiving of Tea Room

I suggest we completely change how this page works. Looking at the new Etymology Scriptorium, that page auto-includes (transcludes?) Talk pages, and so the discussion is kept both at Talk:foo and at WT:ES#foo, which is extremely handy. As far as I can tell, the way we have it here has no advantages over the Scriptoriusm, except maybe that it is easier to add a page here (but took me about 4 minutes training to add to WT:ES). --Jackofclubs 06:39, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I definitely support the WT:ES approach. Archiving is much easier and one does not have to handle with hundreds of KB in one page. How can this page adjust to the new (WT:ES) layout? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 20:18, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Discussion rooms

Why does Wiktionary talk:Discussion rooms redirect to the Tea Room? I just noticed this as I was trying to ask why Bug reports was listed there even though it redirects to the Grease Pit. --Yair rand 04:30, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Not sure why. Connel did that in 2007, but he's not around much to ask, and might not remember anyway. If you have a better suggestion for a target, then I'm certainly open to that. There isn't really a reason why that page should have a discussion page, but I don't see that a redirect to the Tea Room is a particularly good option. --EncycloPetey 02:40, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I see no reason why Wiktionary:Discussion rooms shouldn't have a discussion page for discussing changes to it. At the moment there is really no place for discussing what's the best way to remove the useless link, or any other edits to the page. --Yair rand 01:04, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

There's the Beer Parlour. Most discussions here on Wiktionary happen in one of the Discussion rooms, rather than on the talk pages of the various articles and other locations. --EncycloPetey 01:45, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Inpiscinate

I have seen a word being used on the internet. I googled it and it had over 100 hits. It has been used on such sites as pandora. It has also been used on several blogs. The word is inpicscinate. It comes from the latin "in" and "piscina" literally meaning into the fishpond. The word means "to throw into a fishpond." — This comment was unsigned.

• This is a well-known example of a group of people trying to get an invented word into online dictionaries. It will fail until they can provide evidence of actual use. SemperBlotto 16:09, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Help with the meanings of these words

Hi,

I work for a company in the IT department. Recently we have been tasked to review all of our Systems and Tools. A group of us threw a whole bunch of stuff on a white board - then I was tasked to categorize all of this stuff. I am struggling to distinguish the difference between "SYSTEMS" and "PROCESSES" and "TOOLS". Simplistically I was thinking a system was an application i.e. MS Excel, MS Word , a process was various steps one would take to complete an objective, and a tool was something you use to collect, view or edit, information; for example a laptop. I think I'm pretty clear on the "TOOL" definition. But not so much on the "SYSTEM" and "PROCESS" - lot's of opinions on the difference between the 2 where I'm at. Anyone out there have any good descriptions on the difference or meaning of these 2 words. Thanks Smjaala 22:35, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Depending on how you see it, a program like Word can be all three. It can be a system if you see it as a way of working with information (as opposed to plain text for example). But it can also be a process in the computing sense, as a program that is allocated time on the processor. And it can be a tool because it is a means by which the user does a certain task. 'Tool' and 'application' actually mean very similar things. —CodeCat 15:53, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

At a glance, I'd say that Excel and Word are tools that you employ in various parts of your processes. Systems would be how your department has decided to organize your tools and processes, or how you might propose to reorganize them. A laptop or server is an intermediate part of a system, because you need it to enable a collection of tools.

But you could apply these categorizations differently. Just make a sensible organization of these things, using a clear diagram or outline. —Michael Z. 2011-12-15 16:16 z

religious salutation

Hi! search=G**t+sei+Dank! seems to be an old MW error.
Please see Talk:Gott sei dank. We need a category and some knowledge about different religions as for:
google: Allahaısmarladık, google: Maasalam etc. best regards Gangleri ‫·‏לערי ריינהארט‏·‏T‏·‏m‏:‏Th‏·‏T‏·‏email me‏·‏‬ 12:51, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I don’t understand what you are trying to say. What is an MW error, and what does it have to do with us? Is there some problem with Gott sei dank? —Stephen ^(Talk) 14:38, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Archiving this page

400K of this page was just archived. The problem is, the rft tags don't seem to have taken off any of the pages, and many of them were not resolved; it would be good to see if we can resolve some of them or decide they don't need resolution before they just disappear.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:16, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

WT:TR items don't 'officially' require resolution.

If the original poster and those responding aren't motivated to resolve it, then who else is to say that there is something to resolve?

I'm sure it would be somewhat fruitful to review all the TR archives, compare the items discussed with the current state of the entry, post a link to the archive on the talk page, and make whatever changes still seemed appropriate.

Perhaps the {{rft}} tags will remind someone to check the talk page for the link, the archives if it is unlinked, etc. DCDuring TALK 23:25, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

When I bring something to TR, I am motivated to resolve it, but if I knew how to resolve it, I wouldn't have brought it to TR. I'm not happy with implication that it's more important to have 3 citations then for a definition to be correct. Lastly, I don't think dead links encourage anyone but very regulars to search the archives.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:47, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Being human we forget things; we leave things unresolved at the Tea Room (or Grease Pit, or?) for someone else to clean up; when faced with a page so large that it seems to take forever to load, we expeditiously and uncaringly empty the page of material older than six months; and we complain about the extra work required to dig up old ideas, which will otherwise be yet more completely wasted time. Sigh. DCDuring TALK 01:19, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

There is a thread in the Beer Parlour about that... splitting discussion pages by month so that they don't grow so big anymore. —CodeCat 01:42, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

While tea room items don't "require" resolution, it is annoying to see a tag on an entry saying "The Tea Room is currently discussing this word" only to find that the tea room hasn't been discussing this word for months or even years. And the recent archiving wasn't of material older than six months, it was of material older than one and a half months (everything up through May) which doesn't take the facts on the ground (that discussions at Wiktionary proceed at a glacial pace compared to Wikipedia) into consideration. —Angr 17:23, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Suppose that a discussion is resolved. What then? Am I allowed to remove a discussion from this page and archive it to the talk-page (even though that means it won't end up in the tea-room archives)? —Ruakh_TALK 17:39, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Cutting and pasting into each entry talk page seems like a time-consuming procedure unless there is some reliably automated or supervised semi-automated method. And there is something to be said for the 'integrity' of the Tea Room archive, especially now that it is searchable.

I've come to like the idea of putting a link to the archived discussion section on the talk page of the entry, though it is a little time-consuming. It can be done relatively speedily for a month's worth. Is there or could there be a template that automagically gave the headword (the principal namespace pagename) to complete a section link? That would make it even faster and convenient for someone following the link. If someone wanted to continue the discussion on the talk page they could copy all or part of the archived discussion to the talk page. DCDuring TALK 18:33, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean magic words? You can use {{PAGENAME}} or SUBPAGENAME or FULLPAGENAME or whatever you happen to want. Even better, if you're willing to do the work, I'll make a template that will make it pretty fast (but I bet you that somebody knows an AWB or Python solution that would make it faster). --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 11:30, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm willing to do some of the work of applying this, for example to 2012 archived discussions. Eventually we could go back to earlier years that followed the same archive-page naming convention. I had imagined a template that had a given archive subpage as an argument and could be subst'ed at the bottom of an entry's talkpage. It would be nice to include a user-friendly identifier like month and year of the discussion in the talk page heading, eg, "==Tearoom discussion March 2012==". This would both help users directly and serve to distinguish multiple discussions. As we don't want discussions to continue in the archive, we might want to provide some kind of message to encourage anyone interested in trying to continue the discussion to do so on the talk page. DCDuring TALK 12:45, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

I made Template:oldtearoom, so put in whatever wording you like best and try it out somewhere. I'm tired, so it might have stupid bugs, but this is approximately what you wanted, right? Minor note: it's easy to make it take the month number instead, or the first three letters, or the name in lowercase, or whatever you want. Just say the word. --Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 14:07, 16 July 2012 (UTC)

Turkish day names

Although this place seems rather orphaned (last post nearly exactly one year ago), I should try anyway: e. g. cumartesi. Don't the Turks always write their day names with a capital letter? Pazar, Carşamba, Perşembe ... So I wonder if we shouldn't change the lemma(ta) so that it/they start with a capital letter. -andy 77.190.61.155 13:01, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Usually people would post this discussion at Wiktionary:Tea room, not here on the talk page. I’m not sure about the Turkish capitalization. Turkish Wiktionary has it with lowercase: tr:cumartesi. If the days should in fact be capitalized, then of course the names should be moved to the capitalized forms...but I’m not sure that is the best Turkish practice. —Stephen ^(Talk) 13:56, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Etymology of the Word "Dysthymia"

The article says "Dysthymia" comes from the greek δυσθυμία, supposedly meaning "melancholy". But no, δυσθυμία means "bad inner fire" or "bad anima". "Melancholy" comes from the greek μελανχολία, which refers to that state of being which is associated with black bile (μελανία (black) χολή (bile)), i.e. depression. Yes, Depression, Dysthymia, and Melancholy may be somewhat (very?) synonymous with one another, but that doesn't mean we should confuse their etymologies. I wanted to say something on the Talk Page, but a warning prompt told me to post in the Tea Room where it would have a better chance of being read. I would edit it myself, but I don't think that's my place, having just seen the error and having been not a registered user with any history of constructive editing in the past.

Nowhere in the etymology it is saying that melancholy comes from δυσθυμία. “Bad anima” is the meaning of the parts that form the word, not necessarily its actual meaning. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 03:51, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for drawing our attention to the etymology of dysthymia. This is the right place. I have revised the gloss in the etymology in accordance with Liddell and Scott, available online through the Perseus project. DCDuring TALK 04:10, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

No, it isn't the right place. This is the talk page for the Tea room, not the Tea room itself. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:19, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Even the tea room isn't the right place; the Etymology scriptorium is. —Angr 18:37, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

It's a good thing that anons never have any questions about Etymologies because what we ask of them is not exactly conducive to ease of contribution. They would have had to have heard of the Etymology scriptorium or known to look for such a thing despite the talk page directing them to the Tea Room. They would have to decode what a scriptorium was supposed to be.

It would seem like a good idea to add the ES to what is displayed atop empty Talk pages. I suppose we should do something similar, though briefer, and removable at Preferences, for non-empty Talk pages. DCDuring TALK 20:48, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

Forshame/foreshame.

The page for forshame lists it as obsolete, as in 'not likely to be understood' in terms of 'i am ashamed' but i would argue that this is incorrect. Just because the definition of obsolete places it more strongly than dated or archaic.

Whilst it is not in common everyday use i would say archaic would be more accurate (i just used it on facebook for chrissakes, i was just googling to check if it were one word or two), especially as it does pop up in movies etc every now and again.

Are you sure you didn't use the interjection "for shame!" rather than the verb "to forshame"? —Angr 20:51, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

gash (noun)

   Most dicts seem to agree that the core meaning is a deep cut in flesh, with (the metaphor of?) devastating damage to the landscape or built surroundings being secondary. It's especially egregious to pick a usage of the second kind as the sole example of the noun.
--Jerzy•t 02:58, 18 July 2014 (UTC)
Whoops!
--Jerzy•t 03:05, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Removing RFT code

I have suggested how to do this at the WT:ID --Riverstogo (talk) 23:14, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Freemasonry/freemasonry

Can the organization Freemasonry be given in the definition of freemasonry lower case entry? I tried to put it there but was reverted. But Freemasonry is sometimes spelled lowercase freemasonry.--PaulBustion88 (talk) 23:04, 24 April 2015 (UTC)

@PaulBustion88: Do you have any examples of "freemasonry" used in print? —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:33, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Yes. I'm going to copy and paste what I already wrote and quoted, https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/freemasonry#English I wanted to include the definition of Freemasonry as the organization everybody knows in the lower case freemasonry entry, but I was reverted, and the user said that should only go in the capitalized Freemasonry entry. But I've even seen the organization spelled with a lower case f before in writings. I gave an example on the user's talk page who reverted me. Should the organization go in the definition under the lower case f or only the upper case F? --PaulBustion88 (talk) 22:31, 24 April 2015 (UTC) This is the example I gave of it being spelled with a lower case f and how I then used that to argue it could be spelled that way, I wrote "For example, in George Bush the Bush hating, Freemasonry hating authors Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin wrote about Freemasonry with a lower case f, "After the French elections, it was Bush who was despatched to France to meet the new French President Francois “Tonton” Mitterrand of the Grand Orient freemasonry." "In all of this the freemason Bush shares the obsession of the Anglo-American elite, who are committed to destroying the papacy as one of the few institutions in the world that has dared to resist their Malthusian proposition that the central problem of humanity is overpopulation."http://tarpley.net/online-books/george-bush-the-unauthorized-biography/chapter-17-the-attempted-coup-detat-of-march-30-1981/ "There was at that time a deep suspicion of, and national revulsion against, freemasonry and secret organizations in the United States, fostered in particular by the anti-masonic writings of former U.S. President John Quincy Adams." "Beyond the psychological manipulation associated with freemasonic mummery, there are very solid political reasons for Bush’s strong identification with this cult."http://tarpley.net/online-books/george-bush-the-unauthorized-biography/chapter-7-skull-and-bones-the-racist-nightmare-at-yale/ "then came the endorsement of G. William Whitehurst of Virginia, an endorsement that stood out for its freemasonic overtones in a field where freemasonic modulations were rife." http://tarpley.net/online-books/george-bush-the-unauthorized-biography/chapter-13-bush-attempts-the-vice-presidency-1974/ The authors there spelled freemasonry lower case to many times for it to have been a typo. So I think that it is spelled lower case sometimes."--PaulBustion88 (talk) 03:21, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

@PaulBustion88: This is probably the best venue for your conversation: Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2015/April. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:26, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

Recursive Spanish definitition of "pupa"

I'm a bit confused by the recursive (Spanish) definition of pupa. To which of the many definitions of pupa does it refer? Kibi78704 (talk) 03:09, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Fixed. It was supposed to link to the English section. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:43, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

"RFT"

What's that? I click on the "tagged RFTs" link to find out, i find myself at Category:Tea room. "Request for tea", perhaps? --Jerome Potts (talk) 16:39, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

We have an {{rft}} template, that I guess gets its name by false analogy to {{rfd}} and {{rfv}}. --WikiTiki89 18:25, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

What's "false" about a "request for tea"? "Tea" looks to me like metonomy for "Tea Room discussion". DCDuring TALK 22:45, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Enunciation

Enunciation is about articulating the correct grammar inflection of prosody through using pronunciation speaking and sounding the correct IPA sounds for the phoneme and syllable according to whether it is a noun subject or a verb action of the subject depending on the stress of the word, if it is a subject noun then a person will stress and elongate through enunciation and prosody (the melodic quality) of the phoneme syllable that is primary for a noun subject the first syllable,and for the same word used as a verb it has the secondary syllables and phonemes elongated and stressed to inflect and pronounce and articulate the prosaic melody of the stress for semantic meaning so that when people hear the word they know whether it is a subject or a verb.

~Krista Kaufman

This needs added to the definitions for clarity and understanding of the use of enunciation.

I did not alter the page as I am still having difficulty with the formatting and programming of wikipedia.

Instead of one big talk page, tea room why not have a discussion page area where people can type or paste the correct information and then people who are great at computer use formatting of wiki pages can use it to include and fix pages.

Then it is directly attached to the exact page where it needs to be.

Hi Krista, there is some truth in what you write, but Wiktionary is not the place for an essay on enunciation. We need concise definitions appropriate to a dictionary. Dbfirs 14:56, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Welsh: cledd

The article at cledd#Welsh lists clud and clwyd as "Related terms". I can, however find no evidence to support the view that the three words are related, and therefore intend to remove the claim that they are unless it can be shown that my skepticism in this regard is wrong-headed. -- Picapica (talk) 20:17, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

OED etymologies seem to suggest no connection, so go ahead and remove the unreferenced claim. Dbfirs 17:10, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

picture

I don't like the pic on this page. Can we remove it? --Cien pies 6 (talk) 21:42, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Ture! Escape from wiktionary :) sarri.greek (talk) 00:34, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

On editing existing articles

I would like to edit an article but I am not sure how my edit(s) will be perceived. It has to do with the etymology of a word. There are several speculations but nothing is conclusive. Currently, there is only one definition present in this wiktionary page and it does not include that we don't really know the etymology of the word. Should I start a conversation on the talk page before editing the main entry? Should I make the changes and then explain my reasoning on the talk page? Also currently on this wiktionary page, there are no sources displayed. Should I ask for the reliable sources of the existing? Should I have reliable sources before doing anything else? Btw, it is about this entry: https://el.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E1%BC%84%CE%BD%CE%B8%CF%81%CF%89%CF%80%CE%BF%CF%82 Obviously, I'm new here. --PhantomPower48 (talk) 14:14, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

@PhantomPower48: The page you linked is not on the English Wiktionary, it is on the Greek Wiktionary, so it would probably be best to bring up the subject there. Each Wiktionary is run by an independent (though often overlapping) community of editors, so they may have different policies and practices than the English Wiktionary would. - TheDaveRoss 14:39, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Ok, thanks for the clarification! --PhantomPower48 (talk) 14:47, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

I think @Sarri.greek is an administrator there, and may be able to help you out. - TheDaveRoss 17:09, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Thank you TheDaveRoss, hello PhantomPower48, write whatever you like! You are very welcome. Your sources too. --sarri.greek (talk) 17:31, 14 May 2019 (UTC)

Etymology of 'ruction'

Discussion moved to Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2019/October.

lleísmo

Discussion moved to Wiktionary:Tea room/2023/March#lleísmo.