User talk:JamesD'Alexander

Welcome

Welcome!

Hello, welcome to Wiktionary, and thank you for your contribution so far. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• How to edit a page is a concise list of technical guidelines to the wiki format we use here: how to, for example, make text boldfaced or create hyperlinks. Feel free to practice in the sandbox. If you would like a slower introduction we have a short tutorial.
• Entry layout explained (ELE) is a detailed policy documenting how Wiktionary pages should be formatted. All entries should conform to this standard, the easiest way to do this is to copy exactly an existing page for a similar word.
• Our Criteria for inclusion (CFI) define exactly which words Wiktionary is interested in including. There is also a list of things that Wiktionary is not for a higher level overview.
• If you already have some experience with editing our sister project Wikipedia, then you may find our guide to Wikipedia users useful.
• The FAQ aims to answer most of your remaining questions, and there are several help pages that you can browse for more information.
• We have discussion rooms in which you can ask any question about Wiktionary or its entries, a glossary of our technical jargon, and some hints for dealing with the more common communication issues.

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wiktionarian! If you have any questions, bring them to the Wiktionary:Information desk, or ask me on my talk page. If you do so, please sign your posts with four tildes: ~~~~ which automatically produces your username and the current date and time.

Again, welcome! Mglovesfun (talk) 10:51, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

cousin-uncle

Is this used in any written sources? Mglovesfun (talk) 10:52, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I have heard the (useful!) terms cousin-uncle and cousin-aunt conversationally for years, among Mennonites in both eastern and western Canada. My wife happened to utter it yesterday (we now live in England), and that made me research it for the first time, because I had always suspected the terms were unique to this ethnic group: it's a double curiosity to me that the terms do not seem to exist among mainstream English-speakers nor in German, which is the ancestral language of most Mennonites. A Google search turns up no citations. Give me a bit of time: I'll contact some relevant people back in Canada and see if they can point me to written sources. JamesD'Alexander (talk) 14:58, 5 July 2012 (UTC)JamesD'Alexander

Oh, and you cut most of my original Usage Note but added that the term is used by "some other groups". What's YOUR evidence?!  ;=} JamesD'Alexander (talk) 15:01, 5 July 2012 (UTC)JamesD'Alexander

Thanks for adding these terms! They're quite useful. :) As for "other groups": we found a number of books about Indian/Pankistani families that also use it. I wonder if each group coined it independently? That's interesting in its own way. - -sche (discuss) 20:28, 5 July 2012 (UTC)