User talk:V-ball

Categories

Category:English nouns and the like

Whenever I see them, I remove them, because it's more or less agreed on that such huge categories are not particularly useful. — Vildricianus 16:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

I noticed that on the talk page for Category:English nouns, one person claimed they weren't very useful.  To me, that seems debatable.  (Being a list freak myself, I can see someone wanting a list of all English nouns.)  I think this is especially true considering such a category exists for some (most?) of the other languages in the Wiktionary.  Is there some place I just haven't seen that it's been decided the category is so useless we aren't going to use it?

V-ball 09:29, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

It came up in the Beer Parlour (check latest January I think), but it's nowhere near general consensus (yet). So no big deal; do add them if you feel they're useful. — Vildricianus 18:35, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Category:ru:Colloquial

Actually, this category does exist, so you can use {{colloquial|lang=ru}}. What you can't use is {{colloquial}}, because that would mark the word as colloquial in English. --EncycloPetey 18:27, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Logically, Russian colloquial words should belong to Category:Russian colloquial, not to Category:ru:Colloquial. Dart evader 18:44, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm . . . I'm split regarding this problem.  I like Category:Russian colloquial better (it looks better), but the standard around here seems to be Category:ru:Colloquial.  Why have only Russian be different? — V-ball 00:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, let's consider other categories. For example, Category:ru:Cities is for Russian names for cities. We have cities, we have Russian names for them. Now, do we have something that could be called colloquial? I'd say no. It is simply a linguistic term for words describing objects of any semantic field, but of a certain stylistic quality. So, I think that categories looking like Category:ru:Something are for terms united semantically, while categories looking like Category:Russian something are supposed to unite terms connected only by some common linguistic feature and having nothing in common semantically. Uh, somewhat rambling explanation, isn't it? :) Dart evader 17:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard that explanation before, although it makes sense.  My only problem with it, again, is that it doesn't seem to be how the rest of Wiktionary is organized.  For example, colloquial French terms are all under Category:fr:Colloquial.  Don't get me wrong here — I like your explanation.  If we can get the rest of the languages to change their categorization (sp?) schemes, let's use the different Russian one, too.  If not, let's be consistent across Wiktionary (something it really lacks, and probably always will because of its collaborative nature). — V-ball 02:16, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Category:The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

ummm... What will go in this category? Are there lots of words unique to this particular group? --EncycloPetey 14:48, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I guess I would think there are enough based solely on the people in the Book of Mormon, but now that you get me thinking about it, I figure maybe a better idea would've been Category: Book of Mormon Characters since we've got Category: Biblical characters.  So, yeah, I just made a not-so-useful category, I think. — V-ball 15:03, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Of course, there are also various LDS-related things like the different names for the Church, the books of scripture (and the books within the Book of Mormon (just like the books within the Bible)), characters in the scriptures, names for Church units (branches, stakes, etc.), and Mormon culture things like CTR. — V-ball 15:48, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, there are lots of Mormon-related words. The names of the different orders of priesthood, their services, the various stages that they go through, even names for different parts of their churches. SemperBlotto 15:54, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

OK, but I think this category will be easier to use and remember if it's titled Category:Mormonism, and we can have a subcategory for characters from the Book of Mormon later, if we need it. --EncycloPetey 17:38, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm fine with that.  —  V-ball 19:04, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Dalmatian

You removed a category from this, pointing out that that it does use en-noun ... the category you took out was "English adjectives that lack inflection template". Adjectives. ;-) I put it back. Robert Ullmann 12:28, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Whoops!  Sorry!  I'll try to be more careful in the future. — V-ball 19:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Deletion discussion for Category:Utah

Regarding your retracted comments - i.e. "I'm not really sure what you're trying to do, Zaui", I feel I should explain. The deletion template states "Please do not remove this notice or blank this page while the question is being considered. However, you are welcome to make improvements to it." (emphasis mine) I wasn't trying to be disruptive, just trying to make improvements, as was suggested in the template. -- Zaui 23:20, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough.  :-)  I think that usually, populating lists and categories under discussion for deletion isn't seen as improvement (or maybe that's just me?), but since I've changed my mind, no harm done.  Thanks for the explanation. — V-ball 03:28, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Category:cs:Fruits

Because topical categories don't feed into language categories; in this case Category:cs:Fruits has parent categories which eventually feed into Category:cs:All topics, which is in Category:Czech language. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:50, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Cool.  Thanks! — V-ball 00:24, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Definitions

cheeseed

Why did you just repeat the mistake? --Connel MacKenzie 16:29, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks to your subject line, I understand the mistake.  By just looking at the history of the page, one doesn't see the expanded conjugation table for the verb.  Now that I've seen that, I've fixed it and added the third etymology back in, which honestly seems better than deleting a whole valid etymology instead of just fixing the error in the conjugation table. — V-ball 16:49, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

paring knife

I've responded at Talk:paring knife. Thanks for your concern about seemingly convoluted definitions, but there was a method to my madness... —scs 03:07, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Entries

LDS

Unlike Wikipedia, we don't hide the link spelling. If the spelling of the entry is wrong, then change the entry. Don't hide the fact in a link. --EncycloPetey 01:16, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Mormon as a given name

I removed the definiton as a given name and the translation, because in my opinion, a given name is something that (several) parents choose for their children. The character Mormon is already defined, it need not be repeated. But my Russian is very limited. If there really are Russians named , say, Мормон Иванович Петров , please correct me.--Makaokalani 13:16, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Formatting

compactDocToc for template documentation

At Wikipedia, the usual way to structure template talk pages is to use {{compactDocToc}} to keep the documentation visible as the count of discussion topics grows. Is there a different standard format for Wiktionary template documentation? Rodasmith 21:23, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know for sure.  Some of the more experienced people around here could tell you.  I guess I just thought the TOC down in the middle looked really dumb since it was after the documentation, but included the headings from the documentation.  I guess it's nothing I'm willing to have a big fight over, I just thought it looked really lame. — V-ball 04:11, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Allow me to butt in: most templates here have the documentation on the template page itself, within noinclude tags. — Vildricianus 07:00, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

As suspected, more experienced people knew the answer.  :-)  Thanks! — V-ball 13:52, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

You may be interested in the discussion at Template talk:en-infl-reg-vowel-e#Template documentation. Rodasmith 17:06, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Diminutives

Since when did we have that L4 header? ;-) Think it should be Derived terms, with a parenthetical note that it is a/the diminutive.

• (diminutive:) motýlek

Robert Ullmann 15:23, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Well, I had considered adding the "derived terms" header, but remembered in some of the Russian entries (for example, "слон"), people had used this header.  Also, you'll probably have to talk to some of the more linquistically inclined here, but I don't think diminutives are technically derived forms, as they're just seen as the same word, but said in a "cute" way.  I'm not sure about that, though.

I don't really care either way, and was really just going for consistency by using the same types of headings as I had already seen (esp. since Russian and Czech are both Slavic languages). — V-ball 15:46, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

ELE Headers

I've just started a discussion in the Beer Parlour based on an edit you made on the thaumaturgy page. Whether you have a strong opinion or not, you might want to follow the discussion to see what happens. The short version is that while your edit was understandable in light of ELE content, the ELE is not really clear about sequence and placement of the Derived terms and Related terms headers. --EncycloPetey 19:05, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Inflection templates

For which templates to use see Wiktionary:Index to templates, which in particular links to Wiktionary:English inflection templates (I'm a champion of Version B). Ncik 11:33, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Hello V-ball, you have been asking Daniel Polansky for Czech declensions so I post also here. I have done a first template for word like pán. Do you find it accurate and useful ? Should I continue with other models of declension ? Daniel found it totally useless for him. Prepositional singular of pán seems false according to this model of declension. Thanks. --Thomas 22:34, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Russian formatting.

Thanks; I've been experimenting a bit with the layout for Russian, and comments are certainly more than welcome. I've been thinking to include comparative and other forms into the declension table, but I think that would clutter them up. Perhaps a small table somewhere near the =Adjective= header, as in some Dutch entries? I'll try something out for that.

As for the headers, I know that in some cases the declension may be a level up, but then, in entries like русский or other nominalized adjectives, the table stands for both the noun and the adjective. We could then include two tables of course; I haven't really considered that yet. What do you think? — Vildricianus 08:18, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm experimenting right now with the small table, and although it looks a bit like table overkill (see важный), it might look decent on entries that have more than a one-word definition.

About the two tables: I think the average user who wants to find information on Russian words is likely to find it with the current system; anyone with basic knowledge will know how this works. I think two tables in this instance (three in total then with the comparison forms) will be complete overkill :-) — Vildricianus 08:48, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the levels of the headers are not such a big concern indeed, certainly not in Russian entries. As long as things remain clear, that is. Thanks for the ideas. — Vildricianus 08:40, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Removing audio pronunciation

Hi there! Thanks for your contributions. It might have been a mistake, but on your edit of peregrinate, you removed the audio pronunciation. I have included it back into the entry, but I also wanted to ask you to not do that anymore. Thanks. --Dijan 07:12, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Rollback

Sometimes, I really wish the [rollback] button would allow me to enter a comment.

The {{see}} seems redundant with ===See also=== because it is. But that is intentional. One is purely a navigational aide at the top of the page, the other is a lexical relation.

--Connel MacKenzie 18:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Slovak

Hi, I just edited sever, and was very much in doubt on how to format the Slovak part. I saw you know some Slovak, and wanted to ask whether you could help me think about a suiting format for Slovak entries. If you’ll provide the input, I’d be happy to make appropriate templates and maybe we can create Wiktionary:About Slovak together. Cheers! H. (talk) 14:25, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the invitation.  I know a little Slovak, but mostly because I know Czech.  They're very similar languages.  My wife, though, speaks Slovak fluently.

Anyway, as for the layout of the entries, I would think that something along the lines of fully formatted Russian or Czech entries would work very well.  Currently that consists of the headword and then the translation (like all foreign-language entries on the English Wiktionary), and after that it's good to have a declension paradigm (or a conjugation paradigm if it's a verb entry), then you can have all the usual synonyms, antonyms, etc., again, just like all entries following ELE on English Wiktionary.

That's my idea anyway. — V-ball 23:44, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Non-standard “Singular” header used in a Slovak language section

Please see Island#Slovak. AutoFormat has tagged that section with an {{rfc-header}} due to the use therein of a Singular header. It looks like good, old-fashioned Declension to me, but since I speak not a word of Slovak, I don’t know enough to change it myself. Since you speak some Slovak, could you correct the header and use the necessary templates please? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 11:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it should've been "Declension."  I changed it, but don't have much time right now to fiddle more with it.  It's on the list of things to do, though. — V-ball 20:38, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

OK. Thanks. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 04:18, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Formatting of Czech entries

Great to see you adding Czech entries. Could you please format them using the common conventions? The conventions are described at WT:ACZ, but are also seen in almost all Czech entries. An example of formatting fix: in obluda. --Dan Polansky 18:13, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian nouns

These need a gender (tag with g=?in he head template if you don't know the gender) and wherever possible Cyrillic script if they are used in Serbia. Thank you, Mglovesfun (talk) 18:46, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Your Russian edits

Hi,

Your Russian edits have quite a few problems. Could you refrain from making new entries before you learn how to make them properly? If you knowingly create incomplete entries, pls have the courtesy of adding them to maintenance entries, e.g. by adding {{attention|ru|Basic stub}} to the end. You can always request valid terms at WT:RE:ru. They will get created eventually or maybe soon. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 04:20, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Talk to me about which ones and what the specific problems are, please.  In general, I don't have a huge amount of time to fiddle with Wiktionary, but I like to make sure words are in here when I come across ones that aren't, so I am not overly inclined to do a lot of editing, formatting, etc.  The nice thing about Wiktionary, though, is that others are free to edit and improve any time they have time or otherwise see fit!  I saw you updated the фрекинг entry; thanks for doing that!  —   V-ball (talk) 10:47, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Language Questions

Russian

Hi

I was wondering, since you are a near native speaker of Russian, if you know how you can translate a sentence such as life is life, is it normal to just say жизнь жизнь? Not just for this sentence but for any where you have this situation. Thanks if you know Mallerd 18:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

There may be nuances I am not aware of, but I would go with жизнь есть жизнь. I remember multiple occassions in Russia when I had to remind the lazy cashiers that деньги есть деньги when I paid with more small coins than they would've preferred. — V-ball 15:29, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

:P Thanks, and funny anecdote too ;) Mallerd 15:07, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi

It's me again ;) I was wondering if you could translate ветром стать as building wind? As it is becoming stronger, but I am not sure if it even exists. :) Could you tell me? Thanks Mallerd 17:15, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Or is it built by wind? I figured out it has an instrumative case in it, but it's hard. Mallerd 06:36, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Without context, this one is hard.  It almost looks to me like it doesn't mean anything.  By switching the order so you have стать ветром you would get to become wind.  Obviously, with cases, word order isn't important, and you might see ветром стать in a poem or advertising or something like that.  Again, context would be helpful in translating this one. — V-ball 12:58, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

I guess it is more poetic, here is the line:

Когда я умру я стану ветром

Thanks. Mallerd 14:48, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

When I die I will become the wind. — V-ball 18:49, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

spasibo Mallerd 19:04, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Personal questions

Hi,

do you mind if I were to ask you a few personal questions? Feel free to not answer them, but I ask them because I wish to know something about 'memory' in Russia or with Russians in general. I ask these questions to several native Russian speakers, so forgive me if you encounter these questions on different talkpages. So here are the questions:

• When were you born?
• Were you 16 or older in the 1980s?
• Were you born in Russia/Soviet Union? Where?
• How do you remember the Soviet-Afghan war/Afghan war?
• How do you remember the Soviet repression, such as the Gulag or the prison camp system?
• How do you remember the public discussion in the 1980s/1990s about the repression and the prison camp system?
• How do you feel about the victims of the Afghan war and the victims of the repression?

Answer in anyway you like (which includes not answering as well of course), thank you very much.

Kind regards,

Mallerd 19:29, 20 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but I am not a native speaker of Russian. — V-ball (talk) 23:17, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Parts of Speech

Albanian

The language is a proper noun. You cannot speak "Albanians". The adjective is not comparable. Something either is Albanian or it isn't. A lot of your recent edits are similarly questionable or flat wrong. If you're tired, perhaps you should rest for a while. --EncycloPetey 02:55, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm seeing a pattern of confusing Noun and Proper noun in your edits. If a word has a plural, that's usually a giveaway that it's a common noun; you can't judge it by whether it's capitalized or not. So Mormon (the specific prophet) is a proper noun because it's a specific unique person. But Mormon (member of the LDS movement) is a common noun; it's a not a particular person or thing, but one of a whole group of items all labelled with the same name. Likewise Albanian (language) is a specific thing and therefore a proper noun. But Albanian (person from Albania) is a common noun. --EncycloPetey 03:04, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm . . . just because something can be plural doesn't mean its a common noun.  Yes, the language Albanian does not have a plural, and it's a proper noun.  However, the Albanian, a person from Albania, is a proper noun and can be pluralized.  The same goes for Mormon.  The prophet is just one person, and cannot be pluralized.  However, the name for males can be pluralized.  Think, "Hey, there's three Mormons in this room."  (Three different people named Mormon.)  —  V-ball 23:16, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I even made this distinction with the old edit where I indicated whether a specific definition pertained to a countable word or not.

# {{countable}} A person from [[Albania]] or of Albanian [[descent]].

# {{uncountable}} The [[language]] spoken by the Albanian people, primarily spoken in [[Albania]].  (ISO language codes: [[alb]]/[[sqi]]/[[sq]].) — V-ball 23:21, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Both the Wikipedia article on w:Nouns and the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language disagree with you. The difference between the two lies in whether the noun applies to a unique entity or to a class of items. Albanian (the language) is unique, and is therefore a proper noun. Albanian (a person) belongs to a class of similarly identified individuals, and so is a common noun. --EncycloPetey 01:23, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Templates

See

The template {{see}} accepts multiple arguments separated by pipes: {{see|BoM|BOM}} --EncycloPetey 16:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Cool!  Thanks for the note.  I'll remember that when I use it in the future, and sorry I didn't have it right the first time. — V-ball 17:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

S'OK. On Wiktionary we all learn by doing and then having other people gripe about it. ;) --EncycloPetey 17:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Armenian

Hi. In the future could you add {{attention|hy}} to your new Armenian entries like աշխատակազմ (ašxatakazm), so I can expand them later? Every Armenian word in Wiktionary should eventually have inflection, pronunciation and etymological information. Thanks. --Vahag 11:24, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Փորձում եմ հիշել:  Համաձայն եմ արտասանության և այլն մասին:  (Ha, it's been a long time since I've actually written or spoken Armenian, so that may or may not have made sense.) V-ball 07:20, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

Entry categories

All entries must have a headword template. See my changes to bez premca. DTLHS (talk) 23:57, 14 September 2016 (UTC)