Wiktionary:Information desk/2016/September

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Actual and lexical importance not to have SOPs, for the sake of argument[edit]

Hi. I came to ask you this, because apparently on the Danish Wiktionary, there are currently no rules on creating sum-of-parts entries, so technically, creating entries like Danish history would not be against any rules. When I presented the issue to them, none of them seem to see it as an issue. As I've said many times in the past, I'm not good at wording things at all. So I came to ask the English Wiktionary itself about this.

Could someone better explain to me why having SOP entries is particularly bad, for the sake of argument? Particularly, I'm trying to argue with them about this entry, for being lemmacized with the word "the" at the beginning, when really this shouldn't be a part of its lemma, as you should be able to find the definition for the American Dream at the + American Dream. Though the word "the" in English is placed before many proper nouns and common nouns, the word "the" is most of the time not an actual component of the proper noun or common noun. For instance, writing The United States is improper (unless using that in a title or at the beginning of a sentence). I tried to explain this to them, but they wouldn't listen, telling me basically that "they don't care if entries are SOP, as long as they're accurate and 'useful'." Now I'm stuck.

I presented them with some linguistic/grammatical facts, as stated above, but apparently it's not enough. So can someone tell me in their own words what is really really wrong with SOPs, so I could explain this to them in a better way? When any dictionary includes SOP terms, why is it worse than having accurate entries that many users (comparatively) might search for alone? For instance, a lot of users might certainly search for "standardized test", even though it is clearly SOP, because a lot of people may mistakenly consider those two words to be a unit in itself of lexical interest, even though they could find the definitions at standardized + test. I believe it's certainly not good to have SOPs and am all about burning them in fire when I see them, but apparently they don't think the same thing as me, so how can I convince them that SOP terms should generally be disallowed there, or in any Wiktionary for that matter? Philmonte101 (talk) 23:25, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Some arguments against SOPs:
We do have a few SOPs, though:
See also User talk:Stephen G. Brown/2015#interpretation and search for my first message in the conversation (a question to @Stephen G. Brown). Stephen raised some interesting points about the inclusion/deletion of some technical terms ("For example, legal terms, business terms, petroleum technology, medical terms, aircraft terms") that might be perceived as SOPs and would likely get deleted here, but may have value to be kept, for people that don't already know the English term. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 23:50, 1 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
1. Waste of time and resources that contributors could use on better things. 2. Language is by nature productive: you can invent infinite sentences. Why isn't there a maths book that lists the answers to 1+1, 1+2, 1+3, 1+4, 1+5...? Exactly. Equinox 14:43, 2 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Here's a few reasons:
  1. Diluting content: an SOP entry is just repackaging of content from the entries for the parts. Someone who clicks on "green leaf" in the "Derived terms" for "green" or "leaf" is going to wonder why they were invited to visit the entry when it has nothing about "green" that they didn't already know from the "green" entry. The only information that wouldn't be duplication between the SOP entry and the parts is encyclopedic content that results in bloated, wordy entries
  2. Maintenance: if someone edits the "green" entry, they probably won't think to change the "green leaf" entry, so they get out of sync. Or they change the "green leaf" entry, and don't propagate that change to the "green" or the "leaf" entry. A related issue emerges when the creator of an SOP entry is unaware of information in the entries for the parts, or one of the parts makes a statement about usage that's refuted by the SOP entry.
  3. Overloading of linking sections and categories: "Derived terms" and "Hyponyms" can get really lengthy as it is, but SOP terms would make it far, far worse.
  4. Loss of focus: SOP terms are often easily paraphrased, with large numbers of attested variations. With no notability requirement, it would be hard to protect against an astronomical proliferation of almost-identical entries, with no easy way to distinguish the informative, idiomatic entries from the 14th variation on something no one cares about.
There's more, but I've already spent more time than I should have... Chuck Entz (talk) 00:46, 4 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Can someone explain this joke?[edit]

There isn't really a context. "So, this medical care-giver of indeterminate gender-- because nurses can be male or female-- says to his or her disabled-- or should I say, differently-abled patient-- 'Why do you have a penguin on your head? They're endangered.'" It's an antijoke; it's a joke that is supposed to be funny because it's not funny. But what's the catch to it? Anybody see it? Philmonte101 (talk) 18:08, 4 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's just making fun of political correctness. The penguin punchline is either surreal nonsense or continuing the parody toward people who care about the natural environment ("ecofreaks"). Equinox 18:23, 4 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

A word for "sexist against your own gender"?[edit]

Is there a word out their that means "extremely mean or sexist towards ones own gender, or treating your own gender worse than the opposite gender", or a word for a person that is like that? I imagine it'd be slang if it exists, but does anyone know? Philmonte101 (talk) 18:11, 4 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Doubt it. But you could use misandrist or misogynist, depending on gender of the person. Equinox 18:21, 4 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Philmonte101: "internalized sexism" comes to mind. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 04:52, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I would understand "internalized sexism" to be sexism that has become deeply rooted within a person, and not that it is directed at any particular sex. --WikiTiki89 14:02, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I added a new sense of internalized with 3 quotations. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 19:27, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Daniel Carrero Those might just as well be interpreted as meaning "something that a person has been told so many times that they consider it their own opinion", which is what I would consider at least the most obvious sense, if not the only one. This is also the most logical sense, since the term originates as the past participle of internalize.__Gamren (talk) 14:20, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the fact that you could say "she has internalised her sexism" makes the special adjective sense seem a bit overspecific. Equinox 18:26, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I'm not convinced that this is an adjective as opposed to the verb form, sexism (etc) that one has internalized in the manner Gamren outlines. Certainly one also speaks of women internalizing misogyny, where "internalizing" is clearly a verb form. I think "internalized" is probably the verb form, but are there tests of adjectivity that might distinguish it as an adjective from a past participle, the way there are to distinguish adjectives from nouns? I can find e.g. "very internalized", "advertising now tend[s] to be more internalized than enforced", but I'm not yet convinced that rules out verbal use, though the second one might. - -sche (discuss) 18:43, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's definitely a verb form, but it is also an adjective, and that is how it is used in those citations. All English participles may be used as adjectives, but are not necessarily. English doesn't distinguish grammatically, but e.g. Danish inflects adjectives for gender and number, and German furthermore inflects for case and the presence or absence of articles/pronouns. In general, you may tell adjectives from verbs by noting whether they describe the state or quality of some thing, or an action undertaken.__Gamren (talk) 09:13, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Inflection tables and form-of entries for verbs that show subject and object agreement[edit]

Countless languages have verbs that show subject agreement, but there are some that have object agreement as well. An example is Zulu, where both subject and object show congruency affixes for first/second person singular and plural, as well as any of a dozen noun classes in the third person. This means that there's a potential verb form for any pairing of these, as well as forms with no object affix for intransitive uses. Zulu is not a polysynthetic language in the way American languages are.

My question is how these should be handled in inflection tables and when dealing with inflected form entries. Inflection tables would get way too big if we listed all combinations, but what is currently done with Zulu verb tables (listing forms with no object affix only) doesn't seem satisfactory either. As far as inflected forms go, I presume that these forms can be included since they are legitimate verb forms, albeit that there are many of them. —CodeCat 18:41, 4 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

For tables, We're just gonna have to have really large tables, similar to the one at Appendix:Hebrew verbs#Suffixed object pronouns. For form-of entries, we can do something similar to שלחני. --WikiTiki89 18:52, 4 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The tables for Zulu would be much longer though because of all the noun classes. See {{zu-conj-reg}}, and that's just with the subject affixes. The object affixes actually go in the "middle" of those forms, after the object affix. For example: -bona (see), ngi-(ya)-bona (I see), ngi-ya-m-bona (I see him/her). —CodeCat 19:06, 4 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See also Basque. —JohnC5 19:09, 4 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't even know how to interpret that table. What do NOR and NORI stand for? —CodeCat 19:18, 4 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yeeeeeah... Those are the traditional designation for the cases with which the verb agrees (nor: absolutive, nori: dative, nork: ergative. Like in this table). So a nor-nori table shows the forms with absolutive and dative agreement. —JohnC5 20:01, 4 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See Bulgarian conjugations: живея (živeja). —Stephen (Talk) 00:45, 5 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Most of those are actually periphrastic forms that have no business being in an inflection table. And half of what remains is all the possible inflections of the participles, which I'd argue belong on the participle entry. —CodeCat 01:05, 5 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've considered this issue at length, and realised it was beyond my wikitable abilities. All the Bantu languages have this problem, and none of them have satisfactory infrastructure to handle it at the current time. I think that the best way is to have collapsed sections within an autocollapsed table, so that it doesn't get too unwieldy for the user unless they choose to open all sections at once. It should be possible to view all valid inflected forms, though, instead of leaving some out like the Zulu templates currently do. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 06:55, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

talador in en and fr[edit]

English is translating from Spanish, French is translating from occitan, not sure how to add the missing entries for other languages Elinruby (talk) 13:36, 6 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Are you saying you want to add the Occitan? Renard Migrant (talk) 13:58, 6 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The only entry on our Wiktionary is the Spanish word talador. You can add Occitan on the talador page, above the Spanish. On the French Wiktionary, they have the Occitan entry fr:talador, but not the Spanish. If you want to add the Spanish there, it goes on the fr:talador page. If you want to add talador on the German Wiktionary, that belongs at de:talador. Which other languages do you want to include? —Stephen (Talk) 22:57, 6 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Latin Problem[edit]

It seems to me that you may have over pedanted the macrons in your Latin interpretation. "esc" growth additives should not get a long mark, nominative endings should not get a long mark (this is for stranger words, usually taken from Greek (I say this to differentiate from Latin) and some 3rd declensions) unless your talking about the 2nd declension plural (i).

Based on what evidence? —JohnC5 07:26, 7 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The difference between possessive and genitive[edit]

I've looked all over the place on Google for an answer to this, but have gotten very little information. What I've gathered is that apparently a possessive is actually a genitive itself, and that a number of genitives are possessive, but not all of them. Other than that, I've gotten little to no information other than "they're used in different scenarios". Specifically, I'm trying to find examples of how a possessive is different from genitive in English and German, so I'll make two subsections. I think what is considered a genitive and possessive may be slightly different depending on the language.

The possessive is a type of genitive. English nouns have possessive forms, but not genitives. Examples of possessives include: Richard's tie, the country's borders, the king's ransom. German, OTOH, has a true genitive case, and it can be used like the English possessive, but also for other things that the possessive does not handle.
    • Er wohnt außerhalb der Stadt. — He lives outside the city. (außerhalb governs the genitive case, so "der Stadt" is in the genitive. However, nothing in this sentence is possessed.)
    • Hartholzmöbel bedürfen einer besondern Pflege. — Hardwood furniture needs special care. (bedürfen governs the genitive, so "einer Pflege" is in the genitive. Nothing here is possessed.)
    • Sie ist des Mordes schuldig. — She is guilty of the murder. (schuldig takes the genitive, so "des Mordes" is in genitive.)
    • Eines Tages besuchen wir München. — Someday we'll visit Munich. (genitive to express indefinite time: "eines Tages" is genitive. Literally, of a day we'll visit Munich, to show indefiniteness. No possession.)
    • Susans Kusine kommt zu Besuch. — Susan's cousin comes to visit. (this is the genitive of possession, so Susan possesses a cousin.) —Stephen (Talk) 17:20, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
      • "Eines Tages" is interesting because you can also say "eines Nachts" even though the genitive of "eine Nacht" is einer Nacht. In the last case, I wouldn't call it possession either: Susan doesn't possess her cousin in any jurisdiction where slavery is illegal. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:43, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

English[edit]

Genitives and possessives are formed by "of" and "'s". But I have yet to see some example sentences that make a clear differentiation between genitives and possessives. What's the difference? PseudoSkull (talk) 00:36, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Bill's car (possession)
a pound of flesh
My music (possession)
a piece of pie
doctor's office (possession)
speaking of dinner, let's eat.
baby's diaper (possession)
I'm out of time. —Stephen (Talk) 17:33, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

German[edit]

I am at point A of learning this language. I'm at the very basic stuff. I can read a bit of it naturally, since I read in other languages all the time regardless of my understanding of them, (just for the sheer fun of it), but I'm trying to learn more, especially so I can add entries here, and because a lot of online communities are in German and it'd be nice to understand them and communicate with users on them. I'm especially interested in knowing the difference between genitive and possessive here because genitive and possessive are often two completely different forms. What's the difference? PseudoSkull (talk) 00:36, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In German, the genitive is a single case form, while the possessive is a lemma in its own right that inflects for case, including the genitive. —CodeCat 17:32, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In general[edit]

For any comments about the two cases in general. PseudoSkull (talk) 00:36, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

'Genitive' is the name of a case: a marking on nouns, pronouns, or adjectives. 'Possessive' has two uses; one is the name of a function, that of showing possession, and the other is an alternative name for the genitive case. Its use as the name of a case may have been a well-meaning reaction in English when around 1900 (?) people started accepting that English didn't use Latin grammar, and they started talking about the subjective, objective, and possessive cases of the English pronouns.
A case typically has multiple uses, and possession is the prototypical use of the genitive (my car, the woman's book). But examples like my memory and the woman's past are hardly possessions in any true sense: the genitive covers more relationships than 'possessive' ones. Conversely, possession (and similar broader relations) can be marked using an 'of' phrase, which is not genitive; it's not a marking on the noun/pronoun.
In Turkish there's a genitive case, but there's another marking that it is useful to call possessive. So el (hand) gives eli 'her/his hand'. A definite possessor is indicated by putting it in the genitive, so kadın (woman) becomes kadının 'the woman's', and these combine as kadının eli 'the woman's hand', with (what I want to call) both a genitive and a possessive, two different functions and forms. --Hiztegilari (talk) 10:42, 9 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Many IE languages have separate possessive adjectives, and these adjectives inflect for case just like any other adjective would. That includes the genitive case. In many languages this is restricted to possessives paired with personal pronouns, but Slavic languages have possessive adjectives derived from personal names as well. —CodeCat 17:35, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The possessive is one of the functions of the genitive case. The possessive itself is not a case. Some other things that the genitive case can do that make it a case (rather than simply a possessive) are being the object of certain prepositions (examples from Russian: для шко́лы (dlja škóly, for school), до шко́лы (do škóly, before/until school), без шко́лы (bez škóly, without school)) and even of certain verbs (боя́ться шко́лы (bojátʹsja škóly, to fear school). Possession itself doesn't necessarily have anything to do with ownership, so Susan's cousin, Susan's birthplace, Susan's favorite restaurant, etc. have nothing to do with "ownership", but are still possessive. Consider even the dog's owner, which does not have to imply that the dog owns the owner in order to be called a possessive. --WikiTiki89 13:03, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What does this mean? Many of the terms listed seem to have many syllables...? PseudoSkull (talk) 02:53, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That was a mistake. I edited the module so the category redlink should disappear from all entries later. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 03:01, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Zealandic[edit]

Should zea be treated as a distinct language, or as vls or nl? I have no preference. I notice that it currently has a code and a few translations, but no entries or category have been created yet. I wanted to check before creating the category. Pinging User:CodeCat as the person most likely to have knowledge / resources to answer the question. (Btw see Talk:Zealandic for old discussion of the name.) - -sche (discuss) 06:30, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia says it is, linguistically, a dialect of West Flemish. So I'd go with that. —CodeCat 12:29, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cunt[edit]

For reconstructed Old English words like *cunte, should they be added to any special categories? UtherPendrogn (talk) 18:57, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think you mean categories like this: Category:Old English reconstructed nouns. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 18:59, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ah right, didn't realise it was automatic. UtherPendrogn (talk) 19:04, 11 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Borrowing complete inflections from other languages[edit]

I imagine this would be rather nonstandard, but are there any words that are borrowed from other languages with massive conjugation/inflection tables for words, where the inflections are all also borrowed? I've seen Latin plurals being borrowed from Latin, but I'd feel it'd be an interesting case to see an "attested" (3 or more sources) case of English speakers using exotic Polish loan word noun inflections in sentences, or using any conjugated French verb form in a sentence that borrows that verb, for example. Any ideas? PseudoSkull (talk) 02:48, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It happens often enough. You mentioned Polish, which reminded me that different numbers require different cases in Polish, and these are often transferred over into English as appropriate. Our entry at zloty doesn't make that clear, but see w:Polish zloty#Name and plural forms. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds 03:56, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That section is about Polish, though, not English. I can't imagine English speakers borrowing case forms from inflecting languages, though German sometimes used to, at least in a highly literary/religious register, where, for example you'll find Mariä and Christi as the genitive of Maria and Christus respectively, and sometimes maybe even Mariä and Christo as the dative and Mariam and Christum as the accusative. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:39, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Latin itself frequently borrowed Greek inflections along with the words. —CodeCat 10:56, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think the point is that a language is unlikely to borrow grammatical structures it doesn't use (it's happened, but it's rare). We may borrow individual forms for both singular and plural, but not ablative (not as ablative, anyway). Chuck Entz (talk) 14:09, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
As a native code-switcher between English and Russian, I have noticed that when I use a Russian noun in an English sentence, I almost always use the nominative case no matter how I'm using it (like "I found the штучка", rather than "I found the штучку"). When I use an English noun in a Russian sentence, I often add case endings to it, even if this results in very unusual phonetic combinations (like palatalized "th", or ы after a vowel). --WikiTiki89 18:31, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

STOP.[edit]

CodeCat, I get you have some sort of personal vendetta against me, but can you stop deleting ATTESTED words? That'd be pretty useful, as they are quite literally ATTESTED. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Old_English/ueleda UtherPendrogn (talk) 21:51, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If it's attested, why is it in the reconstruction namespace? —CodeCat 21:53, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. Also, CodeCat didn't delete it, but nominated it for deletion, which means there is a discussion in which you can participate to show that it shouldn't be deleted. --WikiTiki89 21:55, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
A discussion I wasn't even aware of. I'm not pinged, and not even warned. If I wasn't now forced to paranoically check everyone's contribution pages, in about a week's time it would probably have been nixed. As to it being under reconstruction, the wiki does that automatically when creating the page from another page (in this case, I created it from the Gaulish page) for some bizarre reason. Also, please leave a note on my Talk page? I'm here most of the time and will happily explain or rectify the error, rather than destroying the page which benefits no one. Real life example. If a book has a typo in it, do you burn the book? UtherPendrogn (talk) 21:59, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The RFD template has a link to the discussion. —CodeCat 22:01, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Irrelevant, I still need to look at the page, which means I can only know about it accidentally, by chancing upon the page. UtherPendrogn (talk) 22:08, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ever heard of the Special:Watchlist? --WikiTiki89 22:11, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@UtherPendrogn: By the way, in case you're not aware, attested means we can find quotations of the term. References alone won't help. See WT:ATTEST. --WikiTiki89 22:06, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veleda UtherPendrogn (talk) 22:08, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Completely irrelevant. —CodeCat 22:09, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Proof of the term is irrelevant?!
It proves nothing at all for Wiktionary's purposes. Proof to Wiktionary that the term exists is to show an actual text, written in the language in question, where the word is used. See WT:CFI. —CodeCat 22:13, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Fine, have the quote by Tacitus himself: "[8] Memoriae proditur quasdam acies inclinatas iam et labantes a feminis restitutas constantia precum et obiectu pectorum et monstrata comminus captivitate, quam longe inpatientius feminarum suarum nomine timent, adeo ut efficacius obligentur animi civitatum, quibus inter obsides puellae quoque nobiles imperantur. Inesse quin etiam sanctum aliquid et providum putant, nec aut consilia earum aspernantur aut responsa neglegunt. Vidimus sub divo Vespasiano Veledam diu apud plerosque numinis loco habitam; sed et olim Albrunam et compluris alias venerati sunt, non adulatione nec tamquam facerent deas." This was his rendering of the Germanic equivalent Ueleda. UtherPendrogn (talk) 22:10, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's Latin, not Old English. --WikiTiki89 22:11, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuKzt7p-MnM UtherPendrogn (talk) 22:12, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
That's a video, not an Old English text. —CodeCat 22:12, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
uelet-, 'voyant, poète' Ueleda, nom d'une femme sacrée et prophétesse, vénérée par les Germains selon Tacite (Germanie 8). Rapproché dès le début des études scientifiques du nom du poètevoyant irlandais fili, gén. filed (*/jelëts / */jeletos), ogam. Uelitas gén. ; racine */jel'voir' : gaI!. gweled 'voir', bret. guelet 'la vue' (*/jeleto-), US 277, SOI 244, IEW 1136. Ce que Tacite rapporte comme un NP était en fait un nom de fonction celtique ('voyante, prophétesse, poètes se') passé chez les Germains et adapté à leur phonétique (-t- > -d-). Le mot est peut-être présent dans l'inscription du Mans sur tablette de plomb (L-104) UlIL[lI]TS = uelets. UtherPendrogn (talk) 22:14, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Please read WT:ATTEST. --WikiTiki89 22:14, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I literally can't handle this anymore. TACITUS uses the term. V is, I'd say arguably, but that would be the biggest understatement ever pronounced. "is" doesn't even fit the bill. V is literally the very ESSENCE, the EPITOME of U. V=U. V²=U². V IS U. Veleda is Ueleda. UtherPendrogn (talk) 22:23, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Look, if you don't comply with our policies, you'll soon find yourself blocked. --WikiTiki89 22:19, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I can handle your policies, not your attitude. UtherPendrogn (talk) 22:23, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Did you actually read WT:ATTEST? --WikiTiki89 22:24, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Not helpful. WT:Attest neither mentions the exemptions for low attestation languages nor does it say anything about when and when not a recording of the term by a non-native speaker (such as Tacitus' quotation or the Crimean Gothic wordlist) is acceptable. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 22:30, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Didn't it mention those things before? Old English is attested enough that we don't accept mentions, but I think we accept single attestations (but I'm not sure). --WikiTiki89 22:37, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just pointing out that the ATTEST section alone will not help a confused user in this case and I was actually hoping you as a veteran user would have a guideline at hand when non-native recordings are a valid option, for my personal interest. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 22:42, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
There are some languages for which we allow mentions. Non-native recordings count as mentions. We have a list of these languages somewhere, but I can't remember where. --WikiTiki89 22:45, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Wiktionary:Votes/2012-04/Languages_with_limited_documentation - This vote passed but is not implemented. I think that's part of the current issue. I wanted to quietly implement it but don't have the editing rights. I strongly urge that the list you mention be linked somewhere in the CFI, preferably at a place where one would expect it. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 22:47, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what makes you think the vote wasn't implemented. WT:ATTEST, which is part of WT:CFI, says "For languages well documented on the Internet, three citations in which a term is used is the minimum number for inclusion in Wiktionary. For terms in extinct languages, one use in a contemporaneous source is the minimum, or one mention is adequate subject to the below requirements." Old English is an extinct language, so we need one use in a contemporaneous source. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:56, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, right. What made me think it wasn't implemented is that I was scanning for the original phrasing of the vote. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 23:01, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So what's attested is a Latin proper noun Veleda with a possibly Celtic etymology. Nothing to do with Old English at all. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:50, 14 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Move back the fucking page[edit]

@Angr You've gone against what everyone else said and undid my latinisation. I suggest you move back the fucking page. Your fucking vapid, bullshit excuse of "we use old italic script" is quite simply wrong. UtherPendrogn (talk) 14:24, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Of course I undid your Latinization. Lepontic entries should be written in Old Italic, not in Latin, and everyone else but you accepts that. And your little quip above about "Not as big a mess as when your abortion failed" is sufficient grounds for a permanent ban from Wiktionary as far as I'm concerned. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:29, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No, read the fucking discussion about it. Lepontic entries should be latinised. UtherPendrogn (talk) 14:35, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Tone down the rhetoric, personal attacks and profanity have no place here. - TheDaveRoss 14:37, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
fuck and cunt are words of the english language, I'll use them on a language site. Also, I guess what they said about Wikipedia was true then. Stalinist communism, "everyone is equal" but some are more equal than others. Small number of elite control articles and destroy any newcomer's work, while the proles think they have power. Block me if you want, I really don't give much of a fuck if it means I can avoid ever speaking to you yankee cunts ever again. Also, just to point out CodeCat literally called me an idiot twice. Where's his block? UtherPendrogn (talk) 14:46, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I went ahead and blocked. Uther: You can use whichever words you choose, but you cannot use them to attack others. I think you will find that newcomers who are interested in engaging in collaboration and constructive discussion have few problems with the "elites," those who instead resort to personal attacks and refuse to engage in discussion tend to create enemies rather quickly. - TheDaveRoss 14:57, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'm ok with a block. This user is more trouble than they're worth at the moment. —CodeCat 14:39, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The user is sending me abuse on email now. Can their email priviliges be revoked too? —CodeCat 15:00, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I updated the block to prevent email. - TheDaveRoss 15:02, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So I went to sleep last night looking forward to the carefully researched argument about the attestations of Lepontic characters that I was going to write up today after work, but now it seems useless. I guess I'll just have to move all the entries over to Ital later today. I'm fine with Romanization entries, I suppose, but only if they link back to the main article.

In other news, can anyone verify these declension templates? They seem somewhat in line with what's on Lexicon Leponticum, but Uther seemed not to distinguish between masculine and neuter for o-stems and would use accusative singulars as lemma-forms. Does anyone have access to the listed sources? —JohnC5 19:18, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I recently remembered the German phrase "mit kind und Kegel" which means "with child and 'bastard'", having the connotation of bringing all the folks, or the "kit and kaboodle". This is my sense; that, although the concept is common across languages, sometimes the origin of a specific phrase is obscured.

Here is a table of known inflectional endings for Lepontic. Much less ambitious, and much less implausible, than the tables created by our learned friend. I wonder if it's really worthwhile even having inflection tables for Lepontic; it has such a small corpus that there are probably very few if any nouns attested in more than one case. I also see our friend has decided that the accusative singular should be the lemma form, hence 𐌖𐌋𐌊𐌏𐌌 (ulkom) (originally created at ulkom), even though the word is attested in the nominative singular as 𐌖𐌋𐌊𐌏𐌔 (ulkos). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:51, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I think we should copy that table into WT:AXLP and then delete those inflectional tables. At some point, I'll move all those terms back into Ital. I also notice the description Uther left when moving 𐌖𐌋𐌊𐌏𐌌 to ulkom the last: “We've decided to use the latinised form.” Who was the “we”? It's all very funny to me. —JohnC5 18:07, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
We're obviously dealing with someone who's bright enough to understand subjects that are over the heads of the people they normally encounter, so they've never had anyone call them on their errors- and they're completely unable to handle it when they do. Without that feedback, it's hard to develop the critical thinking and intellectual self-discipline needed to realize their potential. What a waste! Chuck Entz (talk) 18:32, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Incidentally, I've moved the word in question to the attested form 𐌖𐌋𐌊𐌏𐌔 (ulkos). We need to check all the words with LexLep before moving them to Ital so that we move them to the actually attested forms rather than whatever form our friend created them with. I'm not sure he really does understand these subjects though; it took him a long time to grasp that the only way a Goidelic word can be descended from Proto-Brythonic is if it's a loanword. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:40, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
For lack of a better word, "understand" will have to do for now. They understand at some level what they're reading, but they're ignorant of a lot that people who read such things should know already, so they don't really understand anything at a deeper level. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:17, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've now added the attested declension information to WT:AXLP and nominated all five declension tables for deletion. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:03, 16 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong script[edit]

@CodeCat, JohnC5, Chuck Entz

The wrong script is being redirected to on the lepontic page. The name of the page is irrelevant, there's no point changing the name of the page until the issue is resolved.

LEPONTIC SCRIPT:

𐌀 𐌄 𐌉 𐌊 𐌋 𐌌 𐌍 𐌏 𐌐 𐌓 𐌔 𐌕 𐌈 𐌖 𐌅 𐌗 𐌆
A E I K L M N O P R S T Θ U V X Z

OLD ITALIC SCRIPT: (given by JohnC5)

𐌀 𐌂 𐌃 𐌄 𐌅 𐌆 𐌇 𐌈 𐌉 𐌋 𐌌 𐌍 𐌐 𐌑 𐌓 𐌔 𐌕 𐌖 𐌘 𐌙 𐌚
A C D E V Z H Θ I L M N P Ś R S T U Φ Ψ F

Additionally, JohnC5 erroneously put 𐌗 = 𐌗 rather than 𐌗 = x, and that was blamed on me for some odd reason. UtherPendrogn (talk) 05:10, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Now, shall we keep reverting each other or act like adults and actually come up with a solution? I suggest adding Lepontic to "Lepontic Transliteration". Despite the name, Lepontic is... well... absent. Literally absent, from that page. UtherPendrogn (talk) 05:18, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmmm, I'm not really sure where to start here.... The Old Italic script was added to the Unicode Consortium in order to allow the display and encoding of several different languages of Europe, among them Lepontic. The Old Italic Unicode block may be easily used to encode Lepontic lemmata and the chart given at AP:Old Italic script describes very accurately how these characters should be used for this process. If this chart is in any way mystifying or incomprehensible, please specify how it may be rectified. But to be clear, the Old Italic script page contains all the rules for transcribing all the languages which use Old Italic and its variant forms.
As to the χ vs. x issue, I accidentally copy pasted a similar but incorrect character, for which I apologize. You are certainly not to blame.
In a related note, for which I do intend to blame you, you do not understand how links work on this project. Please learn the Wiktionary's linking rules (available at WT:LINKS). There is and there will never be a page [[Lepontic:Romanisation]], and the shortcut [[WT:ACEL-XLP]] breaks the convention of every other language description page on this project.
Lepontic is not the only language to share its transliteration page with others, and your attempts to gain the moral high ground through pretended reconciliation belie the fact that you are still wildly misunderstand the way this project functions. You also fail to realize that the page [[Wiktionary:Lepontic transliteration]] is only put at that address so that the headword module will point to that location in entries that have transliterations. These links frequently redirect to other locations. —JohnC5 05:35, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Lets see: copying equivalent letters from your lists next to each other, we get 𐌀𐌀𐌄𐌄𐌉𐌉𐌋𐌋𐌌𐌌𐌍𐌍𐌐𐌐𐌔𐌔𐌕𐌕𐌈𐌈𐌖𐌖𐌅𐌅𐌆𐌆. Can you tell which are from your Lepontic list and which are from your Old Italic list? There are a few Lepontic letters that don't have a direct Old Italic equivalent: 𐌊𐌏𐌗, but they all belong to the same Old Italic Unicode block as the others. Likewise, 𐌂𐌇𐌑𐌘𐌙𐌚 are found in Old Italic, but not in Lepontic. So, rather than Lepontic being entirely absent, there are exactly 3 characters that are in your Lepontic list that aren't in your Old Italic list. Also, there are no instances of Lepontic letters that are different from their Old Italic equivalents, just letters missing from one list or the other. I don't really see a problem here. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:57, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Pretend reconciliations are your domain, I'm only interested in rectifying this fucking situation. UtherPendrogn (talk) 10:19, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I cut out the middleman and just corrected the Old Italic Script appendix. UtherPendrogn (talk) 10:23, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You're not interested in rectifying the situation. You're only interested in making it worse, which is pretty much all you've been doing since you joined Wiktionary. You make mistake after mistake, and get stubborn and aggressive when called out on it. You refuse to listen to anyone's opinion but your own, you refuse to acknowledge that there are standards in place for how ancient languages are represented, you refuse to understand how historical linguistics works, and you make enormous messes that other people then have to clean up after you. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:47, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Not as big a mess as when your abortion failed. UtherPendrogn (talk) 14:25, 15 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@UtherPendrogn if you actually stopped dictating to people and listened, you can't separate the Unicode for Lepontic and Old Italic. It's like me saying I want to use a different encoding for French and English so chat#English and chat#French no longer appear on the same page. I can't do it! Using the same script does not mean literally identical letters in every language. Like English has no ñ (Spanish) or þ (Icelandic) but that does not mean they don't use the same script. Renard Migrant (talk) 23:37, 17 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
@Renard Migrant Look, you’ve not understood the issue at all. It had the WRONG Lepontic equivalents of the letters, and Angr has now posted incorrect, completely unnatested forms of the words. He also used some innacurate site that doesn’t provide sources as a reference, which is rather odd. And despite everyone agreeing Old Italic would be best, save two people, I got overuled (but now, ironically, it’s the classic “THAT’S A TERRIBLE IDEA! Hey, I had an idea...” and then reuse the idea of the guy you gave shit to. Now, as I mentioned, there are entries for both Lepontic (Or Angr’s incorrect form of Old Italic) and Romanised words, which link to each other. You know, since there are about 2 people ON EARTH who can actually read Lepontic (or Old Italic) script, or remember the Unicodes to type them. It’s absolutely goddamn useless to have them in the Lepontic form at all. Old English words aren’t in Futhorc, are they? And Proto-Norse words are given in both Elder Futhark and their romanised forms. Whatever, I’m clearly always going to get overruled on this. Do whatever you want. I won’t post any more words as long as their entries get raped by people who don’t know what they’re doing for a language they’ve not researched. Also, now I've just been mocked by JohnC5 for using the "wrong letter". If he spent more than five seconds on the Lepontic script page on wikipedia, it shows acute S is shown by the letter Z (or its Lepontic script equivalent and not M). UtherPendrogn (talk) 16:14, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
"Doesn't provide sources as a reference"? It provides photographs of the inscriptions, e.g. [1], which pretty clearly shows that the ś letter is a allograph of 𐌑, not of 𐌆. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:00, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Let's play "find the 𐌑".

LEPONTIC SCRIPT:

𐌀 𐌄 𐌉 𐌊 𐌋 𐌌 𐌍 𐌏 𐌐 𐌓 𐌔 𐌕 𐌈 𐌖 𐌅 𐌗 𐌆
A E I K L M N O P R S T Θ U V X Z

Good fucking luck.

Found it.Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:31, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Found it again.Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:33, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Then why not state so when editing the pages in Lepontic Lemmas, and edit the Wikipedia page? UtherPendrogn (talk) 17:35, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This is true. If you don't like it, don't edit the pages.[edit]

@JohnC5, Angr

The letter 𐌑 does NOT EXIST in Lepontic. No existio. Ca n'existe pas. It doesn't exist. Never in the history of this universe, 14000000000 years, has a Lepontic man written 𐌑. Yet you have the unmitigated temerity to mock me afterwards. So please, for the love of God, change it back to the correct 𐌆. As stated by wikipedia, 𐌆 is used for ts, which is the letter ś. The letter ś should ABSOLUTELY NOT be represented by 𐌑.

Good day. UtherPendrogn (talk) 16:22, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, you're wrong. 𐌆 is a different letter. Look at the inscriptions at Lexicon Leponticum. Granted, the letter transcribed ś looks a bit more like the rune ᛗ than like the rune ᛖ or the Latin letter M in most inscriptions, but in the Old Italic alphabet they're just allographs of the same glyph. 𐌑 is the correct Unicode character to use. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:57, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You're wrong. UtherPendrogn (talk) 17:08, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
*makes more popcorn* Keith the Koala (talk) 20:05, 18 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Pronunciation between parentheses ?[edit]

Many articles show pronunciation between parentheses, using a system seemingly different than IPA (e.g. թիթեռնիկ). Yet I see nothing relevant in Wiktionary:Pronunciation.

Which system does it refer to ? American phonetic alphabet ?

Skippy le Grand Gourou (talk) 08:46, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's transliteration/romanization. Click on the little easily-ignorable (and probably often-ignored) blue dot between "թիթեռնիկ" and "(tʿitʿeṙnik)" for an explanation of that language's transliteration system. —suzukaze (tc) 08:50, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, after reading that comment, I spent a minute looking for that dot before I found it. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 09:44, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Wow indeed… Please, somebody, change this presentation !
Thanks suzukaze. Skippy le Grand Gourou (talk) 09:51, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I too had no idea that the little raised dot between a non-Latin entry and its transliteration linked to the transliteration explanation page. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:16, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Hunh. An Easter egg. Would never have guessed that. --Hiztegilari (talk) 15:10, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
For reference, this behavior is defined in lines 299-301 of Module:headword. —JohnC5 15:52, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Near the end of the format_headword function in case line numbers change. --WikiTiki89 16:09, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Two Celtic questions[edit]

One wikitionary specific,the othet one out of curiosity.

-The Celts probably had a God for most natural features. I think we know of a mere twenty or so british deities, when there should be one per river, lake and mountain. Is it possible, based on the names of these features, to guess what the God(dess) may have been called? Like the river Leith in Scotland, could it come from the God Lleudd like the Thames comes from the Goddess Tamesis (or whatever the PC form is)? -Should we reconstruct some Pictish words? The attested ones give some infomation that could allow a basic reconstruction, with features like (as far as I can tell) k and kw > q notably (PC makkwos can be attested on Pictish stones as maqqo or the abbreviated (or different declension?) maqq. UtherPendrogn (talk) 16:28, 21 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Common Slavic words in etymologies[edit]

A lot of Romanian words mention Common Slavic words in etymologies. However, the language is variously called Proto-Slavic, Common Slavic or just Slavic and the words are unlinked (see blajin, bâtă and other words in Category:Romanian terms derived from Slavic languages for examples). How should these be formatted? I usually don't change them when I edit entries because I'm not sure how they should be treated. Redboywild (talk) 12:51, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

We call the language Proto-Slavic and its code is sla-pro. We write ŭ and ĭ as ъ and ь. —CodeCat 12:53, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Should the words be linked and have an asterisk? And is it okay if I leave the spelling as it is? I don't really know anything about Proto-Slavic. Redboywild (talk) 12:56, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
You should link with an asterisk, and fix those two letters. —CodeCat 12:59, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
See About Proto-Slavic. If you're really unable to figure out the spelling, you can convert what's there to the |tr= parameter in an empty link, such as {{m|sla-pro|tr=blažinŭ}} or {{der|ro|sla-pro|tr=blažinŭ}}. Actually, @Word dewd544 is the one who should have asked that question, so you wouldn't have had to. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:55, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I'll start using the standard templates and changing the two letters User:CodeCat mentioned and the ones listed at WT:ASLA#Notation, but I'm sure some mistakes will slip through. Maybe there should be an automatic check for disallowed characters that would mark the entry for attention. I could use the |tr= parameter, but then someone would have to add the proper spelling at some point, and I don't want to burden them with more work if most spellings are correct. Redboywild (talk) 15:11, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Entries for Japanese verb forms[edit]

Category:Japanese verb forms has 97 entries. How come we don't have a lot of entries for Japanese conjugations for every verb, like 歩きません, 歩いた and so on? Did we actively decide not to create these entries, or it's just that nobody bothered to do it yet? (and Category:Japanese adjective forms has 3 entries) --Daniel Carrero (talk) 19:26, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

User_talk:Suzukaze-c#Japanese_renyoukei might be relevant. (I for one am interested in seeing verb forms here...) —suzukaze (tc) 20:34, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

How to make Template:en-past of point to a particular etymology[edit]

For example, at wist:

Verb[edit]

  1. (archaic) simple past and past participle of wit

I want the en-past template to link to Etymology 2, the verb form of wit. Is that possible?

SmallRepair (talk) 20:17, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Mark the sense with {{senseid}}, and then give the id= parameter to {{en-past of}}. —CodeCat 20:22, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. That worked perfectly. SmallRepair (talk) 20:58, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Policy for adding words that I can't find in a public dictionary.[edit]

I want to add the word Alleleu, meaning "Irish English, rare, Originally and chiefly Irish English. Expressing distress, horror, surprise, etc." An example from Carlyle:

[H]e reels death-stricken; rushes to the pavement, scattering it with his blood and brains!—Alleleu!

But I can't find the definition in the Websters 1913 or TCD 1911, only from the above link. Can I not, therefore, add it? SmallRepair (talk) 21:08, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you have citations for a word, but can't actually figure out what it means, then you can place the citations on the citation page as usual, and then create the entry but use {{rfdef}} as the definition. This adds a request for a definition that someone else (or you, if you end up figuring it out) can fulfill later. —CodeCat 21:25, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I apologize for being a bit obtuse, but are you saying I can use the definition supplied by en.oxforddictionaries.com as long as a cite it, ala Wikipedia? SmallRepair (talk) 21:28, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
No, that would be a copyright violation. By citations I mean in the Wiktionary sense: examples of usage taken from WT:CFI-compliant sources. See Wiktionary:Citations for more info. I was under the impression that you already had some citations, like your example from Carlyle (that would be 1 of 3 citations needed for English). I thought you were merely unsure what to write as the definition of the word. That's why I suggested using {{rfdef}} as a placeholder. —CodeCat 21:32, 22 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

pindent[edit]

In an old book entitled The whole Body of Cookery dissected (1682) there is the following recipe. Any idea what pindent could be? (From the recipe, it seems to describe something like a fritter or pancake.)

How to make ſmall Pindents to fry for firſt Courſe.
Take one pint of Flour, and as much grated bread, eight Eggs, caſt away the whites, or five thereof, beat it to a thick batter, with Cream, Roſewater and Sack; ſeaſon it with beaten Cinamon, Ginger, Nutmeg and Mace, put to it a handful of parboyled Currans, and a handful of minced Marrow, if not Beef-ſuet, add Salt, then let your pan be hot with clarified Butter or ſweet ſuet, then drop it in by ſpoonfuls, and when they are fryed on both ſides, diſh them up on a diſh and plate, and ſcrape on ſugar: you may add a handful of ſugar to the batter. —Stephen (Talk) 09:19, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Here is a video of people making the recipe. They say they also tried to research the word and couldn't find it anywhere else but in that book. One of the guys looked to see if pendant had ever been used to refer to food, but couldn't find anything. They can't quite decide whether to consider them a type of pancake or a type of fritter, or just a cookie that's been fried rather than baked. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:41, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hindustani words for tribadism[edit]

Havelock Ellis, in his work, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 Sexual Inversion Chapter IV [2], has the following paragraph:

[..]the Hindustani language has five words to denote the tribade: (1) dúgáná, (2) zanàkhé, (3) sa'tar, (4) chapathái, and (5) chapatbáz.[..]sometimes a phallus, called saburah, is employed. The act itself is called chapat or chapti,[..]

I can find nothing about these words online. Supposedly the information was furnished to him by an "officer in the Indian Medical Service".

Can anyone tell me if these terms are real or if he simply made these up?--Auric (talk) 18:03, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think they are real words, probably in Urdu (Hindustani = either Urdu or Hindi). However, I don't think they are common words. Probably poetic, rare, possibly archaic. I thought dugana might be دوگنا. There would be no reason that I can think of to spell them with accents. Probably just dugana, zanakhe, sa'tar, chapathai, etc. —Stephen (Talk) 11:11, 27 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Translation Header lacking gloss[edit]

What does lacking gloss mean? Is it simply that there are insufficient translations? Page here DGunners (talk) 18:17, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The header of a translation table shows a short gloss indicating which particular sense of the word the translations are for. This message means that gloss is missing. —CodeCat 18:41, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you. I understand that it's automatically generated as a list, but are these strictly necessary where there is only one meaning definition given? DGunners (talk) 18:50, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
It's possible that more definitions will be added in the future. —CodeCat 18:53, 24 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Seyame[edit]

What's the established practise here for adding seyame (Syriac marks for indicating plurals)? Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 14:42, 26 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean what character (glyph) is used? Use u+0308 (combining diaerisis: ܪ + ̈ = ܪ̈). —Stephen (Talk) 10:11, 27 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Yep. The combining diaeresis (U+0308) can be typed on the standard Syriac keyboard for Windows with Shift+I (i.e. Shift+ܗ). Also note that this mark is automatically stripped in templated links ({{m|syc|ܡ̈ܠܟܐ}} links correctly as ܡ̈ܠܟܐ). --WikiTiki89 21:55, 27 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the replies. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 14:11, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Canopus entry[edit]

Where is the etymology for this? The entry is lacking any at all.

Chris68.99.228.123 16:58, 28 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean? There is an etymology section at the very top of the page. —Stephen (Talk) 07:06, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]