Wiktionary:Information desk/2021/February

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Where to explain the development of non-obvious figurative meanings?

I'm thinking of some slang terms where the meaning derives figuratively (but non-obviously - perhaps via metalepsis) from a more basic/concrete sense of the same term. For example:

• beat can refer to a face of makeup. Why? Via beat one's face.
• bicycle can refer to a promiscuous woman ("usually in compounds specifying a context"). Why? Via wordplay on double meaning of "ride".
• bacon can refer to the police. Why? By analogy with pig.
• lettuce can refer to money? Why? OED says "Probably with allusion to the green colour of U.S. banknotes."

In each case, we record the slang sense, but the part after the "Why?" is not recorded anywhere in our entries, even though it seems like useful and interesting information. And it's not clear to me whether there's an agreed upon proper place for it. I can think of three options:

1. Create a whole separate level-3 section with a separate etymology
2. Add a line or two at the end of the existing etymology section talking about the development of the figurative sense
3. Add a brief note to the definition itself. For example, for lettuce maybe this would look something like: "3. (uncountable, US, slang) United States paper currency; dollars. (Probably with allusion to the green colour of U.S. banknotes.)" (except not plagiarized from OED). For bacon, maybe it would be enough to just append (Compare pig.) to the definition?

1 seems pretty heavyweight/disruptive. 2 and 3 both seem okay to me. I would lean towards 3 if the development can be explained in just a few words, and 2 otherwise. But I don't think I've seen examples of this being done anywhere, so maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree.

(I tried searching discussion archives but didn't find much. This thread talks a bit about the "etymologies within etymologies" problem in the context of surnames. Wiktionary:Etymology#Glosses says "In some cases where the semantic development is not obvious, some explanatory comments may be useful. The more concise and efficient, the better.", though apparently that page is not an official guideline.) Colin M (talk) 08:14, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I lean toward 3 and if it's more complicated, use usage notes. Actually, I think 2 is correct: if you are looking for etymology, find it in the etymology section. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:34, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

This is certainly valuable information, and I want us to have it. I agree that 1 is heavyweight. 2 sounds good. I don't like 3. PUC – 09:07, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I add it to the etymology using the sense template, e.g. {{sense|money}} From the green colour of banknotes. Equinox ◑ 11:17, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

I would use option two. In some cases I feel understanding the association will help the reader appreciate the connotations, in which case option three. Definitely not option 1.__Gamren (talk) 01:23, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks all for the input. I've attempted to add notes on the development of the 4 examples I listed at the top, and will be mindful of other opportunities to do so in the future. Colin M (talk) 01:49, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

FWIW I agree with what's been said above, option 2 unless there's a reason to prefer 3, like that it's very short or makes more sense. I have seen both 2 and 3 in use, as in waffle (2) and lustro (3); revert does something like 3 except using a context label (perhaps it should be moved to the end as a {{q}}, though). - -sche (discuss) 05:28, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

@-sche Is revert a semantic loan from Arabic?__Gamren (talk) 20:40, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Strange, without even knowing the English usage, I would reckong it just اِرْتَدَّ (irtadda), which means the opposite – or is it a contranym? Now the gloss “to revert” at اِرْتَدَّ (irtadda) is suspect, @Roger.M.Williams. Fay Freak (talk) 20:58, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

It really hangs on the "state" to which one is said to "revert".

اِرْتَدَّ (irtadda) is a usual unaccusative of the transitive رَدَّ (radda, “to give or bring back; to return”), similarly to اِنْتَكَسَ (intakasa, “to become low, to lower”). The unaccusative thus occasionally means "to bounce back" (as of a ball), "to rush back" (as of someone in a hurry), "to pull back" (as a synonym of the unaccusative اِنْسَحَبَ (insaḥaba), whose semantic extension parallels that of "pull back"). The religious sense, however, implies treachery, hence backsliding, hence apostatizing, in the sense of "to revert to a previous false belief before Islam", perhaps by contrast with جَبَّ (jabba, “to slice off; to root out”), which is often used of Islam to refer to how converting (not reverting) to Islam "slices off" and "roots out" (that is, eradicates, hence purifies) all of one's misdeeds (similarly to repentance), and so "reverting" here would mean degeneration into what was once forgiven, not just "change". This connection also occurs in the Qur'an itself, as in اِرْتَدُّوا عَلَى أَدْبَارِهِم (translatable as "turned their backs"), similarly to نَكَصَ عَلَى عَقِبَيْه (translatable as "to run back or flee [from battle, hence from religious duty, hence from the religion itself] on one's heels") and يَنقَلِبُ عَلَى عَقِبَيْهِ (translatable as "switching [sides] on his heels), and also in مَن يَرْتَدَّ مِنكُمْ عَن دِينِهِ فَسَوْفَ يَأْتِي اللَّهُ بِقَوْمٍ يُحِبُّهُمْ وَيُحِبُّونَهُ ("Whoever drifts away from his religion, Allah shall bring another people whom He loves and who love Him [in his stead]"), which is likely how the negative association was reinforced.

I do not personally recall any verb overlapping with "reversion" that is commonly employed in Arabic to refer to conversion to Islam. The typical intransitive word is أَسْلَمَ (ʔaslama, “to submit; hence to submit to Allah”), whereas the transitive is usually دَعَا (daʕā, “to invite; to invite to become a believer; to invite to submit to Allah”). عَادَ (ʕāda, “to come back”), like the synonymous رَجَعَ (rajaʕa), suggests an apostate's return (or reverting) to Islam.

I imagine that this use of "revert" when referring to new converts merely familiarizes anglophone converts with the religious doctrine of the essentiality of Islam (or its being the religion of "human nature" فِطْرَة (fiṭra)) possibly akin to the broader use of reclaim. Still, the gloss "to revert" consists overall with the scope of the word's use, but it obviously needs to be distinguished from the other positive uses of "revert" in relation to Islam, which conflict with the condemnatoriness of اِرْتَدَّ (irtadda). Roger.M.Williams (talk) 23:07, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Same, option 2 has often been the the choice because being least intrusive and least loaded, and option 3 three for the same reason that we have introduced the {{syn}} family, that a reader does not have to look around and connect puzzle pieces, and even option two would be too loaded. Examples from me for 3: мизги́рь (mizgírʹ), broom (“gun”). Reads well, I think this is the way to go for figurative uses, to tell where the figure is. Fay Freak (talk) 20:41, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

@Fay Freak In мизгирь, I think it would be better to have the actual definition, "a spider in general", come first. So, something like "a spider in general (due to the Russian tarantula being so pestilent where it exists)".__Gamren (talk) 01:54, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

An example of option 1: pineapple § Etymology 2. J3133 (talk) 18:57, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm going to raise pineapple at WT:ES because I don't think it merits a separate etymology section; grenades (baseballs, etc) can also be called apples but this is handled with a sense of ety 1 of apple just fine. - -sche (discuss) 04:35, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

What does "express" (noun) mean here?

In a cocktail recipe: "Garnish with a lime wheel and a grapefruit express." We have no suitable noun sense, though there is the verb sense of expressing juice out of a fruit. Equinox ◑ 15:55, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

• A "squeezing" of the fruit juice. (I wouldn't bother) SemperBlotto (talk) 15:56, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

Lookup by transliteration

I feel sure that this must have been discussed, but I can't find anything. If I have a romanised form of a word in a language that uses a different script, is there a method provided for looking it up in Wiktionary? I half expected to find redirects from romanised forms, but I realise that would increase the size of the project, especially considering that in some cases there are multiple romanisations available. Having found there wasn't, I wondered if there was a tool to do it, but I don't know where to look (I tried WT:Romanization). --ColinFine (talk) 18:39, 5 February 2021 (UTC)

We do have romanization entries for some languages (see CAT:Romanizations by language), but not others. For some language/script combinations you can use {{chars}} to convert transliteration into the non-Roman script, but of course you have to be sure the transliteration is exactly the one used by Module:typing-aids, otherwise the native script won't be rendered correctly. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:58, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks, @Mahagaja:. That's a great piece of work, but presumably I can only use it on a page, not in the search field? So in order to use it to search for an entry that doesn't have a romanisation, I would have to edit the sandbox or somewhere, and Show preview, and then copy and paste out of that? Or is there something I'm missing?

Is there any reason why I shouldn't add romanization entries as I go, or do these have to be done in some organised fashion? Obviously I'd copy the structure and template use of existing entries. --ColinFine (talk) 13:31, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

@ColinFine:. It wouldn't have to be the sandbox; as long as you only hit "Show preview" and not "Publish changes" you could do it on any page at all, just be sure to hit "Cancel" afterwards. I wouldn't add romanizations for languages that don't already have them; in the past we have voted on adding Sanskrit romanizations and the proposal was voted down. So there has to be consensus for romanizations for any language. If you're searching for a specific word in a non-Latin script, and you already know what it should look like, it might just be easier to browse the relevant language's Lemmas category. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:42, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Looking up a lemma where I don't know the script

(This started as a reply to Mahagaja above, but it's turned into a bit of a rant, and it's really not directed at Mahagaja, so I've separated out as a new topic).

Mahagaja's suggestion (above) works for a script that I can work out: I got to ልጅ (ləǧ) (which I've asked about at WT:ES) that way. But what about when I can't read the script? Suppose I'm looking at Ungnad's Akkadian Grammar, which contains not a single cuneiform sign, and I want to look up a word from it? I find šarrum, and want to look at the entry. The only way I can think of to find it is to go to king/translations, and yes, 𒈗 happens to be there, so I can find the entry.

But now I notice that Ungnad says that batussu is a Late Assyrian form of batultu ("virgin"), and I wonder if that form is recorded in our entry. Have we an entry for the word? I can't tell. There is no Akkadian translation listed for virgin. (There's a Hittite one, but that seems to be written phonetically, so it's no help). I can look at Category:Akkadian lemmas, and even drill down to Category:Akkadian feminine nouns, and yes, there are only a dozen entries there for me to go and look at to see if one of them is batultu. This doesn't seem helpful or satisfactory to me. --ColinFine (talk) 21:46, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree that's unsatisfactory. AFAIK, Sumerian, Akkadian, and Hittite are all usually written in transliteration rather than in cuneiform in reference works, so I would definitely support adding romanizations for those three at least. (We do already have a fair number of Hittite romanizations, but none for Sumerian and Akkadian.) —Mahāgaja · talk 23:19, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

So, can I just go ahead and add some, or does this need to be discussed? Obviously, I'll base the entries on existing romanisations, and use the appropriate templates. --ColinFine (talk) 00:00, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

I support this, for cuneiform and honestly probably for pretty much every dead language that uses a now-obsolete script which is mostly encountered in romanized form in e.g. standard dictionaries and other academic publications (which is why I think it's good we have Gothic romanizations but Coptic romanizations seem less necessary). — Mnemosientje (t · c) 11:19, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

(For the record, I do prefer these romanizations to be soft redirects to the original-script lemma entry, as opposed to having the lemmas at the romanized entries.) — Mnemosientje (t · c) 11:38, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@ColinFine: I would discuss it a bit more. There seems to be a lot of opposition to the idea of creating romanization entries (Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2018-12/Allowing attested romanizations of Sanskrit, Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2018/January § Allowing IAST Romanisation entries for Sanskrit; I think we had a vote for Hittite and Akkadian as well - put forward by User:Tom 144 - but I can't find it). PUC – 11:32, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Ah, here's the vote I had in mind: Wiktionary:Votes/2019-05/Lemmatizing Akkadian words in their transliteration. PUC – 11:37, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

There's definitely opposition to adding romanizations of Sanskrit, and there's some opposition to making romanizations the main lemma forms for Akkadian, but there doesn't seem to be any particular opposition to adding romanizations of Akkadian that have no more content than "Romanization of XYZ" the way Gothic romanization entries do. But we could hold a vote if people think it's really necessary. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:11, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

So, where do we go from here? Can I add some Akkadian Romanisations (in the same way as the Gothic ones)? Or can't I? Or does it need a vote? (I looked at the conditions the other day, and I'm not entitled to vote in any case). --ColinFine (talk) 12:39, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

"budge the needle"

Hi! Tourist from enwiki here. I think budge the needle should point to move the needle. Would that be a good idea? (Where could I find someone to tell me if that's a good idea?) If so, how would I go about doing that? I assume, per WT:REDIR, that this shouldn't be an actual redirect. Thanks! Enterprisey (talk) 09:36, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

@Enterprisey: Correct: we generally don't use the redirect function in MediaWiki, including for alternative forms. Take a look at (e.g.) every rose has its thorn, where immediately at the beginning of the entry, the alternative form every rose has a thorn is given. At the latter, the definition just states that it's an alternative form, linking back to the more common wording. I'm happy to help you create the new entry for budge the needle but do you want to give it a crack yourself and see if you can make the entry yourself? Let me know if you need help. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:54, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Template help

Hi, I want to add the alternate forms babylonos (genitive) and babylona (accusative) to https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Babylon#Declension but it uses {{la-ndecl}} and I'm not sure how to? NPalgan2 (talk) 17:15, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

@Benwing2 — There are more examples where we need alternate forms; e.g., Dēlos also has, next to Greek-style Dēlon, an alternative Latin-style accusative Dēlum.^[1] The template has an undocumented notion of “alternants” seen at work in the ablative singular of the declension of pars; I could not figure out how to use this for this task.  --Lambiam 14:55, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Request to change another user's username due to bad faith

Hi there. I've noticed this user: User:Razorflame 129893 RFAs has registered on this site and I would like to request that the username be changed to something else, as the account was clearly made in bad faith and was done in a demeaning and insulting way. In terms of where I was going to put this, I was not exactly sure which discussion room this fit under, but I decided on this one since it is a specific request for assistance. Thank you in advance, Razorflame 18:46, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

That account is globally blocked and has not been registered or edited here. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:58, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

@Koavf: Thanks, I didn't notice that or know that. Might have to go over the Meta to ask for a global rename then. Razorflame 19:00, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Latin r allophones

I am just curious, I noticed there is now a tap allophone. What is its distribution? Dngweh2s (talk) 19:25, 11 February 2021 (UTC)

Wow, this is crazy. This guy is doing it again

https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=%D1%80%D1%83%D1%81%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9&oldid=prev&diff=61816614

Can you explain this to me? He just reverts my stuff. I show where the word "Russian" is used in a non-colloquial sense, and he just reverts it? Is he a troll? A power trip? What's going on? — This unsigned comment was added by Moyprofile (talk • contribs) at 03:38, 14 February 2021 (UTC).

The entry itself explains it all. User:Tetromino did a good job of providing the information. We present here a neutral point of view, which covers both the nationalistic, colloquial on one side and politically correct on the other side. No-one stops you from using the word in the sense you want but don't spread your nationalistic bullshit into dictionaries. If you want to try your luck, go to the Russian Wiktionary, see what happens. If you persist on doing what you did before, you will be blocked. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:46, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Nationalistic bullshit? My position is anti-nationalistic. What does it have to do with my usage of the word. This word is used in non-colloquial sense. Moyprofile (talk) 03:48, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

The fuck is going on here? Did he call me a nationalist? The Russian Geographic Society uses this word. Moyprofile (talk) 03:50, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

To use this word in nationalistic sense is to imply that this word refers only to Slavic people but it's used in a larger sense and in non-colloquial sense. My position is anti-nationalistic if you want to go there. Moyprofile (talk) 03:54, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm genuinely confused how this threatening asshole is allowed to be a moderator here. I'm not sure how Wikipedia works. Can you explain? — Moyprofile (talk) 07:06, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

The above user is blocked for one month but I am not sure it's sufficient. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:13, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

@Atitarev, Chuck Entz: I will not undo your block, as is my policy, but I find this inappropriately long. Moyprofile has not really edit-warred (only reversed you once), so the personal attack above is really the only valid cause for a block. In fact, they justified their position with evidence (in edit summaries), which you have simply ignored. Furthermore, as the involved administrator, you should avoid any semblance of abuse by not making long blocks to solve your own content conflicts. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:19, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: The edit-warring and pushing the point of view started in May 2020. Moyprofile has come back to continue what he did then.

In modern Russian, there is a clear-cut difference between (using adjectives only for simplicity of the discussion) ру́сский (rússkij) and росси́йский (rossíjskij), even though they both are translated as "Russian" into English. And the current entry makes it explicit and explains that in detail. There is no controversy. Some people, even organisations may deliberately choose "русский" when they refer to the whole Russian state, rather than to use "российский". I have even incorporated some of their examples into the entry. Our dictionary should not mislead people into believing that it's OK to use "русский" in cases when it's not appropriate, that's why the use of labels is appropriate.

It's not an attack only, it's multiple insults an insult. Yes, I am involved and I blocked Moyprofile for Unacceptable conduct, even though it's not the only reason.

I can answer questions regarding proper labelling and use of examples but I am not going to reduce the block and I don't think he will come back reformed. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:33, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

It is appropriate to block a user for insults and personal attacks, but I question if it is wise if the blocking admin is the recipient of the attack; it can easily be perceived as a retaliation. Also, “your nationalistic bullshit” sounds to me as an insult/personal attack as well.  --Lambiam 15:42, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

“your nationalistic bullshit” is an assessment of their actions, not a personal attack. "troll", "power trip", "threatening asshole" are insults. The extended block is the continuation of the initial one-week block after insistent edit-warring and pushing controversial contents. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:22, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

I mean, "power trip" is also an assessment of your actions. It's a negative assessment, with a reasonable likelihood to cause insult. But so is "your nationalistic bullshit". Not seeing a difference in kind. This does seem like a really sketchy series of blocks. I don't have the necessary context to judge the content issue here, but just looking at the edit history, it seems like Atitarev jumped immediately to an assumption of bad faith, banned Moyprofile without warning for 'edit warring' after they performed a single revert, and repeatedly reverted Moyprofile's edits without explanation. Not a good look. Colin M (talk) 04:02, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

I think it's worth noting that Atitarev seemingly did something very similar just a month ago. They blocked a jp editor for "vandalism" for edits which were obviously in good faith and which other jp editors seemed to generally approve of. In the latter beer parlour thread, we again see other admins describing the ban as excessive, and inappropriate given that it was over a content dispute in which Atitarev was personally involved. The user involved hasn't made any edits since their ban expired. It's concerning to think that a productive contributor may have been driven away from the project because of this. Colin M (talk) 20:09, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

@Atitarev, Moyprofile I don't have any background knowledge to determine which of you is right, but all I see is two editors in disagreement; Moyprofile seems to have acted, as far as I've seen, in good faith, and provided quotations in an attempt to support their claim. The block seems inappropriate, and I've lifted it. As far as I can understand, Atitarev claims that the term is only used colloquially in the sense "citizen of Russia", while Moyprofile claims that it is also used in a non-colloquial context. Are all the quotes that Moyprofile supplied colloquial? Is it possible that there are certain circles that take the distinction more seriously than general society, so that something may seem overly "lax" without being intended to?__Gamren (talk) 01:42, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

@Gamren:: So, you think it's OK to unilaterally undo fellow administrators blocks? The block was justified, even if the "block does not seem well-justified" to you in your unblock summary. It's about the proper labelling, not the quotations. The quotations are included by me and User:Tetromino. I recommned you to restore the block. The reasoning for the block was:

1. Pushing the original controversial opinion, which is nationlistic, even if the user claims he is not. He refused to discuss and reverted. That's why the original one-week block.
2. He came back to continue the same, reverted my edit with the explanation, knowing very well his edit was controversial. Instead of discussing, he started insulting me.
3. The issue is sensitive and should not be handled lightly by outside parties without any background on the topic. You, @Gamren, apparently, don't have that background. FYI, Yeltsin when he became the president, was ridiculed just for using the term россия́не (rossijáne) to address ALL citizens of Russia. It was a nationlistic point of view that everybody should be called ру́сские (rússkije) regardless of ethnicity, which can and is offensive to Russian minorities, even if not all minorities think that way.

Controversial edits should be discussed first, not pushed by edit-warring and insulting. Me and Tetromino have made it as neutral as possible and using ру́сский (rússkij) instead of росси́йский (rossíjskij) in modern non-colloquial Russian is not neutral and innocent, it requires careful consideration. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:08, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

In the absense of anyone openly supporting it or agreeing with it, yes, I think lifting a block is no less acceptable than placing it. Taking action earlier does not grant you primacy.

1. You dismiss their claim as a controversial opinion, but a controversy, by definition, has more than one side. Thus, you're probably also "pushing" a controversial opinion, although you may feel as though you're not.
2. You also state that they refused to discuss, but my impression is that you are the one who refused to discuss, by dismissing their claim as being in bad faith. Insults aren't grounds for blocking.
3. You are right that I don't know anything about Russian. I wrote so myself.

I'll write a section on BP to get some more opinions on this.__Gamren (talk) 13:54, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

@Gamren: What @Atitarev is stating about the labeling is correct. Using "русский" instead of "российский" isn't neutral, and may even be condescending, as it basically replaces the country (Russia) by the people (Russians), even though Russia consists of a plurality of other peoples. I cannot judge whether the block was appropriate or not, since I'm not very familiar with the customs related to this, but I agree that such topic should be discussed with care. Thadh (talk) 14:29, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

I think that the colloquial or historical label are correct, but the ban was not. The nineteenth-century was the peak of nationalism and saying that something was Russian (like the Russian Geographic Society given in the example) or French or English was an attempt at statemaking through the process of erasure of vast intranational differences. However, the purpose of this dictionary is not to pass judgement on words or their usages, but to accurate describe their meaning. At minimum, this should have been brought to RFV. I don't think that Anatoli T. acted appropriately and that we need a policy to prevent administrators from banning users when they are involved in content disputes without community consensus. Administrator who violate this policy should have their admin privileges temporarily or permanently revoked based on the circumstances and past history. Languageseeker (talk) 14:56, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Since no-one has mentioned it yet, I'd like to point out that Atitarev reinstated the block about an hour after Gamren lifted it. On Wikipedia, this would be called wheel warring and is considered unacceptable ("With very few exceptions, once an administrative action has been reverted, it should not be restored without consensus.") I don't know if a similar rule is codified here, but it seems like it should be common sense. Colin M (talk) 21:39, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

@Atitarev I don't think administrators should be handing out long term blocks over content disputes they are involved in. Have an uninvolved administrator look at the case if you think the block should last more than a couple days, or raise the issue in the Tea Room to get a community decision on how a word should be defined. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 17:16, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

My take on this is that the user in question made the edits knowing that they would probably be reverted if anyone noticed. Also knowing that the distinction isn't obvious to those who aren't familiar with the language, they tried as hard as they could to feign surprise that anyone would disagree with them, and to complain about being persecuted as publicly as possible, following the principle "if you can't beat 'em, get 'em in trouble". They definitely deserved to be blocked.

That said, the length of the block and the discussion surrounding it are a textbook example of what not to do in a content dispute. @Atitarev let his irritation get the better of him, and thereby made the accuser seem far more credible than they would have if he had handled it better.

Anatoli may not be aware of it, but it's now possible to block an account only from editing certain entries, or certain namespaces. Blocking the accuser from editing the entry or from mainspace, or limiting the block to a few days, then responding with the kind of clear, neutral explanation that @Thadh gave would have put the focus on the edits, rather than on Anatoli. It would have gone a long way toward showing the accuser's actions for what they were.

I would recommend a shorter full block- perhaps short enough to have expired by now- followed by a narrower block on editing the entry in question or at most mainspace. That will give us time to discuss rationally whether a longer or permanent sitewide block is in order. But first I would like there to be consensus on the block so we don't have things seesawing back and forth. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:44, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

This is very weird that he continues to abuse me with the nationalism allegations. How can I interpret it in a normal way? Is it a sort of a 'small talk' from an administrator? I feel very bad. If he doesn't troll me than what is it? I think he knows that I'm a minority.

I've read multiple times that Russian nationalists disagree that all people can use the word "Russian" to refer to themselves. How can he not know that if he's interested in this topic? Thank you for supporting words, @Lambiam, Metaknowledge, Colin_M, Gamren. Guys, I have just two questions, I read Russian every day and of course I see non-colloquial, non-historic usage of the adjective "Russian" as a reference to the Russian state, it's ubiquitous. For example, I youtube searched the word 'Pythagorean' in Russian and found the lecture by a PhD, a professor and a dean of Русская христианская гуманитарная академия ― Russkaja xristianskaja gumanitarnaja akademija ― Russian christian humanitarian academy, an officially accredited higher education institution https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXKCY31I_rc The usage is not historic because it was founded in 1989.

1. Am I allowed to add this information to wiktionary? I don't want anything to do with this guy. Every time he abuses me I feel bad, I feel stressed, I sweat at armpits.

2. What would it mean that 'Rossiyskaya' instead of 'Russkaya' would be a 'more precise' synonym here? It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't sound like a scientific descriptive language either.

I think we should build dictionaries on lexical definitons. 'Lexical' as in describing the way people use their words en masse. — Moyprofile (talk) 04:46, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

If you simply google русский или российский ("russian or russian") you'll find numerous sites that explain the difference in both Russian and English. The fact that the user chose to ignore this does not favour them. Calling it nationalistic is simply wrong, since it's the opposite.

Now, as I said before, the labelling is correct (since there is no "inappropriate" as a label); The sense as given by @Moyprofile may be used colloquially or even nationalistically, but it's both incorrect and borderline offensive. The fact the user keeps digging up some vague quotes (for example, the last one - "Russian christian humanitarian academy" is an academy whose - I'm quoting ru.Wikipedia on this - "educational concept's characteristic lies in the recognition of the history and basics of christianity as the essential part of humanitarian education"; the word "русская" is probably used like in РПЦ) gives me the impression they are a native speaker, since I couldn't otherwise explain the motivation behind explicitly wanting the term to be used inappropriately. Thadh (talk) 06:59, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

If the term is used with an inappropriate sense in a sufficient number of instances in permanently recorded media, we should record this sense. A usage note may then be a better vehicle than a label for signalling the issue, allowing us to expound it and explain the contrast with российский.  --Lambiam 17:49, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

The reverted edits didn't add anything, they just removed all the labels to make it look like the usage in question is standard. This should be explained better, but the reverted edits were exactly the wrong way to address that. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:12, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

@Moyprofile: I note that the Russian Geographical Society (In the Soviet Union, it was called the All-Union Geographical Society) was created in the Russian Empire. Then only the ruling class could call itself Russian. The majority of the population of the Russian Empire had an archaic semi-feudal consciousness, that is, these are peasants who were not involved in capitalist life, and their national self-identification tended to zero. They did not have a Russian national consciousness. Even the propaganda of wars in the Russian Empire did not use nationalist slogans for the peasants. For example, instead of a war against the French (Napoleon), the propaganda of the Russian Empire used a war against Satan. For the peasant, there was no difference between a Frenchman and a non-Frenchman or Russianman — the peasants had no linguistic difference. This applied to all the peasants of the Russian Empire.

You must have heard this expression from the peasants in the First World War: We are Tambov people, a German will not reach us. It is for this period that the semantics must be refined… Already under the Bolsheviks, in the 1920s, a national consciousness began to form among the peasants of various outskirts of the Soviet Union. For example, it was the Bolsheviks who released 31.5 million volumes of Pushkin's works in the years 36-37 alone. Thanks to such measures, consciousness of the peasants begins and forms. In other Soviet Republics it happened faster. However, you forget about other nationalities of the bourgeois Russian Federation, which by the 90s had already taken shape in the Russian SFSR.

That is why, in my opinion, it is necessary to distinguish between these phenomena in two special words: All-Russian people < Tatar people, Russian people, etc. and Russian people. However, it is worth distinguishing between the upper (ruling) class and the lower (oppressed) class. Other actions will simplify the real and complex picture. So @Thadh's remarks are good. Gnosandes (talk) 18:08, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

De and het nouns in Dutch

Hello, I'm currently learning Dutch and I started checking Wiktionary for it and, correct me if I'm wrong, there's no information on noun pages whether a noun uses definite articles de or het. If that's the case, could that be discussed and eventually added to pages? Thank you very much! – Ricci «T | C» 23:07, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

@Muriloricci: You are wrong; all Dutch noun entries are marked for gender, just like in every other gendered language. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:13, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: Hm, I always hear genders are not really a thing for Dutch nouns, from Dutch themselves, and academy books in general tend to not mention them at all since and "you should memorise de/het usage" instead. But anyways, I'll inform myself better. And great to see you're still around, we used to chat some years ago. :) – Ricci «T | C» 23:19, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

@Muriloricci: I'm always around, feel free to send me a message! As for Dutch, their gender system is falling apart, so that probably makes sense from a paedagogic perspective, but the language does still have three genders... at least when Belgians speak it. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:35, 15 February 2021 (UTC)

To be more explicit, the articles follow from the gender and number. If the gender is given as n (neuter gender), the article used for the singular form is het. In all other cases (masculine, feminine, common, plural) the article is de. The distinction extends to demonstrative pronouns (e.g. dit versus deze), and can be seen in the inflection of adjectives following indeterminate determiners (e.g. “het aandeel” → “een groot aandeel” versus “de aandacht” → “een grote aandacht”). The erosion of the m–f distinction is also seen in Belgian Dutch: “Elke regeling [officially a feminine word] heeft zijn voor- en nadelen.”^[2] The distinction is more tenacious in regional lects, also in some southern parts of the Netherlands.  --Lambiam 00:08, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

It's overall more of a Southern vs. Northern distinction than a BE/NL distinction, but even in the northern parts of the Netherlands there are formal registers where the distinction between feminine and masculine is relevant. And three-way gender is still preserved in a large number of fossilised expressions. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 19:39, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

allerergst

Should words such as allerergst (Dutch superlative with an emphasizing aller- in front) be marked simply as a superlative (like it is now), or should it be marked like an intensified superlative (for example allerbesten)? If the latter, what's the best way to do it using the nl-adj template? Rectangular potential (talk) 17:06, 17 February 2021 (UTC)

Classifying allerergst as a superlative raises the immediate question: a superlative of what? What is its positive degree? There is no such adjective as *allererg. Conclusion, a tentative analysis as allererg +‎ -st is an incorrect rebracketing of aller- +‎ ergst.  --Lambiam 14:18, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I think we're in agreement about the etymology of the word: ergst is the superlative of erg. My understanding of aller- is that it adds emphasis to superlatives. So when I suggest calling allerergst a superlative, I'm suggesting that it's a superlative of erg with aller- as an added emphasis. Is your point that it should be regarded as not a superlative but entirely its own word? Rectangular potential (talk) 15:26, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes. A superlative, in the grammatical sense of a degree of comparison, is the superlative of some adjective. Since there is no adjective whose superlative is allerergst, it is not a superlative.  --Lambiam 15:55, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Sounds good. I updated the entry for allerergst to hopefully reflect this better. Rectangular potential (talk) 16:22, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

We probably want to use a template for this (rather than glossing individual aller- words "absolute Xst", "very Xst", etc), since there are many such words. I see German allerbest uses {{inflection of|de|gut||intensified|superlative}} + a gloss, which works. - -sche (discuss) 01:02, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

It looks like the exact equivalent of English of all: "the best of all", "the worst of all", etc. English uses a prepositional phrase due to loss of genitive endings and adds it at the end, but otherwise it's the same. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:46, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

As I experience the sense, German aller- is really merely an intensifier of what is already a (usually hyperbolic) superlative. A better English equivalent may be in the world, as used in “you are the sweetest boy in the world”, which (to me) invites less of a comparison with the items in some actual collection than the intensifying qualifier of all.  --Lambiam 17:37, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Is linking terms to Wikidata prohibited ? ("Postcolonialism")

A newbie question. On wikidata I linked to wiktionary on "Postcolonialism", after reading a Wiktionary discussion on December 2020 where somebody asked about linking Lexeme. I suppose we are not prohibited/warned against linking terms to wikidata. Or are we? Which page would you point me to understand how far a wiktionary entry be linked to wikidata please? --Omotecho (talk) 05:35, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

There is {{Wikidata entity link}} and {{wikidatalite}} but they aren't used much at the moment. There is also some (indirect) linking via some uses of {{senseid}}. – Jberkel 09:36, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

Difference of {{der}} and {{bor}}

From time to time I use either of these two, and I do not remember which one I used. Isn't derived the same as borrowed?

In this way, my entries are getting split into two categories, one from which there are borrowed terms, and one from which there are derived terms. Is this okay, or should I convert all of the borrowed terms into derived terms or vice versa?

Thanks! BrightSunMan (talk) 11:53, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

See Template:borrowed for some notes about the difference. Equinox ◑ 12:07, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

A borrowing should be contrasted with an inherited word. For example, English is the descendant of Middle English, so Middle English words that survive into modern times are considered inherited. A word that falls out of use and is subsequently reintroduced, like wyrm, are considered borrowings. "Derived" includes both of these cases.

Also, {{bor}} is only used for the most immediate case of borrowing. So, for example, Greenlandic sukkulaat is borrowed from Danish, and derived (not borrowed!) from Spanish. Likewise, the Danish word is borrowed from Spanish, and derived from Nahuatl.__Gamren (talk) 14:11, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Perhaps, rather than deleting WT:Etymology, that page could be updated and extended with a clear exposition of when to use which of the more common etymology templates, illustrated with explanatory examples.  --Lambiam 16:59, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Trient / Trient- / Triene / Triene-

Thanks to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeral_prefix, we know that the prefix for one-third (1/3) is "trient".

1.) Is it "trient" or "trient-"? 2.) Is it "trientmeter, trient-meter, trientemeter, trient-emeter, trientimeter, trient-imeter, trienemeter or triene-meter, when referencing one-third (1/3) of a meter?

Personally, I like: 1.) "trient" because the hyphen does not change the search results when searching online. 2.) trientimeter because it is the best parallel to centimeter, sounds legit when you speak it outloud, and is easier to pronounce than the other options.

Does the world agree that my personal preference is correct? If I am not correct, what is correct?

Thank you in advance! — This unsigned comment was added by Liny2sd (talk • contribs) at 19:07, 20 February 2021 (UTC).

It does make sense, being the stem of Latin triens, yet I’ve never seen any actual use of trient- as a prefix, and I bet this was dredged up from a list in some obscure source. In this context I do not know what it means for a personal preference to be correct. My personal preference is to have my tea without milk; is my preference correct?  --Lambiam 17:27, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

To say much the same thing as Lambiam, a prefix trient(V)- looks formally valid but appears to be very rare; the only use I have spotted of trient-, trienti-, triente- or trienta- as a prefix is in Henry John Roby's old (1800s) Grammar of the Latin Language from Plautus to Suetonius, which takes trientabulum (an attested word, although we don't have an entry for it yet) to be a confix using trienti-. Thomas Hewitt Key's 1800s Latin Grammar also mentions the prefix trienti-. For combining with meter I too would expect trienti- on the model of the other prefix that has a stem ending in -nt(v)-, centi, as you say. - -sche (discuss) 10:27, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Since trientabulum is an attested word in Latin,^[3] if attested as English it is a loan, so we would not analyze it as being formed with an English prefix. As a Latin term, I think a more likely analysis is as triens +‎ -(a)bulum.  --Lambiam 15:55, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, sorry, that's what I mean; Roby and Key take it to be a prefix in Latin. I would infer that the prefix, if used in English, would have the same stem (not dropping the t as in OP's last two examples in the header). (Roby strangely uses "-bulo" as the lemma form of the suffix, but it's surely -bulum, the form we lemmatize.) - -sche (discuss) 10:26, 23 February 2021 (UTC)

My userpage

I'm a rather active user on Wikipedia. Many times I've tried to create a local user page here, but I am always stopped by an edit filter. I am sure it is in good faith – it is to prevent link spammers – but all I want to do is provide a link to my Wikipedia user page. Can an admin please do it for me? Chicdat (talk) 12:02, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

@Chicdat Use an interwiki link, like [[w:User:Surjection|link text here]]. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 14:23, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! Chicdat (talk) 11:26, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

My illustrations removed. I need official guidance.

I believed I was doing relevant images to illustrate the words. 6 edits were removed by Jberkel. Contrary to what he suggests, I wasn't just taking image caption and adding it to all words. I used two different captions, and only added it to the most relevant words. Below is the gallery of removed illustrations with captions (boldened word is the Wiktionary entry I used it for).

• 
  Equestrian tourism is a fast growing sector of active recreation.
• 
  Equestrian tourism is a fast growing sector of active recreation.
• 
  Equestrian tourism is a fast growing sector of active recreation.
• 
  Horseback tour in Iceland was the adventure of a lifetime.
• 
  Horseback tour in Iceland was the adventure of a lifetime.
• 
  Horseback tour in Iceland was the adventure of a lifetime.

The only one that may have been overkill was lifetime. Maaaybe active is not 100% perfect as well, but I made sure to put it to #5 definition, which seemed to apply here. Do you believe that the images don't depict tourism, recreation, adventure and horseback?

I'm a beginner in Wiktionary (with experience in two Wikipedias, and Commons), so I'm asking for guidance. Should I, or should I not add images illustrating words?

--Tupungato (talk) 12:36, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Unofficially, I would tell you based on my experience that it is hard to say exactly when images are an appropriate part of Wiktionary. It's just not clearly defined and its hard to make the rules for images. I would suggest that the most important thing is to do your best and not worry about it too much if images get deleted, because it's a grey area. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 12:44, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Personally, I'd say horseback is the only article where such images make sense, but even there I'd prefer a photo that's zoomed in closer, so that horse and rider can be seen even in the thumbnail. The image already at horseback is much better. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:58, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

I know that it's difficult to illustrate active and recreation, but it's these words that (in my opinion) actually need an illustration most. Of course, looking at a photo of a horse riding group, it's not obvious what's going on. But I hoped that with caption supplementing the context, it served the illustration purpose. It's easy to illustrate a duck, but it's not necessarily the illustration actually needed by potential language learner. --Tupungato (talk) 13:44, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

These images are poor illustrations of those words, which are abstract enough that they probably don't need illustrations at all. Remember: English Wiktionary is written in English, and therefore is not intended for use by basic English learners. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 17:19, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

I agree with what others have said. If you really want to improve entries by adding pictures, I think it would be more effective to start from the word and seek out the best image for it (from all that's available on Commons), rather than starting from one of your own photos and seeking out entries that you can add it to. For example, I see you added one of your horseback photos to tour. But Commons has a whole Tours category (with further subcategories like "Guided tours"). Are you sure that out of the hundreds of images there, there isn't one that would be an even clearer, more archetypal depiction of a tour? What about this? Or this (perhaps with a bit of cropping)? Or this? Colin M (talk) 06:17, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

For "active" and "lifetime" I think the image has hardly any relevance at all. Equinox ◑ 13:18, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

If I saw images and context like this, I might easily mistake you for one of several types of image vandals:

1. Spammers. I could see how an Icelandic tour operator would try to sneak a picture of one of their tours into any entry they could find an excuse for. All they have to do is take a sentence or two from one of their ads and they have a list of words they can add images to: Enjoy scenic grandeur in the Icelandic countryside. Fun for people of all ages.
2. Fetishists: we've had vandals who got off on surprising people with images of things like dusty ceiling fans and dead bodies. This isn't the kind of topic I'd associate with that, but then I wouldn't have predicted the ceiling-fan fixation, either.
3. Signature vandals: these folks just want to show off their vandalism skills. They choose some sort of detail as a calling card, and incorporate it into every edit so you know they were there- sort of like a dog peeing on things to mark its territory.
4. Self-promoters: before Instagram, there used to be people who would invite unsuspecting friends, family, and random strangers over to bore them with hours of slides showing every minute detail of their latest vacation. Then there are those who want everyone to see what a great photographer they allegedly are. There was one person that insisted on inserting what seemed like near-life-size dog pictures they had taken, even galleries of several- you really had to scroll around to find the entry. I'm not sure if they were showing off their pets or their photography skills, but it got old real fast.

You do not want me to mistake you for one of those, because the first three get reverted, blocked, and everything in the revision histories gets hidden. The last generally get a chance to explain themselves after the first revert, and it only goes further if they persist against consensus or refuse to communicate. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:10, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Removing requests pages

This requests page is now cleared up. Should I request to delete it or leave it as is? Thanks! BrightSunMan (talk) 13:15, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Just leave it. Bots will periodically delete empty request categories and recreate them as needed, but no human time need be wasted on that. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:35, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

"English possessive determiners"

add "yourn"? — This unsigned comment was added by 74.72.57.38 (talk) at 22:47, 28 February 2021 (UTC).

Do you have a citation? I don't know this word. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:43, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

It's a dialectal form of yours. We already have an entry for it at yourn; it just wasn't in the category CAT:English possessive pronouns until I added it just now. (CAT:English possessive determiners is for forms equivalent to your, not forms equivalent to yours.) —Mahāgaja · talk 07:29, 1 March 2021 (UTC)