Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

Wiktionary > Requests > Requests for deletion

Wiktionary Request pages (edit) see also: discussions
Requests for cleanup add new | history | Archives Cleanup requests, questions and discussions.	Requests for verification add new | history | archives | Index Verification and GENERAL DELETION nominations and discussion.	Requests for deletion add new | history | archives Deletion for policy problems; request listings, questions and discussions.	Requests for deletion/Others add new | history Special page deletion requests, questions and discussions.
{{rfc-case}} - {{rfc-cjkv}} - {{rfc-trans}} - {{rfdate}} - {{rfd-redundant}} - {{rfdef}} - {{rfe}} - {{rfex}} - {{rfap}} - {{rfp}} - {{rfphoto}} - {{rfr}}

All Wiktionary: namespace discussions 1 2 3 4 5 - All discussion pages 1 2 3 4 5

Scope: This page is for requests for deletion of pages, entries and senses in the main namespace for a reason other than that the term cannot be attested. One of the reasons for posting an entry or a sense here is that it is a sum of parts, such as "brown leaf".

Out of scope: This page is not for requests for deletion in other namespaces such as "category:" or "template:", for which see Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Others. It is also not for requests for attestation. Blatantly obvious candidates for deletion should only be tagged with {{delete|Reason for deletion}} and not listed.

Adding a request: To add a request for deletion, place the template {{rfd}} or {{rfd-sense}} to the questioned entry, and then make a new nomination here. The section title should be exactly the wikified entry title such as "[[brown leaf]]". The deletion of just part of a page may also be proposed here. If an entire section is being proposed for deletion, the tag {{rfd}} should be placed at the top; if only a sense is, the tag {{rfd-sense}} should be used, or the more precise {{rfd-redundant}} if it applies. In any of these cases, any editor including non-admins may act on the discussion.

Closing a request: Requests are archived when a decision to delete, keep, or transwiki has been reached, or after the request has expired. The deleting administrator should remember to sign.

Time and expiration: Entries and senses should not be deleted in less than seven days after nomination. When there is no consensus after some time, the template {{look}} should be added to the bottom of the discussion. If there is no consensus for more than a month, the entry should be kept as a 'no consensus'.

---

Good nomination guidelines - Page deletion guidelines - Overview of the deletion process - List of deletion templates, categories, etc.

Oldest tagged {{rfd}}s

cooperation take time BOMDAS island chain wind up one's bottoms blow one's chances not a zack good job bent as a two bob take a shot forearm bone degree of glory home side in back of two-wheeled waiting あるいて 歩いて rice noodle pull my finger dative of purpose soil pollution t̼ BitTorrent grenader NMEA 0183 local history harrowing of hell cadre party industry what the Sam Hill assume the position Bryce Canyon 智慧道 silver jubilee periodic structure and so on and so forth façon de parler faire savoir signalling event accutje accutjes have a blast witness panel pyow Sav Kasabası 班达亚齐 世界上最古老的职业 all to pieces paternal half brother

Contents 1 August 2009 1.1 queer one's pitch 1.2 wind up one's bottoms 1.3 not a zack 1.4 bent as a two bob 1.5 take a shot 1.6 forearm bone 1.6.1 forearm bones 1.7 home side 1.8 two-wheeled 2 September 2009 2.1 あるいて, 歩いて 2.2 striscie 2.3 pull my finger 2.4 dative of purpose 2.5 soil pollution 2.6 t̼ 2.7 BitTorrent 2.8 grenader 2.9 NMEA 0183 2.10 sjagerijnig 2.11 sjagerijn 3 October 2009 3.1 local history 3.2 harrowing of hell 3.3 cadre party 3.4 island chain 3.5 industry 3.6 what the Sam Hill 3.7 Bryce Canyon 3.8 cooperation 3.9 silver jubilee 3.10 periodic structure 3.11 and so on and so forth 3.12 façon de parler 3.13 faire savoir 3.14 signalling event 3.15 accutje 3.16 accutjes 3.17 user-generated 3.18 have a blast 3.19 witness panel 3.20 pyow 3.21 Sav Kasabası 3.22 Romanian language 3.22.1 French language 3.22.2 Italian language 3.22.3 Spanish language 3.22.4 Arabic language 3.22.5 Russian language 3.22.6 Danish language 3.22.7 Dutch language 3.22.8 Hebrew language 3.22.9 Swedish language 3.22.10 Non-redirects 3.23 all to pieces 3.24 paternal half brother 3.25 אל שדי 4 November 2009 4.1 世界上最古老的职业 4.2 nickel and dime 4.3 baapaashkizige-giizhigad 4.4 traditional Chinese medicine 4.5 கிழக்கு மேற்கு எம்ஆர்டி வழி 4.6 Pokémon 4.6.1 Pokemon 4.6.2 Digimon 4.7 Siralun 4.8 Session Bean 4.9 carnival 4.10 no biggie 4.11 look back 4.12 domesticated animal 4.13 hockey puck 4.14 call on 4.15 lelietje van dalen 4.16 acceleration due to gravity 4.17 ever so 4.18 you suck 4.19 three hundred 4.20 give back 4.20.1 buy back 4.21 aerial photograph 4.22 fire off 4.23 look down 4.24 online game 5 December 2009 5.1 snavigator 5.2 live blog 5.3 rolling 5.4 mais oui 5.4.1 bah non 5.4.2 que si 5.5 bdelloid rotifer 5.6 killing me softly 5.7 kill off 5.8 break in the case 5.9 alone 5.10 go out with 5.11 make a fool of oneself 5.12 buttwoman 5.13 brivet 5.14 little girl 5.15 to that end 5.15.1 to this end 5.16 little boy 5.17 Daidiao Pinyin, etc 5.17.1 Shengdiao Shuzi 5.17.2 Shijieyu yundong 5.17.3 Wudiao Pinyin 5.18 zΩ 5.19 ZΩ 5.20 well 5.21 anal fisting 5.22 ex-stepfather 5.23 oncle paternel 5.24 be in possession 5.25 tahash 5.26 bend the truth 5.27 bring it on 5.27.1 bring it on#Interjection 5.28 Gogol 5.29 blow 5.30 a good man is hard to find 5.31 a different ballpark 5.32 a drop in the bucket 5.33 a drop in the ocean 5.34 amazing 5.34.1 amazing#Adjective 5.34.2 amazing#Noun 5.35 quadrillion 5.36 -ass 5.37 take time 5.38 yell silently 5.39 wrap around one's little finger 5.40 watch like a hawk 5.41 tantamount to election 5.42 21st century 6 January 2010 6.1 Belgayn 6.2 boundary marker 6.2.1 boundary stone 6.2.2 border stone 6.3 Regent 6.4 change candidate 6.5 master mariner 6.6 New York, New York 6.7 NY, NY 6.8 at the hands of 6.9 Twitter 6.10 Ivrit 6.11 turn to stone 6.12 all 6.13 romantic friendship 6.14 AND function 6.15 ABO system 6.16 affluent 6.17 absolument 6.18 it's all Greek to me 6.19 Modern English 6.20 all during 6.21 ſeveral 6.22 语音合成器 6.23 hard-pressed 6.24 hell yes 6.25 black cat 6.26 lytty 6.27 rendez-vous 6.28 give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime 6.29 ask away 6.30 bang up job 6.31 crib 6.32 -collar 6.33 confectioner's 6.34 in chronological order 6.35 thirsty 6.36 first-person singular 6.36.1 first-person plural 6.36.2 second-person singular 6.36.3 second-person plural 6.36.4 third-person singular 6.36.5 third-person plural 6.37 in chronologischer Reihenfolge 6.38 oversættelses- 6.39 steal home 6.40 vivid orange 6.41 cache 6.42 Oozlefinch 6.43 authorization 6.44 可毒夫 6.45 Ampere定律, Darwin主义, Darwin主义者, Einstein相对论, Esperanto主义者, et al 6.46 pizza饼, e-mail地址, BASIC语言, gamma射线, telex机, 牛肉pie, alpha射线 6.47 PiHex 6.48 out of reach 6.49 division by zero 6.50 espèce de 6.51 Origamizer 6.52 Etienne 6.53 Q 6.54 marshal 6.55 solid 6.56 box on the ear 6.57 shall 6.58 69式性交, A/D转换器, CD-ROM扩展结构, CD-ROM播放器, CD-V视盘, CD-i光盘, CD-i扇区, CD-i播放器 6.59 CD-i播放机, CD-i数字图像, CD-i数字音频, CD扩展, CD盒, C格式, I型光标, Mac操作系统, CD扩展 6.60 Alps山 & Alzheimer病 6.61 une paire de 6.62 tobacco mosaic virus 6.63 puli 6.64 out of sight 6.65 جدّی 6.66 cow milk 6.67 portmanteau word 6.68 iTouch 6.69 private joke 6.70 broken bot edits 6.71 很Q 6.71.1 好Q 6.71.2 很cute 6.72 I could eat a horse 6.73 stroke

[edit] August 2009

[edit] queer one's pitch

queer (“‘spoil’”) one's [sic] pitch (“‘sales presentation’”). Non-idiomatic combination. DCDuring TALK 15:25, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I feel obliged to not vote as I've never heard of it, and the definition makes very little sense. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:49, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I've never heard queer as a verb outside this phrase, which makes it idiomatic as far as my experience goes. Equinox ◑ 15:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

That's why we need to rely on corpora. Following are objects of the verb queer (“‘spoil", "ruin’”) found in COCA: friendship, things (3), deal, offer, paradigm, that (what I had to do), project, status, runs (football plays), collar (arrest), him ("queered him good by living"), re-election, assignment. This sense of queer#Verb seems more common outside academic (cultural studies, gay studies, social sciences) and gay activist writing, AFAICT. DCDuring TALK 15:59, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Needs more input, please comment! Mglovesfun (talk) 06:31, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

It should be "queer someone's pitch", anyway - it's not possible for one to queer one's own pitch. — Paul G 17:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Not normal, but possible. I'm sure a salesperson who "couldn't get out of his own way" could "queer his own pitch". I prefer "someone" as a default placeholder to "one" or "somebody". "One" is best reserved for the always reflexive. DCDuring TALK 18:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Kept for no consensus.--Jusjih 23:59, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] wind up one's bottoms

To wind up one's (?) bottoms. Datedly SoP. (Possible misuse of reflexive "one's" for "someone's") DCDuring TALK 12:06, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Seems like WT:RFV material to me, I've never heard of it, since surely it's not just wind + up + one's + bottom is it? I cant guess the meaning from that, and I'm a native speaker. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:47, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

It is just wind up (“‘complete", "finish’”) + one's + bottoms (“‘affairs’”). The difficulty is mostly in the archaic nautical figurative use of "bottom". It seems the nautical equivalent of "tidying up one's affairs" as before a long trip. Why would anyone xpect to be able to read an 18th century seaman's diary without looking up individual words? Understanding this use of "bottom" would help one decipher the decentralized financial management approach epitomized in "every tub in its own bottom". DCDuring TALK 16:31, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Right, delete. More votes please, Mglovesfun (talk) (sorry, I forgot to sign this) Mglovesfun (talk) 10:54, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Is this phrase less obsolete than bottom generally is, though? I have no idea, myself, but if so, I'd say keep this as non-SoP. Otherwise, yeah, delete.​—msh210℠ 23:52, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Needs more input, please comment! Mglovesfun (talk) 06:31, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] not a zack

[[not]] [[a]] [[zack]] ("an Australian coin, $A 0.05"). ~"not a dime", "not a farthing", "not a nickel". DCDuring TALK 03:07, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Delete, not idiomatic. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:55, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

Zack in this sense (and another similar) is listed as rare and has another sense not so marked. The phrase not a zack is not so marked. Perhaps it's worth a keep then: someone looking up the constituents wouldn't know what it means. Not sure, though.​—msh210℠ 00:01, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Needs more input, please comment! Mglovesfun (talk) 06:31, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

There's one visible reference on Google Books to "not a zac" in this sense, from "The Chequered Lady: And Other Tales from Australian Courts". It's pretty rare. I don't think it's idiomatic; it means the same as "not a dime" or "not a farthing", so the zac part is replaceable, and the meaning is pretty clearly derived from the sense. Delete.--Prosfilaes 23:23, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] bent as a two bob

bent (“‘crooked’”) as a two bob (“‘cheap’”) watch/note/etc. The fuller forms (bent as a two-bob watch and bent as a two-bob note may be valuable as redirects to two bob or even bob. Also nine bob. DCDuring TALK 19:49, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] take a shot

To try. It doesn't seem to be a non-SoP idiom. Certainly not a set phrase. One can "give it", "have" a shot. One can take a "run", "stab", etc. And there are more meaningful combinations of [[take]] and [[shot]] than there are meanings of either constituent word alone, none with any less claim to be idiomatic, IMHO. DCDuring TALK 00:24, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

• delete, Mglovesfun (talk) 07:11, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm leaning towards 'keep and adding additional senses. One can "take a shot" (to the body) in boxing, or "take a shot" (of tequila). This seems highly idiomatic to me. --EncycloPetey 05:30, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Once we go that way we can easily have as many attestable senses at take a shot as at take or even more. If we were trying to show our independence of conventional lexicographic thinking it would be a bold way to do so. I also believe that every single sense would violate WT:CFI. For example: boxing: take (“‘accept", "undergo", "endure’”) a shot (“‘punch", "blow’”) (previously missing, not in many dictionaries!, common in sports etc.) (Does "take" also mean "receive", "suffer"?) Also: for drinking: take#Verb could be senses 1-4; 7-10; 12, 21; 15, 23-4 (in groups of decreasing likelihood) with shot#Noun (“‘measure of alcohol’”). Though I cannot imagine these collocations being rapidly attested, I think that most of them are attestable. I don't know who would be helped by such a cumbersome presentation. Further, I find it impossible to believe that we should depend solely on the subjective opinions of the few editors and fewer native speakers who are welcome to participate in these discussions to determine which of the various collocations are to be included and which not. DCDuring TALK 18:25, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Needs more input, please comment! Mglovesfun (talk) 06:31, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] forearm bone

forearm (attributive) + bone. Compare leg bone, although hip bone and shoulder bone do exist. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:52, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know medicine, and perhaps to someone trained in that field hip bone and shoulder bone are SoP, but to me (and, I suspect, most laymen), they're not, since hip and shoulder are joints, not bones, and hip/shoulder bone does not merely mean "any bone that adjoins the hip/shoulder". But delete forearm bone as SoP.​—msh210℠ 17:05, 19 August 2009 (UTC) 21:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

We also have:

• in the head: frontal bone, parietal bone, temporal bone, occipital bone, sphenoid bone, ethmoid bone, zygomatic bone, malar bone, hyoid bone, vomer bone, nasal bone, turbinate bone, lacrimal bone, palatine bone, mastoid bone, otic bone, stirrup bone, alveolar bone, Wormian bone
• in the extremities: capitate bone, heel bone, cuboid bone, hamate bone, tarsal bone, carpal bone, cuneiform bone, intermediate cuneiform bone, lateral cuneiform bone, medial cuneiform bone, navicular bone, scaphoid bone, innominate bone, pisiform bone, lunate bone, elbow bone, metacarpal bone, calf bone, long bone
• other: sesamoid bone, epipubic bone, pneumatic bone,

A few of these are clear deletes IMO (calf bone, e.g.).​—msh210℠ 17:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

If fibula is actually also called calf bone (which it is according to dictionary.com) it should be kept. How else would we poor non-natives know which of the two bones of the lower leg it is? --Hekaheka 19:17, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

True. Actually, I didn't realize we have two bones down there, which is why I said to delete calf bone. Again, though, that entry has not had deletion requested.​—msh210℠ 20:38, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually I think most of the above list should be kept. Of the forearm bone itself I'm not so sure. If the use of the term is commonplace, it might be considered a set phrase referring to both ulna and radius, and neither of them specifically. --Hekaheka 19:38, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

elbow bone might merit inclusion due to multiple senses, one of which only refers to a part of a bone. If that is typical, these might need to be addressed one at a time, especially the ones that use a common word (like "long", "calf", nasal") before "bone". DCDuring TALK 18:32, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I do think they need to be addressed singly, and did not mean to imply otherwise. The only one we're discussing so far, AFAICT, is forearm bone (and, below, its plural).​—msh210℠ 18:54, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] forearm bones

And we also had forearm bones, just added by 史凡, speedily deleted by SB as SoP. 史凡 raised, in the TR, whether it ought have been deleted, so I'm bringing that issue here, too. Delete, I say.​—msh210℠ 18:54, 19 August 2009 (UTC) 21:40, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

I shoulda said what its content was. It was just the {{plural of}} template (and appropriate headers and inflection line).​—msh210℠ 18:57, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

mye,itgoes w/the sg forearm bone entry[savd onlyafterwards,asstruglin'w/etyl fmt :).ihadmy ownconcerns:

1. bones of f-a.
2. sop

butfrom educationalpoint[=uln+rad,saykids mitewonder"wotr f-a bones actualy]+/prafrasd:morethanjustsop[wotisa fa bone->TWOthings,NOTdeducible fromjustheadparts ofentry(tho most asults kno as=comn kno-ldg]>ithought/deemd itworthwhile[tho tad encyclopedic praps]+incl.realife ex.--ta4movin btw:)

ps i1.thought ofputin info i/plentry,but changdmymind i/daproces,c vasa deferentia[nkept/savdboth]:)--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 19:34, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Apart from the education point, in some animals there seems to be

1. a single forearm bone, usually called the ulna and sometimes the forearm bone;
2. a partial fusion of the ulna and radius forming a unit sometimes called the forearm bonel
3. two separate bones of which the ulna seems to be sometimes called the forearm bone.

And, of course, the forearm of many animals is more readily understood as a forelimb, whether foreleg or wing or flipper.

Also, there are many uses on fiction that refer to "the" forearm bone as if it were a single unit, even in a human. If we gave an anatomy quiz to admins here, would they all know that our upper limbs had one bone and our lower ones two, without recourse to cheating by palpation? I don't think it is just the children who may have a fuzzy understanding, it may be authors and readers and even us. We can dismiss all of this as error, of course, but that does seem just a mite prescriptive.

I am not sure that I understand this correctly, but it seems rash to delete it. DCDuring TALK 20:22, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

• Keep both. DCDuring TALK 21:00, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
• as anonativ:howdoiknowhichr incl.i/legbone??
• iAMtraind>we'dalv'em![astheyrdiscreetentitys>sucinct def+ref2wp,aswe'dw/alproper names[nothati cap'em,bone nams;)--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 21:23, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

nope-asperbelo:rad+uln notdeduciblfromparts[same4legbons:[meta]tarsus incl?,toe bons?2me=al legs,but2anativ layman??-furthermor, my languagedozntv theword legbons,howdoikno???.--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 21:23, 19 August 2009 (UTC) We also ha

If fibula is actually also called calf bone (which it is according to dictionary.com) it should be kept. How else would we poor non-natives know which of the two bones of the lower leg it is? --Hekaheka 19:17, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

agree--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 21:23, 19 August 2009 (UTC) eh-singly=?here

• imyview:atleasthavastub,saysphenoid bonelinkin2sphenoid

soneedsexpansionlol--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 21:23, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Delete as sum of parts. Yes, the specific bones will be variable between species, and so will "wrist bones", "skull bones", "leg bones", etc. Consider that "wrist bone" can mean any of the bones in the wrist. Each of these bones has a name and a distinctive shape. Do we therefore have an entry that lists each possible wrist bone for every species (in some there are more bones)? No. This is content for an encyclopedia. The lexical content of the term "forearm bone" is "bone in the forearm". --EncycloPetey 03:49, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

i'dgo4wt tobe abroaddict>a.bit of grammar[ala Swan,whichsome entrys ractualy~dict.styl],gazeteer/geo,bitencycl.,phrasebooki/SHORTish entrysREFERING2wp,wm-books,etc>userFRIENDLY,klik-efficient[here:guidance2find wotevastuf:)[thoputinboundaryshard,irealiz

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leg_bone k,nofoot lol<therisETYL2that,when1.used,changin'use praps-thatdef.sthWE'dbedoin~placenames[who rtheynamd after,lit.quotesundundund--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 04:18, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and they deal with topics in their articles. We are a dictionary, and deal with words in our entries. The principles of organizing an encyclopedia do not apply here because our goals are quite different. --EncycloPetey 14:16, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

there isOVERLAP--likalthose discusions here'bout saytheDEF OFA WORD[lexicografik1]-itookmejust2weeks dealin intesivly w/apliedlinguistics waybak i/oz2c thatMOSTofthose holy/bigwordHOTOPICS/TECHN.TERMSrpoorly defind>wotsthepoint inalthefiting??encycl do alilbitof linguistiks[ipa,etyl],weneed2HELP'EMw/that[styloid-ipa?spica-etyl?let alone spica splint--have funsearchin i/wp..]>INCLUDING WP entrys [w/justLILdef-flesh,that indeed4wp],doinOURJOB w/etyl,ipa etc andsoHELPourusers.[imtrulyfedupw/althese mostlynarowsens def getinpalmdofasTHEdef[ex.:WOT IS A DICTIONARY,answerREALYNOTASTRAIGHT4WARDasu regulars'dlik2makebeliv,ncomin downw/big[policy usay?perdef>{punintended ;)}ALWAYS IN FLUX]stiks isntv.RESPECTFULeither],aweaknes esp.ofalthoseSOFTsciences as sociology,psychology etc imo[lookatsuch wp-entrys,howlers!!],nlet alonethe impresion itmaks uponanewby]

• nmostofthose"dict.constraints"had2do w/SPACElimits["so we'lmakesomARBITRARYCRITERIAup"]-why esp.here onaproject ofsuchunprecedenteddimensionppl rso"closed"2wotburgeonin'technologys cando4them-itleavesmebafled,butrealy..:(
• nthisimhoPERVERS/DESTRUCTIVfocus on"shalwe deletethisentry,yea?!{hyper-tone intended.}"[mywatchp.isnowINUNDATEDbythem--isCREATINstuf realysoborin??]-rwe here2BUILDUPor2smashea others efortsunderthepretensofGARDIN'THEGRAIL--itsaWORKINPROGRES,4krist'sake..--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 15:09, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] home side

Do this and away side (home team, away team) meet CFI? Probably not, but let's hear some more opinions. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:49, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

• languagelearnersNEEDthis[SKINFROMWHOSENOSE2'vthem ay?!?
• urbeluvdCFIneedCOMPLETOVERHAUL.
• nowgo'ndosthCONSTRUCTIV!

[iwasofree2coRECTurpost asursuchaDESTRUCTIVPURIST-itakafairbit,butherzLIMITS!]--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 14:29, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Please make a proposal to amend WT:CFI so that we can apply our resources to more entries. I know that we have already made all of our existing entries as good as we know how to. We need most especially to add entries that other dictionaries omit. It is particularly important that we make sure that language learners never have to work through the meaning of a phrase using entries for the constituent words. Better we should lexicalize everything. Let a billion collocations bloom. DCDuring TALK 16:17, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Please make a proposal WHENI CANINPUTto amend WT:CFI so that we can apply our resources to more entries. I know that we have already made all of our existing entries as good as we know how to.UR2BUSY'DELETIN'4THAT2HAPEN We need most especially to add entries that other dictionaries omit.INDEED-MYSTREETNAME:IWANT ETYL,OBSCURSPORTSTERM-IWANT PLAINENGLIS EXPL ETC. It is particularly important that we make sure that language learners never have to work through DICT=GOLDSTANDED,NEEDS ENTRYSthe meaning of a phrase UHAVNO DEEPLEARN/TEACHING OF2NDLANGUAGE EXPERIENS,N'HENCE LAKPERSPECTIV ,AOTH BOUTHE 'CONSTANTGUESIN'N'WORKIN'OUTREQUIRD INTHATTPROCES.using entries for the constituent words.LIKE GOIN'THRU THE28SENSESOF'OFF' JUST COS SB POSTEDAN INCOMPEHENSIBLTECHN.DEF-NOTX. Better we should lexicalize everything.YES!! Let a billion collocations=NOTORIOUSTUMBLIN'BLOK4LEARNERS bloom. MYCAPS---史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 02:53, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Needs more input, please comment! Mglovesfun (talk) 06:31, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] two-wheeled

NISOP. Equinox ◑ 23:22, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Delete as pointless; one–sixteen-wheeled (as well as many greater even numbers) are all easily attestable viâ Google Book Search. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 12:08, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Keep. It's a word. Would you propose to delete understandable? It's easily understandable too: understand + -able. Never forget that the definition is not the only part in the pages (you seem to forget examples, translations, anagrams, etc.) Lmaltier 12:38, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Delete, what we really need is to look again at wheeled and check that it is perfectly clear. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:48, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that two-wheeled = two + wheeled. It's more two wheels + -ed. But, anyway, it's a word (with, possibly, anagrams, translations, etc.). Lmaltier 16:11, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

asianlearnersNEEDsuch entrys+tr-hanger.NI=?--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 02:44, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it means "having two wheels". There is no reason to have five-or-more-wheeled, but the common terms two-wheeled, three-wheeled and four-wheeled should be kept. —Stephen 20:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

but this word is considered as comparable in the page, which seems absurd to me. Lmaltier 20:59, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree, two-wheeled is an absolute. It cannot be more two-wheeled. —Stephen 06:02, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

one-wheeled — 744 BGC hits;
two-wheeled — 3,300 BGC hits;
three-wheeled — 1,551 BGC hits;
four-wheeled — 3,140 BGC hits;
five-wheeled — 553 BGC hits;
six-wheeled — 1,089 BGC hits;
seven-wheeled — 419 BGC hits;
eight-wheeled — 926 BGC hits;
nine-wheeled — 68 BGC hits;
ten-wheeled — 687 BGC hits;
eleven-wheeled — 21 BGC hits;
twelve-wheeled — 624 BGC hits;
thirteen-wheeled — 10 BGC hits;
fourteen-wheeled — 146 BGC hits;
fifteen-wheeled — 26 BGC hits;
sixteen-wheeled — 162 BGC hits;
eighteen-wheeled — 198 BGC hits;
twenty-wheeled — 52 BGC hits;
twenty-one-wheeled — 2 BGC hits;
twenty-two-wheeled — 13 BGC hits;
twenty-three-wheeled — 4 BGC hits (though only one seems to be in the right sense);
twenty-four-wheeled — 125 BGC hits;
twenty-five-wheeled — 105 BGC hits (e.g., [1]);
twenty-six-wheeled — 8 BGC hits (e.g., [2]);
…and so on. All semantically transparent, all unidiomatic. I see no qualitative difference between two-, three-, or four-wheeled and the other n-wheeled. Delete them all or keep them all. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 11:30, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I've added the missing sense "(in combination) Having the specified number or type of wheels" to [[wheeled]], and say to delete this SOP.​—msh210℠ 20:55, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I looked up one of your so-called transparent unidiomatic attestable examples, fifteen-wheeled — 26 BGC hits;
, and the ones I saw where about "fifteen ‘wheeled vehicles’" (fifteen vehicles with wheels). We only need one through four, and no need at all for five or more. —Stephen 03:09, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

[3], [4]. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 16:42, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

If we're going after these, the equivalently formed nouns two-wheeler, three-wheeler, four-wheeler, ..., eighteen-wheeler, ... would seem to be as deletable/keepable as these adjectives. That said, because of its common use to designate the standard tractor-trailer combo rather than any generic vehicle with eighteen wheels, entries for eighteen-wheeler and eighteen-wheeled are in my opinion warranted, but since the other combos aren't normally evocative of one particular combination, delete them. — Carolina wren discussió 16:08, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

These entries may be a rich source of RfV candidates. But I don't see how we can delete any one of them that has a sense other than "having N wheels".

The "-wheeler" entries are more likely to have more meaningful definitions. I'd vouch for two-wheeler, three-wheeler, and four-wheeler and also bet on some truck "-wheelers": ten-wheeler, fourteen-wheeler. DCDuring TALK 16:41, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree on the "-wheeler" entries, but isn't "two-wheeled" just two words joined by a hyphen to make a two-word adjective? How does it differ from "red-coloured" (for example)? Dbfirs 23:11, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I would be willing to argue that two-wheeled is a special case, since the wheels may be side-by-side and joined by an axle or one in front of the other with no axle. A "two-heeled vehicle" may be a chariot or a Vespa. Both are two-wheeled, but what that means is very different between the two vehicles. --EncycloPetey 02:44, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

Keep everything up to four for absolutely no reason other than we keep low numbers like three hundred and three-dimensional. DAVilla 05:32, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Per Lmaltier, if you consider hyphenates as one word (or per CFI not an "expression") then it should be kept as words don't have to be idiomatic. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:12, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Are we not raising a two-headed monster here? Dbfirs 22:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] September 2009

[edit] あるいて, 歩いて

Was marked as {{delete}}, but since I don't know anything about Japanese... Mglovesfun (talk) 08:53, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Added an essentially same entry 歩いて to the subject.

In my opinion, it is a combination of two words, a verb form 歩い and a particle て, and should be considered as SoP. Including this kind of combinations can lead to a disastrous situation, exactly like that in other areas where we dare to exclude sum-of-parts entries. --Tohru 14:06, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Contrary to the entry, this is not an adverb in Japanese. It is the verb 歩く (aruku) conjugated to aruki with the -te suffix. Popularly called the "te-form", the medial -k- drops out in colloquial language.

Japanese verbs (and adjectives) conjugate and various suffixes attach to those conjugations. Listing all of those patterns is not both not practical nor very realistic. Thus the norm found in all dictionaries is to list it in a base form recognized by Japanese speakers. That is 歩く here. But just to give an idea how unpractical it is to list other forms, no matter how useful they may be to learners, here is a basic list of entries that would need to be created just for this one verb:

• 歩いて
• 歩いた
• 歩いたら
• 歩いたり
• 歩かぬ
• 歩かず
• 歩かない
• 歩かなかった
• 歩ければ
• 歩けれど
• 歩けれども
• 歩きます
• 歩きました
• 歩きません
• 歩きませんでした
• 歩け
• 歩けよ
• 歩こう
• 歩かなくて
• 歩ける
• 歩けない
• 歩けます
• 歩けなかった
• 歩けません
• 歩けませんでした
• 歩かせる
• 歩かせない
• 歩かせます
• 歩かせません
• 歩かせませんでした
• 歩かれる
• 歩かれない
• 歩かれなかった
• 歩かれません
• 歩かれませんでした
• 歩かせられる
• 歩かせられない
• 歩かせられなかった
• 歩かせられます
• 歩かせられました

Also, you will need to create entirely hiragana versions for each as well. And then romanized versions as well. We have now just tripled the list. And this list is hardly even comprehensive; there are many more patterns and variations. Now duplicate for each of the hundreds (maybe thousands) of verbs. This is insane and needs to be avoided. Bendono 14:26, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Why is this a problem? We already add conjugated verb forms in Italian, Latin, Spanish, and French. Latin has more than 100 inflected forms for a regular verb, yet the number of inflected forms hasn't been an impediment to creating those entries. Since the forms follow patterns, we use bots to generate the forms. There's no reason I can see for not doing the same in Japanese. --EncycloPetey 16:21, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, trying to include all words of all languages is insane, but we try to do it nonetheless. The number of forms you mention is not very large compared to Italian verbs (no usual dictionary would list all Italian forms included here). This is a general comment, because I don't know Japanese. Lmaltier 14:35, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Then here are my candidates, though this is still far from completion:

Verb phrases of 歩く

• 歩い
• 歩いたが
• 歩いたけど
• 歩いたけども
• 歩いたけれど
• 歩いたけれども
• 歩いたころ
• 歩いたころで
• 歩いたころでなく
• 歩いたころでなくて
• 歩いたころでなくては
• 歩いたころでなくても
• 歩いたころに
• 歩いたころにでも
• 歩いたころには
• 歩いたころは
• 歩いたぞ
• 歩いたとき
• 歩いたときで
• 歩いたときでなく
• 歩いたときでなくて
• 歩いたときでなくては
• 歩いたときでなくても
• 歩いたときなら
• 歩いたときならば
• 歩いたときに
• 歩いたときにでも
• 歩いたときには
• 歩いたときは
• 歩いたとした
• 歩いたとしたなら
• 歩いたとしたならば
• 歩いたとしたら
• 歩いたとしたらば
• 歩いたとして
• 歩いたとしよう
• 歩いたとしようが
• 歩いたとするが
• 歩いたとするけど
• 歩いたとするけども
• 歩いたとするけれど
• 歩いたとするけれども
• 歩いたとすると
• 歩いたとするとき
• 歩いたとするときに
• 歩いたとするなら
• 歩いたとするならば
• 歩いたとすれば
• 歩いたなら
• 歩いたならば
• 歩いたの
• 歩いたのよ
• 歩いたよ
• 歩いたら
• 歩いたらば
• 歩いたわ
• 歩いたわよ
• 歩いて
• 歩いていただいた
• 歩いていただいたとき
• 歩いていただいたときに
• 歩いていただいたときには
• 歩いていただいたなら
• 歩いていただいたならば
• 歩いていただいたら
• 歩いていただかなければ
• 歩いていただき
• 歩いていただきましたら
• 歩いていただきます
• 歩いていただく
• 歩いていただけたら
• 歩いていただけたらば
• 歩いていただけませんか
• 歩いていただこう
• 歩いている
• 歩いているとき
• 歩いていない
• 歩いてください
• 歩いてくだされ
• 歩いてくださったら
• 歩いてくださらなかったとき
• 歩いてくださらなかったとしたら
• 歩いてくださらなかったら
• 歩いての
• 歩いては
• 歩いてよ
• 歩いてるとき
• 歩いてるときで
• 歩いてるときでなく
• 歩いてるときでなくて
• 歩いてるときでなくても
• 歩いてるときに
• 歩か
• 歩かない
• 歩かないぞ
• 歩かないったら
• 歩かないとしたら
• 歩かないとしよう
• 歩かないなら
• 歩かないの
• 歩かないのよ
• 歩かないよ
• 歩かないわ
• 歩かないわよ
• 歩かなかった
• 歩かなかったら
• 歩かなかったとき
• 歩かなかったとしたら
• 歩かなかったら
• 歩かなかったわ
• 歩かなかったわよ
• 歩かなくて
• 歩かなくてね
• 歩かなくても
• 歩かなくって
• 歩かなくってね
• 歩かなくっても
• 歩かなくってよ
• 歩かなければ
• 歩かん
• 歩かんとき
• 歩かんときに
• 歩かんときにでも
• 歩かんときには
• 歩かんか
• 歩かんかい
• 歩かんの
• 歩かんのか
• 歩かんのだ
• 歩かんのだけれど
• 歩かんのだわ
• 歩かんわ
• 歩かんよ
• 歩き
• 歩きたい
• 歩きたいか
• 歩きたいかな
• 歩きたいかも
• 歩きたいぜ
• 歩きたいったら
• 歩きたいって
• 歩きたいってば
• 歩きたいとき
• 歩きたいときに
• 歩きたいときにでも
• 歩きたいときには
• 歩きたいの
• 歩きたいのか
• 歩きたいのかも
• 歩きたいのだが
• 歩きたいのです
• 歩きたいのですよ
• 歩きたいのなら
• 歩きたいのならば
• 歩きたいよ
• 歩きたいわ
• 歩きたいんだったら
• 歩きたいんなら
• 歩きたくて
• 歩きたくも
• 歩きたくない
• 歩きたくないから
• 歩きたくないとき
• 歩きたくないときでも
• 歩きたくないときに
• 歩きたくないときには
• 歩きたくないときにも
• 歩きたくないなら
• 歩きたくないの
• 歩きたくないのだ
• 歩きたくないのだよ
• 歩きたくないのよ
• 歩きたくないよ
• 歩きたくないわ
• 歩きたくないわよ
• 歩きたくなかった
• 歩きたくなかったとき
• 歩きたくなかったときに
• 歩きたくなかったときには
• 歩きたくなかったけど
• 歩きたくなかったけれど
• 歩きたくなかったけれども
• 歩きたくなかったの
• 歩きたくなかったのだ
• 歩きたくなかったのだよ
• 歩きたくなかったよ
• 歩きたくなかったら
• 歩きたくなかったわ
• 歩きたくなければ
• 歩きたくなさ
• 歩きたければ
• 歩きたさ
• 歩きながら
• 歩きながらで
• 歩きながらでは
• 歩きながらの
• 歩きなさい
• 歩きなさったとき
• 歩きなさったなら
• 歩きなさったのなら
• 歩きなさったのでは
• 歩きなさって
• 歩きなされ
• 歩きなされよ
• 歩きなされば
• 歩きなはったら
• 歩きなはって
• 歩きなはれ
• 歩きなはれば
• 歩きなはれよ
• 歩きました
• 歩きます
• 歩きませぬ
• 歩きませぬか
• 歩きませぬよ
• 歩きません
• 歩きませんか
• 歩きませんったら
• 歩きませんってば
• 歩きませんてば
• 歩きませんとも
• 歩きませんよ
• 歩きんさい
• 歩く
• 歩くころ
• 歩くころに
• 歩くころにでも
• 歩くころには
• 歩くころは
• 歩くぞ
• 歩くとき
• 歩くときが
• 歩くときなら
• 歩くときならば
• 歩くときに
• 歩くときにでも
• 歩くときには
• 歩くときは
• 歩くで
• 歩くな
• 歩くなら
• 歩くならば
• 歩くなよ
• 歩くの
• 歩くのでございましたら
• 歩くのでございます
• 歩くのでございますか
• 歩くのでしたら
• 歩くのでしたらば
• 歩くのです
• 歩くのですか
• 歩くのでございます
• 歩くのではございません
• 歩くのよ
• 歩くのなら
• 歩くのならば
• 歩くよ
• 歩くわ
• 歩くわよ
• 歩け
• 歩けど
• 歩けども
• 歩けない
• 歩けないかも
• 歩けないから
• 歩けないぞ
• 歩けないです
• 歩けないとき
• 歩けないの
• 歩けないのかも
• 歩けないのだ
• 歩けないのだが
• 歩けないのだから
• 歩かないのだとしたとき
• 歩けないのだとしたときに
• 歩けないのだとしたときには
• 歩けないのだとしたら
• 歩けないのだとしても
• 歩けないのだよ
• 歩けないのだわ
• 歩けないのに
• 歩けないのよ
• 歩けないよ
• 歩けないわ
• 歩けないわよ
• 歩けなかった
• 歩けなかったとき
• 歩けなかったときに
• 歩けなかったときにでも
• 歩けなかったときには
• 歩けなかったときは
• 歩けなかったの
• 歩けなかったので
• 歩けなかったのでは
• 歩けなかったのに
• 歩けなかったのよ
• 歩けなかったら
• 歩けなかったよ
• 歩けなかったわ
• 歩けなかったわよ
• 歩けなくても
• 歩けなくなる
• 歩けなければ
• 歩けば
• 歩けませぬ
• 歩けません
• 歩けん
• 歩けんぞ
• 歩けんのだ
• 歩けんのだよ
• 歩けんよ
• 歩けんわ
• 歩こ
• 歩こう
• 歩こうか
• 歩こうかな
• 歩こうぜ
• 歩こうぜよ
• 歩こうったら
• 歩こうってば
• 歩こうってばよ
• 歩こうと
• 歩こうとした
• 歩こうとしたが
• 歩こうとしたとき
• 歩こうとしたときに
• 歩こうとしたときにでも
• 歩こうとしたときにも
• 歩こうとしたところ
• 歩こうとしたところで
• 歩こうとしたなら
• 歩こうとしたならば
• 歩こうとしたの
• 歩こうとしたのよ
• 歩こうとしたら
• 歩こうとしたらば
• 歩こうとしたわ
• 歩こうとして
• 歩こうとしてみた
• 歩こうとしてみたの
• 歩こうとしてみたところ
• 歩こうとしてみたところで
• 歩こうとしてみたところでも
• 歩こうとしてみたわ
• 歩こうとしてみます
• 歩こうとしてみませんか
• 歩こうとしてみる
• 歩こうとしても
• 歩こうとしなかった
• 歩こうとしなかったです
• 歩こうとしなかったの
• 歩こうとしなかったら
• 歩こうとしなかったわ
• 歩こうとしなくても
• 歩こうとしなければ
• 歩こうとすると
• 歩こうとするとき
• 歩こうとするときでも
• 歩こうとするときに
• 歩こうとすれば
• 歩こうよ

I guess the list can be longer than 1,000 entries for sure (I will do so if such a demonstration is actually needed). This is the situation we have to handle per each Japanese verb when accepting such combinations. And I just don't know how to set appropriate criteria for them. --Tohru 14:48, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the laugh, Tohru. 散歩でも歩きましょうｗ Bendono 14:57, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

If you can learn to use a bot like the one we use for generating forms of Spanish verbs, then you could successfully create as many Japanese verb forms as you like in a very short time. --EncycloPetey 16:21, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

If this is a completely regular agglutinative action, then other than a lack of spaces, I don't see a difference between these and potential English entries such as have not been speaking, or the decision to not include the entries for English possessives. As the issue is presented I support deletion. However, if there exist any irregular combinations, I would conclude that including them would be needful, tho all but the irregular cases could easily be handled with bot support as EP points out. — Carolina wren discussió 16:39, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

You're missing the point: almost all of those, including the entry up for deletion, are not verb forms. They are sum of parts. More specifically, the verb aruk- (walk) has only four distinct forms: aruk-a, aruk-i, aruk-u, and aruk-e. (No, I am not forgetting aruk-o; leave me a message if you are curious.) Every thing above is derived by attaching various suffixes to these forms, occasionally followed by specific phonological changes. What would the POS be? Verb is not appropriate. Perhaps Quasi-Verb Phrase? Partial Predicate? The whole concept of a headword for Japanese is completely screwed up here on Wikipedia. Creating entries for the above would only compound the problem further yet. Bendono 16:41, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Plus, I should have noted that I omitted variant forms that Bendono mentioned above, from the list. Once counting them, the number will easily reach ten thousand. Please don't forget it is the number of entries belonging to one verb. --Tohru 17:09, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I hate to point this out, mainly because I'm against it, but we have lots of Spanish 'contraction' entries like llámame (call me) which I'd quite like to see deleted, but nevertheless they're here. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:49, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

It may seem impractical and terribly difficult to you, but we have exactly the same situation in hundreds of other languages, many much worse. In Arabic a verb can easily have over 20,000 different forms, and each form can be spelled in a multitude of ways. We include these forms, certain the more standard forms such as your -te verbs. The part of speech would be verb form, with an explanation in the definition line that it is the conjunctive of 歩く. Just as we do with Spanish and French, these Japanese verb forms can be handled by a bot. —Stephen 18:36, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

RE Bendono: I am not missing the point. The exact situation you describe exists in Hungarian, where the plan is to create the entries, even though we don't (yet) have a bot to handle those. Hungarian uses attached postpositions (like suffixes) instead of prepositions. Words formed by the attachment of a suffix are vaible as entries here. Especially so since a non-native or learner of the language may not recognize the suffix for what it is. --EncycloPetey 20:21, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

<joking> Well there's a way to get ahead of French wiktionary, just add hundreds of thousands of verb forms from every language imaginable . . . :) </joking> I don't really have an opinion on whether or not these get added/stay or not, possibly tending toward keep. L☺g☺maniac chat? 21:11, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I think there is a key distinction between suffixes and particles, certainly for languages such as Korean and Japanese (and, I think, Hungarian). My understanding has been that, while we include root+suffix forms -- that is, true inflections -- regardless of quantity, we do not include word+particle, which are just two words that happen to be written as one, as with the English 's. In the name of sanity and all that is holy, I hope we will continue to maintain this distinction. I don't know how/if this issue applies to the above list . In Korean, at least, some "verb forms" are real forms and some are not -- 하겠어 is a true inflection, but 하겠어요 is inflected form + polite particle. -- Visviva 23:26, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

How do you define "particle" for this disctinction? Most of my Latin books dealing with the subject indicate there is a very fuzzy line between suffix, particle, and inflectional ending. Would you modify your definition when you consider that many, many Latin verbs are formed by prepending a preposition to a base verb? (See the derived terms under Latin sum (“‘I am’”), for example). These aren't formed from prefixes in Latin, as similar words are in English, because the prepended item is a word (preposition) in its own right. Likewise, Hungarian adds postpositions to its nouns, and functionally these are inflectional case endings (and the endings are treated as such in grammars). For Spanish, a pronoun (or two) is often added to the end of a verb, and we include these words (e.g. dímelo) even though the added ending is not much different from the "polite particle" you mention. --EncycloPetey 23:32, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I would define particle as "something that authoritative grammars agree is a particle". :-) That is, I think that any decision on what does and doesn't count as a word in a language needs to be bookended by a serious review of native-language and Western grammatical literature. The less similar a language is to English, the more critically necessary such a review is. The fact that I haven't seen anybody citing even, say, Martin's Reference Grammar of Japanese gives me pause that we would be making any sweeping judgments here. I don't know the first thing about Hungarian, but previous discussions here had suggested that the particle/suffix distinction was fairly strong in Hungarian grammar. If that's true, I hope that we would take this distinction seriously, rather than striking out on our own.

In the case of Korean, the South Korean and Western grammatical traditions, AFAIAA, concur in distinguishing particles from suffixes, which actually create new words/forms. (North Korean grammarians tread a somewhat different path, as one might expect, but the NK grammar texts I have managed to acquire are not really authoritative.) My initial efforts at treating Korean noun-particle combos as declined noun forms were rebuffed, and I have come to believe that this is correct -- both as a matter of grammatical fact and a matter of best Wiktionary practice. Regarding the polite particle 요, which can glom onto anything, verb, noun, adverb or determiner, with consequences that are pragmatic/discursive rather than semantic or syntactic, I can't imagine what purpose including its compounds would serve. -- Visviva 04:32, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Keeping an eye on the bigger picture here, we're trying to be a useful dictionary, i.e. a resource to which someone can turn when they see an unfamiliar word (or idiom) and need a definition. If inclusion of the above will enable someone to obtain that benefit, and said phrase can not be readily understood by reference to its component parts, then we should include it. Quite frankly, since this is the English Wiktionary, and our readers are less likely to be able to figure out how to put together strings of Asian characters, then we should lean towards being more inclusive of such matters. bd2412 T 03:39, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

But if it can be demonstrated that these are simply collocations -- that is, independent words written together, which would be unsurprising in a spaceless language like JA -- there is an easy solution; include any collocations that are common enough to be plausible searchterms in the entry for the content word. Problem solved: no spurious entries, and users can easily find the information they need -- indeed, more easily than if we had a separate, content-free entry for each such collocation. Again, I would just like to see some authoritative sources on which items from the above list are, in fact, inflected forms. Might be all of them for all I know. -- Visviva 04:32, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) User:Carolina wren has made a good comment. All of the above forms completely and automatically generated by a regular agglutinative process of attaching various particles and suffixes. So far there have been many comments about comparison with other languages, but beside myself and Tohru, few from anyone who actually speaks Japanese. So to give an idea what some of the above phrases mean, here is a brief selection with English translations:

• 歩かせられなかった

  was not made to walk

  歩か ― 歩く (aruku), verb, imperfective form

  せ ― せる (seru), auxiliary verb, imperfective form

  られ ― られる (rareru), auxiliary verb, imperfective form

  なかっ ― ない (nai), verb, continuative form

  た ― た (ta), auxiliary verb, terminal form

• 歩いたときでなくても

  even though not the time that (I) walked

  歩い ― 歩く (aruku), verb, continuative form

  た ― た (ta), auxiliary verb, attributive form

  とき ― 時 (toki), common noun

  で ― だ (da), auxiliary verb, continuative form

  なく ― ない (nai), adjective, continuative form

  て ― て (te), continuative particle

  も ― も (mo), binding particle

• 歩いたとするならば

  if (one) assumes that (I) walked

  歩い ― 歩く (aruku), verb, continuative form

  た ― た (ta), auxiliary verb, terminal form

  と ― と (to), case particle

  する ― する (suru), verb, terminal form

  なら ― だ (da), auxiliary verb, hypothetical form

  ば ― ば (ba), continuative particle

• 歩いていただかなければ

  if (I) could not have (you) walk

  歩い ― 歩く (aruku), verb, continuative form

  て ― て (te), continuative particle

  いただか ― 頂く (itadaku), verb, imperfective form

  なけれ ― ない (nai), auxiliary verb, hypothetical form

  ば ― ば (ba), continuative particle

• 歩きたいかな

  (I) may want to walk

  歩き ― 歩く (aruku), verb, continuative form

  たい ― たい (tai), auxiliary verb, terminal form

  か ― か (ka), sentence-final particle

  な ― な (na), sentence-final particle

• 歩きたくないときにも

  even when not wanting to walk

  歩き ― 歩く (aruku), verb, continuative form

  たく ― たい (tai), auxiliary verb, continuative form

  ない ― ない (nai), adjective, attributive form

  とき ― 時 (toki), common noun

  に ― に (ni), case particle

  も ― も (mo), binding particle

As BD2412 said, we are trying to create a "useful dictionary, i.e. a resource to which someone can turn when they see an unfamiliar word (or idiom) and need a definition." I fully agree. However, a learner of English should not be able to expect to look up non-idiomatic phrases such as even though not the time that I walked and find a definition and translation any more than the reverse situation. Bendono 04:45, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

FYI, I segmented the above phrases based on a practical version of the Japanese school grammar, UniDic [5], which is used by The National Institute for Japanese Language [6] to annotate the biggest Japanese corpus ever built (Modern Written-Japanese Balanced Corpus [7]). You can see something similar is going on here between these Japanese and English constructions. --Tohru 17:04, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

he'D>FUZY BOUNDARYw/PHRASEBOOK here--onceUSERhasthatINFO>pushthe buton>wp,books etc,integrated oras isnow,4further elaboration'n'EFICIENTlearnin.

btw,awcanweNOT'v wii as aJ-entry??[i'd2go2wp to c the kana&ipa4engl,grrr..:(--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 05:57, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Delete. First of all, I always try to defer to those informed on the language in question, who all seem to be favoring delete. Additionally, both Carolina wren and Visviva have made some prudent and subtle distinctions. Take the first word of γλαῦκ’ εἰς Ἀθήνας for example, it is an abbreviated form of polytonic {{γλαῦκες}}. The dropping of the last couple letters does not form a distinct word, but it a regular feature of Ancient Greek morphology. As such, we absolutely cannot make an entry for γλαῦκ’, as every single word in Ancient Greek (and every inflection of those words) is subject to the same possible droppings. To be sure, we are not a paper dictionary, and can include a lot more than paper can, like inflected forms, but we need the SOP rule to make the project feasible. We need to expect a minimum of knowledge about the language from our readers, otherwise we'll end up having to have an entry for all possible sentences in the language. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 06:19, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Japanese natives have a very weak sense of what at word is in Japanese. Since the writing contains no spaces, words are not delimited in the spelling. Speakers of Indo-European languages, OTOH, have a strong sense of what a word is. When we transcribe Japanese to Roman script, we invariably spell these forms as a single word, not as a verb plus a particle. We write mite, ite, tabete, kite, shite, hataraite, aruite, itte, hanashite, atte, kaette, notte, sunde, yonde, katte, de. We NEVER write mi te, i te, tabe te, ki te, shi te, and so on. Some call this the conjunctive form, but most grammars that I have seen simply refer to it as the gerund (like English -ing words). In my experience as a linguist, particles are always separate words. The postpositions may be considered particles: ga, wa, o, ni, e, kara. Also the sentence-ending words such as ne, ka, zo, yo are particles. In my definition of particles, inflexions and suffixes, the -te of the gerund (hataraite, shite, sunde, kite) is a suffix, not a particle. —Stephen 09:37, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I can go with this. If the people who actually work on Japanese entries consider that this is not a word, then delete, absent some strong evidence that they are mistaken. Now, if people only could have shown that same consideration on some Korean RFDs with hideous results.... -- Visviva 07:43, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Let me explain how, in my opinion, a good online dictionary could handle this. A pop-up dictionary Perapera-kun (Mozilla Firefox Japanese dictionary plug-in) knows that 歩いて is a form of 歩く and translates it as such, ie. -" to walk", NJstar Japanese Word Processor displays the following (like with any verb form): 歩いて【あるいて】 <Verb - Gerund>; (v5k,vi) to walk; (P). It can even generate verb forms from a dictionary form. It would be ideal if we had this here and not just for the Japanese language but the implementation seems complicated. --Anatoli 08:55, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

This would be an excellent way for a mirror or other reuser to handle it, IMO. And IMO, if we take care of the content that matters, mirroring will take care of itself. Being prisoners of this incarnation (on ill-suited software running on servers administered by an organization that cares little for our needs), there is only so much we can do for the end-user. -- Visviva 10:16, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

If we collectively present this problem to the WMF people, I think they'll try to help us solve it. If I'm understanding you correctly, what we want is something that works like Google Translate-plus-definitions, yes? bd2412 T 15:58, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Not sure Google Translate can always handle all forms correctly but there's sure some AI there, which looks not just at the dictionary forms of words. Can you give an example, please? --Anatoli 11:18, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Give an example? Not really, no. I'm not a programmer! bd2412 T 04:37, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

This doesn't really seem that different from having bot-created entries for each inflected form. Which is what I assume we would want, long-term. -- Visviva 09:52, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Keep, I'm the one who originally made the 歩いて page, and I was always taught that it was a verb form of 歩く. A lot of people post an extreme number of possible verb forms and I suppose it would be absurd to include all of those but I don't agree that those are verb forms! I would possibly call 歩きたい a verb form but 歩きたくなかったときには is not and I find it a misleading reductio ad absurdum. In the previous example 歩きたくなかった is the negative past form of 歩きたい, but とき and には are separate forms. This is my idea: The conjugation table for 歩く is not ridiculous:

The form in question is both included in the conjugation table and it has an equivalent translation in a lot of languages which makes it a good candidate simply for the reason of linking to "by foot". Simply let users create entries for forms in the conjugation table. --BiT 11:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Strong keep. As Petey Mentioned above, Latin has quite a considerable number of verb forms. I think Lithuanian has more, if you count the participles and their forms. Lithuanian adjectives can have 150+ forms. Multiply 2 genders x 2 numbers x 7 cases x 3 degrees of comparison. Some of the forms coincide with each other, but not as many as say Slovenian. The issue here is differentiated between a verb form and verb phrase. "Aruite" is a verb form whereas 歩きたくないときにも "arukitakunaitokinimo" is a verb phrase. Verb forms should always be included, verb phrases should not (with conditions). — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:25, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, now we're getting somewhere. Taking my own advice from above, I've taken an uninformed look into Martin's Reference Grammar of Japanese [8]. Martin has a rather lengthy discussion of these V-te forms in section 9.2, beginning on page 475; he uses the term "gerund". There does not seem to be any question that he considers these to be verb forms rather than verb+particle compounds; he calls them verb forms, writes them as a single word (which he does not do for particles), etc. Unless somebody has a better grammar that comes to a different conclusion, this is good enough for me. Keep, as ===Verb===. -- Visviva 09:52, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Not really, and you are mischaracterizing Martin. Like grammatical past tense or other such constructions, Martin talks about a grammatical gerund. He writes this very appropriately as V-te (ex: kai-te, kai-de, kasi-te, kat-te, kot-te etc), ie with a dash followed by te. He is very careful about this point because Japanese grammar does not recognize a verbal te-from. If you read the whole discussion, it is nothing more than the adverbial form (which he calls infinitive here) with -te added.

Here is another point: "It is usually assumed the forms of the copula (such as da, na, no, ni ,de etc.) and the various postnominal particles (such as ga, o, kara, made,; gurai, dokoro, etc.) are attached to the noun to make a single phonological word" (page 34). So, shall we now add entries for 犬が, 犬を, 犬の, 犬に , 犬から etc? This is obviously nonsense, but not according to Latin grammar. But this is not Latin grammar.

The above Conjugation chart is ridiculous. Only the stem forms belong, and that could be improved. -te is not part of the verb. V-te is not a lemma and hence inappropriate. "But with do it in language X..." is fine for language X. Leave it to people who actual understand the language and do real work with it. Bendono 14:58, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

semi-strong KEEP. Okay, I can't speak Japanese but there are some things I would like to say. Regardless of whether we keep this or not some of the crap surfacing here is pissing me off :P

ex: 歩いたときでなくても - even though not the time that (I) walked

As people have said that is NOT a verb form >_> It's a sentence (fragment) and that should be blindingly obvious to anyone who can read Japanese as "とき" is a noun. So just because you could transliterate the whole string of characters as *aruitatokidenakutemo rather than something like aruita toki de nakutemo. Therefore, saying that that is a verb form is absolute BS. 50 Xylophone Players talk 17:01, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] striscie

Misspelt, according to WT:FEED#striscie. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 17:02, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I think asking User:Barmar might be a good first step. If it's a pure error, we can speedy delete it. If it's fine, then it's a speedy keep. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:56, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] pull my finger

A previous RFV passed without citations being provided (see Talk:pull_my_finger). However, I don't doubt that it can be cited, and this is an RFD. Same rationale, though: "It's a common phrase, but since it doesn't actually convey meaning beyond the strict literal sense, it doesn't seem to belong here." Stephen said "I agree, the meaning cannot be guessed from the words. It implies that the finger is a fart lever"; but that is not the implied meaning, is it? It is just a literal request for the person to pull the finger. If it meant "I am going to fart", it would be a standard idiom, not the joke/prank. This seems like having an entry for "Look into my eyes" (stating that it implies hypnotism) or even "Hand it over" (implying, unguessably!, that money is wanted when a bank robber says it). Equinox ◑ 23:09, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm of two minds about this one, but I did find one attributive use in b.g.c. (for "Pull My Finger" conditional program). --EncycloPetey 23:23, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Keep, I think. With respect to meaning, it seems quite clear to me that the expression has a meaning and not a literal one (i.e, it is not simply SOP) and that the meaning is pretty specific. It is a humorous or insulting challenge, inviting the interlocutor to induce a fart in the speaker. Equinox's 2 examples are arguably not in quite the same situation, since "look into my eyes" can have a very wide range of contexts and implied meanings and "hand it over" contains the wide-open pronoun "it". But, what endears me most to this entry is the fact that the first time I encountered it I found it quite useful. I had never known what "Pull my finger" meant, though I'd heard it a few times (the most recent when Michael Caine uttered it, mockingly to the bad guys, in Children of Men). This entry explained it to me, performing precisely the function that a dictionary is intended to perform. So I think it's a valid, helpful entry. -- WikiPedant 00:27, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it is easy to cite in lower case. Most uses are in upper case and seem to derive from novelty dolls. And many are in quotes which makes it more likely that they are mentions. OTOH there might be enough in attributive use to support the upper case version. I found one for lower case. DCDuring TALK 01:03, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Weekly World News‎, v. 20, no. 49, Aug 31, 1999, Page 23:

• Gasbag hubby makes me pull his finger! Dear Dotti: My husband makes a big show of passing gas and actually makes me pull his finger when friends or neighbors drop by.

2007, Andrew B Brandi, The Warrior's Guide to Insanity‎, p. 68:

• He's not asking you to pull his finger, and he doesn't belch in front of your friends, demonstrating some new form of human speech.

2006, Larry the Cable Guy, Git-R-Done‎, 143:

• I remember he actually teared up at his father's funeral. Later I realized it was because he had told the deacon to pull his finger at the gravesite and he farted. He was crying so hard from laughing, it looked like he was in mourning.

Based on the foregoing, move to pull one's finger. bd2412 T 02:16, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree, but it should probably be pull someone's finger. Leave pull my finger as a redirect. -- WikiPedant 03:56, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Or more simply pull a finger, since that has a fair amount of usage as well. A possessive pronoun is not a necessary component of this phrase. — Carolina wren discussió 04:23, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] dative of purpose

The definition is wrong; this is just use of the dative to show purpose. I don't think it merits lexical coverage. --EncycloPetey 02:53, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Keep — this and the other forms of the dative, ablative, genitive, &c. are useful to learners of Latin (like me); moreover, this phrase is idiomatic (e.g., this cannot mean, in Scots law, a “decree dative of purpose”). † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 12:45, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

There is always some context in which an utterance is interpreted. To start there is the context of what language is being spoken. Then there are culture, realm of discourse, conversation-specific context, and audience-specific context. If one is in a group of English-speaking students of linguistics who know what "dative" means, is this not obvious? Isn't it just the details of how one author of school of thought specify this that may vary in encyclopedic detail, not the one- or two-line definition? DCDuring TALK 18:47, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Delete or improve, it's not claiming to be idiomatic or context-specific, the article says it's a dative used to indicate purpose. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:56, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Is there a sense of "of" that means "used to show"? It's a phrasing that has always seemed very odd to me; the Latin dativus finalis seems significantly more SOP than its English calque. -- Visviva 12:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I had always understood these "X of Y" constructions to be fixed terms of art in classical studies. Certainly "dative of service" and "dative of (the) end" also exist, but looking at the very few b.g.c. hits for "dative of intent" and "dative of intention" is instructive -- all are more or less one-off references to constructs in modern languages (Malayalam in one case, Lithuanian in another, English in a third).

Also, if this is SOP, how is it that the "dative of goal" (or "terminal dative") is apparently not identical with the "dative of purpose"? [9] I'm not seeing the SOPness, so I have to go with keep for now. -- Visviva 12:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I've taken a quick look through one of the little Latin handbooks I own (one from Oxford Univ. Press) to see which "datives" it lists. It includes: "dative of advantage and disadvantage", "dative of separation", "'ethic' dative", "'polite' dative" (both with the single quotes), "dative of the agent", but not "dative of purpose" (although an entire section is devoted to expression of purpose). Another of my little reference books has "dative of advantage and disadvantage", "dative of reference", "ethic dative", "dative of possessiion", "dative of agent", "dative of purpose", "predicative dative". As you can see, only two of these match between the two references, one of them even adds a "the" or single quotes, thus showing that "X of Y" is not a fixed term. There are certain collocations that are more commonly encountered, but their form and nomenclature are not fixed. --EncycloPetey 13:23, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] soil pollution

You can pollute a lot of things; soil, air, water. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:52, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Keep We already have air pollution and water pollution. But other stuff exists isn't a valid argument, so here's a better one: lead pollution is the the pollution of something by lead, mercury pollution is the pollution of something by mercury, but soil pollution is not the pollution of something by soil. In general the phrase <noun> pollution has two possible senses, only one of which will be valid for a given noun. — Carolina wren discussió 21:06, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand the argument in WT:CFI terms.

On its own terms, "special-interest legislation" and "pollution legislation" similarly use have the attributive nouns in different relations to the head noun of the phrase.

"Air", "water", and "noise pollution" are terms that other dictionaries seem to find worthwhile, while "soil pollution" is not. I suspect that it has something to do with the legal recognition afforded the first three. It may also be that the notion of making dirt "dirty" or soling soil didn't take. Soil contamination isn't in other dictionaries either though. DCDuring TALK 21:46, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The cites on b.g.c for air and water each number in the tens of thousands, while for soil it numbers only in the thousands. There's also the slight problem that the synonyms ground pollution and land pollution exist for soil pollution, tho of the three soil is the most common. Attestation clearly is not a problem, and idiomaticity clearly is a common issue for all of these save perhaps light pollution where clarifying that it doesn't refer to a low level of pollution is a second issue. However, that reasoning also applies to soil pollution, as the combination could refer to pollution by soil (“‘excrement’”) unless one realized it has a particular idiomatic meaning of pollution of the soil (“‘dirt’”).

I did a closer look at the b.g.c. cite before committing the above as an edit and you know what? It seems that back at the start of the 20th century, soil pollution was not concerned with chemical pollution, but biological. I'll work some on the entry to have it reflect the change in meaning. — Carolina wren discussió 23:37, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The Rosenau quotation might simply refer to ordinary soil pollution, specifically by manure or sewage. From the Google snippet views, the book appears to use pollution in the conventional modern sense elsewhere. —Michael Z. 2009-09-16 01:28 z

Doesn't change the fact that the quotes there for soil pollution and from other sources of the era, the only concern about soil pollution that was mentioned was biological, and nothing about chemical pollution. In contrast, in this page from a 2004 book about poultry management, [10] it bothers to mention specific types of chemical contamination that might result, but only mentions in passing biological concerns, and it by far is an exception among modern quotes in considering biological problems. Show me any quotes from the pre-1923 (i.e copyright-expired) era mentioning "soil pollution" in a context other than concerns about biological contaminants such as hookworm and I might change my opinion.

There's also this snippet [11] from a 1965 source that suggests that this term would pass the "ground beef" test, though frankly I'm not a fan of that test as I feel that regulatory definitions are encyclopedic in nature.

Finally, I've also come across one 1887 [12] two 1898 [13] [14] and one 1921 [15] cites of the form "soil-pollution", so the hyphenated form can be cited as a rare word, in which case not including the unhyphenated form would be silly. — Carolina wren discussió 04:27, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that by the mid-20th century people and public agencies had become more aware of sewage controls, but w:Love Canal and w:Rachel Carson's Silent Spring were yet to make the papers. But whether we're dealing with shit or PCBs, soil pollution usually refers to “pollution of soil. There are lots of recent examples of organic soil pollution. —Michael Z. 2009-09-16 04:50 z

Yup. This and other editions by Rosenau include quotations related to hookworm disease:

“The soil can take care of a large amount of pollution and will often yield ground water free of undesirable substances and bacteria.” [16]

“Prevention mainly depends upon the avoidance of soil pollution near homes. This usually involves the introduction of appropriate latrines combined with discouragement of the habit of promiscuous defecation...”[17]

“Human Habits. Hookworm infection is sharply correlated with those human habits which concentrate feces in moist, shaded places (places that are repeatedly visited). Only nominal attention to proper fecal disposal may be sufficient to prevent the spread of infection.”[18] [p 1189, listed under “soil pollution” in the index]

 —Michael Z. 2009-09-16 04:37 z 04:37, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

There is also "soil contamination", somewhat less common. These entries certainly have some value as translation hooks, and constitute "set phrases" without much doubt, but I am agnostic as to whether they are really a good idea overall. Incidentally, if anyone is still thinking about quantitative metrics for set-phraseness, the mutual information score for "soil" and "pollution" in COCA is 3.67. "Water pollution" is 5.9, "air pollution" is 8.35, "ozone pollution" is 8.75, and "transboundary pollution" is a whopping 10.98. "Soil contamination" is 6.00. (...if we were to ever adopt a certain MI score as a basis for inclusion, it would have some very interesting effects...) Haven't checked other measures or corpora. -- Visviva 17:33, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] t̼

Do we want all possible combinations of IPA letter + diacritic(s)? I hope not. -- Prince Kassad 21:08, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, it's easy to see why someone would try to look it up. This (if I have the right one) is a pretty difficult character to generate, or even isolate. But I agree that having separate entries for each of these combinations is not tenable. Could they simply be hard-redirected to the diacritic? That's likely to be what the user is looking for, in any case. -- Visviva 06:31, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Probably keep, what harm is it doing? What are the negative effects of keeping this and or seeing new ones created? Mglovesfun (talk) 15:18, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be the usual argument against creating SOP entries, viz. policy and maintenance. The total number of valid character-diacritic combinations is somewhere in the thousands, and if these are all real entries with content, they would all need to be updated whenever someone wanted to adjust or improve our IPA coverage. Imagine if every time you wanted to improve the entry for "car", you had to also fix the entries for "yellow car", "blue car", etc. On the other hand, the SOPness of these is anything but obvious to the untrained eye. -- Visviva 15:47, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I think they’re different; cf.  ̼ with  ̫. They are both combining forms. Are there stand-along “modifier letter” forms of all these diacritics, or only some? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 16:59, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

That would be this block and this block, I assume. Doesn't look like there's any 1:1 correspondence. I'll admit I just ended up pulling a likely candidate out of that second file; I have no idea if that's the diacritic in the current entry or not. But that's kind of the point -- we need to address these in a way that doesn't assume the user to be of superhuman savviness, but preferably without tossing our principles in the dustbin either. -- Visviva 17:22, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Question: are there any languages that use IPA combining diacritics as part of their writing system? If so, hard redirects are probably not a feasible option. -- Visviva 17:22, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

How about purely SOP definitions like the ones given to English affixes coöccurring with interfixes (e.g., partheno- = parthen- + -o-)? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 02:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

That could work, though the formatting would take some thought. The combining diacritics have a way of not rendering at all in isolation, but also look very odd when bound to a hyperlinked whitespace character. Maybe we could have Unicode's description of the diacritic (lowercased) as the display text on the link? -- Visviva 03:08, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

How about  ̼  and  ̫  (with punctuation spaces on both sides this time)? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 03:58, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

That looks pretty spiffy to me. This seems like a low-future-maintenance solution that would not sacrifice user value. Hopefully others will weigh in. -- Visviva 04:51, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Indeed. BTW, if that particular spacing doesn’t do it for you, feel free to compare use with the other spacing widths on my user page (User:Doremítzwr#Useful symbols, § Useful symbols yet to be added to MediaWiki:Edittools, §_§ Punctuation). † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 08:26, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] BitTorrent

Nominated a while ago, can't find discussion, and deleted by User:Jackofclubs. However, this is not just a piece of corporate software, it is a protocol and possibly a generic way of referring to like file sharing programs. —This unsigned comment was added by DAVilla (talk • contribs).

Are protocols exempt from the usual restrictions on proper nouns? I suppose it would sort of make sense if they were, and they're obviously useful things for us to have entries for; but I can't recall this issue being raised before. In any event, I would be inclined to delete sense as far as the specific BT client goes (absent CFI-compliant citations, of course). -- Visviva 06:38, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Yep, keep the protocol sense. It's a huge phenomenon and a word that many people will need defined for them if they come across it unawares. Tooironic 23:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] grenader

I was thinking grenadier. I don't think this is correct--Volants 10:27, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Changed to rfd-sense. Dunno. Seems like an rfv issue to me. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:19, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] NMEA 0183

A maritime communications standard. Just like ISO 639. DCDuring TALK 11:19, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Should presumably go the same way as #BitTorrent, which has not gotten much input thus far. I can see some value in having a full set of standards and protocols, along the lines of having a full set of Unicode characters and SI abbreviations; but if kept they should really be labeled ==Translingual==, not English. (unless we want 7000 language sections all saying the same thing.)-- Visviva 11:29, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

We are part of a larger project. This is exactly the kind of thing that WP is good at. We have {{only in}} for this kind of thing, if we even want that. ISO 639 should also be in our glossary, but otherwise merits the same treatment. There are a great number of standards bodies and standards. The ones that are compositional are particularly suspect, but we have others: 802.11, 802.11a, 802.11n. Also 1040, W-2, 1099; Category:E numbers.

The situation is somewhat analogous to our handling of Translingual two- and three-part species names. In that case we have chosen to have the components, but not the species names. Both WP and Wikispecies have them covered. (We do have the vernacular names.) DCDuring TALK 11:53, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Seems (partially at least) like a WT:BP#Translingual question to me. If it's changed from English to translingual, I see no reason not to keep it. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:02, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I have to admit I'm having a hard time coming up with any plausible rationale for this one. Wikipedia doesn't really make an effort to have complete lists of these, but that's mostly because such lists are readily available, usually from the sponsoring organization. Delete this and its ilk, I guess. -- Visviva 14:45, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I should maybe add that I think the question of keeping the names of standards (which is probably not a great idea) is quite different from any keeping terms or symbols specified within such standards (which in some cases is essential to our mission). Deleting ISO 639-3 would be very different matter from deleting enm. -- Visviva 15:05, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

For the language codes, we might well want to have our own appendix rather than pretend that, say, "sga" meets CFI or go through the exercise of proving it. It might enable us to have some content in an appendix that wouldn't meet WP standards.

For the sake of argument, what about 10W-30, which appears 9 times in COCA vs 0 for enm and cmn. I could see being very inclusive about such abbreviations and codes, especially the systematic ones. The motor-oil grades seem to be perfect for a table reminiscent of the kinds of tables that dictionaries have often had for weights and measures, calendars, etc. Sometime WP has them and sometimes not. Such tables can be implemented as templates or as appendices. DCDuring TALK 15:51, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

10W-30 seems like a perfectly reasonable entry to me (as would 10W-40, 5W-30, etc.) It's attestable, not a proper name, and not sum of parts to any non-engineers. Certainly a tabular appendix would be useful as well, but need not preclude the existence of entries.

SI units, language codes, and Unicode entities, among other issues, are together making me think that it is reasonable to make a general exception to attestation requirements for closed sets of terms that are defined in a widely-accepted standard. The whole point of these standards, after all, is that even if no one has actually used zeptoohm or sga or ✵ in all the history of language, there will be no real question of what is signified (well, except perhaps for the last one); these are more like an arcane sort of verb inflection than like qualitatively new words. And because they 'are part of a closed and widely-accepted set, it is quite likely that someone will run across them and want to know what they mean -- thus meeting the most important criterion for inclusion. ... But anyway. I guess I'll save this argument for when you decide to RFD all of ISO 639. ;-) -- Visviva 16:40, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

My Germanic heritage prefers things "regelmäßig". I am suspicious that we turn a blind eye to non-CFI-meeting wikijargon, linguistics terminology, language codes, or have very fine distinctions for linguistics terms. It reminds be of US Congress repeatedly exempting itself from application of, say, workplace laws against sexual harassment. We should be eating our own dogfood. Getting rid of wikijargon was one of our finer moments.

Broader use of {{only in}} sending folks to WP and redirects sending folks to our appendices would be my preferred option. Rather than putting language codes through RfV (not that I would dare), we should have our own appendix and use redirects to point to the code there or the entry for the language if we have the entry. (Reminds me of {{spelink}} for species). Whether we want to have and maintain the list of standards or think someone else (WP or issuer, probably) should is a lesser issue. There are clearly instances where we can perform a service by collating different terminology systems, sometimes something much better done with a table than with a wordy definition. See {{Paper-B}}.

NMEA 0183 is compositional. The user searching for "NMEA 0183" would be reasonably served by NMEA and its associated wikipedia link. A user searching for 10W-30 would probably be better served by a redirect to an appendix that contained a table and an explanation of the "grammar" of the system rather than an entry. DCDuring TALK 17:23, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Name of a specific entity, perhaps. Prescribed name and usage. This kind of thing might be acceptable with a technical-usage label like {{communications}}, but I'm not convinced that “closed-set” is important. Authoritative medical dictionaries are full of hundreds of variations of names of diseases and conditions which are portmanteaus from other-language dictionaries, and might have never been spoken aloud.

10W-30 is different. It's used every day by common people who drive cars. —Michael Z. 2009-09-25 00:40 z

[edit] sjagerijnig

moved to sacherijnig. See official spelling Jcwf 16:30, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

What's the reason for this RfD? The project is not limited to words listed in official lists. Lmaltier 16:39, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

For the nth time, I don't know what you're proposing for deletion, or why. Since I don't know any Dutch, I can't comment, but someone has to clean this mess up. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:11, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

After properly moving a page to the proper spelling and cleaning up the mess. I am proposing to delete a page that has a wrong miss-spelled title.... Dutch has a regulated spelling agreed upon by law by three democratically elected governments. It is time for you to start respecting our language and stop screwing around with it by creating misleading wrong spellings in it. That is exceedingly offensive and undemocratic. Jcwf 02:19, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh FFS you do know this is an online dictionary, not a soapbox? Keep the politics off the page and stick to the dictionary stuff. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:01, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with deleting this page. It's nothing more than a misspelling which isn't even very common. If the English Wiktionary would like to include this sort of entrees in Dutch, they could also tag =English= on every Chinese character page or include entrees like "raynbow" for rainbow and "offishel" for official. It makes as much sense as keeping this page.. --Ooswesthoesbes 05:04, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

The project is not limited to regulated spellings, nor to current spellings (old spellings not used any more should be included too). The important thing is current and past use. Please, compare statistics between sjagerijnig and sacherijnig, they seem to suggest that it could be kept. In such cases, you should add an explanatory note explaining that this is not the regulated spelling, or that this spelling was used during a limited period, or whatever appropriate, but not delete. Lmaltier 05:56, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

It is a common misspelling (or rather, a non-standard spelling): see, for example, http://www.songteksten.nl/songteksten/37236/Kinderen-Voor-Kinderen/Wakker-met-een-wijsje.htm . Look up "wakker met een wijsje songtekst" on Google, and wherever you find the lyrics, you find the word "sjagerijnig" in it. So the article should be kept at least as a redirect. Besides, the spelling "sjagerijnig" matches the pronunciation /ʃa.ɤə.ˈɾɛɪ.nɪx/ in the song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8-Ru1GBbiY (0:29), whereas "sacherijnig" would be pronounced /sa.xə.ˈɾɛi.nɪx/, which doesn't match the song. —AugPi _(t) 06:31, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

However, KvK 's official website does use the standard spelling "chagrijnig": http://kvk.vara.nl/Song-single.408.0.html?&cHash=cf705f019d&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=466 . On Google, "chagrijnig" gets 43,000 hits, "sjagerijnig" gets 17,200 hits, and "sacherijnig" gets 13,500 hits. "sjacherijnig" gets 13,400 hits. —AugPi _(t) 06:55, 1 October 2009 (UTC) P.S. w/ Safesearch on.

"Chagrijnig" doesn't really quite match the pronunciation in the song either: "chagrijnig" suggests /ʃa.ˈɤɾɛɪ.nɪx/, but in the song there is a schwa between the 'g' and the 'r': /ʃa.ɤə.ˈɾɛɪ.nɪx/ —AugPi _(t) 07:23, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

This last argument is beside the point, since spelling doesn't have to match pronunciation exactly. "sjagerijnig" gets only 5 hits on YouTube, whereas "chagrijnig" gets 70, including from KvK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3wlD-YXjWs . By the way, in this last link the pronunciation for "chagrijnig" matches "sacherijnig" exactly. —AugPi _(t) 07:42, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

(I'm writing this a little bit hasty, so if something could be considered offensive - it is well meant) You are actually saying it should be kept also because it is pronounced so? Then we could at least add a different entree too for sjachereinig, sjaachereinig, schaachereinig, schachereinig, sjachereineg, sjaggereineg, sjaggareinig, sjaggerijnig, sjaggereinich or sjachereinech. Not only because people in Limburg would more likely pronounce it as /ʃ(x)ɑxɐˈrɛɪnɪx/. If "non-regulated spellings" are good to be kept you could also split up every compound word found in Dutch (it's a common spelling mistake), so instead of appelboom appel boom and for schapenvlees we could use schapen vlees, schape vlees (the "n" is not pronounced) or - for the immigrant communities - sjchappefleesj. Another thing to raise the amount of articles would be to include entrees like ap-pelboom or appel-boom (when breaking a word at the end of the line people might make a mistake in the spelling) - just an idea of course ;) --Ooswesthoesbes 13:16, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Well delete assuming you're all right (which seems very likely) I just wanted to know what we were discussing. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:59, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I find different figures for Google hits (www.google.fr site): 23000 for sacherijnig, 27900 for sjagerijnig, and 76800 for chagrijnig. I still don't understand why it would be offensive to keep sjagerijnig (with a comment about its non-standard status): the standard word seems to be the less usual one. Lmaltier 19:54, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

cos ppl i/&fromlow cuntrys brainwashd bout that stup.list[iwont evn use it as wc-paper--mao-zegreen boekje,so democratic-beurkk] that arbitrarly incl.1variant[i'v neva seen'n'dnt evn gues wotitmeans,unles from context]butnot the other1i prsnly kno as holl-ic[from tv,livin there]~2som purist french w/AF bs praps:(--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 01:28, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

@Ooswesthoesbes (talk • contribs): Number of Google hits (with Safesearch ON): "chagrijnig" = 44000, "sjagerijnig" = 17200, "sacherijnig" = 13600, "sjaggerijnig" = 10500, "sjachereinig" = 755, "sjaggerijnig" = 577, "sjaachereinig" = 0, "schaachereinig" = 0, "schachereinig" = 0, "sjachereineg" = 0, "sjaggereinich" = 0, "sjachereinech" = 0. Since "sjagerijnig" gets more hits than one of the two standard spellings, one can argue that it is a common misspelling. —AugPi _(t) 02:32, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I get different results: sacherijnig: 2.750, sjacherijnig: 1.950, chagrijnig: 76.000, sjagerijnig: 28.000, sjaggerijnig: 1.7000. --Ooswesthoesbes 04:50, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

me w/twG~lmalt.[70vs20+gran]funy..:/--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 07:38, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

• Keep

  It is attestable in Google Books.

  A usage note can make it clear that this spelling is considered non-standard by a particular authority. Whether it is a misspelling or a non-standard spelling can be clarified. The request for deletion has given as a justification for deletion the existence of another, official spelling; this is an invalid justification per Wiktionary's WT:CFI. Wiktionary's inclusion criteria focuses on actual attestability (description of what actually is the case) rather than on external authorities (prescription of what someone, even if a democratically elected body, considers should be the case). Nevertheless, the views of authorities can be mentioned in a usage note.

  Some searches:

  google books:"sjagerijnig" and google:"sjagerijnig"

  google books:"sacherijnig" and google:"sacherijnig".

  --Dan Polansky 09:20, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] sjagerijn

same as sjagerijnig

keep as/ogpi+lmalt just abuv[we rdescritiv;)--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 14:34, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, if yoo wood olsow elou payges written yoozing fonettik (or fonettique, wee need toô bee deskriptiv ofkorz) Inglish. :) --Ooswesthoesbes 15:06, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

This shouldn't have been deleted, but since it was renamed and the redirect deleted, I can't just restore it directly. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:06, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] October 2009

[edit] local history

History that is local in its subject. DCDuring TALK 00:21, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Delete. Equinox ◑ 00:32, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Local history does not normally include microhistory or Alltagsgeschichte, although these are local in subject. I also find the compound "local historian" to be of interest -- it chunks very differently from "local teacher" or "local dentist". The fact that the boundaries of the field have been the subject of periodic debate for decades is also of interest. Keep, perhaps sharpen definition (though it looks pretty good from here). -- Visviva 03:11, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Not idiomatic or a set phrase (to me) so delete. Mglovesfun (talk) 06:12, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Not every possible combination of senses of red and senses of car is actually attestable. Should be have an entry for red car that contains only those that are? "Red team" and "red car" use different senses of red. Should be have one or both for that reason?

Also would an official (ie, prescribed) definition of "local history" from, say, a "Universal Society of Local Historians" merit an entry if attestable? How would we warrant that a given citation was of the official definition? DCDuring TALK 16:30, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

redcar/tm-'dbe alowd,y[c furtherabuv]2,y,tho praps rathe i/wp-extnsn-史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 23:29, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

1. No, of course not. 2. No, of course it wouldn't. But nobody is suggesting either of these things, so I'm not sure why you bring them up.

"Local" seems to have only one applicable definition: "From or in a nearby location." Obviously we are missing a sense or three. But I don't see how any plausible sense of local would reflect the fact that a) local history is normally considered to exclude microhistorical and ethnographic studies of a locality's history, even though these are both local and historic ([19]), or b) that someone could say in all seriousness that "proper local history is not really local history at all." ([20]) -- Visviva 21:16, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Well the current definition doesn't refer to the history of a locality, but a sort of study, a body of work. So providing that is correct, I'd say keep. But only if there's some sort of credible source. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:34, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

praps dc isbrainwashd i/schools[imjust tryin2understnd why s/he chaoticly nomnts like that,oris itjust bordm+silynes?];but neva stepd outside ntried2thorely understand sth??[uwont getv.far w/ur aproach..--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 23:29, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

I blame not just my schools, but also my ancestors, food, medication, friends, relatives, employers, coworkers, friends, partners, acquaintances, correspondents, government, and society and environment in general for all their shortcomings as manifest in me. In the great Wiki in the Sky you can always put in an RfD on me. Please refrain from out-of-process deletion or even editing.

I nominate what I come across in the course of sowing chaos throughout wiktionary, for example, in Category:English phrases, Category:English interjections, and Category:English proverbs, also uncategorized entries, and items with bad structure, missing inflection lines, bad headers. Also entries that haven't been materially changed since being imported from Webster 1913. Should I presort them before putting them in to RfD or RfV? Is it my job to perfect each entry I find with shortcomings?

If someone would like to make a good entry out of this entry by indicating in what context the specialized meaning applies and attesting the elements of the definition or referencing the definition, preferably from more than one source, I'd be more than happy. Otherwise, .... DCDuring TALK 15:49, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Exactly; I nominate entries based on what they contain. If there's a specialized context or another meaning I don't know about, I can't predict that the entry will be improved in the future. Often, rfding a poor entry either leads to deletion, or a good rewrite. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:07, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

“All white horses,” and all that. Sorry that I don't know what microhistory and Alltagsgeschichte are, but even if other histories are local in character, that doesn't mean that local history isn't simply “history that is local.” Also, let's please not mix up prescribed technical definitions—perhaps there is a sense of local history which should be marked with {{history}}—and everyday terms that everyone knows the meaning of, like local history. —Michael Z. 2009-10-07 02:40 z

Feel free to edit the entry, in a way that you feel would resolve these concerns. As you may have noticed, this is an RFD; the only point at issue is whether the term is always and everywhere the sum of its parts. If it is, it doesn't belong in the dictionary, because no one will ever need to look it up. On the other hand, if it is only sometimes the sum of its parts, then it can stay and be improved. But before anyone is going to want to spend time improving the entry, it has to not be deleted.

We haven't satisfactorily dealt with the issue of how to deal with words that are SOP in common use but have an occasional non-compositional meaning. Ruakh proposed a good solution a while back, IIRC... I'll see if I can dig it up. But in any event, I'm not convinced that applies here; I have a hard time imagining that anyone would consider, say, an ethnographic study of a locality over time to qualify as "local history". I wouldn't expect to find, say, Shinohata in the local history section of a library; even a Japanese library. -- Visviva 03:42, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, if someone added a specialist definition, then the entry doesn't get deleted (and then perhaps the common sense should be added, no?). I don't know anything about the use of local history by historians, so I could only speculate. —Michael Z. 2009-10-07 04:50 z

We always have the citation space available for someone who wants to provide quotations that would support a non-SoP sense. I sympathize with the need to give a home for work that might lead to a real entry. Is it more reasonable to have an entry like this RfV'd first? The issue seems largely the same in either case. The citation effort may be "wasted". I have always thought that talk was cheaper than citation effort, so that a challenge on idiomaticity grounds would lead to less wasted effort.

It seems to me especially important to have citations to support an entry that the lexicographic authorities at other dictionaries don't find worth having an entry for. We seem to give a great deal of credence to such authority in many other areas. —This unsigned comment was added by DCDuring (talk • contribs) 7 October 2009.

Delete this and improve the related sense of history, because it can be combined with any plausible adjective. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:18, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] harrowing of hell

SoP, as so many. DCDuring TALK 20:43, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

What? Even if we suppose that an appropriate sense were added to harrow, I can't imagine how this could ever be decoded from its parts to refer to this specific hagiographical event. Or are you suggesting that the new sense at harrow should be: "(of Jesus) To free the souls from (a place) between one's death and resurrection"? -- Visviva 21:04, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Exactly, I sort of feel that this is a proper noun since it refers to a specific event. If we move to it Harrowing of hell (or Hell?) then it would need attributive cites, which might be a problem. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:17, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

this nominatn=haitof stupidity,butrealy.

• stuf urattribtns,opn dabibl[y,wt'd covrthat2,regrdls of1's views onlife!],ridiklesbunch[dc+glvs]--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 23:08, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

It is, in any event, encyclopedic. Simiilar events in Christianity: Resurrection, Assumption, Second Coming, Immaculate Conception, Virgin Birth, Apocalypse, Ascension, Armageddon, Annunciation, End of Days, Last Judgment.

I suppose that they all fit into one of Pawley's "systems" of terms. Any long-standing religion would have such a system. The Roman Catholics have names for every day and some other Christian religions have something similar, for example, on a different calendar. Of course there are at least three liturgical texts using each so they would probably be readily attestable.

Other systems of events might be battles: Thermopylae, Gettysburg, Antietam, First Battle of Bull Run.

Considering this should lead to either a whole nuther class of potential entries or a sharper determination of our role relative to an encyclopedia. DCDuring TALK 11:23, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not one of those who goes around banning people, as a rule, but IMO this kind of language in a community discussion is really far, far outside what is acceptable. That you choose to cloak your personal attacks in a nearly incomprehensible garble does not make them any more acceptable. Please knock it off, permanently. -- Visviva 15:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

1.IDIDNT'CHOS'2V RSI,NI'L CITE U4THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!2.newbis get rv 4'stupidity' aldatime here,get ur doublstndeds sorted,disgustin'comunity'.--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 01:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

• I have cited and revised the entry. After actually taking a look at the data, I would have to revise my judgment above. This is (or can be) a generic term, so attributive use need not enter into it; it can refer to any sort of incursion into the underworld. Which brings us back to the sum of parts issue. I believe there is sufficient reasonable doubt to justify keeping this entry. To wit:
  • The verb harrow is simply never, ever, ever used in this sense in normal modern English (if at all), except in this phrase. Thus any claim of sum-of-partsness would have to be based on historical rather than modern usage.
  • The common noun appears to be a genericization of the proper name Harrowing of Hell (not at issue here). Prior to 20th century, AFAICT, that term referred solely to the Son's little postmortal escapade. Thus the common noun is also not historically derived from its parts. -- Visviva 15:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Move to Harrowing of Hell and keep as it's used attributively in the current article. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:45, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] cadre party

If you know what a cadre is in a political context, you'll know what this is. Ie, non-idiomatic. DCDuring TALK 18:51, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, I can't comment until cadre has the correct definition, which it doesn't AFAICT. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:06, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] island chain

It's an [[island]] [[chain]]. Mglovesfun (talk) 07:17, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

If this is a sum of parts, why is there no emphasis on "chain"? In, say, "long chain" there is. Does n't that make island chain a compound?

Jcwf 04:36, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

In a word, no Mglovesfun (talk) 18:42, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

It definitely has many markers of set-phrase-ishness. We don't/can't speak of a "tree chain", or a "hill chain", or a "lake chain", although we can obviously speak of a "chain of lakes" et al. The only other landform that collocates with "chain" here seems to be "mountain". Coming at it from the other side, a lei is a chain of flowers, associated with certain islands, but no one would ever call it an "island chain". Nor would one be likely to apply the term to a length of chain from Guernsey. Looks to me like this is compositional but idiomatic, which is to say we can say something useful about it, but not a lot. Weak keep, with a view to the "Rocking chair" and "Easier said"[no, not this one; "Fried egg", I guess] tests in WT:SURVIVOR. -- Visviva 07:36, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

FWIW, the MI in COCA is 5.21, which is higher than "kitchen island" and "heat island" but lower than "island nation", "island lore" or "desert island". Hmmm... -- Visviva 07:36, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this is like rocking chair. Any chair can rock, but I think that island chain only refers to a chain of islands, ergo delete as unidiomatic. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:42, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, the "rocking chair test" in WT:SURVIVOR is supposed to relate to unusual patterns of stress and intonation (as per Jcwf above). You're right, though, that rocking chair would probably be kept for other reasons, regardless. -- Visviva 02:49, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Keep for that very reason. DAVilla 05:52, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Weak keep per Visviva. --Dan Polansky 11:08, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Likewise weak keep, although perhaps stronger than some others. A chain in every other usage I can think of has objects that are physically or chemically connected to each other. An island chain is arranged as if they were connected, but without any such physical connection. This seems to make the meaning idiomatic, at least to me. --EncycloPetey 12:59, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

The islands in an island chain are usually connected by an underwater ridge, very much the same way as mountains of a mountain chain. --Hekaheka 14:36, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

A chain of correct answer[s]? A chain of ideas? Of mountains? Nah, I still think this should be deleted. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:59, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I would expect a chain of mountains to be connected at least by a higher elevation region at their bases. I would expect a chain of ideas to have a thematic connection. I can't imagine ever saying "chain of correct answer". --EncycloPetey 20:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Typo for answers. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:51, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Are islands in a chain also connected by higher elevation between them?​—msh210℠ 16:31, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Just as one definition of star is "point of light in the night sky", at least one definition of island chain has to relate to surface (above-surface !) appearances. This idea must be after some development of cartography, I would have thought, but before extensive knowledge of underwater topography. FWIW, "chain of islands" (1749) seems to predate "island chain" (c. 1810). "Island chain" is only about twice as frequent at COCA as "chain of islands".

delete. This doesn't seem like much of an idiom to me. DCDuring TALK 17:06, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete unidiomatic.​—msh210℠ 18:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] industry

Rfd-sense:

1. automated production of material goods

which has been added recently[21]. AFAICS the sense is redundant to the first one:

1. Businesses concerned with goods as opposed to services

The reference given to the newly added sense seems irrelevant to the sense. --Dan Polansky 18:49, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

IMO this has to be treated as an RfV. The definition adds "automated", so it is not, on its face, the same. In the context of European patent law, this might actually be used. If it is used attestably in this sense beyond the document cited, it would be includable. Other approaches, such as putting "especially automated" in the first sense, don't seem likely to succeed. In that particular case, I don't think it would accurate with respect to normal usage, at least not over the whole period of usage. And handicraft production might well be excluded from the European patent law sense. DCDuring TALK 19:17, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

There might be a very particular reason for the narrow definition of industry given in this law. There seems to be a particular effort to differentiate "industry" for purposes of patent law from ordinary definitions. See [22]. We have been taking legal definitions relatively seriously, despite their narrow context (usually not narrower than the context of, say, linguistics). DCDuring TALK 19:37, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

The definition seems to be wrong. The European patent law does not limit the term industry to mean "automated production of material goods".

Under Art. 52 of the Convention, patents are granted to inventions which: are new; involve an inventive step; can be applied in industry.

* Novelty - an invention is new if it does not form part of the existing state of the art in technology. The state of the art is anything that was disclosed to the public prior to the application date in oral or written form, through use or in any other way.

* Inventive step - an invention is said to involve an inventive step if, with respect to the existing state of the art, it is not obvious for a person skilled in the art. The inventive step requirement is designed to prevent the patenting of obvious solutions, which would slow down the development of technology.

* Industrial applicability - this requirement is met if the subject matter of the invention can be manufactured or used in industry of any kind, including agriculture. --Hekaheka 21:29, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Seems that I was too quick. The software patent directive does contain this strict definition. This is because the European legislators have wanted to limit the patentability of software, and therefore "industry" has been more narrowly defined in this directive than in patent law in general. --Hekaheka 21:47, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Boy! That is a narrow context. It is now so indicated. Do you think it is attestable? I would expect there to have been some nattering about this over the last ten years. DCDuring TALK 23:20, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] what the Sam Hill

Like the fuck, the dickens, the Devil, the hell. We've been redirecting to those forms from whatever fuller forms we enter. DCDuring TALK 18:10, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm very dubious of the current meaning given at Sam Hill -- I'd always understood it to be a simple euphemism for "damned hell" -- but otherwise a redirect seems reasonable. -- Visviva 18:34, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

"Where in Sam Hill is he?" So, unlike some of the others the redirect should be to the form without "the". Possibly the same should be true for terms involving dickens if it is ever used without "the", as in "where in dickens is he?" For the others we lose the user in the longer entries, I fear. A user-needs-justified inconsistency? DCDuring TALK 16:55, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, redirect.​—msh210℠ 20:29, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Bryce Canyon

A national park. So? --Hekaheka 21:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

It's also an amphitheatre though. Tooironic 09:20, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Attributive use? Mglovesfun (talk) 10:53, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] cooperation

Moved from RFV. DCDuring says "Five senses that seem to me included in two real senses." DAVilla 05:22, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that only the two uncontested senses are worth keeping, but would this mess up the translations? Perhaps the sociological and ecological ones are different words in some languages. Equinox ◑ 15:23, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I would not worry about translations. The tagged senses have currently only two translations. If other languages need several words to cover a sense, they should simply be all listed, and explanations given in appropriate foreign-language entries. --Hekaheka 23:50, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, you're quite right. Delete. Equinox ◑ 22:10, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm okay with deleting these without prejudice. I don't doubt the definition could be more finely splintered, but I would want to see examples to make sure that the way it was divided was appropriate. 63.95.64.254 02:53, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

These haven't been deleted. I'm taking the rather unusual step of moving this to the bottom of the page to get a debate going, as I don't feel right deleting or keep these based on a discussion that took place 7 months ago. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:36, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

---

We need some serious debate here, given the number of senses up for deleted. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:36, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Fine to express openness to good definitions, but we will need citations to add senses unlike those that appear in other dictionaries. If we could get contributors to contribute even one real citation that doesn't seem well covered by our existing definitions, we would have something to work with. DCDuring TALK 00:18, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe just use {{rfc}} instead. I don't really think merging similar definitions into one is an RFD issue. Deleting one outright when no similar definition exists (like the juggling meaning for cascade) ok yes, but not this. Any objections to an rfc? Mglovesfun (talk) 20:43, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] silver jubilee

silver (“‘associated with a twenty-fifth anniversary’”) + jubilee. We should have the table of these things according to the customs in various cultures. DCDuring TALK 17:17, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

See Appendix:Anniversary associations, ripped from WP. DCDuring TALK 17:47, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

We lack the sense of silver, though I agree we shouldn't. If the definitions we have are right — which I doubt — that jubilee is a generic anniversary whereas silver jubilee is especially a monarch's, then keep. Otherwise, delete as SOP.​—msh210℠ 18:11, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

An appendix sounds like a great idea to me, although this isn't exactly bowling me over as unidiomatic. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:19, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Keep: it is only by providing the meaning of "silver jubilee" at "silver" that this becomes a sum of parts. Or does "silver" in this sense combine with anything else but "jubilee"? Also for those who care: silver jubilee at OneLook® Dictionary Search. --Dan Polansky 17:34, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Silver combines with anniversary.​—msh210℠ 04:30, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] periodic structure

Saved from speedy (not speedily deletable IMO), but IMO deletable: SoP: google books:"periodic sentence".​—msh210℠ 18:26, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

We have periodic sentence. Should a definition of periodic structure reference that? I find this sense of "periodic" obscure, as apparently do the OneLook dictionaries that have a separate sense of "periodic" that references "periodic sentence". These same dictionaries do not have "periodic structure". DCDuring TALK 19:28, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

It needs a serious cleanup because the definition seems vague and difficult to me. I can't really comment before that happens. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:05, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Here are some building blocks for the definition [23]:

4. PERIODIC structure: When ideas are unequal because one is logically or emotionally more important than others, and when the writer wants to create a climactic feeling of tension followed by resolution, the periodic sentence can be a good choice. Its structure is the opposite of cumulative structure -- phr or SC + MC. Subordinate clauses and/or phrases precede the main clause, which is located at the end, near the period. (In modern American English, periodic sentences are used more sparingly than the three structures above.)

a. "If it had not been a fairly ordinary thing, in one part of the world, to teach young children to pay the pianoforte, it is doubtful that Mozart's music would exist." (Hearne)

b. "With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in." (Abraham Lincoln, "Second Inaugural Address")

c. "In the case of the omniscient point of view, the narrator sees all and knows all." (Boynton, 250)

It seems, as DCD suggests, that periodic structure is more or less synonymous to periodic sentence. If one wants to see a difference one might conclude that a periodic sentence has a periodic structure. Note that we also have a grammar sense to periodic, which says "having a structure characterized by periodic sentences". To sum up, I would say delete to periodic sructure. --Hekaheka 15:44, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] and so on and so forth

[[and so on]] + [[and so forth]], two members of Category:English coordinates. DCDuring TALK 19:38, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Delete this. There's no doubt that you can chain together quite a lot of these, like with adverbs. SoP. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:40, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I wanted to say keep, but neither CFI nor OneLook supports me; the term can be understood from its parts.

Some Google searches for the interested:

• google:"and so on and so forth" - 17,600,000 hits
• google:"and so on and so on" - 89,200,000 hits
• google:"and so forth and so forth" - 7,710,000 hits

--Dan Polansky 17:54, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

"and so on and so forth" is more euphonious to my ears than other combinations of coordinates, but it is not set and its meanings is deducible from its parts. It surprised me how many of these coordinating-conjunction + phrase expressions seem to be idiomatic. DCDuring TALK 18:46, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

There are now 32 members of Category:English coordinates. DCDuring TALK 19:48, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] façon de parler

French only. Ignoring that both the English and the French are wrong in this section, this isn't an idiom anymore than way of speaking is in English. No reason why the English etymology can't link to the individual words. SoP, delete. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:59, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, yes, it's an idiom! Lmaltier 20:54, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

What should the article say then? Because right now it's totally unidiomatic. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:43, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

The same definition as in English. This definition shows that it's idiomatic. When you say il parle lentement, c'est sa façon de parler, it's not idiomatic at all, but the sense defined here is idiomatic. Lmaltier 17:06, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] faire savoir

I think any verb (other than really defective ones) can go with faire to mean make [someone] [do]. So this is to make someone know. Common use of both faire and savoir. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:19, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Keep, it's not al all the same case as usual faire + verb phrases. The most obvious SoP sense would be to teach, and it's not the sense of this phrase. Lmaltier 20:57, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree. The meaning is really "to let know", and it is very much a set phrase. The literal interpretation would be "teach". Circeus 21:20, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

But unidiomatic. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:40, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

However, if it also means to teach, that's (to me) clearly not SoP, so I'd then say keep. But that's not what the article says. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:45, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

It does not mean to teach. Someone speaking English may guess what it means, but it's only because the same kind of phrase also exists in English. Lmaltier 17:03, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

To put it in DCDuring terms "explain how this meets CFI". Mglovesfun (talk) 17:23, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

It meets CFI because it's an idiom, just like tehdä tiettäväksi, of equivalent meaning and construction, and because faire savoir is not at all the same structure as faire démolir (which is "to have smthing destroyed/demolished"). Circeus 20:03, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Nobody's denying that faire has more than one meaning. But faire fuir and faire comprendre (and 10 000 others) use the same sense of faire. If anything, let someone know needs an entry in English because it doesn't use any of the usual sense of let. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:01, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's the same meaning as let someone know. I can assure you that, unlike in faire fuir, people using faire savoir do not build the phrase by thinking to faire and to savoir, they use it more or less to mean tell, inform, and this is not obvious at all. Lmaltier 21:51, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I think faire fuir is as justifiable (that is, not at all) because we don't say "to make someone flee" in English, we say "to chase someone away". Mglovesfun (talk) 13:32, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] signalling event

An event that acts as a signal? SemperBlotto 07:06, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

The definition is really bad. Hard to comment unless I can understand it. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:42, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

At least the current definition seems to be wrong. AFAIK, in telecommunication a signalling (or signaling) event is defined as the change of the state of the communication channel, each state representing a symbol that is to be transmitted. To give an everyday example, the change of a traffic light from green to yellow is a signaling event. The number of signalling events per unit of time was earlier used as a measure for the speed of the channel. More specifically, the unit baud is defined as 1 signaling event per second. Later, when it was discovered that one signaling event can convey several bits (like several traffic lights flashing at a time), a new measure "bits per second" or bps was introduced.

The term is also used at least in linguistics (of which I understood too little to even try to explain the term in my own words) and molecular biology. I cannot claim that I'd have understood everything that I read, but it looks to me that a signaling event in biology is an instance of one organ sending a "signal" (which appears to be a chemical one in many instances) to another organ, which triggers some sort of activity in the receiving organ. Typical for a biological signaling event is that the response of the receiving organ turns off the primary signal. I wasn't able to locate a definition, though, but the meaning seems to be very clear for the biologists, who write scientific articles about signaling events without bothering with defining the term. There's even a "Handbook of cell signaling" for those who got interested.

I don't know whether this helps to solve the RFD issue, but at least I found some interesting reading for a while. --Hekaheka 19:50, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] accutje

The correct spelling is accuutje. As written it evokes a strong association with kutje (little cunt) and would lead to the wrong pronunciation. I think this entry is probably a result of the fact that if "accuutje" is broken off at the end of a line it is written as accu- tje. Jcwf 15:17, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered {{misspelling of}} (cf. rijstaffel)? Circeus 18:47, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] accutjes

See above. —This unsigned comment was added by Jcwf (talk • contribs) 25 October 2009.

[edit] user-generated

Moved to WT:RFV#user-generated. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:42, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] have a blast

Debatable. have a scream got deleted because scream can mean (dated) a good time. So can blast. It's a bit better than be a blast (it was a blast) but only a bit, IMO. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:14, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Delete please. Same as "have a scream" or "have a wonderful time" or "have a laugh". DCDuring TALK 01:36, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] witness panel

Any idiomatic meaning that anyone can think of? Mglovesfun (talk) 13:27, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes in fact but I couldn't track it down. I was watching a Discovery Channel show on demolitions where they set up a detonation wrapped in a material designed to contain the exploding fragments. To show how well it worked they set up nearby a large panel of flimsy material, perhaps polystyrene foam. The idea is that if anything escaped the containment it would easily damage this panel. This was described as a "witness panel".

Searching the Internet I could find hits but not enough to come up with a definition. And of course there were lots more hits that illustrated a courtroom sense also exists, which is probably more sum-of-parts than the demolition sense. — hippietrail 11:11, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Now that ht mentions it I have heard this sense of "witness" in some technical contexts, I think. A physical thing, like a board, that is used to record a chalk-line impact, a high-water level, a pencil or scribe mark, etc. It corresponds to sense 4 of witness#Noun. That sense would benefit from some usage examples or citations.

But a "witness panel" as defined in the entry is just a panel consisting of witnesses, entirely analogous to a truck convoy. delete. DCDuring TALK 17:23, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

A third opinion would be nice. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:41, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] pyow

rfd-sense: interjection: the call of a monkey. Move to wikiMonkey; keep citations (which look like they support the noun); keep noun. DCDuring TALK 18:02, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't this require citations of a monkey actually saying the word 'pyow'. The current citations just refer to the noun a 'pyow'. I'd love to rfv this. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:26, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Maybe we should keep it for a while and put in a {{rfap}}. DCDuring TALK 22:46, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Discussion now at WT:TR#Animal noises as interjections. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:10, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

They wouldn't have to be citations of a monkey. We certainly wouldn't cite the interjection moo from a book written by a cow. Equinox ◑ 16:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I think "moo" would make it under the widespread-use exception. DCDuring TALK 17:04, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually all animal-sound "replications" seem to differ according to the native language of the speaker, as much as that of the animal. DCDuring TALK 17:07, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Sav Kasabası

I replaced {{delete}} with {{rfd}}. I tend to think that if this is the official name of the town, it should be kept. Otherwise delete as SoP. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:03, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Romanian language

• delete. Wikts inserted at WP. DCDuring TALK 23:57, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
• Keep as redirect. People search for these terms. —Stephen 05:34, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] French language

• delete wikts inserted at w:French language#Examples. DCDuring TALK 23:15, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
• Keep as redirect. People search for these terms. —Stephen 05:34, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Italian language

• delete wikt cat it inserted at w:Italian language#Examples, wikt italian already there. DCDuring TALK 23:20, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
• Keep as redirect. People search for these terms. —Stephen 05:34, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Spanish language

• delete. Wikt inserted at WP. DCDuring TALK 23:31, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
• Keep as redirect. People search for these terms. —Stephen 05:34, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Arabic language

• delete Wikt inserted at WP DCDuring TALK 23:36, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
• Keep as redirect. People search for these terms. —Stephen 05:34, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Russian language

• delete. Wikt inserted at WP. DCDuring TALK 23:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
• Keep as redirect. People search for these terms. —Stephen 05:34, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Danish language

• delete. Wikts inserted at WP. DCDuring TALK 23:43, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
• Keep as redirect. People search for these terms. —Stephen 05:34, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Dutch language

• delete. Wikts inserted in WP article. DCDuring TALK 23:48, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
• Keep as redirect. People search for these terms. —Stephen 05:34, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew language

• delete. Wikt inserted at WP. DCDuring TALK 23:51, 27 October 2009 (UTC)
• Keep as redirect. People search for these terms. —Stephen 05:34, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Swedish language

• Delete wikt|Swedish inserted at w:Swedish language DCDuring TALK 23:08, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

And all others I may have missed. All of these are redirects which seem to have no real point. --Yair rand 05:09, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

My gut feeling is to create these as full entries as they're all idiomatic. Is the French language just a language that's French? I don't think so. The fact that this would allow a large number of entries to created doesn't bother me. I mean WT:CFE doesn't exist yet (criteria for exclusion). I suspect not many will agree with me, but these seem to me to meet CFI and since we don't have any criteria for exclusion, why oppose them? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:21, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

French language is just the language that's French, yes, for the obvious sense of French. Delete these all.​—msh210℠ 17:19, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Keep as redirect. People search for this, and they mean by it the language spoken in Paris or Quebec. —Stephen 05:34, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

More: Latin language, Slovenian language, Mongolic language, Arabic language, Scots language, Hungarian language, Hawaiian language, Urdu language, Greek language, Romance language, Chinese language, Persian language, Ancient Greek language, Maroon Spirit Language, Japanese language, Bicolano language, Sioux language, French Sign Language, American Sign Language, Low Saxon language, German language, Telugu language, Polish language, Turkish language, Armenian language, Frankish language, Portuguese language, Leonese language, Old English language.

American Sign Language, unlike Latin language, is the name of the language. Same for French Sign Language. Not sure whether it merits inclusion on those grounds, but certainly there's a strongler argument therefor. Delete the rest, though.​—msh210℠ 17:19, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Yup, and "Sioux language" is an informal term for Lakota. These need to be checked one by one. --Hekaheka 19:12, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Same seems to be true for Maroon Spirit Language.​—msh210℠ 16:21, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I've now added {{rfd}} to all the above listed (i.e., Romanian language through Swedish language and Latin language through Old English language), so that anyone watching them will know they're nominated.​—msh210℠ 16:21, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

And what about these: dead language, reconstructed language, artificial language, foreign language, living language, child language and many, many more. --Hekaheka 14:19, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Let's discuss them individually, yes?​—msh210℠ 17:19, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Noted that I made a point of not saying 'keep' I just said that I can't see how they don't meet CFI. A bit like Siberian cat. Surely that's not just a cat that's Siberian? Similar, to add some more, Old English, Old French, Old Dutch. Is Old Dutch just a Dutch that's old? Mglovesfun (talk) 17:26, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

No, but "Old Dutch language" is "Old Dutch" + "language", a bit like a "Ford motorcar" is "Ford" + "motorcar". --Hekaheka 19:05, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Keep as redirects if not full entries. People search for these terms. —Stephen 05:34, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Delete Yair and msh210's examples. They are here only because of Wikipedia's influence. "The language-name language" is a common formula for referring to language-name. If we include it, we might as well include "color-name in color" (a common formula for describing a color-name object), "number years of age", and so on. (I would also be inclined to delete Hekaheka's examples, but I agree with msh210 that they should be discussed separately.) —Ruakh_TALK 19:11, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I assume that by msh210's examples you mean Hekaheka's examples, which msh210 commented in the middle of. --Yair rand 22:38, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, oops, thanks. I meant the first half of Hekaheka's examples. —Ruakh_TALK 23:41, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Even American Sign language and the others I mention as being less deletable that Latin language, Ruakh? (Just trying to clarify your stance.)​—msh210℠ 16:23, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Bah, you know what I mean. My vote applies only to [[Swedish language]] and the ones just like it. —Ruakh_TALK 18:06, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

One reason to not delete them quite yet is that they would help a user at a sister project entitled their standard way to get to our entry if no parameter was specified. I have inserted a {{wikt}} in the Swedish entry. Due process would say that we should make sure that each one has a heading on this page. Give it a week to see if anyone has some arguments we haven't heard. DCDuring TALK 23:08, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

FWIW I think we may as well keep the redirects per DCDuring as even if we remove all the Wiktionary links to them, they may be linked from other projects like Commons and Wikipedia. About a third of the ones above are not redirects. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:19, 28 October 2009 (UTC). Or {{only in}}. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:23, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Huh? I'm really not following this logic. We should keep only in or redirect entries for everything in Wikipedia, in case they wish to link to us? So we should have [[Nelson DeMille]] — perhaps as a redirect to [[Nelson]] or to [[DeMille]] (or as a disambiguation page for both!) or as an only-in page — just because WP has an article by that title? Oh — wait — perhaps you mean merely that existent entries of that nature should not be deleted (but we shouldn't create them either). Well, half of the speedily deleted entries (the ones that don't even make it to RFD) are of that nature. Remember that (as someone — Connel? — was fond of saying) everything we don't actively delete we are tacitly encouraging the creation of.​—msh210℠ 16:10, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I certainly didn't mean to encourage the retention of these entries. I think that due RfD process is an opportunity for us to check the WP language articles to make sure that they have links to en.wikt. I found that some of them have "example" sections that have phrasebook-type entries. That kind of a section would well stand to have links to wikt ("wikt|Category:XXX language"). Those articles seem like good places for us to attract users who might become contributors. As such, they should be thoroughly salted with in-line links to en.wikt and project boxes, as should the English language articles in every wikipedia and wiktionary. Any WP language and linguistic articles should get that kind of attention. Possibly also articles where we have an apparent deficit of expertise among our contributors. DCDuring TALK 17:37, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Delete (most). Most of these entries only came into existence because the imported User boxes from Wikipedia were designed to link to"X language", since that is how Wikipedia names their language articles. We don't do that here, and so do not need the entries, even as redirects. --EncycloPetey 03:53, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Non-redirects

Of the above, some are not redirects at all. They are: Mongolic language, Greek language, Romance language, Chinese language, Persian language, Maroon Spirit Language, Japanese language, Bicolano language, Sioux language, French Sign Language, American Sign Language. The last two are exceptions (French Sign and American Sign are not names of languages!) Mglovesfun (talk) 20:07, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Can anyone explain what the negative points of keeping the redirects are? How is this different to be at one's beck and call and at one's beck and call redirecting to beck and call? Mglovesfun (talk) 20:00, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I should say I'd like these deleted. It's other people that seem to prefer redirects in these sort of cases. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:07, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

A difference is that someone who thinks of be at one's beck and call as a verb may look it up that way in a dictionary, and such people may well exist, whereas the vast majority of people know not to look up French language in a dictionary. I support redirecting from the foo to foo where the noun foo is only used with the (e.g., [[the 68–95–99.7 rule]]), since people may look it up that way, but not from the cat to cat, as no one should look up the cat in a dictionary.​—msh210℠ 20:35, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Keep as redirects. People search for these terms. Deleting them sames no disk space, deletions with all revisions are saved permanently exactly the same as nondeletes. —Stephen 05:34, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Keep as redirects, which is our norm in these cases. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:56, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Delete Chinese language, Greek language, Persian language, Japanese language, Bicolano language and all redirects. Keep all other non-redirects. --Yair rand 04:00, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

FWIW I've moved Bicolano language to Bicolano and the same for Maroon Spirit. The others that refer to specific languages are not also redirects. So now we're only discussing the redirects, not the entries themselves. See below at #Romance language as well. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] all to pieces

[[all]] + [[to pieces]]. We'd been missing "to pieces". "All" is merely an intensifying adverb. Not a set phrase. DCDuring TALK 09:08, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Agree with DCDuring.--Brett 11:01, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with DCDuring, too. I usually suggest redirecting these as likely search terms, but this one isn't a common collocation in my dialect. If it is elsewhere, I suggest redirecting; otherwise, delete.​—msh210℠ 16:26, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard of it. So I can't comment any further. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:56, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard of it either, but surely that presents a stronger case to keep it, as many other people will no doubt be looking it up in desperate confusion. Tooironic 22:43, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

That any number of people haven't heard of a grouping of words is not determinative for multi-element headwords. The main issue, for a disputed multi-word headword such as this, is whether, with appropriate definitions of the component words (not artificial definitions, but not necessarily limited to the ones currently in our entries), a user can make a good inference about the meaning of the grouping. I hope that my strong words will not get anyone all hot and bothered or have them go to pieces. BTW, see [[meeces]]. DCDuring TALK 23:32, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

The example sentence given - "I knew him all to pieces" - sounds extremely vague to me, and I for one would not be able to make any inferences about its meaning in full confidence. Tooironic 11:03, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

If you would like to be able to make inferences, check out OneLook.com for other dictionaries and COCA or BNC or Google to get some usage information. You could treat this as an RfV and provide cites. I don't feel like improving what looks to me to be a highly deletable entry. You do have to trust folks a bit not to be deleting truly important entries. all#Adverb is an intensifier much like very#Adverb that adds about as much to "to pieces" as "very" adds to "good".

You may think I a some kind of deletionist, but I did the research and added the missing to pieces entry, found take to pieces and added the related/derived terms go to pieces and fall to pieces. I just happen to spend some time in some of the crevices where some poor multi-word entries have survived because they have not been examined (or used?) much. DCDuring TALK 11:58, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, it was my impression that "all to pieces" was a fixed expression, but if it can indeed be said as "to pieces" as well then I understand why it should be deleted. Tooironic 04:32, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] paternal half brother

And several ones of the same theme, such as paternal cousin, paternal uncle, paternal aunt, paternal grandmother, paternal grandfather and. Sure paternal is enough?
And for maternal: maternal cousin, maternal uncle, maternal aunt, maternal grandmother, maternal grandfather and maternal half sister. Really strong delete. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:56, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Adding maternal half brother. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:10, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

It kinda seems a shame to delete them after seeing how much work the translators have gone through to tackle these terms. (The Chinese family tree in particular is a nightmare.) However I fail to see how any of them can be justified when they are so obviously SoP. Tooironic 22:38, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

So, reluctant delete. Tooironic 22:39, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Useful and interesting. Keep. You cannot show how deleting these would improve the project. Deleting does not save storage space and serves no useful purpose. —Stephen 05:24, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Delete. Surely you can't be suggesting that we keep everything, including SoP's? I don't think anyone thought that deletions were to save a few bytes of the virtually unlimited storage space. --Yair rand 05:59, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

No one has offered any rationale for deleting useful, thoughtful, and well written and formatted entries such as these. We know why we delete garbage, copyvios, threats, and so on, but no good reason for files such as this. As for SoP, it should not be the justification for deleting anything. If an entry is SoP and has nothing else to recommend it, then it should go; but just because it’s SoP, that should not count against it if it has some saving grace, such as being a set term or if it has educational or informational value, or, as in this case, it is contains linguistic that probably cannot reasonably be preserved and made useful and usable in some other way. SoP is only bad when that is all there is. —Stephen 06:37, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I could not agree with Stephen more. Ƿidsiþ 06:40, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I understand perfectly, but I kind of think you could justify keeping almost any article that way. I dislike keeping stuff that doesn't meet CFI (and these are a mile short) just to add translations. This is a dictionary, not a translation project. But point duly noted. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:20, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

All set phrases should be kept, because there is at least one interesting thing that should be mentioned: the fact that it's a set phrase. This fact cannot be guessed, and it's important to know it when you use the language. A dictionary is also useful when you try to build sentences, not only when you try to understand sentences. And remember that set phrases are not considered as words by typographers, but that, very often, they are considered as words by linguists. Lmaltier 07:12, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Previous discussions: Talk:maternal_uncle, Wiktionary:Beer_parlour_archive/2007/November#maternal_and_paternal_family_entries. -- Visviva 12:25, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

• Delete — hippietrail 04:19, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I shall point out that I wasn't actually aware of these discussions... and indeed there are some fraternal […] and sororal […] entries too. At some point, the reader has to be able to add two words together and understand what they mean. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:25, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] אל שדי

SoP.​—msh210℠ 15:54, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I dunno, can you explain why? Mglovesfun (talk) 17:52, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

It's the same as God Almighty (which we have because it's an interjection, but the Hebrew equivalent is merely a pair of names). It's referring to God by two names. Arguably it's comparable to Thomas Jefferson, but if so then it needs verification per personal-names criteria (and should be at RFV, not here).​—msh210℠ 18:14, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] November 2009

[edit] 世界上最古老的职业

Basically just a literal translation of the world's oldest profession. As Chinese has no direct equivalent idiom, this is arguably just a SoP entry. Tooironic 08:31, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Seems like an RFV issue to me. If it does exist, it seems (to me) to be idiomatic. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:34, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

But it doesn't - or, at least, not beyond a literal translation of the original English. In Chinese it is just a sentence. We don't have entries for a mouth as sharp as a knife and heart as soft as tofu (刀子嘴豆腐心) or dogs can't help from eating their own shit (狗改不了吃屎). Tooironic 09:52, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not that I don't believe you, it's that no administrator wants to delete something on the basis of one person's input. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:01, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep. It has 800 thousand google hits, so obviously someone out there uses it. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 18:12, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete. Well, here is my input. I agree with Tooironic's observation. I've also had a cursory look at the first 2 pages of google hits, none of which used this term to idiomatically / euphemistically refer to prostitution. Most of them are associated with the question 'WHAT is the oldest profession in the world', answers of which vary from doctors/policemen to, of course, prostitutes. There are also several 'humorous' references to the Bible - engineers being the oldest profession as creating the universe must've been a huge construction project.

This does not, however, prevent this term to be seen as a protologism. The fact that it now exists in wiki could lead to its idiomatic use in the future. Jamesjiao 20:55, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

To respond to Opiaterein's point that it has "800 thousand google hits", there are also 46,500 hits for "Shakespeare is the greatest writer of all time" (27 mil without quotations) and 27,000 hits for "Chinese is the most spoken language in the world" (887,000 without quotations). This does not good criteria for a wiktionary entry make. Of course you might argue that 800,000 is a significant number - but as Jamesjiao points out none of them seem to be using it idiomatically/euphemistically the way we do in English. Tooironic 00:56, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Also the 的 should be a dead giveaway. Anyone who speaks Chinese knows that 的, when used in its possessive/attributive form, is almost never used in dictionary words (read: very, very rarely). Tooironic 01:09, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

• Delete — hippietrail 04:13, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
• When I went through creating these entries, I made sure to get at least one native speaker to verify the entry, that it was used in that language. The person I talked to said it was. If it isn't, delete it. I coupled the native speaker's input with the google result to mean it was valid. I didn't know I was being lied to. Mike Halterman 09:40, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

This is a perfectly natural phrase in Mandarin. There is no doubt about it. I can't speak for your friend, but not everyone has the same capacity for linguistics as the people who contribute to this website. He or she might not have been able to analyse a phrase for its properties in the same fashion as some of us, native speaker or not. I mean no offence, it's all by experience. Jamesjiao 12:22, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

(replying to Tooironic's comment about "dogs can't help from eating their own shit" here) Tooironic, I don't know if you realise it or not but that is an invalid comparison. Here's why: this translation for world's oldest profession gets many Google and so may or may not be valid. However, Google "dogs can't help from eating their own shit" (with quotes in order to filter out invalid hits) and the only results you'll see are a scant few Wiktionary pages. That is to say, "dogs can't help from eating their own shit" is not an expression used in English, it is simply the literal translation of a Chinese expression. 50 Xylophone Players talk 21:07, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] nickel and dime

Noun: 15 years. nickel = 5 years (prison term); dime = 10 years. Please tell me how this is idiomatic and not straightforwardly compositional. One commonly advanced justification is that users can't know which sense of "nickel" or "dime" (or for that matter "and") might be involved. If that is so, this doesn't have to go. All we have to do is count the number of senses for each term. If at least one term has more than one sense, there is a prima facie case for inclusion. I don't know for sure what happens after that. DCDuring TALK 01:26, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like an inverse RfV issue to me. Can it be demonstrated that someone wouldn't say "three nickels"? If no alternative combination of words is used to effect this sentiment, then I would think that makes it idiomatic. bd2412 T 04:02, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

The issue is not what the preferred term for a prison term of fifteen years is, but whether someone knowing that a "nickel" is a five-year term and a "dime" is a ten-year term wouldn't be able to infer that "nickel and dime" is a fifteen-year term. The line of reasoning offered implies that we should have as adjective "black and white" because statistically it is much more common than "white and black". That would seem to out-Pawley Pawley. Thanks for the novel argument. DCDuring TALK 11:01, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Do nickel and dime mean five and ten years, resp., when used alone? We lack those senses.​—msh210℠ 18:34, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they do. "He did a dime for felony murder." In this sense, they don't collocate with too many terms. None of the OneLook references have the sense of "nickel". DCDuring TALK 18:47, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Even knowing this, it's too easily confused with 15 cents. They're both coins. DAVilla 04:56, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] baapaashkizige-giizhigad

An IP poster marked this for speedy deletion. Clearly didn't meet the requirements for a speedy delete, but assuming the nomination was in good faith, brought it here for discussion. No opinion as I have zero knowledge of Ojibwe. — Carolina wren discussió 20:02, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

It is an Ojibwe verb, as valid as English "to succeed". Needs some cleanup, but I won’t touch it unless I know for certain my efforts won’t wind up being deleted. —Stephen 04:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Recommend keep, as at worst, nobody is sure why to delete it. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:53, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] traditional Chinese medicine

If this isn't an SoP, there's none. --Hekaheka 08:39, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Not as obviously SoP as first thought. Nothing in the name indicates what it is, just that it is traditional and Chinese and medicine. Unless you knew, it could mean anything medical from ancient China. Weak keep.--Dmol 09:21, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete as SoP and/or encyclopedia material. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:12, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Odd that we don't have Chinese medicine. (This is Equinox not signed in.) 86.160.226.161 16:43, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep. This is a discrete and specialised topic, for which a specific entry is needed for clarification purposes. Tooironic 19:42, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is not SoP. It does not mean "traditional" "Chinese" "medicine" as the parts suggest, but a major kind of medicine. If we have homeopathic and allopathic, we should also have traditional Chinese medicine. —Stephen 04:10, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep. Also, BTW Chinese medicine would be a colloquial synonym. In East Asian countries where the Chinese medicine is practiced, only the first part of "Chinese" (中) is retained (common but always done this way). The "traditional Chinese medicine" is also used in the sense of science, not just practice. The translations would have -学 in them. In Vietnamese: "Đông y" (中醫) was borrowed as one word (a concept), not as an adjective + a noun. Adjectives follow nouns in Vietnamese, not precede them. --Anatoli 05:57, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Kept for no consensus.--Jusjih 05:08, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] கிழக்கு மேற்கு எம்ஆர்டி வழி

Seems likely to be simply a sum of parts entry, but I don't know enough about Tamil to be certain. If I were certain I'd have speedy deleted it for failing CFI. If it's not SoP it still might not meet CFI, but it wouldn't be a slam dunk speedy delete. — Carolina wren discussió 16:19, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I've tried to discuss this with User:Triwikanto, but (s)he's never replied. I already (successfully) nominated some of his creations for speedy deletion, in those cases it was the name of an actor in each case. This also seems like a proper noun, a specific railway. So yes, delete or RFV and look for attributive use. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:22, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

The East West MRT Line is a mass rapid-transit line across the island of Singapore. It is a specific proper name just like the name of a country. Needs a little cleaning up, but definitely worth keeping. Ordinarily I clean these up myself, but since similar pages have suffered from deletion here lately, I no longer do that work, since it is likely to be a waste my time. —Stephen 03:59, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

But do we keep all proper nouns just because they are proper nouns (and not names of people)? I'm really not sure about the criteria used... Tooironic 01:06, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Pokémon

[edit] Pokemon

[edit] Digimon

Wiktionary is not a database of fictional species. --Yair rand 18:13, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't feel all that strongly. I supposed we should move to WT:RFV to look for attributive use. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:18, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Would you delete unicorn or mermaid? The only question is: are they words? I think so. Lmaltier 21:27, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it is the only question; while that is your personal policy, it is not our overall policy (not even on fr.wikt I might add). Mglovesfun (talk) 17:38, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

1st sentence of CFI: As an international dictionary, Wiktionary is intended to include “all words in all languages”.. This principle is also applied on fr.wikt. Lmaltier 21:51, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Including all trademarks, like these? Someone want to find attributive/generic use? Equinox ◑ 16:16, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

If no attributive or generic use is found, the entry Pokémon may simply be moved into Appendix:Pokémon/P. --Daniel. 04:19, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I can vouch for both of these words being fairly common use amongst younger English kids. They usually say things like my Digimon can beat your Digimon and did you just see that Digimon digivolve? While it might not be able to be used attributively, I still think that we should have an Appendix for both of these terms that list all of the species; that way, we can cover both of these terms without having to suffer the loss of them. Razorflame 13:20, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, I think this goes for all toy brands. "My Transformer is cooler than yours. I'm getting an Action Man. She has three Barbies." Equinox ◑ 14:15, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

It does. Razorflame 14:17, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be a huge mistake to try to include every trademark in a dictionary. Equinox ◑ 03:25, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Does Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion/Brand names apply here? --Yair rand 18:47, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Siralun

Nickname of a specific person. At the very least, it needs an RFV to show durable citations and attributive use. Where do we stand on these? Sarko (in French) is the popular form of Nicolas Sarkozy, for example. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:20, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

FWIW this is findable on Google, but Google Books gets zero relevant hits. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:41, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Session Bean

Has been at WT:RFC since 2006. Isn't this for Wikipedia? The discussion at WT:RFC is: --Volants 13:33, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't seem to be able to decide whether this is capitalised or not (see the section "Stateful Session Beans", for example). Could someone who is familiar with the terminology check and modify the Wiktionary entry as need be, please. — Paul G 09:18, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

I can't even work out what it means. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:04, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

A bean (w:JavaBean) is a sort of OOP object in Java. w:Enterprise JavaBeans ("EJB") is a standard set of these things for building "enterprise" (i.e. large, important) software applications. These EJB beans are split into three categories: Session Bean, Entity Bean (apparently no longer current), and Message-driven Bean. I see no reason why any of these highly specific "branded" items belongs in a dictionary. Equinox ◑ 00:05, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] carnival

rfd senses, they don't make sense

1. Comic good times marked by special events.
2. A parade group masquerading, especially when overstepping the bounds of decorum; a time of riotous excess.

--Volants 13:50, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete as nonsense, redundant, wrong etc.

I'm adding (3) The season just before the beginning of the Roman Catholic season of Lent, when New Orleans has its Mardi Gras carnival. Shouldn't that be Carnival as a proper noun? Or is it just a special case of 1. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:02, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

This isn't a proper deletion rationale, is it? Send to RFV. Equinox ◑ 00:10, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

I think #1 and #2 are poorly worded and redundant, and #3 should be moved to Carnival and then RFV'd as a proper noun. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:32, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

#3 has been moved to Carnival, per Lent, Christmas, Easter et al. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:04, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] no biggie

Is there any reason to have this when there is biggie/biggy? --Hekaheka 06:25, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

No, redirect at best. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:05, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Having said that, no problem, no worries and no sweat all have entries. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:28, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

And no probs. I think all of these are idiomatic. At the very least, they would belong in a comprehensive colloquial phrasebook. They are elliptical and one cannot readily substitute synonyms without labeling oneself non-native. keep. DCDuring TALK 13:23, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, keep per above. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:00, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] look back

Tagged but not listed. A candidate for "used literally" AFAICT. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:17, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean by "a candidate for 'used literally'"? DCDuring TALK 16:06, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Look back for "look behind oneself" wouldn't be seen as deserving an entry on its own, but because of the figurative sense someone added the literal one. Compare, say, second hand, which could be used in a sentence like "My first hand fell off due to leprosy but I still have a second hand to eat with". Equinox ◑ 16:17, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

I had favored the literal sense and might still favor under exigent circumstances, but not when the literal meaning is incredibly obvious (this case) nor when the literal meanings are numerous. Delete. DCDuring TALK 16:45, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete per above. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:14, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

The sense not tagged ("To reminisce about a past time") seems unidiomatic to me as well: it's "think" + "to the past", like "looking forward to his meeting" and "thinking back to his days as a camper". Not sure, though.​—msh210℠ 17:34, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Now tagged.​—msh210℠ 17:35, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

1. We don't have senses of "look" or "back" that are clearly applicable. Until we have them it seems OTT to delete this.
2. RHU, AHD, and Wordnet; Cambridge, McGraw-Hill, and AH idiom dictionaries all have this.
3. Should we have don't look back or a sense at look back for that idiom? DCDuring TALK 22:53, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

To me, the 'obvious' meaning of look back is to look in the opposite direction to that in which one is travelling, i.e., back towards where one has just been, as in "As I walked away, I looked back to see that she had turned around and was talking to someone else." To look back in time is an extension of this sense. Pingku 18:03, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] domesticated animal

It's an animal that's domesticated. See the Tea room, where in fairness the discussion hasn't really got started. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:52, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

• Delete as sum of parts. Razorflame 20:14, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

In principle it's a SoP, but all translations are not SoP's. Deleting would put some pressure to the translations section of domesticated, which is pretty scant at the moment. Besides, "domesticated animal" is probably one of the basic concepts of all languages, as domesticating animals is one of the very reasons we have been able to create civilization. Third, we have a zillion of more useless SoP's, like soccer ball discussed a few lines below and no biggie above. --Hekaheka 10:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] hockey puck

SoP hockey + puck.​—msh210℠ 17:48, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep seems idiomatic to some extent, like baseball bat and tennis racket. --Yair rand 17:51, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Hesitant. A soccer ball is a ball used for soccer, but you can use any ball for soccer without it being a soccer ball. However this seems a lot more deletable to me. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:07, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

If that's a sufficient reason for keeping soccer ball, I can tell you that I have played icehockey with a disc sawn out of wood. Despite of that, delete, and delete for the soccer ball as well. --Hekaheka 09:56, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

This seems more like pleonasm to me, as puck#Noun refers to the disk used in hockey, where as ball#Noun can refer to many other things. Go ahead and nominate soccer ball if you like. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:14, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

• Delete...doesn't seem to be a set term to me. Ƿidsiþ 12:42, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I think I like where we're going with this. To clarify the precedential value of the emerging decision:

1. that "hockey" is a necessary qualifier in almost all non-ice- and non-street-hockey contexts is not relevant for CFI consideration.
2. What is relevant is that in context "puck" could stand on its own to convey the meaning.
3. It doesn't matter that an English speaker growing up in, say, Singapore might not have the knowledge to guess at the meaning without (or even with) the context-providing "hockey".

• delete DCDuring TALK 15:09, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Correct (point 3) Puck = Hockey puck. So "hockey" is superfluous. Delete HOWEVER, this does not mean the idea can be extrapolated to each of the various types of ball. Specifically Ball ≠ Soccer ball, whereas Football = Soccer ball. So "soccer" is needed. -- ALGRIF talk 15:42, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect. They are not equivalent as a hockey puck is just one kind of puck. Keep; as this names a particular form of puck, and not merely a puck that happens to be used in ice hockey. Note that our definitions for puck are woefully incomplete, as the shuffleboard and air hockey senses are missing, among others. --EncycloPetey 17:11, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep - names a specific kind of puck that is used for the sport of ice hockey, so I definitely think that we should keep this term. Razorflame 13:22, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] call on

Rfd-sense:

1. (idiomatic) In a classroom, to select a student.

Is redundant to

1. (idiomatic) To request or ask of somebody; to select for a task.

They don't look the same, but I think they are. If you 'call on' a student, it's always going to be for them to do something isn't it? Plus surely it doesn't have to be a student. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:37, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep. In sense 1, a teacher can "call on" a student who has his/her hand up, thereby giving said student permission to ask a question; but I don't think that fits at all with sense 2. (I'm not sure how well-defined the distinction is between the two senses — there definitely seems to be overlap — but I really don't think a single def could cover both.) —Ruakh_TALK 22:49, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd be really suprised if the sense is as narrow as "In a classroom, to select a student". So it has to be a student, not only that, but in a classroom. Can I not call at someone at work, or call on someone in a classroom that's not a student? Or call on a student but outside the classroom. Granted, classroom is a meronym for "educational setting", but there is that ambiguity. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:48, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

You're right that there are some other situations where this sense of "call on" is applicable — for example, a person holding a press conference chooses which reporter to "call on", allowing said reporter to ask his or her question (see e.g. this b.g.c. hit, found via a search for "called on the reporter") — but I think you're wrong that this sense is redundant with the "request" sense, given that it's just as often a matter of giving permission as of making a request. (I wonder if there's a U.S./U.K. difference here?) —Ruakh_TALK 19:12, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good, Ruakh. Keep.​—msh210℠ 19:47, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

• Delete I agree with nom's assessment. Ƿidsiþ 12:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

The newly added sense doesn't seem to be a phrasal verb. I think there are many adverbials that can fill the "on it" slot, even when clauses, but most especially prepositional phrases headed by "on", "about", "concerning", "re", "over".

There seem to be distinguishable senses:

1. calling on someone to do something (which seems to be what we have) and
2. calling on something (in the sense of drawing down a resource, possibly a personal resource)

The challenged sense does not seem to require an infinitive, in contrast to 1 and 3 which do seem to. It seems a stretch to deem sense 2 an elliptical version of one of the others. I don't think too much can be made of a student or audience member having raised their hand or not. In classrooms and certain types someone at the front of the room may have the power to ask a question of an individual. The common element seems to be the ability of someone in the front to invite an individual in the audience to speak. DCDuring TALK 00:29, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

And isn't there a sense of "call on" that means initiate (?) courting. I think it might lead to "keeping company with", which in turn might lead to dancing. DCDuring TALK 00:32, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think any of the senses requires an infinitive. Sense #3 ("to request […] ") seems to require, or almost require, an additional complement besides the person called on; that complement is usually either an infinitive or a for-phrase indicating what is being requested, but sometimes it's some other random adverbial. (I've added a citation of each type — infinitive, for, and other; please take a look.) —Ruakh_TALK 01:53, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] lelietje van dalen

This is a vrongly Zpelt wort zat nieds to be diletet

I tried a delete before and was denied that so don't tell me I did is wrong again.

I am GETTING SO TIRED OF THIS.

PLEASE RESPECT OUR SPELLING.

Jcwf 05:48, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

As I said on my user page:

We're a descriptive not a prescriptive dictionary. If it's not an approved spelling, there are several ways to indicate that such as using {{misspelling of|lang=nl}}, {{nonstandard|lang=nl}}, or {{proscribed|lang=nl}} depending on how strong the official disapproval is.

I declined to speedy because a quick google showed some usage on Dutch pages. I only went as far as using {{alternative form of|lang=nl}} because I was uncertain of how strong to word the disapproval of this spelling. — Carolina wren discussió 06:32, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

If this is a misspelling than it needs to be completely stubbed to a soft redirect to the proper spelling (which means no etymology, no synonyms section, and not categorised inside Category:Dutch nouns). --Ivan Štambuk 06:50, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

It is a misspelling: http://woordenlijst.org/zoek/?q=lelietje+van+dalen&w=w , so I stubbified the article. —AugPi _(t) 04:29, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

As pointed out, the Wiktionary is not limited to official spellings or official word lists. Keep or much better move to the Beer Parlour and look for a consensus. I was just thinking last night about the French spelling reform - I wonder how many, if any of the reformed spellings have never actually been used, therefore would not meet CFI. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:45, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep. I wonder whether this is really a misspelling, and per what definition of misspelling. Consider google books:"lelietje van dalen", which, apart from finding many instances with hyphens, also finds many instances without a hyphen. This looks much more like a variant spelling to me or an archaic spelling. The high rate of instances without hyphens makes it unlikely that this was a misspelling at the point at which it was written. The instances without hyphens found at Google Books seem to be of older date, such as of nineteenth century and the beginning of twenteeth century. Could it be that meanwhile the official prescriptive Dutch orthography has changed?

A usage note can be added that says that the particular spelling is procribed (discouraged) by a national orthographic body. But Wiktionary's inclusion criteria are not concerned with prescriptive orthographic bodies, as they should not.

Jcwf, please avoid using all-caps; it gives the impression of shouting. Also, while editing Wiktionary, you have to abide by agreed inclusion criteria, even if you disagree with them. If you keep adding requests for deletions to terms that clearly meet inclusion criteria by being plentifully attestable at Google books, you will only create unnecessary additional work. --Dan Polansky 09:44, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Just a thought, but when there's a spelling reform, the former spellings don' just "disappear" from books and whatnot. How about {{nonstandard spelling of}} (recently created). Mglovesfun (talk) 13:37, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] acceleration due to gravity

Seems SoP to me. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:05, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Me, too.​—msh210℠ 18:15, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that this is a set phrase in physics that means more than just that. SemperBlotto 19:56, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Seems initially sum of parts, it is acceleration that's due to gravity, right? Mglovesfun (talk) 20:00, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't think so, quite. It's the local gravitational constant; even if nothing on Earth is falling anymore, the acceleration due to gravity is still defined. —Ruakh_TALK 20:03, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

So it's a value rather than the actual acceleration. Yes, people do say that "acceleration due to gravity at sea leve is 9.8 m/s/s". Mglovesfun (talk) 20:07, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

That's not how it's now defined (or at least not clearly so).​—msh210℠ 20:10, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

We have that (constant) sense of acceleration, too, though.​—msh210℠ 20:14, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

After thinking about it, delete as SoP and totally obvious from the individual words. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:42, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ever so

This is like many of the frequent and valid combinations of adverbs with certain Category:English degree adverbs. The other most common collocations on COCA of "ever" followed by a degree adverb and an adjective are ever more, ever too, and ever as. DCDuring TALK 15:28, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Consider this example.

• He was so camp.

  He was ever so camp.

If this is what it means, then yes delete as nothing more than ever + so. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:52, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

The entry claims that there is both an idiomatic and a non-idiomatic meaning. Longmans DCE, RHU, and Wordnet agree that there is idiomaticity. MW3 gives special treatment to "so" at "ever".

This has made ever such a confusion. I am ever so sorry (=Am I ever sorry (US)) for wasting folks time on this. It is close enough to being an idiom for me. When "ever" collocates with "too", "as", or "more" it has a more specific temporal sense, often following a form of "become". It is decidedly odd that "ever" must precede "so" or "such", but that degree adverbs must follow "so" to give about the same meaning. Also one could say "ever so X nice" where X is one of a large subset of adverbs, possibly themselves intensified": "She was ever so damned cloyingly nice." DCDuring TALK 19:35, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Aha! Noting that everso is listed as a blue linked alternative spelling, I'd like this to be kept under the coal mine precedent when the spelling with a space is more common that the single word term. So keep or rfd everso as well. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:19, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

"Everso" is a slender reed to lean on. It is not found in COCA (vs. 1100 raw hits for ever so). At best "everso" is dated or even a misspelling currently. The overwhelming majority of the raw b.g.c. hits are not English, word-fragment scannos, mentions, and proper nouns. We could either keep "ever so" as an idiom/near-idiom. I am inclined to favor breaking out items that would be buried in long entries that merit some special discussion as the grammar of this does. In the case of "coal mine", coalmine appears 6 times in COCA and coalmine 290 times. I disliked that argument, but it is more plausible in that case. "Everso" stretches the precedent beyond the breaking point, IMO.

Re: precedent generally. As we have such dreadful indexing of our "precedents", we would be likely to replicate some injustices of the pre-Victorian English common law system. Only those who plausibly claim to remember (accurately, sincerely, or not) can successfully win arguments in such a system. Newbies have a double disadvantage and will feel even more discouraged from participating (whether of inclusionist or exclusionist tendency). We really need to index RfDs to the sections and versions of CFI to which they relate. Attempting to do so would probably unearth many cases that were closed improperly, archived without being closed, or were decided on grounds that we no longer accept. DCDuring TALK 19:12, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] you suck

• I don't follow the argument about this phrase being part of the phrase book. This phrase to me is not idiomatic at all. You can simply replace the pronoun with a name or another pronoun and the meaning stays the same except now it applies to a different entity. It's just the sum of parts to me. Jamesjiao 09:04, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Print phrasebooks are not dictionaries either. They have hundreds of common phrases or constructions that occur in the everyday life of a foreigner visiting a country where a given language is spoken.

Here, the phrasebook is sometimes used as a means of keeping phrases that are SoP and would not meet any reasonable interpretation of CFI. This is such a phrase. The phrasebook notion does not seem to have interested anyone enough to make it into a well-defined project. Thus we have many entries that do not meet CFI that might merit inclusion in a phrasebook. They await someone with the vision to make a proper phrasebook component at WMF probably within en.wikt (like Wikisaurus) but perhaps not. DCDuring TALK 11:42, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Note that Wiktionary:Phrasebook is a redirect, so we have virtually no written policy on the phrasebook. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete, nonsense. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] three hundred

I’m nominating this for deletion because it is not idiomatic and its presence herein offers no guiding principle for excluding herefrom the rest of the infinite set of cardinal numbers expressed in the English language. The phrase’s meaning is entirely predictable as, it seems, are its translations (which often isn’t the case for numbers like twenty and twelve):

• Catalan: tres-cents (“‘three hundred’”) = tres (“‘three’”) + cents (“‘hundreds’”)
• Crimean Tatar: üç yüz (“‘three hundred’”) = üç (“‘three’”) + yüz (“‘hundred’”)
• Finnish: kolmesataa (“‘three hundred’”) = kolme (“‘three’”) + sata (“‘hundred’”)
• Icelandic: þrjú hundruð (“‘three hundred’”) = þrjú (“‘three’”) + hundruð (“‘hundreds’”)
• Latin: trecentī (“‘three hundred’”) = trēs (“‘three’”) + centum (“‘hundred’”)
• Portuguese: trezentos (“‘three hundred’”) = três (“‘three’”) + centos (“‘hundreds’”)
• Russian: триста (trísta), “‘three hundred’”) = три (tri), “‘three’”) + сто (sto), “‘hundred’”)
• Taos: póyuosǐeną (“‘three hundred’”) = póyuo- (“‘three’”) + -si̋eną (“‘hundred’”)
• And so on…

This entry was drawn to my attention by DAVilla’s post (timestamped: 05:32, 6 November 2009) in WT:RFD#two-wheeled which used the existence of three hundred as an argument in favour of the retention of the equally unidiomatic and problematic two-wheeled. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 13:54, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep. This is a noun doesn't have to be idiomatic. "Expressions" have to be idiomatic, this is just a noun made up of two words. Someone explain to me how this doesn't meet CFI. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:40, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep, otherwise we have to delete all the cardinal numbers which do not have a secondary reason for keeping. seventeen anyone? The limit is only set by any one editor's patience and reason. -- ALGRIF talk 14:56, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

That is not so. We’d keep seventeen because it’s a single word (it’s also one of a set of only seven or so entries of that class), and we keep all single words, however semantically transparent. We ought to delete three hundred, just like we’d delete seventeen hundred. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 15:57, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

If we keep this, why not [[seventeen thousand]] and [[forty billion]]?​—msh210℠ 17:38, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

I would like to see this deleted but I know it won't be. In its favour, though, I would add that keeping it doesn't imply we must add an infinite set of other numbers: only those that are attestable. (That's still a little absurd.) Equinox ◑ 17:41, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Precisely, msh210. Equinox, they are both easily attested. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 17:44, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep if only for the translations (please add German). But this does not mean that I am advocating that we add all the rest - we have better things to do with our time. SemperBlotto 09:18, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I hope you wouldn’t advocate having an entry for nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine just so we can have a Translations section containing its German equivalent, neuntausendneunhundertneunundneunzig (google books:neuntausendneunhundertneunundneunzig)… † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 18:05, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Only if you could be bothered - I couldn't, especially without the German first. SemperBlotto 18:11, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, now we have both; do you really think there’s any use in having them, especially the English one? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 18:25, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Badly formatted or broken entries bother me (and I fix them) even when I care nothing about the word itself. Allowing inclusion merely for translative purposes dramatically increases the amount of maintenance that needs to take place around here and I am therefore firmly against it. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 04:05, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

delete this and its buddies one hundred, two hundred, four hundred, five hundred, six hundred, seven hundred, eight hundred and nine hundred. Include the rule for creating them in the entry for "hundred". --Hekaheka 11:16, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete per Hekaheka.​—msh210℠ 18:15, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep as one of the more basic numeric units. The numerals are a small set of words, so there's little harm in having the 9 entries Hekaheka would see deleted. We're not opening the doors for a flood of entries with these nine. --EncycloPetey 18:15, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Are we worried that we will have too many number-based entries? What harm will they do? Explain to use the positive side of deleting this. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:20, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

People shouldn't think this is somehow some kind of weird idiomatic construction in English: it's simply three + hundred, and people should realize that. If I look up þrjú hundruð in a dictionary and see it means "300", I will then wonder whether there's something special about that number: whether the word for 200 is not similarly constructed. If there's no entry for þrjú hundruð, I'll just look up the parts, and know (especially if there's a usage note at hundruð) what the whole means.​—msh210℠ 18:30, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

What's the difference, EP, between three hundred on the one hand and three thousand, one million, one billion, one milliard, one trillion, one quadrillion, . . . one vigintillion, . . . on the other?​—msh210℠ 18:30, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

You can see the grammatical difference between terms like hundred and one hundred in the usage notes for those terms. We had a prior discussion in which it was well-established that these words exhibit different grammatical behavior when combined with one. Alone, hundred is a noun, but when preceded by another cardinal the combination functions grammatically as a numeral. Thus, the combination has a different part of speech from the principal element. --EncycloPetey 20:38, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete per msh210. This is exactly the same as three thousand, three million, and so on. It's all well and good to point out that "vigintillion" is a noun whereas "several vigintillion" is a numeral ("several vigintillion reasons", but not *"vigintillion reasons" alone), but why would we address that with an entry at [[several vigintillion]], rather than with useful information at [[vigintillion]]? —Ruakh_TALK 21:14, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

How do you feel about attributive uses, such as in the "Three Hundred Years War"? It's not a sequence of three descriptives modifying "war", since three hundred acts as a single unit word. That would not be true of "several vigintillion reasons", in which several is a determiner rather than part of a numeral. Likewise, there is no conflict known as the Several Hundred Years War, because "several hundred" does not have the same grammatical attributes as "[numeral] hundred". Change of part of speech, remember? --EncycloPetey 21:28, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Couldn’t the same be said of a conflict called the “Six Thousand Four Hundred and Twenty-Nine Years War”? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 21:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

If such a name were attestable, yes, but it isn't. The "Three Hundred Years War" is attestable in published literature. --EncycloPetey 21:48, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete per CFI. If CFI doesn't support it, let's find a general principle for excluding these compound and phrasal numbers not otherwise meaningful, eg, 69, 666, 2012 (?), etc. (And please don't make the encyclopedic entry for "Three Hundred and Thirty Five Years' War".) DCDuring TALK 22:06, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Re: " […] 'several hundred' does not have the same grammatical attributes as '[numeral] hundred'. Change of part of speech, remember?": I remember that you said it, but I don't remember agreeing. What is your basis for this statement? —Ruakh_TALK 22:40, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Botht he examples I've presented as well as all the evidence accumulated in the aforementioned previous discussion from a year ago. --EncycloPetey 22:50, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I see nothing in that discussion to support a distinction between three hundred and any other <determiner> hundred. I agree with your statement there that "we could call these words [hundred, thousand, etc.] both numerals and nouns, with Usage notes included to explain their limited functioning as numerals." —Ruakh_TALK 23:08, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I've now added a second definition of three hundred that is idiomatic. --EncycloPetey 22:17, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. —Ruakh_TALK 22:40, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

On what basis? The quote (and title) state "three hundred" but the figure is not exactly 300. --EncycloPetey 22:50, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

The same sense exists for any X hundred, so it's a property of hundred, not of three hundred. —Ruakh_TALK 23:08, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

But it's not a property of hundred; it's only a property of X hundred where X is a cardinal numeral. It's also not a property of three hundred two. It's a property of only certain constructions including hundred, and not others. --EncycloPetey 23:13, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

You misunderstand me. It's a property of the word hundred that the phrase X hundred, where X is a numeral or other determiner, can be used approximately. Unless you mean to tell me that "several hundred" means an exact integer multiple of 100? (Actually, I'm not even sure that it's a linguistic property of the word hundred per se, as opposed to a general property of our culture's use of numbers. We also use "3.1416" when we really mean some value between exactly 3.14155 and exactly 3.14165, and "a dozen" when we mean anywhere from ten to fifteen. But I'd be quite fine with mentioning it at [[hundred]].) —Ruakh_TALK 23:24, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

It is a more general property, but in a much more complicated way than you've indicated. For continuous decimal values, yes, we mean a margin of error plus or minus half the value of the final place value. But, for rounded values 100 or greater, that is no longer true. As an approximation, 300 could mean "between 250 and 349" or "between 295 and 304" or "between 299.5 and 300.4". There are several possible ranges of estimation at this scale, which is not true of the decimal values you mention. --EncycloPetey 23:31, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

But I don't think that that variability makes three hundred, specifically, idiomatic. —Ruakh_TALK 23:46, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

(unindenting) Then let me ask a general question: If you don't think this is a case of being idiomatic, then when or how can a numeral be idiomatic? I maintain that numerals cannot be idiomatic in precisely the same way as nouns or verbs by virute of belonging to a different part of speech that exhibits different grammar. They are idiomatic in somewhat different ways. --EncycloPetey 23:56, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Aside from the one-word numerals, I think a numeral is only idiomatic if (1) its construction can't be inferred just from an understanding of the rest of the numeral system (for example, French "quatre-vingts" is idiomatic, because even though it really does mean 4×20, you'd never guess that it's the term for "eighty" in much of francophonia, as is "quatre-vingt" for much the same reason; but "quatre-vingt trois" is not), or (2) it has a meaning that can't be inferred just from an understanding of the numeral system and the way numerals are used (for example, "sixty-nine" is idiomatic). More generally, I don't think a word-sequence is "idiomatic" if it belongs to a huge set of parallelly-constructed word-sequences with parallel semantics. —Ruakh_TALK 03:40, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Re: "huge set of parallelly-constructed word-sequences with parallel semantics". You mean like the scientific names of plant families, which are all regularly constructed by exactly the same predictable rules. I'd disagree about three hundred belonging to a "huge" set though, since the way it which the range at which the second definition works is limited to a very few cardinal numerals. And most compounded cardinal numerals have no secondary range meaning beyond to normal truncation or rounding of decimal components.

The construction of a composite numeral also does not follow the normal rules of English grammar for the use of multipliers. Compare "three rabbits", "three children", "three lemmata" with "three hundred". When three precedes hundred the grammar is different.

You do agree, though, that the second definition I've added is distinct from the first one, yes? --EncycloPetey 05:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't know anything about the scientific names of plant families, so can't comment on that. (I had actually assumed that they had one-word names, even.) But personally, I do consider {X hundred}, where X is any integer in [1, 99], or any of various other determiners ("a", "a few", "several", etc.), to be a large set, even taken alone; but to it, we also need to add {X thousand}, where X is any integer in [1, 999], or any of the aforementioned determiners, and {X million}, and so on.
The construction of a composite numeral does follow the normal rules of English grammar for the use of multipliers in forming composite numerals. Compare "forty million", "sixteen hundred", "twenty bajillion".
I'm not sure whether the second definition is really distinct — as I said, I'm not sure this is strictly linguistic — but I'm quite fine with treating it as distinct.
—Ruakh_TALK 14:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete per Ruakh (it's SoP). EncycloPetey, I disagree that your second sense is distinct. Any number can be an approximate. There is no qualitative difference when rounding whole or decimal numbers. The decimal .5 can be the approximation of .503 at various "scales", both to the nearest tenth (.45-.55) and hundredth (.495-.505). (Some notations for noting numerical precision would use .50 as distinct from .5 for rounding to the hundredth but not not all do.) --Bequw → ¢ • τ 03:56, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

Butting in: what seems worth considering is that the term "three hundred" has a one-word translation in languages that do not usually form long multisyllabic words such as Russian, unlike German and Finnish. By considering only these languages, we avoid including long sum-of-parts numerals that would follow from the existence of their translations in German and Finnish. Yes, this is an extra-CFI consideration, going in the direction of "translation targets" proposal, the proposal that has gone nowhere so far. It seems to me that the inclusion of German and Finnish within "translation targets" proposal makes it unworkable, for then the proposal would lead to the inclusion of a large number of sum-of-parts terms. I wonder how German dictionaries proceed anyway, as German-one-wordness is in practice quite a different concept from English-one-wordness, so long as one-wordness is defined as freedom-from-spaces.

What we could do is at least postpone or suspend the deletion, acknowledging that, while the not-yet-deleted terms fail to meet CFI, they seem to promise to meet CFI in future. --Dan Polansky 08:46, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Current entries should meet the current CFI. If the CFI changes the undelete feature will still be around. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 04:17, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

It is true that the undelete feature is going to be still around. But, as the motivation for the inclusion of this entry stems from the "translation target" proposal, you will have to update all the translations linking to "three hundred" upon its deletion, and also upon its undeletion. This, to me, seems enough motivation to keep the entry extra-CFI at least temporarily. This rationale applies only to entries that would be included per the "translation targets" proposal; it does not apply to sum-of-parts multi-word phrases that are merely deemed useful. OTOH updating pages that link to "three hundred" is doable; it is just more work.

In any event, "three hundred" seem to me a pivot case for "translation targets" proposal, justifiable within that proposal without invoking German and Finnish translations. The inclusion would enable the navigation from, say, Czech "třista" to Russian "триста" and Portuguese "trezentos". Once the term "three hundred" is deleted, there is no way to navigate in this way, as "třista" is not allowed to list non-English terms as its translations. --Dan Polansky 10:28, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

It's not much work at all, just comment the links out (they don't have to be removed completely). This ensures that the CFI is met while proposals are debated as they can and do languish for a loooong time. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:55, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Strong delete. Don't see how this could ever be non-SoP or idiomatic. Almost any number can be used to imply approxmiation ("She deducted me three thousand points for running over that pedestrian."; "For the six hundredth time, turn off that damn computer!"; "I must have dropped my shopping ten times on the way home", etc.) Thus numbers that are not singular words in English should only have entries if they really can be used to create entirely new meanings (e.g. sixty-nine, ninety-nine, etc). Tooironic 12:26, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Despite the confusion, that isn't in CFI. It just says expressions have to be idiomatic. Surely three hundred is just a noun. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:28, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

The term "three hundred" is not a noun but a numeral referring to a number. --Dan Polansky 08:21, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

@Tooironic. Well technically, three hundred is never "sum of parts"... it's product of parts. Think about it: three hundred and hundred three are interpreted in entirely different ways in English. In the first instance, the value is obtained by multiplication. However in the latter instance, the value is obtained by addition. --EncycloPetey 23:50, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

For the sake of academic discussion :): the sum operator in CFI's "sum of parts" is a semantic sum, not an arithmetic sum. Both arithmetic sum and arithmetic product commute (a * b = b * a), unlike semantic sum. Thus, "34" is a sum of parts in the sense that the meaning of "34" can be derived from the meaning of "3", the meaning of "4", and the meaning of the non-commuting concatenation operator for numerals; and yet, "34" refers to a different number than "43" does, and neither one refers to the number seven. Admittedly, the term "sum of parts" as applied to multi-word terms may be a bit misleading, also because the alleged semantic analogue of arithmetic sum does not commute, but we have to live with it, instead of trying to read the term "sum of parts" literally, as if it were a semantic sum of parts ;). --Dan Polansky 08:51, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Why not accepting all numbers (even when constructed regularly, they are words nonetheless), but only when inserting in the page (e.g.) 3 independent actual citations with the word written in letters and used in sentences? The same rule might be adopted for all infinite sets of words with little or no interest. In most cases, definitions would not be really useful, but pages may be useful for some other purposes (e.g. anagrams or translations). If somebody wants to create such a page and finds it useful, why not? Lmaltier 23:21, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep. Seems to be a useful entry. --Yair rand 01:01, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, I accept that it is more than the Sum of its Parts. And yet, by that logic, shouldn't we also include five million two hundred and twenty-two thousand three hundred and ninety-two? Tooironic 13:49, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Lmaltier, why do you consider "three hundred" a word in English and not several? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 04:00, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I take word in its linguistic sense (not the sense used by typographers). In this sense, three hundred is as much a word as three. Lmaltier 19:19, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you, Lmaltier, think three cats or several hundred is also a word?​—msh210℠ 16:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

• Delete because the full meaning can be easily derived from the meaning of its separate components. What is lacking in the definitions of its components is a usage note (or reference to an appendix on Numbers) about how components combine and about approximate or nonspecific uses. ~ Ningauble 15:36, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
• Delete because lexical treatment of compound numbers is a waste of resources and ineffectively conveys number-name-formation information to language learners. Search should allow users to find component words (decoding). An appendix should enable users to form number words (encoding). The grammar of numbers in different languages is important, well worth some thought. An initial approach that describes in an appendix the formation of numbers in each language would be a help. The exact boundary between lexical and grammatical treatment could be decided based on a fact base. Obviously the one-word, hyphenless number names in English should be lexical. If WT:CFI cannot be made to give the right result, then it needs emendment by amendment or by replacement by appropriately revised Editable CFI. DCDuring TALK 16:11, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
• Keep - Dictionaries are useless without entries for numbers. Razorflame 15:08, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

  Can you actually find any professionally edited dictionary with an entry for three hundred? Equinox ◑ 13:03, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

  "three hundred." WordNet® 3.0. Princeton University. 22 Jan. 2010, one example. Razorflame 13:31, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

  Of course Wordnet (also through their redistributors) is also the only OneLook reference that includes the term. Wordnet often includes many non-idiomatic compound terms, but not every one. Perhaps we should adopt the rule that effectively allowed us to include all that they include. That would be a large, but not unbounded, step in the direction of translation targets. DCDuring TALK 15:57, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

  But oddly they stop at five hundred (no six/seven/eight/nine hundred) so I'm not sure if their inclusion would have any bearing on our general inclusion of these types of numbers. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 14:08, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

• I realize now that I never voiced my opinion on the "number approximating 300" sense. It, too, is SoP: delete.​—msh210℠ 16:37, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
• Delete per nom, Ruakh et al. I think:
  1. the attributive-use-as-part-of-proper-noun argument has repeatedly been rejected in all cases in which it has been advanced.
  2. the translation-target argument has not been accepted
  3. we waste time/space/maintenance on lexical treatment of a quintessentially grammatical matter such as the formation of numbers.

OTOH, there may be some class of contributors that finds adding such entries therapeutic in some way. Adding them and their translations may be good training for newbies to be ultimately applied to more important entries, allowing contributors to learn formatting, etc. And even if the entry is done completely wrong there is very little risk of harm as no real user is likely to see it. But we might wonder if the training is useful for the rest of the work that needs to be done here. DCDuring TALK 15:48, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] give back

[edit] buy back

"give" / "buy" + "back". --Hekaheka 19:56, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete. I can't see any redeeming features. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:06, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep. Both seem idiomatic to be. --Dan Polansky 08:02, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Can you explain why? For me these seem to be no different to give again and buy again. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:04, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I am not sure why they seem idiomatic to me, and hope someone else will take an articulated position on the issue.

Turning the question around, however, can you explain why they are merely sum of parts?

As a check, see also give back at OneLook® Dictionary Search and buy back at OneLook® Dictionary Search. --Dan Polansky 08:16, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I have added the somewhat cliched karmic feel-good sense to give back. My McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs, edited by Richard Spears, 2004 contains both, as do some other OneLook sources. Mostly the includers rely on Wordnet, generally the most inclusive of references there. They both seem like phrasal verbs to me, but I have previously relied on Algrif's informed and experienced judgment for hard cases. DCDuring TALK 11:05, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

What possibly gives me the impression of idiomacity is that the direct Czech analogue of "give back" - "dát zpět" - is much less common than "vrátit" - an analogue of "return". So when I come to English from the Czech background, the construction to "give back" in the sense "to return a borrowed item" seems peculiar to English, hence idiomatic. But I admit that the term may seem sum-of-parts from the native point of view.

Another term that I would like to see included in Wiktionary - strike back - is also included only in non-mainstream dictionaries: strike back at OneLook® Dictionary Search; also hold back in the sense "to prevent" - "What holds you back from doing it?" - "What prevents you from doing it?".

What I am saying with these in part digressive remarks is that, from my point of view, the "* back" verb constructions look usually like phrasal verbs rather than mere sums of parts that require no explanation and example sentences for the full grasp of their native-sounding use. --Dan Polansky 09:18, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

• Not sure about buy back, but definitely keep give back, which is a set phrase. Ƿidsiþ 11:12, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

As to buy back, if there were context tags, finance for the especially clause of the first sense, in line with the 4 OneLook business glossaries that have it, and bartending for the other (unattested) sense, would we challenge it? DCDuring TALK 11:15, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

• In my opinion, which seems to be supported by most dictionaries, the "back" phrasal verbs need to be treated with caution. If you cannot find another meaning other than "return", then it should not be treated as a phrasal verb, which is the case we have here with buy back. I cannot find any dictionary that includes this entry, but let's see if anyone cares to differ. -- ALGRIF talk 13:53, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

  While mainstream dictionaries such as M-W don't include "give back", there are online dictionaries that do so: give back at OneLook® Dictionary Search, including Encarta® World English Dictionary, North American Edition[24] and WordNet 1.7 Vocabulary Helper[25]. --Dan Polansky 09:18, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] aerial photograph

aerial + photograph. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 00:55, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Our definition of aerial is quite poor, but yes I can't see how this is idiomatic. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:54, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

True, if air photograph were just as good an expression (which it seems to be, AFAIK). --Hekaheka 22:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] fire off

This doesn't much seem like a true phrasal verb. DCDuring TALK 12:24, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Eh?? What makes you say that? In defence, there are two meanings in the entry, both idiomatic, but one of which is most definitely idiomatic. When I read the report, without delay I fired off a letter to the editor. -- ALGRIF talk 13:19, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Well 1. To ask an unexpected question rapidly.

That's to fire off a question right? The definition is wrong. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:50, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

For questions and letters it's the same sense: to launch rapidly. Equinox ◑ 16:51, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I was WT:BOLD and merged them, what do people think now? Mglovesfun (talk) 16:57, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The new definition does not seem accurate. The scope of object ("task") wrong, I think. The object needs to be something that can be sent, hurled, exploded, or directed. A task like "interment" or "vacuuming the rug" would not be suitable. I could "fire off" a communication, a projectile, a projectile-hurling weapon or an explosive device, a package, a gift, etc. One could also "fire off" (remove by subjecting to fire or heat) some impurities from materials or an object.

On the general question of whether this is a phrasal verb: To me "off" just seems an adverb for which could be substituted other adverbs ("away", "out") or an adverbial expression, such as a prepositional phrase headed by "at", "to", "in", etc. DCDuring TALK 18:10, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

WT:CFI doesn't agree with you, (IMO) "An expression is “idiomatic” if its full meaning cannot be easily derived from the meaning of its separate components." I can't guess the meaning from fire + off. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:13, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

It does not mean that the meaning is readily derivable from the literal or the most common senses of the components or the one's any one reader or listener happens to know, or even the meanings that a certain dictionary-in-progress happens to have. Please see the meanings of "fire" and "off". If those definitions are unsatisfactory consider those at OneLook. DCDuring TALK 19:19, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

DCD, are you stating above that fire off = fire away = fire out? What evidence have you got to make that assertion? And I don't really see where you are going with the bit about prepositional phrases. We're talking about fire off which is not a prepositional phrase, it's a phrasal verb (much as you seem to dislike the concept). Also, I see you are heading back to the untenable position of look up fire and off,...,we should improve those entries. Are you also planning to delete look up after improving look and up? -- ALGRIF talk 10:25, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

I have nothing against phrasal verbs. CGEL does, though, dismissing them as not forming syntactic constituents, ie, verbs. I would prefer if we had replicable criteria for differentiating them from their nonphrasal look-alikes. Coming up with such criteria seems to be a challenge. We could simplify the task by positing that anything that merited an entry in any print dictionary of phrasal verbs merited an entry here. Or we could adopt the new approach which says that if someone thought it worth entering it probably is worth keeping. In either case, if it is of the form of a verb + adverb or verb + preposition, then we categorize it as a "phrasal verb". End of.

If we don't simplify in one of those ways: In the case of "look up" there is a clear distinction between the phrasal verb sense in which the meaning of "up" has little to do with the phrasal meaning and the non-idiomatic sense of "look" + "up", in which it does. I cannot substitute other adverbs or adverb phrases for "up" that preserve anything like the meaning of "look up". In the case of "fire off", "off" retains its meaning. The development of the figurative sense of "fire" (igniting powder => directing projectiles => directing non-projectiles) yields a meaning of "fire" that works with a wide range of adverbs and adverbial phrases. DCDuring TALK 11:43, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

How odd that Cambridge also edits the Cambridge Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs and includes fire off in it's pages. I think you are trying to take a point of debate within the CGEL and make it a point of order for Wikt. The arguments you produce from CGEL fly in the face of the facts. The general linguistical consensus is that phrasal verbs are a fact of the English language and grammar. The debate as to what constitutes a phrasal verb is not over, either. I don't see that trying to continue that debate here is of any use, as it is not the place for an in depth study of what constitutes a particle. One point though, phrasal verbs are identifiable in many ways, one way is by their being quite specific. In the case of fire off, it is specifically about forms of communication (and therefore I still disagree with the modified entry, and will be amending it shortly). The point at issue should be (imho) 1. whether the entry is useful 2. what users would find it useful (in this case language learners, for instance) 2. what are the benefits of removal of an entry that many people think is useful.-- ALGRIF talk 12:16, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

The CGEL point is instructive solely that it suggests that grammatical analysis is not likely to be the source of any widely accepted criteria.

We have been patiently awaiting some criteria for such entries. If there is not a narrow, bright line between phrasal verbs and their non-idiomatic look-alikes, then how is one to know what is worth including and what is misleading if it is included? Including SoP phrases implies that a user needs to commit something to memory. If the phrase is SoP, we are asking a user to not take the path of understanding the generalizable principles of word combination and instead resort to rote. As always we have no actual facts about user behavior here or in using dictionaries or other references to help resolve this.

If linguists do not agree that there is not a narrow, bright line, could we have two documented sets of criteria broadly accepted by linguists as indicating:

1. what definitely was a phrasal verb and
2. what definitely was not.

An area of indeterminacy would gray area would remain.

The other operational criteria I suggested remain available:

1. presence in any reputable print or on-line idiom dictionary (list to be be agreed on) or
2. the fact that someone felt an entry of suitable structure to be worth entering. I could live with any of the three or no resolution, always the most likely outcome. But I don't find the semantics of "fire off" to make a compelling case for idiomaticity. DCDuring TALK 13:47, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

• fire and off. Which of these two words is going to indicate that you only use the collocation when talking about communication, and which tells us that it is a very rapid action? The moment you take them apart, some of the sense is lost. The sum is greater than the parts.Therefore it's an idiomatic phrasal verb. However, I am with you in that some agreement on the theme of assessing phrasal verbs is of pressing urgency, as you well know ;-) -- ALGRIF talk 16:02, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

1. It is not limited to communication, though it is common in that use in the experience of people like us. I could fire off a gift or other package or any projectile or a form of directed energy.
2. "Fire" in itself communicates rapidity of "projecting" since this branch of meaning of "fire" descends from a "firearms" sense for which projectile speed is inherent.
3. I agree that "off" is a somewhat meaningful modifier whose removal slightly changes the sense. But it seems quite optional and replaceable without the core meaning in "fire" being lost. "Fire" does seem to require some kind of adverbial modifier. I could "fire a response at you" (as I am) or "fire a post to you" or "fire a zinger from my keyboard". The "off" is mostly a hint at the remoteness of the recipient of the projectile from the sender of the projectile. One doesn't "fire off" anything at someone with whom one is face to face.

As I said, I am perfectly happy to agree with any replicable, practical operational set of criteria for determining inclusion and/or exclusion of phrasal verbs, even ones that barely cover a majority of cases or occasionally lead to error. Grammaticality rules seem to lead to sharper criteria than semantics-based ones, but CGEL doesn't help. Statistical collocation rules don't seem to find much support, judging by the number of those willing to try them. But no one wants to delegate inclusion to lexicographers at other reference sources either, nor do we trust users.

BTW, so many of our basic-word entries are out of date that I don't rely on our definitions to determine idiomaticity. "Fire" is an example of an entry with senses mired in the world of Webster's 1913, a century ago. DCDuring TALK 18:33, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

DCDuring, that's just not what WT:CFI says. It says "An expression is “idiomatic” if its full meaning cannot be easily derived from the meaning of its separate components." Not only can't I do it easily, I can't do it at all. It doesn't matter what the individual parts actually mean, it just doesn't say that. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:49, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] look down

To view with contempt. Merge with look down on/upon. DCDuring TALK 13:38, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The phrasal verb in most dictionaries is look down on. Merge is a good call. -- ALGRIF talk 17:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I just realized that I have heard a different idiomatic sense that might be synonymous with "stare {someone} down". But it isn't in my McGraw-Hill. Please give me an hour. DCDuring TALK 18:13, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Never mind. False alarm. DCDuring TALK 18:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] online game

Non-idiomatic sum of parts. Equinox ◑ 01:19, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

A game that's online. Err, indeed. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

In English, true, but look at the translations. Verbatim translation of the Finnish term would be "net-game" and of the Macedonian term, "internet-game". These might as well be English terms, and I'm tempted to think that this is a set phrase, which we should keep. --Hekaheka 22:37, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

No delete, the phrasebook is for unidiomatic stuff that's very common and used as a translation target. Compare online shopping, online poker, online music, online profile. I could probably think of 50 such terms that are attestable. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:34, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I must be somehow retarded, but I have never understood what "phrasebook" actually is. --Hekaheka 17:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

See WT:PHRASE. It's nearly empty, so no surprise that you (and many others) don't understand either. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:10, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep per Hekaheka. CyberSkull 14:23, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

delete. non idiomatic, not phrase worthy. This does not mean we can't include any idiomatic foriegn words that translate to this. 14:29, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] December 2009

[edit] snavigator

"Source Navigator, an IDE for many different programming languages." It's a specific software product, not a generic noun, and apparently not even "notable" enough to have a Wikipedia article. Equinox ◑ 21:12, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete. —Ruakh_TALK 18:52, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Unsure, looks like it would pass an RFV. At the very least, move to upper case if it's a proper noun. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:37, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] live blog

A blog that is live. The noun, at least, should be deleted for the same reason live music was. Equinox ◑ 00:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete unless someone can explain why not to. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

As both a noun and a verb, this occurs pretty often with the spelling liveblog—which I see also has an entry. Maybe merge the definitions and make live blog an {{alternative spelling of}} liveblog? —Caesura^(t) 14:38, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] rolling

A couple of alleged noun senses ("Preparing a joint", "(often with out) Initiating a journey or a recording") that seem to me to be included in the verb sense ("Present participle of roll").​—msh210℠ 22:35, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think any of the noun senses are correct. The third definition is not written like a noun. All three need cleaning up or deleting. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:01, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. It does not seem that any of the three noun senses are anything more than the present participle of roll. All three senses seem to occur with unconjugated roll. (Sense 1: "roll a joint" is certainly possible. Sense 2: "let's roll" or "let's roll out". I am not personally familiar with sense 3, but unconjugated roll seems to be attestable in that sense too, as in this student newspaper article, subtitled "To roll or not to roll?", which quotes a student as saying "The day after you 'roll,' you feel like you're completely brain-dead.") However, not all of these senses seem to be encompassed by the definitions currently at roll, so they likely need to be reworded and moved rather than simply deleted. —Caesura^(t) 02:07, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] mais oui

[edit] bah non

[edit] que si

Quite sum of parts. Bah is just an onomatopoeia, you can put almost any words after it. bah oui, bah si, mais non, mais si, bien sûr que si, bien sûr que oui, bien sûr que non. All these are very very attestable but not "idiomatic". If kept, maybe recat as phrasebook only. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:07, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

To give what I think is an English equivalent, how about hmm yes, hmm no or hmm maybe. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:16, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

delete bah non (I agree with the reason, and I also agree for hmm yes or hmm no, of course).

keep que si: this phrase must be defined to be understood, it must be kept, this is obvious.

I would also keep mais si, which means si, but with more intensity, and more spontaneously. This use of mais is not obvious at all. It's possible with other sentences as well but I think that, in mais si or mais non, adding mais also has the additional effect of being more polite, omitting it might seem rude in some cases. It's clearly a set phrase, just like au revoir. Lmaltier 22:13, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Que si failed RFV, which is just impossible because it's really common. But I still don't think it's idiomatic (but yes!) Mglovesfun (talk) 22:30, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

To find uses of this sense, add oh to the search. 1 900 000 Google hits for "oh que si"! Lmaltier 09:18, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

That's a better argument for having oh que si than for having que si. —Ruakh_TALK 16:04, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

But that just means oh but yes. I don't see why anyone would ever look it up as three words, as what else can it mean but oh + que + si? Mglovesfun (talk) 15:59, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, the same is true of que si, which means que + si. —Ruakh_TALK 18:49, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

I was the personal that nominated it for deletion! Mglovesfun (talk) 18:52, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh! Confusing. I didn't see this discussion until after I had deleted [[que si]] for failing RFV; so I thought you were listing it here to get it undeleted. But I now see that you had listed it here a few hours before I deleted it. —Ruakh_TALK 19:17, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, in a French mind, que si certainly does not mean que + si. A French sentence cannot be composed of que + a single word, except in these 3 set phrases: que si, que oui, que non. Lmaltier 12:19, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, what does it mean? I can't tell you other than "que + si". Mglovesfun (talk) 12:24, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

If you interpret it this way, then que si does not mean anything, because it's not normally possible to use a sentence composed of que + a single word. All Que ... sentences have a meaning only if they include a verb. These are the only exceptions I can find (with que nenni and que dalle). Lmaltier 16:11, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Ironically, the first two should definitely go, but que si is more debatable as Lmaltier says, I see no reason to restore it but I can see why others might want to. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:25, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] bdelloid rotifer

Sum of parts—a rotifer that is bdelloid. While rotifer is the most common noun that bdelloid is used to describe, it is by no means the only one, and bdelloid seems to have the same meaning in "bdelloid rotifer" as it does in "bdelloid animals", "bdelloid Rotifera", "bdelloid eurotifers", "bdelloid species", "bdelloid forms", and so on. No more idiomatic than "invertebrate animal", "prototherian mammal", or "monogonont rotifer".

(Incidentally, bdelloid rotifer#Etymology claims that bdelloid simply means leechlike, but that sense is vanishingly uncommon in actual use, occurring almost exclusively in whimsical dictionaries of obscure words. The rotifer meaning is overwhelmingly the primary meaning of bdelloid.) —Caesura^(t) 21:11, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

AFAICT it's a specific class of rotifer, therefore it should be kept, like a giant tortoise. A giant tortoise isn't just any tortoise that's giant, it's a named species. But, I actually no nothing about this, but the nomination doesn't convince me. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:21, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

It is not obvious that it is so. It is certainly not a taxonomic name. Rotifera are a phyllum. Two-part names are far below. The grouping is referred to a Bdelloids, Bdelloidae (a classus}, Bdelloida (a sub classus}, as well as bdelloid rotifers. It seems very much as if bdelloid is used as a way of narrowing down the topic for those who might have missed the mass of enthusiasm for finding a large group of apparently asexual (all-female) animals that have apparently lasted many millions of years. DCDuring TALK 01:51, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

To clarify the technical points, bdelloid is a specific class of rotifer, but the term is nothing like giant tortoise. (In fact, not a single one of the rationales in my nomination would apply to giant tortoise.) Giant means "big" (and a giant tortoise is not merely a tortoise that is big), but bdelloid means "belonging to the Bdelloidea" (and a bdelloid rotifer is merely a rotifer belonging to the Bdelloidea). Think "marsupial mammal" or "invertebrate animal", not "giant tortoise" or "Bengal tiger", which are clearly non-SoP. The definition at bdelloid rotifer could literally be replaced with "A rotifer that is bdelloid" and no information would be lost; it seems to me to be one of the clearest examples of SoP I can think of, and the debate here suggests to me that I haven't explained myself well enough. —Caesura^(t) 14:27, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm no longer sure that I understand whether there is any argument that folks find convincing enough to lead to the deletion of a multi-word term, notwithstanding WT:CFI. I think it helps it the boundaries of the class are fuzzy and there are multiple terms that are used to refer the grouping. It would help if:

1. there were a synonym for each of "bdelloid" and "rotifers"/"rotifera" and
2. "bdelloid" and its synonym each appeared with both "rotifer" and its synonym.

Is "hirudinoid" a candidate for synonym for bdelloid? DCDuring TALK 16:17, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

No, because hirudinoid would refer to leeches and their kin (Hirudinea). --EncycloPetey 04:08, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep for serious wtf value. Actually, because if I came across a reference in print to a "bdelloid rotifer" I would have no idea (even with the space) that it was separable into parts, but would presume that it was the complete name of a distinct thing. bd2412 T 18:35, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

That is how I want my own personal wiktionary to work for me: I declare WTF and an answer appears, with translations, ety, pronunciation, etc. But that rationale sets a hell of a bad precedent for a shared resource. If we were to find one user who didn't know whether a given collocation was a "term" or not, then we would have to include the collocation. In principle, would any collocation be excluded? Or would we limit the users who get to declare WTF to admins, registered users, or people who can type intelligible English?

In the law, we use the standard of the "reasonable man". There is obviously a difference between this term and the weather in London. Most people know what weather is, and what London is. If either of the terms here was a matter of common parlance (say, a "bdelloid virus", or a "viral rotifer" then it could be guessed that the thing was a sum of parts discernible by looking up the parts. We need to be realistic, however, and acknowledge that the average reader is not going to have a clue as to either term. bd2412 T 21:15, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

If users don't know either term (as they don't know 80+% of the English lemmas), they can look each up and then know the meaning of the combination. That would make it SoP, non-idiomatic. The WTF rationale might be applicable for a term like "bottle glorifier" where one can know each term and not have a clue what the combination means.

How many, say, English noun lemmas does a "reasonable man" "know"? 60,000? That would leave 50,000 at en.Wikt that he didn't know. That would mean some 2.5 billion possible two-word noun entries. And why should this logic be limited to two-word noun phrases, or noun phrases, or even constituents? I wonder whether the "reasonable man" can reasonably expect that any combination of terms he might type in the search box can be found analyzed, defined, and translated for him. DCDuring TALK 02:37, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep. As a biologist who has seen this term before on many occasions, I agree with the various reasons given above for keeping, and see no need to reiterate them. --EncycloPetey 04:07, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep - I've seen this as well in my biology classes at school, so this should be kept. Razorflame 18:28, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] killing me softly

Is this actually used as an idiom, or it is just a line from a well-known song? At the very least, can it be moved to kill someone softly? I'm not saying it can, I'm just asking. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:25, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, should definitely be added as the lemma form (kill someone softly). A quick Google search reveals many idiomatic usages: "All of a sudden, he was killing me softly and I was on the floor dying laughing." / "Within three days of working with the devil's advocate who goes by name of an agent, I realized that he was killing me softly." / "Everyone said that she was killing me softly without me realizing it." / "Like the silence at a funeral. Nothing can be said. But nobody knows him so let the rain fall down. Because they killed him softly." etc. Tooironic 01:27, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] kill off

Rfd-redundant: To kill off as in a soap opera. Isn't this just the same meaning as #1 but in a fictional setting? If Homer Simpson murders Marge Simpson, that doesn't merit an "idiomatic" second meaning for murder, does it? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:43, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Other dictionaries defined "kill off" as "to kill in large numbers" and "to kill totally". The "kill totally" sense works for "killing off", say, a bottle of vodka. The fictional-work sense under discussion seems attestable. Some issues are:

1. Is it just "kill" and intensifying "off"?
2. Is there a sense with scope broader than its current wording?
3. Wording.

-- DCDuring TALK 15:28, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

AFAICT both senses are the same, I just wanted some more opinions than my own in case I'm wrong. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:30, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

But you've opened to door to more. The entry needs improvement and what better time than now? And if not us, who? DCDuring TALK 16:44, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

More what? Senses? We might be talking at cross purposes here. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:26, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

In sense 1, is there one sense? Or two? What is that meaning? Is it "eliminate" in the sense of "make extinct" or just "eliminate"? Is "make extinct" a different sense? I could show that "kill off" in the sense of "make extinct" is the most common meaning. Given the current meaning of "extinct", that meaning does not fit "killing off" a single person (real or fictional). The "eliminate" sense might work for both vodka and Marge Simpson, but it is clearly distinct from the "make extinct" sense. The entries usage case of "killing off" multiple characters muddies the waters.

BTW, Encarta has the second sense, even mentioning soap operas. DCDuring TALK 18:19, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

The "soap opera" sense on Encarta and others is not within the fictional setting; it refers to the writers of the program eliminating the character through a scripted death. So, this is not a question of using the word in the same sense fictitiously. --EncycloPetey 18:25, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

To "write out of the script". Hmm. But AFAICT it always refers to the character(s) dying in some way. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:30, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes. The term could also be applied to Melville's treatment of the character Bulkington in his novel Moby Dick. The character is introduced as if he is going to play a significant role, but never does, and later is "killed off" by the author in an ocean storm. --EncycloPetey 19:44, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Good example. Keep. In a funny sort of way, I like being wrong in cases like this, because of learnt something. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:22, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] break in the case

Just one of the meanings of the noun break AFAICT. Not an English "idiom". Mglovesfun (talk) 10:38, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

By the logic sometimes used, because this could be a "crack" in the "box", but usually isn't, we should keep it. DCDuring TALK 12:12, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

We are definitely missing senses at break#Noun. I can think of two already. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:14, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

That's the most productive aspect of multi-word RfDs: additional figurative senses of component words. DCDuring TALK 12:39, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] alone

1. Of or by itself; by themselves; without any thing more or any one else; without a sharer; only.
   • Man shall not live by bread alone. —Luke iv. 4. Here, “bread alone” means bread and nothing else.
2. Unique; without peer or equal:
   • Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare. -- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Both senses seem worded as adjectives. Both usage examples seem to show postpositioned adjectival usage. Adjective section misses these senses, but wording seems so early-last-century. I hope the translators noticed the problem in their work. Needs to be moved. Brought here because translators complain about too may ttbcs and checktrans. DCDuring TALK 02:01, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] go out with

I think this should be merged into go out. (Note that our current defs don't cover something like How long have they been going out?.) —Ruakh_TALK 14:40, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I would disagree. While go out could be improved, and we maybe should include go out together, I think that go out with, while not always a phrasal verb, has a simple idiomatic meaning which cannot be adequately covered at go out. Compare 1) I'm going out with John. and 2) I'm going out with John tomorrow. We might well consider that with is simply a linking preposition. But a phrasal verb with 2 particles is not separable, so now consider 3) I'm going out tomorrow with John.. So the sense with no romantic attachment implied can separate the with, but the first example implies romantic attachment as an idiomatic sense and hence as a phrasal verb. -- ALGRIF talk 16:25, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Algrif. Two folks can be "going out with" each other without necessarily "going out" at all. Though in many cases ontogeny recapitulates etymology, with people actually having dates in public before becoming intimate, a "being intimate on a recurring basis" sense seems separable from the path to the state. DCDuring TALK 16:42, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Considering the difference between the romantic sense (stative?) and the one-time or even repetitive sense. I think it is possible to say "I went out for three years with Alice, but only two with Beth." in the romantic sense. This separates the purportedly inseparable. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 23:01, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Re: 'Two folks can be "going out with" each other without necessarily "going out" at all.': No, I don't think so. I think "they're going out", in the relevant sense, is exactly synonymous with "they're going out with each other." Neither one absolutely requires "out"-ness. (Do you also see a difference between "they're dating" and "they're dating each other"?) —Ruakh_TALK 17:52, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

This is seeming like a matter of attestation of the relevant sense of go out - and not the easiest kind. Keep without prejudice, pending new definitions at go out and possibly their attestation. DCDuring TALK 18:00, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Unsure, it could be a redirect or an entry. As pointed out, go out can take other prepositions than "with". Mglovesfun (talk) 20:21, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

• Merge per Ruakh. Ƿidsiþ 20:30, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

What about the sense in "His clothes 'went out with disco."?

We also have go with. It is not hard to find idiom/phrasal verb dictionaries that include all of these and other related multi-word terms such as go together. We seem to include many terms that no other references include with similarly marginal qualification under CFI.

[edit] make a fool of oneself

The English idiom (if it really is an idiom) is to make a fool of. My vote is to move to make a fool of, keeping redirect. There is an Italian translation. DCDuring TALK 17:02, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Unsure, when the redirect object is oneself I think it changes the meaning. I made a fool of my father/I made a fool of myself. The first suggests intentional, the second suggests unintentional. So we should keep both, I think, but I'm not all that sure. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:09, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

There is nothing that prevents one or the other from being either unintentional of intentional, whatever the relative likelihoods. We are so far removed from properly presenting sophisticated implicature that it doesn't seem a worthwhile consideration for the next year or two. But I would love to see the difference in wording of the two entries with all the implicature presented. Implicature is often context-driven, isn't it, not really lexical. DCDuring TALK 20:30, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

To clarify, intention is not an explicit part of the definitions. And the implications are only probabilistic, not logical. DCDuring TALK 20:34, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] buttwoman

My inclination is to keep this, but we don't have enough uses (only mentions). —Ruakh_TALK 18:39, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Why? Mglovesfun (talk) 20:15, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Because of Dominic's last comment in the RFV discussion. —Ruakh_TALK 21:37, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] brivet

Failed RFV, but I think we should keep it. The problem is that this word gets enough cites, but some spell it "brivet" and some spell it "brivit", such that neither spelling would actually pass RFV so far as I can tell. There are plenty of mentions, in both spellings, but it's the sort of dialect word that doesn't always make it into writing (which is probably why the spelling varies). —Ruakh_TALK 18:44, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, if the two spellings combined pass an RFV, I'd count that as a pass. For coup de maitre There are some cites with maître rather than maître, as I considered them the same word. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:19, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

But I don't think that counts in general. If we define foobarre as an alternative spelling of foobar, what does it mean to RFV that? Could it pass without any quotations, on the grounds that foobar has enough quotations for the both of them? —Ruakh_TALK 21:44, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Are you asking for a one-time exception to CFI, for someone to come up with an argument why this "really" meets CFI, despite not meeting attestation in the traditional way, or a change in CFI? Is there a way this could be marked as exceptional? I see a case for a word that is dialectal to have relaxed standards. This seems much more likely to have had significant (colloquial) use than the attestable "inkhorn" words that we are flooded with, which are spoken with extreme rarity, perhaps only by those reading from print to ask what it might mean. DCDuring TALK 23:43, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Good question. I guess I'm not sure what I'm asking for. By my reading of the CFI, the word does meet them — but no individual spelling does. (I mean, it's possible that one or both spellings do, but no one's shown it, so for our purposes it's as though they don't.) I guess what I'm asking is, how do we want to handle that case? The word merits an entry, but neither [[brivet]] nor [[brivit]] qualifies to house it. —Ruakh_TALK 01:11, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I had always operated under the simple assumption that each single spelling, each form for the spelling, each attribute of each sense, all needed three citations if challenged.

Here we could simply find that there is no possible other interpretation other than brivit and brivet being representations of the same dialect term. It is a tenuous claim by our usual standards and, by our rules, could challenged. We could decide to keep it without prejudice.

Maybe we should have a tag and category for terms like this in need of additional citations. The circumstances of multiple reports of the term with about the same meaning and some valid attestation would seem to distinguish it from other cases that have less merit.

We do have other choices that keep the information and stay within our rules. We could harden our heart against the entry itself and:

1. put all the attestation and references into two? citations pages and/or
2. put all the discussions in talk pages and/or
3. start an appendix of such terms, possibly grouped by type: UK dialect, North American forest products industry, etc. and/or
4. insert only-in pointers to the appendix.

I am reasonably sure that all "real" dictionaries have headwords (with draft entries, sets of citations, and notes) whose admissibility into the dictionary is in doubt. We have operated on the assumption that these questions can be resolved relatively quickly, not on the scale of years or decades. As I recall, there was some prior discussion of some kind of limbo for entries that didn't quite qualify. DCDuring TALK 03:21, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] little girl

This was restored by Ruakh to allow for a new deletion debate. Delete, little + girl covers this. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep. It's an English word. And the definition cannot be reconstructed from little + girl if you don't know how little girl is used in English. Lmaltier 20:14, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete this preposterous entry. The definition seems way too precise for actual use. There is nothing magical about the number ten. Including it is completely specious. If this passes RfD, it deserves to be RfVed to ascertain the validity of the elements of the "especially" phrase, including the number "ten" and the focus on age.

What any one person means by little girl is influenced by context. And "little" might have to do with absolute or relative height, weight, anatomical development, or age; behavior; clothing; or any of a number of other characteristics of the referent, the speaker, or the situation.

Including this trivializes the concept of an English headword. Someone following a blue link to this entry and expecting to find something meaningful (and not misleading) is sure to be disappointed and/or misled. DCDuring TALK 21:56, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete. Abstain. It can be reconstructed from little + girl if you bother to look at our entries for those words. (I know that some editors have a policy of not doing that, but, well, those editors are simply wrong.) And for the record, it was restored by DAVilla, not me. —Ruakh_TALK 22:27, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Really? little' mentions 3 senses: small, very young and younger... How can you guess in which cases little girl may be used and in which cases it should not be used? Lmaltier 22:05, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

In the way you do when decoding language, from the context. If you don't understand and need to, you ask for clarification. If you can't ask, you hope your life doesn't depend on precision or that matters will become clearer as the discussion or text continues. DCDuring TALK 12:37, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete iff little boy is also deleted. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 22:30, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Historical comment. Just linking fyi to old discussions from 2008 and 2009.​—msh210℠ 23:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

There's also a current re-nomination of little boy for deletion, here at RFD.​—msh210℠ 17:01, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete, still. SoP, per previous discussions, and per comments above herein.​—msh210℠ 23:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete as per DCDuring. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 23:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Little has more than one meaning, little bird, little duck and little cat have the same meanings (small; young). --Mglovesfun (talk) 23:39, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but the difference is that little cat or little duck are not set phrases you can consider as English words. They are just little (young) + animal. Lmaltier 19:04, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete. It is indeed a bizarre entry. Why anyone would want to keep this is beyond me. Tooironic 06:11, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

It seems obvious to me that it is as much an English word as e.g. maiden. I'm not the only one feeling so. Have a look at a detailed discussion on this issue: http://www.jstor.org/pss/454833 . Also look at other dictionaries:

• http://www.thefreedictionary.com/little+girl (and http://www.audioenglish.net/dictionary/little_girl.htm, http://www.synonym.com/definition/little%20girl/, http://www.elook.org/dictionary/little-girl.html, http://www.glossary.com/dictionary.php?q=Little%20girl, http://www.wordwebonline.com/en/LITTLEGIRL, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/little+girl, http://www.wordmagicsoft.com/dictionary/en-es/little%20girl.php, but they all give the same (very bad) definition. A better definition is really needed)
• http://www.babylon.com/definition/girl/French (see The best glossary...)

I can't understand why nobody here seems to consider this phrase as an English word. Lmaltier 18:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

There is no real dictionary on the list. The Free Dictionary Thesaurus uses WordNet.

Not every concept has a word or idiom that corresponds. That fact means that some translations won't have a blue link. Adj + noun phrases are less likely than noun + noun phrases to be entry-worthy. DCDuring TALK 22:53, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Do you want another dictionary defining little girl and little boy? Harrap's Shorter, a best-selling English-French dictionary. Lmaltier 17:16, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Nobody's ever been able to tell me what a set phrase is. If it just means common then my name is John is common enough, isn't it? Mglovesfun (talk) 22:59, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I already told you... It's a phrase used by speakers the same way as a simple word, without any need for the brain to build it. A typical example in French is chemin de fer (railway). In most cases, set phrases are idiomatic, but not always. When they are idiomatic, reasoning can be used to identify them, but when they are not idiomatic, reasoning cannot be used, only the knowledge of the language. Whether idiomatic or not, they should be considered as words, as they really are building blocks of the language. Lmaltier 08:41, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

But why keep them here? 12:47, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Because somebody not knowing a set phrase cannot guess that this set phrase is the appropriate term when he wants to express the idea. A dictionary is not used only when reading, but also for writing. In this specific case, it's not very likely to happen because this set phrase is very common, but commonness is not a reason to exclude it. Lmaltier 17:10, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep this always takes one meaning of little and one meaning of girl, so no context is necessary to tell you that a "little girl" is a young female child, despite the fact that it could mean a "petite woman" or many other things. Conrad.Irwin 01:23, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep per Conrad Irwin and because it is used always in this collocation and not small damsel, little maid or anything like that. It is always little girl. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 10:16, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

"Girl" is transparently more inclusive than "damsel" and "maiden". Covering a larger range of ages, sizes, weights, etc, there is more value and need to qualify it. DCDuring TALK 16:54, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

AFAICT a girl that is not big is called a little girl, ditto for little boy. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:37, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Can you find a quote that demonstrates this? I had a quick scan, but didn't notice any - though there are several "big little girls". Conrad.Irwin 17:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I do not understand the reasoning expressed for keeping the definition given in the entry: "a female child, especially one younger than ten years of age." The defenses of the entry do not refer to the sole definition given, perhaps because it is indefensible. A female child is itself well covered by "girl", without "little". One cannot say "she is not a little girl, she is a female child" or vice versa in normal speech. The "especially" phrase is in fact the heart of any claim for idiomaticity. There are no citations to support the claim that this denotes girls younger than ten. The statistical correlations among all possible dimensions of littleness in the real world: height, girth, age, anatomical development, and behavior would seem suggest that one cannot definitively ascribe any one sense of "little" to "little girl". Which dimensions, absolute or relative, of "littleness" were relevant in a given context would be determined by - the context. Trying to define this usefully in a dictionary seems a case of over-reaching. There might be some idiomatic sense of this but it is not this definition and it should come with citations. DCDuring TALK 16:54, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I have updated the definition to "young female child", it would be interesting to see if there are many cites for the other possible meanings of little girl. Conrad.Irwin 17:17, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

(after edit conflict} That definition seems fully within the scope of "little" + "girl", that is, it is fully decodable based on the component meanings. If our three senses at little don't clearly include the appropriate sense, then that would suggest a problem with [[little]]. MWOnline has 3 senses (not the same as ours) and 11 subsenses for the adjective. It could be that a wiki is inherently unable to handle highly polysemic words and we should forget about doing a good job on those terms and instead define whatever collocations people find interesting. We could then follow wikiness where it leads instead of trying to make it do something it apparently can't do well. DCDuring TALK 12:52, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Conrad, you're saying a girl of a small size is not called a little girl? Mglovesfun (talk) 12:44, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Huh? By a remarkable coincidence a lot of young girls are of small size. What I do think is that "little girl" does not refer to the size of said child, only to her youth. I would quite happily abandon this opinion if there were quotations to the contrary. I think this should be included, even though it is technically "sum of parts", because it has surprisingly only one interpretation, or only one to a close approximation. If other people think this isn't an interesting enough feature of language to document, then I'm not fussed. Conrad.Irwin 20:13, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep provided that "little girl" is never used to mean "girl of a small height", that is, is exclusively used to mean "young female child". I would even like to see a fuzzy age boundary specified. Other combinations thus excluded from the meaning of "little girl" include "small woman", per little--small, and girl--Any woman, regardless of her age. It even seems to me that "young girl" is already semantically different from "young female child".

If this gets deleted, a usage note in the "girl" entry documenting "little girl" would be in order. --Dan Polansky 22:34, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

• Delete. Ƿidsiþ 20:28, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Does not seem to be a set phrase more than little bird, little hamster, little pig. You can also replace little with small or young without changing the meaning. Re: Dan, as Internoob pointed out small (in size) girls are generally the young ones, so there's no real distinction there. Would anyone claim that a girl of a small size is not (not ever) called a little girl? I should note that when I closed this last time as no consensus, there was a 60% majority to delete, which I ruled was not enough (hey, nobody else wanted to close the discussion). Mglovesfun (talk) 13:08, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

MG, then again: (a) "little girl" does not mean "small woman", while "little" means "small" in one of its senses and "girl" means "woman" in one of its senses; (b) re "Dan, as Internoob pointed out small (in size) girls are generally the young ones, so there's no real distinction there": hardly; whether an individual object is small or not is determined based on the comparison of the size or height of the individual with some reference threshold height in the specific class of the individual object; so "small" in a small car takes different threshold from "small" in a small house; the absolute value of the threshold as expressed in meters differs. Now "small girl" means "below the threshold for the height determined from some class of girls"; so a little girl, meaning young girl, may still be a high one, meaning higher than is usual in the girls of the given age. As Conrad already explained, a young female child of small height is called "little girl" not on the basis on the height but on the basis of the age; a young female child of high height is also called "little girl". Some of these statements are falsifiable AKA testable to the extent to which a quotation can be found in which a young female adolescent of low height is referred to a "little girl".

Some searches that I find interesting:

• google:"small little girl"
• google:"big little girl"
• google books:"small little girl"
• google books:"big little girl"

Voting results so far:

• People so far supporting keeping: Lmaltier, Conrad Irwin, Bogorm, Dan Polansky.
• People so far opposing keeping: DCDuring, Mglovesfun, msh210, Internoob, Tooironic.
• People who conditionally oppose keeping: Raifʻhār Doremítzwr.
• People who abstain: Ruakh.
• Percentage of opposing people including contitional opposition: 60%, determined as ( 5 + 1 ) / ( 4 + 5 + 1).

--Dan Polansky 12:38, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

• Keep, "girl" can mean "young woman" except if it has "little" in front of it. Polarpanda 00:31, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] to that end

[edit] to this end

Tagged by DCDuring but not listed. My first instinct is keep. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

One of a large number of phrasal and clausal ways of saying therefore or so. AFAICT, they are all readily decodable. If we want to provide lexical support for English circumlocutions for the benefit of translators, this would be the kind of entry we would want. It is the prototype for a vast number of entries (eg, the redlinked synonyms).

I would prefer that we have a large number of black (unlinked) synonyms at the one-word equivalents and any idiomatic synonyms there may be, possibly with redirects. DCDuring TALK 12:45, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Yup (weak) delete, these should be in some sort of Wikisaurus entry. I'll tag to this end as well. --Mglovesfun (talk) 23:43, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

However, see Talk:to this end, although safe to say after 2 years, consensus can change. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:10, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep these entries extra-CFI as set phrases, with their likes "in all honesty", "in all fairness", "to be frank", "to be honest", "be that as it may", "having said that", "that said", "as far as I know", "as far as I am concerned", etc. See also RFD:to this end, August 2007. Alternatively, let us have an appendix for such set phrases, but do not delete them until the appendix is created; candidate title: "Appendix:English set phrases".--Dan Polansky 20:42, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

If someone can have a good operational definition of "set phrase", the appendix would be a good home, though I've often thought Wikisaurus would be a better home, linked to by {{only in}}. Dictionary.com includes such in their thesaurus. DCDuring TALK 23:21, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

By the modification and coordination tests run on COCA, to this end will accept modifiers of "end" ("to this very end", "to this desired end", and "to this humane end") and also coordinates of "end" ("to this end and purpose"). Thus, it would seem to not be a set phrase. DCDuring TALK 17:56, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

to be honest is not as sum of parts as this, as they specific meaning cannot be understood from to + be + honest. However I'll change to a weak delete. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:11, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

"to" (towards) "this" (the one in question) "end" (goal; aim; objective). Yeah it's sum of parts. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:29, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] little boy

See #little girl, strong delete as purely sum of parts. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:13, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete and move translations to boykin. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 13:47, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete. Abstain. —Ruakh_TALK 18:56, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep: see above (litte girl). Lmaltier 19:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete this preposterous entry. DCDuring TALK 22:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete. I just don't see in what way this is a set phrase. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 01:05, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep "I kicked the little boy" can not ever mean a boy who was not tall; this is a set phrase meaning young male child; there are often no contextual indicators to differentiate between "young" and "not big", but this can only mean the former. Conrad.Irwin 01:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

The general rule with boys is that the small ones are also the young ones, hence no need to differentiate. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 23:06, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Conrad, you're saying a boy that is of a small size is not called a little boy? Mglovesfun (talk) 23:08, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Historical comment. Just linking fyi to old discussions from 2008 and 2009. There's also a current re-nomination of little girl for deletion, here at RFD.​—msh210℠ 17:03, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete. SoP, per previous discussions and per current little girl discussion.​—msh210℠ 17:03, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep per #little girl. --Dan Polansky 22:38, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Daidiao Pinyin, etc

Delete. "toned pinyin"; sum of parts --- Tooironic 14:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete, AFAICT you're right. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

We need an expert in Chinese grammar or linguistics to tell us if this is an idiomatic term or merely a sum-of-parts--达伟 15:24, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• For your reference: "带调拼音"

To follow on Tooironic: shouldn't be capitalised - it's not a proper noun.--达伟 00:04, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

• Maybe spelled as "daidiao-Pinyin" is better.

I'm pretty sure hyphens are rarely used in pinyin, and almost certainly not for an adjective-noun construction. And "pinyin" is not capitalized in pinyin Chinese (or English I believe) --达伟 15:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• so, what is your suggestion?

[edit] Shengdiao Shuzi

Delete. "(pinyin) tone number"; sum of parts --- Tooironic 14:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Dunno, can anyone guess what tone number means from tone + number? Not me, and the English has an entry here. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I stand corrected. Nonetheless, it shouldn't be capitalised - it's not a proper noun. Tooironic 00:52, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• Maybe spelled as "shengdiao-shuzi" is better.

I'm pretty sure hyphens are rarely used in pinyin, and almost certainly not for an adjective-noun construction. --达伟 15:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• so, what is your suggestion?

[edit] Shijieyu yundong

Delete. "(the) Esperanto movement"; sum of parts --- Tooironic 14:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete, AFAICT you're right. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what the rules are, but we should only delete this if we would similarly delete an article for New Culture Movement or May Fourth Movement, etc. Would we delete Esperanto Movemenment/movement in English? --达伟 15:22, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

We already deleted hippy movement, so I'd say so. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:48, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Yep, and the fact that Esperanto movement doesn't have a Wikipedia page is a dead give away too. Tooironic 23:57, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wudiao Pinyin

Delete. "toneless pinyin"; sum of parts --- Tooironic 14:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

... all created by User:123abc. Perhaps someone should talk to this user about SoPs. --- Tooironic 14:38, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete, AFAICT you're right. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:20, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

We need an expert in Chinese grammar or linguistics to tell us if this is an idiomatic term or merely a sum-of-parts--达伟 15:24, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

• For your reference: "无调拼音"

To follow on Tooironic: shouldn't be capitalised - it's not a proper noun.--达伟 00:04, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

• Maybe spelled as "wudiao-Pinyin" is better.

I'm pretty sure hyphens are rarely used in pinyin, and almost certainly not for an adjective-noun construction. And "pinyin" is not capitalized in pinyin Chinese (or English I believe) --达伟 15:10, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• so, what is your suggestion?

[edit] zΩ

Failed RFV. Was discussed at Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/2009/September#SI units and abbreviations. —Ruakh_TALK 18:55, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

In light of the broad list of entries to which this objection applies, I have initiated a vote to exempt the entire class from the CFI at Wiktionary:Votes/2009-12/Proposed CFI exception for SI Units. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:55, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ZΩ

Failed RFV. Was discussed at Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/2009/September#SI units and abbreviations. —Ruakh_TALK 18:57, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

• In light of the broad list of entries to which this objection applies, I have initiated a vote to exempt the entire class from the CFI at Wiktionary:Votes/2009-12/Proposed CFI exception for SI Units. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:56, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

  May as well wait for that vote to end, and "shelve" this discussion in between. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:57, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

  Since the vote failed, shouldn't the entries be deleted? -- Prince Kassad 17:08, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

  I've noted them as derived terms on Ω, Z, and z per the style I mentioned on the vote talk page so I think they ca be deleted. --Bequw → τ 20:51, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] well

Rfd-redundant: slang UK intensifier, with usage example "Well wicked"

This seems like the normal degree sense applied to a slang term. Am I missing something? DCDuring TALK 22:19, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

It "feels like" a separate sense to me. "That film was well good" seems ungrammatical in normal English. You'd say it was "very good" or perhaps "well made". When I read "well good", "well wicked" etc. I immediately know it's extreme slang usage. Equinox ◑ 02:48, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, it is fairly redundant to the definition above, but this one needs the context templates {{context|British|informal}} (not really slang), where as "this author is well-known" definitely isn't (British, informal). Mglovesfun (talk) 15:20, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps wicked needs some tag it doesn't already have. I've read that it has been used in what seems like the same sense in parts of the US, where its usage has radiated from New England, especially eastern Massachusetts. "Well" is an ordinary degree adverb. Much of the pool of such can be used interchangeably. There may well be regional differences in their relative frequency, but we haven't documented them. I can't imagine that we can document (attest) spatial and temporal changes in register of colloquial SoP collocations usefully enough to make such differences a rationale for keeping terms that would not otherwise meet CFI. I think we (en.wikt community) may be coming to the time where we have to challenge some of the more ambitious claims of meaning and distribution that are being made and used to justify inclusion arguments. Either attestation or references rather than assertions would help. DCDuring TALK 17:26, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I have added three citations. Note the very slangy register (e.g. "Hey dude" in one of them). Equinox ◑ 13:27, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

That the word is used with informal or slang terms doesn't make it slang. I doubt anyone can find any difference in denotation between the word as used in the more formal examples I have inserted and the slangy cites.

The previous usage example with "known" made is seem more like a manner adverb modifying as it did something that probably was not a true adjective, but a past participle used as a part of a passive construction. The inserted citations are all with unambiguously true adjectives, I think. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 16:39, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

But it doesn't mean the same thing as the other senses. The only one that comes close is "Completely, fully"; but "well good" doesn't mean "completely good" or "fully good", only "very good". Equinox ◑ 18:34, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Based on a comparision of BNC and COCA, it seems that "well" is used with words that express evaluation (cool, strange, stupid, weird, worthy, nice, funny, wicked) or personal emotional state (glad, happy, chuffed, annoyed) in the UK much more than in the US (familiar, content, worthwhile). Both corpora show use with a wide range of other pure adjectives (past, short, shy, clear, wide, open; early, late, old, dead; aware; able, capable) and past participles. Does that constitute a separate sense or does it merely narrow the list of possible synonyms that could substitute in all situations? DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 19:41, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I can't see any difference of this usage from the "(degree) To a significant degree" usage. How is "well good" or "well cool" different from "well capable" or "well content"? It's still the same "well" just intensifying other adjectives. If "well cool" or "well wicked" come into common use, maybe they could be idioms. Until then, it's just an author's or speaker's choice of which words to put together. Facts707 09:01, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] anal fisting

Non-idiomatic sum of parts: anal + fisting. Equinox ◑ 02:46, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Well yes, but I've never really understood why anal sex and vaginal sex are idiomatic either. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:39, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete Anal sex and vaginal sex are idiomatic because traditionally (in the English speaking world) all sex was "considered" vaginal in "right thinking" circles but in the 20th century anal intercourse entered the common lexicon, after which a clarification for vaginal sex was needed. Anal fisting is merely a sum-of-parts term; generally people refer to "fisting" and context makes it clear which one is meant. --达伟 15:14, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete, indeed. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:23, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete How exactly would we verify the former idiomaticity of anal sex and vaginal sex? We seem to have enormous trouble excluding even non-grammatical SoP collocations. If we accept nice, plausible stories from the social sciences, in addition to the Pawley laundry list of idiomaticity criteria, there will be no collocations excluded. Both users and redistributors of our information will eventually not find it possible to separate the wheat from the chaff. DCDuring TALK 17:07, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Or put it this way: what's so bad about increasing our number of possible entries? By the way, I vote to delete this one as it is SoP IMO. Tooironic 00:01, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ex-stepfather

Was listed at RFV. The consensus was that it belongs here instead. —Ruakh_TALK 14:43, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

It's clearly sum of parts, but if you consider it to be one word rather than two, wouldn't we have to keep it? Special:PrefixIndex indicates a few more of the same. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:10, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Ah the great dilemma of sum-of-partness of affixed word. For what it's worth, I'm in favor of deleting. Circeus 16:20, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

The definition doesn't seem accurate, which might be a sign that there is more than one reading of this, which might be a CFI-relevant reason to keep it. If one is an adult when one's mother marries a man, is that person thereby one's stepfather in English usage? I think not. I suppose this is really my issue with many definitions of stepfather.

OTOH, the definition focuses so much on the relationship to the mother that the definition seems "idiomatic". Isn't this just "a stepfather from whom a child's (natural only or also adoptive?) mother has divorced"? No OneLook reference has the RfDed term, so if we keep it we should attest it and have a full and satisfactory entry, probably with at least one citation per sense. DCDuring TALK 17:00, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

FWIW keep, this is stepfather prefixed with ex-. It's sum of parts, but catlike, noteworthy and readable are also sum of parts, but it doesn't matter because they are all one word. So is this, ergo it is not elligible for deletion. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:40, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

To choose another example, who would like to see re-lay deleted as sum of parts ([[re-] + lay). Mglovesfun (talk) 15:59, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] oncle paternel

Sum of parts, oncle +‎ paternel. What more can I say? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:29, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

What you are treating here is not a single case but a cluster of cases. And this should be presented as a cluster, not as an isolated case. The cluster includes paternal uncle, maternal uncle, paternal aunt, maternal aunt, paternal grandfather, paternal grandmother, maternal grandfather, maternal grandmother and likely fraternal nephew, fraternal niece, sororal nephew, sororal niece, and maybe some other cases included in Category:Family.

I assume that paternal uncle is a brother of one's father. But the definition in paternal uncle also includes brother-in-law of one's father. I don't feel qualified to tell what should happen per CFI, but I see no harm in these entries, and they make the existence of the listed phrases explicit. The Czech word-for-word analog of "paternal uncle"--"otcovský strýc"--is found in Google web as very rare and not attestable. Some of the listed terms would pass the so far unaccepted "translations target" proposal, e.g. per Swedish farmor. --Dan Polansky 22:06, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] be in possession

To have, to own. Though some "be" + complement expressions are probably idiomatic (eg be had, see Category:English predicates), this does not seem so. (The definition also would require that the headword included "of".) To include expressions of the form "be" + prepositional phrase would make for a lexical treatment of the grammatical on a massive scale. I suppose that might be good if we are building a machine-translation database for fairly dumb software, but it ill serves human language learners. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 19:52, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

This phrase looks peculiar to English; I can't say it this way in Czech. How should I know that this is a valid way of saying "to have", "to own" or "to possess"? Are there other phrases formed on an analogy to "to be in possession" from which the validity of this phrase could be estimated? Like, I see it as straightforward that a car is in my possession or among my possessions, but not that I am in possession of a car. I, a non-native, register "to be in possession" as a peculiarity of English worth learning. I can say "I have a car", "I own a car" and "I possess a car", but I can only say "I am in possession of a car" and not "I am in having of a car" or "I am in owning of a car"; but correct me if I get this wrong.

However, OneLook dictionaries do not have the phrase. --Dan Polansky 23:31, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Consider simpler entries at in possession (also used alone in sports for a player who has the ball), in possession of Equinox ◑ 23:37, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I think what's peculiar about English is that we use prepositional phrases a lot. Prepositions seem to be a partial substitute for declension of nouns. They carry much of the grammatical burden in English.

The general structure is "in X of Y". The sense of "in" is something like "in a state or condition of". The focus is on the person who is in the state X, with respect to the object of the state, Y. The sense of "of" seems to be the same as the sense of "of" that applies to the agency noun formed from X: "I am the possessor of Y."

For this one, some close analogs are "in custody of", "in control of", "in command of", and "in receipt of". Similar are "in tenancy of", "in contravention of", "in expectation of", "in breach of", "in violation of", "in need of", "in default of", "in agency of", "in service of". Some of these are common and there are probably many more. Almost all of the states or conditions are sometimes legally or otherwise formally meaningful.

Lexically, the meaning seems to be in the particular senses of "in" and "of"

The idiom, if you could call it that might be in the structure "in X of Y", with X ranging over probably fewer than a hundred nouns and Y governed by the X. That seems much more like grammar and context than something lexical, but perhaps someone can come up with a useful way to present this or another way to look at it. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 02:13, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Move per Equinox. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:28, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Move to in possession. As stated, if "be" + prep. phrase is not specially idiomatic, or otherwise of note, then the entry should simply be the prepositional phrase. I suspect there are a lot of "be" entries to be found and moved also. -- ALGRIF talk 15:28, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Move to in possession. It's used also without be, for example, "debtor in possession" (as a modifier).--达伟 15:13, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I !vote in support of deletion, but I think the definition of "in" is in need of another sense, whereby the meaning of this could be easily derived from the definitions of its separate components. I am in agreement with DCDuring that this is grammar rather than idiom, but I am in doubt over whether "in X of Y" is really distinct from the general sense "in a state of", where "X of Y" is the object of the preposition and "of Y" simply modifies "X". Perhaps I am just in denial about subjectivity turning Wiktionary into a phrasebook, which may be unavoidable since, by design, nobody is in charge of the wiki. (Not being a linguist, I am in want of a way to explain "in a state of" without using "in" circularly. This is probably the reason for the inadequate choice of "pertaining to" in sense #4.) ~ Ningauble 22:19, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes. It is a figurative sense of "in". "In" isn't really all that easy to define rigorously even in a physical sense. MWOnline doesn't bother trying to define in terms of other prepositions: they use "non-gloss definitions" beginning "A function word ....". We obviously don't learn the most basic grammatical terms from dictionaries. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 23:05, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] tahash

Moved to WT:RFV#tahash

[edit] bend the truth

One can "bend", "distort", "stretch", "twist", and "slant" the truth. All of those are possible because the truth is metaphorically straight, but malleable in the hands of the clever. To call "bend the truth" an idiom would certainly be testing the elasticity of any reasonable definition of idiom. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 00:51, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

While the metaphor or figure of bending the truth is comprehensible for me without further explanation, you cannot normally bend the truth in Czech, although Google search finds some hits of the Czech word-for-word analogue google:"ohýbat pravdu", to my surprise. The question is, how do we document for the foreign-language readers that bending the truth is a common figure in English, when this particular figure is uncommon or nonexistent in their native tongues? --Dan Polansky 11:18, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Your first clause ought to end the discussion. That is the point. A dictionary entry is to help decode. I do not see how it can help encode. I have not seem much effort to translate truly idiomatic expressions, in any event. Would it help if I started inserting trreqs to assist translators in locating them? DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 11:39, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh, yes, it can help encode (e.g. through the use of categories, synonyms, etc.)! This is why including set phrases is important. Writers do use dictionaries! Lmaltier 14:21, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree. Keep. It is not at all intuitive that the "truth" is "straight" and is subject to physical malformation. Consider that there is no comparable expression for what should logically be the opposite phrase: to "straighten a lie" (or to compact, untwist, or level one). bd2412 T 00:35, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

DCDuring, I don't see how the fact that a lot of similar phrases exists can mean that this is sum of parts. Not all that obvious what this means from the sum of its parts, so I suppose it should be kept, although I don't like it much. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:39, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I brought it here because I am looking to understand better the concept of idiom. Are all of the others also idiomatic? stretch the truth, twist the truth, twist someone's words, distort the truth, slant the truth? We should have many opportunities since the lexicon is awash with verbs that have concrete main senses with figurative application to things that are not concrete. Is it only the Old English verbs that make for these being idioms? Help me out, please. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 01:40, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) I would consider all the listed terms figurative and some peculiar to English, hence idiomatic in one sense of "idiomatic". I cannot stretch the truth or slant the truth in Czech as far as I remember, so knowing that the listed phrases are actually used in English is useful for a non-native speaker in English composition; yes, in the encoding direction (mentalese -> English) as contrasted to decoding (English -> mentalese). Truth is not a physical object; it has to be cast as a physical object such as metal wire before the listed verbs can be applied to it.

Whether these terms should be documented in the mainspace can be discussed; what I am saying is that (a) per being figurative, the terms are not plain and pure sum-of-parts such as "blue car" or "to wash dishes" but at best tricky sum-of-parts if sum-of-parts at all, and (b) that the terms need to be documented somewhere for the FL speaker of English.

In particular, I did not know that "to stretch the truth" means "to exaggerate"; several example sentences would be helpful I think. --Dan Polansky 09:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I believe that, in the end, these things fit better in a thesaurus, which is a better tool for going from mentalese to words. We can always use principal namespace to collect them. It will take quite a while. I have begun tagging some Verb entries that we have as Category:English predicates if they contain a complement (not an adverb). I estimate we have a thousand or so in Category:English verbs. If we want to get a lot of these from the general population of users, we would need to let them know that we are not at all like other dictionaries. Perhaps we need a "metaphor of the week" ("MOTW") (eg, "Truth is straight but flexible") in addition to WOTD. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 11:36, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete per DCDuring. A usage note s.v. truth may be in order, something like "Truth, whether referred to by the term truth or otherwise, is metaphorically considered straight, and can be bent; hence such phrases as bend the truth, twist the facts, and twist his words.". Perhaps such a usage note can be added to various of the verbs (bend, etc.) used, too.​—msh210℠ 19:48, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure, but I think [[bend]] might actually need an entire additional sense; none of the current senses seems to cover “bend the truth”, “bend the rules”, etc. —Ruakh_TALK 21:25, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

• Before we get too committed to the idea that all metaphors should be included in en.wikt. please examine the quotes I have added to bend the truth and stretch the truth. Pay special attention to the quote from w:Tom Clancy at "bend". By my count he manages seven metaphors in the passage quoted. How many of them should we include? How do we differentiate between those in and those out? DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 20:57, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Following are some candidate metaphorical uses of "bend" taken from COCA:

bend the rules, bend the law, bend one's knee (submit), bend the facts.

We already have bend someone's ear, bend one's elbow, bend over backwards. In the one's we have both of the "heavy" words are used in the same metaphorical universe. If that is what makes an idiom (vs. mere figurative use of a word), then bend one's knee is an idiom and the others are not. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 23:29, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Copying the Tom Clancy quote over for reference:

• 2001, Tom Clancy, The Bear and the Dragon:

  KGB had always been on the lookout for hard facts, but then reported those facts to people besotted with a dream, who then bent the truth in the service of that dream. When the truth had finally broken through, the dream had suddenly evaporated like a cloud of steam in a high wind, and reality had poured in like the flood following the breakup of an icebound river in springtime.

I'm not seeing the problem here. Most of the figurative uses here are similes, X like Y, which I think we have long since agreed do not belong in a dictionary. To say that a man is as strong as an ox, or strong like an ox, is not the same as saying that he is an ox (which is itself only a sense of the word ox). There is simply nothing metaphorical about the behavior of a cloud of steam in a high wind, or a flood following the breakup of an icebound river in springtime. Now, "hard facts", I can see as having an idiomatic element, because it is assigning a physical characteristic to an abstract thing. bd2412 T 23:55, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

A simile requires an explicit marker. The most common ones are "like" and "as". There are indeed two uses of "like" in the passage. One marks the "dream evaporating like a cloud of steam". The other marks "reality pouring in like a flood". I see nothing else to mark anything as a simile. Accordingly, the remaining non-literal expressions must be metaphors and a mix that made me laugh out loud when reading them:

on the lookout for facts (wandering over the greensward?)

hard facts (not those on paper or carried on puffs of air)

people besotted with a dream (cheap dates if you catch them right after waking)

service to the dream (the dream is my lord) (Note the connection to "bend" as an indication of subservience.)

truth had broken through (some unstated barrier)

All of these are metaphors, whether or not they are reflected in secondary senses of the polysemic component words. The difference between multiword metaphors that should be included and those that are not meritorious is the one that eludes me. We have no effective objective criteria and don't seem to want any. We usually don't even take the trouble to determine whether any professional lexicographers at other reference works think terms are worth inclusion. Thus, in practice, our criteria appear to be utterly subjective. But, since we are all reasonable men and women, representative of the users we are ostensibly serving, that's supposed to be OK. I don't think that there are even enough of us expressing opinions to be a statistically sufficient sample of whatever population we represent.

BTW, similes that we have are cunningly concealed at Category:English similes. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 01:59, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

On the lookout for facts - facts can be in writing, or can be of a physical thing. I see a dam being built over a river, the construction of the dam is a tangible fact for which I can be on the lookout. Twisting the facts, on the other hand, would be purely idiomatic. If I said someone was twisting the facts, would you visualize that person physically manipulating something? Hard facts I have conceded above, and I think it should have an entry. Similarly, to be besotted by something or to be in service to something are both as easily and generally applicable to abstract ideas as to physical entities. To say the truth had broken through is a bit closer of a case, but not the same because the phrase "to break through" is often used with abstractions. Any emotional experience you can think of can be described as having "broken through". Bending applies to a much smaller universe of abstractions - the truth, the law, the rules, your mind, but note how the meaning is different in each case. If love or anger or purity has "broken through", the meaning of "broken through" remains roughly the same. To bend the truth or the facts, on the the other hand, does not mean the same thing as to bend the law or the rules (or to bend your ear, or your mind). bd2412 T 03:06, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

"Truth" is not always straight per se, but:

• True (adjective): Conforming to a specification or standard, esp. being geometrically precise (e.g. straight, square, round, or in alignment). [26]
• True (verb, transitive): To straighten. To make geometrically precise. [27]

Bending in the physical sense is a specific type of distortion, but I think this sense of "bend" is really just:

• Bend (verb, transitive): Syn. distort, as applied to non-physical or non-geometrical entities, such as truth, process, or mind.

And likewise for "twist". However, in the current definition of "distort" (etymologically, "to twist apart") sense 3 is over-specific. If the definitions were improved a bit, the meaning of the phrase would be obvious from its constituent parts.~ Ningauble 17:49, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Dunno, I don't think that if you can substitute one word for another, that makes them all sum of parts. Consider and shit, and crap, and whatnot. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:51, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I think that "bend the truth" and "twist the truth" are exactly synonymous with "distort the truth", with no difference in connotation, but that "stretch the truth" is more specific as to the type of distortion. Physical bending, twisting, and stretching are all distinct types of distortion. ~ Ningauble 04:14, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

In any event, I have augmented or revised bend, stretch, and distort to reflect the kinds of senses that other dictionaries have, some of which seem to me to be applicable. "Bend", in particular, was missing quite a few senses (c. five), one relevant to the discussion.

The sad fact is that we can rarely rely on en.wikt definitions to resolve our own definitional questions. The good news is that every RfD is likely to reveal opportunities for component-word entry improvement. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 19:18, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

"True" and "truth" are different things. Would you say that a straight line is the truth? If you make something geometrically precise, have you made it the truth? bd2412 T 20:28, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that was a bit of a digression. (Reading dictionaries tends to cast my mind adrift on a stream of consciousness.) "True" and "truth" are not the same part of speech, and have different senses. Although one speaks of the "trueness" of an assertion or a doorjamb and may say that they are "true", a true assertion may be called "the truth" but not a true doorjamb. However, calling a true assertion "the truth" is really only a loose way of speaking: it is the thing asserted rather than the assertion that is "the truth". Only an artistic spirit or a Pythagorean would call a doorjamb "the truth", even in this loose sense.

But still, I digress. : ) ~ Ningauble 04:14, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] bring it on

Verb: Under the rules I understood this is the wrong title. Now it's just opinion. IMO, it should be at bring on. One could bring a thing or a person or the near-meaningless "it". Move to bring on. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 18:17, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] bring it on#Interjection

Interjection: As with all imperatives so classified, it is not an interjection in the basic sense of the word. It is certainly not obvious what basic emotion one would assume was associated (fear?, anger?, grief?, lust? seeking?, delight?). Does it always or usually convery an emotion? I think not. There is the additional problem that one would have some difficulty in gathering evidence for attestation.

It would seem best treated as a redirect to the lemma bring on, with the lemma containing either a sense line with a non-gloss definition or a usage note referencing the imperative usage. Redirect to bring on. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 18:17, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Move to bring on and don't keep the interjection. The entry as it's written right now is awful, moving it is a good first step. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:36, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep as is. Yes, it's conjugatable to brought it on, brings it on, etc. but in the interjection sense it's almost never conjugated...--达伟 15:07, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Well no, verbs conjugate, nouns and adjectives decline, interjections are invariant. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:52, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Virtually every word can be used as a grammatical isolate or anaphorically. Right? "Anaphorically?" you ask? Pro-sentence? Anyone? DCDuring TALK 17:30, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Gogol

"Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, Russian writer, April 1, 1809 — March 4, 1852." I know we never ended up figuring out the US presidents issue but this almost certainly does not make any sense to keep. --Yair rand 07:24, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Please don't rush! surnames are allowed. The detailed description allows this entry in any case, it's just any surname. If you ask me about the presidents' names' issue, they should be kept as well. --Anatoli 07:51, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The entry does not include the surname definition at the moment. I am nominating the definition that refers specifically to one person. --Yair rand 08:08, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Yair rand, Gogol is a surname and Nikolai Gogol happened to bear it. Please check if the current format is sufficient. --Anatoli 08:36, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The sense line content about the author seems encycylopedic. The WP link should be to the disambiguation page if we are to retain our focus on words. The alternative is to be a short-attention-span version of WP. I like the etymology, though I'm not sure how best to present the species information. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 11:50, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

The information that Gogol is a Russian and Ukrainian surname meets CFI and should be kept, but the information that the name also belongs to Nikolai Gogol (which was all that was there when I RFD'd this) is unnecessary and should be deleted from Gogol and all translations. (BTW, should I have used {{rfd-sense}} since it was clear that the surname sense still needed to be added?) --Yair rand 17:58, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete, per nom, the stuff that was nominated for deletion. —Ruakh_TALK 21:02, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete, however if it is attestable as a surname in a Latin language, add that and delete this. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:20, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep; I tend to favor keeping shorthand versions of the names of well-known authors. Their surnames are frequently used metonymically to refer to the corpus of their works, or to an individual copy of a work by that author. Metonymic usage is inherently idiomatic. --EncycloPetey 04:34, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

FYI I've split the senses and moved the RFD to rfd-sense, as it is the sense that is being sent to deletion, not the entry.

I rather keep the definition "Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, Russian writer, April 1, 1809 — March 4, 1852", as:

• (a) we have Aristotle--"An ancient Greek philosopher (382–322 BC), student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great" along with "Aristotelian",
• (b) "Gogolian" is attestable per google books:"Gogolian", and
• (c) "Gogolian" needs to be defined in some way, but it cannot be defined merely as "of or pertaining to any Russian notable person bearing the surname 'Gogol'", as that is clearly not what it means; it unambiguously picks Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol.

This admittedly opens the door for similarly formed encyclopedic one-line summaries of various notable people who have managed through their notability to generate an adjective derived from their surname that unambiguously refers to them. A case in point is "Popper"--"Karl Popper, an Austrian and British philosopher"--per "Popperian", or "Kuhn"--"Thomas Samuel Kuhn, an American intellectual"--per Kuhnian. --Dan Polansky 13:21, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I think stuff like Shakespeare and Voltaire can be considered an uncountable common noun - I read some Voltaire last night. Admittedly this would allow a lot of extra entries, thousands or even tens of thousands. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:16, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] blow

Rfd-redundant: Two senses, transitive and intransitive are specialized to electrical components. I have inserted more general senses intended to include those senses. If they are satisfactorily worded, the RfDed senses are redundant, though the usage example could be kept. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 00:27, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Another sense: to play a musical instrument. Also superseded by a more general sense, IMHO. Also note other additional senses. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 00:53, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I regrouped the definitions to put related definitions in the proximity of each other. It seems that the senses marked redundant are exactly that. When you delete the senses, please remember to check translation tables. --Hekaheka 11:51, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] a good man is hard to find

Is there something proverbial about this that I don't understand? --Hekaheka 10:54, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

A few references seem to have it, but it's marginal. We don't have any criteria for including or excluding proverbs. They don't have to be more than the sum of their parts. They seem to have to be either a directive or an observation about the world that is often repeated. At COCA a search for "a good X is hard to find" shows 13 hits for X = "man" and one hit each for six other terms. It seems to be the kind of catchphrase that is often used as a title for stories, articles, books, and songs. That is evidence of popularity if nothing else. Under the current CM-less regime, anything goes. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 12:26, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I guess you don't mean that we are going to accept any self-evident statement that has been used at least 13 times ;-) --Hekaheka 12:43, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know that we should keep this one, really. It appeared completely unformatted on the uncategorized list, probably because SB or other patroller wasn't sure it should be deleted. It seemed worth considering, if only to test the boundaries of what we want to include. Equinox, I believe, has put in a vote for including catchphrases. All we need are criteria to be explicit about inclusion. Also, there is a small field of proverb scholarship that might have something lexicographically useful to say. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 13:14, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Unsure, can't really think of a good reason to delete it, although I'm not satisfied that it's a proverb. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

What is marginally unusual about this phrase is the word order. Normally you would say "It's hard to find a good X", but as this seems to be a catchphrase, along with a good woman is hard to find possibly, then the word order is reversed to give an emphasising effect. Marginal keep if only to define boundaries. -- ALGRIF talk 11:14, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Probably delete as this isn't a proverb hence it's just sum of parts, but I'm still not all that sure. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:22, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm getting 380,000 Google results if that makes any difference. I'd say keep, but I'd like to see some citations. Tooironic 08:42, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] a different ballpark

If you know what a figurative ballpark is, you know what this means. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 18:38, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but it does seem to be idiomatic. Anyone think that this is not idiomatic? Mglovesfun (talk) 14:18, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

The first bad sign is that wiktionary comes up first on a websearch. The second bad sign is that no OneLook reference has even a redirect for it.

I know that rules and consistency don't come easily for many, but what might the rule be for including this one? Some thought-starters:

1. The inclusion of a figurative sense of one term in a multi-word entry.
2. Not understanding the multi-word entry on sight.
3. The entry having an erroneous definition worded to avoid the formerly operative CFI?

Or is it just a case of "We don't need no stinkin' rules?" DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 15:19, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] a drop in the bucket

Merge into drop in the bucket. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 18:41, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

Done. Standard operating procedure.​—msh210℠ 16:11, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] a drop in the ocean

Redirect to drop in the bucket or move to drop in the ocean. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 18:44, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

I would not redirect it to "drop in the bucket", as "drop in the ocean" and "drop in the bucket" are terms that differ in one word, and we do not have redirects for alternative spellings that differ much less.

Moving to "drop in the ocean" seems okay, but I am unsure about this.

Other terms that seem concerned (see also Category:English idioms):

1. a bit much
2. a cold day in Hell
3. a cut above
4. a cut below
5. a day late and a dollar short
6. a different ballpark
7. a dime's worth
8. a drop in the bucket
9. a drop in the ocean
10. a few sandwiches short of a picnic
11. a gentleman and a scholar
12. a good deal
13. a good voice to beg bacon
14. a great deal
15. a into g
16. a life of its own
17. a little bird told me, little bird told me, little birds told me
18. a notch above
19. a pull of the hair for being unfair
20. a riddle wrapped up in an enigma
21. a scholar and a gentleman.

I admit that I am not sure whether the terms that I have listed are in analogy with "a drop in the ocean" in these regards that recommend the moving, as I am not sure what these regards are. --Dan Polansky 10:37, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes to your first point: I should have offered alt form of drop in the bucket as my suggestion.

Some of them, not all (certainly not a into g), should be moved. I have looked at some of them and not been sure. Little harm comes from having them because the form with "a" is usually the most common, some times overwhelmingly so. For example, "little birds told me" is attestable, but raw bgc hits favor the singular almost 50:1. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 12:17, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

I think they need to be handled one at a time. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 12:22, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

Move and replace definition with {{alternative form of|drop in the bucket}}. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:44, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

I would not say that "drop in the ocean" is a form of "drop in the bucket". A plain definition-by-synonym placed to drop in the ocean should do:

1. A [[drop in the bucket]].

I do not understand in what sense of "form of" should the one term be a form of the other term. --Dan Polansky 10:21, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] amazing

The adjective and noun sections are not actually distinct from the verbal -ing form. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 18:55, 24 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] amazing#Adjective

Keep, it meets our test for being an adjective, it's gradable. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:50, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

What was I thinking? or smoking? DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 15:57, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

You can withdraw that then? Mglovesfun (talk) 20:26, 26 December 2009 (UTC)

Speedy keep. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:30, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] amazing#Noun

Delete, not a noun, none of the citations in the article use it as a noun AFAICT either. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:44, 25 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] quadrillion

Sense: "(figuratively, slang) Any very large number, exceeding normal description." This seems to just be an instance of exaggeration, which could be done with any particularly large or small number. --Yair rand 04:18, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

True, but that's not a reason to delete it, or is it? I don' t object all that much to this entry, but I wouldn't actively want these created either. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:34, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] -ass

I don't think this is a suffix, the derived terms are compounds of word +‎ ass rather than words that are suffixed. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:07, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] take time

Rfd-redundant. I while closing this I noticed that it was tagged twice, the entry as a whole and this "redundant sense". Keep, this isn't redundant to #1. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:32, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with your analysis. Definitely there are 2 separate senses here. Keep. -- ALGRIF talk 14:03, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep. I'm not sure what I was reacting to or trying to accomplish when I tagged it. I'd like to think that there was a reason, but it's not apparent to me now. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 15:47, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Soft Keep. Maybe rfv. I think what is meant is take time out. Pingku 16:42, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

....or take the time.​—msh210℠ 17:41, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] yell silently

Do you feel we should include all instances of any rhetorical device that anyone is inclined to enter (subject to attestation, of course) ? DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 16:05, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete. This isn't even as common as “scream silently”. —Ruakh_TALK 16:17, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Unsure. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:37, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

I assumed on seeing the nomination that the phrase meant to quietly talk in a rebuking tone of voice. Bgc does not seem to have it that way: all its hits for the phrase are either for our current definition (to have a strong but unarticulated emotion) or ambiguous. So keep as undecipherable from parts.​—msh210℠ 17:52, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] wrap around one's little finger

Rfd-redundant: Original sense seems too specialized. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 17:12, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete/merge with #1. Some citable examples might help to understand the word too. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:38, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] watch like a hawk

It has been against our policy to have similes (according to reliable sources). This is one of the 143 headwords in Category:English similes. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 22:38, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

Similes are helpful in the encoding direction, helpful in sentence composition. Similes can be translated as similes, and the translation is non-trivial, not a word-for-word one.

Some similes seem not wholly sum-of-partish: in "grin like a Cheshire Cat", the modifying effect of the term "like a Cheshire Cat" cannot be derived from what the term says. Still, grin like a Cheshire Cat at OneLook® Dictionary Search finds almost no dictionaries.

The [[Cheshire cat]] example illustrates how we ought to handle the truly piecewise untintelligible, except that it lacks a usage example with the simile. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 11:51, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Now to the specific entry: how does the hawk watch? The definition in watch like a hawk tells me: "to observe (someone or something) closely and keenly". Is it part of the concept of "hawk" that is watches closely and keenly? Simile-extensions such as "like a hawk" do not always strengthen the meaning of the modified adjective or verb but sometimes weaken it. In Czech, "servírujete jak babička", when applied to "servírujete" in the game of tennis, means that you do it poorly.

What does "(according to reliable sources)" mean? In a wiki, sources can be hyperlinked to, the policy is public, and its clauses can be quoted :p.

Should not this be better discussed in Beer Parlour?

For completeness, if it happens that similes get voted out of Wiktionary, their definitions should better be copied to Appendix:English similes. --Dan Polansky 10:14, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

"It has been against our policy to have similes" err really? Never seen it, and since we have 143 entries just in English (and {{simile}}). Keep unless someone can give a reason to delete it. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:44, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

The observation came up rhetorically in an application of paromologia to a recent (RfD) discussion about including metaphors.

As is always the case, there is a question of whether there are any actual limits on inclusion of examples of the class. It is handy to have rules that allow for accelerated handling of matters, but we don't seem to respect the one's we have, so every issue of inclusion now apparently needs to considered from first principles and slogans. It is hard to determine what the difference is between BP and RFD. We are well on the way to eliminating any boundaries between cases and policies, between votes and rational discussion, between whim and reasoned position. Lastly, if rules aren't to be respected, why would one devote any effort to crafting and enforcing them?

"Hawk" is an element of cultural knowledge. The word "like" is clearly an indication that one should look up hawk or w:hawk. "As" serves a similar function. The potentially salient features of "hawk" in the simile is narrowed down dramatically by the verb "watch" which suggests visual characteristics. I suppose there is ambiguity as to whether one is mimicking the hawk's observational capability or watching the hawk because it might be dangerous. But a search on Google books shows that there are other similes in the form of "be watched like", eg a thief, the grammar thus narrowing the range of interpretations.

In any event, this kind of interpretive effort is characteristic of all efforts to gain meaning from sentences. Grammar and general knowledge are part of understanding. A lexicon has an important role, but cannot substitute for interpretive effort. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 11:51, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep The first principle I would apply here is that it's a set phrase. Yes, it's a simile, but not one that could be used with replacement of the key noun hawk. No one says that they're going to "watch you like an owl", or "watch you like a fish". It's almost always "watch like a hawk". It is thus a set phrase and idiom that should be included. I feel the same way about drink like a fish and eat like a bird. They are fixed idioms in English. --EncycloPetey 22:15, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

In order to keep these discussions from constantly repeating themselves, we would do well if we had operational definition of "set phrase". Accepting that this is a good example of a set phrase, it provides a chance to calibrate some quantitative measures of what "set phrase"-itude might be. At COCA there are 66 instances of a form of "watch Y like a(n) X". About 11 are not relevant (punctuation, X not the watcher, etc), leaving 55. "Hawk" is in 32 instances, only one of which had a modification ("chicken hawk"). All but 2 of the other nouns were embedded in noun phrases for a more elaborate, nuanced simile. The exceptions were one instance each of "cat" and "tigress", which also occurred with modifiers, though not more than twice each.

Some kind of no-modifier test would seem to be a good one to identify true set phrases as opposed to merely common collocations. In this case "hawk" seems to occur in more than 90% of the instances where an unmodified noun was used and was used unmodified more than 90% of the time. Might this be reasonable evidence that something was a set phrase?

I'm not so sure what would be good evidence that something was not a set phrase. Perhaps we can find another test case.

Keep based on strong corpus evidence that "watch like a hawk" is a set phrase rarely admitting modification of "hawk". DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 23:25, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

When discussion of this particular entry concludes, we might move this discussion to a subpage of CFI where "tests" can be hashed out. I agree that having a battery of checks for set phrases, with examples, would help simplify CFI-related discussions here. All too often we don't follow up on these, so at least having a separate "tests" page would provide a central point where these can accumulate until an idea reaches the point of maturity. --EncycloPetey 23:55, 28 December 2009 (UTC)

Excellent idea. I can only hope that there will some other ideas about this kind of thing so that it can reach some kind of maturity and use. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 01:24, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

I like where this proposition is going, and agree wholeheartedly. One small point though, re modified nouns in similies. There are in fact many examples, such as thick as two short planks. -- ALGRIF talk 14:00, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Admittedly, pure set phrases are easier than snowclones. I would be happy to settle the "easy" cases first. We could well stand some success in explicitly resolving issues that we actually are likely to have consensus on. Several runs have been made at the most general formulation of snowclones. The result has been a pile of broken lances. But we have some partial solutions to presentation (use of "someone/somebody", "one", or "something"; redirects; or usage examples) and not too much disagreement on inclusion of some kind of entry that should help many users searching for it.

[edit] tantamount to election

Means tantamount to election. --EncycloPetey 05:26, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Retain. Yes, it's an adjective phrase involving a preposition + noun object, but the words defined separately fail to capture that "tantamount to election" is a stock phrase which merits being defined as a unit. Additionally, the phrase as a unit is an outgrowth of the post-Reconstruction one-party Democratic politics of the Solid South and consequently has an etymology as a phrase. Unless you know the definition of the phrase anyway and thus don't need the dictionary, you cannot capture that derivation from the words defined separately. Rammer 05:59, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

Didn't make much sense to me. Deleted SemperBlotto 08:13, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

If the definition is correct, it doesn't seem to mean tantamount to election. The Wikipedia article of the same name might help us. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:11, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The definition identified the general (and SoP) concept with a particular class of US instantiations of the concept. This is a basic flaw in a definition of the type that seems to characterize many definitions that do not survive.

I am interested in accumulating examples of types of flaws in definitions for purposes of Wiktionary:Definitions or some associated page. Similarly, examples of types of improvable definitions (eg, unsatisfactory technical definitions, unnecessary hyperspecialization, "An X is when..." definitions (of "X") for Wiktionary:Improving definitions. The associated talk pages or the body of the Wiktionary pages would be good places for such things. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 16:07, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] 21st century

This seems sum-of-parts. Of course, to read "21st century", a reference calendar needs to be considered.

The entry has a plural, to be deleted with it.

A deleted entry: 18th century. --Dan Polansky 11:18, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

It's the name of a specific entry (I mean, at least on Earth there is only one 21st Century) so we should look for attributive use, and of course it would easily pass under those conditions. I see no harm in keep this, although the 'c' should be capitalized AFAICT. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:29, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I am not very happy with the term "specific entity", which I read as "particular individual" as opposed to a class; "entity" ambiguously refers to both individuals and classes, and "specific" refers to the narrowness of the class.

But the main point is that this is a sum-of-parts term; it's attributive use does not rescue it from its failing to satisfy the necessary condition of not being sum-of-parts. Put differently, if a term (a) refering to one individual is (b) used attributively, and (c) is sum-of-parts, then the term should not be included; it is because of (c) that the term should not be included.

While I see no harm in keeping this term, I see no benefit in keeping it either, and this term fails CFI. --Dan Polansky 09:22, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with parts one and two of your final sentence, but not three. I think it meets CFI, but I'd rather it didn't. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:09, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Sum of parts? I don't think so either. It's not just a century that's 21st, is it? Mglovesfun (talk) 15:36, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

It's a useful entry too, especially for translations. Tell me what good would it be to the project to delete it? Tooironic 01:57, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

That being said, we should be consistent, i.e., add entries for 20th century, 18th century, etc. Tooironic 02:01, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

As far as I can see, 18th century was only deleted because the entire content was hello. Equinox ◑ 02:04, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

I have often been supporting the opinion that an entry should be kept for the sake of translations, but this doesn't deserve to be kept even because of them. Every single translation is of the form 21st+century or century+21st. It would be more useful to write an example to each language entry for "century" showing on which side of the century the ordinal belongs. And somebody might want to make an entry for Chinese 二十一 (“‘21’”). For this, delete. --Hekaheka 06:49, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

But the translations are not just 21st + century. Some use "21.", others "XXI", and others use the equivalent word for "twenty-first". How each language "formats" a century, as it were, is not obvious, and could be quite useful for users. But this entry should be kept not just for the translations, though. Knowing exactly which years fall under a specific century can be confusing, and entries like these would be useful thus. As for the Chinese translation, you kind of stuffed up the formatting there. I will go fix that and also create an entry for 二十一. Cheers. Tooironic 23:40, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete SoP. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:56, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Even if you don't buy the SoP argument, why does no other dictionary include things like this? Equinox ◑ 19:38, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I wonder for how many centuries (also decades, and years) we can attest the meanings "modern, current, up-to-date", each with the qualifier "dated" and also "old-fashioned, dated, out-of-date" also with the "dated" qualifier, but different dates.

How do other translating dictionaries (especially online ones) address these kinds of entries? Do they have entries for each century, decade, year? Do they have an appendix to which a search directs the user? We have many appendices already prepared at WP. We can supplement them with our own if they are deficient and not likely to become adequate for our purposes (whatever those may be). DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 20:24, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I see this as comparable to names of specific cities, countries or language dialects like American English, I see no advantage in deleting it. That said, I see very few reasons to keep it. --Mglovesfun 07:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

A city name is not sum-of-parts, and it is a name, while "21st century" is not a name but a term. The reason why names of specific entities get special treatment in CFI is that most of them are not sum-of-parts. So not only is "21st century" sum of parts, it also is not a name, and thus is not a "name of a specific entity". By contrast, "one million three hundred thousand four hundred" is a term denoting a particular individual—a number, but should not be included as it is sum-of-parts. The term "21st century" relies for decoding on a particular numbering scheme, also known as a calendar. Compared to "the century of steam", "21st century" is straightforward to decode given a particular calendar. Otherwise, we should better include "1111" - 1. binary code for fifteen, 2. decadic code for one thousand one hundred and eleven; and other readings of the term in dependence of the choice of numeral encoding system. Also inclusion-worthy could be "11. March 2009" - how do you know which calendar you should take for reading of the term?

While I think that CFI should be taken with grain of salt, and terms that seem worthy of inclusion should be considered even outside of CFI: if a term (a) fails CFI, and (b) has nothing to recommend its inclusion, then it can be safely deleted. --Dan Polansky 12:57, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete SoP.​—msh210℠ 16:17, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] January 2010

[edit] Belgayn

This entry and the following: velsaynik aysi aysay Velsayn veluydel were all tagged for speedy deletion as nonstandard ficticious spellings. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:52, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] boundary marker

[edit] boundary stone

[edit] border stone

Seem quite sum of parts to me, particularly a boundary marker, which is a marker that marks a boundary. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:00, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Delete. Tooironic 04:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

delete boundary marker and stone. But border stone seems to be more peculiar; it's the name of specific stones at the frontiers of old european countries --Diuturno 20:27, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Regent

Sense: "King George IV of the United Kingdom during the Regency period." Any reason for this sense? It seems like it's just giving an example of the first sense. --Yair rand 04:00, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete, encyclopedic, not lexical, and frankly just a bit silly. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Delete. Tooironic 04:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete; it's a specific use of the title. --EncycloPetey 23:33, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Deleted. --Yair rand 18:40, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] change candidate

(US, politics) A political candidate who purports or espouses 'change' in society and politics. Seems to follow the basic rules of SoP meaning construction. Def could use a little work. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 22:53, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

delete. I don't think this can be considered as a word. Lmaltier 07:00, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Unsure. Mglovesfun (talk) 07:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete. Doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. Tooironic 19:34, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

After some thought, delete. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:00, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] master mariner

SoP.​—msh210℠ 23:31, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 23:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete. Mglovesfun (talk) 07:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep - has a specific nautical meaning. SemperBlotto 08:09, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Assuming the new meaning is correct, keep. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:47, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, keep as currently defined. Thanks, SB, for fixing that up.​—msh210℠ 16:05, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

keep--Diuturno 20:18, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] New York, New York

Pointless, like having an entry for Toronto, Ontario or Sydney, Australia. --Yair rand 06:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Such entries should be kept only when they can be considered as words (which is probably the case for Washington, D.C.). Lmaltier 06:59, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete, overly encyclopedic and/or bad entry title. Mglovesfun (talk) 07:15, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Move to RfV to see whether it meets CFI. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 11:17, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep if its special sense can be demonstrated - isn't it from the song of the same name?. Maybe for some Americans it's used in a certain way. Tooironic 19:28, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Not seeing a special sense in the entry. What did you have in mind? The only meaning I know is the one we have: the city of New York in the state of New York, like Toronto, Ontario. (Note fwiw that the city is actually named New York (in some places given as the City of New York, but, then many cities have such longer names, like the City of University City), not New York City, which is merely what (some) people call it to distinguish it from the state.)​—msh210℠ 17:09, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Isn't it used more as an interjection, with the implicature of "well, that's New York for you!"? I might just be grasping at straws here though... maybe a native New Yorker can clarify.Tooironic 04:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I've never heard it that way. (I come from New York City.) I can't think of a good way to search for such a sense, but a bad way, google books:"well|hey new york new york", yields no hits in that sense. Even if it is attested, I think it may very well be just the Proper noun (place name), used in an exclamatory manner, rather than really an interjection, assuming it's used the way you, Tooironic, suggest.​—msh210℠ 19:05, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Besides our definition of New York, New York as New York City entire, there's the United States Postal Service's definition of New York, NY as the areas with 100xx, 101xx, and 102xx ZIP codes, viz roughly Manhattan, including, for example, Roosevelt Island, but excluding, for example, Marble Hill: both of those are in the borough of Manhattan but not on Manhattan Island. I do not think we should have that sense anywhere, though if we start allowing all sorts of place names, then inclusibility of such a sense would follow, I suppose.​—msh210℠ 19:05, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] NY, NY

See #New York, New York above. Mglovesfun (talk) 07:14, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Move to RfV to determine whether it meets CFI. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 11:18, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] at the hands of

Request to delete sense #2. IMO the first sense covers the second one adequately. Tooironic 19:39, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

The usage example, if it reflected actual usage, would warrant a different sense. The sense I am aware of would not allow one to win "at the hands of a competitor". One could only lose at the hands of a competitor. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 19:49, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Twitter

Name of one specific Web site; Wikipedia material. Compare MySpace (go and read that one carefully), which is (supposedly) a generic term: we do not define it as the specific MySpace.com Web site. Equinox ◑ 20:34, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, this opens up a problem: why do we keep Wiktionary? --Yair rand 20:58, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Because we are Wiktionary and someone was bound to end up adding it. Wiki terms seem to get some kind of exemption because most of our users like them (see Category:WMF jargon). A more neutral example would be better, e.g. Amazon (the online bookseller — not in our entry). Equinox ◑ 23:56, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Delete. Tooironic 04:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete--Diuturno 20:16, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Deleted--Diuturno 19:38, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Ivrit

This is just a transliteration of עברית . Yes, this can be found in English context, but so can español and Nihongo. --Yair rand 21:53, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep: it appears unitalicized in running text. (This belongs at RFV, and I'd say it move it thither, but it will pass there easily, so no point.)​—msh210℠ 21:58, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

"Nihongo" also appears unitalicized in running text, as do most language names. Do they all qualify as English? --Yair rand 02:24, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep (or move to RFV). Quite possibly. Why wouldn't they? —Ruakh_TALK 03:21, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep, it's a word as it as it used in English colloquially. There should be at least a Hebrew or a Translingual romanised entry, like Nihongo, along with 日本語. Words like Nihongo and Ivrit may be called multilingual, they used in different languages to mean 日本語 and עברית, calling a language in its own language is common in certain circles and situations. By the way, Hebrew in Russian is called иврит (ivrít) only. --Anatoli 05:01, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

(I thought I've heard "po-evreiski"? In any event,) I don't think these count as translingual. Without data, I have to assume most languages don't use Ivrit: Russian, for example, doesn't, using иврит instead.​—msh210℠ 18:29, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

по-еврейски (po-jevréjski) or еврейский язык (jevréjskij jazýk) means "in Jewish" and "the Jewish language" - which one? Hebrew, Yiddish? Anatoli 20:07, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree. And note that English Ivrit denotes Modern Israeli Hebrew, whereas Hebrew עברית includes all forms of the language — as, I believe, does Russian иврит. (Don't get me wrong, I think the term Ivrit is really silly, all the more so because it doesn't actually mean the same thing as the Hebrew word it's borrowed from; but sanity is not one of our CFI.) —Ruakh_TALK 18:52, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep/RFV. Mglovesfun (talk) 06:32, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep given it appears unitalicized in running text in three durably archived sources. --Dan Polansky 12:39, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes just keep, it would be "bad faith" to RFV something knowing that it would pass. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:35, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Kept, Mglovesfun (talk) 10:58, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] turn to stone

Three senses. turn + to + stone. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 01:59, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

I see nothing here worth keeping. Mglovesfun (talk) 06:08, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, delete, SoP.​—msh210℠ 18:30, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete as per discussion. Tooironic 22:07, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete. No controversy here. I spoke too soon. No opinion. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 23:59, 7 January 2010 (UTC) 04:47, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I assume that the sense of turn used in the proposed-for-deletion sense "turn to stone--To metamorphosise into stone" is "turn--to become" with the example sentence "The leaves turn brown in autumn". However, the sentence that documents "to turn" in that sense, just quoted, does not use the preposition "to". Should not the entry "turn" first get expanded with the missing senses before this gets deleted?

The sense "turn to stone--To become completely still, not moving" is clearly figurative and thus idiomatic, documented by "The lions would creep up on their prey, but turn to stone when the prey looked in their direction".

turn to stone at OneLook® Dictionary Search shows almost no dictionaries, though.

A similarly structured phrase, one whose usage I need documented somewhere for confident understanding and use, even if in an appendix, is "turn to ashes". --Dan Polansky 10:38, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

What is idiomatic is the figurative sense of "stone". MZajac's notion of collocation documentation may perhaps begin with some predicates of this form. I think the best start is an Appendix, wherever the content may ultimately reside. BTW, "turn to" in this sense doesn't seem to be considered a phrasal verb. DCDuring TALK 11:06, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you saying that we are missing a sense in the "stone" entry? What would the definition read, and how would it combine with "turn to <stone-definition>"?

I am not saying that "turn to" is a phrasal verb, but "turn brown" and "turn to ashes" are two distinct grammatical contructions, and both should be documented in "turn" entry, not only the first construction.--Dan Polansky 11:17, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, you can't say turn to rock, turn to concrete for the third sense can you? Or change to stone, become stone. Yes Keep third sense (moving to rfd-sense times three). Mglovesfun (talk) 11:21, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Websters 1913 had a figurative sense for stone. No OneLook dictionary follows them. What is more important is the proper handling of complements at turn. DCDuring TALK 12:18, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

The complements are not really all that complicated. "Turn" + adj or "Turn" + "to" + noun. In both cases the meaning is "become". DCDuring TALK 12:25, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

At the very least, one can turn to jelly. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:27, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

To our current "(transitive) To become : The leaves turn brown in autumn ; When I asked him for the money, he turned nasty" I've now added "(intransitive) To become : Midas made everything turn to gold ; He turned into a monster every full moon".​—msh210℠ 18:47, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

I am experimenting with the CGEL-recommended modifier and coordination tests for phrases. (See #AND function and #ABO system below.) In this case, I can find citations for "turn to solid/cold/icy/hard stone". Thus, it does not seem to form a set phrase. This kind of test would be a sufficient test of idiomaticity. That is, if a phrase did not admit modification (or coordination), then it should be included as a set phrase. Failure to meet the test puts a term on weak ground, but does not per se exclude it. DCDuring TALK 20:29, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

To Msh: I have made the sense you have added to "turn" more specific, by defining it as "To fundamentally change; to metamorphose." Revert me or adjust the def if it is actually too specific or needs any other adjustment or as you see fit.

On a marginal note, the first sense of "turn--to be come" is translated into Czech typically using the prefix "z-" indicating a change of state, while the other sense seems to be a change in substance rather than in state and is translated into Czech as "proměnit": "Midas proměnil všechno ve zlato." -- "Midas made everything turn to gold." --Dan Polansky 09:33, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

If we choose to delete this, then we first need to consider the following citation:

• 2008, V. C. Andrews, Delia's Heart‎

  I felt his absence too deeply and saw the sorrow on all of their faces. My heart turned to stone in my chest.

This is clearly an idiomatic expression, but if we choose to delete turn to stone, then we are missing either a sense of stone or a sense of turn (to). --EncycloPetey 23:31, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Deleted definitions one and two, per EP yes we're trying to find another definition of stone to make this into a sum of parts case. That's probably a good indication that this should be kept. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:40, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

A quick look at COCA reveals that the following terms showing figurative use with forms of turn to (“‘become’”): stone, ice, gold, ash, ashes, water, jelly, shit. They are used with "become" and "is" as well. This is clearly just making meaning out of words. We can as well put in every attestable collocation of verb and noun as keep this if only one or the other is slightly uncommon or figurative. DCDuring TALK 09:38, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Then it sounds like we ought to be concentrating on rewriting turn (to), and not worry about stone. This is a sense of the verb that means "to acquire certain properites of X" in either a real and physical way or in a figurative way. --EncycloPetey 05:29, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] all

rfd-sense: all#Determiner Completely. You’ve got it all wrong.

This would seem to be a sense of all#Adverb. DCDuring TALK 23:03, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Delete. Tooironic 04:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:49, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] romantic friendship

Moved to WT:RFV#romantic friendship

[edit] AND function

This seems to meet a syntactic test that a true noun-phrase idiom should fail. "They have code for two AND and three NAND functions". DCDuring TALK 19:55, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete. NISOP. It's the name of a thing and then the type of thing. "We created a Customer class to store data about customers. The class had an Initialize method to populate it with data from the database. That method used the AND function to read a bit-field." Equinox ◑ 16:57, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The function named "AND". Seems like a deleter then, but I'm not all that sure, as the definition is incomprehesible. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:59, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

There is an "AND" function, which uses an "AND" operator, but both are covered by our entry at AND (does this need clarification?) I agree, delete as SoP. Dbfirs 12:12, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Deleted for reasons already above. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:21, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] ABO system

This passes coordination and modification syntactic tests that a truly idiomatic noun phrase should fail. "The ABO and Rh blood-antibody systems remain a mainstay." DCDuring TALK 20:07, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

What's the problem with this entry? Mglovesfun (talk) 21:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

1. It is not a set phrase (per above).
2. The meaning is instantly deducible from the components: most important blood type classification system for human blood transfusions + collection of organized things, whole composed of relationships among the members

AFAICT any mystery is due to the use of an abbreviation out of its normal usage context.

-- DCDuring TALK 22:04, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I would say delete. Equinox ◑ 22:24, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete per above. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:37, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] affluent

rfd-sense: Somebody who is wealthy. No more than any of other terms like this, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Many adjectives that modify "people" function as fused-head nominals. It is essentially grammatical, not lexical. If we kept track of which adjectives could modify people we could insert a usage note. Or we could have the content in Appendix:English adjectives or Appendix:English nominals or Appendix:English noun phrases. DCDuring TALK 00:26, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep. It's in several major American dictionaries (RHU, AHD, M-W), and its plural affluents is readily attestable in this sense (though it's nowhere near so common on b.g.c. as a “tributaries” sense that our entry currently lacks). It might warrant {{rare}} or {{context|really|_|weird-sounding}}, though. —Ruakh_TALK 02:39, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, so I forgot to check that. Rather than take this to TR, what about the definition? In the world of upscale marketing, a great deal is made of distinctions between those who are wealthy (wealthies?) and those who are merely affluent. Obviously our contributor didn't make the distinction so there might be more than one aspect to the underlying sense. In fact there might be more than one aspect dimension: income, wealth, discretionary income (?), lifestyle (?). DCDuring TALK 18:16, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

RFV or keep directly if there's no doubt that it would pass an RFV. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:38, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] absolument

Rfv-sense: Interjection, "absolutely". Seems like a mistranslation of the English to me. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:14, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

• I hear this all the time. Why do you think it's a mistranslation? Ƿidsiþ 16:04, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

• Seems to be just an adverb though. People say 'surely, definitely, maybe, rightly, absolutely' all the time. Maybe this should be and RFD issue. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:37, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

  I request to withdraw my RFV, Mglovesfun (talk) 18:58, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

• It is not an interjection, just an adverb --Actarus ^{(Prince d'Euphor)} 17:55, 27 December 2009 (UTC)

The previous discussion was from Wiktionary:Requests for verification

rfd-redundant: the interjective sense is just the adverb used on its own, like English absolutely, right, sure, great good. This is already covered by the adverb, see also absolutely#Interjection (it doesn't exist). Mglovesfun (talk) 12:56, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

You're right. None of the French dictionaries I have consulted mention it as an interjection. --Actarus ^{(Prince d'Euphor)} 13:51, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] it's all Greek to me

"I don’t understand any of it; it makes no sense."

Greek, sense 3: "Nonsense talk or writing; gibberish.", with the example sentence "it's all Greek to me." One could just as well say "it's meaningless to me" or "it's gibberish to me", with the same meaning. Seems like this is entirely SoP. --Yair rand 18:56, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

No keep. Maybe rename but this seems idiomatic to me. If anything I'd RFV the sense at Greek which I've never heard of outside of this phrase. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:58, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep but move. Yes, idiomatic and famous. But this should just be an alternative form of the base expression "It's Greek to me," which is closer to the original in Shakespeare. ("It was Greek to me" should also be an alt form.) -- WikiPedant 20:09, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Move to Greek to me, which seems to be the core set phrase. It gets 11 hits at COCA vs 2 for the RfDed term and 2 for all forms of "[be] Greek to me". I don't know how many redirects or inclusions of specific forms as usage examples/citations we need. I think "it's", "all", and all forms of "be" and "seem" are (or ought to be stopwords, so that an entry at Greek to me would be at the top of a failed-to-find-as-headword search for almost any search term that included those words. BNC: 4 total, all with "all", but some with intervening words. DCDuring TALK 20:56, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Above was true, but crucially incomplete. There are many substitutes for the object of "to". My idiom dictionary has an entry at "Greek to (someone)". One may as well have redirects to Greek#Noun or greek#Noun as to Greek to. DCDuring TALK 21:07, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The problem with that is that Google books gets quite a few hits for "Greek to you", "Greek to him", etc. --Yair rand 20:59, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I realized that as I posted. DCDuring TALK 21:07, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Re:WikiPedant: I don't think "closer to the original" should be at issue here. What's important is how the idiom has popularized. There are many words and expressions which are attested no earlier than Shakespeare, but which are used in quite a different form or spelling than that used by the Bard. --EncycloPetey 22:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep; this is idiomatic. Yes, there are other ways to say the same thing, but you don't say "It's all French to me," or "It's all Czech to me." The idiom in English uses "Greek". --EncycloPetey 22:16, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

How? If you can have "that's all Greek to me", "it's all Greek to him", and "it's Greek to me", and the sense that works in those statements is covered by Greek, how is this idiomatic? --Yair rand 22:29, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Because there is still a syntactical structure required. This particular sense of Greek is limited to this idiom in its various forms. Changing a pronoun does not invalidate the idiom. --EncycloPetey 22:34, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

If that is correct, shouldn't it be be greek to one? (I know that sounds ridiculous, but that seems to be the standard for idioms.) --Yair rand 22:38, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

That is certainly an option, although I think "Greek" ought to be capitalized if that move is made. My own experience is that, for this particular idiom, the singular first-person pronoun is by far the most common, which is not the case for most idioms we handle that way. --EncycloPetey 22:45, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete per nom. DCDuring TALK 23:10, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep, but I don't know under which headword. The "to me" part seems crucial to the phrase. I understand the phrase "it's all Greek to me" as "I don't understand a word from the phrase, sentence or schematic, as I lack the knowledge of the language or domain" rather than "it is a pile of gibberish that no one in their right mind could possibly decipher".

Searches:

• google:"it's all Greek to me" - 125,000 hits
• google:"it's Greek to me" - 160,000 hits
• google:"it's all Greek to him" - 39,500 hits
• google:"it's Greek to him" - 146,000 hits
• google:"it's all Greek to you" - 18,300 hits
• google:"it's Greek to you" - 55,600 hits

--Dan Polansky 10:02, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Those statistics are not meaningful. Look at what was being returned under "It's Greek to you" -- the first page is all proper names of guides to Greek restaurants and tourist locations. What we need are statistics showing usage of the idiom in English sentences, not proper nouns creating for marketing purposes. We also do not know how independent the various returns are. --EncycloPetey 03:51, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Would you want to delete thank you as sum of parts, or move it to thank someone? I'm gonna RFV the sense at Greek now. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

We do not have the verb sense of thank you. If we did, I would certainly RFD it as SoP. The other two senses are used exclusively with you (I don't think I've ever heard someone refer to "a thank me" or used "thank him" as an interjection). --Yair rand 17:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Definitely keep. It's an idiom, besides a very common one. --Anatoli 03:56, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Modern English

Sum of parts. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:44, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Huh? (a) It's arguably the name of the language. if it is, then just as "Statue of Liberty" isn't SoP, whether we should have it or not, neither is this. But, ignoring that, (b) a more fundamental and definite reason to keep: modern is very general, whereas "Modern English" is very specific: English since the mid-16th century. There's no way to derive the definition of this term from its parts.​—msh210℠ 17:50, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Can't any language be prefixed with "Modern" though? How is this better than English-language and English-speaking that failed RFD in 2009. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:53, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Or French language. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:56, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Because Modern English is not the English of modern times (i.e., since the 1920s) or of modern times (i.e., since the Industrial Revolution) or of modern times (i.e., since roughly the start of the 16th century), but of modern times i.e., since roughly the mid-16th century). I really don't see how anyone can piece this phrase together from its parts.​—msh210℠ 18:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

[Edit confilct] Well, the question is is this just English that is modern, or is it Modern English a separate entity that isn't just the modern form of English. A similar question could be asked about American English, Canadian English etc. --Yair rand 18:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

And English language. If you're gonna go that way, would we exclude Modern French (archaic Modern French exists) or Canadian French, Quebec French français de Belgique (etc.) Mglovesfun (talk) 18:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep: not SOP; see w:Early Modern English and w:Modern English. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 19:27, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep: it refers to English of a more or less specific period, like Old English. Equinox ◑ 03:32, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, yes, keep per all arguments given. 50 Xylophone Players talk 03:38, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep as argued. Modern English refers to the English language since a very particular date and in a very particular form. If we eliminate this, then we'd have to remove Old English and Middle English. --EncycloPetey 03:48, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Kept. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:15, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] all during

This is all#Adverb + during#Preposition. It is not even a constituent, "during" being part of a PP and "all" modifying the PP. DCDuring TALK 04:18, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah strong delete. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete. Equinox ◑ 17:25, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Deleted. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] ſeveral

This is defined as an obsolete spelling of "several". In fact, it is nothing of the sort. That is simply what s looked like before the nineteenth century except at the ends of words. Unless hundreds of thousands of other such "spelling variants" that use the non-terminal s are to be admitted, it makes little sense to allow this one. At the moment ſeveral is the only word listed among English obsolete spellings. Also allowing this entry would by implication disqualify any entries that have only been recorded with the ſ. --82.0.9.23 17:06, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I broadly agree, we should probably have a policy against these, in the same way that we have equus, but not EQUUS, EQVVS, or even eqvvs. Possibly move this to the Beer Parlour, then delete it when it is official a 'bad entry title', unless we already have such a policy. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:11, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep. See also Category:English terms spelled with ſ. There is no reason that attestable terms written with the long ess ought to be omitted (of course, I agree that they ought not to be lemmatised). FWIW, I disagree with the ban on Latin entries spelt differently from the standard; whilst the standardised spellings ought to be the lemmata, disallowing even soft-redirect entries for variably-spelt Latin terms imposes an artificial uniformity on the language, and is quite at variance with the general descriptive ethos of the English Wiktionary. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 17:23, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Redirect at best. This isn't an alternative spelling of several, it's a typographical alternative, they both have the same spelling. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:26, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd go for RFV, unless we have lacking technical means to find citations of this spelling in which case I'd Keep until such a tool comes along and we can show that if the spelling did exist it would likely fail RFV. Conrad.Irwin 17:27, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

As suggested, I've copied the discussion (as it was when I last refreshed) to Wiktionary:Beer_parlour#.C5.BF_.28long_s.29_typographic_variants. --82.0.9.134 17:32, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

• Redirect. I agree with the main thrust of the argument: this is not a variant spelling, but merely a variant typographical form. Ƿidsiþ 17:41, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

This would seem to be contrary to the policy on upper/lower case forms. They are merely typographic differences but we don't allow them even as redirects (I think we should, but this is a seperate matter). Conrad.Irwin 18:19, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, upper/lower case forms is a good analogy. But really, allowing two kinds of s is a bit like allowing separate entries for "script a" <ɑ> and printed a <a>. There have never been alternative spellings, just different ways of drawing an ess. --82.0.9.134 18:53, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The only reason we don't allow redirects from capital->lowercase is that we want to be able to distinguish separate words (god v. God and many English v. German words). I don't think this a problem here, however, so I think a redirect would be fine for this case. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:54, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

• As a further point, I notice all the entries under Category:English terms spelled with ſ were created by a single user from words in the William Jones quote under ſeveral. Surely someone getting a bit carried away? --86.25.237.175 20:28, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Redirect as a typographic variant. (We Hebrew editors already redirect entry titles containing the hyphen-minus to the corresponding ones with the maqaf, and regular double quotation marks to gershayim. That's fyi, not as an analogy, as it's not a good one.)​—msh210℠ 22:53, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

• Redirect. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 03:41, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

For anyone (I’m thinking Conrad.Irwin) who doubts the verifiability of this spelling, see google books:"feveral"; >99% of those 12,525 hits are almost certainly scannos of ſeveral. Regarding other considerations, I shall reply in the Beer Parlour. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 05:12, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I find myself having second thoughts. "All words in all languages", this is a word in English. I think possibly this should be kept and we should try and come up with a policy decision and follow it. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:48, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Redirected, the Beer Parlour discussion may help us come up with another solution (or it may not). Mglovesfun (talk) 18:25, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Redirect: not an obsolete spelling, only an obsolete way of writing this s. A redirect may be useful when pasting here words copied from old texts found on sites using this Unicode character (this case should be rather exceptional). Lmaltier 22:05, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] 语音合成器

Literally, "voice synthesizer". Delete. Sum of parts. Tooironic 23:03, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

If voice synthesizer is not a permissible entry in English, then this 语音合成器 should also be impermissible in Chinese.--达伟 00:26, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete. Combo of 语音 and 合成器. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 03:21, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Deleted. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:22, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] hard-pressed

Rfd-redundant: Having or likely to have difficulty or to find a task almost impossible. I think this is a bad wording of "barely able", the newly added first sense. There is also another new sense. DCDuring TALK 01:48, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete the sense. Sounds the same to me no matter which way I look at it. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 03:18, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Can "barely able" always be replaced with "hard-pressed" or is the latter describing a specific aspect of being barely able? Obviously the person who added the second definition thinks so. If he's wrong, then delete. If he's right, one might consider combining the two [d]efinitions:

1. (idiomatic, usually with to-infinitive) Barely able, having or likely to have considerable or potentially insurmountable difficulty in completing a task.

   Although they are still available, I think we would be hard-pressed to find one on short notice. --Hekaheka 10:22, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

The obligatory substitution would have to be that "barely able" would replace "hard-pressed". I certainly don't think that "hard-pressed" could substitute for all uses of "barely able", though I think it would substitute for instances followed by a to-infinitive. DCDuring TALK 11:58, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Clean up, the two sense are the same, but the context label seems a bit bizarre. I've only just realised it means followed by a to-infinitive form, not preceded. So this to me is a cleanup issue more than an RFD one. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:25, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

A problem with the long part of the definition is that it is not "substitutable" for the headword, AFACIT. That is, one could not substitute the long definition for "head-pressed" in a sentence with the result being correct grammatically. It seems to me to be a highly desirable feature of definitions and synonyms.

In Longmans's DCE and some other learner's dictionaries, "with" notes often appear. They always refer to what optionally or mandatorily follows the headword for a particular meaning.

A problem with our process is that the abundant instances of this kind of definition problem are not readily repaired if we are scrupulous about RfD. We haven't even established that "substitutability" is a requirement for all definitions that are not non-gloss definitions. I don't even recall the notion of "substitutability" ever being mentioned, except once or twice by me. DCDuring TALK 11:58, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] hell yes

hell (“‘intensifier’”) + yes. Has had RfV tag since 8/2007, but is obviously attestable, with 47 hits at COCA. DCDuring TALK 02:02, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete. Any reason not to list Hell yeah and hell yeah as well? Mglovesfun (talk) 12:41, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] black cat

Noun sense: cat with uniformly black fur. --Hekaheka 09:26, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Deleted. I deleted the noun sense of white rabbit a few days ago without any discussion, so I figured I should be consistent here. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:27, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I can't find any reference to 'black cat' for Martes pennanti in Wikipedia. So I think even the sense of a 'fisher cat' is doubtful. It might be a regional term. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 03:15, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

If you run a Google search with "black cat" + "martes pennanti" you get 1.500 hits including Britannica Online and WordNet. --Hekaheka 09:59, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] lytty

See talk:lytty, a redirect for a word that does not exist, and maybe never did. Surely this violates all sorts of Wiktionary policies. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:21, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I didn't realize that adding it was such a horrible crime. I added it because I have explained many Finnish peculiarities to a user that tries to learn Finnish in Wiktionary:Requested_entries:Finnish, and he thought it might be useful for people like him. But by all means, go ahead. On a second thought, the usage note in the entry lytyssä does the same thing just fine. --Hekaheka 17:54, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Well clearly it's not a horrible crime, but your own analysis seems pretty good. It would be like having talenting redirect to talented because talent is not a verb. Also, on the talk page you seem to think it could redirect to more than one page, which is currently impossible. But it's just a word on a website, don't lose sleep over it (smile). Mglovesfun (talk) 20:05, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

All right, I wasn't going to. Why don't we just speedy it? Nobody ever wanted to say it exists. --Hekaheka 21:42, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Since you seem okay with this, I have deleted it. There might be a better approach to this kind of thing (people looking up "plausible" words that don't exist), but we'd have to decide on a standard way of doing it. Equinox ◑ 00:54, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] rendez-vous

RFd-sense: imperative of se rendre. Do we want this sort of entry? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:08, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I know essentially no French, but we've often kept literal senses of idiomatic phrases, marking them as such.​—msh210℠ 19:41, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd say even if didn't have an idiomatic meaning it should be kept. Not having any size restrictions, we have separate entries for conjugated forms of verbs. —Angr 19:46, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I changed my mind but have had no computer access for a week. May as well clean it up and keep it. Kept. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:41, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime

Originally added by one of the incarnations of Wonderfool. I'm of two minds about his one. On the one hand, yes it is a valid proverb. On the other hand, it's so damn long that it just doesn't seem to belong in a dictionary, and it must have somewhere between umpteen and a gazillion alternative forms which will make it relatively unlikely that any given user will manage to type a form that matches the entry or any redirects we create. Delete or keep? What's the right thing to do? -- WikiPedant 00:31, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I would say keep, because it's a legitimate proverb; but the lack of capitalisation causes me physical pain. Can this be the only multi-sentence entry title we have?! Equinox ◑ 00:48, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

We should have a separate page for all matters relating to overlong headwords. They mess up the TOC something awful. So whatever we do, let's do it quick.

Keep It's a more certainly a valid proverb than some. The search engine might find it for someone. DCDuring TALK 00:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Equinox, might a semicolon ease your pain?​—msh210℠ 19:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep per Equinox and DCDuring. Mglovesfun (talk) 04:23, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Kept. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:18, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] ask away

Readily decodable from components. Complete encoding help (either by rules or lexicon) beyond what en-wikt can achieve adequately in this decade. DCDuring TALK 02:17, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, delete this.​—msh210℠ 19:40, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

I would normally say delete, but strong delete as the definition is very poor. Mglovesfun (talk) 04:21, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

But this does seem to fall under the discourse-regulation rationale for idioms. This would be a negative precedent against that rationale unless this term is differentiated from other such terms. DCDuring TALK 11:54, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Deleted. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:01, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] bang up job

Rfd-redundant: "The phrase is often used sarcastically...". We don't include these, do we?​—msh210℠ 19:35, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

• Nothing useful added. Removed. SemperBlotto 19:47, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

1. Shouldn't it be "bang-up job"
2. Isn't bang up/bang-up the truly idiomatic element. The "bang-up job" collocation is about 60% of the usage of bang-up with a noun. Is that enough to make it an idiom that is not SoP? DCDuring TALK 20:17, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Re point 2, yeah, redirect.​—msh210℠ 18:00, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete/redirect per Msh210 and DCDuring. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Redirected. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:00, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] crib

crib#Noun Rfd-redundant 2 senses.

1. A covered structure, for confining animals.
2. A stall for large domestic animals.

I believe that these are adequately covered by: A small room or covered structure, especially one of rough construction, used for storage or penning animals. This last would benefit from further attention. DCDuring TALK 12:43, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

crib#Verb Rfd-redundant:

To engage in academic dishonesty by the illicit use of a pony or cheat sheet; plagiarism.

I believe this (if it indeed exists) is covered by:

To collect one or more passages and/or references for use in a speech, written document or as an aid for some task; to create a crib sheet.

--DCDuring TALK 12:52, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The "to collect one or more..." sense is marked "intransitive" but its usex shows transitive use. I also know it as transitive. but google books:"cribbed|cribbing for * test|exam|final|midterm" shows intransitive use also. So perhaps two senses are necessary, though the "engage in academic dishonesty" one may be too specific. (Or maybe they should be one sense anyway, tagged {{ambitransitive}}.)​—msh210℠ 17:58, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Both ambitransitive and bitransitive are ways of marking en.wikt as being for language insiders only, which does seem to be the reality, so perhaps it would be truth in advertising. Combining transitive and intransitive into one sense means that the definition cannot be subsitutable, which is, I think, a desideratum of a good definition. Non-gloss (good for grammaticals and interjections) or full-sentence (used in some language-learner dictionaries (COBUILD, Encarta) are alternative approaches.

I do see that both transitive and intransitive may be required. How does the transitive sense work? Is it "He cribbed the answers from an e-mail from his friend in the earlier class."? I guess it would usually be passive. DCDuring TALK 18:27, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] -collar

This looks like a combining form. I thought we excluded them as duplicative of the hyphenless entry. DCDuring TALK 23:47, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete for the same reasons I nominated #-ass. Mglovesfun (talk) 04:34, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] confectioner's

A shop that sells confectionery. Analogous to all of its cousins, it is an anaphora for "confectioner's shop", "confectioner's place", or, for that matter, the confectioner's house, hat, car, or pastry bag. DCDuring TALK 00:17, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

These shop terms should probably go. We also have grocer's. Equinox ◑ 00:59, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Not so fast, please. These terms are very common, and refer only to the shop. They need to be taught to ESL students because they are so specific and not as obvious as a native speaker assumes. Some are particularly obscure ... chemist's, ironmonger's, newsagent's, florist's, greengrocer's, for example. There are not so many of them, as only a few businesses are referred to in this way, so we're not talking about a huge number of entries. -- ALGRIF talk 11:53, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

It is a common phenomenon of the grammar of possessives that applies to the proper nouns that are occupational names and personal names and trade names of the same form. We are quickly evolving to redefine word to mean collocation - and not even always grammatical constitutents. I don't see why Wiktionary should be a repository of every attestable instance or even selected instances of every grammatical phenomenon of interest to language learners. We have to leave something for WikiGrammar. DCDuring TALK 12:27, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually I'm hard put to come up with a dozen of businesses that are commonly referred to as occupational / trade name + s. "You can buy a Z at any chemist's". How many X's can you find to occupy the "chemist's" slot? Possessives are very common. This usage is very restricted. That's why it should be here. IMHO. -- ALGRIF talk 12:51, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Here are fifteen trades/professions that multiply occur on COCA in this construction, with the understood noun being a place of business: doctor, dry cleaner, butcher, hairdresser, dentist, vet, barber, baker, blacksmith, jeweller, florist, stationer, tailor, bootlegger, undertaker. I'm sure you could find others at BNC.

Two other classes of fairly widely understood deixes: residences (neighbor, father, mother, parents, uncle, aunt, in-law, etc) and public restrooms (men's, boy's, and little boy's and the distaff's). In addition there are many local ones.

Perhaps student's should be direct to 's, which entry could possibly bear improvement of supplementation as by the growing number of other English grammatical appendixes and Wiktionary pages. DCDuring TALK 16:31, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I can assure you that it's useful to keep them. Lmaltier 21:54, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

If you don't want to argue to in terms of CFI, please present some rationale, if you have one. Do you have any evidence or arguments as to why? What is the theory of wiktionary use that would give credence to your assurances? Is there a justification for the theory? DCDuring TALK 22:12, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

My first justification is my experience (I'm not anglophone). My second justification is that there is no reason to accept some shop names and to refuse other shop names only because of their etymology (leading to the 's in the name). Lmaltier 12:24, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, say no more. I don't have that qualification. Clearly none of the OneLook references and not Longmans DCE benefit from that perspective either as they fail to include that possessive.

I think we have also just discovered an area of superiority of book technology over ours. In a print dictionary, when one looks up "confectioner's", one finds "confectioner" immediately adjoining the location where "confectioner's" would be. When one looks up greengrocer's on Wiktionary, one gets a search page screen that does not necessarily contain greengrocer without a page down.

We could use redirects and appendices to address this grammatical phenomenon in a pedagogically useful way or can continue to perpetrate the "lexical illusion": We can mislead users into believing that there is something especially meaningful about terms like "confectioner's" as opposed to terms like "John's", "John Smith's", "the Smith's", "the neighbor's", "my next-door neighbor's", "my uncle's", "my other uncle's", or "the men's". DCDuring TALK 13:19, 24 January 2010 (UTC) See Appendix:Special uses of possessives in EnglishDCDuring TALK 16:02, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually there is the "finger index" in the left-hand pane, showing about 20 preceding and subsequent words. It's not right under the user's nose, though. Equinox ◑ 13:39, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Is that the default for unregistered users? DCDuring TALK 16:02, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Definitely Keep all. They are a mystery to non-English speakers. SemperBlotto 22:30, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

What about the approach of putting all the examples using common nouns into an appendix and using soft or hard redirects to the appendix? That way we could provide lexical access to the general rule instead of having learners believe that "greengrocer's" is a one-off. DCDuring TALK 23:28, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

See Appendix:Special uses of possessives in English

I believe that we need to discuss the availability of the Appendices, and to this end I will place a proposal in BP shortly. However, back this lexical group. An English L2 Wikt user looking at florist would see that s/he is a person who sells flowers. But then said user is left with the poser of what is meant by the term "florist's" in his reading text. Thank Wikt that he is not left in the dark for long, as here he discovers that it refers specifically to the shop (not just any old possession). If he only had his paper dicts, he would be in a quandary, for sure. -- ALGRIF talk 14:19, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Should we have entries at Bob's and Annabel's? "I went to Bob's, but he wasn't there. He was over at Annabel's." Equinox ◑ 14:33, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

No. Why should we? Are they generic business names generally understood as not referring to any particular person? -- ALGRIF talk 14:56, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I mean that the 's refers to somebody's shop or house generally. If you bought your chocolate from a vending-machine in an unmanned factory, that wouldn't be a confectioner's, would it? There has to be a confectioner who owns it. Equinox ◑ 16:10, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

The idea would be to have a version of Appendix:Special uses of possessives in English linked to by {{only in}} or to have a hard redirect to such an appendix. In such an appendix one could make or link to whatever fine distinctions one might want to make between anaphoric, deixic, and broad- and narrow-context-dependence. Putting the user into an appendix instead of entry enables the appropriate general points to be made instead of fostering the lexical illusion. (BTW, Longmans DCE has the relevant material all at their entry for 's.) DCDuring TALK 16:13, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

(keep) If it's just a possessive form, why don't we define it as # "possessive form of [ ]" and link the possive to the appendix. An example sentence or a usage note or two could then give actual usage in-entry as well. (I know CFI technically forbids this approach, but it seems to me to be a major inconsistency "exclude all apart from a few of one form of one language"). Conrad.Irwin 16:18, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

It must have something special, because the page was created, and some other dictionaries also choose to mention it (no dictionary would have considered John's as a word worth inclusion):

• www.thefreedictionary.com/confectioner
• http://dictionnaire.reverso.net/anglais-portugais/confectioner%27s%20%28shop%29
• http://www.wordmagicsoft.com/dictionary/en-es/confectioner%27s.php
• http://analogical-dictionary.sensagent.com/mf4952424/ML-en-ja/

Lmaltier 17:10, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

• Of course there's something special. They are places of business. When I walk down the street, I walk past (using the most commonly used words) the bank, the supermarket, the tobacconist's, the newsagent's, the travel agency, the greengrocer's, the florist's, the book shop, etc. I do not normally walk past the banker's, the supermarketeer's, the cigarette shop, the newspaper seller's, the travel agency, the greengrocery, the flower shop, the bookworm's, etc.
  The fact that they have apostrophe s should not automatically eliminate them. The fact that they refer to ONLY the place of business means they have a certain idiomatic status. For instance, if a book starts with "I was on my way to the greengrocer's when I met John for the first time." and without any further reference in the whole book, we know that the writer means the place of business of an unidentified greengrocer. NOT his house. NOT his car. NOT his place. NOT anything that is not his place of business, to whit, his shop.
  As for appendices, language learners would benefit from appendices in a completely different way. If you relegate these entries to an appendix, they will 1. be difficult to locate. 2. be difficult to understand in context. 3. give the learner the wrong idea about how these examples actually work. They are exceptional, so a general rule given in an appendix can be nothing more than additional information. -- ALGRIF talk 17:45, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

As I have repeatedly said, there is no question of relegation: the appendix should be the object of either redirects or {{only in}}s from as many of these terms as exist. Redirects have the advantage from a user point of view of being faster.

The use of 's in this way is productive. The limits are rather broad. There are many trade-denoting nouns suffixed with -ist, -monger, -ler, and similar or compounds using broker, agent, and similar, as well as proper nouns that form these. Historically, certainly, they always have referred to smallish operations (one-person, family-run, perhaps partners, perhaps a few employees). I wonder whether in the UK someone would refer to Boots as the "chemist's". In the US, independent pharmacies are a dying breed. Pharmacies operate as a limited-access area served by a pharmacist within stores that sell "health and beauty aids", housewares, greeting cards, convenience foods, greeting cards, etc. or in grocery stores. Terms like "pharmacist's" and "druggist's" are now rarely used. Similarly, the increasing presence of group practices and clinics in US healthcare seems to be making "[go] to the doctor's" (30 @ COCA) less common than "[go] to the doctor" (461 @ COCA).

This suggests to me that speakers are in aggregate fairly sensitive to the situation in which a doctor or other professional operates and are not "looking up" in their mental lexicon's the right word, but rather are constructing the word they need on the spot using a generic mechanism. I think that when such things are happening we do not serve learners well by denying them access to the construction. This is often difficult to do. In this case it is dead easy. DCDuring TALK 19:32, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes (to your question about Boots). It actually gets a mention at w:Dispensing chemist. Equinox ◑ 19:38, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep all, these are all words, no spaces in them. They are attestable, what's the problem here? Mglovesfun (talk) 04:30, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] in chronological order

In English and apparently, German, Hungarian, and Turkish this seems to be SoP. DCDuring TALK 11:03, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

SOP. "chronological" and "order" retain their standard meanings in this phrase. --71.111.194.50 21:34, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

That old debate at Talk:alphabetical_order is probably relevant. Equinox ◑ 14:08, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete per nomination. Mglovesfun (talk) 04:32, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, delete.​—msh210℠ 16:17, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Deleted, Mglovesfun (talk) 12:02, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] thirsty

Two senses seem dubious to me: (i) "Having a physical demand for satiation of basic needs." ("After all that work I am really thirsty."); surely this only refers to the "basic need" of fluid intake and is therefore the same as the sense "Needing to drink"?; (ii) "Having a deeply felt need for psychological attainment": seems like a needlessly specialized duplicate of "Craving for something." Equinox ◑ 12:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Entry 3 is covered at 1. Entry 5 is covered at 4. -- ALGRIF talk 14:05, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] first-person singular

Sum of parts, no better than masculine plural, masculine singular etc. I think these might have already been at RFD but they are used in a lot of pages that use conjugation templates. I'd advocate a bot going round and changing them to [[first-person]] [[plural]]. PS will tag some more of these now. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:23, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep, set phrase; though maybe an only in glossary would be adequate. Conrad.Irwin 23:25, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

We could start an article for first-person dual for languages that have that. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:34, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

No other one-look dictionary has them. But here w:Anything Goes unless a newbie does it. DCDuring TALK 23:57, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Keep all - no other dictionary has them because we are better than other dictionaries (or, at least, we have the potential to be). SemperBlotto 08:28, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

But what's the advantage over [[first-person]] [[plural]] as two links? Mglovesfun (talk) 15:33, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Firstly the definitions are much clearer than trying to juggle first-person (took me a while to work out that all it meant to say was "alternative form of first person") with singular; secondly these phrases appear all over the place, it is very likely someone will look them up together. What is the advantage of [[first-person]] [[plural]]? Conrad.Irwin 15:43, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Both words meet our CFI, this seems not to (not even close). Mglovesfun (talk) 15:45, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Common sense always overrules ``policy´´ (and ideally fixes the policy at the same time, but not so much at the moment), the policy was written by people like you and me who, with finite capacity for correctness are liable to have made mistakes. So, I ask again, what is the advantage of having only the two words separately? Conrad.Irwin 15:51, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

To put it another way, do either you or SemperBlotto think that these meet our criteria for inclusion? Because neither of you has said that. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes. It's a word or phrase that someone would come across and want to know what it means. To me, it somehow seems to mean more than the sum of its parts (but I don't know why). SemperBlotto 13:54, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I have no idea whether it actually does, I haven't read that page in detail for ages, but, if it doesn't the policy is at fault and not the word (which to my mind clearly conveys a distinct meaning, is frequetnly used and is (as I've heard used in previous RFD debates, though never defined) a "set phrase"). For further reading see WT:IDIOM, a list of words that have passed RFD, but no-one's entirely sure why. Do you believe it would be better for the dictionary to delete these words, if so, why? Conrad.Irwin 13:58, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Basically because we shouldn't keep stuff that's not dictionary material just because it would be difficult to remove all links towards. It's hard to be neutral when you know that. If I created first-person dual, nominative singular and common plural would you want to RFD them or not? Not rhetoric, please answer. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:02, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know what these terms mean - please define them SemperBlotto 22:31, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I would not RFD them, obviously they fall into the same category as this word which I want to keep... Conrad.Irwin 22:36, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] first-person plural

[edit] second-person singular

[edit] second-person plural

[edit] third-person singular

[edit] third-person plural

Delete all. SoP. --Yair rand 23:50, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, delete.​—msh210℠ 17:00, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] in chronologischer Reihenfolge

Admittedly my German is basic, but seems to be sum of parts. Can Mutante and Prince Kassad confirm? Mglovesfun (talk) 13:03, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] oversættelses-

This is neither an adjective nor a prefix i Danish. An IP gave the Danish translation for translationary as oversættelses-, which is to say that translationary is translated to compounds with oversættelse ("translation") in Danish. I'm not sure how to express this in the translations section.--Leo Laursen – (talk · contribs) 17:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I had a go at oversættelse. If I understand, it would be like having -ter in French because of cadeau, cadeauter, because it's near-impossible to pronounce without an added t. Hence delete, grammatically unworkable entry. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:17, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] steal home

Ignoring that the definition is totally wrong, this is covered by steal + home. I'm hesitant because home refers implicitly to home plate, but would we keep steal first, steal second or steal third? That's not a rhetorical question, feel free to answer. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:10, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] vivid orange

Any orange that's vivid, right? Mglovesfun (talk) 20:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I think so, but then there are things like international orange and safety orange that are specific designators of a particular colour. I wonder if this is one of those weird "lists of colours" colours, as we discussed a while ago (things like "moccasin" and "honeysuckle" and "goldenrod" that appear in computer palettes). Equinox ◑ 21:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] cache

Redundant sense (military cache). Tagged since... I don't know when. 86.131.98.77 23:16, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes, delete/merge, it's redundant and badly written. Put [[Category:Military]] on the bottom of the page. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:31, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Oozlefinch

A mascot of a branch of the US army. I doubt this meets CFI --Volants 15:12, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Strong delete, no usable content here. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:35, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

It looks usable and citable to me.

Or does inclusion or exclusion just become a matter of voting against unfamiliar terms or terms used by unpopular people or institutions and for corresponding terms favored by those few who participate in this process? Rule of "law" or mere subjective opinion? See google books for prima facie, readily available (ie, nom or seconder could have found it in seconds) evidence of availability of citations. DCDuring TALK 16:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Right! Thank you! But as the name of a specific character, it needs attributive-use cites (which I suspect is what Volants meant). Move to RFV.​—msh210℠ 16:57, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I have noted that favored proper nouns are regularly exempted from the application of the dead-letter WT:CFI. If WT:CFI is to be selectively ignored and not amended, why not totally ignore it? Because it is from an unpopular current subculture rather than one of those favored by some?

Whether or not CFI applies, but if practice/precedent does, why should this one be any different from Zeus, Odin, Thor, Confucius, Yahweh, et al (just pulling a few out of -- the air)?

And, having recourse to the last refuge of scoundrels, I invoke our slogan: "All words in all languages". DCDuring TALK 20:40, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I advocate ignoring CFI. Because of our overly bureaucratic rules, CFI cannot be updated. Not that bucket, spade and child do not meet CFI because they are not idiomatic. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:44, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] authorization

The word authorization has 3 (or most recently, 4) definitions. Definition 3, "the power or right to give orders", should be deleted because it is a special case of the more general definition 2, "formal sanction, permission or warrant".

The "power or right to give orders" is just one example out of millions of formal permissions, such as "power or right to sign company purchase requests", "power or right to drive an automobile on public highways", "power or right to purchase alcohol", etc. This one special case example is not sufficiently different from all other possible examples of formal permissions to merit it's own definition. Parcheesy2 16:08, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

delete sense. I think the last three senses need reorganising. It seems to mean "permission" and "a document/item giving proof of having this" (currently both senses are in #2 which is confusing). There is also some (possibly proscribed) use to mean "authentication" (that may be computing specific). I don't see the current #4 as being computer specific. Conrad.Irwin 16:25, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] 可毒夫

Just a name of someone - should not be included in Wiktionary. Delete. Tooironic 19:33, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Well this is interesting, it started off as Old Korean and has since become Madarin! I shudder to think, but is this used attributively? I mean we have Charlemagne, Hitler et al. Could this be considered a similar Mandarin term. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:02, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Ampere定律, Darwin主义, Darwin主义者, Einstein相对论, Esperanto主义者, et al

Regardless of whether these are SopS, we should not include all possible combinations of Chinese and English together unless it is a fixed expression, but this is not the case with these entries. Strong delete. Tooironic 19:45, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

A question, are these multi-word entries? If not shouldn't they be at RFV as they might be attestable despite the bizarreness. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:58, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

delete. No, they are not. 主义 -ism, 主义者 -ist, even 相对论 (theory of relativity) is not to be used this way in standard Mandarin but 爱因斯坦广义相对论 (Àiyīnsītǎn guǎngyì-xiāngduìlùn), adding 广义 (general or wide sense). 广义相对论 is commonly used with 爱因斯坦 (Einstein), less common just 相对论. --Anatoli 01:03, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

Esperanto主义者 gets six hits, all Wiktionary related so that wouldn't pass an RFV. The others are very rare as well. Delete just for that reason. Mglovesfun (talk) 01:12, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I should have mentioned that these are considered Chinglish, each of the entries could be done in proper Mandarin in Hanzi only, without Roman letters. Usage of Roman letters in Chinese is restricted. Foreign names can be written just once in Roman letters for clarity. Anatoli 01:57, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

• By the way, for a full list of these bizarre entries check out Category:Mandarin_nouns, they're right at the top due to incorrect formatting. Someone should try talking to User talk:123abc to get him/her to see some sense. I've tried on multiple occasions but failed. Tooironic 08:06, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

• Category:Words_which_mix_scripts

  Yes, User:123abc, I am aware of that category, but those entries are reserved for actual words and not just random combinations of English and Chinese. E.g., AA制, T恤 and 69式 are all fixed terms because you can't change those forms by replacing the English letters with Chinese characters, however Euclid几何, Lenin主义, cookie饼, etc, are not - they should be replaced by entries which are entirely in Chinese. Tooironic 19:23, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

• It has long been Wiktionary's policy to require a term or phrase to have at least three attested examples of use, in order to be included on Wiktionary. The original contributor attempted to use Google hits to satisfy this requirement. The problem is that while Google is an excellent language research tool, it often requires an expert to decipher the search results. My initial impression is that the above Google hits are mostly false positives, meaning that they by and large don't constitute valid examples usage by a typical native speaker. Tooironic's point about T恤 is well taken. One way to demonstrate this is to refine the search. For example, if you were to search for the term with the Google news tab, as opposed to the more generic web tab, you would find hits for terms such as T恤, but not for Euclid几何. -- A-cai 13:18, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

References for Euclid几何:

• Google hits: "Euclid几何"
• Baidu hits: "Euclid几何" —This unsigned comment was added by 123abc (talk • contribs).

It seems from a quick google books search that Euclid几何 is clearly attested and idiomatic. Keep Euclid几何 and move the rest to RFV. --Yair rand 05:19, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• Ok, we seem to be making progress. 123abc, I get the impression that there was something about my response that you did not fully understand. Please let me know if this is the case, and I will attempt to clarify. So, Euclid几何 does seem to have passed one of Wiktionary's criterion for inclusion, attestation. The problem is that the phrase still seems to be a sum of parts entry. These types of entries are not allowed on Wiktionary. It would be the same as if someone tried to create an entry for blue bicycle. Unfortunately, by that logic, Euclidean geometry should not be allowed on Wiktionary either. -- A-cai 12:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

• However, "Euclidean geometry" is already entered in Wiktionary. Anyway, "Euclidean geometry/Euclid几何" are not harmful, they are convenient for the users. user talk:123abc

RfV them all. BTW, shouldn’t they be written as Ｅｕｃｌｉｄ几何 &c., even if they are kept? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 12:54, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Apart from the ones that can't possibly pass, but RFV the rest. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:13, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

This is an issue for RFV. Keep and RFV if desired. Obviously anyone requesting verification of a term should do a search first to see if there's clearly attestation.​—msh210℠ 17:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] pizza饼, e-mail地址, BASIC语言, gamma射线, telex机, 牛肉pie, alpha射线

The Chinglish continues. All of these have commonly used forms which are entirely in Chinese. Again, we should not include all possible combinations of Chinese and English together unless it is a fixed expression, but this is not the case with these entries. Strong delete. Tooironic 19:31, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

• Agree. Delete all. And block user if he persists in adding more. SemperBlotto 08:17, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the fact that these phrases all have equivalents in Chinese script, however I think blocking this person is slightly premature. Maybe Tooironic could try to talk to him in Chinese? I just think we shouldn't take rash actions, before we get to know what his take is on this. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 09:36, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

The unattestable ones should of course be deleted. But if they are word and in use, keep or move to RFV. Mixing wo scripts isn't an automatic reason to delete, but my Google searches show that a lot of these are way short of meeting our CFI anyway. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:58, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Move to RFV. --Yair rand 05:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

References

• Google hits
• Google books
• Baidu hits
• Baidu Zhidao

• "e-mail address" is already entered in Wiktionary. Anyway, "e-mail address/e-mail地址" are not harmful, they are convenient for the users. user talk:123abc

• Look, I'm getting impatient. They should all be deleted, pure and simple. We don't have entries for chang Wall of China, Niǔ York, karaOK, super shìchǎng or feng水. Why? Because they're ridiculous. There is a reason why none of these words, in these forms, are in any dictionaries. And search engine hits are NOT references, they just show you how prevalent Chinglish is online. I would be more forgiving if all of these entries created by this user were in the correct formatting, but they're not, and the user has made no attempt to rectify this after multiple messages. If something isn't done I'm one hundred percent qingchu that he/she will keep doing this and us Mandarin contributors will be left to pick up the pieces (i.e. clean-up a few hundred pages when we could be doing something useful). Tooironic 10:52, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

• Should "e-mail address" be deleted as well???

This is an issue for RFV. Keep and RFV if desired. Obviously anyone requesting verification of a term should do a search first to see if there's clearly attestation.​—msh210℠ 17:19, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] PiHex

A specific project that calculated digits of pi using computers. Equinox ◑ 22:54, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] out of reach

out of (“‘beyond the limits or range of’”) + reach. Not idiomatic. DCDuring TALK 23:22, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete, you can have out of grasp and out of sight as well, although out of sight, out of mind is a good entry. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:48, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Out of sight has two idiomatic meanings of course. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:46, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] division by zero

Entry contents show that this is of purely encyclopaedic interest. Otherwise, why not division by six, etc.? Equinox ◑ 23:29, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Of some note is the divide by zero meme (originally and still predominantly, “I divided by zero. OH SHI—”; see Google Image Search). Whether its status as a supposedly Universe-imploding act makes it lexicographically noteworthy is another matter. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 09:05, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete, the dictionary definition of this refers to the act of dividing by zero. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:59, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, google books:"divide by zero" brings up plenty of examples of divide-by-zero used attributively in phrases such as divide-by-zero error, divide-by-zero problem, divide-by-zero constraint, divide-by-zero test, divide-by-zero function, divide-by-zero operation, divide-by-zero condition, divide-by-zero exception, divide-by-zero warning, divide-by-zero trap, and so on. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 12:14, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete per nom and Mglovesfun.​—msh210℠ 18:39, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] espèce de

Bad entry title. espèce + de covers this nicely. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:44, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Currently, espèce doesn't cover this case at all. It could, of course, but this entry seems useful to me for the very special sense it defines. Lmaltier 08:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes this definition is always used with de, and you can pluralize it. So it's a question of whether to move to espèce and put (pejorative, used with de). Mglovesfun (talk) 12:00, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks like a good entry for Category:French non-constituents. DCDuring TALK 12:04, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Origamizer

Had been entered as a common noun, but actually a specific software product. Equinox ◑ 23:49, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

delete--Diuturno 16:33, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Delete or RFV, either. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:46, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Etienne

RFD translingual section. It's only as translingual as all given names are, and the definition isn't correct. Etienne isn't considered a misspelling, if anything it's the standard spelling of Étienne as capital letters don't take accents in French, although you do sometimes see them. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:32, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Delete the section (it's not translingual). But I repeat here that in French, capital letters do take accents, except if you use a cursive script or if there is a technical impossibility (old typewriters). On computers, it's possible, but not very easy, and accents are often omitted, especially in forums. Lmaltier 14:17, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

That's prescriptive though. Walking around Abbeville most of the time capital letters have no accents. And certainly some consider that putting accents on capital letters is actually an error. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:22, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Look at LIBERTÉ ÉGALITÉ FRATERNITÉ on front of French city halls. I'm surprised by your statement that some consider it's an error... Wikipédia discusses this point in detail in its Capitale et majuscule page. Lmaltier 16:34, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes but what about LE PALAIS DES CONGRES ("the palace of Congress", but could theoretically mean "the palace of conger eels"). I always put the accents but in reality, most people don't. I'm also told that Microsoft word replaced États-Unis with Etats-Unis automatically. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:44, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

Most people don't, you're right, because they cannot enter them with standard keyboards (they would have to use a menu). Diacritics on capital letters are omitted in some books (I tried 5 novels, I found one case in each of them: 2 Ç (with the diacritic), 1 Ô (with the diacritic) and 2 A (without the diacritic). However, dictionaries never omit them (except the Word one, probably). Lmaltier 17:06, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree, but how can we omit the more common form and keep the less common one? Mglovesfun (talk) 17:14, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

But I don't propose to omit it. I created a number of pages of fr.wikt for this reason (for French towns). Lmaltier 19:03, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

In Germany this name is commonly written without accent. As such a German section might be warranted. -- Prince Kassad 19:09, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Translingual sections are not needed if the (mis)spelling appears in the original language, and refers to a Frenchman, just like a German entry for Étienne isn't needed. All names with diacritical marks are often written without them in English, that doesn't mean it is worth recording. I'll leave it to you French speakers to decide if the E-spellings are acceptable French.--Makaokalani 12:42, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Q

rfd-sense: Proper noun, 2 senses: One derived from Star Trek, other a name of some conference. The first might be includable if it meets attributive use, eg, from groups. The other would be called spam if it came from a for-profit entity. DCDuring TALK 18:08, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] marshal

Highest ranking piece on the board game Stratego. DCDuring TALK 19:15, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Delete, too encyclopedic. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:43, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

You probably mean too specialized? It's exactly the same case as the chess sense of king, except that it's a specialized term used only for Stratego, and Stratego is a trademark. Is there a rule about such cases? Lmaltier 19:42, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

The most relevant precedent I can think of is house#noun, referring to the Monopoly token. I labored mightily to find citations in which the word was used to refer to the token not being used in the game itself or in a fanzine. I don't know whether fanzine citations should count (or whether there are such for Stratego. Chess pieces are more likely to have appeared in usage like the "house" usage. DCDuring TALK 00:16, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean that house in Monopoly is the usual sense of house, only applied to the Monopoly rules and, therefore, does not deserve a definition line more than the word bill applied to Monopoly, unless there are allusions to the Monopoly context which might be difficult to understand without this definition line? Is this the rule?

I think that finding marshal in its Stratego sense used outside the Stratego context is likely to be impossible, it's like looking for uses of Mammalia outside the context of zoology... Lmaltier 07:54, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

See discussion of January 2008. It was a vote after a full discussion, from the days when CFI was not a dead letter. The Monopoly house sense was deleted. Note the citations. DCDuring TALK 11:46, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] solid

Rfd-redundant:

1. (typography) Without spaces or hyphens.

   Many long-established compounds are set solid.

We already have this as an adjective. Does it exist without a copula?​—msh210℠ 20:23, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Is solid never an adverb? We talked for two hours solid. Can't we add a more general adverbial sense to this, then delete it as redundant to the first sense. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:08, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Are "spell", "print", "write", and "set" copulas? If not, then it would seem to be classed as an adverb. "Solid" does not seem to be interchangeable with "solidly". This would seem to be a case where our ability and willingness to be expansive in our defining allows us to reflect subtleties ignored even by MW3 and MWOnline, which join most dictionaries in showing solidly as if it were an inflected form of solid#Adjective. Collins finds the following distinctions for solidly in its French-English dictionary.

1. firmly [built, constructed, based] (solidement),
2. continuously [work, rain] (sans discontinuer)
3. unanimously (massivement) "to be solidly behind"
4. dependably
5. consistently

I'm not sure I understand what they mean in each case and whether every distinction is really worth making, but solid could substitute as an adverb, I think, for "firmly", "continuously" (time), and "continuously" (space). Neither "solidly" nor solid#Adverb seem readily interpreted with each of the many sense of solid#Adjective or at least the many (14 at MWOnline, 26 at RHU) senses it should have in a comprehensive dictionary as we claim to be. DCDuring TALK 15:37, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I think they are copulas, yes (or maybe copula is the wrong word? See further for other examples, though, so you can see what I mean in case "copula" isn't what I mean). "It was written solid" is like "It was written big" or "Coffee is often drunk black in this house" or "The meat was eaten raw". Are such words normally considered adverbs?​—msh210℠ 17:36, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I only have CGEL to consult. I wish I had Quirk et al, Biber, and Curme, too. They refer to the kind of use in your three examples as "predicative adjunct". (It applies to a much wider range of verbs than the most inclusive list of copulas I've seen.)

I suppose we have to resort to the tests of adjectivity.

1. Are two words that part of the same NP more typographically solid when separated by an en-space than an em-space? (I can't answer that.)
2. Is it gradable? (I can't answer that, either.)
3. Can "solid" in this sense occur correctly predicatively after "become" (no), "feel" (no), "seem" (no?), "make" (yes?)?
4. Can "solid" appear attributively modifying a noun? "in its solid form, 'whitespace'" (yes).

Can it also be unquestionably an adverb? Possibly. "Some dictionaries tend to spell solid. Some usually hyphenate. Others usually space." There is no obvious noun. (One can almost always infer the existence of an "understood" noun.) It may not be attestable as an adverb though. DCDuring TALK 19:29, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] box on the ear

As the article says, a box (“‘a blow with the fist’”) on the ear. I'd have thought you could hit just about anything. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:42, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, delete.​—msh210℠ 16:09, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

The only problem is that both box and ear have multiple meanings - and this term doesn't mean a cardboard box on an ear of corn. But probably delete. SemperBlotto 22:23, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

But if I were to wear cuboid object on my auricle, that would also be called a box on the ear? It would be quite easy to add more sum of parts definitions to this with the same logic. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:03, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] shall

Rfd-redundant: (archaic) Used to indicate destiny or certainty. This seems to be covered by the modal verb. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:01, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] 69式性交, A/D转换器, CD-ROM扩展结构, CD-ROM播放器, CD-V视盘, CD-i光盘, CD-i扇区, CD-i播放器

More more more more Chinglish. Yay! Isn't this fun? All sum of parts. DELETE. Tooironic 07:50, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• What is "Chinglish"? Is "CD播放器/CD播放机 (CD player)" "Chinglish"?

Google hits: CD播放器

Google Books: CD播放器, are they Chinglish books???

• Is "CD player" sum of part??? Should "CD player" be deleted as well???

This is an issue for RFV. Keep and RFV if desired. Obviously anyone requesting verification of a term should do a search first to see if there's clearly attestation.​—msh210℠ 17:21, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] CD-i播放机, CD-i数字图像, CD-i数字音频, CD扩展, CD盒, C格式, I型光标, Mac操作系统, CD扩展

Chinglish SoP Part Two. DELETE. Tooironic 07:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

This is an issue for RFV. Keep and RFV if desired. Obviously anyone requesting verification of a term should do a search first to see if there's clearly attestation.​—msh210℠ 17:23, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Alps山 & Alzheimer病

Redundant. Chinglish. DELETE. (Polite question: How many more weeks will I have to waste my time with monitoring this user's vandalism until something is done about it?) Tooironic 07:53, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

As an expert in being impolite, that was not a polite question. If you're going to be direct, just do it. :p — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 20:45, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• Why not Alzheimer病/Alzheimer's disease??? Is Alzheimer's disease a "vandalism"???

AFAICT all of these should be at RFV. If I knew more Mandarin I would comment more, but I don't. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:05, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

• Google Books: Alps山, Are they Chinglish books???

This is an issue for RFV. Keep and RFV if desired. Obviously anyone requesting verification of a term should do a search first to see if there's clearly attestation.​—msh210℠ 17:20, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] une paire de

Erm, [[une]] [[paire]] [[de]]? Mglovesfun (talk) 14:51, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

One linked page (paire). I think anyone seeing une paire de chaussures would look up paire, not une paire de. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:11, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I'd say delete. 50 Xylophone Players talk 21:15, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes. Deleted SemperBlotto 22:20, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I think we should wait a week before archiving to see if anyone objects. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:54, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Delete. une is the article... Lmaltier 19:36, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] tobacco mosaic virus

SoP tobacco mosaic + virus. (Note the first-page estimate of 1277 hits for google books:"tobacco mosaic" -"tobacco mosaic virus" versus 5460 for "tobacco mosaic virus", so that the shorter term definitely is widely used.)​—msh210℠ 17:02, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

I guess the virus is a qualifier. If kept we'd need to create cold virus, flu virus and some that I haven't thought of yet. That said, I'm still undecided. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:10, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

No, this is the standard form of the name. It's a situation where scientists make a distinction between the disease/symptoms and the "organism" that causes those symptoms. Tobacco mosaic is a disease in plants, while TMV (the tobacco mosaic virus) is the viral particle that causes that disease. This distinction isn't usually made for human diseases, which is perhaps one reason so many people mistakenly say "HIV virus", when what they mean is either "HIV" or "AIDS virus". --EncycloPetey 16:50, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

But see [[tobacco mosaic]].​—msh210℠ 16:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] puli

Belongs at Puli, where I moved it, but apparently moving is called deleting these days. Look at akc.org or any serious reputable source in English dedicated to dogs, including the various breed clubs, and they almost invariably list dog breed names in all caps. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 23:52, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Well really moving is deleting one thing and adding another, so it does require an RFD. Delete. --Yair rand 23:56, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

...moving is moving. you see in the buttons how "move" is next to "delete"? — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 00:07, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Move to Puli, keep puli as an alternative capitalization (there are many Google Books hits) and replace the picture of the mop with that of a dog. --Vahagn Petrosyan 00:10, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I think we have a picture of a Puli doing exercise that makes it look like a flying mop — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 00:14, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Moving ≠ deletion. The OED lists it with an initial minuscule, without listing the capitalised form as an alternative; however, all its citations of Puli and Pulik are majuscule-initial, except for those that appear as the synonymous phrase Hungarian puli. In re the plurals, the OED (September 2009 draft revision) lists pulik before pulis, whereas the second edition (1989) lists only pulik. Keep puli as an alternative spelling of Puli and change the picture to the flying mop FOR THE WIN. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 00:24, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

As good as their corpus may be, "pulis" outnumbers "pulik" 422/301 on Google news and 613/235 on books. I didn't compare upper and lower case, nor UK and US sources. DCDuring TALK 17:25, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I must have seen the flying mop somewhere else - this is the only Puli in action I can find on commons... it might have been the similar-looking Komondor I was thinking of...well maybe not, because now this is the most active Komondor. Must have been somewhere else on the net. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 00:38, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Keep I know of no reason to give special weight to "reputable" sources. We don't give much credence to international standard-setting bodies, let alone industry trade associations cum clubs such as the AKC. This is the most common form of the word except in the specialized contexts of dog shows and dog-breed promotion. The quote provided is an example. The same thing applies to virtually every dog (or cat) breed common enough to be mentioned in newspapers and normal writings (eg, fiction). I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing applied to other kinds of pets. Perhaps the capitalized forms could be given a context tag of some kind. DCDuring TALK 00:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

"We don't give much credence to international standard-setting bodies" Funny, that's the opposite of one of the arguments that kept coming up in the Serbo-Croatian Fiasco. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 00:38, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Exactly what I was thinking, except my focus was on what happened in practice. But, more recently and relevantly, also consider the vote on international standard weights and measures terminology. DCDuring TALK 16:56, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Keep or RFV, where I expect it would pass easily. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:46, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Keep per DCDuring, et al.​—msh210℠ 16:28, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Keep given this capitalization is attestable per CFI. A relevant searches: google:puli breed, google books:puli breed. --Dan Polansky 17:08, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I have to stick my oar in quite firmly here and remind everyone that we only use CAPITALS for PROPER NOUNS. None of these are proper nouns. Birds, for instance, are always referred to in the literature with capitals, because birders are like that. Animal lovers are like that too. It sort of adds importance to their favourite subject. But we had this discussion before when talking about birds (I will try to find it). The consensus then was that these names are not proper nouns. Calling a Crested Tit in capitals is not correct. If it were, then we would have to have Tit, Blackbird, Sparrow, Reed Warbler, etc etc. The only capitalization that should be allowed is where we have a proper name, such as Bewick's swan, or Sir David's long-beaked echidna. Otherwise, where do we draw the line? Elephant, Giraffe? If these, then why not all words? No! Capitalisation is for proper nouns only. -- ALGRIF talk 10:23, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

We have the same problem with grape/wine varieties. What we normally do there is to have the definition at one, and an "alternative capitalization" entry at the other. Very often the capitalized version is prime, because it is often a place name as well. See shiraz as an example. SemperBlotto 10:40, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I can't imagine that the matter hinges on whether it should be capitalized if it is a proper noun. It looks as if the frequency of capitalization varies by context. Nor should our entry depend on our attitude toward the motive for capitalization by those who do so. As we have chosen to keep track of alternative orthographies, we need to be reasonably consistent in doing so. We could make a policy decision that we treat English breed names the same as we treat English vernacular species names, but we haven't done so. In the absence of the policy decision (and vote?) we are stuck with the facts, which show that in ordinary discourse the terms are usually lower case. In contexts involving the dog-breed industry (including reporting of dog shows) the upper case form prevails. In the case of rare breeds we may not find much usage outside of the dog-breed industry context. DCDuring TALK 12:12, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I must disagree most strongly. Capitalisation on Wikt has always been about proper nouns. It has NEVER been about whether Google has more capitalised than non capitalised finds. Our search box does the rest if someone enters a capitalised word. No extra entry is needed. If there is also a proper noun entry, as SB mentions, then a link needs to be made. But that's all. -- ALGRIF talk 14:06, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

It certainly isn't the definition of Proper noun. EP has discussed this point often enough. If I use the adverb or plural noun "Februarys" I am not using a proper noun. DCDuring TALK 15:12, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Furthermore; when making a new entry, have you never seen the following? WARNING! The title you are using may be wrong.
Remember that Wiktionary is case-sensitive. You probably want to edit the lowercase version of your word:
If you are entering a word that is always capitalized, like "German" or "Marxist", please proceed.
Please also see proper noun. -- ALGRIF talk 14:14, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

That's just a way of getting people to think twice. If it were are simple as you say we could do more entry automation. DCDuring TALK 15:12, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I feel that we don't accept capitalized words when they are also used without the capital to refer to the same thing, and the addition of the capital only results from a general rule (e.g. at the beginning of a sentence, or to make clear that you refer to some generic species, etc.). Some nouns are capitalized even when they are not proper nouns (e.g. French demonyms, Egyptologist...) Lmaltier 14:33, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

In most comparable questions we seem to insist on lexicalizing essentially grammatical distinctions. A fortiori, in this case, it seems to me to be not so much grammatical as context-dependent, which would certainly warrant distinct entries. Which should be primary I don't know. And we could make a policy decision about this, one way or the other. And about pet breeds generally, vernacular animal and plant names, plant varieties, and whatever else seemed homogeneous enough on a priori or prescriptive grounds. DCDuring TALK 15:12, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• Reply at BP Capitals for pets

It might save a lot of time discussing to get the archived discussions on this capitalization issue from the Wikipedians. It crops up there from time to time as an issue. The short of what I know from those discussions is: (1) There is an "official" list of common English names of birds with a standard saying such names should be capitalized (on each part of the name, and not just the first initial). (2) For plants, there is no single standard, and names may have the first letter of each part of the common name capitalized, or no part capitalized, or only the parts that come from a proper noun capitalized, etc.

The confounding problems in all this is that (a) English permits capitalization of any word that a writer wishes to emphasize, and (b) birding (etc) first became popular during the Eighteenth Century when Capitalization of English words sometimes followed Rules and Norms quite different from Modern Practice.

...and to reply to one thread above, indeed, capitalization on Wiktionary is not about proper nouns. There are some English proper nouns that are not capitalized (e.g. zodiac), and many words in many situations are capitalized without being proper nouns (e.g. DVD, Buddhist, Greek fire), as well as some words that are always capitalized that are both a proper and a common noun depending on context (e.g. Albanian), or can be a common noun when not capitalized and a specific instance proper noun either when capitalized or not (e.g. Sun/sun, Earth/earth). --EncycloPetey 16:43, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] out of sight

Rfd-redundant "In hiding" redundant to "Not accessible to view".​—msh210℠ 16:31, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Merge senses. DCDuring TALK 16:50, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:52, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, done, striking.​—msh210℠ 16:37, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] جدّی

Tagged by User:Placebo. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:33, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Redirect. While I don't know much Persian, I've seen debates on this before with Arabic. It's somewhat similar to macrons on Latin entries. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:50, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

As far as I know, the vowel marks and diacritics are used even less than in Arabic. They are used to teach children how to read in elementary schools, but beyond that, they are almost never used. --Dijan 22:03, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] cow milk

I think I would have speedy deleted this, but it has about 10 linked pages. I always saw cows' milk FWIW. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:11, 5 February 2010 (UTC)

Move to RfV. Seems purely empirical. DCDuring TALK 00:18, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Right or wrong, but there seems to be plenty of usage, at least judging by a Google search. A common misspelling? --Hekaheka 05:11, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

No, it's sum of parts. Milk from a cow. How sum of parts can you get? Mglovesfun (talk) 14:27, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

If there is some kind of question, such as you raised, about whether it is "cowmilk", "cow-milk", "cow milk", "cow's milk", or "cows' milk", perhaps users need our help in selecting the right word both in speech and in writing. You don't want them to make mistakes, do you? As we have dispensed with CFI and increasingly rely on intuition, voting, and the principle of helping users select forms of expression, we would seem to need this. DCDuring TALK 15:21, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

Of course, you can also buy cat milk - which isn't milk from cats, but non-cow milk for cats. SemperBlotto 15:24, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

I would say it's potentially a retronym used by vegans to distinguish it from rice milk, soy milk, hazelnut milk, etc. in the same way that acoustic guitar is "sum of parts" but necessary for the distinction from the more recent electric guitar. --EncycloPetey 16:46, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

I still don't see any merit in this. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:04, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] portmanteau word

This term seems like it is the sum of its parts to me. Shouldn't it just be merged into the linguistic sense of portmanteau, the definition of which is currently just "A portmanteau word? SoccerMan2009 05:25, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

• Keep. A portmanteau word is not actually made from a suitcase. SemperBlotto 08:40, 6 February 2010 (UTC) (Three citations added for good luck)

This seems quite comparable to nominative case or flu virus. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:25, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

We probably need portmanteau term and portmanteau expression, too. DCDuring TALK 15:31, 6 February 2010 (UTC)

My impression is — and I may well be wrong — that early uses of portmanteau word meant portmanteau in the suitcase sense, not the word sense. That is, they meant "word which is like a portmanteau (suitcase)". I think it no longer means that, now meaning instead "word which is a portmanteau". Thus, if my suspicions are correct, then this (obsoletely) is not a SoP. We include dated and obsolete terms. Are these then grounds for inclusion of portmanteau word? I suppose so, though I fear a slippery slope.​—msh210℠ 16:28, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] iTouch

"Shorthand for iPod Touch". Are these kinds of things supposed to have entries? --Yair rand 01:39, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

IMHO no. Delete --Diuturno 19:39, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Delete. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:47, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Defense. There are over 510 hits for iTouch. --Widjedi 02:28, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, this is clearly verifiable and would no doubt pass RFV, but the issue is whether this is dictionary material. --Yair rand 03:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

If anyone cares anymore, we actually have a policy, part of WT:CFI, that bears on this very point. If it is a brand name, that policy is at WT:CFI#Brand names. If it is not a brand name, then it is part of the language and normal attestation should apply. It would seem quite compatible with our populist, anti-commercial ethos to have such subversive corruptions of brand names, if that's what this is rather than a true brand name. DCDuring TALK 15:25, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] private joke

What definition of idiom does this fit in? Or is it just voting? DCDuring TALK 15:45, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, if this is "sum of parts", then we will need another sense under private to cover situations where information/interpretation is known to a select few. I'd think it ought to be kept on the basis of being a synonym for in-joke, which is an entry, and because a person can "laugh at his own private joke", which doesn't fit the usual definitions for joke. --EncycloPetey 16:54, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Keep per EncycloPetey's reasoning.--Dmol 23:29, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Five senses added to the three previously at private; some rewording. Boy, are we ever behind the curve on basic definitions. DCDuring TALK 00:16, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Keep, it's not a joke that's private, so how can it be sum of parts? Mglovesfun (talk) 13:21, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

But that's exactly what it is.

Both joke and private have multiple meanings and a hearer or reader finds the meanings of each that are mutually compatible and befit the context, using an associative-type meat computer. In contrast, it would typically be faster for a dumb silicon-type machine to have an enormous look-up table. If you are serving the needs of silicon machines and the meat-machine imitators of silicon, then you should definitely have such entries. If, in contrast, we are oriented toward the needs of meat machines (and silicon-based imitators of meat machines), we ought not to encourage such things. DCDuring TALK 15:35, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think any of our senses at private cover this. "Intended only for the use of an individual, group, or organization." comes closest, but is not accurate enough. BTW I think we now have some redundant sense, like the US medical one, which seems to be covered by this sense. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:15, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I find more than one of the senses adequate for the job, because my portable meat-type computer doesn't require or expect mechanical precision from a dictionary and certainly not from this one. Feel free to improve, merge, remove, or challenge any of the definitions; my feelings won't be hurt. DCDuring TALK 17:26, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

The primary definition of private uses accessible, one of the definitions of which is "easily understood." Thus a private joke would be one that is easily understood only by a select few. SoP. Pingku 14:47, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Delete per DCDuring's analysis.​—msh210℠ 17:33, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure whether it counts but I can't normally say in Czech the word-for-word translation "soukromý vtip", although the term has some Google hits. So the phrase "private joke" seems peculiar to English. "peculiar to English" is that sense of "idiomatic" that CFI does not use, but maybe it should. --Dan Polansky 13:05, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] broken bot edits

Sorry, DRB created some more crap. none of these, of course, are worth keeping. --Rising Sun talk? 01:13, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

All gone. --Yair rand 04:05, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

While it's on my mind, can I request that the page !ant be protected. This way, if I screw up again, I imagine my bot will not be able to edit it, and I assume it will break down. --Rising Sun talk? 09:43, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] 很Q

[edit] 好Q

[edit] 很cute

Two things with this entry. Firstly, I believe it is sum of parts as it's a very generic adverb / adjective combo (not an idiom at all); the adverb can be replaced with any intensifer and the phrase will still stand. I have raised the issue with 123abc on his talkpage. Secondly, I removed his rebuttal comment from the page itself; however, in his defence, he decided to revert my edit and put the comment back onto the entry page resulting in a potential edit war. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 03:47, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

It is indeed SoP. The user has also added 好Q and *shudders* 很cute. Why s/he didn't just add a Mandarin entry for Q is beyond me. I'll go do that now. All three of these should be deleted. AFAIK the only two character word on Wiktionary we have that is prefixed by 很 is 很少 which IMO should probably be deleted but I suppose might be useful for CSL students. Tooironic 19:40, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• 很Q/好Q should not be deleted, please see the discussion of 很Q.
  • Delete all for the reasons above. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:44, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

    If someone need to check the meaning of Q棍, can she/he get the meaning from Q+棍? There are too many meanings for Q in Chinese. Do we have enough meanings at Q? And can she/he select the right meaning?

The problem here is: you are treating every phrase as if they are the same, when others are trying to make you see the individual differences. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 00:50, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] I could eat a horse

Readily understood if one knows human nature and the meaning of could. Possibly useful for machines that don't know human nature. Our translators do seem to miss the point, though. (The point is not that one is hungry like a horse (or a wolf).) DCDuring TALK 16:39, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any point-missing in translations. The point is that one is very hungry: so hungry that one could eat a horse, or so hungry that one is as hungry as a wolf. I'd assume that some languages simply use a different metaphor to describe a bi-ig hunger. Nevertheless, I'm not going to miss this entry. --Hekaheka 20:03, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, delete per nom.​—msh210℠ 17:25, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Human nature is to eat w:horse meat; part of the idiomatic structure of this phrase is the fact that most of its speakers consider horse a meat to be eaten only in desperate circumstances, an opinion which is not shared by much of humanity.--Prosfilaes 17:50, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I always understood it, perhaps erroneously, as deriving from the fact that a horse is big. Any way to determine which etymology is correct? In any event, how does either etymology make this phrase idiomatic?​—msh210℠ 17:54, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

This phrase does seem to have some merit, but... Hmm. I'll shut up. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:01, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I suspect you'd have to look it up in a good reference book. Online references don't give a solid etymology, though they do reveal that other books, like the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, do include it. If it were merely that a horse is big, I would expect it to be more in the vein of less idiomatic phrases like "I could eat a whole pizza all by myself" or even "I could eat a whole cow" that include emphasis on the quantity and something that's usually eaten. Google seems to like "I could eat a scabby horse", which puts emphasis on the edibility, and The concise new Partridge dictionary of slang and unconventional English lists "could eat the hind leg off a donkey" and "could eat a horse and chase the rider/jockey" as variants, which indicates that edibility does matter. The more it means I could eat something as disgusting as horse, the more likely it's being used by someone who eats horse in a sense that's clearly not SoP.--Prosfilaes 18:32, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

I like your analysis, but is there any significant percentage of anglophones who eat horse and use this expression? If not, I don't think this argument for idiomaticity holds water.​—msh210℠ 19:23, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

An arguments for the quantity of meat rather than its quality's being the referent is the use of a: why not "eat horse"?​—msh210℠ 18:07, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Seem to be hits for "I could eat a cow", "I could eat a bull", "I could eat an ox", a few for deer, a few for chicken (though some are more than one chicken), some for "house" some for "elephant", none for "giraffe" or "bungalow", a few for "hippopotamus". I conclude there is nothing particularly special about the choice of "horse"; which would imply the phrase isn't too special either. delete Conrad.Irwin 18:06, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

On Google Books, there's 684 hits for I could eat a horse, as opposed to 209 for I could eat a cow, and negligible counts for the others. That's not a huge lead for horse, but I think some of the references do indicate it's special: "I'll Bet You Could Eat a Horse! Hungry? Naturally! Please don't eat a horse. Anything else is okay." (from Be a Perfect Person in Just Three Days‎) or '"I could eat a horse." "A horse?" Mitsuo asked. "Do Americans eat horses?" "It's an expression, Mitsuo. But I could eat a small pig."' (from Pacific Crossing) or '"I could eat a horse." "That's a vulgar expression, Mary. Please refrain from using it." "A pony then I could eat a pony." Richard laughed with Mary[...]' (from The Heir) or '"I could eat a cow," Nita said, suspecting that in this household it would be wiser not to offer to eat horses.' (From A Wizard Abroad).--Prosfilaes 18:32, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Keep. --Yair rand 18:34, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

It's such a common collocation. I think this could be really good as a Phrasebook entry. Plus the translations are useful too. Keep. Tooironic 19:44, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

But the existing translations miss the point. It's a metaphor about one's appetite at a time, not one's characteristic tendency to eat voraciously. When we provide entries that are not in many other references we seem to lose the ability to check our work against other sources.

• I could easily be convinced by three citations that indicated that the metaphor, as used in countries where English is the main language, was about the the specific nature of what was being eaten rather than the quantity. But the citations offered don't quite convince me. The first one illustrates that the choice of food animals of large size might be culturally dependent. The second shows nothing about the nature of horses being the issue rather than the vulgar origin of the expression. The last makes we wonder whether the household had equestrians in it. IOW, restrictions on the use of the word derived from its possible inappropriateness in a specific micro-context is not evidence on the point at issue. DCDuring TALK 23:32, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

DCDuring, when you say 'readily decodable' it depends how good you are at decoding. I'm sure the first time I heard this as a child I didn't understand it, but I probably just asked my parents. The only reason I'm not saying is the awkwardness of the 'can' issue, 'can' being a defective verb. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:42, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

This does get to the all-important point of who are included in the set of target users of en.wikt. College-students and older? What level of English knowledge? What cultural knowledge? As to pragmatic considerations, some folks don't ever seem to get a good perspective on what others might be thinking or trying to accomplish so I'm not sure what we can assume. DCDuring TALK 00:16, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that everybody is included in the set of target users. Even those who don't know any English (I sometimes look at FL Wiktionaries out of curiosity, and would assume that non-English speakers might too) --Rising Sun talk? 10:52, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Keep: figurative rather than literal; not clear when used alone without the larger phrase "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse". --Dan Polansky 12:51, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

A note on translations: I think translators do get the point. They are translating the meaning of the phrase, not the words of the phrase. In Czech, the translation would be "mám hlad jako vlk" or better in the infinitive "mít hlad jako vlk", which is word-for-word in English "to have as big a hunger as wolf has", or, in plain English, "to be very hungry", in the first person "I am very hungry", which is what is meant by "I could eat a horse".

The definition has to read "I am very hungry" instead of "very hungry", though. The phrase belongs to the category for English sentences, where it is indeed located. --Dan Polansky 13:00, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

The entry is of course not even in lemma form.

The translations are not outright wrong, but low in quality. They miss the emphasis on the size of the amount for which one hungers vs. the intensity of hunger or one's behavior. It is inevitable that attempting to pursue phrases rather than word requires more and more care in definition because there is more structure and meaning (and more potential for multiple interpretations). And including phrases that few references have makes the work of quality control all the harder.

I don't even see how a conditional could be deemed figurative. If it can, then we have regressed past compositional metaphor in terms of what we include. Consider "I could kill him", a rather common colloquial collocation. Do we need to include it? Is there any hyperbole that we should not include for the convenience of a mechanical approach to translation, rather than respecting the role of the listener, reader, or translator in constructing meaning based on actual understanding of the language? DCDuring TALK 13:24, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] stroke

Rfd-redundant:

• "A single act of striking with a weapon" redundant to "A blow or hit".
• "A streak of paint made with a brush" redundant to "A line drawn with a pen or other writing implement".

Also, some {{rfc-def}}s, where the definition lines use "stroke" without explaining what it means:

• "(linguistics) A stroke of a Chinese character".
• "(art) A stroke of pen or brush".

The latter, if I understand it correctly, is redundant to "A line drawn with a pen or other writing implement", but maybe I don't.​—msh210℠ 17:52, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, we're missing a sense, but I don't know what it means: google:"knead * strokes".​—msh210℠ 18:05, 9 February 2010 (UTC)

Delete first two listed senses. As an aside, we seem to have {{rfc-sense}} as well, so two templates for just about the same thing. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:11, 9 February 2010 (UTC)