Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

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

This page is for the nomination (for deletion) of non-main namespace entries. General questions are also acceptable. Remember to start each section with only the wikified title of the page being nominated for deletion.

Contents 1 May 2009 1.1 Category:Commonwealth English 1.2 Template:zh-tsp 1.3 Template:zh-zh-p 2 June 2009 2.1 Category:Northwest Austronesian languages 2.2 template:blend and category:Portmanteaus 2.3 Category:Min Nan 2.4 Category:Spanish verb indicative forms 2.5 Category:Spanish verb second-person forms 2.6 Template:User en-6 3 July 2009 3.1 File:Wikipedia-logo.png 3.2 File:Wikipedia-logo-en.png 3.3 Category:In London 4 August 2009 4.1 Category:Australian Aboriginal languages 4.2 Category:Quechuan derivations 4.3 Category:Policies - Wiktionary Top Level 4.4 Category:English gerunds 5 September 2009 5.1 Appendix:Doubling names 5.2 Transwiki:List of scientific journal abbreviations 5.3 Wiktionary:Tutorial 6 October 2009 6.1 Category:Hungarian animal names 6.2 Template:somewhat 6.3 Template:new unicode char 6.4 Appendix:Year pronunciation 6.5 Category:Types of adjective 6.6 Category:Kung-Ekoka language 6.7 Wiktionary:Well-Enunciated American English 6.8 Wiktionary:General American English with maximal distinctions 6.9 Category:ru:CIS 7 November 2009 7.1 Dialect etymology templates 7.2 Wiktionary:Etymology/language templates 7.3 rename of a pair of slangs 7.3.1 Category:UK slang 7.3.2 Category:US slang 7.4 Category:Bhagavad-gītā 7.5 Category:Translations to be checked (Chinese Characters) 7.5.1 Category:Translations to be checked (Chinese characters) 7.6 Category:English words that use all vowels in alphabetical order 7.7 Category:Towns 7.8 Template:Citation needed 7.9 Category:Republics of Russia 7.10 Category:French nous-verb homonyms 8 December 2009 8.1 Category:fa:Gregorian calendar months 8.2 Category:Nazi Germany military ranks 8.3 Template:fast and easy 8.4 Category:Chinese phonology 8.5 Category:English Hindi combinations 8.6 Template:zh-tone 8.7 Template:form 8.8 Template:flower 8.9 Template:Perl 8.10 Template:webcomics 8.11 Template:village 8.12 Template:Extension 8.13 Template:Hindu deity 8.14 Template:Sanskrit 8.15 Template:drug 8.16 Template:recreational drug 8.17 Template:auto parts 8.18 Template:munitions 8.19 Template:fish 8.20 Template:nth s imp pres of 8.20.1 Template:nth s subj pres of 8.20.2 Template:nth s subj pres of 8.20.3 Template:en-s of 8.20.4 Template:nth s cond pres of 8.21 Template:city 8.22 Category:Drugs 8.23 Category:Metasyntactic words 8.24 Category:English words spelled with nonstandard characters 8.25 Category:English words spelled with diacritics 8.26 Category:English words spelled with ligatures 8.27 Category:Long English words 8.28 Template:etyl:ONF. 8.29 Template:emoticon 8.30 Category:Allegedly untranslatable words 8.31 Template:Universala Vortaro 8.31.1 Category:Esperanto 1894 Universala Vortaro 8.32 Category:COW nominations 8.32.1 Template:COW 8.32.2 Template:TOW 8.32.3 Category:TOW nominations 8.33 Wiktionary:PMT Group Members 8.33.1 Wiktionary:PMT Language List 8.34 Template:warn 8.35 Template:arcade games 8.36 Template:planet 8.37 Template:genre 8.38 Category:England and Wales law 8.38.1 Template:England and Wales law 8.39 Template:carny 8.39.1 Category:Carny 8.40 Template:bicycle part

[edit] May 2009

[edit] Category:Commonwealth English

Orphaned and redirect, per Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/2009/March#British English. —Michael Z. 2009-05-04 14:23 z

But why redirect to UK of all things? (I don't see explanation for that redirect in the BPA discussion, although maybe I'm missing it.) Why not either delete it outright (my own choice) or redirect it to, say, Commonwealth or the BPA?—msh210℠ 16:00, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

That's just temporary, until this category is deleted. Category:UK will be renamed Category:British English. (Both categories UK and Commonwealth represent British English.) —Michael Z. 2009-05-04 17:10 z

Oh, silly me. I meant to redirect it to Category:UK, not the entry UK. —Michael Z. 2009-05-04 23:39 z

Couldn't it be a larger category containing British English, Indian English, etc? Mglovesfun 21:18, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

But that would be redefining the meaning of British English. Linguists and dictionaries don't use “Commonwealth English” as a grouping – British English is the “standard” language used in both Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries, and in the British Empire before there was a Commonwealth. Regionalisms belong to whichever country or territory.

Without any linguistic significance, cat:CE is just a convenience grouping category, equivalent to Category:NATO English, or Category:General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs English. I have no problem with that, but editors will use the category for terms, and create nonsense labels like Template:Commonwealth English, which I have worked hard to orphan. All of our other regional categories correspond to linguistic regions, and that's how it should be. —Michael Z. 2009-05-12 15:51 z

Keep, we don't have to follow other dictionaries, and this intuitively seems correct to me. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:44, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

When your reference has the label Brit., will you intuitively type {{Commonwealth}} into Wiktionary? And then would Category:British English intuitively represent something other that what British English represents in every dictionary and linguistics book ever written?

We could add a lot of things which “intuitively seem correct” on their own, but are wrong and don't work. This is why this should be deleted, not redirected. —Michael Z. 2009-09-21 04:39 z

[edit] Template:zh-tsp

Bad template; template {{t}} should be used, as it links properly, with the proper code corrections, and will be updated by Tbot, etc.

Also it encourages the improper use of "Chinese" as a language name (the inclusion of pinyin shows clearly that what is intended is "Mandarin", not "Chinese" in general).

There are a number of entries that need to be cleaned up, with "Chinese" changed to Mandarin and the format corrected to standard. Robert Ullmann 13:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

keep. No mentioning of the unrelated issue of Mandarin vs Chinese in the template. Provides user with traditional, simplified and pinyin. Anatoli 13:18, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

keep but move to {{cmn-tsp}}, like {{yue-tsj}} (traditional, simplified, jyutping) since I'm fairly sure that only Mandarin uses Hanyu Pinyin... — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 13:28, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:zh-zh-p

Ditto "zh-tsp" above, bad template, a number of pages need cleanup. Robert Ullmann 13:25, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

keep What is wrong with it? And where do you see the word "Chinese" in it and the other template you nominated for deletion? This could be used for etymology, explaing and making sure users know that both traditional and simplified are identical.

It makes Wiktionary harder to use, for newcomers (who need to learn a new template), for data-miners (who must write special code to extract these translations), for readers (who need to recognise the non-standard format), and for experienced editors (who need to remember that the templates exist), and any tools they use (which must be programmed to work around them). In an ideal world, everything would have totally standardised wikitext, making everyone's life simple (and while I acknowledge this is never going to be achieved, there's no harm in trying). Conrad.Irwin 11:41, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Also, please don't go changing * Chinese for * Mandarin, the current compromise is nested * Chinese ** Mandarin, as per beer parlour discussion. The templates have nothing to do with Chinese vs Mandarin or Chinese Mandarin.

Anatoli 23:36, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] June 2009

[edit] Category:Northwest Austronesian languages

This is a subdivision of Malayo-Polynesian, so a more appropriate name would be Category:Northwest Malayo-Polynesian languages. -- Prince Kassad 10:06, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

True, though some people break Malayo-Polynesian down differently than Ethnologue - Malayo-Polynesian languages. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:45, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Our language family categories are rather messy right now, because they use multiple different categorization systems. Especially for Austronesian, which is not fully studied yet and still analyzed, language families change frequently as more research is carried out. -- Prince Kassad 18:53, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] template:blend and category:Portmanteaus

{{blend}} is an etymology-section template: {{blend|foo|bar}} displays as:

Blend of foo and bar

and categorizes in category:Portmanteaus. The explanation for this discrepancy in terminology is explained at template talk:blend as follows:

"Blend" is the correct linguistic term for a word made by merging two words. The word "portmanteau" refers to a blend in which the meanings of the words are merged as as well as the words themselves, and so is more restrictive than "blend".

This template is used for all blends, so it should not be renamed "Template:Portmanteau".

The category is "Category:Portmanteaus" because this was in use before this template was created.

Be that as it may, the discrepancy is a problem: if the template is to be used for all blends — as its name and documentation both indicate — then it shouldn't categorize into Portmanteaus. That's true especially if — as is claimed — a portmanteau is a type of blend, but even if a portmanteau is a blend: we still shouldn't use two terms.

Another issue: Since the category is for a type of word, like category:English nouns and English back-formations, I it should have a name starting with English.

So I suggest as follows:

1. Recategorize entries calling template:blend by editing the template. The new category will be category:English blends; for foreign words, French blends or whatever.
2. Any extant words in cat:Portmanteaus will then be examined to see whether they are in fact portmanteaus, blending semantics in addition to morphology. Those that are not will be moved to cat:English blends (and forced to use the template, if possible).
3. Cat:Portmanteaus — now containing only "real" portmanteaus — will then be examined for size. If it's useless, it will be deleted, with entries moved into cat:English blends. If it's useful, it will be made a subcat of Blends (with the language structure mirroring that of category:Back-formations, say), and, if possible, template:blend will be modified to allow a Boolean portmanteau parameter for use on portmanteaus, which categorizes correctly.

Thoughts?—msh210℠ 23:21, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Sounds sensible – may be useful to have some idea of the size of the categories.

Portmanteau lists a number of English portmanteaus (blending meaning), so it seems a legit category, and note that there are a massive number of portmanteaus in languages such as Japanese. (See Japanese abbreviated and contracted words.)

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 00:51, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Moved from WT:BP. Please continue discussion here, where I suppose it belongs.—msh210℠ 04:52, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Seeing no objection on BP or here, I've modified template:blend and created category:Blends and some of the language categories. I'll wait for the queue to catch up and see what's left in category:Portmanteaus.​—msh210℠ 16:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I worry, though, that some foreign words use {{blend}} without specifying a language, so that they will now be categorized as English blends. To allay that concern, I have manually looked through the list of template:blend's whatlinkshere and edited any words that looked not to be English. If anyone has any other suggestions on how to deal with this problem (e.g., analyze the database for uses of {{blend}} in FL sections, which I, for one, don't know how to do), please voice them! (Using CatScan for this isn't working. It didn't find [[תשחץ]] as within depth three of category:Hebrew language using {{blend}} even though it is and does. Merlissimo said this is because the entries haven't been "touched" since, well, whenever, and is fixing this.)​—msh210℠ 17:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

What exactly are we nominating for deletion here? Mglovesfun (talk) 17:32, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete, bad title as well as these are all English. How about using {{movecat}}? Mglovesfun (talk) 18:12, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Min Nan

will be deleted when empty

This should probably be merged into Category:Min Nan language. -- Prince Kassad 07:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, merge. —Ruakh_TALK 13:49, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Merge. Furthermore, the whole category tree for the Chinese language is a mess. --Jackofclubs 15:53, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

The category tree for Chinese has additional issues that have prevented a restructuring in the past, including the way that the various languages are done at the Chinese Wiktionary. I wouldn't want to try to change things without A-Cai's input first. --EncycloPetey 19:25, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

But this is a clear-cut case (see Category:English). Mglovesfun (talk) 15:44, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Subcategories moved into Category:Min Nan language. There's still much to cleanup, but at least it's all in the same place. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 04:02, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Spanish verb indicative forms

Superfluous clutter. We've already discussed removing such categories for Finnish, let's please not start adding them to Spanish and Portuguese. --EncycloPetey 17:53, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Delete — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 00:03, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Delete per EncycloPetey. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:49, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Delete per nomination. Makes sense. Razorflame 22:39, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Comment: All contents have to be recategorized, but how? Manual edits are slow.--Jusjih 03:07, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Fails, obviously can't be deleted while it has a few thousand entries in it. I think these all use the same template, so we can modify the template. But the server will need about 12 hours to catch up. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:27, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Spanish verb second-person forms

As above. There is no reason to have a category for verb forms in the second person, and especially not irrespective of number. --EncycloPetey 18:46, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Delete — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 00:03, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Delete per EncycloPetey. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:49, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Delete, agreed. Including various tenses (indicative and subjunctive, past/present/future, etc.) every verb in the language will have around 30 forms of second person, when one includes singular, plural, formal and informal. More if you count variants with "vos," for example. A list of all these forms, with no context is going to be 1) almost endless and 2) essentially useless. [User talk:Carmensays|Carmensays]

Delete per above. Makes sense. Razorflame 22:39, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Fails. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:28, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:User en-6

Used only on two pages. What does "professorial level" mean anyway? --Vahagn Petrosyan 19:22, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a WP imported template. "Professional level" means that the user writes or edits as his/her profession, or perhaps serves as a translator. --EncycloPetey 01:19, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

But the template doesn't say "professional". It says "professorial". And two of the three users who use this template do so without indicating another language that they speak well (though presumably they speak some coded language well), which would imply that they use this template to indicate something better than native: something like "not only am I a native speaker of English, I speak it really well". (The other user might also mean that, but I don't know: he lists nl.)​—msh210℠ 17:33, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

BTW, we don't have Template:User en-5. --Vahagn Petrosyan 14:36, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Keep, it's for the userspace only, and what harm does it do? Can anyone think of any userpage rules that this violates? Mglovesfun (talk) 20:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

This template if kept should be orphaned (with a note of explanation left on the userpage in its place) and reworded to avoid ambiguity: not both EP and I interpreted it correctly, which implies it's ambiguous.​—msh210℠ 17:33, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Keep and improve then, I admit it doesn't make much sense. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:29, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, since (I think) it should be orphaned, I therefore shall say delete: it's not so useful that we need to orphan it, inform its users, and reword it.​—msh210℠ 21:42, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Keep No harm is done by having this stay on the English Wiktionary, and as it stands, this really isn't a reason to delete it. Razorflame 18:21, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Kept Mglovesfun (talk) 16:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I've blanked the template and informed its users of the reason and what they can do about it.​—msh210℠ 18:18, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] July 2009

[edit] File:Wikipedia-logo.png

Possibly redundant to commons:File:Wikipedia-logo.png.--Jusjih 21:45, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Not quite the same image. I'm willing to trust Connel had a reason for having this one, unless he says otherwise. In any event, no harm in keeping it. It needs a copyright tag, though: unlike most of Wiktionary, it is not free content.​—msh210℠ 15:16, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Keep and find copyright tag otherwise, as above, Connel probably had a reason for having this one. Razorflame 18:22, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] File:Wikipedia-logo-en.png

Duplicate of File:Wikipedia-logo.png, see also above.--Jusjih 21:45, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that today and mentioned that in IRC. I don't want to question Connel though, he probably has a good reason for uploading the same file twice. -- Prince Kassad 21:46, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

It's much used and would first need to be orphaned (unless we switch to using the Commons' file of the same name, which looks different). I'm willing to trust Connel had a reason for having this one, unless he says otherwise. In any event, no harm in keeping it. It needs a copyright tag, though: unlike most of Wiktionary, it is not free content.​​—msh210℠ 15:19, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:In London

See: WT:BP#Category:In London

Too encyclopedic. Sets a dangerous precedent for things like [[Category:fr:London]], [[Category:ja:Paris]], [[Category:hu:Washington]] etc. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:34, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Please do not duplicate discussions. You've started a discussion on this topic in the BP. Please let that discussion reach a conclusion or we'll have two threads on this topic in two locations. --EncycloPetey 21:37, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Well since the pages have different functions the discussions should be different too, plus there seemed to be a consensus on that page, so I decided to go for the deletion. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:24, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I can imagine three kinds of “London” labels and categories.

1. Regional dialect label, for terms used chiefly in London. The label is {{London}} and Category:London English. (Somewhat misused, because at least half of the category members are not chiefly restricted to use in London.)
2. Thematic label. Encyclopedic, classifying things, not words. Wikipedia already does this, and they will always do it better than we will. What's the point of wasting energy and causing confusion by duplicating their efforts, badly?
3. Geographic label for the referent: {{in London}}, Category:In London. The COD and its descendants use these in a consistent, documented form (e.g. “in the UK”, in contrast to the dialect label “Brit.”). This could be used to disambiguate the two Sohos for example, but editors would immediately start confusing it with either of the two kinds of labels. I thought this would be a good idea, but I'm starting to think that in practice it's best for us to keep this in the text of the definition.

Delete —Michael Z. 2009-07-15 03:21 z

Please vote on this. I don't think it's appropriate for me to delete this on a 2-0 consensus. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:40, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Move to Category:London. I don't think this duplicates Wikipedia, but categorises the London-related Wiktionary definitions that have merits to exist (if they indeed do) and is useful in that. All of the geographical category pages could have a boilerplate warning not to create articles that don't meet the criteria for inclusion. Other than that, I don't see harm in category creep. This could also be one parent category for Category:London English; cf. the way countries are arranged. Wipe 23:05, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] August 2009

[edit] Category:Australian Aboriginal languages

This overlaps a lot with the similar Category:Languages of Australia. Since presumably all Australian aboriginal languages are spoken within Australia, this category is essentially "all languages of Australia, minus English" and should be deleted. This duplication has caused some confusion among users, as is easily visible by the contents of the categories. -- Prince Kassad 10:25, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Keep. Rather, it is a subcategory. It is also the closest thing we have to a "language family" for many native languages of the continent, because linguists have not worked out the relationships yet for many of them. To remove this category would deny many Australian languages a genetic classification on Wiktionary. --EncycloPetey 14:29, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

None of these "languages" you speak of seem to be represented on Wiktionary, as I had a look at the contents of the category. Of the 43 languages, 38 are also categorized in a genetic classification category. Of the remaining 5, 4 are clearly classified. So we would deny at most one (1) language a genetic classification. I think this is acceptable. -- Prince Kassad 14:51, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

"None of these "langauges"...seem to be represented on Wiktionary." ...yet. And how many language families are there in Australia? Should they all be listed separately because we do not know their inter-relationships yet? Or should those families be grouped usefully for those who wish to find them? --EncycloPetey 14:54, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

A possible alternative would be to move all the individual languages out of there, and lump all the language families of Australia in there, plus the occasional unclassifiable language. This is for example what Category:Amerindian languages does, and I think it would be more useful than the current situation.
I don't know much about Australian languages, but the amount of individial languages is estimated to be 250. The amount of language families should be at most one sixth, maybe less. -- Prince Kassad 15:01, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Keep. This isn't the same as all languages of Australia, minus English. The languages of Torres Strait aren't included. PierreAbbat 13:32, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Kept. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:14, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Quechuan derivations

Incorrectly named duplicate of Category:Quechua derivations -- Prince Kassad 19:42, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Move entries, and delete. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 06:17, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Ditto, Mglovesfun (talk) 08:54, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

So, are you saying that {{etyl:qwe}} shouldn't exist, and that all references to it should be changed to refer to {{qu}}? If so, why does {{etyl:qwe}} exist? I assume it wasn't just created for the heck of it … —Ruakh_TALK 17:16, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I can't see how {{etyl:qwe}} can be used in a productive manner. Until SIL came up with their classification, Quechua was regarded as a single language with various dialects, so there's no need to refer to the collective language family. In fact, many of the uses of that template are plain wrong since they clearly refer to standard Quechua. -- Prince Kassad 17:30, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Good point; maybe this is a beer parlour issue rather than a simple deletion one. Mglovesfun (talk) 06:57, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Policies - Wiktionary Top Level

Tagged in 2007, don't ask me why. Apart from the bap caps, clearly. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:02, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Read [1] -- Prince Kassad 13:11, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh yeah (not mentioned on the talk page, so I couldn't find it). I still think we should delete some of these. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:38, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

If I were less lazy, I would move all the pages to a sensible name and speedy delete this for bad capitalisation. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:00, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:English gerunds

11 members. I did not think that we presented English present participles as English gerunds. This says that the members of the category are proscribed. This is not a desirable result of using template {{gerund of}}. I am not sure why we would want that template to apply to English. DCDuring TALK 11:39, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

I assume that this is specifically for English gerundial nouns, i.e. the kind of -ing word that walks like a noun and quacks like a noun -- for example, it has a plural if countable, etc. If we renamed this to Category:English gerundial nouns per CGEL, would that resolve the issue?

I agree that the bit about proscription seems like a stretch. But some sort of usage appendix would not be out of place IMO. -- Visviva 11:58, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

This seems to have been intended only to make a kind of prescriptive point. I'm not sure whether the template is intended to do something special for English.

I have inserted some wording at Category:English present participles. I remember that we had discussed the idea of standard usage note(s) for these, linking to a more extensive appendix.

I am fairly sure that gerund is not a very useful term to users, even less so than participle.

I'm trying to collect some grammar books of the last 90 years to compare what they say about present participles/gerunds/present participial adjectives and the derived true adjectives and nouns. The most basic presentation that we do of present participle is certainly correct, as is the presentation of true nouns or adjectives. What is a little less clear to me are:

1. Is pluralization alone enough indication to justify a noun PoS?
2. Are other criteria sufficient in the absence of pluralization?

I expect our answers to both to be "yes", but I'd like to see what Jespersen, Bloomfield, Quirk et al, and Huddleston & Pullum all have to say. Once I have, I'd be ready to draft something I think. But I'd be happy to let someone else have the fun. DCDuring TALK 14:04, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Earlier discussion here: Wiktionary:Beer_parlour_archive/2008/December#English_plural_gerunds. I'm feeling somewhat muddled about this ATM. Huddleston & Pullum (aka CGEL, pp. 81-82) draw four distinctions between gerundial nouns and "-ing" verb forms (what they call "gerund-participles"):

• Complementation: Among other things, gerundial nouns take an "of" prepositional phrase as complement ("the singing of the song").
• Modification: Gerundial nouns take an adjective as modifier, while participles take an adverb. ("Her splendid singing of the song left them transfixed.")
• Determiners: Only nouns can take the definite article ("_the_ singing of the song").
• Plurals: Only nouns can take the plural (however, they don't always do so).

H&P go on to point out (as they do again on p. 1222) that the traditional gerund/participle distinction cannot be sustained. So, as you say, it is probably incorrect to speak of "gerund" here, and of "plural gerund" as well (sigh).

The number of -ing forms that can be cited as nouns according to the above criteria (if we accept them) is likely to be arbitarily large. It would be hard to say that any -ing form is categorically incapable of acting as a noun; it's simply a matter of whether it can be attested doing so. So even if there is a meaningful grammatical distinction between the gerundial noun and the "participle-gerund," we might still question whether that distinction is useful for our purposes. -- Visviva 06:41, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Though I now own CGEL and am very respectful of all of its analysis and find myself agreeing with virtually every substantive point, the argumentative content means to me that some of the work's conclusions are not settled matters. I think we are wise to focus our efforts on bringing Wiktionary up to date on the matters on which Quirk et al and CGEL agree (or where the arguments of one of the other have clearly prevailed). In this area they seem to be in substantial agreement, although I need to go to a library to check Quirk et al. I don't know what other grammars are worth checking for a modern PoV (Biber?). DCDuring TALK 16:07, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Delete category, rename as Category:English gerundial nouns. Consider creating special template for English words of this type (and their plurals). -- Visviva 06:41, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

How did you view us as using the renamed category? DCDuring TALK 16:07, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

To hold all actual nouns of this nature -- that is, all "-ing" words that form a plural. -- Visviva 14:40, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Deleted, fails RFDO. I'll just decategorize them for now, but I don't object to a category English gerundial nouns, which seems at least correctly worded. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:18, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] September 2009

[edit] Appendix:Doubling names

Makes me think of the Wikipedia style List of stuff I just came up with in a pinch. Not dictionary material, a personal project by Alasdair, delete. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:30, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Needs (ideally) a third opinion, noting that I wasn't the one that proposed this. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:34, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

This seems like a cool and potentially workable idea. Needs work, but so does everything else around here... I would be inclined to keep. -- Visviva 11:49, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Transwiki:List of scientific journal abbreviations

The journal titles wouldn't meet CFI, so why would the abbreviations of the titles? — Carolina wren discussió 06:06, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

It could be useful in fixing up abbreviations in the sources of quotations. It's definitely not useful for creating entries, though. If we keep it, we want to remove the links. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 13:56, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Abstain, with a good cleanup it might be okay. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:46, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary:Tutorial

We do need some sort of tutorial. However, this is simply an import from Wikipedia which contradicts our policies a lot and thus does no good to the newbies who read and follow this (and get blocked because of it). Either a new, proper tutorial should be written or this should be deleted. -- Prince Kassad 20:45, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you're nominating just this page or the linked pages as well (which aren't subpages). Anyway keep. You make the argument yourself, we can just clean it up and keep it. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:56, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Cleaning up is essentially a complete rewrite. I mean, if it still says you should be bold and that you should rewrite entries with L5 headings, I don't think you can fix it so it actually has any content left. And yes I implicitely also meant the subpages. -- Prince Kassad 20:58, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Looks like the cleanup has already started to me. I mean how is the stuff about edit conflicts and minor edits not helpful? It even uses terms like "definition" and "translation" rather than Wikipedia stuff. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:44, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] October 2009

[edit] Category:Hungarian animal names

Bad title? Why is this not the same as Category:hu:Animals. Mglovesfun (talk) 06:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

It's as if we had an category for common English pet names such as Rover, Fido, and Polly. If kept it should probably be renamed as Category:Hungarian animal given names, if only to allow {{given name|animal|lang=hu}} to populate it. I can see the pros and cons of this idea, so no opinion on whether to keep. — Carolina wren discussió 01:43, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah I only just realised that this was already kept as a no consensus in 2007 or 2008. Same neutral. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any value to the category. In practice, people can give their pets any name they choose. I was part of a list where someone inquired about a traditional Scottish (human) name for their Scottish terrier. I once had a friend who had a cat named "Fungus". There really isn't any limitation on a category like that. --EncycloPetey 03:03, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Well since you can't rename categories, I'd say delete and then we can debate Carolina's given name for animals idea. Anyone want to keep this all that much? Mglovesfun (talk) 13:52, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Deleted by me, quite a while ago. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:04, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:somewhat

See #Template:quite above (unless it's been archived, see WT:PDE). Too ambiguous, doesn't really add anything hence it can only cause confusion. Ergo delete. Also very few transclusions (about 10). Mglovesfun (talk) 18:13, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

"Quite" has nearly contradictory meanings which contradiction cannot be resolved in our use. "Somewhat" is a bit vague, but unambiguously is more than "slightly" (Do we use this?) and less than both unmodified and "very" or "extremely", IMO. Other assessments? DCDuring TALK 19:58, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

{{slightly}} has only got 8 transclusions, and {{fairly}} doesn't exist. I find slightly a lot less ambiguous (although I'm not sure why). Maybe a redirect? I just don't like somewhat as it means not a lot. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:40, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:new unicode char

Created for a BP discussion on automatically making entries for Unicode symbols. That discussion basically said that this process would create entries w/o real definitions and the L2 & L3 would be suspect w/o a real human involved. Consequently, it was never used (subst'ed or transcluded). We have *better* templates (e.g. {{character info}}) that separate encoding details from languages sections. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 21:43, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Right deleted. I trust you on this one. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:10, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Appendix:Year pronunciation

Any real reason to keep this? --Yair rand 01:51, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

None that I can see. For one thing, the title is wrong (both words I'd say). Secondly, it's not giving any pronunciations. Or at least not using IPA or SAMPA or something neutral but just written in phonetic English. I'd happily speedy delete this, but I'll at least wait to this evening. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:31, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Seems potentially useful, and at least harmless in its current form. So keep, I guess. It's an interesting aspect of the spoken language that that can't be adequately covered in mainspace. For example, there's a particularly interesting pattern in Patrick O'Brien's novels, where sailors refer to "the year One" (meaning 1801) and so forth. Assuming this is real, it would be very interesting to document when it arose and when it faded. Likewise for abbreviated years like "'99". Where could this be adequately addressed, if not in an appendix such as this?

On the other hand, I think this would need a complete reorg to really be useful. In particular, the tabular layout isn't going to work IMO; rather it needs to be broken down by paradigms, with information about the contextual restrictions of each. (Or something similar.) I agree that "pronunciation" doesn't seem quite right -- but I'm not quite sure what the proper wording would be. "Spoken form of dates"? -- Visviva 13:17, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm inclined to keep, but it would be nice if we could say which entries were candidates to have it in their See also sections. No entries link to this now. Hmmm, this looks like a job for Linkeration for one thing. This seems useful at least as a placeholder for the Appendix we wish we had, especially when properly renamed and with this and ensuing discussion on it's talk page. DCDuring TALK 01:08, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Types of adjective

I think this topical category can be rolled into the (also) topical category Category:Adjectives. The latter is more general, and not big enough to need to be split apart. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Delete yes, but this needs a good cleanup as well. I assume the Wiktionary category is Category:Adjectives by language. It needs explaining to be less confusing. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:14, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Obviously this was created with the intention of avoiding the potential ambiguity that Category:Adjectives has, as by its name it is not all obvious whether it it a category to hold entries that are adjectives or entries that pertain to adjectives. However this name doesn't make the distinction either, since I could easily see this as being equivalent to Category:Adjectives by type, with subcategories such as Category:Demonymic adjectives, Category:Sensory adjectives, etc. However, while we could probably use a good discussion in the Beer Parlor to discuss how to name the subcats of Category:Parts of speech to avoid ambiguity, I see no reason to not delete this category and upmerge as proposed. — Carolina wren discussió 19:05, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Wouldn't that kind of content fit well under the semantic heading "Hyponyms" at [[adjective]]? I'm not sure that semantic categories work very well compared to grammatical categories, maintenance categories, and the context-related categories, though it could be worth a BP discussion. DCDuring TALK 23:26, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Kung-Ekoka language

Should probably be merged into Category:!Kung language, since both refer to the same language. -- Prince Kassad 13:10, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Well the ISO codes aren't the same. Could you explain exactly what the merge should be? The name, the code (etc.) then we can comment more easily. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:52, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Category:Kung-Ekoka language is completely empty. On Wiktionary, this language is treated as a dialect of Category:!Kung language, so presumably the category should not exist. -- Prince Kassad 23:18, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

If it is in fact a dialect, then the category is misnamed (or, since it's empty, should not exist at all), so delete.​—msh210℠ 19:33, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Delete per above. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:50, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary:Well-Enunciated American English

It's currently at WT:RFC#Wiktionary:Well-Enunciated American English but I can't see any value in it. Worse than that, WEAE and Well-Enunciated American English both redirect to it, which they shouldn't as they are in the main space, this is not. Why is this better than Wikipedia's IPA for English? Mglovesfun (talk) 13:20, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary:General American English with maximal distinctions

Same as above. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:ru:CIS

Whilst engaging in a little mindless replacement of {{nav}} with {{topic cat}}, I came across this oddity as a subcat of Category:ru:Countries. No other language has an equivalent category, nor I think we want this one. I could see Category:Historical countries as a way to subcat Category:Countries or a per continent subcategoriztion, but this just isn't very efficient at subcatting. — Carolina wren discussió 00:41, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Definitely delete. A beer parlour discussion should take place (if wanted) on how to sub-divide these categories, which in all honest aren't that big. Even the English category contains less than 400 entries. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:50, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Emptied and deleted. — Carolina wren discussió 21:57, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

No other language has an equivalent category only because it is not of much interest to speakers of any other language. English entries have an equivalent category named Category:US States. All of these countries were part of the Soviet Union and continue to have close ties with Russia, and Russian is either official or widely understood in them. It would be nice to have that category in English as well, but I don’t think Americans are much interested in the affairs of the CIS. As for Russian, this is an important category. People who do not speak Russian well should not presume to say "definitely delete". Rename it if you don’t like the abbreviation (which anyone who knows Russian understands), but Definitely keep. Else delete Category:US States as well. —Stephen 22:24, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

The Russian entries already all had a See Also link to СНГ (save for Turkmenistan, which also lacked the Category) and Содружество Независимых Государств has See Also links to to them in return. The entries in question also had retained Category:ru:Countries, so they weren't even accomplishing the one task I thought they were. Other than duplicating the see also links in Содружество Независимых Государств at СНГ (which I've done) and placing a link to Содружество Независимых Государств alongside the link to СНГ in the individual entries (which I haven't done), there's not really much to do to improve the linkage here, and certainly nothing that a category would improve upon.

As for Category:US States, Category:Cantons of Switzerland, and the rest of the topical subcategories of Category:Political subdivisions, they have one important distinction to favor keeping them as categories that Category:CIS does not, namely that they can serve to replace two categories with one. (e.g.: Category:Political subdivisions and Category:United States of America with Category:US States.

Finally, if we have categories for intergovernmental organizations, what's next, Category:G20, Category:African Union, Category:Mercosur? Unlike political subdivisions, where there is (except in the rare case of a codominium) only 1 parent, countries can belong to any number of governmental organizations. That sort of information is encyclopedic, not dictionaric. While I could definitely see using such categories in *Wikiatlas, if such a project existed, categories for intergovernmental organizations strike me generally as overkill for Wiktionary. — Carolina wren discussió 23:56, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

They serve another, different purpose for some people. If you are searching for pertinent terms by category, as I have been accustomed to doing, the CIS states are now missing. When I refer to Category:US States, I am looking for that particular category. The category Category:United States of America is only useful as a place to find Category:US States. Category:Political subdivisions is also different, and thousands of areas would qualify for that. There are only a few specific states that are categorized under Category:ru:CIS, and now they are missing for anyone trying to find them by logical category. Instead of deleting the category, you should have renamed it with a name more to your liking. —Stephen 00:24, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm taking this to the Beer Parlour since you chose to undelete this category. — Carolina wren discussió 20:47, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] November 2009

[edit] Dialect etymology templates

• {{AE.}}, {{AG.}}, {{LL.}}, {{ML.}}, {{NL.}}, {{OL.}}, {{ONF.}}, {{Pr.}}, {{VG.}}, {{VL.}}

All of these templates now have duplicates with "etyl:" prefixes, such as {{etyl:AE.}} (see Wiktionary:Language codes#Dialects). Editors should use the standard system, for instance {{etyl|AE.}} which utilizes the newer templates, and we can orphan the original ones. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 20:33, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes but it's not urgent as these aren't doing any harm. I see it as a clean up issue, so when these are orphaned these should be deleted as "deprecated". Mglovesfun (talk) 11:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

They were orphaned a few days ago. We'll leave them around for a while so editors learn to use the new ones. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 20:15, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Which is usually a mistake, as some of the Latin ones need orphaning again before we can delete them. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:49, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

The point was to see who was still using them. I've looked at all the new uses of the templates and notified the authors. The last three templates can now be orphaned and deleted without causing anyone confusion. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 15:18, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, but why keep the dots at the end and the odd capitalization which disables the usage of these (and completely opaque, I had no idea what most of these were referring to until I clicked them) abbreviations for other languages? I'd rather that we use sth like AmEn, VulgLat, OldLat etc. --Ivan Štambuk 16:51, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Because there was no consensus on a naming scheme. So we kept the names and just moved them to the new system ({{etyl}}). Make a proposal if you can. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:27, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Deleted --Bequw → ¢ • τ 18:27, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary:Etymology/language templates

While useful when we had the Webster 1913 style etymology templates, I don't think WT:ETY/TEMP contains any useful information now. The "Old English"/"Anglo Saxon" confusion is noted at WT:AEN#Etymology. Since {{etyl}} accepts any language code, there is no sense hand creating the list of templates. For an autogenerated list of language codes we have Category:Language templates and for a full list with languages names and duplicated codes we have User:Robert Ullmann/L2. The ISO 639-1/-3/-5 codes are additionally listed on the language name entries for all languages in the WT:ETY/TEMP list (qv English#External links). Exceptions are found at Wiktionary:Language codes#List of exceptions. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 07:44, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I missed something in that nomination. I'm wikifying a page, including, among other things, converting French to {{etyl|fr|eo}}. I have to look up a bunch of different language and dialect names. Where do I go to for this, assuming this page disappears?​—msh210℠ 19:09, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

In other words, I personally use the nominated page very frequently, and wish to know what I can use instead.​—msh210℠ 19:10, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree. The page needs updating a bit, sure. But it looks good, tidy and wikified. The information is basically correct, who benefits from its deletion? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

You say "you agree", Mg, but I was merely asking a question.​—msh210℠ 19:21, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Two better ways to go from "French" to fr are:

1. Find the ISO 639-1/-3/-5 code from the language name entry (e.g. French). For languages that we don't use the ISO code, see Wiktionary:Language codes#List of exceptions.
2. User:Robert Ullmann/L2 (or Wiktionary:Index to templates/languages)

Both of these work for more languages than WT:ETY/TEMP (which only lists 149 languages) and are sustainable. It is not sustainable to try to have a comprehensive, hand-made list of languages in their codes since Category:Language templates already has over 7,000 templates. Why would we want just a random listing of 149 languages? It offers nothing. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 09:21, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

None of those pages lists Yiddish, French, and Late Latin. The nominated page does. Since, as you say, the nominated page is incomplete, ideally we should complete it. Let's say I wanted to look up those three languages, because I was wikifying the etymology of the entry a meydl n'est pas une anathema (an English proverb from, you guessed it, Yiddish, French, and Late Latin). So I first look at the page [[Yiddish]] and see two different ISO codes for Yiddish, plus one each for Eastern Yiddish and Western Yiddish. Which to use? I don't know, so I check the next page you, Bequw, list, viz [[Wiktionary:Language codes#List of exceptions]]. (I should check that even if Yiddish has only one ISO code, since you say that's where to look for languages for which we don't use the ISO code, and I don't know whether Yiddish is one such.) My browser's "find"/"search" function, applied to that page and "Yiddish", yields nothing, so I attack the third choice, [[User:Robert Ullmann/L2]]. It again gives two codes for Yiddish, so, finally, I try the fourth page, [[Wiktionary:Index to templates/languages]]. This, finally, tells me that "[w]here a language has both [a two-letter ISO 639-1 and a three-letter ISO 639-3 code], the use of the two-letter code is preferred", and tells me that that's yi, which I use. Next, for French, I get smart and check the last page first, so use fr. Finally, Late Latin. [[Wiktionary:Index to templates/languages]] doesn't list anything for it, so I work backwards, checking RU's list (again nothing), and then [[Wiktionary:Language codes]], which, finally, tells me to use {{etyl|LL.}}. That's a lot of work. I think that the nominated page should be kept and expanded to include all languages and dialects for which we currently have a code, or converted to a page that clearly gives directions on how to find such a code. It should also include the documentation for {{proto}}, or a good link thereto.​—msh210℠ 17:40, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Your hypothetical user had not read the policy page dealing with language codes (WT:LANGCODE) yet wanted to use them. Of course he was confused. The behavioral solution for this confusion is to read the policy page first (just as we expect editors to have read WT:ELE). An additional page will in the long run increase confusion (more policy pages, more linkrot/maintenance, etc.). I agree our other pages should be improved to the benefit novices. I've clarified on WT:LANGCODE that ISO 639 codes should be listed on language entries and updated WT:ETY to our current usage of language codes. Both of those pages already mention {{proto}}. If you foresee continued confusion, however, please improve them. I asked for UllmannBot to list dialect & language family codes on Wiktionary:Index to templates/languages when it regenerates the page. That would be what you'd want right? Because I cannot foresee any editor hand-adding the thousands of languages + codes that we use on Wiktionary to WT:ETY/TEMP. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:59, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Fine, thanks. Redirect to WT:LANGCODE (rather than delete, because it has so many incoming links, and because people may seek the help this page affords).​—msh210℠ 16:36, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I've turned it into a page that transcludes Wiktionary:Index to templates/languages and the dialect and family code exceptions from Wiktionary:Language codes. It shows (almost) all possible codes that can be used with {{etyl}} (it's missing the standard ISO 639-5 codes because there's no auto-generated list of codes&names from the "Template:etyl:*" namespace). Hopefully that's the best of both worlds. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 20:12, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, Bequw.​—msh210℠ 17:25, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep Both RU and CI seem to manage transitions with more grace than this. I had assumed this would be handled in the way that they have handled it, long transition, no scolding, some thought about automated replacement. I will henceforth make it a point of opposing any change that is accompanied by any risk of rough transitions and will be suspicious of recommendations by those who have a history of advocating such. I have wasted a lot of keystrokes trying to comply with various requests for uniformity and standardization. No more. DCDuring TALK 15:37, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry to be ill-tempered, but I am getting tired of doing more typing for the benefit of some naming scheme. I probably just need something like the old keyboard macros. Now if I could only find either what is built into Windows or is available open-source.... DCDuring TALK 19:05, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] rename of a pair of slangs

[edit] Category:UK slang

[edit] Category:US slang

Came across these when I had reason to cleanup after an IP who'd edited bodacious. {{US slang}} was adding entries to Category:US slang and the replaced Category:US English. I fixed that template so that it now feeds both Category:US slang and Category:American English. However it seems to me that the slang categories could also use renaming to Category:British slang and Category:American slang respectively. (Also ((temp|UK slang}} currently adds only to Category:UK slang, while the US and Australian counterparts add to both the slang category and the regional English category. Probably worth standardizing the behavio(u)r one way or the other, but no opinion as to which way.) — Carolina wren discussió 20:52, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. I think this needs Beer Parlour attention, I'll get on it. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:19, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I think these compound categories/contexts are the product of our difficulty in doing multi-criteria searches. They can't be the long-term future. I would like to hear about technical alternatives that might allow a (superior?) alternative to such compounds of our simple categories. DCDuring TALK 18:59, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm having trouble finding the right context template for American urban slang so that it will feed the right categories. There could be more sub-categories such as black, hispanic, East coast, West coast, rural, college, etc., but no one will ever tackle that project. Should I just use the broader {{context|us|slang}}? Heyzeuss 10:35, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

OK, I decided to use {{African American Vernacular English}} for now. Also, I think that African American Vernacular English should go under US Slang which should go under American English. Heyzeuss 14:49, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Bhagavad-gītā

Tagged but not listed. I will endevour to find out why. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:10, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Right, it's apparently an individual religious poem/text, somewhat like having a Category:Genesis referring to the first book of the Bible. Ergo delete as not dictionary material, should be on Wikipedia or nowhere at all. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:15, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Because fundamental religious texts are an important source of linguistic information, there might be a case for this, similar to that for Category:Biblical derivations. There are many languages where the first writings were translations of the Bible. I would expect there to be analogous linguistic significance for the Bhagavad-gita in the languages of India, including English.

I don't know what non-religious texts can be shown to have the same linguistic meaning. In English, not even Shakespeare has had as much influence as the Bible, especially KJV. In English the role of the Bible is most visible in multi-word expressions; the need to use simple vocabulary prevented the use of complicated or unusual words, except for proper nouns. The influence of biblical given names is itself an indication of influence. DCDuring TALK 16:02, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

But how many English words derive from the Bhagavad-gītā? This category is an English language category. --EncycloPetey 17:38, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

AFAICT it's not all that fundamental as a religious text, or am I wrong? Mglovesfun (talk) 22:42, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

It is. See the first line of w:Bhagavad-gītā. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 14:45, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

But there are likely many words (or lexicographically interesting phrases, proverbs...) that were taken directly from the Gita in various Indian languages, in which case this would merely serve as a super-category for them. Similarly, there are probably many languages in the world which don't have at all Biblical derivations other than personal names. However, at this moment the category hardly deserves to be created, and recategorizing the three entries it contains into the empty supracategory Category:Hindu mythology would suffice IMHO. --Ivan Štambuk 17:21, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Translations to be checked (Chinese Characters)

[edit] Category:Translations to be checked (Chinese characters)

Tagged but not listed. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:28, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

By the way, since when do we do "Translations to be checked" by script and not by language? Mglovesfun (talk) 12:39, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Orphan and delete. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 14:55, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:English words that use all vowels in alphabetical order

Borderline dictionary material. I can only think of six anyway. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:10, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

From memory, it's one of those odd lists that Scrabble players love. abstemious, abstemiously, caesious, caesiously (highly improbable) facetious, facetiously. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:11, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Keep and expand: lots of people like this particular bit of info, so we might as well have it, either as category or as appendix. Category seems best, so people who know one word can very easily find the others.​—msh210℠ 18:06, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Unofficial keep - I like such lists :) — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 18:18, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

The National Scrabble Association (of the U.S.)'s Official Club and Tournament Word List, Second Edition, has abstemious, abstemiously, abstentious, arsenious, facetious, and facetiously (found via perl -ne 's/ .*//; my $tmp = $_; s/[^AEIOUY]//g; print $tmp if $_ eq "AEIOU" || $_ eq "AEIOUY"' OCTWL2.txt). —Ruakh_TALK 19:41, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

While I'm not good with Perl syntax, it looks like you've omitted words (if any) containing additional Ys before the U, and also those (if any) of containing additional copies of individual vowels in their correct place, like (the made-up word) yaneelingous.​—msh210℠ 19:45, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Right. There's a lot of ambiguity in the category name (e.g., something like "sacrilegiously" technically uses all the vowels in alphabetical order, too, but the extra <i> somehow seems to disqualify it), so I modeled my one-liner on Mglovesfun's examples, none of which used any vowel twice, and none of which included <y> except optionally once after <u>. (Though on second thought, the latter property was probably coincidence; counting <y> entirely as a consonant would likely yield the same list. So I guess induction also generates ambiguity.) Anyway, Conrad's grep below, aside from the typos (unbalanced single-quotes, stray <s> in the first character class), matches your interpretation. :-)   —Ruakh_TALK 00:14, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

From Index:English: Conrad.Irwin 19:55, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

$ cat English.fil | grep '^\([^aeious]*a\)\+\([^aeiou]*e\)\+\([^aeiou]*i\)\+\([^aeiou]*o\)\+\([^aeiou]*u\)\+[^aeiou]*$

• absteinous
• abstemious
• abstemiously
• abstenious
• abstentious
• accession country
• adecticous
• adventitious
• adventitiously
• aerious
• anemious
• annelidous
• arenicolous
• arsenious
• avenious
• battle it out
• caesious
• cavernicolous
• facetious
• facetiously
• fracedinous
• hareiously

And abstemiousness. It depends on the definition. If you need the Y, that limits it a lot. What it really means is "AEIOU in order without any other vowels" because abstemiousness does use all five vowels in order, but then add another E. Admittedly my category title is not a good one, but in British English I find the title above ungrammatical, a bit like Category:French terms with mute h. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:17, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

In I mainly nominated this because I thought someone else might nominate if I didn't, a bit like finding three usable cites for a rare word before an actual RFV. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:18, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I do think we should have this category, but, as noted, its name is ambiguous. Perhaps move, though I don't have any good ideas.​—msh210℠ 18:25, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Category:English words using all five vowels in order only once (each). A bit long, I know. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:48, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Move to an Appendix, then delete. --EncycloPetey 17:37, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Appendix sounds better. L☺g☺maniac chat? 17:38, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

But a category is easier to find, right? Mglovesfun (talk) 12:54, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

No. --EncycloPetey 02:20, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Towns

A longstanding but problematic fork of Category:Cities. The problem with it is that what distinguishes a town from a city or a village (if anything) varies by jurisdiction. Given the current size of Category:Cities (which has by language subcategories while Towns does not) and our current categorization structure, I think a better means of splitting Category:Cities would be via categories such as Category:Cities of the United States that would enable one category listing to substitute for two. Then if those by jurisdiction subcategories need further splitting, splitting by the type of community would be an option.

If there is strong sentiment that using Category:Cities for all municipalities without regard to size would be confusing, I have no objections to renaming it to a more generic name, tho that would be additional effort. — Carolina wren discussió 23:50, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I'm for deleting Category:Towns in favor of covering all non-village entities by Category:Cities. There is no distinction between the words “town” and “city” in Armenian and I wouldn't know where to put Armenian towns/cities. --Vahagn Petrosyan 00:13, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

A category like "City" or "Town" (or township or village or borough or county or unincorporated area) would not really work very consistently across the states of the US if we rely on legal definition, which would vary by state. Except for the District of Columbia, all are matters of state law with little or no role for the federal government in making these concepts uniform. The US Census Bureau defines its own areas for purposes of defining market areas that are centered on one or more cities. Postal Codes certainly don't follow municipal boundaries very much and occasionally don't follow state boundaries.

The categories that seem most stable are the internationally recognized jurisdictions (mostly nations) and the first level of sub-jurisdiction within a nation (or equivalent). Grouping all geographich entries and distinguishing inhabited places from natural features (land, water, subsurface, ocean floor) seems the first order of business for Gazetteer categories.

Keep this and all geographic categories with any members until some decisions about the basic structure of such categories is determined. DCDuring TALK 02:31, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

What about a 'pedia-style hypernym Category:Settlements? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 04:15, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

That sounds OK, but sounds a little like barely civilized frontier places. The initial categories for a major WikiGazetteer push should make sense to newbies, who may find the opportunity to add their favorite places quite compelling. They also need to not require revision at the most fundamental level if at all possible. It seems like more than a response to an RfDO. At the very least it needs to be BP. DCDuring TALK 03:09, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Citation needed

Used on two pages. It could be kept if improved - it links to Wikipedia right now, which is not good. So what do we do? Keep and wikify, or delete it? Mglovesfun (talk) 15:41, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

We have no standards to ensure accuracy of etymologies, pronunciations, or, really, anything else that out CFI don't take care of. So fixing this up to link to the right page would first require having such a page, and having some rules to put in it. So delete for now — and, in the long run, get some rules.​—msh210℠ 18:13, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Deleted but I'll put a little note saying that it can be reentered. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:39, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Republics of Russia

Brought this here more as a discussion of how to handle this than an outright deletion request, tho deletion is certainly one option. I came across Category:ta:Republics of Russia and I see no problem with having a category for the subdivisions of Russia. However, the republics aren't the only or even the most common first-order subdivision of Russia. The oblasts are the most common and there also krais, federal cities, autonomous okrugs, and one autonomous oblast. Collectively they are termed federal subjects. So my question is, should we:

1. Leave things as they are for now.
2. Create a category for the federal subjects as they have on Wikipedia, Category:Federal subjects of Russia, and keep Category:Republics of Russia.
3. Replace Category:Republics of Russia with Category:Federal subjects of Russia.

My personal preference is to create Category:Federal subjects of Russia as a generic category, with no preference as to whether we keep a separate category for Category:Republics of Russia. — Carolina wren discussió 19:25, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

I favour option 2. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 20:04, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:French nous-verb homonyms

Just seems a bit pointless. If kept, yeah there are a lot of these. As always with these linguistic oddities categories, it's just a matter of opinion. You either like it or you don't, and I'm not convinced for this one. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:53, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Please wait for the French speakers result before removing. JackPotte 18:14, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Right now I'd settle for any comment at all. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:38, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] December 2009

[edit] Category:fa:Gregorian calendar months

Even though the calendar used in Iran is the Islamic calendar, we should default to the Gregorian calendar for Category:Months just like how we default to English for topical categories. -- Prince Kassad 13:48, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

POV! POV! Haha :) I disagree with you, I think that each system should have its own category. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 14:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

There aren't that many months all told. Can't they all be in Months?​—msh210℠ 18:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I can't really quite explain why, but I just feel really strongly that they should have their own categories. I can only think of three calendar systems offhand (Islamic, Hebrew and Gregorian), but I'm sure there must be others... — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 18:13, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, there are a lot more than I would have thought... w:List of calendars — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 18:16, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Nobody seems to be voting on this, so based on the w:List of calendars, I'm going to say keep. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep and clean up so that Category:Months becomes a parent category. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:01, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Nazi Germany military ranks

Overly specific and/or encyclopedic. Category:Military ranks does fine without being split up for every army. -- Prince Kassad 14:30, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete mainly because Category:de:Military ranks only contains one article, so if we delete this we will have all six in one place, not two. And overly specific as pointed out. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:24, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete Way too encyclopedic. DCDuring TALK 18:02, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Del per nom.​—msh210℠ 18:08, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Deleted. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:00, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:fast and easy

...which appears as =Usage notes= at fast and easy. At best it's deeply subjective and way too detailed. At worst it's...just...complete bollocks. Ƿidsiþ 16:05, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

AFAICT it's just tosh, so strong delete. POV and unnecessary. Actually Extremely strong delete. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

delete. PoV pop sociologizing. Over the line between linguistic and sociological discourse analysis. DCDuring TALK 18:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Del per nom unless it can be made accurate and terse, which I doubt.​—msh210℠ 18:09, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete. It's not a usage note, really; the information belongs in the definition space, if anywhere at all. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 00:38, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Deleted. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:00, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Chinese phonology

Encyclopedic and overly specific. Also sets a precedent for creating Category:German phonology, Category:French phonology, etc. -- Prince Kassad 20:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Definite delete, should be in an appendix, or nowhere at all. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:45, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The only content of this category is the subcategory "ja:Chinese phonology", created on 2 September 2007, with the content 韻尾, 韻母, 介音, 主母音, 声母. So yes, unless it can be demonstrated that "Chinese phonology" as compared to "Phonology" is able to generate a interestingly long list of terms contained within the category, delete and move the content to Category:Phonology. --Dan Polansky 12:23, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Just noticed we might want to add Template:Chinese phonology to this discussion. -- Prince Kassad 12:30, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Fails RFDO, will be deleted when empty. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:54, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:English Hindi combinations

I don't think we should create all etymological combinations as categories, seeing as there's catscan if you're really interested in that kind of information. -- Prince Kassad 21:25, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete per nom. DCDuring TALK 22:56, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete, no need for it. Just use Category:English derivations and Category:Hindi derivations separately. There'd be no limit otherwise. Plus, name of the category is very ambiguous. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:47, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Deleted. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:00, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:zh-tone

The entries that we use it in are in the process of being deleted, ou having failed RFD. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 00:35, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

How the hell are you going to delete all these entries without any input from our only competent Mandarin editor? Fucking disgraceful. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 20:25, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Surely they can comment here as much as anyone else can? I'll put a link here from WT:AZH. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:59, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Not everyone monitors this vastly depressing page. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:01, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep per nomination. It's not incorrect and it's still used. Should only be deleted if all the entries using it fail RFD. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:02, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but toneless pinyin as failed RFD. I don't see why it all shouldn't be deleted as per the precedents at ou and ojo. I invite anyone who is dissatisfied to bring the issue back up on the BP or elsewhere, and I will suspend my activities in the interim.

I recognize that the template is still in use, and I of course wouldn't delete it until it wasn't used anymore, but still I think it ought to be deleted eventually. Neither is it incorrect. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 00:38, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Strong keep, unless Internoob can point to the supposed discussion where all toneless pinyin "failed RfD". bd2412 T 02:08, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah it has to be the other way around. We can delete this if/when all the entries that use it also fail RFD. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:00, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Kept

[edit] Template:form

Why do we need this as a template? -- Prince Kassad 20:11, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

See Category talk:Form of templates. It was created so that users could optionally display the word "form" in the form of templates. It appears like it was never finished. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 05:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

What's the advantage of this over just writing the word "form"? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:01, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Currently, none as it wasn't finished. The idea was this template would wrap the word in a span tag with a specific id. Then users could be use CSS to hide/show the span contents. I dislike the plethora of minor customizations so I vote delete. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 15:40, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete per above. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:58, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Deleted, all I had to do is replace {{form}} with form. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:50, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:flower

Apparently, this violates the conclusion of a Wiktionary vote on context labels, as it it used solely to categorize pages, not for context. Template:bird already failed, above, but is used on 700 pages so won't be deleted for some time. Mammal also failed and has been deleted. This one is "only" used on 90 pages, so could be deprecated much quicker. This one doesn't bother me personally but yes, creating pseudo-context labels is a bad idea as you could have anything, couldn't you? This is currently being discussion at the Beer Parlour too. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:47, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

delete --Bequw → ¢ • τ 14:54, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete per the result of {{bird}}. Razorflame 14:55, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep. This template can be turned into a category template, one that is made invisible by default. I do not see that keeping the template violates the conclusion of the vote Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-03/Context labels in ELE v2, which only speaks of how context templates should be used, without forbidding creation of category templates, and without mentioning that a host of templates is about to be deleted. A template that has been turned into a category template is not a context template, so the result of a vote on context templates does not apply to it.

Making the category label invisible by default is technically easy to do using CSS, and has already been tested by me.

I oppose the result of the deletion of "bird". --Dan Polansky 11:31, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I do understand, but it sets a bad precedent of allowing any template used purely to categorize through "laziness". We already have 550 context labels, allowing any random words would mean us getting to a thousand, or two thousand. At some point, can't we just write the damn word out between square brackets like [[Category:it:Flowers]]? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:45, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Using "Category:..." does not create the category label. If you look at the discussions at Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2009-03/Context labels in ELE v2, I was already hesitant at that point, having changed my mind to support the clear distinction of restricted context labels from mere categorization labels. That above all means that the definition of "river" does not carry the pseudo-context label "geography". Allowing category labels does not allow any random word to be attached to a sense, only a term that describes its broad category, such as "river", "bird", "flower", etc. --Dan Polansky 11:51, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

There is an addage in English: "Calling a lamb's tail a leg does not make it one." Similarly, saying this is not a context tag doesn't mean it isn't. There is already code in existence for categorization, and it works just fine. --EncycloPetey 15:07, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

You would first need to prove that the logical formula implicit behind the proverb applies; otherwise, proverbs as arguments belong not to logical but rhetorical discourse. If you claim that a category label whose appearance has been modified as I proposed is still a restricted-context label, and can prove it, go ahead; you may need to state sufficient conditions for what constitutes a restricted-context label, either by appearance or by function. Category labels differ significantly in semantics from restricted-context labels, which is I suppose undisputed, and can be made look rather different, so they end up differing also in appearance. How it is that such apperance-modified category labels are still restricted-context labels I really do not grasp.

I have explained that what is at stake is not only categorization but also showing a category label, but it did not prevent you from reiterating that wiki markup for categorization works just fine; for showing, it does not.

I understand that some people do not like category labels, and that if there are enough such people, there will be no category labels.

This response of mine is academic anyway, as I get outvoted. But I want to make it clear that I have been outvoted, not outargued. --Dan Polansky 14:45, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

You cannot be outargued since you haven't given any reason why a category should appear at the start of definition lines. With no argument put forward, it cannot be argued against, can it? If you understand that context and category labels differ significantly, then why are you so keen to mingle them? Doing so would promote confusion for both editors and users. You can indicated that the appearance can be modified, but have proposed neither quality nor mechanism to accomplish this. So, your arguments are purely theoretical, and have little bearing on the practical questions at hand. --EncycloPetey 03:02, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

This vote, together with the previous votes on the templates "mammal" and "bird", is likely to set a precedent for the following templates: organic compound, pharmaceutical drug, protein, fish, bird, amino acid, birds, carbohydrate, carbohydrates, chemical compound, inorganic compound, chemical element, element, chess piece, city, coenzyme, color, colour, computer language, genre, genres, insect, mushroom, mushrooms, plant, plants, enzyme, and reptile. I have copied the list from RFDO:template:mammal. --Dan Polansky 12:02, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete. Like other inappropriate uses of context tags, this should be deleted, although the entries (probably) should have the category added into the entry, rather than simply haivng this tag removed. However, they'd need to be checked individually, since there may be some terms that aren't flowers or relevant to flowers. --EncycloPetey 15:07, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

You are making it more and more difficult to edit on Wiktionary. Instead of deleting useful tools such as this that some people use, you should modify its output to conform with whatever new idea you have come up with (as I have pointed out before). Since the templates that I use such as mammal and bird have been deleted, I have stopped entering any new Russian pages...or any new entries in any language except by special request, because you have made it so difficult. I do not see whatever it is that you see concerning these templates and contexts, and I do not have a grasp of the rules that you use to determine when to use what. If you simply changed the output and left the templates, it would be much easier on editors that don’t know what you’re on about. —Stephen 03:57, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry that it's so difficult for you to type [[Category:ru:Mammals]]. How can we help? I have set up a custom Edittools that allows me to input [[Category:gl:]] with a single click, and sets the cursor after the final colon. This has made it easier for me to add categories to items. Perhaps this would help you?

Context templates are used to indicate that a term is restircted in its usage to (1) jargon of a particular group or field, (2) one or a few regions, (3) a particular period of time. If a word is used commonly by everyone, then it shouldn't have a context tag for that sense. The word dolphin should never have a "mammal" tag, because is not some kind of mammal jargon. Even small children use this word.

The problem with simply changing the output is that it would play havoc interacting with our existing context templates. The primary coding would have to be completely redone for all context templates to make this ill-conceived notion of sometimes-hidden context tags work. --EncycloPetey 02:54, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks like a deleter, any last comments? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Fails RFDO. --Mglovesfun (talk) 15:49, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Perl

Not sure where this could be used. -- Prince Kassad 15:50, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Comment. Perl, like many languages, has some specific terminology not shared by other languages; for example, [[bless#Verb]] currently has {{context|[[Perl]]|_|programming|transitive}}, which could surely be changed to {{Perl|transitive}} if we kept this. But whether we want or need that, I can't say. —Ruakh_TALK 15:55, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

delete. Only terms that appear in English (talking about Perl) could be used. I doubt there'd be enough of them to need their own category (this one isn't used yet). I say {{programming}} is sufficient. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 13:56, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Unsure, it is a context, it just isn't used much. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:49, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:webcomics

Not sure where this could be used. -- Prince Kassad 15:57, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete, too specific. Use {{comics}} or {{comic books}}. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:01, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 13:48, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Deleted. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:05, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:village

Used on one page, where it says:

1. (villages) A village in Nottinghamshire.

Not difficult to see why it isn't needed. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:22, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 13:49, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Deleted. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Extension

Used on one page. Bad caps, and I don't even know what it's meant to mean. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:22, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Please to don't orphan the templates so quickly. I had to scan an old dump to find where this and {{Sanskrit}} below were used (.com). Or at least provide to links to previous usage. While I agree that this context template should be deleted, we might want to have a [[Category:Translingual (file?) extensions]]. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 14:20, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Deleted. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Hindu deity

No more a context label than {{British Prime Minister}} is. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:23, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

delete. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 13:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Revise template to say (Hinduism) but use Category:Hindu deities. There are potentially hundreds of entries that could benefit. --EncycloPetey 02:17, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes I *could* favour that. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:24, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with EP. Revise. —Internoob (Disc.•Cont.) 23:19, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately some idiot orphaned this before it even failed, so if kept, it should (debatably) be put back. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Sanskrit

Not a context. Categorizes in Sanskrit language with no lang= parameter. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:24, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Seems to refer to Sanskrit grammar/phonology, so if kept it should be renamed. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:22, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, these are Sanskrit native grammar terms, and meanings of more general terms specific to Sanskrit gramamr (e.g. vrddhi). Please recategorize those back to Category:Sanskrit language if this is going to be deleted. --Ivan Štambuk 22:25, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

The category Sanskrit language is reserved for Sanskrit words, in the same way that simple past is not categorized in French language. Maybe a category or an appendix is a better move? I favour an appendix, because a category just lists things, but an appendix can explain them. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:41, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm aware with the overlap of topical and language categories, but I was under impression that that was something inevitable in cases such as this and silently approved. (And note that the sadly failed proposal of prefixing English topical categories with en: would solve this kind of ambiguity.) Writing an appendix is a painful task that requires continuous engagement and I would really prefer if this was kept in some kind of self-expanding category (if not in the basic Category:Sanskrit language, then Category Sanskrit grammatical terms or something similar underneath it.) --Ivan Štambuk 17:09, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Deleted. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:drug

Not a context. Plus bad title, drug in the UK and maybe other Anglophone places always means illegal mind-altering substance, not "medication". Mglovesfun (talk) 16:26, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Could it be a redirect to {{medicine}}? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 14:04, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Probably, it's only used an about 30 pages so we could check manually that {{medicine}} doesn't appear twice. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:28, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

I dispute that drug "always means illegal mind-altering substance", even in the UK in the population at large. In the US I don't think "w:Food and Drug Administration" is a misnomer. But that does not necessarily mean that {{drug}} should stay. Perhaps it could redirect to {{pharmacology}}. "Medicine" seems too unspecific. Would "{{pharmaceuticals}}" be a better context than "pharmacology"? DCDuring TALK 15:56, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Maybe not "always" but it's my first thought when anyone says drugs, unless it's US music or TV. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:41, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

From the above discussion, it should be clear that "drug" does not have a clear, specific, unambiguous meaning. since it can mean many different things, it is a poor choice for a context template name. --EncycloPetey 02:15, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete (thought I'd be bold, so to speak). Mglovesfun (talk) 20:57, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:recreational drug

Used on one page. You can just put [[Category:cs:Recreational drugs]]. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:27, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

delete --Bequw → ¢ • τ 13:57, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Deleted. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:33, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:auto parts

Multiple issues here. Firstly, not a context. Secondly, it seems to informal and/or ambiguous. Auto for car is quite American, I don't know anyone in the UK that says it, so I wouldn't have known what this meant before clicking on the category. I certainly could be renamed, but given it's not used much I think we could delete this and category the old fashioned way (write the name of the category out). Mglovesfun (talk) 09:38, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:munitions

Not sure where this could be used. -- Prince Kassad 06:54, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not a weapons personal at all, but isn't [[Category:Weapons]] enough? I think this should be deleted unless someone can explain how to use it and where. Maybe bullet and shell could go in [[Category:Munitions]], but that doesn't require a template. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:21, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm confusing munition with ammunition. Whoops. Delete as weapons covers this. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:24, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Any keepers? Mglovesfun (talk) 20:56, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:fish

Not a context, just a quick way of categorizing pages. The word "fish" doesn't help the reader, and in many cases the "fish" appears in the definition, esp. for English words. Delete, Mglovesfun (talk) 11:08, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

How about just removing the label? Clearly people assume that this should be a template, why break everything? Do we need a seperate kind of meta template to describe the function of templates like this (and {{mammal}} and {{bird}}) that while not contexts give useful basic information about the definition? Conrad.Irwin 12:56, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

I actually suggested that and it got shot down in flames on the Beer Parlour. AFAICT the biggest advantage of keeping this (almost the only advantage) is that orphaning a template used about 270 times is gonna be difficult. It doesn't particularly provide any information for the reader. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:10, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Keeping the template while modifying it was rejected in Beer Parlour (WT:BP#Template:bird (et_al.), Dec 09) by Mglovesfun, EncycloPetey and Bequw; and also at #Template:flower (Dec 09), where EncycloPetey, Bequw and Razorflame support the deletion of the template, while I oppose it and Stephen G. Brown expresses disappointment. --Dan Polansky 19:23, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete; the definition belongs in the definition, not in parenthetical information at the start of the definition line. Context templates are a short form of usage notes, not part of the gloss. --EncycloPetey 17:18, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete --Bequw → ¢ • τ 00:31, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:nth s imp pres of

[edit] Template:nth s subj pres of

[edit] Template:nth s subj pres of

[edit] Template:en-s of

[edit] Template:nth s cond pres of

All of these are unused, only linked page is the Beer Parlour archive of 2007. --Mglovesfun (talk) 14:50, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Adding Template:nth s ind sim past of, Template:nth s ind sim pres of, Template:imper of, Template:sing past of, Template:nth s ind sim past of and Template:nth form s ind sim pres of. These aren't orphaned, but have very few transclusions (in a few cases, just one) and could be orphaned in minutes. Apart from {{imper of}} which could be renamed and cleaned up, the others should go. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:48, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Are these templates intended for including or any they for subst'ing? --EncycloPetey 17:17, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Dunno, my opinion is that they were created in 2007 and never used. If they are for subst:ing, then they need updating to use {{form of}}. If people aren't using these anyway, they just using {{form of}} directly is a better solution, right? Mglovesfun (talk) 14:48, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

These don't seem to be subst: ones, just redundant. I might delete them the American way (i.e. unilaterally). Mglovesfun (talk) 20:56, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:city

Not a context, plus the usage is really bad and I can't see how to revise it. You get stuff like

1. (cities) Amsterdam

Which is actually confusing, not helpful. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:07, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Convert to plain categories. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 01:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Meaning what, sorry? Mglovesfun (talk) 11:51, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

What we have been doing for the other non-context templates that look/act like context templates, removing the context tag on each entry and putting a [[Category:xx:Cities]] at the foot of the entry. Once orphaned, delete the template. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 16:25, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete (just thought I'd say it in bold). Mglovesfun (talk) 19:05, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Any keepers for this?? Mglovesfun (talk) 16:28, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep all geographic toponym-type templates (or at least the categories) to facilitate work by advocates of gazetteer entries. It would be fine with me if the context tags themselves were invisible for now. If there are reasons to distinguish toponym senses (eg, New York: state, county, city, SMSA), then retaining the sense-specific information that is the placement of the tag against a specific sense seems potentially worthwhile. IMHO, generally, any tag or category that provides scaffolding for such a large-scale development effort should not be removed until such time as the effort decides it does not need it or it becomes clear that there is no such effort and won't be for the foreseeable future. We are not yet at that point. I would favor increased use of such tags until the gazetteer project is resolved. If it will be a perennial issue, then it will never be a good time to remove them. DCDuring TALK 17:52, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

And do what with it? It's incredibly confusing and it's not clear to me how to fix that. Changing the head word to geography doesn't help much either IMO. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:54, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep it and use it until the advocates of toponyms get their act together or the project is rejected or rendered obsolete by developments. DCDuring TALK 18:02, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Note that we don't have {{country}} but you can find {{context|country}} on a few entries. Along those lines, we don't have {{town}}, {{continent}} (etc.) and {{village}} failed RFD earlier this week. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:06, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Drugs

Moved from WT:RFC#Category:Drugs

As pointed out on WT:RFDO for {{drug}}, in the US drug can mean "medication" and in the UK it doesn't ever (AFAIK). Is there any reason to start a Category:Medications as a parent category for this? I'd say yes, or people are never going to understand what the category means. I certainly don't. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:31, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Not as a parent; I think it needs to be a replacement. The term "drug" has too many different common meanings to be a useful category name, IMHO. --EncycloPetey 16:49, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

---

Moved by Mglovesfun (talk) 18:09, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete but not sure what to do with the contents. I bet this drags on until next summer. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:54, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Metasyntactic words

Tagged by JackPotte but not listed. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:44, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep DCDuring TALK 22:59, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:English words spelled with nonstandard characters

Tagged by JackPotte. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 17:01, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep DCDuring TALK 22:58, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:English words spelled with diacritics

Tagged by JackPotte. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 17:01, 17 December 2009 (UTC

Keep DCDuring TALK 23:00, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:English words spelled with ligatures

Tagged by me, but for the same reason as the other three. I agree with Jack that these four should all be moved to category names with "terms" rather than "words" as that is more unambiguous. They all I believe currently contain terms with whitespace, so I believe "terms" is preferred. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 17:01, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with all of these, but somewhat weakly. If JackPotte's bot gets bot status, he can do this in a day. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:09, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Long English words

Purely POV? At the very least, it needs renaming to English terms with […] letter or more. Also, bad entry title (should always start with English, French, etc.) Mglovesfun (talk) 19:04, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

keep DCDuring TALK 23:01, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

And then do what with it? Mglovesfun (talk) 23:10, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

keep The shortest word in the list currently 27 characters. So maybe we just set an arbitrary cutoff, say 25 characters, and say that in the category header. I think the category should stay with "words" rather than "terms" because the point is to find long whitespace-free words, not general terms (that might include phrases). The lake term is included because of the second word only. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 00:25, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Ok, but according to WT policy the first word has to be "English", so we need a new name. English long words is probably good as it's gonna get, I don't fancy [[Category:English words of 25 letters or more]]. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:53, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:etyl:ONF.

Apparently a dialect of Old French. Doesn't make much sense to me, as it links to w:Old French and displays Old North French. Nobody seems to even know what this means; Old French was spoken in the north of France, and (mostly) Old Occitan in the south. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:28, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps it’s meant to refer to Old Norman. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 23:23, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

Seems much more likely, yes. But that's a total guess. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:29, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep. Despite what you say, it actually displays Old Northern French, which is another name for Old Norman; and plenty of people know what it means. (The "northern" doesn't have to do with the north of France, but rather with the north of the Old French–speaking area.) I've fixed w:Old Northern French to redirect to w:Old Norman; the template should be changed to just use that redirect and have updated the template to use that redirect. (BTW, the OED uses "ONF." for the same thing.) —Ruakh_TALK 17:02, 19 December 2009 (UTC) edited 17:26, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep revised version. Nice work. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:50, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Slight hesitation, isn't it redundant to Category:Anglo-Norman derivations now? Argh. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:11, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:emoticon

Not a context. Used on three pages, I can't see any reason not just to type out Category:Emoticons on those three pages. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:25, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

It's also not a context template. [[Category:Emoticons]] is a translingual category, not an English one. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:08, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete. Interestingly there is a difference between "Western" and "Eastern" emoticons. As both are used in multiple languages, the entries should Translingual. The category should be Category:mul:Emoticons (with possible E/W subcats). --Bequw → ¢ • τ 21:05, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

No it shouldn't, because these are emoticons, not words relating to emoticons. I'd expect Category:fr:Emoticons to give names of specific emoticons. I suppose lolcat should be in this category. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:49, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Quite right, Category:Translingual emoticons then. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 20:16, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Allegedly untranslatable words

Subjective, pointless, almost impossible to find. I wouldn't even settle for an appendix, this should be on a User or Talk space, not anywhere in the main space. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:39, 18 December 2009 (UTC)

delete. Pretty crappy stuff --Rising Sun talk? 19:05, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete - No use for it. Razorflame 20:48, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:Universala Vortaro

It is not needed because it is useless to identify a word as one being used over a hundred years ago. Razorflame 21:46, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Well the template should definitely be improved or deleted, as it does nothing but save typing the word category. Did you want to RFD the category as well? Mglovesfun (talk) 23:02, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

I'd say subst: the template and delete it, but keep the category (not that it has been nominated). Mglovesfun (talk) 16:34, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Esperanto 1894 Universala Vortaro

In that case, I nominate the category. It would be like having a category for all the words in the first edition of Merriam-Webster -- pointless. The Esperanto Official Basic Roots (BRO) does at least take the place of Category:1000 English basic words nicely.

Added the category to the title of this header. Razorflame 17:56, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

No keep. This is different as its a constructed language, and we're talking about the first official dictionary. It seems dictionary-worth and specific to me, I can see several reasons to keep it. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:46, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:COW nominations

[edit] Template:COW

[edit] Template:TOW

[edit] Category:TOW nominations

I have no problem with these personally, but since the collaboration of the week has been inactive since 2007, we can delete these and restore them only if need. Plus, the two templates are quite ugly and would need some formatting. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:15, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wiktionary:PMT Group Members

[edit] Wiktionary:PMT Language List

Unused, only one contributor who listed himself as the only member. Oh and bad capitalization. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:33, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Mark as {{inactive}}. Conrad.Irwin 16:34, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

I did that with the project page, but these subpages don't have enough content to warrant that, IMO. But point taken. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:36, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:warn

This template really messes up entries, making it look like the entry is really incorrect, when it's actually only used for entries that have passed rfv. What's wrong with {{neologism}} for neologisms? That does the same job without suggesting that the entry may be of low quality or reliability. --Yair rand 04:59, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Yeah this is a pretty bad template, it could perhaps be simplified and turned into usage notes. The thing is, we accept neologisms as long as they are attested, so what does this actually do? In short, delete or redo entirely as pointed out, it's big, ugly and serves no purpose. Mglovesfun (talk) 07:23, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete, use {{neologism}}. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 20:41, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:arcade games

Used on two pages; seems redundant to {{video games}} as I think all arcade games are video games. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:02, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Not redundant. A pinball machine is an arcade game, but not a video game. Could still be of little use though. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 20:47, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Good spot, but as pointed out not likely to be of much use. Still, I see no advantage in the delete over the keep now. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:53, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:planet

Not a context, just another lazy way to categorize things. 'Planet' should be in the definition. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:25, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:genre

Just too vague. I have no real idea what this is supposed to refer to. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:30, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Did you check special:whatlinkshere/template:genre? It's used to add the word genre to context tags and categorize in Category:Genres.​—msh210℠ 17:07, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

But that's not a good thing is it? Unless genre has another meaning I'm not aware of, it would be just like Category:Types, Category:Styles or Category:Methods. Doesn't mean anything. If it's a parent category, it should contain things like Category:Video game genres (which I would support) but not mythology, which isn't a genre, if so, of what? Mglovesfun (talk) 17:19, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Keep It looks useful to clarify the items that follow in the context tags. It would be nicer if it were followed by a ":" (colon) instead of a "," (comma). I have noted that {{usually}} does not have a comma after it in context tags. DCDuring TALK * Holiday Greetings! 19:43, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

It's used as {{video game|genre}} too.​—msh210℠ 19:52, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

You do realise that that categorizes in [[Category:Video games]] and [[Category:Genres]] separately? AFAICT you'd then want it not to categorize, at which point you can delete it any it changes nothing, a bit like {{by extension}} which has no advantage apart from brevity over {{context|by extension}} as by extension doesn't categorize. It would be simple enough to turn it into a non-categorizing template, but then if I delete it, it makes no difference whatsoever. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:50, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Category:England and Wales law

[edit] Template:England and Wales law

Encyclopedic overcategorization. Just about every country has it's own laws, so this style of category could go into the hundreds. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:24, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:carny

[edit] Category:Carny

Apparently refers to carny#Noun a person who works at a carnival. So how is that a context? Not even sure it can be renamed; if so, to what? Mglovesfun (talk) 17:57, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Delete, I see no use to this category or the context template. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 21:24, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:bicycle part

Exactly the same as #Template:auto parts above. I can't see how this can be used productively. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:07, 21 December 2009 (UTC)