Wiktionary:Requests for verification archive/July 2007

July 2007

levvy

With two v's? bd2412 T 04:02, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Common misspelling of luvvy. perhaps? --Connel MacKenzie 04:57, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Whoops, I had my smiley in the summary, but not here. --Connel MacKenzie 04:59, 1 July 2007 (UTC) :-)

I've had a quick look through google web, books and groups searches and found:

• Lots, and lots of uses of "Levvy" as a surname, including an widely-cited academic making books searches hard
• "Levvy" used in comics-related newsgroups as the name of an award of some sort, presumably named after a person with the surname "Levvy". It might be worth checking to see if this meets our CFI
• Quite a few misspellings of "levee" (including at least two different parodies of w:American Pie)", the most frequent use of "levvy" with a small "l". I don't know whether this will meet our CFI though.
• One or two uses of "levvy" that are either misspellings or archaic spellings of "levee"
• One or two misspellings "levy", extremely unlikely to meet the CFI
• No misspellings of "luvvy" Thryduulf 23:50, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 22:24, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

whigger

--Connel MacKenzie 04:43, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Google Groups suggests that wigger is a wee bit more common, but yes, this is real. Are you RFV-ing wigger as well, or just this spelling — as in, do you doubt the word's existence, or just that it's spelled like this? (I'll cite it either way, I guess, but it would be nice to know.) —Ruakh_TALK 06:54, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have clarified: I have serious doubts about this spelling. I have no doubts that the word (spelled correctly as "wigger") is in use. --Connel MacKenzie 16:13, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

The whigger spelling is important, as an apparently intentional conflation with the Whig Party (either one?). (Of which members at the time were just called "Whigs"). So the spelling is very real, and the reference to Whig should be noted. Robert Ullmann 16:36, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

So, a British variant of the American slang term? --Connel MacKenzie 18:41, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow! Our definition of Whig is pretty misleading. There were a couple years where the term was used attributively by a nascent (temporary) American political party, but the term means the British party - it is in every way reminiscent only of British politics. --Connel MacKenzie 18:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

This is a choose your own adventure: either RFV passed, or RFV failed but cited by Kappa before anyone got around to actually marking it failed. Either way, entry retained. —Ruakh_TALK 22:28, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

gronk

Four definitions given; all seem copyvios, unattested, or both. There should be, perhaps, the onomatoepeic "definition" from the cartoon. But the floppy drive? No, even when I still used 3.5" or 5.25", it was never called 'gronk'. (Nor even when using 8" floppy drives!) --Connel MacKenzie 04:56, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 22:32, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

synodicer

--Connel MacKenzie 05:58, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

• Rubbish. Deleted SemperBlotto 06:50, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
  • I think there were several related terms, as well? --Connel MacKenzie 07:54, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
  • No. It had been created by TheCheatBot because synodic had been wrongly formatted as a noun. SemperBlotto 08:24, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
    • That's sort of what I meant. I think I got the others cleared, with it. --Connel MacKenzie 16:09, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

4649

--Connel MacKenzie 06:10, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

delete --Williamsayers79 15:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

May be good; I can't tell if it is citable in use (mentions are easy); it will take a fluent native speaker (I can't skim google returns in Japanese the way I can in English ;-( ). It does make a great deal of sense. (more than l33t) Robert Ullmann 16:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't that imply the language heading should be ==Japanese==? --Connel MacKenzie 20:02, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

This is very common as a Japanese "abbreviation" (I’m not sure that abbreviation is the best word). 4 = yo; 6 = ro; 4 = shi, 9 = ku ... yoroshiku (よろしく) ("I’m glad to make your acquaintance"). On Google, it gets over 140,000 hits[1]. —Stephen 17:42, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Sounds to me we should treat it as a textspeak-style contration, e.g. the English m8 and cul8r. Thryduulf 18:43, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

It's real, like txtspk or leet. I even found a cite for it. Cynewulf 19:13, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

...which brings us back to the question of whether it is English or not. I'd close the Japanese portion of this RFV on the strength of Stephen and Cynewulf's assurances that it is common in Japanese, but there's still an English section on the page... — Beobach972 02:26, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Whoops, someone added the Japanese section, instead of correcting the L2 language heading? (I don't think anyone contests its existence in Japanese.) --Connel MacKenzie 19:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

rfvfailed for English (left as Japanese) Cynewulf 18:50, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Abacot

A historically notable misprinting. I'm not really sure what to do with this, as it has no real meaning. Opinions? Dmcdevit·t 08:22, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I would make it an {{alternative spelling of}} bycoket, with =Etymology= notes on how it originated. Widsith 09:34, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Cleaned up, moved to abacot. —Ruakh_TALK 22:47, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

five alls

--Connel MacKenzie 02:44, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

From the google books hits, it is easy to see that the definition given is correct. However the first few pages of hits refer to its use on signs of pubs called "[The] Five Alls". There is scope for an encyclopaedic article about the sign, but I'm not certain about whether "five alls" is dictionary material, especially as there are occasional variations with four or six.

Looking to see whether there should be an English entry for "alls" (the page exists as an entry for a Catalan word) it seems likely that this is an archaic term, but I've not been able to find many uses of it outside the proper nouns e.g. as above. Does the OED have anything on this? I suggest a transwiki to en.wp if it is decided this is not suitable for wiktionary.

alls is used in medical literature to mean "acute lymphoblastic leukemias", but I'm not certain if this is an acronym or an initialism, or whether the singular "all" is used. It certainly meets our CFI though.

"alls" is also found in plurals of noun phrases that end with the word all, e.g. know-it-alls, free-for-alls, cure-alls. It is also used as a misspelling of "all's", a contraction of "all is". How do we include these? Thryduulf 10:07, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

It's also often a jocular pluralization of all (that doesn't actually affect the meaning). As far as I can discern, this is due to a misspelling/reanalysis of dialectic all's (which seems to originate in all as, as being a dialectic variant of that in many senses), influenced strongly by the survival of all's in a few stock phrases (such as "All's I know is […]") in dialects where as is no longer otherwise used to mean that. —Ruakh_TALK 15:32, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

This is archaic but was once a very common phrase otherwise it wouldn't have been used to name pubs. The name has been heavily used in Stokely Green (near Stokenchurch) in Buckinghamshire where it has appeared on a pub, a car garage and is now emblazened across a private house with very similar mottos to the quotation given. The humour behind the phrase has stood the test of time. I think the phrase it should be included as archaic as an idiom, but current as a pub name. It certainly deserves a Wikipedia article too. Thorskegga 14:02, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed as a common noun; moved to Five Alls. —Ruakh_TALK 03:47, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

pinner

Adjective sense. Not in any other dictionary. SemperBlotto 09:26, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, section removed. —Ruakh_TALK 23:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

strikethrough

strikethrough as a verb?? Surely this is the phrasal verb strike through. Algrif 16:01, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks like it. I googled for struckthrough as a potential past form and got 105,000 hits. All the listing I looked at were functioning as adjectives for the first few pages of returns. --EncycloPetey 16:58, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Ditto my comments below for strikesthrough. Algrif 15:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed: cited quite a while ago, no objections since. —Ruakh_TALK 23:19, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

cum whore

The only b.g.c. reference that supports this is a secondary source - all others seem to be the form "x-cum-whore", e.g. "secretary-cum-whore" or "businesswoman-cum-whore" in stark contrast to the pointlessly peruile definition proffered. --Connel MacKenzie 16:06, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

In contrast, look at the google groups results, where you will find many thousands of uses in the "adult" meaning. Thryduulf 20:03, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Um, no. I sure "adult" meanings can be found, but not that one. But nevertheless, I didn't see any on a cursory look at b.g.c. Instead, I found lots of "secretary-" and "businesswoman-" references, which mean only whore (in a literal or figurative sense.) --Connel MacKenzie 19:26, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

No doubt, but it's not really a set phrase. Widsith 08:36, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. (Note that our one reference completely disagreed with our definition, and our one quotation didn't 100% agree with our definition, either.) —Ruakh_TALK 23:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

It girl

? --Connel MacKenzie 16:42, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

This has already passed RFV, about a year ago.--Dmol 21:03, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Not exactly. With no discussion, and no citations, it was incorrectly marked as "passed" for no apparent reason. --Connel MacKenzie 19:30, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Couple of comments. I rfd'd the original def – The actress Clara Bow, and later I added the def "a rich party girl, socialite" which seems to be the common understanding of the term. Discussions that followed were,

The article lists the only def as "the movie actress Clara Bow". I'm thinking of the more modern (chiefly British???) definition of a rich party girl, socialite, bimbo etc. Does the def as stated exist, and if it does, surely it should be relegated to second place.

--Dmol 22:51, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

It girl, in my experience, is more of a flavor-of-the-month appellation; e.g., who's hot at the moment. See the Wikipedia It girl article. BD2412 T 15:24, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

So which meaning is in dispute? Is the term chiefly UK?--Dmol 10:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

General sense RFV passed, as it seems to be in clearly widespread use in the UK. (?) Specific sense RFV failed, removed. —Ruakh_TALK 16:55, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

strikesthrough

Only one citation, and likely a typo. --EncycloPetey 17:02, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Can we transfer the entry to strike through? Algrif 18:21, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea. --EncycloPetey 20:28, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Not if you consider strikethrough, strikingthrough, struckthrough, and strickenthrough. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 01:12, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried a Google search on strikingthrough and strikesthrough? I am very uneasy about the validity of strikethrough as a verb. As a noun, OK. struckthrough and strickenthrough as adjectives, OK. But I really do not see any support for the verb form. All the hits are either 1) mis-spellings. 2) Taken from computerspeak and blogs. 3) Using the noun form as a verb incorrectly. If this was a real verb, then it would be strikethrough strikethroughs strikethroughed, whereas the actual forms given are strike as an irregular verb plus the particle through. It's a phrasal verb. Convince me it isn't. Give book citations, please. Algrif 15:16, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The entry for strikethrough already has the requisite three citations for the verbal sense (and they are all books). Or do you deem these invalid? † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 15:30, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Strikesthrough now has six citations. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 16:27, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

So it qualifies as a common misspelling then. --EncycloPetey 18:02, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Common misspelling of what? † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 19:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Of strikes through. --EncycloPetey 21:25, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Do you think so? The noun comes from “strike + through”; the verb comes from the noun; the inflexion comes from the verb, with knowledge of the “strike + through” ultimate origin retained. I believe that “strikesthrough” is used intentionally, not mistakenly as “strikes through” with the space omitted. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 21:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

If those citations are to be believed, (livejournal is not durably archived for CFI) then it is a slang British-ism, while simply an error in GenAm. The compound word is the noun strikethrough; as much fun as verbing words can be, it is still incorrect to verb part of the noun. It would inflect as strikethroughs / strikethroughing with no past or past participle conceivable, if one wanted to be intentionally incorrect. But splitting a compound word does not allow re-attachment after inflection (perhaps that is not true in BrE?) --Connel MacKenzie 23:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

[See my combined reply after your bulleted comment immediately hereinafter. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 01:03, 6 July 2007 (UTC)]

• Who keeps entering "cf." in actual entries? Gender abbreviations are the only abbreviations allowed in entries (except of course, for direct definition references.) Use "confer" or "compare." --Connel MacKenzie 23:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Even if the Live Journal quotations are deemed invalid, the other four citations mean that strikesthrough nonetheless meets the CFI. Why is such verbing incorrect? –Please provide reasons and/or references. Why is cf. disallowed? What about sg and pl? Is e.g. expected to be written as exempli gratia? This all sounds very doubtful — cf. is a common and well-known Latin abbreviation used in English. Please point to the policy or section thereof which states what you assert. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 01:03, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

This is Wiktionary. WTF? Get with the program. --Connel MacKenzie 17:03, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Simply, Connel, you’ve yet to give a good reason for not using these Latin abbreviations; so I, who think that they are appropriate, am not going to stop using them just because of your personal preference. You have misrepresented your opinions and preferences as being “common practice”, policy, or shared by (an) authorit(y/ies) more than once in the past, and that is, I believe, what you are doing now. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 17:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know whether Connel is citing actual established practice in this case, but for the record, I'm with him in opposing the use of "cf." in entries — though perhaps not for exactly the same reasons. I'm O.K. with "e.g.", "i.e.", "etc.", and other common abbreviations with specific meanings (though for myself, I prefer "such as", "that is", and "and so on", or other such English equivalents); but "cf." just means "and by the way, you might also be interested in this entry, but I won't tell you what part of it to look at or what connection I think there is". Wiktionary is not paper; we have room to actually explain the connection. If you can't take three seconds to explain the relevance of the entry you're linking to, you must not think the link is so important; so why include it at all? —Ruakh_TALK 17:44, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Ancient history, but very solidly established practice: and a precursor to what eventually became WT:VOTE! Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/October-December 05#Abbreviating "singular" and "plural". --Connel MacKenzie 00:31, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

That settles it then. I shall only use the abbreviations sg, pl, m, and f from now on. Connel — could you move this obscure piece of case law to somewhere more accessible (pertaining to WT:ELE?) to make future reference thereto easier? † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 02:07, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I use cf. consistently to mean “carefully distinguish between this X and the similar yet vitally different Y”; writing cf. is a lot neater than writing that kind of thing every time (especially in pronunciation sections et cetera). † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 18:11, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

But if not everyone knows that that's what you mean by it, then people are liable to take the exact opposite interpretation. (In this case — strikesthrough linking to strikethroughs — it's liable to be misinterpreted as "Note that the normally inflected form strikethroughs exists as well.") —Ruakh_TALK 20:20, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Point well made. I now oppose its use for the definitions of strikesthrough and strikethroughs. I shall consider possible misinterpretations of cf. in future. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 21:12, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I just did a Google search on strikethroughing It's barbaric. I sometimes wish we had a Royal Academy of English‼ So strikethrough as a verb must remain. But as Connel suggests, what about the past and past participle?? I need a good strong cup of something to get over this. (or should I be getovering it?)Algrif 16:17, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I'm going to add the phrasal verb a.s.a.p.Algrif 16:48, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

All that is needed now is someone with the stomach for it to correct the third person singular, present participle, simple past and past participle forms on strikethrough to read correctly, not the barbarised forms of the phrasal verb that are there at present.Algrif 17:00, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Google Book Search returns no examples of “strikethroughs” as a verb form; moreover, searching for “strikethroughing” and “strikethroughed” yields no search results in either case. The past tense and past participle forms are, of course, “struckthrough” and “strickenthrough”, respectively; nota bene that whilst conducting a normal Google search for “strikethroughed” yields 535 hits, searching for “struckthrough” yields over 180 times that number, giving 97,700 hits. No “corrections” are necessary. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 17:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

As a postscriptum, note the following interesting example of this process of continuing to treat a verb as its two separate constituent morphemes and inflecting it accordingly here: “How about just sharing the text that’s in the cell and describe what characters are strikedthrough (struckthrew/struckthrough?)”. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 17:26, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I suspect that a large number of those struckthrough results will be adjectives.Algrif 18:14, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

The supremacy of computerese is why I sometimes wish there was a Royal Acad. of English. I think it is bad use of English. But then English is as English is spoken. Find the quotes and other examples, and that's it. That is why I reluctantly have to agree to the verb form. But I still think (personal POV) it is a barbaric way to treat the language. Algrif 18:21, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree somewhat (especially in re strikingthrough). What prescription do you feel is appropriate? † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 18:29, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

(Shrugs shoulders and moves debate to WT:BP )Algrif 15:23, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed. *sigh* —Ruakh_TALK 00:44, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

shath

Claims it's a portmanteau of shower + bath, given to children. A quick google books search shows only 36 hits for "a shath" with none supporting; seems like nonsense. --Jeffqyzt 17:21, 2 July 2007 (UTC) Google Books search for shath bath OR shower also gives no support. On the Web:

• [2]: shath (shower-bath)
• [3]: my bower (shath? We have a bathtub, no shower, with two separate hot and cold taps, so we bought a shower attachment that we could hook up to the taps and have the water come limping out of one nozzle. It is not a very strong shower, water pressure-wise, and we can’t stand up in the tub (even if we wanted to, the roof slants so it’s between 3 and 5 feet high from one side of the tub to the other so all we can manage is an uncomfortable half-crouch that is worse than sitting).
• [4]: a shower. Well, sort of a bath. A Shath I suppose. No shower curtain meant a shower sitting down in the bath tub.
• [5]: what I like to call a Shath. I've been shedding like a dog in july but even though I clean out the drain after every shower, I guess enough hair goes down (or other stuff, I don't know what's down in those pipes) that the shower tends to get clogged early on in the shower experience, causing the showeree to have both a bath and a shower at the same time. a Shath.
• [6]: shath (shower+bath)
• [7]: taking baths... or shaths (standing up in the bathtub, using the handheld shower and trying not to spray all over the room)
• [8]: He kind of takes a bath, but gets rinsed with the doggie shower head. So I guess we can call it a shath.
• [9]: You fill up the bath with a little bit of water (but not so much that it's a bath!) then get in and shower as usual, except that it's not a shower - it's a shath
• [10]: I shower and wash my hair, then fill the bath up while I put leave-in cinditioner on my hair and when I finish soaking I put the shower back on and wash it out. I call it a shath
• [11] uses what I like to call a bower or a shath to refer to sitting in a bathtub with the water running on oneself.
• [12]: I showered off after that [bath] (my friends and I refer to this as a "shath")
• [13]: Hairy people, or women who refuse to clean their hairballs out of the drain all inevitably cause shaths. A shath is when you attempt to take a shower, but because there's enough hair over the drain to make Jason Alexander a toupee, you end up taking a bath.
• [14]: something we nicknamed a "shath." Basically, we would stop up the drain to fill the bottom of the shower with about an inch and a half of warm water to bathe Hope while the shower ran overhead.

I didn't note dates as I was going along, but, hey, you have the URLs. Those are all (I think) blog entries or comments on blog entries, so they should have dates. But note that shath has at least three different meanings on the pages I've quoted (which is why I've quoted them so extensively). —msh210 07:03, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

These quotes aren't useful, because the author for pretty much all of them seems to have neologised the phrase - call it simultaneous neologisation if you will --Keene 18:43, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed. Entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 00:55, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

glad rags

--Connel MacKenzie 17:37, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I've heard this in the lyrics to the theme song from the original BBC version of The Office: "the handbags and the glad rags that your granddad used to sweat so you could buy." With the two citations currently on the page, that makes three. I think it should be marked (UK) though. --EncycloPetey 18:10, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

That song is Handbags and Gladrags, originally by Rod Stewart and covered a couple of years ago by the Streophonics (I don't know which version is used in the theme to The Office). Independently of each other Rukah and I have added another group of cites, so I think this one has been comprehensively verified. Thryduulf 18:51, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

• I agree, striking. Kappa 02:20, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

  But you didn't properly tag it as {{UK}}? The only US cite is a secondary source of dialect-isms. --Connel MacKenzie 19:41, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

No, it's originally a US term - I heard it started as cowboy slang. Widsith 08:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

back of a bus

Were they trying for the English idiom "a face only a mother could love"? --Connel MacKenzie 18:28, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

This is another British idiom with two forms, comparing usually people but sometimes other things to the "back of a bus" or the "back end of a bus". It means that the person or thing being compared is ugly, or at least very unattractive. cites:

• "back of a bus"

1. • 2002, Simon Avery, a little buzzed, a lot cheesed off, alt.geek [15]

     My great-aunt just died 2 days ago. She was a catholic nun. Spent all her life in prayer. Fat lot of good it did anyone. The prevailing concept in the family was that with a face that looked like the "back of a bus" there was no way she could get married and there weren't that many other careers available for a woman at the time. I think that was one of the worst wastes I've seen in my life.

   • 2004, Robert B. Waltz, New Haven, Forest Hills R16 Rankings, rec.sport.tennis [16]

     The fact is that a 16yo who's playing well and blitzing through the rankings is hot even if she has a face like the back of a bus and a body like a tank. Youth and novelty count for a lot to these guys.

   • 2005, "nemo", Beeb sports reporter mangles the English Language!, alt.fan.goons [17]

     The prettiest one of the lot - can't remember he name - turned out to be gay though and ended up going round with one with a face like the back of a bus!

• "back end of a bus"

1. • 2001, "Richard", "A sign of our times...", demon.local [18]

     Not really fighting over her (puns aside). When you get a current beau and an ex, full of booze and testosterone, meeting up, their common interest isn't much of an issue in the subsequent display of machismo. I think she looks like the back end of a bus but, to them, she was a 'possession'.

   • 2004, David Platt, "DUCHESS OF YORK NUDE", uk.politics.misc [19]

     You surely can't be comparing Alicia Witt with Sarah Fergusson? Alicia Witt looks stunning, while the duchess of Pork looks like the back end of a bus.

   • 2006, "sheelagh", "Bookie: Did you adopt the blind cat?", rec.pats.cats.health+behav [20]

     As I once told him,being british,looking like the back end of a bus or weighing 30stone, was utterly irrevlevant to the posting i made

• "back end of a bus, not a person"

1. • 2002, "Tanuki the Raccoon-dog", I drove a..., uk.rec.cars.modifications [21]

     Must admit, I like the *original* 911s - the original, late-1960s ones back before they fitted bulgey wheelarches and silly tea-tray rear spoilers. They look much more like delicate, precision instruments compared with the later 'sledgehammer" versions [which IMHO are about as attractive as the back end of a bus].

Thryduulf 19:52, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

is the back end of this bus ugly?

These seem like entirely compositional similes; "back of a bus" is not actually used to mean anything other than the back of a bus. -- Visviva 04:15, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

If it is obvious that being compared to the "back (end) of a bus" means "ugly", rather than literally looking like the rear of a bus then perhaps it doesn't belong. I'm not certain that is obvious though. Thryduulf 08:44, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

It wouldn't be obvious to me. The question is, where should we define a stock simile like this? At like the back of a bus? —Ruakh_TALK 16:00, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

As it happens, one of my back burner projects is a standard simile appendix. (Surprised?) There are a lot of them, and I think it could be a useful resource. As black as coal. As white as snow. As strong as an ox. As ... as and like similies are quite hard to find, but the Wikt is ideal for producing this kind of resource and making it easy to use just by checking the headword adjective / adverb. ugly would lead the reader to As ugly as the back end of a bus. Algrif 16:29, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

But that phrase has only three Google hits and no g.b.c hits, whereas "like the back of a bus" has loads (and is a very well-known and understood phrase in the UK) SemperBlotto 16:58, 3 July 2007 (UTC) p.s. Old-fashioned double-deckers were asymmetrical at the back with an open platform at the bottom left - such faces are normally thought to be ugly.

For what it's worth, here's a print quotation for the like (adjective) use:

1. • 2005: Will Hadcroft, Anne Droyd And Century Lodge

     ‘You’ve got a face like the back end of a bus,’ he spat, his eyes raw and burning. Then he grinned, his yellow-stained teeth spreading across his mush [...]

...and here's an example of it as a noun:

1. • 2003: Glen Duncan, I, Lucifer

     Adam was no back end of a bus either — the sloe eyes and sculpted cheekbones, the tight buns and chiselled pecs, the abdominals like a cluster of golden [...]

— Beobach972 17:03, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever heard (or noticed) this British idiom before. Given the abundant (diverse) citations, I think it is fair to say "rfvpassed." --Connel MacKenzie 06:52, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Except it is wrong as it stands. The expression is "like the back end of a bus" (adjective phrase), not just "back of a bus" (noun phrase). The definition is for this adjective phrase. I'll change it and let the current entry redirect to the full phrase. — Paul G 11:14, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, there are two forms of the idiom, used in the same manner. I am familar with "back end of a bus", but "back end of a bus" is just as verifiable. Thryduulf 11:35, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed. —Ruakh_TALK 01:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

After timer

--Connel MacKenzie 18:37, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 01:08, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

GILF

--Connel MacKenzie 18:38, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

It's used to refer to ‘women mostly between the ages of 50 and above’, eh? Hmm... — Beobach972 16:50, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

PS- I'd have guessed it stood for girl I'd like to feel... — Beobach972 16:50, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Same here, I assumed it was a variation of "MILF". Thryduulf 17:06, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I thought it was GMILF. bd2412 T 02:35, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Also of note is the signature wording of the "Usage notes" section, exactly in the form of previously deleted nonsense. --Connel MacKenzie 20:02, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 01:10, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

Information exchange

Tagged but not listed. --Connel MacKenzie 18:40, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

typewrite

The verb is (and was) to type. --Connel MacKenzie 04:49, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

now cited. Thryduulf 09:22, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Typewrite is bad enough as a verb, but I'm truly impressed by the use of comuter percentage as a verb in your 1935 quotation ... — Beobach972 16:42, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

It was actually "compute percentage". It's fixed now. —Ruakh_TALK 16:50, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to see a usage note (if nothing else) explaining why the word type is favored now. --Connel MacKenzie 20:03, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

If it citeably is preferred, and the reason for this is citeable, then go ahead and add such a usage note. My guess is that in current usage "typewrite" is used almost exclusively to specify the use of a typewriter rather than a computer, with "type" used generically; but I've not looked to see if there is any supporting evidence for this. If it is the case, then the usage note could say this, but I'm not sure that it would be accurate to say that "type" is preferred over "typewrite" as the meanings are different, in much the same way that neither "write" nor "handwrite" are preferred over the other, although the former will naturally get more usage being the generic term referring to all forms of writing, whereas the latter is only used in circumstances where the distinction is important. Thryduulf 22:25, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed. —Ruakh_TALK 01:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

gun fu

--Connel MacKenzie 21:27, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 01:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

ç'

— Beobach972 23:45, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

"ç' and çfarë" gets about 414 Google books hits, but the ones that appear relevant are not in English (and it's hard to tell whether the apostrophe is necessary, as Google will return all results with a letter "c" in response to this inquiry. There is definitely a word, çfarë, but in what language and with what meaning, I can't tell. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:59, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Here are some examples showing both çfarë and ç' as a combining form, but I can't even guess the language. [22],[23], [24] bd2412 T 00:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

It's apparently Albanian; see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0352030/. —Ruakh_TALK 00:24, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Albanian was my guess, based on one of the German books (which was a discussion of Albanian, and mentioned it), but, as you say, a number of the most relevant quotations are not in English. Beyond simple verification that this exists in a language, we need to determine what language that is (and what L3 header to use?). — Beobach972 17:01, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

All of the examples noted above are from Albanian. The giveaway is that the book titles include the word "Albanian" in German and in "Serbo-Croat". Of course, it's also a giveaway when the nouns all end in ë; I don't think I've seen that happen in any other language. I looked on the Albanian Wiktionary, but they don't have an entry for just ç'. Baed on what I've seen in the linked texts above, I don't think it occurs as an independent word. It looks to me like it shows up as a contracted portion of a word, much like -n't does at the end of some English verbs. Neither does the Albanian Wiktionary have çfarë, so I can't guess what that word means either. Although I couldn't find out anything more about the Albanian uses, the French Wiktionnaire does have an entry for ç'. In French it is a rare elided form of a demonstrative pronoun. --EncycloPetey 04:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

What I could glean was that it was a pronoun meaning who (bear in mind that may be completely erroneous). — Beobach972 04:58, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I think the gist of the above is that these should be kept, but we need an Albanian speaker to tell us what they mean. bd2412 T 23:35, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Fortunately for us, we have a new Albanian user (User:Zeke_sq-N) who has joined us from the Albanian Wiktionary. He's added much information about the Albanian, which now needs cleaning up to meet formatting standards. --EncycloPetey 00:03, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Verified. De-listing. bd2412 T 00:37, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

near the knuckle

Meaning risque? bd2412 T 00:57, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

• Yes. That is what the idiom means in the UK at least (I don't know why). SemperBlotto 08:15, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Struck. SB's word is good enough for me. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:53, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

jopeless

Spanglish of some form? I do find a scattering of odd Google hits for this and for "jopeful," but nothing that really suggests it might meet WT:CFI. -- Visviva 01:29, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

• Hits seem to be OCR errors for hopeless. Possible joke. Deleted SemperBlotto 08:16, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

scholalia

--Connel MacKenzie 06:44, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

genuine issue of material fact

Note: the title of this section was previously Genuine issue of material fact.

Sum of parts? Caps? Nasty format. SemperBlotto 19:01, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

No caps (fixed that). But this is a very common phrase in legal parlance. Any first year law student will be taught to recite it like a mantra in their civil procedure class. In order to get summary judgment (i.e. judgment as a matter of law) the moving party must always prove that there is no "genuine issue of material fact." For example, if we agree that we signed a contract and disagree over whether a term in the contract has a particular meaning, that is an issue of law, not an issue of fact, and a court can decide that without hearing witnesses or taking evidence. If you say I signed the contract and I say I never signed it at all, that is a question of fact, which must be decided by a factfinder after hearing evidence from both sides. I can assure you that this term has clearly widespread use in law.[25]. Cheers! bd2412 T 05:56, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree (in fact, I know) the phrase is used extensively, but its meaning is clear from its components "genuine", "issue", "of", and "material fact". —msh210 07:46, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

On the surface that is correct, but it doesn't tell you that, in strictly legal parlance, this terms refers to the kind of issue that prevents a litigant from prevailing on a motion for summary judgment. This is a legal "term of art", and should remain on that score. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:41, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

You're saying that the meaning of genuine issue of material fact is "an issue of material fact which is genuine and which (therefore) causes a judge to dismiss a motion for summary judgment"? I differ, if I may. I think it means "an issue of material fact which is genuine" only. The fact that it causes a judge to dismiss a motion for summary judgment is not part of the definition of the word but is, rather, just a legal fact about summary judgment motions. An analogue: Would you say that death means "termination of life, which causes one's possessions to become an estate so someone can inherit"? Or would you say it means "termination of life" only; and the fact that it causes someone to inherit is just a legal fact about estates? —msh210 14:03, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

The thing that makes it a set phrase is that a lawyer would almost never say "an issue of material fact which is genuine", nor would they say a "real" issue or a "legitimate" issue, or refer to the need for a "pertinent fact" or a "fact on which the case may be decided". The phrase that you will see in the lawyer's brief and in the court's opinion will be "genuine issue of material fact", almost without variation. Other phrases with exactly the same apparent meaning would simply be wrong in the same way that it would be wrong to refer to something as being "under average" instead of "below average". bd2412 T 16:49, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

So this belongs with the below average discussion then, I suppose. That has stalled, although people seem to agree on not deleting the entry. However, DAVilla's argument there (q.v.) that below average be kept does not apply to genuine issue of material fact. To paraphrase, it was: The meaning of below average is not ascertainable from its parts, as below does not mean "having a score that is below". Here, the meaning is ascertainable from the parts (treating material fact as one part). Nor does Connel MacKenzie's rationale there apply here. (Note, though, that your own argument, BD, to keep below average does apply here, as you're probably well aware.) —msh210 15:15, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Has an entry in Black's Law Dictionary (8th ed., p. 708). Thereby meets the lemming test. So keep, I guess. I'm not big on the lemming test, but as defined in Black's, the term seems fairly non-compositional.-- Visviva 13:50, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed, despite not having been actually, you know, cited, because it's fairly clearly in widespread legal use. (If there were clear consensus that it was sum-of-parts/non-idiomatic, I might be bold and just delete it, but that's not the case, so I'm hesitant to do that without an RFD.) —Ruakh_TALK 04:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

P.S. But I'm adding the new {{rfquote}} template, since this should be cited. —Ruakh_TALK 04:57, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

evacipate

Cynewulf 19:17, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

rfvfailed Cynewulf 16:27, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

USAFMC

--Connel MacKenzie 00:14, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 01:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

dacrygelosis

I don't see any b.g.c. hits in English that aren't secondary sources. --Connel MacKenzie 01:25, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd keep it anyway - seems it appears in about a dozen medical dictionaries. A word like that, even if regularly used among medical professionals, is not going to get much use in parlor talk. bd2412 T 01:32, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

But it doesn't appear in any non-dictionary works; if it was actually in use, there should be at least a few hits on Google Scholar or PubMed. But there's nothing; it seems, on the face of it, to be one of those words that has been passed from one dictionary to another without anyone ever checking whether the term is actually used. If this is the case -- and perhaps it isn't, perhaps the usage is just unusually well hidden -- this word doesn't belong here, because entries in a dictionary don't count as attestations of use. -- Visviva 01:56, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

But b.g.c. has actual medical books (not just dictionaries) in its archive; if the word were in actual use, one of them would mention it. And Google Scholar would pull up at least one hit. —Ruakh_TALK 01:57, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd still like to see it kept (by which I mean I hope some CFI-worthy sources are found) because it's just the sort of thing that there ought to be a word for. bd2412 T 02:32, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I haven't found verification either, but, interestingly, a picture titled "Dacrygelosis" is pictured at [26], which latter is dated 2003. —msh210 07:37, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

That's neat, but seems to be from "d" + "acrylic" - lic + "gel" "-osis" or something. Abstract, no doubt. --Connel MacKenzie 19:46, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed — no primary sources found — entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 18:44, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

ishiki

I gather the basis for listing romaji here is that they are actually used, but I'm not sure that's the case here. A cursory look at Gbooks and Ggroups didn't turn up much. -- Visviva 08:13, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I assume you're not disputing the existence of 意識 but rather whether Wiktionary should include romaji entries. The policy has roughly been that romaji entries (ishiki) are assumed to pass based on the existence of the normal form (意識). Cynewulf 19:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

As for verifying this particular entry, looking through the gbc hits I get lots of transcribed article titles from bibliographies, in addition to things like a parallel-text transcription and mentions in English works. I can probably dig out 3 or so cites that aren't obvious mentions. For what it's worth, I've never seen a whole book written only in kana or romaji, but then I don't go looking for children's books. Cynewulf 19:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess my question would be "are romaji such as this ever used as a medium for actually writing (vs. transcribing, transliterating, etc.) Japanese?" My impression had been that this is not the case, which makes the verifiability of these entries somewhat dubious (see also curent discussion at WT:BP#CFI for romanizations/transliterations)... Taking another tack, is it possible that "ishiki" might meet CFI as an English word, perhaps a technical term in Japanese studies or what have you? -- Visviva 05:24, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Romaji is/are used a lot in email and discussions and so forth; as Cynewulf notes you usually do not see books in romaji. This is one of the cases in which google makes life difficult; there are a lot of domains and proper names with "Ishiki" Robert Ullmann 23:02, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed, even though uncited, because it's standard but uncodified practice here to include romaji entries for attested Japanese words. —Ruakh_TALK 18:36, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

gaiden

Supposed to be Japanese, but uses wrong script and en-noun template. Encyclopedic. Can it be saved? SemperBlotto 15:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Recreated as normal romaji entry. Cynewulf 19:00, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

50 Cent Shoe

Mainly RFVing this because of the etymology: "Derived from the ancient myth of Stuart, David and Alex 'just missing' a cricket ball and a gangsta's shoe at different events respectively" - I'm not familiar with Australian culture enough to get this, but it almost sounds crazy enough to be worth looking at. --Keene 20:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 01:47, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

2tm

2tm claims 2b internet slang - I suppose finding a quote on bgc isn't the bset place to look? --Keene 20:20, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 01:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

2125

supposed Internet slang --Keene 20:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 18:20, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

555

supposed Internet slang --Keene 20:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

it means crying in Chinese, (mandarin), because it sounds like crying. there's absolutely tonnes of these if you want entries for them all, I don't know. Pistachio 22:17, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

If we do have an entry for it the language header should be Mandarin or Chinese, not English. Thryduulf 22:27, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

555 is used heavily in Thailand because 5 (ห้า) sounds like 'ha',

so we use it as a shorthand to 'ฮ่าฮ่าฮ่า'; the equivalent form exists but may not widely used,

for example ๕๕๕ (using thai alphabet for five); ห้าห้าห้า (lit. five five five). - 15:22, 2 September 2007 (UTC) — This unsigned comment was added by 58.9.110.70 (talk). linebreaks added by Thryduulf 17:07, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

What is it used to mean in Thailand though? Thryduulf 17:07, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Expression of laughing. Just like lol or ｗ. - 58.9.110.70 07:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

I think we should include all of these that meet the three independent durably archived cites spanning at least a year requirements of the CFI. As we should include English equivalents, e.g. b4 (before), l8r (later), etc. Thryduulf 17:07, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

English entry RFV failed, deleted. If a Thai or Mandarin entry can be cited, please feel free to create it. —Ruakh_TALK 15:12, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

143

supposed Internet slang --Keene 20:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

This was around - and widely used - when I was in high school. bd2412 T 23:29, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed — not cited, and IMHO not "clearly in widespread use" — entry deleted. Sorry, bd2412. —Ruakh_TALK 18:31, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

12B

supposed Internet slang --Keene 20:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 18:28, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

2186

supposed Internet slang --Keene 20:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 18:26, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

latices

--Connel MacKenzie 23:24, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I haven't got time now to add cites here or to the entry (and might not until Monday evening), but the "plural form of latex" definition is easily verifiable from the first page of b.g.c - [27], [28] and [29]; it might need a context tag though as the hits appear to be from quite technical works. Nothing in the first page of b.g.c verifies the "misspelling of lattices" sense as inclusion-worthy - but given the existance prevalence of the latex usage, this does not surprise me and certainly doesn't rule it out yet. Thryduulf 00:37, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I’ve added six citations showing latices used as the plural of latex to the entry’s subpage. The misspelling sense is yet to be verified — it may just be a usuress → usurers example of spell-checker inadequacy (although I agree that latices → lattices is a lot more likely than said inextant erratum). † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 14:42, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

In print dictionaries. — 193.203.81.129 11:24, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Anon., what is? † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 13:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I've just noticed that latices notes latexes as a synonym. latexes on the other hand links to latices as an alternative spelling. Obviously the two should be the same, but I'm not certain which is correct? Thryduulf 17:17, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Synonym. Their definitions are both “Plural form of latex”, which means they are synonymous; however, they are not alternative ways of spelling the same plural form. For the sake of example, the hypothetical “latexiz” would be an alternative spelling of latexes, and the hypothetical “laticese” would be an alternative spelling of latices (both of which would be marked non-standard, I suspect) — but latexiz and latexes would be synonyms of laticese and latices. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 18:28, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

My vote is for alternative form, but this isn't something we've reached consensus on yet. —Ruakh_TALK 20:06, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

That would work, although it would still be useful to distinguish alternative spellings from alternative forms. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 20:42, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Plural form sense — RFVpassed. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 20:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Misspelling sense — RFVfailed. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 20:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

font

Noun sense #1: a fountain.

Um, no. That would be a fount. Is this an error, or is it really used this way in England? (It does not have that meaning in GenAm.) --Connel MacKenzie 00:39, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I take it you're not a fan of Shakespeare? :-)

Font definitely has an archaic sense of fountain, whence also a still-current metaphorical sense, found in phrases like "a font of knowledge". (The best definition for the sense in current use would be something like "An inexhaustible source; construed with of.") In all such uses fount is found as well, albeit perhaps less commonly.

—Ruakh_TALK 05:51, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Um Ruakh, the only two uses of font in Shakespeare refer to a baptismal font. However, this disputed definition is valid and not an error, albeit dated/archaic. The OED describes this use as "now only poetic". I did find one quote on Wikisourse, but the vast majority of them refer to baptismal fonts.

• 1887 — Henry Rider Haggard, She, ch XXIII

  "Ah, my Holly," she said, "thou art of a truth like those old Jews--of whom the memory vexes me so sorely--unbelieving, and hard to accept that which they have not known. But thou shalt see; for unless my mirror beyond lies," and she pointed to the font of crystal water, "the path is yet open as it was of old time. And now let us start upon the new life which shall end--who knoweth where?"

There is also a figurative sense derived from this: "a source, a wellspring" which is missing from the page, as seen in expressions like "font of wisdom" and as evidenced by the quotes below.

• 1824 — George Gordon, Lord Byron, Don Juan, canto V

  A gaudy taste; for they are little skill'd in
  The arts of which these lands were once the font

• 1910 — Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, part II

  As I am not drawing here on the font of imagination to refresh that of fact and experience, I do not suggest that the Tarot set the example of expressing Secret Doctrine in pictures and that it was followed by Hermetic writers; but it is noticeable that it is perhaps the earliest example of this art.

• 1915 — Woodrow Wilson, Third State of the Union Address

  I am interested to fix your attention on this prospect now because unless you take it within your view and permit the full significance of it to command your thought I cannot find the right light in which to set forth the particular matter that lies at the very font of my whole thought as I address you to-day.

--EncycloPetey 08:23, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Those seem to be scanning errors of "fount" though, right? --Connel MacKenzie 16:37, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

"Font of wisdom", "font of knowledge", "font of information", and "font of understanding" all get more Google hits than their counterparts in fount, and I couldn't find any phrases so constructed where a version with fount got more hits than a version with font. That said, all of them are pretty close. —Ruakh_TALK 17:14, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the correction, EncycloPetey; mea culpa. (I think I used to think that a baptismal font was an actual fountain, which might explain my confusion.) —Ruakh_TALK 17:14, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, sense removed. (It's unfortunate, because the OED has five quotations it says belongs to this sense, but what can ya do?) —Ruakh_TALK 02:10, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Lawyer's Wig

--Connel MacKenzie 04:13, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Certainly it shouldn't be capitalized, but I don't have any books on British mushrooms to check this one properly. Wikipedia redirects "lawyer's wig" to the page about the mushroom genus Coprinus. The Hutchinson's Encylopedia identifies it with Coprinus comatus, and a combined Google search for pages containing all the words "Coprinus + lawyer + wig" gets 530 returns, which is more than I would have expected. --EncycloPetey 02:14, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

They are very tasty, lightly fried in butter. Personal experience.Algrif 19:03, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Given EP's comment, I'm going to mark this RFV passed, despite the awkwardness that not all the cites in the entry are using the same capitalization. —Ruakh_TALK 02:15, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

stinky

Second sense. Especially latest edit. SemperBlotto 07:39, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I've heard in similar constructions to the "I can't beleive you made such a stinky decision" given, but haven't time now to look for cites. I doubt the "too desirable" usage.

the "You stink from your spleen. (english of Tu pues de la rate)" is in completely the wrong place. If this is an English usage, it should be at stink, but my first impression is that this is an idiom in some foreign language. Putting the phrase into Google suggests it might be (Latin-American) Spanish, but it gets 0 hits as an exact phrase on google web. Thryduulf 08:12, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

«Tu pues» means "You stink" in French, not Spanish. PierreAbbat 19:02, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense removed, cites added, and RFV passed. —Ruakh_TALK 18:16, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

calchasam

Only 2 Google hits, and only 20 of calchasm, of which it appears to be a misspelling. "gg:calchasm" brings up some occurrences on Wiki, and some wordlists, but no use of the word in context. PierreAbbat 01:39, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

frings

Fries and rings as a single word? bd2412 T 03:22, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

• Someone ate them in San Diego, April 2006. [30]
• Someone them in Marin County, Calif., June 2005. [31] WP says that's San Francisco-area.
• People ate them in Daly City, Calif., Dec. 2006 and May 2007. [32] WP says that's in San Mateo County.
• Someone ate them outside Sacramento in Aug. 2006. blog dot myspace dot com/jeremyfitch
• Someone ate them in San Diego in May 2007. [33]
• People ate them June through September and November 2006, and January and February 2007, in San Francisco. [34]

There are more results on Google; that was just a sampling. I'd say it's likely specific to California, except that a chain called Cheeburger Cheeburger seems to have them on its menu; and it's based in Fla. DejaNews results:

• Florida 2003 [35]
• Florida 2004 [36]

In those two, I mean the food was eaten in Florida; I don't know where the person was from (although further Google Groups research might reveal that).

• May 2007 [37]
• March 2000 [38]
• Jan. 2000 [39]

I think it meets cfi. —msh210 06:21, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed — uncited, and despite msh210's research, it's not obvious to me that this could be cited convincingly. —Ruakh_TALK 15:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

machine-readable dictionary

Sum of parts? (needs formatting) SemperBlotto 10:12, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Gets a lot of b.g.c. hits. I'd define it as any component following the 'dict' protocol, (rfc:2229) myself. MRD does seem to be the typical abbreviation. --Connel MacKenzie 14:59, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm marking this RFV passed because it's clearly in widespread use with this sense, as google books:"machine-readable dictionary" and google scholar:"machine-readable dictionary" make clear, even though no one has actually cited it. The "sum of parts" question is better discussed at RFD. —Ruakh_TALK 17:56, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

do a Reggie Perrin

Move to BJAODN? --Connel MacKenzie 14:51, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Why? SemperBlotto 14:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

With only one b.g.c. hit, it seems like it was a passing nonce. Is it not? --Connel MacKenzie 15:01, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I've added cites, the b.g.c one you found and two of the >30 from Google Groups (often a much better place to look for informal and slang terms than Google Books). As the TV series this comes from, w:The_Fall_and_Rise_of_Reginald_Perrin, was broadcast between 1976 and 1979 I would be extremely surprised if the first ever use was in 1998 (the earliest g.g.c hit). Thryduulf 16:22, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

And more hits on http://www.guardian.co.uk a personal favourite site.Algrif 16:41, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I've encountered this one as well. --EncycloPetey 17:44, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed, thanks all. —Ruakh_TALK 20:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Wait, cancel that; the third cite is not using the phrase "do a Reggie Perrin", but rather the verb "do" with the phrase "a Reggie Perrin style fake death". —Ruakh_TALK 20:22, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

O.K., I've added another b.g.c. cite. One b.g.c. cite italicizes "Reggie Perrin" and one uses quotation marks around it, but I think that just means they're taking "Reggie Perrin" as the name of the show; I think the quotes are valid anyway. If anyone would like to object, please do so in the near future — this page is getting overfull, so the sooner this is resolved, the better. —Ruakh_TALK 20:39, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed. —Ruakh_TALK 05:33, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

pop culture pariah

Idiomatic? A set phrase? bd2412 T 17:50, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Usually that's a question for RFD, unless you're following SemperBlotto's lead. What you're requesting here is three quotations. When you have three quotations will that answer your quetion? DAVilla 18:24, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Three quotations showing idomatic use will, yes. bd2412 T 19:42, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Move to RFD? Widsith 09:19, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

move to RFD.--Williamsayers79 14:51, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Moving to RfD. bd2412 T 18:17, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

expressionality

Sounds like a real word, but gets one Google Books hit (not capitalized). bd2412 T 19:40, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

The word expressional exists, but the noun from it is expression, not expressionality. I would have just deleted it. SemperBlotto 21:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

So would I, but it did get that one hit... bd2412 T 23:26, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

I’ve cleaned up the entry, redefined the word as per my (quickly-made) interpretation of the use in the quoted book, added the single citation, and moved the entry to the uncapitalised form. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 23:51, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Still doesn't appear to meet the CFI, though. bd2412 T 01:23, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Regardless, I’d rather not have such a messy entry listed on RFV for a month. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 07:53, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

True, true. bd2412 T 04:35, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Sounds extermely suspect to me, move to RFD.--Williamsayers79 11:27, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

That would be out of process. Sounds like colloquial GenAm to me. But I'm not sure why the groups.g.c cites aren't added yet, nor the two b.g.c. hits? (Was there only one last week?) For all the stuff that does pass that shouldn't, this seems to be receiving unduly harsh treatment, for no distinct reason. --Connel MacKenzie 16:46, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. (Connel, please feel free to restore it and add verifying cites.) —Ruakh_TALK 20:17, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

newfangleder, newfangledest

These were marked as the comparative and superlative forms of newfangled when I came to the page. I've never come accross these (and they sound horrible to my ears), so when I formatted the entry I added the more/most forms I'm familiar with. However I have retained (and created entries for) the -er and -est forms pending verification. Thryduulf 20:25, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

"Newfangleder" gets 0 Google Book Search hits and just 2 Google Search hits (one of which is Wiktionary). "Newfangledest" gets only 1 Google Book Search hit (John Bull, 1903, no preview available unfortunately, so it might be a scanno) and 9 Google Search hits, one of which is of course Wiktionary, and the others are mainly blogs and forums/messageboards. Shouldn't it be "more newfangled" and "most newfangled", anyway? RobbieG 12:37, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I suggest we delete them. Widsith 12:41, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree, they will be deleted imminently.--Williamsayers79 14:29, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Just for the record, the comparative and superlative adjectives that come from or resemble past participles ending in -ed are almost always formed using "more" and "most". The only exception I can think of right now is "damned" (and its variants). — Paul G 16:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Do we have an Appendix:English grammar yet?  :-)   --Connel MacKenzie 16:48, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

No forgetting the occasional further and furthest where more applicable. misled and out of the way are two that spring to mind. -- Algrif 15:13, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

wuzzle

Secondary sources only? --Connel MacKenzie 02:25, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I seem to have found one source (possibly): "Wherefore it be. hooved Walter to fish like an archangel. lie didn't look the

part, being screwed into a wuzzle behind his gleaming glasses" although I have no idea what it means. Also it appears to be a made up term for animal homosexuality (from other book hits). 68.231.151.161 02:35, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Here's another one: "Walter far-sighted it, his sunburned face puckered up in a wuzzle." 68.231.151.161 02:39, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe this is a word with a generally accepted use or definition. Not in any other dictionary I can find. I deleted it on sight - feel free to reinstate if you think otherwise. SemperBlotto 07:20, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

situational ethics

Also needs cleanup. Widsith 09:18, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

. . . or even a definition. Why not just delete it? SemperBlotto 09:20, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Er...all right. Widsith 09:34, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

nuupi, nobo

One thing is that these entries are incorrectly classified as either Norwegian or Finnish. I suppose it is Norwegian since the same IP user has done some similar work. I'd like to see whether these are real in any case though. __meco 21:22, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

They are Finnish, not Norwegian. —Stephen 22:48, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entries deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 22:36, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. For some reason Stephen removed the RFV tags when he made that comment, which kind of defeats the point of RFV — the idea isn't that you have to follow WT:RFV to know whether a given entry has been RFV'd. So, I guess this will have to be re-listed. —Ruakh_TALK 22:48, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

arbium

Really? bd2412 T 04:33, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks like spam. Already deleted from Wikipedia. We should do the same. SemperBlotto 07:15, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I can barely make head nor tail of it. The word does get google books hits, but none are English - mainly Latin with a couple of ones that look like French and German. Thryduulf 08:50, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks like nonsense to me, and I can find no word in Latin spelled this way. The only references I found were for a hill called Arbium in northeastern Iberia. --EncycloPetey 06:17, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

deleted --EncycloPetey 00:08, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

schvatza

Misspelling of Schvartze - probably not common. Also, has this word crossed into English? bd2412 T 05:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I think it should be listed as ==Yiddish==, if kept. --Connel MacKenzie 18:24, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

No, Yiddish words aren't spelled with Latin letters.—msh210℠ 22:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Some senses are definitely nonsense, and I'm deleting them. Also neatening the page. Although I highly doubt it'll pass CFI.—msh210℠ 22:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 20:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

SV Dynamo

CFI? SemperBlotto

RFV failed, deleted. Also, page title protected, since this has been re-created by the same editor every time it's been deleted so far. —Ruakh_TALK 05:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

overweight

Describing a vehicle: I think this might be two words ("over weight") and not idiomatic. — Paul G 16:07, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Pretty common in USA, but should probably be tagged as transportation jargon or something. I don't recall ever seeing it as two separate words. --Connel MacKenzie 16:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Cited. Rod (A. Smith) 22:22, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed. Thanks, Rod. —Ruakh_TALK 05:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Julie Andrews

--Connel MacKenzie 16:16, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 05:48, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Whoopi Goldberg

--Connel MacKenzie 16:22, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I would move both of these to whatever that page is where we stick jokes and other nonsense. Widsith 09:38, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd just move then to RfD. Neither is entertaining enough for BJAODN. --EncycloPetey 06:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

These were cited in WP a while back (but removed. I don't know whether they were removed because of lack of verification of accuracy or because the facts were not relevant to the actresses' respective articles (in the Great Trivia Clean-Up)). See e.g. [40]. However, that certainly doesn't mean that it passes cfi, which I frankly doubt, but which I haven't done the research into. —msh210 14:30, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 05:56, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

baker-knee'd

--Connel MacKenzie 16:43, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 05:50, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

FOSSer

Note: this section was previously titled Fosser.

(and Fossers) All the citations are for FOSSer... Dmcdevit·t 11:56, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

This was previously RFV'd in March 2006 (when, admittedly, we were still trying to figure out precisely how RFV should work.) You can certainly move it to FOSSer, but I don't understand the reasoning for the re-nomination. Hmmm. That also predates our pseudo-archiving scheme of RFVs. If you intended this for RFD, then I'd say it can be deleted right after Microsoft is deleted.  :-)   Otherwise, the nomination would not seem to have a NPOV. --Connel MacKenzie 05:09, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Moved to FOSSer and redirect deleted; no other action taken, as it doesn't seem to have been requested that FOSSer be verified. (I'm not sure all those quotations are actually durably archived, but I'm not complaining if no one else is.) —Ruakh_TALK 05:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

experience

I can't make head or tail of the supposedly intransitive sense of the verb "experience". The OED does not show any intransitive usages of this verb. -- WikiPedant 14:04, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

I have come across this. I kind of associate it with hippy or new age babblings ("Don't think, just experience, man!"). I could only find this one example, but it's quite a tough one to Google for:

It gives them a chance to think about things, or the opportunity to not think and just experience. [41]

Matt 00:46, 13 July 2007 (UTC).

I found another very similar one through Google Books in "Boost Your Self-Esteem" by John Caunt, 2002, page 82:

Don't think, just experience.

Matt 20:01, 15 July 2007 (UTC).

RFV failed, sense removed. —Ruakh_TALK 22:34, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

be

I'm not convinced that the last sense "Used to form the subjunctive" is a distinct sense. Every verb (except maybe modal verbs) has the same form in the subjunctive as its infinitive.

The original example for this sense was the incomprehensible (to my mind) "Be she more patient", which I take it is meant to mean "May she be more patient", which is indeed in the subjunctive. I have changed it to the much more understandable "I must insist that you be quiet."

Whichever of these sentences is used, all we have here is "to be" in the subjunctive, rather than being used as an auxiliary, which would apply to another verb to turn it into the subjunctive. There is no other verb in these examples, and I'm not aware of how you could use "be" in this way.

So I think this sense should go, otherwise we might as well have "Used to form the past" and then give an example using "was". (Incidentally, that usage is already covered by "be" used to form continuous tenses, which is a legitimate sense that should certainly stay.) — Paul G 15:02, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Although the infinitive form of the verb be is used to form the subjunctive, you are correct that the subjunctive mood is not solely dominated by use of the single verb be. It's only that be looks so different when it inflects in the present, so it's use to form the subjunctive is more often noticed. This merits some sort of note, I think, though not a separate definition. BTW, your change of the example isn't entirely a good one. It changes the verb to a mandative construction that borders on the imperative, albeit a weak version. You would preserve the distinction better by avoiding the second person pronoun. --EncycloPetey 21:25, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, sense removed. However, subjunctive "be" does have some special properties — for example, "be it/they" = "whether it's/they're" — that might warrant a usage note. —Ruakh_TALK 15:20, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

kebab

Second definition - vagina --Keene 18:35, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Never heard it before, but Google searches on "her kebab" and "flashing her kebab" generate lots of plausible hits. -- WikiPedant 19:33, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

It was used by the w:Big Brother contestant w:Jade Goody here in the UK (specifically, she said "You can see my kebab", so search on that phrase), but whether it was around before then or was her euphemistic coinage, I have no idea. The woman has a reputation for being not very bright, so it could even have been a malapropism on her part. — Paul G 11:04, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

This is one of those profanosaurus/urban dictionary terms, although very entertaining, should really reside on the wikisaurus for vagina rather than in the main articles.--Williamsayers79 13:32, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, sense removed. —Ruakh_TALK 18:15, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

lolcat

--Connel MacKenzie 00:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

• I added this. I'm kind of new here... exactly what "verification" is required (beyond 1,080,000 Google hits, I mean). Matt 00:30, 13 July 2007 (UTC).
  • We require three durably archived uses that clearly so the term being used (rather than mentioned) spanning at least a year. See the Criteria for Inclusion Thryduulf 00:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

No google groups hits from prior to 12 April this year, although the earliest hit "LOLCat builder ... Create your own LOLCat memes" indicates it has been around longer, likely in blogs.

The hits do verify the meaning given, but with only 3 months of durably archived usage it is clearly a neologism and so doesn't meet our CFI. Do we have a list of neologisms as we do protologisms? Thryduulf 00:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the google blog search results [42] (are these durably archived?) the earliest hit which unquestionably conveys meaning is from 26 January 2007. At least one hit suggests the term wasn't in widespread use yet by 8th February, an earlier term apparently being "cat macro", although this gets far fewer blog hits and I'm not certain that it was used in this sense before December 2006 (a slightly earlier use was a program to randomly insert random characters into what you are writing, to mimic a cat walking across your keyboard). Thryduulf 01:12, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I would have thought neologisms were exactly the sort of entry that should be in Wiktionary. What's the point of having something instantly updatable if you can't update it when new words come along? Even if this word has a short lifetime, I do not see any downside in including it. Matt 00:54, 13 July 2007 (UTC).

We are not here to record internet memes, nand so it was decided long before I was active Thryduulf 01:12, 13 July 2007 (UTC) here that we are not interested in words that do not last at least a year in actual usage. See WT:CFI for all this.

Huh? Surely Wiktionary aims to record every (eligible) word, whether associated with an internet meme or otherwise. Of course, there have to be some criteria for inclusion. We don't want to include words that someone made up one afternoon and used once in a chat room. However, due to its widespread use "lolcat" easily satisfies any reasonable inclusion criteria in my view. It's possible that "lolcat" may never appear in any standard dictionary, and yet in twenty years' time someone might be very interested in finding out what it meant and what its origin was. In this sense this entry is potentially much more valuable than the reams of Wiktionary definitions that are already readily available in dozens of other dictionaries. Matt 17:15, 15 July 2007 (UTC).

Indeed we aim to record every eligible word, and the emphasis is rightly on "eligible" here. As you so rightly point out we do have to have some criteria for inclusion, and one of these is that usage of the word spans at least one year, which isn't the case of "lolcat", at least not yet. It is the job of Wikipedia to explain the origins, coverage, etc of notable memes - they have no criteria relating to the length of time something has to be around; notability or lack thereof is irrelevant to the criteria here. Also, the origin of the meme is not something that would be recorded here (that's Wikipedia's job), we would record the origin (etymology) of the word "lolcat", which will probably just be "loll + cat" plus a note about the earliest recorded uses.

Come back in mid-February next year and, if use of the term continues to then you should be able to argue for its inclusion. Come back on or after the 12th of April 2008, and assuming the term has continued in use until then, there will be no question it meets the CFI's "usage spanning at least a year" criterion. It is irrelevant whether or not the meme lasts that long, as long as people keep talking about it in durably archived locations (newsgroups are a good place for this). Thryduulf 17:55, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Just to nitpick: I would assume (not having checked) that the etymology is actually LOL+cat rather than [[loll]+cat. —msh210 14:11, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, note that we do include words that appear in a refereed academic journal, and this sidesteps most of the other requirements; so if anthropologists or linguists actually write about this phenomenon and use or mention the term lolcat, we can be a tertiary source. (See Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion for details on our criteria. They're a bit complicated, and have less consensus than you might expect considering how long they've been established policy, but overall they're pretty O.K.) Secondly, the lasts-at-least-a-year requirement is a generally a pretty good one; remember that we don't require that the meme last at least a year, only that the word be used over at least a year. If no one ever talks about this meme again, or if they use a different word to refer to it, then I guess we're right to exclude lolcat. —Ruakh_TALK 19:04, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

In case it was unclear, my "huh?" comment was in response to the statement "we are not here to record internet memes" which seemed like a blanket, unqualified statement. I absolutely agree with you about the need eligibility criteria; our difference is about what those criteria should be. In my opinion this word is eligible for inclusion now due to its very widespread use on the Internet, irrespective of what happens in the future. However, I appreciate that others take a different view. Matt 19:39, 15 July 2007 (UTC).

My "we are not here to record internet memes" is true - we are here to record the words they use if they meet our criteria for inclusion. Eligibility "due to very widespread use on the Internet" is a valid argument for inclusion on Wikipedia where notablity matters. The criteria here are more objective than on Wikipedia. Thryduulf 20:30, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 18:17, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

integritous

I couldn't find any examples. --EncycloPetey 06:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

That's because it isn't a word. Deleted SemperBlotto 07:09, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

keet

Not in the OED or in any of my dictionaries. SemperBlotto 07:17, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I've found the cites below for the Americanism guinea keet (capitalisation and hyphenation vary) meaning guinea fowl, apparently of any age. It seems like it might be regional ("particularly in the south") as well.

1. • c. 1919-1924 (published 1926), Blanche Colton Wialliams, Best American Stories, 1919-1924, Doubleday, Page 203

     “Say, Annie, do you know a chicken when you see it walking round? Or a turkey? Or a guinea keet? We got em all, Aunt Dolcey, she takes car of ’em”

   • 1963, Cecil Robinson, With the Ears of Strangers: The Mexican in American Literature, University of Arizona Press, Page 77

     ...but after they've calved a time or two they swell up like a cow in a truck patch an’ you need a wagon to move ’em. They do nothin’ but eat and holler like a guinea keet....

   • 2001, Richard S. Raffauf, Journal of a Country Gentleman, Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, page 26

     George (the male Guinea keet) was half through a hole in the fence losing many feathers to Red, who was trying to help him back into the pen.

I have also found the following mention (not use) that notes it can be shortened to keet

1. • 1860,, John Russell Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms: A Glassary of Words and Phrases Ususally Regarded as Peculiar to the United States, Little, Brown, page 184

     Guinea-Keet, or simply Keet. A name given in some localities to the Guinea fowl, and probably derived from its cry.

As "Keet" is a very common surname and "Keet Seel" is (part of?) the w:Navajo National Monument I'm having trouble finding relevant results, even excluding "Keet Seel" and the frequently mentioned "Dot Keet". Note though that the Wikipedia article w:Domesticated guineafowl notes "the chicks are called "keets." As keets they are highly susceptible to dampness...". Although I've not verified "keet", don't write it off yet as with persistence I think it could be citable. b.g.c. searches for keet guinea and keet fowl bring up plenty of mentions, but not seemingly uses. "keet" can also apparently be an abbreviation for parakeet (this usage might be Australian) and one book notes it as a Devonian term for buzzard. I've not attempted to verify these uses yet.

separately the article w:Keet (about an Orca) notes "The word "Keet" means orca in the Tlingit language", which we should have if we can cite it. Thryduulf 09:03, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The number of online Tlingit texts is rather small, and none of them seem to contain this word (nor could any of them really be considered durably archived, as far as I can tell). On the other hand there are any number of primarily-English texts which offhandedly gloss "keet" as Tlingit for orca/killer whale... I don't suppose there's any special WT:CFI dispensation for such cases? Pity... -- Visviva 14:22, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Cited the sense in question. Not sure what to do with the Americanism; should we consider it to be a meaning of "keet" (which happens to usually collocate with "guinea"), or simply treat it as a set phrase? -- Visviva 14:13, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Given that it is sometimes hyphenated, I suggest it should be treated as a phrase with a secondary sense of keet being "a guinea keet or guinea fowl" with a note that it is less common, but I'm not set on this. kleet should be linked from guinea keet as a related term or possibly a derrived term. Of the uses I found the various spellings were "guinea keet", "guinea-keet", "Guinea keet" and "Guinea-keet" with no one obviously dominating. Thryduulf 17:09, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed; thanks, Thryduulf and Visviva. (Note: Thryduulf's cites have not yet been added to any entry.) —Ruakh_TALK 18:22, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

ivy

(With apologies to Connel if this is a well-known American term; he often posts British terms here that he is unaware of but are well-known in the UK.)

The second sense: "A university in the Ivy League". Is this legit? I see no mention of it in w:Ivy League. And if it is OK, should it really be "Ivy" (with capital "I")? — Paul G 10:57, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes and yes. -- Visviva 11:21, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

And it appears in singular also: [43] (as an adjective, I think), [44] (as an adjective), [45] (as a noun with the sense under discussion here), [46] (as a noun with the sense under discussion here). —msh210 14:05, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, sense removed (but of course y'all should feel free to add this sense at Ivy). —Ruakh_TALK 18:40, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Wiktionary:About Swedish/Pronunciation ERROR

Wiktionary:About Swedish/Pronunciation seems to be misusing the IPA characters /ʉ/ and /ɵ/. I wrote more specifically about it in Wiktionary talk:About Swedish/Pronunciation. The errors might have be copied from a Swedish erroneous source. Rursus 11:07, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, RFV isn't really equipped to handle this sort of question. You may wish to bring it up with Peter Isotalo, who added that information. —Ruakh_TALK 15:26, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

caughten

Not in the OED. -- WikiPedant 13:39, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

• All but one of the b.g.c hits that I can see are copies or quotes of Middle English text, it was certainly used by w:Geoffrey Chaucer and hit contemporary w:John Gower. The one that isn't suggests it might have survived as a dialect term, but as this book only has a snippet view I can't tell for certain. Thryduulf 17:26, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
• Only 29 google groups hits, at least two of which note they are not certain it is valid, one is gibberish afaict and I'm not certain about the independence of the last one. That leaves 25 possibly valid uses over 12 years (1995-2007), which doesn't make it valid usage in my book. Thryduulf 17:34, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
  • The archaic first sense is only found in very old sources, namely: in line 31 of a section entitled Alexander in The Parliament of the Three Ages, written circa 1370 by an unknown author living in the East Midlands (whose surname was possibly “Age”); in John Gower’s Confessio Amantis, written sometime 1386–1390; and in verses 18–19 of chapter 24 of the Biblical Book of Acts of the English translation of the short-lived Latin Editio Sixtina (the revision of the Vulgate ordered by Pope Sixtus V in 1589), written, at the latest, in 1611.
  • The non-standard second sense is only found in fairly recent sources, all twenty-seven of which are various Google groups, with examples spanning 13 years, 2 months, 15 hours, and 27 minutes (10:18am, 21/III/1994–1:45am, 22/V/2007). The 1996 citation which at first looks like “gibberish” is written in a Germanic English eye dialect, of which I have tried to give a “translation”. Judging from context, it is certainly a past participle form of the verb catch, and is certainly non-standard. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 15:07, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I particularly like the one b.g.c. hit from Language Patterns of Poverty Children (I know, I know...{{nosecondary}}.) But those Usenet citations? With alt.suicide.holiday and microsoft.public.windows.server.active directory they are just priceless! I really enjoy how some of them question if it is a word, even as they use it.

I'm not sure the first definition should be listed under an ==English== section, though. It seems more reasonable to list it as ==Middle English==. If retained as English, it certainly should be changed to obsolete not archaic. --Connel MacKenzie 04:33, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

The first sense is marked as (meaning unclear, archaic). Do we have a “Middle English” language header? I like the 1995 citation which redundantly uses “@” (“At @1:30am they found the one person who had got caughten up in…”).

But I'm sure it wasn't used by Chaucer. The Chaucer cite that Google Books throws up is from the Legend of Good Women, but in my copy it reads: But pryvely she kaughte forth a knyf. I don't have a copy of Gower but I wonder if it's either a scanno or a manuscript error. For instance caughten is known to pop up in a poem called Wynnere and Wastoure, but most editors change it as being wrong, see for example [47] line 121, where the footnote reads: caughte. MS reads caughten, which is ungrammatical. Also this form is not noted in any dictionary of Middle English I can find. Widsith 07:59, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

RFVpassed. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 15:07, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

What? Not RFV passed (yet). To quote from the text at the top of this page: "A request will remain for one month after nomination. It may be removed sooner if verification has been made—generally about a week afterwards will be given to allow any disputes about the verification itself to arise." To my mind, neither sense has been adequately cited: sense 1 has only one possibly-English citation (in the en.wikt sense of "English", i.e. "Modern English"), and it's a very wonky one (appending -en to various preterites to form, that's right, synonymous preterites); and sense 2 only has Google Groups cites, and not too many at that (Google Groups gets what, 25 relevant hits?), which is not a very good reason to include a misconstruction. (Maybe the bar should be a bit lower for misconstructions than for misspellings, but not this low.) —Ruakh_TALK 16:04, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

My apologies; I had forgotten about / was not aware of the one week given for disputes to arise. I agree that the evidence for the first sense is shaky at best. I’m inclined to agree with Widsith that at least the two older ones are manuscript errors; furthermore, all three of the quotations for the archaic sense use it as a past tense form which, considering that the -en suffix is a past participle suffix, suggests that its use as a past tense form is in error. The same cannot be said against the second sense. Google groups search yields twenty-nine hits when searching for “caughten”, of which two are duplications of other hits and are therefore invalid. All twenty-seven valid search results consistently use caughten as the past participle form of catch. Of those, I may concede that two do not count (namely the 1996 quotation written in a Germanic English eye dialect and the December 2006 quotation which comprises “Dover (gotten caught? got caughten?)”). So yes, being strict, a Google groups search yields twenty-five perfectly fine results, spanning over thirteen years (which are twenty-two quotations and twelve years more than are necessary to satisfy the WT:CFI). I am very surprised to read you being prescriptive. Caughten is only a misconstruction forasmuch as because caught exists to serve the dual purposes of both past tense form and past participle form. It exists in a very similar situation to got / gotten — gotten may be non-standard, but it is not a misconstruction; it appends the strong declension past participle suffix -en as can be seen in written, beaten, eaten, and numerous other past participles — caughten is just the same, only rarer and more recent. (But not too rare or too recent for our CFI!) † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 21:58, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm a prescriptivist sometimes, just an open-minded one. :-)   Also, gotten is perfectly standard on my side of the pond, thank you very much! (Indeed, it's the use of got as a participle that's nonstandard here, though have got sees pleonastic use as a synonym for have in many of its senses.)   The thing is — is there a community of speakers that uses caughten as the past participle of catch? Or are these various one-off mistakes by people who, as children, had iodine deficiency in their linguistic thyroids? My roommate my sophomore year of college (an brilliant programmer with no language facility) once used boughten as the ordinary past participle of buy; but this was a speech error, as he readily acknowledged, and not evidence that this was standard in the dialect spoken by people from his town (Medwayians? Medwayers?). —Ruakh_TALK 03:07, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Also note that gotten has never been "non-standard" - it is in fact the original past participle as used by all English-speakers until a few hundred years ago when England started doing things differently. Compare forgotten, begotten etc. On caughten, I suggest we simply label it a {{non-standard}} {{past participle of}} catch and leave it at that. The first sense is not distinct anyway, since ‘pull out, produce’ is one of the senses of catch. Widsith 08:01, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I’m aware of the pedigree of gotten, and that it is (inconsistently, considering that phrases like ill-gotten are standard) deemed non-standard for no good reason. (I knew it was more common in the US, but I still thought that it was frowned upon — thanks to the COED’s usage note for it: “…gotten is … very common in North American English, though even there it is often regarded as non-standard”.) No, Ruakh, I don’t think that caughten is in consistent use by some dialect somewhere (well, it may be, but there is no internet-accessible evidence for it) — not that the CFI require that it be. The twenty-five examples of caughten are, I would say, twenty-five one-offs where that old and oft-forgotten past participle suffix, -en rears its head and attaches to a past tense form. We can see the same thing happening with thoughten and the far more common (and perhaps established in some dialects) boughten. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 12:15, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Nota bene: boughten and thoughten also show up in Google Book Searches. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 12:18, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed with appropriate labels, though I'm still not 100% on this. —Ruakh_TALK 18:48, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

name art

Any takers? Two or the three references don't mention the term. SemperBlotto 15:37, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Two of the three references do cite name art - PhotoText Catalog states, "PhotoText offers high-quality, original name art.." and the title of the page is PhotoText Catalog Name Art. The referenced blog (sticks-and-stones-name-art.com) is titled "Name Art" and has two articles discussing name art.

— This unsigned comment was added by Ninthvector (talk • contribs).

wrote

Adjective sense (drunk). Is this is in use? If so, is it comparable? If so does it take more/most or -er/-est? Thryduulf 18:06, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

It may not take either. I've never heard the term used, but it could still be a regionalism. --EncycloPetey 06:07, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, sense removed. —Ruakh_TALK 16:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

protocol droid

Nominated for rfd by Connel.

There are about 50 novels in the Star Wars, most of which will use this term. Unless it is being objected to as sum of parts. RJFJR 18:33, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

I would say it was sum of parts, but my main objection would be that if it's a Star Wars only term (and it is, because "droid" is copyrighted), it doesn't pass the independence clause of the CFI. RobbieG 09:07, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. This is a Star Wars specific term that has not achieved independent use outside of the genre. The terms droid, the Force and Darth Vader have, but not "protocol droid". --EncycloPetey 06:06, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Delete it already!--Williamsayers79 14:09, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

A rapid deletion may happen from RfD, but not from here. RfV allows time to look for supporting citations, so we avoid hasty deletions here. --EncycloPetey 20:52, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 20:01, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

• I don't care nearly enough to restore and reformat this, but I did provide three independent cites on the RFD page. Guess I should have taken the time to add them to the entry. -- Visviva 05:32, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, sorry. I'll try to sort this out. —Ruakh_TALK 16:07, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Now cited and RFV passed; re-listed on RFD. —Ruakh_TALK 16:45, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

potable

Sense 2: "ebonics for portable." Rod (A. Smith) 22:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

"Ebonics"? We sometime use the label "AAVE", but seeing the intentionally inflammatory "ebonics" usually triggers the "rollback" button for me. I don't know if we have any way of describing spoken w:syncopes though. (Or is it w:Synalepha or w:Synaeresis?) --Connel MacKenzie 04:45, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

google books:"potable (phone OR electronics)" gets one hit, but it's on a non-preview-able page, so I don't know if it's relevant (this is compared to google books:"portable (phone OR electronics)"'s 752 hits). Likewise, google groups:"potable (phone OR electronics)" gets three hits, but since google groups:"portable (phone OR electronics)" gets 10,500 hits, it's easy to write these off as typos or malapropisms. So, I don't think this is real. —Ruakh_TALK 04:48, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. My instinct was to rollback. Sometimes "assume good faith" doesn't work well. Rod (A. Smith) 04:58, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

In all fairness, the term "ebonics" was not created to be inflammatory. The term was originally conceived as a way to free up California state education funds that were exclusively set aside for instruction in English to non-native speakers. The underlying philosophy was that urban African Americans use a different syntax and grammar from standard American English, so that students coming from such a background should be eligible to benefit from those funds. While there is some merit in the idea, and convincing arguments that the differences in grammar and syntax derive from patterns found in coastal West Africa, the media backlash was so powerful that the term has since taken on a negative connotation. --EncycloPetey 06:04, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

The term Ebonics actually goes back to the seventies, and was definitely intended to be edgy, though "inflammatory" might be pushing it a bit; it entered the public consciousness due to the Oakland School Board's <cough>linguistically and pedagogically justified</cough> 1996 decision to use ESL techniques and funding to teach SAE to native speakers of AAVE. —Ruakh_TALK 06:36, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Struck (this sense having long since been removed by an anonymous editor).

transformer

The sense that seems to be in reference to a current movie and old TV show. Does it see more general use? —Ruakh_TALK 05:29, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

It's from a known unreliable user - delete' sense. SemperBlotto 07:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm of two minds about this. There are actually three old TV series (and associated toys) in addition to the current movie (and associated toys). However, I want to say that I've heard this term applied to other "transforming" toys that are not associated with either the TV series or current movie (and associated toys). One instance that comes to mind is from the movie Big with Tom Hanks, in which his character ridicules a toy designer who proposes a new toy robot that transforms into a building. What I can;t say for certain is whether any of the instances I'm thinking of actually use the word "transformer", or whether they deliberately avoid it to avoid a lawsuit. --EncycloPetey 05:57, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

I've seen some (recent) references to "real life transformers" applied to robots that do, in fact, turn into vehicles. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:25, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Delete. Obvious spam. --Connel MacKenzie 17:29, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, sense removed. —Ruakh_TALK 16:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

stogee

Misspelling of stogie, right? --Connel MacKenzie 05:42, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes. SemperBlotto 07:22, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Deleted.' --Connel MacKenzie 18:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

coaxs

Presumably a typo for "coaxes".

Thanks for spotting that. coax had a bad template and the plural was added by a bot. Fixed. SemperBlotto 13:52, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

mike

Can you mike someone? I was pretty sure this is only mic/miked/miking (decidedly irregular, but not workable as a regular construction.) Also, the noun seems implausible...it is spelled mic to avoid confusion with the male given name Mike. --Connel MacKenzie 16:44, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

I've seen it used that way. I'll look for citations, but I think the fact that someone can be miked suggests that you can mike someone more than that you can mic someone. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:00, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Um, right, that is the back-formation (from the abbreviation of microphone) that I'm questioning. --Connel MacKenzie 16:36, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

By my understanding, the original noun spelling was mike (as in e.g. "open mike night"); but switchboards used the abbreviation "MIC", which eventually spread into the populace at large (resulting in e.g. "open mic night"). I've certainly seen both, and use mike myself. —Ruakh_TALK 17:52, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

That's weird - "mike" is not the abbreviation for "microphone." --Connel MacKenzie 16:33, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

You seem to have accidentally omitted the word "only" from your comment; "mike" is not the only abbreviation for "microphone." ;-) —Ruakh_TALK 06:39, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Now cited. —Ruakh_TALK 18:36, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Um, thanks. --Connel MacKenzie 16:36, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

In telly we normally use the form mike up. Widsith 16:53, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed. —Ruakh_TALK 16:46, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Fonzie touch

This entry says it was previously RFV'd but if it was, it was incorrectly passed. The assertion that it is used in over a hundred books is blatantly false (I see zero on b.g.c.) and none of the "citations" are durably archived. (Indeed, one of the two links given for the three "citations" is already dead.) --Connel MacKenzie 16:32, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

delete - we need to be a little more sensible around here and check up on non-regulars adding stuff that aught to be on one of those so-called urban sites.--Williamsayers79 14:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

This was one of my early entries, and I was not then aware of the process for RFV. However it passed at the time. I DID NOT say that there were a hundred book hits, I said it got a 100 hits, which it still does. This is not an urban dictionary term. It was used in the TV series, and entered common usage at the same time, over 30 years ago. There are three cites already, more available if you want.--Dmol 10:19, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed — one cite was nonsensical, and the others didn't look durably archived — entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 17:24, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

buck

Sense "A piece put in front of the dealer in the pocker card game." Is this a misspelling of poker? And, is the term actually used this way, or is this just a supposed etymology for the phrases the buck stops here and the buck stops with __? —Ruakh_TALK 16:51, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Regarding the first question, I'm all-but 100% certain this is a misspelling of "poker" - w:Pocker redirects to w:Poker, almost all the copious groups and web results are in senses meaning "poker" (many noting it as a misspelling); the only other significant use on goolge web is "Pocker" as a proper noun (usually a surname), and this is the case for all the b.g.c hits. Google groups also returns a few results that are obviously typos for "pocket". Given these results, I'm about to create pocker as a very common misspelling of poker. I can't help on whether "buck" is used in this sense in poker though. Thryduulf 18:11, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

From [48]:

Dealer Button (The Buck), known as a lammer. They usually resemble chips and are made of plastic with text--such as DEALER -- sometimes printed on them. This item signifies who should deal next, and whose turn it is to pay the blind(s).

Perhaps the definition at buck could be better. It's not terribly clear what "piece" means in this context. Matt 20:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC).

Wikipedia has some information on Button (poker). Algrif 18:05, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I've changed the definition to be more clear, I'm sure this is meant to be about poker. --Kzollman 02:16, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know how to handle this. Various knowledgeable editors have addressed the original question, but haven't cited the term — apparently not realizing that was necessary — and I can't tell if the term is in "clearly widespread use". Most b.g.c. hits seem to be secondary sources. So, I'm going to re-list this and see if it will pick up any cites in the next month. —Ruakh_TALK 06:32, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

MP

I'm not disputing that "MP" means "Member of Parliament", what I am querying is whether it really is "sometimes written out as "empee"". Thryduulf 20:44, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I can find no cites really supporting that 'writing out' - I found one book on Google Books with does, but only in the context of 'spelling out' the pronunciation of several sets of letters which are never spelled out that way.[49] Lots of scannos for empire or emperor. I shudder to think what they would say of PP. bd2412 T 22:25, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

There are some writers who consistently write out acronyms in dialog. (I really want to write "dialogue", but Firefox's spell-checker tags that. Is "dialogue" really U.K.-only? How had I not realized?) Piers Anthony does this in Bio of a Space Tyrant and it's very annoying; were he a writer in a different country and a different genre, we might well see "empee". (Of course, that would be a nonce use, but if enough people use a nonce, it ceases to be a nonce.) It might be worth checking Google News and Google Groups for this — they're probably as likely to write/complain about MPs (MsP?), and we won't have to worry about scannos. —Ruakh_TALK 03:12, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Outside of computing uses, "dialog" is not used this side of the Atlantic. I always presumed that "dialogue" was an entirely Commonwealth usage, but perhaps not? The plural of "MP" is always "MPs", "MsP" could be taken as a slight against MSPs - Members of the Scottish Parliament. Thryduulf 08:10, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, my idea (checking google news:empee OR empees and google groups:empee OR empees) doesn't seem to have panned out; the former gets no hits, and while the latter gets plenty, I can't seem to find any in the right sense. (And I certainly write "dialog box", but I really want to write "dialogue between characters". Is that so wrong?) —Ruakh_TALK 16:52, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, claim removed. —Ruakh_TALK 17:32, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

air display

Random combination of words, or a regional equivalent of air show? --Connel MacKenzie 20:49, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

To me an air display is a performance of aerobatics, etc. (more than just a fly-past) at an event that is not an air show. For example I went to the British Grand Prix (Formula One) a few years back, and there were air displays by the w:Red Arrows (Sunday) and the w:Blue Eagles (Saturday). An airshow being an event where aircraft are the primary focus - e.g the w:Royal International Air Tattoo. Thryduulf 21:38, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

That's pretty much my understanding too. Although the term might sometimes be used synonymously with "air show", that doesn't seem to fully capture the meaning. For example, as you say, a performance at a Grand Prix would normally be called an "air display", not an "air show". In the UK anyway. Matt 00:17, 16 July 2007 (UTC).

Alrighty then, moving to WT:RFC instead. --Connel MacKenzie 05:18, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

buckling

Any takers? In the OED it is a smoked herring. SemperBlotto 07:16, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I can add the other noun and the verb sense at least. The "young buck" sense sounds reasonable, but doesn't show up in a search of Wikisource. --EncycloPetey 20:46, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Now cited and RFV passed. —Ruakh_TALK 04:01, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

fop

Sense 2, "finest in the shop", sounds to me like a folk etymology for sense 1, rather than an actual sense of the term. —Ruakh_TALK 20:51, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

"[F]op, finest in the shop" are lyrics of a song from the play Sweeney Todd. It's unlikely, then, imho, that "finest in the shop" is an actual definition (or even popular folk etymology) of fop. Google shows no results for both "fop" and "finest in the shop" outside of those lyrics, not that that proves that "finest int he shop" is not a definition of fop (as, of course, if it is, so are differently-worded synonyms). Nonetheless, I say get rid of this sense. —msh210 13:52, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Folk etymologies are tripe and should be expunged when we fid them. delete this sense--Williamsayers79 08:08, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, sense removed. —Ruakh_TALK 03:54, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Midas

Sense 2. I've never heard of this, and there's nothing like it in the OED. -- WikiPedant 00:08, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

The figurative sense seems common. There may even need to be an adjective sense added. I think this would be better, if moved to WT:RFC. --Connel MacKenzie 18:22, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, sense removed. "Midas" is definitely used metaphorically, but our def said that "a Midas" is a kind of situation, and I see no evidence for such a claim. —Ruakh_TALK 21:02, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

roogle

Sounds suspiciously contrived. --EncycloPetey 00:13, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd have tagged this for deletion myself.

• "Originally roogle was an Australian legendary animal with body of a horse and head of an eagle", neither the horse nor the eagle are native to Australia afair, and so any such animal would have been brought there by European settlers and not be natively Australian.
• The definition given is both complex and vague, typical of many at Urban Dictionary.
• I'm always very suspicious of the phrase "This phrase was first coined by", especially when followed by a vague assertion of notability, doubly so when no name for this person is given.

Also the whole entry smells self-promotional somehow. Thryduulf 00:31, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

A wine advertisement. See [50] and [51] Don't think this is salvageable. Can't find any sign of the verb sense. -- Visviva 02:08, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

disbud

Can we find quotes to support the second sense of removing horns from a young goat? That sense is not in the original OED. --EncycloPetey 19:56, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Now cited, although I'm not certain I've formatted the newsgroup citation correctly. Note that I've only been able to find verification for goat kids and calves being disbudded, not lambs, on google books and google groups. Thryduulf 21:57, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed; thanks, Thryduulf. —Ruakh_TALK 04:04, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

cityesque

Added less than 24 hours ago, it has accumulated 4 very odd definitions. Are any of them valid? --EncycloPetey 06:41, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like BS to me, delete --Williamsayers79 08:03, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

http://football.guardian.co.uk/Match_Report/0,,619747,00.html no it's legit - see sports report from english national newspaper "the guardian"

The above citation if for "City-esque" - meaning typical of the Manchester City football team (probably wouldn't meet our criteria for inclusion). The term under consideration is just rubbish - deleted SemperBlotto 09:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I thought this might have some merit to it meaning 'like a city', but most of the few cites I found were for something being "Gotham Cityesque" or "New York Cityesque" or "Sex and the Cityesque". bd2412 T 01:04, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

savaging

--Connel MacKenzie 07:12, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

And related edits. Not in other dictionaries. --Connel MacKenzie 07:16, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Now contains an interWiki link to well-cited page. 69.84.115.58 07:21, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

The OED has the verb savage to mean (of an animal) "to attack with the teeth" - that's the closest I can find. SemperBlotto 07:22, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

The verb form is in widespread used. The example sentence for the noun definition uses "savage" as a verb, not "savaging" as a noun, so if this is a valid it seems like it is a definition of the verb "savage" rather than the definition of a noun. Thryduulf 16:34, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

What SemperBlotto mentioned, or what the entry has, or the original verb? (The OED's definition is merely redundant with savage#Verb def #1.) The "interwiki linked" article is simply the bizarre 'pedia article, whose references do not convey this sense, rather instead, that of (again) savage#Verb def #1. --Connel MacKenzie 00:10, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, noun section removed. —Ruakh_TALK 19:37, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

quinine

Note: the title of this section was previously quinine - poker slang senses.

I know that these have been referenced but I could do the same for everything that appears in the Viz Profanosaurus and most of them (as funny as they are) would not meet our CFI.--Williamsayers79 08:02, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I take it that this work you reference is meant to be comedic and inventive. The book I cite, The Dictionary of Poker is a serious attempt to record the usage of slang terms in poker. As I'm sure you are aware, attestation of slang (especially slang which precedes the internet) may be difficult to come by. I would be happy to look for further evidence of it's usage if someone might suggest where to look. --Kzollman 02:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

At least one of these senses is also mentioned by no less than H.L. Mencken ... but it is still a mention, unfortunately, not a use (in this case he mentioned it in passing while explaining the etymology of "medicine turn," which does not seem to meet CFI either). I can't find anything on Gbooks that looks like an actual use of the term -- which is striking; after all, there are plenty of slang-filled descriptions of poker games out there. Perhaps someone with access to the appropriate period sources can turn up the necessary citations... but without them, this will fail CFI, regardless of whether other reference works have found it worthy of inclusion. -- Visviva 06:06, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

It's unlikely to occur in a book. Queen nine is a bad and generally unremarkable hand in Texas hold'em, similarly for a 9 in lowball. This hand is unlikely to be talked about in a book, much less using this particular slang. If the dictionary of poker is insufficient attestation, I'm afraid it will have to be deleted. --Kzollman 19:05, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I found three other sources. One usenet posting apparently from a reasonably well known poker author Lee Jones. One on another well known poker forum two plus two. And last, an article in Card player magazine by the author of the dictionary. --Kzollman 19:22, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, senses removed: I haven't seen a single use, only mentions. —Ruakh_TALK 01:45, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

People's Club

Looks like a rant to me. SemperBlotto 08:47, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense deleted. --Connel MacKenzie 01:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Deal of the Century

As above. SemperBlotto 08:57, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense deleted. --Connel MacKenzie 01:47, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

electronic shelf label

One passing neologistic reference in 2002, two later listings in glossaries? --Connel MacKenzie 01:41, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Isn't it just a sum of parts - i.e. a shelf label that is electronic? Thryduulf 10:39, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I don’t think so. I didn’t know what it meant until I looked it up. I had known of the technology previously, but I didn’t know what they were called. —Stephen 19:24, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 04:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

inpert

Internet expert - I wonder why there are b.g.c. from the early 20th century? --Connel MacKenzie 05:11, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, based on those hits, it's something like an inexperienced expert. There's a story of Edison asking an engineering student to determine the volume of a light bulb; the student does all sorts of calculations to arrive at a figure; Edison just drills a hole in the bulb, fills it with water, then measures the volume of water in a beaker. The student is supposed to be the "inpert". bd2412 T 05:41, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps originally the opposite of expert, made by swapping in- for ex-? -- Visviva 05:56, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Usenet hits suggest this is still the primary meaning. -- Visviva 05:58, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Silly story about Edison: any real engineer would simply fill the beaker, dip the bulb (causing its volume to overflow), remove it, and observe the amount of remaining water. (Or arrange for the overflow to go into a graduated cylinder, for more accuracy.) Robert Ullmann 11:48, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

That's the outside volume, the other procedure is for the internal volume. Given thick enough glass it might matter. RJFJR 13:45, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Our definition RFV failed, so entry deleted; thanks, Connel. If anyone would like to start the entry fresh, with a CFI-meeting definition, please feel free. —Ruakh_TALK 05:01, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

ovarium

I find ovarius (one who keeps/collects eggs), but cannot find ovarium in any of my Latin dictionaries (Lewis & Short, Feyerabend, Calepinus, or Facciolati). --EncycloPetey 07:12, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted, thanks. —Ruakh_TALK 04:59, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

she-she

I've never heard this one, though it's marked "US". --EncycloPetey 05:06, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Probably means chichi SemperBlotto 07:05, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted.

This was popular slang in the early 60's Sheshe was meaning great decorating or trends in clothing or Chic.

troublemaker and trouble maker

Hi,

Do you think those pages (troublemaker and trouble maker) need to be merged ???

Thanks

80.170.254.173 10:31, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

No, because they have different spellings. We don't merge pages here the way they do on Wikipedia. --EncycloPetey 10:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, that would apply if they had different meanings as well, but they don't. The full content should be given on one page and the other should cross-refer to it. In any case, "trouble maker" is incorrect - it is either "troublemaker" or "trouble-maker" (as are all forms noun + agent noun - it comes from or suggests the phrase "one who makes trouble", so requires either a hyphen or to be closed up). — Paul G 16:36, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Paul's prescriptive rule is accurate. We're descriptive, though, and GB supports “trouble maker”, so I performed our version of a merge from the alternative spelling entry “trouble maker” to the main entry “troublemaker”. Rod (A. Smith) 17:00, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

feminazi

Request for etymology verification:

I see a cite for a 1951 book. I'm pretty sure Rush didn't have a radio show back then. --Connel MacKenzie 01:51, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

He probably does warrant mention as the term's popularizer, though. And who knows, maybe he coined it independently; stranger things have happened. (Of course, I doubt the etymology's contributor here had any inside information, so we should probably stay on the safe side and say only that he popularized it.) —Ruakh_TALK 03:16, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I removed rfv tag and added the cite for known etymology, with Rush as popularizer and Tom Hazlett as coiner.

from Rush's book The Way Things Ought To Be, p. 193

"I prefer to call the most obnoxious feminists what they really are: feminazis. Tom Hazlett, a good friend who is an esteemed and highly regarded professor of economics at the University of California at Davis, coined the term to describe any female who is intolerant of any point of view that challenges militant feminism. I often use it to describe women who are obsessed with perpetuating a modern-day holocaust: abortion. There are 1.5 million abortions a year..."

I couldn't find citations earlier than 1990-1991. Connel's 1951 cite appears to be an author's birth date that appears conspicuously in the book title in the Google books list. [52] (The book is from 1997). I should mention this lone citation from 1929 [53] for the hyphenated version femi-nazi. It is "Business Week" and it appears to me that the 1929 date is the first edition of the periodical and the issue in question is likely post-1991. -- Thisis0 20:55, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good, thanks! (In the future, though, please wait a bit after justifying the removal of the RFV tag before actually removing the tag. People visiting the entry in question should know if there's active discussion about it.) —Ruakh_TALK 21:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

ok, good to know! -- Thisis0 21:33, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Hey, do you think it would be too disparaging to list this under "Derived Terms" at feminist? -- Thisis0 21:41, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Disparaging or not, it's derived from feminist, so yes, I'd say so. (For that matter, it should also go in the "Derived terms" section of Nazi.) —Ruakh_TALK 21:59, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Do not remove discussion tags for your own dubious entries. Listing a "popularizer" as an etymology not acceptable on Wiktionary; that is spam. --Connel MacKenzie 08:29, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Wow, what a dick. I really thought I was trying to do this right, even thinking naively to myself over the last few days, "I'll try do it all so right, even Connel would not disagree." But one comment from the guy and you catch the definition of a true troll. A troll is not a vandal who comes "trolling" by, nor is it the widely accepted use of the term in wiki circles "someone who disagrees with Connel or has proved him wrong," but a true troll is the nasty old miser who sits under the bridge, where he has been a very long time, just waiting for an enthusiastic newcomer to come bounding along hoping earnestly to make a difference. The troll does not take notice of intelligence or potential, but destroys his victims witout prejudice, vandal and contributor alike. I honestly had hopes -- spending valuable thoughts trying to figure out how I could contribute in Connel's world, but it's become clear that was in vain. A troll is a troll. A glance into most conversations on these pages shows the behavior of an antagonizer who regularly frightens off new contributors and raises fellow admins to a boil over petty nonsense.[54] It shows the behavior of a man unwilling to concede or compromise, even when devastatingly shown to have failed. I cannot effect change as one user, but what will we as a community do to create better standards? Speak here and now, unless the answer is nothing. -- Thisis0 09:42, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I am not certain that this is the place for this much-needed discussion, as it is wider than this topic. Were this Wikipedia, I would open a user-conduct RFC, but there is no obviously equivalent place here that I'm aware of (or that is listed on the Discussion rooms link in the sidebar). Thryduulf 10:24, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Why is listing a "popularizer" on Wiktionary spam? The etymology that is there seems to be exactly what an etymology should be - a summary of the history and origin of the word. Thryduulf 08:48, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Yea, I don't get it. He brings this item to the table, requesting "etymological verification." (Which he or anyone could do. It's the internet for Christ's sake.) I looked into it, provided a well written etymology that included not just the popularizer in context, but also the man credited for coining the term. I sourced it well, wikified it minimally, and what do I get? A fat rebuff. I provide the best answer to the query, and the messenger is shot. Don't punish me because this neologism has a popularizer. All this, and I also showed how his "1951 cite" was a juvenile error on his part. There will be no peace until this troll sleeps. --- Thisis0 19:54, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Your timing, arriving as an "innocent newbie" I find questionable, but your insistence that Wiktionary entries must contain spam is simply inexplicable. Who "popularized" a term has little (if anything) to do with where the term came from. Previous similar terms have had similar treatment; the spam is removed. While Ruakh agreed with that, he is relatively new here and may not have been aware of that nuance. Above, I gave a neutral two line factual explanation of two errors you made. You spent kilobytes ranting and raving about abuse. Who exactly is trolling here? --Connel MacKenzie 11:32, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

What timing? Just in time to rally against you on the dire subject of "for all intensive purposes? Or was that I was just in time to accurately do the research on your original query here for feminazi? Timing. We are so conspiratorial. I am new -- and absolutely unaffiliated. Just because I am well-written, engaged, and vigorous in debate doesn't mean I am not brand new here. I will take your thinking otherwise as a compliment. I definitely concede in learning to keep the rfv tags on for a while after I've made the actual verification. It is clear throughout these pages that you are consistently unwilling to make any similar concession, especially when you are clearly and stubbornly in the wrong. In my active tenure here of a few weeks, you have 1.) accused me of being "British," threatening to stalk my IP for verification (go ahead), 2.) accused me of being dishonest about my newness [in addition to the flagrant violation of "good faith", this is outrageous and libelous because I have NEVER used newness an excuse, despite your insinuation surrounding "innocent newbie"], 3.) called a troll for no such act, after which I pointed out that the activities of a traditional troll in stories align much better with the treatment you give your peers, 4.) designated my accurate fulfillment of your query as spam. "Popularizer" here is clearly given in context along with origin, and sourced. I did the work for your query -- if you don't like it, do better. Go ahead. In fact, do everything here yourself. But then, you would have no one left to belittle, which apparently must be fulfilling. There will be no more kB rants on abuse the day you stop abusing. -- Thisis0 19:26, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I am hardly new here and I am rather thrown by your idea that this information is spam. If a new term is especially propogated by a particular individual it seems relevant to include that information. As an editor with a particular interest in Etymologies I see no problems with the Etymology section here. Also bear in mind that questioning Thisis0's status as an ‘innocent newbie’ isn't really in line with our general policy of assuming good faith. Widsith 11:45, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

He made a half dozen personal attacks, laced with numerous false 'pedia policy arguments, long before I "questioned his newbie status." The statement that "popularizer" stuff isn't removed is erroneous; it is routinely removed, because it is spam, particularly for living persons. The conspiratorial comments he made on various user talk pages (of course, intermingled with more personal attacks) is why I am certain this person is here for no good. Doremwitzer can pile his nonsense pretty high, but his lies are easy to ignore. This, on the other hand, is way beyond reasonable. --Connel MacKenzie 02:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Erm, how is a citable statement of fact "spam"? Why is something spam when you say it is but everybody else who has commented says it isn't? Please can you also cite evidence, in the form of policies, discussions and diffs for all the following:

• that ""populairizer" stuff ... is routinely removed".
• that popularizer stuff is spam
• that mentioning the name of living people in etymologies is spam
• that a conspiracy exists
• that this0 and Doremítzer are part of this conspiracy
• that your personal attacks against this0, Doremitzer and others are acceptable and justified
• that Doremítzer has "blazing evidence of foul play" on his talk page

Until I see this evidence, I am forced to make a judgement based on the facts I am aware of. These facts do not support any of your claims or accusations, and I am forced to conclude that you are the one in the wrong. This and your other actions (especially regarding usuress) are resulting in you being perceived as a radical contributor intolerant of opposing views. Thryduulf 08:53, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

You are welcome to do your own homework. You are welcome to download full-history XML dumps and analyze over time the number of "popularizer" removals. You are welcome to search discussion archives, deletion log entries and discussion pages for "spam" references yourself. You are welcome to search out the "living (people|persons)" discussions yourself. The WP:DUCK test can be used as evidence of the conspiratorial actions; while dispersed across numerous user talk pages, obviously does exist. Your assertion that I have made personal attacks is unfounded...I have made factual observations about disruptive behavior and vandalism. But thank you for confessing your personal opinion regarding me. --Connel MacKenzie 18:01, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

You make this too easy. Have you actually read the essay at WP:DUCK? It's main point warns against what you spend most of your time doing here. -- Thisis0 20:13, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not convinced the use of spam to mean the addition of trivia meets any of the definitions given at spam. And I'd dispute that it doesn't belong there, unless someone can prove the citation is nonfactual. RJFJR 15:40, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Searching for coined & popularized in etymologies reveals abstract nonsense, regime change, retronym, WYSIWYG, etc. It is claimed that against the grain was popularized by Shakespeare and Iron Curtain by Churchill. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the revision in question. Now, per Ruakh, I don't normally remove the RFV tag for terms I've cited myself, but then we don't usually put etymologies to RFV either. To err on the side of caution, I move to strike. DAVilla 08:00, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

The presence of two other errors is no indication that such a thing is encouraged. (I see two that mention living people.) There is absolutely everything wrong with spamming Wiktionary articles with "popularizer" nonsense. It is not relevant to word formation - you know; where the word came from. It certainly is not relevant to how the term evolved. --Connel MacKenzie 03:04, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

The populariser is not relevant to how the word was formed, but it has everything to do with how the word is used. Part of the job of an etymology is to debunk incorrect "folk etymologies", which this does. Or would you rather it said "often incorrectly attributed to Rush Limbaugh, who has credited his friend Tom Hazlett, a professor of law and economics at George Mason University, with coining the term."? Thryduulf 08:53, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

That is an interesting rewording. I still have reservations about mentioning the media-culture personality, when that (as far as I can tell) does not have anything to do with the term, nor how it is used. But is it even true? That is, do people incorrectly attribute it to him? --Connel MacKenzie 16:03, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I know precisely why "popularizer" in many cases is spam. I will be there agreeing with you on those. Just open your eyes on this one. Rush has everything to do with this word, how it was coined (in converstions with his friend), and how it has been used from it's inception till today. His show bears the sole responsibility for nearly anyone using this word ever. I know it's a bold statment, but any use of this disparaging term is certainly traced back to it's use by Rush, as there is no evidence of any other primary source. And, as I've said twice already, popularizer is in context; the information is necessary to lead into who actually coined the term, who did so in personal conversations with Rush himself. There's no question he bears the greatest weight for the existence of this word, and thus bears mention for his role. -- Thisis0 17:51, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the request has been answered, so I'm fine with striking this. Thryduulf 11:25, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Etymological RFVpassed. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 14:28, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Gee, wasn't it you that was just saying "if there is no dispute...the tag can be removed in a week" or something? Yet you, of all people, with blazing evidence of foul play on your talk page, deeply entwined in a personality conflict, decide to take action after three hours (i.e. as soon as you noticed)? If you had any concern about correctness of the entry, you might have said so; clearly you did not, rather, just wished to force an invalid point...that a newcomer should be permitted to spam recklessly. Brilliant. --Connel MacKenzie 02:58, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

No, you brought this to RFV because you were confused about a date (you saw a book which you thought was published in 1951, remember?) in the etymology. The discussion has since moved on to whether this word’s “popularizer” ought to be mentioned in the entry’s etymology (an RFC, not RFV, concern). Noöne has disputed the verification of the etymology (not even you; you’ve just been bitching about spam); therefore, I was right to declare (with prompting) this etymologial RFVpassed. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 23:07, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

So, yea. I'm still waiting for you to rewrite it the right way. Can I be of any help teaching you how to use the Internets? -- Thisis0 04:26, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the kind offer. I think I can manage a web-search myself, however. I haven't removed the spam part, as 1) it is still being discussed, 2) there is some indication that other long-term contributors think I may be mistaken, 3) there is too much ancillary noise surrounding the discussion. --Connel MacKenzie 16:03, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Struck; the etymology has been verified/fixed. (This isn't to say that we can't discuss removing part of the etymology, simply that RFV isn't the place to do so.) —Ruakh_TALK 19:50, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

piippumies

Since they misspelled the language name, I am forced to doubt the validity of the entry. --Connel MacKenzie 02:02, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

That contributor is a native speaker of Finnish and a regular contributor of well-formatted Finnish translations and Finnish entries; I'm sure it was just a typo. :-) —Ruakh_TALK 03:14, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it’s good. —Stephen 19:22, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind that many FL contributors may be less than familiar with the name of their own language in English. Particularly when the language is Suomi, and the nearby languages that use "Fin..." only use one n. The n is only really doubled in English to distinguish it from finish, not even for pronunciation! So it is fairly odd ... If you were making some helpful entries for English words in the rw.wikt, you might find Icyongereza tough to consistently remember ;-) AF fairly regularly fixes variant spellings of "Synonyms" and the like that are clearly the result of FL influence; but it can't generally be correcting language names the same way. Robert Ullmann 07:55, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I wish to confirm the typo. Same error happens to me often, but most of the times I notice it myself before saving the entry. Thanks for the compliment, too! Hekaheka 12:54, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I am both surprised and relieved to hear this is a common typo for native Finnish speakers. --Connel MacKenzie 17:44, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Ahoy-hoy

Is this a common set phrase apart from ahoy? Dmcdevit·t 03:34, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is one, but my understanding is that it was a set phrase in widespread use for quite a while in the not-too-distant past (maybe about 80 years ago?). —Ruakh_TALK 04:04, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Isn't that "ahoy-ahoy"? -- Visviva 01:54, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. Trying various b.g.c. searches, it doesn't seem like any of these was ever as common as I'd thought. —Ruakh_TALK 03:45, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 04:47, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

unmentionables

Euphemism for genitals? --Dart evader 21:33, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

• No. Only underwear. SemperBlotto 22:02, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

What, what? I think you are mistaken. I don't recall ever using this term to mean underwear. Is the UK definition the opposite of the US? --Connel MacKenzie 22:17, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I've heard Americans use unmentionables to mean underwear (if I remember correctly, I even saw it used in that manner in an American television show). That's how the American Heritage Dictionary defines it. I'm not sure about that genitals sense. — Beobach972 23:56, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, part of the problem with defining such a term is that it's deliberately not being explicit, but I've always taken it to refer to underwear. —Ruakh_TALK 00:08, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Likewise. I was born and raised in the US, and “unmentionables” has always meant “underwear”, usually used sarcastically in order to mock the modesty that spawned the euphemism. Rod (A. Smith) 00:46, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Note the contributor of the “genitals” definition. Rod (A. Smith) 00:49, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Yikes! Based on that alone, I'll agree with removing the sense. --Connel MacKenzie 20:23, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Do we really need all of the senses, by the way? Could any of them (I am thinking of drawers and undergarments, or breeches and drawers) be combined? — Beobach972 03:53, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The UK definition comes from the Victorian era (What a surprise!) and meant underwear. Algrif 13:31, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

As an American who has watched British television for years, I have to say that the underwear definition is the only one I've ever encountered. --EncycloPetey 23:50, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

---

I have found a curious quotation. It's from The Amulet of Samarkand by w:Jonathan Stroud. The author is a Briton, the year of publication is 2003.

...stumbling along in his pajama bottoms, scratching his unmentionables and sporting a folded newspaper under his arm.

Now, the question is: what exactly was it that the character scratched? His privates or his underwear? The underpants usually do not itch. Dart evader 16:24, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but they can be scratched through. If I say that someone is scratching at the sleeve of their shirt, surely they're not doing it because the shirt itches. FWIW, I've generally heard it used to mean specifically womens' undergarments; nobody cares if you discuss men's underthings as they're not generally "sexy". --Jeffqyzt 15:09, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I thought of this "scratch through" possibility myself. But then the author probably would've written something like "stumbling along, scratching his pajama bottoms". If those not too elegant "bottoms" are already explicitly mentioned, why resort to an euphemism in the following clause? Dart evader 16:07, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd have thought "unmentionables" referred to anything the speaker considered, well, unmentionable. This would make it a pretty-much all-purpose euphemism. In most cases, though, it seems to mean "underwear" because this is what the American Heritage Dictionary plus numerous contributors take the word to mean. RobbieG 14:49, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, sense removed; but if anyone would like to add a usage note addressing the term's potential for more general application, please feel free. —Ruakh_TALK 04:58, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

okta

--Connel MacKenzie 22:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

• This and octa now cited. Thryduulf 09:43, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed. Thanks, Thryduulf. —Ruakh_TALK 04:22, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

octa

--Connel MacKenzie 22:15, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed. Thanks, Thryduulf. —Ruakh_TALK 04:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Gothardite

6 Google Books hits, all too old to relate to the definition provided. bd2412 T 23:46, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Usage of the term, in a derogatory sense, appears in the following locations:

http://www.batteredsheep.com/gothard.html

http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/exposes/gothard/general.htm

http://xchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/02/corrosive-tentacles-of-gothardism.html

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976758266

http://www.womensspace.org/Introductions/60_2.html

...and many more. It's just rarely if ever explained. Perhaps an explanation should be included that although it may appear to be a neutral term, it may come across as derogatory. —This unsigned comment was added by Maryanninmiami (talk • contribs).

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like any of those pages is durably archived, so they don't count toward the word's meeting our criteria for inclusion (which are described at Wiktionary:Criteria for inclusion). —Ruakh_TALK 01:49, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Deleted (along with today's.) --Connel MacKenzie 06:14, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

ligger

--Connel MacKenzie 05:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, English language-section removed. —Ruakh_TALK 04:55, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

landammann

Wrong language? English citations use italics for this. --Connel MacKenzie 07:54, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, this should be (Swiss) German. Thryduulf 09:47, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

No – I read this in w:Black Lamb and Grey Falcon where it is not italicized (if that is really the guiding criterion). A glance at Google Books shows that it is only sometimes put in italics. Besides, it is used often enough in English to warrant an English entry. Widsith 11:39, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Interesting, every single Google Books result I looked at (and I can't remember how many this was) had it italicised. The same was true of Google News archives. Thryduulf 18:35, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

[55], [56], [57] (three of the five English results on the first page of a Google Books search) all have it in Roman type. Anyway even if it were always italicized it is used often enough in English to merit an entry. Many foreign phrases are usually put in italics in English but we still have English entries for them if we are likely to use them rather than translate them. Widsith 09:22, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Moved to Landammann, cited, and RFV passed: there doesn't seem to be consensus to exclude such terms. —Ruakh_TALK 19:35, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

scrape

Sense 2 of the verb should be the phrasal verb to scrape off. The definition itself states that the adverb is necessary. Algrif 13:16, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I really don't think this needs verification, since there doesn't seem to be factual disagreement over how the verb is used; I think you should just be bold and fix it. :-) —Ruakh_TALK 16:28, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Wait, on second thought, can't you say, "I scraped the crud into a trash can"? —Ruakh_TALK 16:30, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. You're absolutely right. That's what I needed to know. I'll leave sense 2 in there and just add scrape off with the same meaning. Algrif 17:56, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Ruakh for the be bold link. I hadn't actually read that page. It has put my mind at rest about many doubts. Algrif 11:18, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Kazi

Note: the title of this section was previously kazi. —Ruakh_TALK 19:44, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Listed as English, but seems to be the word Kází (and only used with italics?) --Connel MacKenzie 17:34, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Not a mis-spelling of the Brit term for a toilet (khazi (??)) by any chance? (Sorry, I'm not even sure how to spell it myself!) Algrif 18:00, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

I thought that at first, but I've managed to find b.g.c hits, although all the uses are capitalised, so I've moved the page to Kazi. Thryduulf 18:30, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

• As an aside. The UK slang for toilet was originally carzy or karzy (many spellings) and is thought by some to come from Italian casa (house). khazi is the most used spelling these days. SemperBlotto 07:28, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed; thanks, Thryduulf. —Ruakh_TALK 19:44, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

bandoneon

--Connel MacKenzie 18:22, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

It's in the AHD. Spanish bandoneón is derived from German Bandoneon according to the RAE, which is itself eponymous for Heinrich Band. The Spanish is translated as concertina in my Larousse Spanish/English dictionary, but as I said, bandoneon is in the AHD. --EncycloPetey 01:20, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Now cited; striking here. (EP already removed the RFV tag quite a while ago.) —Ruakh_TALK 21:09, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

bandeleon

--Connel MacKenzie 18:23, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted (together with bandeleons). —Ruakh_TALK 05:15, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

paresteser

Swedish. --Connel MacKenzie 23:38, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 05:18, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

caca

Does anyone here speak Papiamentu? --EncycloPetey 03:46, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Papiamentu is a creole based mainly on Spanish and Portuguese, so the entry is probably correct. —Stephen 18:55, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm marking this RFV passed, because it's plausible, and I don't think the fact that no one here knows Papiamentu should count against it (though it does raise questions about how this section came to be). However, I'm marking it with {{rfquote}}, which unfortunately doesn't have any language-specific support, but what can you do? —Ruakh_TALK 21:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

gunt

I deleted it on sight, but the contributor wasn't happy. When I originally checked I couldn't see much on the net apart from Urbandictionary, but I suppose there could be stuff on messageboards if anyone feels strongly about it. Widsith 16:39, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

This word has been added and deleted four times by four separate individuals which would suggest to me a certain level of validity. -The Contributor 16:47, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Numerous references here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=gunt+gut+cunt

• Deleted. Contributor is welcome to add three citations conveying this meaning (not from secondary sources) from http://books.google.com/books?um=1&q=gunt or similar. --Connel MacKenzie 17:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Verification is highly unlikely. I've now looked at every viewable Google books result for "gunt" from 2002-2007, and found references to an abbreviation for a "National Union Transition Government" of Chad, a few surnames, a few instances of the name Gunter or Gunther split by a hyphen, a lot of returns in a language that I believe to be Danish, a few scannos of Curt, Cunt, gun!, gun?, gun", guilt, Gunval, gum, etc. No actual use of "gunt" relating to the definition provided. bd2412 T 18:41, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

man crush

Heterosexual? Um, no. --Connel MacKenzie 19:18, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

I just saw this phrase recently, and the referent was definitely heterosexual. I'm pretty sure it was a recent copy of Entertainment Weekly (my wife got it, and I was bored in the bathroom: don't blame me). I cannot find the article in question online. [58] mentions (does not use) the term, but is interesting (to us as lexicographers). A Google News search on man-crush yields a number of use (not mention) results; doubtless someone with time (i.e., not me) can get dates for some of these and show use "in permanently recorded media, conveying meaning, in at least three independent instances spanning at least a year" per the cfi. (See, e.g., the links on that page for "2005" et al., to see sources from those years.) —msh210 20:34, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

By the way, woman crush seems to exist also, although I haven't checked whether it meets the cfi.—msh210 20:39, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the cites (rfv stricken.) I never would guess (and obviously didn't guess) an innocent meaning for this phrase, reading it. That is, if a writer were trying to convey male bonding, envy, jealousy or admiration they would use one of those terms, not a phrase that is pretty certain to be misconstrued. (Shrug.) It might have been better to show the completely bizarre context the term is likely to crop up - by quoting the woman advocating leg-waxing for guys. --Connel MacKenzie 19:43, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

달필

The characters are Korean but the term does not appear to be a Korean word for "family" in any sense. Rod (A. Smith) 20:37, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

It means calligraphy. —Stephen 18:53, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. The entry is now updated. RFV withdrawn. Rod (A. Smith) 22:43, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

veil fetish

Also veil fetishism. Zero g.b.c. hits for either phrase. SemperBlotto 07:13, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Two Views of the Veil explains the erotic aspects of veils.--Oraculum 07:25, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

But even that page does not use the phrase "veil fetish" or "veil fetishism". It may or may not support the encyclopaedicness of the topic (I've not read it), but that is irrelevant here as Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, Wiktionary is a dictionary. Compare our entry "veil", which deals with the word, with Wikipedia's entry "Veil", which is about the topic of veils. Thryduulf 08:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

The reference added to the entry itself is a durable/print citation (Slate), but needs to have the quote extracted into the entry. User:Pistachio keeps trying to remove it, and I am concerned he is treading on POV/vandal territory. Robert Ullmann 08:42, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Um, you mean not durably archived, right? (At least for en.wikt: purposes, it is not.) --Connel MacKenzie 19:28, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I already explained my actions on your talk page and said I wouldn't remove it again. I welcome the same concern beng shown about Oraculum adding "veil fetish" and female cicumcision to category:Islam. I welcome the same concern about someone linking a sexual fetish to any other major religion. Pistachio 09:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

This looks like starightforward sum of parts. There is nothing in the combination of words that isn't plainly obvious from the individual components. --EncycloPetey 09:42, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Move to RFD as sum-of-parts, + not idiomatic + not set-phrase, etc. Delete. --Connel MacKenzie 19:30, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Passed to rfd. --Dijan 03:29, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

• Link: WT:RFD#veil fetish. (Deleted, re-deleted.) --Connel MacKenzie 17:39, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

gunna

Is this verifiable dictionary material? --EncycloPetey 09:43, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

2,220,000 googles (more than I expected!) RJFJR 15:45, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd say so; see google books:"i'm gunna" (198 hits), google books:"he's gunna" (50 hits), etc. (That said, going by b.g.c. hits, it seems to be about 4% as common as gonna, which definitely warrants a usage note or something.) —Ruakh_TALK 18:03, 24 July 2007 (UTC) fixed 20:54, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I fully agree that gonna is Ditionary material. The question is just for the particular spelling gunna, which I can't say I've ever seen used. --EncycloPetey 20:30, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Oops, heh, I mistyped. Fixed now, sorry. —Ruakh_TALK 20:54, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Now cited and RFV passed. —Ruakh_TALK 17:31, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Hagnos

Supposed to be English. Not properly formatted. Caps? Any takers? SemperBlotto 16:23, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I don’t think this calls for deletion, clean up yes. I am a noobie however =) —Scott 16:39, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Cleaned up. —Stephen 18:57, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but is it a word? It is in none of my dictionaries and does not seem to be in the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible - and no hits in Wikisource. SemperBlotto 21:27, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

It is a word- See: Strong's Dictionary 53

That is an example of "mention" (in a dictionary). We need evidence of actual "use" in an English text. There are several hits in google books, but each one just talks about the word (even saying it is Greek, not English) rather that just using it naturally. SemperBlotto 07:25, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you SemperBlotto and —Stephen! —Scott 21:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Hey guys, here are some usages of the word hagnos:

• Used in an english sentance: "straight like a heart that is hagnos" - all examples in italics showing they are not English
• Usage in Textus Receptus it is the 12th word in blue - the 12th word in blue is Greek, not English!
• Greek to English translation of Actual word used in above verse: Translation - mention, not use
• List of other uses in the bible:Usage - all Greek

—Scott Smith 15:42, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

In regard to the second section added to the posts I made directly above: SemperBlotto, are you petitioning for deletion or for the word to be moved from English to Greek? First you said it is not an actual word, now you seem to be admitting the words existence but in a different language. Please excuse my lack of experience, I am learning and willing to contribute to the wiki communities. † Scott Smith 04:27, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is disputing the existence of the Greek word, but it should of course be written in Greek rather than the Roman alphabet. -- Visviva 22:53, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes. It isn't Greek - because it uses the wrong alphabet. It isn't English - because it is only ever mentioned rather than used, or used in italics or quotes. My best bet is that it is a transliteration - and we don't accept those. SemperBlotto 07:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree, this spelling seems to be only a transliteration in English. Moved to ἁγνός. —Stephen 20:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed — not English — redirect to Ancient Greek entry deleted. —Ruakh_TALK 04:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

for all intensive purposes

This issue started with the addition of the phrase "for all intensive purposes" to the "alternative form" section of for all intents and purposes. When it was then removed, a new article was created, for all intensive purposes, to bolster the position of the contributor, who then re-added the incorrect variant to the list, complete with internal link.
This "alternative form" is simply an uneducated person's mishearing of the idiom. A malapropism. More precicely referred to as an "eggcorn." The entry for eggcorn lists this very error in its examples. The Wikipedia article for w:eggcorn literally links to the Wiktionary article for all intents and purposes illustrating the common error. We cannot have articles linking to illustrative errors, only to find the mistake supported here without so much as a usage note! Please see the top three hits on Google: [59] [60] [61]
True, a lot of people are using the incorrect variant -- but the fact that it is common means it should get attention at places like the Eggcorn Database rather than be canonized here as an "alternative form." It seems to me the new article goes against WT:CFI#Misspellings.2C_common_misspellings_and_variant_spellings and WT:CFI#Idiomatic_phrases.
The incorrect variant has to be removed from the main article for all intents and purposes because there is nothing there to differentiate to the reader between wrong and right. It just looks like "another variant you could use." Do we actually make articles with misspellings listed in the variants section? And, the new article for all intensive purposes must be deleted, or at the minimum, it should be changed to # {{misspelling of|[[...]]}}, or simply redirected to the actual phrase.Thisis0 18:07, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Although I may not feel quite as impassioned about this as Thisis0 seems to feel, I certainly agree with his/her point. This is a malapropism, gibberish masquerading as sensible English. In the context of any given usage "for all intents and purposes" will likely mean something, but, if "for all intensive purposes" is pasted into that usage in its place, the odds are slim to to none that it will mean anything. -- WikiPedant 18:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

I too, am not particularly impassioned about this entry, I have heard it and said it, here in the US. The American use of "intensive" as an intensifier makes this a very natural US variant. While "the odds are slim to none that is will mean anything" in British English, the opposite is true in the US, where the archaic "intents" form is more likely to be hyper-corrected. En.wiktionary.org is not Wikipedia; when such obvious (very) widespread use exists, it is beyond naive to not list it. To list either entry without the mention of the other (and the relevant warnings) would be irresponsible. (So, is this a spillover edit war from Wikipedia?) --Connel MacKenzie 18:54, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

No spillover from Wikipedia. However, good job -- this is now a spillover from your own ongoing British-US culture war. Why do you play that card so often? Furthermore, why are you playing the U.S. card in the sense that you are proud to be wrong. (You say you have heard the incorrect variant and used it.) I am American. Born and bred. As such, I feel strongly in asking that you do not tarnish our standing further by waving our flag for ignorance and always taking every chance to point out our differences. This especially applies here, where the truth is the same on both sides of the ocean. One phrase is correct; the other is and always will be a mistake. You make a good point about including it to prevent misuse. Go ahead and list the relevant warnings on for all intents and purposes, and leave the UK stuff out of the article at for all intensive purposes.--Thisis0 19:34, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

You can assert that you are American - if justified a CU check could show if you are, or just another British contributor pretending to be American (wouldn't be the first time this week.) At this point, I would say that it is not justified though - you could be from a region where this is (conceivably) unacceptable. So then, are you suggesting that intensive itself is not an intensifier? Or are you suggesting that your "prescriptivism" applies to set phrases? This has an astonishing number of b.g.c. hits; publishers do not agree with you. For all the things that Wiktionary has that really is falsely listing errors as valid, this one case is very much the opposite. The pedants have it quite wrong. Not by some small margin (as is usually the case for contested terms on Wiktionary,) but rather, by a mile. The etymological origin of the phrase has been overshadowed by popular use. That is the simplistic basis for all "descriptivism" (which I normally decry.) --Connel MacKenzie 18:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

While I don't agree with the claim that "for all intensive purposes" can never be correct, I really don't think it's currently correct in Standard English. Arguments to be made include: arguments from etymology (I think we can all agree that whatever the current status of "for all intensive purposes", it originated from a misunderstanding of "for all intents and purposes"), from meaning (looking through Google and b.g.c. hits, it seems that people who write "for all intensive purposes" nonetheless mean "for all intents and purposes", though it's hard to be sure), and from frequency (google:"for all intensive purposes" -"intents and" gets about 6% the hits that google:"for all intents and purposes" -"intensive" does, and google books:"for all intensive purposes" -"intents and" gets about 15% the hits that google books:"for all intents and purposes" -"intensive" does). Taken together with the various authorities that proscribe "for all intensive purposes", I think we have convincing reason to label it nonstandard. —Ruakh_TALK 19:39, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

By the way, I do not object to marking it as {{nonstandard}} - you do make a good case for doing so. That is what we have a References section for. --Connel MacKenzie 19:03, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree. It really is just garbled English that has become widespread in the North American vernacular. Numerous Google hits don't make it standard, any more than the 98,000 or hits for "asterick" or the roughly 170,000 for "asterik" make those terms legitimate alternative spellings of "asterisk." The wedding and car stereo handbooks and electrical engineering texts now cited on the page just provide evidence of the popularity of the error. I have no problem with maintaining an entry for such a widespread usage, but it really should be flagged as the misconstruction that it is. -- WikiPedant 19:58, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Of note: when I said "astonishing number of b.g.c. hits, I am referring to http://books.google.com/, not http://www.google.com/. There is an enormous difference between editorially reviewed material and completely raw HTML text. --Connel MacKenzie 17:31, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Thisis0/WikiPedant: Change to "misspelling of" (or, better yet, "incorrect for" or "eggcorn for" or some such. Although it is, of course, a misspelling, too, it is easier to see how it's a mispronunciation, or simply an incorrect choice of words, than to see how it's a misspelling: the spelling is not what people erred on, but the pronunciation). —msh210 13:31, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Connel MacKenzie's cites made me redact. —msh210 18:56, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I respect that sentiment of "put up, or shut up." I should provide cites more often, but it is very time-consuming; usually my time is better spent elsewhere. --Connel MacKenzie 19:24, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Although this is bigger than this debate, how about a section "common errors" or "common misspellings" on the correct forms of misspellings entries, that contain unlinked mentions of common errors. For example we have an entry pocker as a common misspelling of poker, should the poker entry mention the common misspelling? I don't think it would harm if it is labelled as incorrect. Likewise here, I think "all intensive purposes" should be listed at all intents and purposes but clearly marked as an error. Thryduulf 21:47, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems mostly pointless to me to list erroneous variants at main entries. The only reason I see for doing so is that listing erroneous variants will make it less controversial to list putatively-erroneous variants. —Ruakh_TALK 22:02, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Then it is pointless to list anything that isn't listed in all other English dictionaries. That is quite opposite of how en.wiktionary.org has functioned for the past few years. --Connel MacKenzie 18:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Re: "Then it is pointless to list anything that isn't listed in all other English dictionaries.": I don't see how. Could you make your trail of thought a bit more explicit? —Ruakh_TALK 19:39, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, it would be unfair to claim that such a philosophy is mine. When I started contributing at en.wiktionary.org my views were somewhat (!) different. As a result of discussions with a genuine lexicographer, I've learned to apply the concept "inclusion with explanation is better than omission." A significant portion of the content here on this site remains, due to that ideology. To issue a blanket prohibition on an entry because it is an error is (in that light) simply the wrong thing to do. If we were to take that approach, we would need verifiable references pointing to other secondary sources to back up every entry. It follows that if we were to do that, it would not be reasonable to allow bias from one or another regional reference. If that doesn't answer your question, could you restate it more clearly? --Connel MacKenzie 19:03, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

• Some cites added from the first tiny smidgen of b.g.c. hits. --Connel MacKenzie 18:45, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

• Blocked POV 86.131.31.123 (talk • contribs • whois • deleted contribs • nuke • abuse filter log • block • block log • active blocks • global blocks) for edits to this page, for one week. --Connel MacKenzie 19:16, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I've removed some of the POV comments creeping their way back in. It is painfully obvious that this is not rare; the references themselves identify it as "common" or "very common." Ironically, the POV comments seek to prohibit knowledge of why it is so common, a sentiment I find very odd (in the context of recent discussions.) From a British or etymological perspective, this is probably considered an error, but in the US it is a more natural construction (and more emphatic construction) that the dated/archaic "intents" variant. --Connel MacKenzie 17:20, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Also of note is Doremítzwr, as always, pointlessly finding citations for very rare or obsolete, not widely accepted variants. While I agree with him that WT:CFI is obviously broken, his method still seems the wrong way to go about it. --Connel MacKenzie 19:08, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, dude. The cites you provided for your own baby "for all intensive purposes" are all wedding and car stereo handbooks and electrical engineering texts, and it's already been shown how you missed one of the cites used in a different (proper) sense. Why bitch against the other guy plentifully citing similar erroneous phrases. You said yourself that this stuff should be here to prevent misuse. Why bitch -- cause it wasn't your idea? -- Thisis0 19:26, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

What I’m doing has the chief intention of showing you just how much this phrase gets mangled — often by people who are adamant that their malapropistic form is the correct one (usually due to ignorance, but sometimes due to a weird pride in being different, however wrong; behaviour which, if I may say so, you have been exhibiting in regard to this (true, common) malapropism) — and just how many people object to such mangling. Whilst my personal view is that these various errors should be given redirect entries point to for all intents and purposes, where they can be documented as common malformations, WT:CFI being what it is, they are instead given their own entries (which is better than their being left unmentioned — as you said hereinbefore: “inclusion with explanation is better than omission”). † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 19:21, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, it doesn't make sense to claim that "for all intents and purposes" is "dated/archaic" in the U.S.: google:site:gov "for all intents and purposes" gets more than 300 times the hits that google:site:gov "for all intensive purposes" does. (Using site:us instead, the difference is less dramatic, but it's still a more-than-fifty-fold difference.) Secondly, while it's true that "for all intensive purposes" isn't terribly rare on an absolute scale (getting almost as many Google hits as "supercalifragilistic"), it's very rare compared to "for all intents and purposes". Thirdly, note that "for all intents and purposes" is actually more emphatic than "for all intensive purposes", since "all intents and purposes" includes absolutely all purposes, including even intensive ones. (Though that's actually pretty irrelevant, since I don't think anyone ever chooses between the two expressions; "for all intensive purposes" exists only for those who don't know the correct form.) —Ruakh_TALK 19:20, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The gov sites apparently have filters or proscriptions invalidating them as representative. (Simple statistics of .gov vs. .com demonstrate that. Site:.us is mainly a sub-set of .gov sites under a different TLD.) The fact that you bring up a point that has already been addressed before indicates your arguments are not in good faith (nor rational.) Your insistent prescription against the common phrase is likewise surreal; calling it "only for those who don't know the correct form" is not only wrong, but unsubstantiated. Language changes and adapts; because "intensive" is a very common colloquial intensifier and the meaning is similar, it fits better in the American version of the phrase. If we are supposed to be showing how something actually is used, it doesn't make sense to prescribe an old-fashioned British way of saying it.

The same old clique rallies to the same old (invalid) defenses, it seems. Doremitzwer, I cited the form I know to be common; we enter idioms for the most common form. While your analysis is interesting, those "manglings" are much less common, rare or unheard-of. As I said above, I added only the first handful I came across on the first page of search results. You entered every historical error ever recorded for each of the others. Which really has relevance to English, particularly Modern English? (No, I do not wish to hear the obtuse arguments about "linguistic Modern English" again; on Wiktionary the convention is to consider items out of use for 100 years as obsolete. For these discussions, I do not consider obsolete terms to be part of modern English.) While yours is an interesting approach, it seem to me to still be intentionally disruptive (as so many other activities of yours have been.) Rather than trying to identify the cause of a genuine linguistic variant, you instead try to push a bizarre prescriptive-POV while at the same time diluting the relevance of the genuine term? Bizarre. --Connel MacKenzie 21:23, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

No way. You, sir, need citations that claim this mistaken group of words "fits better in the American version of the phrase." Are you honestly trying to push the POV that this wrong phrase is the more correct in America? You, lone man, do not get that privilege. I am all-American and I say you are dead wrong. It's not better, it doesn't fit better, it's not more common, it does not make much sense in syntax, and we will not advocate it as such. We will report the truth on what it is in our language. 1.) No, it is not rare. 2.) It did arise from a mishearing of "for all intents and purposes" 3.) "For all intents and purposes" is far, far from obsolete. 4.) Reporting the truth does not ban people from using any phrase they like. This is a language site for goodness' sake. People come to learn things they don't know, not have people blithely tell them what they are already doing. Report the truth, and if you still back the POV that this is better in American, get the citation. We've provided half a dozen American cites that say the original is "better." Oh yea and I'm new -- so much for "same old clique." -- Thisis0 22:28, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

That's an interesting spout of vitriol, yet completely misplaced. I never said "...intensive purposes" should be the preferred entry, I said "...intents and purposes" is likely to be hyper-corrected. Your blathering (was that a threat?) about my response to the very rare forms that a vandal entered with equal status as the common form is just bizarre. Your comments way near the top of this exchange ("play that card...") imply that your newbie status here, is indeed, misleading. Or perhaps not...you possibly could get that interpretation from misreading snippets of long (scattered) conversations. As for providing citations for the single use of a word in a discussion area; nah. --Connel MacKenzie 17:26, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

You said, "because "intensive" is a very common colloquial intensifier and the meaning is similar, it fits better in the American version of the phrase." I asked you to justify and cite this POV you've been pushing or lose it. Regarding "rare forms entered with equal status", this is precisely what you did originally at for all intents and purposes, which led to this whole polite discussion (see top), not to mention repeating this same vandalism at usuress. As far as "play that card" and being new, it only took me a day to notice your ubiquitous US-UK bitching on every page, and when you started spouting it immediately in this, my very first RFV, it was infuriating. The reason so many kB are wasted around you is because people have to tell you the same things eight times when all you provide in return are red-herrings, derisive comments, false accusations, conspiracy theories, name calling, and spiteful jabs. Is this really the way you guys like things here? If so, let me know. If you are reading this, speak now. I need to know if I am at all in the wrong -- aside from lowering to this cad's level and joining in his personal attacks. Should he have continual license to attack this community without repercussion? Do we really want a community where has it become a familiar admonishment to "just ignore him; don't let him get to you; don't stoop to his level, think about how you word things with an eye to not pissing him off? This has to stop, and you, the community, must speak up now. Unless you like it. -- Thisis0 20:36, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Too long to read. No longer interested. Rod (A. Smith) 20:48, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that Connel doesn't think the rules apply to him. He doesn't have a single, specific reason for thinking this; rather, in any given discussion, he'll find a reason to claim that they don't (such as a "common practice" that no one's ever heard of, or a Wikipedia policy that's tangentially relevant). Sometimes he can't even find something resembling a reason (like at #usuress on this page), and has to resort to insisting insanely that he's already supported his claims with evidence. Now, the good news is that usually Connel does roughly the right thing, so it's not a huge deal that his motivation has nothing to do with following the rules; the bad news is that when what he does isn't the right thing, there's no way to convince him of it, because there's no argument that he considers more relevant than "This is what Connel has believed since the start of this discussion." Ultimately, we might have to have a vote to de-sysop him; but I'm really hoping it won't come to that. —Ruakh_TALK 22:28, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Ruakh, whilst I agree with your description of his behaviour, I strongly oppose the suggestion that Connel be de-sysopped — that would only be appropriate if he were to misuse his specifically administratorial privileges; to his credit, he has not done that (as far as I am aware) — for example, he may have unjustifiably tried, and failed, to get me blocked, but at least he didn’t do so himself. Even if Connel were de-sysopped, it would not change his behaviour (all his dodgy actions, as far as I can tell, could just as easily have been committed by him even if he wasn’t an administrator). † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 01:20, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

That's mostly true, but keeping him as an administrator implies to new users that we, as a community, endorse or at least condone his behavior and consider it to be in keeping with the spirit of the community. Even new users who have interactions with other editors, and therefore see that Connel is not really representative of the community, could hardly be blamed for thinking we're at least O.K. with how he acts. (By the way, I openly apologize for having this discussion here, as it's clearly not the place for it, but I really don't know what place there is for it, and the discussion seems to me to be necessary.) —Ruakh_TALK 04:14, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that for such situations the only thing we can do is write the bitten newbie a note explaining Connel’s obnoxiousness. I believe that the good he does with his administratorship outweighs the implication that we condone his negative actions. Thinking about it, Connel’s actions are more appropriately dealt with by issuing a short-term block than they are by his being de-sysopped. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 10:44, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

This is RfV, not RfD. Citations have been provided. That should be the end of the discussion. Other issues can be taken up in the Beer Parlor. Cheers! bd2412 T 05:23, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, of course. RFVpassed. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 10:39, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

biblical proportions

Shouldn't this be under the adjective form of biblical proportions instead? The definitions given don't seem quite right. SemperBlotto 21:15, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think it should be under the adjectival form too. Even the current entry uses the adjectival phrase in both its examples. -- WikiPedant 00:52, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I moved it to of biblical proportions, listing it as a prepositional phrase (functioning as an adjective). I'm not a trained linguist or grammarian, so there might be a technicality that I'm not aware of, but it's just my feeling that it is a prepositional phrases. If other editors feel that it is indeed an adjectival phrase, then it can be re-edited to fit the consensus (and most definitely the more learned) view. SonPraises 02:02, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

of biblical proportions

Supposed to be a prepositional phrase that functions as an adjective. But definitions and translation are for nouns. SemperBlotto 07:18, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

I've re-worked the definition of to reflect it's adjective. I've attested it's use going back 24 years in sources as diverse as Ghostbusters and Time Magazine and speakers as diverse as Tedd Kennedy, George H. W. Bush and Henry Kissinger. I have not found a widely consulted dictionary to reference the usage. (AHD uses it as an example sentence under biblical in the sense of very great in extent; enormous. (This sense falls flat, I think. One's ambition might be "very great in extent" but to call it "biblical ambition" would not convey the same thought. And calling the Hindenburg a "biblical blimp" would not communicate that your opinion that the blimp was enormous. But using the phrase "of biblical proportions" to describe either ambition or a blimp, conveys the meaning of that particular sense of the definition."

Okay, so what else does the entry lack in terms of verification?

SonPraises 09:05, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Nothing. Well done, it's fine now. SemperBlotto 09:09, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed. Thanks, SonPraises. —Ruakh_TALK 23:53, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Pharmageddon

Protologism? Caps? (nasty format) SemperBlotto 12:15, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

*Groan* — that was not fun. It’s a neologism. The initial majuscule is warranted, as (I think) this is a proper, rather than a common, noun. It has six citations, but I’m unsure how valid they are (due to durability of archiving and actual-quotation-lacking issues); though even if they’re not, Pharmageddon gets 32 Google Scholar hits, so I’m sure some quotations could be gleaned from that lot. I rewrote the definition, which seemed to be a copyright violation (well, it was copied from elsewhere, whether it was copyrighted thereby is unknown to me). I suspect Aspro didn’t know what he was on about, as he listed two translations — one Dutch (but which, I guesstimate, is actually a translation from some Scandinavian language (judging from the ‘a + kroužek’ (å) and the ‘o + stroke’ (ø)) — someone will need to check which language it is; a link to the original context is provided by it), and the other American! (I knew the dialects had some differences, but was unaware that they were beginning to be regarded as separate languages!) –The latter, needless to say, was removed. I also hid the usage note and the reference for reasons given thereinbefore; if someone could address those issues, that would be grand. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 15:06, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The URL is a .dk, that is, Danish. And the language used supports that. (Actually, there seems to be slightly more hits for the spelling "farmageddon" - mainly English ones, including a mention in wordspy, though I'm not sure if these are supposed to have identical meanings or not) \Mike 22:29, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Without looking myself, I’d imagine that Pharmageddon (which implies pharmaceuticals) is distinct from farmageddon (which I’d guess implies farms and thus agriculture). Pharming and phishing are other examples of this meaningful f/ph switching (and the first one directly relates to the farm/pharm(aceuticals) pair). † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 15:45, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

RFVpassed. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 13:00, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

paulo post futurum

English? --Connel MacKenzie 18:03, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Definitely — Google Book Search yields 366 results. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 18:27, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

It now has three citations for its one sense. Should the synonym Real Soon Now be capitalised? † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 19:04, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't agree that is "definitely." The first page of results there seem to be secondary sources (or otherwise failing use/mention distinction.) <playing my card again> There seems to be a preponderance of British-origin links there? Likewise, I don't think any of the three cites you already added (thank you, by the way) pass use/mention. --Connel MacKenzie 19:10, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, they seems like examples of use to me, but if you can show that they’re actually just mentioning the phrase, I shall happily find valid citations. I recognise that the use/mention distinction can be a little tricky to grasp, so I accept that I may be wrong about that here. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 20:15, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

One in italics, one in quotation marks and one in all caps? That is still zero citations. --Connel MacKenzie 19:29, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

It now has five citations — the latest two have no such special formatting. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 22:55, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed. I'm a bit iffy on this, but have decided to err on the side of inclusion. If anyone wishes to re-RFV this, I will not object. —Ruakh_TALK 20:46, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

smelt

Requesting verification for both metalworking noun senses ("slag" and "the process of producing iron and steel from iron ore"). Thryduulf 20:02, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I think so... or rather, it has some metallurgical sense...

• 1968: Metals Abstracts, by the Institute of Metals and American Society for Metals

  [...] the reacting agents for the smelt being fed to the metal bath through [...]

  [...] below and above the bath surface, and the gases escaping from the smelt being [...]

• 1996: Arthur J. Wilson, The Living Rock: The Story of Metals Since Earliest Time and Their Impact on Civilization

  When the smelt was complete the crucible could be lifted out and the metal poured directly into the moulds, thus avoiding the need to break it up and remelt [...]

• 1997: Applied Scientific Research, page 386

  When the bulk amount of the base metal of the alloy is smelted, the small amount of solute metal is added to the smelt by turning the reservoir around the [...]

• 2000: Julian Henderson, The Science and Archaeology of Materials: An Investigation of Inorganic Materials, page 280

  [...] can vary in different positions in the furnace and during the smelt.

• 2000: Transactions, by the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy (Great Britain) and the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy

  [...] the cakes of metal from all the smelts can then be melted together, [...]

• 1842: John Jay Smith, Robert Walsh, Eliakim Littell, eds, The Museum of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art

  [...] and forty-eight of brass, afforded a beautiful metal, which possessed time qualities I sought

  [...] and that the smelts had continued to [...]

• 2000: Julian Henderson, The Science and Archaeology of Materials: An Investigation of Inorganic Materials

  Furnaces are unlikely to survive the smelts; all that often remains on metal production sites is just furnace bases and broken fragments of furnaces [...]

— Beobach972 05:04, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Here's one more, one I didn't quite understand (look it up, it's quite peculiar) :

• 2000: Linda Hurcombe, Moira Donald, Gender and Material Culture in Archaeological Perspective, page 130

  Women are allowed to play some small part in the smelt If they are breastfeeding [...]

— Beobach972 05:04, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

• I think it means the mixture used for smelting, usually ore and charcoal. Have I put this comment in the right place please? --Kylemew 15:48, 3 August 2007 (UTC)
• Slag it seems is the waste product after smelting, so smelt is a noun but is not slag. I started from here. --Kylemew 16:21, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The noun (1) sense is the output of the smelting process (sense 2). The smelt is the (semi-)liquid you get from heating up the ore, and the slag is the waste portion of that output (often in the form of solid or semi-solid inclusions.) You would take your smelt (sense 1) and then further refine or amend it into your desired alloy. Hence, while the smelt may contain slag, it is not (just) slag. Most of the quotes above that are metallurgical in context refer to the process.

I can't find a good illustrative quote in online sources at the moment, but here are some using the "result" rather than the "process" sense, for documentation purposes.

• 1982, Raymond E. Kirk and Donald F. Othmer, Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology

  The green liquor, ie, the solution obtained on dissolving the smelt, contains an insoluble residue called dregs...

• 1997, Anthony Lawrence Kohan, Boiler Operator's Guide

  ...[it] reacts with the smelt in the furnace...

• 1998, Deanna J. Richards, Greg Pearson, National Academy of Engineering, The Ecology of Industry: Sectors and Linkages

  Dissolving the smelt liberates some hydrogen sulfide and particular matter...

I haven't added these at the article, as the definition "slag" needs to be rewritten. --Jeffqyzt 16:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Also, smelting is not solely confined to the production of iron; you can, for example, smelt lead ore to produce lead (don't breathe the vapors :-) --Jeffqyzt 16:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Senses merged and RFV passed; thanks, all. —Ruakh_TALK 21:29, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

precum

b.g.c. shows this as always hyphenated (or two separate terms?) in English. --Connel MacKenzie 20:24, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

a Google groups search of alt.sex.stories* shows ~10,900 for "pre-cum" (hyphenated or two separate words) [62] and ~6,090 for "precum" (one word) [63]. Based on this, I suggest marking precum as an alternative spelling of pre-cum. Thryduulf 20:41, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The b.g.c. results I saw (ahem, yes, before nominating it) were all non-English. --Connel MacKenzie 03:43, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

search for precum erotic (not as a phrase) and there are plenty of English results (9 of the first 10) spanning at least 1996 to 2006. I'll add the citations to the article this evening (don't have time now). Thryduulf 09:05, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I've never seen it spelled outside a dictionary, encyclopedia or other similar resource with the hyphen. Also... it's a slang word and we're worried about its hyphenation? Ric | opiaterein 16:22, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I read quite a lot of erotic literature, and I've seen it spelled both ways. I vaguely recall one poorly-edited story using both "precum" and "pre-cum" in consecutive sentences! (I'm very rarely picky about which of a pair of alternative spellings an author should use, but a lack of internal consistency in a work is one of my pet peeves!). Verification coming later (not on my own PC atm) Thryduulf 19:36, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

precum and pre-cum both now cited. "precum" also gets a lot of hits in a language that [64] reckons is Latin, which probably needs an entry. Thryduulf 22:07, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I think in Latin precum means something like of prayers (that is, it seems to be the plural genitive of prex "prayer"; you might recognize the root from its English cognates imprecate and deprecate). —Ruakh_TALK 22:21, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

A couple of books clearly had an ecclesiastical context, so of prayers would make sense in that regard. Thryduulf 22:53, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Yep, genitive, plural form of prex, feminine noun, 3rd declension, I think Ric | opiaterein 23:05, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed; thanks, Thryduulf. —Ruakh_TALK 05:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

personage

"a famous and important person"? Thryduulf 21:59, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

The first of many definitions in the OED is 1. a. A person of high rank, distinction, or importance; a person of note. Freq. with qualifying word, as great, important, etc. (and normal plural) SemperBlotto 22:07, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

• • I got "A person of importance; a man or woman of distinction; a being regarded as having an individuality like that of a human being". I thought the last bit about non-human personages was interesting. I can't recall ever having heard or read it used in that context though. Anyone? --Kylemew 16:01, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed: this word is clearly in widespread use, and as far as I know this is its primary sense by far. If you're saying that you're familiar with this word, but believe its sense to be different, please re-list. —Ruakh_TALK 04:28, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

filk

The hits at b.g.c. suggests this is a common scanning error for milk (somehow.) --Connel MacKenzie 03:36, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

All the ones I see are scannos for silk. But if you search on filk music you'll find lots of uses. Robert Ullmann 17:33, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm only familiar with the "parody" usage, which to me is independent of the science fiction/fantasy context. The references in the Wikipedia article w:Filk music suggest that the main sense should be verifiable. Thryduulf 09:01, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

If you read only the Wikipedia page, yes you can easily get that impression. But there don't seem to be supporting uses; only that one secondary source. --Connel MacKenzie 19:32, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Huh? I don't follow? The 'pedia page gives plenty of sources. I'll confess to a bit of filk singing meself at an SF convention. (Don't know about the Photoshop sense.) Robert Ullmann 17:33, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction gives numerous citations for the word filk: the noun is cited as early as 1953; the verb sense of writing or performing a filk is cited as early as 1978. The information about it being an error for folk pertains to the original etymology of its 1953 use. That is, the word originated as a typo, but has since become a word in its own right. I'm not sure how milk comes into this. --EncycloPetey 00:34, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Both noun and adj (look for filk science fiction at bgc for noun, filk song for adj.) Also for more history, see [65]. I looked at this rfv several times thinking folks surely *must* have been discussing the photoshop def. ArielGlenn 06:52, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Photoshop sense RFV failed, removed. I'm working on citing the musicky sense, because I know it exists and I don't want to delete it. —Ruakh_TALK 01:15, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Now cited and RFV passed. This can also be used as a verb ("filking" gets plenty of b.g.c. hits), but we can get to that later. —Ruakh_TALK 01:58, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

only if

Does this meet our CFI (it needs formatting anyhow)? I know we have if and only if and if only. SemperBlotto 08:05, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

This is definitely a set phrase with a specific, technical meaning in mathematics (my field): if its being a sum of parts is your worry, that should (à la prior knowledge) alleviate your concern. Otherwise, I'm not sure what's wrong with it, as there are countless hits in books, etc., with the meaning that's listed in the entry. —msh210 15:34, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I think I just contradicted my own stance in the discussion, above, on genuine issue of material fact. Ah, well, a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. —msh210 15:40, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

In mathematics, only if is idiomatic, because (unlike other uses of only) it doesn't imply if; P only if Q means Q if P, and in particular, it does not mean the same is P if and only if Q. —Ruakh_TALK 18:04, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

P only if Q means Q if P ? Surely you mean P only if Q means ~P if ~Q ! Robert Ullmann 17:11, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

You're right that P only if Q more narrowly means ~P if ~Q, but this seems like a distinction without a difference? :-/ —Ruakh_TALK 01:01, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I think Robert means that "Q if P" is incorrect. You meant to say "Q implies P", I think. No, I'm not sure what you meant. --EncycloPetey 01:13, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

By "Q if P" I mean "if P, Q" i.e. "P → Q" i.e. "P implies Q" i.e. "Q ← P" i.e. "Q is implied by P" i.e. "~Q → ~P" i.e. "~P ← ~Q" i.e. "Q is true if P is" i.e. "if P is true, Q is" i.e. "if Q is false, P is" i.e. "P is false if Q is". (I'm not just being crazy, am I? I really think all of those are the same. It hasn't been that long since I've used a contrapositive.) —Ruakh_TALK 01:38, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

For purposes of this discussion then, are you distinguishing betwen "P if Q" and "P only if Q"? Those aren't the same to me, but your discussion implies they are synonymous. In particular, "P only if Q" shluld not mean the same as "Q if P". Yes? --EncycloPetey 01:50, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

By my understanding — which I was really pretty sure of until this discussion — "P only if Q" and "Q if P" are exactly equivalent (and hence might as well be synonymous), and neither is equivalent to "P if Q". —Ruakh_TALK 02:46, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Drat, I can't find the nice litle book I used to have on symbolic logic (and can't remember the last time I had it). Most of my mathematical texts are either too general for this, or cover the wrong subdisciplines. --EncycloPetey 03:36, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the only textbook of mine that I can remember covering this sort of basic terminology is one that wasn't actually a published work yet (it later became this book), so I don't think it's a good idea to put it in the references section without being sure the published version had the same text in the same place. What it says is:

We have already mentioned that the implication P ⇒ Q can be expressed as both “If P, then Q” and “P implies Q”. In fact, there are several ways of expressing P ⇒ Q in words, namely:

If P, then Q.
Q if P.
P implies Q.
P only if Q.
P is sufficient for Q.
Q is necessary for P.

It is probably not surprising that the first three of these say the same thing, but perhaps not at all obvious that the last three say the same thing as the first three. […]

(That's from Gary Chartrand, Albert D. Polimeni, and Ping Zhang, Mathematical Proofs: A Guide to Understanding the Basics of Abstract Mathematics and Constructing and Writing Proofs of Your Own, as it stood at the end of 1999, Chapter 2: Logic, pages 27–28.)

—Ruakh_TALK 14:15, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

OK, but it needs hammering into some sort of proper format. SemperBlotto 07:21, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm marking this RFV passed under the "clearly widespread use" clause, and adding {{rfquote}}. —Ruakh_TALK 02:02, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Red Rectangle

Any astronomy buffs around care to provide a reference for this? (For astronomy, what should be checked?) --Connel MacKenzie 18:44, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Linked to the 'pedia article; catalogue number is correct. There are plenty of references there and googlable. Is this a placename that meets CFI? (Just kidding.) Robert Ullmann 17:21, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm pretty sure we had an explicit exemption for genuine celestial objects. Google book search didn't turn this up; is there a handy filter or qualifier I should apply in that case? --Connel MacKenzie 20:15, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see. http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/sim-id?protocol=html&Ident=Red+Rectangle. I'll add that to my sidebar tools. --Connel MacKenzie 20:17, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Now cited and RFV passed, even though it doesn't actually meet the CFI, because Connel will accuse me of POV pushing if I actually enforce that clause. —Ruakh_TALK 00:20, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

lapsus linguae

This is a Latin phrase. The citations given are almost all in italics; the anti-put-it-in-the-correct-language-heading cabal incorrectly marked this as RFVpassed. --Connel MacKenzie 19:27, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Of course it should be kept. It is used all the time in English books and conversation. Yes, it is sometimes used in italics but that does not by itself exclude it. The real test should be whether or not a word/phrase from another language needs to be translated to be understood. Widsith 19:31, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Note: this RFV is for the English section only. (Interesting that there isn't even a Latin section - probably non NPOV vandalism somewhere along the way.) --Connel MacKenzie 19:34, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't know who let slip we even have that cabal; we're definitely going to have to censure him/her at the next meeting. :-P   —Ruakh_TALK 21:45, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Note also the invalid references; one says it is Latin (unlike their normal notation from) while the other reference link is a dead link. --Connel MacKenzie 22:20, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I think this confusion arose from the fact that, whereas we would write From {{L.}} ''[[#Latin|lapsus linguae]]''. in the etymology of such an entry, lots of other dictionaries (like the COED [11^th Ed.] for one) just give the source language, in which case the etymon is presumed identical. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 14:19, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I think you might have misclicked? For me, the one that was a dead link (which I've now fixed; thanks for pointing it out) was the same one that (once you clicked the "did you mean" link) gave simply "Latin" as the etymology; the other one doesn't seem to mention Latin at all. And the one that does give Latin as the etymology includes both an unqualified pronunciation and an "Eng." pronunciation, which does seem to suggest it acknowledges it as an English word. —Ruakh_TALK 22:42, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the links. --Connel MacKenzie 00:29, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I feel I need to restate my complaint about this entry. My initial tone has thrown this entire conversation out of whack.

The basic rationale for having an ==English== section for this term is as follows: learned scholars use this pompously in English contexts, so we would be negligent to omit it.

That "dumbing down" of Wiktionary is unacceptable, as it ignores several things. One is that 'learned scholars' know it is Latin, and therefore always italicize it. It also ignores the implicit pomposity of deigning to use that in English; on IRC someone suggested using a {{snob}} template amidst laughter. It also ignores the fact that 'learned scholars' will usually explain it immediately (depending on the audience they are addressing.)

The entry for lapsus linguae should be ==Latin==, not ==English==. A very brief stub ==English== section might also be warranted, if couched with sufficient warnings (i.e. it should always be italicized and it conveys an enormously condescending tone.)

--Connel MacKenzie 19:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Keep as a foreign term used in English. This Latin term is not used in all languages. Not all Latin terms are used in English. This Latin term is used in English and real dictionaries such as Collins and Merriam-Webster include it as such. Encarta does not include it and the Spanish RAE dictionary does not include it. Interestingly, the RAE Spanish dictionary includes it with a hybrid orthography where both words retain their Latin spelling but Spanish use of the acute accent to indicate stress is used. — Hippietrail 03:17, 29 July 2007 (UTC) (ammended Hippietrail 03:26, 29 July 2007 (UTC))

This is a request for verification. The examples (so far) of English use do not show it being used as English; they show it as being used as Latin within English contexts. --Connel MacKenzie 14:21, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

What kind of use would you consider to be properly English, rather than Latin-in-an-English-context? † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 15:33, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I did not say "Latin-in-an-English-context," rather, I said Latin. As in, "'learned scholars' know it is Latin." I do not see the point of dumbing-down Wiktionary, calling Latin terms English. --Connel MacKenzie 07:29, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Note the new Icelandic translation seems to be for "Freudian slip" not "lapsus linguae." --Connel MacKenzie 08:29, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you consider words like cliché or frisson to be French and not English? They often still appear in italics. Surely if a word is regularly used in English sentances without being translated there comes a point where you have to accept that it is part of our language as well. Widsith 17:55, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

You’d think so, after over a hundred years of usage. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 22:59, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, Widsith, I don't uniformly italicize "cliché" when I write it, but then, I usually write the English word cliche. But the accented version certainly does appear in English without italics frequently, (if not more often than in italics.) I am not familiar with the word frisson. What then, does this have to do with the Latin term lapsus linguae? --Connel MacKenzie 17:07, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Both the Icelandic translations mean the same as lapsus linguae. --BiT 21:39, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I hope you aren't entering translations like that routinely. Those seem to be synonyms (in Icelandic) not a translation of the Latin phrase. If that somehow is translated from Latin "lapsus linguae" to Icelandic "slip of the tongue" directly, it should be entered as a translation. But that is more than a little hard to believe. --Connel MacKenzie 16:34, 10 October 2007 (UTC) That is, how would you translate the sentence "He made a slip of the tongue, or as we say, a lapsus lingue."? --Connel MacKenzie 16:50, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

Kept. —Ruakh_TALK 21:30, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

science

Sense #4: The fact of knowing something; knowledge or understanding of a truth. I see something similar at Webster's 1913 (sense #1) but I don't think that this use exists in English, outside that one Bible quote. Was it mangled in rewording? Should this be marked as obsolete, or removed as not being a distinct sense, or kept with better example sentences and a better definition? --Connel MacKenzie 17:00, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

No it's definitely OK - this was the original meaning of the word. I don't think it's used anymore, except perhaps in theology. I will look for some cites. Widsith 17:03, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

This meaning is retained in its antonym, nescience. † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 17:14, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh, that is cool. Thanks. I think my {{rfv-sense}} should be removed. Keep. --Connel MacKenzie 19:53, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Could somebody still provide a quote or an example, please? Hekaheka 05:36, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I've added the Biblical quote with this sense. There's another in the book of Daniel, but its interpretation is not as clear. --EncycloPetey 05:54, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

soz

Searching b.g.c. yields a lot of name matches, but not this use. --Connel MacKenzie 20:56, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Is it really any surprise that text messaging slang is not widely found amongst the traditionally more formal writing of books? Anyway, I've cited this from newsgroups (I found the search term "soz for" helpful to eliminate most name matches). I'd appreciate someone running their eye over my formatting, as I'm never confident of how to fit usenet messages into a citation style that feels designed for formally-published works. Thryduulf 21:57, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the cites. Whoops. I must've had a connection hiccup when I searched groups and got only eight results the first time. Odd that there is such a prevalence of .uk groups returned there; if this is specific to teh interenets of the UK, that would be an amazing first. But, I'm not that interested in it, so I'll just rescind my RFV here. (The references link seems to be broken? Or is the U2 site supposed to link something with "soz" in it?) --Connel MacKenzie 23:12, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

The link is working for me. It leads to a (The Register) article with the headline "U2 says soz for online snafu", although the word doesn't appear in the body of the story.

I'm guessing the prevalence of UK hits is due to text messaging being a far bigger cultural thing outside the US (mobile telephony is one of the few areas where the US is behind the times technologically). Although I remember getting told off by my parents for using "soz" instead of "sorry" a long time before mobile phones. I know the telling off happened in about 1990 (certainly before we moved house in July 1991), I got my first mobile in the summer of 1999 (and have never been into text speak). Thryduulf 00:04, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I guess it makes more sense that it is a common British term that crossed over to texting naturally, rather than a texting invention. The various forms of 1eetspeek tend to be very international. So, seeing it touted as an internet-texting invention threw me off; I've never heard it before, only because it really is a UK term? Interesting. By the way, texting is very popular with the younger generations here. Very popular. --Connel MacKenzie 07:09, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Looking at a few more g.g.c. hits this does seem to be (originally?) primarily British - not something I would have guessed. Thryduulf 08:39, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, in GenAm (texting or internet,) I'd use "sry." --Connel MacKenzie 15:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

ars musica

--Connel MacKenzie 23:26, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't find any primary sources for this definition at b.g.c (one secondary source, and one quote of a secondary source in a commentary about that work). However it is clear from many sources that "ars musica" means "art of music" in Mediaeval Latin. There are some books in Italian and French containing the term, but I can't tell whether it is a part of either of those languages.

Very, very few English language g.g.c hits are anything other than proper noun usages, even when excluding the word "Denver" (Ars Musica Denver was a widely mentioned music publication that apparently ceased production in 1995. I did see two posts containing the given meaning, however one was a list of slang phrases and so was a mention not a use; the other one quotes it from somewhere else with a tone that suggests to me the author is casting doubt upon its meaning, or at the very least the author is not familiar with the term in that context. Again there are a lot of Italian hits that someone who speaks the language should look at. Thryduulf 00:29, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, deleted. Thanks for the research, Thryduulf. —Ruakh_TALK 21:00, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

off book

Dangherous/Wonderfool. Not like off the books; just sum-of-parts? --Connel MacKenzie 02:31, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Seems legit; I've cited the sense and added another. Don't think this can be regarded as compositional; as a non-theatrical person myself, out of context I wouldn't have known whether this meant "without the book" or "from the book." (nor would it necessarily be obvious what kind of a "book" is meant.) -- Visviva 03:41, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed; thanks, Visviva. —Ruakh_TALK 20:57, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

selectorized

Really? bd2412 T 04:57, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Per Google Books, I take it back. bd2412 T 05:09, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

for fake

Taking the quote as given, I get two b.g.c. hits. This is supposed to be a set phrase? Move to WT:BJAODN, if it were actually funny. --Connel MacKenzie 06:55, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

Now cited. (This seems likely to be a series of independent nonces, but as it stands, it does seem to meet the CFI.) —Ruakh_TALK 13:48, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed. —Ruakh_TALK 20:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Gemeinschaftsbildenden

Never heard of it. Found no reference (at least not for usage as a noun). --Zeitlupe 19:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. (Feel free to re-create as whatever part of speech does exist.) —Ruakh_TALK 21:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Gesellschaftlichen

Never heard of it. Found no reference (at least not for usage as a noun) --Zeitlupe 19:02, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

My copy of Flügel, Schmidt, Tanger doesn't have this noun, only the adjective. Mind you, the edition I have is dated 1904 so won't include 20th century coinages. --EncycloPetey 19:09, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, entry deleted. (Feel free to re-create as an adjective entry.) —Ruakh_TALK 21:38, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem

Creator of the entry marked it both "English" and "Latin". (1) Is there any evidence that this can be called "English"? (2) Is this a Latin idiom, or just a maxim/quote/piece of advice? --EncycloPetey 19:06, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

It looks like the creator didn't mean to say that this term is English, only that "Remember to keep a clear head in difficult times." is the English translation of it. —Ruakh_TALK 02:25, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

English RFV failed, removed. Latin RFV passed, as it's an oft-quoted-without-translation line from Horace, so I think we can count it under "usage in a well-known work". (I realize that doesn't really make sense for a sum-of-parts phrase, but I think it's something we can expect people to look up. But, listing on RFD in case anyone disagrees.) —Ruakh_TALK 03:18, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

hierophany

Didn't see this in a quick check of other dictionaries. There seem to be a lot of b.g.c. hits, but no consistent use or meaning. (Again, from only a cursory glance.) Is this worth cleaning up (that is, is it correct?) --Connel MacKenzie 04:31, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to trot out my undergrad philosophy degree (which leaned fairly heavily into religious studies) and say I'm pretty sure it is a word, and I'm pretty sure it does in fact refer to the manifestation of the holy. I note that we (and other dictionaries) have the related form hierophant. Cheers! bd2412 T 05:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

This is an excellent source, by the way: Mircea Eliade's Vision for a New Humanism. bd2412 T 05:15, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I would have said hierophancy. But this may be out there. Widsith 09:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Connel is right that a wide number of meanings are discernable in the b.g.c. hits, but it seems to me that a clear majority of hits (and hits from what I would consider the most respectable sources) support the definition provided. I'll dig deeper. Cheers! bd2412 T 15:55, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I rewrote the definition as per the Wikipedia article (which is, to its credit, referenced, albeit a bit stubby), but I’m unsure if the citations I’ve provided support it (I tried to broaden the definition to save sense-splitting). Someone else wanna check? † Raifʻhār Doremítzwr 12:01, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

RFV passed. Thanks, Doremítzwr; it looks fine, and if it isn't … well, it will have to do. :-) —Ruakh_TALK 23:03, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

itihāsa

Supposed to be Sanskrit, but uses wrong script. Wikipedia link is to a redirect. SemperBlotto

Did we ever decide which scripts were to be used for Sanskrit? I know that in America, Hindi is frequently written in Roman letters, even on products with no English used on them at all. --EncycloPetey 04:51, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

It is Sanskrit. See the online edition of Monier-Williams (you'll need to search for itihāsa in the page). The article currently uses IAST, which is a fairly standard way of writing Sanskrit. GRETIL, for example, uses it for nearly all texts they host. -- Arvind 14:06, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

joust

Second noun defintion - "a disgustingly fat and contemptible individual". Thryduulf 08:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Searching joust fat OR oaf -jousting on books.google.com yielded nothing among the first 100 results. —msh210 13:05, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

RFV failed, sense removed. —Ruakh_TALK 22:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

bicycle

"A literal translation: pony."

Huh? --Dart evader 18:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

That was added by User:CORNELIUSSEON - who has added some strange things in his time. I shall remove it. SemperBlotto 19:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Nullopep

Zero Google hits. Word does not exist in the reference given. (should be uncapitalized if it is real) SemperBlotto 22:04, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• Contributor agrees (by email) that this new word has not yet been published. deleted SemperBlotto 10:17, 2 August 2007 (UTC)