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discobolus clumsy dryth orientation orient de la yardstick whatsay web for all catacomb hinterland pull a Homer punter Heinz 57 garner ramen paradox caliber mails month of spare trivia update abiogenic give me hot dog uncountable noun stoutness V-1 fiscal dead or alive English vice gossypiboma three-fourths fatigues achromatic corporomental aggravated assault co-recursive yay fifth template -ferous Nihilarian industrial bad apple stupider douse metropolis

Contents 1 June 2009 1.1 sphenic 1.2 chopped-meat 1.3 Oslo person 1.4 Aubergine/Eggplant 1.5 plan 1.6 pentakis and similar 1.7 ReTweet 1.8 drole, drôle 1.9 hero 1.10 Please help!! 1.11 ecstacy 1.12 上轉 1.13 ago 1.14 "broken beyond repair" 1.15 aecidium, æcidium 1.16 you 1.17 epidemic 1.18 paleo-, palaeo- 1.19 HIV 1.20 pantograph 1.21 trolley 1.22 genie 1.23 philharmonic vs. philharmonic orchestra 1.24 nerd 1.25 The anatomical location of temple 1.26 than 1.27 naive 1.28 purgatoric 1.29 up and leave 1.30 abigeat 1.31 eat one's hat 1.32 colliery 1.33 chromography?!? 1.34 Terms used only in American (or US) English vs. US spellings 1.35 off to 1.36 razor sharp 1.37 Joycian 1.38 4-2-4 1.39 es seien gewesen 1.40 Lack of articles 1.41 Hitler 1.42 treed 1.43 runde Tisch 1.44 nuclear proliferation 1.45 apricot 1.46 loth 1.47 supercompress 1.48 artisan pronunciation 1.49 new term deserves consideration 1.50 unported 1.51 user 1.52 above and beyond 1.53 inter alia 1.54 on the radio 1.55 figmo 1.56 N.S.B. winning words 1.57 am albanischsten 1.58 brass neck 1.59 lead 1.60 in order to 1.61 be worth 1.62 "red blocks" - random entry feature 1.63 collective sense of Nationalities 1.64 Punctuational variance 1.65 MWAA 1.66 have in mind 1.66.1 have something in mind 1.66.2 in mind 1.67 ressortir 1.68 Talk:Romeo 1.69 your ass 1.70 overflow pool 1.71 Dickensian 1.72 *koumpounophobia etymology 1.73 :) 1.74 he 1.75 absolute and relative 1.76 Homographs 1.77 in order for 1.78 Citations:hoocoodanode 1.79 nasogastric 1.80 man of parts 1.81 时间 ("time") 1.82 what do I know 1.83 about face 1.84 hidebound 1.85 Help with unidentifible word 1.86 as 1.87 破pos? 1.88 take it easy 1.89 fancy pants 1.90 on a hiding to nothing 1.91 Looking for new entry forms 1.92 Stiff drink 1.93 cotte-hardie 1.94 sight word 1.95 gleam 1.96 nap 1.97 rfv<worth aWT entry? 1.98 bullseye, bull's eye 1.99 learning difficulties 1.100 bring back into the fold 1.101 makeup><make-up[noun] 1.102 far be it from me 1.103 주#Syllable 1.104 Sears Tower 1.105 a great deal 1.106 doesn't one 1.107 Some more "conjunctions" 1.108 Take a break and grin your way through this ... :) 1.109 on account of 1.110 beta 1.111 even as we speak 1.112 A bail in a pail? 1.113 Vauxhall 1.114 make for 1.115 euclidianness 1.116 a/k/a, f/k/a 1.117 puerile - quotations run wild 1.118 f.i. 1.119 hospitality and flourishing 1.120 gunsel 1.121 hypernym 1.122 goatee 1.123 Etymology of Cassandra 1.124 ne 1.125 Bisaya <=> Visayan 1.126 publisher 1.127 wrench-format q 1.128 not a sausage 1.129 English 1.130 do something with mirrors 2 August 2009 2.1 bâteau 2.2 Outer Space 2.3 word to the wise 2.4 such as 2.5 gemeinschaftsgefuhl 2.6 a leopard cannot change its spots 2.7 suffix or interfix? 2.8 get into one's stride 2.9 keep someone in the dark 2.10 Statue of Liberty 2.11 white gold 2.12 drear 2.13 beryllium-9 2.14 barrater is mispelled 2.15 Meaning of a Russian word 2.16 1sandwich short of apicknick 2.17 bent as a two bob 2.18 shout 2.19 noughties 2.20 here you are 2.21 aspro 2.22 Proper grammar question 2.23 something fierce 2.23.1 something awful 2.23.2 something good 2.23.3 something bad 2.23.4 something terrible 2.24 noël 2.25 Fossilized forms 2.26 Do you speak English? 2.27 Word Misspelt 2.28 lew 2.29 Missing E numbers 2.30 bust a move 2.31 Public health problem 2.32 -logy 2.33 voucher 2.34 Collaberation of the Week - attempt to revive 2.35 Have vs. Have got. 2.36 taiwan vs tw-ESE vilages 2.37 No (determiner) illustration 2.38 etymology info on secret (Verb) - needs supporting documentation & Latin roots & general editing 2.39 bihourly 2.40 epididymal 2.41 take upon 2.42 deleted "forearm bones" (sum of parts) 2.43 hypothenar 2.44 heaven helps those who help themselves 2.45 a sea of faces 2.46 Subject of a biography 2.47 Emergently 2.48 to nitpick about words 2.49 have a seat 2.50 Swedish and Finnish 2.51 Left body part 2.52 confused 2.53 Another sense for jackpot 2.54 a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step / a single step 2.55 rote learning 2.56 Fishes 2.57 Mining Terminology 2.58 Security Service 2.59 shoop 2.60 make way 2.61 ahead of time 2.62 potted biography 2.63 prostitot 2.64 do aid,objective and goal mean the same 2.65 From Wikipedia:Reference Desk/Language: "Agamid toes" 2.66 Transmition 2.67 request 2.68 "desegregation settlement"? 2.69 -phone words 2.70 faccedilade 2.71 dolour 2.72 by ear and play it by ear 2.73 Shaku 2.74 squeaky-bum time for Portugal 2.75 Krung.. 2.76 be- 2.77 I haven't the foggiest 2.78 tomato juice 2.78.1 grape juice 2.79 circles around 2.80 Transwiki:Never Never Land 2.81 relevant 2.82 Tulyani 2.83 worse comes to worst 2.84 make an exhibition of oneself 2.84.1 make a spectacle of oneself 2.85 Do any of these exist? 2.86 utilize 2.87 xth 2.88 RfTerm: “the study of fortifications” 2.89 crash 2.90 average joe 2.90.1 flare up 2.91 lown 2.92 vale, second definition needed. 2.93 get on 2.94 alopecia areata (and similar) 2.95 shake or shake it? 2.96 again 2.97 secrete, 2nd sense (to conceal; to steal) obsolete? or at least dated? 2.98 Policy on ordering of spelling alternatives in definitions? 2.99 ∎? 2.100 (to play) good cop bad cop 2.101 chillaxin 2.102 Treating "Postposition" as a POS with its own header 2.103 meme 2.104 (in)transitive verbs 2.105 Definition of compromise in need of improvement 2.106 Shakespearean cowslip 2.107 爩 2.108 Please spell and create an entry (if necessary) for a phrase 2.109 Etymology of "whinge" 2.110 "digitgrade" vs "digitigrade" 2.111 Mitsein 2.112 agog 2.113 handy 2.114 trouble maker 3 October 2009 3.1 as#Translingual 3.2 sun/moongazer 3.3 French horn 3.4 back vowel word or back-vowel word 3.5 pighells? 3.6 gold 3.7 intrascapular 3.8 vampire, sense 2 3.9 vistilla 3.10 Mississippi 3.11 hurple 3.12 look down on someone 3.13 nonce second etymology 3.14 library 3.15 What is un potager? 3.16 nonvirile/virile 3.17 not the word 3.18 Template:proscribed 3.19 to go 3.20 of an 3.21 to the 3.22 Why was Maxxinista deleted? 3.23 Cogitamus ergo vincimus 3.24 open book 3.25 not 3.26 People’s Republic of China 3.27 twenty to 3.28 see it coming 3.29 indian giver 3.30 the fix is in 3.31 I am thirsty 3.32 reredo 3.33 luceat..? (Latin) 3.34 US pronunciation of haiku 3.35 wonder 3.36 pankration 3.37 -san 3.38 punter 3.39 words that punctuate 3.40 camel's nose 3.41 all the "good"s 3.42 gigaflop 3.43 still as an interjection? 3.44 tango 3.45 naughties 3.46 perra#Spanish 3.47 witness 3.48 name a baby muhammad? 3.49 cagot 3.50 one side 3.51 breeze 3.52 fishing term 3.53 dinna 3.54 wouldnae 3.55 PLC 3.56 pronunciation of Gaelic word 3.57 'meatloafing' (NZ term? Cat-related sense.) 3.58 like 3.59 normative 3.60 "That's what she said." 3.61 survey with a weather balloon 3.62 left back, right back and centre back 3.63 crepuscular wakefulness 3.64 arsed, be arsed 3.65 extranjerize 3.66 as much as possible 3.67 main page 3.68 per se 3.69 nāscor 3.69.1 nāscor — AEL 3.70 army 3.71 sweetness and light 3.72 grasshopper 3.73 thibilant 3.74 Animal noises as interjections 3.75 universalising mother 3.76 read 3.77 domestic cat et al. 3.78 douse 3.79 spreadeagle 3.80 article of dress 3.81 save oneself 3.82 code words 3.83 URL 3.84 Words found in an article about a Pharmaceutical Company 3.85 polar cone 3.86 as far as one knows 3.87 Snickers & Toblerone 3.88 cinemascope 3.89 runs in the family 3.90 leucismus ? 3.91 figured 3.92 Gabi 3.93 RPMs 3.94 us 3.95 〈 and 〉 3.96 postcode

[edit] June 2009

[edit] sphenic

Anybody willing to have a stab at confirming my judgement regarding this word, which appears to be a textbook example of dictionary zombie? As far as I can tell, it is not in any current use except as a back-derivative from sphenic number (for which, oddly, I can hardly find a usable citation in google books, a call for the ambitious!) or in words like tribosphenic (a type of teeth). Circeus 04:11, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The related term sphenoid is one I've encountered quite a bit, both in botany and anatomy. However, I've never seen the word sphenic, and it doesn't seem to be in the botanical dictionaries (you'd think it would be there, if it was anywhere). I can find spheno- as a prefix in current anatomical texts, but not sphenic (not even in Gray's Anatomy). --EncycloPetey 04:36, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. As I said, I can find several 19th century quotations, and a few from the 1900s, but it stops there (and even then a fair few are artifacts and in fact the word scanned was splenic). It does not appear at all in COCA, nor in the BYU OED corpus—whether it is in OED itself is another question; maybe, maybe not.

Not in OED 2nd ed. kwami 21:21, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

"Sphenic" is not in Webster's Third - however, strangely, it does appear in my Microsoft Word dictionary meaning "wedge-shaped". Now why does it not appear in major dictionaries but in Word's minor dictionary?? Who knows . . . . Logomaniac 23:16, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Probably because it appears in some out-of-copyright dictionary(ies) (it was not unheard of for 19th century dictionaries to contain many words that were not in actual broad use), which might be the same wiktionary and Word's are based on. (Word doe snot have any sort of requirement to keep its dictionary current by removing older words). Circeus 15:00, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] chopped-meat

Saw this created today. Do we bother with these hyphenated attributive forms where they are only an obvious application of the noun? Equinox ◑ 19:41, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Assuming chopped meat is not SoP, neither is this. Assuming, then, that it's attested, I don't see what's wrong with it as far as the CFI are concerned. Do we bother creating them? You needn't, Equinox, but I like to. (I made the one under discussion.) People may look them up and be stymied.—msh210℠ 19:52, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I just queried it as a member of a potentially infinite set, since any noun can be hyphenated when used in this fashion. It's rather like having separate entries for every word capitalised, because, you know, those are attestable, if the word has been used to start a sentence! I see you've deleted it now, but I don't know why... ah, the non-hyphenated form is gone too. Equinox ◑ 00:01, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Oslo person

What do you call someone from Oslo? Osloer, Oslon and Oslan aren't attestable. --Jackofclubs 19:54, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Osloites is attested. Lmaltier 20:25, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

And how about from Vilnius? --Jackofclubs 19:59, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Yep, Osloite (i.e. Oslo + -ite) seems ok according to Google Books. 50 Xylophone Players talk 22:03, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Seems the same suffix is okay for Vilnius too. :) 50 Xylophone Players talk 22:07, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I've noted that about 10 of these "resident of" entries have shown up with translation table problems (no gloss, bad treq format). Is a bot or template involved? DCDuring TALK 00:22, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

No bots (too complicated), no templates, just your old-fashioned copy-paste. I'm correcting them--Jackofclubs 11:08, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I think you misunderstood something, Jack. DCDuring, there is a bot involved in the sense I think you are referring to, i.e. AFAIK AutoFormat is tagging the entries for the category. 50 Xylophone Players talk 20:38, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I meant in the production of them. There was a quick burst of them that AutoFormat marked. The problems may have arisen in the course of subsequent translation rather than the original entry. I think they've been fixed. DCDuring TALK 23:42, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Aubergine/Eggplant

Recently I created the entry for باذنجان which means eggplant in Arabic. I entered eggplant as a translation, but it has been modified to aubergine, and the eggplant entry tagged as {{US}}. Not being a native speaker and having learnt english mainly in the US and Canada I had never heard aubergine, but from what I understand eggplant is used also in Australia and New Zealand. So shouldn't it be aubergine that should be tagged as a british regionalism ? And what should be done with باذنجان ? Should we indicate both eggplant and aubergine as translations ? Beru7 15:37, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Right. Few Americans recognize the word aubergine at all. It doesn’t seem like a food at all; to us it looks like a girl’s name (the beautiful and talented Lady Aubergine Boleyn of Pembroke). We only know the vegetable as the eggplant. —Stephen 16:36, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Eggplant is common in Australia as mentioned above. I suggest defaulting to eggplant and don't use any regional tags as the two main ones (US/UK) are both used. Aubergine is just another name used in most areas.--Dmol 23:57, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree, on the grounds that Brits are probably more likely to know what eggplant is than non-Brits are to know what aubergine is. But this is a bit of a hunch. Equinox ◑ 23:58, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Not all Brits will know "eggplant" - only those who have heard the word used in American TV shows. 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Aubergine is French for eggplant. That`s why the Brits recognize this word. Eggplant is English

This doesn't seem to be born out by its entymology. A lot of words created in the US were usually two words joined together-sidewalk, slingshot, raincoat. Brits or English don't use these (well maybe raincoat). Whether aubergine is French or not is irrevelant, some French words Brits use, some they don't. 89.243.88.76 19:57, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] plan

Should the noun senses 1 and 3 be merged? Equinox ◑ 20:55, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't really see that much of a difference between the two... not being all that experienced in Wiktionary technical things I don't want to do it, but I think sense 1 sould be merged into sense 3, because at least I (not being an engineer or architect) usually think of the current sense 2 when I hear the word plan. Also that may be because I am an author.  :) --Logomaniac 18:07, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I see them as distinct senses: Plans for a building include drawings of both plan and elevation (but I'm neither an architect nor an engineer either). Perhaps sense 3 should have an (architecture) tag? Dbfirs 09:11, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Definitely different sense. we seem to be missing some of the nine senses and subsenses that MWOnline presents. DCDuring TALK 11:51, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Definitely different. The third sense is basically a horizontal cross section, it's a synonym for floor plan. As Dbfirs points out, the first sense covers also elevations, vertical cross sections, w:circuit diagrams &c. - and it's not necessarily related to building (after all it does mention machines). (However, a label "architectural" for the 3rd sense seems misleading to me; I'd prefer "civil engineering" or, better still, both). And yes, we're obviously missing other senses, as in eg "street plan" or "plan of the furniture layout" etc. --Duncan 17:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] pentakis and similar

The term pentakis is red-linked from pentakis dodecahedron. Now the OED only has entries for such terms as hexakis- (with a hyphen). These terms are used as combining forms in chemistry and maths in much the same way as penta- and hexa- etc, but not always with the hyphen, and sometimes as separate words, sometimes physically attached to another. How should we define them? Where does the "kis" come from? SemperBlotto 21:44, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I looked up "kis" in Webster's Third in words ending in "hedron", and found things like "dyakisdodecahedron", "hexakisoctahedron", "hexakistetrahedron", "triakisoctahedron", and "triakistetrahedron". In the etymology section of each of these, it was from a Greek root (dyakis, hexakis, triakis) which meant, respectively, twice, six times, and three times. However, I didn't find anything with "pentakis", but the root "kis" must add something to the number meaning "(so many) times". Does this answer the question at all? --Logomaniac 18:03, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

My memory-lag has finally caught up. I added tetrakis and tetrakis- sometime ago (with no etymology). I'll add the others in the same way. As an explanation:- Organic chemists use e.g. tetra where four simple groups are attached to something but tetrakis where four complex groups, often already containing di-, tri- etc are involved. So tetramethylbenzene but tetrakis-(trichloromethyl)-benzene. SemperBlotto 21:40, 4 June 2009 (UTC) p.s. bis- and tris- are used for the equivalent terms involving 2 and 3.

OK, if you say so...... I'm not sure exactly what you're talking about, since I never was good at science, but will take your word for it.  :) Logomaniac 15:46, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Added entries for bis-, tris-, pentakis-, hexakis-, in case s.o. has better examples. kwami 20:46, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ReTweet

Someone added this sense to RT. It seems to be a verb meaning something along the lines of saying something verbatim. Not much turns up in books but I think groups might help. Also it seems to have some affiliation with Twitter. 50 Xylophone Players talk 20:46, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

A very recent protologism. I'm removing it. Interestingly, the word does appear (uncapitalised) in two 2009 books on Google Books, but we definitely wouldn't be able to span a year as CFI mandates. Equinox ◑ 20:48, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

P.S. Before anyone goes ahead with your red link there, it's verbatim :) Equinox ◑ 20:52, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, thanks i knew that after posting but just got lazy since I was off to play my MMO. 50 Xylophone Players talk 01:14, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] drole, drôle

Annoyingly the Scrabble Dictionary SOWPODS always ignores accents on words like café and aperçu, but it gives "drole" which either means that drole exists in English, or it's drôle without the usual accent, in which case drôle needs an entry in English. Any thoughts? Mglovesfun 21:20, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I know the Scrabble book is Collins these days, but Chambers has "drôle, n. a rogue or knave; adj. amusing, odd". It isn't glossed as French. Equinox ◑ 21:54, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

It's "sort of Collins" - they initially wanted to delete an enormous number of words which would have meant players using loads of invalid words without evening know it; so Collins relented and added a load of Chambers stuff. Mglovesfun 22:02, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, interesting! I did find it strange when I glanced at the 2007 changes that there were so few of them. Does that mean they had to add definitions (presumably original ones, to avoid infringement) to their dictionary for all those kooky Spenser and Scots words, or only to the Scrabble list? (Er, sorry to hijack the subsection!) Equinox ◑ 22:07, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't have much detail, apart from that the original Collins word list came out and the ABSP basically said "no" and carried on with the old list, even though the Collins list was out in the shops. I was an admin on the Internet Scrabble Club at the time, which is how I know this. Mglovesfun 22:11, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

This is an aspect of English-language scrabble competition that I never quite understood, but then in French the Frenchmen have always maintained a ridiculous stranglehold on the dictionary market. Circeus 22:34, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Ditto! Mglovesfun 22:37, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] hero

Firstly, do we need to split this by etymology? I can't believe that the meat-and-cheese sandwich and the do-gooder come from the same root. (Isn't the sandwich from Spanish?) Secondly, and especially if it is from Spanish, isn't the plural heros rather than heroes for that word? Equinox ◑ 22:04, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, having just stumbled upon w:Hero_sandwich#Hero, I seem to be entirely wrong. Equinox ◑ 22:10, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe, but the WP ety does have the flavor of a folk etymology. Maybe we can get evidence. DCDuring TALK 00:13, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

• 1955 Feb 3, Jet‎, page 29:

  Called an Italian "Hero" sandwich, the delicacy, says Williams, "will separate the men from the boys."

See this article on the names of this class of sandwiches. Author is not supportive of the Herald Tribune food-writer claim, but associates the name with the "heroic" proportions. DCDuring TALK 00:33, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Every time I hear it, I think of the Spanish pronunciation of gyro. But that's probably coincidence. kwami 19:45, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

"meatball heroes" outnumbers "meatball heros" by 55-8 on b.g.c. and 64-21 on News, providing some weak linguistic evidence against the "gyros" theory. The mid-1950s date for this New York-centered name for the sandwich or variant form of the sandwich predates the large influx of Greek food establishments in New York, I believe, and even the growth in Hispanic influence in New York. DCDuring TALK 20:11, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Referring to Kwamikagami's comment above, what definition of gyro are you talking about?? Actually, the gyro article should be split... At any rate, that doesn't have anything to do with this discussion so I won't go further with it (here, at least.) But I do agree that "heroes" sounds and looks better than "heros". Logomaniac 20:15, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Please help!!

Hi, I have seen the word Vaudio as a reference to Audio Visual. Can somebody please explain this as a break down if it was a legitimate word. ie type, phrase, definition etc.

Many thanks.

It is certainly not common with that meaning in English. We would not add it based on the evidence I could find. "Vaudio" appears much more as a scanning error than as something that might be a recognized English word. There was a little usage of it to mean "vaudeville radio" in the late 1940s. It is also a name of a company and a not-common surname. DCDuring TALK 20:17, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ecstacy

Alt spelling, or misspelling? Equinox ◑ 00:45, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

• I'm going to go with my usual fudge and suggest {{obsolete spelling of}}, which I think discourages current use without being as proscriptive as calling it wrong. (This spelling is well-attested from the 16th to the 19th centuries.) Ƿidsiþ 09:19, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

  Great fudge, where arguably applicable. DCDuring TALK 10:00, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Fudged. —Ruakh_TALK 19:56, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] 上轉

Could an admin please delete 上轉 for me? It's not really a word (it's more of a sum parts entry I think, unless someone else has a good definition for it...) I accidentally created an entry for it when I was creating the traditional form (上傳) entry for 上传 ("upload"). Cheers. Tooironic 05:29, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

 Done (In future, you can add {{delete}} in cases like this.) —Ruakh_TALK 14:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ago

There's an obsolete verb sense missing here:

• See agoing and the following pages. I'm not sure what to make of it however..
• this 19th centruy grammar book
• and this one
• some cites
• Oxford dictionary

--Jackofclubs 08:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Your first two links describe ago as stemming from a past participle of go (i.e., from an obsolete variant of modern gone), and AFAICT your third link is using agoing as a present participle of go (i.e., as a- + going). Only your fourth link, the Concise OED, claims that ago itself is an obsolete bare infinitive (verb lemma) distinct from go — and it doesn't even have an entry for that verb. (The full OED does have an entry for it, however.) —Ruakh_TALK 20:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "broken beyond repair"

How do we document the phrase "broken beyond repair", if at all? Has the entry [[broken beyond repair]] chance of surviving RFD, with reference to it's being sum of parts? Are there analogues to this phrase, following the pattern <adjective> beyond <action>?

Appendix:English_idioms has google books:"beyond repair". Is "beyond repair" synonymous to "irreparable", or does it mean "not worth repairing", or even something else? Is at least [[beyond repair]] worth entering? If not, should a sense be added to [[beyond]] that turns "beyond repair" into a sum of parts? --Dan Polansky 09:11, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

"Beyond repair" seems worth considering. As a native speaker, I don't find it idiomatic, but a native speaker might be the last one to notice. To me it seems to be a mere extension of the basic use of "beyond". The expression positions the amount of damage on a gradient of various levels of damage. Grading the levels uses simple adverbs like "slightly", "fairly", "somewhat", "badly", "very badly", which seem appropriate for low levels of damage. "beyond repair" is a bit less boring, but communicates on the same scale, still using the word damage. But it indicates that more serious damage would not be worth communicating on the damage scale, which does have suggestions of the possibility of repair. The more dramatic ways of characterizing severe damage don't use the word "damage" (The car was "totaled".). The focus shifts more toward the extreme nature of the physical forces. we are no longer just filling out a property-insurance damage assessment.

This seems to carry a need for a modest amount of knowledge-about-the-world rather than for linguistic knowledge. Therefore the decision of dictionaries and idiom books not to cover it doesn't seem unreasonable. DCDuring TALK 13:08, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

While understanding the phrase does not seem to require linguistic knowledge, creating it does; you can't phrase it in a similar way in Czech. While a dictionary possibly does not need to carry this kind of information, a grammar book better should.

How should I understand the sentence "Wiktionary CFI is broken beyond repair", then? As CFI is stored in a wiki, it can always be repaired, can't it? Is this a hyperbole? --Dan Polansky 10:03, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I think it could be analyzed as a product of three figures:

1. "Wiktionary CFI" stands for the text and the system for adapting it to change within the culture of WMF and Wiktionary;
2. The overall system is a device (that could be a "well-oiled machine"); and
3. The severity-of-damage meter (with a "red-line" determined by the economics of repair by volunteer effort).

I always thought a Lakoffian approach had its merits. In our complex and changing world we are always making figurative use of language that we seem to view as "literal" but is often itself a figurative extension of more basic usage. "Break" must have applied first to simple things like sticks. A device can be "broken" even though no component is broken like a stick and it remains assembled. A system without any stick-like components can be "broken".

I don't know at what point a lexicographer needs to offer a user a definition. I have a feeling that some words and, especially, multi-words just won't last because they are so closely tied to a particular set of technological and cultural circumstances. Take "album", "LP", "vinyl", and "film". Or look at any of the Webster's 1913 definitions for common words, like leader. DCDuring TALK 14:07, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

See repair n. 4. Something can be in good repair, in poor repair, go out of repair or be brought into repair, or beyond repair. This is a case where we aren't lacking any entries or definitions, just collocation information, indicating that this word works with beyond (as opposed to, e.g., beneath contempt, or something else). —Michael Z. 2009-06-10 02:47 z

[edit] aecidium, æcidium

I'm on a sort of quest at the moment to sort out omissions and screw ups highlighted by Robert's English missing forms list and it led me to these. An expert of sorts on fungi, etc. needs to check these entries and merge the two definitions into the ligatureless entry, leaving the ligatured one as an alternative spelling. 50 Xylophone Players talk 14:32, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I had fooled with formatting some of these, but this is way beyond me, especially since there is missing WP coverage too. The principal mycology contributor has been User:Alan Rockefeller, who hasn't been around for several months AFAICT. Perhaps EP can help. DCDuring TALK 19:33, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Done. The definition was incorrect, as it was for the structure (aecium) but should have been for the organism. --EncycloPetey 00:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I had a feeling something was fishy when I saw species names of the format Aecidium xxxxx on Wikipedia. 50 Xylophone Players talk 08:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] you

There are six definitions given for this pronoun, but I think they ought to be reduced to three. Yes, many foreign langages have different forms for the singular and plural. Yes, older forms of the English language used additional varient pronouns. However, modern English speakers do not distinguish different meanings based on whether the pronoun is the subject or is an object. --EncycloPetey 00:42, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely.—msh210℠ 01:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Three years ago, Kipmaster recommended splitting singular from plural to aid translation, but I agree that it would be clearer to combine them in the basic definitions. Perhaps to just two senses? Dbfirs 08:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Er, sorry, yes, I agree with that too.  :-) ​—msh210℠ 15:53, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

On that point, I disagree. There are two meanings intended (person spoken to vs. person or group spoken to but possibly also other people who may not be addressed specifically and may not even be present). --EncycloPetey 15:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Do I understand you correctly that we should retain the separate singular and plural senses, but drop the separate subject-pronoun and object-pronoun senses? In that case, I mostly agree, but I think we should also follow up these senses with a single separate sense, with no translations, that says something like, "(archaic or dialectal) Specifically, the object form of this pronoun; contrasted with ye."

By the way, our current singular-vs.-plural breakdown isn't very accurate. "You" is often used with a single addressee but multiple referents, or with multiple addressees but also other referents besides them; none of our senses covers this.

—Ruakh_TALK 15:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] epidemic

As in "epidemic failure"

What is the rate of a failure in a washing machine which can be considered as an Epidemic failure? —This comment was unsigned.

The important thing about epidemic diseases is the contagion. Mechanical failures are very rarely contagious. An exception might be failure resulting from the spread of a bad maintenance practice or a badly designed or manufactured set of repair parts. DCDuring TALK 12:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I think there's confusion with "epic" going on here. bd2412 T 02:13, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Maybe. But, the adjective sense of widespread might have lead to the same question. I think the problem may be in trying to quantify such fuzzy terms. I think that kind of quantification would vary by context and by the speaker even within a context. I'd love to know how this turned out or what exactly prompted it. DCDuring TALK 02:40, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] paleo-, palaeo-

Which one of these and its derivatives should get the right to be the main entries? This should be decided now ASAP because I'm seeing horrible inconsistency across the entries as to which form should be the main entry. 50 Xylophone Players talk 14:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

My understanding (with several of this form) is that whoever adds the first word gets to choose the main spelling. Does it really matter, as long as we have both spellings in the wiki. I suppose that you could do a troll of Google books, but even then, you might get different results for different words. SemperBlotto 14:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I guess I agree with you, I say go with paleo- if no other ground breaking information arises on this subject. 50 Xylophone Players talk 14:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The OED’s entry for “palaeo- | paleo-, comb. form” states that paleo- and its prevocalic form pale- are “chiefly N. Amer.”, whereas palaeo- and palae- are left unmarked (which I assume means that they’re universal); the entry is a draft revision from December 2008, so the information is very likely to be up to date. I say we follow the OED’s lead on this one, though it may be a good idea to have our entry at palae- with palaeo- being just a soft redirect (since palaeo- is just palae- + -o-, anyway). (Personally, I’d prefer palæ(o)-, but we all know that’s not gonna happen.) Bear in mind that we can always have full Derived terms sections for all the spellings, listing those terms derived using those spellings. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 15:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, Doremítzwr, but going by what you've just said I don't entirely agree with you. That is to say I think the prevocalic forms should just be labeled as such, as I think there's enough things we allow redirects for already. Besides many redirects that do not do something like bring you to "cat got somebody's tongue" when you type "cat got your tongue" are akin to weasel words. So, shall I make the "ae" spellings the main entries? 50 Xylophone Players talk 18:05, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Mind you, the OED practice is likely a result of its British perspective, at least IMHO. Circeus 18:13, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I believe British usage is normally unmarked in the OED. —Michael Z. 2009-06-10 00:40 z

Hmm, I'm having second thoughts now... A quick glance on Google for "e" vs "ae" spellings using paleogeographic results in 104,000 hits vs. 41,200. Similarly paleoanthropology results in 152,000 vs. 43,600. So should we use the "e" spellings as the main entries? 50 Xylophone Players talk 18:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The "e" spellings are more typically American, the "ae" spellings more typically British. For the great majority of words where American and British spellings differ, American spellings are more common, at least on the Web; however, to avoid needless disputes, we've adopted the stance that both spellings are equally acceptable, and that there's no need to change British spellings to American ones, as long as the American spellings have {{alternative spelling of}} or the like. (And vice versa.) This is probably documented somewhere in one of our massive policy pages. —Ruakh_TALK 20:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I know they're both equally acceptable but funny thing that you should mention American spellings because as far as -ise vs. -ize is concerned we favour -ize (which is the American spelling. I'm sure if you go through Equinox's contributions you'll find plenty of examples. 50 Xylophone Players talk 21:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Wait, people have been moving -ise entries to -ize spellings? Was this discussed anywhere? How did our British contributors feel about it? —Ruakh_TALK 23:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

-ize/-ise is a special case, not just a simple North American/British split; see w:American and British English spelling differences#Greek spellings for the details. —Michael Z. 2009-06-10 00:27 z

I'm aware of that, but almost all such differences are "special cases", in that the spelling difference is very rarely a clean US/UK split. The fact remains that -ise is the spelling used by most Britons nowadays. —Ruakh_TALK 00:57, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, then I guess that was directed mainly to Xylophone, who referred to -ize as American. Perhaps he wasn't aware that -ize is also the original British spelling, and still an alternate British spelling (the Oxford spelling). But I think that many other American–British differences can easily be marked as incorrect in one variety of the language or the other (leaving Canadian spelling out of it, of course). —Michael Z. 2009-06-10 02:56 z

Who, me? No, I did not know that. At any rate, the -ise/-ize conundrum aside for a minute, should we take the "ae" or "e" for for these "paleo" words as the main entries? 50 Xylophone Players talk 14:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't matter. When you create them, you can use whichever spelling you prefer. (Unless you prefer the "æ" spellings. Those seem to annoy people.) When other people create them, they can use whichever spelling they prefer — and you shouldn't change that. (Exception: if one editor creates one spelling and one creates the other, it's reasonable to merge them, in which case again, you can use whichever spelling you prefer.) —Ruakh_TALK 15:19, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

So, no objection to making the "ae" spellings the main entries, then? 50 Xylophone Players talk 16:05, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I assume you mean for new entries, but not changing existing ones, right? (Per Ruakh.)​—msh210℠ 18:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'd like all of them to be the same spelling because when you think about it doesn't it make more sense to have say, palaeogeography and palaeoanthropology as main entries as opposed to palaeogeography and paleoanthropology? 50 Xylophone Players talk 19:35, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

In that case, to answer your question, yes, there is objection: I object. We shouldn't prefer BrE over AmE or vice versa. If consistency is reason enough to do so, then we should be consistent throughout the dictionary, and have all our entries have their main content at the (e.g.) AmE spelling. (Or, to paraphrase your last comment, PalkiaX50, doesn't it make more sense to have palaeogeography and colour as main entries as opposed to palaeogeography and color?) No.​—msh210℠ 22:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

*sighs* It's not a matter of preferring BrE over AmE spelling. People really have too much time on their hands if they are going to say that we are preferring one over the other because of the one that is the main entry; I'm merely saying that I just think a dictionary should be consistent. Politics or inferiority complexes should not come into the matter. Colour vs. color is a slightly different can of worms as there are other large scale usage discrepancies besides BrE vs. AmE involved and also as it currently stands those two entries are both being treated as main entries whereas many of the pairs of entries I wish to deal with involve one main entry and an alternative entry. 50 Xylophone Players talk 13:14, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I entirely get the original question. Any term that has the predominant usage in a language area could have its own entry. Unless there is evidence that a term is not dominant in any region, it should remain. For US usage, COCA makes it quite easy to find which is arguably the predominant one. From the prevalence of use for individual terms or a sample thereof one could make an inference about which of the prefixes was dominant where. The last inference is very much like the effect-size inference used in statistical meta-analysis. To do so would require that we record the counts of usage of the alternative spellings in each corpus used. I don't think that BNC is quite as good as COCA, but it could be supplemented with current (2009) UK newspaper usage. For other regions (Canada, Australia, NZ, India, etc) I am not familiar with large corpora, so only the newspapers are available to provide a check on purported local authorities. DCDuring TALK 17:33, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

If you don't know what I'm asking then I suggest you reread my second last post before the template. 50 Xylophone Players talk 20:17, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Because:

1. that rationale appeared so late in the discussion
2. consistency of that type is irrelevant to WT:CFI and
3. the subject header for this section had to do with the prefixes and not the words,

my limited cognitive skills didn't allow me to see your point. DCDuring TALK 21:42, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] HIV

i want to know which are positive,dedicate or not dedicate? for example; not dedicate hiv? —This comment was unsigned.

I don't understand your question. What do you mean by "dedicate"? Equinox ◑ 21:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the user encountered something like one of the 112 raw b.g.c hits with this collocation: Core HIV/AIDS expenditures are expenditures allocated to dedicated HIV/AIDS programmes. But I don't know how to answer. If the user registered and provided an e-mail to MediaWiki it would be possible to have an e-mail conversation. DCDuring TALK 23:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Did you actually read "dedicate HIV" (which seems like a mistake) or "dedicated HIV", which we could explain? If "dedicated", the writer was not writing about a kind of HIV, but about something like a program or facility that was designed and run to handle the special aspects of HIV cases. DCDuring TALK 23:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] pantograph

This entry is currently all over the place in formatting terms. It appears to have been this way since this edit incompletely restructuring it from two etymologies to one etymology.

I personally think the two ety sections was much clearer than the one section currently at the entry (even if cleaned up). I don't want to change it back without discussion though, also I'm not certain which etymology the current second definition belongs to, or indeed if it is a third etymology. Thryduulf 14:22, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see those two as having separate etymologies. We don't normally separate an additional etymology section when a word existing in the language is adopted for another use, and neither do print dictionaries. --EncycloPetey 14:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree EncycloPetey, it is a tatsam of Greek πας/παντος "all" and γραφειν "write" in all cases Jcwf 14:51, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Apparently with French intervening per MW Online and Robert's. DCDuring TALK 19:56, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

It is the same etymology for any use of the word. etymology means the origing of a word.A I suggest for the first definition:

An articulated parallelogram shaped device used to draw scaled copies of pictures. Two adjacent sides of the parallelogram are prolonged, one holds a pencil to write, the other holds a stylus serving as a guide to follow the lines to copy. The vertex joining the prolonged sides has a tip to fix the device on the table. The size of the copy depends on the adjustable size of the parallelogram. —This unsigned comment was added by 189.140.228.1 (talk • contribs) 18:20, 13 June 2009 (UTC).

That's too wordy for a dictionary. Wikipedia could use some help on this. DCDuring TALK 19:56, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

It's a good description of the thing, but not an essential definition of the word. It needs only capture its pantographness, and not illustrate the encyclopedic details. The current definition is not bad, but this is definitely an entry where a diagram is desirable. —Michael Z. 2009-06-13 23:17 z

Isn't the top-of-the-page picture good enough? DCDuring TALK 00:39, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

It is rather good; sorry to be unclear. —Michael Z. 2009-06-17 04:49 z

[edit] trolley

This entry needs revision, a trolley is a device to connect a bus to an electricity cable. See discussion of this entry, there is a link to Webster dictionary site. I did not fix the entry because I am in doubt if it should or not have a pulley in the tip of a long stick to also if it should have a mechanism to turn. In few words what is the difference between a trolley and a pantograph. —This comment was unsigned.

Presumably a pantograph has a trolley (or some other connecting arrangement) at the top? British trams used to have trolleys - do they still? Dbfirs 07:06, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

No. A pantograph has a shoe which slides along the wire under spring tension.

By the way, I've seen trolley pole and maybe trolley wheel, but I've never seen the conducting wheel called a trolley—wonder if this is a Briticism.  —Michael Z. 2009-06-18 12:47 z

The details of the evolution of senses is really confusing. "Troll" in some dialects meant roll (per Online Ety Dict). By the mid 19th century, trolley was used to refer to carts that ran on rails, as in mines (per OED usage examples, via BYU). It would be nice to know for sure whether in the US "trolley" was used to refer to horse-drawn street railway carts, as seems likely, and to hand carts. In the US, at least, the term came to be associated with electric street railways. Apparently UK usage was "tram". Then the term came to be associated with both a distinctive feature of electric street car its power-collecting mechanism and the system of electric street railways. (All from interpreting OED's usage quotations.) The further evolution into vocabulary to refer to components of the pole-based system must mostly have been of interest to the operators and designers of the equipment. OED citations contain references to mentions in 1880-1910 technical dictionaries of "trolley hanger", "trolley line" (two or more senses), "trolley wire", "trolley ear", and "trolley frog". I didn't see "trolley shoe". Whether one component of the power-conduction system took on the term "trolley" (other than perhaps the pole) seems unlikely to me, but facts would override any such supposition. There was a subsequent application of the word to refer to the kind of overhead rail systems that are used to move carcasses in butchering operations. I wondered whether it is used to refer to the similar equipment in assembly plants for cars.

All of which leads me to doubt that it would turn out that there is a sense of the word for any individual component of a pole-based power-collecting system (except possibly the pole). It is hard to say also whether or not the "trolley system" would include all of the supporting mechanical elements (springs, pulleys, hinges). I think we would just want to refer to the system to match the ambiguity that probably existed in real-life usage when such systems were in use. DCDuring TALK 15:09, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

See my post in Talk:trolley – the trolley was originally a small cart-like pickup system on the overhead wire, but this quickly became obsolete and the attributive name was transferred to other components, and then to the streetcar itself (by the abbreviation of trolley car). I believe there were trolley shoes used on the ends of poles too, but sparked a lot and wore out quickly. Hangers, ears, and frogs are components of the overhead, I think.

The practical, but not lexicographical, difference between trolley and other overhead systems is that the pantograph has little play, and requires the straight conducting wire which hangs from a catenary arrangement (this also makes it suitable for high-speed electric trains). A trolley system has more play in its long sprung pole, and so can work with simple trolley wire which hangs in arcs between the hangers.

Don't take my word for it, though. I'll see if I can locate a reference in the next few days. —Michael Z. 2009-06-20 06:08 z

Referring to lack of etymology Bill Bryson claims it's a derivative of the verb to troll - (Made in America)

[edit] genie

The Wiktionary etymology says it is from the Arabic جِنّ (jinn).

But Wikipedia says it is form the Latin genius (guardian spirit)

Do we know which is the true etymology?

Umm - according to the etymology in Webster's Third, sort of both. I quote:

Etymology: French génie, modification (influenced by génie genius, from Latin genius) of Arabic jinnīy demon, spirit

So it's originally from the Arabic, but was influenced by the Latin genius. Does this help? Logomaniac 01:34, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• The OED sees things the other way round. They say it's from French génie, from Latin genius; and they note that ‘The word génie was adopted by the Fr. translators of the Arabian Nights as the rendering of the Arab. word which it resembled in sound and in sense’. That seems more likely to me, particularly since the French word goes back to at least the 1530s but the 1001 Nights wasn't translated until the 18th century. Ƿidsiþ 19:59, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

• Please take a look at my latest effort. Feel free to improve or revert. DCDuring TALK 21:07, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] philharmonic vs. philharmonic orchestra

I just created a definately belated entry for philharmonic orchestra. It seems that there is already an entry for philharmonic and though philharmonic orchestra is often abbreviated to just "philharmonic" should the existing translations on the philharmonic page be transferred over to the newly created page? It's confusing that philharmonic is an adjective and yet the entry makes it looks like a noun. Definate change needed somewhere! Jakeybean 01:38, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] nerd

I had inserted an image here, carefully selecting a not unflattering image of a self-described "nerd" who might be considered an inspiration to nerds everywhere. A contributor removed it. I reverted and brought it here for consideration. The contributor asked in the edit summary whether Wiktionary articles should have images? DCDuring TALK 17:59, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

They should, of course, in my opinion and that of many others, as has been discussed many times before, and as you, DCDuring, know well, though I'm glad to provide hereby some confirmation for your interlocutor. In this case, though, the caption is unclear, as it doesn't say which of the persons pictured is Orszag.​—msh210℠ 18:37, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Of course you are right about the caption. It hadn't occurred to me that it wasn't, but that could be the source of the problem and in any event needs to be corrected. DCDuring TALK 11:35, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Wiktionary should have images. --Dan Polansky 08:30, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Same opinion. Sometimes an image is better than every possible definition (visual dictionaries are based on this assumption) --Diuturno 08:57, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Of course, Wiktionary should have images. I agree with you. But these images should not be added for encyclopedic reasons. A map showing where a country is located is OK in a language dictionary (it's a good graphical definition of the word). I even think that the same map may be included several times in the same page, e.g. in Francia. But an image of its flag must be removed, it belongs to Wikipedia. In the case of nerd, I agree with the contributor: this image belongs to Wikipedia, it does not help at all here, and should be removed. For too many contributors, there is some confusion between Wiktionary and Wikipedia, we should not confuse them still more. Lmaltier 09:22, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that the user found something objectionable, which may not be revealed by the stated objection. Dan noticed something correctable without removing the image. I am still not 100% certain that we should keep the image if it risks offending or confusing anyone. It isn't worth the modest visual-interest value. OTOH, a voice recording of Mr. Orszag would be illustrative of the stereotype of "nerd". DCDuring TALK 11:35, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Why not, but I don't think it would clarify the meaning of the word. I'm convinced that, for this word, no addition to the definition is necessary. For names of objects, plants, animals... an image is always advisable. Lmaltier 11:50, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

As regards the particular image in nerd, the self-described nerd on the image does not visually show any characteristics of a nerd, AFAICT, which is less than ideal. I find it plausible that an illustrative or stereotypical image could be found for nerd, just like there is a stereotypical image of a mad scientist or of a villain. Still, the current image at nerd does no harm and shows at least one instance of a supposed nerd; its removal cannot be justified by the refused claim that Wiktionary should not have images. --Dan Polansky 11:48, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Its removal cannot be justified by the refused claim that Wiktionary should not have images, only by the fact that it's purely encyclopedic, and thus maintains the confusion between Wiktionary and Wikipedia. It's the only harm it does, but its removal is justified (just as the addition of the population of a country would be justified, and for the same reason). Lmaltier 13:23, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Please remove the image. It illustrates no technical skills, no introspection, nor any less easily described characteristics of nerds. What's the point? —Michael Z. 2009-06-17 13:33 z

Agreed. The image is encyclopaedic, not dictionary material. Dbfirs 06:55, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Ay, remove per Michael Zajac. --Duncan 14:57, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, remove it, per Dbfirs, Mzajac. It's not a good illustration of nerd but rather merely an illustration of someone who happens to be a nerd. That's something like illustrating [[golfer]] with this picture (not quite as bad, but the same idea).​—msh210℠ 20:47, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

No offence to Mr. N., but this is a better illustration for nerd. —Michael Z. 2009-06-20 05:58 z

Removed. I think this might go into MSH's contest. DCDuring TALK 10:32, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] The anatomical location of temple

Where is the temple in the anatomical sense located? Is it located at the level of the eyes, or at the level of the forehead, or somewhere else?

Wiktionary's temple:

1. The region of the skull on either side of the forehead.

Wikipedia's temple:

1. The side of the head behind the eyes.

To me, the current WT definition seems confusing, as, based on this definition, I would place the temple higher than shown at the image at the right.

--Dan Polansky 08:47, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• It's the slightly flatter region each side of the forehead diagonally upwards from the outside of the eye - the picture looks right to me. SemperBlotto 09:02, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• The region shown seems too small, not centered exactly right, and misleadingly circular, but I'm no anatomist. It's not a perfect image, but better than no image at all. DCDuring TALK 11:49, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

  Most definitions seem like Wikipedia. But WP's image of the orange temporal bone would center the temple not far in front of the ear and extend it to well behind the ear. But the bone boundaries don't seem to coincide with the popular use of the term. DCDuring TALK 06:18, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you both for the input. I have replaced the def with the one from Webster 1913, adjusted with "slightly flatter region". The new def speaks of the region of the head instead of the skull, which delinks "temple" from "temporal bone", which seems to be located lower than temple. --Dan Polansky 12:12, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

The definition labelled anatomy, involving the “zygomatic arch”, is nice to have for medical professionals and so on. But a plain body part also needs a plain definition for plain people. Where is the temple for the rest of us? —Michael Z. 2009-06-17 12:49 z

If you drop the part referring to "zygomatic arch", you get a definition understandable by about everyone, don't you?

"The slightly flatter region, on either side of the head, back of the eye and forehead, above the zygomatic arch and in front of the ear."

So he who does not want to bother with "zygomatic arch" ignores this part; he who aims for precision gets it. The definition is based on Webster 1913, in any case.

For comparison, a definition by Century 1911:

"The region of the head or skull behind the eye and forehead, above and mostly in front of the ear."

Do you like it better? Do you have another proposal? --Dan Polansky 20:27, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not clear whether you are writing a second non-specialized definition, or dropping the anatomy label. Either way begs the question whether “above the zygomatic arch” is a defining characteristic or not. The reader can't assume that disregarding an opaque part of a definition will yield a less precise definition and not something completely wrong. —Michael Z. 2009-06-18 04:21 z

I find "back of" unclear, but that is probably because I'm not American. The rest of the definition clarifies, anyway, and the picture is worth a thousand words. Dbfirs 06:49, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Back of sounds colloquial to me, and I am (North) American—back of the eye is actually a noun: the place where the retina is. Behind the eye could be inside the head, e.g., a region of the brain. —Michael Z. 2009-06-18 12:54 z

So would it be better to say "near the eye and forehead"? (I was going to suggest "to the side of", but we already have "side of the head".) I don't know whether I'm normal, but in front of my ear is the "hinge" for my jaw. Is this part of "temple"? Dbfirs 12:36, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] than

Suspicious usage notes: "It must be noted that some prescriptionists insist that whom must follow than (not who)", even apparently in the case where traditional grammar would disagree. Who are these muddled prescriptionists prescriptivists? Are they "notable"? Equinox ◑ 10:06, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• You are not the first to ask this question. The answer seems to be, from this at any rate, that this is a largely a straw man, being set up only to be knocked down with counterargument, and not actually an argument made by anyone. (Follett sets up this straw man only to knock it over, too. He doesn't name anyone who actually makes the argument in the first place.)

  Actual authorities, rather than the ever-present, weasel-worded, "some people", have a lot more Clue than that. Fowler, for example, notes that "than" can be grammatically considered either conjunction or preposition, according to the case of the pronoun, and thus according to the actual material omitted in the elliptical clause.

  This is in fact a general point, missing in that misleading and incomplete usage note. Case after "than" connotes meaning. Here's an example from ISBN 9781892123237:

  • She gave him more sympathy than I (did).
  • She gave him more sympathy than (she gave to) me.
• Fowler would have the first "than" as a conjunction, and the second as a preposition (governing "me"). He notes that the OED (of his time) noted that the prepositional use is "considered incorrect". But he also specifically points out that such fashions vary over time. Indeed more recent works (including the aforecited book) point out, as Fowler did, that case connotes meaning, and that the objective case is not really incorrect, but a sentence with a different meaning. Uncle G 03:54, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Which usage authorities should we take seriously? Fowler, certainly, though increasingly dated. Merriam-Webster had a good usage reference in the mid '90s. Garner is popular in the US. Strunk and White, Barzun? MLA, APA, AP, Chicago? Longman's (because of Quirk)? We have a rough consensus on the relative values of the various dictionaries, but less on usage. DCDuring TALK 04:21, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] naive

Come on guys, let's come up with a few more translations than Czech and Finnish! I added Chinese but we have a far way to go yet... and for such a (relatively) common word too. Tooironic 11:26, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

We should be able to get the French, at least. DCDuring TALK 11:52, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Wow, that was quick! I turn my back and 10 or so translations have already been added. Way to go wiktionary! Tooironic 03:27, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Why on earth tranlations are not encouraged at naïve#Translations? Have you tried there? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 16:24, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] purgatoric

Added as an adjecitve. however, I have not been able to confirm this. Most uses I can find on b.g.c. are scannos for purgatory, altough there are also a few that seem to be a noun meaning purgative. --EncycloPetey 21:29, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

• Should probably be at RfV then. The words purgatorial, purgatorian, purgatorious and even purgatory itself mean of or pertaining to purgatory. But probably not this one. SemperBlotto 21:37, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] up and leave

In some forms of English one can say "he up and Xed" where X is something (usually monosyllabic) that involves departing {go, quit, ran, scoot, race, drive), but also, I think, any motion that can be done quickly (slap, kiss, shoot) or possibly any action that can be performed suddenly (fire, crash, marry, write [a check, signature; not a term paper or a novel]). RHU seems to be the only of the OneLook dictionaries to have anything like it. Their entry is under "up" verb and "up and" directs to it. How should we handle it?

1. Delete up and leave?
2. Add "up and X" for all attestable "X"?
3. Redirect from all attestable "up and X" to the most common form(s) of "up and X".
4. Add sense at up#Verb?
5. Add up and (perhaps as a "modal verb")?

I mildly prefer the 1, 4 and 5.

I am also uncertain as to the geographic scope of the usage. I think of it as Southern, possibly not plantation South, but it could be more widespread. DCDuring TALK 23:31, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, up can be a verb (and not in any sense we have yet): "upped and left" is very common, along with other "upped and..." forms, and I dare say "up and left" is a lazier form of that. Equinox ◑ 00:36, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

On COCA "ups and [verb]" gets 22 hits, "upped and [verb]" gets 19, "upping and [verb]" gets 0. In contrast "up and [third person sing verb]" gets more than 2363. That would seem to make "up and" a de facto modal verb or adverb ("suddenly", "abruptly"), at least in the US. DCDuring TALK 01:10, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's a modal verb; it doesn't take a bare infinitive (*"He upped and leave"), doesn't undergo inversion or do-less negation (*"Up they and leave?"; *"They upn't and leave"), does have a to-infinitive (*"He wants to can leave"), and so on. —Ruakh_TALK 03:10, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I defer to your analysis. DCDuring TALK 14:17, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

We have it here in the Upper Midwest. It doesn't seem particularly Southern to me, though maybe a bit colloquial or even folksy. I agree that we need a sense at either [[up#Verb]] or [[up and]]; I prefer the former. We also need a usage note to explain the grammar. —Ruakh_TALK 03:10, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

There might be two separate phenomena. The clearest is a use of inflected up#Verb: "He upped and went." This belongs at the verb. It is informal and may not play in all regions of the US, but conforms to mainstream grammar. There is also "He up and went", which seems to occur almost as often in COCA. It seems to occur where one could say "He got up and went". That conjectural etymology and the fact that it can be found not to inflect with the verb it is linked to by "and" make it seem like a different phenomenon. If they are separate phenomena, they may still "influence" each other, I suppose. This second phenomenon is the candidate for an entry at [[up and]]. I will try an entry. I believe that this non-inflecting form could meet RfV. There will be room for alternative interpretations of the usage. DCDuring TALK 14:17, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] abigeat

I had a hard time finding any good quotes for this word that didn't come from dictionaries. I tentatively marked it as {{archaic}}, but suspect a stronger tag (likely {{historical}}) might be appropriate. Any thoughts? I might be entirely mistaken in interpreting it as a textbook "zombie word" surviving mostly in dictionaries. Circeus 02:45, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Two not-so-old quotes of it in use in translations into English from Spanish and French. The zombie came to life in those two instances. The three "uses" seem to exhaust the inventory of what can conveniently be found. I don't think you could call it "archaic" or "obsolete". It may just be "rare". DCDuring TALK 18:49, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd call it "obsolete". The label "archaic" usually implies that the word is interpretable (more-or-less) by a modern speaker of the language, such as might be used in a novel set in an earlier period where the author wants to use language to emphasize the antiquity of the events. Words like forsooth, verily, and didst are ones I'd call archaic. The word abigeat, however, looks completely alien to me. --EncycloPetey 19:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

"Obsolete" would imply that it was formerly used much more than lately. We have no evidence that this was ever used much at all in English. If it were in use in, say, UK or Scottish law, surely there would be more than a single citation. DCDuring TALK 19:06, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] eat one's hat

Now for something a bit more challenging: let's see how many languages we can get to translate the idiom "to eat one's hat". If Chinese can do it, there's no excuse for you European languages either! ;) Tooironic 17:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] colliery

Today's WOTD: perhaps I'm missing something, but what does the second definition mean, other than the first one? Even my 1993 edition o Webster simply defines it as "a coal mine". --Duncan 16:22, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

A coal-distribution facility or a coal mine or a coal-collection and -processing facility for various coal mines. There are lots of US law cases that discuss the distinctions, not all of which are in the entry. Any of the stages could be deemed suppliers to the next stage or to end users or transporters. I doubt there could be more precision. All 14 instances of "colliery" at COCA refer to something in the UK or Africa, as I read them. It is not a common US word. It is a bit dated and legalistic in its US usage, but we seem to lack participation by US miners at Wiktionary. The way coal was handled when there was a large use for home heating is very different from how it is handled now in the US and many other countries, where a single vehicle used to transport the coal from the mine (pit) to the rail-loading facility or conveyor is bigger than all of the equipment in total at many older mines. The current terminology must be different. DCDuring TALK 17:10, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. But in that case, shouldn't it be tagged {{legal}} and rephrased to something like, I dunno, "Any of the facilities involved in the extraction, distribution and processing of coal"? I think most of our readers aren't US miners or lawyers either, and therefore may well suppose we just have overlooked having two defs for the same sense. --Duncan 17:53, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Entries can always be improved. I hadn't thought of this as an important entry. I'm loath to alter something thought good enough as it was to be WOTD during its moment in the Sun. In addition, the ignorance about the subject matter among contributors (myself included) is substantial, as could be seen in the discussion of coal mine (at WT:RFD#coal mine, I think). DCDuring TALK 19:17, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Neither did I want to rob the entry of its 15 minutes of fame, that's why I didn't even tag it, but now those are over, what do we do? Keep there a def whose meaning nobody's sure of? --Duncan 20:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Let me look at his again. Some of the UK and US dictionaries have the same definition: mine (ie, hole in the ground) + ancillary facilities. DCDuring TALK 21:11, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] chromography?!?

I have been adding definitions to definitionless words (for goodness sakes, why are they there without a definition?! that's what a dictionary is for!) and came upon chromography, which has a number of citations. From some Greek roots I know, it sounds like it's from the Greek chrōma (color) and graphein (to write), but I can't find a definition anywhere. A Google search only came up with definitions for chromograph ... so does anyone know what chromography means and can add a definition?????? Logomaniac 13:21, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I've added a very general definition in an attempt to cover different usages in different fields. The exact definition varies with context. Dbfirs 20:28, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Probably the best we can do. I like the wording "Any of several Xes" for catchalls because it isn't "one" specific X. But is the "any of several" wording also misleading somehow? DCDuring TALK 20:40, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you guys!!! :) (And I thought I was good at figuring words out! ... becoming a user on Wiktionary has been a real challenge to my self-esteem, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. :) Logomaniac 21:40, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Also compaction. How in the world is this supposed to be an adjective?!? Can I delete the definitionless adjectival sense or is this actually an adjective somehow? (Google didn't have any adjectival definitions either.)  : ) Logomaniac 13:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems that some people confuse the former parts of noun phrases with adjectives. That was also the case in the article business.[1] -- 88.114.122.161 15:46, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Terms used only in American (or US) English vs. US spellings

Hi, I think US spellings of those English words that are used universally should be put into a category different from the category of terms used only in US English. In other words, mesmerise and mesmerize should be in some categories called British English spellings (or Commonwealth English spellings) and US spellings, respectively, not in the categories Commonwealth English (or UK) or US, because it's about the same, universally used English word that is just differently spelled.

What do you think, would that policy have a point? -- 88.114.122.161 15:42, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. We should have "context" templates {{US spelling}} and {{UK spelling}}, and "form-of" templates {{US spelling of|[[word]]}} and {{UK spelling of|[[word]]}}. —Ruakh_TALK 20:58, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not quite clear. Do you mean one set of context labels indicating regional usage of the term, and another one for regional spelling? I think I can understand the reason for wanting this, but I still think the result would be confusing. (And what do we do for regional spellings of terms which are not universal?)

The real problem is that we create entries for spellings, rather than for terms. For example, the separation of liberal and Liberal by the most frequent, but not universal, capitalization makes it impossible for the reader to actually see this word's usage in one place, without compiling a combined entry of their own.

The solution is to adopt the practice of most dictionaries, rather than to pile on another innovation. —Michael Z. 2009-06-20 05:52 z

Re: "Do you mean one set of context labels indicating regional usage of the term, and another one for regional spelling?": Basically yes. Currently, a {{US}} or {{UK}} tag is theoretically ambiguous between "this sense is specific to the U.S./U.K." and "this is the U.S./U.K. spelling", though in most cases we simply don't indicate the latter. We'll often qualify an ===Alternative spellings=== list-element as {{qualifier|US}} or {{qualifier|UK}}, and that's great, but it risks suggesting that one spelling (the untagged one) is common to both U.S. and U.K., while the other spelling is specific to the indicated region, when in fact, each spelling is loosely specific to one region. (Admittedly, context labels aren't a great solution, because these regional spelling differences usually apply to all senses of a word — even in cases like color/colour, where the American and British ranges of uses differ slightly, American newspapers will Americanize British colour and vice versa, such that color and colour themselves have all the same uses, just in slightly different frequencies depending on correlations of spelling-frequency with usage-frequency across regions.)

Re: "The solution is to adopt the practice of most dictionaries, rather than to pile on another innovation.": As far as I'm aware, the practice of most dictionaries is to make one region's spelling the headword, listing other regions' spellings as alternatives or not at all. I don't think that approach would work here.

—Ruakh_TALK 01:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Agree it wouldn't work, because Wiktionary is not a regional dictionary. (Is it the only global dictionary? All the others that I've seen have a regional bias.) Couldn't we just clarify the regional variations in usage notes? Dbfirs 20:18, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Context tags can be placed on the inflection line, too. WT:ELE doesn't explicitly forbid or allow this, and I've been using it, especially for such things as {{plurale tantum}}; that would work well here.​—msh210℠ 20:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see what's wrong with {{US}} et al. The word (viz, with that spelling) is a U.S.-only word, isn't it?​—msh210℠ 20:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

That said, the form-of templates mentioned above sound like a good idea.​—msh210℠ 20:27, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Re: "The word (viz, with that spelling) is a U.S.-only word, isn't it?": No, I don't think so. "Airplane/aeroplane" is the same word no matter how you spell and/or pronounce it; for example, a British press release using the latter will get quoted in U.S. newspapers using the former (and, I assume, vice versa). Tagging one as (US) and the other as (UK) seems misleading, or at least needless vague. But even if we're O.K. with the labeling, it really seems pointless to include entries like [[unraveled]] in Category:US and entries like [[serialise]] in Category:British English; why should those categories mix usage differences with spelling differences? —Ruakh_TALK 01:57, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I think there are some learner's dictionaries which try to give equal time to British and American usage, but I'm not really familiar with them.

But there are two things which all dictionaries do, that we have trouble with:

1. Have an entry for a word, not for each orthographic expression for it. Colour and color are the same word, and would be best treated under one main heading, plus a redirect (which is the equivalent of a cross-reference like “color =colour”). It's a worse problem in words like liberal and Liberal, where various senses are associated with one capitalization, the other, or both—pity the reader who ever has to flip between two entries and try to guess whether the same editor organized both, and try to sort out the shades of meaning.
2. Employ a label for an entire entry, as on the inflection line. This is the preferred place for a label if it qualifies to go there, yet our technical and design problems discourage it.

There are some good reasons we should imitate universal dictionary conventions, rather than ignore them or invent new practices.

 —Michael Z. 2009-06-27 03:29 z

Your adjective "universal" presumably applies to "conventions", but Wikipedia is a universal dictionary, so we do need to invent new practices (and to practise new inventions). I like the "form-of" templates suggested by Ruakh. Dbfirs 09:04, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

That may be true, but evertheless, nothing about our universality obviates the need to apply a label to a POS, which we rarely do, or come to think of it to an entire entry, which we have no way of doing. Nor does anything about being pan-lingual require us to separate the definition of a word by its variations in capitalization, as in labour and Labour, which is far worse than if it were in a single entry. —Michael Z. 2009-06-30 12:32 z

Yes, Michael, I agree. Mostly. Though I also agree with Dbfirs that we often do need to invent new practices — in this case, for example, once we've got everything in one entry, we need a way to get users to the right entry. You won't see many {{form of}} entries in print dictionaries — only in cases where the form-of is somewhere completely different, alphabetically, from the headword, and even then it's not guaranteed to be there. —Ruakh_TALK 01:25, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay, to address the question more directly: I think we have not yet resolved basic labelling, and adding a second dimension and third geographic category hierarchy (we already have dialectal Category:US, and domain Category:United States of America) might make it crazy complicated.

For example, look at liberal and Liberal. Which senses would get labelled British, Canadian, US, British spelling, Canadian spelling, US spelling?. —Michael Z. 2009-07-01 00:33 z

[edit] off to

Does anyone here think we need an entry for "off to" e.g. "I'm off to the doctors."? Or would it be a sum of parts entry? Tooironic 02:35, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

S-o-P, unless we also define going to, leaving to, and splitsville to. Specifically, this is just off adv. 1 + to prep. 1. —Michael Z. 2009-06-20 05:56 z

Actually, in this exemple, it is be off + to. Circeus 17:15, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] razor sharp

From WT:REE#R razor sharp (not SoP IMO Mglovesfun 10:46, 20 June 2009 (UTC)) Then also rock hard, ruby red, Einstein smart, ramrod straight, ice cold. It is a structure for similes. Similes per se are not includable. USER:DCDuring

Did this DCDuring have it right? Or should all of the attestable examples of the this construction be entries? DCDuring TALK 11:44, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we should have them. Equinox ◑ 00:57, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Joycian

This adjective seems to refer to James Joyce.

A Joycian digression... My Joycian rant... It's very Joycian...

But what are the specific characteristics?

• It's usually spelled Joycean. And people tend to use it to talk about extravagantly creative wordplay, neologisms etc. Ƿidsiþ 14:01, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

No OneLook dictionary has Joycian but it is used in hundreds of books, about half as many as Joycean, which also appears in 4 OneLook references.

• A usage example: "I'm sick and tired of folks entering Joycean nonce words into Wiktionary. It's worse than with Shakespeare." DCDuring TALK 14:35, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Haha, how delightfully passive-aggressive. Equinox ◑ 00:59, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] 4-2-4

Adverb: {{football}} A popular soccer [[formation]] with 4 [[defender]]s, 2 [[midfielder]]s and 4 [[striker]]s

Is this really an adverb? If so, is it not also a noun? It could really use a usage example for each PoS. DCDuring TALK 20:26, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Also 4-4-2. DCDuring TALK 20:32, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] es seien gewesen

A question for other German-speakers: which one of the given senses of sein is this is an example of?: Es seien Schüsse zu hören gewesen — there may have been shots [to be] heard. I would think this was the first sense, the usual sense of sein, but could also see it being the third... — Beobach972 07:20, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Lack of articles

I find that there are many words that are found in the Merriam Webster's Unabriged Dictionary that are not found in the Wiktionary. If someone owns one (because the one I saw was at a library), please contribute.

[edit] Hitler

I assume that, for Lithuanian, the translation of the word Hitler is the word Hitleris, not Adolfas Hitleris. Am I right? I don't understand why wrong translations have been added (by Atitarev, then by Stephen G. Brown). Names such as Adolfas Hitleris don't belong to Wiktionary, anyway, because they are not words (but they'll probably be created from translations by the appropriate bot nonetheless). Could somebody explain? Lmaltier 18:49, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd be surprised if we couldn't attest this with attributive use clearly referring to w:Adolf Hitler. Do you really doubt that? A "Hitler moustache", etc. DCDuring TALK 21:19, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to determine if this is used generally, or only for certain terms. Americancorpus.org has 231 occurrences of Hitler (n.) terms, but almost all of them look like they are referring to the specific person or another proper noun (e.g. Hitler Youth, Hitler regime, Hitler diaries, Hitler lover), rather than using his name as an independent word (Hitler salute [6 occurrences], Hitler moustache/mustache [7], Hitler figure [2]). Of the latter group, the moustache and salute might be considered idiomatic, and only a Hitler figure seems purely attributive to me.

Caveat: I didn't even browse the citations, just quickly looked at the list of compounds. —Michael Z. 2009-06-23 00:23 z

I'm not sure why the (long-shot) possibility that they are idiomatic makes them less attributive. Is there some overarching reason why the term should not be here? DCDuring TALK 01:43, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify the original comment from Lmaltier - I changed the formatting, added/changed some transliterations, I didn't add new translations (my edits): [2], [3], [4]. Stephen G. Brown restored all the translations deleted by Lmaltier, Lmaltier only left French, which is identical to English and German. As for the translations, I find adding "Adolf" useful, especially for non-Roman scripts and where pronunciation differs largely from the original but I leave this for you to decide. By the way, in Slavic languages, the attributives from Hitler are created differently, e.g. in Russian: Гитлер (Hitler), гитлеровский (adjective), although, there are combinations like гитлер-югенд (Hitlerjugend (German) -Hitler Youth), etc. Anatoli

Same thing happens in French: "Hitler" as a person would be "Hitler", and "hitlérien" (not sure about capitals here) would be used in most compounds (the attributive construction proper is "d'Hitler", i.e. "of Hitler" and refers only to him as a person). Circeus 03:02, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

In any case, we could consider removing the first name "Adolf" from all translations, if that's decided. Wiping off all translations, then discussing is not a good approach. Anatoli 03:55, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, my concern was with translations only, and removing Adolf would be the good thing to do. I considered that translations were (unneeded) good translations of the full names but bad translations of Hitler (translations are needed for Adolf, too, but in another page). I could have changed them, but I don't speak all these languages, it would have been difficult. I only added the French translation of the surname (I have no doubt about it). Lmaltier 05:19, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I believe we deleted Adolph Hitler and determined to keep that sense on the Hitler page. All of the translations have that meaning. If it has become a problem to have Adolph on the Hitler page, then we should restore Adolph Hitler and move that sense to that page. —Stephen 05:35, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

But we don't need translations for Adolph Hitler, it's a name, but not a word. We need translations for Adolph and for Hitler. We are not Wikipedia, and I really think that all village names should be included, because they are words, but no full names at all (a name such as Confucius is OK, because it's a word). The deletion decision was a good one, and it also applies to translations if translations are full names. Lmaltier 06:49, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

If you decide to remove "Adolf" from Hitler's translations, I can help copying translations into Adolf / Adolph. In some languages the translations of Hitler without Adolf may become meaningless or less meaningful. Anatoli 07:01, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, we do need translations of Adolph Hitler. The argument that it’s a name and not a word assumes that it is unchanged in every language. The translation section shows that it is written and pronounced quite differently in different languages, and subject to different grammar. It’s information that most people cannot obtain from Wikipedia or any encyclopedia. I think British and European dictionaries do not include any names, but American dictionaries do include historically important names, and they are useful information for a dictionary to provide, in particular a multilingual dictionary. —Stephen 07:12, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Many European dictionaries include proper nouns, including famous people names, because they want to provide encyclopedic information about places and people (they are encyclopedic dictionaries). But a language dictionary should include only words (our mission is all words in all languages). Webster's is a language dictionary. It includes some proper nouns because of their attributive use (e.g. abidjan), but not many, it usually excludes proper nouns (it does not include Adolph, nor Hitler, nor Adolph Hitler). Of course, I don't assume that the name is unchanged in every language. Information required to translate Adolph Hitler should be provided here, I agree, in Adolph and Hitler pages, and details about how the first name and the surname are to be linked together may be provided in Hitleris, etc. when such details are needed, but translations for the full name do not belong to a language dictionary. I'm bewildered that such different points of view still exist here. Improving and clarifying CFI is urgent, and providing guidelines about this translation issue too, but the discussion becomes too general, and should be moved to the Beer Parlour. Lmaltier 08:27, 23 June 2009 (UTC) I want to add that, from a linguistic point of view, Stephen Brown is not less important than Adolph Hitler or Winston Churchill, and details about how to translate it should also be provided (in Stephen, Brown, etc.). Lmaltier 08:49, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

The Random House and American Heritage include names like that and it has nothing to do with attributive use. My company used a staff of about 200 writers and translators, each looking up hundreds of words a day, six days a week for over thirty years that I worked there. We did not look up words like the, big or good, because words such as those already form part of our active standard vocabularies. Rather we used some very expensive dictionaries to look up words such as Adolph Hitler, 成龙, letter of credit, Republic of Korea, huile d'étirage, encaje excedente, Winston Churchill, and so on (but certainly not "Stephen Brown" or "Mary Smith", or "Stephen", or "Brown"). Virtually every one of the many words that we had to look up every day are precisely those same difficult terms that you exclude from Wiktionary. We could not, except in rare cases, find the things we needed in any encyclopedia. Dictionaries were our stock in trade, and for our purposes a service such as Wikipedia was not useful. —Stephen 09:22, 23 June 2009 (UTC) (I’m shocked to find letter of credit and Republic of Korea in existence here...somebody must have forgotten to delete them. —Stephen 09:25, 23 June 2009 (UTC))

I understand your reason, now. I fully agree with you for huile d'étirage, etc. (they can be considered as words), but not for full names. I don't understand why Wikipedia is not useful: most famous people are likely to have a page in both Wikipedias, and clicking on the interwiki link usually provides the translation you need. In some difficult cases, we might provide full name translations here, too (to be kind to translators), but only in difficult special cases, and with a clear mention that they translate full names, and without linking these full names (when they don't meet CFI). Lmaltier 09:41, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

If you go to a Wikipedia page in Khmer or Chinese, you will probably not be able to find anything useful unless you can speak Khmer or Chinese. If you find a word, you won’t know if it’s the equivalent of the English page, or perhaps a hyponym of the English, or, as is often the case with many languages, the plural or some definite or indefinite form of the English, and you probably can’t be sure if the term you think you have is really the term in question or the Chinese word for noun or help. You probably won’t know if it’s simplified or traditional, you won’t know how to pronounce it or transliteration it, you won’t know if it is a deprecated form, a real equivalent, or an ad hoc transliteration. Most people can’t find much of use on any Wikipedia page unless they can actually read the language. If you look up 成龙 on the Chinese Wikipedia, you won’t get reliable information unless you can read Chinese. However, we used to have a very nice page here on Wiktionary that explained 成龙 and gave the pronunciation, meaning, etc. Just as dictionaries should not double as encyclopedias, encyclopedias make sorry dictionaries. Nobody should have to resort to Wikipedia for any dictionary information, but, since we reject so many important terms that people in real life have to deal with every day, Wiktionary will remain a schoolboy’s tool. In my profession, as interesting as Wiktionary is, we are not able to find enough words here to make it worthwhile to bother looking. —Stephen 10:02, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I share your concern, Stephen but I don't think we'll get full approval for names. If you remember Rostov-on-Don and Rostov-na-Donu discussions. I wouldn't mind adding dictionary entries like: trad. 成龍, simpl. 成龙 (pinyin: Chéng Lóng) - Jackie Chan aka Cheng Long but it's not up to me decide. Anatoli 10:50, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, Rostov-on-Don and Rostov-na-Donu must be kept, without any doubt, because they are words. And I also agree that information required for translating names (including Jackie Chan) should be included, and it's not always easy. But we should keep to principles, notability cannot be a criterion here: the principle is all words in all languages and the only questions should be Is this a word (or a phrase warranting a definition, and thus assimilated to a word)? and Is this word used in this language?. Is 成龙a word, I don't know. Note that translated titles of novels are also useful to translators, and cannot be guessed, but they are not words. Do you propose to include all titles of novels or other books? (the Italian Wiktionary used to accept them, but I'm not sure they still accept them).

To come back to the question, translations in the Hitler page should be for Hitler, not for Adolph Hitler (the current translation table is misleading, not for translators, but at least for readers not knowing the language). If a consensus is found to provide translations for Adolph Hitler in the Hitler page nonetheless, they should be grouped in an additional section with a title explicitly stating that all following translations include the first name, to clarify things. Lmaltier 12:02, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

If place names are automatically words (dictionary words), we would become an atlas. There are tens of thousands of tiny villages on the planet that have names. Equinox ◑ 03:59, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Lmaltier, you say often "XXXX is(or isn't) a word" but (and I don't think I'm alone) I believe you are using an idiosyncratic interpretation of "word". Could you help me understand what you mean? For example, you've said that "North Carolina" is a word, but here you say "Adolf Hitler" isn't. Your criteria obviously isn't strictly lexical, so what is it?

As for the entry at hand, I see no problem with translations mentioning "Adolf" if that's how the specific sense of "Hilter" would be best translated. If the resulting FL phrase would not meet CFI we just piecemeal link it. Discussions about inclusion of specific entities should be clarified, but on BP/VOTE. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 05:01, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Most town, village, country... names are undisputably words (e.g. Paris), and need an etymology section, a pronunciation section, etc. They must be included on the basis of all words in all languages. When it happens that they are written using two typographical words (e.g. New York, this does not change their status, because they belong to the same category. On the other hand, a full name, by nature, is composed of several words: one (or several) first names + a surname. The etymology, pronunciation, and other linguistic information refer either to the first name or to the surname, and no linguistic info can be given for the full name, only encyclopedic info. There may be some exceptions, of course (especially for translations), but I feel the difference is pretty obvious (it's obvious to me, at least). Lmaltier 06:04, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

People's names used to mononymous (single-word name like "Plato"). Multi-word names were popularized by the Romans (see w:Mononymous person). Etymology, pronounciation, and translations information could equally be given to "Socrates" as to "Chicago". So, both people and places are specific entities that can have single-word or multi-word names ("word" here in the typographic sense). I don't see the linguistic reason for your distinction. It's true that many place names are single-word while most people's names today are multi-word, and that many place names have a substantial history. But neither of those are linguistic differences. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 22:17, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

We must be treating Chinese people differently, since Mao Zedong deserves both surname and first name together. Hopefully, this will not cause a deletion. Anatoli 06:12, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I was referring to full names composed of first name + surname. For Chinese names, I don't know. At first sight, I don't understand why Mao Zedong is included in a language dictionary, but there may be a reason, I don't know anything about Chinese names. In any case, this inclusion should be justified by linguistic reasons, and these reasons are not obvious from the page. Lmaltier 06:29, 24 June 2009 (UTC) Actually, the reason is obvious (if you read the complete definition...), and it meets current CFI. The page is not about Mao Zedung, and the prominent link to Wikipedia is somewhat misleading. Lmaltier 07:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

In addition to everything else I’ve said above, you should also consider the work that somebody has put into it. Enumerate, if you would, the advantages to Wiktionary by deleting this. Personally, I see no advantage at all. On the other hand, somebody has gone to some trouble to contribute his expertise to the page with no mind to payment of any kind. Our best Chinese editor, User:A-cai, contributed the page for 成龙, which has been deleted because some ninny didn’t like the translation. I don’t know if those kinds of actions explain why User:A-cai doesn’t do much here anymore, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Similar deletions and perversions of my own work have cause me to stop work in Arabic, which I used to do a lot of (now I only do a little etymology and light cleanup, but no new entries or grammatical info). And I stopped doing German, which I have a degree in. A month or so ago I was persuaded to stop my work in Portuguese, in which I worked as a professional translator for some years in the field of petroleum exploration and recovery. Likewise, I decided to stop most of my work in Russian and I add very few new words anymore. Since I can’t make many common Russian words fit the English cardinal parts of speech, I would not even consider trying to add them. Since 1980 I’ve done a lot of work in some American Indian languages, including Yup’ik, Ojibwe, and Navajo, but since I cannot conform most of the words with the English parts of speech, I don’t do anything with them. If you delete this, that means that even translating existing senses of an entry is not safe to do, and since I don’t like to waste my efforts, I’ll add this one more thing to my list of jobs that I won’t do, or won’t do very much. That’s going to leave me nothing but conjugation/declension tables here, and I offer my services to other Wiktionaries and Wikipedias where my work is appreciated and not deleted. Is there some advantage to deleting this translation section that I don’t see? —Stephen 04:10, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Stephen, please continue your good work with Russian, Arabic and other languages, I appreciate your work, despite some previous arguments. To me, creating entries is a much harder task than translations. For the moment I am limiting my work to translations/checking of lists of basic verbs, lists of words of specific topics into Russian, Chinese, Arabic, Japanese, German and French, sometimes adding Polish, Swedish and other languages I know a bit. Names of people is not such a thing to be too discouraged about! If you think about it, people would add too many names who will be forgotten in a few years or only known to a small group of people. I would personally allow to add people's names. And yes, somebody has done the good work, I would not delete it. I find the name entries useful. Anatoli 04:56, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

About Mao Zedong (trad. 毛澤東, simpl. 毛泽东 (pinyin: Máo Zédōng)). It happens that only one Mao (trad. and simpl. 毛 (pinyin: Máo)) has become so famous but this last name is one of the most common in the Chinese world. If we take into account the possible variations of the 4 tones (māo, máo, mǎo, mào) and a number of characters, which can represent the sounds in Chinese Mandarin, then adding the first name turns out as not such a useless thing. Anatoli 05:04, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] treed

Are we missing an adjective sense, "up in a tree", or is that merely the participle of tree? (I'm no expert at distinguishing true adjectives from similar PsOS.)​—msh210℠ 19:49, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm no expert at it either :) but I never think of treed as a true adjective - always as past participle of tree. Don't assume this is everyone's view, though :) Logomaniac 20:37, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

The simple criterion is whether it is gradable and/or comparable. "The whole area is quite heavily treed." "New England is more treed now than in the mid 19th century." This will turn out to be attestable. An additional criterion is whether it can serve as a predicate, as both examples have it. DCDuring TALK 21:26, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for adding the citations, but I was asking about another, absent sense, actually.​—msh210℠ 21:42, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I blame my shortish-term memory. Couldn't keep your actual original question in mind while citing. That sense seems not so likely to be attestable as an adjective. The predicate test doesn't help with a participle because the search can't readily distinguish between a participle's use in a passive and a predicate after a form of be. Other less clear cut copulas (eg, seem) would be necessary. Searching for "more-treed" with "dog OR dogs" didn't yield anything. DCDuring TALK 21:56, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] runde Tisch

Twice, an IP editor has tried changing the headword in the entry to runder Tisch, which currently is a redirect to this entry. The entry on the Deutsch Wikipedia is at Runder Tisch. I'm not knowledgeable enough about German to edit the entry myself, but this one clearly needs improving. — Carolina wren discussió 20:10, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

IFYPFY.​—msh210℠ 16:57, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] nuclear proliferation

Idiomatic or merely the sum of its parts? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 22:13, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

No sum of part, and IMHO the involved historical elements (cf. American Revolutionary War could arguably be considered SoP) makes it worthy of inclusion. Circeus 22:39, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] apricot

That word, I kid you not, was defined as "a stone fruit". I tried to improve it, but I don't trust myself much, as I've never actually eatenapricots (we never bought them in my family, y'see), and it I failed to find an actual good description of the fruit... Circeus 22:43, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I added what I could as someone from apricot's homeland and as someone eating apricot right now. You should try it.--Vahagn Petrosyan 04:56, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] loth

I propose to replace the English section with {{alternative spelling of|loath}}, and merge the information together. Or the other way round, which is the more common form? H. (talk) 07:13, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

The use or not of that template can be surprisingly often a can of worm. It would be a good thing to use it more IMHO. Circeus 18:12, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I like to use alternative spellings but not to diminish words of historical/etymological interest like loth. If it were only a matter of current usage, the alt spelling approach would be supported by the facts. In modern usage (as documented both at COCA and BNC), loath beats loth by more than 4:1 with no noticeable US/UK difference in the UK and about 50:1 in the US [More than 80% of the hits at COCA were scannos for 10th.].

But loth has a longer history (OE c. 1000AD and ME), with the OED's first quote for "loath" only being in 1576. I would just let the two entries exist, but focus entry enhancement (modern material) on loath. There really isn't much reason to delete material. loth#English is a useful waystation for loth#Middle English and whatever is the best spelling for Old English.

The modern material would include synonyms, antonyms and other nyms, any modern refinement of senses and the translations. I would use {{trans-see}} to focus translator efforts on the more common contemporary spelling. DCDuring TALK 01:30, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that giving a spelling an {{alternative spelling of}} entry is to "diminish" it — and I don't like that people take it that way, because it causes some editors to get misguidedly offended when some of their regional spellings happen to be {{alternative spelling of}} entries for spellings from other regions. (Is there some better phrase we could use, rather than "alternative spelling", that wouldn't cause this confusion?) Therefore, I don't think any facts are necessary to support this sort of merger, besides the fact that both spellings exist and are spellings of the same word. If we make one spelling an {{alternative spelling of}}, I think it's preferable that it be the less-common spelling (because people are more likely to look up the more-common spelling, so we might as well reduce the need to click through to the main entry), but I don't think that's essential. The benefit of putting the whole entry on one page is that it makes it clear where to look: under your approach, someone reading [[loth]] might never suspect that they should visit [[loath]] if they want synonyms and such. Conversely, someone editing [[loath]] might never realize that their edit should be applied to [[loth]] as well (if indeed it should). I imagine that even (hypothetical) brand-new senses of loath are likely to be spelled loth by speakers who use loth for existing senses — and if not, then I think we should document that explicitly with usage notes, rather than implicitly by including slightly-different senses at the two entries (though I know that some editors disagree with me about that last point). —Ruakh_TALK 02:13, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

1. The target audience matters. If the target audience is contemporary speakers and writers and language learners, then your approach would be preferred. If it is other groups such as readers, then the spelling that they find is the one we should document.
2. The facts matter. Any differences in etymology, pronunciation or meanings could matter. (In this case, not etymology.) Did both spellings have the same meanings? In this case, it isn't yet clear to me that the "loath" spelling was ever much used with the meaning tagged "obsolete". I am not sure that there is any point in having a US pronunciation for loth since it seems to be so rare in the US.
3. The interaction of audience and facts matters a lot. Readers necessarily come to an entry with a specific spelling. Including material concerning the other spelling onto a single page that we offer all readers force readers coming with either to separate what we have combined. DCDuring TALK 02:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, I see what you're saying. To me, it seems that (1) readers are better served by more-complete information, and (2) separate entries inevitably lead to less-complete information; but given that our readers sometimes seem to have difficulty even finding our definitions, I suppose more-complete information can be a bad thing if some of that information isn't even for the actual word they were trying to look up. —Ruakh_TALK 03:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm not yet sure that there are enough differences to make it worthwhile in this case to keep them split. But, in general, differences could be expected to increase as we learn more about actual usage and even history. If somebody spends time on a pair of entries they are likely to find differences eventually. If they spend time they may make the entries complicated. Combining them eventually becomes difficult. At the earliest stages of an entry it seems like a very good idea to try to keep the bulk of the content on the page of the first spelling the contributor selected. At a later, but early, stage it might be useful to make sure that in current usage the first spelling is actually a dominant (>50%) spelling according to some corpus and then decide whether to go forward with one entry or two. Conserving on translator effort is one benefit that can be retained even if we have two "main" entries. I don't know that there can be very formal criteria for this. DCDuring TALK 05:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

To add to this: I don’t see why loth couldn’t have its own etymology header, whilst at the same time having {{alternative of}} in its definition. Of course, the etymology then would have to refer to the other spelling and explain how the differences arose, and that information should be at loath as well. But the definitions are the same, as far as I can see, so no reason to duplicate that. H. (talk) 11:34, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I realize now that my objection is mostly based on a single word in H's opening proposal: section. Really any information that is unique to this particular spelling should remain at that entry, but, as long as the meanings are identical, as they seem to be in this case, it would be misleading to show any semantic content separately. Etymology might be separate, attestation quotations would be separate, pronunciation can be simpler at "loth" because it need only have the UK pronunciation (if even that is really different).

Hypothetically, "Word A" might only have a subset of the meanings of "Word AA". As a matter of strict logic even one sense less out of 20 would require duplication of content to eliminate any possible error in use. An alternative of trying to indicate at the alternative spellings of "Word AA" the subset of meanings covered by the "Word A" spelling is completely impractical in general. DCDuring TALK 14:46, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] supercompress

I need help with the word. Can someone please find the definition for this word please? Thank you. I don't know exactly what is the definition of it. Steel Blade 13:10, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

• The traditional place to request English words is Wiktionary:Requested entries:English. SemperBlotto 13:14, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] artisan pronunciation

The article for artisan has a /z/ pronunciation for the "s." I pronounce it as an /s/. Is this common enough to note? Wakablogger 20:32, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

In Webster's Third, artisan is pronounced both /'ärd•izən/ and /'ärd•isən/, with the former (with the /z/) being first (and thereby more common.). I usually pron. it somewhere between "s" and "z", though I don't usually say the word ... Logomaniac 21:49, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Like Logomaniac, I pronounce it somewhere between, but I've heard both "z" and "s" (Northern UK). They sound very similar! Dbfirs 20:02, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] new term deserves consideration

Some time ago a viewer submitted the following term to Discovery Network regarding noises often heard being emitted from frozen lake surfaces etc.

The term was cyro-crepitation

jolly good I say

what of it?

That would be cryo-crepitation or cryocrepitation. See cryo- + crepitation. It is a plausible coinage for the phenomenon. We don't promote new coinages. This one has yet to appear anywhere on the Web. Once it appears to be gaining some usage it could go into our Appendix for protologisms. Once it seemed to be entering the lexicon, we would be happy to have it as a new entry. See WT:CFI, especially section on attestation. I wonder what ice-road truckers now call the phenomenon. DCDuring TALK 23:01, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] unported

"Please note that all contributions to Wiktionary are considered to be released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported." unported? The existing sense doesn't seem to have any relevance to this kind of licence. Equinox ◑ 00:56, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] user

I'm currently reading this 1939 rail accident investigation report and it is consistently using the word user where modern writers would use usage, for example from page 8:

• Crossings giving access to land on which there are Sports Grounds, Camping Grounds, Race Tracks, etc., and other land used for recreational purposes and where a considerable user occurs intermittently or seasonally.
• ...no agreement apparently exists between the Company and the County Council as to any restriction in user.
• ...crossings may be subject to wide variations, not only in the type of connection afforded, the degree of user, and the presence or absence of alternative means of access.
• In some cases also a Company might have expressly covenanted to construct and maintain certain specified works, and again, in others, the scope of the user of the works might have been enlarged or restricted by agreement.

We don't currently have this meaning at user and I was wondering if we should - was it common? When did Usage notes surplant it in this meaning? Thryduulf 16:33, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

• Nothing quite like this meaning in the OED, but it does have (in the second, legal definition) "Continued use, exercise, or enjoyment of a right, etc.; presumptive right arising from use." SemperBlotto 16:38, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
  • Cf. waiver.​—msh210℠ 17:25, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
    • ...and disclaimer. Waiver is the act of waiving, disclaimer is the act of disclaiming, user seems in the accident investigation report to be the act of using. There are probably other such words.​—msh210℠ 18:42, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

  Does the OED present this as part of the same etymology? I would guess it to be descended from some Anglo-Norman legal language or more directly from some vintage of French. .... My Black's Law Dictionary has an entry (preceding "user de action") defining it as "actual use of any right or property". This does not seem like "use" + agent suffix. DCDuring TALK 17:54, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] above and beyond

We currently have this as only a preposition, but one example sentence is "they sure went above and beyond when they were planning this party". Does that mean it's an adverb, too?​—msh210℠ 18:34, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I think so. It's used as a predicate (adj.) too. DCDuring TALK 19:22, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I stumbled across this again and split usage examples and added the adverb. I dunno about adjective. DCDuring TALK 14:12, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] inter alia

What is the meaning of inter alia

Latin for "among other things". —Stephen 07:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] on the radio

New entry, defined as "broadcast through the radio". I would RFD this because any idiomaticity it has is wholly encapsulated in on (cf. on (the) television [or TV, telly, Discovery Channel] and probably on the Internet [or Web, Wiktionary]). However, we don't yet seem to have anything at on that covers these. Equinox ◑ 09:08, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I took a crack at a sense of "on", which, like many of the preposition entries, is severely deficient in figurative senses, especially newer ones. WT:RFD#on television duplicates your points. One good thing about SoP additions: they reveal weaknesses in the Ps. DCDuring TALK 15:12, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] figmo

How do we handle this? Capitalisation of unabbreviated form, etc. 50 Xylophone Players talk 19:08, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

I've piped the expansion to a punctuationless form. I hope the comma in the displayed form doesn't defeat search-box search. Please don't bold the first letters of the words. I know that has been defeating the search box. I don't think caps are any great help. FIGMO seems to be an alternative form, possibly more common. DCDuring TALK 18:14, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] N.S.B. winning words

This discussion has been going on on my talk page, and I would now like to bring it out into the open. I've been adding trivia sections to the various Spelling Bee winning words (like psychiatry, dulcimer, gladiolus) noting that this was the winning word in the **th Scripps National Spelling Bee. The question is: Should I continue doing this (that is to say, is it good Wiktionary content?), or should the trivia sections be deleted for being too encyclopedic? Opinions, please! Logomaniac 16:54, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm certainly glad that the WP table has wikt links from the words!

Why don't we have an Appendix on Spelling Bee winners that had more contests or levels of competition and also had all the links to WP and any external links that are appropriate?

I would prefer links from the entry page to such an Appendix rather than the current link.

I don't like the Trivia heading.

We have accepted anagrams as a subject matter and header. Anagrams probably attract some users. So might spelling-bee words. Could we combine anagrams and spelling bee under a single header that allowed for similar additional content in the future and kept the position at the bottom of the English section? DCDuring TALK 18:03, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

heading names for spelling words etc. - that is if we decide to keep this stuff: ===Minutiae===, ===Fun Facts===, ===Interesting to note===, etc . . . I would tend towards the like of minutiae as opposed to the others. Nothings final yet though so feel free to change the subject. :) Logomaniac 18:34, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

If we do coalesce anagrams and other bits of word play into a single L3 header, Word play, would be appropriate with Anagrams and Spelling bees being examples of appropriate L4 headers. That said, we definitely should collect all the winning words of a single spelling bee, such as the SHNSP, into an appendix. Whether or not we then also mention that in the entries I'm neutral on, but I see no harm so long as we stick to national spelling bees of English-speaking countries such as The Times Spelling Bee, in including info on the winning words. — Carolina wren discussió 01:23, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd support listing the words in an appendix, but not adding notes to the entries themselves, particularly if doing so would necessitate a new header — it strikes me as too extraneous to a dictionary. — Beobach972 01:28, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Hip-shooting, but my opinion is it does not reflect a dictionary approach to terms, but rather an encyclopedic approach. I'm also, generically, opposed to anagrams, and any nationalist bias - that is, why should we care if it was a spelling bee term in the Scripps National Spelling Bee? Unless it is relevant in all national contexts, it probably should not be an element of en.wiktionary. - Amgine/^talk 21:40, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't see it as nationalist. It's not as though the Scripps National Spelling Bee is a governmentally run bee: it's private. (In fact, according to WP it's open to others than Americans.)​—msh210℠ 21:47, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

ELE seems to allow it s.v. "Trivia". I don't mind it like that; I also wouldn't mind it as a category, say category:Scripps National Spelling Bee winning words, or listed in an appendix, say Appendix:Spelling bee winning words#Scripps National Spelling Bee.​—msh210℠ 21:53, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I like Category approach. Category is very economical of screen space, even if the name is long. (How about "Category:Spelling bee winner:Scripps"?) Appendix is a little less screen-space-thrifty. Multiple header levels would be bad. [OT: I like the way Homophones went from being an L4 header to being a template with horizontal presentation of individual homophones. Why couldn't that be done with Anagrams under See also or something similar?] DCDuring TALK

Here's part of why "National Spelling Bee" terms is an example of bias: The BBC's show Spelling Bee (the first television game show starting in 1938 and well before Scripps), badasseugi, dictée, fr:Dicos d'or, India Spells (lacking an article anywhere within WMF, a Scripps subsidiary in India for the 2009 competition), fr:Dictée des Amériques, Spelling Bee of Canada Category:Spelling competitions, &c. The concept of a spelling competition, and its public participation, is not unique to English, to the USA, and in fact predates the language. The category concept was previously implemented and, eventually, rejected by the community and deleted. To be blunt, there is no logical basis for including this information in a dictionary that I am aware of. If we included every winning term from every spelling competition it would be noise, yet if we do not do so it would be biased. - Amgine/^talk 23:24, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Would it be OK if we had an Anglophone bias, being en.wikt? Or would that go against all words in all languages? DCDuring TALK 00:26, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Fine AFAI'm concerned. We do with category names (though that's under discussion), with extent of coverage (though that's de facto not de jure), and by putting English sections first in entries (except for translingual).​—msh210℠ 16:52, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

If we had appendices listing these words, then a link to that appendix could appear under "see also", thereby eliminating the need for "trivia" or additional header levels. --EncycloPetey 00:00, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

True. Maybe that's best. On [[antediluvian]], say, * [[Appendix:Spelling bee winning words#Scripps National Spelling Bee|Scripps National Spelling Bee winning words (antediluvian, 1994)]].​—msh210℠ 16:52, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Are these words not examples of words that probably have "common misspellings" (in the "relative" sense)? Should we search for and add such misspellings? DCDuring TALK 17:12, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

This is kinda off the subject, but if we did make an appendix for 'em, if it would please be named something along the lines of "spelling bee winning words" as opposed to "spelling bee winners" - I dunno about everyone else but I tend to think of winner as the kid who wins the Bee (whichever bee it is) as opposed to the word they spelled to do so. :) Logomaniac 15:09, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I was trying to save a little typing and screen space. But you're probably right it. I could well misdirect users. DCDuring TALK 15:50, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Also - I don't know if i'm a sheltered person or anything but I've never heard (until I clicked on 'em) of the other spelling bees that Amgine mentioned above. (Even being a participant in the N.S.B. last year and hopefully this year!) :) Logomaniac 15:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] am albanischsten

Is albanisch really comparable? I would have thought not, but a Google Books search returns one use of the superlative form (five separate hits, but the same sentence) and eg one for albanischere, giving me pause. Can one noun be more Albanian than another? — Beobach972 20:35, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

All the adjectives pertaining to ethnic groups appear to be comparable, for one reason or another. We also have am deutschesten on Google Books. -- Prince Kassad 20:49, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Almost all English adjectives, no matter how semantically absolute they might seem (eg, dead, unique), if they are common enough, end up being used in gradable, comparative, and superlative forms. I suspect that statement generalizes to many other languages. DCDuring TALK 21:28, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

If only in a formulation along the lines of (in this case) "more Albanian than Greek", or a formula such as "the most Albanian (of) traditions": "It is one of the most Albanian costumes, known throughout Albania, […] " (Andromaqi Gjergji, Albanian costumes through the centuries, p. 115); "On the contrary, the Albanian Bektashis were were the most Albanian in spirit." (Stavro Skendi, The Albanian national awakening, 1878-1912, p. 339).

I have added the citation to albanischsten. I knew the terms were gradable in English, but wasn't sure about German, although now it makes sense. Thanks for the input. (Trickily, I do not think albanischsten is used enough to meet CFI technically — but I do not intend to RFV it, since we've established that the concept is real.) — Beobach972 01:24, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] brass neck

gall, shamelessness, cheek. I've never heard this. Where is it used? Usage example? DCDuring TALK 15:47, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, I have heard this. I think it might be nautical. Plenty of hits in Google book search - dictionary entries, literal mechanical usage, and then some usage as in our definition. e.g. "You don't have her brass neck. Nor her contacts.' I'm sure I could develop a brass neck and contacts.' 'Do you want to?' 'Not particularly, no." SemperBlotto 15:56, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

OALD has this as an idiom under "bras":

• brass neck/nerve (BrE, informal) a combination of confidence and lack of respect: I didn't think she would have the brasss neck to do that. --Duncan 17:14, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I see. There was one 19th century nautical reference to people who were "brass-necks", but it was not at clear what that was supposed to mean. A similar later reference made it seem as if the were referring to naval officers (like "top brass"). Definitely UK, Irish. Seems to have been in low-level recorded use for nearly a century with a significant increase in 1990s, especially in newspapers. I've added brass-necked and the not-too-common verb to brass-neck plus a metonymous sense at brass neck. I'm not sure that the verb is ever used without "it". And I suppose it needs the informal tag, though it shows up in newspapers a lot. DCDuring TALK 18:02, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

"Brass nerve" seems iffier as an idiom. It seems like "brass balls" or even "black darkness". DCDuring TALK 18:18, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] lead

Adjective: foremost. This doesn't seem to meet any of the tests that I have been using to determine whether a word that is principally a noun also merits an adjective PoS. There is no disputing that it is used attributively ("the lead dog in the team"). But it seems not to be gradable or comparable and doesn't seem likely to be a predicate as an adjective (although I find it difficult to discriminate between "lead (noun)"-as-predicate and "lead (adjective)-as-predicate).

1. Is my assessment of it failing to meet the adjective criteria mentioned correct?
2. By what criteria (besides attributive use would one say this is an adjective?
3. Is there any other good reason to keep this? DCDuring TALK 15:00, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

The only times when I have seen this word used as an adjective is as a colloquialism (is that the right word?) for leading - e.g. (to quote your example) "the lead (when it should be leading) dog in the team". Just my 2 cents . . . Logomaniac 18:28, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

That's "attributive use of a noun" (ie, as an adjective in that grammatical relation to the noun it modifies (in your example "team"). Consider "project team", "baseball team", "dog team", all cases of a noun modifying another noun. Almost any English noun, even a proper noun, has been and will be used this way. (Other language to describe the phenomenon is possible.) DCDuring TALK 18:59, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm...I'm not sure that covers this case adequately. Does lead when it is used attributively / adjectivally mean "in the front" or "actively guiding"? In every instance I can think of, it means "in the front", which suggests it has a specific and limited "attributive" sense, and we typically grant such words a separate adjective section. --EncycloPetey 19:10, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] in order to

This entry claims to be for an adverb. Is that the best way to look at it? DCDuring TALK 01:41, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I think in order is a better entry to have ("he did it in order for them to survive"). I read the to only as the infinitive-particle of a following verb. Equinox ◑ 14:34, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's how to parse it, but our users don't seem to parse much. in order to and in order that get coverage in some other dictionaries. "In order that" is sometimes presented as a conjunction. "In order to" is shown under "order" as an idiom without any part of speech. Our preferred mode of presentation if it is a separate entry usually would favor a true part of speech. Adverb is the most common residual catch-all. An alternative catch-all that works for multi-word entries is "Idiom". In this case, the peculiarities of this term might make it worth keeping and presenting under the PoS of "Idiom" because "Adverb" might be misleading.

Users might well type "in order to" in the search box. Are they better off finding "in order" at the top of a list and then trying to locate and interpret the right sense (of 5) or going directly to "in order to"? I suspect the latter.

Whichever of in order to, in order for, and in order that are entries should have wikilinks at in order (and vice versa), even if just to facilitate discussion. DCDuring TALK 16:57, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Also, I don't think that the sense of in order that applies to in order to can be properly worded as an adjective, certainly not naturally. But I'd like to be wrong about that. DCDuring TALK 17:12, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

How about redirects, then? Equinox ◑ 17:08, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Not my favorite choice, litotically speaking. DCDuring TALK 17:17, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Once more defective search favors a redirect that should not be required. DCDuring TALK 01:33, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm putting this at WT:RFD#in order to in order to replace it with a redirect to in order#Adverb. Thanks, Equinox. DCDuring TALK 01:38, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] be worth

It seems to me that be worth is a verb, worth is supposedly an adjective but a defective one, as it always needs another qualifier with it to mean something. I haven't yet found a dictionary that recognizes be worth as a verb, but we're supposed to be leaders, not followers, right? Mglovesfun (talk) 17:02, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

We had a related discussion about "worth having", which, as I recollect, concluded that it was sui generis. If this would lead to an adequate handling of that expression, I'd be grateful, FWIW. DCDuring TALK 17:12, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, I don't think so. Worth is definitely a weird adjective, both in that it requires a nominal complement, and in that it follows the noun it modifies, but there's certainly not always an overt be:

He stole diamonds worth millions of dollars.

He asked a high price, but at the time it seemed worth it.

I believe some linguists would consider there to be an implicit/underlying/ellipsed be in either or both of these ("diamonds that were worth", "seemed to be worth"), but even if so, that seems more a matter for grammar-books than for a dictionary.

(That said, this isn't without precedent: as you can see at [[be]], we do like to pretend sometimes that "be ____" is essential, even when it isn't.)

—Ruakh_TALK 20:21, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Worth is an adjective due to its ability to be modified by very (e.g., it is very worth doing). There are four adjectives that take similar complements, two of which are also prepositions: worth, like, unlike, and 'due.--Brett 02:10, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Though many speakers do say "very much worth it", like they would with a participle or prepositional phrase, so I guess not everyone is happy with its adjectivity. (BTW, can you give a sentence with the sense of "due" that you have in mind? None of our senses at [[due]] seems to fit.) —Ruakh_TALK 02:25, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

And one can modify the prepositional phrases formed from "like" and "unlike" with "very". I think the same can be said of worth.

• Three of the OneLook dictionaries (MWOnline, RHU, and Wordsmyth) call "worth" a preposition. (More don't.) It seems very like a preposition, one well worth having in this dictionary. It is more worth having than an entry for "be worth". It is more like a preposition than many of the phrasal prepositions we include. DCDuring TALK 03:40, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Worth is very exceptional, but it doesn't act like a preposition. While adjectives are related to predicands, prepositions are not.

• Like cycling, there's no pounding involved. (preposition)
• Their call is (very) like the red-wing's, but much louder and a little rusty. (adj)

Worth fails this predicand test:

• *Worth only $30, there were no buyers.

Unlike prepositions, worth can occur as the complement of become

• He was buying commercial square footage that would become worth much more if he leveled the homes and the project went ahead.
• *The squirrel became up the tree.

Finally, unlike prepositions, worth does not allow fronting.

• The contribution which a claimant is called upon to make is ordinarily the amount which his securities were worth at the date of bankruptcy.
• *The contribution which a claimant is called upon to make is ordinarily the amount worth which his securities were at the date of bankruptcy.

I believe due is a preposition only in conjunction with to.

• Due to popular demand, there will be extended model shoots.

All other uses I can think of are adjectives.--Brett 11:48, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

1. Predicand test: agree.
2. Complement of "become": so can "like" and "unlike" judging from COCA.
3. Aren't there some instances of wh-fronting does allow. Is this criterion a statistical thing?

I think we need to make sure you get the credit due you for raising the level of discourse.

Is there a convenient crib sheet or set thereof with PoS criteria useful for simple amateur lexicographers? DCDuring TALK 14:46, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I enjoyed this summary of views on the issue. This discussion should be kept at Talk:worth once it peters out here. A different way of looking at this is to ask what presentation makes it easiest for my (no one else seems to want any ownership) mythical "normal user". First, I doubt that a truly normal user would notice this kind of thing. It would seem to be a matter for some advanced language learners and careful writers. Perhaps, then, we can accomplish what we need to in usage notes, an appendix on "marginal prepositions", and even Talk:worth. DCDuring TALK 15:10, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Like and unlike exist both as prepositions and adjectives; as complements, such as after become, they would typically be adjectives. As adjuncts, they would be prepositions.

As far as a simple crib sheet goes, I don't know of one. The CGEL is certainly worth owning, but even if you don't, much of it is available through Amazon.com's look-inside feature.--Brett 18:34, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it would make sense to remove worth#Adjective no matter what is done with regard to worth#Preposition. PoS is a little less hard-edged than I had formerly thought it was. The very idea! Adjective-preposition gradient! Marginal preposition! But PoS does provide a set of finding aids and hooks for users to get a useful initial grasp of something.

Do you think we can give any of our users any help or insight by adding a preposition PoS for [[worth]? We have so many options to use in combination: context tags, usage notes, talk, category, WP link, appendix. DCDuring TALK 19:21, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "red blocks" - random entry feature

I like the thing next to the language header in some (but not all?) entries that looks like a pair of red blocks and when clicked on does the same sort of thing as the "Random Entry" on the left-hand side of the window (navigation). Where did that come from, is it recent, or have I just not noticed it? (And gracias to whomever put it in! :) Logomaniac 19:01, 29 June 2009 (UTC) whoopsy, never mind, I just found it as a setting in wiktionary's preferences, which I had recently turned on.  : ) *embarrassed grin* Logomaniac 22:11, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] collective sense of Nationalities

Should we treat "the whole people of a country" as a separate, proper noun sense that is distinct from the plural of the common noun nationality (cf "two Chinese" vs. "the Chinese")? We list this sense in a few places, but only for entries where it is common in English to include "the" beforehand. This is generally with nationalities whose plural is the same as the singular (see Chinese and Maltese) and where we refer to the people as a whole by a different word (we use "the Irish" not "the Irishmen"). Should we add this sense only to these types of entries (its lacking at Japanese, Kyrgyz and Swiss for example) or to all plurals (Canadians and Germans) and just note the lack of the definite article? I would be quesy adding the collective sense to Germans because you can generally always use the plural of a common noun to refer to the collective ("toys are for children"). --Bequw → ¢ • τ 19:02, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I would only do that for the "singular" forms that function that way, because it is unexpected. We don't need to do that for "plural" forms (like the Russians), because any plural noun can refer to all members of a class, including common nouns. --EncycloPetey 19:05, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure they're proper nouns; to take your example, "many Irish" is well attested. And it's not the only such; the same is true of "blacks", where *"a black" (or *"a blacks") and *"two blacks" are awkward at best, but "the blacks" and "many blacks" are just fine (given the right context, anyway). I don't know what the right term is. It's almost as though "Irish" and "blacks" and so on were uncountable pluralia tantum, with singulatives like "Irishman" and "black person" being used for individuals and small numbers. BTW, am I the only one who finds ?"a Chinese" and ?"two Chinese" to be unacceptable? I've heard them a number of times, but it always jumps out at me. —Ruakh_TALK 20:11, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Oddly, to me, "a black" sounds wrong but "two blacks" somewhat okay. Same for "Chinese".​—msh210℠ 20:25, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Jumping back to normal size — I feel silly carrying on a whole conversation in small — I find that they get more and more acceptable as the number goes up and up: "a million blacks/Chinese/whatever" sounds almost perfectly normal. Similarly for other collectives: "two cattle" sounds ridiculous to me (it's "two head [of cattle]"), but "a million cattle" sounds almost fine. I still slightly prefer "a million black/Chinese/whatever people", "a million head [of cattle]", and so on, but I don't think I'd even notice the other ones in normal conversation. I don't know why that should be; my understanding is that in languages with true singulatives, like Arabic and Russian, it's more like English "snow"–"snowflake" or "sand"–"grain [of sand]", where no matter how many grains of sand you're talking about, you can't jump over to *"a billion sand". Maybe it has to do with the fact that "Irish" etc. are treated as plural, whereas "snow" etc. are treated as uncountable-singular? —Ruakh_TALK 20:56, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Since you can say "many Irish", that indicates they're not uncountable nouns. Since you use plural verbs with "Irish" even in American English, I think that indicates they're not w:Collective nouns. So are they pluralia-tantum count nouns instead of proper nouns? (is that what you meant Ruakh?) Does anyone have the CGEL? --Bequw → ¢ • τ 01:01, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Re: "Since you can say 'many Irish', that indicates they're not uncountable nouns.": I'm not sure. Usually "uncountable" implies "grammatically singular", at least in English; but I think all English pluralia tantum take "many" rather than "much" (even things like "suds", I think, where *"one sud" is not only ungrammatical, but also IMHO uninterpretable; though "much suds" does get some Google-hits, so apparently some speakers disagree with me). The distinction between countable and uncountable pluralia tantum, if it exists at all, doesn't seem nearly so rigid as with singulars, but personally I think I'd put "Irish" more on the "uncountable" side, as it goes.

Re: "they're not w:Collective nouns": Right, I agree. (To clarify, by "collectives" I was alluding not to "collective noun", but rather to "collective number". I don't think English has true collectives and singulatives, but I don't know the right terms, so I was grasping a bit. As you say, the CGEL would be helpful here.)

—Ruakh_TALK 01:26, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

According to the CGEL, Irish is always an adjective, and never a noun. Nationalities are discussed from p. 1694 of the CGEL. On p. 1696, Irish is categorized as "class 2", and as such it has the name of the country (a noun) Ireland, the adjective Irish, and the inhabitant noun Irishman. The examples discussed above, the Irish and many Irish, would be analyzed under the CGEL system as follows: They are both noun phrases (NPs) the adjective Irish is functioning as a fused-head (fusion of internal modifier and head) in both NPs, which have no actual nouns in them. Fused heads are discussed from p. 410. A relevant example is given on p. 417: "[The French] do these differently from [the Dutch]".--Brett 01:47, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks! —Ruakh_TALK 15:30, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I guess I'll change the entries and add usage notes. I'll have to work up some info on fused-heads though. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 01:20, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Punctuational variance

Can anyone explain the discrimination at coup d’état vs coup d'état? Note also the variance within d'. - Amgine/^talk 21:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

You mean the different apostrophes? --EncycloPetey 23:57, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

On the grounds you can only do it one way. coup d’état serves as a redirection because the French Wiktionary (annoyingly enough) insists on typographical apostrophes, and is AFAIK the only Wiktionary to do so. So fr:coup d'état serves as a redirect there. Mglovesfun (talk) 07:14, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Let me contest the claim of annoyance - the typographical apostrophe is the traditional, prævalent in printed editions and thence the academical one and if Wiktionnaire has adopted an admirable policy on præserving the mainstream orthography from the simplicative and egalitarian encroachment of mundialised/digitalised media then I can only applaud them. Besides, digitalisation does not have to be pericious for traditional orthography, it has after all accepted ’ and ſ in its standard and provided support for that, which I appreciate. Thus, both entries appear to be indispensable, especially coup d’état. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 16:22, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it's better (when printing) but, please, don't compare ’ and ſ... Lmaltier 17:13, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I don’t think he was, rather he was just saying that “digitalisation does not have to be per[n]icious for traditional orthography”, since Unicode supports both ’ and ſ now (it must be said, however, that basic ASCII (and the typewriter before it) gave “traditional orthography” quite a kicking). Typographical apostrophes are more professional and are the ideal for various largely æsthetic (but also a couple of functional) reasons, whereas ASCII apostrophes win when it comes to accessibility (in terms of character support (which is an ever-lessening big deal), enter-ability, and (most importantly) search efficiency). They’re the entire cases for both the positions, in a nutshell, AFAIK. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 01:03, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] MWAA

What does it stand for "MWAA" in the SMS slang, please?—This comment was unsigned.

I don't know, but I've seen "mwa" as representing a kiss.​—msh210℠ 17:11, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] have in mind

[edit] have something in mind

We are not alone in having have in mind as an idiom, though it does not rate any coverage whatsoever in MWOnline. In reviewing the entry, I wondered about "have (something) in mind". We have many entries of the form "[Verb] [something/someone/one] [X]" that sometimes pair with entries of the form "[Verb] [X]". Is it worth having the "[something/someone/one]" (or "[something/someone/one|'s]) entries at all if we have the form without the placeholder. The placeholder mostly renders search useless for even finding the entry.

I have two questions:

1. Is it worth having have something in mind as a separate entry?
2. Would it be worth considering consolidating (or converting) "[Verb] placeholder X" entries into "[Verb] X" entries where possible. DCDuring TALK 15:05, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

My opinion:

• it's a case for a redirect (have something in mind to have in mind): it's the same phrase, and it seems clear that have something in mind does not exist in another language with a different meaning.
• yes, it's worth doing what you propose where possible, and the redirect should be kept.

Lmaltier 17:08, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I found the need to insert 6 additional usage examples to illustrate the usage possibilities. Am I just getting to focused on grammar for a dictionary? DCDuring TALK 17:49, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I just want to note that although the conjugated formula is "put one off", the entry is at put off, so I say no. But there should be example making this element clear, because the placement of "additional" elements in phrasal verbs is rather irregular in English. Circeus 22:35, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

"put off" requires an object but the object can appear either before or after "off" (unless it's a pronoun). "put (one) off" and "put (something) off" could be distinct entries. I'm not sure there is any useful overlap in meaning between the animate (usually person [=one]) and the non-person terms.

It is difficult to put in enough usage examples to illustrate all the restrictions on the positions of the object required for low-ambiguity idiomatic placement of the object of "put off". I fear that inserting all of them would put many users off using Wiktionary for quick answers. I suppose we should we limit the usage examples only to those that demonstrate "deeper" grammar if we would otherwise have too long a set of usage examples. DCDuring TALK 17:00, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] in mind

"In mind" is a component of four common idiomatic verb phrases that we have as entries: have in mind, bear in mind, keep in mind, and put in mind of. It also shows up much less commonly in similar phrases (probably attestable) that are semantically similar. Each of these could have an entry of the "[Verb] [placeholder] in mind" type. No OneLook dictionary covers "in mind" except in usage examples. Is "in mind" itself an idiom? DCDuring TALK 15:05, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ressortir

Please, can other Francophones lend eyes to the entry ressortir. It is a thorny word, and maybe needs to be checked for fluency and readability. --Rising Sun 13:38, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

In French, senses 1 and 2 are the same, despite the different possible translations in English (come or go). The action is exactly the same in both cases. These senses should be merged. Lmaltier 16:41, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Talk:Romeo

OK I have a question. There's this pizza called the 'pizza Borromea'. So I've looked up Borromeo and wikipedia states it comes from Buonromei/Borromei. I guessed the 'romei' was meant as plural, which lead me to this 'romeo'. Wikipedia also said that romeo means 'pilgrim to Rome'. Is it correct to think this way? Does anyone know? I don't speak Italian very well (yet), but they give this link on wp: [www.borromeo.it]. The links are at the bottom of that homepage. Anyway, perhaps if I know more I can do more searching on how the name was used for a pizza. Early google searches only try to sell me the pizza :( User:Mallerd (Zeg et es meisje) 11:53, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

See Borromeo, but I don't know anything about pizzas. Shouldn't you ask in the Tea Room? --Makaokalani 13:44, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

It's a fairly simple pizza with just cheese and ham as topping to the normal ingredients. If the name has anything to do with the saint Carlo Borromeo I would be surprised. Probably invented by a restaurant on one of the Borromean Islands in Lago Maggiore. SemperBlotto 17:05, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

The pizza tastes good :) like you said I just wanted to know if/how the name was linked to a Borromean person. So, they hadn't much to do with it themselves. Thanks

[edit] your ass

Not yours personally, you understand. Does anyone agree that this should be moved to one's ass, to allow for the other possessive pronouns? "I kicked his ass out before I got the money." Equinox ◑ 09:27, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

one's arse sounds good (sorry not to recognise the alternative spelling, but mine objection does not concern the regional varieties, but the possessive pronoun), but how would you define it given the fact that your ass is defined as you? one sounds ambiguous... anyone sounds generalised... How can the issue be resolved? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 10:37, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. Perhaps something like "oneself; the person referred to" (i.e. by the pronoun alone). Equinox ◑ 13:36, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd expect to find that any animal (especially one having an ass or at least an ass end) couldn't be referred to by "ass" in some context ("My dog just wouldn't walk, so I had to drag his ass home." "That thing can really move its ass. Look at the flagella go."). I would think that use should reside just at "ass". That entry also betrays a speciesist bias in that the closest sense is oneself. I think the sense there ought to be "Person; body."

But, I think "your ass" (and not the other forms???) can be used idiomatically as the equivalent to something like "bullshit" or "the hell you will". DCDuring TALK 14:50, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] overflow pool

I can't describe this in English. It is a swimming pool, and on the edge of the pool it can flood, and the water goes into another pool around the swimming pool. An online definition is "a pool where the water level in the pool is the same as the top of the decking. Around the pool perimeter is a channel or notch that the water drains into creating a visual masterpiece. It looks like a big mirror lying on the ground. Very upscale! "[5] There are pictures of a piscine à débordement here, and overflow pool here, but I'm not convinced, that the French one is identical to the English one. --Rising Sun 10:47, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

• A striking feature of such pools is called in English (sometimes in quotes) an "infinite edge". Because the edge is not obviously infinite, it might be worth an entry. I don't know whether all "overflow pools" have "infinite edges" or whether all "infinite edges" are associated with "overflow pools". Sometimes that feature gives such pools the name "infinite-edge pool", but that might not meet WT:CFI in English as a unit. DCDuring TALK 11:29, 3 July 2009 (UTC)
• Is this the same as an infinity pool? Ƿidsiþ 04:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
  • No. See below. Uncle G 05:12, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
• The German is Überlaufpool. Rising Sun and DCDuring, you are conflating overflow channel pools and infinity pools Uncle G 05:12, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Dickensian

In addition to a general-purpose literary comparison to the writings of Charles Dickens, many commentators (political and social) have something specific in mind about the writings of Charles Dickens when they make this comparison. Several other dictionaries now list a qualifier or specification rather than only saying that Dickensian is "like Dickens." I could list the many versions of these more specific definitions now being used. I tried to introduce this on the talk page, but someone named SemperBlotto simply keeps vandalizing without any explanation. Is the use of "Dickensian" as a reference to some aspect of social injustice that unfamiliar and new? It seems to have gotten a lot of use lately anyway. examples (there are several others but often with exactly the same wording): . i) Dickensian Adjective 1. of Charles Dickens (1812–70), British novelist 2. denoting poverty, distress, and exploitation, as depicted in the novels of Dickens --Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006 . ii) Adj. 1. Dickensian - of or like the novels of Charles Dickens (especially with regard to poor social and economic conditions) --Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2008 Princeton University, Farlex Inc. . iii) Definition Dickensian adjective 1 relating or similar to something described in the books of the 19th century British writer, Charles Dickens, especially living or working conditions that are below an acceptable standard: The bathrooms in this hotel are positively Dickensian - no hot water and grime everywhere. 2 written by or in the style of Charles Dickens --(from Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary) . iv) Dickensian /dikenzin/ • adjective reminiscent of the novels of Charles Dickens (1812-1870), especially in terms of the urban poverty that they portray. --Compact Oxford English Dictionary . v) Dickensian Dick·en·si·an [ di kénzee ən ] adjective Definition: 1. of Charles Dickens: relating to the 19th-century British novelist Charles Dickens 2. reminiscent of poverty-stricken Victorian Britain: typical or reminiscent of the harsh poverty-stricken living conditions described in the works of Dickens 3. jolly and genial: jolly and cordial, like some of the scenes and characters featured in the novels of Dickens 4. full of twists and amazing coincidences: full of twists and remarkable coincidences, like the plots of some of the novels of Dickens an episode too Dickensian for most modern audiences to swallow --ENCARTA .

Definitions from other dictionaries are not, in and of themselves, support for additional senses of a word. Wiktionary has attestation criteria given in WT:CFI; we much prefer to see a quote demonstrating usage in a published context, not a mention/explanation of the word in a dictionary. (See w:Use–mention distinction.) I also note that some of the dictionaries you cite indicate only a single sense, not two. More importantly, the definition you keep adding is wrong. You are giving the definition of a noun, but claiming it is an adjective. --EncycloPetey 19:43, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

The actions of SemperBlotto were mischaracterized, AFAICT. Talk:Dickensian was not reverted. The definition of "Dickensian" worded as a noun was. A definition that fails to recognize the basics of grammar is hard to credit.

In my opinion the best way to proceed is to put some citations on Citations:Dickensian illustrating the usage, preferably from print sources, which shouldn't be hard. Or one could review the usage at COCA and BNC to see which ones are common enough to be worth showing. Encarta seems to have done some work in support of its four definitions, finding evidence in support of three specific additional senses, all of which are truly subsenses of the first sense. DCDuring TALK 20:21, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I've re-added the second sense and attempted to cite it. It seems to me that the first sense could almost cover any citation for the second ("pertaining to Dickens' writings", i.e. sharing some characteristic of them, which poor social conditions are), but I'll leave the rest of you to decide on that. Equinox ◑ 20:30, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Of the first 10 of the 118 citations at COCA:

Poverty-stricken or otherwise associated with poverty (3)

Odd (2) about unusual and/or underworldy characters

Strict, harsh (1)

High-handed (1)

Old-fashioned (1)

Melodramatic (1)

Having incredible plot twists. (1)

This diversity suggests that usage needs further research. It would be worth getting this right. DCDuring TALK 20:39, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

.

Thank you for the constructive feedback. It is so much better to hear the issues rather than see mysterious, unexplained reverts. In order to help out, I have found these examples:

A meat company has been branded Dickensian after forcing its employees to clock-off every time they want to go to the toilet. - - - http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USL2629804320080627 Fri Jun 27, 2008

Leaning against piracy fits in with China's desire to cast off its image of a country where exploited workers toil for a pittance in Dickensian factories that turn the air and water black with the pollution they discharge. - - - http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USPEK32802920080915 Mon Sep 15, 2008

GM Bankruptcy–A Dickensian Tale - - - http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2009/05/29/deals-of-the-day-gm-bankruptcy-a-dickensian-tale/ May 29, 2009

The bill he wrote placed mothers and their children behind credit card companies in the line for a bankrupt ex-husband's paycheck, for example, which is positively Dickensian. Expected to sail through the House and onto the president's desk in the next few weeks, the bill turns the federal government into a guardian angel of an industry gone mad, placing no significant restriction on soaring interest rates and proliferating fees. - - - http://www.buzzflash.com/whitehurst/05/03/whi05001.html March 16, 2005

America’s unions, which Wal-Mart despises, have a long history of anti-communism, and today’s AFL-CIO is the staunchest defender on the American political scene of democratic rights in communist nations such as China. For that matter, unions affiliated with reformed or post-communist parties outside of the few remaining communist states have gotten nowhere with Wal-Mart either. Only in China, with its inimitable blend of Dickensian capitalism and authoritarian communism, has Wal-Mart found a union to its liking. The leaders of genuine workers’ movements in China don’t end up running the All-China Federation. They’re to be found in prison, in exile, or in hiding. - - - http://walmartwatch.com/blog/archives/wal_mart_to_increase_employee_wages_by_8 July 16, 2008

It brings together an intriguing cast of characters, each apparently in his or her own world but - as gradually becomes clear - ultimately intricately related. The anti-hero, John Veals, is a shadily successful and boundlessly ambitious Dickensian figure who is trading billions and other characters include a teenage Muslim fanatic, a Polish footballer, a female tube driver, a literary critic, a care worker and a chutney tycoon. As the story builds to its climax, Faulks pulls together powerful ideas about family, money, religion, and the way we live now. - - - http://commanderbond.net/article/6319 June 21, 2009

Adidas attacked for Asian 'sweatshops' MEPs told of Dickensian conditions in Indonesia. Indonesian factory workers producing clothes for the German sportswear giant Adidas are subject to forced overtime, physical abuse and poverty-line wages, the European parliament heard yesterday. - - - http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/112300-02.htm November 23, 2000

Jg og 2 21:08, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] *koumpounophobia etymology

I couldn’t post this in the Etymology Scriptorium, since this term is protologistic (at least as this spelling), and so doesn’t have an entry and adjoining talk page. *Koumpounophobia supposedly means “fear of buttons”; can anyone guess at its etymology? Perhaps this nonce word is attestable if written according to a different transliteration scheme. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 02:48, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

κουμπούνω (koumpono) + phobia. Equinox ◑ 21:31, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit]  :)

Hi everyone, I couldn't think of any better place to post this - so to all WikiAmericans, happy Independence Day and happy 233rd (I think I counted right) b'day to the good old U.S. of A. (And to y'all Brits and Canadians and wherever else Wiktionarians live - bear with us, and hope you have a good day too!!!!)  ; ) Logomaniac 16:04, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

tea

[edit] he

A user has added a second etymology in the Spanish section, but I'm not convinced it is a separate etymology. I think this is merely archaic use of the same form of haber. --EncycloPetey 14:52, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

The DRAE says that this he is from Arabic,^[6] and that haber is from Latin.^[7] Do we have any reason to doubt that? —Ruakh_TALK 15:28, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] absolute and relative

These have certain narrow senses in computing that relate to resource identifiers. Using the Windows file system as an example, c:\Documents\blah.txt is an "absolute" path, because it specifies the location completely (drive and all) while Media\tada.wav is a "relative" path (it is partial and must be appended to some external starting-point). The same goes for URIs — http://mydomain.com/pages/index.html is absolute while checkout.php is relative — and certain other concepts. I was going to add this, but then I thought it might be covered by sense 2 ("complete in itself"). Opinions? Equinox ◑ 23:23, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I think these are already covered, and not so specific to computing. Consider: mathematics has absolute maxima and relative maxima (or minima). --EncycloPetey 23:28, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Homographs

Are there any languages that do not have any homographs? —This comment was unsigned.

I don't think Loglan/Lojban has any. It was designed to be unambiguous. Equinox ◑ 01:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] in order for

This is a fairly common collocation in the US appearing some 1300 times in COCA. Astonishingly it did not appear once in BNC. OTOH it appears in Google News from UK sources, including the BBC. A contributor objected to a usage example including it at in order#Adverb. Is there some kind of UK/US difference?

It seems a little awkward to me in some sentences. Can someone characterize where its use is appropriate and where not? DCDuring TALK 14:38, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

• It's not awkward. It's a simple difference between implied subjects of the dependent non-finite clause:
  • DCDuring edited the article in order to improve it. — DCDuring improved it.
  • DCDuring edited the article in order for Equinox to be happier. — Equinox was happier.
• Also note the use of "that" for finite clauses, where the subordinate verb is, by convention, in the subjunctive:
  • DCDuring edited the article in order that Equinox might breathe a sigh of happiness.
• Fowler observes that sometimes the indicative is used rather than the subjunctive. He calls this a solecism, and observes that it results from analogy to "so that":
  • DCDuring edited the article in order that Equinox breathes a sigh of happiness.
• Note that, as Follett observes, "in order to" used to be used without a subordinate verb at all, although this usage is now considered an archaism. The "to" in this case is definitely not part of an infinitive, because there's no subordinate verb, or the subordinate verb is a gerund. I'm not giving Follett's examples, because they have no sources, but some others that are easily found:
  • 1856: In order to the effectual surrender of an original lease, it was formerly necessary that any under-lease thereout granted should be also rendered up.
    — A Digest of the Questions Asked at the Final Examination of Articled Clerks, Richard Hallilay, pp. 255
  • 1833: Nothing remained to be done, in order to the perfecting of his work on earth, or to the forming of a perfect ground for man's acceptance with God.
    — Horæ homileticæ, or Discourses, in the form of skeletons upon the whole Scriptures., Charles Simeon, Jean Claude, Thomas Hartwell Horne, pp. 190
  • 1812: There remained only some circumstances to adjust, in order to the entire completion of the treaty
    —The history of England, from the invasion of Julius Cæsar to the revolution in 1688, David Hume, pp. 170
  • 1863: Any such trespass, in order to the committing of any offence punishable with death or with transportation for life is punishable by Sections 449 and 450.
    — The Indian Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860), Walter Morgan, Arthur George Macpherson, pp. 406
  • 1842: God sees it to be suitable that we should, in order to our justification, repent, and be reconciled to himself, and believe on his Son.
    — The Works of Jonathan Edwards, Jonathan Edwards, Tryon Edwards, pp. 265
• Uncle G 14:20, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Citations:hoocoodanode

The entry had been deleted. Attestation questions:

• Durably archived: are the blogs of the NYTimes and other newspapers deemed durably archived?
• Independence: are two citations by the same author (arguably the same subject matter, if not the same thread) independent?

Does this need to go to BP? DCDuring TALK 20:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] nasogastric

The etymology of this is now entered as {{prefix|naso|gastirc}}. I'd think it should be {{compound|naso|gastic}}, on the ground that "naso-" is not a prefix. Yet, naso- is entered as a prefix. I take prefix to be something like a preposition attached before a stem, while "naso-", "rhino-" and the like are based on standalone nouns, which makes them non-prefixes. Am I right?

Judging from W:English_prefixes#Neo-classical, I am wrong, as it lists "astro-", "demo-", "electro-", "Anglo-" as prefixes. --Dan Polansky 09:47, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

From looking at Category:English prefixes, I am wrong. Yet the definition of compound says "a lexeme that consists of more than one stem". How do I tell a stem from such a prefix as "astro-"? --Dan Polansky 09:51, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• Basically, if the first element can be used alone, then the word is what we call a "compound" (eg machinegun, postman), whereas if it is only ever found in compounds then it's a prefix (which you could argue also forms compound words of a special kind). Generally in English we just stack nouns together to form compounds, but when using Latin/Greek roots then we use special combining forms which appear as prefixes and suffixes. So like....you can say coprophagous (prefix copro- + suffix -phagous) in a neo-classical stylee, or you can say shiteating which is a more native compound. Why this example is the first coming to mind I have no idea. Ƿidsiþ 10:41, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

  Thanks for the explanation. I gather that "nasogastric" is not a compound. --Dan Polansky 10:10, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

  Later: What I find confusing is that, in Czech, what I think would be compounds are formed by modifying the constituent words, so that they look like "nasogastric" and "coprophagous"; examples include "mrakodrap", built from mrak -> "mrako" + "drápat" -> "drap", or "vodovod", built from voda -> "vodo" + vést -> "vod"; other examples include "větroplach" = vítr -> větro + plašit -> plach and "kamenolom" = "kámen" -> kameno + lámat -> lom. So a question is still how this works for other languages than English, and whether a multilingual framework for what constitues a compound can be created. --Dan Polansky 15:17, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] man of parts

This recently transwikied entry connects this term with pickup artist. Most usages and the idiom dictionaries that I can find suggest someone of diverse talents, of wit, of diverse learning. Is there any place one would find citations supporting the sense given. It is possible that the term was applied in that connection because of the pun on "parts". It is easy to imagine it so in the 17th and 18th centuries. DCDuring TALK 16:15, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

• I've just removed that rubbish from w:man of parts. I cannot find anything to support it, and it appears to be tripe being invented directly in Wikipedia. Someone was abusing Wikipedia to attempt to frame an old concept in a novel "seduction community" form. Uncle G 15:48, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] 时间 ("time")

Can someone take a look at my example sentences for 时间 and help me put them under the definitions? I find it hard to define each example as demonstrating "the inevitable passing of events", "a quantity of availability in time" or "a measurement of a quantity of time". It's all a little confusing... Tooironic 04:09, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] what do I know

What is the right PoS for this? I have a lot of trouble finding a home for such things in our Borgesian L3 header structure.

Grammatically, it is a sentence, but that is not a valid L3 header. The sole L3 header that clearly and necessarily includes sentences is "proverb". We also have the categories such as Category:English rhetorical questions which suggest that sentences belong here.

Of the possible relevant legal PoS/L3 headers:

• phrase trivializes the meaning of phrase to the most general sense into which any multi-word would fall.
• interjection doesn't accurately characterize even the usage example given.
• idiom, because it must be idiomatic to have met WT:CFI? We treat "idiomatic" as a sense-level concept. In this case, most occurrences of the collocation are not in the idiomatic sense. Also, which of the meanings of idiom is supposed to apply?

As you must or should realize, this is not an isolated example. DCDuring TALK 11:03, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

It's not an interjection because it can appear as "But then, what do I know?", which isn't really possible for an interjection. I don't think it works well as an idiom either. This seems to me to be one of those rare cases where "Phrase" is the best label, even though that too has problems. --EncycloPetey 14:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Of our existing headers that seems best. But clearly it is a sentence. The original set of L3 headers did not contemplate there being a significant number of headwords that were full sentences except for proverbs. I'm thinking that it might be useful now to count the full-sentence entries we already have. All proverbs are supposed to be full sentences, AFAICT, though there are many instances where the proverb is invoked by a memorable phrase from it whole proverb. I think I will add a category "English sentences" for entries that are not proverbs or rhetorical questions for purposes of tallying.

Entries with Phrase and Idiom L3 headers seem like clean up lists to me. I wonder how many phrases could not be assigned to better grammatical categories, nouns, verbs, and prepositions being the easiest to identify and simplest to modify. Those that cannot merit reexamination as to their validity as entries, IMO. DCDuring TALK 15:04, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

But the catch is that not all of these sentence entries are always used as sentences. The one under discussion (what do I know) can appear as part of a sentence rather than as a complete sentence in its own right. --EncycloPetey 15:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

This headword would not pose a problem in that regard, AFAICT. BTW, it also falls into Category:English rhetorical questions.

Having multiple PoSs is a characteristic of many headwords.

On a trial basis for our lexicographic purposes, I think we would have to say that a sentence included any multiword headword that could stand as a sentence and could not be confused with one of the traditional parts of speech. Thus "go"! "present arms"! would not be sentences (for hidden category purposes) because they could be interpreted as the lemmas of verbs. For our purposes a "sentence" would need to be something that served a useful purpose of categorizing things not handled very well by the existing PoS headings and categories. DCDuring TALK 11:58, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] about face

Interjection. This is the imperative form of about face#Verb. Many verbs have imperatives that are used similarly, although not as memorably. It certainly deserves special mention, in the definition, usage examples, or usage notes for the verb. Am I missing something about this and similar terms? DCDuring TALK 16:26, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

• "Company! To the right! Abaahhhht — face!"

  I agree. A, similar, but not identical, command component is "about turn!". (Strictly speaking: Turns are performed on the march. Facings are performed whilst stationary.) This classification seems to be based upon an erroneous assumption that everything ending with an exclamation mark is an interjection. This is one more data point to add to what has been observed before: things marked as interjections often are not. It takes more than an exclamation mark or a word sentence to make something an interjection.

  It's perhaps worth noting, by the way, when you fix this up that these are components of the actual command, not the full command. The proper drill command is either "left about turn/face!" or "right about turn/face!" (or, as above, some extended form of the same), for the obvious reason that everyone is supposed to turn/face in the same way. Uncle G 13:43, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] hidebound

Can the request for cleanup be removed from hidebound? The discussion in requests for cleanup is gone. -- dougher 03:46, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

It shouldn't be removed until the original problem is fixed, IMO. I've tried to neaten up the definition a bit but am not sure what the original problem was - the reason whoever put it there in the first place. Could somebody check it and/or make sure that the tag can be taken off ? L☺g☺maniac chat? 14:41, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I've added the IPA as well as an additional def (with quote). The only thing I see left to do is split the translations tables, but there's only one translation given, so I have removed the tag. --EncycloPetey 20:15, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Ya know, we should do that to every article ... it'd look a lot better around here!  :D but anyhow, I'm not sure that that's a specifically UK pronunciation, or if it is, I say it that way too (and I'm a full-blooded American!) and (tho I don't hear people usually say it) so do most of my acquaintances. Could the "UK" tag be taken off the pronunciation or is there another way that the rest of us Americans are supposed to say it? L☺g☺maniac chat? 20:43, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Help with unidentifible word

My father-in-law often used a word describing very tasty food as 'lariping' (unsure of spelling). He pronounced it 'lair-a-pin'. I have never been able to find a similar foreign language word that might have been the origin of his use of the word.

Has anyone ever heard of such word or a related word in another language?

• Possibly larruping (compare spanking, belting) SemperBlotto 18:59, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

"Larruping" is very probably the word you're looking for. W3 gives the definition as in a way or of a kind to beat others; of notable quality or size; very and an example (I thought this was funny!) larruping good baked ham ... It comes from the participle of larrup. L☺g☺maniac chat? 19:54, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

We have it at larrupping. We need the one-p form as well. They are roughly equal at b.g.c. DCDuring TALK 20:37, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Done, with some other tidying there. Equinox ◑ 21:01, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] as

Somebody wrote to me in an e-mail "well my 21st went well i got pissed as and lasted till 4am" (pissed here meaning drunk). I wonder whether we should have a note about this occasional informal use of as as a sort of cut-off euphemism for as Hell, as fuck, etc. When I've heard it said aloud, there is a distinct stress on the word as. Equinox ◑ 20:29, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Reminded me of end of. Though the euphemistic motive makes what you've got very general. DCDuring TALK 20:42, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] 破pos?

Interjection

萬歲 (traditional, Pinyin wànsuì, simplified 万岁)

  1. (Intermediate Mandarin) long live ...
  2. His/Your majesty

correct?--User:史凡 (歡迎光臨！請也用skype: sven0921為我RSI !) 05:43, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

It's correct.--Dingar 00:55, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

ta--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 05:49, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] take it easy

This is presented as a verb, interjection, and phrase. I propose that all senses be merged into verb. This is prototypical of a good number of unnecessary or erroneous uses of Interjection and Phrase L3/PoS headers. DCDuring TALK 12:05, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed! - at least for removing the "interjection" sense (and even if it's not removed, can we come up with a less ridiculous example sentence? I can't imagine it ever being used in that context, unless the person being spoken to was a billionaire!). The definition under "Phrase" here seems to have a meaning separate from the other two PsOS given, (although personally I've never heard it used that way) so it might still stay separate (I don't really care. :)

Thinking about it, though, I'd like to ask - since, in your words, this is one of "a good number of unnecessary or erroneous uses of Interjection and Phrase L3/PoS headers", what is the dividing line between "correct" and "incorrect" usage of these headers, especially "phrase"? What is meant by the headers ===Interjection=== and ===Phrase===, and is that explained anywhere, or should it be? Clarification would be greatly appreciated, probably to the whole community if not just me. :) L☺g☺maniac chat? 21:38, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I am trying to stimulate discussion in this area, but before it can go to the WT:BP, I would like to talk about some cases. But see Wiktionary:Beer parlour#Entries mislabeled as interjections. This is not an interjection because it is a full sentence and not used as an expression of emotion. It is a phrase, but that is relatively uninformative.

I would argue that the use in the imperative/hortative/precative sense should be

1. presented as a non-gloss definition of the verb
2. marked as an idiom and a phrasebook entry and
3. perhaps also be in usage notes.

But I am not sure whether that gives enough emphasis to that kind of usage. DCDuring TALK 00:00, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

• merged into verb based on lack of negative response. Reversion accepted with equanimity. DCDuring TALK 23:14, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] fancy pants

fancy pants, fancy-pants, fancypants: the space or hyphen is supposed to make the difference between a circus ringmaster and an overdressed person. Sounds unlikely. Equinox ◑ 14:52, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Looking at COCA, as you might expect, fancy-pants is always an adjective and is the most common form. fancy pants is sometimes a noun, more often a proper noun and occasionally is used attributively. fancypants is uncommon. The relatively few onelook dictionaries that have this don't have fancypants, even as a redirect and show both of the others as adjectives. Of course, nothing about circus ringmasters comes up. Nor do the accessible slang dictionaries have that sense. They do show it as a noun, 'often used attributively'.

Proposal:

1. main entry at fancy pants as noun, with a true noun use showing verb with most common number and an attributive use.
2. Hyphenated form shown as adjective alternative formtrue adjective and alt form of noun.
3. Solid form as noun alternative form.
4. RfV "circus ringmaster" sense. DCDuring TALK 18:00, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] on a hiding to nothing

Used as an adverb, an adjective? Does anyone have familiarity with this UK? term derived from horse racing? Is the "on" essential? DCDuring TALK 20:55, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

• There's an explanation here. The 1986 Partridge dictionary of catch phrases (ISBN 9780415059169) has the whole phrase. The 8th edition Partridge dictionary of slang (ISBN 9780415291897) lists it as hiding to nothing with a "see" at on a hiding to nothing. Interestingly, Google Books turns up some early usages that are "a good hiding to nothing", including several 1904 usages: The tipster is always between two fires and on " a good hiding to nothing." If his selections win, the bookmakers execrate him; if he be wrong, […]. Barry Norman uses "on a good hiding to nothing" in his autobiography. Uncle G 17:27, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I think we do better with just the noun phrase as headword, and the full phrase as usage example and, perhaps, redirect, our equivalent of the Partridge 8th presentation. It seems to work better with search and offer the user a better sense of the range of uses: as a predicate, modified by an adjective, etc. DCDuring TALK 19:20, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Looking for new entry forms

Gentlemen; I am a great believer, user and supporter of the philosophy and concept of all the "Wikis". Unfortunately I am not sufficiently computer savy, (and don't want to muck things up for anyone) to contribute. Perhaps if there were a simpler "fill in the blanks" type of form, I, as well as others like me might be able to help more. I am a native Spanish speaking person who is also fluent in French, Italian, German and Russian. My degrees are in Music and Science. I ran across an entry in Spanish, in which the word 'capitulo' was listed as a verb tense, (it requires an accent on the "ó" to make it correct in the past tense, 1st person singular; it is also a NOUN: meaning "chapter". However I don't know how to make suggestions on this matter except as I am doing.

Hoping that I have not offended gravely anyone for my computer illiteracy,

I remain, sincerely yours William J. del Valle-Font —This unsigned comment was added by Wildefon (talk • contribs) 17:34, 11 July 2009.

capituló. DCDuring TALK 23:09, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Stiff drink

I tried in vain to find out what a "stiff drink" is. Can anyone explain the expesssion. Thanks, Byrial 11:23, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

One containing alcohol in a high proportion.​—msh210℠ 23:32, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

stiff drink should probably have its own entry, for this very reason. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

We didn't have the appropriate sense two days ago. We do now, with "stiff drink" among the usage examples. DCDuring TALK 14:58, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] cotte-hardie

This is a French word for some kind of mediaeval clothing. It's described as "A short over-garment worn by both sexes from the 14th-16th centuries". I don't suppose anyone has any idea what we'd call it in English? Ƿidsiþ 15:49, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

• coat-hardy is sometimes used. Equinox ◑ 15:54, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Interesting, never heard of it. Thank you! Ƿidsiþ 15:57, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
    • I've added an English entry at cotehardie, which is the spelling I'm used to seeing, and have placed a picture at right. --EncycloPetey 04:22, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
• Ellis Peters used "cotte" in the Brother Cadfael books. The English Wikipedia uses cotte, also. Uncle G 15:24, 18 July 2009 (UTC)
  • 1979, Ellis Peters, One corpse too many: a medieval whodunnit‎, page 92:

1. • 'First things first,' said Cadfael briskly. 'Help him out of cotte and shirt, and start unwinding the bandage until it sticks — as it will, my friend, […]

[edit] sight word

Is a sight word a word that, when you learn to read it, you do so by recognizing its whole rather than by puzzling through it, or is it a word that you can read by recognizing its whole rather than by puzzling through it? (To clarify the difference: Let's say when I learned to read foo I did so by puzzling through it, but now I recognize it on sight. Is it a sight word for me?)​—msh210℠ 17:00, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, we lack puzzle through and the relevant sense of puzzle, but I'm not sure which is appropriate to add.​—msh210℠ 17:00, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Looking at usage, the term seems to have its meaning relative to a language learner, their stage of reading skill development, and the language-teaching methodology preferences of an observer or teacher. The only onelook dictionary that defines doesn't try to generalize it beyond the context "learning theory" and explicitly refers to "child" in the definition. The focus seems to be on the strategy for reading or teaching reading at an early stage of skill development. DCDuring TALK 18:06, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, but even if it refers only to children the question holds: If a child learns a word not by memorizing what it looks like but by puzzling through it, but, after reading it tens of times, can recognize it on sight, has it become a sight word, or is a sight word only a word that was learned by recognizing its whole?​—msh210℠ 18:15, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

The term seems to be used in reference to the process of learning, not the state of the learned thing after the learner has advanced. In the wild, there is not much reason to refer to such words that way once the process is done. Even if readers "puzzle through" new words, it is implausible that they would brag about how it had become a "sight word". I would think that the use of the term "sight word" would automatically remind a reader taught using that language of the kind of words he was taught that way, not all the words he now recognized by sight.

OTOH, we could probably find enough to (minimally) attest either sense. DCDuring TALK 19:44, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Hm, good idea, thanks, I didn't think of trying to find attestation. (Curious, that.) Now I have, and google books:"becomes a sight word" has 33 hits, q.v. — not a lot, of course, but enough to warrant a sense, I think. And if you're sure about the other sense, DCDuring, then that makes two. (I'm not sure how to search for the other sense, or I'd try. Anyone?)​—msh210℠ 19:58, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Just looking at COCA gives a shot at what the most common uses are, at least if there are more than, say, 5 hits (in different works) for the most common sense. DCDuring TALK 20:06, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] gleam

The etymology section currently says:

(verb) Derived from the Middle English noun form before the first millennium.

Shouldn't that say "before the end of the first millennium? I didn't realize that Middle English even existed before the first millenium. --EncycloPetey 04:07, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

By most definitions, Middle English didn't exist before the end of the first millennium, either. It's usually defined (slightly arbitrarily) as starting with the Norman conquest in 1066. —Ruakh_TALK 14:23, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] nap

Culinary word: "to cover in a sauce". However, I'm not sure which etymology fits, so I can't add it.

• 2006, Wayne Gisslen, Mary Ellen Griffin, Professional Cooking for Canadian Chefs‎

  Vanilla ice cream topped with a poached or canned pear half, napped with chocolate sauce, and garnished with toasted sliced almonds.

Equinox ◑ 12:44, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

• Ha, none of them, it's a different word altogether. Now added. Ƿidsiþ 14:09, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Striking. Equinox ◑ 14:46, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] rfv<worth aWT entry?

so newbies canfind it2,aoth--史凡/ʂɚ˨˩fan˧˥/shi3fan2 (歡迎光臨/Welcome! 請也用/Please also use skype: sven0921為我/since I suffer RSI!) 13:40, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

We have WT:RfV and WT:RFV. Entering "wt:rfv" leads to the actual shortcuts in the pop-down menu for the search box. Isn't that enough? If it isn't we might have a more general accessibility issue. DCDuring TALK 13:57, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

ididnt thinkof searchin'w/the"WT:"i/front,no,n'i sumhow 4got the abbr's meanin' thismorning[EVEn irealize its averycommon'n'essential1-itjust needed remind/freshing :/],n'also wonderd whether its used outside ofWT-its notal self-explanatory2a non-comp specialist,uno-tx4replyin'n providin'the links tho:)--史凡/ʂɚ˨˩fan˧˥/shi3fan2 (歡迎光臨/Welcome! 請也用/Please also use skype: sven0921為我/since I suffer RSI!) 17:52, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

We use the WT to distinguish shortcuts from our regular content in the search box. I don't know whether there is anything else that can be done at the wikt level. At some point it becomes a matter for Wikimedia Foundation and for Mediawiki, which controls the core software. Our influence there seems modest. DCDuring TALK 19:04, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] bullseye, bull's eye

w:Darts has an image of a dartboard with bull's eye on it. We have bullseye for that meaning, but NOT bull's eye, which has a totally different meaning. Surely these two are pretty interchangeable, if not completely so. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:03, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] learning difficulties

Needs and entry. Yes it's difficulties to do with learning, but it has a specific context, i.e. children or adults that have a recognised condition where they need learning support. If I have difficulty learning to juggle five balls, that's not a "learning difficulty" (the singular is rare, anyway). Mglovesfun (talk) 14:06, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Would make it under my "misnomer principle" (misnomers are more likely to get entries). This might be a euphemistic UK term that corresponds to learning disabilities, which is more common in US and seems less euphemistic and more SoP to me. In any event we should also have these as definitions of LD. DCDuring TALK 14:41, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

We would do WP and users a favor if we could sort out the regional (UK/US, for starters) differences in referents and the historical (late 20th century mostly) shift in terms and referents. DCDuring TALK 14:54, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] bring back into the fold

Though I didn't know what the word "fold" meant, exactly (I thought it meant "herd"), I've never had trouble interpreting all the verb phrases using "into the fold", "in the fold", "within the fold", "to the fold". "Fold" is arguably obsolete or archaic. What is the best way to handle this?

1. delete all multiwords using this etymology of "fold".
2. keep and add all and only attestable verb phrases (verb lemma + prepositional phrases using "fold")
3. keep and add all and only attestable prepositional phrases using "fold"
4. keep and add all of both verb and prepositional phrases using "fold" that are attestable.

I think it is the use of the word "fold" in the Bible that made this intelligible to me. It seems unreasonably ethnocentric to, in effect, limit the utility of Wiktionary by effectively requiring that cultural information. If that is true, then option 1 is out. DCDuring TALK 21:14, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

#1 sounds good. We're not requiring the cultural knowledge: the user can look it up s.v. "fold".​—msh210℠ 21:20, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

D'oh. RfD it is then. DCDuring TALK 22:18, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Item at WT:RFD#bring back into the fold. DCDuring TALK 01:42, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] makeup><make-up[noun]

myLongman dict only has2nd spelin,wichseems lesfavord i/WT-'dperhaps a usagenote bemade'boutsay distribution/frequency?,lil confusin2menow as is..:/--史凡 ( 請也用/Please also use skype: sven0921為我/since I suffer RSI!) 20:52, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

I frequently interchange the two spellings, but would tend to use the 2nd one if given a choice... It seems - at least from what I have noticed - the two are about equal in modern usage... dunno what should be done here. Just my 2-cents... L☺g☺maniac chat? 17:17, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] far be it from me

39 out of 55 uses at COCA of "far be it from" are followed by "me". The rest are varied, mostly pronouns. I think we need an entry at far be it from to capture searches that include other pronouns that might be typed in. If we need that, shouldn't this one be a redirect to the shorter, slightly more general phrase, if we have it at all? DCDuring TALK 01:35, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

• I think it’s a good idiom to have, but I would redirect it to far be it. —Stephen 04:13, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
  • That might be best. It would give a good result from a search perspective even without a redirect. And far be it is a "verb" phrase, as would be "far be it from X", but not "far be it from". DCDuring TALK 04:32, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
    • Note also that for following "far be it" is a usage that goes back into the early 19th century, and that was employed by Jane Austen. Uncle G 17:03, 16 July 2009 (UTC)
      • Older than that, even: b.g.c. pulls up an example from 1703 (http://books.google.com/books?id=Sf1TImE7aN0C&pg=PA443&dq=%22far+be+it+for+me%22). All told, “far be it from me to […] ” seems to be somewhat older, and at one point to have been many, many times more common than “far be it for me to […] ”, whereas today it seems to be only a few times more common. (Given that they're pronounced almost identically, and that they both make logical sense with the intended meaning — “let […] -ing be distant from me” vs. “let my […] -ing be distant” — it's not surprising that they would coexist.) —Ruakh_TALK 02:23, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
        • I recommend putting that latter explanation in a usage note. It will be useful to readers, and there do exist assertions elsewhere that "for" is incorrect here.

          Moreover the usage note already here could better explain the grammar of the following phrase if it simply noted that the "it" is a pronoun whose antecedent (as it were) is the noun phrase folowing. So the following noun phrase can be an infinite clause (e.g. "far be it from X to VERB Z") or a subordinate finite clause introduced by "that" (e.g. "far be it from X that Y VERB Z").

          I also think that we're making a good argument for far be it as the article, since these are just the ordinary prepositional uses of "from" and "for". Uncle G 14:12, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

I gave far be it a shot, but didn't add the above, not that there's anything wrong with that note. Feel free to treat it as if it were under the GFDL license. I'm going to add redirects to far be it, from the most common collocations. DCDuring TALK 14:50, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] 주#Syllable

Do we really need to say that 주 is "A Hangul syllabic block made up of ㅈ and ㅜ"? That's like saying 'bit' is a syllable made up of the letters b, i and t. If we allow this, then there's no reason not to include syllables that probably are not words, like 쬃, of which there are probably lots. —Internoob (Talk|Cont.) 04:39, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

FYI, that is being generated by {{ko-defn-hangul}}, which is being used in many other articles. Bendono 05:05, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, this has been discussed, and you're not the only one who feels that way. The major contrary arguments were (1) that this is has a Unicode codepoint, so apparently the Unicode Consortium thinks (legitimately or otherwise) that it's a specific character (or that it's worth having round-trip compatibility with some other standard whose authors thought it was a specific character), and (2) that most text interfaces won't allow a user to split up 주 and see what its components are. (Argument #2 applies also to your reductio, while argument #1 does not.) —Ruakh_TALK 02:10, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, it was the community's refusal to delete meaningless Hangul syllables that led to the creation of {{ko-defn-hangul}} (by me, who would much rather have deleted the cussed useless things). I'm still not sure what to do with these, though I think recent events have at least slightly bolstered the case for ==Translingual==, which has the benefit of separating the meaningless "definition" from any useful information. -- Visviva 05:05, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Sears Tower

acceptable for the wiki or no? --KnotsLanding 23:31, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

• By a straightforward interpretation of our official policy and guidelines on this (See WT:CFI and linked pages.), probably not. But others may be able to explain the current state of opinion better than I know how to. You could make a minimal entry and see what happens. DCDuring TALK 00:09, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
• I'd say not. It's not used attributively. Sears, a proper noun, needs writing, though. Uncle G 14:15, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Have a look at my collection in Citations:Empire State Building—I'd call that marginally justifying the inclusion of Empire State Building. Some references are not exactly attributive usage, but they similarly depend on the reader understanding what an Empire State Building is. Maybe you can do the same for Sears Tower. —Michael Z. 2009-07-26 19:57 z

[edit] a great deal

I need help with the etymology and grammar of this and to make sure that the usage examples are clear exemplars of the parts of speech. It seems to be both adverb and noun. DCDuring TALK 20:33, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

• Well at any rate, I can tell you there's something wrong with the headword under the Noun header, which I feel incompetent to fix ... And I'm not exactly sure about the current usage examples - I tried substituting other adverbs there and they didn't work which is what we do in class to make sure something's right ... (But when it comes to semi-advanced grammar, I have really no idea what I'm talking about so you don't necessarily have to take my advice ... :) L☺g☺maniac chat? 21:04, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
• Here's what Samuel Kirkham had to say in his English Grammar in Familiar Lectures in 1835 (pp. 85):

  Expressions like these, none at all, a great deal, a few days ago, long since. at length, in vain, in general, in particular, when they are used to denote the manner or time of the action of verbs or participles, are generally called adverbial phrases.

  You'll find this same explanation given in grammar books today. (Rosemary Allen's All about grammar, published in 2007, explains it on page 57.)

  There are a lot of subtle niceties here, too. a great deal isn't exactly interchangeable with "much": There are "much better" and "a great deal better", but the analogue to "very much" is "a very great deal". Similarly, whilst "much" can be a adjective as in "much wealth" and "much consternation", "a great deal" requires a preposition: "a great deal of wealth", not "a great deal wealth", and "a great deal of consternation".

  Also note the existence of a good deal.

  I leave you with a particularly apt quotation:

1. 1874, Alexander Bain, A Companion to the Higher English Grammar, page 132:

   • A great deal could be said on the making up of the Adverbial phrase ; but in principle there is nothing new.

• Uncle G 14:47, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

a great deal is a noun phrase, and not an adverb. Deal, the head of the phrase, is a quantificational noun, similar to number, lot, heap, load, rest, etc., but limited to the singular. The adjectives good and great function as attributive modifiers, though the choice of modifiers in the phrase is somewhat restricted, and even required, making it idiomatic. Of course, the determinative a functions as a determiner in the NP.

The entire NP has a number of functions, many of which are quite typical of NPs. The following are those that I can think of:

• subject/object (e.g., a great deal depends on..., we learned a great deal)
• quantification, both partitive (e.g., a great deal of the time) and non partitive (e.g., a great deal of time)
• modifier
  • in determiner phrases, mainly with more (e.g., a great deal more work)
  • in adjective phrases, mainly with comparatives (e.g., a great deal worse)
• adjunct in clauses (e.g., That bothered me a great deal.)

As I said, these are not particularly unusual functions for NPs. Consider:

• subject/object (obvious)
• quantification, both partitive (e.g., a large part of the time) and non partitive (e.g., a big chunk of time)
• modifier
  • in determiner phrases, mainly with more (e.g., a dozen more people)
  • in adjective phrases, mainly with comparatives (e.g., two degrees cooler)
• adjunct in clauses (e.g., We dragged it two miles.)

I hope that helps.--Brett 17:50, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

• It certainly gives DCDuring a choice between what Wiktionary editors say and what grammarians in books say. ☺ Note that C. T. Onions calls your "adjunct in clauses" an "adverb equivalent", an "accusative of time/distance/&c.". He even gives "a great deal bigger" as one example. See page 12 of his Modern English syntax. Since this was 1971 and he was once SOED editor, it would be interesting to see what the SOED says now. The Compact OED distinguishes between noun and adverb for this phrase, giving one meaning for each (although not marking them with a part of speech more specific than "phrase").

  And in case it wasn't clear, the aptness in the quotation above was that the phrase was being used as a noun, in a sentence about adverbial phrases. Uncle G 18:41, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

• I agree with Brett's analysis; I see it as a noun phrase and not an adverb. The example sentence for adverb, He has a great deal less than me, is like saying He has five dollars less than me. It doesn't mean "five dollars" is an adverb. I guess you could argue this noun phrase has come to function adverbally but it seems strange to me. Ƿidsiþ 08:43, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
  • The point that you're missing is that, conventionally (In case you missed it, the abovementioned grammars are from 1835 and 2007.), it can function as both a noun and an adverb. Go back and read what Kirkham said again, in particular the qualification. Then look at He used to work down the mine a great deal. and Widsith might not have looked at other sentences, outside of what is in the article, a great deal.. In both cases, "a great deal" is modifying the sense of the main verb itself: "work a great deal" and "have looked a great deal". You cannot substitute a noun there and have it make the same sort of sense. Consider He used to work down the mine five dollars., for example.

    Now, grammarians conventionally have a part of speech for things that modify verbs … Uncle G 11:54, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

    I'll ignore the sarcasm and just suggest we use some different example sentences in that case. Ƿidsiþ 13:23, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

• • The problem with this traditional type of analysis is that it conflates functions and categories. For example, in the sentence Working more quickly will not solve your problems, working more quickly is traditionally said to be a gerund, a verb functioning as a noun. But if the sentence were computers will not solve all your problems, only a fool would say computers is a noun functioning as a noun. Most people would say it is functioning as the subject of the sentence. Therefore, in the first sentence, we should say that working more quickly is a verb phrase functioning not as a noun but as a subject. Noun is a category. Subject is a function. Dictionaries are in the business of identifying categories, not functions. No dictionary lists a word as being a subject, modifier, etc. That is the job of a grammar.--Brett 15:57, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

But, would one be a fool to call "personal computer" a noun? or "out to lunch" an adjective and adverb?

We need to present to users in terms they "understand" while conveying an adequate amount of the best contemporary grammatical information. If our best alternative to "noun" and adv/adj for the above is "phrase" or "idiom", couldn't we help out translators and users a bit with the bit of grammar implicit in the traditional categories? If the reigning analyses of the unconsciously applied rules of deep grammar don't fit the terms users consciously use, then we need to make decisions about how we simplistically map from those more sophisticated terms to the users' familiar categories. Perhaps soon the contemporary linguists' terms will gain more acceptance. :::There would be nothing finer than to have grammatical analysis to support our headings decisions. But it probably shouldn't confront the more casual users that have almost pushed wiktionary.org nearly to 1000th among web sites, already exceeding 1% of WP's daily reach. DCDuring TALK 16:48, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand what you're getting at with personal computer. It is a noun (or more specifically a noun phrase). I would call out to lunch a preposition(al phrase). It does exactly what you'd expect any run-of-the-mill preposition(al phrase) to do. Why call it anything else?--Brett 17:13, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I provided two instances just make sure that I understood you. We do not have a PoS header for Prepositional phrase. We show out to lunch as an adjective. It perhaps needs to be shown as an adverb in one sense. DCDuring TALK 18:58, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

• I both agree with Brett's analysis and wonder how to map it to the grammatical categories that might be acceptable to, say, a normal user. I think we need to communicate the most basic of grammatical information in their language. Accordingly, could someone distinguish this from a lot or "an awful lot" or correct that entry appropriately?

  Specifically, in uses such as "care a lot", "care an awful lot", and "care a great deal" and other uses with verbs like "vary", "change", "matters", "help". DCDuring TALK 14:14, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that you simply mark it as a noun (or noun phrase). For example, under the entry for kitchen we have only Noun. There's nothing saying that it can function as a modifier (or "adjective", e.g., kitchen table) even though it does so about 20% of the time it's used and over 70 times per million words in fiction. Admittedly, lexis runs into grammar. (Almost?) all nouns can function as modifiers in NPs, but it's a small subset of nouns that function as modifiers in VPs or AdjPs. When something is unusual enough, it becomes noteworthy in a dictionary. But I think the best way to do this is to be consistent in identifying the category (none of this x functions as an adverb), but then to demonstrate the unusual functions through examples.--Brett 17:07, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Your analysis and a visit to COCA convinced me that matter#Verb must be transitive since it takes so many nouns as objects with "a", to wit: whit, pin, fraction, fart, crap, tit, jot, lot, whisker, ton. Consulting other dictionaries at OneLook, I have not yet found one that displays it is a transitive verb. For a benighted user following the old ways, this might seem to raise a consistency question. Faced with that inconsistency, they might:

1. look to us for an explanation (which we don't have),
2. sign up for a grammar course, or
3. find a dictionary that doesn't confront them with the problem. (Among the Onelook references, only Wordnet shows "a great deal" as an adverb.)

Which leads me to ask: Why don't we have Appendices on some of the functions that traditional parts of speech may serve that seemingly drag headwords across categories? (BTW, MWOnline actually calls "Noun", "Verb", et al Functions.) DCDuring TALK 18:58, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I take it you're not actually so convinced, but that you're channeling the thoughts of a very intelligent and observant, traditional grammarian. The fact that traditional analysis has neither identified matter as transitive nor a great deal as an adjective simply shows up the failings of the traditional system. These are not fools working on these dictionaries, but a bad system can blind you to a lot. The other thing this tells you is that virtually nobody outside somebody working on a dictionary makes these kinds of connections.

In case you actually are convinced that matter is transitive, I can assure you that it isn't. The nouns you've identified as objects are actually modifiers. Try taking It doesn't matter a whit and putting it in the passive. If matter were transitive, you would end up with A whit isn't mattered (by it), which is obviously nonsense.

Again, what we have is simply a noun phrase. Noun phrases can modify stuff. That's life.--Brett 19:49, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

As far as appendices go, how about something like this for modifier?--Brett 20:43, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh, how nice of you to offer. But I wouldn't want to impose. I was also thinking of some of the subjects of Language notes in Longmans's DCE, like linguistic politeness. DCDuring TALK 20:51, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

After edit conflict:

I just see some gaps that need filling between the terminology of contemporary grammarian/linguists and users. What I am increasingly convinced is that Wiktionary needs to help both:

1. enthusiastic contributors who may not have the best education to be lexicographers (Who could I be talking about?) and
2. users who are looking for some reconciliation among the various things they have learned and are learning about usage.

I am most sincerely interested in the mapping between the traditional PoS categories or functions (as MWOnline insists on calling them) and more contemporary concepts as reflected in the best grammars of the past 25 years (ie including Quirk if only to prevent copyvio). Appendices aimed at serious users (but not linguists) on the functions performed by the traditional PoSs would be a great resource for addressing both needs. Simple ones would be a start. DCDuring TALK 20:51, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

I think my problem with leaving the analysis at "noun phrase" is that "noun phrase" is both obvious (from the entry for "deal") and semantically unhelpful (How does the definition of "deal" apply?). It is useful to attempt to sort out some of the semantic differences by having recourse to the functions of the phrase. It is, after all, not really necessary to have an entry for the common SoP noun sense of "a very attractive bargain". It is the more grammatical functions of the phrase that are troublesome. This is approaching being a set phrase: the substitution of synonyms yields terms that seem awkward and occur with much lower frequency. I have trouble extracting insight from the CGEL analysis. DCDuring TALK 02:08, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] doesn't one

I don't think that a lexical approach to the grammar of do is likely to be successful. Does this entry have a role. Do we need an appendix on do? DCDuring TALK 21:14, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

• Do we? ☺

  This isn't a "phrase", as the part of speech says. It's a sentence. (It's also the "tag" in a tag question.) And it's a straightforward example of turning the affirmative sentence "One does." into the interrogative sentence "Does one?", applying negation of the polarity of the question to get "Does not one?" and then applying contraction.

  My comment at Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Archives/2006/02#does one? and similar entries would have been that the non-L1 speaker isn't educated by learning specific sentences. There are general grammatical rules at work, on the formation of interrogatives and on contraction, and a large number of sentences (as evident from this article) to which they apply. I'm with what Semper said at Wiktionary:Tea room/Archive 2006#doesn't one? and Paul G said at the deletion discussion. Uncle G 15:06, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

  I hadn't searched out prior discussions, but suspected that there might be some, so thanks for the links. I wouldn't want to merely suggest deletion without having some more constructive ideas about how to offer the content either in the entry or implicit in having the entry.

  I have been adding the hidden category Category:English sentences to entries that have Phrase, Idiom, or Interjection headers and/or categories. In addition to Proverbs, we have hundreds of entries that are or can be (think imperative forms) sentences. (Also, Category:English subordinate clauses for entries that include a subordinating conjunction or similar and Category:English pro-sentences, also hidden.) These are in contemplation of some kind of consideration of those three PoS headers and the PoS/grammatical categories.

  Perhaps learners might be mystified by phrases they read and try to look them up. I have little idea what users type into the search box, beyond this list, which suggests that phrases in general are not often looked up. We might need some additional interface to help users find phrasal content, though I suspect what users would seek would be a very skewed subset of our content (like proverbs, invective, workplace jargon, and pickup lines).

  A step in the direction of more useful grammar content would be appendices on

  1. individual words with complex uses like some modal and auxiliary verbs and some determiners and
  2. classes of words with shared properties too long for usage notes.

  Grammatical topics that are not keyed to individual words (or categories ?) seem unlikely to gain much use in a dictionary, but have a logical home at Wikipedia. DCDuring TALK 16:05, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Some more "conjunctions"

I don't believe in subordinating conjunctions, preferring to classify them generally as prepositions, so I'm loath to make the changes, but the following words seem to fit the traditional "subordinating conjunction" bill but are not marked as such:

• than
• in case
• supposing
• since
• providing
• once
• given
• considering
• why

--Brett 19:42, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Take a break and grin your way through this ... :)

Hi everyone, I just came across Wiktionary:Bad jokes and other deleted nonsense which seriously, if you can read through this without breaking into gales of laughter, nothing is EVER going to tickle you ... So all you Wiktionary peoples, take a 5-10 minute break from editing and read through it. I promise it's worth it ... Another note FWIW: I will be away for the next week - maybe on wi-fi long enough to check my watchlist but certainly not to do anything, for whatever that's worth so see y'all in a while... L☺g☺maniac chat? 21:51, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] on account of

I added a conjunction here after coming across it in two different books over the past several months (The Braindead Megaphone, by George Saunders, and A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson), but it seems "off" to me. Does anyone know if this is a regionalism, or what? —Ruakh_TALK 17:28, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

• Generally speaking, of doesn't take clausal complements, though this construction is familiar to me. Here are some more examples. These seem to be exclusively from fiction and movies. I don't find any examples in the BNC, and it does seem rather American to my sensibilities, for whatever they're worth.--Brett 20:47, 20 July 2009 (UTC)
• Yeah, well spotted. I've heard that a lot... I would tag it (US, colloquial). Ƿidsiþ 07:42, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Heh, not the resolution I was expecting: by "regionalism" I had meant not U.S.! But who am I to argue with corpora? —Ruakh_TALK 18:06, 21 July 2009 (UTC)
    • A regionalism employed by a U.S. author is likely to be a U.S. regionalism. It's not a Bryson solecism, either. I've just found a usage by Craig Womack — another U.S. author. Uncle G 11:39, 22 July 2009 (UTC)
      • N.B. Bryson isn't exactly a U.S. author. There may be Americanisms in his writing, but there are definitely Britishisms in it, too. —Ruakh_TALK 20:06, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] beta

"A beta fish." Is this a mistake for betta? The Books matches for beta fish seem to be mostly about the idea of alpha/beta males. Equinox ◑ 21:12, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Ah, the return of B. splendens. Regrettably, a b.g.c. search for "betta siamese fish" gets only a third more raw hits than for "beta siamese fish". A number of the latter are actually references to the Greek letter beta in scientific use, but much more than half are referring to [[Betta]] [[splendens]]. It does look like the kind of unstoppable "misconstrual" that leads to so many oddities in the language. If we called it an alternative spelling and had an etymology that showed it as {{eye dialect}} or something we could be prescriptively descriptive. DCDuring TALK 21:11, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Looks to me that beta, beta splendens, and beta fish could be easily attested in print. I'm happy to drescriptively label it a common misspelling (or non-standard for lexicographers with delicate sensibilities). —Michael Z. 2009-07-26 19:48 z

Hmmm. Putting it under a separate ety is inviting someone to reinsert it in the wrong ety and takes up space, making entry more complex. Not putting in a separate ety is somewhat misleading and amateurish. What to do? DCDuring TALK 21:01, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Every multiple etymology invites someone to reduplicate a headword—we'll deal with that. And we're not going to run out of space... —Michael Z. 2009-07-27 03:06 z

Dealing with the duplicate senses is labor-intensive. Anything we could do to reduce them at little cost to other desiderata would be helpful not just for this entry.

We have no limit on space, except for what fits on one screen. A separate ety for a single sense adds a minimum of two lines to the ToC and about 5 extra lines to the entry. One my screen/font size combo, that's 15-20% of the available vertical space. It matters to entry usability. DCDuring TALK 03:31, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] even as we speak

Move to as we speak? Delete? Equinox ◑ 23:10, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Let it be. I'm not sure about your side of the pond, but this is definitely a set phrase over here, often expressed with a deliberately exaggerated or mildly comic intonation. -- WikiPedant 23:17, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] A bail in a pail?

The entry for pail says

A vessel of wood or tin, etc., usually cylindrical and having a bail -- used esp. for carrying liquids, as water or milk, etc.; a bucket.

But what is a bail? The definition there says it's a bucket:

A bucket or scoop used for removing water from a boat etc.

I don't know what a bail is, and the graphic appears to be a bucket to me. Wakablogger 01:14, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

It means the handle of the pail in this case, but we don't seem to have that sense. RJFJR 19:48, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

It has a separate etymology for this sense (from Middle English beyl or Old Norse beygla). Should I add it? We certainly need to adjust the definition of pail to mention "handle" rather than "bail" because of the ambiguity. I'll do that. Dbfirs 19:46, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

... (later) ... I've added a separate etymology with the senses that probably come from the Old Norse root. The hinged bar sense could be from the hoop restraint, or from the French root, or even from both. Is it possible that the words pail (Anglo-Norman) and bail come from a common ancient root? (I haven't investigated this.) Dbfirs 08:19, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Vauxhall

There are much more places with that name (see the Wikipedia), maybe we can just make a generic definition like “a common placename, most famously represented by [the London suburb]”, or mention that some other places are named after this suburb (which is what I guess explains the places in the US). And also that it can be a car, not only the company. H. (talk) 09:30, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

If there are several places with the same name, the sense of the word is not the same: they all are towns, but not the same town. This fact has some linguistic consequences, e.g. associated demonyms may be different (French places often share the same name, but not the same demonym: see fr:Beaulieu for a rather extreme example). Let's stick to principles: one sense = one definition line. Lmaltier 09:57, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. Then this just turns out as a request for completing the entry. H. (talk) 10:02, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

So should we add: a suburb of North Shore City, New Zealand; a town in Alberta, Canada; a town in New Jersey, USA; a suburb of Dunedin, New Zealand; an inner city area of Liverpool, UK; a car made by the Vauxhall company; ...... but where do we stop? Dbfirs 19:37, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I run into this problem sometimes - like with St. Cloud, which is usually used to mean the one in central Minnesota but there are other places with this name, so when I created this entry I just left it at "any of several cities with this name" ... should this approach be used here? I don't know anything about any of these places or the car or the company... I like the sort of thing that Hamaryns first proposed - "the name of several places, most famously the London suburb" to change it a little, perhaps? I'll leave it to you guys .... L☺g☺maniac chat? 20:12, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] make for

This seems to be includable as a phrasal verb. I think that it is a bad idea to include any non-phrasal uses as senses, even though they would have some value as contrastives. The difficulty is that many senses of make#Verb can combine with many senses of for#Preposition. I have inserted a Usage note here and would like views on its adequacy. I am wondering whether all phrasal verbs should have a similar usagenote. DCDuring TALK 14:34, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Beautiful.​—msh210℠ 16:38, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Excellent. I know this was something you had noticed. I was thinking along the lines of a template for use in Usage notes that would insert boilerplate text, the cat phrasal verb, perhaps a link to an appendix or to Wiktionary:Phrasal verbs. It might be a simple enough template that even I could do it. I'd love to hear from Algrif on this, though having it a template would make change easy even if he didn't like it. DCDuring TALK 17:23, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me too. As for adding a similar usage note to other phrasal verbs, I'm inclined, at least for now, to see individual editors use their own judgment on a case-by-case basis. There might well be cases where such a note will not be appropriate, but my brain will hurt if I start fretting over examples. -- WikiPedant 18:48, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

I certainly don't think a bot should do it. A template could be prepared and used where the case seemed clearcut. Doing a number of simple cases would make it possible to do more complex ones. And there's the Tea Room. DCDuring TALK 19:15, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] euclidianness

Should this have a capital? And then also Euclidean? Same goes for Boolean, I see those terms being written with small caps all the time. Are there rules for this or should we simply create soft redirects? H. (talk) 09:41, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] a/k/a, f/k/a

Ought these to be initialisms rather than prepositions? (Incidentally, I've never seen them written with slashes like this.) Equinox ◑ 22:35, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] puerile - quotations run wild

The quotations are smothering the rest of the entry. -- dougher 02:54, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Move the worst to Citations:puerile. You get to choose. DCDuring TALK 03:44, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] f.i.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/for_instance

• isthis a standard abbr.?ifso,2be added?--史凡/Sven - Pl also use MSN/skype as I suffer RSI and so cannot type very well! 14:54, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

"For instance" is normally written out in full, and few would understand the abbreviation "f.i.". The abbreviation "e.g." is normally used instead, and is almost universally understood by native speakers of English. Dbfirs 19:27, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

ah,fi[butisno dutch,:/] mightbe i/dutch[wherebothr understood byme atleast+the nativ bv.:)]then,ta!!:D--史凡/Sven - Pl also let me use voice-MSN/skype 2clarify as I suffer RSI and so cannot type very well! 05:07, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] hospitality and flourishing

Can someone check out the talk pages for these two pages? I've tried to raise some discussion about their pages but nothing has come of it. Tooironic 07:59, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

See Talk:flourish. DCDuring TALK 12:38, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] gunsel

The "Usage notes" seem mostly etymological — and don't seem to jibe with the "Etymology" §§. Anyone up for some secondary research? —Ruakh_TALK 14:16, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Never mind, I've tracked down some references. The second etymology section was apparently wrong. —Ruakh_TALK 15:17, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, but if anyone has any way to track down the Atlantic Monthly bit mentioned in the references, it would probably be nice to include that. —Ruakh_TALK 15:23, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] hypernym

'dbe derived terms?:

   *  hypernym

[edit] Related terms

   * hypernymic
   * hypernymous
   * hypernymy

in cmn-entrys>as per my topic-header..--史凡/Sven - Pl also use voice-MSN/skype as I suffer RSI and so cannot type very well! 17:20, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

That is an example of a common misclassification per WT:ELE. English related terms are usually cognates. English-language etymons are supposed to be in the etymology section. English derived terms are compounds, multi-word entries, and prefixed and suffixed terms. There may be some exceptions to these rules of thumb. DCDuring TALK 17:44, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

ichangd~declension>ok?--史凡/Sven - Pl also use voice-MSN/skype as I suffer RSI and so cannot type very well! 18:08, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Not OK. I understand the motivation to have a wikilink to hypernym, but WT:ELE does not allow them in headings. I suppose that we expect users to figure out the meaning. It is clearly a bit off-putting to almost all "imbecilic" new users. Nobody has had a better name for the heading or actually a better set of names for all of the semantic relations "nyms". If you think "hyponym" is bad, get a load of these puppies: "holonym", "meronym", and "troponym". DCDuring TALK 18:36, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

lol-k+ta+madeder.t-s of'em;)--史凡/Sven - Pl also use voice-MSN/skype as I suffer RSI and so cannot type very well! 04:39, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] goatee

Here's a word with interesting pronunciation variations.

I just corrected our entry to how I thought it should be, then Stephen added an American pronunciation. So I looked it up in a few dictionaries.

Some put primary stress on the first syllable. Some put in on the second. Webster's Third New International seems to put secondary stress on the first syllable and mark the second syllable as varying between primary and secondary stress if I'm reading it right.

So how do other contributors pronounce it? I would've thought it definitely had at least more stress on the second syllable that most words ending in -y: "goaty" and "goatee" would not be pronounced identically.

— hippietrail 10:35, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I’ve never heard it pronounced any way other than /ˌgoʊˈtiː/ (with secondary stress on the first syllable). If someone should say /ˈgoʊt.i/ to me, I would understand it as goaty, a little goat. —Stephen 11:42, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Likewise. It's definitely stressed on the second syllable in the UK, and isn't homophonous with goaty. Ƿidsiþ 11:46, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

My story is exactly the way Stephen put it ^... accented on the first syllable would make it a different word in my ears. Definitely non-homophonous with goaty. L☺g☺maniac chat? 20:20, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

The Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary indicates primary stress on the second syllable for for the UK and the US. They indicate no secondary stress at all. --EncycloPetey 13:11, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

• My OED (British) and my three unabridged Collins (British) all place primary stress on the second syllable and none at all on the first. But my unabridged Larousse (European? uses British spellings) places primary stress on the first syllable and non on the last.
• I don't have an Australian dictionary nearby but for me there is stress on both syllables. I'm not good at secondary stress but to me it's either secondary stress on the first syllable and primary stress on the second, or quite possible full stress on both syllables. In any case the last syllable no matter how much stress is on it is always pronounced full [iː] and never [i] as final /iː/ is usually reduced to.
• To me it has a pretty unique stress pattern more like two words than one. — hippietrail 15:09, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

  I've just checked more closely and the Larousse actually gives the odd /ˈɡɘʊtiː/ whereas the dictionary always gives /-ɪ/ for unstressed final -y and does not employ the secondary stress mark. Very interesting. — hippietrail 15:21, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

• Are you sure your Larousse isn't using the stress mark AFTER the stressed syllable (some weird dicts have pronunciation schemes which do this and it's incredibly confusing). Ƿidsiþ 15:30, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes I compared with some other entries to see how they worked their pronunciations. In any case in this example they have the stress mark as the very first character so it could only apply to the first syllable (-: — hippietrail 08:28, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology of Cassandra

Does anyone know the etymology of this Ancient Greek name? A lot of sources say "helper of men", and andrós could be man, but what's the first syllable all about? I found a dictionary of Ancient Greek that had helper but none of the suggestions began with a K-sound. Equinox ◑ 19:15, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

The beginning part is supposedly from καίνυμι (kainumi), “‘I excell, surpass’”), but I'm not entirely convinced by this etymology. If we include this ety in our entry, I think it should be in reserved tones. You might get more useful feedback by posting to the ES. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 19:35, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ne

It's given as an obsolete English word with various uses as a word of negation, but the dictionaries I normally access don't list it at all, not even my Webster's Second. That leads me to suspect this word is actually Middle English, not obsolete Modern English. The OED likely can settle the question, but I'd need to pop down to the library to access that, so I'm hoping someone who can do so more easily than me can settle whether this is obsolete Modern English or Middle English. — Carolina wren discussió 15:04, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

• I am mostly responsible for this, and I am known for my dislike of Middle English sections....but in this case I think I am well justified, the adverb survived well into the 17th century, and as a conjunction it was still being used in Victorian poetry. But I will look for some cites to add to the entry. Ƿidsiþ 15:28, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

• All of the citations from some edition of the OED are available at BYU. (It is well worth looking at all of the corpora there.) They confirm abundant use of ne in Early Modern English and some use thereafter. DCDuring TALK 15:38, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

• (Have added some Byron and Coleridge quotes. Ƿidsiþ 16:20, 29 July 2009 (UTC))

Withdrawing the objection to labeling it as obsolete English, but absent any evidence of even poetical usage on my side of the pond, I'm strongly tempted to add a UK label to the entries. — Carolina wren discussió 17:26, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

If it had non-literary use in the UK in the 17th and 18th century, wouldn't it have been used in the US then? We don't have good corpora to make that fine a distinction. DCDuring TALK 19:35, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Closing discussion, as it seems that all salient points have been addressed. — Carolina wren discussió 14:54, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Bisaya <=> Visayan

Hi, these two definitions link to each other and it's a mess, no information really given ... can someone who knows (or has the time to figure out) about this please straighten it out? Thanks!! :) L☺g☺maniac chat? 16:43, 29 July 2009 (UTC) P.S. ... should I have put this in RFC?

One term is not English and should not be used in defining an English term. Anyone can clean up/add/rough-verify the English language portions using the WP article, external links, and our usual attestation sources, especially google books. DCDuring TALK 19:40, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] publisher

ipa>ithink itswrong[movd from talkp.>here]--史凡/Sven - Pl also let me use voice-MSN/skype 2clarify as I suffer RSI and so cannot type very well! 05:19, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

•  Done. Angr 11:02, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] wrench-format q

isyahoo-quote/ref inserted rite?'ddatebe mentiond?--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 21:29, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Best is to look at documentation for {{quote-news}}, {{quote-book}}, {{quote-newsgroup}}, {{quote-journal}}. The first is probably most applicable. My technique is to copy the heading and text, often from google listing alone and insert the parameter tags (author=, etc). It is still 50 keystrokes or more. Perhaps you could reduce it with some more cut and paste. DCDuring TALK 21:57, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] not a sausage

Is it worth recording every attestable instance of phrases like this where many things can be substituted for "sausage"? I take it this is common in the UK. DCDuring TALK 23:59, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

It is common in the UK, yes. Equinox ◑ 20:23, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

This is a fairly common expression in Australia too, meaning "none at all" or "nothing at all". — hippietrail 01:13, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard it here in the midwestern U.S., however, that may or may not mean it isn't common. L☺g☺maniac chat? 19:24, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] English

"Usage notes

Although demonyms are capitalized in English, they are common nouns, not proper nouns." >wrongi/abov entry?[imconfusdnow'bout comon><proper..--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 17:29, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

One way to distinguish them is that common nouns name members of a class of objects. An apple is any of a very large number of red fruits with certain defining charatceristics that allow you to identify the apple as a part of the class of apples in general. A proper noun names a specific and usually unique object, regardless of characteristics. So Paris is Paris and was Paris even before the Eiffel Tower was built, before the Revolution, before French monarchs or the modern French language. There is nothing except its location that is specific to that city throughout its history, so it has no defining characteristics, and it is not part of a class of similar objects. There are other cities bearing the name Paris, but not becuase they belong to a group of similar objects. Paris is the name of the city.

In English grammars, the distinction usually made is between capitalization and non-capitalized forms, but that breaks down when you realize that some common nouns are capitalized (like Englishman, which describes a group of objects) and some proper nouns are not capitalized (like the universe), and some words don't fit neatly into either category because they are abstractions rather than physical objects. Additionally, other languages also have common and proper nouns, but German capitalizes all of its nouns, while Spanish doesn't capitalize all of its proper nouns. --EncycloPetey 20:55, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] do something with mirrors

The definitions seem off. "To insinuate one has performed a magic or optical trick", "To jokingly pretend that one did something"... this pretence or insinuation is not in itself the meaning of "do it with mirrors", even though the term may be used jokingly where no mirror was really involved. Equinox ◑ 20:19, 31 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd bet on to do something with mirrors being back-formed from done with mirrors in the idiomatic sense. OED cites show done with mirrors 1930 and the sole other form only in 1991. COCA shows the "done" form as being as common as all other forms of "do" combined. The form we have seems to mean "to trick someone into thinking one has done something". Related is "blue smoke and mirrors". I am familiar with both in the context of financial chicanery. The definition given seems to miss the way it is used figuratively, which is the way it appears in COCA and OED. OTOH the metaphorical use seems to have been set up by use by G K. Chesterton (1915?), John Galsworthy (1922), and ee cummings (1927) in works that use stage effects as metaphors generally. Since cheap mirrors came only after 1860, I doubt that we can go too much farther back. DCDuring TALK 03:41, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] August 2009

[edit] bâteau

The normal spelling is of course bateau, but I have found a lot of googles for this term. Not in dictionaries like this, but in some older books online. --Rising Sun 13:09, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Could you provide references? I can't find any. Very probably, they are misspellings. Lmaltier 20:43, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Outer Space

The secrets of Outer Space,i keep wanting to find out more. — Scott Bradley Wallace

That's great. Is there some reason you believe this dictionary web site can help you? --EncycloPetey 15:24, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

...you may want to try Wikipedia, it will help you more than Wiktionary can. L☺g☺maniac chat? 12:44, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] word to the wise

An adverb?! I don't think the example given ("have fun, but, word to the wise, don't let your sister take control") demonstrates adverbiality/adverbialness any more than e.g. "Before you go, piece of advice, don't have too much to drink." Equinox ◑ 20:04, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmm. C.f. by the way. Pingku 20:43, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

How is that analogous? That definitely looks like an adverbial phrase to me. Equinox ◑ 20:57, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

As I understand it, the idea is that it is a "w:Sentence adverb". Many expressions set off by punctuation have similar characteristics. The other choice of PoS are not to my taste. It is not an Interjection. I prefer to keep "Idiom" as a context at the sense level so that the L3 header conveys information about how it fits grammatically. "Phrase" is the last resort for mulitword expressions and is the sole location for non-proverbial sentences and for subordinate clauses. "Piece of advice" is also a "sentence adverb", but IMHO wouldn't get an entry because it is SoP, even as a sentence adverb. I think that some (DAVilla ?) have taken the position that any sentence adverb could be included, but I'm not sure how far they would take that. (And why isn't adverbiality an entry? adjectivity is.) DCDuring TALK 21:31, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

It is now. ("I didn't know you had dandruff!" "I don't.") Equinox ◑ 22:29, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] such as

Would anyone like to hazard an analysis of the grammar of the uses of this term, or does it remain an unanalyzed idiomatic "Phrase"? DCDuring TALK 20:29, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I started trying to analyse this but got a little out of my depth. Something interesting is that Chambers has as as a pronoun for what corresponds to our sense 3: "Such as have already done their work..." Equinox ◑ 21:03, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I wonder how they get to that.

Combinations of words that are sometimes determiners, conjunctions, or particles in phrases with no nouns, verbs, prepositions, or modifiers would give me a headache, except for my giving up early. Some other ones that are not quite as bad give me a headache because my analysis is often highly questionable. I think I know a $150-200 cure: CGEL. DCDuring TALK 21:15, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps part of the problem is that such is not really a pronoun, despite what its entry says. The determinative can function as a fused head in an NP, and I think that's what we've got for sense 3. Senses 1 and 2 seem to be adjectives in comparative constructions (cf., Waterbirds (as) white as a dove are common in the area. I was never in a country (as) dull as that.)--Brett 01:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Stick with "Phrase". -- WikiPedant 05:04, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

In sense 3 ("Such as have already done their work may leave.") "such as" seems to me to be exactly like "those who". That is, it is not a unit, it is not a "word". I think it is misleading to treat it in parallel to the other senses. This sense of the collocation seems dated to me as well in US English. Such few dictionaries as include "such as" as an idiom do not include this usage. DCDuring TALK 09:45, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, consider (also dialectal) "Them as can rise, don't, and them as want to, can't." Equinox ◑ 21:28, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, those is also a determinative functioning in a fused-head construction in an NP. I would say none of the senses are "words", but if 1 and 2 are to be included as "words", then the only reason I can see for excluding 3 is frequency. The determinative such is typically restricted to legal language.--Brett 21:49, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

For sense 1 "for example": it seems to me that "such as" is a species of written-out punctuation, like its synonym for example in its main idiomatic use and a bit like "quote" and "unquote". In that role it does seem to me to function as a unit to overcome a limitation of the elementary grammar of sentences. Such rationales must be behind the inclusion of this sense in some other dictionaries. It seems to fall in the category of w:discourse connective. We have called "for example" adverbial from its creation here. It might be handy to categorize some of the entries or label senses like this using some more contemporary categories so we can be somewhat consistent in treating them.

For sense 2 "like": it seems to me that it must be exactly as much a preposition as [[like#Preposition]] (which definition seems incomplete). DCDuring TALK 15:05, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

It's best to consider language to be primarily a spoken phenomenon rather than a written one. Calling words a kind of "written-out punctuation" may be an interesting metaphor, but care should be taken that it not be the basis for an argument. I agree that such as is a discourse connective, but discourse analysis is not typically the basis on which headwords are labeled in dictionaries. Tagging such words with a wiktionary category, however, is likely a useful thing to do, but I don't have a strong background in discourse analysis, and wouldn't want to be the one doing such tagging.

Although the meaning is similar to prepositional phrases headed by like, syntactically such as is quite different. For example, at the beginning of a sentences, a like-PP can function as an adjunct, but you couldn't do something similar with such as.

• Like many young people, at age eighteen I thought I knew it all.
• *Such as many young people, at age eighteen I thought I knew it all.

--Brett 19:07, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Apparently words sometimes fail some of the tests for the categories to which we assign them.

We seem to find "adverb" acceptable when there is a fig leaf of justification. The sole not-oversized fig-leaves I've found are the parallel to "for example" and the use of "adverb" in other discourse-controlling terms. That such as can operate inside a noun phrase with no verb in sight makes that seem unacceptable (equally for many uses of for example). The parts of traditional grammar vocabulary in ELE seem not a good fit with this. DCDuring TALK 23:07, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] gemeinschaftsgefuhl

Appears to be capitalised even in English. Equinox ◑ 00:05, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] a leopard cannot change its spots

Hi everyone. I've tried my first hand at creating an English (as opposed to Chinese) entry. Please take a look and offer suggestions. Cheers. Tooironic 00:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I see we already have leopard_cannot_change_his_spots. Equinox ◑ 00:58, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

One of these should be a redirect. -- WikiPedant 05:07, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

I suppose technically it should be leopard cannot change its spots - wouldn't "his" be considered sexist? I have no idea. At any rate, can someone deal with the redirecting stuff? (You will also have to merge together the translations on both pages.) I'd do it myself but I don't know the proper coding. Tooironic 08:18, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I’m certain it’s its spots, not his. It should be redirected to a leopard cannot change its spots, because in the case of proverbs, we use the full line including initial articles, just like a quotation. So redirected. —Stephen 08:44, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] suffix or interfix?

I labeled certain -X- affixes as suffixes, and s.o. objected that if it's a suffix, it has to have the form -X. I don't agree, but it does bring up a related issue.

The USAN guidelines for naming monoclonal antibodies uses a template:

[unique "prefix"]-[target "suffix"]-[source "suffix"]-[the mab suffix]

Now—besides the conundrum of whether you can have an affix without any root to affix it to—there's the question as to whether the target and source 'suffixes' are truly suffixes, or interfixes. I believe the double hyphen (-tum-, -o-, etc.) is necessary because a following suffix is mandatory. From my understanding, an 'interfix' occurs between two roots, which is not the case here. There are other cases of strings of suffixes, not all of which may occur in final position, and AFAIK they are still considered prefixes or suffixes. But they would be prefixes or suffixes with a hyphen at either boundary, which is where the objection came in.

There are plenty of similar situations in chemistry, esp. biochemistry, so it may be a good idea to come to a general consensus. kwami 20:33, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

PS. The complete paradigm (as of the pub date of my sources) is at -mab. kwami

My experience with interfixes largely agrees with yours. It is possible for a word to have serial suffixes, but that does not (poof) turn them into interfixes. For purposes of labelling and naming entries, however, we do list suffixes with only a leading hyphen, and not with a following hyphen. On the other hand, I don't recall a previous situation where we've had to concern ourselves with mandatory following suffixes, so that issue certainly warrants a new discussion of how we handle such entries. --EncycloPetey 20:46, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

In the absence of a pre-exisiting term that precisely, wouldn't the simplest be to add our own extended sense to the word "interfix", replacing the restriction to being between roots to being between "roots or other interfixes". Something parallel to this apparently arises in Hungarian and was discussed in the last month. DCDuring TALK 20:50, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

WP also says that interfixes are semantically empty, though I don't know if that's a necessary condition or just the case in European languages. Maybe "affix" would be best for now; I don't know how you could argue that in a string of affixes A-B-C-D, that B and C are either prefixes or suffixes, unless we take A (the unique identifying affix) as the base. kwami 21:16, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

A somewhat similar situation arises with Esperanto, which has inflecting suffixes. When we list them without their part-of-speech inflection, we leave a hyphen, as at -in- and -il-, which cross link to the full forms -ino and -ilo. There are also three "suffixes" which do not have an intrinsic p-o-s inflection, but inherit it from the stem: -et-, -eg-, and -aĉ-. These are considered suffixes (one might argue they an infixes, but sans ref that would be OR), but require the second hyphen, as the following affix is not inherent. kwami 21:23, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

• Personally I would just use "affix", which I know is slightly vague, but perhaps usefully so. Ƿidsiþ 07:19, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

That's what I switched them all to, until or unless we decide differently. kwami 08:38, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I’ve looked at -mab, and have concluded that these various affixes are interfixes. We define the pertinent sense of interfix as “An empty morph inserted between two morphemes in the process of word formation.”; if we substitute “empty morph” with “affix”, then the definition covers those disease target and source affixes. These seem different because they’re not semantically empty and they only ever concatenate with other affixes; nevertheless, given the mandatory nature of the concatenation with the other affixes, these affixes only ever occur between two other morphemes, which make them interfixes, by definition. USAN probably uses “suffix” in place of “interfix” because the latter term is considerably less common and familiar than the former (for example, the OED does not list interfix) — there is no reason why we ought also to eschew its use. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 13:15, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I normally oppose using not-widely-recognized terms in Wiktionary, but no one has suggested a good alternative. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the principal users of this class of entries will be "normal" users. —This unsigned comment was added by DCDuring (talk • contribs) 13:43, 3 August 2009 (UTC).

Actually, they only concatenate with other "interfixes", which is not at all what is meant by that term: Interfixes don't concatenate with each other. kwami 19:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Some uses of "interfix" in the lit, where the meaninglessness of the morpheme (sometimes "phoneme") is stressed:

Trask, A dictionary of grammatical terms in linguistics:

"An empty morph occuring between a stem and a meaningful suffix [as in Glinkovskij from Glinka + -skij]

Yearbook of Morphology 1999:

"Throuout this report we employ the term interfix (created by H. Lausberg and Y. Malkiel 1958) which designates a kind of empty (= meaningless) affix .... Further studies have concentrated on derivational morphology, i.e. antesuffixal intefixes .... Interradical interfixes have been usually called "linking morphemes" (...) or "linking phonemes/graphemes" (...) or, in reference to German, "Fugenmorpheme" (...) or "Fugenelemente" ('elements at the seam/joint' ...). Mel'čuk ... defines an interradical interfix (the only class of interfixes he accepts) as "a confix [sc. an affix which neither divides the root nor is itself divided] which precedes a root and follows another root" and he continues: "Thus, an interfix is found only in compound words (composita) and has the function of indicating the combination of two roots to form a compound".

G examples: leben-s-lang "life-long", Beamte-n-tum "civil service". Sp. puebl-ec-ito

For glossing which uses + to mark compounds, you get derm-at+o+logy.

Catalan: an interfix "plays a dissimilatory role between repeated suffixes and thus prevents haplology": porc-on-z-ón (aug. of "hog"); another is used to keep stress assignment regular. [Proc. BLS, 1976 vol 2]

compounding "by a link vowel, or interfix"

[note again "link vowel", as "linking phoneme" above, suggesting the authors have trouble accepting these epenthetic bits as morphemes]

The Emergence of the Modern Language Sciences:

"It is Malkiel who initiates (...), within Romance linguistics, a concern with 'empty morphs' as a major theoretical issue. For those 'empty' elements which separate lexical stems from derivational suffixes ..., Malkiel devises the term 'interfixes'. His 1958 article asserts the autonomous status of 'interfixes' as contentless morphemes, against the dogma that morphemes necessarily have well defined functions, ...

But then there's Adam Ussishkin, "Morpheme position", in de Lacy, The Cambridge handbook on phonology, who uses "interfix" for Hebrew "transfix", as gidel vs. gudal

And in German, in Lesson from documented endangered languages,

"the prefixal part of the past participle morpheme ge- -t gets trapped between the preverbal particle and the base, thus becoming an interfix. The morpheme as a whole becomes a discontinuous interfix (or stem transfix). This is an instance of a general mechanism of the transition of a prefix to an interfix, and of a circumfix to a discontinuous interfix."

ex. auf-hör-en → auf-ge-hör-t "stop - stopped"

"If auf_hör is a root, then ge- -t is a root transfix ... and if the latter morpheme only consisted of the prefixal part, this would thereby become an infix. ... the two processes ... the reanalysis of the circumfix ge- -t as a discontinuous interfix, [and] the reanalysis of the latter as a root transfix"

kwami 20:14, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] get into one's stride

This is not in COCA, in contrast to take it in stride/take something in stride. Is it in (widespread?) use elsewhere? DCDuring TALK 00:44, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• It's pretty common in the UK. Ƿidsiþ 07:20, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

• Never heard of it here in the midwest U.S. - here it's always take it in stride or something very close to that. L☺g☺maniac chat? 14:23, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I think I've heard to find one's stride, meaning to get accustomed to doing a job. —Michael Z. 2009-08-03 23:21 z

[edit] keep someone in the dark

Hi all. I created another English entry. Can you please check and see if it's OK? Tooironic 09:21, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the actual idiom is in the dark, which has both a literal and a figurative sense. "In the dark" occurs with the verbs "be", "leave", "keep". Among OneLook dictionaries MWOnline, AHD, RHU, and Collins have "in the dark". Only Cambridge Dictionary of Idioms has "keep in the dark", presumably because it is much more common than collocations with the the other verbs. :I would have chosen to make this or a pronoun-instantiated version of this a redirect to in the dark or inserted a usage example including same at in the dark. DCDuring TALK 11:08, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, replace it with a hard redirect.​—msh210℠ 13:01, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

I've enhanced (IMHO) in the dark with adj PoS and additional usage examples including all three verb collocations mentioned above and translation sections. DCDuring TALK 14:31, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Statue of Liberty

Not the actual statue, but there's a juggling pattern called the Statue of Liberty shower. I assume this would meet CFI. I mean, can anyone tell me what it is just from its name? Mglovesfun (talk) 22:32, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

There are many items of the form "Statue of Liberty X" where "X" is dropped in context. In the context of US football the "Statue of Liberty play" is often referred to as "the Statue of Liberty" (or "the old Statue of Liberty"). Proper nouns that are used attributively usually have a short list of characteristics that they are considered prime exemplars of. In the case of the Statue of Liberty, it may have more to do with the pose than with anything else. I'll bet the "Statue of Liberty shower" has to do with that (I haven't looked at the link and never heard of it before). I noted that a search for "Statue of Liberty shower" comes up empty. DCDuring TALK 13:55, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Google Books search for "statue of liberty" juggling does give a couple of pertinent results on the first page or two. Might be an attestable sense of Statue of Liberty. —Michael Z. 2009-08-04 15:20 z

I know we sometimes have entries that are decapitations of terms that are arguably SoP. Tell the truth, I've added or defended some myself. I don't know at what point it is just something that flows from the rules of English that one can use a decapitated term, but only in a context where the missing head is readily understood (or intentionally obscured). I am reminded of EP's arguments about common nouns derived from Proper nouns. Of course, if we are going to dispense with extensive lexical treatment of such usage, we need to have an Appendix explaining it for the benefit of both contributors and passive users.

I wonder if these would work if presented on something like a disambiguation page, with "Statue of Liberty (dab)" referring users to wikt or sister project entries for "Statue of Liberty play", "Statue of Liberty shower", "Statue of Liberty pose", (" ...costume", etc). DCDuring TALK 16:08, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

I've just been looking at Burgundy and burgundy. OED says that the name of the region was used attributively, from which comes Burgundy wine. That used elliptically became [B/b]urgundy, the wine. (That in turn was used attributively as a “Burgundy colour”, which gives us burgundy, the colour.)

But it may also be that we are tempted to say “a Statue of Liberty shower” in explanation, or in a general context, while in actual use a juggler might always have said “this is the Statue of Liberty.” Being a descriptive dictionary, we should try to use attestations and corpora to check actual usage. If it is only used by jugglers, then the sense should carry the restrictive label {{context|juggling}}, {{context|circus arts}}, or {{context|performing arts}}. —Michael Z. 2009-08-04 16:53 z

In the context of a discussion of juggling (and no other ?) you could get away it. Under our attestation practices wouldn't we want to see that the first time the maneuver was mentioned in running text in a source, that it appeared in the elliptical/headless form? I guess, then, from my own experience, that "Statue of Liberty#Noun" should have as a sense "w:Statue of Liberty play". Maybe I'll put that one before the court and see who objects. To check myself I looked at MW's definitions of "white" as a noun. Our [[white#Noun]] seems to be missing a few senses, like "white wine". DCDuring TALK 18:53, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Hm, I see what you mean. But there's ellipsis in conversation, like (I think) “I'll have a glass of the white,” and ellipsis in etymology, like “a glass of burgundy.” Which is which can only be determined reliably by surveying usage. There's not a lot to be found, but I see Statue of Liberty used for the juggling manoeuvre,[8][9] but I don't see Statue of Liberty shower (even though this may or may not be classed as a shower). —Michael Z. 2009-08-05 06:22 z

Great, I'll RFV my own article then! lol, Mglovesfun (talk) 08:59, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] white gold

I just wanted to know whats the different between white gold and platinum? —This comment was unsigned.

See white gold and platinum. Equinox ◑ 10:06, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] drear

I am eager to contest the tag obsolete, which Zigzig20s (who has not been contributing for a year and a half) left when creating the article. I found two quotations from J. Thomson and A. E. Housman, the last of them being less than 90 years old. The tag obsolete is too strong and how could it possibly be applied to something which was a usual, common English word less than 90 years ago. I suggest replacing it with archaic. What do the native English speakers think thereof? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 19:17, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good as far as I'm concerned - or maybe rare instead of archaic (because you can still find this word in some poetry or songs or stuff where the "y" on the end of "dreary" doesn't fit) :) L☺g☺maniac chat? 20:00, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I think archaic is better than obsolete. Equinox ◑ 23:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

19 hits at COCA, all or mostly "literary". That would suggest not obsolete, not uncommon. Possibly archaic, but literary seems more like it. My favorite: "Oh, it's lonesome away from your kindred and all, with a couple of drinks where the wild dingoes call. But there's nothing so lonesome, so dull or so drear as to stand in the bar of a pub with no beer." DCDuring TALK 23:33, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Also current dialectal usage in Northern England, along with dree (adjective). Dbfirs 20:39, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] beryllium-9

Do we do numbered isotopes? Should we? Equinox ◑ 23:11, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

If forced to guess which one we were most likely to have, I'm sure that you would have guessed U-235. DCDuring TALK 23:21, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the only one I could remember was plutonium 239. I was born when Protect and Survive appeared! Now, as far as I understand it, there's a massive (no pun intended? does that work?) number of attestable isotopes, and their names are constructed entirely formulaically, and the name actually includes the definition (you know what it is from the element+number combo). So I tend to feel like we could do without them. Equinox ◑ 23:29, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Category:Isotopes has 76 members. The form that we have is the notation that works as straight text and so might be useful for normal users coming across some terminology in sci-fi or pop science or a basic science text. DCDuring TALK 23:41, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Although I wouldn't normaly want to see entries like this, I can see a reason for having at least some of these. The pronunciation of the high-weight isotopes is specific and unusual. For example, U-238 has the numerical part pronounced as "two thirty-eight" and never as "two hundred thirty eight" which is the normal numeric pronunciation. So, at least for the high-value isotopes, there is an unusual pronunciation to consider. --EncycloPetey 00:21, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

That rule you mention in not specific to the elements as it actually applies more generally when numbers in the hundreds range are used as identifiers. For instance the number part of my address is "three fifty-one" and never "three hundred fifty-one". However, with the hyphenation, I have no problem with inclusion. Certainly the SoP argument can be more strongly made with chemical names such as dihydrogen monoxide and carbon monoxide. — Carolina wren discussió 05:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] barrater is mispelled

The correct spelling is baratter (fr:baratter). All flexions sould be fixed too. Regards, Jona 09:59, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Nice catch. —Stephen 22:03, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Meaning of a Russian word

I am trying to find out what the word "вольницей" means. I know it has something to do with freedom, but that's all I can find out. Yahoo translates it as "by freemen" but internet translators are unreliable. Wordgeek 16:16, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

It is the instrumental singular of the collective noun вольница (“‘freemen,” or “filibusters’”). —Stephen 21:24, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] 1sandwich short of apicknick

wedont'v this1??--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 16:16, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I suppose we could. We seem to not be rushing to include instances of formulas and don't have a good way to present the formulas as formulas. "One X short of a Y" is what I mean by formula, your suggestion being a good instance. A variant is "A few Xes short or a Y". My favorite: "A few vermin short of a plague". Another formula is "Not the X-est Y in the Z" < "Not the sharpest knife in the drawer". DCDuring TALK 17:05, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] bent as a two bob

Entry needs cleanup - however that's not why I'm bringing it here .... :) On the page it has listed as "alternative forms} "bent as a two bob note" and "bent as a two bob watch", and in the inflection line it has "bent as a two bob bit". Which is the most common form of this idiom? (I had never heard of it before I saw it here, so all three of 'em are equal to me). In the entry it says (in invisible text) that "...bob bit" gets 6 G. hits, "...bob note" gets 12 and "...bob watch" gets 5. What do y'all think? L☺g☺maniac chat? 23:16, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

It looks like a formula "X as a two-bob Y", where X ranges over {bent, silly, crazy, etc} and Y ranges over {watch, note, bit, etc.}. Any one of the full adjective phrases seems to be a simile. OED has one citation each for "silly as a two bob note" and "crazy as two bob note". In the US it is "phony/fake as a three-dollar bill".

Incidentally, I've never heard that one either. :) L☺g☺maniac chat? 12:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

We have many such simile entries, including almost all the entries in Category:English similes. Some have expressed a view that we shouldn't have them. I don't have any strong feelings one way or the other about keeping similes per se.

The question of such formulas keeps coming up. See above "one sandwich short of a picnic" or "a few X short of a Y".

What about putting every one of this formula that we can find in Appendix:Formula:X as a two bob Y and putting a link to said Appendix at two bob or bob and at at least one of the specific instances that are attestable? DCDuring TALK 01:10, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Google books shows that Partridge's has a few expressions involving "two bob", which is the Australian (& UK?) equivalent of US two-bit as the money denomination most used in colloquial expressions. Maybe we should start with the idiomatic meaning of two bob. DCDuring TALK 01:32, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

An aside: Partridge has it wrong, as far as Australia is concerned, apparently not realising that Australia and the UK decimalised in different ways. Notably, the UK kept the name and value of the "pound", while in Australia the old pound became two dollars. Thus, an old Australian shilling (one-twentieth of a pound) became redeemable for 10 cents, while when the UK later decimalised, their shilling became 5p. In effect, the UK used the pound as the invariant unit, while in Australia conversion was based around the shilling, which became 10 cents. Pingku 17:30, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Back to the point, I believe the term "bob" (in the context of money), has fallen out of use in post-decimalisation Australia. The idiom under discussion is still understood, though, even if people are not quite sure how much a "bob" actually is... Pingku 17:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Even if it is wrong and/or dated, we should have it. Also, possibly, nine bob note, three dollar bill, wooden nickel. DCDuring TALK 19:43, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I'm not saying the idiom is not used or understood, just questioning "bob" as a current term for an item of coinage. And the Partridge "error" was quite minor; it had just got me thinking (always a dangerous thing). Pingku 20:09, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] shout

The 3rd noun sense "a call-out for an emergency services team." is currently marked as British and Australian slang. However certainly for the RNLI in the UK "shout" is the proper term, not slang, and from tv documentaries I gather that it is at least informal (rather than slang) if not standard for the fire brigade and RAF search and rescue teams. I have no idea about its status in Australia, but if it is slang there and not in the UK (as I believe) then how should this be marked? Thryduulf 00:18, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] noughties

It seems to me that this entry should be marked as mainly British, or perhaps Anglo-Irish. The root word nought is seldom used on this side of the pond for zero save in set phrases such as set at nought found in the KJV Bible. Can't say I've ever heard the word used and the Google hits indicate mainly British usage with some Irish based on the first few pages of hits where the country of the author could be determined. (Indeed, when I originally came across this entry, I considered sending it RfV, but the Google I did quickly caused me to drop the idea.) — Carolina wren discussió 04:21, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] here you are

"Said when you hand something over to someone or do a favour to them, usually to draw the recipient's attention to the exchange; Equivalent to “thank you” when receiving something."

"Equivalent to "thank you"? I don't think this set phrase is at all a substitute for a "thank you". The attention-drawing function signaled by the word "here" (or "there" in the near-equivalent "there you are") seems to be the primary function. Does anyone believe that other associated aspects of the transaction should be part of this definition: offer? thank you? My own preference would be to strike the "Equivalent ... something." DCDuring TALK 11:07, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the intent is, "here you are":handing something over::"thank you":receiving something. They're "equivalent" not in that you can substitute one for the other, but that they play the same role (in different situations). That said, I'm not sure it's a useful point, and even if it is, this is definitely a poor way to express it. —Ruakh_TALK 02:50, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not going to be able to cite this in print, but around here (south-east England) you often hear "chavs" using this in an inverted sense, meaning "Give it to me", reduced almost to a sound like "ear-yar", e.g. when holding out one's hand for a lighter. Equinox ◑ 11:10, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. That goes to the notion that it draws attention to a hand-off principally. All the other associations seem to be context- and body-language-based associations with the exchange: "give it here", "and thanks", etc. DCDuring TALK 12:09, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Another note: here you go exists, meaning the same as there you go and here you are), but perhaps with more immediacy/nearness, as here vs. there. Equinox ◑ 20:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] aspro

I haven't been able to find anything more exact than 'a Turkish currency'- is there an English translation? Nadando 16:39, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

<WARNING: THE FOLLOWING EXPLANATION WAS WRITTEN BY A TEENAGER. Please use caution while reading. >

Well... not exactly, but yes, but no. :) Anyhow, I found (and had to create the relevant sense of) a word, asper, that probably is semantically related somehow to the Spanish one (except that I can't read ancient Greek, so don't know if the word in the etym section of "aspro" is the same that was anglicized by the time I found it in W3, and it's not the same one in that webpage below . . .). I found it on this page, where you have to scroll all the way down to Asper but it's interesting. Does that help at all or have I only utterly confused myself? (which, honestly, I have) L☺g☺maniac chat? 21:11, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. If by "Turkish" you mean "Greek" and if by "currency" you mean "river", then Aspropotamos is a tributary of the Greek w:Acheloos River. Pingku 21:46, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Ohhhh, I hope Nadando isn't that confused, but seriously, I was for a while . . . that is interesting though. Isn't etymology/roots/words just soooo much fun?! :) L☺g☺maniac chat? 22:16, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Aspro is, of course, the trade name of a particular brand of aspirin marketed in the UK, Australia and New Zealand for the last seventy years, and the word gained common usage (in the 1950s?), sometimes without capitalisation, to refer to any headache tablet. This usage now seems to have died out. Dbfirs 21:02, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Proper grammar question

Which is more grammatically correct?:

"What's new?"

or

"What news?"

-- OlEnglish 21:30, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

With your first example, the speaker is asking, literally, what is new?

With your second example, the speaker is asking and implies what news (is there)?

Based on that, it's hard to give you an answer, unless that there is something under there somewhere that my newly-13 brain (turned on Thursday) has failed to comprehend. L☺g☺maniac chat? 22:29, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

They are both perfectly fine grammatically. In current speech, "What news?" would seem dated, in my opinion. It is used in fictional dialog where is often seems to add an old-fashioned flavor, unless it is in answer to a question like "Have you heard the news?" "What news?" "What news?" strikes me as a question about "news", whereas "What's new?" is at least sometimes about the person being spoken to. "What's new with you?" DCDuring TALK 22:32, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with DCD completely. "What news?" would also sound strange in my ears (as in "what news (is there)?"), unless the speaker was trying on a (faux-?)medievalism to try to be funny (like what you hear in books) "What's new?" is a lot more familiar. (And I would say, "most of the time" for how often "what's new" is referring to the speaker or his/her personal life.) L☺g☺maniac chat? 22:46, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Another note: I've also heard "what's news" sometimes. L☺g☺maniac chat? 16:51, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you both :) -- OlEnglish 22:32, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, yeah "what news?" does seem odd to me too but I know (being Irish) that in Ireland "what's news" is (at the very least colloquially) used as a synonym for "what's new". 50 Xylophone Players talk 18:29, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Oops, nvm I missed Logomaniac's comment. >_> 50 Xylophone Players talk 18:31, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

That's OK, it's good to hear from the other side of the pond. L☺g☺maniac chat? 20:10, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] something fierce

[edit] something awful

[edit] something good

[edit] something bad

[edit] something terrible

Both of these are colloquial/dialectal adverb phrases. But many adjectives can fit in the slot after something: "bad" and "terrible" come to mind. This suggests that a sense is missing at something#Adverb or the single sense there should be reworded. Is there some other analysis of this possible? Or should be just insert all the attestable "something X" entries? DCDuring TALK 02:02, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

BTW the valence of the adjective could be positive, I think: "He was beating up on him something good." DCDuring TALK 02:05, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's my tentative analysis: The first part is about those "adjectives". Some adverbs are "bare" or "flat" adverbs (e.g., he ran fast.) They are taken from the adjectives without adding the usual -ly. I think fierce, awful, good, etc. are actually non-standard adverbs (e.g. he's real nice).

The second part is like this: something is a compound determinative. Like some other determinatives, it is functioning as a modifier in an AdvP (e.g., I don't take him that seriously. He's acting a little differently.) In standard dialects, some doesn't do this, but it does in some regional dialects (e.g., She's some better thi day.), and it does, even in standard dialects, in other fused words like somewhat (e.g., You may feel somewhat differently). In fact, in previous centuries, somewhat and something were basically synonymous.

I'm quite confident with the first part, but less so with the second. The CGEL has a note on p 424 calling something a degree adverb: "In non-standard English something extends into this degree adverb territory: !I loved her something rotten. 'terribly, greatly'."--Brett 13:37, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Interesting, too, that some of the instances are with adverbs taking a valence opposite the standard English valence. The grammatical analysis gives me a bit more confidence in framing the lexicographic issues. The issues are:

1. What to do with the instances of the construction. Keep, redirect, delete?
2. What to call "something" in its use in this regional/non-standard construction: Adverb or Determiner. The combined construction entries are labeled as Adverbs.

I don't think we have been very consistent in providing "Adverb" PoS sections for "bare adverbs". (residual prescriptivism, I think.)

A mostly unrelated issue is that attesting this is really time-consuming. I cheated by finding quotes of "somethin' X". It would be nice to know how general this construction is, ie, over what type of modifier semantics can X range? All of our cases with the exception of "fierce" seem to be on the good/bad scale albeit sometimes reversed from standard. Maybe a two-step process: use "somethin'" to find X's and then check "something X" in corpora. It is possible that "something X" is less common in this construction than "somethin' X". DCDuring TALK 14:51, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd say redirect the entries to something. Probably adverb is the best category for this use of something.--Brett 19:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure I agree with your "bare adverb" explanation. It seems that "something <adjective>" is functioning as a degree adverb. You could never say, *"This smells something awfully." —Ruakh_TALK 15:14, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, I agree thatI wouldn't say that, but that's because I'm a speaker of standard American English. Current use of something in this sense is a holdover from earlier English when flat adverbs were much more common. At that time, people did say something awfully. Consider the following quotes (from the OED):

1588 GREENE Pandosto (1843) 27 She began to simper something sweetely. 1611 SHAKES. Wint. T. IV. iv. 825 Being something gently consider'd, Ile bring you where he is aboord. 1707 Curios. in Husb. & Gard. 21 What he calls a Courtier he uses something roughly. 1713 BERKELEY Hylas & Phil. I, The inferences sound something oddly. 1822 SCOTT Nigel xvii, ‘I said Grahame, sir, not Grime,’ said Nigel, something shortly. 1859 DICKENS Christmas Stories, Haunted House i, ‘O!’ said I, something snappishly. 1898 G. B. SHAW You never can Tell in Plays Pleasant 211 Gentleman: Did you howl? The Young Lady: Oh, something awful. 1909 A. WOOLLCOTT Let. 24 Sept. (1944) 20 She gads around something fierce, as your friend Bert would say. 1915 J. WEBSTER Dear Enemy 300 When he was drunk..he smashed the furniture something awful. 1932 R. LEHMANN Invitation to Waltz I. iii. 58 Her husband drinks something shocking. 1963 W. H. MISSILDINE Your Inner Child of Past xv. 221, I was taken into the assembly hall. And beat up something terrible. 1978 D. CLARK Libertines ii. 41 ‘I'll put a plaster on that cut for you.’.. ‘Thanks, doctor... It does sting something chronic.’

--Brett 19:41, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] noël

I notice this just got deleted as a bad redirect. However it's good in Scrabble, so I figure it must be an alternative spelling or another meaning. I'll try and add it back with a citation (or two) later on. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:55, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Chambers has "(without cap) a Christmas carol". Equinox ◑ 13:01, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

• As does the OED, although they prefer noel as the lemma form. Ƿidsiþ 13:12, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Fossilized forms

I am looking for an English phrase to describe the etymology of words that originally were inflected/derived forms, but now the suffixes are a fixed part of the word, the word is a different part of speech and can be inflected. For example, éjjel (at night) was originally éj + -vel, the instrumental case of éj, but now it's an independent word that can be further inflected (éjjelente - every night). Possible variants: fossilized form, fossilized inflected form, fixed form? --Panda10 13:00, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Do you speak English?

I was wondering about the Japanese phrase for “Do you speak English?”. With my very limited knowledge of Japanese, I came up with the very literal 貴方は英語を話しますか。 (anatawa eigo[w]o hanashimasuka.); this was dissimilar from what my friend had been taught, viz. 英語が出来ますか。 (eigoga dekimasuka.). What is the difference here? Is my noob’s literal translation correct at all? Thanks in advance. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 13:09, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

• (See also do you speak English. Ƿidsiþ 13:13, 9 August 2009 (UTC))

Japanese would typically drop the subject when it is clear from context, so get rid of 貴方は. Next, if you think the person is likely to speak English, then your remaining question would be fine. On the other hand, if you're merely inquiring about the person's ability, then the 'dekiru' question would be better. Alternatively, 'hanasEmasuka' or 'shaberEmasuka' would also work. --Brett 01:58, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Word Misspelt

Hi,

I am not so pleased to see words like "uncompleted" in an official letter or conversation.
Is "uncompleted" an Adjective.
Does it hold a proper meaning.
Please advise me if you can!!!!!!!!

—This unsigned comment was added by 124.30.124.203 (talk • contribs) 12:44, 10 August 2009 (UTC).

Yes, it's an adjective, with a proper meaning. See uncompleted. —Ruakh_TALK 12:58, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

"Uncompleted" might have a slightly different meaning than "incomplete", emphasizing the process rather than the result. That raises the possibility of who might be responsible for the state of incompleteness.

Consider the following usage statistics from COCA:

Positive outcome: "complete": 35,022; "completed": 18,218; responsibility/state: 52%

Negative outcome

State: "incomplete": 2,803; + "not complete": 463 + "uncomplete": 2 = 3,268

Responsibility: "incompleted": 2 + "not completed": 199 + "uncompleted": 79 = 280

Responsibility/state: 9%

Could this be an empirical demonstration of the proverb "success has many fathers, failure is an orphan" or of widespread linguistic politeness?

Also this seems to illustrate "rose-colored glasses" with the ratio of completion/incompletion (13/1) far exceeding that in my experience. DCDuring TALK 15:31, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] lew

According to ODS the English word lew is dialectal, but Webster considers it obsolete, therefore I did not add any tag whatsoever. Any native speaker, in whose dialect this word is common? Could you verify the gradation forms as well, since I added them at the example of new? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 20:05, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I am a native (American, FWIW) speaker, and no, I have never heard of this word (and still do not know what it means as i don't want to take the time to open the article (my browser/computer are soooo slooooow)) ... (few seconds later) I just looked it up in Webster's Third, my be-all and end-all dictionary resource (though I'm learning how incomplete it is) and it labels the term as now dialect Britain. L☺g☺maniac chat? 20:30, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

"Lew warm" is common in (older) dialect of Northern England, but I have never heard the comparative or superlative used. Dbfirs 21:09, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I added the appropriate template for Northern England English. You are free to erase the comparative and superlative forms - I added them on the model of few and new, perchance in vain, if it is never used. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 18:45, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I've never heard lewer or lewest, and I can't find any usages, but they probably existed in the past. If I mark them as obsolete, someone is sure to find some citations! Dbfirs 18:21, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Missing E numbers

Wiktionary includes almost all E numbers but I have identified the ones I think we are missing.

missing E numbers

John Cross 22:17, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd worked on improving some of these with {{pedia}} links and improved internal wiktionary links, without any useful knowledge of chemistry or food and drug manufacture. They can all be brought to a reasonably high uniform formatting standard. DCDuring TALK 18:17, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] bust a move

Is this an idiomatic phrase? Is it a neologism? Does it mean something akin to strike a pose? __meco 17:07, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Public health problem

I hope to get "definition of public health problem" or "what is public health problem" or "how to define public health problem or issue", I have search related websites, but get accurate answer. Could help me? tell me explanation of "public health problem" (which website page?)? Thanks. George. —This comment was unsigned.

See public health + problem. Equinox ◑ 15:24, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] -logy

There is a discussion over on Wikipedia about the deletion of its entry -logy, some of the editors wanting to keep it, others saying that the information belongs to Wiktionary. Could someone have a look at the article and tell us whether its content would be appropriate here? Thanks for taking the trouble --Anypodetos 08:09, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be suitable for Wiktionary but it is a bit long for usage notes, perhaps some of the content belongs in an appendix, it would be good for Wiktionary to have either a list of studies or a list of words ending "logy.John Cross 09:24, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Feel free to use this old version of -logy on WP (as long as the article exists). --Anypodetos 18:03, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I've responded on the VFD page.​—msh210℠ 02:22, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks --Anypodetos 18:03, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] voucher

what is the difference between voucher and invoice?

If company A sells a van to company B then Company A will create a sales invoice and send Company B a copy from Company B's point of view the invoice is a purchase invoice. An invoice typically includes:

• the amount to be paid (before sales taxes)
• the amount of sales taxes
• the amount to be paid (after sales taxes)
• a reference number
• the date of the sale
• the name of the seller an the buyer
• a description of the product or service possibly including a product code
• payment terms e.g. pay within 30 days or payment on delivery

A voucher can mean a lot of things: A voucher is a bond or token which is worth a certain monetary value an normally has that amount printed on. A voucher may only be spent for specific reasons or on specific goods. Examples include — housing, travel and food vouchers.

The term voucher is also a synonym for receipt, and is often used to refer to receipts used as evidence of, for example, the declaration that a service has been performed or that an expenditure has been made.

A voucher is an accounting document representing an internal indent to make a payment to an external entity, such as a vendor or service provider. A voucher is produced usually after receiving a purchase invoice, after the invoice is successfully matched to a Purchase Order. [10]

I hope that helps. John Cross 09:32, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Collaberation of the Week - attempt to revive

OK, I registered on Wiktionary a while ago and then went away but recently I have come back and got a bit more involved. I think that Wiktionary has massive potential as it is not bound by the limits of being physically printed. I also think the community behind Wiktionary is great. I think we can all agree that there are thousands of missing words to add and new words are being added all the time. I would like to see two things as a sort of new user:

1. a sense of priority. Which words or appendices do we most need? I accept this is subjective but as a community I think we could set meaningful priorities.
2. a sense of completeness. Which areas can get to a point where we can say they are complete? as a trivial example we have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

I am hoping we can use WT:COW to try to meet these needs. I have added a few suggestions to the WT:COW page I am not sure these should be priorities but I am hoping people will edit the page an change things around. I think collaborating on a group of words that are related makes more sense than trying to all collaborate for a week on two or three unrelated words.

John Cross 15:06, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

We could think about priorities, but I'm not sure that many editors would change anything to what they do...

Completeness cannot be achieved: new words are created every day, and no dictionary lists all existing words. But completeness might be measured in some cases: for dead languages, maybe, or areas such as taxa in biology.

On fr.wikt, this collaboration of the week exists: this week, it's about dance styles. Lmaltier 20:14, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea of having this. (I've got a few categories on my own user page, e.g. minerals — an enormous list — and links to things like wine-tasting terms and organic compounds.) I doubt I'd contribute to the project page itself, i.e. by adding groups of terms, but I could definitely be convinced to research and create some of the missing terms suggested by others. Equinox ◑ 21:32, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I would wholeheartedly support doing (and perhaps, organizing) this sort of thing. As soon as there are enough people that are interested in contributing.... Should we bring this up at the Beer Parlour? L☺g☺maniac chat? 19:57, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Have vs. Have got.

Although I may only be a high school student, I am constantly bewildered by the discussion or argument concerning whether or not have or have got is the correct usage. What purpose necessitates the addition of the past tense verb got combined with the present tense of the verb to have? Why would one render this unrequired addition? As I have learned and discovered on my own, the verb to have has a few distinct tenses, each of which not including got in any circumstances.

Present- have or has. Past- had. Present participle- has or have gotten. Pluperfect- had gotten.

As you may have discerned, got was not included with any of these tenses, reiterating the fact.

So might anyone have the solution to my problem? Questions or comments? But please, only authority or experts on the subject. —This comment was unsigned.

• I was going to answer, but I'm not an authority or an expert. Good luck. DCDuring TALK 20:39, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
• I'm not an expert either, so I will just say that the rules vary with region, culture, and time. Dbfirs 20:57, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Not "authority or expert", but both "has" and "have gotten" are correct under their own circunstances which Im to tired to explain right now. and I'm not sure who we have around here for "authority or experts". (SB?!) L☺g☺maniac chat? 15:11, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

• I like to think of myself as an authority and an expert on every subject, and this being the Internet, there's no one to say different. ;-)
  So, here goes:
  • The past participle of "to get" is "got" in some forms of English, "gotten" in others. (Nowadays, "got" is more typically U.K., "gotten" is more typically U.S., but with exceptions. And, dunno about other regions.) And there are probably forms that use both past participles, either interchangeably or not, but I don't know. (Incidentally, despite this variation with "to get", the past participle of "to forget" seems to be fairly consistently "forgotten". Dunno why.)
  • Additionally, in some forms of English, "to have got" has the meaning "to have". This occurs even in some forms where the past participle of "got" is "gotten"; hence, in my dialect, "you've got a lot of mail today" and "you've gotten a lot of mail today" are both correct, but they mean different things: the former means "you have a lot of mail today", with the present tense of the multiword verb "to have got", whereas the latter means "you've received a lot of mail today", with the present perfect of the verb "to get". Broadly speaking, use of "have got" this way is more common in colloquial registers than in formal ones, but usage varies greatly between different forms of English.
  • The aforementioned usage does not apply equally to all senses of "to have"; in particular, "to have" is used in forming the perfect aspect, but "to have got" is not.
  • In some forms of English, the "have" in "to have got" can be dropped, as in "I gotta [=got to] go", or "I got no problem with that." These usages are not considered standard — especially the second.
  • As may be inferred from the above, there are many speakers who will never say "to have got" in their entire lives, preferring "to have gotten" exclusively for the perfect aspect of "to get", and "to have" exclusively for the other uses.
  Does that answer your questions?
  —Ruakh_TALK 19:14, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Unsure how useful this comment will be. However, the word gotten is very, very rare in British English; you'd probably only hear it in the slightly archaic idiom "ill-gotten gains". On the other hand, "I've got" (I already own, or have just acquired) is very common, where US English might prefer" I have". Equinox ◑ 21:25, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] taiwan vs tw-ESE vilages

iLEARNTlatter,butCformer[adj=NOUN,uh]i/engl.media-wotsrite/practice??--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 01:17, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Is not the former just the attributive usage of the noun? I suppose there might be a subtle distinction between Taiwan villages meaning villages in the country, and Taiwanese villages meaning those with a distinctly Taiwanese character, but I don't think this distinction can be consistently maintained. Dbfirs 09:50, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] No (determiner) illustration

A very long time ago, I had an English professor who thought a good dictionary should contain a little humour, and I appreciate a gag or two as much as the next guy. But does the illustration for no as a determiner (added by User:msh210 on June 23/09) go a smidge too far over the top? Or not? I have mixed feelings. (BTW, doesn't that image look more like a picture of no determiners than of no bricks?) -- WikiPedant 03:19, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it should go. Equinox ◑ 20:52, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

That was for the solstice competition. As you say, a bit of a gag. As the guy who added it, I agree: it can go.​—msh210℠ 16:08, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Genius, I love it. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:53, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Me too. I'm moving the picture to nothing. ; ) L☺g☺maniac chat? 18:42, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Usually I say a word should contribute something to an entry, but in this case, I think it's rather appropriate for it to contribute nothing. I'm considering copying it to [[אין]]. :-)   —Ruakh_TALK 02:41, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Reminds me of one of the classic philosophical questions: How can something come from nothing? Hmmmm. -- WikiPedant 04:46, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] etymology info on secret (Verb) - needs supporting documentation & Latin roots & general editing

Etymology 2
Back-formation from reading secreted as secret + -ed instead of secrete + -ed by influence of the above senses of secret.

Why is "secrete + -ed" implied to be a more correct reading (or a reading more consistent with the original meaning or roots)? I think it needs some supporting documentation and dates.

Usage notes 
This word is not in standard or formal usage, where secrete is used instead.

I disagree with this because it is in standard usage amongst people I know (probably because the 'secret' interpretation/usage makes more sense than the 'secreted' interpretation/usage, based on the accepted meaning of 'secret'). I propose removing this Usage Note.
Also, this usage is hardly ever seen without 'away' after it (i.e. 'secreted away') and I propose to add this as a Usage note.

The only Latin root we mention (for secret; there is none for secrete or secretion) is 'secretum' (a non-existent page) and this differs from what's at etymonline [11], which says:

1378 (n.), 1399 (adj.), from L. secretus "set apart, withdrawn, hidden" originally pp. of secernere "to set apart," from se- "without, apart," 
prop. “on one's own” (from PIE *sed-, from base *s(w)e-; see idiom) + cernere "separate" (see crisis).

I propose to change "secretum" to "secretus" and to add "secretus" as a new entry, and also to add secretion's root (from etymonline), unless anyone objects.--Tyranny Sue 15:35, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Whilst I don't doubt that your pronunciation is common where you live, are you sure that the secreted you hear is not an alternative pronunciation of past participle of the verb secrete? If you are correct then you will probably hear secrets (hides) and secreting with the stress on the first syllable. Dbfirs 11:48, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, no pronunciation is 'common' where I live (or amongst people I know, including my family, and that means various international geographical locations, so it's not necessarily an isolated regional phenomenon) because it's not frequently used in speech, but I've been asking around about how people interpret it when reading. But yes, the stress is definitely on the first syllable. (My theory for this is that since the 2nd verb sense of 'secrete' is effectively obsolete, and has been reabsorbed(?) by 'secret' - in my circles anyway - and the modern meaning of 'secret' fits the purpose perfectly, why would people interpret it as 'secrete', i.e. an involuntary biological process where something goes from a more hidden place to a less hidden one, when 'to hide' - which is what our contemporary use of 'secret' is all about - is what's obviously meant?)--Tyranny Sue 05:28, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] bihourly

So, which is it? [12] Equinox ◑ 20:47, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Both, I think. I tweaked the adverbial defn and added e.g. sentences to help distinguish the adverb from the adjective. -- WikiPedant 21:01, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, wait a minute, you mean is it "twice an hour" or "once every two hours". In the case of bihourly both the Random House Dictionary and the OED say once every two hours, but the OED acknowledges that there are many terms (e.g., biweekly and bimonthly) which can be used with either meaning and the OED recommends using "semi-" instead of "bi-" if one means "twice a ...". -- WikiPedant 21:07, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I think biannual might be our best effort with respect to the two meanings of "bi-". I don't know where there are reliable statistics as to how common the "proscribed" senses might be. As I understand it the ambiuguity goes back to Latin. Bis (“‘twice’”) is an adverb. Used as a prefix it means two. So "twice an hour" or "two-hourly". From a usage stand point the bi-words seem best avoided unless you want a portion of the readers to miss your meaning. DCDuring TALK 23:46, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] epididymal

canIPAbechekd pl?--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 10:12, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

 Done :) L☺g☺maniac chat? 16:09, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

ta!!:D--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 09:45, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] take upon

It seems "take upon" would be better located at take upon oneself; what do you think? A form with "himself" is used in the example sentence. For comparison, OneLook:"take upon" and OneLook:"take upon oneself". An aside: The figure that I see behind this idiom is of a person taking a burden such as a bag full of potatoes on his back, thus on himself, as it were; which can easily be a misperception. --Dan Polansky 16:11, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that it would need to be take upon oneself, as you say. As to your reasoning about the idiomaticity, I think it would not be sufficient. Among the many meanings of take and upon are many figurative meanings. A mere combination of figurative senses does not make something an idiom within the meaning of WT:CFI. The meaning is figuratively taking the "burden/weight of responsibility" "on/upon one's shoulders". We often seem to use arguments other than true idiomaticity to support including such terms.

In this case only RHU includes the term as an idiom.

It is interesting that "take it upon oneself to/take it upon oneself" is nearly 5 times as common as "take upon oneself". DCDuring TALK 18:52, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] deleted "forearm bones" (sum of parts)

mytake:add.info=ulna+rad.-thoughts any1?--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 10:16, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Discussion on this is at WT:RFD#forearm_bones; please continue discussion there, to keep it together.​—msh210℠ 18:55, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

thatp.soolong,mybrowsernolike..--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 21:34, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] hypothenar

IPApl?--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 18:39, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Next time just add {{rfp}} to the entry.​—msh210℠ 18:49, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

yup,ta!!:)--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 19:11, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] heaven helps those who help themselves

Can someone create an entry for this idiom for me? I have some Chinese translations to add. Cheers. 114.78.202.110 08:11, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Fantastic! Adding some translations now! :D Tooironic 06:25, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] a sea of faces

Is this idiom allowed its own entry? Or is it considered a sum of parts phrase? 114.78.202.110 08:16, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

We don't have most metaphors. For "faces", "sea" is probably the most common, but "wall", blur", "crowd", "stream", "montage", "kaleidoscope", "gallery", "kitchen", "range" occur also at one large corpus of American English. Some folks like to include such metaphors, but not me. DCDuring TALK 17:36, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Subject of a biography

What is the word for the subject of a biography - the person being written about? It is biografato in Italian. SemperBlotto 11:09, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

autobiographer; biographee. L☺g☺maniac chat? 15:38, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

I think we would just use subject normally ("he's the subject of a new biography by so-and-so"). Not very satisfying, though.-- Visviva 15:51, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, where attestable I think any -ee words will handle this pretty well. 50 Xylophone Players talk 16:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Emergently

Is this actually a word or just a bastardization of emergency and urgently? I have a bet with my doctor son in law who uses it all the time. Thanks. —This unsigned comment was added by Tenlady (talk • contribs).

It's a word. See emergent. I think in medicine emergent things are even more urgent than urgent things.​—msh210℠ 19:29, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] to nitpick about words

How do I say "to nitpick about words", "to concentrate on minor semantic mistakes while ignoring the substance"? I thought it was something like "talk semantics" but I can't find it. Thanks. --Dan Polansky 15:52, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, an argument over the meanings of words is called a logomachy, whilst a person so engaged could be accused of pettifogging. OTOH, people often say things like “Let’s not discuss semantics.” as an admonishment not to get bogged down in such concerns as the meaning of terminology. Does that answer your quæstion? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 16:24, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I did not know about logomachy. The term that I was probably looking for was google books:"argue semantics". I thought I had seen an example sentence in Wiktionary, sounding similar to "You are arguing semantics and completely ignoring my point." But I can't find it any more.

I thought "argue semantics" could be well worth entering, but the transitive "argue" with a direct object seems to apply broadly, including to google books:"argue politics". --Dan Polansky 17:05, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

YW. The OED has sub-senses for semantic and semantics defined simply as “In weakened uses.”; two of the supporting quotations for the “weakened use” of semantics are:

• 1966: N.Y. Post 3 Aug. 6/4

  Sen. Pastore said that everybody was engaged in semantics. ‘It comes down to a very fine point,’ he said, stating the obvious in a nutshell.

• 1978: Kenneth Hudson, The Jargon of the Professions, page 16

  Almost daily in the press briefing, whenever a newsman raises his hand to ask for clarification of some mealy-mouthed statement: ‘I am not going to debate semantics with you,’ the spokesman replies.

These, I believe, are identical with the sense in which you mean the word/phrase. I conclude that what we need are additional senses added to semantic and semantics. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 17:28, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] have a seat

I have taken a stab at presenting the non-idiomatic, the truly idiomatic (IMO) directive, and an intermediate sense that might be idiomatic. To me the polite directive is the principal justification for the entry.

1. Is this not used outside the US?
2. Is the intermediate sense truly idiomatic or is it just that it is hard to keep track of all the senses of verbs like "have", "take", "do", "get", "put", "sit", "set", "go", "give"?
3. Is this the best we can do?

Note that no OneLook Dictionary has this and that it is a new entry. DCDuring TALK 16:59, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Common in UK. I'm not sure whether the intermediate sense is an idiom or not. Agree that sense 3 justifies the entry. Dbfirs 09:43, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Swedish and Finnish

I just saw a show where someone spoke a language that, as he explained, originated because people couldn't speak either Swedish or Finnish very well. Therefore they came up with that language which is apparently some sort of mix of the two. His flag was from top to bottom white-blue-yellow. Can anyone tell me where he was from? User:Mallerd (Zeg et es meisje) 11:02, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Well, i know this isn't what you're looking for, but I found an old Dutch flag with the colors in the wrong spots - still looking. L☺g☺maniac chat? 15:08, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

The only Google hits I'm getting are for the flag of the Marshall islands and the flag of Argentina, neither of which is right. still looking ... L☺g☺maniac chat? 15:21, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Hey there, I recieved this response on wikipedia:

:He was referring to Meänkieli which is spoken on the Finnish-Swedish border in the Torne Valley. It's basically a dialect of Finnish with a lot of Swedish influences that has been defined as a separate language because of repressive Swedish policies towards Finnish-speakers during the 20th century.

Peter ^Isotalo 12:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

This page shows their flag. I appreciate your help Mr. Maniac :D User:Mallerd (Zeg et es meisje) 17:12, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh, about that Dutch flag. The colours are in the correct place, it's just an old flag based on the colours of Dutch royalty. (Those French changed orange to red) User:Mallerd (Zeg et es meisje) 17:14, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

whynotchangdbak?--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 14:23, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I think it's because Napoleon Bonaparte's brother, forgot his name, was 'such a good king to us', people did not resent the French colours. Those colours were made official again as a reaction to the NSB. On certain days, orange is flown along with the red, white and blue. User:Mallerd (Zeg et es meisje) 18:26, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Actually the red was already in use long before our beloved "rabbit-of-Holland". Even in the 17th century both orange and red were used. The latter in part because the red dye did not bleach in sunlight as badly. On the VOC/WIC ships that was important. But yes with the Batave Republic it became official and with Willem I an orange vane was added. As a sign of reconciliation I suppose. It never became official though, until the Dutch nazi party started using the orange again in the thirties.

Jcwf 05:39, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Left body part

When speaking of "left kidney", "left hemisphere" or any other body part, is it from the point of view of the owner of the body part or from the point of view of a person who faces the owner? Clearly, with "right hand", it is the former--the owner's right hand is seen by a facing person at the left--but I am for some mysterious reason unsure about other body parts. --Dan Polansky 12:20, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

owner--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 14:29, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

I'd vote and bet owner's PoV. DCDuring TALK 15:02, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, as for "stage left", though there have been cases of the wrong kidney being removed. Might this be the reason? Dbfirs 15:55, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I guess the confusion can be seen on the picture that I am just posting. --Dan Polansky 08:06, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this picture is correctly described as "seen from behind", so the caption is wrong. Dbfirs 09:09, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Oops; you're right. I have replaced the picture with a fitting one. --Dan Polansky 08:46, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] confused

Is any one else confused by this entry's definitions? Chaotic, jumbled and muddled are, in my mind, quite different from each other. They also don't tell us if the word refers to people only (emotions) or other things (e.g. according to this entry "a chaotic work of art" could also be expressed as "a confused work of art", even though their meanings are quite different). Lastly, since when did it also mean "embaarrassed"? Tooironic 09:57, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Have you considered posting it to cleanup? L☺g☺maniac chat? 14:00, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

One can be confused by embarrassment, or embarrassed by confusion. I would have removed sense 3 except that it was added by SemperBlotto who usually knows what he is talking about. I wonder what he meant? Dbfirs 00:20, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

I see that we also have the sense recorded at confuse. If it exists, I would regard this as a colloquial, non-standard usage (from confusing two related emotions). Should we mark this sense as colloquial?

... also, I regard chaotic art as confused, jumbled and muddled, but I'm not an art expert! Dbfirs 18:14, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Another sense for jackpot

Wikipedia's language reference desk was discussing an alternate sense for jackpot at W:wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#"jackpot" meaning trouble. Does it meet CFI? RJFJR 20:49, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. Also another sense, possibly linked. DCDuring TALK 00:15, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step / a single step

Was surprised to find this was not in wiktionary. Why is this? Tooironic 09:29, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

The longer the proverb, the harder to type. There are so many proverbs. Having all of them is such a major effort. It just doesn't seem worth it. DCDuring TALK 11:47, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

...(edit conflict) ... because it is a sentence, not a word, and the meaning is exactly what it says, not idiomatic. Perhaps we could include it for translations. Are there idioms in other languages that mean the same? I would expect just word-for-word direct translations. Dbfirs 11:54, 27 August 2009 (UTC)

The meaning is not precisely what it says: it's a metaphor. I agree it's not idiomatic, though. Once one understands that it's a metaphor, it's SoP.​—msh210℠ 18:32, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I thought that proverbs are per se idiomatic or just get a free pass. For example, Rome wasn't built in a day uses the building of Rome as a metaphor for any large task. Category:English proverbs is mostly populated with metaphors, I think. I suppose we could try to have more formal criteria for inclusion, but it hasn't been an issue recently. Does anyone really think this shouldn't be included? a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step is my preferred wording but the other seems good too. DCDuring TALK 19:00, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

I didn't say it's not to be included, nor did I mean to imply that. Our practice has been, as you note, DCDuring, to include such. I was only responding to Dbfirs' "the meaning is exactly what it says, not idiomatic". My preferred wording is yours, but citations rule.​—msh210℠ 20:02, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I see what you mean. Do we include all metaphors? There are millions! Dbfirs 21:11, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

We certainly don't include all in fact. I don't know whether there is any express reason why we would exclude any attestable metaphorical use of a common noun. I don't think we would include "the champagne of bottled beers", though we might have the metaphorical sense of champagne as used in that phrase: "anything expensive or luxurious" (as RHU alone among OneLook dictionaries does). The entry for head is a reminder of how much metaphor accounts for the proliferation of senses of many common polysemic words. DCDuring TALK 00:14, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

I have created the entry for a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step (by Confucius) and added a few translations, please check the English section, add translations, if you can and wish to do it. Anatoli 04:52, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] rote learning

I came across this while cleaning up the "English nouns" category in French - it has three other interwikis, but not here! Is it a bad import or just something I've never heard of. It's an uncountable noun, or so I'm told. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:06, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Only Wordnet (the most semantically inclusive reference) and Steadman's Medical Dictionary (???!!!) among OneLook dictionaries have this. It is not an idiom. It analyzes as attributive use of rote#Noun with learning#Noun as head. It is equivalent to "learning by rote". "By rote" is in three of the One look idiom dictionaries. COCA shows "rote learning" to be about 10 times more common than "learning by rote" (intransitive), but "learning something by rote" (transitive) is as common as the intransitive. Our searchbox yields "rote" as the top entry for searches for "rote learning" and most forms of "learn by rote", "learned by rote" and "learnt by rote" being the leading exceptions.

I think that strict application of WT:CFI would not lead to including any multi-word term including "rote" to be included. OTOH I see a little benefit from having all of the common collocations redirect to rote and making sure that rote is a high-quality entry. DCDuring TALK 15:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

[[rote]] needs some improvement. It misses the adjective (rote is gradable, comparable and can appear as predicate) and gives to much emphasis to "by rote". DCDuring TALK 15:47, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Fishes

The Noun def is currently:

(US or when referring to one or more type) Plural form of fish. 

Don't we mean "when referring to more than one type" (or "two or more types")?

At fish we have: ... and when referring to two or more kinds fishes ... so is the "one or more type" from fishes just a typo?

Also I think an example (i.e. use in a sentence) would be extremely helpful for the verb entry (of fishes), which is "Third-person singular simple present indicative form of fish".

Thanks very much.--Tyranny Sue 04:43, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Probably a typo. L☺g☺maniac chat? 13:42, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 14:25, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Mining Terminology

I was watching somethign on television about mining and was amazed by all the specialized mining terminology. DOes anyone have an idea where we can get a list of words with special mining senses that we might be missing? RJFJR 14:44, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

• You could try [13] for a start. SemperBlotto 14:51, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

• A quick Google search will birng up hundreds of hits, so you shouldn't be lacking . . . I found this and this (which is a PDF document) as well . . . :) L☺g☺maniac chat? 17:21, 29 August 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Security Service

Can someone please check this entry for me? I just created it and not sure if it should be capitalised or not. Cheers! Tooironic 07:55, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] shoop

For the second sense (humorous singular of "sheep"), are the citations acceptable? The bottom two look terrible to me; they are just speculating about what might be a word given some particular circumstances, like using "if quixingplorp was a word..." to back up an entry about quixingplorp. Equinox ◑ 17:39, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

Nah, those bottom two (now three) are just making facetious arguments from analogy for the use of shoop, asserting that such is the case, to humorous effect. The two from 2001 are less analytical in their uses, however. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 13:40, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] make way

This entry needs some work. "Make way" isn't just a nautical word - it can also mean "get out of the way" as an interjection or "get prepared for" (e.g. "make way for the next generation of iPhones"). Tooironic 01:10, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Take a look. DCDuring TALK 02:05, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ahead of time

[[ahead of]] + [[time]] = early. DCDuring TALK 16:00, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

I assume you are asking if it's a SOP? (This should maybe go to RfD instead.) This seems somewhat idiomatic to me, since, taken literally, "ahead of" + "time" sounds like it should mean the same thing as what we mean when we say "before time." I'm not quite sure, though; I'd lean towards keeping it. Dominic·t 07:01, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes, it should be at RfD if anywhere. It might be one that we keep on Pawley's we call it X, they call it Y principle. I think I'll take it to TR. DCDuring TALK 10:36, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

[from WT:RFD I am very familiar with this common expression. It seems SoP. If there is a different expression (also possibly SoP) in widespread use somewhere with the same meaning, that would make it an ipso facto idiom to be kept. Dominic seems to be suggesting that "before time" is the right-pondian translation of this left-pondian term. Can we confirm this? DCDuring TALK 10:36, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry if I was unclear. I am in fact a left-pondian, too. I just meant that without any articles or other verbiage, "ahead of time" does seem like an argument could be made that it is more than the sum of its parts, since if I didn't already know what it meant, it sounds like it is describing something before time itself, rather than before a particular time (i.e., early). Dominic·t 14:26, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I am looking for any rationale to keep this. Sense 6 of time (“‘an appropriate moment in time for something’”) seems to be the exact sense. Some other dictionaries have this as an idiom. I'd like to know by what rationale. DCDuring TALK 14:54, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to think that this expression's use of ahead of provides the best case for idiomaticity here. "Ahead of" seems to me usually to be used to refer to a spatial relationship, not a temporal or conceptual one, and Wiktionary does not give one sense for "ahead of" which is exclusively and unambiguously non-spatial. I've always felt that a multi-word term can be fairly be regarded as idiomatic if one of its constituents is used in a way which differs from its most common usage. -- WikiPedant 15:27, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

That would be a deficiency of the definition of ahead of that I added one day ago. Some other dictionaries include an explicit time sense, others use synonymous prepositions that have both spatial and temporal senses. Of the simple prepositions that have a spatial sense, almost all also have a temporal sense. A few of the exceptions are across, {[term|beside}}, behind, up, down. DCDuring TALK 16:51, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] potted biography

I heard a references to a book that contained "potted biographies". This could be the preserved sense of pot. Is a potted biography a short biography that can stand alone? RJFJR 16:15, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Potted history is common. It seems to suggest that it's a short summary or synopsis. Equinox ◑ 20:59, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] prostitot

After searching for Britney in Wiktionary, I have found prostitot. It seems quite POV (for start, Britney Spears won't be twenty something for ever!) --Rising Sun 15:56, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I've tried to fix it. Better? Equinox ◑ 18:36, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Certainly less inflammatory for Britney. Goldenrowley 04:39, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

If the shoe fits... its not a Britney thing, its the behavior of these young girls and the society we live in that exposes them to sexual context they are not ready to be exposed to.

[edit] do aid,objective and goal mean the same

do aid ojective —This comment was unsigned.

See aim, objective, goal. Yes, they are basically equivalent. Equinox ◑ 00:40, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, they are synonyms, but in modern management speak an aim is more general, with an objective being a more specific goal. Dbfirs 17:40, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

They are synonyms, but synonyms do not have to have exactly the same meanings. "Aim" is a more general, open-ended term that either "objective" or "goal". Sometimes (especially in management) objectives are regarded as more general than goals (and sometimes goals are understood as quantified). It might be my objective to improve office morale and, to do this, I set 3 goals: (1) To tell a joke a day at the watercooler, (2) to compliment each employee for some positive contribution at least once a week, and (3) to use at least 50% of the time in each staff meeting for employee comments and feedback. -- WikiPedant 17:54, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

That's interesting because the way it was explained to me (years ago) was that the aim would be to improve office morale and, to do this, I set 3 objectives ... The heirarchy was Purpose -> Aims -> Objectives. Perhaps different "experts" use the terms in different ways? Dbfirs 18:07, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

A little empirical research on COCA suggests that "objective" as noun is preceded with one intervening word by a form of the verb "achieve" for about 8% of its total uses; "aim" about 2% and "goal" about 3%. I would guess that an objective is more often perceived as something that is achievable and concrete, which probably places it lower in the hierarchy than the others. If we make some subjective adjustment for the use of "goal" in sports, I would venture that goal is considered less achievable and concrete than "aim". And "purpose" at .2% seems considered even less achievable than "aim". Since this is the product of less than 30 minutes work, it is just suggestive, not conclusive. DCDuring TALK 19:32, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Neat analysis. Thanks. Dbfirs 17:14, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the thanks. I love facts and their analysis, especially the quick and dirty. I'd usually rather have ten of them than one of higher quality, though sometimes the high quality is essential. DCDuring TALK 17:52, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] From Wikipedia:Reference Desk/Language: "Agamid toes"

The following is a request from Wikipedia's Language Reference Desk - I copied it here. L☺g☺maniac chat? 21:28, 6 September 2009 (UTC)
What does this Latin term mean: Digiti inaequales, sublongi, non fimbriati. I am not really sure about the punctuation (comma) between inaequales and sublongi. How would change the deletion of this comma the meaning of that term? Is inaequales an adjective or an adverb? What do you mean is the correct punctuation in this term, maybe is the one or other not usable? Thanks, Doc Taxon (talk) 17:21, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

toes unequal, rather long, not fringed. Inaequales is an adjective, masculine & feminine plural. I think the punctuation is correct as it is. —Stephen 22:45, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Someone replied there right after I copied it here. Thanks anyway. . . L☺g☺maniac chat? 22:52, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Transmition

Is transmition a genuine word? It does not appear in Wiktionary or my bookshelf dictionaries. But Google books gets well over 600 hits and Google scholar gets over 3,500 hits. It's hard to believe they are all a mis-spelling of transmission, although some of them undoubtedly are, especially the papers written by non-English speakers. Although some may be archaic spellings or mis-spellings there seems to be a statistical cluster around using it as the adjectival form of "transmittance" in optics. That's where I first came across it, in the Wikipedia article on w:Filter (optics) and was wondering if I should correct the Wikipedia article or add the word here. SpinningSpark 22:37, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I looked at some of the Google book hits, and all of them appear to me to be misspellings. —Stephen 22:49, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

The OED doesn’t have it either, FWIW. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 20:35, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] request

Does anyone have any source on this? Perhaps in an English-Dutch dictionary? The only translation I have that comes close to dying is 'pass away', albeit in the sense of elapsing. So that's nonsense. I've never heard of this meaning and an anonymous editor has added it. It seems to me that he has 50% credibility. User:Mallerd (Zeg et es meisje) 20:25, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

{{rfv}} is a better place for this. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 20:31, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "desegregation settlement"?

Hi. We got in the mail a couple days ago a newsletter of sorts from our state senator and on the back it had a graph about where our tax dollars are going. It said 0.04% of the tax money is going towards "desegregation settlement", and for the life of us we couldn't quite figure out what that was. Anyone have ideas? Thanks. (On a humorous note, it also said that 9.11% of the money is going towards health care. Of all numbers . . . :) L☺g☺maniac chat? 20:46, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

A settlement agreement on the subject of desegregation. Because it arises in the context of "desegregation" and government (and your state senator is almost certainly an attorney) he expects you to realize what kind of settlement he means. DCDuring TALK 21:23, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, so what's a settlement agreement? :\ L☺g☺maniac chat? 21:32, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

I think a "desegregation settlement" will be something like the state paying money to a the former victims of segregation (e.g. blacks who weren't allowed in universities). Equinox ◑ 21:48, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

My first cut is is a [[settlement]] + [[agreement]]; A second pass would be w:Settlement agreement. It should probably be at [[settlement agreement. None of the definitions will specify what particular type of matter your state senator is talking about. We probably mentioned it elsewhere in the newsletter. Where I live there has been one relating to housing desegregation in affluent suburban towns. Equinox's might be another, but cash payments to individuals are not so common is such cases as I understand it. DCDuring TALK 22:53, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Added, briefly. bd2412 T 03:11, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] -phone words

Just looking through the English -phone words, how come Russophone is always capitalized, but anglophone and germanophone are always in lowercase? I'd have thought both upper and lowercase were okay for all of these. Mglovesfun (talk) 08:12, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Of the [Perform+Find+Word+search 205 words ending in *phone] listed in the OED, the following are capitalised:

1. Blattnerphone
2. Dictaphone
3. Entryphone
4. Linguaphone
5. Porta-Phone
6. Stylophone
7. Trimphone
8. Vitaphone
9. WAP phone

None of those derive from country names. Words like anglophone and francophone aren’t capitalised, but the capitalised versions are listed as alternative spellings. Personally, I capitalise them, but there we go… † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 16:46, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Each main entry should be independently capitalized according to its most common usage. CanOD lists both anglophone and francophone with initial l.c., indicating they are used that way in Canada. A brief Google Books search shows that Russophone may mainly have an initial cap. The capitalization is probably a function of the etymology, who uses the word, in what context, how common it is (e.g., the Canadian usage originates or is influenced by the lower-cased French). —Michael Z. 2009-09-08 17:27 z

I don’t think we should hyperregulate and micromanage like that. It doesn’t really matter where the entry goes, as long as both forms are attestable. Conversely to your suggestion, I reckon that if we’re going to make a rule either way, it should be to ensure that such entries are either all majuscule-initial or all minuscule-initial; this creates consistency, which gives a more professional appearance and means that users looking up multiple -phone words will know (or at least learn) to stick to only one capitalisation scheme (a consideration that becomes weightier the more of this class of entries there are). If you like, we could decide which capitalisation scheme to “favour” by opting for the scheme that sees the most frequent usage. Any etymological and other nuances can be explicitly expressed in usage notes, rather than leaving it to the implication of which spelling houses the main entry. All that said, I really don’t think it’s worth the effort bothering to make a rule on this; Google searches don’t distinguish capitalisations, which’ll make gathering usage-frequency statistics a pain. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 18:03, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] faccedilade

I've noticed faccedilade at http://www.laparks.org/dos/historic/campo.htm . It took some time to realize that it originated as an HTML storage/rendering problem, where the original term façade was stored as HTML as "fa&ccedil;ade", then somewhere along the line the ampersand and semicolon were lost, resulting in faccedilade. Searching for that resulting sequence of letters, I see it even in some documents inline with words that contain other accented characters, so it seems to have be written that way on purpose by some authors. I wonder whether some people have encountered the result of the failure of HTML storage and rendering, and committed the result to memory as an actual word. Does this merit a misspelling entry? —Rod (A. Smith) 18:21, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh definitely. That is by far the most interesting misspelling I’ve ever seen, and I doubt that most people would guess that it’s a misspelling of façade. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 18:41, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

OK. We now have the misspelling entry [[faccedilade]]. —Rod (A. Smith) 20:31, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Excellent. Well done. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 22:49, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

What is the threshold for "common" misspelling? I can't find it in English running text. DCDuring TALK 16:17, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

1 groups hit. None elsewhere. It is an HTML artifact. HTML is not running English text. It is a good candidate for inclusion in the TypographyWiki, which, BTW, needs urgent and sustained attention. DCDuring TALK 16:22, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] dolour

I am eager to change the template from the austere obsolete (which would have been appropriate, had there been found no citations newer than Shakespeare's) to poetic, as in dolour in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913, but being no native speaker I would like to ensure myself that no objections are going to be raised. The second quotation proves that less than 140 years ago this noun was in vivid use and for me personally it it hard to rate a noun which has quitted daily speech for less than 150-200 years as obsolete. Is the noun current in contemporary English? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 14:58, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Interestingly, Merriam Webster online does not use any tag soever, so perchance the noun has again become part of dily speech? Should one refrain from any context tag? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 15:00, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

dolour gets 0 hits out of 400 million at COCA. It seems to get some UK, Indian, and Australian use. I didn't see Canadian use, but perhaps you can find some to support including Canada among the using locations. Searching news is tedious because of the scannos for "dollar", "colour", and "detour" and Proper noun use which together constitute the great majority of hits. DCDuring TALK 16:10, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

As is habitual for Latin borrowings (nouns) ending in -or, the US standard spells them as -or, whereas in the rest of the anglophone world the ending is -our, so in US sites like COCA one must look for dolor. But the spelling is not important, what matters is determining how daily, poetic or archaic the use of this word is. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 16:25, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

You mean not everyone spells English the same? Hooda thunk it?

As to "dolour", it use seems mostly "literary". "I appears in newspapers is in arts reviews and occasionally to make puns in other contexts. I haven't done the work on dolor, except to note that on COCA it mostly appears in Spanish running text, in arts reviews, or in puns like "Another day, another dolor". DCDuring TALK 16:40, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Your first quæstion. No, I was simply mindful of the differences between Commonwealth and US spelling. Ok, I shall change the tag to literary. Obsolete was obviously exaggerated. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 17:17, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

That sounds correct - one comes across the word occasionally in British English, so it is certainly not obsolete. Presumably dolor is obsolete in the USA? Would the word need to be translated into an alternative current American synonym for readers in the USA? Dbfirs 19:55, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems "dolor" is probably mostly "literary" in the US too. Of the 5o occurrences in COCA 42 were uses or mentions of the Spanish word. 2 were from science fiction, 6 were from high-brow literary/arts journals. 6/400MM is hardly less than 3/100MM at BNC. The spread of Spanish among students who are native speakers of English may widen its use in English. DCDuring TALK 21:37, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I've changed the tag on the entry at dolor to "literary". You seem to have an extra sense (as in the Catalan entry) connected with rheumatism. e.g. "In rheumatoid arthritis, it [Ibuprofen] reduces the duration of morning stiffness, and morning stiffness is a particular feature of inflammatory disease—a cardinal sign which seems to have been overlooked by Celsus. Alas, we have no adequate measures of the inflammatory response in man. Dolor, pain, may be due to other things." from the editorial of RHEUMATOLOGY AND REHABILITATION, (Vol. XVII February 1978). I haven't heard this usage in the UK. As you suggest, it is probably the influence of Spanish. Dbfirs 06:47, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

It can well be the influence of French instead (douleur). In the US city La Nouvelle Orléans, in it's vicinity and in many locations in Maine French is spoken by hundreds of thousands of residents (as mother tongue) and it is the most widespread foreign language for US students, is it not? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 07:52, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Students who take French in the US usually miss the chance to speak it very much. Students who take Spanish can often speak it to fellow students and members of the school staff who are native speakers. To a lesser extent they can find chances to speak it elsewhere, but in any event much more than French. The can watch Spanish-language television if they wish 24/7.

And the "dolour" spelling goes against US prevailing practice, of course. DCDuring TALK 12:42, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] by ear and play it by ear

I just created by ear and have noticed that play it by ear might be redundant. I'm not actually sure though, because in play by ear, it's not one of the common meanings of play. We might at the least rename it to play by ear, as the direct object isn't always "it". Mglovesfun (talk) 15:13, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

As you note, by ear is mainly musical. "Play by ear" (intransitive) is also almost exclusively musical. "Play X by ear" is split almost evenly in citations at COCA between musical and non-musical.

But "play X by ear" and "play by ear" (which just looks like an intransitive use of "play" with "by ear") seem SoP in the musical sense. "Play by ear" doesn't convey the non-musical idiom. Play something by ear would seem to be more general than the "it" form, but in the overwhelming majority of cases where "it" is not the object the "something" is a musical instrument or a piece of music.

For the non-musical idiom, I could see either play it by ear or play something by ear as the entry, with the other as redirect, but the "it" form is both more common and more clearly idiomatic. DCDuring TALK 15:57, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Shaku

Moved to information desk --Antilived 16:02, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] squeaky-bum time for Portugal

'gainOMISION[cos ev-b 2bizi talkin'?--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 16:34, 10 September 2009 (UTC

This is what WT:REE is for. Added there. DCDuring TALK 17:30, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Krung..

Couple questions. Sorry if the first one belongs in the Grease pit or something.

1) Is this our longest entry title? If not what is?

2) The Thai version of this in the etymology is so long it's fucking up the {{term}} template and won't link. I don't know if there is such an entry but anyhow . . .

Thanks! L☺g☺maniac chat? 22:03, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] be-

The etymology (!?!) section says that this prefix is "unproductive for most speakers". I have a few problems with this:

1. It belongs in a usage note, if true.
2. "Most speakers" don't invent words, do they? If so, the statement is vacuous.
3. One of the definitions suggests that it is being used to produce new terms, especially in discussion of fashion, which seems plausible and would contradict a claim of unproductivity.
4. The word "bewebbed" was uncommon before Spiderman and the Web and gained a bit of currency. Wouldn't that be one or two examples of reminting the coinage, since the term is not to be found in a dictionary in this sense? Isn't that evidence of productivity? DCDuring TALK 01:26, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, be- and/or be- -ed is/are definitely productive in English. The one meaningful way in which “unproductive for most speakers” might have been meant is that be- is not semantically transparent for most listeners (cf. anti-, un-, -ism, -ing, &c.); however, I’d contest that — most people do get what be- (and especially be- -ed) mean(s), which is not the case for obscure ones like selen- (“‘moon’”). † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 07:54, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, the intelligibility of the occasional new word deployed is pretty high, partially because the prefix adds little semantically, but helps conveys an attitude. The last of the senses seems to almost have the productive sense right. It seems to me that it might be deemed "literary" (in the sense that a style article or column in a newspaper or magazine is "literary") or "archaic" in its uses. I have trouble imagining it in speech, in any event, and in more formal writing. DCDuring TALK 14:29, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

I just want to add that I think that most people do invent words from time to time, especially when there is a general rule to invent these words (e.g. adding -like to a noun). (assuming that invent a word means use a word never used before, or that they never heard nor read) Lmaltier 17:21, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

You are right. I was wrong. Few English speakers don't invent using the highly productive prefixes and suffixes like "un-", "-like", "-ish", "-y", and "-ly". Actually I think people mostly "reinvent" words that have been used before but which are not in their memories, possibly because they never read or heard them. But aren't words that are formed regularly "reinvented" (in the sense of being formed by rule) instead of being called from memory each time they are used? In any event "be-" is not quite in the same category in contemporary English as these highly productive affixes that many use. DCDuring TALK 18:42, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] I haven't the foggiest

Haven’t the foggiest redirects to the form with I; cf. G.B.S.: "hasn't the foggiest". Delete I haven’t the foggiest or redirect to haven’t the foggiest? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 07:21, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

My inclination for the lemma form is to the ugly general negative [[not have the foggiest]] with copious usage examples of and/or redirects from the forms in use. Many of the forms in use would not lead a user to my proposed lemma without such explicit support. I fear that all the pronouns, verb forms, and contractions might be needed among the redirects because the search engine seems to need them. (???) DCDuring TALK 12:34, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] tomato juice

[edit] grape juice

Could someone tell me why the former is afforded an entry and the latter is not? Tooironic 08:28, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Presumably because no-one has entered it yet. We have apple juice but not cranberry juice. I'll make the entries. How about cow juice? Dbfirs 10:04, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Great, adding translation as we speak. Tooironic 11:27, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Why do we have any of them, except the clearly idiomatic cow juice? DCDuring TALK 16:19, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

The term grape juice (at least) passes our "fried egg test". It isn't simply juice squezzed from grapes, but requires additional processing that halts fermentation. If grape juice were not treated, it would be wine. I'm not sure that the same criterion applies to any of the other examples of fruit juices mentioned. --EncycloPetey 14:53, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I wondered about that, but all involve some processing. Grape juice only turns into wine if it is allowed to ferment in controlled conditions for some time. It can turn into vinegar! What about orange juice? Dbfirs 15:02, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

What nonsense! Wake up and smell the juice, gentlemen.

Every school child knows what grape juice denotes, even though they have no clue of the industrial processes and chemical requirements. It's juice from grapes. You're all fired as soon as I can find enough school children... —Michael Z. 2009-09-13 15:42 z

School child at your service, sir! :) L☺g☺maniac chat? 22:21, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Did you actually look at the entry? Did you stop to consider the well-reasoned argument based on previous consensus? Every school child knows what a fried egg is too; you have to crack the egg open and fry its contents, not the entire egg whole. --EncycloPetey 16:16, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Unfermented is not defining; it is the default state. Squeezed is not defining, unless pulverized or blended grape stuff has a different name. What's it called if it is not used as a beverage, but rather to make jelly, or in baking, or for wine? —Michael Z. 2009-09-13 18:59 z

"Unfermented" certainly is defining, at least in normal use. I'm pretty sure that these schoolchildren of whom you speak would be quite surprised if they asked for some grape juice and received a nice glass of merlot instead. As would an adult, for that matter. I would agree about the other terms; it may be worthwhile to mention the typical referent, but that should be distinguished from the strict definition. -- Visviva 02:41, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Good, then following your logic we should define it as unfermented, without seeds, without skins, not containing potatoes, plums, oranges, ground beef, or limestone, because these are all of the things schoolchildren expect. And a few more from DCD's quotation below. —Michael Z. 2009-09-14 14:37 z

If you hand someone a glass of grape juice with seeds and skins in it, or ground beef, then the person might say "Ewww! This grape juice has [beef/seeds] in it!" In other words, it's still grape juice, just of an undesirable sort. On the other hand, if you hand them a glass of wine, they are more likely to respond "This isn't grape juice! It's wine!" Does that not seem like a significant lexical fact?

Back on topic, what are your specific requirements for entryworthiness here? At the moment it seems rather like you have entered the discussion determined that it must come to only one resolution. -- Visviva 16:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to see simple English terms defined simply, without inappropriate additions inspired by someone's local agricultural, industrial, or public safety codes of law, or lexically irrelevant encyclopedic history. Juice is not booze. I can know what juice is without knowing of the celebrated Mr Welch. There's no need to define the general sense of tomato juice as anything but juice from tomatoes. There's no need to define grape juice as “juice from grapes; not wine.”

If you want to add a US legal definition as a separate sense, that's just fine with me, as long is it meets CFI and its scope of usage is clearly labelled. —Michael Z. 2009-09-15 00:00 z

(But separately, I am concerned that we are adding truncated legal regulations to the dictionary, as in ground beef (2). The result follows neither attested English usage nor the legal prescription, so what good is it to anyone, and why should it be in a dictionary? This is outside the scope of even a legal dictionary, by not just defining conventional terms but by directly quoting the regulation. Better to just link, so the reader can find the full and up-to-date regulations. —Michael Z. 2009-09-15 00:16 z)

Mzajac: Unfermented grape juice did not exist for sale until a clever person named Welch developed a new pasteurization process in 1869 for creating what we now call grape juice. So, "unfermented" is certainly not the default state. --EncycloPetey 02:49, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

So put that into w:History of tomato juice, where it belongs. —Michael Z. 2009-09-14 14:37 z

I looked at tomato juice, compared it with ground beef and find it wanting. As it stands it does not seem to meet the legal/regulatory definition standard, which, AFAICT, is the only basis we have for accepting such an entry. Other OneLook monolingual dictionaries do not have these except insofar as they copy WordNet.

For tomato juice, I have to agree that it does not seem to warrant an entry. --EncycloPetey 16:40, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I've changed the entry now to make it less SoP. Dbfirs 17:13, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Padding the entry with encyclopedic facts doesn't make the term any less sum-of-parts (and why use a rare synonym for pulverized?). Not all tomato juice is cooked, not all includes the flesh, and an incomplete list of uses doesn't belong in the definition at all. Tomato juice denotes juice from tomatoes—decorating the definition with anything more just reduces its quality. —Michael Z. 2009-09-13 19:09 z

It appears that Random House, Merriam-Webster's and AHD have no entry for tomato juice. OED includes it as a run-in under tomato 3. attrib. and Comb., defined as “the juice from tomatoes; also, a drink of this”. —Michael Z. 2009-09-13 19:15 z

I've never seen just the juice from tomatoes on sale, though I suppose that it might possibly be available in some countries. It would be very pale in colour. Also, I've never tasted fresh uncooked tomato in the flavour, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I didn't create the entry, I just tried to match it to reality. I didn't know that comminuted was a rare word. I used it because it seems more precise than pulverised. It wouldn't worry me if you want to delete the whole set (except for cow juice), but there are thousands of other entries in Wiktionary that I would consider mainly sum of parts, with just a hint of an extended meaning. Dbfirs 19:43, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm afraid that the reality of our daily experience of much food in many "developed" countries is more like the ground beef definition: the product allowed to be sold under the name in each jurisdiction. It is a meaning derived from the SoP meaning. Most people are oblivious to the facts of the matter. But almost all attestable current use of "tomato juice" is likely to refer to the regulated product available on grocery-store shelves. The Talk:ground beef discussion was continued at length in the Beer Parlour, which archived discussion is now at: Wiktionary:Beer_parlour_archive/2009/June#Legal_definitions..

This is uncharted territory in many ways. Some casual introspection and asking a few people would probably show that "tomato juice" means "the thick red juice one pours from a container so labelled obtained at a grocery store, or a similar juice, assumed to be made from tomatoes." Our CFI eventually led us to that conclusion, when we realized that the only CFI-meeting definitions of "ground beef" were regulatory ones. DCDuring TALK 20:12, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I don't see any attestation in that entry, so I am left wondering which CFI our ground beef actually does meet. I have watched beef being ground in my kitchen, without realizing that Wiktionary requires me to call it something else until I qualify for a federal meat production certification in my jurisdiction. I suppose we need another English name for the beef they grind in France, too. —Michael Z. 2009-09-14 15:17 z

For our further edification here is the US FDA definition of tomato juice:

Tomato juice is the food intended for direct consumption, obtained from the unfermented liquid extracted from mature tomatoes of the red or reddish varieties of w:Lycopersicum esculentum P. Mill, with or without scalding followed by draining. In the extraction of such liquid, heat may be applied by any method which does not add water thereto. Such juice is strained free from peel, seeds, and other coarse or hard substances, but contains finely divided insoluble solids from the flesh of the tomato in accordance with current good manufacturing practice. Such juice may be homogenized, may be seasoned with salt, and may be acidified with any safe and suitable organic acid. The juice may have been concentrated and later reconstituted with water and/or tomato juice to a tomato soluble solids content of not less than 5.0 percent by weight as determined by the method prescribed in Sec. 156.3(b). The food is preserved by heat sterilization (canning), refrigeration, or freezing. When sealed in a container to be held at ambient temperatures, it is so processed by heat, before or after sealing, as to prevent spoilage.

Obviously a one- or two-line definition could be drawn from this by careful reading and artful writing, even without consulting an attorney.

A shorter definition might be derived from the immediately following section "Labeling": "The name of the food is:

(a) "Tomato juice" if it is prepared from unconcentrated undiluted liquid extracted from mature tomatoes of reddish varieties.

(b) "Tomato juice from concentrate" if the finished juice has been prepared from concentrated tomato juice as specified in paragraph (a)(1) of this section or if the finished juice is a mixture of tomato juice and tomato juice from concentrate.

I'm sure you could see how much fun we would have with these. DCDuring TALK 20:47, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Please don't refer to things like this here, even in jest. I'm getting so tired of reminding our gang of the difference between a dictionary and an encyclopedia. But I will take bets on how long it takes for someone to come up with three attestations which demonstrate the exact sense defined by the FDA. —Michael Z. 2009-09-14 14:37 z

By the way, the quotation above is a regulatory requirement, not a lexicographical definition. Bonus points for anyone who suggests adding “senses” per the requirements of UK, Pakistani, Philippine, and Nigerian food industries. —Michael Z. 2009-09-14 14:51 z

There is humor in it because we haven't settled on a realistic approach to this, but it is fundamentally serious.

I am in agreement with you that the common-sense definitions for these terms are not idiomatic. But, in the specialized context of US food manufacturing and marketing, the USFDA regulations define what is meant by "tomato juice" and many other food items. If we take seriously the Pawley test which gives an idiomatic status to phrases that define conventions (and singles out legal/regulatory terms specifically), then we are necessarily led to consider this kind of thing seriously. As a result of that consideration we determined that the ground beef entry with the regulatory definition (and no other we could come up with at the time) met WT:CFI.

Given that determination, other questions arise:

1. Can we come up with a mode of presenting such definitions that is useful for normal users?
2. Did we err in some way in making the determination?
3. Does CFI have to be amended to limit this kind of definition?

The ground beef entry is the culmination of one of our few efforts to grapple with this. It doesn't seem to me to be entirely satisfactory yet. IMO the implications of the discussion at Wiktionary:Beer_parlour_archive/2009/June#Legal_definitions. would risk these entries eventually becoming useless for normal users, however useful they might be for specialists. These kinds of entries can be very useful for normal users because they provide a surprising contrast between the naive SoP definition that people believe obtains and the specialist definition which actually obtains.

As to attestation, I believe that any current usage of "tomato juice" in a US context that mentions the word "can" or "bottle" or "store" or "buy" or "shop" is necessarily referring to the regulated product, unless words like "fresh" appear and override conventional expectations. I believe that the SoP meaning of "tomato juice" is not what people actually mean: they mean the product they can buy. Perhaps the everyday definition is "The product sold under the name tomato juice in stores." As soon as we try to offer a little more content than that we are left with the CFI-meeting specialist definition. DCDuring TALK 15:31, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

This question falls in with technical and legal language. Many scientific and technical terms' meaning is prescriptive, and sometimes somewhat different than the term in common usage (e.g., a doctor's arm or a cop show's DNA).

But regulations also mandate precision. If the FDA takes 185 words to describe what's allowed to be called tomato juice, then is our 30-word definition equivalent? Do we risk liability by presenting a less-precise summary as a “definition” of a legal description? Can we define legal names in any way except by quoting in full or linking to the legal definitions (and note that outside the US, many legal codes are copyrighted)? Does this serve lexicography? Is the US FDA defining an English term, or merely regulating the way tomato juice for sale must be made and labelled?

But at the same time please keep in mind that the FDA's regulations apply only in a very limited domain. They directly concern, and legally compel, food producers, packers, and inspectors in their professional realm. But they are not at all relevant to the grocery shopper, restaurant-goer, or the kids at home who want to refer to tomato juice, and hardly even to the staff at grocery stores. The kids are asking for juice of tomatoes, and not for dictating the type of organic acids or proportion of solid content in their refreshment. And the FDA has nothing at all to do with the tomato juice that grandma makes in the basement.

It's common sense that we should define the common use of a term if we also define a regulated definition, no? Do our guidelines say so? —Michael Z. 2009-09-14 23:48 z

Actually, the FDA does have the power to regulate the tomato juice grandma makes in the basement, if she calls it tomato juice and in any way makes it available to the public (for sale or for free). If she just drinks it herself and gives it to family members, she can call it cranberry vodka for all they care. The FDA's definitions are, by the way, relevant to consumers - if you try to sell something in the U.S. as "tomato juice", and what you're selling is cut 80% with water, do you doubt that consumers will complain, and that those complaints will reach the FDA? bd2412 T 05:38, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the only truly simple definition "juice from a tomato" is non-idiomatic, SoP, and CFI-violating. It also only loosely corresponds to normal experience. I'm not sure about the right wording, but the everyday sense is something like "the red liquid that comes from a can or bottle labelled as "tomato juice" (or a translation thereof) bought at a grocery retailer." I don't know that we wish to have that kind of definition, even if in a better wording. I think that a definition of that general sort is supported by the quotations now at tomato juice and is not contradicted by very many of the vast number of durably archived uses. Hell, I'd even claim "widespread use". What stands behind that sense are the CFI-meeting, but narrowly used official definitions applicable in various countries.

It is entirely analogous to the situation with a word like star or surface. The everyday meaning of "star" is "points of light visible in the night sky". Astronomers have their high-falutin' definitions too. DCDuring TALK 00:33, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

It's wrong and a disservice to readers to include only a very restricted regulated definition, but omit the everyday sense. If there is a technical sense, then the everyday sense can no longer be taken for granted. Based on this, we should include it—I can't do it at the moment, but I'm sure we can gently twist something in the CFI to justify this view.

But your “everyday” definition is a bad one, in my opinion. I have have encountered tomato juice in a chilled glass, in a large stainless-steel cafeteria dispenser, and cooked into a roaster of cabbage rolls. Wikipedia writes about the early tomato juice that was squeezed, apparently, from fresh raw tomatoes. Clearly, the recipe, cans, labels, grocery stores, and other encyclopedic tidbits about this substance do not define its name. —Michael Z. 2009-09-15 00:54 z

It is almost as if the SoP definition belongs in the etymology. When a book talks about juice from tomatoes they seem to almost always call it "fresh tomato juice" or "fresh-squeezed tomato juice". The wording of the "everyday definition" was intentionally focused on the concrete realities of most everyday experience in the modern "developed" world. For some people their definition in the same spirit might mean "the red liquid that the help pours for me". The appropriately inclusive wording eludes me at the moment. Someone else may have a better way of looking at the everyday sense. DCDuring TALK 01:13, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

• This is a common situation: there is a strictly correct, literal/SOP definition that marks the semantic boundaries of a word or phrase, and a more specific sense that underlies most use. This could be considered a case of a semantics/pragmatics distinction, as the first concerns correctness and the second felicity. Someone who gives you grape juice instead of tomato juice has simply erred; someone who offers you a tomato juice and then squeezes a tomato over a glass is not wrong, but definitely behaving oddly. We should of course seek to document both aspects of meaning where possible, but I've come to the belief that splitting these into separate sense lines is seldom wise or viable (especially since closer examination will almost always reveal further complexity). In view of this, I've taken a stab at a two-stroke definition of tomato juice, based on the cites and the discussion here. -- Visviva 05:27, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The current solution seems wrong to me. A good definition should be reductionist: saying enough to define the thing as broadly used, applicable in 90 to 99% of uses. I don't see phrases like “In modern use, this usually refers to” used in dictionaries, and it gives me a whiff of encyclopedia. Since when does a definition summarize some imaginary corpus study? —Michael Z. 2009-09-15 14:07 z

It is a bit wordy; I was going to just say "Often refers specifically to", but it seems clear that the more specific referent is limited to modern use. (And FTR, one does find almost exactly that "in modern use, often" construction in many OED entries.) I don't quite understand why you would think the data is "imaginary"; while the entry is egregiously over-cited at present, the citations do unambiguously show that some people understand "tomato juice" to refer specifically and exclusively to the thick red stuff that you buy in a can, while other people continue to use the term in the broader, literal sense. I don't see any real difference between this and, say, corkscrew (which needs to be dealt with); "corkscrew" may refer to any implement that is inserted into a cork in order to remove it, but it is often understood to refer only to the kind of corkscrew that actually has a screw-shaped "worm". A satisfactory entry needs to cover both of these facts (supported by suitable citations, of course). -- Visviva 14:39, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Sometimes we are tempted to overspecify. It's silly to try to redefine the tomato juice colouring rice in 1839, that strained for cooking in 1847, and that which we drink today, as if they weren't all just juice from tomatoes. Saying how it's usually packaged in 2009 is certainly encyclopedic, and I don't see any citations implying that one thinks that tomato juice only comes from a package, but if someone did, that wouldn't make it a different tomato juice.

For the other, one might consider “a screw or other implement for pulling a cork.” —Michael Z. 2009-09-16 05:09 z

To be clear, the Schmidt book is a reference for commercial chefs, wherein everything is purchased. The citation is simply saying that the tomato juice available to the commercial kitchen is canned, meaning, in the context, “cooked and sealed in a sterilized container” (cf. canning). Compare the entry for orange products, which says juice is available “canned, dehydrated, freshly squeezed, and as frozen concentrate”, and for fresh orange juice, for which “various packs are available. 12-oz (0.35-l) can is common. This shouldn't lead us to add another sense to orange juice (that would be the juice of oranges). —Michael Z. 2009-09-16 05:49 z

I would disagree about corkscrew, but after further review I have to agree about tomato juice; I can find no satisfactory evidence that it is used to refer specifically and exclusively to the red processed stuff. That is, it doesn't really appear that anyone would consider it incorrect to call other tomato juices by this name. At any rate, regardless of SOPness all these "X juice" entries are kind of a waste of time IMO, and I'm going to stop thinking about them now. -- Visviva 05:02, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] circles around

This was formerly "[verb] circles around" (actually "X circles around"), which was RfDd. MGlovesfun gave it an Adverb L3 header at this title which I have amended to Preposition. My reasoning is that preposition is the closest PoS grammatically because this requires a noun as complement, which is not what a user would expect with an adverb. It clearly fails many tests to be a preposition. In the usage notes I say it behaves "as if" it were a preposition.

BTW, in COCA "run circles around" is as common as "run rings around".

1. Would it be better just to give this the lame Phrase L3 header?
2. Is there some other way to do this?

-- DCDuring TALK 18:24, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

One of the grammatical problems with calling this a preposition is that a multi-word preposition should not be able to have a noun-like constituent be modified by an adjective. A review of COCA shows that "endless", "noisy", "quick", and "frantic" are adjectives that do so. And this is also not a phrase except in the loosest sense because its constituents almost always would be in separate phrases in a grammatical analysis.

The most grammatically satisfying entry arrangement would be to have both run circles around and run rings around. Forms of "run circles around" are 45 of the total of 57 figurative occurrences of this "[verb] circles around" at COCA. No other verb appears more than twice. DCDuring TALK 03:05, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I would favor having this at run circles around, with any equivalent verb phrases redirected thereto. Assigning any POS to "circles around" is problematic IMO, because the phrase chunks into "[run circles] [around X]"; 'circles' and 'around' relate to the verb and noun respectively, and do not form a unit of their own. -- Visviva 17:06, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

We now have run circles around and run rings around (earlier, larger % of uses are figurative) and alt form entries run circles round and run rings round. DCDuring TALK 18:35, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Transwiki:Never Never Land

Definitely ought to lose the capitalization in my opinion, but I'm not quite certain if this should be made into a redirect to, an alternate form of, or a synonym of neverland. Also going by the hits on b.g.c, the hyphenated never-never land should also be included. — Carolina wren discussió 07:02, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Not a redirect if we can find this spelling/capitalization/etc. attested. Any attestable form of a noun should have a page of its own, even if it's merely to indicate that it's an alternative spelling. Only phrases and long idioms are eligible to be redirected. I'd look in Barrie's novel and in the stage play to see what the original form(s) were, and proceed from there. As far as I can determine, the stage play used the expanded form in 1904, and the form in the novel was shortened to Neverland. --EncycloPetey 02:50, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] relevant

I came across a few instances where the word relevant is used to mean "non-obsolete; up to date; current". See here, for example, as well as here (which also uses "relevant" in its classic sense: "related, connected"). Do you think it could be added as another meaning? Korodzik 04:49, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen similar usages, though I always think of them as meaning "directly related, connected, or pertinent to the present, or to the current generation" (implied topic), so not a separate sense. What does anyone else think? Dbfirs 07:59, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

It sure seems like a separate sense to me. It is hard to imagine "related" or even "pertinent" being used in quite the same way. -- Visviva 18:22, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The entry could use a bit of improvement. MWonline has 3 subsenses. DCDuring TALK 17:34, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Tulyani

This is a surname used by a number of Punjabi speaking people in India; could anybody has more details on this surname and update on the page?

[edit] worse comes to worst

Why do we not have an entry for this common idiomatic expression? Tooironic 13:08, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Good question. Also, why does no other OneLook dictionary have this or any variant AFAICT? Some dictionaries include it, but not as a headword. The wonderful MW Dictionary of English Usage (1989) has an entry which I have consulted. I have also consulted COCA which has at least 73 occurrences of forms of this idiom in modern American use. 61/73 are preceded by "if", as was the first attested use in 1597 according to MWDEU. Only 2/73 are of the form "wors? [come] to the wors?" An adverb or auxiliary verb can precede [come] in 4 additional cases. There are 3 common combinations on COCA of worse and worst. worse/worst is the most common at 34, nearly twice as common as worst/worst at 19 and worse/worse at 18.

Your question assumes the answer to the question of whether it is idiomatic. Expressions of the form "if/when X [come] to Y" are not really idiomatic. This expression as a whole is not a set phrase because one can insert adverbs and substitute terms. But the forms without "if" seem to me very likely to be idiomatic, because the do seem fixed, with the verb not even inflecting in the small sample of 11, always being "comes".

• IOW, the very form of the expression you have intuitively selected seems to be the one most likely to meet WT:CFI. It has the additional virtue of being likely to be a the top of a search where the user typed another form, unless the user types "came". We might want some redirects to this. DCDuring TALK 15:31, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Fantastic, added Chinese translation. Tooironic 04:21, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] make an exhibition of oneself

[edit] make a spectacle of oneself

In the US this is uncommon, per COCA, relative to make a spectacle of oneself (close synonym) and make a fool of oneself (less close). Is this more common than the "spectacle" form in the UK, Canada, Oz? DCDuring TALK 16:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

• In the UK - yes, much more common. SemperBlotto 21:41, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Now marked as UK and US, respectively. Canada, Oz, NZ, India, SA, Ireland, elsewhere? DCDuring TALK 23:47, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Do any of these exist?

Whilst trying to clear all the crap out of the English on the French Wiktionary, I came across these. Since I don't know what they mean, I can't propose them for deletion. If they do have some idiomatic, context specific meaning, they should be here.

athletic protector bathing box bladder campion earth pillar free hand

grounded theory hedge garlic machine of government manoeuvre margin

Mglovesfun (talk) 21:38, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The terms bladder campion and hedge garlic sound like plant names. However, I'll have to do some searching and checking to see whether these are "real" common names or just poor renderings of scientific or foreign names. I think free hand may refer to permitting freedom of action, as in "...allowed him to proceed with a free hand." At least, that's a possible meaning. --EncycloPetey 21:50, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll vouch for athletic protector/athletic protector, both of which I remember as euphemisms for jockstrap. As a betting proposition, a vernacular plant name entry that has a species name in it is probably OK. Consider red clover and white clover. earth pillar looks real as a geology term but might be dated. bathing box doesn't sound like a US term and doesn't appear in a OneLook dictionary. w:Grounded theory might provide a clue about that one. DCDuring TALK 23:17, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I waver on unusual common names of plants because there are field guide authors who invent "common" names for plants that don't actually have them. So, nearly every moss in the UK has a "common name", even though the vast majority of people have no clue about mosses. These invented names appear only in field guides, the way that some English words appear only in dictionaries. They are often clumsy translations of the scientific names made for the field guide. --EncycloPetey 02:42, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

Most seem OK. manoeuvre margin is just the margin of manoeuvre. SemperBlotto 07:29, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll add pheasant's eye then, it seems to be a plant known as adonide in French (fr:pheasant’s eye)

A free hand is a countable near-synonym to free reign, but implying a collaborative or non-exclusive responsibility. Probably a sum-of-parts construction of a common figurative sense of hand, which we don't seem to define. “Having a hand in the business;” “being given a free hand to run the company.” —Michael Z. 2009-09-20 18:28 z

[edit] utilize

We now have five senses of a term that most dictionaries cover in one or two. We have no usage examples or citations. This is all because of the use-utilize distinction, a favorite among usage guides. Entry has several ugly footnotes. Can this entry be helped? DCDuring TALK 10:15, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] xth

Having a bit of trouble writing a good definition for ixième - I put nth for the simple reason we don't have xth. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:38, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

That's the proper translation. kwami 20:43, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

How about umpteenth, which also carry the slight informality of ixième? Circeus 03:56, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] RfTerm: “the study of fortifications”

Hi y’all. What is the term (i.e., I’m looking for the -logy word) for the study of fortifications, especially those of castles? Thanks in advance to whoever can help me with this. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 17:57, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

(y'all... what a wonderful word...) Unfortunately, I'm not sure a "logy" for this one exists. (A quick Google search didn't turn up anything, neither did my other dictionary.) AFAICT, the science is also called "fortification". L☺g☺maniac chat? 18:43, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

This appears to be the case. [14] -- Visviva 19:10, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

castellology is sometimes used, but does not extend to anything besides castles. The superordinate field would be "military architecture", I suppose. Neither seems like exactly what you are looking for. -- Visviva 19:02, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, curses. Thanks anyway, everyone. I was hoping for an etymological purebred, FWIW. I’ve requested that translations be added to our entry for fortification; perhaps I’ll get an appropriate Ancient Greek etymon thereby… :-) † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 04:07, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

When a person feels the need to do a reverse lookup on Liddell & Scott, there are few things handier than Perseus. It does seem that there would be a logical place in the language for something like *teichology or perhaps *teichismatics. But neither appears to have ever gained any currency. -- Visviva 06:17, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the link; it’s been noted. You’re right — teichology and teichismatics get only a single citation each. But what citations; you couldn’t dream of sentences with more exegetic context. Teichology is almost certainly a nonce word in that citation, but teichismatics looks kosher. Teichismatics shall be the word I use for this! Thanks again, everyone. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 16:00, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] crash

There's some additional sense of the verb (and perhaps the noun) in activity planning, which I just came across while researching crashable. It seems that crashing is something one does to an activity to make it take place more quickly and minimise the critical path. Anyone know enough to write a good definition? Equinox ◑ 22:54, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I've got crash#Verb. I've looked at the noun before and could find use of a plural noun in this sense. The common uses "crash course", "crash diet", "crash program", "crash deadline" look like they ought to be attributive use, but I can't find any clearly non-adjective use. There is now a simple sense at crash#Adjective. DCDuring TALK 00:55, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] average joe

[edit] flare up

No entry for these two common idioms either? Tooironic 04:44, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

See average Joe, unless what you mean is a cup of [[average]] [[joe]]. Which of average Joe and average joe should be the main entry for the idiom is an empirical question resolved at a corpus like COCA or b.g.c. A search for average joe yields average Joe in the search box and at the top of the search results.

See flare-up, flareup. But we miss flare up#Verb. DCDuring TALK 12:30, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

average Joe is about 50 times as common on COCA as average joe, but the lower case form is attestable. DCDuring TALK 22:38, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] lown

Please help determine whether the word is Scots or English. The example from Citations:lown endorses the last option. For more refer to User talk:Widsith#lown. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 20:04, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

My copy of Chambers has two etymologies. Firstly, lown and lowne are Shakespearean variants of loon#Etymology 1 (which Wiktionary states is from Middle English but Chambers says "Origin unknown"). Secondly lown, lownd, loun and lound are variants of the Scottish word, for which Chambers gives: adjective (sheltered; calm; quiet), adverb (quietly), noun (calm; quiet; shelter) and intransitive verb (to calm); and the etymology Old Norse logn (noun). Pingku 20:39, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

The section was aimed at the second meaning and at determining whether it is to be reckoned English (new evidence would be the entry in MW dictionary), what tag does it deserve - dialect, regional...? The first case is merely an obsolete spelling. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 05:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The header has been changed to English. Now the quæstion is whether the comparative and superlative grades are: lowner, lownest or more lown, most lown. Is there anyone with access to a dictionary which could resolve the issue? MW does not seem to have any clue. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 06:48, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The OED doesn’t specify a comparative or superlative, but it has three quotations that use lowner and google books:"lownest" yields many hits showing use of the superlative lownest; furthermore, the fact that lown is a monosyllable adds weight to the claim that the comparative and superlative degrees are formed with -er and -est (since all monosyllables may form them by such suffixation, as a general rule). † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 02:10, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] vale, second definition needed.

We seem to be missing a definition for vale, but I'm not sure how to define it or what part of speech to use. Twice recently I have seen something like Vale Bill Smith as the heading for an obituary. Dictionary.com list vale as having meanings similar, but not sure if they are exactly the same as I am thinking of. All help appreciated.--Dmol 23:14, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

It's under the Latin def. It might be a good idea to add a usage note under the English to mention this usage in newspapers.--Tyranny Sue 07:15, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

On second thought (& further research) I think it requires another (Verb) entry under the English, with separate Etymology & Pronunciation. I'm working on it now.--Tyranny Sue 07:22, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] get on

"Get your groove on!" Should this sense be included in this entry? Tooironic 12:13, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] alopecia areata (and similar)

This medical term is used in English language sentences without the use of quotation marks or italics - so I'm pretty sure that it is English. However, the second word (areata) does not seem to be used by itself in English language sentences, and seems to be Latin.

Does that make sense?

Would it be OK to add an English entry for it having, in place of a definition, "used only in the term . . ."?

There are quite a few of this sort of medical term, e.g. anorexia nervosa. SemperBlotto 08:25, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

That seems kind of iffy to me. I prefer to just pass them by, figuring that very few people would ever search for "areata" or "nervosa" as an English word (and if they did, the appropriate entry would probably be near the top of the search results anyway). -- Visviva 09:50, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Likewise for me. This happens in almost every scientific name of an organism as well, where the combination of generic name with specific epithet is a Translingual species name, but the specific epithet is not a Translingual word.

There is no reason to treat such components as "English", "Translingual", etc. when they do not function as words in those languages, especially so when you consider that alopecia areata is attestable in French, German, and Spanish as well. Does that mean that areata should have a "used only in..." for those languages as well? Doing so would generate whole new sections with lists of places where the element is used as part of a word, without actually providing any definitions or meanings. The combination was originally composed as Latin, so the components can simply be treated as Latin and this can be expressed in the Etymology section as well. --EncycloPetey 12:59, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is different from words found only in one expression, such as the French à brûle-pourpoint, where it is simply impossible to argue that brûle-pourpoint is a word, yet a reference of some sort is warranted,so it currently redirects to the latter. Circeus 03:46, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] shake or shake it?

Hi, I recently added a new verb definition for shake - "to dance". My questions are: (1) Is it transitive or intransitive? (2) Would it be more appropriate to be listed under shake it instead? Cheers Tooironic 20:36, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

It certainly needs a good sense at shake, both transitive and intransitive. "Shake" seems to refer to almost a wide range of kinds of dancing. The "it" in "shake it" is so non-specific that it no longer seems to barely be a pronoun. This use of "it" comes up a lot. I don't know that it is worth a specific grammar appendix or section. Also, even if it is a distinctive use of "it" it still seems SoP. But perhaps there is a leer associated with the "it" that would justify including this (with a proper reference to the leer). DCDuring TALK 22:13, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] again

Can someone please add the sense of again which is colloquially used to ask someone to repeat information, e.g. "What was your name again?" I wish to add the Chinese translation. Cheers. Tooironic 22:17, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I gave it a shot … not a very good shot, but it's a start, and it's hopefully enough to hang your translation on. —Ruakh_TALK 01:02, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I tried to add a new translation table, but it looks awkward to me. Someone talented needs to get in there and sort out translation tables for all the definitions. This is giving me a headache. Tooironic 02:42, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] secrete, 2nd sense (to conceal; to steal) obsolete? or at least dated?

Just wondering if anyone out there actually uses this sense any more? In my experience it's obsolete, or at least dated, as 'secret' (whose meaning is much more appropriate) is used instead.--Tyranny Sue 05:35, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Of the 25 general dictionaries listed by OneLook (ignoring Wikipedia and Wiktionary), most didn’t list a verb sense for secret at all; those that did tagged it as {{obsolete}} and included a note stating that they got the definition from Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (1913). The one dictionary that listed the verb sense without an {{obsolete}} tag was AllWords.com, which includes as a footnote “Dictionary content provided from Wiktionary.org under the GNU Free Documentation License”. I’ve readded the tag, citing both the OED and Webster’s as supporting references. Conversely, Dictionary.com, MSN Encarta, the Compact OED, the American Heritage Dictionary (via Yahoo), the Cambridge Dictionary Online, Webster’s New World College Dictionary [4^th Ed.], the OED [2^nd Ed.; 1989], and many others all list the synonymous sense of the verb secrete without qualification (whilst most of their etymology sections note its derivation from the now obsolete verb secret). Clearly, lexicographical consensus is that secrete is perfectly current, whereas the verb secret had become obsolete by the eighteenth century. Consequently, the (considerable) onus is on you to prove otherwise. Appeals to unverifiable personal experience will not suffice, and neither will relying on the present participle secreting and past form secreted, since we have no way of telling to which verb they belong, owing to the two verbs’ synonymy. (And, FWIW, spelling rules for pronunciation are against their attribution to secret.) If you wish to show the verb secret to be current, gather citations for it spelt as secret, secrets, secretting, and secretted; I found one for secretting from 2003, so you may indeed succeed (though all the others are eighteenth-century uses). † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 17:19, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I have never attempted to assert that 'secretting' and 'secretted' are in current use (and by the way, please do not delete perfectly valid quotations that wikipedians add to entries, as you did to both of mine on these entries - that is vandalistic behavior). As I pointed out previously, there is plenty of precedent for this being spelt with one 't'. I have now added quotations/citations under the verb sense of 'secret', unambiguously using the appropriate tense.--Tyranny Sue 11:35, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

The reason I suggested you attempt to verify the verb partly through secretting and secretted is that they can be unambiguously be attributed to the verb secret, whereas secreting and secreted could structurally be attributed to either secret or secrete. Sorry for deleting your quotations; I should’ve cleaned them up instead. I did do that ([15], [16]) eventually; please take greater care to get the details right with quotations (especially for older texts which tend to be reprinted many times) — you were off by 28 and 83 years with yours. You have indeed proven the currency of the verb secret now, to your credit. It would be good to have examples which use it without away, unless you think something like your original usage note is still warranted. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 16:32, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Policy on ordering of spelling alternatives in definitions?

I'm wondering if we have any kind of policy on this. (E.g. alphabetical; oldest usage first; obsolete usage last.)
For example, "to secret ([...] present participle secretting (UK) or secreting (US), simple past and past participle secretted (UK) or secreted (US))"
(note: the spellings currently placed first are obsolete) --Tyranny Sue 06:11, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

If "secretting" is in fact obsolete, while the verb itself is not, IMO there is no need for it to be in the inflection line at all; it can be satisfactorily covered in a usage note. We wouldn't put "doth" in the inflection line for "do", I hope.  :-) -- Visviva 06:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, well 'secretting' & 'secretted' appear to be obsolete spellings of 'secreting' & 'secretted', which are definitely not obsolete.--Tyranny Sue 07:06, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The two-t spelling appears in many US 18th-century US writings so the UK tag doesn't seem right. The two-t forms "secretting" and "secretted" don't appear in BNC, COCA, or Google News. Whatever the past use, they are at least archaic if not obsolete. I would venture that they would seem a misspelling to most readers and editors of contemporary writings. DCDuring TALK 13:24, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

On the policy question, it seems appropriate to have at least current US/UK differences. I don't know how often there are differences of this type that have other regional bases (Australia, NZ, India, Canada, South Africa, Southern US, Geordie) and what our practice has been. I would also argue to exclude rare and archaic inflected forms from the inflection line. DCDuring TALK 13:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, we shouldn’t clutter the conjugation line with all historical forms, though I do think we should list disused distinct past participles for strong declension verbs and list strong declension conjugations for now-weak declension verbs. As for the specific case of the verb secret, in my opinion (which is in accord with lexicographical consensus), the entire verb is obsolete, not just the double-‘t’ present participle and past form, so those forms themselves shouldn’t be tagged as {{obsolete}}. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 17:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

There's a BP question about which current/recent regional or uncommon forms should appear in the inflection line. Whether obsolete lemmas are adequately marked is another question. Is sense line marking enough? DCDuring TALK 17:51, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Personally, if I think a form would be considered "wrong" by most native speakers, I would omit it from the infinitive root word's inflection line (e.g. babysitted, plasmalemmae). I don't know how realistic my idea of what most speakers think is, though. Equinox ◑ 11:49, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I use COCA to check forms because the operation of search is more straightforward than Google. babysitted and baby-sitted are google-books-attestable but don't appear in COCA, so we'd have come to the same conclusion. My intuition on American English is good, but I get surprised every day by something. COCA is one of the tabs I keep open in FF. DCDuring TALK 14:18, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ∎?

In some magazines such as Time and The Economist, you see a black square at the end of an article. Unicode has several black squares, and which is the end sign? U+220E end of proof? - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 13:47, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I know what you're talking about. The character you selected however is only used in mathematical context and nowhere else. I'd look somewhere in here. -- Prince Kassad 14:02, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

w:Tombstone_(typography) suggests that the end of proof mark and the end-of-article mark are one and the same. I have no clue, myself. The online version of Time doesn't seem to use it, or I would just do a little cutty-pasty thing. -- Visviva 14:42, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The closest I can find in Unicode is under Mathematical Operators and is ∎ (end of proof, a.k.a. "halmos"). As Mjazac has commented, this doesn't seem semantically appropriate for closing an article, but it's probably the same thing visually. Equinox ◑ 11:43, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

The Unicode character is standardized for mathematical equations.

In typography, a designer can insert any character, dingbat, or graphic to serve as a tombstone, often a magazine's logo (e.g. the golden section in National Geographic, or, if memory serves me, the infinity symbol in the old Omni magazine). —Michael Z. 2009-09-24 00:33 z

Hm. I think in typesetting this has a different name, but I can't think of it. —Michael Z. 2009-09-24 00:57 z

It’s ■. We always just called it a square bullet, although there are different sizes of square bullets. Different typefaces often need a different size of square bullet. ■ should fit Times Roman, Univers, Helvetica or Arial on a printed page. —Stephen 15:53, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

What's the Unicode for that? I don't know how to fish it with Firefox... Circeus 03:39, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is doing better than us by these at the moment: w:■ redirects one to w:Unicode Geometric Shapes, where this appears in the table as U+25A0, "BLACK SQUARE". This can be confirmed at Unicode.org (that file also includes some close variants, which might perhaps be the actual character used in some cases). -- Visviva 04:46, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

■ is U+25A0. —Stephen 04:55, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The unfilled square (U+25A1) is the version with which I am most familiar from mathematics. like the first of these. Dbfirs 08:47, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] (to play) good cop bad cop

Wow, wiktionary doesn't have this fairly common idiom. Help please! Tooironic 23:36, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

There are so many terms like this that we need that we have created a special place for such requests: WT:REE and its siblings for other languages. DCDuring TALK 23:45, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah I know, but this idiom is so well-known, that's why I posted it here, rather than among all the dihydroergotoxines and follicles of Meibomius. Tooironic 00:03, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

We need some good ones among the dross to keep people going there. I've lost all motivation to go there because I can just wait here for these gems. Don't skim the cream -- except by adding it yourself! DCDuring TALK 00:27, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'll add this one to the requests, as well as be right back (can't believe we didn't have an entry for this one!). Tooironic 00:57, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] chillaxin

Just come back to stir.

I see you guys still don't accept chillaxin as a real word, deserving its own entry, despite all the evidence.

Just throwing in a bit more ammunition

Google Search results

Chillaxin OR Chillaxing - 407,000

Chillaxin - 262,000 - 235,000 in the past year - 36,600 in the title of the page

Chillaxing - 150,000 - 126,000 in the past year - 16,100 in the title

Chillaxin NOT:Chillaxing - 254,000 - 233,000 in the past year - 36,600 in the title of the page

would seem Chillaxin is the dominant spelling!

And, by the way, Google accepts Chillaxin as a search term without suggewting it is a mispelling. compare with say "Fictography", where it suggests Pictography, and Fictorgraphy has only 2,470 Google Hits

Is in reputable dictionary

• Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
• Also in The Free Dictionary ...

Books

The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English by Grant Barrett

So we, no, Wiktionary is slower than the reputable dictionaries, slower even than print.

Newspaper

• The Washington Times
  

Jon Ward on July 27, 2009
...and so everybody's chillaxin.

• University Wire 02-17-2005 (The Dartmouth) (U-WIRE) HANOVER, N.H. --

"Where are the college kids these days?" So asks Thomas Friedman in his most recent New York Times column entitled "No Mullah Left Behind" (Feb. 13). To answer your question, Mr. Friedman, we're here -- just chillaxin'.

Used by Space Station Crew,
who wrote a haiku

Day of Freedom Launch
Leonardo and Spacewalks
Crew now Chillaxin'

as reported in:-

• www.cbsnews.com, STS-121 MISSION ARCHIVE (FINAL), Updated: 07/20/06
• www.spaceflightnow.com
• Article Headline: Fossum 'chillaxin' In Space -- Gov. Rick Perry Makes A Call To Aggie In Orbit. Article from:The Monitor (McAllen, TX) Art

Congress
From the congressional IM database. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_19_58/ai_n26711726/

RepJefferson: Jes chillaxin?

- - - - - - - -

SenatorHillary: xcept to make more trouble

[REDACTED]: jes hangin and chillaxin

So how much evidence do you need to take a word from Protologism to Neologism at least, then on to allowing an entry in the main, as a legitimate alternative spelling ?

I don't expect anything from Wiktionary. After spending a lot of effort over a couple of years, I finally quit in disgust. It is was over-run by pedants, deletionists, egos and puritans. Has anything changed really ?

Do you reckon chillaxin, with all this evidence behind it, should be included in some form?--Richardb 08:05, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

See also Wiktionary talk:Criteria for inclusion#What Wiktionary is NOT for a discussion over the principle.

i/my rel.short exp.here[tho likly retoric q anyway]:nutin'much seems2'v changed realy..:(--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 11:33, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand who "you guys" are... nothing has happened with that entry since it was deleted in 2006. So could you be a little more specific with your insults, please? At any rate, there's certainly no reason not to have chillaxin', and if you can provide 3 durably-archived citations for the apostropheless version, just go ahead and create it already. -- Visviva 11:47, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Man, you sure as hell wasted your time with that screed. Now, why don’t you go ahead and cite these two in accordance with the CFI? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 16:23, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, stop chillaxin and create the bloody entry already :P And while you're at it, create one for go hard. We definitely need more Aussie slang here. Tooironic 01:03, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for the newer folk here. If you check the page for chillaxin you will find that it was deleted despite a weight of evidence. It was the subject of a long running battle, in which the deletionists won out. It was deleted by SemperBlotto , TheDaveRoss , and Connel MacKenzie (Deleted and locked so even I, as an administrator, could not reinstate it). I was blocked over trying to get it included. I see someone has reinstated it. I'm waiting to see its fate before I consider really contributing again.--Richardb 16:12, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

welcombak-stilots2do![idontlike deletors much either;)--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 08:34, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Strange. I don't see why it should be deleted. In Australia at least it's a pretty common colloquialism, especially among young people. Tooironic 10:08, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Neither chillax nor chillaxing had been deleted; only the forms with “dropped ‘g’s” — chillaxin and chillaxin’ — were formerly objected to. I’ve recreated them; they’re unlikely to be deleted again — the addition of quotations to their entries would ensure that they won’t be. I’d like access to the deletion log to see why they were deleted originally, since they clearly satisfy the CFI; I’m curious to see whether the reason was one of a stronger deletionist tendency at the time, one of bad formatting and POV-pushing, a combination of these factors, or whatever. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 15:11, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Treating "Postposition" as a POS with its own header

Regarding these edits to nothwithstanding and aside by User:TAKASUGI Shinji, I question treating "Postposition" as a separate part of speech. This isn't correct, is it? -- WikiPedant 18:50, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense to have Preposition but not Postposition. Also, there are many languages where postpositions play a vital role in grammar. -- Prince Kassad 19:19, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Some of the limitations in WT:ELE don't really make sense for other languages, as I understand it. The PoS headers are barely adequate for English, after all. There are a good number of headers that appear in non-English sections that probably have no sanction by contributors to that language but remain anyway. For a listing of L3 headers deemed "invalid" see User:Robert_Ullmann/L3#Invalid L3 headers. Some of them are now sanctioned (eg, Determiner, Hypernyms, Hyponyms), some are clearly in error, some may make sense in the language in which used, some are indications that ELE needs work ("PoS n" and "Pronunciation n"). It would be useful if the sanctioned or defensible ones were compiled somewhere in tabular form so that they did not appear on clean-up lists. DCDuring TALK 19:59, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Someone kindly remind me to revise the list in that program and re-run in if I haven't done so in the next day or so? The (more) authoritative list and status is in WT:POS. There are a number that we should run process to formally standardize (for languages other than English), "Postposition" is one of them. (also "Particle", etc) Robert Ullmann 09:09, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's correct in English, though as Prince Kassad notes there are languages where this would be the proper term. I believe notwithstanding would technically be an ambiposition, since it is possible -- though somewhat awkward -- to place it at the beginning of the phrase. But I think we can follow the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (p. 602) in considering "preposition" to encompass all English adpositions. -- Visviva 02:27, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

They are clearly postpositions. But if you want to call them "prepositions", just go ahead. - TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 04:37, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] meme

The other dictionaries I check confirm my expectation that they would have only one sense. Our sense #1 and #2 differ only by the latter adding "self-propagating". My guess is that this was added because our sense #1 is over-specified. These senses should be merged and re-worded.

Sense number three is interesting. It's a more specific sense or subsense. Whether it's truly a sense or just an example is probably worth discussing. A relative of the email forward. — hippietrail 21:23, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Is "self-propagating" right? It's supposed to be an analog to a gene. Is a gene self-replicating?

I've heard the "meme" concept applied to designs, to manufactured objects, to words, to code fragments. "A cultural replicant"?

Sense three seems wonderfully specific by comparison, though one could only confirm that the citations refer to the referent of the sense line with a lot of more context. DCDuring TALK 22:40, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I support merging these senses. --Dan Polansky 13:56, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] (in)transitive verbs

In an informal context, I've come across the following construction: ""I'm sorry," she apologized." Would "I'm sorry," in this case be the object of the verb, and would this make apologize a transitive verb when used in such an informal manner? Maybe it's the author's over-elaborate style, but this seems incorrect to me. -- 203.171.195.240 21:39, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

• It just looks like a style issue to me. It's like saying ""I'm sorry," she said, apologetically." SemperBlotto 21:42, 25 September 2009 (UTC)
• I think ‘incorrect’ is missing the point. You wouldn't use it that way in conversation, but creative writers are free to play around with things like transitivity as long as everyone understands what's being said. Ƿidsiþ 07:09, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Definition of compromise in need of improvement

Could people please look at the definitions for compromise and see if it can be improved? There was a comment at feedback that it was too hard and I see the point. RJFJR 00:03, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Shakespearean cowslip

I am seeking the Shekespeare's definition of the word "cowslips' and "cowslips pearl"

Shakespearean cowslip was a plant with yellow flowers, scientific name w:Caltha palustris. A pearl refers to a dewdrop on a cowslip’s yellow flower. —Stephen 09:36, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] 爩

Could whoever knows what needs to be knows add a stroke-order .gif file to the entry for 爩 per 色 please? Thanks. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 14:02, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Please spell and create an entry (if necessary) for a phrase

I heard a certain "phrase" from a mate today. This could be completely off the plot but I'm inclined to believe it may be military(ish) slang. The approximate IPA pronunciation (as I can't really read or write IPA very well)for it would be something like /di.di.maʊ/. Can anyone spell and define it? 50 Xylophone Players talk 22:35, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Context would help a lot! Robert Ullmann 23:33, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Some Googling turns up our very own Transwiki:Di di mau, which could definitely use some love. —Ruakh_TALK 04:46, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

:P It seems to have been dealt with now. Thanks, Ruakh. 50 Xylophone Players talk 20:34, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Etymology of "whinge"

I believe this to be a "portmanteau" word combining "whine" and "cringe". I would appreciate any suggestions about confirming this.

Although the definition of the word as "complaining" is described as Australian slang, I have found this usage in British literature and radio productions. —This comment was unsigned.

Here's what the Online Etymology Dictionary has to say. That is not to say that proximity to the terms you mention doesn't help account for the continued use. DCDuring TALK 18:55, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Shorter Oxford English dictionary says: Sc. and n. dial. 1513. [north. form of late OE. hwinsian = OHG. win(i)sōn (whence G. winseln) :- Gmc. *xwinisōjan; see WHINE v.] — hippietrail 04:51, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "digitgrade" vs "digitigrade"

Are the two words "digitgrade" and "digitigrade" correct spelling? In a number of online dictionaries like http://www.askoxford.com , http://www.merriam-webster.com , http://dictionary.reference.com , http://www.tfd.com , no found for "digitgrade" but valid for "digitigrade". --Quest for Truth 15:10, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

No, only digitigrade is correct; see OneLook: digitgrade (just Wiktionary) vs. digitigrade (25 dictionaries). I’ve changed digitgrade to a misspelling entry; however, going on Google Book Search: google books:"digitigrade" (1,021) vs. google books:"digitgrade" (39), I wouldn’t say it’s common enough a misspelling, so I’ve requested its deletion. Unfortunately, in the time that the entry’s been here, the Mandarin Wiktionary’s copied it to theirs; I’ve informed them on the entry’s talk page that it’s a misspelling. *Digitgrade was added by Chimerical05, whose last contribution was nearly three years ago, so we’re unlikely to find out why it was added. I’ve added an etymology and other details to digitigrade, showing its derivation from Latin digitigrada (from digitus (“‘finger”, “toe”, “digit’”) + -gradus (“‘going”, “walking’”) = “walking on [the] toes”); rules of English morphology require that digit- coöccur with the Latinate interfix -i- when prefixed to a consonant-initial morpheme. Fortunately, we have plantigrade, but not *plantgrade. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 18:37, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Mitsein

I just created an entry for Mitsein. It's a word I came across reading Beauvoir. The term was coined by either Hegel or Heidegger. It's loose translation is "togetherness" or "a pair with some kind of dynamic relation." Although it does not have plural usage, and a quote and reference would be helpful if anyone with some skills could help complete the entry. -VitaminN

[edit] agog

I have added a new sense that I cannot find in any dictionary. I think the quotations support the sense. Could someone take a look? I think that the sense has something to do with a misconstruction of the word. It is as if the authors thought it had something to do with goggle#Verb, which the sources seem to say it does not. DCDuring TALK 04:16, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes it does appear to be used in this way - presumably because people open their eyes wide in eager anticipation. I don't think it can mean eyes open wide in surprise though. Dbfirs 11:17, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

With the long history of use apparently in this sense, why do dictionaries not show it? Is it because it is usually just metonymy? DCDuring TALK 14:31, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I would say so (or synecdoche, depending on which way round you look at it). Dbfirs 18:09, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] handy

I would think that the following sense of "handy" is an adverb:

1. Nearby, within reach.

   You wouldn’t have a screwdriver handy, would you?

But OneLook dictionaries disagree with me and agree with Wiktioanry that it is an adjective.

At least, "within reach" is an adverbial phrase of space or location, isn't it? What do you think? --Dan Polansky 11:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I can't quite get "handy" as a place adverb. For example, it doesn't seem to be a natural answer to the the question "Where do you keep the screwdriver?" I would feel compelled to say "It's handy" rather than the bare "Handy". Nor would one say *"I moved/placed/put/set the screwdriver handy". I can't begin to imagine using "handy" with a verb that doesn't have a noun complement - though I'm sure it's been done at some point.

The "have" construction readily works with unmistakable adjectives with meanings that are quite close to "handy", like "ready" or "available" or "convenient". DCDuring TALK 15:41, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] trouble maker

Is this really proscribed? Why? Can it be sourced that some grammar authority considers this proscribed? --Dan Polansky 13:53, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

When written the space can lead a reader to start a different construction, I suppose. Evidently writers prefer the solid spelling. At COCA troublemaker is preferred over either the hyphened or spaced form 20:1. At BNC the solid and hyphened forms (roughly equal) beat the spaced form 5:1. DCDuring TALK 14:40, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Right, but for low-frequency terms we have the "rare" tag, isn't it? Like, proscribed would mean that a notable grammarian or institution has a set of rules and rationales for how terms should look like, and the proscribed term breaks these rules.

Thank you for the COCA and BNC numbers. --Dan Polansky 15:01, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I never use the "proscribed" tag, but I don't proscribe its use by others if it is supported (which it rarely is). I usually replace an unsupported proscribed tag with a fact-based usage note, which often points in the same direction, though sometimes discusses regional differences if significant. DCDuring TALK 15:49, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Proscribed by both the New York Times Manual of Style (p. 122) and the Oxford Style Manual (p. 971, viewable at [17]). Or rather, both the NYT and Oxford specify the one-word form; they don't specifically mention the two-word form, but I think proscription can be reasonably inferred. I believe "trouble maker" would also be proscribed under the Chicago Manual of Style (5.202, 7.82), since only the unspaced, hyphen-free form appears in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate. -- Visviva 05:30, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] October 2009

[edit] as#Translingual

Why is this a Translingual Abbreviation of Assamese but a Translingual Symbol of attosecond? DCDuring TALK 00:23, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Seems backwards if anything. But I think ===Symbol=== would do fine for both. Many ISO 639 codes bear no relation to the English name of the language (e.g. {{de}}, {{hy}}), so "abbreviation" makes no sense as a general label. -- Visviva 05:33, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

~wren:ve-'dnt we ad'em /bot pl?[so repetitiv+lots stilmissin..

• here#=?meanin--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 07:48, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

like in carolina wren's ve - couldn't we add them by bot please? (So repetitive and lots are still missing)

• here "#"-sign in header - what meaning/function pl?
  

L☺g☺maniac chat? 14:50, 1 October 2009 (UTC) hier=nl,typo-sory--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 15:21, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] sun/moongazer

canit mean sth~sily psn or astronomer pl?--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 06:08, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Can it mean something like a silly person or an astronomer please?

L☺g☺maniac chat? 14:53, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] French horn

If that's the "American name", what's the non-American name? Tooironic 08:03, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

• In the orchestral music world, it's just called a horn. SemperBlotto 08:12, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] back vowel word or back-vowel word

What is the correct spelling of back vowel when used as an adjective? Is it with or without a dash? For example:

• rounded back-vowel noun
• unrounded front-vowel verb
• back-vowel words

Thansk. --Panda10 13:44, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Many writers follow a custom of hyphenating compound nouns when used attributively (what you mean by "as an adjective", though linguists use the term "adjective" more narrowly); however, many writers, especially academic writers, do not. (I imagine this has to do with the high frequency of attributive compound nouns in academic writing; there'd be just so many hyphens if they used them that way.) Of the first ten Google hits for "back vowel word", exactly five use hyphens, and exactly five use spaces. When we turn to Google Scholar, however, spaces win out by a fair margin. —Ruakh_TALK 14:42, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, but I should say that your first example looks awkward to me, since "rounded" modifies "vowel", whereas your hyphenation makes it look like it modifies "noun". (And, similarly with your second example. The third looks fine to me, though.) —Ruakh_TALK 14:49, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. This is very helpful. It seems that it's better to use spaces instead of dashes in all the above examples. --Panda10 14:58, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] pighells?

• 1951, Katherine Mansfield, Letters to John Middleton Murry, 1913-1922,

For one thing I had a splendid supper when I got on board—a whack of cold, lean beef and pighells, bread, butter ad lib., tea, and plenty of good bread.--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 18:08, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

• Looks like pickles to me. SemperBlotto 11:20, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

• I entered this quote, and checked it at the time by locating the book in a library. I expect it does mean pickles. Perhaps dialectal or an error. Maybe even an in-joke, considering it is from a letter. Pingku 17:02, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] gold

Can someone please add the Australian slang definition of gold meaning "awesome", e.g. "You met the love of your life at a milk bar? That's gold, mate." Tooironic 19:33, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Is that the same as in e.g. "comedy gold"? That would be (a broadening of?) the existing noun sense of "anything or anyone considered to be very valuable". Equinox ◑ 13:46, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] intrascapular

There are thousands of Google hits for this term. Is it possible that every single one of them actually means interscapular? SemperBlotto 19:34, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, probably not. In technical discourse there is usually a big difference between inter- and intra- forms. Indeed, usually they set up some kind of dichotomy; to take a simple example, internet vs intranet. Another example, in the Translation Studies field, is "interlingual translation" and "intralingual translation". The former describes translation from one language to another (translation proper); the latter, monolingual translation from one text type to another (e.g. "translating" an English technical paper on microsurgery into simple English for a conference). Though I'm no expert in medicine, my guess is that interscapular and intrascapular are of a similar difference. By the way, I just realised then in my edit preview that wiktionary has no entry for intralingual. I guess I better go rectify that. Tooironic 07:54, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

seems~it,sb-few:IBAT;a.intracapsular femur# mispelin.--史凡>voice-MSN/skypeme!RSI>typin=hard! 03:07, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] vampire, sense 2

Currently it's: "A person with the medical condition Systemic lupus erythematosus, colloquially known as vampirism, with effects such as photosensitivity, a desire for blood, and increased night vision."
This implies that people with SLE want to drink blood. I'm certainly no medical expert but that sounds pretty way-out. Having read the Pedia article on it, I think the "a desire for blood" clause would be better replaced with "brownish-red stained teeth" (see this section of the Pedia article ).
Any objections? Of course, if we have evidence that SLE sufferers really have a "desire for blood", I'm happy to leave it as is.--Tyranny Sue 16:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] vistilla

I'm having trouble translating this Spanish law term- something related to an incidental or procedural question. I'm also unsure of the translation of vista as it relates to law. Nadando 23:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Mississippi

Mississippi#Idiom refers to the use of the word to approximate a second of duration. For example, in the US it is used to count seconds before a defensive player can pursue the quarterback in touch football. The defensive player recites out loud "One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi." What PoS header should this get? Someone not directly familiar with this would be most helpful, probably. DCDuring TALK 15:54, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Proper noun IMO. It's the word, qua word, that's being used, with no particular meaning intended. So the word is a proper noun, and means whatever it means, and a usage note can indicate an additional use for its being said: to count time. But that's not a meaning of the word, so no definition line.​—msh210℠ 16:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Obvious, now that you state it so. It warrants a usage note, I guess. DCDuring TALK 16:51, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't have the time at the moment, but someone should fix [[one thousand]] too.—msh210℠ on a public computer 01:24, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if I can quite go along with this. Suppose instead of Mississippi this were something like "Moosasoopy", with no other meaning. We wouldn't deny Moosasoopy an entry, surely, or leave the definition line blank. Further, if a word is frequently used to mean nothing, as it essentially is in this case, providing only the non-null definitions is less than helpful. Certainly Mississippi is not being used to refer to either the river or the state in this case; thus, our definitions as given are not complete. Sure, someone using Wiktionary.org can just scroll down to get the information -- assuming they realize they need to -- but someone using a more utilitarian interface like Google Definitions or a DICT server would have no such luxury. (Google Defs seems to be blocking all entries with a Proper noun header at present, but we'll bracket that issue for now.) As for POS, I'm not quite sure, but ===Interjection=== seems reasonable. -- Visviva 03:47, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

It seems to me that {{non-gloss definition|Used in a common [[chronometric]] counting scheme, in which each iteration is sequentially numbered and supposed to be approximately one [[second]] in length.}} would be appropriate in this case. I don't see this as a proper noun. Interjection is better, but interjections don't usually take numbers as modifiers. Really, I think it belongs back under Idiom where it was as it certainly is "a locution peculiar of a particular language, that cannot be understood by way of a literal translation." — Carolina wren discussió 04:41, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Better to keep it in a usage note as it is now - I've heard "hippopotamus" used this way as well (according to Google Books, it would meet the CFI), and if there are others used this way even infrequently, do we really want to cast them as something other than uses of, as DCDuring suggests, "the word, qua word". Visviva's objection is mooted by the point that "Mississippi", as others, appears to have been chosen by dint of its present existence as a real word. bd2412 T 04:56, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Not all such words used for counting purposes are "real" words with other senses. For example out of eeny. meeny, miny, and moe, only one has an English sense as of now. — Carolina wren discussió 05:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

• But eeny. meeny, miny, and moe are used to indicate number, irrespective of the time dedicated to counting. Words like Mississippi and hippopotamus are selected to represent units of time precisely because (with the addition of the number itself) they take about a second to say. bd2412 T 04:06, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

"Chimpanzee" is used this way too (that's the one I grew up with); see [18]. —Angr 19:54, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Also elephant, it appears. -- Visviva 02:12, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Around here it was one little elephant, two little elephants... Equinox ◑ 03:37, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

But why would the origin of the sense matter? As a rule, we exclude/include senses based on usage, not etymology. Excluding this as a sense would only really make sense if it were a universal property of X-syllable words, but it is not. The specific word used certainly varies from one speech community to another, but within a speech community the word(s) used is/are strongly fixed; you can't just swap in any 4-syllable word. -- Visviva 02:12, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

• I don't quite understand how this can refer to the word Mississippi. This isn't like hello#Noun; if I count "one Mississippi, two Mississippi", this is simply a marker of time, not shorthand for "one saying of the word Mississippi, two sayings of the word Mississippi". Which is to say, AFAICS it doesn't refer to the word itself, but to nothing at all -- which seems noteworthy enough, and analogous to metasyntactic variables like foo. -- Visviva 02:12, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

It's a functional word. Not sure if it should be classed as an interjection or not. This certainly deserves a definition line, because a usage note doesn't represent a sense of a word. —Michael Z. 2009-10-14 02:52 z

Oops, I added an interjection heading and then found that one was recently removed. If OED can define hey, in part, as “A call to attract attention [...] sometimes used in the burden of a song with no definite meaning,” then we can define Mississippi as a call or chant to keep time. —Michael Z. 2009-10-14 03:09 z

It's not functioning grammatically like an interjection. It doesn't appear at the start of a sentence, set off by punctuation (for example). It behaves more like a noun for a unit of measure. Consider b.g.c. quotes like:

• If, for instance, you can count to "five Mississippi," […]
• A medium-high fire is a four to five Mississippi fire.
• Check how close the lightning is with the old trick of counting the seconds between the flash and the thunderclap. A count up to "five-Mississippi" means the last flash was about 1 mile distant.

The first uses Mississippi in the considered sense as the object of a preposition. The second quote uses it in the same way one might say "a four to five inch object". The final example hyphenates it with a numeral. All in all, this looks like a noun. --EncycloPetey 03:29, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

OED, s.v. “hey int. (n.):” 1. a. A call to attract attention... 1. c. as n. A cry of ‘hey!’. You use the word as an interjection (“hey!” or “one Mississippi!”); a use of it is represented by the noun (a hey, or a Mississippi).

When you use the word to count, you are just keeping time with a meaningless interjection. A use of the interjection is the derived noun, a Mississippi, which could be treated as a unit of time. (I think examples 1 and 3 may be quoting someone who counts as an example, rather than using the name of a unit, and 2 is using such a quotation attributively.) —Michael Z. 2009-10-14 04:06 z

That's not use as an interjection, any more than "one one thousand, two one thousand" or any other count. It's still a noun. Interjections usually express emotion or convey greetings and goodbyes. Please provide an example sentence where Mississippi is used as an interjection, as in "Mississippi! It's hot outside." I don't believe such a usage exists. --EncycloPetey 04:14, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

In counting, it's the length of pronouncing the word which is significant, not its meaning. Five Mississippis may take about five seconds to count, but if you tried to count “one second, two second, three second” in football, the play would be halted for cheating. Also note that the interjection is simply recited in the singular: the chant is “five Mississippi”, not a count of “five Mississippis.” We also used to recite “one, one thousand, two, one thousand, three, one thousand” in games—a simple chant, not a count of units. —Michael Z. 2009-10-14 04:25 z

It's not an exclamation—must an interjection be emotive? Perhaps that's not the right POS, but in counting, “Mississippi” is not a unit and not a noun. —Michael Z. 2009-10-14 04:29 z

You've demonstrated oddities of the noun, not use as an interjection. The fact that a word is unusual as a noun does not make it an interjection. Chants are not automatically interjections. The "chant" One potato, two potato is a sentence fragment (not an interjection), which is demonstrated by the fact that it's functionally equivalent to any number of other chants that exist as proper sentences. --EncycloPetey 04:33, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

For comparison, OED defines nonny (int.) as “Used in songs as (part of) a refrain.” A pure function word, “interjected between sentences, clauses, or words, mostly without grammatical connexion” (from OED's note s.v. “interjection,” which itself is given no POS). Maybe it's a judgment call, but I think Mississippi certainly can be interpreted as an interjection. —Michael Z. 2009-10-14 04:38 z

I'm aware of nonny, and I could see it as either an interjection or particle (a particle as we use it here is mostly a word with no grammatical function). However, Mississippi does not work like nonny does. It isn't interjected between sentences or clauses without function. The sense of mississippi we're discussing would not turn up in a situation like: "Belle who holds my heart, Mississippi, Mississippi, grant me another glance." Rather Mississippi is uses strictly with numerals as a count, which carries a strict and specific function. --EncycloPetey 04:45, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Looks to me like they are all used to keep time in exactly the same way, in their proper context: one Mississippi, one potato, hey nonny nonny, boom chucka-lucka, hey ho (let's go), sha na na. —Michael Z. 2009-10-14 13:07 z

How about an appendix, then? Appendix:Words used as placeholders to count seconds? bd2412 T 15:30, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

That should be adequate. A link in See also should be almost as accessible as a PoS, since the users couldn't guess a PoS any better than us. We could even do {{only in}} for any "Moosasoopies" we may find. DCDuring TALK 18:08, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I've started the appendix - not sure how best to arrange it. Any other words that should go in would be appreciated! bd2412 T 22:27, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I fixed the spelling for you :) L☺g☺maniac chat? 22:34, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks - I've added citations, but can't find any for battleship or little elephant. bd2412 T 23:47, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

I've cited battleship. —Rod (A. Smith) 03:36, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Nicely done. Thanks! bd2412 T 17:25, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

My, what a lovely Appendix. Such a pearl. DCDuring TALK 19:35, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Now all we need to do is polish it some more and it'll be ready for the display case. :) L☺g☺maniac chat? 19:42, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

How does this affect the presentation in pages like Mississippi? Personally, I think it's absurd for more than half of that page to be dedicated to this interjection sense. Also, on a side note, we really need some means of indexing appendices. bd2412 T 20:13, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd favor just including the Appendix in See also for this and all terms that meet CFI for other uses. For terms that do not meet CFI for other uses, {{only in}} directing users to the appendix seems perfect. DCDuring TALK 20:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] hurple

Entry was added by an IP. A quick check indicated that it probably is indeed a word, but I was unable to ascertain if it were Scottish English, or if it were Scots. — Carolina wren discussió 03:38, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

FWIW it was on the British TV Show QI as a rhyme for hurple in English. I seem to think it was in the Oxford, so as far as I know it does exist. Mglovesfun (talk) 07:48, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

• (I think MG meant purple above) – in Scots and English this word is spelled hirple. I can't find any use of the -u- spelling, although the OED has it as an alternative (regional) spelling of hurkle, which has a related but not identical meaning. Ƿidsiþ 05:52, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] look down on someone

I was trying to start this article, but I feel unsure about the title. Should it be look down, look down on or look down on someone? I'm talking about to condescend. Mglovesfun (talk) 07:47, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Since one could look down at or look down upon with the same meaning, I'd favor look down myself. — Carolina wren discussió 13:39, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

And cf. look-down, shoot-down which is partly derived from this sense of "look down on". look down would seem like a good entry. Robert Ullmann 17:43, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, quickly, create this entry. I can't believe it doesn't exist yet. In Chinese there are about a hundred ways to say it. Tooironic 04:31, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd favor look down on, because the "on" does not function as a preposition. This looks like a complex phrasal verb to me. However, we can start the entry at either location and move it afterwards, if necessary. --EncycloPetey 04:36, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I've made a start. Feel free to improve and/or move. SemperBlotto 11:16, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] nonce second etymology

I'd always understood the crypto use of nonce to be directly from the lexicographic technical use and the common meaning, e.g. the first etymology.

The second seems like a typical invention, by someone who doesn't know whence a word came; it has one single source here page 3. It also appears in the 'pedia, probably inserted by the same editor.

I think we have only one etymology here? Robert Ullmann 12:33, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The second seems more of mnemonic than an etymology. Perhaps it could be so honored in a usage example or citation. DCDuring TALK 11:42, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, the claimed etymology has been circulating since about 1999. [19]. But the use in cryptography/security goes back to at least the early 80s: [20]. It seems like what Ciardi would call a "ghost etymology". We should probably mention that it's wrong (assuming it is wrong), lest it be reinserted. These things tend to be awfully persistent, once they get a foothold. -- Visviva 03:01, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

• Interestingly, the OED gave this word a thorough update recently (in June), and they still don't have the crypto sense. They also note that the sexual deviant sense is "origin unknown", so that makes at least 2 etymologies. For the crypto use, I agree that it seems to show a sense-development from the lexicography uses, but maybe we should put it under "origin unknown" as well until we have a better collection of early citations. Ƿidsiþ 15:36, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] library

Someone had a added a non-ELE header "False friends" after translations. Would this make sense as an additional trans table under the Translation header? Should it be on the talk page? Is there another way to make use of this kind of material? Should there be any guidance about what constitutes an includable false friend? DCDuring TALK 23:02, 10 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry I don't feel qualified enough to answer those questions, but can I just say what a great idea for a section to improve the quality of translation tables! I've heard false friends can be quite a problem for speakers of European languages. Tooironic 00:28, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

To reduce the risk of confusion, I would prefer that this be under ===See also===, but otherwise seems like a good thing to have. -- Visviva 03:04, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't really see what purpose this section serves, in that I can't imagine a use case for it. Who are we expecting to notice and be helped by it? (That's not a rhetorical question, unless no one has an answer, in which case I guess it is one.) It seems like a usage note would be more useful — something along the lines of, "Note that the meaning of library is not the same as that of its cognates in Romance languages (such as French librairie and Italian libreria)." (Of course, neither approach really solves the main problem, which is language-learners failing to look up a word because they mistakenly assume they already understand it. But that's not a problem we can solve …) —Ruakh_TALK 04:11, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

This is a good point. It's not that there aren't people who need this information, but there is no particular reason to assume they would find their way to library in the first place. The Appendix:Glossary of false friends approach may be more constructive. Still, I think there is a case to be made for having this information in the entry -- if it is absent, then there is a strong likelihood that some well-intentioned person will come along and add (or re-add) such "translations", possibly while nobody is paying attention. The "cognate ergo translation" syndrome is maddeningly widespread. -- Visviva 07:00, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Would it make sense to have a link in "See also" to the False Friends Appendix? The info seems OT in Usage notes. The placement of See also after translations seems appropriate amd the label not too misleading. DCDuring TALK 11:13, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] What is un potager?

What is the name of this thing in English? I have never had one in my kitchen! Some kind of stone stove? Maybe I will ask my French grandmother - she might have had one. Rising Sun 14:10, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it's a "warming oven" (a traditional stone one). Equinox ◑ 14:27, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Possibly. I've been looking on Google Images for these, but it hasn't helped much. However, I found that potager can be an English noun - a type of vegetable garden or kitchen garden. Also parterre is a new English word for me. Rising Sun 14:36, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Potager in French is not an oven or anything of the sort. I am french, and to my knowledge it is only a vegetable garden: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitchen_garden

Yes, the usual sense is vegetable garden. This sense is new to me, but it's real (stone oven for vegetables). A reference: http://www.tempsdevivre.org/perigord/index.htm Lmaltier 10:53, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

It's in ATILF (marked as {{dated}} but looks more {{historical}} to me): "a kitchen oven made of stone or bricks, separate from the chimney and heated with live embers, for the preparation of simmered or stewed dishes." Most likely it doesn't have a specific English term. Circeus 22:05, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] nonvirile/virile

Are you happy with these grammar definitions? They're appearing in my Polish book. --Volants 15:09, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

They look fine to me; good job. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 16:35, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] not the word

"Pretty is not the word." That is, it's an understatement. Should we have this at [[not the word]]? At [[is not the word]]? (At the verb lemma form, [[not be the word]] or [[be not the word]]??)​—msh210℠ 16:47, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Though that is one way the expression is used, I have heard and read it in a more generic usage. In discourse, "X is not the word" is intended to make "X" an explicit topic of conversation. One-upping the speaker who used the word is one possibility, but also calling the speaker for exaggeration, or selecting a more precise word, or changing the valence, or shifting the focus altogether are also possible. There are many expressions that could perform that discourse function. A search on "[be] * the word" at COCA shows some of the range of use of this expression. DCDuring TALK 17:42, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Template:proscribed

Appendix:Glossary has for "proscribed": "Some educators or other authorities recommend against the listed usage." {{proscribed}} puts the entry in Category:Disputed usage. Our use of the proscribed tag seems much more censorious than similar wording in the more authoritative usage works of the past century. In reviewing a few of these, it seems as if the proscription by authoritative current sources I've looked at (Fowler 2,3), Follett/Barzun, Garner 2009, MWDEU) is usually against use in a relatively formal setting. I don't see why we wouldn't incorporate that into our definition of proscribed and our application of the template.

I am also impressed by the categorization used by Garner's Modern American Usage 3rd ed. 2009. Garner Inc., borrowing from a four-stage categorization by Heller and Macris (1967), posits 5 stages of acceptance of novel usage:

1. Rejected: emergence
2. Widely shunned: spreading, but unacceptable in standard usage
3. Widespread but...: commonplace, but avoided in careful usage
4. Ubiquitous but...: virtually universal, but opposed by the fastidious
5. Accepted: universally accepted, except by eccentrics.

We have not yet done the research that would warrant a similar approach, but it is provides an interesting model for our efforts in the usage area. DCDuring TALK 17:03, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the biggest problem with {{proscribed}} is not that it tries to cover the whole range from "rejected" to "ubiquitous but...", but rather that the wording (or lack thereof) doesn't make it sound like "there are people who proscribe this term", but rather like "this term is proscribed, period." It makes it sound like we're proscribing it. (Imagine if w:Smoking included this statement: "Smoking is forbidden." Technically that's true, in that there exist organizations that forbid it, but only a crazy person would understand it. Even a very minor change, such as "Smoking is often forbidden", changes the statement from "technically true" to "true". Maybe not "very useful", but "true" is a huge improvement.) BTW, note that proscription is not necessarily, or even usually, tied to novelty of usage; for example, singular they, though inherited from Middle English, is a very frequent target of prescriptivist attack. (Admittedly, in modern usage it's found in many contexts where Middle English didn't allow it; but it's also attacked in many contexts where Middle English did.) —Ruakh_TALK 18:16, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Though I like what I've read so far from Garner's book, many things therein seem simplistic. Even if one accepted a linear sequence from innovation to acceptance as being the most common for the words he covers, there are the missing stages that take a word from acceptance to ossification as an idiom, alteration, or decline (archaicism and obsolescence).

Garner's original target market of attorneys (still the core of his business) is not too bad a population for serious, non-academic writing. His operation has done some fairly good research and the conclusions I've read don't seem bad if one principally applies them to fairly formal writing. In any event such levels are beyond us at the moment.

I'd also be happier with some word other than "proscribed". But I'm not sure that any context tag alone is desirable. The category name "Disputed usage" is better. But I wonder if we should aim to have a context tag that says "See usage note( N)" for mature entries and gradually replace the proscribed tag, keeping it (under any new name we can agree on) only for entries that need a usage note that has not been written yet.

"Proscribed" in some cases is used to indicate that a popular usage of a word is not acceptable in a specialist community (See automatic as applied to a "properly" semi-automatic firearm.), in other cases to indicate offensiveness. I suspect that there are other uses that diverge from what we intend (given the other tags available).

"Nonstandard" doesn't seem much better, sometimes being used to indicate slang, sometimes with sometimes without the "slang" tag and in a variety of other ways. DCDuring TALK 22:37, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

Wherever possible, this should be replaced by colloquial, jocular, informal, slang, coarse slang or any label that explains why a term may be proscribed in certain contexts. Apart from alternate spellings or derivatives, when proscribed appears without a usage note it hard to tell why, by whom, or in what context a term is proscribed. This label is just not useful on its own. —Michael Z. 2009-10-13 23:37 z

Couldn't agree with you more. I was thinking of bringing a few candidates to TR so we could get towards some kind of consensus on proscribed, its direct replacement, the tags above, appropriate content for usage notes, and anything else. Is there already a consensus that the above tags are all likely applicable and the only ones likely applicable? Is there a previous discussion that anyone recalls? In any event, I will start with what seem to me to be easy cases. Maybe it will be non-controversial. Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. DCDuring TALK 01:08, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] to go

Thoughts on PoS for this idiom? In form particle + verb. But the purpose sense of to#preposition seems to influence this. Entry calls itself an adjective. Adverb too? DCDuring TALK 09:49, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] of an

Formerly claimed to be a preposition. Claims to be an idiom. It refers to older senses/functions of of: "of an evening", "of a time". It seems SoP, but hard to find at of. Is it worth an entry? Is it likely to be misleading. DCDuring TALK 16:22, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Should be covered at [[of]] (and redirect thereto?) imo.​—msh210℠ 16:28, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

It is just like the adverbial genitive "evenings" (don't know about "times"). I think we might need some usage examples/quotations at of, not that they help much when on a separate citations page. DCDuring TALK 17:02, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to know which dialect(s) this is, because the entry doesn't make sense to me. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:17, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] to the

Formerly claimed to be a preposition. "mathematics": "two to the second power". It seems like a sense of to#preposition collocated with the.

Even worse than previous, IMO. Both are exemplars of non-grammatical units that have been offered as entries. I think such entries warrant harsh scrutiny, but we may need to have some of them. DCDuring TALK 17:06, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

Move to WT:RFD#to the if you ask me. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:13, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Should be covered at [[to]] and deleted imo.​—msh210℠ 16:29, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Slight hesitation. Isn't it just a shortened form of to the power (of). Since it's not obvious that the word elided is power, that could make it specialized context right? I'm not saying it shouldn't be deleted, just that I think this argument would come up if we proposed it. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:14, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that we would want to keep every possible elision. We already have to the power of. I have added a second arithmetic sense to to#Preposition and provided three usage examples. I'm thinking a redirect to to the power of might be adequate and justifiable (though redirects don't seem to need much justification).

I often look for reasonable ways of avoiding full entries for terms that are not arguably grammatical constituents, as this is not. (But CGEL probably wouldn't evaluate "to the power of" as a preposition [or any other kind of constituent] either, which is our PoS header and category for it.) Elisions can create idiomatic headwords that are not constituents, I think. Some of them may merit inclusion, my prejudice against such headwords notwithstanding. DCDuring TALK 19:10, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Why was Maxxinista deleted?

My recent entry of Maxxinista, my new favorite word, was deleted last night and I want to understand why.

The definition is: Maxx-in-is-ta noun: a fashionista who gets it all for much, much less at T.J. Maxx.

Please help me understand! Thanks so much. —This unsigned comment was added 15 October 2009.

See WT:LOP and Wiktionary:Sysop deleted. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:15, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Cogitamus ergo vincimus

Greetings everyone. Salve :P I'm trying to make a sentence in Latin which means "we win because we think" (it's for a competition) so will "Cogitamus ergo vincimus" be alright?

thanks in advance. —This comment was unsigned.

Looks OK to me. DCDuring TALK 16:05, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Great! Thanks. --87.69.35.169 11:13, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] open book

The 3rd sense seemed wrong to me. I added the 2nd for the most common use I am familiar with, but wonder whether the 1st, more general, sense isn't sufficient. DCDuring TALK 16:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Sense 1 seems sufficient for what is there. There is also "open book exam" and something called "open book management". Perhaps also "open book account". There might be an argument for "open book" (cf. open-book) as an adjective. Pingku 17:18, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

That is the way dictionaries that have this term define it, more or less. The management and accounting terms are arguably SoP and/or encyclopedic applications of sense 1. DCDuring TALK 19:18, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

For future readers' benefit, the third sense under discussion is "A person who is willing to respond to any kind of question regardless of topic".​—msh210℠ 17:34, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

The second sense ("A person whose emotions are easy to read from body language, facial expression, tone of voice, and frank utterances") is a very common use of the first ("A person or thing that is easily interpreted") (my experience, unsubstantiated). Perhaps the first is enough with a good, clear usex/cite of what's now the second sense.​—msh210℠ 17:37, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

That might work. DCDuring TALK 19:18, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Some citations added. Pingku 11:17, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Is the "person who shows their emotions" usage peculiar to US? Colloquial? I'm not at all familiar with it, and the citations I have included for the noun usage in general are US-centric. Many I found (including a UK one I almost used) were more careful about the metaphor, using constructs along the lines of "like an open book". Pingku 16:18, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Previous 1st and 2nd senses merged and def changed to suit. New 2nd sense ("person who answers questions candidly") has a citation, which seemed to fit better there. Pingku 18:01, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Re the topology sense. Perhaps this should link to open book decomposition - see w:open book decomposition. Pingku 13:00, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Done - it seems more precise this way. Moved translations for that def. Pingku 18:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Tweaked definitions 1 & 2. The now 1st level of "idiom" is a thing that is not a book, important aspects of which are easily interpreted. The 2nd level is a person, same, but introducing naivete as a cause, as well as emotions and intentions (which presuppose some thought or intelligence). Pingku 17:24, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

For reference, the new senses under discussion:

1: {{idiomatic}} Something of which salient aspects are obvious or easily interpreted.

2: {{idiomatic}} A person who through [[naivete]] responds candidly to questions or openly displays their emotions or intentions.

Any comments? Pingku 17:24, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] not

I don't quite get this as a conjunction. The examples seem just anaphoric. OTOH I am not sure that in all the examples, especially the first, you would call "not" an adverb. The dictionaries I have looked at always call it an adverb, which certainly seems its primary function. The noun and interjection senses seem fine and in line with other dictionaries. DCDuring TALK 01:11, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Not in the construction A, not B (also in not B but A) is surely a conjunction.

• It can precede various classes:

  I bought apples, not oranges. (noun phrase)

  I bought them for my son, not for myself. (prepositional phrase)

  I bought them because he loves apples, not because he was hungry. (subordinate clause)

• It becomes ungrammatical if A is omitted:

  *I bought not oranges. (wrong)

- TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:56, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. The anaphoric readings:

• "I bought apples; (I did) not (buy) oranges."

  "I bought them for my son; (I did) not (buy them) for myself."

  "I bought them because he loves apples; (I did) not (buy them) because he was hungry."

• Negation always requires an auxiliary verb:

  "I did not buy oranges."

In addition, one can insert an undisputed conjunction before "not": "I bought apples and not oranges." and "I bought apples but not oranges.". Are "and not" and "but not" phrasal conjunctions? I don't think other conjunctions can combine.

Also, one can transform the phrase into "I bought not oranges, but apples."

Finally, consider "I bought apples, not bananas, not cherries, damsons, elderberries, figs, not grapefruit." The negation function seems unrelated to any conjunction function. Conjunctions can be omitted, often with no change in meaning. Omission of not always changes the meaning. DCDuring TALK 01:54, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] People’s Republic of China

I noticed there is no entry for this when I was creating Cultural Revolution. Do we not do entries for full names of countries? Tooironic 07:18, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't, but others disagree. China, PRC, yes. This one, and its ilk, no. But where else in WMF would we find translations of the name into some of the languages here? DCDuring TALK 11:50, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmm... well we have United Kingdom, Commonwealth of Australia and United States of America so why not People’s Republic of China? Definitions and translations of these terms (as distinct from the "informal" or "abbreviated" forms) would be extremely useful for users. It all sounds a bit fishy to me. Tooironic 01:02, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd be in favor of nuking them all and letting WikiGazetteer handle all place names, official or unofficial, but there would still be some words connected with places that we would want.

What's fishy? The selection of countries we have is a product of the occasional burst of patriotism from some contributor favoring their own country or the desire to fill in some red link. There is a consensus favoring primary jurisdictions (mostly nations) and the next level down and their capitals and major cities. There is also a tendency to favor the names that people actually use rather than the formal names. I don't think very many people get as patriotic over official names as they do over vernacular names. Even the placards in front of UN representatives at the UN don't normally show full official names. DCDuring TALK 01:32, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree with DCDuring that we would be better off without any of these. However, the case for PRC is much stronger than for "Commonwealth of Australia". There aren't two Australias, but there are two countries going by the name "China". Thus the term is fairly likely to occur in vernacular use as a synonym for mainland China, and not merely as the name of the government. -- Visviva 05:03, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, agreed, and it is under those criteria that I will be creating this new entry. Tooironic 07:11, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm strongly in favor of official names of countries. I actually added a few right before bumping into this discussion. Where else should one look for Dutch name of the Republic of South Africa? Permanently archived references should not be a problem either.--Hekaheka 10:50, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

At the highly desirable project WikiGazetteer, which could fully take advantage of the structure of such geographic terms and the special characteristics thereof. Such a gazetteer would not be hobbled by anything nearly as strict as WT:CFI and could have quite relaxed notability standards. DCDuring TALK 11:18, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] twenty to

An answer to "What time is it?" I think this has a few synonyms, most of which we don't have. The one's I am familiar with are twenty of, twenty before, twenty 'til, twenty til, twenty until. There would also be past and after. Assuming that we dispense with compound number words (Please!!!), there would be 5-7 entries for each of one-twelve, twenty, half, and quarter, for a total of 75 to 105 entries about which there is little useful to say. Should these be treated differently? Should they be in an Appendix? Should there be an entry-content generating template? DCDuring TALK 15:01, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

As an example of a problem with such boring entries, the 10 or so translations are of "twenty before two". Who wants to put them on their watchlist? DCDuring TALK 15:06, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

This seems completely and irredeemably useless to me. RFD? -- Visviva 09:28, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm trying to come up with a sensible treatment of time expressions. To me they would seem to merit an Appendix, with the half and quarter terms appearing in principal namespace. I am bothered by the poor access to Appendices, however. There are quite a number of these. DCDuring TALK 12:36, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd say there should be a sense and example for this in the entry to (there may even be, I'm too lazy to check right now). The peculiarities of various languages would be handled in their respective entries, e.g. Finnish vaille. --Hekaheka 10:26, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

The sense was there. Began translation table with Finnish and German. --Hekaheka 10:38, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, yes, and rfd this one, if it cannot be deleted outright. --Hekaheka 10:40, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any thoughts about an Appendix for each language on the words used to express time of day and probably other time concepts, especially those involving numbers (which make for highly repetitive, low-value entries)? I'm sure we could do a better job than anything WP is likely to have in terms of completeness of coverage of various vernacular expressions. DCDuring TALK 11:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Appendices are nice, but on the other hand, they are a bit difficult to come by. I mean that one must know to look for them in order to benefit from them. Part of the problem may be that the process for looking for an appendix is different from that for looking for a word. Perhaps all these "twenty to" -type entries should be made REDIRECTs that bring the user to the Appendix page. In addition, every time-related entry that we decide to keep in the mainspace should have a clearly visible link to the Appendix. Perhaps the link could be a box similar to the Wikipedia box-link, only of diferent colour. Next problem is that time expressions are rather popular content and we must be prepared to manage the 300 or so languages that we have. A practical solution might be to divide the languages into several tables either in alphabetical order or e.g. by language group. --Hekaheka 14:47, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] see it coming

This is worthy of an entry, right, as in "Oh, that was such a lame joke, I could see it coming" ?? If so, is this the right form to put it under? (Honestly, I was surprised not to see this or any form of it here already!) L☺g☺maniac chat? 23:19, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

None of the OneLook dictionaries think so. The construction "V1 someone/something V2ing" is quite general and is rarely idiomatic. V1 could any of several perceiving verbs; V2 can be any activity or process that can be perceived. The sense above seems to me to be an example of the general construction. There might be an idiomatic sense involving the meaning "to be prepared to take advantage of someone" as in "That salesman saw him coming. He got him to buy last-year's HD-TV and the warranty package." DCDuring TALK 23:41, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

SoP, how grossly overused around here... But anyway, I see what you mean. But I really don't like dismissing widely known phrases just because a normal person should be able to guess their meaning from the individual words involved. One of these days I'm going to propose a community vote to significantly lower the effect that a term's SoPness would have as far as determining whether it deserves an entry or not. Just as soon as I can find enough like-minded people to support it ...... :) L☺g☺maniac chat? 00:14, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

MZajac had the idea that we should have the most common collocations of words included somewhere on the page for that word. That would not guarantee that "see it coming" would appear. Among combinations of the form "see it X", "coming" would be the twelfth most common X, based on COCA. Would/should we even have an entry for "see it"? If we were to have such an entry, it would be of the form see something coming, to which see it coming would be a redirect ideally, along with saw her coming, seen them coming, and sees you coming, etc DCDuring TALK 01:49, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Seems obviously idiomatic to me; just compare "see it coming" (= anticipate it) with "see you coming" (watch you approach). Agree it should be at see something coming. -- Visviva 04:57, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

The basic metaphor of time as a road with event preceding down that (one-way) road underlies the sense. It is the sense of come in words like "upcoming" and as in "Winter came early". Dictionary offer happen as a synonym, but that doesn't capture the way it is used fully. Events unfold over time - that's what enables us to predict. DCDuring TALK 11:57, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] indian giver

I can't seem to find any evidence for this lower-case form. Equinox ◑ 02:14, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] the fix is in

Is this an idiom in itself or does it just seem idiomatic because the senses of fix and in are slangy? Is it used outside the US? I have inserted a citation including this at fix, so deletion wouldn't leave a user with no place to go. DCDuring TALK 23:46, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] I am thirsty

The usage note for this seems wrong, but perhaps there is a hint of something useful in it. I am inclined to just delete it and will in a week or two unless it is improved. DCDuring TALK 13:25, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Yup, delete. --Hekaheka 14:23, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

If there's anything useful in here at all (of which I am unconvinced), I strongly suspect it belongs s.v. [[thirsty]].​—msh210℠ 18:00, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

This is one of our Phrasebook entries, and should be kept. It is a standard phrase found in most phrasebooks and beginning language courses. We cut slack for such entries, although the usage note can probably be deleted. --EncycloPetey 01:38, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I believe that everyone was commenting on the usage notes (as I hoped), which no one has yet found value in. If a language teacher (or anyone) can find value, then it stays, perhaps in better form. Is there anyone specifically who has a good vision of the role of the phrasebook? DCDuring TALK 02:11, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

No, I didn't realize that the entry is in our phrasebook, and didn't think of putting it there, so I was all for deleting the whole as SoP. But you're right: it is and should be in the phrasebook. In that case, the usage notes belong in it also, as useful info for phrasebook users. (They can be duplicated at [[thirsty]], though, I think.)—msh210℠ on a public computer 17:27, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Part of my problem with the usage notes is that they seem wrong or, at least, focused on less common and less important aspects of usage. I favor usage notes, even mediocre ones. I don't think this rises to mediocrity. DCDuring TALK 20:12, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

They certainly seem wrong to me. "I am thirsty for water" gets 59 actual hits on b.g.c., while "I am thirsty for money" gets zero hits, not only on b.g.c. but on the entire non-Wiktionary web. Seems like a typical case of ad hoc prescriptivism. Somebody out there thinks this is how the phrase ought to be used, but until they publish a usage guide, there's no reason to take them seriously. -- Visviva 05:02, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

The note is silly. "I am thirsty for orange juice" is used all the time, the way "I am hungry for pizza" is used all the time. It simply clarifies the desire, and is in no way humorous. "For money" is lame: "thirsty for revenge", maybe, or "thirsty for fame". kwami 05:50, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

In its current incarnation, this is neither a good example of a Phrasebook entry nor of the ordinary sort, but something trying to be a bit of both. It seems rather to be an argument for separating the Phrasebook from the Wiktionary. Pingku 17:44, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] reredo

I suggest that reredo be moved to reredos as the singular. Apparently, reredo doesn't exist (maybe rare, to redo something again?) --Volants 11:57, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Fixed, thanks. I don't know why it was moved to [[reredo]] to begin with … —Ruakh_TALK 13:11, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] luceat..? (Latin)

from the requiem INTROITUS: Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine; et lux perpetua luceat eis. Wikitionary does not have a page about this word, does it exists? maybe it's just the verb form of lux? --87.69.35.169 20:21, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

It is from luceo (“‘shine’”) (among other related senses). It is the 3rd person present subjunctive active, usually read as "let/may .... shine". DCDuring TALK 21:24, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I've created an entry for both the verb lūceō and this form. --EncycloPetey 02:52, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] US pronunciation of haiku

A question for all US contributors: Where do you (and people you know) place the stress in the word haiku? Every dictionary I've examined says it's on the first syllable, but every single instance in which I have ever heard the word places the stress on the second syllable. Is this a case where print dictionaries are being more presciptive than descriptive? Or are there two US pronunciations? --EncycloPetey 02:51, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I put the stress on the first syllable (and I don't believe I've ever looked up the pronunciation). The second-syllable stress sounds vaguely odd/pretentious to me, but I have certainly heard it from EN-US speakers. So I think there are two. -- Visviva 03:11, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I've always heard it with second-syllable stress. —Ruakh_TALK 03:21, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I stress the second syllable; stressing the first would sound odd to me. L☺g☺maniac chat? 14:59, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I also put the stress faintly on the first syllable. I would think the stress on the second would sound odd to me. I wonder if it's a regional thing. Oswald Glinkmeyer 15:27, 20 October 2009 (UTC) (in Texas)

I've heard it with stress on the 1st syllable, and with stress on both. I imagine that the latter is related to how English speakers often pronounce partially assimilated Chinese words with stress on every syllable, whereas the former is more anglicized. To me, doubly stressed sounds like a lecture in a lit class, whereas initial stress sounds conversational. I've never heard it with single stress on the final syllable. kwami 05:45, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure why there has to be a stress at all. To my knowledge, the original Japanese word doesn't have one anyway. Tooironic 21:46, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

The original Japanese word is three morae, ha-i-ku, all equally stressed (and equally unstressed: Japanese doesn't have that distinction). I think we can agree that English handles things differently. It's possible for both syllables to be stressed (see spondee), but I don't think it's possible that neither one is. —Ruakh_TALK 00:24, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

• You hear it stressed on either syllable in English. This is not uncommon when English borrows words from languages with equal stress (often coming out differently by area, eg UK CLIché versus US cliCHE). Ƿidsiþ 15:27, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] wonder

wonder, noun: Sometimes I have to wonder about the true meaning of life. Perhaps someone with more grammatical understanding can enlighten me, but doesn't "wonder" in this sentence function as a verb? Tooironic 07:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Basic grammar errors remain throughout Wiktionary, not just in the grammatical PoSs, but in what should be the easy ones. I think contributors must often confuse to#Particle with to#Preposition, so the usex leads the user to think it must be a noun. DCDuring TALK 14:47, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I've changed "to" to "a" in the example, so that it clearly refers to the (valid) noun. Dbfirs 08:54, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

That uses the UK "have a" formula that is not used much at all in the US. It does not make a good usage example for "wonder" for US English speakers. DCDuring TALK 10:23, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't realise that! I don't speak American. I'll try to think of an example that means the same on both sides of the pond. Are there any bilingual editors who could help? Dbfirs 11:18, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I think that sense of wonder may be UK and, I assume, informal or colloquial. I can't find the sense in a dictionary, though it is so plausible as to fail to motivate me to an RfV. In which case the usex would be likely to fit. I have altered the entry to reflect that. Please take a look. Do we need to confirm the sense or the tags? DCDuring TALK 12:20, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Added a citation with which people won't be able to make the above mistake. Equinox ◑ 13:36, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, that looks much better. Dbfirs 16:33, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] pankration

I tried, rather unsuccessfully, to add an Ancient Greek derivation tag, can someone please fix it for me? Cheers. Tooironic 10:34, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Entry cleaned up. DCDuring TALK 14:53, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] -san

Should we classify this as a suffix in English or is it something else (What?) used to form compounds? DCDuring TALK 15:10, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] punter

Looking for usage of this term (punter) in the context of popular (rock) music fandom. Can anyone confirm or provide quotes for its usage meaning a fan or aficionado? Oswald Glinkmeyer 15:17, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] words that punctuate

There are some words that serve as punctuation. Some examples:

• stop (or STOP?) in a telegram. (We lack this sense.)
• x (or X?) in a telegram. (We lack this sense.)
• comma (or COMMA?) in a telegram. (We lack this sense.)
• query (or QUERY?) in a telegram. (We lack this sense.)
• GA (or ga?) in a TTY conversation. (We lack this sense.)
• SK (or sk?) in a TTY conversation. (We list this under the unfortunate =Abbreviation= header.)
• Arguably, now in normal English. ("Now, how about them Knicks?") (We list this as an =Adverb= and define it as "In a manner, or regarding a topic, different from that of the immediately past".)
• OpenB@InsideTrunkhigh-PalmAside-OpenB@InsideTrunkhigh-PalmAcross OpenB@SideTrunkhigh-PalmAside-OpenB@CenterTrunkhigh-PalmAcross (q.v.). (We list this as a =Conjunction=.)

What POS(es) should these be?​—msh210℠ 17:35, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

now is serving as a discourse marker for a change of subject and similar. Adverb seems by far the best PoS for it. See Category:English discourse markers and Category:English sentence adverbs DCDuring TALK 23:59, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, punctuation serves basic discourse directive functions, so that category might be right. Most members of that category are adverbs, so .... DCDuring TALK 00:02, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] camel's nose

Is this an allusion to the proverb or an ellipsis of it? See Category:English ellipses and Category:English allusions. DCDuring TALK 23:51, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] all the "good"s

I'm referring to these entries: good night, good afternoon, good day, good evening and good morning. I think there should be some consistency here in the way they are categorised. Some are just nouns, others are nouns and interjections and one of them is just a phrase. Ideally though, shouldn't they all be both nouns and interjections? Tooironic 23:32, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Seems like all of them and goodnight should all be nouns and interjections. --Yair rand 03:17, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I've been wondering about these. Interjection is not really what they are. They often stand alone, not interjected into sentences at all. IMO, they are idiomatic descendants of old ellipses of "I wish you a good ...". The noun meanings really don't seem to me to meet CFI. I would just call them Phrase and put them in some categories that capture the pragmatic function they serve as greetings and farewells. The Phrase categorization is an unsatisfactory cheat that doesn't work for a one-word greeting/farewell, like hello or goodbye or greetings or farewell.

Perhaps we are best off to put them under a noun header and categorize them further as "English ellipses" and ""English salutations" (or some broader category). That would at least work uniformly. DCDuring TALK 03:50, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it needs to be that complicated - a noun section and an interjection section easily explains to the reader the two possible usages, i.e., one as a nominal object and one as a functional phrase. Their etymologies as "I wish you a good..." ellipses needn't hinge on their informativity IMO. Tooironic 10:35, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

None of them are interjections in their most common use. And almost any word or phrase can be used as a standalone utterance at some time. (Do you need an example? "How did you print that?" "Laserprinter.") An interjection is a phrase or word (or sound that we treat as a word), 1., that has no grammatical relationship to the rest of a sentence and, 2., is used to carry an emotion. We have been using interjection as a catch-all for all terms that have significant "non-grammatical" usage. As such, it is a misnomer for many of them. I don't know that it is any more misleading to call such uses a noun and indicate by context tag and category that it is used as a greeting/farewell. An alternative is to throw it into phrasebook (though that does not address single-term equivalents). If there were widely accepted terms that were not misnomers, it would be easier. DCDuring TALK 11:17, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

The thirteen different sources I've checked (ten OneLook sources and three print(*)) have seven different treatments for "Good morning":

1. Interjection: Encarta, Longmans DCE*, and MW3*
2. Exclamation: Camb Adv Learners
3. Noun: Wordsmyth, Wordnet 2/3.0, AHD
4. Sentence absolute: Collins
5. Phrase: Webster's New World
6. 0: Infoplease/RHU, Free/Wordnet 1.7
7. Idiom: Dictionary.com/AHDIdioms, McGraw-Hill Idioms*

We can dismiss the treatments derived from the idioms sources. The zero treatments are significant in that they indicate a decision not to classify by sources that usually do, indicating uncertainty. Phrase is a similar indicator.

1. I believe that interjection conveys an undeserved fixity about the expressions, which serve as grammatical units in constructing expressions which have as much claim to be called interjections, "Good morning to you!" being the leading example, but also the hyperformal "I wish you a good morning, sir."
2. There is not fixed emotion or, indeed, any emotion necessarily conveyed, as the definition of interjection suggests.
3. And we would need a noun PoS, in any event, to capture the sense of "He gave us all perfunctory good mornings.".
4. "Phrase" would obscure the parallelism among many greetings (one-word and multi-word).

This leaves me favoring "Noun" with an extra sense to make explicit the use as a stand-alone greeting and a usage note to capture its relationship to other near-synonyms, especially the longer ones.

None if this is to exclude the possibility of true interjections: Good night! (“‘used by an observer to mark a powerful blow as a possible knock-out blow; "Lights out!"’”) being one. DCDuring TALK 20:18, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. Although I do find your argument to classify them as nouns with greetings tags pretty convincing, it does also make me wet my pants a little to think of all the work I'll have to do with Chinese to fit in with this new consistency. (At present, all Chinese equivalents of these phrases are categorised under "Interjection".) Moreover, the wiktionary definition of interjection only indicates that it is "often" an expression of emotion - i.e. it does not treat emotion as a compulsory feature. I would tend to agree as, after all, "emotion" is hardly a measurable criterion. In other words, who can say with any kind of certainty whether or not "Good morning" carries any kind of emotion? Emotion isn't really the point. The function of the phrase is the most important consideration, and that function in my opinion can be classified as interjectional. Therefore I'd argue for the Noun + Interjection model. Tooironic 08:59, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The dictionary definition is less than perfect in providing sharp distinctions. I'm not sure how to read that definition. Are they saying that each word is usually used to convey emotion or that usually an interjection is a word that conveys emotion, but that some aren't. Even if the idea is the latter I think they are trying to cover cases like the attention-getters like "hey" or "ahem", for which there doesn't seem to be emotional content. The essential element is the lack of grammatical connection to sentences, even when embedded in them.

I have no idea what the implications would be for Chinese. I am not at all sure why the partition into grammatical categories for English (or Latin) should be determinative of categorization in other languages, especially those outside the Indo-European family. It would seem like a mega-topic for About Chinese and eventually BP. DCDuring TALK 09:56, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] gigaflop

(Also megaflop and teraflop.) Is this correct? I thought that all the -flops stood for floating point operations per second (as in one gigaflops is one billion FLOPS). Yet the entry says that a gigaflop is a unit of measure for the calculating speed of a computer and gigaflops is just the plural. What would FLOP stand for? FLoating point Operations Per ... What?--Yair rand 15:48, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

"One gigaflops" is not unattested, but "one gigaflop" is much more common. It seems to me that "one gigaflop" etc. are a result of backformation from the plural-sounding "two gigaflops" etc. (Compare pea and kudo for examples of de-pluralizing backformation, and lase for an example of backformation from an acronym. I can't think of any examples that are both at once, but regardless, the possibility is obviously there.) Even speakers familiar with the underlying acronym probably aren't really keeping it mind as they use the term, so the resulting "flop" doesn't need to stand for anything at all; and they may not even notice the discrepancy. (I'm just speculating here.) But apparently, judging from the rare-but-attestable "gigaflop(s) per second", some speakers must have reanalyzed the acronym itself as representing just "floating-point operations", with "per second" being implied. (This is not an unreasonable reanalysis, given that "one gigabit" regularly means "one billion bits per second".)

The entries could use improvement.

—Ruakh_TALK 17:17, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] still as an interjection?

Could still also be an interjection? For example:

A: Let's go to that concert tonight.

B: Nah, I'm skint.

B: It's free!

A: Still...

I don't know about other countries, but it's fairly common in Australia. Tooironic 07:41, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Here too (the UK) by ellipsis I think. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:55, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

No doubt about the usage. I question whether it should be called an interjection. Many words can find usage as a stand-alone or without grammatical relationship to a sentence in which they are embedded. The usage should IMO go under the adverb. It is an application of the "nevertheless" sense. Nevertheless should be in Category:English sentence adverbs, in any event (another sentence adverb). Maybe it would also go in some category like Category:English responses or Category:English discourse markers for the kind of usage that Too points out. DCDuring TALK 11:38, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] tango

Interesting that for the plural and 3rd person we have tangos, while my Oxford dictionary gives tangoes (and only tangoes) for both. Can anyone fix this? In Scrabble, tangoes is the anagram of onstage. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:47, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

At COCA "tangos" outnumbers "tangoes" 82:1, so apparently a US/UK difference. DCDuring TALK 11:43, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

My Chambers gives tangos and only tangos, so maybe not. Pingku 16:40, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Pingku: Yes, it looks like you are right.

MG: The Online Compact OED shows "tangoes" for the verb, but "tangos" for the noun. All of the OneLook dictionaries show "tangos" for the noun. All except COED either show tangos for the verb or show nothing, which probably means it is "normal", presumably without the "e". Google news shows overwhelming preference for "tangos"; Google books about 2:1, mostly for the noun. DCDuring TALK 17:18, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Not sure how to put both "tangos" and "tangoes" in the verb gloss. Can someone help? Pingku 18:10, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't know about the plural, but I've added the colour (is is just a UK usage?) The exact shade is variable according to artistic choice (as with most named shades). Dbfirs 08:45, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] naughties

Wow... no entry for this common term. Any special reason? Tooironic 11:18, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

• If you mean the decade, isn't it normally spelled noughties? Ƿidsiþ 17:13, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Both, I think. I guess I'll just add it as an alternative spelling. Tooironic 01:34, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

It appears to be more commonly used as a plural of "naughty" - in a perhaps attributive noun sense that is also not documented. Pingku 15:07, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] perra#Spanish

This nice dictionary defines perra also as dinero, riqueza (chiefly plural), and whilst this is a clue to the meaning in Citations:perra, what disquiets me is the fact that it is obviously countable (whereas riqueza is not) - (de veinticuatro perras celemín = 24 quid for 4,6 l, right ?). So how could we translate this meaning and was the Spanish currency at the time meant in the quoted citation? The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 19:45, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

La perra was an old coin worth (I believe) 10 centimos of a Peseta. So, originally perra meant a coin. Possibly due to it's similarity in sound to Peseta, the term stuck and with use came to mean money in general. Hence, originally countable, and gaining an uncountable sense along the way. -- ALGRIF talk 17:30, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your helpful explanation. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 05:39, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

---

Concerning the entries for "foutre" in the Wiktionary of French words: it would be much clearer to mention that when "foutre" is used in the various phrases, it simply replaces the verb that ordinarily is used in the given phrase when it is spoken normally. Example: "se moquer de" (to make fun of) becomes "se foutre de" and still means the same thing, but takes on a vulgar tone. ("Foutre" most often is used as if it were the verb "faire", "to do/make". In the same sense it simply replaces "faire".) The entries in there now make it sound like "foutre" means a variety of different things, which is misleading. It would be much clearer if it were understood that it is simply standing in for another verb that is NOT vulgar, and is used to mean the same thing as that other verb, while turning the original phrase into a vulgar usage. For this same reason, the entries should state what the "ordinary" phrase and meaning is, in which "foutre" is replacing the "ordinary" verb.

La perra was an old coin worth (I believe) 10 centimos of a Peseta. So, originally perra meant a coin. Possibly due to it's similarity in sound to Peseta, the term stuck and with use came to mean money in general. Hence, originally countable, and gaining an uncountable sense along the way. -- ALGRIF talk 17:30, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] witness

"Depression often goes undetected until it is too late. Witness the recent White House suicide." What is the analysis of the witness sentence? Is "witness" an imperative to the hearer/reader? Or is the same sentence an ellipsis of "Let the recent WH suicide be a witness for what I just said." It would affect the wording of the senses of witness. DCDuring TALK 17:57, 28 October 2009 (UTC) Or has this become a preposition in this use? Or is it parallel to "for example", for instance" DCDuring TALK 18:02, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

I assume it's an imperative. The alternative doesn't seem grammatically coherent. Equinox ◑ 20:20, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

pareil. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:30, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, as an ellipsis, it wouldn't have to be, as long as the expanded sense was. 'Nuff said.

My problem with the imperative is that the reader cannot witness or have witnessed the suicide in the most common senses of "witness". I also don't think there are other expressions that use this sense. In this kind of expression MW Online has "witness" meaning "take note of", which sense doesn't fit the other meanings of witness AFAICT. It seems quite lame compared to the other senses of the verb and the noun.

Another analysis would have it be a noun in sense 4 ("something that offers or serves as evidence") and the expansion be something like "(Take as) witness (of the truth of what I just said) the recent WH suicide.". I can find plenty of instances of the same kind of expression preceded by "as": "As witness the recent WH suicide.". This last seems OK, but "witness" does seem to be a discourse marker and about to become at least as grammaticized as "for example", if not an outright preposition. DCDuring TALK 00:10, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

• I think it's a noun, in an elision of the longer formula "as witness". From a recent Guardian: "Well, she is fashionable and much liked by the world at large - as witness the extraordinary generosity of a supporting actress nomination for her work in Doubt." Seems to me the one-word form is a further clipping of that usage. Ƿidsiþ 17:11, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that seems to be the soundest conclusion reflecting all current forms of that kind of construction.

It is interesting how a term comes to lose the usual trappings accompanying whatever part of speech it is in a particular construction and suddenly it can be "reanalyzed" and used as some other part of speech in somewhat similar constructions. This seems on a journey to something other than nounhood but is still within its bounds.

In my own reading and hearings I had long thought this was some kind of archaic inverted order with the noun phrase following being the subject of the verb witness. The "as" would also be consistent with that reading. DCDuring TALK 22:29, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] name a baby muhammad?

can we name our baby muhammad alone or its necessary that you should add another name with that like muhammad ibrahim? is there any scholar who knows the meaning of names and can guide? —This unsigned comment was added by 76.186.192.152 (talk • contribs) 16:55, 29 October 2009 (UTC).

I'm no scholar but unless you are living in some strange country which has laws that force you to weird things like that then I'd say you can name your child whatever you want. ;) 50 Xylophone Players talk 19:12, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

There are actually quite a few countries with laws that restrict the naming of children. Even European countries like Hungary have had naming restrictions in the 20th century, although I believe Hungary has since lifted its naming restrictions. However, I know of no restrictions on the name Muhammad, as it is used by more than 15 million people worldwide. --EncycloPetey 16:44, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] cagot

Okay, I thought I'd add this here rather than to request lists just so that many people will be liable to see it. :) If anyone can do it, I'd be grateful if someone could create an entry for it. It seems to be a word in both English and French; both a noun and adjective in the latter see fr:cagot. 50 Xylophone Players talk 19:25, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] one side

Probably an ellipsis for "move to one side". Clearly idiomatic, common colloquially (in the right crowd anyway), and attestable. PoS? DCDuring TALK 18:31, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

• Looks like a US interjection to me. SemperBlotto 18:36, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

Uncle G complained mightily about injecting so many commands and prosentences into interjections. I've been trying to see whether there are alternatives. There is always "phrase" for this, though it wouldn't work for "gangway". I'm inclined to call it a noun and define it as a command or have a usage note to that effect. DCDuring TALK 21:11, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] breeze

Verb: Taking a horse under a light run in order to understand the running characteristics of the horse and to observe it while under motion.

An IP added this sense. The AHD has a slightly more general horsey definition: "To sprint around a racetrack as a means of exercise. Used of a racehorse." Hence, while it would seem that an equine sense is sensible to have, it seems like the current one is overspecified. Do we have any horse enthusiasts who can comment? — Carolina wren discussió 01:13, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] fishing term

Is there a fishing term, that means to lace something with bait/put bait on a hook? I've looked in a couple of fishing dictionaries, but they don't help. Anyway, the French term is amorcer. I have found bait up, but am not so sure it means the same thing. --Rising Sun 14:38, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

• It's just bait (according to the OED). SemperBlotto 14:45, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

How about chum#Etymology 2, both noun and verb? Our definition looks a bit narrower than the word as I've heard it. DCDuring TALK 15:23, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] dinna

Some discussion has arisen. Is this a) a contraction b) a verb c) an adverb d) none of these ? -- ALGRIF talk 15:30, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] wouldnae

Ditto. Is this a) a contraction b) a verb c) an adverb d) none of these ? -- ALGRIF talk 15:31, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

I would say a) in both cases. They are Scottish, but can also be regarded as English Dialect. I suppose opinion will vary. Dbfirs 15:59, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

In both of the cases above I would call them verbs.

I have been trying hard to put everything under as specific a grammatical header as possible based on its head (except in the the case of prepositional phrases). I never use "contraction" because it is not that kind of header. But it is a useful category.

What would be hard for me would be a case where there was a single headword (a compound or a contraction) that was not a grammatical "constituent". (BTW, see Category:English non-constituents.) I have not yet noticed one and hope against hope that there aren't any in English. DCDuring TALK 16:18, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I'm happy to call them verbs since there is no apostrophe to indicate a contraction. canna & cannot, too? We need to be consistent. Dbfirs 16:39, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Certainly. I wouldn't draw the line at apostrophes, either, so can't, too. But one would have to accept that particular tenet of my approach to having PoS headings be grammar based to the greatest extent possible (and limited to the existing list of widely understood PoSs, as opposed to more modern sets of functional terms). DCDuring TALK 16:53, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] PLC

The entry for this abbreviation of Public Liability Company has a "translation" that consists not of translations, but of the corresponding abbreviations for companies similarly organized under the laws of other jurisdictions. I think they should just be deleted.

But there is a strong case for an appendix documenting this semantic relationship (analogy) among the various terms. We could start with what we find in Wikipedia and customize it in a lexicographic direction.

Finally, I wonder whether we should check for similar conceptual problems in other entries, starting with abbreviations. DCDuring TALK 16:44, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Legal areas particularly. For instance a solicitor, a lawyer and a barrister do not translate well, not even between UK and US!! -- ALGRIF talk 12:16, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Would it make sense to have appendices for analogs or to have another semantic-relations header for "analogs"? DCDuring TALK 17:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] pronunciation of Gaelic word

Hoping someone can help me, I need the phonetic pronunciation of the words: cu mhaige which is early Scots/Irish meaning hound of the plain.

I don't speak Gaelic, and we don't have an entry for mhaige (and only Old English for cu=cow) but I would guess at "koo vey" (slack v), though we must have some Gaelic speakers who can check whether it has a "j" at the end? Dbfirs 19:01, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] 'meatloafing' (NZ term? Cat-related sense.)

I was thinking about adding 'meatloafing' (to our meatloaf entry) which I heard when visiting New Zealand a few years ago. Meaning when a cat lies with all four legs tucked underneath its body. I found the term at urban dictionary (there's also a rude meaning there - surprise surprise - so if you're easily offended don't read the whole page!) [21] I guess it'd be either slang or informal. Any Kiwis want to weigh in on this? --Tyranny Sue 02:41, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I call that a catloaf. Equinox ◑ 01:34, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] like

Like is used informally to form an adverb from an adjective ending in -ly. See, e.g., google books:"all|smiled|smiling silly|friendly like" subject:fiction. Sometimes it's bound with a hyphen to the adjective, as friendly-like, sometimes it's separated from it by a space, as friendly like; I haven't examined relative frequencies, though that would be wise. What POS is this? And what pagename: [[-like]] or [[like]]?​—msh210℠ 17:08, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

If the resulting terms aren't spelled solid, then it should be at "like", I think. It seems to be an adverb. DCDuring TALK 17:15, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I'm seeing some uses that make friendly[-| ]like seem like an adjective: "they are all friendly like to him"[22], for example. Thoughts?​—msh210℠ 18:14, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] normative

Aren't we missing the "proscriptive" sense from this? Mglovesfun (talk) 17:24, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I think prescriptive and proscriptive are hyponyms. DCDuring TALK 18:34, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I've heard it used that way, for example in a political theory lecture. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:11, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "That's what she said."

I don't know what this means, can anyone tell me? In great detail? And how this relates to every day life (your life)?

It's just a humorous reply to innuendo: any statement that might mean something rude or dirty if you take it the wrong way. e.g. "That's a big one!" (someone talking about a large bird flying past) "That's what she said." (you are suggesting that "that's a big one" might have referred to a penis) Not really worth worrying about. Equinox ◑ 01:33, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it's much in the same vein as the 'yo mamma's fat' jokes. Tooironic 09:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Also as the actress said to the bishop SemperBlotto 17:06, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] survey with a weather balloon

What's the verb in English where one surveys the sky using a weather balloon - can we say "they probed the sky" or "they surveyed the sky" or maybe there's a technical term...the French word for this is sonder--Rising Sun 09:44, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

sond/sonds/sonding/sonded verb sond/sonds noun sonding adjective the noun usage referring to the device being more common, but also sonde/sondes for the device, borrowed directly from French or German Sonde. Try, for example, google "sonding weather -sounding" Robert Ullmann 09:52, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

And don't forget sound/sounding etc, for example in w:Sounding rocket, which is more familiar but also more general. Robert Ullmann 10:08, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] left back, right back and centre back

Compare:

1. left back, left-back, leftback
2. right back, right-back, rightback
3. centre back, centre-back, centreback
4. center back, center-back, centerback

I suppose these should be standardised right? Or merely by some sort of measure, like number of Google hits. Center back (-er) seems perfectly attestable. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:46, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Google seems to treat centre-back and centre back as the same thing. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:10, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] crepuscular wakefulness

Does anybody know of a single word that expresses the meaning of the phrase “crepuscular wakefulness”? Also, could someone who knows them please add the German and Latin translations of wakefulness to our entry for the word? Thanks in advance. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 18:55, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] arsed, be arsed

I'd like to see this redone. Arsed is the past of arse in the sense "have anal sex with". I think we should have be arsed as I think arsed, in the sense "bothered, motivated" is always used with "be". I don't even think you can even use become with it. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:28, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Partridge 2007 says of "arsed": adjective Bothered; worried UK Popularised since the mid-1990s by television situation comedy The Royle Family.[23]

An interesting inclusion might be can't-be-fuckin-arsed-ness. If I cared. Pingku 18:53, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] extranjerize

An IP created this and marked it as Ingñol (another entry created the same IP). Do we have any policy regarding words such as this that are a deliberate blend of two languages and can't be categorized as either one or the other? (Other than the generic CFI and verification rules applying to all entries, that is.) — Carolina wren discussió 05:20, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

I get TWO google hits for "Ingñol". Someone is trying to invent it. (Spanglish, OTOH, is well known ;-) The words in such cases are essentially always used in one language or the other, and not both, so are listed as slang of some type for that language. For example, "extranjerize" gets 7 google hits, all—of course—in Spanish. No English speaker, or person using a word in an English sentence would say that, they would say "foreignize" or some such (as the entry itself suggests).

So we treat Singlish as English words, with local borrowing and usage. If the language does divert seriously (e.g. a pidgin), then it gets its own coding and name. Not in this case. Ingñol is bogus, extranjerize might, maybe, be citeable, but is then certainly Spanish. Robert Ullmann 10:32, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Speedy deletion for Ingñol. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:31, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

FWIW extranjerizar gets 468 Google Book hits, so this could be a conjugated form. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:37, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you're right — six of the seven Google Web hits are using it as part of the third-person singular present subjunctive of extranjerizarse (“‘to become foreign’”), and the seventh is an automatically generated conjugation of extranjerizar. However, I can't find anything durably archived for it, and though my Spanish isn't very good, my instinct is to consider it a misspelling: the spelling extranjerice is much more common. —Ruakh_TALK 12:50, 7 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] as much as possible

I have inserted a grammar-oriented usage note in this SoP entry which probably makes sense as a phrasebook entry. Is it adequate? I suspect that some phrasebook entries can benefit from some explanation of how they might be generalized as few are set phrases. DCDuring TALK 02:29, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Is this supposed to be somehow more dictionary-worthy than any other as X as possible? If so, why? Equinox ◑ 02:49, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

The phrasebook is the last refuge of common SoP expressions that don't meet CFI. When I first came across this and as soon as possible, I was thinking to RfD them. I don't know what criteria we have for determining what makes something worth having in the phrasebook, what a phrasebook is supposed to accomplish, or whether it is worth having a phrasebook. Those would be BP matters well worth discussing. I am trying to think of ways of making phrasebook entries less misleading and more useful. DCDuring TALK 03:01, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I think a "phrasebook", as such it is, would actually be extremely helpful on wiktionary. However some criteria need to be drawn up so we don't have dozens of SoPs trying to pawn themselves off as phrasebook entries. Something like a list of "100 most common phrases" or something to that effect wouldn't go astray. Tooironic 06:05, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

A typical phrasebook in my limited experience is a book of phrases that are useful in daily life, especially for visitors. It will have things like "do you have any vacant rooms" and "I need to speak to the American consul". Many or most of our phrasebook entries (see category:Phrasebook) fit the bill: we have things like how do you do and is it going to rain. Many do not, though: we also have things like in chronological order and seem like a good idea at the time and, well, as much as possible, none of which belong in a phrasebook AFAICT.​—msh210℠ 17:08, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

As we have no separate explicit criteria for inclusion, it seems to me that CFI applies and that we have been mistaken in including these entries in principal namespace. (The same argument may apply to proverbs.) Where should these things go? What would a good phrasebook entry look like? Does anyone care enough to do any work on this? If not why bother keeping them? Do we have any evidence that anyone uses them? DCDuring TALK 17:43, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

The CFI should apply in theory, but we have a tradition of keeping proverbs and phrasebook entries despite the CFI. Personally I'd love the unidiomatic proverbs to go, but we do have that tradition. Unidiomatic phrasebook entries are useful iff people who are interested in a phrasebook can see the list; e.g., there are good links to the category. Perhaps the category can be weeded (per the critria I mention above, or others) and then each of its entries can have a phrasebook-entry banner/box with a prominent link to the category. Perhaps we should also consider having (as Wikibooks has) the ability for users to collect a bunch of pages into a PDF file; this can be useful for a phrasebook, but also for other glossaries. Is that an extension?​—msh210℠ 17:51, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] main page

Was there a decision that this is just SoP and shouldn't have a regular entry? There seem to be a few entries that link to it as if it were a regular entry but right now it's just a redirect to Wiktionary:Main Page. --Yair rand 20:17, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Aha! So you are WF!  :-) ​—msh210℠ 17:15, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I don't see any reason for it to have a regular entry. Links can easily be fixed. Equinox ◑ 23:39, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

This reminds me of something I heard about Wikipedia. If, for example, someone named their band/album/racehorse etc. "Main Page", it would become very difficult to link. Of course, their could be a page w:Main Page (band), but I don't think it would be linked from w:Main Page. --Volants 15:01, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] per se

Should the second sense ("necessarily, precisely, absolutely") be tagged {{proscribed}}?​—msh210℠ 17:53, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Do we have evidence that it is actually used in that sense? It isn't in the OneLook references AFAICT. Perhsps it should start with an RfV. DCDuring TALK 23:34, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

I'd say "precisely" is a widespread informal meaning of the term, and is what the definition-writer probably meant. Cleanup is necessary, but rfv I think is not.​—msh210℠ 18:59, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

"Necessarily" is close to the sense the phrase has had from its beginning."Precisely" and "absolutely" don't have the same sense as "necessarily" to my ear. DCDuring TALK 23:41, 9 November 2009 (UTC)

Are these not all misunderstandings of the Latin? I would mark these senses as {{informal}} or (by extension). Dbfirs 18:24, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Note that after discussion at WT:RFV, the definition in question has been changed to "As such; as one would expect from the name". My original question stands, though: should it be tagged {{proscribed}}?​—msh210℠ 17:34, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] nāscor

The definition I had given for the Latin verb nāscor, was "to be born", the same as in my pocket Latin dictionary which I can trace back to the 1950s.

It has now been edited to "I am born, begotten" on the grounds that Latin/English dictionaries have not listed lemma to lemma entries for centuries, and that "to be born" is misleading and fundamentally incorrect.

Given that "nāscor" is the present active, "born" is a past participle, "be born" is a passive, and "I am born" is stative, I fail to see how one is any more fundamentally incorrect than another, especially in the light of what other dictionaries do.

This hairsplitting departure from lexicographical norms affects or has the potential to affect all languages where the verb lemma is not the same form as the English verb lemma, the infinitive. But the meaning is exactly the same wherever there is a mismatch between English lemma, foreign lemmas, and the tenses, moods, aspects, numbers, inflections, etc for all parts of speech for all languages, since they rarely map 1:1. For some reason English infinitives seem to be the first to raise the ire of some who contribute in foreign languages but it is no different from the many other inexactitudes when mapping different languages to one another.

Yet this is a solved problem. Bilingual dictionaries have existed for a long time and they have overcome this problem by mapping lemma to lemma. Why is this a problem for us? Why depart from what dictionary users are accustomed? — hippietrail 05:51, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Ahem. You have misrepresented events in the above paragraphs. The original definition I had given for nascor (when I created the entry) was "I am born, begotten". You changed the entry to a definition suitable for an infinitive (which nascor is not), and I changed it back because the change was grammatically and fundamentally incorrect. The verb nascor is a first-person singular present active indicative, not an infinitive. To translate it as "to be born" is thus misleading as well as an incorrect translation. We discussed the choice of Latin verb lemma forms in 2007 with a large number of participants all agreeing to use the first principal part, just as most dictionaries do. Ancient Greek verb entries (e.g. ἔδω) and Old Armenian verb entries (e.g. զգենում) have been structured in this same way since that decision.

The issue you are raising is a straw man argument. We do (mostly) translate lemma to lemma. But, as I pointed out on your talk page, this isn't always possible. There are many situations where it is preferable to translate to a non-lemma form for accuracy. Consider melior (“‘better’”) and cunīculōsus (“‘full of rabbits’”). Do you argue that this should be translated as "more good" or as "full of rabbit", simply because those are the lemma forms in English? It is silly to let translation be governed solely on the basis of what the lemma form is in English. It is much more reasonable to actually translate the meaning of the word.

Some of your concern stems from an incomplete knowledge of Latin present tense meanings. The present tense in Latin can refer to a present action (progressive or not), but it also is used for what is called the "historic present", which is translated into English as if it were past tense. Also, nascor is deponent, which means that it functions as if it were active, but is inherently passive in all its forms. Some of these deponent verbs can be meaningfully translated into English with an active sense, but many cannot. Consider the impersonal verb licet (“‘it is allowed’”), for which there is no easily used active translation in English, despite the fact that it has an "active" conjugation pattern in Latin. --EncycloPetey 06:05, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Today after the discussion on my talk page I took the liberty of visiting the largest bookshop in the area as well as the local library. I examined each Latin, Ancient Greek, and Classical Greek dictionary. Publication dates were as recent as the 21st century in some cases. In each case, from the oldest to the most modern, listed "nascor" as either "to be born" or "be born". Greek dictionaries also defined all verbs by English infinitives mostly with "to", occasionally without. Yet you state: "While centuries-old Latin dictionaries often translate verbs in terms of infinitives (continuing the tradition of the earliest Renaissance dictionaries) modern Latin dictionaries (such as Oxford's) and textbooks (like Wheelock's) do not do this because they recognize that such translations are both misleading and fundamentally incorrect."

At least two of the dictionaries I consulted were Oxford publications. Are you saying that the editors and compilers of these dictionaries share my "incomplete knowledge of Latin present tense meanings"? Could it not be that you have an incomplete knowledge of Latin lexicography?

For the job of translating sentences I of course agree that the Latin present active does not translate the English infinitive. But translating sentences is not our job. Any good translator translates in context and our context as that of a dictionary. Bilingual dictionaries use a basic form to represent the entire word in all its forms. For English verbs they use the infinitive for this job. For Latin verbs they use the present active for this job. They list "nascor" on one side because it is that form, they list "be born" on the other because that is the basic form. They do not intend that "be born" should be read as a literal prose translation of "nascor". English dictionaries further often have the tradition the tradition of "to" when describing verbs. This is not meant to imply that the word in the other language is also an infinitive, rather to clarify that in English it is a verb, since English words often conflate nouns and verbs in a single form.

The issue is not whether to put the main entries at their so-called "lemma" entries. It's clear that we all agree on that. The issue is how to word the English side. Are we a literary translation or site or a dictionary site? I say we are a dictionary and we should describe the basic forms of verbs in all other languages using the basic form of the English form, that form happens to be the infinitive, and it happens to be what all users accustomed to bilingual dictionaries expect. It is neither some murky misunderstaning I've dredged up from the dark ages nor some radical concept I'm trying to force upon an unexpecting public. It's how dictionaries work. — hippietrail 09:42, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

You say that it's clear we all agree that main entries should be at their lemma form, but why then this edit and this edit, where you moved information away from the lemma page? Your edits do not agree with your professed opinion. --EncycloPetey 14:02, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

@EncycloPetey: Your summary of the About Latin discussion is accurate, but IMHO a bit misleading. Everyone seems to agree, then as now, on what form should be used as the citation form for Latin verbs; the debate is not over where we should translate the verbs, but over how we should translate them. That point was raised by Kipmaster in the discussion you link to, but he didn't express an opinion, nor (so far as I can tell) did anyone else. (Oddly, the closest that Wiktionary:About Latin comes to addressing this issue is in an example you added, whereby spērō was glossed as “hope, expect” in a etymology; but around the same time, you were creating Latin verb entries that look much like the ones you create nowadays, so I don't think we can read too much into that.) —Ruakh_TALK 01:14, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

• I agree that we should generally translate lemmata to lemmata. In some languages lemma form is in 3rd-person (Sanskrit, Old Irish, Hebrew, Hungarian..) in which case we'd have to translate them as "he/she/it <verb>s" which would look ridiculous. At any case, I think that we should simply follow the most widespread lexicographical convention for a particular language. FWIW, Oxford Latin Dictionary translates Latin citation forms as English infinitives, for nascor giving "to be born" (among other 14 meanings). This isn't such a big deal anyway, as there is very rarely difference between English infinitive and first-person form (basically it's just the addition of the first-person pronoun plus "am" or "was"), so it presents no real educational obstacle to the users. --Ivan Štambuk 11:00, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

  You say that it's "not a big deal", but it is to hippietrail. Look at the edits he's made to nascor and nasci, in which he's moved information away from lemma pages. He's talking out of both sides of his mouth. --EncycloPetey 14:04, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

  Well, I personally don't find it such a big deal anyway to read/type either "to x" or "I x". It's just about the same level of cognitive dissonance to the reader - the first form for not being a direct translation of the FL headword, the second one for being "unusual" to the reader accustomed to having English infinitives in the definition lines. --Ivan Štambuk 16:50, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

• I agree 100% with Hippietrail and Ivan. I think it makes Wiktionary look really unprofessional when we translate lemmata to non-lemmata, like we've never looked at a real dictionary to understand the conventions of the field. (N.B.: I say "real dictionary" not because Wiktionary isn't one, but because it doesn't look like one when you see these entries.) —Ruakh_TALK 12:55, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

  And the editors of Latin, Ancient Greek, and Old Armenian disagree. You did notice that "born" itself is not a lemma? --EncycloPetey 13:57, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

• To elaborate a bit further: these half-hearted attempts at in-context translations smack of trying really hard to be helpful to totally clueless people — and failing, because the relationships between verb forms are too complex for a dictionary entry to be thoroughly useful to someone with no idea about them.
  Look. It will never happen that some monolingual English speaker will come across the once-popular bumper sticker שמור מרחק מאהוד ברק, take a picture, paste it into Wiktionary's OCR-image-upload-interface, and get a translation. We are a dictionary. If it is our goal to help people understand sentences in languages they know nothing about, languages with radically different grammars and word orders from English — and I think that's a good, lofty goal — then we need to spend more time listening to Robert Ullmann and (I can't believe I'm saying this) Connel MacKenzie, and work on making our content readily machine-readable so that free OCR and translation software can make use of it. Because we're fooling ourselves if we think this sort of translation gets us even partway there.
  —Ruakh_TALK 13:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

For 3rd-party software parsing Wiktionary database it's pretty trivial to simply ignore the first-person pronoun (and possible copulae like am, was etc.), as much as they would ignore the particle to. 3rd-party software is of absolutely no interest to us ATM, we're stuck with this website, and our primary target are language learners browsing it. --Ivan Štambuk 01:46, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. I wasn't saying "literalist translations interfere with use by third-party software" (though Hippietrail does seem to be saying that below, and I'd welcome further elaboration on that), but rather "literalist translations are pointless; a static dictionary simply can't hold clueless readers' hands to any useful extent, so the only way we can help with that is to help third-party software to help with that". But it seems that my point was moot; in the past, people have advanced the "our readers are clueless" argument, but this time they seem to be sticking to the "this is the correct translation" argument. Which is also misguided, but not for reasons addressed by my comment. :-P   —Ruakh_TALK 02:50, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

• • Fourthed, I agree. FWIW on fr:nascor it say naître (the infinitive) not je nais. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:05, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

    You can see the silliness this line of reasoning leads to by looking at what happens on the Latin Wiktionary entry for, where the definition is given as gigni (present active infinitive) but actually links to gigno (the lemma form). --EncycloPetey 13:57, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

• I also agree. It always seemed strange to me to translate these 1st principal parts literally, but I imagined that this was perhaps the way modern Latin dictionaries had gone. If that's not the case I think Ruakh is dead right – it smacks of misdirected over-enthusiasm. I also respect our Latin and Greek editors, and I'm sure they considered the issue. I can only say it still jumps out at me a bit whever I see it. Ƿidsiþ 14:35, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

While I can see the pros and cons of both sides of this rather unfortunate coin, I have to lead to the side of the literal translations. To give the definition of nascere in the entry for nasco is rather... incorrect. I don't want to hear anymore talk of "this is how paper dictionaries do it" because, you guessed it, we aren't a paper dictionary and we go far beyond their scope. It might look silly to say "he read" for Hebrew and Arabic entries, but their lemma don't mean "to read". — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 14:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

And do you wish to use these correct meanings throughout or just for Latin and Hebrew verb lemmas? — hippietrail 14:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely with opiaterein (14:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)).​—msh210℠ 19:18, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Opiaterein is the first to mention "paper" in this topic. I doubt very much that the choice of wood-based fibre as a publication substrate had a lot of influence on the dictionary compilers deciding between "to" and "I" in verb definitions. The only adjective used to describe the other dictionaries here has been "real dictionaries", to which I might add "professional" and "traditional". I'd say these are the qualities rather than paperness that has led them unaminously to use English infinitives in verb definitions.

Ironically, boldly breaking the "infinitives in definitions" tradition actually holds Wiktionary back to being just like a paper dictionary being only useful for reading as prose. Using the standard form of definitions frees up our data to be used in other applications such as educational software, automatic translation, etc. — hippietrail 22:59, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Again, how hard it is to convert "I x" to "to x" ? --Ivan Štambuk 01:49, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Latin is indeed the easy case since only "to be" is irregular in the English first person singular present. It's a lot worse for languages like Hebrew which use the 3rd person singular present for certain classes of words. Those ending in "y" spring to mind. It would be worse again if there are languages which use a past form as dictionary form. Unless you are arguing for being inconsistent across the various languages perhaps. — hippietrail 03:05, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

@Opiaterein: I think that's misguided, for two reasons. First, [[nascor]] is not specifically about the verb form nāscor; rather, it's an entry for the entire verb commonly identified by "nāscor" or by "nāscor, nāscī, nātus sum". The English verb commonly identified by "be born" or "to be born" is a perfectly correct translation of that Latin verb. And second, if we really want to go about claiming that [[nascor]] is specifically about the verb form nāscor, then how come we translate it only as "I am born", leaving out "am born" and "I'm being born" and "am being born"? Those are all quite plausible translations of the specific verb form nāscor. (I think y'all are trying to have it both ways; you want the "correct" translation of the specific verb-form, but at some point you give up and just choose the simplest-seeming of the possible translations. msh210 puts in a bit more effort, crafting his definitions in a way that simultaneously covers several possible translations, but even then he gives up long before exhausting the list. And rightly so: a full list would be moronic.) —Ruakh_TALK 21:21, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Re "[[nascor]] is not specifically about the verb form nāscor; rather, it's an entry for the entire verb": Well, yes, to an extent, but not to the same extent as in other dictionaries. They list only one form of a verb, so it makes sense for them to translate it as an infinitive. We, who aim to list all forms, are differentiating treatment of them by having form-specific info on the definition line for most, but lemma info for one.​—msh210℠ 17:30, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

• I think the term "lemma" can be a bit confusing. It seems to have too narrow scope. The terms "citation form" and "dictionary form" are better. Compounds and phrases don't really have a single lemma since each of their parts would have a lemma. Dictionary form seems the most practical becuase it just means "the form used in dictionaries", and from looking in lots of dictionaries today I can see that even a passive like "to be born" is a dictionary form but not a lemma. The closest lemma might be "bear" which is not helpful at all.
• One thing that concerns me is that mapping basic forms to inflected forms or sentence fragments restricts Wiktionary to direct human reading. Using it as a resource of data about words would be vastly more complicated. We have the potential to offer the world a multilingual version of something like wordnet. DBpedia is already datamining Wikipedia for information about the world. I would love them to be able to mine Wiktionary for data about the world's languages. We don't have to sacrifice human readability for this. We just have to be like a "real dictionary". — hippietrail 14:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] nāscor — AEL

Sorry, EP. The main Old Armenian contributor has changed his mind. I was just monkeying our conventions for Latin before. All Old Armenian dictionaries translate lemma-to-lemma and that's what I think we should do also for Latin and Ancient Greek. That's how all modern Russian dictionaries of la and grc do. Definitions like "I bloom, blossom, flower, froth" as in floreo look awkward and, personally, distract me from understanding translations fast. --Vahagn Petrosyan 15:45, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

We now have a lot of investment in the existing arrangement. Given the present state of affairs, what would change? It makes little difference to what I do. If referring to a Latin verb in an etymology I often use the parameters of {{term}} to show the infinitive of Latin verbs but link to our entry which is not the infinitive. This allows a kind of consistency across languages in the etymology, at least. To me the "to" is very useful in etymology (term) glosses to remind the user that the term is a verb not a noun of the same spelling. DCDuring TALK 20:19, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Well, the existing arrangement is inconsistent. Latin and Ancient Greek are (almost) entirely one way; Arabic and Aramaic are (almost) entirely the opposite way; and Hebrew and (Modern) Greek are both internally inconsistent, due to nonuniform or non-constant editor preferences. (There are some other affected languages, such as Old Armenian, but none has very many verb entries SFAIK.) Overall, Latin has by far the best representation of these — almost three times as many verbs as the second-place Hebrew or the close-third-place Aramaic — so I'm pretty confident that the majority of affected entries are the literalist way; but the total number of affected entries is on the order of 2500 or 3000, which in the grand scheme of things is not very many. Whichever group we choose to change (assuming we do reach a consensus to change one group to match the other), it's not like we have to change them all overnight. —Ruakh_TALK 23:25, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

No, verbs inheriting from present active infinitive (as is mostly the case in the descending Romance languages) should be glossed as "to <verb>". Only then one could add, "present active infinitive of {{term|x|y|I <verb>|lang=la}}", to point to Latin lemma form. In cases such as this, it is actually good to have correctly translated Latin etymons. --Ivan Štambuk 01:46, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

To piggyback off what Ivan has just said: For etymologies, forms of verbs should not be hidden using {{term}}. The compromise described on WT:ALA#Romance language verbs is to give the present active infinitive as the immediate form from which the modern Romance verb derives, but to explicitly indicate that it is the present active infinitive of lemma. Likewise, if it is known that a Spanish (e.g.) noun form derives from the ablative of noun X, a similar construction can be used. When glossing Latin verbs in etymologies, I deliberately leave out the "I" unless it would be akward to make clear the word is a verb, but I keep in mind that some translations can be ambiguous. So, I gloss ferō (“‘carry, bear’”) rather than ferō (“‘bear’”). I never use the infinitive particle "to" when glossing a first principal part of a Latin verb, and I prefer to leave them out of glossing any verb in an etymology, as it's usually just visual noise if the gloss is carefully selected. However, I agree with DCD that there are times where the infinitive particle may be needed (for verbs in English, Spanish, French, etc.) when it isn't clear that the glossed word is a verb. This point might be worth a separate discussion, perhaps at the editable ELE, to make this point of style uniform. --EncycloPetey 02:51, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

(Not sure where to post this, not to interrupt the ongoing discussion) I prefer "to be born" over "I am born", and have been creating "I am born"-like entries only because that is the current Wiktionary practice. The lemma entry stands for the entire word, not for its particular forms. So lemmas should be mapped to lemmas. In addition, Hippietrail tells us this is the actual practice in printed dictionaries. --Dan Polansky 23:20, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

I repeat a point everyone has overlooked: "born" is not a lemma; the lemma is bear. People who have been arguing for mapping "lemma to lemma" exclusively have not addressed this problem or the similar problems I have pointed out with this approach. --EncycloPetey 23:50, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, Hippietrail did address this "problem" in one of his comments above, by clarifying that "lemma to lemma" had been the wrong word choice on his part. Secondly, the normal way to translate a verb to English is with an infinitival verb phrase (either bare or full, depending on the dictionary — I prefer full, personally), just as the normal way to define a verb within English is with an infinitival verb phrase. It's hardly a "problem" that the resulting translation or definition is sometimes not an idiom. Thirdly, I'm not sure why you're talking about "born". No one is suggesting that nāscor be translated as "born"; we're suggesting it be translated as "be born". And lastly, this isn't really relevant to the discussion as a whole, but — I think "be born" is idiomatic and should have an entry. When we say "bore him in her womb" we mean "was pregnant with him", but when we say "was born", we mean "was expelled from the womb". Give or take. And the usual past participle of "bear" nowadays is actually "borne", but in this sense we always write "born", which definitely suggests it's taken on a life of its own. —Ruakh_TALK 00:41, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Did you read Dan's comment imediately above mine? Whatever hippitrail may have said, the people participating in this discussiion are arguing for "lemma to lemma". If that isn't what is being argued, then someone needs to clarify exactly what the point is, because "lemma to lemma" is what people are responding to. Otherwise, that will continue to be the point of discussion, since no alternative has been articulated. --EncycloPetey 02:57, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I read it, and I think everyone is arguing the same thing, just slightly abusing the word "lemma". Hippietrail suggested "dictionary form", which seems reasonable, though it does beg the question a little.
Your comment seems to imply that you don't understand what we mean, but that seems unlikely. I think, rather, that you're being a stickler for correct use of the word "lemma". And that's fine, if so — pedantry is the stuff that dictionaries are made on, and words like "lemma" are especially good to get right — but I'm not willing to play a sort of protracted game where I try to explain in good faith, and you pretend not to understand what I mean. If you really and truly don't understand, please come out and say so explicitly — and try to say exactly what part you don't understand, please, insofar as you can pin it down — and I'll do my best to explain it for you.
—Ruakh_TALK 03:42, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Well fine then. If this whole discussion is pedantry, then we can drop it without further discussion. If you are unwilling/unable to clearly state what the discussion is about, then the discussion must not be that important. We can't reach a consensus when different people are all working under different opinons about what the issue is. --EncycloPetey 05:48, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

To me Ruakh seems totally clear: the best citation form is "to be born", because this puts the verb "be" in the infinitive. (It does not require us to put "bear" in the infinitive, that would be crazy for verbs like this.) Whether or not this is called a lemma is a minor secondary point. Ƿidsiþ 10:24, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

To EncycloPetey, unindenting: I admit that lemma is not always used as the translation, which I did not realize before you pointed it out. Nevertheless, lemma is not used at these cases of terms where there is some specific reason to make an exception, as is the case with "to be born". The form "bear" as a lemma seems an oddity to me: a child is born, while the mother gives birth to the child. I would personally be happy to see "be born" as a dictionary entry; I have learned the term as "be born", not as "bear".

Whereas the acceptance of "be born"-like forms instead of the lemma pertains to a fraction of all the terms, the decision to use the present active affects every single verb.

The heuristic rule: map lemma to lemma unless unspecified conditions for an exception are met; yes, the conditions for an exception are left unarticulated. --Dan Polansky 17:12, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Not sure where to put this, but here's a true story. I was struggling through a French text, not knowing any French. Fortunately, it was a technical text in my own field, which helps. I came across the word soit and did not know what it meant. (It's the third-person singular subjunctive of "to be", roughly "let it be".) Suppose we chose the subjunctive as our citation form (lemma form, dictionary form). This might seem an outlandish supposition, but which one we choose is just a choice. I mean, the story with soit could have occurred with any other form. So suppose that were our citation form, and we had "to be" on the definition line and, as so many citation-form entries have, no conjugation table. I would have absolutely no idea what the word meant. I can think of two main uses for an anglophone — and remember, English Wiktionary is meant for anglophones — to look up a foreign word's definition (not pronunciation or what-have-you, which is not under discussion here). One, he comes across the word in context, as I did soit. For those purposes, a lemma-to-lemma translation is almost completely useless, as my soit story exemplifies, and a form-to-form translation is useful. Two, he comes across the word out of context, such as in an etymology in enwikt or another dictionary, or standing alone. For those purposes, the lemma-to-lemma translation is better, I'll admit, but the form-to-form translation is still very useful. So the best choice is the form-to-form translation.​—msh210℠ 17:30, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I think you're missing the point a bit. nascor is a lemma form: the question is how to translate that into English in its definition line. soit is not a lemma form, and the translation will always say "subjunctive form of" etc., directing you to être where you can see a full declension table for the verb. English-French is easy because both languages use infinitives as lemmas, but in Latin that's not the case. Ƿidsiþ 09:25, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I think he gets the point; he just disagrees. Nāscor is a lemma form, but it's also a form someone could conceivably come across in actual reading — someone, say, who might have no knowledge of Latin besides what they can piece together from knowledge of Western Romance languages. If such a someone saw it translated as "to be born", they might wrongly infer that it's the infinitive — it even kind of looks like a Romance infinitive, with that <-r> at the end — and fail to understand the sentence. To be honest, this is the only argument I find even remotely convincing. (I'd find it more convincing if the affected languages weren't just so different from English in such features as case and word order and pronoun usage and proclitic prepositions, the sort of features that make it basically impossible to read a text without some knowledge of the language beyond what you can learn by naively looking up individual words. Like, if Scots used a different lemma, I'd find this a much more compelling argument; but Classical and Semitic languages, not so much.) —Ruakh_TALK 12:49, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Besides, all Latin verbs are supposed to have conjugation tables which explicitly mention that, e.g. nascor is 1st person present active indicative and nasci is the infinitive. This further reduces the possibility of the confusion Ruakh mentions can happen. --Vahagn Petrosyan 13:44, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

(Yes, Ruakh, you understood me correctly.) Yes, Vahagn, they should have conjugations, but they don't. or maybe Latin does (I don't know), but others don't.​—msh210℠ 15:58, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

As with those before me, I'm not sure if this is the best place to insert this comment, but.. My apologies EP, as I'm sure you'll be kicking yourself now, for inviting me to this discussion, but I'm starting to think that mapping lemma to lemma is, in fact the best practice (putting aside the nuanced, inane distinctions between lemma, dictionary form, citation form, etc. Come on, we all know what's being discussed here). As someone already mentioned, and I think that this is the real crux of the argument, the entry at [[nascor]] is not about the first person singular present active form, it's about all the forms, viewed collectively. If this were not the case, I'd have to wonder why there's a "passive" contag at ἐξαφανίζω. ἐξαφανίζω is not passive, it's active. I think that the distinction between a collection of words, and the specific word cited is one which we often fail to recognize, and it's something which will probably come back to bite us if we're not careful. EP, I think your bit about "more good" is a silly tangent. "More good" is not a lemma in English, it's a disallowed construction. However, it does, inadvertently, raise a good point. If we do decide to do lemma-to-lemma translations, then we have to allow a certain flexibility. For example, we need to allow passive translations, when the active/passive status is different between an entry and its English equivalent. Additionally, "full of rabbit" does not work, for obvious reasons, and yet I would probably put "full of [[rabbit|rabbits]]", as [[rabbits]] is a pretty useless entry. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 03:24, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Atelaes, I my be disappointed that you have taken the boneheaded side of the argument, but I'd still rather have you participating in this discussion than not. As one of the individuals whose edits could be radically affected by the outcome of this discussion, you need to be here. You also have a knack for clarity of expression and for spotting issues and angles that others miss (including myself). So, whether you are agreeable or oppositional, I refuse to kick myself over asking you to participate. --EncycloPetey 05:00, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

I see no problems with labels such as (passive) in the definition lines, marking additional, special meaning that the verb takes in what is otherwise a regularly derived morphological category. For Sanskrit I use some well-defined templates such as {{causative}}, {{