Wiktionary:Tea room

Wiktionary > Discussion rooms > Tea room Wiktionary > Discussion rooms > Tea room

Please do not edit section titles as this breaks links on talk pages and in other discussion fora.

Oldest tagged RFTs

• mico
  Sukhumi
  regnbuefamilie
  Euthemia
  hagdon
  lipsati
  Romanophobia
  Wesson
  monolid
  watercressing
  notch
  address
  carhouse
  RGSS
  series
  multivarious
  amen
  -stan
  червь
  speedometer
  maᵗⁱᵉ
  چھہ
  half
  based
  α΄
  orignal
  dies Mercurii
  manso
  ၐြဳ
  ကာလယဲ
  pasar por las horcas caudinas
  monosemous
  monosemic
  hazelly
  Dağ Türkleri
  Aster
  smeť
  sis
  over skyerne er himlen altid blå
  rumped
  Indon
  belly dance
  on purpose
  nasal cavity
  how much
  cut one's teeth
  take its toll
  bok choy
  search up
  don't try to teach grandma how to suck eggs
  speech recognition
  turn the tide
  ne bis in idem
  cornus
  code point
  one over the eight
  green privilege
  Chinese landing
  one's house in order
  native bread
  rhina
  after
  one's heart bleeds
  gender-neutral
  chicken-or-egg question
  otocrane
  Surinam
  no thank you
  mukt
  uninvited
  away
  catalogue
  imaginary
  tweener
  radiendocrinology
  classique
  be
  smuggling raisins
  shadowing
  mandate
  war hero
  war-hero
  eat like a horse
  tacet
  lightning bruiser
  phrogging
  tjälknöl
  efilism
  Jacboson
  Andersdr
  berm
  pirmas
  exponential
  arena rock
  rayon
  on someone's ass
  caviar to the general
  churtle
  Lipović
  

November 2011

arush

Is that "would arush me" at 1:08 in this clip?​—msh210℠ (talk) 00:03, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

No, it's "were to rush me" in a non-rhotic accent but with intervocalic alveolar flapping. So it's [wɜɾəˈɹʌʃmi], not [wʊɾəˈɹʌʃmi]; admittedly the acoustic difference between them is minute. —Angr 18:52, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah! Thanks.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:51, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

part of speech

It should be noted that this is both countable and uncountable: one should have an understanding of part of speech (uncountable); the part of speech of this word is "noun" (countable). How to fix the template to reflect this? ---> Tooironic 00:29, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

See diff.​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:59, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that is uncountable. DCDuring TALK 23:03, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Would like to see a phrase like "understanding of part of speech" in a real citation. Equinox ◑ 23:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

[1] ("Lexicographers acknowledge the importance of part of speech by […] ") is one. But the complete sentence is "Lexicographers acknowledge the importance of part of speech by following the principle substitutability." which sounds as though the author is using invisible quotation marks to make nouns into proper nouns ("by following the principle 'substitutability'") ,in which case he may well have meant also "Lexicographers acknowledge the importance of 'part of speech'" along the same lines. So it's not a great citation. There are probably others (I haven't looked much), but it certainly seems rare. I was too hasty in adding a claim of 'uncountable' to the entry, and we should revert, I think, it.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:05, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

behavior and behaviour

These entries need to be harmonised - one should be a soft redirect to the other, and all the translations and countable/uncountable information should be keep in only one of the entries. Who can help? I'm out of time right now. ---> Tooironic 00:31, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

We really need a way to redirect both to a common entry. No user wants to be redirected to an incorrect spelling for their variety of English. Dbfirs 22:56, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree. This should be like what Wikipedia does with Jurassic Park (film) vs. Jurassic Park (movie). There may be all kinds of dialects and preferences (we tend to think about UK, US, maybe AU and CA, probably not Trinidad or Jamaican or Irish English) but ideally they should not see an "alternative spelling of". I tend to feel that doing this properly is a low priority and far from where we are now. Equinox ◑ 23:01, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I wondered about the possibilities for doing something like this for Japanese as well, where a single word might have several possible renderings that should all have the same page content. The closest way I could think of was to have a common page that would be transcluded into all of the others. The problem I ran into was where to locate that common page. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 15:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

We could call the entry behavior/behaviour? Or behavio(u)r? —CodeCat 15:40, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I like behavio(u)r myself (it's shorter and leaves out the potentially political question of which spelling comes first). -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 17:53, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The parentheses are good also because they don't introduce the possibility of confusion with a subpage. But the common page should be in template space, i.e. Template:behavio(u)r so it's clear that we aren't talking about an individual word spelled behavio(u)r. —Angr 18:48, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

There was a problem with a combined entry at colour/color and centre/center because of other languages, so would the template solution work there for an English section as part of the main entry? I've adjusted Widsith's removal of the definitions from the British and Commonwealth spelling of centre because "Alternative" is misleading. I understand the desire for a single entry, but the spelling with "u" has had a full entry in Wiktionary for seven years and I hate to see it go. The template would avoid an argument, perhaps? Dbfirs 19:46, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

What about if we create colo(u)r, and transclude it on both color and colour? —CodeCat 20:03, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I think that (deprecated template usage) behavio(u)r, parentheses and all, actually meets the CFI! —Ruakh_TALK 19:51, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Update: I've now created an entry for (deprecated template usage) behavio(u)r. —Ruakh_TALK 20:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, fair entry, but it doesn't solve our problem about behavior/behaviour. I'm still not happy with the deletion of the full entry at centre. Dbfirs 10:46, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to solve any problem about behavior/behaviour, I was trying to reinforce Angr (talk • contribs)'s point that "the common page should be in template space, i.e. Template:behavio(u)r so it's clear that we aren't talking about an individual word spelled behavio(u)r". CodeCat (talk • contribs) seems to be ignoring that point, however. —Ruakh_TALK 17:59, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Above I spoke in favo(u)r of parentheses rather than a slash, but it occurs to me that some BE/AE spelling differences can't be easily captured with parentheses, such as center/centre or organise/organize (which isn't strictly a BE/AE difference since z also occurs in BE). So maybe Template:center/centre and Template:organise/organize are the way to go. (The words can be arranged in alphabetical order to avoid favo(u)ring one spelling or the other.) As for the current state of [[centre]], I not only dislike that it's been stripped of its content, but also the fact that its context label says (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), listing all the countries of the UK separately while omitting the Republic of Ireland, South Africa, and all other countries of the world (India, Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria, Belize, Jamaica, etc.) where Commonwealth spellings may be encountered. And listing all of them would mean a great long list of countries the reader has to scan over before getting to the meat of the definition - particularly frustrating when that meat contains no meat at all but merely an indication that one has to look up the American spelling. —Angr 11:21, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I didn't like the partial list of countries, but I hoped that it was going to disappear soon. The OED just uses a comma (e.g. "center, centre"). I don't know much about template space, so don't want to upset experts by experimenting, but I can't see any reason why some such template containing the definitions couldn't be inserted into the separate entries at center and centre. For pairs such as organise/organize, our existing "alternative spelling of" template is fine because the spelling with the "s" is still just an alternative in Britain (though I can see it gradually taking over from the older spelling.) Dbfirs 18:36, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

There is nothing special about template namespace, it is just more pages. The only thing different about it is that when a page is transcluded the wiki engine assumes that the template namespace is meant if no namespace is specified. In short, you are unlikely to break anything by creating these pages. SpinningSpark 12:36, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God

Does this really mean "The rich can afford more immoral behavior than the poor"? I thought it meant "The rich are unlikely to enter Heaven", probably because "The rich are more likely to be immoral". That may be because "The rich can (monetarily) afford more immoral behavior" — but our definition implies that their ability to (monetarily) afford immoral behavior is the point of the saying, whereas I think the point is that they're not likely to (live in such a way that they) make it to heaven. They certainly cannot spiritually afford immoral behavior, from the text's point of view (it will damn them, as it will anyone else). - -sche (discuss) 05:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, that is not the meaning as I understood it. Actually it would be very easy for a rich man to get a camel through the eye of a needle. All one needs is a very large liquidiser and a funnel. SpinningSpark 05:51, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The metaphor, as I know it, is that you have to take off all your possessions from your camel to make it go through a small gate in Jerusalem named "eye of a needle". And the interpretation is that a rich man must abandon his wealth when he dies; the possessions can't go to the other side with him. --Daniel 10:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Hey Daniel take a look at this: http://www.biblicalhebrew.com/nt/camelneedle.htm . I agree with the "must abandon wealth" interpretation though. Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV 13:24, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

From what I heard on the TV show QI, the small gate in Jerusalem story is nonsense; supposedly what Jesus meant was the literal meaning of the words. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:54, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't trust QI as a source. Anyway, there's some debate among actual experts; some think that it's actually supposed to mean that it's easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle (the Aramaic word for camel having been used also to refer to a camel's-hair rope), while others point to similar metaphors elsewhere, using different animals, to suggest that it's quite literal. But regardless of what it meant to its author, the main question is what it means to English-speakers today. The rest is etymology. —Ruakh_TALK 14:29, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I would think it means that to get to heaven one must renounce false gods (and love only God), and rich men would have a hard time renouncing Mammon (loving money too greatly, and having done so all their lives). — Pingku^dimmi 16:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

population

1. (deprecated template usage) The people living within a political or geographical boundary

   The population of New Jersey will not stand for this!

2. The people living in a single place.

   The population of some small towns is numbered in under four digits.

Am I missing something, or are those identical?​—msh210℠ (talk) 20:16, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

The sense 2 probably means the number of the population in a particular area, not the people themselves. You can replace population with people in the first example above, but you can’t in the following sentence:

• The population of the US is bigger than that of Japan.

— TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

(蛇足 / tangent): Although the meaning changes, you *can* still say the following, what with the state of public health in the US.  ;-)

• The people of the US are bigger than those of Japan.

Yes of course, and your example clearly shows the difference of the singular and plural population. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:13, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

So you're saying #2 above is the same as

4. A count of the number of residents within a political or geographical boundary such as a town, a nation or the world

The town’s population is only 243.

then, right?​—msh210℠ (talk) 00:16, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think they are the same. Perhaps someone added the sense 4 because the definition of the sense 2 was not clear. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 01:17, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I have deleted the original sense 2 and moved the original sense 4 there. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 02:03, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Why was this done outside of process? This is the kind of thing RfD is for. DCDuring TALK 03:38, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I thought it was okay because they were the same and there was no objection. If it needed a further discussion, revert my edit. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 03:55, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I think your edit was fine. It's O.K. to start an RFD discussion about merging redundant senses, but I don't think it's essential. —Ruakh_TALK 18:03, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

final

"A final examination; a test or examination given at the end of a term or class; the test that concludes a class." Is this word use like this in American English only? In Australia we rarely use it. ---> Tooironic 03:11, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Dunno. But in case you're doubting its existence altogether, let me assure you it's common in American English.​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:55, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

In American English, it’s a standard term for that test. But more commonly, final exam. Often used in the plural, because during final-exams week, there are finals in virtually every class. —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:07, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Rare in British English except for degree-level "finals". Dbfirs 11:45, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I would venture that "final" is way more common in spoken American English than "final exam". DCDuring TALK 11:58, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I'll go in with you on that venture. :-)   —Ruakh_TALK 20:36, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

In that case I'm adding a US context tag. ---> Tooironic 23:41, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Correct word please

Hello. I am French speaking ; so I want to known what is correct : "free entry", "free entrance" or "free access" for the "entry" without payment to an exhibition or a museum. Thank you for yours anwers. --Égoïté 10:07, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

"Free admission." —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:04, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much ! --Égoïté 11:30, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd note that "free entry" and "free entrance" are okay, if not idiomatic. "Free access" would be access without limitation; e.g. "after you pay, you will have free access to the museum."--Prosfilaes 17:05, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

numen

Please see Talk:numen. This contributor is interested in expanding our English definition at (deprecated template usage) numen to include "god or goddess" rather than just "god". For my part I'm not familiar with this word and, while I would have thought that "god" includes both male and female deities, I suppose it's arguable. Thoughts? Equinox ◑ 21:06, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with BabeMN (talk • contribs): if (deprecated template usage) numen is known to have been used in reference to goddesses, then I would definitely write "god or goddess". Bare "god" is sometimes gender-neutral, but it's sometimes specifically male (hence google books:"god or goddess", "gods and goddesses"), so we should disambiguate. —Ruakh_TALK 00:23, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

society

Is it more common to say "in modern society" or "in the modern society"? My feeling - and it's backed up by Google Books - is the former sounds more natural and is much more common. A usage note to this effect would be very useful as it is totally unintuitive to non-native-speakers. It is also especially confusing considering that most other "big-concept" nouns like "government", "environment", "Internet", "world", "press", "workforce", "media", etc., almost always use the definite article (or occasionally the plural form). Who is with me? ---> Tooironic 23:39, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

One would say "in the modern society" only when contrasting with an older society, but "in modern government" is also used in the same way as "in modern society" when the nouns are used in an abstract way. Perhaps the ideas of society and government allow greater abstraction than the other nouns. Environment and workforce can also take an indefinite article, but we usually assume that we have only one Internet, world, press and media. I'm struggling to define rules about which of the three options to use in which contexts. Dbfirs 10:38, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I "just" know

What sense of (deprecated template usage) just is being used in "I just know", for example in "I can tell, I just know that it's going down tonight"? Fugyoo 19:03, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

"Only, simply, merely"? I just know; I haven't learned or proven it. Equinox ◑ 19:04, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be {{non-gloss definition|An emphatic.}}, a sense we don't yet have.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:01, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Equinox; it's not an emphatic. It's saying that I know this despite a lack of information to make that claim.--Prosfilaes 20:35, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

lindo

The Spanish and Portuguese words have different etymologies, but they have the same meaning so that seems a bit strange. Which one is it? —CodeCat 23:47, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

http://liveweb.archive.org/http://www.etimo.it/?term=lindo&find=Cerca mentions limpidus (and many others), but not legitimus. I think it's much more likely to have come from limpidus anyway. We should find who added the etymology in Spanish and ask him where he got that. Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV 14:13, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

It was Strabismus (talk • contribs).​—msh210℠ (talk) 15:59, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

The legitimus etymology is from DRAE.Matthias Buchmeier 10:30, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

what is a bunny rabbit?

Like, grammatically, it is a word composed of 2 words, where both of the words mean the same thing, and the word composed of both of the words also means the same thing. What's the grammatical name for this? Are there other example of it? motor car is one, I guess. --Rockpilot 23:08, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

And pussy cat and kitty cat. I hope they're not just called reduplications, maybe called extreme reduplications instead, or even better doubling reduplications ('coz then, like, the term doubling reduplication is also a doubling reduplication, which leads to awesomeness in the form of autologicality). --Rockpilot 00:34, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Reduplication is usually at the level of sounds, AFAICT. Rhetoricians might call these examples of parelcon, synonymia, or perissologia. See Silva Rhetoricae. DCDuring TALK 02:07, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Those names suck. I prefer doubling reduplication, or bunny-rabbit word --Rockpilot 09:40, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Not "motor car" since this is just a car(t) with a motor. After 700 years of regular use, "car" came to be used as an abbreviation for the motorised variety, but not exclusively. Dbfirs 09:37, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

motor car is actually a bunny-rabbit word, as motor and car both mean motor car. --Rockpilot 09:40, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but only because both "motor" and "car" are now used as abbreviations for the original correct term "motor car". Not all cars are designed to have motors, and not all motors will fit in a car. This is not the same as the duplication of words for children in your other examples. Dbfirs 10:11, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I would call bunny rabbit a tautological noun used by children. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:09, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Other examples would include oak tree. These are very common in Mandarin, helping to reduce ambiguity. Fugyoo 21:20, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Yet, (deprecated template usage) tree does not necessarily mean (deprecated template usage) oak, and (deprecated template usage) oak on its own is ambiguous -- are we talking about the tree? the wood? the color? Context can make this clear, but sometimes an additional word is needed. Meanwhile, a (deprecated template usage) bunny is, in most respects, the same thing as a (deprecated template usage) rabbit, with the main differences having to do with the age appropriateness of word choice and similar social connotations. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 22:40, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

"Avon" means 'river' in Celtic, so the popular "Avon river" means "river river".[2] Does that make "Avon river" a "bunny-rabbit word"? How about "hollow pipe" or "girly girl" or "manly-man" or "rifled rifle" or "buttery smooth"? --DavidCary 03:07, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, a pipe can be not hollow, such as when filled with something, be it water or dirt or what have you. Meanwhile, "girly girl" and "manly man" seem to be emphatics more than the kind of doubling seen in (deprecated template usage) bunny rabbit. "Rifled rifle" strikes me as redundant -- a rifle is by its very definition rifled; if it looks like a rifle but the barrel isn't rifled, it's not a rifle, it's a musket. "Buttery smooth" is a bit different, and different again from (deprecated template usage) bunny rabbit, for while butter is certainly smooth provided it's not frozen, (deprecated template usage) smooth on its own does not necessarily call forth connotations of (deprecated template usage) butter.

"Avon river" is the closest analog, but for the problem of different languages, and the simple fact that most English speakers don't know that "avon" means "river". By contrast, English speakers will recognize (deprecated template usage) bunny and (deprecated template usage) rabbit as being essentially the same thing.

(My favorite example of this kind of cross-language redundancy was a three-way of sorts, on a sign in Tokyo labeling a waterway as the Shin Sen Gawa River. In kanji, it was the 新川河, which is already redundant, using the Chinese-derived reading "sen" for 川, which means "river" but is used here as a proper noun, and 河, which means river, but is used here as the placename label. So then in English it's the New River River River. Joy!) -- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 07:23, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

The obvious American English example, which I'd forgotten, is pizza pie. DCDuring TALK 15:58, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

But pizza pie isn't tautological any more than oak tree is; a pizza is a kind of pie, and not all pies are pizzas. —Angr 17:00, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

But all pizzas are pizza pies. And, for many (most?) speakers, not all rabbits are bunny rabbits, only young ones. DCDuring TALK 18:57, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

You think? I don't feel any semantic difference between bunny, rabbit, and bunny rabbit at all. Young ones are called kits or kittens. —Angr 19:34, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Or, for those of us who didn't know the technical term, they're baby bunnies or baby rabbits.  :) -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 21:42, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I would be interesting to see what the actual meaning-in-use of "bunny rabbit" is. It might change the answer to the original question. Similarly, it would be interesting to see how common terms like "kit" or "kitten" are in reference to rabbits. In a typical corpus it would probably depend on the inclusion of a single journal article that used the term. DCDuring TALK 00:19, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

On the frequency of the word kit and kitten in this sense, see Rabbits at bgc. DCDuring TALK 00:33, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Growing up, I heard countable pizza refer to a slice. Fwiw.​—msh210℠ (talk) 00:38, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Apparently the ambiguity of the term kit/kitten in this sense is such that there is some scholarly usage of kit rabbit/kitten rabbit synonymously with (deprecated template usage) bunny rabbit. DCDuring TALK 00:46, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Again, what is the evidence that bunny rabbit means specifically "young rabbit" rather than "rabbit" (of any age)? That's not what our definition says, it's not what my native-speaker intuition says, it's not what Oxford says. It may have connotations of cuteness, but rabbits (unlike many other animals) remain cute even when fully grown. —Angr 16:51, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

It's not hard to find cites where "bunny" appears to be contrasted with "adult (rabbit)"; for example, see here (and scroll to the next page); google books:"bunnies and adult rabbits" (just two distinct cites, but still); this web-page (N.B. not durably archived); and some of the hits at google books:"bunnies and rabbits". Obviously there are speakers for whom "bunny" means "rabbit", but there are apparently (and attestably) speakers who use it to mean "young rabbit". —Ruakh_TALK 20:16, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

• One of the reasons I like Wiktionary: A discussion about bunny rabbits can end up in a discussion about pizzas. And all the while it remains a serious thread. --Rockpilot 15:13, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

  Erm, what are your favourite toppings? I like Hawaiian personally. --Rockpilot 15:13, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

  Fresh powdered West African black rhino horn, but it's getting hard to find. DCDuring TALK 18:22, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

  Bunny rabbit. (kidding!) --Robert.Baruch 00:04, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

piquing and Peking

Random question: are these words homophones? ---> Tooironic 02:15, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

• To me, the stress is on the first syllable for the first, and the second syllable for the second. SemperBlotto 08:24, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

  Don't forget peaking and peeking. --Mglovesfun (talk) 16:20, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd say piquing, peaking and peeking are homophones; Peking has the stress on the second syllable. Any of the first three words together with Peking is a good example of a purely stress-based minimal pair in English. (Those aren't easy to find because of the English tendency to reduce unstressed vowels to schwa.) —Angr 16:29, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I've more often heard the three verb forms pronounced as , and Peking pronounced more as -- with the difference not just in the stress, but also in the first vowel sound. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 21:46, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

sealess

Hi everybody. I just created fr:phoquesse, and I was wondering if sealess could be used to name a female seal (pinniped), like lioness for the lion. Thanks for your help. --ArséniureDeGallium 16:10, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think so; I've never heard and can't find any examples of it. Female seals, if not simply called "female seals", are called "cows" (or "seal cows" or "cow seals" if necessary for disambiguation). —Angr 16:18, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

This a pity I can't say a sealess sealess (a female seal in a zoo? :D). Thanks very much for your answer. --ArséniureDeGallium 19:24, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

striked

Following a discussion elsewhere, I've realised that "striked" is seemingly becoming more common, but only in the context of industrial relations. I don't have time now to alter then entry and I don't know how it should be labeled. I wouldn't say it's "non-standard" but it's not the most common. Anyway, some cites: [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11].

Also when looking for those, I found a few uses of "striked" as an adjective describing a type of measure or maybe the term is "striked measure", [12] gives a definition. It seems to be related to wheat and possibly other similar crops only. Thryduulf (talk) 18:34, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

phew

Look at the pronunciation of phew (/ɧu˥˩/). Does this English term really have tone and a sound which exists only in Swedish? Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV 00:49, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

It's pronounced identically with (deprecated template usage) few. Equinox ◑ 00:51, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Isn't it often pronounced with a bilabial sound? —CodeCat 01:24, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Not in my idiolect, it's not. phew is much more aspirated then few.--Prosfilaes 12:15, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Likewise in mine, where phew is pronounced somewhere between few and shoe, and does have a tone drop. There are a small number of English interjective sounds that have qualities not normally associated with English. This can include unusual IPA characters not present in other words and tonal information. See ugh for another example, where the pronunciation is that given by the Cambridge Pronouncing Dictionary, and with which I agree based on my own idiolect. --EncycloPetey 16:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't our pronunciations represent the English word as it would be read aloud, or spoken in neutral English, rather than the natural noise that it imitates or names, or some specific imitative expression? Consider bang, budda budda, burp, zoom, bark, moo, woohoo. —Michael Z. 2012-01-28 17:57 z

pers

Abbr for Persian. Should this not be at Pers? Equinox ◑ 15:44, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Probably Pers. in fact, like Ger. and so on. --Mglovesfun (talk) 14:52, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Adding Latin 3rd conjugation template for verbs with no perfect?

Hi all! I stumbled across the Latin word adlubesco / allubesco, which seems to have no perfect forms (see for example here). There is a template for 3rd conjugation verbs with only one part, and for 3rd conjugation verbs with 3 parts, but none for those with 2 parts.

1. Is it truly the case that adlubesco has no perfect? I couldn't find any in my random search.
2. Is there any objection to my creating the 3rd-noperf template?

Thanks! --Robert.Baruch 02:28, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

The Latin inchoative verbs (ensing in -esco) that I've come across have no infinitive form, which is why (deprecated template usage) albesco and similar verbs use the "no234" template. Have you found an inifinitive form for adlubesco? I didn't spot it in the link you provided, though I might have just missed it. --EncycloPetey 05:52, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, the infinitive is given in L&S and Cassell's. It's also mainly in various post-Gutenberg works, e.g. here (1738) and here (1639). There's also the imperfect subjunctive found in Metamorphoses, so there must be an infinitive form to conjugate, right? And I guess I can add allibesco to the alternate forms :( --Robert.Baruch 15:06, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

hell on wheels

The L3 header says Noun, but the definition suggests this is an adjective. Which is true? -- Liliana • 20:17, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd definitely call it a noun. It is often used as a predicate with the meaning given. It could be defined as "Someone or something that is ....". Also sometimes it is used to mean something like "intensely good or successful" of a performance, especially a competitive one. DCDuring TALK 20:36, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

western world

"All of the countries of the world other than those in Asia taken as a whole." Urgh. That is the worst definition I have ever heard. It excludes countries like Israel, but includes all of Africa which many people do not perceive as "western". -- Liliana • 21:33, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Jack Nicholson once said about The Terror that it was the only movie he ever acted in that didn't have a plot. When told, director Roger Corman replied that I'm sure it's not the only movie he's acted in without a plot.

Weak humor aside, it didn't impress me either. My real question is whether it's varied over time. I went ahead and added an obsolete sense of the Americas, but I'm wondering both in age of book and subject of book. Pre-Western discovery Australia is surely not part of the Western World, and I suspect that Cold War authors were likely to exclude Eastern Europe and modern authors possibly include Russia to the sea (or certainly at least the entire EU.)--Prosfilaes 22:08, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

cat around

• To cat around, meaning to seek out sexual companionship. Being a wiktionary n00b, would this be eligible for its own entry? Or does it go under cat? --Robert.Baruch 00:42, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I've added an entry. Equinox ◑ 15:21, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

bon viveur

I found the word bon viveur but we don't have it as a headword but it is used in a definition. Is it the same as bon vivant? viveur says in means someone who lives well. The good life? (Is this uncommon? I found the word in the Wikipedia. Should it be changed?). RJFJR 01:15, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

stir fry

Hi. In the sense of "stir fry" as a compound noun, "stir fries" is listed as the only plural form. I came here after seeing an article that used the form "stir frys." This is a bit over my head, but between a google search, by comparison to the "still life" entry, and after reading this article, it seems likely that "stir frys" is probably acceptable. Cheers. Haus 01:23, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd create it, and then see what happens Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 01:26, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Do you also eat "French frys" on your side of the pond? Dbfirs 14:48, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, do you have gang shootouts called "drivebies"? Equinox ◑ 14:53, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Good point! Even though "driveby" is often written as a single word, "drivebies" is not attestable (there is just one "drive-bies" in print on bgc). I think we can cite both "stir frys" and "French frys" to satisfy CFI for Wiktionary, though not for some more conservative dictionaries who ignore deviant authors. We ought to indicate, for our users, which plural is more common. Dbfirs 15:12, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Where the thing can be called a fry (like a French fry: "I dropped a fry on the floor") I think it's ungrammatical. Stir-fry, driveby, passer-by etc. seem like different cases. Equinox ◑ 15:47, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. When by is actually from the preposition (deprecated template usage) by, it shouldn't ever turn into bies. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 03:09, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, but it probably will within the next fifty years. "Passerbies" already has over 32,000 (mistaken?) hits in Google, including in some dictionaries. Dbfirs 15:02, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

computer language

Should we merge the senses, since #3 comprehends both #1 and #2? Equinox ◑ 21:57, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any value keeping senses #1 and #2 separate from #3. There is some discussion of the term computer language in the last paragraph of w:Programming_language#Definitions suggesting that it has distinct senses, but these do not correspond to our current #1 and #2.

All the examples in our current #3 are languages that a computer can typically read and act on, but computer language is sometimes used more broadly - see e.g. w:Template:Computer language. I think #3 should also mention specification languages, or something similar. --Avenue 21:50, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd think the third one is legitimate in a more informal sense. For the first senses I would prefer programming or machine language to this term. Other than loosely, the only other way I'd employ it is to refer to messaging protocol.

Actual use, however, tells a different story. "A computer language...allows you to specify a series of commands or operations." "Like any other computer language, [C] is used for writing programs or sets of instructions." DAVilla 03:42, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

-tor in Latin

Wrong suffix: -tor = -or, the letter before being part of the radical of the suffixed noun/verb.

--Diligent 14:23, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Not in the case of (deprecated template usage) arator — this can be interpreted as ara- + -tor (from aro, arare). --MaEr 15:42, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I thought such nouns arose from the third-person singular? In such a case, (deprecated template usage) arator would be (deprecated template usage) arat + (deprecated template usage) -or, and (deprecated template usage) amator would be (deprecated template usage) amat + (deprecated template usage) -or. The (deprecated template usage) cantor example on the (deprecated template usage) -tor page could be analyzed as (deprecated template usage) canit + (deprecated template usage) -or, with the unstressed interstitial -i- disappearing, much as it did in the evolution of (deprecated template usage) magister into the varieties present in modern European languages. Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 03:27, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

From a non-historic point of view, one can re-interprete existing formations in this way. I mean: if speakers of Latin believe that the suffix is -or instead of -tor they will use -or as a suffix. Reanalysing suffixes happens often, not only in Latin.

From a historic point of view, however, there is a suffix -tor. It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European and is also found in Ancient Greek. The vowel between t and r has ablaut, so the suffix may appear in Ancient Greek dotēr (from dh₃-tér) and in Ancient Greek dōtōr (from déh₃-tor). The zero-grade appears in -tro (= -tr-o), as in Latin aratrum (<ara-tr-o-m). According to Jean Haudry, there is an old phonetic variant -tel which appears in Slavic -tel (Russian учитель etc.) --MaEr 09:12, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, you'd need to convince the well-respected scholars who wrote, edited, and revised both the veneable work A Latin Grammar and its successor New Latin Grammar. They disagree with you. They consider (deprecated template usage) -tor to be the suffix, as MaEr has pointed out already. --EncycloPetey 16:42, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Amator = radical of amatus + -or

cantor = radical of cantus + -or

Arator = radical of aratus + -or

It is very systematically based on the past participle's radical:

Actor = radical of actus + -or

Motor = radical of motus + -or

Servitor = radical of servitus + -or

Monitor = radical of monitus + -or

This went on in Roman languages: torear, toreado, toreador.

--Diligent 13:01, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

It looks that way in retrospect, but that's not how it happened historically. The fact that it has been reinterpreted this way is merely an artifice of similarity in the endings. --EncycloPetey 18:14, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

(tosses some gasoline) Moreland and Fleischer in Latin: An Intensive Course have this to say in Unit 11 (my notes in italics, showing that the derivation probably follows regular rules):

"The suffixes -tor (M.), -trix (F.) added to the stem of a verb produce a noun. Each means 'one who.' Thus:

inceptor, -oris incipio -> incip -> inciptor -> inceptor

auditor, -oris audio -> audi -> auditor

scriptor, -oris scribo -> scrib -> scribtor -> scriptor

spectator, -oris spect -> spect -> specttor -> spectator

actor, -oris ago -> ag -> agtor -> actor

liberator, -oris libero -> liber -> libertor -> liberator

amator, -oris and amatrix, amatricis amo -> am -> amtor -> amator

inventor, -oris and inventrix, inventricis invenio -> inveni -> invenitor -> inventor

cantor, -oris and cantrix, cantricis cano -> can -> cantor

victor, -oris and victrix, victricis vinco -> vinc -> vinctor -> victor

petitor, -oris peto -> pet -> pettor -> petitor

"By analogy, there are viator, -oris and viatrix, viatricis (from via, 'way' + -tor or -trix). --Robert.Baruch 15:28, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks to all for the varied examples! Note that I was not stating an opposing argument, and instead trying to clarify my own understanding, so this wealth of information is certainly welcome.

One minor curiosity that continues to puzzle me is that a number of these are noted as deriving from the perfect passive participle, which would suggest "one who is [verbed]", rather than the active "one who [verbs]". Does anyone know more about that?

And in looking around to learn about the various suffixes used, I found that (deprecated template usage) -or has no etymology given. Is this suffix derived from (deprecated template usage) -tor, or does it arise from the same underlying root as (deprecated template usage) -arius?

-- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 17:55, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

They appear to be derived from the passive participle but they are distinct suffixes that both happen to begin with -t-. They were already distinct in Indo-European: Template:termx (from earlier *-tors) and Template:termx. —CodeCat 20:18, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Aha! That makes more sense. This would suggest that the pages stating that the (deprecated template usage) -tor agent nouns derive from the perfect passive (such as (deprecated template usage) actor or (deprecated template usage) quadrator) are incorrect, since it looks now like the perfect passive and the agent noun both amount to the verb stem (radical?) + (deprecated template usage) -tus or (deprecated template usage) -tor respectively. (And since there isn't a (deprecated template usage) -tus entry, I'm adding it to the list of requested Latin terms.) -- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 16:52, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

An ending like -tus is considered inflectional, not formative. We generally do not have entries for inflectional endings in Latin. --EncycloPetey 18:14, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery

Etymology and definition are fine, but the part of speech doesn't quite fit. Can we do anything about this, e.g. move to "one couldn't organise..." or even "be unable to organise" (which is probably less common) — or should it be marked as a Phrase rather than a Verb? Equinox ◑ 15:46, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

But couldn't is a verb. It is, however, a past tense: does the form can't organise... exist? Should that be the main entry?​—msh210℠ (talk) 04:53, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

The tricky thing is that couldn't is a modal auxiliary Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 04:55, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Compare to [[can't seem]] and [[can't help]].​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:01, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

grouper

Isn't it pronounced "GROW-per"? If so, then why does it link to Rhymes:English:-uːpə(r)? ---> Tooironic 06:57, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd pronounce it group-er, but I'm hardly an expert on fish. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM8dJy2a_-Y says "today we're making a special fish, called group-er, some people call it grope-er," [or GROW-per] "I call it grope-you." I don't call this end-all and be-all of the subject, but it's one source that doesn't seem completely ignorant on the matter. (And I'm lazy today.)--Prosfilaes 07:46, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, I've always heard it pronounced as group-er, which I thought made sense just because of the way certain fish group together. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 16:54, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

innuendo

I think the "rare" plural (deprecated template usage) innuendis is a mistake or scanno. Anyone know different? Equinox ◑ 00:42, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The one citation looks awfully like a typo to me! Mglovesfun (talk) 14:04, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

easy

I think we are missing a sense. There's a slang sense (possibly American, hip-hop or rap) that means "unconcerned" or "not bothered", as in "Shall we go to Restaurant A or Restaurant B?" "I'm easy" ("I don't mind"). Have others encountered this? Should we add a sense? Equinox ◑ 22:04, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Possibly just US, but much wider than AAVE, rap, or hip-hop. (My city has sought to be the site of the National Hip Hop Museum, so I'm an expert.) I've always thought of it as short for "easy-going" or "easy to convince" etc. Perhaps it is most commonly just "agreeable". DCDuring TALK 01:25, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I have added a first attempt at the phrase (deprecated template usage) I'm easy - not sure if I have linked to it from the correct section. SemperBlotto 08:21, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Is the pronoun always I? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:45, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, She's easy would probably be interpreted with a quite different meaning of easy. But we're easy would probably be interpreted with the same meaning as I'm easy. Other pronouns would probably ambiguous. —Angr 17:04, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

briar vs. brier

Is this just a spelling variation, or are these distinct words with different etymologies? Neither has an etyl, and neither references the other, I only happened upon the pair by chance. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 23:55, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Online Etymology Dictionary says that briar and brier are the same word, but that brier itself has two etymologies, both of which happen to be shrubs (one is Germanic, the other Gaulish via French). —CodeCat 00:17, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The OED agrees, with etymologies: "Old English: West Saxon brǽr" and "French bruyère heath, erroneously identified with brier" (the second root only for the wood, of course). Should we split our senses into separate etymologies? Dbfirs 14:54, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I've been doing so for Japanese, but I'm not sure what the consensus approach is for English entries. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 16:54, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I would not treat them as alternative forms because there is apparently some etymological difference, but use {{also}} to keep them linked and Synonyms to keep them connected appropriately. DCDuring TALK 17:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there is an etymological distinction between brier and briar. Instead, from what I've gathered, briar is an alternative spelling of brier for both etymologies. —CodeCat 18:22, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

... but is there still a difference in the senses (as the OED claims), or has the confusion now become total so that people now use the two spellings interchangeably? When I see the "brier" spelling, I think of a pipe, but is this distinction shared by others? A quick Google search for "brier" + pipe gives over 7 million hits, compared with only 1.5 million for "briar" + pipe, but I don't think this is enough to claim a well-known distinction between the spellings. Many dictionaries now accept "briar" for the pipe-wood, so I'm forced to agree that "briar" has now become an alternative spelling for the formerly distinct word "brier". Perhaps we could just add a usage note explaining the history. Dbfirs 09:00, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

It's not uncommon for a distinction in meaning to be formed between two alternative spellings, like what happened with to and too. If there is any distinction at all I think it may be emerging in a similar way. But the only way to be sure is to look at the historical usage. Did people use the two spellings interchangeably a few hundred years ago? —CodeCat 11:50, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the tendency is the other way, in the direction of totally confusing the original meanings so that they are becoming just alternative spellings in modern usage. I'm probably trying to preserve an outdated distinction (as I often do!) Dbfirs 21:44, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

December 2011

AFAIK

Hello guys. My question is: how do English-speaking people pronounce this ? --GaAs 18:53, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I just read it out: as far as I know. That generally takes less time and is easier for me to say than to spell it out verbally: ei ef ei ai kei. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 19:24, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Same, I only use this as an Internet short hand, I would never say it out loud. Having said that, I have started saying OMG out loud, which I'm not exactly proud of... Mglovesfun (talk) 19:44, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

You mean sthng like /əfɛɪk/ (sorry, I'm very bad with english IPA) is not used ? --GaAs 20:56, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I've never discussed it with anyone until you posted your question, and have never heard anyone say it (not even myself, I don't think), so don't know how people pronounce it. I've always imagined it pronounced as as far as I know.​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:00, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Ditto. (Similarly SFAIK, AFAICT, SFAICT. But I take IIRC to be an initialism. I couldn't say why.) —Ruakh_TALK 03:32, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it has something to do with the number of syllables in each form. Although honestly I use OMG and WTF all the time as initialisms, despite "double-you" having three syllables and "what" having one. Although I use them purely for comedic effect. There's nothing comedic about AFAIK. --Robert.Baruch 00:51, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

google books:"humorous doubt" gets enough hits to make it conceivable that someone, somewhere, will someday find a way to use (deprecated template usage) AFAIK for comic effect. :-)   —Ruakh_TALK 15:49, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't speak it aloud, but in my head it's always sounded like "aff-AY-ik". Equinox ◑ 15:27, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

For me, like "a fake" (too lazy to do the IPA, sorry). Mglovesfun (talk) 12:04, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

practice to achieve perfection

I can't remember where I recently read the sentence "SirEdmundHillarywasthefirstmantoclimbMtEverest" followed by the same sentence spelled backwards. This was used as an example of repetitious practice to achieve a level of proficiency in any field. I thought I read it in "The Genius in All of US' by David Shenk. It was not. Has anyone seen this anywhere? — This unsigned comment was added by Christyreuben (talk • contribs) at 17:32, 6 December 2011‎.

I fail to see your point, sorry, please explain further. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:23, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

checksyns template

There is the template {{checksyns}} on the psychopath page. I'm not sure what to do about it since sociopath seems to be a general synonym for the senses of the definition. RJFJR 02:36, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Does sociopath fit sense 4? It looks like there are many missing synonyms. Collins has "madman, lunatic, maniac, psychotic, nutter (Brit. slang), basket case (slang), nutcase (slang), sociopath, headcase (informal), mental case (slang), headbanger (informal), insane person" as synonyms. They don't fit all the senses given. It seemed like a lot of work, but worth doing (eventually) if we are to maintain an ability to convey the colloquial distinctions. DCDuring TALK 01:51, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

This might be a job for Wikisaurus. DCDuring TALK 01:52, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

meme

"Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity." What does this mean? That, for instance, the word "Caucasian" might be a meme? Equinox ◑ 15:26, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I've wondered whether this kind of thing would be better defined by a {{non-gloss definition}}. DCDuring TALK 01:58, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll just chip in and say I don't understand it either. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:03, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the sentence should be deleted. It is encyclopedic. The definition given seems adequate. DCDuring TALK 09:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

white ball

In combination of watching the snooker and reading the debate on nominative case et al., I wonder if white ball, red ball (and so on) would be acceptable. They're often just shortened to 'white', 'red' and so on and I think they definitely need an entry at white, red etc. But what about white ball? It is a ball that's white after all, but has specific implications in pool, snooker and other billiards games. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:02, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Meh... accelerator pedal is a pedal that's an accelerator, but it has specific details in vehicles (e.g. it's located in a certain position relative to the other two pedals). That's encyclopaedic. Equinox ◑ 22:00, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

If you look into Category:en:Snooker you will find that all the colours already have snooker definitions. -- ALGRIF talk 14:58, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

cylinder

This is missing a computing sense (as in, the cylinders of a hard drive), but I don't know how it should be defined. -- Liliana • 21:57, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

• Added. SemperBlotto 08:32, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Rubber

I was reading in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the chapter entitled "The Red-Headed League". A Mr. Merryweather, who is a bank director, says, "Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not had my rubber." Sherlock Holmes replies, "I think you will find that you will play for a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and that the play will be more exciting." I wondered if the "rubber" that he is referring to is the soft covering for a finger used to count money - like a rubber thimble, or if it is something else. Does anyone know?

It's a best-of-three game of bridge, the card game. See rubber bridge. Equinox ◑ 23:19, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

triple O

This would far more commonly be written triple 0, right? A phone number 12045 would usually be read out "one-two-oh-four-five" but never written 12O45. Equinox ◑ 23:48, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I would expect so. A search of Google News confirms it, finding only 29 "triple O", only half in English and very few in the meaning given vs. 189 "triple 0"s. DCDuring TALK 09:53, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Triple zero = triple 0 = triple oh = triple O. Transitivity doesn't carry that far in the humanities. I would consider it to be an error. DAVilla 16:18, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

fantastical

Does fantastical really mean fantastic (as in extraordinary), and if so shouldn't the sense be more clearly explained? DAVilla 03:30, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

acinaces plural

Is acinaci a legitimate plural of this? Equinox ◑ 13:17, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

comptroller

"The p is optionally silent, thus comptroller may be a homophone of controller." Huh? Since when does m sound the same as n? Equinox ◑ 23:23, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

In New York State and its cities, comptroller is an elected office usually pronounced "controller". DCDuring TALK 09:56, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Even if that isn't just a malapropism, wouldn't the inflection still vary? It should be stated that it's a near homophone which makes pronunciation of the p all that more significant. DAVilla 16:16, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

It is pronounced that way in the swearing-in ceremonies for the offices. That is the first pronunciation given at MWOnline. DCDuring TALK 19:08, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't dispute that it may be a homophone of controller, but I do dispute that that pronunciation is the obvious "visual" pronunciation of comptroller with a silent p. This would require an m sound turning to an n sound. Equinox ◑ 21:40, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

It's not just a homophone, it's also the same word and it has the same etymology. The spelling was influenced by French (deprecated template usage) compte but if anyone pronounces the m or p, it would be a (deprecated template usage) spelling pronunciation. —CodeCat 22:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, fine, but see my original comment in this discussion. I think it's inaccurate. Equinox ◑ 00:57, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

You must be saying that if "the p is optionally silent" it would be pronounced comtroller. Well, it is not what the explanation wants to say. The p is silent, and the m is pronounced n, just like controller. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 04:37, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Then I really don't understand the explanation. Am I stupid, or will this be even more confusing for most casual users? Equinox ◑ 03:37, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

@Equinox: I completely agree. @everyone else: The problem isn't the statement that "comptroller may be a homophone of controller"; the problem is the statement that this is so because "[t]he p is optionally silent". Silencing the <p> does not, by itself, turn the "COMPtroller" pronunciation into the "conTROLLer" pronunciation. —Ruakh_TALK 18:43, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

But I think the question has been answered incidentally, I mean what other answer do we want other than the one(s) we have? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:06, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

prowl

"To be watching over something. It's tough to sneak vandalism into Wikipedia as there are plenty of other users prowling the recent changes page." The usex is believable, but does it really mean "watching over" rather than (say) patrolling or hanging around it? Equinox ◑ 10:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Moved usage example. Not sure if definition is legit. DAVilla 16:12, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

An early Wonderfool entry. As a result, should be given a rewrite. --Simplus2 20:00, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

peace

I don't understand how this could be more than 2, maybe 3 definitions. How would you classify these?

May he rest in peace.

Peace on earth, good will torward men.

Peace be with you.

DAVilla 16:07, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Our second definition, "A state free of oppressive and unpleasant thoughts and emotions", has an example sentence with "peace of mind". I suspect this sense requires "of mind" or similar, and that it's actually just the "A state of tranquility, quiet, and harmony" sense. That latter seems very different from the "A state free of war" sense: people speak of as nation at peace even if there's little tranquility in the country. (We should provide a gloss for state there: it's a status, not a country.) I'm not sure what our current sense 3 ("Harmony in personal relations" means, or whether it's different from the "A state free of war" sense — or, if so, whether it exists. I'm also not sure we don't need a different (countable?) sense, found in separate peace.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:00, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

language templates not used - why?

I'm looking for the discussion on language templates such as {{en}} for English etc. I wonder if those templates are available why are they not used in the translation section. Can anyone give me a link to the discussion in the tea room archive? I couldn't find it. Kampy 19:07, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The translation section alphabetizes by language name, which is hard for people to do when editing manually and seeing language codes. (It's also more for code for bots then.) I seem to recall that that's why we use the names, but could very well be wrong.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:25, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I see. Thank you. Kampy 19:31, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

It also puts too much template burden on a page download when all the translations have different templates for their own languages. Each template takes time to decode and render, and for pages with many definitions, this can hugely slow down user access to the information. --EncycloPetey 03:31, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

This doesn't really matter, because the translation template {{t}} includes those templates anyway. —CodeCat 15:44, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

It does. Page load is calculated for every use of a template. If you use {{de}} ten times in an entry, it has ten times the load of a single transclusion of {{de}}. -- Liliana • 16:00, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

zero gravity

1. The state of apparent weightlessness which occurs when in free fall.
2. A state/shuttle/simulator which produces weightlessness.

I'm not sure exactly what sense 2 means, but is it not just listing examples of sense 1? —Michael Z. 2011-12-14 00:12 z

1 is a state (situation); 2 is a machine.​—msh210℠ (talk) 00:32, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Not getting it. Does shuttle mean “space shuttle?” I can't imagine how or when such a device is called “zero gravity.” Other dictionaries aren't helping me. Citation? —Michael Z. 2011-12-14 03:54 z

You are getting it, then. (Well, if I am, then you are.) 2 is, yes, a space shuttle. Like you, I've never heard of this meaning of zero gravity; perhaps {{rfquote-sense}} or {{rfv-sense}}?​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:28, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm quite certain that a space shuttle doesn't produce weightlessness. Having stared at this for a day, I believe it is nonsense. A bit of rewriting and rfv-sense, I think. —Michael Z. 2011-12-14 15:10 z

WT:RFV#zero gravity. —Michael Z. 2011-12-14 15:30 z

It definitely produces weightlessness. Anyway, the sense 2 seems to be a nonsense. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 18:00, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Being in free fall, including being in orbit, leads to weightlessness, enshuttled or otherwise. A shuttle can be used to put you there, but to say that the machine “produces” the state implies some mechanism that doesn't exist. —Michael Z. 2011-12-15 01:11 z

More precisely, being within any free-falling object produces a state equivalent to that of "weightlessness". However, "weightlessness" is a misnomer as the object does not actually lose all weight during its fall; objects simply are not resting against a static surface. "Weightlessness" can occur in a falling elevator, at the crest of a roller coaster, or inside a plane specially designed to free-fall with astronaut trainees inside. So, the second "definition" results from attributive use of the noun's primary definition and is not distinct. --EncycloPetey 03:28, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

post

In the entry for post, there's a bit of overlap. Some meanings are mentioned under both Etymology headers. --Simplus2 10:47, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Acromyrex: shouldn’t it be Acromyrmex?

Hello, I typed by error “acromyrex” on Google and found there was a page on en.wikt, but I suspect this is an typo/spello too. However, being quite incompetent in taxonomy, I can’t say that fore sure (but I searched the Max Planck Gesellschaft and the University of East Anglia websites in addition to Wikipedia before posting). --Eiku (t) 17:01, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

• Yes. My mistake from 2006! Now moved to the correct spelling. SemperBlotto 17:06, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

tank

• 1. A container for liquids or gases, typically with a volume of several cubic metres.
• 6. In USA scuba divers' usage, a compressed air or gas cylinder.

Why should 1 be limited to large tanks, and 6 to USA scuba divers? To me, welders use medium-sized acetylene tanks, a barbecue has a small propane tank, and a camp stove may have a very small (liquid or gas, refillable or disposable) fuel tank. On the other end of the spectrum, oil companies and water utilities use tanks of many thousands of cubic metres capacity. Also, fuelling a car is “filling the tank.”

Any objections to merging these into one general sense? —Michael Z. 2011-12-15 17:09 z

• Go for it. SemperBlotto 17:13, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

IMDb

Can someone help me with capitalization and Wiktionary? We currently have IMDB which redirects to IMDb as the "correct" capitalization. I'm trying to add the verb form, to IMDB someone. In print sources, I've got two "IMDB him"s and two "IMDb her"s (note the capitalization) in independent sources. I've got a bunch of hits on Google Groups for "IMDB him" or "imdb him" and a couple for "IMdb him", and one more for "IMDb him". (I've got an "Imdb him", but it seems like merely sentence-initial capitalization.) So. Do I just add everything to IMDb? Do I make entries on IMDB, IMDb, and imdb for verbal forms? (And IMdb?) IMDB is arguably wrong, I'd argue imdb and IMDb are both acceptable variants (though any use should be tagged casual or whatever the equivalent is) and IMdb seems clearly wrong.--Prosfilaes 04:58, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I replaced the redirect with alternate spelling since we generally do not use redirects. RJFJR 14:59, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

sure

Is the interjection real, or is it just the adverb sense with an exclamation point (or comma) after it?​—msh210℠ (talk) 06:26, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

An interjection is not a part of speech, it is a word or phrase uttered as an exclamation with no particular grammatical relation to a sentence. Interjections are comprised of words of various parts of speech, often adverbs. —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:14, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

ABBA

"(poetry) A rhyme in which the first line of a stanza (A) rhymes with the fourth line, and the second and third lines rhyme (B)." Yes. But doesn't this open the doors for all kinds of poetical structures (for example ABCB is well known)? It isn't an initialism, doesn't stand for anything; the letters are "variables" for specific rhymes, if you like, making this more akin to a statement like 2a+3b (math equation) which we clearly would not include. Equinox ◑ 03:35, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Kith and Kine

I think this is an eggcorn of kith and kin. Albeit, an old one. The word kith more generally refers to friends and acquaintances while kin refers to family ... thus kith and kin means "friends and family". The word kine is an archaic plural of cow. So kith and kine would mean "friends and cows". Kin and Kine would make more sense than kith and kine. Other than a play on words in a book or articles about cows/animals, I haven't found "kith and kine" used.

In ME English there are many spelling variations that could lead to this confusion:

Oþer whyle þou muste be fals a-monge kythe & kynne. ... and here kynne = kin.

I'm having trouble believing this is anything other than a mistake for kith and kin unless used more literally:

By the end of this disaster, the Bull stands amidst the corpses of kith and kine. ... Is he standing among the corpses of friends and family or friends and cows? --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! 17:18, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

• As the editor who added this, I agree with you. I think from memory I added it as some kind of special request.. but I share your analysis of it. Ƿidsiþ 17:53, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the meaning should be changed? I looked on sundry pages with a Google search and didn't find any usage along the line of "relatives and property; one's total possessions". If no objects, I'll put the first meaning as an error for kith and kin ... As for the other meaning, it looks more like someone trying to backform a meaning from the error (like folks backformed a meaning for "hone in", an error for "home in"). I think it should go unless someone can find a few usages of it with that meaning but I'll leave that yu. --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! 14:24, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

The attitude of not having to answer to anyone

Is there a word or phrase that describes the attitude or ideal of not having to answer to anyone? 74.82.68.160 20:24, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Headstrong? Recalcitrant? ---> Tooironic 09:59, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I am "my own man/woman"? --Robert.Baruch 22:31, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

baking/roasting

Is there any methodical difference between baking and roasting in oven, or is it just that some foods you bake and others you roast? --Hekaheka 05:54, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

AFAIK, you bake stuff in an oven, while you can roast things in an oven OR over a fire. Of course, collocations vary; normally, one says, "Let's bake a loaf of bread!" not "roast a loaf of bread". ---> Tooironic 09:20, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

A baked potato is very different from a roast potato, but I can't explain how. Equinox ◑ 14:27, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

To me, baking implies the application of dry heat within a container (oven), whereas in roasting the thing being cooked normally lies in a liquid (e.g. fat), or is basted with a liquid during cooking. SemperBlotto 14:39, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, that explains the potatoes. You can bake a potato in a microwave or conventional oven, and you're basically just heating it up. But a roast potato is cooked in meat fat (right?) so it ends up golden and crispy. Also, a roast one tends to be peeled first, while a baked potato is done with the skin on, but that's a cultural / fried egg thing. Equinox ◑ 15:10, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire isn't lying in a liquid, for one example of why I don't think that's the proper distinction between the two, although I cant say what the distinction is, exactly. Roasting on a spit is another, I think, though typically what's being roasted has liquids inside, such as animal or game meat. sewnmouthsecret 08:47, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

home is where the heart is

"One's true home is where one feels happiest." Really? I thought this proverb meant something like, "Your home will always be the place you feel the most affection for, regardless of whether it is your true home or not." ---> Tooironic 09:58, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

McGraw-Hill has both[13]: "People long to be at home.; Your home is whatever place you long to be." Equinox ◑ 14:26, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

There is also home is where the hearth is, which brings up many Google hits. I don't know if this may be the original form of the phrase, but it would make sense because it corresponds more closely to the Dutch equivalent, eigen haard is goud waard. —CodeCat 19:42, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

nuclear as rhyme

Are these edits sound? [14], [15]. The stress doesn't seem right for a rhyme: it's NU-clear, not nu-CLEAR. Equinox ◑ 15:08, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Undid those edits independently of this thread. A lot of users 'mistakenly' add rhymes based only on the last syllable, which is not what we do here. The IPA in the entry clinched it for me. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:31, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm amazed at the number of people, some of them well educated, who seem to think that nuclear rhymes with avuncular! Dbfirs 23:09, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

insolent

How are these definitions any different from each other? How can "rude" constitute a single definition when rude itself has five meanings? DAVilla 12:48, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Rude might not have had 5 senses at the time when insolent was created. There is probably work to be done there. Equinox ◑ 00:37, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

mechanic

Why is this in "Category:English politically correct terms"? Equinox ◑ 23:22, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Ditto person. Sure, policeperson is PC, but just person? Equinox ◑ 01:46, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Also -person is a peculiar entry --Simplus2 13:16, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Robin Lionheart seems to have added a couple of hundred of these last year - most of which look like being simply gender-neutral rather than politically correct. For a lot of them, I can't even think what a gender-specific version might be. 81.142.107.230 16:34, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

-handed

Surely this isn't a suffix! Everything here should be moved to handed, IMO. Equinox ◑ 12:55, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• Add -goaler and -looking and -cheeked and -headed to this debate. Maybe this part should be linked from these pages. I dunno how to do that. --Simplus2 13:10, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Yep, delete/merge everything. It's a misunderstanding than using a hyphen for affixes is a notation used by dictionaries (for example, to distinguish between re and re-) while something like two-headed uses an actual hyphen. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:35, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Merged. Equinox ◑ 00:39, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

raindeer

This term is marked as an obsolete spelling, but I think the spelling is still used, although considered nonstandard. Could it be both? —CodeCat 19:33, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

It can be. (I don't know that it is, but believe you.) You can use {{obsolete|now|_|nonstandard}} or similar.​—msh210℠ (talk) 08:16, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be very much in use. A Google search gets 2,7 million hits. Msh210's suggestion looks fine. --Hekaheka 00:18, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with Hekaheka (talk • contribs) here, this is still very much in use. -- Cirt (talk) 23:35, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

road works

I'm surprised this entry doesn't exist yet. Can it be added, since we already have roadworks? —CodeCat 20:38, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

(deprecated template usage) Road works seems to be significantly more common than (deprecated template usage) roadworks, so WT:COALMINE says yes. —Ruakh_TALK 21:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

leading

I was thinking of adding an adjective sense of (deprecated template usage) leading meaning "playing a primary role in a film or similar", as found in the phrases (deprecated template usage) leading man, (deprecated template usage) leading actor, etc. Then I realized that it might be a verb ((deprecated template usage) lead). But google books:"led|leading in films" turns up nothing relevant; likewise "to lead in films". So maybe it's an adjective after all — but I'm not confident enough saying so to add it. Thoughts?​—msh210℠ (talk) 08:14, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

and leading role You could be right. COBUILD has it as an adj. and gives leading actor as an example. Includes two more senses (although I'm hard put to see much difference between the them :-/) as leading industrial nation and leading group (in front in a race). -- ALGRIF talk 15:39, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Though the collocations with "man" and "lady" are limited to performances and seem like live metaphors when applied outside of theatrical type performances, other collocations of "leading" such as "leading role" don't seem so limited. Apparently some professional lexicographers think these are not transparent: “leading man”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. and “leading lady”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. In contrast we don't have leading man and leading lady. DCDuring TALK 18:49, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I would say it's a verb:

• *She is the very leading lady.
• *The lady became leading.

If it were an adjective, those should probably work.--Brett 01:41, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

But if it were a verb, then we would say There are two ladies leading rather than There are two leading ladies, wouldn't we? . Another point in favor of adjective would be the Oscar nominations .. Best actor / actress in a leading role. It has to be an adj in this phrase. -- ALGRIF talk 14:29, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

"There are two running ladies" works. So does "best juggler in a moving vehicle".​—msh210℠ (talk) 00:55, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

My point being that an English L1 speaker sees the difference! Basically because of recognizing the adjectival sense in There are two leading ladies. -- ALGRIF talk 14:57, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

parent of my child

What's the word in English meaning "parent of one's child"? There is one, right? If not, do other languages have a word for this? --Simplus2 12:34, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, there's baby mama and baby daddy, but those terms are somewhat loaded. I think for most of history people just said "the father/mother of my child" in any case where "husband" or "wife" didn't cover it. —Angr 14:36, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Don't we use the terms biological father and biological mother? As in, say, "my son Timmy's biological mother"? --Robert.Baruch 22:26, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Just "my son Timmy's mother", no?​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:39, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

In Dutch "The father of my child" is used to explain in one sentence: "We are divorced, I hate him, and that's how got my son". Joepnl 01:59, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

The term (deprecated template usage) co-parent exists, and IMHO is usually pretty clear in context, but is not terribly common. I wouldn't expect most people to recognize it. —Ruakh_TALK 02:11, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

let the buyer beware

Isn't this a proverb, as opposed to a verb? ---> Tooironic 23:43, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Seems pretty amateur to me. —Michael Z. 2011-12-29 04:03 z

I've never actually heard it, but it doesn't look like a proverb, too literal, looks more like a verb use only in the infinitive and the imperative (same as the infinitive of course). Mglovesfun (talk) 15:36, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

It is more usual in the Latin - see w:Caveat emptor. SemperBlotto 15:39, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

buyer beware is usually a catchall phrase for consumers making purchases or signing up for services; often these services are confusing to the general public, i.e. purchasing real property, buying a car, signing up for phone service, buying jewelry from shady street vendors, etc. I'd say it can be taken proverbially and literally. sewnmouthsecret 08:41, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Thought I've seen both usages, it's more common as simply, buyer beware. -- Cirt (talk) 23:34, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

push (early Australian slang)

"Push.—A company of rowdy fellows gathered together for ungentle purposes." (from wikisource:The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke/The Glossary); What C.J. Dennis really means is a violent gang. Several Wikipedia articles refer to a push but other that this, I can't find a formal definition. See for eg. w:Sydney Push, w:Rocks Push, w:The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke.

It would be good to added into the push article. Moondyne 14:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

up the aisle

I feel sure we should have this, for example google books:"go up the aisle" and google books:"got him up the aisle", quite how to define it, I don't know. I also don't think the sense should be at aisle, but rather at up the aisle. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:01, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

• I've had a stab at it. Feel free to improve (and add citations). SemperBlotto 08:39, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Looks pretty good so far. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 23:32, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

dictionnaire de langue

French includes a useful distinction between dictionnaire de langue (a dictionary providing definitions + linguistic information, such as etymology, pronunciation, gender, etc.) and dictionnaire encyclopédique (a dictionary including in some entries encyclopedic information, e.g. the causes of a disease, how it is treated, etc., as well as linguistic information ; generally speaking, most entries about proper nouns are 100% encyclopedic, while only some of the other entries include encyclopedic information). I understand that only the first kind of dictionary is traditional in English, but what are the English names for dictionnaire de langue and dictionnaire encyclopédique? Would not be useful to be more precise when describing the difference between Wikipedia and Wiktionary e.g. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, Wiktionary is a language dictionary? Lmaltier 08:50, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, the second one is encyclopedic dictionary. --Simplus2 08:59, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, not really. It's mainly just a language dictionary with some extended features. It deliberately avoids encyclopaedic material. In English, dictionary nearly always means just a language dictionary. Dbfirs 23:03, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

So, language dictionary may be used in English? I would use it to refer to the project, mainly for people used to encyclopedic dictionaries (in some countries, best-selling dictionaries are encyclopedic dictionaries). The fact that we include proper nouns when they are words (for etymology, pronunciation, etc.) may be misleading because, unlike Wiktionary, almost all dictionaries including proper nouns are encyclopedic dictionaries (except some specialized dictionaries, e.g. those specialized in placename etymologies). Of course, this is a huge plus of the project, especially for pronunciation: I don't know any other dictionary systematically giving the pronunciation of proper nouns, but this difference may be misleading. Lmaltier 08:29, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd regard "language dictionary" as tautology, but that doesn't prevent you using the term to make a clear distinction. Specialist encyclopaedic dictionaries are sometimes called "A dictionary of" [specialist subject]. Dbfirs 22:17, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

word request

Is there a word for the style/device of making one aspect of a literary work contrast with another drastically? E.g., making the medium/style of a book contrast with the subject matter (as in Maus*) or having the tune of a song contrast with its lyrics (as in "Copacabana" (w:))?

*Nowadays, there are many serious graphic novels, but I don't think that that was the case when Maus came out.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:45, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Now re-asked elsewhere.​—msh210℠ (talk) 06:46, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I look forward to the answer. DCDuring TALK 14:23, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

January 2012

遺伝的

Is this really a noun? 的 is used to create adjectives, in Chinese anyway, don't speak Japanese though... ---> Tooironic 20:20, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

We have decided to call them so recently, based on the fact that they are indeed nouns grammatically. See Wiktionary:Beer parlour#Proper label for Japanese "quasi-adjectives". — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 10:54, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

non divisi

Is non divisi a sum of parts if its entry (if it will have one) has:

==English==

===Adverb===

{{en-adv|-}}

# {{music}} not divided

====Usage notes====

* to make every player play all of the notes in a non-[[arpeggiate|arpeggiated]] chord or other groups of notes played simultaneously

Celloplayer115 20:49, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't say so, because the term isn't actually English but Latin. In Latin it would be SOP, but not in English. —CodeCat 21:16, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Italian, not Latin - like many terms from music. SemperBlotto 08:41, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

hossen

This is a Dutch verb that describes some kind of dance, often associated with carnaval. But I'm not really sure what it actually is, or how to define it. Can anyone help? —CodeCat 14:05, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

• Dutch wiktionary describes it something like "to dance and jump about as a group". Maybe to square dance? SemperBlotto 14:45, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
  • It's not usually performed in a square but in a line, so it seems more like conga. —CodeCat 14:48, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Does this describe it a bit?

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfQRXnek_wI
• http://www.bndestem.nl/regio/roosendaal/8291167/Hossen-met-de-buurtschappen.ece
• http://www.google.nl/imghp?&tab=wi&q=hossen+-sylvia+-silvia

--MaEr 14:18, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand the last link but the other two show it well yes. :) —CodeCat 14:42, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

About the last link: just click the search icon, this will start the google image search for "hossen", skipping all manga stuff with "Silvia van Hossen". --MaEr 14:53, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Could this be a w:en:Polonaise (Dutch w:nl:Polonaise)? --MaEr 15:07, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

The Dutch article does contain this sentence:

Aanvankelijk betekende het 'langzame Poolse dans in driekwartsmaat', maar later werd het vooral gebruikt in de betekenis "dans waarbij men in een sliert achter elkaar host, met de handen op de schouders van de voorgaande persoon"

At first it meant 'slow Polish dance in three-quarter measure', but later it came to be used especially in the meaning "dance where people hos after one another in a line, with the hands on the shoulders of the person in front"

—CodeCat 15:11, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

So hossen is the same as dancing a polonaise? If yes, you could add the missing definition. --MaEr 18:23, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

As I understand the article, the modern form of polonaise dancing involves hossen. The only real defining feature of hossen that I can think of, aside from the polonaise part, is taking steps in the rhythm of the music, so that everyone moves together. —CodeCat 18:25, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

backslash

The entry for /. "(computing, proscribed) the punctuation mark /, properly called "slash"; see below." The notes claim that / is often misread when reading out Internet addresses. I've never heard this mistake made. Are others familiar with it? Is it really so common? Equinox ◑ 14:37, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I've heard it many times, even from people who I think probably do know which one is the slash and which is the backslash, but who get it wrong sometimes in speech (or in listening — hear "backslash", type /); but I really don't know how common it is. Obviously the error stands out much more than the correct version. It pretty clearly meets the CFI that we apply to non-errors:

• 2001, http://books.google.com/books?id=KXwp_xwbHrcC&pg=PA455&dq=backslash:

  […] I was trying to find a web-site for which I had been given the following address: http://www.isop.ucla.edu/pacrim/pubs/korjournal.htm. […] I began to work backwards, removing first the last part of the address following the last backslash (/korjournal.htm).

• 2010, http://books.google.com/books?id=CXzvPfYaJWsC&pg=PA25&dq=backslash:

  “So, do what I tell you. Open a browser window and type this in the menu^[sic] bar: F-T-P colon backslash backslash euronews dot net backslash...”

  I pecked carefully at the keyboard as he dictated a URL that was about fifty characters long, […]

• 2010, http://books.google.com/books?id=IZoOxPievkYC&pg=PT205&dq=backslashes:

  Also, avoid submenus^[sic] that can confuse the audience—if you're giving lengthy Web site addresses full of backslashes, shorten it so only the Web site's home page is given.

but we do apply a "common"-ness requirement to misspellings, and we've sometimes applied that to certain other types of clear errors, so if people want to treat it only in usage notes, I think a case could be made.

—Ruakh_TALK 22:05, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

A commonness requirement for misspellings is important because we accept cites from Usenet, where typographical errors and lazy typing are rampant, and, for that matter, from published works, where typographical errors are not at all uncommon. Use of backslash for slash is not a typographical error or a misspeaking or a lazy typing but a wrong choice of word, which is the kind of thing we as alleged descriptivists should not bar form full entry in the dictionary. MHO.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:02, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay. I don't object to us having it if it's real, and Ruakh's examples seem to show that. (I'd really like to see that kind of thing in the entry to support the usage note.) Thanks. Equinox ◑ 00:29, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

O.K., I've added the cites to the entry. :-)   I think the definition and usage notes should be rewritten, though. Or maybe the usage note should just be removed, and the definition reworded. —Ruakh_TALK 01:21, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The usage note surely belongs on \, not on backslash. 81.142.107.230 10:37, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

For the record, I was referring to a usage note that's since been removed (by me). The usage note that you refer to doesn't pertain to this sense. (But yes, I agree.) —Ruakh_TALK 21:05, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

• My feeling is that (deprecated template usage) backslash can now refer quite acceptably (if confusingly) to either / or \. Ƿidsiþ 11:00, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

• • Perhaps some Windows users, accustomed to seeing backslashes as directory separators, don't notice that slashes in URLs go the opposite direction. In other words, to those who don't recognize the difference, (deprecated template usage) backslash may signify not / per se, but either / or \. ~ Robin 23:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Robin: people unaware of the handedness of slashes use backslash to mean “file-system pathname delimiter,” or perhaps just “slash character,” and not specifically back- nor forward slash. However, since this contradicts all of the subject experts (glossaries, standards, and style guides in writing, computing, typesetting, etc.), we should indicate that it is considered an error, even if we documentary lexicographers refuse to hold it as such ourselves. —Michael Z. 2012-01-12 18:04 z

Proto-Germanic -eu- in Saxon (and/or Dutch)

Moved to Wiktionary talk:About Middle Low German —CodeCat 22:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

acknowledg, judg

Can someone check these out and confirm they are not just scannos? I'm worried Pilcrow doesn't know what he is doing and is inadvertently creating garbage (e.g. he had created the definitely wrong forms judgs and acknowledgs). Equinox ◑ 23:07, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

acknowledg would find ready attestation at google books:"acknowledg". A search for judg yields many hits for the abbreviation of the book of the Old Testament. But Locke's Of Human Understanding has the verb abundantly and I think that would be a well-known work. DCDuring TALK 02:29, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

pronounce

Do you really pronounce pronounce /pɹəˈnæwns/? Should that /w/ be there for a start? 81.142.107.230 10:35, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I do, which is why I added that transcription to the entry. I see it's now bene changed to use /aʊ/ instead. Is that a British thing? I really do think Americans have an /æ/ in there, not an /a/.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:44, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I pronounce it /pɹəˈnaʊns/. —Stephen ^(Talk) 16:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I think in most varieties of both General American and RP the starting point is closer to [a] (not [ɑ]!) than to [æ]. At any rate, it's a custom of long standing to transcribe the mouth vowel as /aʊ/ in broad transcriptions (which is what we want here) of both GenAm and RP. Whether we transcribe the end of the diphthong as /w/ or /ʊ/ is much of a muchness; /ʊ/ is more customary in IPA-based transcriptions, while /w/ is more customary in Americanist transcriptions. Our {{IPA}} links to w:International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects, which uses /aʊ/. Our own WT:ENPRONKEY also uses /aʊ/, though why {{IPA}} doesn't link there, I cannot fathom. —Angr 18:02, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I pronounce it closer to [æʊ] or even [ɛʊ]... —CodeCat 18:13, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah well, you're Dutch. ;-) —Angr 18:20, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

*points to the native English speaker tag on her profile page* I was raised speaking Dublin English! —CodeCat 18:21, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I've been to Dublin. Frankly, Dutch is easier to understand than Dublin English, and I don't even know Dutch! But I suppose in Dublin, your Netherlandic tendency to change th into t or d won't be particularly noticeable. (I once bought something in Dublin for £3.30 and was told "Dat'll be tree turrty.") —Angr 18:31, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

But I don't have any Netherlandic tendencies, I still speak Dublin English with my family. You're right dough, I do dat... —CodeCat 20:59, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I actually only edited it so the IPA matched the rhyme, I dunno what the 'correct' IPA is. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:08, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

However msh210, I seem to think we've been here before with dominoes. I mean, I couldn't say /ow/ if I wanted to; is your accent just a bit unusual? I think it would be best to avoid rare pronunciations as otherwise we would have literally dozens of pronunciations in some entries. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:46, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think he's indicating a rare pronunciation; he's using an alternative transcription of a common pronunciation. Transcribing the vowel of pronounce as [æw] isn't wrong and doesn't indicate some minority pronunciation, it's just another way of transcribing exactly the same sound as [aʊ] indicates. But [aʊ] is the more usual transcription in IPA--very few print dictionaries and phonetics textbooks that use IPA will use anything other than [aʊ], and Wiktionary should use it too. —Angr 12:33, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I've been wondering about that some time ago. /aʊ̯/ is used for German <au>. While my dialect pronounces German /au/ as [ɒʊ̯], I am constantly exposed to the German pron. [aʊ̯] through school, university and media. It does sound very much like -ou- in pronounce. It does however not sound like English /au/ in thousand, which always and in every dialect sounded more like /θäo̯zə̯nd/ to me. Are those two really the same? Because no German pronounces Haus like any English-speaking person I've ever heard in my life ever pronounced house. Ever. Dakhart 17:12, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that the ou in pronounce is nasalized, I don't hear a difference between the ou in pronounce and the ou in thousand. It's true that Haus and house sound very different, but that's a matter of precise phonetic realization, which isn't within the scope of a dictionary's pronunciation guide. The fact that German /aʊ/ and English /aʊ/ don't sound the same doesn't mean it's wrong to transcribe them the same way when your goal is a broad phonetic transcription. German /iː/ as in Miete and English /iː/ as in meet don't sound the same either, but we use the same transcription for both. (In a phonetics paper where the difference between the two sounds is the topic of discussion, of course two separate transcriptions would have to be found.) —Angr 17:22, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I think we should provide both a broad and a narrow transcription, when possible. A narrow transcription can help aid in the exact pronunciation especially when there's no audio. —CodeCat 18:25, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

... but we'd need dozens of different "narrow transcriptions" and lots of new symbols if we were to precisely represent every possible variant. Most readers struggle with simple standard IPA. ... also, could Dakhart please explain how German Haus differs from my northern English house? I've always heard them as homophones. Dbfirs 17:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Ree (Latin)

In response to the Latin form, double e is very unlikely (as vocative of reus). Is this backed up by any other dictionaries (mine doesn't say)? Might it form a vocative singular like deus instead?Metaknowledge 16:05, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

• See [16] SemperBlotto 16:12, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

pedalomotor

I have no idea what this word means, or even that it existed once. I found it in this book: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38540/38540-h/38540-h.htm#Page_202 Is it a bycycle, or something else? 76.117.247.55 03:07, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

It seems to be only in that one book. A few lines later, it is referred to as a "pedalmobile". Equinox ◑ 02:37, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

at-large

Listed as an alt spelling of at large. Is this real? It would be non-standard (at best! — IMHO wrong) to say "the criminal is at-large", but perhaps you could talk about an "at-large criminal" (?). Equinox ◑ 02:36, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

As you know, in English you hyphenate an adjective placed before a noun if it contains spaces, like a book out of print vs. an out-of-print book, and coding from scratch vs. from-scratch coding. Don’t they have different stresses, by the way? — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 10:38, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Ego Eris, correct standalone

I'm not sure if I'm doing this correctly. I'll be finding out the hard way, I suppose.

In the phrase "Tu fui ego eris" are the parts of the phrase grammatically able to stand alone? Is "Tu fui" grammatically sound? Then is "Ego eris" able to stand alone as well? Looking at the words individually in their tenses all seems correct, but I wanted to be sure. Many thanks for any information.

Monica

Neither its parts nor its whole would be grammatically correct. It's like saying "tu suis, je seras" in French (using present rather than past for illustration), deliberately misconjugating (deprecated template usage) être in the wrong person to suggest "I [you]-are, you [I]-will-be". ~ Robin 10:21, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

paucity

Paucity is defined in Wikipedia as few in number. This is inaccurate. Specifically the meaning is "not enough". This is a critical distinction. A person may not have very much money but they may be considered as having enough and therefore are not paupers.— This unsigned comment was added by 69.223.193.199 (talk).

• I have adjusted the definition. You could have done so yourself. SemperBlotto 15:44, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

halp

This is a colloquial or humorous variation of the imperative of 'help' that's pretty common on the internet. I'm quite sure it would meet CFI, but what is it exactly? Is it a misspelling (but it's intentional), is it an alternative form? —CodeCat 14:40, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

How about {{nonstandard|humorous}}? Mglovesfun (talk) 10:45, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

That particular template application appears to work perfectly for this entry. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 23:29, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Devoicing next to voiceless cons.

There is a phenomenon in German and Polish, similar to Terminal Devoicing, where a voiced consonant becomes voiceless when preceded by a voiceless consonant. (Sucht = /zuxt/, Streitsucht = /ʃtraitsuxt/) What's it called?Dakhart 21:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it's called voicing assimilation, and it happens in many languages, not just those with terminal devoicing. For example, Latin (deprecated template usage) scribo has the participle (deprecated template usage) scriptus. English has (deprecated template usage) leaves /liːvz/ but (deprecated template usage) sleeps /sliːps/. It doesn't always work the same in every language though or even the same in one single language, for example the equivalent Dutch words are (deprecated template usage) strijd /strɛi̯t/ and (deprecated template usage) zucht /zʏxt/ but the combination can be either /strɛi̯dzʏxt/ or /strɛi̯tsʏxt/ depending on the speaker. —CodeCat 21:50, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

xtal/XTAL

We have an entry for the abbreviation xtal but I'm used to seeing it XTAL. What should be placed at XTAL? RJFJR 23:41, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

There is no good reason for capitalising "xtal" (no good reason to abbreviate either, but that's another story). When seen capitalised, it is usually in electronic parts lists, which tend to captitalise everything not nailed down anyway. SpinningSpark 22:29, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

(colloq. Japan)

What does "(colloq. Japan)" mean in the current version of ronin? --Daniel 14:25, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

colloq is short for colloquial. How does it look now? We need citations for this def in English. I know it's totally valid in Japanese. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 01:25, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

+ and/or ++

There appears to be a fairly widespread Internet phenomenon of applauding particularly clever comments by responding with pluses, usually with two together. I imagine such a thing would be nearly impossible to document in a CFI-worthy fashion, but it still seems to me to be a clearly widespread use. Any thoughts on that? Cheers! bd2412 T 16:23, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I would think + would be enough, other iterations would then become SoP as + + + (yeah I know, it looks pretty funny) -- Liliana • 20:20, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

But it might very easily be derived from the ++ used in programming languages to increment, or add one, i.e. a geeky way to say "me too". Equinox ◑ 20:27, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I think the preponderance (at least in my experience) of pluses coming in pairs suggests that Equinox's theory is the more likely explanation. How do we search for citations for something like this? bd2412 T 14:26, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Dunno. Try Usenet, perhaps? -- Liliana • 17:32, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Right, but how? How do you search Usenet for ++? —Ruakh_TALK 15:25, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps subscribe to a newsserver for a few weeks and then search around a bit? -- Liliana • 16:01, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I read Usenet more or less regularly, so if you have a particular newsgroup in mind, I could subscribe for a month and then search the downloaded text. The ones I read are a little too old-fashioned to use this ++ notation. Equinox ◑ 00:20, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

paganismus

I'm suspicious of the plural forms. In English (paganism), it varies, but isn't it always uncountable in Latin? Metaknowledge 22:56, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I have no answer to your question, but would like to point out that Paganismus is one German translation of paganism. Cheers! bd2412 T 05:35, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Ravel==unravel, is there a name for this?

I was watching an episode of "The Big Bang Theory" where a character uses the pseudo-word "un-unravelable" to mean something like a mystery that can't be solved. So, I wondered if "ravelable" was a word, checked here, and was surprised to see that definition #1 of ravel is unravel. So, I wonder if there is a term for this situation that can be added at the definitions of ravel and unravel? Cheers. Haus 02:40, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Sadly, there is but one cite for un-unravelable, but I shall add it to Citations:un-unravelable and hope that more shall poke up at some point.--Prosfilaes 08:16, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I see that my question was probably unclear - let me try again. Is there a name for the situation where un-word means the same as word? Thanks! Haus 02:48, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what the word for the phenomenon is, but another facet is that "ravel" itself means both "untangle" and "tangle", which makes "ravel" an auto-antonym, contronym or antagonym. That doesn't describe its relationship to "unravel", but I would guess most words that are synonymous with unwords are probably also their own auto-antonyms. Another example of the phenomenon is "unthaw" (meaning both "freeze" and "unfreeze") and "thaw" (also meaning "unfreeze"). Phol 08:14, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

It's related to the contranym but I'm not sure what they're called. Other examples are debone and bone, regardless and irregardless, flammable and inflammable. DAVilla 03:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Interchangeable pairs, or pseudantonyms. Other pairs are flammable/inflammable; regardless/irregardless; caregiver/caretaker; restive/restless; iterate/reiterate; candescent/incandescent; loosen/unloosen. —Stephen ^(Talk) 04:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

chick

Wiktionary currently has two senses relating to women:

• 3. A young (especially attractive) woman. Three cool chicks / Are walking down the street / Swinging their hips
• 4. A woman. Check that chick out.

I wonder about the following:

• Do we need two senses? (Dictionaries often have only one sense relating to women.)
• Age
  • Is being young a necessary condition for a chick as a woman?
  • Is being young an "especially" condition for a chick as a woman?
  • Is being young a condition at all for a chick as a woman?
• Attractiveness
  • Is attractiveness a necessary condition for a chick as a woman?
  • Is attractiveness an "especially" condition for a chick as a woman?
  • Is attractiveness a condition at all for a chick as a woman?

See also “chick”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. I am interested in informal perceptions of native speakers, and, formally, in attesting quotations. --Dan Polansky 09:55, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

My informal perception as a native speaker is that young is an "especially" condition for a chick as a woman, but not an absolutely necessary one. Attractiveness is not a condition at all for a chick as a woman--I myself have been known to refer to women as "chicks", but for me the properties "woman" and "attractive" are mutually exclusive. —Angr 10:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Chick is a slang term for a woman, particularly a young women. As for attractiveness, however, Google Books returns 500+ hits for "ugly chick". bd2412 T 20:09, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd say they are a single sense, but it needs to be broadly worded to include what bd2412 says, which is almost exactly what I was going to say. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:18, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

philandry

Can someone research this and/or flag the entry? I've added an note on the discussion page, but have some doubts that this is an accepted word...?? About the only authoritative place I've found it is here! Samatva 19:22, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

It’s okay. Valid citations are easy to find. For example, this one. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:01, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's certainly an accepted word. Good source cited above by Stephen G. Brown (talk • contribs). -- Cirt (talk) 23:28, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Places for language-specific discussions

Is there a place where aspects particular to a single language can be discussed? I was thinking maybe the 'WT:About' page for that language, but is that common practice? —CodeCat 21:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I think so. --Yair rand 22:52, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The "WT:About" pages are to discuss how we treat languages. (what are the templates, POS headers, definitions, romanizations, etc.)

I'd use the Information desk for linguistic questions like "WTF is the difference between 'tu' and 'você' in Portuguese anyway?" or "How is the order of words in this Egyptian Arabic phrase?" --Daniel 08:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

But for consensus-building discussions about a single language? —CodeCat 11:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Wiktionary talk:About Languagename.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:16, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

be be a form of be!

In a sentence like "I try not to offend them: I be polite, I take off my shoes when entering their house, etc", what form of "be" am I using? The infinitive? A conjunctive/subjunctive form? I am aware that I could also say "I am polite", but isn't "I be polite" also grammatical, if literary? What form am I using in the sentence "I'll make you a deal: I be nice to your friend John, you be nice to my friend Jane"? Phol 07:54, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

You be nice is imperative. I be polite is, I believe, an antiquated form of the present indicative. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:31, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

That use of be is part of AAVE. Some linguists who study the dialect assert that it is usually used to indicate a habitual or characteristic or, at least, continuing state or condition. Superficially, it seems to me to be used to cover more tenses, aspects, and moods than that. DCDuring TALK 15:04, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not just AAVE. It's relatively rare, but I remember noticing it in a preview for Bratz: The Movie; one of the lead characters asks, "What do we do?" and another replies, "We be ourselves." (N.B. I don't know if this exchange occurred in the actual movie; previews are not always accurate.) I think everyone can agree that "We are ourselves" would not have worked (though I'm sure that many speakers will find that even "We be ourselves" will not work for them). As for what form — I think it's just a regular old non-third-person-singular present indicative form, but of a certain, defective sense of be. ("Defective" in that it doesn't have a complete conjugation; I'm fine with "We be ourselves", but I would not be fine with "So what did you do?" ?"I be'd myself!". Some speakers, however, do accept "be's" and "be'd", so for them I guess the conjugation isn't defective.) CGEL, by the way, refers to this sense of be as "lexical be", giving the example of "Why don't you be more tolerant?"^[17] —Ruakh_TALK 15:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

This work has be's as an inflected form sometimes occurring in the corpus used. OTOH, be'd seems much rarer. DCDuring TALK 17:24, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I think we need to backtrack a bit. Above, I wrote, "It's not just AAVE"; but really what I should have written was, "it's not AAVE at all". I disagree with your statement above, "That use of be is part of AAVE." There is a use of "be" that is part of AAVE, but Phol is (I believe) asking about a different use. My comment was about the use that (s)he is asking about. So the book that you link to, with its AAVE quotations that use be's, is not relevant to my comment. —Ruakh_TALK 18:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

See under Observations. —Stephen ^(Talk) 18:32, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

All these non-subjunctive senses might well be archaisms reflecting the Old English dual conjugation of the copula, see beon-wesan. In fact, ic bēo(m), þū bist, hē/hēo/it biþ, wē/gē/hī bēoþ, which would then be continued more or less directly in I be, thou beest, he/she/it be, we/ye/they be (which is also found as the general paradigm dialectally), do seem to have had a habitual sense originally. Note that AAVE can very well continue dialectal/archaic features conveyed through Southern American English dialects. Fascinating stuff. --Florian Blaschke 19:43, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

@Stephen G. Brown: Yeah, that may be what Phol has in mind; I wouldn't have thought so, except that (s)he describes it as "literary", which is a fair description of that use, and not a fair description of the use that I mentioned. —Ruakh_TALK 19:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Thinking over it again, the usage that Phol describes (and you, Ruakh, too, in your movie example) may rather be something else than an archaism – just an infinitive with a pronoun prepended: "What do we do?" – "We? Be ourselves." or "We, be ourselves." Though this might eventually have been supported by the archaic or (also) AAVE usage. --Florian Blaschke 19:59, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Re "What do we do? ―We be ourselves", is that because there's an elided "do" in there ("We [do] be ourselves"), copied over from the question? Does the answer to that question make any difference?​—msh210℠ (talk) 22:01, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

This source characterizes non-imperative "do be" as part of Irish English and not part of Standard English, the latter being in accord with my ear.

There are a few things you can't quite say without it. "So what do we do? Do we be ourselves?" Definitely cannot use "are" here. Equinox ◑ 20:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I would be nice to know more about the context of the usages Phol has offered for discussion. DCDuring TALK 22:27, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

sorry, i've just been following this discussion rather interestedly. Perhaps this is actually a (rare) example of a first-person plural imperative being attested in English? Piddle 05:14, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

CGEL's "lexical be" seems like a simple infinitive to me, at least in the example given. Phol 06:52, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

No, sorry, you misunderstand me. CGEL's "lexical be" is not a form, but a sense. Like, the word "child" has one sense where it means "young human" (as in "hundreds of children attend the school") and one sense where it means "a human's offspring" (as in "all of her children are in their thirties"). In the example sentence, "Why don't you be more tolerant?", the form is the infinitive, but the sense is the so-called "lexical be". —Ruakh_TALK 14:47, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah, gotcha. Phol 21:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

So would a good definition be "To exist or behave in the manner specified" with a usage note about how it differs from the usual be?​—msh210℠ (talk) 22:01, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah, now I gotcha (I hope); it is easier to handle this as a sense (with its own conjugated forms), rather than as a conjugated form. [[Hang]] might be a model for how to explain the differing conjugations of the different senses. Phol 00:30, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I can't be sure it's the same form, because I'm not sure what the form is, but I think "what do we do? we be ourselves" is great example of the form I'm thinking of. An alternate indicative rather than a subjunctive seems like a good explanation. In fact, I would guess that Ruakh's defective conjugation of "be" is Stephen's archaic conjugation, which just lost a few forms as it made its way into the modern era. (It's not missing past tense forms for me; I'd say "what did I do? I was myself"; but I am missing a third person singular indicative.) The difference between the conjugations for me is that "I be" connotes doing, whereas "I am" is static. "I am polite to them" means I am unremarkably showing them the politeness I generally show everyone (and note this as I list everything that should lead to them not being offended), whereas "I be polite to them" emphasizes that I show them politeness (even when they test me with rudeness, or even when my politeness is not sincere). Hence I wrote "I be" in an e-mail, but then I questioned the grammar. (And FWIW I would say "We’re in Japan! What do we do? We be ourselves.") Re: my second, hypothetical example: I suppose whether "I'll make you a deal: I be nice to John, you be nice to Jane" is subjunctive or imperative depends on whether it's truly an offer or a demand. Phol 06:52, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Re: "'I be' connotes doing, whereas 'I am' is static": Yes, exactly: "I be polite" is a lexical be, whereas "I am polite" is a regular copula be. —Ruakh_TALK 14:47, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

So, how's this for a usage note? (Maybe we should have a giant collapsible table of forms like rechercher#Conjugation.) Phol 21:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Irish sí and English sidhe

Isn't sidhe/Sidhe simply borrowed from the pre-reform spelling sídhe/Sídhe of sí? Both words mean "(of the) fairy-mound", and seem to be pronounced identically; however, the pages note no connection, and sí lacks an etymology.

Note that the pages sídhe and Sídhe have been deleted for unclear reasons. Also note Scottish Gaelic sìdh, sluagh sìdhe, bean-shìdh and the like.

More precisely, I think the derivation is (and MacBain agrees): Proto-Celtic (Nom. Sg.) *sīdos, (Gen. Sg.) *sīdesos (a neuter s-stem) 'seat' > Old Irish síd, síde (neuter, I think) 'fairy dwelling/hill/mound' > Modern Irish sídh, sídhe (modern spelling: sí, sí) and Scottish Gaelic sìdh, sìdhe, with the genitive abstracted from set phrases such as fir síde, daoine síde and áes síde already in Old Irish as síde 'fairies', from whence Modern Irish sídh ~ sígh (modern spelling: sí) 'fairy', Scottish Gaelic sìdh ~ sìth. Proto-Celtic *sīdos is apparently also the origin of Old Irish síd 'peace' and its modern descendants. A mailing list post suggests that the ambiguity could be employed in Old Irish deliberately, to interpret the Áes Síde as 'people of the peace'. --Florian Blaschke 20:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

judgment of Solomon

Has anyone else heard of judgment of Solomon to mean 'really good judgment'? It's one of those things where I say it, and I'm not sure if anyone else does. Compare patience of Job. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm familiar with wisdom of Solomon. I'm not sure it's idiomatic.​—msh210℠ (talk) 20:13, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I've heard it in connection of decisions that appear to be impossible to make. "It will take the judgement of Solomon to make a fair settlement in this divorce". SpinningSpark 22:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I've had a go. feel free to improve. SemperBlotto 22:22, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Daniel come to judgement is similar. In the case of Solomon, the famous judgement seems to be the one about cutting a baby in half to appease two woman claiming to be its mother. (The one who refused to have this done was the real mother.) Equinox ◑ 21:27, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I'd have to agree I've certainly heard it used in that fashion. -- Cirt (talk) 23:24, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

batshit

The noun meaning of batshit is given as "alternative spelling of bat shit", but bat shit redirects batshit leaving no definition at all. Also, this does not have a plural, surely. SpinningSpark 22:36, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 22:43, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The etymology is simply fascinating! -- Cirt (talk) 23:20, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

lord of creation

In the entry for weaker vessel there's this quote:

1. • 1868, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, ch. 41:

     When women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole.

Does "lord of creation" refer to men? If so, is it a common enough usage to merit an entry? I searched Google for this term, but found little evidence, but perhaps it's dated. Capitalized it seems to refer to God. In Finnish there's the expression (deprecated template usage) luomakunnan kruunu, which refers to men, and I would want to find a proper translation for it. "Men" will do, of course, but I want something that catches the spirit. --Hekaheka 05:51, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with that phrase in lowercase referring to mortal men, either. But I suppose patriarchal Judeochristians may hold a doctrine that Yahweh created Adam in his image to be lord over Yahweh's creation. ~ Robin 06:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Plenty of bgc hits in the plural. I'm not sure if it means men, though, or has some other meaning with men as the most common referent.​—msh210℠ (talk) 15:55, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

santorum

Could someone not previously involved in editing this entry please check it over and make sure it conforms to this project's policies, please? Definition 2 seems particularly gratuitous. --Anthonyhcole 14:31, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Note: Admin CodeCat (talk • contribs) has dutifully explained matters pertaining to site policy at the talk page for the entry, and admin Robin Lionheart (talk • contribs) has been quite helpful with adding additional sourcing and referencing for the page, both at its main definition page with quotes, and at the citations page with additional referencing. -- Cirt (talk) 16:14, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

• Definition one is absolutely solid. Definition 2 is a bit more precarious, and I will be happier when we get more printed citations and fewer usenet ones. But it still looks like it passes CFI. (Arguably, the two could be combined without much loss.) Ƿidsiþ 08:45, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

• I made this edit to the etymology to correct some POV. The wording "equated homosexuality with bestiality" was particularly nebulous IMO. Equated in what way? You could read that as "he said that homosexuality was equally as bad as bestiality" whereas his opinion was really that bestiality is another thing that a "healthy family" is not. It was enough to say that his views were "perceived as anti-gay" in the spirit of NPOV. Although even for NPOV it wouldn't be a too much of a stretch to say that they were anti-gay, someone might take exception to that and WT:NPOV does say "It's OK to state opinions in articles, but they must be presented as opinions, not as fact." —Internoob 03:56, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Update: Admin Robin Lionheart (talk • contribs) created a Citations page for this entry, at Citations:santorum. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 04:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

morfosi

This Italian word is defined as meaning morphosis, which doesn't appear to be an English word at all. Is morphosis a word that needs to be added, or is morfosi bogus/unclear/otherwise problematic? Metaknowledge 23:45, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

• Added English word. I know we have nearly three million words, but there are just as many that we haven't got yet. SemperBlotto 08:40, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

gelatin

How come this is defined as an alternate form of gelatine? In my experience, it is exactly the opposite. Can we switch these two? Metaknowledge 21:00, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

The label of "alternative form" does not mean "lesser" or less common. It means that the spelling is an alternative, and the difference may be regional. --EncycloPetey 21:13, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

It's probably a US/UK variation. In these cases our normal policy is - whoever bothers to actually add the word gets to choose which is the primary form and which is the alternative. It is considered impolite to swap them around later. SemperBlotto 21:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

What about a case such as this in which gelatin is 75 times more common than gelatine in the US and just one-third as common in the UK (based on COCA and BNC)? And generally are evidence-based changes rude? DCDuring TALK 23:07, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. I suppose we could use ((mostly|UK)) and ((mostly|US)). IMO, in general, if one form is significantly more common than another, and without large variation between major Englishes, we should put the main content at the common form and have others link to it. But (i) ideally those "links" should probably be drawing in the content from the main entry, rather than forcing us to click again, and (ii) the commonness of forms is definitely variable across the time dimension. Equinox ◑ 23:19, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I have a package of "Gelatine" which clarifies itself by saying "Ingredients: Gelatin" :P - -sche (discuss) 00:44, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

The other ingredient is an E number. Equinox ◑ 00:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

@ -sche on my packet of ibuprofen it says "do not take if allergic to ibuprofen". Mglovesfun (talk) 12:26, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

February 2012

cluebat

Can someone write a real definition for it? The current one isn't very helpful. — Jeraphine Gryphon 10:11, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree; LART needs work too, if attested, in both cases. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Good now? (Both entries.) Incidentally, for future reference, you can use [[WT:RFC]] for issues like this.​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:13, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd say both entries look pretty understandably worded right now, good work. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 23:18, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

contour

I think there's at least a phonetics sense missing here, which might possibly even make contour tone SoP. -- Liliana • 00:56, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Added it. Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV 01:35, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

momist

This does not seem like a real word after a quick Google search. Attestation, anyone? Metaknowledge 02:33, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Striking as an RFV has been started. Equinox ◑ 13:10, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

upstate

I seem to remember occasionally hearing the word "upstate" used in a euphemism for killing an animal (like put out to pasture... hmmm... the entry doesn't mention that meaning, either). On 1/31, Colbert's "The Word" had a screen suggesting that the Arapaho people were "Sent to a Reservation 'Upstate'". Does anyone know more about such uses of "upstate"? Rl 10:02, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

they two

"third person dual pronoun." From User:Shoof, who IMO has done quite a few strange/non-standard entries. I would like to know if this is either non-standard (versus "those two", "the two of them") or NISoP. Equinox ◑ 20:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

they two sounds alien. I’ve never seen it or heard it before. If I encountered it, I would think they were saying "they too". —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

you two failed RFD, so I would guess this is also SOP. - -sche (discuss) 20:56, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I would have supported keeping "you two." I'd note that "us two" also doesn't sound horrible, and I've heard it used before, though "the two of us" or "both of us" sounds better. With "them two," you've got not only "two of them" and "both of them" but "those two" as well, yet I can still see it working. On the other hand the term in question: "they two" definitely sounds weird. --Quintucket 21:39, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the misgivings. It seems rare, at best, though it looks like it might be used ocaasionally to translate certain pronouns (Arabic & Tok Pisin?) - which consideration should be ignored. See [18].— Pingku^dimmi 23:31, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Dual seems wrong as English, to the best of my knowledge, has never had a dual. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

enthral

The forms (deprecated template usage) enthraling and (deprecated template usage) enthraled seem very much obsolete, and rare. I get the impression that the usual inflections of this verb are (deprecated template usage) enthralling and (deprecated template usage) enthralled (just as the L can double in, say, (deprecated template usage) travelling). Equinox ◑ 23:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the participle forms with the single ell don't exist in British English, and if American English always uses "enthrall", then the single ell form for the participles must be a mis-spelling. I've changed the entry, and also removed the false impression that "enthrall" is not used in British English. I think the mistaken impression arises because British English removes an ell before -ment (as in enthralment, instalment, etc.), so some people assume, by back-formation, that the word enthrall has only one ell. The single ell version is not unknown, of course, and the OED includes it as an alternative spelling (with just two cites out of seventeen using the single ell, and those are from 1695 and 1720), but does not permit the single ell participles. My preference would be to have just "alternative spelling of", rather than a separate entry for the single ell version. I believe that Garner's modern American usage is wrong in its claim that "enthrall" is American and "enthral" is British. Search Google books for evidence, where both spelling are used on both sides of the pond. What does anyone else think? Dbfirs 08:09, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree with all you said. Just to add 2c .. I am of the informed opinion that when the stress of a word like this falls on the last syllable, the ell is normally doubled in British English, and in participle etc. formations in both UK/US English. Hence (deprecated template usage) traveled in US and (deprecated template usage) travelled in UK, but (deprecated template usage) enthralled in both language pools. -- ALGRIF talk 12:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

fa'a#Samoan

Do I have the correct part of speech for this? Metaknowledge 03:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd say it appears to be a preposition. —Quintucket 09:59, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I didn't know, so I just put it as an adverb because it seemed like a broader form of sic#Latin. Metaknowledge 16:41, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd say it appears to resemble, based on the definition give, the English preposition "like." ("You worked him like a dog.") —Quintucket 17:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe I didn't define it well enough. If x is a noun, then Samoan: fa'a x can be translated to English: x-style. Metaknowledge 17:44, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid I still don't understand. —Quintucket 18:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I think that in English we'd use the preposition like, or another preposition, for a word with that meaning — except that sometimes we'd use the noun style (appended, after a hyphen). In general, AFAIK, what POS something is isn't dependent only on its meaning, and doesn't necessarily translate from one language to another. You need to know Samoan to answer this question. (This is but one of the reasons people shouldn't add entries in languages they don't know.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:23, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I am ignorant about many POS designations even within English, my native language. If there is a way I can help you tell which one this is by means of usage, let me know. Metaknowledge 03:02, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Can you give us some example sentences with word-for-word translations? I also suspect it's a preposition, but I need to see it in its native habitat to be sure. —Angr 11:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Common phrases using it include: fa'a Samoa ("Samoa-style", or "the way it is done in Samoa"), fa'a tama ("like a [male] child", usually translated as "tomboy"), fa'a fafine ("like a woman", referring to certain feminine men). "Fa'a Samoa" if treated as a single word would be an adverb or adjective, depending on usage, but "fa'a tama" and "fa'a fafine" usually function as nouns when each is taken as a single word.Metaknowledge 01:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

It's almost certainly a preposition then, as it's always followed by a noun. The noun-like usages of fa'a tama and fa'a fafine are substantivized prepositional phrases. —Angr 11:12, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Changed it. Metaknowledge 05:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I Just noticed the subtle changes you made there, Meta. The spacing between fa'a and Samoa is entirely optional. In fact, more often than not, the two are written together with fa'a acting as a prefixed preposition to the name of the country/culture following it. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 00:58, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

queen of beasts translations

How sure are we that the translations given under "queen of beasts" mean "lioness" and not just "queen of beasts" ? Shadyaubergine 22:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

win and victory

So, to win is to obtain a victory and victory is the state of having won a competition or battle. Is this a circular definition or not? --flyax 22:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I think we are missing a victory sense; the current one seems to be uncountable, and the one we are missing would be a synonym of win (noun: an individual victory). But I can't think of a definition which isn't circular. Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV 03:44, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The "SB rule of dictionary circularity" states that EVERY definition in EVERY dictionary is ultimately circular. They all define words in terms of other words whose definitions do the same. To avoid circularity you would need to start with a word (or words) that need no definition because they are self-evident. SemperBlotto 08:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Ultimately, yes. However there is a difference between a circle of 5 and a circle of 2 words. It seems we have here the latter. --flyax 11:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Even in American Sign Language, where it seems like things should be self-evident by pointing, only the numbers 1-5, you, I, and he/she are self-evident, and the latter three wouldn't be self-evident if you tried to used them to explain a spoken language. See w:Gavagai. That said, it's possible that these could be clearer. I'll think about it and y'all should too. —Quintucket 11:44, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with SB about the ultimate impossibility of escaping circularity of definitions. Further, I think that in practice we are likely to have instance of circles of two. From a user perspective, it is probably satisfactory if at least one of the headwords in the circle has either, 1., a good set of usage examples in the appropriate sense or, 2., an ostensive definition, such as, 2a, an image or, 2b, another reference to one or more examples, such as the, 2bi, examples of rhetorical devices or, 2bii, the sound files. Still, checking to see how other dictionaries word their definitions wil;l almost always reveal an approach to, 3., rewording. DCDuring TALK 17:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Bingo. If, theoretically, we wanted to avoid circular definitions, DCDuring hits on the way we could do it: not self-evident words, per se, but words defined by pictures (and videos and sounds). Of course, it would be impractical to sort through our entries to be sure they were all noncircular, so let's not... but we could expand this' circle if we defined win as "to obtain success, to triumph" or such. - -sche (discuss) 18:12, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

delete

It's 3am and I'm tired so I'm not going to touch this one, but suffice to say the definitions are far from adequate. "Delete" is more than just "remove, get rid of, erase" - it is only used in written or computing contexts, for one. An example sentence wouldn't go astray either. Who can help? ---> Tooironic 15:50, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Can it also be a euphemism for kill/destroy? Is the computing sense correct, to hide? Mglovesfun (talk) 14:44, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think so. It's true that "deleting" is often used in computing contexts to refer to actions that don't actually expunge something from existence (for example, "deleting" a file just unlinks it from the filesystem, but doesn't immediately affect the contents of the file; and "deleting" a bit of text doesn't mean that Ctrl-Z can't retrieve it), but I think that "delete" still means "delete", it's just that sometimes expunge-from-existence is an adequate abstraction even it's not really what's happening. —Ruakh_TALK 00:52, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I was referring more to the context in which the word is used, not the actual process that occurs when you delete something. I've modified the definition to "To remove, get rid of or erase, especially written or printed material, or data on a computer." It's not perfect, but it's closer to being a clearer, more helpful definition. ---> Tooironic 11:56, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

judical vs judicial

Hello, guys! I'm from russian wiktionary and we have the entry judical (ru:judical). I think it's a common mistake (typo) in english, and it's a word for immediate deletion. And others think is a word spelled by a small community, for example by emigrants or it's a intentional typo. And the number of entries in google can prove it, according to their opinion. I think not the number, nor the small community not explain the addition of the word to the wiktionary. Have you heard about this word? The discussion in russian wiktionary (in russian) -- #1 #2, #3 Thank you! --141.113.85.91 16:21, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Hi there. I think that many of its usages are spelling mistakes / typos for (deprecated template usage) judicial, but that it is (or has become) a real word. I can see many Google hits from government (and similar) websites. It seems to have a slightly different flavour of meaning - maybe "pertaining to judges" rather than "pertaining to courts". We should have an entry for it, SemperBlotto 16:31, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

  I don't see it as other than a misspelling. The "pertaining to judges" sense is just missing from our definition of judicial, I think. To test the independent word theory we could see whether the distribution of meanings for judical was about the same as that for judicial in contemporary usage. Though we don't have multiple meanings for judicial, MWOnline has five, some of which seem current. DCDuring TALK 19:31, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

  I don't see this difference neither. I agree with DCDuring. I think if we talk about difference we should view a constant use of the word in a part of a book (1st sense) and in other part of a book (2d sense "pertaining to judges"). And i don't see it. I don't see the strong system of 2 different senses of this two different words. In fact i see statistically irrelevant results in google. May be, i missing something because i'm not a native speaker... --141.113.85.91 12:30, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• I agree with DCDuring and the anon: I can only find what appear to be typos for (deprecated template usage) judicial. Like SemperBlotto, I see many Google hits from government web-sites, but in most of them, the typo appears only the page's "title" (where it's easy to miss), with the exact same phrase appearing correctly-spelled in the page proper. The only page I can find that even could be using them non-synonymously is this one, and even there, I see no reason to interpret it that way. —Ruakh_TALK 18:38, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

... agreed, so should we have just "common mis-spelling of judicial"? Dbfirs 13:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd say no; it's probably a typo not a spelling error. In the same way that to is spelt ot if you accidentally invert the letters. The mean reason I say this is the two can't really be homophones, since -cal should be pronounced /kəl/. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the rules about soft and hard "c"s are taught much these days, but you are probably right. It's an amazingly common typo with over nine million ghits, and nearly a quarter of a million in Google Books. I can see that it is very easy to omit the second "i" when typing, but the fact that the errors don't seem to have been noticed suggests that some people must think that "judical" is a correct spelling. Perhaps people are just less observant than I expect them to be? Dbfirs 17:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it's chiefly that people don't notice it. Like I mentioned above, there are a lot of web-pages that use it in the page-title, but not in the body; to me, this suggests that it's a simple typo that best escapes notice in small print that no one reads very carefully. —Ruakh_TALK 21:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree too, that is not a spelling error, but a pure typo. I think it may be a recognition error also. I compared the book on BNC [19] (judical) and on google books [20] (judicial). --141.113.85.91 14:29, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Policy violation w/ regard to spelling variations?

Hi, just wanted to check on Wiktionary policy regarding spelling variatons between US, Canada, Commonwealth, NK, AU, and so on. The only thing I can find regarding this is on Talk:color, where User:Stephen_G._Brown says,

Any spelling that is normal in the U.S. carries exactly the same weight as a different spelling that is normal in the UK or NZ, regardless of which came first or which is truer to etymology or any other reason.

If this is correct, then I wanted to bring to someone's attention the recent edit to aeroplane (UK/NZ/AU spelling) and airplane (US spelling). Previously, airplane was defined as "an aeroplane; [rest of definition]" and aeroplane was defined as "an airplane; [rest of definition]". This was just changed by User:SemperBlotto, who has removed aeroplane from the definition of airplane, and replace the entire definition of aeroplane with the text "an airplane". Is this as per Wiktionary policy? Edam 17:04, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

There really isn't any policy on this as we don't agree. Some argue that having a full entry for color and colour in English is impractical as editors will edit them separately, so they'll say different things. Others say that since they're both very common, both need an entry and there's no way to choose which one to 'soft redirect' to the other. In cases where one variant is common and all other variants are uncommon or a lot less common, {{alternative form of}} is usually used uncontroversially. The problem is situations like this, where both are very common. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:08, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Wow. I'd have thought you'd have a clear policy for this! Well, SemperBlotto is an Admin and, as a simple user, it's probably not appropriate for me to roll back his edits. So who would I raise this with? How should I resolve this if there is no policy!? Edam 17:17, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Just negotiation I'm afraid. Unless anyone else has a better idea. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:18, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

To me, it makes no sense to duplicate definitions as we do on color/colour. We should choose just one to have the definitions etc., and the other should be a soft redirect. On color/colour we have a synchronization warning at the top, but editors only see this if they edit the entire article (rather than a section). SemperBlotto 17:23, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't like it either; I always use US spellings when editing for the same reason, despite being British. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi SemperBlotto. Thanks for replying! No, I agree that having two separately maintained definitions is a poor solution. The only reason that I think it is a better solution than one being defined in terms of the other (or a redirection) is that it gives greater credibility to one (and in this case, defines one in terms of a word that doesn't exist in the same language variant!). Let me ask you this: as an Admin, how would you have reacted if someone had edited those entries in the reverse, so that airplane was defined as "an aeroplane"? Edam 18:01, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

That would be even better (I'm English and "aeroplane" is the spelling that I use). SemperBlotto 19:45, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, fair enough. :o) So, IIUC, you are saying that you find having to maintain separate definitions more obnoxious (even where the definitions are trivial) than redirecting one to the other (even where the other spelling variation is not valid in places where the one is used). If this is your preference then I suppose that will probably be unable to sway you to revert your edit. Edam 00:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

On a slight side-note, a nice solution would be if the technology allowed for two separate pages to display the same content. Not a redirection, but an "alias". Then, the one page, accessible via all spellings, could list the spelling variations. Edam 18:01, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

The technology does allow for that. (We call such a thing a "redirect", sometimes a "hard-redirect", as opposed to the soft-redirection discussed above and (I assume) in the comment of yours I'm replying to.) We've decided not to use it for things like this.  :-) ​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:14, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

But a redirect does not allow two pages to show the same content. It only allows one page to show the same content as a second "master" page. There is still one page that is clearly the main, true, master page. If we redirected colour to color then it would be clear that colour was the poor relation. Equinox ◑ 23:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I just had this idea... The problem with different spellings doesn't just happen with term entries but also with definitions that use those terms, even definitions of words in other languages (such as German (deprecated template usage) Farbe). In the end, a user is probably only going to be interested in the spelling native to their area, and will expect US spellings to be 'alternatives' if they use British spelling, and British spellings if they use US spelling. So in a sense this is really a localisation issue, and what users expect to see depends on each individual user. So, could a script of some kind be made so that users can set their preferred spelling standard in their preferences, and then entries can be formatted in such a way that it takes that setting into account? That way, color could show 'US spelling of colour' if their preferred spelling is British, but contain all the right definitions if their preferred spelling is US. —CodeCat 18:09, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Even if that's feasible, it'd only help the very few users who set preferences.​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:11, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that spellings within articles are a localisation issue, but I'm not sure that I would agree for the entry names themselves. What if an Englishman wanted to look-up an American spelling? I like the idea of a script that handles in-article spellings though. Edam 00:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

See also the pair mold/mould, although that might be controversial. -- Liliana • 21:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Since some people get so touchy about this, I think we should have a user-level setting or preference saying "I want to see N.Am. spellings as the primary spellings", or "I want to see British spellings as the primary spellings". Citations aside, we could then present the same content under either form. This would also work for those madmen who liketh ye Spællings of Olde. (Obviously this is over-simplified and I know there are forms of English that are neither US nor UK. I'm really having a jab at the modern Democracy2.0 where you stick your fingers in your ears and downvote anything you don't like.) Equinox ◑ 23:08, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

D'oh, CodeCat got there before me. Well done. Equinox ◑ 23:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

The solution, when we find it, needs to be easily available to all users, even casual IPs, so I'm not convinced that a settable preference would work. I've suggested elsewhere (with help from others) that both spellings should be redirects to template space where the full entry is shown with both spellings (as in the OED and other good dictionaries). I'm not expert enough in the way things work here to risk testing this out, and I don't want to upset the experts here who work so hard to improve Wiktionary. Are there reasons why this method will not work? Dbfirs 13:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

It breaks things like Random page, AutoFormat, Statistics, and others. Bad idea. -- Liliana • 13:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, yes, I got that wrong, didn't I? I should have suggested having both as real entries (without redirect), but using a template that has both spellings and contains the definitions . Can anyone suggest a better solution? Dbfirs 13:22, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

We've had that before, for translations only. It was a lot of trouble because it made the pages really confusing to edit for newcomers. -- Liliana • 13:53, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

If MediaWiki were to support page "aliases" (where the same content is displayed an can be edited via multiple page names), this wouldn't be a problem. Edam 00:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

To Edam, this is exactly why we have no policy on this; there are many ideas of how to handle this situation, and none of them has something even close to a majority. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:41, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

That's all well and good until someone realizes they actually aren't used in exactly the same way. We've been through these kinds of conversations before, and no preference has always been the recommended course. Corrected. DAVilla 21:21, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

holokinetic

Scrabbled together from Wikipedia. Can someone who knows about tasty PIE check that my definition makes sense, please? Equinox ◑ 13:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

It was a little confusing so I changed it a bit and added a usage notes. The definitions of amphikinetic and proterokinetic are much more vague, though, especially in the context of PIE... and when compared to hysterokinetic and acrostatic which are much clearer. —CodeCat 13:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

wall

I don't do "social networking", but I've come across this term (deprecated template usage) wall for a sort of personal Internet notice-board that shows an ongoing stream of messages related to its owner (e.g. stuff posted by their friends). Is this only used on Facebook or is it a generic term? For example can you have a "Google+ wall" or a "LiveJournal wall" as well? Equinox ◑ 17:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I've only heard it on FaceBook, but Google Plus calls it a wall and apparently people apply the term to MySpace and other social networking sites. LiveJournal is closer to a blog and doesn't seem to have it. DAVilla 21:10, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd agree with this assessment by DAVilla (talk • contribs), it seems to be primarily a term that grew out of Facebook and is quickly becoming applicable to multiple other spheres of social networking. -- Cirt (talk) 23:16, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

assertive

The definition reads, "boldly self-assured; aggressively confident; cocky". This is not the meaning I am familiar with. I always thought it meant something like you are confident but not in an aggressive way. Apparently this is also how the Oxford Dictionary interprets it. ---> Tooironic 11:16, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The definition seems within range of some of the usage I hear. AHD: "Inclined to bold or confident assertion; aggressively self-assured." DCDuring TALK 14:59, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

In my impression, the word often alludes to aggression as well as confidence. Assertive people are usually calm, and make sure-footed progress towards a goal often at the expense of other less assertive individuals. They tend to be more in favour of their own ideas, and would voice them without giving others a chance to voice theirs. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 21:53, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I've encountered the word usage in various mediums as all of the definitions discussed, above. Perhaps the best approach would be to document each definition, with appropriate citations. -- Cirt (talk) 23:08, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

háček

The extended definition of "háček" that has been entered into háček, resulting in this revision, seems unduly encyclopedic. The pronunciation háček is used to indicate in various languages is not part of what the diacritic is. I am inclined to remove the recent additions to the definition, leaving only this: "A diacritical mark: 〈ˇ〉, usually resembling an inverted circumflex: 〈ˆ〉, but in the cases of ď, Ľ, ľ, and ť, taking instead a form similar to a prime: 〈′〉" or this "A diacritical mark 〈ˇ〉 used in some West Slavic, Baltic, and Finno-Lappic languages, and in some romanization methods, e.g. pinyin, to modify the sounds of letters", which was the definition before recent additions. I do not see two senses of "háček" but only one. --Dan Polansky 09:31, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I think you're right that the word (deprecated template usage) háček just means 〈ˇ〉, but (deprecated template usage) ˇ needs all the information that I've currently added to (deprecated template usage) háček. I'm a bit swamped IRL at the moment, so could you give me a couple of weeks to transfer to and re-present that information in various sections of (deprecated template usage) ˇ, so I can show you what I mean? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 18:51, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

in I don’t know how long

I have seen in I don’t know how long several times, and its meaning is clear, but isn’t it unusual grammatically? The preposition is directly placed before the proposition. I can’t find a grammatical explanation here on Wiktionary. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 15:44, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not too unusual:

• "You have to ask permission before each and every action, from smooching to you know what."
• "He's engaged in God knows what {activities|shenanigans|nonsense)."
• ":It's been in business since I don't remember when."

It does seem best considered grammatical, not lexical. CGEL, I think, characterizes such clauses as constituting "nominals" in such usage. DCDuring TALK 16:27, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, they are similar to the French je ne sais (like in je ne sais quoi) but freer grammatically. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:48, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

For a contrasting case of one particular instance of preposition + nominal clause that may be idiomatic because of a semantic shift, see in that. A few OneLook dictionaries show in that as an idiomatic run-in entry at in. DCDuring TALK 01:00, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

plural

(Adjective) I have discovered numerous uses of "more plural than", sometimes seeming to me to mean "more pluralistic than". However, some of the citations don't really fit that definition. What definition would fit? DCDuring TALK 17:08, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

hang

Someone pointed me to this on Youtube [21]. Obviously the whole thing's in Italian, but what's the instrument called if not a hang? The artist describes himself as a "hang player", presumably both of those words are from English. Do we need another definition for hang, and if so, what's the etymology, maybe Mandarin or Korean. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:26, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Probably German. W:Hang_drum. Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV 23:32, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Just noticed. We already have this entry at Hang. Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV 23:34, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. I've added it at (deprecated template usage) hang (English & Italian) as well. SemperBlotto

Note there's an oral citation for musicoterapia in the link above. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:02, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

enjoy your meal

Is this just a sum of parts, or am I missing some odd idiomaticity? Metaknowledge 05:56, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

It's SOP. It's arguably, but probably not, phrasebook material.​—msh210℠ (talk) 07:01, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

's for does

At 's, to the meaning "contraction of does" I have added the following qualifier: (used only with the auxiliary meaning of (deprecated template usage) does and only after (deprecated template usage) what). Can anyone think of any exceptions to these conditions? I can't think of any other time when does contracts to ’s. Probably not after who (*?Who's he think he is?), certainly not after non-interrogative pronouns (*He's not see her for He doesn't see her), and definitely not after non-auxiliary does (*What's its best? for What does its best?). Other ideas? —Angr 13:31, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Not specifically (deprecated template usage) what — consider "Where's he live?", "When's he get […]?", "How's he do […]?" — but I agree that it's only with auxiliary does, and I can't think of any examples without subject-auxiliary inversion. —Ruakh_TALK 15:02, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, BGC also has several hits for google books:"who's he think he is". But perhaps only after wh-words (a group that includes how). —Angr 15:36, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Is this relevant?​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:01, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure; I don't see anything there but a description of the book. Is there a possibly relevant quote you mean? —Angr 17:59, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

File:Google Books screenshot.png

Sorry. I've added it to the right.​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:07, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, in that clearly nonstandard and possibly nonnative variety of English (a pidgin or creole, perhaps) it's difficult to say. "He's" may be "he is" followed by a bare infinitive rather than the present participle. In "he's come" and "he's sed", of course, it may be "he has". —Angr 18:36, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

An American Indian dialect, FWIW. (Per the book's intro.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:29, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

ul-Haq

There are several prominent Pakistani people whose name is of the form Xyz-ul-Haq (e.g. the cricketers Inzamam-ul-Haq and the less famous Misbah-ul-Haq (currently 0 not out against England)). What does the term signify. and is the entire name a surname (or what)? SemperBlotto 15:55, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

From Arabic (deprecated template usage) الحق (ul-Haqq), one of the epithets of God in the Qur'an. The whole name (such as Misbah-ul-Haq) forms the person’s last name. (deprecated template usage) مصباح (miSbaH) + (deprecated template usage) الحق (ul-Haqq) = Lamp-of-Truth or Light-of-Truth (where Truth is a figurative reference to God). —Stephen ^(Talk) 18:38, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I think "the Truth" is al-Haqq. As I understand it, ul-Haqq is "of the Truth", with the u being a Classical nominative-construct ending from the previous word (and the al getting reduced to l as a result). —Ruakh_TALK 18:58, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I don’t think it’s like that ... different countries and different languages that use Arabic words romanize the Arabic differently. In some countries such as Egypt, it’s usually el-. In others, it’s il-, in others al-. In some like Pakistan, it’s ul-. And u being a Classical nominative-construct ending from the previous word is Classical Arabic, it’s not Urdu, and generally not the case with modern Arabic dialects. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:23, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Obviously Classical endings are Classical, what else would they be? ;-)   But you said yourself that this construction is from Arabic. I'm just clarifying what (I think) the ul means, and that it's ultimately that way from Classical Arabic. It's pretty common, cross-linguistically, for borrowings to act as a bit of a "freezer" while the original language changes; speakers of modern Arabic dialects have updated the "ul-" to "el-/il-/al-" in such names because they no longer use the case endings anywhere, but Urdu-speakers have no reason to do that. Like how in English we write (deprecated template usage) connoisseur, even though the French no longer use that spelling, because once we'd borrowed the word we no longer had to keep it up-to-date. (And I think that Urdu speakers probably have some idea of the Classical meaning of ul in such names, because in romanization they'll sometimes attach the ul to the preceding name-part, e.g. by writing "Zia-ul-Haq" as "Ziaul-Haq".) —Ruakh_TALK 22:08, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

It would be different if we were speaking of the spelling or construction in Perso-Arabic, but we are not. This is just the romanization. Romanizations don’t do those things that you mentioned. Even in Classical Arabic, the ul- did not mean "of the", it only meant that the head word was in the nominative case. Hebrew has a feature where a word like Template:Hebr is analyzed as "houses-of", but Classical Arabic does not have anything like that. Classical Arabic has true noun cases, so "lamp of truth" would have the word al-Haqq in the genitive, which is al-Haqqi. The head word, if the subject of the sentence, would be in the nominative, giving ul-Haqqi, but in other parts of the sentence, the head word could be in the accusative or the genitive, giving al-Haqqi or il-Haqqi. But "of truth" is in the Haqqi, not in the ul-. But in Urdu, we are talking about romanization only, and the u of ul- is the English u of uh. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:45, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Re: " […] Classical Arabic does not have anything like that": Well, it does, but you're right: in that case Haqq should also be in the genitive. (And I see what you mean about the romanization.) —Ruakh_TALK 01:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I knew that somebody here would know. So, do we need an (English?) entry for any of (deprecated template usage) ul, (deprecated template usage) ul-Haq or (deprecated template usage) Haq? SemperBlotto 19:29, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

both

I'm not sure, but think we may be missing the sense(s) of (deprecated template usage) both found in "Both of them are..." and/or in "Give me both." (which latter usex we do have, but I think it may be under the wrong sense).​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:35, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Please do not edit section titles as this breaks links on talk pages and in other discussion fora.

Oldest tagged RFTs

• mico
  Sukhumi
  regnbuefamilie
  Euthemia
  hagdon
  lipsati
  Romanophobia
  Wesson
  monolid
  watercressing
  notch
  address
  carhouse
  RGSS
  series
  multivarious
  amen
  -stan
  червь
  speedometer
  maᵗⁱᵉ
  چھہ
  half
  based
  α΄
  orignal
  dies Mercurii
  manso
  ၐြဳ
  ကာလယဲ
  pasar por las horcas caudinas
  monosemous
  monosemic
  hazelly
  Dağ Türkleri
  Aster
  smeť
  sis
  over skyerne er himlen altid blå
  rumped
  Indon
  belly dance
  on purpose
  nasal cavity
  how much
  cut one's teeth
  take its toll
  bok choy
  search up
  don't try to teach grandma how to suck eggs
  speech recognition
  turn the tide
  ne bis in idem
  cornus
  code point
  one over the eight
  green privilege
  Chinese landing
  one's house in order
  native bread
  rhina
  after
  one's heart bleeds
  gender-neutral
  chicken-or-egg question
  otocrane
  Surinam
  no thank you
  mukt
  uninvited
  away
  catalogue
  imaginary
  tweener
  radiendocrinology
  classique
  be
  smuggling raisins
  shadowing
  mandate
  war hero
  war-hero
  eat like a horse
  tacet
  lightning bruiser
  phrogging
  tjälknöl
  efilism
  Jacboson
  Andersdr
  berm
  pirmas
  exponential
  arena rock
  rayon
  on someone's ass
  caviar to the general
  churtle
  Lipović
  

November 2011

arush

Is that "would arush me" at 1:08 in this clip?​—msh210℠ (talk) 00:03, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

No, it's "were to rush me" in a non-rhotic accent but with intervocalic alveolar flapping. So it's [wɜɾəˈɹʌʃmi], not [wʊɾəˈɹʌʃmi]; admittedly the acoustic difference between them is minute. —Angr 18:52, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Ah! Thanks.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:51, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

part of speech

It should be noted that this is both countable and uncountable: one should have an understanding of part of speech (uncountable); the part of speech of this word is "noun" (countable). How to fix the template to reflect this? ---> Tooironic 00:29, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

See diff.​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:59, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that is uncountable. DCDuring TALK 23:03, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Would like to see a phrase like "understanding of part of speech" in a real citation. Equinox ◑ 23:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

[22] ("Lexicographers acknowledge the importance of part of speech by […] ") is one. But the complete sentence is "Lexicographers acknowledge the importance of part of speech by following the principle substitutability." which sounds as though the author is using invisible quotation marks to make nouns into proper nouns ("by following the principle 'substitutability'") ,in which case he may well have meant also "Lexicographers acknowledge the importance of 'part of speech'" along the same lines. So it's not a great citation. There are probably others (I haven't looked much), but it certainly seems rare. I was too hasty in adding a claim of 'uncountable' to the entry, and we should revert, I think, it.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:05, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

behavior and behaviour

These entries need to be harmonised - one should be a soft redirect to the other, and all the translations and countable/uncountable information should be keep in only one of the entries. Who can help? I'm out of time right now. ---> Tooironic 00:31, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

We really need a way to redirect both to a common entry. No user wants to be redirected to an incorrect spelling for their variety of English. Dbfirs 22:56, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree. This should be like what Wikipedia does with Jurassic Park (film) vs. Jurassic Park (movie). There may be all kinds of dialects and preferences (we tend to think about UK, US, maybe AU and CA, probably not Trinidad or Jamaican or Irish English) but ideally they should not see an "alternative spelling of". I tend to feel that doing this properly is a low priority and far from where we are now. Equinox ◑ 23:01, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I wondered about the possibilities for doing something like this for Japanese as well, where a single word might have several possible renderings that should all have the same page content. The closest way I could think of was to have a common page that would be transcluded into all of the others. The problem I ran into was where to locate that common page. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 15:32, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

We could call the entry behavior/behaviour? Or behavio(u)r? —CodeCat 15:40, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I like behavio(u)r myself (it's shorter and leaves out the potentially political question of which spelling comes first). -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 17:53, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

The parentheses are good also because they don't introduce the possibility of confusion with a subpage. But the common page should be in template space, i.e. Template:behavio(u)r so it's clear that we aren't talking about an individual word spelled behavio(u)r. —Angr 18:48, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

There was a problem with a combined entry at colour/color and centre/center because of other languages, so would the template solution work there for an English section as part of the main entry? I've adjusted Widsith's removal of the definitions from the British and Commonwealth spelling of centre because "Alternative" is misleading. I understand the desire for a single entry, but the spelling with "u" has had a full entry in Wiktionary for seven years and I hate to see it go. The template would avoid an argument, perhaps? Dbfirs 19:46, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

What about if we create colo(u)r, and transclude it on both color and colour? —CodeCat 20:03, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I think that (deprecated template usage) behavio(u)r, parentheses and all, actually meets the CFI! —Ruakh_TALK 19:51, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Update: I've now created an entry for (deprecated template usage) behavio(u)r. —Ruakh_TALK 20:34, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, fair entry, but it doesn't solve our problem about behavior/behaviour. I'm still not happy with the deletion of the full entry at centre. Dbfirs 10:46, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to solve any problem about behavior/behaviour, I was trying to reinforce Angr (talk • contribs)'s point that "the common page should be in template space, i.e. Template:behavio(u)r so it's clear that we aren't talking about an individual word spelled behavio(u)r". CodeCat (talk • contribs) seems to be ignoring that point, however. —Ruakh_TALK 17:59, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Above I spoke in favo(u)r of parentheses rather than a slash, but it occurs to me that some BE/AE spelling differences can't be easily captured with parentheses, such as center/centre or organise/organize (which isn't strictly a BE/AE difference since z also occurs in BE). So maybe Template:center/centre and Template:organise/organize are the way to go. (The words can be arranged in alphabetical order to avoid favo(u)ring one spelling or the other.) As for the current state of [[centre]], I not only dislike that it's been stripped of its content, but also the fact that its context label says (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand), listing all the countries of the UK separately while omitting the Republic of Ireland, South Africa, and all other countries of the world (India, Pakistan, Kenya, Nigeria, Belize, Jamaica, etc.) where Commonwealth spellings may be encountered. And listing all of them would mean a great long list of countries the reader has to scan over before getting to the meat of the definition - particularly frustrating when that meat contains no meat at all but merely an indication that one has to look up the American spelling. —Angr 11:21, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I didn't like the partial list of countries, but I hoped that it was going to disappear soon. The OED just uses a comma (e.g. "center, centre"). I don't know much about template space, so don't want to upset experts by experimenting, but I can't see any reason why some such template containing the definitions couldn't be inserted into the separate entries at center and centre. For pairs such as organise/organize, our existing "alternative spelling of" template is fine because the spelling with the "s" is still just an alternative in Britain (though I can see it gradually taking over from the older spelling.) Dbfirs 18:36, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

There is nothing special about template namespace, it is just more pages. The only thing different about it is that when a page is transcluded the wiki engine assumes that the template namespace is meant if no namespace is specified. In short, you are unlikely to break anything by creating these pages. SpinningSpark 12:36, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God

Does this really mean "The rich can afford more immoral behavior than the poor"? I thought it meant "The rich are unlikely to enter Heaven", probably because "The rich are more likely to be immoral". That may be because "The rich can (monetarily) afford more immoral behavior" — but our definition implies that their ability to (monetarily) afford immoral behavior is the point of the saying, whereas I think the point is that they're not likely to (live in such a way that they) make it to heaven. They certainly cannot spiritually afford immoral behavior, from the text's point of view (it will damn them, as it will anyone else). - -sche (discuss) 05:04, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, that is not the meaning as I understood it. Actually it would be very easy for a rich man to get a camel through the eye of a needle. All one needs is a very large liquidiser and a funnel. SpinningSpark 05:51, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

The metaphor, as I know it, is that you have to take off all your possessions from your camel to make it go through a small gate in Jerusalem named "eye of a needle". And the interpretation is that a rich man must abandon his wealth when he dies; the possessions can't go to the other side with him. --Daniel 10:16, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

Hey Daniel take a look at this: http://www.biblicalhebrew.com/nt/camelneedle.htm . I agree with the "must abandon wealth" interpretation though. Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV 13:24, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

From what I heard on the TV show QI, the small gate in Jerusalem story is nonsense; supposedly what Jesus meant was the literal meaning of the words. Mglovesfun (talk) 13:54, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't trust QI as a source. Anyway, there's some debate among actual experts; some think that it's actually supposed to mean that it's easier for a rope to go through the eye of a needle (the Aramaic word for camel having been used also to refer to a camel's-hair rope), while others point to similar metaphors elsewhere, using different animals, to suggest that it's quite literal. But regardless of what it meant to its author, the main question is what it means to English-speakers today. The rest is etymology. —Ruakh_TALK 14:29, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

I would think it means that to get to heaven one must renounce false gods (and love only God), and rich men would have a hard time renouncing Mammon (loving money too greatly, and having done so all their lives). — Pingku^dimmi 16:17, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

population

1. (deprecated template usage) The people living within a political or geographical boundary

   The population of New Jersey will not stand for this!

2. The people living in a single place.

   The population of some small towns is numbered in under four digits.

Am I missing something, or are those identical?​—msh210℠ (talk) 20:16, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

The sense 2 probably means the number of the population in a particular area, not the people themselves. You can replace population with people in the first example above, but you can’t in the following sentence:

• The population of the US is bigger than that of Japan.

— TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

(蛇足 / tangent): Although the meaning changes, you *can* still say the following, what with the state of public health in the US.  ;-)

• The people of the US are bigger than those of Japan.

Yes of course, and your example clearly shows the difference of the singular and plural population. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:13, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

So you're saying #2 above is the same as

4. A count of the number of residents within a political or geographical boundary such as a town, a nation or the world

The town’s population is only 243.

then, right?​—msh210℠ (talk) 00:16, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think they are the same. Perhaps someone added the sense 4 because the definition of the sense 2 was not clear. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 01:17, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

I have deleted the original sense 2 and moved the original sense 4 there. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 02:03, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Why was this done outside of process? This is the kind of thing RfD is for. DCDuring TALK 03:38, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I thought it was okay because they were the same and there was no objection. If it needed a further discussion, revert my edit. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 03:55, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

I think your edit was fine. It's O.K. to start an RFD discussion about merging redundant senses, but I don't think it's essential. —Ruakh_TALK 18:03, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

final

"A final examination; a test or examination given at the end of a term or class; the test that concludes a class." Is this word use like this in American English only? In Australia we rarely use it. ---> Tooironic 03:11, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

Dunno. But in case you're doubting its existence altogether, let me assure you it's common in American English.​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:55, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

In American English, it’s a standard term for that test. But more commonly, final exam. Often used in the plural, because during final-exams week, there are finals in virtually every class. —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:07, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Rare in British English except for degree-level "finals". Dbfirs 11:45, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I would venture that "final" is way more common in spoken American English than "final exam". DCDuring TALK 11:58, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I'll go in with you on that venture. :-)   —Ruakh_TALK 20:36, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

In that case I'm adding a US context tag. ---> Tooironic 23:41, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Correct word please

Hello. I am French speaking ; so I want to known what is correct : "free entry", "free entrance" or "free access" for the "entry" without payment to an exhibition or a museum. Thank you for yours anwers. --Égoïté 10:07, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

"Free admission." —Stephen ^(Talk) 11:04, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Thank you very much ! --Égoïté 11:30, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd note that "free entry" and "free entrance" are okay, if not idiomatic. "Free access" would be access without limitation; e.g. "after you pay, you will have free access to the museum."--Prosfilaes 17:05, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

numen

Please see Talk:numen. This contributor is interested in expanding our English definition at (deprecated template usage) numen to include "god or goddess" rather than just "god". For my part I'm not familiar with this word and, while I would have thought that "god" includes both male and female deities, I suppose it's arguable. Thoughts? Equinox ◑ 21:06, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with BabeMN (talk • contribs): if (deprecated template usage) numen is known to have been used in reference to goddesses, then I would definitely write "god or goddess". Bare "god" is sometimes gender-neutral, but it's sometimes specifically male (hence google books:"god or goddess", "gods and goddesses"), so we should disambiguate. —Ruakh_TALK 00:23, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

society

Is it more common to say "in modern society" or "in the modern society"? My feeling - and it's backed up by Google Books - is the former sounds more natural and is much more common. A usage note to this effect would be very useful as it is totally unintuitive to non-native-speakers. It is also especially confusing considering that most other "big-concept" nouns like "government", "environment", "Internet", "world", "press", "workforce", "media", etc., almost always use the definite article (or occasionally the plural form). Who is with me? ---> Tooironic 23:39, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

One would say "in the modern society" only when contrasting with an older society, but "in modern government" is also used in the same way as "in modern society" when the nouns are used in an abstract way. Perhaps the ideas of society and government allow greater abstraction than the other nouns. Environment and workforce can also take an indefinite article, but we usually assume that we have only one Internet, world, press and media. I'm struggling to define rules about which of the three options to use in which contexts. Dbfirs 10:38, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I "just" know

What sense of (deprecated template usage) just is being used in "I just know", for example in "I can tell, I just know that it's going down tonight"? Fugyoo 19:03, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

"Only, simply, merely"? I just know; I haven't learned or proven it. Equinox ◑ 19:04, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be {{non-gloss definition|An emphatic.}}, a sense we don't yet have.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:01, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Equinox; it's not an emphatic. It's saying that I know this despite a lack of information to make that claim.--Prosfilaes 20:35, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

lindo

The Spanish and Portuguese words have different etymologies, but they have the same meaning so that seems a bit strange. Which one is it? —CodeCat 23:47, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

http://liveweb.archive.org/http://www.etimo.it/?term=lindo&find=Cerca mentions limpidus (and many others), but not legitimus. I think it's much more likely to have come from limpidus anyway. We should find who added the etymology in Spanish and ask him where he got that. Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV 14:13, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

It was Strabismus (talk • contribs).​—msh210℠ (talk) 15:59, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

The legitimus etymology is from DRAE.Matthias Buchmeier 10:30, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

what is a bunny rabbit?

Like, grammatically, it is a word composed of 2 words, where both of the words mean the same thing, and the word composed of both of the words also means the same thing. What's the grammatical name for this? Are there other example of it? motor car is one, I guess. --Rockpilot 23:08, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

And pussy cat and kitty cat. I hope they're not just called reduplications, maybe called extreme reduplications instead, or even better doubling reduplications ('coz then, like, the term doubling reduplication is also a doubling reduplication, which leads to awesomeness in the form of autologicality). --Rockpilot 00:34, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Reduplication is usually at the level of sounds, AFAICT. Rhetoricians might call these examples of parelcon, synonymia, or perissologia. See Silva Rhetoricae. DCDuring TALK 02:07, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Those names suck. I prefer doubling reduplication, or bunny-rabbit word --Rockpilot 09:40, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Not "motor car" since this is just a car(t) with a motor. After 700 years of regular use, "car" came to be used as an abbreviation for the motorised variety, but not exclusively. Dbfirs 09:37, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

motor car is actually a bunny-rabbit word, as motor and car both mean motor car. --Rockpilot 09:40, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but only because both "motor" and "car" are now used as abbreviations for the original correct term "motor car". Not all cars are designed to have motors, and not all motors will fit in a car. This is not the same as the duplication of words for children in your other examples. Dbfirs 10:11, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I would call bunny rabbit a tautological noun used by children. —Stephen ^(Talk) 22:09, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Other examples would include oak tree. These are very common in Mandarin, helping to reduce ambiguity. Fugyoo 21:20, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Yet, (deprecated template usage) tree does not necessarily mean (deprecated template usage) oak, and (deprecated template usage) oak on its own is ambiguous -- are we talking about the tree? the wood? the color? Context can make this clear, but sometimes an additional word is needed. Meanwhile, a (deprecated template usage) bunny is, in most respects, the same thing as a (deprecated template usage) rabbit, with the main differences having to do with the age appropriateness of word choice and similar social connotations. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 22:40, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

"Avon" means 'river' in Celtic, so the popular "Avon river" means "river river".[23] Does that make "Avon river" a "bunny-rabbit word"? How about "hollow pipe" or "girly girl" or "manly-man" or "rifled rifle" or "buttery smooth"? --DavidCary 03:07, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, a pipe can be not hollow, such as when filled with something, be it water or dirt or what have you. Meanwhile, "girly girl" and "manly man" seem to be emphatics more than the kind of doubling seen in (deprecated template usage) bunny rabbit. "Rifled rifle" strikes me as redundant -- a rifle is by its very definition rifled; if it looks like a rifle but the barrel isn't rifled, it's not a rifle, it's a musket. "Buttery smooth" is a bit different, and different again from (deprecated template usage) bunny rabbit, for while butter is certainly smooth provided it's not frozen, (deprecated template usage) smooth on its own does not necessarily call forth connotations of (deprecated template usage) butter.

"Avon river" is the closest analog, but for the problem of different languages, and the simple fact that most English speakers don't know that "avon" means "river". By contrast, English speakers will recognize (deprecated template usage) bunny and (deprecated template usage) rabbit as being essentially the same thing.

(My favorite example of this kind of cross-language redundancy was a three-way of sorts, on a sign in Tokyo labeling a waterway as the Shin Sen Gawa River. In kanji, it was the 新川河, which is already redundant, using the Chinese-derived reading "sen" for 川, which means "river" but is used here as a proper noun, and 河, which means river, but is used here as the placename label. So then in English it's the New River River River. Joy!) -- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 07:23, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

The obvious American English example, which I'd forgotten, is pizza pie. DCDuring TALK 15:58, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

But pizza pie isn't tautological any more than oak tree is; a pizza is a kind of pie, and not all pies are pizzas. —Angr 17:00, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

But all pizzas are pizza pies. And, for many (most?) speakers, not all rabbits are bunny rabbits, only young ones. DCDuring TALK 18:57, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

You think? I don't feel any semantic difference between bunny, rabbit, and bunny rabbit at all. Young ones are called kits or kittens. —Angr 19:34, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Or, for those of us who didn't know the technical term, they're baby bunnies or baby rabbits.  :) -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 21:42, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I would be interesting to see what the actual meaning-in-use of "bunny rabbit" is. It might change the answer to the original question. Similarly, it would be interesting to see how common terms like "kit" or "kitten" are in reference to rabbits. In a typical corpus it would probably depend on the inclusion of a single journal article that used the term. DCDuring TALK 00:19, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

On the frequency of the word kit and kitten in this sense, see Rabbits at bgc. DCDuring TALK 00:33, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Growing up, I heard countable pizza refer to a slice. Fwiw.​—msh210℠ (talk) 00:38, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Apparently the ambiguity of the term kit/kitten in this sense is such that there is some scholarly usage of kit rabbit/kitten rabbit synonymously with (deprecated template usage) bunny rabbit. DCDuring TALK 00:46, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Again, what is the evidence that bunny rabbit means specifically "young rabbit" rather than "rabbit" (of any age)? That's not what our definition says, it's not what my native-speaker intuition says, it's not what Oxford says. It may have connotations of cuteness, but rabbits (unlike many other animals) remain cute even when fully grown. —Angr 16:51, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

It's not hard to find cites where "bunny" appears to be contrasted with "adult (rabbit)"; for example, see here (and scroll to the next page); google books:"bunnies and adult rabbits" (just two distinct cites, but still); this web-page (N.B. not durably archived); and some of the hits at google books:"bunnies and rabbits". Obviously there are speakers for whom "bunny" means "rabbit", but there are apparently (and attestably) speakers who use it to mean "young rabbit". —Ruakh_TALK 20:16, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

• One of the reasons I like Wiktionary: A discussion about bunny rabbits can end up in a discussion about pizzas. And all the while it remains a serious thread. --Rockpilot 15:13, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

  Erm, what are your favourite toppings? I like Hawaiian personally. --Rockpilot 15:13, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

  Fresh powdered West African black rhino horn, but it's getting hard to find. DCDuring TALK 18:22, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

  Bunny rabbit. (kidding!) --Robert.Baruch 00:04, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

piquing and Peking

Random question: are these words homophones? ---> Tooironic 02:15, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

• To me, the stress is on the first syllable for the first, and the second syllable for the second. SemperBlotto 08:24, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

  Don't forget peaking and peeking. --Mglovesfun (talk) 16:20, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd say piquing, peaking and peeking are homophones; Peking has the stress on the second syllable. Any of the first three words together with Peking is a good example of a purely stress-based minimal pair in English. (Those aren't easy to find because of the English tendency to reduce unstressed vowels to schwa.) —Angr 16:29, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I've more often heard the three verb forms pronounced as , and Peking pronounced more as -- with the difference not just in the stress, but also in the first vowel sound. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 21:46, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

sealess

Hi everybody. I just created fr:phoquesse, and I was wondering if sealess could be used to name a female seal (pinniped), like lioness for the lion. Thanks for your help. --ArséniureDeGallium 16:10, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't think so; I've never heard and can't find any examples of it. Female seals, if not simply called "female seals", are called "cows" (or "seal cows" or "cow seals" if necessary for disambiguation). —Angr 16:18, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

This a pity I can't say a sealess sealess (a female seal in a zoo? :D). Thanks very much for your answer. --ArséniureDeGallium 19:24, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

striked

Following a discussion elsewhere, I've realised that "striked" is seemingly becoming more common, but only in the context of industrial relations. I don't have time now to alter then entry and I don't know how it should be labeled. I wouldn't say it's "non-standard" but it's not the most common. Anyway, some cites: [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32].

Also when looking for those, I found a few uses of "striked" as an adjective describing a type of measure or maybe the term is "striked measure", [33] gives a definition. It seems to be related to wheat and possibly other similar crops only. Thryduulf (talk) 18:34, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

phew

Look at the pronunciation of phew (/ɧu˥˩/). Does this English term really have tone and a sound which exists only in Swedish? Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV 00:49, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

It's pronounced identically with (deprecated template usage) few. Equinox ◑ 00:51, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Isn't it often pronounced with a bilabial sound? —CodeCat 01:24, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Not in my idiolect, it's not. phew is much more aspirated then few.--Prosfilaes 12:15, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Likewise in mine, where phew is pronounced somewhere between few and shoe, and does have a tone drop. There are a small number of English interjective sounds that have qualities not normally associated with English. This can include unusual IPA characters not present in other words and tonal information. See ugh for another example, where the pronunciation is that given by the Cambridge Pronouncing Dictionary, and with which I agree based on my own idiolect. --EncycloPetey 16:21, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't our pronunciations represent the English word as it would be read aloud, or spoken in neutral English, rather than the natural noise that it imitates or names, or some specific imitative expression? Consider bang, budda budda, burp, zoom, bark, moo, woohoo. —Michael Z. 2012-01-28 17:57 z

pers

Abbr for Persian. Should this not be at Pers? Equinox ◑ 15:44, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Probably Pers. in fact, like Ger. and so on. --Mglovesfun (talk) 14:52, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

Adding Latin 3rd conjugation template for verbs with no perfect?

Hi all! I stumbled across the Latin word adlubesco / allubesco, which seems to have no perfect forms (see for example here). There is a template for 3rd conjugation verbs with only one part, and for 3rd conjugation verbs with 3 parts, but none for those with 2 parts.

1. Is it truly the case that adlubesco has no perfect? I couldn't find any in my random search.
2. Is there any objection to my creating the 3rd-noperf template?

Thanks! --Robert.Baruch 02:28, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

The Latin inchoative verbs (ensing in -esco) that I've come across have no infinitive form, which is why (deprecated template usage) albesco and similar verbs use the "no234" template. Have you found an inifinitive form for adlubesco? I didn't spot it in the link you provided, though I might have just missed it. --EncycloPetey 05:52, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, the infinitive is given in L&S and Cassell's. It's also mainly in various post-Gutenberg works, e.g. here (1738) and here (1639). There's also the imperfect subjunctive found in Metamorphoses, so there must be an infinitive form to conjugate, right? And I guess I can add allibesco to the alternate forms :( --Robert.Baruch 15:06, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

hell on wheels

The L3 header says Noun, but the definition suggests this is an adjective. Which is true? -- Liliana • 20:17, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd definitely call it a noun. It is often used as a predicate with the meaning given. It could be defined as "Someone or something that is ....". Also sometimes it is used to mean something like "intensely good or successful" of a performance, especially a competitive one. DCDuring TALK 20:36, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

western world

"All of the countries of the world other than those in Asia taken as a whole." Urgh. That is the worst definition I have ever heard. It excludes countries like Israel, but includes all of Africa which many people do not perceive as "western". -- Liliana • 21:33, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Jack Nicholson once said about The Terror that it was the only movie he ever acted in that didn't have a plot. When told, director Roger Corman replied that I'm sure it's not the only movie he's acted in without a plot.

Weak humor aside, it didn't impress me either. My real question is whether it's varied over time. I went ahead and added an obsolete sense of the Americas, but I'm wondering both in age of book and subject of book. Pre-Western discovery Australia is surely not part of the Western World, and I suspect that Cold War authors were likely to exclude Eastern Europe and modern authors possibly include Russia to the sea (or certainly at least the entire EU.)--Prosfilaes 22:08, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

cat around

• To cat around, meaning to seek out sexual companionship. Being a wiktionary n00b, would this be eligible for its own entry? Or does it go under cat? --Robert.Baruch 00:42, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I've added an entry. Equinox ◑ 15:21, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

bon viveur

I found the word bon viveur but we don't have it as a headword but it is used in a definition. Is it the same as bon vivant? viveur says in means someone who lives well. The good life? (Is this uncommon? I found the word in the Wikipedia. Should it be changed?). RJFJR 01:15, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

stir fry

Hi. In the sense of "stir fry" as a compound noun, "stir fries" is listed as the only plural form. I came here after seeing an article that used the form "stir frys." This is a bit over my head, but between a google search, by comparison to the "still life" entry, and after reading this article, it seems likely that "stir frys" is probably acceptable. Cheers. Haus 01:23, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd create it, and then see what happens Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 01:26, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Do you also eat "French frys" on your side of the pond? Dbfirs 14:48, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, do you have gang shootouts called "drivebies"? Equinox ◑ 14:53, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Good point! Even though "driveby" is often written as a single word, "drivebies" is not attestable (there is just one "drive-bies" in print on bgc). I think we can cite both "stir frys" and "French frys" to satisfy CFI for Wiktionary, though not for some more conservative dictionaries who ignore deviant authors. We ought to indicate, for our users, which plural is more common. Dbfirs 15:12, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Where the thing can be called a fry (like a French fry: "I dropped a fry on the floor") I think it's ungrammatical. Stir-fry, driveby, passer-by etc. seem like different cases. Equinox ◑ 15:47, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. When by is actually from the preposition (deprecated template usage) by, it shouldn't ever turn into bies. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 03:09, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, but it probably will within the next fifty years. "Passerbies" already has over 32,000 (mistaken?) hits in Google, including in some dictionaries. Dbfirs 15:02, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

computer language

Should we merge the senses, since #3 comprehends both #1 and #2? Equinox ◑ 21:57, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't see any value keeping senses #1 and #2 separate from #3. There is some discussion of the term computer language in the last paragraph of w:Programming_language#Definitions suggesting that it has distinct senses, but these do not correspond to our current #1 and #2.

All the examples in our current #3 are languages that a computer can typically read and act on, but computer language is sometimes used more broadly - see e.g. w:Template:Computer language. I think #3 should also mention specification languages, or something similar. --Avenue 21:50, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd think the third one is legitimate in a more informal sense. For the first senses I would prefer programming or machine language to this term. Other than loosely, the only other way I'd employ it is to refer to messaging protocol.

Actual use, however, tells a different story. "A computer language...allows you to specify a series of commands or operations." "Like any other computer language, [C] is used for writing programs or sets of instructions." DAVilla 03:42, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

-tor in Latin

Wrong suffix: -tor = -or, the letter before being part of the radical of the suffixed noun/verb.

--Diligent 14:23, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Not in the case of (deprecated template usage) arator — this can be interpreted as ara- + -tor (from aro, arare). --MaEr 15:42, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

I thought such nouns arose from the third-person singular? In such a case, (deprecated template usage) arator would be (deprecated template usage) arat + (deprecated template usage) -or, and (deprecated template usage) amator would be (deprecated template usage) amat + (deprecated template usage) -or. The (deprecated template usage) cantor example on the (deprecated template usage) -tor page could be analyzed as (deprecated template usage) canit + (deprecated template usage) -or, with the unstressed interstitial -i- disappearing, much as it did in the evolution of (deprecated template usage) magister into the varieties present in modern European languages. Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 03:27, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

From a non-historic point of view, one can re-interprete existing formations in this way. I mean: if speakers of Latin believe that the suffix is -or instead of -tor they will use -or as a suffix. Reanalysing suffixes happens often, not only in Latin.

From a historic point of view, however, there is a suffix -tor. It is inherited from Proto-Indo-European and is also found in Ancient Greek. The vowel between t and r has ablaut, so the suffix may appear in Ancient Greek dotēr (from dh₃-tér) and in Ancient Greek dōtōr (from déh₃-tor). The zero-grade appears in -tro (= -tr-o), as in Latin aratrum (<ara-tr-o-m). According to Jean Haudry, there is an old phonetic variant -tel which appears in Slavic -tel (Russian учитель etc.) --MaEr 09:12, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, you'd need to convince the well-respected scholars who wrote, edited, and revised both the veneable work A Latin Grammar and its successor New Latin Grammar. They disagree with you. They consider (deprecated template usage) -tor to be the suffix, as MaEr has pointed out already. --EncycloPetey 16:42, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Amator = radical of amatus + -or

cantor = radical of cantus + -or

Arator = radical of aratus + -or

It is very systematically based on the past participle's radical:

Actor = radical of actus + -or

Motor = radical of motus + -or

Servitor = radical of servitus + -or

Monitor = radical of monitus + -or

This went on in Roman languages: torear, toreado, toreador.

--Diligent 13:01, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

It looks that way in retrospect, but that's not how it happened historically. The fact that it has been reinterpreted this way is merely an artifice of similarity in the endings. --EncycloPetey 18:14, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

(tosses some gasoline) Moreland and Fleischer in Latin: An Intensive Course have this to say in Unit 11 (my notes in italics, showing that the derivation probably follows regular rules):

"The suffixes -tor (M.), -trix (F.) added to the stem of a verb produce a noun. Each means 'one who.' Thus:

inceptor, -oris incipio -> incip -> inciptor -> inceptor

auditor, -oris audio -> audi -> auditor

scriptor, -oris scribo -> scrib -> scribtor -> scriptor

spectator, -oris spect -> spect -> specttor -> spectator

actor, -oris ago -> ag -> agtor -> actor

liberator, -oris libero -> liber -> libertor -> liberator

amator, -oris and amatrix, amatricis amo -> am -> amtor -> amator

inventor, -oris and inventrix, inventricis invenio -> inveni -> invenitor -> inventor

cantor, -oris and cantrix, cantricis cano -> can -> cantor

victor, -oris and victrix, victricis vinco -> vinc -> vinctor -> victor

petitor, -oris peto -> pet -> pettor -> petitor

"By analogy, there are viator, -oris and viatrix, viatricis (from via, 'way' + -tor or -trix). --Robert.Baruch 15:28, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Many thanks to all for the varied examples! Note that I was not stating an opposing argument, and instead trying to clarify my own understanding, so this wealth of information is certainly welcome.

One minor curiosity that continues to puzzle me is that a number of these are noted as deriving from the perfect passive participle, which would suggest "one who is [verbed]", rather than the active "one who [verbs]". Does anyone know more about that?

And in looking around to learn about the various suffixes used, I found that (deprecated template usage) -or has no etymology given. Is this suffix derived from (deprecated template usage) -tor, or does it arise from the same underlying root as (deprecated template usage) -arius?

-- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 17:55, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

They appear to be derived from the passive participle but they are distinct suffixes that both happen to begin with -t-. They were already distinct in Indo-European: Template:termx (from earlier *-tors) and Template:termx. —CodeCat 20:18, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Aha! That makes more sense. This would suggest that the pages stating that the (deprecated template usage) -tor agent nouns derive from the perfect passive (such as (deprecated template usage) actor or (deprecated template usage) quadrator) are incorrect, since it looks now like the perfect passive and the agent noun both amount to the verb stem (radical?) + (deprecated template usage) -tus or (deprecated template usage) -tor respectively. (And since there isn't a (deprecated template usage) -tus entry, I'm adding it to the list of requested Latin terms.) -- Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 16:52, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

An ending like -tus is considered inflectional, not formative. We generally do not have entries for inflectional endings in Latin. --EncycloPetey 18:14, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery

Etymology and definition are fine, but the part of speech doesn't quite fit. Can we do anything about this, e.g. move to "one couldn't organise..." or even "be unable to organise" (which is probably less common) — or should it be marked as a Phrase rather than a Verb? Equinox ◑ 15:46, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

But couldn't is a verb. It is, however, a past tense: does the form can't organise... exist? Should that be the main entry?​—msh210℠ (talk) 04:53, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

The tricky thing is that couldn't is a modal auxiliary Purplebackpack89 ^{(Notes Taken) (Locker)} 04:55, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Compare to [[can't seem]] and [[can't help]].​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:01, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

grouper

Isn't it pronounced "GROW-per"? If so, then why does it link to Rhymes:English:-uːpə(r)? ---> Tooironic 06:57, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd pronounce it group-er, but I'm hardly an expert on fish. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM8dJy2a_-Y says "today we're making a special fish, called group-er, some people call it grope-er," [or GROW-per] "I call it grope-you." I don't call this end-all and be-all of the subject, but it's one source that doesn't seem completely ignorant on the matter. (And I'm lazy today.)--Prosfilaes 07:46, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

FWIW, I've always heard it pronounced as group-er, which I thought made sense just because of the way certain fish group together. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 16:54, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

innuendo

I think the "rare" plural (deprecated template usage) innuendis is a mistake or scanno. Anyone know different? Equinox ◑ 00:42, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

The one citation looks awfully like a typo to me! Mglovesfun (talk) 14:04, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

easy

I think we are missing a sense. There's a slang sense (possibly American, hip-hop or rap) that means "unconcerned" or "not bothered", as in "Shall we go to Restaurant A or Restaurant B?" "I'm easy" ("I don't mind"). Have others encountered this? Should we add a sense? Equinox ◑ 22:04, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Possibly just US, but much wider than AAVE, rap, or hip-hop. (My city has sought to be the site of the National Hip Hop Museum, so I'm an expert.) I've always thought of it as short for "easy-going" or "easy to convince" etc. Perhaps it is most commonly just "agreeable". DCDuring TALK 01:25, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I have added a first attempt at the phrase (deprecated template usage) I'm easy - not sure if I have linked to it from the correct section. SemperBlotto 08:21, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Is the pronoun always I? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:45, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, She's easy would probably be interpreted with a quite different meaning of easy. But we're easy would probably be interpreted with the same meaning as I'm easy. Other pronouns would probably ambiguous. —Angr 17:04, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

briar vs. brier

Is this just a spelling variation, or are these distinct words with different etymologies? Neither has an etyl, and neither references the other, I only happened upon the pair by chance. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 23:55, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Online Etymology Dictionary says that briar and brier are the same word, but that brier itself has two etymologies, both of which happen to be shrubs (one is Germanic, the other Gaulish via French). —CodeCat 00:17, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The OED agrees, with etymologies: "Old English: West Saxon brǽr" and "French bruyère heath, erroneously identified with brier" (the second root only for the wood, of course). Should we split our senses into separate etymologies? Dbfirs 14:54, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I've been doing so for Japanese, but I'm not sure what the consensus approach is for English entries. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 16:54, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I would not treat them as alternative forms because there is apparently some etymological difference, but use {{also}} to keep them linked and Synonyms to keep them connected appropriately. DCDuring TALK 17:49, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there is an etymological distinction between brier and briar. Instead, from what I've gathered, briar is an alternative spelling of brier for both etymologies. —CodeCat 18:22, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

... but is there still a difference in the senses (as the OED claims), or has the confusion now become total so that people now use the two spellings interchangeably? When I see the "brier" spelling, I think of a pipe, but is this distinction shared by others? A quick Google search for "brier" + pipe gives over 7 million hits, compared with only 1.5 million for "briar" + pipe, but I don't think this is enough to claim a well-known distinction between the spellings. Many dictionaries now accept "briar" for the pipe-wood, so I'm forced to agree that "briar" has now become an alternative spelling for the formerly distinct word "brier". Perhaps we could just add a usage note explaining the history. Dbfirs 09:00, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

It's not uncommon for a distinction in meaning to be formed between two alternative spellings, like what happened with to and too. If there is any distinction at all I think it may be emerging in a similar way. But the only way to be sure is to look at the historical usage. Did people use the two spellings interchangeably a few hundred years ago? —CodeCat 11:50, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the tendency is the other way, in the direction of totally confusing the original meanings so that they are becoming just alternative spellings in modern usage. I'm probably trying to preserve an outdated distinction (as I often do!) Dbfirs 21:44, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

December 2011

AFAIK

Hello guys. My question is: how do English-speaking people pronounce this ? --GaAs 18:53, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I just read it out: as far as I know. That generally takes less time and is easier for me to say than to spell it out verbally: ei ef ei ai kei. -- Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 19:24, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Same, I only use this as an Internet short hand, I would never say it out loud. Having said that, I have started saying OMG out loud, which I'm not exactly proud of... Mglovesfun (talk) 19:44, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

You mean sthng like /əfɛɪk/ (sorry, I'm very bad with english IPA) is not used ? --GaAs 20:56, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

I've never discussed it with anyone until you posted your question, and have never heard anyone say it (not even myself, I don't think), so don't know how people pronounce it. I've always imagined it pronounced as as far as I know.​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:00, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Ditto. (Similarly SFAIK, AFAICT, SFAICT. But I take IIRC to be an initialism. I couldn't say why.) —Ruakh_TALK 03:32, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Maybe it has something to do with the number of syllables in each form. Although honestly I use OMG and WTF all the time as initialisms, despite "double-you" having three syllables and "what" having one. Although I use them purely for comedic effect. There's nothing comedic about AFAIK. --Robert.Baruch 00:51, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

google books:"humorous doubt" gets enough hits to make it conceivable that someone, somewhere, will someday find a way to use (deprecated template usage) AFAIK for comic effect. :-)   —Ruakh_TALK 15:49, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I wouldn't speak it aloud, but in my head it's always sounded like "aff-AY-ik". Equinox ◑ 15:27, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

For me, like "a fake" (too lazy to do the IPA, sorry). Mglovesfun (talk) 12:04, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

practice to achieve perfection

I can't remember where I recently read the sentence "SirEdmundHillarywasthefirstmantoclimbMtEverest" followed by the same sentence spelled backwards. This was used as an example of repetitious practice to achieve a level of proficiency in any field. I thought I read it in "The Genius in All of US' by David Shenk. It was not. Has anyone seen this anywhere? — This unsigned comment was added by Christyreuben (talk • contribs) at 17:32, 6 December 2011‎.

I fail to see your point, sorry, please explain further. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:23, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

checksyns template

There is the template {{checksyns}} on the psychopath page. I'm not sure what to do about it since sociopath seems to be a general synonym for the senses of the definition. RJFJR 02:36, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Does sociopath fit sense 4? It looks like there are many missing synonyms. Collins has "madman, lunatic, maniac, psychotic, nutter (Brit. slang), basket case (slang), nutcase (slang), sociopath, headcase (informal), mental case (slang), headbanger (informal), insane person" as synonyms. They don't fit all the senses given. It seemed like a lot of work, but worth doing (eventually) if we are to maintain an ability to convey the colloquial distinctions. DCDuring TALK 01:51, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

This might be a job for Wikisaurus. DCDuring TALK 01:52, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

meme

"Examples include thoughts, ideas, theories, practices, habits, songs, dances and moods and terms such as race, culture, and ethnicity." What does this mean? That, for instance, the word "Caucasian" might be a meme? Equinox ◑ 15:26, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I've wondered whether this kind of thing would be better defined by a {{non-gloss definition}}. DCDuring TALK 01:58, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I'll just chip in and say I don't understand it either. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:03, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I think the sentence should be deleted. It is encyclopedic. The definition given seems adequate. DCDuring TALK 09:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

white ball

In combination of watching the snooker and reading the debate on nominative case et al., I wonder if white ball, red ball (and so on) would be acceptable. They're often just shortened to 'white', 'red' and so on and I think they definitely need an entry at white, red etc. But what about white ball? It is a ball that's white after all, but has specific implications in pool, snooker and other billiards games. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:02, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Meh... accelerator pedal is a pedal that's an accelerator, but it has specific details in vehicles (e.g. it's located in a certain position relative to the other two pedals). That's encyclopaedic. Equinox ◑ 22:00, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

If you look into Category:en:Snooker you will find that all the colours already have snooker definitions. -- ALGRIF talk 14:58, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

cylinder

This is missing a computing sense (as in, the cylinders of a hard drive), but I don't know how it should be defined. -- Liliana • 21:57, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

• Added. SemperBlotto 08:32, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Rubber

I was reading in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the chapter entitled "The Red-Headed League". A Mr. Merryweather, who is a bank director, says, "Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not had my rubber." Sherlock Holmes replies, "I think you will find that you will play for a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and that the play will be more exciting." I wondered if the "rubber" that he is referring to is the soft covering for a finger used to count money - like a rubber thimble, or if it is something else. Does anyone know?

It's a best-of-three game of bridge, the card game. See rubber bridge. Equinox ◑ 23:19, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

triple O

This would far more commonly be written triple 0, right? A phone number 12045 would usually be read out "one-two-oh-four-five" but never written 12O45. Equinox ◑ 23:48, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I would expect so. A search of Google News confirms it, finding only 29 "triple O", only half in English and very few in the meaning given vs. 189 "triple 0"s. DCDuring TALK 09:53, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Triple zero = triple 0 = triple oh = triple O. Transitivity doesn't carry that far in the humanities. I would consider it to be an error. DAVilla 16:18, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

fantastical

Does fantastical really mean fantastic (as in extraordinary), and if so shouldn't the sense be more clearly explained? DAVilla 03:30, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

acinaces plural

Is acinaci a legitimate plural of this? Equinox ◑ 13:17, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

comptroller

"The p is optionally silent, thus comptroller may be a homophone of controller." Huh? Since when does m sound the same as n? Equinox ◑ 23:23, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

In New York State and its cities, comptroller is an elected office usually pronounced "controller". DCDuring TALK 09:56, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Even if that isn't just a malapropism, wouldn't the inflection still vary? It should be stated that it's a near homophone which makes pronunciation of the p all that more significant. DAVilla 16:16, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

It is pronounced that way in the swearing-in ceremonies for the offices. That is the first pronunciation given at MWOnline. DCDuring TALK 19:08, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't dispute that it may be a homophone of controller, but I do dispute that that pronunciation is the obvious "visual" pronunciation of comptroller with a silent p. This would require an m sound turning to an n sound. Equinox ◑ 21:40, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

It's not just a homophone, it's also the same word and it has the same etymology. The spelling was influenced by French (deprecated template usage) compte but if anyone pronounces the m or p, it would be a (deprecated template usage) spelling pronunciation. —CodeCat 22:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, fine, but see my original comment in this discussion. I think it's inaccurate. Equinox ◑ 00:57, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

You must be saying that if "the p is optionally silent" it would be pronounced comtroller. Well, it is not what the explanation wants to say. The p is silent, and the m is pronounced n, just like controller. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 04:37, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Then I really don't understand the explanation. Am I stupid, or will this be even more confusing for most casual users? Equinox ◑ 03:37, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

@Equinox: I completely agree. @everyone else: The problem isn't the statement that "comptroller may be a homophone of controller"; the problem is the statement that this is so because "[t]he p is optionally silent". Silencing the <p> does not, by itself, turn the "COMPtroller" pronunciation into the "conTROLLer" pronunciation. —Ruakh_TALK 18:43, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

But I think the question has been answered incidentally, I mean what other answer do we want other than the one(s) we have? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:06, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

prowl

"To be watching over something. It's tough to sneak vandalism into Wikipedia as there are plenty of other users prowling the recent changes page." The usex is believable, but does it really mean "watching over" rather than (say) patrolling or hanging around it? Equinox ◑ 10:57, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Moved usage example. Not sure if definition is legit. DAVilla 16:12, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

An early Wonderfool entry. As a result, should be given a rewrite. --Simplus2 20:00, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

peace

I don't understand how this could be more than 2, maybe 3 definitions. How would you classify these?

May he rest in peace.

Peace on earth, good will torward men.

Peace be with you.

DAVilla 16:07, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Our second definition, "A state free of oppressive and unpleasant thoughts and emotions", has an example sentence with "peace of mind". I suspect this sense requires "of mind" or similar, and that it's actually just the "A state of tranquility, quiet, and harmony" sense. That latter seems very different from the "A state free of war" sense: people speak of as nation at peace even if there's little tranquility in the country. (We should provide a gloss for state there: it's a status, not a country.) I'm not sure what our current sense 3 ("Harmony in personal relations" means, or whether it's different from the "A state free of war" sense — or, if so, whether it exists. I'm also not sure we don't need a different (countable?) sense, found in separate peace.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:00, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

language templates not used - why?

I'm looking for the discussion on language templates such as {{en}} for English etc. I wonder if those templates are available why are they not used in the translation section. Can anyone give me a link to the discussion in the tea room archive? I couldn't find it. Kampy 19:07, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The translation section alphabetizes by language name, which is hard for people to do when editing manually and seeing language codes. (It's also more for code for bots then.) I seem to recall that that's why we use the names, but could very well be wrong.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:25, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I see. Thank you. Kampy 19:31, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

It also puts too much template burden on a page download when all the translations have different templates for their own languages. Each template takes time to decode and render, and for pages with many definitions, this can hugely slow down user access to the information. --EncycloPetey 03:31, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

This doesn't really matter, because the translation template {{t}} includes those templates anyway. —CodeCat 15:44, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

It does. Page load is calculated for every use of a template. If you use {{de}} ten times in an entry, it has ten times the load of a single transclusion of {{de}}. -- Liliana • 16:00, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

zero gravity

1. The state of apparent weightlessness which occurs when in free fall.
2. A state/shuttle/simulator which produces weightlessness.

I'm not sure exactly what sense 2 means, but is it not just listing examples of sense 1? —Michael Z. 2011-12-14 00:12 z

1 is a state (situation); 2 is a machine.​—msh210℠ (talk) 00:32, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Not getting it. Does shuttle mean “space shuttle?” I can't imagine how or when such a device is called “zero gravity.” Other dictionaries aren't helping me. Citation? —Michael Z. 2011-12-14 03:54 z

You are getting it, then. (Well, if I am, then you are.) 2 is, yes, a space shuttle. Like you, I've never heard of this meaning of zero gravity; perhaps {{rfquote-sense}} or {{rfv-sense}}?​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:28, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm quite certain that a space shuttle doesn't produce weightlessness. Having stared at this for a day, I believe it is nonsense. A bit of rewriting and rfv-sense, I think. —Michael Z. 2011-12-14 15:10 z

WT:RFV#zero gravity. —Michael Z. 2011-12-14 15:30 z

It definitely produces weightlessness. Anyway, the sense 2 seems to be a nonsense. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 18:00, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Being in free fall, including being in orbit, leads to weightlessness, enshuttled or otherwise. A shuttle can be used to put you there, but to say that the machine “produces” the state implies some mechanism that doesn't exist. —Michael Z. 2011-12-15 01:11 z

More precisely, being within any free-falling object produces a state equivalent to that of "weightlessness". However, "weightlessness" is a misnomer as the object does not actually lose all weight during its fall; objects simply are not resting against a static surface. "Weightlessness" can occur in a falling elevator, at the crest of a roller coaster, or inside a plane specially designed to free-fall with astronaut trainees inside. So, the second "definition" results from attributive use of the noun's primary definition and is not distinct. --EncycloPetey 03:28, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

post

In the entry for post, there's a bit of overlap. Some meanings are mentioned under both Etymology headers. --Simplus2 10:47, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Acromyrex: shouldn’t it be Acromyrmex?

Hello, I typed by error “acromyrex” on Google and found there was a page on en.wikt, but I suspect this is an typo/spello too. However, being quite incompetent in taxonomy, I can’t say that fore sure (but I searched the Max Planck Gesellschaft and the University of East Anglia websites in addition to Wikipedia before posting). --Eiku (t) 17:01, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

• Yes. My mistake from 2006! Now moved to the correct spelling. SemperBlotto 17:06, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

tank

• 1. A container for liquids or gases, typically with a volume of several cubic metres.
• 6. In USA scuba divers' usage, a compressed air or gas cylinder.

Why should 1 be limited to large tanks, and 6 to USA scuba divers? To me, welders use medium-sized acetylene tanks, a barbecue has a small propane tank, and a camp stove may have a very small (liquid or gas, refillable or disposable) fuel tank. On the other end of the spectrum, oil companies and water utilities use tanks of many thousands of cubic metres capacity. Also, fuelling a car is “filling the tank.”

Any objections to merging these into one general sense? —Michael Z. 2011-12-15 17:09 z

• Go for it. SemperBlotto 17:13, 15 December 2011 (UTC)

IMDb

Can someone help me with capitalization and Wiktionary? We currently have IMDB which redirects to IMDb as the "correct" capitalization. I'm trying to add the verb form, to IMDB someone. In print sources, I've got two "IMDB him"s and two "IMDb her"s (note the capitalization) in independent sources. I've got a bunch of hits on Google Groups for "IMDB him" or "imdb him" and a couple for "IMdb him", and one more for "IMDb him". (I've got an "Imdb him", but it seems like merely sentence-initial capitalization.) So. Do I just add everything to IMDb? Do I make entries on IMDB, IMDb, and imdb for verbal forms? (And IMdb?) IMDB is arguably wrong, I'd argue imdb and IMDb are both acceptable variants (though any use should be tagged casual or whatever the equivalent is) and IMdb seems clearly wrong.--Prosfilaes 04:58, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

I replaced the redirect with alternate spelling since we generally do not use redirects. RJFJR 14:59, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

sure

Is the interjection real, or is it just the adverb sense with an exclamation point (or comma) after it?​—msh210℠ (talk) 06:26, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

An interjection is not a part of speech, it is a word or phrase uttered as an exclamation with no particular grammatical relation to a sentence. Interjections are comprised of words of various parts of speech, often adverbs. —Stephen ^(Talk) 21:14, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

ABBA

"(poetry) A rhyme in which the first line of a stanza (A) rhymes with the fourth line, and the second and third lines rhyme (B)." Yes. But doesn't this open the doors for all kinds of poetical structures (for example ABCB is well known)? It isn't an initialism, doesn't stand for anything; the letters are "variables" for specific rhymes, if you like, making this more akin to a statement like 2a+3b (math equation) which we clearly would not include. Equinox ◑ 03:35, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Kith and Kine

I think this is an eggcorn of kith and kin. Albeit, an old one. The word kith more generally refers to friends and acquaintances while kin refers to family ... thus kith and kin means "friends and family". The word kine is an archaic plural of cow. So kith and kine would mean "friends and cows". Kin and Kine would make more sense than kith and kine. Other than a play on words in a book or articles about cows/animals, I haven't found "kith and kine" used.

In ME English there are many spelling variations that could lead to this confusion:

Oþer whyle þou muste be fals a-monge kythe & kynne. ... and here kynne = kin.

I'm having trouble believing this is anything other than a mistake for kith and kin unless used more literally:

By the end of this disaster, the Bull stands amidst the corpses of kith and kine. ... Is he standing among the corpses of friends and family or friends and cows? --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! 17:18, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

• As the editor who added this, I agree with you. I think from memory I added it as some kind of special request.. but I share your analysis of it. Ƿidsiþ 17:53, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the meaning should be changed? I looked on sundry pages with a Google search and didn't find any usage along the line of "relatives and property; one's total possessions". If no objects, I'll put the first meaning as an error for kith and kin ... As for the other meaning, it looks more like someone trying to backform a meaning from the error (like folks backformed a meaning for "hone in", an error for "home in"). I think it should go unless someone can find a few usages of it with that meaning but I'll leave that yu. --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! 14:24, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

The attitude of not having to answer to anyone

Is there a word or phrase that describes the attitude or ideal of not having to answer to anyone? 74.82.68.160 20:24, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Headstrong? Recalcitrant? ---> Tooironic 09:59, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I am "my own man/woman"? --Robert.Baruch 22:31, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

baking/roasting

Is there any methodical difference between baking and roasting in oven, or is it just that some foods you bake and others you roast? --Hekaheka 05:54, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

AFAIK, you bake stuff in an oven, while you can roast things in an oven OR over a fire. Of course, collocations vary; normally, one says, "Let's bake a loaf of bread!" not "roast a loaf of bread". ---> Tooironic 09:20, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

A baked potato is very different from a roast potato, but I can't explain how. Equinox ◑ 14:27, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

To me, baking implies the application of dry heat within a container (oven), whereas in roasting the thing being cooked normally lies in a liquid (e.g. fat), or is basted with a liquid during cooking. SemperBlotto 14:39, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, that explains the potatoes. You can bake a potato in a microwave or conventional oven, and you're basically just heating it up. But a roast potato is cooked in meat fat (right?) so it ends up golden and crispy. Also, a roast one tends to be peeled first, while a baked potato is done with the skin on, but that's a cultural / fried egg thing. Equinox ◑ 15:10, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire isn't lying in a liquid, for one example of why I don't think that's the proper distinction between the two, although I cant say what the distinction is, exactly. Roasting on a spit is another, I think, though typically what's being roasted has liquids inside, such as animal or game meat. sewnmouthsecret 08:47, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

home is where the heart is

"One's true home is where one feels happiest." Really? I thought this proverb meant something like, "Your home will always be the place you feel the most affection for, regardless of whether it is your true home or not." ---> Tooironic 09:58, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

McGraw-Hill has both[34]: "People long to be at home.; Your home is whatever place you long to be." Equinox ◑ 14:26, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

There is also home is where the hearth is, which brings up many Google hits. I don't know if this may be the original form of the phrase, but it would make sense because it corresponds more closely to the Dutch equivalent, eigen haard is goud waard. —CodeCat 19:42, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

nuclear as rhyme

Are these edits sound? [35], [36]. The stress doesn't seem right for a rhyme: it's NU-clear, not nu-CLEAR. Equinox ◑ 15:08, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Undid those edits independently of this thread. A lot of users 'mistakenly' add rhymes based only on the last syllable, which is not what we do here. The IPA in the entry clinched it for me. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:31, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm amazed at the number of people, some of them well educated, who seem to think that nuclear rhymes with avuncular! Dbfirs 23:09, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

insolent

How are these definitions any different from each other? How can "rude" constitute a single definition when rude itself has five meanings? DAVilla 12:48, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Rude might not have had 5 senses at the time when insolent was created. There is probably work to be done there. Equinox ◑ 00:37, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

mechanic

Why is this in "Category:English politically correct terms"? Equinox ◑ 23:22, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

Ditto person. Sure, policeperson is PC, but just person? Equinox ◑ 01:46, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Also -person is a peculiar entry --Simplus2 13:16, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

Robin Lionheart seems to have added a couple of hundred of these last year - most of which look like being simply gender-neutral rather than politically correct. For a lot of them, I can't even think what a gender-specific version might be. 81.142.107.230 16:34, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

-handed

Surely this isn't a suffix! Everything here should be moved to handed, IMO. Equinox ◑ 12:55, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

• Add -goaler and -looking and -cheeked and -headed to this debate. Maybe this part should be linked from these pages. I dunno how to do that. --Simplus2 13:10, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Yep, delete/merge everything. It's a misunderstanding than using a hyphen for affixes is a notation used by dictionaries (for example, to distinguish between re and re-) while something like two-headed uses an actual hyphen. Mglovesfun (talk) 18:35, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Merged. Equinox ◑ 00:39, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

raindeer

This term is marked as an obsolete spelling, but I think the spelling is still used, although considered nonstandard. Could it be both? —CodeCat 19:33, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

It can be. (I don't know that it is, but believe you.) You can use {{obsolete|now|_|nonstandard}} or similar.​—msh210℠ (talk) 08:16, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

Seems to be very much in use. A Google search gets 2,7 million hits. Msh210's suggestion looks fine. --Hekaheka 00:18, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with Hekaheka (talk • contribs) here, this is still very much in use. -- Cirt (talk) 23:35, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

road works

I'm surprised this entry doesn't exist yet. Can it be added, since we already have roadworks? —CodeCat 20:38, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

(deprecated template usage) Road works seems to be significantly more common than (deprecated template usage) roadworks, so WT:COALMINE says yes. —Ruakh_TALK 21:48, 22 December 2011 (UTC)

leading

I was thinking of adding an adjective sense of (deprecated template usage) leading meaning "playing a primary role in a film or similar", as found in the phrases (deprecated template usage) leading man, (deprecated template usage) leading actor, etc. Then I realized that it might be a verb ((deprecated template usage) lead). But google books:"led|leading in films" turns up nothing relevant; likewise "to lead in films". So maybe it's an adjective after all — but I'm not confident enough saying so to add it. Thoughts?​—msh210℠ (talk) 08:14, 23 December 2011 (UTC)

and leading role You could be right. COBUILD has it as an adj. and gives leading actor as an example. Includes two more senses (although I'm hard put to see much difference between the them :-/) as leading industrial nation and leading group (in front in a race). -- ALGRIF talk 15:39, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Though the collocations with "man" and "lady" are limited to performances and seem like live metaphors when applied outside of theatrical type performances, other collocations of "leading" such as "leading role" don't seem so limited. Apparently some professional lexicographers think these are not transparent: “leading man”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. and “leading lady”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. In contrast we don't have leading man and leading lady. DCDuring TALK 18:49, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

I would say it's a verb:

• *She is the very leading lady.
• *The lady became leading.

If it were an adjective, those should probably work.--Brett 01:41, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

But if it were a verb, then we would say There are two ladies leading rather than There are two leading ladies, wouldn't we? . Another point in favor of adjective would be the Oscar nominations .. Best actor / actress in a leading role. It has to be an adj in this phrase. -- ALGRIF talk 14:29, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

"There are two running ladies" works. So does "best juggler in a moving vehicle".​—msh210℠ (talk) 00:55, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

My point being that an English L1 speaker sees the difference! Basically because of recognizing the adjectival sense in There are two leading ladies. -- ALGRIF talk 14:57, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

parent of my child

What's the word in English meaning "parent of one's child"? There is one, right? If not, do other languages have a word for this? --Simplus2 12:34, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, there's baby mama and baby daddy, but those terms are somewhat loaded. I think for most of history people just said "the father/mother of my child" in any case where "husband" or "wife" didn't cover it. —Angr 14:36, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Don't we use the terms biological father and biological mother? As in, say, "my son Timmy's biological mother"? --Robert.Baruch 22:26, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

Just "my son Timmy's mother", no?​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:39, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

In Dutch "The father of my child" is used to explain in one sentence: "We are divorced, I hate him, and that's how got my son". Joepnl 01:59, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

The term (deprecated template usage) co-parent exists, and IMHO is usually pretty clear in context, but is not terribly common. I wouldn't expect most people to recognize it. —Ruakh_TALK 02:11, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

let the buyer beware

Isn't this a proverb, as opposed to a verb? ---> Tooironic 23:43, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Seems pretty amateur to me. —Michael Z. 2011-12-29 04:03 z

I've never actually heard it, but it doesn't look like a proverb, too literal, looks more like a verb use only in the infinitive and the imperative (same as the infinitive of course). Mglovesfun (talk) 15:36, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

It is more usual in the Latin - see w:Caveat emptor. SemperBlotto 15:39, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

buyer beware is usually a catchall phrase for consumers making purchases or signing up for services; often these services are confusing to the general public, i.e. purchasing real property, buying a car, signing up for phone service, buying jewelry from shady street vendors, etc. I'd say it can be taken proverbially and literally. sewnmouthsecret 08:41, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Thought I've seen both usages, it's more common as simply, buyer beware. -- Cirt (talk) 23:34, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

push (early Australian slang)

"Push.—A company of rowdy fellows gathered together for ungentle purposes." (from wikisource:The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke/The Glossary); What C.J. Dennis really means is a violent gang. Several Wikipedia articles refer to a push but other that this, I can't find a formal definition. See for eg. w:Sydney Push, w:Rocks Push, w:The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke.

It would be good to added into the push article. Moondyne 14:22, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

up the aisle

I feel sure we should have this, for example google books:"go up the aisle" and google books:"got him up the aisle", quite how to define it, I don't know. I also don't think the sense should be at aisle, but rather at up the aisle. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:01, 26 December 2011 (UTC)

• I've had a stab at it. Feel free to improve (and add citations). SemperBlotto 08:39, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
  • Looks pretty good so far. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 23:32, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

dictionnaire de langue

French includes a useful distinction between dictionnaire de langue (a dictionary providing definitions + linguistic information, such as etymology, pronunciation, gender, etc.) and dictionnaire encyclopédique (a dictionary including in some entries encyclopedic information, e.g. the causes of a disease, how it is treated, etc., as well as linguistic information ; generally speaking, most entries about proper nouns are 100% encyclopedic, while only some of the other entries include encyclopedic information). I understand that only the first kind of dictionary is traditional in English, but what are the English names for dictionnaire de langue and dictionnaire encyclopédique? Would not be useful to be more precise when describing the difference between Wikipedia and Wiktionary e.g. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, Wiktionary is a language dictionary? Lmaltier 08:50, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, the second one is encyclopedic dictionary. --Simplus2 08:59, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, not really. It's mainly just a language dictionary with some extended features. It deliberately avoids encyclopaedic material. In English, dictionary nearly always means just a language dictionary. Dbfirs 23:03, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

So, language dictionary may be used in English? I would use it to refer to the project, mainly for people used to encyclopedic dictionaries (in some countries, best-selling dictionaries are encyclopedic dictionaries). The fact that we include proper nouns when they are words (for etymology, pronunciation, etc.) may be misleading because, unlike Wiktionary, almost all dictionaries including proper nouns are encyclopedic dictionaries (except some specialized dictionaries, e.g. those specialized in placename etymologies). Of course, this is a huge plus of the project, especially for pronunciation: I don't know any other dictionary systematically giving the pronunciation of proper nouns, but this difference may be misleading. Lmaltier 08:29, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd regard "language dictionary" as tautology, but that doesn't prevent you using the term to make a clear distinction. Specialist encyclopaedic dictionaries are sometimes called "A dictionary of" [specialist subject]. Dbfirs 22:17, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

word request

Is there a word for the style/device of making one aspect of a literary work contrast with another drastically? E.g., making the medium/style of a book contrast with the subject matter (as in Maus*) or having the tune of a song contrast with its lyrics (as in "Copacabana" (w:))?

*Nowadays, there are many serious graphic novels, but I don't think that that was the case when Maus came out.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:45, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Now re-asked elsewhere.​—msh210℠ (talk) 06:46, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I look forward to the answer. DCDuring TALK 14:23, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

January 2012

遺伝的

Is this really a noun? 的 is used to create adjectives, in Chinese anyway, don't speak Japanese though... ---> Tooironic 20:20, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

We have decided to call them so recently, based on the fact that they are indeed nouns grammatically. See Wiktionary:Beer parlour#Proper label for Japanese "quasi-adjectives". — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 10:54, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

non divisi

Is non divisi a sum of parts if its entry (if it will have one) has:

==English==

===Adverb===

{{en-adv|-}}

# {{music}} not divided

====Usage notes====

* to make every player play all of the notes in a non-[[arpeggiate|arpeggiated]] chord or other groups of notes played simultaneously

Celloplayer115 20:49, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I wouldn't say so, because the term isn't actually English but Latin. In Latin it would be SOP, but not in English. —CodeCat 21:16, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

Italian, not Latin - like many terms from music. SemperBlotto 08:41, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

hossen

This is a Dutch verb that describes some kind of dance, often associated with carnaval. But I'm not really sure what it actually is, or how to define it. Can anyone help? —CodeCat 14:05, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

• Dutch wiktionary describes it something like "to dance and jump about as a group". Maybe to square dance? SemperBlotto 14:45, 7 January 2012 (UTC)
  • It's not usually performed in a square but in a line, so it seems more like conga. —CodeCat 14:48, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Does this describe it a bit?

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfQRXnek_wI
• http://www.bndestem.nl/regio/roosendaal/8291167/Hossen-met-de-buurtschappen.ece
• http://www.google.nl/imghp?&tab=wi&q=hossen+-sylvia+-silvia

--MaEr 14:18, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand the last link but the other two show it well yes. :) —CodeCat 14:42, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

About the last link: just click the search icon, this will start the google image search for "hossen", skipping all manga stuff with "Silvia van Hossen". --MaEr 14:53, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Could this be a w:en:Polonaise (Dutch w:nl:Polonaise)? --MaEr 15:07, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

The Dutch article does contain this sentence:

Aanvankelijk betekende het 'langzame Poolse dans in driekwartsmaat', maar later werd het vooral gebruikt in de betekenis "dans waarbij men in een sliert achter elkaar host, met de handen op de schouders van de voorgaande persoon"

At first it meant 'slow Polish dance in three-quarter measure', but later it came to be used especially in the meaning "dance where people hos after one another in a line, with the hands on the shoulders of the person in front"

—CodeCat 15:11, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

So hossen is the same as dancing a polonaise? If yes, you could add the missing definition. --MaEr 18:23, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

As I understand the article, the modern form of polonaise dancing involves hossen. The only real defining feature of hossen that I can think of, aside from the polonaise part, is taking steps in the rhythm of the music, so that everyone moves together. —CodeCat 18:25, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

backslash

The entry for /. "(computing, proscribed) the punctuation mark /, properly called "slash"; see below." The notes claim that / is often misread when reading out Internet addresses. I've never heard this mistake made. Are others familiar with it? Is it really so common? Equinox ◑ 14:37, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

I've heard it many times, even from people who I think probably do know which one is the slash and which is the backslash, but who get it wrong sometimes in speech (or in listening — hear "backslash", type /); but I really don't know how common it is. Obviously the error stands out much more than the correct version. It pretty clearly meets the CFI that we apply to non-errors:

• 2001, http://books.google.com/books?id=KXwp_xwbHrcC&pg=PA455&dq=backslash:

  […] I was trying to find a web-site for which I had been given the following address: http://www.isop.ucla.edu/pacrim/pubs/korjournal.htm. […] I began to work backwards, removing first the last part of the address following the last backslash (/korjournal.htm).

• 2010, http://books.google.com/books?id=CXzvPfYaJWsC&pg=PA25&dq=backslash:

  “So, do what I tell you. Open a browser window and type this in the menu^[sic] bar: F-T-P colon backslash backslash euronews dot net backslash...”

  I pecked carefully at the keyboard as he dictated a URL that was about fifty characters long, […]

• 2010, http://books.google.com/books?id=IZoOxPievkYC&pg=PT205&dq=backslashes:

  Also, avoid submenus^[sic] that can confuse the audience—if you're giving lengthy Web site addresses full of backslashes, shorten it so only the Web site's home page is given.

but we do apply a "common"-ness requirement to misspellings, and we've sometimes applied that to certain other types of clear errors, so if people want to treat it only in usage notes, I think a case could be made.

—Ruakh_TALK 22:05, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

A commonness requirement for misspellings is important because we accept cites from Usenet, where typographical errors and lazy typing are rampant, and, for that matter, from published works, where typographical errors are not at all uncommon. Use of backslash for slash is not a typographical error or a misspeaking or a lazy typing but a wrong choice of word, which is the kind of thing we as alleged descriptivists should not bar form full entry in the dictionary. MHO.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:02, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Okay. I don't object to us having it if it's real, and Ruakh's examples seem to show that. (I'd really like to see that kind of thing in the entry to support the usage note.) Thanks. Equinox ◑ 00:29, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

O.K., I've added the cites to the entry. :-)   I think the definition and usage notes should be rewritten, though. Or maybe the usage note should just be removed, and the definition reworded. —Ruakh_TALK 01:21, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

The usage note surely belongs on \, not on backslash. 81.142.107.230 10:37, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

For the record, I was referring to a usage note that's since been removed (by me). The usage note that you refer to doesn't pertain to this sense. (But yes, I agree.) —Ruakh_TALK 21:05, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

• My feeling is that (deprecated template usage) backslash can now refer quite acceptably (if confusingly) to either / or \. Ƿidsiþ 11:00, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

• • Perhaps some Windows users, accustomed to seeing backslashes as directory separators, don't notice that slashes in URLs go the opposite direction. In other words, to those who don't recognize the difference, (deprecated template usage) backslash may signify not / per se, but either / or \. ~ Robin 23:57, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Robin: people unaware of the handedness of slashes use backslash to mean “file-system pathname delimiter,” or perhaps just “slash character,” and not specifically back- nor forward slash. However, since this contradicts all of the subject experts (glossaries, standards, and style guides in writing, computing, typesetting, etc.), we should indicate that it is considered an error, even if we documentary lexicographers refuse to hold it as such ourselves. —Michael Z. 2012-01-12 18:04 z

Proto-Germanic -eu- in Saxon (and/or Dutch)

Moved to Wiktionary talk:About Middle Low German —CodeCat 22:23, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

acknowledg, judg

Can someone check these out and confirm they are not just scannos? I'm worried Pilcrow doesn't know what he is doing and is inadvertently creating garbage (e.g. he had created the definitely wrong forms judgs and acknowledgs). Equinox ◑ 23:07, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

acknowledg would find ready attestation at google books:"acknowledg". A search for judg yields many hits for the abbreviation of the book of the Old Testament. But Locke's Of Human Understanding has the verb abundantly and I think that would be a well-known work. DCDuring TALK 02:29, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

pronounce

Do you really pronounce pronounce /pɹəˈnæwns/? Should that /w/ be there for a start? 81.142.107.230 10:35, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I do, which is why I added that transcription to the entry. I see it's now bene changed to use /aʊ/ instead. Is that a British thing? I really do think Americans have an /æ/ in there, not an /a/.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:44, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I pronounce it /pɹəˈnaʊns/. —Stephen ^(Talk) 16:54, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I think in most varieties of both General American and RP the starting point is closer to [a] (not [ɑ]!) than to [æ]. At any rate, it's a custom of long standing to transcribe the mouth vowel as /aʊ/ in broad transcriptions (which is what we want here) of both GenAm and RP. Whether we transcribe the end of the diphthong as /w/ or /ʊ/ is much of a muchness; /ʊ/ is more customary in IPA-based transcriptions, while /w/ is more customary in Americanist transcriptions. Our {{IPA}} links to w:International Phonetic Alphabet chart for English dialects, which uses /aʊ/. Our own WT:ENPRONKEY also uses /aʊ/, though why {{IPA}} doesn't link there, I cannot fathom. —Angr 18:02, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I pronounce it closer to [æʊ] or even [ɛʊ]... —CodeCat 18:13, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Yeah well, you're Dutch. ;-) —Angr 18:20, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

*points to the native English speaker tag on her profile page* I was raised speaking Dublin English! —CodeCat 18:21, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I've been to Dublin. Frankly, Dutch is easier to understand than Dublin English, and I don't even know Dutch! But I suppose in Dublin, your Netherlandic tendency to change th into t or d won't be particularly noticeable. (I once bought something in Dublin for £3.30 and was told "Dat'll be tree turrty.") —Angr 18:31, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

But I don't have any Netherlandic tendencies, I still speak Dublin English with my family. You're right dough, I do dat... —CodeCat 20:59, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

I actually only edited it so the IPA matched the rhyme, I dunno what the 'correct' IPA is. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:08, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

However msh210, I seem to think we've been here before with dominoes. I mean, I couldn't say /ow/ if I wanted to; is your accent just a bit unusual? I think it would be best to avoid rare pronunciations as otherwise we would have literally dozens of pronunciations in some entries. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:46, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't think he's indicating a rare pronunciation; he's using an alternative transcription of a common pronunciation. Transcribing the vowel of pronounce as [æw] isn't wrong and doesn't indicate some minority pronunciation, it's just another way of transcribing exactly the same sound as [aʊ] indicates. But [aʊ] is the more usual transcription in IPA--very few print dictionaries and phonetics textbooks that use IPA will use anything other than [aʊ], and Wiktionary should use it too. —Angr 12:33, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I've been wondering about that some time ago. /aʊ̯/ is used for German <au>. While my dialect pronounces German /au/ as [ɒʊ̯], I am constantly exposed to the German pron. [aʊ̯] through school, university and media. It does sound very much like -ou- in pronounce. It does however not sound like English /au/ in thousand, which always and in every dialect sounded more like /θäo̯zə̯nd/ to me. Are those two really the same? Because no German pronounces Haus like any English-speaking person I've ever heard in my life ever pronounced house. Ever. Dakhart 17:12, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Apart from the fact that the ou in pronounce is nasalized, I don't hear a difference between the ou in pronounce and the ou in thousand. It's true that Haus and house sound very different, but that's a matter of precise phonetic realization, which isn't within the scope of a dictionary's pronunciation guide. The fact that German /aʊ/ and English /aʊ/ don't sound the same doesn't mean it's wrong to transcribe them the same way when your goal is a broad phonetic transcription. German /iː/ as in Miete and English /iː/ as in meet don't sound the same either, but we use the same transcription for both. (In a phonetics paper where the difference between the two sounds is the topic of discussion, of course two separate transcriptions would have to be found.) —Angr 17:22, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

I think we should provide both a broad and a narrow transcription, when possible. A narrow transcription can help aid in the exact pronunciation especially when there's no audio. —CodeCat 18:25, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

... but we'd need dozens of different "narrow transcriptions" and lots of new symbols if we were to precisely represent every possible variant. Most readers struggle with simple standard IPA. ... also, could Dakhart please explain how German Haus differs from my northern English house? I've always heard them as homophones. Dbfirs 17:08, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Ree (Latin)

In response to the Latin form, double e is very unlikely (as vocative of reus). Is this backed up by any other dictionaries (mine doesn't say)? Might it form a vocative singular like deus instead?Metaknowledge 16:05, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

• See [37] SemperBlotto 16:12, 13 January 2012 (UTC)

pedalomotor

I have no idea what this word means, or even that it existed once. I found it in this book: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38540/38540-h/38540-h.htm#Page_202 Is it a bycycle, or something else? 76.117.247.55 03:07, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

It seems to be only in that one book. A few lines later, it is referred to as a "pedalmobile". Equinox ◑ 02:37, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

at-large

Listed as an alt spelling of at large. Is this real? It would be non-standard (at best! — IMHO wrong) to say "the criminal is at-large", but perhaps you could talk about an "at-large criminal" (?). Equinox ◑ 02:36, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

As you know, in English you hyphenate an adjective placed before a noun if it contains spaces, like a book out of print vs. an out-of-print book, and coding from scratch vs. from-scratch coding. Don’t they have different stresses, by the way? — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 10:38, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Ego Eris, correct standalone

I'm not sure if I'm doing this correctly. I'll be finding out the hard way, I suppose.

In the phrase "Tu fui ego eris" are the parts of the phrase grammatically able to stand alone? Is "Tu fui" grammatically sound? Then is "Ego eris" able to stand alone as well? Looking at the words individually in their tenses all seems correct, but I wanted to be sure. Many thanks for any information.

Monica

Neither its parts nor its whole would be grammatically correct. It's like saying "tu suis, je seras" in French (using present rather than past for illustration), deliberately misconjugating (deprecated template usage) être in the wrong person to suggest "I [you]-are, you [I]-will-be". ~ Robin 10:21, 18 January 2012 (UTC)

paucity

Paucity is defined in Wikipedia as few in number. This is inaccurate. Specifically the meaning is "not enough". This is a critical distinction. A person may not have very much money but they may be considered as having enough and therefore are not paupers.— This unsigned comment was added by 69.223.193.199 (talk).

• I have adjusted the definition. You could have done so yourself. SemperBlotto 15:44, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

halp

This is a colloquial or humorous variation of the imperative of 'help' that's pretty common on the internet. I'm quite sure it would meet CFI, but what is it exactly? Is it a misspelling (but it's intentional), is it an alternative form? —CodeCat 14:40, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

How about {{nonstandard|humorous}}? Mglovesfun (talk) 10:45, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

That particular template application appears to work perfectly for this entry. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 23:29, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Devoicing next to voiceless cons.

There is a phenomenon in German and Polish, similar to Terminal Devoicing, where a voiced consonant becomes voiceless when preceded by a voiceless consonant. (Sucht = /zuxt/, Streitsucht = /ʃtraitsuxt/) What's it called?Dakhart 21:13, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it's called voicing assimilation, and it happens in many languages, not just those with terminal devoicing. For example, Latin (deprecated template usage) scribo has the participle (deprecated template usage) scriptus. English has (deprecated template usage) leaves /liːvz/ but (deprecated template usage) sleeps /sliːps/. It doesn't always work the same in every language though or even the same in one single language, for example the equivalent Dutch words are (deprecated template usage) strijd /strɛi̯t/ and (deprecated template usage) zucht /zʏxt/ but the combination can be either /strɛi̯dzʏxt/ or /strɛi̯tsʏxt/ depending on the speaker. —CodeCat 21:50, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

xtal/XTAL

We have an entry for the abbreviation xtal but I'm used to seeing it XTAL. What should be placed at XTAL? RJFJR 23:41, 21 January 2012 (UTC)

There is no good reason for capitalising "xtal" (no good reason to abbreviate either, but that's another story). When seen capitalised, it is usually in electronic parts lists, which tend to captitalise everything not nailed down anyway. SpinningSpark 22:29, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

(colloq. Japan)

What does "(colloq. Japan)" mean in the current version of ronin? --Daniel 14:25, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

colloq is short for colloquial. How does it look now? We need citations for this def in English. I know it's totally valid in Japanese. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 01:25, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

+ and/or ++

There appears to be a fairly widespread Internet phenomenon of applauding particularly clever comments by responding with pluses, usually with two together. I imagine such a thing would be nearly impossible to document in a CFI-worthy fashion, but it still seems to me to be a clearly widespread use. Any thoughts on that? Cheers! bd2412 T 16:23, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I would think + would be enough, other iterations would then become SoP as + + + (yeah I know, it looks pretty funny) -- Liliana • 20:20, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

But it might very easily be derived from the ++ used in programming languages to increment, or add one, i.e. a geeky way to say "me too". Equinox ◑ 20:27, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I think the preponderance (at least in my experience) of pluses coming in pairs suggests that Equinox's theory is the more likely explanation. How do we search for citations for something like this? bd2412 T 14:26, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Dunno. Try Usenet, perhaps? -- Liliana • 17:32, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Right, but how? How do you search Usenet for ++? —Ruakh_TALK 15:25, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps subscribe to a newsserver for a few weeks and then search around a bit? -- Liliana • 16:01, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I read Usenet more or less regularly, so if you have a particular newsgroup in mind, I could subscribe for a month and then search the downloaded text. The ones I read are a little too old-fashioned to use this ++ notation. Equinox ◑ 00:20, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

paganismus

I'm suspicious of the plural forms. In English (paganism), it varies, but isn't it always uncountable in Latin? Metaknowledge 22:56, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I have no answer to your question, but would like to point out that Paganismus is one German translation of paganism. Cheers! bd2412 T 05:35, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Ravel==unravel, is there a name for this?

I was watching an episode of "The Big Bang Theory" where a character uses the pseudo-word "un-unravelable" to mean something like a mystery that can't be solved. So, I wondered if "ravelable" was a word, checked here, and was surprised to see that definition #1 of ravel is unravel. So, I wonder if there is a term for this situation that can be added at the definitions of ravel and unravel? Cheers. Haus 02:40, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Sadly, there is but one cite for un-unravelable, but I shall add it to Citations:un-unravelable and hope that more shall poke up at some point.--Prosfilaes 08:16, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I see that my question was probably unclear - let me try again. Is there a name for the situation where un-word means the same as word? Thanks! Haus 02:48, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what the word for the phenomenon is, but another facet is that "ravel" itself means both "untangle" and "tangle", which makes "ravel" an auto-antonym, contronym or antagonym. That doesn't describe its relationship to "unravel", but I would guess most words that are synonymous with unwords are probably also their own auto-antonyms. Another example of the phenomenon is "unthaw" (meaning both "freeze" and "unfreeze") and "thaw" (also meaning "unfreeze"). Phol 08:14, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

It's related to the contranym but I'm not sure what they're called. Other examples are debone and bone, regardless and irregardless, flammable and inflammable. DAVilla 03:33, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Interchangeable pairs, or pseudantonyms. Other pairs are flammable/inflammable; regardless/irregardless; caregiver/caretaker; restive/restless; iterate/reiterate; candescent/incandescent; loosen/unloosen. —Stephen ^(Talk) 04:17, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

chick

Wiktionary currently has two senses relating to women:

• 3. A young (especially attractive) woman. Three cool chicks / Are walking down the street / Swinging their hips
• 4. A woman. Check that chick out.

I wonder about the following:

• Do we need two senses? (Dictionaries often have only one sense relating to women.)
• Age
  • Is being young a necessary condition for a chick as a woman?
  • Is being young an "especially" condition for a chick as a woman?
  • Is being young a condition at all for a chick as a woman?
• Attractiveness
  • Is attractiveness a necessary condition for a chick as a woman?
  • Is attractiveness an "especially" condition for a chick as a woman?
  • Is attractiveness a condition at all for a chick as a woman?

See also “chick”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. I am interested in informal perceptions of native speakers, and, formally, in attesting quotations. --Dan Polansky 09:55, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

My informal perception as a native speaker is that young is an "especially" condition for a chick as a woman, but not an absolutely necessary one. Attractiveness is not a condition at all for a chick as a woman--I myself have been known to refer to women as "chicks", but for me the properties "woman" and "attractive" are mutually exclusive. —Angr 10:11, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Chick is a slang term for a woman, particularly a young women. As for attractiveness, however, Google Books returns 500+ hits for "ugly chick". bd2412 T 20:09, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I'd say they are a single sense, but it needs to be broadly worded to include what bd2412 says, which is almost exactly what I was going to say. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:18, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

philandry

Can someone research this and/or flag the entry? I've added an note on the discussion page, but have some doubts that this is an accepted word...?? About the only authoritative place I've found it is here! Samatva 19:22, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

It’s okay. Valid citations are easy to find. For example, this one. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:01, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it's certainly an accepted word. Good source cited above by Stephen G. Brown (talk • contribs). -- Cirt (talk) 23:28, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Places for language-specific discussions

Is there a place where aspects particular to a single language can be discussed? I was thinking maybe the 'WT:About' page for that language, but is that common practice? —CodeCat 21:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I think so. --Yair rand 22:52, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The "WT:About" pages are to discuss how we treat languages. (what are the templates, POS headers, definitions, romanizations, etc.)

I'd use the Information desk for linguistic questions like "WTF is the difference between 'tu' and 'você' in Portuguese anyway?" or "How is the order of words in this Egyptian Arabic phrase?" --Daniel 08:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

But for consensus-building discussions about a single language? —CodeCat 11:30, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Wiktionary talk:About Languagename.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:16, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

be be a form of be!

In a sentence like "I try not to offend them: I be polite, I take off my shoes when entering their house, etc", what form of "be" am I using? The infinitive? A conjunctive/subjunctive form? I am aware that I could also say "I am polite", but isn't "I be polite" also grammatical, if literary? What form am I using in the sentence "I'll make you a deal: I be nice to your friend John, you be nice to my friend Jane"? Phol 07:54, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

You be nice is imperative. I be polite is, I believe, an antiquated form of the present indicative. —Stephen ^(Talk) 09:31, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

That use of be is part of AAVE. Some linguists who study the dialect assert that it is usually used to indicate a habitual or characteristic or, at least, continuing state or condition. Superficially, it seems to me to be used to cover more tenses, aspects, and moods than that. DCDuring TALK 15:04, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

It's not just AAVE. It's relatively rare, but I remember noticing it in a preview for Bratz: The Movie; one of the lead characters asks, "What do we do?" and another replies, "We be ourselves." (N.B. I don't know if this exchange occurred in the actual movie; previews are not always accurate.) I think everyone can agree that "We are ourselves" would not have worked (though I'm sure that many speakers will find that even "We be ourselves" will not work for them). As for what form — I think it's just a regular old non-third-person-singular present indicative form, but of a certain, defective sense of be. ("Defective" in that it doesn't have a complete conjugation; I'm fine with "We be ourselves", but I would not be fine with "So what did you do?" ?"I be'd myself!". Some speakers, however, do accept "be's" and "be'd", so for them I guess the conjugation isn't defective.) CGEL, by the way, refers to this sense of be as "lexical be", giving the example of "Why don't you be more tolerant?"^[38] —Ruakh_TALK 15:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

This work has be's as an inflected form sometimes occurring in the corpus used. OTOH, be'd seems much rarer. DCDuring TALK 17:24, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I think we need to backtrack a bit. Above, I wrote, "It's not just AAVE"; but really what I should have written was, "it's not AAVE at all". I disagree with your statement above, "That use of be is part of AAVE." There is a use of "be" that is part of AAVE, but Phol is (I believe) asking about a different use. My comment was about the use that (s)he is asking about. So the book that you link to, with its AAVE quotations that use be's, is not relevant to my comment. —Ruakh_TALK 18:23, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

See under Observations. —Stephen ^(Talk) 18:32, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

All these non-subjunctive senses might well be archaisms reflecting the Old English dual conjugation of the copula, see beon-wesan. In fact, ic bēo(m), þū bist, hē/hēo/it biþ, wē/gē/hī bēoþ, which would then be continued more or less directly in I be, thou beest, he/she/it be, we/ye/they be (which is also found as the general paradigm dialectally), do seem to have had a habitual sense originally. Note that AAVE can very well continue dialectal/archaic features conveyed through Southern American English dialects. Fascinating stuff. --Florian Blaschke 19:43, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

@Stephen G. Brown: Yeah, that may be what Phol has in mind; I wouldn't have thought so, except that (s)he describes it as "literary", which is a fair description of that use, and not a fair description of the use that I mentioned. —Ruakh_TALK 19:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Thinking over it again, the usage that Phol describes (and you, Ruakh, too, in your movie example) may rather be something else than an archaism – just an infinitive with a pronoun prepended: "What do we do?" – "We? Be ourselves." or "We, be ourselves." Though this might eventually have been supported by the archaic or (also) AAVE usage. --Florian Blaschke 19:59, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

Re "What do we do? ―We be ourselves", is that because there's an elided "do" in there ("We [do] be ourselves"), copied over from the question? Does the answer to that question make any difference?​—msh210℠ (talk) 22:01, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

This source characterizes non-imperative "do be" as part of Irish English and not part of Standard English, the latter being in accord with my ear.

There are a few things you can't quite say without it. "So what do we do? Do we be ourselves?" Definitely cannot use "are" here. Equinox ◑ 20:25, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I would be nice to know more about the context of the usages Phol has offered for discussion. DCDuring TALK 22:27, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

sorry, i've just been following this discussion rather interestedly. Perhaps this is actually a (rare) example of a first-person plural imperative being attested in English? Piddle 05:14, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

CGEL's "lexical be" seems like a simple infinitive to me, at least in the example given. Phol 06:52, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

No, sorry, you misunderstand me. CGEL's "lexical be" is not a form, but a sense. Like, the word "child" has one sense where it means "young human" (as in "hundreds of children attend the school") and one sense where it means "a human's offspring" (as in "all of her children are in their thirties"). In the example sentence, "Why don't you be more tolerant?", the form is the infinitive, but the sense is the so-called "lexical be". —Ruakh_TALK 14:47, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah, gotcha. Phol 21:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

So would a good definition be "To exist or behave in the manner specified" with a usage note about how it differs from the usual be?​—msh210℠ (talk) 22:01, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Ah, now I gotcha (I hope); it is easier to handle this as a sense (with its own conjugated forms), rather than as a conjugated form. [[Hang]] might be a model for how to explain the differing conjugations of the different senses. Phol 00:30, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I can't be sure it's the same form, because I'm not sure what the form is, but I think "what do we do? we be ourselves" is great example of the form I'm thinking of. An alternate indicative rather than a subjunctive seems like a good explanation. In fact, I would guess that Ruakh's defective conjugation of "be" is Stephen's archaic conjugation, which just lost a few forms as it made its way into the modern era. (It's not missing past tense forms for me; I'd say "what did I do? I was myself"; but I am missing a third person singular indicative.) The difference between the conjugations for me is that "I be" connotes doing, whereas "I am" is static. "I am polite to them" means I am unremarkably showing them the politeness I generally show everyone (and note this as I list everything that should lead to them not being offended), whereas "I be polite to them" emphasizes that I show them politeness (even when they test me with rudeness, or even when my politeness is not sincere). Hence I wrote "I be" in an e-mail, but then I questioned the grammar. (And FWIW I would say "We’re in Japan! What do we do? We be ourselves.") Re: my second, hypothetical example: I suppose whether "I'll make you a deal: I be nice to John, you be nice to Jane" is subjunctive or imperative depends on whether it's truly an offer or a demand. Phol 06:52, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Re: "'I be' connotes doing, whereas 'I am' is static": Yes, exactly: "I be polite" is a lexical be, whereas "I am polite" is a regular copula be. —Ruakh_TALK 14:47, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

So, how's this for a usage note? (Maybe we should have a giant collapsible table of forms like rechercher#Conjugation.) Phol 21:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Irish sí and English sidhe

Isn't sidhe/Sidhe simply borrowed from the pre-reform spelling sídhe/Sídhe of sí? Both words mean "(of the) fairy-mound", and seem to be pronounced identically; however, the pages note no connection, and sí lacks an etymology.

Note that the pages sídhe and Sídhe have been deleted for unclear reasons. Also note Scottish Gaelic sìdh, sluagh sìdhe, bean-shìdh and the like.

More precisely, I think the derivation is (and MacBain agrees): Proto-Celtic (Nom. Sg.) *sīdos, (Gen. Sg.) *sīdesos (a neuter s-stem) 'seat' > Old Irish síd, síde (neuter, I think) 'fairy dwelling/hill/mound' > Modern Irish sídh, sídhe (modern spelling: sí, sí) and Scottish Gaelic sìdh, sìdhe, with the genitive abstracted from set phrases such as fir síde, daoine síde and áes síde already in Old Irish as síde 'fairies', from whence Modern Irish sídh ~ sígh (modern spelling: sí) 'fairy', Scottish Gaelic sìdh ~ sìth. Proto-Celtic *sīdos is apparently also the origin of Old Irish síd 'peace' and its modern descendants. A mailing list post suggests that the ambiguity could be employed in Old Irish deliberately, to interpret the Áes Síde as 'people of the peace'. --Florian Blaschke 20:44, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

judgment of Solomon

Has anyone else heard of judgment of Solomon to mean 'really good judgment'? It's one of those things where I say it, and I'm not sure if anyone else does. Compare patience of Job. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:41, 25 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm familiar with wisdom of Solomon. I'm not sure it's idiomatic.​—msh210℠ (talk) 20:13, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I've heard it in connection of decisions that appear to be impossible to make. "It will take the judgement of Solomon to make a fair settlement in this divorce". SpinningSpark 22:16, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

I've had a go. feel free to improve. SemperBlotto 22:22, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Daniel come to judgement is similar. In the case of Solomon, the famous judgement seems to be the one about cutting a baby in half to appease two woman claiming to be its mother. (The one who refused to have this done was the real mother.) Equinox ◑ 21:27, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I'd have to agree I've certainly heard it used in that fashion. -- Cirt (talk) 23:24, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

batshit

The noun meaning of batshit is given as "alternative spelling of bat shit", but bat shit redirects batshit leaving no definition at all. Also, this does not have a plural, surely. SpinningSpark 22:36, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 22:43, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

The etymology is simply fascinating! -- Cirt (talk) 23:20, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

lord of creation

In the entry for weaker vessel there's this quote:

1. • 1868, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, ch. 41:

     When women are the advisers, the lords of creation don't take the advice till they have persuaded themselves that it is just what they intended to do. Then they act upon it, and, if it succeeds, they give the weaker vessel half the credit of it. If it fails, they generously give her the whole.

Does "lord of creation" refer to men? If so, is it a common enough usage to merit an entry? I searched Google for this term, but found little evidence, but perhaps it's dated. Capitalized it seems to refer to God. In Finnish there's the expression (deprecated template usage) luomakunnan kruunu, which refers to men, and I would want to find a proper translation for it. "Men" will do, of course, but I want something that catches the spirit. --Hekaheka 05:51, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with that phrase in lowercase referring to mortal men, either. But I suppose patriarchal Judeochristians may hold a doctrine that Yahweh created Adam in his image to be lord over Yahweh's creation. ~ Robin 06:57, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Plenty of bgc hits in the plural. I'm not sure if it means men, though, or has some other meaning with men as the most common referent.​—msh210℠ (talk) 15:55, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

santorum

Could someone not previously involved in editing this entry please check it over and make sure it conforms to this project's policies, please? Definition 2 seems particularly gratuitous. --Anthonyhcole 14:31, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

Note: Admin CodeCat (talk • contribs) has dutifully explained matters pertaining to site policy at the talk page for the entry, and admin Robin Lionheart (talk • contribs) has been quite helpful with adding additional sourcing and referencing for the page, both at its main definition page with quotes, and at the citations page with additional referencing. -- Cirt (talk) 16:14, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

• Definition one is absolutely solid. Definition 2 is a bit more precarious, and I will be happier when we get more printed citations and fewer usenet ones. But it still looks like it passes CFI. (Arguably, the two could be combined without much loss.) Ƿidsiþ 08:45, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

• I made this edit to the etymology to correct some POV. The wording "equated homosexuality with bestiality" was particularly nebulous IMO. Equated in what way? You could read that as "he said that homosexuality was equally as bad as bestiality" whereas his opinion was really that bestiality is another thing that a "healthy family" is not. It was enough to say that his views were "perceived as anti-gay" in the spirit of NPOV. Although even for NPOV it wouldn't be a too much of a stretch to say that they were anti-gay, someone might take exception to that and WT:NPOV does say "It's OK to state opinions in articles, but they must be presented as opinions, not as fact." —Internoob 03:56, 4 February 2012 (UTC)
• Update: Admin Robin Lionheart (talk • contribs) created a Citations page for this entry, at Citations:santorum. Cheers, -- Cirt (talk) 04:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

morfosi

This Italian word is defined as meaning morphosis, which doesn't appear to be an English word at all. Is morphosis a word that needs to be added, or is morfosi bogus/unclear/otherwise problematic? Metaknowledge 23:45, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

• Added English word. I know we have nearly three million words, but there are just as many that we haven't got yet. SemperBlotto 08:40, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

gelatin

How come this is defined as an alternate form of gelatine? In my experience, it is exactly the opposite. Can we switch these two? Metaknowledge 21:00, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

The label of "alternative form" does not mean "lesser" or less common. It means that the spelling is an alternative, and the difference may be regional. --EncycloPetey 21:13, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

It's probably a US/UK variation. In these cases our normal policy is - whoever bothers to actually add the word gets to choose which is the primary form and which is the alternative. It is considered impolite to swap them around later. SemperBlotto 21:17, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

What about a case such as this in which gelatin is 75 times more common than gelatine in the US and just one-third as common in the UK (based on COCA and BNC)? And generally are evidence-based changes rude? DCDuring TALK 23:07, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Interesting. I suppose we could use ((mostly|UK)) and ((mostly|US)). IMO, in general, if one form is significantly more common than another, and without large variation between major Englishes, we should put the main content at the common form and have others link to it. But (i) ideally those "links" should probably be drawing in the content from the main entry, rather than forcing us to click again, and (ii) the commonness of forms is definitely variable across the time dimension. Equinox ◑ 23:19, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I have a package of "Gelatine" which clarifies itself by saying "Ingredients: Gelatin" :P - -sche (discuss) 00:44, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

The other ingredient is an E number. Equinox ◑ 00:46, 30 January 2012 (UTC)

@ -sche on my packet of ibuprofen it says "do not take if allergic to ibuprofen". Mglovesfun (talk) 12:26, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

February 2012

cluebat

Can someone write a real definition for it? The current one isn't very helpful. — Jeraphine Gryphon 10:11, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree; LART needs work too, if attested, in both cases. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:27, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Good now? (Both entries.) Incidentally, for future reference, you can use [[WT:RFC]] for issues like this.​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:13, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd say both entries look pretty understandably worded right now, good work. ;) -- Cirt (talk) 23:18, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

contour

I think there's at least a phonetics sense missing here, which might possibly even make contour tone SoP. -- Liliana • 00:56, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Added it. Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV 01:35, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

momist

This does not seem like a real word after a quick Google search. Attestation, anyone? Metaknowledge 02:33, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Striking as an RFV has been started. Equinox ◑ 13:10, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

upstate

I seem to remember occasionally hearing the word "upstate" used in a euphemism for killing an animal (like put out to pasture... hmmm... the entry doesn't mention that meaning, either). On 1/31, Colbert's "The Word" had a screen suggesting that the Arapaho people were "Sent to a Reservation 'Upstate'". Does anyone know more about such uses of "upstate"? Rl 10:02, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

they two

"third person dual pronoun." From User:Shoof, who IMO has done quite a few strange/non-standard entries. I would like to know if this is either non-standard (versus "those two", "the two of them") or NISoP. Equinox ◑ 20:04, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

they two sounds alien. I’ve never seen it or heard it before. If I encountered it, I would think they were saying "they too". —Stephen ^(Talk) 20:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

you two failed RFD, so I would guess this is also SOP. - -sche (discuss) 20:56, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I would have supported keeping "you two." I'd note that "us two" also doesn't sound horrible, and I've heard it used before, though "the two of us" or "both of us" sounds better. With "them two," you've got not only "two of them" and "both of them" but "those two" as well, yet I can still see it working. On the other hand the term in question: "they two" definitely sounds weird. --Quintucket 21:39, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with the misgivings. It seems rare, at best, though it looks like it might be used ocaasionally to translate certain pronouns (Arabic & Tok Pisin?) - which consideration should be ignored. See [39].— Pingku^dimmi 23:31, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Dual seems wrong as English, to the best of my knowledge, has never had a dual. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

enthral

The forms (deprecated template usage) enthraling and (deprecated template usage) enthraled seem very much obsolete, and rare. I get the impression that the usual inflections of this verb are (deprecated template usage) enthralling and (deprecated template usage) enthralled (just as the L can double in, say, (deprecated template usage) travelling). Equinox ◑ 23:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the participle forms with the single ell don't exist in British English, and if American English always uses "enthrall", then the single ell form for the participles must be a mis-spelling. I've changed the entry, and also removed the false impression that "enthrall" is not used in British English. I think the mistaken impression arises because British English removes an ell before -ment (as in enthralment, instalment, etc.), so some people assume, by back-formation, that the word enthrall has only one ell. The single ell version is not unknown, of course, and the OED includes it as an alternative spelling (with just two cites out of seventeen using the single ell, and those are from 1695 and 1720), but does not permit the single ell participles. My preference would be to have just "alternative spelling of", rather than a separate entry for the single ell version. I believe that Garner's modern American usage is wrong in its claim that "enthrall" is American and "enthral" is British. Search Google books for evidence, where both spelling are used on both sides of the pond. What does anyone else think? Dbfirs 08:09, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Agree with all you said. Just to add 2c .. I am of the informed opinion that when the stress of a word like this falls on the last syllable, the ell is normally doubled in British English, and in participle etc. formations in both UK/US English. Hence (deprecated template usage) traveled in US and (deprecated template usage) travelled in UK, but (deprecated template usage) enthralled in both language pools. -- ALGRIF talk 12:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

fa'a#Samoan

Do I have the correct part of speech for this? Metaknowledge 03:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd say it appears to be a preposition. —Quintucket 09:59, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I didn't know, so I just put it as an adverb because it seemed like a broader form of sic#Latin. Metaknowledge 16:41, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd say it appears to resemble, based on the definition give, the English preposition "like." ("You worked him like a dog.") —Quintucket 17:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Maybe I didn't define it well enough. If x is a noun, then Samoan: fa'a x can be translated to English: x-style. Metaknowledge 17:44, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid I still don't understand. —Quintucket 18:00, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I think that in English we'd use the preposition like, or another preposition, for a word with that meaning — except that sometimes we'd use the noun style (appended, after a hyphen). In general, AFAIK, what POS something is isn't dependent only on its meaning, and doesn't necessarily translate from one language to another. You need to know Samoan to answer this question. (This is but one of the reasons people shouldn't add entries in languages they don't know.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:23, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm afraid that I am ignorant about many POS designations even within English, my native language. If there is a way I can help you tell which one this is by means of usage, let me know. Metaknowledge 03:02, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Can you give us some example sentences with word-for-word translations? I also suspect it's a preposition, but I need to see it in its native habitat to be sure. —Angr 11:14, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Common phrases using it include: fa'a Samoa ("Samoa-style", or "the way it is done in Samoa"), fa'a tama ("like a [male] child", usually translated as "tomboy"), fa'a fafine ("like a woman", referring to certain feminine men). "Fa'a Samoa" if treated as a single word would be an adverb or adjective, depending on usage, but "fa'a tama" and "fa'a fafine" usually function as nouns when each is taken as a single word.Metaknowledge 01:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

It's almost certainly a preposition then, as it's always followed by a noun. The noun-like usages of fa'a tama and fa'a fafine are substantivized prepositional phrases. —Angr 11:12, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Changed it. Metaknowledge 05:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I Just noticed the subtle changes you made there, Meta. The spacing between fa'a and Samoa is entirely optional. In fact, more often than not, the two are written together with fa'a acting as a prefixed preposition to the name of the country/culture following it. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 00:58, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

queen of beasts translations

How sure are we that the translations given under "queen of beasts" mean "lioness" and not just "queen of beasts" ? Shadyaubergine 22:33, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

win and victory

So, to win is to obtain a victory and victory is the state of having won a competition or battle. Is this a circular definition or not? --flyax 22:49, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

I think we are missing a victory sense; the current one seems to be uncountable, and the one we are missing would be a synonym of win (noun: an individual victory). But I can't think of a definition which isn't circular. Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV 03:44, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

The "SB rule of dictionary circularity" states that EVERY definition in EVERY dictionary is ultimately circular. They all define words in terms of other words whose definitions do the same. To avoid circularity you would need to start with a word (or words) that need no definition because they are self-evident. SemperBlotto 08:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Ultimately, yes. However there is a difference between a circle of 5 and a circle of 2 words. It seems we have here the latter. --flyax 11:56, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Even in American Sign Language, where it seems like things should be self-evident by pointing, only the numbers 1-5, you, I, and he/she are self-evident, and the latter three wouldn't be self-evident if you tried to used them to explain a spoken language. See w:Gavagai. That said, it's possible that these could be clearer. I'll think about it and y'all should too. —Quintucket 11:44, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with SB about the ultimate impossibility of escaping circularity of definitions. Further, I think that in practice we are likely to have instance of circles of two. From a user perspective, it is probably satisfactory if at least one of the headwords in the circle has either, 1., a good set of usage examples in the appropriate sense or, 2., an ostensive definition, such as, 2a, an image or, 2b, another reference to one or more examples, such as the, 2bi, examples of rhetorical devices or, 2bii, the sound files. Still, checking to see how other dictionaries word their definitions wil;l almost always reveal an approach to, 3., rewording. DCDuring TALK 17:04, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Bingo. If, theoretically, we wanted to avoid circular definitions, DCDuring hits on the way we could do it: not self-evident words, per se, but words defined by pictures (and videos and sounds). Of course, it would be impractical to sort through our entries to be sure they were all noncircular, so let's not... but we could expand this' circle if we defined win as "to obtain success, to triumph" or such. - -sche (discuss) 18:12, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

delete

It's 3am and I'm tired so I'm not going to touch this one, but suffice to say the definitions are far from adequate. "Delete" is more than just "remove, get rid of, erase" - it is only used in written or computing contexts, for one. An example sentence wouldn't go astray either. Who can help? ---> Tooironic 15:50, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

Can it also be a euphemism for kill/destroy? Is the computing sense correct, to hide? Mglovesfun (talk) 14:44, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think so. It's true that "deleting" is often used in computing contexts to refer to actions that don't actually expunge something from existence (for example, "deleting" a file just unlinks it from the filesystem, but doesn't immediately affect the contents of the file; and "deleting" a bit of text doesn't mean that Ctrl-Z can't retrieve it), but I think that "delete" still means "delete", it's just that sometimes expunge-from-existence is an adequate abstraction even it's not really what's happening. —Ruakh_TALK 00:52, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I was referring more to the context in which the word is used, not the actual process that occurs when you delete something. I've modified the definition to "To remove, get rid of or erase, especially written or printed material, or data on a computer." It's not perfect, but it's closer to being a clearer, more helpful definition. ---> Tooironic 11:56, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

judical vs judicial

Hello, guys! I'm from russian wiktionary and we have the entry judical (ru:judical). I think it's a common mistake (typo) in english, and it's a word for immediate deletion. And others think is a word spelled by a small community, for example by emigrants or it's a intentional typo. And the number of entries in google can prove it, according to their opinion. I think not the number, nor the small community not explain the addition of the word to the wiktionary. Have you heard about this word? The discussion in russian wiktionary (in russian) -- #1 #2, #3 Thank you! --141.113.85.91 16:21, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

• Hi there. I think that many of its usages are spelling mistakes / typos for (deprecated template usage) judicial, but that it is (or has become) a real word. I can see many Google hits from government (and similar) websites. It seems to have a slightly different flavour of meaning - maybe "pertaining to judges" rather than "pertaining to courts". We should have an entry for it, SemperBlotto 16:31, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

  I don't see it as other than a misspelling. The "pertaining to judges" sense is just missing from our definition of judicial, I think. To test the independent word theory we could see whether the distribution of meanings for judical was about the same as that for judicial in contemporary usage. Though we don't have multiple meanings for judicial, MWOnline has five, some of which seem current. DCDuring TALK 19:31, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

  I don't see this difference neither. I agree with DCDuring. I think if we talk about difference we should view a constant use of the word in a part of a book (1st sense) and in other part of a book (2d sense "pertaining to judges"). And i don't see it. I don't see the strong system of 2 different senses of this two different words. In fact i see statistically irrelevant results in google. May be, i missing something because i'm not a native speaker... --141.113.85.91 12:30, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

• I agree with DCDuring and the anon: I can only find what appear to be typos for (deprecated template usage) judicial. Like SemperBlotto, I see many Google hits from government web-sites, but in most of them, the typo appears only the page's "title" (where it's easy to miss), with the exact same phrase appearing correctly-spelled in the page proper. The only page I can find that even could be using them non-synonymously is this one, and even there, I see no reason to interpret it that way. —Ruakh_TALK 18:38, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

... agreed, so should we have just "common mis-spelling of judicial"? Dbfirs 13:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd say no; it's probably a typo not a spelling error. In the same way that to is spelt ot if you accidentally invert the letters. The mean reason I say this is the two can't really be homophones, since -cal should be pronounced /kəl/. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the rules about soft and hard "c"s are taught much these days, but you are probably right. It's an amazingly common typo with over nine million ghits, and nearly a quarter of a million in Google Books. I can see that it is very easy to omit the second "i" when typing, but the fact that the errors don't seem to have been noticed suggests that some people must think that "judical" is a correct spelling. Perhaps people are just less observant than I expect them to be? Dbfirs 17:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it's chiefly that people don't notice it. Like I mentioned above, there are a lot of web-pages that use it in the page-title, but not in the body; to me, this suggests that it's a simple typo that best escapes notice in small print that no one reads very carefully. —Ruakh_TALK 21:08, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree too, that is not a spelling error, but a pure typo. I think it may be a recognition error also. I compared the book on BNC [40] (judical) and on google books [41] (judicial). --141.113.85.91 14:29, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Policy violation w/ regard to spelling variations?

Hi, just wanted to check on Wiktionary policy regarding spelling variatons between US, Canada, Commonwealth, NK, AU, and so on. The only thing I can find regarding this is on Talk:color, where User:Stephen_G._Brown says,

Any spelling that is normal in the U.S. carries exactly the same weight as a different spelling that is normal in the UK or NZ, regardless of which came first or which is truer to etymology or any other reason.

If this is correct, then I wanted to bring to someone's attention the recent edit to aeroplane (UK/NZ/AU spelling) and airplane (US spelling). Previously, airplane was defined as "an aeroplane; [rest of definition]" and aeroplane was defined as "an airplane; [rest of definition]". This was just changed by User:SemperBlotto, who has removed aeroplane from the definition of airplane, and replace the entire definition of aeroplane with the text "an airplane". Is this as per Wiktionary policy? Edam 17:04, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

There really isn't any policy on this as we don't agree. Some argue that having a full entry for color and colour in English is impractical as editors will edit them separately, so they'll say different things. Others say that since they're both very common, both need an entry and there's no way to choose which one to 'soft redirect' to the other. In cases where one variant is common and all other variants are uncommon or a lot less common, {{alternative form of}} is usually used uncontroversially. The problem is situations like this, where both are very common. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:08, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Wow. I'd have thought you'd have a clear policy for this! Well, SemperBlotto is an Admin and, as a simple user, it's probably not appropriate for me to roll back his edits. So who would I raise this with? How should I resolve this if there is no policy!? Edam 17:17, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Just negotiation I'm afraid. Unless anyone else has a better idea. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:18, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

To me, it makes no sense to duplicate definitions as we do on color/colour. We should choose just one to have the definitions etc., and the other should be a soft redirect. On color/colour we have a synchronization warning at the top, but editors only see this if they edit the entire article (rather than a section). SemperBlotto 17:23, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I don't like it either; I always use US spellings when editing for the same reason, despite being British. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:24, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi SemperBlotto. Thanks for replying! No, I agree that having two separately maintained definitions is a poor solution. The only reason that I think it is a better solution than one being defined in terms of the other (or a redirection) is that it gives greater credibility to one (and in this case, defines one in terms of a word that doesn't exist in the same language variant!). Let me ask you this: as an Admin, how would you have reacted if someone had edited those entries in the reverse, so that airplane was defined as "an aeroplane"? Edam 18:01, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

That would be even better (I'm English and "aeroplane" is the spelling that I use). SemperBlotto 19:45, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh, fair enough. :o) So, IIUC, you are saying that you find having to maintain separate definitions more obnoxious (even where the definitions are trivial) than redirecting one to the other (even where the other spelling variation is not valid in places where the one is used). If this is your preference then I suppose that will probably be unable to sway you to revert your edit. Edam 00:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

On a slight side-note, a nice solution would be if the technology allowed for two separate pages to display the same content. Not a redirection, but an "alias". Then, the one page, accessible via all spellings, could list the spelling variations. Edam 18:01, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

The technology does allow for that. (We call such a thing a "redirect", sometimes a "hard-redirect", as opposed to the soft-redirection discussed above and (I assume) in the comment of yours I'm replying to.) We've decided not to use it for things like this.  :-) ​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:14, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

But a redirect does not allow two pages to show the same content. It only allows one page to show the same content as a second "master" page. There is still one page that is clearly the main, true, master page. If we redirected colour to color then it would be clear that colour was the poor relation. Equinox ◑ 23:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I just had this idea... The problem with different spellings doesn't just happen with term entries but also with definitions that use those terms, even definitions of words in other languages (such as German (deprecated template usage) Farbe). In the end, a user is probably only going to be interested in the spelling native to their area, and will expect US spellings to be 'alternatives' if they use British spelling, and British spellings if they use US spelling. So in a sense this is really a localisation issue, and what users expect to see depends on each individual user. So, could a script of some kind be made so that users can set their preferred spelling standard in their preferences, and then entries can be formatted in such a way that it takes that setting into account? That way, color could show 'US spelling of colour' if their preferred spelling is British, but contain all the right definitions if their preferred spelling is US. —CodeCat 18:09, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Even if that's feasible, it'd only help the very few users who set preferences.​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:11, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree that spellings within articles are a localisation issue, but I'm not sure that I would agree for the entry names themselves. What if an Englishman wanted to look-up an American spelling? I like the idea of a script that handles in-article spellings though. Edam 00:09, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

See also the pair mold/mould, although that might be controversial. -- Liliana • 21:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Since some people get so touchy about this, I think we should have a user-level setting or preference saying "I want to see N.Am. spellings as the primary spellings", or "I want to see British spellings as the primary spellings". Citations aside, we could then present the same content under either form. This would also work for those madmen who liketh ye Spællings of Olde. (Obviously this is over-simplified and I know there are forms of English that are neither US nor UK. I'm really having a jab at the modern Democracy2.0 where you stick your fingers in your ears and downvote anything you don't like.) Equinox ◑ 23:08, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

D'oh, CodeCat got there before me. Well done. Equinox ◑ 23:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

The solution, when we find it, needs to be easily available to all users, even casual IPs, so I'm not convinced that a settable preference would work. I've suggested elsewhere (with help from others) that both spellings should be redirects to template space where the full entry is shown with both spellings (as in the OED and other good dictionaries). I'm not expert enough in the way things work here to risk testing this out, and I don't want to upset the experts here who work so hard to improve Wiktionary. Are there reasons why this method will not work? Dbfirs 13:10, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

It breaks things like Random page, AutoFormat, Statistics, and others. Bad idea. -- Liliana • 13:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, yes, I got that wrong, didn't I? I should have suggested having both as real entries (without redirect), but using a template that has both spellings and contains the definitions . Can anyone suggest a better solution? Dbfirs 13:22, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

We've had that before, for translations only. It was a lot of trouble because it made the pages really confusing to edit for newcomers. -- Liliana • 13:53, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

If MediaWiki were to support page "aliases" (where the same content is displayed an can be edited via multiple page names), this wouldn't be a problem. Edam 00:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

To Edam, this is exactly why we have no policy on this; there are many ideas of how to handle this situation, and none of them has something even close to a majority. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:41, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

That's all well and good until someone realizes they actually aren't used in exactly the same way. We've been through these kinds of conversations before, and no preference has always been the recommended course. Corrected. DAVilla 21:21, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

holokinetic

Scrabbled together from Wikipedia. Can someone who knows about tasty PIE check that my definition makes sense, please? Equinox ◑ 13:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

It was a little confusing so I changed it a bit and added a usage notes. The definitions of amphikinetic and proterokinetic are much more vague, though, especially in the context of PIE... and when compared to hysterokinetic and acrostatic which are much clearer. —CodeCat 13:18, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

wall

I don't do "social networking", but I've come across this term (deprecated template usage) wall for a sort of personal Internet notice-board that shows an ongoing stream of messages related to its owner (e.g. stuff posted by their friends). Is this only used on Facebook or is it a generic term? For example can you have a "Google+ wall" or a "LiveJournal wall" as well? Equinox ◑ 17:23, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I've only heard it on FaceBook, but Google Plus calls it a wall and apparently people apply the term to MySpace and other social networking sites. LiveJournal is closer to a blog and doesn't seem to have it. DAVilla 21:10, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I'd agree with this assessment by DAVilla (talk • contribs), it seems to be primarily a term that grew out of Facebook and is quickly becoming applicable to multiple other spheres of social networking. -- Cirt (talk) 23:16, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

assertive

The definition reads, "boldly self-assured; aggressively confident; cocky". This is not the meaning I am familiar with. I always thought it meant something like you are confident but not in an aggressive way. Apparently this is also how the Oxford Dictionary interprets it. ---> Tooironic 11:16, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

The definition seems within range of some of the usage I hear. AHD: "Inclined to bold or confident assertion; aggressively self-assured." DCDuring TALK 14:59, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

In my impression, the word often alludes to aggression as well as confidence. Assertive people are usually calm, and make sure-footed progress towards a goal often at the expense of other less assertive individuals. They tend to be more in favour of their own ideas, and would voice them without giving others a chance to voice theirs. Jamesjiao → ^{T ◊ C} 21:53, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I've encountered the word usage in various mediums as all of the definitions discussed, above. Perhaps the best approach would be to document each definition, with appropriate citations. -- Cirt (talk) 23:08, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

háček

The extended definition of "háček" that has been entered into háček, resulting in this revision, seems unduly encyclopedic. The pronunciation háček is used to indicate in various languages is not part of what the diacritic is. I am inclined to remove the recent additions to the definition, leaving only this: "A diacritical mark: 〈ˇ〉, usually resembling an inverted circumflex: 〈ˆ〉, but in the cases of ď, Ľ, ľ, and ť, taking instead a form similar to a prime: 〈′〉" or this "A diacritical mark 〈ˇ〉 used in some West Slavic, Baltic, and Finno-Lappic languages, and in some romanization methods, e.g. pinyin, to modify the sounds of letters", which was the definition before recent additions. I do not see two senses of "háček" but only one. --Dan Polansky 09:31, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

I think you're right that the word (deprecated template usage) háček just means 〈ˇ〉, but (deprecated template usage) ˇ needs all the information that I've currently added to (deprecated template usage) háček. I'm a bit swamped IRL at the moment, so could you give me a couple of weeks to transfer to and re-present that information in various sections of (deprecated template usage) ˇ, so I can show you what I mean? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 18:51, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

in I don’t know how long

I have seen in I don’t know how long several times, and its meaning is clear, but isn’t it unusual grammatically? The preposition is directly placed before the proposition. I can’t find a grammatical explanation here on Wiktionary. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 15:44, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

It's not too unusual:

• "You have to ask permission before each and every action, from smooching to you know what."
• "He's engaged in God knows what {activities|shenanigans|nonsense)."
• ":It's been in business since I don't remember when."

It does seem best considered grammatical, not lexical. CGEL, I think, characterizes such clauses as constituting "nominals" in such usage. DCDuring TALK 16:27, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Okay, they are similar to the French je ne sais (like in je ne sais quoi) but freer grammatically. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:48, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

For a contrasting case of one particular instance of preposition + nominal clause that may be idiomatic because of a semantic shift, see in that. A few OneLook dictionaries show in that as an idiomatic run-in entry at in. DCDuring TALK 01:00, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

plural

(Adjective) I have discovered numerous uses of "more plural than", sometimes seeming to me to mean "more pluralistic than". However, some of the citations don't really fit that definition. What definition would fit? DCDuring TALK 17:08, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

hang

Someone pointed me to this on Youtube [42]. Obviously the whole thing's in Italian, but what's the instrument called if not a hang? The artist describes himself as a "hang player", presumably both of those words are from English. Do we need another definition for hang, and if so, what's the etymology, maybe Mandarin or Korean. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:26, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Probably German. W:Hang_drum. Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV 23:32, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Just noticed. We already have this entry at Hang. Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV 23:34, 12 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmm. I've added it at (deprecated template usage) hang (English & Italian) as well. SemperBlotto

Note there's an oral citation for musicoterapia in the link above. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:02, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

enjoy your meal

Is this just a sum of parts, or am I missing some odd idiomaticity? Metaknowledge 05:56, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

It's SOP. It's arguably, but probably not, phrasebook material.​—msh210℠ (talk) 07:01, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

's for does

At 's, to the meaning "contraction of does" I have added the following qualifier: (used only with the auxiliary meaning of (deprecated template usage) does and only after (deprecated template usage) what). Can anyone think of any exceptions to these conditions? I can't think of any other time when does contracts to ’s. Probably not after who (*?Who's he think he is?), certainly not after non-interrogative pronouns (*He's not see her for He doesn't see her), and definitely not after non-auxiliary does (*What's its best? for What does its best?). Other ideas? —Angr 13:31, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Not specifically (deprecated template usage) what — consider "Where's he live?", "When's he get […]?", "How's he do […]?" — but I agree that it's only with auxiliary does, and I can't think of any examples without subject-auxiliary inversion. —Ruakh_TALK 15:02, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, BGC also has several hits for google books:"who's he think he is". But perhaps only after wh-words (a group that includes how). —Angr 15:36, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Is this relevant?​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:01, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure; I don't see anything there but a description of the book. Is there a possibly relevant quote you mean? —Angr 17:59, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

File:Google Books screenshot.png

Sorry. I've added it to the right.​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:07, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Well, in that clearly nonstandard and possibly nonnative variety of English (a pidgin or creole, perhaps) it's difficult to say. "He's" may be "he is" followed by a bare infinitive rather than the present participle. In "he's come" and "he's sed", of course, it may be "he has". —Angr 18:36, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

An American Indian dialect, FWIW. (Per the book's intro.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:29, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

ul-Haq

There are several prominent Pakistani people whose name is of the form Xyz-ul-Haq (e.g. the cricketers Inzamam-ul-Haq and the less famous Misbah-ul-Haq (currently 0 not out against England)). What does the term signify. and is the entire name a surname (or what)? SemperBlotto 15:55, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

From Arabic (deprecated template usage) الحق (ul-Haqq), one of the epithets of God in the Qur'an. The whole name (such as Misbah-ul-Haq) forms the person’s last name. (deprecated template usage) مصباح (miSbaH) + (deprecated template usage) الحق (ul-Haqq) = Lamp-of-Truth or Light-of-Truth (where Truth is a figurative reference to God). —Stephen ^(Talk) 18:38, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I think "the Truth" is al-Haqq. As I understand it, ul-Haqq is "of the Truth", with the u being a Classical nominative-construct ending from the previous word (and the al getting reduced to l as a result). —Ruakh_TALK 18:58, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

I don’t think it’s like that ... different countries and different languages that use Arabic words romanize the Arabic differently. In some countries such as Egypt, it’s usually el-. In others, it’s il-, in others al-. In some like Pakistan, it’s ul-. And u being a Classical nominative-construct ending from the previous word is Classical Arabic, it’s not Urdu, and generally not the case with modern Arabic dialects. —Stephen ^(Talk) 19:23, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Obviously Classical endings are Classical, what else would they be? ;-)   But you said yourself that this construction is from Arabic. I'm just clarifying what (I think) the ul means, and that it's ultimately that way from Classical Arabic. It's pretty common, cross-linguistically, for borrowings to act as a bit of a "freezer" while the original language changes; speakers of modern Arabic dialects have updated the "ul-" to "el-/il-/al-" in such names because they no longer use the case endings anywhere, but Urdu-speakers have no reason to do that. Like how in English we write (deprecated template usage) connoisseur, even though the French no longer use that spelling, because once we'd borrowed the word we no longer had to keep it up-to-date. (And I think that Urdu speakers probably have some idea of the Classical meaning of ul in such names, because in romanization they'll sometimes attach the ul to the preceding name-part, e.g. by writing "Zia-ul-Haq" as "Ziaul-Haq".) —Ruakh_TALK 22:08, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

It would be different if we were speaking of the spelling or construction in Perso-Arabic, but we are not. This is just the romanization. Romanizations don’t do those things that you mentioned. Even in Classical Arabic, the ul- did not mean "of the", it only meant that the head word was in the nominative case. Hebrew has a feature where a word like Template:Hebr is analyzed as "houses-of", but Classical Arabic does not have anything like that. Classical Arabic has true noun cases, so "lamp of truth" would have the word al-Haqq in the genitive, which is al-Haqqi. The head word, if the subject of the sentence, would be in the nominative, giving ul-Haqqi, but in other parts of the sentence, the head word could be in the accusative or the genitive, giving al-Haqqi or il-Haqqi. But "of truth" is in the Haqqi, not in the ul-. But in Urdu, we are talking about romanization only, and the u of ul- is the English u of uh. —Stephen ^(Talk) 00:45, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

Re: " […] Classical Arabic does not have anything like that": Well, it does, but you're right: in that case Haqq should also be in the genitive. (And I see what you mean about the romanization.) —Ruakh_TALK 01:52, 14 February 2012 (UTC)

I knew that somebody here would know. So, do we need an (English?) entry for any of (deprecated template usage) ul, (deprecated template usage) ul-Haq or (deprecated template usage) Haq? SemperBlotto 19:29, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

both

I'm not sure, but think we may be missing the sense(s) of (deprecated template usage) both found in "Both of them are..." and/or in "Give me both." (which latter usex we do have, but I think it may be under the wrong sense).​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:35, 13 February 2012 (UTC)