Wiktionary:Requests for deletion

Wiktionary > Requests > Requests for deletion

Wiktionary Request pages (edit) see also: discussions
Requests for cleanup add new | history | archives Cleanup requests, questions and discussions.	Requests for verification/English add new English request | history | archives Requests for verification in the form of durably-archived attestations conveying the meaning of the term in question.	Requests for verification/CJK add new CJK request | history Requests for verification of entries in Chinese, Japanese, Korean or any other language using an East Asian script.	Requests for verification/Italic add new Italic request | history Requests for verification of Italic-language entries.	Requests for verification/Non-English add new non-English request | history | archives Requests for verification of any other non-English entries.	Requests for deletion/Others add new | history Requests for deletion and undeletion of pages in other (not the main) namespaces, such as categories, appendices and templates.
Requests for moves, mergers and splits add new | history | archives Moves, mergers and splits; requests listings, questions and discussions.	Requests for deletion/English add new English request | history | archives Requests for deletion of pages in the main namespace due to policy violations; also for undeletion requests.	Requests for deletion/CJK add new CJK request | history Requests for deletion and undeletion of entries in Chinese, Japanese, Korean or any other language using an East Asian script.	Requests for deletion/Italic add new Italic request | history Requests for deletion and undeletion of Italic-language entries.	Requests for deletion/Non-English add new non-English request | history | archives Requests for deletion and undeletion of any other non-English entries.	Requests for deletion/​Reconstruction add new reconstruction request | history Requests for deletion and undeletion of reconstructed entries.
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All Wiktionary: namespace discussions 1 2 3 4 5 - All discussion pages 1 2 3 4 5

Scope of this request page:

• In-scope: terms suspected to be multi-word sums of their parts such as “green leaf”
• Out-of-scope: terms whose existence is in doubt

Templates:

• {{rfd}}
• {{rfd-sense}}
• {{rfd-redundant}}
• {{archive-top|rfd}} + {{archive-bottom}}

See also:

• Criteria for inclusion
• Page deletion guidelines

Scope: This page is for requests for deletion of pages, entries and senses in the main namespace for a reason other than that the term cannot be attested. The most common reason for posting an entry or a sense here is that it is a sum of parts, such as "green leaf". It is occasionally used for undeletion requests (requests to restore entries that may have been wrongly deleted).

Out of scope: This page is not for words whose existence or attestation is disputed, for which see Wiktionary:Requests for verification. Disputes regarding whether an entry falls afoul of any of the subsections in our criteria for inclusion that demand a particular kind of attestation (such as figurative use requirements for certain place names and the WT:BRAND criteria) should also go to RFV. Blatantly obvious candidates for deletion should only be tagged with {{delete|Reason for deletion}} and not listed.

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

Closing a request: A request can be closed once a month has passed after the nomination was posted, except for snowball cases. If a decision to delete or keep has not been reached due to insufficient discussion, {{look}} can be added and knowledgeable editors pinged. If there is sufficient discussion, but a decision cannot be reached because there is no consensus, the request can be closed as “no consensus”, in which case the status quo is maintained. The threshold for consensus is hinted at the ratio of 2/3 of supports to supports and opposes, but is not set in stone and other considerations than pure tallying can play a role; see the vote.

• Deleting or removing the entry or sense (if it was deleted), or de-tagging it (if it was kept). In either case, the edit summary or deletion summary should indicate what is happening.
• Adding a comment to the discussion here with either RFD-deleted or RFD-kept, indicating what action was taken.
• Striking out the discussion header.

(Note: In some cases, like moves or redirections, the disposition is more complicated than simply “RFD-deleted” or “RFD-kept”.)

Archiving a request: At least a week after a request has been closed, if no one has objected to its disposition, the request should be archived to the entry's talk page. This is usually done using the aWa gadget, which can be enabled at WT:PREFS.

Oldest tagged RFDs

• No pages meet these criteria.

May 2014

mahā

I would like to request the restoration, in some form, of mahā, the transliteration of the Sanskrit महा (great). In the course of fixing disambiguation links to this title on Wikipedia, I have found many uses of mahā with this meaning. It is similarly widely used in books. However, searching for it here takes the reader to maha, which has no information on the Sanskrit meaning of the word. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:54, 20 May 2014 (UTC)

We don't do Sanskrit romanised forms. If you want to find a term using this transliteration - 1. paste/type it in the search window and linger to see suggestions, 2. select containing mahā from the bottom and click enter/double-click. A Search results page will appear 3. "Search in namespaces:" check "None" first, then check (Main). This will shorten your search to the main namespace and click "Search". again. महत् appears the 4th in the results. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:08, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that sort of advice is going to reach the average reader, who is more likely to either type maha into the window, or to type/paste in mahā and hit enter, which will take them to maha. I'm not sure why we wouldn't "do" this unusually well attested romanization. If someone sees this word in English text, they should be able to find it defined here. bd2412 T 02:55, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

(E/C)I was just giving you a technical advice how to reach the entry currently, since searching in Wiktionary and search results keep changing. There's no policy on romanised Sanskrit, AFAIK, even if romanisations are attested, they are not in the native script. E.g. ghar is an attestable transliteration of Hindi घर but we only have घर (there's Irish but no Hindi), yeoksa is an attestable transliteration of Korean 역사 but we only have 역사. I'm just stating the fact, so if mahā is created, any admin may delete it on sight. The policies can be created and changed, though. There are romanisations for some languages with complex scripts. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:19, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

We could add matching transliterations to the {{also}} templates. As for whether this entry should be restored, WT:About Sanskrit#Transliterated entries bans transliteration entries, so I oppose unless the Sanskrit editing community decides to change that. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 03:18, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

The use of {{also}}, as now at maha, seems like a decent idea that respects our prejudices and yet offers the more persistent users at least a way of finding native script entries that provide a useful definition for the transliteration they may have come across, the Wiktionary definition for which they may not find by direct search. DCDuring TALK 03:40, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I personally have no objections to redirects. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:47, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

A redirect from mahā to महा would be fine with me, so long as there are no other meanings of mahā. bd2412 T 12:17, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

I think we should reconsider permitting Latin-alphabet entries for Sanskrit, even if all they say is "Romanization of महा". We already allow Latin-alphabet entries for Pali, Gothic, and some other ancient languages that are usually encountered in Romanization in modern editions. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:27, 21 May 2014 (UTC)

Is it used as a word in any language? Renard Migrant (talk) 18:24, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

According to Google Books, it appears in about 150,000 books. bd2412 T 22:43, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

If it's used as an English word or any other language, it may get an English or other entry. For romanised Sanskrit, I'm afraid it's a policy question, you'll have to start a separate discussion or a vote. --Anatoli ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:53, 28 May 2014 (UTC)

Alternative form of maha (“four”) in Tahitian. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 00:01, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

I would like to see a discussion or policy that says that romanizations of Sanskrit are disallowed. Until then, I consider the above statement "We don't do Sanskrit romanised forms" unsubstantiated. In fact, Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-08/Romanization of languages in ancient scripts resulted in 7:4 for the proposal that "If an ancient, no longer living language was written in a script that is now no longer used or widely understood, and it was not represented in another script that still is used or widely understood, then romanizations of its words will be allowed entries." (I wrote 7:4 rather than 8:4, since Ruakh only supported for Gothic.). A subsequent vote Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2011-09/Romanization of languages in ancient scripts 2 unanimously expressly allowed romanizations for Etruscan, Gothic, Lydian, Oscan, and Phoenician.

I found Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2013/August#Sanskrit_in_Latin_script?. There, couple of people support allowing Sanskrit romanizations, including Ivan Štambuk (apparently), Angr, Dan Polansky (me), and Eiríkr Útlendi, where Ivan reported User:Dbachmann to support including Sanskrit romanizations as well; opposition seems to include Liliana; Chuck Entz is unclear. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:33, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I don't know much about Sanskrit, but I do know that there are tens of thousands of books that use the mahā (in that script) to signify a specific word with a specific meaning. I'm not about to suggest that we incorporate the whole transliterated Sanskrit corpus, but it seems absurd to refuse to have a definition for a word used as widely as this one. bd2412 T 15:14, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I think we should continue to have a consistent (uniform) policy towards romanized Sanskrit. At the moment, that policy is to exclude it. I wouldn't mind reversing that policy and allowing romanized Sanskrit to be entered similarly to romanized Gothic or pinyin Chinese, and the preceding comments suggest that enough other people feel the same way that we should probably have a vote.
Allowing some romanized of Sanskrit words and not others according to some arbitrary threshold such as "n Wiktionary users think this word is important" or "[we think] this word is used in x books (where x is some very high number, like 10 000)" does not strike me as a workable state of affairs. Google Books' raw book counts are unreliable, as are its attempts to restrict searching to particular languages, so although we might decide to include only romanizations used in e.g. more than 10 000 books, we have no easy way of ascertaining whether or not a romanization actually meets that threshold.
Even if we continue to exclude romanized Sanskrit, it might be possible to cite mahā as a loanword in some language, if it is really as common as has been suggested. - -sche (discuss) 17:11, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

What evidence supports the hypothesis that the current policy is to exclude romanized Sanskrit? Or, put differently, what makes you think and say that the policy is to exclude it? --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:12, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

See WT:ASA. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 20:16, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Wiktionary:About Sanskrit is not a policy; it is a policy draft. Furthermore, this is not evidence; a discussion or a vote is evidence of policy. The draft says "Entries written in IAST transliterations shall not appear in the main namespace." which was added in diff. The first edit I can find to that effect is diff, before which the page said "If entries are made under the IAST orthographic transliteration, they should use the standard template {{temp|romanization of}} to reference the Devanagari entry." Since none of the diffs refer to a discussion or a vote, they are illegitimate as means of policy making. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:31, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

Draft or not, excluding transliterated Sanskrit is the common practice. Start a discussion if you want to change that, or continue refusing to believe it, I don’t care. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 21:48, 1 June 2014 (UTC)

I asked "What evidence ...". If you had no answer to that question, you did not need to answer; the question was directed to -sche anyway. --Dan Polansky (talk) 05:42, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

If you really want evidence, look for RFD archives of romanised Sanskrit entries. I’m familiar with your strategy of asking people to waste their time looking for this or that and then finding some excuse for why what they found is not valid or outright ignoring it. I’m going to act like CodeCat and not waste my time; as I said, you can continue refusing to believe it. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 10:32, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Putting aside the outcomes of previous discussions, what is the reason for not having entries for such things? We are talking about a well-attested word that readers may well look to us to define. bd2412 T 16:21, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

I think the logic is that, insofar as we hold that Sanskrit is not written in the Latin script, mahā is not a Sanskrit word. Compare: insofar as Russian is not written in the Latin script, soyuz is not a Russian word. And mahā (“great”) and soyuz (“union”) have not been shown to be English words, or German/Chinese/etc words. If mahā is not a word in any language, it is both outside our stated scope ("all words in all languages") and not technically includable anyway : what L2 would it use?

In contrast, महा (mahā) is a Sanskrit word, and is included, and союз#Russian is included.

That said, we have made exceptions for some languages, e.g. Japanese and Gothic, and we have said in effect "even though this language is not natively written in the Latin script, we will allow soft-redirects from the Latin script to the native script for all the words in this language which we include." (Note this is very different from your statement of "I'm not about to suggest that we incorporate the whole transliterated Sanskrit corpus, but [... only] a word used as widely as this one.") I think one could make a strong case that we should make a Gothic-style exception for Sanskrit, since Sanskrit, like Gothic (and unlike Russian), is very often discussed/mentioned (whether or not it is used) in the Latin script. - -sche (discuss) 20:17, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Even if we admit that "mahā is not a Sanskrit word" (and that is rather questionable since it seems to confuse words with their writen forms), it still does not follow that we have a policy that forbids having Sanskrit romanization soft-redirect entries in the mainspace, on the model of Japanese, Chinese and other romanizations (Category:Japanese romaji, Category:Mandarin pinyin). We have had Japanese romanizations for a long time (dentaku was created on 17 August 2005‎), full will definitions or translations, since no rogue oligarch bothered or dared to eradicate them (we still have them, albeit in reduced form). Whether we have a policy could be quite important in a possible upcoming vote about Sanskrit romanization, since it is not really clear what the status quo is. Therefore, it is rather important to avoid misrepresentations (unintentional or otherwise) about there being or not being a policy. As for the amount of Sanskrit romanization in the mainspace, there may well be none, which would be a fairly good sign for there being a common practice of avoiding Sanskrit romanizations, but one has to consider that this could be a result of rogue olicharch actions. Generally speaking, I find it hard to find a reason for having Japanese and Chinese romanizations while avoiding Sanskrit romanizations. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:25, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

@Ungoliant MMDCCLXIV: Re: "I’m familiar with your strategy of asking people to waste their time looking for this or that ...": Not really. You would be familiar with my strategy of asking people to source their claims, supply evidence, clarify the manner in which they use ambiguous terms or explain themselves. Since you already know this strategy (as you say), since you don't like it, and since the question was not directed at you, you should have spared yourself the trouble and avoid answering the question (about evidence for there being policy as opposed to common practice or a draft page that anyone can edit regardless of consensus) that you did not intend to really answer anyway. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:51, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I did intend to answer. Not for your benefit, but for that of others who may otherwise be fooled by you into thinking that adding romanised Sanskrit is totally OK. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 13:00, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I still see no rationale for excluding a widely used romanization that readers are likely to come across and want defined. Some justification beyond the naked assertion of policy or the momentum of past exclusions. bd2412 T 14:01, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

AFAICS, adding romanised Sanskrit is totally OK; there is no discussion or vote the outcome of which is that Sanskrit romanizations shall be excluded from the mainspace. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:02, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

@BD, re "I still see no rationale": I just explained one rationale (mahā is not a word in any language).
The previous BP discussion linked-to above, and comments in this discussion by people who didn't participate in the previous discussion, suggest that a proposal to allow romanizations of all Sanskrit words would pass. I myself could support such a proposal. I suggest, for the third time, that someone make that proposal.
I do not see any indication that the proposal to allow "widely used romanization[s]" only has gained traction with anyone beyond you and possibly Dan. As you note, quite a lot of momentum is against you: AFAIK, there has never been a language for which we allowed romanizations for only some words according to some threshold of exceptional commonness. AFAIK, there has never even been an alphabetic or abugidic language for which we allowed romanizations for only some words according to the threshold of any citations at all. (If you discovered that one of our Gothic romanizations had 0 attestations at Google Books, Groups, etc, we'd still keep it as long as it was derived from an attested native-script form according to the rules of Wiktionary:Gothic transliteration.)
You could keep trying to overturn this momentum, but — especially given that the only people who still seem to be participating in this discussion are you, me, Ungoliant, and Dan, and we don't seem to be changing each others' minds — I think it would be more productive to grasp the support for allowing all romanized Sanskrit, and run with it. - -sche (discuss) 17:58, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

We generally decide whether any unbroken string of letters is "a word" by looking to see if it is used in print to convey a consistent meaning. We do this because the existence of the word in print is what makes it likely that a reader will come across it and want to know how it is defined, or possibly how it is pronounced, derived, or translated into other languages. There are now a half dozen citations of mahā at Citations:mahā, including several where the word is used in English running text without italicization. In some previous discussions we have used the compromise position of declaring the word to be English, but derived from the language of its original script. I think this is absurd. Is tovarich English, really? bd2412 T 18:33, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

I have posted this at the Beer Parlour. bd2412 T 19:04, 3 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes tovarich is indeed English if it's used in running English text as an English word (for which a citation is provided). Same with mahā - the word originates from Sanskrit but it's not a Sanskrit word in the context of provided citations - it's an English word now because it's used in English. --09:57, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

• The above unsigned comment seeks to make the case:

it's an English word now because it's used in English.

That alone is a wholly inadequate reason. I say how natsukashii a certain time of year makes me; that doesn't make natsukashii suddenly English. The whole context must be taken into account: to whom am I speaking? Do I assume that my intended audience is familiar enough with Japanese to understand this term? Or am I being deliberately obtuse in using a word that my audience probably won't know? Or perhaps I introduced this term earlier, and explicitly explained it then. All of this must be taken into account before deciding how "English" any given term is.

Past there, I just had a look at Citations:mahā page. There are currently six citations listed. The first one mentions mahā where it's used as part of a title (the w:Mahabharata), rendering that invalid. The second, third, fifth, and sixth all feel the need to add a gloss for the term in parentheses, clearly indicating that this is not an English word. The fourth citation is the only one that might pass muster, but it's from a quite esoteric text about Tibetan Buddhism. The deeply specialized nature of this text assumes that the reader is intimately familiar with many things related to Tibetan Buddhism and related terminology, and as such, I would characterize this as a case of using Sanskrit terms in an English context where the audience is expected to know the term, and not a use of the term as English.

Delete as an English entry. Per Dan below, possibly keep as an IAST transliteration of Sanskrit (deprecated template usage) महा (mahā), similar to our various other transliteration entries for non-Latin-alphabet languages, like Japanese or Gothic. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 07:49, 24 November 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any reason to exclude any word used in English as not being English. The use of a gloss doesn't clearly indicate that it's not an English word; it's clearly indicating that the word is precise but not necessarily clear. As for the fourth citation, if a term is used in English, even in a specialist context, it's still English.

"This time of year makes me feel natsukashii" does use natsukashii as an English word. Chasing down every bit of code switching is not a fruitful pursuit and we probably do need to have some lines, but I think you're confusing the map for the terrain there.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:17, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

• "This time of year makes me feel natsukashii" does use natsukashii as an English word. I can only say that you and I have very different ideas about the criteria by which any given word belongs to any given language. 17:58, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

• I regard "criteria by which any given word belongs to any given language" as problematically treating "word" and "language" as platonic entities. The fundamental question is flawed. If we have a sentence that uses a word unmarked in the English language, then it's using that word as an English word. I have a book before me that says "On Agasha, these include horse, gressh, sleth and skink." Those aren't exactly English words, in the sense that an English speaker would understand them, but what else are they? They, just like natsukashii, are being used in English as English words.--Prosfilaes (talk) 13:42, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

• Keep mahā as an IAST transliteration of the Sanskrit महा. (To make my stance clear to a prospective closing admin; my reasoning is above.] --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:46, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Follow-up question. What do we do with references like:

• 2014, M. A. Center, Archana Book: with English Translation, page 40:

  214 Om mahā pātaka nāśinyai namaḥ
  ...Who destroys even the greatest of sins.
  215 Om mahāmāyāyai namaḥ
  ...Who is the Great Illusion.
  216 Om mahā sattvāyai namaḥ
  ...Who possesses great sattva.

• 2010, Anne M. Blackburn, Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka, page xvii:

  Tibbotuvāvē Śrī Siddhartha Sumangala Mahā Nāyaka Thera of the Malvatu Vihāraya and the Ven. Aggamahāpandita Ahungallē Vimalanandatissa Mahā Nāyaka Thera of the Amarapura Mahā Sangha Sabhā is remembered with gratitude.

• 1975, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Sri Caitanya-caritamrta, Antya-lila: The Pastimes of Lord Caitanya Mahaprabhu, Text 3.62:

  Text 3.62 taṁ nirvyājaṁ bhaja guṇa-nidhe pāvanaṁ pāvanānāṁ śraddhā-rajyan-matir atitarām uttamaḥ-śloka-maulim prodyann antaḥ-karaṇa-kuhare hanta yan-nāma-bhānor ābhāso 'pi kṣapayati mahā-pātaka-dhvānta-rāśim

The latter work also provides a later phrase-by-phrase translation, but only after showing the entire passage as a single block of running text. Also, it does not individually translate "mahā", but translates the phrase of which it is part. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:57, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

• In light of the foregoing, I have modified Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2014-07/Allowing well-attested romanizations of Sanskrit‎ to accommodate strings of text rather than individual words, and made it live. bd2412 T 20:43, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

• What does that mean for the current [[mahā]] entry? This is now structured as English, which I strongly oppose. Moreover, the quotes in the entry do not illustrate usage as English -- of the four, three are immediately followed by glosses in a way that clearly indicates foreignness and that the author does not expect the reader to know this term, and the fourth shows use in the title of a work of literature, the Mahābhārata, with no other meaning apparent.

Will this be converted into a romanized Sanskrit entry? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 01:04, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, there is no reason that a term can not at the same time be a romanization from a different language, and a term that has made its way into English (see sayonara, listed as both). bd2412 T 13:00, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree (with Eirikir) that the citations being used to support the English entry in this case are woefully inadequate; it could be RFVed. But bd2412 is right that in general things can be both romanizations and loanwords; another good example is yin; like sayonara, it even pluralizes in English: yins.) - -sche (discuss) 16:31, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

There is one citation at Citations:mahā that uses the word in running English text with no gloss (several times, click "view all" to see). I would imagine that there would be a few more among the 100,000+ Google Books results. This brings us back to the original dilemma. It seems absurd to say that a space-delineated set of characters used to convey a specific meaning across that many sources is not a "word"; so what kind of word is it? bd2412 T 16:46, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

• As I previously mentioned, I do not think this particular text (Luminous Essence: A Guide to the Guhyagarbha Tantra) is a good illustration of this term in use as English. This is an esoteric text discussing deep details of certain Buddhist philosophy and practice, and it presupposes that the reader is deeply familiar with the subject matter. There are numerous examples of Sanskrit (or possibly Pali, or Hindi, or ...?) terms that are dropped into the text with no explanation, in ways that are completely opaque to anyone not well-versed in this subject matter. For instance, on page 1, we are apparently greeted with the text Namo gurumañjughoṣāya! I have no idea what this means, and no way of discovering the meaning from the text. Per Prosfilaes' arguments above, this is "English". I argue again, as I did above, that context is key in determining the language of a term in a given text, and that this context goes beyond just the sentence itself to include the work as a whole and the social circumstances of that work, such as the intended audience. Considering the intended audience of this specific text (Luminous Essence: A Guide to the Guhyagarbha Tantra), it is clear that the author assumes that readers have a high level of familiarity with Buddhist terminology, much of which is Sanskrit or Pali. In light of this, it follows that the terms namo and gurumañjughoṣāya (and, indeed, many other domain-specific terms that the broader population of English speakers are unlikely to know) are not English, and are instead Sanskrit, etc. used in a kind of code switching within an otherwise English text.

In short, yes, the book Luminous Essence: A Guide to the Guhyagarbha Tantra does use the term [[mahā]] in otherwise-English text without italics and without any gloss, but no, I do not think this particular work contains valid illustrations of the term [[mahā]] in use as an English term. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 22:17, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

If it's used in running English text, conforming to English syntactical structure, it's English. To what extent embedded and isolated phrases are genuinely foreign language, as opposed to being wholesale loanwords, is debatable, though the opinion of Average English Speaker not well-versed in the subject matter is no measure of wordiness when discussing the work specialized in the very same subject matter. Citations are for attestation purposes i.e. CFI passing, usexes are for illustrative usages. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 20:51, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I look forward to your explanation of how "taṁ nirvyājaṁ bhaja guṇa-nidhe pāvanaṁ pāvanānāṁ śraddhā-rajyan-matir atitarām uttamaḥ-śloka-maulim prodyann antaḥ-karaṇa-kuhare hanta yan-nāma-bhānor ābhāso 'pi kṣapayati mahā-pātaka-dhvānta-rāśim" is a sentence in English, and your English-language entries for these words. bd2412 T 20:54, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

That is not English. OTOH, the citations at [[mahā]] are from English works, and are indeed English. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:06, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

That is a citation for mahā - fourth word from the end there. So now mahā is both English and not English? Every one of these words, if found in three "English" texts, can be put in as "English", in your view? bd2412 T 21:08, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

In that particular excerpt, mahā is not a word. It's a part of the compound which is morphologically decomposed with hyphens, which is by itself a single word, and mahā in that spelling is an inseparable part of it. mahā never appears on its own in Sanskrit. What you found in English text is Sanskrit excerpts. That kind of format is common with classical and religious languages where "original and proper" enunciation plays an important role in setting the stage for supernatural mysticism in the minds of followers, as well as for reducing the possibility for mistranslation by enhancing the readers understanding of the text in its original form. You can find countless similar bilingual excerpts for Latin, Ancient Greek, Hebrew and Arabic in the case of former, and for almost any other major language for the latter case, particularly in poetry. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:24, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

So if those last three citations are not English, but are "Sanskrit excerpts", then this is Sanskrit, isn't it? Are these not citations for Sanskrit entries, then? bd2412 T 22:19, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

They are Sanskrit, but the current practice is to use Devanagari, so they'd have to be transliterated. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 22:27, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "they'd have to be transliterated". By whom? By the authors who wrote those books? Is it Wiktionary's role to police authors and admonish them for using the wrong transliteration, or is it our role to accurately report and define terms as they are used in the real world? There are many more authors independently using the same transliteration scheme to represent Sanskrit words in the Latin alphabet. Unless we want to call these Translingual or make up some new category of words to put them in, how are we to represent real-world usage? bd2412 T 22:44, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

They'd have to be transliterated by Wiktionary editors. These excerpts are not real-world usages. Rather, they are transcriptions for the benefit of readers familiar with the Latin script. The author, Rupa Goswami, certainly didn't use IAST. Contemporary speakers of Sanskrit in India don't use it either. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 23:06, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

How would you define "real-world usages" in a way that excludes usages in books that have actually been published in print? bd2412 T 23:12, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

A related question: how would you treat "voolay" as found in numerous renditions of w:Lady Marmalade lyrics? Is it English? Is it an alternative spelling of French? Chuck Entz (talk) 00:11, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

I don't know how related that is, since we don't have transliterations of words written in the Latin alphabet in the first place. I would consider "voolay" used in English running text to be eye dialect no different from likee or dayum. bd2412 T 00:30, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Except that some of the people using it aren't trying to caricature anything, they're honestly representing the sounds of French using their own methods, just as someone writing "mahā" is representing the sounds of Sanskrit. If we allow the second, how do we distinguish it from the first? Chuck Entz (talk) 07:24, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

• I note that [[mahā]] includes no indication that the entry has been nominated here for RFD. Should we add {{rfd}}? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 02:16, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

  Is the entry currently nominated for deletion? If you look at the very top of this thread, it's about undeleting the Sanskrit entry. This thread is also very long and old, so I would suggest beginning a new thread if you want to discuss deleting the English entry. - -sche (discuss) 05:20, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

  For the record, I continue to think that the Sanskrit entry should be undeleted. There are, as I have noted a few lines above, lengthier passages that use this transliteration, such that the passage can hardly be called English. We could call half the words in all the world's languages "English" if our standard was that they appeared a few times in English running text. bd2412 T 05:25, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

  Has anyone proposed treating those passages as English? Not even Ivan has, as far as I can see.
  I think mahā should stay deleted until and unless we formulate a general policy on romanized Sanskrit that allows it, there being nothing unique about this one word that would cause it to deserve special treatment. Formulating such a policy is, of course, complicated by the fact that we appear to have not two factions ("yes, have romanizations", "no, don't have romanizations") but at least four ("romanize Sanskrit systematically, like Gothic", "have ad-hoc, attestation-dependent entries for ad-hoc romanizations", "don't have romanizations", and "don't have romanizations, lemmatize Sanskrit in Latin script because Devanagari is POV"). - -sche (discuss) 06:36, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

  • @bd2412: We could call half the words in all the world's languages "English"... -- that's precisely the situation that I'm trying to avoid. It's both unhelpful to the user, and patently ridiculous.
  • @-sche: FWIW, I think we should have very low barriers to having romanizations of any language that does not typically use the Latin script. And if we have romanizations, it should be consistent and language-wide, as with Gothic, or Chinese, or Japanese. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 07:44, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

November 2014

satisne

Not worth an entry. This is just the sum of satis + -ne, the latter of which sole introduces questions. --Fsojic (talk) 19:48, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Delete. We've been through this before with uses of -que, and it's basically the same issue as with forms ending with -'s in English. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:15, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

• Keep until more convincing arguments are presented than those found at Talk:fasque#Deletion debate. I believe the deletion was not based on CFI. This would not be all that bad, but the salient difference to un-, -ness and English plural-forming -s for the purpose of worthiness of inclusion has not been made clear, IMHO. In my view, "-ne" is not a separate component and thus "satisne" cannot be deleted with the use of WT:CFI#Idiomaticity. Moreover, the definition of "satisne" says "introducing questions" and thus the item seems phrasy, and thus worthy of inclusion. --Dan Polansky (talk)

  Since you've voted against making CFI binding, I assume you mean the fact that the deletion wasn't based on CFI is a good thing. Renard Migrant (talk) 19:05, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

  In Wiktionary:Votes/2014-11/Entries which do not meet CFI to be deleted even if there is a consensus to keep, I said that each argument for keeping should be based on CFI as far as possible; I actually meant that even arguments for deletion should be based on CFI as far as possible. When I make an argument in terms of "translation target", I acknowledge that this is not in CFI. I see no acknowledgment in this nomination and in the pro-deletion arguments that this nomination lies outside of CFI. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:57, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

• Delete. The difference between -ne and English un-, -ness and plural-form -s is that the English forms are affixes that are restricted in the forms they can be added to and that change the meaning of the word they're added to. Latin -ne is a clitic that can be placed after literally any Latin word that can be the first word in a clause (which because of Latin's free word order amounts to any virtually word at all) and doesn't change the meaning of that word but rather marks the entire clause as being a question. I suspect the primary reason this entry exists at all is to give satin and satine something to link to; but they can link just as well to [[satis]][[-ne|ne]]. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:15, 29 November 2014 (UTC)

  It's a compound word. Compound words have no spaces, so they should be kept. Purplebackpack89 17:23, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

• Question On satin, the examples include "Satin' omnia ex sententia?" and "Satin' salva sunt omnia?" (presumably these are equally applicable to satisne too, but please correct me if I'm wrong). I don't see the immediate connection here to satis meaning "enough" - I don't know much Latin, so I have to ask: could these sentences be reworded to make another word lead the sentence ("Salvane satis sunt omnia?"?), or is satin saying something other than "isn't there enough...?" here? Smurrayinchester (talk) 15:45, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

  @Smurrayinchester: Lewis and Short define "ne2" as follows: "-nĕ (also apocopated n' and only n ),

  I. interrog. and enclit. part. [weakened from nē]. It simply inquires, without implying either that a negative or an affirmative reply is expected (cf. num, nonne), and emphasizes the word to which it is joined; “which is always, in classic Latin, the first word of the clause (ante- class. after other words: sine dote uxoremne?”

  So, in classical Latin the shift of the particle from satis to salva shifts the focus of the question in a way I am not competent to explain or translate. I didn't get that from the various usage examples at our entry for [[-ne]] and especially not from those at [[satisne]] which I would not rely on without some further confirmation. DCDuring TALK 02:33, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

• Delete per Angr. DCDuring TALK 16:35, 1 December 2014 (UTC)
• Delete. I’m slightly tempted to suggest a redirection to -ne, but that would open the floodgates to hundreds of redirections. --Romanophile (talk) 14:46, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
  • Why would this redirect to -ne rather than to satis? bd2412 T 01:47, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
• Lewis and Short has satin' as an entry, defined as "satisne", but not satisne. DCDuring TALK 02:33, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

  User:DCDuring: Lewis and Short have no inflected forms either, right? --Dan Polansky (talk) 21:40, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• If there are contracted forms of this particular word, I would keep it. From the lay person's point of view, it looks like a single word. bd2412 T 21:37, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
• Keep per bd2412. I'm not much of a Latin scholar, so running across a single word like satisne, I would have no reason to guess that this is satis + -ne. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 23:28, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
  • How is that relevant? --Fsojic (talk) 10:58, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

    @Fsojic: Many here seem to believe that we should lexicalize as much as possible of language, including all compounds, collocations, orthography, and grammar. So someone with LA-1 knowledge of Latin grammar should find entries that compensate for that lack of knowledge. A charitable view would be that such entries would provide an instance from which such a learner could inductively learn the grammar. Whether Wiktionary entries, rather than Wiktionary usage examples and citations or Wikipedia articles or Wikisource texts or, heaven forfend, something outside the WMF world, should provide those instances is not a question that has been addressed. DCDuring TALK 14:14, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

    • • • @Fsojic, DCDuring What is a word? We say, all words in all languages. To my eyes, satisne is a word. There is no obvious way for me to parse this as anything but one word, especially when it appears in running text with clear whitespace on either side. If someone runs across this term and attempts to look it up, not having some means of directing the user to a definition is a usability issue. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 18:15, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

          

          Where's the whitespace?

          "All words in all languages" is a slogan, not a practical guide to anything that we do at this moment. As for clear whitespace defining words, see the image of Latin text. Where are the spaces? How many words? I don't think usability means that we have to hold a user's hand through all elements of grammar that might appear. Learning how to parse something written without a space into its components is not dissimilar from learning the word-order conventions of a language. You aren't recommending that we include all English sentences because not everyone coming to Wiktionary is familiar with SVO order, are you? Or that we include all collocations involving postpositive adjectives because that positioning is exceptional? -ne and -que can appear on almost any form of almost any Latin word. DCDuring TALK 19:08, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

          • The third-person present ending -s can appear on almost any English verb. That doesn't mean we delete all entries for third-person present verb forms.

          And don't be silly with the carving. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 19:35, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

• 2008, Mary Jaeger, Archimedes and the Roman Imagination, University of Michigan Press (ISBN 9780472025329), pages 33-34

  ...lived. After telling the story of Dionysius, Damocles, and the sword in some detail, Cicero asks, “Does not Dionyius seem to have made it sufficiently clear [satisne videtur declarasse Dionysius] that there can be nothing happy [beatum] for the person over whom some fear always looms?” (5.62). After a brief...

• • • • • I agree with respect to the carving. An English speaker who comes across something like that is going to recognize that spaces are missing; if they come across a transcription of it, it is a fair bet that the transcriber will have added the appropriate spaces, and that multiple instances of the same character string missing the same spaces will not be found in printed works. bd2412 T 20:11, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

          @BD2412, Eirikr Most Ancient Greek and Latin texts, not just inscriptions, were written without spaces or any other distinct marker of word division. Readers were expected to be able to distinguish word boundaries by the inflectional endings. Word boundaries, often designated by dots rather than spaces, were an invention of Medieval or at least post-Classical scribes. Why they didn't insert spaces between ne and que and the preceding words I don't know. So, I take it that the audience we address does not include someone trying to read an inscription from a photo, in a museum, or on the remains of a Classical building. It just seems that we have a self-serving view of whom we are serving: people a lot like us or us as we nostalgically remember ourselves, reading the heavily edited documents in print that have been handed us. DCDuring TALK 21:42, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

          I think that this concern is addressed with the Chinese terms below. Where there are spaces, the spaces are understood to delineate words. Were there are none, readers recognize that some other system of delineation must be in place. Either way, satisne is a word having abundant citations in spaced text, so we don't need to speculate about how to address its appearance in other media. There are CFI-worthy citations of satisne as a distinctly spaced word, and that by itself justifies inclusion. bd2412 T 00:37, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

          Addressing one audience by including words with -ne does not mean that we aren't addressing other audiences. It does not affect the other audiences at all. The vast majority of our users are reading documents in print, as the vast majority of people who actually read anything in the 21st century do; I scoff at this idea that we have many scholars staring at a monument newly discovered who are poking words into their cellphones to look the text up on Wiktionary, and even if they all did, we'd still have far more people working from texts.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:08, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

      • Wouldn't any combination of Chinese symbols appear to be a single word to someone who doesn't speak Chinese? That's what we're talking about here, how non-Latin speakers view Latin entries. Renard Migrant (talk) 15:06, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
        • Anyone looking at Chinese quickly comes to the conclusion that whitespace doesn't happen in Chinese. The next step is figuring out which clump of characters constitutes a "word" for purposes of looking things up. This is a problem for all learners of languages that use Chinese characters and no whitespace.

        Latin, meanwhile, does use whitespace, and in any Latin sentence that includes the term satisne, satisne is clearly delineated by whitespace as a "word". ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 18:15, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

        Whitespace or dots to mark word divisions is a post-Classical innovation. DCDuring TALK 21:42, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

• Delete per Chuck Entz. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 23:45, 23 December 2014 (UTC)
• Question: We include word forms, no? If we have an entry for isn't or feet or unsubstantiated, why not for satisne? What are the criteria here? Why delete one, but not the others? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 00:04, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

  @Eirikr: We include some but not all forms in English. English has a relatively small number of contractions, which we include. English has a open set of possessive forms of nouns, which we exclude. DCDuring TALK 00:12, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

• -ne can and does occur after many inflected forms of the stems. The Lewis and Short entry for -ne has usage examples involving about twenty stems and several different inflections. We don't usually require attestation for each inflected form in Latin, so I suppose we should have inflection tables for every word that could have -ne appended that shows our benighted users and our search engine what each form with -ne would look like. All you Latinists should get started. All the lay persons reading Latin need you. DCDuring TALK 00:12, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
  • But who's going to be reading Latin without knowing at least a little bit of Latin? This isn't some esoteric corner of Latin grammar; Latin students probably learn about -ne being used to form questions in their first week of Latin class. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:29, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
    • I have no recollection of that from my Latin class. Then again, all I remember from that class is "Romanes eunt domus". Still, since we absolutely can require attestation if we want, I propose that we include attested -ne forms, because they look like whole and distinct words by most any definition of "word" that we employ. bd2412 T 15:42, 24 December 2014 (UTC)
    • @Angr You're assuming that the only people looking up Latin in the EN WT are doing so because they are reading Latin texts. Latin does show up from time to time in regular English texts when authors throw some in for flavor or style or bragging rights or what-have-you. I don't know Latin. I don't read Latin texts. If I run across Latin in some other text that I'm reading, I would probably come here to try to look up the terms and ferret out the meaning. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 18:15, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

      @Eirikr: That's why we have professional translators and that poor man's translator Google Translate. The question is what portion of their work should Wiktionary try to do? DCDuring TALK 19:08, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

      • Whatever portion is covered by "all words in all languages". bd2412 T 20:09, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

        Begging the question: What's a word? Not to mention the need to parse each component of our slogan, whose greatest use is to vanquish any practical considerations. Is a word whatever any reader might think is a word? I'll leave others to anticipate whatever those might be. We risk becoming a caricature of ourselves. DCDuring TALK 21:42, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

        "In English and other space-delimited languages, it is customary to treat "word" as referring to any sequence of characters delimited by spaces". Source: Wiktionary. bd2412 T 21:57, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

        That's not the definition we use. We include terms with intervening spaces all the time, also affixes which are not spaced, etc. I doubt that I've exhausted the departures from the definition for English, let alone for other languages.

        In any event, we claim that we follow the practice traditional to the scholarship of whatever language a entry would be in. I doubt that there is a consensus of Latin scholars favoring any term consisting of a Latin inflected form + a clitic like -ne or -que. I doubt that Latin language teachers would recommend a dictionary that bothered with such "words" for their students at any level. DCDuring TALK 03:22, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

        That's our own usage note. I would suggest that it represents a floor, not a ceiling, to inclusion. We include some, but not all, terms with spaces; but we include virtually every attested unspaced string of characters written in a language that does use spaces to delineate words. If someone brought sidesaddle or unkempt or my own addition, thisclose, to RfD, they would be laughed out. bd2412 T 03:33, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

        In English, yes, but people have brought spaceless German compounds to RFD and have not been laughed out; rather, they have gained a certain amount of support for their position (though never, I think, enough to actually achieve deletion). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:28, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep There's no reason to exclude these space-delimited words. If it's really as trivial as is claimed, a bot should be able to add them quickly.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:08, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

  Also, as an English speaker, it seems like every time I enter a word, I'm facing Plural form of ... or Present participle of ..., and it's never a case where I couldn't have lemmatized it myself. It's annoying (though I offer no solutions right now), but less annoying then running into the search box. I suspect even good Latin readers will enter forms with -ne, because that's what they have in front of them.--Prosfilaes (talk) 08:47, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

• Keep: It's a single word. The "what about 's" argument is a poor one because "'s" is a contraction. Purplebackpack89 04:40, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

  No, in something like "the cat's pajamas", cat's is not a contraction of anything. I'd say the difference is more about ', like -, is not an alphabetic character, and the separation into parts is necessarily obvious.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:26, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

• Delete – as a Latin speaker I feel keeping this is embarrassing for Wiktionary, as if we couldn't tell that not all things that are written without spaces are necessarily words. The same arguments at Talk:fasque apply here. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 15:08, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Am I correct in understanding that -que is attached to whatever happens to be the first word of the clause, no matter what word that is, and -ne is the same in this regard? bd2412 T 17:20, 5 January 2015 (UTC)
    • -ne is attached to whatever happens to be the first word of the clause; -que is attached to anything to produce the meaning "and X", so in a list it could be the last word of the clause. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:32, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• @Metaknowledge You say, “as a Latin speaker”. Please be aware of your bias in this. EN WT is for English speakers (well, readers really). If someone runs across satisne and doesn't know the rules of Latin, how are they to find out what it means? How are they to find out what its constituent parts are? We must make allowances for users who don't have the knowledge that we editors do. I've made changes to my own approach to the Japanese entries that I create and maintain as a result of user feedback, as that feedback has enlightened me as to my own biases and how that might cloud my judgment regarding what is useful here.

So far, most of the arguments above for deletion have been made by editors who already have knowledge of Latin, and the arguments are based on an assumption of user foreknowledge (that users should know that satisne is satis + -ne), with a sprinkling of points seeking to shame the community (that no “proper” Latin dictionary would ever include satisne, and therefore we shouldn't either).

Serious query: if a user comes here with no Latin knowledge and searches for satisne, how will that user be directed to the desired information if we have no satisne entry? If we have some means of directing such searches to the appropriate entry or entries, then I have no opposition to deleting satisne. Until then, however, from a basic usability perspective, it does not make sense to delete this entry. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 19:26, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• @Eirikr This is not a dictionary that is intending to be of maximal help to the lowest common denominator, so to speak. If somebody doesn't know what the ablative is, telling them that utor takes it is entirely unhelpful, but it's not our job to explain that there or even link to it. People learning Latin will want to know that, and that's who our Latin entries are for. Foreign-language dictionaries have always been made under the assumption that the person looking up the words knows the bare basics of the language, and, as Angr said, this is something that is taught very early on in most courses. You should be just as aware of your bias as a non-Latin speaker, because you may not be familiar with people who actually use our Latin content as a learning tool, but I interact with many people in real life who do, and they are in agreement that our Latin entries serve their purposes well. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:54, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

• Addressing just one narrow issue of the several you raise here, what harm does it do to include satisne? I have not yet read a clear argument as to what is harmful to EN WT in including this entry. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 23:11, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

  As we haven't a model to follow and rarely are able to produce good entries, especially for grammatical terms in the absence of a model, we are likely to present users with crap, such as the present entry. DCDuring TALK 00:46, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

It is very hard to help someone who doesn't know the grammar of a language, which is not normally taught in a purely inductive, lexical way. If we were to try to do so, here are some basic ideas for the entry:

1. Entries:
   1. {{&lit|satis|-ne}}, making sure that we actually had a complete and correct grammatical presentation at the component entries (which we do not in the case of -ne AFAICT).
   2. An accurate translation of each of the various attestable combinations of satis (many at “satis”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Pressand -ne (6 in “ne2”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press)
2. Redirects, presumably to something that explains what we deem troublesome because of the grammatical functions of -ne:
   1. To applicable WP article, if any. [I didn't find one.]
   2. To -ne. [needs work]
   3. To a Wiktionary grammar appendix on -ne [doesn't exist]

I haven't seen much good grammar content here, nor have I been able to do a good job myself when I tried. I can't imagine anyone doing the work to find all the attestable combinations senses of satis and senses of -ne.

Who will sign up for making sure we have correct content for the attestable entries (and senses for 1.2)? DCDuring TALK 22:20, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

@Eirikr Simply a case of slippery slope. If you let this in, then we have to have a massive amount of entries like fasque that don't do any good to the vast majority of people using en.wikt's Latin content, and that will take a tremendous amount of human effort. Please don't say it can be done by bot, because bots don't know how to check if something is attestable per CFI, so in that case you'd end up with a large amount of entries that human editors would RFV, if they ever got around to it, and just delete them again. To me, that sounds like a nightmare for everybody involved with almost no benefit (in fact a deficit, since it would waste editors' time when they could be doing something that would actually improve the dictionary). —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:33, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

There's no reason the rule could not be made to work the other way around. Allow {{&lit|satis|-ne}} and {{&lit|fas|-que}} types of entries, but only if three CFI-worthy citations exist in the entry at the time of its creation; speedy delete those that do no have the requisite citations. We make our rules here, so there's nothing to stop us from setting a higher bar for a specific class of words (or wordlike entities). Few editors are going to be motivated to add large numbers of "-ne" and "-que" forms for the sake of so doing if they are in every case required to find the citations first. bd2412 T 02:34, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Sure, but you're proposing a change in policy. That would require consensus in the Beer Parlour, if not an outright vote. I don't have a problem with your idea, but as things stand, that's not an option. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 03:04, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

There is no policy supporting deletion of "satisne". "satisne" does not consist of separate components, so it is not sum of parts per WT:CFI#Idiomaticity. You are voting here counter to policy, without admitting as much. As for slippery slope, we have this: Wiktionary:Criteria_for_inclusion#Attestation vs. the slippery slope. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:38, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

They are separate components. The two components have nothing to do with each other syntactically or morphologically. They just happen to be spelled without a space between them, but that's just orthography (which has nothing to do with language). They're no more closely related to each other than to and ’s in That’s the boy I was talking to’s mother. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:19, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

They are not. The following is irrelevant: "The two components have nothing to do with each other syntactically or morphologically." "head" and "ache" in "headache" are not separate; their syntactic or morphological relation is irrelevant to separateness. Thus, we include coalmine since "coal" and "mine" are not separate, while we need a dedicated additional regulation to include coal mine. And we include Zirkusschule: Talk:Zirkusschule. The syntactic relations of the components in "coalmine" are the same as the syntactic relations of the components in "coal mine"; the only thing that distinguishes the two terms for the purpose of separatedness is that one is written without a space and the other one with a space. --Dan Polansky (talk) 21:33, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

It's not irrelevant at all. What is irrelevant is whether there's a written space or not. The reason "head" and "ache" in "headache" are not separate is that they are semantically (I should have included "semantically" above) and morphologically related to and dependent on each other, as are the "coal" and "mine" in both "coalmine" and "coal mine". But there is no linguistic relationship between satis and -ne at all; they are completely separate of each other. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:55, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

By your reasoning, we would have to include car producer; the semantic and syntactic relationships of the components of car producer are the same as those of the components of headache, and thus you would have it that "car" and "producer" are not separate. By contrast, I claim that we exclude "<noun1> <noun2>" compounds as long as their meaning is clear from the meanings of <noun1> and <noun2> (barring the translation target exception). Thus, I claim the components of "car producer" to be separate while the components of "headache" to be not separate. I rest my case; being written together without space matters for separateness; syntactic, morphological and semantic relations don't. --Dan Polansky (talk) 22:10, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

By your reasoning, we'd have to include to's from my example above, not to mention whole paragraphs of Chinese since that's written without spaces. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:15, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

You left my "car producer" objection unrefuted. Now for your objection with to's: the components are separated by the apostrophe ('), and hence are separate, by my lights. Similarly, many editors here consider hyphen separating enough, while at least one editor does not. In Chinese, if a whole paragaph is written without space, then spaces are not used in such Chinese writing to separate words, and the case is thereby not under the present analysis. --Dan Polansky (talk) 22:23, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I'd rather see car producer here than satisne; at least car producer has a meaning (although the usual collocation is car manufacturer). Chinese shows that we need a linguistic definition of word, not an orthographic one. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:49, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

So it remains: you left my "car producer" objection unrefuted. You have presented no criterion of separatedness that would enable us to exclude a large number of "<noun1> <noun2>" compounds as semantically transparent. --Dan Polansky (talk) 23:26, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep: It's a very special case, but it may be useful to some readers, especially beginners, this is why it should be accepted, provided that there are quotations. @Metaknowledge: I don't promote the creation of many such pages, but I think that there are no reason to delete them once they are created (with correct information). Deleting them wastes editors' time, and may discourage their creators, which is bad for the project. Lmaltier (talk) 21:36, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

• I think this deserves an entry as much as fasque. On the other hand, the community decided that fasque didn't deserve an entry. I abstain. - -sche (discuss) 05:35, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Since the discussion seems to have wound down, I summarize it as follows:

The issue here is that "satisne" is basically a coincidental and purely automatic construction. By comparison, if two men participate in a high jump competition, we could say: "the one who jumped higher's shoes were blue", but we don't consider "higher's" a word worthy of a dictionary entry. Editors supporting inclusion contend that this is distinct because an English speaker not familiar with such constructions in Latin and seeing "satisne" in normally spaced running text would interpret it as a single word, and no satisfactory alternative has been presented to assist such readers in defining this construction.

Seven editors supported deletion: Fsojic, Chuck Entz, Ungoliant, Metaknowledge, Aɴɢʀ, DCDuring, Romanophile.

Six editors supported inclusion: Dan Polansky, BD2412, Eiríkr, Prosfilaes, Purplebackpack89, Lmaltier. Two of these editors have supported an intermediate standard which would allow for the inclusion of such terms conditioned on the inclusion of citations in the entry, but it has been pointed out that no policy supports such a middle ground at this time.

One editor expressly abstained: -sche.

There is no consensus for deletion at this time; although there is a reasonable justification for deletion if such a consensus existed, there an absence of a clear policy requirement that would mandate deletion even absent such consensus. I would encourage the community to implement a policy establishing a higher burden of citation for such entries. bd2412 T 17:10, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

December 2014

elaphus

Translingual specific epithet. The epithet is actually the genus name Elaphus in lower case. This occurs in taxonomic naming fairly often. Once a word has been used as a genus name in taxonomy, it seems that all subsequent use is in reference to that name, not to the Latin or other word from which the genus name may have been derived. DCDuring TALK 20:06, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

It comes from the Ancient Greek name of the species, and was present as a specific epithet from the initial description of Cervus elaphus by Linnaeus in 1758. As for Lucanus elaphus, Fabricius was following the lead of Linnaeus, who used cervus as the specific epithet for another species. He named other species of stag beetles after deer: alces, capreolus, & dama.

As for general practice: I can't think of any specific epithets that are nouns in apposition that are derived solely from a generic name, though I'm sure some exist. The ones that are clearly derived from generic names are usually in the genitive (very common for host-specific parasites), or with some kind of affix such as -oides or -vorus. Even for those that were simply the generic name, they would be alternative capitalizations of it and thus not deletable if attested (though attestation for taxonomic names can be problematic due to difficulties with the matter of independence). Chuck Entz (talk) 21:30, 6 December 2014 (UTC)

I haven't found elaphus as a Latin word in L&S or in my Late Latin glossary (which does have elaphius as an adjective). Is it Medieval Latin or just New Latin coinage? Given its relative age it seems unreasonable for it to be called Translingual. Should it be moved to Latin? DCDuring TALK 00:55, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I would guess that it's a Scientific Latin borrowing from Ancient Greek. Try searching on inflected forms to filter out the taxonomic names: elaphorum turns up a specific epithet, but also Latin sentences. That's not to say it can't be translingual, too, but it definitely exists as Latin. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:55, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Just to confuse things further, here's a case where the taxonomic name Cervus elaphus is present as the inflected Latin form Cervo Elapho. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:11, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

And Elaphus was a genus name, but only from 1827. So my original hasty classification of the epithet as a genus name was just wrong. The use of forms of elaphus suggests it was in use in New Latin, but apparently not earlier. That suggests the L2 header should be be Latin, not Translingual. That elaphi and elaphorum are also used as specific epithets (for pests of deer) is consistent with elaphus being fully absorbed into New Latin. DCDuring TALK 02:52, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

There's an entry for “ELAPHUS” in Johann Jacob Hofmann’s Lexicon Universale (1698), whose text comprises “ELAPHUS, mons Aſiæ, & Arcadiæ. Pauſan.”, Anglicè "Elaphus, a mountain in Asia and in Arcadia. Pausanias"; nothing cervine, however. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 14:26, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

I think it was used in that way in Pliny. DCDuring TALK 16:49, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

Right you are. I've added it. Good old Pliny. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 19:15, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

• Keep, possibly change to Latin: I'm not seeing how this fails CFI. As Chuck notes, the argument is more for RfV than for RfD. Purplebackpack89 05:54, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

  There is no reason to have it as a Translingual term as it is a Latin term. If it were a genus name used as a specific epithet, the genus name (capitalized) would be a Translingual entry. Genus names are sometimes used as specific epithets. When they are, they appear in lower case as a result of the 'grammatical/orthographic' rules applied to taxonomic names. To have the lower case term in addition to the upper case one introduces needless redundancy into the dictionary. If you would like to add the redundant entries, feel free to do so. It would be a way to increase your net contributions without a great deal of effort. DCDuring TALK 16:47, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

In the real world it seems to be used with a lowercase first letter. Renard Migrant (talk) 18:34, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

In the real world sentence-initial words are capitalized. What's your point? Any genus name (capitalized) used as a specific epithet will, in that use, appear without a capital. DCDuring TALK 19:59, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

As an example consider Datura stramonium, Stramonium being an obsolete genus name. A different, common type of species name is Lynx lynx. DCDuring TALK 00:40, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

There again, see Datura stramonium, which goes back to Linnaeus, a year before Miller published Stramonium. As I said above, I don't think I've ever seen a specific epithet consisting of a noun in apposition that came from a generic name. The usual pattern is someone taking a specific epithet and converting it to a generic name when they create a new genus. This one is a bit murky, though, because it predates Linnaean taxonomy but was treated as a genus in a couple of pre-Linnaean works. It was, however, also used as a non-generic plant name as early as 1605. As a plant producing a commodity it tends to be treated as uncountable, so there are fewer inflected forms to search for. It does show up in 19th-century pharmaceutical usage in the genitive (i.e. "folium stramonii"), but that's also true of some completely translingual taxonomic names. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:01, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Hmmm. DCDuring TALK 02:20, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Kept as nominator withdrew the request with improvement.--Jusjih (talk) 02:33, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

of importance

SOP? --Type56op9 (talk) 11:48, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Hmmmm. Of course is clearly not SoP. (Try inserting an adjective.) Some OneLook dictionaries have of note; none have of importance, of interest, of import. Some former uses of of may not be productive, ie, "natural", any more, in contrast to, say, its use in partitive genitive constructions ("barrels of oil"}. But many such uses are transparent semantically.

Of note may be idiomatic because of the use of note#Etymology 3. I don't think note currently has the sense "reputation; distinction" in uses other than with "of", at least not often.

There are other expressions with of that are or have a greater prospect of being entry-worthy: of a kind, of a mind/of a mind to, of a piece, of all things, of all the nerve, of counsel, of old, of yore.

I'd say of importance is SoP. DCDuring TALK 14:37, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Delete, transparent and also in no way unique. How about a chess move that's of brilliance or of genius? Just a way of using of with an abstract noun. Renard Migrant (talk) 16:45, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Delete and don't create in a house, in a box, on a table, etc. Equinox ◑ 16:46, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think those are anywhere near equivalent. Renard Migrant (talk) 17:35, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

Me neither. I think of, like by, is now much more grammaticalized than many other prepositions. Some of its older uses are falling away. leaving us with some expressions that are hard to make sense out of by recourse to the components. But this one seems transparent. I just didn't want to jump to an unjustifable conclusion. DCDuring TALK 18:40, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

• Delete. Sum of parts. Easily re-expressed as of significance, of consequence, of import, of note, etc. ---> Tooironic (talk) 15:14, 11 December 2014 (UTC)

Keep as a predicative adjective. Don't we cater for them? Donnanz (talk) 09:30, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

WT:CFI#idiomaticity "An expression is idiomatic if its full meaning cannot be easily derived from the meaning of its separate components." That's why. PS does it still count as harassment if I'm answering a question? Renard Migrant (talk) 14:16, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

You were OK until you asked a question, I think. DCDuring TALK 14:27, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

• One thing that reminds one that this is genitive is that having is a substitute for of. Interestingly and tellingly having does not substitute in any on the list above of "of" phrases that I conjectured might be entry-worthy, except for of a mind to/of a mind DCDuring TALK 13:28, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Deleted. bd2412 T 04:21, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

working class

Adjectival sense, looks purely attributive --Type56op9 (talk) 17:47, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

google books:"very working class" shows true adjective usage, but it’s much more commonly spelt with a hyphen. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 17:52, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

• We have working-class; this should be reduced to an "alternative form of". bd2412 T 20:08, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

  Or is that the other way around? Etymologically: working class#Noun → working-class (attributive use of noun) → working class#Adjective. Is working-class the predominant form in predicate use? DCDuring TALK 20:58, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

I would say delete on this occasion. We have an entry for the noun, and the attributive adjective (working-class), and I think that is all that we need. Donnanz (talk) 09:39, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

If it were only attributive it wouldn't merit a separate PoS section. Evidently poor presentation of such terms helps maintain poor understanding of the grammar. DCDuring TALK 13:32, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

What about John Lennon's "Working Class Hero"? Is that not adjectival? Or is that the special "noun use as an adjective" thing? Tharthan (talk) 16:34, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

That is the ordinary, not special, attributive use of the noun phrase, which I'd write as "working-class hero". In this case confusion would not arise because working class is lexicalized for most readers, but it could be read as a class hero who is working. DCDuring TALK 19:16, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

I meant "special" as in "specialised use". Also, wouldn't those two things have different pronunciations then? A "working class hero" as in a class hero that is working would be /ə.wɜː(r)kɪŋˌklæs.hiːɹoʊ/, whilst a working class hero would be /ə.wɜː(r)kɪŋklæs.hiːɹoʊ/ or /ə.wɜː(r)kɪŋ.klæs.hiːɹoʊ/? Tharthan (talk) 23:00, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, in speech you don't need hyphens. This RfD is about a strictly orthographic matter. Hyphens are more or less strictly orthographic in contrast to solid spellings which seem to reflect pronunciation differences, specifically micro pauses. DCDuring TALK 03:29, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

*Redirect to working-class Purplebackpack89 19:35, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

• @Purplebackpack89: WHY? For example, can you show that the hyphenated form is the normal form for predicate use? DCDuring TALK 19:50, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Changing my vote to Keep adjective sense as alt form (and keep noun sense outright) Purplebackpack89 16:35, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

• Keep the adjectival sense, per DCDuring: has predicative uses (as opposed to attributive) modified by "very". Quotations: "tinned fish (all right as an ingredient in something else, such as fishcakes or a tuna-mayonnaise sandwich, but very working class if served on its own)", "my background is very working class and I have all those sensitivities around being working class.", "It was very working class. And I understood enough of the class system", "This seemed very working class, very nonbourgeois." --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:06, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Verbrauchen

The dative plural of Verbrauch is Verbräuchen. - Master of Contributions (talk) 03:53, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

It's a noun - "(das) Verbrauchen" means "use", "usage", formed from the infinitive [[verbrauchen]]. Restore and reformat. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:20, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

As a rule, we don't include substantivized German infinitives here, unless they happen to be the usual noun form. But that's not the case here; the usual noun for "use, usage" is Verbrauch itself. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:56, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Why don't we include them if they're includable? —CodeCat 17:32, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Because they'd be redundant to the lower-case version. Capitalizing a noun in German is as automatic as capitalizing a word at the beginning of the sentence, so it makes no more sense to have separate entries for stehen and Stehen (which has all the same meanings stehen does, just used substantivally) than it does to have separate entries for horses and Horses. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:27, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Adjectives can also be used substantivally, and when they are, they're capitalized (e.g. alles Gute, du bist kein Guter, mit etwas Gutem, etc.) but it would be redundant to have separate entries for capitalized Gute, Guter, Gutem etc. The exception is substantivized adjectives with truly nominal meanings, like Obdachloser and Abgeordneter. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:30, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't see any rule about excluding nominalised verbs or adjectives. They are, admittedly, predictable and any verb can be nominalised the same way - rauchen - "to smoke", Rauchen - "smoking", etc. but we don't exclude words or forms that are predictable in other languages. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:30, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

We try to. We actually exclude English words capitalized only in sentence-initial position. We exclude taxonomic species name abbreviations except in special circumstances in which the meaning is not obvious. We exclude English phrases that are hyphenated only for style reasons. We should exclude having entries for many more. Whether such variants are even worthwhile content as alternative forms, with or without hard redirects, is an open question to me. If our search engine can present the main form flawlessly at or near the top of a search list, why bother adding the entry. If they aren't worth systematically adding, then to maintain consistency of our user interface (thereby educating our users) we should eliminate such variations systematically. DCDuring TALK 14:25, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I understand what you mean but this is not the same thing. Nouns and verbs in German behave differently (as expected). Capitalised "Verbrauchen" is not just an alternative form "verbrauchen", it's a neuter noun and "verbrauchen" is a verb. The nominalised verbs are predictable but they have different grammar and usage, not just capitalisation. Compare [[Denken]] and [[denken]]. I don't see it different from English -ing forms, which are predictable but we keep them. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:27, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

@Atitarev I was using as a rule to mean "in general"; I didn't mean we had an actual rule. The difference between German capitalized infinitives and English -ing forms is that -ing forms have an actual suffix on them, while capitalized infinitives are no different form lower-case infinitives except in their capitalization. The thing is, virtually any part of speech can be treated as a noun in German, and is capitalized when it is so treated. If we start adding separate entries for all these capitalized forms, we will double the number of German entries while not actually adding any value, because the new capitalized entries won't tell us anything the old lower-case entries didn't. IMO we shouldn't have Denken, which doesn't mean "thought(s)" as the entry says (that's Gedanke(n)), but merely "the act of thinking". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:52, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

While I agree that there will be duplication and (possibly) little value for people who are comfortable with basics of the German grammar but I still don't think it's fair to delete such entries or not allowing others to create them. The efforts of making such entries could be a job for a bot, not for a human editor. Nominalised adjectives still behave like adjectives (so "Gutes" may not need an entry, if we have gut) but nominalised verbs behave like nouns, e.g. "des Denkens" is the genitive definite form of "das Denken" and nouns should have declension table, verbs - conjugation tables. I don't see any problem with increasing the number of German noun by simply adding capitalised verbs with a declension table. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:04, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

But nominalized adjectives don't behave like adjectives; if they did, they wouldn't be capitalized. The same goes for nominalized prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs, and so on. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:24, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Nominalized adjectives behave like adjectives in most cases as per declension.

Pls compare with the Dutch denken, which has both verb and noun sections, which don't even differ in capitalisation. We need a clearer policy on German (and Dutch, etc.) nominalised entries. I favour wider inclusion of nouns, whether they are predictable or not, derived from verbs, etc. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:35, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

I feel certain we had a discussion about this somewhere before; can anyone find it? One point I recall being made is that nominalized verbs inflect as nouns — one speaks of something happening während des Schwimmens, während des Denkens, etc. - -sche (discuss) 22:48, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

That's my point too. We can't assume users will know the grammar of the noun Schwimmen if they know the verb schwimmen. Sorry, I don't know where that discussion is. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:52, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe this one, Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2012/July#German nominalized infinitives? -- Curious (talk) 21:16, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

That's the one; thanks for finding it! :) - -sche (discuss) 21:59, 18 December 2014 (UTC)

So, please restore as per Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2012/July#German nominalized infinitives (thanks Curious for finding it). --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:18, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

The original request (pertaining to the dative) seems to have been resolved, and there's no consensus to delete (and there seems to be a consensus, especially considering the previous discussion, to keep) the entry as it stands now. - -sche (discuss) 05:14, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Just wondering, but would the hypothetical English cognate to this be "forbrook" if it actually had a cognate in English? Tharthan (talk) 18:05, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

• Presumably. German ver- is cognate with English for-, and German brauchen is cognate with English brook. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 19:34, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

• Striking the heading; RFD deleted on dative plural while RFD kept on nominalized verb infinitive. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:36, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

cooperation

How many distinct definitions of cooperation are there? Ignore the entry for a second and decide if you were writing the entry from scratch, what usage would not be covered by 'The act of cooperating'? Now to the entry itself

Active help from a person, organization, etc.

An orderly sharing of space or resources.

Association for mutual benefit, such as for purposes of production or purchase.

I don't think 'active help' is cooperation because it's not mutual, you can't cooperate with someone without their consent or against it, but you can help someone without their consent or against it

Orderly sharing of space or resources, this sounds like a specific example of cooperation

Sense #3 sounds like another example of cooperation. To me, it just sounds like the act of cooperating by another name.

This previously went to rfd (see Talk:cooperation) when there were seven senses and it failed to reach a consensus. Perhaps with only four senses, we can do it. Renard Migrant (talk) 14:09, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

Senses #1 and #2 could be merged, since they express more or les the same concept, but sense #3 is distinct because it can refer to the organization or association itself rather than to the act of cooperating. --Tweenk (talk) 09:05, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

The definitions look like the product of some kind of encyclopedic, not lexicographic, effort. I would rather start over (RfC?) than work with the confused mess we have, but the RfD process limits us and may help preserve some of the translations.

I find that the most helpful thing one can do in defining English words is find any grammatical distinctions. For English nouns, a countability distinction commonly requires a distinct definition. Also, for a noun that is clearly associated with a specific verb, inclusive definitions either refer to the definitions of the verb or have to duplicate the senses of the verb, though possibly some verb senses may not carry over.

Sense three, because it starts "a" is countable and therefore distinct from the other senses. The most general countable definition would be something like "an act or instance of cooperating". Which definition is close to sense one "The act of cooperating", which is confusingly (mis)labeled as uncountable. "An orderly sharing" (sense 3) is possible among inanimate things whereas cooperation is usually among animate things, though I could imagine it being applied to, say, computer processes. Thus sense 3 seems wrong.

I think the more common uses of cooperation are uncountable. A general definition is something like "The process of cooperating". I suppose that senses two and four would be included in such a definition, though they seem at best to be two arbitrary classes of cooperation. Moreover, "active help" (sense 2) is a one-sided giving, whereas cooperation is essentially mutual. Thus sense 2 seems wrong.

Perhaps the best way to save the translations is to make sense 1 countable and make sense 4 the uncountable sense or make it a subsense of a new general uncountable sense "The process of cooperating." DCDuring TALK 14:12, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

This would preserve the bulk of the translations, as sense 2 and 3 have little not in sense 1 and 4, except in for words translating sense 2 that mean "help", not specifically cooperation. DCDuring TALK 14:22, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

yac

Supposedly a misspelling in Spanish. Far too uncommon to warrant an entry, IMHO --Type56op9 (talk) 17:09, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

• Keep. yac,yak at Google Ngram Viewer in the Spanish corpus does not suggest as much; not sure how many of the hits are for something else, though. With no frequency argument provided, there is no case for uncommonness being made, just a bare claim. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:32, 20 December 2014 (UTC)

It seems to be incredibly common. Renard Migrant (talk) 00:40, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Kept, no consensus to delete. bd2412 T 21:41, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

relaxa e goza

An anon left feedback wondering why this isn't glossed "relax and enjoy" since gozar means "enjoy" as well as "cum". I said either way, it's SOP, so I'm bringing it here. Unless this has some idiomatic meaning not currently covered in the glosses, it should be deleted. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:33, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Delete this unbelievable entry. Absolutely SOP and falsely defined.

The story behind it is that around 2006, when Brazil was having delays in its airports and people started complaining about the long wait times, a politician told them to relax and enjoy [their stay in the airport].

Some people seem to suffer from the delusion that a famous person saying something makes it idiomatic or somehow special (i.e. Talk:culona inchiavabile). — Ungoliant ^(falai) 16:10, 21 December 2014 (UTC)

Delete or I suppose create relax and cum and relax and enjoy. It's not an idiom it's a sentence. WT:CFI does not say all sentences in all languages! Renard Migrant (talk) 20:33, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Deleted. bd2412 T 17:51, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

water powers

The main entry for water power says it's uncountable, which is correct in my opinion. Donnanz (talk) 10:03, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Delete per nom. DCDuring TALK 15:03, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Keep. Water power is countable. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 19:38, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't know what sources you're looking at. Power can be countable or uncountable, depending on the sense. In this sense it's uncountable. Donnanz (talk) 20:27, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

google books:"water powers". — Ungoliant ^(falai) 20:29, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

I think that in some cases it's water rights that are being referred to, rather than the use of water to provide power, whether it's a watermill or a hydroelectric power station. It seems that the water rights sense may be American and Canadian. Donnanz (talk) 20:42, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

We have identified a conceptual problem that apparently affects how we want to present things on the inflection line. The sense of water power that is countable is the unidiomatic countable one of power (legal) with respect to water or waters. That is not in the entry, as Donnanz correctly observes, nor, IMO, should it be. Our custom is to insert a 'definition' line "Used other than as an idiom: see water, power". If we take that kind of definition (too) seriously, we might say it forces us to should water power as both countable and uncountable. I don't think we do take those pseudo-definitions seriously in that way. We might be better off to move the pseudo-definition to Usage notes rather than subtract meaning from the inflection line. We could also make the case for removing any discussion of countability from the inflection line, but that would have to be at the cost of inserting un/countability labels before every single English noun definition, well more than 100K of them.

In any event, the definition of water powers as given is incorrect. I would venture that a correct definition would be SoP. We can always RfV it, the result being almost certain deletion, though with a delay and at the cost of some effort. DCDuring TALK 20:47, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Are you sure? Many of the hits for water powers are about the generation of electricity. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 21:01, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

RFV not RFD matter? Renard Migrant (talk) 21:03, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

@ Ungoliant: That may be referring to the granting of powers for the use of water for power generation. It gets confusing. Also it may be plural only in that sense. Donnanz (talk) 21:21, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

It is tedious to search through the citations as many are not of "water" "powers" consecutively despite the use of "water powers" in quotes as the search term. Of those that are, many are not in any related sense. But some are indeed countable uses of water power, apparently referring to a site where there is a head capable of generating power, often just a simple water wheel. The use seems to be dated or archaic.

Of the 26 instances of water powers at COHA, only two are published after 1928, one a short story by Mark Twain apparently republished in 1988, another in a 1944 article quote a letter written to Mark Twain (d. 1910) about water-power rights. It does not appear in BNC. It occurs once in COCA in an academic article apparently discussing water-power rights in Canada c. 1944. Thus it should be labeled dated, I think. DCDuring TALK 22:27, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

move to rfv. Renard Migrant (talk) 22:03, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

• Keep water power in the sense of hydropower is uncountable. Water power in the sense of world power is countable. Purplebackpack89 15:11, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

Kept. bd2412 T 04:08, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Designen

All plural forms, also the dative plural, are Designs. Maybe change the entry to a substantive "das Designen". - Master of Contributions (talk) 21:25, 22 December 2014 (UTC)

Acinetobacter baumannii

RFD of the English section as redundant to the translingual one. Is there any reason to include an English section (i.e. English-specific plurals, like Tyrannosaurus rex has)? — Ungoliant ^(falai) 01:28, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think so. The anon contributor probably wanted to insert as much content as possible at this entry and at [[Acinetobacter]]. It is not obvious how to make a link from [[Acinetobacter baumannii#Translingual]] to [[Iraqibacter#English]] as Iraqibacter is probably not a 'Translingual' synonym and it is not clear that we would welcome a slang register for Translingual. This is yet another reflection of the confusing position of Translingual entries. If we approved of having Translations sections in Translingual entries then that might be a plausible home for vernacular names like Iraqibacter. Does anyone have any preferences for where "Iraqibacter" should appear in [[Acinetobacter baumannii#Translingual]]? Synonyms? See also? Translations? Under a new 'Vernacular names' header? DCDuring TALK 02:06, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

I’m OK with translations. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 02:11, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Delete. Renard Migrant (talk) 22:03, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

⦰

When you reverse an empty set, you get an empty set: "reversed empty set" is not a definition that makes sense.

But this is just one entry of many. I have seen tons of "symbol" entries created (I think mostly by Equinox) simply by using the Unicode character name as the definition. This is wrong for several reasons. First, the Unicode consortium gets character names way wrong not that rarely, like with Ƣ ("LATIN CAPITAL LETTER OI" later corrected to "LATIN CAPITAL LETTER GHA") and ꀕ ("YI SYLLABLE WU" corrected to "YI SYLLABLE ITERATION MARK"). Second, Unicode character names are, well, names of the characters, not their meanings; there is nothing in "MATHEMATICAL SCRIPT CAPITAL P" to tell you that the symbol 𝒫 is used as the power set operator. It does not help you understand the symbol at all. Third (though admittedly weakest), Unicode often unifies characters with similar appearance, but distinct meanings; ∅ is used both in mathematics and linguistics, but "EMPTY SET" will not tell you that.

But back to the entry at hand: while I think it possible that this be attestable as an alternative form of ∅ (though it will be hard to do even if true), the definition we have here now is not worth keeping. — Keφr

I think they mean it’s reversed in the visual, not mathematical sense. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 18:30, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

The empty set reversed in the visual sense is still indistinguishable from itself before the reversion. — Keφr 18:45, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I think you should close this discussion and take this to RfV. Purplebackpack89 19:51, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I think you should actually find some attesting quotations instead of telling people what they should do. — Keφr 21:31, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Indistinguishable from itself before the reversion? You can't see a difference between ⦰ and ∅? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:31, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I can see a difference between ⦰ and ∅, but I cannot see the difference between the empty set and a reversed empty set, whatever definition of "empty set" and "reversed" I make up. — Keφr 21:32, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

It's not the empty set itself itself that's reversed, it's the empty set symbol that's reversed. That's what Ungoliant meant by reversed in the visual sense: the symbol itself is reversed (written in mirror writing). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:47, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

You're both right. The symbol is reversed, making this a (reversed) (empty set). But that's what the glyph is, not what it means. Does anyone besides the Unicode Consortium Archivist know of the use of this symbol in a paper? --Catsidhe ^{(verba, facta)} 22:52, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

RFV seems right. Is this used in any human languages? Renard Migrant (talk) 17:21, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

It's not something that Unicode probably stressed out about much. It's from the STIX project by the American Mathematical Society, and the whole batch of characters was pretty much handled as a bunch. It's shown here, where the STIX names is bemptyv and it's described as "reversed circle, slash".--Prosfilaes (talk) 12:43, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Can we move this to RFV? I know w with a line through it was RFV'd because it seemed not to be used in any human languages, just in lists of characters. I would link to the debate, but alas, I haven't found a way to enter it on my keyboard. A little help, please? Renard Migrant (talk) 16:51, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, if you insist… I doubt it would change the outcome, though. As for "w with a line through it", there seems to be no such thing in Unicode. Unless you mean U+20A9 WON SIGN, but I think that should be relatively easy to attest. — Keφr 17:01, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

No not that. Before your time perhaps? Back when Liliana-60 was Prince Kassad. Renard Migrant (talk) 17:06, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Perhaps you meant Talk:ẘ? — Keφr 17:51, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

yes, thank you. Renard Migrant (talk) 18:11, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Keep in RFD. If we take this to RFV, the question is how we can effectively search for a use. While google:⦰ finds nothing, google:∅ (for the non-reversed empty set) does not find anything either, although we do not doubt the symbol is used. Since I do not see anyone presenting a way how to search for use of unicode symbols, I would avoid RFV and just keep it, perhaps with a usage note linking to http://www.ams.org/STIX/private/stixprv-E4.html. As for whether the symbol has to mean something: we include e.g. Latin letters as letters, that is, units that do not have meaning but are rather used to compose larger units that carry meaning. We use {{non-gloss definition}} to enter a descrition of the letter as contrasted to meaning, e.g. in d#English. In ↑, one of the "senses" is "upwards arrow", which describes the glyph rather than a meaning, it seems. In ↔, Unicode says "left right arrow" while our current definitions consist of the sole one saying "material equivalence; if and only if"; the left right arrow is used to denote a multitude of things, and I would find it worthwhile to define it as "left right arrow", apart from "material equivalence; if and only if". As for which definition to use, we might either stay with "reversed empty set" with things being implied, or go for {{non-gloss|reversed symbol for empty set}}, to making clear it is the symbol that is reversed, not the empty set. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:55, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

That page is out of date (it assigns the character U+E41A, which is in the Private Use Ares) and no more informative than a Unicode code point chart. We might as well link to those — and in fact we do already, through {{character info}}.

A definition of "letter" at least tells you that the character is used in constructing larger meaningful units (words). Letters are also often paired with their usual pronunciations; you can include this pronunciation in a definition, since the letter arguably stands for the sound. Merely describing a glyph does not establish its meaning even in this weak sense. "Reversed symbol for the empty set" is not a definition, it is an etymology. It tells you nothing about why would anyone choose to use this glyph for anything instead of some other glyph. An "arrow" definition is similarly meaningless; I would delete those too.

As for searchability — the STIX font package for LaTeX (and I think some others) provides \revemptyset for this symbol; searching arXiv for it turns up nothing (compare searching for \varnothing). This might be one of those times when a symbol was added to a font because "it might be useful someday", and later to Unicode for the sake of maintaining feature parity. — Keφr 13:03, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

As for the uselessness of definitions like "arrow", I disagree. (Dan Polansky, signed below.)

Articulate as always. — Keφr 15:35, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

As for searchability, as you can see, http://search.arxiv.org:8081/?query=\varnothing finds mere 33 hits, which suggests a very low coverage. And the search only covers uses via LaTeX markup, not direct uses. Thus, compared to our search facility for words, we do not have a decent search facility for symbols. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:21, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

What do you mean by "not direct uses"? A PDF version is two clicks away. arXiv is also a much smaller corpus than Google Books, the modest list of results is kind of expected. You can also look for \emptyset (which Unicode apparently considers merely a glyph variant). Given you have a real definition for ∅, it also gives you a clue where to look for attestation: just open a random set theory or topology textbook. Many more common mathematical symbols can be attested this way. While it may not be as convenient, this is better than \varnothing. — Keφr 15:35, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

You seem to agree: we do not have a decent search facility for symbols. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:11, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Depending on what you mean by "symbol", we might never have. This does not mean we should give up attesting them. I think what we have at our disposal is good enough to at least make reasonable conjectures. — Keφr 16:44, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

We may make a conjecture about "⦰" not being used, but, absent good search facility, the conjecture is too secure against refutation. This is one of the reasons for which I prefer to keep Unicode codepoints per being Unicode codepoints, having attesting quotations available or not. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:58, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

But it has no meaning. Delete DCDuring TALK 17:02, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

In the edit summary, DCDuring said: "no meaning ⇒ no entry". I refuted this principle by pointing to our letter entries. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:10, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Does this mean we should create U+1F574 MAN IN BUSINESS SUIT LEVITATING now? — Keφr 17:09, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky: Do we have any entries for things that neither have a conventionally accepted meaning, nor are components of terms that have conventionally accepted meaning, nor are proper names? DCDuring TALK 18:05, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

@DCDuring: Thank you; now you have stated a workable criterion for exclusion: the item has no attested meaning, and is not attested as being part of larger lexical items with attested meaning. Even then, I think it worthwhile to include symbols that are demonstrably used albeit not with any particular conventional meaning. Furthermore, as for "⦰" specifically, my reservations about our search facilities remain. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

…any examples? — Keφr 19:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky: What is the possible rationale for having them? This is far outside WT:CFI and any accepted concept of what a dictionary is or could be. Few indeed would even know how to enter any characters outside those available on their native-script keyboard. Shouldn't we await the development and spread of a technology that made it possible to input a free-hand drawing and search for images, first among Unicode, them other similar standards, then line drawings available on-line? Is there any chance at all that someone would come to Wiktionary for such items? DCDuring TALK 20:24, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Shapecatcher [1] actually does allow you to look up Unicode characters by drawing freehand. Equinox ◑ 21:49, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Cool tool. Added it to my toolbar. Now lets add it to MediaWiki Search. DCDuring TALK 02:16, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Any accepted concept of what a dictionary is or could be? The Matematika Vortaro (Mathematical Dictionary), page 271, defines ∅ as "malplena aro". The fact that it doesn't define ⦰ is based on frequency, not some "accepted concept of what a dictionary is". Webster's Condensed (1887) offers us a section straightforwardly titled "Arbitrary Signs used in Printing and Writing".--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:32, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

@Prosfilaes: What evidence do you have that it is a frequency-based omission rather than one based on the absence of any meaning? "malplena aro" is not a name or description of the symbol, it is the definition. The symbol in question has no meaning that anyone knows or can find. DCDuring TALK 02:16, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

That anyone here knows or can find. Our limitations are not limitations on reality, and I much assume if it was worth putting in fonts, someone used it, and therefore it has meaning, if only in a certain narrow context.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:42, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Never "assume". If someone used it, show it. — Keφr 00:40, 2 January 2015 (UTC)

• This entry has a description of the symbol not a definition, its meaning. Apparently it has no meaning assigned to it by any authority, let alone a generally accepted meaning, let further alone one that we know how to attest. How does this fit even with our slogan? At best this would be a use for {{no entry}} with either {{in appendix}} or {{in Wikipedia}}. DCDuring TALK 15:05, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

  WT:CFI slogan "all words in all languages" (italics mine) is unhelpful with morphemes (un-), provebs (curiosity killed the cat), symbols (∅), and letters in particular (d), which are not words; their inclusion is in part mandated by WT:CFI#Terms. Therefore, slogan "all words in all languages" does not help in this discussion. Furthermore, as I said above, letter entries are examples of entries that, in their Letter sections, do not state meaning on their definition lines. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:11, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

  I'd actually noticed some limitations and qualifications that render our slogan operationally useless, except as a way of disabling brain function. DCDuring TALK 16:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

BTW, the reason I've created some of these more esoteric symbols is that people (not me) tend to add them at Wiktionary:Wanted_entries, and it's easier to clear the request pages by creating an entry than by deleting something as inappropriate and starting a tedious fight, as sometimes happens at WT:REE. Perhaps this is cynical and I shouldn't, but otherwise the request pages get so large and almost nobody is helping. Equinox ◑ 19:00, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

• Keep; we've already committed to including most of Unicode; I don't see the win to not including ⦰ and 🕴 (MAN IN BUSINESS SUIT LEVITATING).--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:32, 31 December 2014 (UTC)
  • But neither of these glyphs has a definition. Do you think that we also need an entry for U+1F47E 👾 ALIEN MONSTER or U+1F43F 🐿 CHIPMUNK, or U+1F31A 🌚 NEW MOON WITH FACE? For domino tiles? For mahjong? Blocks? How would you define them? — Keφr 15:38, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

Including all of Unicode is not all our job. All the ones used in human language, yes, of course! But not those which aren't. Renard Migrant (talk) 22:02, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky you think we should keep this whether it's attestable or not? When did you become such a big fan out flouting the rules? Renard Migrant (talk) 22:02, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

• Move meaningless Unicode forms to an appendix. Oh, wait, guess what? bd2412 T 02:37, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

DP and Prosfilaes say "keep", DCD says "delete", Equinox seems not to care, RM's and BD's statements seem to be to the effect of "delete" (the former would prefer an attempt at attestation first, though). Anyone else? — Keφr 20:24, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm also in the don't care category, by virtue of the fact that I believe this is the wrong forum. Purplebackpack89 21:19, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

On a pure "keep/delete" vote, I would say delete; however, we have this glyph in Appendix:Unicode/Miscellaneous Mathematical Symbols-B, with the exact same definition. By redirecting (or using an "only in" signal), we avoid having an entry on a meaningless symbol, but retain access to all of the information that already exists. I certainly agree that the entry should not exist as a freestanding entry. bd2412 T 17:41, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

Redirect per bd, or delete, if it's not attested. - -sche (discuss) 05:37, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Note: See Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2015/January#Is documenting all Unicode characters within the scope of Wiktionary?, where redirection to the appendices has been proposed for all meaningless Unicode characters. Cheers! bd2412 T 13:53, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

January 2015

crepi il lupo

Italian. Tagged in diff by User:Renard Migrant. Was it tagged only because of the poor original formatting? google:"crepi il lupo". --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:37, 4 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes. Move to rfc. Renard Migrant (talk) 18:33, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

It was tagged by me, but not with {{rfd}}. Renard Migrant (talk) 18:39, 5 January 2015 (UTC)

To rfc? Renard Migrant (talk) 16:27, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

@User:Renard Migrant: I consider you to be the nominator (diff), so you can cancel the nomination. Or you can declare me to be the nominator, and then I can cancel the nomination. Or we can conjure higher powers to cancel this nomination :). I don't think RFC is really needed now. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:32, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't consider "Response to the phrase 'in bocca al lupo!'" a comprehensible definition. Maybe just {{attention|it}}. Renard Migrant (talk) 18:38, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

brick wall

rfd-sense: A wall made of bricks. Redundant to {{&lit|brick|wall}} DCDuring TALK 17:51, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the definition for which it was introduced has now been improved, so this sense is redundant. Dbfirs 19:04, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Yup, do it. Renard Migrant (talk) 22:29, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep. We have stone wall. We also have fried egg. ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:36, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Delete. The senses at stone wall and fried egg are not redundant to other senses in their entries. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 04:39, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Delete: that's what I was about to point out. Equinox ◑ 04:40, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Keep sense 2, useful for translations. Maybe sense 1 should be removed. Donnanz (talk) 10:23, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

@Donnanz: The translation-target rationale is not part of WT:CFI. There is nothing to prevent the creation of entries for translations of brick + wall that are includable as CFI-meeting in their own language.

There is indeed also nothing other than lack of willing and able volunteers preventing the creation of entries for the vast number of redlinked translations at entries that have translation tables. Once we have made more progress in that regard I might find the translation-target rationale worth considering. DCDuring TALK 11:53, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

As for translation target not being part of CFI and whether it matters, see Wiktionary:Votes/2014-11/Entries which do not meet CFI to be deleted even if there is a consensus to keep. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:13, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I can't really add anything to DP's comment, except reiterate that potential translation targets should be kept. Let's leave it at that. Donnanz (talk) 15:32, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

• Why can't we eliminate sense two and then reword the first section of the translation table to indicate that it contains translations of the &lit usage? bd2412 T 00:33, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

camera movement

Supposedly two senses, both of which just seem to be "moving a camera". Equinox ◑ 08:02, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Delete. Renard Migrant (talk) 11:14, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Delete No surprise that we are the only OneLook reference to have this. The two purported senses differ in whether the movement is intentional and metonymically in whether it is the movement or the effect of the movement that is the focus. Intention is lexically irrelevant and the metonymic distinction is inherent in movement. DCDuring TALK 12:26, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Delete. Kaldari (talk) 08:34, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Deleted. bd2412 T 19:33, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

国民生产毛额

This, and several other similar entries, has no formatted content other than a ==language name==. SemperBlotto (talk) 13:32, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

• Do we have a template that generates a "Simplified Chinese form of 國民生產毛額." boilerplate? Smurrayinchester (talk) 13:53, 9 January 2015 (UTC)
• A related vote: Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2014-12/Making simplified Chinese soft-redirect to traditional Chinese. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:56, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

  Delete the lot, it clearly says that vote ends January 25. User shouldn't jump the gun, especially since currently the vote is on course to fail. Renard Migrant (talk) 18:40, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

  Sorry my comment is superseded by Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2015/January#Template:zh-see. Renard Migrant (talk) 23:39, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

  Kept as soft redirect.--Jusjih (talk) 02:18, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

stone wall

Does it get more SOP than this? "A wall made of stone" - I'd never have guessed. --Hekaheka (talk) 14:01, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Seems silly; delete. (There's stonewall, but that's something different, so not a COALMINE case.) Equinox ◑ 17:12, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

It seems to have some one-word translations... Siuenti (talk) 17:49, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

• This does not meet my translation target criterion so far, since all the translations seem to be closed word-for-word compounds: German Steinmauer (Stein + Mauer) or Finnish kivimuuri (kivi + muuri). --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:01, 9 January 2015 (UTC)

Keep. In fact, stonewall is a good reason for keeping it, and I have added a link to it. There's an awful lot of negative thinking going on. Donnanz (talk) 10:16, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

But the entry doesn't show that stone wall has the non-SoP meaning that stonewall has. WT:COALMINE should not apply. DCDuring TALK 10:42, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the coalmine principle doesn't apply, I added the link to show the difference between stonewall and stone wall. Think "outside the box" if you can. Donnanz (talk) 11:00, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep per WT:COALMINE. I readded sense "A wall made up of stone" to stonewall; google books:"stonewalls" suggests the sense "a wall made up of stone" can be found. Some quotations: "There is Jackson standing like a stonewall."; "Stonewalls to rebuild, 7s. to 10s., according to height, facility of getting stones, &c. "; "the country was an amazing strong one, full of hills, woods, stonewalls, &C., "; "The enemy were intrenched behind stonewalls, and other cover, and it seemed like rushing into the jaws of death to charge them." If you still doubt the existence of the sense in "stonewall", please open RFV-sense on it. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:56, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

  Even so, still redundant to {{&lit}}. It would still be included. Renard Migrant (talk) 15:51, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

  I dislike {{&lit}}, especially in an entry that would contain {{&lit}} and nothing else. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:03, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

• I have a little confession to make. I think I created this entry before I became a registered user. Donnanz (talk) 14:37, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• Question: Is stone wall a legitimate alternative spelling of the verb, stonewall? I found: 2008, Hans Erickson, Spectrum of Greed, page 18: "If he stone walled at any of the initial points of the negotiations, it would essentially be over, he felt". If more uses like this exist, I would keep the title as an alternative spelling of, and turn the wall-made-of-stone entry into an {{&lit}}. bd2412 T 16:42, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Update. I found 2011, Leigh Ashton, ISell: Unlock Your Winning Sales Mindset, page 72: "You will stone wall ideas if they don't make sense to you and others may perceive you as difficult in these situations".
  • I have also added an adjective sense to stonewalled, since I am finding many references to stonewalled gardens, stonewalled paths, etc. bd2412 T 16:45, 10 January 2015 (UTC)
• Keep per Donnanz and Renard. Purplebackpack89 15:22, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
• Keep. I've cited the "wall made of stone" sense of stonewall, so WT:COALMINE applies. —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 18:51, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

  Even if it does, COALMINE says nothing about including the relevant sense twice, which is what is being proposed by the keepers. Renard Migrant (talk) 19:35, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

  @User:Renard Migrant: Twice? stone wall? Please check. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:37, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

  Whoops, apologies. Renard Migrant (talk) 20:14, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Kept. bd2412 T 18:37, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

raucous

Rfd-redundant: "loud and annoying" redundant to "disorderly and boisterous". Look at the usage example 'raucous party', which would be as good under the "disorderly and boisterous". So delete/merge and improve. Renard Migrant (talk) 19:33, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Raucous needn't imply annoying. Equinox ◑ 21:01, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

@Equinox: A few dictionaries do include the reaction of the hearer in one of the usually two definitions: eg, "Making or constituting a disturbingly harsh and loud noise" Oxford US. "harshly or hoarsely loud" Collins. "disagreeably harsh or strident" MWOnline. DCDuring TALK 13:45, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I suggest that we delete this sense, but add the "loud" connotation to sense 1. Dbfirs 10:40, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

MW 1913 has "Hoarse; harsh; rough; as, a raucous, thick tone. His voice slightly raucous." (no mention of "loud") and not the "disorderly and boisterous" sense which is the most common current one, IMO. So meaning has changed. The dictionaries that incorporate into a definition the hearer's reaction to the noise always include "harsh/strident/hoarse/grating" in the definition. The "disorderly, boisterous" definitions do not include the hearer's reaction. DCDuring TALK 13:45, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

erotic massage

I'm really on the fence about whether this is SOP or not. WF gave it a definition that seems non-SOP, but if you think about it, that's just summing up the most obvious way a massage could be erotic, but not necessarily idiomatic. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:15, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

Looking through the Google Book hits, the first 30 all refer to massage which is erotic. However I think there might be an idiomatic sense, sex acts in exchange for money, can we cite it? Renard Migrant (talk) 20:27, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't see idiomaticity in our current "idiomatic" definition. I don't see how adding money to the picture would make it idiomatic. An X is an X, whether you pay for it or not. --Hekaheka (talk) 00:58, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

You're right it's a theory and I don't have any evidence to back it up. Delete, no problem. Renard Migrant (talk) 12:18, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

• Delete The surface meaning is quite SoP. Any use as a disguise for intercourse or other sexual act, as in some kind of advertising, is simply deceit, not even a euphemism. DCDuring TALK 01:50, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
• Much to my chagrin, I think we're essentially at the point in society where "massage" can be defined as "The action of rubbing, kneading or hitting someone's body, followed by sexual intercourse. Purplebackpack89 21:07, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Not where I live, we're not. I've gotten many massages in my life and none of them involved sexual activity. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:13, 14 January 2015 (UTC)
• Delete. Sum of parts. The arguments given above seem pretty persuasive to me. There is no specific definition of an erotic massage AFAIK - it can be paid or unpaid, involving intercourse or not, etc. ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:34, 16 January 2015 (UTC)
• Perhaps it should be kept as a euphemism. It's akin to massage parlour. Donnanz (talk) 10:49, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

double radio-source associated with a galactic nucleus

Sum of parts (and the plural) SemperBlotto (talk) 21:04, 11 January 2015 (UTC)

• It seems like it might be a set phrase. I find it interesting that the commonly used abbreviation, DRAGN, requires an unusual selection of letters from the initial phrase (a direct acronym would be more like "DRSAWAGN" or at least "DRAWGN". Can this be reworded and maintain the same technical meaning? bd2412 T 21:49, 11 January 2015 (UTC)
  • More likely, the phrase was coined for the purpose of providing a suitable acronym, and is probably only found in actual use as a gloss for the acronym. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:19, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

    Oh, you cynic. DCDuring TALK 03:13, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

    There are three Google Books hits, albeit one is in German. Renard Migrant (talk) 12:17, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

• It is not sum of parts. It is not any old set of two radio-sources that are associated with any galactic nucleus. For instance, it is not about two radio-loud pulsars that orbit the galactic nucleus. Nor it is for a pair of H-I regions inhabiting the galactic nucleus region. Etc, off to infinity, for all the varieties of radio sources that can be found close to galactic nuclei. It is specifically about the configuration of radio lobes carved out of the extragalactic medium that line up with the galactic nucleus, which are detectable from Earth. If one or both of the radio lobes are not detectable from Earth, then it doesn't fit, even though theoretical models of the galaxy will feature two lobes. -- 65.94.40.137 05:37, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm with Semper. We cant't include every seven-word combination which has an exact meaning. Very often they have. --Hekaheka (talk) 22:04, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

• I created WT:RFV#double radio-source associated with a galactic nucleus. It is not obvious that this is a sum of parts, but if it is not attested, the sum-of-parts question is moot. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:24, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

General Secretary

This is a really terrible entry that somehow slipped under the radar. I was about to stick an RFC on it when I realised that it might not even be entry-worthy in the first place, although if it is, two of the definitions need to go. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 04:39, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

What definitions? All I see is a list of facts about General Secretaries, which seem to be specific to Communist entities. This same text appears in the Wikipedia article, but not as numbered items. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:47, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, would probably be OK if the three explanations were replaced by an actual definition. SemperBlotto (talk) 07:57, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

I've had a go at cleaning it up. Smurrayinchester (talk) 14:46, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep as reworded: secretary as head of a party is a novel sense; generally we think of secretaries as the people in the office typing stuff up. Purplebackpack89 15:04, 12 January 2015 (UTC)

Kept as reworded. bd2412 T 19:34, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

break the cycle

This is fairly transparent. Break means to stop, as you can break something other than a cycle, and in this case, cycle simply refers to a cycle. Also definition not written in comprehensible English, though, that isn't a deletion rationale. Renard Migrant (talk) 23:30, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

There are many meanings of cycle; I believe that it is understood that "break the cycle", used as a freestanding expression, means to bring to an end a pattern of unhealthy behavior, and often one that has persisted through one's life (being a conformist, passing up opportunities for adventure) or over generations (violence by the parent towards the child). I think this needs to be fixed, not deleted. bd2412 T 23:50, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

It could mean to break a positive cycle, just, why would anyone want to? Renard Migrant (talk) 12:15, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

One could use beat the system to describe a circumstance where someone finds a loophole that delivers them a negative result, but the phrase is understood to convey a positive result. I think that break the cycle should specifically be defined as ending a negative cycle; I think that such a definition would capture its actual meaning in the wild. bd2412 T 17:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

• Fix and keep: As BD noted, "break" and "cycle" are ambiguous. Purplebackpack89 00:50, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Delete since the "cycle" can be any repeating thing (a cycle) such as drinking, gambling, ... but I agree that it should at least be improved first, so we can discuss a proper entry. Equinox ◑ 00:56, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but those are still specifically negative behaviors. We don't talk about breaking the cycle of the seasons, or the lunar cycle, or the cycle of life. As far as human behaviors go, we generally don't talk about breaking virtuous circles, like coming from generations of loving parents. Also, strictly speaking, drinking and gambling are not spoken of as cyclical things except in the context of breaking the pattern of doing them. bd2412 T 01:43, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

It can't be any repeating thing, and since repeating things is a small enough universe in and of itself... Purplebackpack89 05:02, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Purple, so any phrase with break or cycle should be kept? Renard Migrant (talk) 12:01, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

For one, that's not a great many phrases. For two, not all of them are as ambiguous as this one. Purplebackpack89 16:20, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Well that's a clarification isn't it? You're saying (in effect) break and cycle are ambiguous enough in this context. I would say that all language is ambiguous, there is never a situation where misunderstanding is not possible. Renard Migrant (talk) 17:22, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

All language is ambiguous, but some language is more ambiguous than other language. Purplebackpack89 19:08, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I thought you were gonna quote Animal Farm for a second there. Renard Migrant (talk) 21:46, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep rather than not, per bd2412: implies breaking negative something. The current def "To cease a neverending routine" is poor. I am not sure how to say this in Czech; I have looked at Google translate, and I think this will be also interesting for translations. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:15, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

  I have rewritten the definition accordingly. bd2412 T 17:37, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

  The new def looks good: "To act so as to end a repeating pattern of harmful or otherwise negative behavior." Although "To act so as to end" could probably be stated as "To end". --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:00, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

  I prefer to make the requirement of acting explicit; others may disagree and overrule me, of course. bd2412 T 04:17, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Einstein

Two German senses:

2. (mockingly) Sherlock; a person who has stated something obvious, unaware of its obviousness

3. (sarcastic) a person that has not noticed the obvious or is perceived as unintelligent

Per the RFD of James Bond, these aren't separate senses of Einstein. Irony/sarcasm is a standard construction in most languages, and when you use a term sarcastically, you're not creating a new meaning for it, you're just using its usual meaning in a way that you don't actually agree with in order to make a point (not unlike hyperbole). If I say "Oh, yeah, that's a really beautiful painting(!) A real work of art(!)" to describe a painting I find hideous, I'm not using beautiful to mean ugly, and I'm not using work of art to mean monstrosity. I'm just saying something I don't believe, and undercutting it with a sarcastic tone of voice. Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:18, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I completely agree, sarcasm makes use of existing sense of words, it doesn't create new ones. Delete. Renard Migrant (talk) 11:59, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

By the same token, this sense of Sherlock should also be deleted:

1. (humorous) A detective (from Sherlock Holmes), especially used ironically to address somebody who has stated the obvious.

It also mixes etymology and definition. --Hekaheka (talk) 20:07, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Except that Sherlock doesn't have a separate definition of "detective". It's also a bit weird to define it positively; as far as I know, the vast majority of uses in English would be in a negative sense.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:12, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

• Delete. Distinct from Sherlock, which is an element of the larger phrase, no shit, Sherlock. bd2412 T 05:10, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

targetting

This word does not appear in the OED [2]or the CED [3] or as far as I know any other published dictionaries. Jamesmcmahon0 (talk) 10:54, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I should have mentioned this was brought up on wikipedia, here

google books:"targetting" turns up enough results that I'm not super worried (though it did only start really appearing recently). —JohnC5 ^{(Talk | contribs)} 11:26, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Strictly speaking it's a misspelling because the stress is not on the last syllable, that is, on the tar not the get. As you say, with 35,300 Google Book hits, can we consider this a rare misspelling and thus delete it? Renard Migrant (talk) 12:05, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

I guess you're right that 35,000 is comparatively rare (that had not occurred to me). I'm fine with a delelte. —JohnC5 ^{(Talk | contribs)} 14:39, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Well, given Dan Polansky's ensuing argument, I change my mind back to keep, particularly since delelte is not a word. —JohnC5 ^{(Talk | contribs)} 21:24, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

"delelte" is a rare misspelling. delete,(delelte*1000) at Google Ngram Viewer does not find it at all; google books:"delelte" finds mostly non-English hits, it seems, although there is at least one English hit. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:12, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I had a sneaking suspicion that if I left a note about my misspelling of delete someone would respond in this manner, but I had no idea you would actually find another example of the same misspelling. I am very impressed. :) —JohnC5 ^{(Talk | contribs)} 18:39, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep as a common misspelling, per (targetting*90),targeting at Google Ngram Viewer. Mispellings hardly ever get such a favorable frequency ratio: 90; (occured*140),occurred at Google Ngram Viewer is an example that comes close. Recall that Google Ngram Viewers shows frequencies from copyedited corpus. Try your own queries using items from Category:English misspellings. Keeping common misspellings was recently confirmed at Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2014-04/Keeping common misspellings. Note that in 19th century, targetting was not so badly overwhelmed by targeting[4]. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:09, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

  It could even be an alternative spelling with frequency ratio that favorable. In British corpus, it even approaches 60 in 2000[5] and 12 in 1990[6]. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:17, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

Honestly I would keep it. It could be an obsolete spelling AND a misspelling, and of course we keep obsolete spellings as long as there are three citations for them; relative frequency doesn't matter for them. Renard Migrant (talk) 21:37, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

... and it does appear in the OED, though only in a cite from Scottish English in 1651: " The preachers spake freelie against the targetting of weomen's tailes, and the rest of their vanitie." ("targets" were "trimmings" in case anyone is puzzled). Dbfirs 00:18, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

I've edited it to say misspelling and obsolete spelling. Renard Migrant (talk) 17:42, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

That sounds about right. There's something odd in British English, because the (mis-)spelling reached more than 5% of usage in the 1980s if this is accurate. Dbfirs 17:38, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

• We'd better keep it, I guess. Donnanz (talk) 10:41, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Kept. bd2412 T 19:36, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

protector de persoane

This is a verbatim translation (one of many made by Wernescu) and not the correct translation. A search on Google gives you 7 hits. The correct translation is gardă de corp or even the Anglicism bodyguard. --Robbie SWE (talk) 18:37, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Delete now, and I agree that Wernescu and his other aliases did a lot of bad translations, some of which remain. Renard Migrant (talk) 18:49, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Why is this still here? Renard Migrant (talk) 15:31, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

• Delete as speedy RFV fail AKA failure to meet WT:ATTEST: no RFD-relevant reason was given; google books:"protector de persoane" and google:"protector de persoane" are suggestive. Let the supporters of the term place attesting quotations at Citations:protector de persoane. Yes, this could go to RFV, but I think we can do without that overhead. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:18, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Deleted. bd2412 T 19:37, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

history

rfd-sense x3:

1. A record or narrative description of past events.
2. (deprecated template usage) (medicine)   The list of past and continuing medical conditions of an individual or family.

3. (deprecated template usage) (computing) A record of previous user events, especially of visited web pages in a browser.

Peter Isotalo (talk • contribs) decided to speedily delete this with no discussion (for which he has been blocked before). Keep all three, definitely exist and definitely not redundant to any other senses. Renard Migrant (talk) 23:32, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Keep the computing one. Delete the medical one: even the usage example says "medical history", which is sense 1 (record of past events). Equinox ◑ 23:39, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Keep the first, delete the second and third or convert to subsenses. They are clearly specialisations of the first sense, to me. —CodeCat 23:54, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm stunned. One user votes to keep with the motivation "they definitely exist". Another votes to keep all except the single definition with a conflicting example added by a Wiktionary user.[7] Instead of the rather simple concept of verifiability you simply choose to vote on stuff. Again: stunned.

Peter ^Isotalo 00:02, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

But what is there to verify? All three senses seem pretty clearly in use to me. If you wanted to verify the existence of the senses, you should have gone to WT:RFV. —CodeCat 00:23, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

This looks like it needs to go to RfC. The definitions seem to both have overlap and to omit some senses. Or is this what we settle for? DCDuring TALK 00:39, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Equinox might have a point about the medical sense. How is a 'history of diabetes' different to 'a history of violence' (which is non-medical)? Renard Migrant (talk) 13:01, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Sorry Peter, I just think you haven't got a clue here. Why would 'verifiability' be in question here? Do you dispute that a is an English indefinite article? If not, why not? Renard Migrant (talk) 13:05, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep all three senses. The sum of parts rationale cannot apply to what is obviously a single word. As for redundancy, I am not so sure, but they do not seem redundant. The medical history sense is in Merriam Webster 2c[8], and AHD 1c[9]. In Czech, you don't use the word "dějiny" or "historie" to refer to medical history, you only say "anamnéza", so this medical use of the word "history" seems peculiar to me, and is needed for distinct translations anyway. The medical history sense already passed RFD in August 2012, as per Talk:history#RFD. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:10, 17 January 2015 (UTC)
• Keep the first: think of book titles like "A Short History of Rome" or similar. I really don't like the second, but something needs to be done with the sense in "He has a history of cancer in his family.", or even "This individual/suburb has a long history of violence." I don't see any reason not to keep the third, as it is a specific use that is not obviously covered by any of the others.

  If you are concerned about verifiability (verification), you should start a request at WT:RFV, rather than just deleting the senses from the page without discussion. This, that and the other (talk) 10:55, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep all three: None are sum-of-parts, nor are any of them redundant to any existing senses. I'd particularly like to defend the first one because it's distinguishable from the primary definition because one is a countable work, the other is an uncountable study. Each definition could easily pass RfV if needed, so there's no need to take them there. Purplebackpack89 16:07, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

  A history can refer to the specific written record as opposed to the events themselves. I totally agree. Renard Migrant (talk) 17:41, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep all three. Donnanz (talk) 10:35, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Kept, as to all three. bd2412 T 20:12, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Buraq Wall

"A wall connected to the al-Aqsa mosque." We have no criteria for including or excluding placenames, so the question is, what level of granularity is too much granularity? (Hilariously, the larger place, al-Aqsa mosque, is a redlink.) - -sche (discuss) 06:20, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Funny, en-Wikipedia article on al-Aqsa does not mention Buraq Wall, but it is the same wall that the Jews call Wailing Wall, and which is more neutrally known as the Western Wall. The Arabic name for that particular wall translates word-by-word as "Buraq Wall" into English. Buraq, as we remember, is the name of the heavenly horse-like creature that took prophet Muhammed from Mecca to Jerusalem and back. Muhammed reportedly tied Buraq to this wall during his stay, hence the name. It's undeniably a remarkable place. If we decide to keep it, we might want to create a main entry of "Western Wall" and make "Buraq Wall" and "Wailing Wall" refer to it as its Muslim and Jewish names respectively. --Hekaheka (talk) 08:29, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

hold one's pee

hold one's poop

Should be covered by senses at hold. I see that hold one's urine passed an RFV (not an RFD) in the past. Equinox ◑ 16:07, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Are we talking about hold in one's hands or hold inside one's bowels? The fact that there's a significant ambiguity here must be acknowledged. The second one is nearly idiomatic. Purplebackpack89 22:43, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

That's just typical polysemy. We shouldn't have entries for "hold one's place" (as a bookmark does in a book), "hold [i.e. reserve] me a table" etc. ad nauseam, simply because "hold" has multiple senses. It's culturally obvious that people don't shit in their hands. Equinox ◑ 23:22, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't know about that, Equinox. Nowadays, people don't seem to be all that wise... Tharthan (talk) 23:26, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

Being "culturally obvious" (or any other type of "obvious") isn't a reason for deletion, sorry. Keep. Oh, and create the other things you've suggested P.S.: You can hold shit in your hands without shitting directly into your hands. You can shit into something else and then pick it up. Purplebackpack89 02:17, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

As established before, PBP would also vote keep on "brown leaf" (because "leaf" can be a book page), even though that's our canonical example of something meriting deletion. His illogical conclusions ought to be ignored as having no sound basis in reason and for outright contradicting our policies. Equinox ◑ 03:31, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Just because you disagree with them doesn't make them illogical. What is so illogical about wanting more dictionary definitions to resolve ambiguities in language? I want an actual reason, not just some blind lock-stepping to a policy it's clear many people don't support. And, no, I shouldn't be ignored, I get as much say as you, Equinox. Purplebackpack89 03:46, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

Also, I'd like a diff for where I said "keep" to brown leaf specifically. I may have said "keep" to other things you consider to be SOP, but not that one in particular. Purplebackpack89 03:50, 19 January 2015 (UTC)

• Delete, but I think we need a new sense at hold to cover these, plus examples like "hold it" or "hold one's bladder" (perhaps even "hold one's liquor" or "hold one's breath", which also have the same connotations of controlling the body as it tries to expel something). Perhaps "To remain continent; to control a bodily function." I would say that having a dozen of these entries for all the synonyms of "pee" and "poop" doesn't help anyone. Smurrayinchester (talk) 23:06, 18 January 2015 (UTC)

  There's a problem with that definition, how does it relate to the pronoun one's? Can you hold someone else's poop? Renard Migrant (talk) 22:37, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Sure, in your hands. But I completely agree with Equinox, this should be deleted. --Hekaheka (talk) 18:02, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

• Delete per nom (or redirect to hold). — Ungoliant ^(falai) 05:05, 19 January 2015 (UTC)
• Delete all, including "urine" below. Transparent to verb sense 11 for "hold". bd2412 T 20:05, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

hold one's urine

All deleted. bd2412 T 22:44, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Celtic studies

Sum of parts. Renard Migrant (talk) 16:05, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep "* studies" as translation target: Czech is keltistika, which is a single-word non-compound. Many European languages have a similar single-word non-compound formation. See also English studies, which has Czech anglistika, German Anglistik and Russian англистика. Keeping all the translations on Celtology is inferior per (Celtology*30), Celtic studies at Google Ngram Viewer; let us use the most common and most naturally sounding term of English. A similar discussion with not too many participants is at Talk:Indo-European studies. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:23, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Translations can go at Celtology. Renard Migrant (talk) 22:34, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep anything any academic discipline of the form ____ studies Even if they weren't translation targets, the definition of them is not easily divined. Purplebackpack89 18:45, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

To clarify, when I said "keep anything of the form ____ studies", I was specifically referring to academic discipline. I have altered my vote accordingly Purplebackpack89 00:41, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep any drivel that anyone wants. DCDuring TALK 20:09, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
• Keep --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:17, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Fine, don't complain if we end up with beer studies or furniture studies. Renard Migrant (talk) 22:36, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Trolling won't help your case. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 23:39, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Seriously? That does not make him wrong. --Romanophile (talk) 12:50, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Delete. Obviously sum‐of‐parts. We could also make African studies, Germanic studies, Romance studies, Slavic studies, and so on. Combing these terms does not create a new or unexpected meaning. --Romanophile (talk) 12:50, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
• Keep for the sake of one-word translations. Might not occur to people to look these up under much less idiomatic Celtology. --Droigheann (talk) 21:16, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Question:

We don't create non-idiomatic multi-word entries in other languages simply because they happen to map to a single English word. Instead, we add the multi-word phrase to the relevant translation table in the corresponding English entry, linking individually to each of the multiple words.

Given this practice, I am confused why we think it makes sense to create and maintain non-idiomatic multi-word entries in English, simply because they happen to map to a single word in some other language.

Could someone please explain the rationale for this? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 07:46, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, we only put translation tables on English entries, and you can't put a translation table on a page that doesn't exist. While I don't think these entries are generally very helpful for a wiki-based multi-language dictionary like this one (outside a few set phrases, would someone think to look up the page on non-idiomatic English phrase on the off-chance that it has an idiomatic translation in their target language?), our search capabilities aren't really good enough to let us implement a more elegant solution to this problem. Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:52, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

• Translation tables appear to have become a distraction. My point is that when EN word A correlates to non-idiomatic OTHERLANG phrase B C D, we list the OTHERLANG phrase with separate links to the individual entries [[B]] [[C]] [[D]], and we do not create a single OTHERLANG entry for [[B C D]]. When OTHERLANG word W correlates to non-idiomatic EN phrase X Y Z, I believe we should likewise list the EN phrase with separate links to the individual entries [[X]] [[Y]] [[Z]], and not create a single EN entry for [[X Y Z]]. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 20:43, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

@Eirikr While it's something that isn't frequently done, I don't really think there's anything in our current interpretation of the rules that would prevent it being done. Purplebackpack89 14:19, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

• Isn't that what idiomaticity is about? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 20:43, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

@User:Eirikr Rationale:

• Enable Czech-to-German traversal via the English hub or the middleman: anglistika --> English studies --> Anglistik; ditto for any two non-English languages. This naturally works for kočka --> cat --> Katze.
• Answer the following question via a page with a familiar format: what are all single-word translations into various languages of the term "English studies"?

Is argued for "English studies", works for translation target in general. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:19, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

That seems like a language researcher's question, not one that would occur to a general user. Why should we go out of our way to address such a question. Let such researchers use doggedness or Python skills, theirs or their RA's, to scrape the answer from multiple wikis. DCDuring TALK 21:46, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

"Why should we go out of our way to address such a question" Why not? Why limit ourselves to what we can do? And please don't say, "well, we'd have to do it on a whole lot of other pages." This being kept doesn't necessarily mean we have to create or edit a whole bunch of pages; we can just ease it in as the need arises. Artificially limiting what we do will just make us a little-used backwater. Purplebackpack89 04:19, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

We are a little-used backwater. I have had some hope that we could get out of that by making sure that we put some effort into attracting some normal users and contributors &emdash; or at least not driving them away (eg, User:ReidAA). Instead we get a steady flow of low-value SoP and nearly SoP entries tiresomely advocated by lawyers and non-contributors and justified by imaginary academic research projects. At one time we had a contributor easing us into Gregg and Pitman Shorthand sections, which I always thought should be kept permanently as a testimony to foolish grand projects. DCDuring TALK 04:50, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

"Normal users" and "normal entries" is subjective. In my experience, we have driven away some productive and talented editors into languages they could do well by deleting their edits. They have either gone away completely or moved to languages few people care or know about. Inter-language translations is an advantage Wiktionary boasts about and we should keep it that way. And what seems to be an unidiomatic term to some is a must-have, idiomatic term to others, including known dictionary publishers. It's one of the reason I advocate translation target entries and Lemming test method. Term [[gas station]] hasn't gone through RFD but it may be targeted in the future, just like [[vegetable garden]] or [[apple tree]] in the past. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:40, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Kept, clear absence of consensus to delete. bd2412 T 22:26, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

craniosacral therapy

I created this as translation to Finnish (deprecated template usage) kranio-sakraaliterapia before realizing that we already have craniosacral with specific reference to "craniosacral therapy". This makes the entry for "craniosacral therapy" a deletable SOP, doesn't it? --Hekaheka (talk) 17:55, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep. In Collins[10] and oxforddictionaries.com[11] (“craniosacral therapy”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.). From "Of or pertaining to the cranium and sacrum" and "therapy", I would not know that it is part of alternative medicine and what sort of therapy it is. Pulling craniosacral therapy itself into craniosacral looks to me like putting the definition of "red dwarf" to "red" (“red dwarf”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.; MWO). See also Talk:free variable. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:13, 21 January 2015 (UTC)
• Keep - nothing about the phrase "craniosacral therapy", considered as a sum of its parts, suggests what it is (a glorified head massage). I agree with Dan - it's craniosacral that needs changing, not this page. Smurrayinchester (talk) 16:12, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Kept. bd2412 T 19:39, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

австраль

No definition. Google found no page with this word in Ukrainian, one misspeling of the former Argentinian currency in Russian, and several pages in Mongolian (though I do not understand the language) Alexdubr (talk) 13:37, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Delete. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:17, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

• Speedy delete this term entered as Ukrainian noun of masculine gender as unattested, thus for reasons usually handled in RFV. Attesting quotations can still be added to Citations:австраль by anyone later. Please post such cases to RFV next time. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:10, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Deleted for now. My reason for deletion was because it's not easy to attest and find in dictionaries. It may indeed be an alternative form of аустра́ль (austrálʹ) - austral, former currency of Argentina, it may be attestable but time-consuming. I see no problem in creating unattested forms if it's requesting a definition. Editors either add a definition or RFD/RFV entries. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:43, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

gradient

I wondered whether RFV would be more appropriate, but ultimately decided to put this here. I claim these three definitions:

3. (deprecated template usage) (calculus) Of a function y = f(x) or the graph of such a function, the rate of change of y with respect to x, that is, the amount by which y changes for a certain (often unit) change in x.
4. (deprecated template usage) (physics) The rate at which a physical quantity increases or decreases relative to change in a given variable, especially distance.
5. (deprecated template usage) (mathematical analysis) A differential operator that maps each point of a scalar field to a vector pointed in the direction of the greatest rate of change of the scalar. Notation for a scalar field φ: ∇φ

are redundant to each other, and they are somewhat doubtful. The definition labelled "analysis" is the one that agrees the most with what I have been taught and with w:Gradient; a slightly better-written version of it would encompass the other two. The sense labelled as "calculus" looks like something synonymous with derivative; although a plain derivative can be considered a special case of gradient (when you identify a one-dimensional vector space with its underlying scalar field, which is usually the field of real numbers), I doubt that gradient is actually used this way. The "physics" sense reads as synonymous with the first. As far as I know, physicists use "gradient" the same way mathematical analysts do (unless they use it in an everyday meaning); there is no separate physical sense of gradient. — Keφr 17:52, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree that these are not really fully independent meanings, but I'm sure we can find cites for all three of them, and some users will not be familiar with differential operators. I don't think it would be helpful to delete any one of them, and combining all three would make a rather clumsy paragraph. The OED has all three separate senses (plus some others that we don't have). Perhaps the "physics" sense is not specific to physics -- it is also used in other sciences. Dbfirs 21:53, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Keep. I've made a couple of edits to the entry, but I'm sure it can be further improved. Would you like cites for the senses you doubt? Dbfirs 08:04, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

h-eoin

Added by an editor whose userpage admits gd-0, which explains why they didn't realise that the h- is actually a part of the definite article na h-, the plural "birds" being simply eòin. --Droigheann (talk) 02:59, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep; we already have Category:Irish h-prothesized forms and Category:Welsh h-prothesized forms, so why not Scottish Gaelic ones too? It just needs to use {{h-prothesis of}}. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:34, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
• If Droigheann's comment is accurate, move. Apparently the underlying form before prothesis is eòin with the accent grave, so [[h-eoin]] should be at [[h-eòin]] instead. Moreover, Irish h-prothesized forms include no hyphen, as seen at [[éan#Mutation]], which leads me to wonder if Scots Gaelic h-protheses should be likewised spelled without the hyphen, suggesting that [[h-eoin]] should be at [[heòin]]. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 23:33, 26 January 2015 (UTC)
  • h-eòin is the standard spelling, but h-eoin may well be an alternative form, especially if the citation quoted is spelled correctly. H-prothesized words used to be spelled with a hyphen in Irish; the hyphen was eliminated in the Irish spelling reforms of the 1950s, but was retained in Scottish Gaelic, so *heòin is definitely wrong. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 00:12, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
• (1) Creating Category:Scottish Gaelic h-prothesized forms seems like an elegant solution to me. (2) Definitely with hyphen. (3) I don't have approach to the cited source, but given that omitting the accent would change pronunciation from /hjɔːɲ/ to /hɔɲ/, I propose either moving or classifying *h-eoin as a misspelling (we already have cànannan). A flick through Google results indicates that it mostly appears in texts which don't bother with accents at all. (One could possibly argue that *h-eoin is as bad as *heòin.) --Droigheann (talk) 23:11, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
  • I've moved it to h-eòin and tagged it as an h-prothesized form. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:06, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Saimirinae

The correct spelling is already at Saimiriinae. DCDuring TALK 15:43, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep. Saimirinae,Saimirinae at Google Ngram Viewer does not help. google books:"Saimirinae" shows 57 hits (after clicking next multiple times) while google books:"Saimiriinae" shows 36 hits (again, click next). Thus, the nominated spelling is even more common than the alleggedly correct spelling. If the nominated spelling is somehow incorrect, then it should be kept as common misspelling, that is, common relatively to its alternative. But what is the basis for the claim that the nominated spelling is incorrect? --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:15, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Diprodontia

Correct spelling is already at Diprotodontia. DCDuring TALK 15:56, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Surprisingly, this is citable: 1, 2, 3, 4. Not sure if this should be classified as a misspelling or a haplologised alternative form. Smurrayinchester (talk) 16:04, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Glad I didn't speedy it. Are haplologize/haplologise citable. Even if they aren't, it would be a fine addition to Wiktionary:Glossary. DCDuring TALK 18:46, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

At Google Scholar it's 1400:60 (raw count, apparently actually more like 1000:60) favoring Diprotodontia, which is in line with it not appearing on the databases that I've looked at. The shorter spelling is certainly less accepted, not following standard name-construction practice from the stem (όντ-) of Ancient Greek ὀδούς (odoús, “tooth”) thatthe genus Diprotodon, instead reconstructing the word from πρό (pró, “in front”) instead of πρῶτος (prôtos, “first”)is derived from. See aso . DCDuring TALK 19:10, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Google Scholar would provide enough attestation to support haplologize, but not haplologise AFAICT. DCDuring TALK 19:15, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

I think I've managed to cite both spellings. Most of the citations of haplologise are of the past tense form, but their grammatical environments make clear that they are verb forms rather than adjectives. - -sche (discuss) 19:42, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

But are the haplologized forms haplogize/haplogise attestable? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:35, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

Sadly not, but that's what we have {{examples-right}} for. DCDuring TALK 21:27, 26 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep as a common mispelling. google books:"Diprodontia": 47 hits (after clicking next); google books:"Diprotodontia": 4,810 hits. Frequency ratio is approximately 100. Compare (concieve*1000), conceive at Google Ngram Viewer or (aquire*1000),acquire at Google Ngram Viewer. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:21, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Keep per the above discussion. I've relabelled it a nonstandard form of Diprotodontia; if someone would rather relabel it a misspelling, go ahead. - -sche (discuss) 23:35, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

rugio

The perfect stem for this form should be rugīv-, so all the perfect forms in rugi- (with the exception of the syncopated form rugiī) should be deleted. —JohnC5 ^{(Talk | contribs)} 21:59, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

@User:JohnC5: Can you please list the forms to be deleted, wikilinked? This will make this so much easier for administration, I think. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:44, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky Here you are: :)

rugii rugiisti rugiit rugiimus rugiistis rugierunt rugiere rugieram rugieras rugierat rugieramus rugieratis rugierant rugiero rugieris rugierit rugierimus rugieritis rugierint rugierim rugieris rugierit rugierimus rugieritis rugierint rugiissem rugiisses rugiisset rugiissemus rugiissetis rugiissent rugiisse

—JohnC5 21:12, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

incesso

Incesso has perfects in incessīv-, incessu-, and incess-, but the perfect forms in incesiv- (which are currently used) are incorrect and should be deleted. —JohnC5 ^{(Talk | contribs)} 04:49, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

glücklicher Zufall

glücklicher Zufall = lucky chance event. Total SOP. Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:43, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

• Delete, SOP. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:03, 29 January 2015 (UTC)
• Another source I know has luck, serendipity (whatever that is), fortunate coincidence and lucky coincidence. Donnanz (talk) 15:59, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
  • Then that source is trying to explain the word serendipity for German speakers. We can do that by putting {{t|de|[[glücklich]]er [[Zufall]]|m}} in the translation table of the English word. But the German term is SOP, meaning simply "lucky coincidence" and nothing idiomatic. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:33, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
    • OK, bearing in mind that Wiktionary likes to shoot itself. The entry in that source (for serendipity) dates back to 2004. The same source has unglücklicher Zufall. Donnanz (talk) 17:49, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

glückliche Fügung

I'll admit that this phrase has a degree of setness in German (which is why I'm nominating it separately) but it is still "lucky" + "providence/fortune". Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:52, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

• Delete, SOP. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:03, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Pisano

This should be in lowercase. --Type56op9 (talk) 13:06, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Delete the Spanish and Italian common noun sections. Italian has some proper noun senses which I have added. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 15:39, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep in RFD; move to RFV: Let's keep the process discipline a bit. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:35, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

• Split between Pisano and pisano

suelo permanentemente congelado

suelo permanentemente helado

I can’t believe LWC got away with this rubbish. They are descriptions of what permafrost is, not terms. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 07:25, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

• Delete Spanish has plenty of words for permafrost, and none of them are these ones. Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:04, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
• Delete the nominated two Spanish terms entered to mean "permafrost", as per above; I have checked es:w:Permafrost which presents permafrost, permagel and permacongelamiento as some of the Spanish terms. This does appear sum of parts. The fact that this was entered by User:Luciferwildcat noted for bad lexicography is also a hint, although not sufficient in itself. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:41, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

gobbledegooks, gobbledygooks

Really? A mass noun according to Oxford, and I've never heard the plural form used. Donnanz (talk) 11:34, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Isn't this an RfV matter? This passes CFI. Purplebackpack89 14:13, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

I can find a fair number of both spellings on b.g.c; we may be missing some countable senses of gobbledygook, such as "an instance or example of gobbledygook" (e.g. "Read the five gobbledegooks below") and "whatchamacallit, thingamajig" (e.g. "We will survey, explore, consider, collaborate, have criteria and all of these gobbledygooks, but if we just hammer enough, it will get done."). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:52, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

They may pass CFI because they're single words.

Dredging up obscure references in an effort to prove that that august publication the Oxford Dictionary is wrong seems a bit futile to me. In comparison to Oxford we're a bunch of amateurs. Saying that the plural of tooth is tooths (it exists as a verb form) is also wrong. Nobody seems to contest that.

I am tempted to orphan these two entries. Donnanz (talk) 12:49, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Large chunks of the OED have been untouched since they first appeared in the NED/OED1, sometimes a hundred years ago. They certainly aren't nearly as up-to-date in some areas as we are. If they're missing a few marginal definitions, what dictionary isn't?--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:34, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't use OED, only the Oxford Dictionary of English, both printed and online.

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/gobbledygook. Donnanz (talk) 17:37, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

The entry in the big OED is from 1972, and has cites with both spellings. It mentions neither "mass noun" nor plurals.

Nearly all mass nouns are occasionally used in the plural. Whether or not this is "correct usage" is a matter of opinion. Usage by established writers would be a good guide, but the plurals are certainly rare (barely reaching CFI), and I'd be inclined to agree that they are also "non-standard". Dbfirs 18:28, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Keep both. If they are rare or nonstandard then tag them as such, but there is no reason to delete attested words. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 15:28, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Usage is definitely NOT recommended. Donnanz (talk) 15:50, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Google Books shows that w:Lyndon B. Johnson and playwright Gina Barnett used it, as well as a linguist writing for The Water of light: a miscellany in honor of Brewster Ghiselin. It's not at all like tooths being used instead of teeth; there seems to be a decent amount of respectable usage.--Prosfilaes (talk) 16:34, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Are these sources all American? That might explain it. Donnanz (talk) 16:55, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Try to accept that we do cover international English, not just British English; I can tell you despise US English from your user page and your comments on (IIRC) "dead broke". However, that's not a sound linguistic reason to reject it as a variety. (I'm not saying anything about "gobbledegooks" specifically here; it does seem very rare.) Equinox ◑ 17:00, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the lecture, I am well aware of other forms of English, I just don't use them. Most of the adverse comments on my user page are directed at the spellcheck, which favours Am. English. I keep having to recorrect "corrected" spellings. I think the spelling gobbledegook may be mainly used in British English (it's the one I am used to), which may explain why usage of the plural is extremely rare. So what spelling appears in the sources quoted? Donnanz (talk) 17:18, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

It's not just American English. This article from The Daily Telegraph mentions an "attack of the corporate gobbledegooks" in the sense of "instance or example of gobbledegook". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:39, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

The "e" spelling (of the singular) occurs as often as the "y" spelling in British English, but the "y" spelling is five times as common in recent American English according to Google ngrams Dbfirs 18:50, January 31, 2015‎

What surprises me about those ngrams is how recent the word is: in both varieties and with either spelling, the word doesn't start getting used until the late 1940s. I expected it be about a hundred years older than that. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:49, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

That's what Oxford says in the link above. Donnanz (talk) 20:08, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

• Keep. None of the entries for forms of this bear any attestation. Move to RfV if confirmation of any aspect of the inflection lines or definitions is needed. DCDuring TALK 17:54, 31 January 2015 (UTC)
• Keep, obviously. The nomination is not based on WT:CFI (yes, we do not ignore it), nor does it state a tentative principle to override CFI in this particular case. Wiktionary does not go by dictionaries as per long-standing practice, being an evidence-based descriptivist dictionary. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:31, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
• Keep per DCDuring and Dan. - -sche (discuss) 19:15, 1 February 2015 (UTC)
• I guess I will have to concede defeat, but I feel that these two entries should have some sort of note added to them. Whoever archives this entry can do that. Donnanz (talk) 12:23, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
  • Kept: No delete votes and nomination withdrawn by nominator. @Donnanz, when you say "note", do you mean a note about this being an uncommon usage? Purplebackpack89 15:07, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
    • Yes, definitely uncommon usage, also usage not recommended. Donnanz (talk) 15:19, 4 February 2015 (UTC)
      • I have tagged both entries as nonstandard. Purplebackpack89 15:39, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Tyrannosaurus rex#English

This is a Translingual term, we have a Translingual entry, and any use in running English text is still Translingual. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:04, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

What about citations for Tyrannosaurus rexes or Tyrannosauruses rex? That would perhaps support a definition of a common noun referring to an individual specimen, not a proper noun referring to the species. Supposedly taxa are properly used as proper names of the natural class or lineage, not in reference to an individual exemplar, though I find it hard to believe that anyone honors this in all cases. DCDuring TALK 22:35, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

I think this is a case where one of the vernacular names overlaps with the taxonomical name. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 07:13, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Is there any alternative name apart from the short form T. rex? If not, keep. Donnanz (talk) 09:46, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

The existence of the English plural Tyrannosaurus rexes (I've just cited it and tyrannosaurus rex(es), and citations of Tyrannosaurus Rex(es) are easy to find) is suggestive, in my opinion, that Angr is correct and the English vernacular name happens to be homographic with the taxonomic name. - -sche (discuss) 19:12, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Ergo, keep. - -sche (discuss) 00:42, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Keep. It has an English pronunciation and you can easily find nonacademic usages, just like dog. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 00:26, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

@TAKASUGI Shinji: Doesn't it have, say, a Japanese pronunciation too? DCDuring TALK 00:44, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

The Japanese pronunciation is [tiɾ̠a̠no̞sa̠ɯᵝɾ̠ɯᵝsɯ̥ᵝ] (tyrannosaur). --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:03, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

All we need is a little attestation and we could/should have a Japanese L2 section also. Is there any language that the pronunciation principle enunciated above would not apply to? It seems we would only be limited by attestation. This would be quite easy for languages using Roman script, but need not be limited to them. DCDuring TALK 01:50, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

I meant the above pronunciation applies to the Japanese spelling ティラノサウルス (transliteration of "tyrannosaurus"), of course, not the Roman spelling. Since, it's not RFV, a simple vote would suffice, IMO. Keep the English term. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:26, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

• Closing as nominator; I am convinced by the citations. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:33, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

hamburguesa de jardín

Claims to mean gardenburger. There are 17 google hits for this (most of them Wiktionary), no Google Books. RFV would fail. --Type56op9 (talk) 19:05, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

Then why isn't at RfV instead of here? Purplebackpack89

Cos it would fail RFV. --Type56op9 (talk) 16:17, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Google Books is not the only place to find durably archived sources. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:58, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

It gets 17 hits in regular Google. It may very well be one of the many things LWC pulled out of his ass. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 17:05, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Speedied as a protologism. - -sche (discuss) 19:57, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

arnés pene

Doesn't look like the real thing to me (no pun intended) --Type56op9 (talk) 19:07, 1 February 2015 (UTC)

art

Per Wiktionary:Feedback#art

"The third definition of "art" ("A re-creation of reality according to the artist's metaphysical value judgments") is taken nearly verbatim from the novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand. However meritorious that perspective on art may be, it should hardly be considered a formal dictionary definition. If Wiktionary were to follow that standard, by the same logic, it would have to also include countless other ways people have chosen to summarize the concept of "art," which can be more accurately called personal opinions or philosophies rather than objective definitions."

I'm inclined to agree. Rand's definition of art may be philosophically distinct from other definitions (our number 1 def currently seems to be stolen from Alexander Brouwer), but it still refers to the same physical objects (a painting is art, whether because it's "a production of the beautiful in a graphic medium" or because it's "a re-creation of reality according to the artist's metaphysical value judgments"). Smurrayinchester (talk) 15:17, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Delete Not every predicate applied to a word is its definition, even if it is a noun phrase worded a bit like one. DCDuring TALK 15:22, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Yes, delete per nom. - -sche (discuss) 03:40, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Delete. What's next, senses at happiness for "a warm puppy" and "a many-splendored thing at love? Chuck Entz (talk) 03:50, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

• Delete per the quoted Feedback text above; the nominated definition is redundant; it is an attempt at an alternative characterization of the same thing we have under sense 1. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:43, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

alta gama

I'd say this isn't an adjective. Possibly de alta gama would be an entry, however. --Type56op9 (talk) 16:17, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

derogatory

Sense 2 seems to describe a noun, and i can't find it in any other dictionary. Not to mention how cumbersome it is to read. — This comment was unsigned.

The noun is "derogatory clause", so this is in fact an adjective modifying "clause". The definition may be outdated (a Google search suggests it comes from Rawson's 1884 Pocket Law-Lexicon) but that isn't a reason to delete it altogether. Equinox ◑ 20:29, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Move to derogatory clause. The definition we have appeared as a run-in in MW 1913, which does not mean that it takes the PoS of the headword. Thus it is arguably "created in error".

Further, derogatory clause seems to have another meaning, possibly a generalization of the one in question: "a statutory or contractual provision proclaiming that the document in which it appears, or a part of the document, cannot be repealed or amended."

I don't think it will turn out that there is use of derogatory in these senses apart from the word clause, either as derogatory clause or clause derogatory, but that would depend on someone attempting to create an adjective definition. DCDuring TALK 21:33, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Looking at “derogatory clause”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. I see no entries but “derogatory clause in a testament”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. show three references containing entries, run-in or full, and one with a null redirect. DCDuring TALK 21:40, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

I found "if the clause be derogatory", so I disagree with the proposed move. Equinox ◑ 22:50, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

trozo de madera

Claims to mean woodchip, which may well be true. However, it is SOP in Spanish, the definition being "piece/bit of wood". also, LWC created it. --Type56op9 (talk) 14:58, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Delete. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 17:35, 3 February 2015 (UTC)

Delete, SOP. - -sche (discuss) 16:33, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

sin forma

Spanish, looks SOP. In Spanish, we can have sin followed by almost any noun - "sin siesta", "sin cerveza", "sin elefante". I don't see this as being as idiomatic as the others. --Type56op9 (talk) 09:34, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Delete. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 02:19, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

abrazo estrecho

Doesn't look idiomatic to me. abrazo + estrecho --Type56op9 (talk) 09:45, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Delete. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 02:19, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

caramelo de melaza

Looks like a description more than a worthy entry - literally "sweet of molasses". --Type56op9 (talk) 10:11, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Delete. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 02:19, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

fragmento de madera

Similar to trozo de madera, IMHO sum of parts. --Type56op9 (talk) 10:14, 4 February 2015 (UTC)

Delete, SOP. - -sche (discuss) 16:33, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

Delete. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 02:19, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

-tuples

For the same reason that -ers#English and -ists#English don't exist. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:29, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

• Keep To be honest, I see no reason why -ers and -ists shouldn't exist. It seems sensible to tell people how different suffixes form plurals (especially since some are irregular: -biosis > -bioses), and because it's a "Plural form of..." entry it doesn't introduce any additional work to keep and maintain this. Smurrayinchester (talk) 09:23, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
• Keep I agree with Smurrayinchester here. The plural of 20-tuple, etc. is pretty obvious, but not absurdly so, and that hasn't stopped us from listing plurals for English words in general even where they're pretty obvious.--Prosfilaes (talk) 15:05, 5 February 2015 (UTC)
• Keep and create -er, -ers, -ist and -ists. Purplebackpack89 02:04, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

What is the part of speech supposed to be? It's not a suffix, because you don't add -tuples onto a word; you add -s onto a word that already ends in -tuple. But it's not a noun because it isn't an entire word. Delete! Equinox ◑ 16:06, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Sounds like an &lit problem to me. bd2412 T 16:39, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Yeah. There was some discussion on de.Wikt about what to do with compounded suffixes (e.g. -ieren, which is seen in some analyses as -ier(-) + -en). de:-ieren is currently a hard redirect to de:-ier. en.Wikt doesn't like to use redirects in circumstances like that, but something along the lines of {{&lit}} or a soft redirect seems in order here ("plural of tuple" is potentially misleading, for the reasons Equinox gives), if this entry is kept. - -sche (discuss) 18:55, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Hyderabad State

Not sure if this ought to be an entry, or whether it should be a sense at Hyderabad. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 01:03, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

It should be a sense at Hyderabad either way — so I've just added it. That, I think, makes this as SOPpy as State of South Carolina or Yorkshire County. On the other hand, we have kept SOPpy official national names before, like Kingdom of Norway. Relevant previous RFM discussion: Talk:Baramulla District. Thanks for your recent moves, by the way; I cleaned up all the pages I could find after the RFM, but I clearly didn't find them all. - -sche (discuss) 03:33, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

So, delete, IMO. - -sche (discuss) 18:49, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Hyderabad Division

Same as Hyderabad State above, since -sche pointed it out. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 19:13, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Delete. (See my comments above about Hyderabad State, and note that this isn't even a nation, but a sub-national unit.) - -sche (discuss) 18:49, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

dial-a-ride

Rfd of the Spanish entry.

This is said to be "borrowed from English", but it looks to me like it is English. Sure, Spanish-speaking people in the US will use it in running Spanish sentences- as untranslated English. I've never heard it used, but I doubt it's pronounced any different than when a bilingual Spanish/English speaker would say it it in English. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:35, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

Delete It seems to fail RFV anyway. The only uses I can find are in discussing US American services which have the brand name "Dial-A-Ride" in English, and in discussing a mathematical optimization problem called the "Dial-A-Ride problem". Smurrayinchester (talk) 10:42, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

senjen

Self-promotion. — This unsigned comment was added by Nhjoavi (talk • contribs).

Speedied. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 21:54, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

snipers' hide

This is a hide (“blind”) used by snipers. It would seem not entry-worthy by reason of SoPitude. DCDuring TALK 21:49, 9 February 2015 (UTC)

• Delete, utterly transparent. bd2412 T 22:25, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
• Speedied. SemperBlotto (talk) 08:35, 10 February 2015 (UTC)