Wiktionary:Requests for verification

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.
{{attention}} • {{rfap}} • {{rfdate}} • {{rfquote}} • {{rfdef}} • {{rfeq}} • {{rfe}} • {{rfex}} • {{rfi}} • {{rfp}}

All Wiktionary: namespace discussions 1 2 3 4 5 - All discussion pages 1 2 3 4 5

Requests for Verification is Wiktionary’s forum for verifying whether a definition meets our criteria for inclusion.

• See Wiktionary:Cleanup and deletion elements WT:CDE for a full list of the codes, templates, lists, categories etc involved in the cleanup and deletion process.

Make a new nomination

A request will remain for one month after nomination. It may be removed sooner if verification has been made—generally about a week afterwards will be given to allow any disputes about the verification itself to arise.

After that time:

1. The {{rfv}} or {{rfv-sense}} template will be removed.
2. If insufficient evidence is found, it will be archived to the talk page of the entry in question with a note saying it failed RFV, for future reference in case new evidence emerges. Then the disputed sense will be removed or the disputed entry will be sent to be deleted with a note saying it failed RFV, whichever is applicable. (If it seems to be a protologism, it will be added to the list of protologisms.)
3. The RFV discussion will then be archived.
4. Terminology note: "rfvpassed" means sufficient verification was found to retain the entry; "rfvfailed" means insufficient evidence of the word in use was found, therefore it was removed.

How does one verify a sense?

• Cite, on the article page, the word’s usage in a well-known work. Currently, well-known work has not been clearly defined, but good places to start from are: works that stand out in their field, works from famous authors, major motion pictures, and national television shows that have run for multiple seasons. Be aware that if a word is a nonce word that never entered widespread use, it should be marked as such.
• Cite, on the article page, the word’s usage in a refereed academic journal.
• Cite, on the article page, usage of the word in permanently recorded media, conveying meaning, in at least three independent instances spanning at least a year.

  See: criteria for inclusion, format for citations, and standard entry layout.

• Advise on this page that the citations have been placed on the article page.

Note:

• RFV is generally for testing whether information can be safely deleted. Occasionally simple fact-checking questions are posted, particularly for non-English words: these queries are better suited for article talk pages or the Tea room.
• Verification is accomplished by the gathering of information, not of votes. If the information is not gathered, a sysop will make a decision whether to transfer the disputed word to the requests for deletion page. WARNING. If no verification is provided, the word may be deleted from this page.

See also: Wiktionary:Lists of words needing attention

Oldest tagged RFVs
No pages meet these criteria.

December 2007

refrigerizer

No b.g.c. Dubious raw google hits. sewnmouthsecret 20:18, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

This seems like a nonce word if it's a word at all. FWIW, I recognize the sentence used - it comes from an American cartoon show, Rocko's Modern Life. The episode in which it was used was set far into the future, so its use there was probably just to show things were 'different'. Globish 20:25, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

No citations forthcoming, RfV failed. bd2412 T 04:15, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

porcupinicity

This has 0 b.g.c. hits and only 2 raw google, but 1 is a U.S. patent search site, [1]. Does this count as peer-reviewed? Anyway, this should be a word. sewnmouthsecret 04:36, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd guess on it counting as edited, but not peer-reviewed. It should be deemed comparable in quality to court reports, smaller newspapers, and sports pages. OK, maybe better than sports pages. DCDuring 15:22, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Insufficient citations forthcoming. RfV failed, moving to LOP. bd2412 T 04:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

abolutionism

Spelling error? Gets four Google Books hits, none of which are particularly convincing (mostly in footnotes and indexes, some in books with text discussing abolitionism. bd2412 T 07:41, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I think it is a spelling error. Looking at "abolution", it is an apparent spelling error or scanno for "ablution", "absolution", and "abolition". I don't think that the number of hits for "abolutionism" warrants "common" misspelling, but Groups is better to assess relative frequency of misspellings to correct spellings. It really worked well for garned/garnered. DCDuring 11:16, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

No good citations forthcoming; RfV failed; deleted. bd2412 T 04:40, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

born on the Fourth of July

Given the definition, I accept the status of idiom, but I've never seen this before... anywhere. Anyone else? — [ ric | opiaterein ] — 18:46, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

This has several issues. As much as I like and agree with the example sentence about Sean Hannity, it's hardly appropriate for a neutral dictionary. Also, define American spirit. As an immigrant who's lived here many years, I'm familiar with the sentiment but have a hard time giving a tangible definition. Globish 19:02, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

It's fine for a neutral dictionary. The definition itself is neutral, describing something that isn't neutral. But like I said, I've never seen the phrase anywhere. American spirit could just be defined as patriotism, of an American. etc. Something like that. — [ ric | opiaterein ] — 22:14, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I have added a more neutrally worded alternative sense and made the tag rfv-sense. Feel free to insert an rfv-sense for the added sense if it seems objectionable. I will also add the obviously appropriate "US" context. DCDuring 22:29, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

No, individuals shouldn't be mentioned in example sentences, nor definitions. This is a common set-phrase resulting from the song (but not necessarily the book or movie.) With the new definition, the original one given is redundant and should probably just be removed. --Connel MacKenzie 20:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Not mentioning individuals in example sentences (not quotations) seems like a great guideline or even policy. Is it in any written guideline or policy or does it follow from one ? DCDuring 23:29, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Still not seeing actual citations for this - all the book hits I've seen have been references to people who actually happened to be born on July 4. bd2412 T 04:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

blue

1. There are two senses of "blue" relating to the Democratic party:
   1. Of states or other political entities, tending to vote for the Democratic Party.
   2. Of or pertaining to the Democratic Party.

   The second sense is the one I don't get. Could someone produce some cites or some ideas where I might find a high proportion of qualifying quotes with just that sense?

2. There is also a long-winded derivation of the sense meaning "sad" that says that it comes from a nautical practice. I don't yet found a source for that. Anyone? DCDuring 22:03, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

According to Online Etymology Dictionary [2] blue has had the sense "low-spirited" since 1385, but it does not give any explanation. Hekaheka 23:19, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

If that proves out, then we may have explained why ships had blue flags when their captain died, instead of having to accept the nautical "etymology" of the "sad" sense. Thanks. DCDuring 23:48, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

about the blue flag - it did not mean a captains death from what I have found, Quote:

The "general order" issued by the Secretary of the Navy, and date of May 18,1858, says:

"it is hereby ordered that, in lieu of the broad pendant now worn by Flag Officers in command of squadrons, they shall wear a plain blue flag," &c., &c. There can be no doubt that it was originally intended that the "plain blue flag" should be worn at the mainmast-head, where the "broad pendant" was worn, as the insignia of the rank afloat in any of the navies of the world--the flag of an Admiral; thereby placing , and very properly, too, our Commanders of Squadrons upon a footing with those of other nations.

Source: The New York Times, Published March 13, 1860.--BigBadBen 21:05, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

yo

English pronominal sense. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 20:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Never heard of it myself. Seems unlikely it'd catch on since yo already has very distinct English meanings and it's very similar to the pronoun you.

No citations forthcoming. RFV failed. bd2412 T 04:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

toe rag

I have created this new entry and inserted on its talk page a single sense line taken from rag which included a suspect etymology. The definition it now has is one of a few that might fit. It seems to be UK slang. Is anyone familiar with this term? DCDuring 01:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

• Yes, it is now used as a general term of abuse. Originally (I believe) it referred to the strips of old cloth wound around the feet instead of boots. SemperBlotto 08:40, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

• • Common in Ireland also, but not as a word for tramp. We'd use it more to define an obnoxious person, someone who has caused us trouble. Another similar word used is tourag which I presume is from Tourag, the nomadic people of north Africa. (Compare baluba) I'll make another definition if I can word it right.--Dmol 09:15, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

• • • Thanks. I thought that the etymology from Touareg was suspect, especially since it was listed under "rag". I'll restore that line to toe rag right now. DCDuring 12:44, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I have removed it again. It has nothing to do with Touaregs - as Semper said, it's an old word for a cloth wrapped round the foot. They were associated with tramps and hence by metonymy came to be a word for tramps themselves. Widsith 13:43, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Contradictory evidence on whether term is pejorative in contemporary usage. DCDuring 15:38, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

As a Brit, I would find this term offensive, unless it was a very close friend using it. Even then, I would assume he had some grievance. Algrif 10:58, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

This is something like my nigger, an offensive term used among friends without becoming "fighting words". That would account for the Clapton quote. It makes me wonder whether there is a label for the phenomenon and whether it is foolish to rely on the use of a term within a friendship group to determine the use of the pejorative tag or other such valence indicator. DCDuring 11:44, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

bejank

I can't find any evidence for this by using Google (web, book, groups or blog). Is it even a protologism? SemperBlotto 10:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Same result. I found a little for "jank up": 2 news hits, 1 b.g.c. hit, but 0 on groups. I think there may be enough for verbs "jank" or "jank up". If those are actually gaining currency, it seems natural in a way that someone would try "bejank" to elevate the concept above low slang. There seems to be some truth to the placement of this in the US upper midwest. Does it resonate well with other words from there with some Swedish or German connection? Think Fargo. DCDuring 13:08, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The infinitive form is less commonly used. However, the past tense form is, indeed used. From a Google search: "Poor LaRaine- her olfactory sense must be quite bejanked after having to live with me and after living in such a stinky hall." heartmebowels.livejournal.com. Nyteraine 18:22, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

A second example: "Who decided to bejank upload/download clocks? ... Instead, it seems as if the correction factor is randomly generated, making the clock completely unreliable." ha.ckthepla.net Nyteraine 18:46, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Mcgraft

G should be capitalized? While some references are given, checking them doesn't seem to pan out, e.g. [3] so I can't tell. The proper noun (someone's last name) is prevalent in b.g.c. - anyone feel like finding real citations for this? --Connel MacKenzie 20:29, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Looks like a poorly executed joke. I thought graft relates to payoffs to government or political officials. DCDuring 22:35, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

If there were any reality to this, it would show up in blog search and news, which it doesn't. McGraft isn't even a very common real last name, so it doesn't take long to confirm. (BTW, search should exclude "McGraft Park"). Hits should also be post 1970, if we are talking about a take-off on McDonalds. DCDuring 22:51, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

The alleged "references" just take the names from the (real) cites for McJob. Cynewulf 17:52, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

The clock has run out on this one. Clocked out, DCDuring 12:20, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

deceptionized

Sounds like a bad US misuse, but potentially real enough. --EncycloPetey 02:04, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Smile when you say that, partner. 9 WEB mentions, 1 groups mention, 0 @ G.B.C., Scholar, and News in all four forms of the core word (base, -s, -d, -ing). The groups mention was for "de-self-deceptionize". DCDuring 04:10, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

The clock has run out on this one. Clocked out, DCDuring 12:21, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

draw-well

Apart from needing to be wikified: 1) This is probably a correct entry as it is a type of well (not a dug well, nor a drill well). 2) perhaps the hyphen is not correct. Algrif 10:53, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I wonder what its actual definition is. The entry is really just a request for a definition. Does it really merit RfV?DCDuring 11:49, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I've given it a definition and a couple of references. It is hyphenated in the OED, but two words on the Ordnance Survey site. SemperBlotto 13:31, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

beakage

Anyone heard of this? SemperBlotto 17:01, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes. It's something fee-seeking middlemen want: getting their beaks into the gravy when money changes hands. It may not be easy to find in print, but I'll look. DCDuring 19:01, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

roll face

Urbandictionaryism. No bgc results for roll-face ecstasy or rolling-face ecstasy or rolls-face ecstasy or rolled-face ecstasy. Likewise on groups.google.com and scholar and news (including archives). I'd 'a' {{d}}ed it except that it's in UD; maybe someone can find three cites.—msh210℠ 22:21, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

adiposity

As an adjective. I cannot at present think of any adjectives in English that end in -ity. DCDuring 01:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps not, but I can think of several that end in -itty. It's a function of how Latin roots; nouns can become -ity, but adjectives would get -itty (amd these tend to originate from -y added to a stem word that doubles the t). --EncycloPetey 05:42, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think -ity is the problem here. The question is whether adiposity exists as an adjective. I would have said the adjective from this root was adipose. So for this reason, I would like to see some citations. Also, I must admit that I am hard put to think of any adj. that ends -ity. It is a typical noun ending, isnt it? - Algrif 16:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

It is because we can't rapidly prove that it isn't a valid adjective that I mentioned the -ity thing. It's a way of helping me put it out of my mind. Once it's in RfV it stays for a month at least. I'd love to see it go promptly then. If there were a real rule that said you can't have an adjective ending in "-ity" then it could have been RfDed. But we're mostly empirical it seems. DCDuring 16:44, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I do like a little bit of butter on my bread

Citations for this one, please. Cheers! bd2412 T 02:32, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

OK. It's not very common, and more usually encountered in a conversation. However:-

• 2002,John F. Nicholson, Anorak In Fenland, p.167
• I know which side my bread's buttered and, like Christopher Robin, I do like a little bit of butter on my bread!
• 2004 June 27, Kate Kellaway, The Observer
• On second thoughts, perhaps the AA Milne diet could be a welcome alternative to the Atkins regime: non-stop honey and the slogan: I do like a little bit of butter on my bread.

But I'm not going to fight very hard for this one. What do others think. - Algrif 15:07, 6 December 2007 (UTC) Edit: Actually, having just got well over 300 hits on w-source, I've changed my mind. I think I will fight to keep it after all. - Algrif 15:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC) - All partial phrase hits, it seems (Bah!). But I will keep looking for more cites. - Algrif 12:50, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Would it be better to have the entry at "like a little bit of butter on one's bread" and include the ur-phrase as the lead quotation? That gives more potential for cites and still allows Search to find the right entry. If necessary Usage notes could fill in any gaps. DCDuring 15:01, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

It's a possibility I hadn't considered. I'll try some searches first. - Algrif 15:47, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

That would be more work though, requiring the verification of every pronoun. DAVilla 18:36, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I have to admit that I have a slightly sentimental spot for this phrase. But being practical, it will be difficult to pass RFV. But this just highlights one problemilla I find with WikT. What can we do with items like this that have have spoken word usage, but almost no written backing? If anyone has access to the CoBUILD database, you will probably find several examples. Unfortunately, we cannot use any of this source material in an open source site, as far as I know. What's to do? :-/ - Algrif 19:00, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the premise - I think phrases that have spoken word usage will inevitably end up having written backing, as authors try to accurately depict speech, and bloggers and so forth transfer their natural speech patterns to print. But something that is noteworthy as a quote belongs in Wikiquote as opposed to Wiktionary. I'm sure we can find hundreds of "sources" for "I regret that I have but one life to give", but that alone doesn't make it dictionary material. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:57, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Though I regret that I have but one life to give is not idiomatic. sewnmouthsecret 21:28, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

1) This phrase has an idiomatic use, unlike your example, as Sewnmouthsecret points out. 2) The premise that phrases that have spoken word usage will inevitably end up having written backing is not justified by the facts, which is why the CoBUILD database has such a huge collection of recorded and transcribed usages. Just off the top of my head, three ways of saying that one agrees, that are heard daily, but do not have (m)any written backing:- right said Fred, okrey, dokrey (if that's how it would be spelt if anybody tried to write it!), ok, McKay. - Algrif 11:13, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

You mean m'kay, right? -- Visviva 04:59, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

No, "Ok, McKay" suggests saying a surname of a person named "McKay", to rhyme with "okay". bd2412 T 18:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm very skeptical that this is really a recurring phrase in English, as opposed to a simple quote. If one is feeling morose and self-pitying about getting old, one can say "Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?" and a lot of people will recognize it, but that doesn't mean we should add entries for part one's hair behind and dare to eat a peach. Angr 17:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

raison d’être

Invariant plural sense. Not supported by the COED. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 03:05, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I did a bit of research and it looks like the two plurals raison d'êtres and raison d'être are both common enough, even in academic papers, to be attested, though they are by far less common and should get whatever "rare" or "non-standard" label that is most appropriate (I can never tell the difference). Dmcdevit·t 10:35, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

There’s quite a considerable difference: {{rare}} simply means that a word is rare, whereas {{non-standard}} means, for all intents and purposes, “wrong” (though, technically, it means “not conforming to the various rules of usage, word formation, et cetera of the standard form of a given language”). It’s rather worrying to think that if even an experienced editor can mix up such distinct terms, what are the misinterpretations of our readers…

Let’s take this term apart: (deprecated template usage) raison = (deprecated template usage) reason ; (deprecated template usage) d’ = (deprecated template usage) de = (deprecated template usage) of ≅ (in this context) (deprecated template usage) for or — ; (deprecated template usage) être = (deprecated template usage) being or (deprecated template usage) to be. Thus, (deprecated template usage) raison d’être = (deprecated template usage) reason for being or (deprecated template usage) reason to be ; the standard plural forms of which would be (deprecated template usage) reasons for being and (deprecated template usage) reasons to be, respectively (and not (deprecated template usage) reason for beings or somesuch). By that reasoning, (deprecated template usage) raisons d’être is the correct plural form, whereas both (deprecated template usage) raison d’êtres and (deprecated template usage) raison d’être are incorrect and warrant {{non-standard}} tags. Nota bene, however, that I can’t speak French, so my interpretation may be flawed; I welcome corrections from more informed editors. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 17:58, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Well if the qualification for being informed is poor knowledge of French, I'm qualified. Though I have become enormously accepting of actual usage, I think we can indicate some usage as being less-preferred. This particular case has a simple analog in the pluralization of English hyphenated nouns where the noun is not the last component. An example is "officer-of-the-day", pl= "officers-of-the-day", not "officer-of-the-days". If my imagination has failed to provide the right example, sorry, but the phenomenon is real. It would be reasonable to expect even my fellow Americans to manage to get the "s" in the right place. I'm not sure that I would hold them to the standard if the plural were formed in a more complex way and the words less close to English. (See "accusatrixes") DCDuring 19:17, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

accusatrixes

Plural form of (deprecated template usage) accusatrix. Zero Google Book Search Hits. Non-standard if extant. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 03:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

No scholar hits, no news hits, no groups hits. Books would have been the best shot. OTOH, MW3 shows it. DCDuring 05:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

MW3? Remember that secondary sources do not count towards attestation. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 13:00, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Weird, the MW website doesn't seem to recognise it. For that matter they don't recognise accusatrices either. It is possible no one before has ever tried to use the plural form, but if they did I think accusatrices would have to be the word. Widsith 14:38, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd go for the Latin approach, but I took 4 years of it and have used the words "matrices" and "codices" in spoken sentences. I was using an old print edition of MW3. I may have misinterpreted their notation. Maybe they assumed that their readers understood pluralization morphology or had read some appendix on it.

[finds entry; reads "Plurals" section.]

The entry has "pl -ES", the source of my statement above. The "Plurals" section mentions the rule (#4 in their sequence) that words ending in s, z, x, ch, sh form plurals by adding -es. Rule #18.1 mentions Latin plurals and gives six "x" examples, which of course have the "-ces" endings. They do not present a good algorithm for how to apply their rules. Furthermore the opening paragraph says, more or less, that you can get away with -s and -es. No wonder so many were scandalized when MW3 came out. Of course, they have a disclaimer about the completeness of the 23 "rules" that they present.

I think MW3 must have been attempting to reflect the practices of a population of American English speakers (and English teachers!), very few of whom had or would have much education in any foreign language, let alone the Classics. Of course, such a population would be unlikely to use a word that required and unconventional plural and gender specification when a shorter word conventinally pluralized, gender-neutral word like "accuser" was available. DCDuring 15:28, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

In any event, the facts of usage seem to say that the few folks who have ever used the word form the plural "-ices" in accord with a good Classical education. DCDuring 15:28, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I assume “MW3” means “Merriam–Webster [Third Edition]” or somesuch… I maintain that the use of (deprecated template usage) accusatrixes would be wrong. MW3 are prescribing ignorance. The (deprecated template usage) -rix → (deprecated template usage) -rices rule is one of the easy ones — it’s not like (deprecated template usage) ceilidhean, (deprecated template usage) nexūs, (deprecated template usage) corgwn, (deprecated template usage) imprimantur, (deprecated template usage) fiaschi, (deprecated template usage) sögur, or (deprecated template usage) mujtahidūn. One does not need a Classical education to be familiar with the -x → -ces rule — it’s fairly common in well-formed, formal English. (I don’t have a Classical education.) † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 21:38, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster's Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (1993) is a handy source for ways in which US English may have differed and still differ from UK English. In this case, I think their editorial work was sloppy in that they only showed one plural form. They show both "apexes" and "apices", "appendixes" and "appendices", "codex" and "codices", "executrixes" and "executrices", "indexes" and "indices", "matrixes" and "matrices. DCDuring 00:28, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Part of the solution that my fellow Americans have found is to simply not use -ix nouns. A female executing a will in most legal documents will be an executor. They'll avoid plurals that make them uncomfortable. And they will impose their will on words they may want, like apex, appendix, and index. DCDuring 00:37, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

borne

As per [4]. --Connel MacKenzie 04:38, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

My MW3 does not show borne as an adj. It does show borne (e accented) as an adj., meaing limited, provincial, derived from a French verb. I tried to search for "more borne" and "most borne", but could not find anything that looked like comparative and superlative adjectival use. In any event the usages that might have warranted closer examination were 19th C. The critic may have been right. We may have similar problems with many of our participle-like adjective entries, IMVHO. I can't do a good analysis of the "borne" hits, as much as I'd like to. DCDuring 05:10, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's a participle. However, we consistently treat English participles as adjectives here when they may function as an adjective. I daresay I could find a lot of botanical citations, but face the problem of locating such an example among the thousands of pages of botanical texts I own. I did come across the combinations "food-borne illness", "moquito-borne disease", and "water-borne wastes", and such compounds argue for an adjective use. Consider:

• Oscar Wilde, Rome Unvisited

  When, bright with purple and with gold,
  Come priest and holy cardinal,
  And borne above the heads of all
  The gentle Shepherd of the Fold.

That looks far more like an adjective to me than a verb form, particularly since the poetic structure places it parallel with (deprecated template usage) bright. Also:

• David Irving v. Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt, II

  Irving is further required, as a matter of practice, to spell out what he contends are the specific defamatory meanings borne by those passages.

But the strongest case I've found is:

• 1901 - Joseph Conrad, Falk: A Reminiscence

  In the last rays of the setting sun, you could pick out far away down the reach his beard borne high up on the white structure, foaming up stream to anchor for the night.

Here, there isn't a helping verb anywhere near the word, and it clearly modifies (deprecated template usage) beard. --EncycloPetey 05:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

All of the above examples are still the past participle of the verb 'to bear,' not adjectives. Look up the definition of 'participle' — it's a verb form that can function in the role of an adjective, but that doesn't make it an adjective, per se. Labeling 'borne' as an adjective is simply incorrect. Lincmad 08:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The definition of (deprecated template usage) participle is incorrect and should be fixed. While past participles tend to function as adjectives; present participles may also function as nouns. In any case, if it's functioning as an adjecitve, then a functional definition would say that it is an adjective. It all depends on whether we take a theoretical classification or purely practical one. In the past, the community has opted for a practical one when it comes to English.

Consider the following sentences:

• She went for a walk.
• She walked to the store.
• She carried a walking stick.
• All that walking was good exercise.

Do you feel that every use of (deprecated template usage) walk (in various forms) in these examples is a verb? If not, how do you distinguish between the different parts of speech here? --EncycloPetey 14:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think of it as an adjective. Is carried an adjective? It can be substituted in all those examples. Widsith 10:09, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Spanish and Latin have the very same issue with present and past participles. In Latin, a participle is practically its own part of speech; a perfect participle not only functions like an adjective but also declines like an adjective. In other words, the Romans treated such participles as adjectives despite their origin from a verb.

As I said above, Wiktionary has consistently used Adjective as a header for participles that can function in English as an adjective. So, we are really discussing a much larger issue here. We have consistently classified English words according to function. Since a past participle functions as an adjective, we have labelled them as both Verb (form) and Adjective.

Present participles can often function as nouns, and no one raises a fuss over those. Consider the sentence "Walking is good exercise." Here, (deprecated template usage) walking is a participle. But, if we label its entry as a "present participle", then we have a hard time adding definitions, translations, etc. Not to mention the fact that it would leave the sentence with a verb as the subject. For our purposes, we treat such present participles as nouns because they function as nouns. --EncycloPetey 14:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Missingness

Apart from the capitalisation, is there any substance in this entry? - Algrif 13:44, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

• Does seem to be real. Corrected plural, removed encyclopedic stuff, added reference, moved to lowercase. SemperBlotto 15:01, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

cited 2 new senses, one "absence", in theology, philosophy, etc. Cited statistics sense is incompatible with "missing data" sense. "Missingness" seems to be about the way in which data is missing. It is not the missing data itself or the holes in the data set. DCDuring 16:29, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Evidence on the existence of the plural is thin. The word is awkward to begin with and still often appears in quotes. The pluralization seems to worsen the awkwardness. OTOH, there was one good g.b.c. hit (statistics sense), 2 groups (absence sense)(0 scholar, news). The statisticians do seem to compare one type of missingness with another pretty regularly, so you would expect them to compare "missingnesses" eventually. DCDuring 16:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Good work, O Citer, and thanks, but doesn't the stats sense just mean "absence" (and not "the way things are absent")? Seems that way from the quotations. (If so, and the "missing data" sense is trashable, then this word would definitely seem to be uncountable.)—msh210℠ 21:54, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

The overall context for the "missingness" citations shows that the mathematicians are discussing alternative probability models to characterize the way in which the data are missing. (I should make it a practice of including links to the overall context where available.)

"uncountable" seems so prescriptive for Wiktionary. I find that 80-90% of the uncountability claims (at entry level, not sense level) in Wiktionary entries are contradicted by the facts of usage. The ease of saying "uncountable" at the entry level (2 keystrokes) relative to doing so at the sense level (13 keystrokes per sense) seems to serve as a persistent bias toward such claims. A better label would be "rarely plural" even for most of the senses that are claimed to be "uncountable". BP? DCDuring 15:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I've got a better idea: why don't we just have a bot go through and delete all the entries for words that are taggeed as uncountable and then you can go through and enter them correctly. That would be much more efficient. It's not like this is a wiki project where we expect other people to work on articles and add data if they can think of an obscure countable use. (Please pardon my sarcasm.) And by the way: you are being prescriptive in interpreting uncountable to mean "you may NOT use this as a countable word, it is prohibited" when it was entered as the descriptive "we don't have a citation as a countable word and haven't thought of a countable use yet and but we'll change it when we find some".) RJFJR 15:36, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what you are objecting to.

• I am relating a summary of what I have found in reviewing entries.
• I have made some changes to uncountability claims that I would be prepared to cite in response to an RfV for the plural forms or whatever other procedure would be appropriate at the sense level.
• I have stated my belief that there is a template-caused bias in the process.
• I have stated an objection to an aspect of terminology.

Where have I gone wrong? DCDuring 16:22, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

masonking

--Connel MacKenzie 18:23, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

floyn

I can't verify this (from a quick Google). Anyone else ever heard of it? SemperBlotto 19:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Is the average quality of spoofs getting better or are more marginal cases being let through? I couldn't find a reference, even on Web. Floyn is a UK last name (Wales?), isn't it? And there's Sven Floyn, the inventor of the harpoon gun. (It must be true; it was on the Web.) DCDuring 00:48, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

quaggle

Not in any of my dictionaries. SemperBlotto 21:45, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

On b.g.c. it shows many various cites but the part of speech seems to always differ; some show it as noun, some as verb, some as adjective; it's apparently provincial or dialectal English.. it also could be a group of something: hence, from b.g.c., "That company, squadron, covey, herd, quaggle, or whatever it may be called, of Tanks" and "Some years ago a Foreign Service officer took a quaggle of American tourists in Paris to the Crillon Grill for lunch." Then we have this: "PYC put the rest of the warnings through on the telephone, trying not to quaggle and even to sound reassuring to the equally excited hiccups on the other...". Anyway, I can;t sort it out. sewnmouthsecret 22:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

portmanteau ?? Something like quiver + wiggle or waddle ?? Just an idea. No proof. - Algrif 12:39, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

possible derived or meant to be gaggle --BigBadBen 14:40, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

samey

--Connel MacKenzie 22:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Partridge's has it. One g.b.c.:

1. • 2004, Kate Cann, Spanish Holiday: Or, How I Transformed the Worst Vacation Ever Into the Best ..., page 48

     “Samey,” hisses Tom. “Course it's samey. It's flicking Spain, isn't it. You can't expect it to turn into fucking Italy halfway through.

Omigod, there's like a million hits. Well, anyway 240K on the web, 1900 total in news, 26 current; thousands @ groups. I'm down with keeping it. Above quote is just one word away from being the one I would have chosen to insert in the article. DCDuring 01:05, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Very common in UK. Widsith 09:48, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

I've never seen it written before, but I've heard (and used) it many times. RobbieG 08:51, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

• Widespread where I come from (UK). Appears in Collins English Dictionary, defined as "monotonous; repetitive; unvaried" (informal). Definitely should not be removed. Matt 21:59, 15 December 2007 (UTC).

HYPSM

Sorry, I know this was discussed before, but the tag wasn't removed and I can't find the discussion. --Connel MacKenzie 00:55, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

embarge

The OED has quite a different definition (to lay an embargo, or to sequestrate etc). SemperBlotto 08:16, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

From g.b.c. it also means (1) to get on a barge, in parallel to getting on a bark (?) "embark", at least in the 19th C. It also means (2) embargo. It is also used as a synonym for (3) embark. In g.b.c., restricting the search to fiction yielded 1 invisible hit and 1 non-English hit. Similarly meager results for drama. The sense given should appear in such works if it is real and older. I found one hit on groups for embarging in on a conversation. Why not make this rfv-sense, check the etymology, and get the 3 correct senses in? DCDuring 12:45, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Aboves'd executed except: general sense of embark is questionable. 2 other senses now entered with one quote each. Support for embargo sense is plentiful. Other sense has a different etymology and appears rare, though it is likely to meet RfV. No support for rfv'd senses. DCDuring 20:04, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I cannot find the book cited for the disputed senses: 1990, Ekaterina Sin, Upon Golden Fields, page 105, on Amazon or Google. I will try LoC and OCLC. DCDuring 23:28, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

drider

Either the first or the substituted definition (seems to be from Dungeons and Dragons). SemperBlotto 08:20, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Sigh... it is. In D&D it's a drow (dark elf) / spider mix, and the name is a portmanteau of that. --EncycloPetey 14:35, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

They show up in lots of those dungeons and dragons related books, particularly Forgotten Realms, and most particularly the "Drizzt" series by R.A. Salvatore, which includes a NY times bestseller (Siege of Darkness) and a NY times honorable mention (Starless Night). These books don't show up in b.g.c. searches (the books are there but the contents are not). As for the particular details (original definition or newly substituted one), I don't remember since I haven't read those books since junior high.

• 2004 - Roby Ward, Heroes of Watussin, p 202 [5],

  The man did not start wishing that the half-spider would start attacking his friend, but only hoping that no spell would be cast. He thus pressed the drider to assure that the creature would be making a mistake if it paused to concentrate on working arcane power.

  (Wow, that's some marvelously painful writing, there!)

• 2007 - "Various players", Cerea - Adventures in an Online World, p 157 [6]

  We killed off the last few drow and the last remaining drider and headed back to Gohem to report. I'll be glad to never again see a drider in my life!

  (Unfortunately the surrounding pages are unavailable on b.g.c. so we might never know whether the author gives any more detailed hints about what the drider *are*)

These, together with the R.A. Salvatore stuff which is unsearchable on b.g.c., should be enough. Language Lover 21:05, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Here we go, one of the Salvatore books is searchable at Amazon: [7]

No dates for these? Well, hmmm... looks like I still have the old D&D module if which this first appeared (one of a small number I didn't give away when I grew up):

• 1980 - David C. Sutherland III & Gary Gygax, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, page 28 (ISBN 0-935696-20-2)

  A drider appears to be a cross between a giant spider and a Drow.

And if you really want painful writing, go track down a copy of The Eye of Argon; it's legendary for the...er..."quality" of its writing. --EncycloPetey 00:55, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• I propose that we relegate this creature and its Dungeons & Dragons kin to some manner of appendix or concordance (and have prepped a vote on this at Wiktionary:Beer parlour#Proposed vote on fiction concordances.). bd2412 T 02:48, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

bonk

Cycling / long distance running senses. Thryduulf 21:58, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

doxastic

722 raw b.g.c. hits. Unsure of proper def. sewnmouthsecret 04:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• I've added a definition and taken the liberty of removing the tag. SemperBlotto 08:24, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

bad joke

As entered, this is sum of parts, but I hesitate to delete it because I've the feeling that there's an idiomatic usage as well and would like to see what people come up with. --EncycloPetey 07:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure it's idiomatic. In what way is the joke bad? Is it non-appropriate in manners? DAVilla 08:01, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

So, on that basis, would you include bad orange, bad dog, bad wine, bad connection? I'm sorry, but that's just a specific use of (deprecated template usage) bad; the fact that (deprecated template usage) bad has multiple definitions does not automatically make a phrase that contains it qualify as "idiomatic". Idiomatic means that there is an unexpected use that can't be found in the components. --EncycloPetey 08:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

No, I wouldn't, because pragmatically you'd know that an orange would be rotten, a dog would be misbehaved, etc. Well, I'd have to give bad connection some thought, but for a joke certainly it isn't clear. Per Dmc below, the way in which it is bad has a certain character. DAVilla 18:58, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

In my understanding, just because there are multiple possible interpretations, it does not necessarily make it an idiom. A "green frog" is also not (usually) an "envious Francophone," though the individual words could mean those. I do, however, think there is something special about the set phrase "bad joke" in English. Substituting for "inappropriate joke" or "failed joke" are literally correct but seem to miss the point when I repeat them to myself. I think the phrase adds up to more than its components, but I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's a certain lameness that calling something a "bad joke" (you know, the kind that you groan at, instead of laughing) can imply, which doesn't come independently from either component word? As an thought experiment, "Q: How do you know policemen are strong? Q: Because they can hold up traffic." [8] isn't just literally bad is it? It's a bad joke. Hmm. Dmcdevit·t 08:31, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Although lame joke would seem to be synonymous.

Sure, but "lame" is not a meaning of "bad" I am aware of. The resulting phrase is more than sum of the parts. Dmcdevit·t 11:12, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

It can also mean something that is being criticised but was not intended as humour in the first place, ie, Mayor Smith's new traffic rules were a bad joke, would mean that they were poorly designed, not that they failed to get a laugh at a comedy festival. This definition is missing. --Dmol 10:43, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

It would need the important figurative sense to be more than SoP, I think. DCDuring 11:01, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Dmol is quite right on this. The example is a good one. The point about bad joke is that there never was a joke in the first place, which is why it is idiomatic. There is no need to include the SoP definition in the entry, any more than split hairs talks about cutting a hair in two lengthways. - Algrif 13:47, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes! That's the idiomatic usage I was trying to think of. Thanks, Dmol. Now, can we find citations for that? --EncycloPetey 16:14, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

If you're satisfied now, I'd suggest closing this on clearly widespread use. DAVilla 18:58, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

No, because none of this conversation is reflected in the entry yet. The current definition is the sum-of-parts version. --EncycloPetey 21:43, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I've reworked it. But it's more than possible the definition could be improved. - Algrif 10:58, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

What happened to the Sarajevo quote? I'm not sure that we've got a good definition that gets at the non-SoP meaning of "bad joke". It seems that a situation is a bad joke if it would be funny were it not for the serious consequences. An SoP "bad joke" is a joke that is bad because it is a failure as a joke. These figurative "bad jokes" are (1) not intended to be funny, (2) bad because of their human consequences, and (3), ignoring those consequences, they may be funny. The Sarajevo quote would seem to illustrate that. I think the other quotes may also. Please take a look. DCDuring 20:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I removed the Sarajevo quote, because it appears that the person telling the story had heard earlier about the mass murder in Sarajevo, but he did not believe it first. Instead, he believed it was a bad joke in its literal (SoP) sense. A bad joke defined in the gloss is "a situation that is badly planned, or illogical". I don't think anyone can believe that a mass murder is merely a badly planned situation or something that "would be funny were it not for the serious consequences". BTW I'm not sure if all of the new quotes are non-SoP either. Hekaheka 12:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that the definition is right yet for the way it is used in writing, though it is an accurate reflection of the most common oral use. One thing that I forgot in describing the use is the most basic element: the situation is not a literal joke, it can only be a figurative joke for this non-SoP metaphor to be an idiomatic sense. It is certainly a commonly used phrase in this extended metaphorical sense. The problem is that it is in active use in both SoP and non-SoP ways and the non-SoP meaning is not very distant from the SoP. DCDuring 15:46, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

homersexual

Coined for The Simpsons. --Keene 16:31, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

miniatory

Can't be what it claims. According to Google search it seems to be a valid Polish word? Only English hits seem to be misspellings of "miniature".--Jyril 16:34, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Can't be a verb. Must be a misspelling of minatory, which has same sense. Not a "common" misspelling, it seems. DCDuring 18:13, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually a valid {{obsolete spelling of}} minatory, in use in the 16th century. Widsith 18:16, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Made changes in accord with above. Don't know about Polish. DCDuring 20:11, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

pull a Homer

Made up for the Simpsons. Nothing relevant on bgc, three possible on google scholar. Probably nonse term--Keene 16:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

So, you brought it here because you think we will find supporting citations? If you thnk it's a nonce term, you should recommedn it for RFD, not RFV. --EncycloPetey 16:49, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps. Maybe yous have other ways of supporting citations outside Google though. --Keene 18:27, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Cited, all Usenet. The articles on scholar hardly look any more legit. DAVilla 18:41, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

hepped up on goofballs

Made up for the Simpsons. Quotes listed in article are not satisfactory: one is from (I think) a magazine, one from a TV show, wrestling citation I'll take for valid. --Keene 16:41, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

TV shows and magazines are durably archived. What is unsatisfactory about it? DAVilla 18:47, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

TV scripts can be durably archived, but is not, if the text is not publicly available (i.e. not verifiable.) Given that goofballs' primary meaning is nothing of the sort, this is just a weird one-off joke that doesn't merit any attention. To suggest this is a common idiom or common set-phrase (therefore merits an entry) is a little beyond absurd. --Connel MacKenzie 18:03, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

then the definition needs to be expanded... I remember growing up in El Paso (armpit of the west) Texas, eating goofballs... Ha, even found a website displaying the wrapper... Candy Wrapper Museum --BigBadBen 14:28, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

bear

In the sense: "A market in which prices are falling." DAVilla 16:37, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

A bull market vs. a bear market - clearly in widespread use, I'd think. What exactly is the complaint? --Connel MacKenzie 17:52, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but the word "bear" (as noun) alone does not mean "bear market" AFAIK. As a noun it does refer to investors who take the "bear" position of shorting securities. Let's make sure that we have an adequate adjectival sense and, perhaps, a usage example containing "bear market". DCDuring 22:42, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Delete A "bear" in a financial market is a person or other actor who believes that the stock prices will be falling and acts accordingly. This sense is covered in #3. "Bear" is also used as adjective in expressions like "bear market" or "bear sentiment". This sense is also covered in the entry. As far as I know, the word "bear" alone does not mean the same as "bear market", and unless appropriate quotes are provided, sense #4 should be deleted. Hekaheka 15:40, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

zatfig

--Connel MacKenzie 17:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

It’s a butchered entry. Deleted. He meant "zaftik" (זאַפֿטיק). —Stephen 21:40, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

ensmallening

Seems someone has been entering neologisms as base forms, then errantly propagating unattested (perhaps impossible - certainly unlikely) forms? Zero groups.g.c as well as zero b.g.c. (of course.) --Connel MacKenzie 18:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, sure — all I can find are four Google Blogue hits, spanning four months (so, even if they were durably archived, they still wouldn’t satisfy the spanning-at-least-one-year requirement). Nevertheless, do you not see the absurdity of requiring independent attestation, to the same standard, for a conjugated form of an already-attested lemma? –Particularly for present participles, which, without exception, are formed by suffixation with (deprecated template usage) -ing? In the context of the existence of (deprecated template usage) ensmallen, there’s nothing “unlikely” about (deprecated template usage) ensmallening, and certainly nothing “impossible”. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 06:07, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The absurdity of dictionary writing? Sorry, but for really oblique terms, Eclecticology set the precedent that each form should be attested, or not entered. The base form entry might barely pass CFI - that does not imply that all inflections of it do. --Connel MacKenzie 19:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

For this to be considered normal, proper English, yes, is absurd and impossible. It is just a joke entry to begin with, used only in a comedy context. Is this a word you'd expect to use in a formal context without garnering guffaws? --Connel MacKenzie 19:08, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

dhapmng

Really? In English? bd2412 T 19:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

ZERO hits anywhere. I will take the liberty of deleting it. sewnmouthsecret 19:20, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Eye-talian

I just came across this entry and note that it recently passed an rfd after limited discussion, but I think it bears a little more discussing. As I see it, this term is simply a crude phonetic spelling, intended to mimic an accent or mispronunciation, and the quotations bear this out. Should the Wiktionary door really be opened to this sort of thing? Seems to me it's a bottomless pit. -- WikiPedant 21:10, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Without digging much, it has over 600 b.g.c. hits, 14,000 raw google hits, 66 Scholar, etc. Seems fine to me. sewnmouthsecret 21:16, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Sure and you can get Google hits for "Austr-eye-lian", "Eye-tralian" (and "Itralian"), or George Bush's "newkyoolar" or "newcular" too. This is just silly phonetic mimicry. Does every variant in use really belong in a dictionary? -- WikiPedant 21:31, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't care if it stays or goes, just pointing it out. Your examples found minimal usage, as well; it's apples-to-oranges. I personally think a variant with heavy usage should belong in a dictionary; but I'm moderately liberal as far as what should be included. sewnmouthsecret 21:39, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I have opened a Tea Room discussion for hmph which may illuatrate another side of the issue, perhaps better than this case, which has a large amount of usage. Wiktionary does seem to want to be inclusive, to take advantage of not being much affected by the limits that dictionaries with print components have. DCDuring 22:08, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually maybe this is more of a beer parlor discussion as the issue has been framed. This particular entry has been cited, so RfV is not really the forum. It passed RfD. The grounds that you raise are policy-level and worth discussion. I'm sure it's been discussed before, but, even so, it may be worth discussing again or differently. DCDuring 22:12, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

You're right, DC. I should have put it under Beer Parlour. I'm more concerned about the precedent than the particular entry. I just don't do enough discussing, or maybe I'm too old, to get used to the different fora. -- WikiPedant 00:13, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I note that there is a "neologism" tag, which refers to standardized WT criteria for same. The page on neologisms does not mention any such standardized criteria other than the normal citation criteria and newness. "Eye-talian" is certainly not new.

It also bears a tag saying it is uncommon. 600+ g.b.c. hits with this spelling; 600+ g.b.c. hits for "Eyetalian"; 600 for "I-talian". And that's before we get plural forms and the various spellings of "Eye-tye". Are folks offended by the existence of ethnic slurs? DCDuring 22:32, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

colloquial

Sense: adj. 3. Of informal language whose usage is localized to a particular area and not in general use. i.e. "I ain't gonna go o'er dere"

Citations please. I don't see this in other dictionaries. Note the contrast between "informal, localized to an area" and "informal, characteristic to oral communication". Cynewulf 03:24, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, please. Some regulars use this "localized dialect" sense as justification (or not) for the Template:colloquial tag. It should just mean "informal; characteristic of conversation". -- Thisis0 04:20, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Aaaaand the sense has already been deleted. That was fast. Cynewulf 15:56, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

colloquy

The present definition is “A formal conversation or conference”. I agree that this word exists, but I’m unsure about the way it is defined. Dictionary.com and the American Heritage Dictionary suggest that there are three distinct senses to this word. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 05:48, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

So add the def.'s, old boy. Then you can become bold boy!  :) -- Thisis0 15:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Done. I’ll leave this for others to cite — I’m off! † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 09:16, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Moved from #Found in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1996) hereinafter:

Found in Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary (1996)

Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary states “Colloquy: 1. a conversational exchage; dialogue. 2. a conference.” Admittedly, this is only 2 distinct definitions, but supports the hypothesis that there is more than one. Good work! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ansylhein (talk • contribs) 20:24, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I can attest to widespread use of the legal sense. bd2412 T 02:44, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

the good old trade of basket-making

RFV'd by me in March. Google hits not useful. Entries from a slang dictionary shouldn't pass CFI should they? Also, many other in caat

tokhes

Is it romanized Yiddish or has it entered English from Yiddish? Pistachio 13:25, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Has definitely entered English, although not with this spelling. --Ptcamn 23:41, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

how else is it spelt? Pistachio 18:37, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, tookus is one popular way. —Stephen 04:36, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm astonished that this isn't in Merriam-Webster or American Heritage, but I can't find it in either one. The commonest spellings I can find online are tuchas and tokhes, the latter being the "official" YIVO transliteration of תּחת. If anyone out there has Leo Rosten's The Joys of Yiddish, it would be interesting to know how he spells it. Angr 18:33, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

sprint speed

Apparently someone thinks we're here to help them promote their latest advertising campaign. --Connel MacKenzie 15:56, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Never heard of it myself. At b.g.c. lots of hits but obviously that's because of the sum of parts meaning. Sampled a couple pages of these and saw no legit hits. Narrowed it down by searching for "sprint speed" + business, and none of those supported the sense. Looks like a delete. Language Lover 11:58, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Admin Nazi

I suspected this is attested, but zero b.g.c. as well as zero groups.g.c. (from the link provided in its "References" section, the tiny handful of hits have none that show this meaning.) --Connel MacKenzie 16:09, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

NLSTP

--Connel MacKenzie 16:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

door crasher

Single web hit given as reference doesn't seem to directly support this meaning. --Connel MacKenzie 16:43, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

congregates

Plural noun sense. We do not have the singular as a noun, and I can't find it it any of my dictionaries. SemperBlotto 10:49, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

It looks so plausible, except that you would think it would be in the singular as well. If it were real, it would be pronunced to rhyme with the noun "aggregate", presumably. I couldn't find anything with the sense given searching for "crystal" and ("congregates" or "congregate") on g.b.c. and Scholar. DCDuring 22:22, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Dunelmensis

Tagged, not listed. --Connel MacKenzie 18:59, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

• Although this is an adjective, it is used in ecclesiastical circles as a noun (proper noun?) to refer to the bishop of Durham. There are similar words for the archbishops of York and Canterbury and possibly other bishops. SemperBlotto 23:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
  • p.s. It was listed above, but in lowercase. SemperBlotto 23:01, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

mebibyte

Does anybody actually use this apart from telling people not to use megabyte? It didn't seem so after a cursory glance at bgc. I'd like to see some citations. Cynewulf 17:30, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

technotainment

If kept, this really needs the handful of citations from b.g.c. --Connel MacKenzie 21:02, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

jammer

Swimwear sense. Never heard or seen such a thing - b.g.c. does not support this meaning. Picture on Wikipedia seems equally unlikely...just a caption on fairly generic shorts and a redirect. Other dictionaries do not list the term, except as a radio interference device. --Connel MacKenzie 21:26, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

They look like "compression shorts", some kind of friction-reducing design. "Jammer" seems like it reflects the idea of jamming, er, yourself into the tight-fitting things. Groups might provide citation support for it. It looks like there are many brands, though Speedo has a product line called "Jammers" and may be trying to 'steal' the word. DCDuring 22:33, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Cited I wished we'd had it cited in time for Christmas shopping. DCDuring 23:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Neat, thanks. --Connel MacKenzie 00:40, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

black-on-black crime

A real term, although I'm not very familiar with it. Sense being checked is "The crime which occurs when the poorest, weakest members of a population turn on each other out of desperation" - I can see where it would come from based on the literal meaning, but I think we need something to back it up. Globish 02:35, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

• POV sense removed. More general definition added. SemperBlotto 08:18, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

This is a set phrase, with a large literature and little agreement about the subject. SB's def is much less PoV: Crime, especially violent crime in an inner city, carried out by black people against their peers. Let me propose an even simpler one: "Crime carried out by black people against peers and neighbors who are black." Crimes like burglary, theft, vandalism are not inherently violent, but are included. No theory or limits needed. Any objections? DCDuring 11:39, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Any topical essay would describe the incongruity and senselessness of such inner divisiveness, but I don't see how a dictionary definition can hope to cover that adequately. While it covers non-violent crime as well, it is being called a noun of its own (despite being sum-of-parts) to disparage the entire concept. I think your removal of "especially crime in an inner city" would detract from the sense significantly (but perhaps removing the single word "violent" is more of what your were trying to say?) --Connel MacKenzie 21:50, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

AGF. The topical essays cover a wide variety of points of view and theories. I was trying to remove the implicit and conjectural theories and isolate the common element, which is IMO something like what I have proposed. I saw no reason for my own suburban city and our three neighboring suburban cities to be excluded from the definition, nor the neighboring suburban towns with significant black populations, nor the outer boroughs of New York, which include some very crime-ridden places, but don't fit most definitions of inner city (or inner + city). The meaning of BoBC is largely SoP, once you have a def. for "black-on-black" {which WT does not), but it is certainly a set phrase. It seems possible to say "violent black on black crime", but not "black on black violent crime". I called it a "noun" solely because it functions as a noun grammatically, including having a plural form. I have been operating under the assumption that, per WT documentation, the list of valid English PoSs does not include "Phrase", "Verb Form", "Idiom", "Transitive verb", and "Intransitive Verb", but does include "Proverb", which this is certainly not. DCDuring 22:40, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand why you cry "AGF" above. I don't see anything untoward I wrote (nor any way that what I wrote could be misconstrued as such.) I don't think that "inner city" in any way excludes any other region, but it does round the context out to typical uses of the phrase. Are you suggesting the set-phrase is used especially in suburban references? That is news to me (and frankly can't see how that could have evolved that way, linguistically, as it seem to have started out as a term exclusively classifying inner city crime.)

About headings, yes, I've for several years used ===Phrase=== as a heading; in this case I think ===Noun=== fits a little better, but don't care too much which heading is chosen (at this point in time.)

--Connel MacKenzie 00:34, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I think you want to delete this because the person who added it was black.

How is this idiomatic? It's crime. Committed by black people, on black people. "White-on-white crime" or "hispanic-on-Asian" crime would be equally instantly understood. bd2412 T 01:09, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

vonk

Note, there seems to be a push on Wikipedia and here to assert a couple unattested meanings. Peeking at b.g.c., it seems to be, perhaps, a personal attack of some sort. --Connel MacKenzie 21:41, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

unfilled

Verb sense: past of unfill. But is unfilled a verb or just an adjective? RJFJR 05:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

It appears to be a rare or obsolete verb:

• 1606 - Thomas Midleton, The Revenger's Tragedy, act ii, scene 2

  I'll pierce him to his face; he shall die looking upon me. Thy veins are swell'd with lust; this shall unfill 'em

--EncycloPetey 20:26, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

shingles

Meaning herpes zoster, infection with varicella zoster virus. See Wikipedia. --Una Smith 20:38, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I don’t understand what you mean. Are you questioning that a herpes zoster outbreak is called shingles? If so, yes, that’s shingles all right. It’s a form of chicken pox that re-emerges later in life as the immune system becomes weaker. —Stephen 20:42, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Shingles is a name for herpes zoster, no question there. The question is: what is the etymology of shingles, meaning herpes zoster? Some dictionaries say that shingles is derived from similar sounding words that mean belt or girdle and refer to the rash resembling a belt or girdle around the body. But a shingles rash is very characteristic and it does not cross the body midline; it does not resemble a belt or girdle. So, what is the correct etymology of shingles? --66.167.41.233 05:48, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

If you are asking for an etymology then you can use the {{rfe}} template on the page, or inquire in the Tea room. The RFV (here) is a request for verification that the word exists and to find citable quotations. --EncycloPetey 05:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll try that. --Una Smith 16:20, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Resolved, struck. bd2412 T 01:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

UN

I would want to add that "bluewashing" is often connected to the standards or politics of the United Nations Organization (connected to its blue flag). Therefore companies which start campaigns to promote their example of corporate identity according to UN-initiatives try to "bluewash" their otherwise bad image.

So what entry are you asking to have verified? The section header says UN, but that doesn't seem to be the entry you're asking about. --EncycloPetey 02:00, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

baptistery

alternative speling seems to link to himself.

• Fixed. SemperBlotto 16:36, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

play possum

rfv sense: to deceive by pretending to be something else. This well-known (only in the US?) idiom means feigning being dead, asleep, or alert/aware in my experience. Is anyone familiar with its use as a near synonym for "pretend"? Any good ideas for likely contexts for distinguishing this sense from the others? DCDuring 16:27, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I know the first 3 senses (pretend dead/asleep/not attending), but not the 4th. --Una Smith 16:31, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Likewise for me. --EncycloPetey 01:59, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

This sense (or a better written version of it) is in fact the only reason this idiom has any currency in English. Indeed, the original idiomatic sense in the 1800's was a figurative extension of the familiar opossum behavior — "to dissemble, to disguise or conceal something in order to deceive". [9] [10] The literal copycat sense "to play dead" would have been a non-starter as an idiom. The metaphorical foist of the 'possum was utilized idiomatically by Edgar Allen Poe and James Russell Lowell, among others. (Cites now in the entry). Before the literati took a liking to it, this metaphor was actually fostered imaginitively by Blacks in the Southern US, though they usually omitted "play", preferring all manners of attributive use of "possum":

• He's not sick no how — it's all possum. [11]
• The rascal had only been possuming the whole time. [12]
• I could see it war all 'possum. [13]
• Pap would possum grin, but Maw would get mad. [14]
• "Whar's my she-niggah! Dad-rot that she-niggah! Her infernal jy wur all possum!" [15]
• Several 1800's cites
• an interesting read with a character expounding upon the metaphor and warning his boys about women.

It's clear from all of this that there's a missing, albeit dated, noun sense for possum, "pretense", and a verb sense "to possum" with a similar meaning to play possum. -- Thisis0 03:54, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I've seen reference to the verb sense that you mention. Also, in two contemporary idiom dictionaries (Cassel and NTC), I have seen the now-deleted sense of feigning not paying attention, but I cannot find much g.b.c. support for that use, though I've heard it. It may be that a better sense would to be feign diminished capability. That would include the meaning derived from slave behavior as well as everyday deceptive behavior, though it is less true to the metaphor. DCDuring 11:45, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "slave behavior"; I hope that wasn't inferred. It has nothing to do with anything like that, but only a comparison with a possum's feigning. As for "feigning not paying attention", that fits either under the "etc." in def.2, or the catch-all duplicity of def.3. If there was decent citational support for "feigning not paying attention" (which I could not find), it could be mentioned, but I would say not unless. -- Thisis0 03:53, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The slave behavior has to do with shirking work by feigning various kinds of incapacity. In contexts outside the American South, it would be like gold-bricking. Possums are more plentiful in the South than elsewhere is US. At best, the sense I am referrng to is uncommon. In any event, feigning death and sleeping don't come up much in my life now, so I need the extended senses. I can still use the expression myself and, without Wiktionary support, I may be one of the only people using the expression that way, showing how creatively language-savvy I am. DCDuring 04:43, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

live and let die

No idea if this was an idiomatic expression prior to the Bond book, novel and song, or if it has become one as a result of said media, but something tells me it might not stand up to scrutiny. Figured I'd post it here in any case. Globish 03:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

• Pretty sure it was just a punning title of the Bond book. Deleted SemperBlotto 08:29, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

níl aon tintean mar do thintean féin

I am nominating one of my own entries as I am not certain if the accents over the letters are correct. The entry is per the first listed below, but I have seen other variations even on Irish language websites. Note that the line over the letter 'I' is not very obvious but as it is the same in all cases I'll ignore counting it below.

• Níl aon tintean mar do thintean féin (1 accent over e in fein)
• Níl aon tintéan mar do thintéan féin. (3 accents, with 1 over the e in tintean)
• Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin. (Still 3, but over the a in tintean).

The proverb is often written without any accents at all, but this is clearly a mistake. Are the above common misspellings, worthy of their own listing, or is it a regional variation.--Dmol 12:51, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

The correct Irish spelling is Níl aon tinteán mar do thinteán féin, as recorded for example in Foclóir Gaeilge-Béarla by Niall Ó Dónaill, s.v. thinteán. I'll move the article accordingly. Angr 17:13, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

arthrophyte

Supposed to be a plant of the taxon Arthrophyta. This taxon is not in Wikispecies. My dictionary gives a totally different definition - an abnromal growth in the cavity of a joint. SemperBlotto 17:19, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Arthrophyta is an obsolete descriptive name for Equisetophyta, which has been reduced to the rank of class as Equisetopsida under the Pteridophyta. It is a collective term for the plants known as horsetails and scouring rushes, as well as their fossil relatives.

• 1987 - Harold C. Bold, C. J. Alexopoulos, & T. Delevoryas, Morphology of Plants and Fungi, 5th edition, page 514

  Arthrophytes, like members of the Microphyllophyta, were important components of Carboniferous and Permian forests.

You won't find the taxon Arthrophyta on Wikispecies because that name is no longer used. --EncycloPetey 15:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

But as someone may well come across the term in a relatively modern text, it should be included, but with some sort of usage note, or an obsolete tag, wouldn't you say? - Algrif 20:39, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

If you're talking about (deprecated template usage) arthrophyte, then no it isn't obsolete. Just because the scientific name changes does not always mean the common term does. The word (deprecated template usage) arthrophyte still used. On the other hand, the problem with Arthrophyta is that it's the name applied to a scientific taxon, and not a word ever used as part of a living language. While the taxon is obsolete, the name technically never goes away, and could be resurrected with the publication of a single paper on plant systematics. Those usage categories generally do not apply to scientific names the way that we apply them to words in a language. --EncycloPetey 01:02, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

Hack (Prison slang)

This is acutely a derogatory term use to refer to a prison guard. The term is acutely an acronym that stands for Horses Ass Carrying Keys.

nooka chooka

Googlewhack, but plausible? --Connel MacKenzie 00:15, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

• Nonsense. deleted SemperBlotto 08:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

fair and balanced

"fair and balanced" -Fox doesn't look like it is too commonly used in the way described, can anyone find some usage? - [The]DaveRoss 01:52, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

1. "Bush described as "fair and balanced" his decision to commute the prison term of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former aide to Vice President Cheney who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice for his role in the leak of Plame's identity." from here might or might not be one, the context isn't clear.

Is it more than sum of parts? RJFJR 19:45, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

The "fair and balanced" marketing slogan for Fox News may have entered into the lexicon. It's ironic use would make no sense without the baseline of its straight use. Probably both could be documented from Google News. It is interesting to note that the ironic/sarcastic sense is the only one in the entry.

More generally, I am uncertain under what circumstances irony and sarcasm generally merit the creation of a separate sense for an entry. Would a usage note be sufficient. Predominantly ironic/sarcastic use would definitely seem to warrant it, but other cases? It is particularly difficult for a neutral observer to locate citations of ironic and sarcastic use of a phrase or word. DCDuring 20:55, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Certainly we should not list "stupid" as a definition s.v. smart.—msh210℠ 23:33, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I'd think that fair and balanced was not the stuff of dictionaries, in either meaning. Wikipedia can describe the uses in prose, which would make sense of it much better. But what do I know? JzG 21:42, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Wiktionary is pushing the limits of what a dictionary can be. We can afford to let something in early. Some political slogans, old and new, are worth including, for example. We have rules (See WT:CFI for example) which are still gelling. All of these words are tests of the old rules and an opportunity to consider adding new ones. DCDuring 21:51, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

• Re-deleted, previously failed RFD as Fair and balanced. --Connel MacKenzie 01:59, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

libits

"The 'fuzzies' on the edge of loose-leaf paper after you tear it out of a notebook."
It's cute and everything, but I've never seen it before. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 02:06, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense. deleted SemperBlotto 08:43, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

preorgastic

"Never having had an orgasm." Widsith 10:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

I wrote the wrong word. It's supposed to be preorgasmic, so I've moved the page.

- I'm preorgasmic.

- Does that mean you're about to have one?

- No. I've never had one.

Shortbus. (2006), time 14'50''

__meco 10:56, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

insipid

Sense 1 - utterly lacking in intelligence or depth; foolish. Not a sense I know, and I cannot find it in dictionaries of contemporary English. OED lists it as obsolete. -- WikiPedant 02:33, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Huh. That is the only sense I've ever been aware of, though on examining many quotes, the second sense is clearl meant in many of them. The problem I'm finding is that it often isn't possible to tell from context which of these two senses was meant. Here is one that means "foolish", rather than "lacking in character":

• 1926 - H. P. Lovecraft, Cats and Dogs

  This heritage, ironically foisted on us when Roman politics raised the faith of a whipped and broken people to supremacy in the later empire, has naturally kept a strong hold over the weak and sentimentally thoughtless; and perhaps reached its culmination in the insipid nineteenth century, when people were wont to praise dogs "because they are so human" (as if humanity were any valid standard of merit!), and honest Edwin Landseer painted hundreds of smug Fidoes and Carlos and Rovers with all the anthropoid triviality, pettiness, and "cuteness" of eminent Victorians.

--EncycloPetey 06:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Petey, even that quotation strikes me as probably invoking the sense 2, which is articulated at greater length in the Random House Dictionary: "without distinctive, interesting, or stimulating qualities; vapid." -- WikiPedant 06:34, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Not if you read the entire essay. Lovecraft is railing against dogs and people's fondness for them; he was a cat person. --EncycloPetey 06:48, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

MW3 provides 3 senses: in summary paraphrase, 1., flavorless, 2., dull, 3., cloyngly sweet. Of these, the third sense seems most consistent with the Lovecraft quote. It also seems a closer fit than the RfVd sense. Least important, the RfVd senses disagrees with my understanding of the word. MW3 also includes insipient, which they say is archaic, as meaning "foolish" or "stupid". DCDuring 11:06, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I would agree, but that sense wasn't in the entry at all! Obviously, the entry needs more than just verification, we may need a complete rewrite of the definitions from the ground up. --EncycloPetey 14:20, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Not quite from the ground up, but rewritten with 3 senses + kept RfVd sense; made other small changes.

ἰῶ, βῶ, ἔω

These entries have been created by the same user as Ancient Greek verbs with a reference to Etymologicon Magnum, a source of 1100 AD which has already been discussed (see above Ουρανός and ωκύς. I couldn't find them in Liddell-Scott Dictionary but as forms of other verbs, namely ἰῶ as an imperative of ἰάομαι-ἰῶμαι, βῶ as a subjunctive of the Past tense of βαίνω and ἔω as an Ionic subjunctive of εἰμί. --flyax 11:47, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Scorched. Atelaes 01:10, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

countdown

I don't think that this is used as a verb. It might be an alternate spelling of misspelling of infinitive and 1st, 2nd, 3rd pl. present forms of "count down". But my thinking is mostly based on the implausiblity of the inflected forms, wherever the inflecting morphemes are placed. DCDuring 15:27, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm definitely inclined to agree. Countdowning...hah. — [ ric ] opiaterein — 15:35, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly. But don't laugh too soon. I had an ugly surprise when I questioned strikethrough a few months back!! - Algrif 19:59, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Remove. I just double-checked "countdown" in every dictionary entry turned up by Onelook and in the OED as well. None of them recognizes a verb sense. -- WikiPedant 20:10, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Etymology of ἄλφα

There is not a verb ἄλφω. There is the verb ἀλφάνω and it has nothing to do with the first letter of the Greek alphabet. --flyax 17:47, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

That’s some of User:Athang1504's work. I think it all should be reverted. —Stephen 13:12, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Cleaned up entry, cited Semitic etymon. Atelaes 22:55, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

arab-parast

I don't think 'arab-parast' has entered English. Pistachio 18:38, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

νάνος

Looks like paretymology to me, my sources don't give anything like it (see the article). ArielGlenn 20:46, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Cleaned up. Atelaes 23:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

abstinence only

Doesn't really look like a noun to me. The adjective form seems to exist, but only hyphenated. SemperBlotto 08:24, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, not a noun. But even as a noun the definition is silly. It is not a form of education, it is a lifestyle choice, and there is no such thing as a Puritan country.--Dmol 19:06, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems to be used as a noun as well as an adjective, judging from Google News. It's the kind of term I would put in quotes because it can be misread with the "only" read as modifying some other word. Unfortunately said quotes are called "scare quotes" and are deemed a kind of pejorative editorial commentary on the words quoted. It clearly refers to one approach to sex ed. Since schools like to think that they teach about life, it should not be too surprising that a name for a curriculum component is the same as the name for a "lifestyle choice", a "manifestation of God's will", a "moral choice", or what have you. Other than the clause about the "Puritan country", the definition seems minimally adequate. Do we really want to do a full RfV for this, both noun and adj., with and without hyphen for each ? Why not limit it to the noun, both hyphenated and not? I guess that we do have to establish that it's been in use for more than a year, though that should be easy. DCDuring 19:27, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Cited noun sense (non-hyphenated), all from g.b.c. Plenty more available, mostly from News. DCDuring 23:52, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, but can we get rid of the first definition as it is meaningless.--Dmol 19:29, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree it ought to be removed. The RfV process is supposed to run 30 days (or longer). I can't see anyone supporting the gratuitous clause about Puritanism. I am not sure on what grounds we would do a radical edit of something during the 30-day period without a broad consensus. As I am not an admin, I don't undertake deletions or even much subtractive editing. I expect that there will be some kind of clean-up shortly. DCDuring 22:00, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

θῶ

The word itself is the subjunctive of ἔθηκα, past of τίθημι, not a verb. See also above in ἰῶ, βῶ, ἔω --flyax 09:53, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

99able

What? — [ ric ] opiaterein — 06:38, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Very strange. But almost plausible? (Not likely to meet CFI any time soon?) --Connel MacKenzie 06:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

above-board

RfVd sense: "(nautical) Above the deck and therefore open and visible; hence the idiomatic use"

This is just wrong, isn't it? I always thought that the etymology had to do with table surfaces in selling or card-playing.DCDuring 19:06, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

OK. I see that there are two possible etymologies for the term. Both etymologies would have converged on the sense of openness and visibility and also been apposed to "under the table". I can't detect a difference in likelihood that the hyphenated form would have come from one etymology rather than the other. Shouldn't (at least) one entry show both etymologies and no entry show just one? DCDuring 19:20, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

OED gives only the card-sharp derivation of "above-board" dating from 1616 & 1628, but a 1603 usage of "above board" refers to jugglers. I suspect the nautical etymology is a later invention? Dbfirs 19:33, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

My MW3 shows both w/o hyphen as adverb and in one word as adjective. Usage on g.b.c. suggests that hyphenated form is 25% as common as unhyphenated (with space) form. With hyphen most usage appears to be as adjective. That is about 25% of adjective use is of hyphenated form, 75% of single word form (assuming that use of two-word form is all adverbial and no adverbial use of other forms). I have found numerous refs. to the nautical ety., though I remain a bit sceptical. I'm much more accepting of Samuel Johnson's card game etymology, but that might be taken with a grain of salt as well. The correspondence of semantic implications of the etymologies may make it not matter too much. DCDuring 22:29, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

1603 SIR C. HEYDON Jud. Astrol. ii. 67 "After the fashion of iugglers, to occupie the minde of the spectatour, while in the meane time he plaies vnder board". (sic. in original spelling.) (100 years before S. Johnson was born!) Not a direct usage of course, but clearly the concept of above- and under board were in use then.

1616 BEAUM. & FL. Cust. Country I. i. Yet if you play not fair play, and above-board too....

1628 EARLE Microcosm. lxxvi. 157 One that..does it fair and above-board without legerdemain ....

(Sources pinched from OED.) I would take the nautical etymology with a grain of salt, (or a sea!) Dbfirs 18:59, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

That settles it for me. DCDuring 19:46, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

cerealogy

The term cerealogy appears to be used only by people promoting paranormal theories for crop circles, as a way of giving some appearance of legitimacy to this pseudoscientific discipline. The term is not attested, no authority is listed for it. JzG 21:40, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

The answer is to try to attest it. In my efforts, I found that there are more raw google books citations for "cereology" than for "cerealogy" (14:6). I found three arguable good cites for cereology, but only 2 for cerealogy. I'm not sure what a good context label would be, but the quotes speak for themselves for most users. It will probably be possible to find a News cite to get cereology up to 3. It may be silly but it seems to be part of the lexicon. DCDuring 23:04, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Cited. plenty more cites from news articles available. DCDuring 23:19, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

macroverbumsciolist

Creative "nonce word" that has no cite-able references at all (but a smattering on unusable secondary sources that call it a nonce.) --Connel MacKenzie 08:12, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

snikt

Onomatopoeia, The written sound effect used in the X-Men comic series when the character Wolverine unsheaths his claws. RJFJR 17:59, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

tainterian

The 6 google hits don't impress me much :D — [ ric ] opiaterein — 17:12, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

0 @ g.b.c., scholar, news. 1 @ groups. Why not RfD? DCDuring 21:03, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

I must recognise I am not sure that the word really exists as such in any dictionary, but I read it in the forum I posted and, as I could not understand its meaning, I did some research through google and wikipedia. The only explanation i could find was to relate it to Joseph Tainter, I think that fits the uses I have read for the word. Alquezar

attrapeur

As per catcher. Harry Potter term

back water

Both verb senses: are these regional or obsolete or something? --Connel MacKenzie 04:31, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

The first sense, when propoerly defined, refers to rowing a boat aftward as part of a retreat, escape, docking, or turning maneuver. To stop a boat you would drag the oars in the water, increasing the portion of the oar in the water until the speed was very slow, whereupon backing water would be practical. It is discussed in translations of Thuydides and in contemporary articles about competitive rowing. I could certainly cite it.

The second, figurative, sense may exist, but back-pedalling would be much more widely understood.

Second sense seems to be closer to meaning "retreat". DCDuring 06:08, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

advisiveness

1. The state or quality of being advisive.

401 raw googles. I scanned the first few and didn't see anyhting significant. RJFJR 21:15, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

0 @ news, scholar; numerous appearances in groups lists. 1 g.b.c. hit in a ref work, gives a 15th C. date for use, but not a citation. No hope from our usual sources. I have added advisive, which has g.b.c. support. DCDuring 22:10, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

addeetional

Language is listed as Scots. RJFJR 21:43, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Appears legit, surprisingly enough. See b.g.c. hits (including a Kipling story of some sort), and also -- for whatever it's worth -- the hits from SCO WP. Still looks like bad eye dialect to me, but what do I know... -- Visviva 11:42, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

paleologism

Google references either are in jest, or appear to have followed the creation of this article.

Cited and revised. -- Visviva 04:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

homophobia

Are the first two senses real: #1: pathological fear of mankind, and #2: fear of sameness? I tried to find quotes, but did not encounter anything reasonable. In fact, one article first claimed that homosexuals invented the term homophobia, but that actually it should mean "fear of mankind", because "homo" means a man. The explanations provided for "fear of sameness" weren't any better. Hekaheka 11:16, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

• These both seem highly bogus, although the second has a veneer of plausibility. The proper terms for these meanings would appear to be anthropophobia and homoiophobia, respectively. It's possible that someone somewhere has also used homophobia in these senses, but that seems rather unlikely, at least in recent times when the antipathy-for-homosexuals sense has become so dominant. BTW, do we have a coinage date for the primary sense? -- Visviva 11:36, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

There's one date and author mentioned in the etymology section. I bumped in the same reference during my search for quotes. Hekaheka 12:21, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Doh! You'd think I could have seen that. Well, that gives us at least two good cites for the 'anthropophobia' sense: [16] and [17]. Not sure about this one: [18]. Expect more can be found by searching for the Japanese word.-- Visviva 12:43, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

bunnet

A contrib is insisting on a particular definition, which I have placed at nº 2 with the rfv tag. Can this be confirmed? - Algrif 18:12, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I can find various uses for bunnet, unfortunately not many cites for any very precise one. It seems to include many kinds of headgear, including bonnets, helmets, and some kind of man's tweed cap worn by men in novels who speak with heavy Scots accents. The Essential Scots Dictionary defines it more or less as the stubborn contributor does, but more tersely. A picture would be useful. It is also spelled "bannet". Who's our best man for Scots usage? DCDuring 20:33, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

See w:Flat cap. DCDuring 20:42, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Added a pic. Hekaheka 20:52, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the pic. DCDuring 01:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Oops, forgot to save. Should look better now. Hekaheka 05:56, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

A tam o'shanter is apparently a toorie bunnet. A bunnet is more typically a flat cap. DCDuring 18:44, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

milkshake

Sense, - (slang) A slow moving elderly person. Dubious, especially as this is the only contribution by an anon contributor.--Dmol 19:07, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

• Tosh - I would have just reverted it. SemperBlotto 08:40, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Jumping Jack

rfv-sense: a simple marionette-like toy. I have created an l.c. sense for this because I can find such usage. I am not sure that there is really a capitalized name for this toy that merits an entry. DCDuring 01:22, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Please don't cross-post to both RFD and RFV. Choose one or the other. I have answered on RFD. --EncycloPetey 06:05, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Two senses, one rfd'd, one rfv's. The RfD'd one was deleted out of of process and has been restored. DCDuring 18:41, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

The sense can be verified, but not in this particular spelling. I have created jumping-jack. --EncycloPetey 19:23, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

bratwurst

Verb sense. No evidence on bgc, a few google hits which aren't so useful. I would've deleted, but am not au fait with "Capture the Flag". Definition given is : to bratwurst - To use a tactic in a Capture the Flag first-person shooter game, in which all or most players defend (or "camp") the flag once they have captured, and thus don't need to capture again. Generally frowned upon. --Keene 17:59, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

IPCF

rfv-sense: Inter-processor communication framework. I found two other senses using g.b.c., but not this one. DCDuring 20:16, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Information

rfv sense: a type of legal filing. On g.b.c., such filings are capitalized only when part of a title. (I only searched for the plural form to avoid the 4600 hits on the word "information".) I have added and amended the (countable) sense to information. DCDuring 20:42, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I searched for "file an information" on Google Books - almost all of the 910 hits returned are lowercase. This is most definitely a legal term, defined in Black's Law 6th as "An accusation exhibited against a person for some criminal offense, without an indictment". However, even Black's uses the lowercase when it goes on to discuss the history and function of an information. bd2412 T 02:16, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

contretemps

Sense 2 "an awkward clash" - neither the quotations nor the various dictionaries I've checked support this sense. --EncycloPetey 00:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

tipjar economics

Does this have sufficient use to meet the CFI? bd2412 T 02:07, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

0 hits at g.b.c., scholar, news, group for either "tipjar economics" or "tip jar economics". "Tip jar" is much more common than "tipjar", BTW. DCDuring 02:32, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Seems to be a new term indeed. The following quote is from this website [19] dated on Dec 29th 2007, titled "Bret Carr’s Online Film “RevoLOUtion” Blog yourself a Producer’s Credit" and written by an anonymous "Admin":

What I personally was more interested in, was the Bret Carr set about creating his own online cinema complex, VirtualCineplex with a pay after view model as opposed to pay per view.

This type of marketing has led me to coin the term “Tipjar Economics”, just like many sites have Paypal donate buttons common with shareware or opensource, whereby users can make discretionary payments for a service or software they’ve found useful and feel like contributing to the efforts of those who committed time and effort is worth financially rewarding.

May not meet CFI, at least not before 2009. Hekaheka 12:13, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Another interesting detail: contrib's username is the same as the name of the site referred to above. Hekaheka 12:24, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Deleted speedily based on Hekaheka's research. —Ruakh_TALK 16:45, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

obtrusive

Third sense: Pushy. (tagged by anon but not listed here, added by me) RJFJR 15:29, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Looks OK. This sense seems readily supported by major dictionaries. The OED says "Of a person or an action: excessively or annoyingly self-assertive, ostentatious, overbearing, or intrusive" and the Random House Dictionary says "having or showing a disposition to obtrude, as by imposing oneself or one's opinions on others." -- WikiPedant 16:37, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Common use.—msh210℠ 17:18, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Nehruvian-Stalinism

Fails attestation. Google Books: no hits. Google Scholar: no hits. Google for web pages: a handful of hits, with Wiktionary as #1. Seems to me like Wiktionary is being used to spam this neologism. On English Wikipedia, it has been repeatedly spammed and deleted. Apparently, it was coined by some guy on a blog and his friends are trying to get it wider currency by inserting it into Wikipedia and Wiktionary. Unless someone can provide evidence of a prominent use somewhere, it should be deleted. 76.97.163.77 23:36, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

If so, it might be a good candidate for speedy delete. I will verify. DCDuring 23:40, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

2 groups hits. 0 on g.b.c., scholar, news. ~5 independent blog hits. Normal process seems appropriate. Close proximity wouldn't count, would it? I'd never seen Nehruvian before, but it gets hundreds of g.b.c. hits. DCDuring 23:46, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

"Nehruvian socialism" is a common collocation (150+ g.b.c. hits), but I don't know it is SoP. DCDuring 00:06, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

January 2008

变老

Chinese, "to grow old". Sum of parts or useful term? —Stephen 08:20, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

This is an interesting one. It literally means "to become old." If you go from English to Chinese, it is often used as a translation for the verb to age. However, going from Chinese to English, you could probably figure out what the term means by looking up each character. For what it's worth, I have not found the term in any Chinese-Chinese or Chinese-English dictionary so far. It seems to only be included as a translation for to age in English-Chinese dictionaries.[20] I have only come across one Chinese-English gloss which lists it as a word.[21]. Obviously, the definition "olden" is wrong. I could go either way with this one. -- A-cai 10:09, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds SOP to me, but should be RFD'd. Passes clearly widespread use. DAVilla 20:32, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

facebook

Verb form. --Connel MacKenzie 06:04, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Well worth citing. An M-W Word of the Year finalist. lots more on news than g.b.c. for "facebooking" and "facebooked". DCDuring 15:35, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

biannual

Second sense - the opposite of what this word means. --Connel MacKenzie 07:07, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Mia culpa! I added the sense without checking primary sources, because American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Online and Dictionary.com had it listed. I wonder where they have got that idea. A quick search through Google hits lends little support to this usage. I found only a German research institution that used biannual in the sense biennial. As far as I'm concerned, delete. As biannual and biennial are easily confused by non-natives, and obviously also by presumably native online dictionary writers, a word of warning might be justified in the "Usage notes". Hekaheka 09:07, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I think all of our "semi-" (1/2 x) and "bi-" (2 x) terms would do much better with explicit warnings, rather than deletion. Since this directly opposes that "rule," it makes sense that it is often confusing (to native speakers and learners alike.) The just-added usage note for this entry seems good to me. --Connel MacKenzie 18:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Now cited and marked as proscribed.—msh210℠ 19:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

A similar situation apparently exists with triannual. Dictionary.com gives senses "3 times a year" and "every 3 years". We only have the first of them. Hekaheka 19:35, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

preggers

Usage Note: Is it really true that this term is "mildly offensive"? In my experience, it is more likely to be used as a mildly humorous, rather delicate, child-talk version of "pregnant". Can any UK-based editors comment on this? -- WikiPedant 23:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

• Definitely not offensive. Just informal. SemperBlotto 08:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Another Wonderfool-ism from back in the day. There's probably dozens more out there, still not found. --Myspaceshipmentnothing 17:57, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Slang, for sure, and sometimes intended to be humorous; hence it may seem disrespectful (and hence mildly offensive), but the same can be said of many slang words and phrases, such as "kick the bucket" for "die". I think that it is obvious that slang expressions used in an inappropriate context have the potential to cause offence, and so we don't need to mention this. — Paul G 08:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Agree not primarily offensive except as mentioned by Paul G. Commonly used in some circles, and understood by nearly all in UK, I would think; but definitely slang, of course. Dbfirs 09:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

concordance

Sense 5, "a topical index or orderly analysis of the contents of a book." Never heard of a topical concordance; if this sense exists, it must be used somewhere outside the usual fields of linguistics and exegesis. Anyone? -- Visviva 04:53, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Isn't sense 5 just another formulation of sense 3, (or perhaps just a detailed index or table of contents)? I've never heard the word used in this sense. Dbfirs 09:12, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Sense 5 seems to say that concepts are arranged by topic rather than alphabetically. -- Visviva 13:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Or perhaps that you apply it to the surface? :-) —Ruakh_TALK 17:33, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

A table of contents is often arranged by topic, but I have never heard it called a concordance. Has anyone else? ( - and it tends to be inside the front cover, not topical!) Dbfirs 21:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, in many continental European countries, the table of contents is placed at the back of the book. It's not always called "Contents" but I can't remember whether I've ever seen it called a "Concordance". I don't think so, but I'm not sure. --EncycloPetey 23:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

DNIYM

Any citations? Dmcdevit·t 09:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

No support that I can find in the usual sources, even groups. DCDuring 17:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

minge

Sense - cat. Any takers? SemperBlotto 17:06, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Supportable from groups. An excellent application of the new citations namespace, because the quotations I saw are not great usage examples, though useful for attestation. DCDuring 17:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

melikee

Citations are for "me likee". DAVilla 20:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Not readily veriable at usual sources. 1 good (6 raw) g.b.c. quote vs 200 raw gbc for "me likee". 0 at news, scholar, 55 groups (0 English).

1. • 1940, Irene Dwen Andrews, Latitude 18 South: A Sojourn in Tahiti, page 68

     "[...] Melikee bad money — pay 'em bye and bye. Use dat smokes, drinks, fun."

DCDuring 18:12, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

tetraspace

—msh210℠ 23:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Swiss

"Of […] or pertaining to […] the Swiss language"? —Ruakh_TALK 23:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

There is a "language" called Swiss German, which is not the same as the German as spoken by the Swiss, nor the same as Alsatian though it is also an Alemmanic "dialect". It's a valid definition, but whether it should be called a "language", "dialect", or something else is not an easy question to answer. It is not mutually intelligble with standard High German. --EncycloPetey 00:00, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

(1) A minor point, but according to that article you linked to, Swiss German is the same as the German spoken by the Swiss, as opposed to Swiss Standard German, which isn't. (2) Is "Swiss" ever an adjective meaning "Of or pertaining to Swiss German"? (3) If that's what was meant, why do we have "the Swiss language" rather than "Swiss German"? —Ruakh_TALK 00:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

jump the couch

Does this meet CFI? Google Scholar and Book searches don't pull up any uses. —Ruakh_TALK 01:31, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

hotel bedding

Sum of parts? Or just encyclopedic? SemperBlotto 15:46, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it may be both. --EncycloPetey 16:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

fumfer

Quite possibly correct, but before reorganising it, can anyone confirm the details and meaning? - Algrif 16:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

yippie yai yay

Dubious --79.75.117.49 17:43, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

• Spelling may be a little off. Showing my age, I remember a strange song called "Ghost Riders in the Sky" - there, the spelling seems to be "Yippee-yi-ya" [22] SemperBlotto 17:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
  • That song's not that old is it? The Doors are still popular today among the kids though, surely? --79.75.117.49 17:52, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Ooops. Websearch showed "yai" way more common than "kai" but I haven't even checked "yi". Fixes welcome. --Connel MacKenzie 17:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

yippie kai-yay

made up for w:Die Hard

I’ve heard this for many, many years, although the spelling I know is yippie-ki-yay. —Stephen 00:38, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

nonology

Nonology is one of several nonce words created by analogy with trilogy (along with duology, heptalogy and other [Greek number prefix]+logy constructions). One problem with this word is that it doesn't exist, (Google Books Search brings up a handful of examples of such a word but none of them obviously means "a book in nine parts"). A much more serious problem is that it is erroneously formed and couldn't possibly exist. "Nono-" is not a Greek suffix. That would be "ennea-".[23] I think "nono-" is supposed to be from Latin nonus, "ninth" but even this suffix is pure invention.--86.26.252.142 20:14, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Compare quadrilogy, which was invented by the makers of the Alien films, who, if they had bothered to check, would have discovered that the perfectly adequate and correctly formed tetralogy already exists. (Interestingly, the Wikipedia article for "tetralogy" mentions that the even more abominable [my opinion, not Wikipedia's] "quadtology" has been used in an attempt to create a successor to "trilogy".) As "quadrilogy" has come about as part of popular culture, we're probably stuck with it now. Combining Greek and Latin affixes in this way is by no means new, and probably should not be considered incorrect (and perhaps should just be deprecated where Greek can just as well be combined with Greek, or Latin with Latin) - the best-known example is "television" (prefix of Greek origin, ending of Latin origin). (Interestingly, the Modern Greek word for television is formed from the Greek equivalent of "tele-" and the Greek word for "vision"; if we had done the same in English, we might be watching a "teleorase" [which would probably pronounced "tel-ee-O-rass-ee"]).

"Nonology" is incorrectly formed by that criterion (and all the more so because the correct prefix is "nona-", as in "nonagon", and the correct suffix is "-logy", not "-ology", so, if anything, it should be "nonalogy" - after all, we don't say "triology") but if valid citations can be found for it, then it must stay. English is littered with incorrect formations, but they are part of the language. — Paul G 08:37, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree with what you've said; certainly I wasn't proposing the removal of words on the grounds of etymological impurity. My point really was that the fact that the word is so very poorly constructed makes it very unlikely that any citations could exist. Although "nonology" yields a small number of results from Google, they seem to be separate coinings that do not have the same meaning as our "nonology". I'd be interested to know where the a in non-a-gon came from actually. My suspicion is that it may not be a part of the suffix but an aid to pronunciation. After all, "hexagon" exists but "hexa-" isn't a prefix. Perhaps we should be looking for "nonilogy" with an -i- theme vowel that is common to quadr-i-lateral--86.26.252.142 16:53, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

semsemia

A harp? Really? --Connel MacKenzie 04:47, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Seems so. [24] -- Visviva 09:12, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

alphabetism

Suspect. I wavered between RFD and RFV, but have given it the benefit of the doubt and gone for RFV.

1. The definition contradicts definitions given elsewhere (Wikipedia, the OED, dictionary.com).
2. No citations are given to support the definition.
3. If this is a neologism/protologism, then Latin is unlikely to have had a word for it, so the Latin translation is highly unlikely, unless this is a Recent Latin coinage.

— Paul G 08:12, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Added a cite (minimal because NewspaperArchive is having server problems) and filled in some other definitions. Usage in this sense appears to date to the Carter administration in the US, but not to have been picked up much elsewhere; thus I am very suspicious of all the translations given, although I have left them for now. -- Visviva 09:11, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

olookolombooka

Unlikely this "Wonderfool" character can be trusted with Igbo entries. --Knight on a shining llama 14:02, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

No, you are quite right, especially since it was labelled as Ibu originally. You wouldn't know where to find him would you? Robert Ullmann 14:05, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Word is (s)he's on holiday in South Africa at the moment. --Knight on a shining llama 14:08, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I tracked all of Wonderfool's butterfly translations to a site that listed many words for butterfly in many languages, with the same language name typo. --EncycloPetey 16:20, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

mtapoza

Can we trust that Newnoise knows enough about Swahili grammar to write an entry in Swahili? --79.75.97.21 14:56, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

cadwch

Can we trust Newnoise's or Dangherous' knowledge of Welsh grammar? --I exist in soap form 15:06, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't know, but we can trust mine. The entry could stand some clean up, but it's accurate and the form is real. Angr 18:40, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

ko rabwa

Can we trust Newnoise's Gilbertese? --Colley 15:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

kam rabwa

As above --Colley 15:10, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

mouth music

Good luck with this one --Spainiard 15:40, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Replaced with actual meaning. -- Visviva 02:34, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

open one's big mouth

Dubious. --Spainiard 15:41, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

No, it isn't. It's in common widespread use. --EncycloPetey 16:17, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Clearly common use. That said, it may be a sum of parts with big mouth.—msh210℠ 17:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, having thought about it some more, I say delete for that reason.—msh210℠ 17:11, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Procedurally, shouldn't we just be looking for attestation in RfV? I guess it's obvious to most of us that it would meet RfV. Shouldn't this be an RfD? There is at present no template at the entry.

Substantively, big mouth seems to merit entry because the figurative use of the terms could be a bit obscure to some. The various verb phrases that use this noun phrase seem to me to not be very obscure if the user thinks to look up "big mouth". "big mouth shows up high on the list of entries if one enters a phrase that includes "big mouth". Accordingly, treating this as an RfD, I would vote to delete, on the grounds of it adding to value to a user beyond the entry for "big mouth". A fuller usage note at "big mouth" might be useful. DCDuring 17:55, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Procedurally, attestation may be met by consensus that the word is in "clearly widespread use" per CFI (albeit in a sloppy sort of way). --EncycloPetey 02:11, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

get into someone's pants

dubious --Spainiard 15:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

No, it isn't. It's in widespread use. --EncycloPetey 16:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Clearly common use.—msh210℠ 17:18, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Clearly common use. Can we dispense with attestation? DCDuring 17:56, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Widespread use going back to my childhood at least.--Dmol 17:59, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

RFVpassed. Tag has already been removed (four minutes after it was placed).—msh210℠ 20:53, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

badonkadonk

curvaceous female buttocks? --Spainiard 16:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes. It's even being used in American television commercials. --EncycloPetey 16:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Easily cited using Google Groups (though to avoid all the mentions (as opposed to uses), you may wish to search for her-badonkadonk or your-badonkadonk); one bgc cite that I see.—msh210℠ 21:40, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

scuddick

Template:nosecondary. --Connel MacKenzie 06:51, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

This is certainly more popular in secondary sources than in primary, but some primary sources do exist on b.g.c.:

• http://books.google.com/books?id=d8gGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA496&dq=scuddick
• http://books.google.com/books?id=6rMBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA175&dq=scuddick
• http://books.google.com/books?id=r3UCAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA242&dq=scuddick
• http://books.google.com/books?id=LWqjWdOAOjEC&pg=RA1-PA245&dq=scuddick
• http://books.google.com/books?id=Nu8DAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA2-PA315&dq=scuddick
• http://books.google.com/books?id=8mQGHsfLeAsC&q=scuddick
• http://books.google.com/books?id=sFpAAAAAIAAJ&q=scuddick

—Ruakh_TALK 14:21, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

DMW

--Connel MacKenzie 07:11, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

clusterfuck

Missing/lost discussion. Citations do not support sense they are listed under. --Connel MacKenzie 15:52, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

The third definition seems accurate.--Dmol 16:03, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

ideal

Sense: An unattainable state/process in a given time/space but endlessly approachable.—msh210℠ 20:54, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see how this differs from sense 1 of the noun. --EncycloPetey 02:08, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

talkling

Huh? bd2412 T 01:17, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Even if true (looks like a typo cite) the verb would be to talkle anyway. I recommend speedy. - Algrif 13:21, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

All g.b.c. hits are scannos. bd2412 T 17:44, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

peanut butter jelly time

Added by an anon, rfv'd by another; definitely exists but doubtful it is a set phrase. To RfD? bd2412 T 01:19, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Semper has previously deleted it as nonsense, and the WP "link" is a redirect to the Dancing banana page (which says nothing about PBJT). --EncycloPetey 01:56, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

As it is a repeat entry, of something very recently rejected and deleted, and as it comes from an anon with no reference citations of any value, it should be speedied and watched. IMO. - Algrif 13:15, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Having been previously speedied is not itself grounds for speedying. SB is a truly outstanding RC patroller, but he is not entirely immune from error. -- Visviva 03:18, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

cunning

Adjective sense 3. # Cute, appealing. (Rarely used., mostly in New England, pronounced by dropping the g: "cunnin") - Algrif 13:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow! That is a lot of redundant senses! Is there really more than one? --Connel MacKenzie 05:00, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

It's definitely old-fashioned American slang to use "cunning" in the sense of "cute", as in "what a cunning dress/baby/puppy!". Finding this usage on the Internet is difficult (it helps if you eliminate the words "linguist" and "stunt" from the search field), but see for example [25], [26], [27]. The bit about "mostly in New England, pronounced by dropping the g" is probably unverifiable original research and ought to be eliminated. Angr 17:24, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I searched g.b.c. for "cunnin" and found many cites. A few were of poems about babies. A couple were very explicitly about the "cunning" selfishness of babies. I didn't find any instance that was unambiguously about "cute" (but my search was not very thorough). I wonder whether any somewhat positive adjective applied to babies, puppies, or kittens comes to mean "cute". DCDuring 18:48, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

det widow

Not a lot on websearches. --Keene 18:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

More specifically, no gbc or Google Groups or Google Images or results. No uses on Google Web search (one mention in what looks like an enwikt mirror, and two enwikt results). One possible Google News Archive result, which I cannot see (from 1967) and may possibly contain this term.—msh210℠ 21:13, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Nope; it's a combined typo-scanno, with the original text reading "Presi-det's widow." Don't think there's any hope for this one. -- Visviva 03:13, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

pizza bone

seems unlikely. --Keene 18:49, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Now cited.—msh210℠ 21:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Peter Pan

I've never heard this used generically. b.g.c. shows zero independent mentions. (Move to RFD?) --Connel MacKenzie 04:58, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

These are suggestive: [28],[29], [30]. It's hard to say where allusion ends and genericity begins, but there are quite a few uses like this out there. -- Visviva 14:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

See entry for a cite from Huxley's Island. Well-known work? DCDuring 15:24, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Cliff Richard is frequently called the "Peter Pan of pop" because of his youthful looks, so this is an example of a transferred sense, albeit a different one from the one given. I would define it here as "a person of advanced years who remains youthful in spite of their age" or something like that — Paul G 18:35, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

oh my Goddess

All the hits I can find are either from some manga series, or from books where someone's actually speaking to a goddess. Widsith 11:59, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

It was frequently used in Heather Woodbury's spoken-word epic What Ever, but the characters always said it like this: "Oh my God-d-d-d-d-d-d-dess." Not sure if that would be considered permanently archived anyway. -- Visviva 14:26, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Note: If deleted, the link from w:Oh My Goddess needs to go too. -- Visviva 14:45, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

(That seems to be a broken link anyway..?) Widsith 15:30, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

D'oh, fixed. -- Visviva 16:26, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

bow

The verb sense:- To become bent or curved.

1. The shelf bowed under the weight of the books.
   

Isn't this Pronunciation 1 Etymology 1. The saved talk page also shows this. The shelf bent into an arched shape (like a bow). - Algrif 14:57, 9 January 2008 (UTC)
Come to that, sense 3 could also be suspect for the same reson. - Algrif 15:03, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree, on both counts. DCDuring 15:27, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

zone I

See below. bd2412 T 15:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

zone II

See below. bd2412 T 15:52, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

zone III

What is the source for these definitions? bd2412 T 15:48, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

• This is one of the many definitions from User:CORNELIUSSEON - he has access to several US military manuals and gets very annoyed if you question them. SemperBlotto 15:51, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

These are ridiculous without context tags at the very least. US, military, nuclear? It would not surprise me it the user believed it deserved to be an entry because it had an "official" definition. I've been willing to cite some military defs, but not these. DCDuring 16:32, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

restwear

I would like to confirm that there is the only one brand who procuced restwear clothes. Company originally from Italy www.slower.it— This unsigned comment was added by SpeedySpeedy (talk • contribs) at 15:52, 10 January 2008.

0 gbc, scholar, groups hits. 1 news hit from 1955. Only 38 raw web hits (3 from WT). This one is unlikely to be verified IMHO. DCDuring 22:48, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Lawrence of Arabia

I am not sure about the meaning given. Conrad.Irwin 00:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

oojamaflip

Appears in Neil Gaiman's book Anansi Boys on p 236, HarperTorch US paperback edition

- "I keep telling you, you've now transcended the vale of oojamaflip..." [Morris Livinigstone to his wife, Maeve, who is having difficult grasping that she is dead]

— This comment was unsigned.

I added a fourth reference because one of the three had a different spelling. The word is used regularly by some in the UK. Dbfirs 16:14, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

As to pronunciation, stress is on initial "oo", right? DCDuring 17:12, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I believe so. I would imagine that it is has umpteen variant spellings though, like "thingummy" does. — Paul G 18:36, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I can't see myself writing this word, but I might say it. DCDuring 18:40, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I can attest this word from personal knowledge - but I haven't heard it in years, and don't remember seeing it written down. The OED only has oojah (meaning A thing whose name one cannot remember, does not know, or does not wish to mention). SemperBlotto 09:40, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe there was any intent to relist this; I think the OP simply did not realize that this had already been discussed. This is what happens when these pages are archived without closing. I would yell more about this if I hadn't been guilty of the same transgression recently. -- Visviva 09:49, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

unit designation list

I don't think it is in lexicon. 2 g.b.c., 1 invisible. I doubt it is used by veterans. It must be used in the armed services, but doesn't even reach Congressional testimony, apparently. DCDuring 23:54, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

unit commitment status

Not in lexicon. Hits are ref works and for other sense relating to regulated electric utilities (US). DCDuring 23:58, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Transwiki:Smobo

Smobo in English does not appear to meet criteria, can't find any uses in the vein of fantastic, great, etc. Goldenrowley 06:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Class S

Or should this be RFD? --Connel MacKenzie 07:55, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

It probably should be here, but the def also needs to be rendered less encyclopedic. It was better when it was first entered and certainly better before the latest anon addition. It might merit a two-line definition. DCDuring 15:56, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

rear gunner

I have never heard it used as someone defending an organisation. Conrad.Irwin 09:37, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Neither have I. The nearest was something like "We were fighting a rear-guard action" used in a non-military sense.--Dmol 13:54, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

tail gunner is slightly more common, so I created an entry for it with the RfVd sense. I think it is a colloquial sense that has less and less currency with the death of the WWII generation and the departure of their children from the workplace. DCDuring 15:43, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I misread the definition. The sense given should read somewhat more generally as someone who defends the organization from attackers. "Insults" are just one kind of weapon. I will take a run at a better sense at tail gunner. DCDuring 15:48, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

finance

The sense given is restrictive and is based on an unspecified translation of Aristotle so it does not reflect Aristotle but some transaltor's efforts. DCDuring 21:24, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

wuz good

--Connel MacKenzie 04:06, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

triplatform

Protologism? Zero Google book hits. SemperBlotto 16:30, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

DIYing

Looks like someone incorrectly applied the {{en-verb}} template to DIY - these are not attested (and nonstandard, even if attested.) --Connel MacKenzie 23:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Now cited from four books on b.g.c. Only one looks like a genuinely respectable book, but fortunately our citing standards are lower than our reading standards. ;-) —Ruakh_TALK 01:06, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Passed.—msh210℠ 06:59, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

squeaky bum time

The current quotation is a definition not a usage. Kappa 02:38, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

macho queen

This seems SoP. Also context restrictions don't seem right. DCDuring 05:58, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't seem SoP to me at all, since the primary gay sense of (deprecated template usage) queen is "effeminate gay man" rather than "gay man who dresses in women's clothes". (And even that's only relevant if there's some context, since the general primary sense of (deprecated template usage) queen isn't gay-related at all.) —Ruakh_TALK 12:40, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Is that the rule? That the more obscure the sense used in a collocation, the more accommodating of inclusion of the collocation we should be? It wouldn't be a bad guideline, though it would be a difficult drafting job to make it a rule. Also how does one attest collocation, probably colloquial, from the "Chinese" gay community? Send a research team to Shanghai or to some Chinatowns? Thanks for finishing the cleanup, R. DCDuring 13:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

If it really has the specific meaning our entry claims, then it's not a collocation so much as an idiom: a phrase with a specific meaning that can't be discerned from its parts (in this case because those parts have lots of meanings, and the idiom has only one). As for attestation — no clue. We'll wait a month, and see if anyone manages. :-) —Ruakh_TALK 01:17, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't mean to imply that I was sure that it was not an idiom. I just wanted to leave the matter open. I thought that idioms are a subset of collocations. Some collocations that are not really idioms can also meet CFI, right? DCDuring 01:51, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

O.K., I see what you're saying. I think of "collocation" as "sequence of words that for no particular reason happen to go together even though you could replace each with a synonym and have the same meaning", but I guess much of that is due to Q-based narrowing and isn't part of the word's actual definition. :-) —Ruakh_TALK 02:12, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

So that's what they call the phenomenon. I was hoping that we could keep collocation as a way of referring to terms whose status is not yet settled and which may or may not even be entries. If some other term exists for the purpose, that would be fine too. DCDuring 02:52, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Shreddies

This is a brand name and according to Wiktionary:CFI#Brand_names it is missing citations. Mutante 08:31, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

americanismus

This strikes me as unlikely, and possible anachronistic. Dmcdevit·t 08:33, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

It's apparently a word in Czech and, with a capital A, in German. It could exist in Latin too - there's some institution in Vatican City that creates new words in Latin for modern concepts like airplane or DVD-player, so no reason why it should be anachronistic. There's a talk page at Latin Wikipedia where the word is used, but again with a capital A. See http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disputatio:Ion Paul Willocx 10:14, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I think the capitalization comes from cross-contamination from English Americanism. I don’t believe that Latin orthographical rules call for capitalization of any -ismus words. French, Portuguese and Spanish américanisme/americanismo, for example, are not capitalized. —Stephen 18:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

In German its Amerikanismus though. Mutante 18:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, the German is, but that’s because it’s a noun. German capitalizes all nouns. —Stephen 18:39, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that Latin is still used today (though not as much as 100 years ago). I have no good resources for Latin after about 1650, and have few for Latin of the medieval and Renaissance periods, but Latin continued to acquire new vocabulary through those periods and beyond. --EncycloPetey 03:39, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

But to pass RFV, we have to show that the word is used in Latin, not merely that it's a possible Latin word. As for Czech, I strongly doubt this is the spelling that would be used. It would almost certainly have a "k" in place of the "c", and possibly an acute accent on the second "a". Angr 18:46, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Apparently it was used in a Church encyclical named "Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae", but only the English translation is available online. —Stephen 12:21, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

gonnegtion

Slang used in a single book? SemperBlotto 09:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Fitzgerald ain't Shakespeare, but Gatsby's a well-known work. I cleaned up the entry and got the original quote. I think the anti-Semitism (or whatever it is) speaks for itself without comment being required. DCDuring 17:56, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Is it a nonce? RJFJR 18:32, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

There are a couple of independent cites and a goodly amount of critical discussion of the term. DCDuring 19:58, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

surf

RfVd-sense: The part of the coast where waves break. The quote doesn't support it. I'd not heard that sense. MW3 doesn't support it. I thought it referred to the waves themselves. DCDuring 17:01, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Dropped in some cites which seem to support it, although the point could be argued. -- Visviva 13:16, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Snook are fish, so that is certainly about the water. The others are just vague. The Alaska book is also about fishing. Shore birds can often be found floating on waves just before they break. I had a lot of trouble with infralittoral, too. Dictionary defs. focus on the swell, the break of the wave, the sound and spray, all about the water, not about the land. DCDuring 15:48, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Sony

Previously discussed on RFD; see Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Archives/2007/07#Sony. Some good work has been done here, so it seemed a shame to delete the entry out of hand. Can the required citations be found? -- Visviva 15:11, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

-let

rfv-sense: the young of an animal, e.g., piglet. I can't at the moment think of any other examples in this sense. I thought this is just a variant of the diminutive suffix -et, which sense I have added, as well as an inflection line. I can't characterize the occasions for its use off the top of my head. DCDuring 22:59, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Just a regular diminutive ending...e.g., booklet, ringlet, bracelet, leaflet, hamlet, circlet, roundlet, annulet, armlet, chaplet, tablet, caplet. —Stephen 06:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Just to nitpick: not caplet, which is a portmanteau rather than cap (or capsule) plus diminutive suffix. Q.v.—msh210℠ 16:17, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

A friend from Shoreham-in-Kent referred to his diminutive wife as wifelet with no one missing his meaning, so it's still a morphologically productive suffix. DCDuring 19:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

bullshot

Protologism or valid entry? --EncycloPetey 03:36, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

wifelet

rfv-sense: mistress. I thought it was just a diminutive. DCDuring 19:11, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Äl

We have äl - is there any variation that requires capitalization? bd2412 T 04:13, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

swinge

Adjective sense. I believe this is correctly covered at swingeing. SemperBlotto 17:34, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

What I could see of the on-line slang and dialect dictionaries don't have this as an adjective. Can't find it in written use either. DCDuring 12:13, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

tucker fucker

Ocker: for cook. Plausible, yes; real ? DCDuring 20:27, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I've found 1 real g.b.c. cite. Length, rhyming, vulgarity make me think this is mostly unwritten. DCDuring 11:56, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

6-up

--Connel MacKenzie 03:30, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

kittywompus

Is this a US word? (similar to US catercorner and variations) SemperBlotto 08:07, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Southern, I believe. --Connel MacKenzie 11:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Mommy made me mash my M&M's

Is this a USism? SemperBlotto 11:19, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

No. --Connel MacKenzie 11:29, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

ring off

Is this a regionalism? Never heard of it. --Keene 17:58, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

ring off the hook gets a lot of hits though, --Keene 17:59, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

• It is certainly used all the time in the UK. SemperBlotto 18:01, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Not US, definitely widespread use in UK. Where else? DCDuring 18:28, 19 January 2008 (UTC)