:::But [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Grease_pit/2017/November#Found_a_fatal_bug_with_the_automatic_Arabic_transcriptions. as we already know], such happens with every combination of the preposition {{m|ar|لِ}} and the definite article. We can “split” those products, [[لله]] gives {{m|ar|اللّٰه}} and {{m|ar|لِ}}. It is already arguable to delete {{m|ar|اللّٰه}} because it is SOP (I don’t clearly see why it is not SOP). Creating {{m|ar|لِلّٰهِ}} goes too far. Also Stephen contradicts himself by stating that the Allah combination cannot be split up while {{m|ar|لِلَّبَنِ}} can be, as this one also omits the article completely and he has glossed it “li-l-labani” while here he analyzes it as “{{l|ar|لبن}} plus {{l|ar|ل}}”. If {{m|ar|لِلّٰهِ}} shall not be deleted because “it’s a ligature” or “it cannot be split or further reduced”, one can go on and auto-create entries with the preposition {{m|ar|لِ}} for {{m|ar|اَلْقُدْس}} and all names containing the definite article (someone might start to create family name entries somewhen), {{ping|Atitarev}}, {{ping|Stephen G. Brown}}. [[User:Palaestrator verborum|Palaestrator verborum]] ([[User talk:Palaestrator verborum|loquier]]) 21:09, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
:::But [https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Grease_pit/2017/November#Found_a_fatal_bug_with_the_automatic_Arabic_transcriptions. as we already know], such happens with every combination of the preposition {{m|ar|لِ}} and the definite article. We can “split” those products, [[لله]] gives {{m|ar|اللّٰه}} and {{m|ar|لِ}}. It is already arguable to delete {{m|ar|اللّٰه}} because it is SOP (I don’t clearly see why it is not SOP). Creating {{m|ar|لِلّٰهِ}} goes too far. Also Stephen contradicts himself by stating that the Allah combination cannot be split up while {{m|ar|لِلَّبَنِ}} can be, as this one also omits the article completely and he has glossed it “li-l-labani” while here he analyzes it as “{{l|ar|لبن}} plus {{l|ar|ل}}”. If {{m|ar|لِلّٰهِ}} shall not be deleted because “it’s a ligature” or “it cannot be split or further reduced”, one can go on and auto-create entries with the preposition {{m|ar|لِ}} for {{m|ar|اَلْقُدْس}} and all names containing the definite article (someone might start to create family name entries somewhen), {{ping|Atitarev}}, {{ping|Stephen G. Brown}}. [[User:Palaestrator verborum|Palaestrator verborum]] ([[User talk:Palaestrator verborum|loquier]]) 21:09, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
:::: “lillāhi” is different from “li-l-labani” because it appears even shorter than the lemma despite it having a preposition and there is no indefinite form, so the article can’t be dropped. My argument is not strong, I admit but we should be helpful to users. A kind of soft redirect would be good, and I don’t suggest to keep other prepositional collocations. I’ll let the community decide. —[[User:Atitarev|Anatoli T.]] <sup>([[User talk:Atitarev|обсудить]]</sup>/<sup>[[Special:Contributions/Atitarev|вклад]])</sup> 01:38, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
:::: “lillāhi” is different from “li-l-labani” because it appears even shorter than the lemma despite it having a preposition and there is no indefinite form, so the article can’t be dropped. My argument is not strong, I admit but we should be helpful to users. A kind of soft redirect would be good, and I don’t suggest to keep other prepositional collocations. I’ll let the community decide. —[[User:Atitarev|Anatoli T.]] <sup>([[User talk:Atitarev|обсудить]]</sup>/<sup>[[Special:Contributions/Atitarev|вклад]])</sup> 01:38, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
:::::Palaestrator verborum, what you wrote makes me question your age. I honestly think you're a child. In any case, I'm not wasting more time with this nonsense. [[User:Stephen G. Brown|—Stephen]] <sup>([[User talk:Stephen G. Brown|Talk]])</sup> 05:25, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
Scope: This page is for requests for deletion of pages, entries and senses in the main namespace for a reason other than that the term cannot be attested. The most common reason for posting an entry or a sense here is that it is a sum of parts, such as "green leaf". It is occasionally used for undeletion requests (requests to restore entries that may have been wrongly deleted).
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Latest comment: 7 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Alt-spelling sense. The word (חג׳) that it's listed as an alt-spelling of is defined only identically to חאג׳'s other sense. Not speedying this in case there's really another sense of חג׳ that we should have and that חאג׳ is an alt-spelling of.—msh210℠ (talk) 10:13, 7 December 2016 (UTC)Reply
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Keep these Japanese names to provide value to the dictionary user. E.g. ボルボ is Volvo. To see whether this meets WT:BRAND, I would have to be able to meaningfully search for quotations meeting WT:BRAND; I do not see that anyone has spent effort in searching for such quotations. Reduction of utility is bad. Mozilla failed RFV, and maybe someone would be able to find quotations meeting the draconian WT:BRAND and place them to Citations:Mozilla. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:59, 20 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion
SoP, redundant to double sense: "(intransitive) (often followed by as) To play a second part or serve a second role. A spork is a kind of fork that doubles as a spoon." Equinox◑01:08, 27 December 2016 (UTC)Reply
Additional thought: can something just double, without an as: "this kind of fork doubles"? I suspect not. Even so, the as feels strongly like an external preposition and not a particle. Equinox◑01:34, 27 December 2016 (UTC)Reply
I tend to agree that this is just a use with a preposition, like act as, and am inclined to support deletion. To my surprise, this is in Macmillan[1]. As for double up as, I would see the home entry to be double up. I don't quite like that we have multiple phrasal verbs entered both with a particle (or whatever it is) and a preposition, like come out with, come up with, crack down on, get around to, get out of, and many more; I would intuitively drop the preposition. I do have to admit that, e.g. for "come up with" (invent), while M-W does not have a wholly separate "come up with" entry, it has a boldfaced separate "come up with" section in "come up"[2]. I got some notes on this at User:Dan Polansky/Phrasal verbs and there is Appendix:English phrasal verbs. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:36, 20 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
we have coffee break and water break. someone doesn't necessarily need to be drinking coffee or getting water during those breaks, which is why they have entries. likewise someone can use a restroom break for something other than using the restroom, which is why it should have an entry. note that we have urinary break. that seems more SoP to me than restroom break. 99.101.56.6800:01, 4 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
I found only one use of "urinary break" in BGC. Many Google hits are just mirroring Wiktionary > Agree with Equinox: hardly a set term. One more nail to the coffin: the entry was created by someone who is now blocked from all Wikimedia > delete at least "urinary break". --Hekaheka (talk) 15:20, 6 January 2017 (UTC)Reply
I see no clear consensus for deletion: 1 boldface keep if I count the nomination, and one pro-deletion vote does not consensus make. Do Equinox, Hekaheka or Lingo Bingo Dingo want to post a boldface delete on this nomination? As for "urinary break", I sent it to RFV. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:51, 26 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Sense 7: "(African American Vernacular) A mode of personal motorized transportation; an automobile, all makes and models including motorcycles, excluding public transportation."
These three entries (-/-, -_- and -*-) contain only one sense:
POS section: Interfix
(neologism) Used to separate multiple gendered inflections in gender-neutral writing.
Freund/innen; ein/e Beamt/er/in
friends (of any gender); an officer (of any gender)
(neologism) Used to separate multiple gendered inflections in gender-neutral writing.
Freund_innen; ein_e Beamt_er_in
friends (of any gender); an officer (of any gender)
(neologism) Used to separate multiple gendered inflections in gender-neutral writing.
Freund*innen; ein*e Beamt*er*in
friends (of any gender); an officer (of any gender)
I don't speak German, but I believe these are just punctuation marks (/, _ and *) that can be used inside words, not interfixes. The first one looks like just the punctuation mark found in "I want to meet him/her." It's used like this in Portuguese, too. We already have a couple of senses like those at /, though I'm not sure why they are marked as "proscribed" and "sometimes proscribed".
Aah, please can we change the entry into cute smilies instead of deleting them. The first one could be for Two-Face. The second one a sleeping dude, and the third one perhaps for a Hindu with a dot on the forehead. I vote for being Cute. --Quadcont (talk) 13:22, 1 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
Creating emoticon entries for -/-, -_- and -*- sounds plausible (especially this, IMO: -_-) iff they are citable. This is separate from the idea I proposed above of deleting these specific German senses. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 13:36, 1 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
-/- in "ein/e Beamt/er/in" is different from / in "his/her" or German "sein/ihr": While "his/her" could be rephrased as "his or her" and "sein/ihr" as "sein oder ihr", "Beamt/er/in" would be, but with change of meaning, "Beamter oder Beamtin" and "ein/e" would be "ein oder eine" (bold part has to be added when -/- is used). If one would incorrectly treat a -/- like a /, one would get "ein oder e" which doesn't make sense.
"We already have a couple of senses like those at /": Well, one could move some of the senses from / to -/-.
"I'm not sure why they are marked as "proscribed" and "sometimes proscribed"": It could depend on the spelling, and not necessarily on the meaning. "she/he" could be "sometimes proscribed" like "actor/model" while "s/he" is "proscribed".
"Plus if I want to know the meaning of the slash in "Freund/innen", I guess it's more intuitive to search for / than -/-.": It is more intuitive, but intuitions can be wrong. One could add -/- in an {{also|}} or mention it like / / in / ("See also: / / for the use ..." and "See / / for uses of ...").
"! would be a suffix": ! is not added to a word, at least in usual English words or German. In English words like !Kung and in African languages ! might be a prefix or suffix when originally representing some click sounds, but that's something different. "( ) would be a circumfix": Aren't circumfixes only added at the begining and at the end like [circumfix part 1][word or stem][circumfix part 2]? ( ) instead is added elsewhere like in "dog(s)", "(re)write", "colo(u)r". So if ( ) would be some affix, it would be of another type. But well, the POS "Punctuation mark" might be more fitting and then / might be the proper entry. However, one has to differ between "ein/e" and "ein/eine": 1. In case of "ein/e" something has to be added (a single "e" makes no sense there). 2. / in "ein/eine" has the meaning of or and so "ein/eine" is bi-gendered (like "a man or woman"). "ein/e" on the other hand is said to include various sociological genders and is multi-gendered (like "a man or woman or possibly other"). 3. / meaning or as in "ein/eine" can be used elsewhere like in "und/oder" (= and or or, i.e. an emphasised inclusive or).
Keep (as creator) "Freund/innen" is a good example of why -/- isn't simply a slash. It's not "Freund"/"innen", nor is it even "Freund [singular]"/"Freundinnen" - it's "Freunde [plural] and Freundinnen". The slash specifically draws attention to the fact the use of the -innen suffix does not necessarily mark the gender of the friends (It makes more sense for words like Mitarbeiter/innen where the masculine plural is the same as the singular). Similarly, in "Beamt/er/in", it's not "Beamt"/"er"/"in", it's "Beamter"/"Beamtin". It's doing something unique that it only does when inserted into words. All of the examples given by the OP, with the exception of the slash in s/he, are punctuation marks with the same meaning both inside and outside words. (There's also the fact that, for -*- and -_-, you can't use these symbols any other way: you couldn't write "ja/nein" as "ja*nein" or "ja_nein". They only work as interfixes). Smurrayinchester (talk) 15:33, 17 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago7 comments4 people in discussion
Delete [as English] or reclassify as Latin like ec-; and probably sug- et al should be recreated as Latin; for the same reason as Talk:sug-: it seems to me that Etymology 1, the prefix supposedly meaning "out of", is describing a Latin conditional variant prefix and not an English one. Looking at the "derived terms", "evict" is borrowed whole from Latin, it is not "e-" + *"vict"; "egress" is from Latin, not "e-" + *"gress"; etc. - -sche(discuss)16:01, 8 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
Even if this is enough to keep the section, we ought to add information to describe the real situation (that nearly all words with this e- are Latin borrowings). — Ungoliant(falai)16:34, 8 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
Merriam-Webster says ebracteate is from New Latin ebracteatus and enucleate is from enucleatus, and I can find ecostatus and elocatio and enodalis as (New?) Latin words which would account for ecostate, etc. In all of those cases, e- looks like "sug-": like the prefix only existed in Latin. The invocation of "e-" in our etymology of "elamping" seems to be someone's guesswork, qualified by that question mark at the end. "Evacate" seems likely to also have a Latin or other etymon like "evacuate", or perhaps it is a variant of that word. I can't find a reference that explains the etymology of "etypical"; can anyone else? - -sche(discuss)21:10, 18 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
Are there any cases where English uses e- where Latin would use another allomorph of ex- due to the initial sound(s) of the word? Any examples of the suffix being used in an "un-Latin" way would be evidence of it being thought of as an English prefix. —CodeCat21:14, 18 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
Probably delete [as English] or reclassify as Latin for the same reason as Talk:sug- and #e-. "Efform" and "effranchise" claim to have been formed using this suffix, but I suspect they were borrowed whole or represent unusual phonological alterations, since the norm when attaching "ex-" to "f"-initial words is not to switch to "ef-" ("exfranchisees sued the company"). The only English dictionaries which have this also have sug- and hence seem to have different inclusion criteria than us. - -sche(discuss)16:01, 8 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
I find older dictionaries with derive efform from Latin efformo, which is an attested Latin word; ef-form seems like a superficial analysis like in some dictionaries' entries for "suggest" which say it's "sug- + gest". As for RFV, some have argued that the question of deleting an affix (even on the grounds that it does not occur in a given language) is an RFD matter; cf the discussions of -os. Sug- was discussed at RFD rather than RFV. - -sche(discuss)21:10, 18 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
IMO "tinkling" in "tinkling bells" is probably not a true adjective. I doubt that "tinkling" is ever a true adjective. Mihia (talk) 02:45, 23 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
"The piano is very tinkling"?? It doesn't sound right to me. I think the required adjective would be "tinkly". I don't know anything about OED sense 2. Mihia (talk) 14:52, 24 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
That's why I said it's an attributive adjective, before the noun. "The wind chimes are tinkling" is a present participle, "the tinkling wind chimes" an attributive adjective. That's how I see it. DonnanZ (talk) 17:25, 24 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
I would draw a distinction between what I called a "true" adjective, and the fact that any present participle can be put in front of a noun to modify it, as a regular feature of the English language. I do not believe that participles in the latter cases need separate "adjective" entries where they mean no more than "X doing Y". Where there is a special or extended meaning, yes, but I don't see that with "the tinkling wind chimes". Mihia (talk) 18:33, 24 March 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep both the verb and the adjective: This is yet another word that ends in -ing that can be both a verb and an adjective. I do not get why there is continual surprise at these, nor why there is continued opposition to them carrying both word types. Purplebackpack8911:12, 23 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments3 people in discussion
"Eye dialect spelling of for crying out loud." Doing this with entire phrases, rather than single words, does not seem wise. Equinox◑19:45, 8 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
I know. But it is simply because it's attested that it should stay. I don't believe in deleting eye-dialect alternative forms just because there are too many of them, unless of course it's something like having Elephant with a definition like # Alternative capitalization of elephant, used at the beginning of sentences. Attestation is key here. I'm not saying that you challenged its attestation; I'm saying rather that because it's attested it should stay. All words in all languages that are not SOP and are attested with 3 valid durable citations should stay. PseudoSkull (talk) 22:51, 18 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
I came across an interesting one this morning - "railway-fuelled building", referring to development spurred by the building of a railway in the 19th century. DonnanZ (talk) 11:47, 14 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
It would still be SOP, because there is still one side called kop and one side called munt. For Euro coins, munt is the side that's the same for all countries, kop is the side specific to each country. The kop side does have a head on it sometimes, depending on the country. For Dutch and Belgian ones it does. —CodeCat17:55, 22 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
And these usages are found outside of these specific phrases? When you ask someone to do a hatching (nl. arcering) of a coin, you ask him to use the 'mint side' and not the 'number side'? Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 09:16, 24 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
If the coin-hatcher(?) would ask "What side should I do, kop of munt?" the customer would probably laugh and say "Hey, you're not going to toss my coin right!". Kop of munt is an extremely common expression, any references outside of that to sides of a coin are rare if you're not a coin collector or something. W3ird N3rd (talk) 00:24, 8 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
If you really mean this as RFV, it is cited. As for the SOP issue, I would be more inclined to consider thick as pig shit and alternative form of the same expression. That said, I found a few other quotes (which I put on the citations page) that use "as shit" as an intensifier for other meanings of thick, which lends credence to the SOP viewpoint. The fact that it almost always refers to stupidity, however, makes me think that the "fried egg" rule applies and those few quotes are an anomoly. (BTW, I was unable to find any other meanings of thick when looking up "thick as pig shit") Kiwima (talk) 23:05, 15 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep: I am in favor of keeping common similes in general. Without this entry, how would a non-native speaker know one actually says this in English to indicate someone is stupid? With entries like this, I enter Czech blbý jako tágo, and find how to say this in English. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:52, 28 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep. Excrement is not, in fact, stupid, so this is no tautology or SoP.Delete as DCDuring has pointed out the existence of a single entry for as shit. Equinox◑22:04, 28 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep: Because thick has over a dozen possible meanings. Someone who doesn't know English very well could easily pick description #11 (Deep, intense, or profound) instead of #9 (informal, Stupid) and think they've been given a compliment. W3ird N3rd (talk) 07:44, 31 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Other senses of thick, including the most literal one, could be used with as shit. The limitations on the senses is strictly due to the slanginess of as shit. DCDuring (talk) 12:37, 31 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Hmm, dunno, its usually separable with an object. From Oxford (shower):
1.4 (shower something on/upon) Give a great number of things to (someone)
‘the government showered praise on the young volunteers’
More example sentences:
‘The sane people of the world saw it purely as a piece of comic genius, and showered awards upon the badly-drawn comedy.’
‘He also recognized me, congratulated my brother and showered his blessing upon me.’
‘The functions were not rituals to merely shower gifts on the birthday boy.’
‘By showering favours on Elizabeth's relatives, Edward began to build up a faction to counter Warwick.’
‘Pupils from the Harwich School and five primary schools joined in the custom, which represents the newly-elected mayor showering his blessings on the children.’
‘Hillary forgives him and then Bill showers gifts upon her in gratitude.’
‘It must have certainly helped him to shower benefits on his beloved city.’
‘But his language mistakes were no barriers as kids and elders alike wanted to hear the man as he showered gifts on them.’
‘He showered praises on the union parliamentary minister saying he enjoys the full support of Congress men in the state.’
‘She consumed lavishly herself, showered expensive gifts on her dealers, and promoted Tupperware as part of an affluent suburban lifestyle.’
‘The preposterous image of a benign West showering its goods on a grateful Africa / India / Indochina/wherever would surely have no purchase in a society where informed debate was the daily order.’
‘Muthuraman, who has over 100 films behind him, set the tone for the function, showering praises on Balachander, and the superstar Rajnikanth rounded it off.’ DonnanZ (talk) 09:47, 23 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
On the contrary, shower with and shower on have different objects (you shower [praise] on someone, but shower [someone] with praise), so the verb’s meaning is not the same. – Krun (talk) 14:06, 2 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete: Looks like just a verb with a preposition, and thus SOP. “shower on”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. does not find much. We should not have bestow on either, I think. A redirect would be okay to support findability. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:18, 20 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Is this a valid Chinese word? The anonymous editor who added it mentioned this website in an edit summary, but I do not see the use of isolated English words in Chinese text as necessarily indicating that the words are regarded as Chinese. — SMUconlaw (talk) 19:49, 22 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep as being the only word the Chinese use for the concept. If the Russians used флаш(flaš) no one would bat an eye, but the Chinese are more familiar with the Latin alphabet and didn't want to transcribe it using Chinese characters and here we are. —suzukaze (t・c) 07:51, 23 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
While I agree with Wyang, Suzukaze-c asks a legitimate question - how we deal with this type of words, which don't have a Chinese equivalent (yet) but apparently are used in a Chinese context by Chinese. We need a CFI for Chinese. It happens every now and then. --Anatoli T.(обсудить/вклад)11:37, 28 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
I agree with Anatoli that it would be useful to have a discussion of this issue. Perhaps editors with some linguistic background can explain how experts regard a foreign word as having been incorporated into a particular language. I can't help thinking it is a bit strange that a term in language B can be regarded as part of language A when it is not even rendered in the usual script of language A. — SMUconlaw (talk) 13:58, 28 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
Ain't it a matter of WT:RFVN? If used in Chinese, it's Chinese.
As for SMUconlaw's "but I do not see the use of isolated English words in Chinese text as necessarily indicating that the words are regarded as Chinese": Anglicisms in French, German etc. and also Latinism, Germanisms etc. in other language are part of the other language. Just take a look at Category:French terms borrowed from English where you can find for example the French Anglicism "break" and "malware". Of course, foreign words, especially Anglicisms coming from the killer language (i.e. English) and Pseudo-Anglicisms, are sometimes critisied, yet they are included in wiktionary too.
As for Anatoli T.: Ain't it covered by WT:CFI and "All words in all languages" already? If used and attested in Chinese, then it's attested as Chinese.
As for SMUconlaw's second comment: It's not as extreme as Latin script inside of Asian script, but it's similar: Foreign terms often are written in Antiqua in German Fraktur texts. Sometimes even deformed words (like without Latin ending or with k instead of c) are still written in Antiqua. The deformed words aren't Latin (or French or Italian) anymore. Hence they can only be non-words or German words. Usually they are considered to be words, i.e. German words. And like deformed words written in Antiqua are considered to be German, so are non-deformed words (if they aren't mentionings). -84.161.33.23321:59, 17 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep: The relevant policy question is whether a sequence of Latin letters used by Chinese writers in the middle of Chinese-character text can sometimes be considered to be a use in Chinese, especially when no Chinese-character replacement for the word is available. Such an entry can host a Chinese pronunciation, at least. The above anon makes an interesting argument as well. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:53, 27 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago6 comments4 people in discussion
This is a misspelling of farvel, which already has an article for both Nynorsk and Bokmål. All relevant information is already in those articles.--Barend (talk) 12:10, 24 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep this Norwegian entry at least as a misspelling, absent frequency data; an example markup is in concieve. The relevant policy is WT:CFI#Spellings: "Rare misspellings should be excluded while common misspellings should be included." An expressly marked misspelling is better than a redirect since then, reusers who want to remove misspellings can easily do so. Here's a Google search in Norwegian sources[3], in which I can confirm the double l in scans of R. K. Sundnes 1948, Maurits Fugelsøy 1958 (here it is in quotation marks), title:Samtiden Volume 40 1929, title:Rolf Jacobsen: En Dikter Og Hans Skygge 1998, title:Nord-Norge 1970, Magnus Breilid 1966, etc. If someone has time, they can collect the quotations in Citations:farvell on the model of Citations:individual, where the quotations will survive even if this fails RFD. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:01, 20 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Those aren't direct translations for "cost a pretty penny" but general idiomatic equivalents of "cost a large amount". bd2412T22:49, 24 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 7 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
SoP, be + in on. It's hard to find it without be, but it seems perfectly possible that it could be used with e.g. wish or announce. Just found this: "Although more entrepreneurs wanted in on their success, only four Top Hats were ever opened." Equinox◑02:46, 29 April 2017 (UTC)Reply
Some entries are poorly formatted and use wrong PoS headers (e.g Noun, not Proper noun) but they all seem to have English equivalents, for which we have entries. To me, they are just normal proper nouns. Tentatively keep. --Anatoli T.(обсудить/вклад)10:28, 12 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep these Japanese entries to provide lexicographical value to the dictionary user. These entries may meet WT:BRAND; I don't know since I know no Japanese and cannot meaningfully search for quotations meeting the WT:BRAND requirements. For reference: ランボルギーニ: Lamborghini, クリオ: Clio, シボレー: Chevrolet, ボクスホール: Vauxhall, etc. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:26, 20 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
The Chinese entry can stay as it passes the Lemmings test, being in the 现代汉语规范词典. The English entry is yet to be created. It is a term used in political science. See the Wikipedia entry. ---> Tooironic (talk) 02:42, 2 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Along with all the translations. Seems like a Wikiquote/Wikipedia situation; it has cultural and philosophical relevance, but it isn't lexical, idiomatic, or worthy of keeping as a phrasebook entry. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds23:41, 8 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
Phrasebook entries are for things our readers would want to know how to say. How many people are going to worry about being unable to communicate this to someone who speaks another language? Chuck Entz (talk) 01:15, 20 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep. My feeling is to keep it at least as a translation hub but I am not sure I find enough supporting translations. When I was entering the Czech translation today, I was almost certain there is "zenbuddhismus", which is a manner of compounding no so common in Czech; it further occurred to me there could be "zenový buddhismus", and I verified that to exist. Thus, by having the entry, we spare someone the little lexico-work I did today. Furthermore, the lemming heuristics applies: present in Collins[5]; en.oxforddictionaries.com has it as an "also" item in boldface in its Zen entry[6]. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:06, 28 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
It might not be sum of parts depending on how other Buddhists view Zen. By analogy, most Christians do not view Christian Scientists as Christians. I believe most Buddhists, or at least most Theravada Buddhists, do not view Zen followers as Buddhists. So Zen would be non-Buddhist Buddhism in a similar to how Christian Science is non-Christian Christianity. I've attended Mahayana Buddhist services before and they admitted to me when I attended their services that nobody outside Mahayana view them as Buddhists, and Zen is classified as Mahayana on Simple English wikipedia. Leucostictes (talk) 06:42, 21 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Zen (not zen) is much more common (c. 10x) than Zen Buddhism on Google N-Grams. Many dictionaries have an entry for Zen Buddhism, usually defined as "Zen". Zen in turn is defined as "a (Japanese) sect/school of (Mahayana) Buddhism". Zen Buddhism seems like a pleonasm. Many contributors argue that apricot tree and PIN number merit entries. This seems similar. DCDuring (talk) 12:41, 22 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
The definition is not expressed as a noun, so perhaps you can clarify what you think the problem is? There is a usage example of the adjectival use: "Don't get your hopes up; that's quack medicine!". — SMUconlaw (talk) 15:40, 11 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
Oh, I see. Hmmm. I do see some usage of the superlative quackest, though they may be facetious or non-standard uses: [7], [8], [9]. However, I didn't see any use of quacker in the comparative sense. — SMUconlaw (talk) 09:51, 13 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
What about the implied standard of living aspect? And if this really is a "snowclone" shouldn't we have an entry for "is the new"? Because there are so many terms with the layout "X is the new Y". PseudoSkull (talk) 00:36, 19 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete. In every "X is the new Y" snowclone, there is some reasoning by which to explain why that particular "X" is the new "Y". bd2412T02:05, 19 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep. I don't think the definition is apparent, and unless it isn't attested without the context explaining or implying what is meant, there is no good reason not to keep it. I don't think "it's just a snowclone" is sufficient reasoning to delete, since in this case, the meaning isn't deducible from "college" + "is the new" + "high school". Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:50, 19 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
One can also find community college is the new high school, A Bachelor's degree is the new high school degree."I was a little taken aback to see that apparently preadolescence is the new adolescence or junior high school or middle school is the new high school". Preschool is the new kindergarten. the white T-shirt is the new little black dress. Many Xs fit [X] is the new black.
Delete It's an instance of a snowclone. We've never figured out how to make snowclone entries that would be useful to someone using standard mainspace search. DCDuring (talk) 23:41, 19 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
I still think it's worth having those entries, as long as they have fairly consistent definitions (if "college is the new high school" refers to all sorts of different aspects of college and high school, then it's not worth keeping, but it fairly consistently refers to educational expectations, it's worth including). I don't think it's at all harmful to have such entries. If space was a concern, then sure, but it really isn't and you can't necessarily figure out what the phrase means based on the sum of its parts ("is the new" relating to colour is pretty consistent in meaning, but with other phrases it's more ambiguous and it is thus worth it to create separate entries). Andrew Sheedy (talk) 07:01, 20 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete. I wouldn't necessarily know why college is the new high school, but I don't think this justifies the entry. The possibilities for "X is the new Y" are virtually unlimited, and I don't think a dictionary can be the place to explain the "why" of all of them. 86.191.58.16221:05, 27 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep per WT:CFI: The meaning cannot be obtained from the meaning of separate components, and "A term should be included if it's likely that someone would run across it and want to know what it means". We are not running out of database space. Also per Andrew Sheedy: we are able to single out the particular regard in which college is the new highschool, and thereby provide value to the user. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:04, 28 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
I am pretty sure that we would need [[the new little black dress]]. I didn't find "the old little black dress".
Oxford has an entry for little black dress, but omits figurative use, probably relying on its more sophisticated average reader to infer any figurative meaning in context and a fortiori what modification by the new might add. the new black (new black?) is also in widespread use. Other cases are (person X (eg, Obama, Trump, Cruz) is) the new Reagan. DCDuring (talk) 15:58, 28 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments5 people in discussion
A Wonderfool entry. I could also say "just as" or "just how". Perhaps we need to extend the definition at just. On a more RFCish kind of note, this isn't even a preposition, and prepositions are also labelled "prepositional phrases" here on Wiktionary when there's more than one word. PseudoSkull (talk) 22:24, 19 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
There is a prima facie case that if like is a preposition, so is just like. Normal parsing of uses of just like [x] would have just as an adverb modifying the prepositional phrase like [x]. That is, just like is not a grammatical constituent in any standard use AFAICT.
Yes, SOP, as the very definition proves: "exactly" = "just"; "in the same way as" = "like". Actually, there is a missing sense: "He walks just like a penguin" = "He walks in exactly the same way as a penguin", yet "He looks just like his father" = "He looks exactly the same as his father". If retained this sense should presumably be added, but I don't see why the entry should exist at all. Mihia (talk) 19:29, 27 May 2017 (UTC)Reply
Rfv-sense: (politics) Any barrier designed to keep people from crossing a border, e.g. the one proposed to keep people from crossing from Mexico into the United States. Really? -- Pedrianaplant (talk) 16:44, 18 November 2016 (UTC)Reply
Yes, really. I am short on time this morning, but in a quick search I came up with the following:
[11]
I am, generally speaking, opposed to including these kinds of comparative or "referential" senses unless strongly established in the language. I think it is probably incorrect to say that "Berlin Wall" actually means "Any barrier designed to ... etc.". When people say that some other barrier is "a Berlin Wall", what they are really saying is that it is like the actual Berlin Wall, in my opinion. The possibilities for these kinds of references are open-ended and somewhat limitless. In the floods, I could say, of the stream at the bottom of my garden, that I have "the River Thames" flowing through my garden. It doesn't mean that "River Thames" means "Any stream or river carrying a large volume of water". Mihia (talk) 23:09, 18 November 2016 (UTC)Reply
I think there is a difference between saying 'like the Berlin Wall' and 'like a Berlin Wall'. By using the indefinite article the author seems to indicate that Berlin Wall does not refer to a specific wall, but to a class of wall. Kiwima (talk) 05:34, 19 November 2016 (UTC)Reply
You may be correct, but I see this as a regular feature of the English language that allows us to liken one thing to another, not a new meaning of "Berlin Wall". For example, I could say that Hillary Clinton "isn't a Barack Obama". It doesn't mean, in my view, that "Barack Obama" has a dictionary sense of a certain type of person/president. Mihia (talk) 12:43, 19 November 2016 (UTC)Reply
I agree entirely that the principle, "the English language that allows us to liken one thing to another" (justifying exclusion of such definitions), applies to English nouns. But “White House”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. shows that other dictionaries find some metonymic construals of proper nouns worth inclusion. The principle does not limit including definitions of common nouns at all. See head#Noun for the numerous definitions that spring from similes, metaphors and metonomy. DCDuringTALK15:44, 19 November 2016 (UTC)Reply
I entirely agree with the inclusion in the dictionary of the special metonymic meaning of "White House", but I believe that somewhere between "The White House says that President Obama will veto the bill" and the kind of examples offered above for "Berlin Wall", we pass from a genuine extended meaning to regular patterns of the English language that can apply in the same way to virtually any proper noun. Mihia (talk) 17:55, 19 November 2016 (UTC)Reply
The second refers to the original Berlin Wall, the third is a mentioning or a comparision/simile ("as a "Berlin Wall""), the fouth is a mentioning and maybe an comparison/simile too ("The .. politican .. described this division as a 'Berlin Wall'"), the fifth is a comparison/simile ("like a Berlin Wall"). The first and the sixth could use some rhetorical figure ("the rope/thing that's a Berlin Wall", "lies behind a Berlin Wall of ..."). -80.133.114.14123:26, 18 November 2016 (UTC)Reply
Given these arguments, I think this belongs more appropriately under requests for deletion rather than requests for verification. Any use that is found can be argued to be a similie. Kiwima (talk) 21:56, 19 November 2016 (UTC)Reply
Russian entered to mean apartment building, and then there are other senses. Literally multi-apartment building, I guess. Is this the most usual way to render apartment building into Russian? How would I know that I have to use "много-" instead of just квартирный дом? --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:20, 19 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Yes, it is the most usual way to render apartment building into Russian and those are, indeed "multi-apartment building", not two or three. It's still an SoP. The attributive adjective кварти́рный(kvartírnyj) is used for words related to apartments, not having multiple apartments, e.g. "квартирная плата" - "rent" (for the apartment), "квартирная хозяйка" - landlady. многокварти́рный(mnogokvartírnyj) means "multiapartment". --Anatoli T.(обсудить/вклад)08:03, 21 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
I have provided a usage example at многокварти́рный(mnogokvartírnyj), so that there is no loss of information:
I agree that we should have an entry for Windows and XP (especially since the latter isn't the official name). I'm not so sure about Firefox. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:43, 7 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
The unfortunate deletion of these was a result of over-restrictive WT:BRAND, esp. "The text preceding and surrounding the citation must not identify the product or service to which the brand name applies, whether by stating explicitly or implicitly some feature or use of the product or service from which its type and purpose may be surmised, or some inherent quality that is necessary for an understanding of the author’s intent." Removing the quoted part would make WT:BRAND much more palatable. Or someone may try to find quotations that do meet WT:BRAND as is, and place them to Citations:Firefox, etc. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:53, 20 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago10 comments5 people in discussion
RFD for "Used other than as an idiom" section: we don't need a sense for every incorrect word segmentation. They are very common and never to be completed. (examples of incorrect word segmentations: 鼠标垫增强了鼠标的可用性, 为人民服务, 对这个常数的确定有决定性的意义, 努力学习语法规则)--2001:DA8:201:3512:BCE6:D095:55F1:36DE20:05, 6 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
It's not exactly an incorrect word segmentation; it's just kind of SOP. It might be useful to keep, but I don't really have a strong argument for keeping. — justin(r)leung{ (t...) | c=› }20:23, 6 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
I guess that makes sense. The definition comes from Cantodict, which was why it was included. What about the second example sentence? Do you think it could be spliced as 我手頭上/有成/十幾張飛...? — justin(r)leung{ (t...) | c=› }20:31, 6 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
I gather that им-(im-) and ир-(ir-) are prefixes that only occur in words borrowed from Romance languages or English, so they do not merit entries. For an earlier discussion, related to the category "adjective-forming prefixes", see Wiktionary:Tea room/2017/May § им-. — Eru·tuon07:26, 11 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
^The word is บันเทิง; it is not from บัน+เทิง and no such lone เทิง. For เทิ่ง (with mai ek), it is an adverb meaning "obviously; clearly". They both do not relate with any large or big things. --Octahedron80 (talk) 06:01, 14 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Reraising rfd. Obvious SoP for translation purpose. Not a Chinese word. The same can be said of 可閱讀性, 可朗讀性, 可開導性, 可電解性, etc. Wyang (talk) 09:02, 13 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep; this passed a 2015 RFD and a 2016 RFD (closed by Jusjih, who is cmn native). In Talk:可耕地, 可讀音性 was supported by "keep" by Tooironic and TAKASUGI Shinji. Above, justin(r)leung who is yue-N says the sum-of-parts is not so clear. If this does not exist, RFV is the correct process.
Latest comment: 6 years ago24 comments10 people in discussion
Hello, I tried to create a page for "industrial complex" because on Wikipedia, there is an article about "white savior" under which the term "white savior industrial complex" is discussed. There are a couple of Wikipedia articles, "military-industrial complex" and "prison-industrial complex", that exist. Beyond these, the term "industrial complex" has been appended in other ways as discussed here, which I had included in the Citations tab for justification. It seems appropriate as a dictionary term since there is no real encyclopedic coverage, but there exists a variety of uses of it. What warranted the rather immediate deletion of this page? Erik (talk) 17:11, 15 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
This says, "The suffix '-industrial complex' has become a convenient (and certainly overused) way to describe the meshing of public and private interests, usually in a manner suggesting that profit motivations have trumped rational policy assessments," with a few examples of its use listed. Erik (talk) 17:16, 15 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Metaknowledge I restored it temporarily so that it can be discussed. I agree that it has some issues, not least of which is that the definition is a mix of etymology and usage note, without having an actual definition included. It is also not a suffix. But perhaps it can be cleaned up? The citation is also a mention rather than a usage, which needs to be addressed. I do think it was added in good faith, so merits discussion. - [The]DaveRoss17:23, 15 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
Dave, your ping didn't work. Anyway, let me copy what I said on my talk-page: "I'm really not sure it is appropriate for Wiktionary. You seem to be supporting a sort of suffix (although your entry didn't say that explicitly), but isn't it rather a case of various blends based on military-industrial complex?" I might add that if it were a suffix, the page title would have to begin with a hyphen. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds17:48, 15 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
Good faith doesn't necessarily prevent you from creating crap. I know this well, sometimes create crap in good faith myself. --Droigheann (talk) 00:18, 9 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
@ User:Droigheann But you don't word it that way, especially with new users. Encourage new users to learn further about the system. Using derogatory terms to refer to a good faith entry from a new user is mean, and not only that, but it can lead to new users who could very well one day become essential contributors to the project, feel that they are shunned away and don't come back. you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. PseudoSkull (talk) 00:13, 23 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
New user? Oh, I've forgotten everybody's always sooo polite on Wikipedia ... The way I see it SB & Erik each yapped once, probably on the spur of the moment, and now they have better things to do. And so should the two of us. Pax. --Droigheann (talk) 21:21, 24 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
The concept exists, we just don't happen to be very good at it. The problem with the definition is that it isn't a definition, as was mentioned about by myself and Meta. A definition for this might be something like "a corrupting influence on the government by individuals or companies with a significant financial stake in related legislation". That is certainly not perfect, but it is attempting to describe what the term means rather than the origin of the term or how it is used. Another problem is that the term isn't used (as far as I know) independently of the various specific terms (military-, prison-, etc.). If the term is never independent then it is not worthy of an entry on its own, but should rather exist at each specific use. - [The]DaveRoss14:35, 16 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
Why does the term have to exist independently? We can set it as "-industrial complex" if needed. Unless suffixes are not allowed? I see that -gate exists. Erik (talk) 19:33, 16 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
Suffixes are OK, if this is in fact a suffix it should be moved to the hyphenated version. The thing is there are lots of words and pairs of words which are common constructions but which are not affixes or terms in their own right. The question here is whether or not "industrial complex" is, in and of itself, a term. - [The]DaveRoss19:54, 16 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
I can see why that is uncertain. I would be fine with a move to the hyphenated version. What about this from the book Unwarranted Influence from Yale University Press? Erik (talk) 20:41, 16 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
Those look like they are mostly "mentions" rather than uses. I think my inclination is that this is neither an independent term nor a suffix, but rather a number of snowclone terms of the form X-industrial complex. The industrial complex portion is not idiomatic in its own right, and I don't think that it is a proper suffix. - [The]DaveRoss20:54, 16 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
I agree with Metaknowledge that these all look like blends of military-industrial complex with other terms: it derives from the whole phrase, rather from than from any of its parts. It's kind of like one of those images where someone's head is photoshopped onto someone else's body: the idea is to merge the two identities in incongruous ways, rather than treat the body as a modular piece to be swapped for another. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:06, 16 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Considering all the different kinds of Wiktionary entries, I'm surprised there is no place for this term here in any form at all. I would have thought that a write-up of the very term in a Yale University Press book would be good enough. What kind of real-world use is warranted for inclusion? Erik (talk) 13:59, 20 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments2 people in discussion
Tagged last year [18] but apparently not brought here. Links properly to foreign trade, which is a red link. I think that if we consider the English term an SoP, the same should probably be true about the Czech term. --Droigheann (talk) 18:39, 27 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
As for sum of parts or not, "foreign trade" is at least ambiguous: for a U.K. citizen, foreign trade does not include trading that Germans do among themselves. For whatever reason, foreign trade is currently linked to from User:Robert Ullmann/Missing/e-f and User:Msh210/Duesentrieb/xdv. Furthermore, how would you know that Czechs say "zahraniční obchod" rather than "vnější obchod", analogous to German de:Außenhandel, or "externí obchod"? The German entry has French, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish translations that are based on "external" rather than "foreign", information of use for a translator. If the translations entered turn out to be not the most common ones, that can be corrected, provided there is an entry to correct. Admittedly, “foreign trade”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. does not help much to support keeping. --Dan Polansky (talk) 16:37, 30 June 2017 (UTC)Reply
That's an argument for the creation of foreign trade. What I'm saying is that as the English->Czech translation is quite straightforward (unlike the English->German &c ones), there's little point in having the Czech entry in the English Wiktionary linking to an non-existent English one. (Incidentally I didn't tag it for deletion, just noticed it in Category:Requests for deletion in Czech entries.) --Droigheann (talk) 00:49, 5 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
If we focus the argument on the Czech term: zahraniční obchod entry tells you this is the usual phrase rather than *cizí obchod, *vnější obchod or *externí obchod. I don't see how deleting this entry could possibly improve the dictionary and make it more useful. The better course of action is keep Czech zahraniční obchod, create English foreign trade, and add various translations to English foreign trade. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:26, 30 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago5 comments4 people in discussion
I found only two legitimate (non-dictionary) references to "icicle plant" when I searched the internet. Neither referred to "A plant of the genusMesembryanthemum". There is a redirect page in Wikipedia, but I do not think this qualifies the term for inclusion in Wiktionary. I would update the Wikipedia redirect but the "icicle plant" article does not exist at this time.User-duck (talk) 17:16, 1 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
This is tricky, because 1) Mesembryanthemum used to be a wastebasket taxon containing a large number of species that are now classified in other genera, and 2) plant common names tend to be either a) mentioned along with the botanical name, but not used, or b) used, but not accompanied by botanical information. To complicate things further, Dorotheanthus bellidiformis was mostly known as Mesembryanthemum crinifolium, and Mesembryanthemum is neuter in gender, so specific epithets such as edulis and bellidiformis change to edule and bellidiforme. Allowing for that, it's easy to confirm that all of the species in the ice plant and icicle plant articles (except for Helichrysum thianschanicum of course) have been known for most of their history as species of Mesembryanthemum.
It looks to me like icicle plant, when applied to plants in the Aizoaceae, is just an alternative form of ice plant: the species that look like they're covered in ice aren't shaped like icicles and the species that have long, narrow leaves don't look like they're covered in ice. I suspect that ice plant was generalized from Mesembryanthemum crystallinum to the rest of the genus Mesembryanthemum as it was constituted at the time, with that connection becoming lost after the genus was split up. I've changed the articles at ice plant and icicle plant to reflect the above. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:42, 14 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I dread having to cite many of the less common vernacular names because the story seems so often to be as you say. I wonder if we should just buryput some of the dictionary-only names in Usage notes. They may be somewhat useful to some users.
It seems highly likely that any good vernacular name will be (mis)applied to higher level taxa and similar-looking or -behaving organisms. Is it even worthwhile to document this?
I remember that years back there was a leeengthy discussion about this and it was kept. If there's ever a need for a translation target, this is the one. If one translates "piece of furniture" word-by-word to almost any other language, one ends up with nonsense. --Hekaheka (talk) 17:26, 9 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
And? Why should a feature of a foreign language impact the inclusion of English terms on the English Wiktionary? What you describe would be better placed in a grammar not a dictionary. ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:19, 10 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete. "Furniture" is just a mass noun, and it's normal to treat it this way in English. This translation target stuff is making me roll my eyes a bit. It comes up for everything. We have to either accept at some point that we're primarily an English language dictionary rather than a translation dictionary, or we need to create a collocations section to allow common SOP phrases. I'd much prefer the latter, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be consensus for it.... Andrew Sheedy (talk) 23:04, 9 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Don't know. We do need to indicate somehow/somewhere that this phrase is the usual singular for furniture (not "a furniture"). That could be a usage note or something at furniture. Equinox◑00:32, 10 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete: by all means add a usage note at furniture (note that it is also possible in some contexts to say "a stick of furniture" and "a set of furniture"), but it is clearly SoP as Tooironic says. I take it we are not planning to create entries for "bunch of grapes", "piece of legislation", and so on. — Cheers, JackLee–talk–08:37, 10 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
And what about the remaining "translation targets"? Kill'em all? They are hardly more useful than this one. If that should be the policy, I'm ok with it, but let's be consistent. --Hekaheka (talk) 13:41, 10 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Nearly all of the phrasebook phrases are full sentences (even if elliptical, like "two beers please"), not just vocabulary items in a vacuum. Equinox◑17:13, 11 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
The inclusion of phrasebook entries has nothing to do with SoP - rather, we include phrases which are commonly used in phrasebooks and actually useful. "Piece of furniture" is just a common collocation, not a phrase with a specific pragmatic function. ---> Tooironic (talk) 06:24, 12 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
That's where we differ, for me having "piece of furniture" is about a thousand times more useful than having, say, I'm agnostic. But maybe these things are always down to subjective opinions ... --Droigheann (talk) 20:18, 12 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete SoP, follows a standard English approach to "countabilizing" English mass nouns. It would be important to include the common examples of these in usage examples (less desirably, citations) at the various uncountable nouns that show this behavior. DCDuring (talk) 00:05, 11 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
An interesting contrast in terms of idiomaticity is chest of drawers, which is sometimes (NOT normally) spelled chesterdrawers, indicating a loss of connection of the idiom with its origins and apparent components. In contrast pizzafurniture is very rare in this sense and pisafurniture is only a crossword clue word. DCDuring (talk) 00:21, 11 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Weak keep Some singulars of mass nouns are irregular, such as
clothes: article of clothing
smoke: smoke particle
rice: grain of rice.
However, this one follows the most common "piece of". It should be indicated on the furniture page as well, but this page is useful as a translation target, as "furniture" is not a mass noun in all languages (i.e. Spanish). Human-potato hybrid (talk) 07:42, 9 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Entered as Latin inflected forms of istic. Some people said inflected forms should not be subject to attestation requirements, and I disagreed, but I do not know what the consensus is, if any. The Latin istic entry now contains some references that seem to have been inserted in support of the claim that these forms do not exist. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:07, 26 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Dan Polansky: "Some people said inflected forms should not be subject to attestation requirements, and I disagreed". I tend to agree with you: I'd prefer to have attestation requirements for all inflected forms, especially in ancient languages. At the same time, I'm not bothered with having entries for all inflected forms of the perfectly regular French verb illustrer, for example: if certain forms aren't attestable, it's only by accident (corpus limitations). --Barytonesis (talk) 17:05, 3 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
This entry overlaps significantly with the suffix section of 'd, though it adds usage notes, its own (lengthy) example use, and the annotation poetic. I propose these two entries be merged. Rriegs (talk) 18:39, 11 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Should very likely be -'d as it's a suffix. Additionally there could be a ===See also===. Btw: 's and -'s are inconsequent too: at -'s the head is 's (or properly |head=’s) but the lemma is -'s. -84.161.16.3219:09, 11 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep , as size here refers euphemistically to overweight, not just size in general, which we do not have at size, so it's not SOP. It doesn't mean a tall person, or a large bodied person, it means an overweight or obese person. It's modelled after person of color. Leasnam (talk) 23:00, 15 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
The purported connection with person of color is their shared use of a standard English construction.
I doubt that "purported" is at all an accurate assessment of the the Washington Post's article regarding the term's origin. Leasnam (talk) 14:47, 16 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I'm sureI hope you agree that wall of great size is SoP. Isn't woman of great size SoP? I would hope you would agree that wall of size is SoP. I don't think woman of size departs from this normal construction of meaning for these of NPs. DCDuring (talk) 03:25, 16 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I disagree where woman of size is concerned. It is not a woman of (great) size or necessarily any size, which is precisely why large bodied, stocky (but not fat) women are never referred to as a "women of size". No one uses the term that way. "Woman of size" is a nice PC way of saying "plus-sized woman" (i.e. "fat woman"), a woman with more to love ;) She doesn't even have to be large, just have a little excess fat (you can be petite and "curvy" and be a woman of size, or a "plus size" woman, and be of normal size). As I pointed out in ES about the origin of person of size, it is a collocation with its originator phrase person of color which served as the pattern for why the phrase woman of size was created in the first place. It's like little person, little people for those with dwarfism. They're not strictly just "little + people" (SoP). Same thing here. Leasnam (talk) 14:35, 16 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, if you're comparing woman of size to wall of size, then perhaps you're not understanding what woman of size specifically refers to. It's not always a "large woman". It's a woman who has more body fat than popular culture deems desirable. OTOH, big woman would be SoP, because big can mean "fat" in addition to just large size. Leasnam (talk) 15:28, 16 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I think I know English expressions reasonably well, but I may be semantically challenged and unaware of it.
I think person of color is inclusion-worthy because color does not mean "dark/brown skin color" AND because the selection of an appropriate name for a member of a group that is sensitive to the names it or its members are called is a matter of GREAT pragmatic concern. (I'm speaking here as a descendant of Huns.)
Not every instance of pragmatically/contextually preferred selection among available expressions warrants an entry, still less one that involves only conventional construction of conventional meaning. In contrast plus-size/plus-sized/plus size do involve departure from conventional usage.
As to the matter of size only being one specific measure of size in woman of size, what of garden of size? In this case size can (almost???) always only mean "area", not "length", "weight", "height". You certainly wouldn't want to have separate entries for each combination of [Noun] and of size because a particular meaning of size was most common when used with [Noun]. DCDuring (talk) 21:31, 16 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
The definitions at [[importance]] don't show "great import", even though it has that meaning in "matter of importance". I think that many of the nouns that are conceived as having scalar or ordinal values are often used without a modifier to mean that the scalar or rank is high in context. Examples of such nouns that can be used with of to yield the result are many as are examples that do not have the resulting type of meaning. DCDuring (talk) 20:18, 17 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I didn't say it was common, just normal, in the sense of following a fairly standard pattern. One can find numerous instances of "player/lineman/back of size" in sports news. It is parallel to "matter of (some/great) significance/importance/weight" and similar expressions. DCDuring (talk) 01:45, 17 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I don't read the sports news either: I searched Google News, suspecting that something could be found. I'm just north of NYC. But I don't think it's regional. DCDuring (talk) 23:31, 17 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I think you could take almost any word that could mean a type of individual and add "of size": imagine a dating service for plus-sized people. You could say that you're interested in "dog-lovers of size" or "left-handers of size". If anything's idiomatic, it would be "of size", not person of size, man of size, woman of size, etc. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:44, 18 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I'd like to weigh in that my impression is that this really is mainly a matter of of lacking a definition of this kind of thing. Something like denotes that the preceding subject has the quality of the following predicate noun. Hair of gold and days of yore are not made of gold and yore, they're just liken to the implied quality. Seems a standard English construction to me. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 12:46, 30 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago10 comments5 people in discussion
Originally tagged for speedy deletion, but I don't think it qualifies, so I'm bringing it here. We do have entries for roots in other attested languages, notably CAT:Sanskrit roots, but for most languages we don't list roots, and for Ancient Greek this is the only one (so far, at least). At the moment I'm somewhat undecided as I see arguments both for (it would be convenient to have a place to gather all the terms derived from this root, like γίγνομαι(gígnomai), γείνομαι(geínomai), γένεσις(génesis), γένος(génos), γονή(gonḗ), γόνος(gónos), γενέτωρ(genétōr)) and against (this form is more of an abstract concept than a genuinely occurring form of the language), so I'm hoping for an active discussion that will help me make up my own mind. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 23:48, 20 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I created this entry, but I think this and other roots (Arabic, Hebrew, Sanskrit) should probably be moved to appendices. They are theoretical concepts, particularly so for Arabic and Hebrew roots, and can't meet the criterion of attestation. (@Wikitiki89's comments in a discussion about Arabic patterns is what convinced me of this. If patterns should go in appendices, roots should too, because the two are interconnected.)
Having a list of roots and their allomorphs (here, γεν-, γον-, γιγν-, γειν-) might help users to identify the origins of words. I don't know what form this should take: a single page with many or all roots, individual pages (subpages of something like Appendix:Ancient Greek roots). And I'm not sure how or if it would be linked to entries in the main namespace. But I think it would be useful in some form. — Eru·tuon04:53, 21 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I like the idea of using a character to link to the root appendix, but the root symbol is difficult to type, and would discourage people from linking to roots. (Asterisks, by contrast, are on my keyboard, at least.) It would be good to use either the root symbol or an easier-to-type alternative that Module:links can display as a root symbol, preferably something that doesn't otherwise occur in page titles.
I guess I would prefer Appendix:Ancient Greek roots as the prefix. It's a little more clear about what its subpages should contain than Appendix:Ancient Greek (whose subpages could be anything, including all the existing appendices with the prefix Ancient Greek). If we used Appendix:Ancient Greek/Roots, I'm not sure what we could put on the page Appendix:Ancient Greek, so it would be an empty page and a redlink on each root page. Appendix:Ancient Greek roots, on the other hand, could contain general information on roots: for instance, how ablaut and other sound changes affect the form of roots. — Eru·tuon18:07, 21 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Why should roots go in appendices but not affixes? They're tied together. Also, we'd have to fix almost every PIE link across Wiktionary. Oppose. —CodeCat18:15, 21 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
No, PIE roots could stay in the Reconstruction namespace. If you oppose moving roots to the Appendix namespace, why did you propose deleting γεν-(gen-)? Why should Ancient Greek not have root entries at all? — Eru·tuon20:02, 21 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Are roots well defined for Ancient Greek? There's a tradition of treating Sanskrit and PIE roots, but not for Greek. —CodeCat20:04, 21 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
It is unobvious that we want to have Ancient Greek roots in mainspace. They are quite unlike prefixes, IMHO. Roots seem to require much more analysis/speculation than prefixes, that is to say, they are much less raw-observational than the kinds of entries that we keep in the mainspace. Category:Ancient Greek roots currently has γεν- as the sole entry. On the other hand, we could keep even hypothetical entities in the mainspace as long as they carry the proper badge of warning; we could have done that with reconstructions as well, where the reconstruction entries could have started with an asterisk. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:08, 27 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago11 comments9 people in discussion
I feel like a total, complete moron for the above mistake. I must be really, really tired and need to get some sleep immediately. I meant to write "fair trial".
I think that any non-SoP sense is strictly in a legal context, at least in the US. The definition should be somewhat formal. There are several elements that are needed for a trial to be fair under the law. They might differ according to the legal tradition, nature of the trial (civil, criminal) etc. DCDuring (talk) 14:48, 21 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I have had a stab at creating a general entry - though legal definitions will differ from country to country.
I think that this is problematic, to say the least. The elements constituting a "fair" trial vary enough from one country to the next that the definition would ultimately boil down to a "trial" that is "fair" under the laws of the place where it is being held. Not all systems require a public trial for "fairness". In common law countries, one would generally consider it unfair if they were not afforded a right to a trial by jury (complete with peremptory challenges and sequestration), though most of the world does not have the jury trial element at all. bd2412T01:48, 24 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Why not just put in one or more common-law definitions, this being English Wiktionary, with other jurisdictions being included under {{&lit|fair|trial}}? DCDuring (talk) 11:34, 24 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep. Mostly because it doesn't quite compare to a "fun trial" or "boring trial". As for the definition, I don't disagree with BD2412 but I don't think that's a reason not to include it. "A civil or criminal trial that is held in accordance with the laws of the country." Which doesn't mean it's fair by anyone else's standards. You can have a fair trial in Turkey or North Korea. You probably wouldn't call it fair. Anyone from Western Europe could get a trial in the U.S. and may or may not consider it fair because the U.S. legal system is very different and still has possibilities for the death sentence. It would be a fair trial, but it wouldn't be a fair trial. (see what I did there?) W3ird N3rd (talk) 19:28, 7 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Care to explain your point of view? I agree with the current definition being too specific. I'll replace it with mine, but @BD2412 and @SemperBlotto should feel free to revert to their version if they feel it's much worse. W3ird N3rd (talk) 21:34, 7 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
"A telephone number beginning with 0800, calls to which are free for the caller because the call is paid for by the party called." DCDuring (talk) 11:48, 23 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
In the UK, I would say that "0800 number" just about qualifies as a set phrase. Whether it merits a Wiktionary entry, or whether it has a self-evident meaning according to general usage of the English language, is another matter. To me, "toll-free" seems somewhat American. In the UK, there is the term "Freephone" or "Freefone". Mihia (talk) 01:34, 27 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I would keep this. I feel like writing a little story. Pardon my Dutch:
Ik liep door de verlaten stad. Ik haalde het briefje uit mijn zak. Ze had haar nummer opgeschreven, maar ik kon het niet lezen. Ik pakte mijn bril. Nul..acht..nul.. Een 0800 nummer. Dit heeft toch ook geen zin. Ik gooi het briefje in de vuilnisbak en vervolg mijn tocht.
In English:
I walked through the deserted city. I took the note out of my pocket. She wrote down her number, but I couldn't read it. I got my glasses. Zero..eight..zero.. An 0800 number. This is no use. I put the note in the trash can and continued my journey.
A letdown, but not unfair.
Now let's change it:
I got my glasses. Zero..nine..zero.. An 0900 number. This is no use. I put the note in the trash can and continued my journey.
This made it slightly more mean. (Americans may interpret this somewhat different as adult entertainment was banned from 1-900, but 0900 is still used for adult lines in many countries)
Let's see if it could be worse:
I got my glasses. Zero..two..zero.. An 020 number. This is no use. I put the note in the trash can and continued my journey.
020 is the regional code for Amsterdam (and virtually became a nickname for Amsterdam - even people who never called anyone in Amsterdam are likely to know it), so this is quite offensive. How much worse could this get?
I got my glasses. Zero..zero..three..two.. An 0032 number. This is no use. I put the note in the trash can and continued my journey.
0032 is the code for Belgium, so this borders on discrimination.
I got my glasses. Five..five..five.. A 555 number. This is no use. I put the note in the trash can and continued my journey.
I'm not sure if this is more or less mean than giving an 0800/0900 number. I wouldn't mind if some 0800 variants would be an instant redirect and only one page is left to describe a free telephone number though. In The Netherlands by the way, "tollfree" or "freephone" doesn't exist. We would call it a "free number" (gratis nummer) or an 0800 number and I wouldn't be surprised if the latter is more common. W3ird N3rd (talk) 20:46, 7 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep - Although not common or used, it is found in real dictionaries and is a term recognised by dictionary bodies. Definitions of obscure terms like these makes use of Wiktionary better, since terms can be rare, unused or unnecessary. Despite this, they still offer insight and define the word properly, offering clarity to a searcher. — This unsigned comment was added by Kiril kovachev (talk • contribs) at 13:46, 2017 October 10..
Delete. @Mihia: The "translation target" reasoning is explicitly only for English entries, because we don't place translation tables in entries in other languages (therefore they are incapable of being translation targets). This translation can remain in the table at chimney sweep, but with each of the two component words linked individually. —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds14:17, 26 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
The "translation target" thing was just my little joke. Sorry if that was unclear. By the way, is the sugested SOP 煙突 + 掃除 + 夫 or 煙突 + 掃除夫? I find it a bit surprising that we have 煙突掃除夫 but not 掃除夫. Mihia (talk) 20:56, 26 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
If 掃除夫 doesn't exist then that is a slight point in favour of keeping 煙突掃除夫. As a general principle, I do not believe that Ja entries should necessarily be deleted just because the meaning can be interpreted as the sum of the meanings of individual characters. I believe that well-established compounds that are perceived as one word should be kept, just as we keep "caveman" for instance, even though it is "cave" + "man". Even 煙突 and 掃除 themselves are ultimately SoP, but I don't imagine anyone proposes deleting those. OTOH the issue of "perceived as one word" is harder when there are no spaces, and, I would say, ideally needs a native speaker's input for individual cases, unless we are just to copy what other dictionaries do (I see, by the way, that WWWJDIC has 煙突掃除夫). Mihia (talk) 14:00, 29 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Japanese entered as chimney sweep; the sum is 煙突 (entotsu, “chimney, smokestack”) + 掃除夫 (sōjifu, “cleaner”). If this is the most usual way to refer to chimney sweeps, I think this should be kept. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:52, 27 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago12 comments7 people in discussion
Pursuant to earlier suggestions, it seems that this is just SOP, and the definition's attempt to escape from that is wrong (that is, to the extent that anyone even says "road accident", it can be just a motorcycle). —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds14:21, 26 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
If someone walking across the road was knocked down by a vehicle, even a bicycle, that would be a road accident. Revise and keep. DonnanZ (talk) 18:40, 28 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Hekaheka What if a car would hit a biker in the middle of the forest or on a parking lot? The biker would have been involved in a car accident, but I suspect it might still be said there was a road accident. Despite there being no roads. Although it's probably not that common. On the other hand, if somebody suffers a heart attack while crossing the street, that really doesn't count as a road accident. Oxford on "accident": A crash involving road or other vehicles.. This refers to a road vehicle instead of a road, although this is just the entry for accident. Two dune buggies crashing into each other on the beach still counts as a road accident, I think. But I'm not fully sure. W3ird N3rd (talk) 01:01, 8 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Three valid citations showing that that's how the term is sometimes used would be all we need to support a broadening of the definition along these lines. I think that would make a case for a definition that might pass RfD. But it might strike professional lexicographers as a flimsy argument and be used as an example to show that we aren't serious, as many of them have publicly claimed. DCDuring (talk) 04:45, 8 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
This "lackadaisical" usage would show to my satisfaction that to some speakers the meaning of the term has become somewhat divorced from that of a combination of the component terms. It would be evidence comparable in strength to attestable instances of a term being spelled solid or being misconstructed (chesterdrawers). Apart from the spelled-solid criterion, which we have legislated as sufficient for inclusion, the others are simply fact-based arguments, to be given more weight IMO than the gum-flapping arguments motivated (unwittingly?) by idiolectophilia. DCDuring (talk) 11:00, 8 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
At least off-road accident is common, but that'll likely be regarded SoP as well. Because of it though, it's virtually impossible to find any citation for road accident being used for that, regardless of such use existing or not. There is https://www.dawn.com/news/1340023 (Two forest guards killed in Dera road accident) which sounds like it probably didn't happen on a road: "But the ill-fated trolley overturned at Mula Khel area. As a result, the two forest department guards died on the spot.".
There are also many roads named "road", so the "Rockingham Road accident" isn't actually a road accident, it's an accident on or near Rockingham Road. (the actual accident happened on a parking lot) So simply due to the nature of search engines and the fact that at least the vast majority of "road accident" uses really is an accident on a road means I don't know how a source ever could be found, regardless of such usage existing or not. I said I wasn't sure and if it would be used this way it wouldn't be common, but for technical reasons I can't rule out (or rule in) the existence of this black swan. W3ird N3rd (talk) 15:46, 8 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
I removed "usually a rural road with little traffic", which I think is probably an accurate generalization about gravel roads (and about dirt roads and other unpaved roads), but it's not part of the definition of the phrase. I used to live on a gravel road in a city, and the fact that it was in a city would not make me hesitate in the slightest to call it a gravel road. —Granger (talk·contribs) 19:27, 26 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Yes, it could be a generalisation, I know of a couple of gravel roads around here in suburban areas - both are privately owned but access is not restricted, and one of them leads to my local railway station. Perhaps the def can be re-expanded and improved. Anyway, keep. DonnanZ (talk) 19:54, 26 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I think SoP can be a red herring sometimes, I'm not a deletionist. The main question should be whether it's a useful entry or not, but I will have to leave that to others to decide. Its a useful companion for dirt road though. DonnanZ (talk) 21:29, 26 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I love "believed to be in Russia" ... like gravel roads are so rare we can't find a photo of one in a known location ... Mihia (talk) 20:59, 26 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Haha. I found Russian text in the description for the image, which gave me the impression that it may be in Russia, but sadly the image provider didn't say where it is. That part can be removed if this entry survives. But the potholes are characteristic of a gravel road which needs a visit by a road grader. DonnanZ (talk) 21:29, 26 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Gravel roads aren't exactly aesthetic in appearance, and I have driven on many in NZ. But you're welcome to find and add images of "beautiful" gravel roads. DonnanZ (talk) 18:30, 28 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
I was talking about the overall appearance of entry with the photos in it. Sometimes we only have ugly pictures of beautiful things, but that's a separate matter. DCDuring (talk) 21:52, 28 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Ah, it's a simple matter to rearrange the images. I think the original idea was to avoid clashing with translations. Done. DonnanZ (talk) 22:17, 28 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep, doesn't seem distinguishable from "dirt road" outside of volume of use, but use is certainly sufficient to meet the CFI. bd2412T02:35, 2 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
I imagine gravel to look like the picture I posted to the right, labeled "Gravel (DP)". My initial expectation for a gravel road surface is to look similar. When I look at the images in the entry, I am surprised these are called "gravel road". In the image at the right here, labeled "Gravel road (DP)", from my perspective, there seems to be almost no gravel at all. However, it may be a fault of my overly narrow construction of "gravel". Be that as it may, the "gravel road" entry with the images seems an interesting tool for vocabulary refinement, at least for the present non-native speaker. The definition seems sum of parts, but the images do not seem to obviously rank under "gravel road". --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:30, 27 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
There are of course different types of gravel. The top picture resembles gravel found on a gravel beach, which may be OK for someone's driveway. Gravel used in road construction and making concrete is mixed with coarse sand, and comes from a gravel pit. DonnanZ (talk) 08:53, 6 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago19 comments13 people in discussion
i.e. the USA. Seems SoP to me, with a slightly dated sense of "several", i.e. the many, "all of". Note that the Hooven citation says "the several states which are united under and by the Constitution", which is definitely SoP. Equinox◑11:52, 29 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Although it originates in archaic usage, the phrase is still in use in modern legislation. See, e.g., 2010, Code of Federal Regulations, p. 377: "The term “operator”— (A) means any person who operates a website located on the Internet or an online service and who collects or maintains personal information from or about the users of or visitors to such website or online service, or on whose behalf such information is collected or maintained, where such website or online service is operated for commercial purposes, including any person offering products or services for sale through that website or online service, involving commerce— (i) among the several States or with 1 or more foreign nations..." bd2412T19:37, 29 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
If it is used as a set phrase in legal contexts, I vote keep. It is far from obvious from the parts that "the several States" means all the states of the USA, in my opinion. You quote also highlights a capitalisation question: "several states" versus "several States". Mihia (talk) 22:04, 29 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Just to muddy the waters further: you can use any determiner with definite reference compatible with a plural predicate. For example, "these several states", "those several states", "such several states", "her several states", even "any several states". Another complication is the use by the Confederacy and its apologists to refer to both the USA and the CSA in different contexts. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:29, 30 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Also, one can find references to "the/her several kingdoms", "the several states of Europe", "the several countries" "her several institutions", etc. It seems to be used to emphasize the separateness of members of a group. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:47, 30 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep, mostly due to capitalisation issues. I just looked up if "the States" was supposed to be capitalised or not, but when combined with several it doesn't have to be? Confusing enough for me. W3ird N3rd (talk) 16:11, 10 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Now that I think of it, this has been referenced in w:Gravity Falls, a show for kids:
As president of these several United States, I hereby order you to pretend none of this ever happened.
As said by a president who had been frozen for over a hundred years and is woken up in that episode. This is from the subtitles, I don't know what he literally said because I saw the Dutch version. Only now that I see this Wiktionary entry did I figure he probably said something like "several states". W3ird N3rd (talk) 16:43, 10 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete. Totally SOP. Just refers to the severalstates that make up the United States, in a context in which it is clear that it is not referring to Mexican states or any other states. --WikiTiki8918:05, 10 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago7 comments7 people in discussion
Is this not SoP? e.g. (2015, Benjamin Smith, Market Orientalism: Cultural Economy and the Arab Gulf States) "the citizens of Gulf monarchies fail to elicit a sympathetic response from either the tolerant Left or the militant Right". Equinox◑12:12, 29 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep. I was about to agree to delete this, but having read the description and assuming it is correct (you suggest deletion due to SoP and didn't state quality issues) I've just learned something: An imaginary characterization of the left, created by rightists, that is unconditionally tolerant of everybody or everything no matter how dangerous their ideas or actions are. I thought tolerant left simply meant tolerant towards immigration and things like that. So the willingness to take in refugees who flee from war or may get killed because of their beliefs or sexual orientation in the country they are coming from. As opposed to the right, who just want to "build a wall!" (which is sadly one of the nicer quotes from that guy) and other lunacy. W3ird N3rd (talk) 16:24, 10 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
It seems SOP to me, too, and is not made any less so by the fact that "tolerant" can refer (in this collocation or on its own) to tolerating a variety of things. Delete. - -sche(discuss)05:27, 8 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago12 comments9 people in discussion
I don't think this should be considered a circumfix. German past participles have an ending, which may be -t, -et, or -en, and they may or may not have a prefix ge-. These choices are not related in any way; all combinations exist: gelegt, gerettet, getrieben, zitiert, errötet, beschrieben. So, it's a prefix and a suffix, not a circumfix. Kolmiel (talk) 13:49, 29 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
ge- only appears if -t, -et or -en is added, there is nothing like geleg (without any ending). In certain cases only an ending and not ge- is added. Thus it should be ge- -t (ge- -et, ge- -en) and for certain cases (some derived terms or compounds like beschreiben (be- + schreiben) and foreign words like zitieren (from Latin)) just -t, -et, -en. In literature one can also read that ge- -t is a circumfix, e.g.:
2014, Michael Schäfer and Werner Schäfke, Sprachwissenschaft für Skandinavisten: Eine Einführung, p. 110: "vom Zirkumfix {ge- -t}"
2016, Roland Schäfer, Einführung in die grammatische Beschreibung des Deutschen, 2nd edition, p. 324: "das Zirkumfix ge- -t (schwach) bzw. ge- -en (stark)"
Getreide, glauben, gönnen do not contain a NHG prefix ge-. The OHG or MHG terms might have gi- or ge- in it, but that's not visible in the NHG terms anymore. Better examples might exist in (older?) dialectal/regional German like geseyn instead of sein (or seyn). Some terms similar to this might also exist in 'standard' High German. Anyway ge- alone doesn't form the past participle (unless it's somewhat strangely analysed like in ge- -t ("with ge- (for strong verbs)") and and ge-#German (the second prefix)). And if ge- -t gets removed, the sense would belong to -t (and -en, but not ge-). In -t it then should be something like "forms the past participle; usually together with ge-, but sometimes just -t". -84.161.34.7515:37, 31 July 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep: The fact that there are other ways to mark the past participle is not relevant. The question is whether the elements ge- and -t in, for example, gelegt have distinct meaning on their own, the way un- and -ed do in unnamed. They don't; they only have meaning when taken together as the marker of the past participle. Therefore, they should not be analyzed separately; they have to be considered a circumfix. So also with ge--et and ge--en. — Eru·tuon00:25, 8 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
What are you talking about? All endings have several distinct meanings of their own, one being that they are the ending of the past participle, with or without the prefix. E.g. entlarvt, verschnitten, erduldet etc. which are past participles, marked by the respective ending, without the respective prefix. ps.: New High German begins around 1400, so having an entry for a prefix 'ge-' for words like gesitzen is absolutely in the scope of Wiktionary's de code. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 10:21, 8 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
I'm talking about the meaning in the word in question, gelegt. Does the -t mean one thing and the ge- mean another in that word? — Eru·tuon16:57, 10 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
NHG begins around 1350 or around 1500 depending on definition or view. The ISO code gmh ends around 1500 (which would imply de starts around 1500). Regardless of the beginning of de, NHG has a prefix ge-. And not just one forming collectives, but also one in verbs, as in "gesein" or "geseyn" for "sein" (once also "seyn") (infinitive) and "gewesen" (past participle). Those prolonged verbs usually are obsolete now, but there might be exceptions as "gebrauchen" versus "brauchen". But is e.g. "gefragt" somehow analysed as "ge- + frag (stem) + -t", with -t marking the past participle and ge- being something else? It's analysed as "ge- + frag (stem) + -t" with ge- ... -t being a circumfix at least by some (two sources were given above), and this might be the more usual analysis. -84.161.24.25121:40, 3 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I'll say it frankly: I'm pissed off by your underhand tactics of pulling the musing that 'something might be X' out of your arse. It might also be a nutty fringe interpretation only upheld by your two sources. But who's helped by me mentioning that? If I wanted random guesses, I'd buy a magic 8-ball, if I wanted people subtly influenced with the mentioning of possibilities, I'd buy Frank Luntz. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 21:55, 3 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Donnanz: That's not a good enough to reason to keep. The translation line can just as easily say {{t|nrf|[[haîsseux]] [[d']][[femmes]]|m}} if the Norman is SOP. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:22, 1 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep since Frenhc is known to use multi-word phrases where other languages use single words. This is not standrd French, I get that, but the grammar seems to be similare. Lollipop (talk) 20:09, 1 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Woman-hater is a verifiable synonym of misogynist, so I don't see any reason for objection to this. It looks as though the equivalent in quite a few languages is woman-hater instead of or as well as misogynist. All translations are under misogynist though. DonnanZ (talk) 10:18, 8 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep. It's not sum of parts, it's idiomatic. Neither rosaries or ovaries are used in the literal sense. Widespread long-term use.--Dmol (talk) 21:46, 1 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep. If my English was poor and I had to explain this without context I would wonder if it might be referring to some odd tradition of some tribe to insert prayer beads in women's bodies. (people in China are huffing rhino horn because they think it cures fevers and rheumatism, would you really expect me to be surprised?) Please note I have never heard of this idiom before reading this RfD, so the meaning is not "obvious" to me. W3ird N3rd (talk) 23:29, 1 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
I think we would regret establishing a policy of keeping political/popular slogans. We have recently deleted live free or die, which seems comparable. I hope we don't keep such expressions based on the POV expressed, whether that results from conscious or unconscious bias. DCDuring (talk) 13:12, 2 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Exactly why would we regret that? I know your POV also from another discussion, you would absolutely hate to see Wiktionary become a (typically very expensive) multi-word dictionary. But regrets? Just because including more terms is something you don't want doesn't mean it will be regrettable. W3ird N3rd (talk) 16:58, 4 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
@PseudoSkull, Dmol, W3ird N3rd Your votes were based on the idea that this phrase is idiomatic. I would point out that merely being idiomatic is insufficient to keep a multi-word term. Slogans have not been considered within scope in the past, and I think that should remain the case. Proverbs are the closest thing which has been considered acceptable, and there is quite a leap from a proverb to a slogan. - [The]DaveRoss12:42, 4 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
I never received your ping. It's not much of a leap. If a slogan gets enough usage it can become a saying. In Dutch there is a related saying baas in eigen buik (boss of your own belly) which also started out as a slogan. I'm a big believer of following rules. Unless I find them counterproductive in which case to hell with them. I believe it would be very valuable to have slogans and idioms on a wiki. So my question would be this: do slogans and idioms belong on another wiki project? Yes? In that case, move it there. (to my knowledge there no such wiki but correct me if I'm wrong) If not, we need to ask: should such a wiki be created while we allow them here until that wiki has been created and they can be moved there, or should we simply allow them here? Either way, removing them here is counterproductive so I'm not changing my vote. Simply saying "while valueable, it does not fit our scope, we will never change our scope because we simply won't, we will not have another project with such a scope, we will simply kill everything that's not in our scope" is nothing but pointless destruction. Don't expect me to take part in it because your rulebook says so. That's the worst argument imaginable and only ever leads to misery.
Two things, this is a direct reference to prayer beads and female reproductive organs. They are exactly what you are supposed to think of when you hear this slogan. So that's not surprise. The other thing is that the purpose of Wiktionary isn't to make people happy, it's to provide definitions of words. --WikiTiki8918:48, 4 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
I thought #2 and #3 (3 due to the example provided I guess) from rosary#English meant that rosaries are also religious thoughts and ideas and that's what this referred to. And your "Wiktionary isn't here to make people happy" argument is pretty weak too. The definition of Wiktionary is not to make people happy, just to provide definitions of words. And if that doesn't make people happy let's do it anyway. Don't bother with making people happy. Don't bother doing anything that might make sense. Don't bother trying to create something useful. Just do as you're told and don't question it. W3ird N3rd (talk) 20:00, 4 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
(edit conflict) Slogans are phrases that take a large part of their meaning from their extra-linguistic context. Explaining what they mean requires going into encyclopedia territory. In fact, they often tend to be used, not to convey meaning, but to evoke that context. Also, they tend to be utterly meaningless outside of that context, and old ones like "Ma, ma, where's my pa? Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha" are hard to understand without reading up on the politics and politicians of their eras. I think that including phrases simply because they're not explainable as the sum of their parts is a bad idea: any good poetry is full of passages that can't be explained by their literal meanings. Movies, TV shows, plays, etc. have lots of catch-phrases that people quote to evoke a scene, or the character/actor who says them. For instance, "What we've got here is failure to communicate" is quoted by lots of people, but you have to know about the scenes in Cool Hand Luke where it's used in order to understand why. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:54, 4 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
It's generally not encyclopia territory. "Keep your rosaries off my ovaries" has no Wikipedia entry and if you create it it will probably be deleted. If you're saying "another wiki project needs to be started for these things" that's fine with me. But in the meantime we shouldn't destroy content in a way that makes it hard to recover. If you would merely suggest hiding it (is that even possible?) while waiting for such a project to be started I could accept that. If a general rule would be to move good but out-of-scope content to the talk page of that entry, that would make it more acceptable to delete the main page. I would still prefer to keep it as long as there is no other project that would be better suited for the entry, but I could live with it. But it shouldn't be just this page - it will need to be done for any content that isn't vandalism or gibberish.
I guess the real question is: why isn't there a project for idioms and slogans? Either simply nobody ever thought of it, or those that thought of it figured "well that'll fit in just fine on Wiktionary, why start a new project?". And it's probably not the former because I'm not that clever. So if you then start saying "let's be very strict about being nothing more than a dictionary because we are called wiktionary, even though there is no technical reason why we can't provide idioms and slogans as well" you create a vacuum. I hate vacuums. They suck. W3ird N3rd (talk) 20:00, 4 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
There's also no place on Wiki for recipes, but that doesn't mean Wiktionary should host them. As for "Keep your rosaries off my ovaries", it's probably not notable enough by itself to have a WP entry, but the subject matter a Wiktionary entry would cover is certainly found at Wikipedia in articles that discuss birth control, abortion and the role of Roman Catholicism in politics. Our entry doesn't really do the slogan justice, anyway, because it misses out on the association in the popular mind of rosaries with Roman Catholicism specifically, and of Roman Catholicism with certain types of moralistic conservatism, and the complete disconnect between the spiritually-pure, sacred prayers of adoration connected with rosaries and the profane matter of sexuality, which adds a layer of incongruity (I doubt anyone would ever mention abortion while saying a rosary). Then there's the matter of Roman Catholicism being a minority religion in places like the US, and the stereotypes that go with that. I'm sure that there are other angles I'm missing, but you get my point. Oh, and in case you're wondering: I'm not Catholic. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:08, 4 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
A wiki for recipes is not a bad idea actually. Or they might fit in on Wikipedia. The first reason not to have recipes on wiktionary would simply be because of conflicts: the name of a recipe can be identical to an existing word. This problem doesn't exist for slogans and idioms. Another reason is that the target audience for recipes is completely different from the target audience of Wiktionary. Again, the target audience for idioms and slogans is quite similar to the target audience for a dictionary. Yet another reason is that a recipe would come in a format different from the format used on Wiktionary: it would be a lengthy description with instructions and likely include many pictures. Once more, the description of an idiom or slogan is very similar to the description of a word. Finally, when a slogan is described here it can take advantage of the content already here: keep your rosaries off my ovaries. A recipe can't seriously take advantage of existing content here. I get your point, but a recipe is quite different from an idiom or slogan. W3ird N3rd (talk) 18:17, 5 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete. Metonymy doesn't make something idiomatic. And slogans aren't words, just like pop culture references and other things like that. --WikiTiki8918:52, 4 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
I added a new definition. This is really what I perceived the definition to be here rather than "just a slogan". Find uses of the phrase with this meaning: "Do not interfere with my reproductive rights." rather than "A campaign slogan meaning ..." and voilà! The term is no longer SOP. PseudoSkull (talk) 05:36, 5 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Some figured it would be a big leap from a slogan to a proverb and I mentioned baas in eigen buik (a Dutch slogan with similar meaning that got so popular it's now a saying) to demonstrate the only difference is (in some cases) popularity. And I suspect "keep your rosaries off my ovaries" is popular enough to deserve a similar status. W3ird N3rd (talk) 18:17, 5 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
It's incomplete. There is still an implication that the interference stems from religious belief. In other words, it should say "Do not impose your religious beliefs to interfere with my reproductive rights." I would still consider this merely a slogan, however. Such implications can be derived from many slogans - for example, "You can't top the copper top". bd2412T18:29, 5 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. "copper top" is not here, but "coppertop" is. Which is somebody with ginger hair. The rest I know, so it says "You can't beat a person with ginger hair". Still no clue. My best bet is that the best girlfriend is supposedly a girlfriend with ginger hair, probably in the area of sexuality. (this is not my opinion, I'm just guessing what the slogan might mean) Why anyone would use this as a slogan is beyond me. I haven't looked it up with a search engine on purpose, so I have no idea how close I got.
On second thoughts, assuming you didn't misspell the slogan, it probably means some specific thing is the best when it has a copper top. Copper being an excellent and affordable heat conducting material, my bet is on heatsinks. I know heatsinks exist that have a small part copper that is in direct contact with the source of heat and the rest is made of a cheaper material like aluminium. This may have been a slogan from Zalman, Coolermaster or similar company.
It's not transparent indeed. I wonder what the actual meaning is. Guess I'll have to visit a search engine to find out, I wouldn't mind if Wiktionary could have told me. W3ird N3rd (talk) 06:20, 6 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Most notably, it is the slogan for Duracell batteries, and is properly included on the Wikiquote page for well-attested advertising slogans. bd2412T16:02, 7 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep. The phrase is not used in a literal sense, and therefore, is not a sum of parts. This deletion, if it proceeds, is not based on WT:CFI: the term is attested and is not a sum of parts. On the other hand, slogans are often non-literal and it is questionable to what extent they would flood Wiktionary. Having non-literal slogans would not necessarily be a bad thing, I think, but I am not sure. As for "slogans are not words", nor are proverbs, which we include. In any case, we have workers of the world, unite, a slogan. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:24, 6 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete. The various definitions seem too broad to me, as this is specifically directed against Roman Catholic opponents of abortion so the metonymy is very obvious. You wouldn't say this to an Evangelical or Muslim, much less to a Scientologist advocate of abortion. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 09:49, 16 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
re: "...single word beginning with a hyphenated suffix.." If you've got one, I'd certainly like to see it- it would be a real first! Chuck Entz (talk) 06:01, 5 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Challenge accepted. "The absence of a -nesslike suffix does not prove that there was no theory" (1983, Hansen, Language and logic in ancient China, page 41). Equinox◑16:36, 5 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Really? You could say the same thing about the "-less" suffix, which Equinox pretty clearly supports. People are being so deletionist lately. PseudoSkull (talk) 23:44, 5 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
You are missing the point. If an entire word (not just a *fix) has a hyphen, e.g. anti-hospital, it is trivial to work out the components, even for a NNES. But with no hyphen, it's harder: antique might be opposition to que (whatever that is). In the past when this argument came up, I found actual real examples where a word can be broken down two ways, one right and one wrong. Equinox◑23:55, 5 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
@PseudoSkull Calling me a deletionist.. You must be joking. :-) The discussion I linked is about SoP, a sum of parts. Without a space or hyphen, there are (the way Wiktionary sees it) no parts. In fact it turns out Wiktionary doesn't see parts even when there is a hyphen.
That being said, if somebody lost their towel and they would shout out "Oh noes, I'm towelless!" I don't think it would actually be a good idea to add towelless to Wiktionary. Even if they lost their boat and would shout "Oh noes, I'm boatless!", you could ask yourself if it's really a good idea to include every possible combination with -less even if they could just barely pass an RfV. Arguably such -less words could be included if they are widely used - far beyond the three-independent-durably-backed-up-sources rule. You wouldn't really want to lose hope. I mean hopeless. That would be careless. And pointless.
Similar terms we have include ex-wife, ex-husband, ex-president, and more. I would tend to keep this because it is a prefixed word, not a compound, but that has, I admit, little bearing on separateness. As for lemmings, ex-wife is in Merriam-Webster and Collins. Having these entries starting with "ex-" help us show how far the prefix is productive in these hyphenated constructions. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:09, 6 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
It would possibly make sense to include these if their usage is vast, so well beyond the three citations rule. But I guess that's policy discussion. At least ex-wife should be included, even if it was only because ex can also mean ex-wife. W3ird N3rd (talk) 07:21, 7 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Trying to accuse boatless of being SOP is not productive. It very clearly isn't. I feel that everything that is not SOP should be kept, i.e., ex-pilot, ex-priest, ex-violinist should all be kept in the situation that they meet CFI. What you guys aren't considering is that usefulness varies depending on the readers. Maybe someone would want to read the entry for ex-violinist, for whatever their reason, which is all the reason to provide that entry if it meets CFI. PseudoSkull (talk) 10:32, 9 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
If you really want to include "usefulness" as a criteria for CFI, then we have a shitload of entries to delete. :-) For example, backwards time machine. Okay so this is technically not SOP because it does not say a time machine that travels backwards in time, so one cannot DIRECTLY imply that a backwards time machine is one that travels backwards in time. More likely, semantically, it would refer to a time machine that is backwards physically, which is not the case. But most people really could deduce the meaning of backwards time machine anyway, even though it's not SOP. So should we have this entry? Yes, because it's idiomatic and not SOP. You never know; someone one day might not know what a backwards time machine is, and might want to look it up here. We want to provide as much resource as possible to readers, and every inch we take away from that goal is harming the project. PseudoSkull (talk) 10:34, 9 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep - although one can add "ex-" to anything, in real language it only gets added usefully or meaningfully for a certain communicative context. I looked up "ex-paper" on Google Books - which presumably could exist with a number of different meanings (e.g. a defunct newspaper, an old exam paper), and didn't find any examples except for "ex-paper-hanger", "ex-paper-man", and the like. Like -less and -ness words, they are single words and if they meet attest criteria they should go in IMHO.-Sonofcawdrey (talk) 01:39, 28 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
No, that is often used in German (das Rad neu erfinden) but means something different. bei Adam und Eva anfangen refers to lengthy boring speeches or discussions. Greetings, Peter Gröbner (talk) 17:02, 8 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep. See, e.g., 2004, Paul Collins, The Earthborn, p. 71. "In his own unique way, he was a radical—him and that sister of his, Lucida. Radicals with inbuilt longevity—a regular Adam and Eve who would add healthy genes to Earth's decaying gene pool". bd2412T21:27, 8 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
If this can be attested, a new definition should be added. "Two humans, animals or anthropomorphized things who start a new generation that will result in a large population" or something. At least I wouldn't be surprised if some combination of products is called "the Adam and Eve of X" in hindsight.
The next step would be to buy new, livelier dirt to fill the big hole I made. Then dump in my compost full of worms and hope they settle in, finding enough to eat so I won’t just be consigning them to a mass grave. I’d say, “Be the Adam and Eve of the underground! Go forth and multiply!
Sales prospecting is the first step of the sales funnel that comes before lead qualification or any of the sales activity. It is considered as the adam and eve of the sales cycle.
In Dutch it's Adam en Eva and we have a TV-series called A'dam - E.V.A. in which the main characters are called Adam and Eva, but it also takes place in A'dam (short for Amsterdam) and the abbreviation E.V.A. also means "En Vele Anderen". (and many others) It seems to me these characters are very connected, but I can see your logic as well. Laurel and Hardy has no "comedy duo" definition either and Pluto doesn't seem to list any orange dogs. I'm not sure about this. W3ird N3rd (talk) 22:51, 8 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Similar to Laurel and Hardy. I like it. A better definition will need to be written though (and proper citations provided) because my definition doesn't cover it entirely. Perhaps you (or someone else) could improve it, or write something better from scratch. W3ird N3rd (talk) 23:07, 8 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Was there ever a basic decision on whether fixed order of words in a regular construction constitutes idiomaticity per CFI? (It's Adam and Eve, not Eve and Adam.) Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 14:41, 26 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
NISOP – Non-idiomatic sum of parts: a term (such as "brown leaf") that can be understood from its constituent parts and is not an idiom, thus probably not suitable for inclusion in a dictionary.
Alright then. As hitch has 6 possible definitions and the correct one in this case is #4 I say keep. This meaning of hitch is considerably less common outside of the use with the word "without". It seems odd or at least uncommon to say "We've had some hitches while setting up this gig". I think hitches are experienced or ran into and probably most common are "without a". I suspect this use of hitch may actually originate from the knot meaning, which would possibly make it idiomatic. If you have some rope with hitches in it, you can't use that rope before you've cleared all the hitches. If you don't, you'll run into trouble every time you hit a hitch. So, if you grab some rope and while using it find out there are no hitches in it, it's smooth sailing. Sailing, knots.. That might actually be the origin. W3ird N3rd (talk) 17:40, 9 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete. See hitch#Noun senses 4 or 5. (Are they redundant defs?)
Most MWEs use a particular sense of the component words. So what? Have wqe taken leave of our senses. There are arguments to be made, but this one is silly. DCDuring (talk) 04:19, 20 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
There are many ways to use hitch to the same effect. no hitches, not any hitches, and, yes, hitchless.
There are plenty of other instances of attestation of the word in the sense in question that should serve to refute factless assertions. DCDuring (talk) 04:31, 20 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
That just says on expression is more common that another. What does that have to do with back-formation as we define it?
To wit, "The process by which a new word is formed by removing a morpheme (real or perceived) of an older word, such as the verb burgle, formed by removing -ar (perceived as a suffix forming an agent noun) from burglar." DCDuring (talk) 03:15, 8 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
The earliest use I can find for the modern form of "without a hitch" is from February 1, 1862, The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, Vol. 13-14, p. 114: "It is, indeed, a novelty for a Secretary to the Admiralty to be able to say that a magnificent frigate like the Phaeton was commissioned on the 2nd of November, and was ready on the 7th to cross the Atlantic with a crew of between 500 and 600 men—that the Orlando, a still larger ship, sailed fully manned for the expected scene of war just one week after she was commissioned, and that an entire fleet was got ready and despatched with almost equal rapidity—without a hitch or a hindrance, and without the necessity of drawing a man from the Reserve which had so eagerly pressed forward for service". Does an earlier use of "hitchless" with this meaning exist? bd2412T03:28, 8 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I lean towards Keep. Sure it is covered by the noun sense of hitch; but it is a set phrase in that without a hitch is a very common prepositional phrase meaning without any problems occurring, rather than "of a rope, without an hitches tied in it", so in that sense it is an idiomatic use. I think in such cases frequency is important - on Trove "without a hitch" has over 68,000 hits and "without any hitches" has less than 3500, and in that sense it is a set phrase in the language. Frequency is always important in language and hence in lexicography.-Sonofcawdrey (talk) 01:29, 28 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete. I think the description isn't even right. It means something along the lines of "There is nothing to be afraid of, you can do this". This actually does appear to be a NISOP. Possibly some common wisdom, which is still no dictionary material. W3ird N3rd (talk) 17:50, 9 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Agree that it's not really what I'd call a proverb, but people might think it is and expect to find it in Wiktionary. Move to the correct wording, per DCDuring, and link to Wikiquote. P Aculeius (talk) 23:09, 10 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
I've striken out my vote because DCDuring and P Aculeius made some good points. I abstain from voting for now. (might change my mind if other arguments arise) W3ird N3rd (talk) 00:00, 11 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Added new sense. I still think the original description (Implying one should not be afraid of the things that go on in the world) is rubbish. Improving on what I said earlier: "Whatever you are afraid of is not wat disturbs you, it is the fear itself that disturbs you.". I vote to delete the original "things that go on in the world" sense. As for moving, I don't know. If this is considered a proverb it should be moved to the core of the most common form. (whatever that may be) If it's considered something people could mistake for a proverb and expect to find to here, it should be moved to the actual quote and have proper etymology/wikiquote added. W3ird N3rd (talk) 00:59, 11 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
You guys often tend to think that just because it originated from the quote always means that any person who says it afterwards is mentioning the quote. Without mentioning Franklin D. Roosevelt and completely outside the context of him when using this quote, citations of this phrase are acceptable. Definite keep. Seriously, people, try REALLY hard to understand the difference between the mentioning of a quote and using said phrase that originated from the quote outside the context of the quote. PseudoSkull (talk) 09:50, 11 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Weak Keep. Seems to have sufficiently lost its association with the original quote and become more of a saying/proverb. I'm not fully convinced it isn't SOP, however. (Also, I agree with W3ird N3rd's assessment of the current definition.) Andrew Sheedy (talk) 17:30, 11 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
There is a subtle difference between "the only thing one should fear is fear itself" (you should fear nothing at all with the exception you are allowed to fear having fears) and the meaning that ultimately comes down to "fear cripples you". It's not fully SoP but not completely illogical either. W3ird N3rd (talk) 20:42, 11 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
The comic strip is certainly notable, but we don't have entries for most other notable comics or their characters, unless they're used to refer to other things. For instance, Prince Valiant refers to a haircut; we have Popeye (although the definition could stand improvement), but not Dick Tracy or Li'l Abner (although there are several entries derived from the strip); the only examples from Peanuts might be Snoopy and Linus blanket, but there aren't entries for the strip or for Charlie Brown. Now, I think that Alley Oop might have been used at one point as a synonym for "caveman" (i.e. someone who looks or behaves like a primitive), in which case it might be worth keeping, but I don't have time to look for examples right now. P Aculeius (talk) 11:42, 20 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
More like "sub" + "critical mass", since the term "critical mass" is probably much more familiar than the word "subcritical", and directly related to the topic of this entry. I believe that terms formed with prefixes and suffixes are usually includible, provided they meet the other criteria for inclusion; in this case probably the only question is whether the term is in actual use, and while it doesn't currently have any citations, it looks like it is used with a specific and regular meaning. It's not just any possible use of "subcritical" combined with any use of "mass", like the amount of an optional ingredient in a recipe, or an editorial board that gives insufficient scrutiny to submissions (you could use it to mean those things, but only humorously). So I think this one is a keeper. P Aculeius (talk) 02:25, 18 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
There is something to the above argument: if this is a sum, then rather sub- + (critical mass) or subcritical + critical mass where the + operator enables replacement. While “critical mass”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. finds multiple renowned dictionaries, “subcritical mass”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. finds almost nothing. Still, it seems that the reader would be better off with our having the entry. By the way, someone could nominate critical mass for deletion, arguing that the definition should be in critical entry; that would be talk:free variable case. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:03, 26 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Three quotations are in the entry. The question remains whether they meet WT:BRAND, if WT:BRAND applies. The nomination does not state which specific criterion in CFI is being questioned; WT:BRAND is my buest guess. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:12, 19 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion
Let us consider undeletion of this, originally entered as "Robert Pattinson". This was failed in 2011 per Talk:RPattz, and the rationales provided there seem weak: "If we don't include Robert Pattinson, why include this? Also it's a proper noun." and "Cannot find any clause or section of CFI which might justify this entry." We have recently kept some space-free nicknames per Talk:J-Lo. As for policy, WT:NSE leaves editor discretion in keeping or deleting RPattz; the term does not come under "No individual person should be listed as a sense in any entry whose page title includes both a given name or diminutive and a family name or patronymic." --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:47, 20 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Undelete, to be consistent with the results at Talk:J-Lo where R-Pattz was kept. This is not a terribly valuable entry, but it is a proper name with no space and no hyphen in it, and these I generally favor including as long as they are attested; WT:NSE leaves editor discretion. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:14, 1 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep. In most contexts it specifically means a regime change between the LDP and a non-LDP party. For those who are used to two-party system it may not sound special, but in the conservative Japan it is a historical event. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 04:49, 22 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
If this is a change in which party rules, then the current definition "a change in who holds political power; regime change" seems misleading, or at least the "regime change" part. Maybe instead of deleting the entry, we should make sure it is accurate, clear and unambiguous. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:24, 26 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
The closest sense in [[general]], IMO, is "Giving or consisting of only the most important aspects of something, ignoring minor details; indefinite." That doesn't seem good enough to support the usage in the MWOnline sense given by DabP above. I will search for a definition that might at “general”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. DCDuring (talk) 22:25, 27 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
The sense of [[general]] closest to that used in the mathematics usage, IMO, is "Giving or consisting of only the most important aspects of something, ignoring minor details; indefinite." That doesn't seem good enough to support the usage in the MWOnline sense given by DanP above. I will search for a definition that might at “general”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. DCDuring (talk) 01:37, 28 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
I don't see such a sense, though some are closer than the one I have shown above and perhaps the OED has one. I can see how sense development (Is that part of etymology?) goes from other definitions to use in this collocation, but the wording of the other definitions isn't close enough IMO. The mathematical sense that MWOnline has seems abundantly attestable, in sources from EB 1823, through Bourbaki, and fairly elementary teaching texts.
I think delete. Any comic strip (pretty sure it's a newspaper comic, not really a comic book) or its characters can be alluded to, but I don't think the character is familiar enough to have lexical meaning beyond a direct allusion. Isolated from context, calling someone "a phantom" or "the Phantom" could suggest various phantoms or Phantoms in various media. This might be different from familiar catchphrases, such as "the Shadow knows" (a character from a radio serial, but comparable, IMO), which might be used isolated from their original context, with a distinct meaning, which isn't immediately apparent to everyone. P Aculeius (talk) 01:01, 28 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
Oxymoronic??? I for one don't think it can be proven that there is a constant ratio between the cost of a good (affordability) and the feeling of luxury one gets from the good. Your subjective preferences should not be grounds for deletion. Do you have something more reasoned to support your vote or have we descended to mere democracy. DCDuring (talk) 04:52, 27 August 2017 (UTC)Reply
No objection to deletion, but I'd like to point out that we have an English entry for each of Santa's reindeer (Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner and Blitzen, if one would want to check). Besides, I believe that there are situations when at least I might want to search this term in a dictionary. Unless we can delete Santa's reindeer, I would rather suggest that we add "Woody Woodpecker". Also, one might argue that Woody W is about as well-known fictional personality as e.g. Winnie the Pooh. --Hekaheka (talk) 07:56, 15 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago12 comments8 people in discussion
Even though the word "virus" repeats the meaning of "V" in "HIV", I would regard this as SoP. After all, you can't say "H.I. virus". Equinox◑15:40, 1 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
This isn't about prescriptiveness, or "HIV virus" being somehow "wrong". It's about it being sum of parts, like "common cold + virus". Equinox◑13:10, 2 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Is adding "virus" to the end of what is already the name of a virus a common practice? If not (and if "HIV virus" is still attested), I don't see why it would be considered SoP. Nardog (talk) 17:29, 8 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
One potential way we can adopt to distinguish compounds worth including from sums of parts, in addition to WT:COALMINE, is to see if the phrase is pronounced with primary stress on the first word. That would justify PIN number. Nardog (talk) 17:29, 8 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Perhaps, but it is not that easy for us to get attestation of pronunciations of the same quality as our citations.
It occurred to me that many people now define HIV as "a disease ...". If so, it may be that HIV virus means "the virus [which many others call HIV] that causes the disease HIV [which many call AIDS]". I have not yet found a dictionary that recognizes that definition, but the common expression "How did he get HIV" (NOT "How did he get the HIV") is suggestive that people think that way. That would be an inheritance of the dual medical-type definitions of virus. What is more than suggestive is the large number of raw Google Books hits for "HIV is a disease". DCDuring (talk) 00:44, 9 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep As an example, I use 'PIN number' even though I know that the "N" stands for number and it could be considered incorrect by some. Part of the reason I feel able to use it is because it has entered general usage - the fact that it has is useful information for Wiktionary users. John Cross (talk) 06:10, 10 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago9 comments8 people in discussion
"Used on words borrowed from other languages, especially French, as a reminder that the final "e" is not silent". That's not a suffix! That's just not removing the é on the word that you borrowed. I note that the associated "words suffixed with é" category is empty (red link). Equinox◑01:28, 3 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago6 comments5 people in discussion
This is a useless plural definition. I have just looked up 303s and it gives nothing. 303 is the area code for the US state Colarado but 303s mean absolute nothing and it is not required in the dictionary. Pkbwcgs (talk) 13:15, 3 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
A 303 is also a famous music synthesiser with a distinctive sound (mentioned e.g. in the title of Fatboy Slim's track Everybody Needs a 303): might be worth a sense. Equinox◑16:38, 3 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
All the pages in Category:te:Decades can be deleted as there is no point having lots of pages of different decades in Telugu years. Apart from English, there is no other language which pages relating to decades so therefore, all the pages in this category can safely be deleted. Pkbwcgs (talk) 14:31, 3 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Language: Latin
Sense: "(New Latin) Used as a taxonomic epithet" or "(New Latin) Used as a species epithet"
in germanicus: "(New Latin) Used as a speciesepithet to indicate that a species was discovered or is common in Germany"
There is the possibility that this was never used in Latin which would mean it should be deleted (compare with Talk:albifrons, Talk:iroquoianus). But this would be a matter of WT:RFVN. So assuming it was/is actually used in Latin:
"Used as a taxonomic epithet" or "Used as a species epithet" is not a meaning, but just a context. And such contexts (usually) aren't included. English red is also used in animal names (see e.g. w:Red scorpionfish, w:Red snapper), yet red only has the general meaning "Having red as its color." and not also "Used in animal names" (as in "red scorpionfish"), or also "Used in reference to clothes" (as in "red dress", "red T-shirt").
Not sure. It's in a lot of dictionaries, so we could argue it passes the lemmings test. 想 does seem to have the ability to combine with other verbs to create adjectives, e.g. 想要, 想開, 想歪, etc. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:12, 10 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I think these are verbs too: "to want (sex)", "to think in a philosophical manner" and "to think awry; to think and interpret things in a dirty, twisted way". Wyang (talk) 07:27, 10 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago6 comments6 people in discussion
I can’t see anything idiomatic in phrase that does not also apply to just high voltage, or that is linguistic rather than social/semiotic. Compare no entry sign, fire hazard sign, radioactive material sign, deer crossing sign. — Ungoliant(falai)23:43, 9 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
The senses "The words used to represent numbers in the Greek language." and "One of the words of the Greek language used to represent a number." are SOP. --WikiTiki8923:15, 11 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Entered as a synonym of "gay marriage". It can mean that, but I think only insofar as "gay" is a hyponym of "queer", i.e. all gay marriages are queer but some queer marriages are not gay. Consider: "Heterosexual marriage is sanctified through its likeness to the queer marriage of Christ and church" (Gerard Loughlin, Queer Theology); "Jupiter's theft of his wife's wedding jewels is nothing if not queer or counternormative" (Moncrief and McPherson, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England); "Why ... are there so many possible queer marriages in Shakespeare's plays? (Examples include Orlando entering a 'mock-marriage' with Rosalind-as-Ganymede, and Orsino marrying the still-dressed-as-a-boy Viola.)" (Traub, The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Embodiment). Romanophile has a habit of taking common phrases, replacing a word with something vaguely similar, and entering the result as a synonym (e.g. "to be truthful", "woman enough", "sex tool"). Sometimes this works, sometimes not so much. Equinox◑02:09, 12 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I don’t know if it has ever been discussed, but the criteria for inclusion have always been applied much more loosely to initialisms during my time here. ASoIaF is far from the being the only entry with the initialism of a term we would never add (A.A.C.C.A., LATCH, YKCA, etc.). — Ungoliant(falai)16:29, 12 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep No reason to exclude under our current criteria. I wouldn't mind if we had a policy that excluded these, though they seem to meet a possible need on the part of someone trying to understand, say, an online discussion. I only see one valid attestation for this in the entry, so RfV might be worth the trouble. DCDuring (talk) 21:45, 12 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
See Talk:oak tree, for an analogous entry which was kept, based on WT:COALMINE. I doubt COALMINE applies for this term.
The existence of entries for foreign terms that may be a single word should suffice, given the power of even basic search. I don't really think that we should have such entries just so that we have a place for redlinks for foreign terms that no one takes the trouble to add. If someone needs to have a list from which to make entries for the non-SoP words in foreign languages that are translations of this type of SoP English term, we could add an appendix that contained all the English terms of the forms "X bush", "X tree", "X vine", "X flower", etc, including other organisms and even terms outside biology. We could also utilize translation tables in Translingual entries. DCDuring (talk) 22:02, 12 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
And apricot fruit? Apricot grove? Many languages have regular ways of showing those with different genders and derivational endings. Don't ignore the "well, duh!" factor: if I click on "apricot tree" and discover that our definition consist of "a tree" ... "that's an apricot" ... I feel cheated. The presence of an entry promises that there's content, but there's nothing there that you don't already know from the name of the entry. IMO these are best treated as subsenses of apricot, etc., with translation tables for those subsenses in the entry, rather than separate entries with useless definitions. Delete them all. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:57, 13 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I suppose there isn't an SoP entry of any kind that can't be deemed to be of use to some user, somewhere, under some circumstances, limited only by the user's willingness to enter the collocation in the search box and await downloading. I was only interested in the translation-table rationale, which is principally of concern to contributors, seemingly not sufficiently motivated to create full entries for the FL term. DCDuring (talk) 05:09, 13 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete (all), the second definition at apricot is literally "the apricot tree". Personally, I'd propose the deletion of apple tree, oak tree, etc., on the same grounds, but I accept that the subject has been discussed before and I wouldn't want to question the consensus. DCDuring's appendix suggestion might be a soultion, even though I'm not really fond of appendixes. --Robbie SWE (talk) 08:31, 13 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I take the point that you can say "apricot tree" whereas you can't say "robin bird", but am inclined to delete these. I believe the OED's approach is to include lists of common obvious collocations that don't have individual definitions. Equinox◑11:31, 13 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
The name is apricot. The word tree just specifies that you're talking about the mature plant rather than the fruit. If it were the actual name, as in smoke tree, it wouldn't be SOP. It's clearer with maple tree, which is an unnecessary elaboration on maple, since any use of maple to refer to the tree is abundantly obvious from the context to be the tree, and not any other form. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:54, 14 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Now that I think of it: isn't the "apple" etc. in "apple tree" referring to the fruit, so it's "tree that bears apples" - rather than a redundant "apple[kind-of-tree] tree"? (Not so, however, with e.g. "elm tree".) Equinox◑18:24, 14 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Yeah I would say that "apple tree" is a "tree that bears apples" and "apple[kind-of-tree]" is just short for "apple tree". Nevertheless I think "apple tree" is SOP. --WikiTiki8918:54, 14 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete. The foreign one-word translations are typically of the form t(apricot)t(tree), unlike in the case of "piece of furniture" which was discussed in detail earlier. --Hekaheka (talk) 07:42, 15 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I wouldn't say either. I would say "an orchard of apricots" or "an apricot orchard". Google books has 4 hits for your first phrase, and 2 for your second. That said, I don't see any reason why the second should be any better than the first. Sending your own test right back at you: would you say "an apricot-tree orchard" or "an apricot orchard"? Chuck Entz (talk) 21:12, 15 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep. It would be odd to say "there's an apricot growing on that apricot", and "apricot tree" is unusually well-attested for a redundant term. It is in this regard an idiomatic pleonasm, comparable to ATM machine and PIN number (which we include precisely because they are). bd2412T00:10, 16 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Weak keep. If you ask “what is it?” seeing this scene (right), they will say “it’s an apricot tree” rather than “it’s an apricot”. But I’m not sure, as our article says “Apricot tree is less commonly used by far than apricot in referring to such trees.” — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 02:53, 16 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I didn't say they can't give their opinion, but I don't think they should be able to vote. Otherwise it's difficult to enforce one vote per person. --WikiTiki8921:33, 18 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Technically, it's not a !vote anyway. The closing administrator will take into account the degree to which participants in the discussion are IPs, SPAs, or otherwise appropriately discounted in weight. bd2412T23:11, 18 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
My position is that RFD posts should be evaluated using the same eligibility criteria as normal votes. If a user not eligible makes a strong argument in a discussion, they can hope to sway eligible contributors to vote accordingly. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:15, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Yes, they should be allowed to voice their opinion, since this is obviously the creator of the entry. I think it's important to add for the record that this IP is most likely a sock of BrunoMed, who was blocked for mass-creating poor-quality entries, and for repeatedly ignoring warnings about SOP and attestation. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:21, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep since "apricot tree" seems to be more common to refer to the tree than apricot alone if I am to believe under an apricot tree,under an apricot at Google Ngram Viewer. In that graph, the frequencies of the search terms are rather close to each other, showing that all but a fraction of occurrences of the latter term are actually occurrences of the former term. Therefore, the note present in the entry seems incorrect: 'Apricot tree is less commonly used by far than apricot in referring to such trees.' Does anyone have data to prove me wrong? Now, if apricot tree really is more common, I would like to keep the entry to hold FL translations, and let FL entries referring to the tree point to that entry rather than apricot alone. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:10, 17 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Maybe, but the term is almost exclusively used in business/finance/behavioral economics with a definition like: "the extent to wish a decision-maker, such as investor or businessperson, is willing to accept more risk in exchange for the possibility of a higher return". DCDuring (talk) 00:29, 18 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I haven't yet found a definition of tolerance that fits this, though "willingness or ability to tolerate (something)" would seem adequate. But such a definition is not to be found in most references at “tolerance”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. Oxford has "The ability or willingness to tolerate something, in particular the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with." DCDuring (talk) 00:57, 18 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
The Czech translation for the verb phrase is "smažit v pekle", but "smažit" is not a translation of "burn" but rather "fry". Other languages could have similarly useful idiomatic translation. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:05, 18 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete again. You can say "is that variable global or local?". Clearly, the qualifier "global" doesn't have to precede the term. Moreover, other things can be global or local besides variables: functions, classes, pretty much anything that is scoped. —Rua (mew) 17:58, 16 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
A small representative handful of other things that you might encounter in programming (from GBooks): "local constant", "local instance", "local scope", "global object", "global static variable", "local integer variable": you get the idea. Equinox◑23:02, 16 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
These are largely variations on "variable", except perhaps for scope. Injectablity in between does not bother me any more than with phrasal verbs. The definition at local is designed for variables anyway rather than scopes: "Having limited scope (either lexical or dynamic); only being accessible within a certain portion of a program". To me, local variable is a natural location, as is static variable (redlink), prime number and red dwarf. --Dan Polansky (talk) 23:19, 16 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete. We have the relevant sense of local ("(computing, of a variable or identifier) Having limited scope (either lexical or dynamic); only being accessible within a certain portion of a program." and global ("Of a variable, accessible by all parts of a program.") DCDuring (talk) 01:05, 18 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I think that the fact that another dictionary does include some of the above entries may be relevent in the way people decide to vote. I realise that other factors will also be taken into account. John Cross (talk) 06:46, 18 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
In my own view, we should Keep all of these entries. I created some but not all of these entries. I recognise of course that there is a pattern that these follow in English and that the 'sum of parts' challenge is a difficult one to answer - I will try my best to make the case for inclusion.
(1) I note that some other English dictionaries do include terms of this form, I recognise that is not conclusive but I feel that it is persuasive. Note also that Duden a respected German dictionary has "S-förmig" (S-shaped). http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/s_foermigJohn Cross (talk) 06:46, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
(2) Y-shaped and H-shaped both refer to the shape of the capital letters and not the lower case letters. In spoken English, "h-shaped" and "H-shaped" would be pronounced the same so there is some additional meaning here.
(3) The forms of letters in different font/styles vary so "H-shaped" really means shaped like a capital H in a standard font (e.g. Times New Roma) but disregarding any serifs - that is slightly more than I get from sum of parts.
(4) Websters refers to U-shaped in the sense of 'resembling a broad U in cross profile' (emphasis added). The word 'broad' could not be inferred from sum of parts.
(5) While the pattern may be predictable to native English speakers, I could imagine a non-native speaker wanting to check that there was not another terms that they should be using in place of "V-shaped" for example. Languanges that don't use the Roman alphabet must presumably have other ways of saying "T-shaped" etc.Reply
None of your "citations" of the unhyphenated forms are valid. You need to see the actual pages of the book before you use it for a citation. DTLHS (talk) 06:49, 18 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, something like L-shaped evokes a a junction of lines at right angles that isn't always obvious in all forms of the letter, and it seems somewhat like a set phrase. On the other hand, in the US you can buy L-brackets in any hardware store, and you can described things as "looking like an L", "in the form of an "L", or even "shaped like an L". Then there's the matter of drawing a line: the "X-shaped" construction is quite productive. Just off the top of my head, I came up with yak-shaped, Cadillac-shaped, liver-shaped, and even Megan-shaped, which seem to all meet CFI. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:57, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Instances of "Megan-shaped" refer to the particular Megan previously introduced in the specific text, not to a general concept of "Megan" as a kind of shape. I suppose even Cadillacs and Yaks are more variable in their angles and profiles (and therefore less imbued with meaning as shapes) then the common L, H, or P. bd2412T22:08, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep all the letter ones, because L-shaped doesn't mean "shaped like an l", but only means "shaped like an L". This makes no difference for S-shaped, but once you've got the others, you may as well do the whole alphabet (of attestable ones, of course).-Sonofcawdrey (talk) 08:51, 25 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Really? I see no good arguments there. Even Stephen's first argument is not so great. Every language has a way of saying "it is raining", a way of speaking about future events, and way of turning a statement into a yes-or-no question. The only potential reason to keep this is for the phrasebook. --WikiTiki8921:20, 19 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I'm very wary of these phrasebook entries; I consider them outside the scope of a dictionary, and don't want to have them in the mainspace. --Barytonesis (talk) 12:19, 8 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion
Czech fragment, corresponding to where is. Thus, "kde se nachází nemocnice?" may be rendered as "where is the hospital?". If taken as a pattern or a template for the phrasebook, it would be at kde se nachází .... But I do not like such patterns or templates in the phrasebook. Furthermore, I don't think the word "nachází" is preferable over "je"; thus, "kde je nemocnice" sounds better to me, less literary.
Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Phrasebook entry. It is not the kind of phrase that commonly appears in phrasebooks, being present in five phrasebooks by two different publishers. It's probably also not very useful, who's going to use this in an unfamiliar foreign language? Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 09:58, 20 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago23 comments12 people in discussion
"The capital city of any state, of the United States of America. Usage notes: almost never used to refer to capitals of states other than US States." Not true; often used e.g. of Indian states; so SoP. Equinox◑19:04, 20 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep, but reword: I don't see why this needed to be put up for deletion. It could easily be fixed by rewording the definition and either rewording or abandoning the usage notes. Purplebackpack8919:48, 20 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Deletion because SoP. If "X Y" can be rephrased "the Y of an X" it's usually straightforward: tractor parts are parts of a tractor; chocolate eaters are eaters of chocolate; a state capital is the capital of a state. But let's not rehash this yet again. Equinox◑21:03, 20 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Adjectives with multiple definitions don't count? How about wall art, kitchen counter, banana box, sofa cushion, craft fair. We could continue to fill this thing up with such entries, if we want make-work. DCDuring (talk) 14:29, 21 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
And there's harm in that why? If people want to spend their time creating those things, and we have to allow those things to allow clearly-much-more-necessary definitions like "state capital", then I'm for allowing them. Purplebackpack8914:00, 24 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Purplebackpack89 It creates illusion about the nature of English, which has all sorts of SoP noun phrases. They are not restricted in meaning, except in context. For example, nothing prevents state capital from being used to indicate a capital letter that appeared depending on a state variable in a program or capital controlled by the state, as in state capitalism. Hell, someone might decide to construct it as term in which capital is a postpositive adjective. DCDuring (talk) 13:41, 25 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I can't help it if some people's thinking about the purpose of a dictionary is wrong. A dictionary is NOT intended to document all the possible attestable meanings of every possible attestable word combination.
If there are multiple possible meanings, then one has recourse to the lexicon for the possible meanings of the components, selecting the ones that make sense in context.
Why do you think the meaning of one combination of component definitions should be singled out? The one of greatest frequency? Do you know of any sources of such information or is your opinion supposed to be sufficient. I realize that you would rather not be limited by facts, let alone the need to gather facts. but that stance does not help us make Wiktionary into a reliable source of lexical information.
Do dictionary users really need our help in sorting out the relevant, contextual meaning from the various transparent combinations of component meanings? DCDuring (talk) 16:32, 25 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I am unsure about this one. On the one hand, it’s a straightforward sum of state and capital. On the other, while you can always understand red + car and brown + leaf given enough context, no amount of context (or geopolitical knowledge) will help you know that a state capital is the capital of a state(“national subdivision”), but not the capital of a state(“sovereign polity”). I could be wrong, but would you answer Jerusalem, the capital of the State of Israel, or Tokyo (State of Japan), when asked for an example of a state capital? The case seems similar to that of fried egg. — Ungoliant(falai)13:40, 21 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I probably wouldn't answer Jerusalem or Tokyo when asked for an example of a state capital; but I also wouldn't answer Israel or Japan when asked for an example of a state. As an American, the "national subdivision" sense is so strongly entrenched that the "sovereign polity" sense wouldn't occur to me. But if I were reminded of it, then yes, I would say Jerusalem and Tokyo are also state capitals. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:46, 21 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I looked on Trove - Australia has "state capitals" - so not exclusively a US thing. Also plenty of cites for such as "Tel Aviv Becomes State Capital" - which would be a different sense. I lean towards Keep, with two defs. But very SoP-ish, it cannot be denied.-Sonofcawdrey (talk) 08:43, 25 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Abstain: My first instinct was to keep it since "state" may all too easily confuse non-native speakers like me, who may fail to distinguish "state" from "country". But I don't really know. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:08, 8 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
More: 賣掉, 瘋掉, 幹掉, 做掉, 除掉 (this one may be non-SoP), 丟掉, 去掉, 吃掉, 關掉, 辭掉, 走掉. Most of these are SoP, but some have non-SoP meanings (sort of), e.g. 做掉, 幹掉. The problem is that the meaning of 掉 is less obvious that 了, 完, etc., so I can see the value of having these terms. I'm undecided for now. Wyang (talk) 23:19, 24 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Some searches: google books:"kan du snakke engelsk", google books:"snakker du engelsk". When I click to the right, as I have to with Google searches to see the actual number of hits, the latter search does not yield all that many more items. The entry was created by User:EivindJ, who used to declare themselves as Norwegian native speaker. The phrase is e.g. in Ny i Norge: Arbeidsbok by Gerd Manne, 1977. I think the searches for phrasebooks to apply something like the lemming heuristic are most useful for English phrases, and much less for non-English phrases. I'd say week keep, but input from Norwegian speakers would be welcome, and absent that input, I would err on the side of keeping. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:03, 8 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
2a02:2788:a4:f44:e0d4:8feb:9536:5a23 created this page and immediately RFDed it. I thought that was silly and therefore deleted it, but he/she wants it to go thru RFD process, so... here we are. Equinox◑19:39, 30 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
Abstain. You can "make bad time" too, so I suppose "better, worse, terrible, excellent" etc. might well be attestable. Unfortunately, make has 31 senses. Equinox◑19:52, 30 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
You can say someone is "doing excellent time" (I like to use "excellent" because it reduces interference from things like a prison sense of "good time", and some set phrases). You don't have to use an adjective either- "really making time" works just fine as an description of high speed (I've also seen "making time like crazy"). I also think there's a closely-related sense of "in [adjective] time", as in "arrive in excellent time" or "make the trip in excellent time" (not "at an opportune time" or "very much in time" but "in a short length of time"). Chuck Entz (talk) 23:37, 30 September 2017 (UTC)Reply
I have split the original definition line into its three non-synonymous parts. Only the first is familiar to me (and to the three OneLook references that have entries for make good time). DCDuring (talk) 01:25, 2 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep, but I only know one sense, which is something like "To proceed at a good pace relative to one's schedule", which is like present sense 1, but the idea of "relative to one's schedule" seems to me to be important to the meaning. Mihia (talk) 13:49, 15 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete - this is already covered at make time as far as I can see - here 'good' is used typically - and you can make poor time, make excellent time, make shitty time, etc.; no need for entries for all of these. Sonofcawdrey (talk) 02:23, 17 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
The usual word for armpit is aisselle, but, more to the point, this looks like simply "the underside of the arm", which would be SOP. Granted, I'm not exactly fluent in French, so I'm prepared to withdraw this if a native speaker thinks I've got this wrong. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:57, 3 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
You're wrong, it's a common, yet informal, way to say armpit. It's a real collocation. As a native French speaker, I know what I am talking about. See doigt de pied for example. Bu193 (talk) 22:45, 9 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I have unstruck the heading so discussion on whether the book sense ("Zhuan Falun (main book of Falun Dafa)") should have been deleted can continue. — SGconlaw (talk) 09:34, 9 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
There is no need to discuss this. This is obviously outside the scope of Wiktionary, and was created with an agenda. Zhuan Falun doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. We don't even have Harry Potter, why the double standards? Wyang (talk) 09:45, 9 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I know of the Falun Gong's existence but nothing of their beliefs or texts. WT:NSE permits the inclusion of the titles of works provided they are attested (the Qur'an is given as an example). The non-existence of an English Wikipedia page is not conclusive. Send this to RFV? (Incidentally, Harry Potter is not the name of a book, but a character from a series of books and films. The term would have to satisfy WT:FICTION to be included.) — SGconlaw (talk) 10:07, 9 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Harry Potter is the name of the novel series, as well as the name of the character. The absence of an English Wikipedia page is of course indicative. This is just common sense: Is Zhuan Falun even remotely at the same level of the Qur'an, or other books in Category:en:Books? Apparently no, otherwise it would have at least warranted an article on Wikipedia for its literary value. Wyang (talk) 10:16, 9 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
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Delete. The one OneLook reference with it has only a hard redirect to bustle, which has bustle with in a usage example. We already have such a usage example at [[bustle]]. We might add a context label {{lb|en|usually|with with}}DCDuring (talk) 14:30, 15 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Per the entry, the point seems to be that this applies to "higher education" (e.g. university) but not to something like high school, even though that is also academic. Equinox◑23:55, 7 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I created that in Feb 2008, at which time I was a bit over 1 year Wiktionary-old, and I don't know what I thought at the time. In any case, above, Equinox makes a good point. On a different note, from the definition ("educational institution ...", a research-only institution does not pass as "academic", right? I think the definition would benefit from exemplification and counter-exemplification. I don't know whether the definition is right; I took it from WP, as indicated in the creation edit summary. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:54, 8 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Move to RfV. It is not clear to me that the English-speaking community as a whole excludes high schools from the definition. I have found uses that exclude trade schools, but include "college-prep" high schools, some that include all high schools. I wouldn't be surprised to find definitions that excluded professional training programs, such as in business, engineering, law, nursing, teaching, and medicine. The use of the collocation seems quite flexible.
As mentioned above, I feel that the term is SoP. The person in question is still a leader of a grassroots organization, regardless of how he or she is appointed. In Singapore many union leaders are also government-appointed, but I would not feel that it is necessary to have a specific definition for union leader. — SGconlaw (talk) 21:21, 10 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
It certainly can't mean "top-down management approach". Of the citations only one is "durably archived". It doesn't support the idea of government appointment. Is it really government appointment or government approval of a volunteer? DCDuring (talk) 22:27, 10 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Does this need RfC, RfV or RfD? In the absence of citations this RfD seems premature. I don't see how the definition can be improved without citations. Is it a euphemism? Is it doublespeak? Keep and move to RfVDCDuring (talk) 22:44, 10 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep - contrary to the usual meaning of grass roots "People and society at the local (most basic) level rather than at the national centre of political activity" (as per Wiktionary definition), in Singapore the government controls the grass roots organisations and appoints leaders of these groups which then conduct government initiatives, etc., in accordance with gov't policies. - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 02:12, 17 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Why? If it's found in a text clearly written in Scots, then it's a Scots word. There must be diagnostics for telling whether a text is written in Scots or English. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:06, 10 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
There's a challenge for you. But it's not Scots in the same way as doon, brae or auld (some words are also found in Geordieland) or indeed auld lang syne or "Auld Reekie", an old nickname for Edinburgh.
As I see it, it's a question of what are acceptable Scots entries, and I think they should be limited to those that are peculiar to the Scots (and Geordie) dialect. DonnanZ (talk) 17:25, 10 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I definitely don't. We treat Scots as a separate language, which means we include all Scots words, not just the ones that are distinct (orthographically, semantically etc.) from their English equivalents. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:00, 10 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I think Scots must be a borderline case as a language, I would rather call it a dialect. Looking through Category:Scots lemmas more entries like pornography can be found, yet other more worthy candidates have been omitted, such as twinty or twintie and poond - see this spoof of a twenty pound note. I used to know a Glaswegian who asked "hae ye got a poond?" when he needed money for a can of lager. If you can verify the use of pornography in Scots dialect I will withdraw this nomination, not otherwise. DonnanZ (talk) 23:05, 10 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
It's not the obligation of anyone to verify the use of any word on Requests for Deletion. Scots is treated as a language on Wiktionary, and whether or not it uses the same spelling or word as English as irrelevant as it would be for German or French.--Prosfilaes (talk) 02:51, 12 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep. Unsubstantiated claim is not a valid reason for deletion. Questions of whether a word exists in a language are a matter for RFV. The failed RFV would constitute a reason for deletion. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 09:59, 12 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete. Only words (or spellings) that are not used in standard English should be listed as "Scots", otherwise it would just get silly. Mihia (talk) 13:43, 15 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
If we consider Scots a language then it is entirely independent from English vocabulary. If you think that is silly you should advocate for its demotion. DTLHS (talk) 04:10, 16 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
It's not quite that simple: pretty much all speakers of Scots are also speakers of English and often switch between the languages depending on the situation. It's not always easy to be sure that someone isn't switching to English when there isn't a native Scots term for something. I'm not saying that's the case here, but it needs to be kept in mind. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:59, 16 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep in mind that even Kulturwörter from English may have alternative forms that are specific to Scots, like -graphie vs. -graphy. Besides, for verbs a rule like this may lead to deleting the lemma form and keeping the inflected forms, which is also silly. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 09:33, 16 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Surely the question isn't "should we have entries for things that English and Scots speakers refer to by the same term?" but "are English and Scots different languages?". We have already decided the second one by having separate codes and language sections for them. "There will be a lot of tedious repetition" shouldn't really override that, right? Equinox◑05:01, 16 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I believe that common sense should prevail. There might be thousands, possibly even tens of thousands, of ordinary English words that could be attested in a "Scots" context. Having separate "Scots" entries for every one, where the definition is in every case identical to the headword, seems to me to be absurd. Mihia (talk) 19:22, 16 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Yeah, why should we have thousands of Portuguese entries that are just ordinary Spanish words that could be attested in a "Portuguese" context? Having separate "Portuguese" entries for every one, where the definition is in every case identical to the Spanish section, seems to me to be absurd. (Keep, if my sarcasm wasn't obvious enough.) —Μετάknowledgediscuss/deeds01:13, 18 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
The difference is whether any reliable Scots to English dictionaries exist, whether they are online or in book form. I would like to know the answer to that. But even then they may not cover words that don't have a Scots equivalent. I think this will have to go to RFV after all. DonnanZ (talk) 09:21, 18 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
It would seem a lot easier for you to do the searches on Amazon and HathiTrust and judge whether they're reliable in your opinion, rather than for me to do it and trying and summarize the results here.--Prosfilaes (talk) 13:08, 18 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
If any Scots-to-English dictionaries list thousands of standard English words that might be used in Scots dialect with the same meaning, then it would only be to make a point, not to actually serve any useful lexicographical purpose. Mihia (talk) 01:42, 22 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Of course, there are many cases where a word in one language is the same as a word in another. However, the fact that legitimate examples exist does not license the creation of thousands of bogus "Scots" entries. Scots words are distinct dialect words or variant spellings. Ordinary English words like "pornography" are not "Scots". Mihia (talk) 23:51, 22 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Scots is a distinct language from English, just like Portuguese is from Spanish. And if we are to treat it as a dialect, it shouldn't get a separate header from English.--Prosfilaes (talk) 01:11, 23 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Whether Scots qualifies as a distinct language is very debatable. I see that the Wikipedia article says "A 2010 Scottish Government study of 'public attitudes towards the Scots language' found that 64% of respondents [...] 'don't really think of Scots as a language'." In any case, having separate "Scots" entries for words such as "pornography" is patently daft, so if present Wiktionary rules entail this, then the rules need to be looked at again, I would suggest. Mihia (talk) 00:03, 24 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Scots/Scottish spelling variants would have to have entries where they meet general inclusion criteria. I don't think there is any doubt about that. Mihia (talk) 00:03, 24 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I'm not sure whether it should be called a formula, but it's actually recitation rather than an exclamation. And it comes at the end of a prayer (followed by amen), not at the beginning. DonnanZ (talk) 10:00, 12 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
It can come at either the beginning or the end (or both!). It can also be used in other situations, such as during a baptism. I'm kind of torn – on the one hand, it isn't very idiomatic and means pretty much exactly what it says (assuming we have the relevant senses of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit); on the other hand, it might be good as a translation target, especially if there are languages whose corresponding formula isn't a literal translation of this phrase. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 10:40, 12 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I agree that it's a set phrase, but for me the lack of idiomaticity is conclusive. It's not used as a proverb or anything else apart from as part of a prayer, so it's essentially sum-of-parts. — SGconlaw (talk) 12:10, 12 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
It's as much a sentence fragment as any other prepositional phrase, some of which are used in isolation, like up yours. It's use as an opening or closing of a ritual or part of a ritual does not follow from its literal meaning. DCDuring (talk) 21:33, 12 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Even though it's borderline, I am leaning towards keep, especially in the light of the translations that have been dug up, even if most of them are red links. DonnanZ (talk) 23:07, 12 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
To be honest, I added most of those translations, but they're all word for word identical to the English and could be considered just as SOP as the English. But I still can't quite decide whether this is dictionary-worthy or not. I'll have to think some more on it. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:19, 13 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Not quite word for word in Bokmål and Nynorsk, and Nynorsk has no less than four differences in spelling when compared with Bokmål. DonnanZ (talk) 14:39, 13 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete or convert it to a translation target if there are enough non-SOP translations. Use is not limited to rituals and prayers and that it is a specifically Christian formula is obvious if you know enough context—which this dictionary covers. A variant with Holy Ghost instead of Holy Spirit is also attestable, in case this is kept. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 12:11, 13 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
At the very least it's an ellipsis: (the following/preceding prayer/ritual is/was spoken/performed) in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (thereby being performed and valid in trinitarian religions). If my interpretation is correct that would make it a speech act, which are per se idioms. DCDuring (talk) 03:37, 15 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep as a phrasebook entry. It's a useful phrase to any Catholic and many other Christians, but it's not idiomatic enough to be kept as a normal entry. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 20:00, 4 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Generally speaking I'm not keen on hard redirects of misspellings since users may not notice that they have been redirected, and may remain unaware that what they typed was misspelled. Mihia (talk) 13:36, 15 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I'm not keen on hard redirects either as I feel they can be misused, but I thought it may be OK here. However I accept your point. DonnanZ (talk) 15:45, 18 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I disagree that it's sum of parts. I read it somewhere and didn't understand it, which is why I put it in. Beyond that, I don't have strong feelings on it. Ƿidsiþ11:52, 13 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Sorry for the pestering, but I don't think "I didn't understand it" is a sufficient reason for saying it's not SOP. It's simply conserver(“to keep”) + un(“a”) + suivi(“tracking, monitoring”). And it's nowhere near as idiomatic as keep track. --Barytonesis (talk) 08:39, 20 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I'm not sure, a literal reading would suggest a slightly broader meaning to me. Would you use this of any short romance, intentionally or not, or only for a one-off instance of casual sex? Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 10:57, 17 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Interesting, but a phrase rather than a verb, and the header doesn't work very well for links. If there is no parallel English entry, delete. DonnanZ (talk) 09:05, 17 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep - Even if you find use outside of Singapore: The use shown on the page and on the web shows bureaucratic formalization of such committes which lexicalizes the composition beyond its constituent words. And this is definitely one of those things one looks up in one. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 15:26, 19 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Nah. Any non-SoP-ness is encyclopedic. Mihia (talk)
Keep - I believe the use of this term while it may not be exclusive to Singapore is pretty significant to Singaporeans, and the usage does not only show its bureaucratic formation but I believe it goes beyond the constituent words towards relating the term to an identity that Singaporeans could relate to. Missuniverseworldforever (talk)
Delete: regardless of how the entity is formed, ultimately the term is still SoP as it is a committee made up of residents, or dealing with issues relating to residents. Let's say in some fictional country the legislature is made up of people appointed by the absolute ruler of the country instead of being democratically elected. We would still describe this as "a governmental body with the power to make, amend and repeal laws", and I doubt it would be correct for us to add a sense indicating that in XYZ country the legislators are appointed rather than elected. That sort of information is for Wikipedia, not Wiktionary. — SGconlaw (talk) 07:48, 27 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep - actually I believe the term is more than sum or parts, because inherent in the term "residents" is that it is the residents of a block of apartments or an estate of apartment blocks, it is not just any residents - SoP would be a committee of any residents in any meaning of the word, for instance if I form a committee with some people who are all residents of Australia, then I wouldn't call that a "residents' committee". Similarly you can't (or don't) have a residents' committee for people living in detached houses on a certain street, even though they are all residents of the same street. That said, I don't think it is specifically Singaporean, and the def needs changing to a more general def.. - 210.193.45.16300:22, 31 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
When it's just a dance that's happy, the stress pattern is ˌhappy ˈdance and it's SOP. But when it's a dance that expresses happiness (you often hear people say "This is my happy dance!"), then the stress pattern is ˈhappy ˌdance and it isn't SOP. (The stress pattern parallels the difference between ˌhot ˈdog "a very warm canine" and ˈhot ˌdog "a type of sausage". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:34, 20 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
If you were asked to name your "happy place" or "happy song", wouldn't you also stress the first syllable? Should these too have entries on that basis? Possibly the distinction is that stressing "happy" means it's something that makes you happy, while stressing the noun means it's something that is itself happy...? Equinox◑15:43, 20 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I don't think I've heard "happy song" used that way, but I do think happy place is worth an entry. It isn't a place that's happy, it's a place (often just a state of mind, a place in your imagination) that makes you happy. If the usual expressions were "happiness dance" and "happiness place", I'd say they were SOP, but I feel like "happy dance" and "happy place" in the relevant meanings are idiomatic. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:24, 20 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I think the difference in stress pattern has more to do with the nature of the first part rather than whether it's a true compound: "happy dance" seems to be short for something along the lines of "(I-am-)happy dance", and the stress pattern seems to be different for a phrase being used attributively. I can imagine someone saying "she's doing her I'm-hot-and-you're-all-losers dance again", with an equivalent stress pattern. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:35, 20 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
To me, the stress thing seems no different from innumerable other examples such as "Mine is the blue suitcase" or "A good criminal is a dead criminal", where you are emphasising that it is one type of thing rather than another type of thing. Whether the "conveys" part of the supposed definition "a dance that conveys happiness" is sufficient to justify the entry seems rather doubtful to me. Mihia (talk) 00:23, 21 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete. Whether a compound or an adjective + noun, it is still SOP. The entry began as a request for a slang definition, but I can't find anything that seems like a separate meaning. There are some cases where it means "overwhelming experience of the senses or emotions" or "sexual intercourse" that are little more than ad hoc metaphors. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 13:22, 21 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Eirikr: Thanks for the response and the links. So, lemming test is passed but is there another argument for keeping the entry/entries? An English word for "slavery" exists, what's the Chinese for for it? The word is likely to be looked up? We need to have separate CFI for languages such as Chinese and Japanese where word boundaries are not clear. Please note that the Korean and the Vietnamese cognates 노예제도(noye jedo) and chế độnô lệ are not necessarily considered single words (the word order in Vietnamese is reversed). --Anatoli T.(обсудить/вклад)12:31, 23 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion
This word was defined as an Old French alternative to "automne".
The problem is that this is completely false, and it never was a word in French, be it Old, Classic or Modern French.
As for the source: I'm a native french speaker and asked a linguist about this word. Last but not least, there are no uses of this word in french material...
I am looking at several examples of "autompne" right now, but they are Middle French, not Old (late 15C and 16C). Mind you, there's not a lot of Old French in Google Books. I'll modify the entry to Middle French and add the citations. But the statement that "it never was a word in French, be it Old, Classic or Modern French" is not true. --Catsidhe(verba, facta)00:28, 23 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
They seem to be associated with Chinese New Year. They also come in different shapes; I have added an image to the entry, here's another with rolled ones. DonnanZ (talk) 15:48, 30 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep - as per egg tart and treacle tart - these are not tarts filled with pineapple, but rather some pineapple-flavoured concoction; "pineapple-flavoured tart" would be SoP.- Sonofcawdrey (talk) 00:39, 31 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Pineapple tarts are either filled with or topped with sweetened, mashed pineapple. I don't see how this makes it not SoP. The definition itself is essentially "[a] […] pastry filled with pineapple jam". Most food ingredients are processed in some way and not used whole, and I don't think the processing involved in this case has been sufficiently transformative. In the case of egg tarts, for instance, they are filled with an egg-based custard which is quite different from raw eggs. But I wouldn't suggest we add apple tart, rhubarb crumble, etc., simply because the named ingredient has been cooked and sweetened in some way. — SGconlaw (talk) 02:11, 31 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
I think it is more than just a case of being SoP. I for one didn't know what a pineapple tart is, so I have learnt something. I don't think they are well known in the western world, and I wonder whether a Singaporean knows what a Bakewell tart is. BTW, an egg tart sounds a bit like a custard tart in the UK. DonnanZ (talk) 15:47, 31 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep – [The tart is not simply SoP, instead it really is a different kind of tart as compared to any other fruit tart. It's bite-sized yet called a tart, so that one way to see it as being different. The cultural context also plays a part here - in the Singapore context, pineapple tarts aren't open-faced tarts to be sliced and shared. They're called pineapple tarts yet do not fit into the general conventions of how a tart usually looks like. ] - Buluketiakasmara (talk) 04:49, 1 November 2017 (UTC) [moved this here as comment put in wrong place] - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 05:30, 1 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
A type of large Bakewell tart that is sliced for eating
In this case, size doesn't seem like a reliable guide to whether the term is SoP or not. We define a tart as "[a] type of small open pie, or piece of pastry, containing jelly or conserve". However, that covers a wide variety of tarts, including some types of Bakewell tart which are actually the size of a pie and usually sliced for eating (see image), store-bought Bakewell tarts which are much smaller (pictured on the Bakewell tart entry page), and the bite-sized pineapple tarts which are the subject of this discussion. In other words, there is no fixed convention of how large or small a tart is. — SGconlaw (talk) 04:09, 2 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago10 comments7 people in discussion
Seems like it's just fire and at will combined. You can "shoot at will" or "stab at will" or "hit at will" or just "watch TV at will" if, for some bizarre reason, you don't want to harm anyone. 96.70.144.241
Does it? That's the same usage as any other verb. "Sleep!" means "go to sleep now" just like "Fire!" does. "Sleep at will" means "sleep whenever you like" just like "fire at will" does. 96.70.144.24121:55, 29 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete What makes the imperative form so special? march#Verb can be used as a command. We have no verb entry for cease fire or return fire. Though we may have many commands, presumably because they are not completely transparent (not SoP), we are not obliged to have entries for all the commands ever to appear in any English-language military manual. DCDuring (talk) 18:37, 4 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
We should have an entry for cease fire - both as a set phrase for the command to literally stop firing a weapon (and by derivation, to stop being hostile even when no weapon is involved), and as WT:COALMINE attested alternate spelling of ceasefire. bd2412T04:53, 8 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Equinox I mean that the noun is sometimes spelled with the space, i.e., 2004, R. Elizabeth Migliore, Evening Flower: "On August 4 there was a cease fire in Java, the battle had lasted all of two weeks"; 1996, Tom Sine, Cease Fire: Searching for Sanity in America's Culture Wars, p. 280: "I also encourage all of us to begin the cease fire in America's culture war by taking the initiative of inviting someone from the other camp to lunch". bd2412T16:02, 9 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
The first def is SoP. Someone might have thought otherwise because dope most classically in the modern era means heroin, but "smoke dope" is often used for marijuana. But dope is really rather vague and can also mean marijuana (especially in Canada I think? At least in Sunnydale Trailer Park). In any case, any idiomaticity accrues to dope, not smoke dope.
The second def also seems useless IMHO. It's just using an expression non-literally, as all expressions can be used. I can say "he's tripping" even if I know he's not on a hallucinogen, it just means he's acting as though he is on a hallucinogen. I don't see how "smoking dope" is any different.
Delete def 1. Totally SoP. But, if def. 2 is real and attestable, then it should possibly be kept. Though, I don't know the term and wonder if it really is a set phrase with that meaning. Sonofcawdrey (talk) 04:10, 1 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete only def 1, or replace with {{&lit|smoke|dope}}.
Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
In the sense "I used to live out west", I don't think that's a phrasal verb or anything like that. You can move out west, study out west or whatever you want. "out west" is the phrase, not "live out". 2601:14D:C200:3C20:BD92:F635:1B39:2F63
Delete here the prep is just part of a prepositional phrase that is substitutable with any old prep phrase - "I used to live over the hill/on the upper west side/etc".Sonofcawdrey (talk) 04:11, 1 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
I would say so, though I'm still tempted to parallel them with Japanese 語(go) words (I've hardly ever bothered with them though), and I'm a little ambivalent about a few cases like tiếng Anh or tiếng Việt. Unlike Japanese, Korean and Chinese, Vietnamese doesn't distinguish "the UK", "Great Britain" and "England", so it's probably fine to consider tiếng Anh an SoP. Việt could be consider a free morpheme, but then it's usually used in a few compounds in non-literary contexts, so it's harder to tell if tiếng Việt is an SoP. Geez, Vietnamese, give me a break already. Personally, I'm not comfortable with tiếng Afrikaans even being a Vietnamese entry, but this is also a good opportunity to re-evaluate Japanese 語(go) words, Korean 어(eo) words and Chinese 文 words too: are they also SoPs? They do seem to parallel with instances such as 奈良県(Nara-ken), ネコ科 or ドラゴン属(Doragon-zoku), which feature apparent bound morphemes, but also are coined very easily without consideration on how the morphemes would be affected by compounding like, say, Latin Felidae. ばかFumiko¥talk11:27, 30 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
@Fumiko Take: Thanks. I am suggesting to have separate CFI for languages with no clear word boundaries or w:scriptio continua, so that inclusion rules could be decided once and for all, hopefully. tiếng Việt might be one of the few exception, I understand why you hesitate. Is Việt really a productive adjective? tiếng, 語/语 (yǔ), 語(go), 어(eo) or "人" words could be part of the CFI discussion - do we or do we not include words with these suffixes (prefixes) as words? In fact, there is little idiomatic about 中國人/中国人 (Zhōngguórén) - China person or 中國話/中国话 (Zhōngguóhuà) - China speech but dictionaries do include them, so do we. --Anatoli T.(обсудить/вклад)11:51, 30 October 2017 (UTC)Reply
It's true that there is no Vietnamese entry Afrikaans and many other foreign proper nouns, for which there is no equivalent created in Vietnamese or it's rarely used. For a Vietnamese entry Afrikaans, it would be necessary to provide the phonetic respelling but native speakers usually frown upon these words as they are not really considered Vietnamese. For example, "Pakistan" has a native Vietnamese words Pa-ki-xtan, even if English "Pakistan" is also commonly used. It's still an SoP, unless we decide that words containing tiếng merit their entry. For comparison, Thai, Lao, Khmer, Burmese entries with the word "language" have been deleted, as was agreed by knowledgeable editors or native speakers in RFD discussions.
For example, Thai language can be expressed in various ways in Burmese: ထိုင်းနိုင်ငံ ― htuing:nuingngam ― Thailand (country)ထိုင်းစာ ― htuing:ca ― Thai language (written)ထိုင်းဘာသာ ― htuing:bhasa ― Thai language
Keep, not the usual sense of fall - as when a book falls to pieces, nothing has to actually fall anywhere. Certainly not transparent, but just so common in English that it seems transparent. Sense 2 is definitely not understandable from SoP, being a metaphorical extension of sense 1. The fact that we've created an entry for "to pieces" (supposedly being discussed in the Tea room but I cannot see any discussion) is not a good reason for deleting this because it is very unlikely that anyone would look up "to pieces" if they came across "fall to pieces" and wanted to understand its meaning.-Sonofcawdrey (talk) 08:08, 2 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
There is definitely some kind of "standard metaphor" by which a person can be reduced to pieces (by various verbs, even just the flavourless "GO to pieces"). There are other types of breakage that don't really "work": someone would only shatter, crack, or smash in a poetic context, if at all. But "...to pieces" can take a zillion verbs. I feel as though we should cover some of these metaphors (God knows how) but I don't think that creating entries for every possible verb is the way. Equinox◑13:50, 2 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Off the top of my head, I can't think of many of the zillion other verbs - fall, go, bring are the most frequent in this particular sense afaik, - we could just cover these. - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 01:35, 6 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Love, kick, smash, cut, shoot, slice, rip, tear, blast, blow, break, chop, dance, crumble, hack, shred, shatter, dismantle, break, fracture, and spin are some. Most can be found in both literal and figurative usage. DCDuring (talk) 05:06, 6 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
love goes with def 2 "completely, utterly", all of the others go with def 1 "apart" - but I don't think any of these go with sense 4 "into a state of emotional breakdown", which I believe goes with very few verbs and since this is not the most common meaning, nor one that is likely to be understood by someone who doesn't understand "fall to pieces" and wishes to look it up, having an entry is good dictionary practice. Don't we want the dictionary to be as useful as possible? - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 08:38, 7 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
There are lots of verbs that can take the place of take, each giving the expression somewhat different meaning. Fall, kick, crush, even dance. There are also verbs that collocate with into pieces (SoP, IMO), like render, break, some of which work with to pieces also. DCDuring (talk) 13:32, 2 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete. "Critically" in this sense means "by critics", or "in terms of the criticism". Sth can be critically derided, applauded, etc. etc... Equinox◑23:51, 1 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete In cases like this where the collocation is very common (10% of current usage of acclaimed, 2.5% of critically [Google Books]), we really should follow the practice of making sure that one or both of the component terms has a usage example the includes the collocation. I have added one at [[acclaimed]]. DCDuring (talk) 00:06, 2 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete, just a collocation. That said, it is sometimes spelled "critically-acclaimed" where it works as a single compound adjective - this should be in I guess -Sonofcawdrey (talk) 07:58, 2 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Not really. Some people always hyphenate between an -ly adverb and an adjective (though style guides tell you not to); that doesn't make it any more idiomatic. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:02, 2 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
I made this entry after reading T. H. White's The Once and Future King and mistakenly assuming "Gramarye" was a legitimate name for Britain, rather than a joking allusion of White's to a line in a Kipling poem—"Merlin's Isle of Gramarye/Where you and I will fare"—as if Kipling had meant that the island was actually named "Gramarye", and not that it was a "magical" island (see gramarye). To my knowledge this usage is limited to White's novel and therefore does not belong in a dictionary. Zacwill (talk) 17:13, 2 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago4 comments4 people in discussion
Used sarcastically to acknowledge a major mistake.
I think a very large share of all defined meanings can be used pragmatically as sarcasm, humor, etc. It is at most worth a usage note or perhaps a label like: "(often in sarcasm)". DCDuring (talk) 01:03, 4 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete. A while ago I changed the example from something trivial to something "major", but I remember that I was not really happy with it at the time. Mihia (talk) 02:48, 6 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete the def. This is just a jocular use of the usual sense - the info could go into a usage note if it is indeed common enough. That said, I can't say I've heard such a usage much. - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 09:26, 8 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
This isn't the same thing. للبن is لبن plus ل(l). However, لله cannot be split or further reduced. You cannot remove the first ل(l) or any other part of لله. You can't even add vowels or other diacritics. You can only add prefixes, such as ا, as in: الله. —Stephen(Talk)09:57, 4 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
But as we already know, such happens with every combination of the preposition لِ(li) and the definite article. We can “split” those products, لله gives اللّٰه(allāh) and لِ(li). It is already arguable to delete اللّٰه(allāh) because it is SOP (I don’t clearly see why it is not SOP). Creating لِلّٰهِ(lillāhi) goes too far. Also Stephen contradicts himself by stating that the Allah combination cannot be split up while لِلَّبَنِ(lillabani) can be, as this one also omits the article completely and he has glossed it “li-l-labani” while here he analyzes it as “لبن plus ل(l)”. If لِلّٰهِ(lillāhi) shall not be deleted because “it’s a ligature” or “it cannot be split or further reduced”, one can go on and auto-create entries with the preposition لِ(li) for اَلْقُدْس(al-quds) and all names containing the definite article (someone might start to create family name entries somewhen), @Atitarev, @Stephen G. Brown. Palaestrator verborum (loquier) 21:09, 10 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
“lillāhi” is different from “li-l-labani” because it appears even shorter than the lemma despite it having a preposition and there is no indefinite form, so the article can’t be dropped. My argument is not strong, I admit but we should be helpful to users. A kind of soft redirect would be good, and I don’t suggest to keep other prepositional collocations. I’ll let the community decide. —Anatoli T.(обсудить/вклад)01:38, 11 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Palaestrator verborum, what you wrote makes me question your age. I honestly think you're a child. In any case, I'm not wasting more time with this nonsense. —Stephen(Talk)05:25, 11 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Agree with the point about the usage example. This kind of "the X of Y" is a standard pattern of English usage that can be used with essentially any proper noun X. Mihia (talk)
Delete as currently defined (the band). I don't like the "Beatles of the 21st century"-type entries either but we do seem to have a historical consensus of inclusion; I have raised such entries for deletion before and been disagreed with. Equinox◑14:09, 9 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Keep, but alter the definition to cover the genericized use. When something is called the "Rolling Stones" of some field, the relevant point is not that they are a successful and long-lived band, it is that they had that "bad-boy" image, in contrast to the more innocent image of the Beatles. If someone looks up a proper noun like this in the dictionary, as opposed to in an encyclopedia, it is because they want to know what you mean by "the Rolling Stones of voice-over artists." The current definition does not answer that. Kiwima (talk) 03:00, 11 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Latest comment: 6 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion
Bottle of Dog is a Geordie synonym for (a bottle of) Newcastle Brown Ale. The tem is derived from the phrase "taking the dog for a walk" such that to "walk the dog" means to drink Newcastle Brown Ale. I've added a definition to Dog as a synonym for Newcastle Brown Ale (and indeed copied the etymology across to there). It looks to me as though that makes Bottle of Dog redundant as SOP. -Stelio (talk) 11:04, 6 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Here are some examples of the use of "Dog" without "Bottle of"...
2008-01-25, Chronicle Live: The brewery’s most famous brand is Newcastle Brown Ale, or "Dog".
2011-04-04, Beverage Industry: Tied to a tradition in the United Kingdom, Newcastle Brown Ale is asking beer drinkers to “Walk the Dog,” which is a British euphemism for visiting a bar. Newcastle is offering “Walk the Dog” tasting events in select on-premise venues in various cities around the nation. While visiting their favorite establishments, curious “Dog Walkers” will be greeted by Newcastle brand ambassadors who will expound on the virtues of “Walking the Dog,” while offering samples of Newcastle Brown Ale.
2013-06-18, Facebook (The One and Only - Newcastle Brown Ale): It's only Tuesday but who needs a Dog?
2015-02-06, Telegraph: The ale was also dubbed "dog" by drinkers, as they would make the excuse of going to "walk the dog" when nipping out for a sneaky drink.
2015-02-07, BBC News: The beer is one of the best selling in the United States, where, as in the UK, it is also nicknamed "Dog".
2016, Tesco: Did yee knar... ...NewCastle Brown Ale is affectionately known as 'Dog' by those in the know. "I'm gannin' to see a man about a Dog" and "I'm taking the Dog for a walk" were often used by Geordie men as an excuse for visiting their local to sample their beloved tipple.
2016-03-28, Drinking got me thinking...: I usually went for a bottle of Dog. Dog being Brown Ale. Why Dog? It’s called Dog as a reference to someone telling his wife that he was going to walk the dog and nipping to the pub for a pint instead, it’s a real old fashioned Geordie flat cap and whippet image isn’t it. This was part of an old advertising campaign for the beer and the reference has stuck ever since.
2017-02, Beer Advocate: “The Dog,” as it’s popularly known in its home, is one of Britain’s last old-school Brown Ales. But at the same time, it’s very atypical.
Latest comment: 6 years ago16 comments8 people in discussion
This is given a very specific Singaporean definition, but just about every place or group that has a definite beginning and a multi-generational history can be spoken of as having a "pioneer generation", with various nuances in the senses of pioneer and generation used, depending on the context. Yes, there are differences in the context of Singapore, but those are for an encyclopedia article, not a dictionary. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:56, 6 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Although I think "pioneer generation" may have been a good candidate to delete - can I ask, what's the deal with just deleting it without giving other editors who can't check things out every day a chance to vote? Is there some sort of due process, or not? - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 13:54, 7 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
You can still vote on it- entries can be undeleted very easily. I agree, though, that it would have been better to leave it until the vote was done, so people could find out about the vote. I understand why he did it, though: you'd be amazed at the sheer volume of garbage edits we see and deal with every day, and he spends more time than the rest of us dealing with the mess. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:03, 7 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Thanks. I can imagine the amount of utter rubbish that must be getting added - but I feel my imagination must fall short of the reality. Also, I recognise it is a great task that the administrators do and they deserve all praise. I would have liked, however, to see the entry before it was deleted since in the Singapore context the word "pioneer" has a very specific meaning (one imposed by the government, but used throughout the country) that is not captured by the current definitions. So it would have been good to see what had been written even though it was in a transparent compound (i.e. SOP) - Sonofcawdrey (talk) 09:21, 8 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
The def was: "A special group of people born on/before 31 Dec 1949 and possess Singapore citizenship on/before 31 Dec 1986, who are given this title to recognise their contributions to Singapore's early development". Equinox◑20:44, 8 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
I wrote too quickly. Lowercase pioneer is more like millennial. It is in part an honorific and seems to have been defined as an administrative class for purposes of eligibility for certain benefits.
We already cross that line arbitrarily whenever we feel like it. Snow White is a book title. Pecksniff (as defined) is a fictional character. Hundred Years' War is... a war... if we can have a war, I suppose we can have a court. They aren't brands as such (I'm sure the éminences grises are gnashing their teeth and trying to make these things brands). I do suspect we might be too quick to delete apparently-SoP Asian phrases because we (mostly) aren't Asian and they don't mean much to us. — Sgconlaw excepted of course! Equinox◑02:49, 9 November 2017 (UTC)Reply
Delete. This is a fairly normal use of a rhetorical question as an indirect sort of uncomplimentary simile: "Who are you, my mother?", "How old are you, six?", "What are you, an idiot?", "Where did you get your driver's license from, a garage sale?" Chuck Entz (talk) 20:07, 9 November 2017 (UTC)Reply