Wiktionary:Tea room/2020/November

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← October 2020 · November 2020 · December 2020 → · (current)

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antithesis

Should there be a phonetic IPA for this word given that it has an American audio that isn't [æn.ˈtɪ.θə.sɪs] ? Dngweh2s (talk) 01:58, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't know what you're hearing, but the audio I hear at antithesis is /ænˈtɪθəsɪs/. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:02, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

@Mahagaja Your IPA didn't render Dngweh2s (talk) 17:12, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Fixed: the template name is all lowercase, apparently. Should the version with uppercase IPA be a redirect? - -sche (discuss) 17:46, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

@-sche: Thanks for fixing my IPA; a redirect would be a good idea. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:08, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

@Mahagaja I thought it was [eə̯n.ˈtɪ.θə.sɪs] Dngweh2s (talk) 19:21, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't say so. Her /æ/ may be slightly raised, but not as far as [e], nor is there any diphthongization that I can hear. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:28, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

of one's own

I've found four idiomatic expressions that make use of that prepositional phrase. Are there others? PUC – 14:10, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

I hope you don't mind, but I've moved these four expressions, that have separate articles, to the "See also" section, and put a "plain" usex against the definition. Mihia (talk) 18:55, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

I've moved them to a "derived terms" section, but yes, it's probably better not to have them as usexes. PUC – 14:29, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Very strictly speaking, I think that these should be "related terms", but the intended distinction between "derived" and "related" (or what I think is the intended distinction) is in practice not consistently observed across Wiktionary. Mihia (talk) 15:06, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I notice that even classifying these as "related terms" is not really supported by WT:EL, which describes "related terms" as "words in the same language that have strong etymological connections but aren’t derived terms". In practice this category is very often used for multi-word compounds that incorporate the headword/headphrase, something that WT:EL does not even mention. We really ought to go through this text some time, and review how all these sections should be used, or even if we want so many. Mihia (talk) 15:13, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

up (5)

Alleged noun sense:

An upstairs room of a two story house.

She lives in a two-up two-down.

In the given example, is "up" really a noun meaning "an upstairs room"? Mihia (talk) 15:07, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

up to

Adjective sense:

maximum of.

Violators may face a fine of up to $300.

Putting aside for the moment the fact that the definition isn't substitutable anyway, does anyone think that this is an adjective as claimed? For comparison, we presently classify e.g. "nearly" in "nearly 3,000 exoplanet candidates" and "about" in "about three thousand men" as adverbs. Noting that "up to" also has a preposition sense "As much as; no more than", with example "You can make up to five copies". Mihia (talk) 18:45, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Ingrian hot + pron/det

I have created these entries back in February (hot ken (“whoever”), hot kuka (“whichever”), hot mikä (“whatever”)) and I have just realized that hot may be a particle in this case. Other known usages are hot konz (“whenever”), hot miks (“whyever”), hot mihe (“whereverto”), hot millikke viissii (“however”), hot mist (“whereverfrom”), hot miz (“wherever”). Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Thadh (talk) 20:34, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Bill of Rights

Surely this is not "American English" but rather the title of a document that happens to be from the United States? ---> Tooironic (talk) 04:42, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

This is an issue I keep intending to raise but forgetting. What is the correct label for a specialized term in American (US) law? I have seen (law, US), (US, law), (US law), and I think a fourth too. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 10:41, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

I would use "US law". Mihia (talk) 15:13, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

It is not a term only known to and used by lawyers, in a legal setting, or in legal documents, but part of general discourse in the US. Therefore, I would argue for {{lb|en|US}}.

Almost all references to the Bill of Rights refer not to the document George Washington had made up for transmission to the states, but to the first ten amendments to the Constitution. The wording may be identical, but the referent is not to an ordinary document, but to the words in the Constitution, as amended, where they have legal force. The Constitution does not anywhere contain the term bill of rights. DCDuring (talk) 23:38, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

The problem with the label "US" is, as mentioned by Tooironic, that this normally denotes "American English", i.e. words or expressions not used by English speakers elsewhere. The same is true of other national labels. In contrast, "Bill of Rights" is not an expression unused by speakers outside the US, but rather an expression used by anyone anywhere to refer (in the relevant sense) to something that exists in America. Mihia (talk) 23:54, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Ahem. w:Bill of Rights 1689. And despite the title of the Wikipedia article, this is generally referred to as The Bill of Rights. --ColinFine (talk) 17:25, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I would expect that outside the US the first use in a printed work would be of a form like the US Bill of Rights. Each use thereafter would be an anaphora, DCDuring (talk) 17:32, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't think so, necessarily. I think that the context being US can be, and in practice often is, established without literally using the exact phrase "the US Bill of Rights". Mihia (talk) 17:58, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

herre

Can someone check the pronunciation of the Swedish word? I don't think the mid tone (¯) is used in that language. Glades12 (talk) 10:10, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Looks inconsistent with Wiktionary:About_Swedish/Pronunciation. Pitch accents are marked with other symbols. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 10:44, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

élan#French

... audio seems to be wrong. --Akletos (talk) 13:21, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

• Nah, he's saying "un élan", that's all. I think there's a whole bunch on French audios which randomly have un/une/le/la/l' at the beginning. If anyone wants brownie points, they can look for them Tampswab (talk) 15:42, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

  Many Swedish nouns (in Category:Swedish terms with audio links) have an almost identical problem. Most or all of them were added by a bot that also didn't include information like the speaker's dialect (it's apparently an older woman from Gotland). Glades12 (talk) 20:04, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Election Day

(US, politics) The day on which general elections are held in the United States: the Tuesday following the first Monday in November.

AFAIK, "Election Day" in any English-speaking country simply means a day when an election is to be held, especially an important or significant one, and especially a national election. Is there any reason why this term deserves a special "US" definition? In fact, is there any reason why it is not SoP, merely "election" + "day"? (In any event, per the comment above on "Bill of Rights", I suppose the label "US, politics" should be changed to "US politics", as this is not American English but rather a description of an American event in universal English.) Mihia (talk) 15:11, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

• I've simplified it and removed the US-centric text. SemperBlotto (talk) 15:15, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I think this has exposed the SoPness of this entry, so I have listed it at RFD. Mihia (talk) 18:19, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Why not have the US definition? It is a proper noun in the US context. What are the corresponding days of elections called in Canada, UK, Australia, NZ, Ireland, etc? I agree that election day is more likely to be SoP, but I'm not sure that it would prove to be so. DCDuring (talk) 23:21, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

I can partially answer my second question myself. In most parliamentary systems, there is no designated day for elections, so the definition, whatever term is used, would be different and more likely SoP. DCDuring (talk) 23:25, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

I know this might be more of a case for WT:BP, but how are multi-word terms consisting of only nouns SoPs? From a grammatical point of view, these are nonsensical without the appropriate context and furthermore aren't any different from "regular" compounds except for being multi-word. Thadh (talk) 16:23, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I hope very much that we widely (actually I would have thought universally) agree that "noun + noun" compounds can be SoP. Otherwise we would need to include a trillion combinations such as "church roof" or "saucepan lid". Mihia (talk) 18:10, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

May your hopes not be in vain. I would not be surprised, though, to find some radical inclusionists who are not in agreement. DCDuring (talk) 18:29, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't like the idea of including "church roof" as well, but we ought to draw a better line than "multi-word". Why is "church window" more SoP than German Kirchenfenster (and the over 400(!) others provided at Kirche)? Thadh (talk) 19:29, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

It isn't. Logically, SoPness does not depend on whether a multi-component term is written with a space or without. coalmine is no less SoP than coal mine, for instance. However, in practice, while the SoP principle is relatively easy to apply to spaced multi-word terms (albeit there are of course debated cases), it is more problematic applying it to single words for various reasons. Mihia (talk) 20:33, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

I doubt that rules for inclusion for English terms and applicable to other languages and vice versa. More outrageous is the ratchet principle by which a term being included in any language supposedly compels some kind of entry in English, with the translation table then compelling entries in all other languages (limited only by attestation). DCDuring (talk) 22:17, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Quote at helm

The quote is The kynge Ban be-gan to laugh vndir his helme., given as "Merlin". The only hits I get are for Merlin Or the Early History of King Arthur: A Prose Romance (about 1450-1460) from the Early English Text Society, published in the 1860s. I'm assuming the text in question is Of Arthour and of Merlin, but not that sure. Best to check before making any changes Tampswab (talk) 15:36, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

see for yourself

We have no entry for see for yourself (or see for oneself), which I suspect would be challenged as SOP, but which I also think has an idiomatic sense of resolving disbelief. I figured I'd bring the question here in advance of making an entry. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:22, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

A couple of lemmings have it. DCDuring (talk) 23:16, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Audio at respite

The speaker clearly is saying something like [ɹəˈspaɪt] (accent on 2nd syllable, no stress, not even secondary, on 1st) while the IPA that is given (apart from /ˈɹɛspɪt/) reads /ˈɹɛˌspaɪt/; is this pronounciation possible at all? Should what is said be added as an alternative or replace the latter? --Akletos (talk) 06:39, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

The New Oxford American Dictionary app on my computer gives "ˈrɛspət, riˈspaɪt", so it would seem to be quite possible, if we assume a bit of pre-accented-syllable reduction of the first vowel. Whether that's what we actually have here is another matter. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:27, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

かっこいい

The Japanese word 格好(かっこ)いい (kakkoii) means manly beauty or impressiveness. When describing a person, handsome or good-looking work fine. In other cases, it’s usually translated as cool, but this sense of cool seems to be rather dated in English. かっこいい音楽 is usually translated as cool music, but it’s different from the original Japanese, which often means upbeat or heavy music and rarely soft songs or ballads. It seems to me badass is the closest English word, but its register doesn’t match; かっこいい is not at all vulgar, and can be used in any situation. Is there any good English translation for it? (@Atitarev, Eirikr, Suzukaze-c) — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 09:49, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

where (conjunction)

Meaning 5 is marked as "(law)". I don't believe it is restricted to legal contexts at all, and would like to remove the note. Comments? --ColinFine (talk) 17:34, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

• Do you have a sighting of that sense in the wild? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 17:35, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
• I agree. No reason at all for that label IMO. Mihia (talk) 18:17, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

so

Does anyone believe that any/many of the alleged interjections at so#Interjection are actually interjections? To me, some at least seem more like conjunctions. Mihia (talk) 19:03, 3 November 2020 (UTC)