Wiktionary:Tea room/2022/May

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← April 2022 · May 2022 · June 2022 → · (current)

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Latin vernus = crocus?

The Wikipedia article Crocus vernus cites Dr. Peter Jarvis, The Pelagic Dictionary of Natural History of the British Isles, who writes: “Vernus is Latin for both ‘vernal’ and ‘crocus’.” Is there a factual basis for this claim? (I can believe that the term flos vernus (“spring flower”) has been used as a name for the crocus, but that does not make vernus mean crocus.)  --Lambiam 13:47, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Maybe it does not mean mean that in the sense of commonly understood, but clipping is a valid word formation process and it could be a rare poetic epithat. This isn't RfV, what's your point? 141.20.6.200 13:07, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

hasten

In the infrequent times when I pronounce hasten, it almost always has an audible t, similarly sometimes for often, but never for whistle, chasten, and others. Is that just me? DCDuring (talk) 14:52, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

So far I've found only MWOnline has the audible t pronunciation, which they list first. Even AHD ignores that pronunciation. DCDuring (talk) 14:58, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Personally I wouldn't say it that way. We are from different regions, however. Vininn126 (talk) 15:06, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

I say /ˈheɪ.sən/; no audible t. Tharthan (talk) 02:44, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Like the above two commenters I don’t have an audible t either. I think I have heard it with a t on rare occasions from native English speakers but I can’t remember the specifics about when and where I’ve heard that pronunciation and which country or region the speaker was from, I just have a vague inkling that I’ve heard it before and thought it to be a bit peculiar. None of the U.K. or Aus speech examples on Youglish are of someone saying it with the t pronounced and the same goes for the first 40 of the 462 American speech examples [1] but I got bored looking after that. Overlordnat1 (talk) 08:59, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Maybe it isn't used enough in my hearing to provide me with a reason not to resort to spelling pronunciation. DCDuring (talk) 10:56, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

An audible t in hasten is simply incorrect. The t in often appears in the UK to have become pronounced by many as a reading pronunciation after the introduction of universal literacy in the 19th century, but is also prescriptively incorrect. Of'n is the correct pronunciation. DCDuring's post is a reminder that native speakers don't always have good pronunciation.2A00:23C8:A7A3:4801:A966:B4CA:DD7B:F8A4 20:09, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Lol Vininn126 (talk) 20:11, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster is falling into error, having had it right in my 1993 print edition of their 3rd International, but now claiming that the 't' ought be pronounced, though it allows the 'silent'-t as a second pronunciation. I checked Google N-Grams on the relative frequency of hasten and hurry in the US. Hastened has been in steady decline since about 1845, at which point its use equaled that of hurried. Hurried nearly matched the absolute amount of decline, but was used almost twice as frequently in 1977, when its use soared, reaching more than six times the usage of hastened in 2019. British English showed almost the same pattern, but with the rise of hurried being delayed until just after 2000. My theory is that because hasten is not much spoken anymore, probably due to the general decline of civilization, that speakers increasingly resort to a spelling-based pronunciation. There are other explanations for the decline of hasten relative to hurry. Maybe we live in an age in which hastening/hurrying is increasingly done transitively, but possible transitive use of hasten has been forgotten. Maybe in the decline of civilization we can't handle a word that differs from its corresponding noun by even a single letter. DCDuring (talk) 05:52, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

"Hasten" is in decline, but it is frequently heard in the phrase "I hasten to add". That one phrase may account for the majority of uses in speech. 2A00:23C8:A7A3:4801:8DD7:9064:77A:8731 12:50, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

Relatedly, interesting is intéressant, so the t must have been inserted by analogy. Nobody uses a gerund or participle, cf. vb. interest, "Action films don't really interest me." ≠ "* Action films aren't really interesting _ me". The preposition "to" should be evidence of epenthesis and rebracketing Action films aren`'t really interssentᵊ me" (cp. Ger. interessiert mich nich, interessiert wieder keinen, nicht von interesse), though MLat. shows similar usage, "Qui Matutinis intererit a principio de", "Interesse panis". Imaginably, the insertion is from assimilation to the t in inter- that could otherwise go lost, as I'm sure I heard inneressing often enough. Converesely, I want to say that a morphological explanation from desiderative exponents would of been a possibility. 141.20.6.200 12:42, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

tragacionista

This obviously has a problematic definition. "And they deny that", apart from the poor style of starting sentences twice with this ponderous opening, is no way to expand even in a non-gloss definition; it is also an issue that the categorical subclauses are either dubious (it is widely known that vaccines have side effects) or politically contentious (stating that it is generally true that governments use coronavirus as an expedient to commit abuses violates NPOV).
Additional attestations: [2] [3] ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 18:12, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

The definition provided is in fact a gloss definition, not a non-gloss definition. An example of a non-gloss definition would be "Word used to refer to people who deny..."; "A person who denies..." is a gloss, since you could substitute that phrase for the word tragacionista in a sentence.

The edit by Lambiam after this thread was started greatly clarified the meaning, assuming it is correct. One could potentially even simplify it down to "Someone who supports the official account...", avoiding the potentially confusing double negative, but there may be difference if e.g. the term is only used for people who actively argue for the position, against detractors, and not those who passively accept it.

My personal suggestion for improvement would be to add citations of the term that provide context; the current ones don't clarify its usage, but do at least attest to the term's existence. 98.170.164.88 20:30, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Presumably the term is used by covid/vaccine "skeptics"/conspiracy theorists? In which case, it would be helpful to note that (although I guess "derogatory" sort-of implies it to some extent). - -sche (discuss) 04:22, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

hit different

Worth an entry? PUC – 11:17, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Meaning? DCDuring (talk) 12:01, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Usually in reference to drugs, media, etc., meaning it has a stronger/unusual effect on the receiver. Vininn126 (talk) 12:08, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

That just seems like different#Adverb. DCDuring (talk) 14:07, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

Which sense of hit#Verb is being used here? Is it sense 12? It can be used for things other than drugs. Further, the person is the object of the verb, not the subject. 98.170.164.88 20:22, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

I think its just plain old sense 1, used metaphorically, just as we use metaphors like "it hit me like a ton of bricks" .... as you say it's definitely not just for drugs .... it's for anything that can be forceful, even metaphorically... e.g. "the new hot sauce definitely hits different". —Soap— 22:45, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Should we add a subsense to cover this metaphorical use? It would not be clear to a non-native speaker, and the label for sense 1 has "physical" which does not apply. 98.170.164.88 01:16, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

I don't know about younger English, only that anders is used in an ameliorative(?) sense quite recently, intensive anders geil and eventually just anders. Is that perhaps a calque? ApisAzuli (talk) 04:27, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

I was trying to find a definition in our entry for hit, but then it hit me: we may not have all the definitions that other English dictionaries have. AHD has a definition "suddenly arose in the mind of", which seems quite metaphorical, though I'm not sure what literal base definition fits. Most other dictionaries don't have AHD's definition. Some dictionaries have "affect, especially negatively", but we omit "especially": "affect negatively". Perhaps a revised definition like "affect, especially strongly or negatively" would cover this and many other 'figurative' senses. DCDuring (talk) 05:05, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm inclined to say we should have an entry at hit different because:

1. hit different means that the experience was better/fuller/more insightful/richer, which isn't obvious at all by the adverb "different". It's not merely unusual, because it can only ever mean the experience was more impactful, not less.
2. Are there any other adverbs that would work with such a sense of hit? While you could probably cite "hit differently", I don't think "uniquely" or "unusually" could be used in the same way ("that hit unusually"), which by rights they should be if this were SoP. As constructions, they go over the line from unusual-but-plausible to non-viable, which makes me think that this is a set phrase rather than a mere collocation.

Theknightwho (talk) 19:57, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

The normal start by a lexicographer adding a new definition is to find cites that illustrate the novel usage. Do we have any of these? DCDuring (talk) 20:19, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

genius delivers. ApisAzuli (talk) 02:45, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

congratufuckulations

I'm not sure exactly what to do with this one: it's very rare, but I can find at least two uses, so an rfv would probably be a waste of time. It's definitely SOP, with an infinitely productive vulgar infix, but we don't recognize unhyphenated single blocks of letters in English as SOP according to CFI. Maybe we should just clean up the definition a little. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:51, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps a "vulgar emphatic form of congratulations" label would suffice for such things. Vininn126 (talk) 15:03, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Strictly requiring cifuckingtations might reduce any pofuckingtential flood of such entries. DCDuring (talk) 16:37, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

You can't be too strict on requiring the citations yet, because Wiktionary is still on baby-level in terms of citing anything. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 13:02, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

It's a matter of discretion. Simply applying our existing rules strictly is a fairly good way of addressing minor problems without adding additional rules. DCDuring (talk) 14:24, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

An "infinitely productive vulgar infix"? i know American linguists, McWorther e.g., do like to riff on this usage, but isn't the joke in this one that it sounds like -u-fuck-u- as the reduplicated vowel indicates, plausible because congrat- is recognized as a morpheme (in contrast to unaccented ci- or po-), somewhat like a jocular Australian yer counts? Because it licenses emphasis through a repetitive rhythm, "philla-fuckin-delphi-a", it cannot be infinitesimally productive. Stop telling people that, or they will use it even liberallier.

Also, it's remarkable that, surely, you are concerned only because the slur word triggered a warning. How infatuating.

As regards your stance on unhyphenated spelling forbidding the SoP argument, you should make liberal use of the spelling mistake loop-hole. Not that I'm a friend of that, but I really wouldn't know how to read the word with-out. 141.20.6.200 12:54, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Plural of сто (Ukrainian and Russian), and some questions about etymology

How would we say I have hundreds of hryvnias In Ukrainian? Our Ukrainian declension chart for сто shows no plurals—and even in Russian, the chart shows no form for nominative plural. I am a very new student of Ukrainian, but when I look at the last part of words like двісті (for which we, unfortunately, do not provide an etymology) and п'ятсот (for which the etymology simply equates сот with "hundred"), I see what look to me like plural forms (nominative and genitive, respectively). Turning to триста and чотириста, we see that ста is a genitive (etc.) form of сто. I assume that is singular, but that seems inconsistent with the convention that the numbers 2, 3, and 4 are followed by a nominative plurals. Peter Chastain (talk) 07:02, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Peter Chastain: To express “hundreds”, a nominalised word со́тня (sótnja) used, in both Ukrainian and Russian, eg “сотні гривень” is “hundreds of hryvnias” in Ukrainian. The other words you listed are regular numerals.

As for the endings. Number 1; 2 to 4 and > 5 all have different endings. It’s a bit of grammar with numerals you need to know. I will give you a link or explain later if you need to know more. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 08:01, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

@Peter Chastain The Wikipedia articles on various Slavic grammars, particularly the numerals, all have pretty good explanations. Vininn126 (talk) 09:03, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

🤦‍♀️ and 🤦‍♂️

These are given as "alternative form of [emoji that looks identical]". I can see some sort of gender modifier (?) in the URL but the main form and alt form in each case look identical. So what do these entries mean, and what are they achieving for Wiktionary? Equinox ◑ 15:54, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

They don't look identical to me - the first is female and the second male on Windows 11. That should probably be explained. Theknightwho (talk) 19:44, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

To me, 🤦‍♂️ (FACE PALM + ZWJ + MALE SIGN) looks identical to 🤦 (FACE PALM alone). The female version, however, appears different on my screen. I'm sure some fonts distinguish the male and gender-neutral versions, but apparently not the default emoji font installed on my system. 70.172.194.25 20:09, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Given the above: it's possible to use modifier characters to change a picture into a gendered picture on some systems. Is this in our remit? I think not. If they were separate chars (like 0x09 is a boy and 0x0F is a girl) then yes, but if there is a specific "make it male/female" modifier, why is that lexical? Shall I RFD? Equinox ◑ 03:42, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

We should have policy on this, BTW, because it is probably pretty widespread, or will be, e.g. female Santa with skin-tone-4. That's great, Apple, thanks, but it's not a dictionary entry, OR IS IT? What would OED think? Equinox ◑ 03:56, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

"Crop" as a verb - meaning missing (BDSM-only?)

I know that crop may be used as a verb, similar to whip, but the article does not mention such use. May it be added (if sourced)? In addition, cropping lacks such a meaning altogether as well.--Adûnâi (talk) 01:52, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

A verb crop is listed, in the sense of snipping off a part. Do you have another verb in mind?  --Lambiam 14:43, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

Presumably they mean a verb based on these nominal senses of crop: "The lashing end of a whip; An entire short whip". So "to crop" would be "to whip". Some uses: [4], [5], [6], [7]. 70.172.194.25 20:04, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

You're right and it's not BDSM-only: "She cropped the horse into a comfortable canter" (found in some recent shitty romance novel). Go ahead. I've added it. Equinox ◑ 04:04, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

girl

The connotation of girl "cocaine" is quite opaque. If there's no logical explanation at hand, this should be phono-semantic matching from a foreign word, perhaps of Indian English extraction. I'm surprised to find that cream has no Indo-Iranian cognates. Regardless, powder#translations delivers eg. Assamese guri (“powder”), but I cannot confirm a sense of drugs for any of the attractive phono-semantic matches.

At best I can relate that Farsi گل (gol, “rose, flower”) may be "cannabis" in the streets, that's likely hashish more often than bud (viz. flower); a relation to alcohol would have to be rather deep (Fa. gh ~ g are described as allophones, but my informant rejects this). Given the Andean provenience of yay, any Central Asian etymology would more likely have to stem from the Opium trade, surely, and gol happens to be a homonym for "hero". I have more, but I know it's time to stop when I end up in Sumerian.

I could care less about the origin only to deny that the good word is tainted, and a separate section would expose it even more, so I should hope for plausible deniability if somebody knows a good folk etymology.ApisAzuli (talk) 03:35, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Maybe white girl will help? Equinox ◑ 03:41, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, doesn't rule out guri possibly having a subsense. ApisAzuli (talk) 03:54, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Your etymology is really wacky, it's much more likely that it just comes from "cocaine is white" -> "white girl" (maybe some connection to US racial divide) -> "girl". I don't think we need alien pyramid theories about this. Equinox ◑ 03:58, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

With all due respect, calling it "powder" is reasonable, as the synonyms Bolivian marchingpowder and German Marschierpulver might suggest; India is a probable vector to English. The comparison to gol could be secondary evidence because the etymology of the Sanskrit etymon that underlies Assamese is uncertain. Admittedly, I have confused the Sanskrit d for l because l ~ r is quite common and there is another etymon that shows l, tangentially relevant for the previous gyros thread where Schabefleisch (ie. gyros) could relate to scabs as grind relates to Grint ("scabs") and cream. ApisAzuli (talk) 04:25, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Nothing you say ever makes any sense. Equinox ◑ 04:28, 7 May 2022 (UTC)