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)

RfV is for entries on Wiktionary. This is not about Wiktionary. It is a request for information about the meaning(s) of a term. Perhaps golden has been used as a rare clipping of a poetic epithet to mean chrysanthemum, but that is not a licence to claim that “Golden is English for both ‘gold-coloured’ and ‘chrysanthemum’.”  --Lambiam 14:02, 8 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)

Most contemporary lyrics are like most contemporary poetry in not providing clear illustrations of the meaning of an expression. DCDuring (talk) 21:36, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Like almost all language, the difference being whether you allow yourself to be judgemental about it. ApisAzuli (talk) 22:13, 9 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)

For me, the 'default face palm' shows up as the woman (identical to the 'female face palm') and the 'male face palm' is the different one, so there's some inconsistency between systems. As Equinox says, there are a lot of variants due to the possibility to apply gender and skin-tone modifiers. I'm not sure whether it'd be better to redirect all the variants to the default glyph and mention/show the main variants there like how we handle fullwidth letters, or have separate entries with more information definitions. I can see some marginal utility to being able to look up an emoji and find out what the base emoji is and what modifiers have been applied. - -sche (discuss) 08:16, 7 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)

It's a bit like upper versus lower case, and roman versus italics. That may or may not have lexical significance, depending on actual use.  --Lambiam 11:11, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

In general the significance of the skin tone or gender is that it reflects the speaker's; at first blush I might not consider this to be an overly dictionary-entry-worthy thing (like Equinox), but it does seem to have parallels to having different affixes for a woman speaker vs a man speaker, or for one caste or social rank vs another, like some languages do... - -sche (discuss) 00:18, 10 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)

No, right, and thug means "bandit" and wasn't instrumentalized by the Brittish government to instigate hatred? Might be I misunderstood the counter claim. ApisAzuli (talk) 04:49, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

For comparison, in slang, "boy" means heroin. The terms "boy" and "girl" (or whiteboy and whitegirl) are often found juxtaposed in reference to drugs. Your theory doesn't explain this part.

Further, {{R:Partridge New|entry=girl|page=868}} claims a US origin from the 1950s so it would be weird for it to be from Assamese.

Cassell's Dictionary of Slang gives an even more detailed explanation for "boy" [8] and "girl" [9]: the type of thrill given by the drugs is variously seen as "masculine" or "feminine". The list of synonymous slang terms for cocaine ("lady", "her", "missy", various female names) and for heroin ("big daddy", "him", "mister", various male names) also makes me think it's fundamentally about gender, not a phonological corruption of an Eastern language. 70.172.194.25 04:50, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Right. But have you ever tried taking a bone away from a dog? Equinox ◑ 04:58, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

So I'm trying to whitewash sexist propaganda now, except I'm not sure which part of it is myth. There's no surprise that synonyms and antonyms will be used if they are readily available, so this is no strong point. It beares mention that hero-ine is precedented to be feminine, but this won't tip the scale. ApisAzuli (talk) 06:18, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

schizoid, call a doctor Equinox ◑ 06:28, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

This is simply a case of Occam's razor: unlike opium, cocaine has always come from South American sources, and this a term from US urban slang with no reason to assume borrowing from Asia. No one cares about whether anything is "tainted", nor does this involve anything having to do with gender politics. You're obviously just desperately searching for some exotic hidden explanation so you can feel like you discovered something- but sometimes reality is dull and ordinary. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:45, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Not that it is relevant to the overall point, but just to be pedantic, English heroin derives from German Heroin, originally a trademark. Note that the German noun is of neuter gender. The German suffix -in can be used to create feminine forms of words, but it is also separately used to create (neuter-gendered) names of chemicals.

More to the point, the peer-reviewed article at doi:10.1080/13648470.1999.9964574 contains interviews with actual drug users who describe their gendered model of the two drugs, including reference to the slang words "boy" and "girl". It's not "sexist propaganda"; it's the most plausible and well-documented hypothesis for the origin of the words. And even if you think the idea of explicitly imposing the gender binary onto the two drugs came later, it seems much more likely that the terms originate from the ordinary English words "boy" and "girl" than from Persian, especially considering the social milieu in which the words were historically used. 70.172.194.25 06:49, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Anything you said is not only irrelevant. It's also what Equinox has said. ApisAzuli (talk) 22:28, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

• For analogy consider Vietnamese, i. bột, "powder", "flour". ii. nàng tiên (I can't parse vi.WT), literally means both C. or H. and is explained as "white fairy", nàng, SV "lady"; we have angel dust, which I thought was PCP. iii. tóc vàng hoe - blond "fair-haired person" – the coda gives it away, vàng, SV "yellow", "gold", like bạch bạc, trắng, "white", "silver", and somewhere there is "gray" in it, too, as well as "small". ApisAzuli (talk) 09:28, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

Imagine if all the effort of this total bullshit nonsense discussion had gone into creating new entries, or heating a shelter for poor people. FOCUS, FOCUS. When I have the choice between doing boring entry clean-up that an AI bot will be able to do in 10 or 20 years, versus writing a definition that only a human can understand... Well, don't waste your time, everybody. (You could also totally drop Wiktionary and go out for a nice walk in the park.) Equinox ◑ 06:52, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

The return on simply reading, citing, and correcting our existing entries may be even higher than that on creating new entries. DCDuring (talk) 21:45, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Seemingly duplicate definitions at שלי

The entry שלי has the following two definitions:

1. Form of שֶׁל (shel) including first-person singular personal pronoun as object.
2. Form of שֶׁלְּ־ (shel'-) including first-person singular personal pronoun as object.

I'm confused why both of these words are listed since they are essentially the same word. I was about to delete one of the definitions (שֶׁלְּ־) from the list, but I hesitated since they have been there since the beginning of the page, in 2009. Is it okay to delete one, or am I missing something? Thanks! Llama Linguist (talk) 19:59, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

If I'm understanding this correctly, שֶׁל was not used as a standalone word in the Hebrew Bible, ancient manuscripts, and Talmud; instead שֶׁלְּ־ was prepended to the word that followed. So in the context of the Hebrew used in those documents, שלי could not be considered a form of the former, as it did not exist. Semantically these interpretations are equivalent, though. 70.172.194.25 03:40, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I think I understand now. I'll leave it the way it is. Thanks! Llama Linguist (talk) 04:35, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Error with wikipedia pages

There's this page called https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=card-carrying_Communist&action=edit&redlink=1 Thank links to nothing instead of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card-carrying_communist Can someone fix it I think they are supoosed to link to the same thing — This unsigned comment was added by 141.157.228.115 (talk) at 14:38, 8 May 2022.

User:Chuck Entz has resolved the issue by removing the link from card-carrying. The term card-carrying Communist would likely be disqualified from having an entry according to our "sum of parts" policy, so this seems like a reasonable course of action. 70.172.194.25 17:24, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

געווינס

Can someone figure out why געווינס (gevins) is in CAT:Requests for transliteration of Yiddish terms with Hebrew-only letters? I can't find any words with Hebrew-only characters that haven't been correctly transliterated there. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:58, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

It's coming from the usage example template. The code that is adding it is here. 70.172.194.25 17:17, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Specifically, it is due to {{...}}, which expands to <span class="q-hellip-sp"> </span><span class="q-hellip-b">[</span>…<span class="q-hellip-b">]</span><span class="q-hellip-b"> </span>. This string contains the character q, which it doesn't like. In the output HTML it's even changing the class names to a-hellip-sp, etc. 70.172.194.25 18:01, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

That was it. I replaced {{...}} with the character ⟨…⟩, and that solved the problem. Thanks for your help! —Mahāgaja · talk 19:35, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Pinging User:Erutuon or anyone else who might be able to fix the underlying issue, though, since the module freaking out at {{...}} and changing the span-class seems like... not desired behaviour? - -sche (discuss) 02:18, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

clan/clang

Watching a film called knuckle about bare-knuckle boxing bouts between the feuding Irish traveller/gypsy clans, the Quinns and the Joyces, currently available on NetFlix (at least in the U.K.), I was struck by the way that many of the travellers said the word ‘clan’ as ‘clang’! Has anyone else come across this quirky pronunciation? Would we say it’s a dialect pronunciation or code-switching into Shelta/Gammon/Cant? Overlordnat1 (talk) 20:33, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Ukrainian pronoun щось

Is щось always neuter, and should we indicate that in the dictionary entry? Peter Chastain (talk) 00:13, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Example: вони роблять щось нове Peter Chastain (talk) 00:23, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

@Peter Chastain: Easily fixed with |g=n. Yes, it's a neuter. Good point. Anything derived from що (ščo, “what”) is a neuter and anything derived from хто (xto, “who”) is a masculine. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:27, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

楮 (chǔ)

It seems highly likely that this character, instead of having the two independent senses of mulberry and paper, has the single sense of paper mulberry (i.e. the tree). Can an expert in Chinese confirm? 98.110.52.138 04:11, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Just based on English sources like this one, I agree. The dual definition goes all the way back to its importation by bot from the Unihan database in 2003, and the definitions in that database are notoriously unreliable. For those unfamiliar, this is a tree related to the mulberry whose inner bark is used in East Asia to make a very high-quality paper (it's also the source of Polynesian tapa cloth). Chuck Entz (talk) 05:24, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

FWIW, the Chinese Wikipedia has w:zh:楮 as Broussonetia kazinoki (their article about Broussonetia papyrifera, corresponding to w:Paper mulberry, is w:zh:構樹). - -sche (discuss) 06:33, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

half

We have two "Preposition" senses:

1. (UK, Ireland) Half past; a half-hour (30 minutes) after the last hour.
2. (in some languages but rarely in English) A half-hour to (preceding) the next hour; i.e. 6.30="half (to) seven"

I imagine the second sense is attested in English somewhere, but presumably it needs a regional label. Where in the world is this used? Is it just {{lb|en|NNSE}}? This, that and the other (talk) 13:13, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Most of what I can find are explanations of other languages' practices (many, perhaps all, might be dismissed as mentions), or instances of it being put into the mouths of characters who are speaking about (or in) their native region's/language's practice (e.g. "Half eight is 7:30 here"), although it seems to have also been truly used in the dialects of originally-non-English-speaking communities who became natively English-speaking, e.g. the Pennsylvania Dutch and perhaps other German/Dutch/Scandinavian immigrant communities in the US. Citations:half#of_time:_half_an_hour_before. - -sche (discuss) 19:51, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Notice how this has the same counterintuitive order as thirteen or two (and) twenty (as German does it), which would imply 7½, not 6:30, unless counting backwards. twelf ("two-left", if the etymology is correct) would match as if acognate, but that explains very little. Perhaps there is no need to blame the Dutch. ApisAzuli (talk) 23:15, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

This might be one of those hyperforeignisms that Americans assume must be used "by the British", helped by the fact that the British do use the phrase, just not with that meaning. And it might be used by L2 speakers. But it makes me think of phrases like vinculate and close the lights, .... are they really English if they're used almost entirely by English language learners? —Soap— 07:27, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

flatulate

The definition of flatulate says: "Thus flatulate is to fart as urinate is to piss and as defecate is to shit." I disagree with this; in my experience, "piss" and "shit" are more offensive than "fart," although there are certainly people who would be offended by all three. Maybe "pee" and "crap" are closer? 99.197.202.188 20:04, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

"crap" might still be slightly more offensive than "fart", but "poop" is too childish and I can't think of anything else. "turd" could work, but it's a noun. 99.197.202.188 20:13, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

I'd say more "poop". Vininn126 (talk) 21:48, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Do we need a comparison at all? I'd say there isn't a good one. If we're trying to help out English language learners here, I'd recommend they use a multi-word phrase like pass gas instead of this word which I'd think even doctors would find clumsy. pass gas is the polite version, the phrase best suited to complement urinate even if the formation is different. —Soap— 07:32, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Agreed that we probably don't. Vininn126 (talk) 07:48, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

I think the analogy is useful, but I do agree that pass gas is better. How would I add that to the page, considering the comparison is on the flatulate page? 99.197.202.188 22:14, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

• We need more flatulating audios on the page Zumbacool (talk) 00:14, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

I've a thirst on me

I added an entry have a thirst on to cover the Irish English idiomatic phrase meaning, "to be thirsty". I'm happy with it, and I can provide a bunch of citations beyond the first person transitive formation (which is the most common).

Buuuut... "I've a [noun] on me" as a set structure of a phrase can take other [noun]s as well:

• A Google Ngram Viewer suggests "I've a head on me" (I've got a headache) as the only other example common enough to mention (and can be cited in the works of Arthur Conan Doyle, amongst others).
• There are several citations for "I've a hunger on me" or "have a hunger on".
• There are a few for "I've an anger on me" or "have an anger on".
• I even found one citation for "have a tiredness on".

What do you think?

1. Delete have a thirst on and completely forget that this idiomatic Irish English phrase exists?
2. Put the phrase structure on another more generic page ("have a property on", perhaps; sounds awful though) and redirect have a thirst on?
3. Keep have a thirst on as the most common formation and redirect other phrases there?
4. Add each CFI-passing phrase ("have a head on", "have a hunger on", "have an anger on") and cross-link via "See Also"?

-Stelio (talk) 08:57, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Sounds like a snowclone. Vininn126 (talk) 09:12, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

It seems like in both English and especially in Irish, the noteworthy phenomenon in those examples is the use of "...on (one)", and "thirst" is just one possible object. I can also find "I got a thirst on me" (which would probably be fine to consider that an ellipsis of "have got..."), "Still with the thirst on me, I...", "She can see the thirst on me", "Christ, the thirst on me", etc, and various citations of "there (is/was) a thirst on me" (and likewise with "hunger", "depression", some of which citations ay not be Irish). So maybe just redirect the most common phrases to a relevant sense of on? (Compare "All of the responsibility is on him.") I take the "snowclones" appendix to be more for memetic phrases rather than just any phrasal verb or prepositional phrase (hence we cover "having me on", "had the radio on", "have a shirt on" in the mainspace at have on, not at Appendix:Snowclones/have X on). - -sche (discuss) 19:19, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

So you would suggest "have on one"? as the entry? I could see that working. Vininn126 (talk) 20:00, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

I considered "have on one", but ... you can also say "there is a thirst on me", "the hunger is on me", etc without have (indeed, that's closer to the Irish phrasing), or even "Christ, the thirst on me!", "she can see the thirst on me", "the cold brings the hunger on me", so maybe the core is just on? (or perhaps on one?) Maybe Mahagaja or Codecat or other editors with some familiarity with Irish English can weigh in. - -sche (discuss) 20:58, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

What immediately came to mind on reading this from my EXTREMLELY limited knowledge of Irish was the phrase tá brón orm. Do people ever say ‘sorrow on me’ when speaking English? Overlordnat1 (talk) 21:25, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

One can say “the sorrow be on me”,^[10] or “Shame, and guilt, and sorrow be on him.”^[11]  --Lambiam 07:46, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

For decoding, this term is transparent for at least most English speakers. Is helping someone encode into Irish English a function of a dictionary? Does having an entry, eg, for a snowclone, even help with such encoding? I'm skeptical about how much a dictionary can help with encoding, apart from translation. DCDuring (talk) 15:55, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

This is an etymological dictionary. So, if there was some etymology involved instead of lumping all up that must be basicly common English, that would be great. I mean, it could be well justified. Can't help but think of German bin am verhunger-n (starvin), einen Harten haben (hard-on; also in other phrases, obviously, cp. golden, or jungen, not sure), so eine Art an sich haben (fairly in-transparent, viz. Art un' Weise `characteristic waysʼ if at all related). On second thought, I would more often use about, he has a certain air about him, cp. ambi-, um, omb, etc. (somebody ping l'ambiam). Otherwise I have obviously no clue about and no opinion on Cletic or ME, me. ApisAzuli (talk) 16:55, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

In this view I concure it would be good to have such phrases that are idiomatic, and I guess I have to agree with -sche that redirects are formally the correct solution, unless more can be said than surface analysis might suggest. ApisAzuli (talk) 16:55, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

prawn

While creating shrimp chip, shrimp cracker and adding a new definition to krupuk, I realised that the second definition for prawn is a little off. It claims that a prawn is a crustacean sometimes confused with a shrimp but crustacean seems too general as it includes crabs and even woodlice and moreover this definition presupposes that there is a clear distinction between a shrimp and a prawn in the first place. How should we improve this without getting too encyclopaedic? Overlordnat1 (talk) 10:49, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Quoting the Wikipedia article Prawn: “The terms shrimp and prawn themselves lack scientific standing. Over the years, the way they are used has changed, and in contemporary usage the terms are almost interchangeable.” The article section Shrimp § Shrimp versus prawn gives more detail. The wording “sometimes confused” betrays a prescriptive attitude. Our definitions should follow how the terms are used. We have a qualifier “(sometimes proscribed)” at the synonym prawn listed for shrimp. Usage notes may be a more adequate medium for noting existing attitudes.  --Lambiam 08:37, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Jiangmen and Kongmoon

@217.229.90.174 Hello all. I see these two words as synonyms, not alternative forms of the same word. I see it this way because of the extreme divergence between the intended pronunciation and spelling of the two words in English. If this view is correct, I would like to see this series of edits (starting with [12]) reverted). If this were Japanese and Mandarin, there would be no question I would be in the right. Thanks! --Geographyinitiative (talk) 14:02, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

While it's hard to draw an absolute line, this seems like a little too much distance to call them alternative forms. After all, we don't treat Peking and Beijing as alternative forms, even though they also are basically the same word. I wouldn't go so far as to revert everything, though- they cleaned up the formating and replaced {{etyl}}, which we're trying to get rid of. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:00, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, I think the combination of different etymologies (coming from different Chinese lects), substantially different pronunciation and different spelling make for too much distance to call them alternative forms, as you both say. - -sche (discuss) 19:40, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

⿱一⿰𠂈㇄

The title of this page is a Unicode Han composition sequence. I'm pretty sure that was not intended. I looked at the Unihan link to try to find the right character, but it just goes to a description of an entirely different character (扵). This entry should either be moved to the correct Unicode character or deleted. 70.172.194.25 20:08, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

I've deleted it. The content is a bit dubious, and it's best not to create these unless absolutely needed. — justin(r)leung _{{ (t...) | c=› }} 22:21, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Wycliffe quote request

The modern English entry wretchful is asking for a quotation from the Wycliffe Bible. I managed to track down such a passage:

• c. 1382–1395, John Wycliffe [et al.], edited by Josiah Forshall and Frederic Madden, The Holy Bible, […], volume IV, Oxford: At the University Press, published 1850, →OCLC, Apocalypse III:17, page 646:

There are two versions in the book, presented in columns side-by-side. I want to add a quote from one and fulfill the request, but at the same time, these are actually Middle English, and the spellings are wrechful and wretcheful. How should I proceed? 98.170.164.88 00:12, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Similar situation with withinforth:

• c. 1382–1395, John Wycliffe [et al.], edited by Josiah Forshall and Frederic Madden, The Holy Bible, […], volume IV, Oxford: At the University Press, published 1850, →OCLC, Mark XV:16, page 135, column 2:
  has "with ynneforth"
• c. 1382–1395, John Wycliffe [et al.], edited by Josiah Forshall and Frederic Madden, The Holy Bible, […], volume IV, Oxford: At the University Press, published 1850, →OCLC, Luke XI:7, page 183:
  has "withynne forth" and "with ynforth"

98.170.164.88 00:41, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

The entries were imported from Webster 1913, which didn't distinguish Middle English from Modern English. If you are really sure the word doesn't exist in modern English (EEBO is a good place to check, although you have to try various spellings, as is OED if you have access), you can move it to the attested Middle English spelling and reformat it as a Middle English entry. You need to create an account to be able to move entries, though.

In the case of wretchful OED only has these two attestations from Wycliffe (1382). So the entry should be moved to one or other of these spellings, and the other can be created as an alternative form.

Withinforth may be citeable in Modern English. If you contest this assertion, you can send the entry to WT:RFVE.

Plenty more like this at WT:Todo/English Chaucer. This, that and the other (talk) 03:09, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

Oh, and to answer your real question: a Middle English attestation of wrechful should go at a Middle English entry wrechful, not in a Modern English entry. This, that and the other (talk) 03:38, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

порт

@Atitarev: @Benwing2: The Russian plural of port is пОрты in the normal sense, but портЫ in the sense of "computer ports". The Russian Wiktionary gets this right. But the English Wiktionary has the wrong stress on the npl and gpl in the second meaning. — This unsigned comment was added by 2a00:23c8:a7a3:4801:733e:646c:63da:cf9d (talk).

@Atitarev, the IP forgot to sign so their ping didn't go through, so I'm re-pinging you for them. - -sche (discuss) 07:38, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

@-sche, Benwing2, 2a00:23c8:a7a3:4801:733e:646c:63da:cf9d: Thanks. This has been addressed. I can't fully agree that the computing sense uses only stress pattern "b", even if IT people would prefer to use stress pattern "b" (a so called "professional pronunciation"), so I have provided both "a" and "b". This can change if it can be proven otherwise. @Benwing2, this may requiring a rework on inflected form entries. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 08:11, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you. I didn't know you had to sign for the ping to work.2A00:23C8:A7A3:4801:733E:646C:63DA:CF9D 09:57, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

English words ending with /æ/

Do baccara, pancreata, traumata, puerperia, and residua really end with /æ/? It seems to be really uncommon for English words to end with this sound. For comparison, a search finds 5693 words with final /ə/, 69 with /a/, and 19 with /æ/. 98.170.164.88 12:07, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

baccara: this case seems somewhat plausible to me (I don't know this word) if a bilingual French-English speaker is trying to approximate French, although if a pronunciation with final /æ/ exists it should probably also be listed at baccarat. Verdict: I'm not sure on this one. The others are clear errors for words which actually have final /ə/.--Urszag (talk) 16:08, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

As Urszag says, these are wrong. The one in pancreata goes all the way back to Doremítzwr's creation of the entry; he had some peculiar ideas of how Latinate terms ought to be pronounced. Traumata is an interesting case because other dictionaries assert the second vowel (and not just the final vowel) is /ə/, but this seems unnatural; the other pronunciations Urszag added feel more natural. - -sche (discuss) 07:58, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Slavic prefix з-

The з- page (linked, e.g., by знайти as з-#Ukrainian) contains no section for Ukrainian or any other Slavic language. Peter Chastain (talk) 08:49, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Italian pudico

Italian word pudico 'modest', derives from Latin pudīcus, which would have yielded the pronunciation "pudìco", but the word actually shifted the stress on the antepenult "pùdico" due to folk-etymology back-fromation to *pud- (root in common with pudore 'modesty') + -icus (words suffixed with -icus are stressed on the antepenult). This shift is common to all the Romance languages (except French which doesn't have stress) some considering the term with the stress on the antepenult as the standard pronunciation (Spanish púdico, Romanian pudic, Galician púdico) while other languages "borrowed" the conservative pronunciation directly from Latin and treat the "inherited" pronounciation as a common "mistake" (Italian pudico, Portuguese pudico).

The problem that arises in Italian is how to form the masculine plural. The masculine plural of adjectives or nouns ending in -co is usually -chi (/-ki/) if the word is stressed on the penult (cf. ròco, ròchi), while -ci (/-tʃi/) if the word is stressed on the antepenult (cf. mèdico, mèdici). This leads to two possible plurals for the word, pùdici, which is the common yet proscribed one, and pudìchi, attested in all vocabularies and used in the written language.

I don't know how to incorporate these forms on the page pudico which currently only mentions the common proscribed plural.

Catonif (talk) 14:53, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

Take a look at my changes and modify them as you see fit. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 00:38, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

caveman

Do we need two figurative senses? I don't really see a difference. PUC – 21:19, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

I think the usexes illustrate the difference well. The first sense applies to someone who is brutish and animalistic in their behaviour, like the stereotypical caveman. The second applies to someone who is backwards or old-fashioned. A person could be very progressive in their thinking but very slovenly or childlike in their behaviour, which would fit the first figurative sense but not the second. Likewise, someone could have refined tastes and wear tuxedos every day, which doesn't fit with the first figurative sense but is compatible with the second. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 00:32, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Musical sense of "change"

I want to add the following sense to change, but I don't know enough about music theory to tell if it's right:

1. (music, chiefly in the plural) A change from one chord to another; a chord progression.

I left citations to support this at Citations:change. 98.170.164.88 03:02, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

1. I think our definition of chord progression (“a repeating pattern of two or more chords, often chords diatonic to a particular key”) is incorrect. vi–ii–V–I is a chord progression, but not a “repeating pattern”. A simple fix is to delete “repeating”.
2. We should avoid circular references, like the definition of a sense of change using [[change]].
3. IMO a “chord change” involves just two chords; it is the movement from one chord to another, and the vi–ii–V–I progression involves three chord changes, so “a chord progression” is too general here.
4. A possibility is to define the term as {{short for|chord change}}, which however requires a determination that “chord change” is not merely a sum of parts. There is a lemming: Collins. The same definition is found here.

 --Lambiam 08:46, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

The noun sense in campanology is close enough to chords to suspect that the words are etymologically related, inasmuch as the origin is uncertain and coincident with that of chimes. See also onom. twang, maybe imitative tang, and uncertain tune (viz choon). ApisAzuli (talk) 15:02, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Apis, I understand you're trying to participate, but pointing at words and going 'these look similar; etymologically related?' is not actually helpful (or relevant in this case). Is this the same user as Rhymeinreason? - -sche (discuss) 17:40, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

heavy-handed

LlywelynII is adding the label "pejorative" to all the senses, but I don't think that either of the sense merits that label. In the quotes and uses, it does not seem pejorative. —Svārtava (t/u) • 10:47, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Svartava It's certainly pejorative. If I said your revert without comment was heavy-handed, you'd start thinking if you could put together enough of a case to get the admins to come yell at me to be more polite.

The real argument is is whether it's worth noting pej. for all negative senses of words, which could get unhelpful pretty quick. At the time I was thinking that 2nd language learners and the like might not realize how annoyed people would be when it gets used in their direction (and thanks for demonstrating the idea just now!) but overall it's a fair point. — LlywelynII 10:52, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

FYI, a literally heavy hand isn't particularly meaningful. A german analogon is mit erhobener Hand, ie. with raised hand, rather than mit dem Holzhammer which indeed suggests crudeness as hölzern "wooden" generally does. . ApisAzuli (talk) 15:07, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

pinchadora

Any idea what this gardening machine is called in English? Zumbacool (talk) 14:33, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Did you mean ponchadora? Vininn126 (talk) 14:45, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Probably not - those guys look very different to the pinchadora Zumbacool (talk) 16:43, 15 May 2022 (UTC)