Wiktionary:Tea room/2023/September: difference between revisions

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https://www.rekhtadictionary.com/meaning-of-hindi [[User:Rihantel|Rihantel]] ([[User talk:Rihantel|talk]]) 04:51, 13 September 2023 (UTC)
https://www.rekhtadictionary.com/meaning-of-hindi [[User:Rihantel|Rihantel]] ([[User talk:Rihantel|talk]]) 04:51, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

== chastise ==

Definitions 1 and 3 of [[chastise]] appear to be just chastise plus an adjective. Shouldn’t these be removed?

Revision as of 15:30, 13 September 2023

Egyptian Y character

I recently realized that the article for ysri3r (ancient Egyptian word for “Israel”, as per the Merenptah stele) represents the Y character (the double reed leaf character 𓇌, Gardiner’s Sign List M17A) with two adjacent single reed leaf characters (𓇋 followed by another 𓇋), instead of the one separate character that is the double reed leaf. I later discovered that the cause of this was its template head having two I’s placed together. I considered two attempts to fix it, but went through with neither because the edit preview showed me that neither would produce my intended effect. Replacing the “i-i” with a “y” would instead result in the hieratic shorthand (the double slash character 𓏭, Gardiner’s Sign List Z4) and replacing it with a “j” would result in the Roman letter j. Primal Groudon (talk) 03:40, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Are you asking about the transliteration or the actual hieroglyphs? Both look ok to me.
Re: The transliteration - y is correct. There have been various transliteration systems over the years, but I believe the one Wiktionary uses is that of Allen 2000. See here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Egyptian_transliteration_schemes (The double reed is y. The single reed is j. There is no i in this sytem, and the3 is actuall ꜣ.) The ysri3r page actually automatically redirects to the real entry ysrjꜣr, and there's also a manual redirect page for iizriAr (which is the MdC transliteration).
Re: The hieroglyphs - I think that's because WikiHiero (which renders the hieroglyphs) does not support the M17A glyph, probably because it's not needed since you get basically the same result by doing i-i (or, if you really wanted to, you could do i*i, which I think would probably be better but it's probably not worth changing it, and many other entries just use i-i too). 2603:8080:C6F0:48B0:0:0:0:1468 13:46, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

common sense (sense 2)

The entry isn't wrong but it's not quite right either. The phrase "common sense" is still used this way among neo-Thomistic philosophers and psychologists today, so it really isn't "obsolete", nor do I think "formerly believed" is an accurate description (as if to imply that the notion of a "common sense" is an outdated hypothesis or something). Also, I don't have a source off the top of my head, but I think this is also referred to as the collective sense (which might be good to list under synonyms). 2603:8080:C6F0:48B0:0:0:0:1468 14:06, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I wrote up a different gloss for the same philosophical sense at Latin sensus communis a while ago fwiw (I didn't check the English entry at the time). —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 15:39, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Technical note, someone may want to fix the quotation markup (", Book I, New York 2001, p.159: " is outside the template and so shunted onto a new line, which is not optimal behaviour for the template). - -sche (discuss) 19:06, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've just gone and edited the definition. I think it could still use some improvement though. 2603:8080:C6F0:48B0:0:0:0:1468 16:14, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

count 'em

I've just created this entry after reading the term in a book, but I'm not even sure which header fits best for this (phrase? interjection? else?). Could someone please add a proper definition? (It probably needs a {{n-g}}.) Thanks, Einstein2 (talk) 17:45, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Count them" is also attested. It seems more like a rhetorical device to emphasis the number by telling the audience to check it for themselves. There should be other expressions telling the audience to check various things in other ways- perhaps "look it up" might be analogous. I suspect this originated as a figure of speech used by barkers. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:04, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Concussion" term in meteorology, seismology, and volcanology

Hello, Is "concussion" term used in meteorology, seismology, and volcanology other than in neurology but different contexts? Please Yuliadhi (talk) 22:50, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The following is copied from the Grease Pit discussion:

I can at least say that I've never heard it in meteorology. I've been out of the field for quite some time, but it seems to be a very slow-moving science, with people entering school these days using pretty much the same terms I remember learning when I was in school. —Soap— 13:52, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The term has been and may still be used discussing phenomena in meteorology, seismology, and volcanology, but the meaning doesn't seem to be other than our definition 1. DCDuring (talk) 15:31, 1 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

consist

Why do we have entries for consist in, consist of, when consist#Verb already covers those senses ("intransitive with OF", "intransitive with IN")? Having both is highly redundant and makes it unclear where to put citations etc. Equinox ◑ 06:06, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Because some believe that just about every verb + adverb/preposition combination is a phrasal verb. If there is no change in the base meaning of the verb in the combination with the adverb/preposition, but only in the nature of the relationship to a complement, I don't see why we would claim the combination to be a phrasal verb. DCDuring (talk) 14:14, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeahhh. I'd say redirect them... - -sche (discuss) 18:47, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

more than C has had cooked dinners

Do we have a snowclone entry for this "I've Xed more Ys than Z has had cooked dinners" Jin and Tonik (talk) 17:47, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

more than someone has had hot dinners. Equinox ◑ 17:52, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

eat someone for breakfast

Chuck Entz moved this page from eat something for breakfast to eat someone for breakfast in 2016. In 2022 I moved it to eat for breakfast as it can also be used with non-human entities:

I just noticed Ioaxxere moved the page back last month to eat someone for breakfast without explanation. I suppose there's some anthropomorphism going on here, but should the title say "someone" for this entry? — Alexis Jazz (talk) 20:47, 2 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

eat for breakfast is a suboptimal title since you can never say "I ate for breakfast." I don’t think we have a rule about using something versus someone but most dictionaries seem to be using the latter. Ioaxxere (talk) 04:57, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Ioaxxere, you can't say "I make mincemeat out of." either, yet that's the title. (now you will presumably move that article to make mincemeat out of someone, which I don't support as that one can also apply to non-human entities) — Alexis Jazz (talk) 11:26, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The difference (and I think what Ioaxxere is saying) is that the object in "eat ... for breakfast" has to fall inside the phrase, there's no internal ellipsis in "make mincemeat out of". —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 11:43, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Al-Muqanna, true. What about call into question? I suppose that could occur as-is, but it usually doesn't. Or bring into line? There should be a placeholder that includes both human and non-human entities, I suppose there's "X" but we don't use that much here. — Alexis Jazz (talk) 13:04, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Well, there's nothing wrong with putting the object outside of those as long as it's not a pronoun, e.g. "I don't want to call into question your work for the firm" sounds just as good to me as "... call your work for the firm into question", maybe a bit more formal. The placement of "for breakfast" is much more fixed: "Their new car is going to eat for breakfast Tesla's strategy" sounds very strange. But I agree it's a bit difficult. IMO either "someone" or "something" is fine, with maybe a usage note to clear it up. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 13:14, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We at Wiktionary seem to accept that something includes someone. I wonder whether most normal users do. Or do they think that something and someone are disjount? DCDuring (talk) 20:33, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

literary miniature

German Wikipedia describes Miniatur, an umbrella term containing short stories, novellas, flash fiction, etc. Is there an English equivalent term? Miniatur links to miniature in the gloss (which doesn't mention a literary miniature), so it's definitely missing the German Wikipedia's meaning. Azertus (talk) 11:19, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The term literary miniature does get used, but I would say it's fairly academic and typically more restrictive than what you suggest, as a metaphorical reference to the small paintings that are usually called miniatures (our sense 3). I've not come across miniature used in a more general sense for short written pieces. Since German Miniatur can also refer to painted miniatures afaik it may be worth having separate definitions. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 12:01, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Causative す・せる

The page for せる describes the origin as coming from classical Japanese す which follows 下二段 conjugation, however the corresponding entry (etym. 6) doesn't reflect this. Should a separate "classical conjugation" table be added to this entry, showing the bigrade conjugation pattern? Also, if this is considered to be related to the verb す (Etym. 5), is there any explanation for the difference in conjugation pattern? (下二段 vs サ変) Horse Battery (talk) 15:42, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Horse Battery --
There's classical causative ～す, and there's modern causative ～す. Modern ～す follows the 五段 conjugation pattern, basically the same as any other verb whose unchanging stem ends in a consonant -- if memory serves, English-language teaching materials might call these "type 1" verbs.
About the difference in conjugation patterns, note that classical サ変 is identical to 下二段 for all but the 連用形, which takes the stem form し～ instead of the 下二段 stem form せ～. Considering that 1) modern せ pronounced as se was previously affricated as she, and the shift from shemasu to shimasu is almost imperceptible in fast speech; and 2) this is probably the most commonly used verb in the entire language, so sound shifts and irregularities are probably inevitable, considering similar phenomena other languages (oft-used words accrue irregularities); well, ultimately, there isn't much of a difference there in the end, and what difference there is, isn't surprising.
All that said, we should probably update the causative ～す entry as you suggest, to include the classical 下二段 paradigm, and to mention and explain the conjugation differences. An overview of the history would be good in the regular-verb す entry too, indicating when various changes arose. (Or maybe those should go at する, not sure yet.) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 19:30, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wording of trans woman definition

@-sche, GregKaye There seems to be some disagreement on how to word the definition of trans woman. The wording we've used for a long time reads "A transgender or transsexual woman; i.e., a woman who was assigned male at birth.", but GregKaye seems to've taken issue with this wording, substituting "A male-to-female transgender or transsexual person.", arguing that the longstanding wording is "problematic" or even "non sensical[sic]" apparently on the basis of the primary definition of woman reading "An adult female human." (a definition that, as far as I can see, raises absolutely no issues with our longstanding definition of trans woman as "A transgender or transsexual woman; i.e., a woman who was assigned male at birth."). Do the objections to the longstanding wording have any merit?

(Disclaimer: as a trans woman myself, I might have a bit of a biased perspective, hence why I'm asking for input here.) Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes 18:54, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This looks like the stock complaint the Wikipedia article also endures; I would simply revert it but I'm headed out the door so I'll leave it to someone else. (Certain people think that only cis women should be allowed to be "woman", that only cis females should be allowed to be "female", and that they can exclude trans women by defining "woman" as "adult human female" ... but I don't know any trans women who feel successfully excluded by that, do you? Since everyone I know, cis or trans, who'd consider herself covered by "woman" also considers herself covered by "female".) I will concede that the Wikipedia article has one benefit over us, which is that it goes on past its opening sentence ("A trans woman [...] is a woman who was assigned male at birth") for another few hundred sentences which further explain things, whereas our definition is just the one short line; it might make sense to add a few more words of explanation if people have (better) suggestions. - -sche (discuss) 19:16, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I kinda figured as much. Thanx for the confirmation! Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes 19:31, 3 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with having the previous, longstanding definition. AG202 (talk) 15:11, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The word woman is defined by wiktionary as:

  1. An adult female human.
  2. (collective) All female humans collectively; womankind.
  3. A female person, usually an adult; a (generally adult) female sentient being, whether human, supernatural, elf, alien, etc. ...

The previous definition of trans woman reverted to read: "A male-to-female transgender or transsexual person."

I find it problematic when the definition "A transgender or transsexual woman" pushes a conclusion. People can declare themselves women and then claim access to environments like women's prisons, women's sports and, even if objections are raised, women's exclusive spaces. The term trans woman has been used to describe natal males who, in some cases, do little if anything more than to self-describe themselves as women. While people can certainly accept trans women for their identification as women, trans women and women are not the same. Why not leave readers with the option to take their own interpretation? GregKaye (talk) 10:33, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please take your transphobic canards and begone. Whoop whoop pull up Bitching Betty ⚧️ Averted crashes 15:04, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We are supposed to define words according to usage, and some people, Greg, indeed agree with you, and use the word that way. Equinox ◑ 21:36, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

medium noun sections

At medium, we have "medium (plural media or mediums) 1. The material of the surrounding environment [...] 5. A substance, structure, or environment in which living organisms subsist, grow or are cultured [...]"
and
"medium (plural mediums or media) 1. A liquid base which carries pigment in paint... " as separate noun sections, under the same etymology. Isn't it odd for such semantically-adjacent senses with (apparently) the same ety, and same range of inflections, to be in separate sections? I was going to simply merge them, but I notice we also have spirit mediums and clothing-size mediums grouped together with each other as a third noun section. Normally these would all be in one noun section and the different plurals that the different senses take would be handled on the sense line like at staff, not by splitting them into separate noun sections, right? - -sche (discuss) 00:47, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I think it makes some sense to have a separate section for the noun that is a nominalized use of the adjective, but not for the others, so I edited the entry accordingly. The OED says of the plural that "The plural form media is after the regular Latin plural. An anglicized plural mediums is attested from the 17th cent. and is particularly common for concrete entities: see especially senses A.II.6, A.II.5c, A.II.7, A.III.9, A.III.10. Free variation between these two forms is present in most of the senses in modern English with the exception of sense A.II.6b where the plural is almost always mediums". Sense A.II.6b is of course the "spirit medium" sense; the others are as follows: A.II.6.a: An intermediary agent; a mediator; A.II.5c: liquid substance with which pigment is mixed for use in painting; A.II.7: Theatre. A coloured filter in the form of a screen fixed in front of a light source which is directed at the stage; A.III.9, A person of middle rank or class (listed under deadjectival senses); A.III.10. A medium-dated security (listed under deadjectival senses).--Urszag (talk) 01:56, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
As I see it, there are definite semantic divisions:
  1. The substance, environment or format in which something exists
  2. Something between, as in:
    1. The means by which someone or something acts upon someone or something else
    2. Someone or something that is in contact with separate entities and conveys things between them.
  3. Something intermediate between extremes, as in size, polarity or degree
It's not that simple, of course, but I think these would be helpful for overall organization. A spirit medium is someone in between. A medium clothing size and a happy medium are intermediate between extremes. The liquid that pigment is added to is a substance in which something exists, as is a nutrient medium.
The first division contains most of the senses with media as their plural, and there's a rough progression in countability from first to last as well.
It still needs fleshing out, but I hope it will be useful. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:34, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

put hair on your chest

I heard "This will put hair on your chest" in the movie "The Maze Runner" and I was wondering what it meant. I'm not a native so I don't feel legitimate to create the article. Thanks Jona (talk) 07:49, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Jona. "put hair(s) on your chest" is typically used to indicate that something about to be consumed, such as a strong alcoholic drink or hot chilis, will make you stronger or more masculine.
SimonWikt (talk) 09:23, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The entry is at put hair on someone's chest (since it doesn't need to be "your"—I've made a redirect). —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 11:39, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks ! :-) Jona (talk) 10:48, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Do words for ‘sleep’ ever mean ‘energy’?

Looking at sleep#Translations I was surprised that not a single translation could also mean ‘energy’. Common semantic developments for ‘sleep’ include ‘dream’, ‘drowsiness’, ‘gound’, ‘death’, and most interestingly, ‘temple (of the head)’, but never ‘energy’. That strikes me as remarkable; it would be easy to reinterpret a statement like ‘I need more sleep’ to mean ‘I need more energy’, but so far I’ve never seen a word for ‘sleep’ develop this way. — (((Romanophile))) ♞ (contributions) 15:33, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

A low-energy/alertness state (sleep) might lead to a high-energy/alertness state, but it is a low-energy/alertness state itself. That must be too much of a cognitive barrier to overcome. DCDuring (talk) 16:43, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Inderdaad. Also, see power nap PUC – 17:19, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Further to what DCDuring pointed out, I'm not sure how cross-cultural this particular idea of energy as a kind of metric that's recharged by sleep is. Chinese has 精, for example, but I believe in the classical understanding it's more of a long-term thing that you would erode through poor sleep/seminal emissions/etc rather than simply spending it all in a day and regaining it by sleeping.
Obviously people need to sleep when they're tired. But one obvious problem with the recharging metaphor is that you don't become more energetic by sleeping a lot. Another, related point is that sleep tends to have inertia: it's not like drinking coffee, usually you'll be sleepy when you get up. Anybody sleeping on a military campaign will worry about being surprised during their sleep for a reason.
Looking at Herman Boerhaave's 18th-century discussion of sleep in his influential lectures on physiology, Boerhaave emphasises this: "the longer sleep is continued, so much the more is sleepiness increased, so that at length almost the whole life may be spent in sleeping". In fact Boerhaave seems to treat sleep as a kind of side-effect "occasioned" by weariness, food and drink, etc. He cites Hippocrates connecting drunkenness to deep sleep (and to death). For Boerhaave it seems sleep is something that needs to be overcome. And descriptions of sleep specifically in terms of things like "reinvigoration" apparently start in the 19th century. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 18:59, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

radiendocrinology

English. Definition:

  • The study of radiative endocrine interactions and their effects upon vitality.

This was apparently made up a century ago to sell some kind of gizmo that irradiated people for allegedly miraculous benefits. Given that everybody knows better nowadays and that such a thing would be illegal today, I think we need to do better for a definition than parroting the glowing description from a century ago. I would have rfved this, but there seem to be just enough uses that aren't direct quotes of the title of the work that introduced the term. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:01, 4 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

y (Spanish)

I think the pronunciation needs to be a little more nuanced. Right now it just says [ʝ] prevocalically but I have just checked with some Spanish speakers who say it is never pronounced as an affricate. Even if it were always pronounced [ʝ] prevocalically this would be an irregularity worthy of note because [ʝ] isn't allowed after /n/ or /l/. I'm gathering that it is just [i̯] in these situations but I'd like to see if anyone more knowledgeable has anything to add. Dngweh2s (talk) 02:26, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Jewle V This word already has a manual pronunciation. I'm guessing it is [ʝ] intervocalically, [ i̯ ] after a consonant and before a vowel, and [i] before a consonant. Dngweh2s (talk) 01:01, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No idea on the symbol. Jewle V (talk) 01:07, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt that y "and" is ever ʝ in any context. Per Wikipedia, "Bowen & Stockwell (1955:236) cite the minimal pair ya visto [(ɟ)ʝa ˈβisto] ('I already dress') vs y ha visto [ja ˈβisto] ('and he has seen')".--Urszag (talk) 01:09, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

countable software

Currently software says "Software is a mass noun […] By non-native speakers it is sometimes erroneously treated as a countable noun (a software, some softwares). softwares also says "generally" by non-native speakers.

But this doesn't seem quite right because there are very many examples of softwares in writing by native speakers: "There are several different softwares out there that contain this type of technology" (Fox News), "softwares that collect documents for school assignments" (NY Post), "several impressive new generative AI softwares" (Yahoo News UK), all from the last few months, and spoken on YouTube e.g. [1], [2].

Softwares even appears in technical contexts, like here and here. So I wonder if this should even be considered "nonstandard" as opposed to just a "usually uncountable" situation (Ngrams has softwares at about 0.2% of the frequency of software, which is small but not stupidly so—communisms, an uncontroversial one, is about 0.1% the frequency of communism). —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 16:35, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that it is historically (i.e. two decades ago) perceived more uncountable than today, so our entries is just outdated. Part of the reason are many derivative terms more inviting for counting. I don’t know which entry I copied for the term fleeceware that is like a decade old, if I have copied the countability from somewhere at all instead of adjusting it. Some native speakers might want to deny this because they are old. But firmware is obviously countable, no? 💩 definition for firmware by the way, congratulations. The definition of firmware has also changed in the last 1½ decade, as on smartphones or embedded systems this is like the bootloader elsewhere, if you ever got a custom one flashed. boot loader with space can also not be the main-entry unlike Thv believed in 2004, methinks. Fay Freak (talk) 00:22, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
But as an uncountable noun meaning 'X' can always be used as a countable noun meaning 'type of X', I am not persuading by these arguments. --RichardW57m (talk) 13:04, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You're talking about the universal packager, by the way, which appropriately sounds like some sort of Java installer maker. Equinox ◑ 21:38, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think I wrote that note; "softwares" does still usually seem to indicate an NNES writing or speaking. Even more so with "codes" (meaning source code), very common among Indians. Equinox ◑ 13:10, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also worth considering whether anybody says "hardwares" (perhaps we just talk about that less?), and the traditional uncountability of ceramic, glass, etc. "wares" in the mass ("I have obtained some beautiful silverware"). Anyway, I don't object to the usage note being modernised, but don't radicalise: "softwares" is still quite unusual to many people, including many English-speaking IT professionals. "A software" is particularly horrible to my ear, lol. It's a program (or application, app, applet, package, release...)! Equinox ◑ 21:34, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
There's probably contextual difference. Stuff like cyber (noun 2) meaning cybersecurity is still pretty grating to a lot of people but has become standard in specific contexts. In this case it seems like it doesn't occur much in e.g. technical books by native speakers, who are probably going to be professionals, but it does in news articles by native-speaker journalists (I was surprised to see it in a lot of recently written documentation, but it's very possible those cases are by non-natives). To me "codes" rings as much more nonstandard than "softwares", I wouldn't bat an eye in real life at the uses in the videos I linked above. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 21:39, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe those journos aren't "native" in nerdspeak :) just like someone who isn't knowledgeable about Ancient Greece might write about "kalpises" and not kalpides. Equinox ◑ 21:43, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that's what I mean, but ultimately, and perhaps unfortunately, software engineers don't get to control how other people write about software(s), especially when it's those guys who end up writing style guides... —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 21:46, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How do I change page морозота to мразота?

морозота is not used in real life. The root of the word is not мороз but мразь. So I wander what's the process of renaming one page to another? BANO.notIT (talk) 22:06, 5 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@BANO.notIT: I have fixed this for you. I have kept the present page since I have actually heard it pronounced with that many syllables in a video (so repeatedly listened to instead of misheard) and there are examples of illiterate writing around the web making it useful to keep. Fay Freak (talk) 00:08, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Your fix seems incomprehensible as well as obscurantist. It actually looks like a nativisation of the word. --RichardW57m (talk) 13:12, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Additional definition of "edit"

The "edit" page is locked, but could someone add a definition to cover the retail/marketing use in (mainly) fashion to indicate a stylistically or thematically linked range of items, normally intended to indicate limited availability. eg. our stylish Oriental Edit, or the Spring Edit, etc. It's been pretty widespread for a couple of decades, so I was surprised not to see it there. Its derivation is presumably as a short form of edition (though without a ".", so not covered by the abbreviation page), so might need distinguished from the definitions grouped under the derivation as a back-formation from editor. 2A02:C7C:CBB4:2600:DD8C:6FFB:B349:F44E 09:08, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I've added it with citations. The OED treats it as an extension of the standard noun edit, so I haven't made a separate etymology section, but there seems to be some disagreement about this (see the suggestion in this discussion that it actually comes from "editorial"). Might be worth further research. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 09:26, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't find the relevent article at the end of your NYT link, though I found the same press release here. I've been digging and haven't found anything definitive, but all the earliest examples seem to be linked to an editorial (eg. the above article refers to where the photos were shot) and many are "curating" pieces offered by a variety of designers/retailers. Over time the term may have been appropriated by retailers as a simple synonym for "range" or "collection", but its etymological root looks like "editorial".
For the NYT citation the quote is in the image caption under the fedora (see here for the full article). We're probably missing a sense at editorial. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 13:26, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Winkelwandel

Seems to be a word in German and/or Dutch but isn't listed here, nor on the de or nl Wiktionaries. Clearly a compound of Winkel and Wandel, but I don't know what the idiomatic meaning is. Any takers? -Stelio (talk) 12:23, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

No, it is a hapax legomenon of some preacher. Fay Freak (talk) 16:17, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Another use here (click “weiter lesen”). In this case the meaning is not idiomatic but purely literal: adjusting the angle of a solar panel.  --Lambiam 20:53, 6 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

winkelwandel:

winkelwandelstraat:

winkelwandel-straat:

winkelwandel straat:

winkel-wandel-straat:

winkelwandelgebied:

winkelwandel-gebied:

winkelwandel gebied:

winkel-wandel:

winkel-wandel-weg:

So, just a non-idiomatic combination of winkel and wandel to refer to a pedestrian shopping area.

That still leaves me unsure as to what "etymological winkelwandels" means. Perhaps that person meant it as a fancy word for doodads.

-Stelio (talk) 09:02, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

impinge

Sense 1 is listed as transitive, and senses 2 and 3 as intransitive, and we have a usage note saying transitive use is now rare. But the quotations and usexes under all of the senses are all of impinge on / impinge upon. I don't think impinge on X can be sometimes transitive and sometimes intransitive; surely it's one or the other. (I think the verb impinge in such a construction is technically intransitive, although the overall verb phrase impinge upon is semantically transitive? but hopefully our grammarians can weigh in...) PS if at least some senses must have the (up)on, should they be at impinge upon? It's probably more findable at impinge but that doesn't stop us from having lots of phrasal verb entries with particles included; compare Wiktionary:Requests_for_moves,_mergers_and_splits#hinge,_hinge_on. - -sche (discuss) 01:16, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The citation under sense 1 is being read with "themselves" as the direct object. A less ambiguous, more recent example of transitivity is here: "to what extent is the new State's sovereignty, in fact, impinged under your theory?". The preposition point is an artifact of the citation selection. Intransitive use certainly isn't restricted to "on" or "upon" in modern usage, it's easy to find examples with other prepositions—"impinge into the area of civil law enforcement" [3], "impinging across the grain-rich distal areas" [4]—and without any—"regardless of the other complicated influences that might impinge" [5]—so it shouldn't be at impinge upon. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 01:38, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I would hope that we can use hard and soft redirects from impinge on and impinge upon to impinge, but only if there is no dramatically different (not readily predictable from the meaning of the "particle") additional meaning. DCDuring (talk) 18:51, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks; the entry looks better now. I've added cites of transitive, particleless impinge X to the entry, and cites of impinge into/against to the citations page. - -sche (discuss) 20:15, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

rife#Adjective

I just had to tweak sense 2's usexes since they did not fit sense 2's definition, but rather sense 3's. Now I see that senses 1 and 2 are more or less the same: at least the cites/usexes seem interchangeable. Equinox ◑ 02:22, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree they should probably be merged, the OED does distinguish them but it seems to be on a vague basis of tangibility or quantifiability and I don't really buy that "divisions are rife" is particularly different to "rocks are rife", taking their own examples. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 02:40, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

chortle

The entry says: "Coined by Lewis Carroll in his poem Jabberwocky, first published in 1855 but only introduced to the public in his 1871 novel Through the Looking-Glass." What does it mean? How can a poem be published without "introducing [the words in it] to the public"? Imaginatorium (talk) 09:41, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The original edition was in a privately circulated family newsletter, which could probably be made clearer. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 09:50, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
 Done Equinox ◑ 11:43, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

play the something card

Not happy to see one of these entries back again, when we discussed the topic years ago (back when we used to use X in such entry titles) and agreed to remove them all. Equinox ◑ 17:09, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

See also WT:RFM#play_the_victim_card,_play_the_race_card,_play_the_gender_card. I'm not thrilled about the idea of having entries for every version, especially when not only the "something" but also "play" can be changed (to "use" etc); I wouldn't mind redirecting them to ... somewhere. But where? Our definition at card is currently unhelpful in understanding any of the longer phrases; maybe it can be improved. The definition in play the something card also leaves much to be desired. The snowclone appendix? Does anyone ever think to look there? (As far as the word something not being used in the phrase, that doesn't seem much different from the many tell someone where to shove it, see someone right entries we have.) - -sche (discuss) 20:07, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The forms of this idea are very diverse: [syns. of play, bury, be, have] [DETs like the, a, this, that, my, your, etc] race card(s). As well as functional equivalents of race. We have race card. Play the race card could be a hard redirect or a usage example. Some other verbs might be good in citations or usage examples, as well as different determiners. If we have to have entries for other attestable X cards, so be it. BTW, I think a race card can be played by any side of a racial divide, either to make a white person feel guilty about racism or sympathetic to racial justice claims or to draw negative attention to someone's race. Our entry doesn't make that clear, I don't think. DCDuring (talk) 20:55, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think this is better treated as a snowclone. CitationsFreak (talk) 00:27, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, there is a difficulty. I see why the "something" entry was tempting to create. The snowclone appendix is mostly a morass of TVTropes-style pop culture: I don't see it as something we would want to direct human beings to. — The alternative might be to explain the idea under some sense of "card" and then furthermore explain at "play" that one can "play" a (race, etc.) card, i.e. use it. But that is an artificial partition. Actually this is the extended metaphor. A writer might easily say something like, "She played the race card until the deck was stolen from her", and we Get It because we know what cards and card games are. That goes beyond the purview of a dictionary eventually. Equinox ◑ 21:25, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe have the "X cards" at card, as a subsense of the playing card sense? (Or just have metaphorical quotes under the playing card sense.) CitationsFreak (talk) 00:34, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
We do have a sense at card which was clearly aiming to cover this (and was even prior to my recent edit), I just don't think it currently does a very good job. - -sche (discuss) 01:26, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Alright. That's a good start. (Although I don't think it's a "resource". I think it's more like some heavily harping on a certain belief (eg antiracism or pro-independence) to make someone believe something. Like how if you play the racism card, you call something racist (generally without any good arguments) to make someone believe your ideology.) CitationsFreak (talk) 01:54, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
“You just activated my trap card!” can’t go to appendix.
We don’t know the original either, if it is supposed to be a snowclone.
The possibility to extend the metaphor in other sentences hardly has discernible bearing on the entry title nor inclusion at all (go to jail!), but indeed it should be on card as “a concept suggestive for framing a conversation” or similar, while the derivative metaphor deck should not have an additional place because it plays on the other metaphor without enjoying separate lexicalization. Fay Freak (talk) 02:01, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
... What? I'd only put entries like "play the * card" in there. CitationsFreak (talk) 02:12, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think part of the difficulty is that there's not just one sense here. "Play the race card", "play the gender card" et al seem to have started with the idea of someone bringing up their own race (or the way racism impacts it), their own gender, etc, to "win" or get "points" in some discussion. Some uses of "play the Muslim card" are in this sense, a person bringing up their own Muslimness, "well, as a Muslim, I...", but then there are also uses of that phrase in reference to non-Muslim politicians pandering to Muslim voters by e.g. introducing bills popular among Muslims, which seems like a separate thing. (I think a sign of it being a distinct sense is that people familiar with the first sense would misunderstand people who used the second sense, and would assume they were saying the politician was Muslim and had brought up their own Muslimness, when in fact the politician needn't be Muslim.) The same is true for some other versions, like "play the Hindu card". "Play the victim card" is just "play the victim" with "card" added to connect it to the card metaphor. I'm not sure all of these could be handled by one sense of card; we might need two. - -sche (discuss) 02:55, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The concept is of taking something one "has or is", and cynically exploiting to gain an advantage. I say "cynically" because it isn't "playing the race card" to make a genuine race-based point. (Yeah, here we get into the whole fun of "woke isn't really a word, etc.".) But despite occasional sloppy usage, that's the idea. Very much like, in fact, holding a card back in a gambling game, to profit from it later. Equinox ◑ 03:08, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • As to card, as -sche suggested, we may need two definitions, one for the general metaphorical sense, another (subsense?) for the more specific sociopolitical use. As Equinox observed elsewhere, the metaphor of a competitive card game must be understood for the expression to make any sense at all.
  1. (figuratively) A ploy of potentially advantageous use in a situation viewed as analogous to a card game.
    The only card left for him to play was playing dumb.
    1. An invocation of an emotionally or politically charged issue or symbol, as in a political competition.
      race card, gender card
I think that the is often used with terms being used in familiar metaphors (eg, play the fool), similar to the use with familiar entities in daily life: (I went to the store.). DCDuring (talk) 08:45, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

-e suffix of majeur or mineur

According to their Wiktionary pages, the French adjectives majeur and mineur take the suffix -e when describing feminine nouns, and so does the French noun mineure (a person below the age of majority). Would i be correct to assume the French noun majeur does the same? The majeur page only lists the masculine French noun and the majeure page only lists the French adjective.

(Remind me: Is persona#Spanish always a feminine noun that takes feminine adjectives and articles even when it refers to someone male?)

Merci.

--173.67.42.107 18:39, 7 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the feminine form is "majeure". As far as I know, Spanish "persona" always takes feminine adjectives, but perhaps that's not always true of informal usage. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:32, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

see you there

A new "goodbye" synonym, but I think it's wrong, because "see you there" implies meeting later at a specific place, e.g. a party or nightclub. Equinox ◑ 01:58, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'd RFD it, personally Jewle V (talk) 07:22, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I've heard small children say "like and subscribe!" as part of saying goodbye (in offline, in-person interactions) because it's what every youtuber they watch says when they end their 'conversations' (videos). I am sceptical of this, though. As you say, I don't see how it could be used without either a sincere or sarcastic implication to seeing the person somewhere. I'm going to boldly just delete it rather than going through RFD, because it's so implausible and the IP that created it has been blocked. - -sche (discuss) 21:53, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative declensions for Latin Iudas and Simeon

In the Clementine Vulgate, I believe that "Iudas" is declined normally (i.e. not the Greek way). That's the Old Testament patriarch Judas at least. I haven't checked the New Testament.

Also, in the same Vulgate, I see that Simeon (Old Testament patriarch Simeon) is an indeclinable name. I haven't checked the New Testament.

I was going to change these but I will let somebody else do it as I'm not sure how Wiktionary deals with alternative declensions. 2603:8080:C6F0:48B0:0:0:0:1468 15:12, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Have added these, assuming you just mean Judam instead of Judan in the accusative. Simeonis does appear in the Clementine as well although it's usually indeclinable. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 20:26, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's what I meant. Thank you! 2603:8080:C6F0:48B0:0:0:0:1468 02:28, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ancient Greek Ἰερουσαλήμ versus Ἱεροσόλυμα

I think these might be different enough to warrant each getting their own entry.

Ἰερουσαλήμ (Ierousalḗm) is loaned directly from the Hebrew (I think it means "city of peace").

Ἱεροσόλυμα (Hierosólyma) is loaned from the Hebrew but the spelling has been altered. It's pretty clear that the first part has been reinterpretted as the Greek word ἱερός (hierós) "sacred".

Additionally, (I do not have a scholarly source but I'm sure somebody can find one,) it is said that the latter (Ἱεροσόλυμα), at least in the Bible, only ever refers to the city of Jerusalem, whereas the former (Ἰερουσαλήμ) sometimes refers to the city of Jerusalem but other times refers to its eschatological antitype, the heavenly city called the "new Jerusalem". This may or may not be noteworthy.

Also, this distinction is retained in the Latin, at least in the Clementine Vulgate. Ἰερουσαλήμ is consistently rendered "Jerusalem" (I believe indeclinable) while Ἱεροσόλυμα is consistently rendered as "Jerosolyma" (I believe first declension). 2603:8080:C6F0:48B0:0:0:0:1468 15:58, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

This is a traditional interpretation but is rejected in modern scholarship. In the received Septuagint Ἰερουσαλήμ is simply the standard form, and Ἱεροσόλυμα only appears inconsistently in the apocrypha. For the New Testament, see this short article, which comments that in general the likelihood is that Ἱεροσόλυμα is a term used for the benefit of Gentile readers and Ἰερουσαλήμ remained the typical Jewish term. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 20:10, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
That's interesting. Thank you! 2603:8080:C6F0:48B0:0:0:0:1468 02:30, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

substance, sense #6

I am no expert but I think the English philosophical and theological usage of the word "substance" is pretty much exactly the same the Latin philosophical and theological usage of the word substantia, which only sometimes means hypostasis (but other times means ousia, while the hypostasis would more typically be translated as 'person'). I think this really needs to be noted. 2603:8080:C6F0:48B0:0:0:0:1468 16:27, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Using it to mean hypostasis in a theological sense would be very unusual. It's easy to find the notion of God as "three substances" explicitly condemned as an error in a lot of Trinitarian works. I think this is a conflation of the philosophical sense of hypostasis, which can mean substance or essence, and the theological one referring to personhood. I've expanded the gloss to try to clear it up. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 17:15, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

classique

A French IP added a sense:

  1. (mostly singular) a dump

I can see how this might be used ironically or sarcastically, but I'm not sure what sense of dump is meant. Perhaps a dilapidated old home? Chuck Entz (talk) 21:29, 8 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wiktionnaire does not have a corresponding sense. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 19:37, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
No idea what they mean by this. I'm inclined to remove it. PUC – 20:22, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@PUC: The sense of dump I think they may have meant (Etymology 1, noun sense 7 at the moment) is perhaps translateable as French taudis. It would be like saying "it isn't old, it's a classic" as a euphemism. I was going to rfv it, but I figured we would want to know what we were verifying, since it's a common word. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:06, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Where y'all be at

As a well-respected an highly scholarly lexicographer, my slang is pretty crap. Can someone cast their eye over this slang phrase? Maybe it needs tagging as AAVE, or whatever Jewle V (talk) 13:26, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

It may well be that this would be SoP had we an Adverb PoS section (at#English) with a good definition. I think we need one (Where should this usage be at otherwise?). If we think be at is AAVE, we should would apply that label. (BTW, AAVE is not spoken only by African-Americans.) I think we have had some discussion of this use of be. DCDuring (talk) 15:01, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This search at Google Books has some more usage. The WP article about AAVE doesn't cover all uses of copulative be though it does discuss auxiliary be. I hope there are some articles at Google Scholar. DCDuring (talk) 15:19, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know if it's relevant, but I regularly use "where you at" in texting conversations with friends or "where are you at" in phone calls, and I'm fairly conservative with my use of slang. The use of at seems to me to be widespread among young people, used far beyond AAVE now (as is the case with a lot of North American slang/colloquialisms). Andrew Sheedy (talk) 16:33, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I think the use of be instead of are (and other forms) is what is more characteristic of AAVE. What I'm calling adverbial at has, I think, a longer and wider history. I've looked to see whether any OneLook dictionaries have adverbial at, but haven't seen it yet. DCDuring (talk) 17:25, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Does this use of at occur without where, either interrogative or relative? It seems like an intensifier. DCDuring (talk) 18:21, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I can't think of any cases off the top of my head, but then I'm not sure what they would be. I wonder if it's a reinterpretation of "where" at base. The answer to "Where are you?" often includes "at": "I'm at home," "I'm at the same place as before". "Where [are] you at" seems to shift the referent of the pronoun from a prepositional phrase (including "at" or "by", etc.) to a noun phrase ("Where are you" corresponding to "I am at home", "Where are you at" corresponding to "I am at home"). Andrew Sheedy (talk) 19:46, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
BTW, our entry for where it's at could us a little love. It is an entry where concealing the quotations seems counter-productive. DCDuring (talk) 23:17, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Serbo-Croatian grammars (including tones)

(Notifying Biblbroks, Vorziblix, Rua, Atitarev, Bezimenen, Jurischroeer, Useigor, Greenismean2016, PUC, Fay Freak, Vorziblix, ZomBear, Atitarev, Bogorm, Bezimenen, Nauka, Ted Masters, Kiril kovachev): Sorry for the wide ping. I'm looking for a good grammar of Serbo-Croatian that explains how the different accent classes work for nouns, verbs and adjectives, ideally online. Our current templates do a piss-poor job of representing the tones and macrons. Bonus points if it's in English or some other language I can read, but if it's in Serbo-Croatian I can get by with Google Translate. Along with that I'd need a dictionary that indicates the tones and the accent class of each word. Any suggestions? Benwing2 (talk) 07:02, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

@Benwing2: Probably accent classes of widely accepted names do not exist. As of 1971 “fehlt es noch an vollständigen Beschreibungen”. Part of the reason being that not every regiolect fully attests the tones and lengths as the centralized Russian language does with Moscow, like Belgrade speech is reported to lack unstressed lengths at the time. “Most speakers of Shtokavian, native or taught, from Serbia and Croatia do not distinguish between short rising and short falling tones. They also pronounce most unstressed long vowels as short, with some exceptions, such as genitive plural endings.” Shtokavian#Accentuation
With the political situation around the 1990s of course the calm endeavour of describing accentology could not be improved. To the disunity add the fatal circumstance that the language has like ⅛ of speakers Russian has and they were less relevant to be cared about by Western scholarship if only to improve foreign relations: So not a coincidence that apparently the GDR was spearheading its studies as an external observer, having exactly as large a population as BCS has speakers—but Eastern Germany was also a piss-poor provider of her subjects, restricting intellectual movement: This all may allow reasonable inference of the absence of the thing ideal for you; that indeed BCS is not completely described as the language of the Kremlin is, which was the language of a dreadening empire.
However as with Russian, you aren’t typically informed about classes from dictionaries anyway but they note inflected forms with stress in addition to the citation form with stress. What I use is Rečnik srpskohrvatskoga književnog jezika of which six volumes exist in one file: I give for an example vol. 5 p. 483 ре̑д, because its locative is ре́ду – I found about such locative changes while looking into Alois Schmaus Lehrbuch der serbokroatischen Sprache 1970 which is what I would use now if I were to learn Serbo-Croatian and you can surely get for few euros, containing remarks about accents also with respect to nouns, verbs and adjectives. In any case the different possibilities are less extreme than with Russian, though on the other hand, which should help your case, knowledge of Russian can be used analogically, like vòda mirrors вода́ (vodá)—some obvious logics with fewer irregularities in comparison to Russian. As you see from the 1971 journal article, one also likes to cite for accents the so-far unfinished Rečnik srpskohrvatskog književnog i narodnog jezika, often relevant for its bulk as on that RFV, hence Wikipedia article. Kodifizierungsgeschichte with dictionary stories by Peter Redher. Fay Freak (talk) 11:47, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
For the record, you can access Rečnik srpskohrvatskoga književnog jezika at https://www.srpskirecnik.com/ quite conveniently. Kiril kovachev (talk・contribs) 11:53, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Benwing2 Hi, I'm not myself familiar with Serbo-Croatian, but I'll do my best. I found a resource called Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Grammar: With Sociolinguistic Commentary, in English. Specifically, sections 165-166 describe accent and accent shifts, which may be of use to you; I don't know if it'll have the level of exhaustiveness that you need, because I don't see specific allusions to 'accent classes' in there, but it does cover adjectives, verbs, and nouns' shift in tone, it appears. I apologize if it doesn't suffice; it also isn't stricly 'online' and is also not cheap; would you be able to provision yourself a copy? Please contact me if not and I could share the contents that are of use.
In addition I don't know whether Rečnik srpskohrvatskoga književnog jezika displays the accent classes as you require, but it does show the lemmas' tone, at least.
I hope someone else is able to provide a more helpful resource, Kiril kovachev (talk・contribs) 12:00, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Fay Freak @Kiril kovachev It's rather surprising to me if there's really no good resource on Serbo-Croatian (or Serbian or Croatian) accent classes, since e.g. you can find online several dictionaries that list the full declensions of Ukrainian including the accents, and there's even one for Belarusian. I have somewhere in storage a book in English that gives detailed info on Chakavian accent differences, and you'd think standard Serbo-Croatian would be easier to find than that. Benwing2 (talk) 20:45, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Benwing2 It may very well have the resources you need, but unfortunately I'm not sure if I can be of help in finding them... in fact, I couldn't see anything about accent classes when I looked on Wikipedia, might you be able to link to where they're described? Additionally, how have you tried searching so far? I just had a look using the usual search engine, but maybe Google Scholar or something of the sort would be better. Or a library index of some kind. At any rate, just thinking about it rationally there definitely should be a resource out there, like you said; there is even for Bulgarian, and Serbo-Croatian should be several times larger and more-studied. I hope you can find what you need, anyway; I'll look again if I can tomorrow in different places, but I'm sure others will have more valuable suggestions. Kiril kovachev (talk・contribs) 21:02, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Kiril kovachev Thanks! I don't know if Serbo-Croatian accent classes are properly described. However, if I have resources that give all the actual forms, I can figure out the accent classes by analogy to Russian; but maybe even those don't exist. Proto-Slavic supposedly had three main accent classes for each of nouns, verbs and adjectives; Zaliznyak's Russian classification has around 10 for nouns (a, b, b', b'', c, d, d', e, f, f'), 3 for verbs, 2 for long adjectives and 7 for short adjectives (a, a', b, b', c, c', c''). Some entries in Wiktionary e.g. voda have all the accents given, but most don't. Benwing2 (talk) 21:08, 10 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Kiril kovachev The book Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, a Grammar: With Sociolinguistic Commentary is actually quite useful, although the information isn't always presented the way I'd like. For example, they mention the locative rȇd -> rédu shift and the accusative vòda -> vȍdu shift and mention that both are archaic. (Both have exact parallels in Russian, where it isn't archaic.) Речник српскохрватскога књижевног језика also mentions both shifts (e.g. the latter in the vòda entry and the former in the vȏd entry) as well as some others, e.g. vòda with dative vòdi or vȍdi; I assume the latter is also archaic (and even more so than vȍda). The former book also does something interesting which is to use an ad-hoc accent notation that separates the rising/falling accent from length, which makes it a lot easier to keep track of these accent shifts. I'm in the process of implementing a Serbo-Croatian adjective module to replace the current outdated templates and I think the way the accents will be implemented is (a) separate length from tone, (b) keep track of the underlying place of accent rather than surface one (i.e. rising accents have an underlying accent one syllable to to the right). If you do this, then it seems things get much easier: most adjectives are either type a (stem stress) or type b (ending stress), just like in Russian, and the type b adjectives have stem stress in the short masculine nominative singular (since there's no ending) and also (for whatever reason) in all long forms. So far the one adjective confusing me is bȅo "white", which looks like a type b adjective but has stem length everywhere but the lemma form (e.g. short nominative feminine béla = underlying bēlá with ending stress, long nominative masculine bȇlī = underlying bḗlī with stem stress). User:Fay Freak can you help me understand what is going on with this adjective? To make things even more confusing, the ijekavian equivalent of bȅo is bijȇl with a long vowel. Benwing2 (talk) 05:05, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

be

I am having a great deal of trouble deciding how to organize the definitions in a sense/subsense structure. My inclination would be to group terms in function words like this first by the grammar, then by semantics. Definitions that are distinctly non-standard (ungrammatical) would also be grouped together unless there were a compelling reason not to. Within the groupings I would think that frequency would be an important ordering principle, but we do not have any fact base that would allow us cover all the senses definitively before the end of the decade.

Anyone who has the required self-confidence and/or expertise to tackle this should do so. Good advice as to how to do it practically would also be welcome. User talk:-sche#Your input for WT:Improving entries for the most common English words contains one tested approach. I doubt that there are more algorithmic approaches, but would welcome any such suggestions. DCDuring (talk) 22:09, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I have grouped the existing definitions into auxiliary, copulative, and intransitive non-copulative. I hope that makes it a bit easier to detect excessive overlap and missing definitions. DCDuring (talk) 17:08, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

be with it

We have the following definition at be:

  • (with a dummy subject it) Used to indicate the time of day.
    It is almost eight (o’clock).
    It’s 8:30 [read eight-thirty] in Tokyo.
    What time is it there? It’s night.

We do not have a definition for the following usage examples:

It is May 1. (Does it just mean "today"?)
It is up to us to fix these entries. (Does it just refer to the infinitive "to fix these entries" and is therefore not a 'dummy'?)

Doesn't the second set of usage examples also have a dummy subject it? Are there other kinds of sentences with dummy it? Does each group need a definition? Should all such expressions with dummy it (only?) be covered by definitions at it? DCDuring (talk) 22:27, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really understand why sense 18 ("used to indicate the time of day") has been distinguished from sense 21 ("used to indicate weather, air quality, or the like"). "It is" can indicate all kinds of states and conditions: "it's awkward in there", "it's dangerous outside", "it's lovely here with you around". The condition can also be temporal distance ("it's two days since I left home") or spatial ("it's a mile to the post office"). This doesn't need to be overcomplicated: in the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language the whole thing is treated in three paragraphs at pages 1482–3. At the it entry, sense 6 ("used without referent as the subject of an impersonal verb or statement") seems to cover it sufficiently. Your second example, "it is up to us to fix these entries", is a different genre of construction termed extraposition since "it" can be swapped out for the part at the end of the sentence. This is very common (think of any sentence with "it is ... that", "it's surprising that he passed the test" ↔ "that he passed the test is surprising").
On the whole I'm not sure why this needs to be handled at be at all. The be is simply doing what it would normally do as a copula, see especially senses 8 (noun predication), 10 (adjective predication), and 16 (measurement). It's not the distinctive part of these constructions with "it"—that's the "it" itself—and conditions can also be expressed with other copulatives ("it gets stormy around this time", "it turned cold quickly yesterday", "it just turned 8 o'clock"). —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 00:35, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I am fairly sure that we can make our definitions of copulative be clearer by focusing first on grammar and using usage examples to help with the range of possible semantics. I think that is what needs to be done with some of our most basic English function-word entries. DCDuring (talk) 18:57, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Overly specific and artificial senses like these should probably be removed, however: we may as well have a sense for "indicating that an object is a cow" with various usage examples with "... is a cow". Part of the art of an entry on these terms will be in identifying what actual distinct senses there are, which technical resources like the CGEL can help with. Indistinct senses are a recurring problem at RFV. —Al-Muqanna المقنع (talk) 19:51, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Fortunately, I own three big modern English grammars (eg, both CGELs) and an older one, two print editions of MW, and two good learner's dictionaries. Sadly, no convenient access to the OED and no formal linguistic, let alone lexicographical, training.
My next step on be is to differentiate the various major distinct grammatical complement (and other?) structures used with copulative be.
Then, I think I will look for semantic/logical usage distinctions, like the difference between equivalence (Be is the most common English copulative verb.) and class membership (Be is a copulative verb.), unless that actually derives from the difference between definite and indefinite complements. This is on my brain because so many vernacular names of organisms are defined solely as "a species of […] (Taxa nomen)." rather than "a member of species Taxa nomen. DCDuring (talk) 21:26, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

banker as sure thing

banker is listed in Thesaurus:sure thing, but I don't see a definition entry on the banker page with such a meaning. Is Thesaurus:sure thing incorrect, or does a new sense need to be added to the banker page? Daask (talk) 15:20, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I believe a new sense needs to be added, this is a meaning that I a familiar with. The Google dictionary gives this sense: (BRITISH) a supposedly certain bet: "the horse should be a banker for him in the Members' race". See also, https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/banker
SimonWikt (talk) 15:58, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

sheep driveway

Sheep driveway[1] seems to be a well-attested term for a trail or network of trails along which bands of sheep are transported by shepherds on foot or horseback. Should we add a sense for driveway or create a new page? Multiple Mooses (talk) 23:41, 12 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

hooptee

A "hooptee" is not merely an automobile. It's e.g. what you'd call a 20-year beat-up Toyota Camry, but not your neighbor's new BMW. Can someone (a) fix this, (b) check if the "automobile" sense is somehow used as well as an additional sense? Benwing2 (talk) 04:47, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

हिंदी

Term Hindi happened to be one of the earlier names of Urdu/Hindustani tongue. Moreover Hindi also means steel that was used to make sword. These terms should be on this page. Dictionary https://www.rekhtadictionary.com/meaning-of-hindi Rihantel (talk) 04:51, 13 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

chastise

Definitions 1 and 3 of chastise appear to be just chastise plus an adjective. Shouldn’t these be removed?

  1. ^ Google Books
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