Talk:transitive-verb

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RFV discussion: February 2018[edit]

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Is this form with hyphen attested? --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:54, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Also: does it seem like many/most of the instances of the hyphenated spelling are attributive ("transitive-verb clauses"), or is it just as likely to be non-attributive ("foo is a transitive-verb, bar is a count-noun"), in which case the definition could be changed to simply "alternative form of"? Cf the RFD discussion. - -sche (discuss) 20:05, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I was taught and continue to believe that hyphens are deployed where they are helpful in reducing confusion about how to interpret a phrase (clause? generalize to constituent?). Eg, French disease victim vs. French-disease victim or romantic novel reader vs. romantic-novel reader. They are not really inherently required because semantics and context can make one or another constructed meaning obviously correct. One set of exceptions is dvandva compounds, like Schleswig-Holstein or red-green (color blindness). [An example of the failure of hyphens to clarify is the newspaper that resulted from the merger of two US newspapers, the Chattanooga News and the Chattanooga Free Press: the Chattanooga News-Free Press DCDuring (talk) 00:50, 17 February 2018 (UTC)][reply]
Thus, I think most entries for hyphenated terms are better omitted or limited to redirects. DCDuring (talk) 20:42, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I think the noun is usually spelled transitive verb and the attributive form varies but is rather often spelled transitive-verb, or else also transitive verb. The "attributive form of transitive verb" definition line seems correct. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:58, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Per utramque cavernam found 1) transitive-verb sentence, and 2) transitive-verb pattern. Do we have third? --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:56, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
When verifying the existence of a hyphenated noun, I generally rule out attributive uses because, as DCDuring points out, such hyphens are only added to disambiguate. I found two cites that use a hyphen in "transitive-verb" when it is not used attributively, but they still look like cases where the hyphen was added to disambiguate. In one, in fact, later on on the same page the unhyphenated form "transitive verb" appears. Kiwima (talk) 23:17, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The definition of "attributive form of transitive verb" is natually attested by attributive uses; these cannot be ruled out but rather are exactly the thing sought, IMHO. --Dan Polansky (talk) 00:02, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This seems like a textbook example of non-lexical/nonlexical information, at least in the majority of cases where the definition is "attributive form of....". A discussion of hyphenation is usually found in style guides. Most dictionaries don't bother with such instances of run-of-the-mill hyphenation, focusing the readers attention on non-repetitive material, ie, not based on simple rules. DCDuring (talk) 00:43, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if we are defining this as the attributive form of transitive verb, then it is cited. Perhaps RFD is a better place to argue whether it is worth including such an entry. My personal take is that such hyphenated attributive forms should only be included when there is another definition for the hyphenated form as well. Kiwima (talk) 03:16, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I'd say this passes RFV. (Now back to RFD. Personally, I am inclined to let it stay.) - -sche (discuss) 23:33, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]


RFD discussion: February–April 2018[edit]

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We don't do that, right? --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 22:21, 15 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

We do do that, a lot: at-sign, open-book, criminal-law, shoulder-blade, sea-urchin. DTLHS (talk) 03:39, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I would prefer to delete these, for reasons discussed at least twice before. There are many of them though; one user (Msh210? someone beginning with M, anyhow) was fond of creating them. Equinox ◑ 03:42, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
He's the one who created that entry, in any case. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 09:17, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. Still not SOP. PseudoSkull (talk) 05:06, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@PseudoSkull: How so? Why do you want to keep this if we already have transitive verb? --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 09:17, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Per utramque cavernam: Because there's a hyphen, which makes it a different entry. Plus, it's not like it can't be classified as anything. Attributive forms should be considered as lexical as adding plurals, whenever attested, IMO. Also, if we're going to have an RFD discussion like this, we really should be going a step up and having a BP discussion or something to bring a very clear consensus to deleting all or almost all attributive forms of noun phrases. But I really don't see any problem with these entries personally; I've seen them quite a lot across enwikt, so there seems to at least be some consensus for having entries like these. It wouldn't be fair to just go as far as deleting this one and leaving all the rest, or even just this one and the 5 others mentioned above; that is, if they should be deleted. In such a discussion, I'd oppose, but still it's just my recommendation to the other members of this discussion. PseudoSkull (talk) 16:49, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"there's a hyphen, which makes it a different entry" is PRECISELY as silly as wanting entries for "dog" and "Dog" because sometimes it's at the start of a sentence. We have had this argument 99 times. Try to keep up. Equinox ◑ 19:51, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
And furthermore the "there are lots of these entries so it isn't fair to delete one" is the same structure of argument as "Hitler killed lots of Jews so it isn't fair to save one". (I SAID STRUCTURE. I'm not a Nazi. See analogy.) That's no argument at all. Equinox ◑ 19:53, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Do we delete alternative spellings in any other cases? AFAICT we only do so for cases where general rules (like, "capialize all Nouns" or "Capitalize the start of sentences.") sometimes result in capitalization, but not in cases where a particular form is capitalized (or spelled with a hyphen) regardless of its position in the sentence, etc... right? Or are there other cases where attested alternative forms (which are not alleged to be uncommon misspellings) are deleted? - -sche (discuss) 20:02, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
My point was that there is not a clear enough consensus to delete these kinds of entries, period. We need to work harder to gather a consensus on these entries as a whole rather than just one or five of them. You don't want one attributive-form entry to be deleted per discussion and one very similar one to be kept per discussion on the same rationales, because of different people signing, etc., right? Yeah... we need a universal consensus for this. PseudoSkull (talk) 20:09, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, well I would certainly vote for removing these, because I see the process of forming the hyphenated attributive form from the spaced "normal" form as entirely mechanical. There aren't any irregular cases; it's not like the past tense of a verb where you sometimes have historical oddities like "sang", or noun plurals like "children". But I find administrivia incredibly tiresome and I am bad at it. If there is enough consensus to zap these then I assume someone else might set it up. Equinox ◑ 20:55, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
-sche: I don't see how anyone can ingenuously call X an "alternative spelling" of Y when X and Y are the same except for spaces vs. hyphens. It's not spelling! And it's not an "alternative form" in the way that we usually use that, because the hyphenated form has its own specific usage (attributive) that mostly isn't acceptable for the "normal" usage (e.g. object of verb). I may have misunderstood what you are saying but unless we are prioritising Wiktionary templates over the language itself I don't get it. Equinox ◑ 20:58, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, we have a lot of entries like this. msh210 created a lot, but even I've created some. I wouldn't often go out of my way to create them, but if they're attested, I don't see grounds for deleting them; attested alternative forms, unless they are e.g. rare misspellings, are always allowed. The most you could do would be argue that it should say more broadly "alternative form of" instead of "attributive form of", but that seems less informative (unless, in the case of some specific entry, the hyphenated form is usually used in non-attributive ways, meaning it is just an alt form), so I would keep the entry as-is. - -sche (discuss) 18:09, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
How would this specific example be used in a sentence? I think it should be RFV'd at least. DTLHS (talk) 19:52, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I placed it to WT:RFVE to see whether this is attested in the first place. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:55, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I found one occurrence in less than fifteen seconds: transitive-verb sentence; I suspect it will be easy to cite. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 20:01, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
transitive-verb pattern. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 20:04, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Well, not so easy to cite after all. This, maybe? Anyway, I actually think it's beside the point. --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 20:42, 16 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
As I suggested, I started a new discussion for most English entries using Template:attributive form of below. I kindly ask that you please focus your RFD attention there. PseudoSkull (talk) 03:36, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]


RFDE: All English attributive forms (with hyphens) of noun phrases[edit]

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All English attributive forms (with hyphens) of noun phrases

See the RFD discussion for transitive-verb above. To see many other examples of entries like this, see Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:attributive form of. The discussion refers only to attributive entries that are based on related entries with no hyphen; i.e. transitive verb used attributively is transitive-verb. If a noun phrase is only used attributively, then it does not apply to this discussion.

Some people believe these should be deleted, and some seem to believe they should be kept. However, I believe this separate discussion should be going on instead, since we shouldn't just delete (or keep) a needle in a haystack, but instead we need to gain a consensus about whether or not any of these entries should be kept or deleted. Perhaps this discussion should even be moved/also discussed at the Beer parlour, or maybe should even get its own formal vote, idk. But this is a start, anyway. This discussion could even result in adding to the wording of our criteria for inclusion.

Pinging everyone from the transitive-verb discussion as of the time of this post: @Per utramque cavernam, @DTLHS, @Equinox, @-sche, @Dan Polansky. PseudoSkull (talk) 03:35, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Keep, that's my vote for now. PseudoSkull (talk) 17:16, 17 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Yuk. clothes-maiden, inverted-snobbery, peat-moss and rugby-boot are some crappy entries and should be deleted. The rest may well be equally crappy and deletable. --Otra cuenta105 (talk) 20:20, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep. I don't see a justification for deleting these anywhere in our WT:CFI, and I don't see a good reason to add such a ban. In particular, we not only include many alternative forms that are regular / predictable, like -ise/-ize variants, but AFAICT we always allow attested alternative forms that are not perfectly predictable (is there anyone who wants to delete those?) and some terms are sometimes hyphenated and sometimes not, so the idea of including those hyphenated spellings that are attested in non-attributive positions (as we also already do), but not ones attested only in attributive positions, seems weird. Compare my (and others') comments about the specific case of transitive-verb, discussed above. - -sche (discuss) 20:23, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@-sche I don't see why you've been comparing attributive forms to alternative forms. An alternative form is something like standardize being changed to standardise; a different spelling of the same word. But transitive verb being changed to transitive-verb implies a different usage of the word; a different way that the word is inflected. So, I am confused by your posts on this subject, and I think others are too for this reason. PseudoSkull (talk) 01:38, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@PseudoSkull, Equinox: I'm sorry I haven't made myself intelligible. What I mean is: there are cases where a hyphen has nothing to do with attributiveness, it's just an alt form, e.g. most or all instances of co-operative, hara-kiri, trans-woman, buck-hoist and non-believer aren't attributive, those are just other spellings of cooperative, harakiri, trans woman ~ transwoman, buck hoist ~ buckhoist, and nonbeliever. And AFAICT, this proposal wouldn't delete those hyphenated entries. It seems silly to me to allow those but ban transitive-verb, especially because, although transitive-verb is mostly attributive, enough citations seem to exist for it to meet CFI as a simple non-attributive {{alternative form of}} (like co-operative etc), so the entry is still going to exist (just with a vaguer definition), unless you want to make a second change to CFI to also ban non-attributive alternative forms that just happen to have hyphens in them. And this will be true of many hyphenated spellings, so we'll still be documenting most of them, just under the less informative definition "alternative form of" (rather than "attributive form of", or what it should perhaps be changed to, "alternative, chiefly attributive, form of") and with citations of non-attributive use that mislead people as to what the main occurrence of them is. That seems silly to me. - -sche (discuss) 19:20, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Delete. Whom will this serve, apart from some misguided god of "all words in all languages"? It's a perfectly regular (AFAICT) spelling rule, and I don't see why a dictionary should feel the need to document that; it's not lexical information.
Or should we run a bot to create all the possible combinations? --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 20:38, 18 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The above does not seem to bear any relation to WT:CFI; in particular, the last question ignores WT:ATTEST. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:44, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Good points. Please let me strike my second sentence. About the first: diff --Per utramque cavernam (talk) 10:50, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Am inclined to delete. I don't see it as comparable to -ise/-ize because those are variant spellings and not in any way mandated by the grammar. Equinox ◑ 01:05, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm changing my vote; delete. These are not separate lexical entities, but are a grammatical feature. They are inflected the same way for every noun phrase. Unless someone can convince me that there are exceptions to the grammatical rule of inserting hyphens to use attributively, then go ahead and tell me. Even if that were the case, such an exception would probably be rare enough to merit its own entry without having entries for all the other ones. The pattern is predictable, and a dictionary does not need to document every single case.
Now, to be fair, the grammatical rule to always insert a hyphen when attributively using noun phrases isn't one that seems to be super well-known, in my experience. You'll probably see sources from lots of unprofessional writers that have attributive noun phrase usage in their writings and don't use a hyphen. That's a lot like what I just did in the previous sentence. You see the point, right? So, technically, nouns can attestedly be used either way, though the first is proper. PseudoSkull (talk) 02:09, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep per -sche: We have the practice of treating the hyphen as significant for the choice of the lemma: we have apple-tree (noun, not attributive form) and apple tree as separate entries. Therefore, transitive-verb is a lemma different from transitive verb. It is predictable, sure, but so are many trivial derivations such as -ness derivations. On a process note, this fits RFD poorly. --Dan Polansky (talk) 18:44, 23 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: This diff is an example of how hyphenated attributive forms have been dealt with differently in other situations. I removed it, since it was still redundant, but an entry is not the only answer. Perhaps the grammatical rule needs to be mentioned somewhere in our appendix or something (and maybe it already is; I'm not all that familiar with the contents of the appendix myself). PseudoSkull (talk) 16:51, 25 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: We are happy to have separate entries for inflections where the alpha characters change, eg wedge and wedged. We are also happy to have separate entries where a space character is added, eg buckhoist and buck hoist. It seems to me logical that we should also be happy with separate entries when a hyphen character is added, or when a hyphen character replaces a space character. The advantage of logic is that computers prefer it (and are likely to for a while yet). The disadvantage, of course, is that much of the beauty of English (our core language) is illogical.
<hijack> Comment: The reason I am mildly in favour of "keep" is that I have a long-term aim/dream that eventually every citation will be applied to the exact spelling of the headword, rather than all being gathered under the lemma, as is general practice at present. (That will at least allow us to stop worrying about whether adjectives/adjectival phrases are comparable or not -- if somehow the phrase "totally ridiculous" unfortunately survives, we will at least be able to list "totally ridiculous (superlative not attested)". I believe it will be found to have other advantages too, though perhaps it is too logical by half. It's way in the future, not least because I don't have the time to champion it at present, but it's just to let people know that I have it in mind; so if there is ever a discussion on changing CFI to allow rare misspellings, or to disaggregate idiomatic phrases into eg "hold onto my/your/his/her hat" I'll be arguing for doing so (though hopefully by then, someone will have found a way of minimising the extra complexity this would cause). I've mentioned this here, rather than starting a new BP topic, because I doubt I'll have time to follow up any comments for the next few weeks, but it's just a statement of a long-term aim which is peripherally relevant to this vote. So if it excites anyone, start a BP topic yourself, and I'll try to contribute as and when. Otherwise, it will have to wait.</hijack> --Enginear 01:19, 3 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The reasoning is that the meaning of the spaces-become-hyphens version is trivially obvious given the existence of the spaced version. You can't really view putting a d on wedge to get wedged as a typographical transformation, given the existence of e.g. have/had instead of haved! IMO it's comparable to how we don't make an entry for "Dogs": it's a trivial transformation from "dogs" used in certain positions (start of sentence). Equinox ◑ 01:44, 3 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]


RFD discussion: July–October 2020[edit]

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Delete per Wiktionary:Votes/2019-05/Excluding self-evident "attributive form of" definitions for hyphenated compounds. PUC – 12:53, 25 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]


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