User talk:90.186.72.23

When you write "a pair of pincers, pliers, tongs, forceps" it's ambiguous as to whether the "pair" applies only to the first item (pincers) or to all. This is why I added the semicolon to separate it from the others, if that is how you intended it to mean Leasnam (talk) 05:16, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

@Leasnam I hadn't actually noticed that you made that change. I thought I'd mistyped. In all cases it means one whole tool, so I intended to use the comma. However, I don't know if maybe "a pair of" is not used with pliers, tongs, or forceps. What's relevant is that the singular means one tool and the plural means several tools. Happy Christmas! 90.186.72.23 17:32, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Okay, very well, then it's good. Merry Christmas to you as well :) ! Leasnam (talk) 17:44, 24 December 2019 (UTC)

Maltese adjective template

Hey, I've added a new adjective template for Maltese ( mt-adjective) which support multiple plurals, comparative and diminutive. It is still a work-in-progress since I need to add support for adjectives that end with -i since they are invariable. I'll add support for nouns later. I've migrated most adjectives to the new template (except -i adjectives). Cheers. Fenakhay ❯❯❯ Talk 07:53, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

@Fenakhay Ah, okay. Thanks a lot! So what's your point with invariable adjectives? Do you mean that you want to simplify the editing, so the forms don't have to be added manually? (Of course, not all adjectives in -i are invariable, only the Romance ones, but you're probably aware of that.) So, thanks again. The templates we had were bad, but I'm no good at programming, so I just work with the existing stuff. 90.186.72.23 08:08, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

You are welcome! Yes, I am aware. The thing is I am not sure in what format I should display them. Some entries have them duplicated as in here : diffiċli, or plain as in here :impossibbli.

I have two suggestions :

- diffiċli m or f or pl

- diffiċli inv

Both of them will be triggered by a flag inv=true. I'm leaning on the first one because it is less ambiguous. Fenakhay ❯❯❯ Talk 09:00, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

@Fenakhay I'd say let's go with the second one (inv). 90.186.72.23 09:06, 2 January 2020 (UTC)

xegħel

The sense turn on is not a claque from Italian/Sicilian. Oil lamps were used in the past, and to turn them on, you had to light up the oil inside. Thus acquiring the sense of turning on, and it was extended to TVs when they appeared. It is even the same in Moroccan Arabic and Hejazi Arabic. Fenakhay ❯❯❯ Talk 15:22, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

@fenakhay Oil lamps are "lit" in all languages. That's the literal sense of the word. The point is the figurative use for modern machines. In English "to light the TV" would make no sense. In German, "den Fernseher anzünden" would downright mean to set it on fire. As I said, the possibility that the use in Maltese and Italian are independent is there, but it's slim. Machines were brought to Malta from Italy and the terminology was adopted. In Arabic it's another thing; I'm not making claims about Arabic. Some surely use شعل, overall فتح may be commoner. But that's beside the point, because Arabic had no influence on the use in Maltese. 90.186.72.23 16:29, 10 January 2020 (UTC)