User talk:Paul G/2004

Hi Paul,

I have a tip for you. Instead of saving a page to see what it looks like, you can also press the Show preview button. You only have to make sure not to forget to save it in the end. If you prefer to do a lot of minor updates, that is fine too. I'm only telling you because maybe you hadn't seen the feature. Keep up the good work and best wishes for 2004! Polyglot 16:21, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi Jo, and a happy New Year to you too. Thanks for the tip. I'm aware of the Show preview button but don't really use it. I think I will from now on, as I often find that I edit a page and then find out that something is not quite right. It can take a long time to get a page right when the server is slow. -- Paul G 16:44, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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Hi Paul,

What do you think about having entries for quatre-vingt instead of quatre-vingts and even referring to the wrong one on the page for twenty four?Polyglot 11:13, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi Jo,

"Quatre-vingt" is used in compounds (for the numbers 81 to 99, higher numbers ending in those number and the ordinal numbers corresponding to these cardinal numbers); "quatre-vingts" is 80 and 24 is "vingt-quatre"... I would say that if there is a page for "quatre-vingt", it should just contain cross-references to "quatre-vingts", "quatre-vingt-un", ..., "quatre-vingt-dix-neuf" (or just the first few of these. I think the wrong reference to "quatre-vingt" on 24 should definitely be removed, if it hasn't been already.

Were these done by me? If so, I apologise for not spotting them. Please go ahead and correct them - thanks. -- Paul G 12:17, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

OK, I've looked at these pages and see what you mean. Please have a look athe changes have made

I don't think they were done by you. Your French seems to be (a lot) better than mine, so I wanted you to check it out. Thanks! Polyglot 15:31, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thank you - I have some good French reference texts at home that help a lot! -- Paul G 17:15, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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Hi Paul,

Great to see you are adding the SI units. I think it would be interesting to have the abbreviations A for Ampere, Hz for Hertz. Omega character for Ohm. More or less like it's done for the numbers and the elements. What do you think? Polyglot 14:18, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Maybe a link to Wikipedia would be interesting as well. (Maybe I'll get a chance to take care of it myself, tonight) 195.0.32.253 14:47, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi Jo - yes, I thought about these. I think I'll add the symbols to the pages (but not to the list) and definitely the Wikipedia links. Thanks for the suggestsions. -- Paul G 17:15, 12 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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Congratulations! As of today you are a sysop on Wiktionary. I hope you are flattered. If you don't like it, I'll ask Tim to undo it. :-) Polyglot 09:57, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Wow, I am indeed! Thank you. What does this enable me to do and give me responsibility for? (Who is Tim?) -- Paul G 11:20, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Tim is a programmer. It enables you to block anonymous users (when they start vandalising Wiktionary). We don't easily block users, but somebody who puts nonsense in 10 different pages within 5 minutes would quickly become a candidate. The problem with blocking IP-addresses is that such an address might be shared by more people (my case) and that it is rather trivial to get another IP address (other provider, new dial up connection, ...).

It allows you to delete pages (after consensus has been reached, so you first put it on votes for deletion).

And you can protect and unprotect pages. This is more applicable to Wikipedia where edit wars are all too common.

Cheers Polyglot 11:49, 17 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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Hi Paul. I see you removed the "parallelled" forms from the "parallel" article. In your commit you say you've confirmed it but you haven't told us how/where whereas I have cited some evidence to the contrary on the parallel discussion site. I'll try to check the major print dictionaries today (OED, Macquaire, Collins, Webster, AHD) to reconfirm. Also if it turns out you are correct, there is no need to have the "(British & US)" qualifier without any other entry to contrast it with. Hippietrail 01:11, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hi Hippietrail - thanks for this. I got my information on "paralleled" from Chambers (1998). It is a well-known exception to the usual British English spelling rules for verbs ending in vowel + l; the same rule applies to "unparalleled". I agree that "British & US" can be removed. I put this in only for emphasis - a bit like a "[sic]", if you like. If you find that "paralleled" is the only correct form in British English, maybe you could add a note commenting on this so that readers do not think it is an error. Is Macquaire a US dictionary? I am not familiar with it. -- Paul G 09:41, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Unfortunately I didn't get to the library today after all but I'll keep it in mind for next time. The info I've found so far on the net says British uses 2 l's for the past participle and also the present participle but oddly I find no information on unparalleled with 2 l's! I wonder if this is some anomoly or maybe the word isn't used in the UK? The Macquarie Dictionary is the Australian national dictionary and has become both the documentor and bible of Australian English. I don't think Canadian or New Zealand or South African English have any such equivalent yet. Hippietrail 10:14, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

"Unparalleled" is used in the UK. I would recommend using printed dictionaries over anything on the Net. The OED would give a definite answer. Using Macquarie (or Macquaire?) is going to be a good thing as Australian usage does not always follow UK usage. -- Paul G 13:51, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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Hi Paul. Re your changes to "drank". Of course "drank" in English isn't in the imperfect - English doesn't have an imperfect sense like that of Spanish. The English past tense translates both Spanish's preterite and imperfect tenses. "I drank for five hours" = "yo tomaba durante cinco horas". It is not a 1:1 mapping, therefore I include all translations. Hippietrail 10:29, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the correction. I am not as familiar with Spanish as I am with French or Italian. -- Paul G 10:45, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

You're welcome. Sorry if I sounded a bit harsh. Can you tell me how the imperfect is used in French and/or Italian? My Spanish is far from fluent but I've managed to read novels in it and get by in it for a few months at a time overseas so I try to only enter stuff here if I'm fairly sure of it. Hippietrail 10:55, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

No problem - it would have been better for me to leave it alone. The imperfect is used in French and Italian to translate a continued or repeated action in the past (eg, "It was raining" - "Il pleuvait", "Pioveva"; "He used to go there often" - "Il y allait souvent", "Ci andava spesso") as opposed to a single, completed action in the past (eg, "It rained yesterday" - "Il a plu hier", "Ha piovuto ieri" (perfect tense) or "Il plut", "Piovve" (simple past [alias the "past historic"]). So, in French, "he drank" is either "il a bu" (perfect) or "il but" (past historic - usually used only in novels); "he was drinking" or "he used to drink" is "il buvait" and "he has drunk" is "il a bu". I don't know how Spanish works in this respect. -- Paul G 11:08, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I asked a Peruvian speaker of Spanish and she confirms that the verb tenses are used exactly like I learned they are used in French.

tomaba, action goes on for a longer duration in the past or is repeated

tomé, action at one specific point of time in the past. (difference with French is that this tense is used all the time, also in spoken language, whereas in French one only sees it written and people look at me funny if I use in speech)

he tomado, more general, but action is certainly not going on anymore in the present. Polyglot 11:51, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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Hi.

About french ton I agree all definitions should be writen in english, and I agree my english was bad. However I did not understand why you deleted some examples. You did not like these examples, did you? I am JeanMichel, from http://fr.wiktionary.org

Hi JeanMichel. I agree I was a little overzealous in editing your contribution. I deleted your examples because I have not seen examples in non-English-language entries. There is no particular reason why this should be true, and I did indeed retain one example. I will therefore restore your examples. Thanks for your contributions - they are appreciated and valuable. (Your English was OK, by the way!) Regards -- Paul G 09:34, 14 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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No, a Ponzi scheme is not the same as a pyrimid scheme. I've always seen it capitalized. —Długosz

Thanks for the clarification. -- Paul G 10:18, 21 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Vocabulary Project

Hi Paul, I have written a program for learning vocabulary. Since you speak several languages I wondered if you might be interested. The program is based on the belief that it is best to learn foreign words by learning typical sentences. Unfortunately I wrote it in qbasic, which can be downloaded here. It also uses images and sound files for alternation and in order to work on the pronunciation. Let me know what you think about it. I currently have files in English, French (with sound), and Spanish. Catalan and Portuguese are in the planning. Corrections or additions are very welcome. The easiest thing to start with for improvements would be adding new vocabulary, sound files or images. A guide to the program will follow soon, although I think it is rather self-explanatory. Get-back-world-respect 15:39, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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Translations

Hi, Paul, when you create a new entry, could you please also include the Translations section. Even if you do not put any translations in it yourself, it would save the first person who adds a translation a ton of work. This way we need to wade through the whole rigamarole instead of just clicking on the edit by the translations section.—Red Prince 16:58, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi Red Prince. Thanks for your suggestion. My practice is to include only the sections that I will be putting any content into, and this is fairly standard on Wiktionary. It is a small amount of effort to type "====Translations====" before adding translations to a page. There are many other sections that could go into an entry, such as synonyms, antonyms, see also, related terms, etymology. There is little point including these until they are written, as they clutter up the entry and make it harder to discern what is what. -- Paul G 17:11, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Sigh. I often just do not add my translations when I see that. It is not that simple a matter. Chances are that two people try to add a translation at the same, and because it takes much more time when we need to wade through the whole thing, it is much more likely to get the infamous message that someone else has modified it while you are trying to modify it. And I just give rather than risk that major annoyance. This is a dictionary, so every word should have its translations, what else is the point of having a dictionary?—Red Prince 17:25, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand you. What is it that you need to wade through in order to add translations? I agree that all words need their translations, but I still feel that there is no point in adding the header "Translations" if I am going to leave that section empty. -- Paul G 17:33, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Never mind, I guess. The difference is that if the header is there, there is a little edit next to it, so we can just click on it and start typing. If it is not there, we need to open the entire thing, scroll down, find the place where to insert the header, and finally start typing. At any rate, I didn't mean to make a big deal out of it. If you don't want to do it, don't do it.—Red Prince 20:37, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi Red Prince (maybe I should write this on your talk page...

A dictionary describes words. Translations are only one part of that description. Page down works wonders to go through a page quickly and it's mostly the translation section that takes up the most space in new entries, so it can't be that bad if it's not there yet.

When you get an edit conflict (I am on here quite often and get them very infrequently), the text you created is at the bottom, the text saved by the person who edited more quickly than you did (probably because they did less) is on top. It shouldn't be too much of a big deal to merge both and submit them. I can imagine you panic the first time this happens. I know it startled me... But once you know how it works, it's not the end of the world.

Paul, if indeed it means people won't add a translation when the section is not there, maybe we can set it up d'office. It's true that it's going to be needed anyway in almost all the English entries.Polyglot 21:13, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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Hi and thanks for posting a note to me. I was a little baffled when I tried to link to [[Types of companies]] and it showed red. I was wondering could it be added to appendices since it is an appendice with translation works. Another thing since you are a sysop: I've been asking for having daily listings of articles that do not contain the string "Finnish" and respectively for every other language. That would be a relatively simple task if we are using mysql 4. It would help finding places to contribute. cheers. --Juxho 11:24, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Hi Juxho, thanks for understanding why I did this. I can move it to the appendices section if you like, although I wonder if it is a little too specialised to go there. There is a danger of the appendices section becoming filled with all kinds of miscellaneous material that might be better off somewhere else. Let me know what you think about this.

Although I am a sysop I am not familiar with mysql 4. Being able to find articles that do not yet contain translations into a particular language would be a useful feature (or skill). I would oblige if I knew how to do it and if it were straightforward to do. -- Paul G 12:36, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

select cur_namespace,cur_title from cur where cur_text not like '%Finnish%';

--Juxho 14:35, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC). I got it from TimStarling, but I also heard that SQL queries are just for Developers not sysops anymore. Dunno as I'm not a sysop

There was something somewhere to enter SQL queries, but I don't see it anywhere any more. Maybe as you say only developers can do them now. Oh well, you'll have to keep on pestering them till they do it for you. -- Paul G 15:48, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

The database can be downloaded here: http://download.wikimedia.org/

Then you can import it and do the search locally. Not trivial, but not all too hard either. Once that works you can execute all the queries you like, generate a list, wikify it and put it on your home page. Polyglot 16:47, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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Conjugations

Hi, I saw you contributed to the conjugations appendix. I added some verbs in German and Catalan, but I am not sure if it makes sense like this. verba.org already has all thge conjugations in all the languages, we will never make it that far here. And wikibooks already has or plans to have study guides from all languages to all languages, so this here to me seems to be just redundant. Anyways, I like the projects over here, and maybe we can somehow find a way to link from one page to the other in order not to waste time but still habe a comprehensive dictionary. How about the project for learning - mainly vocabulary - I told you about? Please check my page and let me know. Get-back-world-respect 18:02, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi Get-back-world-respect,

Thanks for adding the Catalan and German links. I've modified these slightly to fit in with the others on the page.

The English link for irregular verbs is simply a list of verbs in English that are irregular. For the conjugations of the verbs (usually just the past tense and the past participle) are found under the verbs themselves. I think it would make sense to do the same with the German and Catalan irregular verbs. Are the verbs in the table the only irregular verbs in Catalan? I think the conjugation of the German verb "sein" belongs under "sein" itself rather than as an example - I don't think it is possible to have a useful example of an irregular verb as all other irregular verbs will be conjugated differently from that example. I think it would be better simply to list the irregular verbs on the German and Catalan pages, as has been done for the English page.

As for redundancy, Wiktionary is the lexical wiki, so anything to do with language belongs here. If wikibooks include conjugations too, I would say that it is that is the redundancy. We could have links to Wikibooks, but maybe Wikibooks should link to Wiktionary instead! I'll have a look at Wikibooks anyway and it might make sense, as you say, to link there before we do much more work on these conjugations ourselves.

I've looked at your page but have not taken the time to download and run the software. I might do this at some point when I make time for it. -- Paul G 06:42, 3 May 2004 (UTC)

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"Inventorize"

Hi Paul,

We are not certain if the word to inventorize exists and can be used. Could you have a look at it? Polyglot 13:49, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Hm, it's not in dictionary.com, but is in thesaurus.com (see http://thesaurus.reference.com/search?r=2&q=inventorize ). I don't know what it means. I'll check my dictionaries at home when I get a chance. (By the way, this will need a corresponding "inventorise" if the word is valid.) -- Paul G 15:54, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

I've checked and it's in the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed). It means simply "to make an inventory of" and I intend to change the definition to this. The existing definition is too specific, in my opinion. -- Paul G 06:10, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Many thanks Paul. I really appreciate this! I just dreamt up a definition and I don't think I'm very good at it. I just wanted to put something, anything (as long as it made some sense). Polyglot 17:57, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

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Phonetics in Rhymes pages

Hi Paul.

I've noticed that you've been using a short macron with a double "oo" for the /u:/ sound in the rhyme pages. Unicode has a much better character which does the exact job needed to match non-IPA dictionary pronunciation guides. The down side is that it's not well-supported yet: ͞ 862 035E COMBINING DOUBLE MACRON

I've been using this since I started the non-IPA pronunciations and since the short macron alternative is also ugly I think we may as well use the right character and when fonts get better everything will just work. In the meantime the IPA and SAMPA representations work for everybody else. — Hippietrail 13:17, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Oh good, thanks for that. I've been wondering how to do it. I'll put them in when I get the time (or perhaps you could kindly fix the few -oo* pages I have done so far). Thanks -- Paul G 13:20, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

No worries. I think I got them all (: — Hippietrail 12:08, 15 May 2004 (UTC)

Thank you :) I'll follow your example in the other "oo" pages. — Paul G 09:33, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

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Hi again. I've got another pronunciation suggestion.

I've ranted before in some page but I guess you missed it. I'm not in favour of using /ɪ/ for the final i sound usually spelled -y. Some dictionaries do use the same symbol as for their short i, but just as many use the same symbol as for their long i (or is it long e?), "ē". The AHD is one such case. From what I've read, dialects vary broadly from one extreme to the other. For this reason, a smaller number of wiser dictionaries are now opting to use an extra, non-differentiated, symbol for this morpheme. In IPA we can have the 3-way-distinction /ɪ/ vs /iː/ vs /i/. But luckily, the same works just as well for SAMPA: /I/ vs /i:/ vs /i/, and the non-IPA system (now even more reason to not call it AHD in Wiktionary): /ĭ/ vs /ē/ vs /i/.
I've been using this system on Wiktionary for almost as long as I've been working on the pronunciations section and I think it's very useful. By the way, in my dialect, "-y" doesn't really sound like /ɪ/ or /iː/ - it has the quality of the latter but much shorter. Using the others sounds very unnatural to me though /iː/ probably sounds a bit less alien. — Hippietrail 16:35, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

This is an interesting point. I felt a little uncomfortable changing your final /i/ to /ɪ/ but did it because, as you say, that is the symbol I have seen used dictionaries. However, this pronunciation sounds "posh" to me (RP, if you like), while i: sounds too long. On the other hand, the short i, which transcribes the vowel "i" in Romance languages, seems to fit. So I tend to agree. Thanks for bringing this up. I'll make a note to change these in the rhymes when I have some time. -- Paul G 16:48, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

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Hi Paul. I see you're doing the -Vns rhyme now. I've always wondered whether anybody at all actually pronounces /ns/ and /nts/ any differently. It's very difficult for me to make them different without slowing to a phoneme-by-phoneme crawl. I'm not sure if there are some dialects which regularly and obviously differentiate them. Some examples "mince" and "mints", "prince" and "prints". When I consult a regular dictionary they always show different pronunciations but I'm pretty sure a rhyming dictionary listed them as rhymes. They often appear on homophone lists.

Anyway my point is that I think we should at least add a note to any -ns- and -nts- rhyme page to also look on the other page. The case for -nz- and -ndz- is almost as compelling. — Hippietrail 10:06, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree. I'll add a note to that effect. — Paul G 10:14, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

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1. Bundt cakes are quite popular in the US (try googling). The term "Bundt" is not generally used on its own, but would certainly make a rhyme, either whimsically inverted or enjambed:

   ... front/... the cake was Bundt

   ... the Bundt/cake . . . . front/....

2. Where I come from "Nestles" is pronounced as in the entry you removed. Please check non-British usage before summarily deleting "incorrect" pronunciations.
3. Nestles is a decent choice for a chocolate Bundt cake.

-dmh 16:02, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, dmh. I was not aware of this. As Muke has pointed out on the /i:z/ talk page, Nestle's is pronounced as you say, but has not been restored because it is stressed on the first syllable. — Paul G 16:07, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I was pretty sure that the Nestle's would not rhyme because of the stress (though it would rhyme with "yes, please" depending on what you consider a rhyme). I was more concerned that the American pronunciation be duly noted. -dmh 16:43, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, it's assonant with "yes, please", but a rhyme, as defined, has to match exactly from the stressed vowel onwards. That's the definition that I'm going by. -- Paul G 14:29, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Interwikis

Hai Paul,
I see that you reverted a lot of messages from palindrome. One of them is the interwiki link to the nl:wiktionary. I am working towards a system where automatic translation will work within some parameters. One of the things is that words that spelled exactly the same should have a link.

I have read that you are unreservedly against the use of messages. Please reconsider, and read the arguments for the use of these messages. It will help build a big amount of translated words quicly in other wiktionaries. The one thing that really needs manual attention is the translation of a definition. It may mean that more precise definitions will be needed in order to translate correctly, BUT these are needed anyway.

My first aim is to manually do the languages using en:wiktionary info for the nl:WikiWoordenboek. When this is done I will know how feasible it is. GerardM 19:04, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi Gerard,

I am concerned about the use of messages for the headers and language names, for the reasons that I and others have pointed out. In my haste to remove these messages, I also removed your link to WikiWoordenboek. Sorry about that. Please go ahead and restore it.

Please note one other change that I made: non-English entries have only English translations. The French entry for "palindrome" is translated only into English. This decision has been discussed and agreed in order to help preserve Wiktionary's self-consistency.

Thanks for contributing to Wiktionary - please continue to do.

Regards — Paul G 08:35, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

The concerns you have are noted. That is, I will see how I can solve issues. It is too early to come to a conclusion as this is not an en:wiktionary only thing and it has not cristalised enough. The use of interwikis is important as it will help the new wiktionaries find translations.

The quality of the translations is often not good. The German nouns have a gender and a capital. These are often missing. By putting all translations in one heap with (1) and (5) etc. It is often not clear what to use for (4) when it is missing in a language.

Having translations only with the English word is the proper thing to do. However, I think it should be stated that a word is English like we are starting to do on nl:wikitionary. The local word should always go first.

One thing I have to say, it is one thing to have concerns and another to revert them all back. The point is that you could leave a few to allow for experimentation and comment. By removing them all, it gives the impression that the en:wiktionary way is the only way and that the "not invented here" principle applies. I expect that you do not mean it that way.

When translations are picked up from en:wiktionary, it becomes vital for the other wiktionaries to link to that word. This will help find new translations and changes to translations as they appear.

Thanks, GerardM 06:34, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi Gerard,

I'm glad to hear that you are seeing what can be done to make your system avoid the problems that have been raised. If it can be made to work without disruption and to the benefit of Wiktionary, then it will be a good thing. I hope this can be achieved.

No, as you say, I do not mean that the en:wiktionary way is the only way and anything else must be eliminated. When I see a page that diverges from what is emerging as the standard model, I tend to edit it. I did this to your pages before I came across the discussion about messages.

I agree that it will be useful to translations to disseminate themselves automatically across Wiktionaries in different languages. This will save a great deal of work. — Paul G 08:23, 28 May 2004 (UTC)

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Hi Paul. Just noticed you rearrange the pronunciation section on Golden eagle. Note that I'm using this new system for a couple of reasons:

1. When a word has various pronunciations, all transcriptions can go on one line
2. The homophone and rhyme sections can unambiguously go under one pronunciation
3. What I used to call "AHD" is subtly different from what the American Heritage Dictionary uses but at the time I didn't know what else to call it and assumed all American dictionaries used the same system. They don't but this is very much typical of what they do use but since its our own system doesn't have a name - but most people familiar with that style of dictionary will understand these pronunciations

— Hippietrail 10:56, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Hi Hippietrail,

That makes sense. I don't understand your second point though. Can you explain?

Well here's an example:

===Pronunciation===

• rō, /rəʊ/, /r@U/

  Homophones: roe

  Rhymes: -əʊ

• rou, /raʊ/, /raU/

  Rhymes: -aʊ

It makes it easy to see which rhymes and homophones relate to which pronunciations, regardless which of the pronunciation schemes you are able to read/understand

It's also more compact (:

I suppose that, if this newer format becomes standard, it can be extended to all entries using a bot. I wouldn't want to be involved in editing all the existing entries :) — Paul G 11:04, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

I just fix them as I come across them. Should be bottable in a lot of cases. By the way - where do I learn about wikibots? I'm a programmer - might be able to do something useful there... — Hippietrail 11:19, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Ah, I see now. That is tidier.

I don't know where you would find out about this - presumably from whoever programs Wiktionary. Maybe ask in the Beer parlour, or check out Wikipedia. I think they have active bots on there. -- Paul G 14:31, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

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Hi Paul. Saw your note in ∀ about "there exists" - if you can describe what that symbol looks like I'll try to find it. — Hippietrail 12:26, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Got it, thanks :) Someone had already created the page for the symbol. I couldn't find it (nor ∀) among the Unicode characters from 128 to 999 though. — Paul G 13:54, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

No problem. Remember, Google is your friend. I found it be searching ["there exists" unicode] — you should be able to find all the upside-down or backward letters you need (-: — Hippietrail 16:19, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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Stress in rhymes

Hi again. Just wanted to say that I don't think the stress marks are necessary in the rhymes. They'll only confuse people - especially those wanting to make new rhyme pages. Since by definition the rhymes begin with the stressed syllable anyway, the stress will always be in the same position with each and every one. Thus really nullifying any need to add it. I put it in a couple early on weeks ago and then realized it wasn't the best idea.

By the way, with the non-IPA pronunciation, the plain old apostrophe marks the primary stress. I've been using the straight double quoute to mark the secondary stress just because I couldn't find any better two Unicode characters which looked the same but differed in weight.

Now if and when we get deeper into the rhyming dictionary, and try to cope with more complex types of rhymes involving the secondary stresses, we may need to mark stresses in those. But before we do that we really should invest some time seeing what several well-known print rhyming dictionaries have come up with already. — Hippietrail 09:45, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sure, not putting in the stress marks makes sense, as you say. I did think about this this morning - good to see that you've had the same thought. It will save some effort too. Thanks for clarifying this for me.

I have a rhyming dictionary at home (Penguin; I have not been referring to it yet - all my rhymes have come from applying a list of common word beginnings to each page). They do not pay any attention to secondary stress. Their system is based on the final syllable, irrespective of stress (hence there is a very long section containing words ending in /@/). Within each section there are subsections containing groups of rhymes with a particular ending further subdivided by number of syllables, as we have here. However some of these disregard stress, especially when words have no true rhymes (based on pronunciation and stress) so, for example, "about" and "turnout" would be in the same section.

I'm not sure subdividing on secondary stress will be necessary, but one thing that probably ought to be included is an "others" section for words that have the final syllable but do not have any rhymes of their own. So, for example, "orange" would appear on the page for /-IndZ/ along with "hinge" and "swinge" rather than as an "orphan" on its own page. — Paul G 10:46, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

But of course the problem then is that "orange" doesn't actually rhyme with "hinge" - so who would this be useful to? Even near-rhymes don't work in this way as far as I know. They would pay most attention to the stressed vowel but relax the constraints on the following consonants and short unstressed vowels. It's more likely to near-rhyme "orange" and "porridge" IMHO than with "hinge". But hey - I'm not a poet (-: — Hippietrail 11:04, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

True. I don't want to take Wiktionary down the route of "partial" rhymes that don't match stress or are only assonant (as "orange" and "porridge" - this sort of "rhyme" is very popular among, dare I say, lazy contemporary song-writers). Perhaps we should leave things as they are, but then the link that you have added from "monster" remains dead for ever. (There are no rhymes for "monster" as far as I can determine.) — Paul G 11:12, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

That's fine. This is probably the case in print dictionaries too and it makes it clear to people looking for rhymes that we also don't know of any rather than leaving the issue open. And if somebody does find an obscure one - there is somewhere for them to add it. C'est la vie... — Hippietrail 11:22, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

The phrase "not comparable"

Hi Paul. I've been thinking about this for a while and I think this phrase isn't right. It makes it sound like something can't be compared at all, which is a semantic function quite distint from whether an adjective permits the formation of comparative and superlative forms. "uniqueness" isn't comparable semantically yet the word "unique" does have admittedly inane yet very common comparative and superlative forms "more unique" and "most unique". And this is at the extreme end of the scale.

I much prefer the phrase "no comparative or superlative forms". I assume that you're preferring a phrase which is more comprehensible to "regular people" which is a concern, but a dictionary has to be precise too and I think "not comparable" is far too imprecise. — Hippietrail 11:17, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

OK, this makes sense. However, "more x" and "most x" are comparatives and superlatives, so "no comparative or superlative forms" would also apply only to something that is not comparable at all (such as the adjective "either"). I think this is what you are suggesting. If so, this sounds fine to me. — Paul G 12:15, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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Hi Paul,

Yes there is a ĥ in esperanto and ĥoro shouldn't be capitalised. I see Muke already took care of it.

Greetings,

Jo

Great, thank you for that. — Paul G 08:46, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hollywood Jam, Tiny Toon Adventures, and probably some other stuff

I left a message on your Wikipedia talk page, but judging by your contributions, it might be a while before you check over there. The short of it is that the person who added Hollywood Jam and that Tiny Toons page is a vandal who has been repeatedly warned and repeatedly banned on en.wikipedia for posting complete and utter fiction. -- w:User:Cyrius

Hi Cyrius,

Thanks for clarifying that. I'm afraid I took them in good faith.

I have deleted the pages from Wiktionary. I take it you have deleted the Wikipedia pages too.

— Paul G 15:06, 14 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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Hi, Paul. I am the contributor who added several square dance terms, including Allemande Left and Dos a Dos. I am a registered and licensed square dance caller. Please do not change these articles unless you are familiar with square dancing. The changes you made to capitalization and the "à" are not correct--they are not the way these terms are used in calling in English. "Dos a Dos" is a square dance move which comes FROM a French phrase, but it is not the French phrase. Moves are generally written like titles, so it should be "Allemande Left" and "Ladies Chain", not "allemande left" and "ladies chain". Due to its long history, "Dos a Dos" is indeed spelled many different ways--and there's a related call "Do-Si-Do" which is not the same and other related calls also.

It took me a while to get these pages back in order again.

So--please don't make changes unless you are familiar with square dancing. Thanks. RSvK 07:00, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hi RSvK,

You are right, I am not familiar with square dancing. However, I made my changes based on evidence from another dictionary (Chambers, 1998 edition), which spells this entry "dos-à-dos". I've now checked the OED (1989 edition) and this gives "do-se-do" and "do-si-do" as the spellings, but not "Dos a Dos" (capitalised, without an accent or hyphens).

I know nothing about "Allemande Left", etc, so cannot comment on these. I did not believe that these were capitalised, but your experience shows that they are, so I defer to you here. I apologise for making unfounded assumptions.

In any case, there is room for all the variant spellings of "do-si-do", as we have both commented on in the entry.

— Paul G 07:21, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I know this isn't directly on-topic but I think this is a good example of what categories can be usefully used for. — Hippietrail 07:52, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

There are many variations on the name "Dos a Dos", but in twelve years of square dancing, I've never seen it spelled with the accent mark. I realize this is the way the original French phrase is spelled, but nobody uses the accent mark in square dancing. Non-French speakers changed it sometimes to "Do-Si-Do", but that name eventually came to be applied to another related move with a different definition. RSvK 19:34, 18 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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Categories

First of all, the fruit categories were not created by me; I simply arranged them into a higher category after they were created. Secondly, I see no harm in using the current format, and I think it reads more naturally than your suggestion. -- LGagnon

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Hi Paul. Just on your change to Bilgewater, how is it possible for a word derived from another to not be related to it? Isn't derivation a relationship? And by derived do you mean etymologically or or morphemically? I've had a problem with the "Derived" and "Related" headings for a long time, believing that they are more than a little bit confusing. — Hippietrail 14:43, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Fair point. I've always taken this to mean morphologically related rather than etymologically. What is your interpretation? I'll return it as "derived". — Paul G 14:49, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've always found it ambiguous and sometimes haven't been able to decide which term is right. I brought the matter up on the Beer parlour or perhaps in a talk page some time ago and I got the impression people didn't understand the difference. In this case, I think the relationship is clearly etymological since the change wasn't dealing with English derivational morphemes but replacing one component of a compound word. This makes me surer that the terms we're using for the headings aren't clear enough for other people also. — Hippietrail 14:56, 20 Jul 2004 (UTC)

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Yelling at foreigners

Paul, you commented on mathematics: "please do not add translations before definitions". Well, that is the most patronizing arrogant statement anyone has made here so far. So, we must do the work of the native English speakers just so we can add a translation? English is not my language, I should not be expected to do any definitions. Red Prince 16:04, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Red Prince,

I'm sorry you saw it as patronising and arrogant - I really did not mean that way.

This was not an attack directed at you. I understand that English is not your first language, and do not expect you to do the work of English speakers. However, if translations are added to an entry before definitions, and then several definitions are added, it is often difficult to know which translations these definitions correspond to. I hope you understand that this can cause problems and make the translations useless.

Please, when you create new entries and add translations, add just a few words so that it is clear what the translations are translating. You don't have to write a perfect definition - an English speaker can do this later on. Thank you. — Paul G 16:36, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Fictional characters

Do we really need entries for fictional characters? I think Wikipedia handles this well enough. I don't think these entries fit the purpose of a dictionary entry. -- [[User:LGagnon|LGagnon]] 15:08, 13 Aug 2004 (UTC)

They are mainly there for the purposes of providing translations. Definitions are minimal and cross-reference Wikipedia. See the discussion of "Fat & Skinny" on the "Requests for deletion" page. — Paul G 08:37, 16 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Links to Categories

Paul, thanks for your useful suggestions regarding the proper way to place lists in the Wiktionary namespace and the use of categories. I agree that listing the contractions as members of a category is the most useful way to link them together. However, I think that the definition for contraction should display a link to that category page, and I was wondering the best way to do that. Adding a link [[Category:English_contractions]] to the bottom of the contraction page is a bit of a perversion, since it would then list the word "contraction" on the list of contractions. I accomplished adding the link to the category page by using an external link [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_contractions]. This seems to work, but I was wondering if there's another way to accomplish this, since I'd like to avoid using external links when it's truly a Wiki link. Thanks. —Brim 00:22, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Nevermind, I figured out how to make the link. —Brim 02:49, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Copyright?

Re: User talk:Jeandré#Copyright?. Is using dictionary.com out of bounds for checking facts, e.g. that fumarole comes most recently from the Italian fumarola? This seems to me like a fact, and not something that can be copyrighted.

Thanks for moving fumarolic, I didn't realize that the adjective list in an article is for something spelled the same - which now seems obvious :). — Jeandré, 2004-10-08t20:23z

Hi Jeandré,

Yes, checking facts is fine. I would say that it is probably not on though to copy an etymology rather than researching it oneself, because that would be copying another's work. The same applies to translations - if you have a look at the pages for any of the chemical elements you will see that there are extensive lists of translations, and these have been obtained with permission from other sites. Although these are facts, copying them without permission would have been a breach of copyright as the owner of the site from which they were copied clearly put in a lot of work to find the translations.

Yes, there is a separate page for each headword. Headwords that are spelled the same but have different meanings, parts of speech or etymologies (homographs) all go on the same page.

Have fun — Paul G 17:10, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Image Copyright

Hi Paul, Thanks for the copyright info. I called my wife and made sure she was OK with publishing the image, then updated the image with that info. She got a good laugh out of it.  :) Armaced 17:44, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Synonyms

Hi Paul: I see you moved survive from the definition line of outlive to the synonyms section. In this case I have no problem with this, as outlive is fairly simple in its meaning. However, in general I think a string of definitions - which may include, one-word definitions, help convey the conoations of a word, and I wouldn't like all one-word definitions shuffled off to the Synonyms section. For example (and unfortunately it is far from a good one!) I'm currently adding beweep and my first attempt at a definition is to weep over; to deplore, lament ... I think that the three definitions strung together give a fuller sense of the word. What do you think? — DavidL 16:16, 21 Oct 2004

Yes, I agree, and where the single-word definitions help define the word, I don't move them to synonyms. Websters is fond of these "multiple" definitions. However, in some cases, as you say, the single-word ones don't add anything to the longer definition, in my opinion, and so I think those are better placed in the synonyms section. — Paul G 16:41, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Good to know we're on the same page (as people keep saying around the office). I've been thinking more about synonyms and antonyms. Like translations and quotations, they should presumably have subheadings corresponding to each of the various meanings. If we start including 'looser' synonyms (as Websters often seems to do) then we are heading into thesaurus territory (which leads me to another of my background thoughts about uses for Categories). — DavidL 09:44, 22 Oct 2004

There has been talk somewhere of having a separate "Wikithesaurus" and farming all the synonyms and antonyms out to there. This would make sense as there a word X that has n synonyms rarely has all of its synonyms listed all n of these pages, especially when n is larger than 2 or 3.

See "hot" for the approach I advocate for synonyms and antonyms. It's similar to the approach taken for translations to ensure that they match up with the correct definition. — Paul G 10:13, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

-uːli rhymes

Hi Paul: I've added a comment to [[Talk:Rhymes:English:-uːli]] regarding which I'd like your opinion ... basically the question is: should -uːli and -juːli be different pages? — DavidL 14:51, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Actually, I have been taking the phobias and philias from Wikipedia (-phobia and -philia have long lists of both, and even then, I have modified them somewhat). The other words I added (those beginning with D and several other letters, are from a public domain Webster's dictionary found at Project Gutenberg (see here--D words can be found at #662 going down the left-hand column). In fact, all the volumes of that dictionary are public domain, as verified by PG, which does quite a thorough job of ensuring they are not violating copyright. I have then pruned the definitions down, often removing quotes, etc. There has been no copyright violation. In fact, I recommend others use that as a source for new entries. Danny 11:25, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for confirming this, Danny. I hope you understand that as a sysop I have to watch out for these things.

I am surprised though that many of these entries are the same as dictionary.com's - perhaps they have been taking them from Gutenberg. If so, it seems a bit off if they then claim copyright for them. — Paul G 11:46, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

No problem. As it is a public domain edition of Webster, I can see how the more modern editions simply copied old material, instead of "reinventing the wheel." Danny 11:51, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"Veuiller"

Sorry, but there's no such verb. Veuillez is the irregular imperative of vouloir. Eclecticology 10:44, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

OK, thanks for that. I misremembered it. I'll move the content to "veuillez". — Paul G 11:00, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Combining double macrons and breves

Hi Paul. Here's what you are looking for:

• o͝o 861 035D COMBINING DOUBLE BREVE
• o͞o 862 035E COMBINING DOUBLE MACRON

I think I started using them first but it was he who pointed out that they correctly should be placed between the two letters, some Microsoft rendering components had/have a bug which made these work if you put them after both characters. Then again they almost never work in current fonts etc yet anyway, but they will soon we hope (-: — Hippietrail 14:47, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

color, colour

Please see talk:color for why I made the changes. As far as translations for color, I don't care either way, but I think having a color colour page makes sense and is working out well. We've been having discussion, and until such time as you have a better idea, I think we should use user:dmh's plan. I don't see how the current situation of having 'seperate but equal' color and colour pages is up to 'policy' either.

Copyrights

Hi Paul: you deleted an entry on a definition I made joining up information from different resources (which I don't believe is a copyright violation) on the word "patriarch". But at the same time, you edited an entry of another word I added "Ethnical", which is a literal copy of the definition found in [www.thefreedictionary.com The free dictionary]. So, what's your point?

Mariano.

Hi Mariano. The content of freedictionary.com is also copyright (there is a copyright notice at the bottom of the page). Wiktionary is not allowed to carry copyright material, and I'm afraid anything found to be so has to be deleted. Combining material from various copyright sources is also a violation of copyright. Sorry about that - that's the way we have to work here.

The entry for "ethnical" is much the same as any dictionary or lexicographer would define it, so it is harder to see this a copyright violation. — Paul G 09:58, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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Congratulazioni per fare la cinquanta-millesima entrata! -dmh 14:55, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Grazie - non me ne sono reso conto fin quando ho guardato la pagina principale! — Paul G 14:57, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Prego - Io stavo pensando di una parola speziale per la cinquanta-millesima, ma serà megliore così -dmh 15:53, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Templates

Hi Paul,

Well, many other Wiktionary have adopted a policy to use templates and to wikify language names, which I find good. Yann 17:46, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Probably should of put my response on the issue here, but its at User_talk:Yann. --Eean 23:59, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Re: Translingual homophones

Sorry, I missed the message you put on my userpage back in May (see User talk:Mxn#Translingual homophones). The Vietnamese word "sinh" actually is pronounced identically to the English word "sing." And that's why I listed it as a homophone. To my knowledge, there is no Vietnamese word "sing." (-nh at the end of the word makes the /ng/ sound in Vietnamese. – [[User:Mxn|Minh Nguyễn (talk, blog)]] 03:10, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

See User talk:Mxn/2004#Translingual homophones.

Yes, my name is pronounced like "ming." (The Vietnamese alphabet is based on Portuguese of the 16^th and 17^th centuries.) I rarely add translingual homophones – only when the pronunciations are identical and when it'll help users out. (If it'll reassure you: I don't plan to make up my own words in English just to add to the list. That's the job of a phrasebook. :)

As far as I know, there are only a few other wikt: users who know Vietnamese. And I'm the only real contributor to wikt:vi:, though I hope that'll change soon. – [[User:Mxn|Minh Nguyễn (talk, blog)]] 04:46, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

physics

I gather both are valid. I'll move and redirect if you think so. -- EmperorBMA|話す 06:59, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

whoa

I went through black's history seeing who had added white person as an antonym, expecting it to be an anonymous user... and it was you?!? [1] --Eean 05:21, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If it was, and you think this is incorrect, inappropriate or POV, by all means change it. "Non-white" is often used a synonym for "black", and so "white" is an antonym of "black", isn't it? It's not meant to be an offensive contribution - merely reflecting usage. — Paul G 09:54, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Black is an antonym of white in many uses, race not one of them, I thought that would be obvious though I guess not. I was hoping it was something like this, which is why I noted it here, I didn't want to go thinking you were some racist. --Eean 22:34, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This looks much like woman having the antonym man. Both words have a hyponym that is an antonym to the other's. --Blade Hirato 11:55, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

So where is the consensus on WikiSaurus ?

Back in November you wrote "Commendable as the Wikisaurus idea is, could you hold off on adding entries until it has been discussed in the beer parlour? We usually discuss major changes like this one before going ahead, to make sure we get some kind of consensus. Thanks. — Paul G 14:25, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC) (Wiktionary sysop)"

But since then, there has been very little discussion, so I've decided to carry on building on the idea, just to see, for me, how well it might work. One or two people have done a little bit to add to it. But, overall, Wiktionary seems to be very, very quiet at the moment, with a very small number of active constributors, and little to no discussion of the ideas I'm throwing in.

But, how do I get sysops to answer requests like - can we make the WikiSaurus: namespace part of the search, so that if people GO or SEARCH a word, they get the links to any WikiSaurus entries with that word in ??

By all means, I look forward to some constructive discussion of the idea, and a few more peole actively trying the idea out, to see if it works for them too, or finding where the problems may lie. By the way, my concentrating on words like fuck, sex, tits, dick etc is a simple marketing ploy. These are the kinds of words most looked up in dictionaries! For myself, you will notice that when putting in words like lay, I end up modifying the meaning of lay which is about laying bricks. When the word tramp goes in, I end up adding to the defintion of tramp meaning to walk long distances. One of the beauties of a Thesaurus is it leads you on to other words. So, how do we get some real action on getting moving with a Thesuarus of some sort ?--Richardb 11:09, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi Richard,

I suggest you revive the discussion in the beer parlour, either in the original thread or by starting a new one. Make some noise there so that it gets people's attention. I think it's an important thing to have, so let's see what we can do to get it off the ground. I will support you in this, although I am not on here as often as I would like so you might not see me around much.

As for changing the way the software does searches, this is down to whoever programs the system rather than the sysops - I don't know who this is. Some of the other sysops might be able to point you to the person to speak to about this.

I like your ploy, by the way. And there was I thinking you just had a one-track mind ;) — Paul G 09:51, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

copyvio's

Yes, an anonymous user was going through and adding stuff from AHD as I said in the edit summaries. Last month before I started contributing regularly I pointed out a user in RFD that had contributed nothing but copyright violations. But a few days went by, nothing was done, and in fact one of the pages was re-formatted and improved upon (good example of how copyright violations can be pretty damaging). So I removed the offending content. I guess we need a better protocol.

Also, people should be more aware. Obviously if its from the OED thats kind of tricky (though in that case the OED holocaust definition is pasted all over the web) but if an anonymous user comes in and puts several well-written and often poorly-formated definitions in a matter of minutes, its a case of suspicion and should be googled. Can't get more obvious sometimes. Well, anytime a user your not familiar with puts up a good new word it should be googled probably. I then check with dict.org to make sure it isn't public domain.

It would be nice if one of the sysops changed the "You are also promising us that you wrote this yourself..." message at the bottom to be more to the point as I suggested in the beer parlor.--Eean 17:30, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Project to get basic words defined

User:Richardb/Project - Basic English Word Cleanup.

Active Participants

The following people have contributed to the project so far. Can you help too ?

• dmh- enthusiastically running with it
• Eclecticology - This seems like a useful idea.

I've not publicised this in the Beer Parlour because I don't want just anyone to test out the idea, only the currently active players--Richardb 11:39, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Rain cats and dogs

What exactly is the difference between an etymology and a history? I'm refering to [2]. --Eean 19:31, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi Eean. An etymology is the tracing of the origins of a word or phrase, and gives the history of where the word or phrase came from. I don't think we should be using the term "history" at all because "etymology" is the appropriate term to use.

I commented out "from 'rain dogs and cats'" because it does not provide the origin - it might do if "rain dogs and cats" existed as an entry and had an etymology of its own. I think it would be better if someone knowledgeable could research the origins of this term and insert that as its etymology. — Paul G 09:49, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)