Wiktionary:Tea room/2018/June

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← May 2018 · June 2018 · July 2018 → · (current)

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Abu (ISO:ado) lemmas

The words in category Abu lemmas seem to be wrong. According to another database 'bird' is ʌlimil (not ungaraka) and 'ear' is ɛligʌ (not kur). What is the source for these words? --Metsavend (talk) 08:49, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

They were created by User talk:Mulgadweller, who was still active earlier this year: do you remember where you got these? I would have hypothesized that perhaps that user had a text on a different Abu and simply used the wrong Abu's code, but Blench's work on the other major Abu, jid, has cɛncɛ as the word for "bird" and etɔ̃ for "ear" (and wuru for "fire" and mma for "water"). Trying to see what (if any) other language might have been intended, I see that even a Google search for "ungaraka"+"bird" turns up nothing but mirrors of our entry. - -sche (discuss) 09:27, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

I've RFVed both entries. According to the database you link to, water is "ʌbʌl", woman is "numʌto" and man is "ʌʔlemʌn" (those being entries Wiktionary translates into a great many languages). - -sche (discuss) 04:04, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

leucophanite

Hey. This page is missing Greek script. How can I tag pages like this in the future which need Greek script? --Genecioso (talk) 15:01, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

The simplest method is probably to add a {{rfscript|grc}} tag. You could also do something more complicated like this, where you reformat the etymology to use all the right fancy templates, and set any transliteration and gloss that are provided, and just leave the parameter where the actual Greek script should go completely blank, which causes the template to call for native script on its own. - -sche (discuss) 15:27, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Got it. {{rfscript|grc}} --Genecioso (talk) 15:33, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

Actually you don't even need that. Just typing {{m|grc|tr=leucos}} (i.e. leaving |2= blank or omitting, but including a transliteration) while automatically make a request for Greek script. —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 16:23, 1 June 2018 (UTC)

le sien

le sien#French has "his" and "hers", but not "its". Shouldn't "its" be there too? Same question for la sienne#French. 81.109.108.218 18:15, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

• Just do it. SemperBlotto (talk) 05:54, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

manoeuverability

Is this a misspelling, or just an alternative spelling? It seems very common on Google Books. DTLHS (talk) 17:46, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

It is a nonstandard spelling, just like manoeuver is a nonstandard spelling of maneuver. Depending on where you are coming from, you could also say that they are nonstandard spellings of manoeuvre and manoeuvrability, hybrids formed from the standard US and British spellings.  --Lambiam 13:20, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

It is indeed quite common, certainly common enough to have an entry. I suppose the etymology can explain that it's a blend or mix-up of the two standards. In fact, given that it's about 1/20th as common as either standard spelling, perhaps it should be labelled a "(nonstandard Alternative spelling of" rather than a "Misspelling of". I see it used both in works that also use British spellings and those that also use American spellings (of other words). - -sche (discuss) 14:27, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Mathematical meaning of period

I don't understand the meaning given at period. Please discuss at Talk:period#Mathematical meaning.  --Lambiam 13:11, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

birthday suit

In searching for the first usage of the idiomatic meaning, I found several uses for "a nice suit worn on your birthday/at your birthday party". I think it's archaic/dated tho. Should {{&lit}} be added? – Julia (talk) ^{• formerly Gormflaith •} 02:40, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

IMO, almost all entries for multi-word expressions warrant use of {{&lit}}. I could imagine usage contexts for birthday suit for which most of the senses of suit might apply, as uncommon as many of them might be. DCDuring (talk) 18:50, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I was enjoying my cake when a lawyer knocked on the door with a birthday suit. Ruined my whole day. Equinox ◑ 18:52, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, I added {{&lit}}. And a bunch of citations to support it. BUT! In my searching I found a couple sources ([[1][2]) that said the original meaning was "a suit worn for the king's birthday" which does make sense in context (except in the 1990 one). New sense or is this covered by {{&lit}}? – Julia ☺ ^{• formerly Gormflaith •} 02:41, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Context determines what birthday is involved (as well as which suit), so I'd argue that only the current sense, which involves something other than any ordinary definition of a suit, is likely to be an includable idiom. DCDuring (talk) 11:07, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

block and tackle

The current (main) definition: "A system of two or more pulleys (the tackles) each enclosed by a housing (the block) with a rope or cable threaded between them, usually used to lift or pull heavy loads."

I think this is probably inaccurate. According to the Wiktionary article on "tackle" (when paired with "block"), it seems to refer to gear/apparatus associated with the block(s) and not necessarily just to the pulleys or to the pulleys at all. This definition is also misleading or unclear about the number of blocks; are the two or more pulleys in one (or more) blocks? Observing diagrams associated with "block and tackle", the phrase seems to refer to two (and possibly more) blocks, each containing one or more pulleys -- not simply two or more pulleys (possibly in a single block). It could be that the "block" in "block and tackle" historically refers specifically to one of the blocks -- the free one or the stationary one; in that case, tackle could refer to the line/rope/cable/chain and other block. I think "tackle" is unlikely to be referring to the pulleys (which are hidden in the blocks). I think "tackle" might be referring just to the line/chain. (Personally, I'd like to see some translations and excerpts from early texts on "block and tackle" to be confident of its original meaning.)

I prefer this definition from Dictionary.com: "a hoisting device in which a rope or chain is passed around a pair of blocks containing one or more pulleys. The upper block is secured overhead and the lower block supports the load, the effort being applied to the free end of the rope or chain"

Zeroparallax (talk) 08:36, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

You might find w:Block and tackle informative. From my experience, I cannot imagine how one could possibly incorporate more than two blocks in any useful fashion, while one block alone cannot be used to apply any leverage. Also, a block is basically a chunk of wood with an axle mounted within it (in very primitive versions, just a block of wood with a hole, where the body of the block itself serves as the "axle"; in more performant versions, the axle has a wheel on it). The pulley is essentially the rope passing over this axle. As visible in the diagrams in the Wikipedia article, the rope may pass over the axle multiple times (each time, after going over the axle in the other block). ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 15:41, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Category:block and tackle on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons contains interesting images including one of a four-pulley system which could be implemented with multi-pulley blocks. The same nesting approach could be extended indefinitely, though practicality would intrude in the form of friction and space limitations. DCDuring (talk) 19:09, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm guessing you're talking about configurations like in this image? Multiple-pulley setups, sure. But it's still got just the two blocks. I can't think of a practical setup for any configuration with more than two blocks -- unless, for some reason, you're trying to apply pulling force in multiple directions? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:59, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Things w:American football players do? Chuck Entz (talk) 08:25, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

The phrase "three-block tackle" is rare but attested, suggesting that it's possible to have more than two blocks. This supply company's page on how to set up tackles has "exploded" diagrams with ropes passing over more than two pulleys that would normally be parallel to each other within the usual two blocks, but which (if anchored to a bar or something) seem like they could theoretically be fixed in separate blocks in their shown/"exploded" placement. Probably the definition should be changed to put "or more" in parentheses, like "two (or rarely more)", if it's only very rarely than there are more than two. - -sche (discuss) 16:00, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Confusingly, an image search for "three-block tackle" shows almost exclusively two-block tackle configurations. However, there were a couple images that suggest use-cases for more than two blocks -- where the direction of force must be redirected, or where the load on any one block must be reduced.

Thank you for the leads (and Chuck for the puns).  :) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 16:22, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

This old guy on youtube says that some would consider his four single-pulley "block" system to be a "block and tackle" (and he also says that the "tackle" is the rope): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR6PTkwords (User: Tanglerwr; Title: Rope and Pulley Systems: Segment 6 - The Block and Tackle - 4:1 and 5:1.pds.m2ts)

I think that DCDuring was referring to this image when mentioning a four-pulley system which could be implemented with multi-pulley blocks.

I myself was considering the situation where one may only have blocks with, say, two pulleys in each, but to create more mechanical advantage, multiple blocks could be placed side-by-side at the anchor and/or at the load.

My concern is that the current definition is very unclear and misleading about the setup, making it sound like there is one block ("the block"), when there are at least two and possibly (maybe rarely or disputably) more, generally with one (set) being anchored and stationary and the other (set) being attached to the load to be moved. And the claim that the pulleys are the "tackles" seems to be incorrect/uncommon and maybe not even grammatically correct (since "tackle" might be uncountable in this usage). "Tackle" seems to often be used to refer to the whole setup (as hoisting gear), and it may be used sometimes to refer to some subset of the gear, maybe even just the line/rope/cable/chain.

Zeroparallax (talk) 07:28, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

From a Google Books Ngram Viewer search of "block and tackle", I found some quotations from old sources:

The World Book: Organized Knowledge in Story and Picture, Volume 2

January 1, 1918

Hanson-Roach-Fowler

(page 773)

"BLOCK AND TACKLE, a mechanical appliance consisting of a combination of pulleys and ropes. It is a 'machine', for it is designed to perform work. 'Block' refers to the casing for the pulleys, 'tackle', to the ropes. A single block contains one pulley, a double block, two pulleys, and so on. Each block usually has a hook with which to fasten it to its support or to the object to be moved."

In Fig. 1 a, there really are "ropes" (two ropes). When referring to a setup with a single rope wrapped around four times, the author writes "...in Fig. 1 c, there are four ropes..." So "ropes" really seems to be referring to "ropes or rope segments", which can *appear* to be more than one rope but are usually just one.

So "tackle" = "rope" according to this source.

Applied Mechanics (an Elementary Manual On)

Andrew Jamieson

January 1, 1898

C. Griffin & Company, Limited

(pages 65-66)

"[A block and tackle] consists of a number of pulleys (or sheaves as they are technically termed)..."

"[The lower block] is called the movable block, whereas the upper or home one is termed the fixed block."

So maybe a better definition of "block and tackle" would be:

an apparatus usually consisting of a rope (or cable or chain) and two blocks, each block being a device that contains one or more pulleys (called sheaves), where one block is anchored (called the fixed block) and one block is attached to the load (called the movable block), and the rope is generally attached to one of the blocks and run (reeved) through the blocks around the pulleys, the other end of the rope being free to be pulled to move or lift the load; this apparatus is used for lifting (hoisting) or moving a load, usually with mechanical advantage; the term "tackle" may refer to the whole device or possibly just the rope (which may naively appear to be more than one rope when wrapped around the pulleys)

Zeroparallax (talk) 09:30, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

As to the definition above: TLDR. And, in any event, that could not possibly be attested in all of its detail. See “block and tackle”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. for definitions typical of and appropriate for a dictionary. The names for specialist (eg, maritime) names for components, specifics of configurations, etc. don't really belong. For many readers, an image (photograph or drawing) is more useful than a long-winded "complete", "precise" definition. DCDuring (talk) 15:57, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, DCDuring! I'm satisfied with your edit to the definition. It's now concise and clear and seems to be accurate. Zeroparallax (talk) 18:18, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Another issue with the current definition that I just thought of: I've seen no evidence that the plural of "block and tackle" is given by "(plural 'block and tackles' or 'blocks and tackles')". I think the phrase "block and tackle" is an uncountable construction (even in its "singular" usage). However, when the word "tackle" is used to refer to the whole setup, many people who are unfamiliar with the uncountable usage of "tackle" (like "gear") may use "tackles" as the plural to refer to multiple block-and-tackle setups. (They may also use "tackles" to refer to the multiple "ropes", that is, the multiple rope segments visible in a block and tackle device.)

Zeroparallax (talk) 17:36, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

despite that (again), in that

See also: Tea_room/2018/January

I've just created an entry for despite that, but I'm not sure it's entirely entry worthy; maybe we should just add a "conjunction" header to despite?

Anyway, I was looking for uses, and I found this in the process: "The problem lies in that Mary is arriving tomorrow". How would you parse that? Would a in that entry be warranted? Per utramque cavernam 11:30, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Edit: well... Per utramque cavernam 11:30, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

AIUI, "that Mary is arriving tomorrow" is a subordinate clause with "that" as complementizer. Compare "the problem is that Mary is arriving tomorrow": this does not justify an entry for "is that". (Or maybe "the problem lies in the fact that Mary..." makes it clearer.) Equinox ◑ 13:15, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Clearly some native speakers of English (in the US?) say "despite that". In the UK, it would be "despite the fact that". — This unsigned comment was added by 86.171.196.118 (talk) at 22:53, 3 July 2018.

That-clauses are used as subjects of sentences and objects of verbs, ie, as nominals. But the instances that I can think of in which that-clauses appear after a preposition seem relatively few and fossilized or obsolete. I suppose that would means that if such a use of a preposition followed by that followed by a clause is attestable, it might warrant an entry, possibly with some label like slang or dialectal or even nonstandard. DCDuring (talk) 03:36, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

deaf as a noun

I requested verification, User:BigDom has verified it. Please could someone help update the context labels and possibly add a usage note. I have put 'very rare' but perhaps it needs something else, e.g.'deaf community' etc. Also, should 'deaf person' now be deleted and the translations be moved to 'deaf'? Kaixinguo~enwiktionary (talk) 16:16, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

As much as I dislike translation hubs, they serve a purpose: they may preventing use of a term like deaf#Noun as if it were the common term for deaf person. DCDuring (talk) 18:37, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

It's already marked "very rare" and we could probably add "nonstandard". Of the citations given: the first two have foreign-sounding author names (NNES?). The third one (Chelsea Handler) is a piece of informal conversation in fiction; I did wonder whether the tone-deaf "deafs" was used to convey the fact that the speaker was a tactless or uninformed person (but I looked up the context and it's not clear); the fourth citation I can't see due to Google's copyright blocking. The noun disabled is a similar case (but compare marrieds, insureds). And the euphemism treadmill will always make it difficult to refer to people by their disability (or diffability); the acceptable words change with some rapidity. (Compare the current explosion of gender terms, and the fact that terms like coloured person and blacks are explicitly unacceptable among some groups of speakers and okay among others.) Equinox ◑ 18:43, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I've added a "nonstandard" tag. Also, I gave each headword-line its own POS header, since that seems like the usua thing we do, and moved the derived terms like "deaf and dumb" under the adjective. - -sche (discuss) 18:52, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

As to the latter part of your comment, it's somewhat amusing how far across-the-board/spectrum the phenomenon goes, like right-wing white people who identify as white nationalists pushing back if called white supremacists (or getting offended if called Nazis when they prefer alt-right, etc). - -sche (discuss) 19:21, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Rapprochement

Rapprochement is borrowed into English from French. In such a case, is it correct to say that the English word is suffixed with -ment? — SGconlaw (talk) 16:16, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't think so, as there's no corresponding base verb. Maybe you could write "See re-, approach and -ment."? --Per utramque cavernam 16:26, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Hmmm, that seems a bit odd because the lemma is a French word in form while approach is an English word. If -ment is not really a suffix in this case, I'll just not add the entry to "Category:English words suffixed with -ment". — SGconlaw (talk) 16:35, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

The word isn't 'reapproachment', though. Kaixinguo~enwiktionary (talk) 17:02, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

This looks like one of those difficult edge cases where an ending corresponds to a suffix, but wasn't added within the language. Pinging @DCDuring, Mahagaja for their thoughts on this based on their participating in discussing Marxism at Category talk:English nouns ending in "-ism". That entry is in Category:English words suffixed with -ism. (Arguably Marxism involved adapting French marxisme to -ism, and so has more claim, and this entry has less claim, to belonging in an "English words suffixed with" cat, though.) - -sche (discuss) 16:54, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. As regards Marxism, I'd say that has a stronger claim for being suffixed with -ism as we can always say the word, though adapted from French, can be analysed in English as Marx + -ism. However, I think it's quite awkward to say rapprochement can be analysed as re- + approach + -ment. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:01, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I accept that many, many words like Marxism, whatever their diachronic etymology, can be analyzed morphologically to give a synchronic derivation. I don't think this is a quite fits the bill.

Viewing rapprochement as a written word, the core morphological element of a synchonic derivation, ie, rapproche doesn't exist in English.

Viewing rapprochement as a spoken word, at least as I have heard it, mostly on talking-heads shows on television, it is not pronounced as anything close to re- + approach + "-ment". I usually hear it pronounced more or less as a French word.

Finally, there is an attestable English word reapproachment. It is probably is a calque used principally by non-native speakers and authors.

I think this case is well on the side of not having a credible synchronic derivation. DCDuring (talk) 17:52, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

devil's beating his wife, old woman's plucking her goose

Are there more "weather expressions" like this, which explain weather phenomena as being (caused by) something? I see some suggestions that thunder is sometimes explained as Henry Hudson's crew playing ninepins or Thor driving his chariot, but I haven't found a phrasing that seems citeable the way the two above are. - -sche (discuss) 19:49, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I've heard the phrase "When it rains, it means Gods' crying" before (at least here in the states - I imagine it's highly regional!) --UltravioletAlien (talk) 04:06, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

turning circle

Can this be called a turning circle (which I do), or something else? There's nothing in the entry covering this. There's more info attached to the image. DonnanZ (talk) 21:10, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

In some places the term cul-de-sac is used to refer specifically to the circle at the end (see [3]). I have also uncovered the term court bowl, the use of which seems to be restricted to government authorities in the state of Victoria. I personally would have used the word "turning circle" to refer to these things, but there seems to be little evidence of that online as far as I can see. This, that and the other (talk) 11:16, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

In British English a cul-de-sac normally refers to a dead-end street or road, in fact I live in one. It has a small turning circle at the end, too small to turn without reversing, and large vehicles have to back in or out of the street. I was beginning to think this is an odd case until I found more images on Commons labelled "turning circle". It appears to be a favourite term used by geograph.org.uk. DonnanZ (talk) 13:22, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

• I have added an extra definition and included this image (which can be removed from here when archived). DonnanZ (talk) 09:05, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

make a mistake

I don't think it's idiomatic. Convert to translation hub? – Julia ☺ ^{• formerly Gormflaith •} 04:42, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Let's err on the side of caution and use a single-word synonym... Chuck Entz (talk) 08:08, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Very punny. DonnanZ (talk) 09:14, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not super invested in what happens to it, but I'm gonna RFD it just to get some opinions. – Julia ☺ ^{• formerly Gormflaith •} 12:49, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Did it. – Julia ☺ ^{• formerly Gormflaith •} 13:05, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

ugly cry, ugly crying, ugly crier

Is that a thing? Per utramque cavernam 09:44, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Yep, I've heard it used a lot. Not idiomatic but the construction is such that it's kind of treated as one word. Which might warrant an entry, idk. – Julia ☺ ^{• formerly Gormflaith •} 13:14, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

English emergency department

What regional label should this have? "chiefly Australia, New Zealand"? This is pretty much the only common name for this concept in Australia and New Zealand, and it seems this is not used as frequently elsewhere. Wyang (talk) 10:40, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

Are you asking if you need to add a new term under the "synonyms" listing and with a regional notation? If the general term 'Emergency Department' is what is commonly used than I don't think the page warrants any additions or edits. --UltravioletAlien (talk) 04:04, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

It seems to at least sometimes be used in the US, especially in reference for the department of the hospital's administration/staff, though "emergency room" seems to be more common for the physical space in conversation. Perhaps usage notes are the best way to approach this; note that this is the only common term in Australia and NZ, and is also used elsewhere especially in more formal contexts where it would be inaccurate/awkward to talk about a multi-room "emergency room". - -sche (discuss) 19:44, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

soit

From the example, and the ones in le Trésor (under II.), it seems like an interjection rather than an adverb.__Gamren (talk) 14:30, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. I went ahead and changed it. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 00:15, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks.__Gamren (talk) 08:15, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

feel the need

SOP or not? I think not. --WikiTiki89 18:10, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, Merriam-Webster has it, but it seems transparent to me; one can also feel or have a, some, much or little need to do something. I don't know, I don't see the/a/much need for it. - -sche (discuss) 19:41, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I dunno. I can't think of anything to put in I feel the _____ to ... or I didn't feel the _____. that would fit quite as well as need. Everything I'm trying out sounds better with an indefinite article. – Julia ☺ ^{• formerly Gormflaith •} 22:11, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

Felt a need to is about one fifth as common as felt the need to on Google Ngram. MWOnline includes as first usex: "I felt a need to take control of the situation." That suggests that the sole OneLook dictionary that has the term doesn't view the as essential.

It certainly isn't a set phrase, strictly speaking:

Some synonyms, antonyms, and coordinate terms substitute for components:

urge, impulse, yen, yearning, lust, temptation, responsibility, pressure for need.

this or that substitute for the.

Have, see, understand, etc for feel.

Adjectives can be inserted before need.

Semantically, to me, using the (or that or this) implies that the following noun refers to something universal or recurring.

It seems like a transparent common collocation to me. DCDuring (talk) 23:39, 7 June 2018 (UTC)

I took a look at the Ngram and it's only eight times more common than "feel the pressure" and twice as common as "see the need". And "the need for..." is very common. So yeah probably SOP; I didn't think about it enough before. As long as there's a sense at feel. Which to be honest I've been looking at them for a while and I still somehow don't know – Julia ☺ ^{• formerly Gormflaith •} 12:58, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

神様

I cannot imagine how one would find out that the word refers to a monotheistic god explicitly without being used as a title for any god just being used in a monotheistic context. I also heard this used several times in Shinto contexts, which is far from monotheistic. Can anyone confirm that there is a specific monotheistic meaning to this word? Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 17:10, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

It appears that some version of this sense has been in the entry since it was created in 2003. That's a long time to be mistaken.

JA-JA sources don't mention monotheism; those all describe this as an honorific of 神 (kami, “god, deity”). JA-JA sources for 神 (kami) alone, without the suffix, include a "Judeo-Christian-Islamic God" sense, but generally further down the list -- the KDJ has it as sense 5, Daijirin and Daijisen have it as an example of the initial god, deity sense after describing Shinto and folk beliefs in Japan.

I'll have a go at the 神様 entry later. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:07, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

@Eirikr, a reminder. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 12:02, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Done, striking. (Thanks for the ping, Μετάknowledge!  :) ) ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:53, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

morphologize

I've had a go at defining this, but the definitions could probably still use some work. - -sche (discuss) 19:08, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Italian - stormo

On page for stormo - it said verification was needed for military sense of word.

Today I read in Corrierre a sentence with military sense:

"Conte ha viaggiato con un aereo da tempo in dotazione al 31° Stormo dell’Aeronautica Militare."

https://www.corriere.it/foto-gallery/esteri/18_giugno_08/premier-conte-g7-quebec-aereo-volo-polemiche-pd-890a34d8-6b05-11e8-9458-812edbd9a164_preview.shtml?reason=unauthenticated&cat=1&cid=ThpjqU4y&pids=FR&origin=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.corriere.it%2Ffoto-gallery%2Festeri%2F18_giugno_08%2Fpremier-conte-g7-quebec-aereo-volo-polemiche-pd-890a34d8-6b05-11e8-9458-812edbd9a164.shtml

Pronunciation of armadillo

The entry for armadillo currently has English pronunciations that match more or less what I'm familiar with. However, the Disney short "Pluto and the Armadillo" offers pronunciations ending in -ɪjoʊ and -ɪʒoʊ; listen to a copy on Youtube (37 seconds in). Are these still in current use, and were they ever? And do we include obsolete pronunciations?--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:07, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

We have included obsolete pronunciations before, both of still-current words (I recall having seen some early-1900s New York pronunciations in entries, although I can't find any now)* and of obsolete words (e.g. accoil, prodition), and I think that is useful. Especially for English, we should probably find more than one (independent) example of an old pronunciation, or find it in an old reference work, to be sure it's not just a one-off pronunciation in one work. - -sche (discuss) 02:31, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

*Update: still can't find the New York pronuns, but a search for insource:"a obsolete" turns up (various misuses of {{a}}, and) an obsolete US pronunciation of salmon and weird old pronunciations of sure. - -sche (discuss) 02:42, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

We could also try to find it used in rhyming poetry. DTLHS (talk) 02:34, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Armadillo rhymes with "pillow", 1877. DTLHS (talk) 03:21, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Here's dialogue from another movie from around the same time period pronouncing "armadillo" in the usual way. DTLHS (talk) 03:39, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Beeton's 1861 Dictionary and the 1897 Century Dictionary also have it pronounced as it is today. - -sche (discuss) 04:17, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

It seems obvious to me that this is being treated as a Spanish word, and the variation between -ɪjoʊ and -ɪʒoʊ is an attempt to represent the most common variants in Latin American Spanish. I'm guessing that either the script writer or the narrator had never heard of this as an English word, so they checked sources for Spanish. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:22, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

• I concur, seems consciously Spanish by the context. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 14:10, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

  Except that since it's Brazil, it should be consciously Portuguese by context. I'm not sure if the narrators cared about the distinction, though.--Prosfilaes (talk) 18:48, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

reniform in definition???

Chromadorida has as definition: "reniform aquatic nematodes"

Why in the name of all that is politically correct would we use reniform instead of kidney-shaped in a definition?

Do we need to have a defining-vocabulary list and do dump runs that find instances of words in definitions that are not in that list? The problem is not limited to Translingual terms. I notice it in vernacular names, FL entries, etc. I am not saying that such terms should never be used in definitions (though reniform doesn't seem at all necessary), but that there should be a prejudice against using them. I don't think that a definition of reniform that is a wikilink away is an adequate substitute for a more straightforward definition. DCDuring (talk) 01:39, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't like obfuscation either but I think I prefer "reniform" here. The taxonomical terms are somewhat technical by nature (nobody ever says in everyday conversation "a Canis bit me") and I gather there are more or less standard technical terms for the types of shape that one tends to encounter in botany and zoology. Objecting to "reniform" in a zoological definition feels to me rather like objecting to "deciduous" in a botanical definition. Equinox ◑ 01:52, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

That sounds like sprinkling French in one's conversation to give it a certain j'e ne sais quoi je ne sais quoi and show off one's vocabulary. Technical descriptive terms are fine when they have precise definitions which allow a more accurate description, but in this case, reniform just means "kidney-shaped" (one book described it as "bean-shaped").

I can't find any references to Chromadorida being reniform, only to their having structures called amphids which are reniform. As for there being a larger taxon called "reniform nematodes", I can't find that either. There's a common agricultural pest called the reniform nematode, Rotylenchulus reniformis, but it's a single species and it's only very distantly related to the Chromadorida. Of course, I could be wrong: I've never studied nematology. I suspect, though, that @SemperBlotto knows even less about nematodes than I do. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:23, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

And what's more annoying than snob-French with an inappropriate apostrophe? —Tamfang (talk) 05:16, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Don't all real dictionaries simplify? Longman's, for example, has IIRC a 10,000-word defining vocabulary for a 50,000 word dictionary.

I take it that you think that we have or will have or should have a scholarly readership here. I seriously doubt that we do or will and don't think we should aim for them. I believe technical words in a dictionary are for people who may be reading scholarly or technical material who are not yet experts in the field and probably will never become experts. DCDuring (talk) 04:41, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Reniform seems to be a reasonable word to use here. Technical words need technical definitions. There is always the "Simple English Wiktionary" for people who struggle with the language. SemperBlotto (talk) 05:16, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Or, if the word is the correct technical term but seems a bit obscure, add an explanation in parentheses: "reniform (kidney-shaped)". — SGconlaw (talk) 05:23, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

We already wikify words in definitions - the definition of that word is just one click away. SemperBlotto (talk) 05:43, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

That is dismissive of the problem of the limited cognitive capabilities of many of us near-normal humans. One click is often one click too many. If your main concern is figuring out just what a Chromadorida might be so you can get about the business of understanding more of the basics of nematode taxonomy, any diversion to yet another page reduces the likelihood or your reaching your object. Many will simply not proceed farther down the rabbit hole and hope that not knowing what makes a nematode reniform doesn't have significant consequences. DCDuring (talk) 15:40, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I like Sgconlaw's idea of "reniform (kidney-shaped)". - -sche (discuss) 15:51, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Doesn't that open a rabbit hole of editors being forced to make random guesses at what's too fancy a word for readers? I would personally prefer that my dictionary of choice not clutter the explanation of what I want to look up with additional text detailing information already in the page in the form of words I may or may not understand. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 17:21, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I think it's a decent compromise with people who think "sure, this word is too fancy for ordinary readers to understand, but I don't care". (Sorry, that was brusque.) - -sche (discuss) 17:32, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

gay

Are the senses "happy, joyful, and lively" and "festive, bright, or colourful" dated, or archaic? Please chime in on Talk:gay#Archaic?. - -sche (discuss) 21:00, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd say they were just dated. Watching old movies from the 50's and 60's you'll usually hear all the meanings above used for gay Leasnam (talk) 05:26, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Not archaic. Not dated either. A gaily-coloured dress.

Gaily is a different word from gay. Related, yes, but I suspect it's been distanced from "gay" in a lot of people's minds. It's also a bit dated in and of itself.--Prosfilaes (talk) 00:53, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

author

We have a sense "the works of an author or authors", as in "Have you read any Corinthian authors?". This seems to be some kind of metonymy or synecdoche: you could also say "have you read Dickens?" (meaning the books, not the man), or "did you buy Nike?" (the stocks/shares, not the entire company). So does it deserve its separate sense? Equinox ◑ 14:46, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it's a separate sense, for the reason you note, that one can substitute "Dickens" (or "him", or "writers", "poets", etc) into the sentence. At read it's currently handled as a usage note: it doesn't seem like a separate of that word, either, since (as you also note) other verbs function this way, too. "I couldn't find any Martina Schradi at the book shop, all they had was Stiefvater; I asked if they'd bought any Franck, which they hadn't... they hadn't bought any other female authors (/writers/poets) at all." or "In a fit of rage, I threw out all my Artistotle (/Joyce/Le Guin)." - -sche (discuss) 15:29, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

I think it's a separate sense. It's metonymy (using the author's name to refer to his work) or, less likely, ellipsis (omitting 's work(s) or ' work(s) as in any Corinthian authors' work). That there are also other metonymies, would only mean that names like Dickens have another sense too. Berlin gives its metonymic sense.
Though in case of proper nouns, the metonomic sense might better only be mentioned once somewhere else (like in author or proper noun, Hauptstadt or Eigenname)
BTW: Is the second sense of Dickens ("Charles Dickens, English novelist.") CFI-compliant? The best I found at WT:CFI was "No individual person should be listed as a sense" which is restricted by "whose page title includes both a given name or diminutive and a family name or patronymic" (applies only to two-parts names, thus not to Dickens, Obama, Trump). -80.133.107.140 01:50, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Add new Russian word to Wiktionary

In this article Tashkent City: is 'progress' worth the price being paid in Uzbekistan? the word kelinka [Russian > "young bride"] is mentioned. It is not in Wiktionary. I would like to do it myself, but perhaps there is somebody with more knowledge of the term and its etymology (like a native Russsian-language-speaker) who could do it better. Hotspur23 (talk) 14:47, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

келинка (kelinka) is not a regular Russian word. I think it might be used in Uzbekistan, where it was probably borrowed from Uzbek kelin (bride). —Stephen ^(Talk) 08:04, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

This (not authoritative) source (in Russian) sheds some light on the issue: Кто такая келинка?. Translated quote:

Who is this Kelinka? — The word "kilen" [sic] in Turkic languages means a bride. Kelinka, in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, is the name given to brides who are married to the youngest son in the family. It means, roughly speaking, the younger daughter-in-law. However, these days the word applies to all wives in general. This word today carries a negative connotation. It is believed that the kelins have no rights, but are totally subordinate to their husbands and their family. However, many girls do not agree with this definition, and they want to revive this tradition.

The need to explain the word to the Russian readers confirms that it is not a regular Russian word.  --Lambiam 04:53, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

@Hotspur23, Stephen G. Brown, Lambiam: I have created the entry кели́нка (kelínka) but it may not pass our CFI and survive an RFV process. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:49, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

bounden

In the entry bounden I moved the c. 1596, 1626 and 1963 quotations under the verb sense, but I'd like some feedback on whether this is correct. Thanks. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:44, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

{{look}}

@Sgconlaw, IMO since it's either an adjective or a past-tense verb form, but not an infinitive/lemma form, I don't think it should be under its own verb subsense: it should either be under "past participle of bind" and bind should have a relevant sense (and apparently does: "to put under definite legal obligations, especially, under the obligation of a bond or covenant", so "I am bounden unto you" = "I am much put under obligations to you"), or it should be under the adjective. - -sche (discuss) 21:02, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

As for which one of the adjective or verb those quotations should be under: they look verbal, although if there were any dispute we could check if there are any clearly adjectival examples ("he became more bounden than her" or something) or clearly verbal examples (i.e. other tenses of bind used with this sense). If there were verbal examples (I suspect there are...) but no adjectival ones, it must be verbal; if there are adjectival examples but no clearly verbal examples, it would suggest it would have to be adjectival. If there are both adjectival and verbal examples of the sense, then those particular quotations look more verbal to me but YMMV. - -sche (discuss) 21:09, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

An Nam

A lot of weird stuff going on here. How are these really two separate etymologies? And why is one seemingly innocuous geographical sense labelled as both "offensive" and "pejorative"? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 12:00, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Obviously it'd be most ideal to find Vietnamese sources attesting to the offensiveness, but poking around Google Books does turn up some English-language references to it, at least: Thomas Hodgkin, Vietnam: the revolutionary path (1981), page 100: "the Chinese clung to the offensive T'ang word 'An nam' although communications they addressed to the Vietnamese bearing this name were promptly returned on the direct orders of the emperor"; Bruce M. Lockhart, William J. Duiker, The A to Z of Vietnam (2010, →ISBN), page 24: "The term [An Nam], meaning “pacified South” in Chinese, was offensive to patriotic Vietnamese and was dropped after independence". The split etymology is also present in Annam, btw. It's apparently an effort to convey that the Chinese used the term for one area, and the Vietnamese dropped it, but the French picked it back up for a somewhat different area. - -sche (discuss) 02:07, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

@Mxn, do you think there should be two etymology sections for the two different senses/regions or should they be combined into one etymology section (that might say, for example, that the term was originally used by the Chinese to name one area, and then applied by the French to a somewhat different area)? I have no opinion on the matter. - -sche (discuss) 21:14, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

@-sche I can see how the latter senses may've been influenced by usage in French, but given that the literal meaning "pacified South" is evident to any Vietnamese speaker, it's hard to see how it would be a borrowing from French any more than a borrowing from an earlier time period of Vietnamese. Combining the two etymology sections seems perfectly reasonable to me, and a note or quotation explaining the offensiveness would be great too. – Minh Nguyễn ^💬 09:50, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

@Fumiko Take. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 02:16, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

gundeck, gun deck

I laughed for a minute or two. We should probably pick one of the two and actually add a proper definition there instead of this. SURJECTION _{·talk·contr·log·} 14:08, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

• gun deck is the usual form. I've added a simple definition. SemperBlotto (talk) 14:12, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

to trailblaze

I think it has other senses, and I don't think the quote is illustrative of the current meaning. Plus it's used transitively. Could a native speaker clean it up? Per utramque cavernam 20:09, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

• I've had a go. SemperBlotto (talk) 20:15, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Pronunciation of بلجيكا in Arabic

Moved from User_talk:عربي-٣١#بلجيكا and Talk:بلجيكا

Hi,

I saw your two reverts with explanations and I was planning but never got around to address this issue.

I have a few questions, if you don't mind regarding your view:

1. Do you support our language policy in WT:AAR, especially regarding transliteration of foreign words? I know you didn't take part in making the policy but this is what we've got.
2. Do you support references, such as Hans Wehr. If you search for "بلجيكا" in [4] or open your copy of the printed Hans Wehr dictionary, you will find "beljīkā". So, it means, at least by some Arabic standard it should be pronounced that way.
3. Yes, I know there is no phoneme /e/ in Classical Arabic but this is a loanword, it wasn't in the Qur'an. So, do you pronounce جُون لِينُون (jon lenon, “John Lennon”) as "jon lenon" or "jūn līnūn"? Are you saying that the phoneme /e/ is absolutely absent in MSA?

Please feel free to raise it with Arabic language editors. Pls note, I'm not seeking any conflict. I welcome your contributions and help! I just need to find out why my referenced entry was reverted.

BTW, if you wish to add another regular reading/transliteration, you don't need to use "tr=", you can simply use Arabic diacritics in the header or the pronunciation sections - بِلْجِيكَا (biljīkā), بَلْجِيكَا (baljīkā) (we do you harakat on loanwords as well!).

Notifiying (Notifying Benwing2, Mahmudmasri, Metaknowledge, Wikitiki89, Erutuon, Kolmiel, ZxxZxxZ, Stephen G. Brown, عربي-٣١): : pls let me know if you disagree. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:15, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Should such a discussion be on the word's page? --Mahmudmasri (talk) 10:32, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

It is [belˈʒiːkæ] in Egyptian Arabic and in Literary Arabic as pronounced by Egyptians. The claims about [e] as not more than an allophone is wrong.

Speaking about Egyptian Arabic, there is an initial/medial high front short vowel that varies between [e] and [ɪ] in native words. In loanwords, [e] would be the preferred one if the loanword had it.

The pronunciation that has the first vowel open [bælˈʒiːkæ] is unknown to me, but I imagine it might be in the Arabian Peninsula.

Also speaking of loanwords and actual pronunciations, no one really elongates vowels that are at the end of final syllables. So, [bɪl.d͡ʒiː.kaː ~ bel.d͡ʒiː.kaː] is wrong.

Now, why [ʒ] and not [d͡ʒ]? It's because the name entered through the French name, "Belgique" [bɛlʒik], but Arabic speakers don't distinguish both, they either pronounce [ʒ] or [d͡ʒ].

Speakers who have no [æ] (and no [e]), usually hear [ɛ] as [æ], therefore approximating it to [a], not to [e].

--Mahmudmasri (talk) 10:51, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Repeating the ping for people in the Arabic notification group:

Notifiying (Notifying Benwing2, Mahmudmasri, Metaknowledge, Wikitiki89, Erutuon, Kolmiel, ZxxZxxZ, Stephen G. Brown, عربي-٣١): . --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 11:39, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

@Mahmudmasri: We can incorporate all possible pronunciations by region, just by adding an {{i|Egypt}} or similar.

[ʒ] vs [d͡ʒ] is very typical variant. So, if we default it to the phonemic [d͡ʒ], [ʒ] can be assumed as a more colloquial realisation. Shortening of the final alif would be important for the phonetic transcription.

1. IPA^(key): /bel.d͡ʒiː.kaː/: The transliteration "beljīkā" is according to Hans Wehr. Phonetically, the final /aː/ can be shortened and realised as [æ] or [a], same story for /d͡ʒ/ as [ʒ]. Otherwise we can use a simple "a" (with no macrons) in the transliteration (tr=) or a fatḥa in the Arabic script.
2. IPA^(key): /bil.d͡ʒiː.kaː/, IPA^(key): /bil.d͡ʒiː.ka/: This is what user عربي-٣١ has suggested (one variant), no "tr=" is necessary here, using native means
3. IPA^(key): /bel.ʒiː.ka/ (Egypt, Levante): This may work as a compromise for some regional or more colloquial pronunciations. Note that "ž" will produce /ʒ/.
4. I encourage you to start using {{ar-IPA}} either with "tr=" or with native Arabic means. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 12:01, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Why multiply our time and effort because one user misunderstands the phonemic vs phonetic notations?

I've said over and over in Wiktionary discussions that it is impractical to state each and every regional realization, because some might not be known to (all of) us and it's a lot of work, when we could simply write the phonemic transcription and leave the actual realization for the readers. This would also save us questioning the pronunciations, since there is a scarce of pronunciation documentation and the ones that are there poorly represent true pronunciation and nearly always generalize ungeneralizable pronunciations, that includes Hans Wehr and Janet C. E. Watson. They basically treat Arabic phonology (and often the literary language) as completely uniform, from the Atlantic coast all the way to the Persian Gulf. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 12:19, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

@Mahmudmasri: I only suggested to add regionalisms because you insisted on [ʒ]. That's not the most standard realisation of "ج", anyway, regardless of etymology.

I actually don't want to waste time and efforts, if you imply that I do and suggest to use one source for transliterations - Hans Wehr dictionary, which has transliterated a vast majority of Arabic words. Everybody knows how "ج" is realised regionally and a phonemic final "ā" is shortened to "a". In short a transliteration "beljīkā" and /bel.d͡ʒiː.kaː/ gives sufficient information for an Arabic learner about how to pronounce it exactly, based on the knowledge of specific Arabic phonology and rules.

If there was enough interest, we could fine-tune the module to allow for a more phonetic pronunciation, with [æ], [ɑ] and [æ], a more accurate presentation of the length of vowels but we have to make a group decision. I think when coming up with Wiktionary:About Arabic you finally agreed that we transliterated the final shortened alif as "ā". We could use a short "a" if you insist and get /bel.d͡ʒiː.ka/. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 12:45, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

If it's a phonemic transliteration, then it is unnecessary to specify whether the final open vowel is long or short, as long as it aims to transliterate alef, then it is OK to leave it with the length mark. In the Persian Gulf, the final vowel would be short [ɐ]. This has to do with the phonology there. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 13:00, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

That's my point too. Adding phonetic transliteration to each Arabic term would be a huge task and we don't have enough active interested and knowledgeable editors for that. The transliteration is available and the phonemic IPA is still very helpful. What can be slightly automated is distinguishing vowels around emphatic vs normal consonants and the length of vowels. The module is basic but it does the job for now. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 13:14, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

@Mahmudmasri, @Atitarev: Yes I can guarantee for the vast majority of Arabic speakers there is no difference between /i/ and /e/ in Arabic, there is not a single minimal pair in most Arabic dialects or MSA between /e/ and /i/, it's just one phoneme with vast array of different pronunciations, you can see it in the way Arabs write names and words mixing up E with I and O with U, for example Ettihad vs. Ittihad or Umar vs. Omar, which I guess gives the impression to foreigners that those are two totally different phonemes.

I guess Hans Wehr was listening to the words based on his own native language or he was listening to Arabs who were pronouncing the words with a foreign tongue (the way Lebanese people pronounce French words in a with French phonetics in the middle of speaking Lebanese), there is no difference if you mix up the allophones [e] and [i] which is never an issue, except if you were trying to tell the difference between foreign words like "six" and "sex" when speaking English.

Modern Standard Arabic should have one phonemic representation, since each Arabic dialect have their own phonetic way when speaking MSA and we just can't put all of those representations in every MSA word.

and for; جُون لِينُون (jon lenon, “John Lennon”) I pronounce it phonemically (in my head) and in writing as جُون لِنِن (jōn linin, “John Lennon”) /d͡ʒoːn linin/ and phonetically (with my mouth) as [d͡ʒo̞ːn lɪnɪn] or [d͡ʒo̞ːn le̞nɪn], since long /eː/ and /oː/ are phonemic in most/many Arabic dialects and they sound so different from long /iː/ and /uː/ and many minimal pairs occur in most dialects.--عربي-٣١ (talk) 15:17, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

There are lots of nativized words in Egyptian Arabic that distinguish short [i] from short [e], similarly [u] and [o]. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 17:11, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

@Mahmudmasri which Egyptian words distinguish short /i/ and /e/, and between short /u/ and /o/? and are they native Egyptian words and do most Egyptians use them? cause I've never seen/read that with any Arabic dialect. --عربي-٣١ (talk) 13:39, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

(Notifying Benwing2, Mahmudmasri, Metaknowledge, Wikitiki89, Erutuon, ZxxZxxZ, Stephen G. Brown, عربي-٣١, Fay Freak): I finally got around and restored the original pronunciation of بِلْجِيكَا (beljīkā, “Belgium”) I used from a heavily cited resource - the Hans Wehr dictionary, leaving the ones added by User:عربي-٣١ as well. Please don't remove without a solid reference, showing that "beljīkā" is wrong. The actual link to the dictionary page is here.--Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:16, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Further regional pronunciations can be added with a {{qualifier}} or an {{a}} as at قَلْب (qalb). --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 05:23, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

vantage point

The entry for vantage point currently has this example:

It may be difficult for us to understand the motivations of these people from our 21st century vantage point.

The example is found under the second sense:

2. A point in time.

The problem is that the word 'vantage point' does not mean 'point in time'. Not in this sentence nor in any other. It means 'point of view' or 'perspective'.

If you had that sentence and nothing more as a reference, you could concoct a theory that the phrase could mean 'a point in time', and I would surmise that that is exactly what the original submitter did. But the reasoning that lead to that definition is faulty.

This sense should be removed, since it is incorrect, and the example moved to the correct sense.

Thank you for your time. I would fix this entry myself but some kind of higher power seems to be preventing me. --88.114.12.182 13:25, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

 Done ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:19, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

za rządów

This apparently existing phrase uses za + genitive. We do not list a usage of za with a genitive. Are we missing something or is this some special case phrase? Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 21:37, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Estonian inflection table templates

In many of the Wiktionary entries for Estonian I find “(genitive [please provide], partitive [please provide]) and “This adjective, noun, numeral etc needs an inflection-table template”. These are obviously requests that people have made for the stated forms but for some strange reason nobody ever provides them. I have provided the requested forms but my contributions have been ignored. What is the point of requesting something and ignoring it when it is provided? Here are the forms for teine (second, other, another) and a few other Estonian nouns. Will someone please enter them in Wiktionary instead of ignoring them? Genitive singular: teise Partitive singular: teist Remaining forms:- Illative singular: teisesse, teise Inessive singular: teises Elative singular: teisest Allative singular: teisele Adessive singular: teisel Ablative singular: teiselt Translative singular: teiseks Terminative singular: teiseni Essive singular: teisena Abessive singular: teiseta Comitative singular: teisega Nominative plural: teised Genitive plural: teiste Partitive plural: teisi Illative plural: teistesse Inessive plural: teistes Elative plural: teistest Allative plural: teistele Adessive plural: teistel Ablative plural: teistelt Translative plural: teisteks Terminative plural: teisteni Essive plural: teistena Abessive plural: teisteta Comitative plural: teistega

kapp (cupboard, wardrobe) Genitive singular: kapi Partitive singular: kappi Remaining forms:- Illative singular: kapisse, kappi Inessive singular: kapis Elative singular: kapist Allative singular: kapile Adessive singular: kapil Ablative singular: kapilt Translative singular: kapiks Terminative singular: kapini Essive singular: kapina Abessive singular: kapita Comitative singular: kapiga Nominative plural: kapid Genitive plural: kappide Partitive plural: kappe, kappisid Illative plural: kappidesse Inessive plural: kappides Elative plural: kappidest Allative plural: kappidele Adessive plural: kappidel Ablative plural: kappidelt Translative plural: kappideks Terminative plural: kappideni Essive plural: kappidena Abessive plural: kappideta Comitative plural: kappidega

kael (neck) Genitive singular: kaela Partitive singular: kaela Remaining forms:- Illative singular: kaelasse, kaela Inessive singular: kaelas Elative singular: kaelast Allative singular: kaelale Adessive singular: kaelal Ablative singular: kaelalt Translative singular: kaelaks Terminative singular: kaelani Essive singular: kaelana Abessive singular: kaelata Comitative singular: kaelaga Nominative plural: kaelad Genitive plural: kaelade, kaelte Partitive plural: kaelu Illative plural: kaeladesse Inessive plural: kaelades Elative plural: kaeladest Allative plural: kaeladele Adessive plural: kaeladel Ablative plural: kaeladelt Translative plural: kaeladeks Terminative plural: kaeladeni Essive plural: kaeladena Abessive plural: kaeladeta Comitative plural: kaeladega

Does nael (nail, pound) follow the same pattern as kael? Please check whether naelte occurs as one of the forms of the genitive plural or whether there is only the one form, naelade. nael (nail, pound) Genitive singular: naela Partitive singular: naela Remaining forms:- Illative singular: naelasse, naela Inessive singular: naelas Elative singular: naelast Allative singular: naelale Adessive singular: naelal Ablative singular: naelalt Translative singular: naelaks Terminative singular: naelani Essive singular: naelana Abessive singular: naelata Comitative singular: naelaga Nominative plural: naelad Genitive plural: naelade, naelte Partitive plural: naelu Illative plural: naeladesse Inessive plural: naelades Elative plural: naeladest Allative plural: naeladele Adessive plural: naeladel Ablative plural: naeladelt Translative plural: naeladeks Terminative plural: naeladeni Essive plural: naeladena Abessive plural: naeladeta Comitative plural: naeladega

kuld (gold) Genitive singular: kulla Partitive singular: kulda Remaining forms:- Illative singular: kullasse, kulda Inessive singular: kullas Elative singular: kullast Allative singular: kullale Adessive singular: kullal Ablative singular: kullalt Translative singular: kullaks Terminative singular: kullani Essive singular: kullana Abessive singular: kullata Comitative singular: kullaga

One would have thought that this is a mass noun and as such has only singular forms. However, apparently plural forms occur. If desired, they are as follows: Nominative plural: kullad Genitive plural: kuldade Partitive plural: kuldasid, kuldi Illative plural: kuldadesse Inessive plural: kuldades Elative plural: kuldadest Allative plural: kuldadele Adessive plural: kuldadel Ablative plural: kuldadelt Translative plural: kuldadeks Terminative plural: kuldadeni Essive plural: kuldadena Abessive plural: kuldadeta Comitative plural: kuldadega

— This unsigned comment was added by Johnling60 (talk • contribs).

American Empire

Meaning the USA. Can we gloss this appropriately? It's not an everyday synonym you would encounter in airports, maps, etc. Is it poetic, derogatory, historical? Equinox ◑ 19:59, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Seems sum of parts, could be replaced with {{&lit}}. DTLHS (talk) 20:08, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Translation of quotations with 栽

The quotations of the Chinese character 栽 didn't have English translations so I tried to come up with some.

I'm posting this because I'd like other people to verify this first, plus I'm having trouble figuring out how to edit it into the page.

里而栽，廣丈，高倍

"He raised a mound at the distance of a li, 10 cubits thick, and twice as many in height" (from James Legge's translation of Zuozhuan)

Also on the page this phrase is marked as Modern Standard Chinese, but this is actually Classical Chinese.

山上多栽樹,等於修水庫。雨多它能吞,雨少它能吐。

"In the mountains there are a lot of planted trees, it is equal to managing the water reservoirs. If there's much rain it can take in, if there's little rain it can dispense." (own translation, couldn't find an official translation online)

Riki115 (talk) 21:26, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

@Wyang, Justinrleung. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:11, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

@Riki115 Thank you. The first part of the second sentence would be better translated as "Planting more trees on mountains is akin to building reservoirs". I've added these to the entry. Wyang (talk) 07:07, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Estonian verb conjugation

keetma (to boil, to cook) - transitive

Presumably the conjugation of this verb will follow that of saatma (to accompany, to escort, to send), therefore the forms are as follows:

Present indicative active:
	Singular:
		1st person: keedan
		2nd person: keedad
		3rd person: keedab
	Plural:
		1st person: keedame
		2nd person: keedate
		3rd person: keedavad
	Negative: ei keeda
	Passive positive: keedetakse
	Passive negative: ei keedeta
Past indicative active:
	Singular:
		1st person: keetsin
		2nd person: keetsid
		3rd person: keetis
	Plural:
		1st person: keetsime
		2nd person: keetsite
		3rd person: keetsid
	Negative: ei keetnud
	Passive positive: keedeti
	Passive negative: ei keedetud
Perfect indicative active:
	Singular:
		1st person: olen keetnud
		2nd person: oled keetnud
		3rd person: on keetnud
	Plural:
		1st person: oleme keetnud
		2nd person: olete keetnud
		3rd person: on keetnud
	Negative: ei ole keetnud, pole keetnud
	Passive positive: on keedetud
	Passive negative: ei ole keedetud, pole keedetud
Pluperfect indicative:
	Singular:
		1st person: olin keetnud
		2nd person: olid keetnud
		3rd person: oli keetnud
	Plural:
		1st person: olime keetnud
		2nd person: olite keetnud
		3rd person: olid keetnud
	Negative: ei olnud keetnud, polnud keetnud
	Passive positive: oli keedetud 
	Passive negative: ei olnud keedetud, polnud keedetud
Conditional present active:
	Singular:
		1st person: keedaksin
		2nd person: keedaksid
		3rd person: keedaks
	Plural:
		1st person: keedaksime
		2nd person: keedaksite
		3rd person: keedaksid
	Negative: ei keedaks
	Passive positive: keedetaks
	Passive negative: ei keedetaks
Conditional perfect active:
	Singular:
		1st person: oleksin keetnud
		2nd person: oleksid keetnud
		3rd person: oleks keetnud
	Plural:
		1st person: oleksime keetnud
		2nd person: oleksite keetnud
		3rd person: oleksid keetnud
	Negative: ei oleks saatnud, poleks keetnud
	Passive positive: oleks keedetud
	Passive negative: ei oleks keedetud, poleks keedetud
Imperative present positive:
	Singular:
		2nd person: keeda
		3rd person: keetku
	Plural:
		1st person: keetkem
		2nd person: keetke
		3rd person: keetku
	Passive: keedetagu
Imperative present negative:
	Singular:
		2nd person: ära keeda
		3rd person: ärgu keetku
	Plural:
		1st person: ärgem keetkem
		2nd person: ärge keetke
		3rd person: ärgu keetku
	Passive: ärgu keedetagu
Imperative perfect positive:
	Singular:
		3rd person: olgu keetnud
	Plural:
		3rd person: olgu keetnud
	Passive: olgu keedetud
Imperative perfect negative:
	Singular:
		3rd person: ärgu olgu keetnud
	Plural:
		3rd person: ärgu olgu keetnud
	Passive: ärgu olgu keedetud
Quotative present:
	Active positive: keetvat
	Passive positive: keedetavat
	Active negative: ei keetvat
	Passive negative: ei keedetavat
Quotative perfect:
	Active positive: olevat keetnud
	Passive positive: olevat keedetud
	Active negative: ei olevat keetnud, polevat keetnud
	Passive negative: ei olevat keedetud, polevat keedetud
Nominal forms:
	ma-infinitive active:
		Nominative: keetma
		Inessive: keetmas
		Elative: keetmast
		Translative: keetmaks
		Abessive: keetmata
	ma-infinitive passive: keedetama
	da-infinitive:
		da-form: keeta
		des-form: keetes
Participles:
	Present active: keetev
	Present passive: keedetav
	Past active: keetnud
	Past passive: keedetud

Please check that all the above forms are correct then create an inflection table template with the complete conjugation of this verb. Johnling60 (talk) 00:07, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

@Rua. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:11, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Estonian noun declension

külmkapp (refrigerator) Genitive singular: külmkapi Partitive singular: külmkappi Remaining forms:- Illative singular: külmkapisse, külmkappi Inessive singular: külmkapis Elative singular: külmkapist Allative singular: külmkapile Adessive singular: külmkapil Ablative singular: külmkapilt Translative singular: külmkapiks Terminative singular: külmkapini Essive singular: külmkapina Abessive singular: külmkapita Comitative singular: külmkapiga Nominative plural: külmkapid Genitive plural: külmkappide Partitive plural: külmkappe, külmkappisid Illative plural: külmkappidesse Inessive plural: külmkappides Elative plural: külmkappidest Allative plural: külmkappidele Adessive plural: külmkappidel Ablative plural: külmkappidelt Translative plural: külmkappideks Terminative plural: külmkappideni Essive plural: külmkappidena Abessive plural: külmkappideta Comitative plural: külmkappidega Johnling60 (talk) 00:22, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Estonian noun declension - kael

Please create an inflection table template for kael (neck) and complete with the declension already given. Johnling60 (talk) 00:29, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

brokeback

Does the definition "of or pertaining to homosexuality" really make sense? Also, most of the translations are simply "homoerotic". Ultimateria (talk) 16:18, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, the definition should probably be changed to something more like "Homoerotic; homosexual, gay." And the translations that are just of homoerotic should be moved there. I'll deploy {{trans-top-also}}. - -sche (discuss) 01:08, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

fill in the blank

The page fill in the blank has experienced recent, persistent vandalism. I am somewhat new to editing Wiktionary, but on Wikipedia there are methods for protecting pages that are getting excessive vandalism. What is the protocol for doing that here? Thanks Nemoanon (talk) 06:56, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

If a page is considered by admin to need protection it can be protected, but this is usually limited to edits by anons, and doesn't normally affect registered users. DonnanZ (talk) 14:16, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

There have been 4 reverted edits since May 2017. This doesn't seem too bad, though I can't speak for the patrolers. DCDuring (talk) 14:40, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I've watchlisted the page. If there is further vandalism I'd be willing to protect it for, say, three months against new/unregistered users (since the only edits to the page by such users in recent years have been vandalism, or in one case reversion of vandalism). - -sche (discuss) 00:57, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

bioboy, biogirl and mention of chromosomes

Defined as "somebody who was born with a penis and testicles and assumed to have one Y chromosome"; "somebody who was born with a vulva and assumed to have two X chromosomes". The grammar puts the whole thing in the past, suggesting that the assumption re chromosomes was made at birth. Is that correct, or is it trying to say that they were born with such-and-such parts but are now assumed by general observers to have such-and-such chromosomes? If the latter, def needs revising. Equinox ◑ 19:05, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

One should not expect these informal neologisms to have sharply delineated meanings. My understanding is that, as used, it is meant to identify the sex that the speaker supposes or assumes was the one assigned at birth. There ought to be no presumption that the utterer of these terms is even cognizant of the relationship between sex-determining chromosomes and the outward appearance of human genitalia.  --Lambiam 08:07, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Our "job" is to explain the meaning of words, though, so if a word has no fixed meaning (which is really something of a first for the language!) then we need to indicate that fact clearly. Of course having no fixed meaning is different from having a fixed meaning that a negligible minority of speakers aren't getting right. Equinox ◑ 08:15, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

If one accepts that the meaning of a word is the meaning intended by speakers as they use the word, then the meaning of all words is somewhat fuzzy. Like when someone says, "Trump is a fascist" – what do they mean, precisely? The degree of fuzziness changes, of course, but it's hardly a first for the meaning of a word to vary somewhat according to the speaker (or even their mood); one would expect that to be true in general for informally introduced neologisms.  --Lambiam 09:19, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

If one accepts that the meaning of a word is the meaning intended by speakers as they use the word then there is absolutely no need for a dictionary, and no way that people can understand each other. Lewis Carroll famously satirised that attitude in his book about Alice in Wonderland: [5]. Equinox ◑ 09:45, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

It is conceivable (evidently, because I can conceive of the possibility) that someone, being told, Oh please! Stop behaving in such a pusillanimous manner!, would be quite unsure of what the speaker meant with the term pusillanimous, one they are not familiar with – perhaps this is their very first encounter. In such a case, a dictionary may come handy. Still, did the speaker imply "ignoble cowardice", and are they indignant? Or did it express a mere slight annoyance, expressed in a mildly exaggerated way?

That just seems like a division between Grice's "sentence meaning" and "speaker meaning". The exact same question arises if you don't use any fancy words, and just say something like "stop behaving like a jerk!". I think you are mixing up pragmatics (which will never be part of a dictionary definition) with semantics. Equinox ◑ 02:44, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

The oldest occurrence of bioboy I could find is in a Savage Love column from June 12, 1997. It contains a definition (which I think may be considered somewhat offensive now): "Bioboys: Boys born boys, as opposed to girls made boys."  --Lambiam 09:28, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

What is and isn't offensive changes over time, and we should endeavour not to colour our definitions based on current popular fads. We must define things in terms of what a word means and that alone, whether it is offensive or not. (Otherwise we would have to delete words like nigger, which are in fact words and which a reader might well require a definition for.) If for example the meaning of "woman" is changing from "a person with such-and-such genetic code" to "any person who says 'I am a woman'", fine, we need to reflect usage and we will do so, but we also need to keep previous/historical definitions in order to explain texts from earlier periods (they may be marked dated, archaic etc.). Certainly if you think that we shouldn't define bioboy the way it was used in 1997 because that is offending someone, you are missing the point of a dictionary: someone might be reading a 1997 text and want to know what the word meant then. Equinox ◑ 09:49, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

The assumed offensiveness is in the words "girl made boy", in which I take "made" to refer to sexual reassignment surgery. As used here, this would seem to identify gender identity with gender appearance and deny the possibility of a pre-existing gender identity different from the sex assigned at birth. If definitions found elsewhere use needlessly offensive language, it is not part of our mission to copy that.  --Lambiam 10:32, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Our concern is not to copy definitions, but to record understood meaning. We have lots of historical meanings that have been, are now, or will be considered offensive. We try to use {{label}} to document the offensiveness, but the nature and temporal and demographic extent of the offensiveness is very hard to track, especially in the current cultural climate. DCDuring (talk) 13:05, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Now suppose that you find a definition of the term homie in this (made-up) quotation: "He said he thought I was his "homie", a word that these stupid niggers use to mean a friend." I assume that you will agree this is offensive. But note that the offensiveness is not in the meaning of the word homie, but in the gratuitously odious way in which it is expressed. The example is somewhat extreme in order to illustrate my point clearly. Above, Savage's particular choice of words in the flippant phrase "girls made boys" is needlessly offensive. Again, it is not the meaning that is offensive, but the description. Maybe this is not just coincidental, or the result of increased sensitivity surrounding trans issues. In the Wikipedia article on Dan Savage you can read: "Savage has repeatedly been the focus of controversy for his use of slurs regarding the transgender community".  --Lambiam 14:56, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

As I see it used, the meaning is a boy who's not trans (as written it excludes intersex boys, but most speakers probably aren't thinking of intersex people to the extent they even realize they exist); defined "positively", it's a boy who's a boy according to speakers' simplistic view of "biology". And the reference is to some notional "original" condition (past tense); if someone has surgery to have a penis now, he doesn't "count". If doctors performed such surgery on someone in the womb (like how they perform genital surgeries on intersex babies right after birth), that probably wouldn't "count", either. Chromosomes might not need to be mentioned, as it's only relatively recently that (some) people took up the (not entirely right) idea that they determine sex, let alone that they determine gender... and if in the future someone undergoes a treatment that changes all their chromosomes, that too is unlikely to "count", but anyway the thought experiment suggests the term is indeed defined by by a past tense state, not by the present tense. - -sche (discuss) 15:48, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Christina Richards, Meg Barker, Sexuality and Gender for Mental Health Professionals: A Practical Guide, 2013, →ISBN, explain it (as I did) as basically meaning 'not trans': "Biogirl or Bioboy: A term used to differentiate cisgender people from trans people. Derogatory of trans people and incorrectly suggestive that trans does not have a biological base. Should never be used. 'Biological man/woman' is similarly problematic." (I found that just by Google-Books-searching "bioboy". Incidentally, the book right below it from the same year may show a trans writer using it, but in my experience it's more often non-trans people who use it, especially as time has gone on and the biological bases of the gender identities trans and cis people have have become better known.)

• tl;dr? The basic/primary meaning is "a boy who's not trans", genitals and chromosomes are secondary.

- -sche (discuss) 15:56, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I am a bit hesitant to trust any source that says something is "problematic" and "should never be used" because that is politics. Once again, we are supposed to say what things mean, and our remit strictly stops there. In any case the question isn't "is this offensive or derogatory, or derogatory to some self-defined offendable group" but rather "what does it actually mean". I am personally happy for you to basically rewrite the entry because in my experience here you are someone who seems to know a lot about gender identity. I do however feel that the "be, feel, and do what you want" gender trend is going to cause us some never-before-seen lexicographical problems. Will we be the first dictionary to define a word as "(non-gloss) whatever the identifier wants it to mean". Is this a triumph of postmodernism? Maybe. Let us keep our eyes on it. Equinox ◑ 16:56, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

In fairness, I think the book is only suggesting mental health professionals should never use the term when providing healthcare to trans (or queer) patients.
Searching to see how other people define it is complicated by the fact that it's the name of at least two commercial products (with no discernible relationship to boys, ha) and it also seems to occur as a compound with a more "literal" meaning, e.g. in Ian McDonald, The Broken Land (2013, →ISBN): "The bioboy's forehead was studded with terminals. Biocircuitry coiled back over each ear and clung with small curved claws to the nape of his neck."
My suggestion would be to define it like "{slang) A cisgender boy or man." Perhaps some people would want to add "; one who is anatomically male." ("Biologically male", while more in line with the etymology, would be a can of worms and not really accurate, for reasons I can get into if need be.)
Incidentally, I notice this has made it into Lesser's 2018 English / Spanish Dictionary, and it seems like a weird enough word to include that I half wonder if they just lifted it from us because we provided a Spanish translation of it (which may not meet CFI!). - -sche (discuss) 00:41, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Update: I think Lesser's dictionary did lift it from us, because they also include our translation of "Wiktionarian" and our former logo's very unusual pronunciation of "Wiktionary". Hahaha. - -sche (discuss) 00:53, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I've had a go at it: bioboy, biogirl.  --Lambiam 11:46, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I've tweaked it further. I found three citations of "bioboy" in fiction, but can't work out the sense enough to add one yet. I see we have entries for bioman and biowoman, too, currently only with cisgender-related senses (which need updating; I'll take a stab at it), though they too may be attested also with fiction-related senses. - -sche (discuss) 19:09, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

loonsome

This entry looks wrong. At least one citation, very possibly all three, are dialect forms of lonesome, and nothing to do with lunacy. Equinox ◑ 21:49, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

What's the connection (if any) between loon and lunacy ? Leasnam (talk) 05:29, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't know, maybe it's related to the connections in 50 of your Anglo-Saxonisms I have had to bring to RFV in the past twelve months? Equinox ◑ 05:35, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

This statement makes no sense. You're being emotional. Leasnam (talk) 13:45, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Even the Anglish subreddit isn't sure about you (and I've never been a participant there; I found it by looking for discussions of Wiktionary the other month): [6]. Equinox ◑ 05:36, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I have no affiliation with them. I don't care what they say. Why are you using that? That's your argument ? Pathetic. Leasnam (talk) 13:49, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I think that @Leasnam is overzealous rather than attempting to advance an Anglish agenda. But it is indeed worrying if these Redditors have come to notice a problematic pattern, and it's on us to RFV them, as well as Leasnam to be much more careful. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 11:18, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Who's to say they're not phoney Anglish-whatever-they are's ? Sockpuppetting to make Anglish look ridiculous (which they're succeeding at) and to substantiate stupid claims now against me. That's nothing new or creative. Leasnam (talk) 13:52, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

• I warn of the early makings of a witchhunt. Assume good faith. Korn [kʰũːɘ̃n] (talk) 12:27, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Assuming good faith is what you do when you encounter a newbie. I have no personal problem with Leasnam but I have, over the past years, encountered huge numbers of his "Anglish" entries that do not make sense in terms of actual use of the language. Indeed at one point I called out this pattern and he said something like "I used to create those entries and I don't any more" (sorry: can't source it, but I'm sure someone remembers). You can find a lot of dubious Leasnam entries by searching under "Germanic" prefixes like be-, for- and to-. These represent a huge mass of (usually unglossed, not marked as archaic or rare) mess that will mislead any learner who comes here and that are basically a liability. Furthermore they often have blatantly wrong cites that consist of scannos, errors, or nonce-word poetry. It is not appropriate to call "assume good faith!" when I have been struggling against this stuff for at least three or four years, and when I am not in any way fighting him but trying to produce a dictionary that represents real-world English. Equinox ◑ 14:53, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Since these were created years ago, maybe they were the work of a newbie. The problem here is that the Leasnam you're complaining to isn't the Leasnam who was creating all those old schlock entries- are you asking Leasnam to go back in time and not make those entries? Chuck Entz (talk) 19:42, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

• There seem to be two basically unrelated definitions on one definition line, which is a common ploy to attempt to use a small number of possibly valid citations cover a putative word that is uncommon and with at best ambiguous meaning.

Also, don't we normally exclude attestation that does not unambiguously support a definition, as is typical in much poetic usage (quotation 3). It is these tactics that makes one suspect a real witch. DCDuring (talk) 13:19, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Fee-fi-fo-fum I smell the blood of an Anglishmun. DCDuring (talk) 13:23, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

You should be a lawyer :). Not agreeing with your judgement, but tell me, why is Anglish so bad ? Just curious...You two seem to have a hater-stance on it... Leasnam (talk) 13:55, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

To everyone: I have never made up a word here (maybe elsewhere a long time ago, sure, but not at Wiktionary. I know the rules and I respect them)...every entry I've ever created has been someone else's creation--it came from somewhere. I may come across an interesting new word--I like new words...I even actively seek them out...that's part of language evolution. Now, granted, I may not be as gifted as Equinox at interpreting new words when I find them...I'm just skilled at finding them. Of late, I have been using rfdef to have someone with more focus assist me. But I find it amusing, and honestly a little annoying, that this is as big an issue as you're making it. I should feel flattered (?), but I'm not. Makes me wonder if there isn't another agenda at work here. I seem to sense a lot of hostility (from fear ? I dunno)...but can it please be resolved. I've done what you've asked of me. Leasnam (talk) 14:06, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

So, onto the word itself...I created loonsome along with about 200 new words I found that were being used which contained the suffix -some. (Yes, this is a suffix native to English. Nothing wrong with that. What I feel is wrong is that it was grossly overlooked (Kudos !). I think it may at one time have been labelled "obsolete" or "no longer productive".). So, I start searching actively for words flying below the radar that use this suffix...and lo and behold, I found MANY of them...many never even cataloged anywhere before. They are first defined at Wiktionary (you're welcome ! :). So yes, I trust and rely on my fellow Wiktionarians to assist me in making my entries better...that's what it's about. It's not about a one man show. Multiple editors with multiple inputs characterise us. So why is this happening? If an entry is scrutinised, that's the process we go through. You're mad at me because I am forcing the process to be used. That makes no sense to me. Leasnam (talk) 14:20, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

The problem with that is that we have millions of entries, and bad ones may go undetected for a very long time. Yes, Equinox is being unfair- he's done similar things with his mineral and "-id" entries- but you're overreacting, and throwing in some completely irrelevant and rather emotional arguments in response. FWIW, I have similar concerns about your old practices, but I realize you grown beyond that stage. It should be enough to point out that you don't do that anymore, and tune it out as someone blowing off steam. I would rather not have two very prolific and mostly very good contributors succeed in driving each other off the project. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:42, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I harbour no ill will. Equinox is talented and hard-working. He is a tremendous asset to this project. I do not only appreciate his dedication, but I trust and value his insights. Leasnam (talk) 00:02, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

It's not fear; it's annoyance. It seems like PoV-pushing, especially when the definitions and attestation are so poor coming from someone who should know better.

If someone would like to spend time finding good citations and splitting the definition appropriately, more power to them. The result of their efforts will speak for itself. Based on the current attestation and definition, loonsome should fail RfV IMO. DCDuring (talk) 14:36, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

"It's not fear; it's annoyance. It seems like PoV-pushing"--Okay, I'm telling you for the last time, it's NOT PoV-pushing. Stop seeing it as such. If the word fails, then so be it. My job is to present the word to the group for evaluation. If it's not legit, then we have a process to care for that. That process works. It's working now. Feel good about it. Leasnam (talk) 14:41, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm just as annoyed, but this isn't something Leasnam can do anything about- it's water under the bridge. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:42, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Estonian noun declension - raha

raha (money, currency) Genitive singular: raha Partitive singular: raha Remaining forms:- Illative singular: rahasse, rahha Inessive singular: rahas Elative singular: rahast Allative singular: rahale Adessive singular: rahal Ablative singular: rahalt Translative singular: rahaks Terminative singular: rahani Essive singular: rahana Abessive singular: rahata Comitative singular: rahaga Nominative plural: rahad Genitive plural: rahade Partitive plural: rahasid Illative plural: rahadesse Inessive plural: rahades Elative plural: rahadest Allative plural: rahadele Adessive plural: rahadel Ablative plural: rahadelt Translative plural: rahadeks Terminative plural: rahadeni Essive plural: rahadena Abessive plural: rahadeta Comitative plural: rahadega Johnling60 (talk) 17:17, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Estonian noun declension - kael

Why has nobody created an inflection table template for this word despite the fact that the full declension is available on the tea room? Johnling60 (talk) 17:23, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

This is a wiki. We're all volunteers. You've been dumping huge amounts of language-specific detail in a general forum. This is like buying a kit, dumping all the parts on someone's table, then demanding to know why they haven't built anything with it yet.

I would suggest adding {{rfinfl|et|noun}} where you want the inflection to go in the entry and putting your data on the talk page for that entry. To be technical, this is the kind of thing to discuss at Wiktionary talk:About Estonian, but if you need to bring it up here, link to the entry and say the data is on the talk page. Thanks! Chuck Entz (talk) 19:15, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

sign of spring

I'm not too optimistic (it's one of those days) but I'd like to see an entry for it. DonnanZ (talk) 20:45, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

What's your definition? DTLHS (talk) 20:52, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Um, something like: An indication that winter is coming to an end, and that spring is on its way (or just around the corner). DonnanZ (talk) 20:57, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

It seems like just a sign of spring, like there are also signs of summer (in Japanese poetry, the call of the lesser cuckoo is a major sign of summer), signs of winter, and so on. Searching OneLook and google books:intitle:Dictionary "sign of spring", I don't spot any other dictionary that includes it. :/ - -sche (discuss) 00:46, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I was thinking it could also serve as a translation hub, but never mind. DonnanZ (talk) 07:17, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

battle-scarred

I'm surprised about this one. DonnanZ (talk) 08:26, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Surprised how – that it's generally not used literally but mostly figuratively? (That's my sense anyway.) — SGconlaw (talk) 08:52, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree, and added figurative. Done by SemperBlotto, thanks. DonnanZ (talk) 08:55, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Maybe you didn't realise it's a new entry (I was surprised it didn't exist before). DonnanZ (talk) 08:57, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

people are people

people are people is probably not appropriate for WT, but I made it anyway and probably totally screwed up the definition too. Perhaps it means nobody's perfect too. --Harmonicaplayer (talk) 11:12, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I seem to remember using the term people are human recently. DonnanZ (talk) 11:25, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Speak for yourself. Corporations are people, my friend. :)  --Lambiam 12:53, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not convinced this meets WT:CFI. As far as the meaning is concerned, it seems to be used more often to convey the message that people, everywhere and in all walks of life, are basically the same, with the same range of virtues as well as foibles; judging from some samples of use it does not refer exclusively or even usually to, specifically, human imperfection. A small anthology of uses found with Google book search:

• Though people are people no matter where they live, their reactions to certain stimuli are largely influenced by their environment.
• Your delight in the goings on between men and women will not be limited to those of us restricted by gravity. People are people and sometimes angels, like doctors and nurses, are people too.
• There are many viewpoints regarding the practice of intercultural communication but a familiar one is that "people are people," basically pretty much alike; ...
• I didn't care much about that. People are people, right — black or white, yellow or brown, whatever.
• It was a trip of a lifetime and I learned that if given the chance people are people, loving and caring.
• They're probably gonna do it anyway, because people are people. But we shouldn't encourage them to do so.
• Most people in Iran behave like that woman. Most would extend the same kind of courtesy as she did. People are people no matter where in the world they live.
• I try to tell Shlomo, and he says people are people, the same everywhere.
• As long as people are people, democracy, in the full sense of the word, will always be no more than an ideal.

 --Lambiam 13:32, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

• The reason I created the entry was after hearing a soccer coach being quoted saying a win is a win is a win, which I wanna add. Maybe it is covered in Appendix:Repetition or some bizarre crapuseful content Daniel Carrero made. --Harmonicaplayer (talk) 21:21, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I work with a certain genius (he's about 75 and will retire any day now) who will never attend a meeting without reminding us that "it is what it is" (sounds better as che sera sera, perhaps). I don't think "people are people" is a popular English idiom; it is basically just a Depeche Mode song. Equinox ◑ 23:21, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Is someone going to list this at RFD or RFV? It has been nominated for WOTD. — SGconlaw (talk) 07:35, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

 Done. I have nominated it for deletion.  --Lambiam 10:54, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

He was abnormally agitated, she only normally so

Is the following sentence grammatical? if so, could sb. offer a paraphrase? He was abnormally agitated, she only normally so. --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:35, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I wouldn't straight-out proclaim it ungrammatical, but it looks to me as something you would not normally say. It is either an unnatural made-up example, or a jocular use of the adverb. Here is an attempt at a paraphrase: "He was abnormally agitated, she only to an extent that could be considered normal under the circumstances." A cursory search for examples of "normally" being used in a non-mathematical sense turned up only cases where it meant something like "usually", "under normal circumstances". Other senses may be rare or non-existent because the sentence would almost always be ambiguous and most likely interpreted in the more usual sense. For example, "She was normally agitated" will normally be understood to mean that being agitated was her normal condition, and not that she happened to be agitated, but not abnormally so. It may be best to remove this 3rd sense (which is very close to sense #2 anyway) unless or until someone comes up with an attested use.  --Lambiam 12:45, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

@Lambiam: Regarding the phrase "she only normally so", isn't a verb missing? Otherwise I cannot find a meaning for it, and even the pronoun should be "her". --Backinstadiums (talk) 15:05, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

It looks perfectly OK to me - the second phrase is just a shortening of "she was only normally agitated" (the "so" being the adverb usage that we have defined). SemperBlotto (talk) 15:10, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It looks to me like an ellipsis of "he was abnormally agitated, but she was only normally agitated". As Lambiam noted, this kind of ellipsis wouldn't be used in normal speech- it seems like something that might be used in formal writing or literature. A writer might use such a construction to play with the different implications possible for normally, or they might just be trying to be concise. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:23, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

The sentence is grammatical, to the extent that grammar accepts elision. And while "normally" would, er, normally be interpreted as having a different sense, in this context — directly contrasted with "abnormally" — it would probably be understood. I see it is a usex in the entry [[normally]]... it seems tolerable, but finding actual citations would be better. Perhaps we should even combine the 'manner' and 'degree' senses. As for a paraphrase, plug in the definitions: "he was agitated to an abnormal degree, she was agitated only to a normal/customary/usual degree/extent." - -sche (discuss) 16:17, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd rather we kept the manner, degree, and temporal senses distinguished:

He made a point of behaving normally. (manner)

He was normally quite sensible, except when it came to hyphens. (temporal: "usually", "under normal circumstances")

He was drunk, but normally so for a teenager on a Friday night. (degree)

The degree sense does seem a bit odd in many uses because the other interpretations create ambiguity, sometimes humorous ambiguity. DCDuring (talk) 00:36, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

You'd do better asking a question on https://english.stackexchange.com/ Danielklein (talk) 23:38, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Seems completely acceptable to me: "the grass was green, the sky blue". "So" serves as a placeholder like "thus" or "latter". Equinox ◑ 02:19, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Semi-unrelatedly, as someone who was brought up to spit poison at sentence fragments: "he was abnormally agitated, she only normally so" feels like a single sentence (and it would very definitely be wrong to replace the comma with a semicolon, since that would turn the second portion into a stand-alone clause without a verb); however there's something ugly about it :D The French are more chilled about throwing sentences together with commas, but it's hard to unlearn this stuff. (I still think we should have APPENDIX:GRAMMAR. Okay, grammar should be an entire separate project, but Wikt is already the unloved ginger stepchild of WP, so we can't be too ambitious; also, it's almost unthinkable to create a grammar project without being prescriptive, and we have enough people who come here complaining "UNIQUE IS NOT COMPARABLE OMG" etc.) Equinox ◑ 02:28, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

kapu (Finnish)

I'm a native Finn, and do not recognise any of the definitions listed on the page. They would be passable translations for the word kapula (but that's it). Perhaps they are dialectal, but I have my doubts about that.

The word, as defined on fi:kapu, is a colloquial form of kapteeni (captain). --88.114.12.182 18:05, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I think you have managed to catch what I have started to call a Liedesism - I will try to fix the entry up. SURJECTION _{·talk·contr·log·} 18:33, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Sicilian Defence

I'm not sure whether Defence has to be capitalised. DonnanZ (talk) 17:01, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Google ngram for both. An alternative form or simply a redirect could be created. DTLHS (talk) 17:38, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Hmm, that's for Sicilian Defense (no entry). I guess we can leave it as it pops up anyway if "Sicilian defence" is searched for. DonnanZ (talk) 17:53, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

There are quite a few such terms (often dog/cat breeds). I would like to say "don't capitalise unless necessary" but I suppose we should base it on the majority. Sometimes there are relatively few texts and the phrase tends to be capped for other reasons (e.g. chapter headings in a dog breeding book). Hills to die on. Equinox ◑ 02:30, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

三毬杖

Please check 1. whether this term is on’yomi; 2. why this word have two completely different spelling.--Zcreator alt (talk) 17:31, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

According to the entry the reading is irregular. The article 左義長 at the Japanese Wikipedia gives some kind of explanation of the alternative spelling 三毬杖 (in the section headed 起源). This somewhat complicated explanation is unreferenced; I'd feel more comfortable with a solid reference. The other spelling (left unexplained) would then presumably serve to have a spelling with a reading that conforms to the actual pronunciation.  --Lambiam 23:33, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Re: multiple completely different spellings, this is not unusual for Japanese terms. See also prosaic terms like kawa (“leather”, spelled variously 皮 or 革), kutsu (“shoes”, 靴・沓・履・鞋), miyako (“city, capital”, 都・京), etc. etc. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:32, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

ergens and nergens

Would someone expand the definitions of ergens and nergens (Dutch) to include their other meanings? Danielklein (talk) 23:25, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

 Done – Any native Dutch speakers? Please check if the examples given are truly idiomatic.  --Lambiam 23:50, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

islamicate

How official is this word? How formal is it? If it is not very formal yet, then maybe someone should tell people it's informal, and shouldn't be used in formal speech and writing (like on college essays).

The term Islamicate has been in use since at least 1967, and presumably earlier, since the author freely uses the term, apparently not feeling a need to explain the term to his readers. The term is found in the titles of many scholarly publications. Is that "official" enough? The use is, in any case, generally quite formal.  --Lambiam 11:03, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

Islamify is more generally found.,

That is a verb, and Islamicate is an adjective. They mean different things. The verb Islamify is mainly used by Islamophobes. A more common form is Islamize.  --Lambiam 02:47, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

ز ه ر

What does "related to flower magic" mean? (I'm trying to find out why زهر means both "flowers" and "dice".) Ultimateria (talk) 23:48, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

In Lane's Lexicon (volume 3, pp. 427–428) I see nothing related to magic or dice. The basic meanings are give light / shine / blossom, with many words with obviously related meanings. There is also want (the noun) and "a certain musical instrument". One way of saying "dice" in Arabic is نرد, which is not related  --Lambiam 03:29, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I have changed it to match the known definitions per H. Wehr. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 03:34, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

overpower

Can this also mean "to make overpowered (excessively powered/powerful)", e.g. in the context of video game studios making an unbalanced game? - -sche (discuss) 19:06, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

I scoured a few gaming sites and a handful of game dev books and only came up with one example that definitely fell under this def. I added it (and might even tag it as rare...) Ultimateria (talk) 14:32, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

chocks away!

Supposed to have been used during the Second World War but other sources say that 'chocks away' is indicated with a hand signal, in which case sense one would be wrong. Possibly dated? Kaixinguo~enwiktionary (talk) 22:24, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Whatever was actually done or said during WWII, there are a goodly number of cites at Google Books of uses of the expression as a command or as a report that the command had been executed. DCDuring (talk) 00:18, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

It may predate WWII. I wonder if it was restricted to single-engine aircraft, removing the chocks from the wheels of a twin-engine aircraft with the propellers revolving could be a risky task. DonnanZ (talk) 05:39, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

The term occurs in a 1926 RAF flying training manual as the name for a command transmitted in the form of a hand signal: "Chocks Away. Open Hand at arm's length waved slowly from side to side in line with the Shoulders." The combination of words "chocks away", while basically a SOP, is much older: “ Well, Jack, what can you make on it now ?—we shall have to knock the chocks away from the bo’sprit presently, and run it in fore and aft, like a cutter—— ”. ("The Old Sailor" [James H. Graff?], "Nights at Sea", in Bentley's Miscellany volume 3, 1838).  --Lambiam 07:53, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Dutch interjection ey?

The lemma for Dutch jo gives this as an example of use: "Ey! - Jo! - Hey! - Hi!". This would imply there is a Dutch interjection ey with the same sense as hey. I cannot find any example of this. By the way, the Dutch Wiktionary does not list a Dutch lemma at jo either. The Dutch Wikipedia, though, has an article Yo (groet) in which jo is given as an alternative spelling to yo, mentioning the phrase ey yo as derived from Hey you, unrelated to the standalone interjection yo.  --Lambiam 08:22, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

chaty and vizier

It's weird that Spanish chaty and English vizier both seem to come from the same word in Egyptian. tjati or something like that - I'm not gonna attempt to use hieroglyphics. According to WP, "vizier is the generally accepted rendering of ancient Egyptian tjati, tjaty". How can that produce two words that sound nothing like each other? Oh, and if anyone wants to make an entry for the Egyptian word, go ahead. --Harmonicaplayer (talk) 14:44, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Spanish chaty and English vizier have very different roots -- the English term derives ultimately from Arabic وَزِير (wazīr, “helper, aide, minister”). See [[vizier#Etymology]].

Note that rendering can sometimes mean “translation”, not “etymological derivative”. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 17:29, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

The author of the source cited in Wikipedia, Alan Henderson Gardiner, also wrote the book Egypt of the Pharaohs: An Introduction. On page 104 of that book you can read, "The bearer of the title [hieroglyphics] t̼ɜty, appropriately translated ‘vizier’, ..." So it is indeed merely a translation.  --Lambiam 22:59, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Incidentally, was this removal right, or was the information valid? - -sche (discuss) 22:08, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

The anon's edit was good. Better to leave that hypothetical origin on the Arabic page where it belongs. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 22:11, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Languages and people : proper noun or noun

Hi,

Most words for language of area are also use for the people of the same area. But are these word proper noun or noun? I've looked at some entries and most of them are consistent: French (language is proper noun, people is noun), Spanish (idem), German (idem, except that the section Noun is before Proper Noun), etc. but not English (both are proper noun). It's it correct? or is it something specific to the word "English"?

Cdlt, VIGNERON (talk) 15:59, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Collective nouns for people are a bit of a grey area (proper nouns in general are hard to pin down, we've had several discussions about whether certain things are proper nouns); I suspect the difference in headers between English and French and Abenaki and Spanish is just inconsistency because of that, not a difference in grammar. (Count nouns for people are clearly common nouns, e.g. "Norwegian" for a person is a common noun.) IMO the "collectives" seem to be as much proper nouns (having one distinct referent) as country names are. (Like country names, they can sometimes be considered to have more than one referent, "two Frances", "the real English/French/etc vs the ones you see in the media", etc.) - -sche (discuss) 17:24, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

Names for people, e.g. Spaniard, New Zealander, Londoner, are common nouns, no question about that. I have always been at odds with Wiktionary treatment of languages as proper nouns, which I consider rather bizarre. This certainly doesn't happen in languages such as Norwegian, norsk has no capital letter. I think proper nouns should be reserved for place names (including planets and constellations), names given to buildings, roads and streets, surnames and given names, names of companies, organisations and brand names / trademarks. So Coke would be a proper noun, but coke a common noun. Languages on that basis are not proper nouns, even if they are uncountable. DonnanZ (talk) 14:59, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

I think that a proper noun is the name of an individual thing. They are usually capitalised in English, but capitalisation doesn't make something a proper noun. I'm pretty sure that, in English, the names of languages are simple, uncountable nouns (but still capitalised). SemperBlotto (talk) 15:08, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

I think that the confusion comes from the fact that language names normally derive from (or are the same as) a common adjective. SemperBlotto (talk) 15:13, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't know whether a vote on the language issue would help resolve it, or has one been held before (before my time)? DonnanZ (talk) 15:58, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Languages names are each a name of an individual thing, if an abstract one, and are thus proper nouns. I'm not sure what we're trying to do here, though; if we have difficulty distinguishing between proper nouns and common nouns, what's so important about them that we should be labeling them? Labeling them as "usually/always capitalized" and "usually/always uncountable", as appropriate, should be good enough. Making up some arbitrary rule here isn't helpful to our users.--Prosfilaes (talk) 22:06, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Someone (God knows who) decided ages ago that languages are proper nouns. I guess that is an "arbitrary rule" that should be debated, as not everyone agrees with that. DonnanZ (talk) 23:24, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

If you want lexicographical evidence, refer to Oxford as I have done, both online and my hard copy. English and French (languages) are both described quite specifically as being mass nouns. My understanding of a mass noun is that it is uncountable, not a proper noun. Oxford describes a mass noun as "A noun denoting something that cannot be counted (e.g a subject or quality), in English usually a noun which lacks a plural in ordinary usage and is not used with the indefinite article." DonnanZ (talk) 23:57, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Languages and people should be common nouns, also month names and days of the week. The English usage has infected some editors even for languages where there is no capitalisation used and the difference between proper and common nouns is very vague. The transliteration e.g. for Chinese and Japanese romanisations should be in lower case and common nouns. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:33, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I should have provided some references, here we are: mass noun, proper noun, English,

French, Norwegian. DonnanZ (talk) 12:32, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I can't find any evidence at all that languages are proper nouns, so I'm not sure where that notion came from. I feel editors should be free to revise language entries from proper nouns to uncountable mass nouns without being challenged (no reversion of edits, edit warring, that sort of thing). If that can happen peacefully there would be no need for a vote, otherwise there would.

For a start, the entry for English is a bit of a mess, with bits shown as a proper noun and other bits as a common noun. It can still be a proper noun however, as it is also a surname and the name of at least one place. DonnanZ (talk) 16:08, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I've done Italian - it's fiddly and error-prone, so take care. SemperBlotto (talk) 16:17, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@SemperBlotto: Having done Norwegian I can agree it can be tricky, especially moving translations. But it can be done. DonnanZ (talk) 07:35, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Language names and demonyms would easily fit our definition of [[proper noun]], as they are understood to refer to specific things. English (language name) and "the English" (demonym) fit. But many demonyms take the form of plurals of nouns that refer to any member of the group, eg, an Italian pluralizes to the Italians. And Italian is also the name of the language.

I don't think most dictionaries bother with the distinction because it makes so little difference. Even as to orthography, the capitalization of the headword itself conveys the idea that it should be capitalized. In English we capitalize Italian when we use it in "[DET] Italian(s)" even though only "the Italians" might be considered a proper noun. DCDuring (talk) 18:01, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Languages being proper nouns was discussed already at Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2015/February#Languages_-_are_they_proper_nouns_or_not?. Pinging @DCDuring, who in that discussion found support for clasifying them as proper nouns in The Oxford Guide to Practical Lexicography, and the fact that they refer to unique things. I am also inclined to view them as proper nouns, and don't think piecemeal reclassification of them is wise. (As for abolishing the distinction: as DCDuring has also said, "I have yet to find any English grammar reference, of any vintage, that doesn't discuss proper nouns." And yet many low-level e.g. high-school reference works don't make the distinction, or wrongly say that it's just "capitalized nouns are all proper nouns", so we do readers a service by offering more accurate classifications.)
By the way, most of this discussion seems to have missed what I considered the more interesting part of Vigneron's question: is "English" in "the English live in England" a proper noun or a common noun? - -sche (discuss) 17:48, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, I missed that - "the English" is a plural noun (as the entry says), not a proper noun. I have been looking at translations of English (language) and generally where a translation is in lower case, it is treated as a common noun. Where it begins with a capital letter it is almost invariably treated as a proper noun, which is probably due to editors being confused and following the example set in English. One odd one is Maori te reo Pākehā (the language of the white man) which you definitely can't call a proper noun. DonnanZ (talk) 19:56, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

In the case of the English live in England, it is not hard to find support that English is a proper noun demonym. I think that English is more commonly a demonym, as many Englishmen would agree. The availablity of Englishman to indicate an individual member of the English makes it possible to show that the English tends to be used as a demonym. English is almost never used as a noun with singular determiners (a, this, that) and seems restricted in its use with plural determiners. Further many English are is about half as common as many Englishmen are, even though the use of EnglishMAN goes against the trend toward gender-neutrality.

It is a bit harder in the case of the Italians live in Italy. The demonym use of the Italians has to be teased out of the total usage of the Italians which includes much use of the simple plural. I am not sure what collocations would reliably indicate demonym usage. Perhaps the Italians voted or some expressions referring to supposed traits or behavioral differences (the Italians use their hands for emphasis).

But I would argue that any instances in which there are distinct terms available for the demonym and for the plural of the members of the demonym should follow the pattern of the English and Englishman/Englishmen. DCDuring (talk) 21:11, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I think Englishman/men is usually reserved for men, and Englishwoman/women for women - "a couple of Englishwomen", an English girl is using the adjective. But talking about Englishmen and Englishwomen collectively we call them "the English", not "the Englishes" (where's the problem?). DonnanZ (talk) 21:29, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

The same would apply for "the Irish", "the Welsh" and "the Scottish", but not "the Scots" (plural of a Scot). DonnanZ (talk) 21:46, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

And "the French" and "the Dutch". It may be noted they all end in "h", is that accidental or not? DonnanZ (talk) 22:09, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

The recent (2002-2008) surge (from c. 30% to c. 50%) in the frequency of many English are relative to many English men are seems to coincide with a period of much-increased concern with gender neutrality. Many Englishwomen are is not to be found in Google N-grams for 2002-2008. DCDuring (talk) 23:14, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I had long thought language names in English were proper nouns, because they don’t take a definite article as in French (l’anglais, le français), but considering that you can say she speaks some English, she speaks good English and her English is good while you can hardly say *some England, *good England or *her England, I agree with the analysis that language names in English are mass nouns. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 14:00, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Pronunciation of Latin inflected/conjugated forms

Since there is some confusion and even wrong indication elsewhere of Latin inflected/conjugated forms' pronunciation, our templates indicating the accented syllable would be most useful. Bold? Acute accent? -GuitarDudeness (talk) 17:39, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm deeply confused as to what you're talking about. What confusion? And we already have a template that marks the stressed syllable (as well as giving actual pronunciation information): {{la-IPA}}. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:57, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge: that template gives nominative cases only. I said all inflected/conjugated (nouns, adjectives, verbs) forms. -GuitarDudeness (talk) 21:22, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Maybe you don't understand how pronunciation templates work. They show the pronunciation of any word you feed them with. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 21:24, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I think the request is that the big tables that list inflected forms of words should indicate which syllable of each inflected form is inflected(?); GuitarDudeness seems to be suggesting bolding or adding an acute accent to those syllables, but adding IPA to the tables would also accomplish the goal. Not a bad idea, although I don't know if it's practical. A less overseeable alternative, but one more in line with existing practices, would be to (by bot?) put the IPA in each inflected form's entry, as is done in some (e.g. duella) but not all (duellorum) entries currently. - -sche (discuss) 06:25, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Adding IPA to inflection tables would make them really messy (and is completely unnecessary, because Latin pronunciation is always predictable given the pronunciation of the lemma form). Adding IPA to all entries is something that should definitely be done. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:43, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

supernatural

Our senses seem to describe the same thing. I think that we should combine these into a single sense (perhaps giving a separate sense or subsense for the meaning in Catholic theology), and then add a colloquial sense "unusual, extraordinary". —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:41, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the two senses are basically identical. The Catholic thing is just a clarifying example of use (clarifying, provided that you have an idea of the theological meaning of sanctifying grace); in no way is it a specific subsense. It should not be part of the definition; instead, the quote from the catechism ("Sanctifying grace is an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it to live with God, to act by his love.") could be used as a quotation in the regular way.
And how common is this colloquial sense? Most things that can be considered unusual or extraordinary, in reality and fiction alike, are perfectly natural, in the sense of being firmly based in the natural, physical universe (what Madame Blavatsky would call "the plane of the manifested Universe"). Is this colloquial sense simply hyperbole? Do we have good and attested examples? Something like, "The chocolate cake was absolutely supernatural, like it literally made my head explode!"  --Lambiam 21:41, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the senses should be merged, but I disagree with Lambiam that the Catholic theological sense is not distinct. Angels are not considered supernatural in any way, for instance, because "supernatural" means "above what is proper to the nature of...." "In other words, sanctifying grace is supernatural because it comes from God and is not innate to human nature, while angels and demons are no more supernatural than humans despite not belonging to the observable, physical universe. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 05:48, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Then you must feel that the first sense given for angel – "A divine and supernatural messenger from a deity, or other divine entity" – is in error.  --Lambiam 13:23, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't the "supernatural" part is wrong, just unclear. A Catholic theologian might look at that and call it a bad definition, however. I don't think any of the Abrahamic religions consider angels divine, however, so I might modify the definition. The spiritual element is key from a Catholic perspective. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 19:45, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I modified the definition, leaving "divine" to allow for those religious traditions where angels are believed to be divine. Hopefully it's generic enough to apply to all relevant religious traditions. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 19:54, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

This is a relic of a time when people often added their own wording of the definition as a separate sense line. Paranormal also had two redundant senses for a long time. (Btw, the Roman Catholic bit seems like a usex at best, if not just unnecessary.) It's possible to speak of a real person's demonstrable (and natural) "supernatural swiftness", etc, and other dictionaries seem to handle that with a separate sense, but it seems like routine enough semantic extension (like one shouts "that's impossible! unbelievable!" about something which one accepts did happen), so I might suggest a definition like:

• Being (ostensibly) above or beyond what is natural or explainable by the laws of nature, especially if characteristic of or attributed to a deity or spirit or paranormal force.

Or drop "or paranormal force", with not much loss, to avoid the defs for this word and that one referencing each other. - -sche (discuss) 06:16, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

The way I understand the term is as meaning "not explainable by natural law or natural phenomena". As far as I see, other senses ("So what happens to the rest of the pitchers out there, the ones who aren't given that supernatural ability?") are metaphoric or hyperbolic extensions of that basic meaning.  --Lambiam 13:25, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

blowhard is American English?

WF claims that blowhard is not American English. It's used in the Guardian and The Telegraph. Changing the tag to include {{lb|en|USA|Canada|UK}} would be simple, as would removing the {{lb}} tag altogether. But it would also be lazy. So, I could open a general question: When does a term stop being region-specific? --Harmonicaplayer (talk) 18:00, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I should just add that Oxford Dictionaries Online labels the word as "North American". — SGconlaw (talk) 19:40, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever heard this word spoken (lifetime UK resident); I've read it a lot but those might not have been British texts. Equinox ◑ 21:46, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

It definitely sounds North American to me. Ƿidsiþ 08:00, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Among OneLook references, only Oxford labels it US. Some dictionaries give it an American origin. w:Blowhard (a dab page) has three toponyms, 2 in Oz, 1 in US, though this may well be in reference to literal wind. DCDuring (talk) 10:14, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

blowhard has another meaning?

So, the new quote for blowhard doesn't at all fit with the definition. I could put {{rfdef}} on there, but... --Harmonicaplayer (talk) 18:03, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Arabic enclitic pronouns with genitive constructs, e.g. جواز سفر

(Notifying Benwing2, Mahmudmasri, Metaknowledge, Wikitiki89, Erutuon, Kolmiel, ZxxZxxZ, Stephen G. Brown, عربي-٣١): : How should the enclitic pronouns work with iḍāfa constructs? I can only think of جَواز سَفَر (jawāz safar, “passport”) (literally "licence of travel"), which could take the enclitic pronouns by its sense. So, if I want to say "my passport", it's جَواز سَفَرِي (jawāz safarī) - confirmed by native speakers - the ending ـِي (-ī, “my, mine”) is attached to the end, as if it's a single word. It's attached to the "al-muḍāf ilaihi", not "al-muḍāf", which I would expect. Please let me know what I'm missing. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 07:47, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

@Atitarev, Wikitiki89 I am not super versed in fine points of Arabic grammar but I think that traditionally, in Koranic Arabic, these should always be treated as phrases, hence جَوَاز اَلسَْفَر (jawāz as-safar), maybe جَوَازِي اَلسَْفَر (jawāzī s-safar)? However, the modern tendency is to treat them as single entities, hence اَلْجَوَاز سَفَر (al-jawāz safar), جَوَاز سَفَرِي (jawāz safarī). Something similar exists in Hebrew, where e.g. I was taught to say בית ספר (bet sefer, “school”, literally “house of a book”), בית הספר (bet ha-sefer, “the school”, literally “house of the book”), but many people nowadays say הבית ספר (ha-bet sefer) instead. In Arabic at least, it might depend on how lexicalized the expression is. Benwing2 (talk) 16:01, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

@Benwing2: Thanks. If the term is perceived as a single word, shouldn't the definite state be الجواز سفر, as in the Hebrew example, rather than جواز السفر, as in the declension table (confirmed elsewhere). Do definite forms and forms with enclitic pronouns conflict each other? Pinging the creator too: @Wyang. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 21:58, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

@Atitarev I think I used the Arabic Wikipedia page when creating the entry, which uses جواز السفر throughout. Please correct if it is incorrect. Wyang (talk) 22:03, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

@Wyang: Thanks, Frank. The definite form you used can be attested. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 22:10, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

@Benwing2, Wyang: Please note that the image of the Algerian passport on the rightsays جَواز السَّفَرُ (jawāz as-safaru), ending in a ḍamma and the first part is unmarked. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:07, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

A late comment: In Egypt, we would say /^p
_bɑsˈ^p
_b^oː
_uːɾ/ for "passport" and /^p
_bɑsˈ^p
_b^oː
_uːɾi/ for "my passport".

Some people may use the Arabized word, then they would shorten it to just /ɡæˈwæːz/ and /ɡæˈwæːzi/. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 18:32, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

@Atitarev, обсудить in Saudi Arabia the Standard is "My Passport" is Jawāz Safari جواز سفري, "The Passport" is Jawāz Alsafar جواز السفر as in the sentence "use the passport" استخدم جواز السفر, and "Passport" is Jawāz Safar جواز سفر as written on Saudi Passports https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabian_passport, in addition to that, it looks like Algeria is the only Arabic country that writes جواز السفر which sounds a bit weird since it's "A passport" not "The Passport"! while all others write جواز سفر which makes more sense --عربي-٣١ (talk) 13:25, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

wingbeat

Why does this apply only to birds? Why not to insects, bats, etc.? --Jonathan Webley (talk) 13:46, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

An oversight. I have corrected it.  --Lambiam 12:40, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

SMV - sexual market value

Should we parse this as [sexual market] + [value] or [sexual] + [market value]? --Per utramque cavernam 15:17, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

I think it means "value on the sexual market". Although we have no entry yet for "sexual market" (which could be considered SOP but perhaps has a more specialized meaning, considering this is a somewhat dehumanizing metaphor and not your standard commodities market), it is easy enough to find examples of its use ("Commercialization of the sexual market would provide a more efficient way of matching partners." – "Masculinity is the (sexual) ideal in the commercial and noncommercial sexual market." – "At first blush, it seems that the passion of sexual market theorists cannot be restrained.") The last example is not about market theorists that happen to be sexual. Likewise, SMV is not about market value that is perhaps low, or maybe high, but in any case sexual.  --Lambiam

Repetition to contrast qualified with unqualified words

Today I asked the question whether something was "rubbish rubbish or recycling rubbish" and when I was at university it was common to talk about "home home" and "university home" or "Swansea home" (I was at university in Swansea). In both cases the former repeats the word to clarify that it's the basic property of the word not a qualified subset of the meaning. Is there a term for this? Thryduulf (talk) 23:06, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Contrastive focus reduplication —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:27, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

espolique

Hey all. Any idea of the English equivalent to espolique? It's defined as "Mozo que camina junto a la caballería en que va su amo." - someone who walks beside their master's horse. I was thinking squire or rider's assistant or stable boy, but these don't quite fit. Surely there's a specific wod for that guy --Harmonicaplayer (talk) 16:22, 26 June 2018 (UTC)

• I've added footman. SemperBlotto (talk) 04:50, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
  • Thanks Jeff --Harmonicaplayer (talk) 11:07, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Citing Squirtle

The word Squirtle was deleted not long ago as an entry, after being a redirect to a Pokémon appendix for years. We have the citations page Citations:Squirtle, which had one that definitely doesn't mention the Pokémon context (. . . Squirtle sippy cup . . .), but today I heard a rap song that uses the word "Squirtle", and have added it to the cites page. Can anyone find a third durably archived source that uses the word "Squirtle", in its Pokémon sense, without mentioning Pokémon? (I'm not sure the other two cites are from sources that go without use of the words "Pokémon" or "Nintendo".) Khemehekis (talk) 01:44, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Searching lyrics cites, and then checking which songs were released by big labels on CDs (which would typically be archived into the collections of some libraries), it would probably be possible to find more citations. I see several songs using phrases like "wet like Squirtle", "wet 'em up like Squirtle" and "she like Squirtle", but I don't know if they're the sort that would be durably archived. - -sche (discuss) 02:42, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice, -sche! Lyrics are a good well of allusions that meet WT:FICTION. Khemehekis (talk) 02:48, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Gangsta rap is full of brand names (guns, whisky, trainers/sport shoes, etc.) and they are generally mentioned without context. What are the implications for our policy? Equinox ◑ 23:09, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Lil Yachty is pretty big. Squirtle is now cited. Khemehekis (talk) 16:38, 28 July 2018 (UTC)

veritas vincit

Is it really Translingual, or just good old Latin? DonnanZ (talk) 09:55, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Our treatment of Latin sayings is somewhat uneven. Ars longa, vita brevis is only listed as a Latin term, but you'll find it used in many languages. The phrase De gustibus non est disputandum has a Danish and a Latin entry. It is not attested in Classical Latin, but definitely used in many more languages than just Danish. Likewise for Suum cuique, which is attested in Latin, and in widespread use as a motto. And the rather common saying Sic transit gloria mundi, not attested classically, is only listed under Latin. Perhaps the best is to list all Latin phrases under Latin, and also under Translingual, the latter provided they are used as a motto or saying in several other languages.  --Lambiam 11:57, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Language code for Medieval Latin

We have code la for Latin, and itc-ola for Old Latin, but none for Medieval Latin. At least, none is listed at WT:LANGLIST. Exceptionally, {{derived}}) and {{inherited}}) appear to accept the code ML. or la-med as such (defined in Module:etymology languages/data), but only for their second parameter. So {{inh|it|ML.|duellum}} is fine, but {{inh|ML.|itc-ola|duellum}} gives a Lua error ("Please enter a language code in the first parameter"). Does this serve a purpose? It makes it impossible to record, using the designated templates, that Medieval Latin duellum is inherited, although with a change of meaning, from Old Latin duellum.  --Lambiam 15:02, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I think that after {{inh|it|ML.|duellum}}, you would have to enter "from {{inh|it|itc-ola|duellum}}" separately. DonnanZ (talk) 16:09, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

It's intentional. In the entry for duellum#Latin, when specifying what language duellum#Latin is (e.g., when specifying that it is the descendant of an itc-ola word), you should use the language code for that language which is in the entry's header — Latin (la). - -sche (discuss) 16:14, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Medieval Latin can be added and recorded within a Latin entry where relevant using {{lb|la|Medieval Latin}}. DonnanZ (talk) 16:53, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, I've applied this at duellum. Ideally, some or most of the now purely verbal information under Etymology should eventually be templated, though, or even become codified as part of the wikidata web.  --Lambiam 01:45, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

cage verb

We have two senses: "to put into a cage" and "to keep in a cage". How do these differ? If I say "I caged a guinea-pig yesterday" then clearly I put it in a cage (sense 1). If I say "I cage gerbils" I am presumably saying that I catch them in cages when I can (again sense 1). Keeping is a continuous process, not a single action: how would the sense of "keep in a cage" work? Is it legitimate? Equinox ◑ 23:08, 27 June 2018 (UTC)

I only know cage as a dynamic verb. "Keep in a cage" is stative. Any quotations, anyone, that unambiguously establish a stative sense (e.g., something like "The couple caged their children for weeks at a time.")?  --Lambiam 01:52, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Oh yeah! To my shame I have forgotten most of my modern grammar and "aspect" and what not. It is damnably complicated. Searching Google Books for the quoted phrase "was caged for a" might help. Equinox ◑ 01:56, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

That does indeed produce more than a few hits (Meet "Danger Cat" he was caged for a long time until we rescued him. — This lion was caged for a long time until he was finally led out into the wild into liberty.) In most cases, caged could very well be replaced by put away in the slammer (Leeanne McHugh was caged for a year at Paisley Sheriff Court today. — Thompson was caged for a year at Chester Crown Court, sitting at Warrington, on August 16.), so these are dynamic uses. The remaining ones appear simply instances of the adjective caged used predicatively.  --Lambiam 04:04, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

There are at least a few common verbs that are more commonly stative that also have dynamic senses. Examples are sit, stand, lie, float, occupy?, stop. I think there are many, many more stative verbs that do not have a corresponding dynamic sense. DCDuring (talk) 09:14, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Occupy can clearly have both a dynamic sense (Early this morning, student protesters occupied the main administration building) and a static one (Coffee occupies a big place in Turkish culture).  --Lambiam 04:04, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Or "Last year the protesters occupied the building, and continued to occupy it after that for several months". Chuck Entz (talk) 04:11, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

event#English missing definition?

Is the sense for an arranged/social event ("went to an event") part of #1 or does it need to be added? —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 03:32, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Seems to me this is just sense 1 ("an occurrence; something that happens"). — SGconlaw (talk) 03:54, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

I disagree. An event in sense 1 can refer to something like a car accident or a battle. When I say I went to an event, I mean that I went to an organized activity/function/party of some kind. You can't go to an occurrence. The senses are clearly related and probably overlap somewhat, but I think they're distinct. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 05:41, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Andrew Sheedy. The definitions seem distinct enough. DCDuring (talk) 09:17, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Event in the sense mentioned by Suzukaze-c is simply a specific, planned form of occurrence. But I'm not going to object vehemently if it is thought desirable to record this usage in a subsense. — SGconlaw (talk) 11:32, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Many of the definitions in polysemic words are clearly derived from more basic or older meanings. But at some point the usage evolves so that the word is being used in a way inconsistent (usually semantically, sometimes grammatically as well) with the old definition. One criterion for determining whether the meaning has changed enough to warrant a 'new' definition is whether the old definition can substitute for the word in the 'new' usage. As Andrew Sheedy pointed out above, the substitution doesn't work. Another example: Where will they hold the event? (*Where will they hold the occurrence?). Sometimes the 'new' definition can usefully be shown as a subsense, but in this case it doesn't seem to me to merely be a specialization of the old definition. I don't think rewording def. 1 would work, but, without a corpus that supports searches for and useful displays of collocations, it is hard to be at all sure. DCDuring (talk) 12:04, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

The usage is obviously derived, but it does seem distinct enough for a separate sense. FWIW, I looked at Cambridge, Dictionary.com, Merriam-Webster and Oxford Dictionaries Online, of which two have a separate subsense for this, one does not, and one has two definitions that are both worded broadly like our sense 1 without clear mention of 'social' aspects (🤷). That some languages seem to have separate words for the two senses is also suggestive of distinction. - -sche (discuss) 17:39, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Also, there's such a thing as an event planner a.k.a an event manager (see w:Event management), who organizes the kind of events in this sense, but not in any other. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:58, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

Blær (Icelandic)

The Icelandic word blær also exists as a feminine proper name (N = Blær; A = Blæ; D = Blævi; G = Blævar). See Icelandic Naming Committee#Blær Bjarkardóttir Rúnarsdóttir in the English Wikipedia. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 06:28, 28 June 2018 (UTC)

Lawful husband and wife

Should there be entries for lawful husband and lawful wife?

On the one hand, it may be considered SoP. On the other hand, an "unlawful wife" is (usually) not an illegal wife. An unlawful wife can be a "common-law wife" as in common-law marriage. I found https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/wedded-wife-and-lawful-wife.2982945/ as I searched for this, it's all not as obvious as it seems I think. Alexis Jazz (talk) 03:40, 29 June 2018 (UTC)

ask me if I give a shit

and other variants. Is it entry worthy? Per utramque cavernam 14:49, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

No, I would think give a shit is probably enough. DonnanZ (talk) 09:16, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

"Ask me if I care" is a simpler/less impolite version. I suppose "ask me if X" could go in the snowclones appendix, possibly? Equinox ◑ 10:36, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

I obviously misunderstood that question...DonnanZ (talk) 10:49, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

@Equinox: what about "see if I"? (see if I care, see if I give a shit/fuck) Alexis Jazz (talk) 00:47, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

angel mom

While I keep reverting this change due to its wording and how it replaces the original term (instead of adding a subentry), a lot of the usage seems to actually follow an usage like that. What would be the best way to word it? SURJECTION _{·talk·contr·log·} 15:05, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

If both meanings exist: two meanings and label like "# {{lb|en|specifically}}", "# {{lb|en|by extension}}". -84.161.6.98 01:16, 3 July 2018 (UTC)

@Surjection: I made some changes, hope this helps. Alexis Jazz (talk) 01:59, 3 July 2018 (UTC)