Wiktionary:Tea room/2020/October

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← September 2020 · October 2020 · November 2020 → · (current)

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Is nut gendered?

Noun sense 13 reads: "(vulgar, slang, countable) Orgasm (male), ejaculation, release of semen". Megan Thee Stallion, "Girls in the Hood" has the line: "I ain't lyin' 'bout my nut just to make a nigga happy". (The artist is female.) Is this a one-off, or is it just usually male and the definition should be changed? grendel|khan 02:31, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I'd be open to further evidence, but those lyrics are explicitly playing with gendered language, as a woman's response to the 1987 song "Boyz-n-the-Hood". Ideally, you'd want use (even use that doesn't meet CFI) in a natural conversational context, rather than a song with gender as a theme. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 02:57, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Rap lyrics are pretty good for slang use, aren't they? (Hard to decipher sometimes, but I can point to these: [1] [2]) I can point to sources that don't meet criteria ([3] [4] [5]); are you thinking maybe more lyrics, or transcripts of TV shows or movies? This probably also broadens verb sense 3, "(slang, mildly vulgar) To ejaculate."; see [6] [7] [8]. grendel|khan 05:54, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Rap lyrics are excellent for slang. --Daleusher (talk) 09:22, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

More broadly, I think this is analogous to come noun senses 2 and 3, verb sense 7 ("(intransitive, vulgar, slang) To achieve orgasm; to cum; to ejaculate."), or cum etymology 2. It seems synonymous--maybe it was historically gendered, but it's not now. grendel|khan 20:26, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

It may have historically been male-specific, it may even be chiefly male-specific now, but both the noun and the verb are also used of women (with vaginas): Citations:nut. I note that although my search terms were not (otherwise) dialect-specific (just "she nutted" / "her nut" + orgasm / pussy), a lot of the results were AAVE / black speech; I would want to poke around some more to determine whether it's limited to AAVE or not. - -sche (discuss) 21:08, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

incidental

How best to add this info?

(postpositive) followed by to: found in connection (with); related (to)
(postpositive) followed by upon: caused (by)
Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publisher

--Backinstadiums (talk) 05:26, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

whilst

Why does this entry have a translation table that is separate from while? Couldn't they just be merged seeing whilst is little more than an alternative form for while? — surjection ⟨??⟩ 07:23, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Probably, yes. You could create a trans-see if you want, and migrate any leftover translates to while. ---> Tooironic (talk) 08:34, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Did so. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 12:18, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. ---> Tooironic (talk) 07:39, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

scalding hot etc.

What do people feel about the SoP-ness of phrases such as scalding hot, scorching hot, searing hot, baking hot, burning hot? I mean, why not also smouldering hot, singeing hot, roasting hot, flaming hot, broiling hot and so forth. Where does it end? Mihia (talk) 09:12, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

• We include terms that are actually used. The terms in the second list seem rather rare - but could be included if they meet our CfI. SemperBlotto (talk) 09:17, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

Erm, yes, but very hot and extremely hot are also "actually used". The question is whether these phrases such as "scalding hot" or "scorching hot" are idiomatic or are just produced by a sum-of-parts formula, not whether they are used, which is beyond doubt. Mihia (talk) 09:22, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

• I'd say bring 'em on. freezing cold, piping hot, ruby red, bone-dry, wringing wet are all decent. We have Category:English compound adjectives to contain all of these. --Daleusher (talk) 09:21, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

I'd agree that combinations such as piping hot and bone dry are idiomatic (and hence should be included), being of an unpredictable nature. Mihia (talk) 09:24, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

@Mihia: I broached the topic (twice) before creating those. I was hesitant, but ultimately decided in favour of including them. But if you feel they don't belong, feel free to RFD them. 2A02:2788:A6:935:61F4:2E51:4E97:64E5 09:07, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

get

6. (transitive) To cause to become; to bring about.

7. (transitive) To cause to do.

8. (transitive) To cause to come or go or move.

9. (transitive) To cause to be in a certain status or position.

(For existing usage examples and citations, which I have not copied here, please see the article.)

To me, #9 seems only weakly different from #6. The present usexes for #9 illustrate the "position" aspect, but I am struggling to come up with any other examples of "cause to be in a certain status" which would not equally fit #6. Any ideas? Alternatively, it may make sense to merge #6 and #9?

Also seeking examples that demonstrate how #8 is anything more than just a case of #7 or possibly #9.

Mihia (talk) 19:25, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

At least merge 9 into 6, and probably 8 into 7 too. Ultimateria (talk) 19:40, 1 October 2020 (UTC)

For 8 I have added "I got him to his room." which doesn't seem to fit other definitions, based on substitution.

Consider also: "I got the team headed/heading for the stadium." Is that motion ("for the stadium") or status ("heading"/"headed")? There is overlap between 8 and 9, but movement and position seem different enough. DCDuring (talk) 01:12, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

MWOnline has:

5   a: to cause to come or go quickly

got his luggage through customs

b: to cause to move

get it out of the house

c: to cause to be in a certain position or condition

got his feet wet

d: to make ready, prepare

get breakfast

I hoped in vain that I didn't do that, but I did c. July 2013. DCDuring (talk) 01:20, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, yes, I agree that "I got him to his room" illustrates a distinction for #8, just about. To me, "I got the team heading ..." seems to be #7, while "I got the team headed ..." is probably #6. Still seeking convincing examples to show how #9 is distinct from all the others. Mihia (talk) 17:46, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Re "I hoped in vain that I didn't do that, but I did": heh, I had a similar thought when I saw this section ("oh, I hope I didn't do that as one of my "basic" overhauls"), and was actually surprised to find I hadn't made major edits to the entry. Maybe I will, later! (At the moment, I've been prepping to see if of is missing anything.) - -sche (discuss) 20:43, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

• I listed #9 at RFV so that it can be duly deleted if necessary. Mihia (talk) 19:58, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Coronavirus words

For FWOTD I'm looking for non-English entries that are relevant to the coronavirus pandemic and that are in some way different from the usual internationalisms (unusual additional meanings, considerably different/non-analogous morphology). It's even better if they are also (almost) ready to be featured. I'm particularly interested in terms for "social distancing", "intensive care/ICU", "elbow sneeze/Dracula sneeze", "pandemic", "triage", alternatives for handshakes, nicknames for coronavirus that are not inane; but I don't really mind if there are some words with the same meaning. Hot words don't seem like a good idea to feature right now, but it is okay to suggest them anyway because they might be usable later. You can either suggest words here or on the FWOTD nomination page. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 18:07, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps words like German Maskenträger that were often used to mean "masquerader" in pre-pandemic times? —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 20:06, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

There aren't too many in Chinese just yet. All I can think of right now is 懂王 (Dǒngwáng, “the King of Understanding Things, i.e. President Trump”), 援鄂 (yuán'è, “to aid in the fight against COVID-19 in Hubei province”), 戰疫／战疫 (zhànyì, “to fight against an epidemic (pun)”), and 健康碼／健康码 (jiànkāngmǎ, “health code”). ---> Tooironic (talk) 07:32, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. The one about Donald Trump won't be featured of course; but the others look interesting. I'll look into the German word. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 12:16, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

@Lingo Bingo Dingo Maybe Hindi तन दूरी (tan dūrī, “social distancing”, literally “body distance”), whose etymology says "Humorously contrived to be similar to तंदूरी (tandūrī, “tandoori”)". Another word for the same thing (apparently not a pun) is शारीरिक दूरी (śārīrik dūrī, literally “bodily distance”). Benwing2 (talk) 04:17, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that's a great one. Ironically the first one was already suggested elsewhere by AryamanA. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 16:36, 5 October 2020 (UTC):

For anyone who can read Swedish, quite a few in that language are described here by the state Institute for Language and Folklore. I doubt most of them will ever meet the CFI, though. Glades12 (talk) 10:44, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Jenifer vs. Jennifer

Jenifer and Jennifer have similar but distinct etymologies (possibly once identical according to comments in history). To me they seem the same word. Is there a reason to keep Jenifer as anything other then Alternative spelling of Jennifer? The etymology and alternative or related forms should be on the most popular spelling. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:29, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I've moved the ety and related terms (which are really derived terms, aren't they?) to Jennifer. No real objection to changing {{given name|en|female|from=Welsh}}, {{n-g|a less common form of [[Jennifer]]}} to something like {{given name|en|female|from=Welsh}}, {{alternative spelling of|en|Jennifer|nocap=1}}, but I would keep that initial {{given name}}, both for the categorization and because (as others have said in other discussions of this kind of thing) I don't suppose people normally think of their names as simply alternative forms of other names, but as distinct names. (See also: the difficulty with defining e.g. Mike as a mere pet name of Michael, when there are people whose birth name is Mike.) - -sche (discuss) 06:16, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Binge

A Swedish dictionary translates en: binge as sv: gille, which might mean feast/party or guild (guilds organized feasts). Is this the original English sense that later turned into meaning a drinking binge? --LA2 (talk) 23:09, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Apparently, the connection here is that one sense of gille is "drykesslag" (literally: drinking battle, meaning: drinking feast), which is a drinking binge as a group activity. Gille, just like guild, is derived from words for payment (yield, yeld), as in a feast that is paid together by the participants (not by a single host). In Swedish, this is the older sense, which then was applied to the medieval professional guilds, that paid each other's pensions, widows, or healthcare. --LA2 (talk) 18:38, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the correct spelling is dryckesslag. Glades12 (talk) 13:29, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

mater

Is a Latin textbook giving "māter matris" just a typo? Dngweh2s (talk) 22:10, 3 October 2020 (UTC)

Are you asking about the lack of a macron on "matris"? The vowel was certainly long here in Classical Latin. The consonant cluster "tr" could cause a preceding syllable to be heavy (or the vowel "long by position"); the presence of this consonant cluster might be why whatever book you're looking at did not put a macron here. Wiktionary's practice of (in theory) reserving unmarked vowel letters exclusively for short vowel sounds in Latin is not followed by all sources; many sources explicitly mark short vowels with a breve, and unmarked vowels in these sources are to be interpreted not as necessarily short but as having indeterminate length or length that can be contextually inferred.--Urszag (talk) 01:12, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, many (especially older) Latin textbooks and dictionary mark vowel length only in open syllables since they assume that the only reason people are interested in long and short vowels in Latin is scansion of poetry, and closed syllables are always heavy. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:40, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

get (2)

13. (intransitive) To go, to leave.

• 2012, Paul Zindel, Ladies at the Alamo, Graymalkin Media (→ISBN):

Now go on, get! Get! Get! (she chases Joanne out the door with the hammer.)

• 2016, April Daniels, Dreadnought, Diversion Books (→ISBN):

" […] and then I'll switch over to the police band to know when the bacon's getting ready to stick its nose in. When I tell you to get, you get, understand?" Calamity asks as she retapes the earbud into her ear.

Is this sense imperative or "reported/indirect imperative" only (if so I'll label it as such), or can one use forms such as "she got" or "he gets" (other than, I suppose, humorously as in e.g. "I told her to 'get' and she 'got'!")? Also, do people perceive this as an intrinsic sense of "get", or just as an abbreviation of "get out"? Mihia (talk) 18:02, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

I've just noticed we have this sense twice (I added the variant above; whoops — maybe I was thinking I'd soon overhaul the rest of the entry and then got distracted). The other incarnation of the definition has a citation of "I got". Something like "chiefly imperative" or "usually imperative" may be best. - -sche (discuss) 20:11, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Oops yes, thanks, I didn't notice that. Anyway, I see you've merged them now, so thanks for doing that. Mihia (talk) 19:42, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

milk

What would the descriptor be for adding [mɛlk] as an alternative American pronunciation? Dngweh2s (talk) 18:14, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

This has been discussed on Talk:milk, and there was at one time (and should perhaps be again, given that it was referenced) a mention of that as a [phonetic] Canadian pronunciation, but we'd need references documenting it as American. - -sche (discuss) 20:14, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

Looking around, I see Arden R. Thorum, Phonetics: A Contemporary Approach (2013), page 107, says ""in the Great Lakes region the [ɛ] sound sppears in words such as pillow [pɛloʊ] and milk [mɛlk]." which would be consistent with it also being used on the other side of the border in Canada. (Standard Canadian English says it's even a phonemic pronunciation for some speakers in Canada.) Language Log suggests its even more widespread (Pittsburgh, Utah, Washington state, Colorado...), although I'd prefer more documentation before labelling it something like just "regional". - -sche (discuss) 20:25, 4 October 2020 (UTC)

live rough

This is labelled "dated", but as a BrE speaker I do not in any way perceive it to be dated, and at Google News Search for e.g. "living rough" I see numerous recent instances. Perhaps it is dated in another English-speaking region? Also pinging @Sgconlaw who added the label. Mihia (talk) 00:21, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, searching tweets made in the last week for "living rough", I see lots of use of this, but curiously all the tweeters whose nationality I can infer are indeed from the UK. I can find a handful of tweets (from 2019 and 2018) for "living rough" + "color" (not counting chaff like "live rough lives"), vs several times as many for "living rough" + "colour". Maybe it is dated in the US, or maybe it's just less common in the US. (Fascinating.) - -sche (discuss) 00:48, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

See also sleep rough. Equinox ◑ 00:56, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

I am only familiar with this from UK-originated TV shows. MW has an adverb sense: "British: without usual conveniences, especially: without proper shelter

become homeless and have to sleep rough — London Times

IOW, isn't this both British and NISoP? DCDuring (talk) 02:26, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

In an entry updated in 2011, the OED used the term “formerly” to refer to live rough, indicating that sleep rough is the more current term. — SGconlaw (talk) 04:23, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

rough sleeper as noun also. Equinox ◑ 15:17, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

• OK, thanks, I have changed the label from "dated" to "chiefly British". If anyone knows for sure that it was formerly used elsewhere but is no longer used, they could change this to "now chiefly British". I respectfully disagree with the OED if they mean to imply that "live rough" is no longer in common use in BrE, and I think there is plenty of evidence to show that this is not true. Btw, I also don't think that "live rough" and "sleep rough" have identical meanings/connotations in all circumstances. Mihia (talk) 19:38, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

• Additional data points: Tony Thorne's 2009 Dictionary of Contemporary Slang, page 213, uses this while defining a hedger, British homeless slang for "a crustie who prefers to live rough in the countryside", and Collins uses this in defining go bush, "abandon city amenities and live rough". Given that and the ample ongoing use up to the present day on e.g. Twitter, I think we're on solid ground in not calling it dated. I would not have perceived it as distinctly British, just uncommon, but since it seems to be fairly common in Britain, it seems that"chiefly British" is indeed the right label. To me, it seems like a transparent derivation of a sense of rough (and live) that can be found in other phrases like "rough camping", which I would also not have perceived as dialect-specific and which Dictionary.com does not mark as dialect-specific (as an adjective), though Merriam-Webster does mark it "British" (as an adverb). We don't have this sense at rough at all, neither as an adjective nor an adverb, BTW. - -sche (discuss) 20:35, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

For me, the specific meaning of "live rough" is far from easy to confidently understand from the parts, and I would not question its entry-worthiness. Mihia (talk) 20:42, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

What constitutes a "proper home or abode"? A tent? A motor home? A lean to? A working car? An abandoned car? A room in a boarding house with shared bathroom and no kitchen? Do nomads sleep/live rough?

The MW definition of rough#Adverb has similar problems "proper shelter" and "without usual conveniences". Clearly social norms are involved. Do UK speakers use it about people in non-European cultures? DCDuring (talk) 00:21, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

sexuality

was: use of sexuality to mean "sex/gender"

We have this (as "sexual identity, gender") and I'm familiar with it and am not RFVing it. However, neither cite contains enough info to make clear whether they're using this sense, and if you look at more of the page, the first book seems to be using the "(interest in) sexual activity" sense, and the second also seems to be referring more to the kinds of sexual activity a person is into than to their gender as male or female. Is that also how you would interpret the cites? (I'll move them if so.) Also: it's not clear to me how the sense "Sexual receptivity" or its citation is not just the same basic sense as the "interest in sexual activity" sense; is there a reason I shouldn't merge them? Merriam-Webster, Lexico and Dictionary.com don't have the "sex/gender" sense (suggesting it is, as I feel, a sub-standard / inept usage, although fairly common), and they also do not split "interest in sexual activity" and "sexual receptiveness" into separate senses. - -sche (discuss) 06:50, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with your interpretation of which senses the cites refer to, and that "sexual receptivity" is a restatement of "concern with, or interest in, sexual activity". Ultimateria (talk) 00:03, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I notice other dictionaries (and our own translations tables) separate "sexual activity" and ~"interest in sexual activity" as different senses. I don't know whether that's better or not. Even if we leave them combined, I wonder if we could word the latter better. Likewise, "sexual potency" seems to be getting at a real sense (other dictionaries don't have it, but we're doing one better than them), but I wonder if we could expand on that wording (maybe add "; sexualness"? and more?). But I'm not sure how to word either sense better. Many of these senses are closely related (some other dictionaries have them all as subsenses of one broad sense corresponding two our sense 1), and in many citations teasing out the precise sense is hard. - -sche (discuss) 04:57, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I think there's enough overlap between those two aspects to include them in the same sense, especially in practice of how the term is used. "sexual potency" is a perfectly fine definition, IMO.

I question "asexuality" as an antonym for any of these senses. Maybe I just don't get sense 1 of "sexuality"; it's a little abstract. Couldn't it be (based on "asexuality" 1.1) "The state of experiencing sexual attraction"? Ultimateria (talk) 18:21, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I took our sense 1 (which MW and Dictionary.com also have, but not Lexico), as worded, as a counterpart to all of asexuality sense 1 (not just 1.1), like "the sexuality of this species, as contrasted with the asexuality of that one", meaning "quality of being sexual, that is, reproducing sexually" (like this). The way it's written, and the way the other dictionaries word their senses, suggests that a species (etc?) which simply has distinct sexes is also "sexual" (we do not have this sense of "sexual"), and this quality of being sexual = distinguished by sex is "sexuality"; we should check whether cites support this. However, the citations under our sense 1, prior to my latest edit, use a meaning more in line with our sense 2-4...
I would also expect a sense corresponding to asexuality 1.1, in line with the sexual#Noun being "a person who experiences sexual attraction [...] as contrasted with an asexual", but finding citations (amid the other more common senses) is likely to be tricky. I did find one or two. - -sche (discuss) 19:00, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

highly abbreviated quote at linn

The work is apparently form Hardy, "Hist. Bwk. Nat. Club", V. 386. WTF is that supposed to be? Should we have entries hist., bwk., nat.? --Daleusher (talk) 20:53, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

@Daleusher: According to [9], it's the History of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club (14 vols., Alnwick, 1831–9). —Mahāgaja · talk 21:18, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

The Berwickshire Naturalists' Club still exists, and the History is still published every year. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:22, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

So it's an ISO 4 journal abbreviation then, @Mahagaja? — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 22:09, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

It's an abbreviation the EDD (which Mahagaja links to) uses; the citation was taken over from an out-of-copyright edition of the EDD. As to whether we should have the abbreviations (Bwk. only if it's attested elsewhere; the others surely are), I'm inclined to say yes, but I realize it's kind of a grey area and some people would argue no. (I recall discussion of y. and/or ylw as abbreviations of yellow.) - -sche (discuss) 00:01, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

"the Grim" as a nickname for Death

I was doing research on the origin of Grim Reaper a while back, and I encountered a claim that "the Grim" was a nickname for Death dating back to the thirteenth century. The website that I found this on doesn't look particularly credible, though, and I wasn't able to verify this information anywhere else. Can anyone find any attestations of it? —Globins (yo) 22:16, 5 October 2020 (UTC)

All I can say is that it appears unlikely to me; the obsolete noun grim meant a haunting spirit. Here, in a 19th-century poem entitled “The Flood of the Conemaugh” (referring to the Johnstown Flood of 1889 killed that more than 2000 people), Death is referred to five times as “Death, the grim”, but that use seems to me to be short for “the grim one” and occasioned by the restrictions imposed by the iambic tetrameter. But this here is a modern use.  --Lambiam 22:57, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

shredder#Dutch (Dutch)

Is the given audio file correct? I hear /ˈʃɛ.dər/, not /ˈʃɹɛ.dər/ or /ˈʃrɛ.dər/.

Is it ?[ˈʃ^ɾɛ.dər]? that is being said in that audio file? If not, then I'm not sure how the audio file could be accurate. Is /ˈʃɛ.dər/ an alternate pronunciation of shredder in Dutch? I could understand /ʃɹ/ being difficult for some Dutch speakers to produce, given the phonemic inventory of their native language. 70.188.165.229 05:02, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

I clearly hear a tap and the file sounds accurate to me. It should always be a cluster, but the type of r is variable in Dutch; it's just that the [ɹ] is particularly common in some words borrowed from English. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 06:56, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

The word shredder is recognized by Dutch speakers as being an English word. They will attempt to reproduce the English pronunciation, generally with limited success. Perhaps it is the IPA that is not entirely accurate, being insufficiently representative of a variety of pronunciations.  --Lambiam 22:22, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps [ˈʃ^ɾɛ.dər] (as suggested), or /ˈʃɾɛ.dər/ ought to be listed as a secondary pronunciation. Tharthan (talk) 23:30, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

/r/ can be realised in a ton of ways in Dutch; it is hardly helpful to list them all in a random entry. But noting that [ɹ] is not required is helpful. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 18:54, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

over my dead body

Is this phrase really always hyperbolic?

I'm pretty sure that there have been some instances when the phrase has been uttered and hasn't been hyperbolic in the slightest.

Might "(usually hyperbolic)" be a better descriptor to tag on, as opposed to simply "(hyperbolic)"? Tharthan (talk) 08:32, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. I have definitely heard/seen it used in (fictional) instances where it was meant very literally. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 16:59, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Of course, the phrase itself could be meant literally, and an "&lit" line could be added I suppose, though this may seem a little superfluous, but are you sure the phrase is ever (also) meant literally when used in the relevant sense, i.e. "Under no circumstances; absolutely not"? I find this quite hard to imagine. I suppose one could just about contrive a situation where such an intention was possible, but to me it seems too far-fetched for us to really trouble ourselves with. Mihia (talk) 09:35, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

The reason why I brought this to the Tea Room is because I am 100% certain that I have, like Mr. Sheedy, seen this used in many (fictional) instances where it was meant in an extremely literal manner (with regard to the relevant sense given in the entry. Sorry for the confusion, I wasn't referring to "over my dead body" being used in some other way), somewhat akin to "You'll take this dear, important thing from me only after prying it out of my cold, dead hands.", which I am sure you would agree you could picture being used literally in, say, a work of literature.

OK, well maybe I'm missing something. If it is as common as you suggest, I think an example illustrating this phenomenon may be useful in the article, as right now I can only barely imagine a literal sense incorporated in the expression meaning "Under no circumstances". I would have thought if the literal sense was meant then it would be just that -- literal -- and the "Under no circumstances" definition would not really apply. By the way, the existing citation, "No, monster! First over my dead body thou shalt tread", seems faulty, as "over my dead body" does not in that instance mean "Under no circumstances". Mihia (talk) 12:19, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think "over my dead body" is SOP, whether or not it is literal. If someone says, "Give me that [insert important item here]," and the person with the thing replies, "Over my dead body," the latter person might well mean that the former will have to kill them before they'd hand over the item in question, but it doesn't make it non-SOP; it's an idiom for "you'll have to kill me if you want that, because I'll never you do/have it while I'm alive." Andrew Sheedy (talk) 15:01, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

I think it really is physically impossible for a person to give someone something over their own dead body, so I think your example would have to be changed to e.g. "I'll make X give me that" / "Over my dead body", where X is a third person. But even if the sense of "you'll have to kill me first" is meant for real, I still think it is far-fetched that the speaker has in mind that the object is passed from one person to another literally over his own dead body, which is how I understand a literal interpretation. However, I have also just realised that originally in this thread I addressed a question of whether the phrase could be literal in the sense "Under no circumstances", which was not the original question of whether it could be non-hyperbolic. If the idea of "you'll have to kill me first" being meant for real makes the phrase non-hyperbolic then, yes, I agree with the original point that it can be, even though to my mind it is still unlikely to be literal. Mihia (talk) 17:20, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

I always pictured a literal scenario taken to its conclusion as something more like someone stepping over the person's dead body to go and get whatever the object is. Thus, the speaker would literally be saying "You'll only get that stepping over my dead body."

That doesn't really make sense, though, if the object in question is on the person of the speaker. That is, unless the sense would then be "You'll only get that if you're standing over my dead body".

In any case, is "(usually hyperbolic)" alright with you, Mihia? Tharthan (talk) 22:43, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

That seems like the right idea.

Implausibility, even physical/biological impossibility, of the "literal" case is fundamentally irrelevant. The expression could be used in fantasy or sci-fi in a "literal" sense in the fictional universe. We could look for such cites if we really wanted to settle the matter definitively, though I'd be happy to just let it slide. DCDuring (talk) 13:55, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Tharthan: Yes, I wouldn't notice any problem with "usually hyperbolic". It's only the idea that it would be used literally that I find scarcely plausible. Mihia (talk) 09:52, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Reconstructed terms: ālas, *menoᐧtayi, menoᐧtayi

I was looking at the latest Wiktionary dump and notice that there are three reconstructed terms that are not prefixed by their language (e.g. Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/ḱwṓ). These terms are: Reconstruction:ālas, Reconstruction:*menoᐧtayi and Reconstruction:menoᐧtayi.

Shouldn't the first one be renamed to Reconstruction:Tocharian B/ālas (no redirection)? Also I noticed that there is a redirection to this term from the main namespace (ālas) but, according to WT:RECONS, Redirects from the main namespace to these entries are not permitted.

As for the last two terms, they are redirections to Reconstruction:Proto-Algonquian/menoᐧtayi. Although redirection within the namespace seems to be allowed, they are the only redirections which are not prefixed by the language. So I believe they should be deleted.

I'm not very familiar with reconstructed terms, what do you think? Thanks — nyg gh (talk) 14:33, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, thanks. I've moved the Tocharian entry and deleted the Algonquian redirects. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:30, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

damning adjective /ˈdæmnɪŋ/

The Longman Pronunciation Dictionary accepts a secondary /ˈdæmnɪŋ/ for the form damning (unlike for say condemn. Might the latter be the one used for the adjectival use, similarly to the appearance of /n/ in say damnable? --Backinstadiums (talk) 19:30, 7 October 2020 (UTC)

Compare https://www.oed.com/oed2/00057363 and https://www.oed.com/oed2/00057362 --Backinstadiums (talk) 15:33, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

---My answer to this is that the OED must have some reason for claiming the -n- can be heard at times, but I am English and have never heard a single person pronounce it like that in my life. Daniel Jones' famous dictionary of English pronunciation shows no sign of it either. It is just about possible that the occasional person thinks it necessary to make an audible distinction between damming (damming a river) and damning. To claim that one pronunciation is used for the verbal noun and another for the participle is odd, as it is unlikely that even 1 in a million native speakers use this pronunciation ever in any context. — This unsigned comment was added by 81.141.8.102 (talk) at 13:09, 11 November 2020 (UTC).

I've never heard it either. Related question: in my experience the /n/ is always sounded in damnable, yet our entry says it's silent in the UK. I think that's wrong: can anyone else chime in? Equinox ◑ 20:34, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

The IP (geolocating to Kingston upon Thames) who added that was blocked a few hours later for this edit. They started from zero edits to systematically adding pronunciations to every English entry starting with "d" at the rate of one or two per minute at first- they got up to dancing before they were blocked, their 127th edit in about 3 hours of work. Rather odd. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:20, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Ah, probably just a sloppy mistake then. Removed. Equinox ◑ 06:07, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Interesting... I pronounce damnable without the /n/. But perhaps I've never actually heard it pronounced.... As for damning, I've definitely heard it, but always with a silent N. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:43, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

Polioch

Polioc / polioch / poliock / polyoch or something like it.

I don't know if this is a word someone recently came up with or is extant or antiquated.

Apparently it's a term for people who look at symbolism within politics.

For example they said: Trump got COVID during the full harvest moon, 33 (Masonic number) days before the US election, exactly 101 years after Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke in 1919 - the guy who gave us the Federal Reserve.

While I don't buy into that speculative woo, I also know that many things are not by chance. And there might be a chance this is a real word that can apply to some people and that I might be able to use, for better or worse. ~ JasonCarswell (talk) 03:16, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

You can use whatever words you want. If people only used words that were already in the dictionary, we could never invent new words at all. But I don't think this one will meet our WT:CFI requirements. It doesn't help that you can't even spell it; have you not seen it written down? Equinox ◑ 03:17, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Can you provide a link to where you heard or saw the word? DTLHS (talk) 03:26, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

rememb'r

For thy sweet love rememb'red such wealth brings / That then I scorn to change my state with kings

What is the pronunciation rememb'red represents?

Is this pattern productive in contexts other than the inflexional addition of -ed? --Backinstadiums (talk) 09:29, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think this spelling is supposed to reflect any pronunciation other than the normal one. The poet could have written remember'd or remembered too. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:49, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

@Mahagaja: /ri.ˈmEm.brəd/ --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:03, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

That's possible I suppose, but it seems less likely than normal /ɹɪˈmɛmbə(ɹ)d/. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:17, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

@Mahagaja: How would that work for rememb'ring ?--Backinstadiums (talk) 11:26, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

/ɹɪˈmɛmbɹɪŋ/, I guess, but that's the normal pronunciation anyway, in my dialect at least. I usually say that word in 3 syllables, not 4. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:18, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

The Oxford Dictionary of Original Shakespearean Pronunciation gives /rɪˈmembrɪn/, /rɪˈmembrɪŋ/ for -ing and /rɪˈmembəɹd/, /rɪˈmembəˌred/ for -ed. Neither rememb'red nor rememb'ring occur in the First Folio, but the normal spelling of these two verb forms at the time seems to have been remembred and remembring, respectively. So distinguishing ‘rememb'ring’ from ‘remembering’ is a relatively recent thing, I guess to specify to modern readers who might pronounce it with four syllables that the word has to have only three for metrical reasons. For Early Modern English speakers and others like you whose dialects still have the 3-syllable pronunciation as normal, it should make no difference. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 13:35, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

@Vorziblix: So what are the pronunciations of both rememb'r and remembre?--Backinstadiums (talk) 13:46, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

rememb'r does not exist. The apostrophe elision is not applied to entire verbs but to certain forms only, to preserve poetic meter. Equinox ◑ 14:32, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, and remembre is just a spelling variation of remember, with the same pronunciation (RP /ɹɪˈmɛmbə(ɹ)/ < Early Modern /rɪˈmembəɹ/). — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 20:10, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

In the given line, I see no reason to prefer one possible three-syllable pronunciation over another, but it's conceivable that in some other case a poet might intend this spelling to convey a three-syllable pronunciation with the final syllable enunciated as (for example) /-bɹɪd/, like in -èd, or even something along the lines of what you suggested above ('/ri.ˈmEm.brəd/"). This would be distinguishable from the usual three-syllable pronunciation if it was rhymed with something. (As for whether it's a productive "pattern" in other contexts: well, poets have been known to remove pesky syllables from wherever they need to. I would not expect rememb'r to exist except as some kind of eye dialect (which is what it seems to exist as), because you can't really reduce /-mbɚ/ to fewer syllables, can you?) - -sche (discuss) 08:30, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Baal

Oughtn't sense 4 (which ought to itself be split into two senses [1. a false deity or idol 2. (obsolete, derogatory) Catholic or Orthodox icons of the saints]) to be at baal?

The definition itself indicates that it is often used with a lowercase spelling. Not to mention, given that baal is not inherently referring to Baal or the Baalim (though they would certainly be baals, of course), having it at Baal doesn't really make much sense.

Does anyone else support the idea of splitting off sense 4 of Baal from the Baal entry, and moving it to baal under an English section? Tharthan (talk) 11:13, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that's where the info belongs. Ultimateria (talk) 16:33, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I've moved the sense(s) to baal. Tharthan (talk) 05:06, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

analgesic

Is it true that this only applies to drugs that don't induce unconsciousness? I ask because I'm reading a document that specifically talks about the use of analgesics that induce unconsciousness. A quick look in the OED and Google suggests that "without inducing unconsciousness" is not part of the word's definition. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 14:56, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

If no one objects, I will simply remove this part of the definition, since other reputable dictionaries omit it. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 17:21, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Using searches like google books:"an analgesic and anaesthetic" and google books:"an analgesic and an anaesthetic", I see a number of substances (including alcohol) being referring to as being both. OTOH, I also see a few books like

• 1999, Christine Salazar, The Treatment of War Wounds in Graeco-Roman Antiquity, BRILL (→ISBN), page 62:

  It is obvious that the amount of drugs needed in the first case is much lower than in the second (i.e. the difference between an analgesic and an anaesthetic) and therefore the danger of inadvertently giving a lethal dose is less acute.

And Wikipedia does assert that "Analgesic drugs [...] are distinct from anesthetics, which temporarily affect, and in some instances completely eliminate, sensation." Perhaps the mention of "unconsciousness" was an attempt at that distinction, between drugs that reduce pain and those that eliminate all sensation. But it seems to be only sometimes definitional. What about this? The "especially" clause could probably be improved, like maybe "...pain, sometimes contrasted with an anesthetic which eliminates sensation in general". (Where/who are our resident medical experts?) - -sche (discuss) 15:27, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, that's certainly an improvement! Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:27, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

poly(amorous)

Noun sense 7 of poly is "(chiefly informal) A polyamorous person." It was added by an IP in 2008. Is this real? The corresponding adjective added is used. I've heard somebody say "I'm poly." But never "I'm a poly", or "the polys are taking over". A web search found discussions using a poly as short for a polyamorous relationship. And short for a polygraph to find out if your girl is poly when you think your are mono. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 16:19, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

That IP was me: one of my very earliest edits (July 2008). Seen e.g. on Reddit's r/polyamory: "The constant RA and More than Two talk about autonomy leaves polys like us out." Equinox ◑ 16:28, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

Equinox is trying to claime the credite
for this anonymous IP's olde edite
which happeneth to be seene on the web-site Reddit. […] Geddit? Daleusher (talk) 19:52, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

google books:"polys" polyamorous finds it to be adequately attested. It might merit an "uncommon" label; not sure. I also found two citations for polies as an alternative plural the other day, see Citations:poly#noun:_polyamorous_person. (Searching for the singular is tedious because of the amount of interference from other senses and parts of speech.) - -sche (discuss) 08:09, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

gone

2. (figuratively) No longer part of the present situation.

Don't bother trying to understand what Grandma says, she's gone.

He won't be going out with us tonight. Now that he's engaged, he's gone.

Have you seen their revenue numbers? They're gone.

Somewhat struggling to follow this. I would understand "gone" in the "Grandma" example to mean something like "senile", and "No longer part of the present situation" seems kind of a weird way to express this. Am I misunderstanding it? The second usex makes more sense to me, but I don't understand the third at all. What does it mean for revenue numbers to be "gone" or "No longer part of the present situation"? Mihia (talk) 19:41, 8 October 2020 (UTC)

too far gone seems related. We might want an entry for that. --Daleusher (talk) 13:56, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I see that we do already have far gone. Mihia (talk) 17:30, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

A questionable entry. Far is just an intensifier of both the literal and figurative definitions of spatio-temporal terms. DCDuring (talk) 15:36, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Do we presently have a sense of gone that means "far gone" minus "far"? Mihia (talk) 19:52, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Weird numbers at him

There are a couple of quotes with numbers in the entry for him with weird numbers in the dates: c. 1616 (493 m) What the heck is the m supposed to be? 493 metres? --Daleusher (talk) 12:33, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

1. With nominative effect: he, especially as a predicate after be, or following a preposition. [from 15th c.]
   • 'c. 1616' (493 m), William Shakespeare, Macbeth, First Folio 1623, V.10:

     Before my body, I throw my warlike Shield: Lay on Macduffe, And damn'd be him, that first cries hold, enough.

   • '2003' (611 m), Claire Cozens, The Guardian, 11 June 2003:

• Looks like a metric conversion from feet to meters. Added by an IP editor in 2014 (Special:Diff/29633281). I will remove. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 13:46, 9 October 2020 (UTC)
  • I suspect the change was automated and a side effect of a good edit, like some client side Javascript doing s/([:digit])+'/\1' (div(\1, 3.28) m)/. Not literally a regexp because there is math involved. JavaScript is known for inappropriate type conversions. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:13, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

license verb

"Authorize officially." with the usage example "I am licensed to practice law in this state." Should the construction "I am licensed" even appear under a verb definition? DTLHS (talk) 16:50, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

• Why not? Passive forms are also verb forms. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:56, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

OK, how is it distinct from the first sense? DTLHS (talk) 16:58, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

We you asking if "I am licensed" should be considered to be the adjective "licensed"? Hm, I wonder how we would tell which POS it was...
As for whether the senses are distinct they do not seem to be, as currently written, but it's also not clear to me that sense 1's usex actually goes with its (or either) definition. - -sche (discuss) 08:02, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

To determine adjectivity of an English term spelled the same as a past participle, predicate use after copulas other than be, eg, seem is sometimes useful (but I'm not sure about this definition), as well as modification by very or too. (I don't think there would be much usage with very or too).

But such criteria are relevant for determining word class membership not for analysis of individual uses. For selection of usage examples, the guiding principle is to eliminate ambiguity without the example becoming stilted. I'd replace the usage example. DCDuring (talk) 15:49, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Italian ratele and ratelo

The Italian entry ratelo says "Variant of ratele" as its only definition, ratele says "Variant of ratelo" as its second definition. Do these words mean only 'honey badger' and nothing else, or does either of these words have another meaning? Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 17:28, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

There are a few Italian entries whose only content is "variant of [whatever]". They should probably be found and changed, at least using {{alt sp}} Daleusher (talk) 20:39, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

I've fixed these two. That is all they mean as far as I can tell. "Variant of" is often an alternative form but they're often unrelated synonyms. I've been picking away at these slowly because they require research sometimes, and there are easier Italian cleanups that need to be done... Ultimateria (talk) 16:30, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Another one I saw recently: nello stesso momento defined as in un sol colpo defined as in una sola volta defined as tutto in una sola volta which we don't have at all. A string of entries with no ultimate definition. - -sche (discuss) 16:45, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

sarrimmo and sarranno

Are these both really 3rd-person singular future? I suspect sarrimmo is first-person as a cognate of Italian saremo.Jonteemil (talk) 01:15, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Does kop mean hill in Afrikaans?

Kop (with capital K) claims that it is Afrikaans for hill, and links to kop#Afrikaans, which however does not list the hill meaning (only its derivation from Dutch where it means head).

kop (with lower case k) also exists and does not include the same inconsistency.

Broader point though: do we need both Kop and kop?JanCeuleers (talk) 10:11, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with the word kop, or indeed with South African English at all, but it is theoretically possible that Afrikaans kop (“head”) could have been borrowed into English with a different meaning than it has in Afrikaans. That's not unheard of. As for kop vs. Kop, we do distinguish capitalized entries from lowercase entries here, so if it's true that the sense “terrace at a football ground” is always capitalized in English, while the sense “hill” usually isn't, then yes, we do need both entries. (And in any case we need to keep [[Kop]] for the Saterland Frisian word.) —Mahāgaja · talk 12:22, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I am not fully sure about the regular form kop outside compounds, but the diminutive koppie can definitely mean "hill" in Afrikaans. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 13:01, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

In that case, do you feel confident enough to add it as a second meaning under kop#Afrikaans? I'm a native Dutch speaker, not Afrikaans.JanCeuleers (talk) 13:48, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I added the missing sense to the Afrikaans entry. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:59, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Dictionary of South African English[10] gives the etymology of kop: "Afrikaans, from Dutch, head; peak, hill". Vox Sciurorum (talk) 15:11, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

It seems like the football sense of Kop often is capitalized because it's from a proper noun (a particular Kop). Whereas, I've cited the English word kop in lowercase for a South African hill (kopje also exists). All of this suggests that the sense also exists in Afrikaans. - -sche (discuss) 17:02, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Usage note at ex-gay

I am bemused by the usage note at ex-gay, which currently reads: "This term is controversial due to tensions between the values held by some right-wing faith-based organizations, on the one hand, and those held by LGBT rights organizations, human rights and civil rights organizations, and other faith-based organizations, as well as professional and scientific organizations, on the other." I don't think the laundry list is especially enlightening and we can just call a culture war a culture war. Of course, a term should only be said to be controversial on here if there is indeed controversy/criticism directed at the term itself; there might well be, considering that conversion therapy is pseudomedicine. Perhaps the usage note could be adequately replaced by a label "(potentially) offensive" or it could actually describe published criticisms.
I also see that there is no entry ex-lesbian yet. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 12:58, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

The term itself is definitely controversial, as it implies that it is possible for someone who was once gay to stop being gay. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:09, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

The term is only controversial because the Cultural Marxists have declared it to be so, and it is not the role of a dictionary to adjudicate such things. If someone says he was gay and is now ex-gay, then that is his right-- and there are such people who make this claim. To determine the truth of the claim is beyond the remit of a dictionary. — This unsigned comment was added by 81.141.8.102 (talk) at 13:14, 11 November 2020 (UTC).

Cultural Marxist, being a Red Scare tactic that blurs a complex set of beliefs and theories into something dismissably as Commie, is itself pretty controversial. There is virtually no one who says they're a Cultural Marxist. Whether or not you like a group of people, a word is controversial if enough people find it controversial.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:52, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

No. Cultural Marxism has a specific meaning. It refers to the Frankfurt School's decision in the 1960s to abandon the working class in favour of a fixation on race and sex. What you mean, although you don't dare to say so openly, is that something is controversial only when a self-appointed group in the media declare it to be so. What is controversial for the Right would not be included. — This unsigned comment was added by 81.141.8.102 (talk) at 09:23, 16 November 2020 (UTC).

Cf. w:Cultural Marxism, which redirects to w:Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory. (As if the Frankfurt School in the 1960s could possible define the left in the 2020s.) As I said, it is what nobody describes themselves as. There's not much point in actually responding to you if you're going to just make up what you think, instead of responding to what I said. Note that e.g. God botherer is listed as derogatory. It seems that a lot of people on the Right seem to spend more time complaining about being persecuted than actually working on any problem.--Prosfilaes (talk) 07:33, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

I think I made a mistake, in that the Frankfurt School may have been active in the 1930s, not the 1960s. I could spend time researching this, but I'll leave that to you. Even if the left (and the right nowadays) reject the label Cultural Marxist, the provenance of their views do come from that, via the university campus channel. Of course, it has developed. I don't think the original Cultural Marxists had transgender on their list. The thing has taken on a life of its own. You could argue the right was more immediately influenced by Karl Popper and his theories of the Open Society, and that the right and left were engaged in a kind of evolution of both sets of ideas throughout the 20th century. But the fact that the university scene is so far to the extremes of left-wing thought suggests it plays the larger and more decisive role. Odd that I'm getting Cultural Marxist replies from someone who .... claims not to be one. I think you could do a bit of research? — This unsigned comment was added by 81.141.8.102 (talk) at 02:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC).

Cool. You don't know and you don't care to research. Odd that I'm getting Nazi replies from someone who claims not to be one? I think you could do a bit of research, and that will somehow get you to adopt an offensive label you've rejected.--Prosfilaes (talk) 03:09, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

I didn't know ex-gay had become a label for a specific thing. If ten minutes ago you'd told me Seth was ex-gay I would have assumed he used to be gay and now he wasn't (or was judged to be gay and now wasn't). I'm sure I heard it that way before the culture wars heated up. Is a {{&lit}} sense called for? And definitely tone down the usage note. We only need to note that it is sometimes offensive in one sense. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 15:04, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Is it the word that is a problem, or the concept? Meaning, if I say something like "cured of homosexuality" instead of "ex-gay" does it solve the problem the same way as calling somebody Black instead of a coon? If it's the concept, we don't have an essay on atheist explaining that a survey of 27 Baptist preachers concluded they will all burn in hell. Being judgmental about concepts is Wikipedia's job. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 16:07, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that usage note should go. I don't see any problem with the definition...it allows for interpretation according to your beliefs on the subject. I wonder, however, if there might be an additional sense of the word used in some religious contexts: Someone who has homosexual attractions but has chosen to stop having sex with same-sex partners. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 17:19, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the usage note doesn't contribute enough to keep it. Ultimateria (talk) 21:55, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Agree the usenote should go. Equinox ◑ 21:02, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

(e/c) Since the definition already makes clear that the term is connected to a specific movement and not just anyone whose understanding of or way of referring to their orientation has changed (which might be an attestable {{&lit}} sense), I don't know that the current usage note adds much. Perhaps it could be revised to explain why the term is controversial, or trimmed to something like "The concept of 'ex-gay' is controversial, see [Wikipedia link]", but as Vox suggests, the issue seems to be as much with the concept as with the word, so I'm not opposed to just dropping the notes. - -sche (discuss) 17:27, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Based on the above discussion, I removed the usage note. I added "pseudoscientific" as a description of conversion therapy. - -sche (discuss) 21:21, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I think pseudoscientific is too judgmental for a dictionary. There are better ways of expressing doubt. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:15, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. I don't think it helps anyone understand the word better anyway. If anything, it makes it more confusing, because no one claims to be part of a movement promoting pseudoscience. I think "claims it can be cured by conversion therapy" is enough. Anyone who knows anything about anything can make the relevant judgement based on that information. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 16:01, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

up

Adverb sense:

(hospitality, US) Without additional ice.

Would you like that drink up or on ice?

I don't know this sense. Is it likely to be an adverb, or is it actually an adjective? Mihia (talk) 13:31, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Green's Dictionary of Jargon (Routledge Revivals) (2013, →ISBN), has it as an adverb (in "US bars"), abbreviation of "straight up" ("without ice"). He does not seem to have an entry for "straight up". The Cassell's Dictionary of Slang also attributed to him (2005, Sterling, →ISBN), has "straight up" as an adjective, from the 1970s (onward), derived from "straight" ("undiluted". I see a few uses in books and on the web of "straight up" in this sense (which we lack), by searching for "(one|a) (coffee|coke) straight up". The only use of "up" I spotted (on the web, not somewhere durable) is from Jeffrey Morgenthaler saying "I've had many a bartender misunderstand what I mean when I say I'd like a drink 'up'", lol. - -sche (discuss) 16:26, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for finding that. Since that evidence is mixed, I think I'll leave it alone for now. Mihia (talk) 17:14, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm tempted to RFV it, but I know it'd be tedious to search for. OTOH, without citations it's hard to make any judgement about what POS it is. I notice we have straight up as an adverb, not an adjective like Cassell, but the existence of "a straight up whiskey" means this is (also?) an adjective. Would you interpret "straight up" in "a margarita, straight up" as also being an adjective? Because I suspect that "up" and "straight up", when referring to drinks, have the same part of speech. - -sche (discuss) 17:37, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

I guess one cannot say "an up whiskey"? For me, "straight up" in, "a margarita, straight up" is probably adjectival, describing the type of margarita, but I think it is also possible for it to be construed as adverbial, describing the way in which a mentioned verb (such as preparing, pouring, mixing etc.) is performed. Mihia (talk) 17:48, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

In fact, while I found no hits for "an up whiskey", actually there are some for "an up Margarita", albeit many have the word "up" in quotes. Mihia (talk) 17:58, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Good find. Clearly, both up and straight up (in these drink-related senses) are adjectives at least some of the time (if not all of the time). - -sche (discuss) 18:49, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Just noticed (obviously I should have checked earlier!) that we do also have adj. sense of "up": "(bar tending) Chilled and strained into a stemmed glass" A Cosmopolitan is typically served up. I suppose this is essentially the same kind of thing. Mihia (talk) 19:33, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Do you think we need an adverb section or can it be merged into the adjective? I guess we could RFV it and see what kinds of citations can be found. - -sche (discuss) 19:13, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm really not sure. If completely unambiguous examples can't be found, I am more than happy to defer to anyone who is personally familiar with this sense and has a "feel" for whether it can be adverbial. What I would say is that the present adjective usex, A Cosmopolitan is typically served up, though potentially ambiguous wrt PoS, to me seems a more plausible candidate for adverbial use than does the alleged adverb usex Would you like that drink up or on ice?. Also noting that the definitions of the adverbial and adjectival senses are not consistent. One talks about a drink being "strained" into a "stemmed glass", while the other mentions neither of those things. Mihia (talk) 16:50, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

My impression, based on the use of "up" or "straight up" to refer to non-alcoholic beverages, is that "stemmed glass" is mistaken, probably based on thinking the only thing that could be served "[straight] up" is a margarita, when apparently so can e.g. whiskey (and coffee). Whether something has to have been chilled on ice which is then strained out, or can sometimes simply be chilled and served without ice ever having been involved, I don't know, but again, I tend to suspect the latter (that the narrower definition is too narrow). - -sche (discuss) 21:25, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

up (2)

Adj. sense:

On a higher level.

The new ground is up.

• 1925, Walter Anthony and Tom Reed (titles), Rupert Julian (director), The Phantom of the Opera, silent movie

  ‘The Phantom! The Phantom is up from the cellars again!’

I don't understand what kind of thing or situation "The new ground is up" is referring to. Does anyone else get what it means?

Mihia (talk) 19:50, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

The use of "new" makes me think this is short for the past participles "set up" or "put up" in the sense of "install" or "assemble". But no, I don't get it. I say replace it. Ultimateria (talk) 21:50, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

My guess would be that it means: ‘The new football ground is at a higher level than the old one‘ but it’s a clunky construction, so I say replace too. (Overlordnat1 (talk) 01:02, 14 October 2020 (UTC))

• I have raised a related PoS question at Wiktionary:Tea_room/2020/October#up_(3). Mihia (talk) 17:32, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

problematic

Should we have a subsense for the "social justice"-related use of this? In response to Talk:problematic I added one (alongside the other two subsenses) in 2015, worded as "Contributing (usually implicitly or subtly) to systemic discrimination (such as racism, sexism, homophobia, or transphobia)", but I'm on the fence now and I see the point of the new user who removed it today that it could be viewed as just the regular meaning of the word. I did cite a WaPo story on the talk page where the original (and the URL) used "racist" and the editors changed it to "problematic", showing the extent to which some people equate the two words, but the citations I just put at Citations:problematic show how it's on a continuum with the "regular"/"broad" meaning. - -sche (discuss) 01:03, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I think we should have it (as subsense) because this is specifically a social justice buzzword. Its synonyms (difficult, awkward etc.) are not. Equinox ◑ 02:41, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I have put it back for procedural reasons, but I think this use is sufficiently specific and distinct/consolidated to keep it so I would not applaud a RFD. Other dictionaries at Onelook don't have it, but I suppose most will eventually add it. (Also Collins has an obsolete logical sense that we lack.) ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 07:40, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I was the remover (this time around, the sense in question was also removed once in October 2016). Thanks -sche for bringing this into the tea-room. It's pleasant in here. -- So a question I have, which is kind of general: I'm familiar with the idea that (i) the meanings of words can become narrower (or broader) through use, so conceivably that could be happening here. But I'm not sure I understand the process very well. At least, there's also this other phenomenon (if something so fundamental can be called that), that (ii) general words get applied to particular things. And presumably not every case of this is also a case of the general term changing its sense, or acquiring a new sense. What criteria might there be, I wonder, for deciding whether we're witnessing a case of (i) rather than (ii)? Aingotno (talk) 12:46, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

A hypothesis: the perception that the examples in question represent a new, distinct sense of the word have their basis not so much in a narrowing of the sense of "problematic" (as if people had started saying "a piece of fruit" when they mean "a banana") but in a shift at a different level. People who say problematic in the seemingly new way use the word to *condemn* something. So they're not saying that whatever they're talking about is "not settled; yet to be determined; uncertain" (Collins, linked above by Lingo Bingo Dingo), on the contrary, they want to assert that the matter is settled, has been determined: the thing (behavior, or whatever) that they're talking about is bad.

If that's right, then perhaps there's a further discussion to be had about whether or not this usage is covered by existing definitions like "questionable" (Collins again), or whether we do indeed need a new formulation because this is in fact a distinct usage. Aingotno (talk) 12:29, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

orden

Can someone check the pronunciation of the Swedish sense "order" or "decoration"? According to all three dictionaries at svenska.se, it's actually something closer to /ˈoːrdɛn/. Glades12 (talk) 07:09, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Hey, wassup here?

Our definition of wassup refers the reader to phrasebook entry what's up. The relevant sense of up also could do with a link to "what's up" somehow, which I intend to add. I've never really had anything to do with the phrasebook -- is linking to phrasebook entries for explanation something that we normally do or should be doing? Or should there be a separate dictionary entry for "what's up" (or conversion of existing phrasebook entry to dictionary entry)? Mihia (talk) 09:17, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

What to lemmings think? “what's up”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. Ie, mainstream dictionaries have it. DCDuring (talk) 01:37, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Do you (or anyone) know whether we would/should delete the phrasebook entry if we created a dictionary entry for what's up? I mean, is it possible or desirable to have both? (And, if both exist, I wonder which gets displayed by default when you search for the term?) Mihia (talk) 19:53, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

I think we could remove {{phrasebook}} from what's up, based on lemmings and the expressions discourse-control function. I am not sure that all of the definitions are warranted, eg, those that don't have a discourse-control function. DCDuring (talk) 21:03, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Looking at this again, I think I may have misunderstood the architecture of these phrasebook entries. I assumed that the phrasebook was a different "space" altogether -- but is it just a question of including or not including a {{phrasebook}} template, but otherwise it is treated or processed exactly the same as any other entry? Thus, it would not even be possible to have a phrasebook entry and a regular entry for exactly the same expression? Mihia (talk) 09:17, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

I believe it is just a template. Inspection of {{Phrasebook}} shows me that it doesn't do anything except insert the banner and categorize. It is an readily reversed experiment to remove the template and assess the consequences. DCDuring (talk) 14:18, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

keep someone honest, keep honest

US English, meaning 1. "To ensure that one continues to tell the truth" or 2. "To cause one to behave in a virtuous or appropriate manner." (see here). Worth an entry? 2A02:2788:A6:935:351D:18F4:E607:A40 10:03, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

In my opinion, no. I think this is a SOP cliché. Telling the truth or virtuous or appropirate behaviour are just more specific interpretations of what honesty should entail. Personally, I'm only familiar with the phrase in the context of political concern trolling (e.g. someone pandering to the antivac movement suggests to stack some organisation linked to vaccines with antivaxers "just to keep the variolaters honest".) ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 10:47, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

If someone points out errors, the person who made those errors may tell them "thanks for keeping me honest". It's more complex than concern trolling. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:31, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

In the UK (don't know if it is UK only), this expression is used in sporting contexts, whereby if player A is leading player B, or is generally stronger than player B, but player B puts on a good performance so that player A doesn't have a completely free ride, then player B is said to be "keeping player A honest". I think this meaning, at least, is worth an entry. I think it may extend in a similar way outside sports too, but I would need to check for actual examples. Mihia (talk) 17:15, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I think I've heard it used that way in American sports, and if not it feels consistent with the way the phrase is used in general. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 20:16, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

It would be a bit of a stretch to say this is NISoP, though only one idiom dictionary has it at “keep honest”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.. DCDuring (talk) 02:53, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

FYI, I have added the sporting sense at keep someone honest. I am agnostic about whether it should be there or at keep honest -- in fact, I don't know what our policy is here. Mihia (talk) 19:01, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Capitalization in French Vernacular Seashell names

This seems to be a topic of considerable debate among users on this site and in French 19th century naturalist books. There seem to be two schools of thought: those who believe the vernacular genre name should be capitalized and those who believe the entire term should be spelled in lowercase letter, e.g. Porcelaine de Madagascar or porcelaine de Madagascar. What should the standard on Wiktionary be? Languageseeker (talk) 17:36, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

It's not just French. English nature-related books tend to capitalize unique names of organisms. This is systematic, and has little resemblance to capitalization in other contexts- it's perfectly correct to write "I saw a house finch on my balcony" rather than "I saw a House Finch on my balcony". English Wikipedia, for instance, has a rule that addresses this. I would avoid overriding the normal capitalization rules of a language based only on such usage. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:11, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Exactly. And in the past any important Noun or even Important Word could be capitalized for emphasis (and conversely, especially earlier in English history, many words which would now be capitalized were not, "i saw john today", etc). I don't think there's anywhere near the "considerable debate" here that there was on Wikipedia (where the rule was bitterly fought by folks who wanted to favour the "specialists' style"), though: like Chuck says, follow the usual capitalization rules, which in this case means things will normally be lowercase unless there's a proper name involved, etc. - -sche (discuss) 20:53, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

We once had a really boring discussion like this about dog breeds, IIRC. In case anyone wants to dig that up...Daleusher (talk) 22:15, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

stink "noun" sense 3 might be an adjective

"(slang, New Zealand) A failure or unfortunate event. The concert was stink." That looks like an adjective to me, not a noun, or else it would be "the stink" or "a stink". (Or else we need to mark the sense and the noun as uncountable.) Who can confirm? Equinox ◑ 18:14, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Kiwi here, it's definitely an adjective. – Nixinova [‌T|C] 02:18, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

@Nixinova: Thanks. Is it only predicative ("the concert was stink") or can it be used attributively also ("that was a really stink concert")? Equinox ◑ 02:56, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Both: [11] [12] – Nixinova [‌T|C] 03:00, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

 Done Cool. I'm moving it. Thanks. Equinox ◑ 03:09, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

what's up with

I'm wondering whether anyone has any thoughts about how to treat what's up with. It seems desirable that people should somehow be able to look up this common combination, as the meaning is not transparent, yet this is by no means a fixed or immutable phrase. As well as the obvious tense change of "what was up with ~", we can make insertions such as "what the hell is up with ~" or "what did you say is up with ~", alterations such as "what seems to be up with ~", "I don't know what could be up with ~", and, perhaps most problematically, we can say e.g. "something is up with ~". Strictly speaking, all these are explicable by combining appropriate senses of "up" and "with", but I feel it is unreasonable to expect people who don't know the expression to put these together in the right way. I don't feel very enthusiastic about making an entry for up with as it feels fragmentary, and "to be up with" does not seem natural English to me in the relevant sense. Any ideas? Mihia (talk) 19:28, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

The third sense is NISoP, IMO. As you point out, the entry is often used literally with a sense of up#Adjective, from which the greeting etc are derived. If we link to the specific sense of up from {{&lit|en}}, I think we will not only tell users what the expression means, but also lead them to appreciate up, which has so many uses. DCDuring (talk) 13:44, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

We should probably go further and merge what's up with into what's up. DCDuring (talk) 13:46, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

BTW, what's up with is not a constituent and is, therefore, not a proper phrase. DCDuring (talk) 13:48, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

I have used {{l|en|up|id=happening}} to link to the appropriate sense of up from {{&lit|en|what|'s|up}} at [[what's up]].

We could go further and add {{lb|en|usually with with}} to the definitions at what's up and make [[what's up with]] a redirect to that entry. DCDuring (talk) 14:04, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts on this. The slight issue I have with the "&lit" line at what's up is that some, perhaps all, of the other (non-lit) entries can be explained as "what" + "is" + "up". For example, the &lit "up" links to the definition "Happening; new; of concern", yet "what's happening" and "what's new" are given as synonyms of non-lit sense #2. Mihia (talk) 21:01, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Semantically none of the definition are really idiomatic. I think it is its use as a common greeting that makes it entryworthy. DCDuring (talk) 04:21, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

When you say entryworthy, you mean at the main dictionary as opposed to the phrasebook, right? Mihia (talk) 09:11, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

IMHO, yes. I could see the logic of only including it in the Phrasebook or as a translation target, but I think expressions that have a standard discourse function that is separate from (though derived from) their semantics are entryworthy. DCDuring (talk) 15:43, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

• Listed at Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion/English#what's_up_with. Mihia (talk) 21:48, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

erect

I was incredibly surprised that we have no definition for erect to describe penis. Really, we're an online dictionary with 1000s of sex terms, and not a single one for erect. Shame on us. --Daleusher (talk) 21:45, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

OK, there should be two more definitions - for an erect penis and an erect man. And perhaps a nice photo/diagram. --Daleusher (talk) 21:49, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

We have the erect man sense (maybe you just added it?); the penis sense is not distinct, that's just normal erectness, i.e. standing out straight. Equinox ◑ 01:41, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I added a couple of senses. The penis sense is definitely distinct though - it needs to have a sexual meaning, like "having blood flow through it, especially as a result of sexual arousal" --Daleusher (talk) 19:22, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't think that's so. Someone who can't get their penis hard "naturally" for some reason might use an implanted pump. And a dead body might develop a death erection, which does not necessarily involve blood "flow" so much as one-time pooling. Meanwhile, other body parts can flush with the flow of blood as a result of sexual arousal, yet not be "erect". (Other dictionaries seem to cover erect penises under the same sense as erect hairs or erect ears on a dog.) - -sche (discuss) 21:48, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

The lemmings lump the meanings together? That seems oversimplifying things. To me, an erect hair and an erect penis are lexically different - firstly because the synonyms aren't the same. One can have a stiff/hard/erect penis, but saying a stiff/hard/erect hair or stiff/hard/erect ears is not right. --Daleusher (talk) 22:03, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

I did some research regarding collocations of the aforementioned word with various body parts, collating the results against some images and some *ahem* educational videos (sometimes being a lexicographer one has to make sacrifices, you know). It turns out one could also talk about nipples being erect, hard, or stiff. So maybe we could lump together nipples and penises in one definition, and have erect hairs and ears under another sense, or subsense if you really want. Meanwhile, I'm gonna do some more lexi-research into erect body parts. I'll let you know my findings. --Daleusher (talk) 22:12, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Erect modifying penis is sum of parts. Erect modifying man usually is not. You're likely talking about his penis instead of his posture. According to gamer lore, Squad Leader had an example in the rules about an erect man exposing himself in an aperture. That made sense in context but there was lots of giggling because of the double entendre. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 22:27, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

cucked

The page uses an offensive example which is not representative of how this word is generally used, as it's not just 4chan slang anymore. Attempts were made to change the example to be more general this was reverted with no reason and the page was indef locked. – Nixinova [‌T|C] 02:18, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Sample use by Milo Yiannopoulos in 2016 (is he higher or lower class than a btard?)[13]:

"It’s redolent of the way establishment conservatives lost the culture war in the first place, by bowing to the opposition, allowing others to play them for fools, and contenting themselves with the occasional scraps thrown to them by progressive elites. I said “cucked by Zuck” earlier, but in reality, they were cucked a long time ago and by their enemies in the Democratic Party and liberal media."

And there are some incel hits. Most uses are going to be offensive or porn keyword loading. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 11:45, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

I think this comment is talking about "cucked by Islam", which presumably suggests that somebody is willingly let their freedoms/choices be infringed upon by Islamic doctrine. Whatever... Let's say for the sake of example that we are refusing to eat pork, even though we love pork, because Islam says we can't have it ...? Anyway: at Talk:cucked you can see Nixinova saying (paraphrase) "it's Internet slang, not just 4chan" but that's already covered, because our glosses are additive: it's Internet slang and (perhaps originally) 4chan. It doesn't mean that it's only 4chan, obviously, because then you wouldn't bother writing "Internet slang", because there is no 4chan language that isn't Internet slang: it's a subset. I think the best solution here is to remove that usex and find real citations, i.e. send to RFV. (It's real enough, and will be painful to cite.) Equinox ◑ 11:52, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Bonus comment: does this person have any kind of clue? [14] since Islam isn't a race. It's a religion. Equinox ◑ 12:03, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Some history as of 2017 from a man named Tim Squirrell, and if you can't trust a squirrel who can you trust? "The evolution of "cuck" shows that different far-right groups are learning the same language." And here is a source to attribute "cucked by Islam" to so it shows up as something other people say rather than something Wiktionary says: "Basically every liberandu" on reddit. And now I think I should go about importing the Wikipedia protected edit request module so we can have nice graphics on discussions of protected pages... Vox Sciurorum (talk) 17:28, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

As I brought up over on Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup#cucked in June, I suspect this is just the past tense of the verb cuck, and hence should be defined at cuck, not cucked#Adjective. And I think we can do better on labelling. If it's "originally" or "especially" 4chan, let's add one of those words. If it's general right-wing Internet slang (do leftists use it to any significant extent, outside of mimicking right-wing language?), we could change the label along those lines. - -sche (discuss) 19:11, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

This word is specifically used of conservatives. Socialists who argue for mass immigration aren't cucks - they are genuinely arguing for what they want. Conservatives who argue for mass immigration are - it is alleged - kowtowing to the left and twisting themselves into pretzels to adopt the point of view opposite to that of their base. You can only be cucked if you're right-wing. — This unsigned comment was added by 81.141.8.102 (talk) at 13:19, 11 November 2020 (UTC).

The term may have started that way, but it has since expanded far beyond that, as even a cursory search for "cucked by" on /pol/ will show.__Gamren (talk) 16:14, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

brass out / brass it out

An alternative form of brazen out / brazen it out? 212.224.234.201 18:52, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Definition of the verb Object

Complete the following sentences:

1. "I think your ________ is objectionable"

2. "My objection is to do with how you __________ when telling me what to do"

3. "I object to the way that you __________ when disciplining your child"

If you guessed the answer is behave or behavior then you were correct. Behavior (how we speak and act) and objections go hand in hand and yet there is not one reference made to define the verb "to object" as an objection to someone's behavior or how they acted. Why?

Instead we just get this as this definition "To disagree with something or someone." (my "opinion" has been deleted)

@Desa97: We define words as they are used in English by English speakers, based on looking at real English texts, and not based on "in my opinion". I have already told you this on multiple talk pages. Please understand this before continuing to complain about words in the dictionary or you may be blocked from contributing here. Equinox ◑ 04:34, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

@Desa97: BTW, your example 4 is a run-on sentence, ungrammatical. Equinox ◑ 04:35, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Dear sir/madam I told you already that until you acknowledge your abuse of language with me I am not interested in your opinion here. If someone wants to block me because I do not agree with the examples being use to define the verb object so be it. I will take one for the cause. However I think the abuse I have received from you is far worse and I think you should be blocked before me.

Dear sir/madam you are blocked, GTFO, yours faithfully, Equinox ◑ 05:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Geez, did you really need to be that rude? Glades12 (talk) 12:12, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

The Swedish word "fyrverkeri"

en.wiktionary says it's common gender, but sv.wiktionary says it's neuter. Also this page lacks the declension table (that other nouns usually have). People who are more versed in Swedish please do something? --Betty (talk) 05:17, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Native speaker here; it's neuter. "Ett fyrverkeri" sounds far more correct to me than "en fyrverkeri", and Svenska Akademiens ordlista says "-et". Glades12 (talk) 09:34, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Rag

Could we list ‘a collective noun for colts’ as a definition for ‘rag’, ‘rake’ and ‘rage’ please? (Source: ‘An Unkindness of Ravens’ (Chloe Rhodes, Michael O’Mara Books Ltd, 2014, p.75-6)) — This unsigned comment was added by Overlordnat1 (talk • contribs).

• This looks like a list word, not a real word. We don't add collective nouns just because they appear on a word list. They have to be used in real writing. Maybe rag has been used for real, but the first couple pages of Google Books results for "rag of colts" are all word lists. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:18, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

English pronunciation of words starting with "tr"

I'm a little confused here, shouldn't the English IPA pronunciation of words like trip be /t͡ʃɹɪp/, instead of the listed /tɹɪp/? As a native English speaker in America, I've only ever heard words like "trip" be pronounced with a hard plosive on the t in heavy (usually foreign) accents. Although, I'm seeing the /tɹ.../ pronunciation listed on the entries for train, travel, trade, and all other "tr-" entries I'm looking up too, so maybe I'm missing something here? – Guitarmankev1 ^(talk) 17:42, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Hey, @Guitarmankev1. I'm sure someone else can give a better explanation. I once looked up the same question a long time ago. The answer went something like this: for that particular sound cluster, there's no other possible sound between /t/ and /ɹ/, so they don't waste space in dictionaries writing /ʃ/. There are, however, native English speakers who really do pronounce the /t/ and the /ɹ/ separately. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 18:48, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't understand; /t͡ʃɹɪp/ would be *chrip, not trip. Maybe in quick speech, they would be indistinguishable, but in reasonably calm speech the two are clearly distinguishable.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:39, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

It’s between slashes, as a phonemic (not phonetic) representation. There’s no phonemic distinction between /t/ and /t͡ʃ/ before /ɹ/ when they’re in a syllable-initial cluster together, so [t͡ʃ] in American English can be analyzed as an allophone of /t/ in this position. (I’m not convinced it’s necessarily phonetically [t͡ʃ] either, at least in my idiolect; I’d give it as [ʈ(ʂ)], with the /t/ assimilating to the following retroflex [ɻʷ].) — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 19:43, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

As the others have said, many people in the U.S. (and maybe other countries as well) render /tɹ/ as something similar to [t͡ʃɹ̥], but (1) it's not phonemic, and (2) not everyone does it. When I was about 5 years old, my mother was astonished that I had spelled train as "chrain" on something I had written. She said, "Why would you spell it [t͡ʃɹeɪn]? You don't pronounce it [t͡ʃɹeɪn]!" and I said, "Daddy does." Sure enough, my father did pronounce /tɹ/ as [t͡ʃɹ], and my mother didn't – even though they grew up in the same city. (I don't pronounce it [t͡ʃɹ] as an adult myself.) In principle, we could include it as an alternative phonetic realization, though actually I'm opposed to including minor phonetic details in pronunciation sections. I think users are helped much more by "/tɹeɪn/" than they are by "[ʈ͡ʂʷẽɪ̃n]" or the like, which makes it difficult to see the forest for the chrees. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:37, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Weird non-audios

At you know, there's a link to an audio file from VOA Learning English, but that audio file can't be played by clicking, and it doesn't bring up an error message either. I've noticed that before with other VOA Learning English audios. Do the audios actually exist on Wikicommons? Had we better fiddle with the format? Or delete them? --Daleusher (talk) 23:12, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Plays fine for me. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 23:19, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Yatch

We of course have an entry for ‘bitch’ and we have definitions for the related slang words ‘biyatch/beeyatch’ and ‘biyotch/beeyotch’, so I’ve taken the next logical step and added another definition to out entry ‘yatch’, which is a contraction of ‘biyatch’, with the same meaning.

We should have entries for ‘yat’, ‘yatty’ and ‘yattie(s)’ too, which link to each other, as these are all widely defined, essentially, as ‘bitch’ on Urbandictionary (where definitions of ‘yat’ link to definitions of ‘yatch’ and vice versa) and they appear widely in the lyrics to rap songs (just do a search at genius.com)

Has anyone got any thoughts about this? Overlordnat1 (talk) 01:40, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

@Overlordnat1: You are right for yatt (as I would spell it) and yattie. After hearing them a few times in some drill pieces I was unsure whether they mean women or just their arses (like batty) perhaps by metonymy also meaning women. Thanks for your etymology! But your formatting at yatch is not right. Presuming this too is a real word, it should have its own header ({{head}}) and the meaning would follow on a number sign, perhaps with {{alternative form of}}. Fay Freak (talk) 03:11, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I fixed the formatting. I have no opinion on whether this form exists and whether this is the best spelling. I don't consider genius.com a reliable source of spelling. But if the sound exists we have to pick some spelling for it rather than calling them all unreliable. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 11:31, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

chão

Can anyone explain to me how the hell you get chão /ˈt͡ʃã.o/ in Old Portuguese from Latin plānum? The /pl/ and /ch/ sounds seem so far apart to me that I can't imagine how you could get to one from the other. What kind of sound change is going on here? Is this a regular thing? —Globins (yo) 06:58, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it's regular. The exact development is uncertain but can be guessed at: /pl/ → /pj/ (as in Italian piano) → /tj/ (the change of palatalized labials to palatalized coronals is rare but not unprecedented; for example, there are dialects of Czech in which pivo is pronounced /ˈtʲɪvo/) → /t͡ʃ/ (compare colloquial British English /t͡ʃuːn/ for tune). It's possible there was an intermediate stage /ptj/ between /pj/ and /tj/, which has a parallel in French, e.g. sache from Old French sapche /sapt͡ʃə/ < */saptja/ < */sapja/ < Latin sapiat. Another possible intermediate stage is /pʎ/ between /pl/ and /pj/, which would also serve as the source of Spanish ll /ʎ/ in llano. Note that /kl/ developed exactly the same as /pl/ in West Iberian, thus Portuguese chave and Spanish llave from Latin clavis. So if someone were to reconstruct proto-West Iberian, maybe it would have a sound change where /kl/ and /pl/ merged as /tʎ/ or the like, giving /t͡ʃ/ in Portuguese and /ʎ/ in Spanish. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:57, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

@Globins, Mahagaja Also fl- (Portuguese chama / Spanish llama < Latin flamma; Portuguese achar / Spanish hallar < Latin afflāre; Portuguese cheirar < Vulgar Latin *flagrāre < Latin fragrāre; Portuguese chor < Latin flōrem). Benwing2 (talk) 04:57, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Other examples of pl -> ch, if it interests you, include chorar, chumbo, and chuva. - -sche (discuss) 02:23, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Does “gouverner” (in modern French) mean “to steer” ?

(I was told I should open a discussion here; apologies if I did it wrong, I've never done it before >_>')

The page for gouverner lists both “to govern” and “to steer” as meanings, without clarification, whereas the French wiktionary doesn't list non-archaic examples where is it used to mean steering a vehicle (as opposed to the figurative meaning, which overlaps with “to govern”), nor have I ever heard it being used that way (I am a native speaker, who grew up in Grenoble (French Alps) and Corsica, and lived for a while in Bretagne).

Should this be amended to clarify this meaning is archaic, or is there contexts/places where it is still used? I wasn't able to find any evidence of current use. Nicoonoclaste (talk)

• Trésor de la langue française informatisé[15] gives an example from 1961 in the sense of steering a boat. Perhaps it is like English direct. You can speak of directing a vehicle, but most people choose other words. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 11:51, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Beachcombing - fi

Dear Wiktionarians, Beachcombing is a common word in English usage meaning exploring the seashore for interesting objects to look at, collect etc. Hence also Beachcomb (vb) and Beachcomber (n, someone engaging in it). What is the best word/compound in Finnish for this activity? I guess that beachcombing is enjoyed by a few, searching for Baltic amber and other beach treasure. Any suggestions? Blueclear (talk) 14:40, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't think there's an established term for it - you could say something like tavaran etsiminen rannoilta (literally “looking for items from beaches”) or use the English word as-is, although you'd probably to explain its meaning. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 06:53, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Many thanks for that. I find that set phrases and constructions enhance the vocabulary very usefully. I did think of something like 'beach foraging', but that suggests the hunt for food is involved; and I don't eat driftwood! Blueclear (talk) 18:55, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

up (3)

Does anyone have a view about the PoS of "up" in the following?

The Phantom is up from the cellars again!

He works up at the house.

He is up in his room.

Your keys are up on the shelf / up there.

The first one is presently listed as an adj. example, but I'm not fully convinced that this is correct. I would tend more to adverb, but, anyway, opinions sought. Mihia (talk) 17:31, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

I think we should treat all these as adverbs, and I have moved the article example accordingly. Mihia (talk) 19:36, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

up (4)

Seeking opinions on whether these are both examples of adjectival "up" as claimed in the article.

Put the notebook face up on the table.

Take a break and put your feet up.

Mihia (talk) 19:23, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

These aren't adjectival. And "feet up" is sense 2, "on a physically higher level". I can't think of a case where adjectival "up" is synonymous with "face-up". Ultimateria (talk) 17:02, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

Just to note that "on a physically higher level" is also an adjectival definition. I had unexpected difficulty trying to find any clear adjectival examples for that, other than the level of a liquid. I am unconvinced that the other present example, involving "up from", is adjectival (see my other thread). But back to "put your feet up", one issue I have is that I can't think of any examples of "put your feet + adj" with a clear adjective, such as "put your feet warm" or "put your feet comfortable" or whatever. Admittedly, finding totally unambiguous adverb examples is not trivially easy either, though one could consider e.g. "put your feet together/apart", "put your feet to use" or "put your feet into action" as possibilities. Mihia (talk) 00:24, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

• Moved to Wiktionary:Requests_for_verification/English#up. Mihia (talk) 19:43, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

"Put your feet here/there", also numerous locative prepositional phrases can replace here and there. DCDuring (talk) 02:39, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Are you man enough?

What PoS is enough in Are you man enough to fight me? Unlike the adverbial use in enough, in a similar example it is a determiner for Oxford

Although enough after a noun now sounds old-fashioned, time enough is still fairly common
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/enough_1?q=enough

--Backinstadiums (talk) 20:43, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

• I read it as equivalent to "are you enough of a man", which we call a pronoun form. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 21:13, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Postpositive use of enough was formerly quite common according to Google N-Grams. With spatial and temporal nouns it seems to have remained more frequent than prepositive use until the 1940s. With other kinds of nouns prepositive use became more common than postpositive use early in the 20th century.

"Man enough" is about 30 times more common than "enough of a man". DCDuring (talk) 04:35, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

sadboi

I tweaked the definition at sadboi. Is everyone satisfied enough for the tea room tag to be removed? 2601:644:100:9F20:21C7:5013:A028:40E5 11:02, 15 October 2020 (UTC)

microwavery

A word I heard on a less-than-serious programme on BBC Radio, which appears to be a blend of microwave + cookery - they were discussing microwaving eggs. It seems to have some use on Google, is it entry-worthy? DonnanZ (talk) 13:04, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Check for at least three uses in permanently recorded media spanning at least a year. — SGconlaw (talk) 13:08, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Isn't -ery a productive suffix? DCDuring (talk) 16:59, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Created by Equinox. DonnanZ (talk) 08:56, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Ivana

Should Czech Ivana, Serbo-Croatian Ивана, etc. be explicitly described as the female equivalent of Ivan or Иван? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 13:16, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

Of course they should. In Czech, at least, Ivana is also a form of Ivan (accusative? vocative?) --Daleusher (talk) 09:02, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes. I added |m= parameters to all three. Ultimateria (talk) 17:47, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Of course they should, but I have found obvious things to be less true the farther away I get from western European languages. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:32, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

culicagado

I added etymology to culicagado so the recent IP edit might not show up in the autopatrol list. Could somebody familiar with Colombian Spanish confirm the recent change from an insult to a term of endearment? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:55, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

The page was originally made by Wonderfool, so is highly likely to be total horsecrap. Daleusher (talk) 09:04, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

All Cretans are liars. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 13:51, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

From what I can tell, it can be either derogatory or endearing. I added a usage note rather than a long label. Ultimateria (talk) 17:45, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

The Spanish Wikipedia labels it “derogatory, vulgar”.  --Lambiam 20:04, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Seeking advice for an overdue word

Hello Wiktionary Community,

This could be futile, but I think the world is overdue for a commonly used root word as described in the following short web pages and I would greatly appreciate any advice or assistance with filling this void:

http://riar.depuzzler.com

http://ryr.depuzzler.com

If words with a similar meaning already exist (perhaps in other languages?), then please let me know and the challenge becomes how to get them into common use.

Thank you,

--Overdue Word (talk) 20:32, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

We don't invent new words here, we just document real ones that are already in use. Equinox ◑ 06:46, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

---

OK, but I would still like to invite others seeing this to help outside of Wiktionary then (thru the web pages above). My teetering faith in our culture is still holding out hope that someone here might know of some "real ones that are already in use" (from any language) with similar definitions that could help humanity's sanity. Thank you, --Overdue Word (talk) 23:51, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

A trivia question you never knew you wanted to know

Which animal's young is an anagram of the animal itself? --Daleusher (talk) 22:17, 16 October 2020 (UTC)

@Daleusher. Sorry, it was driving me crazy. I cheated. The answer is flyblow. ;-) -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 00:35, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

10 points. Your prize is a classic joke. A) My wife has gone to the Caribbean? B) Jamaica? A) No, she went on her own free will. Daleusher (talk) 00:41, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Yay. :-) Good one. For a second, I thought you were going to tell me a dirty joke I heard as a kid about a Jamaican and a tourist. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 06:51, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Wendy? Daleusher (talk) 09:00, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, Wendy :-) - Dentonius (my politics | talk) 10:05, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

As in “Welcome to Jamaica, have a nice day”.  --Lambiam 19:52, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I guess everybody and their grandma knows it. :-) -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 20:41, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

• I found another baby animal that's an anagram of the animal itself. A little more tricky, as I didn't just edit its Wiktionary entry. This one's worth 20 points. Daleusher (talk) 11:28, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

My crappy attempt: "ling (fish)" and "fishling". Equinox ◑ 11:29, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Nope Daleusher (talk) 11:40, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

My guess: burg (“hamburger”) and grub (“larva, maggot”). ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 12:23, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that's right, LBD, because a hamburger is obviously an animal, and a grub is clearly a baby hamburger. Daleusher (talk) 22:25, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Bah, mere carnist minutiae! ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 19:28, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

• For the sake of transparency, Daleusher (talk • contribs) was trolling you with the comment "I found another baby animal that's an anagram of the animal itself". Candle-holding servant (talk) 00:07, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

  Here's one for you: which pair of synonyms for an animal are anagrams? ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 19:28, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

  aalscholver and schollevaar ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 20:17, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

fever clinic

This is defined specifically in relation to COVID-19, but it is clearly used in relation to other diseases as well. Also, is the relevant sense of fever "increased body temperature" as a symptom or "state of anxiety"? ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 12:19, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Why not get some cites into the entry? Both pre- and post-COVID. DCDuring (talk) 16:26, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Pre-COVID: [16] [17] [18] [19] [20] [21] [22]

Post-COVID: [23] [24] [25]

In the mid-20th century a type of rheumatic fever clinic was in use, so a search for "fever clinic*" will include those as false positives. It still seems to be a distinct type of institution in rheumatology. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 17:09, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

@DCDuring What's your view on the linked hits? I can put some on the citation page if you want. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 19:29, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

The cites seem to support a generalized definition, showing that a fever clinic seems to make sense in the real world only in cases where there is a need to distinguish causes of the fevers in relative isolation, because at least one cause is highly contagious and dangerous. DCDuring (talk) 21:36, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

(there/plain) for all to see, for all the world to see

Worth entries? PUC – 12:32, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

Fairlex idioms has for all to see. DCDuring (talk) 16:28, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

How about the synonymous in front of God and everybody/everyone? DCDuring (talk) 16:35, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

“For all the world to behold”^[26]; “for all the world to hear”;^[27] “for all the world to enjoy”;^[28] ...; something tells me the collocation “for all the world to see” is not a fixed idiomatic expression. Perhaps “for all (the world) to” is.  --Lambiam 19:26, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I hereby nominate see to be a placeholder for any kind of perception, just as someone is a placeholder for any noun referring to a person (or sentient organism). DCDuring (talk) 20:13, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

I wouldn't say so. To me there seems precious little meaning in "for all to see" beyond just what the words say, or obvious figurative extensions thereto that also exist in numerous other contexts. The only additional idiomaticity in "for all the world to see" might reside in "the world" not literally meaning the entirety of the planet or its inhabitants, but this is an obvious hyperbole or, if you like, an extended sense of "world", that commonly exists outside of that one phrase, e.g. "Don't tell the whole world!" when someone is speaking too loudly, or whatever. Mihia (talk) 09:34, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

diarrhea

Coincidentally, I was already thinking about and wanting to revisit the 2015 discussion of the 'feces' sense, and wondering if we had any Australian contributors who could confirm or deny that it's used there, when I saw a user indeed say it's used there. (At the time, the unfamiliarity of an Australian with the sense, and the fact that it appears to be more common in the US and UK, led to the impression it was little-used in Australia.) Any of our other Aussie editors have input? The "US, UK" label should be dropped if the term is not regionally restricted. - -sche (discuss) 14:04, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Aussies may use the spelling diarrhoea, which is the spelling in New Zealand. DonnanZ (talk) 14:36, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I suspect Britain has been included in the label because diarrhoea has been treated as the poor relation and diarrhea as the main entry. Maybe (as diarrhoea) should be added after the label somehow. DonnanZ (talk) 14:52, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

I may have missed your point: I am sure sense 2 is used in NZ (and probably in Oz), so the label could be removed I think. DonnanZ (talk) 15:20, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

schreien and speien sie/wir past forms

The simple past wir/sie forms for speien and schreien (spieen and schrieen) seem to contradict both de.wiktionary and Duden (spien and schrien) I tried fixing this within the de-conj-strong template, but it appears this template will always generate spieen and schrieen. Does anyone know a workaround, or do I need to put the forms in manually using the de-conj template? 1998alexkane (talk) 21:43, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

@1998alexkane: Both are correct. According to § 19 of the pseudo-official rules from 1996, 2006: »Folgen auf -ee oder -ie die Flexionsendungen oder Ableitungssuffixe -e, -en, -er, -es, -ell, so lässt man ein e weg.
Das betrifft Wörter wie: die Feen; die Ideen; die Mondseer, des Sees; die Knie, knien; die Fantasien; sie schrien, geschrien; ideell; industriell.« The Duden website of course follows these pseudo-official rules (which they changed to sell more dictionaries), and German Wiktionary always was obsequious in following these alleged ”current” “rules” (conspired by some pedagogues) as was German Wikipedia. Fay Freak (talk) 21:57, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: Thanks, I'll add the both correct forms to the subjunctive forms (to put schreien in line with speien) as this is easily done, but if spieen and schrieen are considered correct, I'll leave them, since adding both would require entering in the whole conjugation in manually, it appears.1998alexkane (talk) 22:18, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, spieen/gespieen and schrieen/geschrieen were not considered correct before 1996, nor are they considered correct today, but there seems to have been a time between 1996 and 2006 when they were optional alternatives to spien/gespien and schrien/geschrien. I don't know how much actual use they saw in that time, though. They probably shouldn't be included in headword lines or inflection tables, but can have entries indicating their nonstandard status. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:09, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

@Fay Freak, Mahāgaja: At least according to a quick search I did through through the Google N-gram viewer, both forms appear to have frequent use in published writing, even today.1998alexkane (talk) 03:43, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

entzwei

@Lambiam, Fay Freak, Leasnam, et al.:

We do not really include this that much in our definition, but can't entzwei function as the equivalent of English "in twain"? It appears to be used that way in, for instance, Rumpelstiltskin. Tharthan (talk) 22:37, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

That would be a usable translation if it was not archaic. A more modern translation is “in two”, with the understanding that this means “divided into two parts” (which before formed a whole). Like most German adjectives, it can also be used as an adverb. The declension table should be removed; you cannot say *ein entzweies Männchen. A good usex and usage note may be in order.  --Lambiam 23:06, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, if you search “ein entzweier”, “ein entzweies” and the like, you see the colloquial and some dialects have often tried to use it attributively. Where one also uses zu, aus, durch, an etc. attributively. Eine zue Tür, ein durcher Käse etc., which is bare subliterary and sounds childisch but this is like the situation with adverbs in -weise, especially teilweise, a pattern which one now, though controversial hundred years ago, cannot but use particularly in formal writing: »Die klageweise Durchsetzung …«. Fay Freak (talk) 23:37, 20 October 2020 (UTC)

Lambiam complains about "in twain" being archaic, and yet Fay Freak used the Middle English word childisch above! :O Tharthan (talk) 01:32, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I saw that, which was caused by my writing German in between rather than being exposed to Middle English, but I reckoned it was not even worth a minor edit to drop that letter. Otherwise I of course embrace archaic, rare, and provincial words, we are in a dictionary. Fay Freak (talk) 02:05, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Stick

I was studying German via the German version of Cat Quest (logical, no?) and was greeted with "Nutzen den linker Stick um zu rennen!", or "use the left analog stick in order to run!" Except that Stick doesn't have any meaning besides USB-Stick. Is this a mistranslation or something missing from Wiktionary? stick offers Schaltknüppel (a schalt (to scold) Knüppel (cudgel)?) as a translation for the airplane control stick sense.--Prosfilaes (talk) 06:36, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

It is bad German anyway; it should be either “Nutzen Sie den linken Stick(?) um zu rennen!” or “Den linken Stick(?) nutzen um zu rennen!”. German Stick is a loanword from English; as far as I know it is not usual to use it in this sense, but a Schaltknüppel (literally “shift club”) is specifically the stick of a stick shift while for an airplane one has a Steuerknüppel (literally “steer club”). Neither is quite appropriate for a multi-functional analog stick, so I can imagine the translator loaning another sense from English. German Stick has many other uses already: [29], [30], [31]; all directly or indirectly borrowed.  --Lambiam 22:20, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Lambiam: Agreeing with your grammar here, but the word choice is also right; Stick is of utmost pervasion in this sense. Other computing senses also apply for this loanword, RAM-Stick and whatever. Steuerknüppel is also used for the stick on a gaming controller. Schaltknüppel – from schalten, @Prosfilaes – I consider strange in the sense of the stick on a gaming controller and do not find in such use, correspondingly. Fay Freak (talk) 22:34, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Cool, thanks. It does feel like German isn't covered as well as it should be for a major world language, but I'm not really the person to handle it.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:44, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Template:sv-adj-irreg

I wrote at the talk page, but it seems nobody has noticed, so I'll copy it here:

The template fails to show the correct definite plural form of words like "liten". If we look at the table here, we will draw the conclusion that the definite plural form of "liten" is "lilla" because that is what's put under "Definite" "All".

Should there be a separate row for the definite plural form? Otherwise if the definite plural form and the indefinite plural form are always the same, the "Plural" row should be moved out of the "Indefinite" group and the title of that row should be changed to "Plural Both" or something else that shows it is both for the definite and the indefinite.

Another question is the doc just says "write liten|litet|lille|lilla|små|mindre|minste|minsta|minsta|minst" without stating the order in which the forms should be written. Is the order really that obvious to native speakers? For instance there are two "minsta"s in the code but only one in the table. I can't think of why there are two of them.

I'm just a learner of Swedish. If these are silly questions, please point out but please don't laugh at me too hard. Thanks. --Betty (talk) 06:57, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't feel qualified to answer your first question, but the order in which the forms should be written is definitely not obvious to me as a native. Glades12 (talk) 17:32, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I've compared it with the template on sv.wiktionary and found theirs to be clearer and it also answered my question. There is just one plural form for both definite and indefinite. The order is clearly noted there. This is a pity because otherwise en.wiktionary.org is really a useful resource for learners since everything on sv.wiktionary.org is in Swedish and might be too difficult for learners. I'm clearly not qualified to change the template here. I hope someone else can do something. --Betty (talk) 13:14, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

World Wide Web

Would someone who is knowledgeable on the subject confirm if sense 2 of World Wide Web ("Internet resources that are retrieved by Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)") is distinct from sense 1 ("collectively, all of the web pages on the Internet stored in different computers around the world that hyperlink to each other and to other kinds of documents and media")? The term is due to be Word of the Day on 12 November 2020. — SGconlaw (talk) 09:36, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

• I think the second sense is wrong to the extent it differs from the first sense. Word Wide Web is formal. I might say web to describe any old HTTP request, but not World Wide Web. Unfortunately there's no time for a proper RFV before November 12. Informally, can anybody add citations showing the three word capitalized form being used in the second sense but not the first? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:31, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

In that case, I'll RFV sense 2 after 12 November. — SGconlaw (talk) 16:53, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I'd say that the first is technically wrong, at least in the modern world; most files are on the World Wide Web are accessed by HTTPS, not HTTP.--Prosfilaes (talk) 19:27, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Sgconlaw: The second sense must be wrong in so far as HTTP/HTTPS can be used for other purposes than the web. DNS over HTTPS, for example. Or one can use it in an intranet, so it is not worldwide. Etc. Although the primary reason HTTP has ever been developed is the WWW. I would merge the second into the first gloss as follows: […] hyperlink to each other and to other kinds of documents and media and are typically retrieved by the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)”. Respectively with HTTPs, as Prosfilaes said, if only for the sake of the “HTTPS everywhere” propaganda.

I note that the first definition is lacking since it contains the word “web (page)” which makes it circular. Fay Freak (talk) 22:48, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it is indeed presently highly circular, since the definition of World Wide Web hinges on "web pages", while the definition of web page hinges on "World Wide Web". Mihia (talk) 17:18, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

OK, I rephrased the definition based on @Fay Freak's suggestion and tried to reduce the circularity. Thanks all. — SGconlaw (talk) 18:51, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

confestly

confestly is labeled as an Obsolete form, but confest as archaic or poetic; isn't confestly also an archaic/poetic form ?

For Collins confest is an adjective --Backinstadiums (talk) 10:27, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Belarus vs Wit-Rusland

@Lingo Bingo Dingo, Hamaryns (pinged as active editors) If I'm not mistaken, this term is since past summer officially replaced by the term Belarus (Report of the change Official instance using the new name Motivation of the change). I'm not sure which lb-tag to give it, as it is still used by the majority of speakers. Colloquial? Informal? Obsolete? Just add a usage note? And I reckon the Dutch entry for the new name should be added as well, with the same sort of explanations. Thadh (talk) 13:00, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thadh Is there a statement of an official change? If there isn't I'd only add a usage note noting there is a small shift towards Belarus. Wit-Rusland and Belarus aren't included in the official spelling list (country names usually aren't included) but Wit-Rus and Wit-Russisch are included in the list. I wouldn't include those links as references. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 13:36, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Lingo Bingo Dingo: I couldn't find any statement. I've added a usage note on "Wit-Rusland" and created Belarus. I'm not sure if we ought to add a usage note to it as well. We still need the gender (probably feminine), pronunciation (/ˈbeːlarʏs/?) and good references/quotes. Could we use the ones above? Thadh (talk) 13:56, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thadh I think the usage note is very good; a similarly phrased one for Belarus would also be good. I don't think references are necessary and I'm not fond of using media style guides in entries; they're often prescriptivist and full of circular reasoning and tortured analogies (the Parool article is a good exhibit A).

I don't know whether /beː.laː.rʏs/ is stressed on the first or the final syllable. Are you sure it couldn't be /beː.laː.rus/?

Are you sure the gender is feminine? That is very unusual for country names in Dutch, in fact most of them are neuter (België, Zweden, Norwegen, Japan, China). ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 14:17, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

No, I'm very unsure about both the pronunciation and the gender; I've never heard the word being spoken out loud, and Dutch proper nouns don't have articles. I would assume the gender were feminine (as in Belarusian), but if België is neuter, it could be neuter as well. I'll try to compose a usage note on Belarus. Thadh (talk) 14:33, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

As far as I can tell the Dutch tendency to borrow gender along with a word seldom applies to names of countries, regions and settlements. Also consider Oekraïne, which used to be de Oekraïne but is neuter now most of the time. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 15:35, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Wait, if it was used with de, wouldn't that mean it is just a feminine noun without an article? Onzetaal suggests that it can still be used with the article, suggesting that it is feminine. Thadh (talk) 16:27, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thadh I'd say both are possible (google books:"het Oekraïne van", google books:"de Oekraïne van"), but the latter type seems to be receding (google books:"het nieuwe Oekraïne", google books:"de nieuwe Oekraïne") because bare de Oekraïne is officially proscribed. I only ever hear the neuter version in spoken language, but your experience may be different. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 16:38, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Lingo Bingo Dingo In my experience no-one knows the genders of the inanimate (proper) nouns, because these are almost exclusively referred to as het. With the common nouns, conclusions may be based on the article, but with proper nouns (not based on -land) the only possibility to know this for sure seems to be an official statement by a language-regulating institute. Thadh (talk) 16:49, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Thadh I'm speaking of definite articles, not pronouns, just to be clear. In my experience speakers in the Netherlands do generally get the definite articles of inanimate proper nouns 'right' (and Belgian speakers often do use masculine and feminine pronouns if applicable). I think this is more a case of language change (the general pattern for country names replacing an exception because of official deprecation of de Oekraïne) rather than people simply not knowing their stuff. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 16:41, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

私

This term defines itself as an alternative form of a number of other things which do not have entries (わっし, わっち, わたい, わちき, わて), and one which does have an entry but defines itself as a third thing which does not have an entry (e.g. あし which points to 悪し), creating chains reminiscent of #Italian_ratele_and_ratelo. Can I trouble one of our Japanese speakers (@TAKASUGI Shinji, Eirikr?) to create the missing entries? - -sche (discuss) 17:46, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

They are all dated dialectal pronouns. Actually, I haven’t seen those pronouns written as 私. They are always written in hiragana today. Maybe we have to see Nihon Kokugo Daijiten for the usage. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 21:30, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

@Poketalker added many of those in January. Looks like those readings are all listed for the 私 spelling in the aggregate page over at Kotobank, in the list of kana readings at the top of the page. Due to a badly done site redesign, it's a little difficult to read, but it appears that most of those readings are confirmed in the *Nihon Kokugo Daijiten* section there.

I don't have a good handle on which of these less-common forms is dated, archaic, obsolete, or dialectal. Shinji, I must bow to your greater savvy in this regard. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:11, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. You can see them on Goo Dictionary. The citations on Nihon Kokugo Daijiten rather show that they are not written with the kanji. — TAKASUGI Shinji (talk) 03:50, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I've made the stubs for the listed Hiragana entries. Feel free to improve. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 04:49, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

welfare cabin

Is it a new concept or a new name? I assume it's a portable building.

"HS2 Ltd is testing solar and hydrogen-powered welfare cabins at locations including Camden, West Ruislip and Uxbridge. The cabins provide a kitchen, seating area, separate toilet and changing room for workers, with electricity provided from a battery bank fed by a hydrogen fuel cell and solar panels." DonnanZ (talk) 23:21, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

One with a different purpose is described here: British Army communications and reconnaissance equipment#FAST welfare cabin DonnanZ (talk) 23:40, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

stoke

Etymology 1 and Etymology 2 are only trivially distinct. KYPark suggested that they be merged back in 2013 via the entry's talk page, though no one responded.

If merged, the new etymology section would simply have a line at its end saying "Senses other than 'poke, thrust' from a backformation of stoker".

Thoughts? Tharthan (talk) 23:50, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

I am not personally knowledgeable about this etymology, but if the present statement that ety 2 is "Ultimately the same word as above" is correct, I would advocate combining them. However, a similar discussion arose below with regard to "herd", whereby two meanings apparently came to modern English from the same ultimate source via different routes, where another editor (@Mahagaja) believes that these should have separate ety sections. I guess this sort of "reconvergence" is an awkward case to cater for. My personal view is that we should err on the side of combining ety sections for related words, and have them separate only for words unconnected in origin, but opinions may vary about how to measure or stipulate degrees of relatedness or connectedness. Mihia (talk) 17:06, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Btw, is the ety 1 sense, "To poke, pierce, thrust", obsolete? Mihia (talk) 17:23, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

w:neck dissection — meaning of dissection

Are we missing a sense at dissection#English that corresponds to the usage in the phrase w:neck dissection? As someone who is unfamiliar with medicine and medicinal terminology, I don't see how our definitions apply. —Suzukaze-c (talk) 06:56, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, there appears to be also a sense of a surgical procedure, seen also, for example, in w:Lymph node dissection, w:Axillary dissection, and w:Radical dissection. All uses I see refer to some surgical procedure for cutting away (the literal meaning of dis- +‎ section) anatomical material that threatens the patient's health.  --Lambiam 20:16, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

fräi (Transylvanian Saxon)

I'm not sure this should have the lb (Luxembourgish) code; I haven't come across a Transylvanian Saxon entry before. DonnanZ (talk) 09:44, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

If it's just about the code, then this would be the appropriate one: "gmw-tsx". If it's about the word itself, if you wish, I can go find out if it really is in their dialect (and spelled that way) and find quotes to support it. A few of my friends are Transylvanian Saxons. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 10:05, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

It appears to have been copied from the Luxembourgish by an IP on 14 October 2018, so I suspect it does need verification anyway. I came across it while doing etyl cleanups. DonnanZ (talk) 10:15, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Sounds interesting. I'll check it out when I can. Their dialect is actually a pretty cool sounding one. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 10:20, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@Donnanz, here's a song in Transylvanian Saxon: AFF DER HÜTT. There's a translation into High German as well. "De Plosk, den Pali hun mer derbäi, wun mir zein änt Geberch än der Fräi." => "Den Krug, den Schnaps hab'n wir dabei, wenn wir ziehn ins Gebirge in der Früh." (We have our beer mugs and our schnapps when we head out early into the mountains). In this forum a user says "tipp: du mal frai neeme von herde un hin faare" I'm not 100% certain but I think he said "Take a break from the stove and go there." I spent a few minutes looking but I haven't found any evidence that they spell the word for "free" that way ("fräi"). I saw something close for the Northern Transylvanian Saxon dialect written with å ("fråi"). It doesn't mean that the entry in the sense of "free" is wrong, though. I'll spend some more time checking when I get another opportunity. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 11:19, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I tried changing it to gmq-tsx, but got an error message. Wikipedia Transylvanian Saxon dialect doesn't give a language code. DonnanZ (talk) 11:36, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@Donnanz, did you try "gmw-tsx"? -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 11:42, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@Dentonius, Donnanz: I did; that works. I still wonder if it actually means "free" and not "early", though. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:43, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

@Mahagaja, I have a friend who's Transylvania Saxon. When he says freilich, it doesn't sound the way a High German speaker would say it. Maybe they were trying to capture that pronunciation difference with that spelling fräi. If I find out, I'll let you know :-) Maybe it means both. Maybe they're homonyms in Saxon. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 11:48, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I got gmw and gmq mixed up. Doh. DonnanZ (talk) 11:55, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Here's another instance of fräi. This time it means "wife": "Meng Fräi äs en häsich,awer ech hun mät den Kängden saxesch vu Geburt un gerièd"[32] -> My wife's Hessianfrom Germany but she I started speaking Saxon with the children as soon as they were born." -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 12:15, 22 October 2020 (UTC) [updated: Dentonius (my politics | talk) 16:28, 21 November 2020 (UTC)]

Oh help. It looks like this entry is "work in progress", needing further research. DonnanZ (talk) 12:39, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Indeed. I've only been paying attention to word sounds. Since we're dealing with the German writing system, fräi and Fräi are different. I guess we have this so far:

• frai (“free”)
• fräi (“early”), än der Fräi (“in the morning”)
• Fräi (“woman, wife”)

Any plans to update the entry later with proper sources? -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 13:09, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

There's probably no standardised way to write this but the word for "free" is "froa" (at least in Gârbova [German: Urwegen], Romania). -- 2A00:20:9021:EEC9:0:4E:CBF:1E01 12:39, 21 November 2020 (UTC) (Dentonius)

Update: I removed the Transylvanian Saxon fräi entry and created Fräi and froa instead. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 17:08, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

learned borrowing (different definitions)

From the entry: “A word or other linguistic form borrowed from a classical language [“An ancient language that has an independent tradition that arose mostly on its own, and has a large and rich body of ancient literature.”] into a modern language.”

From “Category:Learned borrowings by language”: “words that were directly incorporated from another language instead of through normal language contact.”

“Template:learned borrowing” links to the entry (e.g., on Dyeus, would apply to the definition in the category, not the one in the entry (as Proto-Indo-European does not have “a large and rich body of ancient literature”)). J3133 (talk) 14:06, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

This is a good question. Even if we don't consider a "learned borrowing" to be strictly limited to a "classical language", I think we should discuss whether we want to treat "taking a culture's (attested or presumed) native name for one of its specific people, deities, towns, etc, and using that name" to be a "learned borrowing" as opposed to just a way that names work. I mean, in the same vein as the references to Dyeus, I can find references to Citations:Wodanaz and Citations:Thunraz, and...virtually any other deity name, e.g. Kali, Budai, not to mention placenames. I don't think it's sensible to consider those all to be learned borrowings. And/but compare Category:English terms borrowed from Old English, should those be relabelled as learned borrowings? - -sche (discuss) 21:08, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

In the absence of other feedback, I broadened the entry to agree with the category. - -sche (discuss) 19:25, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

X out

(This one actually reminds of a 1989 video game, but anyway...) "(computing) To close a window (typically by clicking a button marked with an X symbol). When you have selected your desired settings, X out of the window and return to the document." I think this is problematic because when we say "X out of the window" we aren't saying "X out; and more specifically, X out of the window", we are rather saying "X" (click the cross button) "and more specifically X out of the window". We seem to be breaking up the "out of" here in a way that doesn't really make sense. Thoughts? Equinox ◑ 16:33, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I might add BTW that I have never ever heard anybody say this, as an intensive computer user since the mid-'80s. But I assume it's not made up...? That's not what I'm asking anyway. Equinox ◑ 16:34, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I know "X out" from my own dialect as "to cross out" or "to check off". I'm not sure if it's standard English. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 17:09, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, that's sense 1 in the entry (and I've seen it in mainstream dictionaries); I am only challenging sense 2 here. Equinox ◑ 17:15, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I really always have understood it as "X out" and more specifically "of the window." Sentences like "Make sure to X out before you leave your computer" sound correct to me. Imetsia (talk) 17:39, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Maybe people misunderstood the sound of "exit". (OK I can't really believe that.) This isn't an RFV, just a discussion. I'm now thinking about how people sometimes describe cancelling as "backing out", so you could say either "back out of the Network Settings dialogue box" or just "back out and click OK". Maybe it's fine. Equinox ◑ 19:02, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Imetsia's "Make sure to X out before you leave your computer" is a fine / typical usage in my experience, though apparently it's informal or uncommon enough that it doesn't get very many hits even on a Google web search. Both "to X out the window" and "to X out of the window" also get hits on Google, and I added one book hit of the latter. I also see one relevant book hit for "Xed the window" without "out". "Close out" seems to be used similarly, e.g. from a book of fiction "as he went to close out of the page, he thought about entering the phone number that David had written down", while a different book has "she shook her head and went to close out the page". - -sche (discuss) 20:35, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

At the risk of expanding this into God knows what, I do think off and out can be stuck on any number of verbs, one would think to indicate some kind of finality, but sometimes perhaps just for euphony. Equinox ◑ 20:53, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, I expect that's the origin of the "out" here. Should we make bare X the lemma and just point "X out" to it? Maybe, I'm not sure. - -sche (discuss) 21:09, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I have never heard of this, but assuming it does exist, "Make sure to X out before you leave your computer" would be a valid example of the phrase "X out". As Equinox says, the existing "X out of the window" is not a valid example because this is not "X out + of ~" but "X + out of ~" (or "X out of ~" if you prefer). — This unsigned comment was added by Mihia (talk • contribs) at 10:40, 24 October 2020 (UTC).

sync. postsync supposed inflections with -h-

Our entries for sync. postsync offer inflections with -h- e.g. synching, postsynching. I think this is wrong: rather, there is a whole alternative lemma form synch, postsynch which has those forms, and those forms do not belong to the h-less lemma. What do people think? How can we prove it? Equinox ◑ 16:37, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

At Google Books syncs correlates with syncing/synced rather than with synching/synched (which correlates a little more closely with "synchs"). I think that is enough cause to remove the h-forms from sync. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 16:53, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

auderis*

Is this an alternative form of audīris? Dngweh2s (talk) 19:20, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

tillage

I remember reading that in English, double consonants are hyphenated from the middle (e.g. split‧ting), but tillage is listed here as hyphenated till‧age. Is this correct, and if so, why? I'd understand if it were pronounced /ˈtɪleɪdʒ/ (a compound of till + age), but this doesn't seem to be the case. Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 20:33, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

No, it should be til·lage. However, if a verb ends in a double consonant, then the syllable break comes after the double consonant before -ing, thus till·ing. But that doesn't apply to -age. —Mahāgaja · talk 20:49, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I didn't know this and I would have gone for till·age. However, I'm not a professional editor or anything. Are you working from a particular style book? Equinox ◑ 20:51, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I've actually never successfully found hyphenation rules in a manual of style. I just go by what I see in dictionaries. That said, I just checked AHD and Merriam-Webster and they both say till·age, so I guess I have to take back what I said above! —Mahāgaja · talk 06:48, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

As I generally favour hyphenation based on etymology where reasonable, I would say till·age is preferable. However, in cases where etymology isn’t significant, I agree that the hyphen should be placed between the repeated letters (for example, Mis·sis·sip·pi). — SGconlaw (talk) 09:05, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Hyphenation based on etymology can be taken too far, though. Before the 1996 spelling reform, the normative German hyphenation for Helikopter was He·li·ko·pter on the grounds that the Greek roots were ἑλικο- (heliko-) and πτερόν (pterón), which is just silly. I certainly hope no one recommends he·li·co·pter for the English word! —Mahāgaja · talk 09:48, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I suppose there will always be some words that will have to be treated as exceptions to the general rule. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:31, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I think we can distinguish between words formed from English components and words formed in or based on other languages. I would hyphenate "tillage" as "till·age" because it is derived from a readily recognizable English word. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:58, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

herd

There are duplicate definitions for herd, in particular the verb senses "To unite or associate in a herd" in Etymology 1, and " To form or put into a herd" in Etymology 2. I was gonna merge them myself, but couldn't decide which was a better place for them. There might even be a case for lumping the etymology sections together, you know. --Candle-holding servant (talk) 13:34, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

In my opinion, separate top-level ety headings should be used only in cases where words are not closely related in origin (or, I guess, where they ultimately have the same origin but have diverged in meaning over a long period of time to the extent that there seems no connection at all in the minds of modern speakers). This does not seem to be the case here, so probably the ety 1 and ety 2 sections should be merged. Unfortunately this does not seem completely trivial to do with no ety knowledge, especially as both sections contain senses for the same PoSes, otherwise I would do it. Mihia (talk) 10:07, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I mentioned it also at Wiktionary:Etymology_scriptorium/2020/October#herd. Mihia (talk) 10:09, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I think it's OK to have separate etymologies for the "group of animals" sense and the "herdsman" sense; after all, they come from different Old English and Proto-Germanic nouns. As for the verb, Etymology 2 verb sense 2 should be deleted as it's redundant to Etymology 1 verb sense 1 and almost certainly comes from the "group of animals" sense. However I don't know if the verb is older than Modern English; maybe someone with access to the OED could look and see how old the verb is. If the verb goes back to Middle English or Old English, then that's an argument for a new etymology section for the verb. And I'm skeptical about Etymology 2 verb sense 1 "to act as a herdsman", as I suspect that's really nothing but the Etymology 1 sense "to unite or associate in a herd" used with an implied direct object, e.g. "What does your husband do for a living?" "He herds" (= "He herds animals"). —Mahāgaja · talk 10:53, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Ety 1 says from "from Proto-Germanic *herdō (“herd”)", while ety 2 says "from Proto-Germanic *hirdijaz". However, the linked Reconstruction:Proto-Germanic/hirdijaz says that "hirdijaz" itself is "derived from Proto-Germanic *herdō (“herd”)." So doesn't that mean that all the words ultimately have the same origin? Mihia (talk) 13:25, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Sure, they're ultimately from the same root, but they're two different words. It's little more than coincidence that the modern English words are homonyms. (After all, the German cognates Herde and Hirt aren't.) —Mahāgaja · talk 14:05, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

If words with the same origin and closely connected meanings have the same spelling in English, as is apparently the case with "herd", the fact that there may be other languages where spelling has diverged does not seem especially relevant to me. There are probably numerous examples of words where different PoS or polysemous senses have acquired different spellings in other languages but not in English, where we nevertheless treat the English word under one etymology. Mihia (talk) 14:20, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm not saying there should be two etymology sections because they're different words in German. I'm saying there should be two etymology sections because, etymologically speaking, herd (“group of animals”) and archaic/dialectal herd (“herdsman”) are not one polysemous word, but two distinct words that coincidentally happen to spelled and pronounced the same, the fact that the Proto-Germanic ancestor of one was derived from the Proto-Germanic ancestor of the other notwithstanding. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:11, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

To me it seems somewhat implausible that these two words, that are from the same ultimate origin, and that are also closely related in meaning, could be coincidentally spelled and pronounced the same. However, if you think that their development paths really are distinct enough to merit separate etymology sections, fair enough. Mihia (talk) 16:42, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

It's not those other languages where the spelling has diverged, it's English where the spelling has converged - big difference. They are and were two different words with separate (but admittedly related) histories spanning a few thousand years, and ultimately deriving from a distant common root. I agree with Mahagaja they should be kept separate. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 15:22, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Izmir

I am inclined to think the usage note is of little relevance to users of the English word, and remove it. You could have similar notes on every other Turkish town with this i, countless German towns with umlauts in their names, etc. Thoughts? - -sche (discuss) 22:00, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• You don't need to go to the land of the umlauts. Consider Paris (/ˈpæɹ.ɪs/) vs. Paris (/pa.ʁi/). Or Berlin (English word for city in German) vs. Berlin (English word for towns named after the city) vs. Berlin (German word). Foreign words are rarely homophones with English words. (But amusing to me, a native Mandarin speaker tells me Swedish ske (/ɧeː/) is close enough to Mandarin 回 (huí) except for the missing tone.) Vox Sciurorum (talk) 22:49, 23 October 2020 (UTC)
• By that logic, every English spelling based on Ancient Greek that has an "e" or "o" for "η" or "ω" is "technically incorrect", because Ancient Greek "Ε" and "Ο" are different letters. For that matter, it's not too far of a stretch to say that İzmir is "technically incorrect" in the same way because it's not spelled Σμύρνᾱ (Smúrnā) or Σμύρνη (Smúrnē). This is typical Doremítzwr prescriptive fussiness. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:55, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

OK, I dropped the note. We might also look at whether İskenderun should really be the main spelling, or Iskenderun. (That one is not a Doremítzwr entry.) - -sche (discuss) 23:59, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

The spelling “Iskenderun” is far more common in English sources, just like “Istanbul”, ”Iznik”, and so on.  --Lambiam 10:39, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

quote at groundlaying

The quote comes from a book called Computer Science and its author is not mentioned. It's published by Pediapress, and so that (I assume) means its contents were created by the Wikipedia community. Could be valid, but I thought I'd flag it anyway. --Candle-holding servant (talk) 08:52, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

[33] [34] —Suzukaze-c (talk) 08:57, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

In that case the quotation should be removed, as Wikipedia is not a permitted source for verification. — SGconlaw (talk) 09:00, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Usage note at Frisian

In Frisian, the usage note starts as follows: "Some linguists consider West Frisian, Saterland Frisian, and North Frisian to be varieties of a single language called “Frisian”." Without wanting to start a semantic debate about dialects and languages, isn't this a minority view among linguists? A significant amount of texts on Google Books that have the "one-language" view seem to be by non-specialists. (Some texts also mention Old Frisian, in which case the referent of "Frisian language" becomes less clear, or seem to call both the lect group and the three major lects languages.) ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 17:23, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

our definition of copular verbs

Recently I've been working on adding things to Category:English copulative verbs (which, by the way, I think has the wrong name, but I'm not going to create a request to move it right now). According to my understanding, the requirements for a verb to be copular are that it has to be able to take an adjective as its complement. I'm wondering whether you guys think that ditransitive verbs that can take an adjective complement qualify as copular (e.g., "make America great", "fear him dead", or even "my lost city, wrapped cool in its mystery and promise" (from F. Scott Fitzgerald's "My Lost City")). I'd say you could make an argument either way, but another possibility is that these can only be copular in the passive voice (wrapped cool, feared dead). I'm not really sure here; anyone have any thoughts? —Globins (yo) 22:45, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

I suspect that the set of "copulative" verbs might spiral out of control if examples such as "wrapped cool" are counted. Mihia (talk) 00:13, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree; that one seems like a neologistic use. But I'm not really sure what I think for ones people actually use. —Globins (yo) 00:29, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

As far as I have found, the "ditransitive" cases do not appear on other lists of copular verbs, and I don't recall ever seeing them described as such. I don't think we should add these to our category unless we can find significant authorities that do classify them as copular, such as recognised English grammar books or dictionaries. Mihia (talk) 17:57, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

astripotent quote

Source is given as MS. Harl. 2551. Couldn't track it down. WTFDPUAA? Candle-holding servant (talk) 23:07, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

See this and De re militari. It's a Latin manuscript that was formerly in the Harleian library. The manuscript itself obviously doesn't contain the quote, since it's in Latin, so it will be a matter of figuring out which translation it comes from. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:41, 24 October 2020 (UTC)

Are you sure it's all Latin? The Lydgate canon by Henry Noble MacCracken (1908) [35] lists it as a "a doggerel poem from Harley 2251." Likewise, it shows up as a title in Bibliographia poetica: a catalogue of Engleish poets of the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth, centurys, with a short account of their works by Joseph Ritson (1802) [36].--Prosfilaes (talk) 05:19, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

class up the joint

Is this an idiom? 2A02:2788:A6:935:70B4:B094:6C9C:8738 12:00, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

No, though class up might be. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:35, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

class up is definitely worth having, meaning "make more classy or sophisticated" Candle-holding servant (talk) 13:28, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

gin Scots quotation

Hey, sorry if I'm in the wrong place, but I saw the Scots quote for gin and it looks like an English quote transliterated into Scots, as it uses English grammar rather than Scots grammar (war instead of wis for example) CiphriusKane (talk) 17:30, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

It's as good a place as any. I don't know much about Scots, but I do notice that it was added in this edit by an anonymous editor whose IP address geolocates to a university in Wales. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:11, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

LOLWUT

The pear with a mouth is clearly awesome, yes. Not sure about the durably-archivedness of the quotes, though. Kn I hav klinup plz? Candle-holding servant (talk) 19:41, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

ov. abbrev'd q #2

For those who enjoyed the last round of "WTF cite abbrv?", here's the latest entry. At line we have one from Quart. Sess. Rec. in N. R. Rec. Soc. 25 points for the first one who gets it. Candle-holding servant (talk) 13:26, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

• Quarter sessions records, North Riding Record Society. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 13:55, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
  • I dated the quotation as 1890. Now I suspect that is the date text written in the 18th century was reprinted.[37] Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:04, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

banana-shaped

Aren't words like banana-shaped, mushroom-shaped, leaf-shaped, and so on (I counted 21 in total) obviously SOP, or am I missing something? Imetsia (talk) 15:02, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

See also Talk:kidney-shaped#kidney-shaped.  --Lambiam 16:37, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

All "X-shaped" definitions that contain no more information than "shaped like X" -- leaf-shaped = "Having the shape of a leaf" being a blatant example -- should be deleted per the vote on applying SoP rules to hyphenated compounds. The cases where "X-shaped" gives more information about a conventionally associated shape -- heart-shaped could be an example --are potentially more tricky. My opinion is that a conventional or traditional shape is a property of the noun itself, e.g. of "heart", and can be referred to outside the "-shaped" compound, most obviously in a phrase such as "shaped like a heart", and thus it should be explained at the main article not at a "-shaped" derivative. Mihia (talk) 22:10, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

southern

I'm having difficulty believing that Canadians pronounce this /ˈsaʊðɚn/ (i.e. so the first syllable rhymes with how, now, and cow). —Mahāgaja · talk 21:15, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

This thread has a speaker from Toronto saying he pronounces "southern" with the same sound as "south" (as do, apparently, a few other people from southern Ontario), but the context is him finding out and other posters agreeing that his pronunciation is unusual. - -sche (discuss) 22:00, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Wow. That thread says "Wikipedia mentions it", and I found it in the history of a page that's now a redirect to an article that doesn't mention it. At any rate, our label needs to be considerably narrower than "{{a|Canada}}" as if it were the normal pronunciation in the whole country. —Mahāgaja · talk 22:20, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Although I have heard /ˈsʌðɚn/ before, it sounds somewhat strange to me. I'm not sure if I've heard /ˈsaʊðɚn/ before (I think I've heard some Americans say something like /ˈsaðɚn/), but I would associate it with an American, not a Canadian accent if I did. In Alberta, I only ever remember hearing the word pronounced with a diphthong except in fast speech: /sʌʊðɚn/. I also haven't specifically paid attention to the word either. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:53, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I was just watching a Canadian YouTuber from Toronto, and sure enough, he said /ˈsaʊðɚn/. (I'm using /aʊ/ very broadly here to stand for any form of the mouth vowel, so I'm not saying it's specifically [aʊ] and not [ʌʊ] or [əʊ].) —Mahāgaja · talk 16:05, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

κρήναι

In what dialect is κρήναι the nominative plural of κρήνη? Dngweh2s (talk) 22:49, 26 October 2020 (UTC)

AFAIK none of the ancient ones. It looks like an anachronistically monotonic spelling of κρῆναι (krênai). Where did you come across it? —Mahāgaja · talk 07:51, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

primate

Etymology 2 - Noun (def. 1) seems to be missing its tail. "claimed by the sees of certain" Not sure of a handy way to scroll through all changes history to find the original text and retrieve it if there ever was one. 2804:7F0:3883:3A:D101:E456:5081:EFDF 00:04, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Fixed. Do a binary search and you find the change in logarithmic time instead of linear. Still, it would be nice if wiki software had the "blame" function of version control systems, showing next to each line the edit in which it first appeared in current form. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 00:41, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Can we all take a moment to appreciate the pun of primate missing its tail? —Mahāgaja · talk 09:33, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I couldn't make head or tails of it either. Hal MMII (talk) 12:24, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

It looks to me as if w:WP:WikiBlame will work with any Mediawiki Wiki, but I don't know what you have to do to get it to. --ColinFine (talk) 19:55, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

For the English Wiktionary, just enter wiktionary in the field labelled “Project”. Or click the button “from url” and enter the url (such as https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/primate).  --Lambiam 01:08, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

still less

LESS adverb (a comparative of  little with  least as superlative)
2. [much/still + ~] To say nothing of:
I could barely pay for my own meal, much less hers.
https://www.wordreference.com/definition/less

--Backinstadiums (talk) 08:41, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

So add it as a synonym already! Hal MMII (talk) 12:22, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

enumberation

Hello,

Is this word synonymous with enumeration? Reptilien.19831209BE1 (talk) 10:44, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

• Looks like a spelling mistake to me. SemperBlotto (talk) 11:05, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

/nʌm vs nu:m/ would avoid spelling mistakes; maybe rather a typo --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:58, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Enumberation occurs with less than 0.01% the frequency of enumeration at Google N-Grams. DCDuring (talk) 17:34, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Castleisland

The programming of Category:English words not following the I before E except after C rule cannot be very intelligent if it records compound words like Castleisland. I think this category should be added manually rather than automatically, as automatic generation creates too many false entries to it. DonnanZ (talk) 13:59, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Can the categorization be overridden? It would be nice to have our cake (automatic categorization for the vast majority of cases) and eat it too (manual correction of errors in errors in the automatic categorization). Such correction should not require editing a module, which requirement would deny us the benefit of being a wiki that allows casual users to make corrections. DCDuring (talk) 16:42, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm guessing it should be possible to create a template that can be placed in an entry but which generates no visible output, and to update the module which does the categorization to exclude entries with that template. — SGconlaw (talk) 19:14, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

If you read the category's description, then you'll see that Castleisland belongs into it. For the "general rule" (i.e. a simplified, incorrect, dumb rule) Castleisland is an exception. --19:21, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

If it was written as Castle Island instead of Castleisland, which is feasible but not the way the town's name is spelt, it would not be in the category. That's now stupid its inclusion is. DonnanZ (talk) 19:42, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Something like a tag |norule=1, to cover the E before I category as well - is that possible/feasible? @Erutuon DonnanZ (talk) 20:03, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

The norule= option would not allow casual users (not familiar with the workings of templates, modules, etc) to make the correction, if indeed we mostly think this instance is a mistake. But it is better than a table of exceptions buried in a module. DCDuring (talk) 23:45, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Having an extra template doesn't buy you anything- whether it's a parameter or a file, you still have to learn about it the same way. Having them separate increases the complexity and the number of ways things can go wrong. It also means that the main module has to fetch the entry wikitext, which is an expensive operation, and expend time and memory looking for the other template- extra cost for no extra benefit. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:01, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I take it that the category membership emerges from the bowels of a module use by all English headword templates. I wonder how many terms are undesirably placed in this category. The category talk page makes it seem that several classes of the exceptions seem trival and unhelpful to observers, eg, the -ing forms, ageing, seeing, being etc., Latin, Greek and scientific terms with diaeresis, and so on.

• As it stands, this category is totally stupid. Just delete it. Mihia (talk) 23:55, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

  Deletion would be proposed at WT:RFDO. I wouldn't miss it. DCDuring (talk) 07:03, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I am not against this category or its counterpart Category:English words following the I before E except after C rule, I merely want to remove all the entries that they weren't intended for, but with automatic generation find their way into them. This is why I suggested disabling automatic generation and a reversion to manual category addition (if that was the case before). The downside is manually adding a category name with a long title, a lot of writing. DonnanZ (talk) 10:23, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Absolutely clear out all the crap such as "bird fancier's lung" and "beinglessness". Mihia (talk) 15:02, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Could someone come up with rules on exactly how to characterize "all the crap", preferrably in a way that could be readily implemented in Lua? Or do we need a crap=1 parameter for all headword templates? And then what do we do when we find other instances of erroneous automatic categorization in these headword templates? DCDuring (talk) 17:21, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I think there are so many exceptions that it would be quite difficult to program these into the module: see "w:I before E except after C". It is probably easier to allow editors to manually exclude the categorization, or have a separate discussion to rethink whether the categories serve any useful purpose. — SGconlaw (talk) 17:35, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Manually suppressing there particular categorizations would require two separate named parameters, wouldn't it? Or are we stuck with using {{head|en}} and manually adding [[Category:English lemmas]]? DCDuring (talk) 20:55, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

How is the categorization determined in the first place? Which module is doing it, and on what basis is it operating? — SGconlaw (talk) 11:57, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Someone must know. I tried pinging Erutuon (further up) without response. The way I see it, any means of decategorisation would have to be added to the PoS; I tried nocat=1 but that isn't designed to work there, if it did work there it would probably suppress the wrong category. DonnanZ (talk) 13:23, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

It's in Module:en-headword, lines 68-73, and it's relatively simple to add a 'don't categorize parameter'. But the module is locked so someone with permissions would have to do it. —Enosh (talk) 14:34, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I think it is unreasonable to expect editors to have to manually disable this categorisation when they create an "ie" entry such as "bird fancier's lung" -- or even to know that the category exists and that disabling it is something that they might want to do. It would be better to have it off by default (oo-er) and allow it to be manually specified by anyone who cares, but making this dubious or low-value categorisation editor-visible in the "headword" template seems to me to risk making much too big a deal of it. If we are to make it manually user-specifiable I would prefer that to be via the "[[Category: ...]]" method. I think it would be hard to reliably automate an "is this a sensible example?" check. I suppose rejecting words over a certain length and multi-word phrases would be a blunt way of eliminating some of the crap. By the way, if the automatic categorisation (i.e. those lines 68-73 in the module) was deleted, would the existing contents of the category automatically disappear? Mihia (talk) 18:22, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

To start, let's add a test to the appropriate lines excluding all words with spaces or hyphens. If I understand the universe correctly, changes to modules cause regeneration of pages in the background and it may take a while to regenerate all English words. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:55, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

This just postpones the necessary decisions. We know what the outcome of that change will be, though we don't know exactly how long it will take. The change also does not even cover the annoying case at hand, nor most of the others that have been raised.

Are there any currently active users who believe in the utility of this category? DCDuring (talk) 20:10, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Kill it with fire. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 20:14, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

And words from other languages, e.g. Cynheidre. We can't pretend Welsh is English. DonnanZ (talk) 00:10, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

• I have RfDed the category here. A successful RfD would make this discussion moot. DCDuring (talk) 00:25, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

mannlein, Männlein

Is the pronunciation actually consistent between both forms?

Is Männlein really usually /ˈmænlaɪn/? Or is it actually /ˈmɛnlaɪn/?

And, if Männlein is actually /ˈmɛnlaɪn/, then is mannlein presumably /ˈmænlaɪn/?

Is the stress the most common one in English for whichever form? Is it /ˈm[V]nlaɪn/ or actually /m[V]nˈlaɪn/? Tharthan (talk) 15:41, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

BUMP. Tharthan (talk) 18:50, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

anodyze/yse/ize/ise

I came across an interesting word, such as exemplified by these quotations:

"In general, women in childbirth necessarily are unprotected, but it is the practice to anodyze this experience as much as possible." [38]

"For the government, it was a simple matter to anodyze the state-controlled television and radio transmissions, and reduce the reporting of social or economic problems to a minimum, more generally simply keep them off the air completely." [39]

"It was one of those moments when Himsha loathed her father and all he stood for: the sentimental Quaker mollification that had anodized her all through her childhood." [40]

It seems to be used to mean "make anodyne", as far as I can tell. Is this a real word or just a blunder? Mihia (talk) 20:59, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Webster's Third only knows anodize with the metallurgical meaning that we also have. It doesn't list any verb derived from anodyne. If anodyze exists, it seems to be very rare. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:09, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

As a neologism, it ignores the etymological composition of the word anodyne (a(n)- + odunē). There is no law against, say, trying to coin prefize as a verb meaning “to make into a preface”, but some people might flinch.  --Lambiam 01:02, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Yeah. If they had asked me, I would have coined anodynify. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:04, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

German syllabification request: Husten

Can the syllabification of Husten be added? Dngweh2s (talk) 22:38, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Done (for both Husten and husten). -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 22:51, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

awe Caribbean pronoun: we, us, our.

awe, a-wee, ahwee o ah we (Mid-20th century. Contraction of all + we) Can somebody confirm this? --Backinstadiums (talk) 09:34, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

According to Richard Allsopp, editor (1996), Dictionary of Caribbean English Usage, Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, published 2003, →ISBN, page 51: a-we (a'we, awee) [ˈawi] Cr pron (Antg, Guyn, Mrat) [AF—Cr] See A(LL)-WE. The Cr form a-we-dis, with the focused sense 'we, not including you/them' (cp ah-we-ya (Antg)) survives only among rural, often East Indian, folk in Guyn. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 09:48, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Is this really Caribbean English? Or is it a word in one or more English-lexified Caribbean creole languages? —Mahāgaja · talk 11:37, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if this will be a satisfactory answer for you, but here goes: As regards the word awe, I can't speak to that one since it isn't used in my variety of Jamaican Creole. I accept that the Allsopps did a good job of documenting its existence. We Creole speakers don't view things as: this is English; this is Creole. It's just one smooth continuum. We perceive standard English as simply one of the registers we can choose from. Or, to put it another way, standard English is a subset of what we speak. Our words don't belong exclusively to the basilect or the acrolect. They belong to both. Does that help? -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 13:13, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

phytoplasm

Is phytoplasm an alternative form of phytoplasma, a common mistake (perhaps from confusion with cytoplasm), or a different word altogether? I came across it in Voltairine de Cleyre (1914 or earlier); the sense isn't particularly clear from her use but there are some uses where it's seemingly synonymous with phytoplasma ([41], [42], [43]). The Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English, though, via wordreference.com, has a different definition that also makes sense. Arms & Hearts (talk) 21:32, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

• I think your Voltairine de Cleyre link matches the wordreference.com meaning (plant equivalent of cytoplasm). Most hits in the scientific literature refer to bacteria and are probably the same as phytoplasma. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 22:34, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

voice verify

How'd I do? — This unsigned comment was added by 2600:1700:9758:7d90:75fd:ada7:36e0:90e7 (talk) at 02:31, 29 October 2020 (UTC).

The formatting looks fine, but I think the entry may not meet our criteria for inclusion as it looks sum-of-parts – it appears to mean no more than to verify with a voice. — SGconlaw (talk) 11:54, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm undecided as to whether it's SOP, but I am pretty sure it's a back-formation from voice verification, and that it's more general than the current definition. Voice verification is just any way of verifying one's identity by means of one's voice, not just by phone and not just in online dating. —Mahāgaja · talk 18:44, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

No test that you wouldn't have had done before

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nm6Xaxvqd0 (minute 3:20)

Is this sentence grammatical? There's no idiom such as would (not) have or have done. What about No test you hadn't had done before? --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:25, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

@Backinstadiums: It's a noun phrase, not a sentence, but it's grammatical in my dialect (which is not the same dialect as the speaker in that video), as is no test you hadn't had done before. I'm not even sure what's throwing you off here. The double negative? —Mahāgaja · talk 11:46, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

@Mahagaja Apparently No test that you won't have had done before is also a variant. Do both will and would work in the positive, A test you will/would surely have already had done? --Backinstadiums (talk) 12:04, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

You've asked the same question about "would" before. It's like Talk:would#IDIOM:_I_wouldn't_know. Equinox ◑ 12:10, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

If it helps to understand this, the verb have as used here in have done is not the auxiliary verb, taking a past participle to form the perfect aspect (sense 8), but a full verb, used in combination with an adjectival phrase as a causative (sense 15). In the first case (auxiliary), the subject of “having done something” is the same as who or what did it – which already happened. In the second case (causative), the subject of “having something done” (note the different word order) is not the same as who will do it (as in a sentence like “I hear she will have her hair done in Paris”) or did it (as in “I hear she has had her hair done in Paris”), but hopefully a good, although expensive, hairdresser.  --Lambiam 15:06, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

™ (sense 2)

The definition as given is insufficient. It is far too broad to clarify anything for the reader.

In my experience, the jocular Web usage is supposed to bring to mind slogans and catchphrases that companies use for their products (plenty of which have been misleading or even false).

For instance, if someone refused to enter into the partisan political fray in their divided country after a request on social media for comment, and said:

"I tire of people on one side or the other labelling those who disagree with them as Liberal™ or Conservative™, irrespective of what they identify as politically, as almost a sort of slur and/or dogwhistle meant to signal to some observers that one's ideological others are to be ignored and their views written off as invalid, on the grounds that they are 'one of those people'."

...then the connotation (in the statement) would be that those labels were being applied in the way that a business might utilise their trademarks in a commercial or on its official website.

As for the connotation in the first usage example of the sense, I would interpret that as being almost akin to casual usage of quotation marks. In other words, "they tell me I should get my delivery ‘soon’ " would mean roughly the same thing. Perhaps the trademark also is supposed to bring to mind phrases often used in commercials that are intended to lead potential customers to be confident in a company, such as "100% money back guarantee".

So, again, my primary concern is that the definition as is is far too broad and unclear. I don't think that it does much at all to assist someone who is looking up ™ here in discerning what that modern slang sense of ™ means.

Thoughts? Tharthan (talk) 21:19, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

BUMP. Tharthan (talk) 18:49, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

It does have a broad meaning, possibly divisible into lightly humorous and derogatory senses. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:17, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

vowel in Arabic Saud, Saudi

The Standard Arabic for Saud and Saudi surely has fathah /a/ on the first consonant, giving our spelling with A. On 29 September 2019 an IP (their first edit) changed the fathah to dammah /u/ twice in the English etymology, and accordingly added the proper name Saud (without however transliterating it) to سعود, under a verbal noun which is (I presume correctly) vocalized [suʕu:d]. I would just revert this if it was just this IP, but under سعودي, all the fathat were changed to dammat on 7 July 2016 (considerably earlier) by Wikitiki89 (talk • contribs), who has ar-2. The Wikipedia main article on Saudi Arabia has /a/, but the article on House of Saud has /u/ (in fact [ʊ]).

So either an error in Wiktionary has propagated by people using it to 'correct' other sources, or there is a local Saudi pronunciation with /u/, which should be mentioned alongside MSA /a/ in some places. I don't know enough Arabic to decide, so could an acknowledged/admitted expert please make the necessary changes? --Hiztegilari (talk) 07:43, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Pinging User:Fenakhay, who speaks Arabic. - -sche (discuss) 21:39, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

@-sche, Hiztegilari: Thanks for the ping. If you check the edit history of the entries السَّعُودِيَّة (as-saʕūdiyya) and الْمَمْلَكَة الْعَرَبِيَّة السَّعُودِيَّة (al-mamlaka(t) al-ʕarabiyya(t) as-saʕūdiyya), I've been edit-warring with a Saudi Arabian IP who deletes the pronunciation with /a/. Both pronunciations are correct but the common one is with /a/. You'll only hear the other one in the Arabian peninsula or if you want to pronounce it as they do. Cheers. فين أخاي (talk) 21:54, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Arabic Textbooks and Hans Wehr dictionary only use /u/ but since Fenakhay says /a/ is also valid, we should keep it. Interesting that three out of four native speakers (top 4) at https://forvo.com/word/السعودية/ pronounce /as.sa.ʕuː.dij.ja/ and only one says /as.su.ʕuː.dij.ja/. --Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 01:57, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

next noun seems wrong

"The one that follows after this one." Examples given: 1. "Next, please, don't hold up the queue!" I think this is elliptical for "next person"; compare "which paint do you want? / red, please". 2. "...hauling myself from one place to the next". Evidently the adjective, like "mixing the light colours with the dark". So is it really a noun at all? (And if it is as claimed, why no plural "nexts"?) Equinox ◑ 14:22, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

http://oed.com/oed2/00157636 --Backinstadiums (talk) 15:29, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

I guess fundamentally this is similar to the examples at Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion/English#sick. Mihia (talk) 11:15, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Latin pelvis

Vōx Latīna (second edition, p. 75) says the length of the e in pelvis is long, but Wiktionary says it's short (presumably based on Lewis & Short's Elementary Latin Dictionary). I don't know how to cite Vōx Latīna or how to deal with conflicting accounts. I also don't know what primary source Vōx Latīna is using for this claim. How should I handle this? Jackpaulryan (talk) — This unsigned comment was added at 18:49, 30 October 2020 (UTC).

same with vēxī (<vehō). Jackpaulryan (talk) — This unsigned comment was added at 22:03, 30 October 2020 (UTC).

Langenscheidt also has pēlvis and vēxī. It isn't really a matter of conflicting accounts; L&S simply doesn't mark the length of vowels in closed syllables, because they only care about vowel length with regard to the scansion of poetry. So they aren't saying whether the vowel is short or long by nature, because all they care about is the fact that it's "long by position" either way. We can go ahead and add the length marks, I think. —Mahāgaja · talk 22:30, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

The full L&S doesn't mark vowel length in closed syllables, but the Elementary version makes an effort to (e.g., they mark long vowels in āctus/a/um,, mālle, mārs, etc.). However, Elementary Latin Dictionary sometimes marks long vowels where there is no real evidence of a long vowel having being present, and they erroneously believed all vowels before gn to have been long. Jackpaulryan (talk) — This unsigned comment was added at 00:55, 24 November 2020 (UTC).

en-, em- before 'm'

en- says "Before labial consonants (b, m and p), the form em- is used instead, to show the assimilation of place of articulation (but note the exception enmesh)." em- says much the same thing.
But while em- is indeed regular in front of b and p, it is not used in front of m: looking at CAT:English words prefixed with en-, CAT:English words prefixed with em-, and OneLook, every m word takes en- (enmassed, enmesh, enmew, enmilden, enmind, enmingle, enmire, enmist, enmix, enmossed, enmuffle), with only one exception: both enmarble and emmarble exist. (em- also claims emmew, where enmew also exists, but emmew says it wasn't formed with a prefix at all but rather by alteration of immew.) Is there any reason I should not change the usage notes in both entries to only say em- is usually used instead of en- in front of b and p (i.e. stop mentioning m)? We could still say something like "with a few exceptions" to cover things like the use of em- in front of e(!) in disemelevator, or in front of m in the obsolete Spenser word emmarble, but the norm is clearly en- in front of m, no? - -sche (discuss) 21:33, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

(Boldly went ahead and edited the two entries.) - -sche (discuss) 01:35, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

hassle

As an etymology, what about from the French harceler?Curmudgeonly Pedant (talk) 02:34, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Both verb and noun are attested only from the mid 20th century. Do you think GIs brought it back from France after WWII and it became a vogue word in show biz? In any event the best place to discuss this would be WT:ES. DCDuring (talk) 02:43, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Is the Swedish phrasal verb gå för sig really impersonal?

Hi! I'm not an experienced editor on here so please tell me if I'm doing something wrong.

I recently added the Swedish phrasal verb gå an which has a synonym gå för sig, which on here is marked as impersonal. My understanding of this term as it applies to Swedish is verbs which can only take the dummy subject det, such as regna (“rain”), but this does not seem to be the case for either of the two phrasal verbs. It is not difficult to find attested sentences like Det här går för sig. "This is okay." and Sådant beteende går inte för sig. "Such behaviour is not okay." and to me these seem completely normal. Should the impersonal label be removed?

Astianthus (talk) 20:50, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Since nobody protested I went ahead and edited the entry for gå för sig. Astianthus (talk) 00:23, 2 November 2020 (UTC)