Wiktionary:Tea room

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A place to ask for help on finding quotations, etymologies, or other information about particular words. The Tea room is named to accompany the Beer parlour.

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Oldest tagged RFTs

• Sukhumi
  regnbuefamilie
  Euthemia
  hagdon
  lipsati
  Wesson
  monolid
  watercressing
  notch
  address
  carhouse
  RGSS
  series
  multivarious
  amen
  -stan
  червь
  چھہ
  half
  based
  α΄
  orignal
  dies Mercurii
  manso
  ၐြဳ
  ကာလယဲ
  pasar por las horcas caudinas
  monosemic
  hazelly
  Dağ Türkleri
  Aster
  smeť
  over skyerne er himlen altid blå
  rumped
  Indon
  belly dance
  on purpose
  nasal cavity
  how much
  cut one's teeth
  take its toll
  bok choy
  search up
  don't try to teach grandma how to suck eggs
  speech recognition
  turn the tide
  ne bis in idem
  cornus
  code point
  one over the eight
  green privilege
  Chinese landing
  one's house in order
  native bread
  rhina
  one's heart bleeds
  gender-neutral
  chicken-or-egg question
  otocrane
  Surinam
  no thank you
  mukt
  uninvited
  away
  catalogue
  imaginary
  tweener
  radiendocrinology
  classique
  be
  smuggling raisins
  shadowing
  mandate
  war hero
  war-hero
  eat like a horse
  tacet
  lightning bruiser
  phrogging
  tjälknöl
  efilism
  Jacboson
  Andersdr
  berm
  pirmas
  arena rock
  rayon
  on someone's ass
  caviar to the general
  churtle
  Lipović
  -to
  sum of its parts
  joke
  dunnarf
  Єфінгар
  Ефингар
  

September 2024

refill

Is the first sense "a filling after the first" actually distinct from the other senses? If so, how would you use the word in this sense? —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 00:12, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps senses 2-4 could be treated as subsenses of sense 1. DCDuring (talk) 00:51, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

There is a distinction between the "an act of refilling" (He did a very sloppy refill.) and "material used to refill" (The refills soon were spilling on the floor.). DCDuring (talk) 00:56, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I tried to regroup some of the senses, although it may need more work. Einstein2 (talk) 10:20, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

That looks good to me, whatever the potential for further improvement. At some point only live examples (cites) will help with definitions. We don't have the resources to do all that ought be done in that regard. If we can't, then recourse to other references is probably adequate, but that's not always worth the effort, given limited time and contributors. DCDuring (talk) 16:52, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

I flipped the order, as the "material" definition is certainly more common, based on what other dictionaries choose to include and my own experience. DCDuring (talk) 16:59, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

Looks good. What about the translation section? I never know what's the right thing to do after rewriting a sense, because now the translations might be off. What's the right procedure? Move all the one I can't judge myself to {{t-check}}? In this case the Bulgarian, Russian, and Spanish translation seem suspect to me. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 00:12, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I'd assume the translations for the definition you had a problem with would be the only ones worth trying to involve speakers of the various languages. I'm not even sure that the new definition is a mere rewording of the old one. DCDuring (talk) 01:38, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

I added a subsense for fuel. In each of these refill can also be taken to mean “act of refilling”, but I think usually “that which is being refilled” is what is really denoted. —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 13:35, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

The same might be said for a refill of each variety of refillable pen or pencil. Does any other English dictionary have a separate definition for each of those? Some dictionaries do have a sense for the "prescription refill" sense, probably in part because it has a life of its own, being used attributively and also to refer metonymically to the acts of prescriber and consumer, as well as pharmacist. DCDuring (talk) 16:13, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Not that I know. I'm still for splitting into a number of common types of refill because of the translations. A number of languages have words that only apply to a subset of refills. This is comparable to the "translation hubs" we have for English terms that are SOP. Is there a good reason we shouldn't be doing this? —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 16:35, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Because metonymy is a very common phenomenon that would warrant scores of attestable definitions, making the English entries increasingly hard to read. One alternative is for the closest hypernymic English definition in the entry to include multiple hyponymic definitions for those not covered by subsenses. DCDuring (talk) 18:22, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

You mean refill is a metonym for cup of coffee, because it having been refilled is one aspect of the cup of coffee? I have difficulty imagining this would lead to problems, because only common senses would be easily attested.

What would your alternative look like? Isn't that what subsenses are for? Where does this leave translation? —Caoimhin ceallach (talk) 19:47, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Eg, coffee, wine, tea, water, champagne, drink, lipstick, pneumothorax, gas, air, soda, beer, ink, pen, ballpoint, cartridge, propane, LP, LN. As I said, my alternative is that translations that were language-specific specializations (hyponyms) of a sense would appear (with the restrictive qualification) among that language's translations of the sense (hypernym). Not just attestability but idiomaticity in English is what CFI requires. When, as, and if there are a sufficient number of languages that "need" a subsense, they could be added. DCDuring (talk) 20:44, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

"Good judgment" in adding senses would be a slender reed to lean on, just as it has been for derived and related terms, etc.. DCDuring (talk) 20:48, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Wrong IPA for Chinese erhua syllable containing "in"

For example, 橡皮筋兒 gives the IPA t͡ɕinə̯ɻ for 筋兒, where it should be the same as jir t͡ɕiə̯ɻ. Mteechan (talk) 21:08, 1 September 2024 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, the data is being pulled from Module:zh/data/cmn-pron where 筋 is given as jīn (unless erhua is handled by some other module?). Do other Wiktionary entries with characters that end in -n in isolation but drop the -n when exhibiting erhua also have this issue? - -sche (discuss) 23:58, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

In Standard Mandarin, the correct erhua form for all syllables ending in "in" is the same as that of "i". I believe the source code that generates IPA for erhua form forgets to remove the final [n] for syllables ending with "in". This also apply for "ün" as I tested just now. Mteechan (talk) 11:26, 3 September 2024 (UTC)

@Mteechan This is fixed - and you were correct about what was happening: the conversion "[iy]n?" → "%1ə̯ɻ" should have been "([iy])n?" → "%1ə̯ɻ", so the "n" wasn't being dropped for -inr and -ünr finals, as you spotted. Theknightwho (talk) 05:00, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

I just found a new issue. The IPA for erhua form of "zi/ci/si/zhi/chi/shi/ri" is also incorrect. It should be /Cə̯ɻ/ where C is the initial, but the module simply adds a /ɻ/ to the non-erhua IPA. Mteechan (talk) 08:39, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

parablast

Defined as A portion of the mesoblast (of peripheral origin) of the developing embryo, whose cells are involved in the formation of the first blood and blood vessels. . This terms is archaic/obsolete. What's the modern-day name for it? I'd say something to do with the w:ectoderm, and ChatGPT offers "Extraembryonic Mesoderm". Any ideas? Denazz (talk) 07:51, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

quartern

Based on the quotations provided, the second sense given here seems to define quartern loaf, not "quartern". Should this term be split off, or is there a different adjective sense ("weighing about four pounds")? Or is the definition correct and just not supported by the quotes? Arms & Hearts (talk) 21:13, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

Proctor#Adjective

I can't see that it's an adjective, more like a noun modifier. We could move it to a new entry for Proctor test; there is a Wikipedia article for Proctor compaction test. DonnanZ (talk) 21:29, 2 September 2024 (UTC)

About the usage notes on Portuguese se é que você me entende

The usage notes say that "the English equivalent, if you know what I mean, is sometimes used instead". Who uses it? In which country/region? I've never seen people using this English expression casually or frequently in Portuguese as to be regarded as part of the vernacular, as someone who lives in São Paulo, Brazil. What are your views on this subject? OweOwnAwe (talk) 22:24, 4 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, that note is a [citation needed] moment. I haven't heard or seen any Brazilian use the English idiom. Actually, we borrow simple and compound English words but not idioms. Davi6596 (talk) 11:38, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

same thought as above, never heard the English idiom in Portuguese. Juwan (talk) 21:50, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

The influence of the English language and the general knowledge of it in modern generations, aided by the fact that we use subtitles rather than dubbing in Portugal, as opposed to Spain, for instance (I don't know about Brazil), makes it that some common English expressions make their way into the spoken language. For instance, I've heard many Portuguese people use the expression whatever, and I even heard once someone say by the way, which I found really annoying since, as opposed to whatever, we already have a portuguese expression that means exactly the same (já agora). I, however, never heard anyone say "if you know what I mean" in portuguese, and if it happens it must be a very rare usage. So I think we can remove it, if everyone agrees.
PS: It's also missclassified as "interjection" instead of "phrase". Sérgio R R Santos (talk) 13:11, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

in Brazil, almost all films both for children and for adults are dubbed, this results in a way more monolingual culture. however, social media is a way that Brazilians engage with English as television was to so many countries and so more recent coinages and Internet terms are more likely to be borrowed or calqued. Juwan (talk) 15:26, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

You're right, I didn't even think about social media, which mainly influences the younger generations who are thus more exposed to english even if a country has a tradition of dubbing instead of subtitles. We also dub childrens' content in Portugal, and there was some ocasional dubbing of some TV shows in the nineties; I still remember (barely) of watching "Knight Rider" and "The A-Team" dubbed in brazilian! Sérgio R R Santos (talk) 15:35, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

There, I corrected it. If anyone disagrees, feel free to revert my edit. Sérgio R R Santos (talk) 16:53, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

uitzien

We have a Dutch lemma uitzien that defines the term as “to look, to seem, to appear”. I think this is wrong. The proper lemma for this sense is the intransitive verb eruitzien, a uniquely doubly separable verb that may give rise to a phrase like er goed uitzien (to look good). Users may encounter such a phrase and search under uitzien; I think the entry should refer them to the lemma eruitzien. To complicate the matter, there is the idiom uitzien naar (to look forward to). What is a good way of handling the situation? @Lingo Bingo Dingo, Mnemosientje, Rua.  --Lambiam 07:43, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I believe there are three ways in which the verb uitzien is used:

1. eruitzien: ik zie er goed uit.
2. ernaar uitzien (dat): het ziet ernaar uit dat het zo gaat regenen.
3. uitzien naar: ik zie uit naar onze kennismaking.

I'm not sure whether these all deserve their own lemma, which we could link to using {{only used in}} (this is what I did with vandoor and vantussen). uitzien naar could be lemmatized at uitzien using {{+obj}}. My current solution can be seen at User:Stujul/sandbox#uitzien

Stujul (talk) 09:35, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

what the fuck

... is going on with this entry? Specifically interjection sense 1. This, that and the other (talk) 10:34, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

• what the fuck do you think? Sherlocks1050 (talk • contribs)'s summer project was clearly to expand it. Phacromallus (talk) 20:10, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

• Anyway, there are so many fucking examples, we could move them to their own project. I suggest WTFionary. Phacromallus (talk) 20:14, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

  Many shortened form expressions included that you think we should move to their own project to expand it? doesn't seem fucked up to add all of the short form expressions. Does have to add all of the examples or does not? Sherlocks1050 (talk) 23:37, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

The problem lies in it being SOP, what + the fuck. You can just remove the latter in many of the examples, e.g. What the fuck is this for?, What the fuck do I know?. All of the synonyms are also SOP; what the is aposiopesis + pragmatics. We don’t creat how the fuck, how the hell, who the fuck, who the hell etc. It is also good to know that this page is from 2005 when everyone was much less experienced. Fay Freak (talk) 00:12, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Usage of what the fuck and what the hell is used a formed expressions now if I remove What the fuck is going on? and what the fuck are you doing? what the fuck is that? ETC.

Recently there’s isn't to add more examples then. Sherlocks1050 (talk) 00:32, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

The list there is really a list of the top umpteen principal collocations, which certainly has its uses and certainly is interesting in its own right, but unfortunately Wiktionary doesn't want that many of them cluttering up either the sense/def or even the {{collocation}} items beneath it. A good suggestion IMO would be to put the top three beneath the sense/def element and then put all the rest on the what the fuck/Citations page. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:51, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

Why would we put them on the Citations page without citations? DCDuring (talk) 01:53, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

True. See the edit that I just made at the entry. It comments out the rest of them for now. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:01, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

I moved the usexes to the Phrase section as I think interjection senses are intended to cover uses where What the fuck? is used on its own. Einstein2 (talk) 12:53, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Is there to add more examples as is used an aposiopesis + pragmatics. Such as, what the fuck is that? What the fuck is this? What the fuck are you? What the fuck happened here? What the fuck did you do? What the fuck is all this? What the fuck do you think you're doing? What the fuck is it? What the fuck was that? What the fuck is with you? What the fuck was this? What the fuck is all that? ETC. I also added more examples in what the hell the hell the fuck ETC. User:Fay Freak User:This, that and the other Sherlocks1050 (talk) 14:23, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Add whatever the fuck you want, though don't clutter things too much - add other examples either as collocations, commented out, or as quotes on the citations page. How are we accounting for the 'whatever the fuck' construction btw? 'Whatever' can be an interrogative pronoun but actually functions as a 'fused relative pronoun' in the phrase: 'whatever the fuck'. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 07:32, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

The pronunciation of aprimorate and aprimoration

Tho /əˈpɹɪməɹeɪt/ and /əˌpɹɪməˈɹeɪʃən/ are good predictions, dictionaries should show pronunciations based on usage, and I haven't found any videos where those words are pronounced. Also, since native speakers don't use them, knowing how to pronounce them is pointless.
So, @Theknightwho, why did you add those transcriptions, and what evidence are they based on? --Davi6596 (talk) 11:30, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

He agreed with deleting the pronunciations. Davi6596 (talk) 14:09, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

floruit

This entry is missing the most important sense - the sense used in biographies to indicate the approximate life of a person whose date of birth or death is not known (for example, Sympson the Joiner is only known from the 1660s diaries of Samuel Pepys and there are no other sources about him, so his Wikipedia article starts "Sympson the Joiner (floruit 1660s) was a Master-Joiner at the Deptford Dockyard"). But what part of speech is that - is it an adjective? A defective verb that only exists in the past participle? A preposition? Something else? Smurrayinchester (talk) 13:42, 6 September 2024 (UTC)

@Smurrayinchester: Just like "lived", "born", and "died" in the same context, I'd call that a verb. Yes, a defective verb because it's past-only, but it's not indeclinable: the plural form floruerunt also occurs, although it's much rarer than the singular. 0DF (talk) 02:08, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

The complication is that in that context, "lived", "born", and "died" are past participles (or adjectives), not finite verbs. (English happens to use the ending "-ed" for both functions for the majority of verbs, but "born" is unambiguously a past participle form, not a simple past form.) In Latin, floruit is a finite verb. I think that the use in English isn't necessarily clearly integrated to English grammar rules.--Urszag (talk) 02:39, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Semantically, though, these are events, not states or descriptions. I would call them short for sentences with verbs: he was born [on the date/in the year] xxxx, married [on the date/in the year] yyyy, and died [on the date/in the year] zzzz. Floruit would best be translated as "was alive [on the date(s)/in the year(s)]". Chuck Entz (talk) 03:03, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Because the term as used in English occurs exclusively(?) followed by a noun phrase indicating a time period, grammatically it behaves like a preposition, notwithstanding its etymology, translations, and coordinate terms. It fails the predicate-use test as well as other adjective tests. I don't disagree with Chuck Entz and Urszag's comments. DCDuring (talk) 15:34, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, preposition is the POS I was leaning most towards, but I don't really like the floodgate it opens (as you say, the coordinate terms surely aren't prepositions). Do we have any similar verb entries that only exist in past participle? Smurrayinchester (talk) 10:05, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

This seems a strange argument. Nouns follow verbs as well as prepositions, and prepositions qualify the noun's role in the sentence, which these words do not. This is literally the (subjectless) finite verb "Flourished" - "He flourished [in the] 1660s". Clearly "born" is short for "[he] was born", and is a participle, but I don't believe "lived" is a participle: it is simply the subjectless "[He] lived ..." Since the English words are mostly finite verbs there should be no problem with the Latin one being a finite verb. Imaginatorium (talk) 18:06, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

فم

This entry lists three dual forms on the headword line, and AFAICT three different dual forms in the declension table (differing in -ān vs -ayn/-āni). Which are correct? (@Fenakhay.) - -sche (discuss) 05:25, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

@-sche: In pausa, final short vowels are not pronounced. I've corrected the entry. — Fenakhay ^{(حيطي · مساهماتي)} 14:41, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

dismemberment

dismemberment is a good case in point of definitional ambiguity.

Dismemberment always involves a patient, though not necessarily explicitly.

To me dismemberment seems to usually refer to an event (usually instantaneous, but sometimes durative ('during dismemberment')), more or less in line with our first definition. Does the stative condition/state sense of dismemberment actually occur? One can find numerous uses of state of dismemberment (result of having been dismembered), which suggests that dismemberment is in such usage an event suffered by a patient and that dismemberment alone needs to be supplemented by state of to convey the state/condition sense unambiguously. In more figurative uses ("removal from membership": 'dismemberment of the USSR/SEATO'), our definition 3, the process seems more likely to extend over a duration.

One of our definitions of dismemberment, "The state or condition of being dismembered" seems ambiguous and/or incomplete. "Being dismembered" can be read as be + dismembered#Adjective (perfective) OR the progressive and imperfective, in which the state or condition occurs only while being dismembered, not the most common lexical aspect of dismemberment. Would "The state or condition of having been dismembered" be better, covering the common uses better?

Most dictionaries only have dismemberment as an undefined run-in derivative of dismember. Those that have one or more definitions leave some ambiguity. For us, wording that finessed the ambiguities would be desirable. Such wording eludes me at present. Does anyone have ideas? DCDuring (talk) 19:03, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Arabic biliteral words

Arabic has some words which are biliteral or even uniliteral (according to Karin Ryding, Arabic: A Linguistic Introduction, 2014, page 61; Michael Carter, Arab Linguistics, 1981, page 65; Mary Bateson, Arabic Language Handbook, 1967, page 36), for example فم / فو "mouth" (Proto-Semitic *pay-), يَد "hand" (*yad-), دم "blood" (*dam-), ابن "son" (*bin-), أخ "brother" (*ʾaḫ-). Where can I find a comprehensive list of such words? (Do we have a category for them, and if not, should we make one?) - -sche (discuss) 19:47, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

It's difficult because in many cases triliteral roots have been derived from biliteral nouns - and this is a very old process that probably began in Proto-Semitic times, if not Afro-Asiatic times. For example dam ("blood") and ibn ("son"), which you mentioned, are original biliterals. Nevertheless, both of them belong to triliteral roots in Arabic: d-m-y and b-n-y as in the verbs دَمِيَ (damiya, “to bleed”), تَبَنَّى (tabannā, “to adopt”). Triliteral roots are derived by geminating the second consonant or by adding a third consonant (typically a semivowel as in the aforementioned examples). Deciding which triliteral roots are derived from original biliteral roots is difficult even for semiticists, precisely because it's such an old process. 92.218.236.20 22:41, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Maybe to explain why this is relevant, take the noun ثِقة (ṯiqa, “trustworthiness”). It appears to have but two consonants, but belongs to the root w-ṯ-q. Now is the w original in this root or not? At least at face value there's no way of telling. 92.218.236.20 22:50, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate the explanation of the difficulty! What if I just want a list of all Arabic words (say, nouns) which are biliteral now, whether they were biliteral in Proto-Semitic or not, excluding cases—if any—where the drop from a 3+ consonant root to a 2-consonant noun is due to some systematic, productive or predictable process? How large a portion of the nouns in Arabic have two consonants? - -sche (discuss) 22:22, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Okay, in that case I think one should say "nominals that have but two consonants and only short vowels", because a long vowel would already be interpreted as an underlying semivowel. You won't have any verbs at all and particles can't be counted. You could additionally discount nouns of the form CiCa with an underlying initial w-. While I couldn't really say that these are "systematic and productive", there are a few of them (e.g. ṯiqa, ṣila, ḥida, jiha). -- Now if this our set, the number of words that are common in Modern Standard Arabic would be low. Off the top of my head I could only add أَب (ʔab, “father”), حَم (ḥam, “father-in-law”), and كُرة (kura, “ball”), although I'm sure some others will be found. 92.218.236.20 13:58, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

By the way, you may find it interesting to note how Arabic dialects continue to get rid of these words. For example, dam ("blood") becomes damm (with gemination), kura ("ball") becomes kūra or kōra (with lengthening), words may be replaced with diminutives or lost entirely. As a result some dialects may not have words fitting our above definition at all. 92.218.236.20 14:20, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Currency names and symbols

there are several currency names and currency symbols that seem to be missing, e.g. Ca$, Mex$, S$. currently US$ and A$ are stated to be "informal" (I ask, can't they be used formally when distinguishing currencies?). apart from currency signs on {{currency symbols}}. for adding a large number of these, I also request a new template similar to {{ISO 4217}} for defining and categorising these symbols. Juwan (talk) 22:09, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

the currency signs that I plan to add are mostly on the Wikipedia article for Currency symbol. Juwan (talk) 23:09, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

@Juwan Hmm, are those symbols really in use? I live in Canada where it's often necessary to distinguish Canadian dollars from American, and I see the ISO 4217 codes often ("$4.13 CAD" or "USD$4.13"), but not the ones you mentioned. If I'm reading Wikipedia right it doesn't give references for "CA$" or "US$". Either way if they consistently use any particular ISO standard (whether its 4217 or 3166-1 alpha-2), this makes the symbols SoP IMO. — excarnateSojourner (ta·co) 16:40, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

@ExcarnateSojourner those symbols may be used less reguarly than the ISO 4217 codes, however they are still used! the references [1-3] and note [a] on Wikipedia are editorial guidelines cited for that.

regarding whether these are SOP, I don't necessarily think so, as "CA" is not a word in English but a translingual one and refers to a very specific thing, not any dollar in Canada. Juwan (talk) 17:49, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

• @Juwan Nice, I see "Can$" is recommended by official sources and in use. But I think "Can$", "CA$", and "US$" are SoP. My understanding is that if a term is translingual that means it is a term in all (or at least many) languages, so if "CA" is a translingual term, then it is an English term. "CA" (translingual) means Canada, and "$" (translingual) means dollar, so "CA$" (translingual) means the dollar of Canada in all languages. It seems arbitrary to me to say "CA$" would have to mean "a dollar in Canada" as opposed to "the dollar of Canada". — excarnateSojourner (ta·co) 20:51, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

this is also not to mention that this is only part of the missing symbols issue, there are many symbols that are composed of normal letters that deserve to be included, such as Be, RM, VT, etc. Juwan (talk) 18:23, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

• @Juwan I'm not sure which currency Be refers to as I don't see it in the Wikipedia list. It looks like we already have a (translingual) entry for RM, but I would support the creation of a sense for VT (Vanuatu vatu). — excarnateSojourner (ta·co) 22:04, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

  I probably meant to type Br, but typo! Juwan (talk) 22:59, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree informal is not quite the right word. A$ is common enough but would only be use on an Australian website and likely not on a currency exchange where it would be too ambiguous. Perhaps instead of "(informal)" it should be "1. (Australia) Australian dollar". Pengo (talk) 19:07, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

the new question I have is how should all these be implemented and defined? in another discussion below at #Translingual symbols and emoji, I am searching for a "common practice" to help harmonise between multiple definitions and entries. Juwan (talk) 22:09, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

вькопысь (Russian/Hebrew/Lithuanian)

There are two Hebrew books ("Shivhey haBesht" and "Sefer Pri haOretz"), and I found cover photos of their old editions from Tzarist Russia, both with stamps saying вькопысь and сьдозволенiа/сьдозволенiе виленской цензуры ("approved by Vilna (Vilnius) censorship", written with misspelling). The one on Shivhey haBesht has also בקאפוסט, which probably means that the book is from the town of Kopys or has something to do with the Kopust dynasty (but the book itself is not written by them). What is вькопысь? Is it an approval stamp made by some illiterate person? Are these books approved at all or are they stamps fake like for the Lithuanian books from this period? Tollef Salemann (talk) 13:01, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

"вькопысь" and "בקאפוסט" are obviously the same thing in two different scripts. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:09, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

In which language? "сьдозволенiа" and "вькопысь" look like a foreigner tried to write with Cyrillic. Why? It is serious books, so what is the deal with these weird stamps? Tzar Peter in 1690-s has sponsored Latin written books in Russian language because of printing in cyrillic was problematic back then, but these books are from some newer timesn and the stamps are Cyrillic. Tollef Salemann (talk) 18:57, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Dispute resolution request

or whatever, I'm not going to be one of those crazy pushy IPs that keeps screaming. But please look at this once. At WT:REE User:Pigsonthewing is requesting the word Thyone (or possibly lower-case thyone?) as English. I have reverted this saying it's Translingual (we do already have the Translingual taxonomic entry). He refuses to accept this and has kindly provided a number of citations; the problem is that these citations are all (to me) clearly using the taxonomic term and not some generic English word. Would appreciate some third-party input because edit wars, blah blah, etc. love you. 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:7165:32DB:8256:403C 16:07, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

It looks like The genus name has been become an actual word to me, due the the evidence POTW mentioned at REE (such as the use of the phrase 'the Thyones'). It's certainly a rare word but, given that we have many requested entries that have sat around for years without being removed from REE (either after creation or a rejection of the request to create them), I see no need to rush the decision here. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:03, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

narrow

At 16:16, 16:39, 19:25 this man from Northern Ireland seems to say narrow and Gary with the start vowel. Is this common? Am I mishearing? At 16:09 he says large with the same vowel, which I expect there, but w:Hiberno-English suggests it should be the other way around and the vowel of large should be fronted. Buildingquestion (talk) 22:03, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

The ‘a’ becoming ‘ah’ phenomenon in NI accents is something ‘thaht’ I definitely ‘hahv’ heard quite often. I suspect it comes from the Doric Scots pronunciation that can be heard in places in Aberdeenshire like Fraserburgh and Peterhead. The way that ‘I’ and ‘time’ become ‘Ay’ and ‘tame’ doesn’t sound very Doric though, more standard Scottish - Doric would simply be ‘I’ and ‘time’ or even occasionally ‘oy’ and ‘toym’. Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:53, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

spisovatel (Czech)

We currently list the definition of spisovatel as "writer", but there is also spisovatelka meaning "female writer". Would it be acceptable to call a woman a "spisovatel"? If the answer is no, would you use "spisovatel" for a nonbinary writer, or is there a gender neutral form as well? (Hoping to hear from a native Czech speaker.) Thank you. Nosferattus (talk) 01:32, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

@Nosferattus I am not a Czech speaker, but a speaker of another gendered language, so the specifics may be wrong. however in general, in gendered Indo-European languages, the masculine is used as the "default" for men and people whose gender is unknown, and the feminine for women only.

non-binary and gender-inclusive language is very complicated and heavily depends on each language, but this open-read paper may help you if you are interested in learning about strategies that Czech people use to talk about these issues. Juwan (talk) 23:03, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

@JnpoJuwan My main question is, would it be considered incorrect to refer to a woman as "spisovatel"? For example, if the Czech National Authority Database listed Toni Morrison's profession as "spisovatel", would that be an error or acceptable (per its use as the "default")? Your answer leads me to think it might be considered an error, but I'm not sure as your answer doesn't address the question directly. If it would be considered incorrect, how should spisovatel be modified to reflect this? Should the definition be changed to "male writer or writer of unknown gender" or would it be more appropriate to add a usage note, and do we have a boilerplate usage note to address this common situation? Nosferattus (talk) 16:43, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

@Nosferattus whether it is incorrect to call a woman by that name, it depends. in databases (including Wikidata for example), it is common to have the male form as default because it is extra hassle to specify. but this is a niche case, in normal language, it is very weird to call a woman that. take the example that in a database a woman may be called an "actor", but not in an article, where "actress" is preferred.

regarding usage notes or boilerplate, I don't think that Wiktionary has that, and that's not necessarily an issue as the headword already especifies that spisovatelka is the feminine of spisovatel and if you already know about the language's grammar which distinguished masculine and feminine. Juwan (talk) 17:34, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

Let me step in as someone who deals with Slavic regularly.

In Slavic languages, the masculine word is sometimes used "neutrally", i.e. for any person. If one wishes to emphasize that this person was female, they may use the female equivalent. It is worth it to note that grammatical gender is not the same as syntactic gender. Vininn126 (talk) 17:36, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

@Nosferattus: You should learn about markedness in languages. It’s not “male writer or writer of unknown gender” but unspecified gender. It just does not say which gender it is. Grammatical gender has no implication for natural gender. Romans and humans called noun classes like that for memorization purposes in the school systems of yore, you could also call them a, b, c, or i., ii., iii., but you see this is brute for someone who is not an academic by heart but a school pupil.

This is why linguists don’t take “gender-inclusive language” serious. I have after all witnessed the conversations of cutting-edge linguists in university. With some background in general theory, rather than just teaching language as an exercise in imitation, wherewith you apparently can get through the system and have success in society in general due to its undeclared reliance on mirror neurons, you realize it is easy to fall victim to etymological fallacy. Like one lecturer was a bit piqued when a student answered “from the mother” to the question whence one’s mother tongue is typically acquired, being a single father, though the term itself is okay.

By not comparing languages across time or space, people fall victim to reverse etymological fallacy – interestingly this term exists already a few terms on the internet, I thought I invented it, but I mean an overgeneralization of practical mnemonics up to the point of identity politics. The argumentation structures of its proponents are arbitrary comparatively, but you need to be multilingual in your varied consumption of content to realize this, which most people aren’t. You have a selection bias but on Wiktionary, for your benefit, so I can clear up the confusion:

While German theorists prescribe gender stars and gender gaps or writing out both gendered forms (e.g. Schülerinnen und Schüler, then abbreviated SuS), Russian feminists in the last thirty years (before that these postmaterial ideas did not influence the West either) find it discriminatory that female gender is specified. Comparing до́кторша (dóktorša) being pejorative as opposed to до́ктор (dóktor). Just use the male form, they stipulate. As opposed to the German pseudofeminists demanding that women are mitgenannt, nicht nur mitgemeint (“named as well, not only meant as well”). It’s fashionable nonsense. There you move outside the realm of what is correct, unless you unironically seek how to be politically correct, in your question what would be considered incorrect, which would sanewash the incorrect (an upcoming concept for neutrality taken as far as to normalize radical and deranged ideas): some people always may consider incorrect what is correct, you see about language people have different frames of reference and hence expectations about what has to be marked, even without a coherent concept of markedness. Anyhow we have explained you both, the linguistic and the political issues, and I have untangled them, understanding both. Now when speaking another language you can defend yourself against the accusation of being an immigrant eating the pets of the people who live in it, I mean discriminating against genders. Being assured by a fact-check. Fay Freak (talk) 00:54, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

countable

There's lots of squiggly lines on the pronunciation of this. My phonetics skills don't process. Is it correct? Denazz (talk) 16:02, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

"These" ? Do you mean the IPA symbols with squiggles? DCDuring (talk) 18:01, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Yeh, IPA squiggles Phacromallus (talk) 08:05, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

the entry has narrow transcription, it indicates how the word is pronounced beyond the simple building blocks of the phonemes. so, for the word countable, it is saying that the first syllable is pronounced nasalised, that /aʊ/ is a diphthong with the glide on the second phoneme and the final syllable has a syllabic consonant /l/. Juwan (talk) 22:57, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

flushometer

The Wiktionary definition is completely different from the Wikipedia article. I suggest using the first sentence of the article: "a metal water-diverter that uses an inline handle to flush tankless toilets or urinals." Dikshunaree (talk) 13:42, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

Translingual symbols and emoji

(pinging @LunaEatsTuna following discussion on Discord) while editing, I have noticed that a lot of the symbols (especially emojis) don't have a proper syntax to speak of. I have edited some to try to bring cohesion but editing alone is not the best here. what is the best way to notate that a symbol has a particular meaning but not literally means that word.

1. A symbol representing/indicating ...
2. An emoji representing/indicating ...
3. Represents/indicates ...
4. Represents/indicates ...

for the terms used, I tend to go with "represents" when it means a physical or concrete thing in the world and indicate when it is a more abstract signal of commmunication (it represnts a person, it indicates danger). between these options, I would try to tend to lean between 3 and 2, choosing the second one in when referring specifically about the emoji's use on the internet versus, say, a symbol on a map. Juwan (talk) 17:08, 12 September 2024 (UTC)

tale (en)

It seems to me that etymologies 1 and 2 given for the English entry tale are exactly the same, save that they contain entries that are different parts of speech, and that both parts of speech ought to be listed under a single etymology.

Hermes Thrice Great (talk) 05:25, 13 September 2024 (UTC)

How are they the same, if one is a noun and the other is a verb ? Do you consider them the same because they originate from the same PIE root ? Leasnam (talk) 08:54, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

There are literally thousands of entries here on Wiktionary that have different parts of speech listed under the same etymology. This is why, when an entry has multiple etymologies, the etymology has a level-3 header, while the parts of speech are given level-4 headers. This is encoded into the entry layout here on Wiktionary.

This is the case on tale, where etymology #3 should be etymology #2, with its single noun/alternative form of PoS and definition under it, and—as explained in the OP—etymologies #1 & #2, which are the same in origin, meaning, and detail, should be combined into a single etymology #1, with the noun and verb PoS and definitions listed under that one single etymology, with the etymology headers being level-3, and the PoS headers being level-4.

Hermes Thrice Great (talk) 03:49, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

When the different parts of speech originate in the same language period, then they belong under the same etymology heading. If not, then they should be split out. We have hundreds if not thousands of such cases that still need to be broken out. English tale is a perfect example of how other entries should look. Leasnam (talk) 01:45, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

The language "periods" given for tale are identical. The (notional) reason previous editors put the different PoS under different etymologies seems to be that they consider the first etymology, given as a noun in all its ancestral forms, as different from the verb, purely because it is a different PoS because the verb etymology is written as a series of (hypothetical, imaginary) verbal forms, even though the progression from the same PIE root is identical.

However, if it were in fact the case that different PoS merited wholly separate etymologies, why would WT:MOS show that different parts of speech can belong under the same etymology heading? By these editors' logic, different parts of speech should always have separate etymologies.

Now, I predict that you will come back arguing that it is precisely because the two parts of speech can each be traced back with full etymologies each maintaining its own PoS throughout (except for the identical roots). However, there are thousands of well-edited entries on here that do not follow this logic, even though similarly full "separate" etymologies could be fabricated for each. I'd invite you to take a look, for example, at the entry for tear, which has two etymologies, each with two parts of speech, a noun and a verb, even though surely, by the logic of tale's previous editors, "separate" etymologies could be constructed for each of them. There was no doubt both a verb and a noun form of each etymology in each of the ancestral languages listed (ME, OE, PGmc). As someone who contributes a lot to Hebrew entries here on English Wikipedia, I can also tell you that pretty much all Hebrew entries with different parts of speech from the same Proto-Semitic root are always listed under the same etymology.

If your argument then is that those Hebrew entries and their like share the same etymology because no more specific information is available, compared to tale, with its stages of PoS forms given for each PoS, then you have just admitted a problem in the policy for etymologies. The mere availability of more information shouldn’t change universal rules for entry layouts across the entire site. The rules need to be either that all different PoS always have different etymologies, or we group different PoS under the same etymology if they clearly derive from the same etymological and semantic sources, and differ only in their respective parts of speech. And in my view, with the well-edited, major entry tear as one example, again out of literally thousands, to support it, along with the prescribed rules for entry layout at WT:MOS, it seems clear to me that the latter should be the policy—different parts of speech with an obviously identical etymology other differing only in terms of part of speech should be grouped under the same etymology.

Hermes Thrice Great (talk) 04:42, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

front hole

Why is it "euphemistic"? PUC – 18:58, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

I interpreted it as less direct/blunt, and apparently some trans men and/or some people who are referring to trans men consider it a more acceptable term, which puts it on two of the three axes along which something can be a euphemism ("less offensive, blunt or vulgar"); OTOH I realize some other uses might be more crass/vulgar. No objection to dropping the label if you think it's better without it. whatever we do here, back hole should probably be handled the same way. - -sche (discuss) 21:42, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

I wasn't familiar with the term until today, when I encountered it here: "On-demand PrEP is only suitable for anal sex and doesn't provide adequate levels of protection for vaginal or front hole sex, or injecting drug use. For vaginal or front hole sex, or injecting drug use, daily PrEP or periodic PrEP are recommended instead." It does seem like it's intended as a more neutral / trans-friendly / trans-mindful replacement for vagina, but I wouldn't call it euphemistic. On the other hand I wouldn't call it vulgar either, though I can see why it could be perceived as blunt. To me it sounds very "medical". I'll let others decide. PUC – 22:39, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Softball

Hi,

Is "softball" an adjective in "softball questions" or "softball interview"? If it is,an adjective section should be added to softball. 2402:9D80:22A:3960:58CD:3BFF:FE6D:26A8 06:00, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

In English any noun can be used attributively to modify another noun, eg, "questions" and "interview". DCDuring (talk) 17:37, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

co#English

Not enjoying the "Multiple parts of speech" header. Denazz (talk) 12:57, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

autogynephilia

as the page is currently extended protected, I have created a subpage for proposed edits, including updated etyomology, pronunciation, definition, quotations and translations. please discuss and review these for the entry Juwan (talk) 17:07, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

The entry could use three or more cites of use, not mention. Definitions and redefinitions, which are mentions, may also be useful. You can add them to Citations:autogynephilia now. DCDuring (talk) 17:39, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

 Done: I've made most of your suggested changes. - -sche (discuss) 19:34, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

pinecone jam

Pinecone syrup is mugolio. In eastern Europe (maybe elsewhere?) they also make pinecone jam. Does this also have a specific name, or is it just pinecone varenye/jam? - -sche (discuss) 19:35, 15 September 2024 (UTC)

suicide

May I suggest that some of the "special" pages, such as this, contain a useful direction element? For instance, in this case a 'Pedia link to "List of suicide crisis lines" List by country? -- It seems to be almost standard practice on most on-line platforms to be of quick-help to people in need. Thanks in advance for any interest or input in the idea. -- ALGRIF talk 09:36, 16 September 2024 (UTC)

Please drop the virtue-signalling. 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 15:56, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Did you bother to leave a reply just to be an arsehole? Sérgio R R Santos (talk) 15:31, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Comment: I checked the Merriam-Webster, and they don't have a suicide crisis hotline part of their def. Neither does Collins. However, for definitions which could function as mnemonics for how to kill oneself, I would suggest having the suicide crisis hotline list available somehow. CitationsFreak (talk) 02:34, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

The phrase is down the road, not across the street, by the way, for anyone interested SpAway (talk) 21:20, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

turkish pronunciation on denge page has letter ɲ that's not in turkish?

/deɲɟe/

ɲ isn't in turkish??? Zbutie3.14 (talk) 22:23, 17 September 2024 (UTC)

By assimilation to the following /ɟ/ I would imagine that [ɲ] may probably be heard in this word at least in some speakers. But we needn't trouble ourselves with that, because it definitely isn't phonemic. So I've replaced it with /n/. 92.218.236.20 12:49, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

yokelspringa?

yokelspringa appears to be a nonce word coined today by w:Rick Wilson (political consultant) in the USA (Google currently has 3 hits, but they all reflect [1]), so it doesn't meet CFI, and I don't intend to add it.

But I'm curious -- what does it mean? I can guess the first half as yokel, though I didn't realise that word was used in the USA, but springa beats me -- it doesn't seem to relate to any of the few languages I recognise the forms of, and we only have it in some North Germanic languages, where it has meanings which seem irrelevant, except that blowing up might be vaguely apt -- unless perhaps it's a misprint for spring and he's referencing political movements which were called the xxx spring. I don't know his style, so don't know if he might make that allusion.

Does anyone have a better notion? --Enginear 00:44, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I would suspect it's a nonce blend of "yokel" and "rumspringa", a coming-of-age ceremony in Amish communities. CitationsFreak (talk) 03:47, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, rumspringa's a new word to me. Having looked up its meaning — and etymology — I think you've hit the nail on the head. --Enginear 13:32, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Ardurra vs. Ardura

I work for a company named Ardurra -- we share the definition of Ardurra to be ARDURRA: DILIGENT, RESPONSIBLE (Basque), SUPERIOR (Gaelic) in our online resources. I attended a career fair yesterday and surmise that students will Google "ardurra definition" -- in a conversation with a coworker this morning, we were curious what an Internet search would produce for a definition for Ardurra and found your site as listing the spelling Ardura (Borrowed from Spanish ardura (“anguish, anxiety, discomfort”).) We would appreciate the entry to be updated to include the spelling "Ardurra" with its respective definitions in Gaelic and Basque to follow. How would we proceed with this request, please?

Thank you for your time and consideration.

"Ardurra is a rapidly growing company of experts, engineers, and design professionals committed to delivering quality services and practical solutions." Ardurratmarkee (talk) 15:46, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

If the word "ardurra" can be attested as meaning those things, then it can go into our dictionary. See WT:CFI for more, and take special notice of "attestation".

(For the record, we list ardura as also meaning "care, attention" in Basque. Maybe that's what you're referring to?) CitationsFreak (talk) 03:59, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

Grammatical classification of Pannonian Rusyn "нєт"

So I just made the entry нє (nje), and closely related we have the word нєт (njet, “there is not”) which parallels Russian нет (net) in usage. Problem is, I'm not sure that West Slavic languages (which Pannonian Rusyn is) use predicatives. So for now I've listed it as a particle. Is that accurate? Or could I list нєт (njet) as a predicative? Because it doesn't derive from a verb, and so I can't quite call it a verb like Ukrainian нема́ (nemá). Insaneguy1083 (talk) 17:58, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

If you're not sure about things like predicates, then stay away. I really recommend getting familiar with a single language and focusing on it. And to especially stay away from more grammatical words until you're more familiar. Not knowing the grammar is concerning. Vininn126 (talk) 19:39, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I've studied enough Russian at university to know the basic concept of what a predicate is - I'm just not sure of its classification with regards to specifically Pannonian Rusyn. In this instance, it's being used like how a predicate would be used in East Slavic, yet in theory, predicates aren't used in West Slavic languages.

In general, Pannonian Rusyn is somewhat of an edge case in Slavic classification anyways; a good example would be the conjugation of буц (buc). In the present, the copula is often dropped, like in East Slavic (and unlike Slovak); but the present tense forms do exist, except they are used in the simple past, like in Slovak.

Here, I'm just wondering if нєт (njet) is another such edge case, where another usually East Slavic grammatical feature has been incorporated into Pannonian Rusyn grammar. From all the example sentences I found, it behaves almost identically to Russian нет (net), where it's used to essentially indicate the opposite of єст (jest, “there is”) (есть (jestʹ) in Russian), i.e. the lack of something, with the missing "thing" then conjugated in the genitive form. For example, шведка нєт (švedka njet, “there is no witness”), where шведка (švedka) is the genitive form of шведок (švedok). But again, unlike Belarusian няма́ (njamá), Serbo-Croatian nema, Ukrainian нема́ (nemá), it's not formed from a verb, so it can't be referred to as such.

@Thadh: you're a native speaker of Russian, what say you in this instance? Or is there perhaps an academic paper already going into the specifics of this? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 20:08, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm not saying you don't know what it is. I mean you don't know how it works with regard to the language you're working. Vininn126 (talk) 20:23, 18 September 2024 (UTC)

AFAIK, нет in Russian (in meaning there is no) is a short form of нету, which today is prohibited from official use by some reason, but still is very common in use. Also, there was even longer forms of this word, like нетуть, but they are now obsolete. Tollef Salemann (talk) 11:32, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

This is not very helpful imo to the discussion of the Pannonian Rusyn word. Consider you have Old Polish nietu. Vininn126 (talk) 11:33, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I mean, why is it a verb at all (the Ukrainian one)? It contains remainings of the verb ма́є, but нет(у) also contains remainings of a verb Proto-Slavic *estь. But the use of both Russian and Ukrainian itself is not similar to a verb, like Insaneguy say (because it gives a genitive in both languages). Tollef Salemann (talk) 11:44, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Update: I have found that in the Rusyn-Serbian dictionary, they do indeed (kind of?) classify predicatives as a separate thing. For instance here, where at "здраве" it says присл. у функц. пред. (prisl. u funkc. pred.), and on this page of abbreviations they note that пред. (pred.) = предикат (predikat). Weirdly though, on the нєт entry itself it lists the word as a particle, even though the functionally and etymologically equivalent word in Russian, нет (net), is listed as a predicative here on Wiktionary. So I really don't know. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 00:05, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

"Нема" is also listed as predicative in Ukrainian online dictionary Horokh. Also, even when both "нема" and "нєт" has origin from a verb, none of them works as verbs. So I don’t get why should we list them here on Wiltionary as verbs. Why do you think that "нєт" is not a predicative? Tollef Salemann (talk) 06:20, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

@Tollef Salemann: No, I do think that нєт (njet) is a predicative, but I'm not sure what the literature says about this. I'd just rather tread more carefully on this issue, and delay adding the entry until we get something of a consensus here, or at least a comment from someone more qualified than myself. @Thadh: in case you didn't see my ping earlier, what are your thoughts on this? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 06:56, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Predicatives are basically words that conform to the structure "It is [not] X". This word doesn't, technically. That is why it's termed as one or the other. I would call both the Russian and Pannonian one as a particle because of this. Thadh (talk) 08:10, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

And the Ukrainian too? Tollef Salemann (talk) 08:12, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Thadh (talk) 08:18, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

econometrics

I pronounce the initial vowel matching economics. 174.89.12.36 06:21, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, are you suggesting you say the first vowel as iː? I personally say economics as /ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪks/ but I say economy as /ɪˈkɒ.nə.mi/ and if I said econometrics, which I don't think I ever have, I would model it on my pronunciation of economy not economics and so say /ɪˌkɒn.əˈmɛt.ɹɪks/. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 08:17, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I say [i] when stressed and [ə] when unstressed. OED and Merriam-Webster agree with me. For BrE, OED gives [ᵻ] not [ɪ].

I don't know what region [ɪ] is from. The audio in economy and economics is mostly [i] with only 1 [ɛ] and never [ɪ]. Perhaps economy should be edited because OED also gives [ᵻ]. Even if we leave the RP alone, we should make the GenAm conform to these dictionaries.

Edit Merriam-Webster doesn't seem to use IPA. I say it exactly like OED's stressed AmE pronunciation. 174.89.12.36 08:49, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Strange WingerBot edits

WingerBot has just altered some English definitions of Dutch words so that the sentences start with a lowercase 'a' rather than an uppercase 'A', flouting the rule that sentences should start with a capital letter. For example at beat, the definition reads: "a beat, a rhythmic pattern, notably in music" but at the English section of the same page it says: "A stroke, a blow." (this sentence also finishes with a full stop unlike the other one too). --Overlordnat1 (talk) 08:05, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

The difference between English and other languages is prescribed at Wiktionary:Style_guide#Definitions.--Urszag (talk) 08:07, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks, that does clear some things up. I would’ve thought both of these are technically glosses rather than full sentences according to what it says at your link though. After all, we don’t write full sentences such as: ‘The word ‘beat’ refers to a stroke or a blow’. Overlordnat1 (talk) 08:24, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

hit (n)

Hit n. currently does not show the somewhat slangy sense of "interview, appearance, call-in" as in "Robinson canceled his various campaign events yesterday, and did a bunch of media hits where he denied everything" from electoral-vote.com today. I think this sense has become fairly common in at least political journalism and media criticism, so perhaps it could be added? (OED hasn't revised this lemma yet and they don't have the sense either, which makes me think it's more recent than 1990.) 207.180.169.36 21:28, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

tee-tow-town (betee, fortee)

Found on the list of irregular English verbs: tee—(3sg)tees—(p)tow—(pp)town and its derivations betee, fortee. Up til now there exists no entry for this word. Ronaldo sewie (talk) 07:14, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

tee and tow aren't irregular and don't appear at Category:English irregular verbs and town is not the past participle of tow. Betee and fortee don't exist and betee only appears as a red link at the Old English entry beteon and twice elsewhere as a red link (it seems to be the Aukan word for better). What list of irregular English words are you referring to? --Overlordnat1 (talk) 07:45, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

this here Ronaldo sewie (talk) 11:24, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

they just got edited out. Ronaldo sewie (talk) 12:07, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

By me, yes. Was just about to post here with the relevant diff link. This, that and the other (talk) 12:15, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

It's quite plausible that if these verbs had survived into Modern English, they would be conjugated like this. But we deleted them on the grounds that they vanished before 1500: Talk:tee Talk:betee. The old entry did display these irregular past forms. This, that and the other (talk) 10:42, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

burst open

Burst open (also, bust open). This verb is on Cambridge online dictionary but missing here. Ronaldo sewie (talk) 07:18, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

cruor

Defined as The colouring matter of the blood. - this is probably obsolete/archaic. This is hemoglobin, right??? Denazz (talk) 17:25, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

• Also, the second definition probs needs splitting/verifying... Denazz (talk) 17:25, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Seiche (hydrology)

The Wiktionary article links that to German 'seiche' claiming that means sinking. The Swiss German 'seiche' is slang for 'to piss', and has a completely different phonology; it's improbable to have entered Swiss French in this form. Wikipedia has a much more convincing etymology, linking it to latin 'siccus', it relates to the periodic falling dry of the beach at opposing ends of long alpine lakes. Hotel Papa (talk) 04:45, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

ee/eee being used as a type of squeaking sound in romantic contexts

I know two online friends who are in a long-distance relationship (who I won't name here for privacy reasons) using ee/eee (with more e's) as some kind of squeaking sound while they type out romantic messages to each other. I see that sense for English is not added here yet, so here's an example that is based on the context of the usage in those messages from my two online friends that I had typed out myself:

Eeee~! I love the present that you gave me! ^w^

So let me know whether it should be added here or not (and yeah, we obviously need more internet evidence of this usage and not just messages from online friends, I'm just documenting about this usage here). Adamnewwikipedianaccount (talk) 18:29, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I'm familiar with this usage. I interpret/use it as an expression (squeal) of happiness, excitement, or happy excitement, in the general semantic neighbourhood of "yay". I found some book cites and have added it to eee with a pointer at ee; please revise the entry or raise issues here if you see issues or ways to improve it. :) I was not able to find book cites of this interjection being spelled ee yet, but I don't think the interjections of disgust vs happiness respectively are actually reliably distinguished by spelling—I think both can have arbitrary numbers of es—so it would probably make sense to acknowledge both on both pages, ee and eee, once the cites can be found to support that. - -sche (discuss) 19:16, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Stone to put ontop of a waste container (against wind and seagulls)

I'm just curious if any language has a name for this? Tollef Salemann (talk) 11:26, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

holddown/hold-down? DCDuring (talk) 14:06, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Usually used in technical contexts, usually of devices, but also of objects without moving parts. DCDuring (talk) 14:30, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! So the stone in this case is used as a holddown. Tollef Salemann (talk) 20:06, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Yes, of the crudest kind. I could only find Books cites for technical "holddowns", but they were quite varied, some seemingly beyond our existing 'technical' definition. DCDuring (talk) 22:46, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

CJK Compatibility characters

I want to know, what is the consensus about dealing with the CJK Compatibility characters? many of the entries should ideally be all be redirected into their counterpart non-compability entries, below are some examples:

• square kana are already redirected: ㌀ (apāto) redirects to アパート (apāto)
  • corner case: ghost character ㌬ (pātsu) (that doesn't even render in my computer) redirects to パーツ (pātsu)
• square Latin are mostly already redirected: ㍱ redirects to hPa
• telegraph symbols are not yet redirected: ㍘ should redirect to 0点; ㏠ to 1日

for helping add many of the former's entries, I will create a usage notes template for notes about the old standard of compability characters.

somewhat related, there was a July 2022 discussion at Wiktionary:Requests for deletion/Non-English#m/s, m/s² for the deletion of two of these entries, I believe that they should stay and redirect, hoping that others can agree. Juwan (talk) 17:08, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

homogeneity

The audio file doesn't correspond to any of the listed pronunciations. In the file it's pronounced with /g/ instead of /d͡ʒ/. I'm not so interested if the pronunciation with /g/ exist, but I would like to ask someone to find out if the audio file is correct and update the page, please. 85.76.112.238 21:39, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Review request: IPA on UNGA

I have a citation for how it is pronounced that is in a colloquial method, but I am not 100% on the IPA I added. Anyone who can confirm or correct is appreciated. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:58, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Should change the language of Shavian entries to English

The letters of Appendix:Unicode/Shavian are currently entered as 'translingual'. They should all be English. For one thing, they are all identified with phonemes of English, and intended for the transcription of that language; for another they are given phonemic pronunciations, which is nonsensical translinguistically (phonemes only being defined for a particular language). If Shavian has been used for other languages, the pronunciations would need to be changed accordingly, which should probably be handled by adding headings for that language. Is it okay if I change them from 'translingual' to 'English'? kwami (talk) 10:01, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Support for moving to English. Juwan (talk) 14:44, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Done. I didn't add Esperanto entries because they aren't even supported by Unicode, and probably aren't noteworthy. I'm not aware of any other language that uses Shavian. kwami (talk) 00:41, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Latin adjective fetus: ‘youthful, young’??

Tataryn added ‘youthful, young’ as a meaning of the Latin adjective fetus, referring to line 905 of Seneca’s Oedipus. However, I understand the word fetus in Seneca’s conligit fetus avis as a substantive/noun, hence, young/offspring of the bird (from a translation: “And collects her scattered young”). So, can this be removed? -- Der Transkriptor (talk) 10:11, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Nicodene (talk) 01:29, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

sometime

Our definitions say that it means "at an indefinite but stated time", while it is obsolete for "at an unstated time". Is this a good way of putting it? I at least don't understand it. When I say, for example: "We should have lunch sometime", how is that a "stated time"? I suppose the "stating" is only required when it refers to the past. "It happened sometime yesterday", but not "it happened sometime". Right? 2.203.201.82 15:03, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

The word "Nghệt" in vietnamese

Any searches for this word, which is an adjective describing a dull face due to either worries or surprises, on wikitionary falsely lead to the word "nghẹt", which means suffocating. Khoantum (talk) 10:22, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

wardrobe malfunction

the translations found in this entry seem to be literal translations of the term instead of attestable terms. I updated the template for the Portuguese listed translation to {{t-check}} as while searching the first results are only other dictionaries, and even worse, dictionaries taking data from Wiktionary. there are few or so journal articles but they seem to be literally translating the English term for a specific context, not using the word as if it was already adopted into the language. Juwan (talk) 14:43, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@JnpoJuwan the fact that someone added Latin translations to a phrase like this is always a bit of a red flag. Judging by User talk:Tedius Zanarukando#Translations, I think the best thing to do is to remove all translations added by that user. This, that and the other (talk) 13:21, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Edits to Module:number list/data/en by User:Yejianfei

Last night I discovered a module error at centuple caused by a change in this module- for some reason, the rare term centiple had been substituted. Looking at the diffs, I saw that large numbers of redlinked terms had been added, a significant number of which are SOP and thus will never be used. Rather than sorting through all of it, I rolled back their edits. This was probably a mistake, but I was tired. Yejianfei posted a question on my talk page and then, 7 minutes later, undid my edit before I had time to respond. To prevent an edit war, I blocked them from the module namespace for 24 hours.

Since I'm going to be mostly offline for the next couple of days, I would appreciate it if others would review this mess, as well as recent edits by other editors to the same module. I'm sure most of it is at least acceptible and perhaps an improvement, but some of it seems like adding unnecessary layers of complexity and obscurity in pursuit of some theoretical illusion of completeness. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:48, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Then you should have told me that the item centuple was malfunctioning and asked me to correct it. You should not just revert the changes without giving any reason. The replacement from centuple to centiple was likely to be caused by some massive import mistakes.

There are still many other words, like hundredsome, thousandsome, which are missing {{number box}}, which was the reason why I tried to complete this module. Yejianfei (talk) 14:56, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Words like "nulliplet" do not exist. Don't add made-up words. — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 22:03, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

On a related note, we should make the list more compact. It's impossible to fit on one screen, even if one zooms out until it's near-illegibly tiny, and most cells are empty. "Elemental" duplicating "Germanolatinate collective" (with only a few differences) is one obvious issue, and on the topic of made-up words, that header "Germanolatinate" which someone made up recently needs to be examined. We could probably also combine "Metric fractional prefix", "Latinate fractional prefix", "Greek fractional prefix" into one column with the equivalent of <br>. Column header "Fractional prefix", cells like:

Metric: foo- [in the few cells where such a prefix exists, otherwise this line can be absent]

Latinate: fu-

Greek: phu-

- -sche (discuss) 01:36, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

I think merging the cells wouldn't make sense. This table isn't meant to be read directly - it's called by {{number box}} which selects the relevant entries without the user having to scroll the entire thing. That said, I do think there's too much cruft in there to be useful to users. I'd remove the ones that just follow regular rules like "Reverse order ordinal" and the -folds and -somes, and the "Number of years" one feels much too obscure. (If we do want all that, then there's at least one column missing: the number as a base. binary, ternary, octal, hexadecimal etc. And then we're missing also the -plexes...) Smurrayinchester (talk) 07:41, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

On second thoughts, maybe what would make sense would be to have the cruftier ones hidden by default in {{number box}}, but let the user expand them. By default, maybe just ordinal, cardinal, Latinate ordinal and Latinate multiplier are shown. Then we have an expandable section of regular suffixed forms (the -somes and -folds), another section with the prefixes, and an "Other" section with the random ones like years and musicians. Smurrayinchester (talk) 07:49, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

"cyncing"

As in cyncing SIM contacts. What does it mean ? 96.68.183.148 21:19, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Looks like a typo or misspelling of syncing.--Urszag (talk) 22:47, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Re: "Cincing" Please disregard the previous note.

Someone did not know how to spell "syncing" ( Synchronization. )

Thanks 96.68.183.148 01:26, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Policy about picture dictionaries on higher-level hypernyms/holonyms

I tried to add a picture dictionary (for example Wiktionary:Picture dictionary/en:organism) to organism similar to the one found on animal and fungus. Inadvertently, my edit removed Arabic script in the translations section from the page (I'm still not sure why). My edits were undone by another user, citing the loss of the Arabic script from the page, but also that the addition was "unnecessary" and that Wiktionary is not Wikipedia. I understand of course reverting the change because of the loss of Arabic script (which was, again, unintentional), and that Wiktionary is not Wikipedia. But there are many other entries with picture dictionaries, which have not been removed. Is there some general consensus against having picture dictionaries on more generic/abstract entries or higher-level hypernyms and holonyms? Is it something about the term "organism" in particular that makes a picture dictionary inappropriate? Just trying to understand if there is some general consensus or policy on this that I have missed. Peloñe (talk) 09:18, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

nevers

Is this anything? It's a plural of "never" which doesn't have a noun sense. Ultimateria (talk) 19:48, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Could be RFV'd. The same user also added the interjection POS at never. This, that and the other (talk) 01:40, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

It is something. Like pretty much any word, it can be used as a plural meaning "instances of the word never". There's also uses like "All your nevers have come true" = All the things you thought/said would never happen have come true.--Urszag (talk) 01:49, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

Seeing it made me think of "whatevs". But the entered sense is more akin to ifs and buts though. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:09, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

pronunciation of Hungarian magyar

It is [ˈmɒɟɒr] but I don't hear the ɟ. I can clearly here it in some other words but in this word it sounds like a [j] sound to me. Am I stupid? Zbutie3.14 (talk) 00:45, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

@Zbutie3.14 the realisation of palatal plosives can be very similar sounding to other sounds such as [j], especially if it is not a phoneme in your native language (assuming you're not Hungarian!) the audio file has the plosive pronounced more subtly than for example the audio sample given on Wikipedia. don't worry too badly if you can't tell them apart perfectly. Juwan (talk) 19:59, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

October 2024

Slavic -nik/-nica calques?

How would we refer to the phenomenon where Slavic languages derive words from a German compound word, by translating only the first half of the compound and then adding -nik or -nica at the end in place of translating the second part of the compound?

I'm talking about stuff like Serbo-Croatian железница／železnica from German Eisenbahn, or Czech and Slovak číselník (from číslo) and Macedonian бројчаник (brojčanik) from German Zifferblatt. Is there a specialist linguistic term for that?

It's not a partial calque, since that's specifically defined to have part of the word be a direct borrowing, such as Silesian waszkuchnia from German Waschküche. Any ideas? Insaneguy1083 (talk) 10:21, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Would saying it's a clipping of a calque (or a semicalque) + -nik/-nica be adequate ? Leasnam (talk) 19:17, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Likely calque is just more accurate. Vininn126 (talk) 09:10, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I even dare say that semicalque isn’t accurate, this is just prompted by OP’s suggestion that it would have to be something peculiar, which I see not, rereading it the second day. Fay Freak (talk) 11:30, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Calques don't have to account for each lexeme or etymon, in my opinion. Vininn126 (talk) 11:31, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Aye, or morpheme on the other side, therefore it is just a calque. Fay Freak (talk) 11:40, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Tamil ட்டாணா

I came across this term for a police station in an old grammar book (spelled ட்டாணா) and couldn't find it anywhere here, so I created this page ட்டாணா. However in the DDSA dictionaries it shows up in three forms: "ட்டாணா", "டாணா", and "தாணா"^†. I'm not sure which of these is the most canonical nowadays (or if this is even a term that is still used much), so if there is someone who knows better it would be great to hear a more informed opinion.

† This one reflects the original hindi spelling of the word "थाना" Felix.gif (talk) 12:53, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Portuguese muçurana (“snake species”)

This word comes from Old Tupi musurana, where it referred to a kind of rope used in anthropophagic rituals. However, in the Portuguese entry, it is said that "origin of the new sense is unknown". Isn't it kind of obvious that a snake and a rope look a bit alike and the association was pretty likely, thus the semantic shift? OweOwnAwe (talk) 15:12, 1 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, for some snakes and the snakes in question.

It can be doubted also that “term didn't refer to any snake species in that language” – Old Tupí, it can be an unattested sense, for such a language. I have procured an appendix of senses in another formerly widespread language, Aramaic, inferred only outside of it, to substantiate further such constellations, which some people seem to find hard to understand from their basic or casual linguistic reading: Appendix:Aramaic terms only attested in borrowings. Fay Freak (talk) 11:38, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Is Twitterese a proper noun?

I created it last year as a common noun, but Mlgc1998 changed it to a proper noun yesterday. Should it not match golfese, parentese, etc.? It is capitalized because Twitter is. J3133 (talk) 07:49, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

I would say that as it means ‘the type of language used on Twitter/X’ but not necessarily actually used on the platform then it has a somewhat generic meaning and shouldn’t be treated as a proper noun (a similar phenomenon to the way hoover has been genericised). Overlordnat1 (talk) 08:02, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Logically, I would say it is no less a proper nouns than any other language name (capitalization not being a fundamental linguistic criterion). Taking French as an example, in the sense "the French language" it can be viewed as a proper noun, due to normally being conceptualized as one unique entity. This does not prevent it from being used countably to refer to multiple French languages in special contexts: e.g. "vernacular Frenches indeed make rampant use of adverbial là". Some uses of Twitterese, golfese, parentese are clearly being used with the same kind of unique sense (the language of Twitter, the language of golf, the language of parents) and I think would be equally entitled to be called proper nouns--as a matter of logic. However, I think that in practice the proper noun/common noun distinction is not treated especially logically. It would help to have a Wikipedia style guide that outlines general conventions to use, so that we can accomplish consistency: e.g. how to categorize language names, month names, day names, ethnonyms (countable and uncountable), organizations, ethnicities, etc.--Urszag (talk) 08:31, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

No, it is no proper noun.

Previous discussion, with my arguments and further links to previous threads: Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2021/December § Language and proper noun. Fay Freak (talk) 11:32, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Regardless of whether the names of natural languages like French are more properly common nouns – in French, the language name français is a nom commun – than the traditional properness ascribed to them, Twitterese, like journalese and the names of other lingos neologistically formed with the productive suffix -ese, are IMO definitely common nouns.  --Lambiam 12:29, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Is look like transitive?

The verb look like is said to have a transitive sense: “To be similar in appearance to; resemble.” It has a usex:

Ostriches look like emus to some people, but they are only distantly related.

If it was truly transitive, shouldn’t one be able to say, “*Emus are looked like by ostriches to some people”? I think, in fact, that the bracketing is as in Ostriches look (like emus); after all, one can also say, Ostriches look emu-like.  --Lambiam 12:06, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Seems intransitive to me. — Sgconlaw (talk) 12:58, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Intransitive, it does not have an object but a predicative. Predicative expression. Fay Freak (talk) 14:07, 2 October 2024 (UTC)

Separate question, about sense 2: in which dialects is the usex "He always looks like scoring a goal" a natural-sounding sentence? (Offhand, I can only recall hearing examples like the other, rain-related usex.) - -sche (discuss) 02:26, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

It ‘looks like’ perfectly natural English to me and I doubt anyone else in the UK would raise their eyebrows at it either. I suppose ‘he looks like he’s about to score’ could be thought of as the more grammatical and formal equivalent but ‘he (always) looks like scoring (a goal)’ seems perfectly fine and commonplace to me. Overlordnat1 (talk) 05:46, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

IMO, usage in sense 2 with a gerund phrase should be marked UK or Commonwealth. In any event, not US. This would probably require some reshuffling of definitions or a usage note. Even the wording of sense 2 seems UK-ish to me. DCDuring (talk) 14:22, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

I was about to just add some more usexes and label them all by which dialects they're valid in, but I realized... all of them, all of senses 2 and 3 of look like, just... look like sense 2 of look, don't they? The difference is that only some usexes can interchange like and as if (it looks like it's going to rain, it looks like I'm stuck with you: it looks as if...), while others can't(?) (at least to me, it looks like rain is valid but *it looks as if rain isn't). It looks like / as if sense 4 of look like is wrong (or at least, not transitive) as discussed above, and senses 2 and 3 should just be defined in terms of look, pointing people to look... - -sche (discuss) 15:10, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

The viewpoint expressed about about senses 2 and 3 (now removed), which amounts to stating that in these senses look like is an SOP or a non-structural juxtaposition, is supported by the fact that look like in these senses can be replaced by seem like. This also holds for the late sense 4.  --Lambiam 16:30, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

It looks like I'm not taking my usual anti-phrasal verb position, but only because some dictionaries and idiom or phrasal-verb references (imperialistically inclusive in their domains) include look like and we often follow such lemmings. In any event, such works never have more than two definitions. As for the revised entry, if we accept the premise that it is not a phrasal verb, it looks, like, good. DCDuring (talk) 16:45, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Anatidaeaplomb

is the confidence that everywhere, every how, a duck is watching you! Deal with it folk! Some are even watching out for you! 2001:8003:9814:C800:A58A:4A85:265B:B666 09:14, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

The original "anatidaephobia" term was awkward enough, since it used the taxonomic name for the duck family rather than for "duck" (that would be something like *anatiphobia. This is just dumb. Also, please read WT:CFI: this is what's called a protologism- something someone just made up. We don't allow entries for those. Sorry. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:07, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Nettaphobia?  --Lambiam 16:37, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Anatidphobia, possibly? Cremastra (talk) 16:46, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

where

There are common, informal/incorrect uses of where (and when) "where" relative conjunctions are preferred. The proscription seems based on the notion that where should be limited to location (and when to time). Such usages occur in Wiktionary definitions, often "where"/"when" the contributor doesn't bother with or buries a hypernym for the term being defined. (See [[infinite suicide]] for the definition that reminded me of this usage of "when".) I have taken a run at definitions marked as informal at [[where#Conjunction]].

Is informal the right label? Can the wording etc. be improved? The definitions offered are not substitutable in all cases that I have heard. Do we need to add them? Can (and should) the various cases be combined somehow, so as not to overemphasize such usage? DCDuring (talk) 17:48, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

'downwell' - expand to include meaning of 'downwards in gravity well'

Hi, I've come across the use of the word 'downwell' in science fiction to mean 'towards the nearest planet' i.e. towards the centre of the nearest gravity well.

References: Ancillary Sword, the second book of the Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie, and this allusion to an earlier usage: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/223914/what-s-the-first-use-of-the-term-downwell.

I notice it's not in Wiktionary. I've never edited a Wiktionary page and thought I might (for now) make a note in case someone with more experience wants to pick up the ball here... Thankyou! Orthabok (talk) 06:10, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

@Orthabok Yes, I've noted that as well, in the Imperial Radch trilogy and also, I think, in a few books by CJ Cherryh. I will add that definition to downwell. Cremastra (talk) 15:16, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

aquatone - copyright infringement?

The first definition of aquatone appears to have been copied verbatim from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aquatone. Vroo (talk) 17:54, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I cut back the detail in the def to reduce the degree. Beyond that, though, probably nothing else can be done, because a handful of words to say 'what something is' is at the level of a noncreative statement of fact alone. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:41, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

kick over the traces - kick against the pricks

Is there a difference in meaning? PUC – 09:15, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

They are perhaps near-synonyms. "Traces" clearly refers to control. "Pricks" doesn't, not matter which definition of prick is meant. I don't think that using {{syn of}} is warranted. DCDuring (talk) 16:58, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Mutual reference in See also sections seems fine, though.  --Lambiam 20:35, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

on wiki / off wiki

do these terms, either hyphenated on not, pass criteria for inclusion? these are used very similarly to online / offline, possibly even comparable to in hospital. below are some example sentences:

On wiki, there are many discussions regarding the recent news.

These are the on-wiki protocol for arbitration.

I keep different on and off wiki identities.

Juwan (talk) 17:33, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

We have an entry for off-wiki. J3133 (talk) 17:38, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

oh, that's nice to know. is there a technical term and template for the distinction between the phrase on wiki and the adjective on-wiki that one could you to reduce redundancy here? Juwan (talk) 18:30, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Diaeresis or umlaut?

The logo of Matthäi, a large construction company in northern Germany.

In the entry diaeresis, I added this image to illustrate the use of the diacritical mark. But now I'm wondering if it is actually an umlaut rather than a diaeresis, especially since the mark is on the a rather than the i (see the usage note at diaeresis). Some help, please? — Sgconlaw (talk) 22:22, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Seems to me that it is an umlaut, because ä = ae is a standard transliteration and we see it in Matthaei (e.g., w:de:Matthaei and w:en:Matthaei). At https://www.youtube.com/@matthaeibauunternehmen we hear what I would transcribe as /eɪ/ for the syllable, not /e.i/; to my knowledge German does not emically use the /eɪ/ diphthong much (whereas it uses monophthong /e/ plenty), but when it needs to use it, it needs to spell it äi or aei, because ai and ei both spell the diphthong /aɪ/ in German orthography. Now I'm asking myself, when German orthography wants to spell /e.i/, how does it do it? My mind is blanking on it right now, but I must go to bed. Quercus solaris (talk) 05:26, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

@Quercus solaris: I suspect you're right. Anyway, I moved the image over to umlaut, and used a different one at diaeresis. I wish someone would take a photograph of the newly updated Brontë plaque at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey with the diaereses added (see the 2024 quotation in the entry), so we can use it! — Sgconlaw (talk) 16:47, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

shout as he would

1. How would you place this in entry would?
   • 1922, Agatha Christie, “Chapter 16”, in The Secret Adversary:

     Shout as he would, no one could ever hear him. The place was a living tomb

Wars at my door (talk) 11:04, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

@Wars at my door: I think it's verb sense 5 ("wanted to"). — Sgconlaw (talk) 16:48, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

I would say sense 6. I think you could also use as he might and still have the same meaning. Leasnam (talk) 07:00, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

You're probably right but we could consider having entries for the phrases as one might and as one would to cover things like this. There's a discussion of 'try as I might' on StackExchange here[2].--Overlordnat1 (talk) 07:36, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

This was discussed on Wordreference at https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/try-as-he-would.3379387/ It is not any of the meanings mentioned by people in this thread. If it had to be any of the Wiktionary meanings, it would be number 3. Shout as he insisted on doing. See post 8 in the Wordreference thread. Yes, shout as he would and shout as he might mean roughly the same thing. 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 19:43, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Let me revise that from meaning 1.3 to meaning 2.7 or 2.8. Shout as he might wish to. 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 19:45, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I would say sense 2.2, honestly. The implication seems to be that he doesn’t scream, but would if he thought it would help. Agreed that it seems like a variation on “…as he might”. Asticky (talk) 22:11, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Scottas: palatalization?

Old English Scottas (“Scots”) is consistently marked with the palatalization dot <sċ> /ʃ/. But it comes from Latin Scoti with /sk/, and it gives Modern English Scots with /sk/. Why do we think it was palatalized in OE? Other words with <sc> before non-front vowels do give Modern English <sh>, like scamu (“shame”). The entry mentions an alternative form Sċeottas. How common was this? Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer says it was /sk/ in some foreign words such as scōl (“school”) and Scottas. Hiztegilari (talk) 18:52, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Sceottas, Sceotta [leoda], Sceotta [land] - Forms using Sceott are rare, yet occur frequently enough to not be considered aberrations. Middle English usually shows Sc-, Sk-, and Sch- [=/sk/ ?] but rarely Sh- and S- [=/ʃ/]. I would show /sk/ for Old English Scottas, but /ʃ/ for Sceottas. I would assume the stabilising effect of the Latin and Old Norse (i.e. Skotar) would keep Sc- from permanently becoming /ʃ/. Leasnam (talk) 20:55, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

DNI

I wish some help with how this term ought to be defined. it is used more flexibly beyond the phrase "do not interact", as in the usages below (taken from Twitter but I don't think I should post the original links):

no DNI

you are DNI

I am not sure when a term can be separated into a new etymology, but I believe that this warrants a separation from the other definitions for being a special case. Juwan (talk) 21:23, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Based on a Twitter search, I assume your first example simply means "I don't have a do not interact list"; I think this is covered by noun sense 4. The second usage looks adjectival, I would define it as e.g. "Belonging to a group of people that a social media user requests not to interact with them." I agree a separate ety section is justified for these senses. Einstein2 (talk) 13:51, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Polish powinien unused forms

Two thing:

1. The table includes forms powinnom (było) and powinnoś (było). I am no native, but surely these are not actually used? You wouldn't address yourself or your interlocutor as neuter, right? I would like to add this info, but I'm not sure how. Should I put it in the usage notes? Or should they be marked somehow in the table, or just outright removed from it? (I wouldn't know how, the table seems auto-generated.)

2. It is marked as a defective verb, which, in terms of meaning, it is. But for me, when using this to learn, that made the forms seem arbitrary, while they are not, at all. The forms come from powinien behaving as a short form adjective, which gets the same clitic endings as the past tense does to agree with the subject. (Of course these clitics originally come from forms of być, they were not necessarily past-tense endings before.) I would also like to note that somewhere, but again, I don't know where. It isn't exactly a usage note, so is it then trivia? Doesn't really sound like trivia either. Maybe mention it in the etymology? Donostia Gipuzkoa (talk) 12:33, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

I should perhaps add that I looked up powinnom and powinnoś on Reverso Context and indeed found no uses of either.

Donostia Gipuzkoa (talk) 12:38, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

@Donostia Gipuzkoa Neuter forms are often generated by both WSJP, NGJP, and many, many other sources as well, and the language council officially supports them. Forms like these are often used in science fiction and other things, as well as a minority of speakers who use neuter forms (such as aktywiszcze). While they are not common, they are often cited, and when it comes to declensions we often have rare forms, such as the vocative for nouns that rarely have them. Would you be in support of removing the vocative here, as well? Vininn126 (talk) 13:02, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

As to point two, the separate forms could be added to the table, if you mean the fact that those clitics can dettach from powinien itself. Compare other verb conjugation tables for a similar approach. Vininn126 (talk) 13:05, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

Final note, I'll add that these neuter-personal forms are attested online in various ways. Not the most common, but there. Vininn126 (talk) 13:20, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

collier #Translations

I think that the current 'unified' definition ("A person in the business or occupation of producing (digging or mining) coal or making charcoal or in its transporting or commerce") at collier makes a mess of the translation table under "person" because this definition blends a number of concepts which will be rendered with different words in most languages. (The English shift from "charcoal burner" to "coal miner" and then to "mineral coal transporter/trader" does not seem very common, perhaps a minor phenomenon in other languages at best (although the ambiguity of some glosses is not very helpful here), which is itself curious if you consider how liable to polysemy words for "coal" are.) Unsurprisingly this table is therefore a smorgasbord of terms for miners and charcoal burners with insufficient indication in the table of which is which.
Does anybody object if I split the translation table at the very least? Is it desirable to split the actual definition as well? ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 11:10, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

My two cents: go for it (splitting the transl table). As for splitting the def: I went for it; done (sense with two subsenses). Quercus solaris (talk) 21:59, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. I went a little further and replaced the "person" table with two soft redirects to the synonyms and relocated any useful terms. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 14:46, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

conatus

is there any consensus in how pronunciation for multiple senses, or in this case grammatical numbers, should be handled? the method used at conatus is very and also likely unaccessible. Juwan (talk) 14:17, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it’s fine. I don’t see why it is “unaccessible”. — Sgconlaw (talk) 06:45, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

the combination of ; and bullets may cause some confusion to screen readers. I have seen other ways such as main bullets and subbullets or sense labels, which would be way better here, so that's why I made this question. Juwan (talk) 10:13, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

If that's what you meant, you could have explained yourself more clearly. Sure, no objection to the use of bullets and sub-bullets instead of the semicolon. That's what I would use, anyway. — Sgconlaw (talk) 22:16, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

aardbei

The sound clip for Dutch aardbei sounds like /ˈhaːrt.bɛi̯/ rather than /ˈaːrt.bɛi̯/. Does anyone else hear an initial h ? Leasnam (talk) 06:03, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes it does. What I also find strange is that, despite apparently not having an ‘h’ sound, many French people seem to add one to the beginning of oui (though not in our audio). It does typically sound closer to the German ‘ch’ sound than the English ‘h’ sound when they do this though, Overlordnat1 (talk) 06:21, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Would the current sound byte be considered incorrect or misleading ? Leasnam (talk) 17:42, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I think both. The pronunciation of aardbaan by the same speaker (

Audio:

(file)

) does not suffer from a similar issue.  --Lambiam 20:23, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

葡萄

This word meaning "grape" is given the Pinyin transcription pútáo, but this is incorrect. It is actually pútao, with the neutral tone in the second syllable. Listen to it on Forvo. 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 10:46, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I'm certainly not fluent in Chinese so I may be missing something, but it looks to me like a simple case of tone sandhi, in which case it would be a matter of phonemic vs. phonetic representation. In English, the normal pronunciation of speak, peak and beak are shown as /spiːk/, /piːk/ and /biːk/, respectively, but if you play a recording of "speak" starting after the "s", it will sound more like "beak" than like "peak". That's because English uses aspiration to represent "voicing" of initial consonants, and aspiration is suppressed after an "s".

Thus a native speaker of standard Mandarin Chinese will always pronounce a word with a second tone on both syllables the same as if it had a second tone on the first and a neutral tone on the second. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:32, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

There’s also regional variation. It seems to be pronounced with two second tones in Singapore. — Sgconlaw (talk) 04:09, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

No, it's not sandhi. In particular, "a native speaker of standard Mandarin Chinese will always pronounce a word with a second tone on both syllables the same as if it had a second tone on the first and a neutral tone on the second" is flat-out wrong. For example, 学习 is xuéxí; it is not xuéxi. If you listen to 学习 on Forvo, you will realise that. Amazingly wrong to claim that tone sandhi means the second of two second tones is in fact a neutral tone. Could it rise less high? Yes, it might, but that is not what the neutral tone is.

Having looked further into this, the Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (Xiandai Hanyu Cidian - the most authoritative mainland Chinese dictionary) has pú·táo, where the interpunct (the raised dot) signifies that the second syllable can be optionally neutral-tone, so that both pútáo and pútao are correct. Neither of you were intellectually qualified to answer my question here. I had to look into it myself. QED. 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 18:45, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Category for abbreviations used in personal ads

below is a non-compressive list of many of the labels used previously in personal ads and now on other parts of the Internet, such as tagging (images, stories, etc), roleplay ads, among other usecases. I wish to request some help in how they should be added, categorised and presented on Wiktionary. I want to create a category, a list template and possibly a label for displaying these, because it is too much of a hassle to change all the pages one by one. how should these be even called is up to the question too.

I have compiled this list as to 1. exemplify what entries I want categorised and 2. for a basis for what to add in the future. I am not completely sure that all pass CFI, but that is not the point right now.

gender

• M (“male”)
• F (“female”)
• TF (“trans female”)
• TM (“trans male/man”)
• TW (“trans woman”)
• MTF (“male-to-female, trans woman”)
• FTM (“female-to-male, trans man”)
• NB (“non-binary”)
• FB (“femboy”)
• (chiefly pornography) FT (“futanari”)

 

marriage status

• SF (“single female”)
• MF (“married female”)
• DF (“divorced female”)
• SM (“single male”)
• MM (“married male”)
• DM (“divorced male”)

 

number of partners

• MF (“one man, one woman”)
• FM (“one woman, one man”)
• MM (“two men”)
• FF (“two women”)
• MMM (“three men”)
• FFF (“three women”)
• MMF (“two-men, one-woman”)
• MFF (“one-man, two-women”)
• FMM (“one-woman, two-men”)
• FFM (“two-women, one-man”)
• FMF (“two-women, one-man”)
• MFM (“two-men, one-woman”)

 

note that for FMF and MFM, the separation may mean that the two women or two men, respectively, don't interact with each other. instead only interacting with the middle partner. a user on Reddit explained well that FMF may have two straight women and FFM may have two bisexual women.

orientation

• MFM (“male for male”)
• M4M (“male for male”)
• MFF (“male for female”)
• M4F (“male for female”)
• M4A (“male for all/any”)
• MFA (“male for all/any”)
• FFM (“female for male”)
• F4M (“female for male”)
• FFF (“female for female”)
• F4F (“female for female”)
• F4A (“female for all/any”)
• FFA (“female for all/any”)
• NBFM (“non-binary for male”)
• NB4M (“non-binary for male”)
• NBFF (“non-binary for female”)
• NB4F (“non-binary for female”)
• NB4A (“non-binary for all/any”)
• NBFA (“non-binary for all/any”)
• TFT (“trans for trans”)
• T4T (“trans for trans”)
• (slang) ST4T (“straight trans for trans”)

 

in the abbreviations above, sometimes the middle F is uncapitalised to indicate the word for. the list is not even complete! because you could absolutely add multiple variations for the abbreviations listed in "gender", but I digress, that is for someone else to acheive.

there are also similar abbreviations used in fanfiction (seen below), used e.g. Alice/Bob, Alice&Bob, etc.

relationship type

• / (“romantic relationship”)
• & (“platonic relationship”)

 

any help would be appreciated! Juwan (talk) 15:09, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Not only used in personal ads. They may also appear where (pornographic) material is produced by one person for others (like Reddit's /r/gonewildaudio), or in the descriptions of fan fiction etc. that involves certain combinations of people having sex. 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:580C:F1AF:B902:5AA6 16:32, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

that's completely true! exactly why it needs to include more than just personal ads. Juwan (talk) 16:36, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

protactic

There's a modern term for this... what is it? P. Sovjunk (talk) 20:03, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, prologetic is synonymous but not modern or common. The word that my brain most reaches for is prefatory. Quercus solaris (talk) 05:01, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

scrolloping

Seems to be word invented by Virginia Woolf and used in several of her books. But also it seems to have been included in an OED supplement according to the journal Notes & Queries. I don't have access to any OED content so I can't confirm this or find out what the word actually means. Any idea if this word is attestable enough to include? Any idea what it means? Nosferattus (talk) 21:16, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

@Nosferattus: Alternative form of lolloping as already in a 1998 online newspaper culture piece with an additional quote (to multiple of Woolf, to it is not just a one-off) from an apparently then popular poet seems right to me. Fay Freak (talk) 21:29, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, are you sure about the meaning? I came across the word in the sentence "He tore, in one rending, the scrolloping, emblazoned scroll which he had made out in his own favour in the solitude of his room appointing himself, as the King appoints Ambassadors, the first poet of his race, the first writer of his age, conferring eternal immortality upon his soul and granting his body a grave among laurels and the intangible banners of a people's reverence perpetually." I don't think lolloping would make sense there. The word seems to have something to do with being ornate and pretentious. Does anyone have access to the OED definition? Nosferattus (talk) 21:50, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

@Nosferattus: If you pick a piece of paper or even metal it can bend, wave, a bit. It may also be just a perceptional aspect, like surely the cucumbers look wavy, but not so much as to justify the word “wavy” or similar, so they use this understatement which also means “to lie around lazily”. It’s so dainty that only this few upper-class people know the word. Fay Freak (talk) 22:04, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

@Nosferattus: It befits to note that she has the matching neurodivergence; the authoress’s mood toward an object goes otherwhither as juxtaposed with mine or thine. “From the age of 13, Woolf had symptoms that today would be diagnosed as bipolar disorder.” Fay Freak (talk) 22:14, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I suppose that would explain her unfortunate tendency toward autodefenestration. Nosferattus (talk) 22:25, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

@Fay Freak: I found an interesting comment on the OED's inclusion of scrolloping in The Oxford History of English Lexicography: "[Robert] Burchfield emphasized many times (e.g. Vol. 1: xiv) his fondness for inclusion of the hapax legomena and eccentric usages of major literary writers (Beckett’s athambia, Joyce’s peccaminous, Woolf’s scrolloping, Edith Sitwell’s Martha-coloured, etc.)." Nosferattus (talk) 21:23, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I finally found the OED's definition of scrolloping: "Characterized by or possessing heavy, florid, ornament. Also transferred and as present participle, proceeding in involutions, rambling." Nosferattus (talk) 21:27, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

@Nosferattus: Which expresses the same as what I said, without the etymological and psychographic backing. rambling: ‘winding irregularly in various directions’, involute: winding regularly in various directions. What ornaments and flowers (florid) often are heavily. Fay Freak (talk) 22:07, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Brush with death?

Just want to make sure brush with death meets the criteria, since I was kinda surprised it didn’t have an entry before. It’s clearly a specific use case of sense 6 of brush, but it makes up such a vast majority of uses that I would be inclined to say that “brush with {something else}” is an extension of “brush with death” for modern speakers Asticky (talk) 22:28, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't look inclusion-worthy under WT:CFI. The appropriate definition of brush is "A short and sometimes occasional encounter or experience." That definition could be improved by mentioning that it is frequently complemented by a preposition phrase headed by with and having usage examples with a few of the common nouns in such phrases. DCDuring (talk) 01:14, 14 October 2024 (UTC) DCDuring (talk) 01:14, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

𑍐(om)

weird things on the 𑍐 page. if you go to alternative scripts, it shows "sa" as being all of the transliterations. i'd assume that this is because sa is sanskrit language code, and someone mistakenly put it in, but then i looked at the ꦎꦴꦀ page. now everything is औम̐ (that's औ + म + ँ) and gujarati is suspiciously missing. same happens for ওঁ and 𑖌𑖼, while ᬒᬁ and 𑓇 have the "sa" problem again. brahmi 𑀑𑀁 and kannada ಓಂ have ओं (makes sense, that's literally what it is) but it seems like "sa-alt|Deva=ॐ" is not working on any of these pages. Does anyone have an explanation, and hopefully a fix? NS1729 (talk) 00:25, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

killed in action

What does everyone think about the photos and text "Many Confederate generals were killed in battle" added to this entry? Would it be considered as encyclopedic content and thus inappropriate for Wiktionary? ---> Tooironic (talk) 10:11, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it is no illustration of the term. I mean those individuals have not been told “let us have a photo shoot just in case we need illustration for your having died in action specifically.” Fay Freak (talk) 16:18, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I've removed it. The Confederacy is an extremely politically-loaded issue in the US, so what looks like a shrine to people who fought to preserve slavery (it's more complicated than that- someone from the South might frame it quite differently) added just before a presidential election is definitely a violation of NPOV. If an IP had added it, I would have reverted it and blocked the perpetrator. Instead, it's just another demonstration of poor judgment by a marginal contributor best known for adding bad categories. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:27, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you both for dealing with this. I thought it looked out of place. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:21, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

While we're at it, I'm not entirely comfortable with this entry. First of all, is this really an adjective? The verb is definitely restricted in how it can be used, but "killing in action", although rare, might very well pass CFI. Part of it is the nature of "kill" and "in action" which have very strict semantic restraints built in. "Kill" in the context of an individual patient seems to be restricted to a single action- it may take a while, but it's a single action. "In action" seems to be restricted to the kinds of things characteristic of combat: "fed in combat" sounds silly, though it's definitely something that has happened a lot over the history of war (see mess kit, K-rations, an army marches on its stomach, etc.).

The distinction between killed in action and missing in action is instructive: you can say "went missing in action", but "went killed in action" sounds odd. The equivalent of "missing", where killing is concerned, is "dead", not "killed". Part of it is no doubt the contrast between transitive/active and intransitive/stative, but it seems more than that.

Which brings up the second part: given the semantic (and syntactic?) restrictions on the parts, it seems like this might also be SOP. You could say "killed while fighting a war", "killed in combat", "shot in action", etc. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:09, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

You are right that it is no adjective, since in a sentence structure killed is part of the inflection of the verb in the passive (for which we need forms of to be as auxiliaries, but the page misleadingly assumes them full verbs accompanied by a predicatively used adjective) and in action an adverb, verb phrase and adverbial phrase. This means it is a non-constituent, for which we apparently use the header Phrase as in cooking with gas. Fay Freak (talk) 22:30, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Is a folded leaflet a "folder" in English?

The Swedish word folder (“folded leaflet”) originates from the English word folder. However, should it be categorized as an "unadapted borrowing" or a "pseudo-anglicism"? The English definition does not explicitly include meanings like brochure or leaflet, although dictionary entries are rarely comprehensive. – Christoffre (talk) 10:23, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I am not familiar with a "leaflet, brochure" definition for folder in US English, but it is certainly possible that it has the meaning in some contexts, such as advertising or printing. DCDuring (talk) 13:02, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed on both points. The sense is absent from general usage, but if an initiate were to tell me that it exists as a jargon sense in certain subspecialties of the printing business (e.g., direct mail), it would not surprise me. Quercus solaris (talk) 14:15, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I guess that I'll keep it as "unadapted borrowing" then, unless we can prove the negative. – Christoffre (talk) 19:05, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

airlift, v.

What does this verb from today’s news mean? “The vice president appears to have airlifted sections of her book […]”. I could add an empty ({{rfdef}}) definition with this quote, but I am not going to do this before the election—in consideration of the professional ethics of the lexicographer as well as avoidance of a resurrection of Orange Jesus—, and when searching for other quotes in relation to plagiarism in particular, I get too noisy spam advertising plagiarism checks. Seems like some recent academia slang, though the plagiarism has been found by a notorious German-native researcher. Fay Freak (talk) 14:04, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Looks to be an expressive synonym of lift, as you said, meaning to take. Vininn126 (talk) 15:26, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. A peculiar way of morphologically adding expressiveness, if so. Perhaps @Einstein2 can prove it with further occurrences. Fay Freak (talk) 15:45, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I will try and look for attestations once I regain access to Internet Archive and Newspapers.com. Einstein2 (talk) 16:00, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Simon Armitage, A Vertical Art: On Poetry (2022), page 243, takes the metaphor a step further: " […] an entire system-built section has been airlifted from one text and parachuted into another." - -sche (discuss) 08:07, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd interpret such attestation as being of an expressive metaphor, not that airlift (steal) had entered the lexicon. DCDuring (talk) 13:16, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

You can see it this way, but it is not mutually exlusive. I like the idea of expressive inventions decidedly fusing two etymological origins at the same time, the literal senses of airlift and the older senses of the verb lift ‘to steal, also intellectual property’, and thus entering the lexicon. Fay Freak (talk) 15:16, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I know, but -sche's cite shows that the metaphor is both alive and kicking, not that it has entered the lexicon. DCDuring (talk) 18:15, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

This seems like an arbitrary distinction - plenty of freshly coined words (like random adverbs derived from adjectives or un- words or -ness words) are nonce words, yet given enough quotes we document them. Are you against such nonce words too, or just neologisms that go against your sensibilities? Vininn126 (talk) 18:20, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

It is just an untrue insinuation that a metaphor must be a dead metaphor to enter the lexicon. Fay Freak (talk) 21:00, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

If it has entered the lexicon, it shouldn't be hard to find cites without depending on those that merely show the the term nosing into the tent of lexicality. (The appropriate sense of nose#Verb does not seem well covered by our definitions.) DCDuring (talk) 04:30, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Would you feel the same way about rare words suffixed with -ness? Vininn126 (talk) 08:21, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes. PUC – 20:01, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

"Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch" is not English-language but is listed as such in definition

the definition of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is said to be the "longest English-language settlement name in the world" in the English definition, but the town name is Welsh-language. saying it's English language is technically wrong and a wee bit anglocentric, but I'm a new editor and I'm not sure if I'm making a big fuss out of nothing. thoughts? Thefollyof (talk) 02:16, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

We list it as an English term, so saying that it's anglocentric feels a bit weird. The reason we do that is because it's used in English running text as a native word. I edited it to say "English name" because there are other, longer place names in the world in other languages, like กรุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยา มหาดิลกภพ นพรัตนราชธานีบูรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์มหาสถาน อมรพิมานอวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยวิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์, the full Thai name of Bangkok. CitationsFreak (talk) 02:33, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

fw heavy

Usage note... As with 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓴𝔂 (freaky), this is often written in a cursive font: 𝓘 𝓯𝔀 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓱𝓮𝓪𝓿𝔂 𝓫𝓻𝓸❤️. 𝔀t𝓯??? P. Sovjunk (talk) 21:47, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

On a different note, this is SoP Leasnam (talk) 03:23, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

“invoker or invokee”

Old Norse goði has this definition: “godi, invoker or invokee, chief of a þing or keeper of a sanctuary”. Its Icelandic descendant goði has: “(historical) godi, an alternate title for a jarl, invoker or invokee, chief of a þing”. Finally, Old Norse goð has, under Related terms, “goði (“alternate title for a jarl, invoker or invokee”)”. What information is this meant to convey?  --Lambiam 07:17, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Added in diff, FWIW. - -sche (discuss) 07:59, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

rationalize

I note that someone has added a quotation into the second definition to this entry. Is that appropriate? ---> Tooironic (talk) 08:04, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

Of course it is, why wouldn’t it be? Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:40, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I've never seen a quotation added directly onto the definition line. It doesn't look right. ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:22, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

It’s actually officially against policy to display the quotations in any other way, as per Wiktionary:Votes/2024-07/Remove "Quotations" sections Overlordnat1 (talk) 12:06, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I can't tell whether you're joking, or misunderstanding what the vote did and what the entry was doing. 😅 I've removed the quote from inside the definition, which didn't use the word (or else I would've reformatted it as a #* quote). - -sche (discuss) 17:16, 18 October 2024 (UTC)

I thought the REM quote was being referred to, not the dodgy reference. Clearly I got my wires crossed. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 01:47, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

It was a fine definition for the noun rationalization. I've used an element of it to tweak our definition.  --Lambiam 08:21, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

virus – collective or plural?

We list a sense of virus as: “(uncountable) A quantity of such infectious agents”, supported by a quotation: “... unseen pests and diseases (particularly small insects and microbes such as virus or bacteria) whose populations might explode catastrophically ...”. When I read this, it seems to me that the authors of this sentence use virus as a plural noun, not as a (singular) collective. Other uses of virus that appear plural to me:

• “Chronic diseases: what about infections of virus and prions via the gut? ... methodological improvements have made it possible to study virus and other microorganisms” (→DOI);
• “Citrus is also subjected to various biotic stresses, especially caused by virus and viroids which limit the vigor, yield, and quality of the plant.” (→DOI).

Possibly, this was done in (misplaced) analogy with other Latin loanwords in -us that are unchanged in the plural, such as consensus, detritus, domus and lapsus.

The definition of the first sense seems to be that of a single particle, a virion, whereas the uses usually have the sense of an infectious agent formed by such particles, or even, specifically, that of a species, as seen in the second quotation of the first sense, “Bats host many high-profile viruses that can infect humans, including severe acute respiratory syndrome and Ebola.” The meaning here is obviously not “many virions”, but “many virus species”.  --Lambiam 09:22, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I think that you are correct in parsing those citations as most likely reflecting the writer's intent for a zero-inflection plural count-noun sense (i.e., a null morpheme form) rather than truly using the mass-noun sense (uncountable-noun sense). But what must be added in the same breath, in my view, are the following points: (1) that this is nonstandard: many speakers would view this as catachrestic, which does not mean that it does not exist (descriptively) nor that a dictionary can't enter it but merely that a dictionary should (not fail to) apply the nonstandard label to adequately describe it; and (2) that the mass-noun sense also certainly exists, which can be shown with other citations (an example ux: they found much virus in the sample [ = they found a high viral load in it]), and is certainly standard. I agree that the citations you shared here are not the ones to use for supporting the mass-noun sense. Quercus solaris (talk) 15:51, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Plenty of attestation of much virus in textbooks, medical journals and reports, etc. I don't think it is an error of any kind. It reflects the notion that microbes are, in usual practice, never counted and would be very difficult to count. The use of the plural would also raise the need to be committed to a view of whether different species of virus (or other microbe) were involved. DCDuring (talk) 16:15, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

There are two things going on, not to be conflated: (1) a mass sense which is pluralized to mean "types of that mass noun" (directly comparable with "much butter" (mass noun) and "a variety of herb butters" [which denotes types of herb butter as a mass noun) (another example: "much paint" [mass] and "a selection of alkyd paints" [types of mass]), and (2) a count sense, in which the declension is (a) virus, viruses (sg, pl) (standard) (example: "this virus, norovirus, sometimes causes outbreaks of gastroenteritis" and "those viruses, the enteroviruses, include X and Y") or (b) virus, virus (sg, pl) (nonstandard, involving a null morpheme, comparable with sheep and moose as null-morpheme plural inflections, which for those words is standard). Quercus solaris (talk) 17:13, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I think we generally have a simpler typology for nouns: countable nouns, singular countable nouns, and plural countable nouns. I don't recall anyone suggesting that mass nouns have plural forms. We often have a countable sense for a usually uncountable noun X "(countable) a kind of X." DCDuring (talk) 21:33, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Many mass nouns in English have plural inflections, denoting types of that mass noun or portions/servings of it. Which metalanguage or typology people choose to describe that phenomenon may vary. Some beers are made with hops; some steels have more manganese than others do. Those utterances are about kinds/types. Explanations of mass nouns that say that they "don't have plural forms" are just lazily written. Others do a better job by saying things such as "usually aren't used in the plural form" or similar. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:07, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

The typology English Wiktionary has chosen does not require distinguishing between the plural of the uncountable and countable nouns. We treat that sort of usage ("kinds of [uncountable noun]") as a countable definition of the (un)countable noun. In any event, I don't think the typology changes how we present such words, nor whether virus is sometimes used uncountably. DCDuring (talk) 15:18, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed on both points. As my comments said, it often is used uncountably. Quercus solaris (talk) 15:46, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

PS: there is also a count sense of the word virus that means virion (viral particle, virus particle), although plenty of people there are some people who prescribe that it be avoided because they consider it loose. The label for that sense would could be sometimes proscribed. Quercus solaris (talk) 18:10, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

It's news to me that anyone would proscribe using "virus" as a count noun to refer to the specific infectious particle. The OED includes a 1960 citation with this use in its entry: "There are some particles smaller than any known cell, the viruses, which are regarded by some biologists as being alive" (D. C. Braungart & R. Buddeke, Introduction to Animal Biology (ed. 5) ii).--Urszag (talk) 19:24, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Re news, it depends on whose preferences (and pedantry) one is exposed to. There are some people who subscribe to the idea of "don't say 'virus' when you mean 'virion'", which allows them to reserve 'virus' to the sense meaning "viral species". I should have said "some" rather than "plenty". Quercus solaris (talk) 20:35, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

As virus is abundantly used both uncountably and countably and even sometimes indistinguishably from virion, we don't have to prescribe and generally shouldn't anyway. DCDuring (talk) 15:18, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Agreed; moreover, I think it can accurately be said that Wiktionary should never prescribe usage (that is, in its "own voice", as it were, which would be POV), but it should succinctly inform its users about prescriptions that exist, which is just recording an NPOV fact. It does this well and unobtrusively whenever it uses a short label such as nonstandard or sometimes proscribed. Importantly, those labels are descriptive: they don't claim to declare what is "correct" or "wrong", they only record that some people think that X or Y is correct or wrong. Quercus solaris (talk) 15:46, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Sylki

@WordyAndNerdy added the “en:Heterosexual ships (fandom)” category to this entry; I restored it after seeing that someone reverted it without providing any reason. It was removed again, with the summary,

Both Loki and Sylvie are canonically bisexual, therefore they shouldn't be included in the "en:Heterosexual ships (fandom)" category.

In my second revert, I wrote,

“Heterosexual” in this category (“Heterosexual ships (fandom)‎”) refers to the ship, not the characters.

as the category is “for specific ships between characters of different genders”, but purportedly,

Since both the characters Loki and Sylvie are canonically bisexual, the ship is a bisexual ship. Therefore, they shouldn't be included in the "en:Heterosexual ships (fandom)" category, otherwise it could be considered an act of bisexual erasure (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bisexual_erasure). The lack of a category for bisexual ships, or a broader LGBTQ category shouldn't be reason enough to conflate a ship of bisexual characters in a heterosexual category.

J3133 (talk) 12:00, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I see where the IP is coming from, but I also agree with you about what the scope of the category should be... I think the issue is the category name, and we could solve this by renaming the categories to more clearly reflect their stated scopes (viz. "specific ships between characters of different genders", "specific ships between characters of the same sex"). I suggest renaming the categories to something like "Same-gender ships (fandom)" (and m.m. "Different-..."). (Perhaps WAN or anyone else can foresee if that would cause any different issues.) - -sche (discuss) 17:34, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Category:Heterosexual ships (fandom) is based on the gender/sex composition of the couple. "Bisexual ship" has too many interpretations to be functional as a category. The most straightforward would be any ship composed of two bisexual characters. But it could potentially also include any couple featuring a single bisexual character. I've seen the F/F ship Lumity referred to as a "bi ship" since one of its members is canonically bisexual. And what about canonically pansexual characters? Lumping them into a "bisexual" category might be viewed as its own form of erasure. Plus in fannish contexts "bisexual ship" may also refer to ships that have varying canonical gender composition due to fantasy/sci-fi reasons (Doctor/Master) or customizable player characters (Shenko, Fenhawke, etc.). It doesn't seem feasible to account for all these nuances within the framework of the categorisation system.

I would support a rename from "Category:Heterosexual ships (fandom)" to "Category:F/M ships (fandom)." This would bring it into line with "Category:M/M ships (fandom)" and "Category:F/F ships (fandom)." I think that "same-gender ships" (or "same-sex ships") could potentially perpetuate the existing issue with the het category being the odd one out.

Can we also remove the clunky "fandom" disambiguators from these categories? They don't seem necessary except for Category:Ships (fandom) and Category:Shipping (fandom). I don't think there's ever going to be a real need to disambiguate the lesbian character relationship category from a category for lesbian boats. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 00:40, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

As an aside Sylki would fit under Category:Selfcest ships if there's any interest in such a category. WordyAndNerdy (talk) WordyAndNerdy (talk) 01:08, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Good point, naming them F/M ships (etc) would also work (and no objection to dropping "fandom" from the name here). - -sche (discuss) 02:37, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

@WordyAndNerdy: I also support “F/M”, to match the “M/M” and “F/F” categories. J3133 (talk) 05:46, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I think we can also delete Category:en:Homosexual ships (fandom) and its parent category. From what I remember this category was originally created by another user to house both M/M and F/F ships. I created the M/M and F/F categories to create separation (and also to avoid the dated connotations of homosexual). WordyAndNerdy (talk) 01:59, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

An additional possible interpretation of "bisexual ship" is OT3s with characters of multiple genders. There's currently only one entry that fits that bill (Clexana), though not for lack of trying on my part. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 04:17, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

@WordyAndNerdy: Should I make an RfM? Also, I suppose the current “Heterosexual” category, as “for specific ships between characters of different genders”, would include ships between non-binary and male/female characters, whereas “M/F” would not. J3133 (talk) 05:28, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

@-sche, WordyAndNerdy: I have added another sense to heterosexual (“(of a romantic or sexual act or relationship) Between two people of different sex.”) to match the second sense at homosexual (“(of a romantic or sexual act or relationship, formal, distancing or dated) Between two people of the same sex; gay.”). J3133 (talk) 08:32, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

formality

Senses 2, 3 and 4 sound very similar, can't we condense them into two or even one? PUC – 17:20, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Older dictionaries (Century 1911, MW 1913, Webster 1828) have as many as 8 definitions, newer ones only 3. We sometimes claim to be a historical dictionary. Are we missing something needed to understand how older works used formality? — This unsigned comment was added by DCDuring (talk • contribs) at 17:39, 20 October 2024 (UTC).

Possibly two, but definitely not one. The formalities of a taxonomy are usually not (mere) formalities, if you see what I mean. All of the word's more specific/particular senses are, logically (and formally 😉), subsenses under the broadest one meaning "the state or an instance of being formal", but if a Wiktionarian consensus refuses to indent them (##), the flaw is venial. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:51, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

demon

Discussion moved from Wiktionary talk:Tea room/2024/October#demon.

I would like to dispute one of the definitions of the word "demon" on this website. It's definition 1 sense 1; I have no idea of the proper jargon, so I may have butchered this (I'm new to Wiktionary). If I butchered it, let me just quote it: "An evil spirit resident in or working for Hell; a devil." The Bible seems to indicate that demons do not come from hell but are instead going to hell after the second coming of Christ (Mt. 25:41, Rev. 20:10). The place they are currently locked up, most often referred to as "the abyss" or "the bottomless pit" depending on the translation (Luke 8:31, Rev. 20:1-3), is a temporary prison where they are held until it is time for God's judgment (2 Pet. 2:4, HCSB; Jude 1:6). So, maybe the definition should be altered in order to account for the disparity between popular belief and the Scriptures, because the current definition seems biased towards one belief system.

Note: All BIble verses are from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition except for 2 Peter 2:4, for which I decided to cite from the Holman Christian Standard Bible. I chose that translation because where most translations chose to translate "Tartarus" as "hell", which I feel is erroneous, this one chose to use the Greek term, which I feel shines a better light on the verse's meaning. NAIO23 (talk) 23:15, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

@NAIO23: this is the correct place to post this. The talk page is just for talking about the Tea Room, not posting to it. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:14, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

As to substance: "hell" is a Germanic word that originally referred to a place in Germanic mythology. The scriptures use a lot of different terms that require a great deal of interpretation to arrange into a coherent picture. The interpretations that have led to the cosmology in general English usage are different from yours, but that doesn't mean one or the other is the "correct" one. Complicating things is the usage of pagan Greek names by Jesus and others to refer to things: for instance, the "gates of Hell" is "πύλαι ᾅδου", literally "gates of Hades", and 2 Peter 2:4 uses the verb ταρταρόω, "to cast into Tartarus"- a verb also used by Homer in the Iliad. What you distinguish as the true Hell is described in various ways: Matthew 25:41 says "πῦρ τὸ αἰώνιον", "the eternal fire" and Revelations 20:10 refers to casting εἰς τὴν λίμνην τοῦ πυρὸς καὶ θείου, "into the lake of fire and sulfur". Revelations 20:14 refers to ὁ θάνατος καὶ ὁ ᾅδης, "Death and Hades" being thrown into the same lake of fire and sulfur. As for Luke 8:31, it does use ἄβυσσον, "abyss", but who's to say that's mutually exclusive with "hell"? Jude 1:6 says the fallen angels "εἰς κρίσιν μεγάλης ἡμέρας δεσμοῖς ἀϊδίοις ὑπὸ ζόφον τετήρηκεν", "unto the day of great judgment are being kept in eternal chains under deepest darkness" (or something like that).

As you can see, the actual wording doesn't support your clear-cut distinction between the current places of imprisonment and punishment and the "hell" of the time after the Last Judgment. That doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong, but a descriptive dictionary based on usage can't override popular conceptions based on your interpretation alone. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:45, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

We record the senses of terms as they are actually used by speakers of the language in question. For example, just in books from the 17th and 18th centuries we see uses such as

• “a demon from hell”;^[3][4][5][6]
• “demons from hell”;^[7]
• “his demons in hell”.^[8]

 --Lambiam 19:33, 21 October 2024 (UTC)