Wiktionary:Tea room/2021/January

niet te verwarren met

Should we have an entry for niet te verwarren met ("not to be confused with", literally "not to confuse with")? It does seem SOP as this passive-like use of the (active) infinitive is certainly not limited to this verb, but it might be the kind of thing that is useful to readers anyway as it is something of a set phrase (although it can be used both as a postpositive apposition and with a conjugated form of zijn; in the latter case it can also mean "to be impossible to confuse with"). ~~←₰-→~~ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 10:57, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is too SOP to be entryworthy. Even with my extremely limited Dutch, I'd only need to look up verwarren to know what this means. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:01, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note that in Dutch te + inf, in particular when used as the complement of a copula, can in general have a passive meaning, similar to the Latin gerundive (Carthago delenda – “should be destroyed”) or the suffix -able (“can be ...-ed”). For example, in te nemen = “to be taken”,^[1] and te voorzien = “foreseeable”.^[2] --Lambiam 22:20, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't interpret these as passive, but rather along the lines of "that one should take" and "that one should foresee". The difference is subtle, but the Finnish "passive" comes to mind, which is similarly not really a passive form but an active form with an implied but unspecified actor. —Rua (mew) 20:40, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The use of door in “door de gebruiker in te nemen”^[3] and ”dit was te voorzien door een ieder, die eenigszins met den toestand bekend is”^[4] shows that in Dutch this is seen as a passive construction. --Lambiam 14:18, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

potje schaken

The expression potje schaken in the sense of “a game of chess” is seen here. The pattern appears to be used for other games between opponents as well: potje voetballen. This does not correspond to any of the senses given for pot or potje. Is this from the diminutive of pot? Can one say, een stevige pot voetballen? Does it have to do with a prijzenpot? I have also seen een potje huilen; does that have any relation? Is this an implied simile, in which the crying is seen as a sort of game? English bout can refer to a boxing match, but I guess the similarity is a coincidence. --Lambiam 22:54, 1 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam The WNT covers this in two places at "pot II" I, B, 14 b (for stakes and by extension matches in card games, billiards, etc., also for potje huilen/vechten) and II, 9 (mainly games with marbles). Some of their subsenses are extremely vague. De Coster says that it began to be used for sports matches in the 80s, but it seems impossible to tell from which of the two semantic 'branches' it grew, it could well have been influenced by both. Personally I am familiar with the sense for card games, boardgames, some other tabletop games, playing with marbles, certain ball games (football, volley ball) and also for fighting and crying. Ignoring fighting and crying, I think it usually refers to competitive play that is somewhat informal. ~~←₰-→~~ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 12:54, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

baraxa in Galician

@Afonso705 and I have been having a dispute over a usage note on the Galician entry for baralla. It says that the Spanish loanword baraxa is used more often in a particular context. He's been trying to remove it on the grounds that the official Galician dictionary doesn't accept it as Galician. I reverted the removal, because it seemed solely based on a prescriptive interpretation of what constitutes Galician that is at odds with our Criteria for inclusion. After they began edit-warring over this, I blocked them from editing the page for a few days to allow things to cool down.

That said, I don't speak Galician, and I also don't want to perpetuate a falsehood- if that's what it is. I would like to hear from our other Galician speakers about this- especially @Froaringus who added the note and @Vriullop who has also edited the entry. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:02, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Happy new year everyone. Sorry to hear that editors are edit-warring over this. Lets put it like that: if you enter a bar or a coffee-shop in rural Galicia and some patrons are playing cards, chances are that they call the deck [baˈɾaʃɐ], which is rather obviously an adaptation and loan from Spanish, but no longer a Spanish word. The Royal Galician Academy doesn't accept this use because it is really unneeded, and I'm OK with that, but the use is real and very common; check for example:

Rosario Álvarez Blanco, editor (2014–2024), “baralla”, in Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega, →ISSN, or
http://ilg.usc.es/TILG/en.

Maybe we can put a note that this use is proscribed? --Froaringus (talk) 10:49, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should do an indepth look into this and then make a suggestion.

pole dancing

The current definition "Erotic dancing on stage by a stripper on and against a vertically fixed pole" — which has been there for over seven years — seems wildly inaccurate. AFAIK, pole dancing is performed by anyone who has the chops, not just strippers. It is not exclusively erotic either. Thoughts? The sister entry pole dance and the relevant English Wikipedia article seem to support my understanding of the term. ---> Tooironic (talk) 08:47, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You're absolutely right. Pole dancing is by no means exclusively erotic, and neither our definition nor our illustration should suggest it is. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:58, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've downgraded the entry to an {{alt form}} of pole dance, which we define only as a noun. But can't it be used as a verb too, perhaps rather with the spelling pole-dance? —Mahāgaja · talk 09:01, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Here are some uses as a verb, some of which are hyphenated – which feels to me as orthographically preferable – but many of which are not: [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10]. --Lambiam 14:30, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think the erotic element would be well accommodated with an "especially" in the definition. DCDuring (talk) 22:46, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have added a cited verb PoS section to pole dance and made some conforming adjustments to some of the associated entries. DCDuring (talk) 22:46, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve made a minor adjustment to pole dancing to bring it in line with both the noun and verb senses of pole dance Overlordnat1 (talk) 10:12, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dutch zalven and related phrases

@Lingo Bingo Dingo, Thadh, Lambiam pinging some Dutch editors. Was wondering here about how you feel about the phrases "zalvende gedachte", "zalvende woorden" and perhaps others with that participle I can't recall right now. It seems to me they are somewhere on the border of being idiomatic, especially in view of our definitions at zalvend and zalven, which don't quite cover the meaning of these phrases (respectively comforting thought/pleasant prospect and comforting words). Are these non-SOP enough for entries of their own, should we (like Van Dale) expand zalvend into a full entry and add these as usexes, or some other course of action? What do you reckon? — Mnemosientje (t · c) 12:34, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

One can also speak of a zalvende phrase, zalvende nabetrachting and zalvende boeken. The attribute can also be applied to the producer of such utterances (zalvende dominee) or the manner of delivery (zalvende toon). So I think we need an adjectival figurative sense for zalvend; collocations like “zalvende gedachte” are SOP, IMO. --Lambiam 13:38, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps soothing is a better primary definition for the figurative sense; compare also the first sense given for the verb to salve. Judging from the uses, it appears to me that the term is often used with a strong connotation of lack of sincerity. --Lambiam 13:50, 2 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam I've added an adjective sense at zalvend. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 16:55, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Are there no attestations of the verb itself in this sense? —Rua (mew) 20:37, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Rua In a way there are [11], but note that these examples are transitive and that the usage seems obsolete. ~~←₰-→~~ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 15:58, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

stargaze

Aren't we missing a figurative sense? Isn't it similar to daydream? P U C – 13:52, 3 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Added. Leasnam (talk) 23:51, 3 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

one-size-fits-all

Isn't it often used pejoratively? I've always thought it was pretty much a synonym of cookie-cutter, which is pejorative: "a one-size-fits-all approach" = "a cookie-cutter approach".

“one-size-fits-all”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present. puts a "disapproving" label on it. P U C – 13:58, 3 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience often pejorative is a better characterization of usage than unqualified pejorative or disapproving. DCDuring (talk) 20:58, 3 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If it appears to be pejorative, I think this is not inherent in the term by itself, but stems from the observation, true in many contexts, that it is difficult for a one-size-fits-all solution to succeed^[12] or even impossible to exist.^[13][14] Hence, the term is often found in a context with negative polarity, which may express derision at attempts, deemed silly, to achieve the impossible – or a protest against procrustean methods forcing obstinate reality to fit an inadequate theory. But where finding a one-size-fits-all solution is not judged impossible on a priori grounds, the term is not burdened by context-imposed disapproval: [15], [16]; [17]. --Lambiam 16:38, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

subingression

The quote at subingression (without the subingression of air to turn them into bubbles) doesn't match the definition (secret entrance). Perhaps there was a mistake by the article creator or by Webster 1913? Jonely Mash (talk) 17:17, 3 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like it could mean that: the bubbles enter (some kind of chemical mixture) secretly. What do you think it means instead? Equinox ◑ 17:25, 3 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I replaced the definition with the one in NED (original OED, out of copyright). A "secret entrance" sounds more like a hidden door than somebody walking into a room without being noticed. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 17:36, 3 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

coaching

I have added another sense relating to coaches as vehicles, which I have treated as being attributive rather than as an adjective. I wouldn't want to call it an adjective, and then find out that it isn't one. My question is whether "coaching" in the vehicle sense is used, or ever was used in the past, as a noun. DonnanZ (talk) 12:29, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some such uses: [18] (with coaching as a noun even in the book’s title), [19], [20]. --Lambiam 15:54, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I found this. So it is a noun, albeit uncommon. Now for a definition... DonnanZ (talk) 16:36, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Hopefully it's OK. Cheers. DonnanZ (talk) 17:58, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

to collar up

From Hemingway's An Alpine Idyll (in The First Forty-Nine Stories):

"The sun came through the open window and shone through the beer bottles on the table. The bottles were half full. There was a little froth on the beer in the bottles, not much because it was very cold. It collared up when you poured it into the tall glasses."

Now we don't have collar up and neither of our definitions (whether for the verb or the noun) enlighten me about what this means. To form a head? To become more visibly fizzy? Something completely different? --Droigheann (talk) 02:37, 18 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not a use I have seen. I interpret it to mean formed a collar of foam. NED has "Collar, v. 1. To put a collar on; to fetter or fasten with a collar; to surround as with a collar." Vox Sciurorum (talk) 18:13, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Earthling lesbian sense

Discussion moved to Talk:Earthling.

Pronunciations of insult and blanket

My pronunciations of these words are different than the ones in our entries, so I wanted to make sure they're not just weird idiosyncrasies before I add them. I'm a native English speaker, but it's possible I just learned some incorrect pronunciations of words, since I think everyone does that with at least a couple. I'm also (I think) much younger than the average Wiktionary contributor, so it could also be that some of the pronunciations in entries just don't reflect how younger speakers pronounce words.

First one: for me, "insult" is /ˈɪnsɔlt/ rather than /ˈɪnsʌlt/, pronounced so that the second syllable is the same as "salt." This may somehow have to do with the fact that I have the hull–hole merger, which I believe isn't typical for the Inland North area I'm from, as none of my friends from there have it (although only one of them both is monolingual and has the cot–caught distinction like me, so that may not be an accurate sample). Normally, I pronounce /ʌl/ like /oʊl/, but the one in "insult" is an "all" (/ɔl/) sound instead, meaning it's not the same phoneme for me.

The other weird one is "blanket": the listed pronunciation is /ˈblæŋkɪt/, but for me, /æŋ/ is always realized [eɪŋ], so much so that if I didn't know better I would assume that the underlying phoneme is /eɪŋ/. My stressed vowel in "blanket" is /ɛ/ (/ˈblɛŋkɪt/, or maybe underlyingly /ˈblɛn.kɪt/, as I can't think of any words with /ɛŋ/).

Are these pronunciations of these words that any other people use, or am I just pronouncing stuff wrong? —Globins (yo) 19:33, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I say /ˈɪnsʌlt/ and /ˈblæŋkɪt/. Equinox ◑ 19:41, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Same here. Tharthan (talk) 04:17, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The same here. DonnanZ (talk) 19:57, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

/ˈɪnsʌlt/ and /ˈblɛŋkɪt/,/ˈbleɪŋkɪt/ Leasnam (talk) 23:53, 4 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure I pronounce "insult" /ˈɪnsəlt/ and "blanket" is definitely /ˈbleɪŋkɪt/, as is the norm where I live (as in every word with "ank" or "ang"). Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:08, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

By "Inland North" I assume you mean w:Inland Northern American English? I'm not from there myself though I did live in SE Michigan for many years; I don't recall hearing the words pronounced that way but it may just be my ear isn't very good at telling the difference. --RDBury (talk) 15:46, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I just saw this thread. If you start from /ˈɪnsɔlt/ , what about vocalization of the l? /ˈɪnsɔut/???81.132.182.224 23:44, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I say ‘insult’ with a Northern English/Irish ‘u’ sound too, even though I don’t normally say ‘u’ like that. I think a lot of people do, probably because the pronunciation is modelled along the lines of ‘full’ and ‘pull’, that’s my theory anyway. I’ve definitely heard many Americans say it like that but I’m English. I do have an unusual accent that’s a mix between RP and Brummie though, so I’m not sure whether that’s a factor or my speech has become more Americanised than I realised (you’re on your own with ‘blanket’ though, which is ‘blan-kit’ not ‘blen-kit’ or ‘blain-kit’ to me)Overlordnat1 (talk) 21:19, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

volta and volte

Circular definitions. We unusefully mention that a volte is a volta, and a volta is a volte. Jonely Mash (talk) 08:54, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is a Wikipedia article w:Volta (dance) , maybe just copy and paste the first line of that into the definition. It seems like a good idea to link to the article as well. --RDBury (talk) 15:14, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There weren't any objections so I went ahead and did this. --RDBury (talk) 04:35, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

influence

Anyone else heard some native speakers of English pronounce this with stress on the second syllable? ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:57, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just heard it in a TV show (American speaker). Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:01, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve heard many Americans say it this way but I’ve never heard anyone from outside America do anything other than stress the first syllableOverlordnat1 (talk) 22:09, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

on so many levels

We have wrong on so many levels. An outraged Daily Mail writer[21] quotes an outraged Twitter user, "Grease sucks on so many levels". I think we'd be better off with a shorter lemma allowing more than one verb. Perhaps on so many levels. I'm soliciting suggestions for the spelling and definition. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:25, 5 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree the "wrong" is not part of the idiom, I'm not sure about "on" or "so". I'm not even totally convinced this isn't just another meaning of "level", though I can see that translating "on many levels" to "in many ways" could be difficult if it's not an idiom. My vote is to reduce to "on many levels" and tweak the definitions accordingly. Note that if you leave out the "wrong" it becomes an adverb instead of an adjective, but I don't know if it applies to verbs or not. Is "You are helping me on many levels" grammatically correct? --RDBury (talk) 15:09, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Next to uses in a literal sense, a brief search found this prepositional phrase modifying the adjectives “100% true”, “different”, “disingenuous”, “fortunate”, “frustrated”, “uncomfortable”, “important”, “fucked up”, “useful”, “mystifying”, “amazing” and “subtle”. I stopped there because I thought this was enough, not because this was nearly exhaustive. It seemed to me that in these uses the meaning was simply an intensifier, like cextremely subtle”, more than ”subtle in many ways". In many other uses it modified a verb, and then it indeed tended to signify “in many ways", as in “You harmonize on so many levels—intellectual, physical, emotional—...”. --Lambiam 23:47, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam: "I stopped there because I thought this was enough": Handing us in a half-baked job like this is wrong on so many levels... I can't even! P U C – 23:56, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

altolect

I'm wondering if this a lesser used attestable synonym of acrolect, per this quote: "Current study of socio-linguistics, particularly of languages in contact, distinguishes between different language functions. Some of these are served, in the case of widely-spoken languages, by stratified dialects: altolect, mesolect, batholect." (Artic Languages: An Awakening, 1990) N.B. "batholect" also seems to be an error, meaning basilect, as a search only finds it used in this publication. Acrolect seems to be a smidgen more attestable but can't say if it's an exact synonym of acrolect or otherwise. —Jakeybean^TALK 01:43, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Altolect is one of those Latin+Greek abominations, but otherwise it's the same word meaning "high language". Acrolect is said to have been coined in 1965, after the editor of "Arctic Languages: An Awakening" would have completed college. I don't think altolect is citable but acrolect has at least hundreds of uses. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 09:20, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Having to get up early to do something

What entry title should we use for this phrase? It isn't about literal early rising, but just suggests one will have to work hard: "you have to get up early to outsmart those fellows". There is a mention of the phrase in John Camden Hotten's Slang Dictionary (1873) as "to get up early, to prepare for a difficult task. You'll have to get up very early in the morning to beat that." Equinox ◑ 02:17, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have attested uses? I see many uses where the phrase has its literal meaning, but those here and here appear to be figurative. Does the Slang Dictionary's usex count, or is it a mention? My best guess for the lemma form is a verb get up early in the morning. --Lambiam 10:10, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I can find some, e.g. 1914, The American Flint (volume 6, page 35): "Brother Joseph Ruziska, our expert clothing salesman, says you have got to get up early in the morning to show him anything about selling clothes." Equinox ◑ 11:58, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've heard this expression, but I don't think it's exactly standard English, more something you might hear in an old movie spoken by an old farmer. Perhaps dated or regional or both. It's an idiom but I think the idea is that lazy, stupid people aren't going to be smart or energetic enough to do the thing. --RDBury (talk) 14:47, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is a familiar expression to me with some variation in exact words, describing the difficulty of exceeding a highly competent person. Perhaps dated. "In the morning" is optional. "Get up pretty early" is a variation. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:53, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What Vox S. said.
It might be dated now. Variation with pretty and in the morning might help to find abundant attestation. I'd use that attestation to find candidates for collocations without pretty and in the morning, which are also abundant, but swamped by literal use. There is also use with wake up and be up.

DCDuring (talk) 01:12, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done Created get up early. Equinox ◑ 06:12, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

pre-COVID

Currently we have no entry for pre-COVID. Does it count as a single word for our purposes (and therefore gets a page), or does it count as two WT:SOP? HotdogPi (talk) 10:19, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

pre- is a prefix, not a word, so as far as I'm concerned pre-COVID is a single word, as is precorona/pre-corona. —Mahāgaja · talk 13:19, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Compare pre-AIDS. --Lambiam 17:56, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a word where the hyphen can be removed; preCOVID looks wrong to me. DonnanZ (talk) 10:55, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

True, but that's because of the capital letter. It doesn't make it less of a single word. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:22, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I realise that. I am not against inclusion of pre-COVID. DonnanZ (talk) 14:17, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I consider this a sum of parts. There is a policy that hyphens are treated like spaces for deciding whether a spelling is as one word or two. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 12:03, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The policy is about hyphenated compounds. A prefix is not a free morpheme and therefore does not form a compound. In twenty-five neither part modifies the other, and they are also not the conjuncts of a parathetic coordination, so this is also not a compound in the usual linguistic sense of the term. --Lambiam 15:52, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But "pre" isn't an independent word, it's a prefix. "preCOVID" may look wrong, but not as wrong as "pre COVID". —Mahāgaja · talk 12:36, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The hyphen tells you there are two parts to the word. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 13:33, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The same two parts applies to a word like predetermine, but that is not grounds for deletion or non-inclusion. DonnanZ (talk) 14:03, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The form pre-war is quite common, and appears in Lexico. DonnanZ (talk) 18:32, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Could try "BC". Before Covid. 5 BC would be around 2015, five years before Covid.81.132.182.224 11:09, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

weather for ducks, fine weather for ducks, lovely weather for ducks

Are these lexicalised?

Also, it seems that dogs and ducks are frequently associated with poor weather.

"duck's cold": French froid de canard
"dog's cold": German Hundekälte, Russian соба́чий хо́лод (sobáčij xólod)
"dog's weather": French temps de chien, Italian tempo da cani, Dutch hondenweer

Are there more? And are there English entries that could serve as translation targets?

P U C – 10:30, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Edit: I see we have an entry for nice weather for ducks. P U C – 10:31, 6 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have created fine and lovely weather. I'm not familiar with weather for ducks on its own. Equinox ◑ 01:17, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It wouldn't make sense. The gag is to start out cheery and positive, then abruptly reverse polarity with the qualifier. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:12, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

great weather for ducks is another. DonnanZ (talk) 11:05, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Created, thanks. Though now I'm starting to wonder if it wouldn't be better to put everything in Appendix:Snowclones/X weather for ducks... P U C – 11:15, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@PUC: Also good weather for ducks. J3133 (talk) 11:17, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There are a smattering of results for "magnificent", "beautiful", "amazing", "excellent", "awesome", "delightful" and "gorgeous", but probably not enough to justify entries. "Splendid" looks like it would (barely) pass. "Wonderful" is better- probably because of the alliteration and rhythm (you can sing it to the tune of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz"). Basically you can take Thesaurus:good, weed out everything that can't be used to describe good weather or-over-the-top superlatives, and just about anything else will work. Chuck Entz (talk) 12:49, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Chuck Entz: Considering “just about anything else will work”, are you supporting a snowclone instead? J3133 (talk) 13:04, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. There's also "X weather- if you're a duck". Chuck Entz (talk) 13:15, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

When I said “nice weather for ducks” to someone, he memorably said “Nice weather for whales, you mean!” on a particularly wet day, though I doubt this phrase is idiomatic or widespread enough to merit an entry of its ownOverlordnat1 (talk) 10:18, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Mona Lisa vs 清明上河圖

Any reason why we include Mona Lisa but delete 清明上河圖 (Along the River During the Qingming Festival)? ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:57, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion is at Talk:清明上河图. —Suzukaze-c (talk) 06:11, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) I wasn't part of the deletion process, but I agree that the names of paintings are more in Wikipedia's line than Wiktionary's. I can see how Mona Lisa might be an exception though since it's basically entered the language as an adjective: "Mona Lisa smile". Perhaps it would clarify things to add the adjective as a definition or the phrase as an idiom, or perhaps move the entry to Mona Lisa smile as an idiom. --RDBury (talk) 06:24, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

PS. In the discussion it was suggested that the whole category (Category:en:Artistic works) be reviewed, which seems like a good idea. But from the small sample I've looked at so far it looks like most of the entries have taken on meanings in addition to just the work of art. In addition to "Mona Lisa smile" there is "Star Trek" as an adjective, "Tom Sawyer" as a verb, and "Venus de Milo's arms". I think the confusion here is that the actual works themselves are listed instead of or in addition to their use as other parts pf speech. --RDBury (talk) 06:37, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To get the ball rolling I went though the entries and, admittedly without doing a lot of research, came up with initial suggestions for each one. Going by the above criterion: remove Vitruvian Man, remove ROTJ (it should be a redirect in Wikipedia), keep Romeo and Juliet as an adjective, remove Playboy but keep Playboy Bunny for it's figurative use, pick one of the Penrose entries to keep for it's figurative sense (say Penrose steps) and make the others redirects, remove Odyssey but keep Odyssean, remove Macbeth, remove Lord's Prayer, remove Leaning Tower of Pisa, remove King James Version, remove Kama Sutra, remove Jabberwocky but keep jabberwocky, keep Iliad for it's figurative use, move Hansel and Gretel to Hansel and Gretel's breadcrumbs, keep Frankenstein for it's figurative uses (I can think of two nouns and a verb), remove FMA (redirect in Wikipedia), remove Chopsticks, remove the Cardcaptor sense of CCS, remove Arc de Triomphe. So I'd say there is a layer of cruft here that should be removed. If anyone knows meanings for these entries other than the literal one of the artwork itself then it should be documented here, but otherwise I'd say that Wikipedia should handle them. --RDBury (talk) 07:29, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree. P U C – 10:07, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think we should try, as much as possible, use a uniform criterion for proper nouns naming a specific entity, where WT:BRAND and WT:FICTION can serve as a source of inspiration. For the former, we require of attesting cites: “The text preceding and surrounding the citation must not identify the product or service to which the brand name applies”. For the latter, we require that attesting cites of a term originating in a fictional universe are “independent of reference to that universe”. So for Mona Lisa, this should count: “But I beheld the same baffling calmness, like Mona Lisa’s smile, reflecting the morning sunshine into the voices of the forest.”^[22] It does not identify the maker, nor does it refer to that part of the art world inhabited by the painting – not to the Louvre, nor even to the fact that this is a painting. In contrast, the use of Vitruvian Man in a reference like “Leonardo da Vinci’s famous drawing of the Vitruvian Man”^[23] is clearly not an independent one. But this one is independent: “His build is wiry and muscular, his shoulders broad, just like Vitruvian Man.”^[24] --Lambiam 19:56, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the criteria should be encoded, which would probably belong in WT:NSE. I don't know whether this was attempted at some point, but it says there, "Among those that do meet that requirement, many should be excluded while some should be included, but there is no agreement on precise, all-encompassing rules for deciding which are which." But I think we're dealing with a narrow enough subclass that it's possible to define some workable guidelines. I like your criteria for independence, since it basically established that the work is known well enough that the author feels comfortable referencing it without further explanation. I don't think that should be the only criterion though. For example we don't have an entry for Bill Gates, but I would be comfortable saying "As rich as Bill Gates" instead of "As rich as Bill Gates, the billionaire founder of Microsoft." So I would add that the cite must be a figurative use or some other extension of meaning beyond the actual work. For example "You helped create this Frankenstein's monster, so now you have to accept some of the responsibility for what it does," would count as a cite. But "I feel like Frankenstein must have when we created his monster," would not count because it's a literal reference to the character. In other words, if the definition would be simply be the actual work, then it shouldn't be counted, but if the term is taken to have meaning beyond that then it should count. I think Romeo and Juliet is a good example of what we should be going for. We have "a tragedy, written by Shakespeare" in the Etymology where it belongs, and the definition tells us which specific aspect of the play is being used when someone says "a Romeo and Juliet love". Anyway, given that there should be a policy amendment, I have no idea what the process is for that. Is there an incubator where specific language can be proposed and edited before it goes to a vote? --RDBury (talk) 03:37, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Beer parlour is often used for running a half-baked idea for a proposal by the editors interested in policy proposals, which may lead to suggestions for better approaches or improved wording. Before a newly created proposal is put to a vote, there is a one-week period in which editors can discuss the formulation of the proposal and suggest changes; see Help:Creating a vote. It might be good, though, to have a separate space, organized by topic, set apart for discussing ideas that need more work, and at the same time offering a facility for recording past discussions in a better accessible way than now. --Lambiam 14:42, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@RDBury As Morgan Freeman was rejected despite "a Morgan Freeman voice" being attestable, we should also reject Mona Lisa. (or restore Freeman, but I doubt that'll ever happen) Alexis Jazz (talk) 09:40, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why not ἰῶτᾰ?

The transcription of the Ancient Greek ζῆτᾰ, ἦτᾰ and θῆτᾰ all include a breve over the final -ᾰ, but this is not included for ἰῶτα. Why? Given the phonetic transcription, all ending in /-ta/, it should be there. P. S.: The font used for headings doesn’t render alpha with breve correctly. CannedMan (talk) 12:46, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You can make it ἰῶτᾰ if you want; we aren't always very consistent in putting macrons over vowels in Ancient Greek. It's actually redundant in this case anyway, since a vowel in a syllable after a circumflex vowel like ῶ is always short. (If the alpha were long, the omicron would have to have an acute accent, not a circumflex.) —Mahāgaja · talk 19:42, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The redundancy applies equally to ζῆτᾰ (zêta), ἦτᾰ (êta) and θῆτᾰ (thêta). Note that About Ancient Greek says: “In the text of entries, please always mark the length of the monophthongs (single vowels) α ι υ if you are able to, ...”. --Lambiam 20:01, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

human behaviour

This term seems like a transparent SOP to me, but the definition gives me pause: "The academic study of how human beings make decisions and how these decisions are influenced by a number of factors such as culture, emotions, genetics and authority".

Is the underlined part correct? How can "human behaviour" be an "academic study"? Is it similar to astronomy?

"I study astronomy" - "Astronomy is an academic discipline"
"I study human behaviour" - "Human behaviour is an academic discipline"

P U C – 22:21, 7 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree this is marginal at best. Are there academic institutions with a Human Behavior department, or that offer a major in Human Behavior? It seems like between psychology, sociology and social anthropology everything is covered, unless someone wanted to merge the three to keep their budget under control. --RDBury (talk) 03:54, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, one can study a BS in Human Behavior. Equinox ◑ 03:56, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Many universities have a Department of Music^[25][26][27] and you can earn a BA in Music,^[28] or even a Bachelor of Music (BM) degree,^[29] and yet we do not lists a sense for music as “the academic discipline studying music”. Suppose some country institutes a Ministry of Silly Walks; would that make silly walk non-SOP? Just asking. --Lambiam 14:23, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam: I don't think so, and that's exactly why I take exception to us having this entry.

What do you think of astronomy, however? When someone says that they "study astronomy", do they mean that they "study the study of the physical universe beyond the Earth's atmosphere"?

I think the same question may be asked about various other branches of science: physics, mathematics... P U C – 19:25, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Though most OneLook dictionaries define astronomy as "study" some define it as "science", "branch of science", "branch of physics". I think definitions that aren't neatly substitutable in some of the most common collocations should be reworded appropriately. DCDuring (talk) 19:35, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is important to distinguish two meanings of the verb to study:

to acquire knowledge about (some subject);
to take courses in (some subject).

Hopefully, students taking a course in Astronomy will thereby acquire some knowledge of astronomy, but when we read that Caroline Herschel, after the death of her brother, continued “her astronomical studies”, she studied the universe, not some discipline. Astronomy is both a branch and a study: it is a branch of science that consists of the study of the planets, the stars, and so on. It can be practiced as an academic discipline, but it is not per se an academic discipline. Caroline Herschel had no academic credentials, and neither did her famous brother, who discovered the seventh planet, Uranus, with a self-built telescope. Any interesting topic can be studied in academia, but it would be wrong to define astronomy as an academic discipline. Someone who practices astronomy, an astronomer, is someone who studies the universe in the sense of acquiring scientific knowledge about it; to this day, there are self-taught amateur astronomers who practice astronomy seriously and diligently and produce valuable contributions to the field. --Lambiam 21:28, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Re "studying the study of", I've created many -ist entries along the lines of "xyzzyologist, one who studies xyzzyology". I think it's clear that it means they are studying the target subject and not meta-studying the discipline. Equinox ◑ 23:23, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This “studying the study” can be avoided by using “who practices ...”, like we do, e.g., for astrometrist, cerealogist, ethnologist, informationist, neurologist, and thermologist, or alternatively by “engaded in ...”, used for arachnologist, botanist, ethnomethodologist, and so on. --Lambiam 11:54, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Equinox, Lambiam, DCDuring, I've nominated this for deletion. P U C – 12:27, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

acetabulum

Are definitions 1 ("The bony cup of the pelvis which receives the head of the femur") and 7 ("The socket of the hipbone") distinct? Also, "Roman Antiquities" seems like an odd label. Would "Ancient Rome" or something similar be better? Would it be better to include that information in the definition, since Ancient Rome isn't actually the context one is likely to encounter the word in? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:47, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Andrew Sheedy: You are right. hip socket, acetabulum both translate to German Hüftpfanne, German Beckenpfanne, which are synonyms, though German Wikipedia fails to redirect the former word to the latter; socket is Pfanne in their various technical senses, acētābulum is an equatable vessel-name used a technical metaphor. Trying to define words like мокло́к (moklók) I have learned that many anatomic expressions are just metaphors of basic and mundane words (such as household items) actually referring to the same thing. Fay Freak (talk) 20:26, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the input. I'll go ahead and merge the definitions then. That still leaves the question of the "Roman Antiquities" label. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 23:26, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

socket

@Andrew Sheedy: Although it does not appear to you so from a native-speaker standpoint who just drops the same word all time for various things and thus thinks the meaning is well-known and -defined, I recognize that this English is vague and a-bit-too-much-encompassing in the first place. You would see this if you looked into a context dictionary to find out what to say in German, after which you have not learned which word to use (@Mahagaja may relate). For the technical sense of Turkish شماندره (şamandıra) the implement still denoted by the English socket is particularly off, as I found after searching around not inconsiderably to make sure the gloss is unequivocal, which motivated me to write a whole usage note. At سُكُرَّجَة (sukurraja), it is also a bit at the periphery of the term socket to denote with it the particular technical implement wherewith a door is attached and it seems unidiomatic English to me (right?), where it is a particular kind of Pfanne again in German and saucer in (19th century Egyptian) Arabic. Fay Freak (talk) 20:44, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't "haute" have an English definition on its page?

Although it's just borrowed directly from French I think haute is used frequently enough in English to warrant an entry. I was going to go ahead and add it myself but figured I would ask here first to see if you all agreed - and in case anyone else more experienced might wish to do it as I've not really edited on Wiktionary before. Limacidae (talk) 16:42, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please provide some examples of use on its own, outside of haute couture. DTLHS (talk) 16:43, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Here is something to get you started: [30], [31]. DTLHS (talk) 16:48, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

haute cuisine SemperBlotto (talk) 16:45, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've been bold, and added it. SemperBlotto (talk) 16:55, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not brilliant at French (an understatement), but shouldn't it be stressed that this is a feminine form, the masculine being haut? DonnanZ (talk) 17:55, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Here are two more: “Goodbye, normal jeans: hello haute denim”^[32] and “Taiwanese jeweller Cindy Chao has a taste for haute luxury and hot sauce”.^[33] We can’t be entirely sure, though, these two are independent; the punning headline of the second article may have been devised by the author of the first one. I furthermore found this: “All the ridicule about her being such a haute, snotty Bouvier too good to be an American icon?”^[34] Although ambiguous, this seems to me more to be the feminine version of English haut in the sense “haughty”, than an approbative reference to refinedness. --Lambiam 11:21, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Note that Early Modern English made no distinction between haut and haute (they were alternative spellings), and that def 2 of haut overlaps with the def we now have for haute (and in fact is attested by a quote with that spelling). Are these really distinct? — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 19:13, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The word was apparently borrowed twice from French (or rather, once from Old or Middle French and once from modern French). The original borrowing changed spelling to haught in the 16th century before becoming obsolete. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:33, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Homophones, etc.?

Can we call the English words at all and atoll homophones (and thereby also rhymes) in accents in which atoll is possibly stressed on the second syllable, the /ɔ/ of at all is short, etc.? Otherwise, I think these two would surely be at least partial rhymes in such accents? — inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 17:29, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You would need to specify the accent. For me, /æt ɔːl/ and /ætɒl/ do not sound the same. DonnanZ (talk) 18:18, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To me neither (US). DCDuring (talk) 19:37, 8 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For me they not only don't rhyme, they also aren't even stressed on the same syllable. Youch. Equinox ◑ 03:01, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The page account houses dark definitions, leading me to observe that Wiktionary’s coverage of accounting terminology is inaccurate in general; you see by the way there are bare red links

I find some imperfections with that entry: Definition 2, for which we suspiciously enough do not have translations, glosses “A sum of money deposited at a bank and subject to withdrawal” and supports it but with a usage example “to keep one's account at the bank”, but I don’t think this usex supports such a sense: the example usage means one keeps one’s financial transactions at the institution called bank, implying perhaps by metonymy that one also has one’s money there because the common man typically only has one account; namely it still means a “registry of pecuniary transactions”, one on which one has a credit balance.

So I don’t think it means the money itself (deposit currency, the Buchgeld, Giralgeld), or the credit balance.

And strictly speaking in conjunction with the usex it is unclear what the “sum” is which the definition claims: the whole money posted to on an account (not the value dated one because that money is usually not “subject to withdrawal”), i.e. the credit balance respectively the claim against a bank to pay it out, or most of the money owned by or available to a person in the form of liquid claims on cash on perhaps multiple bank accounts, or perhaps a particular transfer of money kept in an account?

The following definition under post raises doubts: “To carry (an account) from the journal to the ledger.” This meaning of “account” is in contradiction to our entry for account, or I cannot make sense of the definition with our entry for account. So in this our definition of post, account appears to mean an individual transaction as recorded, Geschäftsvorfall, Geschäftsvorgang, Buchungsposten, a sense for post that seems to miss in current English, which I safely say so because the OED, having it as noun etymology 7 of 13 noun etymologies, labels it obsolete, giving three quotes from the 18th century for this as the sole ones and declaring it an English-internal derivation from OED’s verb 2 “post” of six verb etymologies. At that second verb etymology sense 8a we find our needed and currently widespread sense which translates to German as buchen, verbuchen: “To carry or transfer (an entry) […] esp. from a daybook or journal into a ledger”, but it is obvious from its definition that it means “to carry or transfer an entry (or post in the mentioned obsolete sense) from one account to another, or to carry or transfer a real-life transaction into an account to create a first-time post (obsolete sense)” (a clumsy definition from me for Wiktionary so far).

If Wiktionary sense 2 of account was intended to mean such an entry or post in an account (sense 1) then the definition failed in so far that the deposit of money, whether cash or deposit currency (sense 5 of money) of course does not entail the account’s (sense 1) subjection to withdrawal if the balance is not positive and there is no agreement over a line of credit for this apparently meant current account, or if the account isn’t a type of account that allows the account-holder withdrawal. Anyway it is a strange gloss: “banking” does’t use vocabulary distinct from “accounting”, isn’t it, and we see abuse of labels again.

The formulation “deposited money” has uncertain implications because there is no rule that the account holder got his balance on his credit account by transferring ownership (Übereignung) of cash money to a bank, if that’s what money means, because that’s what it means in the most common sense as opposed to deposit currency which is not real money because it consists of claims against accounters or account keepers (the party opposed to the account holder) to pay out positive balances on credit accounts, though it be true that money is vulgarly used for these balances; and deposit is expected to mean such a corporeal sense and not the derivative sense of a credit posting. The OED does not have such a sense as our sense 2 of account either, and I am inclined for all these reasons towards a removal of this gloss – whatever there is at the page, it should be written anew accounting for accounting vocabulary. Where is the year 1833 from anyhow?

It is also obvious that Wiktionary’s definition of daybook as well as of account book is erroneous in so much as ledger is a particular thing and daybook is a particular thing, the double-entry one called Hauptbuch in German, the daybook or journal being Grundbuch.

The entry daybook misses the particular sense the word has and depressingly, while ledger seems to have it in its sense 3 although incompletely, in spite of a copiously quoted gloss on ledger suggesting a general sense “[any] book for keeping accounting records; a record book, a register” this very first sense on Wiktionary shows problems:

The 1843 quote for instance distinguishes “The act of copying from the day book into the leger is called posting.”

1919 quote: “A Peruvian bookkeeper's ledger was a regular rope curtain with knots running up and down the ropes. He took to knots because he had no system of writing by which to keep his accounts.”

The 1919 quote probably intends the most technical bookkeeping meaning, Hauptbuch, of ledger, but what is account? Again an individualized sense:

Perhaps this individualized sense is intended in Wiktionary sense 5 “A business relationship involving the exchange of money and credit”, emphasizing the record that cash money has been exchanged. Of course again the “credit” part here is dubious again – which sense? It means Wiktionary sense 8 second half of credit, “An addition to certain accounts; the side of an account on which payments received are entered”; credit entry also makes sense here, and the Wiktionary entry cash money could use this term, better even credit balance.

But I doubt that business relationship, in Wiktionary sense 5 of accounting, whatever that means (should it have an entry? most likely German translation is Geschäftsverbindung), accurately describes a sense of account. I don’t think a real-life transaction, say I buy bread rolls every two days at my closest baker, is ever called an “account”, if that’s what “a business relationship” means. Maybe this means this obsolete sense of “post”, because the claim behind such a post is a legal relationship, or because a business relationship in the sense of corporeal goods exchange motivates an entry in an account (sense 1)? Anyway a “relationship” or “relation” is surely not to be described here but a state of things, and here we have to clarify unfortunate wording or delete.

I don’t doubt a general meaning of ledger, though, as the OED which this time has only one noun entry and one verb entry even has the sense ”A book that lies permanently in some place”, as the first definition, 1a, though with one quote only, then 1b with many quotes for the sense of a fat copy of “the Breviary”, then 1c “record-book; a register”, however this sense 1c is called obsolete. Sense 1d of the OED noun entry then has the particular meaning w:de:Buchführung#Hauptbuch which is very lengthily defined about double-entry accounting. Owing to the obsoleteness of the sense of a record-book, uses of the word ledger cannot have this sense nowadays but as a fancyful figurative or ignorant usage, not as the first sense given for ledger on Wiktionary – I mean, how often does one use this word in common parlance? it seems likely one hears the double-entry sense and misunderstands or deliberately misuses it for artistic effect; in sum those uses in Wiktionary sense 1 of ledger are not original and misassigned.

And this is only some central flaws some foreigner discovered while looking into making reproducible translations, which should be possible for the whole field of accounting, limited only by legal differences. If someone who is an accountant in an English-speaking environment ever went to English Wiktionary to define his terms comprehensively and non-circularly, I am afraid he would be flabbergasted. If they were defined better, on the other hand, Wiktionary would be taken more seriously. Fay Freak (talk) 08:19, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

TL;DR – this is unworkable; can you separate this out into individual entries that need discussion? (I think Wikipedia has many similar flaws in the financial domain.) --Lambiam 11:26, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam: I give the list of Wiktionary glosses I think are lacking without stating the reasons, for an easier purview:

senses 2 and 5 of account are illogical and indistinct and must be deleted.
instead of them, account needs some kind of sense of an individual transaction posted into an accounted in the sense 1, probably present in the pluralia tantum accounts payable, accounts receivable, and I gave other examples above, interpreting uses of the word.
sense 3 of the verb of etymology 1 of post, now “To carry (an account) from the journal to the ledger”, is incompletely and does not catch the bulk of today’s (nor yesterday’s) uses of the relevant sense.
post probably lacks many other senses and etymologies but this is minor, just for the record book.
sense 3 of the noun of ledger is probably incompletely defined. The OED definition 1d is very long and specific. ledger may also be {{ellipsis of}} of general ledger. It may be that we have to display some kind of ladder of general to specific senses. About the presumed causes of the shortcomings: One would think it is not that bad a page, as having its current edition by the lawyer @Sgconlaw, and I admit thus much that there is nothing completely off but I concede that the page does not hit the bullseye in the art of defining, because the fines, the limits of the concepts denoted by the word are left gaping, which is also caused by SGconlaw’s preserving previous uninformed page content “because it was there”; sure it’s the Wikipedia method, but we can have the courage to treat glosses as demonstrably wrong: as a secondary source we aspire to make sure that the picture we make of the primary material, this great artwork, is congruous, instead of contradicting itself like the random inexact secondary sources in Wikipedia systematically do.
in contrast, sense 1 is labelled obsolete by the OED. It is also evident that some or most of the quotes do not belong there. I contended that such a general sense is nonetheless still possible because of figure or ignorance, but by it couldn’t be included as the first sense.
daybook does not contain the main technical definition daybook vs. ledger but even defines as ledger, and in the same gloss line by the hypernym “accounting book”. journal also lacks if that is the same.

Probably I didn’t have to argue and to a reasonable person like Lambiam it is likely obvious on mention for most mentioned words what is lacking in our definitions – but as far as nothing is seen, there above are my tries.

General Wiktionary points, or tip for otiose hours: If someone is keen on harvesting red links topically, there are low-hanging fruits if one gets into the explanations of all these things, and their includability can be judged from a comparative standpoint, i.e. whether translation sections of a term would be worth it, else the non-SOP-ness may be decided on how likely someone is not understand such a term and having a need to look it up – although the definitions of all these terms would not be low-hanging fruits, but there is much core content to fix. We had a lot of complaints of basic words being not actually defined but giving synonym lists, or alleged synonym lists, for which daybook is the perfect example, and problems with multiple glosses actually being the same senses, distinctions not sufficiently highlighted and such small things that make a big effect in the project’s credibility as not an all-knowing trash heap. Fay Freak (talk) 13:06, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t have any particular knowledge about accountancy; and in general unless a particular sense of a term seems very wrong, doesn’t appear in major dictionaries, or is not readily attestable after I’ve done a quick search for quotations, I leave it unchanged as there’s no basis for me to alter it. — SGconlaw (talk) 15:30, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that an account at a bank is not the money in the account; “to deposit money into one’s account” does not mean “to deposit money into one’s money”. I have simply replaced the definition for sense 2 by bank account and improved the definition of the latter. As to sense 5, I don’t understand it, so I cannot say it is wrong, but I have put it up at WT:RFVE. --Lambiam 20:21, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't sense 5 relatable to score (senses 2 and 12), tally? P U C – 20:29, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Should 1 and 2 of score even be different? 2 is just 1 of multiple participants’ scores in the first sense “expressed as a ratio”. tally may be also obscure and need more elucidation in the computing age if it was anything specific. Fay Freak (talk) 09:07, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You have made it more like to the first sense, and it is redundant and deletable just like I have claimed. It could be a subsense, but I don’t think it has any use to different types of accounts under that sense. Fay Freak (talk) 09:07, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have taken a run at account payable and accounts payable. I'm not too impressed with the definitions in other dictionaries. We may have a low bar to clear. DCDuring (talk) 21:37, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

night shelter, homeless shelter

Are these synonyms, or is homeless shelter a hypernym of night shelter, or something else? P U C – 12:58, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@PUC: Not synonyms, if you search night shelter + women. It means places for women to stay who have homes; I don’t think I am defining the word home too much as habitual residence. Fay Freak (talk) 13:12, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Many homeless shelters open their doors only for the night, but a 24-hour homeless shelter is also a homeless shelter, but would normally not be called a “night shelter”. People out in the wild may build a night shelter;^[35] although away from home I don’t think we should call them homeless, or else temporary hotel guests are also homeless. Animals too can have a night shelter.^[36] --Lambiam 20:52, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'd never heard of night shelter, but two UK dictionaries have it. Is it UK only? DCDuring (talk) 23:55, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don’t think so: [37], [38], [39]. --Lambiam 14:09, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Vladivostock"

Surely this is a spelling error? I found it in close conjunction with a seeming error in Chinese characters. However, on archive.org there are 17,000 results for "Vladivostock". Hence I added it as an alternative form on the Vladivostok page. Perhaps it should be qualified as a "common misspelling"?

- 1904, Charles Daniel Tenney, Geography of Asia‎^[40], Macmillan and Co., page 23:
  
  Manchuria is crossed by the Chinese Eastern Railway (the Russian Trans-Siberian Railway), which enters the Hei-lung-chiang Province from the north-west and divides at Harbin (哈爾賓^{[sic – meaning 哈爾濱]}) in the Chi-lin Province, one branch going to Vladivostock (海参威) and the other to Dalny and Port Arthur.

--Geographyinitiative (talk) 21:33, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You can observe the same for “Vostock” instead of “Vostok“: [41], [42], [43]. This is found particularly (but not only) in older texts. The phenomenon is not restricted to the Romanization of terms ending on -ок: [44], [45], [46]. --Lambiam 14:04, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam I see you can speak a little Russian- I added a request for the English language pronunciation of Vladivostok on that page. Obviously we could follow Владивосток and say vɫədʲɪvɐˈstok, but there may be a deeper reality of the common pronunciation in English language media.
Other notes: Here's a redirect I just found Valentina Vostock- more evidence of the variant spelling. --- As a native English speaker, I think that the lack of a "c" in vostok is unconsciously seen as an affront to English spelling principles- we have a word with the sound "stock" and it has a 'c' in it, so it just seems natural to add the 'c' there. That's my ad hoc explanation. But maybe Vostok is not pronounced like "Vostock"- the audio/IPA for Восток is vɐˈstok but the IPA for stock is /stɑk/ --Geographyinitiative (talk) 00:49, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is rare when speakers make a serious attempt to preserve the pronunciation of a proper name from another language. There are no good analogues to draw on, so I can only guess; my guess at the most common US pronunciation is /ˌvlæ.dɪˈvɑs.tɑk/, with both another syllabification and stress than in Russian. Models for picking these vowels were Cycladic, impostor and livestock. --Lambiam 01:23, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would have guessed /ˌvlæ.dɪˈvɔs.tɒk/ / /ˌvlæ.dɪˈvɔs.tɑk/. Tharthan (talk) 01:42, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(e/c) Collins has /ˌvlædɪˈvɑstɑk/ (and Lexico has /ˌvlædəˈvɑstɑk/ with what appears to be human audio, unlike Collins' which sounds computer-generated). Collins is in line with what I've heard in English-language media. I've also heard either or both of the last two syllables pronounced with /ɔ/. - -sche (discuss) 01:58, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW Lexico also has a 'UK' section, where the entry (likewise with a sound file) is given as /ˌvladɪˈvɒstɒk/. --Droigheann (talk) 11:06, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Plus what was already done, I made some additions to the page based on what was said here. I am basically satisfied with the result. Thanks. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 10:57, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

amen (pronunciation)

Our entry claims (without stating where the information comes from) that

"Until c. 1920 the pronunciation /eɪˈmɛn/ was universal. Thereafter, with the "reformed" pronunciation of ancient languages, /ɑːˈmɛn/ gradually prevailed, though (particularly in spoken prayer) /eɪˈmɛn/ can still be heard, especially in the US."

but OED (updated 3rd edition, September 2020) says that

"N.E.D. (1884) gives the pronunciation as (ēi:me·n) /ˌeɪˈmɛn/, often (ā:me·n) /ˌɑːˈmɛn/. [...] Before the 1880s, dictionaries give only the a of face for the vowel of the first syllable; thereafter, Webster's dictionaries observe that the form with the a of palm is used chiefly in singing, while British dictionaries give both pronunciations, listing the latter pronunciation first after c1900."

Should our entry be amended to ""Until c. 1880 the pronunciation /eɪˈmɛn/ was universal."? --Droigheann (talk) 21:56, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Universal" is a very strong term, especially since English-speaking Ashkenazi Jews have long pronounced it /oʊˈmeɪn/. —Mahāgaja · talk 22:54, 9 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wasn’t that, rather, the Ashkenazi pronunciation of Hebrew אָמֵן? --Lambiam 13:31, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, why is reformed in quotation marks? Shifting pronunciation from /eɪˈmɛn/ to /ˌɑːˈmɛn/ is not an instance of hypercorrection or anything like that, and (in fact) is closer to older (pre-Great Vowel Shift) pronunciation. This same thing has happened with Ba(')al (/ˈbɑːl/ / /bɑːˈɑːl/), Darius (/ˈdæɹi.əs/ / /ˈdɑɹi.əs/), Raphael (/ɹæ.fɑɪˈɛl/ / /ɹɑ.fɑɪˈɛl/), etc.

It really is little different from when English speakers moved away a whole lot from using Latinised forms for the names of Biblical figures (i.e. using "Messiah" rather than "Messias", "Elijah" rather than "Elias", etc.) I really do not understand why so many people get all bent out of shape when speakers of a language choose to do that. Tharthan (talk) 02:31, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No one is disputing that there was a change, or decrying it. The issue is one of accurately documenting it. --Lambiam 13:35, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In my experience, the /ɑːˈmɛn/ pronunciation is most common among Catholics outside of the US. Could this just have to do with it being pronounced closer to /ɑːˈmɛn/ in Latin, which would have been the regular language in which it was heard in the Mass until the 1970s? The US pronunciation of /ˌeɪˈmɛn/ among Catholics could just be chalked up to Protestant influence. It just seems odd to me that Catholics would use such a different pronunciation from the one they heard at Mass in private prayer, so I would expect something like /ˌeɪˈmɛn/ being common in England and something closer to /aˈmɛn/ in Ireland. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 23:34, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

/ɑːˈmɛn/, for the record, continues to be the pronunciation used during Mass (at least in the part of the U.S. that I live in. Pretty sure something like that would be explicitly stated with regard to the liturgy, though, so it oughtn't to be different elsewhere). That did not stop after the '60s. Some North American Catholics (myself included) use /ɑːˈmɛn/ consistently, but you are quite right that the vast majority of Catholics here use /ˌeɪˈmɛn/ outside of Mass. It is, indeed, quite odd. I remember when I brought it up with a fellow Catholic here, they said "Well, I say /ɑːˈmɛn/ during Mass, but I say /ˌeɪˈmɛn/ in prayer, 'amen to that', and elsewhere."

I think that a lot of North American Catholics look at the pronunciation of amen as /ɑːˈmɛn/ in the same way that they look at the pronunciation of Israel as /ˈɪzɹaɪɛl/. They see it as something particularly formal or poetic. Tharthan (talk) 11:45, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. That makes sense though. Come to think of it, the same thing happens in Canada, but we use "amen" outside of prayer less often, I think, so I mostly hear /ɑˈmɛn/. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 17:29, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

blockchain

When people say things like "Blockchain is a popular technology these days", "blockchain is more than just cryptocurrency", "blockchain is promoted as a technology for decentralization", what usage is being employed here? It seems to be an uncountable sense — there no grammatical article used. It may be different to the single sense currently listed. ---> Tooironic (talk) 11:34, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is short for “blockchain technology“, which means “technology based on the use of blockchains”. This is a common form of metonymy in which the modifier of a compound replaces the compound term: “5G technology is popular” → “5G is popular”;^[47] “QR technology is popular” → “QR is popular”.^[48] This is not specific to the head of the compound being the term technology: “Ziehl-Neelsen staining is used”^[49] → “Ziehl-Neelsen is used”.^[50] --Lambiam 15:52, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much. Your explanation is very useful. I often have trouble distinguishing between metonymy and discrete senses of a particular term. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:59, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Korean 아가 - "elegant song" or "baby"?

아가 - its page says "elegant song" (and hyperlinks the Bible on Wikipedia), but Google Translate and the Voiced velar fricative page consider it to mean... "baby"? What gives? And what's about the pronunciation? Can ㄱ be pronounced as [ɣ]? I'm not Korean.--Adûnâi (talk) 12:07, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It does not link to the Korean Wikipedia page on the Bible, but that on the Song of Songs, one of the books of the Bible. The Korean term for “baby” is 아기 (agi ). I have no knowledge about Korean or Korean phonology, so whether the plosive [ɡ] may allophonically mutate into the fricative [ɣ] in any of these words should be answered by others. --Lambiam 16:13, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

English eau

Is it a misspelling of Eau? Special:Diff/60400600:

“I took a look on the recent edits and I browsed on the internet to check the English entry. I've found out that the person who brang the rollbacked contribution was right. Hence, I put the entry in "proper name" and I put "misspelling of Eau (the entry is the same)". I hope my contribution was not useless and helped to improve the site.”

Previous definition: “(Lincolnshire toponymy) A brook or stream.” J3133 (talk) 14:36, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can make out, if occurring at all, the misspelling is so rare that we should not have an entry for it. I think we may want to add the pronunciation /juː/ to the entry Eau. “Any of several rivers” may be misleading in the sense that the word is a component of several river names, but as such the name of only one specific river. --Lambiam 15:21, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wright's dialect dictionary (reflecting use at the end of the 19th century) has the word under ea with the eau spelling in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Nottinghamshire ("the fen-country"). It is alternatively a word meaning river (where it is written in lower case) or part of a place name (where I expect it to be upper case). Vox Sciurorum (talk) 15:27, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
But can the form eau be attested as a common noun in the Lincolnshire dialect? --Lambiam 16:18, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Please check the Latin cribrosus

I created cribrosus not knowing Latin, so I guessed all of the information there extrapolating from existing entries. I couldn't find it in any dictionary so I guessed the definition too, but the word is attested in De corpore cribroso Hippocratis seu de textu mucoso Bordevii and is present in the modern anatomical term w:lamina cribrosa. Could a Latin-er please check it? Thanks, Kritixilithos (talk) 17:32, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Looks OK to me. I added a couple of translations. SemperBlotto (talk) 06:36, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Latin pleō

De Vaan's etymological dictionary lists this as -pleō, indicating that it occurs only in combination. The two citations given show that it did occur by itself, but perhaps it did so only very rarely. Would this merit a {{tlb|la|rare}} label? —Rua (mew) 20:33, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Rua It's one of those analogical inventions used by the grammarians as means of illustration. I've edited accordingly, but I'm considering asterisking the whole table except for the two attested forms (need to find the proper slot codes). How do we normally handle such cases? Brutal Russian (talk) 17:20, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In sparsely attested languages like Gothic, attestation of even only one form of a verb (let alone) is enough for us to make an entry for it in main space, not Reconstruction: space. If we want to follow the same tradition for Latin, I would keep the entry for pleō, but since the two attested forms both come from the present stem, I would eliminate all the forms derived from the perfect and supine stems, and maybe leave a Usage note explaining that those are attested in prefixed forms as -plēvī and -plētum (no links). —Mahāgaja · talk 17:52, 8 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Latin is not one of those languages, however, and it's clear that this particular verb is barely attested for no other reason that it was not in use. The fact that both attestations happen to show the present stem is nothing but a coincidence - this is not a case of a verb lacking one or more stems. All the forms are as theoretically likely, being attested in combination – and they're all as unused on practice. It's a straightforward asterisked bound stem like gruntled, kempt and couth, employed exceptionally for about the same reasons (only less humour and more put-on archaism in case of the Latin corpus). Brutal Russian (talk) 10:57, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And yet we do have mainspace entries for gruntled, kempt, and couth. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:02, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, bad examples of words in actual use. Try the *mit in remit, omit, submit; *ceive in receive, conceive; *luke in lukewarm jeesus, that exists as well - English is whacky. If you want to hunt for those that don't, just google "bound morpeheme" and "fossilized term". Brutal Russian (talk) 18:32, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

-Like, I don't know how hard it is for an English speaker to imagine a verbal base whose meaning is transparent but that doesn't exist uncompounded - but Russian has this for this exact verb: наполнять, заполнять but no *полнять; here's how a related verb is treated: -по́лнить (полни́ть does exist, newly-formed meaning "to make one gain weight"). It's precisely equivalent to the Latin one, and even likewise used in a grammatical illustration by this very website. Maybe its use can even be attested - but if you were to utter it in a conversation, you'd be instantly told it doesn't exist by absolutely any Russian speaker.Brutal Russian (talk) 19:14, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

波乱万丈

Should its kyujitai form be 波亂萬丈? Someone has suggested it should not have any kyujitai form because it was originally 波瀾万丈. -- Huhu9001 (talk) 22:32, 10 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Tongue" meaning "language"

Is the use of tongue to mean “language” a semantic loan from French? Other Germanic languages don't seem to use this metaphor, but Latin and the Romance languages all do. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:40, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe from Latin influence on Old English? The OED has a sense "The speech or language of a people or race; also, that of a particular class or locality, a dialect." with a c1000 quote from West Saxon Gospels: Mark (Corpus Cambr.) xvi. 17: "Hi sprecaþ niwum tungum." (There is also a sense "The action of speaking; speech, talking, utterance, voice; also, what is spoken or uttered; words, talk, discourse." with the following quotes: c897 K. Ælfred tr. Gregory Pastoral Care i. 27: "Ac sio tunge bið gescended on ðæm lareowdome ðonne hio oðer lærð, oðer hio geleornode." c1020 Rule St. Benet (Logeman) 4: "Se ðe na deþ facn on his tungan.") --Droigheann (talk) 12:07, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Droigheann: The quote from the West Saxon Gospels is almost certainly a literal translation of the Latin linguis loquentur novis (Mark 16:17 in the Vulgate). This may be an unanswerable question since the metaphor is so widespread: the Goidelic languages and (as PUC pointed out in a comment they later deleted) Slavic languages also use it. And looking through our entries for the Germanic cognates of tongue, it seems it really isn't only English among the Germanic languages that uses it. And it's such an obvious metaphor that it's probably impossible to say whether it spread from Latin/Romance to all the other European languages where it's found or whether it developed independently in multiple languages. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:38, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I don't think it developed independently at all. From the little I could find (see here), it seems that Proto-Indo-European had a word for tongue, but not a specific one for language. It also seems that Latin lingua came from this PIE word for tongue. So, it's very possible that the Indo-Europeans used this same word for both the physical body part and to refer to the speech of others, and that sense carried forth into its daughter languages? Jclu (talk) 04:54, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If the word for "tongue" already meant "language" in PIE, though, we'd expect it to be more widespread in the IE languages than it is. Germanic has a lot of different words for "language", and "tongue" isn't the most common word for "language" in any Germanic language AFAIK; Celtic has *yextis; Slavic has *rěčь alongside *ęzykъ; Sanskrit has भाषा (bhāṣā), and so on. —Mahāgaja · talk 07:30, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The meaning was also taken into Turkish, which borrowed a lot of French words. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 12:25, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically from French? Note there’s also Byzantine Greek γλῶσσα (glôssa) among many others that are less likely to be relevant (e.g. the Slavic terms from *ęzykъ), and it’s a very common metaphor, as Mahagaja says above. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 17:25, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Spanish viva and vivan

What's the difference between viva and vivan in Spanish? The examples should probably be moved into the relevant section. Pious Eterino (talk) 13:50, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Simple grammar. The interjection is nothing more than the subjunctive form of the verb: ¡viva! means "may he/she/it live!" and ¡vivan! is "may they live!". There's really nothing to move: the usage notes are about the the usage of all inflected forms, which belongs at the lemma, and the Grito is a single quote that happens to contain both singular and plural forms. I'm not sure how you could split out the first and sixth lines of the ten for the the plural page. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:19, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, singular and plural, I see. I probably could have worked that out. Perhaps we could put them on the lemma page vivir. Pious Eterino (talk) 14:29, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

cartelera

There are some phrases at the bottom of the Spanish entry. I'm not sure whether to include them as Derived terms or example sentences, or delete them. Any ideas? Pious Eterino (talk) 14:11, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, one was stolen from Wordreference, so got expurgated. I moved the rest to en cartelera Alexfromiowa (talk) 23:45, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Basque: Zer moduz

Should this be capitalised? Pious Eterino (talk) 14:18, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Pious Eterino: That was a typo. I have fixed it now. -_⸘- inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 13:59, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. It would be nice to have an answer to the question too. Does anyone know the Basque for "I'm fine, thanks"? Pious Eterino (talk) 15:03, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

for

In the sentences "I will need to spray for termites" or "I'm being treated for cancer", is for using definition #4? 76.100.241.89 18:50, 11 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would say so. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 06:03, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Def. 4 is not entirely satisfactory because for generally implies a positive, enhancing relationship to its object, whereas the anon's examples imply the opposite. I don't think that our definitions should rely of the crutch of an "understood" omitted phrase: spray for (killing) termites, treated for (curing me of) cancer. It's particularly confusing because "against" (ie, an antonym of some senses of for) is closer to the meaning than "for the purpose of". DCDuring (talk) 17:21, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and added a new def, #7. I couldn't really improve on the termite usex so I included it as well. This meaning applies to things as well as actions, so I used a different usex to illustrate that. (I merged two defs as well so the total remains 25.) --RDBury (talk) 03:22, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In definition 7 you seem to have defined a preposition with words appropriate for a verb, ie with to infinitives. Other prepositions (including phrasal prepositions) and present participles (sometimes in phrases) are the usual defining terms (definiens) for prepositions. You should aspire to having definitions that can be substituted into the the usage examples and quotations. But you also should avoid using words in definiens that themselves have too many definitions, which would leave some language learners with a lot of work to find the meaning of the word you are trying to define. DCDuring (talk) 05:32, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed that the 'to' seems to imply that it's a verb, but I didn't see a way around it; feel free to rephrase since. I think the phrases do works as substitutes in the examples, "This medicine is to cure your cough," "I need to spray my house to remove termites." I'm well aware of the issue created by using an ambiguous word in a dictionary since this is my primary reference for looking up German words. I often have to look up the word again in another dictionary because the English word used in the definition has multiple meanings. When that happens I try to fix the issue by adding a gloss or including a few synonyms which make the precise meaning clear. Anyway, I'll take another pass at the definition to address your points, but I think the main point is that there was another meaning to be defined, I wasn't expecting the first attempt to be perfect. --RDBury (talk) 10:01, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

By sustitutability lexicographers mean the ability to replace the term being defined in (virtually) any correct expression and get another correct expression that means the same thing and has the same surface grammatical structure. Many English expressions can be transformed to others with different syntax that mean the same thing or, at least what should be the same thing, have the same 'deep' structure. Your 'to' examples are transformations, not lexicograpic substitutions. It would be nice if all of our definitions were substitutable, but many aren't. (We do have non-gloss definitions for function words that are particularly hard to define substitutably. DCDuring (talk) 00:30, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Current wording looks good to be. DCDuring (talk) 00:47, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

gone

Sense 2, "No longer part of the present situation", has no fewer than three usage examples, but they don't help to elucidate the meaning.

"Don't bother trying to understand what Grandma says; she's gone." Does this mean that she no longer speaks sensibly in her old age – in other words, that "she" is a metonymy for "her mind"? This is really the same as sense 6, which could be more broadly defined as "no longer in control or possession of one's mental faculties".
"He won't be going out with us tonight. Now that he's engaged, he's gone." This example feels unnatural for some reason. In any case, I feel like the sense being got at here covers something wider than "the present situation".
"Have you seen their revenue numbers? They're gone." This one doesn't have enough context to make a good usage example. I assume it means that the company is doomed – synonymous with "a goner". Does this perhaps merit a separate sense?

This, that and the other (talk) 06:36, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The first question might be whether gone is a true adjective rather than the past participle. All of the usage examples are with forms of be. So grammatically they don't support gone being an adjective. Additional tests would be attributive use, use with verbs that take an adjective predicative complement, use with too and very, comparability (more/most gone). DCDuring (talk) 15:34, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Several sources define an ”adjective complement” as a complement of an adjective, not a complement that is an adjective. It would be good to have a page describing usable tests of adjectivity that can be applied to participle forms, as the issue keeps returning. --Lambiam 14:25, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I should have said "predicative complement". DCDuring (talk) 17:27, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Given a phrase such as “the outbreak was first reported in December”, one can ask, “reported by whom?”. This shows that the term “reported” is a participle here. In general, the past participles of transitive verbs can also have a passive sense, and some become adjectives, such as broken. But when a verb is intransitive, its participle cannot be used in the way of an adjective. A person who has succeeded in fulfilling a task is not a “succeeded person”, and one cannot say that “they are now, finally, succeeded”. The verb go is intransitive, and the participle gone does not have a passive sense. If told that Granny is gone, one doesn’t ask, “gone by whom?”. Doesn’t this establish that the term, when used as the complement of the copula be, is not a participle? --Lambiam 14:56, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think you are correct. Sorry for the canard.

On the main question, the wording of the definition in question seems to be seeking to encompass more usages than can be included in a single definition. Most other dictionaries have a sense like "no longer available", which covers ""He won't be going out with us tonight. Now that he's engaged, he's gone." Lexico includes several subsense under the sense "no longer present; departed". (I don't think the subsenses are meant to be exhaustive.) The other two examples would seem to fit under their more felicitously worded sense. DCDuring (talk) 17:50, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Adjective?

Does the English word invalid#Etymology_2 deserve an adjective section? Is it not (as in the only derived term invalid carriage) just an attributive usage of the noun? -_⸘- inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 13:41, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, delete. P U C – 13:43, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is an RfV matter. If it attestably meets the adjectivity tests, then we keep it. See #gone above. DCDuring (talk) 15:35, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see this as an adjective. An invalid carriage isn't a carriage that somehow fails to be valid! Equinox ◑ 15:39, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Standard English is really wierd. Sometimes when an attributive usage of a noun is so well-established, it becomes a fullfledged adjective. Merriam-Webster shows it as an adjective as well. -_⸘- inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 17:45, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking of wierdness, I just found out there is a notable Dutch person whose (real) name is Wierd Duk. --Lambiam 15:02, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I can’t think of a context in which “X is invalid” could mean that X is intended to serve disabled people (although mentally challenged people may imagine they are served by invalid arguments), or any other test of adjectivity (like, if someone might prefer the more invalid carriage, given a choice). --Lambiam 15:10, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Lambiam: I don't agree that every adjective must be usable as a predicate; "sole" is an adjective that is only used attributively. But I do agree that in this case "invalid" is just an attributive noun. You can talk about a face mask, but that doesn't mean "face" is an adjective. I vote delete. --RDBury (talk) 03:51, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
“legal ownership, whether sole or joint, ...”;^[51] “The plaintiff, relying on said promise of the defendant, has remained sole and unmarried, ...”;^[52] “The Hapsburgs remaining sole and unchallenged in possession of the royal title to Hungary, ...”^[53] --Lambiam 11:19, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking more of your "X is invalid" criterion; "X is sole" doesn't seem to work. But I think we agree that the definition in question should be removed, which was the point of the discussion. --RDBury (talk) 09:37, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agreeing with Equinox (see above). No, invalid#Etymology 2 is not an adjective and that part should be removed completely (it can be transferred to the noun and marked "attributive"). Looking at the quote, I think the contributor got confused - an "invalid woman" is simply a woman who is an invalid, surely? That would make it attributive use, IMO. DonnanZ (talk) 17:09, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
According to MWOnline (presumably also OED) in Etymology 2 attestation for the adjective antedates attestation for the noun. As we try to be a historical dictionary, I think that means that, even if invalid (Ety. 2) fails to meet the grammatical tests for adjectivity, we should keep the adjective section. DCDuring (talk) 17:43, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the OED has the first adjectival quote from 1642 ("Narcissus Bishop of Ierusalem, was invalid and unfit for government by reason of his extreame age.") and the first noun quote from 1709. Incidentally their adjectival sense adds after the defition "Now only as attributive use of the noun." --Droigheann (talk) 20:23, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

burble

A recent edit [54] split the word across two etymologies but having the identical verb and noun meanings. Is that legitimate? Equinox ◑ 15:38, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, something else was done. Etymology_1 was duplicated as Etymology_3 but with a different, questionable etymology. -_⸘- inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 16:19, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Having found no sources that agree with the new, fabricated etymology, I now removed it. -_⸘- inqilābī ^{‹inqilāb·zinda·bād›} 16:31, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

See w:Jabberwocky#Possible interpretations of words. Apparently Carroll/Dodgson thought he coined the word and wrote down what he assumed to be his inspiration. To be fair, he did coin quite a few words in the poem, but some, like this, were just unusual. It's possible that he really did make up the word independently and the similarity is just a coincidence, but it seems unlikely. --RDBury (talk) 04:18, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cohenist

Defined as "Relating to, or characteristic of any of several people with the surname Cohen", which doesn't really explain what the word means at all. I think the entry should be redone to list these several Cohens and who they are. Compare entry for Jonesian with its two senses. Equinox ◑ 16:05, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I only found one sense I could cite, so I changed the def to reflect that. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:36, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Defining encontre

A French article about some unlawful activity ends with "Cinq infractions ont été retenues à son encontre." I think in English we'd say "five charges (counts) have been filed against him". This short sentence has two senses missing from Wiktionary, one from retenir and the other from encontre. Encontre is currently defined as "only used in à l’encontre de". TLFi defines à l’encontre as equivalent to adverbial use of contre. I'm not sure how to add this at encontre. I don't want to add this as a second "only used in" definition because by definition you can't have two of those. And the form in the article appears as son encontre rather than l’encontre. (There are enough Google books hits with the posessive to make it citable.) How should this be defined? Vox Sciurorum (talk) 19:07, 12 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The use of a possessive pronoun in a phrase like “son noun” (“his/her noun”) stands, as it were, for “noun de lui/d’elle” (“noun of him/her”). So for “à son encontre”, read “à l’encontre de lui” (the suspect is male). It is similar to how someone trying to figure out the meaning of “in his place” should read this as “in place of him” and consult the entry in place of. --Lambiam 18:44, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Incorrect English translation of nuns for Portuguese

The Portuguese definition of nuns is given as a contraction of em and uns, with an English translation given in brackets and quotes. However, the translation given is "in a", which is wrong. In Portuguese, uns is the masculine plural indefinite article, which translate to "some" in English, making nuns "in some". I don't feel right just changing the page, since I'm not a native Portuguese speaker. If my understanding of how to translate nuns is correct, could someone fix the page please? Jclu (talk) 04:36, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:38, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

English sorry

Shouldn't definition 1 of sorry be split to "commiserating/saddened" (e.g. "I'm sorry to hear of your mother's passing") and "apologetic/regretful" (e.g. "I'm sorry that I accidentally killed your mother")? The two definitions seem wildly different to me, are separated in many reputable dictionaries, and would be translated differently in many, perhaps most, languages. Accordingly, the translation box should also be split.

Same applies for the phrasebook at I'm sorry. The translation chart there gives Korean 죄송합니다 (joesonghamnida) as a translation of "I'm sorry", but if you said that at a murder victim's funeral you just might get arrested for confessing to murder.

I would do it myself, but the large number of translations to sort out requires a community effort IMO.--Karaeng Matoaya (talk) 07:16, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You can provisionally put all except the Korean term in a “Translations to be checked” table; see WT:TRANS#Translations to be checked. The Korean apology can perform the grand opening of the apology table. If you do not want the sad table to be empty, you can populate it with the unapologetic * Turkish: {{t|tr|üzgünüm}} (''literally “I am sad”''). --Lambiam 14:06, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

bicyclooctane

Our entry for bicyclooctane has the header ====Narrower terms====. I was going to simply change it to ====Derived terms====, but feel this information is misleading in some way. Pious Eterino (talk) 15:26, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The correct header would be "Hyponyms", but the whole section looks like nothing but clutter to me. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:32, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the section. Organic compounds come with a large number of isomers that can be described by numbers saying where subcomponents attach or where double or triple bonds are placed. In general those are not dictionary material. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 15:34, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would think we would generally want to 'limit' ourselves to chemicals with relatively conventional names and not numbered variants. There is two recent additions, B.1.1.7 and B.1.351, which are shortening of the names of variants of SARS-COV-2 which reminded me that we only generally limit ourselves in this way. I don't know whether we really want those entries. DCDuring (talk) 17:43, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think we want B.1.1.7 any more than we want A/Wuhan/359/95 (briefly known as the Wuhan virus in the 1990s). These names should only be added when they are clearly in widespread use without explanation, like H₂O. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 18:15, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

lindon

Can someone familiar with Gaulish confirm whether or not lindon should actually be located at Reconstruction:Gaulish/lindon? Specifically, is it actually attested? Luckily, lindon is the only page in the mainspace tagged with Template:reconstruction, which is how I found it, so there aren't any similarly existing entries. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 18:45, 13 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

furrowed brow

Is it entry-worthy? The literal meaning is a wrinkled forehead, but the actual meaning is a worried look, so it seems like an idiom to me. --RDBury (talk) 02:34, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

trompe l'oeil

We have surprisingly few translations for this. I would like to call upon all to add translations into languages in which they are proficient. P U C – 19:04, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

the race of entrepreneurs

Sense 4: "(figuratively) A category or species of something that has emerged or evolved from an older one (with an implied parallel to animal breeding or evolutionary science)." Usex: "The advent of the Internet has brought about a new race of entrepreneur."
I question whether this definitionally has to be a category "that has emerged or evolved from an older one": I think that quality is conveyed by new rather than inherent in race. Consider:

2003, Chandran Kukathas, John Rawls: Foundations and method, Taylor & Francis (→ISBN), page 31:
Within the barrier progress depends, in the first place, on the energy of the race of entrepreneurs . But even if entrepreneurs are energetic, smooth growth of the economy is possible only if […]

There, where the race is not described as a "new" one, there is no indication that it "emerged from an older one". So I am inclined to drop "that has emerged or evolved from an older one". Thoughts? (At that point, we could discuss whether this is really distinct from sense 1.4 / whether sense 1.4 is really limited to "people".) - -sche (discuss) 22:14, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That definition would apply to almost any descendant group of living, but mortal things. This is the kind of weak metaphorical extension on which we spend an inordinate amount of contributor and user time and attention, IMO. DCDuring (talk) 23:06, 14 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't object to combining it with sense 1.4 (broadening the latter to include more than just 'people'). Indeed, as it has been reworded, it seems it needs to be merged with 1.4, with which it is now clearly redundant IMO. - -sche (discuss) 10:12, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've merged the two senses. - -sche (discuss) 10:16, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I went ahead and shortened the definition in question, leaving the usex's alone. If you say figuratively then at most you need to explain which quality is being abstracted for the metaphor, so the bit about selective breeding was over-explaining. Also the whole point of figurative meanings is they can extend well beyond the original meaning as long as you don't stretch the metaphor beyond the breaking point, so the definition was overly specific. --RDBury (talk) 16:34, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

plain English (in plain English)

Does this merit an entry? I'd say no, but I see other dictionaries have it.

“plain English”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
“plain English”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
“in plain English” in Idioms and phrases, TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2024.
“in plain English” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.

Note that other languages have similar expressions: Portuguese em bom português (“candidly, frankly”), Russian по-ру́сски (po-rússki, “plainly, frankly”).

P U C – 00:36, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There is a Wikipedia entry w:Plain English. This is obviously a collocation, but I'm not convinced its meaning isn't SOP, unlike in layman's terms which requires some explanation. I vote to add it as a definition under plain since the "English" isn't really necessary; you can also say "plain language", "plain French", etc. and the meaning would be clear. --RDBury (talk) 13:28, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

[[English#Noun]] does not have a definition something like "English (earlier sense) without jargon or technical vocabulary)". Should it? DCDuring (talk) 14:34, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Our entry [[plain#Adjective]] doesn't have a definition "without jargon or technical terms", though it does have "Ordinary; lacking adornment or ornamentation; unembellished." I think that that definition does not clearly apply. BTW, what is plain English in, say, lowland Scotland?

Don't we need both of these definitions, even if we decide to add plain English? DCDuring (talk) 14:45, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've been bold and added plain English. SemperBlotto (talk) 14:53, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

royal road

"An easy way to learn a subject, without putting in the necessary effort": this sounds pejorative. But is it (necessarily) so?

dictionary.com defines it as "an auspicious or easy way or means to achieve something" (the royal road to success)
“royal road to” in Idioms and phrases, TheFreeDictionary.com, Huntingdon Valley, Pa.: Farlex, Inc., 2003–2024. says it means "the easiest, most direct, or most effective way to reach or achieve something" (If they can win their division, they will be on the royal road to the championship during the playoffs.)

These definitions correspond better to my understanding of the term. P U C – 00:57, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like there are actually two meanings here. We have the meaning referencing Euclid which really is a bit pejorative. (It's highly doubtful that Euclid actually said this btw; we have no first-hand accounts of Euclid's life.) But presumably the quote itself is referencing something along the lines of the other meaning. Or perhaps some authors started to used the term ironically and that meaning has taken on a life of its own. ("There may not be a royal road to geometry, but there is a royal road to economics!") Do you have any actual quotations for the second meaning? I wouldn't count book titles because they'd still be referencing Euclid. --RDBury (talk) 13:54, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The original Royal Road was brought to "royal standards" long before Euclid (and Proclus, to whom the anecdote is due), and Euclid would have been aware of its existence, since it led right to Sardis in Minor Asia, from where goods would also have been dispatched to Alexandria. But according to the Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, a better translation of Euclid’s remark to King Ptolemy I is: “there is no royal shortcut to geometry”, since the Greek term used by Proclus was commonly used for a footpath – such as could be used for an alternative route. So it is not clear if the term “royal” referred merely to the regal status of Euclid’s interlocutor, or also (as a pun) to the Royal Road (which did not follow the shortest route). When the anecdote was translated from Greek, the translator used the Latin term via, which is as generic a term for a road as it gets. In most uses, the term “royal road” is used in the form: “there is no royal road to ...”, where the dots stand for some subject that needs serious study to master it. While a negative assertion, it is (IMO) not by itself pejorative. One can also say “there is no easy solution for ...” (fill in your favourite intractable problem). That doesn’t make the term “easy solution” pejorative. Here are some positive uses: [55], [56], [57]. The pejorative sense in the definition should be removed, for example by replacing it by: “An easy way to achieve a goal, not requiring a great effort.” --Lambiam 17:49, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, the information seems useful; the Etymology section in the entry is, at best, very incomplete. To my mind though, the sense of the phrase when paraphrasing Euclid/Proclus still has a pejorative tone. Something like "As a king you may have special privileges and powers, but in geometry you're just like everyone else." But quotations can take on connotations that their authors never intended. Do you have specifics on where the quote is from? I'm guessing Heath might weigh in on the quotation as well. --RDBury (talk) 04:48, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is found in Proclus’ commentary on Euclid, seen here on page 68, lines 16–17: μὴ εἶναι βασιλικὴν ἀτραπὸν ἐπὶ γεωμετρίαν. --Lambiam 17:08, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

û in Gheg variant forms

Some Albanian entries have Gheg variant forms. Some such forms, e.g. those at ku which are kû, kûh, kûn, ka, and kah, have the û character. Now, the Wikipedia page on Gheg gives an orthography that has â for /ɑ/, ê for /ɛ/, ô for /ɔ/, but no î or û, so what does û represent in those forms? MGorrone (talk) 10:28, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

According to the Albanian Wikipedia, these hatted vowels, including ⟨î⟩ and ⟨û⟩, are nasal. I do not know what this means expressed in IPA. --Lambiam 16:48, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam Oh no, competing standards for orthography… English Wikipedia (linked above) says nasal vowels have tildes (ã ẽ ĩ õ ũ ỹ)… does Albanian Wikipedia specify what diacritic to use for /ɑ/ /ɛ/ /ɔ/, since it uses the circumflex for other purposes? And does it also use ä for /ɒ/? MGorrone (talk) 00:02, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, there is hardly anything else about the phonology and orthography, only that ⟨ë⟩ extends a previous vowel. The article uses no IPA symbols. --Lambiam 02:05, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

pack

Hi. Which is the definition of a «pack of cans» (like Coca-Coca)? "A number or quantity equal to the contents of a pack" or "A number or quantity of connected or similar things; a collective."? --Vivaelcelta (talk) 21:13, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Could be either. "I bought a pack of cans": the set of connected things. "I drank a pack of cans": the quantity contained within it (since we don't drink the metal container, just the liquid). Similar with most container-words. Equinox ◑ 22:37, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Equinox: And could it be that those two definitions are redundant/duplicated? --Vivaelcelta (talk) 01:23, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've never heard "a pack of cans", though compounds like six pack are common, and you might buy something canned in a "pack of eight". --RDBury (talk) 04:56, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If someone eats two plates of macaroni and cheese and washes this away with six glasses of beer, they do not need to have the ceramics and glass surgically removed; the name of a container type is metonymically used for the content contained therein. This is common in all natural languages I know and should not occasion the inclusion of separate senses.

Python as abbreviation for troupe/show?

Python currently has the following entry:

(informal) Ellipsis of Monty Python (“British comedy troupe”)..
2020 January 22, Stuart Jeffries, “Terry Jones obituary”, in The Guardian‎^[58]:
After Python finished its run on TV, Jones went on to direct several films with the troupe.

One problem is that the quoted sentence is abbreviating the name of their show, Monty Python's Flying Circus. However, I was able to find examples of Python as an abbreviation for the troupe in published works, e.g. (from a Google books search):

"Features animation sequences & a short film by Python member Terry Gilliam..."
"...and that chemistry produced something unique - it wasn't something that any individual member of Python ever could replicate in..."

But I'm still unsure about whether this meaning merits a definition. The CFI section on names of specific entities isn't much help:

Among those that do meet [the attestation] requirement, many should be excluded while some should be included, but there is no agreement on precise, all-encompassing rules for deciding which are which.

For comparison, I checked some abbreviations of musical groups for which I was able to find attested uses. We have an entry for Stones (though not for Rolling Stones / The Rolling Stones), but not Floyd, Sabbath, Death Cab, or Peas/the Peas (for Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, Death Cab for Cutie, and The Black Eyed Peas, respectively).

For that matter, since it's attested (per the quoted example sentence), should we also have an entry for Python as abbreviation for Monty Python's Flying Circus?

My gut feeling is that neither sense merits an entry, in the same way that the Floyd/Sabbath/Death Cab abbreviations don't, and in the same way that we don't need to define Parks as an abbreviation for Parks and Recreation or Six Feet as an abbreviation for Six Feet Under (TV series), even though those abbreviations are attested. Something these all have in common is that they're all natural ways to abbreviate the corresponding full name, such that a speaker might easily come up with them on their own without having heard someone else use it. That it's attested in multiple works could easily be the result of parallel thinking, rather than a bona fide lexical meme that has spread through a population. (Such an argument would not apply to a more unusually formed abbreviation like Corrie, which we do have an entry for.)

But I would appreciate thoughts from other editors. Colin M (talk) 21:33, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Collins is the only dictionary at “Stones”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. to actually have a dictionary definition for Stones "the Rolling Stones". They also have an entry for the Rolling Stones, as does Oxford/Lexico. Macmillan has an entry for Monty Python. IMO, the short names for the groups have more justification than the full names. One principle that we could follow is that if other general dictionaries have a term, then their inclusion of the term probably indicates that the word has become important to the language. Many dictionaries include Shakespeare. Few include w:Blue Oyster Cult (though Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary includes more cowbell).

Another principle is the use of the proper names (possibly in altered orthography) attributively where its use might be unexpected and where the meaning is not defined earlier in the document. For example:

1993, Timber Framing: Journal of the Timber Framers Guild, page 11:
I'm trying to capture this Monty Python moment
2011, Allan C. Ornstein, Edward Pajak, Stacey B. Ornstein, Contemporary Issues in Curriculum, page 253:
But the teacher must be willing to create a Monty Python moment, that is, something completely different.

HTH. DCDuring (talk) 22:51, 15 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Greek needed

Hi all. There's a quote at immortalist containing some (Ancient?) Greek in this book. Can someone please add it, as I'll probably spell it wrong? Perhaps we could make a WT entry for it too...Alexfromiowa (talk) 09:41, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done —Mahāgaja · talk 09:55, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Is ἀθανατίζοντες Ancient or Modern Greek? Alexfromiowa (talk) 22:22, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if it's also modern Greek, but it's definitely Ancient Greek. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:34, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some Greek terms are the same in Ancient and Modern Greek, but if a Greek word contains a spiritus (the comma-shaped sign and its mirror image seen in ἀ and ἁ), or a grave or circumflex accent (ὰ, ᾶ), or a subscript iota (ᾳ), it is Ancient Greek. This word has a spiritus over the initial α. It is a plural form; the singular form, the masculine active present participle ἀθανατίζων, is shown in the conjugation table of Ancient Greek ἀθανατίζω (athanatízō). --Lambiam 23:26, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, Modern Greek was written with spirituses and grave and circumflex accents until the 1970s, and we do have several such entries in Category:Katharevousa (though not all Katharevousa entries are in polytonic script). —Mahāgaja · talk 09:48, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

coral as the animal itself

The current zoological definitions cover the colonies and the substance they secrete, but not the species, as found for example in the term “coral larva”. Potentially it also refers to the individual polyp itself.

It doesn’t seem that the concept of a coral corresponds to any particular set of taxonomic categories nor to some shared characteristic that is absent in other anthozoans -- there are non-colonial corals and there are corals that don’t have a hard skeleton. So what is a coral? — Ungoliant ^(falai) 17:26, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is a frustrating one. To be clear, zoologists do not refer to a single polyp as a coral unless the species is a solitary coral. Anyway, there is no strict scientific definition, but that's true of a lot of words like this — alga is another good example. I've tried my best to reword the definition. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:00, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Mumpsimus

The pronunciation of "mumpsimus" is listed as /ˌməmēˈCHôɡ,ˈməmpsiməs/ when asking Google for "define:mumpsimus," via the Oxford Dictionaries. This came to my attention due to the macOS "Word of the Day" screensaver. I suspect this may be a joke on the part of Oxford. Google corpus would be non-helpful in this. Etymology reveals a cute story about a man of the cloth mispronouncing "sumpsimus" and keeping his incorrect pronunciation when corrected. Is this similar to cartographers introducing non-extant towns in order to catch copyists? Similar to a watermark? Chrishota (talk) 21:45, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright traps, like esquivalience, which escaped into the wild? Compare the fate of Agloe, New York. A Twilight Zone episode might narrate the experience of a cartographer making up a fictional town, only to discover it has now sprung into existence, complete with a history going back a century. /ˌməmēˈCHôɡ/ is found here, together with the IPA rendering /ˌməmiˈtʃɔɡ/. --Lambiam 22:33, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A stressed schwa?! Equinox ◑ 23:58, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some dictionaries, such as Merriam-Webster, don't distinguish between /ə/ and /ʌ/ and so use stressed schwa to indicate the strut vowel. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:54, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In fact the 'British English section' of Lexico (former Oxford Dicts) gives the pronunciation as /ˈmʌmpsɪməs/. and the OED has "Brit. /ˈmʌm(p)sᵻməs/, U.S. /ˈməm(p)səməs/". Also, the OED has 23 quotes spanning from 1530 to 1995 - I wonder whether they would really make up that many to catch a copyist. Indeed I tried to find one of them ("1847, Edinb. Rev. Apr. [p] 398: "The novel sumpsimus was discarded ignominiously; the old mumpsimus resumed his ancient sway.") in Google Books and succeeded [59] --Droigheann (talk) 12:00, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The issue is, who ordered /ˌməmēˈCHôɡ/? (I refuse to say /ˈməmpsiməs/; I’ll stick to my /ˌməmēˈCHôɡ/.) --Lambiam 14:53, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam This pronunciation was probably intended for mummichog. If so, it is a simple error by OED. 120.150.121.92 07:44, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some are too ſtiffe in their old Mummichog, and others too buſie and curious in their new Summichog.^[60] --Lambiam 11:49, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That explains this satisfactorily, probably a copy-and-paste error. The pronunciation /ˈməmēCHôɡ/ (with a different stress, though) is found in Lexico at the lemma mummichog. --Lambiam 12:02, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Greek needed again

I've been quoting a lot recently from a book of sermons by Jeremy Taylor, called Heniaytos, which is a Greek word apparently, that can be found at this page. What is that word, and what does it mean? It possible should be added to Template:RQ:Taylor Heniaytos, which is the domain of our long-suffering @Sgconlaw Alexfromiowa (talk) 22:27, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Rendered in minuscules, it is Ancient Greek ἐνιαυτός (eniautós), which can mean “anniversary”, but here means “one year”, as this book is a collection of sermons, one for each Sunday of a calendar year. The proper Romanization does not contain an ⟨h⟩, and conventionally the diphthong ⟨αυ⟩ is Romanized as ⟨au⟩. --Lambiam 22:46, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So Jeremy Taylor pretty much sucked at Ancient Greek Alexfromiowa (talk) 23:02, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

He spelled it right. The problem is with the transliteration that was added by others since then. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:11, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) It's Ancient Greek ἐνιαυτός (eniautós, “anniversary”), and the "h" seems to be in error. The "h" would only make sense if it were *ἑνιαυτός, with the rough breathing on the first letter ( ῾ as opposed to ᾿ ), but then it wouldn't be the same word. The "y" instead of "u" isn't necessarily wrong, since it's at least the same letter, but in Ancient Greek it's usually transliterated with "u" (it started out with an "u" sound, but became an "i" sound in modern Greek, having an "y" sound in between). Chuck Entz (talk) 23:08, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

One thing I love about Wiktionary is the answers are almost always really quick and complete. We may well be the best language forum on the web, you know. Alexfromiowa (talk) 23:15, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If the term is being used to mean "one year", then the misspelling with the rough breathing is understandable, as the word for "one" (neuter singular) is ἕν (hén) with a rough breathing. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:52, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The title page has a smoothly breathed Ἐ. The error is with whoever transliterated this for entering the title in the Google Books database. --Lambiam 14:06, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, the only hits on Google Books that I can find that show mentions of the work in running text use "Eniautos" rather than "Heniaytos" Chuck Entz (talk) 20:02, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"operating system" in personal and server computer contexts

In Gödel, Escher, Bach (1979) by Douglas Hafstadter he writes "I was talking one day with two systems programmers for the computer I was using. They mentioned the operating system seemed to be able to handle up to thirty-five users with great comfort […] " (p. 308). The meaning of operating system in the context of multiple users using terminals to access one hub of computational power, as in this quote, seems to be different that the one used when discussing personal computers where the management of processes happens in just one device, as is currently standard. Are the meanings in the two contexts distinct enough to warrant differentiated definition lines or sub-definitions? Best. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 02:09, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Our current definition doesn't seem to be restricted to stand-alone workstations. Equinox ◑ 02:10, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the term "operating system" predates personal computers and w:CP/CMS was very different from Windows 10, but the definition given seems broad enough to cover both. --RDBury (talk) 09:04, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It seems a reasonable definition, but I've made a small addition (I used to be a sysprog on IBM mainframes). SemperBlotto (talk) 11:45, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with you and others that the definition is broad enough to encapsulate both contexts. I guess the question for me was "would someone who was only familiar with operating systems in personal computers and then read our definition have a clear understanding of what was referred to by operating system when reading the given quote". I thought our previous definition didn't have enough specifics to establish such an understanding. I think your change is enough to accomplish that, so thanks for that. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 20:14, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In 1979 the “one hub of computational power” had a single CPU, as did the workstations of the 1980s. Originally an OS only catered for batch processing – a next job would only be started if the previous one had finished or been aborted. What did change in the 1970s is that time-sharing was introduced: several jobs could take turns, while still running on the same CPU. The OS controlled how the time slices were allotted to the jobs. Today’s laptops often have a multi-core processor, combining several CPUs, so the OS now has to supervise and coordinate a congeries of grunts, rather than controlling the operation of just one. --Lambiam 14:41, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't Android, among other things, an operating system? Doesn't a CNC machine or a 3D printer have an operating system? Also disk space and remote terminals make the definition seem both limited and dated. Device variation might be addressed by multiple usage examples. DCDuring (talk) 00:16, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

אָמָּן, etymology 2 features a kamatz katan but is listed as "defective spelling"

The correct "long spelling" is אמן and not אומן. The latter is an excessive spelling, no? I'm not entirely sure what Wiktionary's policy is on this, so asking. פֿינצטערניש (Fintsternish), she/her (talk) 10:50, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think "excessive spelling" is used synonymously with "long spelling" here. But from a Biblical Hebrew perspective qamets qatan alternating with a holem with waw is very strange. Is this a Modern Hebrew form? ~~←₰-→~~ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 10:58, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

And why does אומן show several pointed forms of אמן that are not shown at all on the page for אמן? --Lambiam 14:48, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

token (adjective)

I really think that sense three needs to be either

A. Clearly indicated to be an extension of sense two [via adding "(by extension)"].

OR

B. Moved to usage notes, and have sense two tagged with "(see usage notes)".

I think that A would make a whole lot more sense than B, but either one would deal with the odd situation that we currently have, where sense three is silently treated as a totally distinct sense from sense two, despite being a pretty clear extension of it. Tharthan (talk) 15:41, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Or make it a subsense (## instead of #). Vox Sciurorum (talk) 15:54, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sense #3 was added by me on the basis of the discussion at Wiktionary:Requests_for_deletion/English#token. In my judgement, sense #3 is sufficiently distinguished to be listed as a separate sense. I don't mind if it is labelled "by extension", or listed as a subsense. By the way, may I thoroughly recommend to all that discussions at this forum should not refer to e.g. "sense three", as this is liable to change at any time without notice, but should instead (or in addition) quote the actual definitions. Mihia (talk)

I have added and cited (IMO) a corresponding noun (sub)sense and RfVed the "adjective". It may be that the adjective use with this meaning predates the noun. I will try to find early cites of the noun. DCDuring (talk) 02:41, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Uses such as "He was hired as a token native Pacific Islander" (presently listed as noun) and "He was hired as the company's token black person" (presently listed as adj.) may be debatable as to whether they are adj. or attributive noun, but did we not have that discussion already, and decide that they were "adjectival enough"? Or maybe I'm thinking of "blanket" (which is highly similar). Anyway, the situation now, where the exact same attributive usage is listed as both noun and adj., is not satisfactory. We need to decide on one or the other. Mihia (talk) 11:27, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The noun definition for token is new. For blanket there was sufficient attestation of comparative, gradable, and predicate usage, IIRC.

Looking at usage for token over time, it seemed to me that a token few, a token number, and a token representative were the most common early collocations with token in discussions of race in the US (post WWII). (BTW, should this definition be marked US?) But that seems a more generic definition of token than the one that is in the noun usage. I think the noun usage in the racial (and. lately, gender-, ethnicity-, and faith-related) context seems to have evolved from that usage and, possibly, the term tokenism. I can't see a clear sequence without a lot more research, I my set of Etymology Notes had an index, perhaps I could find some research. Maybe the ADS list has something. DCDuring (talk) 14:06, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

fine words butter no parsnips

"Attested as early as 1639 as faire words butter noe parsnips, alluding to the English habit of buttering foods to make them more palatable."

Is this habit really specifically English? Compare French mettre du beurre dans les épinards. 212.224.227.143 20:57, 17 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The French also butter their parsnips,^[61][62][63] usually with a refined culinary twist. --Lambiam 15:03, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

discriminate

There's some weird shit going on with the quotations at discriminate Alexfromiowa (talk) 21:28, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I caused it a while ago. I fixed it. Thanks. DCDuring (talk) 22:11, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Love you, D Alexfromiowa (talk) 22:18, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

social experiment

Entry worthy? I would say no. P U C – 21:41, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say yes Alexfromiowa (talk) 22:18, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say no, too (SOP) - or it needs some good definition/explaining. --幽霊四 (talk) 23:29, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

榆

There's some weird elm-tree shit going on in the Japanese section. No idea Alexfromiowa (talk) 23:40, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Solved — a newby editor did not understand the wiki template syntax. --Lambiam 01:25, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Timbre pronounciation

The article for 'timbre' gives tăm'bə(r), /ˈtæmbə(ɹ)/, like 'tam-ber' as the UK pronunciation. As a UK English speaker I've only ever heard timbre pronounced sort of like 'tom-bre' with a guttural 'r', like it is in the Cambridge dictionary entry here. I wanted to add this pronunciation to the page but after reading the guides on enPR and IPA I'm still not confident enough that I have got it correct. I think it's IPA /'tɒmb.ɹə/ or enPR ʹtŏmb-rə. Could someone please tell me whether I've transcribed the pronunciation correctly into enPR and IPA before I add it to the page (or just add it to the page, if you're so inclined)?

/'tɒmb.ɹə/ would be if the vowel has rounded lips. I'm hearing /'tɑm.bʁə/ in that recording. The /ʁ/ seems strange to me for English, but if Cambridge dictionary has it, I'm sure it exists. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:00, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I say ‘tam-buh’ (tæmbə) as suggested in the article for the U.K.(where I’m from) fwiwOverlordnat1 (talk) 22:27, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Have as in something is a part of something else

I would like to add another sense to the list of meanings of the word "have" in wiktionary, so I am throwing it out here to see if anyone supports or objects to it. To me, the first thing that comes to mind is that I have a body, and I have arms, as in that I have a body and a soul. The sense here is that the body is a part of me, just as my arms are a part of my body. I would not normally say that I "own" or "possess" my own body.

(transitive) To state that something is a part of something else. I have a body. My body has two arms and two legs. DanielDemaret (talk) 10:48, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You do own and possess your body; I think it's covered. Equinox ◑ 14:50, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't fully agree. That relies on a certain philosophical presupposition about our relationship to our bodies. I happen to disagree with that presupposition, but I still feel perfectly comfortable saying "I have a body." I don't feel equally comfortable saying that I "own" or "possess" my body. I think Daniel is right in saying that "have" can indicate that something is part of something else. The following might all be examples of this:

The stove has a handle. The shirt has sleeves. The words "cow" and "dog" have three letters. A government has three branches. Virtues have two key elements.

I don't see those as really belonging under any of the existing definitions. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 16:47, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Andrew. Examples of things, rather than a body, made the case clearer. If I have a table, then I own the table. The table has four legs, but the table does not own the legs, instead the legs are parts of the table. If I own the table, I am the owner of the legs too. DanielDemaret (talk) 23:18, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Other uses with a sense that I don’t see covered: I have no reason to think so; he has no job, no common sense, and no one he can count on; Hell hath no fury like a wombat scorched. --Lambiam 01:17, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why does no make a difference? There is a trivial transformation from no#Determiner before a nominal to not#Adverb modifying a verb (with other necessary, but standard supporting transformations. The existence "I am no grammarian" (a transform of "I am not a grammarian") does not require an additional definition of be. DCDuring (talk) 01:32, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I did not suggest or mean to suggest that the presence of no makes a difference. It is pure coincidence that these examples of (actual) usage have an object with this determiner; I have a good reason to think it should be easy to find similar no-less examples. The point is, which currently listed sense of the verb covers these examples? --Lambiam 15:32, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I have looked at the article, and I have reason to believe that you are correct, Lambian. I welcome ideas on how to describe this sense in the article. DanielDemaret (talk) 14:39, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So this would be something like "comprise, consist (at least partly) of". Equinox ◑ 01:24, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that is the gist of it. I am delaying editing this, hoping that an even better formulation might come along, although I cannot think of one right now. DanielDemaret (talk) 14:26, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Include as a part, ingredient, or feature."? I think we have to allow for countable and uncountable inclusions as well as things that are not physical (The movie has a lot of action.). DCDuring (talk) 18:33, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am posting your version for now,DCDuring, thank you for the suggestion, awaiting further improvements, like examples, perhaps. DanielDemaret (talk) 14:46, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I used the definition from @DCDuring and the example from @Andrew Sheedy.

(transitive) To Include as a part, ingredient, or feature.
The stove has a handle. The shirt has sleeves. The words "cow" and "dog" have three letters. A government has three branches. Virtues have two key elements.

— This unsigned comment was added by DanielDemaret (talk • contribs) at 14:53, 24 January 2021 (UTC).[reply]

You shouldn't generally add a new definition as the first one in the entry, unless it is truly the most common use of a word. I've moved it down to 3rd place. Also, note my formatting changes (examples in italics, headword in bold, etc.). If you meant to ping DCDuring and me, you have to use {{ping}} or {{reply}} and include your signature in the same paragraph as the ping. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 15:01, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. Is there a way of finding out whether it is the most common use? It was the first use I thought of, even before looking it up. DanielDemaret (talk) 17:22, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You will rarely find that polysemous English words are missing the most common sense on Wiktionary. A good way to get a sense of the most common meaning, however, is to do a Google or Google Books search and see what senses the top several hits are using. In the case of have, the primary/default meaning is "possess." That's the most typical meaning most people will think of. The definition you added is common, and is related to it, but is by no means the most common meaning. In some cases, it's subjective, or region-dependent. And you'll notice that not all entries are organized by most common to least common sense. Some are organized according to the chronology of the sense (although the consensus seems to be moving away from this presentation), others are grouped together according to how the senses are related to each other (most of these entries will have an overarching order based on approximate frequency, however). Andrew Sheedy (talk) 17:27, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I did a google books search. Possession came in at number one, and part-of at number three. Thank you again. DanielDemaret (talk) 22:35, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

lapidar

A German adjective: "lapidary; brief, succinct (frequent connotation: more succinct than appropriate in the given situation)". So might terse be a better translation than merely brief, succinct? Equinox ◑ 14:49, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and it's a much better translation than "lapidary", which is much rarer in English than lapidar is in German. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:56, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Done Equinox ◑ 04:52, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

rotten egg

It says:

(slang, idiomatic, humorous, childish) A person who is the latest, the last, or the slowest in a group at performing a certain task, especially at going to a certain place. Last one there is a rotten egg!

So the usage example means "last one there is the last person to get there"? Rather tautological... I would have thought "rotten egg" is just a general insult, a bad thing to be, and the phrase means "last one there is a loser/idiot/etc." Equinox ◑ 01:35, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Right, IMO. DCDuring (talk) 01:51, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Probably should be moved to last one there is a rotten egg. Is rotten egg ever used (in the childish joke sense) outside of that phrase? PseudoSkull (talk) 02:02, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Of course there are things you can substitute there with in the phrase, as, for example: "last one to the house is a rotten egg." But these forms seem less common. PseudoSkull (talk) 02:04, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Last one to the [insert place here] is a rotten egg" is almost the only form I've encountered it in. But perhaps we could use "there" in an entry header the way we use "one" or "someone". I think it's fairly plausible that some people might play on the expression and use "rotten egg" independently of it. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 03:54, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"There" isn't necessary. You can say "last one is a rotten egg". Chuck Entz (talk) 04:40, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Whoever gets there last is a rotten egg" is also to be found. Equinox ◑ 04:51, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Lexico/OED also have the transitive verb rotten-egg: "To pelt with rotten eggs as a demonstration of disapproval or dislike. Also figurative: to criticize or ridicule; to pour scorn on." Worth an entry or an SOP? --Droigheann (talk) 09:39, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For book and news sources, last one in is a rotten egg gets more ghits than last one there is a rotten egg. --Lambiam 19:57, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If at [[rotten egg]] we have a few quotes and usexes that have some of the variations, I think our users would find their way to that entry and get the idea. DCDuring (talk) 21:55, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"First one is a rotten egg and last one has to eat it." is one I dimly remember.

2014 “Melly, first one to the lake front is a rotten egg!”

2001 When Manny's classes practice a form, he tells the students, “First one done is a rotten egg.”

2008 Then you play a little game, you both try to make good throws to each other and then the first one that drops the ball is a rotten egg,

1951 “the first one who mentions the house or anything that sounds like work is a rotten egg ."

1988 We'll wear disguises, and the first one spotted is a rotten egg, okay?"

1943 The next one who even mentions the subject of publishing or publishers is a rotten egg.

IOW, it looks like a fairly flexible snowclone. DCDuring (talk) 22:06, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Usage note at LOL

"Typically, lowercase lol is used for the diluted sense of the word (to indicate light-heartedness), while uppercase LOL is used more literally." Is this sourceable? Otherwise we should remove it. In my experience whether people type in lower or upper case online is quite arbitrary and may just depend on laziness etc. Equinox ◑ 05:08, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think this simply reflects a more general feature of language, which is that capitalization can be used for emphasis. So I think there's definitely truth to this, but since the original form is an initialism, whether capitalization reflects emphasis or not is fairly variable. I do think the use of capitals for emphasis is more often the case with LOL/lol than with similar initialisms, however (like BTW, FWIW, FYI, etc.), but that has more to do with the meaning of the word and the fact that it's almost used as punctuation than it does with the capitalization itself. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 05:53, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

barnyard epithet

"... commenting on video of Mr. McConnell’s speech. She described it with a barnyard epithet." [64] (emphasis added) Is this entry-worthy? Or should the entry barnyard be expanded? Is it always referring to bullshit? --Akletos (talk) 07:56, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Our entry lacks barnyard#Adjective, which MWOnline defines as "smutty, earthy, scatological". I'm sure we can come up with better wording.

Also, chicken shit and horseshit are barnyard epithets, too. Chicken shit doesn't mean the same thing as the other two. DCDuring (talk) 16:05, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Generally, “barnyard language”, or a “barnyard word”, refers to stuff that – even if news – the NYT deems not fit to print. I think this attributive use of the noun should be recorded. The term it modifies does not need to be epithet, and although I suspect the concept of “barnyard manure” has contributed to this figurative sense, it does not have to be a euphemism for bullshit or any kind of animal dung. Here it refers to Dick Cheney telling Pat Leahy to “go fuck yourself”. Here “barnyard expression” refers to an expression meaning “dog fart”. This is a (funny) sentence using the term “barnyard language” – in this case indirectly referring to vulgar language with a bovine twist, but not related to excrement. --Lambiam 16:36, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that the noun barnyard is used with a definition that specifically leads to the meaning of barnyard epithet. If someone can come up with attestation for such a use, more power to them. We then wouldn't need an adjective PoS section for barnyard. Obviously the derivation of MWOnline's adjective definition is from the noun, but an increasingly non-rural population may not get the connection. DCDuring (talk) 18:34, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

IMO it is better to keep a definition for this sense at the noun, label it with something like “(attributive noun)” and give a non-gloss-definition. We should do the same for locker room; we now have separate lemmas locker room humor and locker room talk, but other uses are locker room language^[65][66][67] (not to be confused with an inspirational “locker room speech”) and locker room words.^[68][69][70] --Lambiam 21:18, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Why is that better for users? Many of our contributors don't seem to realize that nouns can be and often are used attributively. Why make them try to imagine that there is a ghost noun sense whose only trace is attributive use? DCDuring (talk) 21:50, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@DCDuring: I'm not sure to understand what your preferred option would be.

As an ELL, I certainly prefer Lambiam's solution of adding a new sense at locker room, furnished with several usexes, to having separate entries for locker room talk and locker room humor: this would show me that there is a pattern, rather than have me believe that locker room talk and locker room humor are isolated lexicalised instances.

I also prefer adding a "only used attributively" sense to the noun section to having an adjective section as we currently do, because locker-room used attributively isn't an adjective.

Or are you suggesting that we should neither keep locker room talk and locker room humor, nor the adjective section, nor add an attributive sense? P U C – 23:46, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I favor an adjective sense for barnyard and locker room, not a ghost noun sense that only exists in attributive use. DCDuring (talk) 00:02, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The question about both of these terms is whether they have usage that is normally only seen in adjectives. One test is that in either attributive or predicate use they have a meaning not shown in the noun itself. Another is predicate use. A third is comparative, superlative, or graded use.

2. & 3. But I told him an awful lot of stories, and he loved all kinds of stories, nothing you wouldn't tell General Eisenhower or anything, you know, that was too locker room.

2. & 3. Our sex life was very 'locker room', something you brag about with the boys.

3. Ana Lydia Vega parodizes this very locker-room style, buddy sharing system.

I can't find any evidence concerning 1. as there is no proposed noun gloss definition carrying the sense in question. I question whether one can be attested. DCDuring (talk) 01:01, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

why don't you at the end of a sentence

Is this entryworthy? P U C – 17:50, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The entry would be what? Three paragraphs of usage notes after {{&lit|who|do|not|you}}? Discourse analysis is not lexicography to the extent that the meaning nuances are highly (discourse-)context-dependent. DCDuring (talk) 19:28, 20 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To my mind this is redolent of Damon Runyon and Leo Gorcey. I think the literal meaning is SoP. It may be common in certain accents as a figure of speech, but I don't think it's worth an entry unless the actual meaning would be unclear to someone not used to the accent. In this case I think the intended meanings are clear, even if they don't match the literal meaning. We can't document every possible use of irony, hyperbole and sarcasm; if the actual meaning of a figure of speech is unclear then that's down to the speaker, not us. --RDBury (talk) 04:50, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

twenty with the FOOT vowel

Pinging @Gilgamesh~enwiki, Mahagaja, Metaknowledge. Do we have evidence for the pronunciation of twenty with /ʊ/? It was dropped in diff following a short thread in the Info Desk which certainly didn't mount any exhaustive search to confirm it, but there is also no evidence that it is real to go with its readdition in diff. Can anyone (else) vouch for it or find it documented/mentioned somewhere or used in e.g. YouTube videos, etc? Googling google:ˈtwʊnti/google:ˈtwʊni I see one DnD forum user mentions it, and this thread on Mahagaja's talk page, and that's all. I ask because, as discussed in the Tea Room once or twice, some of the unusual pronunciations you are familiar with, Gilgamesh, do not seem to be familiar to any other speakers... :/ - -sche (discuss) 00:49, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Problem is, in forty years of life as a native speaker of (para-)North American English (if you count Hawai'i and Kwajalein), twenty with /ʊ/ is the only usual way I've ever pronounced the word. The best way I can describe it is that twenty is pronounced /ˈtwʊɾ̃i/ as if it were spelt "twoony," and a casual Google search of "twenty" "twoony" yields at least some anecdotal corroboration of its existence. I know it's already more common for people to pronounce it /ˈtwʌɾ̃i/ as if spelt "twunny" (like twenty rhyming with money in the song "Love Shack"), but "twoony" is still out there and it isn't exactly unheard of either. If anything, I have an even greater personal confidence about twenty than I have with the L-vowel merger /-əl, -ʌl, -oʊl, -ʊl/ that I discussed back in 2014. Those L-vowels can be treated as a lexical set merger in the coda and morpheme boundary positions, and as such their IPA can still be broadly transcribed with the mergers being treated as a variation in accent (with the exception of the morpheme boundary factor meaning that pairs like color and duller do not rhyme, while duller and bowler do rhyme). But this pronunciation of twenty with the FOOT vowel is specifically exceptional to the word twenty, such that it does not rhyme with money, penny, tinny or toony because it does not reflect any broader lexical set drift. In fact, I can't immediately think of any word that does rhyme with twenty in this pronunciation, because /ˈ-ʊn(t)i/ is already rare-to-nonexistent in accents that have the foot–strut split. And yeah, anecdotal references aren't exactly considered the most solid or reliable for Wiktionary entries, and I wish I could provide something more concrete, but at some point I just have to be bold with my edits, and expect at least someone knows what I'm talking about. It's definitely real—I'm just not exactly sure how to bolster the references to that effect. - Gilgamesh~enwiki (talk) 03:36, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

אשר and the meaning of relativizer

I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what "relativizer" means in Hebrew, given that the usage note at אשר says that no such thing exists in standard English, while the English entry says merely that it is "a grammatical element used to indicate a relative clause" (which seems no different than relative pronoun) and has a link to the Wikipedia article, which is mostly devoted to...relativizers in English. So what is the usage note in the Hebrew entry trying to say, and is there a clearer way to explain it? If someone like me, who has far higher than average linguistic and grammatical knowledge, can't quite figure out what's going on, I imagine most users would be completely stumped. Perhaps some examples could be added to the Hebrew entry to clear things up? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 06:11, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a little confused by it, too. I think maybe it's just poorly written; my understanding was that the conjunction should be the "which" of "the book which you gave us" and the pronoun should be the "that which" of "I will tell you that which you should say". @Mnemosientje might be our most active editor who can do this justice. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 06:24, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Ruakh Pinging editor who added this, as I'm really not sure either, it seems like a Biblical thing and I am not great with the intricacies of Biblical Hebrew so some kind of example sentences to illustrate what is meant would be nice. I only really know it as a relative pronoun. Presumably the answer is to be found somewhere in this thesis I found, if someone wants to dig through that. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 13:32, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If it helps — this isn't actually specific to Biblical Hebrew; the same thing happens in the post-Biblical form שֶׁ־ (she-). (And the form אֲשֶׁר (ashér) does still occur, with the same grammar, in Modern Hebrew; it's just very formal now.) —Ruakh_TALK 20:09, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A typical example is found in Numbers 27:18, where many translations, including the KJV, translate אִ֖ישׁ אֲשֶׁר־ר֣וּחַ בּ֑וֹ by “a man in whom is [the] spirit”; other translators have used “a man who has the spirit in him”, or, without relative pronoun, “a man with the spirit in him” and even, in a coordinate clause to the main clause, “the spirit is in that man”. The “relativizer” (a term I did not know) turns a clause that has the grammatical form of an independent clause into a dependent clause. To preserve the same grammatical structure in English, one might use “such that”: “a man such that the spirit is in him”; however, actually doing this produces mostly unnatural translations. --Lambiam 17:24, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like a relative particle that takes (or can take) a resumptive pronoun after it, much like Irish a introducing the indirect relative; the quote from Numbers above could be translated word for word into Irish as fear a bhfuil an spiorad ann (literally “a man who the spirit is in him”). —Mahāgaja · talk 17:58, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't speak Irish, but your phrase "a relative particle that takes (or can take) a resumptive pronoun after it" is a 100% accurate characterization. (And yes, Lambiam's example is exactly the sort of usage I had in mind.) —Ruakh_TALK 20:09, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

But note that that resumptive pronoun can be a null subject. --Lambiam 20:52, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the above discussion. It clears things up a bit. I still think a couple example sentences in the entry (maybe with both literal and idiomatic translations) would be helpful. @Ruakh? The usage note itself seems fairly well-written, by the way. It's just that it doesn't jive well with the way Wikipedia uses "relativizer" and is a bit too technical to easily make sense of without illustrations. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 20:17, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

hair of the dog

The etymology says "The use of the phrase as a metaphor for a hangover treatment dates at least to the 16th century" (with a reference to the equivalent phrase in French), and then "the use of the phrase “hair of the dog” for a hangover cure dates to antiquity, an early form being found in the Ugaritic text […] ". These two statements appear to be in disagreement. Equinox ◑ 09:32, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The people of Ugarit did not speak English and cannot have used the phrase. The story in Wikipedia is that a Ugaritic recipe has been found for a salve to be applied to a drunken dog, one of whose ingredients is dog hair. It is unclear how reasonable the assumption is that an unbroken chain connects this with the English idiom. There are many old recipes in Latin for medicinal preparations involving dog hair, but those I succeeded in comprehending were intended for patients bitten by a mad dog. --Lambiam 16:43, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"kolovrat": a right-wing symbol?

Please see Talk:kolovrat. There might be missing entries/senses in various scripts. Equinox ◑ 13:19, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

highway

Please see Talk:highway and my conversation there with Tharthan. I know we don't have a lot of British people here (SemperBlotto? I'm too lazy to check how to do the @ ping thing) but I feel like we're missing a gloss or a usage note. Equinox ◑ 14:04, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The first two senses match use in New England. {{lb|en|North America}} may be justified on the high speed road sense. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:46, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

As an Englishman, highway definitely needs a N. America tag if it isn’t being used in a historical or legal sense. What I do find slightly odd though is that the entry for motorway has only American citations from before 1925 and no more recent British (or Irish or Australian) ones which surely leaves readers with a false impression of where and when the word is, in the main, used? Overlordnat1 (talk) 02:19, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

phenomenology

I've found a good number of quotations that seem to attest to a missing sense identified on the talk page. All of the usages I've found so far are about physics, though Kingshowman (talk • contribs) says there is some connection to other fields of science. I've been able to craft a clear definition yet, so would appreciate if someone else took a swing at writing one that would be appreciated if someone else took a crack at it. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 21:00, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@SemperBlotto: Thanks for writing a definition. I'm not sure exactly what it means, can you say more on what what your definition details? —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 19:46, 22 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think it has something to do with trying to make sense of the outcome of an experiment when it wasn't what you expected. I don't think I can improve on the definition. SemperBlotto (talk) 20:34, 22 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve taken a stab at a more accurate definition, though I’m sure it could be phrased much better. Fundamentally (as far as I understand) it’s about generating testable predictions out of theory so that theoretical models can be evaluated against real observations. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 21:16, 22 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That current definition seems clearer and more useful to me. Thanks for the help. I might take another go at it myself sometime latter. —The Editor's Apprentice (talk) 21:55, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

consider the source

Should we have an entry for "consider the source"? Bus stop (talk) 19:21, 22 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It seems fairly SoP to me, though it's definitely a collocation. If you rephrased to, say, "think about where it's coming from" I think it would have the same meaning, so not an idiom. --RDBury (talk) 06:25, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

go hard

Does go hard also mean have a hard-on, have an erection? --Vivaelcelta (talk) 21:41, 22 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Sort of. It really means "to get an erection, become hard" from go (“to become, get”) + hard (adj). Leasnam (talk) 01:51, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically, this is the sum of go (def. 10 -- become) and hard (def. 5 -- aroused), not an idiomatic meaning. This sense of 'go' is used more commonly outside the US, so I don't think this particular combination would be used by Americans. --RDBury (talk) 06:57, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

See also the discussion at Talk:go hard. --Lambiam 22:36, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, could someone answer the question I've asked on the talkpage, namely: in sense 2, is it a synonym of to rock, to rule, to kick ass? P U C – 22:39, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To rock, to rule and to kick ass can all be used as slang, meaning “to excel”. If to go hard is also used in that sense, it is a synonym. However, I don’t think I’ve encountered the term being used in that sense. --Lambiam 17:17, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Middle English entries

I have long been an advocate of creating full-fledged individual entries for alternative forms, and this is why: at Middle English brigge (“bridge”), the plural is given as either brigges or bruggen. Now, this is very misleading. This makes one think that the plural of brigge is alternatively bruggen, and that there must be a vowel change when -n is used. Bruggen is actually a plural of one of the listed alternative forms, brugge, which can also be rendered as brugges. This information should be shown at brugge, which it currently is not. The corresponding -n plural for brigge would be *briggen, which unfortunately is not attested, yet likely existed. Leasnam (talk) 04:35, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I completely agree with you. But I thought this was the norm here? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 05:36, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Missing meaning for store

I'm thinking of a case where the container itself is the subject, for example: "This silo stores 200 tons of grain." "This trunk stores all of our dog and cat food." "The leaves of this plant store water." Similar definitions exist for seat and sleep, but I think fit may have a similar issue; are there others? --RDBury (talk) 06:45, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There are a number of similar constructions. I don't know whether to call them stative or copulative. Examples: comprise, extend, hold, include,measure, reach. The object isn't the recipient of any action, but rather seems to modify the verb. I'm sure this is a well known phenomenon and has a name, but I don't remember seeing it discussed. Chuck Entz (talk)

I was thinking more of when what is usually an object (direct or otherwise) changes to the subject for a specific meaning. So I'd only include extend and measure from that list, and the relevant definitions are already there. For example "I extended the ruler to six feet," becomes "The ruler extends to six feet." But what I specifically wanted to know is whether this happens with "store" and should it be another definition. I've checked other dictionaries but it's not listed in some of them. --RDBury (talk) 08:36, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You're probably thinking of "ergative verbs" as in "the glass broke when the rock hit it". In this case, the container isn't doing anything. Its nature or condition is such that a certain quantity of something else exists within it. It also could be interpreted as a description of the capacity of the silo. You could say "this silo stores 200 tons of grain" even when it happens to be empty at the moment. "This silo stores 200 tons of grain" could be restated as "[up to] 200 tons of grain [could be/are located] inside of it". Chuck Entz (talk) 09:06, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I added two senses: one "contain" and the other "hold" ("potentially contain"). I am not absolutely certain we need them both, but they are distinguishable. MWOnline has "hold" only. DCDuring (talk) 18:28, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think hold has the same ambiguity, both the sense of actual^[71] and of potential^[72] content. --Lambiam 22:34, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Probably so. I think contain is used in the 'potential' sense much less often that in the 'actual' sense. I'll make it "potentially contain". DCDuring (talk) 23:29, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

A note about ergative.

There are various verbs in English that can be used either transitively or intransitively. break is one such verb: I break something is transitive, something breaks is intransitive -- not just syntactically (because this sentence lacks a stated object), but also semantically (because the "something" is doing the action itself). Nothing terribly exciting about either construction.

The oddness of ergativeness happens when we have a semantically transitive verb, and we take the Patient (usually the syntactic object) and use it syntactically as the subject (which is usually the Agent instead). Take eat, for instance. Sample sentences:

I eat the eggs.

Subject (syntax) + Agent (semantics): "I"
Object (syntax) + Patient (semantics): "eggs"

I eat.

Subject (syntax) + Agent (semantics): "I"
Object (syntax) + Patient (semantics): omitted

The eggs eat.

Subject (syntax) + Patient (semantics): "eggs"
Object (syntax), Agent (semantics): omitted

This last one is the ergative example: the Patient of the action, the thing to which the action is being done by the Agent, is used syntactically as the subject. English has ergativity only syntactically, and only in specific constructions where an Agent is semantically required, but is syntactically omitted. Ergative constructions are usually used to describe something about the manner of the action, so the above sample sentence with no adverbs is unnatural. More natural examples could include:

The eggs eat well.
This car drives really nicely.
The turkey cooked up beautifully this year.
That sofa sits comfortably.
This sentence reads strangely.

This kind of construction in English could be analyzed as a special kind of passive.

Looping back to the initial question in this thread, for sentences like a silo stores grain or the trunk stores the dog food, these aren't ergative, as neither the "silo" nor the "trunk" are the Patients of their respective verbs.

HTH, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 10:09, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. As to the verb break being ambitransitive rather than ergative, what about a use as in, “We say that clay is brittle, because it breaks easily.”^[73]? The context is about a boy breaking up a piece of clay with his fingers. This feels just the same to me, grammatically, as a car being said to drive nicely. --Lambiam 11:30, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Lambiam:, this is also a case where the clay is indeed the Patient of the action of the verb in the semantics of that sentence, as well as the subject in the syntax of that sentence. As such, the syntax and semantics both indicate ergative usage. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:22, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If we have trouble distinguishing ambitransitive and ergative, why on earth would we use either term in labels for English entries? (I leave open the possibility, however unlikely, that such terms are standard in language-learner education in other languages.) I have no problem with hard categorization using such terms or with such labels being invisible by default. — This unsigned comment was added by DCDuring (talk • contribs) at 14:33, 24 January 2021 (UTC).[reply]

The label ambitransitive automagically expands to “transitive, intransitive”, while ergative becomes ergative, linking to Appendix:Glossary#ergative. Our glossary does (I think) a fair job of explaining the term (without using the term “ambitransitive”). --Lambiam 16:56, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@DCDuring: To disambiguate the meaning. As on ankohlen. Else one would have to read quotes for both to find out which meaning of the English word is meant. Or one could have separate definition lines. It is less complicated than to paraphrase e.g. here “to char the surface of or to get charred on one’s own surface”. As currently defined ergative verbs are a special case of amibtransitive verbs. Fay Freak (tal) 17:22, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Is it Wiktionary's competitive strategy to drive away language learners and non-linguists generally and pursue the eyeballs of only linguists and philologists? It is easy enough to have separate definition lines for transitive and intransitive verbs, as is the practice of all dictionaries that I have encountered. Or are we just too lazy to have two definitions and two sets of usage examples, citations, synonyms, translations, etc? I think this is indefensible. DCDuring (talk) 17:39, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Fay Freak: I don't think our glossary entry at Appendix:Glossary#ergative explains this at all well -- in fact, it starts out explaining much as I have above, but then it appears to conflate ambitransitive with ergative with the mistaken example using break in a plainly intransitive and Patient-less sense.

I must reiterate that English does not have ergative verbs. English has ergative syntax. These are two different phenomena. Just about every transitive verb I can think of can be used in an ergative construction.

In addition, our glossary entry at Appendix:Glossary#ambitransitive_verb brings up "ergative verbs" as a non sequitur, with a baffling note that "a single definition could only refer to an unergative verb." I have no idea what that is supposed to mean.

Both glossary entries need fixing. And, as also noted by DCDuring above, our use of the ergative label is confusing at best. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 23:40, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@DCDuring: Thanks for just adding the missing definitions; all I really wanted was confirmation that the word could be used that way. Regarding your question on whether Wiktionary is trying drive people away, I've wondered about that too every time I see a "Hypernyms" section. --RDBury (talk) 10:13, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In taxonomic name entries I don't know how to include the hypernyms (and hyponyms) content without those headers. It isn't too hard to figure out what hypernyms and hyponyms mean in that context, I hope. "Plurale tantum" was another turn-off. DCDuring (talk) 15:08, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

drape

− − Surely it should be ‘drape’, not ‘curtain’, listed as an Americanism? My Collins and Chambers dictionaries both agree that ‘drapes’ for ‘curtains’ is an Americanism and Collins, though not Chambers, has ‘draper’ and ‘drapery’, in the sense of the occupation or business premises of a ‘draper’, as U.K. terms/Britishisms. Also can anyone explain for me the weird Google translation of tendre les rideaux, literally ‘tighten the curtains’ as ‘drape (verb)’ Overlordnat1 (talk) 05:10, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Moreover, I think this applies particularly for the plural drapes, for which we have a separate entry (to which the singular does not explicitly refer). The meaning is not any set of curtains covering a window, but specifically curtains that, when drawn, block most of the light, setting the room in darkness. --Lambiam 11:17, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Surely ‘drape’ means ‘one of a set of drapes’ in the same way ‘curtain’ means ‘one of a set of curtains’ and it means the same as curtain regardless of how thick and dark it is? I only use ‘drape’ as a verb though, so it would be interesting to read a North American take on this Overlordnat1 (talk) 14:31, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For me, (San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles) a curtain is any fabric hanging in or around a window. They can be merely decorative, or they can be used to control the light coming through the window. Drapes, on the other hand, are cloth that's long enough and heavy enough to completely shut out the light. They generally hang on the sides until one pulls them into the center to close off the light. In the image on the right, only the outer set of curtains are drapes. That's not to say that drapes aren't curtains: all drapes are curtains, but not all curtains are drapes.

Outside of this context, we use "curtain" the same as everyone else: in the theater, in the shower, etc. As for whether it's singular or plural, I can't remember ever hearing anyone say "a drape"- it's always "drapes" or "the drapes". Chuck Entz (talk) 16:02, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Interestingly, it's the opposite for me (Western Canada, used to work in the window coverings industry). A set of drapes can be either opaque or translucen, but are usually nicer and longer than curtains (drapes are more likely to hang down to the floor, past the window). Curtains are usually a heavier fabric. So I would never have drapes in a seasonal cabin or an RV, but I would likely have curtains, and I would be more likely to have drapes than curtains in a living room in a nice house. In the image, I would consider both the translucent and the opaque window coverings drapes, but I might also consider the opaque one curtains, unless the fabric is soft and more expensive.

I don't know how representative my idolect is in this respect, however, because (a) I have never had curtains or drapes in my home, so it's not an everyday word for me, (b) when I worked in the window covering business, we used "drapes" or "drapery" to refer to everything curtainy we sold, which was usually a nice material (hence my association of drapes with more expensive, often light fabric), and (c) the fashion here is to have long drapes (reaching to the floor) and rarely to have thick fabric that just covers a window. On the other hand, I was aware of other drapery stores in the area, but not other curtain stores, suggesting that "drape" is considered the default/umbrella term here and either "curtain" is more specific or curtains are less popular. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 17:11, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve removed the ‘Britain’ tag from the drape entry as the word isn’t often used that way in the U.K and it is internally consistent to have this label at the drape entry and not the drapes one. I’ll leave it up to others to decide the finer points of the definition of drape/drapes and whether or not to tag it as North American Overlordnat1 (talk) 10:48, 9 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Middle High German helmbarte / halmbarte

Several of our etymologies reference Middle High German halmbarte and a definition was entered based on those etymologies. I moved to helmbarte based on Köbler[74]. Is there any reliable evidence of the spelling with a, or a normalization rule that would call for us to write a? If not I will redirect links to the new spelling. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 14:27, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Vox Sciurorum: The century dictionary derives English halberd mediately from Middle High German helmbarte “for *halmbarte”, so maybe a starred form got accidentally unstarred in early Wiktionary times. Notwithstanding Modern German Halmbarte is currently used, and there are other MHG forms with ⟨a⟩, seemingly from the Alemannic area: hallebarte, halenbarte, hallenbarte, halleparte, hallepart (also later German or Alemannic German Hallepart and Hallebarte). Fay Freak (talk) 15:25, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Both Lexer and Benecke/Müller/Zarncke have helmbarte (BMZ: hëlmbarte) as lemma. BMZ connects it to hëlm (= Helm (“helmet”)), Duden to helm (= Helm (“handle”)). By the examples given, it looks like e is more common than a (but could also be a matter of selection). --幽霊四 (talk) 21:52, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

LGB

Neither LGB nor LGBT mentions the use of LGB as a trans-exclusionary term used by the usual transphobic suspects. Is the usage widespread enough for being mentioned? Use in the media mainly refers to the British anti-trans group LGB Alliance; American uses of LGB seem to lack the transphobic subtext. ~~←₰-→~~ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 15:09, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

On one hand, it seems like people use LGB instead of LGBT for various reasons, including discussing only sexuality for neutral reasons, or discussing / including only sexuality for transphobic reasons, and it feels to me like the transphobia resides more in the stance than in one word or another; like, spelling out "lesbian, gay and bisexual community" can accomplish the same exclusion (again either for neutral or for transphobic reasons), can't it? I concede LGB has become dogwhistle-y, though, and "more than SOP" inasmuch as the people who use it transphobically are often also openly hostile to / exclusionary of bisexuals. I thought we had usage notes on some other dogwhistles that were used in their literal meanings, like articulate, I even thought I recalled discussing whether that word had also become a dogwhistle in the UK or just the US, but I must be thinking of edits to a Wikipedia article (on Meghan Markle, maybe?), since our entry on articulate doesn't mention that at all. (Maybe it should?) - -sche (discuss) 17:14, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

gillend gek

Should there be an entry for gillend gek? It is interesting that it is in the main used hyperbolically and counterfactually, which is not as much the case for "howling mad". @Rua, Lambiam, DrJos, Mnemosientje, Morgengave, Thadh, Mofvanes ~~←₰-→~~ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 15:29, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I see plenty of uses in news and book sources. But that is also the case for the English collocation screaming mad – so mad (annoyed and angry) that one starts screaming (or feels the urge). The anger sense of mad derives, I think, from the original sense of being mentally ill, through the hyperbolic use of the notion of being driven to the edge of sanity and beyond. Are we seeing a similar sense development in Dutch? A difference seems to be that in English angry people “are mad”, but annoyed Dutch speakers don’t quite reach that state yet; they “worden gek” (or “gek gemaakt”). --Lambiam 16:37, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would support the creation alongside English screaming mad, but not without it. I feel like this is a set phrase (as is the case with English), but not very idiomatic and so any reader could figure the meaning out by themselves. It seems the English entry would be supported by other editors though.^[1] Thadh (talk) 11:24, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

filthy as a pig

Is this idiomatic? P U C – 16:18, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm skeptical. It's a collocation and a cliche, but I think you could rephrase without much change the meaning, e.g. "dirty as a hog". --RDBury (talk) 10:49, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This, that it is rephrasable in many ways, so it is not sure which way is idiomatic, and also the cliché is controversial especially where eating pork is normal and therefore such phrases have little chance to be idiomatic: For pigs being dirty is a doubtful concept. For pig measures they aren’t dirty. And for human measures they are also tasty. And some keep them as pets and take care they are clean. On the other hand there are other animals which are dirtier, in particular geese and ducks typically and arguably more than pigs, so it is not singular that you find “dirty as a duck”. I don’t find many cases on the web but I don’t even find German dreckig wie Schwein (literally “filthy as a pig”) much which is according to my memory the German equivalent. And we don’t want the whole zoo as sentences. Fay Freak (talk) 15:22, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

-euse in English

Should it be mentioned that French -euse is applied to English nouns from French ending in -eur (e.g., amateuse, connoisseuse, litterateuse, restaurateuse; also see gossipeuse, strippeuse), regardless of whether the French feminine form is different; i.e., whether the -euse form is used in French? J3133 (talk) 17:34, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The only word in common use in -euse is masseuse, pronounced massoose. The words you mentioned, if meant to be English words, would be not just rare, but extremely so. 81.132.182.159 20:14, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Restaurateuse has more than two thousand Google results (almost all English); thus, “not just rare, but extremely so” is an incorrect exaggeration. J3133 (talk) 20:30, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@J3133: FWIW, I'm a reasonably educated native speaker, and I've never before encountered the term restaurateuse in any context.

Google hit counts are not necessarily a great indicator of frequency. Looking at google:"restaurateuse" now, I see a purported hit count of 2,380. Paging through to the end of that list, I find that this collapses to only 158.

If we look at Google Books instead of the wider web, google books:"restaurateuse" shows us 249 ostensible hits, collapsing to 83 when paging through. Notably, the ninth and last page of hits gives us one French source and two in German... and six of the ten hits on the eighth page are similarly not in English.

I would concur with anon 81 above, that these are "not just rare, but extremely so." ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 05:38, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I only use the “rare” label for terms that only have been durably used up to 8 (at most) times (e.g., outsuave, and an editor removed the label); if there are multiple Google Books pages of uses then it may be uncommon but not rare. J3133 (talk) 07:32, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. 80 examples of a word is most certainly not extremely rare, and I would hesitate to even call it rare. If you want an extremely rare word, take a look at clattawa. I was able to find about 4 cites in Google Books (not even all the same spelling), and that was after scouring for them over a period of a few years. I think of extremely rare as barely citable, and rare as comfortably citable, but still with only a handful of durably archived uses (few enough that they could all be included in a Wiktionary entry without being overwhelming). Andrew Sheedy (talk) 17:20, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, I did a quick-and-dirty analysis of the results at google books:"restaurateuse", just copying into Excel.

83 total Google Books hits.
65 in English, 13 in French, 3 in German, 2 in Spanish.
Of those 65 in English:

5 are specifically about France.
5 are specifically about New York.
12 have been published this century.

Do we have any written guidelines for what constitutes "rare", "uncommon", etc.? English is an extremely well documented language online, so finding fewer than 100 Google Books cites for a term is, to me, "rare". It is clear here that we editors have different ideas about thresholds, so I am uncertain how to proceed. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 20:38, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Restaurateuse gets no hits at all in the iWeb corpus, three in the NoW (News on the Web) corpus (two of them being in the same film review), and one each in the GloWbE, COCA, and COHA corpora. I'd call it "extremely rare". --ColinFine (talk) 17:27, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

2,000 Google hits for a word (and I often find as a I scroll through Google hits that a lot of them are references to the same source, so 2,000 hits may not be 2,000 separate instances) is a very, very low count for the English-language Google. Common words have hundreds of thousands or millions of instances on Google. 2,000 hits - this is equivalent to the word being totally unviable. J3133 says "I only use the “rare” label for terms that only have been durably used up to 8 (at most) times", but that is his personal definition. We all have our personal definitions.81.141.8.40 13:22, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

“We all have our personal definitions.”—which is the problem—there is no clear definition, therefore no consistency. J3133 (talk) 14:02, 5 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

If there are words that end in -euse in English but not in French, it is probably evidence of it being an English suffix that should have an entry (although it could just be an occasional erreur, if the words are very rare). Both gossipeuse and strippeuse seem to exist in French (marginally, in the first case) as well as English, though, like many of the other words. :/ - -sche (discuss) 21:15, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Some of them may be rarely used in French but are formed by English speakers (who are unaware of the standard feminine forms in French) and more common in English. J3133 (talk) 21:32, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, some English speakers are unaware that masseuse is a gendered term at all, and refer to a masseur as a "male masseuse" or just say things like "My brother is a masseuse." —Mahāgaja · talk 12:52, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

gofer

Is this commonly used outside of American English? ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:57, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Cambridge Advanced Learners labels it UK, but Lexico has in both their UK and US dictionaries. MWOnline, AHD, and Collins have it without any label. DCDuring (talk) 22:36, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like it is not restricted to one variety of English. Thanks for checking for me. ---> Tooironic (talk) 00:14, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

catch flies

See Talk:catch flies. The entry says that catch flies means "have one's mouth wide open for a prolonged period", but the usex reads "You'd better close your mouth; are you trying to catch flies?". This person presumably doesn't mean "are you trying to keep your mouth wide open?", but that's what the entry would suggest. Equinox ◑ 17:13, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've heard something like the usex. It is presumably the source metaphor for the definition given. But I don't recall hearing the expression used to convey that meaning. DCDuring (talk) 22:28, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible to find lots of examples of this idiom by searching Google Books for "you're catching flies" (just "catching flies" mostly gives results for the literal SOP meaning). In some of them, the analogy is explicitly spelled out, e.g. "Don't open your mouth, it looks like you're catching flies". But in other examples, the "catching flies" metaphor stands alone, e.g.:

John's mouth hung open as he dropped the scoop of oats and stared at Mark. Mark scowled. “What?” “You're catching flies, John,” Dalt said. John closed his mouth.

Something like that would probably be a better example to use for the entry. Colin M (talk) 23:02, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

jääaika and lyömäase

This time I have two questions/requests. Is the translation 'rinkmaster' (notice the spelling!) correct for jäämestari in the example sentence given at jääaika? Then about lyömäase: my experience is that this word is more often used figuratively than literally, but no figurative meanings are even mentioned there. I don't know how to make these pages better so I decided to post this here. Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 09:20, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Mölli-Möllerö The rinkmaster is the "master" of the ice rink. --Akletos (talk) 09:37, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This does not seem to be a normal English word. Would it be the "rink owner" or "rink manager" maybe? (Sum of parts.) Equinox ◑ 10:34, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Rink manager most likely. Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 10:43, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

paskanmarjat

Main sense is "bullshit!", but it then says "dingleberries (original meaning)". That can't be an interjection, though. Should there be a noun? Equinox ◑ 10:32, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Original meaning? It is the plural of paskanmarja, which is a transparent compound of paska (“shit”) +‎ marja (“berry”). --Lambiam 23:02, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

look as

Should this be added as a synonym of look like (“to seem, appear”)? The Irish Times: "it looked as O’Connor and his backers would get little or nothing back on their punt"; New York Post: "It looks as the Giants’ best pass-rush prospect out of this draft is Carter Coughlin"; The Spectator: "It looks as the fundraising will be oversubscribed"; The Northern Echo: "it looked as the South London club’s fortunes had turned" etc. As a non-native speaker, it sounds somewhat strange to me. – Einstein2 (talk) 23:36, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see that either of the supposed two definitions currently at look like are entry-worthy. On the other hand the page lacks the sense for "It looks like rain.", which is not about current appearance but about what the speaker deems likely to happen. I don't think look as can be used that way. I also don't believe that look + as if is an inclusion-worthy. DCDuring (talk) 23:55, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pinging @The Ice Mage, who would know more about usage in Ireland. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:07, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm afraid that I don't think I've ever heard the phrase "look as" used...User: The Ice Mage ^{talk to meh} 16:49, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That in itself is useful information. I wonder if these examples are just "look as if" with the "if" inadvertently left out. A short, semantically bland word like that would be very easy to forget, and its omission would be hard to spot when one is focusing on the trickier parts of the sentence. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:12, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It seems odd to me from a U.K. perspective tooOverlordnat1 (talk) 02:50, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To me too. To me, all these instances of "look as" appear as typos for "look as if/though". Mihia (talk) 15:44, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

have eyes bigger than one's belly

In my (English)family ‘Eyes bigger than your belly’ is used a lot. I know that’s anecdotal but where is the justification for the tag ‘uncommon’ for the expression? Also it seems to be common enough in the Appalachians at least to appear in this link as an example of a regional expression: https://youtube/pAqhulj8jpk. Bearing that in mind, why does it have a ‘U.K.’ tag? ‘Eyes bigger than your stomach’ may well be correctly tagged as US as that not something I remember hearing but it’s such a natural alternative to ‘belly’ that I wouldn’t like to bet against it being used by some U.K. people either.Overlordnat1 (talk) 03:22, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I would guess the creator was trying to indicate that "belly" is less common than "stomach". (I've only heard the latter myself.) Equinox ◑ 06:47, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Does it come from the French avoir les yeux plus gros que le ventre (neither entry has an etymology section)? And can it be used (like the French version) figuratively for bite off more than one can chew? --Droigheann (talk) 10:31, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Dutch has zijn ogen zijn groter dan zijn buik/maag (“his eyes are bigger than his belly/stomach”),^[75][76] and German has seine augen sind größer als sein Bauch/Magen,^[77][78] As far as I have heard these, they referred to literal food; more specifically, to someone (usually a child) unable to empty their plate after overfilling it, but the online Flemish dictionary indicates a wider figurative sense, like the English idiom “to have too much on one’s plate”, but because of having taken it on oneself. --Lambiam 15:56, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I only ever remember hearing ‘belly’ personally; I’m sure it’s far more common than ‘stomach’ for this particular proverb, in England at least. Do we have a reliable source saying that the form with ‘belly’ is a U.K. version and the ‘stomach’ variant is American? Or that the form with ‘belly’ is uncommon? I’m more concerned with the ‘uncommon’ tag rather than the ‘U.K.’ and ‘U.S’ tags, personally. As far as the French proverb is concerned, I read an online article saying that it originated as a line in Montaigne’s essays and that the English proverb derives from that (a calque of that?). Apparently it can be used figuratively like ‘bite off more than you can chew’ too (though I don’t use it that way).Overlordnat1 (talk) 12:52, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve decided to WT:BB and remove the ‘uncommon’ tag from the ‘belly’ entryOverlordnat1 (talk) 04:59, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You seem to be the only one who's ever heard it the UK (Equinox is English). I've seen "stomach" in print, but I don't remember hearing either (I'm from Los Angeles). Of course, having five of us at the dinner table when I was a kid meant that uneaten food was rarely a matter for discussion. As for the Appalachians, they were isolated from most of the more recent waves of immigration, so they tend to preserve a lot of historical regionalisms from the UK- especially Scotland.. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:41, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Lexico has this phrase with 'belly' as an alternative for 'stomach' in its UK (but not in its US) dictionary [79], [80]. --Droigheann (talk) 11:35, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

FWIW, "eyes bigger than one's belly" is listed in the "New American Roget's College Thesaurus in Dictionary Form" [81]. As a BrE speaker, I would myself more naturally use the "stomach" version, which may overall be more common, but I would read or hear the "belly" version without in the slightest noticing anything uncommon, so at least where BrE is concerned I support removing the label. Mihia (talk) 15:25, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In Ngrams, "eyes bigger than (her|your|my) belly" are too uncommon to plot, whereas "...stomach" gets plotted; for the one pronoun that is common enough to be plotted in both forms, "his", "eyes bigger than his stomach" is more common but "...his belly" is not rare, especially historically; it seems to be about one-fourth as common. But based on the above discussion, it seems like "stomach" is not only more common overall but also more common in both the US and the UK? In which case we should just define it at have eyes bigger than one's stomach and define the "belly" version as a synonym of that, no? - -sche (discuss) 19:04, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with your excellent analysis and find no reason to oppose the current ‘less common’ tag being on the ‘belly’ version, with the caveat that the belly version may be more highly represented in spoken English than in the Google Books corpus. I note with interest that the earliest ‘belly’ version is from Noah Webster in the 1790s and the most recent from 2016 is also American.Overlordnat1 (talk) 23:39, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Go n-eírí leat

According to this source: https://www.quora.com/In-Gaelic-how-do-you-say-good-luckBold text, ‘Go n-eírí leat’ means ‘Good luck!’. We have an entry for ‘Go n-eírí an bóthar leat’, meaning ‘Bon voyage’ or ‘Good luck with your journey’, so we should probably include the more general variant.Overlordnat1 (talk) 13:01, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've created an entry for éirigh le and used go n-éirí leat as a usage example. I don't think it needs an entry of its own separate from that. —Mahāgaja · talk 19:04, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks!Overlordnat1 (talk) 02:47, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

manual

manual transmission is mentioned twice in the entry under etymology. MM0898 (talk) 22:22, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There are other issues too. I have raised this at Wiktionary:Etymology_scriptorium/2021/January#manual. Mihia (talk) 22:15, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

drop-in

What do we think about PoS for drop-in as used in e.g. drop-in centre (place that people can visit without appointment)? Adjective or attributive noun? Mihia (talk) 14:30, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It seems like an attributive noun, or something broadly synonymous like a appositive noun, to me.Overlordnat1 (talk) 02:11, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I originally added it as an attributive noun. I think I'll leave it that way, unless anyone is strongly convinced that it is adjectival, in which case please go ahead and change it. Mihia (talk) 20:38, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

However, if "drop-in" in "drop-in centre" is a noun, what does it mean in itself? A person that drops in? The act of dropping in? Mihia (talk) 19:12, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@DCDuring Hi, I see that you have edited this entry to state that "drop-in" in e.g. "drop-in centre" means "A place that can be visited casually, without an appointment". Are you sure? I think this is unlikely. Mihia (talk) 00:54, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, I'm not sure of anything in the entry. But I have seen drop-ins used to refer to places at which appointments are not required. I think there are missing senses, eg. for a casual party for which arrival and departure times are not specified. (Our 'event' definition makes it seem like some kind of business event.) Other usage: an insertion of an ad into a publication (including TV, online) other than on a fixed schedule; an electric replacement power-pack for internal-combustion engine; a refrigerant replacement; a robot that replaces a worker without extensive installation; a replacement hard drive; a replacement speed controller for a Dremel tool. It seems that a drop-in can be an event, a place, an unscheduled arrival at either of these, a person (or group, eg. a choir) so arriving, an object that upgrades something by replacing a component or subsystem. Somehow our definitions should cover all these metonymic uses. DCDuring (talk) 03:24, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

My feeling is that "drop-in centre" is probably a "centre where you drop in", as e.g. an "eat-in restaurant" is "restaurant where you eat in". Would that make "drop-in" an adjective after all? My feeling is that if "drop-in" can be used of a place, it may be a shortening of e.g. "drop-in centre", or something similar, rather than the "place" meaning having a prior existence and phrases such as "drop-in centre" being constructed from it. Mihia (talk) 14:04, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Having reflected on this, and taking into account that "walk-in" in e.g. "walk-in clinic" and "eat-in" in e.g. "eat-in kitchen" are both listed as adjectives by both us and Lexico, my feeling is that "drop-in" in "drop-in centre" ought to be an adjective after all, so I have made that change, but preserved the noun sense meaning "A place that can be visited casually, without an appointment", as this definitely does seem to exist, I would guess, as I say, originally as an abbreviation of something like "drop-in centre". Mihia (talk) 18:27, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good. DCDuring (talk) 23:38, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Tutatus vandalism?

The entry for tutatus reads: Alternative form of wikipediaus. Posting this here, because I do not know what the actual alternative form is.Cruxcruxem (talk) 15:35, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's not vandalism, because it was created that way by SemperBlotto's bot back in 2011. It must have been some weird mistake, which has gone unnoticed for the past 10 years. I'll fix it now. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:51, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks (I've no idea what the stupid bot was thinking of) SemperBlotto (talk) 20:26, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

tutaturus, tutans DTLHS (talk) 20:28, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Both now fixed as well. —Mahāgaja · talk 11:20, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

brocialism

In diff, one cite was moved to split off "(slang, derogatory, Britain) Any form of socialism characterised by blokeishness." as a separate sense from "(slang, derogatory) Socialism or progressivism which downplays women's issues or reinforces masculinist attitudes or ideas." Are these really separable / distinguishable in practice? (Compare diff, which I simply undid.) - -sche (discuss) 18:41, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No, they aren’t. Trying to interpret the term “blokeish”, the first definition is a vague version of the second, that does not even hit the important points, and should be deleted completely. Fay Freak (talk) 19:00, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The etymology of jitney

The remarks about the origin of the English word jitney in the entry Jitney needs to be revised in the light of this article:

It is true that David L. Gold tentatively espoused the etymology involving the word jetnée (see the reference in footnote 8 of Wiki's article on the word jitney), but in a 35-page analysis, mentioned below, he later concluded that either jetnée was coined in 1915 (far too late for it to be the etymon of jitney, for which there is abundant dated evidence going back to 8 August 1886 -- see page 1 of Springfield Globe-Republic of that date for the so far earliest-known use of the word) or jetnée derives from jitney.

Gold, David L. 2018-2020. “Pursuing the origin of the American English informalism gitney ~ jitney: On the alleged Louisiana French word *jetnée and the fallacy of omne ignotum pro magnifico in etymological research.” Leuvense Bijdragen: Leuven Contributions in Linguistics and Philology. Vol. 102. Pp. 383 - 417.S. Valkemirer (talk) 00:09, 22 November 2020 (UTC)S. Valkemirer (talk) 03:23, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, we have a dedicated etymology page called the Etymology scriptorium. That's the better place for questions like these. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:43, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Ziyyara" word should be in wikitonary

What should I need to create a page of "Ziyyara" Please let me know, it will help students to know about the "online tuition" globally I'm waiting for your answer.

And also let me know.

How can I create a page of a person, like available on wikipedia? — This unsigned comment was added by Digimarksomnath (talk • contribs) at 11:09, 29 January 2021 (UTC).[reply]

Spam. SemperBlotto (talk) 11:48, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I do not think this proper noun (unlike the common noun ziyyara borrowed from Arabic زِيَارَة (ziyāra)) fits our criteria for inclusion. We are a dictionary. Our pages are about words, or phrases, not about people or institutions. --Lambiam 15:41, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

plan B

Can it really be uncountable as stated? One would not say "some plan B", but the countable "a plan B". It's just that the article tends to get dropped. Equinox ◑ 18:39, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Is it like cowbell, said to be countable and uncountable? It's good, but it really needs more plan B. :) Seriously, in negative polarity sentences like, “we need a plan B” (implying that there is no plan B), one tends to use an article, but if there is an actual backup plan, the term is treated like a proper noun, like Plan 9 from Outer Space, or Plan Colombia, also not getting an article. Accordingly, it will often be capitalized.^{[82][83][84][85]} --Lambiam 22:11, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think there exists some (widespread) conflation of "uncountable" and "does not pluralize"/"does not have/take a plural"; indeed, I hadn't thought to draw a distinction between them myself until seeing some of your own enlightening comments about it in the past. Perhaps that's what's happened here, someone has used the - "uncountable" parameter for want of a parameter that would display "does not pluralize" or "does not have a plural" — or, in this case, they used "countable and uncountable" where it should be "sometimes has a plural, sometimes doesn't" or something...? Perhaps {{en-noun}} needs a separate parameter for "does not pluralize" (as distinct from "plural not attested", I'd think). But this may be like with adjectives being "comparable" vs "not comparable": there will usually be some rare use of a normally uncomparable adjective in the comparative, and there will usually be rare instances where a normally unpluralizable noun is pluralized, or where a normally countable noun is used uncountably, or vice versa ... it may be a tall order to sort out whether the word is "normally" "sometimes countable, sometimes uncountable" or whether use like "needs more plan B" / "needs more cowbell" should be considered uncommon... bah... - -sche (discuss) 22:36, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think it's like "row Z" ("kick the ball into row Z") or "page 10" ("open the book at page 10"), where an alphanumerical postmodifier licenses the dropping of the article that would normally be expected. Mihia (talk) 22:39, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Mihia That seems right.

@-sche At the definition level I would think we would want to try to avoid mixed countable/uncountable definitions. At the inflection-line level it should be possible to say "sometimes", "normally", or "always" (un)countable, though I wonder how certain we can ever be about "always". DCDuring (talk) 00:07, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The receptacle for honey in a honey bee

We have an entry honeybag with a weird quote from Shakespeare. Made me think: what's the scientific name for this? I'm thinking nectar sac or pollen basket, but apparently it's not the same. Forever in your debt (talk) 18:46, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

corbicula I think. Equinox ◑ 18:47, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Not pollen but nectar / honey. I think proventriculus ("Leaving the hive, a foraging bee collects sugar-rich flower nectar, sucking it through its proboscis and placing it in its proventriculus (honey stomach or crop), which lies just dorsal to its food stomach."). DTLHS (talk) 18:49, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, crop and honey sack and honey stomach are terms bandied about too Forever in your debt (talk) 18:52, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, the quote isn't that weird, as it's in a conversation between fairies. Fairies killing bumblebees and taking out the honey from the stomach makes as much sense as a human killing a cow for its liver, I suppose Forever in your debt (talk) 18:56, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

jacking, jacker

The noun jacking is defined as “A street robbery“, and the etymology of hijack is gives as “Possibly from a blend of highway +‎ jacker (“one who holds up”).” In this context, I interpret hold up as “to rob at gunpoint”, but that is not a sense given at jacker, nor at either of two verbs to jack. Are some meanings missing? See also Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Don't jack. --Lambiam 21:52, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Huh. I always assumed that the rob sense of jack and derived terms was always from the raise sense of jack, similar to the verb phrase hold up.

I notice a lack of defdates or other etymological detail that might help, and the etyms seem circular -- jack#to steal sends us to carjack, sending us to hijack, sending us to jacker (with an ostensible sense of “one who holds up”, which is missing from that actual entry), which presumably is jack + -er. Not ideal. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:41, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

At the entry hold-up, etymonline writes: 'The meaning "to stop by force and rob" [of the verbal phrase] is from 1887, from the robber's command to raise hands.' --Lambiam 20:49, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There's always lift as in shoplifter to support the "raise=steal" metaphor. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:32, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

See also jackroll. Mihia (talk) 23:30, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That reminds me of what's currently sense 24 of roll, which is usually beating up and robbing. I've only seen it used in the phrase "rolling drunks", which refers to lowlifes' beating up people after they leave bars to score easy money. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:19, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

merchandise

I'm surprised we don't have the sense as in "Harry Potter merchandise". Is there any particular reason? ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:12, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What distinction do you want to make with "Commodities offered for sale."? DTLHS (talk) 01:45, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

At first, I was also confused, but I think I see what Tooironic may be getting at: some things are "merchandise" even after or without being offered for sale. I'm unsure if this is a different sense, or something to reword the existing sense to cover, but you can be wearing a band's merch (after you buy it), and have a collection of Harry Potter merchandise, kitschy items associated with the series, which are your Harry Potter merch even if you're not offering them for sale. OTOH, while a grocery store's merchandise might include bananas, I think they're no longer "merchandise" when they're on your counter two days after you buy them. The requirement seems to be that "merchandise", in this sense, was created to be sold, and pertains to a specific entity like a show or sports team, but it's apparently still merchandise even if it is not currently, or is never, offered for sale (as with "unsellable Super Bowl merchandise"). - -sche (discuss) 09:18, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The clipped form merch illustrates this well, I think, because it has a narrower meaning. The baseball cap with your favorite sports team's logo and your Harry Potter fleshlight and your TwoSet Violin needlepoint pattern are all merch, but the bananas from the supermarket were never merch, even when they were lying in the produce section waiting for you to put them in your shopping cart. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:33, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Are Harry Potter edibles (candy etc) merch? DCDuring (talk) 14:05, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Merch (more than merchandise) seems to me to refer to goods branded in some way, especially where the brand is connected to the entertainment industry, broadly defined. DCDuring (talk) 14:26, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It seems so, at least colloquially (whether or not in durable books); I spot a 2018 article on hungryforever.com titled "Potterheads You Need This Edible Harry Potter Merch", saying "Some of the edible merch that you can expect are chocolate wands, house crests, and delicious gummy creatures!" And there's a 2019 article in The Pop Insider "Anime Pop: 'My Hero Academia' Edible Merch", "That's right: edible merch. Fans of the anime series can fill their bellies with Plus Ultra Cereal, an Ultra Berry Blast cereal featuring All Might […] ". There are also hits for merchandise but they're more ambiguous, and could be taken to be merchandise in the same sense as the bananas, commodities that specific stores are selling, e.g. there's a 2020 article in the Orlando Informer, "Wizarding World of Harry Potter merchandise", saying "Expect to spend between $4 and $20 for the edible merchandise in Honeydukes". - -sche (discuss) 18:04, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In any case, "commodities" seems a non-optimal word to use. Suggest we change it to e.g. "goods". Mihia (talk) 18:50, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

(e/c) So how should the new sense be defined? My feeling (possibly wrong) is that the goods have to be made with the intent of sale, whether or not they are ever sold; my feeling is that neither a real tiger you own nor a knitted tiger or knitted Joe Exotic you make for yourself is "Tiger King merchandise", because the flesh and blood tiger was not "made" by anyone, and the knitted one was neither offered for sale nor intended to be. Whereas, a knitted Joe Exotic you buy from someone else on Etsy could probably be Tiger King merch (certainly "unofficial merch" exists, and I think it can even be hand-made or one-off/unique as opposed to mass-made, although I'm not sure). And the NFL makes merch for a certain team thinking they'll win the SuperBowl, and then gives it away when the team loses, but it's still termed merchandise even though it's never offered for sale. But there's also "inauguration merchandise" / "inauguration merch", "White House ~", "MSNBC ~", and generic (not team-specific) "NFL ~", and stores in many cities (Berlin, New York City, etc) often sell city-pride merch, and city festivals may sell merch, some of which strays away from "entertainment industry". "Goods created to be sold, and connected (branded) with an entertainment franchise (such as a sports team, band, or book series) or another entity or event (such as a city, festival, or inauguration)."? (Surely we can improve upon this!) - -sche (discuss) 18:53, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have attestation, but I think the "thank-you" tee-shirts, mugs, pins, rosaries, etc handed out by charities before and after donations may be merch. I am looking at a 1" cubical brass paperweight on my desk given out by some financial services company. Would such things also be merch? Are promotional items given away at big events now also called merch? Or are they just swag? But, certainly merch is "usually for sale". As is often my wont, I'll search for attestation. DCDuring (talk) 22:11, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Right out of the box, I found: 2020 November 17, Melissa Kravitz Hoeffner, “Supermarket Swag: Popular Food Brands Add Fashionable Merch”, in Forbes:

I've put the full cite at Citations:merch. I'll keep looking. DCDuring (talk) 22:18, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It does look like swag and merch may refer to the same objects, but they are much more likely to be called swag if given away and merch if sold. In the charity world the objects are called donor premiums. Unsurprisingly they favor a euphemism. DCDuring (talk) 22:45, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at this demo edit, which I then undid pending more discussion here. Even in sense 1, merchandise does not definitionally have to be offered for sale, as I can find quite a lot of complaints(!) from a century ago about businesses giving away "merchandise" for free. (I added three to the entry and the citations page.) In addition, the results for google books:"merchandise he had purchased" include a lot of older books which seem to be using sense 1, suggesting that even in sense 1 merchandise can still be merchandise after purchase(?). This suggests that some changes are needed to sense 1, in addition to whatever is needed to cover the sense under discussion above. - -sche (discuss) 03:37, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We can simplify it a bit, I think. How about: "Goods typically offered or intended for sale."

I don't see why the definiton doesn't include goods that had/have been, are being, or will be offered for sale. I agree that making it clear that merchandise may be applied to items before, during, and after being offered for sale is probably best done by usage examples and citations along the lines you suggest.

Merch is interesting because in much current usage it departs from the generic definitions of merchandise and seems to center on goods bearing logos etc. of a great variety of entities, often those that are not directly involved in the making or selling of the goods as mentioned above. A problem is that merch can be meme merch, in which the meme takes the role of the generally corporate 'entities'.

Just as sometimes merch just means generic "merchandise", sometimes merchandise seems to take on the narrower meaning of merch. But the usage context for merch seems to be most typically marketing and business journalism. DCDuring (talk) 05:00, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good, simpler way of putting it; I've revised definition 1 to say that. For comparison, by the way, neither Dictionary.com nor Merriam-Webster nor Lexico has anything like our countable sense (sense 2), and only MW has something like our "act or business of trading" sense (which they consider archaic), but all have a sense (Dictionary.com indeed has three!) analogous to our sense 1. They all mention buying as well as selling, saying things along the lines of "goods bought and sold in business", but it is not apparent to me why buying needs to be mentioned; mentioning selling seems sufficient. Lexico alone also [//www.lexico.com/en/definition/merchandise has a sense like the one we're discussing. - -sche (discuss) 05:50, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What I meant was what the OECD calls "branded products used to promote a film, pop group, etc., or linked to a fictional character; merchandising", or what the Chinese call 周邊產品. Sorry if that wasn't clear. ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:20, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I added a sense and also edited merch. Wording could be refined further. - -sche (discuss) 12:03, 9 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

on

Any views about the PoS of "on" in phrases such as "edge on", "side on", "end on", "face on"? Mihia (talk) 20:36, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Where the first word is a noun, I assume. An adverb, like down in “heads down” and up in “belly up” in the literal, SoP sense (as seen used here)? --Lambiam 12:26, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the first word is a noun. I'm very uncertain whether "on" is an adjective or adverb. The possible explanation for adjective is that e.g. if an object is "end on", it means that the end is "on" (even though we don't say it that way). What is the possible explanation for its being an adverb? Mihia (talk) 19:10, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What is said to be “end on” is not the object, but its interaction with the environment. The issue disappears if we hyphenate this, as is standard (as in our entry head-on; for hyphenated edge-on see e.g. here, here and here), and define edge on as an alternative form of edge-on. --Lambiam 23:14, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, all the identified phrases of this type could be treated individually, but my feeling is that "on" should be separable. While it is not arbitrarily productive, there are enough, such as the ones I mentioned, and in addition "corner on", "front on", and probably others too, to make me feel that it should be treated at "on", in which case it needs to go under a specific PoS. Yes, the full phrases, such as "end on"/"end-on", can clearly be adverbial, but this does not necessarily mean that on is an adverb. However, I am thinking maybe that it could be adverb, but I would like to back this up with some understanding of why it is an adverb. Mihia (talk) 11:03, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Noting also that the present definition (added by me), "Of a stated part of something, oriented towards the viewer or other specified direction", appears to be the definition of an adjective, so if "on" is an adverb then I/we would need to come up with a different, adverbial definition. Mihia (talk) 11:13, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

medium

Are we missing a sense along the lines of "a go-between"? We have "The means, channel, or agency by which an aim is achieved", which starts off sounding like it could cover this, except that "...by which an aim is achieved" seems like an odd thing to focus on (perhaps the def just seems to be reworded?). It's more like the "Someone who supposedly conveys information from the spirit world" sense, just applicable to one who goes between any two things, not just the living and the dead. See examples at Citations:medium. - -sche (discuss) 03:53, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is not only the means, channel, or agency “by which an aim is achieved”, but also “through which things (merchandise, messages, requests, ...) are conveyed”.^[86][87][88] I suspect that this in fact the earlier sense; the conveyal will often be the intended result of an action, explaining the extension to the achievement of an aim. --Lambiam 12:14, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I've revised the sense. - -sche (discuss) 16:04, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Separate issue: "tool" seems like an awkward / suboptimal word to be using in the definition "A tool used for painting or drawing. Acrylics, oils, charcoal, and gouache are all mediums I used in my painting." Tool suggests, to me, a brush more than a paint. I'm changing it to "material" but please revise further if needed. It also doesn't seem to be limited to painting and drawing, as I can also find references to people sculpting using the medium of clay, for example. - -sche (discuss) 16:04, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestion: “A technique of expression in the visual arts characterized by, and often named after, the material used.“ --Lambiam 22:49, 31 January 2021

Hmm, is it a technique? If an artist does many works in charcoal but also some paintings designed to resemble charcoal in strokes, colour, etc (technique), one cannot say she "worked exclusively in the medium of charcoal", you can only say that if she only used charcoal and didn't paint. (Right?) Like, it seems to mean the actual thing (material) used. I think you're onto something with mentioning that it's something used as a means "of expression", though. Hmm... - -sche (discuss) 23:00, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I now think it should be, with a different word order, “A technique of expression in the visual arts, often characterized by, and named after, the material used.“ Art techniques can be characterized in many ways. Pointillism is a technique that can be realized in oil, pastel, acrylics, crayon ..., so the material is not a characteristic. Still, one can say that an artist works mostly with the medium of pointillism,^[89] while she has also dabbled in other mediums like painting, pastels, and pencils.^[90] If an artist makes a trompe-l'œil painting that looks just like a macramé object, using oil paint, it is an oil painting; the medium (material and technique) is oil, not macramé. Likewise, if your hypothetical charcoal artist for a change paints something looking deceptively like a charcoal drawing, using pastel, it is a pastel; the medium is pastel, not charcoal. So she normally works in charcoal, but occasionally uses pastel as her medium. It is irrelevant whether this pastel looks like a charcoal drawing or is a burst of colours. Our entry watercolor has as its first sense: “(art) A painting technique using paint ...”. Here it is said of van Gogh that he “began to master the technique of painting in oils”. --Lambiam 08:43, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Technique" seems off/misleading to me. I think there's probably a better word. Maybe "method" could work. It seems that "medium" here means something like, the "mean to produce a certain result", which would involve primarily the materials (oil, watercolour, pastel, clay), but by extension, the method/technique. The material seems more central to me, but maybe that's just a misinformed impression. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 17:04, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think what you say about the trompe-l'œil artist and about my charcoal artist supports my thinking that medium is (often) material(s). The example of pointilism would support that it can be something in the vein of a method / style / technique, but I'd make a case that something like "style" is a better word, since I can also find references to people expressing things via "the medium of song" and "through the medium of jazz", where jazz seems to be a stye (genre, etc) more than a "technique", and style also seems like it would better cover artistic styles like pointilism and expressionism. (Like Andrew, I think "technique" will be misunderstood here.) I think Andrew is onto something with defining it as the "means", which is either a material or ... something else, whether we call it a method, a technique or some other word(s). "Means" covers the "medium of song" examples. The 1966 cite even makes me ponder "means or or vehicle for". - -sche (discuss) 18:17, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is the commonly used term; in this context it has retained some of the original sense of its etymon, an Ancient Greek adjective meaning “done according to the rules of the art” – in a culture in which “art” and “craft” were not distinct categories. I agree that there is a risk of confusion with the narrow sense of a methodical procedure (as in “laparoscopy is a surgical technique in which ...”). I can only think of rather vague substitutes, such as “a form of expression ...”. We will have to rely on nice usexes to get the sense across. --Lambiam 22:29, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

no matter what

An IP changed the POS header and headword template- which had been "Prepositional phrase" and {{en-pron}}, respectively- to "Phrase" and {{en-phrase}}. I'm not happy with either choice.

The entry was created by a WF sock in 2008 with an "Adverb" POS.
@TAKASUGI Shinji split off a "Pronoun" section in 2009 with the definition: "whatever; used to indicate that the speaker would do the same thing regardless of the options." and a usex of "'No matter what they might try to, I'll look after you.". At the time, the POS for whatever was "Pronoun", but it's currently "Determiner".
In March of last Year, @Kent Dominic, after a bit of trial and error, combined the "Pronoun" and the "Adverb" POS sections under a "Prepositional phrase" header, but left the {{en-pron}} headword template.

@DCDuring I stand by my rationale: No matter as a phrasal preposition and what as a pronoun (a la the @Chuck Entz analysis below); thus no matter what is a prepositional phrase in the "No matter what they might do, I'll look after you" example. Mea culpa re. the header/headword/IP snafu. I'd re-edit it accordingly if I were more enterprising. --Kent Dominic (talk) 08:22, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The IP's change is dubious, since the phrase is some kind of grammatical constituent that in at least one case can be substitued with a single word. What they changed was a mess, because the header and the headword template disagreed,

So: what is it?

An adverb?
A pronoun?
A determiner?
An adverbial phrase?
A prepositional phrase?
A phrase?
Something else?
One pair or another of the above?

@DCDuring It's an adverbial phrase AND a prepositional phrase. (In my lexicon, it's a composite adverbial prepositional phrase as the two categories overlap.) --Kent Dominic (talk) 08:22, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Chuck Entz (talk) 04:08, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The first definition seems like no matter + what. Any wh-word can take the place of what, as the existence of the related terms section implies. The second seems to function adverbially, though it is an ellipsis of a clause like "(It [do/does/did/will]) no(t) matter what ([happens])". I suppose I would put it under an Adverb header. DCDuring (talk) 05:16, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I made the change because it "obviously" lacks a preposition, so how can it be a prepositional phrase? But the entry no matter gives the relevant sense as a preposition, which is an interesting way of formulating it. In any case, I agree with the analysis of DCDuring. Sense 1 is SOP (but keep for translation purposes?) and sense 2 is adverb. 120.150.121.92 08:02, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Chuck Entz We disagree that "it 'obviously' lacks a preposition." We might agree that it lacks an obvious preposition. My assertion that "no matter" qualifies as a phrasal preposition is based on its linguistic function, not on its lexical gloss. Do a search on the etymology re. most prepositions and you'll find they emerge from a grab-bag of POS. E.g. "during" comes from the archaic verb dure; I contend that the phrasal preposition no matter is a more recent morphology re. the verb matter. I'm not arguing for agreement and I'm not disparaging arguments to the contrary. I'm merely positing the analysis pursuant to my own yet-unpublished lexicon of grammatical terms. --Kent Dominic (talk) 08:36, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You're actually replying to my comment, Kent. "Obviously" was placed in quotation marks because the lack of a preposition seemed obvious at first but turned out to be false later. I agree that no matter is a preposition. 120.150.121.92 08:50, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@120.150.121.92 I won't mention how embarrassingly long it took me to determine that "no matter" is a phrasal preposition per my lexicon. It's just a plain preposition in the Wiktionary nomenclature. Oxford classifies it as a phrase and Webster defines it - without classification - under matter. Neither helps anyone who's clueless. --Kent Dominic (talk) 10:28, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It took me a while too. See #no matter below. DCDuring (talk) 23:56, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with whoever agrees with me that the two senses are grammatically essentially different; sense 1 being SOP and sense 2 being an adverbial phrase or phrasal adverb. In sense 1, we see a collocation (not a phrase – it is not a grammatical constituent) in which “no matter” can be followed by any wh- noun phrase and can be replaced by “regardless of”. Neither is possible for the second sense. Regardless of how this is resolved, the two senses should not be presented together under one PoS. A complication is that “no matter what” sometimes functions as a preposition synonymous with regardless of. Examples: “no matter what the consequences”,^[91][92][93] “no matter what the cost”,^[94][95][96] “no matter what the risk”.^[97][98][99] This can be analyzed as arising from the ellipsis of “may be”, but may have attained lexical status. --Lambiam 10:39, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think the entry for no matter deserves its own discussion. The appropriate PoS for it is not obvious. No matter + wh-word can be followed by a clause, a prepositional phrase, an adjectival phrase, an adverbial phrase, or a noun phrase. DCDuring (talk) 17:32, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Taken to WT:RFDE#no matter what. This, that and the other (talk) 04:25, 10 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

media

Does media have a sense along the lines of "shows, films, books and other broadcast information / entertainment"? I noticed this because neither of our current definitions seems to explain media in a phrase like "piece of media" (meaning a TV show, film, book, etc). See Citations:media for one or two examples, but it's hard to find other phrases/examples where it clearly has this meaning as opposed to sense 1 ("means [...] for broadcasting information"). - -sche (discuss) 04:09, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Does this usage refer to physical manifestation (a book, a DVD, an HTML file) or to the 'content' or such physical entities? It could be both or simply vague about which, even if referents are limited to only these types of things. DCDuring (talk) 05:22, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In the sense I'm thinking of, media means the content (the show itself). I think another example of this sense is when talking about "depictions of X in popular media", which does not mean "in popular means of broadcasting" or "in popular journalists", but rather "in popular shows, films, etc". - -sche (discuss) 05:56, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It may be clearer to replace, in sense 1, “publishing and broadcasting“ by “publishing or broadcasting“, being two ways of disseminating content. In “a piece of media”, the sense of “media” stands apparently for the totality of content items that can be disseminated through media channels. Then ”depicted in popular media” means, “depicted in content items disseminated through popular media channels”. This sense of “media” as a totality of content items should not be seen as referring to physical manifestations or their contents, just like “a news item” can have many physical manifestations and cannot be equated with its content, as can be seen from a sentence like “the story became a news item” – the content was already there; something extra is needed before it can be called “a news item”. A piece of media is not just any content item, but specifically a content item that is, or is to be, disseminated. --Lambiam 11:32, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thinking about this more, and thinking about how "[noun] is commonly depicted as [adjective] in the media" or "...in media" is not "[noun] is commonly depicted as [adjective] in the means and institutions for publishing and/or broadcasting", I think there's clearly another sense along the lines, as you say, of "the totality of content items" that are broadcast or published. I'm going to add something along these lines. - -sche (discuss) 21:37, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

betichten

Translated as "to accuse falsely". That does not seem quite right to me, but the Etymologisch woordenboek does actually gloss it with "vals beschuldigen". Few other online sources give this meaning, they generally opt for a more neutral and general "to accuse". In Belgium this is still used as a legal term, also in contexts where acknowledging a special right "to falsely accuse" would make very little sense, and in the Netherlands a legally irrelevant case of "iemand van arrogantie betichten" does not connote falsehood to me either. @Morgengave, Rua, Thadh, Mnemosientje, MuDavid, Lambiam ~~←₰-→~~ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 11:04, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Lingo Bingo Dingo. I agree with you, LBD. The "falsely" doesn't sound right. The WNT btw doesn't include the "falsely", and actual current usage in newspapers seems to imply that it's often "rightly" accused. [100] The meaning I believe the mentioned sources tried to convey is that betichten is (chiefly/only) used when the accusation is contested by the accused party (whereas beschuldigen is neutral in this regard). Morgengave (talk) 11:43, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

According to the Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands it means “beschuldigen” and is a cognate of its synonym aantijgen. Uses of the term confirm that it is used without connotation of a false accusation: [101], [102], [103]. --Lambiam 11:47, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

To me, betichten implies that the accusation is less well-founded than beschuldigen, but not necessarily false. Don't know of any nice way to phrase it English, though. MuDavid 栘𩿠 (talk) 02:21, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Morgengave, Lambiam, MuDavid I have removed "falsely" from the definition and added usage notes. Morgengave, does the first usage note also apply to Belgian usage? ~~←₰-→~~ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 14:07, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Lingo Bingo Dingo You are correct; that usage note also applies to Belgium. Morgengave (talk) 17:36, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

close-ended question or closed-ended question

Which is correct? Both? P U C – 20:45, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Only the first sounds correct to me, even though analogy with open-ended suggests the second. But according to Google Books Ngram viewer the latter is far more common. I’d avoid either form, if possible; there are many kinds of questions that are not open-ended: yes-no questions, factual questions (“birthdate?”), multiple-choice questions, rhetorical questions (“what were you thinking?!”), politeness questions (“how are you today?”), so being more specific is better. --Lambiam 22:16, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

early

Aren't we missing the sense found in early adopter, early proponent, early supporter, etc.? P U C – 21:04, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Either sense 1 or sense 3 might cover these. Equinox ◑ 21:30, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

no matter

We have this as a preposition. It is almost always followed by a subordinate clause introduced by a wh-word, though the clause in often reduced. (The clause could possibly be introduced by that, though it is possible that a different definition applies in such case.) I have made some changes to the entry's preposition section. Other dictionaries punt on the PoS question, but CGEL (2002) has "no matter is an idiom with the form of an NP which might be regarded as having been reanalyzed as a preposition."

Are we happy with calling no matter a preposition? DCDuring (talk) 23:46, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't it SoP — no matter + what? ---> Tooironic (talk) 03:21, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This is just about no matter#Preposition precisely because no matter what does seem to me to be SoP. That belief led me to examine no matter, partly out of skepticism about it belonging under the header "Preposition". DCDuring (talk) 05:54, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

For a concrete example, take the phrase “no matter where, no matter how.”^[104][105] Which part of speech can we assign to no matter here? One way of approaching the conundrum is by restoring an assumed ellipsis to “no matter where and how they go.” This is practically synonymous to “regardless of where and how they go”, making no matter as much a preposition as regardless of. Is this a valid approach? --Lambiam 09:32, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's certainly not unreasonable. CGEL acknowledges the "reanalysis". As soon as the wh-word is deemed separate, then the potential PoS headers dwindle. It is fairly common for clauses to be analyzed as grammatically equivalent to nouns. The more I think about it, the harder it is for me to see it coherently any other way than as a preposition whose "object" is a clause, often reduced. The frequent reduction to adjective and adverb had me quite confused, but, no matter how confused, I am often able to find clarity in CGEL. So it was this time. DCDuring (talk) 14:36, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@DCDuring Ditto, except I'd label it a phrasal preposition rather than a mere preposition. That way, it's clear that the phrase is inseparable and not collocational. Any chance that the Wikitionary powers that be would accede to the phrasal preposition IP? I quibble with those who assert that "phrasal" would be Big textsuperfluous. Instead I admit it's redundant albeit in a helpful way for those who can't distinguish an inseparable phrase from a collocation. I'd attempt it myself (at risk of inevitable opposition and probable reversion) but I'm too lazy to figure out how to do the proper encoding. All of my previous attempts were faulty one way or another. Cheers re. your analysis. --Kent Dominic (talk) 15:59, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It is virtually self-evident that it is a phrase, as it consists of more than one word. It is internally a noun phrase (Det + N). We have chosen to designate many phrases as members of word classes (using traditional PoSes) based on their function. We use traditional PoSes (and Determiner) for English word classes so that we don't provide yet another way of driving users to other, more user-friendly dictionaries. DCDuring (talk) 15:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

DCDuring: It is virtually self-evident that it is a phrase, as it consists of more than one word.

Kent: Virtually self-evident? True, if we’re talking about ourselves. In everyday speech, you and I never have to think about phrase parameters because we learned English organically. Yet, ESL learners can’t determine those parameters without step-by-step guidance. For instance, you might say that “up above” is an adjective in the sentence, “I pray for everlasting life up above” (wherein "up above" applies to "life," not to "pray"). By contrast, I’d say up above is an postpositive adjectival phrase (comprising Adv+Adj). If it’s learned and construed solely as an adjective, a sentence like “Put it up above the ‘fridge no matter what” (wherein “put up” is a phrasal verb embedded in the “put it up” VP) becomes grammatically unintelligible. And unsuspecting ESLers think the so-called "up above" adjective can be applied a la "Open the up above window." Think I'm kidding? Nope, I've heard it all.

DCDuring: [No matter] is internally a noun phrase (Det + N).

Kent: Pfft! Look again: It’s an adverbial phrase (Adv+V) as an abbreviation of the “it doesn’t matter” phrase, as @Chuck Entz alluded to earlier. But it functions as a preposition, granted.

DCCuring: We have chosen to designate many phrases as members of word classes (using traditional PoSes) based on their function.

Kent: And I get the logic behind that if we limit what’s “self-evident” to native English speakers who are linguistically wedded to traditional PsOS. But, to call “no matter” a preposition invites the uninitiated to look in vain for a preposition that isn’t there. (And unsuspecting ESLers will say stuff like, "I'll be there no matter rain.") By analogy, it’s like attaching an adverb label to “as soon as” in a sentence like "I'll do it as soon as possible." It’s an adverbial phrase but there’s no adverb there. (I.e. there’s a Prep+N+Conj wherein "soon" is nominalized). I’m not being cheeky when I insist that adverbial doesn’t necessarily entail an adverb any more than prepositional doesn’t necessarily entail a preposition. (I take the -al suffix quite literally.) That’s where semantics helps to flag what’s going on with phrasal syntax. In my 15 years of teaching ESL, students get the phrase versus phrasal distinction, but they’re hard-pressed to construe traditional PsOS - developed eons ago around naïve principles, countless exceptions, and a boatload of paradoxes - when applied scattershot to modern-day syntax. That hot mess disappears under a more rational approach. --Kent Dominic (talk) 19:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. And, consequently, no matter what et al (such as no matter when, no matter where, no matter how, no matter that, no matter the cost/consequences/weather, etc.) constitute prepositional phrases or adverbial phrases whose syntactic functions overlap. Due to proprietary considerations, I'm not yet inclined to introduce Wiktionary to my composite adverbial prepositional phrase term. --Kent Dominic (talk) 16:12, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

We have gone from having Adverb and Adjective as PoS headers for prepositional phrases to having Prepositional Phrase ("PP") because of the semantic duplication between the PoS sections and the fact that most PPs are used both adverbially and adjectivally. We don't put many limits on grammatical categories, because users are less easily confused by categories than they are by PoS headers and labels. DCDuring (talk) 15:45, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@DCDuring: Forgive me for not taking your word on whatever it might be that less easily confuses users. As I see it, the problem lies not with the users but with the inadequacies of traditional PsOS. They're far from obsolete, but they're becoming rapidly outmoded by particularized lexical categories adapted for efficacy. Trying to shoehorn traditional PsOS onto insanely complex sentences is what I'd say confuses users in our ever-evolving range of syntax but stuck-in-the-16th-century PsOS. Nonetheless, I'm not trying to change Wiktionary's status quo. It's pointless to paddle upstream against a fossilized flow. --Kent Dominic (talk) 19:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Kent Dominic: You don't have to take my word for it. All you have to is ask any college graduates who didn't take a linguistics course whether they know what a determiner is and can give an example of one. If they don't get that, how are they going to get zeugmatic pronoun? Perhaps you don't think such people are our target users? DCDuring (talk) 04:47, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@DCDuring: To be unabashedly honest, I'd never heard the term, "determiner," until I started teaching ESL in China, Thailand, and South Korea where, without exaggeration, every schoolchild is versed in grammar from middle school onward. And I don't mean just basic grammar. They vie for abstract linguistic distinctions they think will give them an edge on SAT, IELTS, TOEFL, TOEIC, and so on. They readily grasp whatever linguistic terms you throw at them. Tragically, their linguistic smarts don't always neatly result in natural-sounding conversation. E.g., they might think "I'm appreciative of your kindly assistance" is better than "Thanks a lot". And although they can parse the PsOS of the former but they'd need assistance for the latter. It boils down to this: If ESLers can figure out a word like "only" constitutes a determiner (e.g. only Einsteins know relativity) a predeterminer (e.g. only an Einstein knows relativity), an adjective (e.g. he's the only Einstein who knows relativity) or an adverb (e.g. Einstein only knows relativity), I have faith that our target users can do the same regarding zeugmatic pronouns, et al.

@Kent Dominic: Could you be explicit about who are target users are? DCDuring (talk) 15:31, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@DCDuring:Ha! A red herring. You're the one who brought them up. You tell me. Show me the accredited survey. --Kent Dominic (talk) 17:48, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I hasten to add that a miniscule fraction of our target users likely have much interest or any need for the majority of linguistic stuff here and elsewhere. I suspect almost none would come here to determine whether "Thanks a lot" is an interjection that entails a null subject referent, but I think it's nonetheless regretful that those who come looking will leave empty-handed. I trust you've heard the proverb, "Better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it." That's where I'm coming from.

To my regret I have been living that proverb in the realm of books, hand and power tools, t-shirts, financial records, stationery items, etc. The result has been a huge amount of clutter and being forced to live in a house that is big enough to store all of it. IOW, I think the proverb needs heavy qualification to be a useful guide to living. DCDuring (talk) 15:31, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

So: no matter what is a prepositional phrase. Don't ask me how many targeted users readily know what prepositional means and what a phrase is (or how prepositional differs from preposition). Don't ask me how many targeted users would bother to look up a phrasal preposition label for no matter. If you ask me anyway, the answer is easy: It's a larger number of targeted users than those who would look up a label provided as phrase or idiom.

For the record, I'm not smug in saying that I probably know more about paradigmatic set linguistics than both our target users and the fraternity wedded to naive set linguistics. I'm saying that I don't take a condescending view of what targeted users can readily grasp when presented with stuff that ultimately makes sense. Their relative interest in that stuff, as well as their need and use for it, is a separate topic. One final question: Do we want targeted users left in a state of complacent ignorance when plied with traditional PsOS labels that lead down a rabbit hole of linguistic gobbledygook, or do we want to avail them of SCs (i.e. syntactic categories) that make sense? (Phylum hint from paradigmatic set linguistics: Language > Word > Determiner > Article> "the.") Okay, so "the" is an article, but, but, but. Your seeing me laugh at the lexicographical malpractice implicit in "the" being labeled as an article rather than as a determiner gives you an idea of my stance. Maybe we should change its label to "word." --Kent Dominic (talk) 07:25, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't have a condescending view of users. They function quite well without much awareness of any kind of formal grammar and don't err very often, often enough to annoy me, but not usually in such a way as to block understanding. DCDuring (talk) 15:31, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@DCDuring: Let it be noted that (a) I haven't accused anyone of condescension; (b) I regularly rely on others to read between the lines; (c) my sardonic sense of humor is a hit-or-miss kind of thing with an approximate batting average of .400. --Kent Dominic (talk) 18:02, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if it helps any, but "no matter" can be replaced seamlessly with "it doesn't matter" or "it makes no difference", except in usage like "no matter the..." . Chuck Entz (talk) 16:16, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The problem is that you have experience with people who are interested enough to make the commitment to take a class. Thst leaves out the other 90% who ran into a word somewhere and want to know what it means. It does no good to explain things using terms that they will have to look up, if they can find it at all (FYI, the phrase "zeugmatic pronoun" is not used anywhere on the web except here). Chuck Entz (talk) 16:19, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Chuck: The problem is that you have experience with people who are interested enough to make the commitment to take a class.

Kent: That’s a problem? See my aforementioned comments regarding condescension. On second thought, let me presume your intention. …

Chuck: The [fact] is that you have experience with people who are interested enough to make the commitment to take a class.

Kent: That’s true of adult ESLers. Not so much of middle school students, for whom English classes are compulsory, and some highschoolers, who often find it less objectionable than other foreign language electives.

Chuck: [That] leaves out the other 90% who ran into a word somewhere and want to know what it means.

Kent: Do you have data to back up that “90%” claim? I suspect it’s closer to 98%.

Chuck: It does no good to explain things using terms that they will have to look up, if they can find it at all.

Kent: Your argument falls apart on three counts: (a) The ipse dixit that they’ll have to look up terms, (b) the presumption that looking up an unfamiliar term “does no good” rather than “fosters learning by extension" (i.e. in the cannon of academia), and (c) neglects the intrinsic curiosity of someone who’s nosing for information by looking up something in the dictionary or elsewhere to begin with.

Chuck: FYI, the phrase "zeugmatic pronoun" is not used anywhere on the web except here.

Kent: Which addresses my point about the intrinsic curiosity of someone who’s nosing for information by looking something up. Let me assume you know what "zeugmatic pronoun" means, as previously explained. I’ll further assume that you have enough familiarity with the terms zeugma and pronoun to see the linguistic nexus between those terms and the example previously parsed with its zeugmatic pronoun. Whether you feel privileged or annoyed to be among the first to consider the term (as applied to a ubiquitous type of syntax that resists typology under a singular POS within a traditional approach), I think you have to admit how exercising your linguistic chops in the process contradicts the “does no good” assertion. How much more than "no good" is a matter of quibbling.

Footnote 1: Thank Sister Noraleen for the zeugmatic pronoun term. As part of an assignment for my English literature class during high school, I’d written a poem, in an Elizabethan style, with the lines:

Then hurry did I after them

who had crossed the virgin snow.

Sister Noraleen corrected “them” to “they.” Why? She said “they” crossed the snow as a zeugmatic pronoun (1) constituting the subject in a subordinate clause and (2) as the semantic object (but not the grammatical object) that complements the preposition, “after.” Did she coin the "zeugmatic pronoun" term herself? FYI, that term is not used anywhere on the web except here. Sister Noraleen is no longer living, so I'm taking posthumous credit with proper recognition of her as a mentor.

Footnote 2: I'm not advocating the inclusion of zeugmatic pronoun as a label here. It's merely a lexical item under the linguistics rubric. Nor am I advocating its inclusion as an article: I'm not yet willing to part with my own definition and I'd probably be aghast at others' attempts to do so. But, no hard feelings if someone amazes me by doing it no matter what I've said already anyway . --Kent Dominic (talk) 19:39, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Chuck Entz: Semantically true concerning the underlying meaning but, grammatically speaking, you're talking apples and oranges: "You're a fine guy no matter what your detractors say" entails a phrasal preposition (or a just a preposition per Wiktionary labeling motifs); "You're a fine guy. It doesn't matter what your detractors say" entails a fully-fledged SVO clause - incl.:

1. "what" as a zeugmatic pronoun that, under a modern analysis -

(a) complements the transitive verb, "matter" and also

(b) complements the transitive verb, "say" in the "your detractors say" clause per a subject-verb inversion.

2. "what" as a garden-variety object pronoun that, under a traditional analysis -

(a) complements the transitive verb, "matter" and

(b) comprises "your detractors say" as a so-called subordinate clause wherein "say" is deemed to be intransitive.

Either way, "your detractors say" constitutes an object complement, but put me in the modern camp re. proper analysis because (1) I can't rightly identify "say" as anything but transitive in such examples, and (2) object complement is too limited a term for my tastes in sentences of such complexity. I.e. zeugmatic pronoun properly flags "your detractors say" as having a dual syntactic function. Sorry I've gotten onto a tangent re. no matter, but I wanted to give you the benefit of a full reply to your comment above. --Kent Dominic (talk) 19:51, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]