Talk:ephemeris

RFV discussion: April 2014–January 2015
RFV for the sense "newspaper" of the Latin. That sense isn't listed in Lewis & Short. Gaffiot has the sense "mémorial journalier", which translates to "daily memorial", which I don't fully understand, but which I interpret to mean "diary"; in any case, I'm pretty sure it doesn't support the "newspaper" sense. Niermeyer doesn't have an entry for ephēmeris. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 17:28, 4 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Cited by . — Ungoliant (falai) 14:15, 16 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Whilst I laud Mr. Granger's addition of that citation, in it he chose to translate with "journal", not "newspaper", and, given La Civiltà Cattolica, he was right to do so. I'm afraid that the challenged sense remains uncited. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 01:57, 17 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Hmm. I'm not quite sure what sense my citation belongs under, actually. La Civiltà Cattolica is not exactly a newspaper (sense 2), but it's certainly not a diary (sense 1) either. Maybe the "newspaper" sense should be changed to "periodical" to accommodate the citation. (Incidentally, I don't want to take undue credit - the translation isn't mine, but rather comes from the book itself.) —Mr. Granger (talk • contribs) 02:04, 17 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I've moved your citation under the new sense "a journal, periodical" and elaborated its bibliographical information to better indicate where the original text and its translation come from . I haven't merged the disputed sense into the new sense, because I believe they are too dissimilar to be treated as one sense. Be that as it may, I note that there is a logical development of senses: day-book → newspaper → periodical. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 19:01, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

I just happened upon Ephemeris: Nuntii Latini universi [Ephemeris: Latin news of the whole world], the website of an on-line Latin-language newspaper founded by Stanisław Tekieli in June 2004. The date line ("Saturni die 24 mensis Maii 2014"; Anglice: "on Saturday the 24th of the month of May [in] 2014") suggests that it is a daily newspaper. If that is the case, then the use of (deriving as it does from the Ancient Greek ) to mean "a daily newspaper" is a semantic development parallel with the English word, which the  (2nd ed., 1989) records (under “daily, a. (n.)” B.1) in the sense "A daily newspaper." (with nine supporting quotations, 1823–1965). However, in this use it would appear that Ephemeris is a proper noun, being the name of one specific newspaper, rather than a common noun, being used to mean "a (daily) newspaper" generally. What do you make of this evidence? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 18:04, 24 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Is this newspaper also published in paper? If not, I’d discount this use an non-durable. — Ungoliant (falai) 18:11, 24 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I doubt it. However, it has almost certainly been discussed by name in Contemporary Latin publications which themselves are durably archived, as it already has been in an English context. What I'm wondering is, would such citations count toward attesting the sense of ephēmeris currently being challenged, or would they be taken as supporting the Latin proper noun Ephēmeris, or as citing both? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 01:15, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I lean towards excluding it. If I remember correctly, we’ve had an English RFV where the name of a band was not considered a valid cite. — Ungoliant (falai) 23:25, 25 May 2014 (UTC)


 * small note: journal a daily. Also, we may want to accept that digital media are now the standard for publication. Paper, if it happens, is secondary and ephemeral. - Amgine/t&middot;e 06:23, 25 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Often part of the point of a paper copy of a normally digital work is its non-ephemerality. Digital papers tend to have a serious problem with being ephemeral in my experience; Geocities is virtually all archived away, but newspapers try to keep everything behind a paywall and be the sole source of their text. The theoretical standard behind our citation rules is that we be able to reference our cites in the foreseeable future; a sold PDF is probably hard to get ahold of for the random person, but there's no guarantee at all that anyone will have a copy of the article that we cited.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:22, 25 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The modern equivalent is a dvd/cd annual, occasionally a 'perk' for members or subscribers. Thank goodness that tradition is also dying rapidly. Visit https://archive.org or any of the many other aggregators whose purpose is to present a record of publicly published content. But keep in mind that owning the paper copy is a hurdle to your concept of accessible durability, just as paying for access is a hurdle for paywalled content. Most of the world cannot access the OED, online or off. But this is probably not the best location for this discussion. - Amgine/t&middot;e 16:42, 26 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I know about archive.org; that's why I pointed out that newspapers try to keep everything behind a paywall and be the sole source of their text.--Prosfilaes (talk) 21:55, 26 May 2014 (UTC)


 * RFV-failed. Can be re-added if someone can find a citation, obviously. - -sche (discuss) 01:40, 30 January 2015 (UTC)