Talk:tsun

Request for deletion
At a local lexigraphy meeting over the weekend, a member pointed out a number of entries from Wiktionary. I will have more to say later, but for now one class of entries in particular were quite troublesome. After investigating the Wiktionary guidelines, I believe the following are invalid:


 * catty
 * chek
 * fan
 * tsun

Generally the same comments for all above words:


 * "Romanization of the cantonese word [fill in blank]". Romanizing a word into Latin characters alone does not make it English.
 * Does not appear to satisfy any of the four criteria given at CFI:Attestation
 * Clearly widespread usage: does not appear in any English dictionary at hand, including several large international editions, nor can I find any such widespread usage in actual English lexicons
 * Usage in a well-known work: none. The single reference is to a Hong Kong legal document under the heading of "Chinese [language?] unit". At best that would make it a legal term limited to Hong Kong, but still not "clearly widespread" or "well-known".
 * Academic journal: apparently none
 * Three independent instances spanning at least a year: again, none
 * Our groups has two Cantonese speakers. They both said that while they knew the word in Cantonese, that they would not expect these words meaningful in an English context and would replace it with a number in metres.
 * In my opinion, a transliteration of a word from another writing system is still a word of the associated language, not an English word. bd2412 T 02:32, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


 * catty appears in MWOnline and probably in Websters 1913. t'sun appears in a units of measurement glossary. I didn't find the others, but there may be some other spellings. I haven't done searches for citations, but at least these two would seem to warrant move to RfV. There is nothing about transliterations what would mean that a transliteration that had attained usage in English couldn't be in wiktionary. For example, nyet and troika are arguably transliterations. I would just submit each of these to RfV to see if they are attestable in English. They might appear in some travel books or something commercial about Hong Kong, for example. DCDuring TALK 03:24, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Predictable but, why not an RFV? If the meanings given can be attested in English, why not keep them? Mglovesfun (talk) 18:58, 14 September 2009 (UTC)


 * Agree, RFV. One cite  for chek is pretty easy to find on b.g.c.; it wouldn't be terribly surprising if there were two more, somewhere amidst all the scannos and typos.  There is no a priori reason to assume that these are not words; they should go through the standard verification process.
 * But regarding this meeting... These people have the time to pore over Wiktionary content, identifying words that they think are out of place -- but they don't have the time to flag the entries for verification or cleanup?  Or they just think such things are beneath them?  I gotta say, it seems kind of douchey from where I sit. -- Visviva 09:56, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Moved to RFV. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:12, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Request for verification
(English only), see three items above. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:16, 19 December 2009 (UTC)


 * RFV failed, English section removed. —Ruakh TALK 21:54, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Note that tsun, catty and chek have since been re-added as English entries (rather than romanisation stubs). That leaves fan, which IMO should be re-added too; I might do it later. Equinox ◑ 09:12, 10 December 2017 (UTC)