User talk:DCDuring/2007

The Beginning
Hi there. You might like to read the following welcome links, and then format redintegration according to our standards. SemperBlotto 15:42, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

affect
Hi. Stop inserting copyrighted definitions. Cynewulf 03:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm trying very hard to assume good faith here, so I'm assuming that you're just copying dicdefs from wikipedia, which are either badly written or copyvio.

Since you seem not to care about copyrights enough to look at the bloody link I gave you, let me make it abundantly clear what you did. I'll say this very slowly.

You added:
 * (psychology) the conscious, subjective aspect of an emotion apart from physiological changes.

MW medical contains:
 * the conscious subjective aspect of an emotion considered apart from bodily changes
 * Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

Now are you going to stop, or do I get to block you? Cynewulf 03:22, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Deleting one word and changing another is hardly paraphrasing. Cynewulf 03:27, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the new definition. I've replied on my talk page -- let's have this conversation in one place or the other. Cynewulf 03:48, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Block
Reviewing your recent contributions, I see evidence of wholesale copying. While checking other references to verify that you haven't missed a part-of-speech is helpful, copying material from elsewhere is never useful. Copying material from other dictionaries is always compromising.

I implore you to assist removing your copied material, when you block expires.

--Connel MacKenzie 04:30, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

OK. Sorry. Didn't grasp difference from WP practice. One completely accidental duplication. DCDuring 22:35, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

plurals
Even plurals need a language and a part of speech entry. See the changes to points of view. SemperBlotto 07:14, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

prunus / Prunus
prunus is Latin, Prunus (the genus) is translingual - I don't believe that either of them are English. SemperBlotto 18:53, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Kinds of unemployment
Do you have 's classic book "Economics"? It would be nice if you could check how he defines frictional, seasonal, cyclical and structural unemployment, and if you have the energy and interest, quote them to the appropriate pages. I rewrote classical unemployment. If it is not good enough now, I don't know what might be. I'm sure there are thousands of worse defined terms currently in Wiktionary. Hekaheka 14:50, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
 * I found my old edition (8th) of Samuelson. "Classical unemployment", "seasonal unemployment", "cyclical unemployment", and "frictional unemployment" (and corresponding employment terms) are not in the index. "Structural unemployment", "technological unemployment", and "disguised unemployment" are. The section "Defining structural unemployment" begins "No one has been able to agree on the exact meaning of structural unemployment". He refers to it as so-called "structural unemployment" (in quotes).
 * Personally, I think it is a mistake to include multi-word terms, especially technical vocabulary, in a dictionary without strong indication of use of the term in publications for general readers. In economics, I would go beyond general newspapers and include the business newspapers and general business periodicals. It would help if the term is used without definition in an article, indicating that the audience is expected to know it. DCDuring 16:29, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

quotations
(e.g. at wash, which I like), the first line starts with #*, second (quote itself), #*: so the quotes have bullets, not numbers. Cheers, Robert Ullmann 14:31, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

get on up
Hi,

We had an edit conflict at get on up, the upshot of which is that I restored the sense that you had added and then removed. If there's a reason you removed this sense and quote, please feel free to re-remove it.

—Ruakh TALK 18:34, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * If you think it makes sense, then we can leave it with your other changes, which are definitely a net improvement. Adding the more ordinary meanings makes more sense of meanings in the cited songs. I could imagine "get on up" as a poetic allusion to an erection, but, without something a bit more obvious, I would have thought that we would just credit James Brown with a little double-entendre and leave it at that. How DOES one attest to double entendres or "hidden" meanings? DCDuring 18:43, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

However at the end what does "get on up" mean?
However at the end what does "get on up" mean?


 * It means "get up", plain and simple. When directed to one's penis, "up" means means "erect". DCDuring 22:41, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

hornbook
I really like the good job you did in citing hornbook — especially with referencing the old dictionary. That is exactly as it ought to be done. (Well, except for the format of the reference.) Keep it up! †  ﴾(u):Raifʻhār (t):Doremítzwr﴿ 23:49, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

from Algrif
Hi. Not ignoring you. It's just that a 90 page technical translation landed in my inbox on Monday. They want it for Friday if not before!!! Algrif 12:57, 7 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Hi. There is actually very little written about chunk theory related to language. Mostly you will find glancing references to it in language teaching books that are dealing with TBL techniques. My interest stems from language teaching and the realisation that students at any age do not really learn much from words + grammar. What they learn are patterns and parts of patterns. This applies to any field you care to look at. (Chunk theory info is abundant if you do not restrict searches to language). The problem with standard lamguage reference works is that they all try to explain either words, or grammar. This is all well and good, but what we use in speech are chunks. Take any text at random from a magazine or a general interest article from a newspaper (news is written in journalese chunks. Books, I will mention in a moment), or even this piece I am writing now(!) and analyse it for chunks. These are what Wikt calls Idioms, Set phrases, Phrasal verbs, Collocations, Proverbs, etc. but they go further than that. My interest in Wikt is that it provides an open database that can be conditioned for pattern and chunks search. Just look at all the category functions and appendices, and you quickly realise that this is already happening, even tho most contribs have not even noticed!
 * (I use the star to force a new paragraph) In books, and short stories etc, you will find an interesting phenomenon. A lot of chunks, but also a lot of creative use of chunks. This is where the writer starts a chunk, but finishes it, or applies it, in an unexpected way, causing surprise and interest in the reader. e.g., a writer might put something like "don't look a gift horse in the arse". Or he might talk about a "war of attrition" but apply it to an unexpected situation, like an escalating argument between neighbours. This is one of the things that make reading in another language so difficult, no matter how well you might know the words and the grammar. Journalese chunks is a study in itself. I'm sure I don't need to say more than that.
 * That's it for the moment. I've kept off the subject of memes, because if I start, I'll not finish. Suffice to say that I disagree with just about everything that Dawkins has ever written or said. Algrif 19:04, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Quotations
Hi,

Thanks for all the quotes you've been adding; it's a huge help. :-)  You might be interested in Quotations, which details the formatting we use. (For some of the information we include, you'll need to click the "About this book" link, assuming you're getting these from Google Books.) Thanks again!

—Ruakh TALK 20:57, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

+
By the way, you might be interested in the "+" tab at the top of discussion pages, between "edit" and "history"; it makes it easy to create a new section, with helpful edit summary and everything. :-) —Ruakh TALK 22:12, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

speedy the entry
Believe it or not, I got jumped on from all sides for putting speedy to my nigger. I checked the contribs of 85.214.73.63 so I thought speedy was correct. I don't want to comment on that entry at all now, publicly, but I still think it stinks of vandalism. Algrif 18:33, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Re: by extension template
The template doesn't have any effect besides the visible label. Neither does. I believe they were mainly created to make their listings on Special:Wantedpages go away. Another benefit of having them is that users don't have to guess which context labels can be used as top-level templates and which only work when embedded in. They also has the benefit that they can be redirect targets for variant context labels that we want to display consistently. This is currently the case with the redirect from Template:figurative to Template:figuratively, both of which display as "(figuratively)". Hope that helps. Mike Dillon 03:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

cribbage board
Hi. Why the informal tag? Any particular reason? I would say it is the correct term. It is a particular type of pegboard for specific use when playing Crib. (A game I really enjoy, btw!) - Algrif 13:40, 25 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I thought that it was more informal than cribbage board. I defer to your judgment. Informal seems like a completely non-judgmental tag. If I were inventorying property (a document that might end up in court), I wouldn't use a phrase like crib board, though it would certainly be acceptable there. In that context, the meaning of "crib" as in cribsheet would be bothersome, too. DCDuring 14:44, 25 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Did you intend to put the informal tag on crib board? If anything, it should be there rather than cribbage. - Algrif 16:35, 25 November 2007 (UTC)


 * D'oh. Yes that's what I intended. DCDuring 16:37, 25 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Fixed. Now, feel free to correct it what I intended. DCDuring 16:39, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Re: When In Rome
Please see my talk page. --Neskaya talk 02:56, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Again, I just responded to you on my talk page. --Neskaya talk 06:04, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Muggle
This def.: A non-specialist; someone lacking a particular skill or ability. 2003, "There are too many flashing lights nowadays for a knight of the road...", in Nursing Standard, May 14, 2003 […] I have finally worked out that the word ECNALUBMA in back-to-front writing translates as 'get out of my way, you Muggle motorist'.

This seems more to be associated with the 1st def., which I believe should have the words "in the works of J.K. Rowling" removed, as it simply means non-magical person.

In muggle, def. 2, (skilled or specialized groups) a person who lacks a skill or is not a member of said group, could this be considered an "outsider", in your opinion? sewnmouthsecret 19:29, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm still trying to just get some quotes together for discussion and place them where they make prima facie sense. I haven't sorted much of anything out. I have gotten a little gun-shy on jumping to conclusions because I find I misinterpret/misread a lot. BTW, the Muggle page is looking a little sick on my browser right now. Two templates (rfd and en-noun) are off. I hope that some roll-back will eventually fix it. DCDuring 19:52, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

thanks for petit four help!
I thought that might be the case, thanks for clarifying.

toe rag
Umm... that's not the procedure we use for suspect definitions. Usually, we place either an or  tag on the page and list the word on the appropriate discussion page. In this case, you could use, which sits on an individual line which just one sense is in question. --EncycloPetey 00:33, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * If it had been a sense of "rag", I would have done exactly that as I have always done in the past. This was a purported sense of "rag" that was called on the senses line "toe rag". There is simply no way that it could stay in "rag", no matter what else would change. Are my efforts getting too aggressive generally? DCDuring 01:36, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * One problem is certainly that I was interrupted here before completing what I wanted to do, which was tag the new entry (although I had hesitated, recollecting that someone had been soundly berated for tagging their own entry). Sorry and thanks for reminding me. I might not have reviewed and caught the problem. Would it really have been better to leave a sense line for a different entry in rag? DCDuring 01:49, 4 December 2007 (UTC)


 * No, but you could have left it on the main entry page for toe rag. That's the usual place for it.  You're an experienced person here, so I thought I'd just drop off some ideas in passing.  I've often benefitted from notes left by people on my talk page and like to "share the wealth" as it were.  --EncycloPetey 05:30, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Plurals
Umm... you do know that the way you're formatting those new entries means that they won't be counted towards Wiktionary's page total, yes? Although the template will function fine the way you're using it, the software that counts the number of entries we have will not count a page with no wikilinks. It judges this by looking for the double square brackets around links, so with no such brackets on the pages you're adding, they won't count as "good" entries (it's dumb, but true). The way to rectify this is to place the wikilink brackets around the lemma form inside the template. The template is designed to be capable of handling this for this very reason. So, if you use then the entry won't add to our total, but if you use  then the entry will count. --EncycloPetey 03:25, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Now you tell me. Where is that writen ? Why doesn't the template default to put the brackets in? DCDuring 03:28, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * No idea, and it probably should. It hasn't been written down anywhere because, frankly, I don't know where to put it to be useful.  Instead I watch Recent changes and alert individuals who seem to create a lot of such entries. --EncycloPetey 04:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * I would guess that the same principle applies to verb inflections and comparatives of adverbs and adjectives, right? DCDuring 04:06, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, though I can't guarantee that all the "form of" templates have been set to accomodate wikilinks. I know all the major English ones have, but there may be some minor templates that haven't, particularly for other languages. --EncycloPetey 04:14, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

coms
Thanks for catching that, but it doesn't need to be deleted. It can just be switch to the "plural of com". --EncycloPetey 22:35, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Done DCDuring 22:39, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * No, you moved it to corns; I meant the coms antry could be corrected to be "plural of com" (communication). I've fixed both entries now. --EncycloPetey 22:42, 8 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Same eyesight problem, going to switch to next larger size type. DCDuring 22:43, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

admissability
Odd, dictionary.com doesn't show an entry for admissability at admissability. (I should check my big paper dictionary but it's at home and I'm not.) RJFJR 17:05, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The main entry in my print MW3 is at "admissibiity", so they agree with WP, g.b.c., et al. as to which is preferred. They tend to be very permissive. That's part of their value as an "authority": they are lax and they are particularly accommodating to US practice. Is "common misspelling" accurate? It isn't very common, relative to the correct spelling, though in absolute terms it is. If it is called alternative, it probably should be called US. Is the usage note good enough? I'm a little confused about what to do. I don't want this to turn into the battle of the "facades". This isn't a case of two equally good spellings (which is at least arguable in the "facade" case). One is better; the other one is acceptable (only?) in the US. What do you think ?DCDuring 17:37, 10 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm comfortable with either the the usage note or with marking it as a common misspelling. It may be more common in the US (perhaps because of pronounciation reasons).  RJFJR 18:21, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

rathole
FYI, I was still trying to work on rathole, but I'll let you do your thing and come back later. ENeville 19:13, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Feel free to add what you'd like. We have problems with spurious entries. I can see that at least 2 senses of the verb are readily verifiable. There is also a sense of "hoardng", which is close to the poker sense. The adjective seems obscure, but interesting. Good luck. Usage examples are good. Please don't take an RfV as much more than folks being interested in something that doesn't fit their experience (and might be vandalism). I can see that you are not a vandal. Welcome. DCDuring 19:26, 14 December 2007 (UTC)


 * No offense taken, I was just running into repeated edit conflicts. I was working on completing a (2-year old) transwiki of ratholing, BTW.  Looking at the citations on that page, I would agree with your doubt of the common acceptance of the two verb meanings currently flagged, as the source looks self-referential.  I didn't find a convenient online citation for "rathole tunnel" that meets Wiktionary specs, but the term does seem to be established, by my estimation (see rathole tunnel at Wikipedia).  Perhaps sources from the era of railways would be more useful.  Do review rathole & ratholing for form, if so inclined.  ENeville 20:58, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * P.S. Whoops, the two citations referred to only one meaning. Returned other to ratholing.

The adj. sense makes little sense to me. I find it hard to imagine how it would function as an adjective. What noun would it modify, "tunnel"? It may be that a noun sense should be expanded or added to include places other that residences. DCDuring 00:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I think you're right. Bad grammar on my part.  The entry should be "rathole tunnel". ENeville 00:27, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Abbreviation POS header
The standard, the way I understand it, is that we do not use the Phrase POS header when another does better; for example, if a phrase is a verb, then we list it as a Verb, not as a Phrase. I assume (though I haven't seen anyone say this) that the logic is as follows: It's obviously a phrase (count the number of words, and see that there's more than one), so use the Verb header to show that it's also a verb (which is not as obvious).


 * I couldn't agree more. I may have started on that program before I really knew the logic of it, but I don't think I've made too many serious mistakes in this area. DCDuring 23:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The same would seem to apply to Abbreviation. If something is an abbreviation, but also a noun, then we should list it as a Noun, and put in its definition line (or in its Etymology). That abbreviation info will suffice for people to know it's an abbreviation; and the Noun POS header will give the non-obvious info that readers need: this is almost completely analogous to the phrase case.

This is the way I've been doing it, and it seems the most reasonable way to me. What do you think?


 * It makes much more logical sense to me than inserting an abbreviation family template in the PoS position. I can't actually see the point of differentiating initialisms, acronyms, and abbreviations except for pronunciation and etymology purposes, which would place that info above the PoS line. I does clash with policy or practice, doesn't it? DCDuring 23:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

(The reason I'm writing you is that you made this change to Fx. The change you made removed from the page any indication that Fx is a noun: now readers have no way of knowing whether it's a noun, a verb, or both. Also, it added redundancy: the Abbreviation header is redundant for the template.)&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 21:02, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the problem is nearly universal with abbreviations. Isn't it? I thought I was following some standard practice. I really hadn't put any thought whatsoever into abbreviations. I have been more interested in idioms and dialect/popular/old-timey English, a la Damon Runyon, Bret Harte, Raymond Chandler, Mark Twain, et al., as well as more contemporary slang.


 * I see your logic. I'll look through my "contributions" to see whether I've perpetrated any more outrages of that type. {I'm sure that I've done other types of outrages.) I was just reading today the record of some of the discussions on PoS headers and noted the point made about abbreviation entries needing true PoS indications. I wasn't aware of how it ought to be done. Do you have an ideal model that is more or less consistent with policy the more firmly held practices? In particular, do you have any particular entry that I could view? I assume that you have reversed the change in accordance with your views within whatever policies have actually been set out and I will look at it. Are you thinking of making a proposal at BP or any other forum?

DCDuring 23:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I have not reversed the change, if you're referring to Fx: I didn't want to revert you without at least hearing you out first. As far as policy, I don't know if there's even a written-down policy on the Phrase header, let alone Abbreviation: WT:POS has no guidance about what POS header to use when there's a choice of two or more. Fine: I'm bringing it up in the BP (approximately simultaneously with posting this response).&mdash;msh210 &#x2120; 18:13, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

common collocations
DC, below is your comment from the rfv page, with the sample collocations internally linked. Actually, I may be even more of an inclusionist than you. I'd be pretty content to see every bloody one of them as a WT entry, except, I guess, "at work". All of the rest seem to me to have arguably more than sum-of-parts (and, in some cases, established technical or discipline-specific) meanings. -- WikiPedant 20:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * WPedant: I am curious as to whether there is any common collocation that you would exclude from Wikitionary and on what basis.  Examples: "cause and effect", "house of cards", "dawn of a new day", "all about", "global economy", "at work", "rise and fall", "paranoid delusions" . About all of these I can say that they are set phrases that I have heard many times. I'm quite sure that I could get numerous g.b.c. hits, let alone Google hits. "any time any place" E.g., BP, my talk page or here. DCDuring 20:11, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * So, you are an inclusionist, close to radical, I suppose. I believe that we ought to be able to make some strong assumptions about the rules of phrase contruction. Mere frequency of collocation would not warrant inclusion, IMHO. I even favor exclusion of phrases where the collocation represents a majority of use of one of the words, provided it is not an overwhelming majority of current use. But, I don't really object to other policies. I just wish that we had more explicit policies. I am also increasingly concerned about the low quality of some senses and the vast numbers of missing important senses for many words in the top 10,000. I worry that proliferation of phrases makes it harder to achieve high quality in those basic entries. DCDuring 21:50, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, inclusionists and Bolsheviks—two of a kind. Anyhow, I do agree that mere frequency is not a sufficient basis for inclusion. The meaning must warrant explication.  I agree too that many existing definitions need work, and I think we are all chipping away to get it done.  But that doesn't mean that worthwhile new entries, even of idioms, should not be created in the interim.  Addition of phrases is not automatically "proliferation" and the result is not automatically clutter.  Actually, I find that it is sometimes when adding an idiom that the basic terms which comprise it get my attention and I end up working on them too.  BTW, sorry, but you didn't seem to be asserting any proprietary interest so I just couldn't resist creating an entry for dawn of a new day. -- WikiPedant 22:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * As I look at the examples, I wouldn't bother with:


 * 1) global economy because it does not really mean very much at all.
 * 2) at work because it is too trivial.
 * 3) all about, triviality.

The others actually seem OK to me. It was honestly intended to provoke dialog and get some clarification, because your stated justification of mere commonness of collocation seemed unwarranted. I still don't think that "sickeningly sweet" is worth it, whereas sickly sweet does seem to warrant inclusion because the sense of "sickly" in this phrase is not common currently. I'm basically inclusionist, but I think that folks have to be expected to know how to make and interpret phrases. (I would apply the same to words. We need to have a very full set of English prefixes and suffixes! and an Appendix on English word morphology.) DCDuring 22:34, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

aborn
I think you're confusing yourself.

bear/bears/bearing/born (borne, yborn)

abear/abears/aborning/aborn (aborne)

And of course the meanings shift a bit with usage. His efforts died aborning. does not come from the efforts being "born" in the sense of childbirth, but born or borne in the sense of endurance, but is often thought of that way now.

("abeared"? Seriously? Ever heard "beared" for bear? Illiterately: I grinned and beared it.? No.) Robert Ullmann 18:25, 24 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I definitely was confusing myself. My MW3 doesn't have it inflected. The inflections before I visited the entry included abeared, not aborn. For bear, isn't it bears, bearing, bore, born? I couldn't find "aborn" in g.b.c. which really undermined my confidence. I hope you've cleaned it up. I'll visit again to take a look. I never cease to be amazed at how dealing with words consciously positively interferes with unconscious skill - like the proverbial centipede who was paralyzed after getting instruction in walking. Of course I haven't used any derivatives of abear knowingly, ever, and don't remember reading them, except for "died aborning". DCDuring 18:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

myrrh
Nice tidy-up. But is it really countable? I don't want to change it if I'm wrong ;-) - Algrif 17:48, 28 December 2007 (UTC)


 * 613 raw g.b.c. hits for myrrhs. More than I thought. That's a lot more than for some of our singular forms! I think that the issue really is that it is only in some forms of discourse that plurals are possible. People who study or sell myrrh or use it in some production process are much more likely to find that the plural is useful than just anyone. If you don't know much about myrrh, you won't see the need for a plural. But even a frequent user will find the need to compare different sorts of myrrh. I think this is an excellent model of the generic problem of claims of uncountability. In my efforts at WT, I have found some truly uncountable words or senses and some extremely rare plurals which I have labelled as "uncountable". But I have found many, many more nouns deemed uncountable, where the plural can be found in reasonable abundance at G.B.C. It may be that I need to devote my WT time to searching through all the uncountable nouns and define a sense (typically, a type of "myrrh") that is countable, modify en-noun, and insert the appropriate countable/uncountable tags at the sense level. What do you think? DCDuring 19:20, 28 December 2007 (UTC)