Wiktionary:Information desk/2015/November

Are there non-yearly holidays?
Not a linguistic question as such, but it is about categorising terms. Do all holidays or other observances, in all languages, occur once every year, or are there also ones that occur with a different frequency? —CodeCat 01:34, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, Leap Year Day is the first thing that comes to mind. I would think there would also be irregular observances based on astronomical events in some cultures that pay attention to such things (would you count a blue moon, for instance?). Then there are various one-time observations for such things as significant occurrences in the life of a monarch, significant anniversaries or events such as deaths, achievements, or honors. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:29, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * ? SemperBlotto (talk) 09:04, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Since the lunar calendar is 11 days shorter than the solar calendar, it's possible for a holiday that occurs annually in the lunar calendar to occur twice in the same Gregorian year. But that's probably not what you meant. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:47, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * No, that's still more or less yearly. —CodeCat 20:12, 8 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Some Jewish holidays that are not yearly: (weekly),  (monthly),  (every seven years). --WikiTiki89 15:36, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * And as for ... never mind. (-)
 * To some extent, it actually is a linguistic question. I've had people come to me and seriously posit that Shabbat can't be a "holiday", because it comes every week. But I think there are really plenty of counterexamples here already. StevenJ81 (talk) 21:54, 9 November 2015 (UTC)
 * There are festivals in Ancient Rome (, for instance) and in India celebrated more than once a year, though one could interpret them as groups made up of individual once-a-year festivals.The same goes for the two Eids in Islam. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:28, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

How to add alternate meaning and respective alternate etymology to word "argh"
I would like to edit the entry for "argh" to also show the middle English sense of "cowardly, lazy, slow, wretched", but I am not sure what the best practice implementation is. What is the correct way to add both an alternate etymology and a corresponding alternate meaning? Thanks! --Mavaddat (talk) 07:16, 10 November 2015 (UTC) in the end. --Dixtosa (talk) 19:38, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Careful. Make sure the SQL injection can't be exploited. --WikiTiki89 15:43, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Potestatemology - The study of power
I would like to suggest that a word be added to Wiktionary.

That word is "Potestatemology" which is the study of power.

It is comprised of the Latin root for 'power', which is "potestatem" and the suffix for study of "ology."

An example of usage would be:

Policy makers must study all the categories of Potestatemology when formulating strategies that deal with the motivations of terrorists; not just ideology and politics.

Potestatemology would include political science, ideology and the psychology of power (to name a few).
 * We are not interested in invented words. Feel free to use the word yourself. If it catches on and other people find it useful then it will get into print (or even into blogs) - then, and only then, will we include it. SemperBlotto (talk) 08:36, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Replacing a conjugation table and associated links
Hello, everyone!

I noticed that the conjugation table for the verb entreter in Portuguese is wrong (since it's not a regular verb, but an irregular verb conjugated like ter) and I'd like to change it. If I do just that, will the links that were previously created for the non-existent verb forms disappear from Wiktionary too (for example, "entreto", which should be "entretenho")? Is there any way to undo this issue or to delete those pages later? Thank you in advance. Luisftd (talk) 21:34, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
 * I’ve amended the entry and tagged the nonstandard forms as such (they do exist). — Ungoliant (falai) 21:54, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

Need help figuring out what replaced Template:Obsolete for obsolete words
I searched Beer parlour and gather that it used to exist. What replaced it? Thanks. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:22, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It was replaced by a generic template for all context labels: (or  for short). Used like this: . Also, keep in mind that on Wiktionary, template names are case-sensitive even on the first character. --WikiTiki89 02:13, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Adding lots of Nyunga words
Hi all,

I'm a bit new around here. I spend most of my time on Wikisource, only coming over to Wiktionary to add words or citations that garner my notice in some way. But now I have fallen in with a new crowd: a group of academics, Wikimedians, and others who are working to add material to Wikimedia projects relating to Noongar culture and language. The first idea was to work towards creating a Wikipedia in Nyunga language (oh, um, yes: there are various spellings for this), but then the first part of that comes to be figuring out a dictionary of the language. Thus, hullo to Wiktionary! :-)

Basically, there are a bunch of wordlists available, that have been recorded over the last 180 years or so, and we're adding those that we can to Wikisource. There are also a bunch that are more modern, which can serve as source material but of course cannot be made available verbatim online. I've got a bunch of questions about using oral histories as sources... :-) Anyway, I've taken some of these sources and tried to produce Wiktionary entries from them.

The results, and various other notes, are at User:Samwilson/Noongarpedia. I'd love anyone's feedback there.

Thanks! :-) &mdash; Sam Wilson ( Talk &bull; Contribs ) &hellip; 10:54, 22 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi Sam! I recommend that you take a look at our WT:Criteria for inclusion, especially the section WT:CFI. Note that Noongar will certainly not be considered a "language well documented on the Internet", and thus will not be subject to our stricter requirements for such languages. --WikiTiki89 19:07, 22 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Yes, certainly not a well-documented language, and it's hard to find actual citations (i.e. that aren't just part of word lists; although some of them give short usage examples). I wasn't quite sure if the LDL template should be added to every Nyunga entry; should it? There's also going to be a fair bit of cleaning up of these entry templates I've made, especially with regard to alternate spellings. Thanks for your help! &mdash; Sam Wilson ( Talk &bull; Contribs ) &hellip; 23:43, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, it should. You may find that entries that should have actually don't have it, but they all should have it. --WikiTiki89 15:37, 23 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Ah cool, thanks. I'll update all existing ones with, and add it to the text of the new entries. &mdash; Sam Wilson ( Talk &bull; Contribs ) &hellip; 23:44, 23 November 2015 (UTC)

I and J in German fraktur
In some German frakturs I and J have the same shape. In many cases, especially in case of German words, it's clear what's the correct letter. But what's with e.g. Iambos/Jambos (alternative form of Jambus, meaning iambus, iamb)? In some older or newer books maybe antiqua is used for that, so it's clear which form they use, but it could be that it was earlier Jambos (-os is a common Latin ending) and nowadays Iambos (making it more Greekish - such forms are usually less common). So, are such sources which use one character for I and J ignored as it's not clear whether it's I or J? Or is it ℑ𝔞𝔪𝔟𝔬𝔰 (well, there's 𝔍 too...)? -84.161.40.96 12:55, 22 November 2015 (UTC)


 * If no clues exist to suggest whether a letter is I or J, I would interpret it as whichever of the two German uses now. In this case, in addition to the fact that the word is now spelled with J, we have one strong and one weaker clue that the ambiguous glyph is J. The weaker clue is that several books which otherwise use Fraktur set some or all instances of the word in Antiqua, and use J:
 * 1642, Johann Peter Titz, Zwey Bücher von der Kunst hochdeutsche Verse und Lieder zu machen, chapter 10:
 * ... das erſte Glied des Verſes vor dem Abſchritt einerley / und das ander nach dem Abſchritt auch einerleyPedesbegreiffet. So helt infolgenden das erſte theil [sic]dreyJambos, das ander ſo vielTrochæos.
 * 1827, Gesammelte Werke der Brüder Christian und Friedrich Leopold Grafen zu Stolberg, volume 17, part 1:
 * [uses the same character for ?ambos, ?iamben, Insel, and Jahr, but then it has in Antiqua Archilochum proprio rabies armavit Jambo]
 * The strong clue is that numerous Fraktur books which use ?ambos also use jambisch(e) and none use iambisch(e). In contrast, all but one of the handful of books which turns up are Antiqua. Many books use ?ambos in contexts that suggest J is meant, and only one uses it in a context that suggests I is meant. Therefore, it is safe to conclude that ?ambos is Jambos.
 * If the only attestations of a word provide no clues as to whether I or J is meant (the word died out without ever being spelled in Antiqua), it may be appropriate to have two entries (one a hard or soft redirect to the other), as is done for ח𐰂𐰵𐰆𐰺𐰇𐰢/𐰸𐰵𐰆𐰺𐰇𐰢 and ᚅᚓᚆᚆᚈᚑᚅᚅ/ᚅᚓᚆᚆᚈᚑᚅᚄ.
 * - -sche (discuss) 03:40, 23 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Thanks, -sche. (BTW: Fraktur "Jambos" and "iambisch" can be found too, as in books.google.de/books?id=zGeTciCzC6IC&pg=PA290, so one could assume that it is "Iambos" there.) -84.161.37.161 18:19, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Simply adding a reference to the use of a word.
Reading an old book I have found a word I did not know the meaning of. Wiktionary has the word with no description but one reference to its use. I have found a use of it from 1582. Without spending hours learning all about Wiktionary, how do I simply post a reference to the source I have come across? I don't want a lesson, just the simple steps. I am not in possession of the standard of English required to be an enthusiastic contributor.Hawley1560 (talk)
 * Your English sounds like that of a native, so I wouldn't be worried about being unable to be a good contributor if I were you. If this book has an example of the word being used, you can can add it as a quotation (our guidelines on that are at WT:Quotations, and if those seem too confusing, you can type it up here and I'll show you how to format it on the actual entry. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:22, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for that. The word was 'lurden' and I have now posted the citation.Hawley1560 (talk)

Bear, Endure, Suffer
I could be quite wrong, but, shouldn't "bear" have the synonym "endure", as in "I cannot bear (endure)this pain"? Thank you. John Smith
 * I think this is covered by sense 6 of . —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:54, 26 November 2015 (UTC)

"Peace" in various dialects of Arabic
How do you write "peace" in the below dialects of Arabic?

Levantine Mesopotamian Kurmanji Armenian Syrian Turkmen (Azeri) Modern Standard Arabic

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!
 * Half of those aren't dialects of Arabic: Kurmanji is an Indo-European language distantly related to Persian, Armenian is its own branch of the Indo-European languages, Turkmen and Azeri are separate Turkic languages. Armenian, especially, has very little in common with Arabic: the Armenians are Christian, and have a history going back thousands of years. It's been strongly influenced by Persian languages and Turkish, but most of its contact with Arabic has been second-hand through other non-Arabic languages such as the above. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:32, 28 November 2015 (UTC)

Entries in En that exist as En entries, though the term is Non-En only, for the glyphs from which the term is spellt are non-Latin Alphabetic.
My SELF that was difficult to express acumenical of English grammar.

I hapt upon this entry:

//сущий

And as I am not from here, and current kings English not a fortes of mine ist, wouldst thee, and so after your kind, exeth (plain as possible shall be allowed to depossit plaineity) plaineity to me you what, is act ive if not for Shakespeare's notæ (shuns). Shun ye not?
 * сущий is correctly labeled as Russian. We have entries for terms in many languages, not just English, defined and described in English for English speakers. There are Wiktionaries in many other languages. Each one defines and describes terms of many languages in its own language. If there's a Wiktionary in your own language, you might want to participate there. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:18, 29 November 2015 (UTC)