Wiktionary:Information desk/2016/July

Offline mobile Wiktionary client
WiktionaryMobile seems dead as a doornail. Not sure that it ever supported offline access anyway. I'm starting a React Native project. If anyone knows of an existing project of this sort, lemme know so I can stop trying to write it.
 * This app is really good but only supports several languages. --Dixtosa (talk) 11:40, 7 July 2016 (UTC)

Why is pronunciation of "discharge" hidden?
Why is the pronunciation in the discharge entry hidden? Is this normal? --Greek Fellows (talk) 13:45, 3 July 2016 (UTC)


 * No, it is not usual. DCDuring did that back in 2008, thus. I don’t know why he did it. I don’t see a reason for it. —Stephen (Talk) 14:18, 3 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Probably because there are a lot of lines so it takes a while to read down to the definition, which is the most useful part. Equinox ◑ 14:31, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
 * As there was an audio file present, which suits most normal users, I demoted the 6 line IPA, useless for normal users. I think that registered users can set such a thing to be open by default in CSS or JS, though I am not the one to do it. DCDuring TALK 15:06, 3 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Except that the audio file is valid only for the noun, not the verb. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:40, 3 July 2016 (UTC)

The symbols in our logo
Hey. It'd be cool to know the symbols of this logo. Could someone make a list of them here, or perhaps put them in a better place? --Turnedlessef (talk) 22:05, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * They are: シ, श, 말, λ, W, ش, Ж, 维, ש. Wyang (talk) 22:15, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I wonder why there are so many /ʃ/-like sounds in this set. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:26, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The Semitic ones, at least, are related. —CodeCat 22:26, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I know; but in addition to the Arabic and Hebrew, the katakana represents /ʃi/, the Devanagari represents /ɕ/, and the Cyrillic represents /ʒ/ (or /ʃ/ word-finally). I feel like this can't be a coincidence. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 22:31, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The Cyrillic letter for /ʃ/ is actually related to the Semitic ones, so it's strange that they didn't pick it instead. —CodeCat 22:32, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * The letters are from the "tiles" logo that User:Smurrayinchester designed. Maybe they remember why they chose them. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:25, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * It was a long time ago (and in all honesty I've come to hate that logo. I was horribly naïve when I designed it - I was for instance blissfully unaware that shi is considered unlucky in Japanese). By and large I selected letters from translations of Wiktionary - original plan was to just take the first letter for Wiktionary in each alphabet, but in both Cyrillic and Greek that was В/Β which is aesthetically unpleasing. So we have lambda from λεξικό (side note - I really should have used capital Λ), श from शब्दकोश. I probably picked 말 because that's a character from 위키낱말사전 and it means word. The 维 is a nice one - first character in 维基词典, has a /w/ sound, and it also means "net" or "connect". I haven't a clue where Ж, ش or ש came from. I might have taken them from transliterations of "Wiktionary" (I think the list I was working from was a mess, and mixed transliterations and translations together) - I took the first letter that followed the "Wiki" part, mistakenly believing that meant "dictionary". Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:30, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing Ж, ش and ש were chosen for their visual similarity to W. --WikiTiki89 15:01, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

disambiguating a translation gloss
In checking out my guess about the meaning and ancestry of Spanish ahumar, I saw that the English gloss for the reconstructed Vulgar Latin etymon, affumo, was very misleading:


 * I smoke.
 * I smoke.
 * I smoke.

Of course, in English by far the commonest meaning of to smoke refers to tobacco or other burning material: and I smoke is normally meant and understood as meaning "I habitually inhale and exhale tobacco smoke" (or, these days, the vapor of e-cigs, which are now being mentioned on NO SMOKING signs).
 * 1)  To inhale and exhale the smoke from a burning cigarette, cigar, pipe, etc.
 * 2)  To inhale and exhale tobacco smoke.

I don't edit Wiktionary much, and I didn't know how to fix this problem, and a search for things like "ambiguous definition" didn't pan out. Fortunately, I found a model in ahumar. Would someone more experienced than I please check Reconstruction:Latin/affumo to make sure I've done it properly? Thank you.

To discuss... mmm, is there an interwiki version of Wiktionary ping or Wikipedia Template:ping? I log in to WP every day and see any notifications to wikipedia:User:thnidu, but I don't know how to forward such from Wikt to WP. --Thnidu (talk) 04:31, 9 July 2016 (UTC)

Remove the spine of
Came up while proof reading something. I feel like there ought to be an English word for this, but I can't find one. Expinate/exspinate, despine and unspine all looks plausible but come up as red links. Renard Migrant (talk) 22:27, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
 * "exspinate" and "unspine" aren't attestable, "despine" exists but is used to refer to removing the spines of plants. spinalize means to surgically separate the spine from the brain. DTLHS (talk) 22:44, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
 * And of course there's debone but that's not specific to the spine. DTLHS (talk) 22:47, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
 * And vertebrectomy for removal of a single vertebra. DTLHS (talk) 22:56, 12 July 2016 (UTC)
 * "spinectomy" gets a few hits. DTLHS (talk) 23:02, 12 July 2016 (UTC)


 * Removing the spine of a book is (more or less) unbinding, since it's what holds the pages together... Equinox ◑ 23:35, 12 July 2016 (UTC)


 * The closest I can come up with is pith. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:24, 13 July 2016 (UTC)

Colons in Wikipaedia Double Bracket Link Syntax
What is the difference between  and  ? I am finding the latter in about 3% of the cases where I would expect the former (37 times in Ancient Greek), and while it seems to have the same effect, I am unsure that it doesn't have a different intent. An example of the latter is:  in Αἴγυπτος; normally one sees:  , as in μάγος. My understanding, from Help:Interwiki_linking, is that this syntax is used for inter-Wiktionary links; I cannot find an explanation of a use for Wikipaedia links. Thanks, Isomorphyc (talk) 15:26, 15 July 2016 (UTC)


 * In the case of Wikipedia links, I don’t think it makes any difference. In some other cases, such as Category:Spanish language, and es:solo, the initial colon forces the link to appear inline (in the text), rather than in the left margin (link to wiktionaries in other languages) or at the foot of the page (normal place for categories). —Stephen (Talk) 10:58, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

How many exact entries?
This has probably been asked before, but I can't find the question in the FAQ. I know that the main page says the amount of actual pages, but is there a way to see how many entries there are (as in, total amount of L2s)? Philmonte101 (talk) 08:42, 17 July 2016 (UTC)
 * WT:STATS —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 08:43, 17 July 2016 (UTC)

Special link syntax
Not exactly new but I've always wondered about this. Is there a concise list of all the special link syntax Wiktionary has? There seems to be a lot of magic syntax like  that Wikipedia doesn't have. I'm not looking for a tutorial, just an overview/appendix if one exists. Thanks! Wing gundam (talk) 17:28, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
 * It's basically just and . The former is used in running text, the latter in lists. You can look at the documentation of these templates for details about all the features they support. --WikiTiki89 17:38, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Also for translation tables. Many other templates build upon the basic linking capabilities of  and, such as  and . —CodeCat 17:59, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

Using the most common definitions first
Recenty while perusing the page for STD, I found a lesser-used meaning of the word being put in as definition 1. Why don't we sort word definitions by common usage not history of use? Also, why are there usage parentheses used beside the term even tho its main definition is the same in both the serious field of pathology and common speaking?


 * There is an unsolved argument here on Wiktionary on whether we should order definitions chronologically or by frequency. Since there is no consensus, it's up to the editors. However, that also means that you can't go around enforcing your own point of view on existing entries. --WikiTiki89 19:11, 18 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I would be in favor of ordering by frequency except that it's essentially impossible to quantify objectively. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:22, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

How to handle terms derived from non-lemma forms?
Occasionally you come across terms derived from a non-lemma form, often a participle. How should such cases be handled? Should we list such derivations at the lemma entry or at the non-lemma that the term actually derived from? What should the etymology of the derived term say? For example, is derived from, which is the present participle of. —CodeCat 00:01, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I think the etymology should definitely list the form the word is actually derived from. Whether it should also list the lemma is open to debate, but I think that's the best solution as well. What I've done before as well is written something like "from such-and-such, a whatever-form of such-and-such a lemma, [which is] from...." I think that is ideal, except when the lemma has a separate etymology from the form in question. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:05, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
 * And where should it be listed as a derived term, on or ? —CodeCat 01:11, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
 * off-topic: there's a module error in - -sche (discuss) 03:38, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I would think derived terms could just go at the lemma, unless they have different etymologies. I wouldn't protest against doing it the other way, however. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 05:36, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Participles behave like lemmas in a lot of ways, including being fully inflectable in a lot of languages. I wouldn't object to having a ====Derived terms==== section simply because it's a participle. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:15, 27 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I usually list it in both places (lemma and non-lemma) under derived terms. --Panda10 (talk) 13:14, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Etymologies for non-lemma forms
Now, for English, for example, I've seen etymologies for some of the more irregular inflections of verbs or nouns, etc. But, is it against the rules or something to add:

===Etymology===

From

at watchlists? Or is it just technically allowed and no one actually takes the time to do it? (not asking just about English, but for all languages with non-lemma forms) Philmonte101 (talk) 13:13, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I think non-lemmas should not have etymologies, even if irregular. The irregularity should be explained on the lemma page, where all the inflections are listed. —CodeCat 13:30, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * I have little opinion on whether etymologies should or shouldn't be in entries for inflected forms. However, is there a rule somewhere that says that non-lemmas can't have etymologies? Philmonte101 (talk) 13:40, 31 July 2016 (UTC)
 * Not a hard-and-fast rule, but having etymologies for predicable inflectional forms is generally nothing but clutter- especially since it populates affix categories that are best not used for this (for -s it would be the equivalent of "English third-person singular verbs and some possessive or plural nouns", and for other present-tense forms you only have the lack of an affix). It's been debated already whether having an etymology for a suppletive form that has a different etymology from the lemma is a good idea, with some opposed. What you're asking about would probably be universally disliked, with only the difficulty of formulating and voting on a rule against it being the only reason there isn't one (that and the assumption that people should have the sense not to do it, rule or not). Chuck Entz (talk) 15:05, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

predestination
Predestination is taken over by religion? why not cause and effect being the same?
 * It mostly comes up in a religious context. Do you have some citations that show it in other contexts? DCDuring TALK 09:57, 1 August 2016 (UTC)