Wiktionary:Information desk/2016/October

"Proverb" POS at Wiktionary
How exactly is "proverb" a part of speech? PseudoSkull (talk) 17:37, 1 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Hmm, good point! Maybe they should go under Phrase (also not a PoS, but the best descriptor we have for full sentences)? Equinox ◑ 17:43, 1 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I have always thought it odd that we listed "Proverb" as a part of speech separate from that of "Phrase", so I agree. I can understand why "Phrase" is a header here. I was just wondering if there was a good reason we did before I brought it up in BP. (BTW, I am not opposed to keeping Category:English proverbs or having "proverb" as an input in Template:lb) PseudoSkull (talk) 17:59, 1 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I also would like to know why the cake is a lie is listed as a proverb. That phrase only refers to certain circumstances (in this case, it refers those circumstances that have hopeless rewards, but not everything has a hopeless reward.) PseudoSkull (talk) 18:01, 1 October 2016 (UTC)


 * A lot of proverbs (I'd say most) are only applicable to certain circumstances. Equinox ◑ 16:25, 30 October 2016 (UTC)


 * While we're talking about proverbs, I would like to say that in my opinion proverbs should always have non-gloss definitions that explain when they are used rather than a "gloss definition" that tries to restate its meaning. --WikiTiki89 17:28, 5 October 2016 (UTC)


 * For example...? Equinox ◑ 08:58, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I think gloss definitions for proverbs are usually fine: proverbs can usually be defined in a way that makes the definitions approximately substitutable. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:03, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

How to have a link to a category without categorizing the page that links
Recently I added the categories for several of the categories like: " " to my page, so I would have links to them. But then my userpage User:Bcent1234 was categorized which was not my intent. I'm curious how to put a link to a category without categorizing. I know how to use the wiki/nowiki tags to just put a mention on my page. I'm going to try putting the full URL and see if that fixes my issue. Bcent1234 (talk) 14:07, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Write out colon Category:name where " colon " is replaced with ":". —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:08, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks ! I am not deleting this question, in case someone else needs the same thing I needed. Bcent1234 (talk) 14:18, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * You can use the  tags in your examples so that you can type out the actual example without it being parsed by the wiki.  For example  . - TheDaveRoss 14:22, 3 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Of course. I thought of that and then considered my method easier to understand but I am clearly wrong. Thanks. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 14:29, 3 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Of course you should pretty much never delete questions, but you should post them to the right place to begin with. If you just have a question asking how to do something, the Information Desk is the right place. The Beer Parlour is like the Supreme Court, in that it needs to be an important matter that affects everyone. --WikiTiki89 18:26, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
 * thank you for moving this for me Bcent1234 (talk) 02:02, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

parsing problem
I cannot make sense out of this sentence: "One pet peeve self have as an English major student is accents". Some help please? --Fsojic (talk) 17:54, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * It looks as if "self" is the subject of the subordinate sentence, and that "have" is its verb. —CodeCat 18:03, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * So I could (poorly) rephrase it as: "One personal dislike I have, in my quality of English major student, is accents"? But why is the verb "have" and not "has"? Wouldn't "self" require that "have" be conjugated in the third person singular? --Fsojic (talk) 18:12, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * You can't generally use "self" like this anyway: it might be somebody's idiolectal made-up pronoun. Equinox ◑ 19:18, 4 October 2016 (UTC)
 * It doesn't look like grammatical English to me, but it would be okay if "I" were substituted for "self" and a hyphen added between "English" and "major" (the latter is a subtlety that many native speakers miss). Or one could leave out "student", since an "English major" is (or was at one time) necessarily a student. If "English major" isn't modifying a noun such as "student", one doesn't use a hyphen. It's not a very good sentence, either way- someone must have been trying to illustrate something from an earlier discussion. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:17, 5 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I think "self" is literally replacing "I" (in the speaker's non-standard idiolect): you say "I have", not "I has", so that's why he/she has preserved the verb form. Since "I" isn't gendered in English anyway, I can't imagine why. Equinox ◑ 19:33, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

(pejorative) fearless
Is there a word that means ‘fearless to the point of being unreasonable’? The closest that I can think of is careless. — ((( Romanophile ))) ♞ (contributions) 19:38, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * , ? Leasnam (talk) 19:40, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * implies no fear of restraint, as in: unafraid to say what you mean Leasnam (talk) 19:44, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * maybe? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:17, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * ? — JohnC5 03:17, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

Asheville Wiki-edit-a-thon
Hello, I am looking into hosting a Wiki-edit-a-thon and would like to know if there is anyone in the Asheville NC area who may want to participate/advise. Thank you.


 * You may get a better answer if you ask at w:Wikipedia:Help desk. —Stephen (Talk) 11:31, 8 October 2016 (UTC)

surface etymology
Is the surface etymology of  + ? PseudoSkull (talk) 22:32, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Actually, the etymology in that section was entirely a joke. I just wanted to see if anyone would catch it. PseudoSkull (talk) 23:27, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Your def is actually a bit puzzling. "The closest origin of a term": the closest to what? Equinox ◑ 22:41, 7 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I guess the closest compared to the other terms in other languages that the word could come from. For instance "Used before 1325 as erthen, from eorthene, presumably from Middle English erthe, eorthe ("earth").[1] Surface etymology: earth + -en." PseudoSkull (talk) 23:27, 7 October 2016 (UTC)

book rendering failed
hi there, I have just tried to download one page as a PDF file, but it failed. It is written "book rendering failed. There was an error while attempting to render your book". Is it problem of my PC, or rather of the programme itself?


 * I doubt that anyone here would know, but my guess is that it is probably your Adobe Acrobat program, or some Windows setting related to it. See if someone else answers with a better idea. —Stephen (Talk) 11:24, 8 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Where/how are you downloading this page exactly? Equinox ◑ 11:27, 8 October 2016 (UTC)


 * "download as PDF on the left side of the site (print/export->download as pdf". it works on wikipedia, it works eg. on french wiktionary, it does not work here


 * I get the error too. This happens before any PDF is offered for download, so there must be a problem with our wiki... Equinox ◑ 16:27, 8 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Ok, I get it. Thanks for checking it out.


 * I'm now creating a discussion at WT:GP in anyone knows the what technical problem is. Equinox ◑ 08:54, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Where does the h come from?
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Celtic/Rounos

I checked the original Welsh texts (such as the triads) that mention Rhun, and it's definitely given as Run. So where did the h come from? UtherPendrogn (talk) 16:42, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Rh is a specifically Welsh development of word-initial r-, though I'm not sure of the details. The same development also happened to initial l-, giving the lateral fricative spelled ll. —CodeCat 17:53, 8 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Right, Welsh underwent devoicing of liquids in word-initial position, so /r/ became /r̥/ and /l/ became /l̥/, which became /ɬ/. Devoicing is a kind of fortition, and fortition of sonorants in word-initial position is really common in Insular Celtic. Other examples are /w/ → /ɡw/ in Brythonic, /w/ → /w̥/ → /f/ in Old Irish, and /n l r/ → /n͈ l͈ r͈/ in Old Irish. There was fortition of word-initial /j/ in Romance languages too, first to /dʒ/ as still in Italian (e.g. ), then to /ʒ/ as still in Romanian, French and Portuguese, then to /ʃ/ → /x/ (→ /h/) in Spanish . —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:38, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Fun fact for Angr: Italian isn't the only one to retain /dʒ/, Valencian Catalan does too. See . —CodeCat 17:53, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, cool. It wasn't mean to be an exhaustive list, just a representative sampling of the "big five". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:46, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Yeah I figured as much. It was just a random fact in case you didn't know and would find it interesting. —CodeCat 20:52, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I guess it's /dʑ/ in Romansh, and Franco-Provençal language suggests it's /dj/ in FP. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:22, 10 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The same spelling shift happened to a lot of Welsh names. The Dictionary of Medieval Names from European Sources (http://dmnes.org/name/Rhys) doesn't have any Rh- spellings of Rhys before 1600, it's always R-. JulieKahan (talk) 12:03, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Sicilian resources
Currently taking an interest in Sicilian due to one of my acquaintances speaking it.

Does anybody know some good resources for learning Sicilian words? They can be in Sicilian and any other language. — ((( Romanophile ))) ♞ (contributions) 21:07, 9 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Sicilian Wiktionary exists (scn.wiktionary.org). SemperBlotto (talk) 04:39, 10 October 2016 (UTC)


 * You could try this online course. I have not used it, but I think it's free. —Stephen (Talk) 12:19, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

SVG Sumerograms
Is there any way someone could generate SVG images of the Unicoded Sumerograms, preferably to submit to Wikimedia Commons? This is unfortunately above my level of technical expertise. Right now, I can display Sumerograms as Unicoded text (e.g. "victory:" &, ), but I would like to have them also as individual SVG files. The (free/copylefted) Pennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary has them available as PNG images, but SVG would be a lot better, since then they can be scaled to any size without loss of image quality. I wasn't sure whether to post this here or on Wikimedia Commons, so feel free to move this post to another wiki if you think it is appropriate. Having SVG files available for Sumerograms on Wikimedia Commons though would definitely benefit Wiktionary, so that image files can be added for cuneiform entries, since not all browsers support cuneiform Unicode. SVGs are also smaller and quicker to load compared to raster graphics. Nicole Sharp (talk) 10:12, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Frequency Ranges
For my opinion the definition of following frequency ranges in Wiktionary is partly WRONG nor not defined:

3 Hz - 30 Hz		ULF	 - Ultra Low Frequency	WRONG - Wiktionary: The band of radio waves between 300 hertz and 3000 hertz. 30 Hz - 300 Hz		ELF	 - Extremely Low F.	WRONG - Wiktionary: The band of radio frequencies from 3 to 30 hertz 300 Hz - 3 kHz		VF	 - Voice F. 		Wiktionary: No entry 3 kHz - 30 kHz		VLF	 - Very Low F.         Wiktionary: No entry 30 kHz - 300 kHz	LF	 - Low F.              Wiktionary: No entry 300 kHz - 3 MHz		MF	 - Medium F.           Wiktionary: No entry 3 MHz - 30 MHz		HF	 - High F.             OK - Wiktionary: The frequency area from 3 MHz through 30 MHz 30 MHz - 300 MHz	VHF	 - Very High F.        OK - Wiktionary: The frequency area from 30 MHz through 300 MHz 300 MHz - 3 GHz        UHF      - Ultra High F.        OK - Wiktionary: The frequency area from 300 MHz through 3 GHz 3 GHz - 30 GHz		SHF	 - Super High F.       OK - Wiktionary: The frequency area from 3 GHz through 30 GHz


 * OK? —CodeCat 12:42, 11 October 2016 (UTC)
 * The definitions depend on what country you are in. Plus some of them overlap.  The electromagnetic spectrum can be fairly arbitrary, e.g. microwaves can be the same frequency as radio waves and x-rays can be the same frequency as gamma rays.  Which terms are used is usually based on context.
 * "radio spectrum"
 * "Commons:file:Frq_Band_Comparison.png"
 * Nicole Sharp (talk) 13:13, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Category:Westrobothnian_lemmas - Our idiosyncrasy?
The fanciful orthography seems to be confined to Wiktionary. , where's it from? Korn &#91;kʰũːɘ̃n&#93; (talk) 14:23, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm developing it based on traditional Scandianvian orthographies. Compare Faroese orthography. Have you checked out Category:Gutnish_lemmas, Category:Scanian_lemmas and Category:Jamtish_lemmas as well? Maybe Category:Norn_lemmas? They also need attention. — Knyȝt (talk) 16:03, 5 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Gutnish entries are from and Scanian from . --80.63.3.167 19:47, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

Unpickable word in a Youtube video
What does he say at 0:30 ("have you ever been [ ] based on the accent you have?")? --Fsojic (talk) 11:47, 14 October 2016 (UTC)


 * stereotyped. --WikiTiki89 12:42, 14 October 2016 (UTC)
 * F*ck, that seems obvious now, even to my French ears... --Fsojic (talk) 13:23, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Wrong transcription
Hi all, In Template:list:planets of the Solar System/el, all the modern Greek names of planets are corrected transcribed except Neptune's: indeed, "Ποσειδώνας" is transcribed as "Poseidónas", while it should be "Posidónas" (to be coherent with the others, or even "Posidhónas"), since "ει" is pronounced as /i/ in Modern Greek. Could someone please correct it? Thank you in advance. Best regards. SenseiAC (talk) 03:36, 22 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I would prefer your method for Modern Greek, but we do it differently. We transliterate each individual letter as though it were separate. Therefore, "ει" is "ei", "μπ" is "mp", and "ντ" is "nt". It seems useless to me, but there it is. —Stephen (Talk) 05:22, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Stephen : but you also transliterates "eta" as "i", i.e. in the same way as "iota". This is therefore not even a transliteration, since a transliteration supposes a one-to-one correspondance. This a nonsense mixture between transcription (~sounds) and transliteration (1-to-1 letter correspondance). Choose one or the other, but at least choose something that is logical. SenseiAC (talk) 12:10, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Transliteration can be done in two basic ways: manual and automatic. Only recently have we developed modules for the various scripts that will handle automated transliteration (Module:el-translit and Module:grc-translit). You can test it out using :, , , , , , , , . Note: I now see that there has been a change since we started using the language modules ... when we were doing manual transliteration, "μπ" was "mp", and "ντ" was "nt". That has changed now.
 * For Ancient Greek, we get this:, , , , , , , , —Stephen (Talk) 12:38, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Stephen, your comment confirms what as said: for Modern Greek, we have an incoherent mixture between transcription ("μπ" as "b", "ντ" as "d", "ή" as "í") and transliteration ("ει" as "ei" and "οι" as "oi", while both are pronounced "i", and "αι" as "ai", while pronounced "e"). At least, for Ancient Greek, it's fully a transliteration. SenseiAC (talk) 10:08, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree, this inconsistency for Modern Greek has bugged me as well. --WikiTiki89 13:43, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * It appears to me that the Modern Greek module had almost no input from Greek editors (that being User:Saltmarsh). I think you should discuss this with them at Module talk:el-translit. —Stephen (Talk) 14:43, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

The current table of Greek transliteration explains the rationale used - these values were a "best fit" from the various professionals' values shown in the Greek transliteration/Old table. There seemed no reason why we should depart from the system used by library cataloguers etc. It is transliteration with only a nod towards consonant pronunciation (μπ > b). — Saltmarsh συζήτηση-talk 18:04, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I don't think that's a good enough reason; I'd much prefer that we be rigorous, even if that makes us depart from tradition. Wiktionary is a linguistic work. Btw, I'm mentioning this discussion in the talkpage of "Wiktionary:About Greek" --Fsojic (talk) 12:51, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I went through with it and edited the module myself. Now it should probably be rewritten (something which I'm incapable of), since it was written to accommodate transcription features. --Fsojic (talk) 18:30, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * However I don't know why αβερνίκωτος is still transliterated as "averníkotos". There are probably many such mistakes, because I don't know how it works --Fsojic (talk) 18:45, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * How else would you transcribe it? Modern Greek β is always /v/, isn't it? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:42, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
 * He was referring to the omega. I just checked and Fsojic's version of the module would have worked correctly, transliterating it as "averníkōtos". It's probably that the page's cache wasn't updated. Anyway, the change to the module has been reverted because the Greek editors have not consented to it. --WikiTiki89 20:16, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Inflected form from an uncertain lemma: 𐌰𐌸𐌽𐌰𐌼
I've based the entry format on ᛗᚨᚷᚢ, treating it as a lemma with a qualifier clarifying that it is inflected, but this seems odd to me. Another format I tried is as a form listing both lemmata it might derive from, but that wasn't all too pretty either imho. By the way, does anyone know what the actual PIE etymon was? The Proto-Germanic page lists one spelling, the etymology section of its cognate lists another, and the Proto-Italic entry uses yet another spelling. — Kleio (t · c) 19:02, 22 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I feel like what it boils down is simply that we don't know whether it was masculine or neuter. Can't we just leave it at that? —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:39, 23 October 2016 (UTC)
 * But that doesn't really answer the question of how to format the Gothic entry..? — Kleio (t · c) 17:04, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Cab Calloway nonce
There's a curious phrase or what sounds like a long word at the end of Jitterbug:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfVvUwkMPbY

It sounds something like "alphadicansomlidiplomaneae", but I can't find any reference to a spelling, let alone what it means. Anyone have ideas? DAVilla 10:39, 23 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I hear isodipinsomnidipsomaniae, i.e. alcoholism with lack of sleep. Equinox ◑ 11:26, 23 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Cool, thanks! DAVilla 00:57, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Link to synonyms verbs with 'suru' in Japanese
Hello to all.

I'd like to know if there is a way to link the 'suru' forms of Japanese verbs to its synonyms since they are along with noun and adjectival nouns forms in their pages, and not each with their own page. Normally the verbs have a link but in this case 'verb'+'suru' is not considered one word only, having each word its own link.

I'm editing 生き返る page and it has 復活する (which is on the 復活 page) as one of its synonyms, but I can't link it because I don't know if there's some formatting option to do this to 復活 page... To clarify you could check the page I'm editing, of course.

I've found some related talk in archive but it didn't help. Someone could shed some light on this? Thanks in advance. Cpt.Guapo (talk) 03:32, 28 October 2016 (UTC)


 * : . —suzukaze (t・c) 02:45, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

I see what you did, suzukaze, but there isn't a way to make the link goes directly to verb section, like it's done when we pointing to a sub-section in Wikipedia? I know is a little nitpicking but it would be more organized... Cpt.Guapo (talk) 01:32, 30 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I suppose you could change it to  but most links don't bother to do so, such as 蘇る→蘇る. —suzukaze (t・c) 01:36, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

What is this kanji shown in an anime
What is the kanji written on Genkai's hat in Yu Yu Hakusho? Wikia does not seem to answer that question.

Picture here: http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/yuyuhakusho/images/0/0b/Vlcsnap-2011-02-19-23h11m10s217.png/revision/latest?cb=20110220050222

--Daniel Carrero (talk) 03:39, 24 October 2016 (UTC)


 * . Wyang (talk) 03:44, 24 October 2016 (UTC)


 * Thank you. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 03:45, 24 October 2016 (UTC)


 * jisho.org has a nice 'build your kanji to look it up' system. Korn &#91;kʰũːɘ̃n&#93; (talk) 19:17, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Diacritics question
Are you allowed to create a "diacritic-less" version of a word with diacritics for disambiguation? For example, say "sdfç" is a word in language, but "sdfc" is not a word in any language. Would it be okay to just create a empty page at sdfc with just a hatnote to pointing to sdfç?--Prisencolin (talk) 04:03, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * We don't really do that. For example, we have an entry cabeça (with the letter ç = c with cedilla) but we don't have an entry cabeca. If you simply use the search box and type, you will be taken to the correct entry anyway. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 04:10, 24 October 2016 (UTC)


 * [edit conflict] Only sdfç would be allowed, unless sdfc was actually attested. One would be automatically redirected to the form with diacritics anyway, if that was the only version that existed. What you could do is include an template on that page to redirect to other forms (for an example, see the top of tres). Andrew Sheedy (talk) 04:13, 24 October 2016 (UTC)


 * I note that WT:APT requires diacritics if the word has any. This was done to prevent diacriticless spellings which are citable from lazy Internet users, cheap typewriters, text made in ASCII, etc. — Ungoliant (falai) 10:55, 24 October 2016 (UTC)


 * We do this only for English words that have diacritics, since many English speakers don't know how to put diacritics. For example,, which links to . Both and  are used in English. During the 20th century,  was used almost exclusively. —Stephen (Talk) 14:52, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Unpickable word in a Youtube video (again)
I'm asking for your help again. At 1:11, I'm hearing "Sorry, I thought you were gonna hit on me, so I was kind of like dissing on you." Is that right? --Fsojic (talk) 23:14, 28 October 2016 (UTC)


 * "Death-staring you": giving the evil eye. Equinox ◑ 23:54, 28 October 2016 (UTC)