Wiktionary:Information desk/2017/April

Russian Suffix for meat of an animal
Page giving lists of Russian food translations Мясо - Meat Говядина - beef Баранина - mutton Свинина - pork Телятина - veal Курица - chichen Ягнятина - lamb Крольчатина (кролик) - rabbit Ветчина - ham Бекон - bacon

Taken from a list of meats, I think most people can see, there is a common suffix in many of these words. -ина (Declined normally]

Говядо (obsolete word for bovine animals)--- Говядина (cow meat) Баран (a ram) --- Баранина (ram meat, or mutton) Кролик (rabbit) --- крольчатина (rabbit) This one show both an и being dropped, while keeping the л soft, as well as the typical к->ч change commonly seen in Russian.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ина, wiktionary doesn't seem to allow in-editor linking to its own pages, but that's the page url. Wiktionary currently has a page for -ина in use of Serbo-Croatian, whose use differs from Russian's slightly. On the other hand: пошлина (tax, duty)
 * Let me wish you a late welcome to Wiktionary. I would suggest registering an account and making a User page.
 * The suffix is cognate to the Serbo-Croatian one, you can read more at 🇨🇬. The reason why we don't have this entry yet is simply because no one got around to writing it. Crom daba (talk) 21:41, 3 April 2017 (UTC)

Need to find a deletion discussion on numbers
Hi I'm try to find a recent discussion about deletion of numbers like 1000000 and others but I can't find it. I've tried googling for things and using the search box and picking numbers you might have talked about and see what links there. I've also asked for help at Requests_for_deletion they might have answered it there by the time you read this. Siuenti (talk) 23:06, 3 April 2017 (UTC) Thanks :) Siuenti (talk) 23:06, 3 April 2017 (UTC)
 * sorry this might not actually exist. Siuenti (talk) 00:45, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * It does--I checked myself but couldn't find it. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 07:06, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Talk:105. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:03, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:15, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks a lot. Siuenti (talk) 11:53, 4 April 2017 (UTC)
 * What about Tamil numbers? Tamil numbers are not so easy to figure out. For instance, ௫௰௧ = 51. —Stephen (Talk) 10:17, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * In fact, here is a list of Tamil numbers and their English equivalents. See how most of them are written with only two or three Tamil numerals. Tamil_Numerals_4.jpg —Stephen (Talk) 11:01, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Do they follow a regular pattern or are they idiomatic/NSOP? Siuenti (talk) 09:40, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Most follow a pattern, but some are really strange. It's more like the Chinese/Japanese systems, and also Amharic numbers. Something like Roman numerals. Hebrew, Arabic and some other languages (I think Armenian, Georgian, etc.) also have old numbering systems that use letters of the alphabet for numerals, and numbers are made without the use of zeros. Tamil has single numerals for 10 ௰, 100 ௱, and 1000 ௲, but no zero. Thus, 10,000,000 is ௱௱௲ (like Roman numerals CCM, or hundred×hundred×thousand). For some reason that I don't know, Tamil also developed a lot of forms for fractions. Here are a few: Tamil_Numerals_1.jpg. —Stephen (Talk) 10:30, 7 April 2017 (UTC)
 * You might have an opinion on Requests_for_deletion. If !you vote let them know I "canvassed" you so they can discount it :) Siuenti (talk) 08:18, 8 April 2017 (UTC)

Period after closing parenthesis
Are the two sentences below equally grammatically correct? Can we place the period after the closing parenthesis?


 * 1) I like cake (except chocolate cake).
 * 2) I like cake. (except chocolate cake)

--Daniel Carrero (talk) 15:45, 7 April 2017 (UTC)


 * In today's English I've only seen the first one. The only time I've come across the second one is in Lane's  (published 1863-1893), so I'd assume it used to be more common. However, if the parenthetical remark is a separate sentence, it's perfectly normal to write "I like cake. (Do you want some?)". --WikiTiki89 15:59, 7 April 2017 (UTC)


 * The second is wrong. You could write: "I like cake. (Except chocolate cake.)" That gives you a sentence fragment, but helps to convey that this is an afterthought. Equinox ◑ 17:33, 7 April 2017 (UTC)


 * In Early Modern English, punctuation rules were a lot less settled, but, by now, only the first sentence is correct. Wikitiki89 and Equinox are correct in what they write. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 20:39, 8 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Altho I dislike it, this form is also fairly common: "I like cake (except chocolate cake.)" Not what you asked but worth mentioning. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:42, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * A sentence ought to be punctuated in such a way that if the contents of are removed what remains is grammatical.  In Koavf's example, there's no effective stop between "I like cake" and whatever sentence follows. —Tamfang (talk) 20:29, 31 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I have sometimes seen the second one being used (but mainly in informal writing on the Internet as well as some comments posted). The first one is the correct one because think about this — the brackets are supplementing what's been written before and therefore should be part of the sentence (which the full stop shall come after). — AWESOME meeos ！ *  ([nʲɪ‿bʲɪ.spɐˈko.ɪtʲ]) 04:59, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * On this topic, I really hate it when people quote “like this.” That is only seen in America (from my experience), but even so, in America, people do quote “like this”, which is the more easier way to read. The only time to put quotation marks after a full stop is when quoting text and the full stop is part of the quote. — AWESOME meeos ！ *  ([nʲɪ‿bʲɪ.spɐˈko.ɪtʲ]) 04:59, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * : Interesting. I've been writing "like this." in English, on the internet. I thought this was the norm in English, because it appeared to be so common, at least in my limited experience. Based on your comment, I guess I can change my ways and start doing as you said (placing the period after the closing quotation mark). (I would never write "deste jeito." in Portuguese. Nobody does that in Portuguese, again in my experience.) --Daniel Carrero (talk) 05:06, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I would say it is standard to place punctuation before the closing quotation except when you want to make it clear that it isn't part of the actual quotation (my personal preference is to only include what is in an actual quote within the quotation marks, if I am in fact quoting someone else). If you're not quoting someone (e.g., if you're using scare quotes), it would usually be considered incorrect to place punctuation outside the quotation marks. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 05:21, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Now I know that all I have to do to annoy Awesomemeeos is to write "like this." --WikiTiki89 14:32, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know that you have to change but yes, I think that this style: He said, "example text". is infinitely superior to this style: He said, "example text.". Same goes for parenthesis: "Put it down (now)!" rather than "Put it down (now!)" unless the thing inside the parenthesis has different ending punctuation than the sentence: "After college, he moved to a town in Wales named LLakkdyfdwsh (sp?)." —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:26, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

Based on the conversation above, I get the idea of placing the punctuation before the quotation mark (even though this is not unanimous in this conversation), but is there any problem when you have punctuation marks both before and after the same closing quotation mark? What do you think about the sentence below? Note the period at the end.


 * She always says to me: "Don't forget your keys.", "Don't forget your wallet." and "Don't forget your cell phone.".

--Daniel Carrero (talk) 17:51, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * You don't include the full stop in quoted speech in mid-sentence. He said "Don't do that" and ... Equinox ◑ 17:52, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * In school we were taught that if the quotation should end in a period, but is in the middle of a sentence, you replace the period with a comma (and also you don't put a colon when the sentence would make sense without it, but there needs to be a comma because full-sentence quotations that are not at the beginning of a sentence need to be preceded by a comma). So: She always says to me, "Don't forget your keys," "Don't forget your wallet," and "Don't forget your cell phone." But that's just what we learned in school, they also taught us not to end sentences with prepositions, and not to start sentences with "and", "but", and "or". --WikiTiki89 18:02, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * For what it's worth, I have always used the same form as the above comment, too. The difference would be (for me) if those in-line quotations have a question mark or an exclamation point appending them, such as: The way you speak is so abrasive. You are always shouting, "Take out the dishes!" and "Who left this in the hallway?". (In all honesty, whether or not I would include that last period may change from sentence to sentence and that realization is infuriating.) But: I love the way that The Clash would introduce their songs like, "Here's another one you'll hate," or "We spent less time writing this one than it takes to play it." —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:36, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I would omit that last period. --WikiTiki89 21:45, 13 April 2017 (UTC)
 * (Small off-topic rant: They never talk about that stuff in our English classes in Brazil! Our English lessons are really basic all the way to high school, including things like lists of common fruits and animals in English, and the present tense of "to be" is repeated a lot. Source for my statements: personal experience, and I have read my share of English textbooks published in Brazil.)
 * Thanks for the replies. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 08:43, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * If I were teaching English as a foreign language, I'd probably focus more on the names of fruits and animals and the present tense of "to be" rather than on niceties of punctuation, too. I don't remember ever being taught where to put periods and commas with respect to quotation marks in school in the U.S., either. I think I learned it by observation while reading books. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:03, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, I guess you're right. I've also taught a little English informally to friends and naturally I focused on basic things instead of niceties of punctuation. Here in Brazil, we do learn about niceties of punctuation in Portuguese classes at school. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 10:01, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * What’s worse is how we teach foreigners Portuguese. I’ve observed the first few lessons of a project to teach Portuguese to exchange students; the first lessons were the objective pronouns and the present indicative of ser and estar. They had the learn the conjugations for tu and vós (which, for those who don’t know, is as useful as learning thou art in your first English lesson), but no one mentioned a gente. — Ungoliant (falai) 14:39, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Capital letter after the ellipsis
Another grammar question: I believe only the #1 is correct, right? I mean, you don't write a capital letter after the ellipsis if you are still writing the same sentence.


 * 1) This... is... so... great!
 * 2) This... Is... So... Great!

Thanks in advance. --Daniel Carrero (talk) 04:42, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree that it would be unusual to capitalize after an ellipsis when it didn't end a sentence. It seems equally weird to have spaces, though. So I would write "This...is...so...great!" Andrew Sheedy (talk) 07:38, 9 April 2017 (UTC)


 * This is non-standard English and so someone would only be doing this for over-emphasis anyway. It's just as correct to write, "This… is… SO… GREAT !!!!!111ONE" —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:40, 9 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes, #2 is wrong. Equinox ◑ 22:30, 9 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Personally, although not really correct, #2 looks cool because it can demonstrate the person's strong and powerful personality XD — AWESOME meeos ！ *  ([nʲɪ‿bʲɪ.spɐˈko.ɪtʲ]) 05:03, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I also prefer the spaces after the ellipsis for readability — AWESOME meeos ！ *  ([nʲɪ‿bʲɪ.spɐˈko.ɪtʲ]) 05:06, 10 April 2017 (UTC)


 * #2 looks like what someone would type with auto-capitalization turned on. This can lead to other kinds of unusual capitalization patterns when people are lazy, such as "I asked john. He said i could come." --WikiTiki89 15:05, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

What happens if...
... Wiktionarians become deceased. I know that this is a very sensitive topic to talk about, but how are people notified when Wiktionarians become deceased, especially if they have after several years of editing? Is there a way of notifying the community? Just curious — nothing major — AWESOME meeos ！ *  ([nʲɪ‿bʲɪ.spɐˈko.ɪtʲ]) 04:47, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * When Robert Ullmann died, a notice was put on his user page. He was also desysopped and (temporarily at least) blocked. There seems to be some disagreement as to whether dead users should be blocked. I'm in favor, because it means their accounts can't be hacked into, but others disagree. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:58, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * thanks, but what I'm saying in other words; how did the Wiktionary community know that Robert Ullmann passed away? (I think his AutoFormat bot was legendary!)— AWESOME meeos ！ *  ([nʲɪ‿bʲɪ.spɐˈko.ɪtʲ]) 12:01, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Oh, that I don't know. It probably helped that he used his real name and that there were, I believe, Wiktionarians who knew him in real life. There may well be Wiktionarians who have died and the community isn't aware of it. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 12:04, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Fun fact: at some point in 2013 or 2014 I started believing that User:Metaknowledge had died. A person suddenly completely stopping editing is indistinguishable from them dying. — Ungoliant (falai) 12:21, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry about that... I'll do my best not to die again, or at least reincarnate faster next time. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 17:20, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * If I stop editing for more than a couple of weeks, please check for an obit in my local rag. SemperBlotto (talk) 13:12, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Sometimes I check my own edit history to see if I'm still alive. There were a few scares, but I keep coming back. --WikiTiki89 14:34, 10 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree with the sentiment that it would be nice to have a way of notifying the community. I have no idea how to achieve this. -- John Cross (talk) 16:16, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * In some cases, there are a few Wiktionarians who know about it, but the information is almost never shared. As far as I know, User:Robert Ullmann is the only one who the community heard about. There used to be a well-liked editor named User talk:--Stranger, who fell ill in 2005. I suppose that he must have died, since he never posted after Nov. 2005. —Stephen (Talk) 02:56, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
 * You forgot User:Eclecticology. --WikiTiki89 15:15, 3 May 2017 (UTC)


 * If you have a will, and a family, then just leave a note with your will listing the online communities you want them to notify. Equinox ◑ 23:58, 2 May 2017 (UTC)
 * You don't need a family, just an executor. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 07:50, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Not to be confused with an executioner. --WikiTiki89 15:15, 3 May 2017 (UTC)
 * If you have the latter, you still need the former. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:58, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Special:AbuseFilter/35
I wanted create talk Page of article create me by i, AND i can`t show, How to make CONSTRACTIVE edit !!!
 * You only have one edit here. What did you create? —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:28, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
 * He tried to do this twice. - -sche (discuss) 16:21, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know if non-admins can see that. If not, it was basically unformatted text in poor English with no particular topic- not a dictionary entry. They started out trying to post something like it (with a claim that M.Kaprekar inventing the phonograph in 1942) as "M.Kaprekar`s Article !!.", then tried to put a bogus redirect at "Citations talk:Main Page", then did this edit at "Talk:M.Kaprekar`s Article !!.". The abuse filter looks for certain patterns of gibberish that shouldn't be in a entry, and nothing this IP has attempted should be allowed, so I don't see a problem with it. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:12, 14 April 2017 (UTC)

Generic template like Template:rel-top, Template:der-top etc
Has anyone ever created a generic version of these templates, without the predefined text in the header? —CodeCat 18:36, 10 April 2017 (UTC)

UAL'd Deletion
Curious as to why SemperBlotto deleted the page with "totally wrong" as the reason? First time user. Please clarify Thank you
 * to make sure he sees this conversation. Also, you recreated UAL'd I think just to understand but this is the place you want to post your question. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:54, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Firstly, you said it was an idiom - it is clearly the past tense of a verb.
 * Secondly, you said it meant "# The act of being forcibly removed" - that would be a noun.
 * Thirdly, if it exists at all, it would be a protologism - we don't accept those.
 * Apart from that it was fine. SemperBlotto (talk) 18:22, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

Accidental stealing
What would you call taking something home from a place of business without realizing it was not properly acquired? Someone did this with three library books, without checking them out despite thinking she had, and I told her she “may have accidentally stolen them.” Is there a better term I should have used?

(If there is a more appropriate place for reference questions like this, please move this there and let me know. Also please consider making that place more visible. Thank you.) —67.14.236.50 01:07, 14 April 2017 (UTC)


 * You are asking in the right place. See previous answers to the same question here: . I think "walk off with" is a good suggestion. Equinox ◑ 01:27, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link, but “walk off with” seems to me to imply having no consideration for the ethicality, rather than a simple oversight by someone with honest intentions. I haven’t seen or come up with anything that really seems to match the meaning of “accidental stealing/theft.” It describes what the act technically is, but without the intention. Am I mistaken? —67.14.236.50 02:16, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I would say "I accidentally walked off with..." --WikiTiki89 13:16, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, "steal" implies criminal intent, so "accidentally steal" is incongruous. "Walk off with" says nothing about intent, but is often used as an indirect way of saying "steal". "Accidentally walk off with", as Wikitiki89 suggests, is probably as good a way of saying what you wanted as any, though "accidentally take" would also work. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:26, 14 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I’ll keep that in mind for if this ever happens again. At the time, I was trying to sound as non-accusatory as one can when using the word “stolen,” but I don’t think it quite worked out. —67.14.236.50 20:13, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Discussion of word
Discussion of word already a wiktionary entry the word has amercian indian etymology roots meaning "Whats wrong or the matter" Somebody other than I entered this word to wiktionary so they can add this correctly researched definition.


 * What entry are you talking about? —Stephen (Talk) 18:02, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Posted to usertalk to ask just now. —67.14.236.50 20:21, 16 April 2017 (UTC)

Requesting gloss in etymology
When I use Wiktionary, I always appreciate it when etymologies with foreign words have at least one gloss explaining the meaning of some predecessor since it often helps me understand the word more precisely. I know I could use the hyperlinks to learn about the foreign words, but sometimes that leads to a chain of hyperlinks before I get to a definition. Is including glosses consistently a generally agreed upon practice, and is there a good way to mark an etymology for attention if there are no such glosses? Germyb (talk) 02:51, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Probably the most efficient way would be to ask at the Etymology scriptorium. In practice, if there's no gloss for a word in an etymology section, the most likely reason is that it has the same meaning as the word being discussed. It would be kind of tedious to read that fish comes from Middle English fish 'fish', from Old English fisc 'fish', from Proto-Germanic *fiskaz 'fish', from Proto-Indo-European *peysk- 'fish'; so people often omit the glosses when they seem obvious from context. Unfortunately, what's obvious to one person isn't always obvious to someone else. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:23, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I usually remove repetitive glosses like that when I see them. —CodeCat 16:30, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Well yes, if they all mean roughly the same thing, a single-word gloss on the final word would make that clear. And certainly for nouns referring to common things, I agree that it is reasonable to assume the meaning is the same if no glosses are specified. However, for more abstract words, I have learned that this is not a safe assumption on Wiktionary. Of course, I do understand that it feels redundant to do this since if everyone did things perfectly consistently it would be unambiguous. Regarding posting about the glosses that are clearly needed in the WT:Etymology scriptorium, should I make one section with a list that I keep updating every time I find a new issue, or should I create a new category each time? Germyb (talk) 23:29, 20 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Most threads go stale after a week or so. If you find several in a short space of time, you can list them all together in a single discussion, but if you find new ones two weeks or a month later, it's probably more effective to start a new discussion. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 11:06, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * That makes sense. Thanks! Germyb (talk) 21:59, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

one day, two days, three days... in Japanese
What are the rules to say "one day", "two days", "three days"... or any arbitrary number of days in Japanese? Do we use the same words/readings as in the days of the month?

(I already learned to say all the days of the month in Japanese: 一日, 二日, 三日, etc. read as ついたち, ふつか, みっか, etc.)

For example, if I want to say a phrase like "this project will take 9 days" in Japanese, will it have ここのか in it? (as opposed to another word or reading for "nine days")

Apparently, "one day" is 一日 but it's read as いちにち instead of ついたち, right? So I guess it's an exception? Apparently, "three days" is 三日 read as みっか, not *さんにち.--Daniel Carrero (talk) 16:22, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Wiktionary reaches 100,000 Chinese lemmas!
Wiktionary now has over 100,000 Chinese lemmas! Congratulations, and thanks everyone for their hard work! According to my estimates, this is more than any language on Wiktionary (except English, which has over 400k). Considering the importance of this global language with a history of over 3000 years, this is way overdue. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 00:48, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't we divide this number by 2 since Category:Chinese lemmas counts both simplified and traditional forms? DTLHS (talk) 00:54, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Congratulations! . Wyang (talk) 07:40, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Not all characters have a simplified form... —Julien D. (talk) 21:29, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

Triples in English
I was just wondering whether anyone can think of any 'reduplicated triples' (such as, ) that we do not already have this category: Category:English_reduplicated_triplets

Thank you.

John Cross (talk) 16:22, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
 * practice, practice, practice is common... —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:40, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Added "well, well, well". Presumably a bot could search for these. Others I've encountered (perhaps not dictionary content): "go, go, go!" (commandos storming a base, etc.), "yeah yeah yeah" (dismissive), "hey hey hey!" (a cheery greeting?). Equinox ◑ 16:45, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
 * as a sarcastic expression of displeasure ? My boss uses it all the time, and I seem to have picked it up from him :) Leasnam (talk) 16:47, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * It's just "me, me, me" all the time (self-obsession), also perhaps with other pronouns: general syntactic pattern. Equinox ◑ 16:48, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I have added and . I will look at other suggestions later.  John Cross (talk) 17:43, 29 April 2017 (UTC)


 * ... that just got flagged for deletion... —Julien D. (talk) 21:28, 29 April 2017 (UTC)

I found these (only tested for spaces, dashes and commas; no exclamation marks or other): —Julien D. (talk) 23:42, 29 April 2017 (UTC)
 * 2-2-2
 * 4-4-4
 * blah blah blah
 * bup bup bup
 * cha cha cha
 * cha-cha-cha
 * dot dot dot
 * double-double-double
 * dun dun dun
 * go, go, go
 * hamana-hamana-hamana
 * he he he
 * hee hee hee
 * ho, ho, ho
 * homina homina homina
 * hon hon hon
 * location, location, location
 * nom nom nom
 * oggy oggy oggy
 * practice, practice, practice
 * rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb
 * toi, toi, toi
 * well, well, well
 * yada yada yada
 * yadda yadda yadda


 * Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Greatly appreciated. All the ones you found now added to the category.John Cross (talk) 19:10, 30 April 2017 (UTC)