Wiktionary:Information desk/2017/May

Name for the groups of sockets/switches that are protected by one circuit breaker?
In a typical home, you have a breaker panel/consumer unit with a bunch of breakers or fuses, and each of them protects a certain subset of all the electrical wiring in the house. Thus, one switch might disable only the kitchen, another the upstairs lighting, etc. What is the name of these subdivisions (not the switches themselves)? Is it "circuit"? In Dutch, they are called, and it has its own Wikipedia page Groep (elektrotechniek), but it has no counterparts in other languages. I can't add that sense unless I know what the English term is. —CodeCat 14:47, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I think it's called a "circuit", but I feel that might be ambiguous. --WikiTiki89 18:35, 1 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I would call it a circuit. There may be a better, more technical name but I couldn't find one in the Wikipedia articles on circuit breakers or domestic power supply. SemperBlotto (talk) 05:32, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

I wrote a definition now. Is this ok? —CodeCat 16:29, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Written variant a word that only occurs due to the preceding word
In Middle Dutch, you might encounter, but in a text I have also come across. In that latter phrase, the s of the preceding word has "bled" into the next one, but there's no reason to suspect that the two versions differed in pronunciation at all. It's just an orthographic difference. Going by our mission to cover all words in all languages, there should be an entry for, but I don't really know what to put in it. It's not an alternative spelling, is it? —CodeCat 21:23, 7 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Would that be a rebracketing, like ME ekename/nekename? Equinox ◑ 21:25, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * You could call it a misspelling, especially if it occurs only in that one text. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:31, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * It's not really a rebracketing because the s is still present on . Would it be called a rebracketing if were written as  (not retorical, I'm curious)? As for misspelling, you can't really call it that either as there was no spelling standard back then. And while I'm not sure if this particular word occurs in only in this one instance, the phenomenon as a whole (that is, of a preceding s showing up also on the next word) does occur more often I believe. —CodeCat 21:51, 7 May 2017 (UTC)
 * You could call it an s-mobile variant! Seriously, if you don't like misspelling of, I think alternative spelling of is your best bet. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 09:14, 8 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I just went with misspelling. But it's also a legitimate contraction apparently so I added that too. —CodeCat 16:28, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Assuming the misspelling is chiefly found in the context described above, I've added . - -sche (discuss) 18:06, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Given names only occurring in works of fiction
While translating Middle Dutch, I've come across the two names and. Neither of these are names that were given to people, they were made up for the story. However, it is of course possible that these names were used for people later in reference to the characters that originally bore them, in the same way that we might now call someone a Voldemort for example. But given names, they never were. How should these be handled by Wiktionary? Our policy seems to disallow names from fiction, so that would mean they don't get an entry. But if they were allowed, what should their definition be? Do we have anything like for fictional characters? —CodeCat 19:35, 9 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Wow, I checked a massive international database of birth records and indeed found no one with the name Isengrijn, despite how relatively often the character is mentioned in Google Books-digitized books; impressive that no-one has used the name.
 * Given how old the story is and how relatively often it has been mentioned (in both Dutch and English), one could ask if the name should be treated like the names of e.g. minor figures from Greek mythology or history, who I think we include.
 * Those are handled without, by just summarizing who the one person by that name was (like Pandarus). - -sche (discuss) 20:09, 9 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I've created, what do you think? —CodeCat 16:36, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The definition looks good, in line with how Pandarus, Procne, etc are handled. As a name of a specific figure, it'd be a proper noun though, wouldn't it? And I guess we follow the source manuscripts' lack of capitalization, or should we normalize the capitalization? - -sche (discuss) 18:04, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * I've entered all names as uncapitalised regular nouns for Middle Dutch so far. —CodeCat 18:08, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmm, let's get others' thoughts on that; I thought based on previous discussions of proper nouns that names were among the clearest examples of proper nouns. - -sche (discuss) 23:04, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Yeah, even if they're uncapitalized, I would think they should still be labelled proper nouns... Andrew Sheedy (talk) 05:08, 11 May 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree with both of you. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 21:29, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Technical issue: no quotations and the like
It seems to me that all quotations have disappeared off Wiktionary as of today. They still appear in the edit field, and I can even see them by requesting my browser to show the source page, but they are invisible when browsing normally. I also noticed I cannot unfold declension tables, so there may be even more problems I have not yet discovered.

I tried different browsers on different computers, and the problem persists, so it appears to be at Wiktionary's end. Anybody knows what's going on? MuDavid (talk) 06:56, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
 * It's a site-wide issue that's been reported in several fora. I don't know the cause or if a bug report has been filed. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 06:58, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Let's consolidate discussion in Grease pit/2017/May. - -sche (discuss) 08:01, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

Philosophy against personal preferences
Does anybody know a word for someone who believes that having personal preferences is somehow mediocre or wrong, and instead focuses on learning about and enjoying the entire world around them? PseudoSkull (talk) 13:08, 11 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The first thing that comes to mind is cosmopolitanism as a kind of counter to tribalism. Not sure if that quite fits the bill. Or being a citizen of the world. Some form of syncretism possibly? Maybe these are a start. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:30, 11 May 2017 (UTC)


 * antisubjective? Rather rare and technical, probably used to describe approaches rather than individuals. Equinox ◑ 12:55, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

technical issue: oversized arabic headwords
Hi, I had added some code to increase the size of arabic script in my special page (I am afraid I cannot find the original post). Yet, the headwords have started to be several times bigger than the rest of the script in the entries. I'd like them to be the exact size as the rest. --Backinstadiums (talk) 09:44, 12 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Maybe it was this: User:Backinstadiums/common.css. —Stephen (Talk) 13:36, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

Rollback rights
How do you get rollbacker rights here? Do you have to start a vote or whatnot like for admins? I can't find a clear policy page telling how this is done. PseudoSkull (talk) 03:47, 13 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Hmm! But see Wiktionary_talk:Whitelist. Equinox ◑ 03:52, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

cs for ç in Old French?
In Middle Dutch, is attested referring to the French language. That this is a loan is obvious, but I'm curious about the digraph -cs-. Is this an early form of the letter ç that the word is now spelled with? What would its pronunciation have been at the time? —CodeCat 15:51, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
 * In Old French, ç was also spelled with the digraph cz, so maybe cs was just another less common variant. It was pronounced /ts/. --WikiTiki89 19:05, 17 May 2017 (UTC)
 * @User:CodeCat This would make an interesting entry. PseudoSkull (talk) 04:31, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Words with prefix a-
There are a few notes on alpha privatives, but nothing that I could see about words like ASLEEP, AWAKE, ASHAMED, AWARE, ABROAD and others, and also possibly across and along. Also I think the existing entries for the a suffix and the alpha privatives need work. Anyone up for that?

Help creating new entry
I'm new to wiktionary and came across a new Spanish word that isn't in wiktionary so I would like to add it but I'm not sure how to go about it. Can I just copy the definition from any other online dictionary? What kind of verification is needed that it is indeed correct? --Polyknot (talk) 23:26, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Excellent question. Unfortunately, you probably cannot just copy and paste a definition. Dictionaries are eligible for copyright and unless the holder of the copyright allows for copying, then we can't accept something copied and pasted. What is the term? Do you want to show me a link to it? —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:52, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
 * The word is pegote. A search for "pegote spanish" shows some links with the main meaning being a "sticky mess" which I believe can be used both literally and figuratively. --Polyknot (talk) 07:35, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Good, so you can add your own definition(s) in your own words. Since--as you pointed out--it can evidently refer to both a literal situation and a figurative one, then you will need a definition that includes both senses. (Or at least, it's better to have that--entries don't have to be perfect, as this is a wiki after all.) A lot of the entries on Wiktionary employ templates for linking, categorization, and adding structure. This is a big difference from Wikipedia or many of our other sister projects. I would recommend taking a look at the source of a few Spanish entries (e.g. árbol or pie) and see how they are formatted, then try to post your definition as an experiment. If you're uncomfortable putting it in the main namespace at "pegote", then you could put it at User:Polyknot/pegote as a start. Once you've done that, let me know by posting here and I can take a look. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:33, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your help . I went ahead and created the page with the only definition I understand for now as well as the page for it's plural. I forgot about the namespace you mentioned though. What is a namespace? --Polyknot (talk) 13:17, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
 * No problem. A "namespace" is a way of segregating out different types of material in Wiktionary (and our sister wikis). Certain types of content form the main dictionary itself and there are other related namespaces that make up the main content of the site (such as the Appendix namespace or Thesaurus namespace). Others are for discussion or user pages. For instance, this page is under the Wiktionary namespace which designates that whatever content you see is supposed to be talking about this dictionary and how to improve it rather than the content of the dictionary. See above where the title of the page is "Wiktionary:Information desk/2017/May". You can also look at Wikipedia's guidelines on namespaces here for more guidance: w:en:WP:NAMESPACE. This entry looks like a fine start so far. If you plan on doing more work with Spanish entries, I can provide a little help there, too as I know some Spanish and have edited a little bit of Spanish here. A useful resource is the DRAE and we link to it using R:DRAE but in this case, they don't have a definition for "pegote". Let me know if you need anything else and bienvenido. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 15:57, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Appendix:Snowclones/take this X and shove it
What does this phrase mean? ‘Keep this lousy thing to yourself’? — (((Romanophile))) ♞ (contributions) 19:56, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
 * "You have offered or given me something that I don't want. Instead of accepting it graciously, I want you to take it back and stick it inside of your anus." It shows disgust and is frequently used in the context of quitting a job that you hate: "take this job and shove it". (But it's not likely that many real human beings use this phrase when quitting a job--it's used in songs and films.) —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:22, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Nominalization
Is there a template to use for "Nominalization" in etymologies? Look at and .--Bigbossfarin (talk) 07:50, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Why fewer entries than WP?
Why is it that we have fewer mainspace pages than that place I dare not go back to; Wikipedia? Around 200,000 less pages to give a little insight. I understand we have less editors, but for one, it is so much easier and faster to create pages here, and for two, pages there tend to be significantly longer than here and tend to take up so much time and effort and space, and have a lot more individual content. For instance, compare the Wiktionary entry for homeowner association to. I will say, though, we are catching up with WP rather quickly it seems. There are so many more individual words (in all languages) than there are encyclopedic topics in just the English language I'm sure. PseudoSkull (talk) 02:51, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Dictionaries have no need for entries on many encyclopedic subjects. For example, see en:w:Athletics at the 1956 Summer Olympics – Men's 3000 metres steeplechase; nobody's going to create a dictionary entry for athletics at the 1956 Summer Olympics – Men's 3000 metres steeplechase, or athletics at the 1956 Summer Olympics, or athletics at the Summer Olympics.  Nyttend (talk) 03:39, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Because Wikipedia is far more popular and well-known. Plus, most of us are far more interested in reading an encyclopedia than a dictionary. Altho both are reference works, it is much less likely that anyone will spend time really digging into a dictionary than click from topic to topic to topic at an encyclopedia. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 05:48, 29 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Because most titles of Wikipedia articles would be SOP here. There are more things in the world than there are words. Pretty simple logic. Not sure what you're complaining about. --WikiTiki89 17:36, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, Wikipedia has only one article on the, while we have probably over 100 entries on the same topic (, , , , , , just to name a few). —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 18:04, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
 * But Wikipedia has many articles with "dog" in the title: see this search. --WikiTiki89 18:07, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

It's not really a contest. Dictionaries and encyclopedias have a more-or-less definable amount of entries they could have (e.g. w:en:User:Emijrp/All_Human_Knowledge). Projects like Wikidata and Wikisource are a little more difficult to put a number on unless you can really sharply define some parameters. Projects like Wikiversity or Wikinews are basically impossible to quantify by their nature. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:13, 29 May 2017 (UTC)
 * This page is telling me that Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites (like Wiktionary) will likely be used to enhance self-expanding AI? PseudoSkull (talk) 03:34, 1 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Singularities aside, the page is an attempt to measure out how big Wikipedia should be. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 04:46, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

dash
In the entry for dash, I'd like to change the Nigerian usage from "Nigeria" to "West Africa", since the same usage appears in Liberian English (see Some Terms from Liberian Speech, page C5), but I'm not sure whether it would be better to change the contents of lb to "Nigeria and Liberia", or "West Africa", or something else. I very rarely edit here, so I'm not sure where to look beyond the documentation for label, and that's not particularly helped me, unfortunately. Nyttend (talk) 03:37, 29 May 2017 (UTC)


 * If it's mainly used in Nigeria and Liberia, would be the way to go (with vertical lines setting off the "and" so that each country is parsed as a separate label); If it's used broadly across West Africa, then  would work. I have edited Module:labels/data/regional so that CAT:Nigerian English and CAT:Liberian English, or CAT:West African English, will be added when the label is used. - -sche (discuss) 06:19, 29 May 2017 (UTC)

regular expressions
Hi, I'd like to be led to the page about searching itself, so that I can see how to use regex. Is it possible with any kind of script, e.g. Arabic? how can it be implemented for chinese characters? --Backinstadiums (talk) 17:33, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * All documentation like that is at . —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:01, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * could you specify where? I cannot find it --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:14, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * All I can point to is the help documentation on searching. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:21, 31 May 2017 (UTC)
 * this one's better https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:CirrusSearch --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:40, 31 May 2017 (UTC)