Wiktionary:Information desk/2019/January

Images of words
Dear Editors: Would you be interested in the images of words? I am cutting up manuscripts into single words. I will have many representations of each word as my sources will come from different writers and from different time periods and styles of writing. David Kaminski (talk) 14:32, 6 January 2019 (UTC)


 * English, I assume? Is this a captcha project? Can you tell us more? Equinox ◑ 15:53, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
 * No, I'm not interested. I already have all the pictures of words that I could ever want. DTLHS (talk) 18:20, 6 January 2019 (UTC)
 * No, I don't think Wiktionary is the right place for that. See Wikimedia Commons instead. KevinUp (talk) 14:34, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
 * The project covers American handwriting--to study the styles and variations, and to aid people in reading old cursive handwriting from colonial times through the early 1900s. The variations are staggering, in my opinion. If you have pictures of single words in cursive American handwriting I would certainly appreciate access to your resources; those would be very useful to me. Please advise if you still believe this project is better for Wikimedia Commons. David Kaminski (talk) 23:08, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Rather than for entire words (except for lexical exceptions) some paleographic notes (for example to help read the original U.S. constitution) would really be useful if added to the letters of the alphabet and their surroundings in text --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:58, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I found David Kaminski's website for handwriting collections: I think the present site is good enough. Images of words are not very useful, as every writer has his own style of writing. KevinUp (talk) 02:22, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm new. But I am going to risk participating anyway, just to chime in and say this: Images from actual historical script of ancient dead languages is useful. It seems to me the standard scripts used in reconstructions are different to historical ones, which seem typically more varied. So people might be interested in seeing original orthography samples. This would help people to learn to read original documents, and perhaps even suggest potential error when the writing of the original sources actually isńt very clear. Additionally, it helps people to learn to date documents by writing styles etc.

Extracting list of words from category pages
In Category:Chinese lemmas, there are almost 157,500 lemmas listed under this category. Rather than using the "next page" function, is there a way for me to obtain a list of all lemmas in a particular language? I'm making a list of Chinese, Japanese, Korean compounds (hanzi/kanji/hanja) that are not yet listed under the "compounds" section of the single-character CJKV entries. KevinUp (talk) 14:34, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
 * There is no way to retrieve all of them in one go, because the wiki software itself limits how many items you can get at once. You'll need to write a program using pywikibot to retrieve a list quickly. —Rua (mew) 14:49, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I found the script I need to use. KevinUp (talk) 15:49, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
 * please share it --Backinstadiums (talk) 18:53, 11 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Here it is: KevinUp (talk) 02:22, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

"amagnetic" is an absolute adjective so cannot have a comparative or superlative form
I wanted to edit the entry for "amagnetic", as this is an absolute adjective, involving the absence of a physical property. (Absence is by nature total. Something cannot be more absent than something else.) However, the editing options proposed did not include the possibility of removing the comparative and superlative forms given for the word.
 * If absence is total by nature, we should declare the adjective to be not comparable. But no attainable physical property is absolute, not even absolute zero, although some properties are more absolute than others.  --Lambiam 13:33, 12 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Did it for you. SemperBlotto (talk) 11:33, 8 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Not always true: something can be more asymmetrical than something else, for example. Equinox ◑ 19:12, 11 January 2019 (UTC)


 * In this paper we can read, “Barite was chosen for the off‐centered mass because it is almost amagnetic and heavy”, and, “Indeed, barite is not completely amagnetic, although its magnetic susceptibility value is close to zero.” I gather from this that barite is more amagnetic than, say, ferrite. --Lambiam 13:13, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Requested entries (French)
Why is there a list of requested entries at Requested entries (French) and also 26 separate lists at Requested entries (French)/a, Requested entries (French)/b, Requested entries (French)/c and so on? Which list are we supposed to add requested entries to? – Arms &#38; Hearts (talk) 00:12, 12 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Better to add requested entries to the main list (manual list). I think the 26 separate lists were an early attempt at alphabetizing the list of requests. It's easier to just use the main list at Requested entries (French). —Stephen (Talk) 00:44, 12 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Because the page would be too big otherwise. WT:REE also has some subpages. These are usually drawn from word lists. Equinox ◑ 13:38, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

pronunciation of "anaerobe" and many, very many, other words
I arrived here very upset and was just about to use unseemly, nay, downright profane, words. I counted patiently to one hundred and a half and now I can ask your courteously: How the fuck (oops!) does one pronounce the goddam (oops!) "anaerobe"? Or "bacteroides" for that matter? Or...
 * You can find pronunciations for most English words in online dictionaries. This page gives two pronunciations for and a button by which you can listen to what I think is the most common American-English pronunciation. This page gives a pronunciation for for ; in IPA that would be something like .  --Lambiam 19:33, 12 January 2019 (UTC)
 * When you need the pronunciation and the page does not have it, you can just mention it here and we will add it for you, as in anaerobe. —Stephen (Talk) 23:25, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

Technical issue with Swedish noun declension templates
Hello, I don't know if this is the best place to put this, but I would like to draw attention to an issue with the templates used for Swedish declension, for example in poäng. The "sv-noun-irreg-c" template has a defined "definition" field while the "sv-infl-noun-c-er" does not, leading to only the first box showing which definitions it is showing the declensions for, while the second having a "definition=2, 3" argument that isn't used. I have no idea how to go about fixing this or who to mention this to but hopefully highlighting it here will bring it to the attention of somebody who does. 2A02:C7D:1B8:5B00:A5EC:68DF:45A3:3E98 00:06, 16 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Yeah, this is an issue that was at least partly caused by, who has decided not to clean up after herself (see discussion here concerning one of the other templates). Ideally, the template shouldn't have this parameter, and the format at is what we should switch over to. In the mean time, it's an annoying cleanup task — maybe one of our more hardworking editors like  will want to deal with it. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:44, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I think you can ask for my help without insulting other editors. And no, I really think this should be done by hand by someone who knows Swedish. DTLHS (talk) 20:54, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I wasn't trying to be insulting, but I do find it annoying when people break things and don't care. The work doesn't really require much knowledge of Swedish. I suppose I'd better get around to doing it. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 06:15, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

Requested edit
Hello, please add an "(archaic)" label to verily. Source:. Thank you. Opencooper (talk) 04:44, 17 January 2019 (UTC)


 * ✅ Equinox ◑ 05:03, 17 January 2019 (UTC)

Nearly blank page on m.wiktionary
The parsimony page does not show up properly via m.wiktionary.org. The only part that appears is the word and the header for the English section. All of the page's source is intact if I go into edit. Issue happening in Chrome and Safari on iPhone. The desktop server doesn't have this issue. Zephalis (talk) 16:25, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You have to click the header “English” to see the content. Sometimes that seems not to work (for all pages, not only ). After waiting some time, it loads though, at least for me. --Lambiam 17:26, 18 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Is that something new? I'm used to it opening to English right away, now there's an extra step. Also, it no longer can be closed once opened. I don't like it. Zephalis (talk) 01:01, 19 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Not only opening English section, even adding a page to watchlist requires an additional step now. However not every page is affected; for example, aggiuntivo is all right. It looks like something is wrong behind the scene.--3knolls (talk) 09:37, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Collapsible headings in the mobile version of the site are a MediaWiki feature, so I would guess that the problem is not in a JavaScript file here on English Wiktionary. — Eru·tuon 05:29, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

How to add a case variant of a Russian word so search will find it
The word влажной is one of the variants of the word влажный (damp). влажный is the "dictionary" (masculine nominative) form of the adjective, and влажной is the feminine genitive, dative, instrumental, or prepositional. Usually, when I search via the "Search Wiktionary" field for an adjective in a variant other than the dictionary form, the entry for the dictionary form comes up, which is what I want. But perhaps ten percent of the time, nothing is found, even though the dictionary form has an entry and its declension table contains the form I'm looking for. My workaround is to start erasing letters from the end until autocompletion finds the dictionary form and shows it in the prepopulated list. However, this is not entirely satisfactory. When I see an instance like this, I'd like to fix it. What do I need to do to make sure that a search for влажной finds the entry for влажный? Thanks.

--AlanUS (talk) 15:03, 20 January 2019 (UTC)
 * You mean you want to see влажной directly in the search bar, without actually making the search? There would have to be an entry for that, but nobody has created it yet. Per utramque cavernam 15:08, 20 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Yes, I want to see it directly in the search bar. How would I create an entry? I've looked through the help, but the English-language help is mostly about adding English-language entries. Thanks. AlanUS (talk) 15:16, 20 January 2019 (UTC)


 * I decided to look at a pair for which both items do show up in the search bar: сладкий (dictionary form) and сладкое (neuter nominative). Based on that pair, I figured out how to create a new entry. So I guess I'm a little closer to understanding how it works, but would appreciate a link to more instructions as to which symbols are available and what they mean. Currently, I'm using guesswork (for example, guessing that the symbol for "genitive" is "gen", and trying it out). Also, how do I get Russian to appear in the list of languages on the search results for a page that doesn't exist? Currently, my list only contains English, American Sign Language, Spanish, and Swedish. I have no idea how this list got populated. AlanUS (talk) 15:30, 20 January 2019 (UTC)


 * "I decided to look at a pair [...]. Based on that pair, I figured out how to create a new entry." > that's exactly the right way to proceed. Your entry looks good, thank you! If you plan on creating more inflected forms, Template:inflection of/documentation might be of interest to you.
 * I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you mean by "the list of languages on the search results for a page that doesn't exist". Coud you clarify what you mean by that? Per utramque cavernam 18:39, 20 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Please see highlighted area of embedded screenshot.

AlanUS (talk) 19:15, 20 January 2019 (UTC)


 * For each of those blue buttons someone had to create a new-entry template specific to that language and to that part of speech. In order for Russian to appear on that menu, someone who knows both Russian and the technical details of such templates would have to create templates for all the parts of speech in that language. I notice that the languages in question have relatively simple inflection systems. Russian is relatively complex in that regard, so there may be subtleties and intricacies that may be hard to cover with such a simple new-entry-template system. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:30, 20 January 2019 (UTC)

Why is my talk page post tagged unconstructive?
Tagalog speaker chiming in, only Cebuano people are called Bisaya, see examples below:

often it is used equivalent to a hillbilly in the US, see 29 second mark for the word used offensively

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGv9Qj0am78

a Waray is a Visayan person but they're not called Bisaya in Tagalog but Waray, below's a Tagalog song about a Waray

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2AE24_ozME

the news below uses Ilonggo for Ilonggo not Bisaya

https://www.philstar.com/pang-masa/pang-movies/2018/07/02/1829855/marian-dingdong-pinakilig-ang-mga-ilonggo

the second definition is made up, we don't call people who don't use 'po' north of Manila or south of Cebu a Bisaya


 * Can you indicate which edit was tagged unconstructive? You stated on the talk page of Bisaya that your post there was tagged unconstructive, but thus far the only edit to that page is your making that statement, thereby creating the page. --Lambiam 22:41, 21 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Abuse filter log: —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 22:47, 21 January 2019 (UTC)


 * The reason you got the message you did was at least partly because you were a new user adding links for commercial websites to a talk page. The vast majority of such cases are spambots, and most of the rest are people who don't know our rules and practices for linking to other websites, and tend to violate them. Links to YouTube are a particular focus of the abuse filters, since people are always trying to promote their own videos.


 * Sorry that your good-faith post triggered the abuse filters, but there's not much we can do to avoid that kind of thing without having to constantly remove lots and lots of spam from talk pages. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:44, 22 January 2019 (UTC)

I understand. Would it have triggered the filter the same way if I used it as an outgoing link instead of the bare URL?

The Century Dictionary and Encyclopedia
I want to add an entymological definition of the word irrorate because I am working on an article on Bycombia on Wikipedia and want to link to the definition. The book is in public domain but has this note attached to it


 * "Public Domain or Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized: In addition to the terms for works that are in the Public Domain or in the Public Domain in the United States above, the following statement applies: The digital images and OCR of this work were produced by Google, Inc. (indicated by a watermark on each page in the PageTurner). Google requests that the images and OCR not be re-hosted, redistributed or used commercially. The images are provided for educational, scholarly, non-commercial purposes.


 * Note: There are no restrictions on use of text transcribed from the images, or paraphrased or translated using the images."

Can I use the definition in this book? Do I add a reference for this? I see on the irrorate page that the first definition is taken from Webster's, also in public domain, and there is a template for it. Is there a template for The Century Dictionary as well? There is an article on Wikipedia about the book. Aurornisxui (talk) 16:40, 21 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Just a piece of advice: the fact that you need to link to a definition is a sign that you're doing something wrong. A taxonomic publication is aimed at taxonomists, and uses very precise, but specialized terminology. An encyclopedia is aimed at the general public, and should use terminology that the general public will understand. If you don't understand it well enough to explain without linking to definitions, how are readers supposed to understand it?
 * Yes, you should get your facts from the sources, but the presentation should be yours, not theirs.
 * Besides, the full details of the taxonomic description are of minimal interest to encyclopedia readers: this is (or was) a living organism that lives somewhere, feeds on certain things, has larvae with their own description, has other interactions with the world around it and there are many other details of interest. I realize that there's not a lot of information easily available, but going into such detail on the taxonomic description gives it undue weight and makes non-entomologists sorry they ever clicked on the link to your article. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:26, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

Term for a verb, derived from an adjective, that indicates "to make (more) adjective"
Is there a term for such a verb? It should be distinguished from the related deadjectival verb that means "to become (more) adjective". In other words, these verbs are transitive. —Rua (mew) 14:11, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I find sentences like “In English, the causative suffix -en on an adjective yields the meaning ‘cause to become ...’, e.g. blacken, straighten.” If there is a term for verbs that mean “make (more) ⟨adjective⟩”, scholarly authors seem to be unaware of it, or studiously avoiding it. --Lambiam 22:49, 22 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I've seen them labelled "causative", but I think of that as a verb derived from another verb, not a verb derived from an adjective. —Rua (mew) 16:39, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Several authors call verbs like blacken and humidify causative verbs, but then they may also classify kill (“make dead”) and set (“make sit”), which are not derived from adjectives, as causative verbs. And other authors use the term for generic verbs like make and let. --Lambiam 22:28, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Kroonen seems to call them "factitive". —Rua (mew) 22:32, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Factitive was the term that came to my mind as well and is what I'd use for the purpose you describe, but Wikipedia redirects factitive to causative so I'm not sure now if they can be differentiated. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 22:36, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
 * In Language Typology and Language Universals (2008, ISBN 3110194260) it is said that "The term factitive used to be employed in nearly the same sense as causative, particularly often to refer to causatives meaning 'make Q' ('make red', 'make angry', etc.). Nowadays it occurs rarely, except perhaps in the French and Semiticist traditions (cf., for instance, a detailed discussion of the causative/factitive distinction in Kouwenberg 1997: 237ff.), although some grammars still use it to denote denominal causatives." In the referred-to Semiticist tradition, I find that e.g. Williams' Hebrew Syntax (2007, ISBN 0802094295) saying that "whereas 'factitive' refers to causing a state, 'causative' refers to causing an action'." (A footnote explains that most stative verbs are intransitive and that some other grammars like "IBHS and JM [...directly] define 'factitive' in terms of the Qal being intransitive", i.e. "he glorified" is given as a factitive verb because it "causes the direct object to enter the state described by that verb in the Qal, [...] 'he was glorious'".) - -sche (discuss) 21:21, 25 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Verbs that end in -ify (e.g. humidify - to make more humid) seem to qualify. SemperBlotto (talk) 06:41, 23 January 2019 (UTC)


 * Is there a particular language that this is in reference to, that has verbs such as these? DTLHS (talk) 18:49, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
 * No, I'm looking for a general term. —Rua (mew) 22:32, 24 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Some authors use the term “causative deadjectival verb” or “deadjectival causative verb”. --Lambiam 20:58, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

Entries for Basque combining noun forms with variant forms before vowels
I created an entry for hara(t)- the combining form of the Basque word haragi, "meat". I think I made a mistake by listing the form this way. Should I have split it into two entries, hara-, used when the second element of the compound starts with a consonant (and which can also trigger initial consonant mutations in the second element), and harat-, used when the second element starts with a vowel?

Note: Combining forms that behave this way are very common in this language. This is the only entry I've made for a combining form that acts like this, and only two other entries link to it. I wanted to check here before I created any more. If the hara(t)- entry needs to be deleted, I'd appreciate it if an admin would do that for me. Thanks. Namnagar (talk) 20:38, 25 January 2019 (UTC)


 * A problem with your approach is that users searching for or  will not find the entry. Therefore I think it is better to have two entries, one for each form – which can cross-reference each other as alternative forms, with a usage note on when which form is used. To cater for the unlikely but not impossible contingency that a user searches for, it may be better to make that redirect to  than to delete it altogether. (These are just my personal reflections as an editor, not some kind of official response.)  --Lambiam 21:15, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I think that, in line with our existing practices, they should not cross-reference each other but instead refer to the main lemma. We don't have alternative forms for non-lemmas normally. —Rua (mew) 23:02, 25 January 2019 (UTC)
 * OK. I made a new entry for the Basque combining form . The two entries whose etymologies reference this combining form are and . If this looks OK, I'll use this as a model for other combining forms that behave this way. Thanks to DTLHS for moving my explanation to a "Usage notes" section. (I didn't make an entry for  because I don't know any compounds of  where the second element starts with a vowel or sybilant. That's certainly not true of other Basque combining forms like this, though.) Namnagar (talk) 03:38, 26 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Haratustel? --Lambiam 02:17, 27 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I didn't know that word! OK, I'll add it. Namnagar (talk) 13:05, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

Category Cleanup
The following page needs either a thorough cleanup, or a rename. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_words_not_following_the_I_before_E_except_after_C_rule In addition to many articles which are not technically 'English words,' it also includes 'Bloemfontein' which is an Afrikaans city name.
 * This is automatically added by Module:en-headword, but maybe it shouldn't be. "Bloemfontein" has an English entry and is therefore considered to be as English a word as any other by our criteria. DTLHS (talk) 19:09, 28 January 2019 (UTC)
 * Poor Einstein is also in that category. --Lambiam 00:08, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Please add the word "Meulah" as used in this site below.
Some time ago I asked for help determining the English meaning of the Hebrew term "Meulah", as used in this below site.

Meulah Factor

For the life of me I cannot work out how to add the word to the list of new English words on this site. Can anyone please renew the translation of the term (meaning), and also add the term to the English meanings, for future help.

Many thanks.....

OzSanta (Brian Christmas)

How this request came about...
 * You asked back in 2016, and it was explained to you. Please see the entry for the Hebrew word, מעולה. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 06:11, 29 January 2019 (UTC)