Wiktionary:Tea room/2017/August

Latin zephirum and cifra
A couple of questions:
 * 1) Can a straightforward borrowing be said to be “coined” (zephirum)?
 * 2) Why is it  ze phirum (consonant and vowel)?
 * 3) Is the pronunciation at cifra correct / temporally appropriate?

Wyang (talk) 11:57, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Not really. I have changed "coined" to "used".
 * Due to analogy with.
 * No. I have added ecclesiastical IPA to the template, but I don't know if it's currently possible to prevent the classical IPA from appearing.
 * —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 13:35, 1 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks! #2 sounds very interesting. Perhaps the etymology at zephirum could be expanded to explain such association. Wyang (talk) 13:39, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's anything semantic going on, just the tendency of (postclassical) Latin to adapt words so that they look like they fit in with Latin's set of used syllables. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 13:43, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Your first two questions sort of answer each other: if it was a straightforward borrowing, why is it "zephirum" instead of ? As for the second question: I don't know the details of medieval Arabic pronunciation, but modern Standard Arabic is unlike anything in the Latin consonant inventory, an s sound made emphatic through pharyngealization/tensing of the area around the back of the tongue (I'm a bit fuzzy on the exact physiological details). Again, I don't know the exact details of medieval Italian pronunciation of Latin, but I believe modern Italian pronunciation of Latin z is an affricate not all that different from Mandarin/Pinyin z or c. I would guess that z was the closest match in the phoneme inventory of a medieval Italian to the sound he would have heard from Arabic speakers of the time. I would also note that modern  is a very strong sound that influences neighboring vowels, so the first vowel of  is lower, further back and more schwa-like than the same sound in other environments. As for your last question, the answer is obviously "no", since the word didn't exist in classical Latin. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:41, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks both. I think the Classical pronunciation should be suppressed in this case. Could you please help? Wyang (talk) 21:25, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * : Done. --kc_kennylau (talk) 03:07, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

IPA on Arabic أَزَلِيّ and صُوفِيّ
Are these pronounced identically to the hypothetical * and *, in Modern Standard Arabic and/or Classical Arabic? In other words, are and  entirely homophonic in MSA? Wyang (talk) 12:58, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * . In the formal Arabic, especially in Quranic recitations, the shadda (gemination) is clearly pronounced but the less formal it gets, the less obvious the difference is. You will hear even from native Arabs that the pronunciation is identical but because it's not always the case and depends on the level of formality and the position in a sentence, we romanise nisba endings as "-iyy"" but informally as "-ī". MSA doesn't always follow classical pronuncations, so simplified endings and lack of ʾiʿrāb occurs all the time and not just in pausa.
 * Besides, -iyy ending is the pausal pronunciation, as you can see in the inflections of . --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 13:39, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks Anatoli. Does this imply that these pairs of words could be minimal pairs when pronounced in a formal manner? (in relation to the output of - dual pronunciations?) Wyang (talk) 21:25, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, Frank. is an example of a nisba and  is an example of an enclitic pronoun "my" - . They both have pronunciation sections. The difference in pronunciation is /-ijː/ vs /-iː/, in transliteration: -iyy vs -ī. The nisba ending -iyy is a formal version without any ʾiʿrāb (case) endings. You may find nisba handling a little bit confusing, since the headword transliteration is "ʿarabiyy" but the declension table has ʿarabiyy with ʾiʿrāb  endings attached, e.g. "ʿarabiyyun" (masculine, nominative, indefinite) and "ʿarabī" marked as "informal"  --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 07:08, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks Anatoli. It seems transcribing the IPA of these entries as may be better; same with the output of . Wyang (talk) 07:14, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think showing the canonical pronunciation is better and besides, it's a phonemic transcription. There are too many nuances in Arabic, including shortening of long vowels and lack of good resources on pronunciation. (That's why dictionaries, including Wiktionary often skip the final sukūn - lack of vowel in the headwords). If a shadda is written, as in, then it has a value, otherwise, it's the colloquial form - without the shadda. To show the colloquial pronunciation it would suffice to use the spellings without the shadda - . --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 07:37, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok, I have converted the two entries to use, which presently gives a output. The specifics of the notation can be further discussed, and implemented automatically via the module. Wyang (talk) 10:25, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

English toxic
This has an additional meaning in English, e.g. "the+child+looks+toxic". Wyang (talk) 13:36, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I've added it. Feel free to improve on the definition. Wyang (talk) 22:20, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

English youngling
As with, is this really an adjective ? Leasnam (talk) 21:09, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * No. Its adjectival usage is just attributive use of the noun. Don't know what to do about the translations in this sort of instance. SemperBlotto (talk) 05:21, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

English physical examination
I think there should be two senses for this: one referring to an examination with the aim of diagnosis (i.e. when patients present to hospitals), and one referring to an examination to see whether one is in a good health state. The translations should be checked and split too - the names are often different for these two senses in other languages. Wyang (talk) 21:32, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Having different translations does not mean they need to be separate senses in English. List both translations. The question is whether they are separate senses in the mind of an English speaker. --WikiTiki89 21:37, 1 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The current definition (“the examination of the patient's body with the use of such methods as inspection, palpation, percussion and auscultation”) is for the first sense. A “physical examination” in the second sense entails a distinct set of procedures from the first, typically including a medical history + a brief “physical exam” (in the first sense, i.e. inspection +/- palpation/percussion/auscultation/specific tests) + most importantly laboratory tests and scans. Wyang (talk) 22:14, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

English intussusception
I think the intestinal and vascular definitions of intussusception should be listed separately. Intussusceptive angiogenesis (pictures available on Google Images) has a different mechanism from the one described in definition #2 of the entry. Wyang (talk) 23:20, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Arabic إدْحِيّة, أُدْحُوّة, أُدْحِيّة
Masculine or feminine? (Entry says masculine.) Wyang (talk) 07:15, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I am pretty sure they are feminine and there's no shadda, at least in the referenced (HW). Can't verify the related terms. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 12:40, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I think Lisan al-Arab (page 1338) was what the creator used. All five words are recorded with a shadda on yāʾ or wāw. Wyang (talk) 13:01, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Hans Wehr proved to be much more reliable and it shows no shadda. However, if is originally an adjective, formed with a nisba, then  would be its feminine form. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 13:08, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Any thoughts? --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 13:22, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Pity, no reply. It's sometimes hard to establish what is correct in Arabic. The definition of "correct" is blurred, if there are no defined standards and very few resources on pronunciation. Lisan al-Arab shouldn't be discarded. What should we do? --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 07:09, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't have any insights, but how about showing both vocalizations and adding a usage note explaining which is given by which reference? — Eru·tuon 07:23, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * , I'm having trouble finding the shadda myself on the page provided but could find more examples in . --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 07:45, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It's in the middle of page 1338 - I highlighted it here. Wyang (talk) 07:52, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. And here (Arabic-Persian) all or most of the forms are listed (marked ) without the shadda. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 08:16, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

What is the origin of the tāʾ marbūṭa in Arabic خَلِيفَة?
Wyang (talk) 07:28, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know. tāʾ marbūṭa is a noun forming suffix (one of the senses is singularity) but since caliphs are usually men, then it's a masculine. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 13:10, 2 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I haven't studied the matter, but at university I was taught that it was a regular ت initially which became "corrupted" overtime (something that has happened with other letters, as you probably know, in Arabic calligraphy as in other related scripts, but curiously the final ת that marks, among other things, fem. gender in Hebrew has not changed) --- Now, the thing is that in Egyptian the phonetic equivalent of "t", and also marker of fem. gender, is used in a manner much like the tā marbūṭa and even resembles it, but I don't know if that's more than chance. In any event, is easy to see how a scribe with space-constraints made a ة out of a ت
 * Sorry, next time I will read your query UNTIL THE END before I attempt to answer it: re the in Khalifa I know at least than in the oldest Islamic mss. no diacritic marks existed, so ة and ه were one and the same and 'twas the scope of the reader to distinguish upon context which of the two corresponded. Thus, "his successor" and the modern word "Khaleefa" were indistinguishable. (Facts hitherto; now my theory is that) someone must have misinterpreted "his successor" for a noun without a suffixed pronoun and started the whole shebang, but I have no documental proof to this extent
 * That doesn't sound plausible, since the feminine ending and the masculine singular possessive pronoun are still pronounced differently. And most average people didn't read or write. --WikiTiki89 15:15, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think it was probably originally an abstract noun referring to the position itself and then later came to refer to the person in that position (or something of the sort). --WikiTiki89 15:13, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

defile
"The man was charged with the abduction of the 6-year old girl with the intent to defile her." Does this really mean "to make her dirty"? What is the real meaning of "defile" in that sentence? PseudoSkull (talk) 02:26, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I know it links to impure which gives the definition of "Not virgin" but I think the whole sex act thing should really be specified and explained better in that entry, perhaps with a separate definition? PseudoSkull (talk) 02:34, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Perhaps. I think it's more along the lines of, "to stain, tarnish, mar", but yeah, a separate sense is probably justified Leasnam (talk) 14:26, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I've added it. Leasnam (talk) 14:30, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

The other sense "make impure or dirty" is not particularly accurate either. It suggests that the word could be used to describe getting dirt on yourself or mixing dirt with water. But if I heard "he defiled the water", I'd assume that implied the water was somehow sacred, or that urination or defecation was involved (along with some facetiousness on the part of the speaker), not simply that someone mixed a little dirt into water. Defile usually implies something sacred losing its sacredness, and it's most often used (non-ironically) in religious contexts. — Eru·tuon 17:54, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * @User:Erutuon I replaced that definition with a new definition specifically about something considered sacred. I heard the word "defile" used on  originally in the second sense, and I don't think they were referring to someone's virginity in a religious context, but rather an etho-legal context. I wonder if my new first definition really is optimized either, so someone may want to check it. PseudoSkull (talk) 19:07, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The original definition was not inaccurate. Defile can still be used to mean "make unclean". I've added it back. Leasnam (talk) 12:25, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

🇨🇬
Did this also mean “dear (lovable; precious)”? (e.g. 🇨🇬, ) Wyang (talk) 02:53, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, of course. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 07:05, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Sanskrit borrowings in Urdu.
I see a lot of Urdu words listed here which are supposed to be the equivalents of words in literary Hindi & which are borrowed from Sanskrit. If possible, someone could check whether these following Urdu words are attested (they are all literary Hindi words btw):
 * (🇨🇬). These are just a few from the many more at CAT:Urdu terms derived from Sanskrit. Along with the colloquial words ultimately from Sanskrit, this catagory also lists words like the ones above which belong to literary Hindi instead. -- ɱɑɗɦɑѵ (talk) 09:28, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It should be noted that for most of these words the top result is Wiktionary itself. actually has no hits on Google Books, the rest may be rare or obsolete terms, and I think  is easily attestable as a name. —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 10:01, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * (🇨🇬). These are just a few from the many more at CAT:Urdu terms derived from Sanskrit. Along with the colloquial words ultimately from Sanskrit, this catagory also lists words like the ones above which belong to literary Hindi instead. -- ɱɑɗɦɑѵ (talk) 09:28, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It should be noted that for most of these words the top result is Wiktionary itself. actually has no hits on Google Books, the rest may be rare or obsolete terms, and I think  is easily attestable as a name. —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 10:01, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * (🇨🇬). These are just a few from the many more at CAT:Urdu terms derived from Sanskrit. Along with the colloquial words ultimately from Sanskrit, this catagory also lists words like the ones above which belong to literary Hindi instead. -- ɱɑɗɦɑѵ (talk) 09:28, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It should be noted that for most of these words the top result is Wiktionary itself. actually has no hits on Google Books, the rest may be rare or obsolete terms, and I think  is easily attestable as a name. —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 10:01, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It should be noted that for most of these words the top result is Wiktionary itself. actually has no hits on Google Books, the rest may be rare or obsolete terms, and I think  is easily attestable as a name. —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 10:01, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Trafficking, trafficker, trafficked but NOT traffick
There is no such word as traffick. Never mind some entry in Wiktionary or its use by Al Jazeeera (http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/07/escaping-clutches-sex-trafficking-thailand-170730071208339.html) I suggest checking with Oxford, Cambridge or Merriam-Webster. Please consider removing false and misleading material from the Wiktionary website
 * You should post your concerns to WT:RFV instead. That is the place for discussing the existence of terms. —CodeCat 17:42, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not finding any instances of traffick without -ing, -ed, or -er at the Al Jazeera cite linked anyway. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:49, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Nor of traffic. --WikiTiki89 18:16, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * At b.g.c I'm only finding it as an archaic spelling (up to the 18th century) and in book titles, where it appears to be being used for artistic effect. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 17:53, 3 August 2017 (UTC)


 * It seems extremely common to me. I have no idea why authors are using "traffick" instead of traffic when referring to illegal goods. DTLHS (talk) 18:27, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Can you give some examples of where you've seen it? --WikiTiki89 18:31, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * In the entry. DTLHS (talk) 18:31, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I suppose that it's a backformation from the verb form trafficking. DTLHS (talk) 18:43, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to call it a misspelling of rather than an alternative spelling of. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 19:08, 3 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Note Equinox's comment on the talk page. Is he right? Never mind, it looks like someone added that info to the entry already... Andrew Sheedy (talk) 19:21, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Requesting verification of kun reading: まさ-る, まさ-に for 多
The only online source I can find for these readings of 多 is kanjidic and enamdic. It may be nanori because まさる appears as a reading for 多 in enamdic. 馬太阿房 (talk) 18:21, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

🇨🇬
How should this be declined? (Please also check this entry, thanks!) Wyang (talk) 02:27, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think it would just be declined as if it were a noun–adjective phrase. Also, fascinating word! First phono-semantic matching that I've heard of in Arabic. — Eru·tuon 02:33, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you, ! Wyang (talk) 02:35, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, the current construct-state and definite  both look odd... it would be good to have some confirmation. — Eru·tuon 03:45, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The definite form appears to be الأرضي شوكي. I'm unsure how this could be generated in, though. Wyang (talk) 04:55, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
 * If that's the case, then the whole term should be inflected as a whole word. A recent case is . Then the declension should be simply like this:


 * H. Wehr only lists the word under . I guess there is no shadda on أَرْضِي. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 05:08, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
 * : Guys, it's invariable. There is no evidence of an alif after any of the components for the term. There are only a few hits with no space "أرضيشوكي" but they still make the case stronger. Furthermore, there are no shadda and the colloquial pronunciation is . --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 08:31, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Should the head/pronunciation be or ? Steingass has the former, and the former is definitely the etymological spelling. I suspect the pronunciation in Wehr is an attempt to transcribe the dialectal pronunciation, not really MSA. The regional nature of the word may mean it is rarely inflected in MSA, but I feel it may be declinable. The form  is recorded in Almaany, and the definite forms الأرضي شوكي, الأرضي الشوكي are amply attested online (the first can also be heard in this video from the UAE). Perhaps the following is how an Arabic speaker would decline it in MSA:
 * {| class="wikitable"

! rowspan=4 | Indefinite ! Colloquial ! Nominative ! Accusative ! Genitive ! rowspan=4 | Definite ! Colloquial ! Nominative ! Accusative ! Genitive
 * colspan=2 |
 * colspan=2 |
 * colspan=2 |
 * colspan=2 |
 * colspan=2 |
 * }
 * Wyang (talk) 10:39, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You're good with your resources, mate! The reason I decided against this was that I couldn't find a single hit with the accusative, which doesn't look good but I admit I didn't check further, e.g. الأرضي الشوكي, which is against my suggestion but الأرضي شوكي only proves that the term may be considered a single noun (with the declinable final part) - a definite phrase like the English "the good book" would be "the book the good". Perhaps it can be both? Good work on a new language! --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 11:46, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks Anatoli! Let's see if others have more input on this. I'll also see if I can get the chance to ask some native Levantine Arabic speakers about the declension in the next few days. Wyang (talk) 11:59, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry for mucking around. Since there are eight hits in Google for "أرضيا شوكيا". That may be enough. I have restored Erutuon's version. I have also asked about this term on an Arabic forum. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 14:32, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
 * My question has been answered. See rayloom's reply. It seems we are both right. The term can be treated as a compound and word and as one word. He also rejected the idea of a fatḥa inbetween. MSA accepts the dialectal pronunciation (we need to make it work both with "ʾarḍiyy šawkiyy" or "ʾarḍī šōkī"). Please note that on this forum they often simplify the formal nisba endings, displaying -iyy as "ī" or even "i". I could use some assistance in making the templates work for both paradigms (compound and single word) and two types of transliteration. If I do it myself, I'll have to put multiple tables. The invariable paradigm should never be discarded completely either, especially for loanwords. Pretty sure it's perceived as such, even if it's double-borrowed. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 01:55, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
 * So there is indeed no correct way of declination :/ I think using multiple tables is the best solution at the moment. It seems we will need a policy on how to handle dialectal/colloquial Arabic pronunciations. Wyang (talk) 13:15, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
 * According to this dictionary only the second term would be declined, and there is evidence of other compounds following the same pattern (حَبْلُ شَوكِيّ, عَمُود شَوكِيّ). I hope it helps. User:Gfarnab
 * According to this dictionary only the second term would be declined, and there is evidence of other compounds following the same pattern (حَبْلُ شَوكِيّ, عَمُود شَوكِيّ). I hope it helps. User:Gfarnab



Hello all. The inflection has now been verified by native speakers. Could someone please join the inflection into one table? The diptote declension is more common. There is a small problemm with the triptote part. The disjointed construct forms like "ʾarḍī ... aš-šawkī" should be disabled, please. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 10:43, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I disabled the disjointed construct forms for now. Attention is still needed on merging the declension tables. Wyang (talk) 10:50, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

🇨🇬
This is pronounced or  (if I transcribe them correctly) when used for the medical sense (e.g. “absence seizure”). Please check if the IPA is correct and help add it to the entry, thanks. Wyang (talk) 07:35, 4 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I've added the General American version of that transcription to the entry. — Eru·tuon 02:09, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Wyang (talk) 11:48, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The only explicit pronunciation at is at MWOnlink and has the stress on the first syllable of absence. No other reference has an explicit pronunciation, so one would assume the normal pronunciation of the component terms. Is there a source for the placement of the stress on the first syllable? Macquarie's? DCDuring (talk) 22:16, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know what the sources for English pronunciations are, but these are fairly commonly heard pronunciations. Youtube has some examples for the former pronunciation, e.g. this one. Wyang (talk) 11:48, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

A few more pronunciation problems

 * : Also pronounced.
 * : In Australia, refers to the neck,  refers to the cervix.
 * : Also pronounced with the accent on o, only in the US it seems.
 * : Predominantly pronounced with accent on first e in the US, but British pronunciation could be both skelétal and skéletal, with the former appearing to be more common.
 * : Also pronounced (chiefly by healthcare professionals, it seems).
 * : Also pronounced fuh-sét, e.g. “facet joint”.
 * : Predominantly pronounced in Australia, e.g. “raphe nucleus”.
 * : The two pronunciations are regional in distribution. is more common in US, but almost unheard of in Australia.
 * oestrogen: Pronounced in Australia.
 * : The current pronunciation is missing a primary stress. Also to differentiate from.
 * : Pronounced differently in the US (mélena) and UK (meléna).
 * : Pronounced differently in the US and UK.

Please check the IPA as above. Wyang (talk) 08:10, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

I do not believe all of these. You are not a native speaker of English and may have assumed some things. Centimetre may be pronounced in a more French way by a French speaker of English in Australia, but you're making it up when you claim that doctors say sontimeter and others sentimeter.


 * The fact that you are not aware of these pronunciations does not imply that the pronunciations are non-existent. You are assuming things you do not know are wrong and making some serious allegations above. I don't know which of the above are the ones you do not believe, but references to the variant pronunciation of centimeter are widely available in forums:
 * Why do so many surgeons pronounce "centimetre" as "sontimetre"?
 * Centimeter vs. Centimeter
 * How do you pronounce "centimeter"??? @ allnurses.com
 * Pronouncing "centimeter" @ studentdoctor.net
 * centimeters / sonometers are both pronunciations still correct?
 * Franglais speaking
 * What's a sontimeter? @ doccartoon
 * There are also some published sources discussing the pronunciation of this word:
 * The Pronunciation of "Centimeter" (1930) in the journal 
 * Survival Guide for Anatomy & Physiology
 * Cut to the Chase: 100 Matrix Pearls for Doctors
 * The Big Book of Beastly Mispronunciations
 * Wyang (talk) 11:48, 26 August 2017 (UTC)


 * You are confusing the fact that the word centimetre was a borrowing from French, with Anglo-Saxon nations using inches, and so therefore a Frenchie pronunciation is/was one of the options (I would refer you to "envelope", which is also a French borrowing and has two pronunciations), with a claim that medical personnel in particular say sonometre or sontimetre. Next thing, you'll be claiming that postmen as a trade say "onvelope" while the rest of society says "envelope" -- not true. You are not a native speaker.
 * He doesn't have to be a native speaker to hear how people pronounce things. He lives in Australia, and from his earlier posts, it sounds like he's in the medical profession, so it would seem he's in a position to know how doctors in at least one English-speaking country pronounce things. How is it you know so much about how Australian doctors pronounce things, since you're evidently posting from Ukraine ("the other UK"). FWIW, using a French pronunciation could be explained as a hyperforeignism among people who want to appear well-educated or internationally-sophisticated. I've notice a tendency among Shakespearean actors, for instance, to use French pronunciations for French loanwords where most people would use an English pronunciation. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:07, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

street
@, Noun sense #8. These are definitions for an adjective. Usex is for a noun. Leasnam (talk) 14:57, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

phylogenic
Are the two definitions different? And is it just a synonym of phylogenetic; can we merge the info into the entry of the more common one? Ultimateria (talk) 15:00, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Past participle of Portuguese verb abrir
The conjugation table for "abrir" lists "abrido/os/a/as" as the participle forms of the verb. However, I am just learning that "aberto/os/a/as" are actually the correct participle forms. According to Collins dictionary, "aberto/os/a/as" are not Portuguese words at all. If this is verified to be the case, be sure also to remove the "abrido/os/a/as" entries that point back to "abrir". unsigned comment by User:LelandSun 00:10, 5 August 2017 (UTC)


 * . —Stephen (Talk) 22:43, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I believe this is ✅.
 * I fixed the conjugation table located at abrir (by editing this data module: Module:pt-conj/data/-ir).
 * I deleted the entries abrido, abrida, abridos, abridas.
 * I moved the participle senses from these deleted entries to aberto, aberta, abertos, abertas.
 * --Daniel Carrero (talk) 06:51, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Imperative of Portuguese verb ouvir
The conjugation table for Portuguese verb "ouvir" lists "ouça" and "ouçais" as its affirmative imperative forms for the second person singular (tu) and plural (vós), respectively. However, according to http://www.conjuga-me.net/en/verbo-ouvir, they should instead be "ouve" and "ouvi", which would make more sense. Would someone confirm this and make the necessary corrections? unsigned comment by User:LelandSun 00:31, 5 August 2017 (UTC)


 * . —Stephen (Talk) 22:39, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You're right, fixed now. Thanks! – Jberkel (talk) 09:13, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

English: use of collect
Collect had a sense like "gather" -- "I collect it is now rare" would mean you infer so, similar to gather in the phrase "I gather you're new here."

I just added a usage from Jane Austen. I think the other two are wrong -- the Mantel one sounds to me like a mistake by Mantel, trying to sound of-the-period, and I think she misused it -- the loudness would make it hard to "make out" or "discern," not difficult to infer what was being said; and I don't think collect ever had such a sense. If it did, I think it is under the wrong head on Wiktionary page.

The other example is taken from Johnson's dictionary, and he lists it as a different sense, meaning to infer (and come to a mistaken conclusion in the case at hand) from leading clues deliberately set out is how I would paraphrase his definition.

I left the two other examples alone but especially Mantel's I think is just that author's mistake (if it turns out she's quoting a real diary, I'm wrong, obviously, but I'm pretty sure it's her creation from google search HastyBeekeeper (talk) 01:59, 5 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Should be glossed archaic? Equinox ◑ 10:23, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I searched 21st century books at Google for "collect|collects|collecting|collected that" to catch instances in which collect is followed by a that-clause, because that seemed like the only reasonable way to get a reasonably high yield of the relatively uncommon sense we are considering. I found two instances of usage, but they were both in works originally published 150 years or more ago. In contrast, I found 18 uses of [gather] that, about half of which were in works written after 1999.
 * "Archaic" seems to understate the case. I'm inclined to label it "obsolete", especially since the Mantel example seems wrong. DCDuring (talk) 14:24, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Plurals of words with -ness
Hi, I'm pretty new here.

Words with -ness suffixes are listed here as having plurals nesses.

In my use of English and in the material I have read, etc it seems to me that this is generally not the case. For example, I can't imagine a sentence with the word fixednesses nor calmnesses. (An exception to this that I can think of is kindnesses where the word essentially replaces something like gift).

Anyway, I was wondering if somebody could point me to the general methods of verification or text corpora that might be used to decide whether a word like fixednesses exists or not.


 * Searching Google Books finds phrases like "the five fixednesses" and "the metaphysical fixednesses of the very learned doctors". It is rare, as stated in entry. Equinox ◑ 12:18, 5 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Ok! So is searching something like Google Books a good method for researching topics like this? Are there others you could tell me about quickly? BuddyJay (talk) 12:21, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Other sources that we use as evidence for attestation are Google News, Google Scholar, and Usenet (included in Google Groups [One needs to check whether the group is part of Usenet or just a Google group]). We tend to use only these for other purposes as well. These sources are "durably archived" and also tend to exclude many kinds of errors which would be extremely tedious to include in a dictionary. DCDuring (talk) 22:16, 5 August 2017 (UTC)


 * All I can say is that anyone who is familiar with the term "corpora" should know how to go searching. The problem is that some of the classic corpora (e.g. BNC) are outdated and pre-date the Internet, and many others are very specific and don't help you in tracking general usage. Equinox ◑ 00:33, 7 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Most abstract nouns in -ness rarely have a plural, but they can have plurals. Eg unrighteousnesses, which is attested in the Douay-Rheims Bible.

echo
Tagged but not listed, with the comment “Verify that it is "fourth declension". In several books it's 3rd declension (kind of irregular, but it's coming from Greek).” - -sche (discuss) 08:51, 23 July 2015 (UTC)


 * Lewis and Shorts: "ēcho, ūs, f., = ἠχώ"
 * Georges: "ēchō, ūs, Akk. ōn, Abl. ō. f."
 * So the declension seems to be doubtful (ablative ēchō, or also ēchō besides ēchū). :-Rdm571 (talk) 13:35, 24 October 2015 (UTC)

I'm resurrecting this discussion because I feel the situation still isn't resolved.

At present Appendix:Latin_third_declension insists: ‘While these words usually belong to the third declension, some English-speaking grammarians (incorrectly) put them to the fourth declension.’ (emphasis mine)

However, Appendix:Latin_fourth_declension lists echo as an example, with endings -o -us -o -o -o.

echo itself says it's 4th declension, but with endings -o -us -ui -um -u -o / -us -uum -ibus -us -ibus -us.

The works quoted by L&S at first glance just use the form ‘echo’. Ovid seems to stick with the nominative.

All inflected forms I could find were post-classical, either -us, -um or apparent forms of echo, echonis. I couldn't find -ui, -u, -uum or -ibus at all, although they might exist. Maybe I didn't look hard enough or maybe they aren't on the internet yet.

I found a (post-classical) document using ‘echon’, but in the nominative. And I've also found ‘echo’ in the accusative.

Anyway, Wiktionary is contradicting itself and I'd like to see this fixed, but I'm uncertain how to approach this. Any ideas?

(I first wrote it without "probably" but it could indeed be that someone found these terms somewhere like in a forum/board (including la.WP) or got them from some tool automatically making up forms.) But AFAIR there was one English grammar which put these words into 4th declension. This might lead to the general questions: Must all inflected forms be attested? Usually the answer is no. But sometimes there somewhat are other requirements, like for Latin terms derived from Greek. One could be strictly only add what's attested, or one could add all probable forms just like it's done for regular Latin nouns (both substantive and adjectives) and verbs. In the later case there could be a note like "Some forms might be unattested". (This would be similar to some Ancient Greek entries like with "Some forms may be based on conjecture. Use with caution.", though "Use with caution" sounds somwhat POV-y, style-guide-y, and "conjecture" somewhat sounds like it could be something some wiktionary-editors made up.)
 * Indeed it's unresolved.
 * As for the process of fixing it:
 * There is WT:RFVN and WT:RFDO. One could add doubtful forms or templates there, and then soon they should be gone. Compare: WT:RFDO (from 6 December 2016, and till now without reply), WT:RFVN, WT:RFVN. If nobody reacts, one could be bold and correct the entries, though there's always the possibility that an admin might revert it and might even insult one.
 * As for the correct information:
 * The 4th-declension-like forms are probably made up by wiktionary.
 * According to grammars words like "echo" belong to the 3rd declension, and they do as they're coming from Greek's third declension, sometimes have regular Latin third declension forms (sometimes first attested in Medieval or New Latin times), don't belong to the fourth declension.
 * Compared with terms similar to "echo", "echo" is a bit different as it is or became a common noun and could have a regular third declension plural as echo, gen. sg. echonis, nom. pl. echones. According to secondary sources like grammars and dictionaries it does have a plural (in ML/NL) but that's not sufficient for en.WT (in contrary to some other WTs for which secondary sources are sufficient and albeit sometimes information in en.WT is taken from dictionaries without checking the primary sources and without proper attestion).
 * -on or -un does occur as an accusative ending. It's not necessarily attested for echo, but same might be true for genitive -us for this or similar terms which nontheless is given by dictionaries.
 * -84.161.57.35 23:42, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

bæc
I'm struggling with the declension here. Apparently this silly noun declines in all three genders and I'm 98% sure I got my declension tables wrong this time. Anti-Gamz Dust (There's Hillcrest!) 19:32, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure the æ becomes a in the plural of the a-stem declension. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 21:02, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I was thinking that was the case. Thanks for confirming! Anti-Gamz Dust (There's Hillcrest!) 22:40, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Mdlle
This entry looks very funny. Mlle is a French entry that links Mdlle as an alternative form, but when I clicked it, it was an English entry, not a French one, without the dlle in superscript. Also, the entry links to a French term in the definition, even though the entry has an English header. What the hell? PseudoSkull (talk) 23:42, 5 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Both the entries and the links between them were added by WF, who probably wasn't paying attention to what language he was working in. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:32, 6 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Just changed Mdlle to French. It might occur in English too, I dunno. Equinox ◑ 00:34, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

hundred
All five quotations under hundred look grammatically incorrect to me, as they each have two articles. For example:

"That has really soared over the past a hundred years or so."

should be:

"That has really soared over the past hundred years or so." or "That has really soared over the past one hundred years or so."

Anybody agree? Auximines (talk) 00:26, 6 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Wow, yes. I'd accept it as informal but it does feel wrong. Maybe a US thing? Equinox ◑ 00:30, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Seems nonstandard to me, too. These are all transcriptions- I wonder if anyone actually said it that way. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:50, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I checked the Merriam-Webster one, and she did actually say that, though you could easily miss the "a" if you weren't listening for it. I don't remember ever hearing this construction before, but maybe I did and just filtered it out.Chuck Entz (talk) 01:08, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I've heard it a few times before, but mostly from less educated people, so I would call it nonstandard. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:53, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I interpret all of these as illustrations of, as suggested above. The citations seem totally unbalanced, so I assume they were inserted in connection with some debate over numerals, but I have not followed these discussions and could not divine any unexpressed intentions of participants. Moving the current citations to the citations page and adding citations or usage examples illustrative of the range of more normal usage. DCDuring (talk) 03:24, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'd certainly say something like that. Not speaking formally or usually in writing, but in my idiolect "the past hundred years" is wrong, even if I recognize it as correct standard English; it has to be "the past one hundred years", or "the past a hundred years" in speech.--Prosfilaes (talk) 09:36, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * In my idiolect "The past hundred years" and "the past one hundred years" seem fine, but "the past a hundred years" seems almost as wrong as "the first a hundred years", which seems very wrong, having three determinatives. DCDuring (talk) 20:31, 7 August 2017 (UTC)


 * My idiolect is like DCDuring's. It's pretty simple "the year" and "the one year", but not "the a year". Likewise "the past year" and "the past one year", but not "the past a year", and likewise "the hundred years" and "the one hundred years", but not "the a hundred years", and likewise finally "the past hundred years" and "the past one hundred years", but not "the past a hundred years". --WikiTiki89 21:13, 7 August 2017 (UTC)


 * The problem with "the past hundred" is that "hundred" needs a, um, quantifier(?) before it; "A hundred guys died." and "One hundred guys died." are okay, but not "Hundred guys died." That's what makes "hundred" different here. It seems the grammar generalized differently in my idiolect than yours. I'm not arguing that "the past a hundred" is correct in standard English, but it don't think it's all that rare in spoken English.--Prosfilaes (talk) 23:49, 7 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Take a closer look at the third of my four example sets. In other words, take away the word "past" and see if you still agree with what you just said. --WikiTiki89 02:25, 8 August 2017 (UTC)


 * In British English, "over the past ONE hundred years" is the preferred form.

assortment / assortiment
In Dutch an assortiment can also mean "everything a store has to offer". For example the question "Heeft u ook donuts?" (Do you also have donuts?) could be answered with "Sorry, die zitten niet in ons assortiment.". (sorry, those are not something we offer)

Is this sense also valid in English? W3ird N3rd (talk) 11:25, 6 August 2017 (UTC)


 * No, you can't say that in English. Auximines (talk) 14:59, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I've added the sense to the Dutch page. (otherwise I would have added it to the English page which the Dutch page was referring to) Does a synonym exist? I'm thinking "current offerings" or "available in this store", but is there a single-word equivalent and/or more common way to describe that? W3ird N3rd (talk) 08:14, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The closest thing I can think of is . A company could say that a certain product is or is not in its range (or range of products), but it would sound a little strange at a supermarket. The supermarket employee would more likely say "Sorry, we don't carry those." —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:40, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

About the examples in susu
I just stumbled on susu, and noticed that the Javanese usage examples have the sentences in Javanese reported twice with different indentations, as if there were a transliteration process going on, except there is none. What is going on there?

MGorrone (talk) 14:17, 6 August 2017 (UTC)

nudge nudge wink wink
Hi, all. recently updated the stress pattern at : see and the talk page comment. Do people really stress the second and fourth word though? Comments welcome. — SGconlaw (talk) 14:32, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I would say that's correct. Auximines (talk) 15:04, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think it's weird too. If I had to, I'd put primary stress on the 1st and 3rd instead. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 17:24, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Stressing the 1st and 3rd words seems weird to me. I always stress the 2nd and 4th. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:43, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I stress them all equally, and insert a pause between "nudge" and "wink" (and thus would probably punctuate it as "nudge-nudge, wink-wink"). --WikiTiki89 18:58, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree with Wiki Tiki - I have never heard it with a stress on any of the words. They're all pronounced with the same stress and with the spacing as W T describes. Facts707 (talk) 17:10, 1 September 2017 (UTC)


 * An alternative with the same meaning is the reduplicated "say no more, say no more..." This means that everyone, wink-wink, knows what you're referring to, probably to something naughty.


 * He has elaborated on the talk page and I think he is right. Equinox ◑ 11:49, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

Tutorial
Is there a tutorial about how to create content for the Wikitionary? I don't have a specific question.
 * Best Regards, Bfpage (talk) 16:31, 6 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Welcome, newcomers.Jonteemil (talk) 00:01, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Etymology of tsar
This doesn't add up:

English etymology on :


 * Borrowing from 🇨🇬, from 🇨🇬, from 🇨🇬, from 🇨🇬, from 🇨🇬, ultimately from 🇨🇬.

Swedish etymology on :


 * From 🇨🇬, from 🇨🇬, from 🇨🇬, from 🇨🇬, from 🇨🇬.

Russian etymology on :


 * From 🇨🇬, from, from 🇨🇬, ultimately from 🇨🇬.

Gothic etymology on :


 * Borrowing from 🇨🇬, from 🇨🇬, or a direct borrowing from the Latin.

Old Church Slavonic etymology on / :


 * From 🇨🇬, from 🇨🇬.

It's quite inconsistent. Please fix!Jonteemil (talk) 23:59, 6 August 2017 (UTC) ps. I changed all the etymology templates to cognates so all the catigorization wouldn't be active.
 * I think the full chain should go like this:
 * Borrowed from, from , from , shortened form of , from a language (possibly ), ultimately from  (possibly via ).
 * but I’m not sure about the Latin -> Gothic pathway (does 🇨🇬 not come via 🇨🇬?). — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 10:12, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It does accoeding to but bot according to  itself. Since it's a Germanic language you can suggest that the Germanic derivation is more logic but I don't know. Everything isn't logic in this world.Jonteemil (talk) 23:20, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The Gothic derivation here is unfounded. The Slavic quite likely derives from Proto-Germanic via a descendant of the latter as intermediary (Pronk-Tiethoff 2013). I've updated all involved etymologies, but there might be some uncertainties left due to the many Slavic forms descended from this. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 22:27, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

Pikachu and Pokémon
I believe we should have both as entries if we're going to have one and not the other. How did Pikachu warrant an entry and not Pokémon? Pokémon is an EXTREMELY, TREMENDOUSLY popular series of anime, manga, toys, cards, video games, fictional creatures, and all sorts of stuff. I think the sense "A single fictional creature in the franchise (...)" needs to exist, as it is pretty clear that it is way attested. Of course I don't support having every individual creature, but if we're gonna have Pikachu, we better damn have Pokémon. PseudoSkull (talk) 05:09, 7 August 2017 (UTC) I'd say Pokémon is more attested than a lot of words that border around WT:FICTION that we have here. PseudoSkull (talk) 05:10, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Pokemon: "Informal form of Pokémon.". pokémon: "Spanish for Pokémon." (Spanish? what'd I miss?) This is just silly. Just search for "pokemon-like craze" and you probably get enough hits already. "pokemon-like craze" doesn't refer to the Pokémon universe, does it? And since we have quaffle shouldn't we also have Pokéball? W3ird N3rd (talk) 09:29, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It was started as an "only in Wikipedia" article and evolved (https://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Pok%C3%A9mon&diff=26674715&oldid=18523708) until it looked like it does now with the template complaining about not meeting CFI. No proper definition for it ever existed here. I'd say just create it, finding out-of-universe sources if anyone really wants them won't be that hard. I would also be happy to if you don't feel up to it right now. W3ird N3rd (talk) 12:17, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * There you go, I've added three out-of-universe examples from books to Citations:Pokémon. Now you gotta catch 'm all create that entry! W3ird N3rd (talk) 14:35, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * If these citations are no good, please let me know. (and tell me why so I can learn) If you don't feel like creating this entry, let me know. If you're still working on it, let me know. We even have an entry for Pokémon Goer so if we can't have Pokémon that's just.. I wouldn't mind creating it myself, but feel like I would be "stealing" it from you. W3ird N3rd (talk) 19:36, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'll get around to it. If you want to create the entry so it gets done earlier, go ahead. There is no "stealing" from anyone here. PseudoSkull (talk) 00:22, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

nudge nudge wink wink sense
I looked at it because of the discussion above here, but I think there's a sense missing. It currently says: "(idiomatic, humorous, also attributive) A phrase used to hint that the speaker is euphemistically referring to something else.". I'm not sure this would cover use like Hey, if you wanna have a "white Christmas" I know a guy you know, nudge nudge wink wink (in reference to narcotic use). It feels like the definition mentioned by wisegirl at https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100219100609AAYLnSB isn't covered either: ''It's a gesture that accompanies an innuendo. Example: Your dad says, "I just got a $5,000 bonus at work. I wonder what I should do with it." and you say, "You could buy a new car for your favorite child, wink wink nudge nudge."''. But I could be wrong. W3ird N3rd (talk) 08:59, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The first example you give fits the definition perfectly. However, I don't think the second fits with the idea that the speaker is euphemistically referring to something else, as the name of the "favorite child" is in no way offensive or vulgar, although perhaps it could be considered blunt (see our entry for ).... Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:32, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think you're right. In both cases it's replacing something that would be considered (more) blunt. I was overthinking this, the definition covers it just fine. W3ird N3rd (talk) 23:18, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

box set and boxed set
I have always assumed that box set originated as a corruption/mispronunciation/mishearing of boxed set, as box set literally means just a set of boxes. Is it worth adding this to the etymology? Auximines (talk) 11:19, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Gee, I always assumed it was an instance of attributive use of a noun in a term that was a synonym of boxed set. I don't think these are the only examples of such pairs. DCDuring (talk) 12:17, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You might be interested to know that boxset is a valid Dutch word (borrowed) and so are verzamelbox (collect box, from verzameling/collection) and verzamelset ("collect set".. which seems strange now that I think about it) I think of it as a shortened version of "box, containing set". Boxed can't be translated to Dutch, we can only say "packed in a box". Dutch for box is doos, but verzameldoos will usually not be used in this sense. A verzameldoos would be more likely to be a box that for example old pictures or toys have been collected in. A setdoos just plain doesn't exist and a doosset might be a collection of boxes but would never refer to a boxset. One more thing: we haven't borrowed box as a synonym for doos, but we do refer to a playpen as a "box". This probably doesn't answer your question, but it shows how confusing this can get. W3ird N3rd (talk) 12:49, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Just found this relevant article in The Spectator. Auximines (talk) 20:22, 7 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I've always parsed it more like "book collection". Equinox ◑ 18:26, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * If a "book collection" is a "collection of books", then parsing "box set" that way would make it a "set of boxes". I've never heard "box set" before, so to me it was natural that "boxed set" is the correct form, until I just thought about it and realized that "box set" can also make sense as "a set in a box", just like "house party" is a "party in a house". --WikiTiki89 18:32, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * And box set is perfectly valid in both forms, just like house party. W3ird N3rd (talk) 21:20, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You mean like a party of houses? --WikiTiki89 21:21, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think I meant house party as in either a party with house music or a party in a house (like a housewarming party), but now I'm not sure anymore! I like the idea of dancing houses though! W3ird N3rd (talk) 21:35, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok, so you were saying they were similar in that they both have multiple interpretations, rather than that the other interpretations are equivalent. Got it. Anyway, what I meant by house party is simply that the house is used to host a party, as opposed to an apartment party, dorm party, block party, beach party, etc. --WikiTiki89 21:42, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think my comparison wasn't entirely correct in hindsight. A "house" has many meanings. "There will be no house music in this house, anyone who disagrees can find themselves another house to live in by which I don't mean the guest house, and unless your contract with that publishing house comes through I doubt that's going to happen!" is using five separate meanings of "house". A few more would be in "Damn, if only House didn't serve our guests so many drinks on the house I could just watch House or check out what the house is debating today, I just wish I was in the house of God right now.". W3ird N3rd (talk) 22:18, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Concerning the extra click inflicted on those who search for Chinese terms with Simplified characters
I don't know if this is the right place for this question. Anyway, am I the only one who is incredibly annoyed at how, quite some time ago, all Simplified Chinese entries were emptied and left with merely a link to the corresponding Traditional entries? Why was this done? And couldn't a redirect be made when the article is simply a pseudo-redirect, like e.g. 世间? I mean really, why do I have to be annoyed every time I look up a Chinese word because I have to click an extra time on a link in a totally useless "article"? Wouldn't it be better to make a redirect to the traditional entry instead, with the usage note on Traditional/Simplified moved over there? I mean, the best thing would be what the situation was before these pseudo-redirects appeared, i.e. duplicated info on both the simplified and traditional article, but a change was made, and I assume there was a reason, perhaps memory shortage, so…

MGorrone (talk) 16:42, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The reason was primarily to reduce the duplication. It presents additional work for our already overworked force of editors to keep them in sync and to create both entries each time. Maybe the simplified entries could be turned into true redirects. Are there any other languages that use simplified that would make this not work? —CodeCat 17:55, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Any thoughts about turning them into hard redirects? --WikiTiki89 18:03, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I know next to nothing about Chinese, but aren't some simplified characters used for more than one traditional character? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 18:27, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I did a quick search. Of the 41,299 articles in Category:Chinese simplified forms, 36,807 appear to be simple “soft redirects”, and 4,492 had other stuff on the page, either other languages or additional etymologies. Converting them into hard redirects cannot be done on this proportion of the simplified forms. Part of the rationale for leaving the simplified forms as soft directs was to prepare them for the time when the infrastructure allows for automatic generation of simplified content to display on the simplified pages, using the code on the traditional pages (using css +/- js). Wyang (talk) 21:21, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Which other languages are those? —CodeCat 13:37, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Probably Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Zhuang, etc. —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 00:00, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
 * What about a JS gadget that automatically sends users to the traditional Chinese entry, for users uninterested in Japanese and such? —suzukaze (t・c) 21:24, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
 * what would happen to the additional info displayed in those 4,492 entries that mentioned? I'd prefer to delete the redirect completely. --Backinstadiums (talk) 13:17, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Perhaps https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:CirrusSearch can help out; should I ask? --Backinstadiums (talk) 20:18, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It is completely possible that users may not care about the additional info, especially when interested solely in Chinese . —suzukaze (t・c) 23:52, 10 August 2017 (UTC)


 * The simple answer is we do not currently have the technology to allow for an automatic redirect to the main entry. Things are then complicated when hanzi is used for other languages like Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 23:23, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * At least it should be the traditional Hanzi the ones that redirect to the official simplified ones --Backinstadiums (talk) 07:08, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Official? —CodeCat 17:58, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I meant

Simplified Chinese characters (简化字; jiǎnhuàzì)are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two standard character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the People's Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy.[2] They are officially used in the People's Republic of China and Singapore. --Backinstadiums (talk) 21:32, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * et al. The decision to use traditional Chinese characters as the main form was a joint decision of Chinese editors (including non-natives). It's not a political decision. Everybody knows where simplified and traditional characters are used. It's based on feasibility. Mostly, a technical decision. It would make much more sense when you know that e.g. converting traditional to simplified Chinese is 100 times easier than the other way around. You will also see that traditional entries consistently provide simplified forms as well - in synonyms, related terms, alternative forms, etc. Most importantly, in usage examples. You will hardly find an electronic or paper dictionary, which can simultaneously provide both traditional and simplified forms in all articles. Dictionaries, such as Pleco or Wenlin allow options in settings but they either make errors in conversions or make users make a conversion decision (Wenlin). There is no information loss in Wiktionary, only extra clicks. Hopefully, a technical solution is found to include all the contents from traditional entries in simplified entries as well. Hard redirects is definitely not an option. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 12:07, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The problem with that option is that the Traditional Chinese entries often have Japanese, Korean, or Vietnamese on the same page, so they cannot be made into redirects. The page can only be redirected when there is no content other than the Chinese section. — Eru·tuon 21:40, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

How can we decide the best way to proceed then? This issue is a serious drawback for users' usability --Backinstadiums (talk) 14:53, 10 August 2017 (UTC)


 * In the past, I'd suggested transclusion as a means of resolving this kind of issue, where one headword has two variant spellings, but all the other content is essentially shared. At the time, the idea was shot down, partially (if memory serves) for technical reasons.  I don't know if our infrastructure has developed to where that might be a viable option.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 20:35, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Where should I ask whether 's 'transclusion' implementation is feasible? --Backinstadiums (talk) 12:46, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

What a lot of stuff that happened here! Would it be possible to turn the 36.807 simple soft redirects with nothing else on the page into hard redirects, and going back to duplicate status for the other 4.492 that have other stuff on the page? This way the duplication is still significantly reduced, and no extra clicks are required for any entry. MGorrone (talk) 20:29, 12 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Could you please break down those 4492 according to HSK levels? That would show the QUALITATIVE importance of those characters --Backinstadiums (talk) 21:25, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Request for verification of a publishing date
Here is a use of the term "duck press", supposedly from 1890. There's a copyright date on one of the title pages. However, "pressed duck" doesn't seem to have been invented that early (see citations on page). This is also the only the use of "duck press" from the 19th century. What's the deal here? DTLHS (talk) 22:42, 7 August 2017 (UTC)

Can mortem be used on its own as a noun?
DTLHS (talk) 17:41, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * How are post-mortem and ante-mortem spelled anyway? Oxford says "post-mortem" and "ante-mortem" while Merriam-Webster says "postmortem" and "antemortem". And we say "post mortem" and don't have an entry for "ante mortem" yet have had an entry for antemortem since 2008 but no alternative spelling entries at ante mortem and ante-mortem. W3ird N3rd (talk) 18:28, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * That's determinable on Google n-grams. DCDuring (talk) 19:56, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=post-mortem%2C+post+mortem%2C+postmortem&year_start=1950&year_end=2017&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cpost%20-%20mortem%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cpost%20mortem%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cpostmortem%3B%2Cc0 I'm still not quite sure. Seems like our spelling is the least common. It's more clear for antemortem: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ante-mortem%2Cante+mortem%2Cantemortem&year_start=1950&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cante%20-%20mortem%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cante%20mortem%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cantemortem%3B%2Cc0 as antemortem just peaked. I'll do some things. W3ird N3rd (talk) 23:22, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think mortem can't be used on it's own as a noun in English. But mortem has no English definition, so that's fine. Searching for "awaiting mortem" brings up exactly the line you quoted, "for mortem" seems to provide no sensible results and neither does "the mortem". I'm pretty sure what they meant to say was "man was moved to mortuary awaiting postmortem", but this is no common error. You can contact them, looks like they are from Africa. Which would explain any odd errors. If you drop them a line they may actually correct it. W3ird N3rd (talk) 16:58, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It's also possible that on its own is a word of African English, or just Kenyan English, but not of British or American English. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 20:09, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Category:en:Alcoholism
Are terms like lightweight, drinking game and finger really appropriate for this category? Perhaps the cat should just be called "drinking alcohol"? Equinox ◑ 23:34, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * "Alcohol consumption"? W3ird N3rd (talk) 23:50, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I remember WF making, heavily populating, and getting minorly pissed off about the deletion of, Category:en:Boozing. We could recreate it, IMHO. --WF on Holiday (talk) 12:36, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * boozing: The act of drinking heavily. booze: (slang, uncountable) Any alcoholic beverage.
 * So I would still vote for alcohol consumption. Unless you are suggesting to have a separate category for heavy drinking, which I still wouldn't call boozing as that is or borders on slang. It might actually be called just that - "Heavy drinking". That could also include terms like drinking game. Someone who participates in a drinking game may not suffer from alcoholism, but does participate in heavy drinking. W3ird N3rd (talk) 16:47, 9 August 2017 (UTC)


 * There's Category:en:Drinking. I think we should merge it into that. Equinox ◑ 18:27, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * We should also rename it. The most common meaning of is still that of any kind of drink, not just alcoholic. —CodeCat 18:29, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

🇨🇬
I think a bit more explanation on this term would be beneficial. Specifically,


 * 1) What is the origin of the  (and the usage etc.) and why is it not found in other words with similar phonological shapes?
 * 2) How did  evolve into the current “three l's form” (effectively), with a shadda on the second lām?

Thanks. Wyang (talk) 03:09, 9 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Regarding the /l/ vs. /lˁ/, some dialects of Arabic have a regular distinction between /l/ and /lˁ/ and between /r/ and /rˁ/ that arose in certain phonological environments and later became quasi-phonemic. I suspect that this phenomenon spread into Quranic reading traditions and then somehow into Standard Arabic specifically for this one word, which is a very significant and important word in Islamic culture. Regarding the elision of, this seems to have once been a regular phenomenon whose scope only included a limited set of words, the only other of which I know is >  (from which  is a back-formation). Note that there are not "three l's", but rather only two: the first is from the definite article, and the second from the original word. As an orthographic convention to show that they are pronounced as a single geminate consonant, the first ل is unpointed, indicating that it should be ignored, while the second one has a shadda, indicating a geminate pronunciation. This is perfectly regular and applies to any nominal that starts with a coronal consonant (e.g. , , etc.). --WikiTiki89 16:19, 9 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Great answer. Thank you! Wyang (talk) 23:14, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Feel free to incorporate parts of that into the etymology. But note that when I say "I suspect", that is my own speculation and I have no sources to back that up. --WikiTiki89 15:57, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

diggety and diggity
PS claims they're particles, which looks like a reasonable guess at POS. I disagree with "particle", however. It's probably a noun, you know. -WF
 * Yes, noun Leasnam (talk) 20:13, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

if I had a nickel for every time
Possibly a set phrase. Possibly a snowclone - I tried my first snowclone page at Appendix:Snowclones/if I had an X for every time I Y, which probably is substandard. --WF on Holiday (talk) 15:28, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Probably a snowclone, as "nickel" can be replaced with just about any unit of currency (usually "dollar"), and the phrase is virtually always followed by "...X verbed Y, I'd [be rich, have a million dollars, etc.]." Andrew Sheedy (talk) 17:45, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * There are also variations like "If I had a nickel for every time that happened.. I'd now have a quarter. But you get my point.". W3ird N3rd (talk) 21:44, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

chin up
Sure, it's a phrase - but may also be a verb. " I chinned up to the window I'd looked in earlier, and tried to shove it open, but it was locked tight", "I then suggested he try chinning up the leg of the slide.". --WF on Holiday (talk) 15:39, 9 August 2017 (UTC)


 * That sounds like it should be . I'd guess this use of  is a typo, a dialectal variant, or spurious.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 20:33, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

Missing item in English List of Words by Suffixes
I don't know where exactly to request this, but the list of words by suffixes (super cool) is missing "-ifact", as in artifact and ventifact.

Is there anyone here who knows the quick way to request or add that?

Thanks!
 * "artifact" was not formed by suffixation. You need to provide evidence that this is actually a productive suffix in English. DTLHS (talk) 17:44, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * -ifact might be a candidate for a category of words by ending or whatever word we chose if we decided to create such categories (see for more on this), but, as DTLHS says, it's not a suffix. — Eru·tuon 17:53, 9 August 2017 (UTC)

Remove hot word template from Kondo?
There are now citations spanning 2015 to 2017 for Kondo. Should the hot word template be removed now? Talk to SageGreenRider 17:40, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, it shouldn't need a discussion. --WikiTiki89 17:58, 9 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Right. DCDuring (talk) 00:50, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

"Rectus Femoris" Pluralization (Latin)
Greetings!

My knowledge of Latin is very limited, so I'm not the most knowledgable about things such as grammatical rules regarding the genitive case. Would the plural of "rectus femoris" (a muscle of the thigh) be "recti femoris" or "recti femorum"?

Many thanks! Taurvaethor (talk) 14:55, 10 August 2017 (UTC)

Postscript: This is my first tea room post so I apologize if I'm missing any conventions with it.
 * I'd use as each rectus muscle is associated with a single thigh. If you said  it might sound like each muscle was associated with both thighs. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:03, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Mightn't one think that recti femoris means that both muscles are associated with the same single thigh? (PS: That was definitely the only time in my life I've used the word mightn't.) --WikiTiki89 18:14, 10 August 2017 (UTC)


 * is an English term - and the English might decline it differently. 84.161.57.35 06:09, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
 * In English both "recti femoris" and "recti femorum" exists:
 * recti femoris:
 * "contracts both recti femoris simultaneously" (Robert G. Knight, The Neuropsychology of Degenerative Brain Diseases, 1999)
 * "of several recti femoris [...] composed of recti femoris" (Signor Carlo Matteucci, XII. Electro-Physiological Researches.---Second Memoir. On the proper Current of the Frog, in: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London for the Year MDCCCXLV)
 * "Case of Rupture of the Tendons of both Recti Femoris." (Mr. Adams, Art. 132.---Case of Rupture of the Tendons of both Recti Femoris, 1861, in: The Half-Yearly Abstract of the Medical Sciences vol. 34)
 * recti femorum:
 * "maintained by the iliac, psoae, quadrati, recti femorum" (in: Documents of the Senate of the State of New York. Ninety-First Session.---1868. Vol VI.---No. 77 --- Transactions of the Homoeopathic Medical Society of the State of New York, for the Year 1868. Volume VI, 1868)
 * "spasmodic contraction of the gastrocnemii and of the recti femorum" (in: The Annals of Hygiene)
 * "the biceps pectorales, scapular muscles, and recti femorum were small" (in: The Lancet. A Journal of British and Foreign Medicine, Physiology, Surgery, Chemistry, Criticism, Literature and News, No. 12, 1879)
 * "recti femoris" (the straights of the thigh) could sound like there are multiple recti in one tigh; "recti femorum" (the straights of the thights) could mean that there are different recti in different tights (one rectus per tight), and not sound like there are different recti which are in multiple tights (like one rectus in two tights, and another rectus in two tights).
 * -84.161.57.35 17:02, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

different kind of animal / different kind of beast
Something completely different from what we have seen before. Can equally apply to living and inanimate things. Are these idioms or should I just add a sense to animal and beast? Definitions #4 and #5 of beast are roughly describing this, but it doesn't feel complete. W3ird N3rd (talk) 18:09, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Simple figurative use of animal/beast; might make a good usage example for some current or new sense at beast. DCDuring (talk) 07:43, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't know, how do you tell the difference? Because I can't think of any other way to use it.
 * "a new kind of animal" odd
 * "a different breed of animal" questionable
 * "a different type of animal" nope
 * "a different style of animal" stop painting my dog
 * "an altered kind of animal" doubt it
 * "an improved kind of animal" wtf
 * "a different species of animal" unlikely
 * "a changed kind of animal" what many husbands promise to become but will never be
 * This doesn't seem to work outside of the combination. If it's just figurative use, shouldn't it be able to work in at least one other combination? The only thing that can be changed is animal. You can say "a different kind of magazine", that's valid. And "a new kind of magazine" or "a different style of magazine" seem okay. But for animal in this figurative sense this appears to be fixed to different and kind. W3ird N3rd (talk) 08:34, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You can't attest a negative. See citations at beast, sense 8, for attestation of beast in various collocations in the same sense as different kind of animal, which may not even even be more common than entirely/altogether different beast/animal. IMO, it is more productive to look at common collocations, such as those under discussion here, as a possible indication of missing senses of component terms than as possible entries in themselves. DCDuring (talk) 17:32, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You are right. I can't attest a negative, but it can help to try: often I'd stumble upon a positive. In this case, beast can indeed work in other collocations and I think to a slighty lesser degree so can animal. I think different kind of animal is a very (maybe most) common collocation for this sense, but you've proven it's not the only one. The alternatives (when used with animal) feel a little odd to me, but that's not relevant. Thanks for adding the sense! W3ird N3rd (talk) 19:51, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'll try to add cites for the sense at animal. DCDuring (talk) 20:04, 11 August 2017 (UTC)


 * MWOnline has an entry for different animal. They rarely (never?) have SoP entries, so they may have researched uses of animal to find other adjectives that collocate with it and come up dry. DCDuring (talk) 21:29, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Hadn't thought of that, different animal works indeed and different kind of animal is just a longer version or alternative form of that. I can't think of another adjective that works with this sense of animal. Anything you would expect to work doesn't: altered animal, improved animal, adjusted animal, modified animal, tweaked animal. May a kind of animal we haven't seen before but even that doesn't feel too natural and still implies different. W3ird N3rd (talk) 22:33, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

wild
"Did you hear? Pat won the lottery!" "Wow, that's wild!" Are we missing a sense to cover this? Dictionary.com has "amazing or incredible" with an example sentence about someone getting kicked out of a club (suggesting it can be used of either negative or positive things). - -sche (discuss) 01:12, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's a sense we are missing, IMO. DCDuring (talk) 07:51, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Pat won the lottery! W3ird N3rd (talk) 08:42, 11 August 2017 (UTC)

regnbuefamilie
I see several cites on Google Books that do not (clearly, at least) support the definition, including one that explicitly refers to different-sex parents: I suspect it has at least three definitions. For example, in this one, it seems to be a fish thing. sv.wikt also has the word.__Gamren (talk) 13:35, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * 2017, Meghan Jakobsen, Alle regnbuens farver: - fra Georgia til Sjælland, Art People (ISBN 9788771806427)
 * En familiefar med fast arbejde på Ford-fabrikken. Og han bliver også altid budt pænt velkommen. Det er først, når naboerne har set hans  lille regnbuefamilie – mørkebrune mor og hendes mælkechokoladefarvede børn  – at man beder dem forsvinde.
 * I could think of the following meanings:
 * family with parents, who were married before and have children with others (this is also said to be the meaning of colloquial German Patchworkfamilie)
 * family with parents of different races --- there would be different-race parents and there could be or maybe even must be different-sex parents (this could also be a meaning of colloquial German Regenbogenfamilie)
 * family with same-sex adults, who might raise children (this is also said to be a meaning of colloquial German Regenbogenfamilie)
 * maybe the family of the Rainbow Fish (w:Rainbow Fish), which would be a fish thing --- but I'd guess that's not the context of the fish thing above
 * -84.161.57.35 20:53, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

茶葉
Could a Japanese language editor check the reading here? I read that it should be チャヨウ (chayō). ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 14:02, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Both readings exist. I have expanded on the entry. Wyang (talk) 14:14, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Excellent. Many thanks. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 14:40, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

currymuncher, curry muncher
Interesting difference in gloss and definition between these two, isn't there? Equinox ◑ 19:27, 12 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The term doesn't seem to be restricted to New Zealand(?), so I removed that part of the label. Other than that, I just combined the definitions, and made the form that seemed less common an "alt form of". - -sche (discuss) 05:05, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

About the genitive "Sapphonis"
Consulting Bergk's edition of Sappho, I have seem various instances of this genitive "Sapphonis" (e.g. «Sapphonis esse videtur») in the critical notes. This struck me as odd because I'd always known Sappho as a Greek name which as such was declined in Latin as in Greek. Tonight I opened the Sappho entry here, and I found confirmation of my knowledge, and no trace of the genitive Sapphonis. So I ws wondering: is it a very late genitive of Sappho, or is there a whole other version of the name giving this genitive? And if the former, shouldn't we mention it in Sappho? And if the latter, do we have an entry covering that version?

MGorrone (talk) 20:20, 12 August 2017 (UTC)

Cross-posted to Latin Stack Exchange. MGorrone (talk) 09:11, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

I see Dido has two declension patterns. Now it seems both patterns are attested in Classical Latin for Dido, whereas for Sappho there is only one Classical attestation for Sapphus and none for Sapphonis. Should a second declension pattern (Sappho Sapphonis Sapphoni Sapphonem Sappho Sapphone) be added alongside the present one (Sappho Sapphus Sappho Sappho Sappho Sappho)?


 * Of course Sapphonis, Sapphonem etc. should be added, but only if attestabel (WT:CFI). It wouldn't be surprising if it exists in Medieval or New Latin. Maybe a text or qualifier should be added to denote that it's ML or NL. -84.161.57.35 06:09, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
 * In NL Sapphonis etc. exist, and it's now added into . It could already be ML: "ut lyrica Sapphonis, elegiae Nasonis" (Guntherus Cisterciensis, De oratione jejunio et eleemosyna libri tredecim). -84.161.57.35 21:30, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

lay on
One of our example sentences is "He layed on compliments." Other senses use "laid on" in their examples. Are both past tenses used, and is there differentiation between different senses?


 * Probably someone's oversight; I have changed it to "laid". You can find "layed on" but it's probably archaic. Equinox ◑ 14:38, 13 August 2017 (UTC)


 * The idiom requires the definite article: he really laid on THE compliments.

Imperative of Portuguese verb ter
The conjugation table for Portuguese verb "ter" lists "tenhas" as the second person singular (tu) affirmative imperative, identical to the corresponding negative imperative, while http://www.conjuga-me.net/en/verbo-ter says this should instead be "tem".
 * —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 03:56, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

English lever arm
Is the current definition correct? Wyang (talk) 02:40, 13 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It is a bit simplistic. The term is most often defined as the perpendicular distance between the axis of rotation and the line of action of a force. SemperBlotto (talk) 05:05, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think the perpendicular distance concept is entirely different from the current definition. If that is the case, then either the current definition is wrong or both definitions exist. Wyang (talk) 04:16, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

hard disc
This is given as an alternative form of "hard disk", but do we have any citations for this? British English uses the American spelling "disk" in the computing sense, with the exception of "compact disc" and "optical disc". I suspect someone might just have assumed that "disk" and "disc" are interchangeable in this sense. &mdash; Paul G (talk) 06:49, 14 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Not always true; I remember e.g. the ZX Spectrum +3 manual used "disc" for the rectangular 3" floppies. Equinox ◑ 11:36, 14 August 2017 (UTC)


 * There are numerous examples of its use here. Mihia (talk) 19:36, 17 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, using Google as an example of usage only proves that many native speakers can't spell.

bottom man
In circus, acrobatics, and physical culture, "one who physically supports a formation of acrobats".

This a part of a group of terms: human pyramid, understander, under-stander. It seems to be the hardest to justify as it can be viewed as completely transparent in its normal context of use, to wit, discussion of acrobatic performances in vaudeville, circuses, etc. Should we have an entry for it? DCDuring (talk) 10:55, 14 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I say go for it. It's getting into collocation territory, but I think it's just non-SOP enough that it qualifies under our current CFI. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 16:22, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Χνᾶ
Does this really have a circumflex accent, or is it supposed to be an overbar marking a scribal abbreviation? — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 02:05, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I assume the latter, as User:יבריב doesn't seem to know what he's doing. ? —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 03:56, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I assume the latter too, but I know nothing whatever about Greek scribal abbreviations. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:20, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm in the same boat: all my paleography is Latin. This page, however, seems to show that overbars and tilde like abbreviation marks were used. — JohnC5 14:05, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You know, just because I'm not a native English speaker doesn't mean I don't even try to research the things I'm putting up on the english wiktionary. I understand I may have made mistakes in the past, but you don't think with a language barrier I'd try extra hard to make sure what I'm doing is correct? יבריב (talk) 15:13, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Your ability in English has nothing to do with it. Can you produce any evidence to show that this actually should have a circumflex? —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 17:01, 15 August 2017 (UTC)


 * source 1, source 2, source 3, for starters. Note the affirmation that Χαναάν first enters recorded history in the writings of Hecataeus, as the abbreviated Χνᾶ יבריב (talk) 18:06, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

English hernia and -cele
“Hernia” has a much narrowed definition (compared to our current definition) in modern literature. defines “hernia” only as these entities, and w:Category:Hernias reflects this definition and current usage. Thus the entries and  should be amended; entities like  and  are not usually perceived as hernias.

(Note this is different from 🇨🇬 or .)

Wyang (talk) 04:27, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

one word about specific ceramic in Baltic languages
1 I'm not sure if we can written sources for them.

Wikidata ID is Q4329074. d1g (talk) 06:19, 15 August 2017 (UTC)

About radical indexes and language links from Chinese Wiktionary
I opened a character entry in the Chinese Wiktionary, then opened [the Chinese Wiktionary index for radical ⾔], then clicked on the language link for English, and that index does not exist. I'm sorry? What? Turns out Chinese Wiktionary uses KANGXI RADICAL SPEECH, whereas our index uses CJK UNIFIED IDEOGRAPH 8A00. What should we do to fix this issue? Fix the links on w:zh, adopt KANGXI RADICALs for our indexes, or make w:zh adopt CJK UNIFIED? Interestingly enough, the Chinese link on our index works fine. MGorrone (talk) 10:19, 15 August 2017 (UTC)


 * could you please elaborate a bit on the 'KANGXI RADICAL SPEECH'? --Backinstadiums (talk) 06:27, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
 * That is the name of the character . (Compare, which is the corresponding unified ideograph.) For the meaning of "radical", see . — Eru·tuon 05:22, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * How can I see the chracter ⾔ using chrome? --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:19, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It shows up fine for me, but I've downloaded and use Noto Serif CJK SC, a Google font, which contains all the Kangxi radicals. — Eru·tuon 17:16, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * 1. I don't know about other editors, but I support using KANGXI RADICALs, as God intended.
 * 2. As for the broken interlanguage links, I predict Unicode normalization is messing something up. —suzukaze (t・c) 04:31, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It does make sense to use the radical characters, as opposed to not using them anywhere. But switching over might take a lot of work: I think all the that I just created don't use Kangxi radical characters! — Eru·tuon 04:52, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I already made the relevant change to the script I used to generate the data back in July :p (I'm not sure I would actually support its use in sortkeys though, since the MediaWiki software uses Unicode order and the simplified forms of KANGXI RADICALS are in the preceding block...) —suzukaze (t・c) 07:56, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I guess this is another language for which a customized sort order would be useful. — Eru·tuon 08:04, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

Hello, I created a draft of ticket that should be improved with more details. Let me know what you decide. Lea Lacroix (WMDE) (talk) 09:18, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Looking at it again, I think I misunderstood the problem. It appears that the problem is not within Cognate, but with the pages themselves, which are not registered on Wikidata -- the interlanguage links are all manual, and the zh.wikt page has deficient links. I apologize for wasting your time. —suzukaze (t・c) 09:28, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

mango
RFV-pronunciation:. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 12:54, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * There are accents of American English where /æŋ/ always surfaces as [eɪŋ], see /æ/ tensing. I'm a little reluctant to assign this to the phoneme /eɪ/ myself, though. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:16, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * User:Gilgamesh~enwiktionary seems to have added similar things to a number of words with -ang(-). See rang and sang, to start with. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:06, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think if the [eɪŋ] variants were to be listed, (a) they should be phonetic, not phonemic, and (b) they need a more specific label than US. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 14:09, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * For the record, that's the Canadian pronunciation as well—in the West, anyway, so the pronunciations should be labelled accordingly. I don't think it's a phonetic difference, as "ang" is always pronounced [eɪŋ] here (or at least I can't think of any counter examples, aside from those which would apply everywhere). I suspect the [eɪŋ] pronunciation is used in the Midwest US, as that region of the States has the closest accent to that of western Canada. I can't speak for the rest of Canada, as my experience with the East has mainly been with the French speaking areas.... Andrew Sheedy (talk) 16:19, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

About Latin levis, etymology 2
Etymology 2 of levis says it comes from Greek λεῖος, "smooth", and then goes back to PIE. If that is so, how did the "v" get placed in? Why don't we have *lēus instead of lĕvis? Was there a dialect form with a digamma from which lĕvis comes, or is this Greek etymon total bogus?

MGorrone (talk) 14:10, 15 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think it's bogus. The Greek is probably a cognate, but not an etymon. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:34, 15 August 2017 (UTC)


 * It is also interesting that the etymology section of λεῖος currently reads «This entry lacks etymological information. If you are familiar with the origin of this term, please add it to the page per etymology instructions. You can also discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.». Maybe I should move the matter to the scriptorium. In fact, I'll do it right now. MGorrone (talk) 21:48, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

URL
How commonly is it read as an acronym? I've only heard it read as an initialism. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 14:25, 16 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Personally I have never heard it said as "earl". I doubt I would even understand it. Mihia (talk) 21:37, 17 August 2017 (UTC)


 * , are you sure that it can also be pronounced as "earl"? Do you have any video/audio recordings of it being read as "earl" to back this up? — justin(r)leung { (t...) 22:28, 17 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Yes I've heard it many times. I always notice it as it annoys me. I'll keep my ears open for specific examples that I can give references to now that I know others are unfamiliar with this pronunciation. &mdash; hippietrail (talk) 00:13, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

alt-left
This word is in the news (and receiving commensurate edits) a lot lately since American president used the term in a press conference earlier this week. The definition already at alt-left (meaning essentially "hypocritical left") didn't necessarily seem to fit Trump's use of the word as an antonym to alt-right. Therefore, I created a definition which reads A section of the political spectrum that is left-wing while being vehemently anti-racist, antifascist and politically correct. I have also tagged the sense I added as a hot sense, and moved any quotes relating to Trump's use of the word to that sense. Thoughts? Pur ple back pack 89  17:38, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Alt-Left means different things to different people, so we will have to wait to find quotes and usage of the term. IQ125 (talk) 18:46, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Short for alternative left, it's an imagined alternative to conventional American left-wing and Democratic ideologies. The alt-left is an imaginary militant group of left-wing ideologs who are rabidly opposed to white nationalism and white supremacy, and supportive of multiculturalism and egalitarianism by race and gender. Anyone who physically or verbally attacks a member of the alt-right, or punches or injures any member of the alt-right even in self-defense, is called alt-left. —Stephen (Talk) 19:43, 16 August 2017 (UTC)


 * AFAICT none of the citations are from Usenet or printed sources. We need a single definition that therefore spans the political spectrum of user as much as possible. That would serve to neutralize the entry and discussion to the extent warranted. The first citation (Usenet, not neutral politically in the use) I've found is from 8/30/2016, so this will soon not be a hotword. DCDuring (talk) 20:40, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The actual usage citations I've seen so far (See Citations:alt-left.) are much less vituperative and tendentious than our "definitions", which are not definitions so much as the evaluative predicates applied by those represented in the "citations" provided.
 * It is clear that alt-left was first used in explicit contrast to alt-right. DCDuring (talk) 21:44, 16 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Actually, the term was first used in explicit similarity with alt-right. During 2016 it was used by Clintonites to suggest that the Bernie bros, the Greens.the BLMers, and so on, were to be thought of in the same boat as the alt-right, i.e., too extreme.  All so clever until Trump used the term. See  for a history of the term and much much better citations.  73.81.113.155 22:13, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * If there are 2016 citations of alt-left by Clintonians, I couldn't find them in the 2017 article and those it linked to. It would be nice to find them, even in Twitter land. DCDuring (talk) 12:46, 18 August 2017 (UTC)


 * A commentator disagreed with the article, and says Fox News and WND used the term first. He might be correct, I found this August 2016 article in World Net Daily, claiming to be coining the term.
 * Certainly the March 2017 Vanity Fair article needs to be cited. 73.81.113.29 14:26, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Citations need to be from print publications or on Usenet. A reference to the article can be a footnote in Etymology. Almost everything in the Atlantic article is a mention not a use. Any definition provided in the article without actual use is something we want to include. DCDuring (talk) 14:40, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * What Atlantic article? I cited Vanity Fair, a print publication.  The VF usages are mostly use, not mention, naming anti-Clinton liberals who seem to be unnaturally chummy with Trump. 73.81.113.29 15:19, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Why do we need a single definition? What it meant in 2016 and what Trump et al is saying it means now are two different things.  Also, why was it necessary to classify the definitions as "vituperative and tendentious"?  Sure, there was reverse engineering trying to figure out what Trump et. al have meant in their uses of "alt-left" since Charlottesville.  But that's not necessarily a bad thing. Pur ple back pack 89   17:14, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, I find it a bit off to discount the Atlantic article as a source. It spends an entire article trying to define the terms "alt left" and "antifa".  Surely that's different commentary than saying "antifa has six letters" (the example of commentary used at CFI)? <font color="#3A003A">Pur <font color="#800080">ple <font color="#991C99">back <font color="#CC33CC">pack <font color="FFBB00">89   13:35, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Please see use-mention distinction. It's one of the basic concepts for this page. DCDuring (talk) 14:18, 23 August 2017 (UTC)


 * why exactly does it have a pejorative meaning (and related term also used as an insult) while alt-right has none? This might not be Wikipedia but doesn't it also have a responsibility to be neutral, or is this site suddenly a mouthpiece for fascist propaganda...?


 * I don't know if the definitions are correct, but note that the fact that two terms look like antonyms doesn't enforce the idea that they have to have comparably opposite meanings. Equinox ◑ 09:29, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * But,, the way Donald Trump used the term "alt-left" was clearly in diametrical opposition to the term "alt-right". Since he did that, most other outlets have used alt-left in the manner he did. <font face="Verdana"><font color="#3A003A">Pur <font color="#800080">ple <font color="#991C99">back <font color="#CC33CC">pack <font color="FFBB00">89   13:33, 23 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment: The appropriateness of tagging of alt-left as a hot word is being discussed at WT:RFV. <font face="Verdana"><font color="#3A003A">Pur <font color="#800080">ple <font color="#991C99">back <font color="#CC33CC">pack <font color="FFBB00">89  13:33, 23 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Comment: Political words sometimes have two senses, one the "correct" (prescriptive) meaning and one the pejorative propaganda meaning. Perhaps the best-known modern example is the US right-wing use of "socialism".  There is no meaningful content in such uses, it's just meant to rile the base regarding the Democrats.  In the same vein, the culture wars generate double meaning issues.  "Political (in)correctness" began as a somewhat meaningful term within Communist/Socialist circles, was later used within feminist circles, and then was picked up by the right wing and turned into something else.
 * I do not know how this situation is handled here. Either one gives the prescriptive definition and ignores the propaganda, or one acknowledges the propaganda in a Usage Note, or one gives the propaganda a separate, carefully glossed definition.
 * In general, this division of meanings is clear when an in-group term gets picked up and then flipped by opponents. It's not so clear what to do, as in this case, when a term is created by opponents, skipping the normative usages.  There ought to be a prescriptive meaning to "alt-left", but it's apparently a hypothetical form only. 73.81.113.64 15:06, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It actually does get some discriminate descriptive use in a UK context, where commentators often use it specifically for sites like The Canary, Novara and SKWAWKBOX, which are considered "Breitbarts of the left", and their audience. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 11:56, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Er... this word doesn't mean "hypocritical left", but rather the faction of the left that is prepared to use violence to close down all right-wing speech.

tinigua
This is an adjective, but the definition is for a noun. —CodeCat 19:36, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

hemisymptoms (symptoms on one side of the body)
Singular unattested. How should this be formatted as an English noun? Wyang (talk) 00:42, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I would just make an entry at hemisymptom and make a note that only the plural is attested. DTLHS (talk) 00:51, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Ah okay thanks. I've created the entry. Wyang (talk) 02:50, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

political compass
. If this is actually a common noun referring to "the invention made by "The Political Compass Project" or whatever then it may merit an entry perhaps? PseudoSkull (talk) 02:22, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

pronunciation of scallop
What is the difference between the pronunciation /ˈskaləp/ and the pronunciation /ˈskæləp/? I can't work it out from https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:English_pronunciation. Mihia (talk) 21:26, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Broad and slender "a". The former has the "a" in "farther", and in some accents approaches "skolləp". The latter is the "a" in "hat". Australian English features both pronunciations, depending on you grew up. (Melbourne typically says /ˈskæləp/, Adelaide says /ˈskaləp/, for example.) --Catsidhe (verba, facta) 21:40, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * That isn't what the key seems to say. There, the vowel in "farther" is shown as ɑː, ɑ, ɒ, ɐː or ä, depending on region, but a appears only as a synomym of æ, as far as I can see. Is the key incorrect? Or maybe I am misunderstanding it somehow? Mihia (talk) 22:06, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * No, I think that's right. is also used for modern RP short a (slender a) by Geoff Lindsey. I'm not aware of any dialect in which scallop would be pronounced with broad a (skahluhp), though in Scotland they would probably use the undifferentiated central a. — Eru·tuon 22:11, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * (Edit conflict) I'm guessing that the original editor used /a/ (which isn't an IPA letter) instead of /ɑ/ (which is, but is an allograph in other contexts), and didn't notice. @Erutuon, I just told you a dialect which uses broad "a". I speak it. --Catsidhe (verba, facta) 22:16, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Right, but I thought broad a referred to the sound of father, identical to start in non-rhotic dialects, a long vowel in dialects with phonemic length, and not just a less front pronunciation of the vowel of cat. Do you mean that scallop is pronounced as if spelled scarlop in Adelaide, with a long vowel? — Eru·tuon 23:41, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * No, the "ar" is long in "farther", I was just talking about the quality, not the length. I just meant that Adelaide tends toward the "rhymes with dollop" end, rather than the "rhymes with ballot" end of the /o-æ/ spectrum. I didn't want to use "father", partially because I didn't trust that there's not a slender-er pronunciation but mainly because I hadn't had any coffee yet. --Catsidhe (verba, facta) 00:26, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Ah, okay. We're just using different definitions of "broad a" then. To explain what I meant a different way, I don't know of a dialect in which cat and father have different vowels, and scallop has the vowel of father. — Eru·tuon 01:02, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * And I do, because I speak it. --Catsidhe (verba, facta) 02:28, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Gah. I mean, the two having the same phoneme. You said scallop doesn't have a long vowel like farther does, and as I gather Australian English distinguishes short and long versions of the vowel quality, scallop has a different phoneme from farther (= father). — Eru·tuon 03:03, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to leave vowel length out of it and stick to the place of articulation. There's a lot of overlap between and  in practice. There's not just the regional broad/slender "a" variants — such that the "a" in "Newcastle" is spoken broadly by its inhabitants, and the "a" in "Castlemaine" is spoken narrowly by its inhabitants — but also social variants, from thick Strine through to the higher-register Cultivated. "Scallop" is a weird word in Australian, not only in pronunciation, but also in that the meaning can be different. One of the Australian shibboleths is whether a "scallop" is made of potato or not. (In some parts, when you go to a fish and chip shop and order a scallop, you get an item of seafood, in others, you will get a potato cake; battered and deep fried in either case.) So canonically, one of the main intra-variations is between  and, but "scallop" can vary further out than that, even, towards  (approaching the English pronunciation indicated by the variant spelling scollop). My own pronunciation varies between /skɐləp/ and /skɑləp/ depending. Am I making sense?
 * And that's not even taking into account the "salary-celery" merger. --Catsidhe (verba, facta) 03:32, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * That is an odd situation. It sounds like the vowel of the backed version belongs to the phoneme of strut rather than trap, or at least it would be closer to it. In that case, the best phonemic transliteration would be (which could be respelled scullop). The backing to  is expected before the velarized . Velarization is sort of the consonant equivalent of back vowel articulation, so the vowel  is assimilating to the place of articulation of the following consonant, becoming the back vowel . (I put it in square brackets because there's no  phoneme in Australian.) I wonder, are there any other instances of  in Australian English where the vowel is also backed to ? Perhaps in skull or dull? — Eru·tuon 06:05, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * No, I'm pretty sure I say in "scallop" so when you say "there's no  phoneme in Australian", I am a counterexample. It's distinct from the vowel in "skull" and "dull" (which rhyme, and to my ear have the same vowel as "strut"). As far as an "odd situation", there is a reason why not-Australian actors almost never get the Australian accent right. --Catsidhe (verba, facta) 06:50, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The key also says that "RP /æ/ is sometimes transcribed /a/, for example in dictionaries of the Oxford University Press". If anyone is confident that /ˈskɑləp/ was meant and not /ˈskaləp/, then maybe it can be changed. However, currently the article says that this pronunciation is "UK and Ireland" (other pronunciations are also given for UK). While I am not sure about Ireland, I can't recall ever hearing anyone in the UK saying "scallop" with the vowel of "father", so I am still a bit dubious. Mihia (talk) 23:06, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * However, at http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/american/scallop they have an audio clip for both /ˈskɑləp/ and /ˈskæləp/, and I can hear essentially no difference in the quality of the vowel, so I don't really know what's going on ... Mihia (talk) 11:27, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I can't hear a meaningful difference either. I suspect it's a mistake. --Catsidhe (verba, facta) 06:50, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

scallop
Verb definition:


 * to make or cook scallops

To start with, the definition seems to be that of an intransitive verb, but even supposing it should say "to make or cook (scallops)", how would it be used? "I'm scalloping these scallops"? And how do you "make" scallops, given that we are apparently talking about the shellfish (rather than the decorative feature, which is the previous definition, "To cut in the shape of a crescent"). Can anyone make sense of this definition? Mihia (talk) 21:32, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

amigx
Just made a Spanish entry for amigx, which is a "feminist word" of some kind. Sadly, I know little about gender neutrality or feminism, and am surely missing out on something here... if I were a paid editor, I'd use my money to interview the Mexican feminist who wrote her entire thesis without the letter "o" to get an insight into the whole thing. --WF on Holiday (talk) 22:25, 17 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Pronunciation? DCDuring (talk) 14:08, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Brazilian leftist fanatics do the same thing (/ is replaced with, or ; the same can applied to any word with an identifiable gender desinence). These forms (except -e) don’t really have an established pronunciation since they are usually used only in writing, but this is what I know from my personal experience:
 * Amigue-style words are pronounced according to the usual rules of Portuguese phonotactics. Amig@-style words are pronounced like amigue-style or with a dropped vowel (amig). Amigx style words are pronounced like amigue-style, with a dropped vowel or with /ʃ/. — Ungoliant (falai) 14:20, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Worth a note to that effect under Pronunciation? DCDuring (talk) 14:23, 18 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think so, but at et al. rather than individual entries. In any case, I’ll wait for someone who is more familiar with this practice to either do it themself or at least confirm that my personal experience represents general usage. — Ungoliant (falai) 14:40, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

all: pronoun (suggestion for a new section, in which some definitions could fit better)
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, all can be a pronoun. In the determiner section of the Wiktionary article, I believe the senses 3 (“Everyone”) and 4 (“Everything”) correspond to the usage as a pronoun, not as a determiner. However, the Churchill quote for sense 4 (“all this”) seems to be yet a different kind of usage, which is also mentioned in the Cambridge Dictionary page mentioned above. --Anareth (talk) 12:58, 18 August 2017 (UTC) All is fine. (Maybe it could be a determiner together with an ellipsis, but the better choice should be to have it as (substantival) pronoun.) -84.161.57.35 21:12, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
 * In senses 3 and 4 it's not a determiner but a (substantival) pronoun. A determiner would require a noun as in "all persons" or "all things".

English: "stew" meaning harlot
On the page for stew, there is a request for Sir A. Weldon use as prostitute. Slang and Its Analogs has the sought info, p. 360, 3rd entry, right column -- but the note under the headword (bottom p 359) it says the usage "may be an effect of ignorance or affectation" -- so I don't know how to mark the sense in wiktionary. HastyBeekeeper (talk) 03:13, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You should try to find the original text ("The court and character of king James", 1651). There are several publishings on Google Books but all from the 19th century, so this may be a corruption of some other word. DTLHS (talk) 03:18, 19 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Ezechiel 16 in the Douay Rheims Bible gives an example of common stew to mean a brothel.

bear sign - doughnuts, or bear scat
I came across "bear sign" in a novel today; it meant droppings. Seems like it was widely used as slang for doughnuts - Here's a collection of examples. Does an expression like this merit an entry of its own in wiktionary? And if it's convenient, can someone tell me where I find guidance for questions like this? HastyBeekeeper (talk) 03:22, 19 August 2017 (UTC)


 * It seems includable:, , . DTLHS (talk) 03:25, 19 August 2017 (UTC)


 * And you can read Criteria_for_inclusion. DTLHS (talk) 03:30, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

indoors = in a building, not into a building
No citations at Citations:indoors answer the question at this page: Talk:indoors. --NoToleranceForIntolerance (talk) 07:28, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

equivalent for the 3rd person singular of gots
For the dialectal form gots, what would be its 3rd person singular? --Backinstadiums (talk) 07:50, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Also gots. The examples in the entry are both in the 1st person, but I've met people who use gots only in the 3rd person singular: I got, you got, he gots. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 08:47, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

assholedom
The usage notes try to draw a clear distinction between this and assholehood! Can they possibly be accurate? Equinox ◑ 09:37, 19 August 2017 (UTC)


 * The mention of Northern English is strange too, since in the UK we say "arse", not "ass". Equinox ◑ 09:37, 19 August 2017 (UTC)


 * It seems unlikely that there is any consistent distinction. If there is (in some dialects or older stages of English) a difference between -hood and -dom, that should be mentioned in usage notes for those suffixes. - -sche (discuss) 10:46, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

желание
Both желание and пожелание are glossed "wish, desire". Any difference in usage?
 * If you mean Russian, then желание is something inside me, пожелание is an expression of a желание in words, especially if I express good wishes for someone. Andres (talk) 06:45, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, Andres!

red pill
I've seen this as a verb too (specifically in the context of Laci Green): They redpilled (red-pilled, red pilled) him, he was redpilled, his redpilling etc. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:15, 19 August 2017 (UTC)


 * BTW, we're also missing some usage notes. This seems to be associated only with becoming a right-winger or MRA etc. Nobody encourages people to take the "red pill" and become a vegan, feminist, or eco-warrior. Equinox ◑ 18:36, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Good point, I missed that. This sense is mostly associated with antifeminism and the manosphere, Gamergate and the alt-right (cf. the subreddit). The supposed illusion here is the humanist, egalitarian notion that all human beings are inherently of equal worth and deserve equal rights, that women are not inferior to men, people of colour not inferior to whites, and other minorities not inferior to the respective majorities; and the alleged reality is that instead there is a (not even secretive) "vast left-wing conspiracy" to keep men, whites, etc. down (basically the inverse of the patriarchy/kyriarchy recognised by feminists). See RationalWiki. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:07, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The verb may be restricted to that context, and the noun may now be restricted mostly to that context, but the citations seem to show that it previously had broader use. Probably two separate senses are appropriate. The verb is also intransitive ("I'm redpilling"). - -sche (discuss) 10:49, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

case study
As it stands, the translation tables suggest two different senses, presumably countable and uncountable uses. But this seems unlikely - one does not say "do case study", does one? ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 02:14, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
 * One definition has to be something like "an extensive record of a single instance, possibly over a long period of time, of an entity or process." I think that the attributive use covers the common MWE  research (link to WP). But, in "knowledge in business is from much case study", we see an uncountable use. DCDuring (talk) 21:21, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
 * AHD has three definitions:
 * 1. A detailed analysis of a person or group, especially as a model of medical, psychiatric, psychological, or social phenomena.
 * 2. a. A detailed intensive study of a unit, such as a corporation or a corporate division, that stresses factors contributing to its success or failure.
 * b. An exemplary or cautionary model; an instructive example: She is a case study in strong political leadership.
 * This seems better than MWOnline's two defs, which omit 2b. DCDuring (talk) 21:25, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Is κάθετος Greek for 'backslash'?
In backslash, κάθετος is added as one of Greek translations. Is this right? Andres (talk) 06:40, 20 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I think it should be ανάστροφη κάθετος (reverse verticle). See here for some examples. —Stephen (Talk) 14:05, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you, then κάθετος is short for it. Andres (talk) 20:19, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Nazi meaning "racist"
Sense 2 in the adjective section was formerly "Racist, xenophobic, ethnicist or anti-Semitic", and changed to be defined as "European racist, xenophobic, Anti-Semitic or ethnicist sentiments". Overlooking that this should be tweaked to fit the fact that it's an adjective and not a noun, has a point "I think these sentiments would only be called Nazis if Whites expressed them. The Anti-Semitism/racism/xenophobia of the Iranians is not Nazism." But that's not quite it, from my perspective; because not only are phrases like "Iranian Nazi" and "Black Nazi" and "Japanese 'Nazi'" sometimes attested, but also there are forms of white/European racism that would not usually be described as "Nazi", e.g. Stalinist anti-Semitism. It seems to me that the term is basically used to say that the referent is neo-Nazi (or possibly sometimes proto-Nazi, if they lived prior to Nazism), in either sense 1 or sense 2 of that word, which is just the last clause of the preceding sense [of ]. So should sense 2 be rolled into sense 1, or is there some extended sense pertaining to "racism" that's distinct from both sense 1 "(...) neo-Nazi" and sense 3 "totalitarian"? And if the latter, how could it be defined? - -sche (discuss) 17:30, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Current use seems to be simply as a pejorative for any group or belief that can be framed as having an ethnic or religious basis and that is not left-liberal. I'm not sure is possible to put a fact-based stake in the ground for various usages between the historically specific ones and such pejorative use. Something similar applies to fascist, which seems to function as a somewhat milder pejorative. DCDuring (talk) 17:47, 20 August 2017 (UTC)


 * There are a lot of pseudo-political snarl words that have little meaning any more beyond generic insults for "person left-er than me" and "person right-er than me". Genuine lexicographical problem. Equinox ◑ 17:49, 20 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Our entry on neo-Nazi makes a decent attempt to cover that kind of usage. I guess we could use a similar definition for sense 2 of Nazi, probably adding something (to both Nazi and neo-Nazi) to the effect of "characterized by racism (especially anti-Semitism)", or "usually characterized". I suppose sense 3, though it should perhaps be tweaked/expanded, is distinct, referring to someone or something totalitarian or tyrannical even in non-political contexts. - -sche (discuss) 20:03, 20 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Other dictionaries don't seem to pile on the terms used to characterize Nazism in the definitions of the related terms. Typical is MWOnline that in addition to the historical definition has:
 * 2 a: one who espouses the beliefs and policies of the German Nazis : fascist
 * b: one who is likened to a German Nazi: a harshly domineering, dictatorial, or intolerant person a grammar nazi" DCDuring (talk) 21:13, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

internal improvement(s)
As a historical American term for "public works"/"infrastructure project", is this SOP? It seems that these "internal improvements" were usually (always?) federal projects. Sense 3 of and sense 6 of  are relevant here. Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk) 10:50, 21 August 2017 (UTC)

go down
In the sentence "You'll need to go down two floors to get to that office", is "go down" transitive or intransitive? (In the latter eventuality "two floors" would be adverbial.) Mihia (talk) 17:38, 21 August 2017 (UTC) PS ... I forgot to specify, for those not following the link, that this is given in the article as an example of transitive "go down".
 * Or is it V + PP: go + down two floors? Anyway, What went down two floors down? DCDuring (talk) 20:15, 21 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't see the two floors receiving or being acted upon by the going down, so I would say it is intransitive. It could even be left off and still make sense (You'll need to go down _ _ to get to that office.) One can't go down the floors transitively (i.e. What's he doing over there? Oh, he's just going down those floors...he's going them down good!") Leasnam (talk) 01:49, 22 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I think you can: "how many floors did you have to go down?" Equinox ◑ 01:57, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think so. I'm going to put an archaic twist to this to help you see why more clearly: "how many floors did you have for to go down?" or "how many floors did you have (for) going down"? In order for it to be transitive, it would have to mean something like "cause the floors to go down" Leasnam (talk) 02:04, 22 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I wonder how one proves this kind of thing. Presumably you wouldn't analyse "I had to go through two difficult experiences" in the same way that you do the floors (?); but then what about "I had to walk down two streets", which is really the same as the floors. Oh well, shouldn't hijack the thread. Equinox ◑ 02:35, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It looks to me like floor is basically a unit of distance here. In other words, it's more like going down twenty feet than going down a flight of stairs or a hallway. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:37, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It seemed to me that we must have gone down this road before, but I can't find a prior discussion. This road doesn't seem adverbial to me in the prior sentence. Nor does the stairs in go down the stairs. DCDuring (talk) 17:01, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * There must be a preposition missed off in these constructions, which used to be there and which now has fallen away, i.e. I go down (on/upon) the stairs. --the stairs in no way receive the action of going down...If one were to ask: "What are you doing to the stairs", you couldn't really answer, "I'm going them down."...It's an intransitive action being carried out upon (--yet not to) something else. Leasnam (talk) 17:35, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Interestingly, though, you can say "go two floors down" but you can't say "gone this road down" or "go the stairs down". I think "down the stairs" and "down this road" are prepositional phrases. Germyb (talk) 00:56, 23 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the comments. I find it difficult to see "You'll need to go down two floors to get to that office" as truly a transitive use of phrasal verb "go down". I wonder whether there are any transitive uses. I would be tempted to interpret "go down the stairs" as "go / down the stairs", with "down the stairs" adverbial, and not an instance of "go down", though it is a fine distinction. For now I have just removed the "transitive" label (which sat slightly oddly anyway, as a heading for three sub-senses all intransitive). If anyone has any better ideas, please go ahead. Mihia (talk) 21:01, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think "go down two floors" is equivalent to "go two floors down". I think the construction is analogous to "go two miles". This is labeled as transitive on the go page. Germyb (talk) 00:52, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I disagree that "go" in "go two miles" is transitive. I disagree with the labelling of a number of the supposed transitive senses of "go". Mihia (talk) 01:38, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm sympathetic to interpreting many of the purported noun objects as adverbs. I see however that no one has yet claimed that the road in go down the road is adverbial. Invoking invisible prepositions is desperate in a Chomskian way, especially when there is a visible preposition close to hand: down. I still don't see why the go + PP analysis doesn't work. DCDuring (talk) 06:47, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, it functions adverbially, no one is disputing that. It's quite easy to see. Determining whether the verb is transitive or intransitive doesn't require us to identify the noun phrase, per se, although it certainly helps, especially for English speakers who may not always have transitivity at the forefront of their minds. We can determine it by the verb alone. In go down two floors one is actually physically moving to a lower position (go down) + (two floors)...is your construct the same where down means "along" ? To me it might seem as though it were (go) + (down the road), as without "the road" it wouldn't mean the same thing (i.e. "I go down" cannot mean anything but "go to a lower place")? Leasnam (talk) 14:37, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Then the question is whether that kind of use is actually of a phrasal verb rather than being SoP. It wouldn't surprise me that some of the uses labeled intransitive were also best not considered of a phrasal verb rather than of go' + down (ADV). DCDuring (talk) 15:10, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * For some of these phrasal verbs, a "used literally" sense is listed at the top. This can contain usage examples (see e.g. come up). I did consider putting all the first four usage examples of go down under such a heading, but I thought in the end that they had just about enough distinctive value to retain. Mihia (talk) 17:45, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * But, if we have no transitive sense of go down, then we need to house usage examples like "He went down the road". DCDuring (talk) 18:13, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * This kind of usage was (and still is) covered in the usage notes, but I agree that the "&lit" method is potentially better and more consistent with other articles. I see you added this, but I am not totally convinced about the current presentation. The wording "Used other than as an idiom" implies that the other senses that follow separately are all idiomatic, yet some of these, e.g. "You'll need to go down two floors to get to that office", seem no more idiomatic to me than "He went down the road to the store". This is the problem I had originally in deciding what should go under the "&lit" banner. I have deleted the "&lit" example "The system went down around noon" because this is listed as a specific supposed idiomatic sense later (presently sense #8). Mihia (talk) 19:24, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * We still have non-idiomatic definitions, the usage examples for which should go under IMO. That means some s. It probably pays to not be too aggressive in RfDing such definitions. DCDuring (talk) 22:06, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * If you are proposing that we should have an "&lit" sense that includes usage examples pertaining to other, separately-defined senses below, then sorry, I don't agree with that. Mihia (talk) 23:28, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I was and am suggesting that some of the other definitions at [[go down]], principally those shown as subsenses of the erstwhile transitive definition should be RfDed as SoP with the usage examples remaining under . DCDuring (talk) 03:26, 24 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I would definitely consider it intransitive. I'd refer to "two floors" (vaguely) as a grammatical complement. Ƿidsiþ 06:54, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

무용
This can also mean "useless" right? As in 無用. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 00:05, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes and no. is not an adjective. I have tried to cover the topic of "useful" and "useless" in Korean entries, , , . See also  and some discussion in Requested_entries_(Korean). --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 03:15, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Buddhism
Someone has turned the original definition into two different senses: "The religion derived from the teachings of Gautama Buddha" and "The philosophy based on Buddha's teachings but removing the religious elements". While I understand the logic behind this, it seems unlikely that we could demonstrate real usage where someone is actually using the term unambiguously to refer to either the religion or philosophy specifically. What do you think? ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 00:22, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * IMO while Buddhism does at times seems "irreligious" by Western standards, I don't think "Buddhism as a philosophy" and "Buddhism as a religion" merit separate senses. That is to say, I don't think I can use the word "Buddhism" unambiguously to mean either of those —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 03:52, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I was the person who did that. I think they should get separate definitions. Some Buddhists follow a set of spiritual practices and even worship Buddha as a god, or worship other gods, this is especially true of Tibetan Buddhists. Others view Buddhism solely as a secular philosophy, in a similar way to how Aristotleianism or Freudism are philosophies, somewhat similar also to Christian atheism. Those are not the same senses. Christianity is divided based on the religious definition and secular definition. I see no reason why Buddhism should not also be divided. Stephen Batchelor, a Buddhist atheist, has distinguished his practices, an atheistic Buddhist philosophy, from the traditional Buddhist religion.Leucostictes (talk) 02:50, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Stephen Batchelor's Buddhism is radically different from the Buddhism of the Pali canon or of the Tibetan texts, because there are no miracles attributed to Buddha, and reincarnation is explicitly denied, for example. The philosophy of Buddhism does not involve and frequently denies reincarnation, gods and so forth, while Buddhists religious people almost always believe in reincarnation and sometimes believe in god/gods. Leucostictes (talk) 02:52, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * We are a dictionary, not an encyclopaedia. We describe the way terms are used in published texts. It may be very hard to attest the term Buddhism as being used in an unequivocally religious or philosophical sense. It would be easier just to put them together, just like the OED does. Our entry for Christianity does not distinguish between these senses by the way. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 05:26, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Stephen Batchelor wrote a whole book where he distinguished between the senses, its called Confession of a Buddhist Atheist. Leucostictes (talk) 07:35, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * That's fine, but we need usages in a number of running texts to attest, unequivocally, the two different senses. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 00:42, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

words referring to "family"
I'm looking for words of any language, referring to family. I'm hoping for Greek or Latin, although, Hebrew may be helpful.
 * Old English: &  Leasnam (talk)


 * Try categories named like this: Category:ru:Family, Category:el:Family, Category:grc:Family, Category:la:Family, Category:he:Family, Category:ang:Family. —Stephen (Talk) 16:43, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Ahh, family members ! Leasnam (talk) 17:30, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

Arabic not appearing: is it my computer? What is going on?
Just edited the [Sicilian Wiktioary entry about "taliari"] to fix the etymology, and the Arabic spelling of the Arabic word that gave rise to taliari does not appear, though copypasting reveals it's there. Since it appears fine here, I believe it is not my computer, so what is going on? Err, my mobile sees the Arabic… weird…. Also, as mentioned at [Translations of teal: someone check please], «Why does Persian here on Wiktionary never appear on my computer, except in the article titles? I mean, Arabic works just fine, but Persian is invisible and zero-width, save for article titles, and I can copy-paste it from translation sections and the Search bar (after pasting it there), but the links are not clickable, and to load those Persian Wikipedia articles I had to use "Inspect Element" from Firefox and find the link in there. Any idea why this happens? EDIT: Persian appears nicely in this discussion, but not at آبی, where Urdu appears just fine.». What is going on with my computer? Is there some kind of font problem?
 * That Sicilian Wiktionary page uses a bare wikilink, which doesn’t provide your browser with metadata that may or may not be needed to display Arabic correctly. — Ungoliant (falai) 12:15, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

go
Apropos of the comments in the "go down" thread above, I have deleted the "transitive" label from the sense with the usage example "We've only gone twenty miles today" because I think it is highly doubtful that this is a transitive use of "go". "twenty miles" is surely adverbial. Mihia (talk) 19:35, 23 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Hmm... But an adverbial distance is required for this sense. How do we indicate that? --WikiTiki89 19:49, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * In a label, but we don't have a complete grammar for SoP formations such as this. I think that would be in Wikigrammar. DCDuring (talk) 23:00, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * How can you tell that it's an adverb rather than an object? How would a closely related language with cases, such as German or Icelandic, handle such sentences? —Rua (mew) 22:24, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * In answer to your first question, one useful indicator is that "twenty miles" answers the question "How far?" rather than "What?". Mihia (talk) 23:23, 23 August 2017 (UTC)
 * More accurately, because the question form is "How far did he go?" not "What did he go?", although you could also say "What distance did he go?", but I would say that's also adverbial. Another reason to say it's adverbial is because even verbs with an explicit direct and indirect object can take a distance: "He carried me supplies ten miles through the mud." --WikiTiki89 03:56, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

subtle, subtler, subtlest
The page for subtler indicates that the term is obsolete. Is subtlest obsolete too? What should be used instead of these two terms? The page for subtle does not say that subtler is obsolete. That page should have usage notes about these details if necessary. --Anareth (talk) 21:11, 23 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Not obsolete. Removed that. Equinox ◑ 21:14, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Dialetheism translations
There are some translations given for dialetheism with no sources for them. I don't think they should stay without sources because I think its highly likely some languages don't even have a word for the concept, there are no dialetheists in real life similarly to how there are no unicorns, so there should be citations given for a foreign version of the term. Leucostictes (talk) 20:58, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

Translations

 * Chinese:
 * Mandarin: 雙面真理說


 * Finnish: dialetismi

This is what I'm referring to. I think it should either be sourced or removed. Since there are no dialetheists the burden of proof is on the person claiming the translations are correct. Leucostictes (talk) 21:00, 24 August 2017 (UTC) I did a google search, the only results that came up were wiktionary websites and a website that was copy/pasted from wiktionary, https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&q=%E9%9B%99%E9%9D%A2%E7%9C%9F%E7%90%86%E8%AA%AA%2C+%E5%8F%8C%E9%9D%A2%E7%9C%9F%E7%90%86%E8%AF%B4+%28shu%C4%81ngmi%C3%A0n+zh%C4%93nl%C7%90+shu%C5%8D%29&oq=%E9%9B%99%E9%9D%A2%E7%9C%9F%E7%90%86%E8%AA%AA%2C+%E5%8F%8C%E9%9D%A2%E7%9C%9F%E7%90%86%E8%AF%B4+%28shu%C4%81ngmi%C3%A0n+zh%C4%93nl%C7%90+shu%C5%8D%29&gs_l=psy-ab.3...397.397.0.685.2.1.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1.2.64.psy-ab..2.0.0.0.QJ8nmhstlzE. I think the foreign words should be deleted. Leucostictes (talk) 21:10, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The Finnish translation was added by and the Chinese by . DTLHS (talk) 21:12, 24 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Deleted Finnish. --Hekaheka (talk) 23:34, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

https://www.google.com/search?q=dialetismi&oq=dialetismi&gs_l=psy-ab.3..35i39k1j0i13k1l3.3725.4337.0.4686.2.2.0.0.0.0.307.446.0j1j0j1.2.0....0...1.1j2.64.psy-ab..0.2.445.6.ehf8koUnW3k Actually the Finnish seems to have some support, the Chinese has absolutely none though. I only linked to the Chinese google search earlier. I think maybe if a source can be found the Finnish one should go back. Chinese one should definitely not go back though. I highly doubt there's a word in the Chinese language for the idea, because the concept has mostly only been discussed in western academia and it seems like it is something that it would be psychologically impossible for a person to believe even if it were true, which is why I said there are no dialetheists. Leucostictes (talk) 02:18, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm really having trouble understanding the logic here. Wiktionary aims to document the way words are used in actual texts, not whether something "exists" or not. There are some hits on Baidu for 双面真理说, including a scholarly publication. Why delete it? ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 05:29, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't think I advocated deleting the dialetheism entry. I advocated deleting a foreign language translation of the term when there is no evidence the foreign language term exists. I never said "dialetheists don't exist, therefore delete the dialetheism entry" I said "dialetheists don't exist, therefore the burden of proof is on the person claiming there is a term for it in other languages" and I attempted to google search the term in Chinese and got no results. That's why I took it out. I added the Finnish part back because I did get results for the Finnish term. You obviously didn't read all of what I wrote or you would know I never suggested deleting the dialetheism entry. Leucostictes (talk) 07:38, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Also I did not read all of your response. If it does have scholarly hits, readd it, just provide references for what you readd please. But without references, the burden of proof is on the person claiming the term. That's all I said. Leucostictes (talk) 07:43, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * By the way I tried downloading your link and it wouldn't show all the text on my computer. Leucostictes (talk) 07:57, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I just did another google search, https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&q=+%E5%8F%8C%E9%9D%A2%E7%9C%9F%E7%90%86%E8%AF%B4&oq=+%E5%8F%8C%E9%9D%A2%E7%9C%9F%E7%90%86%E8%AF%B4&gs_l=psy-ab.3...832.832.0.1195.2.1.0.0.0.0.0.0..0.0....0...1.2.64.psy-ab..2.0.0.0.eF958aTg9Jc . It looks only wiki type websites are carrying that term from a superficial examination of search results. I'm not inclined to keep it. I also entered the term in google translate and it translated "double sided truth" https://translate.google.com/#auto/en/%E5%8F%8C%E9%9D%A2%E7%9C%9F%E7%90%86%E8%AF%B4 if that is literally how it translates it might just be a sum of its parts word combination rather than an actual Chinese word. Leucostictes (talk) 08:02, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * By "it" I meant the Chinese translation, not the English entry. If you look on Baidu there are some hits for 双面真理说, including that publication. It should stay. ---&#62; Tooironic (talk) 00:39, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You can put it back in if you link to the citations. Otherwise no. Leucostictes (talk) 04:09, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Finnish: all the hits are to web dictionaries which copy part or all of their content from Wiktionary. I don't remember why I added "dialetismi" in the first place, but now I wouldn't do it. I guess I can delete my own bad work and will proceed to do it. Stronger evidence is required for re-entry. --Hekaheka (talk) 13:35, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Word фейхуа
Possibly the article for this word should be removed, because correct form of the word is фейхоа.
 * or may be considered a misspelling originally but it is attestable now. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 23:04, 24 August 2017 (UTC)

let the grass grow under one&
Is this a correct meaning? It is the opposite of a "rolling stone"--TNMPChannel (talk) 05:54, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * This a definition that is certainly from my mother. It means to stay in one place and never move to another.--115.134.2.213 06:16, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

+1
I'd like to know how this is pronounced, specifically as a verb in 'You +1’d this', and the reason neither the pronunciation nor its verbal use is added. --Backinstadiums (talk) 08:25, 25 August 2017 (UTC) Couldn't it also be "you liked this", maybe depending on context or speaker or something? Or couldn't it even be "unpronounced" as like it's only written and read silently but not read loudly or spoken? -84.161.57.35 20:59, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, it's an unofficial usage, but that is "you plus-one'd this".
 * Maybe the verb didn't meet WT:CFI? If it does, it can be added.

타이어
Hi!

The entry 타이어 here in en.wikt says that this word means Thai, but the corresponding entries in ko.wikt and ko.wiki say it means tire (I can see that in both pages there is a link to 태국어, which means Thai). Can someone with knowledge of the Korean language verify this and correct/adjust where needed? Thanks.

--ValJor (talk) 08:51, 25 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Thank you. The entry has been expanded. Wyang (talk) 08:55, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Etymology of آهسته (âheste)
Browsing random Stack Exchange links, I came to [this question about the word in the title (or most likely so)]. I tried looking for the etymology of the word to contribute it over there, but to no avail: the entry here at آهسته has none. Is it known? Can we add it?

MGorrone (talk) 20:45, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * You should probably ask that at the Etymology scriptorium, which exists specifically to answer such questions. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:16, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

hates
Given as a Southern US form of "I hate", basically: "I hates the yankee nation". Is that lexical, or just something that this dialect can do with any verb? In the latter case we should not put entries on specific verbs. Equinox ◑ 20:31, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * it can be used with almost any verb, not just hate. Perhaps should have something at (?) denoting regional/non-standard usage Leasnam (talk) 20:37, 26 August 2017 (UTC)


 * However, it's not that -s has an additional meaning; just that one verb form can be used in place of another. (Doesn't e.g. AAVE do the same thing? And there was the cartoon character Popeye: "I eats my spinach".) Perhaps a usage note, but not a sense line. Equinox ◑ 20:41, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yep, bc it's attestable, so having a usage explanation for it would be helpful Leasnam (talk) 20:49, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Why not a sense line, with a usage label, on the "form of" entries? And on the lemma, the alternations should be on the inflection line if they aren't on sense lines. IMO, a separate sense line would be easier to read and less misleading than a much longer inflection line.
 * To be clear, where most US speakers would say hate or hates, some in the Southern US would sometimes substitute hates or hate, respectively, at least in the opinion of some writers. DCDuring (talk) 16:21, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It should be noted too that that is non-standard, even in the S US Leasnam (talk) 16:26, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It's nonstandard everywhere, and it's by no means limited to the Southern US. Using third-person singular forms outside of the third person singular is widespread in English across the globe. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 16:36, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It also affects most if not all verbs. Are we to add such to every verb ? Seems a very daunting task for a non-bot Leasnam (talk) 17:25, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * That's why we have bots, though we do seem to lack the enthusiasm to use them except in our own interests. DCDuring (talk) 22:38, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Most Southerners speak slightly modified standard US English, sometimes augmented with elements of one or more "non-standard" Southern Englishes. These "non-standard" varieties may be AAVE (or a precursor) or Appalachian English, or just some rural or low-/middle-class variety. Which ones should we be dismissive of? Most non-Southern, non-AAVE use of those varieties is almost certainly by emigrants from regions of the South in which those varieties are more common. If only the US had a Brussels to subsidize the documentation of and encourage the use of these varieties. DCDuring (talk) 22:38, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I really doubt that. I'm sure you can hear constructions like I hates in the speech of people who have no connection to the American South at all. It's like or : it's used everywhere and is nonstandard everywhere. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 07:00, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Case in point: you pays your money and you takes your choice. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:27, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, the phenomenon exists elsewhere. My main argument is simply for inclusion. I hypothesized a label to help differentiate the phenomenon, which has been adopted into or arisen in specific social groupings as well as geographic ones. One what basis do we exclude it? Do we have to wait until the speakers form political groups, riot, form an army? We have separate entries and redirects for alternative forms that could easily be found by a search engine. In this case there is no redirect or other device short of a sense line, inflection line, or, possibly, a usage note that allows a user to get to information about the phenomenon. DCDuring (talk) 12:32, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
 * IMO it is more achievable, maintainable, and sensible to handle this with a note at WT:AEN (and maybe notes at -s), rather than sense-lines in every single inflected form entry. It's not just that it's nonstandard-but-possible to say "I hates", "I loves", "I thinks" etc with any verb in areas all over the world, it's that it's also possible to say "he hate that", "he love that", "he think that", or "yesterday, he hate that, today he love it", "yesterday I go there" (instead of "went"), etc, etc. - -sche (discuss) 01:52, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
 * No normal user would go to WT:AEN. Where is the link to that page that such a person would naturally use having gone to hates and been troubled by the lack of fit between the word and their (mfx's?) understanding of English grammar? Are we relying on users going to the Info Desk to find out where to go (7 anons and infrequent users over 28 days in August)? We'd probably be annoyed by a Tea Room question of this type. Why should normal users have to jump through hoops to get a simple answer to what might look like a mystery? If we are assuming that the answer is unimportant or obvious-from-context, why are we applying that principle just to these "unimportant", "obvious" matters rather than all the others? Because we don't know how to present the phenomenon?
 * I'm not sure how to present the alternative grammars for the common verbs that use it for some speakers. Separate lemmas, using 1st person singular, instead of bare infinitive, as base form? (Would they be presented as distinct etymologies?) Inflection line? Sense lines on entries corresponding to hates and hate? DCDuring (talk) 03:56, 29 August 2017 (UTC)


 * So, once again: we need a new WikiGrammar project (on Wikiversity if nowhere else). Grammar isn't lexis and can't be done with a series of headwords. Equinox ◑ 07:22, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
 * This no more requires WikiGrammar than the entries for mainstream inflected forms. DCDuring (talk) 12:32, 29 August 2017 (UTC)


 * If you change the way you look at our terminology, there is no longer any problem. If you say that "hates is the third-person singular present simple form" and on a grammar page you say "some dialects use the third-person singular present simple form for all genders and numbers" then that covers it. That is, "third-person singular present simple" is just the name of the form. This needs to be kept in mind for all languages anyway, because it's pretty common for one form to be used in another way in some dialects. --WikiTiki89 17:34, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
 * If you look at other things that way, you would realize that we don't need any entries for regular inflected forms of English verbs. Users could just look to the grammar page. Same thing for plurals of English nouns and comparatives and superlatives or English adjectives and adverbs, at least for all that "regular". We've already done the same for clitics. DCDuring (talk) 02:43, 30 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Um, that would actually not be consistent with what I just described. What I described means that each form needs to exist, but we don't need to describe all of its uses, but rather just give it a name.
 * Which is exactly what we do in, for example, entries for Latin inflected forms. DCDuring (talk) 04:31, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Hebrew
Hello! Does anyone who speaks Hebrew know if Papua New Guinea is spelled פפואה-גינאה החדשה (with a -, used by sv.wikt. and kl.wikt.), פפואה־גינאה החדשה (with a ־, used by en.wikt. and lt.wikt.) or פפואה גינאה החדשה (with a space, used by fr.wikt. and pt.wikt.)? Thank you!Jonteemil (talk) 21:35, 26 August 2017 (UTC)
 * All three. But note that we use only ־, and not -, for Hebrew script words here on en.wikt. --WikiTiki89 16:30, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Turkish yaşmak
It currently reads:

Etymology: From, from.

Definition: yashmak, a veil worn by Muslim women to cover parts of the face when they are in public.

However, even the age of the earliest Islam significantly postdates that of reconstructed (~ 2,500 years ago).

I think the entry could do with some clarification. yaşmak looks like a verb infinitive form - perhaps that is what the etymology is referring to. Wyang (talk) 04:08, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yashmak says it's from an obsolete verb meaning "to cover", but it doesn't say where that piece of information came from. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:23, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * How much Turkish do you know?


 * ETü: [ Kaşgarî, Divan-i Lugati't-Türk, 1073]
 * ol meni körüp yaşdı [beni görüp saklandı]
 * KTü: [ Ebu Hayyan, Kitabu'l-İdrak, 1312]
 * yaşmak [bir nevi yüz örtüsü]
 * << OTü yaşmak yüz örtüsü < ETü yaş- o saklanmak +mAk


 * It seems the dictionary from 1073 is conjugating as . Google Translate gives "hiding" for def 1 in year 1073, and "a kind of face cover" for def 2 in year 1312. This makes sense, since Wikipedia says "The established presence of Islam in the region that now constitutes modern Turkey dates back to the latter half of the 11th century". I found the information at, you need to make an account to see it though. —Aryaman (मुझसे बात करो) 23:07, 27 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the link; it is a very good resource. My Turkish is very limited, but the interpretation does seem correct. Sorry for troubling you - could you please take a look at this entry when you have time, and modify/expand as necessary? Wyang (talk) 03:12, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Yep is from yaş- to cover, close; the verb is outdated in modern Turkish though. Its causative form survives in some modern Turkic languages --Anylai (talk) 18:01, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you! It looks great now. Wyang (talk) 21:45, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

English vasectomy
Current definition: The surgical removal of all or part of the vas deferens as a means of male sterilization.

It's not really a removal... more of an incision than an excision, making vasectomy reversals feasible postsurgically. Wyang (talk) 22:14, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I just corrected it. Leucostictes (talk) 00:44, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Expression "mettere la porta a padella": existence, usage place and meaning
Background

I have been trying to crack the Sicilian song "Si maritau Rosa" for a long time now. All my findings and the doubts I have on the meaning are summarized in my blog post about it. Browsing the web in the search for an explanation of "a vanidduzza", I bumped into this version, which has "a padiduzza". Trying to understand that, I bumped into the forum "scambiofigu. forumcommunity. net/?t=35734112#_=_, which I could not link to because it triggered the spam filter, and where that version is posted along with a translation giving the expression in the title.

Problem

I have never seen that expression before, despite it being a purported Italian expression and me being mother-tongue in Italian. I already asked at Italian Stack Exchange and they seem just about as puzzled as me. I also asked on Quora and got no relevant responses. So here I am asking here as well:


 * 1) Does this expression even exist?
 * 2) What does it mean?
 * 3) Is it just a literal translation of a dialectal Sicilian expression ("mettiri a padedda" or "mettiri a padidduzza")?
 * 4) Where is it used in Italy?

theoconservatism, theoconservative
Our definitions don't explain the conservatism part. Is it actually conservative/right-wing? Could there be a leftist theoconservative? Equinox ◑ 12:34, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I would speculate that it refers to the fact that religion did play a role in forming public policy, and theoconservatives want to conserve that. After all, that is the fundamental meaning of "conservatism". --WikiTiki89 16:33, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * They might just be blends with a meaning like "theistic conservatism", intended to be differentiated from religious conservatism which seems to me to mean, say, "preference for older creeds of and forms of the rituals of a religion, as for Latin rather than vernacular Mass in Roman Catholicism or for Conservative Judaism". DCDuring (talk) 22:44, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The Oxford Dictionary of American Political Slang defines them as explicitly conservative. Looking the cites, it seems to usually be a fairly specific group of Americans, with the prototypical group from the 1980s being Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and the so-called Moral Majority. There's a couple GB hits about Italians; e.g. "This theo-conservative lobby demands laws that promise a return to the hierarchal heteropatriarchal family model and which restrict sexual freedom, abortion, gay rights, and multiculturalism." It's sort of like "conservative"; our definitions aren't particularly sufficient, but it could easily get out of hand, and hard to get clear without a Wikipedia-length article. We should probably add politically conservative to the definition.--Prosfilaes (talk) 04:02, 1 September 2017 (UTC)

слазь
I found слазь in a film, where the context means "climb down from there". I can't find слазить as a word. Am I right in assuming that this is a colloquial variant of слезать, of which the imperative is слезь?
 * Yep. See here. --WikiTiki89 18:31, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * and have been created. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 23:00, 28 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Anatoli.

over skyerne er himlen altid blå
I am not sure this definition is right. It does not really fit with the uses I have found, or at least not all of them.__Gamren (talk) 11:54, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
 * The literal translation is correct (above the clouds, the sky is always blue), also in Norwegian; as for whether it's used the way anglophones use "every cloud has a silver lining", I can't say; although I would at least expect it to have some connotational differences. It might help if you could link to the uses you found.   Eddy, 84.215.7.210 21:44, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

polvs compas svs in alle landt
Can anyone translate the text on this old compass? The Latin individual words make sense, but the sentence "polvs compas svs in alle landt" seems like it might be in Dutch or something. - TheDaveRoss  13:01, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think is a single word divided across a line break. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 13:07, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

hamelen
I'm not familiar with Middle English. Could someone who is please check ? I am quite sure I have filled in the template wrongly. Thanks. — SGconlaw (talk) 15:39, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
 * It looks good. I just normalised the verb forms somewhat. All in all not at all bad ! Leasnam (talk) 16:50, 29 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Wow! Not bad for what were essentially guesses. Thanks! — SGconlaw (talk) 21:22, 29 August 2017 (UTC)

Grenadan
Grenadian is the correct usage for people and things related to Grenada.

The Grenadian page exists and is just fine. I propose removing the content of the Grenadan page and making it redirect to Grenadian. This is the current situation on Wikipedia. Thank you.

Mnnlaxer (talk) 15:35, 30 August 2017 (UTC)


 * I can do the redirect, but am wondering if that prevents "Grenadan" from appearing in google search results. Mnnlaxer (talk) 15:05, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
 * We don't use redirects here very much. I have made it into a alternative form. SemperBlotto (talk) 15:09, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but it is not an alternative form. It's incorrect. I made the comment about google searches above because I hoped it wouldn't show up as the top result, leading more people to use it. Mnnlaxer (talk) 18:43, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Lots of hits on Google book search. SemperBlotto (talk) 18:47, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
 * OK, thanks. Mnnlaxer (talk) 19:28, 18 September 2017 (UTC)

under the weather
I feel like sense #2 ("Somewhat intoxicated or suffering from a hangover.") is overspecific and simply an example of a situation in which one may be feeling sense #1 ("Somewhat ill or gloomy."). In other words, I think we should delete sense #2. --WikiTiki89 18:34, 30 August 2017 (UTC)

appearances are deceptive
Is this not SoP? The definition talks about people, but it could also be true of objects, places, etc. Equinox ◑ 13:03, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Totally SOP. RFD it. --WikiTiki89 14:31, 31 August 2017 (UTC)

Kyrgyz translations of blue
There is a large number of Kyrgyz words listed as translations of blue in the blue-coloured adjective sense. I don't know Kyrgyz so I can't verify them, but of those that aren't redlinked, most have no adjective meanings listed and none have "blue" listed as a meaning in their entries. Could someone better-informed take a look, and remove any invalid translations?

In addition, in the colour noun sense, the Kyrgyz is listed as a translation. If that is a valid translation, then perhaps that sense should be added to the word's entry, which currently only lists "sky". Eishiya (talk) 20:30, 31 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I left three - the ones I found in dictionaries. There is no Kyrgyz entry today, it's Uyghur as the heading says, which has the Arabic spelling  and it means "sky". --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 05:39, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
 * User:Jyldyz0304 seems to have made this edit, as well as many similar ones. —suzukaze (t・c) 05:48, 1 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I've seen so many dodgy Kyrgyz translations - they seem to throw all the Kyrgyz words they know remotely related to English terms. --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 05:55, 1 September 2017 (UTC)


 * I know means "sky, blue" for sure. The other translations provided (kögüsh, kögültür) means blue-like, blue-ish in the same dictionary I checked. Unsure about  though, it might be a shade of blue, like dark-blue or something. --Anylai (talk) 20:33, 3 September 2017 (UTC)