Wiktionary:Tea room/2024/July

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← June 2024 · July 2024 · August 2024 → · (current)

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dunnarf

This had no headword template, so I added one, but I'm not 100% sure this is an adverb, since it's built on a verb phrase. Chuck Entz (talk) 00:05, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

At first glance it seems to function like an adverb, but it seems it can't replace really in phrases such as, "I can really see your point", which would more likely become, "I dunnarf see your point".

Can you call it a "contraction", like innit? —DIV 1.144.107.158 02:09, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

lowercase proper nouns in English, especially loans

strawberry generation is categorized as a proper noun, even though it's lowercase. It's perhaps better phrased as the strawberry generation. Would this be better if we keep it as a proper noun? Also, since it's a calque of Chinese 草莓族 (cǎoméizú), should that also be a proper noun, or are the rules different in Chinese due to the lack of a definite article? Appendix:English proper nouns mentions that proper nouns can be lowercase but gives no examples nor details on how they're defined. Sorry this isnt better written. Im just looking for advice since this is one word but there could be hundreds. —Soap— 10:09, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

Not sure, but FWIW it spurred me to look up Millennial#Noun and millennial#Noun in case that provided insight. It didn't shed a lot of light: both are listed as "Noun", although even the lowercase entry is marked "Often capitalized". Perhaps this issue hasn't received a lot of attention previously? —DIV (1.145.103.0 02:41, 8 July 2024 (UTC))

Millennial refers to a person, hence a common noun. See also § Latin proper nouns below. J3133 (talk) 10:34, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

infantilize

I don't see a difference between senses 1 and 2. PUC – 18:07, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

To cause to be vs to treat. WSJP also differentiates this. Vininn126 (talk) 19:23, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

I think "treat" requires an animate treater, whereas "cause" does not, as the sole cite evidences. DCDuring (talk) 21:15, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

linear

• (mathematics) (of polynomials or polynomial equations)

  (of a polynomial) Having degree less than one; that is, being of the form $a_{1}x_{1}+a_{2}x_{2}+\cdots +a_{n}x_{n}$, where each $x_{i}$ is a variable and each $a_{i}$ is a coefficient. See also Linear polynomials on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Listing this here for now just in case I am missing something stupid, but less than one? Really? Mihia (talk) 22:17, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

I found this misleading definition in an online math dictionary that could point toward the error: "An equation in which the highest power of any variable is one." This suggests that degree of a linear equation is less than or equal to one.

In any event, I thought the only possibility is degree equal to one. DCDuring (talk) 01:43, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Degree 0 is also linear, I suppose, but any powers between 0 and 1 are not. Theknightwho (talk) 03:11, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree that generally a linear equation has a degree of one. Negative powers are certainly don't produce a linear equation, and nor do non-integer powers. I am not sure about a degree of 0: it 'feels' like something that can be called linear; but, on the other hand, by the same logic would we be free to call an equation of degree 0 parabolic (which 'feels' very wrong)?! —DIV (1.145.103.0 02:47, 8 July 2024 (UTC))

Old English -sċiepe suffix

I'm skeptical of the normalising of this suffix to -sċiepe. The normalised form of Old English on Wiktionary seems to come from Don Ringe's derivations of Early West Saxon Old English forms, but even he predicts -sċipe (the most common form in actual EWS texts) as the outcome of Proto-Germanic *-skapiz, due to OE's low suffix stress causing <ie> to monopthongise (Ringe and Taylor (2014), pg. 245). I think it should be changed, since -sċiepe is not the expected normalisation (and it also occurs a grand total of one time in the actual OE corpus, according to the Helsinki DOEC). -TheSaltyBrushtail (talk) 22:12, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

The normal outcome of -skapi is -sċepe and with breaking -sċiepe, then with merging, -sċype, then with unrounding -sċipe. -sċiepe is cleaner than both -sċype and -sċipe because -ie- shows clear descent from -a- where -y- and -i- do not. -sċiepe may not be the most commonly recorded form, but frequency is separate from normalisation Leasnam (talk) 02:02, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

The problem with this is that -scipe clearly reflects low stress monophthongization and raising in all dialects prior to the written period. -scepi/-scepe is not found in the Anglian dialects, which is what would be expected if this suffix showed the usual sound changes for stressed syllables; the Early West Saxon -sciepe spelling can be explained by the confusion of ⟨i⟩ and ⟨ie⟩ already present in the earliest texts, as can be seen in e.g. ⟨bieternesse⟩, ⟨hiene⟩; and Late West Saxon -scype spellings can be easily explained by the general tendency in that dialect to change short /i/ to /y/, particularly in low stress syllables towards the end of the OE period. Ythede Gengo (talk) 07:43, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

pleat vs. plait

Is it me, or we list those two words as near-synonyms? Both entries include the senses "a braid" and "a fold (as of cloth)", but through direct Google search and dictionaries such as Cambridge, nowadays it seems pleat is mostly related to "a fold", and plait to "a braid". It's likely both words have been used interchangably in the past, but is it possible to create a "Usage notes" for both entries specifying which sense is more used now in each entry? [Saviourofthe] ୨୧ 23:25, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

inukshuk

We had had /ɪˈnʊkˌʃʊk/ as the pronunciation, and then had an audio file labelled as [ɪˈnukˌʃuk] (see edit history). If the latter pronunciation also exists, it should be on the IPA line, but since it's from Vealhurl I wanted to check whether it does exist, or if only /-ʊ-/ exists. - -sche (discuss) 16:33, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

This was also brought up on the talk page:

The spoken pronunciation does not tally with the transcription and is likely incorrect. Compare [1].

— Paul G (talk) 06:37, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, I'm Canadian and I've only ever heard /-ʊ-/.

— W.andrea (talk) 16:46, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

What's up with Vealhurl? Do they have a history of making incorrect pronunciations? — W.andrea (talk) 16:49, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Oxford only has /-ʊ-/ (see also Canadian Oxford), same for Dictionary.com and Collins. Also CBC Kids (arguably "i-NOOK-shooks" relies on the pronunciation of nook). — W.andrea (talk) 17:29, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

Vealhurl is Wonderfool, who seems to like to guess when it comes to words they don't know. Benwing2 (talk) 21:05, 3 July 2024 (UTC)

chorear

This Spanish verb is listed with two definitions listed, from Argentina, Chile, and Peru.

It has a different meaning in Mexico (to tell exaggerated tales), and I am trying to add it, but editing is harder than I thought. I don't really do it. And I would like to add a link to the definition in the Diccionario del español de México

I am quite baffled by the way editing an entry works, but I am sure I could learn.

Is there a simple, easy, tutorial available?

Thanks,

AndyAxnot AndyAxnot (talk) 23:13, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi, @AndyAxnot. Welcome!

There is a tutorial at Wiktionary:Tutorial. You can find some other Help pages listed too. By the way, if, after referring to those pages, you are still stuck and need to request help generally (not on a specific word), you can also try the Information Desk.

Although it might not always be the perfect way of doing things, sometimes an expedient method is to find the code (markup) for a similar entry, copy & paste it, and then edit to suit. In fact, I guess you might have tried that technique already at chorear :-)

The code includes

# {{lb|es|Chile}} to [[bug]], to [[piss off]]

# {{lb|es|Mexico}} to [[tell exaggerated tales]]

Which renders as

2. (Chile) to bug, to piss off

3. (Mexico) to tell exaggerated tales

That is not a bad start, but notice the red colour of the link, which indicates that there is no existing entry for tell exaggerated tales. We could link to each word separately:

# {{lb|es|Mexico}} to [[tell]] [[exaggerated]] [[tales]]

3. (Mexico) to tell exaggerated tales

However, almost all readers should understand tell, so that link is probably more distracting than helpful. Probably the key word is exaggerated, so maybe the best would be

# {{lb|es|Mexico}} to tell [[exaggerated]] tales

3. (Mexico) to tell exaggerated tales

—DIV (1.145.103.0 03:01, 8 July 2024 (UTC))

DIV,

Thank you for the assistance and suggestions. I did in fact try to use the existing reference to el Diccionario de la lengua español. Not perfect but usable, I think.

I will try reading the available tutorials again. The first time through they made little sense to me. :-(

Thank you for your reply and help, I was hoping someone would leave a comment, and I very much appreciate your help!

----AndyAxnot AndyAxnot (talk) 03:32, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

I left our welcome template on your talk page. It has links to all the general stuff. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:59, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Miriwoong coverbs

I do not know how to render verbs which need coverbs in Miriwoong a language from the Kimberley, Australia. For example the dictionary I am using gives me: bad coverb + GET put foot on something, stamp on something, and gives an example of usage: Yijibtha bad boowoonggoo Stamp on it properly. It is clear that the coverb bad needs to be used with the verb boowoongoo meaning get. (And I am also unsure as to how much of this I can use without breaching copyright) MargaretRDonald (talk) 00:14, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

don't start with me

In the meaning "don't start harassing/patronizing/etc. me". Where can this meaning be found? There's no entry for start with and no definition of start seems to match. Benwing2 (talk) 01:40, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

With me is just a normal PP. Not every preposition following an English verb becomes property of the verb. I have always interpreted the sentence as "Don't start (context-dependent noun) with me.", usually intended as a warning. DCDuring (talk) 02:17, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

After researching what you mean, as someone who does not speak English colloquially but rather academically, I come to the same conclusion as DCDuring. You could also say “don’t start in my presence”; the keyword here is don’t start, which I don’t know which sense it should be linked to via |id=. Given the coincidence with your edits to examples of {{+obj}}, I assume you also wonder whether transitive senses (broad definition) of start can have a complement through with as well as a direct object. “Bitch you shouldn't have started me” has the same meaning? Fay Freak (talk) 03:15, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Interesting; I think you're right about don't start. I suppose this would go under start as a negative polarity item, listed as normally accompanied by "with". I actually came across this trying to figure out the last meaning of the Portuguese verb vir, which is defined as "to bitch, to whine" with the example Não venha com essa and usually rendered "don't start with me" in Reverso. This meaning is hard or impossible to find in any dictionary and the expression (não) venha com essa seems to be an idiom, so I was wondering what other contexts this meaning occurs in in Portuguese. As for the hip-hop lyrics you reference (except maybe with a following participle, as in don't start me going = "don't get me going" = "don't rile me up"), I've never heard this used transitively; this may be part of AAVE usage, and I assume (but can't be sure) that it has the same meaning as "don't start with me". Benwing2 (talk) 04:17, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

It's an ordinary meaning of start. I don't think that we should be trying to cover elisions that haven't become separate meanings. In this case it is particularly inappropriate, as it is not a single word that is elided, but rather any kind of interaction that the speaker wants stopped. DCDuring (talk) 13:42, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Hard disagree with this: in this context, it carries one meaning and one meaning only. Theknightwho (talk) 03:06, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

This is what I found in dictionaries:

• {{R:GDoS}} has "don't (you) start" and {{R:OED2}} has "don't you start" (sense 12h) with non-gloss definitions, interpreting the phrase as expressing irritation by the repeating of statements that have been already made earlier
• meanwhile, {{R:Cambridge}} has the sense "to begin to complain or be annoying in some way" with the following usex: Don't start with me - we're not going and that's that!

I think these two are overlapping usages but with a different focus. The first one is more explicitly referring to a repetition of some earlier sentiment/criticism ("Don't bring this up again!"), while the second one implies a more general sense of exasperation ("Don't annoy me with that!"). I think don't start would hold water as a separate entry with one or more {{n-g}}'s in which its informal usage can be described. However, the verb can be found outside imperative sentences as well (e.g. [2]), so we might want to add an intransitive subsense to start, probably with a link to don't start. Einstein2 (talk) 15:00, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree that this does seem worthy of a sense at start, at a minimum because of prepositionless "(don't) start me" type uses. I could accept viewing "Don't start [being argumentative]. We've been over this." as ellision as suggested above, but when you not only elide the object but replace it with a different object as in "don't start me", that seems like the kind of thing we normally have definition-lines for (am I wrong? can someone bring counterexamples to bear?), and at that point we can presumably word the definition such that it covers both don't start me and don't start (with | on | up with | up on) me type uses.
At a minimum, there are so many similar but different-meaning phrases here which confuse learners that we should make sure there are usexes with parenthetical glosses explaining the difference. In this WordReference forum thread where a user explains (don't) start with/on me as (don't) "start to be aggressive or argumentative towards [me]", someone was confusing don't start with me and don't start without me; online I can also find learners being confused by don't start on me [don't get argumentative towards me] vs don't start me on [don't get me to talking about that]. - -sche (discuss) 15:18, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I've also heard "don't start". This reminds me of "stop it", which seems to have the same object with a different verb. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:09, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Here's another notable example which appears relevant to this discussion:

1987, John Flansburgh, John Linnell (lyrics and music), “Don't Let's Start”, performed by They Might Be Giants:

But don't, don't, don't let's start / I've got a weak heart / And I don't get around how you get around

This usage, plus "don't you start", "don't start with me", etc. could be covered by an intransitive subsense of start meaning "to begin to speak or act annoyingly or confrontationally", along the lines suggested above. Voltaigne (talk) 17:02, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

But start up and start on are phrasal verbs in the usages you are talking about, unless there is much less reality to membership in Category:English phrasal verbs than we assign to it.

I'll bet start me in this sense is not common, much less so than start with me. Me could be replaced by any pronoun and many nouns, including inanimate ones: "Don't start a bunch of Yale alums on/about the Whiffenpoofs or Skull and Bones."

I think we risk adding to learner (and contributor) confusion rather than reducing it. If we knew what we wanted in a wikiPhrasebook, don't start with me would be a great entry there, being a useful colloquialism.

The learner confusion is the revenge of English speakers on those whose native languages inflect. DCDuring (talk) 16:24, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

We could have an entry for ‘don’t start’ which could make use of some of the senses of ‘start’ to be found at start off and the sense found in the phrase ‘don’t start with me’. Perhaps the definition of ‘don’t start’ should be ‘don’t start talking/laughing/crying/arguing’? Overlordnat1 (talk) 08:41, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

The use is perhaps a subsense of def. 2 at start "(intransitive) To begin an activity." (As also def. 8: "To start one's periods (menstruation)."). But the enormous range of possible elided objects and adjuncts (like with me, with that, on that, about ...) suggests that we are trying to lexicalize what is an open set of possibilities in English, some of which are merely more frequent, not less SoP. DCDuring (talk) 15:16, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

No, it just means "don't start [doing sometihng negative]". It may have originated as an elision, but it's not parsed that way by speakers when used in colloquial language, and it can be defined with a non-gloss like "A warning not to start doing something negative.", which conveys how it is used and the contextual restrictions on when it can be used. Theknightwho (talk) 03:09, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

I always thought it was due to elision of 'your shit' as in "Don't start ([your] shit) with me" Leasnam (talk) 04:04, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@Leasnam That sounds like a likely etymology, but I've heard parents use it with their kids, where "Don't start." is a complete sentence, so it's completely lexicalised at this point. Theknightwho (talk) 03:58, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

It is likely an elision, but the elided object(ive complement) is context-dependent and could come from a wide range of not just nouns, but many kinds of NPs and other nominals. Eg, "Don't start (nagging me about how I spoil the kids).". DCDuring (talk) 13:35, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

Portuguese dar para = "to put out"

(in the sexual sense) This is labeled as sometimes ditransitive. I take it this means it has a direct object along with para. Can anyone given an example of this where it maintains the same sense? Benwing2 (talk) 04:32, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Bayan Mod

Is the definition correct? Geographyinitiative (talk) 13:29, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

No. Bayan Mod (巴彦毛都苏木) is a sumu of Horqin Left Rear Banner, not of Alxa Left Banner. Voltaigne (talk) 15:36, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Thanks- changed this from "sumu" to "location" in this edit: diff. See the maps and coordinates at Citations:Bayan Mod. Please ping me if anyone has any potential cites, maps, or any kind of insights. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 19:42, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

onerous

Could someone versed in law add the legal senses missing to this entry? ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:34, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

intelligent life

I noticed this term was deleted in 2017, on the rationale that the definition sucked. Can we agree on a new definition? Purplebackpack89 02:01, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

No. This is SOP. See intelligent definition #4. Benwing2 (talk) 03:12, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Russian Минск (Minsk), Менск (Mensk)

Both entries say that usage can be "politically charged", but this is not very helpful when there's no clue in what way it is charged. I'm assuming one form is either pan-Russian or Belarusian particularist/nationalist. But even this may be wrong. And at any rate the reader can't tell which is which. 84.63.31.91 17:15, 8 July 2024 (UTC)

Since there has been no response, I've converted this into an RFC at the Russian entry. 84.63.31.91 05:48, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Translations for Western Australia

On the Korean translation for Western Australia, I noticed a random left square bracket in the translation and transliteration. I'm no Korean, but this seems strange. - alex the mid person (talk page here) 19:47, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

AA and AAA pronunciations

I notice there are no pronunciations for AA and AAA. The entries should probably note that, while written "AA" or "AAA", they are frequently pronounced "Double A" or "Triple A", and occasionally "Two A" or "Three A". Compare XXX, which lists a pronunciation of "Triple X" Purplebackpack89 17:17, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

and XXXX also has 'four ex' and 'quadruple x' as possible pronunciations, which also seems fair enough to me. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 22:41, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

It wouldn't be appropriate to do this unless we check for each sense, since this kind of thing can vary. We don't have it as a sense, but The AA in the UK is never said as "double A", for instance. Theknightwho (talk) 22:46, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Just to add to this: of the first two definitions, AA = Alcoholics Anonymous is never "double A" but AA batteries are usually "double A". Benwing2 (talk) 06:09, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Latin proper nouns

@Urszag has changed Latin Accarōnīta, Accarōnītēs (“Ekronite”), Ammanītēs (“Ammonite”), Argonauta (“Argonaut”), Celta (“Celt”), Croata (“Croat”), Ephrāimītēs (“Ephraimite”), Galatae (“Galatians”), Isrāhēlita, Istrāhēlita (“Israelite”), Persa, Persēs (“Persian”), Pīsīda (“Pisidian”), Sacae (“Sacae”), Scīpiadās (“member of the Scipio family”), Scytha (“Scythian”), Spartiātēs (“Spartan”) (which I reverted), and Sybarīta (“Sybarite”) from common to proper nouns. Should these changes be reverted? J3133 (talk) 07:01, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I saw your revert, of course, and I'm looking over what current practice is and what definitions are given for proper nouns in various resources. I checked, and we don't seem to have any relevant definition at Wiktionary:Entry_layout#Part_of_speech. As far as nationalities related to nation names go, it looks like our English entries regularly have those as Nouns rather than Proper nouns. Forms like Scīpiadās don't seem obviously more analogous to nationalities than to personal names, however. And English "Argonaut" is marked as a proper noun.--Urszag (talk) 07:09, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

@Urszag: Re Argonaut (“one of the members of the Argo”), I am aware and think it should be changed to a common noun; cf. Disciple (“one of the twelve disciples of Jesus”). Argonaut (“team member for the Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League”) as a proper noun is also inconsistent with Lion (“player for Canadian Football League’s B.C. Lions”), etc. J3133 (talk) 07:15, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Aside from the entries I edited, nearly every term in Category:la:Tribes (802 out of 805) is currently categorized as a proper noun.--Urszag (talk) 07:19, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

It's not the easiest distinction to make (and some people have suggested not making it at all, but I do think it's useful), but I agree with J3133 that a count noun meaning an individual member of a group is almost always (if not always? maybe there are some edge cases, like if individual aspects of the Morrigan or Yahweh have some count noun?) a common noun — a German, a Roman, an Ekronite. A noun meaning "the tribe X, collectively", if it is truly collective-/plural-only with no singular, and not just the plural form of a count noun, probably is a proper noun, because there's only one X tribe (but at least in English such words are rare and usually turn out to be the collective plurals of count nouns, e.g. the Cheyenne, the Crow, the Yurok ⇒ the Cheyennes, etc., and one member is a Cheyenne, etc.). But the distinction is not well-taught, so I understand people not grokking it: I have seen even college-level(!) language textbooks say the distinction is just whether something is capitalized or not :o which is obviously not it! PS, as a separate issue, Category:la:Tribes says it's a "related to" category but it seems we're using it as a "set" category so we should probably just reframe it [as a "set" category] in the module...? Unless... do other languages use it as a "related" category, which that change would upset? (This is one reason I think we may need to bite the bullet and distinguish "topic" and "set" categories in the actual category names if we want them distinguished at all, because otherwise no-one knows to / does distinguish them.) - -sche (discuss) 14:56, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I can see the argument for treating these kinds of non-specific capitalized terms as common nouns. I don't like the idea of having different rules for countable vs. collective ethnonyms. Given how infrequently used many of these Latin tribe names are (I believe a substantial portion are attested, at least in Classical literature, only by being mentioned once in Pliny; e.g. Agamatae), I'm not sure it would be feasible to find evidence establishing whether it's possible or impossible for each specific term to be used countably. Singular and countable uses aren't categorically impossible for this class of words as a whole (hence the existence of some entries lemmatized at a singular form, such as the ones that I edited). It looks like the English entry for Chinese currently categorizes the use in cases like "The Chinese are..." as a proper noun, even though it's arguably not even a noun there.--Urszag (talk) 15:42, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

That makes sense. If we assume the Latin plurals under discussion have singulars (even if not attested), and especially if we present them as such (i.e. lemmatize or list the singular forms), I can certainly get behind listing them all as common nouns. Chinese too probably needs to be cleaned up: there was a time when we had many ethnonyms entered like that (some by other people and then some by me following them) — Native American tribe names are the main ones I recall, like Abenaki — but then there was a (probably correct) move to re-analyse such things as collective plural forms i.e. inflected forms and to only lemmatize the singular, i.e. have a common noun "Cheyenne (plural Cheyenne or Cheyennes) A person..." as opposed to "Cheyenne (plural only) A people/tribe...". - -sche (discuss) 01:31, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

on a mission

sense: "Actively and determinedly engaged on a task"

This definition relates to the manner of engagement on the task. The two cites do not support that, instead illustrating the importance of the task and its relationship to the person on the mission.

I have certainly heard the expression being used to refer to the manner of pursuing some objective "as if on a mission", but I'm not finding cites. The definition at MWOnline (sole mainstream dictionary besides enwikt to have a def.) is "undertaking a task that one considers to be a very important duty", no word about manner. DCDuring (talk) 14:24, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

"Man on a mission" is a phrase - someone motivated and engaged in pursuing some end. 2A00:23C7:1D84:FE01:F65:D78F:9DE3:1B82 08:51, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I could accept that the cited texts don't unambiguously support that sense (determinedness), because they do require some interpretation of what's implied, but I don't think I would agree that they unambiguously indicate a different sense (importance).

In the Donegan work, "Emily still did not tire [even though she continued walking after nightfall]", can well be read as indicating her determination to continue, even though she might easily feel tired & cold & vulnerable.

In the McNulty passage, "they finally achieved the long-cherished goal", indicates that this was an objective that took a long time to achieve, from which we can well infer that it took a lot of effort over all of those years, which would have taken much determination.

My view would be that

• the existing sense relating to determination is correct, and should be retained, although
  • potentially some 'better' citations could be found; and
• optionally another sense could be added in relation to importance of the mission, but it would need stronger evidence than embodied in the Donegan and McNulty texts.

—DIV (1.129.106.197 01:13, 21 July 2024 (UTC))

Australian English pronounciations of some words (choice, boy, oil)

I am looking at the table here [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_English#Vowels. I don't really know anything about Australian English so I don't want to edit anything but I am focused on the /oɪ/ diphthong. If the table is accurate then could the wiktionary pages for those words (choice, boy, oil) be updated to add a narrow transcription with Australian pronounciations please. Thanks Zbutie3.14 (talk) 20:03, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm no expert, but....

In relation to your remark, "If the table is accurate", I draw your attention to the WP article discussion on whether

The vowel chart seems wildly off the mark.

Also, looking at W:Australian English phonology, I observe the following

• "The word foyer is usually pronounced /ˈfoɪə/, as in NZ and American English, rather than /ˈfoɪeɪ/ as in British English.", yet this doesn't match the WT entry at foyer#Pronunciation.
• There seems to be some inconsistency in transcription of the phoneme "/oɪ/" variously as "ɔɪ" or "oɪ".
• oɪ doesn't have a Wikipedia article, unlike other diphthongs.

—DIV (1.129.106.197 01:31, 21 July 2024 (UTC))

J (unit of area)

In this short video, the area of a room is given as "7.1J, 11.5 m²", likewise here and here rooms are "7J" in area, said to mean "7 tatami mat(s)". We seem to be missing a sense for this at J. - -sche (discuss) 00:10, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

presumably from jo 畳#Counter Justin the Just (talk) 02:11, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

Is there currently an entry for Cantonese "jau1" as in "〇褲" (jau1 fu3, pull up the trousers)?

I've searched for entries in some of the possible orthographies e.g. 抽, 摳, 拞, 揄, 休 etc. (written as 摳 in 广州方言词典), but still haven't found the entry for this sense. Mahogany115 (talk) 11:39, 13 July 2024 (UTC)

Adashino

so, I was digging into this to see if i can improve it, however I don't feel confident enough in the language to edit it myself, so i'll bring my research to those more versed. So obviously that's a romanization, of あだしの to be exact, which lists it to mean as both "just" a graveyard, and the proper name of "a graveyard in Kyoto", which of what i can find seems to be W:Adashino_Nenbutsu, however, this seems to be the only reference to it i can find even using the term being the name of this grave yard(two other instances i was able to find were "just" anime character names lol)

Further more I looked into any kind of etymology of the name and this page <https://traditionalkyoto.com/traditional-areas/arashiyama-district/adashino-nenbutsu-ji/> said it means "place of sadness" which given what we have on our pages i think is pretty bunk, but it did however lead to what i think is the official, native page of the graveyard in question, <https://www.nenbutsuji.jp/index.html> which had this

> 「あだしの」は「化野」と記す。「あだし」とははかない、むなしいとの意で、又「化」の字は「生」が化して「死」となり、この世に再び生まれ化る事や、極楽浄土に往来する願いなどを意図している。

google translate:

> "Adashino" is written as "Kaen". "Adashi" means fleeting and empty, and the character "Ka" represents the transformation of "life" into "death", and the wish to be reborn in this world or travel to the Pure Land. which seems to be a bit more in line with the info on our page

This seems more in line with what we have, though i'm unsure what sense in particular each character would be for at the current time.

with all this info, I believe that one could probably create an English entry for Adashino being a proper name for the graveyard in question, however I again question on if the term refers to graveyards in general, or even a particular type, as I've failed myself to find any indicator that is this anything but a Proper Name. Akaibu (talk) 02:58, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

supposed vs. supposed to/be supposed to

There is a lot of duplication here. Under the adjective "supposed", there are mixed up the sense "the supposed second coming of Christ" etc. (pronunciation with three syllables ending in -/zɪd/) and the sense "ought (to)" (pronunciation ending in -/st/), with overlap between the latter and supposed to (which some random user moved to be supposed to four years ago). How should we resolve this? Benwing2 (talk) 04:11, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think it really functions as an adjective in the context of "supposed to", so I don't support listing these just as separate senses under the adjective POS of "supposed". For me, the "səˈpəʊst" pronunciation occurs exclusively before "to", so I think it makes sense to include "to" as part of the lemma (as with "gonna" and "have to"). However, it isn't necessarily always followed by a form of "be", since it could possibly occur in contexts like "I'm the one supposed to do it" (even if that sounds awkward compared to "I'm the one who is supposed to do it"). So my thoughts would be 1) move "be supposed to" back to supposed to 2) move definitions/examples related to that sense out of supposed (but to signpost this, maybe have a separate Verb POS line there that just says Template:only used in supposed to).--Urszag (talk) 05:04, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

This makes sense to me. Benwing2 (talk) 05:32, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

We could make be supposed to a hard redirect to supposed to (or the sense) in case someone is trying to compare our treatment with the two other OneLook dictionaries (MWOnline and Cambridge Advanced Learner's) that have be supposed to as entries. Three idioms dictionaries have entries at supposed to. Collins has entries for be supposed to do sth and be supposed to be sth/have done sth. There are other variants, including some with not, which seem warranted by the placement of not in the expression as used idiomatically. We could undertake to add a few hard redirects for some of these variations. DCDuring (talk) 15:11, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Actually, after looking over some of these examples more, I'm less sure about having separate entries based on pronunciation and sense since it is difficult in some cases to determine which sense examples fall under. E.g. I read "supposed" as a participle, not adjective in "The great use of coffee in France is supposed to have abated the prevalency of the gravel", but it could either be /səˈpoʊzd/ (the past participle of səˈpoʊz/) or /səˈpoʊst/ for me. Likewise, "The thief is supposed to be hiding in the forest." I guess all examples involving "supposed to" could go on that page, whether they have a sense of "is required to" or a sense of "is thought to", but it seems more straightforward to have them all at the page for "supposed".--Urszag (talk) 17:07, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Also, even though I wouldn't consider it an adjective, the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language apparently does categorize the first word of "supposed to" in "I'm supposed to pay for it" as an adjective (Chapter 16 "Information packaging", Gregory Ward, Betty Birner, and Rodney Huddleston, page 1440). So maybe two separate adjective POS lines for the separate senses and pronunciations would be best?--Urszag (talk) 17:15, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I edited supposed accordingly; the only remaining adjustment I would consider desirable is to move be supposed to back to supposed to. I think that might need an admin, since both pages already exist. I added two citations on the citations page showing use without a form of "to be" before it ("But how do I know you are the man supposed to receive it?" and "The code should work as supposed to").--Urszag (talk) 20:41, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Great, thank you! I'll move the page back. Benwing2 (talk) 20:42, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

@Urszag I moved it back, but we need to clean up supposed to to match. It's tagged as a verb, what should it be instead? Benwing2 (talk) 20:45, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Following the CamGEL analysis, I've marked it as "adjective".--Urszag (talk) 20:56, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

ba in Vietnamese

The definition entry of "ba" in the adjective section of Etymology 2 in Vietnamese might be wrong. ba is used in "con thứ ba" (third child). Why "secondborn" though? EimarGD (talk) 12:08, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

In Southern Vietnamese, hai (“two”) is used for the first born, so obviously ba (“three”) would be used for the second born, it's not a mistake. The explanation as to "why" is at anh hai, although it reeks of folk etymology to me. PhanAnh123 (talk) 07:27, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

List or don't list capitals for orthographies that don't use them?

If an orthography doesn't use capitals apart from title case all caps, should they be listed in the list:Latin script letters/ISO templates? For example, among Yele vowel letters, only "a" and "u" occur in word-initial position and so are capitalized at the beginning of a sentence or proper name. In the extreme, palawa kani othography uses lower-case only; would we still list capitals for their use in title case all-caps text, assuming that exists?

We'd want to list capital German "ß" regardless, because we have something to say about it, but if there's no reason to create an entry for capital forms of letters in an orthography that doesn't use them apart from title case, then if we added them to the list, the links wouldn't go anywhere and so wouldn't benefit the reader. kwami (talk) 20:40, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

For German, at least, text is sometimes ALL CAPS for various reasons and ß has therefore been uppercased in a variety of ways, including via a capital/majuscule form (w:ß#Development_of_a_capital_form). Does anyone use ALL CAPS in Yele, I wonder? for shouting or emphasis or signs (or databases, like "SMITH, John") etc? - -sche (discuss) 20:51, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I misused "title case" for all-caps. (What is it, "headline case"? I forget.) And ß is exceptional.

It's very possible that all-caps are or could be used in Yele, though there are no instances of capital E, I, O etc. in the dictionary, and I don't know about palawa kani.

My question is, do we want to list all-caps variants of letters? Yele orthography has a digraph letter "ch". The capital form is "Ch". We should therefore list "Ch ch" in the template, but presumably not "CH" for use in headlines etc. If we don't list "CH", why would we list capital "E", when its (unconfirmed) usage would presumably be similar?

I was tempted to remove the capital vowels apart from A, U, which are the only ones I can confirm actually exist (e.g. they have dictionary headers, are used in proper names, etc.), but thought I should ask here first. kwami (talk) 21:00, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

There are also the consonants b and j, which only occur in the sequences mb and nj are so are similarly not capitalized except (presumably) in all caps. Rather than adding capital B and J, I removed the capital vowels apart from A and U. I'll add caps to all Yele letters if that's what's decided, but currently they wouldn't link to anything. kwami (talk) 21:56, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I'm sorry in turn, as I misunderstood that part of your question anyway. Mehhh... I grant that the utility of mentioning and linking "E" as the uppercase/capital form of "e", if it only occurs when someone is writing in all caps, is small, but it's not zero, particularly if there's not another language section on the page that does link to the capital, which might or might not be the case for e.g. uncommon letters with diacritics. (And making the question of whether or not to link be dependent on what language sections are present on a page seems like a recipe for trouble, because the answer would change if other language section are later added... so perhaps that too suggests defaulting to normally linking.) If someone writing in all caps in Yele would render e → E (etc), I don't see any benefit to suppressing the note that that's the uppercase/capital form; it might get squicky for digraphs, but in cases where there's only one possible capital I don't see a compelling reason to suppress it, but I again grant that the benefit is small... hopefully more people can weigh in. - -sche (discuss) 01:33, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

What's the relevance of other language sections, if the templates are individualized for each language?

In the case of Saanich, we list only capitals (see e.g. Ⱦ#Saanich), apart from ⟨s⟩ which is a distinct letter from ⟨S⟩. I'm suggesting we do the opposite for a language like palawa kani that has no capitals. For a language like Yele, letters like b, j, i, e, o are unicase except (presumably) in headline text, but we have no evidence that such all-cap texts actually exist, so IMO it would be OR to include capitals for them.

(b and j only occur in the digraphs mb and nj, but those digraphs aren't distinct letters of the alphabet, at least not in the dictionary, so unless we're going to list multigraphs in the template, b and j need to be listed as separate letters even though there's no section heading for them in the dictionary.) kwami (talk) 01:44, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

take it out on vs. take out on

We have entries like take it out on = "vent one's anger on" and take it out of = "enervate", but in neither of these is the "it" required. "He took out his anger on his helpless mother", "My job takes all my strength out of me", etc. At the same time, the placeholder "it" does frequently occur. How should we handle these? Should we move take it out on to take out on and likewise for take it out of, or should we split the entries into two? There's probably a more general question here about placeholder "it". Benwing2 (talk) 20:17, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

MWOnline has both take (something) out on (someone) and take it out on; AHD has take it out on and take out ("Don't take your frustration out in such an aggressive manner."); Collins has take out on. If we are interested in users and without any actual data on user behavior, including how they deal with the 'failed-search' page, arguably we should have all these common forms at least as hard redirects. If our main concern is logical purity/lack of duplication or having the bare minimum of entries, I would not know how to accomplish that, besides not wanting to. DCDuring (talk) 22:03, 15 July 2024 (UTC)

nature-positive

The definition for nature-positive currently used on Wiktionary is inaccurate and does not reflect the use of the term correctly. Currently it is listed as an adjective that means "environmentally friendly" and "supportive of nature", but this is incorrect. I would like to suggest that the definition be updated to reflect the emerging consensus around the Nature Positive Initiative's definition of nature-positive as a "global societal goal to halt and reverse nature loss by 2030, and achieve full recovery of nature by 2050."[4] This definition is also used on the Wikipedia article for nature-positive.

I also think the definition should list nature-positive as a noun, while acknowledging the use of the term as an adjective to describe actions that work towards the goal, though it isn't used in a comparative or superlative fashion, as the definition indicates.

Manxshearwater (talk) 13:55, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Our definitions reflect actual use, not a consensus on what the term “should” mean. It is possible that our definition is off, but if so, this is because it does not reflect actual use, independent of what any consensus definition. may be  --Lambiam 22:57, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

(Chinese) 大丹犬

In the translation section in the page Great Dane, the Romanization provided for 大丹犬 is dàdāngǒu. Can anyone explain how 犬 is read as gǒu in this word? Perhaps there was a confusion between 犬 and 狗 in the translation section? Intolerable situation (talk) 20:01, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

Apparently the original translation was 大丹狗 and an IP editor in Taiwan swapped out last character without changing the transliteration. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:16, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

French /ɛ̃/ → English /æn/ instead of /ɛn/

The French pronunciation of /ɛ̃/ is lower than /ɛ/ : it is basically [æ̃] per [5]. Anyone know of words which have /ɛ̃/ in French which were borrowed into English as /æn/? I recall encountering a whole swath of such terms maybe a year ago, but now I can't relocate any apart from fin de siècle. Also of interest would be French words with /ɛ̃/ which we say were borrowed into English as /ɛn/, which I'd like to double check are indeed /ɛn/. I gave an /ɛn/ pronunciation at pinçage, and /ɪn/, but as those are based on the only two instances of the spoken word I was able to find at the time, I can't rule out that /æn/ also exists. - -sche (discuss) 20:14, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

That's a relatively recent development in French (I believe just in the last couple generations). Non-European dialects often don't display that vowel shift. Canadian French even has a shift in the opposite direction: /ɛ̃/ is often [ẽ]. I checked out a few recordings of France French from the 1930s to 1960s. I heard [ɛ̃] in all of them. I don't think there have been a lot of borrowings from French since then, so I wouldn't expect many borrowings into English with /æn/. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 22:55, 16 July 2024 (UTC)

In Europe as well, not all varieties of French have the vowel in question as low as that.

To answer -sche's question: it is my impression that, at least in the UK, /æn/ is in fact the standard adaptation of French /ɛ̃/ in new borrowings. Examples: bain-marie, meringue, pain au chocolat. Yes, I'm hungry at the moment.

In the south of England /æ/ is generally [a], which can of course be nasalized by a following coda nasal. (For instance span is [ˈspãˑn] in my pronunciation.) This is a close match for common pronunciations of /ɛ̃/ in European French ([æ̃], [ã], [ã̱]). Nicodene (talk) 00:56, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

is there any connection between 少年 (shōnen) and 正太郎 (shōtarō)?

Is there any connection between 少年 (shōnen, “boy”) and 正太郎 (shōtarō) (a given name)? As i understand it, a shōnen is a male protagonist notable for being a young boy where a man is expected, as in many video games and children's stories. Shōtarō seems to be an etymologically unrelated male given name. But Im curious if we can know a few things:

was the shōnen word influenced by the name? if so, was it a very recent shift or somewhat older? The comic series with the boy named Shōtarō was written in the 1950s, but it could be drawing on an older tradition of Japanese literature, one we might not know.

have the etymologies crossed over in deriving terms like 少年愛 (“shonen-ai”) and ショタコン (“shotacon”)? It seems like they are both being used as synonyms here.

Essentially, Im just wondering why this boy's name was chosen to be iconic for all boys in fiction, and particularly boys put in a role where a man would be expected. The most logical explanation I can see is that it's because his name sounds a bit like an existing word for boy .... if there had been a children's story in the mid 1940's with a boy hero named Tyke or Kidder or something like that, maybe we'd be using his name that way today too. But the same logic could be used to explain a shift in the opposite direction. Or it could just be a coincidence. Either way Im just curious. Thanks, —Soap— 19:56, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

To be clear, i know that shō is an extremely polysemic syllable in Japanese, and in fact i started this thread because i saw someone using shotokan correctly, and i mistook it for being either a mistake or a deliberate misspelling of shotakon, but the two meanings Im using above are the first two we list (even if one of them uses a modified character). —Soap— 09:30, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

the drowned land(s)

google books:"the drowned land" swamp, google books:"drowned lands" swamp: is this an idiomatic term, or SOP with sense 3 of drown? I've seen it mentioned in some dialect dictionaries, but I can also find a few hits of other phrases like "drowned field(s)", "the drowned areas", so I'm unsure. - -sche (discuss) 01:58, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't appear in my idiolexicon: I interpret it as just an obvious metaphor using the most common sense of drown. I wonder what we should expect of our target users' metaphor-interpretation engines. DCDuring (talk) 14:04, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

do without, go without

Are these really idiomatic? You can also "live without", "suffice without", "make do without", etc. Benwing2 (talk) 03:47, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Just FYI, Collins in [6] claims that "do without" is the British equivalent of "go without", which is 100% false; as an American, both are synonymous and carry no markedness. Benwing2 (talk) 03:53, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Suffice without doesn't strike me as likely to combine without an object to without, but that could just be my idiolect.

Several OneLook dictionaries have the appropriate adverb definition of without and a full entry for do without, often also go without. Two idioms dictionaries have live without. Not all of these references have the objectless expression as an entry; some have it as a sometimes transitive phrasal verb , which does violence to my conception of a phrasal verb. This is yet another instance of accommodating users with different PoVs rather than forcing one PoV on them. DCDuring (talk) 13:17, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Regarding synonymy: In AmE there can sometimes be a difference regarding which one people would choose to use in which context. An impoverished household will go without supper tonight, whereas I will do without supper tonight. There is something connotational about volition/choice being present or absent. But admittedly, it is not so much denotational. Denotationally I agree that they're not not synonymous (i.e., "to continue existing despite the absence of"). Quercus solaris (talk) 19:28, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

At least some uses of this are part of the somewhat complicated set of (can|could) do (with|without) terms, many of which are linked on can do with (see also make do with). Which terms in the set are entry-worthy and where to lemmatize them has challenged Wiktionarians for a long time, as evidenced by how many such pages have moved around (sometimes many time) in their edit histories, and I'm unsure if they're idiomatic ... as I was in 2013 when can do without was RFDed to no consensus (Talk:can do with). While they do arguably use a sense of do, sense 7 ("fare"), it's arguably not obvious—do has a bunch of senses, and none of the most prominent ones (concerned with doing something = acting, in some way) seem to explain I could do without your sarcasm, in contrast to survive without where the meaning is transparent. That seems to be one of the historical reasons for having these. - -sche (discuss) 20:24, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

This is why we follow lemmings. If lemmings go down multiple paths, IMO we should go down the multiple paths, at least of the better class of lemmings. DCDuring (talk) 01:57, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Farfalla - Dilemma of Etymological History

Sorry, I'm new to this and don't know how to properly cite things but I saw an issue with the wiktionary entry for "Farfalla." Someone who edited it mentioned that the farfalla can be compared to the Arabic word in Maltese and change because of language shifts. That is fine but the issue is when they use the comparison of "beddu" in Sicilian to "bello" in Italian. They argue that bello was influenced by an Arabic word (uncited) and then it moved northward to create bello. However there is no citation and I believe it's wrong because we have Latin texts with "Bellus" meaning beautiful. It is far more likely that this wasn't an Arabic influence since Arabic did not stretch that far at that time. That coupled with no citation makes me worry this is incorrect and needs to be fixed/erased. I think the entire Arabic relationship with farfalla needs to be looked at whether one influenced the other, they were symbiotic, or this was happenstance. 67.176.159.85 19:18, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

The etymology at farfalla does not say that bello was influenced by Arabic. It is used as an example to illustrate a similar correspondence between Sicilian -dd- and Italian -ll-, and therefore to illustrate how -dd- could become -ll- as the word moved northwards. -saph668 (user—talk—contribs) 19:30, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Uncapitalised kirby as in kirby grip

Hello, I'm new to all this, apologies if I'm writing in the wrong place! Kirby is an English place name, whence a surname, and hence the name of a notable pin manufacturing concern that pioneered the kirby grip, aka kirby pin, a type of hairgrip. In this sense the capital letter has somehow been lost. I can't find any use of uncapitalised "kirby" except followed by "grip(s)" or "pin(s)". But it is obviously a word in its own right as part of these terms, since Wiktionary treats capitalised and uncapitalised forms as distinct. So I don't think kirby should be a red link, but if does only occur in the context of the grip/pin, should that page just be some kind of redirect to kirby grip? LeadingTheLifeOfRiley (talk) 21:56, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

Seems to me that an entry could be made using {{genericized trademark}} plus {{only used in}}. I might do it if no objections arise here. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:48, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

@LeadingTheLifeOfRiley, I think you're writing in the write right place.  :-)
—DIV (1.129.106.197 01:41, 21 July 2024 (UTC))

Meaning of the nuclear button

Hello, I'm (slightly less) new to all this, apologies if I'm writing in the wrong place! After spending some time reading the rules about page creation, it's still not clear to me whether nuclear button deserves an entry of its own, though there is nuclear option and clearly "nuclear button" is well-attested. In fact it's used in a quotation at replyallpocalypse: "We’ve now had 20 years of cautionary tales about replyallpocalypses. For the sake of workplace harmony: keep your pointer off the nuclear button."

You could argue that "nuclear button" is just the sum of parts of nuclear (senses 3, "Relating to a weapon that derives its force from ... nuclear reactions", and the figurative sense 4, "Involving an extreme course of action") and button (where "the" button is already there as sense 21). So maybe no separate entry is required?

But even if that is preferred, the "reply all" quote gave me pause for thought whether "nuclear" in "nuclear button" can have a sense rather different to in "nuclear option" that the definition under sense 4 may not be capturing very well. When we talk about "nuclear options" they sound *obviously* drastic and extreme. It generally implies a deliberate choice to escalate a situation or reach for the most powerful tool available to get a job done, and as the examples there make clear (perhaps surprisingly) does not always imply there are any serious negative repercussions. But one of the great fears about the "nuclear button", as it is presented (inaccurately) in popular culture, is how easy it is to press *accidentally*. When we describe something as a "nuclear button" this can be synonymous with labelling it the "nuclear option" or "nuclear solution", but - as in the reply-all example - it's instead often an admonition that something apparently mundane carries great unseen power and harmful consequences, so we should be wary of even unintentionally activating it. It's somewhat like stating something is for emergency use only and we must use with care / handle with care (and should any of those be blue?).

I'm not sure I can suggest a better definition for sense 4 of "nuclear" but "Involving an extreme course of action, or one with severe consequences" might be a start. Perhaps "severe consequences" implies "extreme", but my point is that apparently mundane choices are still described as "nuclear" if they risk unleashing some unexpected unpleasantness. Or perhaps the current definition is already sufficiently broad and I'm being too picky, but still it might help if the usage examples were supplemented with at least one instance of something being "unintentionally nuclear", to avoid a misleading impression that only deliberately extreme choices count? LeadingTheLifeOfRiley (talk) 23:43, 18 July 2024 (UTC)

@LeadingTheLifeOfRiley I like your suggestion for sense 4 of nuclear; I encourage you to go ahead and make the edit. Be bold!

The decision whether to have an entry for a noun phrase like "nuclear button" is subtle and not without controversy - you might be enlightened by reading some of the ongoing discussions at WT:Requests for deletion/English as well as WT:Idioms that survived RFD. I personally am of the view there is a case for adding it as an entry. This, that and the other (talk) 13:21, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

OTOH “nuclear button”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. shows no enthusiasm for inclusion among our competitors. DCDuring (talk) 13:28, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

I have been bold at nuclear, and while I was at it added the reply-all "nuclear button" quote, and wikilinked the example nuclear option since that page exists. I would be grateful if someone could check I didn't mess up some of the formatting while I was at it. I also wonder about something I didn't change: by extension, figurative, of a solution or response. "Solution" and "response" both suggest some sort of conscious planning, strategy or reaction to a situation. When "nuclear button" is being used in the figurative sense of "something powerful and harmful which should not be used accidentally or mindlessly" that doesn't seem quite right. Does "of an action, solution or response" seem reasonable?

WT:IDIOM was quite enlightening, but reading the deletion discussions referenced on that page reveals even many of the "tests of idiomaticity" to be subject to dispute! So I still find the whole thing quite puzzling for now. It did strike me that "nuclear button" is not used to refer to a button controlling a nuclear power plant, but only nuclear weapons, which sounds like enough to pass WT:FRIED? Certainly this could not be clear from the word "nuclear" on its own. Ordinarily I wouldn't have said that "button" makes it any clearer either, but in fact sense 21 is explicitly "the" button that launches a nuclear strike. This seems rather like the WT:DWARF test though, only this time with the noun rather than the adjective being granted an additional, specific sense. LeadingTheLifeOfRiley (talk) 02:41, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

• I added 2 quotes to nuclear buttonDenazz (talk) 10:02, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

membrane bone and membrane-bone

The entry membrane bone defines the term as "dermal bone", but membrane-bone defines it as "endochondral bone". But apparently dermal and endochondral bone are different types of bone! Any anatomy specialists who can help? This, that and the other (talk) 13:09, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

chemicals

I'm no chemist but neuridin and cadaverine seem the same. Synonyms? Newfiles (talk) 21:44, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

Searching Google Books for "neuridin" "cadaverine" didn't find much but one of the few results was "The ptomaines cadaverine, neuridin, saprin are isomers yet distinct, as are pyridin and collidin" — Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Missouri Pharmaceutical Association, Issues 23-27, page 54, published 1901! It's difficult to find any recent results for "neuridin" at all. Then to confuse things further, see neuridine. LeadingTheLifeOfRiley (talk) 23:49, 19 July 2024 (UTC)

They might be isomers (i.e. structurally or geometrically distinct), but I'd prefer to see evidence of what the specific difference(s) are between them before drawing a conclusion. Cadaverine has a WP article; there seems to be less on neuridin. —DIV (1.129.106.197 01:55, 21 July 2024 (UTC))

Another Google Books result was https://archive.org/details/britishhomoeopa01unkngoog/page/129/mode/1up?view=theater "What is pyrogen, or the sepsin of beef?" by John M. Wyborn in the Monthly Homeopathic Review, Mar. 1, 1889, p. 129.

The investigations of Brieger during the last five years have led to a more accurate knowledge of the composition of these compounds. ... From decomposing flesh Brieger obtained neuridine, C₅H₁₄N₂, and neurine, C₅H₁₃NO. ... As these compounds result from the action of bacteria on animal tissues, so Brieger showed that the same or analogous compounds were similarly formed in the human subject. In the earlier stages of decomposition, only choline was found. After three days neuridine appeared in increasing amounts, whilst choline disappeared gradually, being replaced by trimethylamine. After fourteen days neuridine had also disappeared. Later there most commonly appeared cadaverine, C₅H₁₆N₂, and putrescine, C₄H₁₂N₂. With cadaverine is also found a substance of the same composition called saprincy but differing considerably in its reactions. The bases choline, neuridine, cadaverine, putrescine, and saprine are physiologically indifferent; but after fourteen days' decomposition a new poisonous base, mydnldne, was obtained, which seems to be a diamine.

I believe in this extract the chemical formula for cadaverine is incorrect, and it should be C₅H₁₄N₂. But it looks like this article was simply reporting Brieger's work of 1885 where the same formula appears, see the Wikipedia article on cadaverine:

Ludwig Brieger, "Weitere Untersuchungen über Ptomaine" [Further investigations into ptomaines] (Berlin, Germany: August Hirschwald, 1885), page 39. From page 39: Ich nenne das neue Diamin C₅H₁₆N₂: "Cadaverin", da ausser der empirischen Zussamsetzung, welche die neue Base als ein Hydrür des Neuridins für den flüchtigen Blick erscheinen lässt, keine Anhaltspunkte für die Berechtigung dieser Auffassung zu erheben waren. (I call the new di-amine, C₅H₁₆N₂, "cadaverine," since besides its empirical composition, which allows the new base to appear superficially as a hydride of neuridine, no clues for the justification of this view arose.)

Since all this early material on organic chemistry was being translated from German, I wouldn't be surprised if neuridin is just a synonym of neuridine (German: Neuridin), and the reason references stop appearing to it is because this turned out to be a synonym for spermine (German: Spermin; which on German Wikipedia is the redirect target of Neuridin). It's likely a lot of archaic organic chemistry terms on Wiktionary have similar problems. The entry on neuridin was imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary — even the stated chemical formulas from that far back can't be trusted, which makes it harder to see what's being referred to. If anyone knows a German-speaking organic chemist with an interest in history, that would be helpful... LeadingTheLifeOfRiley (talk) 02:38, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

A German work* indicated that German Cadaverin, Neuridin and Cholin are isomers (by my reading), although the respective chemical formulæ are not particularly clear. The other point to observe is that commonly the German word ends in -in, whilst the English word ends in -ine (example: Cystein & cysteine).

In connection with this I note the existence of an entry for neuridine, defined as an old synonym for spermine, for which the WP article gives a quite different formula. (Maybe in past times the chemical formulæ were not correctly identified?)

* https://books.google.com.au/books?id=XkOQBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA46&lpg=PA46&dq="neuridin"+isomer&source=bl&ots=xHzBXreRT8&sig=ACfU3U1HB76vpDlOV95GE3fF3lHgdzwAUg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi83-WhgreHAxVRzTgGHW5tDGYQ6AF6BAggEAM#v=onepage&q="neuridin"%20isomer&f=true (can't figure out an elegant way for this link not to be corrupted). "Die Nahrungsmittel, Genußmittel und Gebrauchsgegenstände, ihre Gewinnung, Beschaffenheit und Zusammensetzung" by König, 20131920; page 46: (under the heading "Sonstigen Basen").

—DIV (1.129.106.197 03:50, 21 July 2024 (UTC))

Sorry, @LeadingTheLifeOfRiley, I hadn't seen your response before posting. —DIV (1.129.106.197 03:51, 21 July 2024 (UTC))

Not a problem. And to be clear, I wasn't claiming that they really were isomers, just noting that publications around the time of the old Webster's definition considered these to be distinct chemicals, rather than synonyms: the fact they were believed to have the same chemical formula (but not structure) at that time was incidental to my point. LeadingTheLifeOfRiley (talk) 08:14, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

āsiānus

The stated etymology for āsiānus says that it is derived from the Ancient Greek Ἀσιανός. The etymology for Ἀσιανός says that it is derived from the Latin āsiānus. Well they can't both be correct, right? Right? Jianzuilang (talk) 03:01, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

The Latin word is definitely loaned from the Ancient Greek [7], but it was @Mahagaja who edited the etymology to what it stands today (diff). Inqilābī 14:55, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

And I stand by my edit summary from that 7-year-old edit: -ānus is a Latin suffix. Greek does not have a suffix *-ανός (*-anós) (other than in Latin loanwords), so the form Ἀσιανός (Asianós) cannot have been assembled in Greek, whatever the Onl.Etym.Dict. says. The words that were assembled in Greek, using Greek suffixes, are Ἀσιᾱ́της (Asiā́tēs) and Ἀσιᾱτικός (Asiātikós). —Mahāgaja · talk 15:36, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Further digging has revealed (1) that Ancient Greek does have a suffix -νος (-nos), although it doesn't seem to be commonly used to create demonyms or indeed commonly used at all, and (2) that Ἀσιᾱνός (Asiānós) was used by authors like Hippocrates and Thucydides, who were around long before Greek was likely to be borrowing words from Latin, so I have adjusted the etymology of Ἀσιᾱνός (Asiānós) accordingly. —Mahāgaja · talk 15:54, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

aur- words: in the Florida class, of having /ɔɹ/~/oɹ/ and /ɑɹ/?

Over the years, various people have (correctly, IMO) edited various aur- words to say they can be pronounced either with /ɔɹ/~/oɹ/ or with /ɑɹ/. Some people (including me, once) mistakenly attributed this to a cot-caught merger-vs-distinction issue and other editors sometimes then removed one or the other pronunciation for being mislabelled, but I have heard North American speakers use both sounds in words with this initial (aur-). Are these words in a class like or with Florida, orange? (And can we devise a label for that class?)
Examples of entries which have pronunciation sections (some are quite obscure and I haven't heard them at all, but I've heard others in the class, e.g. other terms related to aurum) : auriphrygiate and auricomous currently list both options; aurulent formerly listed both, but /ɑɹ/ was mislabelled and so removed, but I think /ɑɹ/ does sound just as natural as /oɹ/ here and am inclined to restore it with a better label; aural lists both (see talk page), in this case with /ɑɹ/ sometimes motivated by a need to distinguish the word from oral, but as that entry correctly notes, some people also pronounce oral with /ɑɹ/ (I think this is distinct from the card-cord merger, because among other things, it seems to be found further north, even in NY; I suspect it's the Florida orange phenomenon). - -sche (discuss) 17:58, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Support There is definitely allophony in this Florida orange class that is the norm in AmE. I don't know offhand the best way to capture that information, regarding which option for a combination of "transcriptionally and expositorily" is optimal, but I agree that a method should be worked out and implemented. (Perhaps some phonemicity-wonk Wiktionarians can retire to the Florida room and hash one out.) Quercus solaris (talk) 18:51, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

OK, I've updated some of the entries (mainly the ones that were missing the more common /oɹ/ pronunciation, where I regularized things). For a label, what about making the thing you type (to input it) "{{a|en|hahrrible ahrange}}" or "{{a|en|ahrange Flahrida}}" or some better idea if someone has one, and having the display be "(some eastern US speakers)"? The input conveys what accent the label is for, but the output conservatively doesn't invent a name for it where that hasn't been done yet. - -sche (discuss) 23:16, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Trying to think offhand of members of this class, Florida, orange, forest, and Morris are the ones that jump out at me. Some people imagine growing ˈfɑɹɪsts on ˈmɑɹz. If they think that such a development is just around the corner, I have a ˈfɑɹɪst in ˈflɑɹɪdə that I'd like to sell them. They could borrow the money tomorrow from their buddy ˈmɑɹɪs. Quercus solaris (talk) 03:52, 1 August 2024 (UTC)

Another example that immediately jumps out at me is Oregon, we only have New York city using the pronunciation that's similar to the British one but I'm sure I've heard Americans from elsewhere in the States say it. More importantly, many people in America say 'Oregon' with a /oɹ/ vowel unlike in Britain and we don't have that pronunciation listed. In general we should change /ɔɹ/ to /oɹ/in most of our entries (ore is not generally pronounced in a similar way to are in Britain) and /ɔɪ/ to /oɪ/ (foi is not generally pronounced in a similar way to file here either). --Overlordnat1 (talk) 12:48, 30 September 2024 (UTC)

let him cook

For a while, when it came to the slang use of this word, we only had this definition:

• To proceed with some advantageous plan or course of action; to be successful.

  hol up, let that boy cook!

Later, rather than revising that definition, someone added this as a separate definition:

• (slang, derogatory, Australia) To develop insane or fringe ideas.

  The furlough of workers during The Lockdowns left many with a conspiracy bent ample time to cook.

I hear let him cook used to mean ~"give him time to develop this idea" [edited to add: or "to expound/expand upon this, or continue talking"] both when the idea is genuinely good, and when it is regarded as insane or bad (not advantageous, but comical or good for "content"), and furthermore I don't only hear it used when the idea being developed is a plan for a course of action, I also hear it when the idea is a theory/explanation of what's going on / why things are a certain way. So I wonder: should we broaden the "proceed" definition, and at that point, is the Australian definition part of that broad general definition, or do Australians restrict the word to only referring to insane/fringe/bad ideas and not good ideas or plans? - -sche (discuss) 18:07, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

The sense I've seen online lately is more along the lines of "let him dig himself into this hole". Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:02, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Ah, I've heard that, too; I was thinking of that as the "...when [the idea (etc) being 'cooked'] is regarded as bad" part of a possible general sense. I don't know whether it's better to have one broad general sense that covers all manner of "let him proceed", or to have separate positive and negative senses. - -sche (discuss) 04:55, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I think a sense missing is something like the police letting someone mull over their own circumstances before interrogating. Justin the Just (talk) 05:18, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

double life

Difference between senses 1 and 2? PUC – 19:22, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I believe that the writer was grasping at showing that the two aspects are sometimes painted cognitively as a coordinate pair and sometimes as a holonym-meronym pair. But if so, the net result is a failure. The two usexes that are currently there fail to convincingly illustrate two separate senses. I'd say that a single sense/denotation is appropriate. Getting across the notion of "sometimes conceived as a hidden part of a single life" could be conveyed with an {{ngd}} qualification appended to the single definition. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:35, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I seem to have added sense 2 based on the quotations which I found, although this was several years ago so I don’t recall doing so. I think sense 1 was intended to convey the concept of the two lives (or two aspects of one life) lived simultaneously, while sense 2 the hidden life of the two lives. For example, the first quotation under sense 2 refers to a person’s “double life as a paid escort”, which is the hidden life. — Sgconlaw (talk) 19:57, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

I grasp the distinction you are getting at. I am not sure whether it would be better to tweak the definitions and usexes and keep the definitions separate, or merge them and add a usage note explaining the situation (that the term sometimes means the set of lives [and the fact of having a set of lives], and sometimes means specifically the hidden one). I've changed the usexes to use near-parallel wording about Donald Maclean, so the difference can (hopefully) be more easily spotted if they are kept separate. - -sche (discuss) 05:37, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

"seminally in Adam"

The phrasing "seminally in Adam" appears in theological texts: [8][9][10] and I'm wondering if this is a separate sense or subsense of "seminally" than what is currently on-entry. It's a little confusing for me; please take the wheel. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 20:12, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative: it refers to sense 1 of seminal—something in Adam's seed or semen. — Sgconlaw (talk) 22:27, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Is the setup on the "seminally" entry correct? There are three senses on the "seminal" entry. Should there only one sense on the "seminally" entry, or three senses, with each sense correlating to one of three senses found on the "seminal" entry? --Geographyinitiative (talk) 22:29, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Better to have just one sense. Otherwise we'd have to keep adverb and adjective entries in sync. I'm not sure if Sgconlaw is right. I think it's likely that this usage is derived from the literal use, but I think we're missing a figurative sense at seminal. Something along the lines of "containing the beginnings of something, analagously to a seed". Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:00, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

@Andrew Sheedy: I was just going to say that if there are different subsenses of the word it is better to set them out separately. — Sgconlaw (talk) 05:49, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I have added two citations (quotations) to the entry under the current sense. The two quotations demonstrate what appear to be fundamentally different kinds of uses of this term, though they might have some connection. The question for you is: are there separate "senses" or "subsenses" for those two quotations, or not, yes or no? If there are, then you or I should create a separate sense/subsense for each meaning (if you or I believe the senses/subsenses independently reach WT:ATTEST). (Concerning the pragmatic sentiment: "Otherwise we'd have to keep adverb and adjective entries in sync.", I would just say that catastrophizing doomsday prophecies about projected untenable workload amounts for maintenance of entries on Wiktionary are a dime a dozen, and are not worth the dime.) --Geographyinitiative (talk) 09:47, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

Ha, well I guess my opinion may not be representative. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 22:28, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

deß ("their") in Swedish, second opinion

I'm uncertain about two 18th and 19th century quotes which I want a second opinion about, under:

3. Obsolete form of deras (“their”).

The two quotes don't fit with the definition given in the trusted sources SO and SAOB. Based on a surface analysis it should be deß (dess, "its"); but in the quotes deß refer to a person, so it should be deras ("their"). Is this 18th century colloquialism, or is there a grammatical rule I've missed, or have I read it wrong, or is everything correct? – Christoffre (talk) 12:01, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

It was indeed weird. Tollef Salemann (talk) 22:45, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

diff, diff, diff

User:Flame, not lame has added some English audios for borrowings in (attempted) pronunciations as in the source language (albeit labelled as ‘US’). The words in question, despite being recent or unadapted loans, are in my opinion articulated in an Anglicized pronunciation. Do we allow such documentation of the pronunciation, which isn’t any different from a non-native speaker adding audios? However, the Deutschland audio seems legit (because I can’t think of any Anglicized articulation in this case save for pronouncing the last phoneme with a /d/ instead of /t/), actually reminescent of some unadapted Frenchisms in English. Inqilābī 13:59, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

It’s realistic though, therein lies the attempt. Native English speaker living in the Netherlands or Germany. North American weeaboo. Any savant knowing other languages significantly more than the typicized speaker. Guess how naturalized Americans originally from the Gulf enunciate, in spite of general perfection of their new homeland’s accent, the Qur'an: /qʊɾˈʔɑːn/. And Muslim is more likely /ˈmʊs.lɪm/ if you are Muslim. In fact the better-informed pronunciation often wins, that’s why we write and speak Muslim in English and German when a quarter of a century ago you used to hear Moslem, and see again Kyiv, which began as a ridiculous pedantry. Increasing information exchange changes expectations, of how somebody treats or maltreats his language. Fay Freak (talk) 17:33, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I removed the /ɲ̟/ pronunciation from anime. - -sche (discuss) 05:54, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the Amsterdam and Amsterdammer pronunciations too because experimental pronunciations by a North American who doesn’t live in the Netherlands isn’t helpful. Inqilābī 20:21, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

bleeding Nora and other milder synonyms of bloody Nora

I have created my first two ever entries on Wiktionary, bleeding Nora and fucking Nora. I have provided 3 quotes for each. I would appreciate if someone can check I have correctly formatted etc.

I have marked fucking Nora as vulgar, following shitting Nora. But to my ear, bleeding Nora, flaming Nora and flipping Nora are slightly milder than bloody Nora. This is consistent with Wiktionary's definition of bloody stating it is "mildly vulgar" but no similar note for bleeding, flipping and flaming. I am reasonably confident that the entry for bloody Nora should be edited to note that it is "mildly vulgar" (consistent with bloody itself), but is there a way to explicitly note on entries like bleeding Nora that they are slightly milder synonyms of bloody Nora? Being new here I have yet to get my head around the "syn of" template. LeadingTheLifeOfRiley (talk) 23:47, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

The list of synonyms at bloody Nora can be reduced to one line using template:syn rather than listing them at Related terms. (It is true that they could be listed at both (as they are both), but I recommend not doing that, because (1) we must keep in mind that some Wiktionarians can barely stand seeing them listed in either spot let alone both, and (2) in fairness, it is rather superfluous to list them in both. I'll make I made the edit there. Even when a Related terms list is the play, I recommend wrapping them in a wrapper that auto-collapses them down to a small sample and invites the reader to unhide the rest if they care to (template:col-auto). Reason: it's the best balance between (1) user personas who want to see them all and (2) user personas who are rather itchy not to see them. Regarding how to convey gradations among synonyms: it can be done with short q or qq parameters, such as "<qq:mild>" and "<qq:vulgar>" (which includes "obscene" in its semantic field for Wiktionary's purposes). Quercus solaris (talk) 04:10, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

This is most helpful, thank you @Quercus solaris! I have fiddled around slightly at bloody Nora to mark the vulgar synonyms. It seemed overkill to mark "fucking hell" as a vulgar variant of "bloody hell", so I removed it from the list: "bloody hell" is by far closer in intensity to "bloody Nora", and "fucking hell" appears anyway on the linked thesaurus entry. I've also tried to make a list of synonyms at bloody hell which includes "fucking hell" as a vulgar form too. Does this look reasonable? (In case anyone cares for some newbie feedback - all these templates are very intimidating! But doing some copy-and-pasting from other pages where they're filled in, and playing around with the Preview button a lot, does help.) LeadingTheLifeOfRiley (talk) 00:47, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Looking at flaming Nora, I wonder if there's potential for confusion with "Synonym of bloody Nora (slightly milder)." I knew what it means immediately, of course, but then when I looked at it again with a fresh pair of eyes, I wonder if a language learner who didn't know which form was milder or more vulgar might think the "slightly milder" applied to the term it appears next to ("bloody Nora") rather than the term being defined ("flaming Nora"). It's a shame this can't be qualified more like "Slightly milder synonym of bloody Nora" - or can it? LeadingTheLifeOfRiley (talk) 00:55, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

Hi, yes, I know what you mean. The value for the q template can be tweaked to clarify the referent. I'd say that a net result of "synonym of X (slightly milder than it)" is not only cromulent but also in fact hard to beat (for being both clear and short). I recommend going with that option. Regarding synonyms and other semantic relations, it is certainly true that in cases when a relevant thesaurus entry is available, linking to it is a very nice and desirable option, as it can keep the dictionary entries nice and clean/uncluttered because the semantic relations listed there can be limited to the pattern of "here are the top few most important ones, and for the rest, see Thesaurus:XYZ." As for which ones to consider "the top few most important", one's own judgment will suffice. When I make that choice, I go for ones that seem to me intuitively obvious as cardinal (i.e., I'd bet that many people would agree that they are cardinal) or that share some especially close kinship with the entry at hand. An interesting example is that for the "idle about" sense of tool around, there are many possible populations for the syn template that are not wrong, but some are better than others. The one that I picked is in my opinion the sweetest, most succinct combination: {{syn|en|fool around|Thesaurus:loiter}}. It gives one synonym with an interesting similarity to the entry word, and then for all the rest, it concisely leads to the hub for them. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:33, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

PS: Nice work, you're very much on the right track, from what I sampled. I agree that there is a learning curve with the templates, but in retrospect, once one has grown accustomed, they start to feel very apt, that is, in fact it's hard to improve on them really. They grow on you. A piece of advice that occurs to me is that I recommend, generally, putting only blue links in the syn, ant, cot, hyper, hypo, hol, and mer templates. If there's some other term that merits an entry, it seems optimal to create the entry first and then link to it, rather than adding a red link. I stick to this pretty closely, even if I might have rarely made an exception. The reason why: the more pretty and useful and clean you can make the semantic relations links, the less any other Wiktionarians have any reason to be annoyed by them. In my view this is good for both (1) collaborative morale among Wiktionarians and (therefore) (2) the long-term health and continual improvement of the dictionary's contents/data population. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:53, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

verb spec: missing sense, with "out"

“spec” is often used, particularly in the phrase “spec out”, to mean… I don’t know exactly, but “spec out” is used to mean “fully fitted” or “with all extras”. I don’t have any sources for this and am not sure what the best way to present this would be. Is anybody aware of this and thinks this is worth adding to the entry? Theanswertolifetheuniverseandeverything (talk) 12:54, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

Yes — in this usage, "spec" is a clipping of "specify", as in "create specs" (create specifications) or "apply certain specs to this instance". People who design things spec them out by creating their list of specifications. By extension, they spec out the high-end version by specifying "yes" for all the best specs, to create that version. By extension, people who buy things can either spec them out by specifying that they want the high-end version with all the options included, or can buy one that has been spec'd out by the maker (i.e., had all the bells and whistles applied). I will look into improving WT's coverage of this sense when I have time. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:19, 23 July 2024 (UTC)

[verb] + one's way + [preposition]: which option is better when adding entries?

As discussed previously, there are hundreds of verbs that accept this construction, but where should we add them?

1. on the verb entry (as I did with "hitchhike one's way");

2. on its own entry (as has been done with "force one's way", "fight one's way", etc.); or

3. both?

Also check this discussion from April 2021. I'd like to hear your comments on the matter. [Saviourofthe] ୨୧ 14:19, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I think it would be minimally controversial to use {{collocation}} for many of these, especially for all the common ones, and some that suggest that, in principle, there is no limit on the number of possible collocations. That among OneLook dictionaries, only MWOnline has any entry of the form [Verb] + one's way + [prep.]: talk one's way out of (something) is cautionary. More OneLook dictionaries , especially MWOnline, may have entries of the form [Verb] one's way, in which collocations with various prepositions/particles/adverbs could be included. Once we legitimize some form of entry, I fear that we will find new entries for attestable collocations like, say, sneeze one's way with further collocations with in|out (of)|in|into|to.

We often assume that our target user is a language learner who has no ability to interpret metaphorical usage of any kind, so we oft have entries other dictionaries don't bother with. DCDuring (talk) 18:08, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

I agree (with what DCDuring said). Quercus solaris (talk) 21:13, 24 July 2024 (UTC)

tricolpates

Wiktionary's top editors (and User:DCDuring) have been confused on the plurality of this term. Any insight? Denazz (talk) 20:32, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

? DCDuring (talk) 21:52, 26 July 2024 (UTC)

I haven't found any accepted taxon Tricolpates. The term tricolpates is sometimes used as a near-synonym of dicots or core eudicots among paleobotantists studying early plant evolution because pollen is an important kind of evidence for early plant life.

English tricolpate ("noun") is hardly worth an L3, being a simple nominalization of tricolpate (adjective). DCDuring (talk) 00:20, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

worthless; more common to pronounce -less as /ləs/ or /lɪs/ for americans?

I was looking at worthless. For general american, the only ipa was /ˈwɝθləs/. I added /ˈwɝθlɪs/ since that's how I hear it pronounced more often and I'm on the east coast. I was wondering which one is more common across the country (I think it's the latter) and if the order of the pronunciations matters. Should the more common pronunciation come first? Also, should the ipa template be changed so that all words ending in -less have two pronunciations? Zbutie3.14 (talk) 01:19, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Reading Appendix:English pronunciation as a convened standard for en-WT, the best answer is to keep the schwa for GenAm and understand that it is meant to stand for an allophonic range, even in positions where (as you said, and I agree) it is usually in the range of mid- to front-articulated, sounding more like /ɪ/ than otherwise. In other words, the transcription is advisedly phonemic, which the slashes rather than brackets are also meant to signal. That said, I doubt that most users of en-WT understand why it gives /ɪ/ for RP but /ə/ for GenAm for the same reduced vowel in the same word, to which the answer is more "arbitrary convention" than sound difference, which is poor by my lights and not mine alone. So no, I don't like the convention that en-WT is currently using for these, but I think that if one wants to get it changed, it has to be done through the discussion for Appendix talk:English pronunciation, as opposed to at individual entries. In terms of phonemicity and phonemic transcription, this reduced vowel ought to be represented as a single thing with an allophonic range in my opinion, so I consider giving two pronunciations for every such word the wrong approach; and reading Appendix:English pronunciation as a convened standard for en-WT, it agrees: it wants a single transcription (even if its choice of symbol for that single transcription is not the best one). I remember when Wikipedia (but not Wiktionary) had /ɨ/ for a lot of the ones that are usually mid- to front-articulated. I liked that, because it succinctly told the reader (even a layperson reader who's not a linguistics person but is willing to use the basic-ass transcription help table, such as myself), "anything schwa-ish but usually the /ɪ/-leaning flavor." But other people eventually kiboshed that approach for (as I remember it) linguistics-PhD-type reasons that the likes of me can't follow. Quercus solaris (talk) 15:42, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

(Compare the June discussion of -ian as /i.ɪn/.) - -sche (discuss) 02:45, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

This boils down to the weak vowel merger though, thus strictly speaking and for many speakers (if not most by this time) more than a matter of allophony, but really of phonology. I'm not sure and cannot provide examples right now but I seem to remember some entries are already highlighting this, similar to cot/caught and friends. Whether doing it everywhere is a good idea, or even practical considering it affects a _huge_ number of words, I wouldn't want to answer. It's just not as easy as brackets. --2001:9E8:6AAE:A700:A00:27FF:FE34:1184 09:01, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Präsie

First edit, total waste of time, maybe needs to be deleted. I hope someone can save it, because now I'm curious.

Prez lists translations to which I wanted to add mine. I know it only from talking about rocker gangs, e.g. the character Dieter in the Werner comics. However, that one is spelled Präsi, as I would intuitively. Search for "Präsi" includes clippings of Präsentation (which I forgot to add) and line breaks of präsi-dent or is ignored. Adding "blog politik" yields a few results (which I cannot repoduce) with -ie, so I went ahead.

Now the problem is, I tried to copy segments for the IPA transcription and was unsure about dialect differences because I pronounce the e differently in the full word and the clipping.

So I copied the rhyme template from the English entry, but the two syllable Rhymes: -iː are all stressed on the last syllable and therefore don't rhyme at all. Rosie would qualify, but there is no entry here or on the German site (Wikipedia on the hit song "Skandal im Sperrbezirk" spells Rosie and Rosi).

This means that Präsi should be correct, but I have no quotations. I believe the few search results are mistakes (as if calling the president el capo), but I cannot proof it. Alisheva (talk) 17:20, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

Präsi (= Präsident +‎ -i, cp. Category:German terms suffixed with -i) can be found (at google books more easily when time is set to 21st century): [11], [12], [13]. So a move with adjustments could save the entry. --18:48, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

guidette

This was tagged as an ethnic slur in 2014, and (ineptly) untagged today. Wikipedia suggests that Guido is a sometimes-reclaimed ethnic slur, so I'm guessing that's what guidette also is (borne out by the few hits for google books:"guidette" derogatory, google books:"guidette" slur) (and the IP's edit can be undone), but if anyone has relevant knowledge or references to bring to bear... - -sche (discuss) 02:42, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Resolved (I think); someone reverted the IP, and I added a usage note. - -sche (discuss) 15:12, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

-이 for vowels?

Discussion moved from Wiktionary:Information desk.

-이#Suffix lists the term as

A noun-deriving suffix for certain consonant-final verb and adjective stems, used to nominalize both individual verbs and entire phrases

Is there an equivalent suffix for vowel-final words (as with 을 and 를, 은 and 는, or 이 in its other capacity as a subject marker and its post-vocalic 가)? It's odd that there's a post-vocalic synonym listed for 이 as a subject marker but not as a suffix, but I don't know if that's just part of the Korean language or an oversight in Wiktionary. I would look into it myself, but I don't know how I'd even search for such information. Please help. (If there is such a word, can we list it as a synonym under #Suffix?) DalsoLoonaOT12 (talk) 18:04, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

Japanese: priority in "X to Y no Z"

Hello, how do you parse "X to Y no Z", that is:

1. (X to Y) no Z == (X and Y)'s Z = the Z of (X and Y) ?
2. X to (Y no Z) == X and (Y's Z) = X and (the Z of Y) ?

Also, what's the parsing rule, is it " 'no' only apply to the single preceding word" or "always 'to' over 'no'" or just "first particle over second one"? (I've looked at Japanese particles and Japanese grammar, unconclusively.)

I was wondering that about the original title of Miyazaki's Spirited Away. Its article gives 千と千尋の神隠し, Hepburn: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, lit. 'Sen and Chihiro's Spiriting Away' -- but it's unclear to me whether it means (1) "the spiriting-away of (Sen and Chihiro)" or (2) "Sen and (the spiriting-away of Chihiro)"...

Thanks, 77.147.79.62 16:19, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

Not a native speaker but I'd say it depends on the context. Justin the Just (talk) 16:39, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

It is just as ambiguous as English The Spiriting Away of Sen and Chihiro. The English Wikipedia translates the Japanese phrase as Sen and Chihiro's Spiriting Away, which is also ambiguous. This type of ambiguity is extremely common, as in the film title The Adventures of Milo and Otis: is it (The Adventures of Milo) and Otis or The Adventures of (Milo and Otis)? In practice, it rarely takes a serious effort to resolve the ambiguity pragmatically.  --Lambiam 13:00, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

Football/soccer field: red ash? clay?

What would this kind of football pitch be called in English? There's the term "red ash", but Google result suggest this is mostly used in Scotland. Of course, In tennis you call it "clay", but the football term may be different. (In German we say "Asche" in football, but "Sand" in tennis.) 92.218.236.20 12:45, 31 July 2024 (UTC)