text:
Wiktionary:Tea room/2011/May

= May 2011 =

pay off
"I finally paid off my new car." Is this sense includeable at pay off or is it sum of parts? ---> Tooironic 13:18, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Inclusible AFAICT; I've added it; thanks. —msh210℠ (talk) 20:13, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

hapax and nonce word
Hi. An IP has just put the Spanish form of hapax as a translation in nonce word. Would this be correct? What is the relationship between these two concepts? How far do they overlap? -- A LGRIF  talk 11:37, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

 * A hapax can be a regular, even common, word that is used only once in a work (such as the Bible), or only once in the surviving body of writing (such as Mayan glyphs), or it can be the result of a misspelling or typo, or it can be a nonce word. Hapax is the hypernym, nonce word is a hyponym. —Stephen (Talk) 22:20, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

 * I agree with your explanation of "hapax", but I disagree with your statement that every nonce-word is a hapax. The OED defines it as “[one of a number of terms coined by James Murray especially for use in the N.E.D.] a word apparently used only ‘for the nonce’, i.e. on one specific occasion or in one specific text or writer's works”, and one imagines that they would know. (And I'm pretty sure I've seen the term used even more broadly, to describe a word each of whose uses has been an independent coinage.) —Ruakh TALK 23:19, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

scoring
There's a comment at WT:FEED saying that our 'noun' definitions are in fact verb form definitions. --Mglovesfun (talk) 16:34, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The comment seems to be correct. The noun definitions are repetitious of the score lemma definitions. But we should probably RfV (RfD ?) the "noun" and "adjective". DCDuring TALK 21:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The definitions could possibly be reworded to be clearly nouns. If we can find usage such as "the scoring of the game", "the scoring of the rocks", "much/little scoring", "many/few scorings", etc. we would be justified in including the senses as nouns. DCDuring TALK 09:45, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

permit
I have added two senses to permit. They have pronunciation like that of the noun, not like that of the other verb senses. Should they have a separate pronunciation section? A separate etymology section (together with the noun)? DCDuring TALK 20:22, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

against: expressing odds
It seems to me that phrases like "ten to one against" are not covered in against. That meaning (let alone the word order) is not obvious unless you are familiar with this way of expressing odds. Thoughts? Rl 07:28, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * One question raised by your example is whether "against" is a preposition (probably covered by one of the senses given or possibly requiring rewording) or an adverb, which does not appear in the entry.
 * We can look at the usage you point out at least two ways, one justifying inclusion of an adverb section, the other not. If someone says "The odds were ten to one against", the proposition that the odds were "against" is usually obvious. In writing it would already have been mentioned. In speech it might have been mentioned or might have been pointed to in some way. If all usage of "against" has such an object understood in context, then we need not have an adverb section. I have not found another dictionary that shows this as an adverb.
 * In any event, the wordings of our definitions of the preposition does not seem to include a sense of "opposed to", which arguably includes the betting sense. I have added such a sense with two usage examples. Is that adequate? DCDuring TALK 10:10, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't see the need for an adverb section, either. The more specific meaning that I was (rather vaguely) referring to is described in Odds (search for the word "against"). I think that is what you are discussing above, just from a different perspective. To me, it seems that "against" in this context is used in an idiomatic, formal way to express math (i.e. odds). "Against" is sometimes omitted, but implied (unless it's "odds on" rather than "odds against"). I don't think that is really SoP, but maybe the information belongs somewhere else? Maybe link to the Wikipedia article? Rl 12:11, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think "on" is an antonym for "against". "For" is closer, but is not a real antonym, not being commonly used in the same way grammatically. We have odds-on and odds on as entries. DCDuring TALK 12:55, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree, "on" is not an antonym for "against" in this context. As the Wikipedia article says, "an event with m to n 'odds against' would have probability n/(m + n), while an event with m to n 'odds on' would have probability m/(m + n)." "On" indicates that the odds are better than even (as odds-on mentions), while "against" indicates that the odds are worse than even (in bookmaking, for instance, this is the usual case and implied if the word "against" is omitted). The existence of the odds-on article seems to suggest that we should have odds-against. Anyhow, if you think the current articles are sufficient, I won't argue. Thanks! Rl 13:39, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Entritus
I'm trying to find a word that represents the definition: the left over materials from an act of creation. Generally speaking, people use the word detritus, but it's always irked me because detritus refers to the left over materials from destructive acts and it always seemed misleading to me. I can't use the word with good conscience even though American Heritage dictionary claims: 1. Loose fragments or grains that have been worn away from rock. 2. a. Disintegrated or eroded matter: the detritus of past civilizations. b. Accumulated material; debris: "Poems, engravings, press releaseshe eagerly scrutinizes the detritus of fame" (Carlin Romano).

Their example use seems counter or at least diluting of the original definition and use, especially when you take into account the original latin source.

Anyone know of a word? I've been using entritus in my head and around the house, but I also feel uncomfortable doing so knowing there might actually be a word out there that works (entritus is just entropy and tritus merged together). Example use: 'The xxxx of making bread this morning had left the baker's arms white [with flour].'  Or, 'The carpenter burned the xxxx left over from his latest chair.'

hypoxia
According to Wikipedia, there are two possible definitions: one is medical, the other environmental. We have the former, but not the latter. I would write the latter but it's too technical for me. ---> Tooironic 00:33, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I've expanded it a bit. SemperBlotto 07:21, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

five pillars
The five basic ritual or devotional duties of Sunni Islam, namely: a declaration of faith in God (shahada); five daily prayers (salat); fasting (saum); almsgiving (zakat); and pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj).

This looks encyclopedic to me. Also, is it not a proper noun in this sense? Shouldn't each of the five pillars be a meronym. Why are there all the transliterations? DCDuring TALK 16:23, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Small point, they're not actually translations, but English words derived from Arabic. --Mglovesfun (talk) 16:29, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Small point, the comment pretty clearly says "transliterations". --76.185.116.56 12:04, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

earliest
How should we present this kind of usage of the superlative. Generally almost any superlative of an adjective can be fused with an understood head. Other dictionaries sometime present such terms as if they were real nouns (See latest).

Are "at the earliest"/"at the latest" includable idioms or merely examples of such fused-head construction? DCDuring TALK 17:29, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

elephant&
Rhyming slang for "drunk". Claims to be an adjective. No usage example. How is this used? DCDuring TALK 17:48, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

 * Omitting the apostrophe, |she+was+elephants%22&num=100 "he|she was elephants" gives 4 hits, one just a mention. — Pingkudimmi 01:06, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

 * A couple of those hits are for "elephants drunk", which might be a mishearing of "elephant's trunk", for which "elephant's"/"elephants" is the purported shortening. Otherwise "elephants" would seem to be an adverb intensifying "drunk". DCDuring TALK 03:09, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Cockney rhyming slang, rather than "mishearing", not heard of this one before, mind you, but I'm from the North. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:26, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

look forward & look forward to
Is the "to" compulsory in "look forward to"? I always thought it was, but then I realised, "I look forward meeting you" is correct (the infinitive can be bare). On the other hand, "Are you looking forward?" is not right. ---> Tooironic 00:27, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think "look forward [present participle]" is a standard English equivalent of "look forward to [bare infinitive]". I don't find it at COCA. The only instances of "look forward [bare infinitive]" at COCA are from transcriptions of speech, which often faithfully record speech errors. IOW, I think the "to" is obligatory. DCDuring TALK 02:18, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Hmm, looking at hits on Google Books it would appear that, whilst "look forward meeting you" does have some uses, it is not actually standard. In that case, shouldn't we get rid of look forward, or at least provide a redirect of sorts? ---> Tooironic 04:03, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Some dictionaries have "look forward"; others have "look forward to". COCA shows mostly look forward followed by "to", but also prepositional phrases (mostly mere adjuncts) headed by various prepositions. If we only are to have one of these, it would be "look forward", which seems to be the "expect" sense of look. DCDuring TALK 04:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Even "look forward to [bare infinitive]" sounds weird to me — I would say "look forward to [gerund phrase]". (For example, I would say "I look forward to meeting you", not ?"I look forward to meet you".) Is that just me? —Ruakh TALK 12:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes. I erred above (editing too close to bedtime). DCDuring TALK 12:29, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
 * While "look forward meeting you" is grammatically possible, it would be an entirely different construction and express a different meaning. The participial phrase, "meeting you", would function adverbially, modifying "look forward", probably with temporal significance -- i.e., it would mean roughly the same thing as "Meeting you, I look forward"; i.e., now that I've met you, the experience has made me a more forward-looking person or given me a more future-oriented (and likely more positive) outlook on life.  That's not at all the same idea as "I look forward to meeting you."

patternization
the act of creating a visual pattern?

(I'm new member, don't know correct procedure for submitting a word for discussion?) Any help would be appreciated.

The single best way to work on a new word (or new use as a different part of speech or a new sense) is to find some citations for it. (See WT:CFI.) That gives Wiktionary a few advantages:
 * 1) the entry or sense is less likely to be deleted speedily, even if poorly formatted.
 * 2) the entry or sense is less likely to be submitted to a more formal RfV or RfD which can lead to deletion.
 * 3) it is easier to define the word if there is evidence as to how it is used.

If you don't want to make an entry, you can add the citations to the associated citations page.

You can also enter the word in WT:REE (a shortcut to Requested entries: English).

If you have a lot of patience, you can start a discussion at the talk page for the proposed or existing entry. The Tea Room gets more attention. DCDuring TALK 16:34, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

kindsa
Called an adverb. It is eye-dialect for reduced "kinds of". I don't see how this can be construed as an adverb. It is more like an adjective or determiner. DCDuring TALK 23:09, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

sortsa
Same for "sorts of". DCDuring TALK 23:12, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

 * I don't think either one is a constituent. I'm not sure there's any sensible way to assign them to a part of speech. One option, no worse than any other, might be "noun": "of" is a preposition construing the (optional) complement of "kinds" or "sorts", so "kindsa" and "sortsa" are variants of "kinds" and "sorts" that simply construe their (obligatory) complements directly. —Ruakh TALK 23:57, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Sounds good to me. I'll make it so, but I am open to reconsideration of the question if anyone has other ideas. DCDuring TALK 00:16, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * If nouns, perhaps they should be considered plural forms? — Pingkudimmi 06:05, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That would mean adding a noun section for the singulars kinda and sorta. DCDuring TALK 10:38, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

 * Exactly. Surely the same logic applies to usages that are similar to the problematic ones of 'kindsa' and 'sortsa.' E.g., "What Kinda Boat Ya Got?" (Plural: What kindsa boats ya got?) — Pingkudimmi 12:13, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * This seems to be going down a path that will probably bring us to a reductio ad absurdum about declaring these to be nouns. Should they instead by contractions? sorta and kinda don't have the same problem as they seem to be constituents, though they too are contractions. DCDuring TALK 13:18, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It certainly seems natural (to me, for one) to think of them as contractions. That's how I read them and would use them. If they behave like nouns (or adverbs) sometimes, that reflects how the expanded term/phrase behaves. Does CGEL have a comment on the matter? — Pingkudimmi 14:42, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * CGEL has no entry in its lexical index for kinda and sorta, let alone "kindsa and sortsa. They don't waste a lot of ink on lexical categorization so far out on the margins. They do mention that kind of, sort of, and as good as'' "are best regarded as having been reanalysed as adverbs modifying the following verb or adjective."
 * Contraction is a bit like abbreviation of initialism; it doesn't tell you how the word functions, just how it was formed. That said, in some circumstances these terms can't be replaced with another term like adverb or preposition, which is why I favor limiting the use of abbreviation, initialism and contraction as level 3 headers, but not deprecating them entirely. In this case, yes, contraction please. --Mglovesfun (talk) 14:47, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * For a number of our entries, some of which are in Category:English non-constituents, we have no good syntactic category because there is none, by the very definition of syntactic category. For multi-word entries of this type, we use the L3 header "phrase", though phrases too are supposed to be constituents. For single-word entries of this type "contraction" could include all of them by the very fact of their not being constituents, at least under an expansive sense of "contraction". Most normal folks' definitions of "contraction" does not include words that don't have apostrophes. "Phrase" and "contraction" are good L3 headers from a user perspective because they are less misleading than a true syntactic category header. DCDuring TALK 15:42, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That is the logic behind my statement, and also why I replace ===Phrase=== on occasion when it is reasonable to do so. --Mglovesfun (talk) 15:36, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

‘defaecate’ and others: still in use?
¶ A while back, I noticed that user:SemperBlotto creäted this entry, which inspired me to look for alternative spellings related to defecate:. I included both ‘defaecate’ and ‘defæcate’ as alternative forms listed here, but I think those forms should be tagged with some sort of qualifiers. ¶ I know ‘faeces’ is a word still used throughout the United Kingdom and else‐where, but is defaecate still used today? --Pilcrow 19:32, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
 * As I stated on my talk page - though not backed up with any 'evidence' - ligatures aren't used in contemporary, 20th or 21st century English so they should have some sort of tag. Defaecate doesn't look like standard contemporary English to me either. Of course I don't think they should be exclude - far from it, in fact - but I do favor some sort of context label for the reason I stated in my first sentence. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:34, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

are you deaf
This doesn't seem accurate to me... or at least, there must be another possible meaning for this. Also, we need to add that "literally" tag. ---> Tooironic 04:44, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

$1
I'd like to allow recreation of this particular term/symbol/whatever. It's meaning has now gone beyond the usual definition of "one dollar"; you can see on the Wikipedia article for it that it is also included in a few programming languages as a parameter. TeleComNasSprVen 04:59, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Computer languages don't meet CFI. What are you proposing, Translingual? In regular expressions I think it'd be sum of parts; $ + 1. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:33, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

 * Actually, come to think of it, why do we even have entries like colspan or cellpadding which is clearly related to computer language or programming? Surely there must be some previous discussion about the inclusion of such so-called "languages". TeleComNasSprVen 19:39, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Quite a few of the Category:HTML have been tagged with rfv but never listed... since 2007! Mglovesfun (talk) 23:36, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

submission
Missing definitions, for example Submission (combat sport). Our two definitions seems correct and quite broad, but I think we can break them down a bit by using the definitions as submit. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:05, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * [[submit]] needs more than the definitions we have. MWOnline has 4 transitive (sub)senses and 3 intransitive (sub)senses. DCDuring TALK 15:21, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

terminally
Why is this in Category:Death, as opposed to Category:Medicine? DCDuring TALK 20:31, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

peninsula
Why are there (ɹ)'s in the pronunciation? Is it a mistake? --Vahag 22:12, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

 * See Linking and intrusive R. I don't know that I'd call it a "mistake", but I also don't know that I'd call it a good idea . . . —Ruakh TALK 22:30, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I'd call it a mistake to include intrusive Rs in dictionary pronunciations, especially those at the end of a word. I've removed them. —Angr 09:11, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, definitely a mistake. Thanks for removing them.    D b f  i  r  s   20:37, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

Lexicon
From Category:Lexicons and Category:All lexicons and their sub categories, I surmise, that lexicon is used in a sense meaning something like a "lexical unit". Could we have this sense in lexicon, if it is appropriate?--Leo Laursen – (talk · contribs) 18:46, 14 May 2011 (UTC)

 * I see why you would surmise that, but no. The idea is that (for example) Category:Archaic itself is a lexicon — a lexicon of English archaisms — rather than that the entries it contains are lexicons. I'm not sure if this is a weakness in the MediaWiki category system (the inability to distinguish between the concepts "category X is a member of category Y" and "category X is a subcategory of category Y") or a weakness of our use of it (that we try to use the concept "category X is a member of category Y" despite MediaWiki's lack of support for it), but either way, I think it's a problem. But it's hardly the biggest problem with our category system, so I don't let it keep me up at night. :-P  —Ruakh TALK 19:00, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * OK, that makes sense. Thanks. I guess if I mentally say "A lexicon of Danish terms with a colloquial sense", then Category:Danish colloquialisms will annoy me a little less.--Leo Laursen – (talk · contribs) 19:30, 14 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Category:English lexicons already has a short and appropriate description that clarifies that the subcategories, not the entries, are lexicons. --Daniel. 08:39, 17 May 2011 (UTC)
 * That description may seem to clarify things, but I for one didn't get it (still don't really). But I'm probably biased by my dislike for those categories.--Leo Laursen – (talk · contribs) 09:39, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

mop the floor with someone
This ought to be just "mop the floor" as one may "mop the floor" with a something just as well as with a someone.

 * I've never heard of the defined sense being applied to things rather than persons or teams/groups of persons. I guess that could include fictional human-like beings. Could "The Earhart car mop the floor with the Jimmy Johnson car"? Or would "Team Earhart mop the floor with Team Johnson"? DCDuring TALK 01:55, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

contents
How would we go about including the sense as in "contents insurance"? Should a separate sense be at contents? ---> Tooironic 09:15, 16 May 2011 (UTC)
 * But it is just sense 2 ("that which is contained"). That it depends on context is illustrated by the fact that it took me a few minutes to grasp what the phrase meant from your mentioning it out of context. It might make a good usage example, though. DCDuring TALK 11:47, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

frenchified
Is this attestable lowercase and uppercase? Note that frenchify is a redirect. Can we cite both capitalizations? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:20, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

 * ¶ Here are some results on Google‐books. The lower‐case variänt is much more common, though. --Pilcrow 22:47, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

"bún bò Huế"
It's occurred to me that this might be a sum of parts, but I'd like a second opinion on whether or not it should be created. This is basically a dish comprised of bún bò + Huế (bún bò itself being a sum of parts, bún = noodle [soup] and bò = beef), which is a special type of soup originating from the city of Huế with the name of the city attached to the term to distinguish it from similar soups. But it's not to say that it is more important an entry or dish than, say, "bún bò + Ho Chi Minh City", but that it appears to be one of the most popular dishes, and you could argue that its popularity might warrant inclusion here. What do you say? TeleComNasSprVen 05:51, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

down to
As a "compound preposition" meaning due to. I am not familiar with it in US English, though it is fairly readily intelligible. It's a little hard to find this usage among all the other occurrences of "down to". Is this used in the US? Was it used in the US before the Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb"? DCDuring TALK 15:12, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Derp
I've seen the word derp in the English language on the Internet and my humorous physics teacher (not to mention a table in the art class room). It might either be nonsensical or it can mean something stupid was done. Any opinions? --Lo Ximiendo 23:01, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

 * Derp (and its companion word herp) usually refer to awkward or stupid-looking facial expressions. I haven't checked yet to see if it's attestable, but at least herp and derp probably are. — lexicógrafa | háblame — 23:28, 22 May 2011 (UTC)

Wiktionary
The current revision of "Citations:Wiktionary" contains a number of citations.

I believe the first four of them (just the first four!) are enough for the entry Wiktionary to be attested according to the rules of WT:BRAND. (In fact, one of these citations is listed at Citations:Wikipedia too, presumably to attest "Wikipedia".) --Daniel. 01:01, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * The first and fourth cites in that revision do IMO count as good. In the second and third, the context that makes clear that Wiktionary's a source of a definition. Now, that doesn't imply it's a dictionary (math books have definitions, for example), so I'd like to say those are good w.r.t. BRAND, too, but I seek others' opinions. Note further that the second and third cites are of self-published books (possibly available only online??), the use of which as citations for RFV purposes I know some people object to. —msh210℠ (talk) 20:22, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

Singular or plural
Jamesjiao and I had a bit of a discussion happening on my talkpage about whether or not this recent edit was appropriate or not. The controversy is whether or not the sentence should read "An individual...his or her" or "An individual...their"; and I believed the former to be grammatically correct whilst Jamesjiao believed in the latter. TeleComNasSprVen 05:20, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Both are correct. See Singular they. --Daniel. 05:32, 23 May 2011 (UTC)

humphrey
my name is humphrey; it also means policeman from the old english
 * Doesn't look very Old English to me. Maybe it is; what does Humphrey say? --Mglovesfun (talk) 10:38, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

piss-poor, piss-elegance, piss-proud, etc
Could these be categorised by the suffix piss- I wonder? ---> Tooironic 23:00, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think you mean prefix? :) I think these words are similar in structure to crystal-clear. The first part gives an intensifying meaning by noting something that is known to be particularly clear. "as clear as crystal" in other words. I think the words above might have originated in a similar way, but over time the word "piss" might have become a general intensifier even if it didn't make any sense. There are similar cases in Dutch too, like, which gave rise to where "rock" is just used to mean "very". —CodeCat 23:15, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * But isn't a general intensifier. In  its sense is something like "fake" or "superficial", and in  its sense is "urine"! —Ruakh TALK</i > 22:06, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

beyond reproach
What does it mean? There are hits on OneLook. ---> Tooironic 00:37, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

 * Something is beyond what can be reproached. Simple SoP to me.--Prosfilaes 03:31, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

 * I don't know . . . "X is beyond reproach" means "X is blameless; there is nothing to reproach X for", but "X is beyond criticism" frequently means "X cannot be criticized even for the things X has done wrong" (perhaps because, for example, there is no one qualified to do the criticizing). Admittedly, there are other versions of this idiom, such as "above reproach", "beyond reproof", and "above reproof"; but I think a [[beyond reproach]] or a [[reproach]] might be useful anyway. —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 12:56, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, we currently don't have a non-count sense of reproach in the sense of "criticism". —msh210℠ (talk) 15:04, 24 May 2011 (UTC)

Is there a word for...
I apologize for this, but I'm at a loss for what search terms to use. Is there a specific word for the act of merging a phrase at a matching syllable to create a neologism (or a word for the result)? For instance, shortening "Velvet Elvis" into "Velvis" or "Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda" into "Lamorinda". Thanks! - Richfife 17:14, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that is called a blend. We have some examples of blends in Category:English blends. —CodeCat 17:24, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks! - Richfife 23:55, 24 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Also a portmanteau word. < class="latinx" >Ƿidsiþ</> 07:40, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

Category:Spanish words with ze or zi
Just came across this with two entries in it. I'm not sure what to do with it. Rename it? Fil it up? RFD it? --Mglovesfun (talk) 10:36, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

 * Seems like a good idea and a good name to me. Fill it up! —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 16:35, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Normally we'd have something like Category:Spanish terms spelled with ze or zi, perhaps two different categories with a link between the two (namely, Category:Spanish terms spelled with ze and Category:Spanish terms spelled with zi). --Mglovesfun (talk) 16:39, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

 * Azerbaiyán
 * Ezequiel
 * Kirguizistán
 * RSS de Azerbaiyán
 * Suazilandia
 * abzima
 * alozima
 * alozimas
 * apoenzima
 * apoenzimas
 * azerbaiyana
 * azerbaiyanas
 * azerbaiyano
 * azerbaiyanos
 * azerí
 * azimut
 * azina
 * bosnioherzegovina
 * bosnioherzegovinas
 * bosnioherzegovino
 * bosnioherzegovinos
 * cervezería
 * coenzima
 * coenzimas
 * dezir
 * diazina
 * diazinón
 * dinitrofenilhidrazina
 * eczema
 * enzima
 * enzimas
 * enzimática
 * enzimáticas
 * enzimático
 * enzimáticos
 * forze
 * forzemos
 * forzen
 * forzes
 * hexazina
 * holoenzima
 * holoenzimas
 * isoaloxazina
 * isoenzima
 * isoenzimas
 * isozima
 * isozimas
 * lisozima
 * lisozimas
 * maizena
 * nazi
 * nazis
 * nazismo
 * neozelandés
 * piperazina
 * piperazinas
 * pirazina
 * piridazina
 * suazi
 * tetrazina
 * triazina
 * triazinas
 * vuvuzela
 * vuvuzelas
 * zeatina
 * zeaxantina
 * zelo
 * zepelines
 * zepelín
 * zeta
 * zigomorfas
 * zigomorfo
 * zigomorfos
 * zigoto
 * zigotos
 * zigzaguea
 * zigzagueaba
 * zigzagueabais
 * zigzagueaban
 * zigzagueabas
 * zigzaguead
 * zigzagueado
 * zigzagueamos
 * zigzaguean
 * zigzagueando
 * zigzagueante
 * zigzagueantes
 * zigzaguear
 * zigzagueara
 * zigzaguearais
 * zigzaguearan
 * zigzaguearas
 * zigzagueare
 * zigzagueareis
 * zigzaguearemos
 * zigzaguearen
 * zigzagueares
 * zigzaguearon
 * zigzagueará
 * zigzaguearán
 * zigzaguearás
 * zigzaguearé
 * zigzaguearéis
 * zigzaguearía
 * zigzaguearíais
 * zigzaguearíamos
 * zigzaguearían
 * zigzaguearías
 * zigzagueas
 * zigzaguease
 * zigzagueaseis
 * zigzagueasen
 * zigzagueases
 * zigzagueaste
 * zigzagueasteis
 * zigzaguee
 * zigzagueemos
 * zigzagueen
 * zigzaguees
 * zigzagueo
 * zigzagueábamos
 * zigzagueáis
 * zigzagueáramos
 * zigzagueáremos
 * zigzagueásemos
 * zigzagueé
 * zigzagueéis
 * zigzagueó
 * zimasa
 * zimasas
 * zimbabuense
 * zimbabuenses
 * zimógeno
 * zimógenos
 * zinc
 * zine
 * zinnia
 * zircón

Nadando 17:10, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I support the existence of Category:Spanish terms spelled with ze and Category:Spanish terms spelled with zi. --Daniel 20:08, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Just as a matter of curiosity, why are ze and zi so unusual in Spanish? —CodeCat 20:46, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Normally <z> and <c> are in alternation, with the latter being used before <e> and <i>. For example, the plural of is, and the verb  has forms such as ; and conversely, the verb  has forms such as . —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 21:08, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh I see, it's like ç and c in Catalan! :) —CodeCat 22:06, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yup! Though a closer comparison might be Catalan <g> and <j> (which alternation exists in Spanish as well, as in ~ ). I believe (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that Catalan <c> and <ç> are considered a single letter, such that *<çe> and *<çi> literally never occur, whereas in Spanish, <c> and <z> are considered separate letters, just with fairly regular alternation. —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 22:17, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * By the way, the similarity of Spanish <z> to Catalan <ç> is not coincidental: the cedilla originated in Spanish as a sort of partial <z> written under a <c>. Later Spanish switched to just using <z> both for etymological <z> and for etymological <ç> (except in some forms such as that are really just borderline-Spanish), the latter being much more frequent. (I think etymological <z> only occurs in loanwords from Greek and English and such.) —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 22:28, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * In Catalan ç is called c trencada which means broken c, it's not considered a separate letter as far as I know, but just a way of writing c when it has the s-sound but is not followed by e or i. There is also c and qu for the k-sound and qu and qü for the kw-sound. And also three pairs j and g, g and gu, gu and gü for voiced sounds. I just didn't know z was pronounced as c in Spanish, I always read it as English z! —CodeCat 22:48, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

"compared to"
What is it called when you use the past participle at the beginning of a sentence, e.g., in "Compared to A, B is blah blah."? What are the rules that govern it? Why can't we say, "Comparing to A..." or "Compare to A..."? ---> Tooironic 10:54, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

 * Re: your third question: We can't say "comparing to A ..." or "compare to A ..." because originally "compared to A" was modifying "B": "B, [when] compared to A, is blah blah." Current usage is more flexible — Google finds examples such as "Cars and trucks are cheap compared to the US", where what's being compared to the U.S. is provided by the context (it's the Philippines, if you're curious) — but its form has stayed the same. —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 15:03, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

 * It seems to me that you could say "Comparing A to B, B is blah blah.", "Compare A to B. B is blah blah.", or "To compare A to B, B is blah blah.", though only "Compared to A, B is blah blah" seems adequate for a typical writing situation. Even it can be clarified by expanding it to "(When/If B is) [c]ompared to A, B is blah blah.". Each of the others seems like a shortening of one or more other possible canonical sentences.
 * I have no knowledge of a specific name that may have been given to the structure as a whole. DCDuring TALK 15:10, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it's called an Absolute construction, or maybe a Participial phrase. —CodeCat 16:42, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "Compared to A" is not an absolute, as it modifies B, thus not being syntactically isolated from the rest of the sentence. An example of an absolute would be " A having been compared to B, we proceeded to consider C." The absolute contrasts grammatically with the nearly semantically identical "After we compared A to B, we considered C." DCDuring TALK 19:46, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Traditionally it would be a participial phrase. The CGEL would call it a non-finite clause functioning as a predicate adjunct, I think.--Brett 18:50, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, the CGEL might admit compared into the preposition category based on sentences like Compared to the ideas of previous generations, there is a shift in the theory, where compared is not the predicate of the subject there. I give more evidence here.--Brett 19:02, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

category words?
Hi everyone. What do you call words like "phenomenon", "situation", "state", "matter", "affair", etc.? I know they are kind of like abstract nouns but I was wondering if there was an established term for these ones in particular, something along the lines of "category words" or "words of conceptual category". Thanks. ---> Tooironic 06:39, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * We have Category:English abstract nouns since 2004, but it is apparently abandoned since then. It has merely 29 members.
 * If you are looking for words that name classes, Wikisaurus has plenty of them. You can simply try this search: . --Daniel 07:27, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * And Category:Concrete nouns, its counterpart. --Mglovesfun (talk) 10:29, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Which doesn't exist. --Daniel 10:04, 28 May 2011 (UTC)

with
Do we cover the sense as in, "With so many alternatives to Google, why should we use it?" I think it might be distinct from the meanings we currently cover. ---> Tooironic 04:31, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it is an extension of sense 7. But Encarta, for example, treats it as a separate sense "because of". Encarta also has a sense "in light of", which may seem a better fit. This latter sense doesn't seem different in one views inference from facts as "causing" the conclusion, but perhaps it is different. Encarta and other dictionaries have 15-20 senses for with. Our entry closely corresponds to Webster 1913. DCDuring TALK 05:15, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

prohibited
Isn't this is the past participle? ---> Tooironic 05:21, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It is sometimes gradable and is |more+prohibited%22&btnG=Search+Books#sclient=psy&hl=en&tbo=1&biw=1260&bih=588&tbm=bks&source=hp&q=%22become|becomes|becoming|became%20prohibited%22&aq=&aqi=&aql=&oq=%22become|becomes|becoming|becamee+prohibited%22&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=7694d34fae9de011&pf=p&pdl=300 used after forms of "become". It is used as a predicate as well, but that is less clear-cut. Also the sense is a bit different, but that is also less clear cut. DCDuring TALK 06:01, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

 * Verb entry changed from "present particle of" to "past of". SemperBlotto 06:57, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Prohibited doesn't mean illegal as it doesn't refer solely to laws. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:20, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

adjectives which derive from famous people
I'm trying to find a list of adjectives which derive from famous people. Strangely enough I'm not having much luck despite numerous Google searches. I'm talking about words like Freudian, Elizabethan, Shakespearean, Orwellian, platonic, etc. ---> Tooironic 10:47, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

Nevermind, I found a really good resource for eponyms here ---> Tooironic 10:51, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

 * We have Category:English eponyms. Equinox ◑ 12:22, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

illness and illness
Aren't these both countable and uncountable nouns? I mean you could say "This is a new story about mental illness." or "This kind of sickness is horrible." ---> Tooironic 12:00, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you mean both collocations "much illness" and "many illnesses" are common? Yes. The applicable senses are distinguishable and worth distinct definitions, IMHO. DCDuring TALK 17:01, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

outcome plural quotation
Currently, sense 2 is: "(education) The results or evidence of students' learning experience. Often used in place of desired outcomes. The outcomes of this course are outlined in your syllabus." My question is, doesn't this belong under "outcomes" (plural)? Thanks --Person12 14:36, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't think so. The restriction to positive results is not limited to the education context. Finally, the supposed separate education sense seems not worth an entry line as it is merely a context-specific application of the general (positive-restricted) sense. If you could produce evidence that the term is only used in the plural in the education context, perhaps you could convince me (and others). DCDuring TALK 17:38, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

 * My question is really only about the plural vs the singular. Would the quotation work with the word in the singular (i.e. "The outcome of this course is outlined in your syllabus.")? If not, wouldn't it make more sense to move it to the plural listing?--Person12 03:24, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes it works. For me, it's not a plural only sense. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:15, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

definition of humor
The first definition of humor is "Something funny, e.g. a joke, satire, or parody." This seems completely wrong to me. For example, to me, it's wrong to say "That's humor" to mean "That's a joke." It seems that this should be quality of being funny, not something that is funny. Can others confirm my understanding of this word? Chimodori 23:28, 29 May 2011 (UTC)

 * Yes, I agree, Chimodori. Sense 1 sounds quite clumsy to me too. It's more of a quality.--Person12 03:33, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * (The quotation, "He treated the sensitive subject with enough humor that no one was offended" is a bit off the mark, too. It suggests that the more humor one applies to a sensitive subject the less offended people are likely to be, when it's really a question of quality & application of the humor - when it comes to sensitive subjects & likelihood of offending people - rather than quantity.)--Person12 03:45, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I too agree, I've never heard someone say "that joke is a humor"! Mglovesfun (talk) 12:14, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

covenant
We have three biblical senses; these just seems to be specific examples of covenants rather than definitions of a covenant. I also wonder whether they should be at Covenant, and as proper nouns you could probably justify them as entries. Mglovesfun (talk) 12:13, 30 May 2011 (UTC)

 * I think those are usually called "the covenant" (which one is surmised from context). They're not The Covenant and aren't usually capitalized, in my limited experience.  Are there any neutral third part sources which suggest that it should go either way? Banaticus 22:48, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

 * I'm not familiar with the use of just "the covenant" for any of those; are they Christian-only? The third one certainly must be, and I'm inclined to assume the second one is as well. Also, the tag (Biblical) seems wrong, unless "the covenant" is used in the Bible to refer to them? —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 23:02, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

 * The word appears numerous times in KJV. It looks like it means nothing more than "binding agreement," of which, per MG, there are more than one. — Pingkudimmi 07:29, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Gonna take this to RFD but leave this discussion open (no conflict in my opinion). --Mglovesfun (talk) 14:02, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

contrapositive
The CFI stuff is wiki jargon. we're supposed to be writing for a general audience. Could someone rephrase the examples to be about rain and going on a picnic, or something generic like that? Equinox ◑ 18:25, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I think I've fixed it very nicely. See what you think. —msh210℠ (talk) 16:18, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I've added an example that doesn't use P and Q. Feel free to change it to a better one. SemperBlotto 07:36, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

as much as
Should we be covering this? It doesn't seem intuitive to me. Two meanings I can think of off the top of my head:
 * a) As much as I agree with this proposal, I'm not willing to support it.
 * b) Consumer goods have increased as much as 3 per cent this year.

---> Tooironic 09:58, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

 * I think (b) is sum-of-parts: "As many as ten thousand Americans visit it each year, coming from as far away as Kansas." (It may or may not be worth including anyway.) (a) does seem idiomatic, though; its meaning there seems to be "despite how much". —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 13:46, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * No, it means "considering how much" or "with how much", not "despite how much", with the "despite" implied by the context. And "considering how much" as the meaning of as much as makes it SOP: it's like other as [adjective] as uses, as in As tall as he is, he won't be to walk through that doorway or As short as he is, he still won't be able to walk through that door way. —msh210℠ (talk) 16:16, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Most OneLook references don't cover "as much as" at all. One idiom dictionary covers the senses Tooironic suggests. Cambridge Advanced Learner's has it meaning "almost" with a usage example "He as much as admitted that it was his fault.". DCDuring TALK 18:54, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, I'd forgotten about that sense. That'd be inclusible AFAICT. —msh210℠ (talk) 20:38, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

flamboyant
Somehow I don't think we're fully conveying this word's connotations - i.e. its common attribution to gay men. Are usage notes in order? ---> Tooironic 13:34, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Good citations are probably a better starting point. < class="latinx" >Ƿidsiþ</> 07:36, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Isn't that just an association (possibly prejudiced?) rather than a genuine connotation of the word (or is there a common usage that I've not heard used?)   D <font color="#00ccff">b <font color="#44ffcc">f  i  r  s   20:24, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

tetani
Is this plural real? I cannot find it in dictionaries. Google Books just turns up a lot of instances of Clostridium tetani, which doesn't count. Equinox ◑ 17:19, 31 May 2011 (UTC)

title: Wiktionary:Tea room/2011/May


text:
Wiktionary:Tea room/2011/June

= June 2011 =

cohesion and coherence
We are missing the linguistic meanings here. ---> Tooironic 07:14, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Added. Feel free to improve. SemperBlotto 07:29, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

stand
The book Sideways Stories From Wayside School has someone saying "Ron and I will stand everybody!" meaning play in opposition to them, or challenge them, or something, in a game. Does this exist (outside of that author's works)? Collocations I can think of offhand (without huge numbers of false positives) don't show up on Google with any frequency; e.g.,. —msh210℠ (talk) 20:38, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
 * All right. I've added it to [[stand]] with { {rfdef}}. Please improve it if you can. —msh210℠ (talk) 15:47, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

number
As far as I know, "there are a number of people" is considered less awkward than "there is a number of people", but this is definitely not intuitive to non-native speakers because "number" is countable. Should this be reflected in the usage notes? ---> Tooironic 01:13, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

 * This phenomenon is often called . It's not specific to the word ; the same happens with many such nouns. It's so pervasive with that one could well argue that  is now basically a plural determiner. (The phenomenon is also not unique to English; twenty seconds on Google will find you such things as « Durant cette période, une grande nombre de Chinois vivaient à Washington » (French) and " Un gran número de sistemas instalados trabajan por fíat" (Spanish) and "מספר גדול של ארגונים אימצו פתרונות תוכנת קוד פתוח" (Hebrew).) I don't know if individual affected words really need a usage note, but if you think it would be helpful, I don't see a problem with it. (If you're going to do that, you might want to create a template for it, so it's easy to add the same usage note to other affected words.) —Ruakh TALK 01:37, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Usage examples illustrating the alternates are helpful, possibly even more than usage notes. DCDuring TALK 01:19, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I think semantic agreement is different. Here, we're looking a number transparency, discussed on p. 349 of the CGEL. They cite the main number transparent nouns as: lot, plenty, lots, bags, heaps, loads, oodles, stacks, remainder, rest, number, couple.--Brett 19:13, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

teodan
I find it hard to believe that Old English has misspellings, yet alone common ones. Surely Old English wasn't standardized enough to have anything close to a misspelling. --Mglovesfun (talk) 13:59, 2 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree. You can only have a misspelling once a language's spelling is standardized. SemperBlotto 07:20, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * p.s. Is there an equivalent to misspelling in Chinese / Japanese characters?
 * 誤字--Brett 19:16, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

 * The word is certainly attested in the following passage from Beowulf: Nalæs hí hine læssan lácum teódan ðonne ða dydon ðe hine æt frumsceafte forð onsendon. It's an alternative form. The usual spelling is . Leasnam 19:42, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

the phonology is a negligible difference, so I don't see it as a misspelling

This template is made to function as a context label and is categorized as a grammatical context label. I fail to see how onomatopoeia is grammatical rather than etymological and/or semantic. How do we categorize the etymological derivation from onomatopoeia? Do need (or already have) a different template for such derivation. DCDuring TALK 01:16, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Similar to above, except it seems to be purely etymological. DCDuring TALK 01:36, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

This seems not a grammatical context, but a semantic restriction. DCDuring TALK 01:36, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, so what? Mglovesfun (talk) 10:08, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Missing grammatical context
We lack categorizing context-type grammatical templates and categories for senses of words that have restricted types of complements (eg, PPs headed by a specific preposition). DCDuring TALK 01:36, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

God
We now have a lot of senses like "A deity with bodily characteristics" and "An omniscient deity" and "A deity that can do anything, except contradicting his own laws..." and "A [deity that's a] moral judge of people". Et cetera. I really don't think that when the cited sources (for each of these has at least one citation, thanks to Daniel's hard work) included the word God, they meant — well, let me be specific. I really don't think that when Brenda Hicks-Wiggins wrote I thought if my life is hard not obeying God, then how sweet it could be if I obey him she meant by God "An authority or leader of people". I think she meant by God "" (specifically, ""), and included in her mind was likely not only that that deity is an authority or leader of people but also that he's omniscient, perhaps, omnipotent, perhaps, etc.: so the cite is not really a good one for the sense it purports to support. But the point is that the word God means "" and not "A deity that's an authority", much as Robert means "" and not "That guy who lives down my street with the cats". I think we should collapse all the senses into one (except those currently at RFD for another reason). (Actually, I think supersense (as opposed to subsense) currently in the entry is worded very well: "A supreme deity, whose existence (or nonexistence) and other attributes are discussed and/or explained by various religions, doctrines, philosophical theories and beliefs of individuals, although with many disagreements amongst them.".) Thoughts? —msh210℠ (talk) 04:12, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The entry seems to miss the point of having a dictionary. Most dictionaries serve their users humbly by economizing on readers' attention and conveying the core meanings of a word, not overlapping specialized meanings from various contexts and from throwaway lines. This entry does not, not do the citations support the senses for the most part. I would be inclined to challenge almost every sense at RfV, though I can also think of a much simpler approach to correcting it, which I would support. DCDuring TALK 05:06, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

I, personally, would like to keep the subsenses as appropriate for a dictionary. There are ways to improve the entry, but I don't think deleting all the subsenses would be one of them. Here are a few thoughts: --Daniel 09:03, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) For hypothetical readers who believe that entries should be written with few words,  without overlapping specialized senses, we already have the supersense.
 * 2) That belief is, however, technically incorrect in comparison with at least the entry of, which has 47 preposition senses, often overlapped.
 * 3) Deities are associated with a number of things. Hermes is defined as "(Greek mythology) The herald and messenger of the gods, and the god of roads, commerce, invention, cunning, and theft." These are important things. Failing to mention that "God" is the deity of Judaism is like failing to mention that Hermes is a deity of Greek mythology.
 * 4) With this argument in mind, a single but comprehensive definition would be this one, that may sound article-ish: "A supreme deity, whose existence (or nonexistence) and other attributes are discussed and/or explained by various religions, doctrines, philosophical theories and beliefs of individuals, although with many disagreements amongst them; those attributes include being the deity of Abrahamic religions, Hinduism, Sikhism, being a judge of people, being the creator of the universe, being the provider of things..."
 * 5) However, articles and entries are different in scope, wording and presentation. Compare God and God. In particular, the entry just mentioned once that God is a monotheistic deity, whereas the article has a whole huge section telling the "History of monotheism".
 * 6) In fact, if you have time, please see the revision of April 14 of the entry, which was the last one not edited by me. It has a strange choice of senses, which includes separating "An omnipotent being, creator of the universe (as in deism)." and "The single deity of various monotheistic religions." The current revision is certainly an improvement over it, at least by showing more clearly how the senses overlap.
 * 7) The senses do overlap, but they are used in different contexts by different people. God is the provider of things that come by chance. Therefore, the sentence "God gave her a pretty body." makes sense and implies that the speaker believes that the woman was born beautiful. The message is not that God is the deity of sex appeal, and not that God is a famous distributor of corpses. God is the provider. By contrast, "Poseidon gave her a pretty body." does not make sense at all.

 * I find (14 April 2011) much better than . Put differently, I support reverting the changes to "God" entry recently made by Daniel Carrero. What follows are various optional details that you can skip. The single most compelling definition seems to be this: "The single deity of various monotheistic religions"; this definition could be extended with ", often considered allmighty, all-knowing, and perfectly good", or the like. We can leave cataloguing of various properties that the single and only God is supposed to have to an encyclopedic work. Some more definitions can be justified by quotations, such as definition "An impersonal and universal spiritual presence or force", but I would like to see the reasoning that has lead from the quotations supporting the definition to the definition. However, I do not think that "God" means "A name". Neither do I think that "Peter" means "A name". This is likely to lead to a complex philosophical discussion, one that I do not have the energy to lead right now. The discussion would involve the following questions: What are the meanings of proper names, if anything? Are referents of proper names their meanings? Is "God" a description in disguise, or is it a term that designates its referent in such a way that not a single property of the referent follows necessarily from the designation? --Dan Polansky 10:06, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

 * Agree the old revision is far better than the newer. Subsenses are not intended to cover every possible conversational context in which a word is used with essentially the same meaning. Senses like "A deity able to do something", "A deity that is somewhere" are no more useful than senses at purple for "A colour that can be used for paint", "A colour that can be the colour of a plum". Equinox ◑ 20:14, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

 * I have restored the pre-Daniel version. Edit summary: "restoring revision prior to Daniel's controversial changes. cf. "purple" not having 3 senses just because cars, plums, and flowers can all be purple". I do appreciate that Daniel did a lot of work finding citations but I think it was misdirected; see comments above. However, I may have reverted changes that followed Daniel's changes; I hope those editors can restore anything useful they may have added. Equinox ◑ 23:37, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * OK. I'm going to move the citations to Citations:God. --Daniel 23:41, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Equinox, reverting dozens of revisions was actually a bad idea. It would be better to just copy the definitions from the last "good" revision to the actual last revision, or else we lose translations, rhymes and whatnot. I'm going to do that too. --Daniel 23:44, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it wasn't very desirable. If you can sort it out, then thanks! Equinox ◑ 23:47, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

overlooked
On a TV program today I heard someone say, "Thank God this garden is not overlooked." - what do you suppose this means? The garden has not been neglected? The garden is not surrounded by tall buildings? Or something else? ---> Tooironic 11:26, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Could it mean "shaded", "in shade"? I'd be surprised if it was used of the shade of trees, though. DCDuring TALK 14:07, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I would guess that it has to do with the garden's level of privacy and/or seclusion: something like "Thank G-d no one can see us here". —Ruakh TALK 15:38, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

 * I think so too. Sense 1 of overlook: seems to pertain. — Pingkudimmi 15:50, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * A web search for "garden is not overlooked" overwhelmingly favors the seclusion/privacy interpretation. I didn't find any support for my suggestion, though I didn't actively search for any. In my defense: I am more gardener/amateur botanist than sunbather. DCDuring TALK 16:17, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

 * Note also that there is not necessarily an implication of human agency being involved. A hill may be said to overlook a valley: this just means it commands a higher position, not that anyone is actually looking. — Pingkudimmi 16:24, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * But the point seems to be that there us the potential for humans (or other primate?) to cast glances or projectiles at what can be overlooked from the overlooking place. DCDuring TALK 17:15, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * On a third hand, it doesn't seem part of the definition of the word, unless we adopt the approach taken in God. (See WT:TR.) DCDuring TALK 17:21, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Etymology vandalisms
Hello. I just edited big cheese and noticed it had a completely bogus "Chinook" etymology. (For an actual etym, just see http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-big1.htm and http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/64350.html for instance...)

The history page shows how this bogus etymology was added by User:Shii one year ago unsourced, quickly reverted, then forcibly added again and has stayed since. The vandal's own history page Special:Contributions/Shii shows he's been adding more bogus Chinook etyms such as this one for muckety muck...

There may be a lot of old undone vandalism to be found there for admins... 62.147.62.236 16:51, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. DCDuring TALK 17:25, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

uneatable
There is a quote by Alistair Cooke that uses uneatable, and adds some context to how the word is used.

quotes.dictionary.com slash It_has_been_an_unchallengeable_American_doctrine_that

It would be worth noting on the page that inedible is the usual, and preferred form, and that uneatable is only used in the context that something looks or tastes so horrible that no one would want to eat it, even though it is, in fact, edible.
 * You could make a case that anything's edible in the sense you can physically ingest it, even if it ultimately proves fatal, it's still 'edible'. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:00, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

 * I was taught the opposite, that edible substances are those that don't cause harm. Isn't that how the word is normally used?    D b f  i  r  s   20:17, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

¶ Is this term actually comparable? I think that would only apply to substances that are figuratively “uneatable”. --Pilcrow 23:32, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

eatable
1. It says "edible is the usual term, and much more frequent in the US – eatable may be interpreted as an error – while comestible is relatively formal.".

This is ambiguous, and makes it look as though in other English-speaking countries, eatable is commonly used.

I cannot speak for England, but in Australia, eatable would also be considered an error, except in specific contexts, as the article goes on to mention. Unless the English object, I would remove "in the US", and just say "and much more frequent – ".

2. There should be a link to uneatable as the antonym.

 * Hi. Point 2: I have added the antonym. Point 1: as far as I know, eatable is perfectly common and valid in all English-speaking countries. The etymology is clear enough: eat + -able. Do you have evidence to the contrary? Equinox ◑ 23:36, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

---I was simply asking to remove the phrase "in the US". The article makes it look as though it is only in the US that eatable is not regarded as the proper term.

I am Australian, and we were taught in school that the proper term is edible. "eatable" just sounds wrong. We might say something was uneatable, in the sense of being to horrible to eat (although edible), and even then, inedible is preferred.

"eatables" is sometimes used, and "eatery", but not "eatable" - it is "edible".

You asked for evidence: Google: eatable 1,280,000 results; edible 45,100,000 results Several of the results for eatable is for businesses marketing "eatable" clothing and other items that would not normally be expected to be eaten. Others are websites by people for whom English is a second language. For business/artistic license, one makes exceptions, but it certainly is not common practice.
 * I'd say edible is both more common and more standard. Some people consider eatable an error, which I don't. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:57, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

 * Regarding the suggestion that "eatable" implies lower quality than does "edible," this US style guide disagrees. — Pingkudimmi 11:33, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

I said UNeatable means horrible. My only point about 'eatable' is that it is not the common variant - google supports that 'edible' is by far the preferred option.

The article says that only "in the US" is eatable considered an error. It is also considered an error here. Please remove the phrase "in the US".

 * The word is perfectly acceptable in its own right, especially in the negative (e.g. Wilde's "The English country gentleman galloping after a fox - the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable"), but "eatable" is often used when "edible" would be preferable in all English-speaking countries. I agree that we should remove the US restriction, and perhaps we could clarify the usage note at the same time.     D b f  i  r  s   20:08, 11 June 2011 (UTC)

alight
Hi, collegues. Some months ago, RATP changed its message from to I am wondering why they did that. Was the verb alight a problem in this context (eg is it only for the cattle ? ;-) --ArséniureDeGallium 19:16, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Terminus, please alight!
 * This is the last stop, please leave the train!

 * is completely correct here, but it's not a very common word. Many more people will understand "leave the train". ("Leave the train", by the way, does not strike me as very idiomatic — I would say "get off the train" — but its meaning is very clear, and I suspect that more non-native speakers will understand it. After all, their target audience is not just native English-speakers, but any English-speaker who isn't also a French-speaker.) —Ruakh TALK 20:17, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I remember when I was in London the intercom on the Underground would say 'alight here' for certain destinations. I'm not sure if it is still that way. —CodeCat 20:19, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Ruakh, you really made the answer I was expecting for. Very interresting. Thanks. :)) --ArséniureDeGallium 20:29, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

enthousiastic and enthousiastically
I nominated both of these for deletion in French Wiktionary as misspellings, but was countered with a few hundred book uses of each. I was wondering, are these misspellings, or are they legitimate alternate spellings? bd2412 T 21:25, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Since they more closely mirror the French spellings than the modern English ones do, I wouldn't be surprised to find out they're obsolete spellings. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:33, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * 68 of the 4500 bgc hits for "enthousiasm" and "anthousiastic" are followed by "sic". That seems to say that writers quoting the spelling think of it as a misspelling. If seems common among writers with Dutch and French surnames, though not so limited. DCDuring TALK 23:26, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'm putting it down as a common misspelling for now. bd2412 T 00:08, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

-assed
This is currently defined as a suffix. Possibly the only word that can be described as having it may be half-assed, this seems a clear sum-of-part from -ass+-ed (compare "smart-assed"; though it's not clear what came first amongst the -ass words, some seem to date from the 60s at least), but most other words just use the noun as an appositive, e.g. "badass", "dumbass". Circeus 23:04, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * They are grammatically very different. -assed is clearly an adjective because of the -ed suffix. But -ass is a noun, specifically a so-called bahuvrihi compound, that denotes something that is not present in the compound. A badass isn't an ass that's bad, it's someone (perhaps originally) having an ass that's bad. It's similar to black belt. —CodeCat 23:14, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Are you sure about that? I always assumed that these "ass" compounds are an extension of . The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (previewable on b.g.c.) gives that from 1945,  from 1955, and  from 1958. (Though I suppose, when it comes down to it, there's not much difference between an exocentric compound and an endocentric one with a synecdochic head.) —Ruakh TALK 00:37, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If I can say that someone is very badass, then I don't see how badass can be endocentric. It's clearly a descriptive word in that example. —CodeCat 00:42, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
 * My point is actually that our single -assed example is clearly half+ass/-ass (i.e. half-ass)+-ed. Are there -assed compounds that cannot be -ass+-ed? Circeus 03:31, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Request for a new addition
Häufigkeit German Noun - English 'Frequency" Gender f Plural die Häufigkeiten

It is used in a page in Wiktionary so should have an entry itself: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/frequency Bees77707 11:55, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Häufigkeit, you could add it yourself, or use WT:RE:de (section H). Mglovesfun (talk) 20:31, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I've started it. —Angr 15:07, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Lateral Area
I am a student at a school and i do not get this concept at all could someone please explain!!?
 * Some combination of lateral and area I guess; without the context I can't tell you. --Mglovesfun (talk) 08:31, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * IME it refers to the surface area of the sides of an object (i.e., excluding the respective areas of the top and the bottom surfaces). HTH. —msh210℠ (talk) 16:51, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

cobweb
"A spiderweb, or the remains of one, especially an asymmetrical one that is woven with an irregular pattern of threads." Neither Chambers nor Webster says that a cobweb is usually asymmetrical or irregular. Can we source this, or should we just reduce the definition to cover all spider-webs? Equinox ◑ 01:47, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

 * I'm not sure about asymmetry and irregularity, but for me is definitely more specific than . [[w:Spider web]] lists a bunch of types of spider web, with  being treated as apparently synonymous with ; Wikipedia doesn't explain what they are, but the term "tangle web" certainly evokes the right image for me. —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 02:17, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I always thought cobwebs were broken remnants of spiderwebs or even of air-blown individual filaments + dust, in line with MWOnline's def: "tangles of the silken threads of a spiderweb usually covered with accumulated dirt and dust".
 * I would disagree mostly with the "woven" part of the definition. BTW, is high dusting includable? DCDuring TALK 04:09, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * My sense is that cobwebs are strictly an indoor phenomenon while spiderwebs can be in or out. A search for nouns collocating with the lemma cobweb supports this. Nouns such as ceiling, corner, house, windows, and room turn up, but you don't find nouns like grass, tree, branch, and earth.--Brett 10:48, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It can also be found with "porch", "barn", and "cave". Any place that lowers wind speed enough for the structure to survive for a while seems to suffice. DCDuring TALK 13:24, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * -- DCDuring TALK 13:27, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * -- DCDuring TALK 13:27, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

dagnabit
The one example on dagnabit spells the word "dagnabbit". Seems a bit inconsistent. Google suggests that both spellings are common. There may be more, using hyphens or blanks as separators (e.g. "dag nabbit") and then there is also dagnammit. Is all that worth adding to the article? Rl 06:35, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The spelling with 2 "b"s is more common on Google books. The 2-"b" spelling is also a better fit with the nearly "p" sound I recall from TV westerns. I have edited the entry a bit, but not yet moved it to the more common spelling.
 * dagnamit is more common than dagnammit, but both are much less common than dagnabit. I'd be happiest if all of the entries were alternate forms of or hard redirects to dagnabbit. DCDuring TALK 12:56, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

 * FWIW, dagnabit appears in the title of a Deputy Dawg episode, Dagnabit, Rabbit. — Pingkudimmi 13:31, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Moved to dagnabbit. dagnabit is an alt form. DCDuring TALK 19:27, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

fishmonger, warmonger, et al
Fishmonger's etymology is defined as a "compound word"; warmonger's is defined as a "word suffixed with -monger". Should we be consistent with these? Could they be both compound and suffixed words, I wonder? Oh, and to add salt to the wounds, what should we do about fishmonger's? :) ---> Tooironic 13:15, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Consistency is always good, but the line between these two is blurred. It's hard to tell whether something is a compound or a suffixed word sometimes. At what point does a word that is consistently compounded with other words become a suffix? Is it when it is no longer identical to its origin? —CodeCat 13:25, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I wouldn't call monger a suffix, personally, I'd say these are all compound words. < class="latinx" >Ƿidsiþ</> 13:50, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * We could say it becomes a suffix when it is no longer used as a separate word, but still is added to stems. Does this fit the fact pattern for "monger"/"-monger"?
 * There is no reason for consistency in presentation as there is no consistency in the nature of word formation over time. I hypothesize that borrowing and Anglicizing Latin words ending in "itas" and Old/Middle/Modern French ending in "ite" led to the existence of a population of words ending in "ity" from which the productive English suffix "-ity" was inferred. Thus a few presentations (inconsistent with each other) of etymology would be appropriate for words ending in "ity", IMHO. DCDuring TALK 16:09, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I suspect that "compound word" would be best. We don't normally invent new words with "-monger" (Second-hand carmonger, anyone?) -- <i>A LGRIF </i ><font color="#FFD700"> talk 16:53, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

Serbo-Croatian persirati
Does anyone know the translation in English? Would the etymology of the word be too much to ask? Regards, --Biblbroks дискашн 20:10, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

 * I don't speak that language but there's a page on Wikipedia suggesting it means "address with the polite V-form". In English addressing with the impolite T-form is to thou, tutoy, or tutoyer, but I don't know a verb for the other one. Equinox ◑ 20:25, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

 * Yes, it means to address with the polite V-form. Actually, since I am a native Serbo-Croatian speaker, my question should have been thus: does anyone know the equivalent in English for persirati? But since I am not a native English speaker, my question asked was as above. :-/. Thanks for the info, though. Actually, as I was skimming through that Wikipedia page, I've come to think of the etymology. Perhaps it comes from the German Sie, but the prefix per- is what puzzles me in that case. Also if German is the source for the word, pronounciation might be with z not s. Regards, --Biblbroks дискашн 21:30, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * No real equivalent; use . --Mglovesfun (talk) 09:59, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Should we create a non-idiomatic translation target page for this? A lot of languages have such words, it would be a shame if we had no way to link them together. —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 15:49, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Perhaps an appendix, then? —msh210℠ (talk) 16:23, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Why non-gloss definition? "To address with the polite undefined: form" is a gloss. —msh210℠ (talk) 16:23, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Wouldn't thus appear somewhat cumbersome? I haven't found an entry for V-form in wiktionary, so it might be better if it were created first in order not to create any potential confusion. Just MHO. --BiblbroX дискашн 21:56, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * non-idiomatic translation target sounds good, but what? Mglovesfun (talk) 22:11, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Created the entry. Dunno 'bout the, tho. --BiblbroX дискашн 09:29, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

on acid, on steroids
I don't understand how these are adjectives. Can someone give an non-adverb example? Equinox ◑ 16:27, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

 * How about As you'd expect, the rules for these sudoku on steroids are slightly different. — Pingkudimmi 16:45, 12 June 2011 (UTC)
 * We have the heading "Prepositional phrases" and an associated category (at least in English) for these, um, prepositional phrases. DCDuring TALK 17:09, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

dad
In mostly emptying Category:English familiar terms, I came across this entry with a single sense. I split the definition into three, differing basically by register and usage and, therefore, synonyms and translations. Is my split of the definition an improvement? Is it adequate for checking and dividing the translations? Can this entry be fixed by, say, Sunday, June 19th? Would it be a good WOTD? DCDuring TALK 22:10, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Surely #1 and #2 are the same, #2 is just the vocative use of #1, right? Mglovesfun (talk) 22:35, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If you don't like this, what do you think of cleaning up lady? When I looked at various terms of address, like guy, fella, Mack, buddy, Jack, deary, I found it difficult to match the ordinary noun senses with the uses of the vocative. For example, deary had only the obsolete sense, though it was not uncommon in my youth and remains in use. As a term of address, it does not necessarily have the meaning "dear one". Generally I don't think that the register information that we should have would be the same for vocative and other uses. DCDuring TALK 23:00, 13 June 2011 (UTC)
 * [after e/c] Yes, I think so. Or, more precisely, I think #2 is a vocative use of the proper noun, which is a proper-noun use of #1. But it may be worth keeping all three, anyway, since a non-native speaker might have difficulty guessing which words for "father" are used vocatively, which as common nouns, and which as proper nouns, in which registers and contexts. —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 23:14, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

SO mom comes from MOther, why where does DAD come from? Why don't British people say DUD like they say MUM? --24.94.251.19 08:35, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Secretary of State
Why is this so often capitalised, even when being used as a common (and countable) noun? Seems strange to me. ---> Tooironic 12:11, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * See also [[User:Msh210/Sandbox]]. —msh210℠ (talk) 15:25, 14 June 2011 (UTC) Actually, that's not so relevant. —msh210℠ (talk) 18:27, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * In the U.S. it's pretty common to capitalize this sort of official designation, especially nouns, but also a few adjectives (such as "Federal"). I think it leaks from a sort of legalistic or bureaucratic usage that seeks to make clear that the designation is invested with an official meaning. Anyone can declare themself a "secretary of state", but it takes a Constitution to make them a "Secretary of State". :-P  Which designations are capitalized depends on how much officialese has pervaded the document; I would be very surprised to find "States" capitalized, for example, in a normal newspaper article, but conversely, I'd be very surprised to find "vice-president for academic affairs" written in lowercase there (provided it's a U.S. paper). In full-on legal contracts, you'll often even see all-caps; an initial paragraph might specify the definition of "EBAY" or "LESSEE", and thenceforth eBay or the lessee is consistently referred to thus. —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 15:45, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

 * Perhaps also relevant is that Secretary of State: serves as both the name of the position and the title of the incumbent (e.g., Secretary of State Clinton). In Australia, the equivalent is currently Foreign Minister Rudd, who is the Minister for Foreign Affairs. We have had quite a few foreign ministers over the years, just as the US has had secretaries of state. — Pingkudimmi 16:45, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

 * Sorry, but that's not quite right. In U.S. usage the title "Secretary of State" and the common-noun "Secretary of State" are both regularly capitalized. This is what Tooironic found strange; and I suppose that you will find it strange as well, now that you know of it. :-)  (But to be sure: the title is nearly always capitalized, whereas the common-noun can go either way. Google suggests that Time typically capitalizes it, but that U.S. News and Newsweek typically do not.) —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 23:24, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

corner
Are we missing the sense as in, "to put someone in the corner"? ---> Tooironic 12:23, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Te only to put someone in the corner I'm familiar with is literal (SOP) and corner in it is the corner of a room. We have that as noun sense 2 ("The space in the angle between converging lines or walls which meet in a point", which is perhaps not worded as well as it could be). —msh210℠ (talk) 18:29, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm talking about the idiomatic usage, not a literal corner. ---> Tooironic 23:40, 14 June 2011 (UTC)
 * What is it supposed to mean? I'm unfamiliar with it. The first twenty results of are all literal. —msh210℠ (talk) 15:07, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it is a figurative corner, a consequence of having been figuratively boxed in. We seem to lack the (sub)sense that MWOnline has: "a difficult or embarrassing situation: a position from which escape or retreat is difficult or impossible", which they show after the "secret place" sense. DCDuring TALK 16:28, 15 June 2011 (UTC)
 * To be "in a bit of a corner" (metaphorically, i.e. in trouble) is quite common: . Equinox ◑ 16:30, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

temperamental
is there any evidence of this sense (this sense) of temperamental? I can't think of good search terms. (The ones I've tried were no good.) —msh210℠ (talk) 16:51, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

terrible with a capital T
I noticed there are only three citations in Google Books. Anyway, you can do this "Blah with a capital B" for any adjective (try searching for "bad", "evil", "fun"). Thoughts on desirability? Equinox ◑ 20:08, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems like yet another snowclone ("yasc"?). DCDuring TALK 21:12, 16 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It might make sense for Wiktionary to capture snowclones, since they are a particular case of language usage with a particular meaning. But it would seem to represent a broadening in scope. Dcoetzee (talk) 23:17, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * There is Appendix:Snowclones. Equinox ◑ 11:30, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I don't object to this entry; I have never heard of it, ever, and as you say it's rare or very rare. The formula is something with a capital something, as you point out. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:41, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * And it is now added to Appendix:Snowclones and cross-linked. Dcoetzee (talk) 15:36, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

yes man
Is this word used to refer only to males, or can it be used to refer to women as well? I've never heard it being used to refer to a woman, but that may be because people would rather not offend. I could imagine a lot of people would use yes woman in that case, but I've never heard anyone say that either. A friend of mine did refer to herself as "yes man" once though. —CodeCat 23:11, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

big phat
Well, last month I completed big fat (diff) plus some related edits. I also created a basic sourced entry for its alt spelling big phat; nothing too fancy:

house
Noun sense:
 * A children's game in which the players pretend to be members of a household.
 * As the babysitter, Emma always acted as the mother whenever the kids demanded to play house.

Isn't this a proper noun? —msh210℠ (talk) 16:36, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

 * Not unless bridge, marbles, hopscotch et al are also, and none of them are currently listed as such. — lexicógrafa | háblame — 17:09, 17 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Not to mention baseball. Mglovesfun (talk) 09:47, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It does seem to have a sort of implied "(the game of) house" though. Like "let's play (at being a) doctor" — no game name entry there yet, I see. Equinox ◑ 11:31, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Does "house" have this sense without "play" or something else in the context that makes it clear that there is a game involved. Of course, we don't have the appropriate sense of "play". One could "play fireman", "play firehouse", or "play war". Should, then, "fireman", "firehouse", and "war" be defined as games? I realize that this reliance on context is against the grand lexicographical project of including every meaning of a term only as an explicit definition. But are we improving [[play]] by omitting the appropriate verb sense and [[house]] (and [[fireman]], [[firehouse]], and [[war]] by including a sense that only exists in frames that make it obvious what it intended? DCDuring TALK 15:05, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It is quite a curious construct to me. Of course, with the indefinite article, play can mean "portray" (as on stage), and the child who "plays doctor" is in fact playing a doctor (but the second child is also "playing doctor", perhaps, who only acts as a patient). We also have that sense of "pretend to be" with an adjective, e.g. "play coy", "play dumb", "play dead", "play hard to get". Equinox ◑ 15:10, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * And "play truant," where it means "be." — Pingkudimmi 16:29, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

 * I think it's mainly a common noun; think of something like "She dreamed that she might someday babysit kids who did not play so much house". (This is not to disagree with DCDuring. The only relevant hits at all have "playing house is a game", though one of them does mention "the American game 'house'". But if we do list it at [[house]], then I think it should be as a common noun.) —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 15:31, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * @ Equinox: I was trying to avoid exclusive reliance on the "play-a-role" sense of "play" by including "firehouse" and "war". But, the pretend patient is also playing "doctor". MWOnline has a sense.
 * @ Ruakh: I can't think of how to conveniently search for the game sense of "house" without using words like "game" and "play". Maybe in coordination with names of other children's games?
 * I found this usage: "Playing work," said he, "is just as much and as purely play as any play that ever was." There are many others involving words "X" that we are unlikely to wish to assign a sense of "a game involving playing roles typically involved in X". DCDuring TALK 16:34, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I guess I don't see a problem with the word "game" being nearby. This sense of "house" is largely restricted to the phrase "play house", where the special meaning is in "play" rather than in "house", but when it has different collocates, I think "house" itself has taken on the meaning. I dunno. —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 17:59, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * The problem is that the presence of such words as "play" and "game" is a clear indicator that the context is determining how to read "house" (or "war" or "fireman" or "firehouse" or "work"). If "house" is a "game" it is one without rules, only roles. No OneLook reference has "house" in this sense, just as they don't have special senses for "playing war" (not war game) or the others.
 * I guess my claim is that, not only is there a meaning of "play" that frames the interpretation of "house" when "house" is object of "play", but, more generally, that other words are indicators of a context that frames the interpretation. DCDuring TALK 18:57, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * But doesn't context always frame the interpretation of a word? I mean, no one hears the word, shorn of context, and thinks of its vegetable sense; does this mean that [[baby]] shouldn't mention that sense? For that matter, the whole concept of rfv-sense is that we can look through b.g.c. and determine, based on context, what sense was meant of a given word. —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 20:12, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes. I guess I am trying to make a distinction between a productive context into which many, many words would fit and those that select among senses in the lexicon. "To play" something where something is a situation ("racetrack", "geography", "farm", "luxury", "mercy", all from COCA} seems to create a frame with turns any following noun (actually we should include nominal phrases like "find the chicken", "remember when") into one meaning a game of some kind. I think this is why other dictionaries don't see fit to include this sense of "house". DCDuring TALK 20:56, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I see. I think we largely agree; we both feel that "play ____" is a special property of "play", rather than of "____". The difference is in a detail: you feel that the special property of "play" is that it makes "____" a game, so any other context that makes "____" a game will have the same effect, whereas I feel that the special property of "play" is that it makes "____" a hyponym of "pretend" ("play house" being one type of "play pretend"), so other contexts that merely make "____" a game, and not necessarily a form of pretend, will not have the same effect unless "____" has become lexicalized. —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 00:12, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm glad I was able to successfully say what I meant. But I think that there is clearly no special lexical sense of "racetrack", "geography", "farm", "luxury", "mercy", "find the chicken", "remember when", "firehouse", or "Mommy and Daddy". I see "house" as no different, except for being more common. DCDuring TALK 00:26, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Parolled
Hi from Paris ;-)

It took me some time to understand this word, in the following sentence coming from Charles Manson discography [] (Other recordings section) :

An unofficial CD of a prison concert from the 1970s is available in collectors' circles and since being parolled several years ago, (…)

After some research… and thinking ;-)  as both parolled and (to) paroll are not quoted either in Wiktionary or in my Harper Collins senior, I came to the point it should come from the verb to parole, as a research for paroled led me to the article parole. However, in wk, only paroled is quoted as the Simple past tense and past participle of parole, where the spelling parolled… is not !?

1.	What is the rule for past forms coming from such verbs ending w/ an “e”

2.	What could (should) be done as I found out 13 other occurrences for parolled in your whole WP:en, apparently w/ a similar meaning/usage ?

Thanks a lot in advance.

--Bibliorock 02:35, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

 * At Google News (archives) "paroled" is about 2000 times more common than "parolled". In the last month it is about 1000 time more common, perhaps reflecting the lesser quality editing in what News now includes. At that relative frequency I personally would be comfortable calling "parolled" an error. I would correct the various WP entries. I think the source of the error is that writers may be modelling the spelling of the -ing form and past/past participle of parole on the spelling of the same forms of patrol (patrolling, patrolled), with which "parole" rhymes. I find I need to check (or heed the spell-check warnings of) my spelling of these term with doubled consonants for the past/past participle and -ing form. HTH. DCDuring TALK 03:31, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

 * I agree; but in addition to "parolled" being an uncommon misspelling today, and  give me the impression that "paroll(ed)" was once a standard alternative spelling. ("Paroll" seems to have disappeared completely, and "parolled" seems to survive only as a "patrolled"-influenced misspelling, perhaps essentially unrelated to its former standard use.) —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 03:55, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Google N-gram search makes it seem that the two-"l" spelling was the more common before 1800. DCDuring TALK 05:26, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
 * If it helps, Old French became Middle French  by hypercorrection. That is to say, only one l in the Latin . Mglovesfun (talk) 18:04, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

waive
The verb section contains a sense "To turn aside; to recede.", citing Chaucer.

Webster 1913 shows this as a separate entry, ie, etymology, but does not provide any etymology. I would certainly not want to show it as the same etymologically as the other senses of waive. It seems more related to waver:. Thoughts? OED? DCDuring TALK 21:45, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

 * I've split them up, although I did change that definition from ‘turn aside’ to ‘stray, wander’, which seems to be what is meant. < class="latinx" >Ƿidsiþ</> 16:38, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Interesting that there is apparently a Medieval Latin per (Online Ety Dict). I wonder where that came from. "Unknown Germanic source"? "Waive" and "waif" clearly have influenced each other, whatever their distinct origins may have been. DCDuring TALK  17:17, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

cornhole
¶ The sense “(From the old fashioned practice of using dried corncobs instead of toilet paper in outdoor privies)” sounds quite bizarre. Is that verifiable? --Pilcrow 18:12, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

-tor
Most of the purported usage examples seem wrong to me. For example I thought that cantor: = stem of cantus:, past participle of cano:, rather than stem of cano: + -tor: as the usage notes imply. Only the gladiator: derivation seems right, as there was no corresponding classical Latin verb *gladio. Almost all the inhabitants of the category of derivations have the same characteristics.

I think something analogous applies at -sor.

To me it seems more economical to select the past participle stem as the stem of the agent nouns than then the first person present indicative stem. DCDuring TALK 14:58, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It only seems that way as an artifact of the participle and suffix endings merging in Classical Latin. The older forms of the words demonstrate that etymologically it is the principal stem from which the word is formed, and not the participle.  There just aren't meny cases where the participial and agent suffix consonants demonstrate this.  You can read more in works like Allen & Greenough's New Latin Grammar (revised by Anne Mahoney).  I've been (mostly) following Allen's interpretation of Latin suffixes.

 * That said, Allen has not always been right. His Latin vowel sounds have been overturned by more modern scholarship, and if there is more modern scholarship on the origin and implementation of Latin suffixes, I've love to see it.  However, Allen makes a pretty convincing case, and as far as I know his scholarship in this matter is not contested by Classicists. --EncycloPetey 21:11, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

hit
Quite a few of the derived terms of hit, especially those beginning "hit the", seem to share informal and/or figurative senses of "hit" (verb), whether or not they are idiomatic. The senses seem to be missing in [[hit]].

I am especially interested in:
 * hit the deck, hit the dirt, hit the ground (hit with one's body)
 * hit the bricks, hit the road, hit the pavement, hit the streets, hit the highway (literally hitting a surface for traveling with one's feet)
 * hit the hay, hit the head, hit the sack, hit the silk (possibly "use")
 * hit the books, hit the skids, hit the jackpot (?)
 * hit the bottle, hit the rock (?)

-- DCDuring TALK 20:00, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I always imagined hit the hay and hit the sack to use (as you and I both think hit the deck and hit the ground use) a "hit with one's body; land on" sense of hit. Hit the books and hit the bottle seem to use a "use heavily" sense of hit, or something like that. Hit the jackpot I always imagined as using a "manage to arrive at" (or something like that) sense of hit also found in hit the target and hit the bull's-eye. We do have a "To manage to touch in the right place" sense with hit the jackpot as a usex. Imagination is a wonderful thing. —msh210℠ (talk) 20:24, 21 June 2011 (UTC)

shakescreen
I've see iPhone aps with what I call shakescreen or tiltscreen technology - it works where if you shake or wobble or tilt the phone, the screen appears as if it too is shaking/tilting (mostly used for games, I guess). Is there a more in-use word than shakescreen or tiltscreen to denote this, or other -screen words akin to touchscreen? If not, can these be promoted? BTW, iPhones are a good source of new language. --Murray Right 23:14, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Other -screens could be flickscreen, rubscreen, wavescreen, lickscreen - there's surely some games played where you flick/rub/wave/lick(?) the screen. --Murray Right 23:16, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * tilt screen at least may be citable --Murray Right 23:19, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree with the first comment; none of the proposed words have nothing to do with an actual screen technology like "touchscreen" does. This way, _anything_ that shows on the screen could get a "-screen" word. I don't think it's feasible... Arny 22:49, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

lhe
The content in this page is very confusing. In the definition part it says that lhe is the dative of ele and ela but in the table that follows, lhe is listed in the accusative section. I don't speak Portuguese so I can't make a correction, but could somebody please fix this inconsistency? Wyverald 01:25, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

 * I believe the problem is with the column labels in the table; its "Direct object (accusative case)" column seems to contain both direct and indirect object pronouns (accusative and dative cases), and its "Indirect object (dative case)" column contains what I believe are the object-of-preposition pronouns (prepositional case). —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 02:29, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

 * That’s right. lhe is the dative case, but it is an objective pronoun (object of a verb) rather than a prepositional pronoun. I changed the column headings. —Stephen (Talk) 02:47, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

-algia
We have treated this and many similar affixes used scientific and professional (law, medicine) fields as English. But most of them are rarely used with non-Latin stems (including Ancient-Greek ones derived as the Romans did). Many of the etymologies of these terms reference New Latin, but we have few of such suffixes. It may well be that most of the medical and legal words (less likely terms of more than one word) so derived are translingual, appearing in multiple European languages.

Should we not create Latin sections for such suffixes and move most or all of the derived terms to the Latin entries? That would also mean that should not be used in the English section as the suffixation takes place in Latin. This is more or less the way it works of is supposed to work for taxons. Medical and legal Latin terms are similar to the taxons, though there is no official standards body, AFAIK, and the derivations sometimes seem barbaric or in the manner of Vulgar or Late Latin. DCDuring TALK 01:30, 23 June 2011 (UTC)

Miranda warning
Miranda warning is a member of Category:American English. Is that categorization accurate? --Daniel 01:56, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * A Google news search for the past month shows 186 uses in US publications, 1 in a UK publication, a law-firm press release discussing their US capabilities. DCDuring TALK 02:13, 23 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --Daniel 20:24, 8 July 2011 (UTC)

Short form for STEWARD
Please advise me of the short form alphabets for the word STEWARD.

May be it is 'stwd'

Thank you

Randy Loo

marenge
Hi everybody. I found the word marenge in the english translation of a menu in Reykjavik. Any idea of what it could be? (the icelandic word was marens, but that doesn't help me) Thanks. --ArséniureDeGallium 23:33, 24 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Maybe a creative spelling of meringue? Nadando 00:25, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, that is also my best guess. I was just surprised because Icelanders generally speak a better English than mine. Thanks for the answer. --ArséniureDeGallium 09:29, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

willingness
If this is uncountable, why can we say "a willingness to do something"? On second inspection, there appears to be hits on Google Books for "willingnesses" anyway... ---> Tooironic 00:00, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * Many nouns are both, often in virtually the same sense. It is a little tedious to determine which is the more prevalent for a specific sense. "show" and synonyms + "a willingness" is about 4 times as common as "show" and synonyms + "willingness" at COCA. "Willingnesses" does not appear there. OTOH "our willingness" (112) and "their willingness" (541) are fairly common. I'm not really sure that "a" is a 100% reliable indicator on countability, though I have used it as such. The semantics of "a willingness" vs "willingness" seem a bit different to me. To me "a willingness" seems possibly situationally or otherwise qualified in a way that "willingness" does not. DCDuring TALK 02:48, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

History
Why is it that the word historic is preceeded with an, while history is preceeded with a?

 * See . Equinox ◑ 21:46, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

central business district / downtown
The inner city is referred to as the central business district in Australia and downtown in the United States. What do Britons call it? ---> Tooironic 05:43, 28 June 2011 (UTC)
 * town centre/city centre? Mglovesfun (talk) 22:28, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

make money
The entry make money, defined as "To acquire money." was deleted in 2008. I'd like to restore it. --Daniel 10:50, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

 * It seems SOP to me. This is not the most common sense of, of course, but it doesn't require the object "money"; you can just as easily say, "he made twenty bucks playing poker last night", or "studies show that if a woman makes much more than her husband does, then she's likely to do much more of the housework as well". This doesn't even seem like a very useful translation target, since most languages are likely to use some verb plus their word for "money", and the translation table at [[make]] is the right place to list that verb. —Ruakh <i >TALK</i > 11:46, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

 * OK, I accept your explanation and your new sense of "make". Thanks. --Daniel 12:17, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * This is a great exemplar of why we need more work on some basic entries. To complete one's idiomatic understanding of English, one needs to understand the scope of verbs like make, do, have, set, and go. To the extent a dictionary entry can help, our entries need work to provide that help. "Make money" is the main path to the applicable sense of "make". It would be nice to be able to use a redirect to get a user from a common collocation like "make money" to the specific sense line at make. Can that be done without hard-coded HTML, say, with some kind of template located at the sense, to which a template like or a conventional hard or soft redirect could link? DCDuring TALK  13:49, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

French entry abonnir
The current revision of the French entry abonnir has so many contexts, the templates can't even display all of them. Here's the def: <pre style="white-space: normal"># To improve; to render or become better. --Daniel 10:57, 30 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I just shortened it a bit, but conveying the same information. Mglovesfun (talk) 23:02, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Wiktionary:Tea room/2011/June


text:
pranotherapist

Noun

 * 1) A healer using the technique of pranotherapy.

title: pranotherapist


text: pranotherapists

title: pranotherapists


text:
camélido

Etymology
, from.

Noun

 * 1) camelid

title: camélido


text:
Talk:zhǔjiào

What kind of example sentence is this? Just to illustrate minimal pairs distinguished by tones?
 * Probably, you're free to change it of course. --Mglovesfun (talk) 23:11, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

title: Talk:zhǔjiào


text:
ܙܪܬܐ

Etymology
Compare 🇨🇬.

Noun

 * 1) span (of the hand)
 * 2)  hand, fist

title: ܙܪܬܐ


text:
multicamerate

Adjective

 * 1) multichambered

title: multicamerate


text:
主教

Noun

 * 1)  bishop

Verb

 * 1) to mainly teach

Noun

 * 1)  bishop

title: 主教


text: Category:Nepali adverbs

title: Category:Nepali adverbs


text:
ܚܒܘܫܐ

Etymology
From ; compare 🇨🇬.

Noun

 * 1) apple

Etymology
Compare 🇨🇬.

Noun

 * 1) kind of apple
 * 2) peach
 * 1) peach

Etymology
From.

Noun

 * 1) apple

title: ܚܒܘܫܐ


text:
царизм

Noun

 * 1) tsarism

title: царизм


text:
同列

Adjective

 * 1)  of the same rank or status

Noun

 * 1)  colleague

title: 同列


text:
idylatry

Etymology
From, from , from diminutive of.

Noun

 * 1) The state of being idyllic.
 * With its rolling landscapes, welcoming people, and peaceful serenity, the idylatry of the town was matched only by its isolation.

title: idylatry


text:
可恨

Adjective

 * 1) abominable; detestable; hateful

title: 可恨