text:
Wiktionary:Information desk/2020/April

How to create verb inflection table templates.
I am a somewhat experienced user, but I know next-to nothing about the computer engineering side of wiktionary. I want to add verb inflection tables for Munsee Delaware, (and others as well). I am totally able to create such tables linguistically, but really do not understand how to make them appear on wiktionary. Can someone run me through the process. I don't know what kind of scripts or computer languages it involves, and I really don't know much HTML, LUA or javascript.

A verb inflection table is crucial for being able to add entries in Algonquian languages, whose vocabulary is very verb-heavy, so it is essential that such templates exist. Thanks

 * Would the specific inflected forms of a given lemma be added by hand, or are they best computed by an algorithm according to a limited number of paradigms (like for example in French, if you encounter the verb acalifourchonner, even if you have never heard of this and have no idea what it means, you do know that its third person plural past imperfective indicative is acalifourchonnaient )? In the first case, there are templates that you can use as a model. In the second case, you will either need to learn some Lua or recruit someone to do the coding. --Lambiam 23:06, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

 * Can you tell me how difficult it would be to program rules for a language with somewhat complex verb morphology? The inflected forms could definitely be added by hand. (this is what I have done so far), but as there are countless thousands of possible verb forms this would be very tedious. While an algorithm could certainly produce proper forms, there are quite a few orthographic conventions which mean that certain letters combine with prefixes and suffixes to form diphthongs which can then further combine. Would it make sense to use a blank verb template for all verbs, or to make many templates for the many different types of stems? I do not know LUA well enough to encode complex spelling rules. For example -->  Certain letters change when preceded by specific letters, such as N. Before N: /t/ changes to--> /d/; /k/ --> /g/; /s/ -  -> /z/; /sh/ --> /zh/; /ch/ --> /j/... Additionally, many verbs have "unstable stems", which means that in some cases the verb-stem itself changes.                                                 For example, take the Animate Intransitive present indicative conjugation of the       verb: (stem form) /-amangíixsi-/ "to talk in a loud voice". The first and second person forms can be broken down semantically into the personal   prefixes /n-/ (1st person), /k-/ (second person) and the verb stem /-amangíixsi-/ Nŭmamangíixsi, Kŭmamangíixsi. In the 3rd person form, however, person is not marked   by a prefix, but by a suffix, /-w/. The final /i/ of the stem blends with the 3rd     person suffix in all such 3rd person singular unstable stem forms ending in /ii/,     and is realized as a /u/, producing the form amangíixsuw "he/she talks in a loud voice". Hk5183 (talk) 20:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

IP transcribing Hepburn's English-Japanese dictionary
I found Waei Gorinshūsei 1910 and subpage Waei Gorinshūsei 1910/1 which is linked from Public domain sources. Apparently the seventh edition of Hepburn's A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary. It was started by an IP 8 years ago and that anonymous editor was able to transcribe only one page which is Page 1.

Should these two be moved to an Appendix page? ～ POKéTalker（═◉═） 11:41, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

 * It should be moved to Wikisource. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 02:19, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Translations that are SOP
Hi, what's the procedure for adding a translation where the translation isn't a single word but the term in the foreign language is SOP and unlikely to ever get an entry of its own? I've seen this a few times, but as an example my most recent encounter was while adding translations at Cistercian—Chinese and Korean have no single word to my knowledge meaning "a Cistercian" and will instead say "monk of the Cistercian Order" (시토회 수도사 in Korean). But the Korean is straightforwardly just +. It would make sense to just link the words separately but not sure how to do that properly (two t templates?). Nizolan (talk) 13:17, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

 * ko. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 22:43, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, have corrected accordingly. Didn't think to check since I assumed link syntax would break it. Nizolan (talk) 23:13, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Word frequency
I am new on this platform and have a question. Not sure if this is the way to trigger replies.

With a colleague I wrote a book in Dutch on how to deal with  dilemmas. Title "Dansen met Dilemma's - Op weg naar wederzijdse winst". (see www.dansenmetdilemmas.nl) We are now considering to have it translated in English but need to adapt some of its content  to an English  speaking audiance.

In a certain paragraph we discuss the meaning of the word dilemma and graphically list the frequency of usage of the word in articles (in our case the frequence in the NRC newspaper over the  last 10 years. We compare its usage to that of words with a similar meaning: Paradox, contradiction, conflict.

In the English version we may limit ourselves to just mentioning the frequency number of those words. How do I find the frequency number of those words? For instance in the Project Gutenberg list of in TV programs? How can I sort the list in alphabetical order?

Thanks Allard Everts Evertsal (talk) 14:00, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Those words have rather different meanings. In any case, you should probably use Google Ngrams results. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 14:26, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you so much. Didn't know this existed. Indeed the meaning of the words is very different, but each of them is used to indicate a situation of tension. For your interest: many times the words dilemma and paradox are used as synonyms. This is utterly wrong, but such is the way people (mis)use words. The Google statistics are not very recent, but they show the same trend as what we have in our book (2005-2016 statitics from the major Dutch newspaper). I could still approach the Guardian or the Financial Times, but for now this is perfect. Thanks again Evertsal (talk) 15:08, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

 * For future reference, another platform for asking questions is the . --Lambiam 20:42, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Performing bulk edits
I'm a NLP researcher who uses Wiktionary to collect pronunciation data. As part of this effort we have noticed various inconsistencies (see also here) in phonemic transcriptions, and in one case even developed a spreadsheet with fixes. However there are often thousands of such fixes. Does there exist any tool or API that could allow us to apply bulk edits? Our team has the technical expertise to make use of such tools if they in fact exist. Kylebgorman (talk)
 * Yes; see WT:BOT. However, you would need to create a vote to get your bot approved, and I would also like to see confirmation from a fluent Georgian speaker that these fixes are correct. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 16:50, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that. Some Georgian grammars use one, some use the other, but none have both. And it seems that that they're not separate phonemes, they're just in free variation or something like that. I have a student who works with Georgian speakers and I'll ask if we can get an official opinion. Kylebgorman (talk) 18:03, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I think rather than manually editing transcriptions, it would be better to replace with  to automatically generate the transcription. Then if the transcription system needs to change, it requires a single edit to the module rather than many edits to entries. Some of the words in the TSV have already been switched over to  and therefore don't need fixing (but not all based on this search). — Eru·tuon 18:07, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * : What you said about and Georgian...would this not also apply to  and Bulgarian (which also has noted inconsistencies along similar lines) and also the Lithuanian pronunciation module (there's no template yet, but once again, there are known and seemingly random inconsistencies)?
 * Well, not all languages can be applied without human intervention; respelling or special parameters may be necessary, like pitch accent in Lithuanian. Georgian is apparently a case where this can be done automatically, according to Giorgi. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 23:58, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * In general language-specific IPA templates make it easier to keep transcriptions consistent so it's a good idea to switch over to them when they exist, though it's not always be possible to do it using a bot, as Metaknowledge says. is a good example; it often requires manual input because French orthography isn't completely phonemic. — Eru·tuon 06:45, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * the standard way to add pronunciation to a Georgian article here is to use Module:ka-IPA which is a simple one-to-one mapping from Georgian to IPA. The inconsistencies you guys noticed is due to some articles not using this module.
 * BTW, geo.tsv seems wrong. It claims აალებადი has this IPA ɑɑlɛbɑdɪ which it does not.
 * I give a green light to anyone who owns a bot to change all articles not using to use one. I can even give the interested person a javascript snippet I have been using to correct entries semi-automatically. Giorgi Eufshi (talk) 18:09, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm running a bot on it now! User:Aryamanbot. Let me know if you spot anything weird. —AryamanA (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान) 00:39, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I guess I should ping as well. —AryamanA (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान) 00:47, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I thank you Aryaman! Giorgi Eufshi (talk) 13:28, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Creating word-forms en masse using ACCEL
I would like to ask if it is possible to create word-forms en masse using WT:ACCEL. Let's say the conjugation table of a word generates 100 word-forms that could be created using ACCEL (i.e. by opening the pages one by one and saving the pages), instead of going through the tedious process of opening and saving 100 pages, is it possible to quickly create all the word-forms generated by the table (given that I have confirmed the correctness of the word-forms, of course)? I am aware of the existence of bots, but I don't have the skills to create a bot. Jonashtand (talk) 10:21, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I think it would be easy and useful to have a bot that just does what WT:ACCEL does. It would call the modules directly and generate the entries, then save. —Rua (mew) 11:41, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Not all languages are equally reliable. But you do have the ability to do that kind of bot run, and I would support it as long as you only do it for languages where a contributor has confirmed that the entries are generally reliable. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 19:22, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Would it be possible for someone to do this without relying on another party to run a bot? Editor clicks "create accelerated forms" on a table, and whatever it is does its thing. Perhaps it could make edits in that editor's name, instead of having a bot account. —Rua (mew) 20:13, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Help:Language inflection bot is a decent start to doing botting. --Vitoscots (talk) 00:05, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * That doesn't really help with the problem at hand, e.g. hundreds of Swahili nouns that need plurals, etc. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 02:30, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Cool! I wasn't aware of such a help page. Thanks! Jonashtand (talk) 19:11, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Is there a way to search by Middle Chinese Initials?
Either the characters themselves, or the various transliterations. I found Module:ltc-pron, and it seems like there should be some way to find entries based on that, but I have no clue if that's possible. Kiragecko (talk) 15:35, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

What was the word for "insect" in Middle English?
"Insect" sounds scientific and Latinate, and "bug" feels like a modern Americanism. What would Chaucer have called this type of organism? Equinox ◑ 09:25, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

 * beastie? --Vitoscots (talk) 09:32, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

 * Nah that is any kind of animal. That could be cats or dogs. Equinox ◑ 11:36, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * If I had to fake a Chaucer text, I'd call them creepie-craulies or beastlete. --Vitoscots (talk) 15:25, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

 * Perhaps it was still, like in Old English, – not yet specialized to the legless creepy-crawlies.

 * Maybe more specific terms were more common, like (see the etymology of ) or ? Or maybe there was an SOP umbrella term for them all.... Andrew Sheedy (talk) 17:55, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * most definitely did refer primarily to worm-shaped animals, as that is the primary meaning in all the Germanic languages. What the Germanic languages also have in common is the lack of an umbrella term for all insects. It's quite likely that speakers of the time simply didn't consider them to have much in common, other than all being small. In other words, not only is the word "insect" modern, but the concept, too. —Rua (mew) 15:32, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It's definitely not a match for the modern concept, but it does seem like might be the closest term in Middle English, where it could be used in a broad sense to include all 'crawling things' (arthropods, worms, and reptiles). Taking some quotes from the MED, worms can be
 * spiders ('The venymous spyþur hatte aranea and is a worme')
 * scorpions ('Scorpiun is a cunnes wurm')
 * grasshoppers ('If hungir were sprungyn in þe lond & pestilence…& locust & werm [L bruchus]')
 * moths, six-legged and many-legged arthropods, salamanders, snakes ('Of wormes beþ many maner diuerse kyndes…somme beþ water wormes and somme beþ londe wormes, And of þilke some beþ in herbes and in wortes, as melschragges and oþere suche…and some in cloþes, as moþþes…and among wormes, some beþ footeles, as addres and serpentes, and some haueþ many feete, and some haueþ sixe feete, And some beþ…enemyes to mankynde, as serpentes and oþere venemous wormes…And some wormes…beþ ygendred and gendreþ nouʒt, as þe salamandra')
 * fireflies ('To make a continuall lyght withoute fyre…Take…wormys that schynen anyghte tyme in the ffeeldys')
 * ants and flies ('Many wormes he made also, As amptis, flies and oþir mo')
 * There's about half as many quotes for worm in this broad sense as for worm in reference to worm-shaped animals, so it wasn't the primary meaning by any stretch, but still pretty common. — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 16:15, 12 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Maybe it didn't appear as much in formal writing? "Bug" is a very common word, but is typically limited to an informal register in the general sense. Perhaps "worm" was the general word for bug among the illiterate classes. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:55, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Mount Niqiu now as Mount Nisha
Hello, can anyone explain if they know or have some information as to really why Mount Niqui was changed to Mount Nishan. Just curious in my Confucius studies...thanks

 * A better name than either in English is . The terms and  are synonyms, both meaning “mount”, ”hill”. So Mount Nishan is so much as Mount Mount Ni. I don’t know the reason for the Chinese name change. Perhaps to avoid confusion with the town by the name of  located some 300 km to the south. The spelling in Chinese characters of the two Niquis is different, though, so Chinese pilgrims wouldn't have been confused.  --Lambiam 22:49, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

 * According to this archived web page, the name change was to avoid a taboo on the name Qiu, which, if I understand correctly, was given to Confucius. Someone who understands Chinese can probably be of more help. --Lambiam 23:16, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

 * The same taboo explanation is offered in this book. --Lambiam 23:25, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

 * And here is that story again, now in English. --Lambiam 13:22, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Why is there no category for homonyms?
We're having a discussion over at w:Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of true homonyms and curious why there are no category for homonyms. Also if a bot could take words copy and pasted over somewhere, and then search for those words on the wiktionary and add that category automatically. I searched around and see you have a template at Template:nyms that list various other categories that could be added as well. Dream Focus (talk) 18:49, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , we have Category:English terms with homophones and Category:English terms with multiple etymologies, which cover both senses of homonym. — Ungoliant (falai) 18:36, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

RQ
In templates like, which I've been using for ages now, what do the letters RQ stand for? This is out of pure curiosity. Reference Quote?--Vitoscots (talk) 11:14, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, R is the prefix for reference templates, and Q is the template (previously a template prefix) for quotation templates, so I suppose so. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 19:20, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Avestan font?
On ire, I get "this font is missing" boxes for Avestan in the section "Etymology 2". How do I get to see it correctly? --Palnatoke (talk) 15:57, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * You need to download an Avestan font, or use a browser that already applies one for you (as I believe Safari does, for example). I don't think there's anything we can do from our side. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 19:18, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Two fonts you can download and install: Ahuramazda and Noto Sans Avestan. These should be automatically used on Wiktionary at least once you have installed them and maybe restarted your browser. (They are assigned to Avestan-script text in MediaWiki:Common.css.) — Eru·tuon 05:51, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much, both of you. Not that I can read Avestan, but I do find the "this font is missing" boxes quite annoying. --Palnatoke (talk) 10:58, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Now I have Avestan on the page, but in the edit box I still have the boxes. --Palnatoke (talk) 11:05, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It might be browser-specific behavior. My browser is Firefox and it automatically applies Noto Sans Avestan to Avestan-script text in the edit box. (It tends to get fonts right more often than I remember Chrome doing.) Maybe you have a different browser? — Eru·tuon 19:31, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Sounds plausible. I use Brave, which is Chromium-based. Oh well. Thank you for the help anyways. --Palnatoke (talk) 20:25, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Loanwords list
How to get list of loanwords ? Borneq (talk) 16:58, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Category:English borrowed terms. — Ungoliant (falai) 18:31, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

How to edit content that is inside a template portion of a entry?
How do I access the content of a templated portion of an entry? I can see the source, which is only a link to the template, but I cannot select the text inside the template box: Ex: 齿 Trying to remove the extra "etc." TEXT: For pronunciation and definitions of 齿 – see 齒 (“tooth; tooth- or zigzag-like thing, such as sawtooth, cogwheel, fern, etc.; etc.”). (This character, 齿, is the simplified form of 齒.) Salty3dog (talk) 21:19, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It depends on the template. In this case, the template is and the text comes from the entry being linked to, . — Eru·tuon 21:45, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I've edited the entry to remove the extra "etc." — Eru·tuon 21:50, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Why is it a lemma?
Excuse me for asking, but why does the Roman Empire is a lemma? -and the similar- It is not a term like the Holy Roman Empire which has specific meaning. ‑‑Sarri.greek ♫ | 19:33, 26 April 2020 (UTC) Of the empire some regard both space and time: There is no 'other' Roman Empire. It is an empire by the Romans, by the Ottomans, etc. and the first word explains it all. Others are not, and I understand why they have a lemma (Russian Empire, British Empire: it is not clear what period we are referring to. ‑‑Sarri.greek ♫ | 19:41, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The proper noun does have a specific meaning: the empire that existed from 27 BC to AD 476/1453, rather than any empire pertaining to Rome. "Roman" only explains it sufficiently when it's used as a common noun, e.g. " ... aimed to establish a Roman empire that could compete with the church" . —Nizolan (talk) 21:29, 14 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you Nizolan, I just saw your answer. ‑‑Sarri.greek ♫ | 14:25, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

looking for word
Is there a word in English to denote something that causes a disaster, or any kind of trouble? Thanks. ---> Tooironic (talk) 08:44, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Maybe is too obvious... I think in general, the term that comes to mind is "inciting incident" or "cause" more than any specific word that means, "This is an immediate cause of something exclusively bad". A "hazard" has the potential to cause a problem but isn't necessarily actualized as one. Maybe that helps? —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 09:00, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

 * In some cases, but not really specific to disasters. Equinox ◑ 14:35, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

 * Thanks everyone. ---> Tooironic (talk) 01:21, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Meaning of "c" in TV listings
e.g. "ALL NEW Bering Sea Gold | Friday 10/9c". Is it ? Should we add it to Wiktionary? Equinox ◑ 14:33, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
 * If that's a US listing that stands for "Central Time". As I understand it, network TV broadcasts are delayed to the appropriate hour for the timezone in the western half of the US, but not in the Central timezone, which is only an hour different. Chuck Entz (talk) 14:48, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah. And, for the curious, it's spoken aloud as "Friday [at] ten, nine Central". (There's probably audio of it on YouTube, somewhere.) - -sche (discuss) 21:47, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Additionally, the mainland States has four time zones (plus Alaska and Hawaii), so Central Time (Chicago, Houston, etc.) airs at the same time as Eastern (Boston, Miami, New York City, etc.) and Mountain Time (Boise, Denver, Phoenix, etc.) airs alongside Pacific (Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, etc.) Additionally, it's occasionally true that live programs have an East Coast and a West Coast broadcast. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:46, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Grammatical terms used in the definitions of the Oxford English Dictionary
For example, the entry for the noun "counsel" reads:

(Usually a collective plural, but sometimes treated as a numeral plural; formerly, in ‘to desire the benefit of counsel’, treated as a collective sing.: cf. quot. 1681.)

The terms don't appear either in the Glossary of grammatical terms

I'd like to know where I can find the definitions/explanations of all the grammatical terms used throughout the OED, such as collective plural, numeral plural, collective singular. --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:26, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

 * The term “collective plural” can be used for a collective noun that takes a plural verb form in British English: “ Counsel have had little part in regulating and disciplining their colleagues.” If (mainly in non-British English) a collective noun is used with a singular verb form, for example as in “The counsel was disbanded”, it is a “collective singular”. Some nouns can also be used as a count noun that retains its singular form although representing a specified number of members: “The fourth respondent is not one of the three counsel nominated.” This is an example of a numeral plural. --Lambiam 08:03, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Would numeral plurals and "unchangable plurals" then be the same? --Backinstadiums (talk) 11:51, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * It is likely that people mean the same, although I’d prefer to say “unchang ed plural”. It is not hard to find examples of the plural “counsels”, as in “each of the counsels”; likewise for collective unchanged plural “fish” vs. the inflected plural “fishes”. So the nouns “counsel” and “fish” are not per se unchangeable. --Lambiam 15:38, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

title: Wiktionary:Information desk/2020/April


text:
Wiktionary:Information desk/2020/May

Template for requesting etymology
I forgot what is was, can someone help?--Prisencolin (talk) 21:24, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * rfv-etym (don't forget the language code). I'm not sure why they decided not to make the old name into a redirect. I still find myself forgetting the current name if I haven't used it in a while and it takes a minute to dredge that up. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:14, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

Main Page
I want it to be cascade protected because the main page is easy to break. Denimalt (talk) 00:18, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * How so? E.g.? —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:55, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Like Vandalism. Denimalt (talk) 01:15, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Cascading protection on Main Page was disabled because it prevented many templates and modules that were used there from being edited. Instead, the templates or modules that are used on the Main Page that need protection are protected. See the history up to September 2016 and this discussion and others around the same time for more information. — Eru·tuon 01:41, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

What does this Chinese text say, if anything?
Top of this screenshot:. (I don't think anyone looks at Translation Requests any more, and it's only one "sentence".) Equinox ◑ 22:21, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

 * Fascinating design choices made in the character shapes. I wonder if the person who drew them knows Chinese. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 07:22, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Fascinating design choices made in the character shapes. I wonder if the person who drew them knows Chinese. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 07:22, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

 * Nah, he got it from zh.wikipedia, I realise now. It's a satirical/parody game entered into a competition for poor-quality games! Equinox ◑ 20:32, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

 * Also:
 * perhaps a reference to ? —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 07:26, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
 * perhaps a reference to ? —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 07:26, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Words with the biggest number of meanings
Hello, is there a list, perhaps automatically created, containing the words with the biggest number of English meanings, according to Wiktionary? Jack who built the house (talk) 09:44, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
 * In case there is no such and anybody would like to write a script, here's rough jQuery code that extracts the number of English meanings on a page, including nested ones (i.e., it doesn't count prototypical meanings). It works in the browser console, but could also work in a Node.js bot (you would need the cheerio npm module to make jQuery work there):  Jack who built the house (talk) 10:56, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

What's that word: a phonological setting
There's a word in phonology etc. for the (place, environment, setting, context?) in which a particular sound occurs. What is that word? Equinox ◑ 08:23, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * place of articulation —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 17:27, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * ? It seems to be the term of art. That's not the same thing as the though. PUC – 17:31, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Or do you mean things like “Northern Appalachians, 1880s”? The term is used by some researchers in that sense.  --Lambiam 20:12, 10 May 2020 (UTC)

 * Oh, I meant the place between other vowels etc., not the physical point of articulation of a sound. Maybe "locale". Not sure. Equinox ◑ 03:10, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I still have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe an example would help, but it sounds like "locale" is definitely not it. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 03:18, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

 * I mean the kind of situation that it occurs in. For example, in grammar, a word might occur immediately before a conjunction; in phonology, a vowel might occur immediately after a nasal. This is its "setting" or whatever. Equinox ◑ 05:58, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

 * I think what you're looking for is environment. For example, in many languages, voiceless consonants become voiced in an intervocalic environment. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:21, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I think the term environment is used in that context because the consonant is surrounded by vowels. Otherwise, it is more common to use “prevocalic/postvocalic position ”. And that term can also be used in combination with intervocalic:, , . --Lambiam 06:55, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

racial classifications
We have a bunch of them, like mulatto (where, for lack of any better way to do this, I've been centralizing the lot of 'em), mustee, quadroon, marabou, etc. Do we want to put these in a category? A few are haphazardly placed into the "racism" category. - -sche (discuss) 08:45, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure. And if there were a category for dated racial terms, should it include and the like as well? —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 17:26, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * These are not racial classifications, but English nouns for people with (various degrees of) multiracial ancestry. This is a bit of a mouthful for a category name, but better a long then a misleading name. --Lambiam 20:02, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Nouns which presuppose a conceptual classification, so the same thing. Just that some are less official than others. We have Category:Taxonomy; but since these terms only apply to one species there needs to have a special category – but here you have at least the supercategory; in principle special treatment of man here is not surprising, it is like the split between veterinary medicine and human medicine. Fay Freak (talk) 18:09, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

A weird red link, %E2%81%A0Charles...?????
Yup, you saw that right. A red link for Charles, which should most definitely be an entry here. What I did was include "%E2%81%A0" in the link. How do I know this?

Well, I was using a Python script to generate links to words from excerpts, that I copy into User:PseudoSkull/Words from my Atom text editor, and for some reason that particular word included that "%E2%81%A0" line before it after I copied it (it doesn't seem to be there in the text editor). So how could I have picked this up from my text editor?

According to Charbase, this is called "U+2060: WORD JOINER". The other thing I know is that the particular text this instance of "Charles" came from was Oliver_Twist_(1922_film), and the original text for that "Charles" was in a cursive font.

...I am still genuinely confused. \o/ PseudoSkull (talk) 06:02, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Did a little detective work. That word joiner occurs on s:Page:Oliver Twist (1922).webm/7 and it comes from s:Template:Gap. Not sure what the purpose is though. — Eru·tuon 06:21, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Gap just offsets text. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 06:34, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yeah, but then why the word joiner? I thought maybe it would allow Arabic words to be joined across the gap (why that would be needed, I don't know), but that doesn't seem to be the case. — Eru·tuon 16:19, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Reckon it's to keep from line breaks before the text that has a gap. If you have Line A ends with "...text text text [gap]" and then Line B starting "Text text text...", then it's not clear that there ever was some reason why a gap was inserted for the initial print edition of the work. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:36, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'm confused by your wording, like "keep from line breaks"... do you mean that the word joiner is to try to make the word before the gap and the word after the gap both appear on the same line? — Eru·tuon 18:58, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Wow, I tried to be as clear as I could but I guess I'm just having an off day when it comes to communicating with intelligent adults. :/ Per my example above, you want the whitespace gap on the same line as the text that immediately follows it, so that it's clear that there even is a gap. From what I'm seeing, the joiner makes the gap and the following word on the same line but not the word preceding the gap. (I hope that's more clear--I just got bad sleep this past day.) —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:02, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Ah, thanks, I've got it now. Yeah, I have some days with the same malady. — Eru·tuon 19:06, 21 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I used to get invisi-junk somewhat similar to this when copy-pasting material from Google Books search results, but I think they changed whatever was causing it. (Almost related: this week I had a stupid bug where some SQL in a Web script got no results, despite being obviously correct when I printed the SQL to investigate. After spending ages checking if I was actually connected to the correct db, I realised I was looking at output in a browser, and yes, there was a whole HTML tag lurking in there. duh) Equinox ◑ 18:55, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

It is about role of round brackets in words transcription.
I've noticed that in transcriptions of some words there is round brackets, for example: letter, intellectual and government have transcriptions /ˈlɛtə(ɹ)/(RP)(https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/letter), /ˌɪntəˈlɛk(t)ʃʊəl/(https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/intellectual) and /ˈɡʌvə(n)mənt/(RP)(https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/government), respectively; what role is given to these brackets? I apologize if a similar question has already been asked before, but I will be very grateful if I get an answer to it. Thanks in advance.
 * They're called parentheses, and they mark that something is optional. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 21:22, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you very much!^_^

Question: Shortcut to Search Wiktionary box when typing in Arabic?
I use the shortcut alt-shift-f to jump to 'Search Wiktionary'. However, when I'm looking up Arabic words I am typing in Arabic. alt-shift-f (which is actually alt-shift-ب when typing in Arabic) does not work. Question: is there an equivalent shortcut when using Arabic? Or should I change a setting? Thanks in advance for any help.
 * No. It is the usual bad software design to connect software actions with the strings returned from pressing keys, instead of binding the actions to the positions of keys (the keycodes). Fay Freak (talk) 12:45, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't understand the distinction. Can you clarify what this means? —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:08, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Easy example: Y and Z on the German keyboard layouts by reason of the frequency in the language. An US programmer makes a jump'n'run game where Z is the key to jump and X to shoot. But the way he has implemented it a German user needs to press a totally different key, stretching his hand to reach for both the jump and the shoot key. And with an Arabic layout one cannot do anything at all, because there is no Z or X . The application could have been programmed to listen to the position of the key only. Software development libraries designed to provide hardware abstraction layers (to provide a libre example, ) offer easy methods for both ways for application developers. Fay Freak (talk) 18:29, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Got it. So instead of "Alt+Shift+F", it should be "Alt+Shift+[the home row left pointer finger key]". —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:44, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Thing and Object
Both Thing and Object are basal/fundamental terms in English. Thing also has the derivations: something, anything, everything, nothing; which are used a lot. Unfortunately, fundamental things are hard to define, particularly in meaningful ways (i.e. other than just using a synonym) and without circular definitions. Thing and Object currently show the following circular definitions: A thing is an object; an object is a thing. The same problem shows in Wikipedia for Object (philosophy) and Thing (disambiguation). --Rwilkin (talk) 13:21, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Should the quote be on its obsolete spelling, or on the current one?
Looking at savage, there's currently a Dryden quote, "savage berries of the wood". In the first edition, it's ſalvage; in more recent copies, it's savage. I see that salvage lists itself as an obsolete spelling. Do I put the Dryden quote with the obsolete spelling under savage, or under salvage? grendel|khan 18:31, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * The obsolete spelling is far more valuable, because it displays that this spelling actually was used. It's probably less urgent to show that the word "savage" actually exists in English but I was totally ignorant that "ſ/salvage" was ever a word. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:21, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * That sounds reasonable; done and done! grendel|khan 21:56, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
 * In general, it depends on the use for the quote: if it's for verifying that an alternative form exists/existed, definitely it should go on the alternative form page. If you're trying to show the range of usage, it should go on the main form page, or on the main form's Citations page if it would overload things. Of course, you can do both: have the verification quotes on the alternative-form page and also have a selection of the same quotes at the main-form entry or citations page.
 * The idea is to have enough at the main-form page to give a full picture, but to have at the alternative form only things that apply to the alternative form but not the main form, such as pronunciation, labels where the alternative form is limited in some way (e.g. it's regional or more formal/informal), and (rarely) etymology for cases where the main-form etymology is wrong when applied to the alternative form. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:22, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Expressive origin
cuc states under Etymology: "of expressive origin". What does that mean? 93.136.158.189 11:38, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

 * My guess would have been imitative (like the sound "woof") but I don't see how it applies here. Equinox ◑ 15:46, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

 * Got an answer here from Word dewd544 who originally added that etymology. 93.136.20.32 12:28, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Interviews
Can you inform us of any interviews with Wiktionarians? I remember there being an in-depth one a couple years ago. --Undurbjáni (talk) 23:35, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

incorrect translation of the ancient Greek word ῥώννυμι
The translation of the ancient Greek word ῥώννυμι is incorrect. This word has absolutly nothing to do with health. It's like a circle. Everyone writes it wrong from the other.

 * So what is the correct translation, and on whose authority should we accept this as correct? --Lambiam 20:48, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

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

title: Wiktionary:Information desk/2020/May


text:
Wiktionary:Information desk/2020/June

I just tried to swap to articles (µK and μK), and something went south. Help?
µK is with U+00B5 : MICRO SIGN

μK is with U+03BC : GREEK SMALL LETTER MU

Moving didn't work, so I tried swapping the content of both pages. The second act of that sequence was blocked by an "SLO" filter, and now I can't even undo the edit I did to the other article. Right now, they both redirect to each other ):

What can I do?
 * This is confusing and I'm sometimes slow, so maybe help me understand:
 * What content should be at the page µK (micro sign/K)?
 * What content should be at the page μK (mu/K)?
 * While Wiktionary does have some redirects, they are far more rare than (e.g.) Wikipedia. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 21:24, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Originally, the mu page said that it was a symbol for microkelvin, and the other one redirected to that.
 * I thought that it should be the other way around, such that the micro sign page has the content and the mu page redirects to it.
 * I tried to move the mu page to the micro page, but I couldn't, since the micro page was there already. I couldn't find a delete button,
 * so I decided to try swapping both site's contents. The second edit of this was picked up by some editing filter,
 * and I tried undoing my change to the other page, thinking that this filter was to prevent swapping of content,
 * but the filter also blocked the undo.
 * Theanswertolifetheuniverseandeverything (talk) 01:08, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for explaining. Can you point me to any resources that use either <µK> or <μK>? That can help me understand if one form is used (and if so, which one) or if both forms are used. INS Note also that µ (micro) redirects to μ (mu). —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:12, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure, but, my question is mostly concerned with: Why was my second edit stopped? What should I do instead, if I wanted to swap two pages? Should I ask an administrator? What does "SLO" mean? Theanswertolifetheuniverseandeverything (talk) 01:31, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The term "SLO" refers to Special:AbuseFilter/83 (note that you won't be able to view the details of this as you aren't an administrator). Without going into too much detail, MediaWiki allows users to set up filters that block potentially unhelpful edits, e.g. if someone writes the same character repeating more than seven times or if more than 80% of an edit is in ALL CAPS or if someone adds a link that includes a string like "freeMP3s.biz", etc. The AbuseFilter isn't perfect, so there's always a balance between vandalism, accidents, and good edits. It seems like yours was in the second camp. In the future, if you see two pages that you think should be swapped, definitely do contact an admin, as just copying and pasting the content of one page into another page is not allowed (it breaks the edit history and makes it impossible to give proper attribution to the editors who made the page). Good questions and your instinct was understandable, even if you were off base this time. Let me know if you have any more questions. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 02:10, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

 * The symbol µ (U+00B5) is a legacy symbol that is kept in Unicode for backwards compatibility with, in which it was included because the Greek letter mu is the symbol for micro-. As Unicode now covers the full Greek alphabet, it is not needed for other reasons than compatibility with legacy data. Any page whose title uses it should redirect to a page in whose title µ (U+00B5) is replaced by μ (U+03BC).  --Lambiam 18:31, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Font for rare Chinese characters
I'd like to install a font that will display rare Chinese characters such as 𠊎 (Hakka ngai/我) and 𰻞/𰻝 (biangbiang noodles). Any advice on where/how to download one? I use a Mac. —Granger (talk · contribs) 16:40, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The font test page at ctext.org has some resources (Hanazono font with instructions). There's also Adobe's Source Han and the open-source I.Ming. Hope that helps! --Frigoris (talk) 17:56, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I would suggest Hanazono but a version with biang hasn't come out yet. Try BabelStone Han (and install Hanazono anyway). —Suzukaze-c (talk) 04:25, 12 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you! —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:15, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Citing Corpus of Contemporary American English
I use COCA a lot to find quotations. I'm a little concerned that someone who wanted to verify the quotes I'm pulling from there may be hard pressed to do so. For example, this one I recently added at thing:

It's seemingly impossible to look up this quote (if, say, you wanted to verify it, or see more context) via google. But if you know to search COCA, it becomes easy. Is it worthwhile to add some text to such a quote to indicate that it was accessed via COCA (or whatever other searchable online corpus)? Maybe, if using the quote-av template, some text like "Accessed via COCA" could be stuffed into the "footer" parameter? Or is it not worth the clutter? Unfortunately, COCA doesn't have permalinks for search results, so there's no appropriate value for the "archiveurl" param. Colin M (talk) 19:32, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I think adding that is a good idea, with the wording you suggested. Someone shouldn't have to listen to radio archives just to find your quote. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:07, 11 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the reply! I've made this change at thing for some quotes I added (senses 4 and 8). I'm not a huge fan of the formatting that resulted from using the template's "footer" field, since it adds a whole new line below the text of the quote. I'm all ears if anyone has thoughts on a better way to present the information. I was tempted to stuff it in the "publisher" field, but that seemed like it might violate the field's intended meaning. Colin M (talk) 15:20, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Lavabo
This entry states the term for this ritual comes from Psalm 25:6, "I will wash." However, Ps. 25:6 reads, "Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love,for they have been from of old." (NRSV)

It is Psalm 26:6 that reads, "I wash my hands in innocence, and go around your altar, O Lord. . ." (NRSV)
 * That's true in the Hebrew and in the modern translations, but the Septuagint (Greek) and the Vulgate (Latin) divide things differently. The Douay-Rheims translation is from the Vulgate, so it follows the same numbering. Since this word comes from the Vulgate, it only makes sense to use that version's numbering. I added a note to the etymology to clear up the confusion. Chuck Entz (talk) 05:50, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Best way to search phonetic spellings with regular expressions?
I'm interested in being able to search soft rhymes, half rhymes, etc.

I'm reading between the lines with other rhyming software that it does this by searching a dictionary with phonetic spellings. I'd love a way to do this manually with wiktionary.

Any suggestions?

Wikitionary Newcomer Question
Hello, I am a newcomer on wikitionary. I want to know how wiktionary works. what are rules? What are you supposed to do on wikitionary also, I have used wikipedia before. Any support would be okay - Hamuyi
 * If you are familiar with Wikipedia, then you might find WT:WFW helpful. —Rua (mew) 14:50, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Okay. Thank you. -.-Hamuyi (talk) 17:44, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Template for uses other than figurative or idiomatic
I thought there was a template to create a sense with something akin to (not the exact wording) "For uses other than figurative or idiomatic ones, see blue and balls."

I can't find it. Anyone knows what I'm talking about? Alexis Jazz (talk) 15:01, 17 June 2020 (UTC)
 * &lit Chuck Entz (talk) 03:33, 18 June 2020 (UTC)

Romanized pronunciation guide: Greek entries
I noticed that a romanized pronunciation guide is offered for Greek entries. As a Greek learner, I find this extremely helpful! I have found one minor problem, however. The Greek diphthong ει should be rendered simply as i, not ei. I attempted to make the changes on the page for the verb κλείνω but could not find the romanized guide on the edit page. I suspect that the problem is systemic and that it has been codified to all Greek entries. Can anyone point me in the direction to alert those in charge? Thank you!
 * Greek transliteration is handled by Module:el-translit. could be transliterated as i (and so could, which is currently transliterated as y) but I don't know if everyone would agree to it. — Eru·tuon 19:59, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
 * There's a difference between transliteration, which is for showing spelling for people who can't read the script, and transcription, which is for showing pronunciation. The "ei" is the former, while "i" would be the latter. With transliterations, the idea is to use different spellings for things that are spelled differently in the original alphabet- having several combinations of Greek letters transliterated as "i" violates that. The place to look for pronunciation information is in the Pronunciation section. Chuck Entz (talk) 03:00, 23 June 2020 (UTC)
 * For the transliteration used, see Greek transliteration. Note this emphatic statement: The transliteration of Greek letters into Roman characters is not intended to provide a phonetic representation of a word. --Lambiam 12:28, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
 * See, though. PUC – 15:04, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Talk pages
Why are individual entries' talk pages so rarely used? Glades12 (talk) 10:36, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * There are over 6 million of them, and very few people have any one entry on their watchlists. If no one spots your edit in Special:RecentChanges it may be several years before anyone is even aware of any edits to them. Chuck Entz (talk) 13:32, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * So, the answer is simply that people don't use watchlists? The English Wikipedia also has over 6 million article talk pages, and an even more active community, but that doesn't make them nearly as rarely used as WT's. Glades12 (talk) 18:21, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The answer is that pages are edited in different ways with different types of content, moreover by a different kind of and fewer people, so watchlists are also used differently. Fay Freak (talk) 18:55, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * There's less to talk about anyway. On Wikipedia you have BLP issues, which photo to use, fixing various issues. A Wiktionary entry is more simple in that regard, there are less controversial edits. Also, there are many talk pages like w:Talk:Ettrick Pen and w:Talk:Raymond G. Esposito Trail which have no discussion of any kind. Alexis Jazz (talk) 19:31, 24 June 2020 (UTC)
 * FWIW, as someone experienced with Wikipedia but new here, I also find this strange. It seems like concerns are more often articulated in the main entry itself, either via HTML comments or templates like attention or rfc. Or on noticeboards like WT:Tea room. If the talk page were used instead, that would have the benefit of leaving an easily discoverable record of the discussion (even after it's been resolved), rather than it only existing buried in the article's edit history, or in the archives of a separate noticeboard. For certain discussions on Wikipedia like Requested Moves and Requests for Comments, they follow the model of having the canonical discussion on the relevant article's talk page, but also having a bot automatically list/tranclude active discussions on another page that serves as a directory of all active RMs or RfCs or whatever (so that it's also discoverable by editors who don't have the relevant article watchlisted). It seems like an effective approach. Colin M (talk) 19:30, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, RFV, RFD, RFC, and sometimes Tea Room discussions are archived to the relevant talk pages. The fact of the matter is that any conversation begun on a talk page attracts very little attention, because the ratio of pages to users is just too high for any of them to be monitored very closely. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 07:16, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Xingjiang
How should this word be added to the Xinjiang page? I'm not familiar with the way that misspellings (if this is a misspelling) are handled on Wiktionary. Geographyinitiative (talk) 06:57, 26 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Usually, they aren't. But if it's common enough, you could add it under 'Alternative forms' with . —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 07:24, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Couldn't find the violated norm
I would like to know which norm in Wiktionary I have violated by making this edit. Adithyak1997 (talk) 04:45, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
 * The edit filter analyzes the entire page, not just the part that you edited. There are several problems with that page such as the large HTML table that should be in a template, and the bad language section divider "". DTLHS (talk) 04:46, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
 * So, will I be blocked due to that edit? Also, should the language section divider be actually removed from pages? Adithyak1997 (talk) 04:53, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
 * No, no action is taken based on the WT:NORM tag. It's just a way of keeping track of pages that have formatting problems (which are best corrected with an automatic tool because they can be hard to spot). — Eru·tuon 06:48, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok. Thanks for the information. Adithyak1997 (talk) 06:51, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

My edit was blocked due to SLO; how may I proceed?
Hi there! I'm new to contributing to Wiktionary.

I am working on some code to parse Italian entries, and as a result I'm finding a number of minor mistakes with some of the pages that I fix when I come across them. I found at least two cases so far of the wrong template being used ("pt-adj form of" instead of "it-adj form of") under Italian sections. The first fix was fine, but then the second fix (tranquilla) was blocked with the reason "Error: This action has been automatically identified as harmful, and therefore disallowed. If you believe your action was constructive, please inform an administrator of what you were trying to do. A brief description of the abuse rule which your action matched is: SLO".

How can I proceed with the edit? EricNWaters (talk) 10:35, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Two things. Firstly, please read the question being posted just above this (I think it's related). Secondly, please use ~ at the end of each comment that you make in talk pages, so as to identify that the comment has been made by you. It's a usual thing that is followed in talk pages of all wikis. Adithyak1997 (talk) 10:25, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Please check whether the edit made by you was the one you tried to do. Adithyak1997 (talk) 10:28, 30 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, it worked the second time. I see that you tried as well. I suspect a bot didn't like the fact that I had made the same edit to two different pages in a row. EricNWaters (talk) 10:37, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

 * I think this can happen when a new/unfamiliar user is performing many edits in rapid succession. Equinox ◑ 12:28, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

title: Wiktionary:Information desk/2020/June


text:
Wiktionary:Information desk/2020/July

tillow? What did he say at this part of the video?

This is The Adventures of Paddy the Pelican/Two Wet Bears. I can't quite hear what's being said at 4:05-4:09 because of the poor sound quality. What I heard was "Climb away out up on the farthest limb from the trillow. Go more towards the water." But there is no word called trillow listed on Wiktionary, and not any other hypothetical word that would make that sound, like trillough.

For context, in the episode the bear character Buster Bear is on top of a tree, and Beachcomber Bill, who's chasing him, is trying to cut the tree that he's on top of so it tumbles to the ground. Paddy the Pelican in the line is advising Buster Bear to move towards a limb that's closer to the water so he can hang off and jump in to safety.

I did find tillow, which is defined as "Branch; twig; shoot." But that definition is listed as "Britain dialectal," and this TV show was made in Chicago in the year 1950. Could it be possible that it's tillow, and that the word tillow isn't exclusive to the UK after all, and our labelling is wrong?

Or am I failing to think of some obvious word I should know? PseudoSkull (talk) 22:19, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

 * I can't tell, but might be "climb your way out", and trillow might possibly be "tree limb". Equinox ◑ 22:26, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

 * The voice actor is talking so fast, it's hard to say how many words there are: I suspect the first vowel, the middle "l" sound and the final vowel (or syllabic consonant?) could be all in separate words. Possibilities: 1) ? the tree low... 2) tree'll ? 3) ? pillow ?
 * At any rate, it's followed by "...[go/goes?] more towards the water. Lets get out on a limb, quick! Hurry up! Chuck Entz (talk) 01:15, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Maybe ‘willow’?

gig
I learned of the word "gig" in the US Army in the 1960s. It was used to designate a demerit or a reprimand when one had done something wrong. A "gig list" was kept and, depending on the number of accumulated gigs a person had collected, he or she could be given extra, usually unpleasant, duties. This definition, along with seven others can be found on page 138 in Harold Wentworth's and Stuart Berg Flexner's "The Pocket Dictionary of American Slang" published by Pocket Books in New York, New York, and copyrighted in 1967 by Thomas Y. Cromwell Company. (JayMeHi (talk) 15:25, 12 July 2020 (UTC))

 * We do already have the military slang sense of gig. Equinox ◑ 23:20, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

WordNet links
Is it allowed to give links to WordNet senses? Why is it not encouraged? --उज्ज्वलराजपूत (talk) 06:07, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

 * Hello, Why would you add a link to WordNet as opposed to adding the sense to Wiktionary? Amin (talk) 04:24, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

 * Pardon me,, for being unclear. I suggest we should (manually) add Wordnet senses (as IDs) to Wiktionary entries. From them, links can be generated that direct the user to the corresponding entries in one of the online Wordnet databases. --उज्ज्वलराजपूत (talk) 06:04, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

 * Hello, So if I understand you correctly, you want to copy-paste the WordNet defintion for certain entries, and then also link bad to WordNet? Please correct me if I'm wrong :) Amin (talk) 16:53, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

 * Hello . Not necessarily the definition, just the WordNet ID and the link. And, although I want to do this for entries of a language that I am interested in, I think doing it generally everywhere will make Witionary data more useful for machine analytics. The rich cross-lingual machine-readable etymological information that Wiktionary has, is nowhere else to be found. If the meanings are also made more comprehensive to the machine (by the WordNet IDs, as mentioned), this can be a great resource for computational linguistics, for finding even more etymological links automatically. --उज्ज्वलराजपूत (talk) 06:16, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

What does SLO mean (abuse filter)?
Because I got the hint when I removed a lint error. -Killarnee ( C•T•U ) 23:17, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

 * It means you are a new or unrecognised user making large numbers of edits in a short time, which is sometimes a sign of vandalism or spamming. Patience... Equinox ◑ 23:31, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

 * By the way I think at least three people have asked about SLO in the past few months, which is perhaps some kind of red flag. I assume we used this "code word" (it's like slow spelled funny) because if an abuse filter explains why it's being triggered, that tells vandals what they should do to get around it... Equinox ◑ 23:33, 24 July 2020 (UTC)
 * "New" is relative... -Killarnee ( C•T•U ) 23:38, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

 * Yeah tell me about it. It regularly pisses me off that I cannot interact with certain online communities because I haven't jumped through certain hoops even though I was using Usenet when their creators were being fed mashed apricots with a spoon. However you asked why you got SLO and I told you. Equinox ◑ 00:26, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

 * Good point. I tightened it up so it's less likely to bite intermittent editors with only a few edits but over a longer period. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:27, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Don't expand all sections on mobile web?
Hi! Is there any way I can get the mobile view to not have all sections opened when the pages load? It takes forever to scroll down to the language I want to find. DemonDays64 (talk) 06:06, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Slow time request for verification
The standard RfV process demands, formally at least, a rapid defence of an entry. Is there any way of doing it in slow time? I have a minor issue with the Pali word. In the grammatical sense of 'root', as in verb root, I suspect that the word only occurs in the masculine, whereas for most meanings, the word only occurs in the feminine. I have recently added the word in the masculine as a separate lemma to the word in the feminine.

Now, while one should be able fairly rapidly find quotations to show that some Pali word has the meaning 'root', finding convincing examples in the feminine might have been hard work. Aggavamsa says, "saddasatthe dhātusaddo ekantapulliṅgaṃ, pāvacane ekantaitthiliṅgaṃ, evamādayo aññamaññaṃ viruddhasaddagatiyo dissanti." i.e. "in the science of grammar the word 'dhātu' is something with exclusively male gender, [while] in the [canonical] teaching it is of exclusively feminine gender."

I looked for for a link to replace a reference to Smith's edition of the Saddiniti at "(699,2-701,15)" for that quote, though I only found other remarks of Aggavamsa about the word's gender. Fortunately, I found a reference of Aggavamsa's to Kaccayana using both genders, and then I was able to locate an example of it being used in the feminine in the meaning of root, so the problem is solved. (Successive rules can use different genders for the word - and editions are inconsistent in the choice of gender for a particular rule.) But I fear we came dangerously close to blowing that gloss away. --RichardW57 (talk) 18:56, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * RFV lasts a month, standardly. Quite often, it can take longer, as few people close RFVs and many are challenging to close. Pali is a well-studied language, and an LDL to boot, so a quotation isn't actually required, as long as a reliable dictionary has it. That said, if it soothes your fears, you can always leave a message in an RFV discussion requesting that it be extended to give you time to find evidence. And remember, even if you were to find an old discussion that had removed a valid gloss, you can always re-add it so long as you also add a reference or quotation to back it up. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 19:04, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * By slow time, I was thinking of years. I didn't I was going to find more evidence by looking for it; I had only expected myself to find it if I stumbled over it.  However, if a request to keep the case open for a few years works, then that solves the problem.
 * 'Having it' is an awkward question in this case. I don't think a dictionary that says that the word can be masculine or feminine and gives no details will actually cut it.  Childers' dictionary does mention both genders being used, but just at the head of the article.  The sense I mentioned here is, I suspect, later than the Buddha, and by the time of Aggavamsa, it looks as though the gender in this sense had shifted to the gender in Sanskrit, i.e. masculine, whatever its earlier history.  The Pali Text Society (PTS) dictionary simply records the word as feminine and lacks the 'root' meaning.  Therefore the genders of the sense of a word do appear to be sensitive to the meaning - but perhaps only statistically so.  TBD.  The two genders are declined quite differently outside the direct cases.
 * The big LDL issue with Pali looks like the requirement of durable archival. A lot of the text is available at www.tipitaka.org, but that just doesn't seem formally citable.  Local peculiarities are a different matter, and most scripts have them.  We're ignoring those of the Latin script, and I just hope Devanagari doesn't have any hidden rules about what sort of combination may be used in conjuncts.  (Hindi does have restictions on combination, which is why one shouldn't use a 'Sanskrit' font for Hindi.)  We really should be using quotes to refine the senses for Pali.  We really shouldn't just copy the meanings from a good out of copyright dictionary.  The PTS dictionary gives passages for senses, so we should really be grabbing those examples.  I don't believe Rhys Davids was infallible.  After all, isn't the Tipitaka out of copyright?  I suppose there may be issues with recently composed replacements for corrupt text. --RichardW57 (talk) 21:03, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
 * A lot of thoughts here. A RFV that lasts years in suboptimal; I would fail it and you could make note of it on your own personal subpage. The materials at tipitaka.org come from various sources; many of them are durably archived elsewhere. And yes, we should grab the examples to support our own definitions, but that is rather hard work, and if anyone is to do it, I suppose it is you. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 00:57, 29 July 2020 (UTC)
 * In this case, it seemed to me that it was better to leave an incorrect gloss with a query against it than to delete a correct gloss. That's why I asked about slow-time RfVs. --RichardW57 (talk) 13:01, 31 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I've found a durably archived version of a Sinhala script Tipitaka online and, for the Suttapitaka at least, a transliteration and a mapping to PTS page numbers. Its transliterator has warned the world that there are differences from the PTS edition, and his transliteration does contain typos, but it does make it easier.  I've had to modify a font so I can actually proof read what I copy - I've released it for general use in rendering unprotected material.  I'm assembling an ever-growing collection of Wiktionary-compatible translations that I can use if they're correct, but all too often they're not suitable for highlighting corresponding words in the translation and the English. --RichardW57 (talk) 13:01, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

title: Wiktionary:Information desk/2020/July


text:
Wiktionary:Information desk/2020/August

Free corpora
Where can I find free corpora of English and other languages (beside Wikipedia) average size? I want count word frequencies and count lemma (using spaCy) frequencies in text.Borneq (talk) 11:59, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

 * , do you know about the collection of English corpora at https://www.english-corpora.org ? Don't know about other languages. --ColinFine (talk) 22:01, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Understanding how the Verb Inflection system works
I'm looking at the Verb 'Trek' in English

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/trek#Verb

If I click 'edit' I can see:

and somehow the system generates this sentence:

trek (third-person singular simple present treks, present participle trekking, simple past and past participle trekked)

How does it know to remove the 'k' from the parameter for the simple present 'treks'?

If I look at the documentation page:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Template:en-verb/documentation

(added a k)

...seems to make more sense, but looks like the documentation is outdated?

Is there source code I can look through to see what is happening? Or is it hardcoded- 'double kk' > remove a 'k'?

--Bendecko (talk) 17:08, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

 * Hi, . Thanks for the question: it prompted me to go looking. The source code is at Module:en-headword, and the relevant code is at lines 536-8. It appears that the module mostly works off the page name (here, "trek"). If the parameter ("trekk") doesn't have a recognised form, it is used as the base of the past and the present participle, but the 3 sg. pres. is formed from the page name. The old format is still supported, according to the code, but yes, it could do with the documentation updating. --ColinFine (talk) 22:17, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

Category:Chinese_lemmas
I can report we are now at 200,000 Chinese lemmas. 大家辛苦了！ The two-hundredth-thousandth entry was 錢荒 ("money shortage"). ---> Tooironic (talk) 23:20, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

ihrzen
There seems to be an issue with the pronunciation section. Tharthan (talk) 23:32, 4 August 2020 (UTC)
 * It was a perfectly fine pronunciation section- or would have been if it was at siezen. I removed the incorrect audio file and replaced the IPA with a request for pronunciation template. The new audio file seems a bit odd, but there's nothing wrong with the pronunciation itself. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:47, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Lua error: not enough memory
Hello,

I am getting the above error when looking at the page: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%A0%AD#Japanese

Everything looks fine up to the paragraph "Etymology 9", but below "Etymology 10" the error is all over the page.

The following snip exhibits the problem:

///////////////////////snip///////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Etymology 9 Kanji in this term 頭 どたま Grade: 2 Irregular

Contraction of ど (do-, “super-”, often used ironically as a derogatory prefix) + 頭 (atama, “head”). Pronunciation

(Irregular reading) (Tokyo) どたま [dòtámáꜜ] (Odaka – [3])[2] IPA(key): [do̞ta̠ma̠]

Noun

頭 • (dotama)

(derogatory) head

Usage notes

Often spelled in hiragana, as どたま. Etymology 10 Kanji in this term 頭 ず Grade: 2 on’yomi

/du/ → /d͡zu/ → /zu/

From Middle Chinese 頭 (MC dəu). The Lua error: not enough memory reading, so likely an earlier borrowing. Pronunciation

Lua error: not enough memory Noun

Lua error: not enough memory

////////////////////////////////////////end snip////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

I am using fedora 32 (5.7.10-201.fc32) and the Lua error shows up in Firefox (78.0.2) as well as in Chromium (84.0.4147.89). Would anyone have a suggestion how I could avoid this error?

Best regards Kai

 * It's a known problem. Our code is too memory-intensive in the eyes of the system. We don't have a solution. —Suzukaze-c (talk) 02:08, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Replying to posts
How do you reply to comments posted to the talk page of an article, or here on the tearoom?
 * Like this. —Mahāgaja · talk 16:01, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

 * Above reply is not really helpful for beginners. See this Wikipedia article section 'Replying to an existing thread'. PianistHere (talk) 12:05, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Category:Regional English
Quite a few entries are categorized directly into this category, rather than being categorized into specific regional subcategories. At that point, is there any distinction which it is sensible to make (and reasonable to expect to be maintained) between this and Category:English dialectal terms? - -sche (discuss) 16:08, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Incorrectly classified nouns
I believe cytoplasm is incorrectly classified as a countable noun (it is in fact an uncountable noun) and given an incorrect plural form (cytoplasms). While the word cytoplasms has been used, and therefore might meet the attestation requirement, it should be noted as a non-standard form. It doesn't appear that I can directly edit the plural form on the page for cytoplasm, though.

How do you fix this?

129.130.144.198 22:07, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
 * It is written in the documentation of : The code is.
 * If you later encounter cases where such a situation only applies to specific senses (and others are perfectly countable or uncountable), you use in front of the sense. Fay Freak (talk) 22:12, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Modified accordingly, although it's obviously not true to say the plural is incorrect. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 22:41, 7 August 2020 (UTC)
 * For example, the plural uses seen here are perfectly fine. --Lambiam 00:55, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

What did Mrs. Bryerson say here? photodiode? It was something used as a verb that sounded like "fododio"...
For context, so you don't have to watch the whole episode (if you don't want to), there isn't much of it, other than that Mrs. Bryerson is a stock old lady neighbor character in , a Canadian kids' cartoon. She is talking to someone on the phone. These particular ramblings seem to purposefully just be random topics jumbled together, because they were thinking...maybe that older ladies would be stereotyped to talk about those topics...? Idk honestly...
 * 1999, , "There's No Place Like Gnome" (season 1, episode 4b):
 * Mrs. Bryerson: Oh, these fenders don't fododio like they used to, but I can fandango with the best of them. Well, sure, skydiving will keep your adrenaline going—keep you young, I think! Bye now!

I won't link the video footage here, since it is copyrighted. But if you want to find footage, the line starts at 21 minutes and 10 seconds into the episode.

Please help me find this out. I intensely dislike having to admit that bits of language on my transcription projects are unidentifiable. PseudoSkull (talk) 11:37, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
 * It sounds more like "fododle-o" to me. I think it's just a madeup word intended to sound funny. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:23, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
 * But is it supposed to have an implied meaning? What do “these fenders” have to do with it? Do these make any sense in the context? Which verb might make sense in the phrase “these fenders don't <> like they used to“? --Lambiam 13:08, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I have no idea. Since Fender is also a surname, she could even be talking about people or electric guitars. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:51, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

 * Is it only me or does the first diphthong sound slightly more open than the second and last ones? If so, maybe the sentence is These fenders don’t fall “dodio” like they used to with L vocalisation, which would relate it to the skydiving mentioned in the second half. — Ungoliant (falai) 15:11, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

 * I found a few other possibilities: fold olio. olio is also a Spanish (or Portuguese) borrowing as fandango is, and it has two musical senses. I don't know about fold having a sense that would match this, but the final sound being olio seems likely, if it's not made-up. PseudoSkull (talk) 01:23, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I think it’s intended as Vo-do-de-o, which was (along with variants like Vo-de-o-do and Vo-do-do-de-o) a popular string of nonsense syllables for scatting along to music back in the 1920s and ’30s. As to the meaning — are probably guitars in context, so it would be a pseudo-old-timey slang way of saying ‘these guitars don’t make music like they used to, but I can dance with the best of them.’— Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 13:48, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I find the Vo-do-de-o theory plausible and appealing (seen here in that spelling on a record sleeve), with Mrs. Bryerson temporarily reliving the personality of her wild years as a young woman, which then would have been in the – but then the brand name Fender is chronosynclastically infundibulated (and, moreover, guitars do not fit this style of music).  --Lambiam 19:03, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

 * You are overthinking it. It's probably just a made-up noise. No need to go full Freud :) Equinox ◑ 18:12, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

phonological notation
Can someone tell me what this means:  C^(vl≠h) → Cː / V_(s, ʃ, x)  I just don't know what the part with the exponent symbol means. Dngweh2s (talk) 03:17, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think it's standard notation, but it might mean "immediately followed by". Where did you see this rule? What language does it apply to? Are there any examples of the sound change? —Mahāgaja · talk 07:19, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Words from video games
What is the policy on adding words that were made up by video games but are mainly used in the game's community? Examples: Hellstone from Terraria, Shulkers from Minecraft. AntisocialRyan (talk) 05:16, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * It's a fair question. I've wondered what the policy would be regarding adding words like hookshot, myself. Tharthan (talk) 05:40, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * WT:FICTION applies, I believe. (As does the rest of CFI, notably the part about three independent durably archived uses.) So your supporting quotations would have to be outside of the world of Minecraft or Zelda or whatever, which is obviously quite an obstacle. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 06:15, 11 August 2020 (UTC)
 * This doesn't answer your question, but we have Template:quote-video game --Emit888 (talk) 00:15, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

"when I call you up and say burgundy"
This was a strange idiom that my family members had used around me that I'm just now remembering. It meant the same things as when pigs fly, never in a million years, etc. As I remembered it and was trying to find it to add to Wiktionary, I found no Google results whatsoever for the phrase, on the entire Internet! So it was apparently familect and nothing more; I was actually unaware of that until now!

Apparently it was passed down from generation to generation; at the time, my grandfather on that side of the family said his grandfather (that'd be my great great grandfather) taught him the phrase, raising the possibility that the phrase could have potentially existed as early on as the 1910s, or maybe before! Nevertheless, if it was used around him as a kid as he claimed, it would've at latest originated in the early 1960s.

But...why the weird wording? The phrase implies that you would never call someone on the telephone and "say burgundy." But does this merely mean you wouldn't mention burgundy (the color or the wine) in conversation, or that you wouldn't call someone and exclaim "Burgundy!" out of the blue, immediately upon connection? Also, why burgundy? Could it be because the color or the wine is unappealing to the speaker? Perhaps because it's a word that's not that commonly used anyway (I haven't heard it used much myself).

Or maybe at the time the phrase was coined, "burgundy" was a code word of some sort that was to be used to signal an operation's completion over the phone—a prank, maybe. Perhaps this mission was completely unsuccessful, and the ones involved lost all hope in it, thus you'd never "call someone up and say 'burgundy'" because any similar mission would fail every time. So then it would have just evolved into general usage for when you think something would never happen. In this case it'd have started as some kind of inside joke, then have been adopted by others who maybe didn't get the joke, or didn't care.

Also, how can something stay in one family and never be used elsewhere? You'd think maybe somebody else would have picked it up, after all these years, making it a more commonly known idiom.

...Or maybe it has, but just hasn't been used by the right people, or by enough people, to be included anywhere on the Internets...

Any ideas? Just thought it'd be interesting to share and collect thoughts on! PseudoSkull (talk) 06:18, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

 * Could it be part of a familect? My dad says things like "I'm having a sit" (I'm on the toilet) and "he's a real dymo" ("he's an idiot"), and as far as I can ascertain, no one outside my family understands these expressions. Either that, or it could be vestiges of some old Queensland dialect. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:31, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

 * In my family we referred to the undersink garbage disposal as the "muncher". And we called sandwiches denwiches. Also, my Dad would always make up fancy names for combinations of drinks and I'd use them in a bar and nobody understood them... When it comes to WT, though, we obviously can't accept anything without 3 decent cites. Still, if you really want to share this information, Urbandictionary takes everything. I assume the website still exists. --Emit888 (talk) 00:27, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

How do I propose a word of the day?
See title. Thank you. Amin (talk) 04:20, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * See Word of the day/Nominations. PseudoSkull (talk) 05:17, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you! Amin (talk) 16:54, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Abkhaz letters
Both here and on Wikipedia, it says that there are 62 letters in the Abkhaz alphabet, but I counted 64. Is the count a mistake, or is the alphabet? İʟᴀᴡᴀ–Kᴀᴛᴀᴋᴀ (talk) (edits) 00:09, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

 * I think the reason for the discrepancy is that the signs (Ь ь) and (Ә ә) – which do not represent sounds by themselves but only serve as modifiers of letters that do represent sounds – are not considered letters. --Lambiam 13:23, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
 * According to the World Abaza Congress, there are 64 letters. Signs (such as ъ and ь) are also counted as letters in every Cyrillic-script language I have seen to date (except this one if one goes by Wikipedia or sources based on Wikipedia). Thoughts? İʟᴀᴡᴀ–Kᴀᴛᴀᴋᴀ (talk) (edits) 22:12, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I nevertheless think that the discrepancy is based on differences in status assignments for these graphemes. The is generally considered a letter in texts written in an, but not so for the . Lacking a solid and definitive definition of the concept “letter”, I am not prepared to adjudicate whose judgement in status assignment is the better.  --Lambiam 09:37, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Adding svg images to articles of characters that don't display correctly
Recently, I made a page for 𠶸. It doesn't display on mobile so I wanted to add an svg image from glyphwiki for reference. I wanted the image to be part of the character info box, but it wasn't working, until somehow it did. I don't know what I did to make it work, and I've checked the code and the image url isn't there. How do I do this with another page? Thanks.

EDIT: I've got it. I have to add the svg image to the Unicode Data Image database.

 * How do I add an svg image to the Unicode Data Image database? PianistHere (talk) 12:02, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

Does anyone knows of a tool to find "words in many language but not in another"?
I've tried to search for a tool like that, to find the "hottest" words, not in my language wiktionary. Has it been done yet? --Ignacio Rodríguez (talk) 18:07, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

 * I don't understand what you are asking. You want to find (for example) a Spanish word that has got a Spanish entry on en.wikt, fr.wikt, and de.wikt, but not yet on es.wikt? Equinox ◑ 18:12, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

 * We can use this tool - click on "I miss you". We have a page on WT too that doesn't get updated much. If not, you could ask, who makes amazing lists. --Emit888 (talk) 00:32, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

 * Excuse my poor English. That's precisely what I am looking for. A list of spanish lemmas currently on en.wikt but not in es.wikt., that's good as well! Pretty awesome that website! --Ignacio Rodríguez (talk) 23:43, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Can I add "Neopet" as a noun?
Not the website/game itself, but the virtual pets inside the game. They have been mentioned in articles dating back to 2005 and scholarly articles, according to Google. This is similar to Pokémon. AntisocialRyan (talk) 20:17, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
 * It probably passes WT:FICTION, but you should still collect the citations before creating the entry. Feel free to ping me if you're unsure about how to interpret the policy. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 00:41, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

How do I help Wikitionary?
I am new here and I want to learn how to help this project. An answer would help a bunch. Thank you. -- Hamuyi(talk) 19:58, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

 * You asked the same question here two months ago. Was the answer given then insufficiently helpful? Please note that we do not like disruptive editing here any better than the folks over at Wikipedia. Which languages are you competent in? If you know Ugaritic, you could help to fill open requests at Requested entries (Ugaritic). --Lambiam 09:43, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

Audio naming policy
What's the naming policy for audios with entries that have multiple vocalisations? For example. ArabicAudios (talk) 16:57, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Categories with invalid label?
I have created a category "Category:Chickasaw inalienable nouns" here https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:Chickasaw_inalienable_nouns However, the page keeps showing an error message -- The automatically-generated contents of this category has errors. The label given to the poscatboiler template is not valid. You may have mistyped it, or it simply has not been created yet. To add a new label, please consult the documentation of the template. -- and I cannot figure out what the problem is or how to fix it.

Can someone give me some guidance or point me in the right direction?

Many thanks in advance Treyzinbox (talk) 23:41, 29 August 2020 (UTC) Treyzinbox
 * The category name has to be added to a module. I saw your edits, and I've been trying to figure out the best way to do it. I've never worked with Chickasaw, and your description doesn't help much. Are we talking about a class of nouns used for parts of oneself, close relatives, and the like? Chuck Entz (talk) 00:40, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

title: Wiktionary:Information desk/2020/August