text:
Wiktionary:Etymology scriptorium/2020/November

gesprek
Could someone verify the etymology starting from the Middle Dutch? I have brought it somewhat more in line with the resources at the Etymologiebank, but I'm not completely sure that I have accurately represented whatever the EWN tries to say about Middle Dutch. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  15:05, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

r rotunda
How old is this term? The earliest English mentions I can find are from the 1880s and 1890s; is it older than that, in English? The oldest (and only) instance I can find in Latin is from 1423. (See Citations:r rotunda.) It's hard to search for because there are lots of scannos and hits for taxonomic names abbreviated "R. rotunda". - -sche (discuss) 19:22, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * That Latin quotation is actually from the treatise Quedam regule de modo titulandi seu apificandi pro novellius scriptoribus copulate, which in some editions of De laude scriptorum (e.g. here) is appended to it. There are also standalone editions, like this 19th-century (!) manuscript. (Google Books' search does not work here, but the term is found split over lines 10 and 11 of the third page counting from the end.) --Lambiam 20:18, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

Diego
The etymology section gives one derivation, and a secondary erroneous one, and then the definition claims a third - needs rearranging at least. John Womble (talk) 11:36, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The Galician section claims the Didacus etymology based on this source.
 * As for the Spanish section: the edit history shows a rather peculiar combination of origins for the different parts. The original version had no etymology, but had the definition: "a male given name, thought to be diminutive of Santiago". The etymology in the definition was added in by User:Gnobrixs, who has made a couple dozen edits at the Portuguese and English Wikipedias on Galician and Portuguese subjects, but nothing else here. The part of the Spanish etymology about Didacus was moved from the English entry at San Diego, where it was originally added in  by User:Rsvk, who then created the entry for Didacus, with an etymology claiming that Didacus was a "Latinization of vulgar ", sourced from behindthename.com. I have no idea where they got that from. Chuck Entz (talk) 06:59, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Georgian ალი (ali)
Ok, the word means blaze. It's even attested in Old Georgian in Martyrdom of Saint Habo (written late 8th century), so I don't know how to conclude an etymology. There seem to be either cognates or borrowings: Mingrelian and Laz ალი and Svan ჰელ. ე in Svan maybe developed from the ა umlaut, but I do not know any further. Word of same phonology can be found in Ottoman Turkish as, but the meaning is... close but not so, however, I can also say that the derived Georgian word ალ-ის-ფერი (Color of Blaze) is crimson indeed, so the similarity may be a coincidence or may not. What do you all think about this? Are there other such words, which are not ultimately borrowed from Ottoman Turkish? Does Crimson -> Blaze or Blaze -> Crimson actually make sense if it were borrowed? Klimov doesn't reconstruct any GZ or CK ancestors. Thank you! -Solarkoid (talk) 20:06, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
 * 🇨🇬 / 🇨🇬 mean fire. Also 🇨🇬. Fay Freak (talk) 20:55, 3 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Proto-Turkic *yal- makes sense o.o; Thank you! Wonder if its actually a borrowing or just a coincidence... I swear if it's the latter.. -Solarkoid (talk) 21:08, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

It is also attested in Luke 16:24 (...ვიარები ალსა მას შინა). Such early borrowings from Turkic are not possible. --Vahag (talk) 09:02, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
 * So you're saying it couldn't be a Turkic borrowing (so Turkic languages weren't close to Georgia around 5th to 8th centuries?). So huh... Is Proto Kartvelian reconstructable then? -Solarkoid (talk) 09:40, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Turkic borrowings start appearing in our region only after Seljuk invasions in the 11th century. I don't know if Proto-Kartvelian is reconstructible. In any case, the similarity can be accidental. --Vahag (talk) 09:48, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Why however, if your Northern neighbours were the . Turkic borrowings at that time must have been similarly likely to the occasional Northeast Caucasian borrowing. Besides I am not convinced that 🇨🇬 didn’t have Turkic borrowings; while many people are interested in portraying it like this, on the other hand Iranian borrowings are assumed in 🇨🇬 and for 🇨🇬 claims of Iranian words – to which ватра “fire” supposedly belongs – are not even rare, though the connection is much remoter. We even have even demonstrated 🇨🇬 loanwords in Old French and Old English with  and . On the Chinese side there must also be candidates for so early Turkic words, given the constant threat from the Northwest, or “para-Turkic” languages or similar, “Altaic” languages sharing wanderwörter with Turkic. Fay Freak (talk) 14:00, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

 * Making a brief search, the only work I spotted offhand which discussed Turkic alev together with anything like ali or al was [//www.academia.edu/10158299/Some_thoughts_on_Dravidian_Turkic_Sanskrit_lexical_comparisons this], which is not about Georgian but rather Dravidian, and which seems questionably reliable (it says [//en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Wiktionary:Sandbox&oldid=61037401 this], seeming to compare clearly unrelated languages and words, like Latin adoleō, which it also appears to misdefine). However, it does make one suggestion which might interest us, which is that similar-ish words in Dravidian and/or Sanskrit might ultimately stem from Persian الو (which in turn [according to our entry] borrowed it from Turkic), if it's worth considering whether Georgian could have borrowed from Persian rather than directly from Turkic. - -sche (discuss) 17:11, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

 * discusses the relationship of Persian and Turkic. It is not at all certain that the Persian is borrowed from Turkic; the opposite can be true. --Vahag (talk) 17:36, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Per there is also 🇨🇬. --Vahag (talk) 17:56, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

abut
This entry is currently split into two etymology sections, like this: The source for a split appears to be Webster's Third (and/or the Shorter OED?). However, there are a number of problems here. The Middle English Dictionary has abutten only in sense 1, the opposite of what our entry is claiming. It's also far from obvious that abuter ("to touch at one end") and aboter ("to touch at one end") are etymologically separate words as opposed to two spellings of the same word, and similarly far from obvious that but ("end"), said to be related to Germanic, and bout ("end"), which we and fr.Wikt say is also from Germanic, are separate words. Indeed, fr.Wikt says OF but is but a variant of bout. And pace the 1976 / 1909 Webster's, the modern Merriam-Webster treats both "border on" and "lean on for support" as having one etymology, Middle English abutten from Anglo-French abuter from bout, but. Would anyone like to argue a split is correct, and clean up some of the details (such as, ety 1 coming from Middle English), or should we consider these to have just one etymology? - -sche (discuss) 05:37, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

 * Judging by the TLFi entries for abuter, abouter and aboter, the words / senses were overlapping / sometimes interchangable already in (Middle) French. Straightening this out will require care. - -sche (discuss) 22:37, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

vison
RFV of the etymology. – Jberkel 10:24, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

 * Merriam-Webster says "perhaps of Germanic origin; akin to Old High German wisula weasel", which seems more plausible than wisunt (“bison”), although the latter is claimed as the etymology of the French word and its Spanish cognate in Edward A. Roberts' Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Spanish. This page on taxonomic names and Joseph F. Merritt, Ruth Anne Matinko, Guide to the Mammals of Pennsylvania (1987), page 283, say the origin is unclear but possibly from a Swedish or Icelandic word for 'weasel' (although the book thinks vison is an Icelandic or Swedish word for weasel, which is wrong); the book suggests Latin visor 'scout' as another possibility. TLFi says "perhaps from Vulgar Latin *viso, -onis, variant of [...] visio 'fart', vissio 'stench'". Apparently the etymology is quite uncertain. - -sche (discuss) 19:31, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Though American minks are said to emit a skunk-like aroma (not a fart-like aroma), French vison was applied to a European marten c. 1520 and not attestably to the American mink until 1765. Articles about the European mink do not mention its aroma. I haven't checked to find whether the aroma of any European mustelid is said to be fart-like. Though Robert has the vissire, viso derivation, the attestation dates it reports and the olfactory facts don't favor that derivation IMHO. DCDuring (talk) 22:34, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I've updated the etymology to suggest the "weasel" and "viso" theories. Apparently European minks and martens do have scent glands near the anus, so a scent-based etymology even for the European critters is still plausible. - -sche (discuss) 01:06, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Many mammals, even humans, have scent glands, but relatively few have scents that are notable and fewer still scents that resemble farts. If viso really means "fart", it doesn't seem a plausible etymon. If it means "bad smell", it is much more plausible. DCDuring (talk) 10:04, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * But the minks' scent glands are by the anus, so I can easily imagine premodern people thinking that the smell comes from the animal's farts, even if it doesn't smell like human farts. —Mahāgaja · talk 10:15, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * And how would they connect the non-fart smell with the anus? DCDuring (talk) 10:20, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * If the disagreement is merely over how to gloss the Latin word (or if there is a semantic difference between visio and vissio), it would help if someone brought some Latin resources to bear in creating the relevant Latin entries, with definitions; TLFi's glosses (in French, translated above) could be a little off. - -sche (discuss) 11:48, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * From FEW 14 p. 540:
 * vĭssio gestank.
 * 1. . a. Versanne, HLoire vezu “putois”, stéph. vezon V, for. “id.; méchante femme” b. Alütt. wixhat m. “putois” (15.–16. jh.)
 * Lt. “gestank” (zu  “furzen”) besteht auch in der Form  (in glossen). Es ist im gallor. zur bezeichnung des iltis geworden, vgl. fr., d. , s. oben 15). a geht auf , b auf  zurück.
 * It doesn't mention anywhere that visio means “fart”, but “stench”. – Jberkel 13:36, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * We should at least include "stench" in the etymologies involved. But aren't there some authoritative sources that connect the vis terms with fart? Or was I just misled by the pipe for vesse above. DCDuring (talk) 18:11, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
 * vesse is how TLFi glosses visio. Perhaps they picked it as the etymologically-related word rather than the most semantically correct one. - -sche (discuss) 18:21, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

戻る
もとる and もどる, somehow related? -- Huhu9001 (talk) 07:17, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

 * See also this recent post at the Japanese Stack Exchange.
 * Summary points:
 * Modern was also found in older texts without voicing as.
 * Both and  have the same pitch accent 2,  and.
 * Semantically, I can't think how they'd be related: with its intransitive sense of "to return to an initial state or place", and its transitive counterpart, both seem very likely to derive from noun .  Meanwhile,  with its transitive sense of "to bend or warp something" doesn't seem at all related, and almost seems instead like it might be  +.
 * HTH, ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 19:42, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

 * On the contrary I do see a semantic relation here: "to go back" - "to go against", if "to go against" was an earlier meaning of 悖る, as suggested by the Chinese character . -- Huhu9001 (talk) 04:35, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

 * Digging more, I was finally able to dig up the KDJ entry here, indicating that yes, they are cognate as you divined from the spelling. (Due to a site redesign, Kotobank's usability got much worse -- previously, I had only found this entry, which doesn't give any detail regarding the relationship with 悖る.)  Thank you for this thread!  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 23:41, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

φαῦλος
The entry for φαῦλος has an Etymology section giving it as a Greek reflex of, but no source is given. The standard reference work on Greek etymology, Beekes & van Beek's "Etymological Dictionary of Greek" does not list this etymology (but instead lists the word as "Pre-Greek"), and the form doesn't seem to follow standard rules of historical linguistics. Particularly I don't see how PIE *p would become Greek /φ/. Does anyone know of any other authoritative source that has this etymology? Or should we perhaps delete it? —Pinnerup (talk) 10:53, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
 * the source is Meillet. I added it with an explanation of φ-. --Vahag (talk) 06:24, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks! :)

turf war
RFV of the etymology. Seemingly unfounded?

82.43.61.94 23:47, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
 * That was originally just a sentence added to the entry back in 2004 when it was still a Wikipedia article, and later converted into an etymology. Like everything else in the Wikipedia article, it was unsourced- which was a major reason for the article being deleted there.
 * According to etymonline, the sense of turf referring to a territory was attested almost a decade before the first known use of turf war. That makes sense, because it's not a big stretch from land to ground to something on the surface of the ground. Also, there are expressions like "the old sod", which was used by US immigrants from the British Isles in the 19th century to refer to their former homelands, for example here. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:53, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * This doesn't prove anything but I thought you guys might find this interesting: Ngram viewer comparison of turf war,over turf. The more popular "turf war" became, presumably the less popular fighting "over turf" became? It seems "turf war" grew in popularity as the so-called War on Drugs ramped up. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 12:57, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The war on drugs began on 18 June, 1971 under Nixon. No surprise that "turf war" use trended upwards from that point onwards. -- Dentonius (my politics | talk) 16:44, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * There is a use of the noun phrase turf war in an 1834 issue of the journal American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine, and another one in a 1902 issue of Turf, Field and Farm, where turf means “horse racing”. Given the meaning of the component turf in the term turf war, this is a coincidence. Should there be any early uses of turf war as meaning a (metaphorical) war played out in American football on a field of turf, surely these then are equally coincidental combinations, and not the source of the current term. The etymology is unquestionably simply, with turf in the sense of a claimed territory, and war in the sense of a conflict, originally applied to conflicts between gangs over drug-dealing territories. --Lambiam 16:32, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

at the very least
How should the entry of, for example, at the very least show its discontinuous relation to the idiom at least? Maybe at the very least ? --Backinstadiums (talk) 12:32, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

scivolare
RFV of the etymology, the Latin word apparently means to hiss. says it's probably onomatopoeic. Kritixilithos (talk) 16:15, 11 November 2020 (UTC)

nefandous and nefarious
Both seem to come from the same Latin root, can they be marked as doublets or at least reference each other? 2804:7F0:3985:4580:52:7454:9040:E61B 10:24, 12 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't know what counts as a doublet and what does not, but they don't come from the same Latin root. Nefandous ultimately comes from Latin for, whereas nefarious is from Latin fas, which is a different word. They do both share a common Indo-European root though (*bʰeh₂-). If it was up to me I wouldn't mind having them reference one another, though I'm not sure what Wiktionary's rules are. 2601:49:C301:D810:35EA:BEC3:5D39:CCBD 17:12, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Czech/Slovak pštros
Where does the /p/ come from? ? PUC – 19:56, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * No idea. Off the top of my head, all I can think of is contamination with . Does anyone have a Czech etymological dictionary? —Mahāgaja · talk 20:27, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I think does. PUC – 22:45, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I have a copy of Rejzek, and you can too; it's pretty easy to find a PDF. He says: "p- přidáno ve střední době asi lid. etym. k pstrý, pestrý". —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 00:23, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

Dutch steunen
I find it unlikely that the three senses have the same origin. Aren't the first two related to 🇨🇬? ? PUC – 21:45, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
 * According to dictionaties at the Etymologiebank,  there are two etymologies, but both are Germanic. They don't reconstruct the meaning "to groan" for our current Proto-Germanic verb. ←₰-→  Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  09:45, 15 November 2020 (UTC)

Origin of local
We say is borrowed from Old French (and etymonline.com concurs) but I have seen no quotations from before 1340, the arbitrary beginning year of Middle French on Wiktionary. Perhaps authorities have determined that it circulated orally before being recorded in documents that survive to modern times. Middle English Compendium says it comes directly from Latin rather than through French. Anybody have more to add? Absent some comment I will add a Middle English definition with Middle French as the source. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 21:54, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
 * It cannot be a borrowing from an inherited Old French word since it would had underwent several sound changes, particularly /k/ > /g/ V_V (compare ) and an alteration of /o/. It's either a borrowing from Late Latin or from an Old French word, itself recently borrowed directly from the Latin word (as no sound change would have occurred from the borrowing from Latin until the English loan), thus it ensures the Latin etymology given that, even if through Old French, the word would have been in it for so few time to be neglected. Malku H₂n̥rés (talk) 08:49, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales says that the adjective existed in French as early as 1200 but as you say above it doesn't actually show an example until later. I've also checked a couple of Old French dictionaries, and found it in one here [], showing the dates are 1314, 1324; which match the CNRTL, but not sure if the actual spelling is local, locales, or locaus. In any event, I've updated the etymology to show the ME word borrowed from Latin and possibly through Old French as well. Leasnam (talk) 00:18, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Georgian and Armenian ,
Apparently, 🇨🇬 is a bit of a mystery. It has no known cognates in any Kartvelian language, but is attested since Middle Georgian period. There are also dialectal variants of this term:, and , among others.

Then, I came across 🇨🇬, (a variant?), which refer to the exact same plant (Rubus idaeus). Now, I haven't managed to find this word(s) in Old or Middle Armenian dictionaries, but they are registered in Alishan's (1895: 203-4, #842) botanical dictionary. J̌ahukyan (2010: 282a) himself says the origin of this word is unknown. In Ačaṙyan (1926: 232a-b) lists several variants of this entry or etymologically related terms, like, and. The latter form is transparently analyzable as.

I wonder if these Georgian and Armenian words share the same origin. Maybe one language borrowed from the other or the two borrowed from a common source. After all, Armenian ժ is the regular reflex of PIE *g(ʷ)ʰ only in the middle of words before *i or *e, but when found in initial position it is generally diagnostic of foreign origin. Also, given that խ ~ ղ sometimes alternate diatopically, and that ղ < *l (either before consonant or by analogy), one can see that 🇨🇬 (and its variants) and 🇨🇬, are indeed quite similar, both phonetically and semantically.

So, does anyone have any info about it, or would like to share some thoughts? Thank you. --Sorjam (talk) 22:58, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Wild guess: This is the same word as which is used for the cornel. Fay Freak (talk) 17:40, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
 * it looks like you made a new discovery. I will look into this over the weekend. --Vahag (talk) 13:10, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
 * for Georgian perspective/insight: ვა <-> ო is a common change for dialects, however inbetween words, the change isn't common in standard literature and eastern dialects.. მ-C <-> 0-C where C is a certain set of consonants is also a common change, mostly the direction goes towards 0 in Georgian literature and goes back and forth in dialects, so I think it's safe to say if a form existed, it would be something like მჟოლი/ჟოლი. As for final -ო, it could be counted as a suffix kind of. So Georgian terms are easily explained. I'd personally think this was borrowed from a tertiary source. Have you checked North Caucasian languages? Between Zan and Svan there is a CK or GZ term (here at pg. 219 reconstructs *imaɣa-) with Svan Zanism, but the term isn't identified in Georgian. There IS a word in Old Georgian: "" -> "and cedars [to be as common as] sycamores which grow in the plains". Then in turn Sulkhan Saba writes that they meant Sycamore Figs. so it could be connected to that. In Georgian dialects, we have word  where  means optional, but that word means mulberry, though are they far off?  Also  when did ղ sound change to /gh/? That could help determine things. -Solarkoid (talk) 20:06, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
 * thank you for the response. I actually knew about the Zan and Svan forms (i.e. 🇨🇬, and 🇨🇬, all meaning “raspberry”); maybe these are the real indigenous words for this fruit, while 🇨🇬 is a loan. As for 🇨🇬, I admit that it escaped me ;-), so thank you for bringing that up! At this point, I would wait for Vahagn Petrosyan and see if he can find any info. If you ask me, I also think it's more plausible that both Georgian and Armenian have borrowed this word from a third source, as you do, mainly because of the initial segment ž- which is quite rare in Georgian too (isn't it?). Maybe the other word you provided,, is also related to , personally I wouldn't find it strange. I'm still checking for similar words in North Caucasian, but until now I couldn't find anything interesting. I'll keep trying. Maybe (and this is a wild guess of mine) this word is ultimately of Turkic origin (possibly Oghuric): compare 🇨🇬 and the 🇨🇬 borrowing . However, I don't know how a Lir-Turkic word would make its way into the Caucasus (Khazars?). --Sorjam (talk) 00:14, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

I created and. I do not doubt the connection of the Armenian and Georgian, but the ultimate origin is uncertain. Armenian may come from earlier  as in  and. The process of becoming ġ started in the 9th century and was over everywhere in the 11th century. Usually, when an isolated word is found only in Armenian and Georgian, it is an Iranian borrowing, but I didn't find anything in Iranian. Fay Freak's proposal above does not fit phonetically. --Vahag (talk) 14:27, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the edit! I added some more alternative forms I found. the svan term I added is probably borrowed from Zan, but it looks like it could still well be a Proto-Georgian-Zan word like b/m-žol-. I asked if people knew any language which had mulberry and raspberry terms mixed up. If there are we could add that as a comparison.This is actually really interesting if the word actually reconstructs to PGZ. -Solarkoid (talk) 17:49, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * If it does, then the Armenian is a Zan borrowing. That would agree with the dialectal distribution of the word only in the northwestern corner of our homeland. There is also Laz dzuh "the fruit of ", which according to Bläsing is an Armenian borrowing. --Vahag (talk) 17:57, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , : Thank you guys for your help! --Sorjam (talk) 13:00, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

Move Yagnobi to Yaghnobi
The language Yagnobi  is usually spelled as. Unless someone objects, could someone run a bot to replace all headers and and move all categories to this spelling? -- 06:48, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Support. The form Yagnobi is mediated by Russian and does not reflect the -γ- of the original. --Vahag (talk) 13:11, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

εύκολος
RFV of the etymology.

The source cited on the English article does not provide an etymology for εύκολος but instead refers the reader to the entry for δύσκολος. The entry for δύσκολος says that the etymology is unknown.

For reference, I found a PDF of the book here: https://www.bulgari-istoria-2010.com/Rechnici/Etymolog_Greek.pdf

 * — Beekes refers the reader to δύσκολος for (I think) the simple reason that this saves space in this 1850-page opus, and as the term δύσκολος comes before εὔκολος in the alphabetical order of the entries, this backwards reference is the more conventional one. But meaning “keeper, tender, watcher”? The link following “Allegedly” in the etymology section for  alleges nothing of the sort. Are there other instances of this being used as a suffix? Even if there are, it is hard to see how “[being a] good keeper” would develop into the sense “easy”. The only meaning I can find for  on its own is as an adjective meaning “docked”. [Aside: we define the verb dock as meaning “to cut off a section of an animal's tail”, but I think this is too anatomy-specific. Merriam–Webster has “to cut (part of an animal, such as the ears or a tail) short”. Here are some uses in which the parts that are docked (or not) are horns:, , .] FWIW, the Greek Wiktionary analyzes the etymology of Ancient Greek εὔκολος as “< εὖ + ”. If correct, it means that in this context PIE kʷ somehow escaped the regular phonetic development to π or τ.  --Lambiam 22:21, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
 * There's βουκόλος (with dissimilation of gw-kw- to gw-k already in PIE), but that's clearly not the same element as in δύσκολος. So I'd say that (except for the prefixing with δυσ-/εὐ-) the etymology is unknown. --Akletos (talk) 18:14, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The bucolic sense of “herder” is semantically not very distant from “keeper, tender, watcher”, so that is probably the origin of this claim. But I agree, this has nothing to do with the mystery element in εὔ-/δύσκολος. --Lambiam 18:39, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

go to hell
Ety tagged as needing sourcing, presently reads:

 * "The expression dates back to Old English, where it literally meant to go to Hēl, who was the Goddess of Hell (also called Hēl). It was not an insult."

This sounds like tosh to me, but I suppose you never know. Mihia (talk) 14:21, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Sounds like nonsense to me as well. My guess is that some neopagan wants to 'reclaim' the phrase or something. I can understand why such individuals seize on Old Norse a lot, but I'm not sure why so many of them cease on Old English, given its actual history. Seems a bit arbitrary. Tharthan (talk) 20:59, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Our friendly incompetent and since-banned added that .  Given their questionable editing history and other issues, I'm inclined to suggest that we nuke this  etymology and get back to our usual business.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 22:05, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

 * Etymonline (and miscellaneous Google Books) says the phrase goes back at least to Shakespeare ("let Fortune go to hell for it, not I"). It's conceivable that the phrase also existed in Old English, but we'd need a source, and I suspect all the stuff about the goddess Hel can just be dropped as unimportant. - -sche (discuss) 22:52, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm curious about -- I read a while back that this word came about due to Mount Hekla's reputation as the gateway to Hell.  See also w:Hekla.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 23:01, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I started a new thread for "heck" immediately below. Mihia (talk) 18:28, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * It's attested in sense 1 (the &lit sense) since at least Wycliffe's early Bible c. 1384(?), Mark 9.42, and a c. 1475 line "the pore went to heyuyn, þe rych to hel" (examples from the MED). It wouldn't surprise me if such literal use went all the way back to Old English. I can find "Hí sculon gán libbende on helle" in Old English, but not yet any examples of "to". The connection between hell and Hel still seems like something to discuss at hell, not here. - -sche (discuss) 03:55, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The ' mentions a female figure referred to as seo hell. The article "Hel our Queen": An Old Norse analogue to an Old English female Hell in The Harvard Theological Review 76:2 (April 1983), pp. 263–268, speculates (as expressed in the subtitle) that the hell of the Nicodemus gospel, an apparently female chthonic figure, may be identified with the Old Norse ', the female keeper of, the Underworld. The name is etymologically related to . The theory of an Old English saying is IMO UtherPigwashn. Even in the unlikely case that some phrase meaning “go to Hel” can be attested in Old English, there is no reason to assume it is a progenitor of the modern malediction. --Lambiam 12:47, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

heck
Ety presently reads:

 * "Alteration of hell, possibly under influence of fuck."

After a quick search I can find no informed support for the suggestion that "fuck" is in any way involved (other than as armchair retro-etymology). Even the theory that the word originated as an alteration of "hell" is questioned, with one or two people suggesting that it may originally derive from Scottish hech, which was then co-opted to serve as a euphemism for "hell". Mihia (talk) 18:27, 21 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Agreed, updated. DJ K-Çel (contribs ~ talk) 01:49, 22 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Any relation at all to ? Also, our entry indicates a first appearance in English only in the 1800s -- anything earlier?  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 01:08, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Other dictionaries are all over the map: Dictionary.com says "first recorded in 1850-55", Merriam-Webster says the first known use was 1887, and Etymonline says it's "by 1865". (The EDD has a cite from 1899.) The polysemy (existence of ety 2) makes it hard to search for. - -sche (discuss) 22:36, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

What are the descendants of the PIE suffix "-n̥kʷos" in the Czech language if there are any?
Me and my friend would like to know whether there is any PIE suffix "-n̥kʷos" descendats in the czech language, we feel like "-uha" in "ostruha" could be it, in other slavic languages it is something like "Ostroga", we are not 100% sure though, so we would like to know more, so if you could confirm it, or tell us if anything else could be it, if it is not our example.
 * Off the top of my head, I would expect a to become, which in turn would presumably become  (or  after l). But it would be best to find one or more actual words ending in this suffix and see how they developed in Slavic in general and Czech in particular. —Mahāgaja · talk 17:27, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

widower
I was under the impression that the etymology of widower was widow + wer (Middle English word for a male person), that is, the masculine equivalent of a widow, instead of widow + -er (suffix used to form an agent noun). A widower isn't a person who creates (or performs actions on) widows, in the similar sense that a murderer is a person who creates (or actions) murders. Can this etymology perhaps be double-checked? Thanks. -- benlisquare T•C 00:22, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * EtymOnline says "extended from (n.). The Old English masc. form was ." If it were really widow + wer, you'd expect that to have been the case in Old English, but it isn't. —Mahāgaja · talk 08:40, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Theory : Nanos(grk) is cognate to Nanha (hindi)
In nanos page it was suggested to be onomatopaiec and nanha is seen as possibly derived from shlakshna. what if both are wrong and nanos and nanha are cognates (just wondering) LolPacino (talk)
 * For anyone interested in pursuing this, the words in question are and . —Mahāgaja · talk 16:37, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
 * What is the basis for calling an onomatopoeia? DTLHS (talk) 06:52, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Probably its reoccurring in words like, , etc., and maybe also because of it not having the first vowel as . Although I doubt that while this sound sequence is used by children for adults that care for them it could likewise be used by adults for children (“dwarfs”) or by children for smaller children. Besides Beekes’ statement that it is “an onomatopoeic word of unknown origin” is illogical (as many things in his etymological dictionary) . Either it is regarded onomotopoeic or it is regarded of unknown origin. Fay Freak (talk) 15:47, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * If Beekes' work is regarded as borderline silly, should we be including it in our references without any comment? Our entry at 🇨🇬 presents Beekes' etymology as the unquestioned truth, but the comment above makes me think our entry needs reworking.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 20:20, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Theory :There survive cognates of he in (some)Indo Iranian Languages
He is derived from PIE *kis. .*kis's Indo Iranian descendents are not seen by me on the *kis page. In Eastern Indo Aryan language Bengali exists সে/she meaning "he". Cognate of সে also exists in another Eastern IA lang Assamese as সি = xi (x as in ch of German) ,meaning the same thing. Could these be cognates of English he? They kinda follow the satemization rule of k->sh(and further sh->x in Assamese).

 * It feels more plausible that it's a reshaping of Old Indic [i]sa[/i] on the analogy of the proximal pronoun . The meaning argues against derivation from PIE *ḱis. --RichardW57 (talk) 11:43, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

out
(mostly copied from -sche's talk page, where I initially raised this question)

Re: the etymolog(y/ies) of senses 2 and 3 of the verb—

The most common explanation that I have seen presented claims that sense 3 originated as an extension of sense 2.

But mightn't we have another etymological situation similar to jerk on our hands (I reference how it appears that: 1. it could be from jerkwater, 2. it could be from a verbal phrase for self-gratification, 3. it could be from jerkwater but then influenced by a verbal phrase for self-gratification, or 4. it could be from a verbal phrase for self-gratification and then later influenced by jerkwater) ?

Phrasing such as truth will out and out in the open is long-established. Moreover, the way that a (word that originates as a) colloquialism develops can sometimes be quite surprising. Case in point: throw down the gauntlet all of a sudden yielded throw down in contemporary slang after existing as a phrase in English (and the former phrase was not an especially "go-to phrase" for children/teenagers in the late 20th century, unless I have forgotten something) for hundreds of years.

So couldn't senses 2 and 3 just as easily have come about independently, and then one perhaps influenced the other later on? Is there any reason why that isn't about as likely as the commonly presented explanation? Tharthan (talk) 21:36, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

 * I've also seen the suggestion that (indeed, the motivation for an earlier RFD of sense 2 was the belief that) sense 2 is just a specialized narrowing of sense 3, but Mahagaja (Angr) said in the RFD that sense 2 is older, which if true would disprove that theory. Dbfirs says the OED's examples of the two senses are mere months apart which hardly seems conclusive (as far is which one is really earlier, since one could easily have existed for a few months in speech prior to being recorded somewhere), but which might suggest that both could have originated 'independently', as you say, from some abrupt move by speakers to use out as a verb for ~"reveal, bring out". Although, there is a certain parsimony to thinking that once speakers used one of the two senses, the other is extended (or narrowed) from it. - -sche (discuss) 22:08, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
 * At first glance, "to out the truth (about)", a transitive counterpart to "truth will out" using "out" as a transitive verb for ~"reveal", appears to be old (older than the LGBT+ sense), but upon closer inspection all the non-recent examples Google Books turned up are scannos (conflating columns, etc) where the actual book has "find out the truth about" or something. Surprising (in spite of the fact that that's also apparently what the OED found). - -sche (discuss) 22:25, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

responsibility
I note that neither we nor the OED have an etymology for this word. Is it really response + ability or can we trace it to a specific word in a European language? Cheers. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:15, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Original OED (vol VIII, part 1, p. 542) said "See next [] and . So, , ."  For French, TLFi says it was formed as  in 1783 and points out the similar English responsibility from 1766 without giving it as a source.  Vox Sciurorum (talk) 23:11, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
 * But treccani.it does call out the sequence of coinage: responsabilità s. f. [der. di, sull’esempio del fr. , che a sua volta è dall’ingl. ]. Vox Sciurorum (talk) 23:18, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you very much. That's very helpful. ---> Tooironic (talk) 22:30, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Aksai Chin
RFV of the etymology. RcAlex36 (talk) 14:28, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
 * It sure looks like the second word should be from चीन. Chuck Entz (talk) 17:01, 26 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The Hindi entry created by  suggests it is of Turkic origin. Is it ultimately from Turkic (e.g. Uyghur) or Sanskrit? RcAlex36 (talk) 04:15, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

 * Aksai_Chin mentions several theories, with references. - -sche (discuss) 10:10, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Theory : Hindi (etc) Lota / लोटा and English lather are cognates both derive from PIE lówh₃trom
Lówh₃trom is from *lewh₃- (“to rinse, wash, bathe”) + *-trom Lota means pot,it is connected to the meaning of *lewh₃. Lather is known to be derived from lówh₃trom. I definitely feel it is the same case for hindi lota too It could have been something like Lotra/Lotram in Sanskrit ,which wouldve descend from PIE lówh₃trom

 * @Chuck, Meta or other editors: what do you think, is this the same user who used to spam this page with theories about every incidental similarity, in which case we might just go back to deleting the posts, or is this a new user doing a merely similar thing? - -sche (discuss) 10:08, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

street
Doesn't this word derive from Anglian rather than West Saxon ? --RichardW57 (talk) 00:54, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * It probably derives from a mixture of both Anglian and West Saxon forms; note that Early Modern English has / besides /. --Hazarasp (parlement · werkis) 11:56, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I've updated the etymology at to include both spellings, and have removed the tag. Leasnam (talk) 01:00, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

ささめゆき
conjectures: “sasa (≒ 細やか) + me (< 目?) + yuki (雪) ?”

I wonder if it isn't more likely +. There is apparently, per KDJ, a (dialectal?) term, which means “fine wood grain” (細かい木目). In either case, it seems to be attested from the 15th century, again per KDJ.

Cnilep (talk) 02:05, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

 * My local copy of Daijirin lists this as  on the headline, including a hyphen in the reading to indicate the morpheme boundary.  Same for my dead-tree KDJ.  My local copy of the SMK5 lists the word as , using a space for the morpheme boundary and including the 《 marker to indicate a rare kanji + reading combination.  None give any further information about etymology.
 * The DJR and SMK5 have no independent entries for . The KDJ does, in fact there are two two senses, but neither seems relevant -- one just refers to the  type of dwarf bamboo and similar wetland grasses; the second sense uses the word as an alternative for, apparently by extension.
 * That said, I think the sasame "bamboo; grass plants" and sasame- in sasameyuki are probably both from +, but also used as a suffix on adjectives to indicate amount or degree, vaguely similar to 🇨🇬.  ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 01:13, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

nao
RFV of the etymology. Are we certain that was borrowed from Chinese ? Or is a native Vietnamese word? RcAlex36 (talk) 04:14, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

produce
Why are the two English etymologies of produce separated? I think they are both the same etymology. AnotherNeko (talk) 22:05, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree and am merging them. It would make sense IMO to separate them if the noun had been derived from the verb at some stage before Modern English, but it in fact it was already the modern era when the noun emerged. —Mahāgaja · talk 09:47, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

狼藉
RFV of the etymology.

传说狼群常在草地上卧息，离去时常将草地弄得一片凌乱以灭迹. 后用此语形容凌乱不堪.

Is this a folk etymology? 恨国党非蠢即坏 (talk) 04:00, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

 * 狼藉 looks like some sort of reduplication to me. The reconstructed Old Chinese pronunciations of the two syllables have similar finals. Relating 狼藉 to wolves is probably folk etymology, just like relating 首鼠 to mice. RcAlex36 (talk) 07:31, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

 * You may be interested in 释“狼藉”, which supports the view that 狼藉 is a 連綿詞. RcAlex36 (talk) 05:02, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

corwg, coracle vs curach, currach
The Welsh corwg and its apparent English descendant coracle differ from the Irish curach/currach. So, it's unfounded idle musing, but I wonder if an influence on the modification from "cur-" to "cor-" in the Welsh corwg, was partly that it seemed natural when "cor-" means "dwarfy" (so "corgi" = "cor-" + "ci", "dwarfy-dog")? Given cwch means boat, wouldn't it seem natural that a "corwch" was a "dwarfy boat"? --DewiMorgan (talk) 01:09, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Various words at Category:Cebuano terms derived from English
Looking back at the aftermath of a discussion on the etymology the Cebuano entry takilya, I think we need to verify and fix the etymology of hundreds of Cebuano loanwords at Category:Cebuano terms derived from English that are really borrowed from Spanish.

The etymologies of these entries below are somehow suspicious. Many are just tagged as from English just because they're made to "sound" Spanish from the English as the guy who added those etymologies insists (which is mostly not the case, especially if taking history and/or obvious clues in account):

 * (from Spanish or English )
 * (from Spanish or English )
 * (from Spanish . Democracy is already known to Filipinos even before the American era, so a derivation from English is both incorrect if looking at the pronunciation and the historical context)
 * (from Spanish or English )
 * (from Spanish or English )
 * (from Spanish or English )
 * (from Spanish or English )
 * (certainly from Spanish )
 * (certainly from Spanish )
 * (certainly from Spanish )
 * (certainly from Spanish )
 * (in the sense of "utility pole". Certainly from Spanish, plus historical context. Can think the derivation from English is valid, but this can be discounted as the use of "post" to refer to an utility pole in the Philippines is somewhat a more or less direct Spanish influence, though it's also correct for the thing to be described as a post, in the sense of "long dowel or plank protruding from the ground", as it's some dowel).
 * (certainly from Spanish, plus historical context)
 * (certainly from Spanish )
 * (certainly from Spanish from the way it's pronounced)
 * (certainly from Spanish, from the way it's pronounced)
 * (certainly from Spanish, even if its sense of "term" as in "period of time" has a different corresponding translation)

A few have etymologies that are somewhat borderline, due to possible ancestors being very similar in pronunciation (plus a common ancestor or root in Latin and/or Greek). Main differences for possible candidates are spelling and stress:

 * (from Spanish or English )
 * (from Spanish or English )
 * (either Spanish or English)
 * (from Spanish or English )
 * (from Spanish or English )

A few words that sound Spanish can be safely said to be from English by making them sound Spanish, usually rooted to poor knowledge of proper Spanish among Filipinos since the decline of Spanish following WWII.

 * - from English (correct Spanish is )
 * - from English (correct Spanish is, and there's also  which derives from it).
 * - from English (correct Spanish is, and there's also  which derives from it)
 * - from English (correct Spanish is )
 * - from English (correct Spanish is . Rootword itself is also from English.)

 * With the exception of those that rather derived from English as pseudo-Hispanisms (or "siyokoy"), can you help resolve the cases above, plus others that can be ascertained to be from Spanish from the way they're spelled and pronounced? I'll also take a look on others that may fall under the category of "siyokoy" to add to the previous 5 examples. -TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 08:36, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

 * This is going to be a week old, and inputs needed. Have looked up 19th-century Spanish dictionaries as indirect evidence, I think (in the sense of investment),, and  is certainly borrowed from Spanish.--TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 06:51, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I mean, I agree with you. I want to see what other people think. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 07:26, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I know the guy who added the etymologies of the words in question helped with increasing the coverage of the Philippines's second most widely spoken language (now, there are 13,000+ Cebuano/Bisaya entries), but it's all absurd to claim that many words that are logically and historically borrowings from Spanish are rather from English. It baffles me why he would claim demokrasya is from English (ignoring the fact Filipino already knew of democracy before the revolution), so are edukasyon (considering formal education has been in the Philippines for long). Regarding words describing concepts that may have only been introduced to Bisaya-speaking areas during the American era, such as industrialization, electricity, technology, pop culture, etc., that can be debatable, but considering the Spanish language continued to exist in the Philippines after the revolution and is still a major source of borrowings to fill vocab gaps in PHL languages, industriya, poste, and teknolohiya being Spanish borrowings is more plausible than the claims of being derived from the similar-looking English via "hispanicization".-TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 09:49, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I am not confident enough to say for sure. We had discussions before about Tagalog and Cebuano etymologies where there is a mix of Spanish, English and Spanish-looking loanwords. You have added quite a big list and I don't think we have more experts on the matter. We know that Tagalog/Cebuano words borrowed from English may be made looking like Spanish, which makes them also more digestable by Tagalog/Cebuano.
 * One previous etymology discussion, if you haven't seen it yet: Etymology_scriptorium/2016/December --Anatoli T. (обсудить/вклад) 10:47, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * On the example you've provided, I can agree tatay is unlikely to be a borrowing, but a word originating from babbling. Can also say that for, plus potential Austronesian ancestors. It's much like the case of "mama" and "papa".
 * Going back, the main issue here is whether certain Cebuano words marked as English derivatives are from English or Spanish. I agree there are Spanish-sounding Tagalog and Cebuano words like the five mentioned, which are rooted in poor education in the Spanish language, but I find it illogical (and/or unhistorical) to say "demokrasya", "edukasyon", "industriya", "poste" "teknolohiya" being English derivatives. The pronunciation themselves (plus history, if applicable) give evidence these are more likely to be Spanish borrowings. We don't fully know, but it looks like there had been revisionist POV involved in the creation of the etymologies. I think the guy added those questionable etymologies under the belief the Spanish language ceased to exist in 1898 in the Philippines, which is not the historical case (see Spanish language in the Philippines).--TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 04:11, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Have also found another more recent thread, questioning the etymologies of certain Cebuano terms, tackled by Ultimateria: Etymology scriptorium/2020/September. I'm certain "teknolohiya" is a borrowing of the Spanish as Ultimateria expected. --TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 06:00, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I support any cleanup effort to fix these etymologies. I acknowledge that this other editor has given them a lot of thought, but it's a dubious logic at times. Ultimateria (talk) 19:31, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm all sure "kapital", "karakter" and "kondisyon" being Spanish through indirect evidence, but for the likes of "galon" and "dipterya", I think we need further discussion. Possibilities are
 * "Dipterya" is either Spanish or English, and the ultimate source can be determined by historical context, if diphtheria has been reported in 19th-century Philippines.
 * It's possible "galon" (in the sense of gallon) is from Spanish from the pronunciation, but it's still possible it's from English with pronunciation altered to make it palatable to the Cebuano tongue, and in the same sense cold be just an English influence (Spanish galón generally means "braid").
 * It's possible the guy who added the etymologies is correct certain Spanish-sounding words derive from English, but the others are rather bad overgeneralizations (so those questionable etymologies for "demokrasya", "edukasyon", "industriya"). For, it's more plausible it a Spanish borrowing, not from English "post" (that sounds like indirect Spanish influence in my experience, though as said, it's still correct to call a power pole a post). --TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 04:19, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * This is also suspect: . This has a doublet,, that obviously derives from English, but the spelling and the pronunciation itself makes this one a derivative of in the sense of "traffic". Following an old rule on translating English words to Tagalog, Cebuano or other Philippine language by borrowing a Spanish equivalent respelled to native orthography that the guy behind the questionable etymologies is misimterpeting to justify this one (and the others) is a English derivative on his POV, this is certainly from Spanish. -TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 12:41, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

I would agree that trapiko probably comes from Spanish. Ultimateria (talk) 18:23, 8 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Certainly. Trapiko being just English traffic plus final o is very implausible (and looks like nonsense). Could say that as well for most of the cases here, except where the etymology is made clear by historical evidence or is just created out of ignorance of correct Spanish. Following the old rule on borrowings from Spanish to translate English (translate the English to Spanish, then borrow the Spanish and respell it):

 * anticipation -> anticipación -> antisipasyon
 * verification -> verificación -> beripikasyon
 * distribution -> distribución -> distribusyon
 * industry -> industría -> industriya
 * capitalism -> capitalismo -> kapitalismo
 * model -> modelo -> modelo (no change in spelling)
 * facility -> facilidad -> pasilidad
 * [utility] pole -> poste [de electricidad/teléfono] -> poste [sa kuryente/telepono]
 * suggestion -> sugestión -> suhestyon
 * technology -> tecnología -> teknolohiya
 * term -> término -> termino
 * traffic -> tráfico -> trapiko

 * --TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 23:07, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

 * I'm able to find pre-1898 dictionaries for Cebuano, the Diccionario español-bisaya and Diccionario bisaya-español, though this is somewhat complicated by the use of Bisaya as a common name of all the major Visayan languages, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Aklanon, Capiznon, Karay-a, Masbatenyo and Waray.

 * From what I can find, these are certainly from Spanish:, , , , , , , , , . Completely certain galon is English, just with the pronunciation changed to match the Spanish. Dipterya is certainly a English borrowing, as there's little knowledge of the disease until the 20th century, and Spanish difteria is a later classical borrowing. Demokrasya can still be from Spanish by the spelling and pronunciation, though it didn't appear in the aforementioned dictionaries of that time (due to censorship and the idea still fresh), and could have been borrowed to Cebuano from Spanish by the early 20th century. Poste is likely Spanish, first as another word for a column or post, and the sense of "utility pole" acquired later with the introduction of the telegraph, the telephone and electricity. Trapiko is still a Spanish borrowing, even where it gained the sense of "traffic" only by the mid-20th century (that time, Spanish is still much known by most educated Filipinos even it's losing its prestige status as later generations began to be educated in English). I'll also undoing my change in "yarda", as well as fixing the Hiligaynon and Tagalog (it can be correct it's from English, just with the -a to make it sound Spanish, and Spanish "yarda" can be just a borrowing as well by adding gender endings, considering Spanish-speaking countries have long used SI).--TagaSanPedroAko (talk) 06:14, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

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


text:
Wiktionary:Information desk/2020/December

Mon Picture Dictionary
Hello, my name is Intobesa. To prevent words spelled Mon language about Mon dictionary, I am writing it now not complete yet. if writing is complete, it will take about 3 days, don't delete it, I beg Admin favor, about the Mon dictionary I would like to keep it here, to prevent destructive writing of Mon words, Thai Admin Mon Vocabulary written in a destructive way It is as follows
 * ကွေန်ၚါ်တြုံ
 * ကွေန်ၚါ် The Mon vocabulary he wrote was not true in the Mon language, as he wrote for the future Mon people are very dangerous, this article is for protection like this, he wrote the Mon vocabulary although I am a real Mon but I do not understand, I studied Mon language when I was young this spelling is never agreed upon and the word spelled in this in the ancient Mon language never agreed, I know (Raman รามัญ or Thai Ramanไทยรามัญ or Mon Tai มอญไทย), (Mon မန်၊ မွန် or Mon Nya မန်ည၊ မွန်ညာ့ or Mon Tang မန်ဒိုင်၊ မွန်ဒိုက့် or Mon Teh မန်ဒ၊ မွန်ဒဲ့ or Mon Burmese မန်ဗၟာဲ၊ မွန်ဗမာ or Mon Myanmar မန်ဗၟာဲ၊ မွန်မြန်မာ), (Mon Koreanမန်ကိုဝ်ရဳယျာ한몬), (Mon Khmer មនខ្មែរမန်ခမင်), (Mon Paliပါဠိမန်), language but have never seen that Mon vocabulary, I think he wrote Mon vocabulary in a destructive way, I need to protect it like this. thanks --咽頭べさ (talk) 03:16, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

 * Who wrote Mon inaccurately, exactly? --Apisite (talk) 02:37, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

 * This seems to be a content dispute between and  about ကွေန်ၚါ်တြုံ. I don't know how these are handled in Wiktionary (I mostly inhabit Wikipedia). --ColinFine (talk) 17:01, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

 * I already told you before. Mon has many dialects. We mainly use Myanmar dialect as main entries because Myanmar has the Mon state and 90% of Mon ethnics are there. Go check the word at . Or you should defend that Shorto's vocabulary (1962) is wrong; I would add to my exception list and change the word back. (I am not a stone.) For other minor spellings, like Thai Mon, we also collect as alternative spellings. I actually said "incorrect" once, I must say sorry, now I know Thai Mon (your) spellings are also correct too. So they are already mentioned in the page. What do you want further more? --Octahedron80 (talk) 17:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

 * PS: Myanmar Mon also use common nga (င) in their text interchangible with Mon nga (ၚ). You could check Mon Wikipedia and randomize some articles. But I do not yet add it unless I already see one.

I feel I'm being kicked out of Wiktionary
Okay, so what triggered this are recent edits to Sankt-Nimmerleins-Tag. Notice how there's a box complaining about redundancy of senses, even though my original submission made it very clear why one might choose different English equivalents. Note also that all the attestations have been deleted as ‘questionable’. I can't say I agree. Overall, comparing my initial version and the version as it stands now, the original was objectively better.

This isn't the first time something similar has happened, but I don't want to get bogged down in details. The feeling of getting kicked out is more of an overarching thing. I have long been disappointed with the overall lack of quality of this project. Often words or senses are missing, etymologies are wrong or missing, no or very few attestations, and so on and forth. But now I understand why that is.

Depending on the reaction here, I might consider giving up on this project for good. You may think that's no big deal, considering I've only been able to contribute very little. But you'll have lost me over the course of a lifetime and further, I think the underlying reasons are causing others to not begin contributing in the first place. Please tell me those experiences were just caused by some rotten apples and my impression is wrong.

Oh and if you decide to kick me out, at least be consistent about it and delete Sankt-Nimmerleins-Tag because by your own silly criteria it is as it stands unattested.
 * All three senses at are the same sense, just used with different prepositions. So they shouldn't be listed as separate definitions. We don't divide senses by translation, but rather by meaning. In light of that, I've merged all three senses into one, since your various translations are valuable. You're editing in good faith and it was a good contribution. It can be frustrating when people challenge your edits, but it's also good to have some humility and figure out why people have an issue with the edit. I'm sorry you haven't felt welcome here...it's a steep learning curve, and we aren't always as friendly as we could be. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 17:59, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The glosses had to be fixed because of the common error of mapping to or sorting after English instead of the understanding of the described language.
 * The pictures were disallowed because they pertain to the authors of the quotes and make everything look encyclopedic.
 * What are “questionable quotes” though, ? Only the reference of the quote titled Grimm was to be fixed. IP’s right on the quotes. I note to the IP that it might have seen “quotation” sections but it is not that common to use them (but rather to add expandable quotations right after the senses or at the citation namespace near the talk namespace), although here it was and looked very okay since nothing else would ever be on that page anyway. Fay Freak (talk) 01:36, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The fact that there was a pretty clear political POV in them. A dictionary is even less a place for covert POV pushing than an encyclopedia. (For the record, this was not entirely an independent act; there was some discussion on the Discord server and general agreement that the quotes had that very problem.) I'm not exactly going to edit-war over restoring them back, but they should at the very least be under a citation page in my opinion. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 09:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * There is no political POV. The authors of the quotes have POV, but this does not carry over to the page. Wiktionary does not become socialist by quoting Karl Liebknecht as it does not become a rapper by quoting, or a bawdy house by quoting . IP of course cannot comprehend it because it is merely imagined, and even less so if his effort has not been moved but removed.
 * The idea of reaching a somehow general agreement over Discord is also a very problem that aggravates the issue of a new user legitly not being able to grasp what’s going on. Fay Freak (talk) 17:28, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * You're making a strawman argument. I was never arguing for a POV simply because the authors have a POV. If you cannot see it (or at the very least that the quotes are needlessly political) in the content of the quotes, I cannot help you further. It should be even more obvious in the context of the pictures as well as the quotes the IP originally added to ; the IP is here to promote their political views and is not acting in good faith. — surjection ⟨??⟩ 18:47, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * No, you are needlessly fabricating problems here (or whoever on Discord you speak for as a strawman). It’s also wrong to consciously dismiss quotes because they contain POV without even carrying over to a message of the page. I see the reflected POV and find it useful. Even if the IPs original motivation is politics, it may have acted in good faith by sublimating such interest into perhaps showing his interests, that is his field of interest, because our interest is language, so also interested language. Mere motivation does not make crime (actually the concept of “good faith” is misleadingly worded thus as we should have long overcome the quarrels between the faithful and the disbelievers; I must be suspect of people adducing faith as well as of those invoking godly commandments), and POV quotes are normal. There is no rule that quotes must be of either somehow neutral or of a most trivial kind (again, the high and public registers are very interesting, not less than private talk), and even more, trying to avoid political messages in quotes is itself a slant. For instance, Ewigkeitskosten is a term specifically coined for political considerations, so that’s why such quotes are sought there. The second image there, of nuclear waste, also together with its text. was most illustrative, that’s the very image thought when using the term. Fay Freak (talk) 00:36, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

 * I agree with merging the senses into one, with removing the pictures, and with removing the most political of the quotes, but many of the quotes were wholly apolitical and just flat deleting them seems like overkill to me. Why not put them on Citations:Sankt-Nimmerleins-Tag? —Mahāgaja · talk 10:25, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * What are “most political” quotes? Public discussion is constantly politics. If you open a newspaper, half of it is politics, and the other half also drifts into politics without you admitting it at first (e.g. sports are very political). And political delicacies are what dictionary users seek to know, also and in particular with such a word. There is nothing najis about documenting political use even in the most deliberate fashion or in being directly subjected to perceiving such documentation. If I am a journalist or jurist or diplomat that’s what I want to know. Fay Freak (talk) 11:34, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * For the version at I'd say the most political quotes are the ones dated 1913, 1981, 1993, 1995, 1998 and 2017. The other five are rather apolitical. But honestly, I don't mind keeping the political ones too, especially on the Citations: page rather than the main page. And the reason I'd prefer moving them to the Citations: page has more to do with space considerations than with their political nature. The translations need some cleanup though (e.g. Northern Ireland has a peace process, not a "piece process"). —Mahāgaja · talk 12:59, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, please restore the quotes. The problem is more the quantity (and formatting, <center> tags, 1990s throwback time), not the content itself. – Jberkel 18:15, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I ignored the discussion on Discord and while the pictures were absolutely a bit much, the quotes were nice for the most part. Yeah, Brecht was a communist, but who cares? There's no problem with his 1941 quote. Similar things can be said of other quotes here. The Liebknecht quote is interesting historically and, as Fay Freak mentioned, for the register. If anything we could keep most of these on the Citations page, and tbh a few on the main entry wouldn't hurt either. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 12:46, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Just noticed this discussion was on the 2nd, not the 22nd of December, so I'm a bit late. I have created Citations:Sankt-Nimmerleins-Tag, and restored 3 (hopefully) unobjectionable quotations to the main entry, as a lot of people here seem to agree blanket removal is undesirable. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 17:24, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with Surjection that the quotations taken as a whole were too biased and politicised. I don't object to the current selection and wouldn't mind either if the Liebknecht quote would also be included in the entry. For some words, it just can't be helped, all their uses are POV, but in this case a slanted presentation is avoidable. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  12:32, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Creation of entry
I need help creating the entry for the word "quadrice". Is was automatically flagged as spam.2607:FA49:7400:D200:E1DD:5F91:19D3:1496
 * That would be because of the youtube links, which are almost always added by someone trying to promote something. There's no reason to use them, anyway, because they aren't evidence of a term's existence according to our Criteria for inclusion. If your etymology is correct, we probably wouldn't want it: we're a descriptive dictionary- terms have to be part of the language, not something made up by someone for a video. It's possible that it already exists somewhere, but a quick look at Google Books doesn't turn up anything promising
 * By the way: it doesn't mean anything regarding whether to have an entry for the word, but this would be all wrong, etymologically. The words twice and thrice are from Old English words related to two and three. The "quadr" element is ultimately from . If there were an English equivalent, it would probably be something like frice. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:04, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

What is the correct location for a translated word in plural?
The word in question is dust devils, translated to Portuguese "pés-de-vento". This word in singular, dust devil, was already translated by me. I guess I should put the plural in dust devils but it seems I shouldn't because I don't see that approach in other entries, like houses for example. Should I add it in to dust devil marking it as the plural form next to the singular? Naluna (talk) 14:15, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Translation tables should appear only on the lemma forms of English words and should contain only the lemma forms of foreign words. So the translation table at dust devil should have " ", while dust devils shouldn't have a translation table at all. The Portuguese plural should be findable only from the singular, not from any English-language entry. —Mahāgaja · talk 14:21, 5 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok, thank you :-) Naluna (talk) 14:23, 5 December 2020 (UTC)

How Han etym works
I'm not entirely sure how Han etym works. I found an image in a 1905 book published in Japan that seems to be a seal script version of 茶 and I wanted to add it to that entry, but there don't seem to be any instructions on how to use the template, or how it works. Help! NMaia (talk) 06:59, 6 December 2020 (UTC)
 * 犬-seal.svg seal script version of, for example, the Han character 犬 is found in the file 犬-seal.svg. Who knows, perhaps it suffices to rename the image to 茶-seal.svg. --Lambiam 01:07, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The project is hosted on Wikimedia Commons, so there are more instructions on the file naming conventions at commons:Commons:Ancient Chinese characters project. From what I can see, the version of 茶 in File:茶 - O culto do chá.svg probably shouldn't be in Han etym because it's not the form in Shuowen. — justin(r)leung { (t...) 03:14, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you both. I see that and  are active in that project, maybe they'd have more information on this? NMaia (talk) 04:14, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * To be discussed on commons. Micheletb (talk) 08:44, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

English Wiktionary and Wikidata incompatibility?
I'd like to take some information from wiktionary and turn it into Wikidata in Lexemes. I checked your Wikidata policy. Does that policy mean I have to ask somewhere for each word I want to put into Wikidata as Lexeme data?

Quote from Wiktionary:Wikidata policy:

Any and all edits using Wikidata must have been previously approved in a discussion or vote, otherwise they shall be reverted on sight

I'd like to just freely go to a word on the English wiktionary and then feel free to turn any information I find into a Lexeme on Wikidata. Does your policy address my use case? LotsofTheories (talk) 08:31, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately Wikidata chose to go with a license incompatible with ours when setting up their lexicographical data project, mostly ignoring/dimissing the input of Wiktionary editors throughout the process. This has made Wikidata and Wiktionary largely useless to each other beyond some minor aids (like interwiki links and sense IDs) and in good part squandered the potential they had for mutual improvement.
 * In practice, for your specific case, it means that very simple uncopyrightable facts can be copied over to Wikidata, but any part of Wiktionary whose creation involved the slightest creative input (such as the wording of our definitions) cannot legally be copied. (This is not addressed by the policy you link, though; that page is only talking about the use of Wikidata data on Wiktionary, not vice-versa.) — Vorziblix (talk · contribs) 15:56, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

 * The policy is referring to the opposite of what you describe: taking information from Wikidata and presenting it here. DTLHS (talk) 16:53, 7 December 2020 (UTC)
 * That is correct, so the short answer to the original question is “No” – our policy does not address LoT’s use case. The longer answer, given by Vorziblix, is that, however, the incompatibility of the respective licenses stands in the way of this use case. --Lambiam 00:29, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

Colloquial (Levantine) Arabic Section & Module
Cheers everyone. I have been using Wiktionary for years now as an Arabic reference tool. It's a fantastic site, but I've noticed from the start that the Arabic entries are almost entirely for Modern Standard Arabic, with a few entries for Hijazi Arabic. While there's a fair amount of overlap between MSA & individual dialects, the conjugation tables in particular are not very relevant to Arabic dialects; for those of you who are familiar with Arabic, I'm sure I don't need to justify that claim.

I've just created an account here, as I was hoping to contribute conjugations of certain key verbs in Levantine Arabic — which I study professionally — as a starting point toward including more entries on Levantine Arabic & indeed other colloquial Arabic dialects. However, I've just learned that the system is not as straightforward as I thought, and the conjugation charts for the Arabic entries are actually produced through coding. Although I don't know coding, I suppose that that would make the endeavor of including Levantine Arabic entries quite easy in the long term.

So, I was wondering if there is anyone capable on the coding side of things who would be interested in collaborating to create a conjugation module for Levantine Arabic verbs. I actually don't think it would be very hard, since it mostly entails removing irrelevant sections of the Standard Arabic conjugation module (e.g. the jussive; dual forms; the passive voice) & modifying a handful of prefixes; not to mention that there are almost no significant exceptions or irregular verbs to account for.

I almost considered trying to do it myself, but I'm quite busy — teaching Arabic, no less — so it would be great if someone could take care of the coding side of things. I have already created an Excel spreadsheet of Levantine Arabic verb conjugations for my own use; it's really just a matter of translating that into code.

Thank you. If necessary, you can reach me directly at: adrian (at) abdulbaha (dot) xyz
 * The problem is much greater than you realise; we need not only conjugation tables but entire entries. Furthermore, we separate North Levantine (e.g. Lebanese) from South Levantine (e.g. Palestinian) Arabic here. may be interested in helping you with building this infrastructure and learning to create entries. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 02:49, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Until an by, one found it acceptable to have an Egyptian Arabic conjugation table under a Literary Arabic table at . Why he decided to drop it we are not told. I found the formatting thrilling every time I came upon it. It was a step towards that Chinese formatting Metaknowledge sometimes dreamed about. Fay Freak (talk) 03:08, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * That's because not all of those senses are present in Egyptian Arabic. And putting it under the same entry is just misleading. — فين أخاي (talk) 03:25, 12 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd be interested, but don't have time now. I might contact you again in a few months, if no one else has taken this up by then. Kritixilithos (talk) 08:47, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

Why does "can" mean "buttocks" in American English?
Equinox ◑ 10:45, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

 * Etymonline says the sense dates to "c. 1910, perhaps extended from" the slang sense of "toilet" (which they in turn suggest is short for "piss-can"). Partridge dates it to 1914 but offers no further information, although they do record several other senses we lack, including "Navy destroyer", (military) "tank", a measure of marijuana, a safe, and a car. - -sche (discuss) 20:00, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

py chiminey, a Germanicism in English?
I was just reading an American book from 1910 with a German professor character in it, and found this weird expression "py chiminey." It appears to be some sort of German-sounding interjection the author used through this character to make him seem more German, but (perhaps since I don't know the language) I can't determine what it's supposed to mean, or what German word it's trying to imitate. There is no entry for chiminey or Chiminey. Here are the lines where it's used (see here for the full context):

"'What, he!' cried the stout German. 'For why should I tell him about them? He knows nothing. He has bought my time to instruct classes; he has not bought, py chiminey! everything—even the soul Gott gave me!'"

"The astute German cast on him a quick glance of interrogation. 'Why not?' he said. 'It makes nothing to me what purpose you will be carrying out; no, py chiminey! not if it costs me my position of trained bear; because I have confidence in my psychology that it will not make any innocent man suffer!'"

According to Google Books, a few other books seemed to have used both py chiminey and py chimney, so they might even be attestable enough as English entries here. PseudoSkull (talk) 19:53, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * That's supposed to be "by jiminy" as in "Jiminy Cricket". There may be a German dialect somewhere that devoices a lot of initial consonants (it would be High German if it exists), but this is certainly an exaggerated stereotype. Chuck Entz (talk) 20:11, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Since doesn't occur in native German words, some German speakers have difficulty pronouncing it and replace it with, even if they don't devoice other voiced stops. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:31, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I think Chuck was referring to py, which doesn't make much sense, especially as a native German speaker would recognise the homophonous cognate . —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 22:11, 13 December 2020 (UTC)
 * It seems to have been a "thing", among some English writers of the 1800s and early 1900s, to signal "Germanness" by flipping the voicing of consonants, even in ways that make no sense relative to actual German. I've found books with "German" characters saying things like "Pisness was [...] splendid mid [=mit, ==with] us". - -sche (discuss) 22:28, 13 December 2020 (UTC)

It's possible to print the entire English Wiktionary?
The English Wiktionary is the biggest english dictionary ever conceived, including information not even high reputation premium dictionaries could offer... That's why I ask if it's possible to be put to print; English is not my native tongle, so is my message right?.

 * It would be a ridiculously huge number of volumes. I don't think anyone could afford to print it. Even the Oxford English Dictionary stopped their print edition and went online only. Equinox ◑ 04:02, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for responding.

 * As of November 22 the total number of characters on all English Wiktionary pages was 1,682,862,310. If you could fit 5,000 characters on a page that would be 336,572 pages. But probably you would only want to print out lemmas which would be smaller but harder to estimate. DTLHS (talk) 05:16, 14 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Earlier this year I met some editors of le Wiktionnaire and they showed me a printed edition of the French Wiktionary–only a subset, and only French entries, but still cool to hold a paper copy in hands. I think it was specifically designed to be used in schools, in cooperation with some publisher. – Jberkel 22:01, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

category
Is there some way I could get a list of English entries without written pronunciations? Dngweh2s (talk) 00:05, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I asked for that years ago, and was given User:Ultimateria/en-needing-ipa, which is based on a database dump that was already over a year old at the time. I've been working through the list off and on for the past 5 years, but the list provides only the most common English words that didn't have an IPA template at the time of the dump. The only way to remove entries from the list is to delete them or, as I have been doing, comment them out. There doesn't seem to be any way to get an automatically updated list of English entries that currently have no IPA template. —Mahāgaja · talk 06:58, 16 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Looks like you can get this list by going to petscan.wmflabs.org and entering "en" as language, "wiktionary" as project, "" as category, and "" as negative category. That gives an enormous list that won't fit on a single Wiktionary page. Adding "" to negative categories reduces the list a little. — Eru·tuon 07:29, 16 December 2020 (UTC)

What's this nonsense? (Low German)
E.g. in veer: "in some dialects, including Low Prussian and Münsterland".

Don't you know that Münsterland (Low German: Mönsterland) is a region and no dialect? The dialect is Münsterländisch (Münsterländer Platt, münsterländisches Platt). --10:30, 17 December 2020 (UTC) Examples I saw:
 * So why don’t you fix it instead of complaining here? --Lambiam 21:06, 17 December 2020 (UTC)
 * In English it is common to just use the proper noun attributively when e.g. a dialect is meant. You may find it weird, but it is not nonsensical. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  17:56, 21 December 2020 (UTC)
 * How? In the source-code it's already the correct "". Somebody fucked it up somehow somewhere else.
 * It's not used attributively in the entry as it's not "the Münsterland dialect".
 * --2003:DE:373F:4069:B534:361E:8AEB:9907 20:40, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, but it's hardly unusual or ungrammatical to use names of locales that are often used attributively as stand-alone labels as well. You may find it unaesthetic, but it is a practice often found in English-language linguistic literature. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  12:37, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * : Do you have examples? Better for German dialects and at best for . I'd bet that (most) usages are different, e.g. using the place name in the sense of "as spoken at this place" instead of "spoken in this lect", or being clear ellipses.
 * "the Münsterland dialect" (attributive use which was never questioned)
 * "brochte: In Osnabrück many irregular verbs retain endings for the preterite whereas they are lost in the Münsterland, where broch is the usual form." : Here, Osnabrück and Münsterland are place names and not names of dialects, hence this doesn't support "dialects, including Münsterland".
 * "the dialects of the Lower Elbe and the Münsterland differ" : Also refers to the region and is not the name of a dialect; it's pretty much "the dialect of the Münsterland".
 * "the dialects spoken in the Ems region, in the Münsterland and in Osnabrück" : Region, not dialect name; "the dialect spoken in the Münsterland".
 * "the Saxon dialects that developed on formerly Frankish soil, e.g. in Münsterland" : Region.
 * Also: Using a more common and clearer wording like dialects, including Münsterländisch is obviously better than a dubious dialects, including Münsterland. --2003:DE:373F:4016:B1B8:6DED:604C:447A 21:34, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Addition to semiprotected page "Lol": its use as a given name or diminutive form of Laurence
See: Lol Mahamat Choua (given name); Lol Morgan, Lol Tolhurst, Lol Creme, Lol Crawley, Lol Solman, Lol Mason (diminutive). This may warrant an edit for the semi-protected Lol page. --100.17.37.24 16:29, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

 * ✅ Equinox ◑ 17:52, 17 December 2020 (UTC)

 * Thank you 💙 --151.203.115.46 15:03, 18 December 2020 (UTC)

No relevant example
too often, there are no relevant example

see https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/explain

i'm a foreigner and i would know, do we say "she explained me" OR "she explained to me"???

wiktionary does not help even if there are SIX examples, not one relevant! and this situation with prepositions is common

195.158.248.86 07:40, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

 * As is not unusual with indirect objects, both forms are possible:
 * So she explained me that her husband left her
 * She explained to me later that the rug was not a common thing for that purpose
 * (Note that some grammarians may object to the first form, but it is common enough.) Because the object of the verb (that which is explained, underlined here) is a whole phrase ( that ... ), it moves to the end. Thereby you cannot see that the word order for the two forms is actually different. With a simple object, you get:
 * she explained me the work
 * she explained the reason to me
 * This is not specific for the verb to explain; it is a more general grammatical phenomenon. Compare I wrote her a letter  with I wrote a letter to her. I agree, though, that it is generally desirable (as also stated at WT:USEX) to give natural examples of how the word is commonly used. --Lambiam 13:29, 19 December 2020 (UTC)
 * "Note that some grammarians may object to the first form" Is that proscription specifically American? Compare similar proscriptions and prescriptions with to give and to tell. ←₰-→ Lingo Bingo Dingo (talk)  12:39, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * The book where I found this uses British English spelling, and the first author, Angela Downing, holds B.A. Honours and M.A. degrees in French and Spanish from the University of Oxford. --Lambiam 13:22, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * As an American from Los Angeles, anything that starts with "she explained me" looks like it should be referring to an explanation about me rather than an explanation to me. For me the dative is rather weak, so I need a preposition to reinforce it where there isn't a noun or simple noun phrase that's clearly the direct object (I have no problem with "throw me the ball", but "explain me the rules" is right on the borderline- I would use "explain the rules to me"). Of course, my mother was a teacher who majored in English, so I may not be typical. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:33, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm being threatened by an admin. How should I deal with it?
I'm being threatened by an admin who's made no bones about wanting to block me. How should I deal with this? — Dentonius 20:54, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * It depends on the circumstances. If you're being willfully disruptive to the point that a block would be within the rules if you kept at it, a warning is certainly acceptable. Robbie isn't always the most tactful, and he's been known to go too far on occasion. On the other hand, he does an enormous amount of work to keep vandalism, spam and bad edits out of the dictionary. He also wouldn't hesitate to block anyone who was harassing you in violation of the rules. Chuck Entz (talk) 21:41, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

 * You could stop behaving in a way that's liable to get you blocked. The problems discussed at w:WP:POINT apply to Wiktionary too. —Mahāgaja · talk 21:42, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

 * In short, I'm on my own? — Dentonius 21:46, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

 * Do you think I should be blocked because my style here is different? — Dentonius
 * If we thought you should be blocked, you already would. But if you become a net loss for this project, we will block you. It's as simple as that. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 23:51, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Agreed. I'll just have to try to keep my "balance" in the green. — Dentonius 00:10, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

 * Although I have same sympathy for your cause, I do not have the same sympathy for your approach, which is (if not already there) on the verge of becoming disruptive. It does not help your cause if you cast aspersions on the motives of unidentified editors who do not agree with you – you have thereby squandered a lot of goodwill (or benefit of the doubt). The rules here are rules agreed upon by the community, not rules imposed by some cabal of deletionists, and it is unbecoming to attack editors for trying to follow these rules. --Lambiam 23:58, 20 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I guess. Nobody here likes me anyway, so I don't think there's any goodwill to squander. I'll try to keep my personal grievances unspoken in the future. — Dentonius 00:10, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

 * I would suggest overdramatising things on the Information Desk. Equinox ◑ 23:58, 20 December 2020 (UTC)

RFD questions
I'm asking these questions earnestly:

 * Why is it okay to introduce a new deletion request every day (even two or more if you want to), but it's not okay to add an undeletion request every day? Don't the people who submit deletion requests every day also add to the RFD backlog and make the page huge?

 * I tend to exclusively vote keep when I take part in RFD matters. Why do people here insist on telling me that I must vote delete sometimes in RFD? Isn't it enough that I pick and choose which deletion requests I want to contribute to? It's not as if I vote keep on every single RFD entry. I single out the ones I want to keep and I vote on those. They even tell me that they don't think my vote matters because I never vote delete when I choose to vote. Isn't it unfair that I'm being pressured to vote delete?

— Dentonius 00:04, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

 * Nobody is demanding that you vote "delete" to spice things up. You have openly stated that you will vote keep for everything, regardless if it meets CFI or not. It's like you're saying "I know that the community has decided on rules and regulations, but screw them, I'm gonna do my own thing cause they're all idiots anyway". This is pretty much what you've done from day one instead of doing what you yourself said you were going to do which is to boost our Jamaican lemmas category. It's a pity, not only because you initially showed such promise, but also because there's enough discord in the world. Your credibility in the eyes of many admins and seasoned users is gone and the tone you use when talking to and about your fellow colleagues, is just too much. I think the main reason why these undeletion requests are an eyesore is because the purpose of the forum is to cut words that don't belong, not arbitrarily recreate - at times recently - deleted entries. Secondly, it's also about questioning a democratic process à la Rudy Giuliani and Trump's legal team - undeleting requires a really good reason and evidently, you have failed to sway the votes in your favour. In that case you should take a break and analyse why those votes are failing instead of bombarding the community with a constant stream of new requests and accusations. --Robbie SWE (talk) 00:47, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

 * I see. But I'll just repeat something I said elsewhere. If everything is so crystal clear, why are we wasting time with the bureaucracy? If all of you can see that something is SOP, why don't you just delete it? Why fill up a page, wait months, even years with pages in limbo? Just delete everything which you think doesn't meet CFI immediately. I just don't like the idea of rubber stamping these decisions. As for what I openly stated, I believe I openly stated that I want to "rescue useful terms whether or not they meet CFI." I don't think the others here are idiots. There are some exceptionally talented people here, undoubtedly. I can't create as many Jamaican lemmas as I'd like because: (1) I have a family (2) I operate on ten different wikis (3) The way I create entries is fairly time consuming. I spend a lot of time on citations, translating, etc. I'm not concerned about my credibility. We won't exist 100 years from now, but Wiktionary will. But I do agree that my emotional outbursts might be a bit too much for others. — Dentonius 00:58, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

 * I don't think everything is crystal clear and most of the time I don't see anything that could be called a "process" in RFD. Most of the time it's just a numerical vote for whatever people's internal conception of what a dictionary is supposed to contain is. Maybe that's OK. But certainly there is no written document that reflects the decisions made there. DTLHS (talk) 01:10, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

 * It is okay to introduce a deletion request everyday in so far there are enough entries created that deserve deletion – after all every Tom, Dick and Harry can create pages, and it is rather disappointing that there is so little input. It is less okay to request undeletion as in lack of new arguments such requests are less likely to be granted, and you are wasting our precious time. Separately from this people tell you should vote for deletion sometimes because it affects the evaluation of your votes – because we do not just sum some random internet people’s velleities together to reach a decision. Iudex non calculat and the website is too free-for-everyone for that. I dismiss Robbie’s comparison with democracy. A stakeholder meeting is not democratic, not everywhere where one has votes there is democracy (in fact a basic meaning of  is the opinion of a judge, as e.g. the dissenting votes appended to decisions; I see now that the Wiktionary definition of  is horribly wrong, since “matters of administration” are not subsumable under “democratic activities” nor is it a good wording for courts judgments and other, informal, judgments), and unlike the rigged election system in the US there is no problem with fraud here as we do not merely count together anyhow. If we counted together instead of assessing arguments, we would have to be concerned – to an extent as Wikipedia is with rigging because of all the miscreants around, parallelling the professional parasites who stole this year’s US presidential election, but luckily in lexicography there do not appear such interests involved that one couldn’t find a common ground and one would needs resort to counting; glowies like word collections too. But how is it with the common ground if you haven’t made us yours discernible? Fay Freak (talk) 02:14, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

 * I'm not going to dive into a political discussion – it's not Wiktionary's purpose and it's also blatantly obvious that we're on opposite sides of the aisle Fay Freak. I do however respect your opinion and humbly hope that we can agree to disagree. If I am to return to the subject at hand, I do however disagree with DTLHS – there is a process in RFD: anyone is free to nominate an entry for deletion, present reasons why it should be deleted and await the verdict of the community. Of course it would be awesome if more members participated, but it's their democratic prerogative not to participate if they don't want to, even if that choice undermines the validity of the democratic process. Democracy isn't perfect, nor is it easy. --Robbie SWE (talk) 17:34, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Is every rule in the CFI the result of a vote?
I've been learning more about the history of en.wikt, the past votes, and policies. It's taking some time to go through every thing, but it appears that not everything in the CFI can be referenced with past votes or discussions. Where, then, do some of these rules get their authority from? (I'm just asking because I want to go back and read all these past conversations). — Dentonius 18:24, 21 December 2020 (UTC)

 * It is hard to give a general answer that applies to all clauses. The page WT:CFI was created on 14 December 2002, and the page WT:Votes on 22 September 2006, so obviously those elements of our CFI that are earlier than that date won’t be found on subpages of WT:Votes. But some rules arose from consensus established on the talk pages of CFI or other discussion pages such as the Beer parlour; many others simply codified existing practice. --Lambiam 18:16, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

 * I see. Given that some of the rules are informal and were just passed down from one "generation" to the other, how valid are they today? What if people challenged them? Wouldn't it make sense for us to ratify the CFI and get it formally accepted by the community to ward off such challenges? — Dentonius 19:45, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * If you have issues with a certain part of the CFI, you can always create a vote with suggestions to remove or amend it and see what happens. Typically before such a vote is submitted, a discussion is held (usually at BP) to gauge interest or ask for input. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 19:58, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * We had one admin who tried to get a vote on every part of one of the policy pages (I believe it was WT:EL). After dragging the community unwillingly through an endless succession of votes, he had to give it up. Although there's much that wasn't explicitly voted on, there is a very strong implicit consensus to treat CFI as if it were all voted on. To make substantial changes in CFI like you want would require getting the community to overcome that inertia and do the hard work to develop a consensus. As it stands now, that's highly unlikely, because no one trusts you.
 * You've burned through whatever credibility and good will you had by trying to force your way through without getting people to agree with you first, then demonizing people they know and respect as evil Machiavellian hypocrites, and by turning everything you touch into a negative, politically-charged battleground. And the worst part about it is your conviction that there's something noble about it, that you're just being true to your principles and trying to make Wiktionary better.
 * What you don't seem to grasp is that a wiki works because it's a diverse community that's committed to work together in spite of its differences. Respect and compromise aren't just nice things to give lip service to, they're the blood that keeps the community alive, and the bones and sinews that hold it together. You may not have any qualms about burning a few bridges, but the bridge you're setting fire to right now is the one you're standing on. Chuck Entz (talk) 07:30, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Chuck, as much as you hate me, I want you to know that you're one of the people here whose words I pay close attention to and take seriously. Starting a vote isn't something I'm interested in. I promise you that I'll never do it. To be fair, I've never asked anyone to trust me. I'm not sure I'd want them to, either. As you said, a wiki is a diverse community. But just like in real life, there are people like me in communities as well. Are you saying that you don't want me to be a part of your community? As far as I know, I've neither forced anyone to do anything against their will nor taken anything away from anyone. Let's assume for a second that I can change. What and how would you like me to change? — Dentonius 08:46, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * As I've said before, I don't hate you. At times I get annoyed after finishing a long day of telecommuting and seeing all the confrontations and arguments that you cause. I don't have time right now to start on something like you're asking, but I have the day off tomorrow. Maybe then. Chuck Entz (talk) 15:42, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'm awaiting your response. If you reply and tell me what you'd like, I'll make a serious effort to make it happen. — Dentonius 16:18, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I maintain it was divinely revealed to our Lord Wonderfool. —AryamanA (मुझसे बात करें • योगदान) 21:15, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I wanted a rewrite of the CFI anyway because the CFI are too ambiguous and gappy due to their roots in a friendly introduction instead of legalese – Dentonius may recollect old posts of me to find out specific points –, then with such a all would be the result of a vote. But I like to wait as lockdown and  increasingly reduce contact of editors with durable media, and to attain more legal experience before tackling such a task. Fay Freak (talk) 21:57, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Language template for an unspecified dialect
I would like to specify that a Breton word is borrowed from dialectal, i.e. non-standard French. How do I do that? The source word is attested in many regional varieties throughout Continental France, but not in the Standard. Barnyard fowl (talk) 05:59, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * A lot of lects conventionally considered dialectal or nonstandard French are treated at Wiktionary as separate languages. If you know exactly which lect (e.g. Gallo) the word is borrowed from, you can use that lect's code, which you can find by going to CAT:Old French language, opening the "Family tree" box, and seeing if the lect is listed there. If so, you can use that code in the etymology of the Breton word thus: br (or whatever the appropriate code is). If you don't know exactly which lect the word was borrowed from, you could say "Borrowed from dialectal br" (in which case the word will categorize into CAT:Breton terms borrowed from French, which could be unfortunate if the word was actually borrowed from a lect that we don't consider French), or you could say "Borrowed from an br language" followed by a list of some likely candidates or cognates in whichever Oïl languages have them. In that case the word will categorize into CAT:Breton terms borrowed from Oïl languages. (That category does not yet exist, but you can create it by clicking on the red link and typing auto cat into the edit box.) —Mahāgaja · talk 08:12, 23 December 2020 (UTC)