User talk:Msh210/Archive/words in FL phrases

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If this edit you added zona pellucida as a Descendant of zona. It is not. It could be a Derived term (if it exists in Latin texts), but it is not a Descendant. --EncycloPetey 00:39, 15 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for correcting it, then. Question: Wiktionary:Etymology#Descendants makes it sound as though =Descendants= is used whenever, in the opposite direction, the word would be mentioned in the other word's etymology (and is in a different language). Is that not the correct rule, or does that rule not apply here?—msh210℠ 16:36, 15 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

If we did that, there would be no value in what was included in the Descendants. Would you want to include every "time" compound construction at the Old English entry for tima? Doing so would swamp out any useful information. My philosophy in dealing with LAtin descendants is to only list words when this Latin word directly gave rise to that non-Latin word, with no intermaediaries. The only exceptions I make to this are (1) Verbs that descended through a participle form, and (2) English words that descended via the French (but only because this is the English Wiktionary and because English is a mongrel language that in many ways is more French than German as a result of the Norman invasion). Have a look at Wiktionary:About Latin#Descendants, which includes a fuller description, including some ideas that resulted from conversations with Widsith. It's still not completely articulated, but I think it's a better explanation than what we currently have on ELE. --EncycloPetey 17:56, 15 January 2009 (UTC)Reply

I agree with you — listing the English zona pellucida s.v. Latin zona is a bad thing — if we have a Latin entry for zona pellucida. In that case, just list the Latin phrase as a derived term of zona. But we don't. So someone who wants to look up zona pellucida, doesn't think to do so as a phrase, and looks up zona will be gratified, I think, to find his phrase sitting there as a derived term. Of course, gratifying users is not sufficient reason to include something (or else we'd be UD), and I'm not sure it's a good enough reason here, but, as you know, I added it anyway. I can't say I'm saddened to see it gone, and I'll bear this conversation in mind in the future (until I forget it and mess up again  :-) ).—msh210℠ 18:03, 15 January 2009 (UTC)Reply