Wiktionary:Information desk/2018/May

Hi, I'm new here? As my username suggests, I recently bought a book on the Iaai language (specifically 'Tusi Hwen Iaau Ae Thep / Ouvéa - Guide Historique et Linguistique de Iaai / Ouvéa - Historical and linguistic guide of Iaai, by Daniel Miroux.) Wiktionary seems to have very few articles, if any on this language, however, there seems to be something about not just transcribing words from the dictionary, in case of copyright infringement. The medium of the book is French, meaning that I would be personally translating any Iaai words from the book from the French translation provided into English. Is that still copyright infringement, and therefore unacceptable? Thanks. AKidWhoBoughtABookAboutTheIaaiLanguage (talk) 09:49, 1 May 2018 (UTC) AKidWhoBoughtABookAboutTheIaaiLanguage (talk) 09:57, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

• The easiest thing is to make a slow start - just add a few entries - and we'll let you know. SemperBlotto (talk) 10:36, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

@AKidWhoBoughtABookAboutTheIaaiLanguage, so you don't miss answers. --Per utramque cavernam 10:40, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

It really depends on how much you're copying. If the dictionary tells you that köiö means eau, and you tell us it means "water", that's not a copyvio. But if the dictionary has an entry with several different senses, and you copy all of that word-for-word (even translated out of French) here, or if it has usage examples you copy word-for-word, that's more problematic. Also, keep in mind that anyone can make mistakes, and if the dictionary you're using has a typo in an Iaai word, you don't want to copy it over here. For that reason, it's better to use multiple dictionaries and only enter terms if all of them agree on the spelling and meaning. (And I recommend changing your username; this one is long and unwieldy, and what if your linguistic interests have moved on in a year or two?) —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 11:41, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

The entry instead of says it is a preposition, and "is always followed by a noun (often a gerund)". But isn't it also a conjunction (and then followed by a subordinate clause)? For example: "Let's get up now rather than when the bus stops." (Sorry, I'm not a native speaker. I hope the example is correct English.) 69.191.180.77 17:53, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

You haven't provided an example sentence. Did you mean "Let's get up now instead of when the bus stops."? --Per utramque cavernam 18:01, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Yes, sorry. (I also meant to say that instead of behaves pretty much like rather than, which is listed as both conjunction and preposition.) -- 69.191.180.77 12:22, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

No worries. "Let's get up now instead of when the bus stops." doesn't strike me as wrong, but English isn't my native tongue either. @DCDuring? --Per utramque cavernam 12:24, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

The sentence sounds informal but grammatical to me, but I think I'd interpret "when the bus stops" as standing in for a noun there, rather than interpreting "instead of" as a conjunction. There are other times when phrases like that can stand in for nouns: in When the bus stops would be a good time to stand up it functions as the subject; in I hate when the bus stops suddenly it functions as the direct object. —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 12:34, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

I'd go with what the native English speaker formerly known as Angr says. DCDuring (talk) 16:47, 3 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks all. --69.191.180.77 11:36, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Now that that's settled I'd like to be told that I am wrong with the following.

Not a native speaker either, but "when ..." is an embedded question and I don't think those are usually seen as noun phrases. The difference being, a noun phrase is headed by a noun, I guess. The only saving grace here is a zero pronoun.: "I hate (it) when the us stops". My dislike for he indefinite it not withstanding, the lack f it could be parsed as "I am hating when the bus stops". More so in German, where here would be no difference in translation. The crux is, the w:zero (linguistics) pronoun does seem very clunky in the original example: "... now instead of (it) when the bus stops."

Also, "now instead of when" can be normalized to "before".

Ultimately, I don't think there is a dilemma. A preposition could well be a conjunctionat the same time. "the bus stops" is a complete clause, "(we) let us" , as well, and they are conjoined. But there are different schools of grammar, so the question is trippy. IMHO, conjunction is less specific and thus doesn't need to be mentioned. 89.204.137.209 09:03, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

How do you create your own user sandbox?

Visit a page under your own user space, and create it, like this one: User:Bondboy9756/sandbox. Equinox ◑ 10:16, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

I just made Category:Xianbei, Category:Idiom Neutral, and Category:Turduli. Since their codes start with und, I categorized them into Category:Undetermined language, but this seems a bit weird. Can they be categorized as Mongolic, constructed, and Indo-European respectively? If not, what's the best way to organize them? – Gormflaith (talk) 15:11, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

@-sche? --Per utramque cavernam 13:55, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

The problem is that etym-only languages have to have a "parent", i.e. a regular language that they're considered a variety of. (A "parent" is thus distinct from an "ancestor", which is a chronologically earlier language that the language in question is descended from.) For Idiom Neutral that could be Volapük, but there isn't any such language for Xianbei and Turdulian (which AFAICT is the name of the language, Turduli being a plural noun referring to the people). Maybe we should have a different approach to unattested languages than we do to attested etym-only varieties of languages. —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 15:15, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Perhaps we should treat them as 'full' but reconstructed languages, and put them in Module:languages, if we expect that if people one day find attestations, the lects will be included as languages rather than subsumed into other lects. (This would probably especially make sense if terms have been reconstructed.) I considered that at the time, but decided to treat them as etym-only in part because that's how other such things were already treated (these three are not the only ones of undetermined family affiliation), including the catch-all "pre-Roman substrate"s. (Some prior discussion is at Talk:Obulco.) As for the name: I went with "Turduli" because I couldn't actually find any use of "Turdulian" as a language name, but feel free to rename it. - -sche (discuss) 17:30, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Found another mistake in an entry for Chinese word 人間樂園 where one phoneme chosen was the wrong one (the character 樂 can be any one of yuè , lè , yào , lào , luò , and that's just the Mandarin pronunciations!)

Somehow for 'paradise', the phoneme yuè was chosen, but that's for 'music', not the correct lè for happiness. Now corrected there.

But searching around I find there is an article titled rénjiān yuèyuán that links the romanized phonetic transcription to the article 人間樂園. This article needs to be renamed to be rénjiān lèyuán, as well as having the Zhuyin corrected.

Can an article rename be requested simply here? Shenme (talk) 04:25, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

There should be an option to move it, near the Edit tab. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 04:26, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback, entry moved. (For future reference, you should be able to find 'Move' under the 'More' dropdown on the top of the page.) Wyang (talk) 04:47, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Thank you both. Shenme (talk) 04:06, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

How many words are there that end with 'craft'? Here is the list I can find: statecraft, witchcraft, handicraft, spacecraft, aircraft, watercraft. Is there a two/three-syllable word ending with 'craft' that means writing expertise/productivity? J. Wiwat (talk) 06:18, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

• See Category:English words suffixed with -craft - but it may not be complete (but it does include wordcraft). SemperBlotto (talk) 06:30, 8 May 2018 (UTC)
  • See also , which I think is complete (as far as our English lemmas go). —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 10:41, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, SemperBlotto and Mahāgaja. I appreciate your information, the list of 126 words ending with 'craft' is definitely amazing! J. Wiwat (talk) 13:52, 2 June 2018 (UTC)

I've just seen someone use respectfully in the sense of respectively. Is this a common mistake? --Per utramque cavernam 10:27, 8 May 2018 (UTC)

Probably. --Thnidu (talk) 22:39, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

Plausible but I can't remember encountering it myself. Equinox ◑ 22:43, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

example. DTLHS (talk) 22:51, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm joking, but could you see this labeled a misspelling? 89.204.137.209 09:05, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

I've just edited English noun sense #5 of "help". My reasoning is too long for the edit summary bar, so I put it on the talk page and linked there from the summary bar. I would have liked to link directly to that sense, both on the talk page and here, but senseid (Module:senseid, Module:senseid/templates) is completely without documentation and has been for years. Module:senseid has over 500 links to it, but no documentation. If this is supposed to be the dictionary anyone can edit, how the heck can anyone edit it without documentation? (Mood: annoyed, verging on angry) --Thnidu (talk) 22:39, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

@Thnidu I think you should be looking for Template:senseid. —Suzukaze-c◇◇ 23:19, 9 May 2018 (UTC)

How could I find every single usage note in entries of the english dictionary in the English language? Thnanks --Backinstadiums (talk) 09:04, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

You can't search only within a single language section, so you would have to download and process a database dump using a custom-developed script. Equinox ◑ 10:20, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

@Equinox: Some months ago somebody did it for me just for those in the arabic entries, yet I cannot find it anymore. --Backinstadiums (talk) 13:42, 11 May 2018 (UTC)

Searching (using the regular on-site search function) for "Usage notes" incategory:"English lemmas" and "Usage notes" incategory:"English non-lemma forms", although it turns up some false positives (English words homographic to foreign words that have usage notes), catches English words with usage notes. - -sche (discuss) 14:59, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Why no etymology?

Better now? —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 10:24, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

I wonder which preposition is correct in the context of the Nobel Prize, for instance: He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1957. He received the 1949 Nobel prize in physics ... Yukawa, Hideki. "TABIBITO" (The Traveler). L. Brown & R. Yoshida, tr. Singapore: World Scientific, 1982, p. 4] J. Wiwat (talk) 14:22, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

The preposition that follows Nobel Prize does not depend on Nobel Prize, it depends on the next word. In the case of physics and chemistry, I feel that in is better. As for literature, either seems fine. However, you can use either preposition in each case as you see fit. —Stephen ^(Talk) 03:28, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

While adding the PIE word for heel, *tpḗrsneh₂ to the Cat:ine-pro:Anatomy category, I noticed that the latter category didn't have a page yet, which I found puzzling. I then found out that the body parts were all over at Cat:ine-pro:Body parts, which was created quite recently. In contrast with this, terms for body parts in English seem to pretty much all be over at Cat:en:Anatomy instead. So where are they to go? It seems the Body parts cat is more specific, but then I'm not sure what should go in the Anatomy cat. — Mnemosientje (t · c) 17:49, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

AFAIK "body parts" is a "list" category, to contain all body parts (potentially in subcategories). "Anatomy" is a "topic" category, but it's also added by a label, which means it contains both terms relating to the topic of anatomy, and terms specific to the jargon of anatomy. There have been proposals to change our category naming scheme (to the extent we have one) so that such differences would be clearer. - -sche (discuss) 18:02, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

Anatomy is for terms used mainly in the context of anatomy, like suprarenal. Redboywild (talk) 10:22, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

I agree. For a long time we've been misusing CAT:Anatomy for body parts, but it's really for technical terms, not everyday terms for parts of the body. —Mahāgaja (formerly Angr) · talk 10:55, 19 May 2018 (UTC)

Then terms could fit into both categories, as in the case of technical terms for body parts (abdomen vs. belly; Os vs. Knochen, Bein). -80.133.98.23 04:43, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

How do you cite sources on Wiktionary? When creating ball hockey, I tried using the ref tags from Wikipedia, but it added the link as a second definition. Please see the page's diffs, as I have removed the source for the time being. EhSayer (talk) 02:08, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I just added the link under a separate "references" section, although I do not think it is correct. EhSayer (talk) 02:37, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

You should demonstrate usage with quotations. Dictionary links are nice but they don't really attest the entry. DTLHS (talk) 02:38, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

what is the reason so many korean hangeul syllables are not documented? are these syllables not used or they just haven't reveived input yet? thanks Wikiblarty

Why should we have entries for them? Are they interesting in any way other than as a Unicode artifact? DTLHS (talk) 19:28, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Could someone show me an entry with a horizontal photo gallery please? I need to copy it for an entry. Thanks. Kaixinguo~enwiktionary (talk) 10:50, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Never mind, I found one. Kaixinguo~enwiktionary (talk) 12:26, 26 May 2018 (UTC)

Cf. Appendix:Glossary#p, proscribe

Is that term and label restricted to proscription out of etymological or grammatical reasons, or can it also be used for proscription out of political reasons? E.g. can disabled be labelled {{lb|en|proscribed}} as it's politcally incorrect and PC guys prescribe wordings like "physically challenged", "differently abled", or "disabled people" (instead of the noun "the disabled")?
Properly speaking, the reason for the proscription shouldn't matter, making all proscribed politically incorrect terms proscribed and the prescribed politically correct terms prescribed. An interessting matter then are terms which were prescribed but became proscribed in the evolution of PC lingo. Are they to be labelled {{lb|en|once|_|prescribed|now|_|proscribed}}? -Scriptor-33 (talk) 18:24, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

The label is used to indicate that a term is proscribed, regardless of reason. Both the reason and the proscribing authorities should be mentioned in a usage note (or perhaps in <ref>s). - -sche (discuss) 19:17, 27 May 2018 (UTC)

What do you call a website for finding a husband or wife in English? I can't think of it. Thanks. Kaixinguo~enwiktionary (talk) 19:17, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't know a fixed phrase for this. The women may be called mail-order brides (even online). Equinox ◑ 19:20, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

An online dating site? DTLHS (talk) 19:21, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

A matchmaking, matrimonial or marriage website. — Ungoliant ^(falai) 19:22, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

I don't know about online, but I've seen marriage agency, and a marriage broker might be something along those lines in cultures with arranged marriages. Chuck Entz (talk) 19:46, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

Thanks my dears. you can say this in UK English Kaixinguo~enwiktionary (talk) 19:49, 28 May 2018 (UTC)

• Consider introduction agency. ---> Tooironic (talk) 05:00, 5 June 2018 (UTC)