Wiktionary:Information desk/2025/March

When am I supposed to use "Equivalent to" or "By surface analysis" in the Etymology section? Davi6596 (talk) 00:01, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

They’re effectively meaningless Wiktionarisms.

Nicodene (talk) 00:13, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

I see. Is the topic you linked suitable for a vote? Davi6596 (talk) 00:32, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

I have started a new thread here.

Nicodene (talk) 02:00, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

On Template:R:RE, I wish to convert a parameter's numeral values into Roman numerals. E.g. if the user inserts 5, result in V. How to do this?

I also want to modify the word "column"/"columns" based on the kind of input. This can probably be done with regex but I don't know the syntax. E.g. + --> "column", else "columns". Or some simpler way? Danny lost (talk) 14:47, 2 March 2025 (UTC)

The Grease Pit is best for technical questions, so you may wish to post at Wiktionary:Grease pit/2025/March. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:20, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

https://en.wiktionary.orghttps://dictious.com/en/squeeze_stile

"A stile formed by two uprights close enough together to allow a person to squeeze through but too narrow for livestock to pass."

Is there a word missing before or after "uprights"? I suppose it could make sense, but only vaguely since the noun definition of "upright" is "Any vertical part of a structure." Substituting that definition into the one for squeeze stile reads:

"A stile formed by two vertical parts of a structure close enough together to allow a person to squeeze through but too narrow for livestock to pass." however a squeeze stile is, as far as I know, always created by two vertical structures.

Never used wiktionary before except to check definitions so any advice would be appreciated. Tæppa (talk) 18:50, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

To answer your question directly, no, I do not think any words are missing. This definition makes sense to me as a native American English speaker. I would know that an "upright" would be an object that is vertically-oriented (in the States, you are probably most likely to hear this referenced in gridiron football with the uprights of a field goal post). I think your substituted definition also sounds correct and gives me the same mental image, just wordier. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:19, 3 March 2025 (UTC)

Would you describe the goal, in both American and International Football (different sports but both apply), as being "inbetween the uprights"?

At first I misread the definition of Squeeze Stile as containing "upright" without the "s" but even with the "s" making the adjective a noun, it still feels odd to use it as it it doesn't imply a physical object (or rather lack of object / gap having been created intentionally by a human), only the concept of something being "upright". Does my confusion make sense?

The only other language entered for the item is Malagasy, which uses their word "andry" which seems to mean "post" and, contrary to the English mentioned previously, "the state of being horizontal".

https://en.wiktionary.orghttps://dictious.com/en/andry Tæppa (talk) 12:50, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

If someone were to say that the purpose of a field goal kicker is to "get it in between the uprights", then that would be perfectly normal to me. I think I see your confusion, but it was just not confusing to me. If it confuses you, that's totally legit, I'm just giving some anecdotal experience that is opposite to yours. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:52, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

It looks like {{R:pl:SJPD}} points to www.sjpd.pwn.pl, which has a certificate problem that can't be bypassed because of HSTS. However, the updated URL like https://doroszewski.pwn.pl/haslo/replika/ work just fine, so I'd like someone who has perms to update it. Thank you, 91.94.107.234 00:28, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

 Done —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:44, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Checked it at (randomly) bom#Polish and it seems to work just fine. Let me know if there are any issues. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:47, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

How can I look for pages whose titles end in a said string of letters? I cannot seem to find an alternative to the prefix: keyword. Saumache (talk) 12:28, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Since the Wiktionary:Grease Pit is for technical issues, I think you'll have better luck posting this to Wiktionary:Grease_pit/2025/March. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:57, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Thanks I'll try posting it there. Saumache (talk) 18:06, 4 March 2025 (UTC)

Can it? 115.188.108.84 08:19, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Virtually any noun in English can be intelligibly used as a verb, so if someone were to say "You need to square root the number inside the symbol", then I would know what that person means, but it is much more common to say "You need to take the square root of the number inside the symbol". Doing a quick search shows no results of using "square root" as a verb, but I'm sure it's been done before. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 17:54, 5 March 2025 (UTC)

Your search used “you” instead of the mathematicians’ “we”. Here are three uses: , , . As far as I can see this use is not “clearly widespread”, yet apparently sufficient to meet our CFI.  ​‑‑Lambiam 17:26, 14 March 2025 (UTC)

Sigh. It used to be you needed Shakespeare-level riz to add words to the language willy nilly. :) Killeroonie (talk) 22:26, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

It seems that imperative and volitive (moods) are synonyms, but it looks confusing, so both instances should probably be unified to imperative. For example verbs, see intransitive aberacii and transitive abdiki: volitive appears in the headword, but imperative appears in the conjugation.

Thank you, 91.94.105.79 17:39, 15 March 2025 (UTC)

I created anti-humor, which is kind of similar to anti-joke. Which title should be used? Should they be kept individually? RanDom 404 (talk) 18:04, 16 March 2025 (UTC)

Please familiarize yourself with the basics of Wiktionary, which are quite different from Wikipedia. If two terms each meet our criteria for inclusion, they each get their own entry, also if they are fully synonymous.  ​‑‑Lambiam 14:49, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Tables for declensions and conjugations can no longer be scrolled. This is terrible for viewers on mobile devices. Half or more of the information is no longer viewable.

It seems to be a new default as this is happening suddenly across several languages.

Cross-posted at the Grease_Pit as I learned about it after this initial post.

FPanon (talk) 21:13, 17 March 2025 (UTC)

Hello I'm a human being. Please explain to me the meaning of "ethical" in the phrase "ethical dative". 'cause it doesn't seem to connect to any modern understanding of the word, or even any Wiktionary meaning of the word. It's not moralistic. Thank you, -- best wishes, someone who def ain't Equinox and certainly has no ethics. 80.235.236.18 00:31, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

According to this source, one sense of Ancient Greek ἦθος (êthos) is “interest”. While this sense makes sense, I cannot find it in any dictionaries.  ​‑‑Lambiam 14:36, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

how to enable the automatic subscription to one's own posts, both pasat and future? JMGN (talk) 16:37, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, you can go to anyone's contributions (e.g. in my signature, it's the "C" for me) and that page will have an associated RSS or Atom feed. That will update you to any edits that person makes to this wiki. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 18:20, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

@koavf: I mean the button in blue on the upper right corner, like in this very post. JMGN (talk) 19:44, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

Sorry. It seems like I misread what you wrote. You are asking about one's own posts and automatically subscribing to discussion topics that you create. Go to Special:Preferences#mw-prefsection-editing and then see "Automatically subscribe to topics". If you select that option, then "When you start a new discussion or comment in an existing discussion, you will be automatically notified when others post new comments to it." which I believe is exactly what your question was. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 20:01, 21 March 2025 (UTC)

@koavf: Unfortunately, it does not work to subscribe to past post. Any alternatives? JMGN (talk) 10:27, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Hm, I don't know of one. In principle, someone could maybe make a bot or something. I think the most efficient way to do it would be to go to your contribs, filter to the Wiktionary and Wiktionary talk namespaces, and then Ctrl+F for "new section". That will probably find a lot of them with minimal effort. It's the best guess I have now. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 16:01, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

In WordNet, every LexicalEntry is a lemma, but here on Wiktionary, many (most?) entries are non-lemma word/alt forms. For example, oranges is not a lemma, because it is the plural form of the noun orange and also the 3rd person singular of the verb "to orange" (orange is a verb??) The categories at the bottom of the page for "oranges" include "English non lemma forms" and "English verb forms", so that's helpful for this word. However, a word like runs is more complicated. It's both the plural of 'run' and the 3rd-person singular form of the verb "to-run". But it is also a noun lemma itself (slang for diarrhea), i.e. "the runs." And at the bottom of the page for 'runs' it includes categories of "English non-lemma forms" AND "English lemmas." So it's not clear to me just looking at the Categories for this page how to classify a particular word on a page with multiple sense entries, some which are lemmas and some which are non-lemmas. I'm trying to create an algorithm for computer software that is able to classify a particular sense entry as a lemma or non-lemma. Are there any "rules", either informal or enforced by the various Templates, that can categorize a sense entry un-ambiguously as being a lemma or non-lemma? And if so where would I find those rules? Also, this last question probably requires a linguist, lexicographer or grammarian to chime in, but to what parts of speech is the concept of "lemma/non-lemma" applicable? E.g., can Symbols or Numbers be lemmas/non-lemmas? I'd appreciate any references to literature on the subject as well. Thanks! Killeroonie (talk) 22:10, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

@Killeroonie: Most of the time we add "forms" to the part of speech in the headword templates, so a verb nonlemma would have "verb form" instead of "verb" in its POS parameter. Also, the definition line will link to the lemma, as in "third person singular present indicative form of run". With alternative forms of the lemma, it's a little murkier, since they're technically lemmas in their own right. Still, the definition will include a link to the main form, as in "alternative form/spelling of" + a link to the main form. There are some cases where both are alternative forms of each other due to some regional or sociolinguistic variation that's viewed as two sides of the same coin rather than one main and the other secondary, but usually we try to just arbitrarily pick one as the main one. For instance, when choosing whether the UK or the US spelling is the main one for English, the established practice is to go with whichever one was created first. That said, when you have more than 8 million entries that have been worked on by who knows how many editors over more than 20 years, there will always be some that don't quite fit. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:07, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

Can you explain how wiktionary templates work to add a word to a "word form" or "non lemma" category that displays at the bottom of each page? If I knew how wiktionary determines when to do this, I think it would help my understanding a great deal. I'm a software developer and I have a high level understanding of how templates work to automate generation of html content for the page based on template arguments, but otherwise the mechanics are a black box to me. But I'm willing to take the time to learn how it works. Thanks. Killeroonie (talk) 21:12, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

The headword module looks at the part of speech given. If it's one of the standard parts of speech, it adds the part of speech category corresponding to that part of speech, and the lemmas category. If it sees a standard POS followed by "form" it adds it to the non-lemma category. If it doesn't recognize the POS, it doesn't add either category. I can't tell you how many times I've found entries in Wiktionary:Todo/Lists/Derivation category does not match entry language because of typos, miscapitalization, or incorrect number: {{head|en|Noun}} and {{head|en|nouns}} don't add either the lemma or nonlemma categories, nor do {{head|en|substantive}} or {{head|en|noun phrase}}. Chuck Entz (talk) 22:45, 29 March 2025 (UTC)

I want to create a template which contains one of its parameter's value to be language code suppose I give en it would replace it English with blue clickable nature you know MurjhayaAanch (talk) 23:03, 28 March 2025 (UTC)

I look at e.g. Template:he-verb. Why is there no parameter to explicitly state the root? There is indeed the boxed template, Template:he-rootbox, but:

• This is essential for every kind of analysis/conjugation/inflection, just like specifying the gender and tense.
• Having it on the side is distracting from the flow of the entry. Depending on the screen it can also squeeze into the text.
• It is easily overlooked.
• It means bothering wit another template.
• In pages when one subentry is furnished with a root box, it can seem like it refers to other close subentries. Of course, other subentries may actually have another root. look e.g. on קלי .
• It also miscategorizes these other entries, instead of having them maintained under, say Category:Hebrew terms missing roots.

Danny lost (talk) 07:54, 31 March 2025 (UTC)