Wiktionary:Votes/2025-06/Improving the definition of "surface analysis" and standardizing its template

Voting on: Requiring the use of the {{surf}} template for all surface analyses/etymologies (thus removing alternatives, e.g. "Analyzable as", "Equivalent to", and "Morphologically"), which would be defined as such:

"Equivalent to" would be used for synchronic etymologies that don't fit this definition, i.e. those that aren't apparent.

It may be confusing to readers that Wiktionary shows surface etymologies in four different ways, which doesn't happen to other types of etymologies, such as affixation, borrowing, blend, back-formation, and calque. By surface analysis, despite not being the ideal way, has 26,654 transclusions and is still the most accepted option after many discussions, so it's reasonable to adopt it as the standard. Although "Analyzable as" is also easy to understand, it's had only 1,412 uses.

However, the definition of surface analysis or surface etymology should be improved. For example, the glossary one seems to require that the word's components have been present in an ancestor language, implied by in the form of the language at a later point in time and the following earthen example. But this isn't always the case, e.g. biology is surface-analyzable as bio- + -logy even though it has no Germanic origin. The suggested definition solves this issue, is easier to grasp, and eliminates the need for alternate wordings, which a bot can replace with the template.

Schedule:

• Vote starts: 00:00, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
• Vote ends: 23:59, 30 July 2025 (UTC)
• Vote created: Davi6596 (talk) 15:44, 7 June 2025 (UTC)

Discussion(s):

• Template talk:surface analysis § RFD discussion: October–November 2021
• Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2023/January § Template:surface analysis
• Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2023/November § Semantics and surface etymology
• Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2023/November § "surface analysis" -> "surface etymology" in Template:surf
• Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2024/February § Derived terms and surface analysis
• Wiktionary:Beer parlour/2024/April § surf’s up
• Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2025/March§surf: the end of an era?
• Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2025/June#Getting_rid_of_"Equivalent_to"_and_"Morphologically"
• Wiktionary talk:Votes/2025-06/Improving the definition of "surface analysis" and standardizing its template

Note: Since I'm amateur, the new definition, if approved, may have to be improved later. You don't have to fully agree with the suggested definition to support the overall proposal.

1. Support as the proposer. Limitations of the suggested definition may be addressed and fixed after it's approved, as it's just a guideline. Davi6596 (talk) 01:38, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
2. Support: it seems to me that the current wording of {{surf}} is likely to have the most support. — Sgconlaw (talk) 16:40, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
3. Support. Imetsia (talk (more)) 19:52, 1 July 2025 (UTC)
4. Support. All the previous discussions regarding {{surf}} have gone nowhere, so it’s here to stay, and I’d rather standardize it than not. All the other wordings people seem to prefer strike me as either more vague (which gives way to misunderstanding) or just as unintuitive (which requires checking the glossary anyway). I think it’s great to have readers check the glossary, since then they can get the nuance of our categorization, and the proposed glossary definition is pretty good. Compare how the problem with our use of the labels colloquial, informal, and slang is that they are familiar enough words for people to think they know what it means, leading to them not checking the glossary and not catching our nuanced usage of them. Polomo (talk) 04:08, 6 July 2025 (UTC)

   Nuances are not for normal, passive users. Glossaries are inconvenient and would not be used by infrequent passive users, though perhaps by some regular passive users. DCDuring (talk) 17:43, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

5. Support — Fenakhay ^{(حيطي · مساهماتي)} 23:34, 6 July 2025 (UTC)
6. Support Emanuele6 (talk) 19:13, 13 July 2025 (UTC)
7. Support per nom. Juwan (talk) 20:43, 19 July 2025 (UTC)
8. Support. I agree with Sgconlaw. MedK1 (talk) 20:29, 24 July 2025 (UTC)
9. Support. ImenaOphelia (talk) 19:30, 25 July 2025 (UTC)

1. Oppose. The rationale that something "may be confusing to readers" appears to be purely theoretical and undemonstrated. Of the possible options for the term, "surface analysis" is just about the worst option, because it is both jargon and nonspecific. I also don't think it is easy to define "surface analyses" like e.g. back-formations and calques (perhaps this is why there are multiple different ways in the first place); the definition given in this vote doesn't deal with e.g. words that have been formed long ago and are no longer necessarily apparent to speakers, or words that are still actively created by speakers which they may not realize could be thousands of years old. These are just some of the common edge cases that immediately came to mind; there are definitely more. In short, in my view, this is wholly unnecessary standardization (i.e. doing something just for the sake of doing it), the need for which has never been demonstrated, and which does not appear practical to implement to me; we should simply allow editors to use whatever wording works best in any given situation, as we already do. — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 00:00, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

   The glossary definition should be improved regardless of standardization due to issues such as the ancestor language requirement. Davi6596 (talk) 01:34, 29 June 2025 (UTC)

2. Strong oppose. Away with useless standardisation, and especially one that is as vague as this. Thadh (talk) 20:19, 29 June 2025 (UTC)
3. Weak oppose. I’m not fond of policy changes that needlessly limit editor freedom. Scholars use a variety of terms to describe these phenomena and I see no issue with the same being done here, so long as we are not inconsistent in how terms are any one term is used between entries. If it could be demonstrated that there is a clear, extant problem which indicates this change, I might reconsider. Pangur Bán & I (talk) 19:03, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

   @Pangur Bán & I There's inconsistency, e.g. biology uses the template, while entries of terms ending in -er use "equivalent to" (initially, I thought they referred to distinct types of analysis). I personally prefer the latter, but the former is more common. Either way, I see no reason for the entries to use different terms for the same purpose. Davi6596 (talk) 23:30, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

   @Davi6596 My apologies for being unclear. By "inconsistency", I didn't mean the use of more than one term for a concept. I meant that having a single term commonly being used to mean multiple different things would be an issue. Pangur Bán & I (talk) 13:57, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

   @Pangur Bán & I What's the difference between the cases of biology and X-er (X being any root)? Davi6596 (talk) 14:53, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

   biology versus (for example) waulker is an instance of two wordings being used for one purpose, not one term being used to mean multiple things. In the cases of the former, I prefer editor freedom be allowed, so long as (per @Bytekast's comment) comprehension be preserved, whether via straightspeak or wiki-links. Pangur Bán & I (talk) 15:10, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

4. Oppose for the same reasons as given above, with which I agree; especially the first one, which mentions the issue of jargon—if anything, another presentation wording should be used, but in my opinion it's all right to have a diverse set of terminologies to use as desired. So long as comprehension be preserved, whether via straightspeak or wiki-links, then it'll be fine to me. Bytekast 22:03, 30 June 2025 (UTC)
5. Oppose per Surjection. The proposed "surface analysis" is jargonistic and vague. I would support standardisation if there is compelling reason to do so, but this does not seem to be true here. Besides, I feel like the rationale presented in this vote is somewhat disingenuous, given that {{surf}} provides an easier way for editors to present such formations (as opposed to typing the word out), so the number of transclusions and the usage of other wordings is apples to oranges. The usage of "equivalent to" (41.9k; some are found outside of the etymology section) is perhaps similar to (or even greater than) that of "surface analysis" (27.5k), so the statement that "surface analysis" being the most accepted option after many discussions is perhaps unfounded. – wpi (talk) 01:41, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

   PS: I would prefer "equivalent to" or "synchronically" if we were to standardise the wording. – wpi (talk) 06:18, 15 July 2025 (UTC)

6. Oppose. If we're going to standardize on anything for these situations, we should standardize on "Equivalent to", not this. Whoop whoop pull up ^{♀️ Bitching Betty 🏳️‍⚧️ Averted crashes ⚧️} 23:00, 1 July 2025 (UTC)
7. Oppose Lerman (talk) 10:40, 10 July 2025 (UTC)
8. Oppose If there really is a problem with reader comprehension (which hasn't been backed up by evidence), then this seems like a bad way to solve it. As Surjection explains well, "surface analysis" is a broad term that works for some etymologies but is too vague in others. Editors should be free to choose which words to use for an explanation, and if a term is obscure, there can be a link to the glossary that helps readers learn the nuance of these things. Glades12 (talk) 19:16, 14 July 2025 (UTC)
9. Oppose Lack of evidence about user comprehension is attributable to the WMF fetish about privacy (ergo no user-behavior monitoring) and the fantasy that contributors are typical of the passive user population. Remembering my own reaction on first coming to Wiktionary, as one untrained in any formal linguistics, neither surface analysis and even morphologically should be the default display in the etymology section. Equivalent to is the best we have. DCDuring (talk) 14:45, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
10. Oppose No clear need for this, appears to unnecessarily impose restrictions on wording, adds to our already high editor overhead (so many templates we need to be aware of), adds to our already high reader overhead (so much jargon). ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 16:32, 15 July 2025 (UTC)
11. Oppose
    Oppose Lerman (talk) 02:15, 18 July 2025 (UTC)

    Already voted. Imetsia (talk (more)) 15:15, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

12. Oppose As others said before, Equivalent to seems to be the best option. When I started editing, I was quite confused about what surface analysis actually means. Maybe we can even create a template {{eqto}} and get rid of {{surf}}. Tc14Hd (aka Marc) (talk) 17:22, 18 July 2025 (UTC)
13. Oppose - If things were standarzied, I'd rather it be to equivalent to. Schützenpanzer (talk) 21:25, 28 July 2025 (UTC)

1. Abstain. I don't necessarily have a problem with standardization (in my experience readers often get confused by differences, even if that isn't always voiced), however this is going to be one of the more difficult things to standardize/glossary-ize. I think a neutral wording like "synchronically" might be best, but we'd need rules on what counts as synchronous analysis. In short I'm not as vehemently against this, I'm just not sure what the solution is. Vininn126 (talk) 11:16, 1 July 2025 (UTC)
2. Abstain. I think standardization is needed, but this seems haphazard. AG202 (talk) 00:00, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

   @AG202 Do you mind explaining why this seems haphazard to you? Davi6596 (talk) 11:48, 9 July 2025 (UTC)

3. Abstain. I support this in principle, but would rather use "Equivalent to" than the relatively opaque "surface analysis". Andrew Sheedy (talk) 00:18, 15 July 2025 (UTC)