Talk:希冀

The meaning of '冀' in '希冀'

Here's my train of thought:

1: The change I am trying to make doesn't violate any wiktionary policies I am aware of.

2: The meaning of '冀' in '希冀' is 'to hope; to look forward to'. ('希冀' is specifically listed as an example of a use of the character '冀' to mean 'to hope; to look forward to' in 现代汉语词典7 p620 冀1 "希望；希图：希~“ same in http://www.guoxuedashi.com/kangxi/pic.php?f=xdhyc; 现代汉语词典3 p626 冀1 "希望：希~“.)

3: The purpose of the definitions part of the zh-forms box is to tell us what the component characters of '希冀' mean.

4: If a reader wants to know the various definitions of '冀' besides 'to hope; to look forward to', they could check the page for '冀'.

5: '冀' has nothing to do with Hebei when used in '希冀'.

6: The zh-forms box becomes more useful to readers if we tell them what the meaning of '冀' is in the context.

7: If we do this on all characters for all entries, yes, the work is endless, but the value of the zh-forms box and wiktionary as a whole increases dramatically.

8: From my perspective, the work is endless no matter what.

--Geographyinitiative (talk) 13:47, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

"To hope; to look forward to" as a gloss conveys minimal additional clarity compared to "To hope; to look forward to; Hebei" in an entry meaning "To hope".

One could also argue in reverse that listing all senses of a character helps learners learn characters better, so long as the compound makes sense with the full gloss. e.g. A person who saw 冀 on a car plate in Beijing could think when they see the gloss "To hope; to look forward to", that "Wait, isn't this an abbreviation of Hebei? Did I see the wrong character?"

This one minute or so spent on this minimal improvement could instead be spent on creating a missing high-freq word. Wyang (talk) 14:01, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

First of all, I want to say that I really admire you and all the wiktionary editors. I have had a lot of fun in my time editing wiktionary, and I hope to keep doing it for the rest of my life (50 years at best). Now here's my counter-statement:

"--"To hope; to look forward to" as a gloss conveys minimal additional clarity compared to "To hope; to look forward to; Hebei" in an entry meaning "To hope".--" I'm trying to convey that minimal additional clarity.

We haven't reverted the edit I made on 幅員 yet. By the logic used here, someone might see the '員' in '服務員' on someone's work clothes and think that '員' means "the area surrounding something; surroundings; vicinity; around; about".

Also, what about the edit I made at 謀生? Should we be "listing all senses of a character" for 生 when really only one sense of the word applies when we are talking about 謀生?

I can't edit based on "what's useful (by other people's standards)". I would have to read other people's minds to be able to guess what was "useful". I can only work based on "what's interesting to me and allowed by the policies of wiktionary".

Idk bro --Geographyinitiative (talk) 15:50, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

@Geographyinitiative Thanks. I think the edits to 幅員 and 謀生 are fine. The meaning of 員 is uncommon in that compound, and 國語辭典 has to explain the meaning of individual characters in its definition as well. For 謀生, "livelihood", whilst accurate, may be too narrow; it can also mean "living; life; survival; etc." Wyang (talk) 07:42, 12 June 2018 (UTC)