User talk:Enginear/Archive

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Welcome

Please try to identify the part of speech as well, for "alternate spelling" entries. Here is the standard welcome template for your reference:

Welcome!

Hello, and welcome to Wiktionary. Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wiktionarian! By the way, you can sign your name on Talk (discussion) and vote pages using four tildes, like this: ~~~~, which automatically produces your name and the current date. If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the beer parlour or ask me on my Talk page. Again, welcome! --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)Reply


unwitting sarcasm

No worries. Sorry I had to remove your quote, it's always good to see someone adding citations here. Keep up the good work! Widsith 17:23, 13 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

Wiktionary:Tutorial (Wiktionary links)#Linking dates

When I undid your wikifying dates, it is because Wiktionary:Tutorial (Wiktionary links)#Linking dates: is a bit old, and this is not how we do things on Wiktionary. I will ask the other, maybe more experienced editors, if the Wiktionary:Tutorial (Wiktionary links)#Linking dates page should be changed. --Dangherous 09:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)Reply

Quotations

Yes, the quotations guidelines are a bit fuzzy and partially out of sync with common practice - they're not the only one, though - probably because they're among the least developed parts of Wiktionary. I'm meaning to put a lot more effort into them, after my so-called "WikiBreak", that is. The biggest challenge is the format. An ongoing discussion (not right now AFAIK) is whether to put them on subpages or not. I think the general tendency is to do that for larger numbers of them (say 10+). Also common is a separate section under any of the various headers =Quotations=, =Quotes=, =Cites=, =Citations= etc. And the older format, amid the definitions, is also widespread, so you see there's a lot of choice actually, and none of them has a lot of advantages over the others. I think what you suggested (one or two among the defs, others in a separate section) is quite reasonable, but I'm sure someone will want to edit war over which to put up front :-). Summary: from time to time I'll push my personal preferences through to others, but actually, it's up to you how to format quotes :-). Tired now, hope you find something useful in my post. Cheers. —Vildricianus 23:28, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

CMK re spelling variants

I have written this here, since I think you two are taking far more interest in the subject than anyone else, but move it to the the W:SVIEN talk page or even the BP if you wish. Has anyone got a constructive suggestion on how to move forward? As a newbie who came across Wiktionary:Spelling variants in entry names a couple of months ago, I was impressed on three counts:
  1. That it achieved an automatic jump from one (call it correct for the present) spelling to another, potentially allowing a single entry without the present circumstance where one arrives at a "2nd class" alternative spelling page, implying, to me at least, that my spelling is "less equal" than the contributor's.
  2. That the sense of equality from the automatic arrival at the main entry page is helped further by finding an alphabetic list of all spellings which that changed from my normal usage out of respect for US ideas of appropriate usage are (or were) considered correct somewhere.
  3. That this less POV feel to combined entries would be likely to discourage the proliferation of multiple full entries for words with slight (but emotionally rousing) differences in spelling, which lead to, at best, additional time in upkeep, and more frequently, poor, unmatched, entries.
Re (1), I don't want to reopen (or even read) what seems to have been a long discussion on use of redirects before I arrived. But please tell me: is there any other technique which sod it, this is how I write, let's just accept each other's styles in private communication does this so well? and if not, was this point fully considered when the original discussion took place? If it wasn't and there isn't, maybe we should consider re-opening it. Otherwise, we'll have to live with it. I don't see personally why an auto redirect should not be used in preference to a manual action acheiving the same effect, but if that's been decided, sobeit.
Re (2), To me Alternative spellings and Spelling variant have the same feel. But if some have objected to variants, let's avoid it. The important thing is that all the spellings, including the one which is the actual headword (rather than the redirected one(s)) should be in the list, in alpha order (or some other clear, and not obviously POV, order). I don't see any difficulty in tagging each spelling with the relevant restrictions on use, eg "color (deprecated in UK), colour (deprecated in US)", "sock (socks, sox (deprecated in UK))" [I believe US uses either, apologies if wrong]. Archaic, local dialect, etc spellings could be noted similarly.
Re (3), although data storage space is a (relatively minor) consideration, the degradation in quality/additional effort from having more than one entry for what should be identical definitions is a serious one. I know nothing about wiki-coding and template production. Is there a method of saying (in one entry) "insert everything which lies between x and y (or perhaps everything tagged w) in entry z"? This could be used to enable, for example, everything except notes relating to particular spellings, to be carried across (although in my view the whole entry should be copied, with restrictions on usage of particular spellings noted). But, even if this is possible I would far rather avoid the issue by using one main entry, even if this ended up as "col*r" (NB, not "col?r" or "col??r" ;-) ) with users seeking both "color" and "colour" having to click through to it. In my dreams, I think of adding the names of each person who has refused a single entry for the relevant word(s) to a public humiliation list on the click-through pages "You need to click again because of ..." -- but I suppose that would make as inflammatory as each of you! :-p --81.179.118.54 22:39, 4 June 2006 (UTC) Sorry that was "anon" - I didn't spot that wt had logged me out --Enginear 03:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
Well, perhaps the biggest thing you've forgotten is that the words re pronounced differently. That, in and of itself, is the biggest indication that they are different words, that merit their own entries.
The only "truly" common aspect of the term (when closely inspected, as we did in past discussions) in the ===Translations=== section. The Etymology is different, the derived terms are different, the definitions themselves are quite often different.
In the past, having one entry (besides being insanely offensive) caused multiple entries to be created. This turned out to be a larger, ongoing clenup effort.
Also of note is that Wiktionary does encourage alternate spellings of all other terms...the only exception I know of is "American spellings" where the British majority here fight tooth and nail, every step of the way.
How to move forward? Use the technique currently demonstrated in color/colour. At least three times, the entries have been incorrectly "re-unified"...so they probably look very similar right now. The translations, however, are identical. Editing the translations section brings you to the common page. The rest of the entries (correctly) remain separate.
I do see the humor you were trying to convey with the "public humiliation" bit, however, with separate (diverging) entries, there is nothing to click through.
--Connel MacKenzie T C 23:10, 4 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for this, and sorry I didn't spot wt had logged me out. I think I now have the gist and you've probably saved me hours of reading through. I suspect you mean a non-American (or perhaps even anti-American), rather than British, majority. For example, no one who not only remembers, but thinks to include, words like sparrow fart should be thought of as British! (Not that I'm condemning it; I enjoy its Aussie irreverence; I even admit to once hearing an Aussie say it. But it's un-British!)
While we should all be not judging books by their covers and considering words dispassionately, this is not a good decade to be American in an international arena. Catch me on a bad day, and even I may let politics interfere. But we need to remember that the majority of English speakers are neither US, nor UK, nor Aus. What are we offering the rest? The world has been full of anti-British people since the days of our empire. Now it is also full of anti-American people. After a while, you learn to accept guilt only for those politicians you failed to vote/organise against, and agree that many of our countrymen have behaved very badly, but not with our blessing.
Re col*r, I am embarassed at my ignorance that there was such a difference. Maybe some usage notes highlighting the differences would reduce erroneous reunification. I'm also puzzled how the translations can be identical if the definitions are not. Perhaps in reality they should be different too, but they have not received equivalent attention. Generalising to other semi-contentious words/word pairs with fewer shades of meaning, I still think it would be best to have a single page for (say) synchroni*e, making any differences for the different forms clear. But if this sort of thing was discussed and rejected a little over a year ago, it may be too early to raise it again.
What are we in wt offering the rest of the world? Is the color/colour solution expandable to a three or four col*r process? Probably, if it has to. Is it the most appropriate solution, given that other countries using English probably feel equally bitter about both of us (previously sided with the US against UK, but now are against both)? I don't know. Was that partly why RB railed at both of us the other day? Maybe not, but I know that many Aussies hate what both UK & US stand for. My ignorant guess (you may have the figures to confirm or reject) is that the % of English users outside UK & US who use wt is considerably lower than in our countries. (If confirmed) is that because they see nothing tailored to their needs (because few people who know their detailed needs edit here). How do we change that? I haven't any good ideas. But I do think we should try to remember it when we're fighting our own local battles about contentious words, and hope that inspiration will come.
My principal point however, is that I suspect that most words with more than one spelling are not particularly emotive, and if one person adds an entry for all the spellings he knows, it will be months or years, if ever, before anyone bothers to edit it. Where I came in was my entries for chometz etc (see my comments at [can't see how to link to an old edit so will cut and paste here]).
I agree with Davilla. It seemed to me to include a less apparently POV method of showing equal variants. To take an example, I recently added a word chametz/chamets/chometz/hamets/hametz where the multiple spellings, all of which I found in technical Jewish writings, presumably stem from alternative transliterations of the original Hebrew word. I had originally intended to put the main entry as chometz, which usage has escaped into an English local authority website and a newspaper, but then settled on chametz to match a Wikipedia article.
To my (limited) knowledge, none of the spellings is superior to the others -- I believe they are equally valid. [If I am wrong in this please let me know, but that does not affect the validity of my argument for other words with equally valid spellings.] However, under the current rules (which I used) someone entering chametz gets straight to the article, whereas someone entering chometz, or any of the other spellings, finds a note to say it is an alternative spelling, and must then click on the link to find the main entry under chametz. My (or more accurately the pedia editor's) POV is very apparent and in your face.
Under one of the methods in the draft policy, those entering chometz would be redirected to chametz without further action, which is, IMHO, more egalitarian. While not quite apparently NPOV (the note re the redirect still appears) it is much less apparently POV than the present system, ie the editor's POV is less obtrusive. While it might not be acceptable for, eg, some of the more emotive US/UK variants (for which the draft policy suggests copying the entries to each variant), it would surely be OK for most equal variants.
Maybe I'm being arrogant to assume that the five alternative spellings are non-emotive, but certainly no one has yet suggested otherwise. I still think that, in case they're just mildly emotive, the solution for non-contentious words offered by the draft policy (ie redirects) is much better than the status quo.
The one issue I am not clear on from your response is whether, a year ago, there was just a dislike of automatic redirects, with a preference for clicking through Alternative spelling pages [which I find inexplicable], or whether it was a deprecation of both solutions, with a preference for full duplicate pages even where no emotion/contentiousness was involved and there was no known difference in content [which is by definition unnecessary provided they really are non-emotive]. Do you think it is too soon even to revisit this for non-contentious non-emotive heterographs? --Enginear 03:12, 5 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
Please! Please try to trim your comments down. This is quite a bit to read; if you can say it in one sentence, please don't use a paragraph. (Yes, I know I need to archive my talk page again, but still.)
The issue with redirects vs. stub entries comes from the multilingual nature of Wiktionary. Other languages may have the word color but not colour (Latin, Spanish.) For consistency, the practice has always been to avoid redirects because of that.
If we used Wikipedia-style disambiguation, such as color (Spanish), that problem would be avoided. But we don't. So yes, all redirects in the main namespace are "bad." The events surrounding the case-sensitivity changed the rules regarding uppercase and lowercase entries, but redirects from other spellings are still always frowned upon, as they make it very difficult for newcomers (especially those not familiar with English) to overwrite the redirect with short entries and add their own language section. --Connel MacKenzie T C 03:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)Reply
Thanks for this. All questions now answered. I'll now copy it to my User page for my reference, so delete if you want. I get more verbose when I'm tired. To bed now. --Enginear 03:52, 5 June 2006 (UTC)Reply

Notepad

Cataphile

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

RFV/coördinate

"After all, if an Englishman can correctly pronounce the towns of Reading, Slough, Mousehole, Teignmouth, etc and an American can pronounce Kansas, Arkansas, Yosemite and Los Angeles without a pause for thought, and both can distinguish the correct homograph for read, differentiating between the homographs of resume is not too taxing."

I meant to say: very nicely put! —scs 13:44, 4 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

Settings

I agree your edits to Napoli and Napoli:Talk were correct and appropriate, but did you have the minor edit flag set by mistake, or are we saying that all edits due to an agreed admin procedure are minor? (Excuse me if this has just been discussed somewhere, but I've been away and am catching up.) --Enginear 20:05, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

Hi, no. I just got tired of the system trying to save all edits I made. It did'nt really help though, it saves them anyway, so I will revert my settings. Andrew massyn 20:16, 19 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

MacGuyver

Thanks - I needed a chuckle.

When you get a chance, could you please add something to your userpage (e.g. Babel template) so your posts don't look so newcomer-ish on Special:Recentchanges? You aren't exactly new here.  :-)

Keep up the good Wikiing!

--Connel MacKenzie 19:28, 30 August 2006 (UTC)Reply

Thank you

Dear Enginear,

Thank you for signaling your confidence in my ability to act as a CheckUser for the English Wiktionary. Your vote means a lot to me. I deeply appreciate it.

You may not be aware, but the Meta: policy dictates that there must be multiple CheckUsers on any given project, or else none will be granted. Each must get 25 votes on their local wiki, as per Meta: policy, to be granted the CheckUser privilege.

I'd like to take a moment to endorse my friends and co-runners. Each of them offers different skills that, as a whole, complement the needs of the English Wiktionary.

  1. User:Uncle G has been an English Wikipedia sysop longer than he's been an English Wiktionary sysop. This year (2006) he has refocused his efforts outside of Wiktionary. He was dragged away from Wiktionary while cleaning up the tens of thousands of entries on Wikipedia that linked incorrectly to Wiktionary after the case-sensitivity change in June 2005. He knows Wiktionary very well. And he is very competent at focusing his efforts wherever they are most needed. He operated the original Transwiki: bot, before we had the Special:Import feature we have now.
  2. User:Kipmaster is a French Wiktionnaire sysop and bot operator who is very technically capable. He also is in Europe, making his hours of availability complementary to his American counterparts. He is active in WiktionaryZ imports and understands very well which data can be imported here, from there. He normally acts as our primary liaison to fr.wiktionary, whenever compatibility issues arise.
  3. User:Jon Harald Søby is a steward. As a meta: steward, he is the primary person we call on to perform CheckUser checks now. His availability is often limited, but his Central European timezone proves to be very, very useful on occasion. He has contributed extensively to Wiktionary over the years.
  4. User:Kelly Martin was recently called in to help perform CheckUser checks on the English Wiktionary. She is currently up for election also for the Board of Trustees of Wikimedia Foundation. (In the unlikely event she wins that election, she will no longer be available to pursue her CheckUser nomination here.) Since she also has CheckUser privilege on other sister projects, she is accustomed to the 'can's and 'cannot's of CheckUser procedures, in detail.

I hope you can take a moment to consider these fine candidates again. Your support means a great deal to them, as well as to Wiktionary's ability to perform its own CheckUser checks in a timely manner.

Thank you again, for your support.

--Connel MacKenzie 06:17, 15 September 2006 (UTC)Reply

ha'p'orth

We had an edit conflict which I finished off rather quickly since my dinner was just being served -- without time to note in the edit summary that I moved your Abyssinia quote (which through the wonders of books.google I had found as well) to ha'p'orths. I had also added that, in three-ha'p'orth, etc, the plural is ha'p'orth (which I have cited) (I suspect that in that case, it is actually a shortening of halfpenniesworth but decided to keep quiet about that!).

So I don't think anything of yours was lost, but if anything was, apologies. --Enginear 18:34, 8 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

No worries, I don't mind if you'd rather have the plural cites at the plural page. But why remove the publication details and page number? Surely that's useful information and allows users to check our cited sources. Widsith 18:46, 8 October 2006 (UTC)Reply
Purely my error -- now corrected. Thanks for pointing it out. I really should add that info in my own cites, rather than keeping to the bear minimum allowed by our format recommendations. (I don't always add plural cites to the plural page, but since the previous editor had claimed there was no plural, I thought it best to cite it specifically, with 3 cites to demonstrate CFI, and the "headword" page was getting a bit overloaded.) --Enginear 19:17, 8 October 2006 (UTC)Reply
OK, thanks! I think it's important that our evidence is easily verifiable. Widsith 19:24, 8 October 2006 (UTC)Reply

Tiddly pom

Here's the definition as requested. You will also be able to find it and the full discussion at Appendix:rfvfailed. Regards Andrew massyn 16:38, 18 November 2006 (UTC)] Def = tiddly-om-pom-pomReply

  1. (British) The sound of a brass band.
    • 1907, John A. Glover-Kind, I do like to be beside the seaside (music hall song), B. Feldman and Co,
      Oh I do like to be beside the seaside,
      I do like to be beside the sea,
      I do like to stroll along the prom, prom, prom,
      Where the brass bands play
      Tiddly-om-pom-pom!
      So just let me be beside the seaside,
      I'll be beside myself with glee;
      And there's lots of girls beside,
      I should like to be beside,
      Beside the seaside, beside the sea.
    • 2003, D K K de Killingholme, Vancouver Mission, page 24,
      "Tiddly-om-pom-pom," sang Thierry, gaily scraping his shoe on the curb.

Sysop?

I was just surprised to note that you are not yet a sysop here on Wiktionary. The fact that I was surprised and had to look it up to be certain suggests to me that you should be one. Adminship simply means that we trust you you to roll back, delete, protect, and block appropriately when you see something amiss. There's a more detailed description here if you wish to know more about the extra buttons. I'd be delighted to nominate you. What do you say? Dvortygirl 21:25, 22 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Good idea. Then (as well) we can leave the various cross-over terms both protected and in good hands. Robert Ullmann 22:05, 22 November 2006 (UTC)Reply
Lots of support from me. Andrew massyn 22:10, 22 November 2006 (UTC)Reply
Well thank you for asking -- I seem to have been here 10 1/2 months and have done about 700 edits, with a lot of watching discussion pages, so I've a fair idea of policy.
My only concern is that for the foreseeable future I shall be struggling to spend more than about 8 hrs/wk on the project, so will not be available as much as I would like. If you're OK with that, I will accept if nominated. We could do with another engineer/anorak/tiddly-om-pom-pom lover ;-) --Enginear 13:27, 24 November 2006 (UTC)Reply
Hey, I resemble that remark! A thought: when you get to pisspot, remember to quote the first line from The Brothers Grimm, The Fisherman and his Wife. Note that almost every reference is bowdlerized to say "pig-sty" or something. But the original (or original translation ;-) says "they lived in a piss-pot by the sea". Cheers! Robert Ullmann 13:37, 24 November 2006 (UTC)Reply

Sorry for the delay between suggesting and actually nominating. Some real life stuff popped up. Please go accept. As for the limited time, Wiktionary is a volunteer project, and I believe we all understand that. Just do what you can, when you can. Adminship doesn't really change that. It just gives you a couple of extra buttons with which to do what you can. --Dvortygirl 05:12, 10 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

Would you please accept your nomination...

...as I'd like to register my support vote. --Connel MacKenzie 02:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

And please register an e-mail address (I use http://www.spamgourmet.com/ for a filter) so your "E-mail this user" link works...so I can send you an e-mail reminding you to accept your nomination. --Connel MacKenzie 02:16, 12 December 2006 (UTC)Reply
Sorry all -- I've been offline for a few days -- problem with my firewall at home and have been busy at work till now. Thanks to all of you for your support. I will now go and accept. Will sort out an e-mail address before Xmas (as soon as I've persuaded my firewall to let me through again). (Having now seen how soon the vote is set to end, I'll try to sort it this weekend.) --Enginear 17:59, 13 December 2006 (UTC) --Enginear 17:52, 13 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

Clearly approved 15/0/0, just need a bureaucrat (I don't have that flag ;-) ... cheers! Robert Ullmann 20:17, 26 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

Even bureaucrats take breaks sometimes. Welcome to the ranks of sysophood. Please make sure your information is correct in the table here and help us improve Help:Sysop tools. I'm happy to answer questions, too. --Dvortygirl 01:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

Changes to formatting in Wiktionary:Quotations

Hello,

I noticed that you had made some changes in Wiktionary:Quotations back in October that I hadn't noticed; I was directing a newbie to them, when I saw that it had changed from year + colon to year + comma. Was there a discussion that precipitated that, and if so, could you please direct me to it? I know there were a lot of discussiosn re: WT:ELE around that time, and I was wondering if this was part of that, and I missed it.

Thanks! --Jeffqyzt 15:26, 19 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

geyser

I am starting to think that my phonetics book is a load of rubbish...although I think the book is trying to teach 'good English', like some old people would speak it on Radio 4.zigzig20s 16:16, 7 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

No, I've confirmed many of your notations, even though they have at times surprised me. However, some of them are strictly British, and the pronunciations tend (of course) to be RP, which is a stylised form of British English. --EncycloPetey 02:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

To Enginear: I've tweaked your rendered of geyser and added the US pronunciation. For future reference, the primary stress marker in IPS notation precedes the syllable that is stressed, so I moved the stress marker in front of the g. --EncycloPetey 03:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

"hom" used in place of "Mr." or "Ms.".

I've come up with an idea for a gender neutral form used in place of Mr. or Ms.. It's "hom" (abbreviated Hm.) derived from Latin homo meaning human. Shoof 22:36, 14 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

IE sacrelige

For my sanity's sake, and yours, please use something other than IE. IE is truncating the cookies wickedly, so each time you [Save settings] on WT:PREFS the values randomly change. There are lots and lots of other IE snags I'm running into with my JS, but popups /do/ seem to work when only two cookies (use preferences + use popups) are set. --Connel MacKenzie 09:35, 19 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

CFI comment

It is not possible, in US-English, to call scrambled eggs "boiled"...is that possible in en-uk? There isn't water, nor any liquid (when you're done) especially if you choose not to add a little milk. Very strange that you might somehow call that "boiled"...it isn't like a poached egg at all. --Connel MacKenzie 20:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

Um, you changed it from a meaningful example, to something incoherent...egg is a required part of that explanation of idiomacy. --Connel MacKenzie 20:59, 24 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

site

Please would you look over this for me, since

  • Pedia claims the original was writen in Anglo-Norman verse, but with some ME songs ... I've assumed this one was ME since it contains thorns and it looks much more English than French to me ... but AFAIK, I've never seen anything in Anglo-Norman to compare it with.
  • I had to guess which special chars to use for thorns and some other character I don't know ... they look a bit strange in the typeface I have
  • The book I found it in is at two stages (two authors) removed from the original, so I can't be certain that the original (whose date I'm claiming) is faithfully reproduced.
  • We seem to have very few ME entries, so I don't even know if that's the right heading.

Thanks in advance --Enginear 22:16, 28 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hiya, it's definitely a word in English and the cite is also English so no worries there. I can't see the special characters on the machine I'm currently on, but I'll check them when I get the chance. I've moved the whole section to the =English= heading - I don't like Middle English as a language header because it really isn't a separate language, and there is no clear division between ME and modern English. In this case it's not a hard decision anyway, as site was still in use well into the sixteenth century. Widsith 10:13, 29 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

dates

No problem. :) Glad to help out. I noticed 2006 in Connel's House of Pain and felt the need to dewikify the permanent redlinks. Cynewulf 19:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

Anarchy

Not to be pushy, but I believe you are due to change the anarchy article. I would appreciate it. Randy6767 01:41, 13 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

Done -- unfortunately, I didn't get on line yesterday evening. I've left a revision note directing to the discussion. If anyone objects, then in the spirit of my offer, I shall revert it, at least until the general issue of ordering is settled. --Enginear 18:43, 13 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

megapenny

I have had a stab at putting the required quotes on megapenny; could you review them for me? Jayvdb 03:36, 6 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2007-02/Trademark designations

Greetings! Since you participated in the discussion at Wiktionary:Beer parlour#Use of ® and ™ in entries, I thought you might want to cast a vote at Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2007-02/Trademark designations. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:07, 23 March 2007 (UTC)Reply