User talk:Ruakh/2010

January 2010

huyer

Just out of interest, where did you find this? It's in requests for conjugation and I have no idea what to do with this one. Mglovesfun (talk) 17:49, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

It had been listed at the French "requested entries" page. It seems to have been a regular verb for its era; see google books:"huyent" and google books:"huyoient", for example. Unfortunately, I have no idea if any spellers changed the <y> to an <i> in certain forms (as in modern -uyer verbs, such as essuyer): spellings in <i> are attested in all forms (that is, huier is another obsolete spelling of this verb), so I think the only way to tell would be to find a single author who used the <y> spelling for some forms and the <i> spelling for others. (If we had a large enough corpus of examples, we could potentially use statistical arguments, based on the relative frequency of each spelling in each form; but we don't. B.g.c. isn't good enough for that.) —Ruakh 18:10, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah it means something, your analysis looks good for me, but G-d only knows how to conjugate it. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:55, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

As I said, it seems to have been a regular verb for its era. So, G-d, plus anyone who knows how verbs were conjugated before the spelling reforms. (It's very straightforward, just, we don't seem to have a template for it.) —Ruakh 21:00, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

הלך לו

I created [[הלך לו]], q.v., but will delete it as SoP: In fact, לו pairs in the same manner with a good number of verbs that refer to movement or the lack thereof: בא,‎ יצא,‎ נכנס,‎ עמד,‎ ישב, and קם come to mind. It also seems to appear, at least sometimes, with other verbs (e.g. [1]), although those sound less right to my inexpert ears. In any event, a sense is needed at [[לו]] for this, presumably s.v. "Adverb" — but with what definition? "{{context|used immediately after verbs|inflected with the verb|lang=he}} ∅"? I'd appreciate your input.​—msh210℠ 17:12, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm really not sure. The same thing happens in some forms of English: eat me (dialectal), went me (archaic), and so on. One approach might be to add a sense to [[ל־]] along the lines of "Introducing an ethic dative." (or whatever the right term is for Hebrew). In general, I think [[ל־]] should have many more sense lines, but it's so daunting . . . —Ruakh 18:33, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

We have that sense at [[me]], but the definition given is "As a reflexive indirect object of a verb; the ethical dative", which I'm not sure is correct: it's not semantically an object of the verb, though I suppose it is syntactically. We don't have it for her, him, them, or you.

As to ל־‎, is it used that way other than with pronouns? ("רן הלך לרן...‏‎"??) That's why I was thinking of putting it at [[לו]] (and perhaps also at all the other ל‎-pronouns).​—msh210℠ 18:52, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you're right that it's only used with personal pronouns, but I don't see why that means it shouldn't go at [[ל־]]. One could also argue that it's only used with verbs, but you've already decided that הלך לו is SOP. —Ruakh 19:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay (re where to put it). I'm not adding it, though, not knowing what to add. And I'm deleting הלך לו as SoP despite the absence of one of the parts (the nontrivial one, no less).​—msh210℠ 19:40, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll work on it. —Ruakh 15:48, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks.  :-) ​—msh210℠ 16:24, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I see you created [[לו]] and marked it as a Preposition. But you just agreed ﷲ as an Adverb looks good. I'd call לו an adverb too. No?​—msh210℠ 18:52, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, לו is an inflected form of the preposition ל־, so giving it a different part of speech (besides maybe "preposition form") seems weird. Labeling it an adverb would be like labeling interpolating an adjective. By contrast, ﷲ is a two-word idiom, so the question is, how is the idiom used? And the answer seems to be "as an adverbial". I don't know . . . I do see that it's rather a fine distinction, but it's just what seems natural to me . . . —Ruakh 19:13, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Too fine for me, but I'll will leave it as is, certainly.​—msh210℠ 19:40, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't know. As long as it ends up in Category:Hebrew preposition forms, and as long as the sense-line makes clear what it is, I guess there's not much need for the header to say ===Preposition===. There's the complication that ===Adverb=== doesn't always seem to work (consider something like הוא לדודו ודודו לו, where it seems — once you've untwisted your tongue — to be adjectival rather than adverbial), but that can be addressed by having multiple POS sections. Alternatively, we can push for the addition of ===Preposition form=== and ===Prepositional phrase=== to ELE, which would solve a lot of problems. :-)   —Ruakh 15:48, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Not sure whether you're kidding, but I think you'll find very strong opposition to "Preposition form", and opposition to "Prepositional phrase". Both of these are in, I think, large part due to CM's continuing influence in support of fewer rather than more POS headers. (And I personally have no strong feelings in those headers' favor.)​—msh210℠ 16:24, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm quite serious. I mean, I don't feel very strongly about them, either, but I don't see what's wrong with proposing them and seeing what people think. If I encounter opposition, that's fine: about half the time, opponents to a proposal have good suggestions for alternative approaches that the proponents haven't already thought of. Plus, now that CM is gone, discussions don't degenerate into flame-wars as often (except when SC comes up). —Ruakh 19:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Some input on the side: ל־ following a verb can have different functions:

• Idiomatic: הולך לי טוב = I'm doing well, בא לך לטייל? = do you feel like taking a walk?, לא יוצא לי = I'm not getting this right. (The subject in these examples is a zero pronoun – PRO).
• Modal: אנחנו הולכים לנו ברחוב = We're walking down the street, שבי לך בבית קפה! = sit down at a café!, חשבתי לי על כל מיני דברים = I was thinking about stuff (ל־ translates roughly "leisurely", "in a relaxed manner").
• Possessive: הוא יושב לי על הכובע = he's sitting on my hat, היא אכלה לו את התפוח = she ate his apple, תחזיק לי שניה את התיק בבקשה = hold my bag for a second please.

The idiomatic and possessive functions can combine:

• Idiomatic + possessive: הם עולים לי על העצבים = they're getting on my nerves.

Dan Pelleg 23:38, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Yup, definitely. Some of those we do mention, in fairly random places ("ba l'-" is covered at [[בא]], for example, and possessive use is mentioned at [[בשביל]]), but not in any organized way. I've started working on [[ל־]], but it's got a long way to go — many more senses, and much more explanation and breakdown of existing senses, and also many more usage notes. If you'd like to help, you are more than welcome! :-)   —Ruakh 00:40, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

eleventh hour

Hello Ruakh -- As usual, a nice clean-up. But one point of disagreement -- I think eleventh hour is a common noun, not a proper noun. The referent here is not a unique object but a class of objects. Lots of events, occasions, etc. can count as an eleventh hour. -- WikiPedant 04:11, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Really? In my experience it's always the eleventh hour. I mean, in terms of real-world referent, there are many things that can be described as the eleventh hour; but in terms of how the expression is used grammatically, I've never heard of an eleventh hour. Of the first twenty hits at google:"an eleventh hour", eighteen are in this sense, and all of them are using it attributively. (For that matter, the two that aren't in this sense are also using it attributively, but I suppose that's not much of an argument one way or the other …) Similarly, the first twenty hits at google:"that eleventh hour" don't include any uses in this sense.

I should ask: Do we have different experiences with this expression? Or do we have similar experiences with it, but just interpret them differently? If the former, then that should be easy to address with appropriate cites; if the latter, then I'm not sure how we'd go about resolving that. :-/

—Ruakh 04:57, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Ruakh, I'm afraid I don't really understand the questions you've just asked. But you are familiar, aren't you, with Petey's nice write-up at User:EncycloPetey/English_proper_nouns? Consider, among others, his point that proper nouns are specific and cannot be pluralized. Yet "eleventh hour" can be. One might have 20 projects on the go, each with its own distinct eleventh hour. All of these eleventh hours would raise one's stress level. And consider, for example, some of the results of this google books search on "eleventh hours". As for bona fide non-attributive uses of "an eleventh hour" here, I think, is one and another and another. -- WikiPedant 06:18, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I've read Petey's write-up. It's good in some respects, but it has some problems. Your citations are very helpful, thanks, though I must say that I find most of them either unintelligible or merely wrong-sounding. By contrast, I have no problem with the cites at google books:"always * at the eleventh hour", where many of what you would call "eleventh hours" are treated as collectively constituting a single entity called "the eleventh hour". So I think that in my idiolect, and apparently some other people's, it is almost exclusively a proper noun. (All proper nouns can be common-noun-ified — consider “The Englishes of the U.S. and the U.K. are practically two separate languages” — but for me "the eleventh hour" is about as exclusively a proper noun as is possible.) But apparently in your idiolect, and apparently some other people's, it's just a common noun that's usually definite? So I guess the simplest solution is to give it a ===Noun=== header, with the context label (almost exclusively singular and definite), and to add some cites showing the diversity of usages. Does that seem reasonable? —Ruakh 17:54, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Butting in, if I may be allowed: the subject also seems to concern "last minute" and "bottom line". It seems to me that the predominant use of a definite article with a given phrase does not yet make the phrase a proper noun. "the eleventh hour" is meant with a reference to an implied deadline, as if it were "the eleventh hour of a deadline", much like "the weight of an apple". Attributes ("the weight of a person") and singly-present parts of objects ("the head of a person") are typically invoked with a definite article. FWIW. --Dan Polansky 11:43, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't think that's true. —Ruakh 17:54, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Dan's view is the one I had been operating under. "He always comes in at the eleventh hour/last minute to save the day." For further amusement, consider these:

-- DCDuring TALK 18:36, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Ruakh, I fully agree with your proposal to change the POS to noun, but I'm uneasy about your proposed context. I could live with a usage note that says "Rarely used in the plural form" but I think it is odd to call a noun "definite" (that term is usually used to characterize an article). Dan, DC, and I all seem to have pretty much the same view of the appropriate POS for eleventh hour, and I think that Dan's observation that this term is of a kind with bottom line and last minute is on the money. I love DC's quotation from Toynbee (who very much qualifies as an authoritative user of the English language). Petey seems to me to be quite knowledgeable about this subject and I wonder what he would say about the POS of eleventh hour. -- WikiPedant 19:03, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I would say that eleventh hour is a common noun, not a proper noun. It is an abstract common noun, like socialism, confidence, and urgency. Abstract common nouns don't have the same lexical properties or grammar as concrete common nouns, and because they apply to an abstraction, they do blur (a bit) the distinction usually made between common and proper nouns. Dan is correct; use of the definite article is often a clue to a noun being proper, but there are constructions in English that favor use of the definite article with a common noun, such as "the last thing on my mind" or "the heart of the matter". Neither of these examples should imply that (deprecated template usage) thing or (deprecated template usage) heart are proper nouns, even though both set phrases use the definite article instead of the indefinite. --EncycloPetey 22:08, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty busy the next few days, and haven't had a chance to read any of the above comments besides the ones I've already replied to, so whatever y'all decide, or have already decided, just go for it, don't wait for me. But feel free to keep using my talk-page for the discussion. I like playing host. :-)   —Ruakh 23:41, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

I read this as an invitation to Tea room, so I have posted there: Wiktionary:Tea_room#eleventh_hour. I have copied nothing from the previous discussion on "eleventh hour" to Tea room, lest I make some embarassing mistake, so if you want to repost your contributions to Tea room, please do it yourself. --Dan Polansky 12:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Aw, I think we've talked it through sufficiently. I reworked the entry in a manner which, I hope, will more-or-less satisfy all parties. -- WikiPedant 15:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Three months later: a belated reply to your post in re {{q}}

Hi Ruakh. I’ve replied to a post of yours at Wiktionary:Beer parlour archive/2009/September#.7B.7Bcitedterm.7D.7D, almost three months thence. :-S † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 19:27, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

My approach would have required the link to point to the current page, but it wouldn't have required the text to match the current page; for example, [[examination]]s would serve the purpose — which is how we'd normally linkify the word anyway. (But it wouldn't work so cleanly on citations pages, so I think it's just as well that no one agreed with me. ;-)   —Ruakh 19:33, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Header for examples vote changed to "Samples"

As there seemed to a clear majority for a change in the header, it has been changed to "Samples". The vote has been extended 7 days to allow time to (re-)consider one's position. Sorry for the inconvenience. --Bequw → ¢ • τ 03:16, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! —Ruakh 04:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Template:q (a.k.a. Template:citedterm)

Hi Ruakh. Since you’ve used {{q}}, and since that presumably means that you think it’s a template worth keeping, I wanted to draw your attention toward WT:RFDO#Template talk:q, where its proposed deletion is being discussed. I’m aware that you’re on a wikibreak, and that there is therefore a good chance that you won’t see this in time, but I thought I’d let you know anyway. Sorry if this seems a bit spammy. I hope you’re well. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 05:18, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Hi Doremítzwr. Thanks for letting me know about the discussion. I'm well, yes; I had some stressful decisions to make in real life, which then spilled over into getting irritable on-wiki (man, I was so wrong when I told msh210 that I didn't see the harm in starting a discussion about something that might be controversial), hence the wiki-break, but I've now made the real-life decisions, and have de-stressed, and am back. :-)   —Ruakh 04:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

OK. It’s good to have you back, as your typically calm and genial self. :-) BTW, in re that deletion discussion: AFAICT, consensus seems to be that the template be kept now that the highlighting scheme has been changed to plain emboldenment of the enveloped term; just FYI. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 04:07, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Melchizedek

Could you check / expand on the Hebrew in the etymology? Thank you. Nadando 19:13, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Done, though that's not to say it doesn't need more.​—msh210℠ 19:29, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Looks good to me. I've added a literal translation for good measure. —Ruakh 19:33, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

February 2010

Cite references prefix

I posted this at User_talk:Robert_Ullmann but as he hasn't been around for a while, I was wondering if you would know

I was wondering if we could remove the "* Notes:" from MediaWiki:Cite references prefix. Sometimes we do use it to show footnotes in a random section (eg 和尚打伞，无法无天) and in those cases the text is okay. But often times we use it show references where that snippet of text looks awkward right after the ===References=== or we show footnotes in a ===Usage notes=== section making the text look even more awkward. I know you talked about this with Robert before, but I don't understand the reason. Wikipedia doesn't have an intro text (see w:MediaWiki:Cite references prefix) which makes me think any technical problem must be small. Obviously if we change this we'll have to do some cleanup, but this is probably better than awkward wording on the majority of the pages. --Bequw → τ 03:06, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I never understood Robert's reasoning about this, but in my experience he usually has a decent reason for things. This is not to say that I always agree with him, but unless I feel pretty strongly about something, I'm not usually going to argue with him about it. If nothing else, his implementation of his preferred behavior is nearly always good enough to compensate for the fact that it's not my own preferred behavior. But if you feel more strongly about this than I do, then by all means, go ahead and change it; we can re-hash it once he gets back.

Re: "if we change this we'll have to do some cleanup": Personally, I don't really like the current format of (say) [[和尚打伞，无法无天]] anyway. One sentence, immediately followed by two footnotes? It seems to me that it would be much better to reformat the etymology as one or two paragraphs of normal text. (I'll give it a try tomorrow, you can let me know what you think.) In general, I think if there are any entries where it's better to have the "Notes:" prefix than not to have it, then those entries have formatting problems that should be addressed in other ways. (Easier said than done, I know, but that's what I think.)

—Ruakh 03:43, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

That's one of the ugliest software artifacts we have, IMO. Some less space-consuming way of separating notes from entry seems appropriate, like the short separator line that books with footnotes usually have if the footnotes are too appear in an L3+ section. A references header eliminates the need for even that, though that header is yet another extravagant use of vertical space. (How many users navigate to a References header? And the only thing to edit is the references tag.) DCDuring TALK 12:01, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Is it possible to change whatever coding involved so that people who need notes can use some kind of notes= parameter or something? Also, has anyone considered e-mailing Robert to get a hold of him? † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 14:59, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Re: first question: No, I don't think so, unfortunately. That extension is pretty restrictive. Re: second question: It hadn't occurred to me, but yeah, we probably should. —Ruakh 15:43, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I agree that that “Notes:” introducer is butt-fugly and I want rid of it, but out of respect for Robert’s objections, we should wait for him to opine on this issue again. † ﴾^(u):Raifʻhār ^(t):Doremítzwr﴿ 15:48, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you're right. —Ruakh 16:22, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll email him. --Bequw → τ 21:20, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

Fwiw, I agree, too, that the header should go. No, wwho wants to check all the uses of <references> to make sure that the page isn't relying on that header?  :-) ​—msh210℠ 16:26, 1 February 2010 (UTC)

After a pair of emails and a pair of talk page requests, Robert hasn't responded with a reason. I think we should move forward. One plan would be to:

1. Create a template such as {{ref cleanup}} that is initially just <references/>.
2. Use a bot to replace all of the bare usages of <references/> with that template.
3. Remove "Notes:" from the MW message while adding it to the template.
4. Cleanup the template (subst'ing where appropriate). The easiest and most common case of ===References===\n{{ref cleanup}} could be done by a bot.

Sound OK? --Bequw → τ 00:07, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Go for it.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 01:39, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I am still chasing any number of things (here and in other stuff in my life ;-) dropped while I was in hospital and recovering. The reasons for the Notes: heading are

1. without it, people were adding a fairly wide variety of headings, all of which would need to be manually cleaned up if or when the code added a heading
2. the * makes it a unordered list element, to go with the other things listed in a References section

The problems can't really be fixed properly without fixing the cite.php extension, which is very badly thrown together code. What I wanted to do was this:

• [1] some note
• [2] some other note
• [3.1, 3.2] note used twice
• some other reference

i.e. a consistent list. Cite allows some customization, but very annoyingly does not pass the note number into the syntax for a single reference, forcing the use of an ordered list to generate the numbers. It does pass the numbers for the multiple ref case, so the "[3.1, 3.2]" syntax can be done. Just really, really poor design.

Ideally, we should fix Cite.php to be more general, and do what we want.

The other issue with ref tags is that people insist on wedging them into the most unlikely of places, thus breaking any reasonable attempt to parse the wikitext. We could use some rules. Robert Ullmann 10:52, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

O.K., I think I understand. At least, I do understand the problem you describe with Cite.php; and I think I understand why you want the "Notes:" heading in the mean-time. Thanks for explaining! —Ruakh 14:15, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

אחרי

You defined this as a preposition, but I'm pretty sure the usex you included (from "adon olam") is of an adverb ("afterwards"). I've modified the entry accordingly. Please revert if I'm off. Thanks.​—msh210℠ 16:50, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I'll take your word for it. —Ruakh 16:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Grease pit discussion

Hi Ruakh. Just so you know, I've replied to you at WT:GP#ſ → s autoredirection and notice generation.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ ⓤ · ⓣ  · ⓒ ~ 23:10, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

stem etymologies

Hi Widsith,

Since verb senses 1–3 are clearly related to etymology 1 rather than etymology 2, I was going to move them, but then I figured I'd click on our references just to be sure … and I find that it's much more complicated than I had guessed, with all three of our references giving different stories, none of which matches what we have. When you have a chance, could you take a look?

Thanks in advance!
—Ruakh_TALK 19:29, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

• It is complicated, but you are basically right. I moved them. (There should really be a third etymology for the nautical sense, but since originally it was a special form of ‘stem’ = "tree-trunk" I left it. But it is confusing, because this led to a verb meaning "set the stem of a ship against (a tide etc.)" and hence "meet head-on", so that when you talk about "stemming a tide" it could mean facing it head-on, OR (from etymology 2) stopping it altogether, and in later use it seems like there has been a kind of merger between the two ideas. But I'm leaving that for a later edit...). Ƿidsiþ 06:52, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks! —Ruakh 17:44, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

Hi, let's work constructively on the definition by discussing it on the words talk page. Thank you WritersCramp 17:10, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Why are you refusing to work constructively with me to improve the definition? WritersCramp 17:38, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

If you want to work on the definition, be my guest. But if you want to break the entry's formatting, then you're just one or two reverts away from a block. —Ruakh 17:40, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

You too. WritersCramp 17:46, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm not angry that you obliterated all my work on Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but I do hope there is a way to retrieve my extensive work on that entry. Is there? Ironically, Horsemen of the Apocalypse was never a "copy" of Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. In fact, my version included multiple references to the idiomatic sense of the term; the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse entry has always lacked precisely that. --AuthorityTam 20:39, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Scn babel

thanks ;) --Zoologo 21:28, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Washington - verification

Hi, I am confused about the verification of the sense of George Washington in the entry "Washington". In Talk:Washington in the first section, DCDuring states that the sense is cited in the attributive use, and, indeed, he has placed some citations to Citations:Washington. In the first section, no one denies that the cites are valid, yet you close the discussion with "RFV failed, sense removed". The second section discussed the whole thing anew, and is closed by Mglovesfun with the same result, as failed.

Are the citations provided by DCDuring in Citations:Washington invalid, not documenting attributive use? --Dan Polansky 11:13, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't find the citations I offered 15 months ago very compelling. They show no special meaning. "Washington relic" is simply a relic of the George Washington. It is just like "Colorado scenery". DCDuring TALK 11:59, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Mea culpa. It may have been an oversight on my part; perhaps the discussion of "Washingtonian" and "Washington's" (neither of which counts) caused me to miss, or miss the relevance of, DCDuring's citations. Alternatively, it may be that I saw those citations and did not consider them acceptable, yet failed to comment saying so. The former seems more likely; it generally takes wild horses to keep me from commenting verbosely about things. ;-) Either way, I messed up. That said, the 1860 citation is flawed, in that it's merely mentioning the term Washington cent, and the other two citations are weak in that they don't seem to correspond to any "widely understood meaning" that attributive use of Washington's name might have. So I think what I should have done is object to the cites, explain the problem with them, and leave the section open for a while longer before declaring it failed. —Ruakh 13:21, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. I've posted a note to Talk:Washington, hopefully capturing your and DCDuring's view on the relevance of these citations. --Dan Polansky 13:56, 26 February 2010 (UTC)

March 2010

WT:RFV#cord

Sorry I didn't get back to this. Might be best to just list it as a misspelling, as noted that it only has a small percentage of hits compared to chord. But it is common enough to be listed. Thanks, --Dmol 20:41, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Done, thanks. —Ruakh 15:53, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

WT:RFV#please

I know you're from Cleveland, but thought you might have some knowledge anyway.​—msh210℠ 16:40, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

No, sorry, I don't think I've ever heard that usage before. —Ruakh 15:38, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

gẃraidd

Thanks for the nudge; I'd completely forgotten about this. I'll find the photocopies I made months ago and update the entry as I can within the next few days.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 00:51, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

No prob. I'll wait. :-)   —Ruakh 15:37, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Keeping entries that fail RFV

Kinda interesting that you chose not to delete two entries that failed RFV and replace them with {{substub}}. I assume that's because they do exist, just we don't know what they mean. I think I'd prefer to delete them anyway - although I had a go at ouwel myself. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:18, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Re: "I think I'd prefer to delete them anyway": Why? I suppose one could delete the entry and use the edit summary "Failed RFV; do not re-enter without valid citations", but that is likely to deter a future contributor from adding the right information. If no one is disputing that the word exists in the specified language, that it has the specified part of speech, and so on, then the RFV amounts to an {{rfv-sense}}. —Ruakh 15:36, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I suppose because it's not nice to click on a blue linked entry, only to find it has no definition anyway. Mglovesfun (talk) 16:10, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

If it has some useful info — ouwel had POS, inflection, and audio — I think it's nice. But perhaps the distinction between entries with audio and no definition and entries with neither is too... oh, nevermind.​—msh210℠ 16:29, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

fabulate

Hi, I was interested in your addition of a noun form to fabulate. I couldn't find it in OED. Do you have a reference? Cheers, AxelBoldt 17:59, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I came across it while citing the verb for RFV; see google books:"fabulate". —Ruakh 18:16, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Very interesting, thanks! AxelBoldt 04:14, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

-iss-

Out of interest, what would we write for this? It could possibly have an etymology, but no definition as AFAICT it doesn't modify the meaning of anything. This is me editors like me and Rising Sun prefer it unlinked. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:45, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, it modifies the meaning of ressortissent, in that, despite what our entries might imply, ressortent means something different.
I think this deserves the same kind of entry as an inflectional ending (such as -ir or -ent). It defines the distinctive conjugation of a broad class of verbs (usually called the "regular -ir verbs", but what makes them "regular" is the -iss-, so you could equally call them the "-ir/-iss- verbs"), and it has a meaningful etymology as well as cognates. I don't see why we shouldn't have an entry for it.
—Ruakh 14:04, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Talk:Jonathan

We had a question about the etymologies of (deprecated template usage) Jonathan and (deprecated template usage) Nathan. Could you double-check my response and our existing etymologies? Thanks. --EncycloPetey 19:47, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Your response is correct. Literally נתן (natán) means merely "gave", but I'm sure that G-d is nonetheless implied. A host of a related names — n'tanya, n'tanyahu, y'honatan, n'tan'el, n'tani'el — all make G-d explicit. I imagine that the implication of all of them is "G-d gave me", though only n'tani'el makes "me" explicit, and it's a Modern coinage, so may not count. (There are also some related names using the prefix /m/, producing the noun "gift" rather than the verb "gave": matan "gift", matanya "gift of G-d", matanyahu "gift of G-d", and so on.) —Ruakh 20:15, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Hm, I never though of this before, but I guess the matityahu must be matat ("gift of") + yahu.​—msh210℠ 17:41, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

That's what I've always assumed, but I really have no idea why the /a/ would become /i/, so I left that out of this list. :-P   My new brother-in-law is named matitya, so I should probably try to figure that out. —Ruakh 18:14, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Mazal tov!  :-) ​—msh210℠ 18:31, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! :-)   —Ruakh 19:48, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Though on second thought I might be missing something, because natan "gave" is written נָתַן, meaning something like Masoretic /nɑːˈθan/, whereas natan "Nathan" is written נָתָן, meaning something like Masoretic /nɑːˈθɑːn/; that is, the second vowel is slightly different (in both length and quality, I believe, but certainly in one or other). I don't know if that's significant or if it affects the meaning at all. —Ruakh 20:27, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

But names with "meanings" are frequently different from the corresponding words. Look at y'honatan itself: God is rarely if ever (at least in the Bible, and y'honatan is a Bible-era name) called y'ho alone. I don't think that that's an issue.​—msh210℠ 17:41, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Something interesting along these lines: the word dov (Template:pos n, "bear") appear exclusively without a vav in Tanach, and a number of times. The Aruch Hashulchan lists, in its laws of divorce, the correct spelling of numerous given names, as bills of divorce must by halacha get the names right. He writes (IIRC, not having it here) that the [post-Biblical] name dov is always with a vav although the noun is without.​—msh210℠ 17:47, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

That is interesting, thanks for the info! Does that mean that the noun is /dov/ while the name is /doːv/, or is the Bible simply not indicating the long /o/? (And does this mean that there are halakhic rules on spellings of names? Like, a boy can't be named דֹּב?) —Ruakh 18:14, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, I assume he was referring to the case that the name was never written, or not in any way that could be relied upon to determine correct spelling. (As you know well, a Hebrew name in Eastern Europe, where the Aruch Hashulchan was written, was not an official name in its Hebrew spelling.) Perhaps in Israel, where one's halachic name matches his secular-law legal first name (generally), the situation would be different, and everyone would simply use the spelling on his t'udat zehut.​—msh210℠ 18:31, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and re the vowel length, I have no idea.​—msh210℠ 18:36, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Aside: we could use an entry for halakhic which is often used in English text (as above), so can be considered to have been borrowed into English (esp. with the -ic suffix). I was trying to look it up a minute ago. Robert Ullmann 10:36, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

I've created some entries. These are a pain to create, because there are so many spelling variations; and I imagine they're also a pain to use. But if you're dedicated enough, you can now get from [[halakhic]] to something useful. :-P   —Ruakh 14:12, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

זה

First of all, I've responded re (deprecated template usage) הזיע at my talkpage.

I've now added two usage notes at [[זה#Pronoun]]. Please have a look and improve as needed. Thanks.

We list indefinite (deprecated template usage) זה as a determiner and definite (deprecated template usage) זה as an adjective, which strikes me as odd inasmuch as they're AFAICT used much the same way as one another. Perhaps both should be filed under "Determiner". And if so, then perhaps one definition line suffices, with both usexes (one with perhaps {{archaic|or|formal|_|usage}}) and a usage note re the definiteness. What do you think?​—msh210℠ 22:10, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

See also WT:RFD#other.​—msh210℠ 22:54, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't know whether a distinction between determiners and adjectives is well-motivated for Hebrew, and if it is, I don't know criteria are definitive; so, I ad-hocked a bit. In shulkhan ze, you say it's "indefinite", I suppose because it doesn't use ha-, but it's actually definite (e.g., requiring et if it's a direct object); so it seems clearly a determiner by English standards, in that it makes the result definite. In hashulkhan haze, I thought it seemed like an adjective, because its subject is separately marked for definiteness, and it is marked to agree with said definiteness (contrast, say, *hayeled ha'ekhad). So in that use it seems comparable to something like rishon, which semantically requires definiteness, but grammatically doesn't contribute it (consider yeled rishon). But I'm not particularly attached to this breakdown, if you want to do it differently. Filing them both under "Determiner" would make sense, since you can't say, say, *hashulkhan hu m'od ze. —Ruakh 14:12, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, by "definite" I meant ha-, nothing semantic. But you're right, of course, that (noun) ze is (semantically) definite. Okay, your original version sounds at least as good as the one I suggested to replace it. Thanks for looking at (and fixing one of) the usage notes on the pronoun.​—msh210℠ 14:58, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

By the way, for a similar issue (but in English), see Wiktionary:Tea room/Archive 2008/April#said. That was the sort of logic that I was following (except that I was trying to apply it to Hebrew, where it may not be valid). —Ruakh 21:40, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

April 2010

Template:he-adj

Hi,

Could you please add documentation for {{he-adj}}?

Thanks in advance. --Amir E. Aharoni 08:29, 10 April 2010 (UTC)

Done. —Ruakh 15:07, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Untransliterated Hebrew in 1862 homœophony quotation

Hi Ruakh. Could you add the proper Hebrew to the 1862 quotation here please? You'll find the Hebrew to be added in this source. I don't feel confident to add the words myself because, for example, the shin and sin dots are indistinguishable by me. Thanks.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 14:32, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Done. (The shin and sin dots, BTW, differ only in location: the shin dot appears at top right, שׁ, and the sin dot at top left, שׂ.) —Ruakh 15:07, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. So those dots on the letters ש were shin dots, yeah? If so, gotcha. :-)  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 15:56, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Yep. :-)   —Ruakh 16:16, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Hello again. I have more need of your proficiency in Hebrew. There are two words that need to be substituted for the question marks in this 1877 quotation I just added to (deprecated template usage) homœophony. The source is here. Thanks again.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 15:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Is there a way to indicate a doubtful transcription? Because I think, based on the WLC, that the first one must be supposed to be הֲלֹם and the second one וַהֲלֹם, but the printing is not very good — the printer seems to have confused some similar-looking marks, and on top of that some of the marks didn't print very thoroughly — such that to some extent I'm guessing at what was meant, almost to the point of correcting the test as much as Unicodifying it. So if we do include my suggested reading, I'd still like to indicate somehow that we're not sure about it. (By the way, I realize we're not quoting that sentence out of agreeing with it, but still, I feel compelled to say that I don't agree with it. Lange and Schaff apparently think that if a book had, say, "let me talk to you, man to man", then the first man could "easily" fall out due to the similar sound, leaving "let me talk to you, to man". Maybe that is indeed what happened, but I think the "easily" is really pushing it.) —Ruakh 16:52, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I assume you could use editorial comments (with <!-- … -->) for that purpose, similarly to how I include <!-- [sic] --> after a typo in the source.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 19:16, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

If I may intrude, I'm pretty sure you're right that it's halom and vahalom, based on context in Lange–Schaff and based on ‎1 Sam 14:16 (where the Aleppo agrees with the WLC, BTW). I don't think there's need to mark it as doubtful.​—msh210℠ 18:02, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your intrusion. I'll go with that, then. :-)   —Ruakh 18:43, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

BTW, I've replied in User talk:Doremítzwr#homœophony. Thank you for your prompt intervention.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 16:28, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Bible translations & transliterations

See diff. I also add translations of quotations for Hebrew entries the way Daniel did there: with translator indicated in the quotation-source line rather than as a reference. My reasoning is that I'm not using the KJV as a reference, to know the meaning of the word (which, rather, I know already), but rather as a convenient translation to aid those who don't know what the quotation means. That is, I use the KJV as a source of the translation of the quotation, but not as a source for the definition line. Citing it as a reference seems over the top, as it's the source of only peripheral information; on the other hand, not mentioning where I copied the translated verse from seems like plagiaristic, so I compromise the way I do. I'm not saying it's ideal, but I do think it's better than <ref>.

Also, in the next edit to that same page, you added transliteration of the quotation. Is that SOP/policy? I haven't been doing it.​—msh210℠ 16:13, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Well, color me shocked. It has never occurred to me that ===References=== might be specifically for references I used "to know the meaning of the word". So, when I get an etymology, or niqqud, or inflected forms, or the like from another dictionary, how would you propose I mention that? —Ruakh 21:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

For example sentences, transliterations are required by Wiktionary:Entry layout explained#Example sentences, due to Wiktionary:Votes/2007-07/Layout of example sentences. I've always taken for granted that we would do the same for quotations, though I see now that Wiktionary:Quotations doesn't mention any such thing. It's my SOP, but apparently I'm not entitled to my own policy, so I guess you can do as you prefer. :-)   —Ruakh 21:47, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if I sounded harsh. I didn't mean to reprimand you or anything like that, but, rather, (1) to excuse myself (and incidentally Daniel) (i.e. provide an excuse/explanation for my actions w.r.t. the reference), (2) see whether you thought my explanation of my lack of use of ref was sufficient (or whether, on the other hand, I really should start using it as you do), and (3) find out whether I've been doing something wrong all along (w.r.t. the transliteraton). I certainly did not mean to imply that you should avoid transliterations of quotations, but only wondered whether they're necessary.

Re ref, I didn't mean that it should be used only for definitions, but, rather, that it should be used only for integral parts of the entry. So if we have a source for a definition, etymology, pronunciation, yes, but for a translation of a quote, an example of a referent (e.g., a garden-path sentence s.v. garden-path sentence), no. My reasoning is — and maybe it's wrongheaded — that References is a L3 section, attaching to the whole language section, and should thus list things that are references for the entry, not references for incidentals. (To go a step farther, I wouldn't mind putting a references tag at the bottom of the Etymology section instead of at the bottom, where the etymology has references. But that's definitely not SOP.) That said, I'm not sure whether my logic is good, and, perhaps more importantly, I don't know where citations of others' examples of (e.g.) garden-path sentences should go. (Tbh, I'm not very satisfied with my solution for the cites to KJV on Hebrew entries, either.)

Re transliterations, I suppose you're right, then, and I should start using them, but since they're not mandated I'll have to see whether I do. They don't add all that much to the entry, and do take time, albeit not much.​—msh210℠ 14:56, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Understood. I take references, at least Cite.php-ified references, to be like the references in a scientific journal article, or like footnotes or end-notes: they apply only to the specific claim they're attached to, and they're important only insofar as that claim is important. —Ruakh 00:13, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

{rfdef} instead of {sectionstub} ?

Hi Ruakh,

Thanks for your careful policing of entries and removal of incorrect definitions!

When removing an incorrect definition or flagging a missing definition, could you use the template {{rfdef}} or {{defn}} instead of {{sectstub}}?

I maintain (cleanup) Category:Section stubs, and AFAICT, {sectstub} is reserved for preloaded templates, to flag incompletely created pages (often garbage), while {rfdef} is specifically for requesting definitions, like it says on the tin, and categorizes them better (into Category:English definitions needed).

(I believe this is the correct usage, right?)

Thanks!

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 00:27, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Typo. —Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 00:27, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the info! I don't like {{defn}} for this purpose, because it doesn't show up in the page, so it leaves weird or misleading formatting when the definition has cites; but {{rfdef}} seems exactly perfect. Thanks! :-D   —Ruakh 01:04, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

No problem – thanks for clarifying the difference between the two templates (invisible = cat only vs. visible); I’ve documented that on the doc pages.

Happy edits!

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 06:28, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Aramaic and Hebrew translation (message moved from user page)

An anon. added this request to your user page in error:

Hi, Stephen said I should ask you about this translation. I am looking for an Aramaic and/or Hebrew translation for 'beloved' and 'adored'. I would like the translation to mean something along the lines of being adored or beloved by someone. Thanks! — This unsigned comment was added by 69.201.171.128 (talk) at 03:08, 28 April 2010 (UTC).

 — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 07:42, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

@anon: I don't speak Aramaic, but I can help with the Hebrew. I'd say the most common Modern Hebrew adjective meaning "beloved" is אהוב (ahúv), which is the passive participle of אהב (aháv, “to love”). That said, Hebrew adjectives agree with their nouns in gender and number, and Hebrew attributive adjectives agree also in definiteness; so all told, this adjective has eight forms, all of which translate as "beloved", and which are not interchangeable. These eight forms are:

	singular		plural
	masculine	feminine	masculine	feminine
non-attributive or indefinite	אהוב (ahúv)	אהובה (ahuvá)	אהובים (ahuvím)	אהובות (ahuvót)
attributive and definite	האהוב (ha'ahúv)	האהובה (ha'ahuvá)	האהובים (ha'ahuvím)	האהובות (ha'ahuvót)

If you can give me more information about the context you want to use it in, I can help you choose which form is appropriate.

@Doremítzwr: Thanks! —Ruakh 14:10, 28 April 2010 (UTC)

May 2010

Template:ordinal

We run into the problem there of "number/numeral" or of dual categorization. Compare Category:Ordinal numerals by language with Category:Ordinal numbers by language. Neither exists yet, but both have contents. We have the same issue with cardinals, where Prince Kassad has created all the categories for one group and Daniel and I have created the two for the other. We may have to leave the in-line template without categorization. --EncycloPetey 00:43, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Meh, I think we should just start a BP discussion and/or vote to determine which one people prefer, and then go with that. In the meantime, I suggest we stick with the status-quo-ish of whichever word was there before the change from ISO-code to language-names. —Ruakh 00:50, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Problem being that (1) I seriously doubt we'll get a consensus. There are people firmly entrenched on each side with most people not seemingly to care much one way or the other. That's what happened with the last vote. (2) The status-quo-ish system was itself a compromise, but one that can't compromise in the current category system. It relied on the ambiguity of using the topical name to avoid the grammatic label debate. I don't mean that there's anything that can be done to solve any of this by you. Just saying. --EncycloPetey 00:56, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

[2]

I don't see why it's always Vahag who gets blocked for saying questionable things. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:03, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, in part it's because he's been blocked previously for saying such things, so he should know better by now (the blocking seal has been broken); and in part it's because his cases are always so unambiguous. If Ivan makes a on-topic comment that contributes to the discussion but is also abusive, it's a bit harder to block him (though, as I've indicated, I do intend to begin doing so), whereas when Vahagn makes a comment consisting of nothing but racist or homophobic "humor", it's a no-brainer. —Ruakh 15:20, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Not all people view "racist" or "homophobic" humor as real bigotry. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 15:29, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Bully for them. —Ruakh 15:30, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

The problem is that that jokes are not racist and homophobic - just the opposite. It's like when women complain about men being "sexist" towards them, when in fact they're treating them just like they treat other men (abusively, intimidatingly, degradingly...). They're obvious jokes, not political pamphlets. If you're uncomfortable with Vahag making them, you should overtly ask him to stop (and remove them from pages), and not make pointless 15-minute blocks. --Ivan Štambuk 15:46, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Almost any in-group/out-group "humor" is problematic, IMHO. It is easily misinterpreted. Of what legitimate benefit is it to the "humorist"? Almost anything non-supportive that refers to a person, in contrast to a behavior or a statement or position, is at best unproductive and often highly inflammatory and destructive. DCDuring TALK 15:50, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

So you're O.K. with the revert, but would rather I left an annoyed comment than a brief block? Fair enough, I can do that. —Ruakh 15:57, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

� --Vahagn Petrosyan 17:00, 18 May 2010 (UTC) offensive comment redacted by Ruakh at 17:16, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I think you're just proving his point, Ru. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 17:23, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think he has a point, but you can feel free to explain the point you think he has. —Ruakh 17:42, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

I've noticed that a lot of Jewish people and black people especially very frequently take excessive offense to any potentially negative thing about their respective races. I love gay jokes, but I don't personally know any Jews that will even listen to a Jew joke without getting huffy and puffy. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 17:51, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

In that case, you're both proving my point, which is that you shouldn't be making Jew jokes and black-people jokes. ;-)   If you know that a certain kind of joke tends to offend people, even if you think it shouldn't offend them, then you'd have to be an idiot or a troll to make that sort of joke in a public forum.
BTW, I find both Jew and gay jokes funny among friends (well, usually — there's often an undercurrent of, "I'm actually homophobic, but since I'm friends with you, I'm allowed to make gay jokes!", and sometimes that undercurrent bothers me), but not when they come from random people online who only seem to think they're among friends.
—Ruakh 18:04, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

If I want to tell jokes... I'm not going to go out of my way to research which people are hypersensitive. There's really no need to take oneself so seriously that any joke offends you. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 18:09, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

My whole point is, there's no need to research which people are hypersensitive. Wiktionary discussions aren't the place to tell offensive jokes. —Ruakh 18:13, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Sarah Silverman ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 17:12, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

It is basic human relations in a collegial environment to avoid any risk of offense. It is normal for folks on the Internet of all ages and the the immature in all environments to demonstrate either their lack of such skills or their unwillingness to tolerate any limit on their whims to help maintain a collegial environment. We keep on hoping that en.wikt will be better than normal. DCDuring TALK 18:38, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Amen.​—msh210℠ 18:45, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Wiki-break

Good idea. See you soon.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 07:11, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean . . . —Ruakh 18:44, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

It was during that voting-policy débâcle, so taking a wiki-break was a good idea, in terms of avoiding hassle.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 20:31, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh! Understood. :-)   —Ruakh 21:39, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Requested entry and pronunciation

Hi,

When you're back, could you please create a entry for ביטוי and add the transliteration in Hebrew translation of pronunciation? Thanks in advance. --Anatoli 22:49, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Opiaterein has added a transliteration. I'll try to create an entry tonight.

But are you sure about that translation? In my experience ביטוי only ever means "(linguistics) expression, idiom" (see w:he:ביטוי) or "(mathematics) expression" (see w:he:ביטוי (מתמטיקה)). A sense of "pronunciation" would make a lot of sense, since morphologically it's the action noun of a verb meaning "to pronounce", but I don't remember ever encountering such a sense, and trying a few quick Google-searches, I don't see any clear evidence for it. Personally, I would translate both senses 1 and 2 as הגייה (for sense 2, see w:he:הגייה).

—Ruakh 21:38, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Template:he-prep-sing

Do we still want to keep this? At the very least, {{he-link}} should be replaced by {{l|he|}}. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:49, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for asking. I'm not sure; at some point, eventually, I need to thoroughly re-examine it and make sure that it really is accurate and useful for more than just one or two prepositions. (A fair number of prepositions follow this general pattern, but I've never done a detailed examination of all the diacritics to make sure they're exactly identical.) If we do keep it, then we should probably change it to use the general-purpose {{he-prep-inflection}}. In the meantime, if it's interfering with your orphaning of {{he-link}}, feel free to move it into my user-space and/or to blank it out. —Ruakh 20:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

June 2010

he-babel

Hey there Ruakh...is there any reason why you've listed he in your babel twice? Just wondering...Razorflame 18:45, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

• See this diff. --EncycloPetey 18:48, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
  • Ok, thanks! I understand now :) Razorflame 19:02, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Sounds like the template needs fixing for consistency. Equinox ◑ 19:05, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi Razorflame. Yeah, what EncycloPetey and Equinox said. To elaborate a bit: I grew up speaking Hebrew at home, but without much exposure to formal Hebrew, Hebrew literature, and so on, so even though it's almost like a native language for me, I can't really contribute at a near-native level. But I've been practicing, and am getting better; hopefully by the end of the year I'll have the confidence to list myself as he-4/3. :-)   —Ruakh 20:02, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

welcome back

As the section title says. --EncycloPetey 18:49, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! —Ruakh 20:03, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Dude – it was only a short break, but it has felt seriously short of sane voices in some of the discussions here recently. Enter with caution! Hope Moscow was awesome.. Ƿidsiþ 19:07, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! —Ruakh 20:03, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Ditto what they said.  — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 20:33, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah.​—msh210℠ 20:34, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

More sanity needed. Welcome back. DCDuring TALK 22:47, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Female saying "I'm Jewish"

Would this be ani yehudit or ani yehudia? I can't figure it out. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 20:17, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Excellent question. Properly speaking, either should work, since y'hudít is the feminine singular indefinite form of the adjective, and y'hudiyá is the feminine singular indefinite form of the noun. (So, one means "I am Jewish", the other "I am a Jew".) However, in colloquial Modern Israeli Hebrew, y'hudiyá has partially supplanted y'hudít: for example, a Jewish woman is colloquially an ishá y'hudiyá rather than an ishá y'hudít, even though a Jewish community is still a k'hilá y'hudít, never a *k'hilá y'hudiyá. So for the phrasebook, I would give aní y'hudiyá. (BTW, the same is true for various other such words, such as tsarfatí — but then not for others: it's ishá kharedít, not *ishá kharediya, for some reason.) —Ruakh 20:43, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

פסח

I just checked the history and saw that the two senses I've just RFVed had been added by you. Frankly, I trust you on this, and will rescind my request if you assure me these are accurate. I couldn't find citations, but couldn't think of good search terms.​—msh210℠ 16:59, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, I changed the pronunciation of פֶּסַח for Template:accent:IL from ˈpe.saχ to ˈpɛ.saχ, again before realizing it was you who had added the former. I really thought it was the latter, but, again, will defer to your judgement (and revert myself) if you assure me otherwise.​—msh210℠ 17:03, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Re: pasákh meaning "to limp": I don't remember how I decided that. It's not (and wasn't) in he.wikt, nor is it in the Even-Shoshan Dictionary. It would make sense, since the adjective/noun piséakh from the same root means "lame/(male) lame person", but I can't defend it. Please do remove it. If I ever remember my reasoning, and decide that I'm still convinced by it, then I'll re-add it with a meaningful edit summary.

Re: pésakh meaning "a passing over": Ditto (mutatis mutandis).

Re: /e/ vs. /ɛ/: Current mainstream Modern Israeli Hebrew has only one phoneme here, and it's my understanding that the phonemic symbol /ɛ/ is only used for languages that distinguish the two. (I don't think there's much theoretical basis for this — rather, I think it's just because /e/ is easier to type — but except for Opiaterein, I've never seen anyone do it differently.) That said, phonetically I think it's closer to English or French [ɛ] than to English or French [e], and by using /ɹ/ in English we've established a precedent of sometimes using the phonetically-closest symbol rather than the one that professional linguists use, so I don't mind switching to /ɛ/ everywhere. But I wouldn't support trying to distinguish /e/ from /ɛ/, as your edit seems to do. I've read that the distinction existed as recently as sixty years ago, but it's rare-to-nonexistent today, so for most words we won't have enough evidence to accurately identify the erstwhile phoneme. (Incidentally, the Academy's rule for distinguishing tseirei from segol in Modern coinages is more or less, "Do your best to apply Masoretic grammar": that is, it presupposes that there is no distinction in Modern pronunciation.)

—Ruakh 02:03, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your replies. I've reverted my pronunciation change. May as well keep the senses at RFV on the slim chance that someone will verify one or both, though I'll make no further attempt to do so.​—msh210℠ 16:12, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

Kubura

I'm very uncomfortable with your unblocking of Kubura without discussing it with me beforehand. You stated in your edit summary: (per Neskaya (and also per Robert, who e-mailed me and probably Neskaya)) - can you publish that e-mail, or explicate its contents? --Ivan Štambuk 16:24, 17 June 2010 (UTC)

jv, etc.

These are part of a much larger issue, and were discussed in a BP discussion that ended in no consensus. Whether to keep ISO codes is an unresolved issue; they cannot be deleted as a result of just a failed RFV. --Yair rand (talk) 19:23, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

See the decision at [[Wiktionary:Votes/2010-03/All ISO 639 codes to meet CFI as Translingual entries]].​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:30, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

That vote makes no sense. It has to require more than a 1/3 vote to overturn standing practice, and standing practice has been to admit all ISO 639 codes. The best that can be said on the basis of the vote is that the status of these codes is unresolved. Given this, IMO their deletion has to be regarded as an RFD rather than an RFV issue, and to require something resembling consensus. Ruakh's closure was perfectly reasonable, but AFAICS, this should not have been on RFV in the first place. -- Visviva 19:50, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think you can call a few, formulaicly added entries by a couple of editors, most of which were added by just 2 people, "standing practice". Maybe if this was an obscure language, but the entries are Translingual so a couple editors doesn't stack up. The first open discussions of them were in the BP related to this very RFV. The real "standing practice" is the CFI which blatantly states that entries need verification. You need to RFV before you can RFD (at least until the CFI is changed, and this didn't happen). --Bequw → τ 20:09, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

What about using {{only in|Appendix:ISO 639-1}}? --Bequw → τ 21:07, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

What good would that do? Would you support doing that for all other symbols as well? We have no existing policy for symbols, and throwing some of them into an appendix isn't going to be helpful. --Yair rand (talk) 21:15, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

It's a compromise that would allow for helpful redirection for people looking them up while maintaining our descriptivist stance on language (the CFI governing NS0). This is similar to how we deal with unattested metric terms and some other appendix-only terms. --Bequw → τ 21:29, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

July 2010

חו״ק

Ayn idea what it stands for in citations such as [3] and [4], please? Based on [5], I'd have the say that the final ק stands for קהל or קהילת, but any idea what the rest is?​—msh210℠ (talk) 21:40, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with it, and it doesn't seem to be in any of my dictionaries (though I'm not sure about that, since I'm not sure that all of them list acronyms and initialisms together with regular words); and as I'm sure you've noticed, Wikimilon gives it only as khupá v'kidushín. However, one of the first several hits at google:"חו״ק" is this page on kizur.co.il (the domain-name presumably being kitsúr "abbreviation"), which gives it not only as khupá v'kidushín but also as khazán v'kahál and as khai v'kayám. —Ruakh 01:00, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I've seen all those expanded forms, but none seem to make sense in the texts linked to above. Thanks, anyway.​—msh210℠ (talk) 01:03, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I couldn't help. —Ruakh 01:32, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

בלארוס

Hi,

Please check the entry when you have time. --Anatoli 04:17, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Done. Note: I changed the gender to feminine, because Wikipédya treats it as feminine, and because in the first ten hits at google:"בלארוס הוא", not one is actually treating it as masculine (one hit is treating a mention as masculine, talking about the name itself, and in all other hits it's not actually the subject); but if you have evidence that it's sometimes used as masculine, we can list both genders and add an appropriate usage note. —Ruakh 13:11, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. That was my biggest concern - gender, I was more or less certain about the rest. --Anatoli 00:10, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

סירב

You added a chirik. Normally when there's a resh in the middle, the verb gets a tzere — I think. Am I wrong, or is this an exception?​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:29, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I did not add a khirik, I added an i. I was probably torn about this. Properly speaking, it's סֵרַב (seráv); but there are way more Google-hits with a yud than without, which I take to mean that most people pronounce it sirév. (Compare berár, where yud-ed and yud-less spellings are more or less evenly matched.) But nowadays I try to provide "grammatical" transliterations, using pronunciation sections to indicate this sort of variation; so, I'll fix this entry. It was a good catch, thank you. :-)   —Ruakh 12:50, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, prescription is good sometimes, right?  :-)  Thanks for the explanation.​—msh210℠ (talk) 13:10, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

National Bolshevism

Hello Ruakh. I checked Wiktionary:CFI#Exclusions and similar entries such as National Socialism. Would you be so kind to point me to the rule that prevents adding National Bolshevism? (or the pragraph which expressed such intent). I also wonder if the word nazbol as a common abbreviation of national-bolshevik meets the criteria or not.

Thank you. --ColdWind 21:22, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi ColdWind,

Thanks for asking.

WT:CFI states that "Many names of specific entitites ^[sic] should be excluded while some should be included. There is no agreement on specific rules for the inclusion of names of specific entities", so I followed my best judgment. To me this seemed to fall clearly under the rule that "Wiktionary is not an encyclopedia" (especially the second paragraph of that section), but if you disagree, and do think this warrants a dictionary entry, I can restore it and list it at WT:RFD to get other editors' opinions.

The existence of an entry for "National Socialism" doesn't say very much one way or the other, because it doesn't look like there was ever a discussion about it — it may warrant deletion itself, and even if not, the reason for keeping it may not be one that applies to an entry for "National Bolshevism".

Thanks again,

—Ruakh 21:31, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi Ruakh. Fair enough. I can see how 'National Bolshevism' could be outside scope (unlike 'nationalism' or 'bolshevism'). Since I'm not really familiar with Wiktionary policies yet, I'll follow your advice. Thanks. --ColdWind 23:24, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Bot help

I don't know if you've seen this, but to make a long story short, I was wondering if you might be willing to send me a copy of the code for one of your bot runs, just so I can get a feel for how a bot analyzes a Wiktionary page and what it calls to make edits. I think anything which does both page analyses and edits would do, if you've got such a thing lying around somewhere. My first thought was to look for some posted source code here, but the only instances I can find are Robert's bots, which are rather more advanced and complex than I need or can comprehend. Many thanks. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 02:09, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Note to everyone else: the following is the text of the e-mail I sent in reply.

Hi Atelaes,

The last time I ran a bot was more than two years ago, when the edit API didn't exist yet: I propose bots fairly often, but usually either (1) no one likes the idea or (2) someone likes it so much that they write it themselves within a few days. So I've never updated my code. Attached are the "Rukhabot" Perl module that I wrote for bot-running, and a simple driver program that used this module to replace "{{seeCites}}" and "{{SeeCites}}" at the start of a line with "* {{seeCites}}" in a hard-coded list of entries.

But I really wouldn't recommend using this code; even aside from being terribly out-of-date, it only has the features that I happened to need at the time. If you're interested in running a bot in Perl, I'd be happy to update my Rukhabot code for you (though it will probably take me a week or so); and if you want to run one in Python, like everyone else seems to, you're better off asking Bequw, or Conrad, or Robert, or really, just about anyone else. (I can read Python, but almost never use it myself.)

For that matter, I think the pywikipediabot framework, or whatever it's called, comes with some pre-written bots that are probably decent models. For example, I think it has a bot to which you supply a regex substitution and an XML dump, and it will find all affected entries and edit them.

-Ran
("Ruakh" on en.wikt)

—Ruakh 02:36, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Votes/2010-06/Setting lang attribute for transliterations

Hi, you voted in support of this proposal, but new information has come up (see the vote page, in the "Oppose" section) that might make you want to reconsider.​—msh210℠ (talk) 15:34, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Overuse of idiom context label

You had mentioned some months ago that you thought that "idiom" was overused in our entries. I have recently created an .odf document based on Category:English idioms which facilitates one-by-one cleanup and analysis of idiom entries. I am interested in categorizing them by "construction" to see whether concepts of "w:construction grammar" can help us rationalize multi-word entries. (You may share my amusement that one of the leading construction grammarians is w:Adele Goldberg (linguist), is namesake to w:Adele Goldberg (computer scientist), "inventor" of Smalltalk, an early OO language. It is particularly odd since the linguist is an advocate of the concept of inheritance in structuring the taxonomy of constructions in her approach.)

In preparation for this, I have removed ~40 one-word entries from the category; usually the user meant idiomatic in the sense of colloquial or informal in such cases. I have moved a dozen to the appropriate FL idiom category. I have also removed the label from ~40 proverbs, the category for which is included in English idioms. (Proverbs may be worth analyzing in terms of construction grammar as well.) These are the easiest, least controversial corrections, IMHO. About 6,000 items remain in the category.

I also don't think there is much value in labeling phrasal verbs as idioms. The category alone should be included in idioms. I estimate that there are 1-200 phrasal verbs (using an inclusive definition: anything presented as verb + particle) in idioms.

What other classes of items labeled or categorized as "idioms" have bothered you? Or is it the class a whole? DCDuring TALK 15:43, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

It's really the class as a whole. The tag (idiomatic) on a sense line doesn't really tell you anything about the sense that can't be inferred from (1) the definition and (2) the fact that we chose to include the sense. Your work on Category:English idioms sounds much-needed, but it's kind of a separate issue. I'm not advocating eliminating the category, just the sense-label. —Ruakh 16:49, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

How do you feel about {{figurative}}? DCDuring TALK 17:00, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I use {{figurative}} when something has both a literal use and a common figurative use. Usually figurative uses aren't worth including, since they're figurative uses of actual literal senses, and we normally deal in senses (denotations) rather than uses (~ connotations); but sometimes a figurative use has become so common that I think we'd be remiss in not explaining it, without becoming so independent of its literal underpinnings that it can no longer be considered figurative. My only concern with the tag is that it's subjective: one person can think of something as a figurative use of a literal sense, while another person thinks of it as an independent sense. Sometimes this can be detected (if I say, "X is so powerful in the organization, and Y always gives in to everyone, so if we make them co-chairs, I'm really worried that X will be the elephant and Y will be his pawn", then either it's a Chinese chess club, or I really suck at metaphors, or I no longer think of "elephant" and "pawn" as figurative), but in the general case it depends on editors' impressions. —Ruakh 17:24, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

That partially answers the question, but not the part about how you think other people use it, given the absence of guidance (style manual). I also meant to ask about {{by extension}}, also fairly commonly used. I dislike them so much that I don't use them at all and remove them if they are particularly subjectively displeasing to me in a particular instance. Also, you know that {{metaphorically}} redirects to {{figuratively}}. DCDuring TALK 17:47, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I just now looked at some of the entries listed at Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:figuratively and Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:by extension, and I think I'm pretty satisfied with the way people are using them. And I was unaware of {{metaphorically}}. —Ruakh 17:52, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Hebrew templates

I'm a bit confused by Template:he-Present of, Template:he-Future of,Template:he-Form of prep. Their talk pages redirect to the talk pages of Template:he-present of, Template:he-future of, Template:he-form of prep, respectively. Are the capitalized ones being phased out? -Bequw → τ 15:15, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

No {{he-Past of}} recently passed an RFDO request because "it would be ridiculous to use the cap= parameter in he-past of" according to Ruakh, although it was Ruakh who gave it a cap= parameter. I don't understand it either, sorry. Mglovesfun (talk) 15:21, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

The cap= parameter is there to support {{he-Past of}}. (See implementation detail.) I really don't get what's so confusing here. Has either of you bothered to read the template documentation? —Ruakh 17:36, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I missed the RFDO discussion. I understand now. Thanks. --Bequw → τ 18:58, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

No worries. Sorry for my annoyed response. —Ruakh 22:25, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

Regular exercises on AWB

Say if I'm converting {{infl|ang|noun}} to {{ang-noun}} (which erm, I am) how do I remove parameters I don't want? For example cat=nouns and sc=Latinx don't do anything. But I only want to remove them from {{ang-noun}}, not other templates. Bequw tried to explain it to me, but through not fault of his own (I imagine) I didn't understand. Thanks. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:22, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Hi Mglovesfun,

How are you currently doing the conversion? Are you using a regular-expression find-and-replace? If so, what regular-expression are you using, and what replacement string?

—Ruakh 11:36, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Simply enough in Find and replace > Normal settings > replacing {{infl|ang|noun with {{ang-noun, noting that ang-noun already uses g and head just like {{infl}}. Also, added to the above, gender= should be replaced with g=, as infl support gender to equal g, ang-noun does not. So in other words, I'm using the simplest method. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:42, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Just replace {{infl|ang|noun with {{subst:User:Mglovesfun/ang-noun. It will preserve head=, g=, and sort=; convert gender= to g=; add {{attention|ang}} if 1=, 2=, and/or 3= were specified (in case anyone was doing anything like {{infl|ang|noun|plural|foo}}); and discard all other parameters. Feel free to modify it further. —Ruakh 12:15, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay I don't really know why it works, but it seems it does! Thanks! Mglovesfun (talk) 12:30, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome! —Ruakh 12:35, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

refudiate

Nice work. Ƿidsiþ 17:15, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. —Ruakh 17:30, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow. --Bequw → τ 18:02, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. "Contamination" sounds POV, but sure enough, it's a legitimate linguistic term. OTOH hand, most Wiktionary readers/editors aren't going to be familiar with that sense, and it's not much use to argue "Yes, but it's technically correct". OTOOH, refudiate is not really a blend like motel or brunch. So ... I dunno. Dictionaries need to use technical language from time to time, and this looks like one such time. Maybe wikify contamination so as to encourage learning the linguistic sense? We do that with other technical terms in definitions (e.g., reflexive and ethical dative in me) --dmh 06:58, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe "influence"? —Ruakh 11:29, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

That sounds fine, too. --dmh 20:31, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Done, thanks. —Ruakh 20:56, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

That looks better, and it was a pretty darned good entry to start with. --dmh 03:16, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Smartly done, Ruakh. An entry that masterfully shows that sometimes the meaning is not the use, but the abuse. You should send the URL for this entry to Sarah, 'cause she's just brimmin' with oodles o' that there intellectchewable curiosity stuff. -- You betcha! 02:10, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

August 2010

template talk:he-infl-adj-form

I'm guessing you're not watching that page, but as you're the template author and (I suppose) main user, my questions there are (I suppose) mostly for you. I'd appreciate your having a gander. (And I'll have a drake.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:37, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't remember creating it, it's not used in any pages, and I don't expect to start using it: the inflection line doesn't need anywhere near that much information, since that's what the definition line is for. I really can't fathom why I created it. Feel free to do with it whatever you like. —Ruakh 17:04, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I've revamped it quite a bit. It now looks more like an inflection line, less like a definition line.​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:47, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

הודו

Hi,

Could you please check the entry (not created by me) - gender, transliteration and synonyms. --Anatoli 23:22, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. —Ruakh 02:29, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. :) --Anatoli 11:42, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Usability Initiative (Vector): Sep 1

Hi Ruakh. I wanted to get in touch with you and a few other members of the Wiktionary community about the upcoming rollout of the Usability Initiative features (Vector and enhanced editing features). I was referred to you by DCDuring who thought you might be a good person to reach out to. We’ve already rolled out the changes to approximately 100 projects and are currently planning on rolling out the new features the remaining Wikimedia projects (including Wiktionary) on September 1 and hope to have any blocking issues resolved by August 25.

As I’m sure you know, some gadgets and customizations may not be compatible with Vector. Would it be possible for you to help us identify the major incompatibilities? We’re using Bugzilla to track issues (please file under "Usability Initiative"). Also, our FAQ page has info on how to test Vector.

I look forward to your feedback! Howief 22:10, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Communication

Are you having some difficulty communicating? [6] RTG 16:25, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry. I understand your frustration; you're not used to lexicography, and you're not familiar with Wiktionary practices. You've found some potential issues with various entries, and when you've try to fix them, you've run into problems. On the other hand, (1) I first encountered you when you left a comment for SemperBlotto telling him with the heading "Thanks for being ignorant but...", and (2) when Msh210 (talk • contribs) gave you detailed instructions on how to challenge a sense that you don't think actually exists, you completely blew him off. If you ask questions I'll try to answer them, and if you ask for help I'll try to provide it, but frankly, so far you've seemed abrasive and unresponsive, so when you're not explicitly asking questions or asking for help, I probably won't volunteer. I'm sorry. Once you get more comfortable here, and start to have a better idea what you're doing, hopefully we'll be able to interact more smoothly. —Ruakh 17:00, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

The instructions were beyond the simplicity of the action. Good sources are already in place on the insidious page for review. I am asking for review, not help or answers. In the "catch up" edit, the lexicography was already in place. I removed the entries which were redundant, as brought to light in an rfv discussion six months ago, and I reworded what was left to try and stop it from saying the uninformative, "Catch up means, catch up or catching up." Although my edit to the insidious page may have required some touching up I cannot see how my edit to the catch up page was not a helpful one. "Catch up = To be reaching", I would need to check the word for that mistake but for a lexicographer or even a second level English student it is a basic and common mistake recognisable without effort, it does not mean "ing" anything. There is no fault for writing it that way but there is for preventing its correction. If SemperBlotto and yourself left edit summaries on reverts as diligently as on other edits, there wouldn't be any scope to claim ignorance. I would like you to review the edit to the "catch up" page and just correct it as you think is acceptable rather than not improving the page at all. I thought that was the point... and if you had some incorectedness to point out in that... a passerby might learn something... RTG 19:59, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, not six months, one year and six months. RTG 22:20, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I will clarify this for you. I have gone through a few pages of your contributions of which there are many. There is an edit summary without fail except when reverting anything. Your edit summaries range everything from abbreviation to "Teach an admin to fish..." The edit I have listed above was in response to a request for verification. The request is more than six months old. Other requests farther up the page are some years old. It is stale. Fungus spore rises from it like a choking cloud of cold smoke. Although some contributors as yourself are particularly industrious, the verification area is obviously neglegted in places. You should welcome help with it, or is there something amiss? Do definitions not really require verification or is that only on a selective basis? What exactly is that basis? RTG 16:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

You raise a lot of points. I'll think about them, and try to reply tomorrow (if no one beats me to it). —Ruakh 17:00, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Don't worry, they won't. RTG 15:49, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Wiktionary

Main page now has big red link. SemperBlotto 15:50, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps it could be defined in Wiktionary:Glossary. Nadando 16:46, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. It looks like Opiaterein (talk • contribs) has fixed the main page; and I've restored the entry for now, until it can be properly orphaned. (Usually I spend a few moments orphaning a page after I delete it, but this one will take more than a few moments.) —Ruakh 17:12, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Question about Hebrew

Hi, which one of these sentences would you pick as better? "כאילו נוכחותה מורגשת לי" or "כאילו נוכחותה מורגשת בי" ? I suppose it means something like "as though her presence is felt in/for me". Or there's another true translation? Lastly, how would "she exists as long as her presence is felt" be in Hebrew? Thanks in advance! Sinek 16:57, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I take them to mean slightly different things. I'd take the לי (li) version to mean more "as though I felt her presence" (with me attaching to felt), and the בי (bi) version to mean more "as though [someone] felt her presence in me" (with me attaching to presence). Both versions seem pretty awkward to me. But a quick Google suggests that you're asking this because someone wants a tattoo, and I am not confident enough to recommend a tattoo phrasing! Also, the English seems to imply that her presence isn't felt, which is already strange given that the intent seems to be the reverse, but I think the Hebrew makes that implication even stronger. —Ruakh 17:21, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Hmm thank you so much. Soo Hebrew is not a good idea :) Sinek 17:49, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

(If I may butt in,) "she exists as long as her presence is felt":

"היא קיימת כל עוד נוכחותה מורגשת" or "כל עוד נוכחותה מורגשת, היא קיימת" Dan Pelleg 22:26, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, that version is much better. —Ruakh 22:29, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

lang, name

Since you opined that Template:lang is not a good name for what this template does[7], can you please say if you have any better ideas? Given the common practice of choosing short, abbreviated, spaceless, lowercase names that vaguely resemble why said templates exist, perhaps Template:langcode, Template:ifen or Template:categorycode would be a little more informative. --Daniel. 02:38, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe {{catlangcode}}? —Ruakh 13:17, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think {{catlangcode}} is good enough. It's settled then; I'll make the necessary changes. --Daniel. 15:43, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! —Ruakh 18:08, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

ה־

Before adding the new "this (week)" sense, I was torn: Should I add it as a =Determiner=, leaving the normal sense as an =Article=, even though they're essentially the same? Or should I list both as =Determiner=s (since, of course, every article is a determiner)? Or list both as =Article=s (even though this is not normally considered an article)? I really thought it'd be best to do the second (list both as =Determiner=s), but was afraid it'd confuse people too much. I really don't care where it is, and I'm fine with your having moved it, but am curious what your criterion was.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:32, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

My criterion was that it didn't make sense to have this in a completely separate POS section, because it really just means "the". Actually, one could argue that it doesn't even merit a separate sense, any more than the corresponding use of English "the" merits a separate sense:

1. this; used with nouns denoting geographic regions.

   No one in the whole country had seen it before.

but since English doesn't use "the" this way with periods of time, specifically — at least, not quite as flexibly (something like "I don't think I'll get to it until the morning" is fine IMHO) — and since our target audience is English-speakers, it does seem useful for us to explicitly note it, and a separate sense is the simplest way to do that. But since it's just a specific instance of the "the" sense, it seems that it belongs to the same part of speech as all other instances of that sense. But if you'd prefer ===Determiner===, I'd be fine with that.

—Ruakh 16:44, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for the explanation. (Now you've got me considering adding a "this" sense to the, with usexes like your "morning" and "country" ones. It does look like a separate sense to me, although you seem to take it as a given — why? — that it's not one.) And, no, I don't prefer =Determiner=; as I noted, I was merely curious. Thanks again.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:53, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not a separate sense, because it's part of the general definition of "the" that it's used when its determinee is considered presupposed by both speaker and audience. The exact details of what "presupposed" means varies from language to language, and also depends on the context; for example, in Hebrew as in English, "the day" can refer to an arbitrary day that's clear from linguistic context (e.g. "היום הגיע" means "the day arrived"), or to today (e.g., "I need it by the end of the day"), or to daytime or the work-day generically (e.g. "אתמול במשך היום" means "yesterday during the day"). (My "today" example is cheating a bit, because the real sense there is "the work-day", but you'll notice that "I need it by the end of today" also works.) Really, as I think about it more, the main differences seem to be (1) that Hebrew allows "the day" to be used as an adverbial, whereas English does not (though English does allow "today", "<preposition> the day [i.e. today]", and "the last time") and (2) English frequently allows "today" as opposed to "the day", whereas in Hebrew there simply is no distinct word for "today". So it's almost more that English has a specific gap that Hebrew lacks, rather than that Hebrew has a specific sense that English lacks. (Other languages, of course, behave in yet other ways; for example, in French le jour or le mercredi means "[every day] during the day" or "[on] Wednesdays", which accords with a general French use of le to denote all instances of a noun at once, as in j'aime le riz meaning "I like rice.")

As for my "morning" and "country" examples, there may be value in a general-purpose "this" sense, with various examples; I meant only that there's no distinct sense for use-with-geographic-regions. Likewise, in Hebrew I don't think there's a specifically distinct use-with-time-periods sense.

—Ruakh 19:29, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I've added a "this" sense to [[the]]. Tweak at will, natch. (Or RFD, but it doesn't sound as though you're going to.) Re "in Hebrew I don't think there's a specifically distinct use-with-time-periods sense" right after saying "there may be value in a general-purpose 'this' sense [of the]": Do you mean then that the "this" sense of ה־ sees more general use than with time? Perhaps הוא מגיע לַכִּתָּה עוד מעט or something?​—msh210℠ (talk) 15:44, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. That's a good example. —Ruakh 17:38, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I've changed the sense and added that usex. Modify at will, of course.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:47, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Reverted {{l}}

Could you please explain why you reverted that edit? What was wrong with my change? —CodeCat 17:55, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

In a word — everything. Firstly, that is a very widely transcluded protected template, and I couldn't find any evidence that you had discussed the change anywhere. WT:BOLD does not apply to such templates. Secondly, the etyl: templates are specifically for use in {{etyl}}; hence the name. If we want to extend their meaning by using them in a different environment, that's certainly possible, after discussion. Thirdly, there are a few cases where {{foo}} is a language template and {{etyl:foo}} exists; in such cases, you changed any instances of {{l|foo|…}} to link to random crazy appendices rather than to the appropriate language-section of the appropriate entry. There aren't many instances of this, mind, because usually when we've been tempted to have {{etyl|foo}} be something other than [[w:Foobledegook language|Foobledegook]][[Category:Foobledegook derivations]], we've taken a different approach; and perhaps the remaining cases should be changed; but there are such cases, and you have no right to break them unilaterally by editing {{l}}! Fourthly, I think that approach is a bad one — rather than having {{l}} support two completely separate and parallel code-paths for proto-languages and others, I think we should leave {{l}} be and create a new {{l-proto}}. Of course, once you start a discussion and I've raised my objections, it may well transpire that other people prefer your approach; but we won't know until you do. —Ruakh 18:38, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I copied the approach from {{etyl}}, which does exactly the same thing. And as for discussing, I did discuss it, there's a thread in GP that you've taken part in, but all I've seen there is suggestions being shot down. No usable solutions and no useful feedback whatsoever. And in the meantime I've just been adding hardcoded links to Proto-Germanic because there was no alternative. So I wanted to do something now, before the backlog got any worse. —CodeCat 18:52, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

{{etyl}} does not do the same thing at all. Please read my comment and tell me which of those problems is shared by {{etyl}}. I meant a discussion of these changes. Not a general discussion where you didn't propose this change. And anyway, starting a discussion does not give you license to make a change — you need to start a discussion and find support for your change. I would have thought that was obvious. —Ruakh 19:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Please read my comment and tell me which of those problems is shared by {{etyl}}. - All of them. -- Prince Kassad 19:16, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

If by "all of them" you mean "none of them", then yes, I agree. ;-)   —Ruakh 19:20, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I already stated my comment on #3. #4 also applies: Fourthly, I think that approach is a bad one — rather than having {{l}} support two completely separate and parallel code-paths for proto-languages and others, I think we should leave {{l}} be and create a new {{l-proto}}. Instead of etyl handling both language families and individual languages (which creates an absolute mess), it would have been so much better to have a template etyl-family and etyl-lang. But sheesh, nobody listens to me. -- Prince Kassad 19:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

You are welcome to propose that change. —Ruakh 19:24, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

How long would I have to wait for a solution? A month? Six months? At least I'm doing something. In the absence of workable solutions, I've created one that I deem best for the situation. Using a second template is not a workable solution because there is no feasible reason why we should have to duplicate all those templates simply for proto-languages. Bequw said the same and I agree with him. My solution on the other hand works perfectly as it handles proto-languages exactly the way they should be handled. The fact that etym templates are not intended for that holds little relevance; they are templates that refer to language families, which by definition have a common proto-language. And if a few languages are broken because they share a name with an etym template, then fix that instead of protesting against this. We could've had it done already! —CodeCat 19:17, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

If you're so sure that this way is so perfect, then how come you didn't propose it? —Ruakh 19:20, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

It was already taking too long. At least now there is proper discussion. —CodeCat 19:25, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Thirdly, there are a few cases where {{foo}} is a language template and {{etyl:foo}} exists; in such cases, you changed any instances of {{l|foo|…}} to link to random crazy appendices rather than to the appropriate language-section of the appropriate entry - these would conflict with {{etyl}} too, since that uses the exact same approach. So your argument is nil. -- Prince Kassad 19:00, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Nonsense. Methinks you don't know what you're talking about. —Ruakh 19:11, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I think a template to link to proto appendices is a good idea. Getting l to do both isn't. Something like {{proto-l}} seems fair to me, to be used chiefly in proto appendices but occasionally in other namespaces. Mglovesfun (talk) 19:24, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Why have two when you can have one template to do the same thing? I don't see what the problem is with {{l}} creating links to proto-language appendixes. It is for creating links, after all, and this is a link. —CodeCat 19:27, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Update: while not relevant to this discussion (which is about why I reverted CodeCat's inappropriate edit to {{l}}), I should note that this statement of mine:

Thirdly, there are a few cases where {{foo}} is a language template and {{etyl:foo}} exists; in such cases, you changed any instances of {{l|foo|…}} to link to random crazy appendices rather than to the appropriate language-section of the appropriate entry.

is currently obsolete: the only cases of overlap were {{hbo}}/{{etyl:hbo}}, which has been resolved by orphaning and deleting {{hbo}}; {{nah}}/{{etyl:nah}}, which has been resolved by deleting {{etyl:nah}} as functionally redundant; and various other pairs, such as {{art}}/{{etyl:art}} and {{American English}}/{{etyl:American English}}, where the non-etyl: version is not a language template.
(Of course, it remains quite possible that such pairs will arise again in the future, and so far as I can see, no one has presented any reason to forbid them; but that's the situation as it stands right now.)
—Ruakh 00:17, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

tohubohu

Hi, your user-page says you are fluent in Hebrew, could you please check the etymology I added to tohubohu please? thanks, — lexicógrafo | háblame — 20:59, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. —Ruakh 21:10, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. (my knowledge of Hebrew could be written on the back of a postage stamp...) — lexicógrafo | háblame — 21:10, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

September 2010

Numerals and numbers

Hi, in Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-06/Number vs. numeral I have created the option 'Use "Numeral" and "Adjective" for headings and "Cardinal number" and "Ordinal number" for categories' for you and msh210, so please edit it to fit your preference, and correct any misunderstanding that I have entered into that option. --Dan Polansky 15:09, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! —Ruakh 15:25, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Requests for verification#cockscomb

Certainly, just a moment. - Amgine/^talk 00:23, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

Etymology of punctuation

Your recent comment on punctuation made me whether you know of references that provide something we might be able to use for etymologies of punctuation and, more generally, symbols and characters. Something like the image at & is helpful. DCDuring TALK 01:32, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, I don't think I'm the right person to ask, but since you're asking me … Wikipedia has articles for most punctuation marks and other symbols, and many of these articles include details about the symbols' histories. If you mean references of the sort that we might actually put in a ===References=== section, then I have no idea, except that it's probably worth looking at the References sections of the Wikipedia articles. Sorry I can't be more helpful, but this is really a topic I know nothing about! —Ruakh 01:55, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

I had tried a couple of WP articles and was disappointed. Thanks anyway. DCDuring TALK 09:37, 7 September 2010 (UTC)

Watchlist problem

Hi. Clearing the cache had no effect. Neither did deleting User:Equinox/vector.js. Although Opera reports "Remote server or file not found", Internet Explorer gives "HTTP 500 Internal server error". The only thing I have done recently is turning off the new layout (not sure how to turn it back on). Equinox ◑ 16:52, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

I've just cleared out 1564 titles from my watchlist (in the manual editor) but it hasn't fixed the problem. Equinox ◑ 21:04, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

qyamancha

The contents of this section have been archived to Talk:qyamancha. —Ruakh 22:56, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

zittern

No, I'm not certain. I might have made a mistake. Equinox ◑ 15:54, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

halfalogue

I noticed the RFV and entry was deleted. I acknowledge that it is a newly coined term, but it quickly became widely used, with comments to the news release citing it as late as last week. The intent was that the paper would get published, but Cornell held it up for some reason. Can we hold the references page until the actual work is published? WikiWilliamP 15:04, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Citations:halfalogue will be sticking around regardless of deletion of the entry. Equinox ◑ 15:07, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Numeral vs number vote

Hi, I am impressed by your respect to my disapproval of approval voting in the vote on numeral vs number, but I actually think you have done a great job in turning the vote into a really simple one and a comprehensible one. While the vote is fairly likely to lead to an impasse, it is also fairly likely to lead to an unambiguous result. And the impasse can hopefully be resolved, if it happens, by a subsequent vote that plainly confirms the plain-majority winner. --Dan Polansky 17:35, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

en-noun

Hello. Can you please tell me why have you made this edit? --Daniel. 19:48, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe that the edits I was reverting were undiscussed, undocumented changes to the behavior of a widely transcluded template. Am I mistaken? (I'm also not sure I agree with the changes, but that's secondary.) —Ruakh 19:57, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Ruakh, Daniel's changes were necessary for the template to function correctly in appendices. The changes did not affect anything in any mainspace entries, did they? --Yair rand (talk) 20:00, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Please define "correctly". As far as I'm aware, there's no consensus about how and whether {{en-noun}} should function in appendices. The changes did affect any non-mainspace pages that were already using the template (such as [[Transwiki:Mirliton]]), which may or may not be a problem, but does not seem to have been discussed either way. —Ruakh 20:15, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I've modified {{pagename}} so that the template can function as it did previously in non-mainspace pages such as [[Transwiki:Mirliton]]. Can Daniel's changes now be restored so that the appendix pages aren't all broken, please? --Yair rand (talk) 20:29, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, according to Special:UserRights/Ruakh, I still don't have the "dictator" priv; so, you're asking the wrong person. Maybe WT:BP? —Ruakh 20:43, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

As for your concerns, Ruakh, both WT:CFI and WT:FICTION say that certain entries, such as most constructed languages and terms used solely in the context of a fictional universe, should be kept in appendices. --Daniel. 20:37, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm aware, but they don't say what form that should take; therefore, they don't justify making undiscussed, undocumented changes to {{en-noun}} that impose one specific approach. (In fairness: this approach seems pretty reasonable to me. If it were actually proposed, I'd probably support it; though without an actual proposal to look at, it's hard to be sure. Currently I have to infer the approach based on the undocumented edits!) —Ruakh 20:43, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The changes don't actually affect any pages, they only allow new possible uses for it, much like creating a new template, which is not something that requies discussion and consensus, afaik. If there is some objection to it, then it could go to the BP (or perhaps the template's talk page). As for "undocumented", the template works identically on appendix pages as it does on mainspace pages, so a change to the documentation page seems rather unnecessary. --Yair rand (talk) 21:01, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I actually think there is a big difference between editing a template that is already widely transcluded, even if you think the edits won't change or break anything, and creating a new template. It's rather like the difference between bot-editing a hundred thousand pages to tweak whitespace, and manually editing one such page to do so: for the former you need approval, for the latter you do not. You say that the edits "only allow new possible uses for [the template]", but they also foreclose possible new uses for it. You say that "the [proposed version of the] template works identically on appendix pages as it does on mainspace pages", but that's not true: it categorizes them differently. It also makes assumptions about an appendix's pagename that it doesn't make about a mainspace entry's pagename; those assumptions should be documented. (BTW, this template is part of a whole approach of subpages, and full entry-like entries, and so on; was that overall approach discussed anywhere? If so, could you give me a link? I haven't been following all of the discussion pages very closely these past few months. Thanks in advance.) —Ruakh 21:36, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Hm, the categories the template gives doesn't seem like something the /doc explains (Template:en-noun/doc doesn't say anything about that it categorizes entries into Category:English nouns), so I don't see where the information about appendix page categorization could go. That it pulls the appendix subpage name rather than also including the appendix basepagename and namespace seems rather obvious and not needing of a mention in the documentation. Re the whole approach of subpages: If it was discussed anywhere, I wasn't aware of the discussion. --Yair rand (talk) 22:06, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Note: Daniel just started a BP discussion about this issue. --Yair rand (talk) 22:08, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Yair on the analogy that, if the discussed changes don't affect how en-noun is widely used and documented (in the main namespace), they effectively construct a new template: I could compare it with the hypothetical creation of something named Template:en-nounjustforappendices.

Pardon my logic, Ruakh, but the prospect of not using en-noun in Appendix:Harry Potter/Revealer and related pages is what, to me, seems contrary to years of consensus and usage of that template, how entries should be formatted according to WT:ELE, WT:AEN and numerous discussions and votes.

Still, your request for discussions can of course be fulfilled; then, I started one on this subject, as Yair said. --Daniel. 22:12, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I've replied there. —Ruakh 23:02, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Morphology presentation template

I have prepared a first draft of a morpheme-presentation and -autocategorization template, {{morph}}. It is probably botched in its treatment of he|yi and lacks the categorization of the second morpheme, but its use is illustrated at referentiality. Like confix, from which this is derived, it is limited to three arguments. A variant (or a called subtemplate?), capable of handling more morphemes, at least six for normal English, more for Joycean terms, would be desirable.

It is intended to facilitate the separation of morphology (aka "synchronic etymology") and etymology (aka "diachronic etymology") and complements DoremitzWR's ideas at WT:BP.

Please tell me what you think and fix what needs fixing. DCDuring TALK 15:07, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Good work. One thing that might simplify matters is to replace this approach:

• {{morph|פו־|־בר|alt1=פֿוּ־|alt2=־בַּר|tr1=fu-|tr2=-bar|t1=foo-|t2=-bar|lang=he|sc=Hebr}}

with this approach:

• {{morph|he|פו־|פֿוּ־|foo-|tr=fu-|sc=Hebr}} + {{morph|he|־בר|־בַּר|-bar|tr=-bar|sc=Hebr}}

the template itself is much simpler then, and the code in entries is also simpler IMHO. It has the slight downside of leaving some formatting to be specified explicitly in entries — specifically, the plus sign and the whitespace around it — but then, that's also an advantage, in that it might be premature to try to predict right now what flexibility may be needed. (We do have some idea, from experience with {{prefix}} and its ilk, but this template is breaking new ground.)

—Ruakh 16:32, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Why, yes, what a wonderful simplification. The extra formatting is trivial. It requires more typing for uses where the additonal lang= and sc= parameters are specified. I also would prefer to force the use of the same language and script for all the morphemes, though others may disagree on that point. The "new ground" point is compelling. It is likely that it would be implemented first in English (by me!) so the extra typing is at its minimum.

Also, it's sadly not simpler for me as my understanding of templates is limited to stealing them, renaming them, and editing their text. I do not trust myself to make the changes. Could you do the honors, please?DCDuring TALK 16:47, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Done. —Ruakh 17:03, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps we could move three-morpheme {{morph}} to {{morph3}} or User:DCDuring/morph3 (to reduce my need to bother folks in the future), but have a one-morpheme {{morph}} at the original location. DCDuring TALK 16:56, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I see you already have. :-)   —Ruakh 17:03, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

I think I got the right version based on your edit summary. Thanks a lot for encouragement, suggestion, company, and implementation. DCDuring TALK 17:08, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

You're welcome! By the way, you mention above that you "also would prefer to force the use of the same language and script for all the morphemes"; but from what I understand, the rule is even simpler than that: the rule is that all morphemes should have the same language and script as the entry itself. That's precisely the sort of thing AutoFormat (talk • contribs) enforces for {{context}} and its ilk. —Ruakh 19:30, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Does AF work at the level of individual templates or on templates within sections? Who is the caretaker thereof? DCDuring TALK 20:06, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Never mind. User: AutoFormat has most of what I ask and more that I should know. DCDuring TALK 20:10, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Russian transliteration

Hi. Is that the format which you prefer for citations in languages other than English where translations are available? Could you elaborate on why you consider transliterations necessary in Russian quotations? There exists a surjective correspondence between the Russian text and the transliteration, id est to every Russian sentence corresponds one unique transliteration and everyone having acquired basic knowledge of Russian can cope with any text in Cyrillic script and provide it with transliteration (which is not the case for other languages, such as Japanese, Chinese or those based on the Arabic script). To the rest those quotations cannot be of any avail, with or without transliteration. The uſer hight Bogorm converſation 12:53, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Re: format: more or less. The metadata should also contain English transliterations and/or translations; and in the translation of the quotation, the translation of the headword should be bolded.

Re: transliterations: For example sentences, transliterations are endorsed by policy (see Wiktionary:Entry layout explained#Example sentences, added pursuant to Wiktionary:Votes/2007-07/Layout of example sentences). For quotations, there's nothing one way or the other SFAIK, so if you don't want to provide a transliteration, I suppose you can remove that tag. But your statement that "to every Russian sentence corresponds one unique transliteration" is not correct: our transliterations indicate stress placement. And that's a big deal, because English-speakers learning Russian tend to have a lot of trouble with that. (Also, Russian Cyrillic writing doesn't always distinguish <е> from <ё>; but the quotation at that page obviously does, so that isn't an issue in this case.)

But what you did was a good start. More English/Roman information makes a citation more useful (this being the English Wiktionary), but is not absolutely essential IMHO.

—Ruakh 14:04, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

October 2010

Thank you

For the kind welcome message! Palosirkka 09:42, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

No need to thank me. It's a pleasure to see a brand-new editor with such spotless edits. :-)   —Ruakh 15:34, 2 October 2010 (UTC)

location of HTML

What bad things happen if <s> is located above the header? The good thing that happens is that the link back from {{rfv}} et al still works. Is it just bad practice or is there a specific problem? DCDuring TALK 17:19, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Re: "What bad things happen if <s> is located above the header?": Well, it means that the <s> is in the wrong section, and given how much we rely on section-editing (especially for those huge discussion pages), future edits are liable to remove the <s> without removing the </s> or whatnot.

Re: "The good thing that happens is that the link back from {{rfv}} et al still works": That link works anyway: [[Wiktionary:Requests for verification#fishmonger]]. I vaguely recall having seen certain issues in the past when someone did something like ==<s> [[fishmonger]] </s>== (with spaces just inside the (X)HTML tags), but I can't reproduce them now, and it wouldn't at all surprise me if they've been fixed. Regardless, I've never used that style, so it's not a problem.

If you see an issue somewhere, please let me know; maybe I just haven't noticed something?

—Ruakh 17:37, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah, right. Editing from the previous section. I seemed to often find that I could not get back to a RfV/RfD/RfC page section header via the link in the tag. I also cannot reproduce it now at RfV with fishmonger. It could have been some kind of server lag between giving me the top of the page and finding the section header. Or is there some limit on the number/total size of section headings that can be managed? Relatedly, thanks for your recent surge of activity in clearing out RfV. DCDuring TALK 18:27, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

AF down?

Unless it doesn't leave a record in Special:Contributions/AutoFormat AF hasn't run since October 5. Who can get it restarted and keep it from being stopped henceforth? DCDuring TALK 20:31, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

The account is owned by Robert Ullmann, whom I haven't heard from for a while. I hope he's O.K. :-/   —Ruakh 02:50, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Template:fr-noun/Sandbox

This is nowhere near going 'live', however the feminine seems very much broken. Not sure why, could be to do with {{makelink}}, or just me. As you say, we need to analyse how this is used before going 'live'. The {{fr-noun|m|x}} formula assumes that only 's' and 'x' are used for forming French plurals, other than irregular ones like tennismen. Thanks in advance for any help. Mglovesfun (talk) 07:40, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm out-of-town this weekend, but I'll try to do some analyses for you this week.

In the meantime, some things to think about:

• In pairs like cousin/cousine, should the singular form of each have a full entry, or should the singular of the feminine be treated as just a feminine singular "form"? In the former case, do we want the inflection line of each singular entry to link to the other? (That's how we do it for Hebrew; see e.g. [[איש]]/[[אישה]].)
  • The existing template seems set up to support a sort of mixed approach — even allowing the masculine plural to be given in the inflection line for the feminine — but there's no guidance anywhere SFAICT on when each should be used.
• For nouns where the plural is identical to the singular, do we want to label them "invariable", or do we want to explicitly indicate the plural? (Note that with some words, such as os, the singular and plural are different, but are nonetheless spelled the same.)
• Do we want this template to be usable in inflection lines for plural forms? How about pluralia tantum? Nouns with plural-only senses?
• Do we really need so many equivalent parameter names?

It would be nice to have answers to some of these questions in designing a new template, because coherent answers might simplify the design of the template.

—Ruakh 14:42, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I totally agree. Personally, I like to distinguish between invariable like cinq (no cinqs, only nonstandard or as an error) and plural and singular the same word (os, vers, etc.). Another thought, perhaps instead of 2, it should be type which is what we already have. Avoids some future problems, but costs an extra few keystrokes. Mglovesfun (talk) 11:23, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I still haven't done any analyses … my Internet has been down most of this week. Fortunately I get a wireless signal from a park across the street from me, but it's too weak to let me download huge files. —Ruakh 14:15, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

FYI

I sent you an email. :-) Dominic·t 06:29, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I saw it, but haven't had a chance to read through the link. I'll do so today. —Ruakh 12:00, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

November 2010

your recent changes re transliteration to About Hebrew

Do we put transliterations on 'nyms/derived/related/cetera? (I know I don't. Should I be doing so?)​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:16, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I do. But my changes didn't really change that aspect of it, anyway; it did, and does, say "Wherever there is a link to a Hebrew entry, a romanization should be included." (Which contradicts the behavior of our inflection templates, but I wasn't sure how to fix it, so I just left it.) —Ruakh 18:27, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Good point ("it did"). But 'nyms/der/rel/c. can simply use {{Hebr|[[foo]]}}, which doesn't have a tr=, necessitating some manual addition of the transliteration. (Yes, I know I can use {{nym}} or {{l}} or whatever those things are, but — until now — I saw no reason to do so, adding another template call to what can simply call one (Hebr). I say "until now" because now that I realize I should add transliterations perhaps I'll learn those linking templates....)​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:37, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, that section isn't policy. It explicitly says that it isn't. (Of course, since it's not policy, its statement that it's not policy has no binding force, so maybe it actually is policy?) It was really just based on my understanding of Wiktionary practice (for all scripts, not just Hebrew). If it doesn't reflect your practice, then we can just comment it out until we figure out what we want it to say. —Ruakh 18:57, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Right (re not being policy. We needn't comment it out, either, as, well, it admits it's not policy). IMO transliteration is most useful where those who can scarcely (or who cannot) read Hebrew (or whatever) are more likely to read it. I suspect that that's primarily the Etymology section of foreign words. (Also of Hebrew words, for those who follow trails.) Of course, we should also include transliteration on inflection lines. But in inflection tables and 'nym/der/rel/c. lists... well, I suspect those are most likely read by those who already know how to read Hebrew. Transliteration is always nice, but it seems to me to be not really necessary there: that's my reasoning. In any event, I can always use {{romanization of Hebrew}} or {{l}}.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:07, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

reem

Hey Ran. Some help with the etymology here would be great. See also (deprecated template usage) unicorn, sense 3. Ƿidsiþ 10:20, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I took a shot. The Even-Shoshan Dictionary defines it as the Arabian Oryx, without so much as a nod to other theories, so I went with that, but now the entry looks a bit silly, in that the etymology says the Hebrew word means "Arabian Oryx", and the definition talks about various things the word has been identified with. (Which may be valid, if the variable identification has affected English usage?) Maybe we should remove the etymon's gloss from the etymology section? —Ruakh 13:30, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Haha, yes that's probably the best solution. Thanks for the input! Ƿidsiþ 13:59, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

powder monkey

Those quotations you added seem to me to support the sense I know, avid powder skiers. As for the sense of powder I would agree with that definition. - [The]DaveRoss 21:27, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Login:Leasnam

Hello Ruakh. I'm using a friend's PC to login with my account. However, I have never been able to stay logged in. I get the "Login Successful" screen, but when I navigate away, it logs me back out. I checked Cookies, and they are enabled. Do you know why this keeps happeneing? 98.24.255.58 22:15, 7 November 2010 (UTC) (Leasnam)

I don't know, sorry. You might want to ask at Wiktionary:Grease pit. Sadly, our very greasiest editors are all AWOL, but hopefully someone will have an idea. :-/   —Ruakh 22:18, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks. 98.24.255.58 22:34, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

WT:RFV#waggon et al.

Not being silly, but are you drunk or do you have a reason to do that? Do you object to your own citations? Mglovesfun (talk) 23:58, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, first of all, if you read my comment, I think it made clear that I didn't think that those citations clearly supported our existing sense. But, that's fine: that word had been on RFV for more than a year and a half, and my comment had been there for more than three weeks with no one replying, and the discussion needed to be closed somehow. I'm not objecting to your decision, even though it's not the same one I'd have made.

But I do object to a potentially controversial closure being archived less than six hours later, especially by the same person who performed it. It's not necessary, and it's not helpful. If you were doing some sort of massive archival on WT:RFV, it would at least be understandable (though I'd still dislike it), but specifically targeting only two discussions, both quite recently closed? Why?

—Ruakh 00:14, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Because RFV is absolutely massive, I think by far the largest page on the whole wiki. Even section editing is tricky because of size. I suppose it is overeagerness (perhaps just eagerness) but good natured. If you'd have provided deletion summaries, I wouldn't have thought you were drunk (which, by the way, wasn't a euphemism, I thought you actually were drunk). Mglovesfun (talk) 00:19, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, right now RFD is about 40 KB bigger than RFV. ;-)   And trust me, removing sections as soon as they're closed is not going to help make RFV smaller faster. The hard parts are (1) citing words and (2) closing discussions; when there are old closed discussions, it's not so hard to go through and quickly archive very many at one time.

Don't worry, I didn't think you were acting in bad faith or anything. I just disagreed with your tack. Strenuously.

—Ruakh 00:29, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

(And, sorry for not providing deletion summaries and/or letting you know on your talk-page.) —Ruakh 00:32, 10 November 2010 (UTC))

Very unlike you (who I'd openly list as one of our best ever editors). That's what threw me off. Mglovesfun (talk) 00:36, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I managed to get WT:RFD down to about 475kb last year, but now that Conrad.Bot is dormant, and I get a bit sick of archiving, it's more like 700kb right now. I've sort of become the 'manager' of RFD like you're the 'manager' of RFV. Another archive bot to replace Conrad.Bot would be lovely. BTW were you drunk? Hardly the first time I've instant-archived a closed discussions. Mglovesfun (talk) 10:56, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

I was not drunk, no. You've instant-archived closed discussions on RFD, but I don't think you've done so on RFV. Not recently, anyway. As you say, you're the 'manager' of RFD, so I wouldn't want to revert your RFD-archiving, because that just means you'll have to do it later; that's not fair for me to do. But if I revert an RFV-archiving, it's me who has to re-do it later, so I'm not creating more work for anyone other than myself. —Ruakh 12:44, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry about accidental removal

I have a new PC that may solve some trackpad-key related problems. Human error potential remains however. DCDuring TALK 23:08, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

No worries. Not a big deal. —Ruakh 23:11, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

el-noun

I don't understand the purpose of this reversion. All Opiateirein did was format the code with (blank) comment tags, so that it would be easier to read for future editing. Personally, I think more of our templates should do that. --EncycloPetey 20:33, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

That's actually not all he did: he also made various formatting changes. Given that the template is used on thousands of pages, and that its current formatting was intentionally put in place by our main Modern Greek editor, and has been discussed on the talk-page, I just don't think he should be changing its behavior unilaterally. (Especially since he didn't use edit summaries, and also made massive no-op changes, thereby accidentally concealing the real changes.) —Ruakh 20:56, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

x

because? — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 21:00, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

See previous section. —Ruakh 21:03, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Previous section told me pretty much nothing. You know what I actually changed? An extra space and a colon. Not that that will make a difference. :P — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 21:05, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Great, so I'm sure that when you propose that change on the talk-page, Saltmarsh won't object. What's the problem? —Ruakh 21:06, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

No problem at all. I can't touch one of your templates no matter how miniscule the alteration, so to echo myself: It's all yours. Just give me a list of everything on your watchlist so I'll know what I need to start a vote on before I edit. — [ R·I·C ] opiaterein — 21:13, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps I'm wrong. I've posted a question at BP: [[Wiktionary:Beer parlour#Modifying widely-transcluded templates.]]. —Ruakh 21:38, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Your feelings

Please don't feel an incredible urge to permablock me. --Daniel. 19:39, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, I don't really feel an urge to permablock you. You only created a small number of garbage entries; you've been polite about it; and I believe you when you say that you think they're citeable. (I don't think they are, but I believe that you do think so.) But — we get so many newbies promoting coinages from narrow communities that have no hope of meeting the CFI. It's very frustrating to see that coming from an admin. :-/   —Ruakh 22:35, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

I suppose Citations:Basic Pokémon is a good start to prove attestability from that group of controversial entries. :) (Not to mention Trekkie, that is also "nonfictional but closely related to fiction" and apparently is widely known by non-Trekkers as well, while Pokémon terms are usually obscure to non-fans of Pokémon). Sorry for apparently imitating this particular newbie behavior that resulted in your frustration, but "create approximately five controversial entries in the main namespace and attest them, while discussing them and the various implications of attestability and related policies" is part of the best way that I could think of questioning the current practices. --Daniel. 06:25, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

short-handed

Hello Ruakh -- A nice appropriate quotation, to be sure, but does it really contribute anything to the user's comprehension of the usage of this term to know that it was specifically Messier who scored it? C'mon now. -- Ghost of WikiPedant 04:25, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, it tells them that (1) it's a real person, (2) he's Canadian, (3) he's a hockey player, (4) he's a professional hockey player, (5) anything else relevant that they might discern. (Some of these things are already guessable from the title of the book, to someone familiar with the "for Dummies" series.) When a book is "limited preview" or "full view" on b.g.c., WT:" tells us to link to the page in question (though I now see that this is "under dispute"). I view this as being pretty analogous; it provides more context. I suppose I could, instead, have added a footnote saying that the quotation is from a professional hockey game, and that presumably the short-handedness was due to one or two players being in the penalty box; but it seems better to leave that sort of stuff to Wikipedia. (Also, maybe this is just me, but I find that quotations often pique my interest. There's a world of interesting things out there. I don't see why we should go to lengths to divorce quotations from the world they come from.) —Ruakh 12:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Yup, all interesting and all fun, and Messier wasn't half bad in his day. But it seems to me it's already a step down the road of "encyclopedicity" even to add his name. I still like to keep the focus of quotations on just illuminating the meaning of the term ;-) -- Ghost of WikiPedant 18:36, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

If all we care about is the meaning, and nothing else, then why bother with quotations at all? —Ruakh 19:33, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Because meaning arises in interaction with context. Language is not really digital, not really delivered in such discrete parts as we dictionarians are too often tempted to believe in. The meanings of terms are gestalt phenomena. This is why e.g. sentences and quotations are so appropriate, perhaps even essential, for the exposition of meaning. -- Ghost of WikiPedant 23:50, 15 November 2010 (UTC)

Re: "meaning arises in interaction with context": and this is your argument against linking to more context? :-P   —Ruakh 00:40, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

OK now, this isn't like you, Ruakh. Let's just focus here. I'm always for the use of quotations and e.g. sentences which illuminate the meaning. But that doesn't imply that everything one can quote or can insert within square brackets in a quotation succeeds in illuminating or further illuminating the meaning. My point at the outset was that no further light is shed on the meaning/usage of the term short-handed by appending the possessive adjective "his" with a square-bracketed "[Mark Messier's]". This particular addition did not constitute useful new context for definitional purposes. -- Ghost of WikiPedant 05:27, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, I already listed several reasons that I thought that that information could be relevant to a reader seeking to understand the meaning of the term. You weren't satisfied, and I don't really know what else you want me to say about it, but I'll try . . .

(1) Keep in mind that a lot of team sports don't have this concept at all; if a baseball player runs out onto the field and cross-checks an opposing player, he may get charged with assault, but he's not going to sit in a penalty-box for a few minutes while his team has one fewer player on the field. A football player (in the U.S. sense) won't even get charged with assault. So, understanding the sport and league and potentially country is relevant to piecing together the meaning. Without that sort of context, a reader is liable to think that we're talking about, say, a pick-up sport, where different teams might have different numbers of players simply because there's not an overwhelming amount of organization.

(2) Also, I just don't see the square-bracketed link as a problem. In normal circumstances, when you quote a passage that uses an anaphor whose antecedent its outside the quotation, you indicate the antecedent in exactly this way; so for me, this is the natural thing to do, and I would like a justification for not doing it, rather than feeling that justification is required for yes doing it.

—Ruakh 12:50, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

(Allow me to butt in...) what about this? Alternatively, just include the preceding sentence, which gives his name (as I do think the context his name proivdes is worthwhile). — Beobach972 06:01, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Template:he-noun

Hi,

Thanks for fixing it. I admit I haven't spent enough time learning how to do that. Not sure how to test this in a sandbox either, since the entries using the template won't be affected by the sandbox. Would I need to create a sample entry as well?

Template:be-noun seems to be working for what I was trying to do.

Could you please add transliterations for your Hebrew entries, please? If you are able, could you also make nouns to be added to Category:Entries missing romanizations of Hebrew, if the transliteration is missing? --Anatoli 01:29, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Re: "Would I need to create a sample entry as well?": You don't actually have to create an entry; you can use the edit interface to modify an entry to use your sandbox-template, but instead of clicking "Save page" to see the result, just click "Show preview". (To see categories, scroll down: they're at the very bottom, below the edit-window and edit-tools and everything. It's kind of weird, but it kind of makes sense.)

Re: "Could you please add transliterations for your Hebrew entries, please?": I do, when I know the correct transliteration. Sometimes I'm not sure — e.g., I don't know if תיירות is properly tayarút or tay'rút (I say the former, and I think that's probably correct, but it wouldn't shock me to learn it was actually the latter) — and in that case I just leave it.

Re: "If you are able, could you also make nouns to be added to Category:Entries missing romanizations of Hebrew, if the transliteration is missing?": The template already does that; see e.g. [[תיירות]]. Have you come across an entry that's using {{he-noun}} without the tr= parameter, but that's not in that category?

—Ruakh 01:46, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I see, thank you. This must be a hidden category, your last two entries are not shown at the bottom, unless you start editing them. With the Belarusian nouns, it actually says "transliteration needed", see барада. --Anatoli 02:09, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it's a hidden category (as is Category:Belarusian terms lacking transliteration). I take it you haven't set the preference to see hidden categories? If you want to do so — it's at [[Special:Preferences]], in the "Appearances" tab, halfway through the "Advanced" section. That's a per-account preference, so en.wikt will remember it whenever and wherever you log in.

Re: "transliteration needed": That's a cool idea, but old habits die hard, and despite [[Wiktionary:Beer parlour#Modifying widely-transcluded templates.]], I just can't bring myself to do that without its being raised at [[Wiktionary talk:About Hebrew]] first. I realize it's not a ginormous change, but it's still going to be very noticeable, I think. (And also, we'll presumably want the same change made to the other Hebrew inflection templates.)

—Ruakh 02:21, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Nonfiction

Hmm... You were right about Potterism and Baby Pokémon; they aren't fully attested yet. Perhaps I'll try to attest them later; or just desist and delete the latter, but that's unlikely in short-term. :p As a related note, I've created User:Daniel./Nonfiction to keep track of these and other words. --Daniel. 20:32, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Attestation criteria

Hello Ruakh -- I know it's best to concern oneself with one thing at a time, but the vote on the "academic journal" attestation criterion has got me wondering about other attestation criteria. I can't see any reason why this "academic journal" criterion should not be removed. It isn't justified to allow a single academic attestation to suffice, let alone a single attestation which is only a mention. But that gets me thinking about the criterion directly above it at WT:CFI#Attestation. Isn't "well-known work" much too vague? And why should a single usage suffice in this case, either? I often add quotations from literary classics, but I always try to come up with 3 that convey meaning, not just one. After the "academic journal" attestation criterion has been disposed of (by removing it, I suspect), do you think it might be appropriate to take a shot a removing/modifying the "well-known work" criterion too? Editors can of course be encouraged to use reputable sources like established academic journals and well-known works (e.g. literary classics), but I doubt that it's ever wise to allow a single attestation from any source to satisfy CFI. -- Ghost of WikiPedant 05:27, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I have no strong opinions about that criterion. I think that, if kept, it should be clarified and/or narrowed, but I don't feel very strongly about it. The "fictional universe" and "specific entities" rules already go a long way toward addressing possible serious problems with it. —Ruakh 05:29, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

Okay. I'm content to put this thought into the deep freeze. Maybe someday there will be occasion to thaw it out. -- Ghost of WikiPedant 05:58, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

December 2010

אבד

I'm moving the 2007 RFC discussions into the archives; most have been resolved, but the few that are unresolved I am going to re-list (at the bottom of the page, as new). Should I relist this entry, or does it look alright to you? Its unorthodox headers were rather heatedly discussed, but they're gone now, the information incorporated elsewhere. You made some edits to it back when it still had those headers; does it look alright now, or does it still need major work (in which case I'll relist it, or you can)? — Beobach 02:10, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

The Hebrew section, though not great, is usable. The overall structure is O.K., at least. The Aramaic section I can't really speak to, except to agree with msh210's {{attention|arc}} comment that the af'el verb should presumably be at אאבד or perhaps האבד. I don't think an RFC listing is necessary (or, for that matter, likely to help). —Ruakh 03:27, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

quoting RFV in RFD

Just wondering... any particular algorithm by which you choose border colors?  :-) ​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:07, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Some say yes, others say no; I mostly hold with the latter, but even if the former are right, I don't know what the algorithm is. :-)   —Ruakh 16:12, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Heh. On a completely other note, I'm looking to add stuff to {{rfp}}, as described at [[WT:GP#rfp to categorize by dialect?]]. Obviously, I value your input as to the advisability of such, but you also happen to be one of the few people currently around who are really good at templates, so I would really appreciate your checking the syntax, if you have a chance.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:31, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I haven't tested it, but on the face of it it looks good.

But some of the details might surprise people, so should be well documented. Specifically:

• {{a|foo}} doesn't require that {{accent:foo}} exist; so an editor might not expect that {{rfp|accent=foo}} would.
• {{rfp}} doesn't assume English; so an editor might not assume that {{rfp|accent=yeísmo}} would.

—Ruakh 16:53, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, both for checking it and for your suggestions. As to your last point, I hope AF/Kassadbot can add lang to rfp, rendering the issue largely moot. But, yes, it should be documented at rfp anyway.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:01, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Format of Usenet citations

Hi Ruakh. Re your revision to Citations:superomnipresent, where is that format prescribed? I much prefer the way I cite Usenet; the format you use is less informative and is, IMO, ugly. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 17:51, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

The entry itself is not less informative except that it's missing the time, which is not really a necessary thing to know about a citation. (Dates are important because they show age and currency of the term, and time helps with that only negligibly.) The other information missing is only links, all of which are easily reachable by following the link that remains. I happen to think the fewer-links version is less ugly. Also, the group is a Usenet newsgroup, not a Google Group (except according to Google). Usenet predated Google Groups (indeed, Google itself),and the groups just happen to be archived by Google.​—msh210℠ (talk) 17:57, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi msh210. That still doesn't answer my question about where that format is prescribed. The time is sometimes necessary for chronological ordering (granted, I've only once found two GG citations for the same term from the same day, but it still happens). How does one distinguish Usenet from Google Groups? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 18:14, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know of any prescription. Usenet is a system of discussion fora (called newsgroups) whose messages are propagated to and temporarily housed on numerous independent servers worldwide. One such server (well, numerous servers, doubtless, but whatever) is Google's. Thus, Google temporarily houses all Usenet messages it knows of (except those containing binary attachments). Google also — and this is really a separate function, though it lumps them together — serves as an archivist of such messages, long-term. It also has its own fora, whose messages it also archives. Three separate functions. All of them are called "Google Groups". The only ones useful for us (under current BCP) are the second: archived Usenet messages. You can tell a Usenet message on Google by the name of the group it's posted to: it will comprise only letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores (I think), except that it will have at least one period (full stop); none of the periods will be adjacent to another, first in the name, or last. (The only exception I know of is the newsgroup control, whose name has no periods. But anything posted there should have been posted to another newsgroup also, so you can ignore control.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:51, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, both. I'll come up with a compromise format. — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 13:50, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe it's prescribed anywhere. I suppose it's the bastard child of Wiktionary:Quotations and common sense. And I don't think it's less informative. In fact, it's more informative — it identifies the source as a Usenet posting, and it links directly to that posting, in its entirety. And more accurate: it doesn't claim that the source is a "Google group", and it gives the subject of the posting, rather than an inferred subject of the "conversation". About the only thing I dislike about it is the italics on "Usenet", which makes it look like it's a periodical or something, whereas I think of it as the publisher; but people were already italicizing it when I got here, and I didn't feel a need to fight that practice. —Ruakh 19:34, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Is this OK? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 12:31, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Jiffey's subject line was "Re: Low Magick", not "Low Magick", and his post is 35th the way Google numbers the posts in the thread, not inherently. (I also don't see the need for the time of day, but that's a minor point, and would expect a colon at the end of the first line, but that's a point (no pun intended) unrelated to Usenet specifically.) And a mention of the message-ID ("message-ID: <1998090814175300.KAA11599@ladder03.news.aol.com>") would help find the post in the event the Google links go bad.​—msh210℠ (talk) 07:32, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

How's this quotation? I reckon the message ID looks rather ugly, but none more so than an ISBN, and it has a utility that more than makes up for its æsthetic failings. Re ending the line of citation information, that's not part of community consensus (see User talk:Doremítzwr#colon-itis). Is my present format for Usenet citations satisfactory? — Raifʻhār Doremítzwr ~ (U · T · C) ~ 20:07, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Inflection templates - poll 3

You have voiced your opinion in some of the polls about renaming of categories for what was previously called "inflection templates", templates that are planned to be newly called "headword templates" or "headword-line templates" in the name of their category. I would like to hear your preference in the poll number 3, whatever your preference is, if you would be so kind: WT:BP#Poll: Inflection to inflection-line 3. Thank you for your input and attention. --Dan Polansky 10:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

I had participated in the earlier version of the poll, to express my indifference, but given that indifference, it seemed like too much effort to participate in the second version! —Ruakh 12:36, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Sure, sorry for the unnecessary posting. --Dan Polansky 13:06, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

No worries. :-)   —Ruakh 13:25, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

template:R:ha-milon he-khadash

Hope you're well and have a safe trip back. I don't have Even-Shoshan, so can't check that his fourth volume is really titled בֶּרֶךְ הַמִּלּוּאִים, as opposed to the expected כרך הַמִּלּוּאִים. Would you mind doing so (unless you know it already)? Thanks.

Also, checking [[ברך]], I see Ric's added {{he-verb|tr=barakh|pa}} as its headword line. It's definitely piel; is it paal too??​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:35, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm more than 10⁷ meters from my copy, but I think it's safe to assume that the ב is a mistake on my part.

The passive participle ברוך would tend to imply a pa'al verb — and [[ברוך]] actually says as much (mea culpa), which may be where Ric took that from — but so far as I know, none such is otherwise attested. Please feel free to fix that however you see fit. (It's probably best to just consider ברוך its own adjective, independent of any verb, and make full use of ===Root=== and ====Related terms==== and whatnot. It's not like Hebrew passive participles have any really verbal uses, as their English counterparts do.)

Thanks for cleaning up my ancient messes! :-)

— This unsigned comment was added by Ruakh (talk • contribs) at 03:59, 21 December 2010 (UTC).

P.S. I'll re-look at this when I'm back in the States, just to make sure. — This unsigned comment was added by Ruakh (talk • contribs) at 03:59, 21 December 2010 (UTC).

Thanks much. I've left [[ברוך]] and the template alone, awaiting your looking at them when you return, and have (I think) fixed [[ברך]]. Have a safe trip back.​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:15, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! — This unsigned comment was added by Ruakh (talk • contribs) at 02:30, 23 December 2010 (UTC).

Even-Shoshan's entry for the relevant root doesn't have a בָּרַךְ sub-entry. Instead, it has a note saying that the pa'al is found only as the passive participle בָּרוּךְ and, once, as the infinitive [absolute] בָּרוֹךְ, in Joshua 24:10. I've modified [[ברוך]] to remove the pa'al stuff. Honestly, even if it were verifiable, I feel like it wouldn't be terribly useful except as etymology.

Incidentally, Even-Shoshan has an entry for an identically spelled root, related to the noun בֶּרֶךְ (“knee”), which it treats as separate. That root entry does have a בָּרַךְ sub-entry, with the sense "to kneel", with regular verb inflection, and with quotations from 2 Chronicles 6:13, Psalms 95:6 (though he says it's Psalms 95:7), and some work I don't recognize by someone named something like "Perlman" or "Pearlman". It does not, however, have a pi'el sub-entry.

Thanks again.

—Ruakh 23:49, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the research! I've moved the "kneel" sense back to be paal as Ric had it in the first place. It's surprising to me that Even-Shoshan lists them as distinct etymologies, since the meanings are so similar, so I've kept them under the one; by all means fix that if you like. (Obviously, one can't trust one's instincts about etymology. English mis-, for example, has two, plus a completely unrelated miso-.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 06:48, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Update: (As you probably know, Biblical Hebrew often pairs a verb with its bare infinitive, for emphasis or something. In my experience, this is a a verb with an infinitive of the same binyan, except that sometimes the infinitive is fo the corresponding active binyan, so a nif'al verb can have a paal infinitive attached, or a poal verb a piel infinitive.) I happened to be studying Joshua, and came across 24:10 where the construction וַיְבָרֶךְ בָּרוֹךְ אֶתְכֶם is used, seemingly tacking a paal infinitive onto a piel verb. I don't know what to make of that.​—msh210℠ (talk) 15:45, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Attestation in academic journals

You have not yet voted in Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2010-11/Attestation in academic journals. I am not sure whether this is your intent. --Dan Polansky 18:49, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

That was indeed my intent. Thanks for checking. — This unsigned comment was added by Ruakh (talk • contribs) at 02:33, 23 December 2010 (UTC).

WT:RFDO#Template:Xyzy

Your input would help.​—msh210℠ (talk) 16:59, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Hm, now it's in the GP. Anyway, welcome back.  :-) ​—msh210℠ (talk) 18:24, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks.​—msh210℠ (talk) 22:55, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Welcome back

I hope your trip exceeded your expectations. We are having some "frank and fruitful" exchanges on proper noun inclusion. DCDuring TALK 23:31, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

It was awesome! New Zealand is so beautiful, and we met lots of friendly people, and we saw a penguin! in the wild!!!, and OMG I really think there must be more sheep in that one small country than there are atoms in the entire rest of the Universe.

I'll take a look tonight, thanks.

—Ruakh 00:34, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

You seem to have really had a good time. I envy you the visit. I guess you didn't have too much actual travel-related misery. I've been to a few places in Oz, but regrettably never took advantage of being so relatively close (1000km) to go to NZ. I understand it to be close to heaven on earth. DCDuring TALK 02:13, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, my suitcase missed a connection and arrived a day late, but since I'd packed important stuff in my carry-on, and was staying at my parents' apartment for a few days (they'd been on sabbatical for the semester, at the University of Auckland), misery was averted. And I didn't bring any food into the country, so their "biosecurity" didn't fine me $400. (They've had huge problems with introduced plants and animals.) —Ruakh 04:43, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I went as a kid with my parents to Austl., and we had with us some kosher food (who knows whether you'll find if delayed en route), including packaged (vacuum-packed) deli meat still in its original container. It was confiscated at the border. (Apparently, they've had problems with introduced microorganisms, too, not just plants and animals.) No fine, though. Glad you had a good time! One day I hope to see N.Z....​—msh210℠ (talk) 05:54, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

I always found being sprayed on arrival in Oz to be a most humiliating end to a (first-class! [not my $]]) flight. Do they still do that or is/was it reserved for first class? DCDuring TALK 09:12, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Can't say what they do now, but when I went they still did it. (Coach.)​—msh210℠ (talk) 15:06, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

{{term}} and script requests

You seem to know your way around this template- shouldn't tritium in its current state have a Greek script request category? I can only get it to show up by removing the gloss translation. Nadando 05:14, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. I've just "fixed" that, but now looking at the history, I see that I previously reverted Msh210 (talk • contribs)'s fix for the same thing, and now I'm trying to reconstruct what I thought the problem was. I mean, no one should ever be calling {{term}} with the first two parameters blank, should they? … {{suffix||foo}} causes a problem now, but that should probably be fixed at {{suffix}}, rather than at {{term}}, right? … —Ruakh 06:08, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

This make sense, too? What do you think having the word affixed to (2 in prefix, 1 in suffix) pipe-blanked (see my edit summary in that diff)?​—msh210℠ (talk) 07:12, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

That looks good, thanks. I'm on board with pipe-blanking. {{suffix|2=bar}} doesn't strike me as a very likely error, but I could imagine something like {{suffix|lang=he|alt1=[[w:he:פו|פֿוּ]]|tr1=fu|2=בר|alt2=בַּר|tr2=bar}}. —Ruakh 16:27, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Clarification of language inclusion

The scope of this vote has now been changed per your input. You may wish to reconsider your vote. DAVilla 16:01, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! —Ruakh 16:28, 31 December 2010 (UTC)