Wiktionary:Tea room/2024/December

discussion rooms: Tea room • Etym. scr. • Info desk • Beer parlour • Grease pit ← November 2024 · December 2024 · January 2025 → · (current)

---

Wrong IPA transcription for all Latin lemmas borrowed by Greek ending in -ĕ͜us

Latin never avoids diphthongs when they are possible, but it's true that root and ending are separated by hiatus even if a diphthong is possible.

But in Greek root and ending usually make a diphthong if possible, e.g.: Capaneus, from Greek Καπανεύς, must actually be divided as Cắ-pă-ne͜us (like the original Greek: Κᾰ-πᾰ-νεύς) and not Că-pắ-nĕ-us. The accent is on the first syllable. Wiktionary interprets all the Greek terms ending in -ĕus that end actually with a long syllable as a term that end with a pyrrhic/dibrach. This is not a little mistake: we have metrical evidence by poetry that those terms have a long final syllable in the nominative and not two short syllables. This is crucial because in Latin is very important the correct division in syllables to interact with literature (not only poetry but prose too) and it is fundamental to determine the stress accent's position: not a secondary factor. It could be possible that some ancient Latin speakers, in a popular speech, could have pronounced Ca-pá-ne-us, but if they did it's without doubt an hypercorrectism.

However, it is true that all the inflected forms adds a syllable: even in the accusative singular that have an apparent diphthong (but this example is right for every case and number besides nominative — or vocative identical to nominative, if it exists) must actually be divided as Că-pắ-nĕ-um. I don't know for sure whether the accent in this case could have been kept in the fourth last syllable (we know cases where some nouns apparently broke the law of the penultimate syllable, like the form Valĕ́rī with the accent on the penultimate because of analogy with Valerius: the pronunciation Válĕrī is an educated hypercorrectism; the case of ca-pa-ne-um could be an example of accent's retention by analogy with the nominative. Other examples of broken accent's rules, but less pertinent with this specific case, are the oxytone words or the words ending with a tribach or a dactyl composed with an enclitic that retains the accent in the same syllable, like lī́mĭnăque — in this case with a possible secondary accent on the enclitic -quĕ̀, but this is an other story): the three accent's laws describes with precision the accent's position of most Latin word, but not all words: linguistic phenomena could change the final product from the expectations of a only synchronic approach.

Neverthless, this is a secondary question and the certain thing is that Greek words ending in ending in -ĕ͜us scan -ĕ͜us as a long syllable. I don't have sources and I did't read sources about the possible retaining of the accent in those specific cases.

Other names are Atre͜us, Briare͜us, Eurysthe͜us, Idomene͜us, Morphe͜us, Nere͜us, Oile͜us, Prote͜us, Typhōe͜us and maybe others. Not all these nouns change their accent, like Nere͜us or Eurysthe͜us, but still the correct syllables' division is fundamental.

Please, correct this. CarloButi1902 (talk) 16:37, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

Pinging a few of our active Latin editors, with apologies that I don't have time to look into it myself: @Brutal Russian, Lambiam, Nicodene: can you evaluate whether this is right? - -sche (discuss) 16:02, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

@-sche: @CarloButi1902 is correct about all the cited forms. Nereus for instance is always disyllabic, as one can confirm by searching the name on Pedecerto. Native Latin words can also have an eu diphthong, such as seu.

However, we do not use tie-bars to indicate diphthongs in Latin headwords and inflection tables (aurum not *a͡urum), as CarloButi1902 has done in edits such as this. Nicodene (talk) 22:11, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

OK, I changed Latin Atreus to use e_u; are there any others which need changing? (Spot-checking other terms mentioned above as giving the wrong pronunciation, many don't have Latin sections and so don't actually give any pronunciation at all; others already use e_u.) - -sche (discuss) 17:44, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Pisin in the toilet

According to toilet:

Descendants

• Tok Pisin: toilet

Anyone care to venture an opinion as to whether this is a genuine entry or someone's little joke? Personally I am not averse to an occasional little bit of humour in examples, say, but I wouldn't agree with actually making stuff up, if that indeed is what this is. Mihia (talk) 22:04, 1 December 2024 (UTC)

@Mihia: See Tok Pisin toilet, which was added in 2017 by @Mar vin kaiser, who has done lots of good work in languages of China and the Philippines and has not, to my knowledge, ever stooped to adding nonsense. That said, I notice that the translation table at toilet has liklik haus and smolhaus (both literally meaning "little house/building"), but not toilet. Since English is the main lexifier for Tok Pisin (the name comes from "talk business"), a borrowing would make sense- but it's hard to say whether it's right without knowing the language. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:10, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

@Mihia, Chuck Entz: This was like 7 years ago, so it's hard to recall, but I do remember finding a Tok Pisin dictionary, and just adding words that I found there. --Mar vin kaiser (talk) 02:47, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

OK, great, just a coincidence then. Thanks for looking at it. Mihia (talk) 09:59, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

@Chuck Entz: The Tok Pisin entry uses {{inh}}, not {{bor}} (we have Tok Pisin set as a descendant of English). J3133 (talk) 16:58, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Some collections of Tok Pisin phrases giving toilet i stap we? for where is the toilet?: [1], [2], [3]. (The last one is AI stuff.)  --Lambiam 16:45, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Katchuu & Plate Armor

At the translations part of the page for plate armour (because I'm American and all the plate armor page has to offer is a link to the plate armour page) you can add translations of it for other languages. I'm a learner of Japanese, being able to read both systems of kana, talk in Japanese, and even read some kanji and know their meanings, and "甲冑" is one of the kanji sets I'm familiar with, reading out as "katchuu" (かっちゅう). I don't believe these refer to the exact same things, as it says katchuu means a helmet and armor, though I like reading the pages for the lists of Pokémon on the JP Wikipedia because it's fun and so I can remember Japanese information about them like their JP names and stuff and maybe even learn something new. Basically, in Japanese, Armaldo is called the "Katchuu Pokémon" (かっちゅうポケモン) but in English it is the "Plate Pokémon" which refers to plate armor, NOT a dinner plate. I think it's most likely because katchuu also generally refers to Japanese-style armor while plate armor is the western-style armor, but they both literally just refer to armor.

I was planning on adding katchuu to the list, but decided to have a tea break here and ask about it since I'm unsure.

ILike Leavanny (talk) 03:32, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Plank bridge

Anybody know a short English name for a creek bridge made of a plank? I see it is no good English translation for Swedish spång and Norwegian Nynorsk klopp (not in Wikipedia either), but this is a common thing, and has names in many languages, so I would expect to have it in English as well. It is not a duckboard, but it is kinda duckboard brigde or what is it? Tollef Salemann (talk) 09:56, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Do these words refer only to a single-plank-width footbridge or to a broader class of bridge designs? DCDuring (talk) 18:45, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

No, it can be two planks as well. Or even more, as long it is a primitive wood bridge over a narrow creek. I guess it calls a duckboard bridge, but if I create such entry, is it gonna be SOP? If it is gonna be SOP, maybe I can make a translation-only entry. Anyway, it is stupid to make such entry if it can be a real English word for such thing. "Duckboard bridge" sounds too complicated, there surely are many of these bridges in England and USA. So maybe it is called someting else? Tollef Salemann (talk) 18:59, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I believe that an entry for it will have to be a THUB because there's no single compound noun in English that denotes this specific subset of footbridges. The term footbridge itself is definitely hypernymous to this semantic node, and the collocations that come closest to the desired denotation (i.e., small and simple wooden footbridge, plank bridge) are SoP. A look at w:Footbridge#Types didn't disabuse this conclusion. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:18, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

That’s why am asking this. Probably I need to go for a THUB. Tollef Salemann (talk) 20:07, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Our (possibly redundant) definitions 5 and 6 of puncheon also seem synonymous to some degree with duckboard. DCDuring (talk) 15:04, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

As for redundancy, two valid ways to look at it: 5 and 6 are currently separated by the causeway-versus-bridge semantic/mental distinction, although that distinction can sometimes reduce to an artificial dichotomization, depending on the terrain in the instance. Senses 5 and 6 could reasonably be combined into one sense as "a walkway or road of type blah; a footbridge or larger bridge of that type"; or "a walkway, road, or bridge of type blah." Quercus solaris (talk) 15:16, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Puncheon is not a very common word in any of its uses. Having seven definitions seems to me suspect before inspecting the definitions in detail. I also find definitions 3 and 4 redundant. Redundancy or near-redundancy of definitions in uncommonly used words (those outside the top 50,000) is common. DCDuring (talk) 15:34, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I ascribe the persistence of the redundancy to the word not getting many visits from contributing users and a lack of enthusiasm for finding attestation for so many definitions. DCDuring (talk) 16:21, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

I take well your point about forgoable subdivision of senses, whereas "X, especially X₁" as one senseid is often better than two senseids. Granted that sometimes autohyponymy or metonymy warrants a second sense, either subsense or not. In the case of puncheon, true that a def getting across the concept of "a semifinished timber, especially one used as a post or a plank" would do for 2 or 3 of the senses there. I have edited that entry before but, to your point (about how wiki users approach editing), each time I've been there I am only devoting a certain amount of time to it, or focusing only on one aspect, and not changing others' prior/existing work unless I notice some specific problem or improvability about it. This accords with the iterative-development nature of a wiki as contrasted with nonwiki. And admittedly my top-ranked focus when editing WT is usually on defs and semantic relations more so than accruing citations, although I add citations too when the spirit moves me. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:29, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Puncheon bridge or a bog bridge is quite close, yes! I have made THUB on duckboard bridge, maybe it is a word used same way, but Google search gives examples from non-English speaking countries. Tollef Salemann (talk) 19:55, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

User:TimothyL52's English pronunciation edits: /(d)ʒ/ -> /d͡ʒ/

Are edits such as these (dogecoin, deluge) correct? I thought both pronunciations are fine in US English but I'm not a native speaker. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 17:35, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

The acceptance of pron variants of dogecoin might perhaps be considered contentious, but not so with deluge, in which /(d)ʒ/ is a fact because /d͡ʒ/ and /ʒ/ variants coexist. MW, AHD, and ODE agree. Some other dictionaries (eg, NOAD) fail to show the /ʒ/ variant. The user might have been looking at one of those. Quercus solaris (talk) 19:31, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I restored at deluge accordingly. I skimmed about 5% of the user's contribs and saw that almost all of them were words where /ʒ/ variants (i.e., /zh/ versus /dzh/) are irrelevant, so probably not much damage was done. If anyone wants to check more thoroughly, Godspeed. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:43, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

how

Conjunction senses:

1. The manner or way in which.

   I remember how I solved this puzzle.

2. In any way in which; in whatever way; however.

   People should be free to live how they want.

Any agree/disagree that "how" is a conjunction in these examples? Mihia (talk) 20:00, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

Regarding how the adverb senses are distinguished from the conjunction senses, yes, AHD agrees. See its entry. The key/differentiator is that the conjunction sense does the work of subordinating a clause to another clause. In fairness, definitions of parts of speech vary; CMOS agrees on that fact, as does WP at Part of speech § History § Classification and Part of speech § Functional classification. See also w:Conjunction_(grammar)#Subordinating_conjunctions and compare w:Conjunctive_adverb. Quercus solaris (talk) 20:47, 2 December 2024 (UTC)

I find mainstream dictionaries generally unreliable and inconsistent when it comes to "difficult" parts of speech. Superficially this does appear to be a conjunction, yes, linking two clauses. However, the same label "conjunction" is used for very different grammatical uses of the word, one being the uncontroversial conjunction, as in "how = that" (casual or loose usage), and the other being the sense(s) that I listed.

a) "I remember how (= that) I solved this puzzle."

b) "I remember how (= in what way) I solved this puzzle."

c) "How did I solve this puzzle? I remember now."

Usage (b) actually appears more closely resembling (c), the adverb, than (a), the conjunction. (And, curiously, "in what way" actually substitutes into both.)

A similar distinction is seen perhaps more clearly with "when":

"I remember when I'm prompted." (uncontroversial conjunction)

"I remember when I was young." (???)

As with "how", it is pretty unsatisfactory that these two grammatically very different uses of "when" could be the same part of speech. Mihia (talk) 17:41, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

Interesting. Yes, the world has no great consensus about parts of speech, although some people's consensuses are consensuser than others'. Speaking of which (or of whom), your objection makes me think of Pullum 2024^→ISBN on page 87 at "The traditional muddle". He's pretty salty at the rest of the world for falsely accusing prepositions of sometimes allegedly being subordinating conjunctions, lol. I give us all credit for trying — chipping away at iterating toward a more accurate state of the art tomorrow. I think perhaps there's something about the notion of "X is as X does" going on here: people feel that they "have to" call how a conjunction when it does the work of yolking a clause into the position of direct object within another clause, because by at least some lights, anything that does that action is labeled as a conjunction. What you're after here is to make a further differentiation within that realm. I can see what you mean. Perhaps eventually you'll be proved right. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:47, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

turkish varsın

I don't understand how to describe it. Like in "sadece sen varsın", is it a verb or an adjective? Zbutie3.14 (talk) 02:05, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

it's an adjective functioning as a predicate. Slowcuber7 (talk) 14:53, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Determining whether "righty tighty, lefty loosey" or "lefty loosey, righty tighty" is the alt form

I see Wiktionary only has the one beginning "lefty loosey." I always knew it beginning with "righty tighty," and both are well attested on the internet. I tried to run it through Ngrams to see if there was any clearly preferred order, but it's not cooperating. Any suggestions? Cameron.coombe (talk) 05:56, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps 'twould be as well to ask which component orb of a binary star is the dance leader and which is the follower. They follow each other in circles. With some alt forms it feels like a coin toss as to which is the principal one, if indeed either is truly principal. I too tried to force Google Ngam Viewer to work with the whole unit and found it intractable. I realize that it uses commas as the delimiter between tokens, but one might hope that one could simply enter the whole collocation minus the internal punctuation and get a result, plus or minus quote marks as wrappers, given that that's how Google Search works on the web. Alas. Seems like an odd and unnecessary hole in GNV's capabilities, but what do I know (compared with the people who built it). Also, maybe I'm just missing something and doing it wrong. I ctrl-f'd inside their help page for a hot minute but came away empty-handed. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:28, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

"Lefty loosey, righty tighty" just sounds...wrong to me. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 00:08, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I've always heard it as "lefty loosey..." CitationsFreak (talk) 20:15, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I can honestly say that I have never heard of this in either form. Ngrams shows the parts common enough to graph in AmE, but "not found" in BrE [4] (which might not mean truly zero, but below a "negligible" cutoff level). I wonder whether we should label it "chiefly US" ... or perhaps it's just me? Mihia (talk) 18:37, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I’ve certainly heard ‘lefty loosey, righty tighty’ and sometimes say it myself, so I wouldn’t label it as US. Overlordnat1 (talk) 08:33, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, a Youglish search (for "righty tighty", to find either order) finds 8 people saying "righty tighty, lefty loosey" and only 1 saying "lefty loosey, righty tighty". A quick poll of English-speaking friends got me similar results, 1 "lefty..." and 6 "righty...". Youglish also has many instances of people saying only whichever half of the phrase was relevant to what they were doing (tightening vs loosening). So, I agree it was sensible to make "righty..." the lemma. - -sche (discuss) 02:57, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Hey, nice work — that's a fair shake at objective evidence, certainly better than the lack of any. A solid basis for choosing the right-hand-first polarity for Wiktionary's entries. Perhaps the bias against lefties is sinister, but there you go, it's also ancient, lol. Quercus solaris (talk) 07:44, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

q.v. and qq.v.

q.v. is listed as an English adverb. qq.v. is listed as an English noun. Surely they should be the same POS? (And I would think that that should be [imperative] verb….) 212.179.254.67 12:16, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

• Possibly you could argue that this is adjectival, in the sense that it means something like "which you should look at for further information", i.e. non-restrictively modifying the noun? Mihia (talk) 20:10, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

gegagedigedagedago pronunciation

The second consonant is spelled g but given as /d/ in the IPA. A simple mistake? The audio sounds wrong too (at both ends). 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:2138:4E06:355:268E 15:15, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

The IPA is right, the word is just spelled weirdly. -saph668 (user—talk—contribs) 15:22, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Can you provide evidence? This seems absolutely exceptional. 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:2138:4E06:355:268E 22:54, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps the second consonant is just to pwn us and the last consonant is one that we would have thou(gh)t wouldn't be an /x/ reduced to nearly nothing? Lol, I'm just playing devil's advocate. If it hadn't been for Old Nick, English would've had phonemic orthography years ago, lol. Quercus solaris (talk) 02:12, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Here. (external link to Youtube) -saph668 (user—talk—contribs) 05:55, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

o'clock

1. (humorous) In conjunction with a term representing an action or event that occurs daily, indicates the time that said action or event occurs, first occurs.
   • 1880, Henrietta A. Duff, Honor Carmichael, page 251:

     That same evening at tea-time — (I am sorry to have to introduce you to another eating-scene, but the hours in English households are usually marked by repasts. It is a daily calendar of feasts — breakfast o’clock, dinner o’clock, &c., […] ).

   • 1904, George Augustus Sala, Edmund Hodgson Yates, Temple Bar, volume 129, page 144:

     “My sister requires your attendance at supper o’clock this evening — no excuse accepted.”

   • 1998, Carolyn Greene, Heavenly Husband, page 129:

     “It's lunch o’clock. Wanna go out to eat?”

2. (humorous, slang) Used to indicate that it is time to do a specific action, or time for a specific action to occur.

   We're here at Waffle House, and it's waffles o'clock!

   We're here at Waffle House, and it's time to eat waffles.

Before I merge them, does anyone particularly believe that we need two senses here? I would think that the second definition pretty much suffices. Mihia (talk) 19:59, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Doesn't seem to warrant differentiation. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:56, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

• Merged. Mihia (talk) 11:54, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

at

13. Indicates a means or method.

• 1995, Richard Klein, Cigarettes are Sublime, →ISBN, page 41:

  […] to be sold at auction for sixty gold francs.

Having added various missing senses, and generally reorganised some stuff, I am left with this Cinderella item. The sole example seems quite doubtful to me. If it was "by auction", yes, sure, but I see "at auction" really as referring to the place or event (which are other senses), not clearly the means. I think it is flimsy to keep this definition solely on this basis. Can anyone come up with some more examples to beef it up? Mihia (talk) 21:07, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

I know what you mean but I also know what the def writer meant, because [thing X] is to be sold at auction feels like a special case: it is idiomatically how one normally says "X is to be sold via auction" or "X is to be sold by auction". In other words, to sell (X) at auction is idiomatically synonymous with to auction (X) off (absolutely independently of whether or not WT:SoP's quirkiness will allow the unit to be entered as a headword; I'm referring to a phenomenon rather than WT's handling of it). I tried to think of any other construction that is parallel but drew a blank; but that doesn't mean that the special case can't exist, and maybe also there's one more such oddball out there waiting to be recalled. Idiomaticness sometimes produces singularities (of the type that sometimes makes people say, "Did you realize that X is the only word in the English language [or "one of very few words in the English language"] that has Y trait or behaves in Z manner?!"). I also cannot prove the mental feel: (1) it is on a layer that is barely effable and (2) there is no guarantee that inter-speaker agreement exists for it; perhaps not everyone feels it. Which is why I wouldn't object to whatever edit you end up choosing to make. If you were to delete that sense and its ux, then Wiktionary would simply not cover that particular singularity; but that's OK, because, as one of Merriam-Webster's prefaces says, no dictionary can record everything that someone would like to know about a language. Dictionaries come as close as is practical. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:52, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

PS: to bury (someone) at sea feels like close but no cigar. But my brain is on the right track with it. Quercus solaris (talk) 01:59, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I suppose "How was it sold?" / "At auction" does not feel glaringly wrong (though "Where was it sold?" / At auction" is possible equally). I would put "buried at sea" into a similar category, and another one very similar to "at auction" that occurred to me is "at market". Perhaps three possibles -- auction, market and sea -- are enough to justify the sense, but ideally it would be good to have more solid and productive examples, rather than just isolated idiomatic phrases, which ultimately, or by derivation, appear to me to refer to place/event rather than method/means, albeit they have acquired some connotations of method/means. Mihia (talk) 15:39, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

unprovenienced

An English entry has just been added with the definition:

1. Alternative form of unprovenanced

Provenience isn't an alternative form of provenance, so I'm skeptical that adding a prefix changes that relationship. There seems to be a real, if subtle, difference between the two. Chuck Entz (talk) 16:02, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing here. I (adder) don't truly know the definition myself; I encountered the word in an academic writing discussing the ethics of studying "unprovenienced" artifacts and just assumed it was roughly the same as unprovenanced. Hftf (talk) 18:53, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

No, alt forms should share morphemes. {{syn of}} is likely better. Vininn126 (talk) 18:56, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

aged

Pronunciation

• (all senses) IPA^(key): /eɪdʒd/, enPR: ājd

  • Audio (US):

    (file)

• (alternative for adjective sense "old" and derived noun sense) IPA^(key): /ˈeɪ.dʒɪd/, enPR: āʹjĭd

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪdʒd, -eɪdʒɪd

I changed the two-syllable qualifier to be more specific as I can't imagine "He is ag-ed 18" or "ag-ed whiskey"; however I see also that the one-syllable pronunciation supposedly applies to all senses. This would mean e.g. "I knocked on the door and an aged man opened it" could be one syllable. I cannot easily visualise this, not in the usual sense of "old". Does anyone say it this way? Perhaps someone else could double-check these. Mihia (talk) 19:51, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Not my idiolect either. DCDuring (talk) 20:21, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

OK thanks, I'll change it now while I'm thinking about it, and if anyone else definitely disagrees then it can be revisited. Mihia (talk) 20:28, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I've encountered the one-syllable pronunciation used for all senses decently commonly. Searching Youglish for "an aged man", I find 12 examples (of any pronunciation, plus 1 video of sign language): the first sounds to me like eɪdʒd 0:12; at 1:32, this reading of a poem also sounds like one syllable, as does this, 3:32, and this, at 2:40. OTOH, this (11:09) has "an eɪ.dʒɪd man" with two syllables, as does 45:01, and 1:01:31 (same poem as the preceding); this, at 3:16, also has two syllables, as does this, 2:22. This (59:47) seems to be one syllable although the coda seems to kind of fade out. (This, at 2:51, is one syllable but I believe it's an AI voice.) The last example, at 38:37, is two syllables. I count 5 with one syllable, 6 with two syllables (not counting the AI audio, one unclear audio, and one video which was sign language). IMO this could either be handled by adding a {{q}} to the end of (all other senses) IPA(key): /eɪdʒd/, enPR: ājd like {{q|sometimes for all senses, including "old"}}, or by tweaking the pre-pronunciation {{q}} similarly, or just by changing it back to "all senses". - -sche (discuss) 22:47, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

Of course, "an aged man" could be one syllable even in my scheme if it was the other sense "having undergone the effects of time" (actually our definition says "Having undergone the improving effects of time", but I question whether it is always "improving"). Do you think that your examples definitely aren't of this nature? Mihia (talk) 22:57, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

I frequently hear people read texts at church with words like "aged" in the two-syllable sense. Not long ago, I heard the same reading with the word "aged" read multiple times. Some pronounced it as one syllable and some as two. Interestingly, the age of the person didn't seem to make a difference. I suspect that the two-syllable pronunciation of "aged" is an "educated" pronunciation in many places, and since that sense of the word doesn't occur often in speech, many people have no idea that it's pronounced any differently than the more common senses. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 00:11, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

This is a little surprising to me. For all senses other than adjective "old" (and derived noun), the two-syllable version sounds so wrong to me that I possibly would not even understand what was being said: "He is ag-ed 18"; "She hasn't ag-ed well". For the "old" / "matured" sense, there is for me a clear difference in meaning, whereby "ag-ed man" just means an old man, while "ayjd man" means a person showing increased signs of the passing of time, such as grey hair; "ayjd whiskey" means "whiskey that has been allowed to mature", while "ag-ed whiskey" is a bit unusual but would just mean "old". I feel that we ought to document this as one scheme (perhaps BrE?), and as for the rest, well, I dunno. Are there other defined schemes, or is it just "pronounce it whatever way you fancy"? Or is it in fact only that the "old man" sense can be "ayjd" for some people, without the distinction that I mentioned, and everything else the same? Mihia (talk) 09:45, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

What I've done for now is label "ag-ed" as "used by some people for the adjective sense 'old' and derived noun sense" and "ayjd" as "all other uses". If anyone thinks we should divide this further then please go ahead. Mihia (talk) 11:49, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

It was surprising to me as well when I first heard it. But I'm currently living in a more rural area where less educated forms of speech are common. I think it's just one of those words/senses that isn't part of everyday speech anymore (at least not where I live), so a lot of people who encounter it don't know the standard pronunciation. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 01:52, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Like Andrew, I suspect what's happening is that people who are unaware of the two-syllable pronunciation (one might call it a learnèd pronunciation) just use the same pronunciation as they use for the other senses. It's possible we could dismiss the one-syllable pronunciation (of this sense) as nonstandard.
Pure speculation: perhaps one factor is semantics: people may not perceive a crookèd politician as having any close relationship to the verb crook (can you crook a politician? not normally anymore AFAIK), so it remains a separate word and doesn't level out to the same pronunciation as the verb form; even parsing a learnèd man as a /lɜː(ɹ)nd/ man (one you learned about? no.) is a little awkward, providing impetus to keep it separate; but parsing an aged man as one who underwent aging does not seem to pose semantic problems. - -sche (discuss) 16:26, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

In the UK, we used to have a well-known charity called "Help the Aged". I was going to say that, as far as I have ever been aware, this is/was always "ag-ed", and in fact "Help the Ayjd" sounds slightly hilariously wrong to me -- wrong sense of the word. However, I have just found this interesting observation from someone on StackExchange:

"The British charity Help the Aged founded in 1961 was originally pronounced 'Help the Agèd' by most people but by the time it merged with Age Concern to form Age UK in 2008 many younger people were calling it 'Help the Aged' with an unstressed final syllable. Perhaps this is because the stressed final syllable is becoming less familiar. This is a shame because the difference between agèd (old person) and aged (matured alcoholic drink); learnèd and learned etcetera is immensely valuable."

Mihia (talk) 18:07, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

... I guess I didn't know any "younger people" even in 2008 ... Mihia (talk) 22:27, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Usage of loser

In the original meaning, the word loser means a person who loses the game, especially races. In the sense ‘a person who fails frequently or is generally unsuccessful in life’ is not used in formal emails or writing essays, should be used informally and used to show disapproval. MarcoToa 0425 (talk) 03:52, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Correct. I have added the labels "informal, derogatory". I would also probably put the following sense, "A contemptible or unfashionable person", as a subsense of this rather than a completely separate sense, but I have left it for now since I don't really understand "unfashionable". I would probably define it as "(by extension) A generally worthless or contemptible person". Perhaps other people could comment about this "unfashionable". Mihia (talk)

Actually, sorry, I undid that. I'm mixing up the senses, I think. Perhaps e.g. "I'm a constant loser in love" (one of the examples) is neither informal nor derogatory, while the other sense is both. I think I'll let someone else deal with this ... Mihia (talk) 09:56, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Bereshit

The definition for this English proper noun entry is

1. Anglicized transliteration of בְּרֵאשִׁית (b'reishít), the Hebrew word for the Genesis (literally, "In the beginning").

This doesn't seem like a very good definition. There's a tradition of referring to texts by their opening words, so it might be a name for the Book of Genesis, or it might be a name for the Biblical creation story that forms the first part of that book, or perhaps, by extension, the concept of divine creation introduced there.

The definition dates to the creation of the entry 2008 by @BD2412, and has only been changed to add formatting that didn't exist back then. I doubt the entry would be anything like this if created today. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:30, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

I have no recollection of the research/thought process that I went through to determine the definition, but I remember that I made it because I heard a joke along the lines of "does a Bereshit in the woods?" bd2412 T 01:08, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

What about now, @Chuck Entz? Bereshit is not referring to the creation story, but to the first "book". Tollef Salemann (talk) 17:50, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

@Tollef Salemann: it certainly fits the quotes in the entry, so definitely an improvement. There may be other definitions, though. Chuck Entz (talk) 18:54, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

The Creation itself is Briye-Ha-Oylom (see בריאה). Tollef Salemann (talk) 19:50, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

That is a transciption of the Yiddish term. Shifting from Hebrew to Yiddish unannounced may make any confusion worse. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:52, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

No it’s not quite so simple. Anyway, as far I understood, we don’t discuss Hebrew, but the English entry. My point was that the English transcription for the Hebrew term of creation is something else than Bereshit. Ain’t really important what the transcription is. Now we know that Bereshit may be used as a term for creation in some known Hebrew and Aramaic texts, but is it used in this sense in English? That’s the question. Tollef Salemann (talk) 09:46, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, the term Bereshit is from modern Hebrew. But if you search it in a context (its use in English text), you should obviously include the Ashkenazi forms (which you call Yiddish). Tollef Salemann (talk) 09:52, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

@Sije @Taokailam maybe you know better? Tollef Salemann (talk) 20:40, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I looked at Morfix website, https://www.morfix.co.il/en/%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%90%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%AA, the proper noun בראשית refers to the 1st book, Genesis only. Not to the creation story. Taokailam (talk) 17:55, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Bereshit may also refer to the creation, as in the Barukh she'amar prayer: בָּרוּךְ עוֹשֶׂה בְרֵאשִׁית. See entry in Jastrow, Marcus (1903) A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, London, New York: Luzac & Co., G.P. Putnam's Sons, page 189. Sije (talk) 18:38, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Since it is Hebrew, I added this sense to the Hebrew entry (marking it as talmudic). For the English entry it is needed quotes in case if this word is used in this sense in English texts (about what I doubt). Tollef Salemann (talk) 22:11, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

off

8. Temporarily not attending a usual place, such as work or school, especially owing to illness or holiday.

John's off today. He's back on Wednesday.

1. (informal, predicative only) Unavailable; unable to stay in a band or come to a club due to being busy with activities or schedules.

The singer is off. He can't come today.

I added the first sense. The second sense was pre-existing and I made it a sub-sense. I feel slightly suspicious about the second sense, or unsure at any rate. Is there really such a specific and individual meaning for staying in a band or coming to a club? Or is it possibly just a very specific and slightly poorly defined example of the main sense? Can't find much in searches. Any ideas? Mihia (talk) 13:41, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm strongly suspicious, in this and many other cases, that someone young believes that any use of a term in a youth context is distinct from usage that has gone before. DCDuring (talk) 20:42, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Logically it is just an overspecific example of the main sense. I doubt that the reason for offness in the specific example is “due to being busy with activities or schedules” rather than illness. In either case the usual place can be the workplace and the place the off person went to may be a work trip, a business trip, busman's holiday. Fay Freak (talk) 00:36, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

• Sent to RFD. Mihia (talk) 09:26, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Microplane

Which meaning of the word plane is being used in our definition for microplane? Khemehekis (talk) 00:53, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

No doubt something derived from the "geometry" sense of the Etymology 1 noun, though in geometry planes technically don't have size, so they can't be microscopic or macroscopic. Chuck Entz (talk) 01:22, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I think it's the "A roughly flat, thin, often moveable structure..." sense. CitationsFreak (talk) 20:16, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

No, that sense is (trying to be) about the parts of aircraft and watercraft that generate their hydrodynamics (e.g., lift). The sense that mat sci is talking about is the planes, as in geometric planes, that exist for example inside crystals (such as face-centered cubes and so on). They are of course bounded (they have boundaries), but that doesn't disqualify their relationship to the notion of an infinite geometric plane: planar things can be planar even when they have boundaries; for example, the top face of a (noninfinite) cylinder mathematically is a planar surface even though it has bounds (bounded by the circle). Quercus solaris (talk) 21:05, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

pretend

There are some issues with this article, one being the lack of the main intransitive senses, which I intend to redress, but for starters we could look at the wording of sense 1:

1. (transitive) To claim, to allege, especially when falsely or as a form of deliberate deception [with clause]. [from 14th c.]

   You don't have to pretend that the soup tastes fine.

Anyone got any idea why it says "especially"? In modern usage isn't it always so? Could it be a hangover from an obsolete usage? Or am I missing something here? Mihia (talk) 17:53, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

The online Middle English Dictionary has 6 senses and 2 subsenses for its first sense, 1a being "claim" (31 quotations), 1b being "feign", "falsely profess" (16 quotations). So, apparently, both the neutral sense and the "false" sense existed through that period, the latest quote being 1464. Century 1911 had as its definition 2 "To put forward as a statement or an assertion; especially, to allege or declare falsely or with intent to deceive.", very like ours.

Modern dictionaries seem to call some of the neutral senses archaic or obsolete. In my idiolect, falsity is always essential to a definition of current usage, though intent need not be malicious, as in acting or playing. DCDuring (talk) 21:20, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Right, thanks, how do you perceive this one?:

• (transitive) To feign, affect (a state, quality, etc.). [from 15th c.]

  She's pretending illness to get out of the business meeting.

To me, this example does not seem correct English (although of course it can be understood). Although apparently "from 15th c.", I'm thinking from the patterns in other dictionaries that it may be now chiefly US. How does it sound to you? Mihia (talk) 21:31, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

It doesn't seem wrong to me, but I can't say that I've heard it in normal speech in the US or anywhere else. DCDuring (talk) 22:51, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Just overheard this and thought I'd butt in. The OED has this supported with a quote from 2003 to a British newspaper:

• There is an obvious tackiness about a multi-millionaire from the richest country in the world, pretending poverty.

I'm not familiar with it myself (NZ), and I'd assume it was formal, but I wouldn't venture a label without further evidence. Cameron.coombe (talk) 04:18, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

• with a quote from 2003 in a British newspaper -- or something like that

Cameron.coombe (talk) 04:19, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

In fact, now I look more carefully, there is also a quote from a British newspaper in our article: "they cannot pretend ignorance". I must say that this one does sound a little more natural to me, though I don't know why. Another example in our article, "boys who had pretended soldiers", sounds so wrong and odd to me that it is hard to even understand, and I would naturally assume that it was a typo or some kind of editing error. But anyway, since I'm not sure, I'll leave that def alone as far as labelling is concerned. Mihia (talk) 12:43, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

In fact, it's not clear that the "pretended soldiers" example even fits the definition "To feign, affect (a state, quality, etc.)". I can find no other analogous examples, apart from our quote, either for soldiers or for doctors, nurses, policemen, anything. I wonder whether actually it is just a typo or editing error, or an author's personal oddity. Does this "pretended soldiers" sentence read like normal correct English to anyone? Mihia (talk) 17:32, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

I agree that it's not idiomatic in my variety (gen AmE). Not confusing at all, just not idiomatic. Quercus solaris (talk) 04:34, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes, unidiomatic to me too (NZ). Soldiers is weird also because it's unidiomatic for the gloss too: To feign soldiers. The usage note could say something like: transitive usually a state, condition, etc.: to pretend sickness. -- You could make it sound prettier than that maybe. Cameron.coombe (talk) 10:26, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I've deleted that strange example. Mihia (talk) 12:11, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

"hyphenated compound"

I went to create this entry and it was deleted three years ago. It just says deleted per RFD but doesn't link to the exact discussion. I don't know why this entry would be deleted when we have "closed compound" and "open compound" in the dictionary. It's not as common as those two, but I'd easily fill up the quotes for attestation. Cameron.coombe (talk) 04:12, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

See Talk:hyphenated_compound. The argument was "SOP" (sum of parts), i.e. if one knows what hyphenated and compound mean, one can work out what they mean together. It is harder with "open" and "closed" because they have so many different meanings. "Hyphenated" has only one. 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:F9AC:CC62:6541:2A8E 04:15, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! Cameron.coombe (talk) 04:20, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

㽥

It seems silly that we have a "Translingual" section listing two definitions that were used in particular time periods and places in China, and then a "Chinese" section with an rfdef. Can we move the definitions to the Chinese section...? - -sche (discuss) 08:06, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

yes, i agree. it should be dublicated in the chinese section. also glyph's history and stroke order stuff would improve the article, too Slowcuber7 (talk) 15:08, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Nowel

Sense 1 of Nowel (interjection) reads: "An gleeful exclamation upon hearing Jesus being born in representations of the event." Is "in representations of the event" not too vague or formal? Another complication is that the linked Middle English dictionary does not only speak of e.g. carrols about the Nativity, but the Annunciation as well. ←₰-→ Lingo ^Bingo _Dingo (talk) 08:49, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

taco /teɪkoʊ/

Can anyone confirm or deny the claim by this IP that taco was historically pronounced with //eɪ// in the US, UK, AUS and NZ? A quick search finds me only one modern mention of an "uneducated and unsophisticated" person pronouncing it that way (in Mark Rutland's Keep On Keeping On). - -sche (discuss) 18:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Sounds fishier than a fish taco to me lol; sounds like someone changing wiki to settle a bet, prove themselves "right" for another to see, or just perpetrate a good old fashioned wiki hoax. Quercus solaris (talk) 22:23, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Wouldn't shock me if it was real, but in less-than-educated-on-Hispanic-culture eras. Maybe try old broadcasts on Mexican food, or some poem on Mexican food from the 1970s that's not written by someone familiar with the food? CitationsFreak (talk) 00:30, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

You make a good point in the respect that it could easily have been familectal via spelling pronunciation in American locales where pizzas and tacos were considered "ethnic" and borderline-exotic back then. But even under those conditions, though, it was not a widespread norm. Perhaps the IP was someone who grew up in a household that said /teɪkoʊ/ and just always assumed that "everyone" said it that way back then. But (if so), to the IP I would say, it's the sort of thing that gets an "oh, honey, you didn't know?" when people gently correct spelling pronunciations. Which is why I'm not surprised that MW and AHD don't show it as a variant. I've been, and been surrounded by, AmE speaker(s) for cough-cough decades, and I'm certain that you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in my region who would recognize it as anything other than an "oh, honey" outlier/familectal/idiolectal (or a "what're you, jokin?", if they're not being polite to the speaker). Quercus solaris (talk) 04:29, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

There is evidence that the spelling pron was widespread at the time. See this excerpt from an Oct. 1949 article in American Speech entitled "Gringoisms in Arizona": "[T]he [tourists] [...] bravely attempt to order their meals in Spanish [and order such dishes as] tækoz, a mispronunciation of the Spanish word tacos." CitationsFreak (talk) 05:41, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

That just represents a pronunciation where the first syllable is identical to the standard English word tack rather than take though, I doubt many people say ‘taycoh’. The Canadian audio sample is odd at taco too, it doesn’t match the description as it sounds too American (‘tahcoh’). Overlordnat1 (talk) 09:01, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Millennial from NZ, it's always been taco as in /ˈtʰɑ:koʊ/ for me. Also pasta vs. pasta (UK), dance vs. dance (Aus), NZE today generally prefers /ɑ:/.

This is standard here, about 20 secs in

I don't imagine contemporary Aus be much different; can't speak to UK Cameron.coombe (talk) 10:33, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

• Always for me. Could well be older people who /eɪ/ it

Cameron.coombe (talk) 10:34, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, the pron said "historical" in the first place, meaning that it isn't used now, but was in the past. Probably the wrong label, though. CitationsFreak (talk) 16:07, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@CitationsFreak Ah, yeah sounds like (dated) to me Cameron.coombe (talk) 00:26, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

The label "historical" suggested to me that it was (being claimed to be) a formerly accepted pronunciation (and also that it was no longer found). The IP's edit also suggested the same (diaphonemic) pronunciation was found in, and then ceased to be used it, all regions of the anglosphere. As far as I can tell, the only evidence we have is that it was instead an occasional nonstandard pronunciation in a few regions within living memory, so something like "nonstandard, uncommon" seems like a better label for that...? - -sche (discuss) 06:55, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

I definitely think that (historical) is wrong, as it's used of things that we still mention today but no longer exist themselves, like the Roman Empire. It seems like a category error putting it in pronunciation. The label (nonstandard, uncommon) also works. You could (dated, uncommon) to indicate that it's both uncommon now (dated) and was uncommon at the time (uncommon). Cameron.coombe (talk) 07:09, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

seated (slang)

With all these slang words like cooked going around, it seems weird that seated (“ready, hyped”) isn't included here. I'm not the best at writing English glossaries though, so just flagging it for anyone who's able to do it better, preferably with quotations. Related: sat. Insaneguy1083 (talk) 11:56, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

@Insaneguy1083 I would happily add it. If you post some links to examples here, that'd be helpful. I'm not familiar with the term myself. No need to format them correctly or anything. Cameron.coombe (talk) 07:11, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Belarusian words for tea

Hello,

The articles for the two Belarusian synonyms for "tea", гарбата and чай, both state that the other synonym is "more common". Which of the two (if either) is actually more common and which is less common? 170.213.22.139 19:09, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

must be some mistake Slowcuber7 (talk) 10:48, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

I've changed it to "more or less common" in both entries so that all scenarios are covered. PUC – 14:25, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

Goddamnit PUC. Vininn126 (talk) 14:28, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

thank you! Slowcuber7 (talk) 14:56, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

No, that's not a solution. Vininn126 (talk) 14:57, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

we need some sources. to me, intuition hints "чай" form would be more in common use Slowcuber7 (talk) 15:00, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

puc, your edits were reverted Slowcuber7 (talk) 14:59, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

@Slowcuber7 He wrote literally "more or less common" on both entries, which does not inform us of anything. He did it to troll. Vininn126 (talk) 15:03, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

crap.. anyways Slowcuber7 (talk) 15:05, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

oranye

having one of the longest etymology chains it should definitely be supplied with an etymon tree. Slowcuber7 (talk) 15:11, 12 December 2024 (UTC)

twoth

I found this entry from the WP article on 2... it seems to me that "twoth" is mostly likely to be whimsy (which is not strictly a dialect). But there is a reference for dialectal use in Devon so ok. But I removed this example: "The computation of êk*xk-j is reduced to a controlled twoth complementer at the expense of a reduced adaptation speed." because it is almost certainly a confusion with "twos complement", perhaps just a non-native error. Then there are examples of "one hundred and twoth" and "twenty twoth", in which the meaning is not "second", but rather a disconnected ("units digit is 2" + "ordinal marker"). Particularly for numbers like 10000000000001, both expressions, "ten trillion and first" and "ten trillion and oneth" seem dubious, and can only produced by conscious rule following. Should they remain? Imaginatorium (talk) 08:11, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

It seemed appropriate to me to augment the label "dialectal" to become "dialectal|or|whimsical". I did that. I didn't yet ponder the deeper ramifications regarding the lexicography of overregularizations in general. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:44, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

drive it down, drive something down

These have been created today as "alternative forms" of drive down. I don't think inserting an object is an alternative form. We don't generally create pages like pick something up. This practice could create a huge number of pages of almost no value. 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:E4F5:C417:56AC:AEAD 22:47, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. Quite right. And the question of whether "someone" and "something" could perhaps be removed from certain phrasal headwords is not the same question as this. This one is like the broader and dumber general case of that, lol. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:35, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Also agreed. Not alternative forms. Can be deleted. Mihia (talk) 23:48, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

value (2)

Verb senses:

1. To estimate the value of; judge the worth of.

   I will have the family jewels valued by a professional.

2. To fix or determine the value of; assign a value to, as of jewelry or art work.

Can anyone see what the difference between these two senses is supposed to be? Mihia (talk) 23:46, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

You are right to point out the flimsiness of the differentiation as it is currently presented. At the very least, if the two defs were to remain unmerged, they would need better usexes to highlight the differentiation. But even then it is flimsy. There does exist a potentially worthwhile differentiability regarding being the one who assigns a value for legal purposes versus any other kind of nonbinding estimate. But if Wiktionary were to have separate senseids for that, it would need to support that approach with refinements to the lb, def, and ux elements. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:57, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, yes, what I actually meant to ask is not so much "what the difference is supposed to be", which is evidently that one refers to "estimate" and the other "fix or determine", but more whether there is sufficient difference to warrant two separate senses. To me it seems hair-splitting and they could be combined. Mihia (talk) 00:21, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Agreed, because even the fine gradation could be handled inside of one senseid with the right finessing (perhaps something to the effect of "estimate blah; fix or assign blah"). Quercus solaris (talk) 00:25, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I think that's an RFV question, TBH. I find that these sorts of distinctions are often very real, but hard to identify without seeing how they are used. I would also look at sources like the OED and see if they have distinct senses. I don't think the senses are sufficiently similar that they can just be merged without some further legwork. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 02:48, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

I don't see how RFV will help. We already know that it can mean "estimate", "fix" or "determine" (though in practice I would think usually estimate, since true value is usually not known until a sale). The question is whether making separate senses for these is helpful or (as I believe) hair-splittingly confusing. Mihia (talk) 18:23, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps the two senses are/were trying to draw a distinction between:

• I will have the family jewels valued by a professional. (the usex for the first sense)

which might be rephrased as

• A professional valued the jewels. (estimated their worth, no price specified)

vs e.g.

• The jewels were valued at 14 million pounds. →
• A professional valued the jewels at 14 million pounds. (fixed their worth at a specific price, specified)

I am not sure whether we need separate senses for that. We seem to handle the corresponding distinction at sell with one sense (that covers both "the professional sold jewels"-type and "the professional sold jewels for 14 million pounds"-type uses). Neither Merriam-Webster nor Dictionary.com distinguishes these AFAICT; each has one definition covering both together. OTOH, the 1933 OED does separate "I. 1. trans. To estimate or appraise as being worth a specified sum or amount. Const. at, †to, or with inf." with cites like "valued [to/at] [PRICE]", vs "2. To estimate the value of (goods, property, etc.); to appraise in respect of value." with cites like "To value what the grasse of the gardens ... be worth by the yere", "the presents had not yet been valu'd [...] which could not be valu'd but by them", "Wood...which has not been valued, but put at least 25 Rixdollars", "I propose to have those rights of the crown valued as manerial rights are valued on an inclosure", "Weigh with her thy self; Then value." and "b. To rate for purposes of taxation. Obs." with the cite "All the woorlde shulde be valued". - -sche (discuss) 07:45, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, I think it is a mistake to lump into one definition intransitive, ditransitive, and intransitive usage of common verbs like sell. For one thing, ditransitive is mostly a linguist's term.

I like the OED treatment of value. We often, but unsystematically neglect to note common complements entirely and for other verbs we make up "phrasal verbs", eg, value at, effectively burying the phenomenon, at least for encoding. DCDuring (talk) 16:19, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

As far as "at" is concerned, this is not the only possibility, and these patterns can be handled with examples, and in fact I have already added an example with "at". To make a different actual sense of "value" for e.g. "I will have the family jewels valued by a professional" versus "He valued the family jewels at $1m" seems bogus to me. To me, it is the identical meaning of the actual word "value"; the only difference comes from the other words in the sentence. On the subject of transitivity, it did occur to me earlier actually that there is an intransitive sense, just about, e.g. "the auctioneer is valuing all day today". I decided in the end it was just too fussy to split this out, so I didn't bother, but if someone else wants to, go ahead ... Mihia (talk) 18:20, 15 December 2024 (UTC)

the sea is clustered with islands, transitively

We're currently giving The sea is clustered with islands. as an example of the use of cluster as a transitive verb (with object). Is this correct? - -sche (discuss) 16:44, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I believe that it is linguistically correct even though the reason the construction is a short passive is that, depending on one's cosmology, no agent exists. This accords with Pullum 2024:108 at "The universe was created 13.8 billion years ago. ([possible by-phrase NP =] unknown cosmic forces? God?)." In the same class will be a sky studded with stars. (And I think stud (v) needs some refinement when some one of us Wiktionarians gets around to it.) At the moment I believe that this phenomenon is explained by the concept that English and many other natural languages are built and wired such that the teleology of supernaturalism, with either implied divine agency or an implied dummy holding its place, underpins the grammar even though nonreligious people can speak the language just as easily as religious ones by holding that teleology to be merely grammatically obligate through solely figurative idiomaticness. Sadly my linguistics authority ends at the tip of my armchair, but like every speaker of a natural language, I'm allowed to operate the machine using my best understanding to date of how it works under the hood. Quercus solaris (talk) 17:22, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

My knowledge of grammar is also rather limited, but I was previously informed that the construction "[object] + form of to be + [verb]" indicates that the verb is used in a transitive sense. — Sgconlaw (talk) 18:24, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Generally yes (though I would call it the (passive) subject, rather than object), but some past participles have a life of their own as adjectives; e.g. "I'm interested in this". One test might be to check whether "The sea is very clustered with islands" works. Mihia (talk) 18:30, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Also, "has been clustered" sounds strange. Chuck Entz (talk)

We should test for adjectivity. -ed (~"having") is productive of denominal adjectives. This one might be pushing it, but it seems possible to me. DCDuring (talk) 19:45, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I can find some usage like very|too clustered ("having clusters"). Also uses like clustered with sequins|lights. DCDuring (talk) 20:28, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

Right, a good example of an "-ed" adjective that does not have an associated verb is talented. Mihia (talk) 20:48, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

The semantics is important: "having [NOUN]". I don't think it necessarily matters whether the noun is a homonym of a verb. DCDuring (talk) 21:20, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

My purpose in giving that example was merely to reinforce the point that "be-verb + -ed word" does not always imply transitive verb. Mihia (talk) 21:26, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

OK. I tried to find usage of becluster without luck in a cursory search. DCDuring (talk) 21:31, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

value (3)

2. To regard highly; think much of; place importance upon.

Gold was valued highly among the Romans.

I value his advice.

3. To hold dear.

I value these old photographs.

Are these senses definitely distinct, or are they really the same thing just with different subject matter? What do you think? Mihia (talk) 21:05, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

They seem the same to me, but hold dear doesn't seem to be considered a synonym of esteem, value. I think I read dear as "expensive" (BS in economics) not "cherished". DCDuring (talk) 21:29, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

I do read "hold dear" as meaning something like "cherish", just a question of whether it is different in kind from the first one, or whether we might as well add e.g. "cherish" to the first definition line. (I suppose "cherish" is a bit more strongly emotional ... Hm.) Mihia (talk) 21:38, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

No. Exactly. The subject making the value judgement can have different reasons as reference points by which the action is made. The difference from sense 1 is that in sense 1 an objectified value within a community is expressed, which does not exclude an example like “valued highly among the Romans” belonging to the second sense, given that a community can have varied subjective references. It is too much of a distinction though to objectify subjective importance and affective interest, as this distinction between sense 2 and 3 does. Fay Freak (talk) 21:37, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

астрономически (Bulgarian)

Does астрономически mean also 'sidereal' as its listed as a translation there? The word really looks like it should mean only 'astronomical'... Mölli-Möllerö (talk) 18:45, 15 December 2024 (UTC)