Wiktionary:Requests for deletion

Requests for Deletion (RfD) is where Wiktionarians discuss and propose deletion of articles, definitions, templates, categories, and other pages. Requests will stay here until a sysop decides consensus has been reached, or comes to the conclusion that the page is a candidate for immediate deletion. Some outcomes include: 1) The item is kept, 2) The item is deleted, or 3) the item is transwikied to another Wikimedia project.

The current policy governing the use of this page is available at Wiktionary:Page deletion guidelines. The requests themselves belong on this page.

Make a new nomination

Notes

• Some key discussions of deleted items are saved at Wiktionary:Deletion archive
• For help on how to do a good nomination, see Help:Nominating an article for cleanup or deletion.
• For an overview, see Wiktionary:Cleanup and deletion process, which includes how to remove a nomination after cleanup is done.
• Sysops who delete pages that have been listed here should show and date this on the list when they do it. A simple **Deleted. ~~~~ is enough. The items affected are almost always properly deleted, but acknowledging that you have done this is good for building community confidence.
• Check the alphabetical category for a list of all pages tagged with the template {{rfd}}; when the {{rfd}} template is removed from the page, the entry will automatically be withdrawn from that page. It should only be removed if the result of the deletion discussion was to keep the entry.
• Sysops should check the Talk: page of the entry as discussion of why the entry should be kept or deleted may also be there. Both this page and the talk page should be checked before deletion.
• There is a manually created and maintained list within this page, below. You can use the Make a new nomination link below to add your nomination to the list. When doing so, please include a brief explanation of your reason for nominating the page for deletion. Old entries are relisted by month. Please put any extensive discussion in the Talk: (discussion) page of the article.
• If the title of a page is a valid term but the content is an incorrect entry, nonsense, or vandalism, then the page should be nominated for cleanup using the {{rfc}} template rather than being nominated for deletion.

See also: Wiktionary:Lists of words needing attention

Make a new nomination

Special Nominations for Deletion

Permanent deletion list

The following links should always be red. Please delete the corresponding articles should they appear:

• Unwritten article
• Link title

Chronic problems

• Ass pus - Hollywood Jam - Sprankton/sprankton

In process

Romanica, Category:Romanica language, Ekspreso: Constructed languages, material from which we have agreed to delete, but which involves a significant volume of material. Main namespace entries seem to be done; 800-900 translations remain as well as various indexes.

---

General Nominations for Deletion

---

September

Wiktionary:Quick_index

Seems to be a repeat of Wiktionary:English_index. And reportedly not up-to-date. And if anything puts a load on the server, this page must. Does anyone use it? --Stranger 15:39, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

• It is always a good idea to see "what links here" before thinking about deleting a page. In this instance, you will see that it is linked from the Main Page - so we better Keep it. SemperBlotto 16:14, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I thought I checked that. Missed it. Sorry. RFD removed. I corrected a link on that page, though. Can we delete:

http://en.wiktionary.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Allpages&from=%2500

instead? Oh, and is Quick index not automatically updated - does anyone know? Cheers. --Stranger 17:25, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

Quick index doesn't need to be automatically automated. It's a complete set of links TO an automatically generated page, Special:Allpages. (And thus had nothing to do with English index, btw.) It was necessary in ages past because Special:Allpages did not have any easy navigation controls. However the box "Display pages starting at:" at the top of Special:Allpages added several versions ago duplicates (and betters!) the functionality of Wiktionary:Quick index entirely, making it obsolete. And no, nobody can delete Special:Allpages, it is a software function. —Muke Tever 20:52, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

If there's a better version and this is obsolete, why don't we have the "quick index" on the Main Page point to Allpages instead? --Stranger 21:41, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it is obsolete. Just not as crucial as it used to be. The English index links to words that are defined in the English languages only. The quick index points to all words (in Latin alphabet) in all languages. For those of us that remember thumbing through a dictionary, seeing the words before and after the word we were looking up, such an index lends some familiarity. --Connel MacKenzie 02:18, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

What makes it obsolete is that it only deals with capitalized words. It's value was severely affected by the change to first letter case sensitivity. If we decide to keep it it would need some serious revision. Eclecticology 01:38:11, 2005-09-05 (UTC)

The English Index, under "G" for example, has Ga, Ge, Gh, Gi . . . so it seems to satisfy the "thumbing" requirement; and it has a link to the "list of languages" - is that what you mean? Another benefit is that it shows red links which I think would encourage other people to contribute. --Stranger 16:55, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

It's not what I mean. It will list Ga, Ge, Gh, Gi ..., but not ga, ge, gh, gi ... Eclecticology 08:23:41, 2005-09-07 (UTC)

I didn't make myself clear, my mistake. I'm proprosing that we ditch Quick Index and replace it with English Index. English Index DOES list both capital and lowercase words. --Stranger 16:55, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I have been accused of being an "inclusionist" (as opposed to deletionist) on a handful of cases in the Main namespace (NS:0) but I a much more strongly inclined to KEEP all Wiktionary namespace entries (except of course, blatant vandalism) that have been around one or two days. Replacing content with a redirect is often OK. But entries in this namespace a highly likely to have interwiki links to other Wiktionaries, as well as other MediaWiki projects. Leaving a redirect hurts nothing. Deleting a Wiktionary namespace entry (instead of leaving a redirect) just seems very pointless to me...the only thing it can accomplish is breaking external links (say from zh.wiktionary: pointing to us, or the English Wikipedia pointing to us.)

That said, I'm still not convinced this is obsolete. It certainly is not a sub-set of English only. If you'd like me to expand this list out to also cover lower case terms, I'd be happy to...I can clean up the templates to perhaps use only one single template instead, while I'm at it. Is this activity desired?

Also, the templates in question seem to be a valid exception to the "lower case template-names" rule. These templates are reused elsewhere, if I am not mistaken. At any rate, this particular page could get by with a single template, much like I condensed the 70+ names templates into only three.

I can also see this being merged with other pages. I can see this becoming a sub-section of other indexes, but only if a redirect is left behind. Keep. --Connel MacKenzie [+] (contribs) 21:02, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted. All useful links to it now go elsewhwere. Eclecticology 22:39, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Utilities

I copied all the links to Wiktionary:Index to Internals. I know the "what links here" will have to be changed, and maybe leaving a redirect from "utilities" to "index" would be wise. I assume (silly me) there's no objection to this RFD since Richardb's comment has been unopposed for so long. --Stranger 21:36, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

If you've finished migrating the content to a more central location, leaving a redirect instead (i.e. #redirect [[Wiktionary: Index to Internals]]) is much better. Deleting "Wiktionary:" namespace articles is just yucky. --Connel MacKenzie 02:39, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

If deletion is yucky, then shouldn't we guard that namespace like a sacred relic? Some of the stuff there (Wiktionary:Unicode_issues, which I ask for deletion of) seems to be mostly useless. Perhaps have only sysops dish out access to that namespace? Cheers, --Stranger 19:02, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

discretize

Extremely isolated jargon that was in fashion (with beowulf clusters) a couple years ago. --Connel MacKenzie 20:12, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

• Delete for lack of evidence. Eclecticology 01:22:12, 2005-09-05 (UTC)

• • No, keep. This is scientific English, with 2770 hits in Google Print. — Paul G 09:19, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

• • • Sorry, that's not good enough. You haven't actually shown any of those citations, therefore they do not exist and discretize is not actually used and will have to be deleted. Standards, you know. -dmh 21:08, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
      • (sigh). [1], 2:nd 3:rd section: "[The command] discretizes a second-order linear elliptic partial differential equation of the form... [long formula]". \Mike 08:21, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
        • Ec, maybe you could lend some clarity here? According to your comments, wouldn't the supporting evidence have to be directly on the page for the page to escape deletion? I'm not clear here, but perhaps I'm not properly inducing the general rule from what you've decided to delete and what you've decided to keep. Perhaps you could detail your proposed policy on your talk page under the "Homework and Burdens of Proof" section I started, but which, doubtless being too busy with more important matters, you've neglected to respond to? -dmh 14:41, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. If it's good enough to appear in a Wikipedia article then it should be good enough for us. -- Nick1nildram 15:13, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

I hope we're better than Wikipedia. --Stranger 00:24, 11 September 2005 (UTC)

I hope being 'better than Wikipedia', as a descriptive dictionary, means including all words that Wikipedians agree exist and more... —Muke Tever 00:22, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Possibly, but Wikipedia was one of the drivers for including "independence" in the CFI (but then, if Wikipedia is a "well-known work") -dmh 18:26, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Novial

Are we accepting Novial entries? (For example, in abandon.) Novial is a constructed language similar to Esperanto, but one that was never very popular. —Stephen 07:52, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

• "All words, all languages." - Are there limits to this? --Stranger 16:08, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
• Although the specific article about the language should be cleaned up and kept I still believe that a conservative approach to what is an acceptable language is preferred.

  At present 24 of the 2600 languages in the ISO 639-3 list are constructed languages. These are Afrihili, Brithenig, Ceqli, Delason, Dutton World Speedwords, Esperanto, Glosa, Ido, Interglossa, Interlingua, Interlingue, Jakelimotu, Klingon, Láadan, Linga, Lojban, Novial, Occidental, Orcish, Quenya, Romanova, Sindarin, Tceqli, and Volapük.

  
  

  The constructed (or artificial or auxilliary) language issue is a recurring one. Rather than having the debate over and over again when any constructed language (both on and off the above list) is introduced perhaps we should suspend the Novial-specific discussion without decision until we can deal with the broader issue at Wiktionary:Constructed languages.

  
  

  On a personal level, I would be more open to a more relaxed constructed language policy in return for a stricter Cite-your-sources policy that applies equally well to words and terms that are alleged to belong to these languages. Eclecticology 17:00:18, 2005-09-10 (UTC)

Since some of these languages (and perhaps all of them) are already listed on Wiktionary:List_of_languages, we can move this discussion to that talk page rather than make a new page for constructed languages.

Also, is not sign language a constructed language? If so, we should create an entry for it on the list of languages.

Since someone has recently added a lot of Novial entries, I say we accept them. Cheers, --Stranger 01:00, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

Um, there are many sign languages. Some are, in a rough sense, "constructed", but some emerged naturally (I believe the example is Nicaraguan Sign Language, ISO 639-3: ncs). Generally (and in ISO 639) they are classified like ordinary natural languages (in their own class of signed languages; see e.g. Ethnologue's list of signed languages). Of course, there are some few signed conlangs. —Muke Tever 20:20, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

pronunciation guide

No more than the sum of its parts: "guide to pronunciation" — Hippietrail 22:32, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Keep.

1. I encountered this term from my zero-level list

   Is this in our criteria for inclusion? It shouldn't be.

2. Instead of deleting it on sight, I checked history and saw your comment that this should be kept, should it graduate to a proper entry with a proper definition.

   I can't find that comment. The comment I did leave was for when the article was an actual (poor) pronunciation guide in the wrong namespace. It is now a definition of a transparent phrase.

   • The comment I saw was: "... replacing this with a definition is probably acceptable)". --Connel MacKenzie [+] (contribs) 16:45, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

     I still don't know where I made that comment but I do believe you. In any case, I've clarified my position on idiomatic phrases and what good dictionaries choose to include, so my current vote for deletion as of September 2005 stands. — Hippietrail 21:24, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

     • Your edit comment is here. --Connel MacKenzie [+] (contribs) 06:10, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

3. Still undecided, I checked the "What links here" for it, and realized that I did not want to hunt down those gazillion improperly formatted pronunciation sections.

   So your vote is based on personal laziness / unwillingness rather than what's best for a quality dictionary? — Hippietrail 05:12, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

   • Absolutely not. The point is that if you delete the pointed-to article, the invalid pointers become harder to track down and correct. Therefore, you should correct the pointers before nominating it for deletion. --Connel MacKenzie [+] (contribs) 16:45, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

     Special:Whatlinkshere/pronunciation guide is functional whether or not the article exists. And if there are relatively many links to it, it will also appear [eventually] in Special:Wantedpages along with the links to it if deleted... (At least, if you delete Pronunciation guide too, which most of them seem to actually link to.) —Muke Tever 18:10, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

     I thought this page was to vote on whether an article should be deleted, along with whatever other work may be involved in deleting it. Not merely to vote on what is easy to delete. Given that I or somebody else will do the cleaning up, Connel, how would you vote? — Hippietrail 21:24, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

     • Keep. (I thought I said that already.) Given the plethora of problems with Special:Wantedpages, it is irresponsible not only to delete it, but to nominate it for deletion before the known, needed cleanup is done. As you well know, it is harder to do the "What links here" cleanup when the article in question has been deleted. Perhaps that conditoin is related to why so many {{-lang-}} templates were deleted, while older articles still referenced them directly? --Connel MacKenzie [+] (contribs) 06:10, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

--Connel MacKenzie 22:56, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

• I should add that none of the AHD, Collins, Encarta, or M-W online dictionaries cover "pronunciation guide".

• One more thing, we ought to decide which is our definitive pronunciation guide so we can change links to point to that, rather than the various pages they may currently point to. Then the cleanup can begin, which is needed regardless of whether or not this article is deleted. — Hippietrail 21:24, 17 September 2005 (UTC)
• I agree that it's not idiomatic but simply follows the expected format for a guide to whatever the first word is. ("Girl guide" would be idiomatic since it's not a guide to girls. :-)) Several of the links to it are in the form [[Pronunciation guide|IPA]]. In some cases the SAMPA link on the same page also points there. It seems that it would be more appropriate to point these to Wiktionary:Pronunciation key. Unfortunately, simply redirecting will create a double redirect. Eclecticology 02:22, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
  • In this case, "making" a double redirect may be a the correct way to fix these entries, however. In the interim, the link can (and should) still be in place. That allows some time to replace those incorrect links. --Connel MacKenzie [+] (contribs) 06:10, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

oigh, duggafy, Archisphere

Tonight's crop of iffy entries:

• oigh seems to have some sense in Scottish Gaelic. If anyone would like to help supply that or evidence of the English interjection, I'm all for keeping this entry.
• duggafy. I haven't found any evidence. Have you?
  • deleted SemperBlotto 19:06, 14 September 2005 (UTC)
• Archisphere - zero Google and should probably be decapitalized if we keep it. --Dvortygirl 06:11, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

829 Google hits for archisphere - but it seems to be an architectural company - advertising? SemperBlotto 19:06, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Oigh seems to be used by Sir Walter Scott [2] here, I had no idea it was so regionalised, I'll check the translation tonight TheSimpleFool 14:20, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

genrelization

Spam/vandalism. --hao2lian

• rm81dragon What is spam/vandalism about this word? There was time and effort taken to correctly define the word, and give examples of what it means. If there is concern in regards to cleaning it up, what would those concerns be? This entry can be fixed if needed, but I don't think it needs to be deleted because it actually sounds, is defined, and is useable as an actual functional word. Please declare your reasons for feeling that it is spam/vandelism.
• It was just a spelling mistake. A definition of the word is at generalisation. SemperBlotto 07:30, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
• rm81dragon No, it wasn't a spelling mistake. I created the word, and put time into defining it. I took the word genre and generalization and combined them. I heard to many times, people make generalizations about certain people who were involved in certain types of cultural and artistic genres. Genrelization is my way of explaining those generalizations that people make. I'm amazed that you guys didn't get this after reading the examples and definition. I was very excited about the idea of wiktionary, after reading about a college proffessor encouraging his students to create useable and functional words in the english language. It seems as though this is not as free of a place as I had thought. I just put that word up there late last night, and have woken up early this morning only to find that it has already been deleted, not even 12 hours. If I wanted a bridged dictionary, I could go to Mirriam-Webster. Please, take another look at my word, and understand that it isn't "spam/vandalism", where that idea came from I won't ever know, and that if you actually take the time to read the definition and the example's, the word actually makes sense.
• 1) It appeared to be spam and vandalism at the time I posted the rfd. The examples weren't NPOV, the formatting was bad, the word didn't appear to be credible, and the author signatuare resembled something a spammer would do. Of course, I can't access the deleted edit, so take it with a grain of salt. 2) Google turns up 182 results for me (might vary). Similarly, Yahoo only turns up about 27, and Google Print turns up none. With such limited usage, the word article is more of a creation of a word than it is writing down a new word that has been used many times. See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Genrelization for more discussion. I retract my spam and vandalism accusation since it wasn't actually spam or vandalism, and the article has since been cleaned up. I propose that further discussion be moved to #Genrelization below since it has more useful comments.

Generalization

No, it wasn't a spelling mistake. I created the word, and put time into defining it. I took the word genre and generalization and combined them. I heard to many times, people make generalizations about certain people who were involved in certain types of cultural and artistic genres. Genrelization is my way of explaining those generalizations that people make. I'm amazed that you guys didn't get this after reading the examples and definition. I was very excited about the idea of wiktionary, after reading about a college proffessor encouraging his students to create useable and functional words in the english language. It seems as though this is not as free of a place as I had thought. I just put that word up there late last night, and have woken up early this morning only to find that it has already been deleted, not even 12 hours. If I wanted a bridged dictionary, I could go to Mirriam-Webster. Please, take another look at my word, and understand that it isn't "spam/vandalism", where that idea came from I won't ever know, and that if you actually take the time to read the definition and the example's, the word actually makes sense. -- rm81dragon 9:3, 15 Septmeber 2005 (EDT)

Sorry to disappoint you, but newly created words are not really what we attempt to record here in Wiktionary. Rather, we try to record all the words already in common useage out there in the "real world". I mean, it wouldn't make sense to include my newly invented "word" qrfxy - and although the border line of "sensibility" lies somewhere between these two words, I don't think it is a dictionary's task to choose exactly where that line is, nor that a dictionary ever *can* make such a decision for itself. Never mind if it is Webster or if it is Wiktionary. Hence, I think that an objective proof always will be needed to decide when a word should be included - I think that the present manner of requiring attestations if contested does a fairly good job in that respect. \Mike 15:27, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

To follow up on the above comment, please see Wiktionary:List of protologisms. "Spam/vandalism" was regretably an inappropriate label. Davilla 17:10, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

I understand what your saying Mike. I guess, to generate the correct attestation, I would need to be able to reach a broad audience and convey the word to them. Much like how the rapper Lil' John created the fictional word "Krunk" that is now in common use within the urban community. From what I'm getting from you, even though the definition and creation of my word makes sense, due to the fact that I do not have the status or means to pass it on to broader audience it is not an applicable word nor do I have the attestation of proof that the word is in use....correct? My question is this, how do you explain "Wiktionary" as being a word? I am not aware that this word has the confirmation of proof that it is a wildy used word, and futhormore "precieved" as a word. "Wikipedia" would fall into the same catagory as well, wouldn't it? rm81dragon 12:57, 15 September 2005 (EDT)

Genrelization

Although my entry has been deleted, mind you not even 12 hours after I posted it, it is prudent to note that if one just takes the time to type the word into google you will find that it is in use. I had initially, by mistake, posted this word on wikipedia. The discussions there, led to this:

Genrelization Protologism, on Wiktionary:List of protologisms#GZeimusu | Talk page 01:46, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

What does this mean? And if "Protologism" can be a word, why can't "genrelization" be a word. Neither are wildy used or accepted as words, however, I'm sure both have equally strong and well iterated definitions. rm81dragon 13:14, 15 September 2005 (EDT) Comment see Wiktionary:Protologisms. Google suggests the word has been independently created many times, with various meanings. Still wikipedia is not a dictionary. Zeimusu | Talk page 00:23, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I was not even aware myself that this word was in as much use as it was. I know that I personally use it and created it without any prior knowledge of the word, however it seems like minded individuals have also felt the need for a word like genrelization and have put it into use in approximatly 175 documents on google. I would like some more research conducted on this word, because it seems as though it deserves a place in Wiktionary.

First, 175 google hits is not a lot. Google indexes billions of documents. For example, I picked a random six digit number, 468105, and got 526 hits on the web and one in print. Second, "genrelization" is an easy misspelling of "generalization", which gets 11 million hits. It's not surprising that there would be dozens of hits for the misspelling, as indeed there are. Interestingly, another one of the hits appears to be a misspelling of the album title "Genrealization," itself an altered spelling.

However, I see these promising hits: [3], which coins the word to describe the tendency of music to be pigeonholed into genres; the reference listed in [4] and elsewhere is the title of a chapter in ISBN 1572733845 — unfortunately I the text doesn't seem to be searchable online so I am unable to tell the exact context, but from the author's pages online it's clearly a deliberate reference to issues of genre. In any case, if you're after "academic rigour", I would think the work of a professor of English appearing in a published book would qualify; [5], which also uses the term to refer to pigeonholing in music.

Given that the second item above is published in print, it would be hard to argue against some sort of an entry. I'm not convinced that the sense intended in the published article is quite the same as the other two (for one thing, the article in question deals with doctor-patient relationships, not music), though there's clearly a common thread. The two web hits indicate that there is also a bona fide case for the music-pigeonholing sense. Clearly the common thread through all of them is the basic human tendency to compartmentalize. I suppose that some will dismiss the web hits as the unverifiable ravings of half-mad drooling illiterates, but so what? My concern here is more one of indpendence. Several of the web hits are just copies of the first reference above. The third appears to be by a different author, but there's no way to tell for sure.

In short, keep. Um, actually, keep under the uncapitalized spelling -dmh 18:32, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I have recreated genrelization with a couple of simpler definitions and a pointer to a couple of supporting citations. Keep - feel free to improve. SemperBlotto 10:38, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

I removed one of them. When I went to the site and searched the page, the word was not there. Eclecticology 23:59, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Oh ... my ... god ... Let the record show that on this day Eclecticology actually chased a link. -dmh 22:44, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

fictional character

No more than the sum of its parts: a character who is fictional. — Hippietrail 18:34, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Does not mean 'a fictional distinguishing feature', 'fictional moral strength', 'a fictional written symbol' (such as those in Dr. Seuss's On Beyond Zebra), etc. but only 'a fictional individual appearing in a literary work.' So it doesn't mean any character that is fictional. Less than the sum of its parts, thus idiomatic. —Muke Tever 19:55, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Muke, I don't think you know what "idiomatic" means. If a combination of any of the senses of the component words gives the meaning, then it is not idiomatic. For almost every phrase in every language there can be more than one combination of senses yet only a small minority of phrases are idiomatic.

Non-idiomatic phrases in your previous post which can be interpreted in multiple ways: not mean, moral strength, written symbol, literary work, doesn't mean, any character, that is, the sum, sum of, its parts, thus idiomatic. Do you really believe Wiktionary will be better if you include "definitions" for all of these phrases just because in your post you intended only one meaning for each?

Somebody lying about their non-existant moral strength, an invented kanji in a work of fiction, and every other combination of fictional and character are completely valid uses of those two words. Find a print dictionary of idioms that includes "fictional character" or do you believe its only opaque when the amount of paper used by a dictionary has no limit? — Hippietrail 21:00, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I said it was idiomatic, not that it was an idiom. If anything I would call it a compound word. The first attestation of “fictional character” in a different meaning from that given that I was able to find after several pages of Google Print hits: “In describing the fictional character of everyday world phenomena, including persons, Tsongkhapa gives two interpretations of the phrase ‘illusion-like.’” in a book by Thupten Jinpa, a Tibetan. (Of course, I'm not sure how 'illusion-like' is a phrase...)

That’s interesting. Are you saying that idiomatic itself has an idiomatic sense besides the literal sense “of/relating to/pertaining to an idiom”?

Look at idiomatic's first sense—no, I didn't add it—or Webster 1913's only sense (compare it to his 'idiom' — our usual sense of idiom is #2, while the sense of 'idiomatic' derives from #1.) —Muke Tever 00:11, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Anyway: “The object is to describe what it takes to use a language properly as a member of society. Part of this is knowing what things to say, when to say them and how to say them in conventional ways. [...] Instead of striving to keep the lexicon small we need to enrich it. In fact we apply the terms ‘lexicon’, ‘lexeme’ (or ‘lexical item’) and ‘lexicalized’ in ways quite different from the grammarian. Now these terms are defined with respect to cultural facts as well as with respect to purely structural criteria. Complex words and compounds, and perhaps phrases, are considered part of the speaker's cultural lexicon if we can show that they have entered the social tradition, that they have attained the status of social institutions, being recognized as conventional ‘names of things’, as ‘terms’ in a set or terminology, as ‘set phrases’, and perhaps as ‘appropriate things to say’. All grammatical strings are not socially equal. We award special status to those strings that are culturally significant, even though they may also be perfectly grammatical. The upshot is an enormous increase in the number of lexemes compared to the ideal grammarian’s dictionary.” Andrew Pawley, as quoted in Making Dictionaries

In the same source is quoted his list of criteria for lexeme/headworthiness, which I have beforehand shared with the IRC channel:

1. The naming test: Can the candidate for a lexeme be referred to in questions or statements such as the following: ‘What is it called?’ ‘It is called X.’ ‘We call it X, but they call it Y.’
2. Membership in a terminological system: [...] Does X encompass other terms; can one say ‘it (dog) is a kind of X (animal)’ (=generic)? Is it a member of a set of similar things; can one say ‘X (a chair) is a kind of Y (furniture)’ (=specific)? Can it be used to show contrast; ‘is it a kind of X (fruit), but not a Y (vegetable)’? Does it have synonyms or antonyms?
3. Customary status: Does the use of the phrase imply certain behavior patterns, values, or sequences of activities that are known by society at large? They represent conventionalized knowledge. For example, expected behavior at the front door is different from at the back door (besides their participation in idioms), indicating that these function as cultural units (lexemes) that are more significant than the sum of the parts. Consider go to the mosque, get off work, take a vacation.
4. Legal status: Some phrases have such status that they are codified in legal usage: driving under the influence, breaking and entering, assault and battery, justifiable homicide. Even so-called ‘primitive’ societies with unwritten languages have categories of this sort for dealing with things like marriage negotiations and litigations over land, property, and adultery.
5. Speech act formulas: Every language has some formulas “which carry out conversational moves” (Pawley 1986:106). For example, excuse me, how are you, y'all have a nice day, etc.
6. Use of acronyms: This is often proof that a multi-word phrase represents concepts that have attained conventionalized or institutionalized status. Consider: VIP, DWI/DUI, IQ, RBI, SAT, ASAP, PTO, PTL, AWOL, BS, RSVP, R and R; in Indonesia: KB, DKI, KK, ABRI, DPRD, GBHN, etc.
7. Single-word synonyms: the only one of its kind ↔ unique.
8. Belonging to a terminological set: This is similar to (2), but focuses more on a pair of antonyms. Consider: tell the truth ↔ tell a lie, take care of ↔ neglect.
9. Base for inflected or derived forms: short temper → short-tempered; ooh and ah → oohing and ahing, Indonesian ke mana → dikemanakannya (‘to where’ → ‘wind up where’).
10. Internal pause unacceptable: The unacceptability of inserting a pause in the middle of clichés, idioms, and compounds is partial indication of their functioning as a unit. Consider the functional differences between bunch of baloney vs. bunch of bananas. One can say two bunches of bananas, but cannot do the same with the figurative sense of bunch of baloney.
11. Inseparability of constituents: Insertion of other material changes the unity or naturalness of a phrasal lexeme. Consider: lead up the garden path. Saying lead up the beautiful garden path shifts it from a figurative to a literal interpretation. This is similar to (10) above.
12. Ambiguity as to whether it should be written as a single word: whatchamacallit, thingamajig, man-in-the-street, oneupmanship.
13. Conventionally reduced pronunciation: bosun (boatswain), won't, can't, o'clock, Newfoundland, Christmas, Worchestershire, thruppence (three pence) etc.
14. Conventionally truncated forms: Widespread occurrence of shortened forms often indicate their role as a lexeme in the language: exam(ination), rad(ical), ex-con(vict), con(vict), con(fidence man), con(fidence trick), ex(-husband/-wife), pro and con, etc.
15. Omission of headword: The modifier stands metonymically for the whole: She had an oral (examination), He had a physical (examination), A short (circuit) cut off the (electrical) power.
16. Omission of final constituents: This often implies conventionalized knowledge: If you can’t beat ’em..., A stitch in time..., I haven’t the faintest (idea). These elided forms are often marked by peculiar intonation.
17. Stress and intonation patterns: Different languages give different phonological clues for what is seen to function as a unit. English often uses stress and intonation. Government jargon is often coined through these means. Consider political matters memorandum.
18. Invariable constituents or grammatical frame: The demanding and rhetorical Who do you think you are? does not have the same impact in the future. Kick the bucket does not mean the same when put in the passive. The thought had crossed my mind, and he took the law into his own hands are unnatural in the passive. Compare also stripped down formulaic sentences easier said than done, spoken like a man! There are also syntactically irregular or archaic idioms like easy does it, no go, no way, be that as it may, (she) wants in, once upon a time.
19. Use of definite article on first mention: In English this can indicate the conventionalized nature of the ‘object’, showing the speaker assumes the identity is understood by the addressee: the fire department, the foreign legion, the eight ball.
20. Writing conventions: Where there is a written tradition these may provide clues to perceived status as a unit. Capitals may indicate lexemes that are not typical proper nouns: Third World, Big Bang, Inner City. Beware that where a society has the luxury of supporting a literary community, some writers manipulate the use of capitals for unconventional purposes. Quotation marks may also indicate unitary status: he was considered a ‘bad boy’. Orally, some speakers use so-called or a preceding pause to mark an equivalent to quote marks.
21. Unpredictability of form-meaning relation in semantic idioms: kick the bucket, chew the fat, shoot the breeze.
22. Arbitrary selection of one meaning: Notice that button hole is a hole FOR putting buttons THROUGH, whereas bullet hole is a hole MADE BY bullets, post hole is a hole FOR setting posts IN, etc.
23. Use in ritual language of parallelism: This is a special case of (2) and (8). Ritual language in parallelisms is widespread. It is found, for example, in Biblical Hebrew and many Austronesian languages, particularly in eastern Indonesia (Fox 1988). Existence as a paired entity in this context is sufficient for justifying its status as a conventionalized unit, and hence a lexeme.

Generally the only criterion I see used here for multi-word entries is #21. I do know that you are personally against some of these, but as I've mentioned before I still don't agree that being an idiom or not is the best criterion to fixate on. —Muke Tever 03:01, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with everything Pawley says here and still believe phrases such as fictional character, Egyptian pyramid, radioactive material, item of furniture, leaf storm, and whichever others I've nominated on this basis to be unsuitable for a dictionary. Perhaps you should contact him for his views on a list of our most controversial terms for clarification. I think this is one of the most important issues for Wiktionary to decide. How inclusive should it be? I truly believe that large numbers of such terms will mislead ad confuse people trying to improve their understanding of English, particularly children and speakers of other languages.

While it seems that I'm sometimes seen as a radical on Wiktionary I think that embracing such terms is far too radical a break from traditional dictionaries. We need to decide whether we're to be a traditional dictionary or one of these new-fangled all-embracing dictionaries some contributors seem to want. If people choose the latter I believe those entries should be marked in some way so as not to bewilder people who are looking for a traditional dictionary. — Hippietrail 16:36, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

A big problem is there doesnt seem to be any consistent idea of which out of several pretty-much contradictory kinds of dictionary Wikt wants to be. I know from studying other languages that I would much prefer a dictionary that tells me the idiomatic way to say things in a language; suppose I'm a Spanish speaker, I would want it to give me the set term "fictional character" and not leave me in the lurch to invent something non-'idiomatic like "personage of fiction" (after the Spanish equivalent personaje de ficción.) —Muke Tever 00:11, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, yes! I guess I have the same perspective from the opposite side, teaching English as a second language and wondering what some of my students were thinking in their essays. I'm not going to write down 20+ points, but basically there are certain combinations that just click, fictional character and financial stability being two examples. On the flip side, I don't suppose someone has already deleted bookshop as nothing more than a sum of its parts? Davilla 21:16, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Compounds which are written as one word are counted as one word, same goes for hyphenated compounds. This is of course the best sign that a term has entered the lexicon and is beyond dispute by any of our contributors. Two-word spelling variants of such terms are of course also always allowed. — Hippietrail 14:28, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Sufficient but not necessary, as you well know. Placing some of my earlier sarcasm aside, the boundary of what constitutes a word is of morphic and cyclic nature from what I understand of linguistics. It's quite variable between languages (please Germanthinken) and in my opinion more an artifact of language as it is written. Insomuch as "insomuch" is a word, along with "nonetheless" and "notwithstanding", the spacing doesn't add as much weight to the argument. Alright? ;-) Davilla 18:36, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that it's accurate to say that #21 is the only one of the criteria that we would apply. The list is nevertheless a useful set of guidelines, but few of those criteria can act alone in determining. I certainly don't think that it's enough to say that a particular combination of words occurs frequently. There needs to be more than that. Living examples will be the basis for determining whether a lexeme should be recognized.

I said that #21, being an idiom, is the only one that is applied, because otherwise it would be entirely insensible to nominate it for deletion solely on the grounds that it is not an idiom.

A dictionary that tells you the idiomatic way to say things is being prescriptive. How we handle personaje de ficción is interesting. The Spanish speaker's intuitive solution would sound strange to the English speaker, but he would understand it. Nevertheless, the issue there probably has more to do with the structure of the two languages, and how generally de in Romance languages is translated. "Of" is technically correct, but there is a broader patter that applies which is also linked to the English practice of having the adjective precede the noun. I would, however, find "fictional personage" a perfectly acceptable alternative that would break stylistic monotony in someone's writing.

A dictionary that tells you the way things are said by native speakers of English is being descriptive. That is what the whole conflict between description and prescription is, the difference between everyday, idiomatic language, and language augmented by rules imposed from without. "Fictional personage" is acceptable English but is not a set term in the way that 'fictional character' is, and someone, say, who wrote literary criticism only saying "fictional personage" and never "fictional character" would be most unusual. (Incidentally, "fictional personage" is even rarer in raw google hits than the whole phrase "has a fictional character" discussed below.)

What kind of dictionary we want is an important question. There are some major questionss that influence that. How prescriptive can we be? What are the proportional roles of a translating and an own language dictionary? What is the relative importance of the historical language, and modern developments in the use of the language? In the interpretation of text, how much weight to we put on context and connotation, much of which can only be translated with great difficulty? A reasonably competent writer will give new meanings to words without the need to have them appear in a dictionary, and his readers will often understand the implicit subtleties. There would be a tremendous difference between the sentences, "John is a fictional character," and "John has a fictional character."

Is that claim verifiable, or is it Original Research based on intuition? Querying the Google corpus for 'has a fictional character' (where 'has' is a content verb, i.e. unlike "not since X has a fictional character done Y", which appears to be unusually common fsr):

• It is documentary in style, but it has a fictional character at its center.
• ...l'Acadie, the virtual nation that has a fictional character as national icon...
• I'm sorry honey, but surly almost everyone on this forum has a fictional character... el gilko? Either that or some very cruel parents to give their children such strange names.
• Except it has a fictional character in it.
• Perhaps he has a fictional character called Roy G Biv?
• Each wing of this alliance has a fictional character with his own elaborate plot line devoted to it:
• I am writing a children's book that has a fictional character who wanted an American Flyer...
• Chances are that every family has a fictional character or two to grow up with and through the years some will make their way to the written page.
• ...the fictional drama has a fictional character facing a moral dilemma...
• HSTP as its integral compnent has a fictional character called ÔSawaliramÕ to whom children are encouraged to send their queries...
• ...he even has a fictional character (Grandfather Twilight) endorsing him in The form of a press release on his website...
• In "The Greening of Mars" (1984), with Micheal Allaby, he has a fictional character, Travers Foxe, launching rockets to Mars...
• ...the list, released in this week's magazine, also has a fictional character, Arli$$ Michaels, agent, at No. 100.
• A fictional movie that makes all the scientific sense of a Wile E. Coyote battle against the roadrunner has a fictional character that looks like Cheney, and that fictional character doesn't believe in something.
• In "The Poisonwood Bible," novelist Barbara Kingsolver has a fictional character in 1960 overhear official US plans...
• ...that biography was just called Dutch, has a fictional character in it who actually is Morris...
• I imagine when one has a fictional character as a hero, what one is actually doing is admiring The possibility of what "could be,"...
• The violence in this movie actually happened to a person. Any other movie has a fictional character, and the violence doesnt serve a purporse, except to be entertaining.
• Each player has a fictional character, called a Player Character (or “PC”)

Now, it is true that *occasionally* the word is used in (only) one other meaning:

• Showing that his game has a fictional character, his Q's couldn't reign over Lindy's J 9, which hit for two pair.
• This information, which is not found elsewhere, has a fictional character and seems to have derived from a distortion of the traditions on the Jewish services on the Temple Mount. (in a translation from a Hebrew book, may be representing Hebrew turns of speech)
• In 1 C. 7:7 it has a fictional character. (in a translation from a German book, same caveat as for the previous)
• The writer is usually forced to be highly selective in the presentation of the story. Even the most complete ethnography still has a fictional character,... [6]

If the Ultimate Wiktionary supporters ever stop trying to be everything to everybody, and present some working software it will go a long way toward dealing with the translations issue. This would allow us to devote more of our energy to the other questions.

Amen!

I think that evidence remains the most important feature to a credible dictionary. I believe that everything here should be verifiable. For common words a reference to a well-known dictionary may be enough. For a composite term like "fictional character" we really should have evidence that would establish what makes it more special than its component words. Eclecticology 20:05, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

As far as well-known dictionaries, fictional character is in WordNet. Anyway, as for the headworthiness criteria posted, it meets #1 (what's it called? a w:fictional character), #2 (according to wordnet, a fictional character is a kind of imaginary being, a protagonist is a kind of fictional character, etc.), and #22 (the meaning arbitrarily selected being: an imaginary person such as may appear in a story). —Muke Tever 04:17, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Despite the heading for this section, this discussion is not really about fictional character. Though I would prefer deleting it, it is still a marginal matter for me. Be that as it may, a number of other disputed terms have been mentioned in the course of this discussion, and that suggests that a much wider issue is at stake. That wider discussion should probably take place on an other page, The issue would be less about what the uncontroversial meaning of these expressions, than about where they merit being a headword.

I saw prescriptivism embodied in your comment, "I would much prefer a dictionary that tells me the idiomatic way to say things in a language." This implieas that there is a unique way to deal with the translation. "The idiomatic way" suggests a unique solution that gives no choice where in fact there are alternatives such as the one that I suggested. Prescribing specific terminology can be just as prescriptive as putting it in terms of some set of inviolable rules. -Ec

Please, everybody sign your comments. I cannot see who holds which position! For me the proof that fictional character is not idiomatic is that even though it may be the most common way (I haven't researched it), there are certainly other ways to say it which I also do not count as warranting dictionary articles: fictitious character (530,000 Google s/pl/misspellings) - which actually has an entry in thefreedictionary.com , made-up character (44,300 Google s/pl), and invented character (25,400 Google s/pl). Another is that the meaning is not hurt by inserting a word between fictional and character. Some I found: fictional Balkan characters, fictional holiday character, fictional, paranormal character, fictional, animated character, fictional composite character, fictional, unrealistic character, fictional, mustachioed character, fictional, archetypal character, fictional Cowboy character, fictional Kilburn character. These all break the "Inseparability of constituents" rule above plus those with commas also break the "Internal pause unacceptable" rule.

While the fact that fictional character is usual may be interesting, it is specialist information which would be more at home in a dictionary of collocations. These actually exist and I have seen several marketed to Japanese learners of English. I am in favour of enhancing Wiktionary with collocation information, but creation of headwords which mislead the casual reader into thinking such phrases are set in stone is not a good way to do it. — Hippietrail 19:28, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, about the missing signature. Some of us who do regularly sign our posts will still occasionally and inintentionally miss doing so. That was a strong argument. One more term that could be on your list is literary character. Eclecticology 05:01, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

There's some great insight. These common phrases seem to be of interest to a number of people, so let's approach this a different way by rephrasing the question. How would one go about creating a wikified dictionary of collocations? By including synonyms, translations and so forth, Wiktionary is already a number of other things. I'm sure if we work this out we could find a way to include common phrases in some fashion. The objection seems to be that "fictional character" doesn't deserve a dictionary entry, one that defines the term. Well, maybe it doesn't, but that wouldn't mean it should be ignored altogether. These and other common phrases are, in the opinion expressed, integral to language in the same way as, or even to a greater extent than, some of the sayings.

Here's a better example, taken straight from my Chinese students' work. Not knowing how to express themselves in English, several apparently entered a common Chinese word into their translators and came up with "conflagration". Now, conflagration—that is, its translation—may be quite common in Chinese, but this poor English speaker had to look it up. Turns out what they meant was forest fire, a pretty obvious sum of words to us but, despite having both words in their vocabulary, not to them. And I don't think it's the fault of the translator either, unless anyone would suggest that Dante should have written about forest fires instead of his inferno.

Here's the dilemma. If someone were to look up "conflagration" from the translation... or however they get there, there's got to be a page, and on that page, if Wiktionary is worth its weight in kilobytes, are the synonyms "inferno" and "forest fire". Under strict rules, the latter will always be dimmed red because there can be no "forest fire" page because it's too obvious. Now I don't mind a work in progress, but I have considerable objection to the idea that scattered links should deliberately be permanently broken. Either it shouldn't be linked at all, which sounds like a really bad idea in terms of maintaining what should or shouldn't be linked, or there should be something there. Now whatever's there doesn't have to be an entry. It could be a meta command letting the server know that the double-bracket designation for this string isn't really a link. It could be a link to the separate words in some sort of skeleton entry. But it all comes back to that question of a dictionary of collocations and how best to (externalize or) integrate that, which until someone frames a better question is what's really at the heart of this. Davilla 18:09, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I think best practice for collocations is to look at some actual print collocation dictionaries. Unfortunately I do not currently have access to any. One thing we might think of doing is expanding our types of entries. For terms which would belong in a translating dictionary, rhyming dictionary, thesaurus, phrasebook, or collocation dictionary - but not in a "regular" dictionary, we would need to leave out the defintion section of course but also we would need to mark it in some way as being a "specialist" entry - or whatever we might like to call such things. We might even think about changing our headings structure with one for each type of dictionary - but that would be an awful lot of work. But we need to think more about our headings and their structure anyway, since the Flemish "I love you" (below) also warrants coverage of some kind but doesn't need a definition and doesn't fit into our current system of headings.

Having said that, there could be a case for forest fire since we don't really use that term in Australia and our transparent term bushfire gets entries in the dictionaries of other countries, sometimes being marked as Australian. We might also list brushfire / brush fire as a synonym for bushfire but not for forest fire.

Another thing re the Chinese learners of English. The problem could be due to the dictionaries they're currently using. I don't know much about Chinese but Japanese bilingual dictionaries have a poor reputation and are famous for just this type of thing. One example is the often-heard "very terrible". Also English teaching practices in Japan are not good with total emphasis on passing examinations and zero emphasis on conversational skills.

PS I'm happy for this conversation to be moved to a better place... — Hippietrail 20:58, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

DELETE -- Dipping my oar into the fire... (Yes, I just made that phrase up. Please don't add it as a word.) If you can look up fictional and character and understand what fictional character means, then you don't need a separate definition. --shark 23:54, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

environome

I entered this today after running across it in a recent issue of Popular Science, in quotes. I'm nominating it here as a test case — I won't be upset if the entry is kept. The interesting point here is that the term is quite well documented. I'm sure we could dig up the appearance in PS, and the links I pulled in look eminently respectable.

However, none of them really shows the term in use. They all show it sort of "proposed for use." Further, there are two main proposed meanings, and in once case, a host of other proposed terms. Strictly speaking, "environome" and similar terms are protologisms. More to the point, they appear to fail the basic test of "would someone run across them and want to know that they meant?" as, as far as I can tell, they are defined wherever they appear.

So the question is whether to keep the term as a main entry, or move it to LOP and delete the main entry. Certainly it would be good to keep the links around, in case the term is later found to be in independent use, as they shed light on the origins of the term. While our CFI (particularly the one-year guideline) discourage us from rushing to be the first to define a new term, recording first instances is an entirely different matter.

Here are some alternatives

• Keep as main entry: The entry is already formatted as a main entry, together with some quotations (though independent quotations are still needed). LOP is not really set up for this kind of entry.
• Keep the entry but disclaim it as weakly attested.
• Put the entry into another namespace but keep it as fully formatted. I believe this has been considered and rejected for protologisms in general.
• Put the entry on LOP and keep a record of the citations somewhere.

I don't have a strong favorit among these. I would, however, like to see whatever we come up with applied uniformly to such weakly attested terms, whether they appear in respected journals or on someone's blog. -dmh 15:13, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

• I would keep this on its own merits, since it's appropriately referenced with strong attestations from credible sources. This should in no way be taken as a back-door rationale for accepting the evidence of blogs. An additional reference on Google Print itself contains references which suggest pushing back the history of the term to 1990, but I don't have easy access to those publications to allow me to check that out. It is thus apparently not a protologism. I would, however, remove the definition that purports to be from psychology; the titles of the referenced publication do not automatically imply that the term is about psychology. Eclecticology 04:53, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Why would referencing blogs require back-door justification? As documents of actual usage, blogs are generally unimpeachable, and given durable archiving, they are easily referenceable. As far as I can tell, your real objection stems from the cumulative effect of three very arguable assumptions

1. Blogs don't document carefully proofread "proper" usage.
2. Proper usage can be defined without resorting to arbitrarily enforced subjective criteria.
3. Wiktionary should only document "proper" usage.

Given these assumptions, it's not surprising that a printed source would be considered "verifiable". If you're trying to verify that "environome" is "proper English" and you assume that academic journals are exemplars of proper usage, then of course this is a very verifiable and credible entry.

As to the psyochological sense, I am relying on a bit more than the title of the referenced publication. If you read one more sentence from the quote about DNA triplets, you'll see "Another important factor in the slow progress towards understanding the environment has been the traditional tendency of psychology to ignore genetics or to consider environmental influence as in opposition to genetics." The article is quite clearly talking about the "environome" in the context of psychology.

The only usage I turn up in print is in "Cross-Cultural Differences in Perspectives on the Self" (ISBN 0803213336): "Evolutionary psychologists have repeatedly pointed out that enduring human psychological mechanisms and behavioral strategies for solving recurrent adaptative problems are produced or incarnated as the result of interactions between genes and the environment (physical and sociocultural), or genome and environome." (any typos are mine). Again, the term is glossed and, as far as I can tell, never used elsewhere in the book. If the sentence had instead read "Evolutionary psychologists have repeatedly pointed out that enduring human psychological mechanisms and behavioral strategies for solving recurrent adaptative problems are produced or incarnated as the result of interactions between the genome and the environome." with no further explanation of "environome", I would be much more convinced that the term has entered current use on its own (albeit within a small and specialized community, but that's another discussion). -dmh 05:52, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

florp

Both were laboriously contributed by User:NoodleMan. Smells like rubbish to me though. Polyglot 22:05, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

• Delete. Eclecticology 02:41, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
• Deleted. SemperBlotto 16:12, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

And added again. Not sure about the interjection sense, but this is clearly used as a metasyntactic variable, albeit not as famously as foo, bar and baz. Out of curiosity, was there any particular reason for deleting this? -dmh 16:49, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

The most recent deletion contained translations including a purportedly Spanish word that simply can't be pronounced in the language. I understand the differences of opinion here, and though I'm infrequently vocal in supporting you I do agree generally with your position. In fact the current definition of this word is another matter, but the previous defs were by any view rubbish and rightly deleted. Davilla 17:04, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, it doesn't mean anything, and by the appearance of this and his other contribution NoodleMan had no intention of being serious. Eclecticology 03:48, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

What I was after was the reason for deleting the article instead of fixing it. That said, I don't really have a problem with deleting entries that start life as rubbish and restarting afresh. On the other hand, I tend to treat such entries as a chance to get the real story and record it before everyone forgets the word existed. In this case, it's interesting to see that folks use this one as a metasyntactic variable. Myself, I tend to lose count after "foo, bar, spam" (itself considerably rarer than the more usual "foo, bar, baz"). But I digress. -dmh 05:02, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted again. Eclecticology 02:40, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

ik zie u graag

Supposed to be Flemish - but has no definition. SemperBlotto 16:10, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Perfectly good Dutch/Flemish. The "u" may also be captialized, and it's really a whole sentence, as Ik zie U graag.. It would literally translate to "I like to see you," but I don't think that's really a good idiomatic translation. So ...

• I'll remove the RFD, as it clearly meets CFI.
• I would love to add a definition, but I can't provide a good one.
• So I'll leave it as a stub so that one of our more fluent Dutch/Flemish contributors can fill it in.
• We should pick a main spelling among "ik zie u graag", "Ik zie u graag", "ik zie U graag" and "Ik zie U graag". -dmh 16:23, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

• Pointless to keep if no English meaning is given. If kept the first word should definitely be capitalized since this is a whole sentence. Eclecticology 17:06, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
• This seems like a candidate for Category:Phrasebook, other than that are we becoming a translation database of sentences now? — Hippietrail 16:58, 30 September 2005 (UTC)
• Since this discussion is still open, is this a phrase, a sentence, or as Ec believes, an idiom? Or instead of selecting which is accurate, how about going with what sounds best? — Hippietrail 01:55, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
• That's a fair enough question. We have this saying in several languages; several languages. Several call it an expression; one even calls it a noun but that can't be right; several more avoid calling it anything. Structurally it is correct to say that it is a sentence, but I don't see what good that does us. I don't think that we have ever used "sentence" in a heading that way before, but that alone is not a very strong argument. Many of the underlying issues for this are not that different from what we have in relation to fictional character. Eclecticology 06:43, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

• Delete. I agree with Hippietrail, this is a sentence and not a set phrase. It may have different subjects, different objects, different tenses and moods, and so on. It belongs as an example of usage on the graag page and on the zien page, but it does not merit a page of its own. —Stephen 08:36, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

  Personally, I have no problem with that solution. The I love you page shows this as a Flemish translation for that phrase. To be consistent we should delete that page and all of its extant translations as well. Can we do that without raising a shitstorm of sentimentality? ;-) Eclecticology 03:30, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Leaving aside strange aversions to incomplete entries for well-documented phrases — perhaps stemming from the misapprehension that Wiktionary is analogous to the OED as opposed to Murray's scriptorium, or perhaps from a more fundamental failure to recognize a Wiki as a work in progress — I would tend to agree that this would be better filed under graag zien, from which one can spin "Ik zie U graag", "hij ziet haar niet graag" and so forth by the usual rules of Dutch grammar. Deleting the phrasebook category wholesale or in part should, of course, be done (if at all) after due deliberation, and not in a fit of pique by any particular party. -dmh 04:56, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

October

7/7

Where has this been used in the way suggested? Eclecticology 07:29, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

• Our friends redirect it to w:7 July 2005 London bombings. I don't think that the second definition s used though. SemperBlotto 07:33, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

I've not heard the term used in the second sense, so I have commented it out. Otherwise the entry is fine. — Paul G 09:23, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

The entry existing in Wiktionary is a filthy disgrace. 7/7 had none of the impact on people's day-to-day lives as 9/11. To imply that it has similar magnitude is an insult to the thousands that died and the rest of humanity that witnessed it. DELETE. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 13:31, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Umm if we were inventing words we might take such things into account. But we're not, we're documenting words as they are used by people. I have seen this used just after the bombings but I don't know if it is continuing to be used. If it's being used we keep it. If we delete it we have dozens of other filthy and disgraceful words we should also censor. — Hippietrail 16:16, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Indeed. My personal offense aside, this term is clearly being proposed for political reasons; therefore even if a citation is found, the surrounding history is relevant. England has not been a stranger to acts of terrorism; the US by-and-large was. Therefore to assert that the two are somehow synonymous is far-fetched to begin with. The assertion that the event profoundly changed the way a society functions is the fundamental basis of why 9/11 became a common term. The same cannot be said for the England event, which did not seem to have any of the same far-reaching consequences. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 22:29, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Connel, would you take another look at the article. The etymology says that the term is formed by analogy with 9/11. There is no suggestion in the definition that the two events are in any way comparable. I have heard this term used by newsreaders here in the UK and also in print in newspapers, so it is in use. Whether it is used outside the media is another matter. And by the way, finding an article offensive is a reason to amend it if necessary but not to delete it. — Paul G 16:16, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Paul. I have looked at the entry again. The entry on en.wikt: 9/11 would normally have been shot on sight for incorrect punctuation; the historical events surrounding it are what made it a linguistic exception to the rule. I know of no world-changing historical consequences of 7/7 that would merit such an exception to its entry here. The very construct of number slash number (month/day) makes it a direct comparison to 9/11. That is still true now, even after the entry has been re-worked and toned down. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 06:51, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Racliv

I came across this user's contributions last night - 80% seemed to be deliberate misspellings. Those that were obvious I deleted (initially I was changing them to "Common misspelling of..." but these do not seem to be common misspellings.) I am now suspect of the various trademark entries this same user entered (which seem to be the remainder of his/her contributions.) Should these all just be deleted? --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 14:19, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

meef

Seems a nonce word. Ent. dubious see talk. Rich Farmbrough 13:42, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

I can't vouch for the senses currently on that page (tho I discussed the mongoose sense earlier on the talk page), but I'll mention again I do have logs of the use of 'meef' on IRC over the past few years by about ten different people as an interjection of strangled surprise. —Muke Tever 02:01, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Scifiintel

These include new words yoog and yooniget and modifications to mow and teh. I can't find any evidence. SemperBlotto 10:16, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

• deleted and reverted SemperBlotto 12:57, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Portal:portal

What's all this about then? SemperBlotto 22:15, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

The {{wikisister}} stuff at the bottom of Main Page is supposed to be standardized at some point. Wikicommons (and the squid http servers that serve those pages) have a hard time caching all the Wikimedia logos when there are many varients. With only six or seven images, (at three different on-the-fly resizings) cached, the web servers that serve these pages should be much faster (as their most common images are cached in memory; if 1GB less memory is used, 1GB more memory is available for other frequently hit images.) Note that this will ultimately be a performance gain only for the squid servers dedicated to serving images...which are by far the worst off of the bunch of them.

This looks like someone's test, with that goal in mind. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 10:09, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

• So, do we keep it all, or lose it? SemperBlotto 13:01, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I think it would be prudent to keep this for a couple months. In June/July, Paddy and I discussed (or mentioned) a six month goal, but I'm not sure how much progress he has made. I have rarely been back on commons since then. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 18:00, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

unauthorized copy, file sharing

Like many other terms under recent discussion, this is not idiomatic. One is merly a copy which is unauthorized, the other is the sharing of files and thus no more need to be defined than red car. A dictionary is for words (acutally lexemes), these are concepts. — Hippietrail 02:13, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't care about unauthorized copy, but file sharing is also (two million+ times in Google) spelled filesharing and thus I'd keep it under "ambiguity as to whether it should be written as a single word". —Muke Tever 23:10, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

unauthorized copy is not much more than the sum of its parts - I'm not bothered about it either way. I have wikified file sharing, linked to -pedia, and removed the RfD tag. Keep. SemperBlotto 07:29, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Please don't remove rfd tags until the discussions have clearly ended. "Filesharing" as a single word certainly doesn't ring true to me. It would even bring out my inner prescriptivist! But I can't think of any English speaking people who would write it that way. In fact it reminded me of the international English so common on the internet where I often find terms like informations, infos, songtext, etc. But 2 million, granted, is a massive number of hits, even you think about the term being used this way in titles, URLs, etc. Again, Google is our friend. Doing a plain Google search I get 2,480,000 hits. Breakdown of the first page: term only used in link, English, Dutch, English, English, Dutch, URL, German, URL, German.

Let's try restricting the language: Dutch - 138,000; German - 2,420,000; English - still 1,860,000 - which doesn't really add up... But again looking through the first page there are mostly URLs, email addresses, "FileSharing", pages which don't use the term but are linked via it from elsewhere. Of the remainder a brief look at a sample shows that only a smaller portion of these use the term in a regular English sentence, a small enough proportion that I can comfortably expect them to be misspelings in international English.

This is a very popular concept and the usual or only way of mentioning it, but it is not a lexeme. — Hippietrail 14:16, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

• Try googling "filesharing service" [7]. These don't look like international misspellings to me (although they do look wrong). Kappa 14:56, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

The single-word spelling of "filesharing" is actually quite a lot older than either of these two hazy "senses" we list. On Usenet it is used as early as 1985 in regard to NFS, and thence to other kinds of LAN networking. I'm surprised that it gets 32,300 hits on Usenet for English only. I'm also surprised that most of the hits are still in the personal network sense (AppleTalk, Ethernet, etc) which seems quite different to what is found on the World Wide Web where most of the talk seems to be about the craze began by Napster. It's looking more like a word but it still seems incorrect to me. I wouldn't like to suggest people to use the 1-word spelling in an essay to be marked by a teacher. But I would like to hear the opinions of some of our other big/old/important/regular contributors. — Hippietrail 00:32, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

My votes: Keep and keep. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 03:19, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Hi Connel, please belive that I don't want to be facetious, but I wonder if you could give us some example phrases that you feel either are not idiomatic or do not need entries. I'm just trying to get a feel for how people think on this important dictionary-making issue. — Hippietrail 15:38, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't know how I missed this comment earlier. Why do you want to beat around the bush? Why not just start a vote, and announce it in BP? Last time I checked, what is deleted and what is kept is not up to me alone. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 04:46, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't think I'm beating around the bush at all. I'm saying what I feel. I am amazed that so few people have so far voiced their opinions. I want to get a feel for what people think Wiktionary should be. Should we follow the long tradition of Oxford, Webster, and many others, or should we follow the recent example of Wordnet - generally your only source of citations when defending the inclusion of transparent phrases.

I'm also disappointed to see that you chose to give no examples. This is likely to given some the impression that you would embrace every phrase, and reject none, no matter how obvious. — Hippietrail 15:47, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Such an impression would be inaccurate. I did not supply examples for several reasons: 1) your question is too open ended, 2) the community's opinion matters far more than mine, 3) new catch-phrase nouns (such as unauthorized copy) are time-sensitive catch phrases. Any examples I give could later become what I consider valid (given at least a year, or in this case much longer) to assert themselves as common terminology with subtle connotations or specific meaning, as these do. Oh, and I suppose 4) that conversation is (and belongs on) WS:BP#Experiment format for translating dictionary entries for non idiomatic phrases. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 04:19, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

The only reason why I added unauthorized copy was because I thought that copyright infringement was a central part of the term, but that wasn't implied exactly in the term. Others, however, might think that it is implied or that copyright isn't necessarily part of the term. file sharing I think speaks for itself. Citizen Premier 03:43, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Delete unauthorized copy because I don't believe it's a set phrase. My mind had to consider the different forms of a "copy" before it settled on an idea (several actually) that made sense. Keep file sharing because it is a set phrase and treated as a single concept. When I hear "file sharing" my mind doesn't decompose the phrase into its parts to rationalize what it means. Rather, it triggers an immediate reaction, conjuring up images of networks, security settings and the like. Davilla 13:09, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Delete and Delete. I agree with hippietrail. These things don't need to be defined any more than 'red car' or 'broadcast television'. They are both clearly the sum of their parts. A "file sharing application" is an application that shares files. The fact that some people are intimately familiar with many different types of applications that share files doesn't make the phrase into something more than the sum of it's parts. — Fudoreaper 04:41, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

pwn, pwned

Obscure leet. — Paul G 09:22, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

wtf? That's one of the most common leet words out there, and even exists in the speech (yes, speech) of people who don't use leet. Keep. —Muke Tever 23:07, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

• What happened to pwn? "I will pwn you" gets 4,180 google hits. [8] Kappa 14:52, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
  • Strong keep. Whoever hasn't heard of pwned should get a life (right…). Jon Harald Søby 18:20, 8 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep. But most of the stuff on pwned should be moved to the infinitive pwn. 163.1.140.68 12:15, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

• Keep an integral part of l33t, without a doubt should be kept.MGSpiller 01:19, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• Keep, as per Muke, Monsieur 163.1.140.68, et al. That is, the anon is right that much of the content of pwned should be moved to pwn, and Muke is correct that it is indeed spoken. However, it is pronounced in a variety of ways, as "owned", "powned" (the pronunciation which is currently there is the American transcription of this), "pawned", and even "pooned" as if it were Welsh. Other common forms are pwnt (pronounced all of the aforementioned ways, but ending unvoiced, as the spelling suggests) and, similarly, ownt. I'm very surprised this was even nominated, to be honest. --Wytukaze 18:07, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

BTW, our policy on L33T is that we don't include L33T words per se, but we do include those that are used outside L33T contexts. This is analogous to a word borrowed from a conlang when we don't include the conlang itself. All this, of course, is subject to the usual rules for attestation. E.g., the infamous pr0n got in because it was shown that the term is used in English with no other L33T-isms around. Nearly all L33T terms will not meet this test. -dmh 20:03, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Then maybe this should be in rfv? Eclecticology 19:00, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

boiled egg

Yet again, a phrase which has no idiomatic meaning besides the sum of its parts: an egg which has been boiled. — Hippietrail 00:52, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep! It is hard for me to believe this as a serious nomination. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 03:16, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Of course Keep. I have adjusted the definition to show what type of egg is normally used, and added some related terms. SemperBlotto 07:52, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep, absolutely. The variety in the translations given so far indicates that this phrase is idiomatic. — Paul G 09:53, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree the translations are interesting, but that would make a case for keeping this only as a translating dictionary entry - it does not need a definition - it is an egg which is boiled and nothing more. The fact that the translations are interesting has nothing to do with idiomaticity of the English phrase. — Hippietrail 15:06, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

But "an egg which is boiled" would include a crocodile egg boiled in tar - NOT what I want for breakfast. Keep. SemperBlotto 15:33, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep this and all multi-word nouns that HT considers to not be idioms, even though they are idiomatic. Translation entries are deleted here on en.wikt:, so what is proposed is not a viable solution. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 15:40, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I can't find definitions for some of your idiomatic language so am unable to understand what you are saying. What do serious nomination, normally used, related term, crocodile egg, multi-word noun, translation entry, and viable solution mean?. It is hard for me to believe these are not defined! (-; — Hippietrail 15:50, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Um, three people comment in direct opposition to you, so you remove the content of the entry? Is your intent to make the entry mangle my parser, leaving it forever on my automated cleanup list of "definition-less" entries? Roll it back. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 05:06, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I changed the article and opened that Beer Parlour thread before any of the replies here. In the Beer Parlour I have introduced this as an experiment, much like your ranking experiment, which for all I know also "mangles" your parser, but which I don't see you complaining about. I am very much in favour of being parseable as you know. But we are open to experimentation and improvement and parser-compatibility is not and has never been our first priority. — Hippietrail 15:47, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm questioning the timing of opening it in Beer Parlor, in the manner you did, to justify removing real content from this entry, while under discussion here. While Wiktionary as a whole is open to experimentation and improvement there is a long tradition of leaving items under discussion alone. Anyone looking at the content-less entry now must be wondering why it garnered strong support initially. Again, the two-word noun boiled egg (used with the adjectives hard and soft especially) should be kept. (After being restored to it's previous state.) --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 02:24, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Hmm well maybe we need a template to tag articles under discussion in the Beer Parlour. I apologize if I'm breaking some standing policy that I wasn't aware of. I can't see how you say the entry is content-less. It currently has the same content as any print monolingual dictionary I've seen (no definition), combined with the content of many bilingual dictionaries (the translations). — Hippietrail 16:12, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

As for your grammatical analysis I think you're quite wrong in think there is a boiled egg which is soft. It is an egg which is soft-boiled. At least the online AHD and Merriam-Webster also contain hard-boiled and also soft-boil and hard-boil as verbs back formed from the two-letter adjectives. — Hippietrail 16:12, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to note that a helpful soul has "corrected" your "Phrasebook" resulting again in an unparsable entry (because you removed the most important content.) --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 00:22, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

alot

From Bartleby's online usage guide: "...keep in mind that alot is still considered an error in print..."

The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993: "alot is a Substandard spelling of a lot, as in She sees a lot of him these days. Alot is increasingly found in Informal correspondence and student writing, but it has as yet received no sanction in print except on the op-ed and sports pages."

Guide to Grammar and Style by Jack Lynch: "Alot. Nope: a lot, two words. (That's a lot meaning much, many, often, and so on. There's another word, the verb allot, which means "to distribute or apportion"; but the adjectival or adverbial phrase a lot is always two words.)"

Cambridge Guide to English Usage: "alot This amalgam of a and lot is still regarded as non-standard..."

etc. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 03:33, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Gosh, should I say it again? “I didn't think terms had to be standard in any way to be included — just attested. Right?” —Muke Tever 03:36, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

This however, is pretty universally prescribed against. Next up: ain't. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 04:40, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Doesn't matter. Removing it is prescriptivist-POV and does a disservice to any second-language learners who run across the word and hope to look it up in our dictionary. —Muke Tever 04:52, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

• We should be able to keep this as long as we show it as a documented common misspelling. That documentation is usually what's missing. I support a descriptive dictionary as much as anyone, but one can take that too far when one has to allow any old misspelling on the grounds that somebody has used it. Eclecticology 09:27, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
  • I agree (twice in one day!). I'm going to speculate here that, since I often take strong positions on including material that might otherwise be excluded for various reasons, I'm sometimes perceived as advocating including absolutely anything without any disclaimer at all. Conversely, it's quite possible that some of your positions on particular issues that have come up have made you appear more prescriptivist than you really are. As I've said elsewhere, I have no problem with saying things like "this is not accepted by editors of major print media." or "the following guides recommend against this". This is a much different statement from "this is incorrect", and a much more useful statement. -dmh 21:06, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I've marked it as a misspelling. It is not even non-standard (which would give it an element of credibility) - it is just a misspelling. However, I think it should be included because it is very common (nearly 20 million Google hits as of today's date, although some of these are no doubt for "allot" or have some other meaning). — Paul G 11:19, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, on what basis is it "not even non-standard" ? One of the quoted usage guides proscribing it uses the exact word ‘nonstandard’ to describe it, and a second calls it ‘substandard’ which is a POV version of the same word. —Muke Tever 22:44, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

"Substandard" is not POV, it’s a technical linguistic term. The spelling alot most certainly is substandard. The word ain't, by way of contrast, is nonstandard (yet another term of art). —Stephen 12:03, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

AHD's sense #2 supports Stephen's statement, as does M-W's sense #1b. — Hippietrail 16:12, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I agree with Muke: the spelling is clearly in frequent use, and pretending otherwise is just wishful thinking. It is already noted that many people consider it a misspelling. Also, I'm dubious that there's a clear dichotomy between substandard and nonstandard, given that the latter may mean "simply not so egregious a blunder as a Substandard locution"[9]. That sounds like a prescriptivist POV to me. Wmahan 17:11, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

See also [10], which says that "most linguists and lexicographers now use only nonstandard", and in fact uses ain't as an example of what might be called a substandard form. Wmahan 17:29, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems to be in a very similar case to everyday which people use very frequently when they mean every day. Except in this case both forms actually exist but have different meanings. — Hippietrail 15:47, 11 October 2005 (UTC)

The fundamental difference between misusing every day and a lot is that everyday is a valid spelling in its own right, but alot is just an error. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 16:38, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

OK, I'm glad that's settled.

Oh wait a minute. I just remembered. We've never defined any criteria at all for what we consider "substandard", "nonstandard", "an error", "incorrect" and so forth, while we have defined at least some criteria for "attested" and "idiomatic" (quite a few in the case of "attested").

In this case "alot" is clearly attested, and, being a single word, clearly idiomatic ("weeknights" is not simply the sum of "wee" and "knights"). We may argue about whether it should be tagged as "substandard", "nonstandard", a "common misspelling" or otherwised disclaimed in a usage note ("many consider this incorrect"), but there's no question whether the term meets the CFI. -dmh 19:58, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

What citations have you provided that give evidence for it not being an error? The three citations that were entered (not by you) were:

1. A 10th grade student's paper cited directly by the author for example
2. a quote riddled with errors that the author was using to help convey the uneducated status of a character
3. transcribed handwritten notes from a homicidal maniac

You were one of the most prominent critics of print citations not long ago...do these seem like linguistically sound citations to you? --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 07:11, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

They're beautifully linguistically sound citations of a word that is used principally in informal writing such as that not normalized for publication, and by the un[der]educated. If we were trying to establish it as some kind of "standard" word in good usage (which nobody has yet attempted) then we would want citations in quality standard prose, but this is not the case. —Muke Tever 18:43, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm not crazy about any of these particular citations, but the first and third are OK, as long as we can be sure they're faithful transcriptions. The second is unreliable. Authors' impressions of dialects other than their own are not always particularly accurate (Mark Twain has a good riff on this one). In any case, this is a term for which print citations are not going to be particularly useful, since print editors prefer "a lot" and tend to edit "alot" out. Like all sources, print sources have a few biases and do not always present a fair sampling of actual usage. They also tend to under-represent newer terms (thus my original objection to the notion that if it's not in print it's not a word).

If you serarch for, say, "alot of" on Google groups, you get a different story. For example, there are about 2.6 million instances of "alot of" vs. 10 million for "a lot of". The second spelling is clearly more frequent, but the first is (IMHO) well within the gray area.

I assume that the desire to call "alot" a mistake instead of a variant comes from the practice of treating it as an error in print. We should definitely note that "alot" is considered incorrect in print (i.e., by a great many print editors), but I just can't convince myself that people using "alot" on the web are doing so by mistake.

As to ain't, I assume you're joking. -dmh 18:08, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

fried egg

Just as with boiled egg above, not in the four reliable dictionaries I've checked (AHD, Collins, Encarta, Merriam-Webster), and no more than the sum of its parts: an egg which has been fried. The same would apply to cracked egg, beaten egg, raw egg, hen's egg, duck egg, crocodile egg, quail egg, partridge egg, platypus egg etc etc ad infinitum. But not to Easter egg or scrambled eggs since they are not obvious and do have entries in all or some of the above dictionaries. It's time to decide what path to take. — Hippietrail 00:33, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Odd, I always thought a fried egg was the internals of an egg that had been fried. Not merely an egg which has been fried, as the shell is explicitly excluded (unlike a boiled egg which is a boiled egg whether or not it has been shelled). Getting to a fried egg from the constituent words of the phrase "fried egg" takes knowledge of our culture and habits of cooking. —Muke Tever 06:27, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

When a person says to you "I think I'll have eggs for breakfast", you must therefore expect them to be eating the shell also?! The sense in the transparent phrase fried egg comes closest to our sense #4 but we specifically state that as uncountable which may need improving. It is also M-W's sense 1a (after "also"). AHD doesn't cover the sense for the contents only. — Hippietrail 16:12, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually having eggs for breakfast is like having peanuts or a watermelon: one takes the whole item for their repast but discards the shell in the process of preparation and eating. In any case, as per below fried egg refers to a specific manner of frying eggs, and if one ordered a fried egg in a restaurant one would expect to get that kind of fried egg, not an egg fried in any other manner. This debate reminds me of a Peanuts Easter cartoon, in which someone was asked to make boiled eggs for coloring, but, unfamiliar with the process, cracked the eggs and boiled the contents instead. The resulting soup was unsatisfactory, because while boiled egg in the literal sense, was not boiled egg in the idiomatic sense. —Muke Tever 17:34, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Appending to that comment: son-in-law egg is a kind of egg that, while fried, is probably not what one would refer to as a fried egg, because "fried egg" refers to a specific kind of fried egg and this ain't it. —Muke Tever 06:50, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Muke here. At passover, one eats roasted eggs, which have been roasted in the shell, and might easily be mistaken for fried eggs by a non-native speaker. Or put another way, a non-native speaker might easily think fried egg meant something like a roasted egg. For that matter, scrambled eggs are fried eggs, literally, but if someone asks for fried eggs and I give them scrambled, they're likely to be disappointed.

This is a general issue with the "sum of the parts" criterion. It's not enough to say that the meaning of a phrase is consistent with the meanings of its parts (as is the case for fried egg but not for the classic red herring). A phrase is also idiomatic if it is inconsistent with some reasonable interpretation of the parts together. Unfortunately, I don't know how to make this more rigorous, and language is slippery in such cases. But generally, a quail egg is the egg of a quail, whether it's in the nest, on the ground, in a museum, fried, scrambled, poached or whatnot. A fried egg, by contrast, is not an egg that has been fried in any way at all. -dmh 15:09, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

human being

Since it seems to be the way that we're going: no more than the sum of its parts: a being that is human. —Muke Tever 06:13, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep - online AHD, Collins, Encarta, and Merrian-Webster all find it to be more than the sum of its parts and so do I. Our policy is already to include any word found in any (reliable) print dictionary. — Hippietrail 16:12, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

The word human, at least formally, is only an adjective. The noun is human being. Some people do use human as a noun, but I consider that casual at best. Personally, I would never use human as a noun. —Stephen 12:36, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

At least the online AHD and Merriam-Webster disagree. The latter even has human being cross-reference to human. — Hippietrail 16:12, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

On the contrary, AHD, Collins, Encarta, and Merriam-Webster find it worthy of an entry, not [necessarily] more than the sum of its parts. AHD4 and M-W.com, at least, define human being with the part human all by itself. This shows that these (reliable) print dictionaries do not have any such nonsense about "being more than the sum of their parts" in their criteria for inclusion, and I don't think any such nonsense belongs in Wiktionary either. The print dictionaries include it because it is a set phrase, not because of being an idiom; it's true there are many they don't include, but that is mainly because 1) paper has its limits (but Wiki is not paper) and 2) their goal is not to write that kind of dictionary (but ours is to define all terms in all languages). —Muke Tever 17:26, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

My take on idiomaticity is that it's sufficient but not necessary. That is, if I can tell for sure that a phrase is idiomatic, it's definitely in. If not, there is still no great harm in letting it in. We seem to have no problem with regular inflections, which are not idiomatic, so why would we have a problem with set phrases? In such cases, we're saving someone the trouble of looking up "human" and "being" separately. Not a big deal, but not harmful. In other words, I'm much more concerned with keeping out unattested material than keeping out non-idiomatic material. If I see blarg defined as "thirty minutes before sunset", that's misleading (unless I've really missed something :-). If I see "orange fence" defined as "a fence that is orange", it's hard to see the harm. -dmh 14:56, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep, keep, keep. This is a set phrase, as Muke says, and can be found in any dictionary worthy of the name, so there is no reason for it not to be in Wiktionary. — Paul G 10:16, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

It really bugs me that the best argument that can be given for set phrases is that other dictionaries have them. If anything that should be taken as indication that we, collectively, haven't got a clue what constitutes a set phrase and what doesn't. Could we please establish some sort of criteria ourselves? Davilla 12:39, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

egg salad

No more than the sum of its parts. We are not a recipe book and it seems like this definition has tried too hard to make egg salad seem more complex than it is. I've eaten my share and it's not always spread on a sandwhich, I've never had it with minced celery, and I've definitely had ones made differently by different people at different times in different places. They do have one thing in common though - they were all salad made of eggs. This is not in the online AHD, Collins, Encarta, or M-W either. It is in Wikipedia which relates it to a host of combinations on the "food + salad" theme. The most lexical thing I can see is that a UK synonym is given: egg mayonnaise. We know what Connel thinks, what do the rest think? — Hippietrail 15:54, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

The most dubious entry out of all of the Category:Eggs one I tagged, without a doubt. As for other salads...Caeser salad would probs be valid. tuna salad, nah. salad dressing, nah. salad bowl, maybe. chicken salad, same as egg salad. Delete it I reckon. fried egg and boiled egg I'd keep tho. Very amusing comment though: "it seems like this definition has tried too hard to make egg salad seem more complex than it is". -WF

Caeser salad is a misspelling. Delete. It should be Caesar salad, of course. —Stephen 09:46, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Good to know you are a mind reader. I like it when it has the minced celery. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 16:27, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I just read the definition and thought "That's not an egg salad" - an egg salad is a salad with hard boied eggs. So, it has shown me (an Englishman) that the word means something else in the US. That seems a reasonable reason to keep it (and add the UK meaning sometime). As for Caesar salad and salade niçoise - yes we need these as it is not obvious from the name what they are made of. SemperBlotto 16:51, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

+1. I'm off for an egg and cress! -dmh 18:05, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep definitely, but isn't the term usually used as a modifier to a noun, more as an adjective that is, rather than as a noun all by its lonesome? If someone asked me if I wanted an "egg salad" I might think they meant a chef salad with, you know, lettuce and the like. An egg salad sandwich is a totally different matter. Davilla 12:20, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

That's another point for it actually: The egg salad that goes on sandwiches is uncountable. If you ask for an egg salad, you're asking for something countable, thus something else. (As for being a modifier, it's been discussed here often enough that a noun being used attributively isn't necessarily an adjective...) —Muke Tever 19:58, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Wiktionary:List of words without articles (French)

This, and nine related subpages were set up by User:Lincher in August to help him in what he was doing. He has no edits since August, and nobody appears to be doing anything with them. Eclecticology 21:38, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

If somebody could merge them with Wiktionary:Requested articles:French, that would be the best - of course I only mean those with red links. — Hippietrail 01:55, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

• That would be a nice idea for somebody with a lot of time. The items on the list are not just in French, but represent all articles in fr:wiktionary which at the time did not have a corresponding article in this project. Eclecticology 05:32, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

It is not in the main namespace...it seems to be a valuable starting point for anyone that speaks English and French to enter en.wikt: entries from existing fr: entries. It seems like a nice gesture on the part of the French Wiktionnairians. Could it just be moved to Wiktionary Appendix: pseudo-namespace? --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 06:39, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

43 pages employing Unicode high characters in their title

This is in response to a message by Brion Vibber on the Wikitech mailing list.

MySQL 5 is scheduled to come out of beta next month, and we're going to
be looking at upgrading sometime in the coming months. Among other
things we're probably going to want to start making use of the support
for Unicode collation, so we can get better sorting and perhaps use it
for case-insensitive matching.

There is however a compatibility issue: MySQL's Unicode support is
limited to the 16-bit character range (basic multilingual plane), both
for ucs2 and utf8 storage modes.

Characters beyond the BMP are relatively rare, but they do occur. Mostly
in there are ancient/dead scripts, some invented scripts, and a bunch of
rare Han characters which sometimes turn up in Chinese and Japanese.

This won't affect page _contents_; our content is stored in binary blobs
and can have any wacky characters we want. But to support these high
characters in page titles, usernames, and such might require jumping
through a lot of hoops.

It would be relatively simple to disable use of titles and usernames
with these high characters; to assess possible impact I did a check
through all our current wikis and found 99 extant pages:

43 in en.wiktionary.org
31 in got.wikipedia.org
10 in la.wiktionary.org
9 in zh.wikipedia.org
3 in so.wikipedia.org
1 in en.wikibooks.org
1 in ja.wikipedia.org
1 in nl.wikibooks.org

I've put the full list of pages here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Brion_VIBBER/Unicode_high_chars

Most of the en.wiktionary entries are individual letters in the Deseret
and Shavian alphabets (invented alphabets for English; historical
curiosities).

The Gothic alphabet is entirely in the high-character area, but it's a
long-dead language and not exactly an active wiki. Perhaps we should
just close it down...

Latin Wiktionary contains several Gothic terms...

Most of what we have is by User:Vladisdead who hasn't been around for a while. Unless you are equipped for UTF-16, you probably won't see the characters. It might be a few years before we can handle them properly; in the meantime I see no reason for keeping them. Eclecticology 05:08, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Um, User:Vladisdead is the same person as User:Vlad and User:Ptcamn who posted on this very page just a week ago and shows up in the IRC channel occasionally. He is still very active on la.wiktionary. I've found (through my own design of a Gothic font) that the browsers out now are entirely capable of handling the plane 1 characters, though fonts themselves may not easy to come by. At any rate, it also includes things like Linear B (for Mycenaean), and Old Italic (for Etruscan etc.). I should say I don't like this suggestion of "all words in all languages, unless Unicode decided to assign their writing system codes higher than the arbitrarily set value of U+FFFF". At the very least move the damn things to transliterated page titles instead of deleting them, for goodness' sake. —Muke Tever 08:39, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

I see no problem with accomodating the technical limitations of article titles; for these few entries, the "proper" unicode (that only two people have the technology capable of viewing) can certainly be included in the main body of the article. We do something similar with that 1023 character long chemistry "word" too, don't we? --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 15:01, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

w:Methionylglutaminyl...serine was the particular example I was thinking of. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 15:19, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Doubtful that it's "only two". At any rate, as these are international standards that are gaining support we can expect the number of people who can read them to increase: the principle being what they call on e2 noding for the ages, i.e. this information's value will increase over time, not decrease...

At any rate, I don't see any problem with accommodating for technical limitations either. But this isn't on Beer Parlour, or Requests for Cleanup, it's on Requests for Deletion, which is ridiculous. —Muke Tever 17:54, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Transliterated titles would be fine, but that doesn't help us with the articles that are for the Shavian and Deseret letters themselves. Do we even need articles for these letters when users won't know how to look them up anyway? Will these articles give any more information than can be included in comprehensive Wikipedia articles about the alphabets?

It is about deleting pages, so it's not misplaced. If you feel a few can be fixed, do it. The suggestion that more people will be able to read these is unfounded speculation. Where are the big movements to promote the Shavian and Deseret alphabets. Eclecticology 18:24, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

Even after pages are moved to Romanized (UFT-16) pages, the redirects that remain on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Brion_VIBBER/Unicode_high_chars will still need to be deleted. Muke, (or anyone else that knows precisely how to clean these up) could you please list the ones you've corrected as you correct them? --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 06:33, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

There isn't much Gothic on en. 𐌼𐌰𐌸𐌰 moved to maþa, 𐌷𐌿𐌽𐌳𐍃 to hunds, 𐍅𐌿𐌻𐍆𐍃 to wulfs. But 𐌰 I can't move (a already exists), and 𐍈 I can't move either as ƕ, too, exists. That's the mass of it. Also moved Mycenaean 𐀀𐀵𐀫𐀦 to a-to-ro-qo. Feh... The rest appear to be individual characters, and will most likely require merging with whatever articles will already exist at their standard transliteration equivalent. —Muke Tever 18:36, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Spoke prematurely -- I couldn't move 𐌼𐌰𐌸𐌰 either, with maþa being an Old English word as well.

I didn't say it was misplaced—I know you were talking about deleting the pages. (I was, however, saying it was needlessly antagonistic to suggest deleting the articles instead of downgrading them to the level of this planned regression.) And it is not "unfounded speculation" to say that Unicode support is increasing in the computing world: you used to be lucky to get more than 255 characters at a time, then the standard Windows fonts increased to include the whole of the w:WGL4, and nowadays you also get several fonts with higher alphabet ranges even than that out of the box. And I very doubt that it is because of "big movements" to have e.g. the Thai alphabet supported in U.S. versions of Windows. People expect their computers to just work, and as time goes on that is what they will do. (As mentioned, all the major browsers already handle these characters; when they don't display it's because the system doesn't have any images to give them.) As for "not knowing how to look them up", that's empty: the average user knows exactly as much about searching for Deseret as they do for Japanese. When running across any string in an alphabet they don't know how to type, the search method is copy and paste. —Muke Tever 18:16, 16 October 2005 (UTC)

Afrimerican

RFD'd not rfv, as it seems to be a typo. Print.google.com give 4870 hits for 'Afroamerican' but zero for this. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 21:46, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

This should go in LOP. The Google Web and Groups each show (independent!) articles coining it, however, it's not clear that it's caught on. There may be a case for a full entry based on web and groups hits, but it wouldn't be the strongest case. -dmh 21:32, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

Using Google as a verifying reference source is shortsighted, and somewhat indicative of the school that advocates an aversive, exclusionary racism by reason Google is supportive of, and suppoted by the institionalized racism advocated and practiced by the white American elite as their God given right

Other search engines exist, MSN, YAHOO, ALLTHEWEB, etc..., have listings, and placement of Afrimerican more extensively, and more in accord to proper search engine listings.

So bring in the quotes. Search engines are just a tool. -dmh 14:35, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Lastly, with, or with out such verification, it's noted on/in various wikipedia articles, and in various other medias how Negroid people in America have been given all the terms used to define, or describe them by whites, yet most, and especially the ones, like Afrimerican, that denote ones land of birth being America, while also denoting an African Ancestry in the definition are largely, purposely(?), ignored, and dismissed by the self same whites who publicly advocate such innovation, but privately work in concert with established entities to perpetuate the dismissal of anything relevant to Afrimericans By Afrimericans,unless it's present by an Afrimerican lackey to further the status qou agenda, and it's a demeaning and insulting thing to be put in a position to where it appears one has to beg whites to do what anyone of good conscious, or of academic objectivity would/should do without question.

This is one of the most important creations for Afrimericans, and the public, since the Emancipation Proclamation, because it addresses, and can eliminate the race name change game white America engages, and Afrimericans suffer, and are forced to accept every 15 to 20 years, a practice that has been reoccurring for over 500 years. To delete this simple definition not only demonstrates racism as stated earlier, it is a blatant disregard for the positive humanity of Afrimericans, considering some of the sick things you allow, and glorify that are gross, unnatural, and contrary to the commonality of man.

It's a simple word, with a simple definiton, it has merit, it is free of ambiguity, and it's a term created by an Afrimerican for Afrimericans, none of the other terms in popular use can make that claim, and if for no other reason, that alone should be reason enough that Afrimerican and it's definition be made a permanent post on Wictionary.

The Connell McKenzie person is grossly mistaken, "AFRIMERICAN" is not a typo for/of afroamerican, they are two different words with two different definitions, and google does list Afrimerican. (author)

Note: Please see User talk:Connel MacKenzie#Afrimerican.

The claim that there is a published source is unsubstantiated. Doing a cursory search for it turned up nothing, except a suggestion for spelling the term correctly.

Classifying the routine removal of nonsense as "racist" is quite likely a racist classification itself. One would think that someone combating racism would not be prone to sweeping prejudgements themselves.

I take it that your misspelling of my first and last name was intentional? Or are you prone to misspelling words such as "Afroamerican"? We are quite accustomed to people trying to promote their pet protologisms here at Wiktionary. To combat that, we reasonably rely on print citations as a line in the sand. Is there a verifiable ISBN for your book, or is it yet to be published? If the latter, I wish you luck getting it published.

As I understand it, there is no agreed-uppon line in the sand at printed citations. Printed citations are preferred, but not strictly necessary. The issue here is not whether we can find places where Afrimerican appears in verifiable, archived text. The question is whether there is independent, deliberate usage.

Here are a few hits (from Google) suggesting that it is:

• "Ladyscapes recognizes the Afrimerican woman and everything she does - so for one weekend every month, there is no rush." — Paint Magazine, 31 October 2005
• "Thought-provoking in-depth look into the current Afrimerican psyche and pneuma; and taking a serious look ahead at where black America is heading in the new millennium." — BlackNews.com, 31 October 2005
• "Parker, born to an Albino mother and Afrimerican father, has seen his share of tales of woe in life." — S. Renee Greene in American Chronicle, 10 October 2005 (Hmm ... interesting contrast with "Albino" :-)
• "SouthState LLC Intellectual Properties announces the kickoff for their new website aimed at the uplifting of and outreach to the young Afrimerican community." — Arrivenet Entertainment Press releases, 8 October 2005.
• "Sakk, Marlo [...] Afrimerican cultural wearable art" — Artist listing for the Evanston Ethnic Arts Festival, held 16-17 July 2005
• "I suppose it's quasi-personal with me: Islam was a prime force in unraveling the Afrimerican community, which took decades to build from the pits of slavery and oppression." — Posting on "Little Green Footballs" blog, 13 September 2003.

It looks to me that the term is in current but not wide use. I note that all but one of the quotes above are very recent, and that they are mixed in with quite a few quotes advocating "Afrimerican" or otherwise discussing the term. The ones that just discuss the term don't count for attestation (newcomers please see Criteria for Inclusion for why these don't count), but they do strongly suggest that the other examples are not accidental. We can continue the discussion on RFV, but as far as I can tell, there's a good case for keeping. As I said above, it's not the strongest case, but it seems good enough. Keep-dmh 15:53, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

My vote: Delete.

--[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 16:03, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally you seem to have some misconception of kinds of intellectual property. It's impossible to copyright an individual word. Perhaps you meant to trademark it? —Muke Tever 19:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I have to agree that like any other word here it needs proper citations or has to be Deleted and moved to the protlogism list. — Hippietrail 15:07, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

I call it as it is, you're racist, pure and simple, almost everything written about Afrimerican herein/on has been deleted, per citing a need for verifying citation, natural common sense is the most obvious overlooked factor per a simple comparison and contrast of Afrimerican to relative nomenclature, and one would like to think that is merit enough for it to stand on it's own. The spelling of your name was intented per in America the "a" in "Mac" is removed when "Mac" is used as a prefix, it's automatic... Per Afrimerican being a pet protologism, the word protologism has not been found in any relative dictionary I've consulted, but that aside, this is not just whimsical engagement to stroke my ego, this word, and it's application concerns a whole race of people, 30 plus million, and while this endeavor to have it included and kept on wictionary/wikipedia is important, you are not as important as political and corporate leaders who are getting similar information, and who are actually providing positive feedback, and asking questions... About combating racism, well I would never have called what I do that, but you can, and with the white supremist racist institution being so long, and well entrenched, and enmeshed with all facets of social "order"(s), it must be addressed in various ways, but the word combat denotes war, and their are no rules in war, especially when the ones making the rules, make and change them according to their wish, with intent to exclude/oppress/kill, and combat always ends in destruction or detente..., are you the enemy? Per the book, it's a work in progress, detailing incidences like this, in fact I want permission to publish this discourse... To delete, or not to delete...I'm done debating, and this symbolic begging is demeaning considering the nature of the system subscribed to is not inclusive of Afrimericans.

Please! Such racist accusations don't belong anywhere, not in a forum like this. The discussion is about whether or not to include the word "Afrimerican". By accusing people of racism like you do, you achieve only to be taken unseriously. As for the entry, I say delete untill anyone can provide a reliable source for it. Jon Harald Søby 19:33, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

it's about race, and while it is preferable for me not to have such a discussion, it is what it is, and it is a decisive factor. It seems to be a needed factor to expand ones view of the totalty of the matter, and there is no way Afrimerican can be less important a word, than some of the other disgusting words you do list that have no reputable source. Don't be angry at me for showing you yourself.

• So you admit you are racist and acting in a racist manner then? You "invented" that misspelling to secure your own .com (http://whois.melbourneit.com/) domain name. To compare your juvenile misspelling to an insulting intentional misspelling of my name is illogical. And then comparing it again to specific jargon? You are promoting a particular misspelling of a word, that no publisher sees fit to acknowledge and you want us to promote it for you because you are insulting, rude and often wrong (especially with your prejudgments)? Perhaps you should apply your appeals to "common sense" to your own cognitive ability, Bruce. As for anger, you seem to be the only one introducing that here.
• By the way, despite the invalid disclaimer you have on Afrimerican, all material submitted here on http://en.wiktionary.org/ is licensed according to the terms of the [GFDL], exactly as stated on every page. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 23:30, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Delete--Perhaps one day it will catch on in the Afroamerican community, but for now the entry only exists for the hope of the word's birth. Citizen Premier 02:57, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

First, it was claimed Afrimerican was not in/on Google,(a lie), then you mentioned it was a misspelling of Aframerican, which is actually a term used by and in the Caribbean islands, not in/by/for Afrimericans/Blacks born in America, then you claimed it was a misspelling of Afroamerican, then you reversed yourself and said it is found on Google, and listed various websites that site it, then you stated I wanted you to include it to promote my website, thus, when you could not denigrate or dismiss it, you got personal, all symptomatic of the new white supremacy Nazism.

Yes I concede it is personal, not for some pitiful self aggrandizing reason you try to project as the cause, but because I am not African-American, Afro-American, Black, Colored, or Negro, and I am personally offended with not only being given such terms to describe and define me by whites, but doubly offended with it being forced on me, and all efforts to force it on me despite my protestations; That is like the scene in "Roots" where the slave master kept telling Kunte Kinta his name was Toby, and no matter how he protested he was brutalized until he accepted it,(they started cutting off body parts): That's what you're trying to do here, in fact this whole dialog mirrors that scenario, with the exception you no longer have the legal right to whip, hang, or dismember me like back in the day when that was the norm anytime a Negroid person protested an injustice, and based on that, it is not me labeling you racist it's your own words and actions demonstrating it.

Secondly I did not submit it to promote my website, this word has been in existence 15 years, and it's introduction to the public through the media was first done September 15, 1990, as a front page news article in the Los Angeles Wave Newspaper which, at the time, was the number two Afrimerican newspaper, the number one Los Angeles Newspaper, The Sentinel, also wrote an article under the instruction of Mrs. Ruth Washington who was the publisher/owner of the paper but it was cancelled before publication on the advice of her legal representatives who feared reprisals from white bank managers. The website is less than a year old, in fact, I didn't get on the web with this until 2003, and the website was put up as part of a full spectrum means of enlightening people to it that includes the web, t-shirts, postcards, a book( in development), a documentary, (in development), and a host of other activities to address the real fact that the Afrimerican word and definition is the only word created by a member of the race , it's the only term Academically and legally correct in defining and describing the race, and when compared to the other terms in popular use/rotation, it's the only one not given to the race by whites and not included in restrictive laws as the others are, and based on those features, The Afrimerican word and definition stands on it's own merits.

Additionally, what I have learned is when I type in African-American, Afro-American, Black, Colored or Negro, Wikipedia comes up first or second, and your definition/description of the term/race is given, and it could be said you are angry because you can't totally dominate and promote your ideas/ideologies about the race that are rooted in institutional racism, thus you seem to be making a concentrated purposeful attempt to be an extension of the white imposition of such terms, and of the tactic of forcing it on the race and others, and in ignoring/ostracizing Afrimerican, your objective integrity is nil. It could be reversed and said you are angry because you want to be the dominant internet word and information reference source on all topics about the race, and another source of feeding the lies and alternating views to keep the matter in perpetual pointless debate, but you can't with Afrimerican because it is wholly Afrimerican owned with copyrights, and by trademark too.(per the claim I couldn't copyright it ...duh...I can, and did, and I have the copyright certificate to prove it), and most of all, Afrimerican stands on it's own merit(s), it is what it is, and to ignore that bring the whole character of your enterprise into question.

I could go on and on, and I've already written more than intended, because I only intended to write about how you have Afrimerican marked for deletion, and if that's your intent what are you waiting on? You are not the only source this info is being presented to, all the major print dictionaries, major news organizations, the entire U.S. Congress, and Senate as well as the U.S.President, Vice President, Secretary of State, and various other government heads, Teachers, unions, you name it, I type at least ten letters a day about this, and with a host of other things to do, as well as with having a life I know how to enjoy, and because I read a great many books and articles written in the 1800’s, I don't overly concern myself with a misspelling here or there, but there is no misspelling about Afrimerican, and your white supremist arrogance in attempting to attack my intelligence just adds gasoline to an already blazing fire of racism all can see.

About me being racist, to imply I admitted such is slander and defamation, but call you and those who've responded hereto racist, and if you like, you can sue me. Having had many experiences with racism as found here, I use to not even see it, and thought it was just a person having a bad day, but time and events made the racist institution more apparent, and I had to learn how to recognize it so as to be able to make progresses beyond the restrictive boundaries imposed by those who adhere to the institutional medium, don't be mad at me for telling you the truth.

Keepin it real...

(* I will be posting this last passage written by me on other internet sites, it will be under the heading, "A response to Wiktionary/wikipedia Per Afrimerican/Afrimericans--An informed Opinion.)

Your continued lies are not helping your case. I said print.google.com which was the first place I found "Afroamerican" supplied as the spelling correction. Given your evidence, this word Afrimerican seems very much your own personal invention and not in widespread use. I did not supply examples of the term in use, User:Dmh did. There is a very long ongoing debate about the validity of the sources he chose; many (including myself) do not always agree that those should be used as valid citations here on Wiktionary. Your repeated cries of racism paint only yourself as a racist. This is still a nomination for deletion (subject to rational discussion.) I wish you success on promoting your website, but please do not do that promotion here. And a polite reminder: any text you use from here needs to comply with the GFDL. --Connel MacKenzie T [[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new +] C # 02:13, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Hi. Your rhetoric, admirably guided as it may be is ill-suited to issues of inclusion in a dictionary. If there is evidence of a word in use, we include it, whether anybody (no matter what their race) likes it or not. If there is not sufficient evidence of a word in use, we leave it out, whether or not anybody (no matter what their race) spends their life working to support it. All you have to do is provide valid, verifiable citations on Afrimerican and the so-called "blazing fire of racism" against this word must disappear.

As for copyright, you may have copyrighted a work containing the word "Afrimerican," or even a work titled "Afrimerican," but American copyright expressly excludes "titles, names, short phrases, and slogans,"—which are the jurisdiction of trademark law—so it were impossible for you to copyright the name "Afrimerican" itself. —Muke Tever 01:23, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

on a shoestring

"Shoestring" can be used in various ways in this sense, not requiring "on a". For example "shoestring budget". — Hippietrail 01:18, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep as the construct shoestring budget does not stand on its own (maybe in some regions, but that seems unlikely.) --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 19:19, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Well I get 108,000 hits on Google just searching for different variations of "shoestring budget" and "shoestring traveller": http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22shoe-string+budget+OR+budgets+OR+traveler+OR+traveller+OR+travelers+OR+travellers%22 — Hippietrail 14:26, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks; that is a helpful link, which seems to support "shoestring" needing to be preceeded by "on a" in typical uses (certainly all the examples on the first few pages.) Keep. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 04:25, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

And followed by "budget". What part of speech would that make "on a shoestring"? Or are you now advocating we include phrases which cross grammatical boundaries, such as "and the"? Or are you merely saying the article should be moved to on a shoestring budget especially since you yourself have used "not standing on its own" as an argument against keeping phrases? We could also note the variations "on a Shoe String Budget", "A Shoe-String Budget", "On A Shoe-String Budget", "on a shoe-string budget", "on a real shoe string budget". It seems to break several rules discussed before. (I also believe our policy is 1 vote per person) — Hippietrail 14:36, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

I'm reiterating my keep position as you seem to be modifying your complaint(s) as you clarify. Please note that you interpreted what I said as the opposite of what I intended: I was stating a reason why the existing entry should not be deleted, not objecting to some other hypothetical entry. There is an enormous difference between deleting an entry and correcting one. I have no strong objections to it being moved to on a shoestring budget (with some amount of rework, even though that would ignore the "traveller" variant you indicate.) Also, I think most of the examples you supplied (perhaps all) could redirect to that same entry, as is customary here on the English Wiktionary. But it would be helpful to hear other's opinions on the matter. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 00:49, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

OK so everybody knows my stance is that dictionaries should only contain lexemes, the lexical units from which utterances are built. And we all know Connel's stance that Wiktionary should be some new kind of combinatorial catalog of combinations of words into phrases, lexical or not, as long as they would sound natural in their own language.

My stance means that Wiktionary will be more or less like a traditional dictionary but freely editable, not trying to be some kind of new invention. Traditional dictionaries can have a very large but finite lexicon. With them itt's possible to settle disputes such as "is flump a word?". This will also work with idioms.

The "new thing" which Connel wants, since it contains combinations of lexemes, will be infinite. It will not be able to be used as regular dictionaries for settling disputes such as the above since budget, on a budget, shoestring, on a shoestring, on a shoestring budget, on a tight budget, tight budget, on a very tight budget, very tight budget, etc etc ad infinitum, will all have entries, all with definitions, whether or not they are lexical units.

Please could we see the opinions of some other contributors? — Hippietrail 15:33, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

We could have a less permissive headword policy—instead of having all these things on separate pages, they could all go under a new section (=Phraseology= or such) on pages like shoestring and budget. That way the information is present—as I agree with it should be—but it isn't accorded so much lexeme status. —Muke Tever 18:06, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems we really need to work on a collocation policy. It would be a great help if somebody were able to borrow a dictionary of collocations from a library or such and see how it works, and how such info could best be presented on Wiktionary. Because this way above is a very poor way. — Hippietrail 23:21, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

As I recall, we have a long-standing general rule in CFI of entering an idiom in some sort of "normal form". E.g., feel one's oats and not "I'm feeling my oats", or rain cats and dogs and not "It's raining cats and dogs". This will rein in much of the combinatorics. It should be OK to add common derived forms as redirects, in lieu of (or complementing) a smarter search function. In the present case, it's not clear that this idiomatic use of "shoestring" appears independently or only in the bound forms shoestring budget and on a shoestring. If it's the former, then "shoestring" should have the appropriate definition added, and the common derived forms can remain as redirects. If it's the latter, then the two should be full entries on an equal basis. They clearly share a common origin, but the components of a term are not always lexemes themselves (e.g., "gruntle", as in disgruntle). -dmh 03:54, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Contributions by User:Ferncote

Mostly pictures of the user's ancestor's graves. I don't believe that we are a picture gallery. SemperBlotto|Talk 15:50, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Unless there is some plan to use these for citations or something else crafty, I say Delete — Hippietrail 15:07, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

Delete. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 19:17, 22 October 2005 (UTC)

• All have been deleted now. SemperBlotto|Talk 07:47, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

• I deleted these yesterday because they appear to be copyvio from some website that is a repository of such images. They belong there and not here. --Dvortygirl 18:04, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

a lot

What's up with this? I assume it was added to because of alot but it no more belongs than a bunch or an apple or an appendectomy. It's just an article and a word! Citizen Premier 02:43, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep since the incorrect spelling has had such controversy around it (with people actually forcing themselves to believe we should have such an egragious typo here) it makes sense to retain the correct form. Additionally, there is a direct translation to a single word. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 03:42, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

In that case the single word should have the entry, but not "a lot." Citizen Premier 04:23, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, I use 'alot' in common writing because I like the word and don't feel that anyone owns the English language. Citizen Premier 04:24, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep for same reasons as Connel. Additionally (i'm sorry i don't know the proper technical words) the phrase 'a lot' is used in the same way as if it were a single word. Which probably suggests that it will eventually become standardized to 'alot', but we're not there yet. Also, if we have alot, we NEED a lot; that should be clear. — Fudoreaper 04:46, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep. I wasn't sure but AHD lists it as an idiom, and Encarta and M-W list it under "lot" which is their equivalent of our "related terms". The latter 2 dictionaries redirect from "a lot" to "lot". Collins covers "a lot" in their sense #1 for "lot". The Encarta example, "I laughed a lot", as an adverb seems pretty hard to break into parts for me. — Hippietrail 14:26, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep - it's an adverbial phrase. Citizen Premier: sure, no one owns the English language, but the only recognised spelling is "a lot". "Alot" is a misspelling. Use it by all means, but if you do so in formal writing, don't be surprised if it gets corrected. — Paul G 15:55, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep of course. Jon Harald Søby 16:02, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep, under 'ambiguity as to whether it should be written as a single word.' —Muke Tever 20:04, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

No, there is no ambiguity. "A lot" is never correctly written as a single word. — Paul G (Wiktionary won't keep me logged in for some reason.)

Allow me to remove some ambiguity. I didn't say a single word about whether it should be written as a single word in Standard English orthography. It is patently clear that there is ambiguity as to whether it should be written as a single word by people who have not been trained in Standard English orthography.

Also, please take your POV issues of "correct" writing elsewhere. If a spelling is used, we document it. If it differs from the standards laid down by editorial usage or a language academy, we document that too; we don't simply ignore usage that exists. —Muke Tever 16:47, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Sopme

Protologism currently listed on "Articles for Deletion" on Wikipedia. 70.176.93.225 03:24, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Deleted (again). --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 03:37, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

sopme

It's back. -70.176.93.225 04:11, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks again. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 04:14, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

It's back again. Is there a way to protect a page against editing/being created here? -70.176.93.225 04:51, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Deleted again. Redirected and protected. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 14:58, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

• After more than a month of waiting. I have deleted both forms again. Let's see if it works. Eclecticology 08:33, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Articles in Lojban

Yes, it's the Constructed Language debate again. I would like to delete ALL words in Lojban. None of them are formatted decently, many not even having a ==language== header. The definitions are incomprehensible. See, for an example that is better than most, klama. SemperBlotto|Talk 07:40, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Keep. I would prefer they be corrected, I've done some work to correct the formatting as I randomly come across them. Lojban is one of the major old conlangs with a bunch of supporters rather than one of the flash-in-the-pan pet projects. — Hippietrail 14:26, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Strong keep, cleanup should do it. Jon Harald Søby 14:30, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Weak keep. I also have tried to clean these up as I come across them. <heresy> I'd prefer not to have any conlangs on Wiktionary, but since "we" do allow them...keep. </heresy> --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 15:03, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Strong keep. It's true that most of the entries existing were added according to some strange template, but that's more call for RFC than RFD. —Muke Tever 20:10, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

Template:-bg-

I strongly oppose this template and eventual other templates like it. Firstly, it contains a category which is very non-specific – Bulgarian nouns won't need to be in both a noun category and the main language category. Secondly, the name of the template makes sorting alphabetically harder; alphabetizing after this template name, would put Bulgarian in front of Breton. So, I say we should keep going like we have done, typing out a language's name. Jon Harald Søby 09:33, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

What if its used just as a "subst" template? Last time, these templates were in here, but didnt have the "NOEDITSECTION" . They shall do now if you guys vote to keep it. --Wonderfool 09:39, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

NOEDITSECTION has no point, it just makes section editing of the pages harder. And when used with subst, it still adds a category that is too general – we should try to categorize in specific categories as best we can. I would not oppose a template called e.g. "-bg-noun", containing [[Category:Bulgarian nouns]] intended for substing, however. Jon Harald Søby 09:41, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Delete and all other such inventions of the Devil. SemperBlotto|Talk 10:04, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Delete. It’s formatted wrong anyway...these language codes don’t use hyphens. The correct form is Template:bg, which already exists. —Stephen 10:50, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Actually the language codes that would appear, say, in a translation section are hyphenless, thus Template:bg, while those that appear in are meant to appear in headings and add the word to the language category appear in hyphens, thus Template:-bg-. This is the practice on most of the major wiktionaries that work together—having been invented around the time that they came into existence—but it never caught on on en:, partly because en: users didn't like to remember codes and partly because en: doesn't put its words in useful categories like Category:Bulgarian but in rather useless sub categories like Category:Bulgarian nouns—this itself is a relic from the days when category searches weren't paged into views of two hundred at a time, but everything would load at once, so the "functional" subcategories by parts of speech were invented so categories wouldn't be so bulky; this, however, is no longer a problem... —Muke Tever 19:05, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted. It wasn't used anywhere. SemperBlotto|Talk 17:04, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Metradonian

Another artificial language has appeared. I assume we are not accepting Metradonian translation entries (as, for example, in Sweden). —Stephen 10:10, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

We probably won't accept Matradonian words or translations, but we certainly will accept the word Matradonian. SemperBlotto|Talk 11:03, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

As long as it's backed up with the usual cites etc to show that it has entered the English lexicon. — Hippietrail 14:49, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Metradonian is only mentioned in various Wikis and in mirror sites. Delete word and references. SemperBlotto|Talk 13:56, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I see no evidence that either the name or the conlang is used anywhere by anyone. Delete. —Stephen 13:16, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

go to Davey Jones' locker

For much the same reasons as my nomination for on a shoestring above. Davey Jones' locker (with probably apostrophe variations) is definitely a lexeme. This construction is not. It's just a construction. Unlike with on a shoestring, this one is not even a collocation, it was probably made just for the "synonym". — Hippietrail 15:14, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems the correct spellings according to online references are Davy Jones’s Locker and Davy Jones’ Locker (Davy Jones's Locker and Davy Jones' Locker using ASCII apostrophes). — Hippietrail 15:27, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

We don't need the verb form, but Davy Jones's locker would have my vote . Wikipedia has Davy Jones' Locker. May I request that we limit the number of redirects to single figures. My definition would be "{{nautical}} The bottom of the ocean, especially as the grave for drowned sailors." SemperBlotto|Talk 16:10, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

Delete. Keep Davy Jones and Davy Jones's locker instead. —Stephen 11:35, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

• "Go to ... " form deleted. Davy Jones's locker kept with some others linking to it. Eclecticology 07:47, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Category:Chinese Hanzi and Category:Hanzi

To dissolve the redundancy, I prepared yet another: "Chinese hanzi" obeying a naming convension seen in categorization for some major western languages. Moreover, it is consistent with "Japanese kanji" now I'm working on :) I've finished moving all articles in the old categories to newly created one (the total were 5), and populated it with a certain number of kanjis to prevent further proliferation of kanji categories. -- Tohru 16:27, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you, we should keep Category:Chinese hanzi and Category:Japanese kanji, but delete Category:Hanzi, Category:Chinese Hanzi, and Category:Japanese Kanji. —Stephen 12:14, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Template:en-conj-irreg, Template:en-infl-irreg, and Template:En-infl-irreg

These templates are no longer in use. All words in Category:English irregular verbs are now either tagged manually or use Template:irregverb. Ncik 01:28, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

You vandalized how many entries, removing the accepted template to convert to your ugly rogue templates? Keep and convert entries back. --[[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new Connel MacKenzie] 17:59, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

November

abow

I just misspelled the title. -- Tohru 11:28, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

• deleleted - no problem. SemperBlotto|Talk 12:38, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Category:Kanji

The last kanji category to be deleted for the moment. -- Tohru 14:48, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. —Stephen 15:16, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

Mhm

I think that he means hmm - SemperBlotto|Talk 08:38, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

Um, not at all. Also spelled mm-hmm (which has fewer, but still 1000+ google print hits). —Muke Tever 20:51, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Cleaned up and moved to mhm. If you'd like it in RFV that'd be easy. —Muke Tever 21:04, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

darth

Does this meet the criteria for inclusion? — Paul G 14:58, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

One way to find out: Changed it to RFV instead. —Muke Tever 20:54, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Nsmith

Delete/revert it all. Even though I don't want you to. =D Jon Harald Søby 14:52, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Oh, I almost forgot to say: Again, I call for a speedy delete template. Jon Harald Søby 14:55, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

All deleted within 10 minutes - is that speedy enough for you? User blocked for repeatedly uploading copyright images. SemperBlotto|Talk 15:08, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Yup, quick enough. But the whole posting on this page thing wouldn't be necessary with a speedy delete template… (BTW, if you're wondering, this thing of mine with saying I want a speedy delete template in every second entry I make, is impersonating that Roman senator who always said "I also think that Carthage should be destroyed" after everything he said in the Senate, be it about sewers or foreign politics.) Jon Harald Søby 15:13, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

rollatorium

stale entry. --Connel MacKenzie T [[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new +] C # 00:57, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

glossyware

stale entry. --Connel MacKenzie T [[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new +] C # 01:07, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted SemperBlotto|Talk 09:53, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

gode

stale entry. --Connel MacKenzie T [[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new +] C # 01:08, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted SemperBlotto|Talk 09:54, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

gouglehorse

stale entry. --Connel MacKenzie T [[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new +] C # 01:08, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted SemperBlotto|Talk 09:55, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

jango

stale entry. --Connel MacKenzie T [[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new +] C # 01:12, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

krunkadelic

stale entry. --Connel MacKenzie T [[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new +] C # 01:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted SemperBlotto|Talk 09:57, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

langball

stale entry. --Connel MacKenzie T [[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new +] C # 01:15, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted SemperBlotto|Talk 10:00, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

splade

stale entry. --Connel MacKenzie T [[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new +] C # 01:26, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

wheefizzle

stale entry. --Connel MacKenzie T [[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new +] C # 01:33, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted SemperBlotto|Talk 10:04, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

wyling

stale entry. --Connel MacKenzie T [[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new +] C # 01:39, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted SemperBlotto|Talk 10:06, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

yummify

stale entry. --Connel MacKenzie T [[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new +] C # 01:39, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted SemperBlotto|Talk 10:08, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

nerdiac

stale entry. --Connel MacKenzie T [[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new +] C # 01:42, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted SemperBlotto|Talk 10:08, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

megadeus

stale entry. --Connel MacKenzie T [[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new +] C # 01:46, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

woobs

Failed RFV. —Muke Tever 05:47, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted SemperBlotto|Talk 10:12, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

facturd

Failed RFV. —Muke Tever 05:57, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted SemperBlotto|Talk 10:13, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

qsim

Failed RFV. —Muke Tever 06:04, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted SemperBlotto|Talk 10:14, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

TFI

Encyclopedic Polyglot 11:07, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Delete. Jon Harald Søby 19:21, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. --Connel MacKenzie 02:16, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Template:en-noun-irreg

Not in use anymore because unsuitable for words with more than one plural form. Ncik 14:53, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Keep. Did you report the error that caused it on bugzilla, or just vandalize the entries that used the template? --Connel MacKenzie T [[[:Template:lurl]]User+talk:Connel+MacKenzie&action=edit&section=new +] C # 19:18, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

To Wenzel

Ncik 01:07, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Templates

• japcontop
• japconrow
• japconend

Not used. Gerard Foley 15:30, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. —Stephen 09:20, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukaka­pikimaunga­horonuku­pokaiwhenuak­itanatahu

Google suggests a hyphenated spelling correction, but either way, it gets zero web page hits. --Connel MacKenzie 02:11, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

It is not supposed to have any hyphens: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. Some people insert hard or soft hyphens just to show how it is composed: Taumata-whakatangihanga-koauau-o-tamatea-turi=pukaka-piki=maunga-horo-nuku-pokai=whenua-ki-tana-tahu. —Stephen 10:21, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I've come across this a few times. Stephen's spelling gets 1,210 Google hits for me: [11] — Hippietrail 15:26, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Moved to unhyphenated Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu. —Stephen 13:29, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

国(くに)

青(あお) was deleted, so this should too. Gerard Foley 00:42, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

There are some more of these: see User contributions for User:Yajuu - Gerard Foley 00:48, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

• Talk:明るい(あかるい)
• 会う(あう)
• 頭高型(あたまだかがた)
• 平板型(へいばんがた)
• 飴(あめ)
• 雨(あめ)

For those with poor eyesight - the problem with these is the brackets (parentheses). They will be deleted with the reason "bad title". SemperBlotto 10:39, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

cruzin

Failed WS:RFV (only one citation found). —Muke Tever 07:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. {sigh} --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:55, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

slong

Typo of shlong? --Connel MacKenzie 22:25, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes. Delete. —Stephen 09:54, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. --Connel MacKenzie T C 15:23, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

维基字典

A Chinese word which is neither a proper noun "Wiktionary" (维基词典) nor a common word. I think it should be possibly kept if "wiki dictionary", the literal translation, is meeting the inclusion criteria.

• Seems to be a variation of the official 维基词典. Currently zh:维基字典 redirects to zh:维基词典, where 维 基 字 典 is given as the spelling. This is presumably an error. Kappa 01:53, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

• • I agree... The post was mine. How can I withdraw this? Just removing RfD tag from the article is sufficient? -Tohru 02:22, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Egyptian mythology

Idiomatic? Ncik 01:06, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted - encyclopedic SemperBlotto 14:45, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

ci-devant

Can't tell if this is meant as an obtuse joke or not. --Connel MacKenzie T C 20:21, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

No joke, just needed clean-up. —Stephen 13:24, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks! --Connel MacKenzie T C 06:47, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

dry snitching

Failed RFV. —Muke Tever 02:30, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:56, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

avago

This is a company name. Is it suitable for our project? If yes, it needs to be moved to Avago. Of course, then I'll also list the name of my company on here... Polyglot 08:24, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

• Deleted - not notable - Wikipedia link led nowhere. SemperBlotto 08:32, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

• Odd. When I nominated IHOP on the same basis, it was kept. Also I notice somebody has also just added Winamp. — Hippietrail 17:34, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Ekspreso

We’re getting lots of new Ekspreso entries from User:ILVI (Special:Contributions/ILVI)...for instance, at district. —Stephen 11:41, 22 November 2005 (UTC)

Suoczil

another conlang. No article but about 80 "translations" into this "language". The only other result from Google was a couple of copyvios from us! Eclecticology 00:18, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

I concur. Delete all of the entries. —Stephen 09:42, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, these were all added by User:Ashvemn who will not talk to anyone. They have failed RfV. I shall delete them all today. SemperBlotto 09:49, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

A combined effort has deleted / reverted all Suoczil nonsense. Author has been informed. SemperBlotto 13:34, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Eumeterate

Failed RFV: cites don't span at least a year, and independence is highly suspect (details at the archived discussion at Talk:Eumeterate). —Muke Tever 07:32, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Delete. —Stephen 12:43, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Keep This word pops up in a lot of places. 24.60.97.25 22:05, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Also, I was reading xicryeverydayx's livejournal and he used the word about a year ago.

nslookup 24.60.97.25

c-24-60-97-25.hsd1.ma.comcast.net

Massachusetts...

Incidentally, that post in [12] from about a year ago doesn't show up in the RSS feed, which does include the post preceding and the post following. This indicates that the post was “backdated,” i.e. posted with a falsified date and hidden from showing up in friends lists. Sorry. —Muke Tever 23:23, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

(Previous entry unsigned, from 24.60.97.25.)

Deleted. I'd like to note my displeasure at retaining Talk:Eumeterate while there is no corresponding main entry. I'd like to see a more straight-forward rfv archive of some sort, with a list of failed words for quick reference (a shoot-on-sight list, perhaps.) --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:17, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Hmm.... I guess I could see about something like that. —Muke Tever 23:23, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

teabagger

Failed RFV. Cites should have been easy to procure, at least in the sexual-slang sense, but none appeared in the time allotted. —Muke Tever 07:47, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

• wikipedia:Teabagging might be relevant. Kappa 05:44, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

  To teabagging, certainly. But it doesn't contain the word teabagger. —Muke Tever 20:53, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. --Connel MacKenzie T C 15:21, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

poptextiest

Claimed to be the superlative of a noun (poptext), which is not possible. If the adjective "poptexty" can be shown to exist, then "poptextiest" might have a case for being saved.

I have nominated "poptext" for verification rather than deletion, as it might exist. — Paul G 12:53, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

Accompanying

This entry is a duplicate of accompanying. The capitalized version is not needed. — Fudoreaper 04:35, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Incorrect redirect (to accompany) deleted. --Connel MacKenzie T C 05:02, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Privileges

This page has been replaced by privileges; the capitalized version is not needed. — Fudoreaper 04:41, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Keep. We retain redirects for capitalization problems (especially from other WikiMedia sites, also for other external sites) that link using the original capitalized link. The redirects hurt nothing, but deleting them means that users are present with blank "Edit this page" pages. That in turn causes duplicate entries. We also use redirects for idiom varients, but that is another subject entirely. --Connel MacKenzie T C 05:01, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm confused. How does the reasoning for this entry differ from the one above, for Accompanying? You accepted it should be deleted, but not this one? Please explain, Connel. — Fudoreaper 16:12, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

I admit it is confusing. For privileges, the spelling does not differ, only the capitalization, therefore the redirect should stay. (The only thing accomplished by deleting this redirect is to break external links from other WMF sites and elsewhere.) In the previous deletion request, the redirect was "improperly" corrected by the double-redirect bot during a test run. Because the redirect target had a different spelling than the single word redirect source, the redirect is invalid.

My hope is that after this next round of deletions, I'll be able to retest the Double redirect bot for the plethora of remaining double redirects. P.S. Please add your vote to WS:BP#Request for bot status: DblRedirBot if you haven't already. --Connel MacKenzie T C 16:33, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

moral excellence

Definition given suitable for "moral OKness" perhaps. Multi-word construct that manages to be less than the sum of its parts; highly dubious the combination is used narrowly or with any special meaning. --Connel MacKenzie T C 15:39, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

delete - This entry is indeed less than the sum of its parts. Weak and uninformative. — Fudoreaper 01:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. —Stephen 11:15, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Mal:Klikk

Err… I mistook this for the Norwegian Wikipedia. Someone please delete it… Jon Harald Søby 20:15, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. --Connel MacKenzie T C 23:37, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

esquivalience

Failed RFV: no evidence the word has been used conveying meaning (not much is likely to exist, as the word was not invented to convey meaning). —Muke Tever 21:32, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Delete. —Stephen 11:11, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. --Connel MacKenzie T C 15:19, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

śpiewać

This entry is entirely incomplete; the word is not english, it's not a verb, and etc. It's apparently a real polish word, but the english wiktionary entry is useless. — Fudoreaper 01:45, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

It’s Polish, not English. Just needed some adjustment. —Stephen 10:46, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the improvment, Stephen. What i meant was in it's current form, it shouldn't exist, since it entirely void of information. However, your improvements have turned it into a valid entry. Thanks much.

KEEP this entry. — Fudoreaper 20:47, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Thành viên:Nguyễn Lam Điền

Speedy delete… "Thành viên" is the Vietnamese word for "User". (There is no user here with the name Nguyễn Lam Điền.) Jon Harald Søby 15:33, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Category:Japanese Type 3 Verb

This category is unused and redundant with Category:Japanese Type 3 Verbs. Millie 18:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Shouldn't the category be Category:Japanese type 3 verbs? (E.g. with small letters.) Jon Harald Søby 18:28, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

kilik

Name from Soul Calibur? AFAIK, we don't have names of fictional characters here unless they are very famous… Jon Harald Søby 15:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

madonna

Or perhpas someone would like to create an article about "a madonna" (I've heard the expression). But "a name." is nothing to keep. Jon Harald Søby 15:22, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

sticky bun

Err… What? Jibberish. Jon Harald Søby 15:22, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

you have heard of sticky bun? google

I understand that it is something real, but "a sticky bun is like a cinnamon bun covered in icing." is still jibberish. Jon Harald Søby 15:25, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I've improved the definition. Could someone look at it to confirm that it is correct? — Paul G 15:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

what else can be said about sticky bun. 169.244.143.115 15:36, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

JHS - you should try sticky buns, they're really delish. --Wonderfool 22:23, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. Maybe it is "Mostly British" ? SemperBlotto 11:39, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Keep. I regularly hear this in British contexts and wonder exactly what's so special about them. In Australia we have all kinds of buns and rolls, some of which may be considered sticky, but the term "sticky bun" has no currency there like it seems to have in Britain. The def given here is very weak though. I'll see what the new one is like. — Hippietrail 17:15, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

These are common in NYC also. (Another reason for me to be homesick.) Besides being delicious, the double entendre makes the act of saying the name entertaining. "I need sticky buns!/You got sticky buns!" etc. --Connel MacKenzie T C 15:17, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

look good on the dancefloor

Not idiomatic. — 193.203.81.129 18:09, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

User:Pink 26

Made by anonymous user – there is no user with that name here (you can see that as there is no "User contributions" link in the toolbox). Jon Harald Søby 19:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

rippy

User-created word; user deleted content after it hit RFV saying he hadn't realized that we weren't that kind of dictionary. —Muke Tever 03:05, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Wikifool

A joke. This one is almost clever! --Daniel 07:02, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Category:Mad Scientist

Category:Mad Scientist and Template:User mad ... self-promotion? —Stephen 11:59, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Henchism

"The ultimate religion, founded September 27, 2005…" Need I say more? Jon Harald Søby 14:36, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

playstation 3

PlayStation is probably OK, but do we need an entry for every new edition? I think not. In any case, the capitalisation is wrong. — Paul G 18:12, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

• Delete. Please make it go away. The capitalization is wrong, yes, and the definition is worthless. Even if we do keep the basic word, this isn't it. --Dvortygirl 08:37, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Chowinfull

very not-notable - User:Amgine/^talk 05:40, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobie

notawordsostopit. - User:Amgine/^talk 05:45, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

• Gone. --Dvortygirl 07:05, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

December

limmy

Failed RFV, no evidence. —Muke Tever 17:16, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. --Connel MacKenzie T C 07:44, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Thank you for the new {{rfvdelete}} template. --Connel MacKenzie T C 07:47, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

dumbonstrators

Failed RFV, no evidence given. —Muke Tever 17:22, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. --Connel MacKenzie T C 07:45, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Portuguese pronoums seen through a declensional context

Should it be moved to Wikibooks? It is reasonably encyclopedic. Should it be "pronouns"? SemperBlotto 12:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I don’t know the best place for the article, but yes, the word is supposed to be "pronouns". Spelling the English "pronoums" is a frequent mistake among Portuguese writers. —Stephen 09:44, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Well, the text is basically correct (though I'd make a slightly different table), but I'm not sure where you could place it. Perhaps we could move it to a "Portuguese pronouns" appendix or transwiki part of its content to w:Portuguese pronouns (or Wikibooks, not sure) before deleting it here. -- Leoadec ^(talk) 18:51, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Category:Spanish langauge

typo? only one entry

• deleted. Eclecticology 20:19, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:EDS

This really isn't the way to go… I've removed the references to it (only three). Jon Harald Søby 18:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

yonks

Stale entry. --Connel MacKenzie T C 00:11, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

• "stale"? Uncle G 12:12, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

By "stale" I mean that someone tagged it "rfd" a while ago. (FWIW, it seems like a joke entry to me, not colloquial as claimed.) --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:57, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Should that not be someone tagged it "rfd" yonks ago? TheSimpleFool 00:44, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

The original rfd was for yonk the entry has since been moved to yonks, which is a very common phrase in the UK, see [13]TheSimpleFool 20:13, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Marked region, removed rfd. Thanks. --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:27, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Announcements

• Delete Page is out of date, not updated, and lacking in content. Gerard Foley 01:43, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

• Keep. This is linked from the top or Special:RecentChanges and I believe is required of the WikiMedia software. Perhaps it could be updated now and then... --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:24, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

• All the 'required' pages are in the Mediawiki: namespace, I believe. Of course removing it from Special:Recentchanges (rather, Mediawiki:Recentchangestext) is possible, and probably worth doing if the page is so unused. —Muke Tever 20:41, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

ja-go-ru ja-go-mu ja-go-gu and ja-go-ku

These look like they are meant to be Japanese language templates, but they are not in the template space. No pages link to them. SemperBlotto 15:00, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I created them, and yes they were meant to be templates but I clumsily put them in the wrong location. Their corresponding templates are up and functional, and you can go ahead and delete the mistakes. ---Aaronsama 17:46, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

MMB

Speedy delete. Some encyclopedic nonsense. Jon Harald Søby 18:10, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:21, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

abdelavi

Content was: a long cylinder shaped brown with cracks and liquids (pee, poo) Ncik 03:08, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Tempalte:otheruses1

Created by someone who thought we would have or need disambiguation pages. Ncik 03:30, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

"shum lo sin"

Sigh… Speedy delete. Jon Harald Søby 12:14, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:keyboard

What is that guy doing? Ncik 15:37, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

CORONTION STREET MEMORIES

No comment. Ncik 20:48, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

gnobian

Failed RFV, no evidence. —Muke Tever 21:08, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Deleted. --Connel MacKenzie T C 23:21, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

plamas

Failed RFV; may exist, but only evidence was a mention in a dictionary of Hiberno-English. —Muke Tever 21:15, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

if you google, and restrict your search to Ireland [14], it seems to cut out a lot of the noise TheSimpleFool 23:05, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Following your link, google (not the strongly preferred print.google.com, mind you) proposes a spelling correction. I think it would be much more helpful to provide such research during the RFV phase, not after it has failed. --Connel MacKenzie T C 23:48, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:text

User:84.121.13.184 has created Template:text and is replacing our regular category classes; e.g., in person, where {{law}} has been replaced by {{text|law}}. —Stephen 15:30, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

szia

Pure vandalism. --Eeee 04:45, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

jgfd

Everything and nothing?? Jon Harald Søby 11:51, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Category: Diseases

It duplicates Category: Disease. I have moved all articles from "diseases" to "disease" so "diseases" is currently empty.

Deleted. --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:23, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

540 flip

blah blah cool move KEEP

Deleted, along with today's other contributions from 130.111.98.241. --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:22, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Template:audio us

A 1-1 copy of Template:audio. Therefore redundant. Created by an anonymous user who doesn't seem to know what he's doing anyway. Ncik 23:19, 13 December 2005 (UTC)