Language Lover

You said quickly could only modify verbs. In the phrase, "... quickly made sandwich...," made is an adjective. Joe Webster 11:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

Nope. Try "quickly cold sandwich": cold is an adjective. In "quickly made sandwich", made is the simple past tense of to make: A sandwich quickly made. Robert Ullmann 11:18, 6 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

In British English, quickly-made would be correct (with the hyphen for clarity to show that the two words form one compound adjective). Dbfirs 22:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

American Heritage has made as an adjective. Joe Webster 11:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

• Whereas all adverbs can modify both a verb or an adjective, they tend to modify words of the same general type. So "quickly" will only modify adjectives to do with motion of some sort - these will probably all be past participles of verbs of motion. (That was a quickly thought-up argument) SemperBlotto 11:44, 6 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

I notice you've been adding an "Ergative verb" category and tags to a bunch of verbs. I'm 80% happy with that.

I like the category, and can imagine some things it might be useful for. I love the fact that, almost by accident, it's serving to tag a bunch of verbs whose entries need a huge amount of work done on them.

The part that makes me 20% unsure is the definition tags. Even if the tag linked to the definition of ergative verb, it's still such an arcane term as to be useless to 99.99% of our users. I think that the best form for most of these verbs to take will eventually be pairs of transitive and intransitive senses, with example sentences. For example:

1. (transitive) to make full.

   I filled the pail with water.

2. (intransitive) to become full.

   The pail filled with water.

It's probably a mistake to try to abbreviate that as something like

1. (ergative) to make full.

That's way too terse and unintelligible for most readers, even if it had a link to an explanation of "ergative".

I haven't seen anything you've done so far where tagging the definition made the existing entry worse. But please tread carefully, and please don't change any "transitive" or "intransitive" tags that might already be in an entry -- at least until there's a community consensus on the right way to handle verbs like this.

Thanks for taking on this highly unglamorous side of Wiktionarying.

-- Keffy 00:45, 9 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

I deleted this, since there is no such thing as a "pluralization template". We use the "noun inflection template", and there is already a category for words that lack this template. --EncycloPetey 01:36, 11 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

I would strongly recommend Cat:Alternative spellings instead, since that is the standard header form we're supposed to be using (WT:ELE), not that it's always used of course. --EncycloPetey 05:02, 12 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

Please note that the template is used in enough entries, that it really thwacks the job queue, each time it is edited. Special:Statistics. When that gets to zero, the category will be filled with the appropriate entries. --Connel MacKenzie 06:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

Connel beat me to the answer, there are about 5000 items in the job-queue.. wait until we get to zero before deciding if changes to templates actually worked :) -- Versageek 06:25, 12 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

Why do we have an "Alternative spellings" header? because that's how alternative spellings are supposed to be given. The {{alternative spelling of}} template in the definition line is not intended to be the primary way alternative spellings are handled. There's a page somewhere that lays out this policy, but there's also bucketloads of debate lying around. The feeling is that each spelling potentially has it's own etymology, own quotations, and own regional usage, so each gets its own full page crosslinked via the ===Alternative spellings=== section. --EncycloPetey 07:17, 12 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

Be careful not to de-wikify entries. It's good to have the template in there, but if the arguemnt isn't in brackets, then it doesn't count as part of our page total. --EncycloPetey 04:55, 13 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

Please do not invent new "part of speech" headers without discussing them first. The appropriate header for what you are doing is Symbol. --EncycloPetey 18:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

We decided some time ago not to use Noun Phrase as a POS header. See WT:POS. --EncycloPetey 01:06, 19 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

A bit of clarification, I think that EncycloPetey meant this as a polite request that you avoid using this POS header in the future, and not as a request for permission to edit the article (having received his very discerning advice a number of times myself). Sorry for being so nosy. Atelaes 04:57, 19 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

As you seem to be into mathematics - can you help with Kelvin function? It is being discussed in RfV. SemperBlotto 23:03, 2 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hmm, it looks a blanket term for several related functions which are defined by specifying a partial differential equation which they solve. Unfortunately I don't know anything about them :-) Maybe someday I'll learn about them, and then I can create a super Wiktionary entry about them :-D

Aren't these also adverbs? "We walked lakeward." or "the path led lakeward". SemperBlotto 22:35, 4 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for pointing this out :-) I do indeed think lakeward should be an adverb, the problem is that I could not find 3 adverbial uses of it at b.g.c. All or almost all (I forget which) usages of lakeward which I found, were adjectives. I would love it if you could find some adverbial usages :-D Unfortunately if we just went off what intuitively made sense, we'd have to add a "-ward" entry for practically every tangible English noun... *big grin* (Hey, now THERE'S a way to inflate our entry count!)

I must admit that I thought that that was what you were actually doing! Great that you are looking for actual use. SemperBlotto 22:52, 4 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hey, upon looking again, I'm able to find some adverbial uses.. so I will add that.. thanks for pointing this out!! Keep up the great work SemperBlotto!!! =D

Re: Unfortunately if we just went off what intuitively made sense, we'd have to add a "-ward" entry for practically every tangible English noun... *big grin* (Hey, now THERE'S a way to inflate our entry count!)

I'm certain I can't possibly be the first person around here to have used/thought of ispell for this purpose. But I'll mention it anyway. A reasonably well-established dic/aff file pair is an invaluable resource for this sort of thing. Snakesteuben 16:45, 22 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

Language Lover, please sign your comments with the four tildas (~~~~). Thanks. Atelaes 05:48, 7 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Interesting, I always wondered how you guys sign so fast & accurately without ever making typos. I bet you would get a lot of fanfare if you programmed Wikimedia to automatically insert the signatures. Afterall in this great day and age, computers work for us, not vice versa. It is great to be alive in such an exciting time :)! The spirit of wikimedia is anticipating automation, for example we use nonexistent templates, knowing that in the future someone will create them (or if not, we'll create them ourselves). Likewise we put "see also" links to nonexistent entries. So in that spirit I'll face the fun challenges here head on without the protection of a signature, knowing that in time eventually the fantastic wikiprogrammers will set it up so those signatures appear automatically. Thank you for your kind teaching and your untiring vigilance, keep up the awesome work Atelaes!!!! :-D

A few notes, first of all I don't believe that the Wikimedia programmers are in fact working on such a signature automation. Perhaps they are. In any case, I still think that you should use a signature in the meantime. Once that day comes I will never again ask you to sign a comment. And keep in mind that signatures are not for your protection, they are for the benefit of everyone who reads your comments. They tell the reader who is making such a comment, and provides a quick and easy link to them. As is stands, people are forced to go through the history of a page to see if one of your comments is actually from you (which can be very tiring, especially on large pages like the BP). So, please, for the rest of us, as a common courtesy, sign your comments. Atelaes 19:13, 7 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Please sign your comments with ~~~~! The links and timestamp are important, both so people can find your user and talk pages, and so that archiving works properly. Robert Ullmann 11:40, 20 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

...to Wiktionary:Votes/2007-03/BD2412bot. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:35, 12 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Can we get you aboard the admin-ship? I'll start a vote for you if you want - I reckon I am up to it now. --Keene 22:56, 24 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Wow, I'm honoured by the offer. What all is involved if one becomes an admin? Thanks a lot :) Language Lover 04:03, 25 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Please accept here. --Keene 13:11, 30 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hi. I removed "batlike soul" from Wiktionary:Wanted entries, as I was unable to find any idiomatic meaning with which to define the term. I determined that it was coined by James Joyce in his 1916 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, where he wrote:

He had told himself bitterly as he walked through the streets that she was a figure of the womanhood of her country, a batlike soul waking to the consciousness of itself in darkness and secrecy and loneliness.

Virtually all other references are analyses or allusions to the line by Joyce, but there is nothing in that line to indicate that "batlike soul" is a set phrase, or that "batlike spirit" or "batlike conscience" would not mean essentially the same thing. In other words, a "batlike" soul is nothing more than a soul that is batlike, although "batlike" may allude to any number of characteristics. Cheers! bd2412 T 13:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for keeping track of imperfections in the ELE. We long-time regulars often overlook omissions in policy that result from our innovations. --EncycloPetey 04:25, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

You made a bit of a pigs ear of this template the last edit made to it. I have reverted the changes. Please do not leave templates (or other articles) in a mess, either revert your last change or ask for help in editing it. DAVilla is the person you need to speak to about editting context labels, also {{cattag}} was superceded by {{context}}. Enjoy editing.--Williamsayers79 12:04, 10 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hey,

Are you still around? Your contributions seem to have dropped off a lot — I'm hoping you're just busy with real life or something, and that we haven't scared you off or anything?

Your amazing ability to cite every single entry on WT:RFV is going missed. :-)

—Ruakh_TALK 23:38, 29 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hi, Language Lover. I saw you added a "Reciprocal (for verbs)" section to WT:AJ. I don't specifically object to such a new heading, but the established process for significant changes to policy pages is to hold a WT:VOTE before altering the policy. So, no offense was intended, but I reverted that addition.

I suggest you announce why you think such an addition is appropriate at Wiktionary talk:About Japanese#Reciprocal (for verbs), then assuming there are no major objections, proceed to a vote, then alter the page. I know it may seem like bureaucracy, but the feedback typically generated by such process usually is quite helpful. Rod (A. Smith) 15:55, 25 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

How do you imagine using that category? Rod (A. Smith) 06:20, 9 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I use it to identify nouns to which I add an inflection template. bd2412 T 18:00, 9 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I think I misunderstood you because I read your reply to means that you (1) find a noun without {{en-noun}}, (2) add {{en-noun}}, and then (3) add Category:English nouns lacking inflection template (which appears to be a synonym for Category:English nouns that lack inflection template). Could you please point to an example entry where you've used the category so I can be sure I understand your process? The reason I ask about this category is that it is just a redirect to a maintenance category. The maintenance category indicates entries to which editors should add {{en-noun}}, not entries to which editors have already added {{en-noun}}. That is, entries in that maintenance category should be removed from that category when they acquire {{en-noun}} and ideally, the category will some day be empty. Does that make sense? Rod (A. Smith) 18:48, 9 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I just realized that was BD2412 above. My question was about “Category:English nouns lacking inflection template” and some others that User:Language Lover added. They are redirects to the maintenance categories like Category:English nouns that lack inflection template. I was wondering why we would want duplicate, redirected versions. Rod (A. Smith) 19:32, 9 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Ah, hadn't noticed that. Yes, useless category. bd2412 T 21:49, 9 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I created the category in question for editing ease. "Preview" does not (or did not at the time) show categories, so cannot be used to tell whether one typed the categories correctly. I was sick of typing out "Category:English nouns lacking inflection template", only to see that the category didn't exist, having to pull up some english noun with no template to see what the real category name is, and then correct myself. As for the "other stuff" you mentioned, I think you mean like {{en-adj-lacks-template}}? Those are also for editing ease so if I add a word and don't know what forms it should have, I can do just the one template, to classify the word in TWO categories (in the example, English adjectives and English adjectives that lack blahblah). It's a lot of effort to repeatedly type out the very long,

• "[[Category:English adjectives that lack inflection template]] [[Category:English adjectives]]"

Language Lover 05:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Ah. I think I understand. The categories were once just populated by bots that cannot guess about a noun's plural form. If a human encounters an article lacking {{en-noun}}, the human of course may add the Category:English nouns that lack inflection template or some redirecting category (assuming category redirection works as expected). Assuming you are a native English speaker, though, I expect you usually know the plural form, so I expect it would be just as easy for you to add {{en-noun}}. If so, we can expect the redirecting categories to remain empty and we should be able to delete them safely. Does that seem accurate or would you prefer not to add {{en-noun}} (or {{plural of}} for plural entries) but to add the category instead? Rod (A. Smith) 06:52, 11 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

I frequently encounter English words I can't add inflection templates to. In particular, I frequently encounter adjectives for which I don't know if the adjective is ordinarily comparable. I therefore think {{en-adj-lacks-template}} is a great idea. The redirecting categories, however, are not so great, since they don't work very well with the MediaWiki software. —Ruakh_TALK 16:31, 11 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hi, it doesn't look like Wiktionary:Votes/2007-07/Japanese Verb Reciprocals is going to pass. There was a lot of activity on the voting page a few months ago, but now even I have slowed down my pace of new votes. It's just too tough getting everyone to agree. Anyways, do you mind if I close it early? DAVilla 06:56, 16 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

That's fine.. of course it's wiktionary so you don't need anyone's permission to do whatever you like to the votes page :) Language Lover 22:03, 16 August 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hi. No prob. It's been on my "do" list for a while. I'm also going through all the adjectives adding the "derived" verbs and nouns, as most of them are -ness nouns or -th nouns. It's an interesting vocab set, in many aspects. Algrif 14:32, 5 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Please do not make unilateral changes to Wiktionary policy pages. Any substantial edit to a policy page requires a formal discussion and vote; see WT:BP#Noting categories in WT:ELE. --EncycloPetey 10:27, 11 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Your "personal motivations" subpage has a pretty misleading name; moving it might help dissuade silly stuff hapenning to it again. Don't know why I thought it was you, logged out, editing your subpage...I should have looked at the diff. --Connel MacKenzie 07:48, 25 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

P.S. Your Special:Emailuser link doesn't work.

P.P.S. I think that Wiktionary:What Wiktionary is not takes a dim view of such personal pages (but I could be wrong). SemperBlotto 08:02, 25 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I've just added this verb, but I'm not sure if it is ergative or not. I am glad you have made this category by the way. As a TFL in my spare time, it is useful for teaching verbs that do not need a passive voice, and that can be coupled with won't meaning refuse to do, as in My car won't start or the window won't open etc. Algrif 15:36, 25 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I looked at the results on books.google.com and... to my chagrin ;) ...I couldnt find any ergative uses! Language Lover 01:51, 3 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

I'm assuming you were trying to put this at Wiktionary:Votes/The Joy of Categories? Regards --Keene 14:12, 31 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

Yup :)

Hi there. If you don't know the meaning of a word, you should add it to the requests - not add a stub with no definition. In this particular case I don't think it is even English - try the "language not known" list. Cheers. SemperBlotto 12:14, 11 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Could you please format your entry like the example, and include your tally of the score? If you need another example of the format, the Wiktionary:Easter Competition 2007 has several such entries. --EncycloPetey 05:13, 5 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

No, no. I want to see lots of people in the competition. It's just easier for people to see what's going on if you format your entry after the example. --EncycloPetey 05:19, 5 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

The rules require that you wikilink the verb and the adverbs, you might as well use the format. That way we can go check on things like rabbitlike, which has a circular adverb definition, and has to be improved. Robert Ullmann 06:15, 5 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Why not move the entry for Jedi mind tricks to the singular? 84 raw g.b.c cites for that, many not books from "Star Wars series". Should meet RfV more easily than most Star Wars terms. And then we change the redirect to a "plural form of". You can put quotes on both pages if you need. DCDuring 03:44, 8 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Sure, but that was a difficult one to define. --EncycloPetey 05:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Is it used attributively ? I should have a look at MS Excel, Word, Outlook etc - I would expect similar usage. —Saltmarsh^Talk 15:47, 17 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Yeah, some "-phyte" words may be limited to a rather specific scientific group in society, I'll admit. If you feel that they are not really in the general vocabulary, I won't feel hurt if you delete the article :DDD Remember, this isn't wikipedia, ha ha. Phantommine 17:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Hi LL, I was wondering if you would be interested in adminship? You've been here a couple of months more than me, and been online a bit more regularly than me. Can I nominate for adminship, or do you want to wait for a bit more experience? I appreciate your support for me in my attempt, and figure that you ay have a better chance, with plenty of useful additions and useful threads contributed to in the Project: namespace. Are you keen? --Keene 13:53, 29 December 2007 (UTC)Reply

Keene, you are aware of course that you had already nominated Language Lover for admin about a year ago? Myself, I think he's a great guy and all, but I'm not convinced that he needs admin tools, being more or less a casual contributor... which is fine, certainly. After all, he probably contributes more than I do to the main space. But shouldn't there be some motivation for nominating a user, other than to pat him on the back?

Language Lover, thank you for your contributions. I wouldn't want to drag you through a vote that may or may not be successful, and even if it were would probably be contentious. If you have an interest in becoming more involved with Wiktionary then please do not hold yourself back, and if you come across any problems with other users, technical restrictions, or what have you, let me know on my talk page or via the e-mail link and I will help you resolve them as best I can. Regards. DAVilla 04:32, 29 January 2008 (UTC)Reply

Hi there mathematician. I can't find a definition of translog - does it mean transcendental logarithm (doesn't get me much further). I'm coming from the Italian adjective translogaritmico and have found funzione translogaritmica in the Italian Wikipedia - but there is no link to the English wiki. Cheers. SemperBlotto 16:51, 25 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

You have stepped into an extremely serious issue; please enable email. Robert Ullmann 02:43, 20 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

I have reinstated the sense, as it seems to have support from a number of established users (on the rfv page). However, I have retained the rfv tag on the sense, so if you would like to see the sense last more than a month, I suggest you get crackin' on finding some cites. In the future, the BP is probably a better place to get community attention than WT:VOTE. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 22:02, 20 April 2008 (UTC)Reply

I've been finding many more good citations for number two pencil than for number 2 pencil. So, if we need to cite a non-SoP sense that has these "associations", it's much more likely to be under "two" than "2". DCDuring TALK 21:31, 7 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

I'm not sure that (for all of these words) the definition you are giving is the best or only possible sense. See, for instance, the entry I just created for (deprecated template usage) batsmanship, which is a skill/quality rather than a state/condition. --EncycloPetey 01:04, 26 August 2008 (UTC)Reply

I've deleted this, as it's not a word or character or anything relevant to a dictionary, it's a control character for Unicode. Any questions or comments, I am of course open to them. -Atelaes λάλει ἐμοί 06:19, 23 March 2009 (UTC)Reply

Compare Category:English verbs which are their own past participle and Appendix:English verbs with base form identical to past participle. Why not just have the appendix? DCDuring TALK 23:20, 18 October 2009 (UTC)Reply