Wiktionary:Simple talk/Archive 7

Notes

Hi there all. I just wanted to let you all know that I have enabled gadgets here on the Simple English Wiktionary. There are a few that I think all administrators should have ticked on: Clean delete reasons and Vandal Warner. Both of those are very helpful.

Also, another really helpful one if the HotCat gadget. Allows for users to instantly add categories to a page without having to go through the hassle of editing the page.

Also, I have archived this page. It should now be pretty small in size. Cheers, Razor flame 21:15, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, these gadgets should come in handy for admins and users alike. Great job! Regards, Maximillion Pegasus 02:35, 9 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

verb template

I changed the Template:verb template so that when you give 5 forms, it puts it in the category "Irregular verbs". I hope I didn't make any mistakes when I changed it.

I'm not sure exactly which verbs should be called "irregular".

See the template page (the link I just gave) for ways to use the template. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 00:39, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Verbs are called irregular when they aren't regular =D . They are regular when they finish in -ed on the 3rd and 4th forms. Yotcmdr 08:52, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this is a good solution. It flags too many situations like comfort, which is regular.--Brett 22:49, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

{{verb2}} can be used for irregular verbs, {{verb}} is used for regular ones. Maximillion Pegasus 23:06, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Verb2 should be used for irregular verbs, while the usual verb template can be used for regular verbs. Cheers, Razor flame 23:25, 11 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Another example where this creates a problem is notes, which is regular. Maximillion Pegasus 21:43, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I've put it back to the way it was.--Brett 22:16, 13 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry about that!! I guess I should have asked first.

Wait – see my comments below. ^{(13:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC))}

~~Now, I see two ways to do it.~~

First way: Use two templates. Change the instructions on the Template:verb page to say that this should be used only for regular verbs, and that verb2 is for irregular verbs. In this case, I would also like to change the verb2 template so it will work with either 4 or 5 forms, for example {{verb2|send|sends|sent|sending}} (4 forms; irregular) or {{verb2|send|sends|sent|sent|sending}} (5 forms; irregular).

Second way: Use only one template. I suggest that the instructions say that if you use five forms, it will mark it as irregular. We can also have one more way: six arguments, like this: {{verb|comfort|comforts|comforted|comforted|comforting|regular}} which would make it a regular verb. (Or, the other way around. Five arguments would make it regular; six arguments with the last one "irregular" would make it irregular. For any number of arguments, the last argument could make it regular or irregular. Or one could write "regular=true" or "irregular=true".) I think I can look at all the verb pages and change ones that need to be changed. I think the verb2 template can be a redirect to the verb template.

Questions: If the past tense ends in "t" is it irregular? Are all the ones that end in "ed" regular, and all the ones that don't end in "ed" irregular? Is shelf as a verb regular or irregular?

Shelf is indeed irregular.Shelf is not irregular, because it's not a verb. The verb is shelve. Anything that undergoes any kind of change beyond the following is irregular:

adding -ed for both past tense and past participle

and in so doing

doubling the final consonant
changing the final y to i and adding -ed
dropping the final e and adding -ed.--Brett 14:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any irregular verbs that need 5 forms written in the template? For example, comfort can be {{verb|comfort}} or {{verb|comfort|comforts|comforted|comforting}}, and note can be {{verb|not|e}} or {{verb|note|notes|noted|noting}}, so those don't need 5 forms. I would think that if a verb is regular, then the past tense and past participle should always be the same, so it can be done by writing 4 forms, and then the verb template (the way I put it) would mark it as regular.

I was using the templates wrong. Just now, I looked through all my changes back to November 2006. I think all the irregular verb pages I created or changed were: think underlie fight understand go come give send (Is "send" irregular?) see shake shut sleep spring take teach wind bent wound get I've now fixed bent wound get. All the others already had the "Irregular verbs" category.

When I made that change a few days ago, it made note and comfort wrong, but I think it fixed get. I thought there were more pages I had written that it would have fixed, but I guess Brett (or other people) had already fixed all the others to use the verb2 template. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 15:50, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here's how I'm now thinking of doing it:

The verb template will always put it in category "Regular verbs" and the verb2 template, "Irregular verbs".

Correct usage of the templates will be to use the verb template with ~~one~~ zero^{(01:40, 18 February 2009 (UTC))} to four arguments or the verb2 template with five arguments. If a template is used with the wrong number of arguments, it will display the verb nicely but will also add it to a category "Verb template usage errors".

Does that sound OK? ☺Coppertwig(talk) 13:26, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds good I think.--Brett 14:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. That makes the most sense out of all the proposed changes here. Cheers, Razor flame 16:50, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Category of lexical category

I didn't notice there was a template {{proper noun}}. I would like to be able to find all the templates like that easily. I suggest that, to all templates like {{noun}} {{verb}} etc., we add this: <noinclude>[[Category:Lexical categories]]</noinclude>. Is it OK if I do that? (on all the ones I can find) ☺Coppertwig(talk) 14:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That makes sense to me.--Brett 15:10, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I also agree, however I would suggest we call the category Category:Part of speech templates. It's simpler wording and keeps in line with the names of other categories containing templates. · Ty grrr... 18:13, 16 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, Tygrrr! I see you've already done it. Thanks! ☺Coppertwig(talk) 01:50, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for bringing it up! I think I thought I had already categorized those but I obviously missed them. It was an easy enough fix though. · Ty grrr... 16:16, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It would also be nice to have all the non-gradable adjectives in one category. Perhaps this could be done by capturing all the {{adjective}} tags that have no arguments.--Brett 15:06, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'd love to do it, but frankly you lost me, ha ha :-) What exactly do you want categorized? · Ty grrr... 19:37, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There are adjectives like entire that don't accept modification by more, most, very, etc. Often these are also attributive only (i.e., they only go in front of the noun). I'd like all of them in one category. Is that clearer?--Brett 20:01, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thank you. One way to do it would be to add a rule to the adjective template that 'if [something], then --> Category:Non-gradable adjectives'. However, if there aren't many of them, or if there isn't a hard and fast rule to determine whether or not a word is gradable, another way to do it would be to add them by hand to each word that qualifies. Which do you think is more feasible? Speaking for myself, I wouldn't know how to add the rule to the template, but I'm sure someone here does or we could easily find someone. Also do want to do categories for both "Gradable adjectives" and "Non-gradable adjectives"? Or just non-gradable? · Ty grrr... 20:42, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose we might as well have both.--Brett 01:47, 19 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note

Just a note that there is an active RfA here. I don't want this to be seen as canvassing, but I am currently not sure if the community even notices that there is one open at the moment. Cheers, Razor flame 18:27, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Shows how active the wiki is. :) Juliancolton 20:15, 17 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure most of us have noticed, but have not voted yet for various reasons. We could probably bold it on the new changes box like at SE WP if you're that concerned about it. · Ty grrr... 00:46, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, I'm not that concerned about it. I just wanted to make sure that the community knew about it. That was all. Cheers, Razor flame 00:47, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That would be one way to let the community know. I'm just thinking about long-term "solutions". Personally, I don't care one way or the other, but if someone (in this case you) isn't sure if the community is noticing it and feels concerned enough about it to comment here, I'm suggesting a (perhaps) easier, more consistent way of bringing it to people's attention. · Ty grrr... 00:58, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I would have to agree with you here. I think that the bolding solution would be our best bet here. What do you think? I can't think of any other long-term solutions other than posting a notice here on Simple talk every time there is an election or not. Cheers, Razor flame 01:00, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hadn't noticed Razorflame's RfA, but I'm more alert now. I had already seen Maximillion Pegasus' but just hadn't voted yet. That page shows as bolded when I look at "new changes"; I think that's because I have it on my watchlist. I think posting a notice here isn't canvassing because anybody could see it, not just people who might have a special reason to vote one way. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 01:39, 18 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:SBot39

Please Brett or another uninvolved admin, unblock my bot. It's edits were all fine and didn't need a block. It has a lot of work to do. Please, please unblock! 16:02, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

A few things:

Your bot is not adding the proper interwiki links. All interwiki on Wiktionaries should be links to the exact same word, not the translation of the word. See Brett's talk page for a more thorough explanation. To show you the interwiki from dog it's

[[af:dog]]
[[ang:dog]]
[[ar:dog]]
[[zh-min-nan:dog]]
[[br:dog]]
[[bg:dog]]
[[ca:dog]]
[[cs:dog]]
[[da:dog]]
[[de:dog]]
[[et:dog]]
[[el:dog]]
[[en:dog]]
[[es:dog]]
[[eo:dog]]
[[eu:dog]]
[[fa:dog]]
[[fr:dog]]
[[fy:dog]]
[[ga:dog]]
etc.

See how they are all links to the page "dog" in other languages and not to the translation of dog in other languages? Your bot needs to only add links to the exact same word in other wikis.

2. Your bot has not been flagged to run here. I will unblock you so you can run some tests. Once you think you've got it adding interwiki properly, you may ask Brett to flag you.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Thanks! · Ty grrr... 16:16, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Problem seems to be fixed. Please unblock. ѕwirlвoy ₪ 16:52, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I unblocked over a half-hour ago. · Ty grrr... 17:08, 20 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have fixed the redirect - interwiki problem. On Africa, my bot is/was making this edit. RF and I have determined that my bot's edits are fine and the te and sm pages are on the wrong page. RF successfully moved the te page, and we will work on the sm one. Luckily it's not a bot prob! ѕwirlвoy ₪ 23:04, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your bot is still having the same problems. Pywikipediabot is not really meant to be used on Wiktionary because of its' high revert/correct edit rate, and because it is not built for it. Because of your bot's high edit/revert rate, I have blocked it for a period of 1 day. This will give you time to either fix the problem or decide what you want to do. Thanks, Razor flame 04:30, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Priorities

I fully understand that everyone is here voluntarily out of personal interest, that those interests are various, and that the work people choose to do will reflect that variety. Having said that, I can't help but wonder at the wisdom of spending hours and hours adding inflected forms when any literate learner of English who's studied the language for more than a few months knows to look up base forms and when a bot could probably do the work much faster. I fail to understand the thinking that includes entries like intrusion detection system when the words intrusion and detection aren't even defined. And the desire to add completely obscure stuff like hydrochoeridae, magma, and Dianthus when basic words like model and split are left untouched strikes me as simply bizarre, especially when the definitions aren't even simple ones. What's the point?!

Please, can we get down to the basic work of defining and exemplifying simple words in simple ways--and adding pronunciations and images, etc.--and forget about artificially inflating our edit counts.?

You are, of course, free to ignore me, but please ask yourself what your motivation for doing so might be.--Brett 18:46, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm inclined to agree on the obscure stuff. We've got obscure, specific kinds of animals before we even have the basic stuff, Indus Valley dolphin but not dolphin; Indus Valley bullfrog but not bullfrog; rhesus macaque, Spot-billed Pelican, Deodar Cedar, it goes on and on. People just aren't going to be looking those up. Sorry, but it's true. And as inclined as I had once been in the past to add inflected forms, I've decided my time is much better spent doing other things. I think it would be fantastic if we could have a few brilliant bots that we could trust to do it for us. Anyone up to trying to figure out how? · Ty grrr... 18:56, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I suspect that some thing (places, animals) come from national pride -- people defining things related to their on specific region or culture.--Jared 18:59, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

You're right about that. Many were added by the Pakistan/India editor. We're still cleaning up the huge mess that editor caused. But I digress. I think it's a good reminder to all of us to try to keep in mind what this dictionary will be used for, and by whom. I think that will help us keep our priorities in line. So thank you, Brett, for the reminder. · Ty grrr... 19:03, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, part of this is a case of my trying to empty Requested definitions (as well as whims, and filling in related word)). I do admit some of my words could have been chosen better. Maybe I'll get to to other words that the phrase comes from soon. For now I'll keep model and split in mind.--Jared 18:57, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Brett, magma is not obscure. It is a definite word that is a must for any Wiktionary and definitely should have been added. I created that article along with lava because I found the word to be interesting. Don't get me wrong, though. I do realize that we still have quite a few more easy words to complete, however, some people are better at some things than others. I will get to work on making simpler, and easier words from now on. Furthermore, I am against any bot making the inflections automatically for us. I would rather that people make the edits rather than bots, but that is just my personal opinion. Thanks for the message, Razor flame 19:52, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Rf, but the same could be said of tens of thousands of other words too. When it comes down to it, though, model occurs at a rate of about 65 instances per million words, with frequencies of up to 10 times that in academic English where magma occurs about 0.6 times per million words. To put it another way, Wordcount.org has model as word # 733 and magma as word # 20,490. Let's not get caught up in details, though. It's just an example. The point is that there are many thousands of everyday words that learners of English are likely to be looking up regularly and working on those is going to be of the most value to the most users.--Brett 21:51, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Of course. I agree with you on that count. Words like model would definitely be much more help towards this Wiktionary than other words at the moment, but making words like magma doesn't hurt, either. They'll have to be created at some point in time XD. Cheers, Razor flame 21:56, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Brett that it's better to write pages for root words like talk than for inflected forms like talks, talked etc. It's possible that I might start writing bots one of these days, and it's possible that if I do, I might write a bot to write the pages for the inflected forms. Certainly, it's something that a bot can do. (Well, if bots are allowed to create pages; or even if not, a bot could write many pages on one page and a human could copy them onto new pages.) I think it's better for people to write the pages for the root words.

How do you do pronunciation? Do you just copy the pronunciation information from English Wiktionary? (Hey, maybe a bot could do that.)

Well, maybe it looks as if I'm doing some less common words. Some of the words I do are words that I need because I'm using those words on another Simple English project. Some of them are words in the BE1500: some of these look to me like less common words. There's nothing wrong with doing a word like magma. It's a useful word. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 13:11, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not to belabour the point, but all words are "useful". That's why somebody made them and why other people use them. But words are only more or less useful to the extent that people actually use them. Clearly people rarely use magma, so it's not a particularly useful word. In fact, unless you're reading related academic stuff, an adult native speaker is unlikely to run into the word more than once a month. A learner of English is highly unlikely to run across the word at all unless it's part of their field of study.--Brett 14:00, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is mostly a good idea. What a bot could easily write for a inflected form is enough 90% of the time or more. The only thing I see wrong with this is when an inflected form has the same spelling as another word, or when use with a different part of speech has add enough meaning to need its own definition. In those cases a bot made page could be make people skip the word as not needing any new meaning when I might still need them. --Jared 14:16, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly there is that potential with a bot. I really don't know much about bots, so I'm afraid I don't have useful suggestions about how to deal with the problem. Maybe it just takes a human to follow along after the bot and double check things.--Brett 15:26, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, Jared. One possible way is for a human to write the more interesting pages and to just write a list of words that will have simple pages, and then a bot could make them into whole pages (if someone writes a bot like that; I might or might not some day).☺Coppertwig(talk) 15:41, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To belabour the point: well, for some people it is their field of study. Scientists sometimes look at material written in different languages, and might understand the math equations and try to understand some of the words. I've done this. Not everyone starts by wanting to learn the most frequent 1000 spoken English words. Of course, other words may be more likely to be useful to more people, but it's still useful to write definitions for words like magma if one wants to. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 16:02, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and lotteries are also good ways of getting rich, so it's still useful to buy tickets.--Brett 01:35, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Like I said above, I think it would be great to have a bot that could create pages for the inflected forms (i.e. talks, talked, talking). As to Coppertwig's questions regarding pronunciation, it is much more than a simple copy-paste. For more info on what all I do when moving pronunciations here from en:wikt, please see my comments here. Does anyone think they could write a bot that could create the inflected forms? Is is possible that one already runs at en:wikt that we could copy? · Ty grrr... 16:06, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think I'm probably able to write a bot to do the inflected forms and a bot to copy pronunciations from English Wiktionary and change them the way you said in that link, and it would probably be fun, but there's a good chance that I won't find the time or get around to it. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 18:44, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(outdenting) I'm sorry for being such a worrywort, but I do not want a bot to be creating the inflected forms of words. I think that it is a job that humans should do because with humans doing them, there is less potential for there to be any mistakes for said word and the concern that CT brought up is a valid one. Certainly there are certain words that should be created first, but we really are too small of a Wiktionary to be using a bot to create definitions at this point in time. Maybe when we get a few more active editors, we can consider this, but as of right now, I really don't see the point of having a bot creating the inflected forms at this point in time. I will start focusing more on creating the base forms of words instead of the inflected forms that I have been focusing on. Please don't make a bot for the inflected forms, as I highly enjoy creating the inflected forms :). Furthermore, I could ask wikt:en:User:Conrad.Irwin, a local sysop on the English Wiktionary, if he could move his accelerated creation javascript over here from the English Wiktionary. What his accelerated creation javascript does is it makes all the links for entries with unmade inflected forms and makes them green links. When someone clicks on that green link, it automatically fills in the information that is needed for that word. Would this be an OK compromise instead of having a bot making inflected forms on this Wiktionary? Razor flame 20:54, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What concern did Coppertwig bring up? It seems to be that he is for a bot doing the inflected forms and he thinks he could write one, but is not sure he has the time. You bring up the fact that we are small and say that it is a reason to not have a bot does these edits. I would argue that because we are small we could use the help of a bot doing these simple, repetitive edits. I'm not sure I understand how the accelerated creation javascript works, but I'm certainly willing to give it a try. · Ty grrr... 23:44, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, Blackjar72 brought up the cocern. That would be the reason why I would rather us using something like this javascript that I brought up. Simply put, the Javascript makes links to inflected forms green and allows a user to click on this green link and have the page automatically written so that they just have to press save. This way, it saves time and still allows for people, and not bots, to create the inflected forms of the words, but it allows them to do it much faster. I could ask Conrad.Irwin over on the English Wiktionary if he would be willing to port the Javascript over here, but I would like to get the community's approval first before I do something as drastic as that. Let me know what you guys think about this idea. Thanks, Razor flame 05:39, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That sounds like a good idea. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 14:21, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unless there are any people that don't want me to, I will go ahead and ask Conrad.Irwin now. Cheers, Razor flame 15:20, 26 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

intrusion detection system

When I looked in the English Wiktionary, they have this page as an initialism IDS. I would therefore like to propose that we either move this page from where it is (leave a redirect) and move it to IDS, or create a redirect to it from the page IDS. What do you think? Razor flame 22:09, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. It seems to be a legitimate phrase. en:wiki has a page called Intrusion detection system. I was originally inclined to think that it was more an encyclopedic entry than a dictionary entry, but now I'm unsure. I guess I don't think it's hurting anything to keep it. And of course if we have an IDS page someday (not a priority), we can have it on there as well. · Ty grrr... 04:29, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I was also, at first, inclined to think that it was an encyclopedic entry as well, which was why I went hunting for it over on the English Wiktionary. I guess it can be kept for now as well. What should we do about the plural form? Should it be created quickly, or kept red on purpose? Cheers, Razor flame 04:32, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

*shrug* Doesn't really matter. Either way's fine, imho. · Ty grrr... 04:35, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'll create it really quick then :). Cheers, Razor flame 04:37, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As I was saying, a distraction from the important stuff.--Brett 12:25, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A small distraction. It only took me about a minute to write the page for that. I will be working more on the important words, so don't worry so much :). Cheers, Razor flame 20:55, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Word lists

I changed the "things to do" on the Main Page so that it's easier to find redlinks to work on. I also made a copy here of the list of words on Simple English Wikipedia with the Wiktionary template, so that we can easily see which are redlinks: (See list). It's important to write definitions for these words, because the Simple English Wiktionary says that we have a page on it and gives a link here, but if it's a redlink it's not true. You might want to look at how I changed the main page and see whether you like it or change it some more, or use the ideas there to find words to work on. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 15:22, 22 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Catenative verbs

I noticed this usage note on refuse

"This is a catenative verb, which means that it can be followed with another verb with a to in between the two verbs:"

I like the term catenative verb, but it's not very common. It's used in the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. There are a wide variety of verb valencies, only a few of which we discuss here. I'm not sure whether we need this note. Usually, I simply try to exemplify the various major complement patterns rather than to explain them with a label like this. What do people think?--Brett 20:14, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really know. I think that we could probably make catenative verb a dictionary article and forgo the usage note on refuse for the one on the definition for the term catenative verb. Maybe we could also do something like an appendix, too, where we could describe what a catenative verb is. Possible solutions? Razor flame 20:17, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the word "catenative" doesn't seem very simple. I had never heard it and my spell check does not recognize it. :-/

I agree with Jarad, I like precision, but this seems too esoteric.--Brett 01:03, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is useful information about a verb, that someone learning English may want to know. I suggest changing the note to simply "This verb can be followed with another verb with a to in between the two verbs, for example 'I refuse to go.'" I think it would be a good idea to have a template to display that note, and a category. I suggest a category "verbs that can be followed by another verb", and include all the modal auxiliaries as well as these ones.

(Alternatively: a category of only the concatenative verbs. It could be called "verbs followed by 'to'" or "verbs that join with 'to'" or "verbs that can be followed by 'to' plus infinitive" or something. In a Google Books search I find (in a Google snippet) "They concern what structuralists called concatenative verbs, ie verbs which, though not modal, are followed by the infinitive (with or without to) of" [1] "A", By Yugoslav Serbo-Croatian-English Contrastive Project, Sveučilište u Zagrebu Institut za lingvistiku, Center for Applied Linguistics Published by , 1973 Item notes: no.7-10 1973-1976. Maybe we could call them "Non-modal auxiliary verbs" or "auxiliary verbs" (or would that be incorrect?) or "Non-modal verbs followed by the infinitive" (or would "concatenative" be simpler than that?)). ☺Coppertwig(talk) 15:02, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Most catenative verbs are certainly not auxiliary verbs (English aux verbs have the NICE properties: negation, inversion, code, and emphasis; these have none of those properties). Having said that, I see no reason to exclude auxiliaries from this category, and the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language specifically includes them.

I think a category of "verbs followed by other verbs" is a good solution. This could be further subdivided. There are four possible catenative complements, all of which are non-finite verb forms: to infinitives (I like to go), bare infinitives (make him leave), present participles (I like going), and past participles (I had it fixed). Notice that some of these have other intervening complements (i.e., objects).--Brett 16:58, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

xkcd

We as wiktionary wasn't mentioned, but simple english wikipedia was. see here: http://xkcd.com/547/ . Empire3131 22:07, 23 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Synonyms

In general, my feeling is that synonyms and antonyms on a dictionary such as this should lead learners to more familiar words rather than deeper into unknown territory. A great thesaurus that takes this approach is the Oxford Learner's Thesaurus, which I reviewed here. One great tool to help you accomplish this is the web interface to the Corpus of Current American English. Your search syntax is an open square bracket followed by an equals sign, the word, and then a close bracket like this: [=word]. If you search for [=aspect], for example, it returns the following:

1 LOOK 237212

2 PART 189327

3 SIDE 120106

4 AIR 101952

5 VIEW 71075

6 POSITION 59587

7 QUALITY 43768

8 PIECE 39595

9 PROPERTY 29234

10 EXPRESSION 19128

11 APPEARANCE 15765

12 FEATURE 14759

13 PHASE 12932

14 ASPECT 11782

15 CHARACTERISTIC 6033

16 OUTLOOK 5828

17 BEAR 4749

18 STANDPOINT 3230

19 TRAIT 2868

20 ATTRIBUTE 2713

21 VIEWPOINT 2213

22 DEMEANOR 1821

The number to the right is the frequency of the word in question. Of course, you'll still have to exercise your judgment. I'd certain omit air and probably some other more frequent ones, and I might include characteristic and outlook, but attribute and demeanor are clearly much less common than aspect and should probably not be listed.--Brett 15:42, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What a great tool! Thanks for sharing! · Ty grrr... 15:57, 24 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Protection review

This is probably not important, but I like to try to do things correctly. I semi-protected the page User:Coppertwig/Signature. That was a mistake, because it's my own page and the policy is not clear; if I had thought of this, I would not have protected it myself but would have asked someone else to protect it. I use this page for my signature when I sign messages. On English Wikipedia, roux suggested (in an MfD discussion) fully-protecting my signature page there, and here Malinacier offered to semi-protect it, which was done. If people wish to discuss this, I can unprotect it if that seems to be the correct thing to do. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 15:57, 25 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If it was protected on the English Wikipedia, I would be fine with protecting it for you, if that is what you are inclined to do. Not sure if it really needs protection, but if it does, I'll be more than willing to do it for you. Regards, Razor flame 19:44, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

User:Luckas-bot

Hi. I'm requesting a bot flag for my bot.

Botmaster: pt:User:Luckas Blade
Bot's name: User:Luckas-bot
List of bot flags on other Wiktionarys: list
Purpose:interwiki
Technical details:svn pywikipediabot, latest versions

Regards, --Luckas Blade 13:22, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pywikipediabot has issues with adding links that aren't supposed to be added, like on Africa for example, it was adding links to the lower case version of this word. Could you please run your bot on the page Africa as a test to see how it adds the interwiki to this page. Thanks, Razor flame 19:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Creation javascript

Hi there all! Conrad.Irwin, from the English Wiktionary, has hooked us up with a version of his creation javascript. It can be found on User:Conrad.Irwin/creation.js. ~~This page will be protected to prevent tampering~~ and details on how to get it to work for you will be added as soon as possible. It currently works for all nouns, and I will be prodding him to enable it for verbs as well, ~~however, when making pages using this tool, please remember that it only creates the page with a single part of speech!~~ Fixed in new version. You will have to add other parts of speech to it as you see fit. I hope this helps with the priorities here on this site, and I hope that you will enjoy the use of this tool! Cheers, Razor flame 01:42, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

To enable it for you, add:

importScript('User:Conrad.Irwin/creation.js'); (without the nowiki tags) to your monobook.js page. I hope this helps! Cheers, Razor flame 01:46, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Very nice, I enjoy it. :-) Thank you to Conrad.Irwin and to Razorflame for facilitating this. I'd like to make a friendly suggestion to those who choose to use it to check en:wikt for pronunciations as you create pages. There is no way I could keep up with checking all the new pages myself. If you want to add "+pro" to the edit summary, I will double-check to make sure the pronunciation section is formatted correctly according to our standards here. Thanks! · Ty grrr... 02:44, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hope you find it useful. If you find bugs let me know, but please "purge" the page first. (technical: as I've just edited all your templates, the site cache is in a bit of a state, and so you're likely to get pages with incorrect versions for a few hours while it stabilises). Conrad.Irwin 02:49, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, and also, the bit above about "only one part of speech" is no-longer a problem; and I think it works for noun, verb, verb2, adjective and adverb. Conrad.Irwin 02:52, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

On another note, you can leave bugs and fixes for Conrad.Irwin on User:Razorflame/Creation.js bugs and fixes for immediate action, or you can email Conrad.Irwin, as I am sure he reads his email often. Cheers, Razor flame 03:00, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Plurals and different forms of verbs

With people using the creation javascript, let me just throw this out there as a possibility, purely to get people thinking outside the box and being creative: I think it could potentially be useful (to our readers) to make these various-form-pages as complete as our headword pages. "Complete" in my mind means having example sentences and pictures when possible, in addition to the pronunciations and interwiki that we are already making sure are there. Some examples of what I'm talking about are handing and kittens. Let me add that I don't think anyone has to do this or even should do this. But I thought that I'd mention that we can do this (if we want). Is it a priority? No, probably not. But if you feel like getting fancy or creative while creating pages, please go right ahead. Like I said, I think it's probably useful to our readers to have as many examples and pictures in our dictionary as possible, including the various-form-pages. · Ty grrr... 21:32, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you're going to do this (and everyone knows my feelings about working on inflected forms), make sure the example sentences exemplify the form in question. That is they should use the form in question and they should be typical of that use.--Brett 22:39, 4 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Order of tags

Should we put tags like {{countable}} and {{transitive}} before or after tags like {{sports}} and {{law}} or the other way round?--Brett 00:25, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Before seems more right to me. --Jared 01:04, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I have been placing the attributes before the contexts. It seems more logical to me to do it that way. · Ty grrr... 02:26, 6 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lack of edit summaries

Hi there. I know that this isn't that big of an issue, but I am shocked to see how little edit summaries are used here. I would like to encourage everyone, espeically the administrators and bureaucrats here on the Simple English Wiktionary to start using edit summaries, as not using them makes it very hard to determine exactly what it is that people are changing on articles. Thanks, Razor flame 20:17, 7 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am having three German visitors. They do not speak English. I do not speak German. They will be in my home for eight days. I wish to be able to write English on the computer and have it translated to German. Is this possible? —This unsigned comment was added by 76.98.36.228 (talk • contribs) .

Check Google's translation option. That should allow you to do so. Cheers, Razor flame 18:35, 11 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Relate words ...?

I've see two ideas for writing related words. I have been basing it on etymology. I've seen some older lists that are semantic, based on related ideas. Which should we be using now? Or both? Or should there be two section with different names? I'm not sure at this point. --Jared 13:39, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For examples compare doctor (old) with monster (mine) and water (two sections -- though not the way I would name them). --Jared 13:59, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How I've been doing it (and how I think it should be done) is:

Related words should be classified as either "Related words (and phrases)" and "See also", depending on how they are related to original word.
The "Related words" section should be for words that contain part of the word or have the same derivation. monster is one example of a page that does this well. Some others are heal, right, and able.
If there are phrases in your list of "Related words", the heading should be "Related words and phrases". crocodile and monster will be examples of this after I go change them :-)
The "See also" section is for words that are related to the word but do not have the same derivation. The "Related words" section on doctor should actually be "See also". On water, the "Derived words and phrases" should be "Related words and phrases", and the current section "Related words and phrases" should be combined with the "See also" section.

Sometimes the differences are subtle and a word could go in either section. Just try to use your best judgment. I do believe that we are trying to eliminate the section "Derived words (and phrases)" and just making it "Related words (and phrases)". As you can see, there are still many pages that have words in the wrong section. They should be cleaned, but just have not yet. · Ty grrr... 15:11, 18 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Transwiki vote that involves us

Hi there all. There is a vote on the English Wiktionary that involves us: en:Wiktionary:Votes/2009-03/Transwikis from other Wiktionaries. Just thought that I should let you all know about this. Cheers, Razor flame 01:24, 21 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How simple? Still simple?

It looks like we are becoming less simple here. The links look like standard English exactly now. More complex words seem to be used. It seems like things are become less simple. I am no longer sure how simple to be. It seems different people are running things now, and the standards have changed. I am not sure what to make of it. I no longer know what is expected of writers. I know I wish there was a simple German, and more simple language site, and would not be happy if one existed and stopped being simple. --Jared 13:23, 6 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Would you mind identifying a number of such definitions? Also, remember there is the simplify template you can use to tag difficult definitions. And of course, you can devote your efforts to simplifying what is there.--Brett 13:07, 11 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Preload templates?

Hi. Does the Simple English Wiktionary have preload templates for different parts of speech, like the English Wiktionary does? If not, is it possible to install such a feature? It would make things much easier when creating entries. Thanks, Tempodivalse ^@en.wikinews 20:50, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not familiar with the term "preload templates". I can guess what it might mean, and if I'm right the answer is no, not in any standard way. I've created customized buttons on my monobook to speed things up for myself. Is that similar to what you mean? If so, I would be in support of bringing a system like that over here. · Ty grrr... 21:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Let me clarify: when you create an entry on the English Wiktionary, there are some pre-loaded page formats that you can use to speed up the process, depending on what part of speech the word is (like this, note the boxes). Tempodivalse ^@en.wikinews 21:52, 9 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, that's what I thought you probably meant. No, we do not currently have those here although I think it would not be a bad thing to have. Like I said, my customized buttons allow me to do something similar. It'd be great to have a tool like that that everyone could use. · Ty grrr... 14:46, 10 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A couple things

Proposal to reinstate Wiktionary:Word of the day

During my debut night here on simple.wikt, I would like to propose reinstating Wiktionary:Word of the day. It stopped out of nowhere in the middle of 2006; shame, because I personally view it as a possible enticement for editors to create new entries. 7,220 is a fair number, but it's still rather low. Thoughts? --Dylan 620 ^{Speaketh · @ en.wikipedia} 01:37, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I don't see much value in it, and I'd rather see the time and effort going into making good definitions for common words. That said, to each his own.--Brett 11:39, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Brett and actually have been meaning to propose that we delete everything we currently have related to the old wotd process (e.g. Category:wotd, {{wotd}}) because they serve no purpose. If and when wotd is re-instated (and I think it should be at some point well down the road), I don't think we should have a category for those pages or a template posted on all wotd entries. I think it should be more like en:wikt with a link on the main page, which is even more reason to delete those old cats and templates. · Ty grrr... 15:08, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Help

How and where can I translate a word into IPA? I'm going to need to know this for when I create an entry on the word yam tomorrow. --Dylan 620 ^{Speaketh · @ en.wikipedia} 01:37, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Usually, you can simply consult en.wikt, and copy what's there. For more information, you could start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ipa and John Wells has a good tutorial here: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-english-uni.htm --Brett 11:46, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, why yam and not something a little more common?--Brett 11:47, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just looking for random words that I know that don't have dicdefs here yet. Pleased to meet you, BTW. --Dylan 620 ^{Speaketh · @ en.wikipedia} 11:54, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Plus, I don't know any other common words that aren't already taken. --Dylan 620 ^{Speaketh · @ en.wikipedia} 12:30, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For common words, have a look at the red bulleted words in this list.--Brett 15:41, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Brett, I'll get to work on influence (sandbox) momentarily. Yam is

Done, BTW, what do you think of it? --Dylan 620 ^{Speaketh · @ en.wikipedia} 15:47, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Meta discussion closed (yay)

The proposal to close the Simple English Wiktionary has closed; thankfully, there was ample opposition to closing this project.

MediaWiki:Sitenotice needs to be updated to remove the link. EVula // talk // 15:42, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

) That is good to hear! I am glad that it was closed as unsuccessful :) Cheers, Razor flame 14:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yay! ☺Coppertwig(talk) 23:36, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Question

Hi Wiki Do you provide ebook sources? kathy----LOC

Not at this point in time. If you would like us to provide such a source, please feel free to request us to do so on this page. Cheers, Razor flame 14:15, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bot flag request for DerbethBot

I would like to get a bot flag for my bot User:DerbethBot. Per request of Brett I'm going to add audio files here.

You can review bot's edits here. --Derbeth ^talk 21:12, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

How to transwiki?

I would like to transwiki "pinch" from Simple English Wikipedia. (wikipedia:Pinch). Well, someone asked me to, but really I want to because I would like to learn how to transwiki. (There is really only one good sentence to copy so I could just copy it and put the author's name in the edit summary.) I can go to Special:Import. Only administrators can do that. Then it asks me to choose "Source wiki/page" beginning with "en", "w", "b" or "q". What do those letters mean? Should I choose "w" and does that mean Wikipedia? Or what? Thanks to anyone who can help me. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 23:46, 9 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I don't know.--Brett 00:03, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hi there. en means from the English Wikipedia, w, I believe, means from Wikisource, b means from Wikibooks and q means from Wikiquote. You can't really transwiki from the Simple English Wikipedia that readily, but if you copy the article from the Simple English Wikipedia, you can paste in here. That is pretty much the same process as transwikiing. Hope this helps :) Razor flame 16:56, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

w: I assume is Wikipedia, as it is the standard interwiki. Do not simply copy and paste from WP, it is a violation of the GFDL. IIRC, Special:Export on the source wiki, then Special:Import here. Microchip08 22:39, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it is a violation of the GFDL. Sorry, what I meant to say was copy and paste it here, and then clean it up :) Sorry for the confusion! Cheers, Razor flame 03:11, 15 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the information. I think it isn't a violation of GFDL if you say the names of the contributors in the edit summary when you copy. I did some transwikiing before (not as an admin) by copying and pasting, and I put a copy of the page history on the talk page for GFDL. Example: italics. I say how to do it on my user page. User:Coppertwig#Transwiki. And I think I'll go ahead and try transwikiing something. If I get the wrong thing, I can always delete it. ☺Coppertwig(talk) 21:58, 17 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unable to get on at home

Hi there all. I'm sorry for not being able to get on lately. Something is wrong with this site at my house, and I am unable to get onto Simple English Wiktionary at my house. I will try to get on as much as possible when I am at school on Tuesdays and Thursdays, however, I feel that until I can get this problem resolved at my house, that I will be relatively unable to edit here due to the fact that this site does not load at my house. I am trying everything that I can in order to edit on here from my house, but until I find a solution to this problem, I will not be able to edit here. I'm sorry about this, and I am really trying hard to get back on. Cheers, Razor flame 16:55, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have rectified this problem by using the secure server. Sorry for the problem and delay in getting back onto here :( Cheers, Razor flame 03:12, 15 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]