Wiktionary:Tea room/2024/May

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комунистички on Serbo-Croatian

Hello. I need a Serbo-Croatian meaning of "комунистички"! Frozen Bok (talk) 10:55, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

spaghetti

"Spaghetti" needs sense of "becoming nervous," very common in internet slang. Originally deriving from the infamous 4chan copypasta about a person buying Atelier Totori at GameStop, but becoming nervous and spaghetti falling out of their pockets. Perhaps also influenced by Eminem's "Lose Yourself" which has the line "mom's spaghetti." 73.151.120.25 20:13, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

• Can you give an example/examples of how this sense is used in a sentence? Mihia (talk) 19:46, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

(Ukrainian) гольф

I have a question about the declension for the Ukrainian word гольф - golf (uncountable) or an item of clothing (countable).

The declension table and reference of R:uk:SUM-11 shown on the existing Ukrainian entry shows the genItive for golf (uncountable) as гольфа.

However, Kyiv Dictionary - R:uk:Kyiv shows the genitive for golf (uncountable) as гольфу, and the genitive singular for that item of clothing (knee sock and possibly also a type of upperwear) as гольфа. GT and Ukrainian wikipedia pages also seem to consistently use гольфу as the genitive for golf (uncountable), i.e. м'яч для гольфу, etc.

Any suggestions? Would it be safe to start changing the page and various links to follow the KyivDic declensions? Thanks. DaveyLiverpool (talk) 21:18, 1 May 2024 (UTC)

@DaveyLiverpool: Hi. Your findings are correct. (genitive, not genetive)

@Voltaigne: Hi Are you able to split the term into senses, change the declension for one and add the reference? I will do it myself when I have time, if you don't get around. Quite busy now. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 02:03, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

 Done. Voltaigne (talk) 08:53, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

Thank you both, @Voltaigne and @Anatoli T.. I will sort out the main entry and links with the split senses today. I think I'll leave the clothing sense as "knee length sock" for now, and maybe somebody else will add any different meaning as appropriate. (And thanks for the genetive genitive correction - it's not the first time I've done that!) — This unsigned comment was added by DaveyLiverpool (talk • contribs).

I got there first but feel free to edit further if necessary. Voltaigne (talk) 09:01, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

@Voltaigne, @DaveyLiverpool, @Benwing2: Hi and thanks, all. I think it's fair to add both genitive form го́льфу (hólʹfu) and го́льфа (hólʹfa) for the sport sense, since this is what most other dictionaries say.

A quick quote (even if it may sound illiterate):

Він без го́льфа не мо́же ні дня, ні годи́ни.

Vin bez hólʹfa ne móže ni dnja, ni hodýny.

He cannot (go) a day or an hour without golf.

I changed the following way:

{{uk-noun|гольф<sg.genu:a.loci>|adj=го́льфовий}}

{{uk-ndecl|гольф<sg.genu:a.loci>}}

Pls add a note if "го́льфа" is considered proscribed. Anatoli T. ^{(обсудить}/^вклад) 00:56, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

be on someone's ass

I don't remember how we lemmatize this kind of expression. Do we usually include the verb? Chuck Entz (talk) 14:21, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

 Moved to on someone's ass. Ioaxxere (talk) 17:55, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

As Ioaxxere said in the edit summary, it depends on whether it can only be used with forms of be, or can also be used with other verbs. (This can apparently be used with other verbs.) BTW, you can also be up someone's ass in a similar sense: google books:"he's up my ass". - -sche (discuss) 20:46, 2 May 2024 (UTC)

crack up

• (idiomatic, intransitive, dated) To become insane; to suffer a mental breakdown.

Does anyone perceive this as "dated"? It does not seem at all dated to me here in the UK. Is it perhaps dated in the US? Or is it in fact that I am "dated" myself? Mihia (talk) 19:42, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

It seems dated to me (US), though I am myself rather dated. DCDuring (talk) 01:27, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

It doesn’t seem dated to me, though I can’t speak for the US. As far as synonyms for madness are concerned, it does seem to me that doolally is a word that’s going out of fashion these days, though perhaps not enough to call it ‘dated’, and we already have a ‘dated’ tag for the longer form doolally tap. Overlordnat1 (talk) 07:04, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Dutch gat

We have two entries for Dutch gat, both under the PoS Noun. The first has the basic meaning of “hole”, the second of “arsehole”. Is there a good reason to treat these as a pair of homonymous words, rather than one word with several senses? The second noun is assigned the gender “n or m”, but the entry on the Dutch Wiktionary gives only the neuter gender, irrespective of sense.  --Lambiam 21:15, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

However, Dutch Wiktionary does provide a reason, which is also that given by the WNT. Namely that plural and diminutive for "arsehole" are gatten, gatje, rather than gaten, gaatje. We should ping @Mnemosientje, @Lingo Bingo Dingo (who else?) and ask them how absolute this distinction is. I've definitely heard "gatje" in the relevant sense. 82.82.152.162 22:41, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

So then we have this plural and diminutive wrong.  --Lambiam 07:29, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

reasonable time

Does having a Wikipedia legal article save this from being SoP? What else could it mean? Equinox ◑ 22:00, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

@Equinox: It might interest you that there is a translingual concept behind it that must be denoted by something. I can link it as a translation of unverzüglich, defined in § 121 of the German Civil Code and pervasive in our whole legal system, without needing further explanation at the foreign language entry. We can conclude that it is not anyhow simply a reasonable time but a time normatively required or deduced from the laws applicable to the case according to legal interpretation, hence passes WT:FRIED. Fay Freak (talk) 22:30, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. Any MWE's use in a given context is determined by any special meaning of the components terms in that context. In the case of a legal context, a judge or similar gets to play w:Humpty Dumpty, at least within the courtroom, providing any special meaning required (in the judge's opinion) in the context. I don't know what discretion a judge has with respect to time, but reasonable would seem to provide plenty of room for judicial discretion. DCDuring (talk) 01:06, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

I think this is SoP. At least at English common law it just means a period of time which is reasonable in the circumstances. — Sgconlaw (talk) 05:12, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

Clearly, unverzüglich = un- + Verzug +‎ -lich, that is, “without delay”. The legal uses mentioned on Wikipedia in Reasonable time allow for some delay (but not a delay by an unreasonably long time). BTW, verzüglich is listed in the Deutsches Wörterbuch by the Grimm brothers, who write it appears to have fallen into disuse after the 17th century.^[1]  --Lambiam 08:04, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

proper adjective

Our def says "an adjective derived from a proper noun, such as British derived from Britain". But derived how? Not all adjectives derived from proper nouns are proper adjectives: there are many types of derivation. Meanwhile the Wikipedia article suggests it's just any adjective with a capital letter (more or less). Equinox ◑ 22:23, 3 May 2024 (UTC)

• It probably should at least say "derived from a proper noun and retaining its capitalisation". On the other side of the coin, what kinds of capitalised adjectives would not, in some way, derive from proper nouns? The potential exceptions in the Wikipedia article, that I can see, are "For example, in Canadian government documents, Native and Aboriginal are capitalized", but who's to say that they do not, or would not, capitalise "Native" and "Aborigine" as nouns too? Also, there could be an overlap with the fusty practice of Capitalising Words that are thought to be Important. Mihia (talk) 00:50, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

  I think that Native and Aboriginal are intended to be proper nouns in Canadian public discourse so that they can serve as convenient hypernyms for the various native and aboriginal peoples of Canada, having meaning distinct from the meanings of the adjective. BTW, I would expect that there is virtually no truly adjectival use of such words, but rather attributive use of the proper noun. Comparative, superlative, and gradable use seems to me to risk being felt as insulting or demeaning. But perhaps there really is predicate use. DCDuring (talk) 01:25, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

except

Conjunction example:

• I never made fun of her except teasingly.

Anyone agree/disagree that this is a conjunction? The definitions distinguish conjunction "with the exception (that)" from preposition "with the exception of", yet "... with the exception that teasingly" makes no sense, while "... with the exception of teasingly" makes some sense. So, is "except" actually a preposition in that example? Any views? Mihia (talk) 00:37, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

It occurred to me also to notice that we list "other than" only as a preposition, and, of course, "I never made fun of her other than teasingly" is fine ...

The object of a preposition in English grammar, traditionally at least, must be a noun (including a noun clause). And I would expect normal users who have had any English grammar would object to except being called a preposition.

I normally like to stick close to a surface analysis, but I would read the conjunction example as I never made fun of her except ((the times) when I made fun of her) teasingly. DCDuring (talk) 01:17, 4 May 2024 (UTC)

I notice that we have excepting (and its opposite including) as a preposition too, so that would seem to be the best classification to me, or at least the most consistent. --Overlordnat1 (talk) 06:54, 4 May 2024 (UTC)