User talk:DCDuring/2021

2021

Wealdish

Hi. I moved this page rather too hastily. Can you undo the page move, please? Alexfromiowa (talk) 22:39, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

 Done DCDuring (talk) 22:47, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Sorry, mate

I apologize for requesting this again, but I'm going crazy here. I neeeeed a WT-break! Please block me ASAP so I can sort out my mental health. Alexfromiowa (talk) 23:46, 25 January 2021 (UTC)

Survey

Some questions re. our mythical targeted users:

1. What do they know?
2. What do they want to know?
3. What do they need to know?
4. What should they know?
5. How does anyone know any of the above?

I'll gladly participate in any survey you conduct or authorize, but I want CPAs involved in the process. --Kent Dominic (talk) 08:07, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

I'm sure that someone somewhere has studied some population, probably students, to find out what they retained from earlier schooling. I doubt that we would find more than a small fraction of non-linguists who would know how to diagram a sentence in any way. I think most remember the names of parts of speech and dimly remember the functions of the PoSes. Most don't find any use for even that knowledge. They don't need to know it for any practical purpose and don't find any part of grammar fun. These are my expectations. I look for disconfirmation when I talk to people like a guy who works in a writers talent agency, a budding author, a psychologist, a teacher, a social worker, a retired HBS grad, and an intelligent college dropout. Formally trained language learners are the one group of folks other than their teachers (linguists) who might know, want to know, and perhaps should know more, at least during the period when they are acquiring a new language formally. DCDuring (talk) 13:57, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

You read my mind, stole my thoughts, and beat me to the punch for what I'd intended as my next post, dammit! In my ideal world, paradigmatic set linguistics prevails. Its consistency is unassailable. It's replicable algorithmically for machine learning under AI. But people first need to get their heads extricated from their traditional linguistics butts and wash their hands of the inconsistent excrement that gets pooped out. For instance, look up see ya and you'll find it labeled as an interjection. Rightly so, I'd say. Look up see you and it's labeled as a phrase. (Can you see me shaking my head right now?) Then go to Webster and look up see you, which is labeled there as a bloody idiom. LMFAO! I'd be a millionaire if I had a dollar for each time I've heard an ESL student ask, and an instructor fumble to answer, the precise meaning of idiom as that term has been bastardized in ESL classroom settings and literature.

The long and short: people don't need a physics PhD to see sunlight and they don't need a linguistics primer to say, "see ya." However, for those who do want to know its lexical category for whatever casual or academic reason, they're currently screwed under our inherited but traditionally beloved naive set linguistic legacy. By no means am I trying to change that mindset here. First, the data corpus here is too big to apply paradigmatic set linguistics an ad hoc basis even if there were a consensus to promulgate it as a basis for labeling. Second, I have no interest in developing the software to do it en masse. (I've long since transitioned from computer programming to encoding thanks to Windows.) Third, I have too much proprietary interest in the relevant work that I've done to freely offer it here prior to publication of the e-book that demonstrates it hypertextually. Rants such as these are mere rehearsals for doing it live once publication gets underway and the bashing from linguistic traditionalists invariably ensues. Cheers. --Kent Dominic (talk) 17:27, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

P.S. In my book, the lexical category for "no matter" can't rightfully be construed as a noun phrase (Det + N) in the "no matter what" phrase. It has to be deemed an adverbial phrase (Adv+V). You'd be right in a context such as "There's no matter in the space between an electron and its neutrons." (Whether the statement itself is scientifically valid depends on some pretty spooky theory. --Kent Dominic (talk) 17:27, 4 February 2021 (UTC)

pourable

Why the two adjective senses? Are these properly distinct? Equinox ◑ 02:51, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

It is from a long time ago. BUT, I often think that many terms have two kids of definitions: everyday and techincal. Everyday use is sense 1; physicists and engineers automatically write as if their definition is the second. See the entry for iron, which has an everyday definition of the material and more technical ones, each for a somewhat different technical specialty. I don't know whether the second ("technical") definition is worth keeping. Almost every definition that has some technical causal element will be rendered obsolete by advances in theory and changes in the style of technical discourse and be so rendered more quickly than everyday definitions. DCDuring (talk) 05:12, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

Short answer: Sense #1 entails anything that can be poured whether liquid (n.), fine powder, sand, figurative thoughts or emotions, etc. Sense #2 entails the attributive sense of the noun that became the adjective e.g. liquid (pourable) nitrogen. For anyone keeping score, words are "pourable" under sense #1 but not under sense #2. Conversely, words can be "liquid" in the adjectival sense included in sense #2 but not in the nominal sense included in sense #1 unless you literally throw a book into a blender. --Kent Dominic (talk) 23:52, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Re. as in

This article typifies my dissatisfaction with labels cut from the cloth of tradition PsOS as applied to phrases. The "as in" article has one label (i.e. Adverb) above two senses. Clearly, sense #1 is clearly parenthetically adverbial: "bow," as in the weapon, not the front of a ship (wherein as is an adverb: namely, and in is a preposition: concerning, regarding, or relating to). Sense #2 is absolutely is not adverbial: "In Sweden, as in most countries, ..." (wherein as is a conjunction: like, and in is a preposition: within or inside).

Long ago, as traditionalist, I would have created a Conjunction label for that second sense. Not so anymore. Nowadays, I'd put sense #1 under a phrasal preposition label, with an adverbial phrase sub-entry. I'd enter sense #2 as a phrasal conjunction. You've no doubt noticed that Wiktionary has defined the former but not the latter. And as usual, I don't want to upset the Wiktionary apple cart by posting edits with unfamiliar labels from my own yet-unpublished lexicon. Nonetheless, I have two questions for you:

1. Do you honestly think the "target user" at Wiktionary:

(a) can't figure out what a phrasal conjunction means in the given context, and

(b) would have any more difficulty figuring it out compared to what "phrasal preposition" means? (If you quibble that sense #2 of "as in" is a collocation rather than an indivisible phrase, then perhaps the entry should be deleted from the article.)

2. Can you empathize with -

(a) my refusal to add a naïve conjunction label for sense #2 as described above, and

(b) my sympathy for readers who try to figure out the POS regarding "as in" (i.e., the way I've left it under "Adverb" in the article)?

No, I'm not trying to linguistically evangelize anyone at Wiktionary on the moribund PsOS versus modern lexical category conundrum. My main reason for posting you on the "as in" article is to see if you have the linguistic conscience to do something on your own about its currently mislabeled sense #2. Regardless of whether you do anything at all and notwithstanding what you might do, I hope you give typical readers as much credit as I do, seeing how I took a survey of one and it's unanimous: the target user expects more regarding the labeling of lexical categories for phrases than Wiktionary typically provides. Cheers. --Kent Dominic (talk) 23:26, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

Whenever we have a multiword term, especially one that seems hard to put in a lexical class, the first question should be whether it is a constituent. I don't think this one is. Accordingly, I have RfDed it. DCDuring (talk) 02:22, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Looks like you nominated the entire entry, not just sense #2. Where's the proper place for discussion? My own two cents: "As in" is part of the vernacular re. both senses despite how sense #2 is a criminal victim of linguistic malpractice, label-wise. --Kent Dominic (talk) 10:31, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

^Never mind. --Kent Dominic (talk) 10:36, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

As to your immediately preceding comment, there is only one definition advanced as idiomatic. As for your earlier, lengthier comment, I would need a better example to address the matter fully. (Do you see what I did there?) I don't think labels should be at all technical and, still less, that they should reflect what seem to be merely the idiolects of our contributors. Part of the problem of technical vocabulary is that there are different schools of thought or practice that use terms in different ways. The bigger problem is that the more syllables to the NPs in a label, the more likely our users' eyes are to glaze over. I think repetition of such eye-glaze experience leads to the selection of other online dictionaries. I regularly consult other dictionaries for the greater clarity (and authority) they usually have relative to ours. DCDuring (talk) 15:40, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

We've never had coffee, but I think I know you well enough to say we can respectfully disagree about certain conclusions. Yet, if we ever met in a café, the lawyer in me would have at your arguments a bit like this:

DCDuring: As to your immediately preceding comment, there is only one definition advanced as idiomatic.

Kent: You know it, I know it, but do average readers know that when they’ve learned only the sense #1 meaning and they mistakenly apply it to the sense #2 usage when they first encounter it? Rather than defining sense #2 (which , if done for every collocation, would go on endlessly) I think a usage note about it would be better than simply deleting it. That’s what I plan to do if the deletion goes forward, since sense #2 is definitely encountered a regular basis in the vernaculars worldwide.

DCDuring: As for your earlier, lengthier comment, I would need a better example to address the matter fully. (Do you see what I did there?)

Kent: Yeah, I don’t want you coffee to get cold.

DCDuring: I don't think labels should be at all technical. …

Kent: I agree. Now, let’s define “technical.”

DCDuring: [Still] less, that they should reflect what seem to be merely the idiolects of our contributors.

Kent: I won’t comment on how relying on “what seem(s) to be merely the idiolects of our contributors” expresses what I consider to be a condescending attitude toward the target users that I’ve surveyed.

DCDuring: Part of the problem of technical vocabulary is that there are different schools of thought or practice that use terms in different ways.

Kent: “Technical?” Did you say, “technical?” Sorry, I don’t know what that word means. Is it a noun? An attributive noun? An adjective? If so, when did it become an adjective? If the other way around, when did it become a noun? Speaking on behalf of the entire population of target users in my survey, I can safely say that my interest in lexical category (based on the various linguistic schools of thought) and etymology are the primary reasons I look up stuff.

DCDuring: The bigger problem is that the more syllables to the NPs in a label, the more likely our users' eyes are to glaze over.

Kent: For what it’s worth, I took that into account by limiting all of the labels in my own lexicon to three words. No exceptions.

DCDuring: I think repetition of such eye-glaze experience leads to the selection of other online dictionaries.

Kent: I can’t dispute what you think, but I respectfully think otherwise. Specifically, for the disinterested, I think the eye glaze leads to disregard of the labels; for the interested, I think the labels either lead to confusion regarding mislabels (e.g., one of my students said, "My boss was titling at windmills the project" after finding tilt at windmills labeled as a verb at Wiktionary) or to curiosity regarding unfamiliar but linguistically apt labels. If curiosity isn’t a hallmark of human intelligence, call me stupid.

DCDuring: I regularly consult other dictionaries for the greater clarity (and authority) they usually have relative to ours.

Kent: Accordingly, can you explain why – for a random phrasal example – you’re content to let “around the world” remain labeled as a prepositional phrase when Webster (to choose one of my four go-to dictionaries) has around the world labeled as a noun?

(An FYI: “Around the world” isn’t included as a phrase in my lexicon. But if it were, it’d look like this:

around the world (prepositional phrase) - Blah, blah, blah; Example: @DCDuring sailed around the world last year. (I.e., with each word linked not to a separate article, but to the corresponding sense of each word as defined according to their varying labels among the glossary's 14,000+ entries.) See generally adverbial prepositional phrase. (I.e., wherein interested readers can see how that works and also find a comparison link to an adjectival prepositional phrase).

Incidentally, Wiktionary labels “go ahead” as a Verb; Oxford (go ahead) labels it as Phrasal Verb; in my book it’s an intransitive phrasal verb. No one’s died or gone blind reading my stuff. At least, no one that I know of. Hope I can say the same about you after you’ve read these 645 words or after some well-intentioned numbnut tells you his boss "went ahead the project" upon reading the Wiktionary entry instead of mine. If you wanted to read about the "Hope I can say..." syntax from the preceding sentence, my book would internally link it to a null subject entry for additional reference. If you think of a way to include "null subject" as a label rather than as a linguistic term of art, I'm all ears. Ha! (Yes, Wikipedia has a null-subject language article and Zero (linguistics) article, but nothing relevant to how we, as native English speakers, regularly drop the subjects from casual speech. Know what I mean? Drives ESLers crazy. Say what? Anyhow, been nice chatting. Rant's done. See ya later. Cheers. --Kent Dominic (talk) 21:01, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

Re. go back

Under the logic you've applied to "as in," sense #1 and sense #3 re. go back should be RFDed. I'm not expressing an opinion whether to keep or delete either; I'm just sayin'. I do think, however, that the "go back" label needs some love. --Kent Dominic (talk) 21:54, 26 February 2021 (UTC)

I apply the logic conservatively, but I believe that many of our definitions for "phrasal verbs" are NISoP, certainly not all, probably not more than a substantial minority of them. It's a little fuzzy because for most phrasal-verb entries there is at least one definition that is idiomatic. There is a rationale for including the NISoP definitions to contrast them with the idiomatic ones. DCDuring (talk) 23:10, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

I know NoISP, but not "NISoP." Typo, or ... ? --Kent Dominic (talk) 00:21, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Sorry. Non-idiomatic sum of parts. DCDuring (talk) 03:36, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Cheers. --Kent Dominic (talk) 22:20, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

by way of analogy

a.k.a. "Food for thought as my one and only doomed attempt at linguistic evangelism re. the efficacy of labels with more description at Wiktionary"

Assume you’re reading an article about a certain 20th century poet. After prefacing his identity as T.S. Eliot, he’s subsequently referenced as “Eliot” in the majority of the article’s corpus. You’d probably be put off if he were alternately referenced as “T.S.” in the narrative despite the fewer number of syllables. And I don’t think your eyes would glaze upon seeing “T.S. Eliot” rather than “Eliot” in the various photos’ captions. Lastly, I don’t think you’d be confused, but it might satisfy your curiosity, to see his name as “Thomas Stearns Eliot” in the section regarding his early life. In my view, the article would be negligent without mentioning his full sextuplicately syllabic full name. (No charge for the “sextuplicately” neologism, which has exactly one Google Scholar hit.) --Kent Dominic (talk) 11:02, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

Yep, I didn't expect a comment. Just a shrug and an eyeroll. Or, instead say that you'll read my lexicon of grammatical terms when it comes out. In return, I promise to shrug and eyeroll to criticism that the lexicon's thrust deals with linguistics, not grammar. But, hey - most people seem to think grammar is bad enough while linguistics is downright scary and to be avoided at all costs.--Kent Dominic (talk) 22:18, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Inasmuch quotation reversion

The change you reverted was unjustified. The quotation I inserted was an example of usage, not prescription or definition. As such it was perfectly justified and informative. You would have a hard time finding a better example, whether you agree with Fowler or not. JonRichfield (talk) 17:11, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

It was a mention, not a use. It is on the talk page. DCDuring (talk) 17:38, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

@JonRichfield: Insofar that Wiktionary contributors confuse "inasmuch" and "insofar" in their titles for discussion, my reliance on their credibility and attention to detail evaporates. Ribbing aside, I agree the adverb label for "insofar" is troublesome. If Fowler called it a "compound preposition," I'd say that's exactly right. The consensus at Wiktionary (to which @DCDuring will attest) is to label stuff according to its contextual use rather than its technical POS or lexical category. So, yes - "insofar" is always used adverbially, and the adverb label makes sense from a word-economy standpoint. Nonetheless, in my lexicon, it would be labeled as a preposition, with usage notes that (1) it's in the compound preposition subset, and that (2) it occurs only as part of the "insofar as" or "insofar that" phrasal conjunctions. Silly me: coining a term such as "phrasal conjunction" and deigning to co-opt Fowler's "compound preposition" gem. Wiktionary is way behind the curve when it comes to labeling and defining compounds and phrases. --Kent Dominic (talk) 22:09, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

The sole PoS header for inasmuch as is "Conjunction". It is self-evident that it is a phrase. I always wonder how a single word, whatever its derivation, can be put into a "Phrase" word class. Is phrase much used to refer to single words outside of its use in compound nouns? DCDuring (talk) 23:06, 28 February 2021 (UTC)

Great point! Glad you asked. Using terms from my own lexicon:

• inasmuch: Doesn't merit its own entry as it's a fossil word; searches are redirected as follows...
• inasmuch as: Labeled as a phrasal conjunction, with etymology indicating it comprises inasmuch (a fossil word) + as (conjunction).
• inasmuch that: Labeled as a phrasal conjunction with etymology indicating it comprises inasmuch (a fossil word) + that (conjunction), with usage that is dated if not nearly obsolete.

You say "It is self-evident that it is a phrase," but I think you're using an ordinary sense of "phrase," not a linguistic sense. In the linguistic sense that I apply regarding the term "phrasal conjunction," it means you can't segment and substitute the phrasal components without corrupting the meaning. E.g., you can't say "inasmuch because" or "inasmuch so." There's no fossil record of such articulations, and trying to invent such phrasing would earn you stares as a lunatic. So the "phrasal" moniker is a linguistic red flag not to muck with the syntax.

Similarly, a linguistic sense of "phrase" applies to something like "bite the dust," which is unfortunately labeled here as a Verb. Yet, in my lexicon, it's a verb phrase (which, I might add, Wiktionary defines pretty well in both of its linguistic senses). The "phrase" element of the verb phrase label red flags it: don't muck with it by trying, e.g. "eat the dust" or "bite the mud."

Sure, there are uses for the ordinary senses of "phrase" (e.g. 1. an expression that comprises more than one word, 2. an individual word that implies a specific meaning within a given professional or conversational context, such as "wicket" or "strings" or "skookum"), but that's not what's meant when we say "put it down" is a verb phrase. It's obviously a generic phrase; it's not an obvious verb phrase. In my teaching experience, student's know the difference. They know "put down the book" entails a phrasal verb. They know "put the book down" entails a verb phrase. They memorize which verbs can be collocated with separable objects and which ones can't, e.g. "He flew off the handle" is an inseparable verb phrase. If some leaky dictionary labels it as verb (please don't reference "fly off the handle" here; ha!) they'll attempt some inanity like, "My dad flew off the living room when he saw the F grade on my report card." By dumb luck some might try instead, "My dad flew off the couch..." In such a case, it becomes a generic phrase with a metaphoric meaning but not an idiomatic phrase likely to be found in any dictionary. So, does "fly off" merit a separate sense in Wiktionary's "fly off entry to account for such permutations? Hardly, but I think its Related terms section properly addresses the issue. --Kent Dominic (talk) 01:35, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

I try to stick to the "ordinary" meanings of words for all definitions, labels, headword lines (excluding the headword and its inflections), etc. I am simply not interested in making Wiktionary into a specialist dictionary for logophiles. Linguistics students should hound their professors for approved vocabulary for their coursework. For normal humans "phrase" means what we might call in Wiktionary space an MWE (that is also a constituent).

BTW, I created Category:English non-constituents to make it easy to find them. They are ways for us to include certain snowclones without having full entries for the large number of varied forms they may have. In some cases we should try to replace them with better-formed entries.

If you can attest inasmuch that, by all means create an entry therefor. DCDuring (talk) 02:53, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Quibble, quibble, quibble: You stick to labels and headword lines re. ordinary meanings usage. I'd have no complaint if a word, say, "swimming," had a Usage headword line that identified it according to (1) Present participle (e.g. he is swimming), (2) Adjective (e.g. the swimming pool) (3) Gerund (I like swimming) (4) Noun (e.g. swimming is fun). But, labeling it as a noun to the exclusion of its identity as a gerund, or vice versa, is just plain sad. Here it's listed as a verb. Technically wrong. I can read your lips: "How many average users can distinguish a present participle from a verb?" I concede the point, but not the propriety entailed. As always, I'm not trying to change your mind. And I'm hardly a logophile. God knows I'd rather practice law or, ideally, produce movies. In a nutshell, I wish Wiktionary had more entries that conform to the standards my own target readers expect so that I can link more words to this website instead of having to define them myself for the work that I do. Given the intransigence here, it's often just easier to expand that corpus to an unfortunate extent than bang my head against the WT:POS wall. As for inasmuch that, I used it only for illustrative purposes based on a quick gloss and distant memory. I mentioned it solely in the context of @JonRichfield's interest in this thread. It's not part of the 500,000-word corpus in my lexicon. But if it were ... --Kent Dominic (talk) 10:04, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

multi-word expression (new) and MWE (edited/updated)

Consider my multi-word expression creation to be an anti-Frankenstein; the poor man's approach to language acquisition; the ghetto-world of lexicographical taxonomic standards. I've gone into hiding from my students who'll read me the riot act after they somehow find out about my hand in it. The irony of labeling a multi-word expression under a one-word label - and my admission of condescension for adhering to the WT:POS guidance in so doing ... well, let it be our inside joke. Credit me for resisting the temptation to label it an Idiom. For what it's worth, "multi-word expression" is entered under a Grammar label in my own lexicon. (Fair criticism: It should be labeled as Linguistics, but I've learned most people are allergic to that word.) I don't otherwise use "multi-word expression" in my textbook. It's merely included as a glossary entry that has eight separate senses (unlike the one sense I've included at Wiktionary), with each sense being cf.'d to one or more relevant lexical categories for examples. Happy editing! --Kent Dominic (talk) 23:56, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

re. in order to

It's been more than a month since I last bothered you, so perhaps you've grown restless. Here's your fix: Please look at the POS label for in order to, edit it accordingly, and ping me afterward. I'm just interested in seeing how you'll handle it. Perhaps needless to say, "phrase" doesn't add anything relevant to its meaning. I'm not giving any hints how in order to is labeled in my own lexicon, but I will say it's the only item with its POS label in its lexical category. Cheers. --Kent Dominic (talk) 18:05, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Template:MW1913Abbr

Does Template:MW1913Abbr serve any purpose and if not can we delete it plz? Indian subcontinent (talk) 21:54, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

What harm does keeping it cause? I don't know whether its original purpose has been rendered obsolete. Do you have any evidence to the effect that it could not have any benefit or that its use causes harm, excluding "harm" to those with a compulsion toward 'tidiness' (OCD). DCDuring (talk) 17:53, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Meh, I don't care that much, TBH. Perhaps I have selective OCD Indian subcontinent (talk) 22:14, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

I have channeled my OCD into keeping certain maintenance categories empty. DCDuring (talk) 04:07, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

It can be quite satisfying to have empty maintenance categories, yes. It's like a gold sticker, a reminder that we've done so much clean-up work and we are doing the world a huge favour. Alternatively, it is a reminder of our sad existence, the only achievements of our lives are cleaning up an unimportant dictionary that is destined to perish one day. Indian subcontinent (talk) 09:05, 19 May 2021 (UTC)

Repeated addition of references that do not exist

Special:Diff/62609240; Special:Diff/62650963; Special:Diff/62650965. I am confused; what are you trying to do? J3133 (talk) 17:41, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Usually the links are there to show that there is nothing to be linked to. When the relevant discussions are closed they can be deleted. If such deadish links are upsetting to someone, they can be deleted just like almost any other non-definition content. DCDuring (talk) 19:46, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

I think this is fine for the temporary purpose of an rfv, but I totally agree that these links shouldn't be there outside the context of the rfv. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 20:12, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Using common sense, adding a list of sites that do not have a term seems absurd. Using them in a RFV discussion is fine but they do not belong in a dictionary entry. J3133 (talk) 20:18, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

Requests for attention in Norwegian Bokmål entries

Hi there, you have added some requests for attention to a number of Sami languages in Norwegian Bokmål all the way back in 2013: akkalasamisk, enaresamisk, kemisamisk, kildinsamisk, lulesamisk, nordsamisk, pitesamisk, skoltesamisk, tersamisk and umesamisk. You did not add an explanation, so I am wondering if you would like to either add a reason or remove them, if no longer relevant? Thanks! Supevan (talk) 19:25, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

It looks like the problem was the lack of an inflection line. I didn't want to add one myself since I don't know the language. It looks like the peroson (or bot) that added the inflection line didn't remove the request for attention. DCDuring (talk) 04:23, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Great, I have updated the inflections and removed your requests for attention, cheers. Supevan (talk) 06:18, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

Viola wikipedia

Our entry suggests this is a valid taxonomic name, but WP's article Viola angustifolia indicates that it is not, and the species was renamed in error. Fancy sorting it out? Thanks. Equinox ◑ 23:20, 8 August 2021 (UTC)

I think they have a point: it's only mentioned as a synonym in the original description of Pigea banksiana. I would have to see a published description to back that up before I would base anything on such a mention. Kew, TROPICOS and The Plant List/World Flora Online all treat Viola angustifolia Phil. as a legitimate, accepted name. Most of them don't even mention V. wikipedia, but IPNI lists it as a "nom. illeg. nom. superfl.", i.e., a name that is illegitimate because there was already a vaild name for the taxon, and Kew lists it as a synonym of Viola angustifolia Phil., while it treats Viola angustifolia Banks ex Ging. (the name that supposedly invalidated Viola angustifolia Phil.) as a synonym of Afrohybanthus enneaspermus (L.) Flicker.

To sum it up:

• Frédéric Charles Jean Gingins de la Sarraz, in his description of what he called Pigea banksiana, published in 1824 in the first volume of the De Candolle Prodromus, mentioned that it had the name Viola angustifolia in the Joseph Banks herbarium. This was apparently the same as a plant that had already been described as Viola enneasperma by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.
• Rodolfo Amando Philippi published a description of a species he named Viola angustifolia in the journal Linnaea
• John Michael Watson & Ana Rosa Flores were convinced that the name mentioned by Gingins was a valid name, which would make Philippi's name invalid, so they published an article pointing this out and renaming the species. So far, no one seems to agree.
• by the Principle of Priority a taxonomic name can only be used for one taxon, so any use of a validly published name for any other taxon gets thrown out. Since there have always been so many different taxonomic publications and no way to keep track of them all before the internet, just about every name more than a century old has been been accidentally published for more than one taxon, often many times. Any decent taxonomic publication will have a list of these synonyms for each taxon, but it's not unheard of for someone to discover an earlier publication that invalidates a widely accepted name. When a name becomes invalid for the taxon, the next name validly published for the taxon becomes the correct one. In this case, there wasn't one, so the person who discovered the alleged invalidation would have the chance to rename it.

Chuck Entz (talk) 02:16, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

As the authoritative sources all now seem to agree that this is a synonym of V. angustifolia, that should be what our entry says of it. We can add whatever damning labels seem appropriate, too. DCDuring (talk) 05:03, 9 August 2021 (UTC)

on air

Hi, just to let you know that at RFV you accidentally put comments about "on air" under "Dovercoaster". Mihia (talk) 19:47, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I was wondering where they went. DCDuring (talk) 19:51, 14 September 2021 (UTC)

Special:Contributions/Rankf

Some messy taxonomic attempts that I thought you would be interested to see. The editor could use some guidance. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 07:19, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll take a look. DCDuring (talk) 14:08, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

@Metaknowledge I looked at a few of their latest edits. They seem to be copying from some kind of a list, perhaps the index from a book. Typos like "echinta" for "echinata" and "exelsum" for "excelsum" aren't encouraging. In one case they had "Hevea grewiaefolius Hassk.", which is impossible- "Hevea" is feminine, and the genus is strictly South American. Hevea brasiliensis is cultivated worldwide as a source of rubber, but according to TROPICOS the generic name has never occurred in any species name with any variation of "grewiaefolius". There is a Hibiscus grewiifolius Hassk., which is native to Indonesia, and one can find the Hibiscus grewiaefolius variant in the same snippet with Hevea brasiliensis in a few books. I'm guessing they missed the change in the genus from Hevea to Hibiscus in a list. At any rate, definitions consisting of nothing but taxonomic names regurgitated from some list by someone who obviously sees them as random text and has no clue what they refer to is dangerously close to useless. Chuck Entz (talk) 23:16, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

It is easy enough to check the validity of the taxonomic names and make corrections. It also seems easy to delete out of process such entries after they have been corrected. Fortunately is not only somewhat harder to revert the deletions. Why would one delete reviewed and corrected entries having asked for them to be reviewed? DCDuring (talk) 23:59, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

I saw Chuck's comment, and I missed that you had edited them. I didn't know there was a reference for Sundanese botanical names — you should definitely add it to the entry. That information would also be very important for Rankf, so they can learn to create correct entries. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 00:30, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

Chuck had preceded me in correcting the taxonomic names. I found a couple of other items that included taxonomic names by doing some searched on the user's contributions. I see good faith efforts to bring the entries closer to our standards. I'm fairly sure that all of the entries are copied from some print dictionary or word list. I suppose that, in principle, there could be a copyvio problem. It would be handy if the taxonomic names were enclosed in {{taxlink}}, however crudely or even wrongly, to make them easier to find and verify. I do that with some Polish entries and others. I added the English vernacular names from Wikispecies, Wikipedia, Wikicommons, or from USDA GRIN, which has a lot of vernacular names for plants, probably the best source for them. DCDuring (talk) 03:07, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

shrikethrush

Hi. You like cute animals - the shrikethrushes (Colluricincla) are supercute, and don't have a WT yet. Roger the Rodger (talk) 13:20, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

And the barbtail (Roraimia adusta (Roraima); Premnoplex spp; Premnornis) not so cute, but missing Roger the Rodger (talk) 12:47, 3 October 2021 (UTC)

I tried to make a redirect on Wikipedia for barbtail, but had to go through about 10 steps asking me "are you sure want to do this?" - screw that! Roger the Rodger (talk) 11:36, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

It's not clear whether WP would need a redirect or a dab page. DCDuring (talk) 17:19, 5 October 2021 (UTC)

Marchantiophyta

Crandall-Stotler and Stotler (2000) head their classification with "PHYLUM (DIVISION): MARCHANTIOPHYTA" The leading classification for the group calls it both in the same phrase. Splitting a second "definition" is unwarranted. Your edit would have definitions only in rank of the next-higher including group, which is not an inherent property of the taxon. It would be like splitting definitions of Canidae as: (1) a group within Carnivora, (2) a taxon within Mammalia, (3) a family within Animalia. --03:37, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

The customary thing here is to put such a thing up to RfV, and certainly not to simply rely on a single authority. Our taxonomic entries are subject to the same rules as the others. Mostly, people don't challenge them, but there are instances where taxonomic names have failed. Are you sure that the definitions of the phylum and division Marchantiophyta have always been the same? We do pretend to be a historical dictionary. I see no reason why we should not strive to eventually (possibly even in this century) be a historical dictionary for taxonomic names.

I hope you also realize that {{taxon}}, its categories, and its structure are needed for maintenance of taxonomic entries. DCDuring (talk) 04:16, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Yes, they have always been the same. The paper I cite is the paper where the name was published. There is no earlier history for the name Marchantiophyta. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:06, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Cracksonomy

I know you hate me adding taxons but an accurate (if lacking) stub is better than nothing. Maybe. I was wondering: when we talk about a genus, we usually talk about its parent being a family, but sometimes the "immediate" parent seems to be a tribe or a subwhatever or who knows what the hell. Suppose family A contains tribe B contains genus C. I would create my C entry with B as parent, because it's the immediate one (as computer nerd, I think that this will allow us to "follow the links" and build the whole tree): but is that right? Or should I pick the more important taxon level like the family. It seems particularly dumb to write something like C: parent tribe B: "A-aceous flowering plants", clearly this is a way to slide A in there without a template slot. EQUINOX STOP DOING TAXONOMY. never!!! Equinox ◑ 04:21, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Because families (and orders, classes, phyla, and kingdoms) have been around longer and seem to be more stable than the other ranks, let alone unranked taxa, I have limited parm2 in {{taxon}} to those ranks, unless the placement would be incertae sedis, in which case I go to the next higher of those principal ranks. It would be very hard to maintain all of these hierarchies if we always had the next highest rank (or clade) directly in {{taxon}}. Taxonomists are constantly inserting new clades into the tree of life, at locations between the traditional ranks, some of which clades they name. I don't think we want our Hypernyms trees to include all of these, though they can be good entries. Wikispecies has had the problem of excessive numbers of nested templates causing display errors.

I don't really think the various English adjectives derived from taxonomic family names are very helpful. The -id and -aceous suffixes (and others) are productive, so if something is in a given family with name ending in aceae or idae, the adjective is usually obvious in its formation and more often understandable in meaning. (The difference between "usually" and "almost always" having to do with the difference between the nominative form and the root of some genus names.) DCDuring (talk) 15:14, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

You didn't actually answer my question there. But you did remind me that taxons are not some perfect, eternal, God-given DNA thing but they might change next week. Hmm. Equinox ◑ 17:55, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

"but is that right?" I don't like the consequences of trying to put the taxon that includes the lemma taxon and the smallest number of other taxa, because that will cause our entries to fall short of correctness more often than other approaches as new taxa are inserted in the tree and because many of the names not of the well-known ranks are obscure and unhelpful to most users. Many other taxonomic databases generally don't bother with names fro such ranks. "Or should I pick the more important taxon level like the family.^[sic]" That is what I do and think both reduces maintenance and enhances usefulness. DCDuring (talk) 22:51, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Callitrichinae, not Callithrichinae- it's the law! (Grassmann's law, to be precise)

Five years ago you moved Callitrichinae to Callithrichinae with the edit summary "spelling". In reality, Callithrichinae is wrong and Callitrichinae is right. The reason is is something called Grassmann's law, which prevents two aspirated consonants from being in the same syllable in Ancient Greek. The case of Ancient Greek θρίξ (thríx) is very tricky, because the nominative singular has a ς (s) at the end, which merges with the asprated χ (kh) to become the unaspirated ξ (x). The names of higher taxa, however, are formed by removing the inflectional ending from the genitive singular before adding the taxonomic ending, and the genitive singular of Ancient Greek θρίξ (thríx) is τριχός (trikhós). Since that form has a vowel after the stem, the χ (kh) remains, and Grassmann's law forces the aspirated θ (th) to become the unaspirated τ (t). That means you can have "-thrix" and you can have "-trichinae", but you can't have *"-thrichinae".

This is obscure enough that some publications aren't aware of it, so Callithrichinae is attested- but it's not allowed by the ICZN. Wikipedia, Wikispecies and Mammal Species of the World all have Callitrichidae. I would be astonished if any of the taxonomic databases accepted "Callithrichinae" as valid. Chuck Entz (talk) 08:17, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

I'm down with a move of the main entry. I'm neutral on whether the redirect from Callithrichinae should be soft or hard.

We could hunt down other entries with the issue, but I'm still trying to add taxon entries that have 10 or more links via {{taxlink}} (Usually with some ordinary redlinks and even unlinked uses too. I find it a bit frustrating that taxon entries that have no incoming links are being added regularly when so many important species entries have yet to be added.. DCDuring (talk) 14:02, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

I note that I had not added links to non-wiki taxon databases to [[Callithrichinae]]. When I am not to tired or rushed I do and thereby discover error of that kind. Incidentally, Wikispecies has the wrong spelling. DCDuring (talk) 14:08, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

I take it back: Wikispecies has Callithrichidae. I stand by the rest, though.Chuck Entz (talk) 14:12, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

I note that we have the main entry under the erroneous spelling Callithrichidae with an inbound redirect from the correct spelling. In adding database links I am finding that many databases still have the group as a family, not a subfamily. I'll see what consensus exists. DCDuring (talk) 14:19, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

• No taxonomic consensus as to whether it's a family or subfamily. DCDuring (talk) 14:48, 25 October 2021 (UTC)