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Word/quotation of the moment:
Previous:
- The Confederate flag is a matter of pride and heritage, not hatred.
- In the early years of the study there were more than 200 speakers of the dialect, including one parrot. (from the WP article Nancy Dorian)
- Mikebrown is unusually eccentric and not very bright. [...] Astronomers have not noticed any outbursts by Mikebrown. (from the WP article 11714 Mikebrown)
- Keep Redskins White!
- "homosapiens are people, too!!"
- Spaghetti Weevil (and also) a sprig of spaghetti
- "I've always had a horror of husbands-in-law."
- awkwardnessful
- anti–zombie-fungus fungus
- "Only an evil person would eat baby soup."
The four new superheavy element names
I'd have expected something like [ˈtɛnᵻsiːn] or [ˈtɛnᵻsaɪn] for tennessine, following the stress of Tennessee, as well as iodine and astatine (the other trisyllabic halogens). Moscovium and oganesson seem fine, but I admit to being really uncertain as to how nihonium is supposed to be pronounced: I can't seem to make up my mind whether that o is supposed to be [oʊ] or [ɒ] in English. Double sharp (talk) 13:10, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
- Nihonium is presumably the same as Nipponian. Tennessine is just following Anglo-Latin conventions. Could easily be irregular. Let's see how people work it out when the name's accepted. — kwami (talk) 00:56, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
- I found these search results on YouTube.—Wavelength (talk) 01:06, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
- I did not find pronunciations at http://iupac.org/iupac-is-naming-the-four-new-elements-nihonium-moscovium-tennessine-and-oganesson/, but that page has a link to http://iupac.org/recommendations/under-review-by-the-public/, which has a link to http://iupac.org/recommendation/names-and-symbols-of-the-elements-with-atomic-numbers-113-115-117-and-118/, which has a link for downloading "the full text of the Provisional Recommendation" (PDF 273 kB; 9 pages), which might have pronunciations.—Wavelength (talk) 02:42, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, it doesn't. I assume it will be like Sigurd Hoffmann once said on the pronunciation of copernicium: individuals will decide on it, even if they disagree. In that case, Periodic Videos (as linked on YouTube) should be an adequate source, giving the pronunciation of a renowned chemist. Double sharp (talk) 03:37, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
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- This guy uses Double Sharp's for tennessine and mine for the others, except that he makes the first o of oganesson long. That could be a British thing, since the brits often lack trisyllabic laxing, but it seems he has a short o in the person's name. So maybe for him it's short o in normal speech and long o when enunciating pedagogically? That's a common enough phenomenon. So I changed tennessine but left oganesson as is.
- That's the best Youtube source I could fine. — kwami (talk) 20:30, 6 July 2016 (UTC)
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- One might contact IUPAC (http://iupac.org/contact/) for its recommendations.—Wavelength (talk) 14:56, 7 July 2016 (UTC)
On a related note, since you made the Wikimedia Uus-TableImage.png image, could you make the Nh-TableImage.png, Mc-TableImage.png, Ts-TableImage.png and Og-TableImage.png images? Urhixidur (talk) 00:17, 21 July 2016 (UTC)
- I just updated it, but sure, I could do that. But we don't use that file anymore, do we? Could you show me the files you want updated directly so I'm sure to start from the right version? — kwami (talk) 07:13, 22 July 2016 (UTC)
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- Okay. Done. — kwami (talk) 04:52, 23 July 2016 (UTC)
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hyphenation
- I noticed that a number of language articles are using dashes ("–," Unicode
x2013
) instead of hyphens ("-," Unicodex2010
) in hyphenated language names. Is there a way to get a bot to correct these errors? Dashes/minuses should be used between numbers, and hyphens should be used between letters. I saw that you replaced a hyphen with a dash for the entry "Uralic-Yukaghir languages" (hyphenated) to redirect to "Uralic–Yukaghir languages" (dashed), which should be vice versa. Nicole Sharp (talk) 04:13, 18 August 2016 (UTC)- Ditto for "Eskimo-Aleut languages" (hyphenated) and "Eskimo–Aleut languages" (dashed). Nicole Sharp (talk) 04:39, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
- They're not errors. En dashes are used in several linguistic publications where two branches or places are joined to form a family name. Hyphens are used for prefixes etc. Of course, some typesetters don't bother with the difference, but on WP we do. — kwami (talk) 07:31, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
- I thought of that, and while the en dash is correct in some instances, in the two examples above the hyphen instead should be the correct character. E.g. the usage is "(Uralic-Yukaghir) languages" (hyphenated, indicating Uralic and Yukaghir combined) and not "Uralic–(Yukaghir languages)" (dashed, indicating a Uralic [Uralization] prefix to Yukaghir), as opposed to "Trans–([New Guinea] languages)" (dashed) instead of "(Trans-New) (Guinea languages)" (hyphenated). Nicole Sharp (talk) 08:02, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
- There are two primary motivations for using an en dash in names like this. One is as you describe: Post–Cold War [i.e., post-(cold war) as opposed to (post-cold) war]. The other is when joining two equivalent elements into a unit, as in "French–German border". Many language families fit the latter pattern (e.g. Niger–Congo but not Nilo-Saharan, where the two elements are not equivalent grammatically). There was a discussion about this a couple years ago, with examples of professional publications that follow such usage. — kwami (talk) 08:12, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
- Please also see the discussion at "Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Improper moves by User:Nicole_Sharp." I would be willing to defer to your judgment in the matter, but if you can post a link with a citation, or if you know of a journal that follows such usage that I could look up at my university library, I would feel a lot better. However, I would still argue that the bigger problem is technical as opposed to grammatical, since the dash is a non-US-ASCII special character. The same problem exists with curly quotes versus straight quotes, since curly quotes are special characters and so cannot always be identified as quotes/apostrophes. Wikipedia is more than just a website—since it is free and open-source, it can be archived and redistributed in a wide variety of formats, which can create technical complications if there is an unnecessary overuse of special characters. Nicole Sharp (talk) 08:53, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
- Don't recall offhand, and out of town. But you bring up a larger issue re. restricting ourselves to ASCII characters. In general we don't do that. True, we don't use curly quotes, but there's no semantic difference involved (except for things like the okina, where we do use the curly variant, and hamza vs 'ayn etc.). There is a semantic difference between the hyphen and the en dash, and per your argument we should use e.g. "---" rather than "—" in our articles. But we don't: There is no general preference for ASCII on WP. There is an interminable argument about using diacritics in people's names, but that's more an issue of being true to the original vs reflecting English-language media than about ASCII. — kwami (talk) 10:11, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
- Either way, the most important thing I think is consistency. I would suggest creating an official list of all language-family names that should use the en dash, and then programming a bot to go through Wikipedia with a find-and-replace for any instances using the hyphen instead. I have no idea how wikibots work, so this would have to be a task for someone more technically skilled than myself. I have seen both characters in use on pages, and not all search engines can tell the difference between the two spellings (dash versus hyphen). Nicole Sharp (talk) 20:14, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
- Please also note that the en-dashed spellings need to be fixed on Wiktionary as well then, e.g. "wiktionary:Niger-Congo" and "wiktionary:Eskimo-Aleut." Nicole Sharp (talk) 20:14, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
- I have been thinking, and I still think the en dash is not correct in instances such as "Eskimo-Aleut." For example, "Antigua-Barbuda" (hyphenated) is a shortened name for the country of Antigua and Barbuda, which consists of the islands of Antigua and Barbuda. "Antigua–Barbuda" (dashed) would refer to relations between the two islands, which are both located within the same country of Antigua-Barbuda (hyphenated). Likewise, "Eskimo–Aleut" (dashed) should refer to relations between (contemporary/historical) Inuit-speaking (Eskimo-speaking) peoples and Aleut-speaking peoples, and not the (theoretical/prehistorical) unified language group of Eskimo-Aleut (e.g. Proto-Eskimo-Aleut). "Niger–Congo" (dashed) versus "Niger-Congo" (hyphenated) doesn't have the same possibility of confusion since the name refers not to specific language subgroups but to the general area between and around the Niger and Congo Rivers. I would say that the en dash in these cases implies an apposition or opposition of entities (e.g. between them), whereas the hyphen implies a superposition of entities (a combination into a new unified entity). Nicole Sharp (talk) 00:24, 23 August 2016 (UTC)
- Don't recall offhand, and out of town. But you bring up a larger issue re. restricting ourselves to ASCII characters. In general we don't do that. True, we don't use curly quotes, but there's no semantic difference involved (except for things like the okina, where we do use the curly variant, and hamza vs 'ayn etc.). There is a semantic difference between the hyphen and the en dash, and per your argument we should use e.g. "---" rather than "—" in our articles. But we don't: There is no general preference for ASCII on WP. There is an interminable argument about using diacritics in people's names, but that's more an issue of being true to the original vs reflecting English-language media than about ASCII. — kwami (talk) 10:11, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
- Please also see the discussion at "Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Incidents#Improper moves by User:Nicole_Sharp." I would be willing to defer to your judgment in the matter, but if you can post a link with a citation, or if you know of a journal that follows such usage that I could look up at my university library, I would feel a lot better. However, I would still argue that the bigger problem is technical as opposed to grammatical, since the dash is a non-US-ASCII special character. The same problem exists with curly quotes versus straight quotes, since curly quotes are special characters and so cannot always be identified as quotes/apostrophes. Wikipedia is more than just a website—since it is free and open-source, it can be archived and redistributed in a wide variety of formats, which can create technical complications if there is an unnecessary overuse of special characters. Nicole Sharp (talk) 08:53, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
- There are two primary motivations for using an en dash in names like this. One is as you describe: Post–Cold War [i.e., post-(cold war) as opposed to (post-cold) war]. The other is when joining two equivalent elements into a unit, as in "French–German border". Many language families fit the latter pattern (e.g. Niger–Congo but not Nilo-Saharan, where the two elements are not equivalent grammatically). There was a discussion about this a couple years ago, with examples of professional publications that follow such usage. — kwami (talk) 08:12, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
- I thought of that, and while the en dash is correct in some instances, in the two examples above the hyphen instead should be the correct character. E.g. the usage is "(Uralic-Yukaghir) languages" (hyphenated, indicating Uralic and Yukaghir combined) and not "Uralic–(Yukaghir languages)" (dashed, indicating a Uralic [Uralization] prefix to Yukaghir), as opposed to "Trans–([New Guinea] languages)" (dashed) instead of "(Trans-New) (Guinea languages)" (hyphenated). Nicole Sharp (talk) 08:02, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
userpage quote
I removed the puns from "Mikebrown" since they contained encyclopedic errors, per "talk:11714 Mikebrown." You might want to update your link to the old wikipage version instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=11714_Mikebrown&oldid=730482743 Nicole Sharp (talk) 06:17, 18 August 2016 (UTC)
Washo language
Kwami, if you have a minute, would you look at Washo language? There's a guy there who is using his misinterpretation of a page out of Mithun's survey to mess with the consonant chart and replace a glottalized c' with ć because he can't correctly read the poor photocopy on a web site and thinks that's what a c with a superimposed apostrophe is. He refuses to read the Talk page and is edit warring. Thanks. --Taivo (talk) 20:41, 20 August 2016 (UTC)
- Added my two bits, but looks like it's been resolved. — kwami (talk) 05:19, 22 August 2016 (UTC)