User talk:Smurrayinchester

I'm often told I need a better sense of humor. Hopefully I can learn from your entertaining wit!

Here's the belated welcome template, just in case...

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Thank you for your great work with the logo. Best regards Rhanyeia♥♫ 07:24, 17 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

I made quite many color varieties in order to find a good version where the tiles wouldn't resemble Scrabble. I came up with the version 12b on Wiktionary:Beer parlour#More logo conversation. Maybe you'd like to comment it? :) Best regards Rhanyeia♥♫ 19:54, 28 October 2007 (UTC)Reply

A plan is in the works to found a new UK chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, and we are currently gathering support from the community. If you are interesting in being part of this new UK chapter as a member, a board member or as someone with a general interest in the chapter, please head over to m:Wikimedia UK v2.0 and let us know. We welcome help in making finishing touches to the plans. An election will be held shortly for the initial board, who will oversee the process of founding the company and accepting membership applications. They will then call an AGM to formally elect a new board, which will take the chapter forward, starting to raise funds and generally supporting the Wikimedia community in the UK. Thanks for your time. AndrewRT 22:31, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Reply

It is virtually impossible to have a normal-user-findable entry that reflects the full range of variation for idiomatic constructions. See w:Construction grammar for some background on linguistic thought on the subject. Consider:

• Lua error in Module:quote at line 2955: Parameter 1 is required.
• Lua error in Module:quote at line 2955: Parameter 1 is required.

• Lua error in Module:quote at line 2955: Parameter 1 is required.

Maybe it would be more useful to include usage example or citations for the most common forms in an entry for and his mother. The search function would put such an entry at the top of the search results for most of the common variations, even if they were not word-for-word included in the usage examples or citations. DCDuring TALK 12:04, 22 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

You may as well just have the entry for everyone and his mother. There is a citation from The Great Gatsby for it. DCDuring TALK 12:10, 22 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

Thanks. What's the Great Gatsby quote? I've searched through the book's text and I can't find one anywhere. Smurrayinchester (talk) 12:52, 22 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

Google doesn't preview it. What I was able to see was a quote (or paraphrase?) from a study guide. If it is a paraphrase, it is not so great. But several editions of Gatsy come up on the search so it might be a quote. I'll ask a friend of mine with a prodigious memory who says he rereads it every few years if he can help. I've added the entry and everybody and his mother, each with a single citation, the "everybody" form with a quotation from NZ from 1868! DCDuring TALK 14:27, 22 March 2012 (UTC)Reply

Hi Smuzza. Would you like to be nommed for adminship? --Itkilledthecat (talk) 22:22, 23 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

Thanks for the kind offer, but I don't really have the time or the dictioneering know-how for adminship right now. Smurrayinchester (talk) 22:36, 23 April 2012 (UTC)Reply

Keep up the great work. Adminship would still be premature, but it comes with no responsibility except to not abuse the tools (deletion, blocking, etc). DCDuring TALK 17:44, 3 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Thanks! I'm an admin on Wikipedia, but have barely used my adminly powers for years, and like you say, I've not been active on Wiktionary for all that long yet. Smurrayinchester (talk) 18:20, 3 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Your comment about the collective-noun appendices made me ask myself (having forgotten about this conversation) why you are not an admin. Well, why not? DCDuring TALK 01:02, 25 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

No, no, I'm not saying the definition is related to hash browns, but I think the etymology is a blend of hash browns and brownies, rather than hash + brownie. It's debatable anyway, and not very important. Mglovesfun (talk) 21:16, 15 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Replied at User talk:Mglovesfun#hash brownies. Smurrayinchester (talk) 21:22, 15 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

Hi there. I'm pretty sure that this is just a tame version of (deprecated template usage) bollocking. SemperBlotto (talk) 15:15, 13 August 2012 (UTC)Reply

For this. — Ungoliant ^(Falai) 00:53, 18 October 2012 (UTC)Reply

Does it also mean fellow traveller (in the sense of a Communist sympathiser)? SemperBlotto (talk) 11:18, 12 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

I had a quick look in Google Books - I didn't find anything that obviously suggested a separate sense, although the sympathizer sense would be covered to some extent by the third sense, "A follower". German Wiktionary does give the sense Mitläufer, which would literally translate to fellow traveller, but this seems to be a false friend: a Mitläufer is someone who is a member or follower of a group, but does nothing to further the aims of that group. As I understand it, a fellow traveller is not a member of the group, but does work towards a common goal. Smurrayinchester (talk) 12:25, 12 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

(Of course, trying to search for terms like "Trabant" + "Kommunisten" or "Trabant" + "Kommunismus" finds too many hits related to the East German car to properly sort through, so there may be something I'm missing). Smurrayinchester (talk) 12:29, 12 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

How do you like them? I've been pushing them for a couple of years, but I think you're the first to use them on the discussion pages.

COCA and BNC may be the stars, but the web corpus and COHA have their uses. DCDuring TALK 15:33, 26 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

@DCDuring Better than Google Books! I remember trying to use them a few years ago, but I think they needed some sort of registration at that point. Unsure about how "clean" the results are though (eg. how many American books have slipped into BNC and vice versa, and how accurate the POS tagging is); some of the big discrepancies in the -wards results (eg inward/inwards versus outward/outwards) make me a bit wary - but of course, the data may be right and my intuition may be wrong. Smurrayinchester (talk) 19:37, 26 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

Yes, you point out real problems. And you still need to register. I wasn't a problem for me. I don't lose sleep over the problems with their corpora because I believe quantitative precision is usually spurious anyway. If I don't find strong evidence, I try not to make strong conclusions. I hope I didn't violate that principle in the case at hand. DCDuring TALK 01:09, 25 August 2015 (UTC)Reply

Thank you so much for your message; it is so important to establish the truth in every instance. Thank you so much for your message; it is so important to establish the truth in every instance. I was caught out by misreading that Old English writing includes all kinds of words representing 'sea', such as the 'deep' et cetera, because there was no actual word of Indo-European, other than of Germanic origin specifying this - I must admit that this was very hard to believe; and I particularly appreciate your correction as to this in a public site, in order to identify the truth here. I still believe, however, that the Old English lexeme is of older form than all its cognates except for Gothic that is the link between this and the Germanic root. MERE is certainly Germanic, and the etymology follows through quite logically there. My due apologies! I particularly appreciate your correction as to this in a public site, in order to identify the truth here. I still believe, however, that the Old English lexeme is of older form than all its cognates except for Gothic that is the link between this and the Germanic root. MERE is certainly Germanic, and the etymology follows through quite logically there. The only analogy to that lexeme that might very dubiously have been carried that from British is MOOR - the German form being borrowed, and possibly the Dutch too - the Semantic changes being also found in Cornish HAL (moor < marsh < mere, in meaning only). The influence on the British language of the Saxons, Angles and Norse was complete in the higher classes and gradually influenced all classes. You would realise that earlier raids took place of the Belgæ et cetera, and that is where Gothic fits. However, the working class retained a number of words in speech. The generic pronunciation of Ā in English testifies to the carry over of that of Gallic, found in Old Cornish but not Middle Cornish. Most, if not all other European languages maintain the normal Ā pronuciation as in non-Midland fĀther, Scottish wrĀth, et cetera. Have adjusted my paragraph. Andrew H. Gray 09:49, 3 December 2015 (UTC)Andrew

Could you please post a boldface keep, delete or abstain at WT:RFD#these kingdoms? It would help close the discussion. Thanks. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:56, 24 April 2016 (UTC)Reply

The link to "Stephen R. Donaldson ate my dictionary" now goes to some scummy cybersquatter selling fake rip-off handbags. Equinox ◑ 19:04, 10 November 2016 (UTC)Reply

@Equinox Eurgh, thanks. If you're interested, it's on the Wayback Machine here - hover your mouse over a word, and it gives you a Thomas Covenant quote using that word. Smurrayinchester (talk) 08:39, 11 November 2016 (UTC)Reply