Kent Dominic

Welcome!

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Olivier, Louisiana

@Kent Dominic: Thanks for your feedback on my talk page. Also thank you for adding the unincorporated community of Olivier, Louisiana. Note that I could not find any support for your claim that the community was named after Pierre-François Olivier de Vézin. However I moved your sentence into an etymology section and left it intact for future editors. Based on the limited research I performed it appears that the community was named after the local Olivier plantation.

• I hope you (or someone else) can authoritatively clear that up. It was my understanding that the planation came after Olivier de Vezin's regional land survey. Kent Dominic 10:04, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

I would really like it if you added more unincorporated communities. DavidDelaune (talk) 21:36, 3 December 2019 (UTC)

• I have an ulterior motive for starting the Olivier, Louisiana page. I've written a soon-to-be-published novel whose inciting incident occurs in various settings near Olivier. Each word in the novel's e-book version has hypertext with pop-up definitions and hyperlinks to an internal glossary, and the glossary's hypertext is either internally cross-linked to associated terms or externally linked where appropriate. Thus, the glossary has external links to the Wikipedia pages for Lydia, New Iberia and Loreauville (places I visited twice years ago for the novel's research) and to the Jeanerette local web page, but no WWW page existed for Olivier, which is where the novel's fictional Acadia Self-Storage company is located in the bayou hinterlands. Because I wanted the novel to have the feeling of verisimilitude, I created - albeit very clumsily - the Olivier page here so that any interested readers could get a better idea of the actual setting for the inciting incident by following the glossary's external link. Again, thanks for cleaning up the page! Kent Dominic 10:04, 4 December 2019 (UTC)

WP:REFER

Hello, Kent Dominic. One of your recent edits to Copula (linguistics) added the following (emphasis added):

In various theories of linguistics, a copula is a term for a word that links the subject of a sentence to a subject complement

This is, however, not quite correct. The word copula is a term for a word; a copula is a word. Do you see what I mean?

I removed the words "a term for" from that sentence, and in my edit summary left a link to WP:REFER. That link goes to a section of the Manual of Style guideline, "Writing better articles" where this point is made in slightly greater detail. You re-added those three words, which I guess means either that you disagree with me or that you didn't understand my point. If you disagree, perhaps you could discuss why you think your sentence is correct or preferable to mine at Talk:Copula (linguistics). Happy editing, Cnilep (talk) 03:39, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Cnilep: First of all, thanks for the heads-up. I wish everyone who undoes stuff here were as courteous.

Secondly, thanks for the WP:REFER link. I hadn't been aware of it.

Thirdly, I apologize for restoring the "a term for" phrase without offering the type heads-up courtesy that I appreciate. In fact, I hadn't noticed your reversion until moments ago. Instead, when I returned to the article after my initial edit, I mistakenly thought that I'd neglected to add "a term for" as I had originally intended. Thus, the second edit was intended to address what I considered to be my oversight, not a rebuke of your reversion. Sorry for the optics involved.

With that out of the way, let me say that I'm only 40% swayed that "a term for" should go rather than stay. I intended the phrase as an alert to casual Wikipedia users who view the senses given here as gospel rather than as a collaborative effort to express an intended meaning. I'm particularly sensitive to those who can't recognize the lexicological differences between, e.g. -

• house: 1. abode 2. dwelling 3. home (Merriam-Webster and Oxford style)
• house means 1. abode. 2. dwelling 3. home (Offhanded Wiktionary style)
• a house is an abode, a dwelling, or a home (Collins Dictionary or Macmillan Dictionary style)
• a house is a term used to tell someone about your abode, your dwelling, or your home (Cambridge Dictionary style)

From a purely semantic POV, I don't believe words "have" meaning in a genitive sense nor do I think they "mean" anything in an ergative sense; they neither "denote" anything in a lexicographical sense. Instead, lexicographically speaking, words merely represent various concepts relating to the meaning associated with the sense of word as asserted by the person who utters it and as construed by the listener or audience.

Philosophy aside, there's no reasonable quibble that "A copula is a word that..." and "A copula is a term for a word that" have equivalent truth values. We agree on the point. (I.e., as you said above, "The word copula is a term for a word; a copula is a word.") For me, then, whether the former or latter iteration is correct within the context of a Wikipedia article is the issue.

Three things cause me to be 60% convinced that "a term for" should stay rather than go -

1. That a copula is a word is undeniable; that a copula is a term is undeniable; however, that "A copula is a word that..." is technically incomplete since some copular verbs are phrases e.g. "I am not being facetious." Identifying a copula as a term rather than as a word enables that interpretation. Admittedly, "A copula is a term for a word or phrase that..." might be an improvement over what we've discussed so far.
2. The redundancy (as you've implied but not stated) regarding "A copula is a term for a word" is nonexistent; "word" and "term" have their respective meanings however they're defined yet "word" typically entails lexemes while the sense of "term" can entail lexemes, compound words, phrases, and even idiomatic sentences. In the immediate context, perhaps I should have edited the sense as, "A copula is a term for a structure that..."
3. Strictly speaking from a semantics POV, I think it's better to assert that a copula is a term for the corresponding word or phrase that performs certain linking operations instead of using "is" to equate a copula its linking function. I admit I'm splitting hairs, but I think using "is" contributes to systemic bias. Thus, I don't think the WP:REFER link applies here. In other words, I think it's better to identify a copula as a term for a word (or phrase) that links things rather than asserting that a copula "is" the word that links things.
   

(In point of fact: I don't see the utility in using the term, copula, to describe the corresponding operation as defined in this article, traditional views notwithstanding. For me, a copula is based on naïve linguistic premises that have been obsoleted by modern theory. Nonetheless, the terminology associated with copula, linking verb, copular verb, copulative, etc. persist. Some terms die hard.)

FYI, I won't be fazed regardless of whether the "a term for" issue resolves itself in a manner that comports with or conflicts with the views I've expressed here. In my lexicon of linguistic terms, copula is entered merely in passing with cross-references to modern-day parlance relating to a sense of stative verb that differs considerably from the Wikipedia discourse on that term. --Kent Dominic 08:05, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

3RR

Your recent editing history at Nominative–accusative language shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See the bold, revert, discuss cycle for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in you being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you don't violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. – Uanfala (talk) 12:50, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Kent Dominic. When you asked at WP:RFPP for semi-protection of the article Nominative–accusative language, I recognized that you were making the wrong request and that the real problem was edit warring between auto-confirmed editors. What I did not realize at the time was that the discussion at the talk page shows a clear consensus (3 to 1) for removing the section. With that being the case, you are obligated by WP:Consensus to stop re-adding the material unless consensus changes. If you will agree to abide by this, I will lift the full protection. However, if you then continue to edit the article against consensus, that would be disruptive and you could be subject to sanctions. I know you think you are right and the others are wrong. Please read WP:EW, where it clearly says that warring is against the rules even if you are sure you are right. So please don’t reply by trying to convince me that you are right. That discussion belongs on the talk page. Maybe you and the other users can reach some kind of understanding or compromise. But in the meantime, do not edit war. -- MelanieN (talk) 14:40, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Signature

Hi Kent, I noticed your signature doesn't have any links. Our guidelines on signatures require that it have a link to your user, talk, or contributions page so that it's easy to access an editor's talk page. If you need help, you can find instructions at Help:How to fix your signature. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:10, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

@Wugapodes: Old dog. New trick. Thanks! --Kent·Dominic 05:44, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Your thread has been archived

Hi Kent Dominic! The thread you created at the Wikipedia:Teahouse, Changing the "Hanguk" redirect, has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days (usually at least two days, and sometimes four or more). You can still find the archived discussion here. If you have any additional questions that weren't answered then, please feel free to . The archival was done by Lowercase sigmabot III, and this notification was delivered by Muninnbot, both automated accounts. You can opt out of future notifications by placing {{bots|deny=Muninnbot}} here on your user talk page. Muninnbot (talk) 19:01, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Verbal noun

I've completely overhauled Verbal noun, restricting the scope to verbal nouns with the form of gerunds. (That seems to be what this page is saying [1])

I'm aware that the end result isn't very satisfactory but IMHO it is better than before. Almost anything would be better than what was there before.

I've also edited Deverbal noun, but not so thoroughly.

The two articles were at cross-purposes in explaining the differences between verbal noun and deverbal noun. If it's wrong it can always be patched, but we have to draw a line in the sand somewhere.

Input appreciated.

Bathrobe (talk) 04:08, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

@Bathrobe: Looks much better. I made a few minor changes upon a cursory reading. I hope not to make any more if I ever read it again. Cheers. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 08:36, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Thanks!

Bathrobe (talk) 08:53, 7 February 2021 (UTC)

Your thread has been archived

Hi Kent Dominic! The thread you created at the Wikipedia:Teahouse, Re. Non-finite clause, has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days (usually at least two days, and sometimes four or more). You can still find the archived discussion here. If you have any additional questions that weren't answered then, please feel free to . The archival was done by Lowercase sigmabot III, and this notification was delivered by Muninnbot, both automated accounts. You can opt out of future notifications by placing {{bots|deny=Muninnbot}} here on your user talk page. Muninnbot (talk) 19:01, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

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Duty belt

Hi — I've replaced your recently-created stub at Tactical duty belt with a redirect to the existing article at Police duty belt. I saw in your edit notes that you were hoping the latter would be merged into the new one, but clearly that was never going to happen (why would a well-developed, established article be merged into a new stub?). If your issue with the existing article is to do with the title, then you can always start a discussion on the talk page for moving it to your preferred one, and see what the community says. Or if I've misunderstood something, don't hesitate to put me right (but please ping me, or else come to my talk page). Cheers, --DoubleGrazing (talk) 08:10, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

@DoubleGrazing: I'm not pleased about the redirect. Couldn't you just put it back the way it was to see what happens? My intent was to satisfy the reader interest in tactical utility belts as a generic topic in which police utility belt is a subtopic. It's beyond me why there's no supra "utility belt" article re. construction, climbing, maintenance, tactical, and police. The iconic Batman utility belt would obviously still be a redirect. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 08:47, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Sure I could remove the redirect, as indeed could you, but that's not the point. The point is that someone else (say, a new page patroller) would likely do what I did, or else request WP:A10 speedy deletion on the grounds that it duplicates an existing article (only a small part thereof, but still). If you want to expand the scope of the existing article — and FWIW, I agree that it could/should be more generic and less police-specific — then either do that within the existing article and then propose a move to a correspondingly generic new name, or (and this may be the better option, given that you might find it difficult to incorporate non-police content into a police-related article) develop your generic content in your draft space, and publish only when it's ready for the main space. HTH, --DoubleGrazing (talk) 09:00, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Sex

If you continue to revert at that page, you'll be reported for edit-warring. The consensus is against you, so please go to the talk page to discuss. SarahSV ^(talk) 05:17, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

@SlimVirgin: If I'm ultimately outnumbered by editors - presumably native English speakers - who need a full-on remedial primer in singular versus plural construction as well as a how-to in construing the genetive versus partitive senses of the word "of" (e.g. "the attribute of male or female" is grammatically sound but makes no more sense than "the attribute of new or used"), I don't intend an edit war. I'll be content to wistfully shake my head and laugh. The crude, semantically nonsensical, and unsourced definition that Crossroads advanced is ten times better than the gobbledygook of a non-definition (which was inexplicably cited but not used) that I railed against at the start of this saga. BTW, the cite is still there and still not relevant to Crossroad's gem of a the lead. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 10:38, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Talk page replies

Kent, please follow the standard guideline on replying to Talk page comments, by adding your thoughts to the end of the comment you're replying to. I've twice had to fix interpolated comments at Talk:Sex today. It's not easy under any circumstances, and when there have been good faith follow-up comments by another editor, to a comment you made in the middle of my original comment, as happened just now, then it's quite hellish to unscramble it all. I managed it, I think; it's very error-prone, but I did a double-check pass, and I think it's good now. I'd hate to go through that again! Mathglot (talk) 02:00, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

Stop POV pushing

Please read WP:OR. Wikipedia isn’t a place for you to push your opinions, please check WP:NOTADVOCACY. Stop trying to push this whole “sex is a attribute” it goes against the sources in the article sex. If you have any sources that directly state that please show them.CycoMa (talk) 02:33, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

CycoMa It seems you have a some learning to do about what "attribute" means. Let me help you: The article has a sentence, "Many species... are divided into male and female individuals." Those mentions of "male" and "female" are used attributively. The article also says, "Males and females of a species may be similar..." Those mentions of "male" and "female" are used nominally. There's no POV involved, only a reference to the lexical category under discussion. We could just as easily say, "Sex is an adjective that..." or "Sex is a noun that..." but, definitionally, either articulation would be too narrow. It's like saying "Red is an adjective," which is true, yet it's also true that "red is a noun." In any case, however, red is an attribute. Regarding sources: by way of analogy, I have none that support my opinion that Earth is the third planet from the Sun. If you want to challenge that opinion, please edit the corresponding unsourced WP:OR as it occurs in the article on Earth. Some things are just prima facie true yet need to be said to provide semantic context. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 05:25, 2 May 2021 (UTC)

Can you explain yourself

Seriously why are you so obsessed with the lead on sex. Can you explain your world view to me. Do you an issue with the sources in the article? Do you research on this topic yourself? I’m not trying to be rude I need your perspective.

Also can you try saying this in language that’s easy to comprehend.CycoMa (talk) 04:43, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Look toward the bottom of the post here from the part that says, "As an FYI..." --Kent Dominic·(talk) 05:52, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

At sex

Hey at sex you mentioned how I called what you are saying as rambling or gibberish. Just to let you know I’m not that as saying a way to insult you. I’m say this because what you are saying is confusing and hard to understand.CycoMa (talk) 06:30, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

That sounds like an apology. If so, it's not needed. I'm never hurt, insulted, or offended by anything that goes on here. Just beware for your own sake: other editors are easily offended by incivility whether they're a target or a bystander. If you have trouble understanding a post, try saying something from a neutral POV, like, "Could you put XYZ in plain English?" Or use self-effacing humor: "Your XYZ comment is too abstruse for me to sort out." If you think someone really deserves to be insulted, be creative with a back-handed compliment: "Your XYZ comment requires a unique brand of brilliance that may be ahead of its time" or "Your XYZ suggestion is likely to receive a much better reception in the ABC article than in this one." Diplomacy is a virtue. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 09:10, 27 May 2021 (UTC)

Don’t change the meaning

Just commenting this down to let you know. I don’t mind having you fixing grammar but, don’t dramatically change the language. There are some situations where you edited certain words and it changed the entire meaning of what a source was saying.CycoMa (talk) 04:34, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

CycoMa, EVERY edit - by its very definition - changes the meaning in some way. If you think a change fails to improve a given meaning, please bring it up on the relevant talk page. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 05:43, 30 May 2021 (UTC)

Kent Dominic dude it’s very obvious you have a problem with me, if you don’t discuss this with me now I wouldn’t stop.

Here on Wikipedia we are supposed to communicate with each other not be at each other’s throats.CycoMa (talk) 02:26, 31 May 2021 (UTC)

Creating a sea when linking

It's a concern to Wikipedians. I think my edit helped a little.[2] If you can think of a different way to avoid or disrupt the sea, feel free. GBFEE (talk) 17:32, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Actually, I think my edit helped a lot because now people can see it's two different links. GBFEE (talk) 17:36, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Computer program could use your help

The computer program article could use your help expanding the Boot program or Embedded program sections. If you have a textbook on either of these subjects, then paraphrase some key elements and cite the sources. The key is to cite the sources because it's a rule.Timhowardriley (talk) 13:04, 13 November 2021 (UTC)

No, thanks. I'm interested only in the lede. A lede doesn't need any cites when its terms are defined and cited elsewhere in an article. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 03:35, 14 November 2021 (UTC)

After studying the definition we developed, I realized why it was so difficult. Computer program takes two sentences to define. Moreover, the two halves are mutually exclusive. Half of computer programs are sequences and the other half are sets. Take a look at the software article. The editors there compromised by calling a program a collection. For a long time, computer program bounced back and forth between collection and sequence and other imaginative variations. That's why when I came across Dr. Wilson's back-end approach to a definition, it intrigued me. But as you noticed, it's not an active voice definition. Maybe, Dr. Wilson will read our article and adjust the book's next edition. Timhowardriley (talk) 03:32, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

That all makes sense to me. Never considered any of it till just now. An FYI: My primary interest in editing here is mostly limited to the ledes of certain articles relating to my own glossary. Each word or phrase in my glossary, geared toward English grammar and syntax, entails my own definition(s) and is internally linked except when the theme is too complex for me to define myself. In cases such as computer program, which has exactly one mention in my glossary, I provide a meaning that's defined elsewhere. The article here is quite good, but the lede sucked because the incipital content related to computers, not computer programs. My readers would revolt at my linking them to such a wacky definition. As always, I don't claim expertise beyond English grammar, syntax (etc.), but I do claim that my edits are at least semantic and thematic improvements.

After your series of reversions, I gave up on my intent to link computer program as a technical phrase. Instead, I broke it down into its sum of parts since I'd already defined "computer" (i.e. as an electronic device whose programmable functions include data storage, processing, and retrieval) and "program" (i.e. as a set of digitally encoded instructions that enable a computer to perform various operations and functions). The technical aspects of the current computer program lede here are too technical for my readers' interests.

True, my definitions favor expediency over technical accuracy. My main concern was my use of the word, "digital." Specifically, I didn't want to inadvertently preclude quantum computing from the definition of a computer program. I'm satisfied that my definitions aren't wildly misleading, so all my contributions to the article here are moot points. If my readers independently find their way here, I'll gladly defer to the technicalities while standing pat on the efficacy of what I've written on my own. Cheers. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 05:42, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

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Your thread has been archived

Hi Kent Dominic! The thread you created at the Wikipedia:Teahouse, Error message for Spain, has been archived because there was no discussion for a few days. You can still read the archived discussion. If you have follow-up questions, please . See also the help page about the archival process. The archival was done by Lowercase sigmabot III, and this notification was delivered by Muninnbot, both automated accounts. You can opt out of future notifications by placing {{bots|deny=Muninnbot}} on top of the current page (your user talk page). Muninnbot (talk) 19:02, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

Syntactic expletives

Hi, I notice you contributed to Syntactic expletives. I hope you'll forgive me, but I can't see the point of that article separate to Expletives so I've nominated it for deletion. Please do contribute to the deletion debate. Elemimele (talk) 11:55, 19 December 2021 (UTC)

Two thirds

Thanks for catching that; it hadn't occurred to me that the MOS was suggesting its use as a modifier, like "the cup was two-thirds empty". This makes me wonder if it's kind of a confusing/unhelpful inclusion anyway and ought to be removed...? Popcornfud (talk) 00:03, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

"Ghosting"

That's nice, because I don't feel much like having further pointless conversations with you either, since you're evidently unqualified to do any major restructuring of the "Preposition stranding" article, and discussion on Talk:Preposition_stranding is supposed to be relevant to article improvement. AnonMoos (talk) 00:44, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Standard notification

This is a standard message to notify contributors about an administrative ruling in effect. It does not imply that there are any issues with your contributions to date.

You have shown interest in gender-related disputes or controversies or in people associated with them. Due to past disruption in this topic area, a more stringent set of rules called discretionary sanctions is in effect. Any administrator may impose sanctions on editors who do not strictly follow Wikipedia's policies, or the page-specific restrictions, when making edits related to the topic.

For additional information, please see the guidance on discretionary sanctions and the Arbitration Committee's decision here. If you have any questions, or any doubts regarding what edits are appropriate, you are welcome to discuss them with me or any other editor.

I hope I'll be forgiven if you've already received one of these within the last twelve months – from a glance at this page's history, it looks like you haven't. ezlev (user/tlk/ctrbs) 08:22, 22 January 2022 (UTC) @Ezlev: Thank you. If you have ten minutes to kill, have a look at the Semantics thread bellow. You'll see that I have no abiding interest in gender-related disputes or controversies, and no real interest in User:Newimportial except to bring closure to what I thought had been closed with my first edit in the "Sorry" thread. My passion is writing, most recently about linguistics. Unfortunately, some would say. Cheers. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 00:05, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Semantics

(The turquoise text immediately below was cut and pasted from User:EvergreenFir's talk page) Juat to clarify, I never suggested that you refuse to use the singular "they" for all kinds of nonbinary people. Rather, I am one particular kind of nonbinary person, I asked you to use the singular they, and your response was to come up with one rationale after another why you wouldn't do so when asked. As far as your suggestion that I shifted one ideological target after another - I don't believe I did any such thing, and I also find that your statement here, without evidence, falls under WP:ASPERSION-casting. Please don't do that. Newimpartial (talk) 04:27, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Before I address your concerns, please take a moment to consider some introductory stuff. You'd be wise to consider distinguishing between a proffered statement and an assertion. In particular, I regularly proffer Socratic statements that I don't necessarily support. It's a time-tested way to get immediate reaction. Similarly, when I ask questions, please be sure to distinguish which ones are rhetorical and which ones are genuine.

Next, please make sure to register statements that are self-effacing and squarely tongue-in-cheek. For instance, "P.S. If currently there's a nonbinary singular third-person pronoun in the English language (i.e. besides "it"), the word hasn't yet made its way to me wasn't intended to be taken purely at face value even though User:FormalDude seemed to have interpreted it quite literally. Perhaps if I had italicized "nonbinary" my point would have been clearer. Point being: "they" is, intrinsically speaking, neither binary nor nonbinary. It solely reflects a grammatical number.

Also, please keep in mind that I acknowledge how you and others might use nonbinary to express a particular gender concept, I use the same word in those senses as well as in its prototypically numeric sense: namely, as an adjectival characterization that is not equivalent to "two." In other words, in that same sense nonbinary can mean any referent except two. With that aside...

I know full well that you never asked me to categorically use singular "they" for nonbinary people. I hope I gave no one that impression, and I hope no one misinterpreted you in that regard. However, you assume too much to believe I wouldn't use a singular "they" if asked. In proper quotes, I said:

• "I never use a plural pronoun for a singular third person. (i.e., presently and habitually, subject to change prospectively)
• "My aversion is based more in syntax." If you had asked about the semantic shortcomings of my approach I'd have admitted much of what you've already identified in that regard.
• "As of now, I have no qualms about using a plural 'they' in reference to anyone who embraces a plurality of gender ID. In so doing, that plurality seems a self-contradiction for someone who also embraces the term, 'nonbinary.'" For me, the obvious rebuttal asks how a listener can conversationally distinguish as speaker's construct of a singular "they" from a plural "they" if the relevant referent has been clearly established.

Your objection, via the intruder example, ignored my "Someone stole my car example. Instead, you proffered "Kent hit Crossroads with his fist" example. That is what I term an ideological shift from pure syntax to sociolinguistic analysis. My prior point (one that I proffered notwithstanding its defects because I wanted to hear you out) got ideologically pushed aside. Don't take that as a complaint. It happens all the time. I'm just pointing it out.

Next, you said, I find your desire to distinguish nonbinary identity from gender fluidity (and what about genderqueer identities?), and only to use "they" for genderfluid people, to be forcing exactly the rigid binary you claim does not apply to gender. That's a separate ideological shift I didn't see coming. Why not. Because I never made such a claim. If you had read closely, you'd see that I, Kent Dominic, neither desire to nor do I distinguish nonbinary identity from gender fluidity. However, I acknowledge that others might be interested in doing so. I such cases, I'm interested to know:

• What sense of nonbinary applies in a given case? (I always presume nonbinary characterizes something as not an either/or proposition, but I don't presume the underlying referents are necessarily male/female; masculine/feminine; etc.)
• What number, if countable, of nonbinary is implied in a given case? One? Three? Zero?
• Does the implicit number, if known, correspond to one's pronominal preference?

All of those questions are, in my mind, quite prominent in my reply about my nephew. Rather than address them however, you transitioned to speculation about what might account for what you term my "apparent refusal" to us a singular they. *Sigh* I had to wonder whether you'd missed or couldn't recall that I'd already said, I might well change my thinking along those lines, but that's how I currently conceptualize the nexus between numerical references to gender versus numerical references to a grammatical person.

I could go on re the trend of shifting one ideological target after another, but that should suffice as evidence. I not asking you to agree with the "shifting" characterizations; just see that attempting to keep up and to calmly address them takes no small effort. Again, I'm not casting aspersions on you, I was never angry, and I'm used to such stuff from other editors, especially when my posts get long. I just wanted to let you know why that "sorry" thread got so protracted. And I really do hope you find some peace regarding anything that might be troubling you. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 08:56, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

You haven't shown me even once using an ideological target in my comments so I still see 100% ASPERSION in your characterization of my writing. As I thought was clear from the beginning, I simply reject your assertion that "they" is limited in terms of number any more than "you" is limited in terms of number. You can ask about that as many times amd in as many ways as you like, and my answer will be the same - it doesn't matter.

By the way, you don't make your ideological claim more plausible by misquoting me. The actual passage concerning Kent/Crossroads was "Kent hit Crossroads and hurt his fist" is equally ambiguous, in spite of the use of a gendered pronoun, as "The editors ganged up on Newimpartual but their convoluted arguments failed to gain traction" - pronoun ambiguity is not introduced by the singular they and is not notably increased thereby. My statement may in some (not very obvious) sense be sociolinguistic but it is certainly not ideological in any meaningful sense.

Re: However, you assume too much to believe I wouldn't use a singular "they" if asked. I don't know if you regard this statement as Socratic, but I regard it as the heart of the discussion. I told you again and again that they/them were the correct pronouns for me. You came up with reason after reason not to use them. No, you did not say that you wouldn't ever use them in my case, but you never did use them and you came up with rationale after rationale not to use them. I'm afraid there isn't any "assuming" going on there on my part, just painfully literal truth. Newimpartial (talk) 11:46, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

The discussion is finally getting closer to what I hope will be a mutual understanding. Humor me while I place a screenwriting spin on my Socratic proclivity:

Newimpartial: You haven't shown me even once using an ideological target in my comments so I still see 100% ASPERSION in your characterization of my writing.

Kent: Your ideological targets were successive examples. Those examples were expounded using solely arguments from Social semiotics and with arguments solely based on semantics. I see the utility in that, and your arguments were well-founded. But each time I addressed your arguments based on those semantic and semiotic ideologies, I proceeded to offer additional analysis based on those same ideologies as well as pragmatics, largely problematic syntax and morphological considerations. Call me stupid, but it took me a while to see why our respective comments weren't in sync. When I finally concluded that linguistic competence didn't extend to such ideologies, that's when I said, " I challenge you to shore up your linguistic chops before any reply." Same goes for me. I need to improve my ability more simply explain things that are intrinsically complex.

Newimpartial: As I thought was clear from the beginning, I simply reject your assertion that "they" is limited in terms of number any more than "you" is limited in terms of number. You can ask about that as many times amd in as many ways as you like, and my answer will be the same - it doesn't matter.

Kent: And the arguments for that rejection are based solely on semiotics and semantics. If you torture yourself to read the back-and-forth on your talk page, you'll notice that I agree, from the limited implications of the semantic and semiotic ideologies, that your premise is reasonable, and your conclusion is valid. Yet, your conclusion doesn't account for the syntactic and morphological problems I pointed out repeatedly. I don't fault you in that regard. I'm not accusing you of ignoring my linguistic approach. I now believe I was merely talking past you, especially since you said it seemed I was speaking in "private language."

Newimpartial: By the way, you don't make your ideological claim more plausible by misquoting me.

Kent: How so? If I misquoted you in some way, it was purely unintentional.

Newimpartial: The actual passage concerning Kent/Crossroads was ideological claim more plausible by misquoting me. The actual passage concerning Kent/Crossroads was "Kent hit Crossroads and hurt his fist" is equally ambiguous, in spite of the use of a gendered pronoun, as "The editors ganged up on Newimpartual but their convoluted arguments failed to gain traction" - pronoun ambiguity is not introduced by the singular they and is not notably increased thereby. Kent: I clearly misquoted you. Sorry.

Newimpartial: My statement may in some (not very obvious) sense be sociolinguistic but it is certainly not ideological in any meaningful sense.

Kent: On the contrary, I'd say the examples unproblematic targets of of sociolinguistic ideology. As such, they are necessarily ideological: "a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or culture; visionary theorizing" (Merriam-Webster). But, here again, the statement is ideologically exclusive of the syntactic and taxonomic ideologies that I espouse. Bear with me... Syntactically, virtually all languages construe a pronoun as corresponding to the nearest contextually relevant referent, whether cataphorically or, as in this instance anaphorically. So, to your example, it's always contextually clear:

• "Kent♂ hit Kelly♀ and hurt his fist" syntactically implies Kent's fist, relying on the sociolinguistic implication of gender.
• "Kent♀ hit Kelly♂ and hurt his fist" syntactically implies Kelly's fist, relying on the sociolinguistic implication of gender.
• "Kent♂ hit Kelly♂ and hurt his fist" syntactically implies Kelly's fist (i.e., since Kelly is the nearest anaphoric referent), relying on the sociolinguistic implication of gender.
• "Kent⚥ hit Kelly⚥ and hurt his fist" syntactically implies Kelly's fist (i.e., since Kelly is the nearest anaphoric referent), IGNORING the sociolinguistic implication of gender and relying on the antiquated a Generic Masculine (GM) pronoun still anachronistically in use today.
• "Kent hit Kelly and hurt their fist" syntactically implies Kelly's fist (i.e., since Kelly is the nearest anaphoric referent), with nonbinary sociolinguistic implications of gender.

For me, the sociolinguistic ideology isn't interesting in the least in those examples. Syntactically speaking, gender is nonrelevant to all of the above examples. From a pragmatic standpoint, the ambiguity occurs in the following examples:

• "Kent hit Kelly and hurt their fists" syntactically implies -

1. Kelly's fists (i.e., since Kelly is the nearest anaphoric referent)?
2. Kent and Kelly's fists (i.e., since Kent and Kelly constitute a plurality)
   

Newimpartial: Re: "However, you assume too much to believe I wouldn't use a singular "they" if asked. I don't know if you regard this statement as Socratic, but I regard it as the heart of the discussion.

Kent: You've made that abundantly clear from a sociolinguistic perspective. You haven't yet demonstrated that your arguments have fully considered the syntactic and morphological ideologies I keep bringing up.

Newimpartial: I told you again and again that they/them were the correct pronouns for me.

Kent: And I told you again and again that I've neither a dispute nor a refutation for your preference. On the contrary, I ... tell me again, what did I do?

Newimpartial: You came up with reason after reason not to use them.

Kent: Let's be exceedingly circumspect about that statement. I never once indicated an intent not to use a singular they prospectively. I explained why such usage (i.e., not specific instance of use) is not my habitual style, why I have an aversion to the usage, and why I shun the usage. I indicated that I make occasional exceptions for my nephew, whose name, self-professed gender(s) and pronominal preferences change on a seemingly random basis. Occasionally, in very private conversations, I make exceptions for the sake of sociolinguistic harmony.

Newimpartial: No, you did not say that you wouldn't ever use them in my case.

Kent: True.

Newimpartial: You never did use them.

Kent: True.

Newimpartial: And you came up with rationale after rationale not to use them.

Kent: True.

Newimpartial: I'm afraid there isn't any "assuming" going on there on my part, just painfully literal truth.

INTERMISSION

(What follows is an entirely fictionalized Socratic dialogue between Kent Dominic and Ultra-impartial)

Kent: Let's put aside all the above for a moment. I want to tell you about my eldest sister, Vee.

Ultra-impartial: I'm listening.

Kent: Vee and I were both schooled within a strict educational environment that focused on language arts and immersion in grammar. Part of our inculcation was that "can" and "could" categorically relate to a potentiality while "may" categorically applies to permissiveness.

Ultra-impartial: You mean your instructors disciplined yo for saying "Could I use the lavatory?" instead of "May I...?"

Kent: Exactly. As I grew up, I found that distinction to be grammatically arbitrary because, from an ideologically sociolinguistic standpoint, "May I ...?" can be off-putting as overly formal. From an ideologically semantic perspective, everyone pretty much knows what "Can I say something?" doesn't imply a self-inquiry about one's ability to speak. From an ideologically syntactical POV, "Could I borrow you pen?" is identical to "May I borrow your pen?"

Ultra-impartial: Right. So, nowadays, do you still make the grammatical distinctions you learned as a kid?

Kent: Hardly ever as far as everyday conversation goes. Yet, when I write on a pedagogical topic, the underlying linguistics come to the forefront. And I have to be careful when I talk with Vee, because she never grew out the grammar-weenie stuff.

Ultra-impartial: How so?

Kent: If ask her, for example, "Could I use your battery charger?" she habitually replies, "I don't know. Could you?" It annoys me because she knows what I meant but she wants to chastise me for presumably knowing better. On the contrary, what I learned about linguistics, beyond mere grammar, says that "Could I use your battery charger" can properly be construed, from a potentiality stance, as "Is it possible for me to use your battery charger?" since, for all I know, her charger might be broken. Imagine how ridiculous it would be if I'd say, "May I use your battery charger?" to which she replies, "Yes, yo may, but it's broken." Yet, there's a crucial sociolinguistic factor at work here.

Ultra-impartial: I don't get it.

Kent: In my experience, "Can I...?" represents an informal register; "Could I...?" represents a neutral register, and "May I...?" represents a formal register. In my everyday speech, I habitually default to neutral registers, so I often ask Vee a "Could I question...?" and get her snide reply before we can proceed. One day she went through that routine in way that evinced extreme annoyance, not her typically good humor. I asked whether she made the same corrections vis-a-vis others as often as she did it in my behalf. No, she said. She mostly played out that routine for family members since we'd been taught "better grammar," according to her. Nonetheless, whenever she'd hear others use it, it was, in her words, "like fingernails on a chalkboard."

Ultra-impartial: So, you adjust your register around Vee to suit their grammatical expectations and to avoid annoying them?

Kent: Well, first I tried explaining how the potentiality-versus-epistemic distinctions don't hold linguist water. She wouldn't buy that. She said "may" is the correct epistemic auxiliary verb for me. I can neither dispute nor a refute her preference, and it's not fair for me to say I'm right and she's wrong about the grammar It boils down to how I try to placate a person's underlying interest even if it's in a way that uses a different linguistic strategy.

Ultra-impartial: So, let me guess: Sometimes do you ask them, "Would it be possible for me to use your battery charger?" If so, how do they react?

Kent: You 're catching my drift. I even go so far as to say stuff like, "My dearest and most beloved sister, if it's not terribly inconveniencing and within the realm of possibility, would my current petition to use your battery charger result in your favoring me with permission?"

Ultra-impartial: So, then do they laugh, or do they just kill you?

Kent: Both.

Ultra-impartial: I like the way you grasped how I just used "or" in a non-binary operation in a linguistic context. Most people construe "or" as an exclusive conjunction rather than as a inclusive disjunction.

Kent: Yeah. But those two protologisms are still in development. No one outside the linguistic community seems to know the ideologic difference. I try to explain it like this: "I go the gym on Saturdays or Sundays" doesn't imply a binary "Saturdays if not Sundays" correspondence; it means "Saturdays but also Sundays, and possibly other days as well, but definitely including Saturdays and Sundays."

Ultra-impartial: One last thing. I know you're fairly reasonable person, and you can make binary and non-binary distinctions in the abstract, but why do you insist on calling your sister "she" when they identified themselves as nonbinary?

Kent: Several reasons. First, she doesn't prefer a singular "they" for reasons we learned as kids.

Ultra-impartial: Wait, wait, wait. That was a long time ago. Society has changed. A singular "they" is more prevalent now than at any time in history.

Kent: That's all true, but according to linguistics ideology then and now, syntax goes hand-in-hand with semiotics. And let's forget the taxonomical aspect of linguistics. Our grammatical cases didn't spring up overnight. At the root of things, everyone, regardless of language or culture, has an a priori understanding of singular versus plural. In English, verbs are supposed to have number agreement with nouns and pronouns. So, while the concept of a singular they is linguistically sound, the pragmatic taxonomies get distended if we want to call it, say, a singular are, in a sentence like, "I met your sister Vee. They are very nice."

Ultra-impartial: Hmmm.

Kent: Secondly, regarding my sister, we grew up in a family where we were distinguished as boys and girls, and we were distinguished by sex though we didn't refer to as such. We referred to it as gender. In that family setting we were encouraged to behave not like boys or girls, but to express whatever individuality we chose. All of my siblings and I have always viewed gender as a societally imposed construct, not something that's innate. Vee, most notably of my siblings, enjoys misgendered in a sense unlike the way that you've used it. For her, it means people who assume she ascribes to a particular gender because of her preferred pronouns and persona have got another think coming.

Ultra-impartial: Ooh. Look at the time. Anything else before I run?

Kent: I know of, uh, singular "some" editors who recently did some spiteful things on their talk pages and then remedied the pages after coming to their senses. But they never once apologized for the uproar they caused. No harm no foul in the end, and for me it was all so sad it was kind of funny. What's your take on all of that?

Ultra-impartial: Well, if they're anything like me, they don't hold grudges. They just get sick of feeling overwhelmed by what they view as myopic, intolerant points of view. They don't see the point in being empathetic toward what informs a certain contradictory POVs when they've clearly indicated their own ideological views. I suppose it's a paradoxical intolerance for ideological approaches that contravene what they know is right for them.

Kent: Those same editors recently got pilloried for saying they didn't like the term and the concept regarding 'homosexual." I agree with that premise, but their arguments were weak and other editors misinterpreted the arguments' conclusions. I wish all of those editors had better debate skills that come with a fuller grasp of the linguistic ideologies. IMHO, rhetoric is an essential tool of the trade to affect any substantial kind of change.

(REFACTORED by cutting from above and pasted as follows. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 02:54, 23 January 2022 (UTC))

And this is my reply to the WALLOFTEXT that follows (which I read to the end, by the way, although the commentary interspersed with words of actual-me were of more interest than the purely imagined dialogue).

While I take no joy in being the person who rejects the premise (really!), I do have to reject the premise that social semiotics, semantics, syntax and taxonomy represent ideologies. I understand (I think) what you mean when you say so, so this isn't "private language", but it is so deeply idiosyncratic that I experience it as an obstacle rather than an aid to dialogue.

My own take on the terms "ideology" and "ideological" is that I am reluctant to use them even in those few cases where they indisputably apply, or in cases where they are frequently used, because it is almost never worth the cognitive and communicative investment required to define "ideology" in the context of a particular discussion. The ways "ideology" is typically used are indeed rhetorical, but not in the sense of a grounded communicative practice that I could justify to myself as being worth my time to employ (or to refute, for that matter). Using these terms in contexts where they are not typically used, and where other terms from the sociology of knowledge seem more readily applicable, makes no sense to me and indeed gives rise to impasses such as my non-recognition of the ideological targets you discuss below.

Second, I will say one more time (or rather, for the first time in precisely these terms) that, in this context, I am simply uninterested in the issues of syntax and morphology that seem to vex you so much. I just do not accept that they are real problems in relation to the "singular they", and the fact - which you have not disputed, so I will treat it as undisputed - that the singular "you" works in exactly the same way as the singular they leads me to conclude that, for people familiar with 21st-century usage of chosen pronouns, there are not any syntactical or morphological problems here worth paying attention to.

Finally, as far as your final (partially coded) discussion of my Talk page heading edit is concerned, what I think you should know is that I meant precisely the same thing by the initial Sorry, not sorry edit as is laboriously spelled out in the current version. My intention was never to falsify what you wrote but rather to characterize the content of the section accurately: as it were, impartially. From the responses of other editors (Talk page stalkers and ANI participants alike), I believe that I have at last succeeded. Newimpartial (talk) 00:43, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: Far be it from me to try to persuade people what or how to think when their minds are already made up. If you reject the premise that social semiotics, semantics, syntax and taxonomy represent ideologies, that's your business. I would say those fields of studies are parochial, and deeply idiomatic, but not "idiosyncratic."

You needn't have said how you're uninterested in syntax and morphology, but thanks for confirming what I had already inferred. Going forward, you might want to consider any ideology is merely a well-defined school of thought. It's a shorthand of saying, "From a cosmological ideology, the sky is potentially boundless; from a meteorological ideology, the sky looks like it's going to rain." Keep in mind that ideological doesn't mean dogmatic and is largle unrelated to ideologue.

Re the singular "they," please thank me for not having gone into too much detail on your talk page. My thoughts on the topic span decades and volumes. I occasionally hear very slight new wrinkles pro and con, but the linguistic concepts at play have remained consistent. One exception: the emergence of nonbinary as a colloquial term from where it emerged beginning in sociopsychology.

Going forward, I urge you to keep the idea of polysemy in mind. I've seen how time and again, you're among the editors who have a particular word in mind, associate a specific meaning with that word, and either fail to acknowledge or fail to construe how colleagues associate an entirely different sense of the word. Conflict ensues over semantics, not conceptual differences. One big example: when I use the word, nonbinary, I typically intend it in the abstract, with no relation whatsoever to gender.

In linguistic ideology, nonbinary means "not 2; not digital." It's that cut-and-dried. Similarly, binary means "relating to two items." Linguistically, we have the binary word "two", as the ONLY binary pronoun in the English language, e.g., "A: Did you eat the donuts? B: Yes, I ate two." English also has a very small category of binary noun like "scissors" and "pants" and "pair" and "couple".

My interest in all of that isn't purely academic. Much of it relates to what we've already covered ad nauseum. Yet, here's on final example: "I bought a book and a horse. They make me very happy." Plural "they" is unambiguous from a strict, grammatical number ideology: {book + horse} = 2 = "they" make me very happy. From a nonbinary sociolinguistic ideology that you espouse, perhaps: book + {horse = "they"} make me very happy.

If I have your personality pegged accurately, every bone in your body wants to reply, "It's simple to say, 'I bought a book and horse. They both make me happy.' Case closed." If you actually were to reply that way, I'd say you'd shifted the ideology again with a semantic bait and switch while ignoring the initial problematic example.

No, none of this stuff vexes me. It annoys me, however, when people say their preferred way of looking at it is correct, exclusive concepts and opinions to the contrary. You, Newimpartial, have a proclivity for doing precisely that.

I hope this is our last interaction for a while, but I do have a suggestion for you going forward in your interations with others. Try to resist an adversarial approach. Avoid comming off as contrarian. Otherwise, I can hear it now: "Newimpartial, I think you're contrarian," to which you reply, "No I'm not." Try a different approach: "How so?" or "Thanks, but..." or use humor "I absolutely agree, but you ain't seen nothing yet!"

I really do get the impression that you're argue not to reach greater understand but to for some other reason that I don't wish to fathom. I'm not suggesting that you should be more like me, but please keep in mind that I often don't fully believe my arguments. I see my best argumentative interactions as the ones where competing logic prevails. Then I'm most thankful for having learned something.

Take care, and cheers. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 02:54, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Briefly, I am familiar (and comfortable) with polysemy, but you seem to be downplaying the value of various ways in which context (and therefore signification) can be specified. For example, in our recent interaction I have frequently referred to "nonbinary identity", a specification that rules out your particular linguistic sense of the word in that context of use. Of course words, like nonbinary, mean different things in different contexts of use, but that doesn't change what is conventionally meant by phrases like "nonbinary people" and "nonbinary identity" in relation to gender. (And please don't STRAWMAN this into "Newimpartial claims that words mean only one thing in a particular context" - in the case of the term "ideology", for example, I think this is essentially never true, and in the case of "nonbinary identity" I have frequently in this discussion referred to plural nonbinary identities.) But I refuse to entertain how colleagues associate an entirely different sense of the word when, as with nonbinary gender identity in this discussion, I have clearly specified the signification I am employing, which is standard within the relevant speech community (in this case, Wikipedia editors reflecting on gender and civility). Respect for one's interlocutors and the context of their language use is one of the most basic building blocks in encyclopaedic collaboration; based on Admin responses to your ANI filing, I expect to see you show more respect for that fundamental value in your future WP endeavours. Newimpartial (talk) 13:16, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

@Newimpartial: Listen to yourself: " I do have to reject the premise that social semiotics, semantics, syntax and taxonomy represent ideologies ... so deeply idiosyncratic that I experience it as as obstacle rather than an aid to dialogue. ... I am simply uninterested in the issues of syntax and morphology that seem to vex you so much. ... I refuse to entertain how colleagues associate an entirely different sense of the word when as with nonbinary gender identity in this discussion, I have clearly specified the signification I am employing, which is standard within the relevant speech community (in this case, Wikipedia editors reflecting on gender and civility).

All of that begs this bifurcated rhetorical question: Why do you persist in interacting with me when (a) my area of intellectual interest regarding the use of singular "they" pertains to semantics and syntax generically, and for which you have expressed no linguistic interest but rather a parochial interest vis-a-vis how you prefer the singular "they" to be applied to you, and (b) you've kindly conceded that "if you prefer to torture your writing by avoiding the singular they when it is required, you won't get any trouble from me aboit that?

In summary: (1) My focus is on linguistics regarding singular, binary, and multiplicative lexical items as co-referenced with singular, binary, multiplicative, mass, and collective referents in the English language. That area of interest isn't your cup of tea. Fine. I won't bore you with it; please don't trouble me with complaints regarding stuff that doesn't interest you. (2) An acceptable sociolinguistic pronominal way for me to refer to you has been mutually agreed. Any further mention of that will annoy me as water under the bridge.

If you post something further here, be assured of two things: I'll have zero negativity about the likely futility of your continued comments, just as nothing in our discussion has annoyed me except (a) the "Sorry" to "Sorry, not sorry" incident, which no longer is a source of annoyance upon your remedy, and (b) your inexplicable disparagement of my city even in the hypothetical context couched. That disparagement annoys me mostly because it's ad hominem and totally impertinent to the substantive issues we've discussed.

In closing, I'm not asking you to refrain from posting here again. However, if you post again without an apology regarding your disparagement of my city (a disparagement that doesn't hurt me in any way, and I'm not dwelling on it) or at least an acknowledgement that the comment was impertinent and non-productive, you can rely on my promise this post is the last you'll hear from me. I don't mind at all your having the final word, or as many final words that please you. Forgive me saying, but it's quite wearying to interact with you as one who, as far as I've been able to determine, uttered not a single word of apology, thanks, or good humor. I truly hope it's self-evident how those rhetorical items add value to any colloquy.

Once again, cheers. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 14:33, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I continue to interact with you because you have been rude to me, you keep excusing yourself for your rudeness based on your (seemingly tangential) interests, and I wanted to make clear to you that neither I nor the WP community excuses the ways in which you have been rude. I will now humorlessly assume that this message has been received.

As far as the city comment is concerned, I don't even know what city you are referring to so I can hardly be said to have disparaged one. You made a comment about people possibly using "they" as a dog whistle, and I responded that I can't imagine it happening where I live and, essentially, that you are responsible for your own (sociological and geographical) life choices. I stand by that, and while you may disagree, no disparagement is involved. Exeunt. Newimpartial (talk) 14:48, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Postscripta: re Don't normal people just let it go and find comfort in some echo chamber? - if I ever wished to do this, I would not chose a community editing an online encyclopaedia as a venue.

Re: perfect - I can't think of anyone with a perfect track record for civility, and I have certainly made some well-deserved apologies from time to time.

Re: rudeness that no one else heard - that's not what I see reflected in these comments by other editors: [3] [4][5] [6] [7] etc. You might want to incorporate the perspectives of your various readers on your writing. Newimpartial (talk) 16:59, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

A bona fide, well-deserved instance of "Sorry, not sorry"

@Kent Dominic: "Exuent." Whew! Finally. Oops, am I being rude to think such a thing out loud? Maybe. But only a wee bit. Sorry, but it needed to be heard if not merely said, given all the rudeness you've endured. You should take it back since you characteristically turn the other cheek and go on your merry way. On second thought: Nah.You can't be held acountable for expressing rudeness that no one else heard.

Oh, and, Kent, if you ever run into other speech participants from this thread, ask if they can provide evidence of their lifelong scorecard of never being rude, never being wrong and thus never having motivation to apologize (much less having a single instance of apologizing merely to allay another's concerns about an alleged infraction). In essence, ask if they have a lifelong scorecard of being inarguably, otherworldly, and intolerably, insufferably, pathologically anomalously perfect. You'll have to ask someone else to satisfy your perplexity about why someone who thinks you're so rude continually harasses addresses you at all. Don't normal people just let it go and find comfort in some echo chamber? Anyway, face it, Kent: you must be pretty abnormal yourself to talk to yourself like this. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 16:15, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

@Kent Dominic: Well, speaking of echo chambers, at least you're comically abnormal, not painfully abnormal. If only certain other people could take themselves less seriously to such an extent. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 16:15, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Singular they

Your recent editing history at Singular they shows that you are currently engaged in an edit war; that means that you are repeatedly changing content back to how you think it should be, when you have seen that other editors disagree. To resolve the content dispute, please do not revert or change the edits of others when you are reverted. Instead of reverting, please use the talk page to work toward making a version that represents consensus among editors. The best practice at this stage is to discuss, not edit-war. See the bold, revert, discuss cycle for how this is done. If discussions reach an impasse, you can then post a request for help at a relevant noticeboard or seek dispute resolution. In some cases, you may wish to request temporary page protection.

Being involved in an edit war can result in you being blocked from editing—especially if you violate the three-revert rule, which states that an editor must not perform more than three reverts on a single page within a 24-hour period. Undoing another editor's work—whether in whole or in part, whether involving the same or different material each time—counts as a revert. Also keep in mind that while violating the three-revert rule often leads to a block, you can still be blocked for edit warring—even if you do not violate the three-revert rule—should your behavior indicate that you intend to continue reverting repeatedly. Newimpartial (talk) 21:04, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Common Era

Please wait a few minutes then see Talk:Common Era about your edit]. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:30, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

"Film" page

Hey, Kent, thanks for your follow-up correction on that page. I actually meant to insert endashes, not emdashes. I think our adjustments make the opening sentence clearer structurally and visually. I also felt it was important to add "photoplay" as a synonym for "film". As you know, "photoplay" and "moving picture" were very common references to film, especially during the first half of the silent era. Strudjum (talk) 21:55, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Confusion re: revert edit on Object (grammar)

Hi Kent! First of all, I want to thank you for your removal of arguable content in the Object (grammar) page, it's definitely an improvement. I'm just curious why you classified it as a revert of my edit, since you actually kept most of what I had added, and most of the material you did delete was already present before I edited the page. --ZeegoTheDeer (talk) 06:28, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

One more thing: the second criterion has now been reduced to "the subject and the object tend to occupy set positions in unmarked declarative clauses." Since the part after that is missing, this now does apply to OS languages, albeit in an inverted order relative to SO languages! --ZeegoTheDeer (talk) 06:45, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Hi, ZeegoTheDeer. I initially did only a cursory reading of your mentioned edit. Seeing just the first line prompted my knee-jerk reaction to click the "undo" button. That button automatically generates the "Undid revision (####)" boilerplate text in the edit summary. Only then did I see the remainder of your edit, which seemed cogent enough to keep. It would have been simpler for me to start my own edit from scratch without "undoing" anything, but I instead opted to cut & paste back the majority of your edit under the partial reversion rubric. Otherwise, your login flag wouldn't have alerted you to the change, and other editors wouldn't have the benefit of seeing that something had been undone.

As for the rest of the pertinent section in the article, my edit summary indicated that I'd deleted the prior material "pending cleanup." I wasn't enterprising enough to do it myself. IMHO, the second criterion needs significant expansion, if not wholesale revision. The weaselly-sounding "relatively strict word order of English usually positions the object after the verb(s) in declarative sentences" is neither attested nor, perhaps, entirely true. Specifically, we have tons of declarative sentences with varying types of OS constructions. Consider, e.g.:

• Here's what I mean.
• I read the email that you sent.
• Nothing I do seems to work.
• "I'll be back," said the Terminator.

In those examples, the boldface object precedes the italic subject. The first one entails a declarative use of "what"; the second one is a fairly typical subject-verb inversion with an explicit relative pronoun; the third one is a fairly typical subject-verb inversion with a reduced relative clause; the fourth one is typical of speech attribution in prose fiction. FWIW, my protologistic lexicon of linguistic terms varies considerably from the terms evident in the above links. Indeed, I can barely stand to read the verbiage in those linked articles because their conceptual paradigms are antiquated, and their examples are often absurdly naive. Yet, if you're familiar with mainstream linguistics, those articles will give you a handy reference for what I mean. Cheers. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 11:49, 27 March 2022 (UTC)

Ah ok, thanks for the explanation! ZeegoTheDeer (talk) 14:12, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

@ZeegoTheDeer: Silly me – I'd italicized the verbs rather than the relevant subjects in the OS examples above. Now they're all fixed. Sorry for any confusion. Shame on us both of us if you hadn't noticed. ;)

Also, I should mention that the second example includes "email" zeugmatically or sylleptically; i.e., it functions as an object re not only "read" but also "sent", so the example represents both SO (re "I") and OS (re "you"). I've yet to come across any textbook or linguistic paper that cares to fully analyze (if not, at least recognize) such a construction. The ironies: (1) I can't mention any of that in this article without running afoul of the WP:OS rules even though the proof is virtually self-evident; (2) even if I did edit the article accordingly, I'm certain some editor would argue (from a mainstream but naive linguistics POV) how "sent" is intransitive rather than OSV transitive. So, I edit very little and rant a lot about linguistics. --Kent Dominic·(talk) 19:25, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

Old English quote in Double Negative

Why did you remove the Old English quote from Double Negative? You say "Ne mæg nan man nan ðing to góde gedon, butan Godes fultume" is unattested but it was lifted directly from The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church. You then say "near-obligatory" carries undue weight, but Ingham 2006 also writes to that effect. Fryyu (talk) 21:42, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

The "near obligatory" verbiage was unattested and undue; the Modern English translation was unattested and contrary to what I found in a quick gloss, which mentions "nothing" but not "nothing good". If you think the Old English stuff belongs in the article, by all means restore it in a proper manner. Kent Dominic·(talk) 21:57, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

ESL boom

curious to know how the book looks. Stjohn1970 (talk) 11:03, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

It looks like this will have to be a one-sided email for the next 31 hours

1. The speed of changes is too fast for the venue. Mathematicians are different. Think of them as Ents, Tolkien's Treeherds, who view other races, as 'hasty folk'.
2. It does no good to barrage words against them. Steady and measured sentences, thought through carefully please. Grammar and linguistic devices won't work. --Ancheta Wis   (talk | contribs) 00:29, 21 May 2022 (UTC)

Request for comments in computer program

You are invited to participate in the discussion here: Talk:Computer_program#Request_for_comments_on_downgrade_to_Class=C. Timhowardriley (talk) 18:55, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

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RSN

WP:RSN#wordhippo.com
Just plain Bill (talk) 18:58, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

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Edit

Hi Kent, just to let you know that I've changed the opening sentence of Noun back to a version that includes "word". General readers need a simple opening. The etymology appears in a section below. Thanks. Tony (talk) 02:51, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Good point regarding simplification, but your change there needs the reconfigured and partially restored complement re linguistics. Cheers. Kent Dominic·(talk) 08:54, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

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Noun disagreements: a unified reply to text in other places

Kent Dominic, this is about your posts here, here, and here, and your and my edit summaries as listed here. First please note my self-correction at the talkpage for Noun: "It's hard to see hard not to see your efforts to 'correct' my own improvements to the section as not merely uninformed but also plain tendentious."

You wondered what "drop the stick" means. See WP:DROPTHESTICK, where an ugly but apt metaphor is invoked: flogging a dead horse. For the rest, I'm unable to help. That's some labyrinth you've got yourself into!

Good luck on your continuing Wikipedia journey. I'm confident that you'll make valuable contributions. For all of us, the hope is that we develop as writers and editors – and gain skill in collaboration, conditioned by hard insights into our own limitations. I learned so much, in the years I was on WP with a username. I wish the same for you.

Bye! ☺♥ 49.190.56.203 (talk) 23:15, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Subject complement

I've asked you at the talk page to subject complement to fix an error you've introduced to the entry. You appear to have misunderstood the concept of cognacy. Bathrobe (talk) 16:01, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

History at Relativizer

I am actually quite disturbed at your irresponsible edit at Relativizer, in which you wrote your own (inaccurate) personal view of the history of terminology without giving any sources. The one source that was left in from the previous version was wildly out of place and didn't support what the revised section said at all. It was a very sloppy edit.

We had mentioned at Doric Loon's talk page that Ward used the term "relative clause" back in the late 18th century, yet you persisted in maintaining that it was the 19th. (At one stage you had said late 19th century, so "mid-19th century" was a grudging concession on your part -- very grudging given that the Pinnock grammar was actually published in the early 1830s.)

The upshot was that you wrote your own subjective version of history without any attempt to check the facts. Your intense dislike of the terms relativizer and relative pronoun was apparently enough to set you off creating your own narrative. I was extremely disappointed when I went to edit the section and the distortions you had introduced came to light. Bathrobe (talk) 23:08, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Again dusting off my go-to playwriting format:

Bathrobe: I am actually quite disturbed at your irresponsible edit at Relativizer, in which you wrote your own (inaccurate) personal view of the history of terminology without giving any sources.

KD: I’m sorry to learn that you’re disturbed by anything – least of all an edit. I rue contributions to inaccuracies, especially any of my own creation, but there’s a difference between “a personal view of history” and an inaccurate statement of it. Also, I think discussing a lack of sources about an article is better done at the relevant article’s talk page rather than a user’s talk page, but since you started it here, go ahead.

Bathrobe: The one source that was left in from the previous version was wildly out of place and didn't support what the revised section said at all.

KD: A previous editor attributed “[Relativisers] have been classified as conjunctions in earlier times, and have later been referred to as clause markers” to the cited source (i.e., Long: The Sentence and its Parts). When I looked at the linked publication and found its pdf comprised merely images of the original hard copy rather than a digital version of the text, there was no way I was going to read 528 pages just to confirm the sufficiency of the attribution as it pertains to the first clause in the text quoted above. The matter didn’t (and still doesn’t) interest me enough to buy a digital copy of the book to check further. Regardless, I did manage to find several instances where Long used the term clause marker instead of relativizer or relative pronoun.

Bathrobe: It was a very sloppy edit.

KD: How does expressing that opinion remedy the text? If you have evidence that the original cite was wholly warranted, please cite evidence from the relevant page of The Sentence and its Parts. If you’re otherwise saying the edit was sloppy based on my neglect to cite part of the other material I added, a mere reversion with an edit summary observing the missing cite would do the trick. Alternatively, a {cite needed} tag or a talk page comment to that effect would have worked just fine.

Bathrobe: We had mentioned at Doric Loon's talk page that Ward used the term "relative clause" back in the late 18th century, yet you persisted in maintaining that it was the 19th.

KD: You're mistaken on two counts. (1) Your mention of “we” pertains to you and Doric Loon. I merely skimmed the discussion you and he had on the coinage of relative clause as a grammatical term. Its history doesn’t particularly interest me except as a matter of trivia. My edit to the Relativizer article pertains to when "became known as relative pronouns". I made no mention of the coinage or renown of a relative clause. I stand by the edit although it would have been better rendered as "In the mid-19th century, clause markers became widely known as relative pronouns."

Bathrobe: At one stage you had said late 19th century, so "mid-19th century" was a grudging concession on your part -- very grudging given that the Pinnock grammar was actually published in the early 1830s.

KD: You’re entitled to conclude it was a grudging, very grudging concession, but there’s no validity in your conclusion. What’s true is that I’m eager to have opportunities to correct my own inaccuracies. So, you’ve just caused me to review what I posted on Doric Loon’s talk page, where I cut and pasted from my lexicon that a relative clause is "an old-fashioned taxon (invented in the late 19th century)".

When I composed the lone relative clause entry in my lexicon, I believed that the first published occurrence of the term had occurred in 1738. Yet, the earliest account of it that I could lay my hands on was Ward’s 1767 mention of it in A Grammar of the English Language. I decided then to characterize the date as the late part of the century thinking I’d revise it if I ever found the publication that presumably preceded it. Consequently, writing it as the late 19th century, rather than the 18th century, was a mere typo. The date isn’t a matter of prominence in my work, and I was hardly likely to have otherwise noticed the error since it escaped my attention when I cut & pasted the text at Doric Loon’s page.

I didn't even notice the 19th century snafu when I later posted this at Doric Loon's page:

I asked ChatGPT to weigh in on the relative clause coinage thing. Here's the reply: "The term 'relative clause' was actually coined by Joseph Priestley, an English polymath, in the 18th century. Priestley was a scientist, theologian, and grammarian who made significant contributions to various fields. He introduced the term 'relative clause' in his work on English grammar, specifically in his book titled 'The Rudiments of English Grammar' published in 1761."

So, even when I read and posted "18th century" from ChatGPT, it didn't dawn on me that I'd originally typed it as 19th century both in my lexicon and the way I cut & pasted it on Doric Loon's talk page.

Bathrobe: The upshot was that you wrote your own subjective version of history without any attempt to check the facts.

KD: You might consider how to walk back that bit of presumption. By contrast, I always welcome opportunities to remedy errors due to typos that fly under my radar after digging into the facts.

Bathrobe: Your intense dislike of the terms ''relativizer'' and ''relative pronoun'' was apparently enough to set you off creating your own narrative.

KD: Consider why I consider this reply a non-reply.

Bathrobe: I was extremely disappointed when I went to edit the section and the distortions you had introduced came to light.

KD: After I reconstitute and emend what you deleted of the history section, make sure to keep these considerations in mind:

• You reposted the statement that "Since as far back as 1712, people have written about relativizers and what functions they have". The statement is definitely unsourced, and demonstrably false. People couldn’t have written about relativizers since 1712 since the term was first coined in 1938. (I’ll provide a reliable source as evidence).
• You reposted the statement that "They have been classified as conjunctions in earlier times, and have later been referred to as clause markers" while allowing such ungrammatical use of the present perfect tense to stand unedited. Also, it’s problematic that it can be accurately said only that Long used the term clause markers; there’s no evidence he ever said relativizers "have been classified as conjunctions in earlier times".
• My statement that "Since as far back as 1712, people have written about the functions of certain lexical items that introduce various clauses" is similarly unsourced. I have evidence (but no source I to cite) dating only to 1736, not to 1712. IMHO, it’s a picayune matter whether 1712 or 1736 is historically accurate. If the date troubles you, edit the section while citing
• Although we have evidence that the term relative clause was coined in 1767 by ward or in 1761 by Priestly (if not 1738 by some author I might someday track down, or 1712 if the Wikipedia article is to be believed), I think it’s nonetheless true that “In the mid-19th century, clause markers became widely known as relative pronouns”. Note the distinction between when a term was coined and when it became widely known. I’ll happily defer to any editor who considers the cited evidence and characterizes its renown as the early 19th century.

For me, the upshot is that you gave me reason to edit my glossary's inadvertent "9" keystroke to an "8" to accurately reflect how whoever it was (i.e., since I never accredited any particular author) that coined relative clause in the 1760s or 1712 did so in the 18th century, not the 19th. Kent Dominic·(talk) 05:58, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

1. I did post at the Talk page of Relativizer. I posted here in order to register my personal dismay at your edit.

2. It doesn't need to be a digital version. You can do a search of a pdf. Try searching for "clause marker". I did. There were quite a few mentions but none backing up your edit.

3. "You might consider how to walk back that bit of presumption." Well, "mid-19th century" was there in black-and-white. It was uncharitable of me to not to think of the possibility that it was, um, just a typo. My apologies.

4. The entry is about Relativizers. Therefore it is not incorrect to state that Relativizers have been classified as conjunctions in earlier times, and have later been referred to as clause markers. Just as it's fair to state that "x genus of animal has been classified as a y in earlier times, and has later been referred to as z." (It happens when biologists change the taxonomic status of a genus.) Yes, the grammar is awkward, but the main point is the content.

5. "People couldn’t have written about relativizers since 1712 since the term was first coined in 1938. (I’ll provide a reliable source as evidence)". Please do. It's actually rather important.

6. I do not have a better date than 1712 but since the statement is unsourced I settled for requesting a source for the date.

Since the problems with that paragraph appear to be due to other circumstances ("unsearchable" pdf, typo), my reaction no doubt seems over the top to you. But the end result of your edit was a horrendous paragraph. If you are editing an article, I expect higher standards than that. Hence my dismay. Bathrobe (talk) 06:48, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Apology noted but not needed.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but kindly resist any future urges to use my talk page to express dismay re edits that I might botch, or any pleasure re any of my edits that might sparkle. Instead, I recommend you (1) revert or emend an edit that disappoints, (2) give a concise edit summary for that action, (3) comment on the substance of an edit requiring discussion on the relevant article's talk page, or (4) use the thank tab for edits that hit the mark if the occasion arises.

I'm not qualified to evaluate the accuracy of "Relativizers have been classified as conjunctions in earlier times, and have later been referred to as clause marker," but it sounds reasonable in part. Unfortunately, that's not what the article says. If you have a source to cite for your altenative phrasing, by all means produce it.

Meanwhile, I'm working on an edit that includes much of what you just said, but I'd rather see someone else beat me to it to save me the trouble. Kent Dominic·(talk) 07:23, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for the response. I only posted here because I was truly dismayed. I will respond directly on the appropriate Talk page in future and leave your personal Talk page in peace. Bathrobe (talk) 07:43, 4 April 2024 (UTC)