Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 July 8

= July 8 =

mutual intelligibility of dutch and german
How mutually intelligible are they? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncle dan is home (talk • contribs) 01:48, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * From our article Mutual intelligibility:
 * "German: Dutch. Standard Dutch and Standard German show a limited degree of mutual intelligibility when written. One study concluded that when concerning written language, Dutch speakers could translate 50.2% of the provided German words correctly, while the German test subjects were able to translate 41.9% of the Dutch equivalents correctly. In terms of orthography, 22% the vocabulary of Dutch and German is identical or near identical. The Levenshtein distance between written Dutch and German is 50.4% as opposed to 61.7% between English and Dutch. The spoken languages are much more difficult to understand for both with studies showing Dutch speakers having slightly less difficulty in understanding German speakers than vice versa, though it remains unclear whether this asymmetry has to do with prior knowledge of the language (German and French being obligatory foreign languages for two years in Dutch secondary education), better knowledge of another related language (English) or yet other reasons."
 * {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.211.129.9 (talk) 05:31, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * It's actually the ability of a speaker of language A who knows nothing about language B to understand spoken sentences of language B (and vice versa) which is usually considered the most crucial or decisive criterion for mutual intelligibility, so the stuff about written language is kind of interesting, but not necessarily directly relevant to the main question. Of course, speakers of some Low German dialects would have much more mutual intelligibility with Dutch than speakers of Standard German do... AnonMoos (talk) 06:50, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I thought it more appropriate to quote the entire passage (of which nearly half is about the spoken languages) from the article rather than to pick and choose from it according to my guess at what the OP might be specifically interested in. Feel free to contribute material you think more relevant. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.211.129.9 (talk) 07:55, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Would knowledge of English really help a Nederlander understand German? Learning language A might make it easier to learn unrelated language B (as the skills of learning are largely transferable), but I can't see how knowledge of a less-related language would help understand a more-related language without study. —Tamfang (talk) 07:33, 11 July 2017 (UTC)


 * OK, this is entirely anecdotal and OR, as I can't find any sources for it in a brief search, but I suspect this also depends where in the Netherlands the Dutch speaker is from, where German intelligibility is concerned. I am from a region close to the German border, native speaker of Dutch and English, was taught German in school. The local dialect/language (a matter of debate) around where I'm from is a variant of Low Saxon, which has considerably more Germanic influence than standard Dutch. I found understanding German very easy because of that. Those from the West or the South of the country might have a bit more difficulty. Fgf10 (talk) 13:01, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * See also this previous RefDesk discussion. Alansplodge (talk) 00:22, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Script or alphabet
The page was originally at S'gaw Karen Script then moved to Template:Karen Script (I figure an accident so I deleted that one) then to Karen Script and finally to Karen alphabet. So does anybody know if it should be S'gaw Karen Script, S'gaw Karen script, Karen Script, Karen script, Karen alphabet or Karen Alphabet. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 03:42, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * If "Hebrew alphabet" and "Brahmi script" don't have the last word capitalized, then I strongly doubt whether your article should have its last word capitalized... AnonMoos (talk) 07:02, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * The first sentence says it's an abugida so calling in an alphabet is simply wrong. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 09:30, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Hardly. The terminology that distinguishes "abugidas" (and "abjads") from alphabets proper is not universally used; it is quite common to see the Indic writing systems termed "alphabets" too in the literature. Our articles in this topic domain seem quite inconsistent, unfortunately, but there seem to be quite a number of them that were moved from "X script" to "X alphabet" some years ago, even while having "X script" in the lede sentence, so the current state of this article is not inconsistent with what we have elsewhere. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:51, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Dodger67 -- all this abjad/abugida terminology junk is barely 20 years old, and has by no means replaced the terms commonly used in the preceding several centuries... AnonMoos (talk) 12:38, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I prefer S'gaw Karen script or S'gaw Karen alphabet. The article is only for S’gaw Karen, not for Eastern or Western Pwo Karen. It works like the Burmese script, but our entry for the latter is Burmese alphabet, so if we're calling Burmese an alphabet, then use S'gaw Karen alphabet. (It does bother me a little to call these Indic scripts alphabets, but I can live with it.) —Stephen (talk) 17:19, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks all. I have gone with S'gaw Karen alphabet. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 16:44, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

"four-wheels drive" vs "four-wheel drive".
In English, "four wheels" is grammatical, but "four-wheels drive" is not. It's instead "four-wheel drive". My (very) poor attempt to describe it would be: nouns are not pluralized when used as an adjective.

1. Is there a name for this grammatical rule? And what's a good formulation for it?

2. Does any other language have the same or similar rules? Scala Cats (talk) 07:52, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * In the noun phrase "four wheels", the head noun is "wheel", but its determiner is the numeral "four", which means it, erm, something-or-others to the plural.
 * In the noun phrase "four-wheel drive", the head noun is "drive" which something-or-otherly makes its grammatical number singular.
 * Confession: a work colleague in Tasmania and I - and no, it's not a fictional place - regularly send each other interesting books through internal mail. Most recent one I received was "Linguistics for Non-Linguists" published by Allyn & Bacon. I've read the Pragmatics, Semantics and Syntax chapters and did all the quizzes, and am just about to start on the Morphology. WP:RDL still remains my linguistics MOOC, but.
 * --Shirt58 (talk) 10:18, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * In baseball, a double, for example, is a two-base hit, not a two-bases hit. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:34, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * You are right, . It is a very general linguistic principle that when a word is used as a modifier in a phrase or compound it tends to lose any grammatical endings. I remember reading a paper about specifically this in Language (journal) around 1980, but I can't for the life of me remember enough information to find the paper (and I could easily be a few years out). You can see it in compounds in Greek, for example, where the first element takes a combining form that usually consists of the stem; but it applies equally well in noun phrases in English, as you say, in compound nouns in German, and in many other languages. (It doesn't apply in many IE languages where the modifier is an adjective that must agree with the head noun). In English most exceptions are when the singular of the modifier might be confused with a homonymous adjective (eg "solids model(l)ing" vs "solid model(l)ing"). I can't think of a name for this rule, or indeed the process (if I could, I might find the article). : the number of the head-noun is irrelevant. Consider "four-wheel drives". --ColinFine (talk) 19:24, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I've found the paper, but it's not quite as relevant as I remembered, because it is about noun incorporation into verb phrases (or words) which is a slightly different case. She says "In both [type I and II noun incorporation] an IN [incorporated noun] - unaccompanied by markers of definiteness, number, or case - forms a unit with the V it qualifies". (emphasis added). Even though she is not talking about nouns incorporated into noun phrases, I am pretty sure the observation tends to apply there too. --ColinFine (talk) 22:03, 9 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Another example: We would say a given room has an eight-foot ceiling, not an eight-feet ceiling. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:46, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
 * And we say a four year old boy, not a four years old boy. --Lgriot (talk) 11:20, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

Fall in love, fall pregnant
Do other languages use the "fall" concept in their way of saying "fall in love" or "fall pregnant"? --  Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  13:35, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * French uses tomber amoureuse, enceinte, malade, ... See the 11th item in French Wiktionary's entry on "tomber". ---Sluzzelin talk  15:00, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Never heard of "fall pregnant" (Britishism?), but Spanish uses caer enfermo (fall ill). Nothing similar for "fall in love", however. In Portuguese, "fall asleep" is cair no sono (fall into sleep), and in Dutch it is hij viel in slaap (he fell into sleep). Nothing of that sort (that I can think of) in Italian, Russian, Swedish, or German. "Fall in love" appears to be English and French only. —Stephen (talk) 17:54, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Stephen. I wasn't after an exhaustive list, so that's all I needed to know.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:23, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
 * "Fall pregnant" sounds like Indian English to me, which preserves some forms that are archaic or obsolete in other varieties (like "thrice"). Is it in use in Australia?  I didn't know that but I'll take Jack's word for it. --Trovatore (talk) 22:18, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's still fairly commonly heard here, although less often these days. The more usual expression in the "PC, sensitive, appropriate" world is "become pregnant", but not everybody is of their ilk.  --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  23:51, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Same in NZ. In colloquial speech, "got pregnant" is much more commonly heard than "became pregnant". Akld guy (talk) 10:24, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Mum claims she's so fertile she fell pregnant THREE TIMES while taking different forms of contraceptive from the British Daily Mirror on Monday. Alansplodge (talk) 00:18, 9 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Anyhow, for French, see Bien faire l'amour pour tomber enceinte (Perhaps "Make love well to fall pregnant" if my schoolboy French is anywhere near right) I Googled "tomber" (to fall) and "enciente" (pregnant). Using the same technique for German "fallen" and "schwanger", I only got results about falling-over while you are pregnant, so I don't think it can be a Germanic thing. Alansplodge (talk) 20:01, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

'is a former restaurant' and 'awarded a star in 1998-2002'
After seeing a contribution of mine reverted (here), I thought it best to discuss the changes I introduced here.

Recently I noticed that numerous articles on Michelin starred restaurants located in Ireland and the Netherlands include either one or both of the following phrases: 1) 'X is a former restaurant' and 2) 'X was awarded a Michelin star in the period YYYY-YYYY'.

I'll quote the text I modified in order to explain why I think these phrases are problematic.

1) Peacock Alley is a former restaurant

This I would construe as 'The venue called Peacock Alley used to house a restaurant, but is now in use for other purposes', while the intended meaning appears to be 'Restaurant Peacock Alley does no longer exist'. My suggestion therefore would be to simply write 'Peacock Alley was a restaurant.'

2) Peacock Alley was a fine dining restaurant that was awarded one Michelin star in the period 1998-2002

This wording strikes me as confusing, as it could be interpreted to mean that the restaurant was awarded that particular star at some unspecified moment between 1998 and 2002, while in fact it received the star in 1998 and managed to retain it until 2002. That's why I would prefer '(...) that held one Michelin star in the period 1998-2002' or a similar phrasing.

Any thoughts on the matter? Marrakech (talk) 13:57, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Both the company and the restaurant as independent restaurant do not exist any more.
 * Secondly, I would like it when you stop following me around. You are harassing me on the Dutch Wikipedia and now you bring the same disruptive issues here. You have clearly no respect for other editors and their writing style. The Banner talk 14:53, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Regardless of any tiff between the two contributors above, I agree that "X is a former restaurant" could be ambiguous, and that the simpler "X was a restaurant" would be preferable for clarity. For the star: "X was awarded a Michelin star in the period YYYY-YYYY" sounds a bit odd. "X held a Michelin star in the period YYYY-YYYY" might be more acceptable, but for simplicity and conciseness try "X was awarded a Michelin star from YYYY to YYYY". Bazza (talk) 15:36, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I agree with the original poster and with Bazza. Loraof (talk) 15:59, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Is the latest compromise acceptable?   D b f i r s   17:59, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * If you mean Bazza's proposal: yes. Though I would prefer 'X held a Michelin star from YYYY to YYYY', which I think rules out any possible ambiguity, while at the same time providing a solution to the question raised by The Wiki ghost below. Marrakech (talk) 19:26, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I have already changed the wording, so the questions of Marrakech are in fact moot now. The Banner talk 20:07, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * @Marrakech: Actually I do not see in which way your answer solves the question I raised below. For that, I think you'll need to find more relevant sources on this particular subject. The Wiki ghost (talk) 20:22, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * It's quite simple actually. Regardless whether the star is awarded only once (and is subsequently retained by the restaurant) or repeatedly in each successive year, you can't go wrong with 'X held a Michelin star from YYYY to YYYY', because it would be accurate in both cases. Marrakech (talk) 20:33, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I think most common readers will be more inclined to interpret the restaurant held a Michelin star from X until X as the case which I named below "option 2", while it might actually be option 1. So in my opinion, it would be less accurate in case the star is actually awarded each individual year again (for which, of course, conclusive proof must be found first). The Wiki ghost (talk) 20:46, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * My (Dutch) Michelin Guide mentions on page 7 Binnen de selectie onderscheiden wij jaarlijks de beste restaurants met tot .  (English: Within the selection, we distinguish each year the best restaurants with  to .) Note the phrase "jaarlijks" (Eng.: each year). The Banner  talk 21:03, 8 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I'd use "is a former restaurant" only for an entity that got out of the restaurant business but still exists. (How often does that happen?)  Arnold Schwarzenegger is a former actor; Vic Morrow isn't. —Tamfang (talk) 07:44, 11 July 2017 (UTC)


 * I think the key question here is still a slightly different one. More clarification should be given on this rather important question: is a Michelin star actually awarded each individual year again to a restaurant (as for example this formulation suggests (let's say this is option 1), or does the restaurant get such a star awarded only once after which it keeps the star constantly until it loses its star in some subsequent year (let's say this is option 2)?


 * For the sake of completeness, I'd like to mention here as well the fact that the same issue has been going on during the last days on the Dutch Wikipedia, where Marrakech has replaced in some dozens of articles the formulation The restaurant got it awarded each year... (so this is option 1) with something like The restaurant had it from... (so this is option 2). The Banner put the old phrasing (so option 1) back at first, after which he was again reverted by Marrakech. In addition, this is the same kind of revert, now today on this wiki. It's furthermore very important to include in this the fact that The Banner was blocked yesterday on the Dutch wiki for being involved in an edit war, while Marrakech was not (see here). The Wiki ghost (talk) 20:07, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Factual background: each year's Michelin guide will rate each of the restaurants it includes, some of which may have no stars, some 1, some 2 and some 3. Apart from the stars, which measures how special the restaurant is, the guide will also rate restaurants for whether they are comfortable/good quality (with a knife and fork symbol) or good value ("Bib Gourmand", denoted with the face of Bibendum, the Michelin Man). Michelin reviews its ratings regularly, and restaurants' star ratings are liable to increas as well as decrease each year, and most eventually drop to no stars, because stars denote "extraordinary" restaurants, and restaurants have a tendency to stop being special over time.
 * I think it's accurate to say a restaurant was "awarded" a star (or its second or third star) only in the year in which its rating changed. If it had two stars in 2016 and still has two stars in 2017, it's more accurate to say it "maintained" its two stars in 2017. If it was rated the same number of stars over a number of years, I think "held x stars in 200x-y" is both accurate and succinct. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:56, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Funny to see mention of the Michelin Man when this morning I got a spam in Spanish urging me to get rid of my michelines and hone my abs. —Tamfang (talk) 07:47, 11 July 2017 (UTC)


 * Discussions about how to edit Wikipedia really don't belong here; WT:MOS is a more appropriate venue. That said, I agree with Marrakech on the problems with both expressions, and his solutions to both (including by PalaceGuard008's reasoning with regard to the latter). However "held [some] stars" is awkward and potentially confusion for anyone unfamiliar with what a Michelin star is, which is a large number of people.  I would suggest "held a one-star Michelin rating from [date] to [date]".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:33, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
 * It's commonplace to see in company advertising statements of the nature X company has been awarded the Y prize three years running.  There are various clues you can look at before formulating your description.   One clue would be the title of the award, e.g. "best [category] of ... ", followed by a year. 92.8.217.19 (talk) 09:12, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for all the feedback, everybody. Meanwhile 'Peacock Alley is a former restaurant' was changed to 'Peacock Alley is a defunct restaurant', while 'It was a fine dining restaurant that was awarded one Michelin star in the period 1998-2002' was substituted by 'It was a fine dining restaurant that was awarded one Michelin star for each year in the period 1998-2002' (see the article). Personally I find 'X is a defunct restaurant' rather odd-sounding, but I am no native English speaker, so I could be all wrong. Also, 'that was awarded one Michelin star for each year in the period 1998-2002' is a bit wordy to my taste and could be taken to mean that the stars are actually accumulated by the restaurant. Therefore, I would prefer the simple 'Peacock Alley was a restaurant' and 'held a one-star Michelin rating from 1998 to 2002' (as suggested by user SMcCandlish).

So the question would be: is the article good enough as it is in its present state or should it still be slightly amended? Marrakech (talk) 15:05, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
 * So, it is just a matter of your taste? As stated before, the stars are awarded every year. The idea that the stars accumulated is a rather special reading of the text. Especially when the maximum rating is only three. The Banner talk 23:04, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
 * did you read the discussion above about how the ratings work? --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:04, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I wrote a lot of the articles about Michelin restaurants in Ireland and the Netherlands myself, so yes, I know how the system works. The Banner talk 15:02, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
 * And yes, I am aware about the discrepancy between the truth (stars again awarded) and the public perception (kept the stars). I will not start singing and dancing when you state "restaurant PPP maintained the stars for the period ..." but I can live with that. It is far better than "restaurant PPP had the stars for the period ...", what in my opinion signals just to events: the awarding of the star and the loss of the star. The Banner <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 17:49, 13 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I don't understand why you think the stars are "awarded" each year. As someone familiar with the system, no doubt you know that Michelin stars isn't some sort of annual award ceremony, it is a system of ratings in a guidebook, conceptually no different to Lonely Planet stars or TripAdvisor scores. As someone familiar with the system you will also no doubt know that Michelin's standard cycle of ratings review is about 18 months (though sometimes more frequently), so it's odd to think of the stars as being "awarded" every 12 months. So the "truth" and the "public perception" you refer to is I think in fact reversed. The truth is that the stars are "kept" once gained until they are lost, and not re-"awarded" each year. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 10:42, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
 * At least in Holland there is a yearly event to announce the new ratings. <span style="font-family:'Old English Text MT',serif;color:green">The Banner <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 17:46, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
 * In Holland, France and Belgium/Luxembourg . Sorry, all links are in Dutch. <span style="font-family:'Old English Text MT',serif;color:green">The Banner  <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 00:04, 15 July 2017 (UTC)
 * General consensus appears to be to write 'Peacock Alley was a restaurant' and 'Peacock Alley held a one-star Michelin rating from 1998 to 2002'. Would it be okay to change the article accordingly? Marrakech (talk) 10:13, 14 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I read something differently. <span style="font-family:'Old English Text MT',serif;color:green">The Banner <i style="color:maroon">talk</i> 17:46, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Grammar issue: use of approximate vs. approximately
I'm working on an article that is under review for featured status. A sentence I included that used "approximate", was changed to replace it with "approximately" (with the accompanying edit summary referring to it as a spelling correction). This is a minor issue but it's bothering me – both because each time I read the sentence, as "corrected", I continue to hear it as wrong, and because I am having difficulty pinpointing the technical grammar rule to explore to conclude whether I'm actually right or wrong. Here's the sentence in the original, followed by it as changed:
 * [Birds are...] characterized by feathers, and the ability to fly in all but the approximate 60 extant species of flightless birds, toothless, beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. [Birds are...] characterized by feathers, and the ability to fly in all but the approximately 60 extant species of flightless birds, toothless, beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart and a strong yet lightweight skeleton.

I think the reason it continues to jangle for me is because in the context I am hearing it as an adjective, to mean near to a certain state, and not for its adverb form, meaning to come near to. Stated another way, I am hearing its use as an analogue of "the approximate amount..." – where "the approximately amount..." obviously does not work. Stated yet another way, I would say "there are approximately 60 extant species of flightless birds", but I would also say "the approximate number of extant species that are flightless is 60", and I think in this context, the latter construction is actually being used. Am I having a brain fart? (Why am I finding this so slippery?)--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:16, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Your first phrase is correct: "there are approximately 60 extant species of flightless birds"; as is the second: "the approximate number of extant species that are flightless is 60". Bazza (talk) 21:20, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Bazza, sorry, that doesn't address the issue. Those are constructions that I know are correct, that I am analogizing to the questioned form, to explore which one is correct.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:27, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * The correct use is definitely the one with "approximately" - 60 is an adjective, and to modify an adjective you have to use an adverb. When you say "approximate amount" the noun is "amount" and the adjective is "approximate" - but your noun is "species" and the number is an adjective modifying the noun. Wymspen (talk) 22:10, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Analyzed that way, I see what you mean, but it still sounds wrong to me. I just have some idiosyncratic thing going on with that neuron compartment, even though I am an extreme language nerd.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 14:37, 9 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree with Wymspen; "the approximately 60 extant species" says "the extant species, of which there are around sixty", while "the approximate 60 extant species" sounds like a "green great dragon" word order problem, i.e. you've arranged the words in the wrong order and meant to produce the odd construction "the extant groups of animals, which approximate species, are about sixty in number". Nyttend (talk) 11:30, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
 * We tend to prefer the form that we first hear and become accustomed to - so if you had the misfortune to pick this up from someone who got it wrong, that explains why the wrong version sounds right to you. To me, using "approximate" in that sentence sounds completely wrong. Wymspen (talk) 13:42, 10 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Concur with Nyttend. "I have owned approximately 17 cats (not all at once!), but that really is just an approximate total; I have not counted them out." Wymspen may be onto something as to why "approximate 60" sounds right to you, though it's more likely a jargon absorption issue than a first-heard one.   I've encountered this use of "approximate" for "approximately" before, almost always in material written by academics. It is probably a side effect of highly compressing journal article text into abstracts by dropping as much material as possible and just retaining a few keywords, then cobbling them into semblances of sentences.  Or it may just be a form of geeky jargon with no clear origin. (I'm reminded a bit of the "hackish" use of the mathematical term modulo in English sentences to stand in for things like "aside from" or "despite".)  The reason it persists is probably that correct use of "approximate" as a preceding modifier is generally going to be itself preceded by "an" or "the" ("the approximate acreage", "an approximate total"). If you have an approximately construction with a leading article, like "the approximately 60 species", that article being present makes "approximate" sound more proper than it should, because "the approximate" constructions are common while "the approximately" ones are not (it's a parenthetical insertion of approximately and could be worded in other ways, including just dropping the "the" or using "the 60 (approximately) species").  PS: the material under consideration needs semicolons, because some of the items in the list of characteristics themselves contain commas ("toothless, beaked jaws)"; a way to avoid that would be to use "toothless and beaked jaws". Also needs a serial comma; anything this complex should always have a comma before the final "and [whatever].", or it reads like a breathless run-on and is often confusing to boot.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  05:00, 11 July 2017 (UTC)
 * @Nyttend, SMcCandlish: I think you're onto something. I think the "the" is what is causing my processing error/glitch here. By the way, SMcCandlish, I owe a debt of gratitude to you. This glossary would not have been possible without the collaboration on the billiards glossary, and the work you've done to standardize glossary matters. Thank you!--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:13, 12 July 2017 (UTC)  P.S. Note the starting edit summary here.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 12:18, 12 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Most welcome! I should probably split the long-term draft MOS:GLOSSARY – which people actually use and which has been stable for years, so it's not really a draft any more – into a more proper MoS guideline page and a Help-namespace page on the technical nuts and bolts. Will just be a lot of work.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  22:58, 13 July 2017 (UTC)