Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 June 7

= June 7 =

Use of "buttery" out of control
When did people start using "buttery" to describe everything from iOS interfaces to the feel of comfortable shoes? It's driving me batty. Can anyone explain where this came from, who is responsible, and where I can contact their manager? Viriditas (talk) 01:37, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * What does it mean? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 02:05, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * You haven't heard everyone using the word? You're lucky.  In the context of footwear, it means "soft" or "smooth", having the qualities of butter.  In terms of touch interfaces, it refers to the "buttery scroll" of iOS, such as  inertial or momentum scrolling. Viriditas (talk) 02:11, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I wasn't aware of it until you raised this question. However, I've never been accused of being "hip". :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:03, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * It might not be hip! First heard boomers using it in 2016.  Now, I hear people using it more.  It might just be an old term resurrected from the past. Viriditas (talk) 03:13, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'd love to think that Swedemason was responsible for popularizing it. Card Zero  (talk) 09:43, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Definitely just a return of an old phrase. I remember lots of things being described as "buttery soft" or "buttery smooth" or "like butter" back in the 1980s.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 15:33, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think you're right. Any idea how it got started? Viriditas (talk) 17:56, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * In the "Coffee Talk" sketches on the TV show Saturday Night Live in the early 1990s, Mike Myers played a stereotypical New York Jewish woman who used Yiddish phrases and Jewish expressions. One of his catchphrases was describing something as being "like butter", not in reference to any physical attribute, but seemingly just as a generic positive adjectival phrase. It was the first time I'd heard this usage and assumed it was a phrase common in Jewish culture, perhaps the translation of a Yiddish expression. CodeTalker (talk) 18:50, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

In the context of white wine, it means heavily oaked. DOR (ex-HK) (talk) 18:13, 7 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Ah, good point. Do you think it comes from wine culture and made its way to other things? Viriditas (talk) 18:42, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Its use to describe a tactile sensation is rather remote from the gustatory one in wine tasting (and beer tasting, where it is also used in reference to both taste and mouthfeel). I suggest that it arises naturally from the 'draggy lubrication' feel or consistency of butter, referenced in the long-established term 'buttery smooth'. In this sense, the OED cites uses dating back as far as 1719. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 188.220.136.217 (talk) 22:47, 7 June 2024 (UTC)


 * In England, it means a pretentious type of café trying to sound rural. Alansplodge (talk) 22:32, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, it can mean "A room for keeping food or beverages; a storeroom" or, in the UK, "a room in a university where snacks are sold." There was one at the University of Nottingham, in the basement of the Trent Building, I seem to recall. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:43, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
 * That word is etymologically unrelated to "butter" or the adjective "buttery" derived from "butter". The noun "buttery" ultimately dervies from Latin "butta" meaning a cask or bottle. The OED says the noun "buttery" is "< (i) Anglo-Norman boterie, boterei, botrie, buterie, butteri (1374 or earlier), and its etymon (ii) post-classical Latin buteria, buttaria (frequently from 12th cent. in British sources) < butta cask, bottle (see butt n.4) + ‑ria ‑ry suffix." CodeTalker (talk) 23:15, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a cousin to a larder. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:38, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

how to write reports
how to write good repots Albulushi66 (talk) 10:18, 7 June 2024 (UTC)


 * Hello @Albulushi66. I suggest you start by learning about correct spelling and how to use sentence case, and work your way up to How to write a great article. Shantavira|feed me 11:25, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * This question is difficult to answer, because there are many aspects to it.
 * Mastering correct spelling and grammar is important, but there is so much more to good writing. A sentence or paragraph may be written with impeccably correct spelling and grammar, but express its idea in such a muddled or convoluted way that a reader will not understand it. Being clear is at least as important as spelling and grammar. Read and reread what you have written and ask, Does this clearly express the idea or information I want to convey? Is there perhaps another interpretation of these words, not the one I mean to convey? Are there superfluous words, words that can be left out while leaving the meaning unchanged? In general, keeping it simple and straightforward is the best.
 * Then there is the audience. Who will read the report? The tone of writing should be adjusted to the purpose of the report. An informal trip report of an excursion to the foot of a mountain for a travel blog will be very different, not only in content but also in style, from a scientific report of a geological survey of the same area. Our article Report gives a list of various kinds of reports in the section . The same article gives a general but useful overview of the typical structure of a report. If you are going to write a report, try to find other reports of a similar nature and study their composition.
 * Writing a good report requires that you know what it is you want to say. Concentrate on what is essential. Something that is not essential may become a distraction, and then it is better to leave it out. Sometimes it helps to write the "Conclusions" section first. Material that is irrelevant to the conclusions can be omitfed from the report.
 * If there is a lot of material that should go into the report, one way of organizing this material is to use separate slips of paper for each thing you want to say. Then sort these slips on a table or other flat surface to bring related things together. You will then have a small number of heaps, which will become subsections or paragraphs in the report. Often, you can sort the slips in a heap into an order of presentation in the report. Likewise with the heaps themselves; some should go into the report before some others.
 * --Lambiam 09:03, 8 June 2024 (UTC)

Strange expressions
Thomas Robinson, 1st Baron Grantham says: "At the 1727 British general election he was returned as Member of Parliament for Thirsk on the Frankland interest, after his eldest brother, for whom the seat had originally been intended, resigned his pretensions to him."

What do the emboldened words mean? I must say I rather like the idea of resigning my pretensions and becoming a normal person, but I suspect it means something else here. -- Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  19:45, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * on the Frankland interest:
 * resigned his pretensions:
 * I see that you do not have any pretensions that you are a normal person. --Lambiam 07:25, 8 June 2024 (UTC)


 * An appropriate click suggests that Thirsk was a rotten borough in the pocket of a landowner named Frankland. Pretensions is a synonym of claims. —Tamfang (talk) 21:47, 7 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, as in pretender. Card Zero  (talk) 12:29, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
 * but not as in great pretender, pretending I'm doing well (woo-woo). --Lambiam 13:26, 8 June 2024 (UTC))
 * For the curious, the chap with big pockets was Sir Thomas Frankland, 6th Baronet. Alansplodge (talk) 22:27, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
 * He had no influence in the 1727 election, owing to not being conceived yet. DuncanHill (talk) 10:03, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * D'oh! My mistake, I should have linked Sir Thomas Frankland, 3rd Baronet (1685 – 1747), who was elected MP for Thirsk in 1713, 1715, 1722, 1727, 1734 and 1741. Alansplodge (talk) 18:07, 10 June 2024 (UTC)