Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of English words containing Q not followed by U/archive1

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List of English words containing a Q not followed by a U[edit]

This article survived an AfD vote early in its life, and has now reached what I hope is a high standard. All words are sourced to major 20th Century dictionaries, and there is also useful discussion on the words themselves, elevating the article above a list of dicdefs. I should point out (if this were not obvious) that this article is something of a self-nom, as I started it and have worked on it extensively. All objections gratefully received, and supports even more so! Soo 01:33, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Conditional support: This is really excellent. I'm impressed that all of these are referenced. I have one question that I think should be addressed before I offer full support, though. Have all the words in each of the sources cited been added to the article? Is it possible, for example, that, Collins English Dictionary, Third Edition has hwiqop (a word I just made up) in it somewhere and we just didn't look for it? If the authors scoured all these dictionaries, I'll be quite impressed and will offer full support. Dave (talk) 01:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • Side-note: hwiqop gets 3 Google hits. Amazing. Dave (talk) 01:41, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • We have a hitlist of words that various random sources have claimed as legitimate. We then go about checking them. I found lots more in the process of perusing dictionaries in this way, but realistically scanning the whole dictionary is still a bit too much. Have you seen the full Oxford English Dictionary? It's about 20 volumes and as tall as me. Also the number of dictionaries published even in the last century is enormous and I don't know how you'd ever find a complete list of them. Nevertheless this is surely the most comprehensive list of such words that I've ever seen. Soo 01:59, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Good enough for me. You might want to add a sentence explaining your methodology (so the reader doesn't think the list is 100% complete with regard to those dictionaries), but I'll support either way. Dave (talk) 02:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        • Thanks. I've added the Dynamic List template in response to other criticism, which I think addresses that issue. Soo 16:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes. Yes. Support 100 times over, Soo. I'm rather fond of that talaq factoid we had earlier (that it's the only word which'll hook a Q at the end..) We're not Scrabble players in heart at this moment. We're encyclopedists. And as an encyclopedic list it is categorically the best of its kind. Bobo192. 03:12, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • How is this list complete? -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ | Esperanza 08:17, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's a dynamic list; new dictionaries are published all the time. It would be impossible to have read all of them in full. To quote Wikipedia:What is a featured list?, the requirement is: "Covers the defined scope by including every member of a set, or, in the case of dynamic lists, by not omitting any major component of the subject." I think the article passes on the latter criterion. Soo 16:10, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Sure, in that case how certain are you that you're not missing any "major components" of the list? -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ | Esperanza 19:24, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • How can you ever be sure of that for any list? No one has yet drawn my attention to any major class of words that are missing. Soo 20:46, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • From the way I understand FAC and FLC work, the burden of proof is on the nominator. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ | Esperanza 17:26, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • I understand your point, but in this case it would be impossible to prove. The best we can do is to say we've looked through the most recent version of all the major British and American dictionaries (which I think is true). If you can think of any better assurance we can give then please let me know and I will do my best to achieve it. Soo 19:24, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Transwiki to Wiktionary. --Carnildo 09:35, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • This was raised on AfD (VfD as it then was). The consensus was to keep it here, since it contains more than a list of definitions, and is about the words themselves more than the things they represent. Printed dictionaries do not contain lists of word curios, so Wiktionary should not either. Soo 16:10, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Quoting the result from the VfD: "The result of the debate was non consensus, defaulting to keep" see here (emphasis mine). -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ | Esperanza 19:24, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        • A slightly misrepresentative quote. There was no consensus on the delete/keep issue, but only one person suggested transwikiing! So I think it's fair to say the consensus was not to transwiki. Also the vote actually finished 18 keep to 7 delete, so to call it non consensus was perhaps a bit unfair. Soo 20:46, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
          • But saying that it was consensus to keep is also inaccurate. Those seven delete votes were around 25% of the vote, so it was a fair call to close it as non-consensus. Point is, since the vote officially closed as "non-consensus" you can't go around saying otherwise, even if you don't agree with the result. -- Rune Welsh | ταλκ | Esperanza 17:26, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
            • Sorry, perhaps I was unclear. When I said consensus was to "keep it here", I meant as opposed to transwikiing. I think you'll agree that there definitely was a consensus in that respect. Soo 19:24, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
              • Apart from anything else, the list doesn't even come close to meeting the criteria for inclusion. Where could you possibly put it?! Soo 04:30, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object On my set-up (Internet Explorer) boxes rather than unusual letters appear in the following statement: " For example, qi is pronounced /tʃi:/ as Pinyin uses ‹q› to represent the sound /tɕʰ/, which sounds like /tʃ/ to English speakers." That is, there is a box after /t, jguk 11:23, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've put the IPA into the appropriate template, which is a Wikipedia standard. If this still doesn't work for you in IE then there is advice on how to see these symbols here. Soo 16:10, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      • Thanks, I can read it now. 2 more points:
        1. Can we lose the header about it potentially being incomplete - I think this is obvious, since no-one has ever listed every "word", or indeed come up with a universal definition as to what constitutes an English word?
          I don't really like it either, but it's part of the "dynamic list" template, which we need to include to qualify as a dynamic list (which, as you say, this quite obviously is). Soo 18:05, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          Oh, you fixed it yourself. Thanks! Soo 18:37, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
        2. A photo or two wouldn't go amiss. I see there's a picci of a cinqfoil, I'm sure there are others too, jguk 17:27, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
          Excellent idea. I have added three pictures. More could probably be added but I don't want to overdo it. See what you think. Soo 18:05, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object This list includes several variants and plurals listed multiple times. Tsaddiq is listed as tsaddiq, tsaddiqim (one of two plurals), tzaddiq (variant spelling), and tzaddiqim (variant of plural). If they are all the same word, they should be listed once. This occurs other places, too. A variant spelling which uses the "q" instead of a "k" would be fine, but having all multiple variants in spellings and plural doesn't work. And since many of these words derive from Arabic, which has no set system of transliteration, you could actually have many different spellings of the same word.Support Rt66lt 17:11, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't completely understand this. Clearly tsaddiq and tzaddiq are not the same word, although they refer to the same thing. It is necessary to list both spellings. You could not have "many different spellings", only those which can be found in major dictionaries. If you prefer then I could compress them into one entry, something like
    Tsaddiq (also spelt tzaddiq) – a term bestowed upon those who are righteous. Plural tsaddiqs, tzaddiqs, tsaddiqim or tzaddiqim.
    It might be trickier then to indicate which source contributes which word, since dictionaries do not generally agree on which romanizations are in wide use. However if you think it would look tidier then I don't mind doing it. Soo 18:14, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
As you have it above would be fine. Actually, all of the variant spellings do amount to the same word. Because two dictionaries have a word entered two different ways doesn't make it "two" words. I suspect (I haven't looked these up), that the pronunciation is identical (or nearly "ts" and "tz"), it's simply a matter of Romanizing the words from Arabic. Don't get me wrong, I think this is a fantastic list and would like to see it a Featured list, personally, but this needs to be done. Rt66lt 18:34, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I've compressed the alternate spellings as you suggest. The list does indeed look neater now. Soo 18:52, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Looks great! Rt66lt 19:40, 30 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Postpone Support. There are many additional words on the discussion page that still need to be checked against the dictionaries listed there. If someone can lay their hands on these dictionaries then the list could be made more complete rather rapidly (depending on how many can actually be found, of course). Matt 00:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC).
    It's a more organic process than that. For a start, I don't remove words from the Talk page, because I have no way of proving that they aren't in any dictionary, but many of them seem highly unlikely to be sourced any time soon - so don't take the length of the list as an indication of the incompleteness of the article. That said, if anyone can look through dictionaries we haven't yet checked then it is likely the list could become more comprehensive, would can only be a good thing. Soo 02:27, 31 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    Sure, but I think there are currently too many legitimate words in the "pending" list ("legitimate" in the sense that there are many examples of genuine "live" usages in English texts). Anyway, according to the list here maybe up to 20 of them are in Mirriam-Websters unabridged dictionary, so it would be good to at least check there to see if that claim pans out. Matt 12:44, 31 December 2005 (UTC).
    Yes, I take your point. I'm doing my best to get a copy of M-W, but living in England, it's not easy. If any Americans reading fancy popping down to a library then I'd be most grateful. Soo 21:10, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, I moved all the ones from M-W unabridged onto the main article. I figure M-W's own website is as up-to-date as any paper copy of their dictionary. The talk page now looks considerably sparser. A lot of those that remain are just alternate spellings, which are important but not as important. Soo 22:15, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Great stuff. Did you find M-W unabridged on the internet then? I could only find a subscription service, and, keen as I am for the article to be definitive, I wasn't quite that keen... Matt 01:20, 2 January 2006 (UTC).
    You can sign up for a free two-week subscription, provided you have a credit card. Personally I think the list on the Talk page is now sufficiently short than we can proceed to Featured status. I don't think the list is yet complete, but it's very close. Certainly we can be very confident that no major sections are missing. Soo 04:11, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Aha. I didn't see that. Have changed my "postpone" vote to "support". Matt 22:35, 2 January 2006 (UTC).
    Thanks! Soo 23:14, 2 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Jono 22:50, 1 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • A complete side note - I fail to see how they are English ;) (ie all(?) originate from some aother language, most from Asia). Renata3 04:51, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    A vast majority (probably somewhere in the region of 99.9%) of words in the English language do actually originate from other languages. The reason these are classed as English words are because they all appear in an English dictionary. We've covered citations to English dictionaries, and discussed the citations (especially about the more controversial words) here. To suggest they're not English words when we've explicitly outlined their English language dictionary sources is contradictary to our work and our sources. Bobo192. 05:11, 4 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm not sure I'd go as far a 99%. Yet I'd agree in a general sense that English is an inclusive language with a long and lively history of adopting foreign words when they express concepts better than native terms. Durova 22:28, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    That was a complete side note, not anything serious in any way. But now I took another look at it and came up with some serious ideas: first, you have plural form for every word, so maybe it would be a good idea to separate alternative spellings (and other notes) and plural form into 2 separate columns? It would be easier to find and would eliminate that annoying word "Plural" in every cell. Second, you should consider adding another column for origin. Most info is already there, but that's optional. Third, you need to decide what you want to do with pictures. Now they seem to have no place whatsoever (except for nasta'liq writing). After all, I love the idea: flying like Phoenix from surviving AfD to featured ;) Renata3 17:13, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    The plural idea is a sound one, and will allow us to compress the table horizontally a bit. I agree about origins and have been thinking about that for some time. I'll see how many of them I can track down - most of them are obvious but the root word would be nice to obtain, although the non-English alphabet might prove challenging. As for the pictures, they were always purely decorative, but decoration is nice, and pictures are one thing that Wikipedia seems to lack on the whole. That said, if they start to impose on the content then clearly they must go. I will see how many of today's ideas I can integrate tonight, unless someone else does it first. Thanks Renata, Silence et al for your constructive criticism. Soo 17:25, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Let me just clarify what I said about pictures. It's ok to have them, I love decorations, but they need to find a place in the article so the article would look nice and tidy. Now they create big white gaps before and after the table. I looked at it again and moved the pics. Not the best way, but it was the best I could come up with. If you find a better way to eliminate the gaps - feel free :) Renata3 18:08, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I found a lot of problems with this list going through it, like spelling errors, aesthetic problems, poor linkage, and a generally chaotic and unprofessional-looking system of conveying the relevant information, making such errors as overusing bold, using redundant and misleading and broken links, and clustering images in odd points on the page (i.e. two images on the top of the list, none for most of the rest of it, then suddenly another image). However, rather than voting against this FL on a very interesting topic with a lot of potential, I decided to just try my hand at improving it myself and see what others think. So, how's it look with the new table instituted, and the other changes I've made? I'm also considering replacing the [1], [5], [13] etc. with live footnote links so people can simply click on them to get to the dictionary they want. Some more info on etymology will also probably be germane. -Silence 07:21, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    That's very good of you. I'm sure we can bring it up to a standard that pleases you. Soo 16:53, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Could I suggest using a system like the one used on List of elements by name? Most of the elements have links to at least one of the five notes at the bottom. A similar system could be used here, if I'm not mistaken. --Spangineeres (háblame) 01:13, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. I enjoyed this list, but may I suggest using abbreviations for the sources, instead of numbers? Something like [OED] [M-W] etc. I think that would reduce the amount of scrolling up and down. Stephen Turner (Talk) 15:52, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Another excellent idea. Even if this list doesn't make it to FL then it will have been improved significantly. We'll have to be careful with the abbreviations but overall it seems smart. Soo 16:53, 6 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    • Object until stable. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to withdraw my support for the moment. I've been following this page for a couple of days, and it's just not stable enough yet. There are an enormous number of edits being made. More seriously, there appear to be fundamental disagreements between editors about exactly what constitutes a valid word for the list. I really want to see this featured, but these issues need to be resolved first. Once they are resolved, please feel free to prompt be to change my vote back to support again! Stephen Turner (Talk) 20:46, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      • Yes, fair enough. Listing the article here has caused a flurry of editing, and the article is still rapidly improving. Hopefully it will calm in the next few days. Soo 21:26, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Object, not comprehensive enough. It is lacking in many important terms. -- King of Hearts | (talk) 23:13, 6 January 2006 (UTC) Weak support, after seeing these comments. -- King of Hearts | (talk) 00:23, 10 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Could you be a little more specific? Soo 00:03, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    If it's lacking in important items, why not add those items and support instead of contesting its completeness as per the word sources provided in the bibliography? Bobo192. 11:00, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Or at least tell us where you found these "important terms", so we can research them for ourselves. Soo 13:10, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    I think there are too many to list. -- King of Hearts | (talk) 23:49, 7 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    Umm, okay. How about you give us one to start us off? Soo 00:07, 8 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    And the location in the specified sources in which these terms are to be found..? Bobo192. 19:55, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. My reason for attributing cultural relevance may seem trivial to some editors. I expect certain readers will plunder this list as a Scrabble reference. Good work. Durova 22:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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