User talk:Equinox

“Deduplication” on Snoqualmie

The reason that there were separate clauses in the definition for "member of an indigenous people…" and "member of the federally-recognized tribe" is that the Snoqualmie existed and the word was attested before the tribe was federally-recognized.

Such usage of the term prior to the tribe's federal recognition would therefore refer only to "member of an indigenous people…", and not to "member of the federally-recognized tribe…". See the quotations under Snohomish for a similar example.

Further complicating this is that there is no one specific federally-recognized "Snoqualmie Tribe", but rather two: the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe and the Tulalip Tribes of Washington, both of which claim the "members of an indigenous people…" referred to in the definition before your edit.

For these reasons, I recommend reverting to separate clauses for the two possible meanings of Snoqualmie as a "member of", or else two separate definitions. And information about either belonging to the federally-recognized Snoqualmie Indian Tribe or Tulalip Tribes of Washington should probably be added in as well.

Hermes Thrice Great (talk) 05:34, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

@Hermes Thrice Great: You said nothing that is lexical or grammatical. Remember, this is a place to study words... but NOT a place to be super woke indigenous. Equinox ◑ 23:34, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Neither "woke" or promoting indigenous social issues is of interest to me, so please save your political grievances for another occasion. I am here because I am interested in words. I only care about the simple facts, and the fact is that there are multiple federally-recognized tribes that represent Snoqualmie people.

Also, you should examine your previous "deduplication" edit, which left the definition reading: "federally recognized as the tribe tribe". Since I had to deduplicate your attempt at deduplication anyway, I went ahead and made the necessary changes. The original message here was just meant as a courtesy, to allow you a chance to correct your mistake.

Hermes Thrice Great (talk) 10:49, 10 April 2024 (UTC)

Is there anyone who meets sense #2 without meeting sense #1 in the first place? It seems weird to separate based on if the federal government recognizes the tribe, since they existed before federal recogniztion. CitationsFreak (talk) 14:47, 12 April 2024 (UTC)

@Hermes Thrice Great: I mostly care about petty grammar issues (especially the common vs. proper noun, and the pluralisation): regarding the separation of two groups, truly, I am not qualified. BUT since it's clearly confusable, I would recommend that you add some citations that draw a real difference. Yes? Equinox ◑ 00:45, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Sure, I can do that.

Edit: After browsing through some of the other similar entries here, such as Hopi, Navajo, Cherokee, Nisqually, and several more, I have decided that perhaps it's best to just delete this sense entirely, without subsuming it into sense #1, as none of the other similar entries do this. At the time I made the original edit, I was using another entry as a template, which happened to have such a sense #2, but I can't seem to find it anymore, and it seems that many similar entries do not incorporate this second sense, IMO it just makes the most...sense...to remove it for the sake of consistency.

However, I have added in another sense under Proper Noun, the elliptical usage of "Snoqualmie" for w:The Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, which was originally in the entry and should not have been removed.

Also, @CitationsFreak: I trust this latest edit will satisfy the issue you shared above.

Hermes Thrice Great (talk) 04:17, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

It does. CitationsFreak (talk) 17:25, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

Re: channel coal

I came across this erroneous/misspelled entry while conducting research for a book I am writing with a chapter on cannel coal and similar carboniferous rocks. I have pored over the literature on this topic. Any spelling of "channel coal" is 100% a misspelling.

I looked through Google books just now after your note, and I did not find any mentions at all of "channel coal", as used in this sense (i.e. as a misspelling of cannel coal. There are numerous sources referring to the trade of coal in the English Channel, and this (capital "C") "Channel coal" is not the same as cannel coal, which is a specific type of bituminous shale. There are also numerous references to coal found in sedimentary channel deposits—as in lithified vegetable remains found in deposits of an ancient river channel. There are also numerous references to coal shipping and navigation of the ships that transport those coals within many different navigable channels. Lastly, there are several sources that just happen to contain the words "channel" and "coal" juxtaposed next to one another, with an intervening period or comma. As far as I can tell, there are exactly zero references to "channel coal" in the sense of the bituminous, fissile shale that is called cannel coal or candle coal, and that is unsurprising to me, because this entry was an obvious misspelling.

The word itself is a phonetic spelling of candle coal, as pronounced in antique, regional British English. It has no relation to the word "channel".

I would appreciate it if you would revert your changes and leave this matter to domain experts (e.g. yours truly), and also examine the Google books results more closely before making a decision that is supposedly based on them.

Hermes Thrice Great (talk) 00:43, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

‘Misspelled’ terms can gain acceptance in the language too. We are a descriptive dictionary that documents anything that is attested. ·~ dictátor·mundꟾ 17:22, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

I have (boldly) changed the entry to "misconstruction" — however, from my brief glance over the texts, I think this term was really used, so let's not delete it in pure horror. Equinox ◑ 22:32, 7 May 2024 (UTC)

@Hermes Thrice Great: Excuse my slow reply: I avoid my talk page like the plague. You seem to be somebody with a clue in the area. Nevertheless you should use the same process like WT:RFD or WT:RFV. I'm pretty sure I did see "channel coal" in old dictionaries, so your best bet may be to turn it into either "misspelling of", or "misconstruction of", or something of the kind. The question is whether the phrase exists or not. And if it was prevalent enough to be a pop-error in the 1900s well...! Equinox ◑ 22:28, 7 May 2024 (UTC)