Word/quotation of the moment:

Astrology has no effect on reality, so why should reality have any effect on astrology? – J.S. Stenzel, commenting on astrological planets that astrologers acknowledge don't really exist

(Previous quotes)

Do you think the liberals are using these school shootings to further their anti-tragedy agenda? — Col. Erran Morad, Who Is America?, s01e01 yod-dropper — (when you need something that sounds like an insult)[1] ALL keys matter — response to the scale-wandering rendition of the national anthem at CPAC 2021 The Lunatic-in-Charge becomes the Lunatic-at-Large Lame duck à l'orange (AKA canard à l'orange) It is a mortifying circumstance, which greatly perplexes many a painstaking philosopher, that nature often refuses to second his most profound and elaborate efforts; so that often after having invented one of the most ingenious and natural theories imaginable, she will have the perverseness to act directly in the teeth of his system, and flatly contradict his most favorite positions. This is a manifest and unmerited grievance, since it throws the censure of the vulgar and unlearned entirely upon the philosopher; whereas the fault is not to be ascribed to his theory, which is unquestionably correct, but to the waywardness of Dame Nature, who, with the proverbial fickleness of her sex, is continually indulging in coquetries and caprices, and seems really to take pleasure in violating all philosophic rules, and jilting the most learned and indefatigable of her adorers. [...] The philosophers took this in very ill part, and it is thought they would never have pardoned the slight and affront which they conceived put upon them by the world had not a good-natured professor kindly officiated as a mediator between the parties, and effected a reconciliation. Finding the world would not accommodate itself to the theory, he wisely determined to accommodate the theory to the world. — Washington Irving, Knickerbocker's History of New York Pela primeira vez na sua vida a morte soube o que era ter um cão no regaço. For the first time in her life, death knew what it felt like to have a dog in her lap. — José Saramago, Death with Interruptions / Death at Intervals It is now generally accepted that the megaliths that make up Stonehenge were moved by human effort. — as opposed to by what? Anybody who says you only have yourself to blame is just not very good at blaming other people. — It's Happy Bunny When poppies pull themselves up from their roots and start out, one after the other, toward the sunset – don't follow them. — Slavko Janevski, 'Silence' And the dough-headed took their acid fermentation for a soul, the stabbing of meat for history, the means of postponing their decay for civilization. — Stanislaw Lem, Return from the Stars The Church says that the Earth is Flat, but I know that it is Round, for I have seen its Shadow on the Moon, and I have more Faith in a Shadow than in the Church. — (commonly misattributed to Magellan) In the early years of the study there were more than 200 speakers of the dialect, including one parrot. — from the WP article Nancy Dorian Mikebrown is unusually eccentric and not very bright. [...] Astronomers have not noticed any outbursts by Mikebrown. — from the WP article 11714 Mikebrown Ecce Mono Keep Redskins White! "homosapiens are people, too!!" a sprig of spaghetti "I've always had a horror of husbands-in-law." awkwardnessful anti–zombie-fungus fungus "Only an evil person would eat baby soup." (said in all sincerity)

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[start of thread, copied from Serendipodous's talk page] 'Pluto' was one of the top 3 proposed names. Yes, Burney proposed it. So did a lot of other people. I don't remember the source that said that crediting her was mostly optics, but we do have a source that she was the first "outside of the Lowell staff". And that's from Tombaugh himself. — kwami (talk) 20:16, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Leaving aside the fact that that's unsourced, one guy's recollection from decades prior is not necessarily a reliable record. It may have been optics, but that would require a citation. Serendi^podous 21:10, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know why you comment on it being unsourced, when the other source is also unsourced, and also the recollection of someone decades later. Yes, it would require a citation to say it was optics in the article, which is why I said it on your talk page. — kwami (talk) 21:13, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How can a source be unsourced? I have a source for Burney naming Pluto. I would like to check the source you provided, do you have page numbers? Serendi^podous 22:10, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

That's what I thought was odd: you said the source was unsourced, but we don't normally describe them that way -- we instead speak of primary and secondary sources. I don't see all that much difference between Tombaugh writing a book 50 years after the fact and the BBC interviewing Burney 75 years after, though since Tombaugh was a direct witness to the events, as well as being earlier, and not filtered through a reporter, I'd expect his account might be more reliable.

The page number is in the citation. I'll paste the 3 paragraphs about the name to the Pluto talk page. — kwami (talk) 22:26, 16 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I don't understand your reverts on List of languages by number of native speakers, Levantine Arabic, Kabyle language, and Bulgarian language.

You wrote "not a valid link" but what is "not valid" with this page? The page says: "Table 3 lists the largest languages of the world in descending order of population of first-language speakers." and later we have the full table ("Table 3. Languages with at least 50 million first-language speakers") a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 12:51, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, my bad with the table. The sign-in had changed, so the link didn't work, and there was no 'statistics' section in the TOC.

As for the individual languages, I don't see any population data for Bulgarian and Kabyle, which are only listed as between 1M and 1B. Perhaps the new edition is still being rolled out. Levantine Arabic, however, has just started showing data, so I'll revert myself on that one. — kwami (talk) 12:59, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Kwamikagami, Bulgarian has "6,200,000 in Bulgaria, all users. L1 users: 5,000,000 in Bulgaria (2021). L2 users: 1,200,000 (2011). Total users in all countries: 7,745,340 (as L1: 6,541,540; as L2: 1,203,800)." and Kabyle has: "6,410,000 in Algeria (2022). Total users in all countries: 7,496,400 (as L1: 7,489,300; as L2: 7,100)."

I can send you videos for these as well but I hope you trust me at this point. The issue is on your end. Clear your cache and refresh the page and the problem will be solved. And please revert the remaining edits :) a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 13:27, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ethn. is now updated for those two languages as well. However, in the case of Kabyle, Ethn. is calculating from Leclerc, so IMO best to use Leclerc's numbers directly. This is being discussed for the Algerian section of the Berber languages articles. Where Ethn's data is uncited, best to use something verifiable IMO. — kwami (talk) 21:39, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

All languages were updated yesterday. The issue was just your cache.

On whether to use Ethnologue or not, that's another broader question (on which I disagree with you). a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 22:16, 22 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Turns out Ethn. made an error in their calculation of the Kabyle population. Has been corrected for the next edition. — kwami (talk) 09:05, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I pinged you about about that here. Still: they say that Leclerc's figures are "dubious at best, erroneous at worst" (see here). In particular, Leclerc has Kabyles forming 1/3 of all Algerian Berbers whereas all other sources say that Kabyles form the majority of Berberophones in Algeria. What do you think @Kwamikagami? a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 09:34, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know what to think. It looks like there is no reliable data, and presenting the data from multiple sources doesn't help, because they all copy off each other or calculate from each other (%age of the population), and so are not independent estimates, as the reader might think if we were to present them all in a table. It would be nice if Leclerc would respond with what he based his numbers on; I was only advocating him because he seemed to be the indirect source of other estimates. If the last decent data were from the 1960s, then I think we should present that to the reader to make it obvious that we have no current data. — kwami (talk) 20:37, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, it's super hard. I've just posted another source that seems good and gives an estimate for 1991 based on the 1966 census. However, Chaker and others consider that the 1966 census underestimated the number of Berber-speakers (especially outside Kabylia). That being said, I agree, we should give the 1966 figures, maybe give the 1991 estimate, and then cite Universalis (On ne dispose pas de statistiques sûres pour évaluer le nombre des berbérophones : les estimations vont de treize à trente millions ; un total de vingt ou vingt-cinq millions paraît admissible) and Chaker 2022 (En l’absence de statistiques linguistiques fiables, on peut estimer l’ensemble des Berbérophones entre vingt et vingt-cinq millions de personnes, dont la très grande majorité se situe en Algérie (20 à 25 % de la population) et au Maroc (30 à 35 % de la population).) to give the current best guesstimate and the breakdown by country. For the diaspora I think Ethnologue is reliable and sourced. a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 12:15, 7 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't help for Miranda or Umbriel, but you can use this form at the MPC for the irregulars. That said, one decimal place is already too much precision: this year, Nereid will vary from 19.1 to 19.4. Double sharp (talk) 18:15, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! — kwami (talk) 20:19, 26 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I wondered the last time I saw it and now wonder again: what's the story behind the very phonetically normal sentence for F? Double sharp (talk) 15:53, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Also, you have the same city 西安 under both H (other suggestions) and X (BNL song). Double sharp (talk) 15:54, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Could't think of anything for F, so I took that from George Carlin's ABZ Book. ("What else can you do with fingers?") [The original published in Playboy in the 1960s. Not sure if it's the same in the revised one published on its own.]

Do you have any ideas for F?

Don't mind if both Xi'an and Hsian are listed; they're not being used together. — kwami (talk) 19:14, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

On thinking about it, F is difficult indeed. Unless you're willing to use Modern Greek transliterations that transliterate phi as f, and hence use something cluster-y like Fthiotida, which might get reduced like phthalate? I'm also amused by the idea of using fhtagn from Lovecraft. :D Double sharp (talk) 23:32, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Best option I've seen so far. Though no idea how fhtagn is supposed to be pronounced. Not English, of course. — kwami (talk) 23:40, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Cthulhu fhtagn and other such phrases and names in Lovecraft's work were, if I'm not mistaken, intended in-universe as approximations to some alien language, literally unpronounceable to humans. So perhaps one should go by its pronunciation on South Park if anything (0:57, presumably Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn), since anything will be a mangling, LOL. Double sharp (talk) 23:54, 28 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Even if just /f/, it's still fun to say "F as in fhtagn". — kwami (talk) 00:02, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Glad to see I'm not the only one amused by the idea. :D Double sharp (talk) 00:02, 1 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I just wanted to highlight what seemingly in 15 years no one has seen -- there is an error in your comparison PNG (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Aboriginal_syllabics#/media/File:Nagari-syllabics.png). the glyph derived from devagari "na" is, in the displayed orientation, not "ne" but "ni". i did not dare to touch the file, so i just came by to inform you. Hyperbaton (talk) 08:37, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Ha! Thanks for catching that! — kwami (talk) 09:02, 6 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]

If Southern Oceanic was only proposed in 2002, how can Lynch (1995) already have a list for it? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:09, 9 March 2023 (UTC)[reply]