Word/quotation of the moment:

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.

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I saw that you were part of a discussion at the Science Ref Desk, regarding "Safe displays of highly radioactive isotopes". My understanding is that, of course, radioactive materials occur naturally, are mined and then changed by humans to produce more powerful substances. Can you direct me to articles that outline the history of the discovery of the basic substances? I can remember the names of radium, uranium and plutonium. Are these naturally-occurring radioactive ores? Are there others? Thanks! Tribe of Tiger ^{Let's Purrfect!} 01:55, 25 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thorium and uranium, actually. Answered on your talk page. — kwami (talk) 00:16, 26 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A tag has been placed on File:Historical expanse of Ainu.png requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section F2 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because it is a missing or corrupt image or an empty image description page for a Commons-hosted image.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason, you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and clicking the button labelled "Contest this speedy deletion". This will give you the opportunity to explain why you believe the page should not be deleted. However, be aware that once a page is tagged for speedy deletion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag from the page yourself, but do not hesitate to add information in line with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. CptViraj (talk) 12:45, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I have done the move request for you, if you have any more requests I’ll be happy to help. Please do any post move cleanup if necessary. Cheers Megan☺️ ^{Talk to the monster} 14:20, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! — kwami (talk) 15:48, 27 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hello there,

In 2018 I changed the final vowel of the pronunciation transcription in Daphne to /i/ from /iː/ on the basis that I, a northern British English speaker, pronounce it with [ɪ]. I’m backed up in my assertion that this is the happY vowel by the Longman Pronunciation Dictionary (ˈdæf ni).

You reverted my change earlier this year with the comment "rv bad IPA fix". Can you explain what I'm missing here? Why is the happY vowel not appropriate in the WP transcription scheme here? (Ordinarily I'd just have re-made my change assuming it was a troll/someone confused about the IPA, but I recognize your name from previous pronunciation discussions.)

Daphne Preston-Kendal (talk) 07:43, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi @Daphne Preston-Kendal:. I was going by the OED, by the fact that Greek eta is normally pronounced /i:/, and also assumed that you might not know the difference (lots of editors don't). But I see that not only does Longman have /i/, but so does Lexico, which is based on the OED. Plus I would expect you to know how to pronounce your own name! I'll go ahead and change it back, so it's clear from the article history that we're in agreement. — kwami (talk) 08:14, 2 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Kagami-san, have you seen zh:小行星列表/1-1000? I think you might like the massive calquing effort that obviously went into the seemingly standard names. ^_^ Double sharp (talk) 11:36, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

(I don't know how far it goes up to, though. Asteroids 704, 944, 951, and 1000 all seem to be straight transliterations. And I can't find all the names in there. It's really cool though.) Double sharp (talk) 22:29, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is. I wonder if someone's making all that up for WP, or if they're actually used? — kwami (talk) 01:22, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The source definitely seems legit to me, but I couldn't find all the names there (up to 117 they are all there; then it goes blank for all but a few). Looking at Google Scholar, it seems that at least some are only "theoretical" uses. The names for the first few are definitely used: Ceres, Pallas, Juno, Vesta (Ceres and Vesta seem more popular and don't need the quotes, but maybe that's just because of Dawn). But for some (e.g. 48 Doris, 87 Sylvia) I get no results at all. The dwarf planets do get names that seem to be used in practice: 阋神星 (Eris), 鸟神星 (Makemake), etc. But it seems that usage of many of these is merely "theoretical": even if they appear in the dictionary, nobody seems to actually use them.

I did find this article from the same cite as the dictionary. It's in Chinese (wouldn't be surprised if you can read that given all you know), but it's already quite interesting. (If you can't see the text, copy-paste it into a Word document; it works for me then.) It starts with a history of the discoveries – but while it uses the standard names for Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, when discussing the Kuiper belt discoveries it simply transliterates Quaoar, Sedna, and Orcus. Apparently the argument over what to do for these names arose for Eris: should the name be translated, or transliterated? Transliteration would certainly keep the source in mind, but it would go against history, when the largest and most interesting asteroids tended to get calques. Unfortunately they don't say for how long this was done, so I don't know if the names of the first hundred-ish asteroids are actually old, or if they are retroactive additions from a later decision that asteroids with low numbers probably pass the "interesting" bar regardless of whether they are astronomically interesting or not.

So, it was eventually decided to calque Eris as 阋神星. But judging from what I see on Google searches, it seems that unless you have a particularly interesting minor planet, no one is going to use the name. (Which is just as well, as I don't know what would have been done once the names started becoming less mythological like 210 Isabella.) So, I guess not all of them are made up, but actual usage seems to be in short supply. What about the names above 117 that I couldn't find elsewhere – I don't know. Originally the citations were only up to 100; I added up to 117 from the same site, but two didn't match (105 Artemis and 115 Thyra; I changed them to match). So there may be grounds for suspicion that some are made up following the pattern in the absence of an RS, but I really couldn't say since just appearing in an RS does not seem to mean anything for making people actually use the names. Double sharp (talk) 11:00, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. Obviously the most important data point: use of the first 4 asteroid names to translate Sailor Ceres and friends. XD Double sharp (talk) 11:11, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously! — kwami (talk) 03:08, 5 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

What did you do to the consonant section of the Taa language? Why did I see symbols that looked like this [ˬd̪̥ʰ] rather than this [d̪̥ʰ]? Are they voiced? Or devoiced? I have since then reverted your edit. Fdom5997 (talk) 05:33, 10 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]