Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2017 August 3

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August 3

I need another word for "nontrivial", in the expression "nontrivial assumption".

E.g. in the sentence "The logical axioms may function as trivial assumptions about the reality, while the physical laws are nontrivial assumptions about the reality". HOTmag (talk) 08:53, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Important. --Jayron32 10:53, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Significant Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 10:57, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Even better. There's a thing called a Thesaurus. It lists synonyms and antonyms for various words. This one has no listing for "nontrivial", but it does have a listing for "trivial" with a long list of antonyms. Pick whatever one suits your needs; the above two are listed there, but there's more if you don't like those. --Jayron32 11:13, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Wait, is this referring to trivialitiy in the technical logical sense? For that I tihnk "nontrivial" has a specific meaning. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 17:41, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

I had looked it up in the thesaurus, but no word there had been sufficient for my needs. Surprisingly, the most reasonable synonym for "non-trivial", which (in my opinion) appears to be "non-obvious" (or "unobvious"), is not indicated (as a synonym for "non-trivial") in any thesaurus I've seen (nor is "obvious" indicated as a synonym for "trivial"). HOTmag (talk) 18:35, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

If the thesaurus were to include "obvious" for "trivial", it would need to annotate that this is the mathematical sense of "trivial". Most thesauri probably focus on general, not technical, synonyms. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:12, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

In the OP's example sentence, I think "trivial assumptions" means "minimally constraining assumptions" in the sense of "unobjectionable", and "nontrivial assumptions" means "substantially constraining assumptions" in the sense of "arguably objectionable".. Loraof (talk) 20:29, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure If "nontrivial" can be (easily) replaced by "objectionable" in my example, because I suspect everybody (or almost everybody) is supposed to accept the physical laws. HOTmag (talk) 02:23, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Scatty (Irish?)

In Ulysses, there's a reference to the scatty heel of the loaf. I know what the heel of a loaf is, and I know what a scatty person is, but what is the scatty heel of the loaf? Henry^Flower 15:38, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

You would have to ask Joyce himself. That book is written in a dense, allusive, poetic style and you shouldn't expect everything in it to make literal sense. --Viennese Waltz 15:48, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

It means "crumbled" according to Gifford and Seidman and Samuel Schiminovich. You might also check how translators have interpreted it. I would guess it is a once-off figurative usage rather than an established sense of the word. jnestorius^(talk) 16:26, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

In the OED there is a dialect verb "to scat" which means "To break in pieces, shatter.". Dbfirs 17:29, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, that would make sense in the context (of feeding a child). (VW, this particular chapter -- Nausicaa -- is not written in a "dense, poetic style", and draws heavily on popular cliches. It's not likely territory for Joyce making it up.) Henry^Flower 19:20, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

Well, sort of. Joyce is well known for his nonce language. It would not be past him to either invent a word or use an existing word in a novel way. --Jayron32 01:02, 4 August 2017 (UTC)

Do animated emojis improve consistency of interpretations?

Has anyone tested whether animated emojis can produce more consistent interpretations by users than static ones can? A likely example would be if U+1F644 "Face with Rolling Eyes" had the pupils rolling around the eye in a looping animation. NeonMerlin 22:08, 3 August 2017 (UTC)