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[Earliest]

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  • Hey, greetings and all that. I'm not sure why, but you left a message at some point on my userpage asking me: What is the difference between secretive, secretory and secret in English? (BTW, for future reference, if you put a question on a person's talk page, they'll respond quicker because there will be an asterisk next to their username on the screen. I just noticed your question now)

A "secret" is a noun, meaning a fact or opinion or idea that one wants to keep all or certain others from knowing. A person or plan or almost anything else can be described as "secretive", meaning they have a tendency towards keeping secrets.

A "secretary" (I guess this is what you mean by "secretory") is a person who acts as assistant to another, generally answering phones, setting appointments and doing other mundane jobs.

Tokerboy 06:00 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)


  • On the other hand, "secretory" means related to something that's secreted, like saliva, mucus, tears, bile, or a hormone. Which is probably not what was meant. <G> -- Someone else 06:10 Jan 3, 2003 (UTC)


  • Oops, I should've scrolled down. You left other messages for me. The difference between "if he were" and "if he was" is confusing and, really, not terribly important. "If he were" is subjunctive, meaning you're describing something that was not true. "If he was" is indicative, describing something that may or may not have been true -- the difference is kind of academic, and many English speakers (at least Americans) use them interchangeably, but that is the technical difference. Tokerboy


  • One can survive with doobage in America, but one must be smart to avoid the five-oh (actually not true, it's damn easy to not get arrested as long as you're white). Tokerboy



Another 5 years later...

While doing some "archive trawling" today, I found the following passage on Tokerboy's nonexistent-anymore user page:

Interesting Fact: A random man on the street recently told me he had been asleep for over four-hundred years. Do you know anybody that was alive before Columbus set sail? I didn't think so, so screw you, jerk.

That's interesting indeed! Surely it wasn't me?

That passage dates to 21:41, 4 October 2002 and was in existence until 06:50, 17 February 2003.

6birc (talk) 17:50, 20 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Czemu nie założyłeś konta

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...na polskiej Wikipedii? Tak chyba byłoby łatwiej :)
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ejdzej (talkcontribs) 19:14, 25 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]


3 years later...

Przyczyna jest dwojaka:

  1. PL:Wikipedysta:Wulfstan/Wikisłownik Wulfstana #en.wikipedia ("en.wikipedia Fetysz polskich wikipedystów. Piękny, bo duży – duży, bo piękny. Jak każdy fetysz pociąga bezkrytycznie (...)")
  2. Czekałem na: PL:Pomoc:Konto uniwersalne. Skutkiem czego, wiele lat później...

...już mam konto na polskiej Wikipedii!

6birc (talk) 18:49, 14 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Account Unjustly Blocked

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I have discovered that my account "Happyjoe" is blocked from editing due to some sort of misunderstanding over the Big Spring, TX article. I am uncertain who to contact to have this mistake fixed. Please remove this block so that I may complete necessary editing on other articles. Thank you for your timely assistance in resolving this problem... Happyjoe 69.145.215.206 04:15, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"...a dice is thrown..."

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Why in the world would you change "a die is thrown" to "a dice is thrown" (in memorylessness)? "Dice" is the plural of "die". Two dice may be thrown; "a dice is" is ungrammatical. Michael Hardy 01:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I apologise. I didn't know that die was singular for dice in English. I thought that someone missed a letter. Incidentally, I've learned what you're telling me independently from Wikipedia just before reading your message, a few days after editing Memorylessness, and I was about to revert it now.
6birc, 19:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Funny enough, I've just done a language test on my native English friend—and a translator—and he had no clue what throwing a die means. He told me that there is no singular for dice and that we say three dice, two dice, one dice. So it's not just I'm not native English and I didn't know. Apparently not even Englishmen realise that. It's rather that my English has just become one more bit better than that of a native Englishman. (Joking.)
6birc, 19:34, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm surprised that a translator would say that. The irregularity of this particular plural causes some childish confusion, but one expects translators to be beyond that. Here's what the Oxford English Dictionary says:


But then the dictionary goes on to say:


Apparently what I think of as "childish confusion" is old and venerable. Nonetheless, I think that in the present century the first form is standard among literate people. Michael Hardy 19:58, 31 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've also just noticed that our own Wikipedia deals with this linguistic confusion in a satisfactorily elegant manner by providing a description that's both concise and exhaustive at the same time: Because of this, the singular word "die" is rare, but treating "dice" as interchangeably singular or plural is less common; the plural form "dices" is rarer still. (From Dice.)
6birc, 04:08, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just for amusement, our secretary once "corrected" a version of our observatory report to say that we had several "star atlantes" (not "atlases"). I found that "atlas" had two plurals. "Atlases" for collections of maps or the like, and "Atlantes" for two or more statues of Atlas holding up the Earth! Carrionluggage 09:52, 1 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please use the Move tab instead of cut&paste to 'rename' articles

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EG Spearmint (chewing gum) to Spearmint (flavour). If you have performed similar moves, please report them to Wikipedia:Cut and paste move repair holding pen. Thanks. Ravenna1961 06:11, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've got the lesson. Thank you!
6birc, 20:33, 30 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Talkback

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e-mail

Hello, 6birc. You have new messages at Talk:Disposable e-mail address #Removed "See Also" link to TrashMail.
Message added 21:14, 27 December 2010 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

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