Talk:Ancestor

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no direct links to English wiki[change source]

Just a reminder that we do not use direct links to English wiki. Macdonald-ross (talk) 15:57, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'd appreciate it if you could provide a link to the policy or guideline you refer to. I don't doubt it exists but I would like to read it. I ask because I did see linking to enWP mentioned somewhere in a help, guideline or policy (I will have to do some searching). Not to cause anyone any trouble but I was given a tip by an administrator that on a limited basis it was OK to link to enWP. The dearth of support articles in the area I work in is a limiting factor. I do understand enWiki articles are not simplified but occasionally used to show the importance of someone or something that is a key element in an article. If I could circle back and create all the missing words in seWikt and all the missing articles in seWiki, I would. But the task would be overwhelming for hundreds of editors let alone one. Still, I do what I can to build the support articles I redlinked, as I can.
Now, I did see you mention that you did not understand the word 'ancestor' as including a parent. But the source citation I used, one of several I could have used, did say an ancestor included parents. It really should not have been removed without some discussion. As to the word 'Ancestor':
  • The enWiki article Ancestor states: "An ancestor or forebear is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an ancestor (i.e., a grandparent, great-grandparent, great-great-grandparent, and so forth)." The sentence after it was source cited which may have implied it sourced both sentences. Regardless, it was Webster's New World Dictionary.
  • In seWikt, ancestor: 1. An ancestor is someone in your family before you; someone you come from. Your mother, father, grandmother, and grandfather are ancestors.
SeWikt does not have ancestress or ancestrix (or forebear). EnWikt does however:
  • ancestrix: "Quoting Webster’s Quotations, Facts and Phrases (2008, ICON Group International, Inc.) on page 205, as: Ancestor. An ancestor is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an ancestor."
  • ancestress (plural ancestresses) 1. female ancestor
  • Simon Blackburn, The Oxford Dict. of Philosophy (Oxford, 2005), p. 15: "ancestral relation intuitively, a relation that stands to another as 'ancestor of' stands to 'parent of': an ancestor is a parent, or parent of a parent, and so on."
  • Nancy Bonvillaine-Study Guide for: Cultural Anthropology, ISBN 9780130: "Ancestor | an ancestor is a parent or (recursively) the parent of an ancestor."
  • Donald L. Baker, Korean Spirituality (Univ Hawaii, 2008) p. 138: "Misunderstood as "ancestor worship" by early Christian missionaries in Korea, the ancestor memorial service is a manifestation of the love and respect Koreans hold for parents, grandparents, and other ancestors."
  • Michael Proudfoot, A.R. Lacey, The Routledge Dictionary of Philosophy (Routledge, 2010), p. 99: "The term 'ancestor of' might be recursively defined as 'parent of, or ancestor of a parent of'."
  • Richard Dawkins, The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004), p. 48. I used Dawkins because it was a secondary source and the author gave a correct definition.
The simple explanation of an ancestor can and does include 'parent'. As shown, that is a fairly widespread understanding and nothing IHO that needed to be removed. As for including forebear, I neither see the harm nor the benefit. But I think it would be educational to both link it and identify it as a synonym (linking that word as well). I'll take care of both if you have no objections. But I would appreciate what you can show me regarding links to enWiki. If this is not within my editorial purview and against policy I should stop doing it. Thanks Rus793 (talk) 20:08, 30 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Links to English wiki[change source]

I'm right, because it is quite obvious that proper reliable sources exist, and I have quoted them. This is a mainstream case, not an unusual one. Consult one of the regular admins if you doubt it. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:13, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Definition and usage[change source]

First, my references are vastly accepted sources. Yours are all over the place. Dictionaries of philosophies and other specialised areas are not sources for the everyday usage of words. We are Simple: it is expecte of us that a non-technical word is used and explained in its basic form, and that is defined by dictionaries. Many, many words have extensions and variations, as illustrated by the word "run". Ancestor is in comparison a straightforward word which is very rarely used for parents or grandparents. The full Oxford English Dictionary (the world's largest corpus of words) gives examples of all the early occurences of a word, but most of us have the shorter versions. Incidentally, a word like ancestrix is so rare that we do not need to consider it in the context of this wiki. By definition, we are mainstream. Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:25, 1 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]