Talk:railway

This is my first Wiktionary entry - boy is this difficult! I think it is a harder "game" than creating Wikipedia entries. I did not cheat by consulting a real dictionary - so I expect my definition to change as others come up with better versions.

Who is going to be the first to put those rude words into the dictionary?

"Madam, you looked for them!" David Martland 14:51 Feb 5, 2003 (UTC)

With that attitude you could be a successful lexicographer! I hope you're up to the continuing challenge. In Wikepedia, we could get away with descriptive narrations and explanations, confident that there was much room for expansion and improvement. Dictionary writing requires a considerably higher level of precision. In the context of this article, distinguishing between railway and railroad will be an interesting task.

Consulting other dictionaries is not cheating. Naturally, looking for other presentations and interpretations slows down the work, but it's something I like to do with every new entry that I make. Words often have a long rich historical development which is just as important as current meaning. The problem becomes that I often end up spending considerable time on a single word.

The rude words will not be ignored; that view is consistent with my estimation of the broad population of internet participants. In that department, I have focused on the more obscure words of that sort (e.g. feist). I will be content to leave the most common to the most common. :-) Eclecticology 18:24 Feb 5, 2003 (UTC)

Some words have intresting history like "bumf", whihc is used for useles bits of paper. But bumf is shorter for bum fodder and that is not useless ast all. (bum fodder is toilet paper) -fonzy

This sounds like fonzy has just volunteered to put this fascinating information in its proper place :-) Eclecticology 19:38 Feb 5, 2003 (UTC)

Australian, New Zelander, Singapore, Irish English

Which word is used in the mentioned dialects? Railway or railroad? Ferike333 14:16, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Translations

Portuguese: caminho de ferro (Portugal), estrada de ferro (Brazil). Spanish: camino de hierro (obsolete). --Manfariel (talk) 04:35, 11 May 2023 (UTC)