Talk:geist

RFV-failed sense

1. The spirit, mind, or intellect of an individual.
   • 2011, Harriet A. Harris, God, Goodness and Philosophy:

     When man experiences pain, he can direct his Geist towards something that surpasses mere reality (the pain itself).

See the RFV discussion for an explanation of why the citations are deficient. - -sche (discuss) 05:52, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

RFV discussion: September–November 2012

The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for verification (permalink).

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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geist

Rfv-sense X 3

1. A ghost, apparition
2. The spirit of an individual.
3. The spirit of a group.

These were entered as if they were a single sense. They seem quite distinct to me, but perhaps two of them can be combined, possibly after rewording in light of the availability of supporting citations. I got even more confused because “geist”, in OneLook Dictionary Search. has various definitions with only some overlap with ours and questionable citations, some of which looked a lot like mentions to me. I wonder if all German senses are applied to this in English by someone or other, but with very low frequency. You would think that a dictionary like ours would need to make a hard-and-fast determination about the Englishness of a word like this. DCDuring TALK 02:57, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm more baffled by the history tab starting with the rfv ... What happen'd to everything before? I seem to recall putting a quote or two. Anyway, it looks like it has been flesh'd out more by Leasnam. The word is also noted in other ways ... There's a whole chapter in a book devoted to "pollster-geists" other another author notes the word as a thing that holds the spirits of the dead.

Don't get me on the soapbox about the "Englishness" of a word ... I put forth a way to do that in another rfv. If we're going to determine the Englishness of words, then I hav a long list of French and Latin loanwords need only be put under French or Latin, as befitting, that are now under English as well. Truth is that I don't think that is what we're doing tho. We're logging the words as they are noted in English ... not the Englishness of them.

Are you still baffled or can the rfv tags be taken off? --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! (talk) 12:46, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Did someone forget to sign their contribution to this discussion?

Sense 1 appears cited. Senses 2 and 3 are do not have the required 3 cites. The capitalized Geist is suggestive that it is a use of the German word or possibly a proper noun. Can we get a less ambiguous citation? DCDuring TALK 13:03, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Nitpicky point, but the there is no required three cites for each meaning given. The wording for three cites is for the "term" meaning word or phrases, not each individual meaning. See http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Criteria_for_inclusion. Many believe or assume that it does apply to each meaning, but the truth is that is not indicated by the wording.

Anent the capitalization, that's a poor indicator for the simple reason that so many folks needlessly capitalize a German loanword ... or worse ... capitalize a word like zeitgeisty which is an English adjectiv. (And adjectivs aren't capitalized in German either.) --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! (talk) 16:53, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

My ramblings about Englishness were simply about the question of whether it is worth having an English entry rather than letting readers use the German entry to select an context-appropriate meaning. DCDuring TALK 14:49, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

While I understand your concern, bureaucratie seems like a waste of space, but there is no requirement that a word be English nor a criteria for determining the Englishness of a word. There are likely at least three cites in English of bureaucratie from the early days of it being borrow'd so that means that it fits the criteria for inclusion. Truth is, it's about 900 years too late to start worrying about it but I hav before put forth a list of criteria that would take a lot of the subjectivity out of it (and would cut a wide swath). I may go to the beer parlor and put it out there but I don't expect folks to want a true criteria. They kind of like the fuzzy-wuzzy way the go about it now which doesn't follow the written rules. --AnWulf ... Ferþu Hal! (talk) 16:53, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

Looks good, though I wish that there were a third example of sense 2 without capitalization. DCDuring TALK 15:31, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I share DCDuring's feeling that the second sense is not yet sufficiently cited. One citation puts the term in italics and is of unclear sense anyway, another is of "Geist", another puts the term in quotation marks... - -sche (discuss) 06:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Two senses RFV-passed, middle sense RFV-failed for now. - -sche (discuss) 05:53, 28 November 2012 (UTC)