Talk:loveliness
Latest comment: 4 years ago by Wantok
Visviva has decided that a large group of ladybirds or ladybugs is not a loveliness. I guess 100 years of poetry must be wrong and he is right. Do these people even do any research before assuming they are right and others are "dubious". Maybe using Google is too difficult for Visviva.
- This is an open wiki. If you have evidence that this usage has been around for 100 years -- or has even been used at all in a printed or other durably archived work -- please feel free to restore the information. For my part, I can use Google well enough to see that this is not used in any of the millions of books available through b.g.c. Further, the exact phrase "loveliness of ladybirds" is used on exactly 16 websites, mostly from the outer reaches of the blogosphere and mostly very self-consciously. The few websites with a pretense of rigor -- such as hintsandthings -- are very careful to note that this usage has not been confirmed.
- Blogosphere protologisms do not belong in Wiktionary entries -- but if you can show that this is something more than a latter-day invention, please help us out. -- Visviva 23:40, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
- Apologies for re-adding the ladybird usage before noticing this discussion. However I see that Lexico acknowledges the usage now, and there seems to be a small but significant level of usage online (around 7000 Google hits for "loveliness of ladybirds" today), it could probably be supported now --Wantok (talk) 01:12, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
- Word lists that just reiterate "it is called a loveliness of ladybirds" do not count: there has to be real, genuine use of the word, and not just mentions: it's similar to all those fake phobias no doctor has ever really diagnosed. We also usually require printed books etc. and not random Web pages. Please see WT:CFI. Equinox ◑ 01:15, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
- Fair enough; I notice there are some cases of apparently real use of the phrase in books e.g. a historical romance titled "A Loveliness of Ladybirds", a crime book titled "Dead Pretty"... and there do seem to be several books listing collective nouns for insects that include it. It may be a neologism, I don't know, but it appears to be in actual use. --Wantok (talk) 01:56, 14 July 2019 (UTC)