Talk:monkies

Request for deletion

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Purportedly a "common" misspelling of monkeys. It has about 1-2% of the frequency of "monkeys" on the Web and less than 1% at Google Books. DCDuring TALK 00:04, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

• Yes, but that "less than 1%" amounts to several hundred uses, at least. Are you questioning its existence, or merely its "common"-ness? bd2412 T 03:54, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

If we count web hits and schoolchildren mistakes, the number is in the millions or more. The question is what we choose to include. We have no explicit criteria. I pose this case as yet another instance to help start a consensus on what explicit quantitative criteria we should use. Qualitatively, it is a plausible phonetically based spelling that nonetheless violates a general rule about plural formation. It is relatively uncommon, but much more common than many attested terms.

The singular {(deprecated template usage) monkie does not appear commonly in bgc even before 1700 (2%), but (deprecated template usage) monkies is somewhat more common (15%), suggesting that the "rule" for pluralization of terms ending in "-ey" was not well established. To call it an archaically common misspelling of (deprecated template usage) monkey might be right, but would certainly be confusing. Perhaps we could say that it is an archaic alternative plural of (deprecated template usage) monkey or an archaic alternative spelling of (deprecated template usage) monkeys. DCDuring TALK 11:01, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

• The OED lists both spellings without comment, implying that it's fairly valid. Shakespeare always seems to spell it this way, and they include citations right up to 1977. Ƿidsiþ 11:35, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Since I think any Shakespeare work is a well-known one, if this can be cited, it should be kept. However, that's for the archaic spelling, not the misspelling. Mglovesfun (talk) 20:56, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

The 1977 citation is quoting a 1756 document; the most recent original quotation is from 1928. monkie is an alternate spelling dated “pre-17 17[00s]”. It looks like monkies was much more common up to the 1800s, and I suspect that a large proportion of the “misspellings” are from old books. —Michael Z. 2010-04-04 22:48 z

Oops, slight correction: “15–17 [...]; Sc.(ottish) pre-17 17”. —Michael Z. 2010-04-05 20:10 z

In accordance with this apparent consensus, I am striking the RfD and altering the entry to be an archaic alternative spelling. DCDuring TALK 23:53, 4 April 2010 (UTC)