Talk:stoutness

Tea room discussion

Note: the below discussion was moved from the Wiktionary:Tea room.

The second definiion is marked as rare. I think that is placing the threshhold too low. __meco

Interesting. I agree that the second sense is not worth having. It seems intended to save the possibility on countability. I can find enough cites (~5, on b.g.c.) to attest to the plural form stoutnesses. That they represent a distinct sense of stoutness is not at all clear. I have the feeling that sense 1 is a kind of generic, lazy lexicographer's (or a bot's) definition formed by adding "The state or quality of being" to the adjective, which seemingly precludes countability. If a bot had written instead "A state or quality of being", then we would have declared it countable. To me, the attestability of the plural compels the use of a countable-style definition using "a" instead of "the". Although we do not have standards for rarity, it would seem that stoutnesses is indeed a rare form. It would be nice if we had the convention of saying "usually uncountable" in such cases. DCDuring TALK 12:19, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I took the liberty of altering the inflection line to illustrate the inflection-line display. This has the disadvantage of not using a specific template or set of template options, thereby being less findable in the long run. DCDuring TALK 12:31, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

In my opinion, separating sense is often appropriate if the meaning are related, but their synonyms/antonyms clearly make separate sets. That is why I split unnecessary. In the absence of evidence, I'd argue against that second sense too, though. Circeus 18:02, 13 August 2008 (UTC)